Introduction

With the new overcharge, the possibility of using static defenses as Protoss has gotten to a new level. By using an early forge and well placed pylons & photon cannons, you can have strong DPS in small locations for significantly less cost as opposed to only photon cannons as we would see in Heart of the Swarm.

It is through this concept that this build allows you to mass-produce disruptors. A unit whose splash damage exceeds that even of psionic storm and is not energy-based. By using photon cannons and pylons to secure defensive positions, you then allow your disruptors to effectively “siege” these static-defense fronts from a defensive position.

The build completely negates from the use of warp gate, meaning you will stay on only one gateway while spending almost all of your minerals on pylons and cannons while teching into disruptors. On the air side we use oracles and phoenix for scouting, revelation and anti-air/anti-drops.

Early Game

The goal is to get two oracles for map vision and scouting, three adepts for safety against early pushes plus a sentry for guardian shield. With this you can take a third base versus standard Terran builds. Once you take the third base, you transition into double robotics facility disruptor production with constant phoenix production.

The MSC and/or adept and oracle must carefully scout for 1 base allins and timings. It is crucial you do not take a third too fast and you may need to rush phoenixes faster than the second oracle versus some medivac/cyclone timings.

The Build

• 14 pylon
  
• 16 gate
  
• 16 assimilator
  
• 19 nexus
  
• 21 cybernetics core
  
• 21 assimilator
  
• 22 pylon
  
• @ 100% cybernetics core, mothership core
  
• @ 100% gateway, adept
  
• 27 stargate
  
• 29 2nd adept
  
• 35 3rd pylon
  
• 37 3rd adept
  
• @ 100% stargate, oracle
  
• @ 100% 3rd adept. start sentry
  
• @ 3:30 3rd gas on natural
  
• @ 4:00 2nd oracle (defend widow mine drops / cyclone and map control.)
  
• @ 4.40: robotics facility
  
• @ 5:00: take 3rd base
  
• @ 100% 2nd oracle, start constant phoenix production
  
• @ 100% robotics facility, make robo bay

Research warpgate right away, even though you’re not massing gateways later in the game. This will be crucial for holding any big pressure pushes in the early game, as a single adept can make the difference in holding or losing. This will leave only the air upgrades on your cybernetics core to research, which we will need in the later stages of the game.

A heavy emphasis should be placed on scouting. An early third is crucial in this build, and you’ll need to know exactly what kind of aggression is coming your way when. Once your adept and mothership core finish, you can use either to scout the Terran base, while keeping the other at home to defend a reaper. Once your first oracle finishes, immediately send it to scout the Terran. Things you should be looking for are: third command center, addons on production facilities, and gas count. If there is a third command center in production, you are safe to take your own third base. If there is a tech lab on the factory, you can expect a cyclone or siege tank push with medivacs and marines. If there is no addon on the factory and a starport, it’s probably a widow mine drop.

Delaying your third base is fine as long as you defend the first push. Be mindful of where you position your first few pylons; the first one should be local to your nexus, and the ensuing ones should be around your second nexus. Use these as leverage points to defend the pushes. Once you’ve successfully defended the push, drop your third base and transition into the mid game.

Mid Game

Once your third base is done, you may begin setting up pylons and photon cannons in walls, arcing in between your bases. Ideally you don’t want any creases in your walls; one continuous wall in between your natural and third base with no gaps is what you’re looking for. Make sure your forge is done by the time your third base is so that you can immediately start setting up cannons.






Assuming you have successfully established a third base and you have scouted your opponent with the oracles, try to determine what mid game composition your opponent is going for. Is he starting liberator production? Is he going heavy on the bio? This information will impact your decision to go for an earlier or later double robo. At low to moderate numbers, phoenix trade well with liberators, so if they are massing them early it’s never a bad idea to equally build up a high phoenix count. If they are dropping additional barracks and massing up a bio army, double robo disruptor production should start at the earliest convenience to protect your shell.

Your +1 air upgrades should start as soon as you feel safe enough and preferably before the 5:00 mark. Then you will resume the upgrades as Fleet Beacon finishes as a response to Terran air transition.

When Terran do their 7-10 minute drops and timing attacks, make sure you split your disruptors into multiple locations to defend the attacks. Vision here across the map is key to knowing exactly where to place your units. With good vision you can use your phoenix to intercept any drops, while leaving your disruptors on the ground attack paths. Having two oracles throughout the game is crucial in the upkeep of revelation on the mobile terran army. They also give you the option to spread out stasis wards in potential drop paths, giving you an extra outlet for vision. Should you lose any oracles, reproduce them back up to the two count. Again, the goal is to stay turtle until you have your ideal army of disruptor/mass air. You shouldn’t really be looking to attack unless the Terran makes a big misstep in micro and loses a big chunk of their army to disruptor shots.





For the most part, oracles and phoenix will handle map vision, but having 2 observers (one for the army, one for drops) can be very helpful in staying alive. With a relatively small ground army, you’ll need pefect positioning on the handful of gateway units you have, and your disruptors. Pay very close attention to the minimap as this is your source of information; the Terran player likely has a larger army than you, and if you have your units out of position for the slightest moment, they can capitalize on your error.





One thing you might notice is you’re floating a lot of minerals. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; drop more cannons and pylons. Eventually you’ll want to be taking a fourth base, so you’ll need to be setting up even more cannons and pylons, extending your wall to that location. Once you get into the supply counts, this is the time to transition into more air play. Continue with the air upgrades, and add a fleet beacon and more stargates.

Late game

Some maps won’t allow you to have a continuous wall extending to the fourth base. Not to worry, simply place pylons and cannons at the location anyways, and try to set up a funnel system guiding units outwards. The latest you want to get your fourth base is 14:00; this is the time when your main base is running dry.

Unless your Terran opponent keeps fighting you with bio and medivacs, you will not necessarily need a transition to air as long as your disruptor/phoenix production is on point. Be careful not to overproduce disruptors however, as you’ll want to keep pace with an air transition if the Terran is going for one. There are a few different end-game compositions that they can go for, let’s look at them:

Viking and/or viking/liberator

There is not a definitive composition that you must use, but for each of these Terran compositions there are some rules.

The general composition versus viking/liberator is 6+ tempest, 3+ carriers, 3-4 oracles, photon cannons, and 4+ templars for storm. Do NOT use phoenixes or voidrays against this army. You may be forced to sacrifice some or all disruptors to get more supply.

In general versus Terran air, you must have tempest. You are going to rely on sieging the Terran rather than a straight-up fight. Any prefered number of tempest is good, just make sure you have more than 6 so you can one-shot vikings. If you are in doubt, it is never bad to make more tempests. If you stick with 6 tempests, the rest of the supply can go into carriers. If they have a lot of liberators (10+), do NOT build more than 3-4 carriers.

The next thing is to get storm. Vikings will beat tempests unless you have storm, and these templars needs to be protected from siege tanks and/or ghosts. Be sure to engage carefully and have oracles to revelate his army and/or observers to detect ghosts as you would not like to get emp´ed.

If the Terran is literally only building vikings, then the carrier is an extremely effective choice against them.

Be careful with rushing into tempests too fast versus this composition. Storm will work much better against these units, so you will want to go storm before too many tempest against this composition.

Battlecruiser and/or raven

The general composition against battlecruiser/raven is either:

Mass tempest with only a few storms (or feedback for PDD and battlecruiser), or 10-15 tempests with a few phoenixes to soak up the PDD energy. You may be forced to sacrifice some or all disruptors to get more supply.

When playing against ravens, the rules of engagement are based around the PDD and how you can drain their energy as fast as possible. Feedback is good, but many projectiles from phoenix and/or tempest is good too. If you are not able to beat the Terran army straight up, be sure to sit near static defences.


Battlecruisers may use tactical jump to move around your army or escape. Generally, you’ll want to be aggressive with your army against this to ensure you can do counter damage if he jumps. If there are ravens to support the BCs, try to avoid fighting in PDDs and wait them out.

Ghosts

The nuke from ghosts and, of course, EMP, serves as a great threat to your templars and static defense positions. You must be on point with your map control to prevent taking too much damage from nukes, including but not limited to; revelation, observers and cannon detection.

A good response to nuke is to make more oracles. This way you can constantly keep ghosts detected and even have excess energy on oracles to snipe them. Alternatively you can use phoenixes or disruptors to kill ghosts if they are protected by PDD.

Bio late game

If your opponent insists on playing a very macro-heavy bio-style against you, it is absolutely imperative that you do not sacrifice any of your disruptors, and you must keep up with the Terran composition to know when to keep producing disruptors. You may need as many as possible to deal with bio, especially when the game is spread more thin.

Against bio-only, you’ll want to keep at least 12 disruptors alive and make sure you've started teching to carriers and tempest. If you have a lot of money, then carriers. If not, then tempests + cannons. Make sure you always prefer disruptor production over air production after fights.

It is also very important you take as little damage as possible. The more static defenses and units you lose, the more vulnerable you will be. Your job is to keep every single hole in your base sealed as you do not have mobility the same way terran does.







It’s questionable whether you want to transition into gateway units from here, but with a lack of forge upgrades, this isn’t advised. You can still tech into storm and a dark shrine however, as both of these options are great for harassment and general army support. Aim to have storm done for the 17:00 mark. Including high templar in your army gets heavy on the control, but can be crucial in dealing with mass-air units, and bio heavy armies.

The late game engagements will mainly take place with tempests shooting Terran units from afar while protecting the high templar and disruptors. With good micro and constant envisions, you should be more efficient with your tempests, slowly chipping away their unit count. Be mindful of drops, as they are a constant threat throughout the game. Having phoenix at this stage of the game can still be helpful, and can be used to counter the drops. You can keep cannons at each of your bases to also defend against drops.

Appendix

This is a difficult-to-execute build that requires a lot of attention and individual unit-type micro, but when executed properly, it is truly capable of giving you wins without a single warp-in from the warp-gate. The interesting mixture between the static defense from photon cannons and pylons plus the AoE/siegeing capabilities from disruptor, storm, phoenix and tempest, you will force an extremely intense game for the Terran player as both of you will struggle with a variety of micro and macro.

Replays

Theo vs Dayshi on Ulrena

Theo vs loppelo on Prion Terraces

Theo vs Zheka on Prion Terraces

Theo vs IlIllIlIIIlI on Orbital Shipyard

Theo vs SnowBell on Dusk Towers