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Italy12246 Posts
Sentries are a huuuge investment and risking losing them isn't that worth it a lot of the time. Taking a third in particular is extremely hard if you don't have ff's to defend them because you had to rebuild your sentries after losing them in early/midgame, or you had to delay your tech because you spent your gas on making extra sentries instead.
In the pro scene, the only player to still do 3gate aggression (more or less) in PvZ is NonY and even he commits just 2 sentries and does really light pressure these days.
I'm not saying it can't work, i'm saying for a standard go to bulid there's better options. If you like gateway expanding, going 1gate fe with 1-2 chronoed stalkers can be nice for pressure (less deadly but less risky).
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On October 21 2012 02:39 Teoita wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 21:21 IM_Pallypal wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Alright, Im fairly new to this whole shebang, so I don't exactly expect to win every match or anything, but this is really starting to get frustrating. I'm playing Protoss in bronze.
I feel like I have most of the basics pretty well down pat, I try not to supply block myself, I keep money low, constantly produce probes, yadaa yadaa. Yet I still lose to nearly every bronze league terran I play. Why? because I cant seem to deal with 5 rax no gas.
I'm going for a 4 gate most of the time, as I'm most comfortable with stalkers and gate units, and expanding for me is still iffy, my money ends up getting unmanageable and I panic, I'm working on it but for now early play is still my best bet. It's happened about 4 times now, I set a proxy pylon up to be down about the time I finish warp gate, send what units I have to be ready for the 6:30-7 minute push that I've been told is standard, and I start doing alright.
Then his marines show up at my base. It's been anywhere between 10-30 at a time, depending on how many barracks he decided to build. Being across the map, I see little choice but to warp in on my next round and continue my attack. Last game this worked fine, he still took my base, but I didn't lose EVERY probe and overall I came out ahead, once he found the nexus I had hidden near my previous proxy pylon and dropped his marines with my stalkers. I got my main back up and running and started building up probes- I'd also crippled him, or so I thought.
Turns out, he still had enough to build a CC and 5 rax, after a push I'd barely held off, if you can call it that. Then a bit extra to build 33 marines and stomp me into the ground just as I was pulling my army back together.
So, how do I deal with this? Is 4 gate just not viable anymore? Am I forced to 1 gate FE against a terran? I'd really like some help here, I want to improve but I feel like I cant, I've only gotten worse.
Here's my build, in case you need a bit more info. This isn't definite, by the way. I'm just recording from my previous match.
9 Pylon 14 Gate 15 gas 16 pylon 17 core 17 Pylon (Proxy) 19 zealot 21 warp gate (Chronoing) 24 zealot 24 gas (Realize this was probably a mistake) 26 gate 29 pylon 32 sentry 33 gate 36 gate 39 pylon
And that's basically it, the rest was army production at the proxy. I had 4 zealots, a sentry, and 5 stalkers for a 7 minute push, with 28 probes. Any major flaws you can point out? I just need help all over.
EDIT: Just did the 6 rax to another terran trying to go for banshees. They got it into my base and had a decent force defending, I didn't keep scan up so I couldn't defend my line... Still won. Why does this seem imba to me?
That's waaaaaaaaaaay slow for a 4gate. For one when you 4gate you don't need a second gas (for the most part), and you shouldn't go above 20 probes. Warping in at 6.30-7 is extremely late, your goal is to have your first round of units ready by 5.45. For a more refined build, check out the liquipedia page: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/4_Warpgate_RushThe thing with 4gate is, you have this burst of units with your first 1-2 rounds of production, but that winds down quickly. You need to kill your opponent asap or he will end up having too much stuff compared to you. Regarding your PvT game, if he goes 1rax fe and you don't kill him with your initial 4gate you are pretty dead regardless. Terran will have twice as much your income, therefore twice as much army as you. Him following up with a mass marine timing (sounds like he went up to 6rax before gas which is a TON of marines) doesn't really have much to do with you losing; it's more about the fact that you ended up on one base vs his two. edit: yeah my bad the link was messed up. Thanks aZealot.
The thing is that none of the ones i've gone up against has bothered expanding at all. Neither did I, when I tried the same strategy. If I left my units at home the push would be easy to hold off, but I didn't, and the timings just seem to be so similar that it just ends up as a base race every time, which he inevitably wins by lifting and moving, as I generally lose power to my gates too quickly to do even a single warp round.
But the general consensus seems to be 4 gate is bad, so I'll take that to heart and just try something else. Should I be playing defensive against terran? The person I practice with keeps telling me to poke and get aggro, so I've been trying to do it a bit more.
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Italy12246 Posts
4 gate is a reasonable build to start with. It's not that great vs a bio based allin like 3 rax stim (or 5rax marine off one base, wtf is that :O), so i would recommend playing a few games with it and then when you get bored/want to change things up you can learn a few different openings and builds; check out monk's first post in this thread for a few recommended builds. Most of them should have a guide you can find if you type [g] in the search bar.
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On October 21 2012 04:02 Teoita wrote: 4 gate is a reasonable build to start with. It's not that great vs a bio based allin like 3 rax stim (or 5rax marine off one base, wtf is that :O), so i would recommend playing a few games with it and then when you get bored/want to change things up you can learn a few different openings and builds; check out monk's first post in this thread for a few recommended builds. Most of them should have a guide you can find if you type [g] in the search bar.
I tried it myself, it actually worked really well. I got up to 6 rax constantly producing marines and SCVs. When I pushed around 7:15 I had 33 out and another 40 or so by the time the game ended, just from keeping money low. This was a bronze league game though, so I doubt its actually effective.
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Italy12246 Posts
Yeah at higher levels people's stalker micro and forcefields will be enough to hold it.
Something like that is usually done off 2 bases, following up a 1rax fe.
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On October 21 2012 04:08 Teoita wrote: Yeah at higher levels people's stalker micro and forcefields will be enough to hold it.
Something like that is usually done off 2 bases, following up a 1rax fe.
So should I just sit tight and try and hold the push? I have a feeling he'll just continue to toss marine balls at me until he either wins or I attack.
When I've actually gotten stalkers down to defend it I manage to to alright, my timings just seem to screw me on it.
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On October 21 2012 03:46 Teoita wrote: Sentries are a huuuge investment and risking losing them isn't that worth it a lot of the time. Taking a third in particular is extremely hard if you don't have ff's to defend them because you had to rebuild your sentries after losing them in early/midgame, or you had to delay your tech because you spent your gas on making extra sentries instead.
In the pro scene, the only player to still do 3gate aggression (more or less) in PvZ is NonY and even he commits just 2 sentries and does really light pressure these days.
I'm not saying it can't work, i'm saying for a standard go to bulid there's better options. If you like gateway expanding, going 1gate fe with 1-2 chronoed stalkers can be nice for pressure (less deadly but less risky).
Yeah, I can see why it's risky, I obviously try not to lose my pressuring force. I just like to freak the Z out and keep him from droning. they get roaches pretty quickly anyway. How else would one pressure or otherwise no FFE then? How are stalkers not surrounded by the lings?
Nony is also one of my favorite pros haha
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On October 21 2012 04:18 IM_Pallypal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 04:08 Teoita wrote: Yeah at higher levels people's stalker micro and forcefields will be enough to hold it.
Something like that is usually done off 2 bases, following up a 1rax fe. So should I just sit tight and try and hold the push? I have a feeling he'll just continue to toss marine balls at me until he either wins or I attack. When I've actually gotten stalkers down to defend it I manage to to alright, my timings just seem to screw me on it.
If you've expanded already and you hold the first one-base push, you are already ahead. If you attack there is a chance that his reinforcements will crush your army and he will have another timing attack against you. Expanding is almost always safe in this spot, as long as you keep up on unit production at the same time.
One base vs. One base is nearly always in Terran favor. He's mining more than you (mules) and his early game units are better than yours in a straight up fight, especially when stim comes.
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On October 21 2012 04:45 Dabba wrote: How else would one pressure or otherwise no FFE then? How are stalkers not surrounded by the lings?
The reason why people FFE is because almost every 2-base timing will come faster with FFE than with a gateway first, since the nexus goes down so much faster. Any additional safety you feel from having a gateway earlier is just an illusion, since you have the same level of safety with a proper FFE wall-in.
The main pressure unique to gateway first is the 3-gate expand (or NoNy's 2-gate variant). With this build, you mostly want to scare the zerg into building units instead of drones. Rarely can you actually attack and do any damage with only 3 gateways. If you build an extra 3 gateways and do some kind of 6-gate, then your timing would have been faster/with more units if you had FFE first, due to econ advantage.
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On October 21 2012 04:45 Dabba wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 03:46 Teoita wrote: Sentries are a huuuge investment and risking losing them isn't that worth it a lot of the time. Taking a third in particular is extremely hard if you don't have ff's to defend them because you had to rebuild your sentries after losing them in early/midgame, or you had to delay your tech because you spent your gas on making extra sentries instead.
In the pro scene, the only player to still do 3gate aggression (more or less) in PvZ is NonY and even he commits just 2 sentries and does really light pressure these days.
I'm not saying it can't work, i'm saying for a standard go to bulid there's better options. If you like gateway expanding, going 1gate fe with 1-2 chronoed stalkers can be nice for pressure (less deadly but less risky). Yeah, I can see why it's risky, I obviously try not to lose my pressuring force. I just like to freak the Z out and keep him from droning. they get roaches pretty quickly anyway. How else would one pressure or otherwise no FFE then? How are stalkers not surrounded by the lings? Nony is also one of my favorite pros haha
There is a thread for a 13 gate Stalker expansion in PvZ:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=361740
This is more of a Seed opening than a Naniwa opening, but the important thing is that you open 13 gate 15 gas 16 pylon 18 core into a Stalker (sometimes with a Zealot first), and you take a nexus with only 2-3 Gateway units, 1 gas, no Forge, and no further tech.
But if you can't win a micro war with 1 Stalker against 4 slow Lings, forget about it. You have to be able to multitask pretty well and simultaneously micro Stalkers while executing a variable build order. If you really want to learn how to open gateway and use pressure, that's the opening with which to do it--but you had better get some unit control going first. You also have to really know what you're doing against gas/pool openings and how to hold a Bust, since until you start facing mid-high masters players you won't be dealing with people who can handle the pressure, so they'll think they're really far behind and then try to 2-base all-in you (which you can beat, but only with a degree of skill on your belt).
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Yeah, definitely agree. I have the same issue myself when I Gate expand. You want to force units, but if you force a lot, you can straight up die to them - especially if you miss a FF, don't finish your wall off in time or are out a hex on your wall-off etc. It's frustrating >_<. It can also, however, be a lot of fun.
Been watching a little of your stream lately, ineversmile. It's quite enjoyable. Cheers.
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On October 21 2012 15:37 aZealot wrote: Yeah, definitely agree. I have the same issue myself when I Gate expand. You want to force units, but if you force a lot, you can straight up die to them - especially if you miss a FF, don't finish your wall off in time or are out a hex on your wall-off etc. It's frustrating >_<. It can also, however, be a lot of fun.
Been watching a little of your stream lately, ineversmile. It's quite enjoyable. Cheers.
Thanks, man. I'll see if I can stream more in the future, then. I have a nice fat donut count of followers, thus far, so there hasn't been much motivation to play with some lag from the stream, but I'm more than willing to put out some content if people enjoy it.
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Italy12246 Posts
On October 21 2012 04:45 Dabba wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 03:46 Teoita wrote: Sentries are a huuuge investment and risking losing them isn't that worth it a lot of the time. Taking a third in particular is extremely hard if you don't have ff's to defend them because you had to rebuild your sentries after losing them in early/midgame, or you had to delay your tech because you spent your gas on making extra sentries instead.
In the pro scene, the only player to still do 3gate aggression (more or less) in PvZ is NonY and even he commits just 2 sentries and does really light pressure these days.
I'm not saying it can't work, i'm saying for a standard go to bulid there's better options. If you like gateway expanding, going 1gate fe with 1-2 chronoed stalkers can be nice for pressure (less deadly but less risky). Yeah, I can see why it's risky, I obviously try not to lose my pressuring force. I just like to freak the Z out and keep him from droning. they get roaches pretty quickly anyway. How else would one pressure or otherwise no FFE then? How are stalkers not surrounded by the lings? Nony is also one of my favorite pros haha
Off gateway expand, i'd say the most popular way to pressure is using Stargate units, which also works out really nicely since a void ray makes defending roach/ling allins quite easy.
Stalkers don't get surrounded by lings because they are faster than lings before speed is done. You have exactly 3 minutes and 15 seconds from when the Z takes his gas to when ling speed finishes; you can use this window of time to be active on the map, take xel'naga towers, kill scouting lings, and go to the zergs natural to poke at the queen, snipe any stray overlords if you get lucky, and force a spine and a couple more lings. As long as you back off in time for your stalker/stalkers to make it all the way home before ling speed is done you will be fine; that means back off at about 2 minutes and 40 ish seconds after you saw the Zerg take his gas.
The reason people FFE as their go to build and throw in gateway expand as a change of pace thing isn't really about the speed of all-ins, or safety. It's a combination of FFE having more and more varied followups, as well as a stronger midgame economy, and faster tech and upgrades (assuming you go 1gate fe into tech, not 1gate tech into expand).
While FFE can have all the gateway expand transitions (DT, stargate into robo, stargate into allin, immortal expand, blink timing, robo twilight macro, and so on), there are also unique builds that you can only do off FFE (or gateway-nexus) such as 4gate pressure(which also has a crap ton of different followups), 4gate zealot/void ray, 4gate zealot/dt, fast third off one gateway, double stargate, stargate into sentry drop...and i'm sure i'm forgetting some.
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Thanks for the explanation. While I was never good with it, I'm used to broodwar, and it does seem like SC2 is more FE friendly. I still have the mentality of "expand behind pressure" haha. Well, I'm going to do some more research and try the stargate openings more. With them, I manage to expand, but my macro slips because of trying to micro and do dmg at least worth my investment. So i need to practice more with it. I think I'll start FFEing when I feel most comfortable with zerg. As it sits now though at my level (high gold) I feel really comfortable against Zs, but then it's probably because most dont expect the 3 gate ha.
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Italy12246 Posts
Yep that's my point, even NonY doesn't commit to sentry pressure which in turn makes his pressure far far weaker: months ago he would move out with 6 sentries and sometimes straight up kill zergs, while other times he just lost sentries and the game right then and there.
Now he commits far less resources so he only does a small poke at the third.
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I'm going to try to watch more stuff with a gateway or tech expand vs Z. Broodlords scare me unless I have a sizeable amount of blink stalkers and ultras I really dont know how to deal with. they seem to slice up everything, even when I have immortals. So I try to never let them get there, but I dont want to be all-ining every game either. Funny things is when I go with gate aggression, a lot of Zs at my level take a super fast third and I end up sniping it while my nexus finishes. In the meantime ill try stargate more.
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On October 21 2012 23:36 Sated wrote: Two-base timing attacks will either hit later or they will hit weaker, but you have to balance that against the fact that the Zerg player can't take a third base at ~4:30 against a properly executed Gate/Core opening. Ever. This means that their economy is also delayed relative to where it would be if you'd opened with a FFE, so you shouldn't put so much focus on economy. What you should focus on is the mindset involved. If you play a Gate/Core opening every game then you are used to all the relevant timings, something that you opponent isn't going to be used to because they face mostly FFE openings. This gives you a massive edge that needs to be exploited either by "sharking" to force units, or by hitting 2 Base timing-attacks that the Zerg won't be used to since they won't get to face them very often.
I strongly disagree that you can't take a fast third base against gate/core openings. It's true that you can't auto-saturate this base like you would vs. a FFE without scouting info, but don't underestimate how much a speedling army will just roll over gateway first openings if Protoss gets caught out of position.
3-gate expand + forge into 5 gate pressure was really common PvZ 1.5 years ago. But, it was figured out that you could take your nexus 1 minute earlier with a FFE, getting the same buildings and army with better economy, if you could safely take your natural with a choke wall-in. On maps like Metalopolis or Shattered Temple this was hard to do with minimal cannons because the natural is so wide open. But, we don't have any maps you can't FFE on anymore, so why get 5 gates + forge upgrade + nexus + gateway army off a 3 gate expand when you could play greedy and have the same composition at the same timing?
The only thing that could potentially be better are fast tech timings, but to be honest I'm not sure that having a faster Stargate or Robo is all that useful in PvZ unless you are all-in on one base.
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