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(reposted from here)
Everyone's familiar with the standard 2-supply 1-barracks wall that terran players build at the top of their ramps. Sometimes players opt to delay their wall in order to make a thicker wall with a more bulky buildings. No matter what you do, you need at least 3 buildings to make a zergling/zealot-tight wall at the top of your ramp.
Why not try the bottom of the ramp? As it turns out, it only takes two buildings (as long as one is a 3x3) to make a unit-tight wall-off at the bottom of the ramp. You can build a supply depot/barracks at the bottom of every ramp on lost temple and have room for an addon without having to lift the barracks off:
+ Show Spoiler +
Is it worth doing? Let's see
Advantages:
-No way to get vision of the high ground without flying units.
-Denies worker scouting inside your main completely unless they send a very early scout (even on a very small map with known spawn locations, the very latest they could send a scout is around 9 or 10 supply. On larger maps without known spawn locations, they'd have to get lucky guess with a scout on 7 or 8 to get in. This is assuming you do 10 supply depot / 12 barracks).
-Starts a wall into your natural which you can finish using only buildings you would produce anyway, like so:
+ Show Spoiler +
Disadvantages:
-Smaller surface area on the inside for repairing.
-Harder to make baneling-proof. You're forced to either thicken your wall on the outside (putting your buildings where you can't repair them) or make a second wall at the top of your ramp and sacrificing your supply depot.
-Harder to defend from larger chunks of ranged units because you're forced into the choke while they can spread out. If you sense the early aggression, throw down a bunker.
+ Show Spoiler +
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Hmm, maybe this could see use from people who are really attempting to stop an early scout from seeing anything in your base
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A very nice find, however although this is a good idea, I find it to have the same consequences as the backdoor in Blistering Sands.
If you don't have siege tanks, the opponent is able to attack the wall.
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I think the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages you listed.
Denying a worker scout is kind of nice, but you can easily kill the scout with a marine and block off the ramp after that. Your opponent would barely get any information from this scout, except maybe if you went early gas or not.
Starting a wall to your natural is kind of nice, but you could easily just fly over a barracks, factory, and finish the wall with a few supply depots if you walled at the top. It's not really an advantage you have a barracks placed there when you can fly it over anyways.
Smaller surface area to repair and the fact that your opponent can simply kill your barracks with ranged units while you are helpless are what breaks this idea. What are you going to do if your opponent comes in with 6 stalkers? They are just going to pick off your barracks and outrange your marines / mauraders. The whole point of having the choke at the top is that your opponent needs to go up the ramp to gain vision of your barracks and you have a huge arc of MM firing at them. It's the exact opposite if you build at the bottom of your ramp, where they will have a huge arc firing 3-4 units at a time that come down the ramp.
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On July 04 2010 10:39 infectious wrote:
Hmm, maybe this could see use from people who are really attempting to stop an early scout from seeing anything in your base
Unless you're facing Terran, in which his Siege Tanks can hit it anyway.
Let's just get it out of the way now so that no one else has to point it out: WALL INS LIKE THIS ARE INEFFECTIVE AGAINST SIEGE TANKS. Nothing against you, just that inevitably everyone is going to repeat it and just slow down the discussion.
So let's examine TvZ and TvP. TvP, Stalkers will be able to hit the production facility from far enough away that the Bunker wont hit them. So this is probably not a good idea in TvP.
TvZ, yes, it'll work against Zerglings. With another production facility, yes it'll be decent against Banelings. However, without a Bunker, will Marines be able to shoot Roaches from behind the wall? That I'm not soo sure about.
Generally, I think it's much better at either the top of your ramp or actually walling off your Natural.
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this is really interesting, the advantage of blocking off early pressure though from say zerglings and zealots are the same, but then if you can get vision of the attacker from the high ground then its useful
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this is a wall in that make sense in few cercumstances.
mainly:
*you have a second wall and want to get some shots in with long range units before they hit your main wall.
*your opponant always gose all short range ground and this will hide your mid to late game suprises
*proboly are a few others
a weekness i noticed: not only do you have less space to repair but they have more space to attack.
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I sometimes did this against Zerg when I planned on early aggression on my part or if I was going for a 1-2 rax expand on Metalopolis. It felt right for me when playing. Against P it somewhat forces you to go with either quick reapers (to keep his stalkers in his own base) or Marauders to keep them off your wall. Unless its Metalopolis where you can safely bunker expand regardless. Against T its pretty much suicidal unless your going all in with 4 rax marauder 1 rax no add on marines. Which in itself isn't viable outside ladder play. (I was near the top levels of diamond league but no where near a top level player during first beta phase playing as Random).
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I think that this is viable TvZ early-ish. Because you'd be able to reinforce behind the rax with more marines, you'd be able to deny ling pokes and push ovies out. That being said, it would work well for an early wall off to the natural, but only if you're getting tanks. If you get anything that can't outrange upgraded hydras from behind the wall, then you're a fool.
It would allow a really early expansion if you finish with a factory or two.
Also, you could build additional supply depots to form a more traditional wall off at the top, so even if they break you at the bottom, you have another buffer that will buy some time for reinforcements.
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On July 04 2010 10:55 Pack A Lunch wrote:
I think the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages you listed.
Denying a worker scout is kind of nice, but you can easily kill the scout with a marine and block off the ramp after that. Your opponent would barely get any information from this scout, except maybe if you went early gas or not.
Starting a wall to your natural is kind of nice, but you could easily just fly over a barracks, factory, and finish the wall with a few supply depots if you walled at the top. It's not really an advantage you have a barracks placed there when you can fly it over anyways.
Smaller surface area to repair and the fact that your opponent can simply kill your barracks with ranged units while you are helpless are what breaks this idea. What are you going to do if your opponent comes in with 6 stalkers? They are just going to pick off your barracks and outrange your marines / mauraders. The whole point of having the choke at the top is that your opponent needs to go up the ramp to gain vision of your barracks and you have a huge arc of MM firing at them. It's the exact opposite if you build at the bottom of your ramp, where they will have a huge arc firing 3-4 units at a time that come down the ramp.
I have to disagree. This seems very strong to me, especially if it's done with, say dual rax or something. Of course it's not useful against terran; their units have the same range as yours and so your only real defensive advantage is high ground/sight. against zerg, though, you should be able to stop almost all T1 aggression. Against toss, you better have an answer by the time they have 6 stalkers out. 6 stalkers with a few zealots up front could pick off a depot even if it was placed in the traditional manner; this style might be a bit more exposed, but i fail to see how it's completely unviable.
Also, OP further addresses your concerns about range units: just get a bunker. The other reason I like this strat is it helps with a FE terran. As a random player, I personally find it hard sometimes to secure my nat against early toss aggression. Sure, you can just build the cc and float it over, but having that extra bunker there already for reinforcement could be a huge benefit.
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-Harder to defend from larger chunks of ranged units because you're forced into the choke while they can spread out. If you sense the early aggression, throw down a bunker.
Definitely the main issue. In an attack, you'll probably lose your wall
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This is actually quite good against baneling busts. If it's a late baneling bust, you might be able to put a starport and fact at the top of the ramp, or two more rax. This way, they'll break through the depot easily, but once they get on to the ramp, they can get slaughtered in the choke between the top of the ramp and the rax at the bottom.
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If you put your wall at the bottom of the ramp then most of your units (other than siege tanks) wouldn't have the range to support it right? If you bring your marines down to stand on your ramp then they would have normal range but you'd lose the cliff advantage as the enemy would have sight of the ramp. Add that to the fact that if your wall is at the top you can get the bigger concave whereas at the bottom the enemy can get the bigger concave and I think it's not viable.
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This is what I used to do to cheese zerg. trap them in at the bottom of ramp so they can't expand. Worked sometimes.
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As a Zerg player, I can say that I'd much rather the Terran wall off at the bottom. I'm going to sack an overlord to scout inside anyways, and the wall at the bottom has a LOT more surface area for me to attack with melee to get inside. One of the biggest problems as Zerg with breaking through a wall is that there isn't a lot of surface area to attack, and only 1 angle to come at it from. Putting the rax at the bottom solves this for us.
Interesting concept, but I'd much rather play against a Terran who walls at the bottom of his ramp.
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Dont like. I see no useful advantage.
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On July 04 2010 10:55 Pack A Lunch wrote:
The whole point of having the choke at the top is that your opponent needs to go up the ramp to gain vision of your barracks and you have a huge arc of MM firing at them. It's the exact opposite if you build at the bottom of your ramp, where they will have a huge arc firing 3-4 units at a time that come down the ramp.
this
The only benefit to this would be a pre rush (denying the early scout) and massing raxes at the Top.
Otherwise stalkers or infantry, possibly even roaches will crush this if you are going for any relative FE with minimal units. (even if you do manage to get an early tank, it most likely wont be in time).
Fairly confident any good player would test this door early before any shinanigans would take place, as most would assuming banshees first.
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Why does it seem like no one is mentioning the vision issue ? I skimmed this topic and my biggest problem with walling at the bottom is the fact that you can be fired upon immediately with no vision advantage.
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You should post wall offs with 2 production builds (rax and fac) with addons as well
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I think DeMusliM tried this against Dimaga in the Razer Domination finals.
He went with 2 barracks on Steppes of War, although Dimaga never really came and attacked it.
Biggest problem is that you can't adequately defend the wall-off without moving down the ramp and firing at shit.
However, something like this could be the catalyst for a new Terran FE opening similar to BW later down the road if you add more buildings to choke off the natural like what Protoss does already in a PvZ.
Could you do up some pictures showing how you'd wall-off the nat?
edit: Without including the CC as part of the wall, and giving room for a bunker as well as adding some depots for units to get through.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cfuJoXNu0Ys/TC61dx7aQII/AAAAAAAAAAU/sF3pzDadAk8/s400/4walls.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cfuJoXNu0Ys/TC610V8ZgqI/AAAAAAAAAAc/TetsW5y-TXU/s400/naturalwall.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cfuJoXNu0Ys/TC62_-0NJjI/AAAAAAAAAA0/ZD0ly4-LPLE/s400/badchoke.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cfuJoXNu0Ys/TC63AD--F4I/AAAAAAAAAA8/SJXyMtSLIOE/s400/chokefix.jpg)
