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Many of you will no doubt remember the old WoL 2 rax pressure build in TvP:
- 1 Rax - Reactor
- 1 Rax - TL (research concussive shell)
- pressure with mm (2-3 scv optional)
This style largely got phased out in the last year or so of WoL due to Protoss players learning to recognize it and hold it off easier.
However, in the last few months, I've noticed that the meta in TvP has shifted largely back toward greedy play on behalf of Protoss by greedy I mean:
- sometimes lack of probe scout
- usually only 1 zealot, 1 stalker, and MsC for defense into Nexus
As a result I've begun experimenting with the previously mentioned 2 rax pressure expand rather than 1 rax/reactor expand or cc first. In most games so far I'm able to get a Nexus cancel, get my expo up in the meantime, or sometimes just end the game.
Keep in mind I only do this on 2 player maps and the games are played against low masters/high diamond people.
So am I crazy for thinking this is good or are the people that it works on just terrible?
Edit: Replay added (timing delayed ~15-30 seconds) http://drop.sc/339351
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The problem with that kind of aggression is the MSC. In the time your timing attack hits he will just planetary nexus. Then he will have time to get his 3 gates up and push you back .
If you want to apply pressure early on you can go for either mine/hellbat drop or heavy reaper opening that work very well at your level.
A reaper build for newbs i found in this forum that is very efficient at diamond level
3rax reaper build :
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=409905
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mostly the map size deters this, by the time you hit they will have msc and a stalker probably with nexus cannon about to hit.
Pressure builds like these are still possible but i think you really need to be a tad faster to abuse the opening before nexus cannon / warpgate get online. For example 2 rax, techlab on first and just naked rax second. Imo a far better build anyway and hits a fair bit faster though doesn't have the sustained production of the classic 2 rax reactor first. It's all about hitting the right timing though, not so much continued pressure. The best you can do is a nexus cancel anyway..
The classic 2 rax was just outdated in the end of WoL already because it's an inefficient pressure build and just hits too late with these maps.
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On June 01 2013 00:53 klup wrote:The problem with that kind of aggression is the MSC. In the time your timing attack hits he will just planetary nexus. Then he will have time to get his 3 gates up and push you back . If you want to apply pressure early on you can go for either mine/hellbat drop or heavy reaper opening that work very well at your level. A reaper build for newbs i found in this forum that is very efficient at diamond level 3rax reaper build : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=409905
You are right about the 100 energy for planetary nexus...however, many Toss will move out early with their MsC which means no Planetary.
I concede that it is risky if they don't move out.
Here is an example replay (full of many mistakes on my part) where P moves out with his initial units at the same time my units get to his natural expo.
http://drop.sc/339351 -- Also I screwed up the build so my pressure came later than it should...but this isn't exactly pro level XD
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Don't you just die to MSC/zealot pressure doing reactor first? I got a friend's friend who got to master doing this build a lot (all in version adding 3rd rax and very very late expand), but that doesn't mean it's good, it actually seemed pretty bad, opponents just had no clue how to respond (cause in low master people tend to autopilot a lot, plus this build is super rare). So yeah I'm not sure this is actually a good build, seems risky against early pressure and gets killed by scouting :<
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2 rax should hit before nexus canon is ready, but the reason this got phased out of WoL is the immortal bust became the standard response to 2 rax, and its kind of a free win.
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This is why it doesn't work :
1. MSC. Just plain and simple you won't get through the photon overcharge
2. Most maps don't really allow this; long rush distance, easily defend-able natural, etc.
3. It's just a very bad strategy tbh. If this gets scouted or if protoss just sees no expo, it should be relatively easy to hold their natural nexus just by delaying tech and going for three gates before tech (I think that would be the correct response).
4. It's super weak against almost every protoss aggressive build. If P decides to not play greedy and go either : Dark shrine, Oracle, 4gate, VR (or any SG play really) you're most probably dead.
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When asking if something like this is viable you have to ask, "will it get through planetary nexus?"
If the answer is no, then no, it's not viable. There is a balance issue with the match-up right now involving the mocore/planetary nexus, but that's a topic for another thread
User was temp banned for this post and large assortment of past balance whine history/warnings/bannings.
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I've seen quite a bit of people do this at high level play and when it works (if it does) it appears to work one of two ways:
1) You poke in with 6-10 marines and try to force photon overcharge then just attack a minute later when a couple marauders and another handful of marines arrive.
2) You do it on a map where you can run into the main easily even with the natural nexus photon overcharged. Akilon is pretty good for this for example.
If they aren't too greedy they'll still have a stalker, zealot and/or sentry, and mothership core to defend the initial 6-10 marines and be able to save photon overcharge for the main attack and defend easily.
And if you go for option 2 they'll forcefield the ramp to their main while they chrono warp gates to get enough units out to defend. In this case you can still usually target all the probes at the natural even with the nexus slowly killing you.
Like I said though, I've still seen it work at pro levels, but I think that's just because Protoss are still learning to scout and deal with it properly.
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Ive tried WoL style 2 rax in Diamond level, it doesn't really work anymore because of planetary nexus. Like someone said above, the PNexus will hold you off long enough to get the other gates up and running and then toss will hold you easily.
Interestingly, the version of the 2rax I have been doing is without add-ons into like 4 or 5 reapers (Lucifron v Babyknight). It sounds suicidal with oracles and the msc and whatnot, which is why Id never built more than 1 reaper v Toss before, but it works surprisingly well because the reapers are much faster than MSC, so they just avoid it, and in those kinds of numbers they will chew up stalkers. Toss can't move out because if he does you shred his mineral lines, if he tries to proxy an oracle or otherwise rush to stargate tech, you shred his mineral line (your reaper scouts will give you sufficient notice to get an ebay and turret up if he goes stargate). After the reapers you just transition into a normal bio game, expanding, adding on a third rax, etc.
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On June 01 2013 02:21 avilo wrote:
When asking if something like this is viable you have to ask, "will it get through planetary nexus?"
If the answer is no, then no, it's not viable. There is a balance issue with the match-up right now involving the mocore/planetary nexus, but that's a topic for another thread
User was temp banned for this post and large assortment of past balance whine history/warnings/bannings.
lol´d and agreed.
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On June 01 2013 02:21 avilo wrote:
When asking if something like this is viable you have to ask, "will it get through planetary nexus?"
If the answer is no, then no, it's not viable.
Your right if it was an allin, but it was not an allin build in WOL.
I did this build alot in wol. U can also pressure and just see how it goes. If planetary nexi is started just back away, expand and attack again, keep poking. If your lucky u can snipe some units to force the toss to overbuild warpgate units instead off teching up (which was if i remember correctly the goal of the build in wol). It worked pretty descent in WOL because the terrans tech (stim, medivac and +1) was high enough to end the match when the first medivacs popped out. If the goal is to delay tech from the toss, then i believe it can work if u micro properly, with or without planetary nexi. I feel the only deciding factor is that u do not expand to late, do not overcommit in the harras, in this way u dont fall behind to much in supply until medi's are there.
So, yes, i believe its doable, with or without planetary nexi.
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i doubt it. the reason is not the msc, though. this kind of pressure was dealt with in WoL without the msc by identifying it as it moved out. more stalkers than usual to take out the marauder and then theres ~5 naked marines left over. the msc will only help. if you want to go for a ~meta~ timing people are not expecting, you should do the poke with stim but before medivacs that was popular about a month ago
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I've done this build very frequently in WoL at a Masters level with a pretty high rate of success. It works if you catch your opponent off guard, which was a frequent occurrence on ladder - many protosses in WoL tended to play very greedy without scout, and I would do a slightly faster version where I would put down 2nd rax before OC. I liked this variant a ton because A: it would hit right before warpgate finished, and B: the normal counter - warping in mass stalker to focus down marauders - would be preempted, because the protoss would have to have sentries to buy time for the stalkers to get warped in, lowering the overall stalker count and preventing them from cutting down your marauder count before it builds (or they wouldn't have sentries when you arrive and you would just straight up run into their base and punish them).
Whether or not the protoss could defend would depend upon the first few units they built and how they held until their new gateways warped in. No sentry was usually a quick GG, I would run in and snipe some key pylons and force a probe pull, doing enough damage for the push to payoff, or ending the game straight up. If they had a sentry, a potential snipe might work, but otherwise it depended upon their transition after expand.
Usually, if they did a robo transition, their gateways would be delayed enough that I would be able to do the damage I needed (bunker up natural or push up ramp). 3 gate transitions often fell/were insufficient, but 4gate transitions often defended successfully (based on a dozen or so practice games against my top 8 masters friend). The medivac transition was only truly successful if you managed to trade armies fairly well with the initial push - otherwise, a competent protoss would just defend since it would be close to the ordinary 10 minute mark of defense against drops, and then snowball their economic lead.
So how does HOTS change things? Well, it closes the timing window before warp gates are up, since the mothership core's photon overcharge will buy the protoss a whole minute. Sure, you can build up more units, but the protoss will already have had time to build up theirs. Even in the most vulnerable builds, a 1 gate fe into robo then more gateways, the additional gateways will be up and running (65 seconds construction time) by the time overcharge ends. So no matter what, this gets the protoss to the snowballing stage where all they have to do is defend (which is easier with photon overcharge) and they win, because your tech advantage is nullified once they have a couple of colossi out. Yes, you'll have a starport, but you won't have the time/enough gas to invest a high enough count of both medivacs and vikings.
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On June 01 2013 04:58 LlamaNamedOsama wrote:
I've done this build very frequently in WoL at a Masters level with a pretty high rate of success. It works if you catch your opponent off guard, which was a frequent occurrence on ladder - many protosses in WoL tended to play very greedy without scout, and I would do a slightly faster version where I would put down 2nd rax before OC. I liked this variant a ton because A: it would hit right before warpgate finished, and B: the normal counter - warping in mass stalker to focus down marauders - would be preempted, because the protoss would have to have sentries to buy time for the stalkers to get warped in, lowering the overall stalker count and preventing them from cutting down your marauder count before it builds (or they wouldn't have sentries when you arrive and you would just straight up run into their base and punish them).
Whether or not the protoss could defend would depend upon the first few units they built and how they held until their new gateways warped in. No sentry was usually a quick GG, I would run in and snipe some key pylons and force a probe pull, doing enough damage for the push to payoff, or ending the game straight up. If they had a sentry, a potential snipe might work, but otherwise it depended upon their transition after expand.
Usually, if they did a robo transition, their gateways would be delayed enough that I would be able to do the damage I needed (bunker up natural or push up ramp). 3 gate transitions often fell/were insufficient, but 4gate transitions often defended successfully (based on a dozen or so practice games against my top 8 masters friend). The medivac transition was only truly successful if you managed to trade armies fairly well with the initial push - otherwise, a competent protoss would just defend since it would be close to the ordinary 10 minute mark of defense against drops, and then snowball their economic lead.
So how does HOTS change things? Well, it closes the timing window before warp gates are up, since the mothership core's photon overcharge will buy the protoss a whole minute. Sure, you can build up more units, but the protoss will already have had time to build up theirs. Even in the most vulnerable builds, a 1 gate fe into robo then more gateways, the additional gateways will be up and running (65 seconds construction time) by the time overcharge ends. So no matter what, this gets the protoss to the snowballing stage where all they have to do is defend (which is easier with photon overcharge) and they win, because your tech advantage is nullified once they have a couple of colossi out. Yes, you'll have a starport, but you won't have the time/enough gas to invest a high enough count of both medivacs and vikings.
IThx! i understand now i guess. Its not the photoncannon thats the problem its the time it buys for more warpgates to be finished. That sounds logical. (btw, im no master so my opinion aint that important) 
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I use this build a lot in my diamond league and got pretty good winrate with it. It may not work in the metagame right now but somehow it works for me surprisingly well. I move out when 1 marauder finish and just poke at his expo. Even when I do 0 damage, I still be able to go into macro game and win anyway. It's just low level league thing I guess lol.
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On June 01 2013 04:05 kinsky wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 02:21 avilo wrote:
When asking if something like this is viable you have to ask, "will it get through planetary nexus?"
If the answer is no, then no, it's not viable. There is a balance issue with the match-up right now involving the mocore/planetary nexus, but that's a topic for another thread
User was temp banned for this post and large assortment of past balance whine history/warnings/bannings. lol´d and agreed.
lol'd and disagreed. did this actually sound like a "whine?" sounds like a pretty legit criticism to me, along with the majority of avilo's critiques.
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I guess when you can't actually disagree with someone you don't like you just ban them and say they had it coming and count on the cheers of the mob to distract from the injustice.
When asking if something like this is viable you have to ask, "will it get through planetary nexus?"
If the answer is no, then no, it's not viable. There is a balance issue with the match-up right now involving the mocore/planetary nexus, but that's a topic for another thread
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I don't think the Reactor-first 2rax is viable in HoTS. What might actually be decent is a more rare variation from WoL where you'd open with tech lab after the first Marine, get 2 Marauders and go with a few SCVs, because you'd hit before the Nexus was done and more importantly before the MSC has enough energy for an overcharge. Depending on the Nexus timing you might be able to cancel it, but it is unlikely and your best-case scenario would be to slow him down by killing a few ground units and making him forget to build workers amidst the chaos.
The only downside to that variant, which I believe is the only viable one, is that the MSC kinda goes unchecked, so the push has an expiration date on it. However, the benefit is that you'll have an earlier CC and you could reduce their Sentry or Stalker count in the early game if you got a good fight. I guess alternatively you could make a 2nd barracks near his base and put out 3-4 Marines by the time your Marauders catch up and have a way to deal with the MSC, but even that is a bit flimsy.
So, short answer, not really, and if it's working it's just because you are getting favorable build order matchups that you probably shouldn't be getting.
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I used to use this stratagey frequently in wol however I think that it's just not as effective any more and that this is primarily due to ms core. However it's not simply the deffensive edge that this unit gives p but the meta switch it has created. Before ms core abd oricles p usually tried to expand rather fast with opens like 15 nexus or going zelot+stalker poke. Now that p have ms core most of them delay the expand even longer than the old zelot stalker poke opens, this is a suboptimal open for this build to face because as a 2 raxing player I learned that it is always unwise to push up the ramp as thier will often be a force field waiting for you. In the past this situation was workable because usually you can delay the expansion while getting your own or if you sense an all in fall back expo, bunker and then do a follow up 2 Medivacs drop with stim and +1. However because of the ease at wich p can now defend that kind if push due to nexus cannon I feel that 2 rax really does not have a place in the current meta and expansion play with a lot of greed and good reactions is superior for Terran in the Curent pvt meta. If 15 nexus becomes popular agian though I could see this coming back.
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EPT
