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[D] PvT 3-1-2 Build: Help/Discussion for Protoss

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Gnial
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Canada907 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-25 00:00:31
September 17 2010 21:15 GMT
#1
Hey everyone, I came across the following replays in my spare time. It is a random ladder match between White-Ra and Morrow that turns into a best of 5 in which Morrow tries to get a handle on the 3-1-2 build, and they talk it over just a bit. For those who don't know, that is the build that is used to go marine-banshee, with various variations used.

Now while Morrow doesn't do this build as well as TLO does, he has spent time learning it from TLO, and is better than 99.99% of the people you will run into on the ladder, so for the vast majority of you it should be useful to take a look at what White-Ra does to counter this build.

Game 1: White-Ra v Morrow
Game 2: White-Ra v Morrow
Game 3: White-Ra v Morrow
Game 4: White-Ra v Morrow

Morrow gives up on the 3-1-2 at this point, but for those of you who want to see how the BO5 ends...

Game 5: White-Ra v Morrow

White-ra tries stargate tech, 1-base blink stalkers, and fast expanding against the 3-1-2 build.

While it is probably possible to make any of White-ra's counters work, my personal take on the 3-1-2 build after watching these replays is that the strongest response is a fast-expand. I have a fairly complicated analysis of why that is, here it goes:

Gateway units are extremely cost effective against just mass marines (obviously). However, each banshee that gets added to that marine mass makes the Terran army slightly more cost effective than it was before against Protoss tier 1 and tier 2 units.

There reaches a point ~around~ 6 banshees where the Terran army becomes cost effective against the Protoss army, and soon becomes strong enough to roll over a 1-basing Protoss. Unfortunately, this timing works out badly for the Protoss since it comes before he can get T3 units out with a gateway army.

So colossi-stalker, or templars, are out of the picture.

Day9 always says: If you can't hard-counter, you can win by just having more units.

There is this fairly lengthy period before the Terran gets a high banshee count in which the Protoss player can defend the Terran push fairly easily with production from just 3 warp gates. The way I see it, your main goal against the 3-1-2 is to get your expansion up, pay it off, and mass extra units BEFORE the Terran gets that critical cost-effective amount of banshees out.

So if you scout with your observer that 3-1-2 has gone down, you are guaranteed (as a result of the huge infrastructure costs and building time) that they will be unable to hit you with a devastating push for a considerable amount of time. At that point I think the best thing to do is throw down the 2nd nexus. Throwing down the nexus early not only lets you get a army size advantage to combat the Terran, you may force the Terran to attack you before he wants to, and ultimately it helps you tech to, and support, templar or colossi production as you go into the mid game.


While I have a theory behind the fast-expansion, I'm not convinced that a better way doesn't exist; this is just the best that I have come up with so far. Any discussion, variation, criticism, etc. is welcome.

Also, any other theories, discussion, or side-notes about the 3-1-2 is welcome.
1, eh? 2, eh? 3, eh?
ZeeMan
Profile Joined August 2010
Australia66 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 07:37:08
September 23 2010 07:36 GMT
#2
does the obs scout it early enough for you to put down a second nexus as a reaction and have it pay off before the first T attack?
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
September 23 2010 08:45 GMT
#3
morrow used a vatiation of pure marine banshee vs which mass stalkers are good. There are variations with marauders or ravens or stim or a combination of those which would do much better vs what ra did.
link0
Profile Joined March 2010
United States1071 Posts
September 23 2010 08:50 GMT
#4
If you have already expanded, then just mass more gateway units and use guardian shield.

If you haven't expanded, get a stargate for phoenixes.

Both methods will defend against this all-in.
http://www.justin.tv/link0 - Gosu.Linko - http://www.facebook.com/link0
ChickenLips
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2912 Posts
September 23 2010 09:08 GMT
#5
FE is so strong against it as the push normally takes very long to hit and a Protoss FE has had a few minutes of 3-4 gate macroing up until that point. Also FEs are usually stalker heavy (unlike tech builds which usually rely on zealots and sentries) so they have an easier time fighting off the timing push.
❤Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ✿
Riouh
Profile Joined July 2010
Netherlands60 Posts
September 23 2010 09:28 GMT
#6
On September 23 2010 16:36 ZeeMan wrote:
does the obs scout it early enough for you to put down a second nexus as a reaction and have it pay off before the first T attack?


hahaha totally. i just hops between PvT and PvP all the time i was SOOOOO confused reading that post. but.. again a midgame push aka the 3-1-2 its best to expand. turtle up and wait for the move-out. drop his base. and win.

if you're protoss expand. go for robo wait for the push drop his base and win. you WILL have more units since you have 2 bases so you can drop while he pushes and have an even unit composition
hihi glgl
Fraidnot
Profile Blog Joined May 2008
United States824 Posts
September 23 2010 10:44 GMT
#7
On September 23 2010 18:28 Riouh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 23 2010 16:36 ZeeMan wrote:
does the obs scout it early enough for you to put down a second nexus as a reaction and have it pay off before the first T attack?


hahaha totally. i just hops between PvT and PvP all the time i was SOOOOO confused reading that post. but.. again a midgame push aka the 3-1-2 its best to expand. turtle up and wait for the move-out. drop his base. and win.

if you're protoss expand. go for robo wait for the push drop his base and win. you WILL have more units since you have 2 bases so you can drop while he pushes and have an even unit composition


I have to think that will just get you rolled every time if you try to expand early you're just not going to have the type of units you need to hold it off, unless the Terran turns back to defend his base when you drop he will have enough units to make you trade bases, and you don't want to do that with a Terran.
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