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Hello everybody  . I saw a thread on dealing with DT’s but it was older and aimed more at dealing with DT’s as it was a one base push. With the introduction of the 3 gate DT expand, it is much less all in and has a lot of different transitions fro mit. So I decided to put up a post of my own with more theorycraft to hopefully get a lot more feedback on defending and playing against the DT opener.
I am a high diamond ranked terran player and have been having trouble with DT expand builds. I have thought of a couple different responses and would appreciate feedback on them.
DT expand to me does a slew of various things to the game. It gives them a chance to win outright if the terran is caught without turrets, while it also gives map control by making the terran wait until he has at least 2 scans before he can move out and put any pressure on the protoss. This allows them to tech quickly, spend their chrono boost on probes and upgrades to improve their chances of winning in the end game. I have found if the DT’s are not effective, they are behind but not severely as they can be turned into archons giving them a very strong to fight with against bio. Here are the responses I have thought of on the terran side of things.
1. Taking a fast third base
- If the terran holds off the DT’s well, they can take a fast third for various reasons. One, it will be a little while until the protoss knows about the 3rd CC as he will not have observers for a fairly long time. This allows the terran to rush past the protoss in economy and overwhelm him later in the game. Perhaps even throw in upgrading quickly as well?
2. Raven push
- The typical opening right now for terran in the TvP matchup has been a 2 rax reactor first opening. This provides a good amount of units, and flexibility on what to do with stim timing, medevac timing, and punishing fast nexus builds. If the terran thinks he is going DT’s, he can take a 2nd gas instead of expanding, perhaps put down a 3rd rax, tech to raven, and push into the protoss base and up his ramp as it is unlikely he will have a lot of sentries to hold off such a push up his ramp. I tend to stay away from builds like this as I prefer more macro oriented play to raise my skills all around, but could this be a response that is strong enough to not be held by the toss at the time of attack?
3. Mech Transition
- A typical response that tends to be very strong in the DT expand style is a fast chargelot upgrade after the harass. This upgrade alone can tear up bio and be very useful in the end game, but combined with sentries it can be downright deadly. Also, a high Templar transition is very typical following DT harass. When the DT tech is discovered, a fast ghostmech transition with blue flame hellions, thors, and ghosts can theoretically be very strong in my opinion. They will typically not have a robo quickly so the immortal count will be low, your ghosts can be used to EMP your own thors to stop feedback dmg and to EMP the protoss army as well, and blue flame hellions absolutely tear apart zealots.
4. Typical MMM expand with drops
- There is still the option of going the standard 3 rax starport build with medivac drops. This sounds like the most logical transition as the protoss will not a lot of gateway units out to combat it, but DTs do pretty well against drops. Dropping multiple locations sounds like it can be a significant pain the protoss’ side though
These are my current thoughts on the build and would appreciate feedback and corrections (as I may be incorrect on my thought process on some), and builds I may not be thinking of currently. Hope to hear back from you guys
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Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure.
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On July 25 2011 12:12 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure.
The DT's come at around 7:15-7:30, and the push can be held by staggering your DT's and catching him without enough scans as he only has 1 CC this early in the game. DT expands, if I am correct, are thought to do pretty well against 2 rax pressure openings
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Banshees, cloaked banshees in particular, will pretty much kill him.
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I disagree with the post above me. dt > 2 rax, I'm pretty sure every high level player knows that. The safest route is to get turrets in the beginning. You won't break him with 2 rax, b/c he can just send 1 dt at a time and he can also ff the ramp if he went gas b4 core which is common for these types of build.
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If he's going hardcore DTs, it's relatively easy to spot. You have to scout and be active, count his sentries, as every sentry puts toss behind ~1 more minute in tech; know protoss' standard expand timings. I'm just saying going hardcore DT is a pretty easy build to spot and I can't imagine it's too difficult to throw down an engi bay + turret.
To the posts above me, then don't 2 rax? I don't DT expand in my games because of how weird the timings get and I prefer to not be pigeonholed into a tech before I even get an expand up (MInus a 2-3gate robo expand if I'm worried something is up from gas first or early double gas).
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On July 25 2011 12:12 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure.
wrong.
maybe at some level players arent able to defend a 2rax with DT build but at higher levels its easily done. once they have DTs out u will lose everything.
as for OP, i like the idea of countering with a fast 3rd, I feel like a raven push wouldnt quite cut it unless you were already going for it in the first place. ups + fast 3rd seems like a great counter
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On July 25 2011 12:12 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure.
you make it sound like the protoss announces he is going dt expand at the start of the match or something.
depends on the timing, he may or may not be able to hold 2rax pressure, but more often than not it shouldn't be a problem.
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On July 25 2011 12:30 tuestresfat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2011 12:12 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure. you make it sound like the protoss announces he is going dt expand at the start of the match or something. depends on the timing, he may or may not be able to hold 2rax pressure, but more often than not it shouldn't be a problem.
It's pretty easy to spot is all I am saying. Low sentry count, early second gas screams some sort of tech opening. Especially if the expansion is not up before the 7 minute mark. If you see that you should immediately become suspicious. I don't know what is so hard to understand about this.
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I dont know, if you're dedicated to opening 2 rax reactor first, and you scouted 2 gas with your first scv, just have a reasonable timing on your engi bay based on when you're expecting dts, and take a quick third base. You don't have to do anything crazy unit comp wise to deal with DT play, just make the fewest number of turrets possible, and if you can't snipe the Dark Shrine with your first medivac drop, just addon swap and pump out a raven.
Also, like above posters mentioned, walling off and going banshee puts you in a strong position versus any dedicated dt opening, and gives you the production facility to pump out a raven after your 2 banshees. Watch Day9's daily on Happy. His build works excellently versus dts.
Just like any form of protoss tech, an important thing to consider is the gas expenditure. If he is going dts, he won't have a ton of sentries, and he will probably go templar before going colossus, simply because the tech path is easier. So prioritize ghosts over vikings until your scouting says otherwise, as if he knows his dt card is played, he will probably have a few archons, and ht coming. He will also likely have charge sooner than normal. Drops can do really good damage against this kind of build, because it relies on fragile tech structures.
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Just a funny thing i like to do and thought you should know.
If im sure they're dt expanding i like to bring around 5-6 scvs and build turrets(preferably 1 only ) to push..
( i wall so counter attacks r useless )
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On July 25 2011 12:12 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure.
Im only in diamond but DT expand builds seem to be highly effective in stopping early aggression, thats actually why I love the open.
I agree that a heavy enough pressure can force a cancel on the expo but it shouldn't break the ramp.
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So can anybody explain to me why banshee/cloaked banshee is not an option presented in this thread by anyone but me?
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On July 25 2011 13:03 TheRabidDeer wrote:
So can anybody explain to me why banshee/cloaked banshee is not an option presented in this thread by anyone but me?
Shucks mentioned walling off and going cloak banshee as well?
Also, if your force a nexus cancel and you are building a CC as well as an engi bay aren't you ahead of a DT expand? Actually a serious question, as I would think if you're expanding behind your pressure and force a cancel you're already up a base.
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On July 25 2011 12:36 BrisklyGrape wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2011 12:30 tuestresfat wrote:On July 25 2011 12:12 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Just go fucking kill him. As Day9 would say. If he's going DTs before the 6 minute mark he just will not have enough units to hold off a standard 2 rax with conc shell push unless you engage poorly. Otherwise just out expand him, get a turret in each mineral line and your entrance and... win? I am a protoss and TBH I hate DT expand builds because of how vulnerable they are to early game pressure. you make it sound like the protoss announces he is going dt expand at the start of the match or something. depends on the timing, he may or may not be able to hold 2rax pressure, but more often than not it shouldn't be a problem. It's pretty easy to spot is all I am saying. Low sentry count, early second gas screams some sort of tech opening. Especially if the expansion is not up before the 7 minute mark. If you see that you should immediately become suspicious. I don't know what is so hard to understand about this.
No, that is not all you are saying. You claimed in your first post that DT fe leaves the protoss too vulnerable to early pressure, and that is the main point that I am disputing.
I feel like we need a specific build order to discuss, there are a few different timings of DT fe that I know of. The one MC created gets both gas at standard timings when skipping first Zealot. It is also very possible and standard to place the Nexus down ~6:30... well before the 7:00 mark you are so cautious of.
If you really think this build is so easy to scout as Terran you should ask Tarson how he died to it at Dreamhack. iirc he went 1 or 2 rax FE (can't remember which) which is the build you are claiming, will break a protoss early in the game. Tarson not only did not break him, but also did not expect DT follow up despite seeing Huk's unit comp. He is just one example btw.
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Then I'm wrong about the being vulnerable to pressure? My point about scouting it still stands. His sentry count determines how tech heavy he is. The great thing about mini pressure builds is that you can just go home. You don't have to commit your army into it if it is so heavily fortified. There are different DT timings depending on when you get your council (after your first, second, or third gate) and when you take your second gas (before or after your core).
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I have been going no gas inbase expo for sometime now, and the best solution for me has been to (besides scouting with the scv) has been to save up scans, the moment you see him 1 baseing and not knowing his composition. Then turret push out to your natural as fast as possible, when you see dts (hoping/trying to save as many scans as possible) and then go in and push the protoss with scans saved up.
Teching to raven takes too much time imo, turtling it out leaves you behind in some cases versus a greedy protoss and
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On July 25 2011 13:13 BrisklyGrape wrote:
Then I'm wrong about the being vulnerable to pressure? My point about scouting it still stands. His sentry count determines how tech heavy he is. The great thing about mini pressure builds is that you can just go home. You don't have to commit your army into it if it is so heavily fortified. There are different DT timings depending on when you get your council (after your first, second, or third gate) and when you take your second gas (before or after your core).
I think we have slightly different build orders in mind which is why we can't reach an agreement.
I said nothing about committing your army as Terran, not quite sure why you even brought that up. It's not relevant.
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On July 25 2011 13:19 Bixs wrote:
I have been going no gas inbase expo for sometime now, and the best solution for me has been to (besides scouting with the scv) has been to save up scans, the moment you see him 1 baseing and not knowing his composition. Then turret push out to your natural as fast as possible, when you see dts (hoping/trying to save as many scans as possible) and then go in and push the protoss with scans saved up.
Teching to raven takes too much time imo, turtling it out leaves you behind in some cases versus a greedy protoss and
so what happens if he's not 1baseing and actually expands, like you would do in any 'fast expand' build
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EPT
