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As a high diamond who faces masters often. I have recently been frustrated in PvT by the power of speed medivacs and how it often feels impossible to take a 3rd at any reasonable time compared to the Terran. I was looking for a build that takes initiative and map control without being super vulnerable. I came up with this and was hoping for feedback. So here is my first actual post on TL.
Replays
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Opening
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13 gate
15/16 double gas with 2x probes
17 core
19 zealot (chrono and rally circuitously to opponents natural to avoid reaper scouts)
Stalker/WG at core completion
Twilight as money allows
2 more gateways at ~60% wg research
Blink as money allows
MSC at 16 probes mining with 2x3 in gas (as money allows)
Nexus as money allows
Forward pylon as money allows
Warp in 3 stalkers are forward pylon
Throughout, I try never to cut probes (hence the "econ" :-))
Begin harassment
Chrono Allocation
I save all of my chrono for blink and try to chrono constantly until it is done. Afterwards I allocate my chrono to both nexuses in an effort to even up the probe count. Then, I allocate chrono to the double forges.
Attack Strategy
After blink is ready, I use the MSC, time warp, and blink to harass at all of the angles that I can get at, however, at my level, I've found that ending the game isn't absolutely critical.
Follow Up
This usually doesn't end the game, so my follow up is roughly:
charge as money allows -> dark shrine -> robotics bay -> 3 more gates -> Templar archives -> 2x forge
With the new warp prism speed, its easy to keep prisms alive, so I warp in 2-3 dts at the forward pylon and pick them up with a warp-prism and attempt to drop them in such a way as to force as many scans as possible while using the prism to continue the harassment as long as possible. I generally take a 3rd while this harassment is going on. Additionally, the DT harassment also serves as an insurance in case I did very little damage with the blink stalkers and need to try and warp-in dts to stall a push in time to get more stuff out.
All this seems to set up nicely for the lategame with storm/archons/charge and 2xforge upgrades.
Observations
A lot of terrans open with a reaper scout. Rallying the zealot around the incoming reaper scout can do damage or delay a terran since they won't have many marines or a bunker up at their front.
I've found that blink/time warp are great for soft contains if the terran gives up their natural.
Its not difficult to keep the medivac or tank count low if terrans give up their natural and then try to retake it.
Charge zealots/DT/stalkers make a great defense for when terran gets enough medivacs and marauders to break the contain.
This seems to match up reasonably well v the fastest hellion drops I've seen. The first 4 stalkers can pressure the front and with chrono there is still time to warp-in some defense at home.
Weaknesses
I've had some really close calls matching up against fast WMs since there isn't detection.
I've yet to play a game where Terran is completely prepared for the DT follow-up. I'm not sure if Terrans would ever want to pre-emptively throw down enough turrets to provide detection everywhere, but I think the threat of DT drops is at least enough to contain a soft contain. As a corollary I'm not certain if I would be able to actually catch back up on probes even without doing damage using DTs.
I am hoping for feedback on the general ideas or any way I can tighten up my build, although its very freeform after the initial blink harass starts.
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This isn't really an economic build, I was hoping to see a 1gate nexus into 3gate blink, or a 2gate blink. This is a pretty standard blink build, but I have one question, why the Zealot? It is wasted minerals since in the attack it is useless and versus a good opponent it wouldn't be able to kill the Reaper or do any damage, I just don't see a point in making a Zealot in this build.
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If you check out DuStKampf's replay pack, despite being from patch 1.5.4 I believe it is, he still has some really cool blink/obs play vs terran. It's basically a 4:10ish expo, into 4:50'ish robo and twilight, getting the extra 2 or 3 gates slightly later. This was originally super greedy, and now it isn't really because of the new mothership core and such, making it a go-to opener. Kampf defeats qxc with it, always delaying and never really letting him achieve the 10-11 min medivac timing, sniping add-ons, forcing moves to bases, etc. The game gets much easier in Kampf's favor.
Check it out, it's a very interesting and powerful concept and even so, it's strong vs any drop opener because of the blink and obs.
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On June 24 2013 05:49 Jackowacko wrote:
If you check out DuStKampf's replay pack, despite being from patch 1.5.4 I believe it is, he still has some really cool blink/obs play vs terran. It's basically a 4:10ish expo, into 4:50'ish robo and twilight, getting the extra 2 or 3 gates slightly later. This was originally super greedy, and now it isn't really because of the new mothership core and such, making it a go-to opener. Kampf defeats qxc with it, always delaying and never really letting him achieve the 10-11 min medivac timing, sniping add-ons, forcing moves to bases, etc. The game gets much easier in Kampf's favor.
Check it out, it's a very interesting and powerful concept and even so, it's strong vs any drop opener because of the blink and obs.
The opener is way more economical (Kampf's), has a SLIGHTLY delayed blink harass, and all-in-all is better. You're not opting to go all in or anything since you're getting an expand, so why get such an early twilight and such a late nexus? Best to switch it around since you have different goals you want to achieve.
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The zealot is to avoid the reaper and pressure the natural while the reaper is at my base. I termed it Econ because there is a follow-up plan unlike every other blink first I've ever seen. I suppose the quotes were a little subtle. It occurs to me it would probably be possible to throw down a nexus before gates 2 and 3 and still have them ready for blink if I scout an expansion build. There would be fewer stalkers for the first attack though. I may try that and post more replays.
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i find going robotics bay behind blink is a better choice, you need a lot of zealots for charge to be really effective, so you're implicitly delaying your 3rd by a lot more than usual, it also is better in case you get 2 base allin'd.
this delays your upgrades so much that your gateway units are just really weak.
i prefer to play blink if terran opens up mine drops/reactor hellion/hellbat drops into colossus, otherwise if he plays 1 rax FE or some sort of reaper expo i prefer to go 1 gate robo into 2x forge/twilight into 5 or 6 gate. with nexus cannon you can easily hold anything with the single gate.
if they open more than one rax initially , i just match their rax count with my gate count.
you can deny drops playing these styles just by good observer placement. i typically am making about 3 obs in these situatins, one to cover my main, one that is floating (checking their base and then reverting to a hoke point that i dont have vision of, and a 3rd to cover my natural if there is dead space. once i'm on 3 base i just use a single cannon usually and leave one or two templar in a vulnerable area for feedback.
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I appreciate the feedback. I wasn't able to find kampf's replay pack and I am very curious to see what he does. Does anyoke have a link? To further my understanding could someone elaborate how this is suboptimal beyond just that I delay my natural. I consciously want to be as aggressive as possible and I was wondering if my opponents were reacting incorrectly and putting themselves at a disadvantage even though at least 1/2 scouted the early twilight.
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I tried out a gate-core-expand into 4-gate blink during the Beta. The issue I had with it is the widow mines. When you 1-base all-in against an early expanding Terran, your blink stalkers are done well before he can get a medivac in your base, so there's no issue as long as you check for proxies, but with 2-base blink, the medivac is finished around the time your first stalker warp-ins occur. You're then forced to warp in stalkers at home to defend the medivac IF you scout his build correctly, and it's very difficult to do any damage that way. Also, Terran has a lot of 2-base all-ins that are ready around the same time as the blink stalkers. At minimum, I'd say get a forge + cannons with the blink stalkers (HuK build) or the robo as Jackowacko already suggested.
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As for why your build is suboptimal, it's because if you're going 3gates + twilight council, there shouldn't be any money left over for you to expand until well after your attack is underway. When you expand, that's 400 minerals that should've gone towards stalkers for your attack. The advantage of having warp gate and blink done earlier disappears. If you're going to delay the stalker warp-ins anyway, then you should have just gone ahead and built the nexus much earlier, and gotten a bigger economy.
If you want to 3gate blink all-in, skip the chrono on the zealot. Get 3 probes in each gas slightly earlier. Get your MsC started earlier. Once blink is started, use all of your chronos on it instead of warp gate. Warp gate is finishing much earlier than blink, which shouldn't happen. Send your probe out earlier to build the proxy pylon. Send it with the first stalker. Consider skipping the zealot. If you're worried about reapers, you can chrono the stalker, or you can use probe micro to keep the weaker ones back plus building placement to restrict the reaper's movement to keep almost all of them alive until the stalker finishes. When you get good at microing probes, it'll have about as big of an impact on your economy as getting an early reaper had on the Terran's economy and tech.
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Canada26 Posts
I cannot comment on your build or this discussion too well since I play T, but as someone who also somewhat dislikes the "respond to greed by being greedier or going all-in" meta, I applaud your effort, especially since I heard Protoss tends to be ineffective unless they go all-in. I'm constantly looking for builds/transitions which allow effective skirmishing and pressure in TvP/TvZ without delaying expansions too much, and it isn't simple with a race that can go through their entire tech tree off 1 base in 6 minutes. Hellbat drops are strong but economically the equivalent of going DTs, mine drops purely depend on how distracted your opponent is and even Diamond players are becoming increasingly proficient at deflecting both.
Trying out these builds also mean losing quite a bit and occasionally getting trash talk from random ladder maddies. Kudos to you sir, and I hope the "more optimal" versions you are getting from this thread allows you to rock into Master league with a playstyle you know and mostly figured out on your own.
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EPT
