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Hi, high plat here. I think the one thing preventing me from getting to diamond is holding off early concussive shell pushes. Should i just let my zealots chase after them and ket kited while warping in more units? Or should i invest more heavily in sentries early on. I feel like they can always just run aroud the forcefields and then sentries are useless. Im extremely confused on how to handle this. I know other people can do it, but i think i'm missing something critical.
Here is a replay where i handled the situation terribly. I saw the 3 rax, so should i have not expanded and just thrown down extra gates or pumped immortals? What should I have done. I obviously didn't have enough sentires (2) but if i had made more i would have had only 2-3 zealots. I also probably shoulda handled my chrono boost management better. Thanks! <3
replay: http://drop.sc/96347
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My PvT w/r went way up (in platinum as well btw) when I recognized my biggest failings in PvT were about what you're describing in the early game. I focused on the below:
Probe micro, necessary for 15 nexus or 1g expo under pressure (my only openings in PvT) Zealot control, not overbuilding stalkers Forcefield control in order to help pin the bio in place for the zealots to hold.
If you're not confident in your FF's, you're not going to play to potential in PvT and anyone with decent bio micro will just kite your face off. You don't need to over-make them, you just need to make sure that you're engaging in a favorable position. You're right that two FF's out in the center of your natural walkway are not going to do anything and the bio just walks around.. But your zealots should be dictating where the bio is coming from. Bait them in, use one of the walls to form a choke for you, and shove your zealots down their throat. When they go to back out, chase with stalkers to pick off stragglers, but not with a conga line of gateway units. Accept that you pushed them back and continue to macro up. Don't get greedy. PvT is about (IMO) unit retention vs the terran. You're trying to trade minerals for gas, and take shield damage but not critical damage on what few stalkers you use. Keep sentries alive and regenning energy, get charge early, don't be afraid to keep 3 observers, and gg gl
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Mid master EU protoss here. Without stalkers you're just going to get endlessly kited. What you want to do is have your zealots act as meatshield while your stalkers dps down his marauders. When your zealots are dead you'll back off and wait for a new warpin of zealots. As for decision making, when you saw him pulling all his SCV's the better decision would have been to sacrifice the nexus and aim for a bigger force while holding him off with forcefields. Your superior economy will reward your patience with a bigger force.
Small sidenote: The supplyblock at 26. In the time it took you to build a pylon and start building that stalker one additional stalker could have been built. And in early game pressure i think we can agree that every unit counts.
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Yea, what prOpSation said. You can either do that or you could have a more sentry zealot focused army and rely on your ability to land good forcefields so that your zealots can do maximum damage with no kiting.
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You got a perfect scout and saw 3rax with a gas. You can definitely hold with a 1gate FE, but 3gate Expand is fine. 3gate Robo expand is a little much IMO, but that's not why you lost. I would recommend getting 4 units out of that first gate if you know pressure is gonna be coming, if you can.
First thing, you gotta keep up probe production. You can mine off your second base while you're dancing with his marauder ball. Transfer some probes (it also gets them closer to fight and probes are awesome vs marauder heavy early games). I think you only build 2-3 probes between the 7:00 and 10:30ish mark, maybe even later. You lose your hotkey on the nexus at one point. Gotta keep building em.
As far as engagements. You were OK, but you donated your first stalker and that sucks. You're a little zealot sentry heavy. You don't want to load up on stalkers but as you start playing against terrans who can kite you like this you need that ranged damage or you have no prayer. Always have your stalkers focusing down marauders. Once you clean them up any marines are a joke to deal with. Even if he hits a stalker with conc shell micro it back even though its gonna die. You lose a few stalker shots but if he wants to kill it he has to eat some zealot high fives while he chases the slow stalker, that's really what you want to happen.
Same deal with your first (and second) immortal. Total donation. Shift click marauders with it and micro it back as soon as it starts taking damage. If you get a robo up, you gotta get immortals. They are unreal at stop early marauder pressure.
You can let your zealots a-move but you gotta take care of those ranged units.
Your FF's were alright. You forced him to micro towards you in the first fight and if you had 2 stalkers (1 more from the gateway and the one you move commanded into him) you would have cleaned up imo. Big SCV train all ins are always tough to deal with. With experience you'll learn that despite those being pretty good FFs, you dont want to give away all your zealots to kill his SCVs (that's all your zealots could hit), because as soon as the FFs are gone is bio is gonna move on and crush your sentry/stalkers. When you split his SCVs off like that try to keep your zealots back a bit so they dont get torn up by the protected Marines and Marauders.
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Basic micro:
Zealots in front. They are going to be kited, but will force the Terran to keep microing. When they die, fall back. Marauders are bad against Zealots, but Marines can DPS them down. If you're being chased, SACRIFICE THE ZEALOTS TO SAVE OTHER UNITS.
Stalkers- keep them alive and away from Marauders. Focus down weak units first.
Sentry- don't overmake. Use forcefields conservatively.
Immortal- focus Marauder. Always. Fall back with it if you feel threatened.
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awesome advice everyone, thanks so much.
The only thing is that i couldn't get out zealots, stalkers, AND sentries. This may have been because the robo/ expansion were a bit too much, but I'm not sure. Even if i did have 2 more stalkers, he had like 4-5 marauders which would have eaten them alive. Also, i feel like 3 stalkers can't do enough damage while his bio force focuses down the zealots, which with focus firing, die very fast. I think i'll just have to pracitce more against this.
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I have exactly the same problem, i think its also key to stall for time. Let your expo take a little bit of damage so that you can do the next warp-in.
I feel sentries are good but they only stall for a small amount of time, and frankly they dont do any damage.
I feel i need a lot more practice and that (like in your case) it will be better then.
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First 3-5 unit comp you get are crucial. Know when to chrono stalkers and know when to get sentries+FF.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Streaming my response + replay anaylsis right now: http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/HardCorey
VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/hardcorey23/b/306272970
Consensus: You played pretty well. A couple of bad engagements and times when you could have spent your money on stalkers but overall your 3 gate robo should be a safe opening against an agressive especially since you scouted that he is going 3 rax. Work on using forcefields to trap his units to your zealots rather than splitting the two while also keeping your stalkers back.
EDIT: I screwed up this video so it doesn't have my commentary of the replay on it at all, must of had my mic muted or something.... Still useful if anyone can't watch the replay on their computer and just wants a vod though haha
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I think the main reason you lost that game was simply because of micro. Almost all builds in PvT(1g FE, 3g expo, w/e) get about the same number of units at around the 7 min mark. While I don't personally agree with the 3 gate robo expand, that is not the reason you lost.
You had the perfect composition to deal with that push, you just didn't handle it correctly. At 7:14, when the initial push came, you gave away a stalker and wasted 2 forcefields. This may not sound like a lot, but each piece of the puzzle is very important. You always want your stalker in the back so it can do damage without taking damage, so positioning your units before hand is a must. I think you were overly worried about reinforcements so you FF'd the ramp and not behind the bio. You always want to FF behind the bio so your zealots can beat on them while your stalker takes no damage. If it weren't for those 2 mistakes, you would have crushed the push and taken a pretty quick economic lead.
Your opponent's micro was just god-awful and he didn't really make an attempt to kite your zealots at all, causing him to lose a few marauders. However, as soon as you see him running, just pull back. No need to risk losing all of your zealots. You also didn't have any stalkers so chasing him didn't benefit you at all. At 8:01 you had the right idea, but barely missed a perfect FF. Drop FFs behind him so your zealots can go to work. If you had that kind of mentality during the whole push, I think you could have very easily won. I wouldn't really concern myself too much over that, though, since that just comes with time, but if you had used the initial 2 FFs like that you could have dealt a serious blow to his push.
At 8:06 you over-committed by sending 3 zealots down your ramp. They were just getting wailed on when they didn't need to take any damage. The most important thing to always think about when playing terran is letting him come to you. If he wants to attack, let him come. Then you can FF right behind him while sending zealots and destroy his whole push.
By this time, you have traded unevenly almost every encounter and now your opponent is reinforcing with even more units. Your only hope was to catch his army and kill him with zealots. At 8:33 you put down a perfectly placed FF but didn't close it up. The correct response at that time would have been to either place a second FF to cut off his retreat path or to just back away and let the nexus take a few hits. Had you put down a second FF you just might have had a chance to win. You could have instantly killed his 2 low-health marauders as well as 4 marines. The marines are not too important, but 2 marauder kills are pretty significant.
TL;DR - Position units before an engagement. Use forcefields to trap his units from kiting. Let him come to you. Don't over commit.
Hopefully this helped, DND
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On January 23 2012 06:18 Strivers wrote: First 3-5 unit comp you get are crucial. Know when to chrono stalkers and know when to get sentries+FF.
when might that be?
and thanks xdndx
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So, here are a few notes:
-Between minutes 4 and 5, when you're scouting/killing his scout, you're completely mis-prioritizing what you need to do. You spend too much focus on pulling probes and chasing his scv around, and you delay your gates, get supply blocked, and delay your third unit for (what feels like) an eternity.
You actually got all the information you need from that scout (incoming 3rax), so you need to focus more on your REACTION and making stuff happen instead of wasting all your attention on a scouting scv. Stalkers are faster than scvs, just set your stalker to follow the scv and pump out units until warpgate finishes, and get your extra gates up.
-At 6:38, you have 500 minerals after putting down 3 gates, 2 gas, and a robo. You actually just shouldn't have that money, because it should all be in units. Unfortunately, since you had delayed your third unit and your gates to some extent, you had way more money than you should have. Furthermore, you scouted a 3rax, why on earth would you expand? It's like if you scout a 6pool first and decide to just make a Nexus.
-7:30 ish, pre-emptive FFs are ok, but never send your stalkers in first, you want the zealots tanking damage instead. However, if you can, be more patient with your FFs, because in that specific position, terran has several choices of where to retreat, and if he had the choice, he wouldn't want to move down the ramp, because he surrenders high ground vision. So you should have waited to see which direction his army would run in, and forcefield that, because as it was, your FFs did absolutely nothing when they could have permitted you to kill his whole little force.
-I'm watching at 8:23 and I realize you didn't make an immortal, you have an observer and an idle robotics. At this point you should just let him kill your nexus (or you should have cancelled it earlier), retreated to the small 2-ff choke, get 2 immortals, and move out when you have enough stuff. Like, if you want to fight him in the open like that, you'll need more sentries (3-4) and much better forcefields. Not having that immortal is also hurting you a lot.
What happens in these early engagements is that terran is trying to catch you mis-microing so he can kill your expensive gas units, or whittle down your meaty zealots to the point where he can just stim in and kill all your gas units. Now, the problem is that Zealots are slow, and marauders have concussive shells, so to prevent him from getting free damage on any portion of your army, you need either one of two things, or both if you just want to outright crush him: 1) You need really good forcefields so your zealots can slaughter a portion of his army, OR 2) You want relatively fast long-ranged units (sentries don't count because their damage is terrible and they're squishy) to hit his units while they're trying to kite your zealots. This means you want Stalkers or Immortals if you have the infrastructure, to chase down his army while he's trying to kite.
Your problems were three-fold: that you made one early stalker which you promptly suicided, and then you had too few sentries to lay down tons of FFs, and the FFs you did put down were very poorly done, and LASTLY, you didn't make that critical immortal. That means you sunk 200/100 on the robo + 25/75 on the observer, money that was utterly wasted because it couldn't contribute to the fight. When you finally decided to warp stalkers in, you were effectively out of forcefields and your zealot count was too low.
------------------------------------------- TL;DR: Here's the important things to take away: 1) Focus on your build and what you do to react, building shit is more important than killing a scout when you've gotten a 100% read on him. 2) Work on either making better forcefields, or keeping your stalkers alive longer, and definitely have 1-2 stalkers on hand in the early game. Stalkers are good, but you don't want your entire early army to be made out of pure stalker. You do want at LEAST 1 though, and there's no reason to give the terran a free stalker that early. 3) Actually think while you're playing and react to what's coming. If you scout 3 barracks building, that should just be a hammer that hits a button in your head that make you build units and IMMORTALS. You shouldn't just go on auto-pilot and build observers when there's a barracks-based rush or all-in coming, because the obs is going to be fucking useless. 4) Overall, do not delay your units or buildings for any reason when you scout a rush. Unless you're cutting corners for tech, don't cut corners, because that will just end up killing you. Build units as soon as a building finishes, and don't build useless things for the situation (observers).
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Plat toss here, I share your pain with early marauder pushes, but with the MC 1 gate FE, such pushes can be deflected quite easily. The basic idea is to get out 1 zealot and 2 stalkers, and warp in 3 stalkers once warp gates are done. Like others have said above, the zealot tanks, while you focus fire the marauders. Since you got a perfect scout off, 3 gate robo was not necessarily overkill, but you should have skipped the observer for a fast immortal. Usually terrans do a u turn once they see the immortal. The early forcefields were not the best, but imo zealot sentry works much better vs later stim timing pushes rather than early pokes. If he seems to be delaying the push, a forge and a cannon help out a lot. Also, don't ever cut probes in the face of such pushes since you may have to pull them to fend off the push, and the more the merrier.
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What kaholic said I feel is correct. Just use your ffs on the choke btw your main and nat. Cut his army in 1/3 and use zealots. You should have won the initial engagement. 2 ffs are enough to cover that choke.
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Bio pressure comes in 4 different ways keep in mind, this is just a general rule of thumb
1st) Early - No combat shield / No Stim, few units + concussive shell
For this stage, you will have few units too, here you need to rely fully on stalker / Zealot, with at most 1 guardian shield sentry. Zealot tanking the damage, stalker dealing it. If he focuses your stalker - run him away
2nd) Stim + Medium number marine marauder, mb combat shield. Can also come before you have tech out
Here you need Forcefields to slice his army in half, Guardian shield and a good number of units, you want to engage in chokes.
3rd) Bio balls with a low number of medivacs, medium to large numbers
To hold this, you need at least guardian shield and probably some sort of tech out. Forcefields are good but not a must (especially with chargelots wich need the surface area). For Tech you need either Chargelot and Archon, Chargelot with Upgrades, Colossus or Storm. Really depends on how big his army is, sometimes just a lot of gateway units can work but id advise against it :p
4th) Large Bio balls, with support units Ghosts, Medivacs, Vikings
Obviously you need to have templar, colossus, and some upgrades to deal with this. You need to try to keep vision of his army, splitting your own and dancing around with templar for feedback on anything that comes too close. This engagement can end pretty quickly if you have the wrong units, lack of upgrades or just a bad engage.
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