[D] I will trade my TvP brain for your TvZ brain

There are many great guides on scouting in TvP but repetition never hurts so I will explain my thoughts on scouting a protoss.

I always scout with my barracks SCV which leaves plenty of time on most maps. On the very biggest maps such as Tal Darim and Antiga you may want to sent it out on 13 to ensure you can scout even if you get unlucky and find the enemy on the last possible location.

When entering the protoss base this is my 4-point checklist :

#1: Is the gateway building a zealot or not
#2: How much chronoboost does the nexus have
#3: 1 or 2 gas gysers
#4: Find all 3 pylons and note their positions.

(I try to find them in this order every game, helps you to engrain it in your brainhole as a habit)

#Extra good stuff:
Nexus block: Block the natural with an ebay if you scout 1 gas and chrono spent on probes AND you spot a probe leaving mineral line to build it. Build the ebay until 95% and then leave with your scv, try to delay canceling it as long as possible without letting it die.

The scouting probe: Try to keep an eye out if his scouting probe has returned to his base or not. Stop your scv by the watchtowers on your way back to base to try to find it. I always send my first marine out to hunt for this probe. If you run into a zealot just turn around and return to your base, the zealot cant catch the marine. Always return with the marine after checking 1 or 2 watchtowers so the stalker doesnt kill it.

There is not much you can do to stop the probe scouting your base, however there are a few things that may make a difference.

- If you take a gas build it in the furthest away scout position from the ramp. If he scouts you last and the marine is out with good stutter step you can often kill it before it spots your gas.

- If he arrives early chase that probe with an SCV. It takes away attention from his base management and if he really wants to get great information he has to keep the probe alive for a bit after the first marine is out because that is when either a factory or second rax is planted, which means he has spent an aweful lot of attention microing that probe around while it takes very little attention to just a-chase it, exactly like zealots work . If you are doing a 1-rax FE there is no point in chasing the probe, because on no gas the protoss already knows exactly what you are doing.

- If you open with reactor or 2 rax, keep your marines at the natural or main ramp to prevent stalker, zealot, or a probe poke. You will have enough marines to hold it off. Stutter-step the marines down if its only 1 stalker poking and you can sometimes kill it.

#1 - Scout - 1 gas, high nexus energy, all 3 pylons
Tell: The protoss is probably going either fast expand or a 4 gate. Keep your initial scout alive close to his base to scout the natrual for a nexus. If he kills that with a stalker immidiately send out a new one across the map, if you see a probe moving towards your base assume its a 4-gate and bunker up and win.

#2 - Scout - 2 gas - low chrono, 3 pylons.
Tell: When the protoss opens double gas, he could really be throwing anything in his early game arsenal your way and even mind game and FE a little bit slower. If you are far apart by air you can rule out any stargate play. That leaves the possible openings the protoss has to these: Immortal all-in, 3-gate blink stalker, 1 base collosus or Dark Templars.

#3 - Scout - 2 gas - low chrono - 2 pylons
Send your scv around the map, there WILL be a hidden pylon somewhere on the map, kill it and you are in great shape. Expect your opponent to accuse you of map hacking here. Respond with BM.

In my opinion there are currently only 3 good builds that terrans open with versus protoss:

1/1/1: If you are opening with the 1/1/1 you really dont have to care what the hell the protoss is doing since you will have a bunker, a strong army and hit a timing attack which Protoss must react to.

Fast expand: Your only decision when FE is how many bunkers to build, to prepare reparing SCVs or not, saving oribtal energy and timing of your ebay. In scout case #2 you need to keep sending out scvs towards the protoss to get a tell of what he is doing.

If you spot 1 zealot and the rest all stalkers he wants to blink you. Build 2 bunkers at your front and 1 bunker in your main, keep some scvs by each bunker, try to scan and snipe the observer. Mass up on marauders and just try to take as few losses as possible. I push out when I have a decent number or marauders and my first 2 medivacs out. You will usually just win at this point.

If you spot an immortal: Bunker up hard with 4-5 bunkers and scvs on autorepair. You need to survive the first then second push and you will be in a huge lead. Dont salvage your bunkers unless you have map control and you are sure he isnt right outside your base. Protosses often push a second time if the first one fails, so dont be greedy, do rebuild bunkers that died in the first push. If you sense his push is too strong dont be afraid to pull all of your scvs to defend and tank damage.

If you dont see much at all its probably DTs. Get your ebay up right away and DO NOT drop any mules. Once ebay is done plant one turret at the front and one in your main. Try to bait the DTs into the turrets since good players will not keep sending DTs once the first is done and morph the rest into archons leaving him in a fine position. Basically dont let the protoss know you know he is going DT

I seldom see stargates anymore but I´ve also never had problem dealing with void rays. Just keep repairing the bunkers and get one on the high ground in case he tries to warp in units to your main under the cover of stalkers and void rays. Rebuild any depots that he manages to pick off and wait for him to commit or until you have enough of a force to just roll him, remember to pick off the void ray first with marines. Basically there is no rush for you to do anything other than defend.

If you scout early collosus. Most protoss will not push until their second collosus is done and the third one is on the way. Keep map control and 1 loaded medivac outside of range of his main. If his main army takes the watchtowers drop his main and force him to go back and defend or attack into your bunker line at your natural and die.

This is the standard response to collosus as a terran. You can not engage their army, but if you keep a few medivacs outside his main and push the natural with the rest of your army while constantly scanning you will find that you can drop the main and kill the natural or third when he goes to defend. Or kill a bunch of units in the main when he goes to save his natural or third. Never drop a protoss without threatening a second position, the drop will fail and you will be behind.

2- rax
The third opener that terrans use versus protoss 2-3 rax aggression. *added the Polt 2 rax build to the end of this guide, it is the best early agression build at the moment in my opinion.

This is my favorite opener versus protoss because it is safe versus everything and gives you the army to punish bad decision making by the P. However dont do it on maps with huge rush distances.

If you scout 4 gate, just keep building army in your base and wait for the protoss to attack into you, get an inbase expansion and throw down a single bunker if you feel your macro has been sloppy.

If you scout 1 gate FE or FE first. Attack once you get your second marauder, try to catch zealots and stalkers out on the map. Once you reach his main you want him to engage you as soon as possible, if he waits for the second round of warp gate production you will lose. So engage right away picking of stalkers and you can do a lot of damage, if he pulls probes keep your reinforcements coming and just lightly kite them for as long as they stay alive. I often bring 1-2 scvs with this first push to plant down a bunker, hoping that he makes the mistake of attacking before his second wave of units, or waits too long and lets the bunker complete. Having the second scv infront of your army to tank one or two zealot stabs can also make the difference between winning and losing the fight, since that will let each marauder shot 2 concussive shells at them and they will be half dead by the time they reach you and you just need to do 1 or 2 stutters back to wipe them out, then finish off the stalkers or probes. Expect to lose a lot of games by over-extending this push but once you get the feel for when you can keep pushing in for a win and when you need to back off you will be on the road to becoming a TvP monster

If you scout double gas you will still push with your first 2 marauders but this time let the scv poke up into the main and your main army stand just below it or to the side. This takes some practice to get the timing in right. The important part is not to let your army get forcefielded in half at the ramp. The defending army up the ramp will give you loads of information.

- If the protoss just has 2 sentries to forcefield the ramp and a small army expect DTs or a Stargate. Build an ebay at home, inbase expansion, raise your depots, rally your barracks to the ramp, and keep 5 scvs on autoreapair. Keep pushing the front with your main army and try to kill his defending army before going back home.

- If you spot an immortal just turn around, get an expansion at your natural and a bunker or two, or 5 so scout again every few minutes, and always keep an scv 7-8 range infront of your bunkers to give you time to react.

- If you spot a larger gateway army, build an ebay to block his natural then go back home.

- If the protoss has more than 3 forcefields keep rallying units forward and push up once he runs out, you will usually win at this point.

I still find the mid-late and late game difficult versus Protoss since it is heavily centered around 1 or 2 big engagements.

There are 4 key points that will help you win these large engagments:

#1 Map control: Keep watch towers, patrolling scvs, scan and kill observers relentlessly.
- Getting attacked while you are building supply depots in your base is very bad, you need to be ready for the engagement.

#2 Scan his army to check composition and upgrades
- Respond with the standard good stuff. More vikings if he has a lot of collosus, more ghosts if archon, and more marines if zealot heavy.

#3 Be sneaky and take your time
- This is in my opinion the most important aspect of late game TvP. Don´t just close your eyes throw some EMPs and stim into his prepared and spread army. Even doing something like threatening a base before engaging just to get his army to clump up is well worth it, or moving in then retreating to get them clumped, or forcing the engagement at the other end of the map and leaving a marauder hit squad to flank the trailing High Templars. Do the same trickery with vikings and catch any collosus without heavy stalker or archon cover. Be surgical with your EMPs land them where you want them to land! Once you have done the micro and control dont get too mesmerized by the battle, tap your barracks key and get those marines, marauders, vikings, and medivacs building. There is no worse feeling than crushing a protoss army and then realizing you havent been macroing behind it and pushing into him will result in a loss, so you are forced to go back home rebuild and do another huge engagement that you must win.

#4 Attack to win!
- Yeah its an obvious point, but if you cant see yourself winning the battle, stall, delay move back until you know you can beat him.

- 12 rax - 1 marine then reactor right away (I like placing it at the ramp because it makes it look like a 1/1/1
- 13 gas
- 15 orbital
- 16/17 second barracks - try to hide it from the scouting probe, get tech lab once its done, start marauder and concussive right away, then get stim right after.
- 17 get second supply depot

- constant marine and marauder prodcution out of the raxes, DO NOT get supply blocked a single time it will make the entire push pointless. Supply goes up quickly so you can have an SCV constantly building depots around your base.

Place expo once you can afford it with constant unit production, follow that up with your second refinery, a factory, and then a third refinery at natural followed by an engineering bay. Get startport once factory is done, reactor on factory. (lift factory and send it to land at protoss third or scout main).

Push out again with your first 2 medivacs. If he has low sentry count try to kite the zealots for free kills. If he has a lot of sentrys be very careful and try to bait forcefields. This is quite tricky what you want to do is run close enough to forcefields then stim back and catch a bunch of zealots and waste sentry energy (use this same technique to bait and avoid storms late game). If you get trapped pick the trapped units with a medivac and drop them behind the forcefield.

If he has a collosus you know what to do, drop bait him.

**Extra good stuff**
After you start stim you can take 1-2 scvs off gas to get your expansion up faster.

**Mental notes**
Get the second supply depot after the reactor is placed.
Hide your first marauder from the ramp.
Concussive will be done around the time of the second marauder, dont forget STIM!
The 2 scvs joining the fight can be sent out a little bit after the main army pushes out.
Push with marines up front and marauders out of vision up to the watch tower. If the protoss sees the marauders he will know exactly whats coming and start chronoboosting his gateways. Try to get the stalker at the watch tower to chase your marines back towards your marauders, catch them with concussive!
DO NOT forget to start your expansion while you are pushing the protoss, even a short delay on this will put you far behind. Leave an idle scv at natural or in main to quickly build it during fighting.