The last time I have been livestreaming somebody wrote in chat that "I play pretty greedy, never scout and I would just die to basically everything"
Apparently, there is a big discrepancy of what scouting actually is. In essence, I would define scouting as receiving information by sacrificing something else.
As an example, I get information on the Gastimings of my opponent with a probescout, but on the same time i sacrifice economy for that.
I get scouting of my opponents armymovements whenever i take a watchtower, but i might fall into risk being catched offguard losing my unit. Obviously you are more open for attacks if your army is more spread out.
So just because somebody does not probescout, it is just wrong to say he is not scouting. Anyways, I explained it to my viewer and thought about doing a conclusive guide about the general idea of scouting and timings in PvP.
In general, PvP looks like this for me, going into the game, you have a big picture in front of you, this big picture is everything your opponent could go for.
Let this be: Proxygates,Warpgatetimings,Stargateallins,....
Now your job as a player is to narrow down the picture to a point where u can make (safe) assumptions and react properly to what your opponent is doing. It is not about finding out about what your opponent is doing, I would rather describe it as "narrowing it down to the most likely thing".
I have worked on this topic for a long while for my own play, and now I want to share it by sharing this Guide. I hope it helps, constructive criticism is welcome!
Btw: I just realized there were a few small things I said like "we see the 3rd pylon, so its not a proxy-stargate", I actually meant to say its not the quickest one
1.which leaug do u play? 2. this watchtower things works great on a map like that which u use in ur video but maps like akilon waste or neo planet s and destrict of newkirk don´t got watchtowers ( akilon got watchtower but got the big middl blind field) what do u do on other maps ? 3.wouldn´t a dt expand throw u back in the game ? cuz letzs say i got my expand at 5-6 min and my first 2-3 dts come at 6:30-6:45 i would attack ur naturall try to come in the main with one if u got a observer i would go back with the dts if not try still to harass u there
2.) Yes, this is true, it works especially well on this map. What you do on other maps? Well, it really heavily depends on the map, but to be honest, being active on the map with a Stalker is never a bad thing and kinda works the same way as the watchtower on a map like Belshir - U have to be careful of 3 stalker rushes though. On maps like Whirlwind you should probescout though (both to get intel about where your opponent is and what he could possibly go for, especially warpgate timings)
On akilon-wastes I saw Naniwa do a similar thing when he went blink, he basically went MC scout on the right side of the map, while utilizing a probe (23 supply -> send over) to scout the left side of the map. This basically was all in the window of SG-proxies and other pylons, the first stalker that pops additionally scouts the remaining corners and then moves mid-map. If u dont go into weird spots with the stalker, you should be able to return it even if there is 3 Stalkers out on the map if you react accordingly and quickly enough - obviously because of same speed.
3.) Not exactly sure what you mean, first of all, with this type of mapcontrol, you will never get a proxypylon up if its done right, at least not unscouted / unprotected. And then, if i see the pylon, I would have to account DTs incoming (depends on timing and what I know so far).
Keep in mind that DTs are not a small investment, they create kind of a large timing-window, so if they dont do enough damage, you might be open to an attack. If you attack my natural first, I just mineralmove my probes to my main and FF the ramp, if u walk up the ramp first I will have to FF the ramp, at this time (when DT rush hits like u said at about 6.30+), u barely have any probes on the natural, those probes u can normally even micro away from the dts until the FF depleats and the Observer pops (of course you want to chrono all the way). To be honest, so far I felt very very confident against DTs with this build, but you are right, maps like belshir are perfect for opening up like this.
Hey man just posting here to say that I really appreciate this guide and I haven't even watched half of it yet. I just switched to Protoss and used to play high master terran and I'm quite afraid to play any games since I don't know shit about the matchups.
Thanks to you PvP seems to be a bit less of a mystery. Hats off to you sir!
I will take a look into it, but its pretty rough as basically almost all 30 minutes deal with the same topic - what are threats we have to deal with and how do we narrow everything down to what our opponent is possibly doing. But let me see if its possible
I've been playing a lot with 1 gate FE in PvP and pretty much do exactly this build that Naniwa has been doing lately since start of HotS. It is important to note though that some things in the video are slightly missing though or just wrong/ too risky in my opinion. The idea is simple, expand and have the probe scouting 1 part of the map, the stalker in front of your base a bit and your msc another part of the map. Few things I want to mention though: - MsC flying in your base is one small risk that is missing, it's not really a big deal but can definately be annoying especially when they combine it with some pressure at your front. If possible it's good to move your own MsC so that it barely glimpses the opposing MsC coming in. - Moving the stalker out that far can be quite risky and is not advised imo. The stalker is crucial for trying to prevent them from scouting your expansion, preventing the proxy pylon if possible and returning to your base in case of frontal pressure at the same time as a msc coming in to harass. It's also possible sometimes that a stalker of him get's your stalker stuck, ie you can;t retreat it to base and the followup stalker kills it. If they scout your expo too easily because your stalker is away they can also just expand as well and be ahead (because you are cutting probes because you're still in the blind a bit). Plus they can safely assume you follow up the FE with robo (you pretty much have to as allround answer, while they upon scouting your FE can safely go stargate, ie they get a good lead). - There are quite a bit of builds that combine a little gate pressure with a tech followup so you aren't exactly sure what you face when you see them proxying and doing some stalker pressure. It's easy to lose to stalker pressure while you think it's a 4 gate while it's actually 3 gate pressure with oracle as well. - Quick phoenix from a stargate in their base are one of the if not the riskiest thing for a 1 gate FE like this. Especially because the msc/sentries are very vulnerable targets, so is the lone stalker out at front. You NEED to move back the stalker earlier because phoenix all-ins are already super hard to hold with a FE and losing a stalker for free makes it practically impossible. Basically after 6:00 you need to be sitting back at home protecting your msc/sentries and mineral lines because of the potential phoenix treat unless you have some reason to know it's not coming. - Because you want to exclude aggressive stargate openings you want to scout their natural/main with your probe just sacrificing it. At least you usually get to see if they expanded and sometimes you see some units, ie if they have a sentry you can exclude blink for example. - You NEED to cut probes to have a chance to hold blink all-ins or phoenix all-ins, ie you have to be very careful what you make before your hallucination scout makes it certain (assuming you didn;t scout a FE or anything else yet). Going observer first isn't safe against blink imo, you'll have just 1 immortal by the time they come and on most maps you'll die then if they just push when your second immortal is halfway done (they'll have about 9 blink stalkers). Therefore I start immortal unless I saw signs that make it positive the Parting blink build isn;t coming (scouted a sentry or a FE basically). - Finally this FE can't hold against the classic 4 gate or 10 gate into fast pressure which you have trouble seeing early. Sure you'll spot the probe/zealot/stalker incoming with your stalker but you can't actually hold the nexus, in fact at maps where they nexus cannon on your main doesn;t cover your entire plateau you easily lose the game as they can easily wait out your nexus cannon. Only answer I think is canceling nexus and defending on your ramp, but the problem is you don't know exactly what they are doing when they come with the probe. Canceling against something like 3 gate into stargate puts you massively behind. Another reason to try to get in their base with your probe as when they move out for pressure you usually can.
Overall though good video, I wanted to make 1 gate FE guide a few months ago that covered exactly this plus what some now dub the 'naniwa' build but I never got around to it. It's a sweet build and the scouting is very important but it's not as safe as the video makes it out to be. Especially some funky stuff like 10 gate or classic 12 gate into 4 gate with 1 gas are often just a loss which you can't tell because you don;t scout the base early. Phoenixes from stargate in main or just the Parting blink build are two other risky builds. The threat of phoenixes means you have to pull back your stalker earlier and the threat of the blink build might mean you have to skip the observer. Only after the hallucination scout can you easily differentiate enough to know which build of those it is.
Hey Markwerf, I answered every point equally to your questions/arguments in order. Sorry for the weird formation, I used windows-notepad.
-the MC is something I thought about adding as well when i realized i kinda forgot to mention, you should be able to see it coming with the pylon on the edge though, dependent on when he scouts you can either move back the stalker in time or tickle it away with 2 sentries, but you are right.
-It is right that moving the stalker out is a risk, but like I mentioned, it is completely fine on this map, the moment you take the watchtower around that time there can really be just one stalker out on the open, no real threat here. Also your stalker moves in a linear way (Just a streight line to the natural and then watchtower), its not checking where it could be catched offguard from the back by moving down a ramp again or something, you basically check the spaces around it (right side with MC, left side w/ probe). --> with the same argumentation (having the spaces checked), you should be able to deny a scout. Of course if you dont like to hold the watchtower, you might just quickly check the watchtower -> see if anything like a WG-timing occurs and then move back to protect your expansion of being scouted.
-Also right, but I think this is more of a thing that comes with experience, reading out of the composition/amount how much of a commited move your opponent is going for, or feeling if there is "something else behind it". Not really something you could just "explain" in a guide
-This is where BO wins come into play a lot, this is a thing u can generally state, Stargate is good against Robo-based builds. It is true that u have to keep the stalker at home at some point, heres a headsup: You scout if he expanded, then you hallucinate a Phoenix, either way, you will have enough time to scout a 1 base SG play to still retreat the stalker.
-good valid point, I didnt say you should sacrifice the probe but what I did point out is, that generally looking at what your opponents units are, there are quite some ways of reading into what your opponent is doing. It kind of implies sacrificing the probe if you dont have any information at all, but you are right, I should have gone into that a little more.
-Also right, you watched my production tab I guess :D to be honest, I played obs first because of 2 reasons: 1) No Stalkerpressure anywhere, no pylons, no attempts to be agressive, pretty defensive setup 2) I played him 2-3 games before and gambled a bit.
What you say is completely right, you have to get the Immortal first, I stated that I was being greedy though, I said I gambled a bit at this point but sometimes you just do that to get ahead. This is what makes the difference if you utilize a ladder-game for a guide or a prepared game that is set up perfectly for this one occasion. Sometimes you don't play it safe but rather say : "Okay, look, everything points to this one thing, lets actually cut corner A and B to get a little quicker C".
-Nope you wont hold the natural against 4Gate, but you can hold your main. This is a common problem that identifying such pushes is basically impossible by just looking at a probe,zealot,stalker.
So yes, you will have troubles against this, but remember, even if your opponent goes 3 gate, you canceling the Nexus and adding additional 2 gates and a techbuilding of choice [Robo] does not really throw you behind, because you most likely still have the probelead.
Yes, often times they will be able to wait on the edge of the plateau until your nexus cannon is done, but due to how early you get your MC, you should already have roughly 50+ (if not way more) energy again,so if you can stall some time you should be fine. And don't forget, you still warp in from 3 gates the time he will wait for your nexuscannon to be over.
Well, and a probescout wont tell you if its 4 or 3gate neither, nor will it tell you if its 3 gate tech. Some people tend to go quick 3gate (full chrono on core) and then add a late SG.
Thanks for your criticism, was really happy to hear some of your thoughts. Well, yes you may be right that I made it sound a little too safe, but I just wanted to give a little bit of a headsup to the people that see a whole gamble-mess in PvP. Again, I still said there is gamble involved and that every scout is a certain risk. To be quite exact, this is as safe as you can be in a mu like this.
ye most of my points were referring to maps in general. Bel'shir happens to be one of the best maps for 1 gate FE as you have a high chance to spot proxy pylons though there are still times you might miss. Because of the 4 gate issue I don't like to detour around too much with my probe because I like it to reach the opponents base a fair bit after his stalker has left but not too late so I have the oppurtunity to get in and scout early when he is out on the map with his stalkers as will be the case with most aggressive builds. Still the stalker needs to be back a little earlier even on bel shir by the way there is otherwise just a risk of losing it to a phoenix and stalkers, besides you don;t want to waste a nexus cannon fending off an oracle because that makes it very hard to hold off pressure at the front.
Overall though PvP remains a bit of a guessing game, there are no safe builds really. Probescouting earlier could exclude the possibility of 4 gates etc. but you waste so much minerals you probably can't hold blink or stargate aggression anymore if you can even hold stargate aggression with this in the first place.
Oh, I didnt know you meant in general, well then of course you were right with most of the things, but the general Idea of zoning different spaces remains similar.
Timingwise, a standart SG has a phoenix midmap @fastest at 5.50. To be honest, its very unusual to fly around with 1(!) phoenix revealing the phoenixtech just to gamble for a stalker at the watchtower. If he did, yes he could pick up the Stalker, that is actually right. Seeing the MC this is not possible at this time though, it just does not make sense (timing will be later and nobody phoenixallins after a quick MC). But yes, it would probably be a good idea to back off a little earlier, on the other hand, you are more open for some other weird midgame pushes, I guess sometimes you just have to take that gamble either way
Nope, of course you dont want to waste nexus cannon against Oracle, because it opens up a lot of opportunity for pushes at your natural - anyhow, if its neccessary, you would need to go for it in this case. Like I also said, you are supposed to try to warpin from the 2 gates if at all possible (timingwise) to defend against it.
Little bit late actually watching all of this video. I just wanted to say THANK YOU! This is a super informative and brilliant video. It's a pretty simple way to get all the scouting info you need based on what you DID NOT see.
Btw: I'm going to probably do some free-coaching on my stream tomorrow, if anyone has problems in PvP or something, hit me up on FB/Twitch (see signature)
EPT![[image loading]](http://s14.directupload.net/images/130724/4sygyxos.png)
