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This is something that I am seeing more and more frequently on the ladder. After not playing for 10 years, I returned a few weeks ago and am currently sitting around 1750 on ladder with P. Unfortunately the reason I am not ~100 points higher is probably because of PvT. I find it nearly impossible to engage a Terran army unless I have arbiters out. Is this the reason that two base arbiter is becoming more and more mainstream? I understand the concept behind 2 base arbiters, but (and this is just theorycrafting) it seems like it would not be worth delaying your third base should they go 1 rax FE or similar. Against FE, you need to take your third pretty damn quickly imo. As in, around the time your natural finishes. Or am I mistaken?
Sometimes I watch the replays in which I lose against this build and I'm just like what the fuck he killed three fucking armies with his single army. I will upload replays later, but I am at the level where I am able to recognize my mistakes. I am moreso looking for general advice on how to counter this build.
I typically go 1 gate core with 1 probe on gas, nexus, probes back on gas, 3 gates, obs, take third after I scout
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On July 20 2019 08:35 fefil wrote: This is something that I am seeing more and more frequently on the ladder. After not playing for 10 years, I returned a few weeks ago and am currently sitting around 1750 on ladder with P. Unfortunately the reason I am not ~100 points higher is probably because of PvT. I find it nearly impossible to engage a Terran army unless I have arbiters out. Is this the reason that two base arbiter is becoming more and more mainstream? I understand the concept behind 2 base arbiters, but (and this is just theorycrafting) it seems like it would not be worth delaying your third base should they go 1 rax FE or similar. Against FE, you need to take your third pretty damn quickly imo. As in, around the time your natural finishes. Or am I mistaken?
Sometimes I watch the replays in which I lose against this build and I'm just like what the fuck he killed three fucking armies with his single army. I will upload replays later, but I am at the level where I am able to recognize my mistakes. I am moreso looking for general advice on how to counter this build.
I typically go 1 gate core with 1 probe on gas, nexus, probes back on gas, 3 gates, obs, take third after I scout Just a comment from the Terran side, there should be no way that you don't have an arbiter out by the time a +2/+1 push comes when you take your third after 3 gate obs. You are probably not macroing well enough.
Vs Rax FE a lot of Protosses get a third off of like 4 goons, if you can pylon wall your 3rd. 4 goons is enough to block the natural and ramp to your third from vultures. There is not a lot that Terran can do about it but expanding himself.
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Like Cryoc wrote, if Terran goes 3base-double-armory then he won't move out before 13 minutes, 12 minutes if he's good (and he probably won't be maxed by then, so you can engage more aggressively and force him to siege up multiple times and then retreat). There should always be time to have an arbiter out, depending on your build even with stasis or recall.
But it also seems that your perspective on your goal in an engagement against that maxed Terran army is a bit off. You're not meant to be able to beat that army in one big fight. If that happens then Terran made a big mistake. You don't really "lose three armies to that one army", but you trade three armies against 3 half-armies of his - and you can afford that! If you kill all his vultures and a few tanks in an engagement, that's OK. If you can kill a decent amount of tanks that's great for you, even if a lot of tanks remain. This is the case because of the basic economic setup in the current TvP lategame. If Terran goes 3base-double-armory, you can get 4 bases quickly, and start bases number 5 and maybe even 6 shortly before or while he is moving out. This gives you waaay more resources than he will ever be able to get, you can have 20+ gates pumping units non-stop, so you can lose 2, 3 armies and still the game is even. Just try to get decent engagements (which is more likely the more arbiters/stasis you will have) and try to damage or deny Terran's 4th base (on many maps that base is hard to hold for Terran). Oftentimes it's acceptable to to give him one base of yours as long as you make it costly for him to take it out, with cannons/storms/DTs/just regular units defending it, because you still have 2 more and can take another one far away in the meantime. You have recall, too. A good recall on Terran's 4th or into the main can end the game.
tl;dr: It's not about who wins the one big engagement, it's a war of attrition where Terran is more cost efficient but Protoss has more money/stuff.
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bust his balls if he's not dropping you. delay the third and blow up the cc. the worst thing you can do is take a bunch of bases and build 20 gates. there's no guarantee you can win off 6 base. abuse these greedy builds with quick dt drop off the back of your expansion. storm his economy and then recall him.
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If you have to fight, you need a very large arc (make sure to clear mines so that you can form it quickly enough) and some storms + stasis to engage terran army. That's the only to beat tank-heavy army (20+ tanks) imo.
Edit: Also, you usually don't have to fight terran before arbiter tech if both of you are going for macro game (unless you get arbiter tech too late). If terran is going for for 5 fac timing you need like 7+ gate to deal with that.
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can add a few shuttles with zeals it usually helps quite a bit or sometimes a lot when there are no or few goliaths. well actually if its on 2-1 he prob has bunch of goliaths no problem if he wants but you can also have arbiters then or some other stuff like reavers storms dts etc. Or heck even early carriers is a possibility you don't actually need all this if instead you're going for mass expos for example, you'll just need arbiters if T gets to or close to 200/200. Still they're an asset, for example just 1 or 2 reavers can do really good at preventing a T to roll forward to attack you.
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On July 21 2019 06:49 linestein wrote: bust his balls if he's not dropping you. delay the third and blow up the cc. the worst thing you can do is take a bunch of bases and build 20 gates. there's no guarantee you can win off 6 base. abuse these greedy builds with quick dt drop off the back of your expansion. storm his economy and then recall him. Any advice here? How do I harass a terran? Reavers are very inconsistent at that stage of the game since T has enough floating minerals to spam turrets
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On July 20 2019 20:58 Highgamer wrote: Like Cryoc wrote, if Terran goes 3base-double-armory then he won't move out before 13 minutes, 12 minutes if he's good (and he probably won't be maxed by then, so you can engage more aggressively and force him to siege up multiple times and then retreat). There should always be time to have an arbiter out, depending on your build even with stasis or recall.
But it also seems that your perspective on your goal in an engagement against that maxed Terran army is a bit off. You're not meant to be able to beat that army in one big fight. If that happens then Terran made a big mistake. You don't really "lose three armies to that one army", but you trade three armies against 3 half-armies of his - and you can afford that! If you kill all his vultures and a few tanks in an engagement, that's OK. If you can kill a decent amount of tanks that's great for you, even if a lot of tanks remain. This is the case because of the basic economic setup in the current TvP lategame. If Terran goes 3base-double-armory, you can get 4 bases quickly, and start bases number 5 and maybe even 6 shortly before or while he is moving out. This gives you waaay more resources than he will ever be able to get, you can have 20+ gates pumping units non-stop, so you can lose 2, 3 armies and still the game is even. Just try to get decent engagements (which is more likely the more arbiters/stasis you will have) and try to damage or deny Terran's 4th base (on many maps that base is hard to hold for Terran). Oftentimes it's acceptable to to give him one base of yours as long as you make it costly for him to take it out, with cannons/storms/DTs/just regular units defending it, because you still have 2 more and can take another one far away in the meantime. You have recall, too. A good recall on Terran's 4th or into the main can end the game.
tl;dr: It's not about who wins the one big engagement, it's a war of attrition where Terran is more cost efficient but Protoss has more money/stuff. Thank you very much.
You guys are correct, I should have my arbtiers up a lot sooner.
Do I get all my tech off 2-4 gateways after I take my third?
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On July 22 2019 07:08 fefil wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2019 20:58 Highgamer wrote: Like Cryoc wrote, if Terran goes 3base-double-armory then he won't move out before 13 minutes, 12 minutes if he's good (and he probably won't be maxed by then, so you can engage more aggressively and force him to siege up multiple times and then retreat). There should always be time to have an arbiter out, depending on your build even with stasis or recall.
But it also seems that your perspective on your goal in an engagement against that maxed Terran army is a bit off. You're not meant to be able to beat that army in one big fight. If that happens then Terran made a big mistake. You don't really "lose three armies to that one army", but you trade three armies against 3 half-armies of his - and you can afford that! If you kill all his vultures and a few tanks in an engagement, that's OK. If you can kill a decent amount of tanks that's great for you, even if a lot of tanks remain. This is the case because of the basic economic setup in the current TvP lategame. If Terran goes 3base-double-armory, you can get 4 bases quickly, and start bases number 5 and maybe even 6 shortly before or while he is moving out. This gives you waaay more resources than he will ever be able to get, you can have 20+ gates pumping units non-stop, so you can lose 2, 3 armies and still the game is even. Just try to get decent engagements (which is more likely the more arbiters/stasis you will have) and try to damage or deny Terran's 4th base (on many maps that base is hard to hold for Terran). Oftentimes it's acceptable to to give him one base of yours as long as you make it costly for him to take it out, with cannons/storms/DTs/just regular units defending it, because you still have 2 more and can take another one far away in the meantime. You have recall, too. A good recall on Terran's 4th or into the main can end the game.
tl;dr: It's not about who wins the one big engagement, it's a war of attrition where Terran is more cost efficient but Protoss has more money/stuff. Thank you very much. You guys are correct, I should have my arbtiers up a lot sooner. Do I get all my tech off 2-4 gateways after I take my third? Your gateway count has to be in response to their factory count, approximately 1.5x his factory count basically. If he is going up to 5 factories, you need 8 gates to hold, for example. There is no "one size fits all" answer to this question.
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linestein's approach is not bad either, it's just a different style, rather suited for you if you prefer aggression/harrass instead of a macro fest. He says and correctly so that you can punish a lot of Terrans (especially up until your level but also above) who build a fast armory and start a 3rd CC on only 2 factories. Against this low-unit midgame-style you can punish them with a lot of things, with DT- or reaver-drops, but also like linestein wrote just goon-zealot-attacks to delay or even kill the 3rd (or into weakly defended naturals) can work wonders. In the meantime you take your 3rd and tech up, and a 4th if the situations allows for it. But better Terrans won't take the 3rd like that blindly (they will make sure that Protoss' 3rd-timing allows it) and they will have a lot of experience in defending all kinds of harrass. But many Terrans just think that they can copy Flash and float the CC right away. The same is true for the storm-drops and early recalls: A lot of Terrans, at least up until B rank, don't really have the necessary mechanics to play the 3base-style properly, so if you harrass their economy, disturb them in their building-up, and then occupy them with recall, they will fall apart more or less. Oftentimes they will move out in disorder or so late that you can have all the bases, arbiters, carriers that you want until then.
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i like leading off with a zeal and pushing the pace. a lot of terrans are gradually getting accustomed to building a nice army and having a nice engagement and then pouring on vultures. it's nice to leave them scouring the map trying to place mines while harassing you. timing is important in pvt. whether you're going carriers or arbiters you need to synergize with the rest of the protoss. all too often you won't do something obvious like upgrading shuttle speed and storming his economy to death. there's nothing wrong with just storm dropping your way to victory against someone you can't beat with recall alone.
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On July 22 2019 11:20 Highgamer wrote: linestein's approach is not bad either, it's just a different style, rather suited for you if you prefer aggression/harrass instead of a macro fest. He says and correctly so that you can punish a lot of Terrans (especially up until your level but also above) who build a fast armory and start a 3rd CC on only 2 factories. Against this low-unit midgame-style you can punish them with a lot of things, with DT- or reaver-drops, but also like linestein wrote just goon-zealot-attacks to delay or even kill the 3rd (or into weakly defended naturals) can work wonders. In the meantime you take your 3rd and tech up, and a 4th if the situations allows for it. But better Terrans won't take the 3rd like that blindly (they will make sure that Protoss' 3rd-timing allows it) and they will have a lot of experience in defending all kinds of harrass. But many Terrans just think that they can copy Flash and float the CC right away. The same is true for the storm-drops and early recalls: A lot of Terrans, at least up until B rank, don't really have the necessary mechanics to play the 3base-style properly, so if you harrass their economy, disturb them in their building-up, and then occupy them with recall, they will fall apart more or less. Oftentimes they will move out in disorder or so late that you can have all the bases, arbiters, carriers that you want until then.
Thank you. Any specific methods you would recommend at my level that disrupt the terran? Reavers seem a bit iffy to me since a lot of Terrans (again at this level at least) put up some turrets and the reaver loses its effectiveness ten fold.
storm drops can work great. in fact one storm drop can win the game. But when I try to do them they hardly work. I understand you're meant to load a zealot or two into the shuttle to absorb the initial tank shots but regardless I still have trouble executing it. Multipronged attacks seem to be the way to go to circumvent this (their screen can only be in one place)
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if the terran is blocking everything else you can probably recall him
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On July 22 2019 11:48 fefil wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2019 11:20 Highgamer wrote: linestein's approach is not bad either, it's just a different style, rather suited for you if you prefer aggression/harrass instead of a macro fest. He says and correctly so that you can punish a lot of Terrans (especially up until your level but also above) who build a fast armory and start a 3rd CC on only 2 factories. Against this low-unit midgame-style you can punish them with a lot of things, with DT- or reaver-drops, but also like linestein wrote just goon-zealot-attacks to delay or even kill the 3rd (or into weakly defended naturals) can work wonders. In the meantime you take your 3rd and tech up, and a 4th if the situations allows for it. But better Terrans won't take the 3rd like that blindly (they will make sure that Protoss' 3rd-timing allows it) and they will have a lot of experience in defending all kinds of harrass. But many Terrans just think that they can copy Flash and float the CC right away. The same is true for the storm-drops and early recalls: A lot of Terrans, at least up until B rank, don't really have the necessary mechanics to play the 3base-style properly, so if you harrass their economy, disturb them in their building-up, and then occupy them with recall, they will fall apart more or less. Oftentimes they will move out in disorder or so late that you can have all the bases, arbiters, carriers that you want until then.
Thank you. Any specific methods you would recommend at my level that disrupt the terran? Reavers seem a bit iffy to me since a lot of Terrans (again at this level at least) put up some turrets and the reaver loses its effectiveness ten fold. storm drops can work great. in fact one storm drop can win the game. But when I try to do them they hardly work. I understand you're meant to load a zealot or two into the shuttle to absorb the initial tank shots but regardless I still have trouble executing it. Multipronged attacks seem to be the way to go to circumvent this (their screen can only be in one place) Properly used, reavers are very versatile and don't only threaten harrass but are also very powerful in defending pushes or denying the 3rd. They are a much better option in my opinion than strom drops or DT drops, since it is much cheaper and accessible early on. Depending on how hard you want to commit to harrass, you can invest in multiple shuttles and/or shuttle speed. With shuttle speed you survive a flight over a single turret so you can force your harrassment. And unless the Terran spammed turrets in his base, you will likely have an operational reaver drop in a probably otherwise unprotected main.
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On July 23 2019 07:19 Cryoc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2019 11:48 fefil wrote:On July 22 2019 11:20 Highgamer wrote: linestein's approach is not bad either, it's just a different style, rather suited for you if you prefer aggression/harrass instead of a macro fest. He says and correctly so that you can punish a lot of Terrans (especially up until your level but also above) who build a fast armory and start a 3rd CC on only 2 factories. Against this low-unit midgame-style you can punish them with a lot of things, with DT- or reaver-drops, but also like linestein wrote just goon-zealot-attacks to delay or even kill the 3rd (or into weakly defended naturals) can work wonders. In the meantime you take your 3rd and tech up, and a 4th if the situations allows for it. But better Terrans won't take the 3rd like that blindly (they will make sure that Protoss' 3rd-timing allows it) and they will have a lot of experience in defending all kinds of harrass. But many Terrans just think that they can copy Flash and float the CC right away. The same is true for the storm-drops and early recalls: A lot of Terrans, at least up until B rank, don't really have the necessary mechanics to play the 3base-style properly, so if you harrass their economy, disturb them in their building-up, and then occupy them with recall, they will fall apart more or less. Oftentimes they will move out in disorder or so late that you can have all the bases, arbiters, carriers that you want until then.
Thank you. Any specific methods you would recommend at my level that disrupt the terran? Reavers seem a bit iffy to me since a lot of Terrans (again at this level at least) put up some turrets and the reaver loses its effectiveness ten fold. storm drops can work great. in fact one storm drop can win the game. But when I try to do them they hardly work. I understand you're meant to load a zealot or two into the shuttle to absorb the initial tank shots but regardless I still have trouble executing it. Multipronged attacks seem to be the way to go to circumvent this (their screen can only be in one place) Properly used, reavers are very versatile and don't only threaten harrass but are also very powerful in defending pushes or denying the 3rd. They are a much better option in my opinion than strom drops or DT drops, since it is much cheaper and accessible early on. Depending on how hard you want to commit to harrass, you can invest in multiple shuttles and/or shuttle speed. With shuttle speed you survive a flight over a single turret so you can force your harrassment. And unless the Terran spammed turrets in his base, you will likely have an operational reaver drop in a probably otherwise unprotected main. Don't they also discourage early pushes against what would otherwise be a potentially naked Protoss 3rd? If I recall correctly, going Reaver after expo for Protoss allowed them to take a 3rd off of very little units because not only are Reavers (and shuttles) useful in early push break scenarios, they also force Terran to keep army at home or Turret or both in order to prevent harass.
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On July 23 2019 09:35 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2019 07:19 Cryoc wrote:On July 22 2019 11:48 fefil wrote:On July 22 2019 11:20 Highgamer wrote: linestein's approach is not bad either, it's just a different style, rather suited for you if you prefer aggression/harrass instead of a macro fest. He says and correctly so that you can punish a lot of Terrans (especially up until your level but also above) who build a fast armory and start a 3rd CC on only 2 factories. Against this low-unit midgame-style you can punish them with a lot of things, with DT- or reaver-drops, but also like linestein wrote just goon-zealot-attacks to delay or even kill the 3rd (or into weakly defended naturals) can work wonders. In the meantime you take your 3rd and tech up, and a 4th if the situations allows for it. But better Terrans won't take the 3rd like that blindly (they will make sure that Protoss' 3rd-timing allows it) and they will have a lot of experience in defending all kinds of harrass. But many Terrans just think that they can copy Flash and float the CC right away. The same is true for the storm-drops and early recalls: A lot of Terrans, at least up until B rank, don't really have the necessary mechanics to play the 3base-style properly, so if you harrass their economy, disturb them in their building-up, and then occupy them with recall, they will fall apart more or less. Oftentimes they will move out in disorder or so late that you can have all the bases, arbiters, carriers that you want until then.
Thank you. Any specific methods you would recommend at my level that disrupt the terran? Reavers seem a bit iffy to me since a lot of Terrans (again at this level at least) put up some turrets and the reaver loses its effectiveness ten fold. storm drops can work great. in fact one storm drop can win the game. But when I try to do them they hardly work. I understand you're meant to load a zealot or two into the shuttle to absorb the initial tank shots but regardless I still have trouble executing it. Multipronged attacks seem to be the way to go to circumvent this (their screen can only be in one place) Properly used, reavers are very versatile and don't only threaten harrass but are also very powerful in defending pushes or denying the 3rd. They are a much better option in my opinion than strom drops or DT drops, since it is much cheaper and accessible early on. Depending on how hard you want to commit to harrass, you can invest in multiple shuttles and/or shuttle speed. With shuttle speed you survive a flight over a single turret so you can force your harrassment. And unless the Terran spammed turrets in his base, you will likely have an operational reaver drop in a probably otherwise unprotected main. Don't they also discourage early pushes against what would otherwise be a potentially naked Protoss 3rd? If I recall correctly, going Reaver after expo for Protoss allowed them to take a 3rd off of very little units because not only are Reavers (and shuttles) useful in early push break scenarios, they also force Terran to keep army at home or Turret or both in order to prevent harass.
I would imagine that this is the case. However, the reaver is still a rather large investment. The cost of the army that terran has to keep home must be somewhat close to the total investment in the reaver + shuttle. Therefore I think you have to get some harassment done in order for it to be worth it, rather than it innately being worth it. If that makes sense.
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First of all, the reaver (or just threat of a reaver) already forces quite a bit of an investment from the Terran at a crucial point in time of Terran's build-order. Against the reaver they need the ebay (which could be delayed otherwise), 3-4 turrets at least, that's around 400 minerals which could be invested into faster gas+armory, factories, vulture upgrades, academy for better mid-game intel. Also later on Terran will have to spend more on additional turrets if they want to take the fast 3rd, and even more if you research speed. The reaver also "saves" you some money that you would invest into gates/units otherwise, so it's not as if you had to pay for the reaver on top of your normal investments.
Also don't underestimate the tactical value of the reaver, it's not only about counting resources here. Terran will have to keep units around for the case that you just sacrifice the shuttle, units that he could leap-frog forward otherwise to take the 3rd faster or that he could push out with (the reaver really stops any early tank+marine based pushes dead). Sometimes you can even drop the reaver, kill a turret and save the low-hp shuttle, then you can fly around freely and be annoying. Few Terrans can macro perfectly during this situation. And as Cryoc wrote, if you cannot do direct damage, just save the reaver for later use. Make it hard to take the 3rd, make him lose time there. On FS this is super common: reaver on the high-ground at the 3rd backed by some goons, forcing tanks to siege-unsiege, sniping turrets/SCVs/units. Annoying as hell... Or you use the reaver instead of cannons to defend one of your bases for a while, or you use it at an odd timing later on to harrass a mineral line when Terran is busy pushing.
Surely it's a big investment, but one that afaik is pretty fun to play with and that has a chance to pay off big time. It's all about how creatively you use the reaver, and obviously it will take some time and experience until you can make the most of it.
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Thank you very much highgamer.
I am convinced that, with good enough reaver micro, you can win just about any game. will definitely be practicing it more.
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Highgamer and Cryoc put some really good advice, although I would like to interject.
I like to go really early Carriers, even if it is just off 1 Stargate, and then transitioning back into mass gateway units, as most Terrans will over compensate with Goliaths just because the threat of Carriers, it can be kind of risky, but it has a high risk to reward factor.
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i like the idea, GGzerG. when do you typically add the fleet beacon? by the time a 2/1 push comes, i feel like i would only have 2 (3 if im lucky) carriers and I don't think that'd cut it. unless you get it earlier?
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