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http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=215574#/replay_overview
Summary: we both expand relatively early and i transition into robo and send my obs to my opponents base. i see 3-4 starports with tech labs and proceed to facepalm myself numerous times as i tech up to high templars. terran then does lots of damage with his banshees while securing map control, i literally cannot step out of my base ! not with a herd of banshee up in my business. so the game drags on and on, i try to get expos up but he goes and right clicks on the expos with his banshees and take it out in a second because of banshees insane dps. he also powered down my buildings a lot as protoss players usually don't put cannons near their gateways - enough said on that point. in the late game although i had superior upgrades i just could not keep up with production as his army had such a s trong mix to it (thors, marauders, banshees - wtfbbq).
so i need some help, i've faced this banshee style on ladder several times but it is so insanely difficult to deal with. the first thought to pop in my head was phoenix. i should get phoenix... right? but then i thought to myself no i want to be a little better than that and try to work around it some other way since producing phoenix weaken your gateway army/upgrades considerately. so i tried high templar but thats difficult to do because banshees are sturdier than mutas, can be repaired and require like 3-4 obs and a heck of a lot of control to fight against.
So yeah am i just using the wrong strategy? (high templar/gateway army with upgrades) or do i just have poor execution? please tell me things i can change/improve upon in my game by watching the replay
thanks
oh and masters and up only please - would appreciate it !
also if there are any replays of pros/high master/grandmasters playing against this style and coming out on top id love to have the link.
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If he has three or four Starports and you make one Stargate, your ground army is still going to be very far ahead of his. Having just a few Phoenixes and speed Observers will utterly destroy his map presense; you'll be completely nullifying the Terran's investment at a small fraction of the cost. If you feel that "just making counter-units is dumb", consider what it would be like for Terrans to play TvP without making Vikings or Ghosts. You're right that High Templar are the correct tech choice for directly combatting that style of army, but having a few Phoenixes first will give you a massive tempo and space advantage.
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i didnt watch the replay but here is a reason why replays like that is rare on high level:
Fast expanding cause a certain risk: all in burst. Fast expand players are always vulnerable to some certain timing that even if the Terran has 3 bunkers up at their nature, they still cant hold it. (example is 4 gate 1 base or 6 gates 2 base... read Huk 20 food expand for more)
You really need to get phoenix straight away to counter banshee, just 2 stalkers perbanshee he made is fine. The danger thing is the marine count and what ever he made out of his factory. Lots of people lose to 1/1/1 build mostly bc they took damage by banshee and over commit in defense against it and forgot about marines/tanks.
HT is not a great choice but its will be handful once you have 5th and 6th gas. There are some air terrain where cant be stormed but banshee still can hover above it. Most of the time storm is used to deal with what ever he has on the ground (scv/marine) while your stalker are handling air.
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Ive actually faced an even scarier version of this (I used to play toss)
If they add a raven, and a few vikings, pdd blocks phoenix,stalkers, and cannon fire so they can swoop in and snipe whatever they want. Any obs die in half a second, and phoenix get crushed because of the pdd and vikings. The only way to deal with it is with HT's, storm and feedback. But by the time you get them you're pretty far behind. They get complete map control and can expand at will. While you're trapped on 2 base. Then they can just mix in whatever they want and crush you. I'm actually surprised it isn't used more. On scrap station it's particularly devastating. So glad I switched to terran, it allows for a lot more creativity and so many viable compositions.
I'm honestly not even sure how you would deal with it. I'm guessing with aggressive blink stalker play to bypass the early bunkers that are necessary to get the starports going. Some cannons at both bases to stop the first few banshees from doing damage and then tech to HT would be my best guess.
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On June 17 2011 09:44 pandaBee wrote: i should get phoenix... right? but then i thought to myself no i want to be a little better than that and try to work around it some other way since producing phoenix weaken your gateway army/upgrades considerately.
This outright lost you the game. It's like a MMM terran not getting vikings when they see colossi out from a competent protoss. Sure, there are lots of ways around it, but more often than not, the terran would be in a disadvantage.
Phoenixes + speed observers would've been so much more cost efficient.
1.Blink stalkers are decent to shut down banshee harass, but against 3 port banshees you're in for a wild goose chase, specially with 4 bases.
2.Since you didn't have phoenixes, you compensated with extra cannons at your expansions, but from your 3rd base onwards, you essentially walled off your mineral line pretty badly. IMO, the economic loss from your probes distance mining and building that many cannons was quite significant.
3.Sure, high templars deal with banshee based armies pretty well, but against huge banshee cloud harasses, they're really too slow to run around 4 bases. Plus, feedback and storms don't really do well with banshee hit and runs.
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Hmm a lot of people are recommending phoenix play
about how many phoenix do you guys suggest? and should i prioritize upgrades or teching up to templar and when would be a good time to expand going phoenix (ive nev er really tried phoenix play before)
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How many phoenixes:
Really depends on the opponent's response to your phoenixes, They either stop building banshees or start building vikings. With 3 port + tech labs, I think he was pretty much committed to banshee + viking or banshee + thor or a combination.
I think 1 stargate+some chronos continuous phoenix production would've been suffcient to handle the amount of banshees coming out of those ports. Banshees build in 60s, phoenixes 35, so you'll have about a 2:3 ratio against the banshees, more than enough to shut down harasses completely.
You could've built a stargate after scouting the 3 port techlabs and been fine with chronoboosts on your first few phoenixes. By the time he has 6 banshees, you'll have 4 phoenixes. Go ahead with your usual army.
Upgrades or teching:
If he's building banshees out of 3 ports, he's probably not gonna have much of anything else, so its quite safe to tech to templars, which handle eventual terran responses pretty well( thors, vikings, marines are the typical terran response if still going with banshees).
Expanding:
Expand like usual. Like I said, if he's building banshees out of 3 ports, he's probably not gonna have much of anything else, and the threat of banshees is handled pretty well with phoenixes. You could probably expand more rampantly knowing he's committed to making alot of banshees. Also, if you're teching templars, you're gonna have alot of minerals to spare.
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Don't get phoenix, Terran usually just blindly make a lot of vikings and add a raven or 2 for PDD. As soon as you see double starport with tech labs off 2 base from a terran tech right to HTs and get blink/charge a bit later on and go for a gateway heavy army with upgrades (Get armor, because mass banshee usually comes with a lot of marines). And some Terrans even get a couple of thors to rape the Phoenix.
Mass banshee is pretty easy to deal with, it's just really how good you are, like, if your able to deal with mutas fairly well, then it should be no problem.
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i just watched it whole replay
first when you first scout at 8:30 you saw 3 fucking starport with tech labs and 1 rax when pll see this generally just go fucking kill him. you had 700min in bank at 8:30 its absurd.
at this moment maybe you can make afew phoenix but you should have killed him lol.
second for counter thingy for late game voidray counters whole of your opponnets army yeah he can make viking and you fucking kill him again.
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As a guy who tends to go banshees against toss, I can tell u that if u see 3-4 port banshee, u cam generally overwhelm the banshees with mass blink stalkers. Teching to Templars IMO was a mistake, just chrono blink and mass stalkers. Banshee production can't keep up with combat losses eventually, as stalker losses can be replaced far quicker.
You *might* consider having just one stargate with some phoenixes (prob 4-8) to make it difficult for banshees to counter harass the banshee in future plays. I dun think it's necessary in ur situation, just marcroing and chronoing more stalkers and observers would have done him in.
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3port banshee is considered a cheese for a reason, that is it dies when properly scouted. As the previous poster pointed out once you saw the starports going down you had a clear timing to all-in and kill him. Just add a few more gates, make an immortal to bust through the bunkers (or not, I just suggest that because you had a robo) and go in for the win, as 8 marines in 2 bunkers and a couple of marauders cannot stop even a committed 3gate push let alone a 5-6gate allin.
If you do insist on playing a longer game like you did, there is really no reason not to get a stargate at any point of the game. You were able to hold on quite well considering how behind you were and if you added a single stargate for phoenixes even after you got to HTs would have probably swung the battle your way.
Finally, the usual point: macro  If you spent all that money and gas you were banking in the mid game, things would have looked different...
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I used to use 4 SP banshees, if you scout it and go 2 stargate pheonix ASAP you'll stomp it. If you only go for robo to get the obs and then go straight for HT, that's even more ideal with a followup on collo with 3 base. If you're fast enough catching it, you can have pheonix flying around sniping free banshees and containing the terran as he huddles by his turrets and marines. Be wary of 2 SP vs 3-4 though, 2 can just mean heavy vikings or relatively light banshee prod which stalkers/cannons are okay at dealing with till HTs.
Blink stalkers is okay, I wouldn't call it ideal as I find the strength of banshees is more in unit synergy then banshees themselves. If I clean up your collosi, my mass marines will be able to push into your gateway army combined with banshee DPS to clean you up enough for round 2 of drilling.
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alright guys i know that i'm not the best player in the world (obviously) so i know my macro can use work, in fact everyones macro could use a little more work. i just wanted to know which strategy is optimum vs something of this sort.
so yeah i heard some people recommend me to 6 gate all in him, well it's a possibility i suppose but i really dislike playing this way i like to take things to the long run. and besides 3-4 sp banshee good player will hide it and force you to get a observer to know exactly what he's doing.
a person recommended 1 sg phoenix + speed observer? is getting a robo support bay for obs speed upgrade viable? i mean that's quite a bit of resources and it should be pretty impossible to get colossus vs this st rat as banshees own coloss, and this strategy can grab vikings if need be.
another person recommend double stargate but idk i think this is investing almost as much as terran is into air but is not as useful as terran can make rines/turrets/vikings off what he already has established.
but after reviewing these responses and my own replays vs this strat (grrr) i think it's pretty necessary to get a sg and work up to templar tech asap.
p.s. does anyone have any suggestions on how best to deal with the transition to this build (thor marauder banshee or banshee battle cruiser MMM)
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another person recommend double stargate but idk i think this is investing almost as much as terran is into air but is not as useful as terran can make rines/turrets/vikings off what he already has established.
4 SP is fairly allin, pheonix are fine on their own and you need double SG if you intend on catching up on production assuming you don't watch the 4 SPs get built. 3 you might get away with one SG, but most people who build one SG vs 4 don't have enough pheonix by the time I push. There is no real transition out of 4 SP, they don't have upgraded MM to fall back on and if the toss allows this he's either far worse then the terran, afk, ignorant or already lost the game.
Pheonix collo is quite strong, the key is really in microing the pheonix to kill the banshees rather then a moving into it as BCs mess with targetting AI and make pheonix hit them rather then banshees. Thor marauder banshee gets stomped by HT (feedback on 2/3, storm for everything). If you spread your pheonixs/magic box them you'll wreck this as well, thors are pretty terrible except when splash hits.
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A few things to add that have not been mentioned in this thread
Firstly, in general with gate openers, if you ever do a build such as 3g expand, then you actually have to use your gates agressively to force a lot of bunkers and slow down terran tech
The main point i want to add is not overmaking phoenix - a huge and very easy mistake to make is get happy with your chronoboost button and start spamming phoenix even just out of one stargate and you can end up with 10-15 phoenixes.
In general, i stop after 6 phoenixes, and pretty much never use my stargate again and only "top up" on my phoenix count.
The biggest reason is because at some point in the game, and for most tosses, you REALLY want templar or colossi for aoe damage (something phoenixes don't do). And the more phoenixes you get, the more gas you are investing in non aoe units and the more difficult it will get for you as the game goes on.
Even with a 4 starport build, you don't wanna invest more than 600 gas in phoenix because that is more than enough to "deter" banshee harass (note: this doesn't actually mean he COULDN'T - its a psychological thing for terran)
The biggest mistake you can make is to allow terran to just keep pumping out a big ball army full of marines, banshees (and or cruisers) and not have some kind of AoE to deal with it. Eventually, phoenixes wont be able to keep up vs his marines or vikings in a straight up fight, and the only way you can really deal with that is by clearing all of his ground force (i prefer templars due to warpin feedback) and storm.
Also, the last tip i would give is avoid making too many stalkers - again these cost gas and cut into your templar/collo count. Stalkers are there to deter terran from just flying right over you - there are not there to win a straight up fight.
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Similar to fighting against phoenix/voidray as zerg, the MOMENT you see banshees, you should know that there is a small window where terran won't straight up attack you and will be harassing you only, and this is the time where you should greedily tech up at the same time as using the minimal defence - so that when terran uses the harass to macro up, you will have teched up to your AoE tech to punish him in the long run
Hope that helped
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I've watched the replay, here is my view from a terran who uses this mass banshee type of play a lot. Please note that I am only high Gold therefore take my points with a pinch of salt.
Firstly it seems the number one thing you missed in that game was your macro, you were floating a lot of minerals and whist T was harassing a little bit he was able to pull 50 food ahead. Unless he is putting you under serious pressure this shouldn't happen.
You should definitely have got a few phoenixes out, you only need a few but it forces T to get vikings and possibly a raven. This slows down his harassment ability and also means there are less banshees on the field. With vikings only useful for defending the phoenixes. Infact I would go as far as saying a couple of void rays is a decent, as they can help with a late game push of your own.
Lastly you saw yourself how much serious damage HT did to the banshee ball, it completely wrecks it. It is the number 1 thing I fear if I am doing strong banshee play. The combination of mass blink stalkers with some HTs is a strong one, whilst you may only be trading evenly on minerals when engaging the banshees, you are ahead time wise as banshees take so long to make. Overmake gateways so you can re-max stalkers quicker than T can with banshees.
So in summary from your replay, more units, some air to force vikings, upgraded blink stalkers with HTs.
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I have done similiar things as the terran, I watched the replay, here's what I like
You got early +2 weapons
You got blink
You didn't sting on cannons (very good)
What I didn't like was that you got continued to get high templars. You did some amazing damage with those storms, but what if he had spectacular control and did some banshee split magic box? I've had numerous discussions in real life with some protoss players, we went through all the options, but if you see 3-5 starports off of two base, you need to get a starport and get phoenixes. Banshee bio counters any gateway robo composition, he had a wonky marauder banshee mix which wasn't well controlled at all, and it was only (very) soft countered by templar chargelot stalker (you landed some amazing storms man).
You did some experimenting which what is totally needed when approaching situations, but I hope you do take our advice and get stargates if you run into the situation again. High templars would've done well latter game, but not as quick as you had them.
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So you see 3 starports from the terran at 8:30. Everything before this is pretty standard and macro heavy. I see you were about to choose a tech route since you had about 700 minerals and 300 gas.
You pretty much have to throw down a stargate to completely negate his banshee. If he invests that much into banshees, and you hard counter them with phoenix all you have to do is take out his tiny ground army. If you see the tech lab turning, get more observers around your base and one to follow his banshees around. Get about 4 phoenixes out. With target firing they die in 2 shots. If you can catch him while he is going to your base you can do devastating damage, if hes already in your base you can easily repel him.
You had a bit of a tough time defending his early harass, and he escaped with 14 probe kills. Also at 19 minutes, you had trouble splitting your army. You saw the marauders and the banshees both come at you at different locations, but you sent your whole army to deal with the banshees. This was the big reason you lost the game. He took out 2 bases, and a LOT of probes.
If you are trying to storm the banshees, make sure you have flyer helper on, but really phoenix is still better in this situation. Yes it makes your ground army a little bit weaker, but you can harass his mineral line with 4 phoenix since that is the optimal number, and even lift up any important units he has in major fights such as ghosts if he decided to get any. Also, the only anti air unit he got the entire game, was a couple of thors, basically NO marines. Your phoenixes would have been free to fly around anyhwere.
There were a few times where you had stray units around, and high tempelars lying around and he was harassing you, but you didnt feedback or storm him. Its really hard to multitask and stay on top of things the whole game when you've been harassed the whole game but try to work on it.
So... SUMMARY: When you see that many starports, you need a few quick phoenix to negate early pressure and hopefully make him stop making banshees, or get more phoenix if hes still getting more banshees. HT are good in the late game or if he doesnt have cloak. And work on your multitasking and splitting your army to deal with multi pronged attacks.
I'm a masters protoss and I hate banshees :D
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EPT
