Help - Protoss vs Terran

Hi Guys,

Looking for some help here. My game is starting to get better. I do very well against Zerg as long as I have scouted and know what's coming my way. I've also learned to harrass and be much more aggressive.

Protoss is my medium. I find them a little tougher but can usually stand toe to toe.

Terran = the bane of my existance. I understand the counters, but I get wiped by everything. M&M's kill me....tanks kill me....vikings kill me....banshees kill me. It's like I"m always 2 steps behind. Scouting I find difficult. I get a probe in prior to them blocking their choke, but even with all the micro'ing they still kill it. They seem to build so fast! And by the time I get an obs out to really see what's going on, it's hard / expensive to switch tech to be able to handle what's coming my way.

So:
1) What's the best way to scout Terran other than what I'm doing
2) What are some decent strats to counter their basic builds
3) How the hell do I get into their base for early harassment??!?!?!
4) Can a couple of you prot players send me replays showing some decent choke busting techniques? It would be VERY helpful!!

Thanks

Gritten

Terran usually consist of Reapers, M&M&M, Hellions, Tanks, Banshees, and Ravens. You're gonna wanna get Stalkers fast to take out quick Reapers, M&M, and Hellions. Skip Zealots altogether. Your preferred tech choice is Robotics Bay. Scout your opponent ASAP with Observers. Get ALOT of Observers. If hes going more M&M, get a quick Colossus. If hes going metal, get Immortals. If hes teching to Banshee/Raven, hit him hard with a backdoor Stalker push using Warp Prisms carrying a few Immortals for backup. The only thing mass Stalkers really need to worry about are Siege Tanks, so make sure you crush them quickly with those Immortals.

Some people may tell you to get a few Phoenix to counter the Banshees and Seige Tanks because they actually tear through Stalkers pretty well. I say don't bother. Terran usually back up their Banshees and Tanks with Marines, and its enough to make Phoenix nigh useless. Stalkers are cheaper, produce faster with Warp-Gates, and supported by Observers turn cloaked Banshees into fish food.

Thanks DS.

Any chances you'd have a decent replay or two that I could review? Definately going to try to implement your suggestions into my game, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

I'd love to see how some of that's implemented and around what times in the game so I can determine if my macro is screwed, or if I'm just resulting to turtling too much (a consistent problem of mine)

Thanks

Gritten

What a Protoss army needs is a good mix.
1) Getting Sentries for their guardian shields is key. If you research hallucination as well you might even be able to break through the Terran wall and just win the game right there.
2) Tech to Warp Gate asap. No use in having regular gateways anymore than you need to.
3) Build a forge and some photon cannons to guard from attacks/raids. Then Chrono Boost some Protoss ground upgrades for yourself.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

You're gonna wanna get Stalkers fast to take out quick Reapers, M&M, and Hellions. Skip Zealots altogether.

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Eh, as long as you scout him well. That'll almost never work against M&M. Marauders are all but a direct counter to Stalkers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gritten

Scouting I find difficult. I get a probe in prior to them blocking their choke, but even with all the micro'ing they still kill it.

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What you do is once you're in their base hold shift, then click like a million places at once to queue up move commands. Your Probe will keep moving & moving and you can go back to your base to macro.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gritten

Any chances you'd have a decent replay or two that I could review?

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AHAHAHA.

No.

Just because I can tell you what needs to be done, doesn't mean I'm good enough to actually pull it off most of the time.

As for what Gradius said:

I agree that Sentries' Guardian Shield can stem much of the Marine problem.

I agree Warp Gates are uber.

I disagree on the need for cannons early. You'll want them around your base but they're not worth the tech until your econ is big enough to sustain them without impairing your army size. Observers are quite frankly much better for detection early game, and in the same tech path as Immortals and Colossus. Getting cannons too early leaves room for your opponent to simply overwhelm them with Marines while you lag on the better, mobile units. They're simply too weak to be of any real value early game, just like in SC1.

I agree that Marauders are dangerous, but frankly unless you can get Charge upgraded asap Zealots are not as good because they're easily kited by the ranged M&M. And the time and cost of getting Charge instead of going fast Robo Bay is not worth it IMHO. Whereas Stalkers are useful all game against nearly all foes, especially if your opponent goes air. You don't need Blink nearly as fast as you need Charge to make the unit more useful.

And shift-clicking-patrol is the greatest thing since warp-gates.

...There's always the 3gate technique :D i busted through a couple Terran walls with 6 Zs early. They died but I screwed up his econ. Unfortunately I don't have the replays...like DSquid I'm betting at telling and thinking of what needs to be done than actually doing it :p

If you can get some early Zs you can bust the wall pretty easy, but after that it's generally a good idea to ignore them. With boost, though, they can be good cannon fodder against M&M with some colossi in the back. Never discount them completely!

propably the best harrsement early you can try is building assimilators in their base prevent gas if successful no early add-ons no orbital command and factory comes out later
early harrsement can be a proxy pylon on edge of base, attacking destructable rocks, attacking a wallin with stalkers
get sentries force field can be just as good as the aura
going air can be a good thing to do

If the T is going mech and not bio (or a greedy build/fast expo), you can do like in starcraft 1. Skip zealot and go directly to stalkers. As soon as your first stalker is out, send him to the choke and fire on the supply depot. Set your rally point near his base and continue harassing the choke. At the same time, tech your way to DT (hide your building so that he doesn't scan them) as fast as you can. You will either kill him by breaking a depot (and so being able to move your stalkers inside) or suprise him without any detectors with your DT. Should always work at lower levels.

Also, try proxy pylon on the choke followed by the gateway right there. That's cheesy and anoying as hell. 99.9% sure win at lower levels.

Skip Zealots anyway and go straight for Stalkers. Because if he harrases you with Reapers and you have no Stalkers - you're DEAD.
He kills your economy or makes you run your Zealots all over your base, while he is preparing for the kill or expands to freaken bury you or carve his advantage in stone. And then bury you.

From the feedback here, coupled with reviewing replays of games I've had and some youtube research I have come up with some strategies that seem to work very well versus Terran. My win rate has become much higher. As some highlights as to what's worked for me and may work well for others, here's some things I do.

1) Start with a few lots just to get me started
2) Tech to stalkers quickly
3) Get an observer in their base as fast as possible - it's the only way I can scout
4) Generally I'll build 1-2 immortals
5) Pop a warp prism into the back of their base with 1 immortal a couple of lots or stalkers
6) Warp in whatever I can to the back of their base with the drop for worker harrass

The above works really well early game as terran is so focused on protecting their choke, everything is up front. When things go wrong I get what I can in the warp prism and retreat, or drop in another area of their base.

To handle the front - stalkers + immortals with a few lots as meatshields tears up the choke. If I can pull offf a front attack while harrassing the back it's usually a success. I'll try to expand at this point too while they're occupied.

If banshees come out after this I'll ensure I have stalkers, sentries and obs in my base and with my army. I'll pop out a couple of phoenix for backup as well.

So far I've seen a lot of M&M, in which case charged zealots with a couple of cols just destroys. Stalkers to take out the medivacs as well.

I've found I've had to learn to be very agressive vs terran to keep the ball in my court. One game I was turtling again and expanded late. I thought I had the game as I was rolling over his ground with cols, immortals and stalkers, but he brought in a serious mass of vikings I wasn't expecting lol.

dont forget psi storm. its great for those mid-late game M&M balls and clumped units in general. Also if you see a ghost start getting the ground armor upgrade to help your units soak up more damage if you get EMPed. Zealots are good units but they need the upgrades first. A handful of upgraded zealots with charge can lay waist to any small and medium sized terran ground army especially with templar support. Also go around the choke. protos units are expensive so you need to know what your getting into so you dont lose your units. With protoss intel is key so build a bunch of observes if you can. Keep one in your base for cloaked banshees and ghosts while you use the rest to scout out expantion sites and the enemy base. Warp prisms are your friends. Load up a couple with immortals and drop them into the enemy base then go pylon mode and warp in the reinforcements. Dont forget that the protoss get six different units from the gate way compared to the four from the barrack. Chrono boost always use it. I've seen a number of replays where a toss player would only use it in the begining to get more probes and zlots but then they get overwhelmed when the terran and zerg macro kick in.

I hate how defensive Protoss has to be. Terran are used to turtling, and designed for it, but Protoss should be far more aggressive. Instead of my units determining the battle, I'm constantly trying to make sure I can handle the variety of options "or broken units" the Terran and Zerg have early game.

Dsquid brings up a good point. The protoss have to be agressive especially with the much softer stadic defenses. Marines have a ranged attack and roaches eat Zlots, maruaders pwn everything and stalkers are quite fragile. dragoons did 20dmg stalkers only do 8 thats kinda weak. I've also noticed that some of hte toss units are like glass. teh stalker, pheonix and void ray just to name a few.

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Originally Posted by whitefire

Dsquid brings up a good point. The protoss have to be agressive especially with the much softer stadic defenses. Marines have a ranged attack and roaches eat Zlots, maruaders pwn everything and stalkers are quite fragile. dragoons did 20dmg stalkers only do 8 thats kinda weak. I've also noticed that some of hte toss units are like glass. teh stalker, pheonix and void ray just to name a few.

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Dragoons dealth explosive dmg that means 20 to large 15 to medium 10 to small stalkers on the other hand deal 8 +6 vs armored and more important they are more mobile and easy to command than the 'stupid' dragoon(or goliath),But right now there are so many units dealing 'bonus vs armored' i feel that they will be better dealing flat 10 or 11

another good point. blizz is using a different damage system then the old one so naturally units are going to change. the old dmg system didnt make as much sence as the new one but its going to take some getting used to. thats one reasone why people say that this unit or strategy is broken when its not. As far as stalkers go I think they should get a buff. not sure how to give them one though. most toss units have a high mobility and I think that caused them to lose some of their buffness.

I'll bring some points in as well. =)

Stalkers are a bit better than Dragoons. They are quicker, shoot faster, they have Blink and are smaller that Dragoons.
Static defences are not softened, it's to the contrary. It's just that the overall might of all units has been incresed significantly.
And Protoss do not have to be defending. Squid, you just don't know yet how to play aggressively. =) When you feel the Flow, your enemies will fall. Even those who usually don't.

I can write a wall of text about sentries and their importance in this matchup. I'll simply say skip Zealots as Terran typically doens't do a fast rush as they fear 2GateChronos in silver and below. Go Pylon -> Gateway -> CyberCore -> Assimilator -> Pylon -> Assimilator -> Gateway -> Pylon.

You should have all this done around 16 probes (assuming you're boosting the nexus) and ensure that ALL of your pylons cover your gateways as the timing pushes that terrans do typically will focus on the pylons if you only have one supporting the gateways. I typically prioritize Sentries unless I have less than 100 gas, then I pop a Stalker. You'll find it very easy to balance them back and forth this way. If you decide to forge, go armor first as it changes the Guardian shield bonus from 1/3rd marine damage to 1/2.

3 gate works for 1 base fully saturated. If you macro well and keep up with pylons, you can safely expand about the time you get 10+ sentries and Stalkers.

Just remember that as you get it saturated, go about 6 warp gates minimum. Your options IN ADDITION to those 6 warp gates are involve beyond that:

- 3 additional warp gates (Sentry/Stalker OR Dark Templar)
- 4 additional warp gates (Pure Zealots/Charge)
- 2 additional warp gates (High Templar)
- 2 robo Collossus
- 3 robo immortal
- 2 stargate (Void Ray)

There is some thoughts.. interesting note about expanding.. if you go hard sentries, the extra minerals you will have work great for an initial cannon defense.