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About the Build
So, I haven't played as much these days. And that makes it harder to execute in game at a high level. But I think I am still relatively solid on the theory side of the game. And I just had this build I was developing in my mind with the latest patch coming out, I couldn't get it out of my head. I played it some vs a friend, he isn't masters tho, I just wanted to see if the build flowed right. It flowed very very well.. I actually think this is quite a strong build.
I think it will be fun for you guys to at least try this out and see what you can do with it. Just work with it yourself if you want to, I am very confident it makes sense.
The State of PvZ
You often hear idra or other zergs complain about the luck factor in stopping early game aggression. Either you take a hit to your economy or you can die if they do an allin or near allin against you with an earlier timing. This complaint may or may not be legitimate.
What they often take for granted, though, is that protoss has similar issues. Those who saw the latest GSL finals know what I am talking about, though many protoss players already did. If you go too heavy on ecomony/tech you can die quite easily to a ling/roach allin. If you play too safe you fall behind in economy as the zerg drones heavy. If you play aggressively and the zerg holds it or swarms you, you can lose the game right there. If you lose your sentries the zerg can re-drone and gain a massive economy lead.
So, like zerg woes in zvp, pvz is largely a guessing game and a balancing act of safety vs economy. And like zerg complaints of inability to scout, protoss has a huge weakness in scouting zerg early game. Speedlings make it so that we have no clue what they are doing.
So the question is, how can protoss safely expand, while keeping up with zerg in economy? I think I have a possible way to do this.
The build
Alright, this build is probably something you've never seen the likes of. This is what we do.
9 pylon, scout
chrono probes at 10
on some maps/positions, stop probes at 12 for gateway. on others, chrono again and gateway at 14. if you stop to 12gateway immediately chrono probes again when it's started.
gas when you have 75. this will be @ 14/15
another chrono on probes, pylon @ 15/16
complete your wallin (leaving gap for zealot), by placing your core as soon as your gateway finishes.
another chrono on probes. 2nd gas @ 75(it will be right after your core starts, @ 21/22)
zealot
alright, here is where the build gets fun. as soon as your core finishes, start a sentry with a chronoboost, and then start hallucination. the chrono on the sentry is necessary. put up a 2nd gateway as well
at this point, use every-single-chronoboost on probes. don't stop using them on probes. you're gonna get over the saturation point for your main base with probes. and meanwhile, pump 2gate sentries and start a forge.
hallucination should be nearing completion, so queue up warpgate research after it.
hallucination should be done, and your sentry will be nearing 100 energy. you should have maybe 3 sentries and a zealot. put the pylon at the bottom of the ramp and move to expand, as though it was a 3gate sentry expand. hallucinate a phoenix, scout in front of your base with it and move towards the zerg base. you will spot any allin coming and can react appropriately. scout the zerg base with hallucination.
if you see roaches or mass lings being produced you are going to need cannons and some more sentries. you will stop the aggression thanks to your fast forge and you will actually get ahead in economy due to constant chronoboosts on probes.
if they are constantly droning, disregarding that you could be doing a fast warpgate attack, then no big deal. this situation is actually worse with 3gate sentry expand because in 3gate sentry expand you haven't been constantly chronoboosting probes. you may be behind in economy but it won't be drastic. at this point you will want to move out with your 1zealot +7-9 sentries. use every single sentry with 100 energy to hallucinate zealots(this will probably only be 2 or 3 of your sentries... so 4-6 zealots). make sure the zerg sees your huge zealot/sentry army moving towards their base. they will massively overreact. don't actually engage, of course. just make them think you are going to. go ahead and clear the watchtowers, and use your hallu zealots to scout around or whatever. meanwhile you can keep chronoing probes and safely tech up.
while your expansion is making get more gateways and a robo if they have a roach den. once your expansion gets up i'd recommend a 2nd robo if they are going roach and a transition to collossus if you scout hydra. make sure to use your forge right away to start upgrading once your expansion is up. it's probably best to transition to a 3rd base and play for the late game, you have a huge amount of probes and your economy will be booming. the late game is where a high-economy high-tech protoss shines. have fun.
Why I made this build
They nerfed warpgate research time in the latest patch. They buffed sentry build time from gateways. It only makes sense to develop a build that is less focused on fast warpgate but takes advantage of the quicker sentry build time. Quicker sentry build time means warpgate is less important to get up a fast expansion. Quicker sentry means faster hallucination, which means faster scouting, which means increased safety.
REPLAY
http://www.2shared.com/file/oTFtA3r2/pvz_synthetiq_fg_forge_exp_hal.html
opponent is random 1050 masters player
(please note that i made a small error in this replay. you should start your sentry BEFORE you start hallucination. I started mine after)
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Very interesting. It will make your warp gate much later, but I am very interested in this and I will try it out.
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Interesting I'll test this out right now and get back to you
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Sounds really cool. Do you have any replays or anything?
What is the zerg's typical reaction and how effectively can you deny scouting with just sentries?
Always good to have new builds popping up.
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On May 15 2011 07:45 Absentia wrote:
Sounds really cool. Do you have any replays or anything?
What is the zerg's typical reaction and how effectively can you deny scouting with just sentries?
Always good to have new builds popping up.
you can deny scouting from slow overlords just fine. sentries do less damage than stalkers but they build quicker, so you will have more of them faster. and I will note, it is quite important to try to deny scouting with this build, you don't want to let them see 2g1f if you can help it.
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On May 15 2011 07:46 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 07:45 Absentia wrote:
Sounds really cool. Do you have any replays or anything?
What is the zerg's typical reaction and how effectively can you deny scouting with just sentries?
Always good to have new builds popping up. you can deny scouting from slow overlords just fine. sentries do less damage than stalkers but they build quicker, so you will have more of them faster. and I will note, it is quite important to try to deny scouting with this build, you don't want to let them see 2g1f if you can help it.
Same as the guy above, do you have any replays? Or is this just theorycrafting?
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this sounds like a slightly different form of a really, really old build made back in the beta by Salv, he has different approaches that he lines out but his one base 3gate sentry expand sounds very similar to this
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128437
while outdated in a lot of ways, and obviously not actually the same build as the one you provide, the flow of the early game and the concept are very similar, i think now that roaches have 4 range and zerg players are more cunning with their timings, the ability to lay down cannons and maximize gateway production to sentries only is more valuable than the additional zealots. and like you said, with the changes in the latest patch a hallucination build seems like a proper form of experimentation at this point.
i might try this style out again (but with the forge instead of the third gateway) as i am having a lot of trouble with pvz in the early game, we'll see how that goes.
edit: i think this was also when sentries still did 8 damage per hit (which is awesome btw XD) so there was obviously a very good reason why this build was around at this time, but yeah like i mentioned earlier, the early hallucination scout seems like it could have some merit right now)
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I'd like to see replays of this. I'm sure the thread won't get closed considering who the OP is, but this sounds pretty legit, so I'd love to see it in action.
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I have try to expand with just 2 gate making sentry but miserably die to roach/ling all-in. Super fast hallucination is a good idea, i'll try this =)
But can't the zerg scout this with ling at the front of your base and count your number of sentry ?
Just 2 gate with sentry is not a lot of presure for the zerg :/
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On May 15 2011 07:58 PtitDrogo wrote:
I have try to expand with just 2 gate making sentry but miserably die to roach/ling all-in. Super fast hallucination is a good idea, i'll try this =)
But can't the zerg scout this with ling at the front of your base and count your number of sentry ?
Just 2 gate with sentry is not a lot of presure for the zerg :/
From the front of your base it looks the same as a 3gate sentry expand. The entire point of the build is that you have no intention of trying to kill the zerg, your intention is to be either ahead or even economically - which is a great position for protoss to be in.
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If you guys want a replay I have one vs my friend (gold player). Otherwise you'll have to wait until I actually get a chance to use it in ladder, and I don't play all that much.
Yes, the build is mostly theory, but I know it flows well as I tested it.
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On May 15 2011 08:15 travis wrote:
If you guys want a replay I have one vs my friend (gold player). Otherwise you'll have to wait until I actually get a chance to use it in ladder, and I don't play all that much.
Yes, the build is mostly theory, but I know it flows well as I tested it.
yes, I would like to see the replay. Very interesting build, indeed. Will see the affect it has on ladder.
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Intressting build. It's obvious that the weakness of it is its inability to punish a greedy zerg, but in the current metagame this build should be very powerful unless it gets too popular and zergs relaise they can be greedy against it. Your expansion is going to be delayed by quite a significant bit, and since most zergs respond to delayed expands by getting out a significant amount of lings to be safe against 1 base all ins, its very possible you'll have trouble securing your expand long after Hallu is out even if zerg dont all in.
I do however like your suggested response should zerg have been greedy and i bet you can get on even terms with zerg if they fall for it, even if your expansion initially gets delayed.
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ok i played ladder until i got a pvz where zerg wasn't cheesing and didn't go hat first (he goes hat first i cannon lol)
so i got a replay now, ill upload it and add it to the main post. so look at the bottom of the main post for the link
(please note that i made a small error in the replay. you should start your sentry BEFORE you start hallucination. I started mine after)
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Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors.
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On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors.
How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push.
And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields.
point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas.
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On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:
How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push.
I quote your OP:
hallucination should be done, and your sentry will be nearing 100 energy. you should have maybe 3 sentries and a zealot. put the pylon at the bottom of the ramp and move to expand, as though it was a 3gate sentry expand. hallucinate a phoenix, scout in front of your base with it and move towards the zerg base. you will spot any allin coming and can react appropriately. scout the zerg base with hallucination.
A hallucination flying by an overlord that early is a dead giveaway that u went hallucination before warpgate. I don't think you can really avoid your hallucination tech getting spotted if you want to scout the zerg base.
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yeah yeah ur def right he will know i got hallu before warpgate if he is any good
i do not, however, think he will know the zealots aren't real unless he sees what is in my base
also i think this is a build you could do in a box series for 2-3 games and then in the next game chronoboost your hallu/wg instead of probes, and instead of expo do 4-5gate allin and u could easily win vs a droner
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On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors. How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push. And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields. point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas.
This makes a lot of sense, but I would like to ask one thing... In your OP you said zerg will massively overreact to your hallucinated zeal push. If you don't engage and retreat after using all sentry energy on hallucination, what if he decides that 1. he knows you had hallu, or 2. that he has enough units to kill you and commits to an attack? With no map control or FF you will be in quite a lot of trouble, even with 3 or so cannons against a force designed to beat 8 zeals and 8 sentries which he saw knocking on his door.
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EPT
