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On March 22 2011 16:23 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2011 16:13 mizU wrote:On March 22 2011 16:06 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 22 2011 13:08 HolyArrow wrote: Anyone know the status of this build in the current metagame? I'm pretty excited to see that there's a good, solid, anti-4gate, macro-oriented build out there, but in watching the latest GSL, no Tosses seem to be using it in the PvP matches. What gives? Shouldn't it be a great counter to a 4gate if done right? Or are there flaws in it? When very high level players play, they need to keep information hidden from one another. If one player goes for a 3 Stalker opening like this one, the other may be able to expoit it somehow due to the inability to prevent scouting for a good period of time. Short answer: They either don't know about it, or just prefer something else. Yeah, 3-stalker build is VERY easy to scout, and when I spot it and am going 3-stalker myself, it's very easy to augment my build so I can beat his unit composition. I'm not believing that you can beat a triple stalker unless you go triple stalker + probe.
Cut a stalker, CB an immortal out. If he pushes up the ramp, pull probes. Get a third gate later than you usually would, and win with faster tech.
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On March 24 2011 08:21 mizU wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2011 16:23 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 22 2011 16:13 mizU wrote:On March 22 2011 16:06 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 22 2011 13:08 HolyArrow wrote: Anyone know the status of this build in the current metagame? I'm pretty excited to see that there's a good, solid, anti-4gate, macro-oriented build out there, but in watching the latest GSL, no Tosses seem to be using it in the PvP matches. What gives? Shouldn't it be a great counter to a 4gate if done right? Or are there flaws in it? When very high level players play, they need to keep information hidden from one another. If one player goes for a 3 Stalker opening like this one, the other may be able to expoit it somehow due to the inability to prevent scouting for a good period of time. Short answer: They either don't know about it, or just prefer something else. Yeah, 3-stalker build is VERY easy to scout, and when I spot it and am going 3-stalker myself, it's very easy to augment my build so I can beat his unit composition. I'm not believing that you can beat a triple stalker unless you go triple stalker + probe. If he pushes up the ramp, pull probes. I don't know, this sounds pretty risky and costly. I'm not really sold that an earlier Robo would equate to a win...
I was told the SotG exclaimed that the triple stalker build is flawed in that you cannot kill the probe in time to prevent scouting, thus it's exploitable with an earlier tech, but in all honesty a robo that early would sound like it in and of itself is exploitable, as the early robo is more than likely for rushing to colossus which results in very few stalkers; voidrays and phoenix are both air units. I'm sure the cast of SotG tested ground armies vs ground armies pretty in-depth, but I don't know if they tested Stargate tech or Blink followups from the 3 stalker player.
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On March 24 2011 08:28 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 08:21 mizU wrote:On March 22 2011 16:23 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 22 2011 16:13 mizU wrote:On March 22 2011 16:06 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 22 2011 13:08 HolyArrow wrote: Anyone know the status of this build in the current metagame? I'm pretty excited to see that there's a good, solid, anti-4gate, macro-oriented build out there, but in watching the latest GSL, no Tosses seem to be using it in the PvP matches. What gives? Shouldn't it be a great counter to a 4gate if done right? Or are there flaws in it? When very high level players play, they need to keep information hidden from one another. If one player goes for a 3 Stalker opening like this one, the other may be able to expoit it somehow due to the inability to prevent scouting for a good period of time. Short answer: They either don't know about it, or just prefer something else. Yeah, 3-stalker build is VERY easy to scout, and when I spot it and am going 3-stalker myself, it's very easy to augment my build so I can beat his unit composition. I'm not believing that you can beat a triple stalker unless you go triple stalker + probe. If he pushes up the ramp, pull probes. I don't know, this sounds pretty risky and costly. I'm not really sold that an earlier Robo would equate to a win... I was told the SotG exclaimed that the triple stalker build is flawed in that you cannot kill the probe in time to prevent scouting, thus it's exploitable with an earlier tech, but in all honesty a robo that early would sound like it in and of itself is exploitable, as the early robo is more than likely for rushing to colossus which results in very few stalkers; voidrays and phoenix are both air units. I'm sure the cast of SotG tested ground armies vs ground armies pretty in-depth, but I don't know if they tested Stargate tech or Blink followups from the 3 stalker player.
It's probably just cuz I play at a lower level. (Diamond)
So far I've been able to FF successfully, snipe stalkers, and sometimes due to poor building placements, even snipe pylons/gates/core. When I snipe stalkers or the core, I'll go SG follow up with voids, other wise just harass to death with immo/stalker/sentry and obs until I can get a money FF and kill some units for free, then retreat while teching to Collo.
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Here is a good example of someone trying to take advantage of my build by placing an earlier robo, where I won: http://drop.sc/2285
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Looks to me like this opening is becoming a standard opening amongst professional players. I've added a good amount of sources to the original post; some VODs and replays have been added.
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I've been using this a lot recently, thanks Cecil for posting this. It's becoming quite popular on ladder as well, which at least if nothing else makes pvp more enjoyable.
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I started to hate this build, one un-scouted pylon and the entire thing falls apart. You also tell your opponent exactly what you are doing from the very start, I've watched a lot of my replays where I lose and in some of them you see the person who is 4gating just be as greedy as possible after he has driven out my probe because he knows exactly what I'm doing.
Maybe I need to mix it up a little, transition into a 4gate from the opening...I dunno
I think ambiguity is your biggest weapon in PvP, if the other guy knows what you are doing then, IMO, you give him a big advantage
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You should link the games where it fails too. I think White-Ra failed twice to stop sanZenith from 4gating him during the WC for example, using the 3stalker opening. I feel like his immortal and sentries were late though, but maybe san just hit the perfect timing.
Still, it feels like it's not hard to circumvent the 3stalker build with a second probe as we saw san do.
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On April 02 2011 17:00 truthless wrote: You should link the games where it fails too. I think White-Ra failed twice to stop sanZenith from 4gating him during the WC for example, using the 3stalker opening. I feel like his immortal and sentries were late though, but maybe san just hit the perfect timing.
Still, it feels like it's not hard to circumvent the 3stalker build with a second probe as we saw san do. Well White-Ra didn't add on any tech at all, or even plan to get sentries. I think White-Ra was banking on out-producing San after surviving the initial dumping of resources into units from the enemy 4 Gate. However, this doesn't seem to work. I'm under the assumption you need to use your three Stalkers to get some sort of advantage over your opponent, and the three Stalkers only buy you time to do this. An advantage could be blink, or Sentries to take advantage of your ramp, or Immortals to deal crazy DPS.
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What I have been trouble when doing this build is someone simply stealing gas after seeing 2 gateways go down. Stalkers alone take very long to take down the 2nd gas and without any easy ways to pressure quickly on bigger maps the other play can just do a robo build with faster gas and be quite a bit ahead in my opinion.
When gas doesn't get stolen the build is pretty sweet though, I prefer twilight council before robo all the time though opting to go with quick blink stalker play as a followup and then expanding, using a forge + cannon if i suspect DTs.
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I don't like this build. If they use 2 probes for the proxy, 1 with z+s to look standard, the other sneaking around to the ramp, and manage to start two pylons at your ramp, you auto-lose. You don't have the DPS to kill the pylons and you don't have the chronoboost to get your WGs up in time to stay alive. This opening is 100% dependent on preventing a probe from getting near your ramp, and you can't always accomplish that.
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On April 02 2011 21:05 Markwerf wrote: What I have been trouble when doing this build is someone simply stealing gas after seeing 2 gateways go down. Stalkers alone take very long to take down the 2nd gas and without any easy ways to pressure quickly on bigger maps the other play can just do a robo build with faster gas and be quite a bit ahead in my opinion.
When gas doesn't get stolen the build is pretty sweet though, I prefer twilight council before robo all the time though opting to go with quick blink stalker play as a followup and then expanding, using a forge + cannon if i suspect DTs. I actually 13 gate then scout, and this gets you enough extra minerals to be able to get the second assimilator early without affecting the build at all. Before I figured this out, whenever I had my gas stolen I would get a zealot and delay the third stalker, thus being able to get warpgate on time, but not being able to get the sentry on time.
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Have used this 3 stalker build many times today and done pretty well vs. protoss. In fact, won vs. a 4 gater when I accidentally overextended my stalkers and let him sneak a pylon in my base. The stalkers' mobility and damage they do to the early units is great. Even if they sneak a pylon in your base while you're out hunting it at least splits their army. Your stalkers can rush back to the base and help overpower the proxy units in your base.
Big fan. Thanks for this Cecil. It makes PvP much better.
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On April 02 2011 23:39 kcdc wrote: I don't like this build. If they use 2 probes for the proxy, 1 with z+s to look standard, the other sneaking around to the ramp, and manage to start two pylons at your ramp, you auto-lose. You don't have the DPS to kill the pylons and you don't have the chronoboost to get your WGs up in time to stay alive. This opening is 100% dependent on preventing a probe from getting near your ramp, and you can't always accomplish that.
That's exacly what I ran into facing a mid-masters player with an 11gate version of 4warpgate. Sends 2 probes and sets up 3 warping proxy pylons where there is a little time lag between the proxy pylons finishing and warpgates ready to warp in. On maps where I couldn't see the second probe coming in ahead of time, the proxy pylons I was dpsing were canceled, and he had high-ground warpin from either his starting stalker or first unit warped in. Crucial initial timing where he's already up my ramp by the time I make a sentry to prevent that. I can post some replays of us practicing if someone doubts the efficacy of sending a hidden second probe to get up pylons unbeknown to the 3 stalkers.
I literally never won after playing 15 games with him unless I played *expecting* him to send a second probe and went off hunting for it. If this kind of play becomes widespread (I'm mid-masters), I will seriously be forced to ignore his army, kill his first probe, and go hunting for his second. There's nothing so frustrating as to see those 3 pylons go up, dpsed by my 3 stalkers, knowing I don't have the production yet to stop his first warpin from doing damage and taking my ramp.
This method of multiple proxy pylons this early might be considered a build-specific counter, because other methods of holding against 4warpgates do possess the needed units to dps down all those proxy pylons in time. So an opponent would be worse off just using this second probe as an all-encompassing method of circumventing 4gate counters since this build specifically is the only one suffering from the weakness.
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On April 27 2011 20:04 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 23:39 kcdc wrote: I don't like this build. If they use 2 probes for the proxy, 1 with z+s to look standard, the other sneaking around to the ramp, and manage to start two pylons at your ramp, you auto-lose. You don't have the DPS to kill the pylons and you don't have the chronoboost to get your WGs up in time to stay alive. This opening is 100% dependent on preventing a probe from getting near your ramp, and you can't always accomplish that. That's exacly what I ran into facing a mid-masters player with an 11gate version of 4warpgate. Sends 2 probes and sets up 3 warping proxy pylons where there is a little time lag between the proxy pylons finishing and warpgates ready to warp in. On maps where I couldn't see the second probe coming in ahead of time, the proxy pylons I was dpsing were canceled, and he had high-ground warpin from either his starting stalker or first unit warped in. Crucial initial timing where he's already up my ramp by the time I make a sentry to prevent that. I can post some replays of us practicing if someone doubts the efficacy of sending a hidden second probe to get up pylons unbeknown to the 3 stalkers. I literally never won after playing 15 games with him unless I played *expecting* him to send a second probe and went off hunting for it. If this kind of play becomes widespread (I'm mid-masters), I will seriously be forced to ignore his army, kill his first probe, and go hunting for his second. There's nothing so frustrating as to see those 3 pylons go up, dpsed by my 3 stalkers, knowing I don't have the production yet to stop his first warpin from doing damage and taking my ramp. This method of multiple proxy pylons this early might be considered a build-specific counter, because other methods of holding against 4warpgates do possess the needed units to dps down all those proxy pylons in time. So an opponent would be worse off just using this second probe as an all-encompassing method of circumventing 4gate counters since this build specifically is the only one suffering from the weakness. Yeah, someone recently lost in a PvP match in GSL by something extremely similar in a really similar fashion. If you want to open like this, you need to do it cleverly. For example scouting after your gate so you can afford an earlier Zealot + Pylon thus delaying one of your Stalkers slightly. This is much harder to read than the original build in the OP.
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With patch 1.4 and the immortal buff (and blink nerf), would this build be a better variant than the more recent 3stalker build (3gateways then robo) as opposed to this build that seems to be 2gates-robo-3rd gate? I know ppl have said this build is slightly outdated, but it still seems quite relevant and possibly even more potential with the patch?
Comments on this build's validity today??
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