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Please have some semblance of an idea of what you're talking about. |
On March 16 2012 21:17 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2012 14:16 Plexa wrote:On March 16 2012 08:33 VoirDire wrote:On March 16 2012 07:06 kcdc wrote:On March 16 2012 06:32 Fenneth wrote:On March 16 2012 06:26 Crying wrote:
Im quite possitive that without gimmicky play u cant beat Stephano. I'll post this replay again http://drop.sc/134585and this replay pack from Stephano a couple of months ago http://www.mediafire.com/?t72cziiga22oyo2in which he loses 5 straight games to Squirtle, who uses a variety of non-gimmicky strats. The Titan replay is great. That's exactly the sort of thing I opened this thread to find. I agree that it looks great. Really great actually. Rough build transcript: FE (17 nex, 17 forge) First gate builds zealot, sentry x3 40/44 6:10 - +1 attack upgrade. 42/44 6:30 - 4 gates 48/52 7:00 - 2 more gas. 50/60 7:20 - Robo 52/60 7:40 - 3rd nexus. 54/60 8:00 - Warp in 4 sentries. 64/68 8:25 - Cannon at 3rd. 67/76 8:40 - Observer (Then just immortals from robo) 76/84 9:00 - Twilight council (Blink) When z attacks at ~10:30 Titan has: 61 workers (Never cuts probes). +1 attack. 1 cannon 8 sentries 6 stalkers 5 zealots 2 immortals 1 observer 4 gates, 1 robo, twilight researching blink. He adds 5 more gateways 11:40. Looks really solid. I think his build could be made more solid if he gets hallucination before expanding ensuring that what he is doing is safe, rather than just blind countering stephano I usually do something like this but use a stargate first and don't get +1 or additional gates as fast. For holding the roach attack +1 attack and blink are not that great and should be delayed till later really. +1 attack does practically nothing for sentry/stalker vs roach and blink is not worth it defensively as it doesn't do anything if they are trying to attack infrastructure or probes anyway. Just adding in a stargate before doing this makes you safer (just in case he does 2 base aggression), forces some spores and gives you some nice units to attack the roaches if they are trying to break down a wall-in. Robo into third base without sg is often just loss against a zerg who recognizes it and simply switches from roach into muta/ling.
I mean he does have blink up at 11 minutes - and he also has an obs to scout so he can cut immortal production and cannon if he sees a spire. It also didn't seem to me like he "just barely" defended Stephano's push - therefore, I wonder if you can't get away with going 4-gate, then Stargate, then expand, instead of 4-gate, then Robo, then expand.
I assume this would work better stylistically for you?
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On March 16 2012 19:01 RaNgeD wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2012 14:16 Plexa wrote:On March 16 2012 08:33 VoirDire wrote:On March 16 2012 07:06 kcdc wrote:On March 16 2012 06:32 Fenneth wrote:On March 16 2012 06:26 Crying wrote:
Im quite possitive that without gimmicky play u cant beat Stephano. I'll post this replay again http://drop.sc/134585and this replay pack from Stephano a couple of months ago http://www.mediafire.com/?t72cziiga22oyo2in which he loses 5 straight games to Squirtle, who uses a variety of non-gimmicky strats. The Titan replay is great. That's exactly the sort of thing I opened this thread to find. I agree that it looks great. Really great actually. Rough build transcript: FE (17 nex, 17 forge) First gate builds zealot, sentry x3 40/44 6:10 - +1 attack upgrade. 42/44 6:30 - 4 gates 48/52 7:00 - 2 more gas. 50/60 7:20 - Robo 52/60 7:40 - 3rd nexus. 54/60 8:00 - Warp in 4 sentries. 64/68 8:25 - Cannon at 3rd. 67/76 8:40 - Observer (Then just immortals from robo) 76/84 9:00 - Twilight council (Blink) When z attacks at ~10:30 Titan has: 61 workers (Never cuts probes). +1 attack. 1 cannon 8 sentries 6 stalkers 5 zealots 2 immortals 1 observer 4 gates, 1 robo, twilight researching blink. He adds 5 more gateways 11:40. Looks really solid. I think his build could be made more solid if he gets hallucination before expanding ensuring that what he is doing is safe, rather than just blind countering stephano I've been using this build for a while, and instead of getting an obs I get hallucination. That way it's possible to even have an extra immortal out if the zerg tries to hit a timing and bust the 3rd. You're getting a cannon at the 3rd, so unless you are really worried about burrow, I don't see a problem with cutting this corner. Also with hallucination you can be scouting for a muta switch, and you can place a Halluc pheonix to follow his roach army. More vision = better forcefields.
Is really nice to finally read a good gm P player posting in a strategy thread 
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Sadly i was crushed by this shit even by lower practice mates, its so funny reading tons of bullshits about dont FFE or not take 3rd , so to beat this i have to run sentry expand and let zerg are ahead by 15-20 workers? also high level zergs know how doble expand against sentry expand so im not watching the point about fight against the same with poorly eco.
i found that the best shot is about fast 3rd too (7,30-8:00), the problem of titan´s build is out of entombed or antiga , its pretty much imposible hold multi-pronged with inmortals. I´m testing same similar that i saw in Ra stream, with fast 3rd, blink and high gates count.
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On March 17 2012 01:57 RRDjhonn wrote:
Sadly i was crushed by this shit even by lower practice mates, its so funny reading tons of bullshits about dont FFE or not take 3rd , so to beat this i have to run sentry expand and let zerg are ahead by 15-20 workers? also high level zergs know how doble expand against sentry expand so im not watching the point about fight against the same with poorly eco.
i found that the best shot is about fast 3rd too (7,30-8:00), the problem of titan´s build is out of entombed or antiga , its pretty much imposible hold multi-pronged with inmortals. I´m testing same similar that i saw in Ra stream, with fast 3rd, blink and high gates count.
Gate expand does not necessarily mean a ton of sentries, or going 3-gate into expand. In fact IMO the main strength of gate expands is that you can be aggressive earlier on and making a ton of sentries for defensive purposes runs counter to that. There are so many variations on gate expands and frankly it has not been explored nearly enough which is why there is still potential there.
I think that replay of titan grabbing a 3rd looks pretty good, but as you say this is incredibly map dependent and stephano basically stuck on unupgraded roaches all game. Imagine if he got burrow or went mutas. Imagine if this starts to become more common and zergs skip roach warrens and tech straight to mutas off 3 base when they realize no pressure is coming. We have no idea how everything shakes out yet and I remain very skeptical off of 1 replay. And I have never seen a zerg player double expand at normal timings vs a gateway expand. That seems like suicide to me.
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On March 16 2012 07:06 kcdc wrote:The Titan replay is great. That's exactly the sort of thing I opened this thread to find.
You should add it to the OP.
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Yeah, and mutas off 3 base are deadly. I remember one game where I went immortal zealot + archon with 5 archons, and he still managed to kill all my archons with muta in the middle of the map because the had so many muta + split them out + using terrain intelligently. I did still manage to base trade with the immortals, but once the archons were dead I had basically no chance against the muta swarm and he just double expanded and I couldn't leave my base, so I quit.
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What about the 2 base mothership build that huarg posted about? You are cloaked so are immediately difficult to attack, you have zealots with leg speed access to archons, then storm, and you can defend with sentry cannon on 3 base, or use vortex to split half the army and ff the other half somewhere it cant run into the vortex while your zealots go to work.
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TitaN's Build is risky as hell,its designed to beat roaches but a 3 hatchery muta will kill him instantly at the 11'minute mark.
I mean sentry/zealot/imortal looses to muta NO MATTER WHAT.
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On March 17 2012 04:40 Crying wrote:
TitaN's Build is risky as hell,its designed to beat roaches but a 3 hatchery muta will kill him instantly at the 11'minute mark.
I mean sentry/zealot/imortal looses to muta NO MATTER WHAT.
The build incorporates an early 3rd and blink, as long as you scout the mutas before there are 15 in your base you should be just fine.
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On March 17 2012 04:47 Fenneth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2012 04:40 Crying wrote:
TitaN's Build is risky as hell,its designed to beat roaches but a 3 hatchery muta will kill him instantly at the 11'minute mark.
I mean sentry/zealot/imortal looses to muta NO MATTER WHAT. The build incorporates an early 3rd and blink, as long as you scout the mutas before there are 15 in your base you should be just fine.
Not only this, but it's worth noting that the first roach engagement happens at around 10:30. See how many stalkers he has (it's a sizeable number)? See how his blink is almost done? I'm not sure why you thought he was banking on sentry/zealot/immortal.
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On March 17 2012 04:47 Fenneth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2012 04:40 Crying wrote:
TitaN's Build is risky as hell,its designed to beat roaches but a 3 hatchery muta will kill him instantly at the 11'minute mark.
I mean sentry/zealot/imortal looses to muta NO MATTER WHAT. The build incorporates an early 3rd and blink, as long as you scout the mutas before there are 15 in your base you should be just fine.
You should also be able to tech to Storm easily with Vespene from three bases.
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Watching that Titan replay, responding to mutalisks definitely seems possible. He begins to add stalkers to his composition around 9:30, and his observer could conceivably get to Stephano's main around 10:30 (In the replay we have, his obs almost gets to stephano's main, but turns around because he sees a roach timing incoming). This means that if you throw down canons asap as soon as seeing a spire, and start pumping stalkers, you should have at least 8 stalkers + a canon or two in your mineral lines by the time mutalisks show up.
Assuming mutalisks show up at your base @ 11 minutes, that means you will have a 10-15 window of horrifying weakness as you wait for your canons to finish, but from there you aren't in terrible position as you already have a third base, and blink should finish around 12 minutes (Titan's finishes around 12:30, but he has tons of excess chrono thanks to his early third).
As long as you see the spire (or sense it), you should be able to get some canons down in order to not instantly lose. I think you are definitely at a disadvantage, but the main strength of mutalisks is their ability to pin you to two bases. If you start out already having a third base, they are much more manageable.
Plus, as CecilSunkure said, having 6 Gas makes it very easy to get HT + storm into your composition.
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On March 15 2012 16:48 Forbidden17 wrote:
toss is too limited on their harass options out of a FFE. Perhaps FFE is not the way to open in PvZ? Just thinking out loud here, I mean we always knew FFE had trouble putting pressure back on the Zerg, hence they grab a 5min 3rd upon seeing it.
I realize a gateway FE style would encounter a whole other set of problems =[
THIS is the root of the problem. Toss has such a limited arsenal of harass options that are so easily defended by scouting. Early gateway pressure is also easily defended as long as the zerg gets a decent scout. Queens + inject + spines + lings are usually not very penetrable except for an all in, and even then its a toss up, no pun intended.
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You shut your mouth, you intended that pun. Otherwise you would not have written it.
Erm...
returning to topic, I played through Titan's build + a few variations earlier today. If your opponent goes mutalisks, it feels like if you miss a single beat you are pretty much done. I feel if you don't open 17 Nexus you have to play perfectly to have a chance vs mutalisks, especially since you don't get hallucinate.
Something I was considering though, was cutting a sentry from the build. Titan goes all the way up to 8, but I think that if you only get 7, you can afford hallucinate after warp gate research. It almost seems silly to not get it, considering how many sentries you will be building.
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There are an enormous multitude of options available after opening FFE, I don't believe that giving it up is the solution to anything.
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You guys should check out the redbull LAN stream, Sheth is practicing 3 hatch roach/ling vs. JYP. JYP crushed him the first two games.
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sheth's build is different from stephano's build though. from what it looks like, sheth is making a faster evo so he has to take his gas faster which makes him more susceptible to timing pushes. you can hold any 2 base protoss push with 3 gases but taking 4 gas is pushing it. the power of stephanos build comes purely from the fact that it is reactionary and stephano has amazing crisis management. the only way i can see to break it is to hit a timing before broodlords, also if you deny his creep than you prevent spine walls<--that seems key
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Ive experimented with something similar to what titan does which is the 4 gate zealot pressure into very fast third base with 2 gas (right as you are warping in first round of zealots) then take other 2 gas and go robo twilight as well as hallucination. As long as you dont overmake zealots and keep up on probe production, I think it might work vs this style and others. It allows you to punish greedy tech builds so they cant just go 3 base muta with no roaches. Not sure if hallucination or obs is better, think hallucination is better cause robo is a bit late and you dont want to be in the dark. Also in titan vs stephano replay titan rushes for twilight but doesnt use it for a long time so I think the zealot pressure instead of the fast twilight should work pretty well. Also builds are map dependent which most people didnt mention, Titan held his third on antiga but had that been metal/korhal would he be able to? Also some stargate into colo builds are good vs the roach such as alej style but they are much better on some maps then others.
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I do not see how you can take a third if all you have is a couple of sentries and 2-4 Immortals. 11-12 minutes the Zerg will have 200 supply army which is around 50 Roaches. The Zerg has so much that he can easily attack at 2 places at once and the Protoss army is just too low supply to stop it. If the Protoss splits their army in two I feel it becomes much weaker and can not hold a third.
If you use Voidrays you might badly injure the Zerg army but still risk losing the third anyway. Sentry + Voidray might be worth using though and just make it too costly to take down the third.
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On March 17 2012 11:12 AzureD wrote:
I do not see how you can take a third if all you have is a couple of sentries and 2-4 Immortals. 11-12 minutes the Zerg will have 200 supply army which is around 50 Roaches. The Zerg has so much that he can easily attack at 2 places at once and the Protoss army is just too low supply to stop it. If the Protoss splits their army in two I feel it becomes much weaker and can not hold a third.
If you use Voidrays you might badly injure the Zerg army but still risk losing the third anyway. Sentry + Voidray might be worth using though and just make it too costly to take down the third.
This replay that I JUST played on ladder can show you how.
http://drop.sc/135213
I got severely behind after the openings as I was talking with some friends during the game, and the first engagement happened as my 3rd JUST finished. The game at that point? Zerg at 67 drones, me at about 58. Me at 2-0 upgrades vs. 0-0 of zerg, 1-0 finishing up shortly. He did a variation, a roach + ling off 3 base, but still a super strong pressure. This isn't the guide for the EXACT build of stephano, but this is a replay showing how you can survive against massive armies. I went DT's and warp prisms and both did ABSOLUTELY NO DAMAGE. My +1 zealots did nothing either. Now for the kicker. Army supplies? He was at 157 vs. my 89 supply. Looking at my workers, you'd think I'm crazy. No, resources wise, it was 1450 / 1000 for me vs. 4375 / 1100 for him. About 3 times as large, and I still HOLD IT off while getting more probes off of BLINK STALKERS AND SENTRIES ALONE. You talk about your FF's being subpar and that didn't affect the game THAT much... I beg to differ.
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EPT
