After seeing a few games recently where a one protoss player goes DT expand vs double gas play and win with the dts doing minimal damage I started to wonder if this build was cheesy at all. Having been a victim of this build I've been trying it out myself lately.
UPDATE I added another game because it has a safer build order with me getting a sentry out. I took my second gas slightly earlier than I wanted to because I thought my opponent was moving to gas steal it. The DTs outright win this second game but people wanted to see a safer BO so here it is. Two Four Games for your viewing
In both games even though the DTs didn't do anything close to game ending damage the fact that the opponent was forced into staying on one base while the aggressor expanded lead to a massive advantage for the DT player.
The best part about this build is the fact that it can be done re-actively. When you scout double gas you have time to to decide to do this build. I did it successfully on xel naga caverns which is a small map. On a large map this would be much more powerful. It is my firm belief that colossi come out too slowly to punish this build
The reason why it is unsafe for your opponent to move out is because even if they leave units at home with an obs a massive dt warp in (3+) can often just kill whatever defensive units they have. While I played greedily you'll see with Oz his army was reasonably matched to his opponents until he expanded.
So once you scouted double gas these are the possibilities
VS Robo it is safe, why is explained above
Why I believe that this is different from Robo vs DT builds of the past
On October 25 2011 23:19 Nothingtosay wrote: If you are doing a one base robo timing attack how are you going to have gas to make an immortal (You will probably get one), an observer but most likely two, have a sentry at home (remember if you miss the forcefield you die if you have only one obs) and have enough gas units in your army to kill off the other player?
The same way dark templar openings always lose to robotics openings >.>
They can kill 4gates but the robo tech hard counters it lol. This isn't anything new. You simply aren't able to do any harrassing with the dt as long as you have an observer and especially if you're not dropping in the opponent's base.
And if you're worried about gas, I hear zealots are pretty good, especially when your opponent is going melee units and you want to get colossi.
I don't even see how this is an issue o.O
Past DT builds focused on ending the game with dts plus a follow up attack if necessary. This build takes an early expo and doesn't die to a counteract when things go as planned. This is not the same as previous 1 base dt builds.
My problem isn't that you're saying it will die to robo builds, my problem is the fact that you're using data from different scenarios to evaluate this one.
What you're describing is a build like this one from MC vs Naniwa due to the meta game at the time you could not expand because four gate was supreme unlike today. This also limited our knowledge of when we could safely expand because everyone was too scared to try expanding. Yes if you are on one base and the dts are foiled you are so behind that you will lose.
VS Stargate/Blink they die or they have to turtle with cannons and your macro wins
VS DTs You'll notice that both of us built our proxy pylons at expansions. In the case of a dt war we can hide a forge and build a cannon + nexus.
VS Fourgate I used the the safe sentry version and was able to hold my ramp long enough for dts to come out and kill everything now that warp in on ramps is no longer possible.
If you scouted double gas, didn't get a sentry, and it was a trick to hide a 4 gate you will die horribly.
I think that with further experimentation this will become a really strong and stable build.
Maps
Larger maps are better because of how long it takes for your opponents army to reach your base.
This is really good on maps where the natural has a ramp such as Shakuras plateau or Crevasse because with the sentry build you can stop any army without colossi from even getting in or maybe split it and let your zealots kill part of it.
DO NOT DO THIS BUILD ON TALDARIM ALTAR (Even if you scout double gas it is most likely a trap)
Transition IMO this build lends it self well to a follow up with chargelot Archon + Warp prism harass play with eventually getting blink after you start to warp in stalkers. Make sure you get upgrades!
interesting concept; though i think that with a fast robo build+good observer management could straight up kill this--seeing as colossus/immortals are more combat efficient then DT in a straight up fight. Though I think this could be strong if managed well nonetheless.
On October 25 2011 12:03 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote: interesting concept; though i think that with a fast robo build+good observer management could straight up kill this--seeing as colossus/immortals are more combat efficient then DT in a straight up fight. Though I think this could be strong if managed well nonetheless.
I think though that if your opponent pushes you a base trade is in your favor. Colossi take too long in my experience and in the worst case versus immortal you pull everything into your main and FF the ramp while dts kill the stuff in their base. I do think there is a weak point but because this build is untested we don't know where it is yet.
I've been doing something similar and slowly tweaking it in PvP for a looong time (mid diamond at the moment, I was fighting masters and pvp was my strongest matchup for a while, but then I took a month or so break and now I suck)
What I've been doing with the build is opening standard 13 gate 14 gas 17 core 17/18 second gas (far from refined) and skipping the zealot, then chronoing out the first stalker when core is done, and chrono on wg too to make it look like I may be doing a 2 gas 3 gate or something along those lines (this strategy doesnt need deception to succeed but its a nice bonus). As soon as the first stalker comes out, drop a forge and then a TC as quickly as you can before you drop your 3rd pylon, and at 24/26 get a sentry, then a pylon to be able to place a cannon at your ramp. as soon as the pylon and forge finishes drop a cannon, do some poking around the map with probes to see what aggression is coming, get another cannon and another sentry if you think he's committing to aggression, and drop a dt shrine as soon as you can afford it. if you're not scared of aggression just power gateways until you have 5 total, then when the gas allows get zealot charge and +1 researching (after your 5 gates you can produce soley zealots, and dts with the gas, and yes you need 5 cause dts are fairly cheapish for their cooldown, and zealots are just cheap).
When the dts come out you should only have money to warp in 1, so warp it in and send it to his base, if he has a robo or forge out it will get deflected or even die, thats okay cause you now know his composition. If its a forge then your own cannon hasnt put you behind and at least you've used your forge to get +1, so you can probably get your expo and deny his until he's got a robo and obs, which is expensive, and robo isnt a good production facility to have vs zealot archon in the early game (even collosus suck against it until you get around 3)
More likely though he opened some form of robo build, and as such has mobile detection and kills off your dt (although the timing of it works nicely, alot of the time your dt will get to his base when his obs gets to yours), if this happens though you have still forced a robo, and pretty much anything he produces out of the robo will be weak against your +1 chargelot archon force, and a pure gateway comp will suck against it too because your archons kill his zealots far faster than anything can kill yours, then your zealots tank stalker shots hard while shredding them with archon support (remember zealots have charge). You suck at fighting in chokes though, so basically what this means is if he's already expanded (oh dts I got robo I counter it olol) you can just cut probes, and all in him off 5 gates to kill his expo, and expand yourself if you're not confident to push up his ramp and finish it. Otherwise, just take your own expo, and transition into a charge/blink/immortal/archon force, and play a macro game with a faster expo and upgrades.
I like using this build on ladder because it will outright kill an all in 4gate, counters 'standard' dt play cause you have a cannon, kills any TC/stargate build they've been lazy on detection with, and is good against standard robo units. The builds I have problems with are the robo+other tech builds (robo twilight blink, robo stargate void, robo DT) but even then it doesnt feel like these are unwinnable situations, it might be smart to drop a cannon in your mineral line when you take your expo, if he isnt.
I can also provide some replays if people are interested, I can probably dig some up vs low masters, but that was when I was doing the build slightly differently and it was less refined, so it will be different to what you see here (but may have been more effective because it was pre patch so 4gates were more common)
also no this doesnt work on tal darim
edit: TL;DR dt tech is also archon tech, that forces detection and can contain if they get cannons, chargelot archon with +1 is super strong once you get tech finished
I think a Robo expand would win vs this. I usually build two obs, 1 for scouting and 1 in case of dts and if I see that you've expanded, I can just push and win considering the amount of gas you've spend on those 4 initial dts, robo, twilight and charge. I think even with the counter attack dts, stalling for 2 warpins should be enough to handle that while the main army pushes.
On October 25 2011 15:34 K3Nyy wrote: I think a Robo expand would win vs this. I usually build two obs, 1 for scouting and 1 in case of dts and if I see that you've expanded, I can just push and win considering the amount of gas you've spend on those 4 initial dts, robo, twilight and charge. I think even with the counter attack dts, stalling for 2 warpins should be enough to handle that while the main army pushes.
thats why you should only send in 1 dt (if they have detection they're all dead anyway, if they dont you kill his whole probe line/nexus or delay mining for a massive amount of time, more isnt nessecary) and get both charge and +1 before expanding, robo builds are kinda bad against charge archon unless the robo is only for an obs, in my experience
I agree the OP build would die to a lot of shit but I do think that such a build can work if fleshed out properly.
On October 25 2011 15:34 K3Nyy wrote: I think a Robo expand would win vs this. I usually build two obs, 1 for scouting and 1 in case of dts and if I see that you've expanded, I can just push and win considering the amount of gas you've spend on those 4 initial dts, robo, twilight and charge. I think even with the counter attack dts, stalling for 2 warpins should be enough to handle that while the main army pushes.
thats why you should only send in 1 dt (if they have detection they're all dead anyway, if they dont you kill his whole probe line/nexus or delay mining for a massive amount of time, more isnt nessecary) and get both charge and +1 before expanding, robo builds are kinda bad against charge archon unless the robo is only for an obs, in my experience
I agree the OP build would die to a lot of shit but I do think that such a build can work if fleshed out properly.
If you wait on 1 base after your dt tech has been foiled, you're going to be really far behind vs 2 bases. Having an obs to scout that you're going chargelot, I can just warp in a bunch of zealots on 2 bases worth of production.
In my games I've always found that a charge/+1 timing hits fast enough to punish any expand they might try against it, and kill at least the base if not outright ending the game, remembering that you get your charge and +1 with the next gas after dt shrine (starting both before it completes unless you need the money to defend a 4gate or something, which isnt an issue in this case), although I have noticed on a lot of streams that the new pvp metagame people are expanding WAY earlier, so I'm not too sure how it would fare against something like that, I'll have to do more testing
The other thing to consider though, is that zealots melt really really fast to archons, and as such a pure gateway composition is really weak to chargelot archon, especially with +1, so they'd have to get their nexus really early, pay off the cost of a robo and 1-2 observers, and then get enough gateway units + immortals to still win despite the cost-ineffectiveness. How long that IS though, I'm not sure, so it'd have to be tested in game
On October 25 2011 15:17 SMMN wrote: no sentries before tech are just bad in general if you are not sure if hes going 4gate or not, i see this dying even to 3 stalker rush on smaller maps
Well you could just get a sentry with this build no matter what and delay the robo. A 3 stalker opening is easy enough to scout and I'm sure you can get units out in time if you scout it early enough.
I believe that once he has an obs out, he can pretty much safely expand. He doesn't need to attack you. He'll be ahead in colossus tech while you spent on DT tech. That is to say this is defendable I think, but still requires the right strategy. I'll save further judgement for when I face this on ladder.
The closest I've seen is my opponent getting a forge after cybercore, which prompted me to expand. Didn't know the DTs were on their way except when I spotted his pylon and heard units being warped in without any animation. This triggered me to realize that I'm in a lot of trouble if I don't get another obs fast as my first one was near his base already. In this game, I started my nexus before robo, because I knew no pressure was coming with the forge and all. Not sure how I would react to your build. In the end, while he managed to kill some probes, I was up 2 base to 1 and was able to kill most of his DTs while being well on my way to colossus tech.
I guess your most vulnerable moment is from 5:45 to 7:00. But if you scout 4 gate coming, then you probably won't continue on with this. But on the flip side, they could trick you into thinking that they won't 4 gate by getting the 2nd assimilator but eventually not mining from it. Without sentries, you'd be vulernable to this and would most probably die straight up. But I guess 4 gate isn't really all that popular anymore anyway.
You say that a dt warp-in will kill off any defensive units stationed at the opponent's base, but I don't really think that's the case. You're also assuming that the warp prism even gets off a round of warp-ins without getting shot down by some stalkers.
A normally-timed robo with two obs (he'll make the second once he sees your dark shrine) will stop this build. One obs with attacking army, one at home. The dark templar player won't have enough units to defend, a few zealots and microed stalkers will kill off any counter-drops, and even in a base race scenario it's not ideal for the player with the smaller army.
I don't see how this works well against robo builds at all, they can simply expand earlier and then crush you. When playing robo and i scout a twilight council I'll simply expand all the time, either they've done DT and i'm ahead or they've done blink and i'm ahead as well by expanding. Ofcourse they can expand at the same time perhaps but then my advantage in getting robo units will lead me to having the stronger deathball later on. I do agree it's hard for robo play to move out and simply kill you as the base trade scenario is hard to avoid and might even be in advantage of the DT player.
In a way you could expand like with blink play to a far expansion. That way if they do push on 1 base you can simply trade mains and come out ahead.
On October 25 2011 22:27 Markwerf wrote: I don't see how this works well against robo builds at all, they can simply expand earlier and then crush you. When playing robo and i scout a twilight council I'll simply expand all the time, either they've done DT and i'm ahead or they've done blink and i'm ahead as well by expanding. Ofcourse they can expand at the same time perhaps but then my advantage in getting robo units will lead me to having the stronger deathball later on. I do agree it's hard for robo play to move out and simply kill you as the base trade scenario is hard to avoid and might even be in advantage of the DT player.
In a way you could expand like with blink play to a far expansion. That way if they do push on 1 base you can simply trade mains and come out ahead.
If they attack you quickly with blink stalkers (before your expansion kicks in), can't you fall pretty easily simply because you don't have enough units out? After all, the general rule of PvP is "Whoever expands first, dies".
On October 25 2011 22:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: You say that a dt warp-in will kill off any defensive units stationed at the opponent's base, but I don't really think that's the case. You're also assuming that the warp prism even gets off a round of warp-ins without getting shot down by some stalkers.
A normally-timed robo with two obs (he'll make the second once he sees your dark shrine) will stop this build. One obs with attacking army, one at home. The dark templar player won't have enough units to defend, a few zealots and microed stalkers will kill off any counter-drops, and even in a base race scenario it's not ideal for the player with the smaller army.
The counter warp in is at the proxy pylon, your robo won't be finished in time to make a warp prism if they one base attack.
On October 25 2011 22:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: You say that a dt warp-in will kill off any defensive units stationed at the opponent's base, but I don't really think that's the case. You're also assuming that the warp prism even gets off a round of warp-ins without getting shot down by some stalkers.
A normally-timed robo with two obs (he'll make the second once he sees your dark shrine) will stop this build. One obs with attacking army, one at home. The dark templar player won't have enough units to defend, a few zealots and microed stalkers will kill off any counter-drops, and even in a base race scenario it's not ideal for the player with the smaller army.
The counter warp in is at the proxy pylon, your robo won't be finished in time to make a warp prism if they one base attack.
Isn't that even worse then? He won't even make it up the ramp lol. One sentry to forcefield the dts out once, and that'll buy the defender enough time to reinforce. If that's even necessary. He might just have a couple units already there and the game's over. How many units is this dark templar-rushing guy expecting to be able to make with a single warp-in (while letting his base die)?
If you are doing a one base robo timing attack how are you going to have gas to make an immortal (You will probably get one), an observer but most likely two, have a sentry at home (remember if you miss the forcefield you die if you have only one obs) and have enough gas units in your army to kill off the other player?
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