EPTThe HotS Protoss Help Me Thread - Page 300
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Make sure you read the OP before asking a question. Asking a question already addressed in the OP will result in moderation action. Also, please put some effort into your questions. Do not just ask for build orders. | ||
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[PkF] Wire
France24203 Posts
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
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Biedrik
United States94 Posts
On October 03 2014 05:28 [PkF] Wire wrote: Since we're talking about probe scouting, what do you guys think about skipping it entirely in PvT and PvZ ? More precisely, what are the builds in those match-ups that, if unscouted, you will 100% lose to ? I don't think it can very useful to probe scout in these situations. In PvT, seeing whether or not your opponent went gas first can be very important depending on your opening, and it will of course let you see an incoming 2 rax. Probe scouting against Zerg will let you see the very important timing on the third hatch. You get to see if there's any greed that you can punish, and whether or not your opponent goes for a 2 base play. Will you necessarily get an auto-loss to some of this unscouted stuff? No, but the advantages that you can get from probe scouting will still often outweigh the little bit of extra mining that you would otherwise get. In some cases you can even get an economic advantage because this scouting will let you properly respond with something that will put your opponent behind. | ||
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Xinzoe
Korea (South)2373 Posts
On October 03 2014 05:28 [PkF] Wire wrote: Since we're talking about probe scouting, what do you guys think about skipping it entirely in PvT and PvZ ? More precisely, what are the builds in those match-ups that, if unscouted, you will 100% lose to ? interesting question. For me I never probe scout in PvT , i only scout for proxies and go back to mining. Then from that point on i rule out each possible opening from terran. If reaper doesn't arrive by 4:30 then i check locations for proxy factory. If no factory then i send it to terrans base to see gas timings. I also chronoboost my first stalker so i can get 2 stalkers at the ramp in time for gas first hellions. Once the timing has passed ,i will have my 3rd stalker out and i put all 3 stalkers on patrol at the edges of my main to defend against gas first widow mine drops. Keep in mind that i veto 4 player maps + catellena though It's not the same for PvZ since there are harder build order losses like nexus first vs speedlings for example. | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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[PkF] Wire
France24203 Posts
On October 03 2014 06:00 SatedSC2 wrote: PvT is different. Knowing the Terran's gas timing is really important IMO. I'd love you to be more precise. What are the reads you can / need to get from this knowledge and which subsequent adjustments will you make ? Because I feel most safe PvT builds wouldn't be altered the slightest even if preparing for gas first agression (fast stalkers, good unit positioning and pylons spread), but I may very well be wrong. Thanks in advance. | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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KingAlphard
Italy1705 Posts
On October 03 2014 05:28 [PkF] Wire wrote: Since we're talking about probe scouting, what do you guys think about skipping it entirely in PvT and PvZ ? More precisely, what are the builds in those match-ups that, if unscouted, you will 100% lose to ? In PvT if you scout as I said in the post before, it doesn't really hurt your economy. Sure it's a probe less mining, but when you already have 15 others mining so it's just ~6% less income. Not only this, but when you're done scouting, you can try to hide the probe in his side of the map to proxy pylons later on. Often the terran player will bring back his reaper to kill your probe which will make him unable to scout/harass for a while. Do you scout things that otherwise would kill you? Maybe a 1 base 5 rax would kill you. Obviously this is out of the meta so it's not that much of an issue. Of the common builds, there isn't any that could kill you if you don't scout it I think. But, being able to confirm early on that your opponent went gas first or not is a good advantage for you, having a few more stalkers out and an observer in position helps out a ton. In PvZ you can skip scouting only if you go msc expand. With other builds you can die to early pools, 14/14, etc. I'd say that if you msc expand it's fine to not probe scout, but like in PvT it makes you less safe against certain builds. | ||
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vhapter
Brazil677 Posts
On October 03 2014 05:28 [PkF] Wire wrote: Since we're talking about probe scouting, what do you guys think about skipping it entirely in PvT and PvZ ? More precisely, what are the builds in those match-ups that, if unscouted, you will 100% lose to ? As far as I know, there's no build in PvT that you will 100% lose to if it goes unscouted - assuming you're going msc expand into 3 stalkers + robo. Although it'll be harder if it goes unscouted, you can even beat an 11-11 while blindly expanding. If you do want to scout, you should keep in mind that if you send a late scout probe with the goal of avoiding the reaper and don't scout around at all, you're still very likely to be caught by surprise by an 11-11. One of the ways to deal with this this is to look for very early ebay blocks and check your third/nearby proxy locations after you start your cybercore like Patience does (or at least used to do), then build your nexus with the same probe and send it to scout the terran's main while avoiding the reaper. If you do this, you have to be more careful with the path you take and it's much easier to lose your scout probe this way too. One of the nice things about this is that if there's no early scv scout or reaper, there's a chance the terran is building a proxy factory - this way, you rule out one of the possible proxy locations (or maybe even run into a proxy) and can freely look for proxies elsewhere with your msc. There's another way to scout that I haven't seen anyone mention yet - msc + stalker before expanding. CJherO has done it a few times - 13 gate 13 gas (hold your second chrono until you start your geyser), save your 4th chrono boost, and then chrono boost your first stalker + msc. Send your msc to scout right away, unless a reaper shows up and you can do some easy damage to it. Otherwise, just use your stalker defensively. You can oftentimes kill the scv building the command center if the terran went reaper expand and poke with your msc to see if there's a factory (not guaranteed). This obviously has the added benefit of getting an early stalker against any 11-11s and still having enough supply for a second one (you will have 24/26 supply). | ||
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[PkF] Wire
France24203 Posts
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On October 05 2014 10:24 [PkF] Wire wrote: To complete the trinity of probe scouting as P, what does the current theory say about the viability of scouting only for proxies in PvP (in the way that was quite trendy at the beginning of HotS, scouting later with hallucination if expanding or through agression) ? It's not about what's "trendy", but what your build is about. The early HotS builds were mostly fast expand builds that could hold just about everything besides proxies, so you didn't need to scout early on. If you're going for a 3-gate blink build, you're very vulnerable to a lot of things (DTs, oracle, 4-gate blink), and a sentry doesn't quite fit into the build as nicely; in this situation, it's much more advantageous to core scout and run back in around 4:30-5:00 to check the tech/units of the other player. In fact, a lot of builds don't even rely on the photon overcharge for defense because they just make a lot of units; in this case, you can even MSC scout and recall. For other builds, you're not going to change your build no matter what you scout. For instance, if you go proxy stargate before any units, you're taking the risk of the build, so you might as well just skip scouting because it won't change what you will actually do. It's all about your build and what makes sense. Just think about what you could die to and use scouting as problem solving method to avoid dying. | ||
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Xinzoe
Korea (South)2373 Posts
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KingAlphard
Italy1705 Posts
The idea is to get inside your opponent's base right after he finished his cybernetics core, before any ranged units are out, get a full scout and then hide your probe. What you are looking for: - 10 gate into 3 gate - 2 gate opening vs 1 gate opening - how much gas he has mined (how early his tech can be / which tech is more likely) - very fast stargate /twilight council I find it very helpful to know if your opponent is going/not going for these things. Once ranged units are out there is the infamous timing window where stalkers are out and it's almost impossible to scout for a while. You can try with the mothership core, but I don't feel very comfortable in doing it because you often are forced to recall, which means you have no photon overcharge, and you can straight up lose against a very aggressive build if you didn't scout it before. Also with the nerfed vision range it's easier to deny it. I like to run a probe (the same that I had used for scouting before) up his ramp and see what he has at about 5:00-5:30. Sometimes I get precious information, like an early nexus. But usually you get denied completely. After that, if you go blink you can scout by doing pressure, with stargate you use your air units, and with robo you send hallucinations. | ||
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[PkF] Wire
France24203 Posts
I'd like to ask another question : I remember someone in this thread calling NaNiwa's old 1 gate expand obsolete. What would a modern PvP 1 gate expand look like ? It's a build we very rarely see played at the highest level, which I don't really understand because I thought 1 gate expands worked fairly well against twilight builds that are really commonplace nowadays. So : 1) What would a modern PvP 1 gate FE build be ? 2) Why is it seldom used by pros ? Is it inherently flawed and autoloss to current meta builds ? | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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Teoita
Italy12246 Posts
Generally, it's stronger on maps that aren't very blink friendly and/or do not have a lot of air space around the main. Like basically every other pvp opening it's strong against some things and awful against others. | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
I think Gateway expand can be argued to be viable, but it really depends on a player being really solid with the style. It depends more on decision-making than actual mechanics. For pro-players, I think that they would prefer to play several builds that depend on mechanics that are transferable across builds, rather than one very well planned build. Obviously, Naniwa was famous for having meticulous builds. But yeah, I think that the build is a lot harder to pull off than just "staying alive", in terms of the transitions and decision making. Given the unpredictability of the match-up, it's also possible that after a lot of refinement, there are still some builds that outright beat it, proxy stargate might be one such build, and then your time spent refining it will be quite wasted, considering it was time that could have been spent playing aggressive styles. | ||
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Extenz
Italy822 Posts
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vhapter
Brazil677 Posts
On October 06 2014 03:31 Extenz wrote: I literally lost 5 games in a row vs gas steal 4 gate.... the guy goes 9 scout steals 1 gas and 4 gates. I defended some games after cause he kept doing the same thing, np he just contained and expanded. Every single game. I'm speechless. Leave a probe in hold position next to each geyers. It should be easy to avoid this unless the player is very careful with the path he takes... I mean, Habitation Station isn't in the map pool anymore. Even if he succeeds in stealing one of your geysers, the gas steal still delays his build much more than you acknowledge. Since he's pylon scouting (and possibly wasting even more minerals to steal one of your geysers), you'd definitely have an edge if you decided to do a 4 gate of your own upon scouting his build. You could do exactly what you said he did to you if you think it's that strong - 4 gate, contain if you can't break him, and expand. | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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