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[D] PvT -- What gateway units vs marauder?

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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icki.icki
Profile Joined March 2010
106 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-04 07:38:42
April 04 2010 07:06 GMT
#1
I know that immortals really help here -- but what are the ideal gateway units to be mixing in with your immortals when they go heavy marauder? Stalkers seem like a bad choice, since marauders get their bonus against them, but zealots have a helluva time catching marauders -- so should I try sentry immortal? Maybe sentry / zealot / immortal for clever fields and such?

Curious to hear what people think the optimum mix is here. Edit: After playing another few games, I think walling off your ramp with force field while you get a immortals out is absolutely the way to go; it totally shuts down their ability to rush with those damned early marauders until you have enough immortals out to deal with them, plus zealot charge.
avilo
Profile Blog Joined November 2007
United States4100 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-04 07:11:08
April 04 2010 07:10 GMT
#2
People seem to be doing very well with zealots/templar at mid-late game stages. And of course P are using immortals/stalker too a lot now.

I have seen more stalkers* in like the past 2 tvp I have played than all the tvp/pvt beta games I'd seen or played b4 that
Sup
Smoyf
Profile Joined March 2010
United States44 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-04 07:17:30
April 04 2010 07:16 GMT
#3
The answer is yo need all of the gateway units to deal with heavy marauder. Pure zealots will get kited, pure sentries/stalkers die too fast. You need zealots to take the damage and stalkers/sentries to hit the marauders if they try to kite your zealots. If you have enough sentries you can wall in the marauders so your zealots will tear them up.

If you know that someone is going to be marauder rushing you the best thing you can do is to fast tech to robo. Make a zealot while your cyber core is building and then build a stalker ASAP. An early stalker and zealot should be able to handle the first couple marauders he sends to your base if you micro correctly. If he focuses on kiting the zealot then your stalker will get free hits on them. If he focuses on your stalker then the zealot will hit them. Don't chase out of your base either, use the vision with the ramp to delay until your first immortal is out. After that baby is out any early marauders he has will die if he doesn't run them.

At that point something that I like to do (got it from a friend) was to make a warp prism and another immortal and send them into his base to harass. Destroy what you can, tech, supply depots, SCVs... since so many terrans go pure marauder he won't be able to shoot your warp prism down and you can just abuse it to really set him back while you tech up to colossus and build up your army.
I'll smoyf you up
icki.icki
Profile Joined March 2010
106 Posts
April 04 2010 07:37 GMT
#4
Okay, so I just fought this again and tried out going initially only zealots + sentries, and it worked really beautifully. On maps with a good ramp it's literally impossible for them to even get in your base once you have a couple sentries up, so it totally negates their initial push -- and then once you have like 3 immortals, 10 zealots, 4 sentries, 3 stalkers or something, you go ahead and counterpush. It worked very well for me.

I played two PvT back to back, got rocked the first one going stalker / zealot / immortal. Second I just walled off until I had a superior force and timing pushed with +1 and zealot charge, and took out his natural and then just sat back and took complete map control.
BigBalls
Profile Blog Joined May 2003
United States5354 Posts
April 04 2010 11:15 GMT
#5
sentry zealot is the answer. zealots do well vs marauder except for the stuns, sentries do relatively well vs marauders as well, but the key is force fielding behind marauders so they cant stun and run, trapping them so they have to fight your zealots.
if you guys could use google and post direct links to the maphacks here it would be greatly appreciated. - Nazgul
DarQraven
Profile Joined January 2010
Netherlands553 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-05 23:16:46
April 05 2010 23:13 GMT
#6
There is one problem with zealot+sentry: Reapers. By making only sentries and zealots, you are focusing entirely on blocking your ramp and holding off the Marauders until your big guns come out.
Problem here is that Marauders are produced from the same Barracks+Tech lab that Reapers are produced from. Meaning, all the Terran has to do to completely own your base is send a couple early marauders to get you to go sentry+zealot, then do a *free* switch to reapers and destroy all your probes. Only if you see this coming can you really build up enough stalkers to prevent terrible terrible damage©.

I say a mix of Stalker+Sentry+Zeal is usually the best. It is more prone to failure with bad micro (and possibly building placement - if you semi-wall your ramp with a gateway, the marauders can focus fire it while half your stalkers are out of range), but is a lot safer against a switch like this. If, for some reason, you don't see the reapers coming and have only zealots, it's GG.
Floophead_III
Profile Joined September 2009
United States1832 Posts
April 05 2010 23:25 GMT
#7
I'm not sure why people don't just go stalker + sentry which is reaper safe, air safe, tech safe, and perfectly safe vs mara rush cause of FF (cut off half his force then use stalkers to shoot from out of range of his guys on the far side of the FFs.) That should allow you to get a robo up at which point you can go to immortal/zealot and regain map control. Perhaps a respected toss can say why this is or isn't viable, cause I don't have much experience as protoss since a few patches ago.

If he goes for some sort of hellion play sentry/zealot is horrible. If he goes for air it's pretty weak as well cause sentries suck pretty hard vs banshees. I would advise against skimping on the robo as well because you're playing in the dark which is never good.
Half man, half bear, half pig.
icki.icki
Profile Joined March 2010
106 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-05 23:39:45
April 05 2010 23:36 GMT
#8
On April 06 2010 08:25 Floophead_III wrote:
I'm not sure why people don't just go stalker + sentry which is reaper safe, air safe, tech safe, and perfectly safe vs mara rush cause of FF (cut off half his force then use stalkers to shoot from out of range of his guys on the far side of the FFs.) That should allow you to get a robo up at which point you can go to immortal/zealot and regain map control. Perhaps a respected toss can say why this is or isn't viable, cause I don't have much experience as protoss since a few patches ago.

If he goes for some sort of hellion play sentry/zealot is horrible. If he goes for air it's pretty weak as well cause sentries suck pretty hard vs banshees. I would advise against skimping on the robo as well because you're playing in the dark which is never good.


You need to spend a lot of gas early in the game, so sentry / zealot is better really early in the game. You probably should go something like zealot, then stalker (for reapers), then sentry -- but the trouble is that for very pushes sentry force field can be such a lifesaver.

Anyhow, my point is that you never STAY zealot/sentry, but it can keep you alive for the first few minutes in a way that stalker / sentry can't.
Floophead_III
Profile Joined September 2009
United States1832 Posts
April 05 2010 23:44 GMT
#9
What happens if you run into 10/10/11 reaper rush though? You really should open with a stalker to be safe imo.
Half man, half bear, half pig.
icki.icki
Profile Joined March 2010
106 Posts
April 05 2010 23:45 GMT
#10
Yeah, but then immediately into sentry, imo.
Avius
Profile Joined October 2007
Iraq1796 Posts
April 05 2010 23:52 GMT
#11
I usually open up with a stalker and then vary my unit composition to what's needed. When I see him doing the rallypoint-into-my-base-marauder-push I usually mix sentries and zealots into the mix.

You might argue that zealots are crap against marauders, but it really forces the T to micro the shit out of his marauders, or they'll simply die. Plus they are a nice meatshield. Throw in a couple of FF here and there and you can pretty much hold off his first push. By this time I have 2 gate while throwing down my robo and usually I end up getting an Immortal relatively quickly so the push is completely denied.
aka. Samael
roymarthyup
Profile Joined April 2010
1442 Posts
April 05 2010 23:59 GMT
#12
for now i am assuming all terran are using fast marauder or reaper rush in platinum, so i use this build which is fairly effective against marauder terran rushes or zerg muta harass


replays:

vs terran
http://www.mediafire.com/?djh2lkzwkjz
http://www.mediafire.com/?ilzmuthm3oz





vs zerg
http://www.mediafire.com/?yjjly1tztn1





i won against both terrans



against the zerg i lost because he outmacro'ed me and i made the mistake of attacking when i should have waited 2 minutes to get 200food. i attacked when i was 169food and my enemy was 179food because i was retarded and wasted 1500minerals on cannons.

if i didnt waste 1500 minerals on cannons and waited for 200food before i attacked i would have beat the zerg because the zerg could not kill me if i just camped and turtled
icki.icki
Profile Joined March 2010
106 Posts
April 05 2010 23:59 GMT
#13
When you mix with sentries zealots become pretty decent -- and once zealots get charge they're practically a hard counter to MM in large numbers. Force field behind MM + charge == massacre.
Raydog
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States632 Posts
April 06 2010 00:04 GMT
#14
Actually if someone is doing a heavy mass marauder push, Immortals wouldn't be best. What you want is Sentry/zealot, with some stalker thrown in there, and instead of teching immortals tech to zealot legs. with good forcefields you can cut the Terran army in half and use charge to own the units, then back off, and attack the rest of the army when he engages.

I've played vs. numerous high level Terrans who try a marauder semi-all-in (even bring SCVs), and they say they can beat immortals, but not zealot legs.
Shew
Avius
Profile Joined October 2007
Iraq1796 Posts
April 06 2010 00:08 GMT
#15
Against heavy Marauder semi-all-in you should always be getting the legs upgrade, no doubt, but imo after the robo. The Obs and Immortal are just way too important to miss out on.

But I digress, the OP is asking about gateway units and Zealot/Sentry(+Stalker) is doing the trick for me. I always get 1 Stalker in the beginning just to be safe against the Reapers and to kill off the scouting SCV.
aka. Samael
Feefee
Profile Joined November 2009
Canada556 Posts
April 06 2010 00:18 GMT
#16
The only thing that I don't like about sentry/zealot (and I agree they work well against marauders), is that one ghost can completely screw up your plan of cornering the terran. And without forcefield even speed upgraded zealots get quite hurt by marauders.
I suppose you just have to time your colossi to come out by then or be careful with your sentries
icki.icki
Profile Joined March 2010
106 Posts
April 06 2010 00:30 GMT
#17
On April 06 2010 09:08 Avius wrote:
Against heavy Marauder semi-all-in you should always be getting the legs upgrade, no doubt, but imo after the robo. The Obs and Immortal are just way too important to miss out on.

But I digress, the OP is asking about gateway units and Zealot/Sentry(+Stalker) is doing the trick for me. I always get 1 Stalker in the beginning just to be safe against the Reapers and to kill off the scouting SCV.


Oh, totally agreed about the leg upgrade post-robo; you need obs and immortals ASAP. I was completely not making sentries, which was just a monumental mistake.
Chairman Ray
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States11903 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-06 00:46:09
April 06 2010 00:42 GMT
#18
I have never lost to a marauder heavy army before.

My army consists of 50% stalker, 30% zealot, 20% immortal with a couple sentries.

The rationale is that Immortals and stalkers have very high DPS vs marauders, but marauders have even higher DPS vs Immortals and stalkers. A zealot can tank a marauder for 16 hits, which is a long time, and a microed marauder can kite a zealot until he dies. So in each scenario, the marauder wins out, but when you combine the two, it's different. In a hybrid army, marauders will fire at the zealots first. That means Terran has very low DPS against you, but you have very high DPS against them. Stalker/immortal can shred through MM in the time that MM just kills your 5 or so zealots. If Terran tech switches to air, having 50% stalker will deal with that easily while you pump out more stalkers. If Terran tech switches to mech, you have more than enough immortals to deal with it. If Terran masses marines, the couple sentries will enable your stalkers and immortals to deal with them.

The most important part is having an observer. That way, you can counter Terran's army before they realize what's going on.

EDIT: Take this with a grain of salt since I haven't actually played a top Terran player yet. This just works versus 1000-1500 ELO people.
mint_julep
Profile Joined October 2009
United States254 Posts
April 25 2010 18:58 GMT
#19
icki, what about when there's no ramp on your map to FF?
I hope Plexa's sig is right.
zZygote
Profile Blog Joined January 2007
Canada898 Posts
April 25 2010 21:05 GMT
#20
On April 26 2010 03:58 mint_julep wrote:
icki, what about when there's no ramp on your map to FF?


I would then consider walling off the choke with your stalker/sentry/zealot. Then chronoboost the hell outta that immortal. At most they would have 3-5 mara's with either 1-3 marines. You can easily counter push or expand cause your at an advantage for his early investment on gas.
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