On February 05 2016 09:35 Shield wrote: I've won this game vs ex 2000 or so points masters terran, but I could have easily lost it at 7-8 min if he had attacked. Could someone watch it and tell me any major mistakes I've made, including build order mistakes? Thanks.
At 5:00 mins you were set up for drops but were caught microing your observer. In this situation I suggest using the minimap to micro and position your observer to scout. Infact you should be heavily focused on microing and positioning your units via the minimap. Unless you are in an actual fight. There is no reason to actually be positioning units with the main screen. Your goal should vision at this point in time and macro. There is no information to be gained by looking at a point specifically on the map. If you were watching the minimap you probably would have seen the drop ad thus could have reacted to it. I will assume that if you saw the drop you would have used the Phoenix to lift the WMs.
In addition, after the WMs made contact with your probes, you pulled probes away permanently. Why? The WM did damage, the shot was fired, its on cooldown. Don't let it do more damage by not putting your probes back to work. You did that at both bases.
6:00-7:00 Idle Robo with plenty of gas to spare. That could be more observers for better vision, a Warp Prism, or additional Immortals if you so choose.
You got the Phoenix but refused to be aggressive with them. Even with 3 Phoenix you can lift workers out of gas or building structures. A Turret cant cover the gas geysers and the mineral line. You have an obs over his army. You should be aware if he has decided to send out drop ships so that is not an excuse.
I think you were very passive when he first pushed you. but that was understandable as you were waiting for your Psi Storm to finish. A better Terran would have used that against you and forced an engagement sooner. Before you can get an additional cycle of warp-ins and before your Psi Storm.
However, I don't think you need me to tell you that moving ALL of your Templar together to go Storm his army is not advisable. And moving them right into a small contingent of Marines and a Medivac is a blunder. Luckily you were still able to save 2 Templar, but that push would have been crushed with better judgment on your part.
Your 2nd engagement was great. Though that was partly because of a blunder on his part. You caught him off guard and no vision of his army and he didn't land any EMPs because he was fiddling with his tank placement.
You deserve more credit for winning that fight then he deserves for losing it because you took the initiative. You exploited a mistake and thus won the fight. If you ever have the opportunity to initiate an engagement, whether it be against a Protoss, Zerg, or Terran. Take it. Especially Terran. Don't let them fiddle with getting a perfect position outside your ramp or cloaking their Ghosts to go EMP. IF you were to sit idle there, I GUARANTEE you would have gotten EMP'ed, lost your Storm, and lost the fight, Maybe even the game.
With that being said. Attacking with your HTs clumped with your army is very dangerous and easy for their Terran to EMP. I suggest having Stalkers to target fire the cheeky Ghosts. Even better yet, put the HTs in a Warp Prism so they can't get EMPed. They are also more mobile. WIth Colossus being a thing of the past, so are Viking. The chance of the WP getting sniped is very minimal with good control.
You kept up with your Stasis Wards. That is good. I suggest Putting them in places Where you are weak. Like certain drop locations either in your main, natural or 3rd. In addition, your 4th base is risky.Terrans can siege the 4th quite successfully from the high ground and it can be quite an expensive base to hold. That would be an ideal place for a Stasis Ward or two.
Overall your macro was impeccable. Try getting a Warp Prism in the late game. If you ever win a fight handedly. Such as the 2nd fight at his 4th base, you can kill him outright with a full warp cycle right in his production.
On February 07 2016 07:52 OPDream wrote: After taking 3rd, how can protoss defend ravager ling pressure? I thought opening pheonex is the solution, but zerg just bring queens to attatck.
Purely theorycrafting since I have yet to defeat such a push, but maybe trying to find the queens in the middle of the map and pick them off while they're walking over to the base? (Guess this is nullified by nydus play) Also, if you poke in with adepts in the early game and you see that he is defending your pressure with many queens, you can kind of start preparing already, since making many queens like that usually is either this 3 base pressure or some kind of gimmicky ultra rush, both of which are countered by copious amounts of gateway units basically.
1) How do you defend Nydus all-in after the patch ?
2) Is opening stargate straight into phoenix safe in PvT or should you always get an oracle first for detection ? What about PvP, when would a standard DT build hit you ?
PvT: Is there a guide that shows where to place your first pylons so I can overcharge in case of Liberator harass? I'm sick of losing games because I don't have a pylon in the right place. It's kinda stupid it all comes down to this...
On February 08 2016 10:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: 1) How do you defend Nydus all-in after the patch ?
2) Is opening stargate straight into phoenix safe in PvT or should you always get an oracle first for detection ? What about PvP, when would a standard DT build hit you ?
Thanks in advance
If you know the nydus worm is coming, and they are going into your main base, holding it should, imo, be buffed. Just build a few pylons in all the possible locations. Holding a nydus push onto your third is probably much harder, but depending on your build, adding gateways earlie rmight be the solution so you can break through it with gateway units + immortals.
If you want to open straight phoenix in PvT you can, and yes it is very safe. Going oracle first is probably a bit riskier but you get the benefit of revelation, stasis wards and scouting/killing scvs. The quickest dt build can hit you around 4 minutes in PvP, so most phoenix builds will go straight into robo for obs + immortals to hold blink stalker timings/dts. So phoenix is pretty safe against dt if you scout with the phoenix, but that can be a big risk if they are also going phoenix and keeping them at home.
On February 08 2016 10:27 HelpMeGetBetter wrote: PvT: Is there a guide that shows where to place your first pylons so I can overcharge in case of Liberator harass? I'm sick of losing games because I don't have a pylon in the right place. It's kinda stupid it all comes down to this...
I haven't seen a guide that shows it exactly, but usually you will just place your 3rd/4th pylons just behind your mineral lines all the way to the back (in my opinion at least). Depending on the map you might move it to the side more ( like on dusk towers). Just think where the liberator usually sets up, and place it to cover there. Otherwise you always have phoenix if you open stargate, and stalkers otherwise to deal with them.
Hey guys, now that I'm gold pretty much every game I play is just going up against cheese. I've managed to scout it every single time, but lose regardless. I've followed the advice for each type exactly, and still lose hands down. Cannon rush, they send 2 probes, and while their probes are running around, they're dropping pylons faster than my probes and eventual zealot can kill them, then kill the cannon. My probes aren't faster than theirs so I can catch up to them to kill them before it's too late. Even if I pull every single probe and completely stop mining, they can still build more than my probes can kill, especially if they're smart enough to cancel if one is about to die.
I scout 12 pool and completely wall off, but I can't out build the zerg at that point. They're free to expand, and I'm contained, by the time I'm able to break out, I'm so far behind whatever tech path they chose moves in to stomp on me.
Lastly is running into proxy 3 rax. I've tried going more gateways, but lose because zealots get kited forever. I've tried going double gateway, and cyber, photon overcharge doesn't deal nearly enough damage before the marines kill it, and my gateway units die very quickly to the stream of marines.
zerg player so i'm answering for the 12pool question. the answer to slow lings isn't rushing a wall, it's chronoing zealots and fighting the lings with zealots+probes. (of course eventually you still wall as normal before an early speed hits). as soon as you push the lings away you throw up your nexus. if zerg is committing to speed and enough lings to cancel your nexus, you cancel it and get MSC+adepts. you're not behind because speed and mass lings is a much bigger commitment than 12pool and 6-12 lings. baneling followups are rare but possible and you can check for them by poking in front of your natural with MSC, but not so far that you can't come back and overcharge. place pylons around your base to spot lingdrop followups and nydus later on as well as pylons by your natural mineral line in case speedlings get in before your natural wall is up
do you understand you need to pull probes against ling rushes? it also helps if you're able to hide your initial scouting probe and spot gas or lack of gas so you don't suddenly lose because speed finished and he ran into your main in half a second when you thought you were facing gasless 12pool. it's worth mentioning that on maps like lerilak this is obviously much much more difficult, but that's just maps for you.
it sounds like you're executing badly and blaming the build. if your attitude is "i fucked up so it's not possible to do this" it doesn't matter what your opener is because you aren't trying to improve.
how many sentries should I make in pvz? I feel like if I make sentries before warp gates finish, it's bad against fast speedling drop. And how to hold ling ravager pressure/rush, before the pylon cannon only needs 25 energy, it was easy, now if I try to take a 3rd before adding to 6 gates, it just seems impossible to defend, but if zerg plays standard macro, i am just so far behind in economy and have no choice but allin. Any ideas?
On February 08 2016 21:56 brickrd wrote: zerg player so i'm answering for the 12pool question. the answer to slow lings isn't rushing a wall, it's chronoing zealots and fighting the lings with zealots+probes. (of course eventually you still wall as normal before an early speed hits). as soon as you push the lings away you throw up your nexus. if zerg is committing to speed and enough lings to cancel your nexus, you cancel it and get MSC+adepts. you're not behind because speed and mass lings is a much bigger commitment than 12pool and 6-12 lings. baneling followups are rare but possible and you can check for them by poking in front of your natural with MSC, but not so far that you can't come back and overcharge. place pylons around your base to spot lingdrop followups and nydus later on as well as pylons by your natural mineral line in case speedlings get in before your natural wall is up
do you understand you need to pull probes against ling rushes? it also helps if you're able to hide your initial scouting probe and spot gas or lack of gas so you don't suddenly lose because speed finished and he ran into your main in half a second when you thought you were facing gasless 12pool. it's worth mentioning that on maps like lerilak this is obviously much much more difficult, but that's just maps for you.
it sounds like you're executing badly and blaming the build. if your attitude is "i fucked up so it's not possible to do this" it doesn't matter what your opener is because you aren't trying to improve.
I think you misunderstand. If I wanted to gripe about it not being possible to defend, I'd go to the blizzard forums. I'm here because I know it's possible to defend, otherwise pro games would all be cheese. I open the same way against zerg every game, which is the same opener I see pro's use against zerg. So I know there has to be a way to defend against it, it's just clearly whatever I'm doing isn't working. I don't see many games of pro's defending against cheese, and I keep losing to it.
That being said, I do pull probes, and chrono boost out zealots to help. If they just send in the initial lings, no problem, it's when they send it more that it gets me. I end up losing most of my probes trying to fight off zergling, and even with chronoboost can't build enough zealots to beat the lings.
So if I'm supposed to change my opener upon scouting that to like a double wall off, with a forge, cannons, can cyber to hold long enough to mass adapts, or something like that, it would be nice to know. Though admittedly, I'm less concerned about 12 pools than cannon rushes. Even when doing the exact counter it doesn't seem possible to shut down unless they don't micro at all.
On February 08 2016 14:31 Hyper1 wrote: Hey guys, now that I'm gold pretty much every game I play is just going up against cheese. I've managed to scout it every single time, but lose regardless. I've followed the advice for each type exactly, and still lose hands down. Cannon rush, they send 2 probes, and while their probes are running around, they're dropping pylons faster than my probes and eventual zealot can kill them, then kill the cannon. My probes aren't faster than theirs so I can catch up to them to kill them before it's too late. Even if I pull every single probe and completely stop mining, they can still build more than my probes can kill, especially if they're smart enough to cancel if one is about to die.
I scout 12 pool and completely wall off, but I can't out build the zerg at that point. They're free to expand, and I'm contained, by the time I'm able to break out, I'm so far behind whatever tech path they chose moves in to stomp on me.
Lastly is running into proxy 3 rax. I've tried going more gateways, but lose because zealots get kited forever. I've tried going double gateway, and cyber, photon overcharge doesn't deal nearly enough damage before the marines kill it, and my gateway units die very quickly to the stream of marines.
So what opening actually does shut these down?
Against Protoss cannon rush, pulling all your probes is a very very bad idea. This will never ever work. Don't do it. The key is to pull just enough probes and to react as soon as you see it. Send one probe attacking each of his probes, they are not expected to catch his but it will force enough micro from his part to slow him down a little, you then need to pull around 4-5 probes per pylon you see him building and make sure you surround them while attacking, in the mean time put a pylon and a forge and defend the cannon rush close to your nexus. Do not let him get close to the nexus or your mineral line at all cost. Forget about your zealot, if the cannon rush is on time, he won't do you any good.
I'm struggling against zerg in later stage but I deal pretty well with their cheese oddly enough. I think you have a bad reading of the situation after surviving the 12 pool. Just be patient and know that the more zerglings he makes, the fewer drones he has, you can be defensive if he shows a lot of zerglings. First you don't actually need to completely wall off. You should be able to make a forge/gateway or 2 gateways + a chronoboosted zealot on hold wall off, if your opponent in on point, he may show up 10 sec before your zealot is out, so you can keep a probe nearby to put a pylon to temporarily close the wall and cancel it when the zealot is done. At your level it should be fine to make a 2nd zealot in case your opponent is insistant. You may then proceed as usual. It is important to send your MSC forward to look for a potential baneling followup; in which case make 2 sentries and tough up your wall a bit with a cyber core or another gateway and some pylons. When the window of banneling is behind, you're pretty safe. You just need to check his expansions and how many lings he made, which will determine how defensive or aggressive you can be.
Against proxy 3 rax. First you need to make sure it is actually 3 rax. If it is 2, you can defend with a 3 pylons wall off + photon overcharge and any number of adepts/stalkers you can make by then. Don't waste your ressource on zealots ever in early game, they are useless in PvT until charge. If it really is 3 rax, same as previously but put a forge and 2 defensives photons because you won't probably have enough firepower with overcharge alone. I'd say maybe at your level it is probably ok to put the forge and one cannon even if you are not sure it is really 3 rax. You can use it later to rush for +1 attack to make adepts useful for a pressure while expanding.
On February 08 2016 14:31 Hyper1 wrote: Hey guys, now that I'm gold pretty much every game I play is just going up against cheese. I've managed to scout it every single time, but lose regardless. I've followed the advice for each type exactly, and still lose hands down. Cannon rush, they send 2 probes, and while their probes are running around, they're dropping pylons faster than my probes and eventual zealot can kill them, then kill the cannon. My probes aren't faster than theirs so I can catch up to them to kill them before it's too late. Even if I pull every single probe and completely stop mining, they can still build more than my probes can kill, especially if they're smart enough to cancel if one is about to die.
I scout 12 pool and completely wall off, but I can't out build the zerg at that point. They're free to expand, and I'm contained, by the time I'm able to break out, I'm so far behind whatever tech path they chose moves in to stomp on me.
Lastly is running into proxy 3 rax. I've tried going more gateways, but lose because zealots get kited forever. I've tried going double gateway, and cyber, photon overcharge doesn't deal nearly enough damage before the marines kill it, and my gateway units die very quickly to the stream of marines.
So what opening actually does shut these down?
Against Protoss cannon rush, pulling all your probes is a very very bad idea. This will never ever work. Don't do it. The key is to pull just enough probes and to react as soon as you see it. Send one probe attacking each of his probes, they are not expected to catch his but it will force enough micro from his part to slow him down a little, you then need to pull around 4-5 probes per pylon you see him building and make sure you surround them while attacking, in the mean time put a pylon and a forge and defend the cannon rush close to your nexus. Do not let him get close to the nexus or your mineral line at all cost. Forget about your zealot, if the cannon rush is on time, he won't do you any good.
I'm struggling against zerg in later stage but I deal pretty well with their cheese oddly enough. I think you have a bad reading of the situation after surviving the 12 pool. Just be patient and know that the more zerglings he makes, the fewer drones he has, you can be defensive if he shows a lot of zerglings. First you don't actually need to completely wall off. You should be able to make a forge/gateway or 2 gateways + a chronoboosted zealot on hold wall off, if your opponent in on point, he may show up 10 sec before your zealot is out, so you can keep a probe nearby to put a pylon to temporarily close the wall and cancel it when the zealot is done. At your level it should be fine to make a 2nd zealot in case your opponent is insistant. You may then proceed as usual. It is important to send your MSC forward to look for a potential baneling followup; in which case make 2 sentries and tough up your wall a bit with a cyber core or another gateway and some pylons. When the window of banneling is behind, you're pretty safe. You just need to check his expansions and how many lings he made, which will determine how defensive or aggressive you can be.
Against proxy 3 rax. First you need to make sure it is actually 3 rax. If it is 2, you can defend with a 3 pylons wall off + photon overcharge and any number of adepts/stalkers you can make by then. Don't waste your ressource on zealots ever in early game, they are useless in PvT until charge. If it really is 3 rax, same as previously but put a forge and 2 defensives photons because you won't probably have enough firepower with overcharge alone. I'd say maybe at your level it is probably ok to put the forge and one cannon even if you are not sure it is really 3 rax. You can use it later to rush for +1 attack to make adepts useful for a pressure while expanding.
THANKS!!! As far as pulling only 5 probes per pylon he drops, they normally drop 3-4 pylons, then cancel them if they get low and drop more. Even with only 3 pylons, that's still effectively all of my probes with probes also chasing his probes. As that would be 17 probes already. I may have 2-3 more, which I can't pull 5 to attack the 4th them. However I haven't countered it with a forge of my own yet. If I can at least for his push back I might be able to build enough cannons to hold the line. But then how do I respond? How do I break out, and more importantly, how do I break out, and keep up when he's free to expand and macro up behind this?
I normally hold my wall with a probe until my zealot is done. The problem I run into is when the lings attack and attack a part of my wall that's too far for my zealot to hit them. Considering they're probably attacking before my cyber is even done, I don't have much to counter that. Zerg late game I actually don't have much of a problem with. It's early game ling aggression, or nydus play that really messes with me. Thankfully only a few people have hit my with the nydus, however I lose every time. The zergling aggression gets me because I can never seem to hold it well enough to not be devastating. If I can make it past ling aggression, I'm normally ok, given I don't get hit by a muta swarm I didn't scout.
As far as the proxy rax, I only know it's happening when I get to his base and there's no rax. I don't know if it's 2 or 3. As soon as I realize it's a proxy play I focus all my attention on mining as much as I can, and how to counter, rather than continuing to scout to see how many. I'm more worried about just having enough units to withstand the attack. I haven't been building adepts like at all in PvT because the shorter range, combined with now needing 3 shots to kill just hasn't worked for me, so I've been going stalkers instead. I tried MSC, but as soon as I PO, he just targets my pylon down like it's nothing. It doesn't even scare them into backing off, and they know I won't have the energy for 2. I can try a forge and cannon, I thought about it before but didn't know if it would complete before marines hit, and didn't know if a cannon could even handle that.
I will try these though, because what I'm doing definitely isn't working, and these sound like they'll work better. Thank you.
UPDATE: Thanks PPN, I just faced another protoss who cannon rushed and I beat him with my cannons. I delayed my gateway until I got to his base, and dropped a forge instead. I chased his probe, dropped 2 cannons, and shut it down. I still lost in the end, but at least I shut down the cannon rush. I expanded, dropped a few cannons in my mineral lines and got observers to counter the DT's I knew would be coming. Then I went blink stalker/disruptor because I figured he was going to go void ray after that. I tried scouting, but he turtled and killed any observer I sent his way. I took no damage from the cannon rush, killed all his DT's without him getting more than one probe kill, and landed 4 disruptors in the middle of his army to wipe it out. Sadly while I hear stalkers counter void rays, the void rays still beat my maxed out blink stalker army.
Just the same, I still count it as a win, I beat the cannon rush!
On February 09 2016 10:15 HelpMeGetBetter wrote: So Im using Archon-Immortal-Zealot to deal with Lurkers, and it fails miserably. Why does this unit comp work for everyone else but me?
Do you have any replays? It could be because you don't have enough immortals. Also even with that comp it is hard to break defensive lurkers, so I don't know if you are talking about defensive or aggressive lurkers.
On February 09 2016 13:58 Hyper1 wrote: UPDATE: Thanks PPN, I just faced another protoss who cannon rushed and I beat him with my cannons. I delayed my gateway until I got to his base, and dropped a forge instead. I chased his probe, dropped 2 cannons, and shut it down. I still lost in the end, but at least I shut down the cannon rush. I expanded, dropped a few cannons in my mineral lines and got observers to counter the DT's I knew would be coming. Then I went blink stalker/disruptor because I figured he was going to go void ray after that. I tried scouting, but he turtled and killed any observer I sent his way. I took no damage from the cannon rush, killed all his DT's without him getting more than one probe kill, and landed 4 disruptors in the middle of his army to wipe it out. Sadly while I hear stalkers counter void rays, the void rays still beat my maxed out blink stalker army.
Just the same, I still count it as a win, I beat the cannon rush!
You must bait the VR's power up activation and blink away. If they are charged, they melt the stalkers too fast!
However, in very big numbers, stalkers aren't good against void rays anyway, at least not alone. Tech to Archon + Storm: storm and archons do a lot of area damage against stacked up VR, and Archons should tank enough (thanks to their lower range too) to let stalkers do their damage.
Another option is going phoenixes with range: just attack first and don't let him come to your base. This would require a tech switch, but's it's better if he tries to engage your stalker/archon/ht army in difficult spots, where you can't reach him easily.
On February 09 2016 13:58 Hyper1 wrote: UPDATE: Thanks PPN, I just faced another protoss who cannon rushed and I beat him with my cannons. I delayed my gateway until I got to his base, and dropped a forge instead. I chased his probe, dropped 2 cannons, and shut it down. I still lost in the end, but at least I shut down the cannon rush. I expanded, dropped a few cannons in my mineral lines and got observers to counter the DT's I knew would be coming. Then I went blink stalker/disruptor because I figured he was going to go void ray after that. I tried scouting, but he turtled and killed any observer I sent his way. I took no damage from the cannon rush, killed all his DT's without him getting more than one probe kill, and landed 4 disruptors in the middle of his army to wipe it out. Sadly while I hear stalkers counter void rays, the void rays still beat my maxed out blink stalker army.
Just the same, I still count it as a win, I beat the cannon rush!
You must bait the VR's power up activation and blink away. If they are charged, they melt the stalkers too fast!
However, in very big numbers, stalkers aren't good against void rays anyway, at least not alone. Tech to Archon + Storm: storm and archons do a lot of area damage against stacked up VR, and Archons should tank enough (thanks to their lower range too) to let stalkers do their damage.
Another option is going phoenixes with range: just attack first and don't let him come to your base. This would require a tech switch, but's it's better if he tries to engage your stalker/archon/ht army in difficult spots, where you can't reach him easily.
Baiting prismatic alignment is fine until there are more than 3 voids rays. After that, Stalkers unless in overwhelming numbers get rekt pretty hard. As suggested, the counter is either chonoboosted phoenixes but I'm not confident this is easy to play, or storm as VRs will clump up.
After surviving the cannon rush, if you are confident in your micro, 2-3 stalkers can get rid of remaining cannons. If you are not, make a robot and chronoboost an immortal, it is ok to make it early as you are going to need observers to watch what your opponent is doing and counters potential DTs and make disruptors/warp prism or even more immortals if he plans to play the usual PvP (blink + disruptors). Expand and react to what info your obs will provide. Be careful not to move your obs in range of his photon cannons. If your obs sees stargate, go twilight (blink) and templar archive (ht are good vs anything that flies, feedback oracles/phoenix, storm void ray). When your opponent goes stargate he is usually pretty much forced to be defensive as void rays can be very fragile if caught in the middle of the map, you may just outexpand him. Just be careful that he is not quickly adding gateways as VR spamming means he may have little to no gaz left but a lot of mineral to make a stupid amount of zealots.
On February 08 2016 14:31 Hyper1 wrote: Hey guys, now that I'm gold pretty much every game I play is just going up against cheese. I've managed to scout it every single time, but lose regardless. I've followed the advice for each type exactly, and still lose hands down. Cannon rush, they send 2 probes, and while their probes are running around, they're dropping pylons faster than my probes and eventual zealot can kill them, then kill the cannon. My probes aren't faster than theirs so I can catch up to them to kill them before it's too late. Even if I pull every single probe and completely stop mining, they can still build more than my probes can kill, especially if they're smart enough to cancel if one is about to die.
I scout 12 pool and completely wall off, but I can't out build the zerg at that point. They're free to expand, and I'm contained, by the time I'm able to break out, I'm so far behind whatever tech path they chose moves in to stomp on me.
Lastly is running into proxy 3 rax. I've tried going more gateways, but lose because zealots get kited forever. I've tried going double gateway, and cyber, photon overcharge doesn't deal nearly enough damage before the marines kill it, and my gateway units die very quickly to the stream of marines.
So what opening actually does shut these down?
Against Protoss cannon rush, pulling all your probes is a very very bad idea. This will never ever work. Don't do it. The key is to pull just enough probes and to react as soon as you see it. Send one probe attacking each of his probes, they are not expected to catch his but it will force enough micro from his part to slow him down a little, you then need to pull around 4-5 probes per pylon you see him building and make sure you surround them while attacking, in the mean time put a pylon and a forge and defend the cannon rush close to your nexus. Do not let him get close to the nexus or your mineral line at all cost. Forget about your zealot, if the cannon rush is on time, he won't do you any good.
I'm struggling against zerg in later stage but I deal pretty well with their cheese oddly enough. I think you have a bad reading of the situation after surviving the 12 pool. Just be patient and know that the more zerglings he makes, the fewer drones he has, you can be defensive if he shows a lot of zerglings. First you don't actually need to completely wall off. You should be able to make a forge/gateway or 2 gateways + a chronoboosted zealot on hold wall off, if your opponent in on point, he may show up 10 sec before your zealot is out, so you can keep a probe nearby to put a pylon to temporarily close the wall and cancel it when the zealot is done. At your level it should be fine to make a 2nd zealot in case your opponent is insistant. You may then proceed as usual. It is important to send your MSC forward to look for a potential baneling followup; in which case make 2 sentries and tough up your wall a bit with a cyber core or another gateway and some pylons. When the window of banneling is behind, you're pretty safe. You just need to check his expansions and how many lings he made, which will determine how defensive or aggressive you can be.
Against proxy 3 rax. First you need to make sure it is actually 3 rax. If it is 2, you can defend with a 3 pylons wall off + photon overcharge and any number of adepts/stalkers you can make by then. Don't waste your ressource on zealots ever in early game, they are useless in PvT until charge. If it really is 3 rax, same as previously but put a forge and 2 defensives photons because you won't probably have enough firepower with overcharge alone. I'd say maybe at your level it is probably ok to put the forge and one cannon even if you are not sure it is really 3 rax. You can use it later to rush for +1 attack to make adepts useful for a pressure while expanding.
THANKS!!! As far as pulling only 5 probes per pylon he drops, they normally drop 3-4 pylons, then cancel them if they get low and drop more. Even with only 3 pylons, that's still effectively all of my probes with probes also chasing his probes. As that would be 17 probes already. I may have 2-3 more, which I can't pull 5 to attack the 4th them. However I haven't countered it with a forge of my own yet. If I can at least for his push back I might be able to build enough cannons to hold the line. But then how do I respond? How do I break out, and more importantly, how do I break out, and keep up when he's free to expand and macro up behind this?
I normally hold my wall with a probe until my zealot is done. The problem I run into is when the lings attack and attack a part of my wall that's too far for my zealot to hit them. Considering they're probably attacking before my cyber is even done, I don't have much to counter that. Zerg late game I actually don't have much of a problem with. It's early game ling aggression, or nydus play that really messes with me. Thankfully only a few people have hit my with the nydus, however I lose every time. The zergling aggression gets me because I can never seem to hold it well enough to not be devastating. If I can make it past ling aggression, I'm normally ok, given I don't get hit by a muta swarm I didn't scout.
As far as the proxy rax, I only know it's happening when I get to his base and there's no rax. I don't know if it's 2 or 3. As soon as I realize it's a proxy play I focus all my attention on mining as much as I can, and how to counter, rather than continuing to scout to see how many. I'm more worried about just having enough units to withstand the attack. I haven't been building adepts like at all in PvT because the shorter range, combined with now needing 3 shots to kill just hasn't worked for me, so I've been going stalkers instead. I tried MSC, but as soon as I PO, he just targets my pylon down like it's nothing. It doesn't even scare them into backing off, and they know I won't have the energy for 2. I can try a forge and cannon, I thought about it before but didn't know if it would complete before marines hit, and didn't know if a cannon could even handle that.
I will try these though, because what I'm doing definitely isn't working, and these sound like they'll work better. Thank you.
Holding your wall against pesky zerglings may be hard indeed. - if your walloff is 2 gateways, this is the harder way, the key is to micro harder unfortunately . You need to quickly move the zealot to make 1-2 hits and back up immediately to his usual block spot on hold. Don't be greedy with that though, you must never let the zerglings in. Once you have 3 zealots, you can fully block the ramp and proceed. - if your walloff is forge/gateway, it may just be easier to put 1 cannon and be done with it - if you want to improve in the long run, you can make a single zealot to do the hit/run/move back/hold and when your cyber is done, sentry and MSC will make it impossible for the Zerg to grind the wall further. This is greedy and hard to judge if you're supposed to make a sentry right away or add a 2nd zealot to hold off more zerglings coming in, you may keep that for later. I tend to do that + a stargate for oracle/phoenix (oracle if I see a lot of lings, phoenix directly otherwise) while expanding.
For the 3rax proxy, there is a highlight (hopefully full VOD soon) that you can take some inspiration from. Welmu still looses in the end, but the timing and micro won't ever be as tight as that in your ladder experience most probably and you will get the general idea of what to do. IMO adding a forge, defending with some probes pulling and cannons, and putting out 2-3 stalkers/adepts to push it back should be doable after the 3 pylons wall off. You may cut the probe production a bit to afford all of that. The goal is to guard the ramp as long as possible and prevent him from building bunkers there.
On February 08 2016 10:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: 1) How do you defend Nydus all-in after the patch ?
2) Is opening stargate straight into phoenix safe in PvT or should you always get an oracle first for detection ? What about PvP, when would a standard DT build hit you ?
Thanks in advance
If you know the nydus worm is coming, and they are going into your main base, holding it should, imo, be buffed. Just build a few pylons in all the possible locations. Holding a nydus push onto your third is probably much harder, but depending on your build, adding gateways earlie rmight be the solution so you can break through it with gateway units + immortals.
If you want to open straight phoenix in PvT you can, and yes it is very safe. Going oracle first is probably a bit riskier but you get the benefit of revelation, stasis wards and scouting/killing scvs. The quickest dt build can hit you around 4 minutes in PvP, so most phoenix builds will go straight into robo for obs + immortals to hold blink stalker timings/dts. So phoenix is pretty safe against dt if you scout with the phoenix, but that can be a big risk if they are also going phoenix and keeping them at home.
On February 08 2016 14:31 Hyper1 wrote: Hey guys, now that I'm gold pretty much every game I play is just going up against cheese. I've managed to scout it every single time, but lose regardless. I've followed the advice for each type exactly, and still lose hands down. Cannon rush, they send 2 probes, and while their probes are running around, they're dropping pylons faster than my probes and eventual zealot can kill them, then kill the cannon. My probes aren't faster than theirs so I can catch up to them to kill them before it's too late. Even if I pull every single probe and completely stop mining, they can still build more than my probes can kill, especially if they're smart enough to cancel if one is about to die.
So what opening actually does shut these down?
You are suppose to pull the probes against the cannons, not the pylons. If they are trying to make a pylon wall that is a different ordeal however. If the pylon wall is up and warping in, then it is pointless to keep attacking the pylons. You are wasting precious seconds. Go back to mining, save 400 minerals, then make a Nexus immediately. But be aware that your opponent will try to cannon it as well. Thats where the Zealot can come in handy. If you went fast cyber core instead of a fast Nexus, you can get a Stalker and a MSC out. I suggest doing that if they only built 1 cannon behind your mineral line. With a pylon overcharge, a Stalker, and a MSC you should be able to DPS down a cannon.
If you prevent him from getting a full wall, that's when pulling probes is useful. But again you don't really want to be killing pylons. Just the cannon. But most important of all. Kill his probe. It should be cornered in that semi-wall. This is an opportune time to kill it before the pylons finish. Most good players bring 2 probes so don't assume the cannon rush is over.
If you can't kill the probes but denied the wall off. Put probes on patrol at key locations that would be good for a cannon. You want short patrol paths, that way he can't place a well timed cannon between your patrolling probes. Once you have a Stalker out, you are safe.
And yes defending cannon rushes are harder than doing them. That is the landscape of the game.
EPT
. You need to quickly move the zealot to make 1-2 hits and back up immediately to his usual block spot on hold. Don't be greedy with that though, you must never let the zerglings in. Once you have 3 zealots, you can fully block the ramp and proceed.
