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Hey guys,
As a low level player, I have been losing a lot to things that surprise me. I'm trying to work on my scouting. I put together a list of things to check for.
I know it's not complete and may not be totally accurate, but it's something I want to put up for some people struggling with the same. If you have anything to add or correct, please let me know and I will edit.
+ Show Spoiler + PvP
12 probe:
· Pylon/forge at natural – This is a FFE opening. Feel free to take an expansion or put on some early pressure.
· Only 1 pylon or nothing in main –probably cheese. Look for cannon rush or proxy gates
· 1 Gate warping in + 1 gas(core being started) – Standard opening. Need more info before knowing if things are safe.
4-5 min peek:
· No expansion – prepare for early 1-base pressure. Don’t expand yet!
· Nexus warping in – Standard expo timing. Take an expansion or apply some pressure.
· Stargate warping in – Early air pressure coming. Prepare for void rays.
· 3 warp gates + 1 robo – standard 1 base play. Get an observer to look for any warp prism shenanigans.
· Twilight council done and dark shrine starting – DTs coming. Get stealth detection up.
6-8 min:
· Check for a 3rd
PvT
12 probe:
· Empty base, only 1 supply depot –Look for proxy rax
· 1 rax, no gas – early expand coming. Possibly safe to expand. Wait for next move.
· 2-3 rax + 1 gas – Early marine/maurader pressure. Be ready around the 5-7 min mark.
· Double gas – possible shenanigans. Get an observer to check for banshees.
4-5 min peek: · No expansion – prepare for early 1-base pressure. Don’t expand yet!
· Expo taken – Take an expo to catch up, or put on some pressure.
Observer scout when possible:
· Multiple starports with tech labs –Mass banshee
· Many barracks + reactored starports – MMM, get colossi
· Many factories – Some type of mech play… thors, hellions, etc.
PvZ
12 probe:
· Gets killed by zerglings on the way –6 pool… Hope you have a wall off.
· Pool finished. Low worker count –fast pool. Zerglings probably coming.
· Hatchery starting, no pool –Vulnerable to very early pressure
· Pool started, drone looking to expand (hatch may already be started) – Safe opening. Feel free to expand.
· 1 gas + pool morphing or complete –early zergling speed or lair. May be defensive, don’t go too crazy yet (unless pool is already dancing and drones are pulled off gas… then start to worry)
5-7 min:
· Check for 3 rd
· 2 base, 4 gasses going down at 6 min – possible 2 base roach play. Check for roach warren at 7 min, lair morphing, evo chambers, all the signs.
· Spire morphing – early muta harass coming.
· Baneling nest – probable ling/bling mix. Maybe going muta.
· If there are an unnecessarily large amount of zerglings out, he’s probably going ling/muta and needs to dump his spare minerals.
· Check for obvious tech buildings. Roach warren means roaches, hydra den means hydras, etc. Lair dancing could mean burrow tech or overlord drop
8-9 min:
· All roaches coming out – Stephano style mass roach build. Get colossi, sentries, air, etc. Maybe storm?
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For Zerg they put their fast 3rd down between the 4 and 5 minute mark. If you check at 7 you would not know in time if a 2 base all in is coming. Just keep your scouting probe alive and head to their third around 4:40ish, you should see a hatch or a drone coming over, if you see nothing by 5 your spidey senses should be tingling and you should send the probe to their main, most of the time it wont live long enough to see anything, but if you do see something its precious. If there's no third I would throw down at least one more cannon and get sentries.
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If your a low level player then there is no way that you can scout effectively and see everything that your opponent is doing and still macro effectively. When most lower league players scout they spend waaaay to much time microing their worker and they look back and find that they are floating 1k mins. Besides, you are a protoss and you have warp in. You would be better off just looking at expansions and playing your own game well instead of worrying at what he throws at you. Once your mechanics are down you can start to worry about effective scouting.
Still, this is well done if kinda redundant (most of these things are no duh) 
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Very true, I do need to focus on me, but if I'm going for fast blink and I get DT rushed, I lose :/
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I haven't played in a while, but FFE in PvP? That's most likely a cannon rush. IIRC, FFE straight up dies to blink or warp prism all-ins, along with virtually any all-in.
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I think this is a great idea and should help all players plat and below. Obviously this is less useful at the low low leagues because no one there really knows what they're doing lol.
I would make a minor note at the stargate part in PvP. Diamond and above players go for phoenix. Gold and lower probably void rays.
It might help to put in times too. For an example, spire starts around ~10 minutes usually. Hive around ~13 minutes. Standard terran midgame pushes 8-11 minutes etc. This is assuming adequate macro from opponent.
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Ty for the contributions so far! I wanted to include timings, but I don't know them all. I'll look some up and include it. To hard to edit on mobile, do I'll do it after work
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On July 31 2012 03:28 Xietep wrote:
Very true, I do need to focus on me, but if I'm going for fast blink and I get DT rushed, I lose :/
Blink stalker play usually involves blinking into your opponent's bases and causing damage correct? You need vision to blink onto high ground, and that means either stargate units or Robo tech. Its probably better to go Robo tech as late game pvp is all about massing colossus: with the robotics make an observer, and scout around their bases until your blink is ready, then go in.
You can do that on either 1 or 2 bases.
If your doing 2 bases, u can mix in the plus 1 attack on a forge and drop a few cannons as well. That should stop those dts
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Is that really how people play in diamond and under ?
If you only look at PvP:
+ Show Spoiler +
PvP
12 probe:
· Pylon/forge at natural – This is a FFE opening. Feel free to take an expansion or put on some early pressure. No such thing as forge expand in PvP, just go blink and kill them if they do this
· Only 1 pylon or nothing in main –probably cheese. Look for cannon rush or proxy gates
· 1 Gate warping in + 1 gas(core being started) – Standard opening. Need more info before knowing if things are safe.
number of geysers is what you should be looking for, as well as chronoboost usage
4-5 min peek:
· No expansion – prepare for early 1-base pressure. Don’t expand yet!
· Nexus warping in – Standard expo timing. Take an expansion or apply some pressure.4-5 minute nexus is nothing standard, the greediest FE builds come at 5:30
· Stargate warping in – Early air pressure coming. Prepare for void rays. phoenix more likely
· 3 warp gates + 1 robo – standard 1 base play. Get an observer to look for any warp prism shenanigans.
· Twilight council done and dark shrine starting – DTs coming. Get stealth detection up.
You shouldn't be able to scout tech structure at 5 minutes as it will be denied with stalkers or sentries. Check for unit count or aggressive probes.
Don't get me wrong, you are probably right that this works at your level, but I feel that you're learning the wrong metagame (did I use that word right ?) and you should rather work on a solid build that pros use that should defend anything that comes at you.
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Just using dt's as an example. It could be anything that takes me by surprise.
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in PvP I would 9 scout. If you scout nothing in the main, you are probably facing either a cannon rush or proxy gate. Stop gas production ASAP and build a second gateway. Start searching your main and the ramp down to your natural for proxy cannons. If you find proxy pylons being built pull probes, and cancel the second gateway. If you don't find any proxy cannons being built allow your second gateway to finish. You will have double gateway production for zealots and a better economy+ probes to help you fight.
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Canada13389 Posts
On July 31 2012 03:47 Xietep wrote:
Just using dt's as an example. It could be anything that takes me by surprise.
Sorry man, but I think what you are scouting for is just plain wrong.
You are worried about Scouting a specific thing which isn't necessary in PvP early game and impossible with a probe.
If you learn a strong and solid build like blink observer, or robo expand you can do well.
Things to scout for with initial probe:
- Gate/Core Timing
- Gas
- Units
- Pylons
- Nexus Energy
Ok so here is a good breakdown IMO and if I am wrong someone let me know.
- Gate/Core timing
- If his core is significantly faster than yours it is probably super fast WG aggression. This means you need to play a little more defensively since your WG is gonna be late. Focus on that sentry after first zealot and stalker instead of 2 stalkers. Chrono WG, and get more gates before tech.
- Gas
- If you show up and you see 2 gas taken and you are at 17 food, then they are doing something gas funky. Alternatively click on THEIR gas and see how much they have taken. There are two types of geyser openings to keep in mind. There is a delayed 2 gas opening with 2 probes on each gas which is "normal" (He isn't rushing DTs dont worry) and a one gas 3 probes. If you click the one gas and see he's taken 100 gas, and you look up at your gas and see 50 in the corner, he took his gas earlier than you. Your WG might be up earlier but he will be getting some sort of gas heavy tech. Possibly DTs, be careful and get a robo to be safe. Scout with obs/.
- Units
- Your idea of a second scout closer to 5ish minutes is good. If you send a probe up his ramp and you see two zealots one stalker and its the 6 minute mark worry about DTs. The way I remember is if you dont see 250 gas spent on units at his base around the 5:30 minute mark and he opened standard gas, chances are they are rushing some sort of tech. Make 2 obs if you open robo, send one their way to scout, make the 2nd at home.
-Pylons
- If you have made 2 pylons at your base and you see one at his and he isn't cutting probes or worker production, there is a proxy. If you have 3 pylons made and he only has 2, once again there is a proxy since you should have similar supply counts up until the 26 supply count. And they are probably not supply blocked at 26 if they have a zealot stalker out on the map.
- Energy
- if you see a 100 energy nexus, check what he chronos. Is it going on warpgate? Is his core early? Is he on one gas? If you answer yes to these 3 questions well congrats you sir are being hit with a 4 gate more than likely. Did you see a third pylon? No? Well then You are DEFINITELY being 4 gated.
In addition to this there is a little more nuance but this is good basic scouting you should be doing. Scouting on 13 with the gateway is good but if you dont feel safe scout on 9 and then gate on 12 instead of 13. I tend to scout the most common inside my base proxy places with the 9 probe, send it back to mine then scout out of base with 13 probe.
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your pvp scouting is a bit wierd, standard macro pvp builds will expand between 7-8, if you dont see expo at 7-8 or so, you can expect some sort of 1 base pressure build into either an all in or an expand. Its always good to keep something out on the map (either probe or pylon) so when they pressure your base you can send a scout to see whether its an all in or if they are expanding behind the pressure (this applies to every matchup).
Also, similar to scouting, is map awareness. Try to have control of every xelnaga tower at all times. Make 3-5 pylons scattered on the map in key positions to 1) scout for incomming drops 2) see when they expand and 3) know their army position/composition. You will lose them periodically, but its worth it, dont forget to remake them. His army shows up and kills your pylon, you lose 100 minerals but now you know where his army is. This gives you the opportunity to harass his farthest expansion with a warpin of zealots at a pylon you have in the other corner of the map etc. You want to know where his army is at all times to take advantage of positioning and his vulnerable spots.
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Well this is a reality check that I really don't know the proper protoss openings. Great advice, and I'll edit the OP asap
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United States4883 Posts
I posted a topic a little while ago about how to scout properly with your initial scout and what you should see...perhaps it will be a valuable addition to this topic:
How to Scout
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Good notes you put some effort into it well done. i think the protoss expansion timings are insanely early though, I kind of presume a pvp to be 1 base play and expansion kind of the exception to the rule when that fails
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ZeromuS has pretty much laid it out all for you. I follow the 1 gate into tech guide found on TL. As a result, to be safe, I always gate on 12 and scout with the 12 probe, encircling all the possible and common cheese locations and still getting to their base before 18 supply, where I can compare core timing + gas timing.
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EPT
