On February 23 2012 03:11 quillian wrote: As others have stated, expo seems really late.
However, I wonder if you could combine the two drops for maximum damage to ensure you get tons of scv kills.
Instead of 2 drops, 1 sentry, 1 colossus, get 2 prisms and drop sentry AND colossus. Force fielded SCV's dying to aoe beams.... yum. with good micro you could almost guarantee double digit scv kills.
maybe do naniwa's sentry expand into fast colossus/speed prism? This sets you up with the sentries and early expo, and he seems to think it's safe vs most stuff.
edit- just watched the vod vs lostcause. sick micro man. I aspire to be like you =D
I'll try to figure out if I can expo earlier and still have decent timings for the drops. As for combining the two, I'm not so sure. As it currently is, you only need to spend 200 mins on a single warp prism as opposed to 400 for two, and the sentry drop is needed to even the worker count early. The colossus drop also tends to come right before or during viking production; the last thing I would want is to risk 4 sentries, a colossus, and 2 warp prisms to a couple vikings. That would be putting many eggs in a single basket, and having the basket shot to pieces by viking rockets. The eggs would be your chances of winning the game. Symbolism 'n stuff.
Do you happen to have the thread/build for nani's sentry expand into fast colo/speed prism?
And thanks! You should look at some of the other VODs/replays. My micro/multitasking has gotten noticeably better the more I've used this build. If I could recommend one, it'd definitely be the game against DaSakura :D
He didn't do speed prism, preferring a poke at the front to kill bunkers. I think your way could be a perfectly viable transition, though.
As far as combining drops, it does delay the colossus a bit to get 2 prisms. I like have 2 anyway, though, as it lets you do warp in harass on multiple fronts in the mid-late game.
I don't think you should be too afraid of 2-3 vikings vs speed prisms. You are so fast, unless he has a critical mass and catches you in a net, he shouldn't kill you.
I tried the sentry/colossus drop vs a meh diamond opponent, and I have to say it was certainly fun. the way the scv AI works when force fielded makes them line up perfectly for colossus shots. ~16 scvs killed in a few seconds. it's all over so fast he doesn't really have time to react before you are loaded up and out of there.
that said, neither I or my opponent are particularly good, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
either way, I think FE into speed prism drop play is probably the most fun modern pvt I've experienced.
I don't like too much naniwa's build for some reasons: 1)you need to have really really good forcefields 2)it sucks versus reaper expand 3)if the terran sees no zealot and builds a engineering bay on your natural it's gonna take forever to kill it with just sentris.
I think that a fast warp prism with Nani's build will leave you far too vulnerable to attacks. You'd be taking 4/6 sentries far away from your base with only 1 (2 or 3 possibly) gate + robo production to defend. Naniwa's build is very good, but I don't think it can be combined with mine. You'd simply be too stretched for resources for the drop to come at a useful time while still being safe.
On February 24 2012 06:25 quillian wrote:As far as combining drops, it does delay the colossus a bit to get 2 prisms. I like have 2 anyway, though, as it lets you do warp in harass on multiple fronts in the mid-late game.
I don't think you should be too afraid of 2-3 vikings vs speed prisms. You are so fast, unless he has a critical mass and catches you in a net, he shouldn't kill you.
The issue is that it would be incredibly difficult to do damage during/after your first drop. With the additional time taken to get a warp prism, colossus, and warp prism, they may have already scouted your tech by attacking (as you would have to use your colossus to defend) or scanning. If they see a colossus, or probably even robo bay, they will start viking production. Any kind of warp prism drop requires no vikings whatsoever to be around. Even though you can outrun them, you don't want to abandon the units that you drop, nor can you leave mid-warp in and still do damage. If you want to preserve your warp prism in this scenario, you'll be forced to do one of those two things. In the late game, you can simply afford to build a second warp prism. It doesn't need to be integrated in your early game build, where you need every resource that you can acquire.
On February 26 2012 08:03 Powerfoe wrote: Interesting build amonkey, but how would you deal with a powerful marine SCV all-in? It would hit before you get any sentries and you'll be sad.
Hopefully I can find a recent replay, but you would just chrono out stalkers. You've already got the 2 gates and a stalker already making. Pull probes off of your gas, make reinforcing pylons or gates if you have the money and defend as you would with any other build vs 2 rax SCV.
This build is so hard to do but it's really fun and I'll keep using it until I start winning Any suggestion on how to micro the first drop with the sentries? The sentries come out of the prism really slowly and usually my opponent manages to move most of his scvs away.
On February 27 2012 19:40 UmbeXCII wrote: This build is so hard to do but it's really fun and I'll keep using it until I start winning Any suggestion on how to micro the first drop with the sentries? The sentries come out of the prism really slowly and usually my opponent manages to move most of his scvs away.
Glad to hear you're having fun with it :D With the first sentry drop, you'll definitely have some games where your opponent moves their SCVs away. In every other game, ensure that your warp prism has the best ratio of time visible by your opponent to time required to move the warp prism in position. Press D then click on the warp prism as soon as you'd be able to FF the end of the mineral line with a dropped sentry. I normally press D on the prism then immediately box my first sentry to make force fields, and keep boxing and FFing as the sentries come out. No need to hold shift or anything when boxing. If they aren't running their SCVs and are sending units to the back of their mineral line, force field the attacking units out while still leaving your sentries to kill SCVs. If they move their SCVs away, you can usually wait a little while until they send some MM + their SCVs back to their minerals, after which you can then FF and pick off a few marines, then kill some SCVs. Marauders are harder to pick off, as they outrange sentries and are generally a lot tougher than marines. Having a marauder in range of the sentries is one of the hardest things to deal with. It usually takes 5 FFs to get a good number of SCVs trapped, with an additional 2 to block off the army if your opponent sends one.
If there are holes in the back of the mineral line, I usually place my sentries to fill the gap. That way, SCVs can't get out no matter what. They can also sometimes lift their CC in order to get their SCVs out, so I usually pre-emptively FF on top of the CC to complete the FF wall. It definitely takes some practice to do this build, but you'll quickly figure out the best spots to FF with your sentry drop.
Sorry for the long/incoherent response, it's been a long day >_>
On February 28 2012 13:36 a_monkey wrote: Glad to hear you're having fun with it :D With the first sentry drop, you'll definitely have some games where your opponent moves their SCVs away. In every other game, ensure that your warp prism has the best ratio of time visible by your opponent to time required to move the warp prism in position. Press D then click on the warp prism as soon as you'd be able to FF the end of the mineral line with a dropped sentry. I normally press D on the prism then immediately box my first sentry to make force fields, and keep boxing and FFing as the sentries come out. No need to hold shift or anything when boxing. If they aren't running their SCVs and are sending units to the back of their mineral line, force field the attacking units out while still leaving your sentries to kill SCVs. If they move their SCVs away, you can usually wait a little while until they send some MM + their SCVs back to their minerals, after which you can then FF and pick off a few marines, then kill some SCVs. Marauders are harder to pick off, as they outrange sentries and are generally a lot tougher than marines. Having a marauder in range of the sentries is one of the hardest things to deal with. It usually takes 5 FFs to get a good number of SCVs trapped, with an additional 2 to block off the army if your opponent sends one.
If there are holes in the back of the mineral line, I usually place my sentries to fill the gap. That way, SCVs can't get out no matter what. They can also sometimes lift their CC in order to get their SCVs out, so I usually pre-emptively FF on top of the CC to complete the FF wall. It definitely takes some practice to do this build, but you'll quickly figure out the best spots to FF with your sentry drop.
Sorry for the long/incoherent response, it's been a long day >_>
That was a good response, thank you very much. I'm still working on how to transition after the colossus drop...i don't really find the money to make zealots at all while i'm making two extra gates, two forges, twilight+charge and immos...I guess I'll need to check the replays better
I'd love to see more replay of you doing this build...
The forges usually come later, especially if you take a faster third. I think that's the biggest drawback for this build. I'll upload some more when I have the chance, I just have exams right now
Took a break from SC2 and now I'm back and doing this build again I've updated the initial post with some replays from yesterday's ladder session vs danP, Moosy, FXOStrelok, and Christhorpher. Hopefully you guys are still trying this build too!
EPT
