EPT[G] A Guide to Standard TvP - Page 2
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-Aura-
United States209 Posts
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Theovide
Sweden914 Posts
 .In the current metagame protoss either 1 base or open pretty greedy, and you don't want to fall too far behind, but you don't want to die easily either. This means if you are going to open greedy, you CAN'T afford to get supply blocked or miss your production cycles so really concentrate hard in the early game. This is partially true, I have no big critcism about it. Though if it was true to the extent you are implying, a 2 rax expo would be the build to go for, not greedy builds. 2rax expo punishes greedy builds and defends allins quite easily. I do a lot of 2 rax expos because of this, but they are a risk as it's quite bad against safe builds. More specificly some builds will be able to expo way before you and still survive (early nexus with 2 more added gates immediately after), or punish your push by killing it off and not losing a lot (3gate sentry can do that to you). The 1Rax naked FE This is the riskiest opening. I discourage it except on maps with good chokes on your natural such as shak plat and tal darim alter. You need to be able to hold your natural with just a bunker early in the game since otherwise you will just die to 2gate stalker pressure. Should probably be pointed out that meanwhile it could be considered risky, it's the one pros tend to favour on nearly all maps. On the worst maps some players wont do it (like meta or xel'naga), but others will still but have it safely tucked away in their base until they've amassed a big enough force. So if done correctly, I'd say it's safe about almost everything, otherwise pros wouldn't do it. I'd simply wish you where a bit more positive about this one, as it's afterall the absolutely most common build, and by many progamers regarded as the best. The 2Rax Opening I see this opening done wrong all the time. You open 12rax 13 refinery, get a marine then a reactor and a second rax can go up before depot because you will not be building marines while the reactor is building. Then you build marines from the reactor and you get a tech lab on the second rax right away, get conc and a maurader and do a small push with one maurader. This is pretty good against fast expand, you might be able to kill a FE if protoss is greedy. I don't do this push that much because I prefer the faster expansion from above. Don't keep your mauarder in the front because his slow is key to your stutter step power at this point in the game. As I actually do this build a lot, I'd just like to point out that rallying your 13th scv to a gas works perfectly fine, ie building the gas just when you reach 14 food. Also I personally like to take one scv out of gas right after dropping my reactor, as 2 scvs is enough to get concussive+marauders, giving you a faster expo with 1 more scv getting minerals. Otherwise I agree, building 2nd rax pre supply is absolutely neccesary to make this build strong. The 3Rax Teching Build You have probably seen alot of pros favour this build. After your CC you want to immediately go up to 3 barracks. I prefer 2 reactors but some people prefer 2 tech labs. I think more marines really helps defend against any sort of early void ray or immortal pressure that protoss might be applying to you. You need the reactors up immediately or you may not have enough units out in time to defend pressure from toss so I suggest addson before stim. This obviously depends partly on scouting and preferences. You want to get your second gas shorty after you put down the 3rd rax. Then you want to get your factory immediately and put down a starport and a reactor on the factory for the switch and 2 fast medivacs. You also want to get +1 atk and possible +1 armor started quickly in this build since you have more gas. Either you haven't posted in which order you think people should start getting these things (addons, uppgrades, medivacs) or I think you are doing it in a absolutely different order than most pros as well as other high level players I've seen. You should go to 3 barracks after the cc, but getting more addons than one tech lab to start uppgrades are highly uncommon as far as I know, unless you are planning to do a timing push before medivacs (ghost rushes comes to mind). Afaik unless an all in is spotted, most people build only marines out of the 3 rax, with only one addoned with a techlab for uppgrades, at least until the factory is started (to start the journy to medivacs). Also I'd like to add that the great majority goes 2 tech labs, not only some. Though I guess this is could be a consequence of most people not going marauder expand, but instead heav y marines in start, meaning that they are in need to get more marauders and not marines in the mix. Lastly, against allins, getting reactors are most of the time not a good idea due to build time, unless the allin is voidray based I'd say you could decide to either add tech labs and go marauder heavy (especially good vs heavy blink play). If voidrays are indeed coming, I most of the time add more barracks, not reactors (unless I scout it incredibelly early, but even then reactors are way more vurnable to snipes if the protoss pokes in your base with voidrays as you are defending the gateway units). The Ghost Timing attack I never do this timing attack, you have probably seen pros do it a few times though. Basically you go up to 4rax and you get ghosts and go for the 10minute timing attack. Try to emp the sentries so they cant FF your army in half and you should win. If you don't win, you are in the same position as the 5rax pretty much except even further behind because all your gas went into ghosts. I'm quite sure a lot of pros do the ghost timing with 3 raxs. Or at least that's what I've seen most of the time. Also I don't feel this really adds to the guide as you're basically only saying the things that anyone who've ever watched a ghost rush would already know (unless possibly really low level players, but you are saying that your guide isn't made with them in mind in the start). 4) start a second engi bay and armory (this step is debatable and you have to decide when you want to put it into your gameplay, when people do their upgrades varys alot, altho I didn't include it in many build orders I always have an engi bay and usually +1 weaps done with armor on the way by this stage) - constant upgrades at this point You could add that things time out nicely if you put down the armory when the second of your 1-1 uppgrades are halfway complete, putting down the engineering bay on the same time as that if you want to start 2-2 immediately is obviously also smart. The scv scout YOU MUST SCV SCOUT - you need to see if he has 2 gas before 4minutes. If he does, then he could still be doing basically anything, but if he doesn't then you know he is either doing a 4gate or a FE. Typically if he is doing a 4gate you will see alot of energy saved up on his nexus. The 4gate. Just chill outside his base with your worker after you scout 1 gas and if you don't see a nexus going down by 5.5minutes start building a bunker in your base right away, repair that bunker and you should hold the 4gate. It was mentioned to me that a 4gate can hit before this timing, but I think thats a very weak version of the 4gate cutting probes and with mostly zealots and you should be able to hold it off with a few scvs and stutter step micro. It is also very helpful to block off your ramp to defend this type of early zealot heavy pressure. 2 gas scenario - again you want to chill outside his base with your worker because although 2gas does imply tech, many protoss are expanding off 2 gas these days. If you see no expansion by 5.5minutes you should build a bunker at your expansion and another at 6minutes. If no expand you may be facing sentry heavy 4 gate, dts, void rays, warp prisms or even blink stalkers. I'm not really going to go into most of these since there are other posts for this stuff. Blink stalkers is basically anti 1/1/1 cheese and should die hilariously to your standard play First of all, the chill outside his base, that doesn't work against anyone remotely decent, they'll kill your scv with their stalker. Hide it on a remote location and checking back in around the 6 min mark is a better way to do things, as if they haven't put down a expansion then they are either A) allin or B) so far behind in their expo that you playing as if they where all in wont put you behind anyway. Second, blink allins is not a only anti 1/1/1 cheese (in fact I've never seen one do it as an active response to 1/1/1). And meanwhile it might be easily held with a marauder expand (basically the hardcounter) it's not with a marine heavy expand if he plays good. Void rays - if you are playing marine heavy as I suggest you will never die to void rays with decent micro, void ray vs expand is basically just a coin flip where you either have enough marines or you dont. Leave maruarders in bunkers at front defend void ray harass with marines. Don't forget to repair bunkers if there is a big push at the front. Good voidray allins are by no stretch of the imagination pushovers with standard builds, I'm unsure why you seem to put it that way. As most T's open marine heavy that would mean that the voidray allin nearly always fails, that's not true. Possibly low level ones where they simply a move with their voidrays and all other shenaningans they've built work this way, but that's not how a good void ray all in works. Except these points I though the guide was a quite good overview of the current standard TvP. I hope I made it clear that I didn't post this to discredit the OP in anyway, I simply put just disagreed with some of the views. If anyone cares about my credentials I'm a high masters terran. (Also feel free to disagree with any of my points, I love some discussion, just please do it on a mature level :D.) | ||
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Beezleking
Canada91 Posts
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pwei
United States62 Posts
On smaller maps I think 2-Raxing is very strong. I've found myself winning vs most Protoss on small maps with it. A few keys to 2-Raxing: - If you can, hide as much information as possible. I sometimes use my scouting SCV to build the second Rax at my natural. Make sure you have room for the tech-lab. - However, you should not delay building placement for more than a few seconds; if they are being persistent with the scout go ahead and drop the Rax anyways. If your initial push is late, it will be ineffective. - After dropping your 2nd Rax (and reactor), build another depot; this same SCV will then immediately build another depot. - A depot wall is helpful for holding off initial pressure and will be useful later vs various cheese (4G, fast DT). - You want to move out when your second Marauder finishes; do not unnecessarily show your first Marauder unless you are going to tag a unit and kill it. - When you do move out, there are two formations you want to follow. You can either send just the marines to clear watch towers, with Marauders sufficiently far behind so that they are not revealed. If you aren't doing this, make sure your Marauders are in front so that if they tag a stray unit your marines don't block them from continuing to slow. - When you move out, rally Raxes forward; often the reinforcements are essential. You can rally onto one of your Marauders. - If your initial scouting SCV sees a very fast expansion, pull 3 SCVs to guarantee an expo deny. - As pointed out by someone else before, you can just use 2 SCVs on gas after you get down your reactor; however, I feel like this limits tech-based follow-ups (i.e. you are committed to dropping an expansion). If you keep 3 in gas, you can drop a Factory and another refinery as you move out; this allows you to have stim and medivacs later around the same time. Since I only execute 2-Raxes on smaller maps, this is what I usually do. - Don't take pot-shots from units on the high-ground as you move out. - If you don't pick off units or do not see an expansion, you do not want to just walk up the ramp. You will generally either want to pull back or concave around the base of their ramp while you secure your own expansion. - If you don't know what they are going, you can send a single marine or SCV (right click on the mineral patch if you are sending an SCV). This is not a bad time to scan, and determine your opponents tech choice. If you position your scan well you can not only see buildings, but also snipe sentries that are too close to the ramp and potentially end a super-greedy tech. - Initial Marine-Marauder micro can be very important. In a straight up fight you will usually want your Marauders tanking; microing just your marines back from can help a lot, especially vs Zealots. In low unit count situations, you will often want to stutter-focus down Stalkers and then kite the remaining units. | ||
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BioTech
Australia264 Posts
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Carmine
United States263 Posts
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Tortious_Tortoise
United States944 Posts
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BlueBoxSC
United States582 Posts
 I will read it, just thought I'd comment on that. Now that I've read it, saw your note at the end. Looking forward to the pretty guide. :D | ||
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upperbound
United States2300 Posts
On November 29 2011 07:44 scottv55 wrote: Would you consider the 1Rax reactor FE a common/viable opening, or is it to unsafe vs 2gate pressure? Puma did this build against NightEnd in the DHW semis this weekend (game 1 on Shakuras Plateau). I think it's a decent build on maps where you're more likely to face voidray play. | ||
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slwen
Australia37 Posts
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upperbound
United States2300 Posts
On November 29 2011 10:02 pwei wrote: Great post! I've been having a lot of problems late game TvP when I open 1 Rax FE Bio. Unless they try to all-in, I usually end up losing in the end-game battles. The engagement tips seems like they make sense, I'll try those out. On smaller maps I think 2-Raxing is very strong. I've found myself winning vs most Protoss on small maps with it. A few keys to 2-Raxing: - If you can, hide as much information as possible. I sometimes use my scouting SCV to build the second Rax at my natural. Make sure you have room for the tech-lab. - However, you should not delay building placement for more than a few seconds; if they are being persistent with the scout go ahead and drop the Rax anyways. If your initial push is late, it will be ineffective. - After dropping your 2nd Rax (and reactor), build another depot; this same SCV will then immediately build another depot. - A depot wall is helpful for holding off initial pressure and will be useful later vs various cheese (4G, fast DT). - You want to move out when your second Marauder finishes; do not unnecessarily show your first Marauder unless you are going to tag a unit and kill it. - When you do move out, there are two formations you want to follow. You can either send just the marines to clear watch towers, with Marauders sufficiently far behind so that they are not revealed. If you aren't doing this, make sure your Marauders are in front so that if they tag a stray unit your marines don't block them from continuing to slow. - When you move out, rally Raxes forward; often the reinforcements are essential. You can rally onto one of your Marauders. - If your initial scouting SCV sees a very fast expansion, pull 3 SCVs to guarantee an expo deny. - As pointed out by someone else before, you can just use 2 SCVs on gas after you get down your reactor; however, I feel like this limits tech-based follow-ups (i.e. you are committed to dropping an expansion). If you keep 3 in gas, you can drop a Factory and another refinery as you move out; this allows you to have stim and medivacs later around the same time. Since I only execute 2-Raxes on smaller maps, this is what I usually do. - Don't take pot-shots from units on the high-ground as you move out. - If you don't pick off units or do not see an expansion, you do not want to just walk up the ramp. You will generally either want to pull back or concave around the base of their ramp while you secure your own expansion. - If you don't know what they are going, you can send a single marine or SCV (right click on the mineral patch if you are sending an SCV). This is not a bad time to scan, and determine your opponents tech choice. If you position your scan well you can not only see buildings, but also snipe sentries that are too close to the ramp and potentially end a super-greedy tech. - Initial Marine-Marauder micro can be very important. In a straight up fight you will usually want your Marauders tanking; microing just your marines back from can help a lot, especially vs Zealots. In low unit count situations, you will often want to stutter-focus down Stalkers and then kite the remaining units. Nice addition to the 2 rax section. I've also been 2 raxing a lot lately with great success, but I've found the 2 in gas expo route to be much stronger. This is mostly because the probe-cut fe with all chrono into warpgate is a pretty good counter to the 2 rax if you have a delayed expo. If you expo earlier against it, you will actually be ahead. With 2 nex worth of chrono and decent scouting, the stim/medivac timing push doesn't work (unless the protoss does something very greedy like double forge fast colossus or fast colossus with charge), he can just have enough gateway units that you're just dead even if you're cost effective with your units. | ||
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Roguelead
Singapore59 Posts
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cactusjack914
United States183 Posts
Would you consider the 1Rax reactor FE a common/viable opening, or is it to unsafe vs 2gate pressure? it is definitely viable especially on tal darim or shakuras. On smaller maps I highly recommend taking all 3 scvs off of gas @ 50 and getting your bunker started ASAP. I personally like to allow him to see the 2nd cc go down and if he indeed infact open 2gate pressure I would simply throw down a 2nd refinery after my expo and 1/1/1 him. Alot of protoss players quickly eliminate that you may be 1/1/1'ng after they see an expo. the push comes a bit later but will be hitting relatively at the same weak point since he has responded originally to your fast exp and NOT the 1/1/1/If you scout that hes gonna all in you off of 1 base just build the extra bunkers. If he opened with some sort of fast obs from the robo and you see that he is reacting to your build with a nexus and not an all in , I recommend getting very quick 1/1 for your bio while preparing for colossus. If he sees that you are upgrading he is going to have to match you and has already sunken alot of gas into the fast robo and obs. If he follows up with colossus off 2 bases with 5 gateways or so I couldnt imagine that he will have been able to keep up with you on upgrades and that will give you a huge advantage in any early engagement and in your drops. Keep in mind, you had your expo first. | ||
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imre
France9263 Posts
On November 29 2011 09:09 Froadac wrote: This doesn't seem like a bad little guide. I did learn quite a lot from it, assuming it's accurate  We've seen a lot of the koreans (and puma.. and thorzain) go one rax fe into 4 or 5 rax. Push, then expo and take double/triple gas. I've seen it enough it might be "standard". What are your thoughts on this? With good (insane) micro you can deal with colossi/storm on open field without tech if the protoss doesn't have too many forcefields. And the pure marine push can be quite deadly for a greedy toss, when you've enough marines zealots melt, sentry don't do too much dps, so if he's not stalker heavy he's in trouble. It punishes quite well 3g into colossi in my opinion, the fast third is just soooooooooo good for your macro. But before you try to do that you need a good stutter step micro, knowing how to engage colossi without vikings (2b colossi comes way before you get them out) and some nice multitasking when you're going to push. I'd recommand it on tal darim, shattered and maybe antiga shipyard in the current mappool. I think it's a bit early too consider it "standard" because every pro has his own version, in the following link you've sC's version; http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors7/vod/66508 First vod it's free | ||
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hooberschmit
Canada101 Posts
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FirstGear
Australia185 Posts
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
1 Rax reactor expand is strong against voidray all in, but weak against 2gate stalker pressure, he can easily contain you in your base and slow down your expand with this opening if he applies early pressure and is good at stalker kiting. I find that voidray allin at my level is less common then stalker pressure so it is up to you. As well I am pretty good at scouting the proxy pylon and I almost alwys quickly go up to 4rax so I feel that I am able to hold off the voidray all in most of the time. Do what works for you but be aware of your strengths and weaknesses 1Rax reaper expand is vulnerable to zealot stalker poke, but you gain valuable scouting information and might pick off a probe or two. Risk, reward - maybe on a large map like tal darim where you rarely see zealot stalker poke it might be a good time to bust it out. | ||
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imre
France9263 Posts
On November 29 2011 14:56 FirstGear wrote: Whats your opinion of a 1 rax reaper expand? Is it a viable build? Does it die/come out significantly behind vs anything? It is significantly weaker against a 4gate (hardcore) because you trade a marauder for your reaper. However you've a perfect read on what the protoss is doing. I like to do it if you feel like the protoss is not going to pressure you (1g low chrono) or if he's teching (2gaz low chrono) it's quite good because you can know really quickly what he's going to do, and try to punish him with a good timing attack. The main element of reflexion should be the map, you need some good cliffs to do it | ||
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Jordo211
Australia3 Posts
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Notaa
Canada51 Posts
On November 29 2011 14:56 FirstGear wrote: Whats your opinion of a 1 rax reaper expand? Is it a viable build? Does it die/come out significantly behind vs anything? I experimented with reaper expo a lot, and basically used it to clear map of probes/scout for proxies/scout for tech later. However it makes 3-4 gate voidray all ins extremely hard to hold because u r 4-5 marines behind since u needed gas(75)/refinery(75) which you wouldn't otherwise need for a naked rax expo. Reaper itself + techlab build time is equivalent of 2+ marines of build time. Meanwhile your additional raxes are delayed. The reaper on the otherhand while useful for scouting, Allows protoss feel very safe about expanding as he knows that you have very little units due to the investment in the reaper. | ||
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