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On June 23 2012 06:34 ineversmile wrote:
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door.
I really enjoy this. Do you generally go third nexus before or after gateway?
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I can tell you one thing.
The zerg will be sooo WTF and confused after he sees dat wall =))
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lol thats so epic, just for the rage inducing factor alone
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Just wanted to say thanks for this build! I've been reading this thread regularly since its creation, and this is now the preferred way I play PvZ. Yes, I'm only platinum, almost diamond, but here are my two cents.
The only thing I die to regularly is an all hydra + mass queen type attack. It can hit pretty early, so if you're even a little bit late with the mothership you're just dead.
Late game I dump my excess minerals (what's left from cannons) into some gateways, like 6 of them. If I see mass hydra I build 10+ zealots and keep them with my air units. If they get close they do good versus hydras but the real value is that they absorb shots, so it's always a good trade. If I start seeing mass corruptors I try to tech to HT as soon as possible, and with the gateways I have I build around 8 templars.
You'll usually be ahead in upgrades, since zerg will upgrade both ground and air, and late game no matter the composition, void rays, a few carriers and storms wins, and wins decisively. However you look at it I think airtoss trades much better vs Zerg, and until someone proved there's a timing that can easily kill you before you get to the late game I will continue with this style 
Very important:
-Harass with initial VRs but don't lose a single one
-Upgrade constantly, first weapons, then armor is what I prefer
-Don't forget to upgrade shields middle/late game, that forge isn't doing anything anyway
-More hydras = more carriers, more corruptors = more VRs
-Never, and I mean never, be late with the mothership. It's just that important.
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On June 23 2012 06:53 The Eskimo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2012 06:34 ineversmile wrote:
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door. I really enjoy this. Do you generally go third nexus before or after gateway?
I haven't figured out the build yet; it's too radical of a concept to really know yet. I know I want 13ish forge and a 17ish nexus, but I don't know if it's correct to build the nexus at the natural first or the one at the wall-off first. Walling off seems safer, so you could delay the gate for a third nexus pre-gate and be ok due to a wall-off that can be plugged with a probe during a shitstorm.
Having 3 nexi up by 6ish minutes into the game is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed in this game. You literally can chain chrono on one building constantly and the total pool of energy between the nexi steadily rises while that happens. It completely changes the number of production buildings needed. Also, because you functionally can just drone when you want, you don't need to constantly build workers and you can get the right saturation way quicker. So that's mor minerals spent on not probing up and a quicker full mineral saturation. So awesome.
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On June 23 2012 08:17 ineversmile wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2012 06:53 The Eskimo wrote:On June 23 2012 06:34 ineversmile wrote:
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door. I really enjoy this. Do you generally go third nexus before or after gateway? I haven't figured out the build yet; it's too radical of a concept to really know yet. I know I want 13ish forge and a 17ish nexus, but I don't know if it's correct to build the nexus at the natural first or the one at the wall-off first. Walling off seems safer, so you could delay the gate for a third nexus pre-gate and be ok due to a wall-off that can be plugged with a probe during a shitstorm. Having 3 nexi up by 6ish minutes into the game is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed in this game. You literally can chain chrono on one building constantly and the total pool of energy between the nexi steadily rises while that happens. It completely changes the number of production buildings needed. Also, because you functionally can just drone when you want, you don't need to constantly build workers and you can get the right saturation way quicker. So that's mor minerals spent on not probing up and a quicker full mineral saturation. So awesome.
Not sure how well that would work against an early cheese, though. I would go for safety and put up macro nexus after gateway, and then 2 gases, cyber, gas, stargate, gas. That way if you scout roach rush with the probe your tech isn't too delayed and you can cancel (or better yet not even put up) the macro nexus and throw down extra cannons.
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I was unable to use this on antiga shipyard because I couldn't take my 4th. What do?
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I thumbs down Antiga. I don't like maps without accessible 4ths and beyond.
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I think that forge-->macro nexus-->cannon-->gateway-->expo nexus-->double gas is the way to go, by instinct. You keep probe production rolling at a high potential, you don't screw your tech, and you have a pretty solid barricade for ling pressure simultaneously. I'm just not sure at which point the second pylon should be built during that BO.
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On June 23 2012 10:15 The Eskimo wrote:
I was unable to use this on antiga shipyard because I couldn't take my 4th. What do?
yeah getting the fourth is kinda tricky. On 4 player maps, I try to find a time in the game where my opponents army is weakest and escort a probe to another main, wall off the ramp with a ton of cannons just like you would Forge fast expand. Make the cannons first and you should have good access to 2 new bases. In general, I think it's acceptable to have a slightly later fourth if you also get a fifth.
You can also just do a super 3 base all in.
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this build is almost a auto win against any zerg. i am very very impressed how well this build works. if any protoss are having problems beating zerg i recommend this build.
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I think the best time to take a 4th is while you're picking of your opponent's expo with a fleet and defensively town portalling it home with your mothership recall. If he doesn't send infestors to try to chain fungal, you can do tons of damage and wreck him. If he does, you recall to between 3rd and 4th and have a solid defens over your 4th. One way or another, your cannons make him pay for a potential push and the diversion allows a window to establish more economy.
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I made a TL account specifically to reply to this thread. I'm only a diamond player, but I've beat several zerg masters with this, and I've beaten other diamond players repeatedly (read: 5 times in a row), even when they know it's coming. I've held off speedling allins, roach ling allins, stephano roach max, big hydra pushes, hydra drops, infestor pushes, mass upgraded corruptor armies (55+!), hydra infestor armies, queen spore hydra infestor slow-pushes, and most of my games last ~40 minutes, and end with us both on 6-base with maxed armies when I made the final trade and come out OVERWHELMINGLY ahead. My win-rate PvZ has also turned spectacular overnight.
Protoss air is awesome, and it seems like many discount it before they've done their due diligence in exploring it. Simple things like treating it as a means to a high-econ macro game (rather than a mid-game allin), defensive recall (to save you from fungal death), having the appropriate mix of void-carrier (terrans die because of too many marauder in their MMM-ball, why would toss air compositions be any different?), and pairing your lategame army with storm and a few archons go a long way to securing your victory. However, ultimately, the ability to play a 40 minute macro game versus a zerg opponent, to be safe from virtually all mid-game pressure, to match him on economy the entire game, to negate broodlords, and to deny his harrassment with solid cannon usage, mothership (and other air) placement, and high protoss technology, is phenomenal.
I'm incredibly grateful to you for turning me on to this strategy, and nothing saddens me more than the fact that the removal of carriers from HoTS will substantially weaken the end-game 'toss air composition against infestor-hydra heavy armies. Nevertheless, this style demands further study, and I urge everyone to give it a shot. Thank you fogedaboutit.
A few replays:
+ Show Spoiler +Dismantling a BM top8-diamond zerg. He thought his ling pressure killed my third (even after seeing my mothership) and got overconfident. (I BM back towards the end. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll get that rematch one day...) http://drop.sc/201629Another game vs a top8-diamond zerg. He asks me if I'm smurfing during the game, and accuses me of it again afterwards. =D http://drop.sc/200335A game vs a mid-diamond zerg. Storm is so good in those final battles... http://drop.sc/200328I have dozens more replays like this. I've only really died to super fast (~12min) hydra pushes at my natural, followed up by another quick hydra push to finish the job, and I think it was my fault that I took my third too late, and didn't rebuild my wall / cannons quickly enough.
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Well said trbot. I feel the same way.
There is still a slight possibility that carriers will stay in HotS, so keep praying
Also I feel airtoss could be made to work without carriers, but then it would always have to be a mix of air and ground units late game, which would definitively make it weaker (and I guees technically it wouldn't be airtoss anymore).
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Carriers are needed because of infestors. A couple fungals can do a lot of damage to a huge mass of voidrays, so if Zergs goes mass mass infestors, you're in trouble with pure carriers.
Templars are of course a good counter to infestors, but there's a critical point, when Zergs has > 20 infestors, where no matter what number of templars you have, you won't be able to feedback/kill all those infestors before they chained their fungals and killed your voidrays. The number of infested terrans will be insane too..
Maybe tempests will help, as they can kill infestors from a huge distance, but the dynamics would completely change. With carriers you can fight Zerg's army directly; with tempests, it is likely that you'll have to treat them like brood lords, and advance step-by-step while using the rest of your army as a shield. Imagine 6-7 tempests shooting at 22 range with 20+ voidrays and 8+ templars to keep them protected.. hmm hmmm
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Hello, i didnt lose a single pvz since i'm playing this, but i definitely dont like carriers, i really prefer getting 4 colossus quite fast to hold the hydras push, kill the infestors, kill the infested terran and getting like 4-5 archonts and 10 templars, as your oponent's army is composed of infestor and corruptors the colossus auto target the infestors and if you split your voidrays he will be unable to do major damage even with 25 infestor until you feedback/kill them all.
top master protoss on EU.
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On June 23 2012 22:27 loko1275 wrote:
Hello, i didnt lose a single pvz since i'm playing this, but i definitely dont like carriers, i really prefer getting 4 colossus quite fast to hold the hydras push, kill the infestors, kill the infested terran and getting like 4-5 archonts and 10 templars, as your oponent's army is composed of infestor and corruptors the colossus auto target the infestors and if you split your voidrays he will be unable to do major damage even with 25 infestor until you feedback/kill them all.
top master protoss on EU.
can you post a replay please?
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it seems whenever i do this they just spam roaches at me and I'll only have a couple voids out. i take too much damage and end up dieing
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United States261 Posts
On June 24 2012 06:02 The Eskimo wrote:
it seems whenever i do this they just spam roaches at me and I'll only have a couple voids out. i take too much damage and end up dieing
This is where scouting comes into play. In many cases, Zerg still go for the 12 minute max out, and as a result, you have a timestamp as to when you should be adequately defended. This means one of several things.
1. Mothership out. If the Mothership is out, more than likely, they will not have detection, which means while they would normally be able to bust your wall, they can't see it.
2. Spam Cannons. With a sufficient wall off at the third and a large amount of cannons, you can generally either hold it off, or stall for sufficient forces to arrive.
Alternatively, you can force them out of Roaches through showing double Stargate. In the case that they actually see double Stargate, they will either abandon Roaches entirely before the assault, or try to go all in. Either way works out for you, assuming you can scout it coming. I generally get a Phoenix after the first Void Ray, I use the Void Ray to clear out Overlords and Zerglings, and the Phoenix to scout gasses. By the time the Phoenix gets there in most maps, 3 Gasses usually means Roaches, 4+ means Muta or Infestor.
Happy Hunting.
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I made some more pics of wall-offs for other maps (since I already showed Cloud Kingdom).  Here's Ohana:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pWMGe.jpg)
Note that units can move to the left side of the nexus (see how the Zealot is standing there), so you will need 2 cannons to cover this wall-off fully. You probably want to do that, anyways, considering how the plan is to get 3 nexi up and basically straight tech to the highest possible tech unit with the longest build time in the game. Fortunately, you can put the left cannon down a little bit late because a 1000+1000 HP building isn't going anywhere for a while. Also, notice how the cannon on the right can hit the rocks from its placement:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eN1Yu.jpg)
I think that building a macro nexus next to your ramp is probably the best placement for the sake of walling off, as that's the spot where it's not going to screw over your wall-off with its rounded corner issues. Moving on, here's Daybreak:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xcgGp.jpg)
Notice the clicking spot; the probe cannot move past the nexus corner where it is placed. This is why I like the macro nexus next to a ramp. I'm pretty sure that roaches can hit it without getting targetted by the cannon, though, so another cannon should go on the high ground. Here's a wall-off on the other side of Daybreak, using a 1-space gap with a Zealot instead of a full wall-off:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7GknD.jpg)
Next is Entombed Valley. It took me a few tries to get this one right, but this one seems close to optimal. What you do is wall-off twice. First you wall to take your natural and then later you expand the wall towards your rocks. A Zealot blocks at both stages:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/F4u6J.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MEQK7.jpg)
The second gate obviously should be a Core, but you get the point. This way, you're covering your ass with one cannon until you're financially capable of building more of the wall. Plus, you'll have that Zealot to protect your assets while they're building. Note that I tested walking an Immortal between the Nexus and ramp, and it does fit. I also tried another couple of wall-offs:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yzuSy.jpg)
This one takes a lot of buildings and relies on a Pylon, which is sketchy on a number of levels. But it's an alternative.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mJX9T.jpg)
This is a wall-off that works very well for the natural, but sucks for the sake of taking the third and comfortably walling it. Food for thought, though.
I'm getting a bit closer to figuring out the build order, but I wanted to really sit down and figure out how to wall things off first. If anyone has input on how to improve some of these wall-offs, I'm all ears. I also wouldn't mind if you do some of the work for other maps! 
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thank you!
I've been trying to wall off with the Nexus but haven't put much thought into the placement so every sim city is just a huge cluster***k
I think the extra Nexus pays for itself remarkably fast and you can afford a second blind cannon in addition to many sacrificial scouting probes.
When I stay on top of my chrono it's pretty hard to produce consistently out of 4 Stargates. I wonder if 3 Stargates (instead of 4) and another earlier tech (HT or Collossus) is good off of 3 bases.
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EPT
