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Are you a Protoss player that wants to play an aggressive macro game against Terran, but can't seem to find a way? Are you sick of going double forge and sitting in your base until 200/200 desperately trying to limit drop damage so that you can kill your opponent with one big A-move at 20 minutes? Have you been frustrated by trying to attack in the mid-game, only to see 4 medivacs swoop in just as you cross the map, and finding that Terran, with repairing bunkers and vikings on cliffs, can hold your attack even with half his army in your base? Are you a Turtle Toss yearning to break free from your shell? Are you done wearing brown and feelin' some plaid?
Reverse that shit!
![[image loading]](http://trustypony.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/reversible-jacket.jpg)
This guide will describe a style of play that quickly gets upgrades, charge and templar tech on 2 bases, ramping up to an offensive macro mid-game with a guerilla style pressure that starts around 13 minutes and can last the rest of the game. The goal is to simultaneously attack multiple positions, taxing Terran's APM, and punishing him for every tiny mistake he makes. In other words, the goal is to do to Terran what Terran loves to do to Protoss.
Please note that this style is supposed to be fun, and while I think it can also be very strong at high levels, I don't intend for it to be an every-game strategy. It will take some silly losses against ghost timings and faked expansions, and if T knows what you're doing, he can preemptively build vikings to prevent your drops. This is good against standard play, but there are counters.
Build skeleton:
-FE
-defend with zealots and sentries while teching storm and chronoboosting upgrades
-multi-pronged attacks with warp prisms and pylons while taking bases
-templar-focused late game
This style can be played with a wide variety of build orders, but I'll share the one that I prefer.
Opening build order:
13 gate
15 gas
18 core (3 chrono on probes by this point)
19 zealot
22 pylon -- scout! (yes, it's delayed. More on this in a bit)
23 stalker and WG tech (4 chrono total on WG tech)
27 nexus
28 gateway
28 sentry
31 pylon
32 forge
32 zealot (1 chrono)
This is a variant of my 1 gate FE with an early forge. Tho it has only 2 gateways, it's safe against all early pressure, and it gets you more economy than any other safe 1 gate FE.
Because there are no scouting-based deviations in the BO until the forge at ~5:20, there's no need to send an early probe scout. This is great because early probe scouts don't usually get much information anyway, and delaying the scout gives you a mineral boost to hit timings you otherwise couldn't. We'll get all the scouting information we need by parking a probe in Terran's natural by ~5 min, and if the probe confirms that it's safe, a zealot+stalker poke. On some 4 player maps, I scout after core to make sure I find their position early enough to deal with quick marauder pressure and marine+SCV all-ins.
Scouting cues:
-This build is designed to be played against 2+ base Terran bio. It's nice to actually see the command center, but you can't always confirm an expansion because Terran is bullshit and they can deny scouting no matter how early you send your probe. You'll have to make a read if you want to play this style. If your read is wrong, you'll sometimes lose to a fake expansion into cloaked banshees. It happens to everybody.
-See when T leaves his base. There are 3 common early bio pushes that Terrans will do.
#1: 2 marauder pressure. Grab 4 probes and kill this when your sentry pops. If you wait longer, he might get a bunker which will cost you more to kill.
#2: Reactor 2-rax. This attack has ~5-9 marines and 1-2 marauders. It hits your base at ~6 minutes. Kill it after you warp in your 2 units at 6 minutes. Just hit your warp-ins on time and make sure T doesn't sneak a bunker before his army shows up and you'll handle this fine.
#3: Stim timing. This comes a little later than the reactor 2-rax. It's the most all-in of the group, and it's not very scary as long as you've been hitting your warp-ins on time.
-If there's no sign of pressure or expansion by 6 minutes, you should deviate from this build and prepare for banshees and hellion drops. You probably already have a forge, so you might want to get a cannon in each mineral line. If you start your robo a little after 6 minutes, you'll have to run your probes away from a cloaked banshee rush for a few seconds before your observer pops if you don't have cannons. It's not a big problem, but I think the cannons are good if my robo is late.
Teching up:
Build 2 more assimilators (total of 3) while your 2nd zealot builds. WG tech and your 2nd zealot will finish at 5:50, and at 6:00, you will start +1 armor and warp in 2 units. Usually, this will be a zealot and a sentry, but if T is doing a reactor-first 2-rax pressure, you can get a zealot and a stalker or 2 stalkers.
Fill your 2nd and 3rd assimilators ASAP, and constantly produce off of your 2 gates. Unlike most builds that get 3 or 4 gates and warp in units when they see T pushing out, we don't have burst production capacity. Don't skip production rounds! You want to get 3 sentries and then pure zealots. After 3 sentries, this portion of the build assumes constant probe and zealot production.
-twilight @100 gas (you actually have the gas before the 150 minerals if you're macroing well)
-templar archives @ 100% twilight
-+1 ground weapons
-robo
-storm
-observer
-2 templar
-charge and +2 armor
-more gates, a third, and a warp prism (order will be game-specific)
-dark shrine
Chronoboost the crap out of your forge as well as your storm and charge upgrades.
At this point, you want to get to 8 gates and a third base. I recommend adding gates 2 at a time--go to 4, then 6, then 8. How quickly you can take your third will depend on the map, what your opponent is doing, and how favorable any early trades were.
Terran usually waits for medivacs before starting his mid-game aggression which means he typically won't attack before you have storm. If he does, your upgraded zealots and 3 sentries can usually handle the pressure fine. You should know when Terran moves out, so if you're worried about a push (ie a ghost timing), just spam a few cannons. You'll need those cannons (paired with some templar) in the mid- and late-game anyway.
At roughly 13 minutes, you should have 3 bases, +1/+2 upgrades, storm, charge, a dark shrine, a bunch of gates, a robo, and a warp prism. Your base might look something like this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PBZEg.png)
You're well positioned to head into a late-game fight, and you don't have to attack and do damage. But you will!
The fun part:
This is the stage of the game where you can turn this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nFhwa.png)
Ho-hum even game
Into this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XmNSO.png)
Past performance does not necessarily predict future results
Put a probe and a high templar in a warp prism, and fly it around to some remote part of Terran's main as far from his 2nd and 3rd bases as possible. Cross the map with your main army leaving 2 templar at home for defense. You should be a little cautious crossing the map at this point since Terran is likely to be out on the map as well, and you don't want to be caught off guard. Park your prism in T's base, warp in a full round of zealots, and drop the probe to start a pylon while the zealots are warping in. We'd like to have pylons at every corner of Terran's base. Pull the probe back up and convert the prism to transport mode.
When a small army stims in to kill the zealots, you have the option to reinforce either the drop or your main army with your next warp cycle and you also have an option to pop the templar out of the prism to lay down a storm to support your drop. This puts the Terran in a really tough spot. He knows you have an army waiting to attack his front, but he doesn't know how many units he needs to split off from his main force to defend your drop. Is he defending against an 8 chargelot drop or a 16 chargelot drop with a storm or 2?
To make matters worse (for him--awesome for you), your observer should spot how many troops he sends to deal with the drop, and by abusing the warp-in mechanic to pick which position you reinforce, you can make sure that he has always sent too much or too little.
Better yet, Terrans can't kite in multiple positions at once, so by splitting your forces, you actually make his army much weaker in the spot(s) that he's not actively microing. And that's all BEFORE you start warping in DT's to force him to micro scans in addition to moving SCV's, kiting, killing prisms and pylons and lifting buildings.
This multi-pronged attack can be extremely deadly if Terran doesn't nip it in the bud by denying the first warp-ins. I've played games where Terran's were hitting 300 APM and still falling apart. It's great fun.
Transitioning:
This attack is great and it will win a lot of games, but sometimes Terrans will defend. On a map like Entombed Valley, there's not much space to warp in, so your attack might never get off the ground. In those cases, you'll just go straight into a macro style late game with upgraded chargelots and templar tech.
A full discussion of how to play late-game PvT is beyond the scope of this guide, but you can check out Welmu's great guide here. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=298060
In other cases, you will trade a lot of army for economy, and you'll need to defend 1 big Terran push in order to win. Here, cannons and storms are your friends. By this point, you should have 6+ or so templar spread across your bases gathering energy. Just keep storming and camping near cannons to wear him down and buy time. Eventually, your reinforcements should match his army strength.
If things are still pretty even at this point, head into lategame as discussed above.
Maps:
This build isn't great on all maps. Pro-features include long rush distance, a natural that's easily defended with forcefields, large mains with plenty of air space around the edges, and spread out expansions. Basically, Tal'Darim Altar is the perfect map for this build.
Replays:
http://drop.sc/113174 -- fun win against #70 ranked Season 5 GM
http://drop.sc/101068
http://drop.sc/103641
http://drop.sc/103640
http://drop.sc/103700 -- defending 3 rax all-in with 2 gates
http://drop.sc/103949 -- close loss. my drops got foiled early but did damage later. wound up 1 storm short of a win in the end
http://drop.sc/103948 -- missing early forcefields put me in a bad spot, but we dropped each other all game and I managed to do a little more damage for a narrow win
http://drop.sc/103947 -- solid loss. pro tip: don't lose 10 probes to a reaper backstab. pro tip #2: drop first, then attack front.
http://drop.sc/103946 -- solid win. Terran player after game: "I couldn't kill the damn pylon fast enough"
http://drop.sc/106066 -- better execution than I usually pull off, but DT shrine was late
http://drop.sc/106204 -- fun game. Shows army splitting to defend 10 minute medivac timing, tho I did screw it up a bit. Also shows a good defense after trading army for economy (I killed 40+ workers, but his army was 4x the size of mine afterwards)
http://drop.sc/106564
I'll add more when I get a chance.
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nice guide! Gonna go try it out now
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my hero <3 bookmarked this : )
Do you have any issues with early medievac timings? Sorry if its in the replays, will watch in the morning! : )
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Sounds like a lot of fun. I've been having trouble with terran, i'll have to try this out.
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I'll tell you what, I've been using your 1 gate FE for a long time and I think it's a super solid way to open.
Now I'm getting a new mid-game jacket.
Thanks dude!
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I will try kcdc but i feel like im going to fail lol. Nonetheless i will try this in my next pvt's!! Thanks again!!!!! : )
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Italy12246 Posts
Have my babies kcdc, i am bored out of my mind in pvt because it's either deathball or allin. This is gonna make the matchup a lot more fun 
You mention the timings for your extra gates, third, dt shrine and warp prism change based on what the terran is doing. Could you be more specific? What makes you decide the order in which you get stuff (ghost vs medivac first, 2-4 rax before teching, fast third, double eng bay...)
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On February 03 2012 07:55 Teoita wrote:
You mention the timings for your extra gates, third, dt shrine and warp prism change based on what the terran is doing. Could you be more specific? What makes you decide the order in which you get stuff (ghost vs medivac first, 2-4 rax before teching, fast third, double eng bay...)
Basically, I like to get my third as early as I think I can defend it. On TDA, that's pretty early. On other maps, it's later.
I get the DT shrine when I feel safe and I have a few HT's. I'd always want to have at least 4 gates before starting my DT shrine, but it could come after 6 or 8 gates. It really depends on the map and how any early trades have gone.
The extra gates come when minerals allow. If I think I can defend an early third, the extra gates will be later. If I'm worried about pressure, I'll slow the third down and get the gates earlier.
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I would be very glad to see this in a TvP >:-)
I do a marauder FE and get E-Bay at 27 for fast attack upgrade. Once it's done, I have stim, conc, combat shields, and a fair sized army to push with. It's not usually supposed to be a game winner, but I could probably pull it off with a little micro against this bo. I think I push at around 11 minutes, so I wouldn't have any troubles with that Warp Prism unless you manage to defend without getting more units.
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woohoo finally a PvT build where i don't sit in my base for 20 min.
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If any high masters or GM players try this out, it'd be great if you'd post any replays. I don't have the multitasking or APM to really do this style justice, and I'd love to see what players with better mechanics can do with it.
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Italy12246 Posts
I am picturing HerO doing this...god the fanboy in me would start squeaking or something.
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"you can't always confirm an expansion because Terran is bullshit" confirmed that i will be trying this build. love your guides man.
ty
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I have been trying some builds like this but haven't liked it too much yet.
The fundamental problem I have with this style is that chargelot-ht is just not really great to rush to. It's incredibly gas heavy to get templar so early as you basically need 500-700 gas when the archives finishes (storm + 2-4 templar) which is an awkward amount to save up that early, especially if you need other stuff like upgrades etc. too.
HT are also just too flimsy for defending drop harass early on I think, when you are so spread out and the HT are not where you get dropped you have real trouble fending it off as without enough stalkers and blink they can just drop without risk.
In general I think templar are a lousy tech to go from second to a third, if you've already taken a third early on then HT are great as you can easily switch into them but off 2 base while getting upgrades it's just too hard imo.
Unfortunately chargelot drops are rarely worth the trouble too, inside a terran base they often just do nothing especially as terran will have some units in his main anyway because of their production mechanic. HT drops are great but chargelots drops never seem worth it, I've never seen a really succesful one in a pro game either. Usually they just wind up killing 2 scv's and doing some random damage against some buildings.. It's just terrible how protoss doesn't have any good units to drop..
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Merkwerf, if you're finding that chargelot drops don't work well, you could try this strategy. I play against high masters/low GM on NA ladder, and my 'drops' often do a ton of damage. But I don't really drop so much as I attack multiple positions. My goal is to get pylons all over T's base and to warp in zealots wherever T's army isn't.
And while it's true that templar tech takes a lot of gas, so does colossus tech, and so does double forge. IMO, templar+charge is a million times better than colossus tech for defending drops.
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Oh I'd love it if P's actually try to play real games. Good guide bro =)
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On February 03 2012 09:05 kcdc wrote:
templar+charge is a million times better than colossus tech for defending drops.
Do you use templar + cannons for drop defence, or warp in when you see it?
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omg finally what i have been looking for im so tied of sitting and defending forever. i see pvt and think ok 30 minute game inc.
thank you for this
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Better yet, Terrans can't kite in multiple spots at once, so by splitting your forces, you actually make his army much weaker in the spot(s) that he's not actively microing. And that's all BEFORE you start warping in DT's to force him to micro scans in addition to moving SCV's, kiting, killing prisms and pylons and lifting buildings.
This multi-pronged attack can be extremely deadly if Terran doesn't nip it in the bud by denying the first warp-ins. I've played games where Terran's were hitting 300 APM and still falling apart. It's great fun.
Interesting point about the kiting. I use this heavy warp in style lategame versus zerg, but didn't feel it would be as viable with Terran... but the more I think about it, it is. It seems like warp prisms may be the great Protoss hope after all. There's always a bit of a worry that it just devolves into epic drop wars.
I feel like the only real counter for terran would be to build PF and turrets in his base, hehe.
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Siiiiiccck, kcdc. I've been working on developing a very similar style lately and this looks awesome!
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On February 03 2012 09:10 lolterzard wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 09:05 kcdc wrote:
templar+charge is a million times better than colossus tech for defending drops. Do you use templar + cannons for drop defence, or warp in when you see it?
I recommend keeping a couple templar at each base with some zealots between your main and natural and cannons at your third base and each base thereafter. That plus warp-ins should keep you decently safe. Anyway, I think it works better than defending with blink. Stalkers are good for stopping small drops from unloading, but if you miss a drop or if T goes for a big drop, the handful of stalkers that you leave at home don't cut it.
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On February 03 2012 09:05 kcdc wrote:
Merkwerf, if you're finding that chargelot drops don't work well, you could try this strategy. I play against high masters/low GM on NA ladder, and my 'drops' often do a ton of damage. But I don't really drop so much as I attack multiple positions. My goal is to get pylons all over T's base and to warp in zealots wherever T's army isn't.
And while it's true that templar tech takes a lot of gas, so does colossus tech, and so does double forge. IMO, templar+charge is a million times better than colossus tech for defending drops.
maybe I should give chargelot drops or multipronged attacks another chance but I just tend to run into small packs of marine/marauder that stop it easily too much. I'm just not really sold on this aspect of fighting on multiple fronts as you can't really retreat easily and terran still has the upper hand in mobility.
As for templar being better vs drops then colossi: in the abstract that is true but the real question is not templars vs colossi, it's zealot-a few stalker-templar vs zealot-a good bunch of stalkers-colossi. Blink stalkers are still the ultimate anti-drop tech and they just combine better with colossi imo. The problem with relying on ht or chargelots to defend drops is that they lack the mobility to defend against drops AND full frontal attacks at the same time.
With blink stalkers you can just have your army at your most forward base while your blink stalkers sit in the main, ready to blink out to your forward base if needed. It's the most reliable way to stop multi-pronged attacks imo and since blink is still quite cheap it's just my preference still. It does lead to the dreaded wait till 200/200 style but that and very aggresive timing attacks are the only reliable way to play protoss really.
Lack of a good harass unit and being the slowest race kind of forces P to play that way..
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Sweet, looks like I"m not the only one that does a zealot/warp prism based PvT. I've found that a zealot archon style seems to struggle against a lot of PF expansions, so it might be a good idea to get up 4-5 immortals to supplement your army. Not only do they demolish any sort of building sim city and PFs, but speed prisms with two immortals pretty much guarentees the death of a remote expansion or any undefended addons/engi bays/armories. Plus as a happy side effect they demolish mauraders
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I watched a game of you trying this against street and as a former protoss player and a current terran player, that was absolutely crazy to watch. (even if you ended up losing that game <3)
The zealots are a constant mineral sink. If you make zealots from a prism, they will probably die, and unfortunately they will probably do less damage then their cost.
HOWEVER!
This is totally balanced out by how many expansions you can take with the terran player pinned back defending this stuff.
That said, I think in the game I watched you took it too far. There hits a point where you already have 4-5 bases, and you don't gain anything by continuing the ineffectual harass.
I think that this is a surprisingly stable way to play pvt and more importantly, in the worst case scenario of a terran player heavily invested in drop defense, you have a clear clean cut transition to make.
If you need someone else to test it against, add goldenwitch.967. That said, I have a rather unusual tvp style so it might not be ideal testing grounds.
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Lets assume this goes really well and you pin Terran to two bases while you saturate a third of your own. Would you continue the warpins, or exploit your better economy by falling back and beginning a move to Colossus?
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Can I just say, as a Terran, this is a scary guide. Unlike vs Z where Mutas and Lings runbies are a constant threat, we Terrans pretty much never put turrets or leave marines (marauders) around the base for defense vs P, just a turret at the natural entrance in case of DTs but nothing more. Sure it would be less effective if the opponent is prepared but that preparation will reduce his main army's effectiveness in both micro and macro.
Oh and fully upgraded Zealots are like the best unit in the history of video games. A decent sized warpin can wreak total havoc in my base.
Oh wait I just sorta bumped this for more P's to see. T__T (Did any of that sound like whining? If so I'm sorry, I'm just being objective and congratulating the OP on an outstanding guide to a really effective aggressive style that is not very common in SC2 PvT)
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Sigh.. first time trying this and I get 1/1/1'd
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goldenwitch:
Thanks for chiming in. I definitely don't win every time with this strategy, but I'd say I win 70% or so, and I'm still practicing it. I never really used templar vs T until recently, so I have a lot of room to improve in the ghost vs templar micro battle. Also, I think Street is a little better than I am, so it's not surprising that I've dropped games to him. I think I'm 2-2 against him so far when practicing this build.
Also, losing the zealots is indeed a constant mineral sink, but the goal is to trade them somewhat efficiently for SCVs, buildings, and army. Carrying a templar in the warp prism helps a lot with the trade efficiency. I don't know if I remembered to do that in the game you saw. I'll add you.
TuckFexas:
Like I said in the OP, there are a lot of ways to hit this mid-game. I'm sure you can make the 20 expo work, but I'm not a big fan of that build. Even the safe version struggles a bit against 2 marauder pressure, and it's behind my FE economically. The big plus with the 20 expo is the 5 stalker timing and the option to cut defense in favor of extra economy if you know T is gasless CCing. There are tradeoffs, but I prefer the build I outlined in the OP.
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Ever since I saw somewhat similar play in GSTL with ZenexTreme, I knew someone was gonna write a guide about it. Good job.
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Dude marry me, I'll buy you a ring.
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Thank you, kcdc! We are so lucky to have blue posters like yourself, Alej, Monk and Geiko posting quality guides for us all. Neither terran or zerg have blue posters posting guides non stop like you all do.
I've been using your 1 gate fe guide for the past few weeks and I like it alot but I keep getting wrecked by the 5 marine 1 maurader early pressure at my natural or the 10 min poke off a gasless FE with marines, mauraders and two medivacs. I only just figured out last night that to hold it with two gates you need to be constantly producing out of two gates and not missing warpins for a long time otherwise you get overrun. It's good that you confirmed this notion in this guide here.
Question about this guide, when do you get your fourth gas? Do you get it after the possible 10 min poke by Terran or before then? I feel as though you need it beforehand?
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Sensor tower > WP harass and Pylons
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On February 03 2012 12:26 JASONB0URNE wrote:
Thank you, kcdc! We are so lucky to have blue posters like yourself, Alej, Monk and Geiko posting quality guides for us all. Neither terran or zerg have blue posters posting guides non stop like you all do.
I've been using your 1 gate fe guide for the past few weeks and I like it alot but I keep getting wrecked by the 5 marine 1 maurader early pressure at my natural or the 10 min poke off a gasless FE with marines, mauraders and two medivacs. I only just figured out last night that to hold it with two gates you need to be constantly producing out of two gates and not missing warpins for a long time otherwise you get overrun. It's good that you confirmed this notion in this guide here.
Question about this guide, when do you get your fourth gas? Do you get it after the possible 10 min poke by Terran or before then? I feel as though you need it beforehand?
Glad to help. I really like this style of play--it's so much more fun to play, and I'll admit that I posted the guide somewhat in the hopes that I'd have a chance to see better players using this style as well. I like watching streams, but Turtle Toss and all-ins are getting a little old.
About the 4th gas, I don't seem to need it until after my DT shrine. There's a hump where you're gas-starved as you're teching up, but after that, most of your spending is on zealots, gates, nexii and probes, so 3 gas feels like enough unless I want to warp in a bunch of DT's or, later, tech colossus.
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I'm curious, how would you hold a 111 if someone tricks you into thinking they are going for another BO. Im ecpecially worried about the cloak varient.
Great guide btw, there are not enough PvT style guides out there, or not enough variety I should say, it seems the 3 gate robo reigns supreme.
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I just had to mention. The reason I think this build is so awesome is that it exploit the warp in ability offensivly vs terran, which isn't done at all in the current metagame (defend defend defend -> kill him).
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Interesting, I haven't thought of bringing a probe to make a pylon. I wonder why pros haven't done this before? (i haven't seen it at least)
It sounds useful and forces terran to be really careful where and how much of his forces he breaks off from his main to defend harass
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Does the plaid camouflage you from cloaked banshees better, or do you stick to the plain brown?
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Have you got any more replays vs three rax? I always struggle with three rax and i normally get 3 gates. Cool guide! <3
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Canada13389 Posts
This looks super cool will definitely practice it out :D I love warping in zealots against Terran they never know how much to bring its very true.
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I'm too low level to even attempt this, but as a Protoss player who is rarely able to pressure a Terran apart from the early poke or with some kind of all-in or semi all-in or just wait to 200/200, this is great.
On February 03 2012 12:26 JASONB0URNE wrote:
Thank you, kcdc! We are so lucky to have blue posters like yourself, Alej, Monk and Geiko posting quality guides for us all. Neither terran or zerg have blue posters posting guides non stop like you all do.
I just wanted to second this. The level of insight you guys provide for Protoss players is great, as well as the ongoing support in the Protoss help me thread (by yourselves and all the other knowledgeable Brotoss). I sometimes think, given the (in my view) limited tool set Protoss has in current SC2, when and if greater flexibility and more tools are added to the race in the future, we will see an explosion of creativity from Protoss players. Anyway, thank you.
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On February 03 2012 12:41 kcdc wrote:
About the 4th gas, I don't seem to need it until after my DT shrine. There's a hump where you're gas-starved as you're teching up, but after that, most of your spending is on zealots, gates, nexii and probes, so 3 gas feels like enough unless I want to warp in a bunch of DT's or, later, tech colossus.
Thanks for replying. Interesting that this only needs three gas considering how much gas is being used in the tech up stage like you said. I guess since you're forcing Terran to stay in his base that you won't need to make so many stalkers to defend against drops. Also I guess you're not making 'many' HT just enough to get by with your drops and defending your bases.
I'll have a pen and paper at the ready when I analyse your replays. Thanks again.
On February 03 2012 13:30 AfricanPsycho wrote:
I'm curious, how would you hold a 111 if someone tricks you into thinking they are going for another BO. Im ecpecially worried about the cloak varient.
You will be able to tell on your second/third scouting pokes if he is going for a 1/1/1 build. Things you will see with the probe parked outside his natural is his lack of expansion cc and lack of early push with marines/maurader at ~5:30-6:00. Considering you will be fast expanding, if your Terran counterpart doesn't expand himself anytime soon he will be severely behind economically. This lack of early push and expansion should trigger in your mind that some form of tech build or all-in is coming your way soon and you should prepare for it accordingly. kcdc accounts for this in his guide by suggesting cannon(s) in your mineral lines to defend against possible banshees/hellions if your robo is going to be a bit later than usual.
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Woah! Gonna try this out. Need to improve my multitasking probably, but thats just another plus.
Actually, couldnt you do something simular against a zerg that gone 3 base mutas? Just before mutas gets out in to big numbers? If you mix some more stalkers in with your main army?
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On February 03 2012 14:52 aZealot wrote:I'm too low level to even attempt this, but as a Protoss player who is rarely able to pressure a Terran apart from the early poke or with some kind of all-in or semi all-in or just wait to 200/200, this is great. Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 12:26 JASONB0URNE wrote:
Thank you, kcdc! We are so lucky to have blue posters like yourself, Alej, Monk and Geiko posting quality guides for us all. Neither terran or zerg have blue posters posting guides non stop like you all do.
I just wanted to second this. The level of insight you guys provide for Protoss players is great, as well as the ongoing support in the Protoss help me thread (by yourselves and all the other knowledgeable Brotoss). I sometimes think, given the (in my view) limited tool set Protoss has in current SC2, when and if greater flexibility and more tools are added to the race in the future, we will see an explosion of creativity from Protoss players. Anyway, thank you.
Agree full hearted. These days 100% of my standard openings comes from these guys, and a lot of my mid/late game play as well!
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Alicia did something similar build in GSL against select to stop his drops, but didn't utilize this to drop himself though
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Italy12246 Posts
kcdc, i have another question regarding the midgame build.
You power up a lot and cut gateways, teching straight to charge, upgrades, storm and a robo for observers only just off two gates. How safe is it? I am not really expert at all when it comes to templar builds, but isn't that pretty risky and greedy?
Looking at your replays, in the one game when you weren't ahead from the early game (on Shakuras) you were forced to throw down 3 cannons at your natural when he did a medivac poke, so you could stall for storm. I guess that being up against a ghost timing instead might make things even harder, especially since at 9-10 ish minutes you can't have charge yet.
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Hmm, how do you suggest when Terran starts getting vikings to patrol warp prism flight paths? I switched to zealot/archon/temp with some phoenix to kill medivacs and make him pull vikings from patrolling. I won eventually by making him get way too many vikings after hallucinating some extra phoenix (trololol).
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Great guide, how many sentries to you get early game? I usually go 15 nexus, then turn out sentries until WP is done and transition into collosus w/ warp prism harrass and simultaneous warp ins in there main as I poke at them. With this build, do you rely on just the 1 sentry early game then go into zealots?
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AfricanPsycho:
If you don't see an expo or some pressure by ~6 minutes, T is most likely teching, and you need to switch from teching straight to storm and instead get a robo and 4-5 gates. Depending when you make your read that he's going tech, you might need to get cannons in time to defend cloaked banshees. I believe the cloaked banshee timing is approximately 7:30. It takes 1:35 from the time you start your robo until your 1st obs finishes (with 1 chrono). It's not a big deal to run probes around for 10 or so seconds, but if your robo isn't started by 6:10 or 6:20, I'd get a cannon in each mineral line.
Swap:
You could try something similar against mutas, but I don't think it would work as well. Mutas are pretty good against drops, and unlike marines, zealots don't shoot up.
Teoita:
The defense is pretty thin, but in my experience, it's just enough to keep you safe until your tech and production comes fully online. But you can't afford to miss forcefields, and it helps to have a ramp (Shakuras, Entombed, Antiga, TDA, etc) that you can forcefield. T usually has his first medivacs pop at ~10 minutes, and your storm should finish very soon after that, so there's not much of a timing window for T to exploit. In the danP replay, he got really fast medivacs (off of only 2 rax which isn't safe against a lot of P builds), so I freaked out a little and dropped some cannons. It was Shakuras tho, so after watching the replay, I don't think I actually needed them.
ticklishmusic:
You don't really need the warp prism mutli-pronged attacks to work in order to win the game--they're just a nice feature that the build enables. A lot of pros do a similar opening with a single forge and templar tech on 2 bases, and they just play a normal macro style with it. If there's an opening to make something happen with the warp prism, go for it, but you don't have to force it.
Balgrog:
I get 3 sentries. On maps with open naturals (XNC, Arid, Shattered to an extent), you might want to try 4 or 5, but that will slow down your tech. Alternatively, you could just choose to alter the build or choose a totally different strategy if the layout of the natural is too difficult to defend with only 3 sentries. I don't think this is a style that should be forced to work on every map.
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Italy12246 Posts
Regarding sentry count in general, for builds where you want 4+ you can always 1gate fe with 2 gasses, skip the first zealot and making only sentries out of your first gate. I remember huk doing this a lot until MvP completely mauled him with that marine/tank push on Dual Sight, so it doesn't seem safe against anything with gas.
Might be worth a try though.
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Sweet guide, but please try to keep the 'terran is bullshit durrrr' to a minimum.
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gillon,
I was trying to keep a humorous tone, but it is kind of dumb that T can easily deny all early scouting. It's a problem in TvT as well. P and Z are much more scoutable.
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Exactly what i've been looking for, thank you kcdc <3
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On February 04 2012 05:27 kcdc wrote:
gillon,
I was trying to keep a humorous tone, but it is kind of dumb that T can easily deny all early scouting. It's a problem in TvT as well. P and Z are much more scoutable.
I don't know, I don't really think it's an issue. There are broad and safe builds based on the few tells you actually can get that ensure you safety and economical competitiveness so that knowing _exactly_ what they're doing isn't really necessary because you know what you're doing covers all the possibilities. But that's a discussion for a completely different thread.
I apologize for not realizing the joking undertone but it's just been getting kinda old these last, oh, 2 years. ;P
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Hi kcdc,
Thanks for the build! After 5 games with it, here are my questions:
1) Since we're teching so hard, it is normal to have later third than T right? (At least we must wait for charge to hold, right?) How many gates should I support during my 2-base period?
2) At 10-11 min, when the first medivacs pop out and when storms + charge are being researched, how do I defend drop and front attack at the same time? At this point, we only have 2, 3 HT, and a handful of zealot (due to having only 2 gates). Leaving HT and zealot in main base is really risky since I don't know how many medivacs will he load up, and can't cover all the drop spots either (e.g. on large main map).
If there is a rep where you deal with this common medivac timing, just let me know which one. Thanks again!
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On February 04 2012 16:34 Quochobao wrote:
Hi kcdc,
Thanks for the build! After 5 games with it, here are my questions:
1) Since we're teching so hard, it is normal to have later third than T right? (At least we must wait for charge to hold, right?) How many gates should I support during my 2-base period?
2) At 10-11 min, when the first medivacs pop out and when storms + charge are being researched, how do I defend drop and front attack at the same time? At this point, we only have 2, 3 HT, and a handful of zealot (due to having only 2 gates). Leaving HT and zealot in main base is really risky since I don't know how many medivacs will he load up, and can't cover all the drop spots either (e.g. on large main map).
If there is a rep where you deal with this common medivac timing, just let me know which one. Thanks again!
Glad to hear you're trying it out. Any reps to share?
1) The timing to take the third will really depend on the map and the game, but it should usually be after you start your 3rd and 4th gates or your 5th and 6th gates between 10 and 12 minutes. That works out to be a pretty normal time for T to take his third as well. There are Terran builds that will get it earlier, but on a lot of maps, you can do a little light pressure of of 2 gates to encourage him to build his third CC in his base and wait a while before floating it over.
2) If you have 2 HT with a storm each, just put one in your main with a stalker and 2 or 3 zealots and keep the rest of your army in your natural. Your army shouldn't feel that small if you've been constantly producing zealots off of 2 WGs. Most people get 3 or 4 gets and let them idle half of the early game. I have a 3 gate build where I attack with a 30 supply army before 8 minutes with a third behind it and Terrans qq about my "6 gate all-in." So if 3 gates of constant production drains almost all your early game resources and gives you an army big enough to bust multiple bunkers, 2 gates should give you enough army to defend a choke with forcefields. Don't underestimate the power of simply warping in units right as your cooldowns finish.
I've played a bunch of games where I've split my forces to defend that drop timing, but I don't have a good replay handy ATM. I'll post the next one I play. For now, the closest one might be the replay vs OptikMerlo. He goes for the standard medivac timing, but I miss my first forcefields and my extra gates are late (I can't multitask for crap), so my army mostly dies and is too small to split. I narrowly defended because my extra gates finally came online, but if you imagine those initial armies on Shakuras, I'd have a small anti-drop force in my main and zealots and sentries with a storm at my natural.
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great guide and nice try but it cant help this terribly designed matchup. As a terran I find it so boring to have to follow blizzard's bad design and rules to win
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I've been using this build on the ladder and it can really break terrans wow!
Heres one of my games http://drop.sc/105432 ( my dt shrine was late and i should have probably made more gates but im only diamond)
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I see a few weaknesses in the opening. Though the scouting probe rarely tells you anything useful against a tricky player on some maps, not sending it at all makes you very weak to builds that don't get a fast marine. For example, CC first, proxy 2x tech lab marauders, and some strange hellion openings that can come with marauders. True, they collectively represent about 1% of the metagame on ladder, but that obviously doesn't matter in best of X series. Next, marine/scv cheese is even harder to stop, especially when the barracks are proxied, when you don't scout with a probe and only make 1 stalker. Finally, I haven't tried it but 2 gates don't sound like enough to defend against reactor 2 rax, as I die to it all the time with the standard 1 gate FE where you make 2nd and 3rd gates on 30 supply.
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I don't think anyone else mentioned this, but you missed a Pylon in the build order. You go from the implicit 9Pylon to 22Pylon without anything in between. I'm pretty sure it's a 16Pylon, but you probably should specify.
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Italy12246 Posts
On February 05 2012 18:32 iamke55 wrote:
I haven't tried it but 2 gates don't sound like enough to defend against reactor 2 rax, as I die to it all the time with the standard 1 gate FE where you make 2nd and 3rd gates on 30 supply.
The part about cheese i agree with, but this 1gate fe is made specifically to hold off reactor 2rax. The thread about the opening itself is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=285834
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Im only gold league, but this strat is frikkin DELIGHTFUL to use. Watching terrans falling apart is pure pleasure
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On February 05 2012 18:32 iamke55 wrote:
I see a few weaknesses in the opening. Though the scouting probe rarely tells you anything useful against a tricky player on some maps, not sending it at all makes you very weak to builds that don't get a fast marine. For example, CC first, proxy 2x tech lab marauders, and some strange hellion openings that can come with marauders. True, they collectively represent about 1% of the metagame on ladder, but that obviously doesn't matter in best of X series. Next, marine/scv cheese is even harder to stop, especially when the barracks are proxied, when you don't scout with a probe and only make 1 stalker. Finally, I haven't tried it but 2 gates don't sound like enough to defend against reactor 2 rax, as I die to it all the time with the standard 1 gate FE where you make 2nd and 3rd gates on 30 supply.
You should give the delayed scout a try to see how it feels. If you do it every game in a BoX, your opponent might find a way to abuse your predictability, but for the most part, it gets just as much information as a 13 scout, and the mineral boost actually makes your stuff a little faster which means a bit of extra safety.
I started out scouting on 9 (back when reaper cheese was potent), then stuck to scouting on 13 for a long time until Terrans started walling off with an early 2nd depot. At that point, I realized that I wasn't getting useful information 90% of the time and that even if I did, I didn't deviate from my opening for any normal pressure opening (1 rax tech lab, reactor 2 rax, stim 3 rax, reactor hellion, etc). Simply seeing what's coming as T leaves his base allows me to prepare.
The big exception is a marine+SCV all-in which does require a deviation, but again, this can be defended as long as you placed a pylon by your ramp (which I do with my scout probe on 22) and see the push coming with a probe at T's natural or at a watch tower. You simply cancel your nexus and wall off the top of your ramp with 2 more gateways while chronoboosting out a 2nd stalker. Easiest win you'll get that day.
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On February 05 2012 15:51 Espion9 wrote:I've been using this build on the ladder and it can really break terrans wow! Heres one of my games http://drop.sc/105432 ( my dt shrine was late and i should have probably made more gates but im only diamond)
Hah, very nice attack. Tip: DT's need +1 weapons to 1-shot SCV's with an armor upgrade, so getting +1 weapons makes the DT harass much stronger. Also, in the opening, starting the 2nd gateway before starting the sentry is a little more efficient, but it's not a big deal.
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First off, I really like the outlines of the build. I have watched severals of your replays so far and I must say that this looks really fucking cool I think that the idea to bring a probe in your warp prism is genius. As I have not yet tested to build due to the no terran online problem, I don't know if my concern is relevant or if it is just a feeling you get from the replays.
When the terran finally holds off all the drops and stuff, I have the feeling that your army becomes extremely weak, almost non-existent. What do you do when you realize that you don't have an army and that the terran player is about to push you ?
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On February 06 2012 03:48 SpiZe wrote:
What do you do when you realize that you don't have an army and that the terran player is about to push you ?
Cannons+templar+choke is insanely efficient for defense. In theory, it should work as long as you're prepared and you haven't completely over-committed to the harass.
Of course, I'm still really bad at this strategy, so I just lose sometimes too. I find templar to be a much more demanding style to play than colossus, but it's also more fun and it lets you be aggressive.
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On February 06 2012 03:48 SpiZe wrote:First off, I really like the outlines of the build. I have watched severals of your replays so far and I must say that this looks really fucking cool I think that the idea to bring a probe in your warp prism is genius. As I have not yet tested to build due to the no terran online problem, I don't know if my concern is relevant or if it is just a feeling you get from the replays. When the terran finally holds off all the drops and stuff, I have the feeling that your army becomes extremely weak, almost non-existent. What do you do when you realize that you don't have an army and that the terran player is about to push you ?
If I'm not mistaken, you should keep a few templar at home as they gain energy. When the counter-push comes, you throw down cannons, hug them as you storm and try to wear him down as your superior economy gives you bigger reinforcements.
Kcdc, in a lot of your replays it seems that your floating resources, which is understandable given the multitasking you have to do. Would it be wise to throw down a second forge, robo, and robo bay earlier to pound out upgrades and colossus? Even when you were constantly warping in zealots on almost every CD you were floating 1k~ minerals and gas.
Also, do you think it weakens the army too much to start attacking three places at once? For instance, your match against icGMInd - after you warped your pylon in the main would it be feasible to take your WP immediately to his third, warp in zealots there and then push the natural entrance at the same time? Or does that weaken your army too much.
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cooool. I've been trying to do drop-harass vs. T for a while now, but nothing like this. Will defeinitely try it
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Serotonin:
I never seem to have enough WG's. 8 is enough for 2 bases, but after the third kicks in and you stop building probes, you need like 1.7 million WG's, and I struggle to find APM to build them.
I'm not sure whether a 2nd forge is a good idea. It seems like by the time you have money for a 2nd forge, you're already researching +3 armor, so what does the 2nd forge really accomplish?
Teching colossus is a good way to spend extra resources tho. Cannons and bases are a good mineral dump.
About the multi-pronged attacks, feel free to hit as many places at once as you think you can pull off. I'd recommend having just a few zealots, maybe with a DT, in the third attack position tho.
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as a terran player plz plz plz do this strategy! i lose every single time to the turtle to deathball strat so something like this would be very refreshing. do it up
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On February 06 2012 06:17 kcdc wrote:
Serotonin:
I never seem to have enough WG's. 8 is enough for 2 bases, but after the third kicks in and you stop building probes, you need like 1.7 million WG's, and I struggle to find APM to build them.
I'm not sure whether a 2nd forge is a good idea. It seems like by the time you have money for a 2nd forge, you're already researching +3 armor, so what does the 2nd forge really accomplish?
Teching colossus is a good way to spend extra resources tho. Cannons and bases are a good mineral dump.
About the multi-pronged attacks, feel free to hit as many places at once as you think you can pull off. I'd recommend having just a few zealots, maybe with a DT, in the third attack position tho.
When do you usually add the gas on your third? I didn't see a game get far enough. Not sure if it's an APM thing or if you don't feel you need it. I think 2nd forge would be decent +2 attack and then after +3 armor finishes, start getting +shields because why not. I feel like if that harass kills ~20 workers and you hard switch to colossus the game is probably over. I like this build a lot, thanks for coming up with it/writing it out!
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Where can I get a reversible jacket?
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On February 06 2012 07:59 Serotonin1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2012 06:17 kcdc wrote:
Serotonin:
I never seem to have enough WG's. 8 is enough for 2 bases, but after the third kicks in and you stop building probes, you need like 1.7 million WG's, and I struggle to find APM to build them.
I'm not sure whether a 2nd forge is a good idea. It seems like by the time you have money for a 2nd forge, you're already researching +3 armor, so what does the 2nd forge really accomplish?
Teching colossus is a good way to spend extra resources tho. Cannons and bases are a good mineral dump.
About the multi-pronged attacks, feel free to hit as many places at once as you think you can pull off. I'd recommend having just a few zealots, maybe with a DT, in the third attack position tho. When do you usually add the gas on your third? I didn't see a game get far enough. Not sure if it's an APM thing or if you don't feel you need it. I think 2nd forge would be decent +2 attack and then after +3 armor finishes, start getting +shields because why not. I feel like if that harass kills ~20 workers and you hard switch to colossus the game is probably over. I like this build a lot, thanks for coming up with it/writing it out!
I'm still playing around with the timings on the 4th gas, robo, extra gates, charge and DT shrine. If you get the 4th gas sooner, you can afford charge sooner and more templar later, but your 3rd and 4th bases might be later. I'm finding that the big hurdle to overcome before you can make the multi-pronged attack work is taking map control at ~12 minutes, so I've been tinkering around with the timings to make my army strong enough at 12 minutes to push T back into a defensive posture. To do this, I've been starting charge after my templar archives, delaying my robo until after I start storm, and getting to 6 gates before taking my third.
You can play around with the orders in that stage to see what works for you. The earlier robo means observers in time to watch his army movements with his medivac timing which is very nice. Getting charge and gates earlier gives you a more powerful force to take map control before starting your drops. A faster third will play out a little more defensively, but it's obviously better economically.
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I've been trying this style for the last 5-10 games of PvT on ladder and while I have been getting my ass whooped, defending the 10min marine/maurader timing with or without medivacs on maps with a secondary map is really quite easy. By the time the push comes you can have charge, +1 (or +2) armour and storm about 20 seconds off and that's off 2 gates most of the time with another 2 added on and morphing when the push comes.
Great! So I'm learning how to survive with a 1 gate FE opening past 10 mins. Now laying the smackdown after this time haha.
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The terran with the 3 rax in http://drop.sc/103700 had really bad macro. Normally you should be at 49 or so food at 6:30 and he was 42 or 43 and supply blocked.
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Not remotely your Midgame-Goal, but I am experimenting with a Variation of your 1 Gate FE with 2x2 Gasworker until Nexus, to gather gas slightly more efficient and substitute as much Zealots as possible early on unless needed. Maybe something to consider for you in order to get some more Gas.
Followup is Warpprism first to scout and pin him in his Base. The point I dislike the most about your Opening is that you rely so heavy on your Templars against the Medivac-Timing. There is like no room for errors (even just positioning) at all and although the build claims to be "aggressive" it takes more than 12 Minutes until you claim Mapcontrol, completely elapsing the huge Timing-Window without Stim and Medivacs. I did not watch every replay yet but so far the gains do not outweight the risks for me.
I wish TL would have some kind of upload-space so I dont have to use external sites to share replays.
Edit: There you go. Kind of horrible execution (just Dia vs Master) but imagine a third Gate instead of Forge (if adapted correctly) and Units already at his front when Prism reached his base.
http://drop.sc/106182
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On February 06 2012 23:40 Xanatoss wrote:Not remotely your Midgame-Goal, but I am experimenting with a Variation of your 1 Gate FE with 2x2 Gasworker until Nexus, to gather gas slightly more efficient and substitute as much Zealots as possible early on unless needed. Maybe something to consider for you in order to get some more Gas. Followup is Warpprism first to scout and pin him in his Base. The point I dislike the most about your Opening is that you rely so heavy on your Templars against the Medivac-Timing. There is like no room for errors (even just positioning) at all and although the build claims to be "aggressive" it takes more than 12 Minutes until you claim Mapcontrol, completely elapsing the huge Timing-Window without Stim and Medivacs. I did not watch every replay yet but so far the gains do not outweight the risks for me. I wish TL would have some kind of upload-space so I dont have to use external sites to share replays. Edit: There you go. Kind of horrible execution (just Dia vs Master) but imagine a third Gate instead of Forge (if adapted correctly) and Units already at his front when Prism reached his base. http://drop.sc/106182
Not bad. I don't think you actually need the second gas that early for what you're trying to do tho. You can get the robo just as fast (maybe a few seconds faster) off of 1 gas with the 2nd gas after robo. The result of the 2nd gas is probably one less zealot and slightly slower infrastructure but an extra sentry.
You're also correct that there are aggressive macro plays that attack much earlier than the build I outlined in the OP. There are 3-4 gate pressure after expansion builds, immortal pressure after expansion builds, and warp prism+gateway pressure builds sort of like what you were going for. Those have nice timing attacks, but if Terran defends, he'll soon have medivacs and complete map control again, and you'll find yourself sitting in your base defending drops until 200/200. My goal with this build was to find a style of play that would let me contest map control in a lasting way so that the game would largely be played out on his half of the map.
The idea for this build initially started with just teching chargelots with armor upgrades and a warp prism. I'd tried dropping zealots without charge in the past, and it was like dropping suicidal sheep herders. The zealots would chase the SCV's away for a moment, and then marines would show up and it'd be over. I figured adding charge would make it more potent, and adding armor upgrades would make it take longer to clean up so that I'd have time to drop elsewhere or hit the front at the same time. Cutting out the templar tech let me hit my tech goals earlier, but I found that without storm, I didn't have enough defense.
In the end, I settled on the build in the OP. It takes ~12 minutes to get a composition that can seize map control, but after that point, you can contest map control for the rest of the game without worrying about dying to a 2 medivac drop in your main. This seemed to work best for me, but there are lots of options.
Another possibility if you want earlier map control is Liquid'HerO's templar style where he gets fast blink with an obs, then storm and charge, then a third. He constantly pokes with his blink stalkers to pick off anything he can. The downsides with that style are that upgrades are very late, you instantly die to T's counter push if you get your templar EMPed, and you need to be constantly microing your stalkers to make the investment pay off. It's a very cool style if you have the mechanics to pull it off, but it's even more fragile than what I do.
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Ye, the opening actually piles up to much gas for me, but I developed it when I was still going for double Obs and 4 Sentry/2 Stalker. The delayed Infrastructure is correct, but in the end it just delays the Nexus by a couple seconds which is not that big of deal imho.
I find it very fascinating, how much gas management is needed to accomplish anything at all until 3rd Base kicks in and then I am like "Ewww 600 Gas again, better Warp in a round of Templar"
I used to go for 3 Zealot, 2 Stalker, 1 Sentry like you (but then i took... no!) but I have serious problems versus 2 Rax that waits for one more cycle (2 Rauder, 7-9 Marines), starts a bunker and kites "around" it to freak out my Unit-AI. The Damage dealt by 2S/1S is just to low while T's Damage is to high and eventually I get overwhelmed (especially without Robo as 3rd for eventual Immortals). Due to that I changed to 2 Stalkers, 3 Sentry, 1 Zealot to immediatly crush his push with FFs and if he opted for some kind of gaseless expand I should be able to drop 2 Sentries 2 Zealot to prevent the Shephard-Scenario (nice Metaphor btw) while having 1 Sentry with the Front Force for GS.
I would love this style if you find a way to incorperate 3-4 Phoenixes during Midgame. In my eyes they are far superior compared to Blinkstalker as long as overall Unitcounts are limited and Upgrades are low (speak Midgame) and make every Drop a suicide mission that has to do huge damage in order to pay off. In addition they synergize pretty well with Chargelots. I zapped into Hero vs Jjakji yesterday and he mad a few Phoenixes Midgame and it was just beautiful.
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Yeah, I think phoenixes are a cute, fun unit vs T, and they help to prevent T from stacking medivacs which eventually makes the bio ball invincible to chargelots, but I don't know when I'd work them into this build. It seems like I'd want HT, then DT, then colossi, and each would be more needed than phoenixes.
I'm still uploading replays when I get a good game. I beat a semi-pro with it yesterday, but he BMed me kind of out of the blue, so he asked me not to upload it. Anyone have any high level replays to add? My multitasking is pretty crappy, and I'd love to see what better players can do with this style. It's always fun to watch.
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Italy12246 Posts
On February 08 2012 05:05 kcdc wrote:
Yeah, I think phoenixes are a cute, fun unit vs T, and they help to prevent T from stacking medivacs which eventually makes the bio ball invincible to chargelots, but I don't know when I'd work them into this build. It seems like I'd want HT, then DT, then colossi, and each would be more needed than phoenixes.
I'm still uploading replays when I get a good game. I beat a semi-pro with it yesterday, but he BMed me kind of out of the blue, so he asked me not to upload it. Anyone have any high level replays to add? My multitasking is pretty crappy, and I'd love to see what better players can do with this style. It's always fun to watch.
Regarding phoenixes, i remember HerO opening 2gate phoenix against marineking at wcg and following that up with chargelot archon. I remember he made sure to keep 4-5 up even when he lost them in engagements specifically to take out the medivacs, it was quite neat. I don't know if the vods are available anywhere, but that sounds like the best way to implement phoenix in someone's play. In the midgame there's more important stuff to spend your money on, sadly.
edit: so i have played around with the opening a little bit, and i haven't played a single real game yet out of 8 or so attempts. Not having the robo and no stalker poke means i consinstently die to retarded shit like 2port banshee, 111 with hellion drops, straight up 111, reactor hellions (i hate relying on a single ff to not die -.-) or even 1base medivac. It's probably me just being god-awful, but eh.
How do you make all these reads with just a 20ish scout (which i don't do myself), super late robo and infinity resources invested in tech? I mean, randomly moving out on the map with stalkers 6 minutes into the game when all you have seen is a walled off ramp isn't particularly smart no?
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Added a rep against a pretty highly ranked GM last season. The drop stage of this strategy is so much fun, but I typically average 90-100 APM on the in-game metric, and even after a lot of practice, I'm still unable to macro well at all while I'm attacking. Has anybody with 120+ Blizz APM tried this out? Any replays or tips?
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nice looks interesting, any reps vs 1/1/1? U dont really have a early scout like haulcination or observer so dont you just straight up lose to 1/1/1 or cloacked banshee? Rep please?
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This is the build that's been owning me lately. Really hard to play against even with early ghosts T.T
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On February 17 2012 00:40 jakek95 wrote:
nice looks interesting, any reps vs 1/1/1? U dont really have a early scout like haulcination or observer so dont you just straight up lose to 1/1/1 or cloacked banshee? Rep please?
Don't do this build if they don't FE. You can find out if they FE with probe scout in combination with zealot stalker scout once probe confirms that the poke is safe.
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Thank you KaseyDC, I have long enjoyed your 1 gate FE with 3 stalkers opener. I always make it to at least mid-game with that build because of the great economy that comes with the very aggressive 3 stalkers and one zealot in the early game. If I make it to late game I usually win, but the mid game when I'm trying to establish my third to get a good templar tech or occasionally collos tech going is where I lose.
So this TWO base templar aggressive tech is very interesting to me. I have read your guide twice and watched all your replays. In general, I'd like to see more ladder game replays if you have the chance to upload more :D
I have a few questions if you wouldn't mind giving the time:
1. Do you ever miss the 3-4 stalkers in the early game both for aggression on their natural and map control?
2. How confident are you at defending early drops? (often I will lose to a drop in the main, then a push in the natural, and a drop of about 4 marines in the mineral line of my natural >< )
3. I love how you prevent the terran from pressuring your natural while you're establishing your third by being agressive with the warp-ins and the natural push. Do you find that if you fail to do damage with the first set of drop/warp-ins (or natural push from the drop distraction) that the counter attack destroys you? It seems that if you screw up or get unlucky with his scouting when it comes to your drop that you are then very vulnerable to a counter attack.
Thank you for everything, and I look forward to more discussions from you. Your analysis and reasoning behind decisions is always fantastic. In particular, what I love most about this build besides that you can get aggressive off of two bases is how well the gas works out. It truly is amazing watching your replays to see the same exact timings every game. I was skeptical at a templar/+1wpns+2arm/charge rush all based off two gates, but those replays were so fun to watch that I want to believe this can work!!
Edit: Just spelling from typin' too fast
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On February 17 2012 22:58 RynoKenny wrote:
I have a few questions if you wouldn't mind giving the time:
1. Do you ever miss the 3-4 stalkers in the early game both for aggression on their natural and map control?
2. How confident are you at defending early drops? (often I will lose to a drop in the main, then a push in the natural, and a drop of about 4 marines in the mineral line of my natural >< )
3. I love how you prevent the terran from pressuring your natural while you're establishing your third by being agressive with the warp-ins and the natural push. Do you find that if you fail to do damage with the first set of drop/warp-ins (or natural push from the drop distraction) that the counter attack destroys you? It seems that if you screw up or get unlucky with his scouting when it comes to your drop that you are then very vulnerable to a counter attack.
I'm glad you like the build. I think it's a strong style and it's a lot more fun than the colossus+double forge styles.
1. Yes, have stalkers in the early game is nice. You can poke their front, get a timing on when (or if) they start making marauders, and sometimes you can kill a stray marine or repairing SCV. But I think it's worth cutting the stalkers in order to templar out in time to deal with early medivac timings. If you want to spend more early resources on units, you have to delay tech or upgrades, and I think this build strikes a reasonable balance. There are other ways to hit a templar mid-game, but if you change things up, you should have a plan for how you'll deal with the 10 minute medivac timing.
2. I'm pretty confident defending early drops. Sometimes I screw up and lose too much to drops, but templar and upgraded chargelots are just really really good against drops. This is, in my opinion, the #1 strength of this style, and the ability to efficiently defend drops with only a small force kept at home is what allows me to force the game to be played out on Terran's half of the map.
3. I'm still practicing this templar style of play. It's definitely a lot different than colossi. It sort of flips the match-up on its head where my army is strong in small groups and when there's a bunch of small battles happening at once, but Terran's army is strong when both parties can focus their efforts on 1 big battle. If Terran defends my multi-pronged attacks and is able to force one big clumped battle, I'm not in a good position.
If I do find myself in a position of military disadvantage, I've discovered that I can often compensate for my army's weakness with a delay-and-counter tactic. What I do is I leave a bunch of templar along T's attack path toward my base and let them gather energy. Then I'll let T force my relatively small zealot/archon army back toward my base, and I'll use the HT along the path to drop positional storms so that Terran has to slow down and deal with each HT individually or take big storm damage. This buys me time to reinforce my main army or to do offensive warp-ins to punish T for being away from his base. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes I throw away too much army, get out-controlled, and lose.
About defending the third in particular, I don't think you need to do damage in order to defend, but I do think that if you don't move out, take map control, play aggressively, and make intelligent trades, you'll lose to a giant bio-ball with a 12 ghosts and 12 medivacs. In my recent games, I usually start my third at about 10 minutes slightly before I take map control because I feel like I can get away with it, but I definitely think sitting in a defensive posture after 12 minutes is a losing proposition with this strategy.
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i just have one question, is there anything like this that i can do PvZ? i'm living this and the other kcdc's pvt thread build...as well as my own PvT build (not as good but still fun as hell 2gate blink opener into chargelot storm w/ht drops and mass expand xD never a dull moment) so PvT for me is rather well off however PvZ i'm kinda stuck on builds to use since everything i do just ends up either an allin or pushing me towards that horrid bl spine infestor Z composition
(PvP makes no sense while im at it but that kinda deserves its own topic lol)
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that game vs impdec was so fun to watch. I can see how the mass zeal + storm could get extremely annoying and frustrating. loved the probe + htemp drops.
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Italy12246 Posts
On April 03 2012 14:14 unit wrote:
i just have one question, is there anything like this that i can do PvZ? i'm living this and the other kcdc's pvt thread build...as well as my own PvT build (not as good but still fun as hell 2gate blink opener into chargelot storm w/ht drops and mass expand xD never a dull moment) so PvT for me is rather well off however PvZ i'm kinda stuck on builds to use since everything i do just ends up either an allin or pushing me towards that horrid bl spine infestor Z composition
(PvP makes no sense while im at it but that kinda deserves its own topic lol)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=274243, blue posters are awesome and pvp never makes any sense.
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EPT
