The Protoss Help Me Thread - Page 132

On December 09 2011 07:01 Exclamark wrote:
What are three safe openings I should choose to practice for each match up? I am in gold.

I want to ladder and practice but there are so many builds and openings for each match up. Which ones are the best to practice so that I can learn macro?

On December 09 2011 07:01 Exclamark wrote:
What are three safe openings I should choose to practice for each match up? I am in gold.

I want to ladder and practice but there are so many builds and openings for each match up. Which ones are the best to practice so that I can learn macro?

On December 09 2011 01:47 Latedi wrote:


You have to scout. If you see no expansion at his natural it's a cheese and I don't think it matters much if he has proxy hatch or not, it will depend on how good your wall is and how many cannons you have. As for the roach all in that sounds like it's coming pretty late compared to a roach ling all in. This means you can scout and see no third as well as suiciding the probe into his main and maybe see the roaches. Also since he attacks so late you will have warp gates up by then most likely, shouldn't be that hard to hold. As for ling hydra that is a kind of 2 base play, if you don't see a third you should just turtle up and try to scout him with observers or phoenixes. Either way you should have colossus and/or a lot of gateway units out in time. Against mass roach hydra just get AoE and forcefields.

On December 09 2011 16:45 skatbone wrote:


I'm high diamond and having similar problems dealing with the multitude of Zerg openings. Yet for me, of late, I keep scouting what I think will be aggression, only to have it not materialize.

How do you keep from overreacting to the Zerg opening when you achieve a decent scout on your opponent and you deduce a reasonable probability of aggression? How do you change your mid game plan? Do you still shoot for an ideal that you already have mapped out before the game, or do you adjust it on the fly?

I usually open 4gate into robo/twilight (Heroic FFE style). So the obs often comes too late to clear up my questions about their early shenanigans. Is it viable to work hallucination into an FFE? I rarely see pros do it. When I used to open gateway, I would do so. But these days, I am feeling it to be necessary.

A lot of my confusion comes from the weird/suboptimal builds of my opponents. Watching RSVPs stream, I hear him talk about dropping cannons if you see an early roach warren. I often scout early roach warrens and cannon up, only to have my opponent not make roaches. Tonight, I got a money scout into his base before he took his 3rd and saw that he had 2 gases already! No lair morphing either. So I figured he was going to 2-base bling bust me. I prepared for it and it never came. It turns out he was going for mass upgraded lings and blings. I just whittled away my mental resources trying to figure this out and before I knew it I was floating 1700 minerals and I had no sense of my mid-game plan.

tl;dr How do you keep from overreacting to the wrong build when you achieve a decent scout on your opponent/deduce what your opponent is doing? Part of what I do wrong is I over think--I over-deduce. So this might be less a question of build orders and strategies and more one of mental approach to the game...playing my game rather than letting my opponent's weirdness get to me.

On December 09 2011 23:25 Latedi wrote:


Yeah I know what you mean, it's hard to know exactly what amount of aggression the zerg is going for. Luckily I'm using the same build as you so let's see if I can help To begin with I think you need to follow through with the zealots even though you see your opponent 2 basing. It will force him to show his hand be it roaches, spines or a ton of lings. If he doesn't have enough units to hold the natural feel free to scout his main with the zealots as well but dealing damage should be your top priority unless you are doing something sketchy back home.

The key to estimating the amount of units is scouting them and, if you can, deducing it from his tech paths and expansion timings. For example if you use a few early zealos to take map control you can hide probes and proxy pylons at his side of the map to scout for expansions and then use the zealot aggression to scout his base. This should cover most possibilites. Personally I then follow up with a warp prism sentry drop while teching DTs and getting observers + other units. This combination allows for insane scouting and you should be able to find out what he's up to if you're doing something similar. Another thing that I have been thinking about and will soon start experimenting with is hallucinations as you said. With this build you really get a lot of gas so cutting once sentry in favor of map hack sounds good to me. I don't think this will put you behind too much as you are on 4 gases by then.

So as far as scouting goes
2-3 zealots for map control -> +1 4gate zealot aggression while hiding probes and pylons around the map -> warp prism sentry drop (hallucination?) -> DTs and observers

Of course this can change a lot depending on how you prefer to play your game. I think you could for example skip the robo and DTs and get maybe a stargate instead while teching HTs. Having this much gas really allows for many options.

Also, I don't believe you should take sub optimal builds into consideration even if it might be frustrating sometimes. Just scout a lot and consider your opponent being behind if he lacks both expansions and higher tech.

I think I wrote too much random stuff here but hopefully it will help someone o/

On December 10 2011 01:06 skatbone wrote:


Yea, that is helpful. I generally get an early prism as well but I often find that I am dropping him right as his tech is materializing in the form of units: the mutas are hitting probe line, for instance.

I'd like a go-to derivation of my build when he is on 2-base but I can't tell what he is doing. I think you are right that scouting unit comp with my zealots is probably the best chance I have. Lately, I've been holding off on the 8 zealot harass when I see that he doesn't have a 3rd. That, as you suggest here, might be a mistake as I can get some insights into the style of 2-base is I knock at the front door of his natural.

Do you do a Sase-style sentry drop on the mineral line or are you FF the ramp to the main?

On December 10 2011 19:31 mizU wrote:
Tosses. Double robo SO good against zerg. Do it more.

I thought I had lost versus a Zerg on Shakuras after I couldn't kill his third and I couldn't get my own up.

Double robo pumping colossi... soo good.

On December 11 2011 07:59 Amornthep wrote:
If you're fighting a zerg that you know will go mutas, you can always go double stargate allin after FFE, it's really effective especially if the zerg doesn't scout the 2nd stargate.

On December 11 2011 10:39 ThePianoDentist wrote:


doesnt going for mutas usually also just straight up die to a quick +1 6 gate all-in hence why the style went out of fashion in the first place?

On December 11 2011 04:13 eugalp wrote:

How quickly do you add a second robo and a robo bay? Before or after 3rd? Do you first pump a couple of rounds of immortals before switching to colossus, or get colossus right away?
Also sometimes I have gas issues when going double robo colossus.