Hello TL members! I'm adonminus, a highly ranked master player on eu who's expecting to be promoted to gm in season 8. Today is my birthday, and also my 200th post on TL. This is why I bring you this special guide to a strategy that I was developping all this year and I hope it will make a new revolution in PvT. Behold the 3 gate colo pressure:
A long time ago, I decided to 4 gate warp prism all in a terran, however what he did was simply make a ton of marines and hold it. Then I 4 gate warp prism all inned again, the other terran held it with scv pulling. I was amazed, what is this greediness? How dare a terran hold an all in with just marines and scvs while still having an expo up? That was a dishonor to the protoss race. This is why we're going to make things fair again, I was working since that day to create a build that can't be held with just marines, marauders and scvs from your usual 1 rax expo. My first experiment was to just 4 gate warp prism all in and then follow it up with colossus, however it didn't up working well since the colossus push and the 4 gate push were seperate. That's why I decided to go colo first and then get 3 more gates to warp stuff in just as they arrive. After a lot of refining, it actually worked and I was able to beat some decent gms on eu, and having close games with other highly ranked gm terrans. Still I wasn't satisfied, a protoss all in should always beat a terran, no matter what's your skill compared to your opponent skill. No, not even that, a protoss all in should even be able to transition into macro game. I was practising with my buddy, the barcode terran named |||||||||. So he told suggested me that 4 gates were too much, that a 3 gate would be more fitting. And yes, that was the missing part of the build. I was blinded by the need of 4 gates to all in, you can actually pressure with 3 gates! And not only that, but also you can expand behind it and it is just a very pressure reliant build now rather than an all in.
Very simple build order, maybe you might not make it 100% perfectly without decent probe stacking and good memory at first, but still very easy to learn.
Notes: 1) 4 chronos on probes, (we'll only need chrono later for colossus, so if you want you can even chrono probes 4 times but not really needed, you could use it on gates instead when you pressure) 2) A protoss pressure build has no fear of being scouted, that's why we build the robo before the stalker. 3) You could use the stalker to poke at his entrance to see if he fast expanded and then keep it at watch tower to see if he sends units to pressure. 4) You don't scout with probe since we need the minerals for crisp gateway and colossus timing.
Preparing the infrastructure: Now at 100% robo, you make a robo bay and a warp prism. You can also get a few additional probes.
Base infrastructure: Even a noob like you can win with this build.*
The reason we cut probes is that we want to have those gateways ready as soon as WG finishes, so we could make it look like a fake 4 gate prism all in and surprise him with colo. The speed prism is the most important, you will micro your colossus with the speed prism to dodge marauder missiles and viking missiles. (With perfect micro, marauders will never hit your colossus)
You load up your zealot into the warp prism, you send the warp across the middle of the map, since you will want to retreat if you see an early marine push off fast expand, or a marauder marine pressure off 2 rax (in case of 2 rax, you could chrono out units off your 1 gate to defend it, remember to dodge marauder missiles using your warp prism). When you arrive to the closest watch tower near your opponent, you pick up your stalker at the watch tower.
Now we send our warp prism in the his main to harass workers and weaken his economy before the push. Then you wait for his marines to arrive so you load up again and escape. Your warp gates should finished by this time. Warp in 3 stalkers. You should have 4 stalkers and 1 zealot. You could shoot up to high ground with stalkers to make him retreat and clear the landing area for your push, if not our bro the colo will do it, which arrives shortly after that.
The pressure: Our friend the colossus comes to the party.
It would be wise to wait for next warp, and warp in in 2 zealots and 1 sentry. Now you will have this army: 3 zealots 1 sentry 4 stalkers 1 colossus 1 warp prism at the front of the enemy base. You will notice that you have now 400 minerals for our expansion. (if you don't have 400 minerals because you haven't executed the build crisply enough, I recommand to just continue the pressure and keep constantly warping units until you reach 400 minerals in the bank). So:
48 Nexus (Should start at 8 minutes if I remember correctly)
Now the battle at the opponent's base: you will focus all your micro on the colossus, here's a list of things you want to do: (note: having colossus selected during battle is key to be able to execute the following)
1) Focus fire marines. (same thing, they stand in a line, attack the middle). Lines of marines always make me happy, a pro terran should always split marines against colossus, this is why the only way to hold it as terran is extremly well executed micro and decision making. + Show Spoiler +
2) Dodge marauder missiles. (Terran will most likely try to snipe your colossus, load the colossus into the warp prism to dodge those). Also marauders have a lot of hp, don't waste your precious colossus attacks on them, use stalkers instead to take them down. + Show Spoiler +
3) Snipe vikings with 4-7 stalkers. (Usually you can just kill him if he goes fast starport because he won't have enough marine-marauder forces, but if it happens after a long fight, remember to snipe those with stalkers) Also if he attacks colossus, dodge them the same way as with marauders. + Show Spoiler +
I'm abit lazy to put an image here but you know how to do it, no need image.
4) Use colossus to harass workers if army dies. (The colossus should never die, if it dies you messed up your micro with the warp prism, the most likely thing to die is your army, so if your army dies, you can now go harass his workers with speed prism colo to further weaken him while chronoing workers to your natural and establishing better macro). You should also be happy, each dead scv will give you more chances to be not only even but also hundreds of years ahead of terran once your expo finishes, same thing if he just pulls them. + Show Spoiler +
5) If you see that his army is too strong and you can't engage him directly, then you use this abusive trick to win the game. You position your army with sentries at his natural and send warp prism to his main. If he doesn't know where's your army, he will send his army to attack warp prism at main while you just go in his natural and forcefield his ramp while killing all the workers there. + Show Spoiler +
6) You could drop units on tanks, if he does 2 base tanks or 111. There's always an option to not do the pressure against a 111 and instead mass up colossi to defend it. + Show Spoiler +
Not sure if colossus or zealots is better, probably depends on number of tanks and their position
There's a lot of ways to transition. One of my favories is to add a stargate and go colossus phoenix, I think that composition is really underrated and should be explored more. Or you could do the normal high templar transition while getting chargelots and upgrades (my terran friend says it's more effective and that phoenix isn't that cost effective but I'm not sure).
Remember that the key to arrive to the mid game while being even or ahead is to kill enemy workers. I think it's impossible to hold the pressure while pulling workers, you can try to prove me wrong here though. Even if you do that, I can still harass the worker lines with speed prism colo. That's why in most cases you'll be even. In one replay, the guy simply ggs after seeing my expo even though he held the pressure.
Colossus Phoenix holding mid game terran aggression: Problems, bro?
Replay 5: http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)NOMAdonminus_vs_(T)sda/20063 To tell you the truth, I have refined to the build to put in the nexus earlier only recently, so this game doesn't show expo but still gives you a nice idea about the micro in battle etc...
Thanks for reading. I hope this will change PvT to destroy the myth that terran has advantage in early-mid game. Protoss is technologically superior to Terran, that's why they must always win. Good luck and have fun.
Feel free to critize, give feedback and try to improve this build. Also tell me if I have made any errors in the guide, or if things in replay don't match the guide even though I said they do.
Some extras:
Extra replay:
I played another game today, and I lost my warp prism with colossus though after the engagement. First of all I didn't pull the colossus back from the marines enough, and 2nd Ohana has this double cliff which is really bad for this build, you can't pull colossus back. But my fail allowed me to play the game into mid-late game and eventually win: http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)NOMAdonminus_vs_(T)DenLilleMand/20066
Note about scouting:
About scouting with probe, sure you can do that, you'll lose a portion of minerals for more defense against cheeses and pressures. But on the other hand, not scouting is kinda greedy I guess. You can defend cheeses by chronoing an additional zealot and stalker from your gateway, and delaying the other 2 gates. Then you could strike with delayed 4 gates with the speed prism colossus. I'll show you a replay as soon as I'll find it.
I saw a couple of high level players doing something like this (babyK, puCK, ...). Really cool strategy. It looks like a really precise and detailed guide. Nice job, i will definetely try to add this to my fairly limited PvT arsenal. I gotta check your replays at once! I love this kind of aggressive and unorthodox strategies. Also i think since this is micro intensive strategy, it's probably great practice for both, high and lower level players.
Hm, 1 (delayed!)gas 1 base colo with speed prism and a lot of stalkers? Props to you for making it work, but how do you handle the game if the pressure fails? Go up to 4 gas asap?
On June 13 2012 19:01 Nihilnovi wrote: Hm, 1 (delayed!)gas 1 base colo with speed prism and a lot of stalkers? Props to you for making it work, but how do you handle the game if the pressure fails? Go up to 4 gas asap?
It's not delayed gas, I forgot to put 1st asim in bo. I get expo while pressuring, so I'm not that behind if it fails.
I take it this build is only good against a terran who opens 1 rax expand into 3 rax, double gas, and early add-ons? It's a very minimal push initially and as you said if that doesn't do damage you have to hope that colossus drops will keep you in the game.
I'm looking at it and thinking how poorly it would do against any 1 base build or even something like various marine/scv attacks after a fast expand. The hellion/marine/medivac build would also be quite strong as you don't have many units and they can keep you in your base while getting out vikings and more units to deny your drop harass.
Fortunately for those wanting to try this, the vast majority of terran players will simply execute the MKP or Bomber style marine/medivac timing every game, so you can pull out the wins for ladder points. I'm more a fan of the economic version that puCK uses, though.
On June 13 2012 19:17 oOOoOphidian wrote: I take it this build is only good against a terran who opens 1 rax expand into 3 rax, double gas, and early add-ons? It's a very minimal push initially and as you said if that doesn't do damage you have to hope that colossus drops will keep you in the game.
I'm looking at it and thinking how poorly it would do against any 1 base build or even something like various marine/scv attacks after a fast expand. The hellion/marine/medivac build would also be quite strong as you don't have many units and they can keep you in your base while getting out vikings and more units to deny your drop harass.
Fortunately for those wanting to try this, the vast majority of terran players will simply execute the MKP or Bomber style marine/medivac timing every game, so you can pull out the wins for ladder points. I'm more a fan of the economic version that puCK uses, though.
It's good vs almost any expand build. The hellion/marime/medivac hits when you already got colossus so it doesn't work. And it does work vs 1 base simply because 1 base builds pressure you and colossus is great unit to defend. Though early marine scv all ins or proxies are really good vs this. Could you link me puCK's version? I want to check it out.
Also remember that this is just a build, each build has weaknesses.
I absolutely enjoy ur attitude and humor. Thanks for the guide, I'll totally try it! :D
Edit: Just watched the first Replay. Now im even more in love with the build. It seems to utilize the real strenght of warpgates to an extend almost no others toss-opening does. I always wanted to play Protoss in an agressive fashion, using speed and harrassment to bully my enemy. Thank you so much and happy birthday. <3
Cool build, speed prism collo is definately one of the most fun things to play in the game. I have just one criticism: Why no scouting? Going 1gate robo with only zeal/stalker when your opponent could have done an 11rax marine all-in (possibly proxied 2nd rax) is not exactly very safe. For boX it's OK to do but on ladder there is just too much cheese to tech that greedy blindly. It's not like those 70 minerals really really matter for 99% of players anyway. Happy Birthday!
I saw White-Ra doing this build on his stream, it looks really strong. Its safe vs many Terran builds and the edge you get when Terran expands quickly is nice.
I notice a lot of Terran's try to bunker contain, expecting the Protoss to be taking their fast natural. And boom they get hit with a colossus and their army is on the other side of the map. Fun to execute as well.
I was trying to mess with the build myself and didn't know if I liked getting fast range or fast prism first. Either way awesome that you have a writeup we can go to to try and polish up the build and its variants.
Edit: Added some games I recently played. Just casual fun games. These games show me trying to mess with this build after watching White-Ra do it. By no means are they refined or anything. They are Fast Range Slow Prism. FRSP.
I played another game today, and I lost my warp prism with colossus though after the engagement. First of all I didn't pull the colossus back from the marines enough, and 2nd Ohana has this double cliff which is really bad for this build, you can't pull colossus back. But my fail allowed me to play the game into mid-late game and eventually win: http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)NOMAdonminus_vs_(T)DenLilleMand/20066
About scouting with probe, sure you can do that, you'll lose a portion of minerals for more defense against cheeses and pressures. But on the other hand, not scouting is kinda greedy I guess. You can defend cheeses by chronoing an additional zealot and stalker from your gateway, and delaying the other 2 gates. Then you could strike with delayed 4 gates with the speed prism colossus. I'll show you a replay as soon as I'll find it.
Very old replay: http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)Adonminus_vs_(T)DBS/17505. I wasn't very good back then, so I forgot warp gate research, and delayed the gateways like that, so you do the same thing without forgetting it against early pressure like 2 rax mm. That way 2 zealots 2 stalkers can hold and later colossus is out.
I saw your game vs Dragoon. Its pretty impressive to beat a player of that caliber, and I even think I saw you beat him on his stream if I'm correct. Very entertaining to watch and even more fun to play :D
This build works very well for the current 1 rax fe style Terran's play these days and it can hold off some wacky pressure builds Terran can throw. I like it.
In general no probe scout is OK sicne you can get information with a zeal/stalker poke. I'm just worried about a well-hidden 11 11 rax. with 8-10 scvs pulled. You will not be able to scout that out with your poke and it moves out very shortly after you arrive at his base. You will have WG 3/4 done and 2 stalker 1 zealot at best. Which just doesn't cut it.
Hwangsin is pretty much the master of one base Colossus builds, and this is pretty much his build, except for the expansion. I will say that his build largely doesn't work at High Masters and GM but I am looking forward to watching the replays to see how well this transitions.
On June 14 2012 01:22 lazyo wrote: In general no probe scout is OK sicne you can get information with a zeal/stalker poke. I'm just worried about a well-hidden 11 11 rax. with 8-10 scvs pulled. You will not be able to scout that out with your poke and it moves out very shortly after you arrive at his base. You will have WG 3/4 done and 2 stalker 1 zealot at best. Which just doesn't cut it.
You could always Probe scout, and just delay the timing a bit if you were that concerned. Alternatively, you could get 1 Stalker and 1 Sentry and a Zealot and the FF would buy you time to get more defenses up, thought it could delay the timing slightly in terms of gas.
I would actually just Probe scout and get up a quicker second gas and get a Sentry instead of the second Stalker, all while cutting the Zealot. Should end up about even in the end economically, and you get the early scout so you can adjust the build if you see cheese.
I will personally attest that even if I know this is coming, there have been many times where I have just lost even with good defense. This can be very hard to hold.
On June 13 2012 19:17 oOOoOphidian wrote: I take it this build is only good against a terran who opens 1 rax expand into 3 rax, double gas, and early add-ons? It's a very minimal push initially and as you said if that doesn't do damage you have to hope that colossus drops will keep you in the game.
I'm looking at it and thinking how poorly it would do against any 1 base build or even something like various marine/scv attacks after a fast expand. The hellion/marine/medivac build would also be quite strong as you don't have many units and they can keep you in your base while getting out vikings and more units to deny your drop harass.
Fortunately for those wanting to try this, the vast majority of terran players will simply execute the MKP or Bomber style marine/medivac timing every game, so you can pull out the wins for ladder points. I'm more a fan of the economic version that puCK uses, though.
It's good vs almost any expand build. The hellion/marime/medivac hits when you already got colossus so it doesn't work. And it does work vs 1 base simply because 1 base builds pressure you and colossus is great unit to defend. Though early marine scv all ins or proxies are really good vs this. Could you link me puCK's version? I want to check it out.
Also remember that this is just a build, each build has weaknesses.
I'm mostly talking about how weak this build is before your first colossus pops (if dragon simply ran up your ramp when your warp prism was in the middle of the map he would have easily killed you) as well as how vulnerable it is to any sort of base trade by the terran - if they attack you while you are attacking them, it goes a lot better for them unless you already have colossus and speed.
Seems to me you're better off only actually doing this build if you scout a 1 rax expand, imo. You could easily just play normal if you scout something else.
Unfortunately puCK doesn't save vods on his channel, but the basic shell of the build is similar aside from getting a nexus in the process and focusing mainly on the colossus drop while playing otherwise fairly standard (just with delayed sentries, of course). That build is definitely harder to do properly, though, as you actually need skill with the colossus drop and it has to do damage as well as transition. Anyone who wants the easy route stick to the 1 base version, it's strong and simple.
Why exactly do you need speed? I feel like adding more sentries/stalkers would be useful, and that the speed isn't completely essential to harass until stim/vikings come, which would be around the time you'd attack anyway.
Good stuff adonminus. Thank you for taking the time to put this together!
I remember going nuts over Liquid'Hero doing this in a few games back when he won Dreamhack and started to get some attention. I've been using a variant off of a Protoss 1gate FE. Less opportunity to do crippling damage/end the game. It mostly focuses on harassing worker lines while building up a solid army.
If you want to check it out, I've linked a replay. I promise I'm not trying to steal your thunder, I can assure you my play is a good deal weaker than yours is and the replay probably makes me look like shit haha.
Thanks again for the write up! Definitely planning on giving it a swing myself! http://drop.sc/208762
idk about the late scout, i just marine scv all ined first time trying it and i think you can sacrifice that 40 min per minute for a probe scout after core. unless the BO is absolutely too crisp for a early scout
What are the bonuses to 1 base collusus vs. an expand build. I feel that a lot of expand builds are able to hold these pushes whats is the general win rate of something like this in the higher levels.
vs early aggression with hellions or marine-scv allin you'll have an extremely tough time. not quite sure what to do vs that yet. Here are some sample games though where I had success with the build (at high masters NA): http://drop.sc/213807 http://drop.sc/209609
This build works great P v P and is my new go to strategy when I see a 4gate or early expo (I work on getting an expo during my pokes at his)
But I have run into situation when people are using this exact build to counter itself. I am wondering that kind of transition would be the best move, i have been going charge zealot and having some mediocre success. Thanks again!
On July 05 2012 00:03 BronzeKnee wrote: Could you explain why you think a Protoss pressure build has no fear of being scouted?
Well firstly, the purpose of scouting is to find out what you're opponent is doing and reacting accordingly.
With that in mind, when the terran scouts that you went robo before stalker he could assume that you're doing a very greedy tech build or a one base timing. And even with that knowledge, how is the terran supposed to react perfectly, you could be doing a variety of things.
What happens if he snipes the colossus/ WP when it's out in midmap? You'd end up significantly far behind and with the failed allin-ish build, decent decision making could close out the game, in the terran's favor.
I just used this for the first time and it worked perfectly. Protoss is my offrace( main T), but with fun builds like these I would consider a full switch.
First off, Adonminus, Happy birthday. Second, you're lazy o.o ♥
I'm abit lazy to put an image here but you know how to do it, no need image.
Third off, what if he goes for some marauder-heavy FE oriented build? Or, if you delay the initial pressure, but you get another warp-in of units down the low ground and you go for a 2-prong attack? The low ground goes to his natural, your brolossus army goes to his main.
On July 06 2012 08:53 Starshaped wrote: 1base collo all-ins have been around since beta.
Lol'd at calling it "pressure" btw.
It's not all in considering you still get an expansion, even though rather late in the build. The build forces you to micro correctly and pressure the terran enough to get an expansion up behind your pressure while having the possibility of doing an insane amount of damage if the terran would react incorrectly.
If you fail with the colossi drop and do no damage, yes you're literally dead, but you still are able to expand behind this build.
On July 06 2012 08:53 Starshaped wrote: 1base collo all-ins have been around since beta.
Lol'd at calling it "pressure" btw.
It's not all in considering you still get an expansion, even though rather late in the build. The build forces you to micro correctly and pressure the terran enough to get an expansion up behind your pressure while having the possibility of doing an insane amount of damage if the terran would react incorrectly.
If you fail with the colossi drop and do no damage, yes you're literally dead, but you still are able to expand behind this build.
well you could call 4gate a pressure build because you can expand behind it. and you could not call it an all-in because "if you do damage with it then its not all-in you can expand behind it and win, so its not an all-in"
however u say it yourself your dead if it does no damage. And thats what people MEAN when they say its all-in.
however at the same time what exactly IS an all-in really? is it just all-in if your hoping your attack does damage or you lose?
i say no i think theres two kinds of all-ins and people use the term so much but i think i can pinpoint two uses.
the definition of all-in is very sporadic
The first kind of all-in is what MVP did to squirtle in the last game of the last GSL. its fun to call that all-in because MVP is clearly taking a majority of his pieces and throwing them all at the enemy. When you see that its entertaining to call that all-in.
Then the second kind of all-in could be seen as a 4gate where if your enemy scouts it right you probably will be dead.
Is this build the first or second kind of all-in?
its the second. however, it might not even fit that definition because honestly id say looking at standard terran play it seems almost impossible that this cant deal tons of damage and expand too. So really even if the terran scouts this I dont think its that bad of a build because collossi is extremely strong against marines and gateways are strong against marauders with no medivacs and thats when this hits.
Id say this collossi build seems very powerful because even IF scouted it seems like you still will always do tons of damage while expanding.
I have some suggested for the build. I doubt the speed prism is even really needed. You could probably do more damage if you just saved that money on speed, somehow modified the build to get less gas in that case which saves money, and possibly just add in another gateway and have 4gate+collossi+prism attack while expanding
given the fact that 4gate is really strong against marauders with no medivacs, and collossi is good against marines, it would probably still work and inflict lots of damage
just given the nature of terran units and that they are weaker in low numbers when theres no medivacs means this build could probably still work really well even if scouted more testing is needed tho to see if thats a correct statement or not
i think builds like this could have promise because you bypass the bunkers completely and then what, hes fighting collossi+4gate with nonmedivac'ed bio and zero bunkers. seems hard to hold
EDIT: holy crap i just realized something. you dont need the 4th gate because the robo can just keep producing collossi and rally them up the cliff to your prism (they need to walk across the map, but who cares). so in that scenario, the robo can behave just like the 4th gateway constantly bringing units to battle, only problem is they need to walk to the terran base but thats not too big of a problem
i was originally thinking about using 4gates because maxed 1base saturation can produce off 4gates and eventually expand from mineral buildup, and i was thinking if your gonna pressure might as well do it with 4gates for the stronger pressure
but then i realize heck you can use the robo as your 4th gate since collossi can walk up cliffs producing the same effect really.
IMO the build is not "all in" because it is not designed to either win or lose the game on the basis of an attack. It is designed to be aggressive, apply pressure, and expand. It probably isn't the most "safe" play, but it gets tech and a somewhat quick expo. So, unlike a 4 gate, you can be okay if you only do some damage.
All in or not, I dont understand what makes that a negative thing. If the terran is doing a 2 rax or 3 rax off 1 base, this can probably just stay on 1 base and crush it. If your micro is good, then I can see this crushing 1/1/1 too.
I hate how people think anything other than the quickest, greediest expand builds ever is an "all in" and thus it is bad. All in's arent bad. They are meant to win games or punish greedy play of the opponent.
lost to a similar build yesterday when I tried to 1 rax FE... pretty hard to scout if you don't scan at the right time and location, cause you could hide the robobay very easily, I guess. When I scouted early double gas I was misassuming a DT rush :/ Any good builds besides proxy rax or a possible 3 rax (although on the huge maps nowadays this build feels quite weak )?
i was originally thinking about using 4gates because maxed 1base saturation can produce off 4gates and eventually expand from mineral buildup
No it cant, if you are chrono boosting your production, hitting every warp perfectly and focusing on stalkers you will struggle to use 3, they cost 53% more resources per minute to build than zealots. Gateway counts are largely focused on the burst of units you get from the first 1-3 warp cycles, and not sustainability, and you will choke hard if you try to constantly produce with any "standard" amount of gates unless you are only making pure zealot or something
i was originally thinking about using 4gates because maxed 1base saturation can produce off 4gates and eventually expand from mineral buildup
No it cant, if you are chrono boosting your production, hitting every warp perfectly and focusing on stalkers you will struggle to use 3, they cost 53% more resources per minute to build than zealots. Gateway counts are largely focused on the burst of units you get from the first 1-3 warp cycles, and not sustainability, and you will choke hard if you try to constantly produce with any "standard" amount of gates unless you are only making pure zealot or something
hmm your probably right but usually human error makes 5-10 seconds of error on perfect warpgate usage+chrono
lets look at the math
1base saturation (20 probes minerals 6 gas) gives 750 minerals per minute income with 230 gas
lets expand this to 240 seconds just to make it easier, 1 robo makes 3 collossi in 240 seconds (no chronoboost)
in 240 seconds 1base gets 3000 minerals 920 gas
3 collossi is 900 minerals 800 gas 2 stalkers is 250 minerals 100 gas what remains is 1850 minerals 20gas
thats 18 zealots. but 18 zealots+2stalkers+3collossi is 58food requiring 7 pylons for 56food pay for 7 pylons, thats 7 less zealots meaning you need 2 less pylons. giving you 2 more zealots.
seems like the magic number here is 12zealots+2stalkers+3collossi. 6pylons. spends all the money and those units are 46food which 6pylons provide
1 warpgate counting chronoboosts and human error (lagtime) will make ~6 units in 240 seconds on average id say considering you need to micro / macro / do everything its hard to hit perfect times. i know stalkers take more time but lets just assume that dont matter because the extra stalker time fits into the human error meaning its the same time.
So i guess you really only need 2gates and with PERFECT macro you should be able to spend all your money. but thats hard to do. And with 3gates you spend all of your money.
However there is also the factor of losing units in battle and not needing to make pylons. When you fight the enemy and units die you no longer need to make pylons so that saved pylon money can start to pile up with every battle and eventually pay for an expansion
But i guess looking at the number 2gates is probably the smartest amount while constantly rally'ing collossi across the map and up your enemies cliff to join the battle and you just gotta concentrate super hard on macro'ing perfectly. Then you can apply heavy pressure while expanding.
Oh nice, another shitty build that allows players who play protoss to play above their actual skill level and depending on terrans to lose through bad scouting. This doesnt look GM level to me at all, especially when OP describes he used to 4gate warpprism in TVP. Its shit like this why protoss players have such a bad rep as being the worst players in SC2 compared to the other two races.
On July 07 2012 05:42 derpinator wrote: Oh nice, another shitty build that allows players who play protoss to play above their actual skill level and depending on terrans to lose through bad scouting. This doesnt look GM level to me at all, especially when OP describes he used to 4gate warpprism in TVP. Its shit like this why protoss players have such a bad rep as being the worst players in SC2 compared to the other two races.
On July 07 2012 05:42 derpinator wrote: Oh nice, another shitty build that allows players who play protoss to play above their actual skill level and depending on terrans to lose through bad scouting. This doesnt look GM level to me at all, especially when OP describes he used to 4gate warpprism in TVP. Its shit like this why protoss players have such a bad rep as being the worst players in SC2 compared to the other two races.
Yes, that's what the OP said. So what? You aren't contributing to the build discussion from either end (execution or defense).
I would much rather see threads here about common builds and how they work than balance whining. It's very frustrating to play against a strong all-in and when you look it up on TL there is no discussion at all about it.
One of the biggest problems a 4 gate warp prism build has is trying to unload in someone's base when they have units in position and are cautious, especially if they know it is coming. The colossus helps you get into their base regardless, though it delays you by enough that a well prepared terran can have a viking with turrets in good places (out of range of colossus/low ground). ForGG vs PuCK shows a great defense of the more economic harassment build:
hmm your probably right but usually human error makes 5-10 seconds of error on perfect warpgate usage+chrono
I would hope not, because a chrono'd warpgate has a cooldown of 13.464 real seconds to produce a zealot. That kind of error margin is beyond stupid if you are looking for sustained production. People (pros) miss large margins of production on warpgates all the time, but that is largely because warpgates are best used as spiky production (in a tight timing) or in other macro ways much more complicated and varied than sustained production, like a terran would do with marines vs Z
The only down side of this build is that it crushes diamond terrans completely, they rage, and then I have to build 2 stargates to chase the floating buildings.
hmm your probably right but usually human error makes 5-10 seconds of error on perfect warpgate usage+chrono
I would hope not, because a chrono'd warpgate has a cooldown of 13.464 real seconds to produce a zealot. That kind of error margin is beyond stupid if you are looking for sustained production. People (pros) miss large margins of production on warpgates all the time, but that is largely because warpgates are best used as spiky production (in a tight timing) or in other macro ways much more complicated and varied than sustained production, like a terran would do with marines vs Z
Continuous production without queing is way harder to execute than "spike" production.
Cool guide man. Rally love the phoenix colo transition. I always go phoenix colo, and while it is not the most cost effective unit compo, it is impossible to beat when u got 5+colossi, unless they got like 20+vikings
Tried this build and I gotta say, kudos for playing at the level where you can pull this off but guys, don't try this at gold league, it's baaaad news.
I've never really been a huge fan of 1 base builds vs. Terran. I'm about the same level as you, and through my experience, if you don't do a ton of damage with a 1-base opening, it's almost impossible to win because of mules. However, the good thing about your build is that you get collosus tech early as hell, which is really good. Tech pressure like this is very underrated in my opinion, it's not the same as something like. 4 gate which gives you nothing to fall back on. Interesting build here.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/5861/pvtinfrastructure.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7093/pvtcolossusishere.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9506/marauderdodge.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/3743/workerharass.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4112/frontattacktrick.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/8551/pvtantitank.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/6235/pvtcolossusphoenix.jpg)
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