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[H]TvP How to counter storm?

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Bahku
Profile Joined August 2012
United States182 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 21:32:05
January 14 2013 21:31 GMT
#1
Hi. I'm currently low-mid platinum league. I feel like in TvZ and TvT, I always win if I play correctly, and if I lose it's usually easy to spot my mistake. In TvP however, it doesn't seem to matter how much damage I do or how far ahead I get, I lose the vast majority of my games.

drop.sc/294883

Here's a game where I opened with a hidden CC first, and by the end of the game, I managed to completely mine out the hidden base since he never scouted it. So I practically got a free 10k minerals/10k gas, and my opponent never really got past 3 bases, and I STILL lost out of pure cost inefficiency.

I don't know how to fight against storm. Obviously you're supposed to EMP them, but the templar ALWAYS get blanket storms off on my entire army even when I try to EMP. It just seems like it's not effective at actually hitting them. I could try to move out a rogue squad of ghosts, but my opponent usually has them protected beneath the deathball, and I don't want to rely on my opponent making a mistake by not doing so.

I know that you can retreat from a storm, but I usually take too much damage to be able to recover even if I do so, and they usually have enough templars that they can just continue storming me indefinitely and it's impossible for me to be remotely cost efficient.

Any tips on this one? Or general TvP tips if you watch my replay? Thanks.
HungrySC2
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
United States191 Posts
January 14 2013 21:39 GMT
#2
Mostly you shouldn't get hit by storm at all... this means you have to engage in areas where you have enough room to retreat and stutterstep to kite the collosi/ht to avoid taking to much damage (sometimes you stand and fight vs collosi but almost never against HT)

The only real weakness HT have is that they are much slower than the rest of the army. So either you have to start the engagement with EMP and hope to blanket the entire army, or kite the army and try to emp the ht as they move up.

Everyone has problems with this, and very few can do it regularly... it takes very good control.
"First say to yourself what you would be; And then do what you have to do. (Epictetus)
Gladiator6
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden7024 Posts
January 14 2013 21:43 GMT
#3
Ghost vs templars is a dance, a battle of micro. Since you are platinum there's of course a lot of things you could had done much better. But really the best solution I can give you to fighting against storm is get both upgrades for it, I don't play Terran so I don't know the name but the energy upgrade and the cloak upgrade for ghosts. If you can scan and snipe obs with vikings you can emp him freely, since he won't have vision against your cloaked ghosts. Then when they're out of energy it's your move to strike.

If he doesn't attack you and just stay on three bases you don't really need to attack him if you don't want. I would say just stay passive and let him come to you since your economy is much greater and you can re max, maybe drop him once he moves out on multiple spots. Also don't forget with that economy you can get so many production buildings that you can almost re max instantly.
Flying, sOs, free, Light, Soulkey & ZerO
lorestarcraft
Profile Joined April 2011
United States1049 Posts
January 14 2013 21:50 GMT
#4
box the units under the storm and move them out. Practice dong it quickly.

User was warned for this post
SC2 Mapmaker
Bahku
Profile Joined August 2012
United States182 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 22:14:56
January 14 2013 22:14 GMT
#5
On January 15 2013 06:43 Gladiator333 wrote:
Ghost vs templars is a dance, a battle of micro. Since you are platinum there's of course a lot of things you could had done much better. But really the best solution I can give you to fighting against storm is get both upgrades for it, I don't play Terran so I don't know the name but the energy upgrade and the cloak upgrade for ghosts. If you can scan and snipe obs with vikings you can emp him freely, since he won't have vision against your cloaked ghosts. Then when they're out of energy it's your move to strike.

If he doesn't attack you and just stay on three bases you don't really need to attack him if you don't want. I would say just stay passive and let him come to you since your economy is much greater and you can re max, maybe drop him once he moves out on multiple spots. Also don't forget with that economy you can get so many production buildings that you can almost re max instantly.

Somehow I ran out of minerals at the end of the game, and he still had tons of money to play with. I completely mined out almost 4 bases.

I would love to play passive when I'm ahead in macro, but that's a huge no-no in TvP. Whenever I face a maxed toss army, it always decimates my maxed terran amy before I can even break through the frontal zealot wall. Doesn't matter how fast I can re-max =[

On January 15 2013 06:50 lorestarcraft wrote:
box the units under the storm and move them out. Practice dong it quickly.

Is there a trainer for this? And do you have an idea of how much this weakens the storms?
nath
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1788 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 22:16:05
January 14 2013 22:15 GMT
#6
scans + snipe

at your level, scans + emp the (presumably clumped) HT. im in diamond and all toss's clump HT, which is horrible to see.

taking clumps of bio to flank/hit HT/ eat storm is underrated, worst case if you take a little group and put in very vulnerable position, lower level players will storm it and waste the storm.
Founder of Flow Enterprises, LLC http://flow-enterprises.com/
Bahku
Profile Joined August 2012
United States182 Posts
January 14 2013 22:20 GMT
#7
On January 15 2013 07:15 nath wrote:
scans + snipe

at your level, scans + emp the (presumably clumped) HT. im in diamond and all toss's clump HT, which is horrible to see.

taking clumps of bio to flank/hit HT/ eat storm is underrated, worst case if you take a little group and put in very vulnerable position, lower level players will storm it and waste the storm.

I've tried this, like sending in 2 marines & 2 marauders to try and snipe a templar. It always just gets killed by the rest of the army instead of getting stormed lol.
Prime Directive
Profile Joined December 2011
United States186 Posts
January 14 2013 22:28 GMT
#8
On January 15 2013 06:39 HungrySC2 wrote:
Mostly you shouldn't get hit by storm at all... this means you have to engage in areas where you have enough room to retreat and stutterstep to kite the collosi/ht to avoid taking to much damage (sometimes you stand and fight vs collosi but almost never against HT)

The only real weakness HT have is that they are much slower than the rest of the army. So either you have to start the engagement with EMP and hope to blanket the entire army, or kite the army and try to emp the ht as they move up.

Everyone has problems with this, and very few can do it regularly... it takes very good control.


I think this is the best piece of advice for you (Diamond Terran here). You should get a natural feel for how close a HT has to be to get off the storm and always stay at the edge of it while kiting the army backwards. If they make the mistake of bringing the HT too far forward thats when you send in the small groups to snipe or get off the killer EMP/Snipes. If this never happens and you stay outside the range the whole time all the toss is left with are those HTs with no support. Good luck!
Bahku
Profile Joined August 2012
United States182 Posts
January 14 2013 22:34 GMT
#9
On January 15 2013 07:28 Prime Directive wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 15 2013 06:39 HungrySC2 wrote:
Mostly you shouldn't get hit by storm at all... this means you have to engage in areas where you have enough room to retreat and stutterstep to kite the collosi/ht to avoid taking to much damage (sometimes you stand and fight vs collosi but almost never against HT)

The only real weakness HT have is that they are much slower than the rest of the army. So either you have to start the engagement with EMP and hope to blanket the entire army, or kite the army and try to emp the ht as they move up.

Everyone has problems with this, and very few can do it regularly... it takes very good control.


I think this is the best piece of advice for you (Diamond Terran here). You should get a natural feel for how close a HT has to be to get off the storm and always stay at the edge of it while kiting the army backwards. If they make the mistake of bringing the HT too far forward thats when you send in the small groups to snipe or get off the killer EMP/Snipes. If this never happens and you stay outside the range the whole time all the toss is left with are those HTs with no support. Good luck!

Ya I guess this sounds ideal. I was kind of hoping that there would be a way to counter storm that's as easy as casting storm!

But this leaves sort of a problem: How do I actually engage a protoss army with storms? If I'm not mistaken, as a terran I need to smash into their army as much as possible in the mid-game to keep them from building some silly unstoppable deathball. But how do I engage the army directly if I'm the one who has to retreat in engagements?
Larkin
Profile Blog Joined January 2012
United Kingdom7161 Posts
January 14 2013 22:43 GMT
#10
Really it's a practise of splitting your units to storm dodge. Terran is the most micro intensive in this sense, so you will have to get good at this! But it'll be worth it, since it'll help you become a don at dodging banelings and projectile fungals too.

I'm fairly certain snipe outranges storm by 2 (don't quote me on this) so if you're a whiz with your clicker you can snipe HTs before they even get in range.

You should also ensure to have a good balance between viking and medivac production. Having too many vikings is deadweight, having too few and you won't kill the colossi - but getting the magic number allows you to have more medivacs, which can save your bio from stormy death. Keep being aware through scans of his army comp - see if he is still producing colossi and how many he has or not.

Some Terrans like to work in more and more marauders to their late game army comp so it becomes a ghost/marauder type thing. Marauders are amazing at tanking storm damage, especially with lots of medivac coverage. They're also pretty tanky against zealots so you can kite with them fairly easily.

In answer to your question above (how to engage) it's a matter of baiting. You want to make the Protoss think he is going to storm you. Then you dash out the way and his storms whiff. HTs are slower than the rest of the Protoss army so they lag behind - and as a result there's a few second delay between the Toss hitting T and the storm being cast, giving you time to dodge. Send small groups of stimmed marauders forward, try and snipe HTs, force out storms, attack in wide areas, split your units... sounds a lot but it will become second nature.

Believe me, as a Protoss, the other side of it - storming before we get EMPd/sniped - is just as annoying. But that's what makes SC2 such a skillful game!
https://www.twitch.tv/ttalarkin - streams random stuff, high level teamleague, maybe even heroleague
govie
Profile Blog Joined November 2012
9334 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 23:22:53
January 14 2013 22:58 GMT
#11
Ill bet its all true with the emp and ghost micro on higher levels. But in general, if u deny them there 5/6th gas geyser they wont have much. As long as u deny there 3rd and keep there supply low, u will allways have good exchanges with the exception that u don''t need gas for a big bio-army and can max out quicker (with better upgrades), thats what makes alot of difference. And seeing your game, u waited for 2 minutes at there doorstep, scanned, saw not many collosi and retreated. Then came back with a bigger army, 2 minutes later. Thats 4 minutes in total. He built 4 colossi by that time and u couldnt deny him his third.

Although this doesnt answer your question directly, i think if u would have engaged earlier (right after medi'vacs were there), u would have had a better position of denying him his 3rd and win the game by that.

Edit: U should watch day9 empire.kas episode. He also gets 3cc's like u do, he goes double upgrade and attacks early and denies them there 3rd. very-easy-tvp-by-empire-kas
The two NBA teams in states with legal weed are called the Nuggets and the Blazers...
HungrySC2
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
United States191 Posts
January 14 2013 23:08 GMT
#12
On January 15 2013 07:34 Bahku wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 15 2013 07:28 Prime Directive wrote:
On January 15 2013 06:39 HungrySC2 wrote:
Mostly you shouldn't get hit by storm at all... this means you have to engage in areas where you have enough room to retreat and stutterstep to kite the collosi/ht to avoid taking to much damage (sometimes you stand and fight vs collosi but almost never against HT)

The only real weakness HT have is that they are much slower than the rest of the army. So either you have to start the engagement with EMP and hope to blanket the entire army, or kite the army and try to emp the ht as they move up.

Everyone has problems with this, and very few can do it regularly... it takes very good control.


I think this is the best piece of advice for you (Diamond Terran here). You should get a natural feel for how close a HT has to be to get off the storm and always stay at the edge of it while kiting the army backwards. If they make the mistake of bringing the HT too far forward thats when you send in the small groups to snipe or get off the killer EMP/Snipes. If this never happens and you stay outside the range the whole time all the toss is left with are those HTs with no support. Good luck!

Ya I guess this sounds ideal. I was kind of hoping that there would be a way to counter storm that's as easy as casting storm!

But this leaves sort of a problem: How do I actually engage a protoss army with storms? If I'm not mistaken, as a terran I need to smash into their army as much as possible in the mid-game to keep them from building some silly unstoppable deathball. But how do I engage the army directly if I'm the one who has to retreat in engagements?


In the early/mid game (which ends after 2-3 collusus or a few minutes after the first storm hits the field) you can trade and should find ways to trade. Just try to retain as many units as possible. Most of the time the best way to win against protoss is to have enough of a supply lead that you can force a fight and deny the Protoss from securing a 3rd. A 2 base protoss isn't very scary. Concaves are more important than anything else in the early engagements.
"First say to yourself what you would be; And then do what you have to do. (Epictetus)
Dubsy
Profile Joined July 2011
Canada186 Posts
January 14 2013 23:09 GMT
#13
On January 15 2013 07:34 Bahku wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 15 2013 07:28 Prime Directive wrote:
On January 15 2013 06:39 HungrySC2 wrote:
Mostly you shouldn't get hit by storm at all... this means you have to engage in areas where you have enough room to retreat and stutterstep to kite the collosi/ht to avoid taking to much damage (sometimes you stand and fight vs collosi but almost never against HT)

The only real weakness HT have is that they are much slower than the rest of the army. So either you have to start the engagement with EMP and hope to blanket the entire army, or kite the army and try to emp the ht as they move up.

Everyone has problems with this, and very few can do it regularly... it takes very good control.


I think this is the best piece of advice for you (Diamond Terran here). You should get a natural feel for how close a HT has to be to get off the storm and always stay at the edge of it while kiting the army backwards. If they make the mistake of bringing the HT too far forward thats when you send in the small groups to snipe or get off the killer EMP/Snipes. If this never happens and you stay outside the range the whole time all the toss is left with are those HTs with no support. Good luck!

Ya I guess this sounds ideal. I was kind of hoping that there would be a way to counter storm that's as easy as casting storm!

But this leaves sort of a problem: How do I actually engage a protoss army with storms? If I'm not mistaken, as a terran I need to smash into their army as much as possible in the mid-game to keep them from building some silly unstoppable deathball. But how do I engage the army directly if I'm the one who has to retreat in engagements?


Thats more of a TvZ mindset really. If you are playing a macro game (ESP with 2x ebays) you don't need to keep trading units with Protoss. Try to delay his 3rd, drop his main/nat. Terran end game deathball is scary as hell for Protoss if you emp well. Just make sure to try to increase your ghost count as the game goes on. Ie your first 200/200 army will have primarily marine/marauder/Viking/medivac. Your next remax will cut some of those bio units for more ghosts as once you wipe out storm threat you can amove through anything P has assuming a decent Viking count.
With a right-left, right-left you're toothless, And then you say "Goddamn they ruthless!"
lorestarcraft
Profile Joined April 2011
United States1049 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 23:15:36
January 14 2013 23:15 GMT
#14
On January 15 2013 06:50 lorestarcraft wrote:
box the units under the storm and move them out. Practice dong it quickly.

Is there a trainer for this? And do you have an idea of how much this weakens the storms?


There are some good micro trainers out there. But i'm hesitant to say more because I might get warned again. Not sure how offering a tactic, methodology, and advice on performing is worth a warning. My message said that I might as well of told you to macro better. Some things are worth getting warnings for, but this is not. Whoever flagged my post must have been in a pretty ticky-tack mood.

You can go to the custom games or arcade and search for marine micro trainers and such. The way you split for banes can also help for storm too. Kiting back constantly is also and option.

Watch some Flash games too. He dodges storms better than anyone.
SC2 Mapmaker
Bahku
Profile Joined August 2012
United States182 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 23:33:45
January 14 2013 23:29 GMT
#15
On January 15 2013 08:15 lorestarcraft wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 15 2013 06:50 lorestarcraft wrote:
box the units under the storm and move them out. Practice dong it quickly.

Show nested quote +
Is there a trainer for this? And do you have an idea of how much this weakens the storms?


There are some good micro trainers out there. But i'm hesitant to say more because I might get warned again. Not sure how offering a tactic, methodology, and advice on performing is worth a warning. My message said that I might as well of told you to macro better. Some things are worth getting warnings for, but this is not. Whoever flagged my post must have been in a pretty ticky-tack mood.

You can go to the custom games or arcade and search for marine micro trainers and such. The way you split for banes can also help for storm too. Kiting back constantly is also and option.

Watch some Flash games too. He dodges storms better than anyone.

No offense to the community here, but it feels like the mods are way too quick to use their power. I see no reason to warn someone when they clearly have no intention of spamming or causing trouble.

Anyways, thanks for the other tips guys. I always felt like I'd have to rely more on denying a protoss their fourth, as a third seems too easy to secure. And I can't engage their army in a ramp with sentries, so I don't see much of a way to keep them from claiming a third.

I've tried engaging cost-inefficiently just to keep their colossus/sentry count down, but usually my army just gets forcefielded on the ramp and they all die without a single zealot casualty. Any tips on early engagements? Or should I maybe mass-expo in the early-mid game to force them to walk into my concave in front of their ramp?

Thanks guys, every post has seemed pretty constructive so far.
Dubsy
Profile Joined July 2011
Canada186 Posts
January 14 2013 23:36 GMT
#16
Other than entombed, no maps have a skinny ramp at the third so be creative. On cloud kingdom for example, dont walk straight at the third, come from the high ground. Or better yet come from both sides. While FF is scary you are usually safe to pick up trapped units as stalkers are typically in position for drop defense. And at this point in the game the Protoss likely won't be able to kill your stim bio + medivac if he attempts to trap 100% of it in with FF.
With a right-left, right-left you're toothless, And then you say "Goddamn they ruthless!"
govie
Profile Blog Joined November 2012
9334 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-14 23:40:32
January 14 2013 23:39 GMT
#17
On January 15 2013 08:29 Bahku wrote:
Anyways, thanks for the other tips guys. I always felt like I'd have to rely more on denying a protoss their fourth, as a third seems too easy to secure. And I can't engage their army in a ramp with sentries, so I don't see much of a way to keep them from claiming a third.

I've tried engaging cost-inefficiently just to keep their colossus/sentry count down, but usually my army just gets forcefielded on the ramp and they all die without a single zealot casualty. Any tips on early engagements? Or should I maybe mass-expo in the early-mid game to force them to walk into my concave in front of their ramp?

Thanks guys, every post has seemed pretty constructive so far.


Yes, they have sentries at the ramp. But u could have dropped some troops in there main, and split there forces up, multiprong attacks. Then there sentries wouldnt be such a problem because he would have had less troops at the ramp. If u let him get 6 gas or more, ur basically toast without ghosts and descent micro. This because there deathball is better than an MMM-only deathball, presuming u dont micro ghosts that well. Denying there 3rd ( or killing another one) is key to having them make choices about where the gas needs to go so they can never reach the toss deathball.
The two NBA teams in states with legal weed are called the Nuggets and the Blazers...
ProfessionalNoob
Profile Joined October 2012
United States75 Posts
January 14 2013 23:53 GMT
#18
I feel like the most important thing against templar is engagement position, you can't let him run all the way to your base uncontested and fight him in a place where your units easily get pinned or are unable to kite/spread out (this means naturals, 3rd bases, chokes around the map), this means that attacking into a protoss player's base is also bad, because if you run up a ramp and get stormed you're as good as dead.

Instead, let him move out, and drop when he does, or at least ride out to meet him in the mid field, where you can set up a concave, kite his army, or even flank with a few ghosts and EMP the templar hiding in the back of the army.
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
January 15 2013 02:48 GMT
#19
On January 15 2013 07:43 Larkin wrote:
Really it's a practise of splitting your units to storm dodge. Terran is the most micro intensive in this sense, so you will have to get good at this! But it'll be worth it, since it'll help you become a don at dodging banelings and projectile fungals too.

I'm fairly certain snipe outranges storm by 2 (don't quote me on this) so if you're a whiz with your clicker you can snipe HTs before they even get in range.

You should also ensure to have a good balance between viking and medivac production. Having too many vikings is deadweight, having too few and you won't kill the colossi - but getting the magic number allows you to have more medivacs, which can save your bio from stormy death. Keep being aware through scans of his army comp - see if he is still producing colossi and how many he has or not.

Some Terrans like to work in more and more marauders to their late game army comp so it becomes a ghost/marauder type thing. Marauders are amazing at tanking storm damage, especially with lots of medivac coverage. They're also pretty tanky against zealots so you can kite with them fairly easily.

In answer to your question above (how to engage) it's a matter of baiting. You want to make the Protoss think he is going to storm you. Then you dash out the way and his storms whiff. HTs are slower than the rest of the Protoss army so they lag behind - and as a result there's a few second delay between the Toss hitting T and the storm being cast, giving you time to dodge. Send small groups of stimmed marauders forward, try and snipe HTs, force out storms, attack in wide areas, split your units... sounds a lot but it will become second nature.

Believe me, as a Protoss, the other side of it - storming before we get EMPd/sniped - is just as annoying. But that's what makes SC2 such a skillful game!


To be a little more exact, I'll just expand this post:

Snipe and EMP both outrange feedback, so you should potentially always be getting those off if the templars are AT THE FRONT OF THE ARMY. If your opponent is keeping the HT either behind his army or in his army, feel free to just pull vikings/ghosts back and simply kite his zealots. With good stutter step micro, you should generally always be just out of range of colossus and templar.

The "magic number" of vikings is 8, as 2 volleys will kill a single colossus. If your opponent is going heavy on colossus (5-6), it's okay to go up to 15 to 1-shot them.

Marauders are now becoming more widely used in lategame TvP simply because marauders just don't die very quickly with medivac support. You want a marine/marauder ratio of about 3:2. As long as the marauders are sitting in front of the marines and taking the initial bursts of damage from colossus/zealots, the marines should melt the zealots really fast and then the rest of the protoss army is pretty defenseless.

The best way to "bait" storms is to simply wait for templar to almost get in range, and then begin kiting. NEVER SPLIT YOUR UNITS UNTIL MOST OF THE ZEALOTS ARE DEAD. You should be stutter-stepping back from storms/colossus, then splitting to deal with the splash damage after the wall of zealots is gone.

Hope this helps!
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
Bahku
Profile Joined August 2012
United States182 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-15 05:17:20
January 15 2013 05:09 GMT
#20
Just won two TvP's pretty convincingly. I've learned to split my army in half while attacking the third, with half the army camping behind his predicted attack rout for an instant concave. Both went storms, I still had heavy losses but I've been more capable of preventing them from getting a third while easily out-macroing them. I can easily replace units because I usually hit as their third is being built, while my third is already being muled up with a fourth on the way.

Thanks a lot for the advice everyone, I haven't been able to digest all of it but I've been using a lot of these tips. It seems my goal should be to eventually learn to snipe as it seems to be the most efficient way of dealing with templar, but until I get better awareness/mechanics I'll stick with positional play and (attempting) to dodge the storms.
ihOpe
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
192 Posts
January 15 2013 05:58 GMT
#21
uh snipe is longer range then emp. It outranges storm and feedback. Also you can try emping by flanking with a couple ghosts too. That can often catch a protoss off guard
terran hots stream ---> http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/iheartEDM
sc2pal
Profile Joined February 2011
Poland624 Posts
January 15 2013 07:19 GMT
#22
always have enough scan before fight to see everything, its terran biggest advantage
iamcaustic
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada1509 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-15 07:45:51
January 15 2013 07:42 GMT
#23
On January 15 2013 14:09 Bahku wrote:
Just won two TvP's pretty convincingly. I've learned to split my army in half while attacking the third, with half the army camping behind his predicted attack rout for an instant concave. Both went storms, I still had heavy losses but I've been more capable of preventing them from getting a third while easily out-macroing them. I can easily replace units because I usually hit as their third is being built, while my third is already being muled up with a fourth on the way.

Thanks a lot for the advice everyone, I haven't been able to digest all of it but I've been using a lot of these tips. It seems my goal should be to eventually learn to snipe as it seems to be the most efficient way of dealing with templar, but until I get better awareness/mechanics I'll stick with positional play and (attempting) to dodge the storms.

Another good tactic, aside from getting a big flank and taking out their army, is to basically hit where their army is not. In some cases, this means creating a diversion to get their army out of position and away from your real target. Dropping in the Protoss' main with a couple medivacs full of units will usually result in the Protoss pulling their forces into the main to defend. While it's doing that, you can have a well positioned strike force to go in and snipe the third while they're chasing after your drop. Just load up the drop and run away when the Protoss gets close.

Alternatively, if the Protoss heads back to the third to save it, just let your forces in the main do economic damage/snipe tech. In either case, just have the units the Protoss is chasing run away while the other group does the damage. This is pretty standard TvP at higher levels of play; you may have heard of the 10 min medivac timing. The basic idea is at 10 mins you'll have 2 medivacs finish production, and you move out with your forces to do this kind of whack-a-mole damage to the Protoss. This kind of tactic is also good to get back into the game if you're behind, as it forces the Protoss to stay home and defend and you don't have to worry about having enough troops to overpower your opponent's army.

In many cases, you'll actually be able to cripple your opponent to the point where you won't even have to worry about storms in the game. If you get far enough ahead with this kind of multi-pronged aggression, just some basic split/stutter micro to avoid storm damage (mentioned earlier in this thread) will be enough to overcome it, assuming the Protoss is even able to get storm tech before they die.
Twitter: @iamcaustic
Thirteenth
Profile Joined December 2012
Sweden10 Posts
January 15 2013 14:56 GMT
#24
pre-spreading cuts storm's effectiveness by almost half and should always be done when you have the time for it.

i find having a good amount of vikings and scanning for observers to allow cloaked ghosts free reign to be very effective. the P either has to choose to let himself get EMP'd/sniped or move back and wait for more observers.

if he moves back you can gain position, pre-spread again and just wait until he HAS to attack you because you are sitting on more bases than he is.

it is a very hard dance to pull off but equally so for the protoss and if he is going chargelot-archon he has almost no anti air to punish your vikings for observer sniping and this becomes incredibly effective.

dont get overeager trying to finish the game because you will have to rush into a choke and get stormed or collosi'd to death, in stead keep your good position and expand behind it, sooner or later he will have to come out and that is when you crush him with a superior arc
"This is Flash; when he logs onto the internet, nerds turn off their computer and hide under the bed." - Nick "Tasteless" Plott
Shaoer
Profile Joined July 2012
United States60 Posts
January 15 2013 20:01 GMT
#25
I think the main issue with templar is the baby sitting required. Let me elaborate, a lot of the times me(Protoss-Mid Masters) will win a PvT easily, other times I will lose convincingly. The difference is in multitasking. If a terran does a lot of drops(basically mineral trades), the protoss is forced to do one of the following:
1) spread units into different places
2) keep a templar at each base + a few warp ins open.
3) keep army in a ball and follow you around

If he continues with Option 1: , simply push his front. Protoss death ball needs to be a BALL for it to be effective. Imagine an army of zealot/sentry against MMM, it would be a convincing loss for toss. Only with stalker(chasing down units/medivacs), colis(stopping you for stuttering too much), templar(same as coli), full army would you be scared. And if he pulls all his stalkers to stop drops, perfect, vikings forward and snipe coli.

If he continues with Option 2: you laugh and win(jkjk). You run your units into probe line and profit. What's he gonna do? Storm you? lol probes die in 1 storm, your army can just stim out of it(whilst taking damage). If he warps in, estimate who's gonna win, and either pull back or engage.

If he continues with Option 3: Just easily out multitask him and engage when he's not at a base. Kill probes. Kill economy. Win

TL;DR Don't engage templars directly, make it so it's hard to engage you with templars
I GG all the time
guN-viCe
Profile Joined March 2010
United States687 Posts
January 16 2013 10:13 GMT
#26
This has already been said, but you need to split your units to reduce efficiency of the storms, you need to bait storms, and you might need EMP.
Never give up, never surrender!!! ~~ Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -Sagan
ETisME
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
12471 Posts
January 16 2013 10:45 GMT
#27
As a diamond terran who sucks against any heavy storm users, I sometimes just add some thors in mixture if I am that far ahead
In an engagement, I just keep poking with my thors and if he used feed back, I can just repair if he still has high HT counts.
If he doesn't have a lot of HTs and used feedback, then I can just stim in and spread the units out a little
其疾如风,其徐如林,侵掠如火,不动如山,难知如阴,动如雷震。
tar
Profile Joined October 2010
Germany991 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-16 11:15:57
January 16 2013 11:14 GMT
#28
On January 16 2013 05:01 Shaoer wrote:
I think the main issue with templar is the baby sitting required. Let me elaborate, a lot of the times me(Protoss-Mid Masters) will win a PvT easily, other times I will lose convincingly. The difference is in multitasking. If a terran does a lot of drops(basically mineral trades), the protoss is forced to do one of the following:
1) spread units into different places
2) keep a templar at each base + a few warp ins open.
3) keep army in a ball and follow you around

[...]

If he continues with Option 2: you laugh and win(jkjk). You run your units into probe line and profit. What's he gonna do? Storm you? lol probes die in 1 storm, your army can just stim out of it(whilst taking damage). If he warps in, estimate who's gonna win, and either pull back or engage.

[...]



wait what? defensive templar are considered the best drop defense there is:

it's not about the storm but the feedback that makes dealing with the drop forces considerably easier as well as putting the terran at risk of losing his dropships (and more often than not at least one dropship already dies to the feedback)
And if T brings in low energy dropships P can still use storm and warpins to fight, especially because the healing ability of the medvacs is already low.
With the building placement of most tosses being designed to block hellions from circleing the mineral line it also shouldn't be able to just walk in the probe line as long as the toss reacts in time (also: probe pulling anyone?).
I'm not saying that drops against templar defense are pointless, yet they are way more difficult and ur "just do this advice" makes it sound ridiculous. at least include more advice, like using low energy medvacs (all full on energy? stim before the drop so u can lower the energy ).

whoever I pick for my anti team turns gosu
Musicus
Profile Joined August 2011
Germany23576 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-01-16 11:54:35
January 16 2013 11:53 GMT
#29
On January 15 2013 16:19 sc2pal wrote:
always have enough scan before fight to see everything, its terran biggest advantage


Yep I think scans are the big thing to beating protoss and storm.

Bakhu I assue your opponents have also colossi in addition to the hts, otherwise you should have no problem hitting emps and snipes since your ghosts outrange everything else.
Ergo you should have vikings, use them in combination with scans to kill the observer and see where the hts are. Then your cloaked ghosts will have a timing window where you can just send them and emp/snipe everything.
Seems cheap but works really often, even on high level. In Platinum you opponents shouldn't have more than 2 obeservers with their army.

That's just another tactic in addition to all the other things said about splitting, big areas, flanking etc., you might want to try out.
Maru and Serral are probably top 5.
Shaoer
Profile Joined July 2012
United States60 Posts
January 16 2013 17:07 GMT
#30
On January 16 2013 20:14 tar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 16 2013 05:01 Shaoer wrote:
I think the main issue with templar is the baby sitting required. Let me elaborate, a lot of the times me(Protoss-Mid Masters) will win a PvT easily, other times I will lose convincingly. The difference is in multitasking. If a terran does a lot of drops(basically mineral trades), the protoss is forced to do one of the following:
1) spread units into different places
2) keep a templar at each base + a few warp ins open.
3) keep army in a ball and follow you around

[...]

If he continues with Option 2: you laugh and win(jkjk). You run your units into probe line and profit. What's he gonna do? Storm you? lol probes die in 1 storm, your army can just stim out of it(whilst taking damage). If he warps in, estimate who's gonna win, and either pull back or engage.

[...]



wait what? defensive templar are considered the best drop defense there is:

it's not about the storm but the feedback that makes dealing with the drop forces considerably easier as well as putting the terran at risk of losing his dropships (and more often than not at least one dropship already dies to the feedback)
And if T brings in low energy dropships P can still use storm and warpins to fight, especially because the healing ability of the medvacs is already low.
With the building placement of most tosses being designed to block hellions from circleing the mineral line it also shouldn't be able to just walk in the probe line as long as the toss reacts in time (also: probe pulling anyone?).
I'm not saying that drops against templar defense are pointless, yet they are way more difficult and ur "just do this advice" makes it sound ridiculous. at least include more advice, like using low energy medvacs (all full on energy? stim before the drop so u can lower the energy ).




Defensive templars are the best IF they spot the dropship in time. Even in pro games where templars are spread out across bases, storms are used more often b/c it's just kinda hard to spot a drop ship and have that fast a reaction time. Usually its storm being used.
I GG all the time
Risljaninasim
Profile Joined July 2011
Netherlands228 Posts
January 16 2013 18:04 GMT
#31
Suiciding ghosts to emp the templars (and usually big chuncks pf the P army) is not bad at all. And usually you can then just a-move because there are no shields anymore. Try to use the ghosts to control the battle, make the protoss be the one whos scared of you instead the other way around!
;;
Quotidian
Profile Joined August 2010
Norway1937 Posts
January 16 2013 18:57 GMT
#32
On January 15 2013 07:20 Bahku wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 15 2013 07:15 nath wrote:
scans + snipe

at your level, scans + emp the (presumably clumped) HT. im in diamond and all toss's clump HT, which is horrible to see.

taking clumps of bio to flank/hit HT/ eat storm is underrated, worst case if you take a little group and put in very vulnerable position, lower level players will storm it and waste the storm.

I've tried this, like sending in 2 marines & 2 marauders to try and snipe a templar. It always just gets killed by the rest of the army instead of getting stormed lol.


try sniping with the unit with the "snipe" spell instead
Kaitokid
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany1327 Posts
January 16 2013 20:51 GMT
#33
its also always a good idea to spread out your own ghosts as storm owns them pretty hard when they are clumped up. on top of that it increases your chances to EMP templars before they get a storm off because the templars are spread out aswell ideally.
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