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United States8476 Posts
Back when I was starting out learning PvP, this thread was very useful for me. However, as it is out of date now, I decided to update it with the current PvP builds.
Each build has its own strengths and weaknesses, and every current mainstream build that is used in PvP will be displayed here. The builds will all be compared against each other, approximating which one will have the upper hand. The builds do not include early builds such as 2 gate proxy, cannon rushes, or even 4 gate.
Here is a graph representing the PvP builds used as of now. Read left to top. Ex. Phoenix is greater than Colossi. “>” does not indicate that one build has a huge advantage over another. It merely indicates that one build consistently has an advantage over the other, no matter how big or small. Also note that “=” does not mean the builds will come out equal against each other. It means that depending on how each player plays his build, one player may come out ahead of the other but neither player will consistently come out with the advantage.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tXqvo.jpg)
Fast expansion
Fast expansion is a new category of build that has just recently begun seeing heavy use in pro level PvP. Previously, players would expand with 3 gates and a forge, but now robo follow-ups are also common after a fast expand, because of the recent immortal buff.
Fast expansion < Delayed 4 gate, 3 gate pressure
According to the chart, it may look like fast expansion is the best build with no weaknesses. However, on most maps, if your opponent scouts the expansion in time, he can either opt for a delayed 4 gate, which all other builds will hold, but this one will fall to.
Fast expansion = Blink stalker
Depending on the exact fast expansion build and the map, blink stalkers may be able to punish fast expands. For example, 3 gate expand on metal with a forge have no hope of holding blinkl, while 1 gate expo on shak with a robo followup has an extremely easy time.
Fast expansion > Dt
Pretty much all good fast expansion builds include either a forge or a robo, both of which should shut down dts.
Fast expansion > All other builds.
All the other builds do not have the potential to punish fast expands are generally forced to go for an later expand or allin.
Immortal expand
This build is similar to a fast expand but trades away the weakness to delayed 4 gates in exchange for a later expansion and a commitment to immortal tech. Because of this, immortal expand opens up a weakness to a host of other builds. Although this build is hardly ever used in high level play, it is common on the ladder, because of the prevalence of robo blink.
Immortal expand > Robo blink
Robo blink has no way of punishing an immortal expand once the robo blink player commits to both a robo and twilight council. The cost of twilight offsets the cost of the nexus and offers no immediate benefits for the robo blink player that would allow him to punish the expansion.
Immortal expand < Colossi
A vast majority of the time, a straight up collosi push will kill an immortal expand. However, on an especially large map, I can possibly see a quick expand vs an extremely late robo if you either get a flank with immortals or tech to collosi directly after.
Immortal expand ≥ Blink
A 4 gating blink player might be able to successfully allin a immortal expand player. However, you don’t have to expand so fast versus a blinking player who shows a lot of stalkers. You’re extremely safe, because you opened immortals versus blink, so instead, you can tech to blink yourself or colossi.
Immortal expand > Dts
You have observers and your army should be at home the entire time, so you shouldn’t be caught offguard too much.
Immortal expand < Phoenix
If you don’t expand, you will lose a lot of probes and be behind in tech. If you expand he can alling you and just straight up win.
Robo blink
Robo blink = Colossi
One player will have the advantage based on each others’ nexus timings and whether either players decides to allin or not.
Robo blink ≥ Blink
Robo blink will have the advantage in all but 2 situations. The first is that he allins you while you are unprepared because you committed to twilight and blink and ran out of forcefield somehow.The other way the blink player can get ahead is on a large map where the blink player takes an extremely early expo and follows that up with his own robo for immortals.
Robo blink > Dts
You have a robo for observers and can be very aggressive with your blink stalkers after you fend off the initial dts. The only issue might be when you move out with your stalkers/observer and leave nothing home.
Robo blink ≥ Phoenix
You shouldn’t take too much damage from phoenix harass and you will force your opponent into some detection because you have a twilight council, so I would say you’re generally ahead. However, watch out for the new phoenix immortal builds, which can be deadly if you don’t know how to deal with them.
Colossi
Colossi = Blink
This can play out in so many ways and I wouldn’t say either player has a definitive advantage going into these builds.
Colossi > Dts
Just a move here.
Colossi < Phoenix
Because of the heavy gas investment into colossi, you won’t have many stalkers to deter the intial phoenix harass. It only goes downhill from there
Blink
Blink ≤ Dt
Just depends on whether the blink player can get detection in time. If the blink player gets out a cannon in his base but doesn’t do any initial damage, the game becomes playable for him, but he’s still not too ahead.
Blink > Phoenix
You can put a ton of pressure on the phoenix player as the blink player and you won’t lose probes.
Dt/Phoenix
Dt ≥ Phoenix
Just matters if you scout the dts in time.
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This is just great. Thanks!
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Immortal expand beats colossi. You get the expansion much earlier and can hold 1 base colossus pushes easily. The all-in basically has to get thermal lance or 6 range immortals pop 6 range colossi like balloons, and 200/200 for robo bay + 200/200 for thermal lance means that the immortal expand player has a much larger army.
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Phoenix = all Stargate builds?
What about Archon Chargelot builds?
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On October 23 2011 03:11 kcdc wrote:
Immortal expand beats colossi. You get the expansion much earlier and can hold 1 base colossus pushes easily. The all-in basically has to get thermal lance or 6 range immortals pop 6 range colossi like balloons, and 200/200 for robo bay + 200/200 for thermal lance means that the immortal expand player has a much larger army.
Care 2 show some replays :L?
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Tnx for this thread, hopefully will help with PvP!
Would be great if you could add links, to the mentioned builds.
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i like the idea, but not the execution. You have some wrong information. There are many factors that you didnt include, such as rush distance, macro, scouting etc.
Btw. Phoenix oppening beats FE, dts can work against robo builds and everything can beat collossi
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For those going phoenix opening into a 2/3gate stargate expand... a good transition against a roboing player who is going for a collosus ball is to transition into 2gate robo stargate and get alot of immortal and void ray with a few phoenix's to lift immortals and get down the collosus. (on 2 base of course)
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Monk, as much as I love all your posts and guides, I'm not sure if I like this one. While some builds do give you automatic advantages over others, these advantages are minimized depending on execution and also small variations within the build. In other words, each of your styles such as "blink" or "phoenix" have different variations that end up majorly changing its counter chart. You could create more categories, but then with too many categories the chart just becomes not really useful at all.
For example, a 23 probe 1 gate twilight blink stalker all in build plays out a lot differently than perhaps a 3 gate twilight with more probes blink build. With the all-in variant, it really comes down to if your opponent scouts it or not, and can potentially counter all other builds out there.
Another example is the immortal expand versus colossus. Generally colossus beats immortal expand, but if immortal expand adds in warp prism, then actually I'd say the immortal expand has the advantage.
Or take phoenix play. There's 2 distinct styles of phoenix play - 1 with robo for phoenix/immortal, and one without for just phoenix/gateway. Phoenix/immortal pretty much hard counters DTs because of robo, but phoenix/gateway gets hard countered by DTs. And while if you go for phoenix/robo and tech too fast you are weak to blink, I've found that if I just go phoenix/gateway I can actually crush pure blink variants pretty easily.
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I'm not one hundred percent certain if this is accurate, but for now I would like people to either prove their statements with replays or with some sort of timing based calculation.
Just outright saying "you're wrong X beats Y np" with 0 understanding of the matchup yourself is not helping in a strategy forum.
I know I'm not OP but I would really like it if people could stop just spreading wrong/uncertain information as facts.
That is all.
not exactly all:
Thank you for this thread, was needed a long time I don't understand why I never came up with this idea -.-
Oh and please do not make comments stating "with better macro build Y can defeat build Z"... with better execution you will almost always win...
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On October 23 2011 03:14 mizU wrote:
Phoenix = all Stargate builds?
What about Archon Chargelot builds?
Chargelot Archon is more of a midgame composition rather than a build. You can transition into it from a lot of these builds.
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can somebody please link some reps of pvp fe builds? This is news to me o_o
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way too black and white for my taste, but i appreciate the effort some people are putting in to figure out wtf is happening in pvp ^^
most of my pvps start with gw pressure (teh tinman) and can pretty much instagib a lot of builds so I really only have to play against pretty safe openings, and if you are playing against safe openings into blink/robo/SG, these random advantages are a lot less apparent--ie any 3gate build into tech route X is less polarized towards X because of later tech and the forcing of earlier units. and coinflip FEs just die to it
edit: just saw anihc made similar point 
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Italy12246 Posts
I think the fact that even blue posters don't agree says a lot about the current state of pvp. At least this guide clears things a little bit. One question: what is the specific way to deal with phoenix and phoenix-immortal allins?
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United States8476 Posts
On October 23 2011 03:11 kcdc wrote:
Immortal expand beats colossi. You get the expansion much earlier and can hold 1 base colossus pushes easily. The all-in basically has to get thermal lance or 6 range immortals pop 6 range colossi like balloons, and 200/200 for robo bay + 200/200 for thermal lance means that the immortal expand player has a much larger army.
I've been testing this and if both players go 1 gate robo into immortal expand/collosi on a normal sized map, a 2 collosi no range push will consistently win.
On October 23 2011 03:14 mizU wrote:
Phoenix = all Stargate builds?
What about Archon Chargelot builds?
Voidray builds and archon chargelot builds are not mainstream or heavily used in the pro scene.
On October 23 2011 04:42 gejfsyd wrote:
i like the idea, but not the execution. You have some wrong information. There are many factors that you didnt include, such as rush distance, macro, scouting etc.
Btw. Phoenix oppening beats FE, dts can work against robo builds and everything can beat collossi
Phoenix openings do not beat FE. In fact they're one of the worst openings vs FE. Dt builds can work against robo builds, but GENERALLY, they're at a disadvantage. True, everything can beat colossi, but again, this thread is about which build generally has the advantage.
On October 23 2011 05:37 Anihc wrote:
Monk, as much as I love all your posts and guides, I'm not sure if I like this one. While some builds do give you automatic advantages over others, these advantages are minimized depending on execution and also small variations within the build. In other words, each of your styles such as "blink" or "phoenix" have different variations that end up majorly changing its counter chart. You could create more categories, but then with too many categories the chart just becomes not really useful at all.
For example, a 23 probe 1 gate twilight blink stalker all in build plays out a lot differently than perhaps a 3 gate twilight with more probes blink build. With the all-in variant, it really comes down to if your opponent scouts it or not, and can potentially counter all other builds out there.
Another example is the immortal expand versus colossus. Generally colossus beats immortal expand, but if immortal expand adds in warp prism, then actually I'd say the immortal expand has the advantage.
Or take phoenix play. There's 2 distinct styles of phoenix play - 1 with robo for phoenix/immortal, and one without for just phoenix/gateway. Phoenix/immortal pretty much hard counters DTs because of robo, but phoenix/gateway gets hard countered by DTs. And while if you go for phoenix/robo and tech too fast you are weak to blink, I've found that if I just go phoenix/gateway I can actually crush pure blink variants pretty easily.
I agree with your general point. However, this thread is meant to be an oversimplification. Many people were asking about the state of PvP and I'm trying to rationalize it here. To be honest, it's mostly targeted towards beginners who are just learning the game. And again, I don't try to quantify the advantage one build has over the other. I'm just saying one build generally has an advantage over another, no matter how small it is. Also, I try to assume that both players have scouted each other at a certain point and are playing optimally.
Also, I don't see how immortal expand + warp prism can defeat colossi. I've tried immortal drop on colossi and that doesn't work in a fight. Do you mean warp prism counter into your opponent's main?
On October 23 2011 07:15 Alejandrisha wrote:way too black and white for my taste, but i appreciate the effort some people are putting in to figure out wtf is happening in pvp ^^ most of my pvps start with gw pressure (teh tinman) and can pretty much instagib a lot of builds so I really only have to play against pretty safe openings, and if you are playing against safe openings into blink/robo/SG, these random advantages are a lot less apparent--ie any 3gate build into tech route X is less polarized towards X because of later tech and the forcing of earlier units. and coinflip FEs just die to it edit: just saw anihc made similar point
Completely agree here, but again, I'm trying to simplify everything. The point you make is actually really important for PvP and used to be one of the basis of how I played my PvP.
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United States8476 Posts
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Yeah I don't agree with this chart. It's very pretty and has the potential to be very useful but in my experience fast expands in pvp are a quick way to lose.
In fact I win pretty much all of my pvps by waiting for my opponent to expand then killing him with my 400mineral stronger army.
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Sup Monk!!! I completely like the idea of simplifying things, i don't think it serves a purpose when inaccurate information is being put out there... ;/
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wait a minute. this says fast expo is the best build to do, generally. As all the other builds are less than that except for blink. :O
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EPT
