Been a while since I have posted anything cool but I can assure you this build is nasty, even after the warpgate nerf. It's essentially a combination of 4gate econ cut and 1gate FE econ investment.. if that makes any sense at all. If you have been watching HuK stream or have been watching every single one of his vods (like me) you've seen this build quite a lot and see how it is so strong in tandem with HuK's aggressive warpgate pressure style. [edit this is the build he used vs MMA game one in the up and down matches GSL MAY, too!!! So without further adieu.....
9 Pylon (10 CB nex) 13 Gate (2nd CB once 1st finishes) 14 Gas (can be on 15*) 16 Pylon (HuK makes it on 15 but if you're human you can't always make it on 15 w/o brief probe cut , and it's not like you cap yourself making probes with 16pylon ^^) 17 Core, mine gas with discretion**; WG @100% CC, dump ALL CB on WG 20 Nexus (19 if you lose the probe) 22Initial Stalker (NO CB)
22 or 23 gateway }\ 22 or 23 gateway } \ If he's all inning you, feel free to cut this probe for now
24-26 (depending on how safe you feel, make 0-2 probes but always 2 stalkers between 20 and 26 food) queue second stalker from gateway, do not CB XX pylon when you can afford it, proxied. You do not need this pylon in your base; putting it in your natural gives him a free pylon kill. This pylon gives you the ability to kill him immediately after he tries to all in you and it fails.
100% WG, warp in 3 stalkers and poke with all 4
*With mineral stacking, you can get the gas on 14 without having to cut probes. However, getting a 14 gas is not necessary for this build as you are not trying to optimize your gas intake; you are simply mining 50 and then resuming once you put the nexus down. It's good practice to get it down on 14 without queueing the 15th probe, though. **If you instantly box 3 probes and send them to mine gas, you might not have 150 minerals the milisecond you are able to begin your core. You only need to hit a few benchmarks with gas: 50 for WG, 50 for first stalker, 150 gas when WG finishes. You can usually satisfy all these while maintaining strong mineral economy by initally putting 2 in gas and then adding the third after you begin your nexus
Brief explanation about WG nerf
Before nerf, you wanted only 50 gas when your core finished to start wg. Now that you'll be starting your 1st stalker sooner, you want to have as close to 100 gas as possible when your core finishes; typically you'll have a little over 100 so just add them a little later or pull them once you have 100 then resume mining it a little after you start your nexus.
By doing this, you have a stalker that comes at a standard time to shoo away the scouting scvs and take a tower should you expect any funny business. Your 2nd stalker out of the gateway will not be able to join forces with the 3 you warped in and the first one you made out of the gateway immediately, but hell, you still have it xD
For those who might be wondering where this 175 mins/50 gas was suddenly found, let me explain it to you. Pre WG nerf your 2 gates would finish right as your wg finished with maximum CB (2 on nex; rest to wg). Now that WG will finish 20 seconds later (or less; I'm not sure if you have time to put an additional CB on it with the extended base time), you can start those 2 gateways ~20 seconds later. During this time you can accumulate the resources needed to poop out a stalker and a couple of probes ^^ edit: Keilah opened my eyes to this little adjustment. thank you kind sir!
Bro, this guy put an ebay in my expansion; imba. + Show Spoiler +
Once again, our old buddy Keliah has thrown us a rope. Upon the completion of your gateway, queue up a zealot. This serves two purposes: 1. You deny the extremely valuablue tidbit of information that is a clear tipoff if an scv is already in your base: you ARE in fact "making" a unit from the gateway. If he doesn't throw down the ebay, cancel it! Genius!
2. If he make the ebay even though he sees you are making a unit, which is pretty much a throw away of money for him because you're not showing 20nex, just let it finish and you have the strongest early game building killer (besides that one thing terran has; I've forgotten what is called... xD)
Alej, how is this build like 4gating? wtfz? nexus? + Show Spoiler +
Good question! Short answer? The probe cut. Long answer- You cut probes at 20 and pool minerals; if you were 4gating you would pool 450 minerals on 20 probes while getting out a zealot and then a stalker (then a 2nd stalker afterwards). In this build, you pool 400 minerals for the nexus, and then 300 more for 2 gateways before resuming probes or making any units. So you're essentially doing the same probe cut and then pooling about the same amount of minerals (450 + 225 for units while 4gating vs 400 + 300 for gateways while HuKking). Also cool to note, while HuKking your 2nd and 3rd gateways go down at about the same time that your additional gateways go down when you are 4gating, and since you spend 2 CB's on the nexus and save the rest for WG research for both builds, you get your warpgate done at about the same time!
Obviously, this build is not safe in every position on every map in the pool as you don't get your first unit out until you already have a nexus and 3 gateways building. Ideally, you want cross map spawns on Temple or Metal, any spawns on Tel'Darim or Shakuras, and I think you can get away with it on Xel'Naga, though this would requre additional testing.
If you scout no gas, this build is extremely safe and marines literally cannot hurt you provided you have good control with your stalkers. If your opponent is 1 rax expanding with no gas, this build is pretty damn amazing. With your 4 initial stalkers, you can put pressure on the T by smacking the bunker around a little bit (pulling back the one getting hit once shields are about to go down, of course) and forcing him to devote attention and minerals to repair. Also, the marines around/behind the bunker will fall really easily unless the terran is constantly paying attention to your pressure so you can usually pick a few off. And if your terran opponent does not make a bunker on the lowground, you can deny/kill the expansion and all of the marines. You can literally kill a terran in 8 minutes with a 1gate fe; it's pretty awesome :D
I'm not sure if I can do this build because I don't have all the scouting information I need. What should I do? + Show Spoiler +
What I have seen HuK do when he has yet to scout cross spawn is he does not pull probes from gas at 50, he leaves them on so that he can play a standard opening in the case that he feels unsafe executing this. If his fears are expunged, he pulls them off gas and plops down the nexus. Very easy, very intuitive.
When can I not get away with this? How should I deviate? + Show Spoiler +
Because this build is best done with a 13 scout and on big maps, you can't always get all the information you need before expanding.
The only way I've seen HuK straight up lose with this build in a decent situation (it was cross spawns on shakuras) was against NaDa. NaDa opened up with a standard 2rax, reactor then tech lab, and pulled 5 scvs and just killed HuK.. HuK said that he could have added a cannon if he saw scvs pulled. Unfortunately, I haven't hit NaDa on the ladder recently ( -.- ) so I can't really know when one would add the forge/cannon and what would tip him off to know that this would be coming. So like with every build, there are plenty of deviations to be discovered through many many repetitions
After running a lot of tests with a teammate, we found that if the Terran scouts the protoss first and sees the gas pulled/lack of gateway unit building/nexus before he hits 16 food, he can effectively 2rack (12/16) with reactor tech lab and with 8 scvs put you in a very tight, but not unwinnable scenario. If this happens to you, wait for a 2nd round of WG cooldowns and bust the bunkers with 5 stalkers/3 zealots.
If you think back to HuK vs MMA game one, HuK scouts cross map first, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why- then last night after doing these tests it hit me--he feels extremely safe doing this build so long as the Terran does not scout him first. I mean, he ends up doing the build anyway but perhaps there are additional precautions that he takes when the Terran can scout him first.. though I am not sure what these are yet. One nice thing to know is that if the terran does not scout you fast enough to react to the nexus with a 16 barracks, you can hold his aggression easily even if he pulls scvs by pulling probes!
What can you transition into based on what you see? + Show Spoiler +
With your 5 stalkers you see.......
Wall, bunker + marines- Most likely 1;1;1 all in, could be 1;1;1 expand or some kind of helion drop or fast tank play
HuK responds to this buy adding a robo and a forge; he puts one cannon inside of each mineral line and get a couple observers out and then immortals if he spots tanks. If the terran is all-inning, HuK cuts probes and essentially makes a swarm of zealots and absolutely destroys the push with zealot-sentry with stalkers to shoot down banshees and well-microed immortals to pick off tanks.
No bunker, marines + mauradors Most likely 2rax expand, could be 3 rax HuK will warp in 3 zealots to his proxy pylon and walk right up that damn ramp and kill him a terran. Alternatively, if there is a bunker or if you don't have tight enough timings to get your 7 units up the ramp in time, HuK adds 2 gates and keep up the pressure with 5 warpgates, eventually adding a robo, a forge, and a twilight council for charge and eventually teching to colossus and adding a 3rd at about 100 food (3rd timing is extremely situational, of course).
Marines and Bunker/constructing bunker on lowground This is gasless expand. What you do now is you HuK them, as in picking off the building scv on the bunker (if he doesn't get it started in time to have it finished when you get there) and sniping marines without taking hull damage on stalkers. If you can take the bunker down, you have denied the expansion and have pretty much won the game if all he has is marines. If he gets the bunker up in time, you can add 2 more gates as in the above example, or take your additional gases and tech very quickly, as you are pretty safe from an attack because the terran delayed his gas and therefore his medivac tech.
I'll upload some of my own, but if you want to see this build executed by some one who can pull it off 20 times better than I can, head on over to http://www.justin.tv/liquidhuk/videos and check out HuK's VODs
Here is such a sample. He does the modified version that has been adjusted for the WG nerf. http://www.justin.tv/liquidhuk/b/287559032 Game starts ~1:15:00 Note that he mines gas normally and doesn't cb his WG as hard. He apparently saves the CB for a faster 2nd round of stalkers for which he has exactly enough gas, but gets supply blocked
This is what happens when your opponent tries to break the expansion with tech-lab reactor ( versus reactor - tech lab) http://replayfu.com/download/gkS50g
Here is a pretty humorous game ^^ It shows what happens when you try to double tech lab rush one who is HuKking. http://replayfu.com/download/20QhDs
Here we see why 2 maurader + 1 marine push off of 1rax expand is suicide against this build (especially with rush distance.) http://replayfu.com/download/xNP14
Really nice guide! I liked the fact that it was written in a FAQ/Q&A fashion. Pretty informative. Yea some pictures and replays would really help in the understanding of the build. But it's doing good so far! If we ask some questions here, will you answer them and put the questions in the OP? It'll be great if you do. Thanks for this! I've been having alot of trouble with terran recently, will try this out in future games. :D:D
On May 17 2011 01:07 Dialogue wrote: Really nice guide! I liked the fact that it was written in a FAQ/Q&A fashion. Pretty informative. Yea some pictures and replays would really help in the understanding of the build. But it's doing good so far! If we ask some questions here, will you answer them and put the questions in the OP? It'll be great if you do. Thanks for this! I've been having alot of trouble with terran recently, will try this out in future games. :D:D
Oh wow I didn't even realize they were almost all in question form haha. I will definitely keep the OP updated with any additional information. I will probably replay in the thread as well for people following the discussion.
Seriously. You piss me off. I stole this build by manually searching replays on the internet of Huk doing this and then adapting it to how I like it, now you go post it publicly and every brainless noob who doesn't have the balls to do things himself can use it, nevermind the most important thing terrans will recognize it in games more often and figure out good responses. :/
On May 17 2011 01:10 trNimitz wrote: Seriously. You piss me off. I stole this build by manually searching replays on the internet of Huk doing this and then adapting it to how I like it, now you go post it publicly and every brainless noob who doesn't have the balls to do things himself can use it, nevermind the most important thing terrans will recognize it in games more often and figure out good responses. :/
Damn you!
Haha the cat has been out of the bag for a couple of weeks now. I got a couple free wins doing it the first time I saw HuK doing it but now most terrans know what it is and that it has the potential to end the game immediately if he doesn't get the bunker up with a gasless FE by 6 minutes.
On May 17 2011 00:56 Alejandrisha wrote: 9 Pylon (10 CB nex) 13 Gate (2nd CB once 1st finishes) 14 Gas (can be on 15*) 16 Pylon (HuK makes it on 15 but if you're human you can't always make it on 15 w/o brief probe cut , and it's not like you cap yourself making probes with 16pylon ^^) 17 Core, mine 50 gas**; WG @100% CC, dump ALL CB on WG 20 Nexus (19 if you lose the probe) CUT PROBES RESUME HARVESTING GAS
20 gateway 20 gateway
RESUME PROBES
21 queue first stalker from gateway, do not CB XX pylon when you can afford it, preferably proxied if the distance is long.
100% WG, warp in 4 stalkers and poke
You cannot warp in 4 stalkers from 3 gates (at least not all at once). Thus when do I put down the fourth Gateway? Or do you mean warp in 3 stalkers and poke with 4 stalkers (one being made from the Gateway earlier)?
On May 17 2011 01:10 trNimitz wrote: Seriously. You piss me off. I stole this build by manually searching replays on the internet of Huk doing this and then adapting it to how I like it, now you go post it publicly and every brainless noob who doesn't have the balls to do things himself can use it, nevermind the most important thing terrans will recognize it in games more often and figure out good responses. :/
Damn you!
Everybrainless noob who doesn't have the balls to do things himself....
And what exactly are you doing, the cat has been out of the bag in terms of noobs coping build orders since 1999-01ish, when replays were invented and publicly given.
Very cool, always looking for new builds to get good with. Lately I've just been doing the 3 gate expansion into robo and then teching based on what I see. Really like early expansion builds and this one seems interesting. Thanks!
On May 17 2011 00:56 Alejandrisha wrote: 9 Pylon (10 CB nex) 13 Gate (2nd CB once 1st finishes) 14 Gas (can be on 15*) 16 Pylon (HuK makes it on 15 but if you're human you can't always make it on 15 w/o brief probe cut , and it's not like you cap yourself making probes with 16pylon ^^) 17 Core, mine 50 gas**; WG @100% CC, dump ALL CB on WG 20 Nexus (19 if you lose the probe) CUT PROBES RESUME HARVESTING GAS
20 gateway 20 gateway
RESUME PROBES
21 queue first stalker from gateway, do not CB XX pylon when you can afford it, preferably proxied if the distance is long.
100% WG, warp in 4 stalkers and poke
You cannot warp in 4 stalkers from 3 gates (at least not all at once). Thus when do I put down the fourth Gateway? Or do you mean warp in 3 stalkers and poke with 4 stalkers (one being made from the Gateway earlier)?
Yeah warp in 3 stalkers. typo. thanks for catching. Warp in 3, poke with 4, including the one on 21
On May 17 2011 01:20 BronzeKnee wrote: The build order has an error:
On May 17 2011 00:56 Alejandrisha wrote: 9 Pylon (10 CB nex) 13 Gate (2nd CB once 1st finishes) 14 Gas (can be on 15*) 16 Pylon (HuK makes it on 15 but if you're human you can't always make it on 15 w/o brief probe cut , and it's not like you cap yourself making probes with 16pylon ^^) 17 Core, mine 50 gas**; WG @100% CC, dump ALL CB on WG 20 Nexus (19 if you lose the probe) CUT PROBES RESUME HARVESTING GAS
20 gateway 20 gateway
RESUME PROBES
21 queue first stalker from gateway, do not CB XX pylon when you can afford it, preferably proxied if the distance is long.
100% WG, warp in 4 stalkers and poke
You cannot warp in 4 stalkers from 3 gates (at least not all at once). Thus when do I put down the fourth Gateway? Or do you mean warp in 3 stalkers and poke with 4 stalkers (one being made from the Gateway earlier)?
Yeah warp in 3 stalkers. typo. thanks for catching. Warp in 3, poke with 4, including the one on 21
Yeah, this confused me too.. thanks for clearing that up.
This looks a lot like Socke's FE with chronoed warpgate. I can't seem to find his thread anymore, but do you know the main difference between the two ?
I've been doing this since watching HuK do it. It works really well since most terrans love 1 rax fe'ing currently. This build puts you at a good advantage because the expansions are going up at nearly the same time which is huge in PvT. The pressure can be very scary for the Terran as well, and it can even look like a 4 gate if they did not scout the nexus.
On May 17 2011 01:47 Geiko wrote: This looks a lot like Socke's FE with chronoed warpgate. I can't seem to find his thread anymore, but do you know the main difference between the two ?
I remember seeing a thread with that name but I don't remember the build nor can I find the thread presently Link it if you find it. And a word on build optimizers.. never had any success with these for finding exact builds. They always seem to find extra minerals lying around...
On May 17 2011 01:47 Geiko wrote: This looks a lot like Socke's FE with chronoed warpgate. I can't seem to find his thread anymore, but do you know the main difference between the two ?
I remember seeing a thread with that name but I don't remember the build nor can I find the thread presently Link it if you find it. And a word on build optimizers.. never had any success with these for finding exact builds. They always seem to find extra minerals lying around...
My bad, it was actualy Capoch's build, and it was for PvZ. Interesting though because both builds have the same core idea : getting a fast Nexus directly after cybercore with probe cut and only 50 gaz mined and chronoing warpgate. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=214551
On May 17 2011 01:47 Geiko wrote: This looks a lot like Socke's FE with chronoed warpgate. I can't seem to find his thread anymore, but do you know the main difference between the two ?
I remember seeing a thread with that name but I don't remember the build nor can I find the thread presently Link it if you find it. And a word on build optimizers.. never had any success with these for finding exact builds. They always seem to find extra minerals lying around...
My bad, it was actualy Capoch's build, and it was for PvZ. Interesting though because both builds have the same core idea : getting a fast Nexus directly after cybercore with probe cut and only 50 gaz mined and chronoing warpgate. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=214551
Wow, you are right. The core idea is exactly the same, though the build/nexus timing is slightly tweaked. I don't think I'd have the balls to try this against zerg but against 15 hatch I don't see why I shouldnt at least try it
I've been doing this build for a while after i saw huk do it in gsl and have a few replays. of course, with practice partner but if you like I'll post them.
but i must say if this build is done right you can go to HTs/immortals/charge-lots which is a great late game style with lots of upgrades.
This build dies to 2rax marine+scv cheese on last-scout spawn. Also, like you said, 2 rax + 5-6 scv pull can be very dangerous on most maps. But yeah, I've been stopping at 100 gas (unless his scv is there) and getting a chrono'ed stalker asap to deny scouting.
Also, if you warp 3 more units proxied, this is great if he has expanded. But if he went 1-1-1, his hellion will be on it's way to your base and if you miss it, he has 20+ seconds to rape your mineral line while your 4 stalkers hike their way back to your main.
So knowing that, it's only natural a reactor'd hellion rush could pose a huge threat. Again, even if you warped your first 3 warp-ins at a proxy, you might miss his hellions leaving his base and he'll have 4 hellions raping your mineral line. If you see this, don't panic while you spam click your stalkers back to base. The best thing you can do is probe-block the ramp. Have like 3 probes (maybe 2 work) at the bottom of ramp, and another 3 on the top of the ramp. That should delay them long enough for your stalkers to chase back to your base. Yes you lose 6 probes but you just gotta take it as a BO-loss.
I've done similar builds to this before, though not as refined. If someone knows what you're trying to do, they can just build an ebay at your expo spot right before you place the nexus. Quite annoying!
Looks like the first stalker is quite late. What if the terran opens reaper ? While it's not common, it's not that rare either that a terran produces a reaper for scouting purposes and to harass a bit. Since the stalker is so late, and the amount of probes so low ( 20 ), it sounds like a well microed reaper will have the time of its life in your mineral line..
On May 17 2011 04:52 Allred wrote: try doing this build and hiding the expansion
I was thinking about this. To a terran who does not scout the ninja expo (and why would he!), it looks like a 4gate with a hidden gate because of the gateway timing and the probe cut, or just a very early 3 gate pressure. The only issue would be that he can scout you pull probes off gas which is problematic
This build order gets the first stalker much later, though. Testing and/or some theorycraft from experience would be required to decide which build is better.
On May 17 2011 05:04 W2 wrote: This build dies to 2rax marine+scv cheese on last-scout spawn. Also, like you said, 2 rax + 5-6 scv pull can be very dangerous on most maps. But yeah, I've been stopping at 100 gas (unless his scv is there) and getting a chrono'ed stalker asap to deny scouting.
Also, if you warp 3 more units proxied, this is great if he has expanded. But if he went 1-1-1, his hellion will be on it's way to your base and if you miss it, he has 20+ seconds to rape your mineral line while your 4 stalkers hike their way back to your main.
So knowing that, it's only natural a reactor'd hellion rush could pose a huge threat. Again, even if you warped your first 3 warp-ins at a proxy, you might miss his hellions leaving his base and he'll have 4 hellions raping your mineral line. If you see this, don't panic while you spam click your stalkers back to base. The best thing you can do is probe-block the ramp. Have like 3 probes (maybe 2 work) at the bottom of ramp, and another 3 on the top of the ramp. That should delay them long enough for your stalkers to chase back to your base. Yes you lose 6 probes but you just gotta take it as a BO-loss.
Some very good points here. There will always be the issue of no gas scv all-in; I'm not sure if you'd be able to see the congo line and marines en route to your base, but I'm pretty sure you hit the last spawn at like 3:20 and the first marine pops at 3:06. In that case I'd cut the 3rd gate in the meantime and chrono out the first stalker to kite across the map while you work on getting additional stalkers out. And absolutely consider forgoing the nexus temporarily.. I'll have a teammate do this to me today. You really should be able to see the helions unless the factory is proxied, so I think it'd be good practice to chase down the scouting scv with your initial stalker by hitting up typical proxy spawns if your initial probe at the front is inconclusive (which is usually is :/) and in the meantime keep your scouting probe by the terran's natural choke. But it's still very possible to not see them coming.
This looks like a really solid guide. I enjoy that it's from the perspective of what a pro does. It would be interesting to take a look at other progamers strategies from this kind of perspective.
Just some really rough testing gives me the nexus down at 4 mins + 4 stalkers @ 6 mins off a 12 gate. Pretty much the same timing for the stalkers with the mining of 100 vs 50 gas due to the 20s more on WG. I'd be paranoid of getting contained by early 2 rax pressure though...
I like the idea of this build for metalopolis and shattered temple as you are basically doing a very greedy FE build but you are only committing to it after you have scouted them (usually). That gives you options to switch it up or change the build at the last moment.
I don't like the fact the build stops mining gas though as it seems completely inefficient to me. Why would you want to mine with more then 16 probes on minerals and 0 on gas when you have an empty assimilator?? Putting those probes > 16 on gas instead hardly slows you down as those probes are a bit inefficient anyway and you will be getting gas which can always be put to good use. For example you could be making a sentry just before the nexus... This build doesn't get close to 26 pop anyway at first so there seems no reason not to.
I also don't get the long probe cut, what good is it to cut probes only to get nexus and gateways slightly faster? Not cutting probes hardly slows down those gates as those probes partly pay themselves back before that and having a slightly slower nexus with more probes already is just better then a faster nexus.
I rather play a more standard 1 gate FE style with continued probing and 1 or 2 sentries then this build as it is just more efficient imo. You can always cut the zealot and get a quick nexus (before third pylon) without cutting gas and probes as much. For example what I like to do is just quee up the zealot and then if i feel FEing is safe I just cancel the zealot at the last moment. This build already commits itself so fast that i'd really feel unsafe doing it before i have scouted them which can happen if you happen to scout them last. If i'm going to do a greedy build partly blind then I might as well 16 nexus.
On May 17 2011 06:52 Markwerf wrote: I like the idea of this build for metalopolis and shattered temple as you are basically doing a very greedy FE build but you are only committing to it after you have scouted them (usually). That gives you options to switch it up or change the build at the last moment.
I don't like the fact the build stops mining gas though as it seems completely inefficient to me. Why would you want to mine with more then 16 probes on minerals and 0 on gas when you have an empty assimilator?? Putting those probes > 16 on gas instead hardly slows you down as those probes are a bit inefficient anyway and you will be getting gas which can always be put to good use. For example you could be making a sentry just before the nexus... This build doesn't get close to 26 pop anyway at first so there seems no reason not to.
Well, the reason you don't want a sentry for this is stalkers give you the ability to put pressure on a gasless expansion (or any marine number, really), while a lone sentry cannot kite marines and are slow to catch up to your 3 additional warp ins. The gas exchange is pretty simple. It's true that you get diminishing returns after 16 probes, but you really have nothing to spend that additional gas on. By putting probes back on gas, you squeeze out enough minerals to get the 3 stalker warpins without having excess gas, which is efficient after we have ruled out the want for sentries.
I also don't get the long probe cut, what good is it to cut probes only to get nexus and gateways slightly faster? Not cutting probes hardly slows down those gates as those probes partly pay themselves back before that and having a slightly slower nexus with more probes already is just better then a faster nexus.
the probe cut allows you to get the nexus faster and to allow you to get the 2 additional gateways to finish alongside warpgate research (it gets a bit funky with the warpgate nerf, but it is still close. You might be able to squeeze in a probe between the nexus and the additional gates, though). The mineral income you get from pulling the probes in gas should iron out the probe cut so you can afford the stalkers.
I rather play a more standard 1 gate FE style with continued probing and 1 or 2 sentries then this build as it is just more efficient imo. You can always cut the zealot and get a quick nexus (before third pylon) without cutting gas and probes as much. For example what I like to do is just quee up the zealot and then if i feel FEing is safe I just cancel the zealot at the last moment. This build already commits itself so fast that i'd really feel unsafe doing it before i have scouted them which can happen if you happen to scout them last. If i'm going to do a greedy build partly blind then I might as well 16 nexus.
Early on, your sentries are not going to be better than stalkers for holding your natural. Sure, if the ramp came into play sentries would be 10 times better but that's an entirely different story. The difference between this build and a 16 nexus is obviously the warpgate timing. With a 16 nexus you're at least a minute behind on WG, meanwhile with this build you get your WG at a similar timing to a 4gate which allows you to defend much better whilst still being able to put on pressure.
16nexus is certainly better in circumstances where you feel absolutely safe, while this is sort of a middle ground where you are at risk to reapers before the first stalker is out (if you don't scout reaper expand in time) and slightly better off against a 2rax marine-scv all in, as sentries will do absolutely nothing to save you in that case, where at least with stalkers you can kite and are better equipped to delay or deny a bunker in your natural.
Thanks a lot for this, been going 20 nexus since watching huk streams (also am watching all his vods^^), but not very clean since i didn't know the exact bo.
Thanks for the nice writeup! As for the build order optimizer, it can probably afford a few more probes because of the later gas, but would also make it more scoutable, and less easily transition into standard play in case of any shenanigans.
I've been doing this build for a while now. Its very strong, and its not exclusive just to protoss. Some of you probably noticed thorzain doing this gas pulling in two or three of the TSL games as part of marauder expands. A worker mines about 40 minerals per minute, so pulling 3 from gas gives you the boost you need to get the nexus down as well as your infrastructure so you can get some units and get safe faster.
The real strength of the build is its flexibility. If you dont scout them, leave your guys on gas. If you scout aggression, leave your guys on gas. If you scout passivity, pull from gas and be greedy. Honestly every macro-oriented protoss needs to know that pulling 3 guys off gas will net you the minerals you need for some faster infrastructure.
edit: I should clarify that this build DOES indeed work on every single map. Since your decisions are based on what you scout, you will still have opportunities to be greedy in this way even on a map as small as close pos. slag pits. Its really just based on scouting and taking every inch of slack your opponent gives you.
tehe, glad to see someone post this, i already had it in my bo note book, but still getting it out there is really nice. Also, i can say that i have had a lot of success with this build so far.
Been doing this ever since I first see him do it on he's stream, I do this build without even scouting, even held off a proxy rax with tech lab, just gotta make sure to know when to pull probes.
Build order crunches show that nexus first packs more heat in every direction than this build. The huge, important difference of this however is that this is flexible while a nexus first commits immediately. This means it means it leaves more options on the table for a little sacrifice when going for an economic opener. Robustness and safety is paramount to success.
The real strength of the build is its flexibility. If you dont scout them, leave your guys on gas. If you scout aggression, leave your guys on gas. If you scout passivity, pull from gas and be greedy. Honestly every macro-oriented protoss needs to know that pulling 3 guys off gas will net you the minerals you need for some faster infrastructure.
I agree a sentry is paramount here. I was just testing out the timings against a computer and even a simple 1 rax pressure will have units at your base before your warp gate finishes. If you just have 1 stalker, you will lose to a marin and marauder. The sentry will at least delay them long enough for your warp gate research to finish and warp in 3 stalkers to deal with it.
I disagree with those who say you can simply abandon the build depending on what you scout. The marine will chase your probe out of your base at about 3:05. At that point you already have to decide if you are going to make a zealot or not. If he's already marching towards your base, it's too late to suddenly say "oh crap, I need a sentry". It might be possible to chrono out your sentry at that point (I haven't tested it), but that would be one less chrono on your warp gate and that still puts you in trouble.
I just did a slight variation where I stayed on gas and got sentry first, stalker after putting up an expo (zealot would work if you prefer) and still got my 3 gates to align with the warp gate finishing and having enough resources to warp in stalkers.
I've been doing this build since I first saw HuK do it. I honestly think there's no way to hold off a quick two-rax, conc shell with scvs, which Terran can do reactivity upon seeing the expo... maybe there really is some gosu forge timing, but I've started restricting my use of this build to only when I see the Terran opening gasless. That's where it really shines anyway imo. Plz more Terrans play gasless so I can use this build!
Looks like a solid build. If i ever played protoss i'd probably do it. Either way tho, great write-up with clear explanations. Love seeing these blue-highlighted posters enlightening the little people
I've been using this build and I've been losing to MM pushes after expo. I can't do much if he gets bunkers which most terrans do get them in time, and I can't harass like Huk when my opponent goes for marauders with slow. most of Huk's korean opponents seemed to be going marines, which is a lot easier to micro stalkers with.
This looks like a promising build, but I think I would still prefer the 16 Nex, as the nex is faster, and your tech isn't very delayed. I'll try it out at one point, and see how it works.
Wait, I'm a little confused. He goes and scouts cross map because he's confident if the terran doesn't scout him first? Does the terran scout timing come prior him sending out his scout, and that's how he judges it?
I've read the whole thread and even tried it a few times (2 / 4 wins) but I still don't get how this actually works if you perform it as above. When I've done this build, i get 100 gas and always make a stalker before doing anything else.
If you don't make the stalker until the nexus and gates what stops the scouting scv from seeing everything? Worse, what stops them from just rallying a marine into your base and killing probes until that stalker pops.
With no gateway units at all, even just walking the first marine over seems like it should be really bad.
On May 22 2011 01:11 General_Winter wrote: I've read the whole thread and even tried it a few times (2 / 4 wins) but I still don't get how this actually works if you perform it as above. When I've done this build, i get 100 gas and always make a stalker before doing anything else.
If you don't make the stalker until the nexus and gates what stops the scouting scv from seeing everything? Worse, what stops them from just rallying a marine into your base and killing probes until that stalker pops.
With no gateway units at all, even just walking the first marine over seems like it should be really bad.
Probes outrun marines and take 7 shots to die btw.
This is a pretty good replay to study if you want to try out this build. If the terran doesn't scout you first, they can't reactor-tech lab 2rax and are force to use the arguable more versatile tech lab-reactor 2rax.
In this case, he scouts me last and tries to break it anyway by pulling workers. But since he wasn't able to adjust earlier because of the scout timing, he went tech lab-reactor and you should be able to hold this cost effectively. Added the rep to OP as well ^^
http://www.justin.tv/desrowfighting/b/286453811 I've beated cloud (rank 1 GM on EU) on US ladder today It's a sick build, only times ive lost is when i became over confident and all in on 5-7 gates and had poor micro or lost to medivacs (can't kill shit with medivacs lulz)
Yeah I've seen him do this a lot on his stream before. I can say that I have had a lot of success with this build. I may need to break this out again and refine it as I haven't done it in awhile.
>I will add pictures and stuff later today, I know how much you guys love pictures.
I'm waiting
Haha no pictures, sorry. No flash in this guide. Just HuKking face. Be glad I at least attached a replay! Hell everything you need for this build is in Huk's vods :D
>I will add pictures and stuff later today, I know how much you guys love pictures.
I'm waiting
Haha no pictures, sorry. No flash in this guide. Just HuKking face. Be glad I at least attached a replay! Hell everything you need for this build is in Huk's vods :D
Can you give a link of a VOD of his with this specific build? He plays all 3 races and from what I've had the chance to check out he often goes very seemingly arbitrary builds in PvT (1 Stalker expand, Expand after CC without cutting probes etc)
ok i tired it out and had great results! http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/2571 thanks for the guide after watching huk vs mma i thought it looked pretty good and had wanted to try it out for awhile i transitioned into ht charglot after kiting a ton of marines with the first couple stalkers. mind u i made alot of mistakes and didnt macro to well because i was under constant pressure and didnt realize how fast your minerals explode with this build lol.
I've been playing around with this for a while today and woah, for someone who is used to Tylers 3gate robo expand, the economy you get with this build is insane! I'm going to be using this build on long rush distances and 3gate robo expand on closer distances.
Is this build still viable with the newest patch? (+20 sec on warpgate)
before that change your 2extra gates finished just as chronoed WG was done, i feel like you will have at least 10 sec downtime now and you will need to use an extra chronoboost
how many chronoboosts are you supposed to use on WG in total?
edit: here is something you could include in the OP, When you place down the nexus you will have 19 probes minining (and maybe 1 scouting) which means full saturation (16 probes) on minerals and 3 on gas. When you place your 2 gates and start 1st stalker and resume probes production, its better to set rally points of both nexuses to the newly build one and NOT transfer any probes so you keep ideal saturation in both bases, at least thats what huk does
I've still been doing this in new patch PvT and going into either 2 colossi w/ range attack @ terran's natural, or double forge (with a cannon per mineral line if I suspect banshee) and twilight council. Both seem to work really well.
ok i tired it out and had great results! http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/2571 thanks for the guide after watching huk vs mma i thought it looked pretty good and had wanted to try it out for awhile i transitioned into ht charglot after kiting a ton of marines with the first couple stalkers. mind u i made alot of mistakes and didnt macro to well because i was under constant pressure and didnt realize how fast your minerals explode with this build lol
Whenever you kite non-stim marines, tanks or banshees across the map with stalkers without taking hull damage, you must yell "HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK" inside your head. See HuK's first GSL set if you don't know what I'm talking about or what it should sound like. I agree with you in that charge is a very solid next-step to this opener because it is helpful to get a whole bunch of zealots rather than dumping a lot of gas into sentries when you stay on a single gas for quite some time. Double forge is a very nice transition, I've found :D
Is this build still viable with the newest patch? (+20 sec on warpgate)
before that change your 2extra gates finished just as chronoed WG was done, i feel like you will have at least 10 sec downtime now and you will need to use an extra chronoboost
how many chronoboosts are you supposed to use on WG in total?
edit: here is something you could include in the OP, When you place down the nexus you will have 19 probes minining (and maybe 1 scouting) which means full saturation (16 probes) on minerals and 3 on gas. When you place your 2 gates and start 1st stalker and resume probes production, its better to set rally points of both nexuses to the newly build one and NOT transfer any probes so you keep ideal saturation in both bases, at least thats what huk does Last edit: 2011-05-24 22:16:44
Yes, it is still viable, though you have a smaller window for aggression and a larger window to be reaper harassed. In terms of chronoboosting, only use 2 on your nexus initially and dump the rest on WG. Don't cb the first stalker. The patch pretty much made it so the terran has another 20 seconds or so to get up his bunker if he expanded w/o gas or, if they got gas for 2rax expand, another maurador. This slight tweak to warpgate also made it more dangerous to warp in aggressively because their helions will be out slightly quicker relative to your warp in if that is how they opened.. just something to think about.
I've been playing around with this for a while today and woah, for someone who is used to Tylers 3gate robo expand, the economy you get with this build is insane! I'm going to be using this build on long rush distances and 3gate robo expand on closer distances.
Awesome guide, thanks!
Ah, another convert! I also used tylers 1gate robo into 3gate robo nexus in the majority of my games (after I used to 1gate expand blindly at 31 food all the time and feeling kind of unsafe at times) until I started mixing this in. Playing safe is one thing, but if you use greedy builds when you have room to be greedy it is really much "safer" than going 6min nexus vs a gasless expand or a 16cc!
Yeah, I've been finding the "2/3 Gate Robo" build fairly unsafe these days--unsafe as in, if the Terran has gone a fast expansion himself then I feel you are already playing in the backfoot and you are sacrificing too much economy just for a piece of mind.
The Banshee/Tank timing is still giving me hell though, need to figure out a way to sniff that out without going fast Robo (I like double ups )
As with most new builds, I'm still tweaking the transitions but so far I'm loving this! Your economy gets pumped so quickly after that prolonged Probe cut, it's hard to believe without playing it.
I was losing a lot doing this earlier despite holding offf the first push, but learnt that it was because I got my 3rd Nexus up too early, so now I just mass up units and tech up until the suggested 100 food and get a Nexus.
On May 25 2011 02:17 mordek wrote: This is what the strategy forum is all about. Thanks for all your contributions Alej!
I must agree.
2/2 with this build and the 3gate sentry expand pressure/contain build.
I've outright killed a couple terran players who went gasless expand into tech and underreact to the pressure because they see a nexus. When I'm scouted, if I don't see the scv I patrol a probe near the natural to look for bunkers. If it goes up the game will be rough (you should lose).
On May 25 2011 02:17 mordek wrote: This is what the strategy forum is all about. Thanks for all your contributions Alej!
I must agree.
2/2 with this build and the 3gate sentry expand pressure/contain build.
I've outright killed a couple terran players who went gasless expand into tech and underreact to the pressure because they see a nexus. When I'm scouted, if I don't see the scv I patrol a probe near the natural to look for bunkers. If it goes up the game will be rough (you should lose).
You'd be surprised how easily you can take down bunkers cost effectively as long as they dont see you early enough to go reactor-tech lab 12/16. Check the replay at the bottom of the OP. He gets not one but two bunkers up which are cleaned by 4 stalkers and probes. It's pretty counterintuitive but hey if it kills terrans it kills terrans xD
I feel really unsafe doing this if the Terran has any kind of gas, to the point where I just won't do it at all if I haven't scouted them yet.
If they open gasless anything though this is really effective, though I'm not sure if I prefer to do this build or a 2 gate chrono'd stalker pressure yet. Definitely a good build to know how to do though, even if it is very situational.
On May 25 2011 02:51 Shifft wrote: I feel really unsafe doing this if the Terran has any kind of gas, to the point where I just won't do it at all if I haven't scouted them yet.
If they open gasless anything though this is really effective, though I'm not sure if I prefer to do this build or a 2 gate chrono'd stalker pressure yet. Definitely a good build to know how to do though, even if it is very situational.
Marauders aren't a problem. Tech is also not a problem as stated in the OP (throw a robo + forge).
It was all one-sided. I won with my macro and in one game I won with the 4 stalkers (LOL).
I love this build, it balances economy and pressure quite well. I think the best transition is into forge + twilight into archons. In one of the replay I defend a early mm + 5 scv attack and later some pretty nice double attacks.
When you scout him first and he builds a marine before tech lab: Instead of getting gas ASAP, leave the geyser idle until right after you start your core, then put 2 into gas. That will get you 50 gas just a few seconds before core completes. You can throw a third on gas after you've saturated the minerals at 2 probes / patch. Then just leave your probes on gas forever. This way you don't need to pull probes off gas and reveal your plan.
Because of the warpgate nerf: You can afford and have time to get two units before warp completes. Zealot -> Stalker makes sense, so does Stalker -> Stalker, or Zealot -> Sentry if you're into that. If you go for one of the 100 gas options, you're going to want to build a 2nd assimilator around 4:50, right after your third pylon, or else you'll be about 12 gas short for the 3 stalker warp at 5:40 (which is when you warp if you execute cleanly)
You only need a small probe cut ever, at 21 probes (23 food), until you make the third pylon, after which you resume probes.
it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
I've seen Naniwa do this with an 11gate for a quicker cyber core, does anyone know how much resources are lost for going 11gate? I've tried it a few times, but you can't tripple chrono your Nexus without delaying either the 2nd pylon or the Cybernetics.
Other than that, it seems like an decent idea.
EDIT: Can't remember if he got the 4Stalkers though, think he just did an expand with quicker warpgate tech
On May 29 2011 19:55 Keilah wrote: few little optimizations:
When you scout him first and he builds a marine before tech lab: Instead of getting gas ASAP, leave the geyser idle until right after you start your core, then put 2 into gas. That will get you 50 gas just a few seconds before core completes. You can throw a third on gas after you've saturated the minerals at 2 probes / patch. Then just leave your probes on gas forever. This way you don't need to pull probes off gas and reveal your plan.
Because of the warpgate nerf: You can afford and have time to get two units before warp completes. Zealot -> Stalker makes sense, so does Stalker -> Stalker, or Zealot -> Sentry if you're into that. If you go for one of the 100 gas options, you're going to want to build a 2nd assimilator around 4:50, right after your third pylon, or else you'll be about 12 gas short for the 3 stalker warp at 5:40 (which is when you warp if you execute cleanly)
You only need a small probe cut ever, at 21 probes (23 food), until you make the third pylon, after which you resume probes.
You don't always want a zealot or a sentry so early with this build unless the T scouts you early enough to 12/16 2 rax reactor tech lab so I don't know if it's worth getting the zealot before wg finishes and you definitely don't want a sentry to suck up your gas
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
You don't always want a zealot or a sentry so early with this build unless the T scouts you early enough to 12/16 2 rax reactor tech lab so I don't know if it's worth getting the zealot before wg finishes and you definitely don't want a sentry to suck up your gas
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
OK, so if the terran scouts in time and makes the correct adjustment, is the protoss player 100% dead barring screwups by terran? I don't want to waste my time perfecting a counterable build. BTW, is the correct counter to build a reactor? Or just to pump marines with no reactor?
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
OK, so if the terran scouts in time and makes the correct adjustment, is the protoss player 100% dead barring screwups by terran? I don't want to waste my time perfecting a counterable build. BTW, is the correct counter to build a reactor? Or just to pump marines with no reactor?
As I've already said many times in the thread, the correct response is to go reactor-tech lab 2 rax on 12/16. the terran can only make this adjustment fast enough if he scouts you first. So if you get scouted first, simply keep your probes on gas and do a less greedy build.
You don't always want a zealot or a sentry so early with this build unless the T scouts you early enough to 12/16 2 rax reactor tech lab so I don't know if it's worth getting the zealot before wg finishes and you definitely don't want a sentry to suck up your gas
So get 2 stalkers, ez =p
Can you really get 2 stalkers out of the 1st gate before WG research finishes when you're doing this build? replay please!
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
OK, so if the terran scouts in time and makes the correct adjustment, is the protoss player 100% dead barring screwups by terran? I don't want to waste my time perfecting a counterable build. BTW, is the correct counter to build a reactor? Or just to pump marines with no reactor?
As I've already said many times in the thread, the correct response is to go reactor-tech lab 2 rax on 12/16. the terran can only make this adjustment fast enough if he scouts you first. So if you get scouted first, simply keep your probes on gas and do a less greedy build.
that wasn't my whole question, i asked if we were 100% dead assuming he adjusts correctly.
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
OK, so if the terran scouts in time and makes the correct adjustment, is the protoss player 100% dead barring screwups by terran? I don't want to waste my time perfecting a counterable build. BTW, is the correct counter to build a reactor? Or just to pump marines with no reactor?
As I've already said many times in the thread, the correct response is to go reactor-tech lab 2 rax on 12/16. the terran can only make this adjustment fast enough if he scouts you first. So if you get scouted first, simply keep your probes on gas and do a less greedy build.
that wasn't my whole question, i asked if we were 100% dead assuming he adjusts correctly.
Yeah you are kind of dead. If you cut gas at 50 and do the build as it is listed in the OP you won't be able to save your expansion when he pushes with what he can make as well as 6-8 scvs. you can 'survive' by sacking your expansion, but he will get his expansion up and you will be contained for the time being and you will be significantly behind.
Just tried it with Darkness, the guy who wrote the 16 nexus OP. Maybe he misplayed the terran or something but I just pulled like 12 probes and murdered him. He was at my base around the 6min mark, was that proper?
Also, I did my variation where you get +1 probe and an extra stalker before starting gateways 2-3, so I had 5 stalkers at 5:45 instead of 4. Altho the word variation is kind of misleading since really it's just an adjustment for warpgate taking longer.
On May 30 2011 02:26 Keilah wrote: Just tried it with Darkness, the guy who wrote the 16 nexus OP. Maybe he misplayed the terran or something but I just pulled like 12 probes and murdered him. He was at my base around the 6min mark, was that proper?
Also, I did my variation where you get +1 probe and an extra stalker before starting gateways 2-3, so I had 5 stalkers at 5:45 instead of 4. Altho the word variation is kind of misleading since really it's just an adjustment for warpgate taking longer.
can u post a replay by any chance? I really hope to see how u got an extra stalker and still managed to complete gateways in time
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
the point is that once this build becomes more popular, terran will be aware of it... they will know exactly the right time to scout in order to hard counter.
not dismissing the build, it's just not what i would call a 'solid' build order.
theorycrafting a bit, on large maps you can get away with 1 gate nexus or nexus first anyway... why would you delay this just to make it look like you're doing a 4gate?
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
the point is that once this build becomes more popular, terran will be aware of it... they will know exactly the right time to scout in order to hard counter.
not dismissing the build, it's just not what i would call a 'solid' build order.
theorycrafting a bit, on large maps you can get away with 1 gate nexus or nexus first anyway... why would you delay this just to make it look like you're doing a 4gate?
the point of the build is not to make them think you are 4gating. I don't know where you are getting that this is the gimmick of the build
On May 29 2011 20:09 shizna wrote: it looks like the entire build is 'trick him into thinking its a 4gate', but if the terran knows this trick is a possibility he'll scout at the right time...
also, i believe that it only works because early conc shell marauder rush has fazed out. a lot of koreans seem to be opening tvp with marauders again, so it looks like this protoss build has had it's day already.
No.. there's not as big a gimmick to this build as you are making it out. It doesn't straight up die to all rushes. marauders are not what scare you; it's marine-heavy 2 rax pressure with pulled scvs which the terran can only pull off if they scout you early enough and know to make this adjustment. this has been covered in the thread repeatedly.
the point is that once this build becomes more popular, terran will be aware of it... they will know exactly the right time to scout in order to hard counter.
not dismissing the build, it's just not what i would call a 'solid' build order.
theorycrafting a bit, on large maps you can get away with 1 gate nexus or nexus first anyway... why would you delay this just to make it look like you're doing a 4gate?
the point of the build is not to make them think you are 4gating. I don't know where you are getting that this is the gimmick of the build
oh, well it seemed like a gimmick to me because you're doing a lot of worker cutting at <20 supply.
investing a lot into both getting an early expansion and early gateways, may be wasteful if the opponent doesn't go for a standard timing attack and is also seemingly weak to very early pressure.
is it worth making sacrifices to get an early expansion, when you don't have anywhere near enough workers to saturate your main? if you can get away with fast expo without having to power a crapload of gateways, then fair enough..
Alejandrisha one question, how does this build fare vs 14/15/16 nexus builds? in terms of economy and defense vs cheese? i know that it is quite good against marine scv all ins but what about 3 rax timing pushes? either with stim or without
On May 17 2011 11:53 KingofGods wrote: I agree a sentry is paramount here. I was just testing out the timings against a computer and even a simple 1 rax pressure will have units at your base before your warp gate finishes. If you just have 1 stalker, you will lose to a marin and marauder. The sentry will at least delay them long enough for your warp gate research to finish and warp in 3 stalkers to deal with it.
I disagree with those who say you can simply abandon the build depending on what you scout. The marine will chase your probe out of your base at about 3:05. At that point you already have to decide if you are going to make a zealot or not. If he's already marching towards your base, it's too late to suddenly say "oh crap, I need a sentry". It might be possible to chrono out your sentry at that point (I haven't tested it), but that would be one less chrono on your warp gate and that still puts you in trouble.
The first stalker should be able to annoy the Rine/Rauder all the way to your base without dying, and if you're quick enough, kill the marine before any real damage is done, and then probe/stalker a marauder to death Conc would never be out in time for any real worth unless your terran buddy's going to pull scv's for a 1 rine 1 rauder all in :DDD
In this game the Terran player misreads my build as a 4gate due to not spotting the Nexus with his scouting scv. Accordingly, I take a huge economic lead as he bunkers up his ramp until around 7minutes when he realises I'm not attacking and moves out with some ghosts, but at this point my economic lead is too much and I roll over his army.
Game 2
In this game, the Terran player does spot my Nexus almost immediately, goes for a 1rax expand himself. I break his ramp easily a few minutes later with my four warp gates.
edit: These replays are of myself as a Master level protoss playing against a couple Diamond level friends. I haven't used this build on ladder yet.
Here's the replay of me testing this build vs reactor->techlab 2rax. I get a 2nd stalker and 1-2 more probes than the build as written in OP. I crush the push, it wasn't even close but he did execute pretty badly (he's a protoss user).
On May 30 2011 18:14 Keilah wrote: Here's the replay of me testing this build vs reactor->techlab 2rax. I get a 2nd stalker and 1-2 more probes than the build as written in OP. I crush the push, it wasn't even close but he did execute pretty badly (he's a protoss user).
I've been practicing this build a lot with my practice partner, and it's been working great! However, recently, he's been blocking my nexus with an engi bay if he sees me pull probes out of gas. What is the best transition out of this after he blocks my nexus, as he then has full scouting of my base because I don't have a stalker.
do what I do and instead of pulling probes, wait to the last moment and put them in late. If they even see it, they probably just think you are noob and forgot to put guys in gas =]
If you mine gas and then pull, and he reacts by blocking the expo, your options are: expand elsewhere (have your scouting probe be waiting so you're ready in case he blocks) or just go back to whatever build you used to do before this one.
Absolutely love this strategy! Big thanks. Recently I've switched it up slighly, taking 100 gas instead of 50 and made a stalker right after the nexus. It's good to get rid of scouts early - and I've been having some "problems" with early reapers. Either way, wonderful way to FE.
having a ton of trouble with this build vs agressive 3rax or even worse 5+ rax all-in ish stuff. I'm leveling an account thru Plat/Diamond-ish play right now, so I would say that i dont need this kinda econ edge to win. But I think if this build is as stable as people are making it out to be, its a good place to get used to it, as ill have plenty of practice vs allin pressure.
I mean it doesnt even really seem to have to be done "correctly", just any kind of agressive bio or all-in has been all but impossble for me to hold. Anyone have any insight for me here on how to hold o nthis kind of play. Or even better replays holding this build vs agressive bio ( I know its not exactly ideal for the build but examples with smallers maps would be best, as the largest maps its not as much of an issue.) kkthxguys
Btw, is it bad to use this strategy PvZ if you scout that Z did 15 hatch? you have that 1 stalker to micro against lings and your 4 stalker finishes before Z gets speed finishes so you have some time available to pressure the Z
Hmm, after testing I actually find my normal 3 gate pressure expand to be more useful. The Nexus comes slower, however, with the 3 gates up you can build up lots of sentries (which this build lacks and lets face it, sentries are incredibly powerful) and pressure him with them, and then possibly going into a 6 gate all-in off two base economy or do 5 gate and double forge.
This is an interesting build though, I am thinking you could transition into a two base all-in quicker with it on large maps, or just get a good economic lead with it.
I was watching Trump's stream the other day and he absolutely crushed this build with a two marauder one marine conc shell poke by bringing two scvs and bunkering towards the natural. It was pretty painful to watch as a toss player. He rallied marauders from one rax and expanded at the same time. He had no idea what was going on until he saw the FE, and after the game said "I love free wins."
Isn't this just straight up a build order loss to that kind of pressure?
if the protoss is bad yes.. not sure why you would lose to that. your warpgates should finish somewhat soon and you can pull probes to help then put them at the nexus when the fight is over
On June 02 2011 01:01 TheFrankOne wrote: I was watching Trump's stream the other day and he absolutely crushed this build with a two marauder one marine conc shell poke by bringing two scvs and bunkering towards the natural. It was pretty painful to watch as a toss player. He rallied marauders from one rax and expanded at the same time. He had no idea what was going on until he saw the FE, and after the game said "I love free wins."
Isn't this just straight up a build order loss to that kind of pressure?
You should never lose to this kind of build using 20nex. Your first stalker will see it, either at the tower or in the open. Even if he gets a bunker up before you have 4 stalkers, you can simply wait for 3 zealots before your nexus is in danger of falling, clean up and then chase their bio all the way back to their base. Don't be afraid to wait for additional units. Just don't lose any probes that you don't absolutely need to.
This looks really and absolutely interesting. As soon as finals are over, I will try this and watch the replays. I hope this solves my expansion problem once and for all >_<
On June 02 2011 01:01 TheFrankOne wrote: I was watching Trump's stream the other day and he absolutely crushed this build with a two marauder one marine conc shell poke by bringing two scvs and bunkering towards the natural. It was pretty painful to watch as a toss player. He rallied marauders from one rax and expanded at the same time. He had no idea what was going on until he saw the FE, and after the game said "I love free wins."
Isn't this just straight up a build order loss to that kind of pressure?
You should never lose to this kind of build using 20nex. Your first stalker will see it, either at the tower or in the open. Even if he gets a bunker up before you have 4 stalkers, you can simply wait for 3 zealots before your nexus is in danger of falling, clean up and then chase their bio all the way back to their base. Don't be afraid to wait for additional units. Just don't lose any probes that you don't absolutely need to.
hi, can u actually post some replays u using this build vs those many openings terran do? i think 2rax with Reactor and Techlab presure will kill this in a bad way.
Like the OP, I'm an avid watcher of huk's stream and saw him do this build many many times over a couple week period. It's really really powerful once it gets off the ground (though huk seems to be doing a different build vs T nowadays, almost always taking two early gases).
I know OP discussed this already above, but it's easy to maybe get confused like shizna did - the gimmick is NOT to trick your opponent into thinking you're 4gating. Huk almost always threw down the nexus in full view of his opponent's scouting SCV. You actually basically can't kill the scout because you're throwing down nexus + 2 gateways before you get a single attacking unit (the first stalker).
Basically, if you do this build, you have to be ready for the T at least apply some pressure. Huk obviously couldn't hold the expo every time, but he did it more often than not with some combination of 1) very good micro and 2) not being afraid to let the nexus take damage while you wait for a couple rounds of warpgate units, and fighting with probes if necessary. Sometimes he would hold but only have red health on his nexus, it can be a thin margin depending on how hard the T pressured.
I've been trying out this build the past week or so, and I'd like to offer a pretty good transition I've found (well, one that fits the heavy macro style i play ). I've found in most PvTs that you can hold midgame terran agression off two base by going for 5 gateways and double forges off of two base, and this opening transitions well into that idea. Basically, I fend off the early aggression, throw down 2 more gateways to get up to 5, then two forges when I feel safe (after a few warp-in rounds usually). This style is great against the heavy bio terran play that's so common on the ladder, and puts you on at least even footing with the terran going into the lategame.
What sort of viability would this build hold in PvP?
it just occurs to me now that if this gets warpgate as fast as a 4gate build, you could theoretically hold a 4gate as you'll have the same economy (any 4gate that is planning on being aggressive will cut probes at 20, and an early nexus will definitely prompt them to be aggressive).
The only concern I have is the late stalker, which may mean that a chrono'd out zealot (upon scouting the zealot) could do some damage, but perhaps you can slightly delay the Nexus in favour of a zealot?
On June 02 2011 14:26 zaner132 wrote: What's the big difference between this and a Nexus first build? It seems this is less economical and less safe.. but I'm sure I'm missing something.
yes you are missing something
this is an aggro build that has a fallback of an expansion
did you even read the OP? it explains the purpose of the build.
On June 02 2011 13:58 Dhalphir wrote: What sort of viability would this build hold in PvP?
it just occurs to me now that if this gets warpgate as fast as a 4gate build, you could theoretically hold a 4gate as you'll have the same economy (any 4gate that is planning on being aggressive will cut probes at 20, and an early nexus will definitely prompt them to be aggressive).
The only concern I have is the late stalker, which may mean that a chrono'd out zealot (upon scouting the zealot) could do some damage, but perhaps you can slightly delay the Nexus in favour of a zealot?
This dies to everything in pvp. If he sees you pull gas he's going to chrono units (edit: because it'd look like k4g but with a 12 or 13gate.. :/). Then he sees you make a nexus and his zealot and stalker are in your base before you even have a single unit.
It's a pvt build plain and simple (with applications in PvZ as discussed earlier in the thread)
On June 03 2011 00:46 lim1017 wrote: ive seen him do this build quite a few times on ladder when it works its amazing however.. ive also seen him get punished by scv all in quite a bit
personally i think its better to mine 100 gas and get your first stalker to get rid of the scout before u drop the nexus..
it may get delayed a bit but it doesn't give away your build instantly
Yes, in light of the warpgate nerf I have been trying getting a stalker and an extra probe from the suggestion in this topic. I believe it's on the page before this one. So you'd be going 21 stalker, so adding the 2 extra gates on 23. After warpgate nerf if you made the extra gates on 20, they would finish and your wg would not yet be ready.
Still trying to understand how this build holds vs 3rax and other early bio aggro. have one hell of a time holding the expo myself, though im admittedly not the best protoss player. Still interested in how people are holding this vs that kind play, or even better replays because i seem to be missing something.
Also while im on this, i might as well ask for some clarification on base counts. I know zerg wants to be roughly +1 base, etc. But as far as PvT, im a bit unsure about the value of bases. I know its not going to be anything as drastic as wanting to be a whole expo ahead, but are they exactly equal? One race have slightly more value in each additional expo? Not really sure how to compare it due to mules.
On June 03 2011 00:46 lim1017 wrote: ive seen him do this build quite a few times on ladder when it works its amazing however.. ive also seen him get punished by scv all in quite a bit
personally i think its better to mine 100 gas and get your first stalker to get rid of the scout before u drop the nexus..
it may get delayed a bit but it doesn't give away your build instantly
Yes, in light of the warpgate nerf I have been trying getting a stalker and an extra probe from the suggestion in this topic. I believe it's on the page before this one. So you'd be going 21 stalker, so adding the 2 extra gates on 23. After warpgate nerf if you made the extra gates on 20, they would finish and your wg would not yet be ready.
Actually, lim1017 is saying something slightly different - he's getting a stalker BEFORE the nexus.
I've been using this and having extreme trouble against 2 rax reactor/tech lab opening. Conc shells kick in right as he's pushing me and the marine marauders or more than the 4 stalkers can deal with
-.-
any advice or is this just a build order loss? I feel like I should be able to hold 2 rax :|
hey how's the old 1gate expo build doing these days? Did people figure out ways to stop the banshee/marine (or whatever) allins reliably?
Also, for people talking about 15/16 nexus - that build is only safe on maps where the natural has a ramp, meaning Tal'darim altar and Shakuras Plateau. If you can't FF him out of the natural, he can kill your expansion with 2rax marine/scv PF rush. I know I know, who the f knows about this and LOL PF rush, but try it with a friend and you'll see it's true. I don't like using builds that I know my opponent can easily scout and then counter.
On June 03 2011 06:44 Perplex wrote: I've been using this and having extreme trouble against 2 rax reactor/tech lab opening. Conc shells kick in right as he's pushing me and the marine marauders or more than the 4 stalkers can deal with
-.-
any advice or is this just a build order loss? I feel like I should be able to hold 2 rax :|
Idunno dude, check my replay a page or two back. I tested vs reactor -> tech lab and crushed it really hard. Possibly that terran did something very wrong, or I was just lucky? Watch the replay and tell me what you think. Maybe I'm just awesome and everyone else sucks =)
On June 03 2011 06:50 Keilah wrote: hey how's the old 1gate expo build doing these days?
It's doing great still.
On June 03 2011 06:50 Keilah wrote: Did people figure out ways to stop the banshee/marine (or whatever) allins reliably?
When I used 1 gate fe, I always get 3 gates before nexus is complete and when it finishes, I have just enough money to make a forge and a stargate. I put a cannon before the 10 minute mark at the ramp and 1 in each mineral line.
All you have to do is defend the all-in (and you scout the signs ofc: double gas, no tech-lab, bunker). Zealot/Sentry/Phoenix with 1-2 cannons did the job quite well if I remember correctly.
On June 03 2011 06:50 Keilah wrote: Also, for people talking about 15/16 nexus - that build is only safe on maps where the natural has a ramp, meaning Tal'darim altar and Shakuras Plateau. If you can't FF him out of the natural, he can kill your expansion with 2rax marine/scv PF rush. I know I know, who the f knows about this and LOL PF rush, but try it with a friend and you'll see it's true.
You don't need forcefields to defend yourself when you're using a 16 nexus.. If he's PF rushing you might as well bring all your probes from the natural to fight.
If you scout 2 raxes you can easily just chrono out a lot of units while building more gates.
On June 03 2011 06:50 Keilah wrote: I don't like using builds that I know my opponent can easily scout and then counter.
My friend (KoKoRO: 1100 Masters) always 2 raxes me because he knows I always do 16 nexus. He fails.
So how would engi+cc+fortress+gas works? Making an engineering bay just delays your rush and making a command center delays the rush by a lot too.
On June 03 2011 08:22 Keilah wrote: well, the guy who posted the nexus first OP believes 2rax+PF wins. I'm aware that just 2rax doesn't win.
Instead of pooh-poohing, why not try it a few times with a friend? I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Well I mean I destroy his force. If I can destroy his force, what is something that has to be LIFTED, MOVED, and takes another 50 seconds to morph going to do to me while I'm out destroying his force because you can scout?
Anyways, I just checked the thread and I can't see the post that STATES it.
pretty sure i saw nani using this in MLG against gretorp especially - i know nani and HuK are good friends so probably devised it together or w/e its a good build i just have a few queries: What if a decent terran scouts you? leaves his scout scv there forever seeing as how you have no stalker. He'd see gas stopped being mined, you expo go up, probes cut. They would just pressure better and earlier then he did.
On June 07 2011 06:36 ThatGuy89 wrote: pretty sure i saw nani using this in MLG against gretorp especially - i know nani and HuK are good friends so probably devised it together or w/e its a good build i just have a few queries: What if a decent terran scouts you? leaves his scout scv there forever seeing as how you have no stalker. He'd see gas stopped being mined, you expo go up, probes cut. They would just pressure better and earlier then he did.
Also, when do you start probe production again?
If he scouts you first just put probes back on and do a slightly less greedy 1gate fe if you so please. This is pretty much the only thing that has been discussed in this thread so I encourage you to go back and check it out.
9 Pylon (10 CB nex) 13 Gate (2nd CB once 1st finishes) 14 Gas (can be on 15*) 16 Pylon (HuK makes it on 15 but if you're human you can't always make it on 15 w/o brief probe cut , and it's not like you cap yourself making probes with 16pylon ^^) 17 Core, mine 50 gas**; WG @100% CC, dump ALL CB on WG 20 Nexus (19 if you lose the probe) CUT PROBES RESUME HARVESTING GAS
20 gateway 20 gateway
RESUME PROBES
21 queue first stalker from gateway, do not CB XX pylon when you can afford it, preferably proxied if the distance is long.
Thanks for the post, I have been doing this with great success on the ladder... If fact I probably win 9/10 terran games now... Now if I can only figure out how to deal with the macro zerg power ><
Naniwa was spotted using this build at Columbus. Success!
How would you stop proxy rax marauders? Not the easily scoutable kinds with pure marines and no OC, but the kind where you're playing a no name in a clan war but it's actually Namhcir smurfing and your scouting probe sees nothing weird.
On June 08 2011 02:03 iamke55 wrote: Naniwa was spotted using this build at Columbus. Success!
How would you stop proxy rax marauders? Not the easily scoutable kinds with pure marines and no OC, but the kind where you're playing a no name in a clan war but it's actually Namhcir smurfing and your scouting probe sees nothing weird.
Haha I am not sure about that. I'll have to have ngry or murder do it against me later today. I'm sure it won't be pretty though :D
I tried it out and crushed the 2rax prod which usually gives me so many problems when I 2gate robo expand. And you put your Nexus down more than 2 minutes earlier than that build too...
edit: Note that he mines gas normally and doesn't cb his WG as hard. He apparently saves the CB for a faster 2nd round of stalkers for which he has exactly enough gas, but gets supply blocked
This build is so GODDAMN good, that its my go-to build in pvt. In my experience every 1-2 rax expand gets torn apart, because you get so many units and most terrans arent aware of this build, so they don´t realize what they are scouting. Tho I dont know about 3rax pushes, do they come so late that you can just add more gates and be fine?
Thx to keep the thread updated Alejandrisha! Hey, another nice variaton is the one Naniwa used in Columbus. He fixed the warp nerf with a 11 gate, then chrono. Check the game vs Drewbie in Testbug.
On June 07 2011 06:50 Alejandrisha wrote: I have updated the OP with a version that is slightly adjusted for the WG nerf. The original build is ok, but it's sooooo this past April.
EDIT: I'd like to thank Keilah for his contributions and his time, as well as everyone who has contributed here.
This replay made me worry about something, though. Because you delay the 2nd and 3rd gates by getting a probe and a stalker before you get them, I'm thinking of cutting that probe until after gateways are up and perhaps mining less gas. EDIT: This is significant because I can't remove him from my natural until WG is complete. If T commits to something in my natural with a bunker, it he might force me to break it without being cost effective. Just something to think about!
dont like this build at all, doesnt get alot of units till 5:30 and pressuring with 4 stalkers against a bunker is LOL, there are much better openings around imho
On June 12 2011 05:04 Regina wrote: dont like this build at all, doesnt get alot of units till 5:30 and pressuring with 4 stalkers against a bunker is LOL, there are much better openings around imho
What about pressuring a bunker with 4 stalkers is lol exactly? You never take hull damage and you force the terran to repair it which takes away mining time and costs money. You can pick off marines that are rallied too close or at least get free hits before he pulls them back. What else are you going to do with your units? Keep them in your mineral line?
Actually I think huk changed his build a little, since with his previous build the gateways finished but left him little wiggle room against either a really early reaper or marine/scv attack mentioned by the OP.
I think huk does something like: 20 wg -> chorno'd I believe 4 times until completion 20 nexus 20 stalker -> stalker before adding two gates 22-> probe 23-> 2 additional gateways When stalker pops he makes one sentry, second gas and third pylon Then when wg tech finishes he does his usual 4 stalker poke.
This build does really damn well against harass builds (hellion, banshees), but I've seen HuK being overrun quite a bit by simply bio units, with no harass at all because:
1. He techs fast collosus, and gets hit with a timing just before his first collosus finishes. 2. He makes 6 gateways, and gets hit as he is further advancing his tech tree or expanding to his third.
In terms of holding off stuff, I think the sentry allows you to hold a marine/scv allin if you sac the nexus. You'll be still ahead because they will have pulled all their scvs, and you will have 3 gates and possible have killed many of their scvs with your 4 stalkers.
Against a 3 rax HuK makes it look really easy. 4 stalkers give you lots of early firepower, so if you see an early 3 rax (with concussive shells really early), you can safely hold it off by warping in additional 3 zealots.
Against a 3 rax stim You should probably warp in additional 3 stalkers and pull probes. If you warp in zealots the MM can just ignore your zealots and own your stalkers.
Against something like a marauders expand I think this build kind of suffers because a bunker in their nat completely nullifies your harass and you still need to warp units in in case of early 2 base timings by the terran.
On June 12 2011 05:13 peidongyang wrote: Actually I think huk changed his build a little, since with his previous build the gateways finished but left him little wiggle room against either a really early reaper or marine/scv attack mentioned by the OP.
I think huk does something like: 20 wg -> chorno'd I believe 4 times until completion 20 nexus 20 stalker -> stalker before adding two gates 22-> probe 23-> 2 additional gateways When stalker pops he makes one sentry, second gas and third pylon Then when wg tech finishes he does his usual 4 stalker poke.
This build does really damn well against harass builds (hellion, banshees), but I've seen HuK being overrun quite a bit by simply bio units, with no harass at all because:
1. He techs fast collosus, and gets hit with a timing just before his first collosus finishes. 2. He makes 6 gateways, and gets hit as he is further advancing his tech tree or expanding to his third.
In terms of holding off stuff, I think the sentry allows you to hold a marine/scv allin if you sac the nexus. You'll be still ahead because they will have pulled all their scvs, and you will have 3 gates and possible have killed many of their scvs with your 4 stalkers.
Against a 3 rax HuK makes it look really easy. 4 stalkers give you lots of early firepower, so if you see an early 3 rax (with concussive shells really early), you can safely hold it off by warping in additional 3 zealots.
Against a 3 rax stim You should probably warp in additional 3 stalkers and pull probes. If you warp in zealots the MM can just ignore your zealots and own your stalkers.
Against something like a marauders expand I think this build kind of suffers because a bunker in their nat completely nullifies your harass and you still need to warp units in in case of early 2 base timings by the terran.
Yes the difference in the updated build in the OP and the one from HuK's vod is what happens at 20 food. I still haven't figured what is best, get a probe and a stalker or just a stalker before the 2 gates. It seems like you should skip that probe for the time being so you can get your gates up just a bit faster to defend against a bio all-in with a bunker.
The greatest challenge with any new build is finding a strong transition. A lot of times HuK will add 2 additional gateways before adding more gas which is good in the short term but very weak once the terran gets medivac tech. And remaining on 3 gates when you get additional gases might help you tech stronger, but it leaves you very vulnerable to bio timings. The solution might be getting a 4th gate and adding 2 gases and forgoing a robo for slightly faster upgrades and charge. The robo is primarily used for observers with this build (I find going colossus after this opening very, very risky) and you might not necessarily need observers on the map at this time.
The gas problem really comes up once your forge(s) and twilight finish. You need 300+ gas just for upgrade and charge, meanwhile you can't afford anything but zealots from your gateways. But the more I do the build the more I understand what I can afford at what times so this can only get better.
On June 12 2011 05:23 -_- wrote: I really don't like this build. If a terran really commits and brings a bunch of scvs to build 3+ bunkers I don't think you can stop him.
I think the best FE build are ones where you get 1 stalker out asap with chrono first. That way terran can't scout the FE and all in.
Have you read the thread? You're not counting on the terran not finding your expansion. If you need a stalker to prevent the scv from seeing the nexus you're doing something completely different.
There is a very small window when the terran can alter his build to actually kill this and this comes from him scouting you first and knowing the appropriate adjustment and that is much earlier than what your stalker can deny.
On June 12 2011 05:23 -_- wrote: I really don't like this build. If a terran really commits and brings a bunch of scvs to build 3+ bunkers I don't think you can stop him.
I think the best FE build are ones where you get 1 stalker out asap with chrono first. That way terran can't scout the FE and all in.
Have you read the thread? You're not counting on the terran not finding your expansion. If you need a stalker to prevent the scv from seeing the nexus you're doing something completely different.
There is a very small window when the terran can alter his build to actually kill this and this comes from him scouting you first and knowing the appropriate adjustment and that is much earlier than what your stalker can deny.
I have read the OP, but I've only done this build about 20 times.
I know this build isn't focused on T not seeing your expo. That's why I haven't been able to make it work for me.
This build shows T that P is expoing very quickly. T doesn't even have to wait for the expo to go down. Even if T's build is only to do a 2 or 3 marine 1 marauder poke, if he pulls 4 scvs and starts bunkers P may end up crippled.
That's why I was saying I prefer a different build. That is, a build where you get a stalker chronod out before giving T ANY clues as to what you're doing.
On June 12 2011 05:23 -_- wrote: I really don't like this build. If a terran really commits and brings a bunch of scvs to build 3+ bunkers I don't think you can stop him.
I think the best FE build are ones where you get 1 stalker out asap with chrono first. That way terran can't scout the FE and all in.
Have you read the thread? You're not counting on the terran not finding your expansion. If you need a stalker to prevent the scv from seeing the nexus you're doing something completely different.
There is a very small window when the terran can alter his build to actually kill this and this comes from him scouting you first and knowing the appropriate adjustment and that is much earlier than what your stalker can deny.
I have read the OP, but I've only done this build about 20 times.
I know this build isn't focused on T not seeing your expo. That's why I haven't been able to make it work for me.
This build shows T that P is expoing very quickly. T doesn't even have to wait for the expo to go down. Even if T's build is only to do a 2 or 3 marine 1 marauder poke, if he pulls 4 scvs and starts bunkers P may end up crippled.
That's why I was saying I prefer a different build. That is, a build where you get a stalker chronod out before giving T ANY clues as to what you're doing.
As long as you're not too close to your opponent, you can stop almost every sort of aggression. And if you CAN'T stop it, you should be ahead in eco so you just sack the expo and get colossus. That's how much terran has to commit if he wants to kill you when expanding like this.
Just micro well with stalkers and you'd be surprised how well you can do (vs marauder heavy comps you want zealots to tank of course).
On June 12 2011 05:23 -_- wrote: I really don't like this build. If a terran really commits and brings a bunch of scvs to build 3+ bunkers I don't think you can stop him.
I think the best FE build are ones where you get 1 stalker out asap with chrono first. That way terran can't scout the FE and all in.
Have you read the thread? You're not counting on the terran not finding your expansion. If you need a stalker to prevent the scv from seeing the nexus you're doing something completely different.
There is a very small window when the terran can alter his build to actually kill this and this comes from him scouting you first and knowing the appropriate adjustment and that is much earlier than what your stalker can deny.
I have read the OP, but I've only done this build about 20 times.
I know this build isn't focused on T not seeing your expo. That's why I haven't been able to make it work for me.
This build shows T that P is expoing very quickly. T doesn't even have to wait for the expo to go down. Even if T's build is only to do a 2 or 3 marine 1 marauder poke, if he pulls 4 scvs and starts bunkers P may end up crippled.
That's why I was saying I prefer a different build. That is, a build where you get a stalker chronod out before giving T ANY clues as to what you're doing.
As long as you're not too close to your opponent, you can stop almost every sort of aggression. And if you CAN'T stop it, you should be ahead in eco so you just sack the expo and get colossus. That's how much terran has to commit if he wants to kill you when expanding like this.
Just micro well with stalkers and you'd be surprised how well you can do (vs marauder heavy comps you want zealots to tank of course).
I think poor micro might be the issue. But I think it's my inability to use a stalker and probes to hold off / delay aggression until my first WG wave comes in. Micro has never been my strong suit.
On June 12 2011 05:23 -_- wrote: I really don't like this build. If a terran really commits and brings a bunch of scvs to build 3+ bunkers I don't think you can stop him.
I think the best FE build are ones where you get 1 stalker out asap with chrono first. That way terran can't scout the FE and all in.
Have you read the thread? You're not counting on the terran not finding your expansion. If you need a stalker to prevent the scv from seeing the nexus you're doing something completely different.
There is a very small window when the terran can alter his build to actually kill this and this comes from him scouting you first and knowing the appropriate adjustment and that is much earlier than what your stalker can deny.
I have read the OP, but I've only done this build about 20 times.
I know this build isn't focused on T not seeing your expo. That's why I haven't been able to make it work for me.
This build shows T that P is expoing very quickly. T doesn't even have to wait for the expo to go down. Even if T's build is only to do a 2 or 3 marine 1 marauder poke, if he pulls 4 scvs and starts bunkers P may end up crippled.
That's why I was saying I prefer a different build. That is, a build where you get a stalker chronod out before giving T ANY clues as to what you're doing.
As long as you're not too close to your opponent, you can stop almost every sort of aggression. And if you CAN'T stop it, you should be ahead in eco so you just sack the expo and get colossus. That's how much terran has to commit if he wants to kill you when expanding like this.
Just micro well with stalkers and you'd be surprised how well you can do (vs marauder heavy comps you want zealots to tank of course).
I think poor micro might be the issue. But I think it's my inability to use a stalker and probes to hold off / delay aggression until my first WG wave comes in. Micro has never been my strong suit.
If he just has marines (and scvs) you can kite with stalkers indefinitely. Don't feel like you have to engage at your nexus until after you have warped in from your gates. You shouldn't have a pylon there, anyway, so you'll just be taking hits on the nexus which is fine. Just wait until you have what you need and go all at once. The worst situation is trying to fight with your first 1 or 2 stalkers and losing them needlessly and then trying to fight with your warped in units by themselves
-_- is right you need to make a stalker right away before you put up 2 additional gates, which is what HuK does 100% of the time whenever he does this build now. However on maps where you have access to watch towers your scouting probe can simply sit there as see opponent moving out, so you really dont have to chrono out your first stalker although it really doesnt hurt you if you do chrono out your first stalker anyways just to get rid of their first SCV.
On June 12 2011 05:04 Regina wrote: dont like this build at all, doesnt get alot of units till 5:30 and pressuring with 4 stalkers against a bunker is LOL, there are much better openings around imho
You're funny. The only thing that is LOL is if he has marauders inside the bunkers. If it's marines, you make him waste A LOT of minerals repairing and making more bunkers. Also, you can kill him with the 2nd wave (3 zealots, 4 stalkers 3 zealots total).
I've actually noticed more terrans just opting to block the nexus when they expect this opening. On bigger maps where pressure is no possibility for terran making a engineering bay or just blocking with the scv is one of the best things T can do against this imo.
Overall I love the build though, the ease of adjustments you can make to it make it very comfortable to use. If you scout them in close positions or notice anything particulary aggresive early you can still easy change into a different build. If you notice they won't be aggresive early you can just not skip probes. One small thing I like to do is simply quee up a zealot anyways while still having the intention of doing this build. If you scout something fishy at the latest then, for example a low ground rax at the last spot you scout, you can let the zealot finish then, otherwise you simply cancel it just before you make the nexus. Zero harm in doing so and it can make your FE be a little less expected and safe you against the occasional cheese.
On June 12 2011 08:44 Markwerf wrote: One small thing I like to do is simply quee up a zealot anyways while still having the intention of doing this build. If you scout something fishy at the latest then, for example a low ground rax at the last spot you scout, you can let the zealot finish then, otherwise you simply cancel it just before you make the nexus. Zero harm in doing so and it can make your FE be a little less expected and safe you against the occasional cheese.
On June 12 2011 08:44 Markwerf wrote: I've actually noticed more terrans just opting to block the nexus when they expect this opening. On bigger maps where pressure is no possibility for terran making a engineering bay or just blocking with the scv is one of the best things T can do against this imo.
Overall I love the build though, the ease of adjustments you can make to it make it very comfortable to use. If you scout them in close positions or notice anything particulary aggresive early you can still easy change into a different build. If you notice they won't be aggresive early you can just not skip probes. One small thing I like to do is simply quee up a zealot anyways while still having the intention of doing this build. If you scout something fishy at the latest then, for example a low ground rax at the last spot you scout, you can let the zealot finish then, otherwise you simply cancel it just before you make the nexus. Zero harm in doing so and it can make your FE be a little less expected and safe you against the occasional cheese.
yep thats what i do in order for them to think its not a unitless expo. then i cancel it and restart it instantly so the gateway animation doesnt change and if i really need it i'll let it pop out.
if they block ur expo u could always take a base further away like say the third on metal... not too far from ur main and defendable and also if they dont scout it or think u didnt go through with ur plan u have a hidden expo
interesting idea with the zealot build->cancel to disguise your opening and be a little safer from cheese. If you're going to cancel + build a new one, start the new one before you cancel so the animation is truly seamless. You do lose 25 minerals every time you cancel a zealot though.
retreat your scouting probe right after the first marine pops out and place it at your third so you can lay down a nexus there if he blocks your natural.
On June 12 2011 07:56 peidongyang wrote: -_- is right you need to make a stalker right away before you put up 2 additional gates, which is what HuK does 100% of the time whenever he does this build now. However on maps where you have access to watch towers your scouting probe can simply sit there as see opponent moving out, so you really dont have to chrono out your first stalker although it really doesnt hurt you if you do chrono out your first stalker anyways just to get rid of their first SCV.
i have been doing the build different. I chrono out stalker before I put up 2gates, but i make a couple extra probes and do 4gate instead of 3gate.
On June 12 2011 10:16 Keilah wrote: interesting idea with the zealot build->cancel to disguise your opening and be a little safer from cheese. If you're going to cancel + build a new one, start the new one before you cancel so the animation is truly seamless. You do lose 25 minerals every time you cancel a zealot though.
retreat your scouting probe right after the first marine pops out and place it at your third so you can lay down a nexus there if he blocks your natural.
No you get full minerals for canceling units/upgrades.
On June 12 2011 07:56 peidongyang wrote: -_- is right you need to make a stalker right away before you put up 2 additional gates, which is what HuK does 100% of the time whenever he does this build now. However on maps where you have access to watch towers your scouting probe can simply sit there as see opponent moving out, so you really dont have to chrono out your first stalker although it really doesnt hurt you if you do chrono out your first stalker anyways just to get rid of their first SCV.
i have been doing the build different. I chrono out stalker before I put up 2gates, but i make a couple extra probes and do 4gate instead of 3gate.
so you build only 1 stalker before warpgates finishes? do you have the money to pump units and probes from the 4 gate and the 2 nexi? can you post a replay??
i really like this build but haven't tried it on ladder yet. i especially like the idea posted about queing up the zealot will help a lot if i sense early aggression.
On June 12 2011 07:56 peidongyang wrote: -_- is right you need to make a stalker right away before you put up 2 additional gates, which is what HuK does 100% of the time whenever he does this build now. However on maps where you have access to watch towers your scouting probe can simply sit there as see opponent moving out, so you really dont have to chrono out your first stalker although it really doesnt hurt you if you do chrono out your first stalker anyways just to get rid of their first SCV.
i have been doing the build different. I chrono out stalker before I put up 2gates, but i make a couple extra probes and do 4gate instead of 3gate.
so you build only 1 stalker before warpgates finishes? do you have the money to pump units and probes from the 4 gate and the 2 nexi? can you post a replay??
I chrono out 1 stalker the second I can.
I do not have the moeny to pump out of all warpgates and nexus. I decide how much to allocate to which based on what my opponent has. sure I have replays but I am no huk lol. just try it for yourself
I don't see a point of making a zealot. that slows you down a LOT. you should be scouting well enough with your probe to know if they are coming anyways.
I don't really understand where the zealot fits in. You're going to be making a stalker right after you start the nexus but I guess there is a little bit of time where you look like you are doing a standard build for the scv in your main and then you suddenly cancel it and throw down the nexus so I guess that is ok. But in a situation where I was being pressured while doing this build, I've never said to myself, damn if only I had a zealot right now.
I suppose if you scouted a proxy rax or Marine scv allin rush or something you'd want to abandon the nexus plan and be glad you started a zealot. Anyways yah, a little deception completely for free is always nice. Might dissuade him from sending his first marine to annoy you.
On June 12 2011 15:13 Alejandrisha wrote: I don't really understand where the zealot fits in. You're going to be making a stalker right after you start the nexus but I guess there is a little bit of time where you look like you are doing a standard build for the scv in your main and then you suddenly cancel it and throw down the nexus so I guess that is ok. But in a situation where I was being pressured while doing this build, I've never said to myself, damn if only I had a zealot right now.
Well the advantage is little but it's more just a 'just in case' thing in case they do something strange. There are a few scenario's where this build just isn't that good and you want to do something more normal where you usually need that first zealot, for example: - proxy rax(es) / low ground rax. Against marine allin you obviously need as many units as possible. - 2 rax pressure build, reactor first tech lab second (see polt vs alicia GSL). Proceeding with this build against that variation on close air positions, which you scout last on metalopis/shattered temple, is just not smart. Íf they are any good they will be starting their bunker(s) before your warpin units arrive and there is no way to hold the expo then (at least without cutting and sacrificing alot of probes) putting you behind as you didn't get much gas either. A better response imo is to simple let zealot finish, add a 2nd gas asap and go stalkers and sentries before expanding.
Also I found that having something building at the gateway lowers their chance of them blocking your natural, if they see nothing going on you basically reveal this build straight away.
Another thing, why is this build cutting probes at 20? Makes much more sense to cut at 22, depending on what you scout you can even decide to not cut at all then (stalker at 23, pylon afterwards, all chrono on WG tech). The best execution of this build imo is naniwa vs gretorp at MLG where I believe he doesn't cut probes at all.
On June 12 2011 15:13 Alejandrisha wrote: I don't really understand where the zealot fits in. You're going to be making a stalker right after you start the nexus but I guess there is a little bit of time where you look like you are doing a standard build for the scv in your main and then you suddenly cancel it and throw down the nexus so I guess that is ok. But in a situation where I was being pressured while doing this build, I've never said to myself, damn if only I had a zealot right now.
Well the advantage is little but it's more just a 'just in case' thing in case they do something strange. There are a few scenario's where this build just isn't that good and you want to do something more normal where you usually need that first zealot, for example: - proxy rax(es) / low ground rax. Against marine allin you obviously need as many units as possible. - 2 rax pressure build, reactor first tech lab second (see polt vs alicia GSL). Proceeding with this build against that variation on close air positions, which you scout last on metalopis/shattered temple, is just not smart. Íf they are any good they will be starting their bunker(s) before your warpin units arrive and there is no way to hold the expo then (at least without cutting and sacrificing alot of probes) putting you behind as you didn't get much gas either. A better response imo is to simple let zealot finish, add a 2nd gas asap and go stalkers and sentries before expanding.
Also I found that having something building at the gateway lowers their chance of them blocking your natural, if they see nothing going on you basically reveal this build straight away.
Another thing, why is this build cutting probes at 20? Makes much more sense to cut at 22, depending on what you scout you can even decide to not cut at all then (stalker at 23, pylon afterwards, all chrono on WG tech). The best execution of this build imo is naniwa vs gretorp at MLG where I believe he doesn't cut probes at all.
If he doesn't cut probes then it isn't remotely the same build.
On June 13 2011 02:42 whersmyspacebar wrote: How does this build go against an aggressive 2rax expand?
Pretty darn well, timings work out that you can hold pretty easily if is the tech lab version (might have to pull 2-3 probes). If you are talking about the marine version then it depends when you start kiting the marines.
On June 12 2011 15:13 Alejandrisha wrote: I don't really understand where the zealot fits in. You're going to be making a stalker right after you start the nexus but I guess there is a little bit of time where you look like you are doing a standard build for the scv in your main and then you suddenly cancel it and throw down the nexus so I guess that is ok. But in a situation where I was being pressured while doing this build, I've never said to myself, damn if only I had a zealot right now.
Well the advantage is little but it's more just a 'just in case' thing in case they do something strange. There are a few scenario's where this build just isn't that good and you want to do something more normal where you usually need that first zealot, for example: - proxy rax(es) / low ground rax. Against marine allin you obviously need as many units as possible. - 2 rax pressure build, reactor first tech lab second (see polt vs alicia GSL). Proceeding with this build against that variation on close air positions, which you scout last on metalopis/shattered temple, is just not smart. Íf they are any good they will be starting their bunker(s) before your warpin units arrive and there is no way to hold the expo then (at least without cutting and sacrificing alot of probes) putting you behind as you didn't get much gas either. A better response imo is to simple let zealot finish, add a 2nd gas asap and go stalkers and sentries before expanding.
Also I found that having something building at the gateway lowers their chance of them blocking your natural, if they see nothing going on you basically reveal this build straight away.
Another thing, why is this build cutting probes at 20? Makes much more sense to cut at 22, depending on what you scout you can even decide to not cut at all then (stalker at 23, pylon afterwards, all chrono on WG tech). The best execution of this build imo is naniwa vs gretorp at MLG where I believe he doesn't cut probes at all.
If he doesn't cut probes then it isn't remotely the same build.
nah doesn't really matter that much. You can easily keep producing probes and get the nexus a few secs later. Then you can get the 3rd pylon before gateway #2 and #3 and everything else is about the same, you still warp in 3 stalkers when the warpgates finish which will be 10 secs later. It is less safe but the economy is much better, a variation I vastly prefer on the bigger maps. Cutting probes is just never good unless it is really neccesary to be safe, afterall the earlier you get a probe the earlier it pays itself back. Probecut or no probe cut, the principal remains the same. Get warpgate going asap then make a nexus before any unit at all. Doing it exactly the same everytime doesn't take advantage of the information you gather when scouting and isn't smart.
nah doesn't really matter that much. You can easily keep producing probes and get the nexus a few secs later. Then you can get the 3rd pylon before gateway #2 and #3 and everything else is about the same, you still warp in 3 stalkers when the warpgates finish which will be 10 secs later. It is less safe but the economy is much better, a variation I vastly prefer on the bigger maps. Cutting probes is just never good unless it is really neccesary to be safe, afterall the earlier you get a probe the earlier it pays itself back. Probecut or no probe cut, the principal remains the same. Get warpgate going asap then make a nexus before any unit at all. Doing it exactly the same everytime doesn't take advantage of the information you gather when scouting and isn't smart.
If you get such a quick 3rd pylon (before the gateways) your gates are going to be extremely late. If you were trying to hold aggression with bunkers in your natural there's no way you would have them up and ready for when your WG finishes with 4 cbs on it. It's more economical but you get your units up much later to defend or to apply pressure
edit: hell, I can't even get the 21st probe before putting the 2 gates down while getting my gates up on time, let alone getting more psi that I won't be using (nexus finishes pretty quickly afterward).
So how do you stop marine/banshee/raven with this? I get to his ramp last on typhon(i scouted at pylon specifically because typhon is a big map and I want to get in for information), i see a bunch of marines at the top (like 4 or 5). So I do the standard build, and while I am warping guys in to be aggressive a hellion comes in my base but I kill it with no losses. So I aggress with my stalkers plus a wave of zealot. He has a lot of marines and a banshee with them. I kill marines in an even trade and run my stalkers back.
So, I have to get a robo, so I do. meanwhile I am making probes. Then he comes in for pressure with a bunch of marines and 3 banshees. So I have to keep making stalkers and I don't get as many probes. Then he has a raven he's added in and 3 tanks. He moves in and I lose, even though I nonstop produced units (and had to cut probes to do so).
Honestly marine/raven/banshee/whatever bullshit seems just so ridiculously unfair sometimes. (oh wait, ALL THE TIME).
I could upload the replay but really what happened is exactly what I said.
I actually don't think I EVER stop these openings. I don't see how to delay them from their base with stalkers when 3 banshees could fly into my main or nat at any moment.
I know you aren't supposed to overcommit to stalkers but every time I try to make fewer stalkers they target them down with the banshees and marauders or tanks and then the banshees clean up everything else...
I actually just plain don't know how to stop this build at all, period. The only times I ever win vs it I open phoenix because I suspect they are teching (or they show hellion). I am asking because I know alej checks this thread a lot.
The funny thing is I only stop this build when I open phoenix, but if terran just doesn't make a banshee and goes medivac/marine/thor allin I don't know if you can possibly win if you've opened with a phoenix.
On June 17 2011 11:33 travis wrote: So how do you stop marine/banshee/raven with this?
I think it is hard to follow this build up against a 1 basing tech terran. Are there replays of HuK doing this?
If T goes 2 thors + marine/scv all-in (while protoss is in the dark & expecting banshee/raven until observer out) seems like only chance is if protoss was teching dt's (as well as robo for observer, which never happens) and can let the expansion go as dt tech finishes. Either that or 5x cannons as you see T moving out?? It just ends up being something like 4 stalkers + 4 zealots + 1 or 2 immortal + 1 colossus vs 2 thor's with 250mm and 20 marines and 20 repair scvs... no chance for protoss if the Terran is competent with the 250mm's and keeps scvs alive
Replay of me getting completely rolled by that (I was expecting banshee/raven based on non existent scouting... for all I knew he was 2 basing, but I knew I'd have a chance vs 2basing terran so didn't bother to scout it): http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/5985
On June 17 2011 12:10 travis wrote: Maybe just shouldn't do this build if I can't get in the terran base with my scouting probe.
4k.Warden (top 20 NA GM) posted his response to huk 20 probe 4gate (or something very close to it) in "Possibility #2", after opening 1:1:1:
Possibility #2 The scv or the first hellion scouts no second gas and 1 gate cybercore into fast expansion: The protoss player is being very greedy here and deserves to be punished. Upon scouting this, immediately build an armory. We are going to go for a thor all-in. Continue to produce marines out of reactored barrack and as soon as first thor is out, push with the thor, all the marines you have and about ~12 scvs with auto-repair. With decent micro (stutter step marine micro, surround the scvs on the thor and focus fire on immortals first), this is a free win for the terran player!
The OP of this thread says HuK cuts probes and goes zealots against 1 basing terran- I practiced this and couldn't make it work against thor's, though could barely hold against a worse-than-me terran playing going banshee/PDD/marine. It required building citadel and all chrono to leg speed when the 4 stalkers didn't see an expo after first poke.
On June 17 2011 12:10 travis wrote: Maybe just shouldn't do this build if I can't get in the terran base with my scouting probe.
4k.Warden (top 20 NA GM) posted his response to huk 20 probe 4gate (or something very close to it) in "Possibility #2", after opening 1:1:1:
Possibility #2 The scv or the first hellion scouts no second gas and 1 gate cybercore into fast expansion: The protoss player is being very greedy here and deserves to be punished. Upon scouting this, immediately build an armory. We are going to go for a thor all-in. Continue to produce marines out of reactored barrack and as soon as first thor is out, push with the thor, all the marines you have and about ~12 scvs with auto-repair. With decent micro (stutter step marine micro, surround the scvs on the thor and focus fire on immortals first), this is a free win for the terran player!
The OP of this thread says HuK cuts probes and goes zealots against 1 basing terran- I practiced this and couldn't make it work against thor's, though could barely hold against a worse-than-me terran playing going banshee/PDD/marine. It required building citadel and all chrono to leg speed when the 4 stalkers didn't see an expo after first poke.
I played 2 games vs a guy who did that and when that all in comes you should have 4 or 5 gateways (still not sure which is better) and a robo. With aggressive stalker usage (which you should be always doing), you should spot it immediately giving you enough time to get an immortal out, then just camp at the top of your ramp (sack the expansion), and make only stalkers. Get the superior concave, and crush your opponent! Freewin.
Just remember to make enough pylons cuz you'll lose supply when your nat goes down.
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Ok I'm posting. Yes, it sucks to have to build such an early robo when you are using an opener that thrives on it's ability to be aggressive and mobile in the early game. If your opponent is not expanding, make your 5 stalkers and at most one zealot. Use this zealot just to poke up the ramp. If you get up there and it's a bunker with marines in it and no cc in site, cut units for the time being. I like to get the robo down immediately and get a 2nd gas. It's a bit of a tough call here. Against 1 base builds, you're going to want 4-5gates and a robo; against the 2 base variety, you're going to want to stay on 3 gates for a longer time while you tech.
Your obs won't get there in time to make the definitive call. You will need 2 stalkers on defense per banshee on the map to defend adequately. If he is doing a 1 base, he probably won't send more than 1 to harass you so 2 will be sufficient. Keep total stalkers -(banshees you've seen/suspect)x2 outside of his front to check for the expo or eventually the push. 1;1;1 builds that become all ins will 99% of the time not have stim nor marauders with shells so you will be able to kite marine tank banshee. It gets a little bit tougher with banshees; since they are the fastest of that composition, you will have to kite farther in between shots. On a map with very short rush distances, this part of the game sucks. You won't get much free damage off.
When a 1 base marine tank banshee gets to you, you should have been powering off of 5 gates and 1 robo immortal for a decent amount of time. You will have 1 immortal already out and should have a 2nd on the way. DO NOT go overboard with stalkers. Having a good number of zealots and 2-3 sentries with 5-7 stalkers is all you should need. Make sure your guardian shield is always up during engagements as the majority of his punch comes from reactored marines. Your zealots do a fantastic job of tanking them in conjunction with GS. I've seen HuK get a +1 armor for this timing but I am not yet confident enough to try to squeeze it in against a 1 base all in.
Problem with this build for me is, the 2rax expand, reactor -> techlab push with like 5marines 1marauder and couple of scv's. With the 2nd marauder on the way, most of the times I have to give up my expansion, and I feel the 2rax is a hard counter to this opening
On June 18 2011 00:31 whersmyspacebar wrote: Problem with this build for me is, the 2rax expand, reactor -> techlab push with like 5marines 1marauder and couple of scv's. With the 2nd marauder on the way, most of the times I have to give up my expansion, and I feel the 2rax is a hard counter to this opening
Not at all, I've held this before with minimal losses. The trick is to see it coming (constant scouting). When it hits you should fall back, and grab 3-4 probes off your nat and swing them around to block the stutter step retreat of the marauders, then throw your stalkers into the fray. You'll be able to reenforce much more rapidly than he will and you'll eventually pull way ahead. Don't forget to keep making probes
Also I have an update on the nAni variant. The build is like this: 9 Pylon 11 Gate 14 Gas 16 Pylon 17 Core 20 wg/nex 20 2 gates 20 stalker, resume probe production.
He gets the WG out slightly faster than our new variant but I have a huge problem with this build.
He is forcing the build to work the same way it did pre-patch after the patch. I think that, in all of your builds, you should try to take whatever a patch throws at you as an oppurtunity to squeeze out something extra instead of trying to make sacrifices to get the same thing you used to be able to get.
He doesn't get his stalker before his gateways which leaves him vulnerable to reapers and every other kind of pre-warpgate shenanigan. It is essentially doing the same build but sacrificing economy and safety to get pre-wg nerf WG timing.
The marine/tank/banshee all-in can be tough to beat but what alejandrisha said is basically the idea to beat it. Something that helps though is to do the build a little more greedy against this play as basically you have free reign till he pushes out. If you scout him last and move up the ramp and see 3 marines you can do a more greedy variation of this build by not cutting probes as much and going for the 3rd pylon quicker. It is slightly worse for stopping pressure but it gets a much better economy. On a map like typhon peaks for example the distance is long enough to be safe with a greedier version against anything except a 2 rax opener imo. Seeing 2 or 3 rines early on means they didn't get an addon so you are safe to play a bit greedier.
Trying to delay the tank/banshee/marine push is something lots of players advocate but it's simply not possible imo. Tanks and banshee's both outrange (or equal) the range of the stalker so they can freely move up, it is good to move out just before they siege up though so you can avoid the first few shots. Try to have a very zealot heavy composition with a few stalkers and immortals at first, then reinforce with ONLY stalkers. This way your ground army can first take out the tanks and rines at which point your reinforcement stalkers can easily clean up the banshee's.
here's a game showing a slightly greedier version against a raven/tank/marine allin. Mass zealots into reinforcing with mass stalkers does the trick really.
On June 18 2011 00:46 Alejandrisha wrote: Also I have an update on the nAni variant. The build is like this: 9 Pylon 11 Gate 14 Gas 16 Pylon 17 Core 20 wg/nex 20 2 gates 20 stalker, resume probe production.
He gets the WG out slightly faster than our new variant but I have a huge problem with this build.
He is forcing the build to work the same way it did pre-patch after the patch. I think that, in all of your builds, you should try to take whatever a patch throws at you as an oppurtunity to squeeze out something extra instead of trying to make sacrifices to get the same thing you used to be able to get.
He doesn't get his stalker before his gateways which leaves him vulnerable to reapers and every other kind of pre-warpgate shenanigan. It is essentially doing the same build but sacrificing economy and safety to get pre-wg nerf WG timing.
ye i noticed he did the gate at 11 and got his first stalker unneccesary late which i didn't realize at first. Simply put the build is just very inefficient. He also chrono's his stalker for some weird reason and then has his extra gates finish way before WG finishes, overall a very blunt version and just really bad. I do think getting more then 20 probes before cutting is simply better now. With 4 chrono's on WG tech you can easily get more probes and still have gate #2 and #3 finish before WG does. You can even get a third pylon first and then have WG finish at the same time as gate #2, with gate #3 shortly after. Simply put the current version of the build is inefficient.
I've been winning with this on ladder quite frequently vs terrans. Only problems ive had is dealing with early 2 rax pressure or 3 rax. I wont do this build if im close spawn, i see 1 or 2 gas on smaller maps and cant steal second if there is only 1,. Otherwise it is my go to build if they are doing a gasless expo you basically win the game right there especially if you can stop the bunker from finishing (go super fast 6 gate as [ only 2 gas and cut probes at about 40]. I do have a slight variation though in that i get 100 gas and get a stalker and wg at the same time just to scare away any scout and for secondary scouting.
On June 18 2011 03:34 MastaShake wrote: I get pounded with this build by a one base MM push
This doesn't contribute to the discussion very well...
When does the push come? Unit count? Does he have: stim? conc. shells? shields?
If it's a very, very fast push with just a few barracks units, no upgrades, and probably some SCVs, then a hyper-crisp opener and good stalker micro (kiting all the way back to your base) is going to help you.
If it's later, then we need to know what you're doing as your 2base econ kicks in to diagnose what's going on.
2 Rax pressure MM w/ SCV's gives this build a slight problem (rauders marines, doesn't have to be exactly 12/16) as you have to cut a lot of probes and bring them to save your squishy stalkers. If you get hit by one slow nade, it gets pretty rough lol.
I still love this build against any marine nogas FE openers as most of the time, they don't expect the super aggressive style and get killed by it thinking that ima just make probes. You force mineral repair, force him to pull off SCVs (a lot of lost mining time), and you get a better economy vs the marine nogas FE openers.
So how do you deal with the early pressure? Just micro your probes to kill the marines and focus fire the rauders? It is hard when there's SCVs though.
On June 21 2011 02:39 Alejandrisha wrote: HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK
SMASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
edit:
On June 18 2011 10:41 iChau wrote: 2 Rax pressure MM w/ SCV's gives this build a slight problem (rauders marines, doesn't have to be exactly 12/16) as you have to cut a lot of probes and bring them to save your squishy stalkers. If you get hit by one slow nade, it gets pretty rough lol.
I still love this build against any marine nogas FE openers as most of the time, they don't expect the super aggressive style and get killed by it thinking that ima just make probes. You force mineral repair, force him to pull off SCVs (a lot of lost mining time), and you get a better economy vs the marine nogas FE openers.
So how do you deal with the early pressure? Just micro your probes to kill the marines and focus fire the rauders? It is hard when there's SCVs though.
yea 2rax is really annoying for this build. I've pretty much stopped using this build in favour of either straight up nexus first or 2gate FE.
It seems to me like we are getting the gateways early by doing it at 20. My gateways always end up finishing like 20 starcraft seconds before warp gate tech completes. I've since favored continuing probe production after making the nexus, and putting the gateways down at like 22.
On June 21 2011 02:49 Alejandrisha wrote: I have the hugest grin on my face right now. people are looking at me like wtf who likes filing papers that much
2 Rax pressure MM w/ SCV's gives this build a slight problem (rauders marines, doesn't have to be exactly 12/16) as you have to cut a lot of probes and bring them to save your squishy stalkers. If you get hit by one slow nade, it gets pretty rough lol.
I still love this build against any marine nogas FE openers as most of the time, they don't expect the super aggressive style and get killed by it thinking that ima just make probes. You force mineral repair, force him to pull off SCVs (a lot of lost mining time), and you get a better economy vs the marine nogas FE openers.
So how do you deal with the early pressure? Just micro your probes to kill the marines and focus fire the rauders? It is hard when there's SCVs though.
Against reactor-tech lab, I actually have not been having as much trouble with the recent change to the build (namely, stalker before additional gates because you have 5 once WG finishes, a little before 6 minutes).
The key here is not getting your first stalker shot in the face by a marauder. This can be helped two ways.
With your initial probe, you should be able to figure out if he is OBVIOUSLY going bio or OBVIOUSLY not. I say 'obvious' as in he is not doing anything super sneaky, ie. hiding the 2nd rax and everything that comes out of it, or going 3 racks whilst putting a bunker at the bottom of his ramp (maker style for those who know); note that this can't be accomplished on the first probe scout. Keep it around his natural and poke up or around the ramp to see if you get hit by a marauder shell. If you make an obvious read on tech lab racks, it's best to sit on your initial stalker and stay there until you have your 2nd one out and WG is almost completed. Have your scouting probe, off to the side, after starting the pylon check for the expansion and even the tower to check for rallied units to your base. The nice thing about being pressured this way is that once you get your 5 stalkers, once you pick off the marauders, you can micro against the marines quite easily and he will lose EVERY SINGLE UNIT that he send across the map. You can usually win just by chasing him back to his base and killing the bunker right before or as it is finishing Make use of that half-map proxy pylon!
One thing I have realized with the WG nerf in conjunction with the change in build is that you are suddenly open to rallied 2 naked rax marine + bunker + scv pressure. I thought that this build would do well against this type of all-inish play but you just don't get the stalker fast enough unless you get it blindly. You could scout 2 rax, no gas with your first probe but this would entail scouting the entire base (which you should be able to do since the first marine won't begin until he is at 15 food and in order for the rush to do any real damage his 2nd rax would have to be on 14 food) as well as proxy locations. The locations, on 4 player maps, would be pretty generic ones in the middle of the map because there is no way he can scout you in time to get a really close one. On two player maps it will be a bit trickier, however.
When I faced this, I wasn't able to get the first stalker out in time to deny the bunker and had to sac the nexus. I wasn't extremely far behind but definitely at a strong disadvantage. So, I recommend scouting the entire base more carefully if you scout no gas (I used to just assume 1 rax gasless fe) and make sure he is not doing a 2rax rush with or w/o a proxy. If he is, cb the first stalker out immediately and consider cutting one of the gateways for a slimmer, faster stalker rush and push his marines back to his base.
Too bad I didn't get to see HuK showcase this build at Dreamhack. Did he actually do it and I just missed it? If so who was it against? Would really like to watch the vods and try to see exactly what's going through his head.
On June 21 2011 02:51 Axeltoss wrote: It seems to me like we are getting the gateways early by doing it at 20. My gateways always end up finishing like 20 starcraft seconds before warp gate tech completes. I've since favored continuing probe production after making the nexus, and putting the gateways down at like 22.
u get the 2 gateways after ur first stalker so... 22 food. then they finish right as/slightly after warpgate finishes
On June 21 2011 09:45 CodECleaR wrote: Too bad I didn't get to see HuK showcase this build at Dreamhack. Did he actually do it and I just missed it? If so who was it against? Would really like to watch the vods and try to see exactly what's going through his head.
hmm i can't quite remember, but i don't think he did. he didn't face any terrans after group stages, so if he did use this build it would be against tarson or fury.
Huk 2-0ed both of them. In said game, Huk went for DT 3gate FE so ... unless he did it in one of the other 3 games =/ but I honestly don't think huk uses this build anymore though I could be mistaken.
On June 21 2011 13:07 Axel.Bowex wrote: I find that you lose to a 2 rax with around 3 marines + 1/2 rauder hitting you, and they're constantly streaming units to your base. Your thoughts?
that sounds like tech lab-reactor. shouldn't have any trouble getting your 5 stalkers out before you have to engage. If you're having problems it probably means your freaking out from his pressure and losing track of your chrono or slipping up in the build, or you are engaging before you have 5 stalkers. if this type of pressure is coming don't transfer probes to the natural until you have cleared it up
On June 18 2011 00:46 Alejandrisha wrote: Also I have an update on the nAni variant. The build is like this: 9 Pylon 11 Gate 14 Gas 16 Pylon 17 Core 20 wg/nex 20 2 gates 20 stalker, resume probe production.
He gets the WG out slightly faster than our new variant but I have a huge problem with this build.
He is forcing the build to work the same way it did pre-patch after the patch. I think that, in all of your builds, you should try to take whatever a patch throws at you as an oppurtunity to squeeze out something extra instead of trying to make sacrifices to get the same thing you used to be able to get.
He doesn't get his stalker before his gateways which leaves him vulnerable to reapers and every other kind of pre-warpgate shenanigan. It is essentially doing the same build but sacrificing economy and safety to get pre-wg nerf WG timing.
I've also looked into nAni's variation of the build in the last couple of days and have to agree with you that it seems like he takes unnecessary risks early on, especially against the very standard reaper.
Nevertheless, obviously the 11 gate enables him to get core and warpgate tech a bit earlier, which I think is crucial when you want to play a hard pressure build, maybe by even going 5 gate afterwards. In his MLG-game on Testbug vs drewbie the warp-ins came literally just in time, he warped into the face of drewbies small force trying to take out the forward pylon. In his DH-game on Meta vs Strelok it also seemed to me as if Strelok was surprised by the very early timing of his 3 gate push after being quite annoying with reaper/bunker himself.
Personally, I've come to the conclusion, that the build isn't plain "bad" as Markwerf has put it, but has a cheesy element in it - meaning, the nAni-variation takes pretty big risks in order to gain an advantage...which is basicly the definition of a cheese. In my opinion, the way nAni plays it out is neither inferior nor superior to the standard way of executing this build - it's simply something else. A variation of the build that risks losing the game early on but has a chance of demolishing your opponent if he doesn't scout/react properly. I think it's nice to have this BO in store for a BoX.
On June 18 2011 00:46 Alejandrisha wrote: Also I have an update on the nAni variant. The build is like this: 9 Pylon 11 Gate 14 Gas 16 Pylon 17 Core 20 wg/nex 20 2 gates 20 stalker, resume probe production.
He gets the WG out slightly faster than our new variant but I have a huge problem with this build.
He is forcing the build to work the same way it did pre-patch after the patch. I think that, in all of your builds, you should try to take whatever a patch throws at you as an oppurtunity to squeeze out something extra instead of trying to make sacrifices to get the same thing you used to be able to get.
He doesn't get his stalker before his gateways which leaves him vulnerable to reapers and every other kind of pre-warpgate shenanigan. It is essentially doing the same build but sacrificing economy and safety to get pre-wg nerf WG timing.
I've also looked into nAni's variation of the build in the last couple of days and have to agree with you that it seems like he takes unnecessary risks early on, especially against the very standard reaper.
Nevertheless, obviously the 11 gate enables him to get core and warpgate tech a bit earlier, which I think is crucial when you want to play a hard pressure build, maybe by even going 5 gate afterwards. In his MLG-game on Testbug vs drewbie the warp-ins came literally just in time, he warped into the face of drewbies small force trying to take out the forward pylon. In his DH-game on Meta vs Strelok it also seemed to me as if Strelok was surprised by the very early timing of his 3 gate push after being quite annoying with reaper/bunker himself.
Personally, I've come to the conclusion, that the build isn't plain "bad" as Markwerf has put it, but has a cheesy element in it - meaning, the nAni-variation takes pretty big risks in order to gain an advantage...which is basicly the definition of a cheese. In my opinion, the way nAni plays it out is neither inferior nor superior to the standard way of executing this build - it's simply something else. A variation of the build that risks losing the game early on but has a chance of demolishing your opponent if he doesn't scout/react properly. I think it's nice to have this BO in store for a BoX.
Getting your gate and cyber out earlier could have some use but probably not for this build and certainly not the way naniwa performs it (at least what i saw from his MLG games and earlier). He gets his gates unneccesary early, letting them finish way before WG finishes, and then he gets his first stalker quite late and actually chrono's it! A normal 13 gate build which instead gets the stalker before gate #2 and #3 is strictly better as it has the stalker earlier AND has WG at the same time by not wasting a chrono on the stalker! I'll check his game vs strelok on DH but what he did earlier was simply inefficient. The 20 probe version overall is just inefficient though, there is 0 reason to not get up to 22 probes first for example in this patch.
I'm having real trouble with the Terran 2 marauder 3 marine scv all in with bunkers with this build, even when I see it comming. Maybe I should throw down 3 gates and do a 3 gate expand.
This just seems like a slightly altered build as what I know as the "Korean 1 gas expo", the difference of the version I play however is that I do have 4 Stalkers prior to warpgate means once WG researched I got 6-7 goons rdy to attack. [20 probe cut > first stalker > chrono stalker + core > 2 more gates -> stalker2] If T went for any greedy mech fe he just dies right away, if he has a bunker and bio you gotta retreat tho obviously.
On a side note: You DO want the Terran to see your expansion as he might not put enough defence up in time if he does so.
Edit: Stevez - use what I described and chrono the first three stalkers. obviously warpgate will be later, but you can have up to 4 stalkers on time that push arrives, take 3 probes with you and that push is super duper raped. In general, adding 2-3 probes in the fray helps a TON against those small pushes.
2 Rax pressure MM w/ SCV's gives this build a slight problem (rauders marines, doesn't have to be exactly 12/16) as you have to cut a lot of probes and bring them to save your squishy stalkers. If you get hit by one slow nade, it gets pretty rough lol.
I still love this build against any marine nogas FE openers as most of the time, they don't expect the super aggressive style and get killed by it thinking that ima just make probes. You force mineral repair, force him to pull off SCVs (a lot of lost mining time), and you get a better economy vs the marine nogas FE openers.
So how do you deal with the early pressure? Just micro your probes to kill the marines and focus fire the rauders? It is hard when there's SCVs though.
Against reactor-tech lab, I actually have not been having as much trouble with the recent change to the build (namely, stalker before additional gates because you have 5 once WG finishes, a little before 6 minutes).
The key here is not getting your first stalker shot in the face by a marauder. This can be helped two ways.
With your initial probe, you should be able to figure out if he is OBVIOUSLY going bio or OBVIOUSLY not. I say 'obvious' as in he is not doing anything super sneaky, ie. hiding the 2nd rax and everything that comes out of it, or going 3 racks whilst putting a bunker at the bottom of his ramp (maker style for those who know); note that this can't be accomplished on the first probe scout. Keep it around his natural and poke up or around the ramp to see if you get hit by a marauder shell. If you make an obvious read on tech lab racks, it's best to sit on your initial stalker and stay there until you have your 2nd one out and WG is almost completed. Have your scouting probe, off to the side, after starting the pylon check for the expansion and even the tower to check for rallied units to your base. The nice thing about being pressured this way is that once you get your 5 stalkers, once you pick off the marauders, you can micro against the marines quite easily and he will lose EVERY SINGLE UNIT that he send across the map. You can usually win just by chasing him back to his base and killing the bunker right before or as it is finishing Make use of that half-map proxy pylon!
One thing I have realized with the WG nerf in conjunction with the change in build is that you are suddenly open to rallied 2 naked rax marine + bunker + scv pressure. I thought that this build would do well against this type of all-inish play but you just don't get the stalker fast enough unless you get it blindly. You could scout 2 rax, no gas with your first probe but this would entail scouting the entire base (which you should be able to do since the first marine won't begin until he is at 15 food and in order for the rush to do any real damage his 2nd rax would have to be on 14 food) as well as proxy locations. The locations, on 4 player maps, would be pretty generic ones in the middle of the map because there is no way he can scout you in time to get a really close one. On two player maps it will be a bit trickier, however.
When I faced this, I wasn't able to get the first stalker out in time to deny the bunker and had to sac the nexus. I wasn't extremely far behind but definitely at a strong disadvantage. So, I recommend scouting the entire base more carefully if you scout no gas (I used to just assume 1 rax gasless fe) and make sure he is not doing a 2rax rush with or w/o a proxy. If he is, cb the first stalker out immediately and consider cutting one of the gateways for a slimmer, faster stalker rush and push his marines back to his base.
On June 18 2011 00:46 Alejandrisha wrote: Also I have an update on the nAni variant. The build is like this: 9 Pylon 11 Gate 14 Gas 16 Pylon 17 Core 20 wg/nex 20 2 gates 20 stalker, resume probe production.
He gets the WG out slightly faster than our new variant but I have a huge problem with this build.
He is forcing the build to work the same way it did pre-patch after the patch. I think that, in all of your builds, you should try to take whatever a patch throws at you as an oppurtunity to squeeze out something extra instead of trying to make sacrifices to get the same thing you used to be able to get.
He doesn't get his stalker before his gateways which leaves him vulnerable to reapers and every other kind of pre-warpgate shenanigan. It is essentially doing the same build but sacrificing economy and safety to get pre-wg nerf WG timing.
I've also looked into nAni's variation of the build in the last couple of days and have to agree with you that it seems like he takes unnecessary risks early on, especially against the very standard reaper.
Nevertheless, obviously the 11 gate enables him to get core and warpgate tech a bit earlier, which I think is crucial when you want to play a hard pressure build, maybe by even going 5 gate afterwards. In his MLG-game on Testbug vs drewbie the warp-ins came literally just in time, he warped into the face of drewbies small force trying to take out the forward pylon. In his DH-game on Meta vs Strelok it also seemed to me as if Strelok was surprised by the very early timing of his 3 gate push after being quite annoying with reaper/bunker himself.
Personally, I've come to the conclusion, that the build isn't plain "bad" as Markwerf has put it, but has a cheesy element in it - meaning, the nAni-variation takes pretty big risks in order to gain an advantage...which is basicly the definition of a cheese. In my opinion, the way nAni plays it out is neither inferior nor superior to the standard way of executing this build - it's simply something else. A variation of the build that risks losing the game early on but has a chance of demolishing your opponent if he doesn't scout/react properly. I think it's nice to have this BO in store for a BoX.
Yes the game on metal really showed a lot about this build. That game made me think it was quite gimmicky. He essentially went into that game knowing that he would lose probes no matter what against a reaper expand but he would be able to get a ~20 second faster WG. This might be something, as you said, to throw in during a BoX after you have already shown your safer 20 nex, as it could very easily throw off your opponent's timing because it should look the same to him besides the lack of the initial stalker.
However, I don't really see myself ever using this version because I haaaaaaate reapers in my base
2 Rax pressure MM w/ SCV's gives this build a slight problem (rauders marines, doesn't have to be exactly 12/16) as you have to cut a lot of probes and bring them to save your squishy stalkers. If you get hit by one slow nade, it gets pretty rough lol.
I still love this build against any marine nogas FE openers as most of the time, they don't expect the super aggressive style and get killed by it thinking that ima just make probes. You force mineral repair, force him to pull off SCVs (a lot of lost mining time), and you get a better economy vs the marine nogas FE openers.
So how do you deal with the early pressure? Just micro your probes to kill the marines and focus fire the rauders? It is hard when there's SCVs though.
Against reactor-tech lab, I actually have not been having as much trouble with the recent change to the build (namely, stalker before additional gates because you have 5 once WG finishes, a little before 6 minutes).
The key here is not getting your first stalker shot in the face by a marauder. This can be helped two ways.
With your initial probe, you should be able to figure out if he is OBVIOUSLY going bio or OBVIOUSLY not. I say 'obvious' as in he is not doing anything super sneaky, ie. hiding the 2nd rax and everything that comes out of it, or going 3 racks whilst putting a bunker at the bottom of his ramp (maker style for those who know); note that this can't be accomplished on the first probe scout. Keep it around his natural and poke up or around the ramp to see if you get hit by a marauder shell. If you make an obvious read on tech lab racks, it's best to sit on your initial stalker and stay there until you have your 2nd one out and WG is almost completed. Have your scouting probe, off to the side, after starting the pylon check for the expansion and even the tower to check for rallied units to your base. The nice thing about being pressured this way is that once you get your 5 stalkers, once you pick off the marauders, you can micro against the marines quite easily and he will lose EVERY SINGLE UNIT that he send across the map. You can usually win just by chasing him back to his base and killing the bunker right before or as it is finishing Make use of that half-map proxy pylon!
One thing I have realized with the WG nerf in conjunction with the change in build is that you are suddenly open to rallied 2 naked rax marine + bunker + scv pressure. I thought that this build would do well against this type of all-inish play but you just don't get the stalker fast enough unless you get it blindly. You could scout 2 rax, no gas with your first probe but this would entail scouting the entire base (which you should be able to do since the first marine won't begin until he is at 15 food and in order for the rush to do any real damage his 2nd rax would have to be on 14 food) as well as proxy locations. The locations, on 4 player maps, would be pretty generic ones in the middle of the map because there is no way he can scout you in time to get a really close one. On two player maps it will be a bit trickier, however.
When I faced this, I wasn't able to get the first stalker out in time to deny the bunker and had to sac the nexus. I wasn't extremely far behind but definitely at a strong disadvantage. So, I recommend scouting the entire base more carefully if you scout no gas (I used to just assume 1 rax gasless fe) and make sure he is not doing a 2rax rush with or w/o a proxy. If he is, cb the first stalker out immediately and consider cutting one of the gateways for a slimmer, faster stalker rush and push his marines back to his base.
Thank you for the awesome reply.
Oh nevermind me. It is the people who post actual good questions and raise good points that keep these threads alive
Just tried this build on ladder (diamond) for the first time. First game, he did a reaper expand, my stalker popped right in time to kill the reaper with zero damage, after which I went 6 gate and killed him :D Second game, he was doing 2-rax expand, and as soon as he spotted my build he pulled something like 6+ SCVs and started applying pressure with marine-marauder. While expanding. Needless to say, after I held that off (piece of cake thanks to the fast warp gate!) I went 6 gate and killed him :D
In non-Tal'Darim maps where I don't get close spawns I think I will do this a lot now, seems REALLY good.
Hey guys! I went ahead and made a tutorial video for this on Justin.tv. I've been using it a lot and it is literally one of the strongest hard counters to low Diamond Terran play where FEs are uncommon and micro is OK at best, as well as good practice for macro games. The quality is a bit low but I'm working on that. I made some nub-friendly adjustments for after the patch (I save 100 gas for a safety stalker)
On June 28 2011 19:52 Try_Two_Beat_Me wrote: I dont get it guys :-(
How can I denie scout, which shouldnt see my expo, if I go stalker after expo ? any platinum guy gotta scout it and than easily push me.
What did I miss O_o ?
I had some problems with this too especially as some terrans would block the expansion which would really screw this build over. Getting expo blocked means you did already cut probes and not make a stalker but don't get up the early expansion.
I know get the expansion after making stalker and 3rd pylon first. The expansion gets up about 50 seconds later but because i'm not cutting probes i'm actually having a better economy. There is also a good chance I get to kill the scv before it get's to see the expansion. Chronoboost warpgate 4 times and get stalker-sentry-stalker during that will mean i can have 4 stalker 1 sentry with energy for guardian shield exactly when the huk variation has 5 stalkers. It's worse for pressure but safer on defense and transitions better because i'm already having a sentry to build up energy for those ~8-9 minute MM pushes.
Sup all haven't checked this thread in a while! I have a new replay for you all. It's against 2rax reactor-tech lab with scv pull, which I didn't think this should be able to block cost effectively. It's true he didn't pull a significant amount, but I think the build holds very well. The key is you can't engage until you have enough. Once you commit and start taking damage, you're going to lose any zealots you make. So you want to hit at a time where you will 1. save your nexus, and 2. have enough units to clean it up completely. When you're opponent opens this way there is no way he can hold you off once you clean it up, so just go kill him
hey, i tried this build in my last few (+-8) games, but I totaly suck agains terran. like i wrote above - i cant denie scouting scv, cuz I dont have stalker :-/.
Is so huge leak to this build to make expo little later lets say 22 food but with stalker to denie scout and after it add more 2 gates ?
On June 30 2011 05:00 Alejandrisha wrote: Sup all haven't checked this thread in a while! I have a new replay for you all. It's against 2rax reactor-tech lab with scv pull, which I didn't think this should be able to block cost effectively. It's true he didn't pull a significant amount, but I think the build holds very well. The key is you can't engage until you have enough. Once you commit and start taking damage, you're going to lose any zealots you make. So you want to hit at a time where you will 1. save your nexus, and 2. have enough units to clean it up completely. When you're opponent opens this way there is no way he can hold you off once you clean it up, so just go kill him
Yup, just want to emphazise the point you've made that you simply must NOT engage until you can crush through. This has taken me to the point where I sometimes hide stalkers in my mineral line to not get shot in the face. I found that you "should" be able to clear up with the 2nd round of warps - 5 stalkers doing some pew pew hit/run, then 3 zealots warp and 6-8 probes should be enough to win.
As you said, you should always be patient, because you don't want to just hold on, you want to demolish the push and immediately go for a counter, because this counter should then be able to deny their expo or even win the game outright.
On June 30 2011 16:14 Try_Two_Beat_Me wrote: hey, i tried this build in my last few (+-8) games, but I totaly suck agains terran. like i wrote above - i cant denie scouting scv, cuz I dont have stalker :-/.
Is so huge leak to this build to make expo little later lets say 22 food but with stalker to denie scout and after it add more 2 gates ?
Dude it doesn't matter if they scout it, I mostly throw the expo down right in the face of the SCV.
I've lost with this build against 2rax marines expand with 5\7scv pull.. 8\10 marines + 5\6 scv, they arrived when the stalker warp is done just in time, but wasnt (for me) enought... what should i do in this case?
On June 30 2011 05:00 Alejandrisha wrote: Sup all haven't checked this thread in a while! I have a new replay for you all. It's against 2rax reactor-tech lab with scv pull, which I didn't think this should be able to block cost effectively. It's true he didn't pull a significant amount, but I think the build holds very well. The key is you can't engage until you have enough. Once you commit and start taking damage, you're going to lose any zealots you make. So you want to hit at a time where you will 1. save your nexus, and 2. have enough units to clean it up completely. When you're opponent opens this way there is no way he can hold you off once you clean it up, so just go kill him
Hey, this is actually a good replay! It seems that this build handles 2 rax reactor/techlab better then a normal 1 gate FE. I was doing nani's version on big maps, but yours seems better. You are also pretty safe against a fast reaper. Most terran on eu however build an engineering bay @ nat when they scout this build. It is imperative to make sure this doesn't happen.
On June 30 2011 17:44 InVerno wrote: I've lost with this build against 2rax marines expand with 5\7scv pull.. 8\10 marines + 5\6 scv, they arrived when the stalker warp is done just in time, but wasnt (for me) enought... what should i do in this case?
Replay.
Map, spawning positions, timings, etc. If there's no techlab (no reaper, no marauder) move out with stalkers and kite his army from the beginning, buys you some time. 6 SCV at this point in the game is huge, pull about 8-10 probes, if you can save your nexus you are way ahead.
Sorry the replay is lost Btw i try to explain.. Map was ruined temple, spawning was close air. Marines\scv arrives at my base exatcly in time for the 3 stalker warp.. i cant do so much damage kiting all map long because ive got only 2 stalkers..im master player, but that close kite maybe can do more damage to my macro than to scvs.. Wasnt an marine-scv allin but i know that huge scv pull take me ahead if i save the nexus. Simply a 2 rax-nogas expand.. Ive pulled of all the probes in the expo but he killed them, and the ones at the main too.. maybe (probably) ive microed bad.. i was only wondering if there any "correct response" thats isnt "standard".. like take a fast second gas for 3 sentry, or take all my probes to the main and try to engage on\near the choke tryng to "block" outside the terran waiting more warps (i cant lost the nexus so easy, the dps of the push is not enourmous on structures)
On June 30 2011 18:18 InVerno wrote: Sorry the replay is lost Btw i try to explain.. Map was ruined temple, spawning was close air. Marines\scv arrives at my base exatcly in time for the 3 stalker warp.. i cant do so much damage kiting all map long because ive got only 2 stalkers..im master player, but that close kite maybe can do more damage to my macro than to scvs.. Wasnt an marine-scv allin but i know that huge scv pull take me ahead if i save the nexus. Simply a 2 rax-nogas expand.. Ive pulled of all the probes in the expo but he killed them, and the ones at the main too.. maybe (probably) ive microed bad.. i was only wondering if there any "correct response" thats isnt "standard".. like take a fast second gas for 3 sentry, or take all my probes to the main and try to engage on\near the choke tryng to "block" outside the terran waiting more warps (i cant lost the nexus so easy, the dps of the push is not enourmous on structures)
Theres no reason why you shouldn't have some presence on the map with your first stalker (and eventually the 2nd one). Take a tower. Camp outside the ramp. Your first probe IS a little more pivotal in camping the ramp since it's kind of a big deal if your 1st stalker dies to concussive shell but your probe will happily take one for the team.
The only time you can't kite is when he has rauder + shell (and you never know if he'll have shell or not, so just assume he always does). If it's pure marine scv, you can kite it forever. You might think to yourself, well I am not at a level where I can do that while macroing. I don't care. You should still try and even if you fail, every time you practice this you'll get way better at it and way better as a player. Sentries are not the answer. You are already down your ramp, where your stalkers will be 10x more cost effective than sentries because of their range/speed/hp. When I say you can't engage until you had enough, I mean if he has shells or bunkers are already up; if he has only marine scv, there is NEVER a time where you can NOT engage. Ideally, you will be shooting marines 100% of the time from when the marine leaves the ramp tbh.
On June 30 2011 18:05 kzn wrote: Is it the case that in close-air positions you have to poke with your first stalker even if you saw a gas in case of a cloak rush?
I find it beneficial to bring the stalker in a way like this
____......_____ .......|.....|...x .......|.....|
This will allow you to discern if a marauder is out or not. If you don't see a shell hit you in the face, feel free to poke up the ramp and see whether or not there is a bunker there.
The only way he can hold your 5 stalker + 3 zeal push is if he preemptively pulls scvs, and if you have shown the expansion and denied all scouting thereafter (which you should have :p) it is unlikely he will preemptively pull; he will pull the second he sees all of your units run up the ramp and smash his face in. In the meantime, go ahead and grab a 2nd gas but don't start your robo until you discern that your push will not GG him before cloak is done
edit: lol that ramp didn't come out the way i wanted it to. I think you get the point tho! edit2: ok that looks better. just ignore the dots they are merely placeholders!
On June 30 2011 05:00 Alejandrisha wrote: Sup all haven't checked this thread in a while! I have a new replay for you all. It's against 2rax reactor-tech lab with scv pull, which I didn't think this should be able to block cost effectively. It's true he didn't pull a significant amount, but I think the build holds very well. The key is you can't engage until you have enough. Once you commit and start taking damage, you're going to lose any zealots you make. So you want to hit at a time where you will 1. save your nexus, and 2. have enough units to clean it up completely. When you're opponent opens this way there is no way he can hold you off once you clean it up, so just go kill him
Hey, this is actually a good replay! It seems that this build handles 2 rax reactor/techlab better then a normal 1 gate FE. I was doing nani's version on big maps, but yours seems better. You are also pretty safe against a fast reaper. Most terran on eu however build an engineering bay @ nat when they scout this build. It is imperative to make sure this doesn't happen.
I figured it was only a matter of time before they started doing that!
I think that a "standard" 1gate FE has the potential to be as strong as this build against reactor-tech lab. It's just that when people 1gate FE, they put more emphasis on CB'ing units and probes rather than their WG research. This build is so strong against early threats because it has the SAME WG TIMING AS A 4GATE.
You can obviously modify a regular 1gate fe to have the same WG timing as a 4gate, but you wouldn't have all 3 gates up in time (some variations I have seen get 3 gates by the time WG finishes, but it is at least 20-30 seconds later); having all 3 gates up in time is what gives this build that sudden explosion of units that allows you to parry reactor-tech lab.
On June 30 2011 05:00 Alejandrisha wrote: Sup all haven't checked this thread in a while! I have a new replay for you all. It's against 2rax reactor-tech lab with scv pull, which I didn't think this should be able to block cost effectively. It's true he didn't pull a significant amount, but I think the build holds very well. The key is you can't engage until you have enough. Once you commit and start taking damage, you're going to lose any zealots you make. So you want to hit at a time where you will 1. save your nexus, and 2. have enough units to clean it up completely. When you're opponent opens this way there is no way he can hold you off once you clean it up, so just go kill him
Hey, this is actually a good replay! It seems that this build handles 2 rax reactor/techlab better then a normal 1 gate FE. I was doing nani's version on big maps, but yours seems better. You are also pretty safe against a fast reaper. Most terran on eu however build an engineering bay @ nat when they scout this build. It is imperative to make sure this doesn't happen.
I figured it was only a matter of time before they started doing that!
If this catches on, then I guess we have to pull 2 probes preemptively and play the same micro-shenanigans as zerg...
On June 30 2011 05:00 Alejandrisha wrote: Sup all haven't checked this thread in a while! I have a new replay for you all. It's against 2rax reactor-tech lab with scv pull, which I didn't think this should be able to block cost effectively. It's true he didn't pull a significant amount, but I think the build holds very well. The key is you can't engage until you have enough. Once you commit and start taking damage, you're going to lose any zealots you make. So you want to hit at a time where you will 1. save your nexus, and 2. have enough units to clean it up completely. When you're opponent opens this way there is no way he can hold you off once you clean it up, so just go kill him
Hey, this is actually a good replay! It seems that this build handles 2 rax reactor/techlab better then a normal 1 gate FE. I was doing nani's version on big maps, but yours seems better. You are also pretty safe against a fast reaper. Most terran on eu however build an engineering bay @ nat when they scout this build. It is imperative to make sure this doesn't happen.
I figured it was only a matter of time before they started doing that!
If this catches on, then I guess we have to pull 2 probes preemptively and play the same micro-shenanigans as zerg...
Yeah. The delaying of the expo worries me but what worries me even more is those few seconds the first stalker is pinned to the ebay. Though I guess your 1st stalker would come much faster since your not making a nexus before it xD
I'm considering re-doing the whole guide so that the old build (pre wg nerf) is no longer included as we have found a build that is stronger and better suited for the new patch. Do you think this is necessary? Or do you think we are ok o_0
On June 30 2011 23:20 Alejandrisha wrote: Contributors-
I'm considering re-doing the whole guide so that the old build (pre wg nerf) is no longer included as we have found a build that is stronger and better suited for the new patch. Do you think this is necessary? Or do you think we are ok o_0
Agree, having the old build doesn't make much sense any more.....but no need for some sort of new write-up, just take the "wg nerf considerations" part as standard BO and it's gonna be fine.
On June 30 2011 23:46 Alejandrisha wrote: OK I updated OP should make more sense now post patch
Thanks so much for the contribution to the community, Alejandrisha! Would be easy to just keep this in your pocket, but you're a generous soul. Particularly for those of us Ps that can't follow the scene as often as we'd like, threads like this are invaluable for allowing us to remain competitive and strategically sound on ladder. Appreciate it!
As a top 100 masters I use this almost every PvT, Generally it's better on safer maps, or vs 1 rax no gas expos, however, I have held 2 rax with 2-4 scv pull pressure. I prefer to go 2 cb nexus, cb gate and cyber, 21 food stalker, 23 food expo (wait til scv dead or chased away, 24 2 gateways, 24 stalker, 26 proxy pylon, rest of cb on cyber. Push at about 6 minutes with 5 stalkers, micro back against bunkers forcing a scv pull (you won't do any real dmg usually) Get gas right as you warp in your 3 stalkers, generally I like to warp in 1-2 sentries at home, then 1-2 zealots and poke again to make it look like harder pressure than it really is, then I follow up with a robo asap, and get my 3rd 4th gas, get an immo or obs based of their build, get fast colossus and try to have ~5-6 sentries and zealot stalker with your colossus. Put down gates 4 and 5, and a forge...
It works pretty nice, you can usually take a 3rd right after they push and fail into your single colossus army...
I've been using this a lot lately, except I'm using my own very greedy rendition. If you scout you're in the right position (no gas and or scout a CC) early game, you really only need some Stalkers to keep control of the middle, and the earlier Nexus lets you get so many probes so fast.
I really like the overall concept of cutting the Zealot, since lately I've been having a hard time finding a use for the darn thing other than running up the ramp to scout the Terran. A lot of times you just don't need it.
On July 01 2011 04:57 CecilSunkure wrote: I've been using this a lot lately, except I'm using my own very greedy rendition. If you scout you're in the right position (no gas and or scout a CC) early game, you really only need some Stalkers to keep control of the middle, and the earlier Nexus lets you get so many probes so fast.
I really like the overall concept of cutting the Zealot, since lately I've been having a hard time finding a use for the darn thing other than running up the ramp to scout the Terran. A lot of times you just don't need it.
If you scout the terran being that greedy then it's all the more reason to pressure with all those stalkers, but I suppose that's just a stylistic difference. If I scout the T going 1rax fe I just 4gate blink allin or warp prism allin, though, but I don't think that contributes to making me a better player :p
On July 01 2011 04:57 CecilSunkure wrote: I've been using this a lot lately, except I'm using my own very greedy rendition. If you scout you're in the right position (no gas and or scout a CC) early game, you really only need some Stalkers to keep control of the middle, and the earlier Nexus lets you get so many probes so fast.
I really like the overall concept of cutting the Zealot, since lately I've been having a hard time finding a use for the darn thing other than running up the ramp to scout the Terran. A lot of times you just don't need it.
Yeah I typically only field the zealot if we're close spawns and I'm donig super safe 1g robo orr something along those lines. When you say your greedy rendition do you mean you expo at like 21 or 22?
I have been using this build for a while and I love it. It is obviously better on certain maps where the natural has some form of a choke or ramp. If a determined terran player wants to go all in they can cause trouble in an open nat. Below is a link to a replay of me using this build and holding off a 4 gate all in. Normally I would not upload just another replay of this build that has been confirmed to work but I think this is a good example for newer players.
In the replay the all in is very strong and I eventually have to pull workers to meat shield. This feels like it will put you behind but as you can see I lose a ton of workers but I am still ahead and I go on to counter and win. Players learning this build should learn when to pull workers because I feel it is crucial to holding off pressure from determined terran players.
If the 3rd is in a defensible position, send your scouting probe back in time to lay down the nexus there in case your nat is blocked.
If the 3rd is not viable, just do a different build in reaction - by building+canceling a zealot (you can queue up a new one, cancel the original, and repeat as many times as you like to make your gateway look like it's always working even though you will build zero units) and timing your zealot to 'complete' a few seconds after you want to place the nexus, you allow yourself the option of actually completing the zealot in case he builds an ebay. At that point you are in the exact same position as you would be with any other zealot-first build, but with slightly more minerals and less gas.
I find that I have 400 minerals pretty much exactly when the cyber core finishes, and I've just completed my 20th probe. If you react to the ebay by letting the zealot complete and immediately building probe #21, you are at 250/60ish, so you can start either warpgate or a stalker right away and will soon have 50 gas again. If you do the build a little differently (probes in gas for more time) you can have 100 gas at this time, but obviously you will have a little less minerals so your nexus would be delayed a few seconds in case he didn't block it.
And again, for reasons of deception: -always build + cancel zealots, it's completely free and gives you the option to complete the zealot -build the assimilator at a normal time, and instead of mining gas -> pull probes, which is a dead giveaway, leave the assim unworked until right after you start your cyber core. That way he sees probes mining gas and the only way he can know is to click on the assimilator and see that you are ~50 gas less than 'normal'. 2 in gas at that point gives you ~60 gas when it completes, so 3 in gas would give you ~80. If you want 100 gas I'd recommend putting 2 into gas a bit earlier (don't know exact timing) rather than putting 3 in gas, as the 3rd probe is slightly inefficient.
On July 01 2011 08:52 Keilah wrote: re: T making an ebay at the nat
If the 3rd is in a defensible position, send your scouting probe back in time to lay down the nexus there in case your nat is blocked.
If the 3rd is not viable, just do a different build in reaction - by building+canceling a zealot (you can queue up a new one, cancel the original, and repeat as many times as you like to make your gateway look like it's always working even though you will build zero units) and timing your zealot to 'complete' a few seconds after you want to place the nexus, you allow yourself the option of actually completing the zealot in case he builds an ebay. At that point you are in the exact same position as you would be with any other zealot-first build, but with slightly more minerals and less gas.
I find that I have 400 minerals pretty much exactly when the cyber core finishes, and I've just completed my 20th probe. If you react to the ebay by letting the zealot complete and immediately building probe #21, you are at 250/60ish, so you can start either warpgate or a stalker right away and will soon have 50 gas again. If you do the build a little differently (probes in gas for more time) you can have 100 gas at this time, but obviously you will have a little less minerals so your nexus would be delayed a few seconds in case he didn't block it.
And again, for reasons of deception: -always build + cancel zealots, it's completely free and gives you the option to complete the zealot -build the assimilator at a normal time, and instead of mining gas -> pull probes, which is a dead giveaway, leave the assim unworked until right after you start your cyber core. That way he sees probes mining gas and the only way he can know is to click on the assimilator and see that you are ~50 gas less than 'normal'. 2 in gas at that point gives you ~60 gas when it completes, so 3 in gas would give you ~80. If you want 100 gas I'd recommend putting 2 into gas a bit earlier (don't know exact timing) rather than putting 3 in gas, as the 3rd probe is slightly inefficient.
That is actually frickin genius
Where did they find you??? thanks!! adding to op
Originally I thought queueing the zealot was extraneous and just another thing to monitor but that is a wonderful application for it
On July 01 2011 04:57 CecilSunkure wrote: I've been using this a lot lately, except I'm using my own very greedy rendition. If you scout you're in the right position (no gas and or scout a CC) early game, you really only need some Stalkers to keep control of the middle, and the earlier Nexus lets you get so many probes so fast.
I really like the overall concept of cutting the Zealot, since lately I've been having a hard time finding a use for the darn thing other than running up the ramp to scout the Terran. A lot of times you just don't need it.
Yeah I typically only field the zealot if we're close spawns and I'm donig super safe 1g robo orr something along those lines. When you say your greedy rendition do you mean you expo at like 21 or 22?
Expo at around 22 probes, chrono probes after nexus is laid, get Nexus before WG upgrade, and delay my additional gateways. Basically I'm 1upping the Terran's greedy opening by being more greedy, since I know he's not thinking about attacking basically no matter what I do. One guy actually saw me do this and kept his orbital in base and marine allind me with a lot of rax, I just put cannons at my natural and won.
Seems to me that you can hold most early aggression on any larger maps (no lame small ladder maps like slag pits) by getting warpgate up and pulling some probes if need be. The scariest thing I would imagine would be ~5 scvs and 2 rax bio bunker rush into bunker contain, but I haven't had anyone do this yet.
Also, that Zealot cancel idea is great. It makes you more versatile, you can go into standard 3 Gate expo or 1 Gate expo if you need to for some reason.
No worries. By the way, i checked my own replay and: -20th probe still building @ nexus timing, so zero probe cuts required if you change build -to get 100 gas on time (I think this is a good idea, it BARELY delays your nexus but allows you to transition much more smoothly between builds and makes it very hard for terran to guess your plan), put 2 in gas ASAP and add a third when your core is about 50% complete. This assumes you build the assim @75 minerals after building probe #15.
I just played this game on Tal'Darim vs a 2rax marauder pressure build. I felt like I had to pull probes to keep my expansion alive, which I eventually did (barely), but that left me quite significantly behind in worker count for the rest of the game. It seemed like the low gas you have shortly after expanding makes it hard to get enough sentries to deal properly with marauder heavy compositions.
Looking through it there's a couple fairly embarassing supply blocks, and my probe production isn't perfect, but a lot of that is to do with me thinking at the time I was ahead by a bit because of how late his expansion was. The last engagement, in retrospect, is pretty stupid since I dont have ups yet and he does, but I feel like I lost the game when I had to pull my probes. Comments/criticism?
Thanks for answer of Alejandrisha about my problem, and thanks for the build too, its really awesome and my PvT feels new and experienced more than ever Btw, about the "fake zealot" i can feedback its very effective. I use that "fake" from the first try of this build, because i use too in PvP when i want to skip the zealot and i easily take the idea from PvP to this build, and yes, its very effective and clever.
On July 01 2011 08:52 Keilah wrote: re: T making an ebay at the nat
If the 3rd is in a defensible position, send your scouting probe back in time to lay down the nexus there in case your nat is blocked.
If the 3rd is not viable, just do a different build in reaction - by building+canceling a zealot (you can queue up a new one, cancel the original, and repeat as many times as you like to make your gateway look like it's always working even though you will build zero units) and timing your zealot to 'complete' a few seconds after you want to place the nexus, you allow yourself the option of actually completing the zealot in case he builds an ebay. At that point you are in the exact same position as you would be with any other zealot-first build, but with slightly more minerals and less gas.
I find that I have 400 minerals pretty much exactly when the cyber core finishes, and I've just completed my 20th probe. If you react to the ebay by letting the zealot complete and immediately building probe #21, you are at 250/60ish, so you can start either warpgate or a stalker right away and will soon have 50 gas again. If you do the build a little differently (probes in gas for more time) you can have 100 gas at this time, but obviously you will have a little less minerals so your nexus would be delayed a few seconds in case he didn't block it.
And again, for reasons of deception: -always build + cancel zealots, it's completely free and gives you the option to complete the zealot -build the assimilator at a normal time, and instead of mining gas -> pull probes, which is a dead giveaway, leave the assim unworked until right after you start your cyber core. That way he sees probes mining gas and the only way he can know is to click on the assimilator and see that you are ~50 gas less than 'normal'. 2 in gas at that point gives you ~60 gas when it completes, so 3 in gas would give you ~80. If you want 100 gas I'd recommend putting 2 into gas a bit earlier (don't know exact timing) rather than putting 3 in gas, as the 3rd probe is slightly inefficient.
That is actually frickin genius
Where did they find you??? thanks!! adding to op
Originally I thought queueing the zealot was extraneous and just another thing to monitor but that is a wonderful application for it
One small thing I like to do is simply quee up a zealot anyways while still having the intention of doing this build. If you scout something fishy at the latest then, for example a low ground rax at the last spot you scout, you can let the zealot finish then, otherwise you simply cancel it just before you make the nexus. Zero harm in doing so and it can make your FE be a little less expected and safe you against the occasional cheese.
I tried this today and although I'm only silver league, I'm finding PvT to be significantly easier now. I still have a question for you guys:
After I scout with my initial probe, I plant it at a Xelnaga tower and a few minutes after I get my expo up and running, I see the terran opponent has a large group of marine and maurader forces charging near my base. What's the best response to this? I usually have 2 or 3 games up by then but there is still no way I can hold off his army completely. What should my army composition be? More zealots? More stalkers? More sentries? Do I sac my my expo? Thanks.
delay him if possible, try to warp in behind him and cut off/kill reinforcements. Wait for 2-3 rounds of warpins, pull a few probes to make stutter-stepping harder for him, and wipe him out. Your nexus will be low HP but will survive.
On July 02 2011 03:51 Automata wrote: I tried this today and although I'm only silver league, I'm finding PvT to be significantly easier now. I still have a question for you guys:
After I scout with my initial probe, I plant it at a Xelnaga tower and a few minutes after I get my expo up and running, I see the terran opponent has a large group of marine and maurader forces charging near my base. What's the best response to this? I usually have 2 or 3 games up by then but there is still no way I can hold off his army completely. What should my army composition be? More zealots? More stalkers? More sentries? Do I sac my my expo? Thanks.
A few minutes after the expo implies a stim timing push, to stop those you need sentries to form a cage, how many you make for that depends on your micro and the map. Basically to stop pressure you want to have zealot/stalker in about a 1:2 ratio early game, zealots soak damage while the stalkers focus and stop you from dying by kiting. Late earlygame / midgame when stim and possibly shields are complete you want to have enough sentries to trap a significant part of their army when they try to attack.
Knowing when to switch from purely zealot/stalker to sentry/zeal/stalker is a bit of a guess but usually you can just warp in a round of sentries at some point and switch over to that.
On July 02 2011 03:51 Automata wrote: I tried this today and although I'm only silver league, I'm finding PvT to be significantly easier now. I still have a question for you guys:
After I scout with my initial probe, I plant it at a Xelnaga tower and a few minutes after I get my expo up and running, I see the terran opponent has a large group of marine and maurader forces charging near my base. What's the best response to this? I usually have 2 or 3 games up by then but there is still no way I can hold off his army completely. What should my army composition be? More zealots? More stalkers? More sentries? Do I sac my my expo? Thanks.
A few minutes after the expo implies a stim timing push, to stop those you need sentries to form a cage, how many you make for that depends on your micro and the map. Basically to stop pressure you want to have zealot/stalker in about a 1:2 ratio early game, zealots soak damage while the stalkers focus and stop you from dying by kiting. Late earlygame / midgame when stim and possibly shields are complete you want to have enough sentries to trap a significant part of their army when they try to attack.
Knowing when to switch from purely zealot/stalker to sentry/zeal/stalker is a bit of a guess but usually you can just warp in a round of sentries at some point and switch over to that.
My rule of thumb is 3 Zealots. All other minerals should be spent on stalkers, assimilators, pylons, gateways and structures (forge/robo/twilight council). When the engagement is coming warp in 3 more zealots. The reason for this is that Zealots don't DPS the Terran back unless you get charge. 3 is enough to tank a stim timing long enough for you to warp a few extra sentries/zeals, and stalkers and sentries are the more effecient warp-in. Min 1 sentry for guardian shield.
Make sure you're poking a concussive-less Terran with your initial swat team to pick off units and delay medivacs.
I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
here's another one for you doods. i have one for the 4wg warp prism thread as well so check that out! http://replayfu.com/download/rs9hhf edit: vs reaper expand into 2 more gates, then fac tech. I could have added the additional gates much sooner.
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
You went 12 gate instead of 13gate and 13gas instead of 14 gas. This forced you to have to cut probes to get your core up on time, which went down on 16 instead of 17.
You can get the core down at the same time on 17 food if you 13gate and use your 2nd cb just as the first one finishes. This will help you execute not only this build but anything you do. As a result of this inefficiency, your additional gateways went down several seconds late. You can start your probe on 26 without any fear of capping yourself since you will still have enough money to warp in 3 stalkers once your WG finishes.
You missed a cb on your WG but since you started the extra gates sooner this wasn't noticable in the replay, but I'm telling you now that is a mistake
You didn't transfor your gates into WG once the tech finished.
Everything up until here explains why you warped in stalkers at 6:20 instead of 5:50. If you got those stalkers out, you could have crushed him right off the bat since he was being very unsafe with how quickly he teched. You made the right move starting your robo and additional gases after you poked up the ramp.
Hopefully this helps. Practicing your efficiency and timings vs AI will make you a hell of a better player. Hope that helped. Good luck!
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
I played a game pretty recently where I got scv + rine all inned and handled it pretty easily. It wasn't every scv, and wasn't 100% all in, but pretty close. Replay, rawr
PS this is game 1 of a bo3, in which I played like shit and got stomped the other 2 games then raged... Sry Kalu...
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
I played a game pretty recently where I got scv + rine all inned and handled it pretty easily. It wasn't every scv, and wasn't 100% all in, but pretty close. Replay, rawr
PS this is game 1 of a bo3, in which I played like shit and got stomped the other 2 games then raged... Sry Kalu...
Game should have ended at 6 minutes Don't put any more than 2 cb's on your nexus and don't cb the stalker. You could have gotten your core slightly (~10s) faster if you didn't cb the nexus the third time.
From simply missing CB's on warpgate, your wg tech finishes at 6 mins instead of 5:40. If you had those 3 additional stalkers from the get go, he never would have been able to get across the map with good control. Your control was good enough to win, but try really hard not to lose a stalker to a marine. It is pretty tough, especially when he gets in between 2 groups of stalkers, but possible. Was wondering why the later nexus and the different cb usage?
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
I played a game pretty recently where I got scv + rine all inned and handled it pretty easily. It wasn't every scv, and wasn't 100% all in, but pretty close. Replay, rawr
PS this is game 1 of a bo3, in which I played like shit and got stomped the other 2 games then raged... Sry Kalu...
Game should have ended at 6 minutes Don't put any more than 2 cb's on your nexus and don't cb the stalker. You could have gotten your core slightly (~10s) faster if you didn't cb the nexus the third time.
From simply missing CB's on warpgate, your wg tech finishes at 6 mins instead of 5:40. If you had those 3 additional stalkers from the get go, he never would have been able to get across the map with good control. Your control was good enough to win, but try really hard not to lose a stalker to a marine. It is pretty tough, especially when he gets in between 2 groups of stalkers, but possible. Was wondering why the later nexus and the different cb usage?
I was talking on skype at the time and not playing perfect at all, too distracted too play properly...
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
I played a game pretty recently where I got scv + rine all inned and handled it pretty easily. It wasn't every scv, and wasn't 100% all in, but pretty close. Replay, rawr
PS this is game 1 of a bo3, in which I played like shit and got stomped the other 2 games then raged... Sry Kalu...
Game should have ended at 6 minutes Don't put any more than 2 cb's on your nexus and don't cb the stalker. You could have gotten your core slightly (~10s) faster if you didn't cb the nexus the third time.
From simply missing CB's on warpgate, your wg tech finishes at 6 mins instead of 5:40. If you had those 3 additional stalkers from the get go, he never would have been able to get across the map with good control. Your control was good enough to win, but try really hard not to lose a stalker to a marine. It is pretty tough, especially when he gets in between 2 groups of stalkers, but possible. Was wondering why the later nexus and the different cb usage?
I was talking on skype at the time and not playing perfect at all, too distracted too play properly...
I didn't really ask, I was just showing the replay to the other guy who asked if it could hold some all in shenanigans, me doing it pretty shitty and still holding that mini all in vs a top masters shows that pretty well.
From my experience (ive do this build like 30times) If the terran goes mm.. I feel really good transitioning into a mass-gates adelscott style, with only 2 gas before the third expansion and early blinkers contain\harass. I feel this build is pretty awesome for that style of playng, the robo tech is just a "breack" i dont want to have (2forge its enought). This is from my experience but, any other ideas for mid-game follows who perfectly accord this build?
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
I played a game pretty recently where I got scv + rine all inned and handled it pretty easily. It wasn't every scv, and wasn't 100% all in, but pretty close. Replay, rawr
PS this is game 1 of a bo3, in which I played like shit and got stomped the other 2 games then raged... Sry Kalu...
Game should have ended at 6 minutes Don't put any more than 2 cb's on your nexus and don't cb the stalker. You could have gotten your core slightly (~10s) faster if you didn't cb the nexus the third time.
From simply missing CB's on warpgate, your wg tech finishes at 6 mins instead of 5:40. If you had those 3 additional stalkers from the get go, he never would have been able to get across the map with good control. Your control was good enough to win, but try really hard not to lose a stalker to a marine. It is pretty tough, especially when he gets in between 2 groups of stalkers, but possible. Was wondering why the later nexus and the different cb usage?
I was talking on skype at the time and not playing perfect at all, too distracted too play properly...
You asked him... Don't make excuses after asking what happened.
On July 02 2011 12:12 eatmybunnies wrote: I've tried this build 5 times and failed every time. What the terran does is either polt timing push or some other 1 base all in. It's retarded and im pissed. i see you guys talking about how to end the game early but when the terran is on two bunkers in his base behind supply depots there is no way in hell, that im gonna go in there and kill him.
I played a game pretty recently where I got scv + rine all inned and handled it pretty easily. It wasn't every scv, and wasn't 100% all in, but pretty close. Replay, rawr
PS this is game 1 of a bo3, in which I played like shit and got stomped the other 2 games then raged... Sry Kalu...
Game should have ended at 6 minutes Don't put any more than 2 cb's on your nexus and don't cb the stalker. You could have gotten your core slightly (~10s) faster if you didn't cb the nexus the third time.
From simply missing CB's on warpgate, your wg tech finishes at 6 mins instead of 5:40. If you had those 3 additional stalkers from the get go, he never would have been able to get across the map with good control. Your control was good enough to win, but try really hard not to lose a stalker to a marine. It is pretty tough, especially when he gets in between 2 groups of stalkers, but possible. Was wondering why the later nexus and the different cb usage?
You certain about not cbing the stalker? I didn't originally but I started after playing around with it a bit and finding that getting that stalker out 10 seconds earlier to get rid of scouting, and be able to poke a bit into their base (baring cs marauders of course) worth having to delay the other stalkers via warpgate.
Also for the later nexus it was likely a combo of not paying attention and waiting for his scout to be out of the way first.
Also, another replay where my initial 5 stalkers end up doing lol lots of dmg to this terran :D
Replay tiems fyi, late night game I didn't care too much about, after my dmg early I was fooling around a bit with strat ideas and had an awesome 70 average apm at the end :D
I wanted to mention that I saw HuK using a variation of this build a couple of times recently:
No probe pull off gas, stalker first before nexus, nexus after scv is dead, sentry 2nd, stalker 3rd. If I had to guess then the advantages of keeping terran in the dark (DTs, voidrays etc.) outweigh the disadvantages of a slightly less economical opening, since his playstyle must've become really well known by now. Also he seems to be getting his 2nd gas earlier and adding more sentries earlier instead of applying pressure. Probably due to terrans playing it more safe and not flying their CC to the natural immediately.
I've started doing this myself since I've been crushed two times in a row by terrans who hadn't sacrificed any unit but waited for a small nice MM ball from two rax and rofl-kited all my stuff with the following attack. Especially after rewatching the games I found that you need a sufficient sentry-count to not get kited into oblivion if the MM reaches a critical early game mass.
I like that it destroys reactor first but I can't find any way to hold off tech lab first with some SCVs for bunkers. They can start building a bunker when you still have only 1 stalker out and they can easily have 2 bunkers done in time for your first warp in.
On July 12 2011 05:01 iamke55 wrote: I like that it destroys reactor first but I can't find any way to hold off tech lab first with some SCVs for bunkers. They can start building a bunker when you still have only 1 stalker out and they can easily have 2 bunkers done in time for your first warp in.
Are you pulling probes? If they are bunkering + barracks units, you can afford to lose some probes since you'll have an early nexus to replace them.
On July 12 2011 05:01 iamke55 wrote: I like that it destroys reactor first but I can't find any way to hold off tech lab first with some SCVs for bunkers. They can start building a bunker when you still have only 1 stalker out and they can easily have 2 bunkers done in time for your first warp in.
One of the replays in the op has it. Was on typhon peaks. They can get bunkers up but you can break it without losing enough to be of any detriment!!
Hi TL, I wanted to use my first post to thank everyone for all the hard work they've put into this build! I've had a lot of fun with it and it has really helped me improve my PvT.
Here's a recent replay of me defending a 2rax - something I had a lot of trouble doing when I first started HuKing but practice makes perfect!:
If anyone has tips I would love to hear them (please ignore the supply block when I spot the all-in, I allowed that on purpose so there would be more dramatic suspense for replay viewers ^^)
Also, two questions which will probably show my nubishness:
(1) In the OP, the BO says to make your initial stalker on 22. Should this be 20? If I make the stalker on 22, the gates would go up on 24/26, instead of 22/23 like the BO says, and I have trouble getting all three up before WG finishes in that case.
(2) Everyone seems to take it as self evident that this build loses to rax w/ techlab first along w/ SCV pull. Why is this so much harder to defend than reactor first? I'm not disputing the fact, just curious.
On July 12 2011 09:43 goodwin013 wrote: (2) Everyone seems to take it as self evident that this build loses to rax w/ techlab first along w/ SCV pull. Why is this so much harder to defend than reactor first? I'm not disputing the fact, just curious.
because your first 4 gateway units are stalkers, and you're relying on them to poke the ramp/contain. If you see marauders early, people tend to back off from attempting to contain/poke for the risk of getting sniped with concussive.
Once your information is limited in this way, you are less likely to see the SCV all-in coming (probably only see it at the first watch tower.
Conversely, against early marine/scv, you're able to use your 4 stalkers to weaken his force as you kite them across the map.
My personal response to seeing techlab first (probe or stalker poke):
- Leave one stalker at base, in case of reaper. - Move my other 3 stalkers to his ramp, warp in 1 sentry when next allowed (don't need such a fast robo, as we've ruled out ultra-fast banshee's).
- Next 100 gas will probably go to robo. I will be very light on my probe production, untill I can rule out an all-in.
If I see no in-base CC with my observer, I'll cut probe production (and depending on his tech), and start pumping zealot/stalker.
If I see an in-base CC with my observer, he'll probably be waiting for medivac tech, or just larger number of units, to brute force my contain. When his starport is finished, I will withdraw all my units, and warp-in a final zealot sitting @ his 3rd to confirm he is taking his natural.
On July 12 2011 05:01 iamke55 wrote: I like that it destroys reactor first but I can't find any way to hold off tech lab first with some SCVs for bunkers. They can start building a bunker when you still have only 1 stalker out and they can easily have 2 bunkers done in time for your first warp in.
One of the replays in the op has it. Was on typhon peaks. They can get bunkers up but you can break it without losing enough to be of any detriment!!
After further testing, I concluded that pulling 8-10 probes and executing everything perfectly lets you break even with 2 rax tech lab first.
Thank you for this very guide, i've been having a hard time to keep my opponent off me when i fast expand alltho, this seems very very solid and safe.
As against zerg.. How does this build work out against them? do you put your 2 later gates at the natural if you play on for example xelnaga so you can wall off? I find early aggression hard to deal with unless you get the classic 1 zeal + 6 sentry + photon cannons. Still i suppose this build is hard to keep universal without tweaking it depending on matchup so my question is:
Is there anything special about this build i should keep in mind while facing a zerg opponent that goes for the standard idra play, like fast expo then pool?
Is it better to throw up a zeal + sentry and then stack sentries instead of these 4 initial stalkers?
On July 14 2011 04:59 Croxter wrote: Thank you for this very guide, i've been having a hard time to keep my opponent off me when i fast expand alltho, this seems very very solid and safe.
As against zerg.. How does this build work out against them? do you put your 2 later gates at the natural if you play on for example xelnaga so you can wall off? I find early aggression hard to deal with unless you get the classic 1 zeal + 6 sentry + photon cannons. Still i suppose this build is hard to keep universal without tweaking it depending on matchup so my question is:
Is there anything special about this build i should keep in mind while facing a zerg opponent that goes for the standard idra play, like fast expo then pool?
Is it better to throw up a zeal + sentry and then stack sentries instead of these 4 initial stalkers?
Thanks in advance, Croxter from the EU ladder :-)
this build isnt for pvz. generally, you cant expand at 20 supply against a zerg.
I apologize if this was addressed earlier in the thread, but what do you transition into with this build if you spot a 1-base Marine/Tank/Banshee or similar variant all-in coming at you?
I've found it's very safe against any early-game Rax pressure, but I keep getting demolished by these all-ins, and I it's either because I'm choosing the wrong tech, or just not getting enough Gateway units, but I'm not sure which. Can you hold it with just 2-base Gateway? How many Gates?
I have been doing a different version of this build lately, which I think is slightly better. I chronoboost the nexus 4 times and then cb the first 3stalkers. I delay the additional gates until 30 food and get a second gas right after it. All cb on wg after this. Leaves you with roughly the same units and better econ.
Someone tried this versus Marine/Thor/Banshee ? Just asking. I wanted to try this against my friends 3rax, and It went kind of ok. Do you repel 3rax with ease with this build?
On July 15 2011 06:32 whereismymind wrote: Someone tried this versus Marine/Thor/Banshee ? Just asking. I wanted to try this against my friends 3rax, and It went kind of ok. Do you repel 3rax with ease with this build?
Which Terran allin demolishes this build?
from the OP:
Wall, bunker + marines- Most likely 1;1;1 all in, could be 1;1;1 expand or some kind of helion drop or fast tank play
HuK responds to this buy adding a robo and a forge; he puts one cannon inside of each mineral line and get a couple observers out and then immortals if he spots tanks. If the terran is all-inning, HuK cuts probes and essentially makes a swarm of zealots and absolutely destroys the push with zealot-sentry with stalkers to shoot down banshees and well-microed immortals to pick off tanks.
I'm a pretty awful player, but it would be nice if I could get some pointers.
I basically tried this strat on backwater gulch, but I was unable to get any useful information out of scouting though I was fairly sure he was going MMM. So I drop 2 more gates + 1 robo + and get my +1 attack in response.
And........... I get ROLLED.
Replay attached. I don't understand where my execution failed to the point where I actually ended up behind rather than ahead coming into mid game.
No bunker, marines + mauradors Most likely 2rax expand, could be 3 rax HuK will warp in 3 zealots to his proxy pylon and walk right up that damn ramp and kill him a terran.
This means, if you marines + marauders, you can push terran? I have very bad experience with this, because marines and marauders can easily repel my attack.
On July 16 2011 02:02 Necrophantasia wrote: I'm a pretty awful player, but it would be nice if I could get some pointers.
I basically tried this strat on backwater gulch, but I was unable to get any useful information out of scouting though I was fairly sure he was going MMM. So I drop 2 more gates + 1 robo + and get my +1 attack in response.
And........... I get ROLLED.
Replay attached. I don't understand where my execution failed to the point where I actually ended up behind rather than ahead coming into mid game.
So I went through the entire replay and I felt like you actually excecuted the build fairly well. You were ahead most of the time not actually behind.
Ignoring some small errors in the beginning of the game it came down to where you engaged at the main battle. First you should have waited for your +1 to kick in. It was close to being done but it didn't finish until your army was defeated. Secondly, bad bad bad bad place to try and engage. at 13:40 seconds you can see that half of your army is out of range and your ff's didn't do much of anything. Basically what happened is his army killed your zealots while only a few stalkers were able to hit. If you waited for him to come up that ramp and get him in the split by your natural, you would have ROLLED him. Assuming you forcefielded correctly. you make it so half of his army cant attack, and you win. You had more workers than him, a better economy, and right at the engagement, even a better army if you look at the army resource tab. I think that you did well for the most part except for choosing where to attack. I know I fall into the same thing all of the time. I wonder why I got rolled and I realize that it was simply where I chose to attack. Next time force him to come into your choke. If he doesn't want to, you win anyways cause your way ahead economically. Hope this helps.
No bunker, marines + mauradors Most likely 2rax expand, could be 3 rax HuK will warp in 3 zealots to his proxy pylon and walk right up that damn ramp and kill him a terran.
This means, if you marines + marauders, you can push terran? I have very bad experience with this, because marines and marauders can easily repel my attack.
Any tips so I can understand more?
He means that this attack tends to do well against Terrans who don't make a bunker.
A variation I've been doing on this build (which I LOVE btw against Terran) is to only use one Chronoboost on probes and send out a 9 Probe for the scout. This lets me harass the Terran scv building the rax and can throw them off their game a little bit (I love harassing those scvs with my probe).
I lay down gas at 14 and put only two probes in gas. I keep those two probes in there for the duration, only putting a third once I lay down my two gateways. I use the chronoboost that I didn't use on my nexus (which can sometimes be wasted a little bit since I send the 9 scout) on my stalker to repel any lingering scvs and helps me against any early marine pressure. Once the warp gate is finished, the gas lines up quite perfectly to pump out three stalkers, giving you almost a 4gate like hit with 5 stalkers either attacking or defending. It's also really good to get that 9 scout, since getting a look at those geysers can really tell what's headed your way.
I like this build... only tried it twice on ladder and won pretty easy both times... once against tech first 2rax the other against gasless expand (easy)
I think a decent way to practice if you don't want to ask a friend to terran 2rax vs u is to play insane comp on metal... it always 3racks timings you, which imo is an allin that pretty much wrecks this build with decent micro/scvs...
anyways, nice build.. pretty much unscoutable esp with zealot cancel.. and generally the early nexus seems to provoke an extreme response from the terran.. which the proxy pylon punishes nicely after you hold..
Ok so I just played vs. Dia Terran using a weird variant of this build; I scout reactor first so instead of going Nexus first I went for 3 gateways, held the initial push with a 4th gate (MM+Concussive) and expo. He retreats, expands with bunkers and I expand a little behind his but I feel like I'm a little ahead, make some sentries/zeals and drop double forge twilight council.
He re-pushes and I body it with some good FFs/guardian shields but lose all my sentries and zealots and a few stalkers, and he has another wave of marauders behind this and finishes off my remaining stalkers when my Temp Archives completes.
One of my big mistakes was not adding a 5th/6th gate, not adding immortals from my Robo to answer marauders and teching to blink instead of charge but it seemed really, really close if I had done everything right with just MMM vs. Gateway... what I'm really searching for is the proper response if he's just going to keep slamming me with medium sized barracks balls and trading armies. Should I colossus instead to force Vikings?
I really like this build! I have been using it with succes on ladder. I even go for this strat on close spawn meta lol. It is really safe (safer then a standard 1 gate expo I feel). 2rax (reacot+techlab) is strong, but terran must decide before they scout your expo to build a second rax. With 5 stalkers + 3 zealots and some probes one can hold the 2 rax tough. The 5 stalker push is nice to scout them out, and should normally give you the necessary information to continue.
HuK seems to be doing a safer 1g expo build than these days with 2nd gas on 19, stalker, sentry+ nexus then an extra 2-3 gates according to WG progress. Allows for faster teching since you can drop the robo before the extra gates are even finished and sets you up for the midgame a bit better as you have a higher sentry count.
A rough expo build that came out of the original 20 nexus I'm tinkering around with is a 2g expo. Where you drop a 2nd gate when you start WG then get a nexus and have a 2nd gas on 19 or so. The two gates along with chrono allows you to be quite a bit safer in the duration before WG finishes. Nexus is only delayed about 15s @ 4:10
Ok as I understood, if Huk sees MM(marauder-marine), he just stop making probes put 2 more gates(total 5) and go push Terran before he hits timing for 3rax?
I am so sorry, but I really don't understand how is this build able to repel average 3rax timing push. Is someone nice and ready to share replay defending 3rax timing push with this build?
I'm a top 3 diamond toss and I've been doing this build a lot lately...it works pretty well, even though I still need to improve my "crisis management" when I have to pull probes. I found out that if you build the assimilator at the standard time but you put probes on gas only when cybernetic starts you have exactly 50 gas when you need to build your first stalker (after you started WG and built the nexus). It's nice because you don't have to think about taking of probes from gas
I matched a random on taldarim Altar and scouted terran going no gas in time to execute this build...
Assuming its a 1 rax FE from terran i send my stalker to his base to poke at him and see what he's got so far.... lo and behold he's going 6 rax.....
My micro is far from perfect ( so hard microing 4 stalkers vs. like 15 marines...... ) and i forgot to put guys back on gas but I still manage to hold it while keeping my nexus alive.....
Enjoy
It says shakuras but it was really taldarim altar.... If i woulda lost the game i think i woulda cried and quit SC2
HuK doesn't do this build much anymore. His most common 1gate expand these days is two-gas stalker-sentry-sentry - nexus. Much slower nexus, but the build destroys the reactor first 2 rax which gave this build so much trouble.
On July 21 2011 12:55 sickoota wrote: HuK doesn't do this build much anymore. His most common 1gate expand these days is two-gas stalker-sentry-sentry - nexus. Much slower nexus, but the build destroys the reactor first 2 rax which gave this build so much trouble.
I've actually had no trouble vs. reactor-first 2 rax....
Considering he has mostly marines and i have a 5:50 warp in with mostly stalkers... This build is still pretty viable with a long enough rush distance...
I was talking to my friend pokebunny and he said it works vs. pretty much all non-techlab first builds.
On July 21 2011 12:55 sickoota wrote: HuK doesn't do this build much anymore. His most common 1gate expand these days is two-gas stalker-sentry-sentry - nexus. Much slower nexus, but the build destroys the reactor first 2 rax which gave this build so much trouble.
I've actually had no trouble vs. reactor-first 2 rax....
Considering he has mostly marines and i have a 5:50 warp in with mostly stalkers... This build is still pretty viable with a long enough rush distance...
I was talking to my friend pokebunny and he said it works vs. pretty much all non-techlab first builds.
Yeah, the only times I've just died in the opening have been vs tech-lab first fast marauders+conc etc.
Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
I do not know about specifics, but I know that Day9 talks about something like this in daily number 314 when he analyses Hwangsin's play. He uses this kind of one gate fe to 3 gate, but a safer version, more like what huk is using right now. He also talks about the follow up in that daily
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
Above is pretty bad vs tech lab first builds. I'm able to win anyway by canceling the nexus and going for a 5 gate all-in, but soon people will be onto me and not fall for that!
On July 25 2011 12:13 iamke55 wrote: Above is pretty bad vs tech lab first builds. I'm able to win anyway by canceling the nexus and going for a 5 gate all-in, but soon people will be onto me and not fall for that!
Really? I've seen HuK hold some pretty insane 2racks and 3 racks all ins with this build.. and while that might be because he is huk, it still means that is perfectly possibly for us to do the same, in tandem with the fact that the terrans we play are not as good as the terrans he plays!
First off: Thank you for this thread/guide. I love this build and I use it almost exclusively in my PvT. It's so much fun that it's become my standard.
On July 25 2011 12:11 Alejandrisha wrote: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
I'm the same way - though I'm in a much lower league. I find that (at my [L] level) a proper tech-lab concussive opening can be held with a few probes pulled; since I can keep getting away with it I keep doing it.
On July 21 2011 12:55 sickoota wrote: HuK doesn't do this build much anymore. His most common 1gate expand these days is two-gas stalker-sentry-sentry - nexus. Much slower nexus, but the build destroys the reactor first 2 rax which gave this build so much trouble.
I've actually had no trouble vs. reactor-first 2 rax....
Considering he has mostly marines and i have a 5:50 warp in with mostly stalkers... This build is still pretty viable with a long enough rush distance...
I was talking to my friend pokebunny and he said it works vs. pretty much all non-techlab first builds.
This smashes tech lab first builds.. I don't think I've ever lost to one with it. Perhaps I will have to have a word with poke..
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
On May 17 2011 00:56 Alejandrisha wrote: Wall, bunker + marines- Most likely 1;1;1 all in, could be 1;1;1 expand or some kind of helion drop or fast tank play
HuK responds to this buy adding a robo and a forge; he puts one cannon inside of each mineral line and get a couple observers out and then immortals if he spots tanks. If the terran is all-inning, HuK cuts probes and essentially makes a swarm of zealots and absolutely destroys the push with zealot-sentry with stalkers to shoot down banshees and well-microed immortals to pick off tanks.
Everyone on ladder has started pulling this stuff on me again. It reminds me of the days when a lot of Terran didn't like playing against the traditional 1 Gate FE. And, again, I keep overmaking probes and dieing
On May 17 2011 00:56 Alejandrisha wrote: Wall, bunker + marines- Most likely 1;1;1 all in, could be 1;1;1 expand or some kind of helion drop or fast tank play
HuK responds to this buy adding a robo and a forge; he puts one cannon inside of each mineral line and get a couple observers out and then immortals if he spots tanks. If the terran is all-inning, HuK cuts probes and essentially makes a swarm of zealots and absolutely destroys the push with zealot-sentry with stalkers to shoot down banshees and well-microed immortals to pick off tanks.
Everyone on ladder has started pulling this stuff on me again. It reminds me of the days when a lot of Terran didn't like playing against the traditional 1 Gate FE. And, again, I keep overmaking probes and dieing
Yeah keeping yourself from making probes is a very important part of this if you scout a possible 1 base. You can easily get ahead on econ by maintaining 2 gas, 16 on mins in your main and somewhere between 8-12 on your natural. This also lets you power zealot/sentry pretty well off of 4 cb'd warpgates and sprinkle in some immortals if it's the marine/tank/banshee and you should crush it almost every time
I'd like to see some replays of people dying to that build using this build it'd be really helpful!
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
On May 17 2011 00:56 Alejandrisha wrote: Wall, bunker + marines- Most likely 1;1;1 all in, could be 1;1;1 expand or some kind of helion drop or fast tank play
HuK responds to this buy adding a robo and a forge; he puts one cannon inside of each mineral line and get a couple observers out and then immortals if he spots tanks. If the terran is all-inning, HuK cuts probes and essentially makes a swarm of zealots and absolutely destroys the push with zealot-sentry with stalkers to shoot down banshees and well-microed immortals to pick off tanks.
Everyone on ladder has started pulling this stuff on me again. It reminds me of the days when a lot of Terran didn't like playing against the traditional 1 Gate FE. And, again, I keep overmaking probes and dieing
Yeah keeping yourself from making probes is a very important part of this if you scout a possible 1 base. You can easily get ahead on econ by maintaining 2 gas, 16 on mins in your main and somewhere between 8-12 on your natural. This also lets you power zealot/sentry pretty well off of 4 cb'd warpgates and sprinkle in some immortals if it's the marine/tank/banshee and you should crush it almost every time
I'd like to see some replays of people dying to that build using this build it'd be really helpful!
Sure when I get home I'll see if I still have one or two of me getting beaten by an allin, I think one was close pos Shattered.. So I might have been just asking for it due to the close spawns.
I've been doing a slight variation of the build which I think is a little better
13 gate 14 gas 16 pylon 18 core 20 wg 20 nex 4cb on probes 20 stalker cb 23 pylon 24 stalker cb Cb wg Stalker 30 2x gate 30 gas Stalker cb Warpgate finishes at +- same time as gates and stalker 4 Warp in 3 stalkers 7 stalkers total
I'm still using this build against Terran and LOVING it. There have been so many games where I just flat out won because the Terran didn't think he needed a bunker to hold any aggression and BAM! A bunch of Stalkers show up. It hasn't really disappointed me yet, as I haven't lost in the early game using this build (Low Diamond here).
Something I've been doing is skipping a second chronoboost on probes, and chronoboosting my stalker instead and then making a second stalker before the warp gate finishes. This gives me a total of 5 stalkers when I go to make my push which really helps add some oomph early on.
My probe cut lasts a little longer as a result, but the way I see it I have an expo up and Chronoboost to catch up on lost probes, so initially I think I'd rather have the bigger army.
On July 26 2011 05:37 CecilSunkure wrote: You gotta say why it's better
Better econ and the 7 stalkers are only slightly later than the 5 from the op build.
What? Your extra gateways are finishing way later than in the OP. The two 23 gateways finish at the same time as warpgate tech, it's impossible that your 30 gateways do the same...
Your build seems to leave a timing gap to early pressure that the OP is entirely designed to avoid.
What? Your extra gateways are finishing way later than in the OP. The two 23 gateways finish at the same time as warpgate tech, it's impossible that your 30 gateways do the same...
His build puts chronos on stalkers instead of WG. So while his gateways finish later, so does WG. I would guess this would be ok vs. pressure since you are chronoing out units, but I haven't played any build in this thread lol.
What? Your extra gateways are finishing way later than in the OP. The two 23 gateways finish at the same time as warpgate tech, it's impossible that your 30 gateways do the same...
The extra gates finish later but I have 4 chronoboosted stalkers. My gates finish together with warpgate research because I only use 1 cb on wg and the rest on the initial gateway.
Your build seems to leave a timing gap to early pressure that the OP is entirely designed to avoid.
It doesn't. I have more units early on because of the cb on the gate. There's only a little timing window where I have 4 stalkers vs 5 form the op build, but I have 3 more soon. So if you stall a bit you have better econ and more units at certain timings.
Can you give some specifics like what time WG finishes and at what time you have X amount of stalkers? The build in the OP is kind of weak until 5:40 then suddenly you have 5 stalkers for offensive or defensive purposes. Does the build you're talking about reach its critical number sooner or later? Does this leave you open to anything?
That's why I haven't been doing the sentry variation of the one gate fast expand on the ladder. With the stalkers I feel like I can apply a little bit of pressure to my terran buddies front and his entire builds secrets are usually revealed to me but with this one I feel like I cant be particularly aggressive fast enough.
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
is there a replay with huk doing this build
oGs vs PRIME game 7!! against 3 rax none the less
Can you link to a VOD or replay? I would love to see this build executed. Doesn't have to be HuK, if you have a replay of others doing it, I would like to see that as well.
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
is there a replay with huk doing this build
oGs vs PRIME game 7!! against 3 rax none the less
Can you link to a VOD or replay? I would love to see this build executed. Doesn't have to be HuK, if you have a replay of others doing it, I would like to see that as well.
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
is there a replay with huk doing this build
oGs vs PRIME game 7!! against 3 rax none the less
Can you link to a VOD or replay? I would love to see this build executed. Doesn't have to be HuK, if you have a replay of others doing it, I would like to see that as well.
As for the variation that has been listed with 7 stalkers, i prefer to only get 2 initial stalkers then as i save up for the 2 gates i start getting sentries, so at the 6 min mark i have 2-4 zealots,4 sentries and 2-4 stalkers with another round of warp gate coming off cd shortly. I much prefer this composition vs 2 rax openers from terran. Its also easy to transition into chargelot archon, and you already have sentries out if you scout a 1 base, so your gas can be spent on something else such as immortals etc.
If i dont scout a 2 rax then i add more stalkers, but after fiddling around with the build order you can only get a total of 8 gateway units out by the 6 min mark, less if you go stalker heavy. (having sentry / zealot available and warpgate around the 5:40 mark is much better imo then having it later and only stalkers vs conc shell marauders)
On July 27 2011 23:23 Alejandrisha wrote: Can you give some specifics like what time WG finishes and at what time you have X amount of stalkers? The build in the OP is kind of weak until 5:40 then suddenly you have 5 stalkers for offensive or defensive purposes. Does the build you're talking about reach its critical number sooner or later? Does this leave you open to anything?
I'm not sure there's a point in poking against a tech lab expand though. He'll have marauders with concussive shells out and you can't really do much damage.
Against a no gas expo on the other hand, tons of damage with decent micro
I'll try to use this modification to guide my play against Terran. I feel that Terran is my worst matchup and while I love this build, I'm at a loss as to what to do. Scouting w/ that 1st stalker helps, and also your advice on building that 4th gate if you suspect an all in (while getting loads of zealots).
Thanks! I'll watch this several times for guidance!
When playing against marauders, does the early aggression (where you try to HuK him over) mean that you don't need to grab 4 or so early sentries for defence? I don't seem to be able to afford the gas for sentries and a robo early on after attacking with the 5 stalkers (and the 3 zealots, as it's against marauders).
Also, I found it extremely difficult to prevent bunker rushes on XNC when using this build. I was wondering how you should react when you see SCVs coming with the push.
Thanks for the guide Alej, and thanks for the video guide Cecil. <3333333333333333
On August 02 2011 06:52 iStarKraft wrote: When playing against marauders, does the early aggression (where you try to HuK him over) mean that you don't need to grab 4 or so early sentries for defence? I don't seem to be able to afford the gas for sentries and a robo early on after attacking with the 5 stalkers (and the 3 zealots, as it's against marauders).
Also, I found it extremely difficult to prevent bunker rushes on XNC when using this build. I was wondering how you should react when you see SCVs coming with the push.
Thanks for the guide Alej, and thanks for the video guide Cecil. <3333333333333333
Yeah you can't get sentries like that. If you want Sentries check my profile for that 3 Gate Expand PvT build. But with this the idea is to get a lot of minerals for Gateways + Nexus, and then just enough vespene for WG/Stalkers.
Also you need to pull probes against a bunker rush. Warp in 2 Cycles if you can, and pull 5-10 probes and clash at the bunkers before the finish. Don't let a bunker finish! You can afford to lose probes because you have such an early Nexus and lots of Chrono to recover. If you end up not losing much you can probably just counter attack and win, or perhaps deal damage/contain.
Wow... I started using this build a week ago... I've played 7 PvT's in that week... and I won all of them! I got 3 rax'd, I got 1/1/1'd, I got 2 rax'd, I played CC first... This build is beautiful. Thank you Alejandrisha!
Cecil, I watched your VOD (thanks!) and I noticed you went a sort of hybrid mass gateway/robo style. You got a fairly fast charge and didn't go for fast collosus or templar, instead you ended up with chargelot/sentry/stalker/immortal. What's your logic/idea behind this? I almost never get immos except vs. 1 base all-ins and go either straight for HTs or collosus. However your composition seemed to work really well, my only concern would be the fast ghost/ghost pushes that seem to be gaining popularity. (And on that note would you go fast collo since they have to vikings, or fast HTs to 'counter' the ghosts?)
On August 02 2011 06:52 iStarKraft wrote: When playing against marauders, does the early aggression (where you try to HuK him over) mean that you don't need to grab 4 or so early sentries for defence? I don't seem to be able to afford the gas for sentries and a robo early on after attacking with the 5 stalkers (and the 3 zealots, as it's against marauders).
Also, I found it extremely difficult to prevent bunker rushes on XNC when using this build. I was wondering how you should react when you see SCVs coming with the push.
Thanks for the guide Alej, and thanks for the video guide Cecil. <3333333333333333
Yeah you can't get sentries like that. If you want Sentries check my profile for that 3 Gate Expand PvT build. But with this the idea is to get a lot of minerals for Gateways + Nexus, and then just enough vespene for WG/Stalkers.
Also you need to pull probes against a bunker rush. Warp in 2 Cycles if you can, and pull 5-10 probes and clash at the bunkers before the finish. Don't let a bunker finish! You can afford to lose probes because you have such an early Nexus and lots of Chrono to recover. If you end up not losing much you can probably just counter attack and win, or perhaps deal damage/contain.
Thanks for the really fast answer. (^_^) I'll practice fending off some bunker rushes with my buddies hehe. Looking forward to catching you streaming Cecil.
On August 02 2011 06:52 iStarKraft wrote: When playing against marauders, does the early aggression (where you try to HuK him over) mean that you don't need to grab 4 or so early sentries for defence? I don't seem to be able to afford the gas for sentries and a robo early on after attacking with the 5 stalkers (and the 3 zealots, as it's against marauders).
Also, I found it extremely difficult to prevent bunker rushes on XNC when using this build. I was wondering how you should react when you see SCVs coming with the push.
Thanks for the guide Alej, and thanks for the video guide Cecil. <3333333333333333
Yeah you can't get sentries like that. If you want Sentries check my profile for that 3 Gate Expand PvT build. But with this the idea is to get a lot of minerals for Gateways + Nexus, and then just enough vespene for WG/Stalkers.
Also you need to pull probes against a bunker rush. Warp in 2 Cycles if you can, and pull 5-10 probes and clash at the bunkers before the finish. Don't let a bunker finish! You can afford to lose probes because you have such an early Nexus and lots of Chrono to recover. If you end up not losing much you can probably just counter attack and win, or perhaps deal damage/contain.
Thanks for the really fast answer. (^_^) I'll practice fending off some bunker rushes with my buddies hehe. Looking forward to catching you streaming Cecil.
Looking forward to seeing you in the stream chat!
On August 02 2011 07:48 Huntz wrote: Cecil, I watched your VOD (thanks!) and I noticed you went a sort of hybrid mass gateway/robo style. You got a fairly fast charge and didn't go for fast collosus or templar, instead you ended up with chargelot/sentry/stalker/immortal. What's your logic/idea behind this? I almost never get immos except vs. 1 base all-ins and go either straight for HTs or collosus. However your composition seemed to work really well, my only concern would be the fast ghost/ghost pushes that seem to be gaining popularity. (And on that note would you go fast collo since they have to vikings, or fast HTs to 'counter' the ghosts?)
The idea behind the Immortal/Sentry/Stalker/Zealot is that I can't really be offensive with it, however I can easily be defensive (due to Immortal travel time) with it. I can also take a very fast third with high impunity. Delaying Colossus tech allows me to focus on a late-game centric style, with a lot of upgrades and great eco. Also the Immortals cannot be shot down by Vikings
If you want to try what I did, it's important to constantly have your army spread out in case of EMP, and it's also important to during smaller battles always have your Immortals shooting Marauders.
Once we start mining gas at 100% and building a stalker before nexus, aren't we back to the age-old 1-gate expand? Not that there's anything wrong with that...
On August 02 2011 09:15 Keilah wrote: Once we start mining gas at 100% and building a stalker before nexus, aren't we back to the age-old 1-gate expand? Not that there's anything wrong with that...
No not really. You sit on nothing for quite a long time, and with my understanding of old 1 Gate FEs you are really hustling to chrono things out of a single Gateway, and then have a more poor of a followup due to delayed WG research. Also, this seems more refined and advanced and elegant to me (as newer strategies usually are).
On August 02 2011 09:15 Keilah wrote: Once we start mining gas at 100% and building a stalker before nexus, aren't we back to the age-old 1-gate expand? Not that there's anything wrong with that...
No not really. You sit on nothing for quite a long time, and with my understanding of old 1 Gate FEs you are really hustling to chrono things out of a single Gateway, and then have a more poor of a followup due to delayed WG research. Also, this seems more refined and advanced and elegant to me (as newer strategies usually are).
Well one of the posters is suggesting chronoing out stalkers instead of warpgate
I think the old 1-gate expo worked well because warp tech was so much faster back then and you didn't need to chrono warp as much. Also you needed the early units because terran could go rax before depot. Heh... remember when every PvT build revolved around getting out the stalker in time to kill that damned reaper?
So this is basically the same concept, revised for the updates.
On August 02 2011 07:02 ImmortalTofu wrote: Wow... I started using this build a week ago... I've played 7 PvT's in that week... and I won all of them! I got 3 rax'd, I got 1/1/1'd, I got 2 rax'd, I played CC first... This build is beautiful. Thank you Alejandrisha!
How are you holding 3 rax with pulled SCVs? That's the one thing that's been my bane trying out this build lately (e.g. far positions on Shattered)
3 rax can be easily held with probe cutting, and warping in only zealots. THe reason why this build is so strong is that you can get 5 stalkers really fast, and 5 stalkers is such a magic number because they can one shot scvs, marines, and 2 shot marauders.
This build is solid all around. I'm not great against Protoss, but as long as you don't overcommit with your stalkers there's basically no option for Terran to be ahead in game. You can at best be even. The best thing as Terran is probably 1-1-1 with bunker in front and a banshee to force the Protoss to use his stalkers in defence rather than offence.
You can transition into 3 barracks bio play. You force a robotics and you earn time.
How about deviations like skipping the robo and going for earlier upgrades/charge tech? Would that be considered risky if you scout gas since you would be kind of vulnerable to banshee play?
If youre going charge, you need a forge with 1 cannon in each min line to detect and you should drop a robo ASAP after researching charge.
My big question of the night is how do you hold the marine/tank/banshee all-ins that are wrecking the GSL right now with a FE? Do you FE 1gate collosus? Because that seems bad.
On August 03 2011 12:49 Deezl wrote: If youre going charge, you need a forge with 1 cannon in each min line to detect and you should drop a robo ASAP after researching charge.
My big question of the night is how do you hold the marine/tank/banshee all-ins that are wrecking the GSL right now with a FE? Do you FE 1gate collosus? Because that seems bad.
Unfortunately I haven't seen much of this on the ladder recently. You get the expansion more than quickly enough for it to pay for itself and then some by the time the push hits, so that's great
Whenever I've seen this, I cut units after the first 5 stalkers for a long time. You'd make this cut if he just has marines at the top of his ramp and maybe even a bunker. 6 minutes is quite a long time to only have naked marines at the ramp if he is doing any sort of bio opening. Be greedy as hell for the time being, getting 2 gases running with decent saturation at both bases. Between 12-16 at each base and about 30 total on minerals will do just fine. You want to have more income for the sake of having expanded, but not to make so many probes that the diminishing returns leave you with mineral and food sink.
I've had success sticking to 4-5 gateways and a robo getting immortals. I strongly recommend against colossus.. Sure they do great against the marines but they don't have stim. Zealots with guardian shield will do just fine against marines with no stim or combat shield.
You only want 2 stalkers for every banshee and enough sentries to ensure you can keep guardian shield up and perhaps a few forcefields. 3-4 Should do the trick. The rest of your WG cool downs you just dump into zealots.
Engaging is the toughest part if the terran sets himself up correctly. Try to tank the inital 3 tank shots with your immortals but try not to let them soak in marine fire for too long. Get your immortals to the side and start shift clicking tanks while your zealot/sentry rip through the marines. Keep stalkers on the banshees, obviously
This build should do just as well against the push as any other. Please post replays if you're having troubles with it.
i'm wondering if you've tried this against a 3rax allin reactor + 2 techlab? i'm finding I just don't have enough stuff to hold it at about ~45-50 food?
After reading the OP and 16-, I'm confused as to what build you guys are actually talking about haha. The 20 FE from the OP? the 30 FE stalker into a bunch of sentries? or the one in Cecil's VOD where he expands at 24 after chronoing WG and stalker to scare away the scv scout?
AFAIK the 20 FE is weak (not viable?) vs. 12/16 r/t push.. but the 30 FE/cecil version is safe? The feedback is so good I've decided to favor this over 3 gate expo, but I'm not sure what build you're actually talking about lol
How to play vs mass marauder push around 5:50 minutes? only make sentries ? I was making stalker in panic, because he had shells so zealots would do much?
On August 03 2011 08:20 mTw|NarutO wrote: This build is solid all around. I'm not great against Protoss, but as long as you don't overcommit with your stalkers there's basically no option for Terran to be ahead in game. You can at best be even. The best thing as Terran is probably 1-1-1 with bunker in front and a banshee to force the Protoss to use his stalkers in defence rather than offence.
You can transition into 3 barracks bio play. You force a robotics and you earn time.
I disagree to some extent. Not that this wouldn't be useful, but after watching HuK's stream for long, long hours I noticed that the 2 ghost timing attack is even more dangerous. This is why I've seen HuK switch his build order in recent history and get sentries early on. Why sentries vs ghosts you ask since this seems counter-intuitive? Because it's extremely imortant to have them build up energy so that you have at least one GS + a few fields, if you spread correctly, so that the EMPs can't overlap on individual sentries.
Mostly what his opponents did was staying in the base for a long time, simply not flying the CC down and not donating any marine. Once they started moving out, the MM force had already reached a size that couldn't be handled by zealot/stalker any more and absolutely needed some sentries.
I've seen the hard pressure versions only work in the last few weeks if the terran engages too early and it becomes a constant trade of zealots vs MM with very few units overall involved.
Is the 1 gate Stalker/sentry/sentry expand MC's build? I seem to recall at Dreamhack, where MC called Huk's build before he took his second gas, that MC said that Huk was using his build?
On August 03 2011 22:30 Micket wrote: Is the 1 gate Stalker/sentry/sentry expand MC's build? I seem to recall at Dreamhack, where MC called Huk's build before he took his second gas, that MC said that Huk was using his build?
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be surprised if MC "created" the build...but since HuK is the one streaming and releasing replays regularly, I think this is why this has started to be known as "his" build.
On August 03 2011 22:30 Micket wrote: Is the 1 gate Stalker/sentry/sentry expand MC's build? I seem to recall at Dreamhack, where MC called Huk's build before he took his second gas, that MC said that Huk was using his build?
MC said that HuK was using "his build" against Tarson on Crossfire, where HuK opened with a second assimilator before core and teched straight towards dark templar. MC might have said that HuK was using his build more than once at Dreamhack, but I don't remember any other games.
Regardless, I haven't seen anyone other than HuK credited with this opening, and it's been around for a while.
I think I've seen Genius use the stalker-sentry 2 gas 1gate fe in very early GSLs.. maybe even before the GSL from replays. It's definitely nothing groundbreaking.
On August 03 2011 12:49 Deezl wrote: If youre going charge, you need a forge with 1 cannon in each min line to detect and you should drop a robo ASAP after researching charge.
My big question of the night is how do you hold the marine/tank/banshee all-ins that are wrecking the GSL right now with a FE? Do you FE 1gate collosus? Because that seems bad.
I played this build vs. my friend last night and held that all-in using Gateway units coupled with Immortals. The trick is not to build too many Stalkers (3-5 are enough)! QTIP recently wrote a really good guide on defending that push: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=250379
Basically, once you scout the 1:1:1 you need to throw down a Robo and make sure you get an Observer before Cloakshee timing. This is because Cloakshee/Banshee harrassment will usually happen before they commit to the attack. I think that the earliest this can realistically happen is 7:30 so try to have an Observer before then.
I usually get a second Observer as well, which I use to scout their army positioning. I find this important because it's best to engage before they can siege their tank line. It's also makes it easier for you to engage from the flanks if you know exactly where they are - engaging from the flaks let your Zealots/Immortals get into the Tank line whilst avoiding the Marines/SCVs, because the Marines/SCVs are essentially meat-shields. If they've brought a Raven with their push, you need to be really careful with your Observers as they're gonna try and snipe them. You should keep the Observers away from any Marines anyway, just in case the Terran scans his army before engaginig.
Once I have two Observers, I start chrono'ing out Immortals. The Immortal positioning is really important, because if you lose them before they deal damage to the Tanks then you're gonna be in a lot of trouble. Try and get the Immortals to attack from the sides so they aren't blocked from attacking the Tanks.
Build a lot of Zealots out of your Gateways (use spare gas for Sentries - don't get more than 3-5 Stalkers for taking care of Banshee harrass) to take care of the Marines/SCVs. Sentries should either trap the Marines with Forcefields so that when you Zealots can attack them or Forcefield around the Tanks if SCVs are repairing them. The Tanks will splash the Marines if your Zealots trap them, which is nice!
Stalkers should only be warped in once the battle appears to be won so that they can take care of any remaining Banshees.
Man you read his post but not mine? This is what I'd call a reproduction of efforts :/
On August 03 2011 08:20 mTw|NarutO wrote: This build is solid all around. I'm not great against Protoss, but as long as you don't overcommit with your stalkers there's basically no option for Terran to be ahead in game. You can at best be even. The best thing as Terran is probably 1-1-1 with bunker in front and a banshee to force the Protoss to use his stalkers in defence rather than offence.
You can transition into 3 barracks bio play. You force a robotics and you earn time.
I disagree to some extent. Not that this wouldn't be useful, but after watching HuK's stream for long, long hours I noticed that the 2 ghost timing attack is even more dangerous. This is why I've seen HuK switch his build order in recent history and get sentries early on. Why sentries vs ghosts you ask since this seems counter-intuitive? Because it's extremely imortant to have them build up energy so that you have at least one GS + a few fields, if you spread correctly, so that the EMPs can't overlap on individual sentries.
Mostly what his opponents did was staying in the base for a long time, simply not flying the CC down and not donating any marine. Once they started moving out, the MM force had already reached a size that couldn't be handled by zealot/stalker any more and absolutely needed some sentries.
I've seen the hard pressure versions only work in the last few weeks if the terran engages too early and it becomes a constant trade of zealots vs MM with very few units overall involved.
If you see the Terran staying inbase for long it either means he's teching to medivacs and you should know the timing of that or he's doing the heavy-marine with few marauders and 2 ghost push. In both cases you can pressure with forcefielding the ramp (you already have a forward pylon). For the medivac timing you would have to retreat and for the ghost push you need to spread the sentries in front to not get hit on all of them by EMP.
I'd say if you are good in reading the game and your opponent you can adjust to everything the Terran does accordingly. Thats the strength of the build as it is the strength of the Terrans 1-1-1. Its so adjustable that you can nearly always either get an edge over your opponent or force him to do certain things.
sup doods I have another replay 1 rax fe into mech... a pretty greedy build so you can really abuse them with your early stalkers.
You can see I was kind of afraid he was hiding something and not actually expanding as I cut probes and units for an earlier robo. Turns out nothing was amiss.
On August 04 2011 00:50 mTw|NarutO wrote: In both cases you can pressure with forcefielding the ramp (you already have a forward pylon). For the medivac timing you would have to retreat and for the ghost push you need to spread the sentries in front to not get hit on all of them by EMP.
Yup I agree. My response was more directed to the general flow of the build. I don't know if you've followed this thread diligently, but for a long time you were suppposed to get 2 stalkers followed by another 3 (warp) then warp in 3 zealots and pressure with the 3 zealot 5 stalker.
This is what I don't think works vs the ghost-timing as you just don't get any sentries early on.
On August 04 2011 00:50 mTw|NarutO wrote: In both cases you can pressure with forcefielding the ramp (you already have a forward pylon). For the medivac timing you would have to retreat and for the ghost push you need to spread the sentries in front to not get hit on all of them by EMP.
Yup I agree. My response was more directed to the general flow of the build. I don't know if you've followed this thread diligently, but for a long time you were suppposed to get 2 stalkers followed by another 3 (warp) then warp in 3 zealots and pressure with the 3 zealot 5 stalker.
This is what I don't think works vs the ghost-timing as you just don't get any sentries early on.
I've never actually opted for the Stalkers. I always just get a couple Stalker and a lot of Zealots. I just think Zealots are more useful/safe early game. I just enough Stalkers to compliment the Zealots, and a small number of Sentries. I feel it's also more flexible since it's less vespene drained so early on. What do you think of that? I've won a lot of games like this, and the early Forge in place of an early Robo is great for a cannon in each mineral line, which protects against fast Hellions and Banshee, and then the Zealots are useful near all game.
On August 04 2011 00:50 mTw|NarutO wrote: In both cases you can pressure with forcefielding the ramp (you already have a forward pylon). For the medivac timing you would have to retreat and for the ghost push you need to spread the sentries in front to not get hit on all of them by EMP.
Yup I agree. My response was more directed to the general flow of the build. I don't know if you've followed this thread diligently, but for a long time you were suppposed to get 2 stalkers followed by another 3 (warp) then warp in 3 zealots and pressure with the 3 zealot 5 stalker.
This is what I don't think works vs the ghost-timing as you just don't get any sentries early on.
I've never actually opted for the Stalkers. I always just get a couple Stalker and a lot of Zealots. I just think Zealots are more useful/safe early game. I just enough Stalkers to compliment the Zealots, and a small number of Sentries. I feel it's also more flexible since it's less vespene drained so early on. What do you think of that? I've won a lot of games like this, and the early Forge in place of an early Robo is great for a cannon in each mineral line, which protects against fast Hellions and Banshee, and then the Zealots are useful near all game.
I go currently for a 2nd gas and get 2 sentries immediately after the first stalker. I just fail hard at defending vs the ghost-push if I haven't at least one guardian shield and a couple of force fields to trap/split marines. The lower buildtime of sentries helps to keep the build in order.
Overall it seems like there's a constant "flow" of deviations concerning the one gate FE. I believe we haven't seen the end of it.
What time does a 2 rax hit? Tbh I didn't really get a solid build from this thread with all the variations haha. So I basically just made something up and got WG around 6:15-18 and got 4 stalkers/4 sentries at 6:30.
On August 04 2011 08:26 Huntz wrote: What time does a 2 rax hit? Tbh I didn't really get a solid build from this thread with all the variations haha. So I basically just made something up and got WG around 6:15-18 and got 4 stalkers/4 sentries at 6:30.
That's because the build isn't a set of numbers to follow. Depending on what you see or feel you change it up. The power of this opening is in versatility.
That's because the build isn't a set of numbers to follow. Depending on what you see or feel you change it up. The power of this opening is in versatility.
Yeah, that is what's so awesome about it, the second nexus gives you almost a zerg-like ability to chose between workers and units. (and ofc early robo for all-ins) But I was posting because I've had trouble with the 2 rax and was wondering about the timing, not to trash the guide
EDIT: It seems 2 rax timing is about 6:30
So what do you think of this opening?
9 pylon 11 chrono nexus 13 gate, chrono nexus 14/15 gas @25 energy chrono nexus 16 pylon 18 cybercore (@100% gateway) 19 gas 20 pylon @100% cybercore, stalker (chrono'd); WG (chrono'd) cut probes at 22 (24/26) @100% stalker, sentry chase out scv @400 minerals, nexus chrono gateway, @100% sentry, sentry @300 minerals, 2x gateway
(this is a little iffy)
You need a pylon so you're not blocked at 34, but I'm not sure when you can resume probes and still get he pylon in time (AKA resume probes @30, pylon @31, or pylon 30, resume probe asap). It doesn't matter much but the time I did it it was:
@100% sentry, sentry (chrono'd asap) 30 pylon, resume probes @100% sentry, sentry @ 25 energy, chrono sentry WG and sentry finish at around 6:18, morph gateways and warp in 3 stalkers
On August 04 2011 00:50 mTw|NarutO wrote: In both cases you can pressure with forcefielding the ramp (you already have a forward pylon). For the medivac timing you would have to retreat and for the ghost push you need to spread the sentries in front to not get hit on all of them by EMP.
Yup I agree. My response was more directed to the general flow of the build. I don't know if you've followed this thread diligently, but for a long time you were suppposed to get 2 stalkers followed by another 3 (warp) then warp in 3 zealots and pressure with the 3 zealot 5 stalker.
This is what I don't think works vs the ghost-timing as you just don't get any sentries early on.
I've never actually opted for the Stalkers. I always just get a couple Stalker and a lot of Zealots. I just think Zealots are more useful/safe early game. I just enough Stalkers to compliment the Zealots, and a small number of Sentries. I feel it's also more flexible since it's less vespene drained so early on. What do you think of that? I've won a lot of games like this, and the early Forge in place of an early Robo is great for a cannon in each mineral line, which protects against fast Hellions and Banshee, and then the Zealots are useful near all game.
I go currently for a 2nd gas and get 2 sentries immediately after the first stalker. I just fail hard at defending vs the ghost-push if I haven't at least one guardian shield and a couple of force fields to trap/split marines. The lower buildtime of sentries helps to keep the build in order.
Overall it seems like there's a constant "flow" of deviations concerning the one gate FE. I believe we haven't seen the end of it.
Sorry sleepingdog, just to be clear you're saying you get 2 sentries from the gateways before finishing WG research?
On August 04 2011 00:50 mTw|NarutO wrote: In both cases you can pressure with forcefielding the ramp (you already have a forward pylon). For the medivac timing you would have to retreat and for the ghost push you need to spread the sentries in front to not get hit on all of them by EMP.
Yup I agree. My response was more directed to the general flow of the build. I don't know if you've followed this thread diligently, but for a long time you were suppposed to get 2 stalkers followed by another 3 (warp) then warp in 3 zealots and pressure with the 3 zealot 5 stalker.
This is what I don't think works vs the ghost-timing as you just don't get any sentries early on.
I've never actually opted for the Stalkers. I always just get a couple Stalker and a lot of Zealots. I just think Zealots are more useful/safe early game. I just enough Stalkers to compliment the Zealots, and a small number of Sentries. I feel it's also more flexible since it's less vespene drained so early on. What do you think of that? I've won a lot of games like this, and the early Forge in place of an early Robo is great for a cannon in each mineral line, which protects against fast Hellions and Banshee, and then the Zealots are useful near all game.
I go currently for a 2nd gas and get 2 sentries immediately after the first stalker. I just fail hard at defending vs the ghost-push if I haven't at least one guardian shield and a couple of force fields to trap/split marines. The lower buildtime of sentries helps to keep the build in order.
Overall it seems like there's a constant "flow" of deviations concerning the one gate FE. I believe we haven't seen the end of it.
Sorry sleepingdog, just to be clear you're saying you get 2 sentries from the gateways before finishing WG research?
Yep, after a Stalker! That's what I've seen HuK do recently.
On August 04 2011 13:21 EliteReplay wrote: question how do u get 2 sentries after stalkers if with this build u take only 50 the gas? for WG, and then u dont have enough gas to make sentries
On August 04 2011 13:21 EliteReplay wrote: question how do u get 2 sentries after stalkers if with this build u take only 50 the gas? for WG, and then u dont have enough gas to make sentries
Because you don't pull gas in that variation.
so this is a upgrade of the build or is just preference?
The build being referenced above is a 2 gas build I believe. Two gas 1gate FE. HuK does it alot on his stream, it lets you build a stalker and 2 sentries before you put your nexus down.
On August 04 2011 13:51 BrisklyGrape wrote: The build being referenced above is a 2 gas build I believe. Two gas 1gate FE. HuK does it alot on his stream, it lets you build a stalker and 2 sentries before you put your nexus down.
Exactly. No probe-pull off gas, 2nd gas not asap (like PvZ) but at around 20.
One clarification: you don't put you nexus down after the 2 sentries - you put it down while the first sentry is in production and the stalker has killed/scared away the scv.
One clarification: you don't put you nexus down after the 2 sentries - you put it down while the first sentry is in production and the stalker has killed/scared away the scv.
Oh.. so what I posted will probably work? How does the build go after that? Everyone keeps saying 2 sentries so I'm doubting he gets 4 though
OK from now on this thread will be 100% about HUKKING. IE 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 16 py 17 core 20 nex 20 stalker 22 gate gate 22 stalker 24 probe 25 proxy pylon
If there is enough of a stir about HuK's other 1gate fe (the 2 gas) either we'll have to make a new thread or just effin blog it lol
Heh, sorry for derailing the thread. but it sounds like it was decided that HuKking simply isn't safe vs. 2 rax, convincingly enough that HuK himself modified it. It's a good guide for sure, but if it isn't viable, it isn't viable, which I guess led to all the variations. (I'm trying really hard not to sound harsh/sarcastic/snooty, but I'm not sure I got that across. I have good intentions here )
On August 04 2011 22:44 Alejandrisha wrote: ughhhhh so much confusion
OK from now on this thread will be 100% about HUKKING. IE 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 16 py 17 core 18 gas 20 nex 20 stalker 22 gate gate 22 stalker 24 probe 25 proxy pylon
If there is enough of a stir about HuK's other 1gate fe (the 2 gas) either we'll have to make a new thread or just effin blog it lol
ok I'm confused now... is the 18 gas supposed to be there? or is that just a mistake...
On August 05 2011 02:22 Alejandrisha wrote: oops! yes that was a mistake. LOL like I said.. confusion........
ROFL now that's funny haha - you've successfully helped me at derailing your thread
To get serious again: all I was trying to discuss were the potential disadvantages of the BO discussed here in this thread compared with the 2 gas one stalker two sentry FE. Then people started asking about the exact BO of the 2 gas expo and things got out of hand. Therefore back to the roots.
How do you fare when playing against a 2 ghost timing push...if your opponent doesn't move down his ramp until he has a significant force? Do you just build the 5 stalkers and then invest everything in sentries? Do you try to even push up the ramp with 3 zealot / 5 stalkers? Do you try to warp in sentries at THEIR ramp?
The 22 stalker is new (2nd one). Is that a change if you see pressure? Do you always build that second stalker or would you go back to the original opening with only 1 if you don't scout a 2 rax.
Edit: Should there be an edit to the first post given that things have changed since it was first used by Huk?
On August 04 2011 22:44 Alejandrisha wrote: ughhhhh so much confusion
OK from now on this thread will be 100% about HUKKING. IE 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 16 py 17 core 20 nex 20 stalker 22 gate gate 22 stalker 24 probe 25 proxy pylon
If there is enough of a stir about HuK's other 1gate fe (the 2 gas) either we'll have to make a new thread or just effin blog it lol
The build is the same as a 3gate expo, but instead of putting down 2more gates the nexus right? but this nexus its a little bit later than the 20nexus.
On August 04 2011 22:44 Alejandrisha wrote: ughhhhh so much confusion
OK from now on this thread will be 100% about HUKKING. IE 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 16 py 17 core 20 nex 20 stalker 22 gate gate 22 stalker 24 probe 25 proxy pylon
If there is enough of a stir about HuK's other 1gate fe (the 2 gas) either we'll have to make a new thread or just effin blog it lol
The build is the same as a 3gate expo, but instead of putting down 2more gates the nexus right? but this nexus its a little bit later than the 20nexus.
No it cuts more probes. This is the build straight from the OP. 3gate expo is an entirely different animal
On August 04 2011 13:21 EliteReplay wrote: question how do u get 2 sentries after stalkers if with this build u take only 50 the gas? for WG, and then u dont have enough gas to make sentries
Because you don't pull gas in that variation.
so this is a upgrade of the build or is just preference?
It's a stylistic difference, which is safer. I've seen Squirtle do this in NASL against PuMa, and HuK on his stream.
With the build you have 5 stalkers at around 5:55~ give or take couple secs.
The build gets you to place 2gateways (wait for 300 mins) at 23 pop.
If you scout at 4:00+ and you saw him with a reactor or a tech lab (which signifies early bio aggression) what if you get a forge at 23 pop at exactly 150 mins, rather than waiting for full 300 minerals for double gateways? By the time the cannon finishes at your natural it would be 5:45~ (10 secs faster than the 5 stalker timing) Wouldnt that make it easier to hold off early aggression without sacrificing as much units or pulling probes?
Ok you wont be able to do any pressure early on and the ability to go kill a terran fast but if he's doing a reactor/tech lab on rax build, he's the one being aggressive and you're the one being defensive.
The forge gives you mid/lategame application as well, extremely early upgrades and helps to defend your natural if he does the 11-12 minute 4 medivac 2 prong attack on your main and natural
b_unnies, my experience with this build is that even if I have to pull probes to defend, and losing up to 7 or 8 probes, at the end of the fight I will still be even on harvester count. Unless T destroys my nexus (happens rarely) I will once again be ahead in probe count by 7-8 in a few minutes.
Though I would expect placing the cannon will be safer against any 3rax or 2rax scv all-ins.
About the mid/lategame, I usually place double forges right after the early pressure and then chrono out the double upgrades and so far it seems to do pretty well.
Can someone post a VOD/replay of this build holding off a 3 rax? I keep hearing "Just place cannons!" or "Go sentries instead of stalkers!" or "Use pulled probes!" but I just get creamed every time I play against a 3 raxer with this build and don't know the optimal way to respond.
After you complete the build order and you have 5 stalkers out at around 6 minutes how can you possibly get an obs or cannon out in time for the 7ish minute banshee fly in?
At the very best the detection capability comes out after a batch of probes have been killed.
I guess a probe sacrifice at around 5 minutes has to happen to try to infer something from the marine / bunker count?
On August 05 2011 04:35 b_unnies wrote: With the build you have 5 stalkers at around 5:55~ give or take couple secs.
The build gets you to place 2gateways (wait for 300 mins) at 23 pop.
If you scout at 4:00+ and you saw him with a reactor or a tech lab (which signifies early bio aggression) what if you get a forge at 23 pop at exactly 150 mins, rather than waiting for full 300 minerals for double gateways? By the time the cannon finishes at your natural it would be 5:45~ (10 secs faster than the 5 stalker timing) Wouldnt that make it easier to hold off early aggression without sacrificing as much units or pulling probes?
Ok you wont be able to do any pressure early on and the ability to go kill a terran fast but if he's doing a reactor/tech lab on rax build, he's the one being aggressive and you're the one being defensive.
The forge gives you mid/lategame application as well, extremely early upgrades and helps to defend your natural if he does the 11-12 minute 4 medivac 2 prong attack on your main and natural
But scouting that reactor or tech lab doesn't tell you much, if anything at all. Scouting a reactor can mean he's going 1-1-1 and getting a forge won't be of much use against 1 base siege tanks + raven push. Scouting a tech lab can also easily mean 1rax FE. Having to invest in an early forge and cannon against an FE will more or less negate any econ advantages you get for using this build. (I'. assuming that you will be cutting a lot of probes since you still need to get ~3 gateways up because a single cannon and a gateway still won't be enough to stop that 2rax push).
Moreover it's not easy to actually scout for that tech lab or reactor add-on once he starts unit production. You can't exactly rely on that 4:00 scouting of add-ons because some games you might catch a glimpse of the add-on (if he walls off with his rax or mismicros his units), but in other games, he should be able to deny any scouting.
Based on my experience, you need to leave a stalker or a probe at his ramp to watch for the 2rax + scv push and chrono your gates, pull probes and micro for your life.
For later pushes though, like the 2ghost timing push, i'm pretty sure you can sentry contain him in at his ramp in time. He'll have to tech to starport which will take a while since he already invested in ghosts. You should then have more than enough time to secure a lead strong enough to fend off any attacks he does after getting medivacs out.
On August 04 2011 22:44 Alejandrisha wrote: ughhhhh so much confusion
OK from now on this thread will be 100% about HUKKING. IE 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 16 py 17 core 20 nex 20 stalker 22 gate gate 22 stalker 24 probe 25 proxy pylon
If there is enough of a stir about HuK's other 1gate fe (the 2 gas) either we'll have to make a new thread or just effin blog it lol
The build is the same as a 3gate expo, but instead of putting down 2more gates the nexus right? but this nexus its a little bit later than the 20nexus.
No it cuts more probes. This is the build straight from the OP. 3gate expo is an entirely different animal
i saw the replay Squirtle vs puma on Meta and the build its exactly the same as a 3gate, instead of putting down the 2extra gates at 27food, he putted down the nexus.
this is only viable against a no gas expand, and if so ill be greedy, 20 nexus 21gate gate 21 stalker 23 guys back on gas, 26 forward pylon, 4stalker aggression
Hasuobs seems to have taken it upon himself to continue the legacy of this build. You can see a daily Day9 did on it here http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-333-p3-half-and-half-w-hasu-and-fxosc-5436468. SC unfortunately absolutely demolishes it with a reactor first two rax, which is why noone really does this build anymore...
On August 08 2011 03:06 sickoota wrote: SC unfortunately absolutely demolishes it with a reactor first two rax, which is why noone really does this build anymore...
I dont think its hard to hold that at all with good micro.
Naniwa does this build versus Thorzain's no gas CC first on Metalopolis, and takes a huge lead with 3Gate pressure, unfortunately going up to 6Gates and overextending (DT would have been so much nicer, at least he won the series ).
On August 06 2011 00:00 Xahhk wrote: After you complete the build order and you have 5 stalkers out at around 6 minutes how can you possibly get an obs or cannon out in time for the 7ish minute banshee fly in?
At the very best the detection capability comes out after a batch of probes have been killed.
I guess a probe sacrifice at around 5 minutes has to happen to try to infer something from the marine / bunker count?
vs a build that gets out a banshee w/ cloak that fast, you can just pressure him a lot with your 5 stalkers and most likely win/force a lot of SCV pulls (which delays the banshee w/ cloak).
On August 08 2011 03:06 sickoota wrote: Hasuobs seems to have taken it upon himself to continue the legacy of this build. You can see a daily Day9 did on it here http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-333-p3-half-and-half-w-hasu-and-fxosc-5436468. SC unfortunately absolutely demolishes it with a reactor first two rax, which is why noone really does this build anymore...
this build is good in large rush distance maps and Gasless FE from terran.
On August 06 2011 00:00 Xahhk wrote: After you complete the build order and you have 5 stalkers out at around 6 minutes how can you possibly get an obs or cannon out in time for the 7ish minute banshee fly in?
At the very best the detection capability comes out after a batch of probes have been killed.
I guess a probe sacrifice at around 5 minutes has to happen to try to infer something from the marine / bunker count?
pressure as soon as you get units. any terran build that rushes for cloaked banshee only has like a few marines (a bunker at best), so a build that arrives at his doorstep that same time that a 4 gate does will probably kill him (or at least do enough damage to figure out what he's doing so that you can respond.
i would not really expect optimal results on any 2 player maps or 4 player maps with short rush distances.
other than that the only thing i can suggest is practice your stalker micro.
On August 08 2011 03:06 sickoota wrote: Hasuobs seems to have taken it upon himself to continue the legacy of this build. You can see a daily Day9 did on it here http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-333-p3-half-and-half-w-hasu-and-fxosc-5436468. SC unfortunately absolutely demolishes it with a reactor first two rax, which is why noone really does this build anymore...
Hasu held it off perfectly fine and showed why this build is so powerful. His issue was how he followed up after the build, not the opening itself.
SC caught Hasu powering off of this build. Pretty much any build or opening loses if you don't build units.
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
Where do the chronos go? On sentries? Do you keep atleast 3 CBs on warpgate? CB on probes?
On July 25 2011 11:26 deadmau wrote: Does anyone know Huk's modified buildorder of this build? I've come across multiple mentions of his abandoning of this style for a safer style, but I can't find the replays. If anyone knows the specific build that'd be great. A stream view would be cool, as I'm curious as to his follow-up
HuK says that this build is too dangerous against a very well executed 12/16 reactor/tech lab which is very trendy on the korean server, so he no longer does it.
His new build is as follows 9 py 13 gate 14 gas 15 py 17 core 18 gas
He gets a stalker first and cb's it. You can put a CB on the WG as well but it's not too necessary.
He pokes with the first stalker but cannot lose it.
He expands at 30/34, with probes cut at 30 food. With sentries coming out constantly, he gets 2 gates after the nexus and then a pylon before resuming probe production. WG finishes with 3 or 4 sentries (he gets 3 and probes up to 34 food if no pressure is coming). He gets 3 sentries at WG finish and adds sentries/stalkers from there. To hold pressure, he takes the best possible position with his units on the low ground once WG is done and just uses FF to defend (no zealots)
The build is pretty open ended from here. I've seen him go robo if the terran is being sketchy but more typically forge + twilight for blink stalkers and armor upgrades for map control and to try to take an upgrade edge for later in the game.
Maybe he will come in here and tell me what I got wrong
EDIT: I still do the 20 nexus a lot because even though it should lose to a very crisp 12/16 r/t, that build is not too popular on NA and the players that do it reactively don't do a great job of executing it. I know that's a bad way to approach the game but I find it too fun to drop altogether
Where do the chronos go? On sentries? Do you keep atleast 3 CBs on warpgate? CB on probes?
What do you mean? When going stalker/sentry/sentry the basic idea of the build (getting nexus while chrono-boosting warpgate-tech) doesn't change. The difference is, you get the 2nd gas, don't pull probes off gas and can still afford the early nexus and the subsequent warpgates by investing in sentries instead of mineral-heavy units. It's actually very similar to the one gate FE that people are doing in PvZ nowadays.
Nevertheless, since meta-game seems to be shifting back to sentries, I found that doing the original build works great (again) on larger maps. Especially against no gas expands. Unless the bunker-placement is 100% perfect I can either run behind the natural or straight into the main and cut off all reinforcements and/or wreak havoc onto scvs. The underlying idea of the early attack - trading zealots for pulled scvs - has never stopped working. See Nani vs Thorzain game 2 blizz eu inv
On August 09 2011 04:28 Kammalleri wrote: What to do vs Marine Tank Banshee push? Is there a way to break the front or something cause as soon as they move out you're dead..
When you see him coming, you have to push with your army asap so you can catch him in the middle, so you can buy some time for producing more army at home(microing your army vs his in the middle and pulling slowly home).
On August 09 2011 04:28 Kammalleri wrote: What to do vs Marine Tank Banshee push? Is there a way to break the front or something cause as soon as they move out you're dead..
When you see him coming, you have to push with your army asap so you can catch him in the middle, so you can buy some time for producing more army at home(microing your army vs his in the middle and pulling slowly home).
On August 12 2011 04:27 Huntz wrote: No its not, you cannot FE in PvP. You can however, at this point expand in the post 4gate period (although not immediately).
Yes actually you can, I have a friend writing a cool article about it too
Just want to keep people from seeing inaccurate information around these threads.
On August 12 2011 04:27 Huntz wrote: No its not, you cannot FE in PvP. You can however, at this point expand in the post 4gate period (although not immediately).
Yes actually you can, I have a friend writing a cool article about it too
Just want to keep people from seeing inaccurate information around these threads.
On August 12 2011 04:27 Huntz wrote: No its not, you cannot FE in PvP. You can however, at this point expand in the post 4gate period (although not immediately).
Yes actually you can, I have a friend writing a cool article about it too
Just want to keep people from seeing inaccurate information around these threads.
I bet it's extremely easy to counter
Maybe! We'll see, either way it's a really cool build to know and be able to use.
On August 12 2011 04:27 Huntz wrote: No its not, you cannot FE in PvP. You can however, at this point expand in the post 4gate period (although not immediately).
Yes actually you can, I have a friend writing a cool article about it too
Just want to keep people from seeing inaccurate information around these threads.
My favorite fe PvP build is make it look like a 4 gate (save cb, use cbs, and extra cb on 2nd stalker) then when probe is out of your main throw down forge, shark around with your standard 2 stalker 1 zealot, get nexus and 3 cannons. From here you can go to 4 gate asap or get twlight and charge then mass gateways, with any luck you can delay scouting for a few minutes even as they wonder when the 4 gate is going to hit. BE FORWARNED don't do it on a map where the cannons are close enough to your ramp they can just blink onto it, then blink into your main.................
So is it just me or does this build seem to almost auto win vs any gasless expo? So far the only thing to hold was 3 bunkers, and even then I did a lot of damage and managed to break him later on. http://www.mediafire.com/?uwco5rlwvjy1r76
There's 6 or 7 replays of me just playing around with this with a practice partner of mine and it seemed a little odd how easily I was able to punish him. I vary between my style (5 stalker poke into 5 z 5 s 1 sentry push) and changing up some timings, but overall it seems that if they gasless expo, even as get a nexus down early, they have to put up at least 3 bunkers to defend, and even then I can kill 5+ scvs and be very cost effective... Is it really this much of a hard counter? (amazing considering I can do this post scouting)
Pity gasless expo is so much less popular than it used to be... qq
On August 15 2011 19:10 Lobber wrote: So is it just me or does this build seem to almost auto win vs any gasless expo? So far the only thing to hold was 3 bunkers, and even then I did a lot of damage and managed to break him later on. http://www.mediafire.com/?uwco5rlwvjy1r76
There's 6 or 7 replays of me just playing around with this with a practice partner of mine and it seemed a little odd how easily I was able to punish him. I vary between my style (5 stalker poke into 5 z 5 s 1 sentry push) and changing up some timings, but overall it seems that if they gasless expo, even as get a nexus down early, they have to put up at least 3 bunkers to defend, and even then I can kill 5+ scvs and be very cost effective... Is it really this much of a hard counter? (amazing considering I can do this post scouting)
Pity gasless expo is so much less popular than it used to be... qq
Gasless FE needs good Bunkerplacement and excellent execution against any opening that involves early Gateway pressure. Thats the toll you have to pay for the strong econ you get.
On August 09 2011 04:28 Kammalleri wrote: What to do vs Marine Tank Banshee push? Is there a way to break the front or something cause as soon as they move out you're dead..
When you see him coming, you have to push with your army asap so you can catch him in the middle, so you can buy some time for producing more army at home(microing your army vs his in the middle and pulling slowly home).
Love this build, it has become a standard opener for me in PvT and the only time i've straight up lost because of the opening is a clean executed 2-rax(Nerazim Crypts cross) with 5 SCV's which is a bummer to hold.
Feels like the only thing i can do is scout well and instead to a 3-gate expand.
I have a build order outlined for what huk uses on his stream: 2 Chronoboosts on nexus
9 Pylon 12 gate 14 gas 15 pylon 17 core mine gas normally, start warpgate BEFORE nexus (huk uses 2 chrono on core, use 3) 20 nexus+1 probe, so total supply is 21 AFTER dropping nexus 21(brings to 23 supply total) stalker 23 drop additional gates after stalker, make a probe so total is up to 24 supply after gates are put down 24(brings to 26 supply) second stalker 26 proxy pylon When warpgate research finishes, convert gates into warpgates, and chronoboost all 3 gates after 3 stalkers are warped in. Take gases etc afterward and proceed with normal game.
On huk's stream his 3rd chrono never gets used, so he hits maxed energy as his gates finish, whereas if you use it on warpgate, you should hit 75% just as your gateways finish, or just after your first warp in, either way, you can devote that 3rd chrono to either warpgate research or possibly probes/stalker.
On August 12 2011 02:41 thisisSSK wrote: You're username is apt... why are you giving combatex attention. I'm certain there are better vids out there to link
On August 12 2011 04:27 Huntz wrote: No its not, you cannot FE in PvP. You can however, at this point expand in the post 4gate period (although not immediately).
Yes actually you can, I have a friend writing a cool article about it too
Just want to keep people from seeing inaccurate information around these threads.
I bet it's extremely easy to counter
I think if you see a second gas or lots of spent CB you just fake a 4-gate, deny scouting and make your opponent player defensive and then put down your 3 gates after nexus.
On August 15 2011 19:10 Lobber wrote: So is it just me or does this build seem to almost auto win vs any gasless expo? So far the only thing to hold was 3 bunkers, and even then I did a lot of damage and managed to break him later on. http://www.mediafire.com/?uwco5rlwvjy1r76
There's 6 or 7 replays of me just playing around with this with a practice partner of mine and it seemed a little odd how easily I was able to punish him. I vary between my style (5 stalker poke into 5 z 5 s 1 sentry push) and changing up some timings, but overall it seems that if they gasless expo, even as get a nexus down early, they have to put up at least 3 bunkers to defend, and even then I can kill 5+ scvs and be very cost effective... Is it really this much of a hard counter? (amazing considering I can do this post scouting)
Pity gasless expo is so much less popular than it used to be... qq
It's extremely good against gasless fe on maps such as xel naga, typhon, tal'darim. The nats are very wide open. The problem is you essentially need to scout them 1st on 4 player maps depending on your scout timing. I've pretty much phased this build out against everything but gasless fe on those maps. It seems like it would be good on shakuras and antigua, but since they can bunker at the top of the ramp, this strat is not as effective. I've switched to the new 2 gas 1gate fe that he does and am loving it.
On August 09 2011 04:28 Kammalleri wrote: What to do vs Marine Tank Banshee push? Is there a way to break the front or something cause as soon as they move out you're dead..
When you see him coming, you have to push with your army asap so you can catch him in the middle, so you can buy some time for producing more army at home(microing your army vs his in the middle and pulling slowly home).
this build still works against gasless 1 rax fe on maps with wide open naturals! the tricky thing is you have to scout no gas, which is tough on 4 player maps
check out this new transition- speed prism colo harass :p
still use this build all the time on big maps. I tweak my gas intake so that I can drop my nexus before starting warpgate though, which means the nexus finishes at the same time as my warpgates. This can be quite useful in case I need to respond to sudden aggression which I scouted after starting this build: I simply stop probes at 22 and drop 3 gates since I don't need a 3rd pylon anytime soon. The build is also safe against standard terran play on maps that are big enough.
im surprised nobody has mentioned this but isn't it 20 stalker not 22?
Is this build still a viable PvT build? My own 1gate expand that I made is a bit greedy and doesn't involve a huge probe cut, a couple of bunkers can sometimes kill me. This one seems safer, but I want to know that it's one of the best at the moment. I really like the counter pressure and such, and I can see how you delay mining gas for a bit just to have 50 for the cyber and an extra 50 for the first stalker, quite smart.
I've been messing with this build lately against no gas FEs. As soon as I see no gas or an SCV heading to Terran's natural, I cancel anything building in my gateway and pull a guy off gas. It seems to me like the only way to get the nexus down at relatively the same time as a Terran if they CC on the low ground. I think against a gas build it's not so good. The build gets the robo and 2nd gas later than other 1 gate FEs, and relies only on stalkers early on, so marauders or banshees can be pretty dangerous.
On December 07 2011 02:46 GomJabbar wrote: I've been messing with this build lately against no gas FEs. As soon as I see no gas or an SCV heading to Terran's natural, I cancel anything building in my gateway and pull a guy off gas. It seems to me like the only way to get the nexus down at relatively the same time as a Terran if they CC on the low ground. I think against a gas build it's not so good. The build gets the robo and 2nd gas later than other 1 gate FEs, and relies only on stalkers early on, so marauders or banshees can be pretty dangerous.
If you do the build well, ie have exactly 50 gas when the cyber finishes, you can make the nexus before the cyber finishes which is about the same time as a gasless FE. On maps where this build is good you usually don't want to tech super fast into robo anyway, especially with the dual forge style there should be no rush. If you want you can still go robo fairly quickly though by simply going straight from 1 to 3 gas.
On June 19 2012 07:51 ImpacTius wrote: Is this build still viable?
CCalms is right in a way. My 2 cents is basically Terrans know what it looks like, and engi bay block like no tomorrow. This is a big deal when your first unit is a stalker that comes pretty late. I don't think it's to be done high level, just look into MC 1gate expand.
On June 19 2012 07:51 ImpacTius wrote: Is this build still viable?
CCalms is right in a way. My 2 cents is basically Terrans know what it looks like, and engi bay block like no tomorrow. This is a big deal when your first unit is a stalker that comes pretty late. I don't think it's to be done high level, just look into MC 1gate expand.
Put a probe on the SCV and start building a zealot out of your gateway. You can cancel the zealot at the last second, but the T can't know whether you're going to or not. If he decides to eng block (which would be weird..) then let the zealot finish, proceed with an MC-style 1gate FE. If he doesn't block, cancel the zealot and go for the HuK build.
On June 19 2012 07:51 ImpacTius wrote: Is this build still viable?
CCalms is right in a way. My 2 cents is basically Terrans know what it looks like, and engi bay block like no tomorrow. This is a big deal when your first unit is a stalker that comes pretty late. I don't think it's to be done high level, just look into MC 1gate expand.
CCalms is trying to say if you even need to ask if it's viable and can't make the judgement call with your own experience, then you aren't at a high enough skill level when the build would no longer be relevant.
On June 19 2012 07:51 ImpacTius wrote: Is this build still viable?
CCalms is right in a way. My 2 cents is basically Terrans know what it looks like, and engi bay block like no tomorrow. This is a big deal when your first unit is a stalker that comes pretty late. I don't think it's to be done high level, just look into MC 1gate expand.
CCalms is trying to say if you even need to ask if it's viable and can't make the judgement call with your own experience, then you aren't at a high enough skill level when the build would no longer be relevant.
I have refined this build slightly, if you get a 15pylon (rally 14/18 from nexus) and then build the assimilator with the same probe. Put one probe on gas plus the one that builds your cybernetics core, then add a third probe in the assimilator after the nexus.
Cut probes at 24/26 with a stalker building, add two gates, get a 25/26 pylon and a 26 second gas followed by a robo (27ish)
On June 19 2012 07:51 ImpacTius wrote: Is this build still viable?
I do it all the time in the ladder, at a mid-diamond level. Against masters practice partners it also works really well, followed by a double forge if i see a fast CC.
omg!!! i have been winnin so much games lately with this build.. im a bronze player and the funny thing is ive been using it against all races.. i transition to blink colossi or to chargelots archons depending on matchups... i only loose when i make too much mistakes since im still noob..
Today i have a 6-1 streak with this build and i think i just mastered it... here is my last game versus a terran i saw he had 1 rax and early gas so i figured he would expand.. i managed to kill him in 8 minutes just like the guide says!
Please watch my replay and give me some feedback and tips if im doing something wrong,
Also a quick question.. if i see my opponent is going to rush me how can i counter this? thanks alot
EPT
this is the build he used vs MMA game one in the up and down matches GSL MAY, too!!! So without further adieu.....
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