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Italy12247 Posts
That's okay, you really should have only 5 or 6 stalkers to defend from drops. The rest should be zealot/colossus/A sentry.
6 to be precise, 6 stalkers 2shot a medivac. You can make more if you go fast blink, see Rain's games today for a good example.
Depending on the double forge variation of your build (i only ever did Creator's so im not too too familiar with the timings for Colossus into double forge, or even the new builds where you go double forge and colossus at the same time), im not a biggest fan of pushing out with 2/2 as that also tends to be the time when you defend your third and drops are all over the map. If you are far ahead from sniping dropships and destroying his timing, sure, otherwise i'd rather turtle to 3/3 and both archons and colossi.
Plus, @sc2john, you can't attack early and aggressively with double forge; you have too much invested into tech. You can poke around with single forge builds (especially colossus openings), but not double forge.
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On October 10 2012 21:51 Teoita wrote:Show nested quote +That's okay, you really should have only 5 or 6 stalkers to defend from drops. The rest should be zealot/colossus/A sentry. 6 to be precise, 6 stalkers 2shot a medivac. You can make more if you go fast blink, see Rain's games today for a good example. Depending on the double forge variation of your build (i only ever did Creator's so im not too too familiar with the timings for Colossus into double forge, or even the new builds where you go double forge and colossus at the same time), im not a biggest fan of pushing out with 2/2 as that also tends to be the time when you defend your third and drops are all over the map. If you are far ahead from sniping dropships and destroying his timing, sure, otherwise i'd rather turtle to 3/3 and both archons and colossi. Plus, @sc2john, you can't attack early and aggressively with double forge; you have too much invested into tech. You can poke around with single forge builds (especially colossus openings), but not double forge.
Thank you, 6 stalkers is a very good number to keep in my head. Alternatively, if I were to go the templar route, what would be sufficient? Probably a cannon or two combined with a templar per location?
I'm having a hard time grasping this concept that people are describing, where you don't want units unless you need them.
While I used to main zerg this made sense, now that I am mixing in P and T I feel that those two races are better off steadily increasing in army size, since you can't switch from pure economy to pure units (especially as T). Maybe with P this works a bit better because of chronoboost... allowing you to cut units to chrono out probes non stop and adding production, but does this not leave a window for my opponent to simply kill me? Maybe my issue is scouting if I continue that line of thought, but I'd like to say 90% of my PvT games are the T doing some kind of 10-12 minute mmm timing while taking a third behind, and the reason I hold this comfortably while taking my own third is because I make units the moment I can, off of 3 gates.
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Italy12247 Posts
Yeah i go 6stalkers anyway even with templar vs medivac timings, and later on one templar and 1-2 cannons work.
For having idle gateways and getting units when you need to and tech/infrastructure when you can, i suggest looking at this thread (yay for self promotion) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=364130; i talk a bit about how production is strucutred with macro pvt builds and why you want your buildings/gateways at specific timings. This is for 2base play, but 3base is similar. If you note, 3nex cuts units and ramps up to 8-9 gates worth of producion, and it gets a huge spike in production when a standard medivac timing would hit.
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With HotS on the way, I have been trying to mess around with more air play in PvZ. Has anyone had any success with chargelot/carrier play? Either in the HotS beta or in WoL. When I get to the proper composition, it's ok, but I don't really know if there's a successful way to build up to it quickly before too many corruptors are out.
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On October 11 2012 01:20 ThirdDegree wrote:
With HotS on the way, I have been trying to mess around with more air play in PvZ. Has anyone had any success with chargelot/carrier play? Either in the HotS beta or in WoL. When I get to the proper composition, it's ok, but I don't really know if there's a successful way to build up to it quickly before too many corruptors are out.
Theres a mothership expand build that you can find on the bnet forums that people seem to swear by.
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Italy12247 Posts
On October 11 2012 01:20 ThirdDegree wrote:
With HotS on the way, I have been trying to mess around with more air play in PvZ. Has anyone had any success with chargelot/carrier play? Either in the HotS beta or in WoL. When I get to the proper composition, it's ok, but I don't really know if there's a successful way to build up to it quickly before too many corruptors are out.
You are never going to be able to protect your carriers from corruptors with that composition, nor will you be able to defend a third or survive against mutas for that matter. In lategame, your ultimate army is mothership/carrier/templar/archon with a few stalkers; your archons templar and stalkers have the job of protecting the carriers as they siege the broodlords. That said, that stage of pvz is very unexplored and none knows a good way to transition into carriers yet.
Also don't listen to whatever people post on the battle.net forums they are awful.
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On October 10 2012 22:17 Teoita wrote:Yeah i go 6stalkers anyway even with templar vs medivac timings, and later on one templar and 1-2 cannons work. For having idle gateways and getting units when you need to and tech/infrastructure when you can, i suggest looking at this thread (yay for self promotion) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=364130; i talk a bit about how production is strucutred with macro pvt builds and why you want your buildings/gateways at specific timings. This is for 2base play, but 3base is similar. If you note, 3nex cuts units and ramps up to 8-9 gates worth of producion, and it gets a huge spike in production when a standard medivac timing would hit.
I see the logic of this. I don't play like this however. I think if you're timings are crisp, you can get a third off 3 Gates.
My build shoots for Collossuses. With one Collossus, I establish my third. I immediately drop down 3 gates and a second Forge and get Templar tech soon after (stopping at 3 Collossuses). With good obs scouting, I think the production from 3 Gates + a Collossus is enough to thwart a Medivac timing.
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Italy12247 Posts
On October 11 2012 01:48 Gumbi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2012 22:17 Teoita wrote:Yeah i go 6stalkers anyway even with templar vs medivac timings, and later on one templar and 1-2 cannons work. For having idle gateways and getting units when you need to and tech/infrastructure when you can, i suggest looking at this thread (yay for self promotion) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=364130; i talk a bit about how production is strucutred with macro pvt builds and why you want your buildings/gateways at specific timings. This is for 2base play, but 3base is similar. If you note, 3nex cuts units and ramps up to 8-9 gates worth of producion, and it gets a huge spike in production when a standard medivac timing would hit. I see the logic of this. I don't play like this however. I think if you're timings are crisp, you can get a third off 3 Gates. My build shoots for Collossuses. With one Collossus, I establish my third. I immediately drop down 3 gates and a second Forge and get Templar tech soon after (stopping at 3 Collossuses). With good obs scouting, I think the production from 3 Gates + a Collossus is enough to thwart a Medivac timing.
Not only is that a complete different build, i think you would probably have a timing where both your third and gateways are still kicking in when you don't have enough units to defend drops (a frontal attack is definitely defendable). It's doable if t is doing something really passive like 3cc double eng bay, but against standard 3rax->cc->5rax or 3rax->5rax->cc you might be in trouble.
There's a reason why standard p macro builds go 3-6 gates.
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On October 11 2012 01:53 Teoita wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2012 01:48 Gumbi wrote:On October 10 2012 22:17 Teoita wrote:Yeah i go 6stalkers anyway even with templar vs medivac timings, and later on one templar and 1-2 cannons work. For having idle gateways and getting units when you need to and tech/infrastructure when you can, i suggest looking at this thread (yay for self promotion) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=364130; i talk a bit about how production is strucutred with macro pvt builds and why you want your buildings/gateways at specific timings. This is for 2base play, but 3base is similar. If you note, 3nex cuts units and ramps up to 8-9 gates worth of producion, and it gets a huge spike in production when a standard medivac timing would hit. I see the logic of this. I don't play like this however. I think if you're timings are crisp, you can get a third off 3 Gates. My build shoots for Collossuses. With one Collossus, I establish my third. I immediately drop down 3 gates and a second Forge and get Templar tech soon after (stopping at 3 Collossuses). With good obs scouting, I think the production from 3 Gates + a Collossus is enough to thwart a Medivac timing. Not only is that a complete different build, i think you would probably have a timing where both your third and gateways are still kicking in when you don't have enough units to defend drops (a frontal attack is definitely defendable). It's doable if t is doing something really passive like 3cc double eng bay, but against standard 3rax->cc->5rax or 3rax->5rax->cc you might be in trouble. There's a reason why standard p macro builds go 3-6 gates.
that's the thing. I see pro players going 6 Gates before third and Terrans are establishing their thirds 2 or 3 mins earlier.
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Italy12247 Posts
That's because unless you go for a fast 3 nex opening, you can't defend a faster third if terran isn't doing a greedy build that delays aggression.
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Has anyone else seen a shift in the metagame of PvP? I'm getting demolished over and over again by stargate play. I kid you not that 7/10 pvps I play nowadays are against an airtoss. This last game I went blind blink stalkers which I thought was a good counter but even though I managed to blink under his phoenixes a couple of time I just couldn't kill them off... Stalkers low dps versus phoenixes high health...
Should I try to go airtoss myself (and try to catch up? Then how?) or is it something that I'm missing?
I have attached my latest replay facing this style. His phoenixes keeps me in my base. The one time I try to harass with my blink stalkers I can barely do any damage while he is guaranteed at least two probes when he flies over my base.
My pvp win rate is down at about 30% (My pvz and pvt are about 60%) so I think pvp is the only thing I need to be promoted to diamond!
Thanks in advance!
http://drop.sc/263231 - Shakuras Plateau - Platinum Toss (NVRLand)
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Great thread! and the OP is very nice.
I chuckled at the bit where it says 'How do I defend against STephano Roach Max'.
'WIP'
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Does anyone have a decent tutorial video of a protoss holding a baneling bust after FFE?
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On October 11 2012 05:08 NVRLand wrote:Has anyone else seen a shift in the metagame of PvP? I'm getting demolished over and over again by stargate play. I kid you not that 7/10 pvps I play nowadays are against an airtoss. This last game I went blind blink stalkers which I thought was a good counter but even though I managed to blink under his phoenixes a couple of time I just couldn't kill them off... Stalkers low dps versus phoenixes high health... Should I try to go airtoss myself (and try to catch up? Then how?) or is it something that I'm missing? I have attached my latest replay facing this style. His phoenixes keeps me in my base. The one time I try to harass with my blink stalkers I can barely do any damage while he is guaranteed at least two probes when he flies over my base. My pvp win rate is down at about 30% (My pvz and pvt are about 60%) so I think pvp is the only thing I need to be promoted to diamond! Thanks in advance! http://drop.sc/263231 - Shakuras Plateau - Platinum Toss (NVRLand)
Hey m8 , i strongly recommend you to start using blink only in maps where you can abuse clifs with obs unless you are going for an all in.
Maps like daybreak/ohana are phoenix favoured because blink cannot be abused there , you can actually start with a stargate make 2 phoenix get robo +1 phoenix and then transition into a normal 2 gate robo expand with 3 phoenix harashing and getting map control.
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On October 11 2012 05:27 Pwnzer wrote:
Does anyone have a decent tutorial video of a protoss holding a baneling bust after FFE?
To hold a bane bust with a FFE hmmm
You have to scout it first , good indication is him going for a gas early , you can also make zealot before core (i do that a lot) and send him directy to check for 3rd and then straight to his main.
Now if you scout and verify that he is bane busting you just make 1-2 cannons behind your other cannon (not next to) an 1 extra pylon and chrono boost sentries.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 11 2012 05:08 NVRLand wrote:Has anyone else seen a shift in the metagame of PvP? I'm getting demolished over and over again by stargate play. I kid you not that 7/10 pvps I play nowadays are against an airtoss. This last game I went blind blink stalkers which I thought was a good counter but even though I managed to blink under his phoenixes a couple of time I just couldn't kill them off... Stalkers low dps versus phoenixes high health... Should I try to go airtoss myself (and try to catch up? Then how?) or is it something that I'm missing? I have attached my latest replay facing this style. His phoenixes keeps me in my base. The one time I try to harass with my blink stalkers I can barely do any damage while he is guaranteed at least two probes when he flies over my base. My pvp win rate is down at about 30% (My pvz and pvt are about 60%) so I think pvp is the only thing I need to be promoted to diamond! Thanks in advance! http://drop.sc/263231 - Shakuras Plateau - Platinum Toss (NVRLand)
Phoenixes are pretty much the best opener in PvP right now (imo) because they give a player map control while also allowing for a fairly fast expo and early immortal/obs tech. There are also a lot of all-ins associated with this opening that are near impossible to hold off. So, to start, don't worry if you're losing a lot; it really is a really good opening.
HOWEVER, I don't like the passivity of the early game, so I generally go for some kind of robo expand or fast blink play. Quite honestly, if you realize your opponent is going phoenixes, you should expand immediately and start chronoboosting probes. This negates the harass and allows you to get the infrastructure needed for any kind of all-in. That being said, the second part of the puzzle should be fast blink + 5 gates or archon/chargelot + 6 gateways (if you opened robo, insta-quit that tech path and accept that you might be a little behind). If you go for blink stalkers, you MUST remain aggressive and do blink-in counterattacks if he attempts to move out (and has only 4-5 phoenixes). If he goes up to 6+ phoenixes, feel free to keep making probes, teching, and using blink stalkers to defend.
I have also been playing around with DTs for zealot/archon as DTs have better overall uses in this matchup. If your opponent moves out, you can counterattack with a DT while making zealot/archon at your main base to defend. ...DTs might be the second best opener out there just because zealot/archon rocks.
Hope this helps!
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On October 10 2012 22:03 Clarity_nl wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2012 21:51 Teoita wrote:That's okay, you really should have only 5 or 6 stalkers to defend from drops. The rest should be zealot/colossus/A sentry. 6 to be precise, 6 stalkers 2shot a medivac. You can make more if you go fast blink, see Rain's games today for a good example. Depending on the double forge variation of your build (i only ever did Creator's so im not too too familiar with the timings for Colossus into double forge, or even the new builds where you go double forge and colossus at the same time), im not a biggest fan of pushing out with 2/2 as that also tends to be the time when you defend your third and drops are all over the map. If you are far ahead from sniping dropships and destroying his timing, sure, otherwise i'd rather turtle to 3/3 and both archons and colossi. Plus, @sc2john, you can't attack early and aggressively with double forge; you have too much invested into tech. You can poke around with single forge builds (especially colossus openings), but not double forge. Thank you, 6 stalkers is a very good number to keep in my head. Alternatively, if I were to go the templar route, what would be sufficient? Probably a cannon or two combined with a templar per location? I'm having a hard time grasping this concept that people are describing, where you don't want units unless you need them. While I used to main zerg this made sense, now that I am mixing in P and T I feel that those two races are better off steadily increasing in army size, since you can't switch from pure economy to pure units (especially as T). Maybe with P this works a bit better because of chronoboost... allowing you to cut units to chrono out probes non stop and adding production, but does this not leave a window for my opponent to simply kill me? Maybe my issue is scouting if I continue that line of thought, but I'd like to say 90% of my PvT games are the T doing some kind of 10-12 minute mmm timing while taking a third behind, and the reason I hold this comfortably while taking my own third is because I make units the moment I can, off of 3 gates.
- I wanted to give a separate opinion for you to consider... I thought that usually it's 4 stalkers if you are trying to defend a medivac drop, personally I only do 4. The pros of 4 stalkers is it takes same number of shots to down a medivac as 5 stalkers and costs a lot less than 6 stalkers. The cons are you have to be real good at watching your minimap and if T is fast he can drop a few units before the medivac blows up, but that depends on his approach angle and the map too.
- Assuming you have templar out, I struggle to find value in keeping them behind for drop defense at any point in the game. I think a better allocation of resources is still to have stalkers guard drops with blink, and if you want to pull more stalkers, add a cannon or two for defense. Templar rely on medivac health, and although they're an easy counter to drops (click fb and you're done), they still require defensive units to be present if the medivac isn't destroyed after fb, and that isn't something you can guarantee.
- That concept you are describing for P and T is as you say, it's better to gradually increase army size. This is done naturally as P by your build order and trying not to miss warpgate cycles. You will find that gradually increasing army size is more efficient than building a gateway when you are queueing probes with chronoboost and have leftover minerals because you can never know when to start pooling resources for an attack to be able to use the 12 gates you built off of 2 bases. It's an interesting concept though. The only time you can do something similar to what you do as Z is when you, like you said, cb the warpgates and stop probe production.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 11 2012 09:47 tehemperorer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2012 22:03 Clarity_nl wrote:On October 10 2012 21:51 Teoita wrote:That's okay, you really should have only 5 or 6 stalkers to defend from drops. The rest should be zealot/colossus/A sentry. 6 to be precise, 6 stalkers 2shot a medivac. You can make more if you go fast blink, see Rain's games today for a good example. Depending on the double forge variation of your build (i only ever did Creator's so im not too too familiar with the timings for Colossus into double forge, or even the new builds where you go double forge and colossus at the same time), im not a biggest fan of pushing out with 2/2 as that also tends to be the time when you defend your third and drops are all over the map. If you are far ahead from sniping dropships and destroying his timing, sure, otherwise i'd rather turtle to 3/3 and both archons and colossi. Plus, @sc2john, you can't attack early and aggressively with double forge; you have too much invested into tech. You can poke around with single forge builds (especially colossus openings), but not double forge. Thank you, 6 stalkers is a very good number to keep in my head. Alternatively, if I were to go the templar route, what would be sufficient? Probably a cannon or two combined with a templar per location? I'm having a hard time grasping this concept that people are describing, where you don't want units unless you need them. While I used to main zerg this made sense, now that I am mixing in P and T I feel that those two races are better off steadily increasing in army size, since you can't switch from pure economy to pure units (especially as T). Maybe with P this works a bit better because of chronoboost... allowing you to cut units to chrono out probes non stop and adding production, but does this not leave a window for my opponent to simply kill me? Maybe my issue is scouting if I continue that line of thought, but I'd like to say 90% of my PvT games are the T doing some kind of 10-12 minute mmm timing while taking a third behind, and the reason I hold this comfortably while taking my own third is because I make units the moment I can, off of 3 gates. - I wanted to give a separate opinion for you to consider... I thought that usually it's 4 stalkers if you are trying to defend a medivac drop, personally I only do 4. The pros of 4 stalkers is it takes same number of shots to down a medivac as 5 stalkers and costs a lot less than 6 stalkers. The cons are you have to be real good at watching your minimap and if T is fast he can drop a few units before the medivac blows up, but that depends on his approach angle and the map too. - Assuming you have templar out, I struggle to find value in keeping them behind for drop defense at any point in the game. I think a better allocation of resources is still to have stalkers guard drops with blink, and if you want to pull more stalkers, add a cannon or two for defense. Templar rely on medivac health, and although they're an easy counter to drops (click fb and you're done), they still require defensive units to be present if the medivac isn't destroyed after fb, and that isn't something you can guarantee. - That concept you are describing for P and T is as you say, it's better to gradually increase army size. This is done naturally as P by your build order and trying not to miss warpgate cycles. You will find that gradually increasing army size is more efficient than building a gateway when you are queueing probes with chronoboost and have leftover minerals because you can never know when to start pooling resources for an attack to be able to use the 12 gates you built off of 2 bases. It's an interesting concept though. The only time you can do something similar to what you do as Z is when you, like you said, cb the warpgates and stop probe production.
1) 4 stalkers is fine too. I generally get 4 stalkers unless I feel the immediate pressure to take out medivacs on maps such as Antiga or Shakuras.
2) As the game progresses, you want your defense at home to look like templar/cannon; with a feedback + immediate storm, you can generally kill off a medivac, especially if it tanks 1-2 cannon shots or more. In addition, you allow your templar to sit back and gain energy so that when the templar with your army run out of energy or die, you can easily replenish.
3) Unfortunately, tehemperor is totally wrong on how you should build gateway units; do not take this advice!!. Unless you are being offensive or doing a hard defense, DO NOT continue with "warpgate cycles". For example, you would definitely not want to miss a warpgate cycle if you are a) engaged in a sentry/immortal all-in off of 7-gates or b) defending a 1-1-1 push. However, IN ALL OTHER CASES during the early and midgame, you want to be investing all of your money into tech and gateways so you can get a swell of (upgraded) units later to defend or attack. If you have a mineral buildup, expand or build more gateways always.
I just really wanted to pounce on that 3rd piece of advice before anyone took it seriously....
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On October 11 2012 05:08 NVRLand wrote:Has anyone else seen a shift in the metagame of PvP? I'm getting demolished over and over again by stargate play. I kid you not that 7/10 pvps I play nowadays are against an airtoss. This last game I went blind blink stalkers which I thought was a good counter but even though I managed to blink under his phoenixes a couple of time I just couldn't kill them off... Stalkers low dps versus phoenixes high health... Should I try to go airtoss myself (and try to catch up? Then how?) or is it something that I'm missing? I have attached my latest replay facing this style. His phoenixes keeps me in my base. The one time I try to harass with my blink stalkers I can barely do any damage while he is guaranteed at least two probes when he flies over my base. My pvp win rate is down at about 30% (My pvz and pvt are about 60%) so I think pvp is the only thing I need to be promoted to diamond! Thanks in advance! http://drop.sc/263231 - Shakuras Plateau - Platinum Toss (NVRLand)
I think that people have realized that PvP late game is just a colossus war, going double robo with a bunch of zealots and archons, and a sprinkle of stalkers. Throwing down a few stargates late game, as well as getting air upgrades and mothership, can really crush people that go for mass colossus blindly in late game (which happens quite often).
If you scout it really late, all I can say is to try to archon toilet similar to Squirtle's toilet against MVP's BCs on metropolis
When you're going against phoenix openings, I think you should go for an expand and forge asap. Phoenixes cannot do anything about cannons, and when they are in low numbers cannons can hold on their on somewhat well. Plus this also helps with your economy and tech while defending their harass. Just be careful with your colossus since air units can be out rather early.
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I have a few question about ladder/meta game etc.
According to the few posts above mentioning that phoenix opening is a really good one, I'm wondering if 2G robo expand is still viable? Because I haven't laddered during the whole summer...(Mid Diamond here)
I am struggling so much against Z due to mass roaches and late game BL Infestors...I have no clue on how to deal against z else than 2 base all in, which works barely nowadays...I've tried so many build orders and I'm about 10% win rate vs Z...(losing all the time T-T, sad :/)
I would need help, because I'm out of ideas on ladder T-T
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EPT
