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[H] How to beat this T build, PvT GM league - Page 2

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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paoO
Profile Joined September 2011
Brazil3 Posts
September 13 2011 17:07 GMT
#21
On September 14 2011 01:49 Blazinghand wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 01:46 drybones wrote:
On September 13 2011 23:28 Sea_Food wrote:
More zealots and immortals, less stalkers (dont make more than 1) less sentries (dont make more than 2.)

Althou that is the key of holding every terran rush atm.




this seems to be the best advice ive seen so far. do a huk 1gate expand then just pump zealots and you should have a fair chance against this. and yeah dont auto target the thor, last time this happened to me i killed everything but the thor and had to surround it with probes and warp in more units to take it down. it reminded me on WC3 cause i kept trying to get the surround with the probes as the thor was juking left and right. I also lost my expo twice to this and still won so it seems to set the terran back a ton if their initial attack doesnt kill you outright (like most terran all ins obviously)


That sounds like it would work, but bear in mind that whatever build you go has to work equally well (or at least passably well) against other builds that scout the same as this one until it can get a good scout off. How do you differentiate this from marine/tank/banshee allin in time? 2 sentries and 1 stalker seems like it might just lose to 2 banshees, but I'm not sure.


This build also transition into 111 so after the 1st push there should be some rines a tank and a banshee incoming, so not quite sure if this zea/imortal would deal good with it.
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
September 13 2011 17:11 GMT
#22
On September 14 2011 02:07 paoO wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 01:49 Blazinghand wrote:
On September 14 2011 01:46 drybones wrote:
On September 13 2011 23:28 Sea_Food wrote:
More zealots and immortals, less stalkers (dont make more than 1) less sentries (dont make more than 2.)

Althou that is the key of holding every terran rush atm.




this seems to be the best advice ive seen so far. do a huk 1gate expand then just pump zealots and you should have a fair chance against this. and yeah dont auto target the thor, last time this happened to me i killed everything but the thor and had to surround it with probes and warp in more units to take it down. it reminded me on WC3 cause i kept trying to get the surround with the probes as the thor was juking left and right. I also lost my expo twice to this and still won so it seems to set the terran back a ton if their initial attack doesnt kill you outright (like most terran all ins obviously)


That sounds like it would work, but bear in mind that whatever build you go has to work equally well (or at least passably well) against other builds that scout the same as this one until it can get a good scout off. How do you differentiate this from marine/tank/banshee allin in time? 2 sentries and 1 stalker seems like it might just lose to 2 banshees, but I'm not sure.


This build also transition into 111 so after the 1st push there should be some rines a tank and a banshee incoming, so not quite sure if this zea/imortal would deal good with it.


Well, by then you should be able to scout and figure it out. I'm more worried about the period of time when you don't know if this is a tank/thor allin or a 1/1/1-- you need a build that can effectively stop both, since the scouting for both is the same until you can get something other than a stalker poke to scout.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Binabik
Profile Joined January 2011
Germany686 Posts
September 13 2011 17:17 GMT
#23
Don't go for an expansion on Xel'Naga unless you scout a Command Center

User was warned for this post
mewo
Profile Joined July 2011
United States221 Posts
September 13 2011 17:24 GMT
#24
On September 14 2011 01:49 Blazinghand wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 01:46 drybones wrote:
On September 13 2011 23:28 Sea_Food wrote:
More zealots and immortals, less stalkers (dont make more than 1) less sentries (dont make more than 2.)

Althou that is the key of holding every terran rush atm.




this seems to be the best advice ive seen so far. do a huk 1gate expand then just pump zealots and you should have a fair chance against this. and yeah dont auto target the thor, last time this happened to me i killed everything but the thor and had to surround it with probes and warp in more units to take it down. it reminded me on WC3 cause i kept trying to get the surround with the probes as the thor was juking left and right. I also lost my expo twice to this and still won so it seems to set the terran back a ton if their initial attack doesnt kill you outright (like most terran all ins obviously)


That sounds like it would work, but bear in mind that whatever build you go has to work equally well (or at least passably well) against other builds that scout the same as this one until it can get a good scout off. How do you differentiate this from marine/tank/banshee allin in time? 2 sentries and 1 stalker seems like it might just lose to 2 banshees, but I'm not sure.


You warp in stalkers after your zealot/immortal kills all the ground units. It probably isn't the best way but it works. If you to make a more balanced force vs the 1-1-1; I think you need better micro than the terrran.
Whitewing
Profile Joined October 2010
United States7483 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-13 17:31:24
September 13 2011 17:27 GMT
#25
If it's followed up by a 1/1/1, you have to crush the initial push without losing much, or you won't be able to hold the follow up waves. This would suggest that the best way to do it is to hit it with overwhelming force, which generally suggests having a lot of stuff, even if those units aren't particularly good. This would imply that going for robo units is not the best idea here, as they'd likely just ignore the immortals while taking out the gateway units, and then the follow up 1/1/1 waves would deal with you pretty easily: immortals aren't particularly great against thors anyway (lol thors win 1v1 unless the immortals have upgrades), especially if the thor is being repaired. Looks like the best way to deal with it is going for a low gas build with a shit ton of zealots, then getting stalkers later to deal with the banshees. My guess is that a one gate fast expand would be the best opener here, with low gas intake (stick on just the one geyser and go up to 6-7 gates?) and slow teching with lots of gateway units. This is usually how I hold a 1/1/1 if I scout it. It sucks though because if terran goes for a bio focused build or a fast expand, you kinda get owned due to slow tech.

I'm not sure how you'd differentiate this from other terran builds based on what you scout until it is too late though.
Strategy"You know I fucking hate the way you play, right?" ~SC2John
the p00n
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands615 Posts
September 13 2011 17:34 GMT
#26
I will just reply a bit to everyone as most are saying the same thing.

First, I did poke up with my initial stalker (didn't bring zealot though), he had no bunker and 5 marines, you can only do so much poking when he has the ramp + micro and this is going to be even harder when the patch limits the vision up ramps. I know from experience that you can't all-in a terran with warpgates if he is going for a 1-1-1 or mech-oriented play, as the tank with autorepair (or a bunker) will just deal too much dps.

Some people suggested something which boils down to 'just make more units' - that is actually not possible, you do not have the resources or time while expanding. Don't forget that the terran doesn't have to do this early push, if he sees no expo he can just stay on 1 base as well.

You cannot stay on 1 base, because the terran will have the advantage due to his unit composition (mainly the banshees) when on limited resources (both 1basing). Not to forget that with the raven denying your obs, he can ninja a 2nd command center or simply float his starting orbital to his natural, something you cannot do. I actually played some test games against the common/standard 1-1-1 with a friend where we both agree to stay on 1 base, the Protoss always lost - the only reason 1 base play works against 1-1-1 is because the Terran moves out at a certain point in time, whereas he has absolutely no motivation to move out and can just mass up units, moving out only when the protoss makes an additional nexus. Playing 1base against 1-1-1 is simply hoping he will attack you, which he doesn't have to do because the longer the game stays 1-1 base, the bigger the advantage gets for the terran.

Another issue is scouting; yes you can scout him at a certain point in time if you're going for a robo expansion, but the obs will arrive later than you think. Save strange cheeses, the only information you can acquire with your scouting probe is whether he made a refinery or not, as he doesn't have to show his add-on and can always cancel his 2nd marine. Later on you can poke up the ramp, some terrans will show you the 2nd marine (I don't know why?) which tells you he didn't make an add-on, but if you see 1 marine you are still in the dark - you can decide to suicide your probe in and hope it gets enough vision of the base to see what's going on, but an intelligent terran will either have a wall or have his barracks further back, denying you information. You don't really want to sac the probe anyway, you need it at the bottom of his ramp to see if he's moving out with stuff.

With the stalker, you can get info on the early army composition or if he has a bunker. This is a fairly large tell, but it's not that great - he can do the bomber pressure opening (1rax reactor, 1 tech lab, go after first marauder with concussive) and hide his marauders, something we have seen countless times in high-level games, i.e. MLG. This requires a totally different response from the standard 1-1-1 with no push (whereas you make minimal army early on and chrono out probes against the standard sit-on-your-ass-while-doing-111-build, but need army against the bomber opening). Not to forget that you will want sentries against early rax pressure, something you do not want against the thor build this topic is about.

Because this is a game of imperfect information, you have to create that narrative inside your head, where you subconsciously give odds to the builds he may be doing. If you see 4-5 marines at the top of his ramp, or a bunker filled with marines, you still don't know if he's going for a factory/starport-based play, he may have 2 rax behind that massing up marauders. However, you have to make that semi-assumption because it's usually that. That's the big problem with this build - you need an entirely different strategy against this then against another opening which looks exactly the same from the protoss point of view up until it is too late (and I would argue even the observer scouts the build too late... I'm just a protoss who makes a blind immortal and chronos it out immediately right after the obs and I still didn't have 2 immortals when his push arrived, I had to wait for a few seconds and let my expo take the damage before it popped and this was non-stop with perfect chronos).
Xequecal
Profile Joined October 2010
United States473 Posts
September 13 2011 17:39 GMT
#27
On September 14 2011 02:17 Binabik wrote:
Don't go for an expansion on Xel'Naga unless you scout a Command Center


1 base vs a 1 base Terran is total suicide. He has mules and you don't, he can move his OC down to his natural when the main is mined out, you can't. You will lose, horribly, every time.
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
September 13 2011 17:42 GMT
#28
On September 14 2011 02:39 Xequecal wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 02:17 Binabik wrote:
Don't go for an expansion on Xel'Naga unless you scout a Command Center


1 base vs a 1 base Terran is total suicide. He has mules and you don't, he can move his OC down to his natural when the main is mined out, you can't. You will lose, horribly, every time.


I agree with XQC here. There are entire guides written about trying to force a 1base vs 1 base TvP, since Terran almost always wins that way. At some point you need to expand-- Would it be possible to cut probes earlier for units?
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Whitewing
Profile Joined October 2010
United States7483 Posts
September 13 2011 17:46 GMT
#29
On September 14 2011 02:34 the p00n wrote:
I will just reply a bit to everyone as most are saying the same thing.

First, I did poke up with my initial stalker (didn't bring zealot though), he had no bunker and 5 marines, you can only do so much poking when he has the ramp + micro and this is going to be even harder when the patch limits the vision up ramps. I know from experience that you can't all-in a terran with warpgates if he is going for a 1-1-1 or mech-oriented play, as the tank with autorepair (or a bunker) will just deal too much dps.

Some people suggested something which boils down to 'just make more units' - that is actually not possible, you do not have the resources or time while expanding. Don't forget that the terran doesn't have to do this early push, if he sees no expo he can just stay on 1 base as well.

You cannot stay on 1 base, because the terran will have the advantage due to his unit composition (mainly the banshees) when on limited resources (both 1basing). Not to forget that with the raven denying your obs, he can ninja a 2nd command center or simply float his starting orbital to his natural, something you cannot do. I actually played some test games against the common/standard 1-1-1 with a friend where we both agree to stay on 1 base, the Protoss always lost - the only reason 1 base play works against 1-1-1 is because the Terran moves out at a certain point in time, whereas he has absolutely no motivation to move out and can just mass up units, moving out only when the protoss makes an additional nexus. Playing 1base against 1-1-1 is simply hoping he will attack you, which he doesn't have to do because the longer the game stays 1-1 base, the bigger the advantage gets for the terran.

Another issue is scouting; yes you can scout him at a certain point in time if you're going for a robo expansion, but the obs will arrive later than you think. Save strange cheeses, the only information you can acquire with your scouting probe is whether he made a refinery or not, as he doesn't have to show his add-on and can always cancel his 2nd marine. Later on you can poke up the ramp, some terrans will show you the 2nd marine (I don't know why?) which tells you he didn't make an add-on, but if you see 1 marine you are still in the dark - you can decide to suicide your probe in and hope it gets enough vision of the base to see what's going on, but an intelligent terran will either have a wall or have his barracks further back, denying you information. You don't really want to sac the probe anyway, you need it at the bottom of his ramp to see if he's moving out with stuff.

With the stalker, you can get info on the early army composition or if he has a bunker. This is a fairly large tell, but it's not that great - he can do the bomber pressure opening (1rax reactor, 1 tech lab, go after first marauder with concussive) and hide his marauders, something we have seen countless times in high-level games, i.e. MLG. This requires a totally different response from the standard 1-1-1 with no push (whereas you make minimal army early on and chrono out probes against the standard sit-on-your-ass-while-doing-111-build, but need army against the bomber opening). Not to forget that you will want sentries against early rax pressure, something you do not want against the thor build this topic is about.

Because this is a game of imperfect information, you have to create that narrative inside your head, where you subconsciously give odds to the builds he may be doing. If you see 4-5 marines at the top of his ramp, or a bunker filled with marines, you still don't know if he's going for a factory/starport-based play, he may have 2 rax behind that massing up marauders. However, you have to make that semi-assumption because it's usually that. That's the big problem with this build - you need an entirely different strategy against this then against another opening which looks exactly the same from the protoss point of view up until it is too late (and I would argue even the observer scouts the build too late... I'm just a protoss who makes a blind immortal and chronos it out immediately right after the obs and I still didn't have 2 immortals when his push arrived, I had to wait for a few seconds and let my expo take the damage before it popped and this was non-stop with perfect chronos).


Is it possible to skip the robo, get a sentry or two, make more zealots, and get hallucination? It saves you minerals and costs less gas (since you'll probably get a sentry or two anyway) than the robo/observer, and lets you get another gateway which helps hold the push better than the robo does with the extra zealots. I'd have to test it, I suspect the hallucination comes out too late even with chrono boost, but your army would be a little bit bigger at the appropriate time, especially since you'd only get one geyser and not two (more probes on minerals).
Strategy"You know I fucking hate the way you play, right?" ~SC2John
the p00n
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands615 Posts
September 13 2011 17:52 GMT
#30
On September 14 2011 02:46 Whitewing wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 02:34 the p00n wrote:
I will just reply a bit to everyone as most are saying the same thing.

First, I did poke up with my initial stalker (didn't bring zealot though), he had no bunker and 5 marines, you can only do so much poking when he has the ramp + micro and this is going to be even harder when the patch limits the vision up ramps. I know from experience that you can't all-in a terran with warpgates if he is going for a 1-1-1 or mech-oriented play, as the tank with autorepair (or a bunker) will just deal too much dps.

Some people suggested something which boils down to 'just make more units' - that is actually not possible, you do not have the resources or time while expanding. Don't forget that the terran doesn't have to do this early push, if he sees no expo he can just stay on 1 base as well.

You cannot stay on 1 base, because the terran will have the advantage due to his unit composition (mainly the banshees) when on limited resources (both 1basing). Not to forget that with the raven denying your obs, he can ninja a 2nd command center or simply float his starting orbital to his natural, something you cannot do. I actually played some test games against the common/standard 1-1-1 with a friend where we both agree to stay on 1 base, the Protoss always lost - the only reason 1 base play works against 1-1-1 is because the Terran moves out at a certain point in time, whereas he has absolutely no motivation to move out and can just mass up units, moving out only when the protoss makes an additional nexus. Playing 1base against 1-1-1 is simply hoping he will attack you, which he doesn't have to do because the longer the game stays 1-1 base, the bigger the advantage gets for the terran.

Another issue is scouting; yes you can scout him at a certain point in time if you're going for a robo expansion, but the obs will arrive later than you think. Save strange cheeses, the only information you can acquire with your scouting probe is whether he made a refinery or not, as he doesn't have to show his add-on and can always cancel his 2nd marine. Later on you can poke up the ramp, some terrans will show you the 2nd marine (I don't know why?) which tells you he didn't make an add-on, but if you see 1 marine you are still in the dark - you can decide to suicide your probe in and hope it gets enough vision of the base to see what's going on, but an intelligent terran will either have a wall or have his barracks further back, denying you information. You don't really want to sac the probe anyway, you need it at the bottom of his ramp to see if he's moving out with stuff.

With the stalker, you can get info on the early army composition or if he has a bunker. This is a fairly large tell, but it's not that great - he can do the bomber pressure opening (1rax reactor, 1 tech lab, go after first marauder with concussive) and hide his marauders, something we have seen countless times in high-level games, i.e. MLG. This requires a totally different response from the standard 1-1-1 with no push (whereas you make minimal army early on and chrono out probes against the standard sit-on-your-ass-while-doing-111-build, but need army against the bomber opening). Not to forget that you will want sentries against early rax pressure, something you do not want against the thor build this topic is about.

Because this is a game of imperfect information, you have to create that narrative inside your head, where you subconsciously give odds to the builds he may be doing. If you see 4-5 marines at the top of his ramp, or a bunker filled with marines, you still don't know if he's going for a factory/starport-based play, he may have 2 rax behind that massing up marauders. However, you have to make that semi-assumption because it's usually that. That's the big problem with this build - you need an entirely different strategy against this then against another opening which looks exactly the same from the protoss point of view up until it is too late (and I would argue even the observer scouts the build too late... I'm just a protoss who makes a blind immortal and chronos it out immediately right after the obs and I still didn't have 2 immortals when his push arrived, I had to wait for a few seconds and let my expo take the damage before it popped and this was non-stop with perfect chronos).


Is it possible to skip the robo, get a sentry or two, make more zealots, and get hallucination? It saves you minerals and costs less gas (since you'll probably get a sentry or two anyway) than the robo/observer, and lets you get another gateway which helps hold the push better than the robo does with the extra zealots. I'd have to test it, I suspect the hallucination comes out too late even with chrono boost, but your army would be a little bit bigger at the appropriate time, especially since you'd only get one geyser and not two (more probes on minerals).


What are you going to do against a cloaked banshee, which looks -exactly- the same as this? Also, I'm not even sure if skipping the robo is the correct play if you somehow have the info that it isn't cloak banshee due to having no immortal(s).
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-13 17:56:13
September 13 2011 17:54 GMT
#31
On September 14 2011 02:46 Whitewing wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 02:34 the p00n wrote:
I will just reply a bit to everyone as most are saying the same thing.

First, I did poke up with my initial stalker (didn't bring zealot though), he had no bunker and 5 marines, you can only do so much poking when he has the ramp + micro and this is going to be even harder when the patch limits the vision up ramps. I know from experience that you can't all-in a terran with warpgates if he is going for a 1-1-1 or mech-oriented play, as the tank with autorepair (or a bunker) will just deal too much dps.

Some people suggested something which boils down to 'just make more units' - that is actually not possible, you do not have the resources or time while expanding. Don't forget that the terran doesn't have to do this early push, if he sees no expo he can just stay on 1 base as well.

You cannot stay on 1 base, because the terran will have the advantage due to his unit composition (mainly the banshees) when on limited resources (both 1basing). Not to forget that with the raven denying your obs, he can ninja a 2nd command center or simply float his starting orbital to his natural, something you cannot do. I actually played some test games against the common/standard 1-1-1 with a friend where we both agree to stay on 1 base, the Protoss always lost - the only reason 1 base play works against 1-1-1 is because the Terran moves out at a certain point in time, whereas he has absolutely no motivation to move out and can just mass up units, moving out only when the protoss makes an additional nexus. Playing 1base against 1-1-1 is simply hoping he will attack you, which he doesn't have to do because the longer the game stays 1-1 base, the bigger the advantage gets for the terran.

Another issue is scouting; yes you can scout him at a certain point in time if you're going for a robo expansion, but the obs will arrive later than you think. Save strange cheeses, the only information you can acquire with your scouting probe is whether he made a refinery or not, as he doesn't have to show his add-on and can always cancel his 2nd marine. Later on you can poke up the ramp, some terrans will show you the 2nd marine (I don't know why?) which tells you he didn't make an add-on, but if you see 1 marine you are still in the dark - you can decide to suicide your probe in and hope it gets enough vision of the base to see what's going on, but an intelligent terran will either have a wall or have his barracks further back, denying you information. You don't really want to sac the probe anyway, you need it at the bottom of his ramp to see if he's moving out with stuff.

With the stalker, you can get info on the early army composition or if he has a bunker. This is a fairly large tell, but it's not that great - he can do the bomber pressure opening (1rax reactor, 1 tech lab, go after first marauder with concussive) and hide his marauders, something we have seen countless times in high-level games, i.e. MLG. This requires a totally different response from the standard 1-1-1 with no push (whereas you make minimal army early on and chrono out probes against the standard sit-on-your-ass-while-doing-111-build, but need army against the bomber opening). Not to forget that you will want sentries against early rax pressure, something you do not want against the thor build this topic is about.

Because this is a game of imperfect information, you have to create that narrative inside your head, where you subconsciously give odds to the builds he may be doing. If you see 4-5 marines at the top of his ramp, or a bunker filled with marines, you still don't know if he's going for a factory/starport-based play, he may have 2 rax behind that massing up marauders. However, you have to make that semi-assumption because it's usually that. That's the big problem with this build - you need an entirely different strategy against this then against another opening which looks exactly the same from the protoss point of view up until it is too late (and I would argue even the observer scouts the build too late... I'm just a protoss who makes a blind immortal and chronos it out immediately right after the obs and I still didn't have 2 immortals when his push arrived, I had to wait for a few seconds and let my expo take the damage before it popped and this was non-stop with perfect chronos).


Is it possible to skip the robo, get a sentry or two, make more zealots, and get hallucination? It saves you minerals and costs less gas (since you'll probably get a sentry or two anyway) than the robo/observer, and lets you get another gateway which helps hold the push better than the robo does with the extra zealots. I'd have to test it, I suspect the hallucination comes out too late even with chrono boost, but your army would be a little bit bigger at the appropriate time, especially since you'd only get one geyser and not two (more probes on minerals).


Hm... a decently fast warpgate finishes at 6:15 right? Hallucination should be done by 7:00 then, assuming you burn a chrono or two on it, since hallucination takes a minute to research. The nice thing is though, as soon as you hallucinate you instantly can scout rather than having to wait for an obs to build and fly there.

EDIT:
On September 14 2011 02:52 the p00n wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 02:46 Whitewing wrote:
On September 14 2011 02:34 the p00n wrote:
I will just reply a bit to everyone as most are saying the same thing.

First, I did poke up with my initial stalker (didn't bring zealot though), he had no bunker and 5 marines, you can only do so much poking when he has the ramp + micro and this is going to be even harder when the patch limits the vision up ramps. I know from experience that you can't all-in a terran with warpgates if he is going for a 1-1-1 or mech-oriented play, as the tank with autorepair (or a bunker) will just deal too much dps.

Some people suggested something which boils down to 'just make more units' - that is actually not possible, you do not have the resources or time while expanding. Don't forget that the terran doesn't have to do this early push, if he sees no expo he can just stay on 1 base as well.

You cannot stay on 1 base, because the terran will have the advantage due to his unit composition (mainly the banshees) when on limited resources (both 1basing). Not to forget that with the raven denying your obs, he can ninja a 2nd command center or simply float his starting orbital to his natural, something you cannot do. I actually played some test games against the common/standard 1-1-1 with a friend where we both agree to stay on 1 base, the Protoss always lost - the only reason 1 base play works against 1-1-1 is because the Terran moves out at a certain point in time, whereas he has absolutely no motivation to move out and can just mass up units, moving out only when the protoss makes an additional nexus. Playing 1base against 1-1-1 is simply hoping he will attack you, which he doesn't have to do because the longer the game stays 1-1 base, the bigger the advantage gets for the terran.

Another issue is scouting; yes you can scout him at a certain point in time if you're going for a robo expansion, but the obs will arrive later than you think. Save strange cheeses, the only information you can acquire with your scouting probe is whether he made a refinery or not, as he doesn't have to show his add-on and can always cancel his 2nd marine. Later on you can poke up the ramp, some terrans will show you the 2nd marine (I don't know why?) which tells you he didn't make an add-on, but if you see 1 marine you are still in the dark - you can decide to suicide your probe in and hope it gets enough vision of the base to see what's going on, but an intelligent terran will either have a wall or have his barracks further back, denying you information. You don't really want to sac the probe anyway, you need it at the bottom of his ramp to see if he's moving out with stuff.

With the stalker, you can get info on the early army composition or if he has a bunker. This is a fairly large tell, but it's not that great - he can do the bomber pressure opening (1rax reactor, 1 tech lab, go after first marauder with concussive) and hide his marauders, something we have seen countless times in high-level games, i.e. MLG. This requires a totally different response from the standard 1-1-1 with no push (whereas you make minimal army early on and chrono out probes against the standard sit-on-your-ass-while-doing-111-build, but need army against the bomber opening). Not to forget that you will want sentries against early rax pressure, something you do not want against the thor build this topic is about.

Because this is a game of imperfect information, you have to create that narrative inside your head, where you subconsciously give odds to the builds he may be doing. If you see 4-5 marines at the top of his ramp, or a bunker filled with marines, you still don't know if he's going for a factory/starport-based play, he may have 2 rax behind that massing up marauders. However, you have to make that semi-assumption because it's usually that. That's the big problem with this build - you need an entirely different strategy against this then against another opening which looks exactly the same from the protoss point of view up until it is too late (and I would argue even the observer scouts the build too late... I'm just a protoss who makes a blind immortal and chronos it out immediately right after the obs and I still didn't have 2 immortals when his push arrived, I had to wait for a few seconds and let my expo take the damage before it popped and this was non-stop with perfect chronos).


Is it possible to skip the robo, get a sentry or two, make more zealots, and get hallucination? It saves you minerals and costs less gas (since you'll probably get a sentry or two anyway) than the robo/observer, and lets you get another gateway which helps hold the push better than the robo does with the extra zealots. I'd have to test it, I suspect the hallucination comes out too late even with chrono boost, but your army would be a little bit bigger at the appropriate time, especially since you'd only get one geyser and not two (more probes on minerals).


What are you going to do against a cloaked banshee, which looks -exactly- the same as this? Also, I'm not even sure if skipping the robo is the correct play if you somehow have the info that it isn't cloak banshee due to having no immortal(s).


This is a problem. Since your scout doesn't happen until a little after 7:00 with hallucinate, if he's sprinting for cloak you may not be able to react.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
CowMoo
Profile Joined May 2011
United States45 Posts
September 13 2011 17:58 GMT
#32
Just a note to add: An armory requires 65 seconds to build. A tech lab requires 25 seconds, a tank requires 45 seconds, which sums to 70. So even with one tank you're still getting the thor only five seconds later than a true "thor rush". Otherwise your factory is sitting idle for 40 seconds. The only thing delaying the true thor rush is the 50 gas to the reactor, which clearly pays off for the terran in extra marines.

As people said, the best thing against this is to attempt to kite marines back to your own base with stalkers. However, if he's not awful this can be really difficult because of that one tank, and because he might chase you with groups of marines, clear watchtowers, etc. Someone should check in a unit tester and see if it's advantageous to kite the marines anyway and ignore the tank damage. That way at least his marines will be weaker during the fight, and they deal the real dps. If the marine count is down the immortal will have a much much easier time dealing with the thor. The last thing I can say: SCVs require 5 stalker shots, or two zealot hits and two stalker shots, or three zealot hits. You have to do some pro huk-style micro and multibox your stalkers and zealots to kill SCVs efficiently.

And differentiating this from a 1/1/1 is kind of silly. We should call it the Thor 1/1/1. This is a form of 1/1/1 that delays the banshees for a faster thor.
Xequecal
Profile Joined October 2010
United States473 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-13 18:05:27
September 13 2011 18:02 GMT
#33
On September 14 2011 01:49 Blazinghand wrote:
That sounds like it would work, but bear in mind that whatever build you go has to work equally well (or at least passably well) against other builds that scout the same as this one until it can get a good scout off. How do you differentiate this from marine/tank/banshee allin in time? 2 sentries and 1 stalker seems like it might just lose to 2 banshees, but I'm not sure.


The current PvT dynamic is that you take build order losses 1/3rd of the time. That's just how it works. You can't scout the difference between 2/3/4 rax before factory, 1 base tech, and 1 rax FE before observers or them moving out if they're not retarded, so you have to choose what you're going to lose to. Every Protoss opening possible outright loses to one of those three builds. There is nothing that is safe against all three.
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-13 18:06:20
September 13 2011 18:04 GMT
#34
On September 14 2011 02:58 CowMoo wrote:
Just a note to add: An armory requires 65 seconds to build. A tech lab requires 25 seconds, a tank requires 45 seconds, which sums to 70. So even with one tank you're still getting the thor only five seconds later than a true "thor rush". Otherwise your factory is sitting idle for 40 seconds. The only thing delaying the true thor rush is the 50 gas to the reactor, which clearly pays off for the terran in extra marines.

As people said, the best thing against this is to attempt to kite marines back to your own base with stalkers. However, if he's not awful this can be really difficult because of that one tank, and because he might chase you with groups of marines, clear watchtowers, etc. Someone should check in a unit tester and see if it's advantageous to kite the marines anyway and ignore the tank damage. That way at least his marines will be weaker during the fight, and they deal the real dps. If the marine count is down the immortal will have a much much easier time dealing with the thor. The last thing I can say: SCVs require 5 stalker shots, or two zealot hits and two stalker shots, or three zealot hits. You have to do some pro huk-style micro and multibox your stalkers and zealots to kill SCVs efficiently.

And differentiating this from a 1/1/1 is kind of silly. We should call it the Thor 1/1/1. This is a form of 1/1/1 that delays the banshees for a faster thor.

You make some great points here about timing and kiting. I agree that kiting against a range 7 tank will be very difficult. A canny terran player will cluster his marines around his tank and make it dangerous for your to kite.

I disagree with the possibility of silliness in my scouting differentiation suggestions: I'm not differentiating it from a 1/1/1, and you can call it whatever you want. My point is that this push functions differently than a 1/1/1 push, but scouts the same until you get an observer in the base. This means that any build order that deals with this push has to be the same as a build order that stops a standard 1/1/1 push up until you get the observer in and scout the armory.

On September 14 2011 03:02 Xequecal wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 01:49 Blazinghand wrote:
That sounds like it would work, but bear in mind that whatever build you go has to work equally well (or at least passably well) against other builds that scout the same as this one until it can get a good scout off. How do you differentiate this from marine/tank/banshee allin in time? 2 sentries and 1 stalker seems like it might just lose to 2 banshees, but I'm not sure.


The current PvT dynamic is that you take build order losses 1/3rd of the time. That's just how it works. You can't scout the difference between 2/3/4 rax before factory openings, 1 base tech, and 1 rax FE before observers or them moving out if they're not retarded, so you have to choose what you're going to lose to. Every Protoss opening possible outright loses to one of those three builds. There is nothing that is safe against all three.


It's really build order loss 33% of the time for Protoss? So to get a 50% win rate against terran, you need to win a huge majority of your non-build-order-loss games? >.> I was not aware. My bad.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
the p00n
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands615 Posts
September 13 2011 18:09 GMT
#35
If anyone wants to try some stuff against this build, send me a PM. I'm a Protoss player but I also know a lot of variations of the 1-1-1 build so I can play either side, maybe we can mess around and see if we can come up with something.
malaan
Profile Joined September 2010
365 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-13 18:30:48
September 13 2011 18:25 GMT
#36
damnit. I have been using this build on ladder for months. :-( now it's exposed!

OK so the weaknesses are very few, but it is simply an auto loss for terran if you go DT expand from the start. I have less success with it on large maps for obvious reasons, but in general, it destroys 99% of protoss current standard openings because there is simply not enough dps to take down the shere number of units / composition. If microed perfectly by protoss it requires marine kiting and a lot of early pressure. It's also surprisingly strong against zerg - as long as they didnt go for a baneling bust or an early baneling nest in general (if you deny scouting you can be pretty safe with it)

It simply requires all energy to be used on mules, and since there is only one OC scans will be low. Good micro with DT's stomps this build if you can manage to scout it early. If you can't scout it, indeed, it's a build order loss unless you have incredibly strong micro.

Prepare to see this on ladder for the next week at least

Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
September 13 2011 18:44 GMT
#37
On September 14 2011 03:25 malaan wrote:
It simply requires all energy to be used on mules, and since there is only one OC scans will be low. Good micro with DT's stomps this build if you can manage to scout it early. If you can't scout it, indeed, it's a build order loss unless you have incredibly strong micro.


I don't think that this build scouts any differently from a 1/1/1-- and given that many 1/1/1s make an initial raven, a 2 gate DT expo (or some variant) is straight-up build order loss against a build that scouts just like this. Bear in mind that a DT expo or DT rush isn't able to effectively scout this build until well after the dark shrine has begun; you won't get past the wall and marine bunker, so the possibility of a raven allin is just too coinflippy.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Alejandrisha
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States6565 Posts
September 13 2011 18:54 GMT
#38
The t build is terrible.. It's like any other thor rush except with a tank. I guarantee that if you pulled every single probe that you had when the push came to surround the army you would have won without losing almost anything. These builds have been around for a long time and there has been a lot of discussion on how to beat them. There is a reason they all went away.. they are just bad builds;
1 Immortal + gw units /w GS + a probe pull instantly wins. It doesn't matter if there's a "transition." If he loses that army and scvs, the game is over.
get rich or die mining
TL+ Member
LionsFist
Profile Joined April 2010
Australia164 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-13 19:07:10
September 13 2011 18:56 GMT
#39
A new spin on an old trick.

2 variations of this build:
One is the +1 armor/2 thor/strike cannon timing push. (An example from old days, not best response by P by any means, and Trump didn't even get +1 armor like he could: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/142179-1v1-terran-protoss-lost-temple)
The other is just the 1 thor/strike cannon timing push.

The 2 thor variation is loss vs DT based builds, but stronger vs any robo builds (colossus/immortals, because SC 1 shots them).

The second one is alright vs robo, but easier to transition if P goes voidrays or DT's (ie. early double gas openings) into vikings or raven. You need to wall in with something though to hold off until your raven pops in this build. Personally, if I scouted a double gas opening from P though, I'd just not take my second gas, and do a different build, like normal 1/1/1, or 2 raxx expand with a few turrets into a nice ghost timing push...

tuestresfat
Profile Joined December 2010
2555 Posts
September 13 2011 19:03 GMT
#40
On September 14 2011 02:39 Xequecal wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 14 2011 02:17 Binabik wrote:
Don't go for an expansion on Xel'Naga unless you scout a Command Center


1 base vs a 1 base Terran is total suicide. He has mules and you don't, he can move his OC down to his natural when the main is mined out, you can't. You will lose, horribly, every time.

Except it's impossible to hold your natural against 1/1/1 on Xel'Naga.

If one base was as blatantly impossible as you make it sound, you'd think a player like kiwikaki wouldn't even think of trying a 1base build at mlg.

Yes, it may or may not be the appropriate answer, but it's not as fucking horrible as you're trying to sell.
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