ZOMG. Dreamhack finals are epic......(spoiler)
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ZOMG. Dreamhack finals are epic......(spoiler)
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edit: final result
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Thanks spychi, but I'm not at that skill level yet. My macro and multitasking still need a lot of work. But, you missed the point of the replay/game. I was demonstrating a new strategy that was proven to work at pro level at the GSL. Me doing it at my level and pulling it off just proves that it is a viable strategy at any skill level. The reasoning is sound, is what I am saying. The mechanics are irrelevant.
EDIT:
This is not the first time I have tried this on ladder, and every time it was a different kind of response. In one game I had someone go mass early roacht o try and break my cannons. Didn't work. Another game, someone went mass speedling. Although he broke down my natural, I was on 4 bases by then with like 8 VR and 6 Colossi and 8 zealots. Him killing that natural with only speedling mass was a mistake by him since I just used 2 colossi popping out of robo to kill them with a pylon blocking my main gate. As soon as the speedlings ran into my nat, I just walled/expoed at the bottom left of Shakuras Plateau and out-played him in econ. AND, I had a deadly army that killed mass hydras/roaches (with burrow-heal). Another game, the guy opened mass mutas, and I just switched to producing phoenix from 2 stargates while using colossus cannon to hold my natural, and then cannon-expoing to a 3rd with colossi Phoenix, THEN move into mass void rays from 3 stargates. The result was the same.
Thing is I wonder how that strategy does against an expoing zerg who mixes corruptors with mutalisks. Like the moment he sees you doing that he just gets a 3rd fast. Then a fourth fast while getting super fast spire cos you're obviously not gonna push. Then a few corruptors at each base with mutalisks to chase down voidrays. Then getting a spore at each to beat DT tech as well as your air power. Or even like a fast pool becoming popular with Zergs cos they know toss likes this build so they rush in and punish you. 6/7pool frenzies or as i will call it now the ActionJesuz.:P That's why i would hesitate calling this a solid strategy unless zerg players who adopt the perfect defense will not just hard counter this build. Not early rushes but basically a set passive outexpo build from zerg. Almost got to see it in GuineaPig's second game but he had a successful cannon push on zerg's early 3rd which was super careless of his opponent. If that 3rd had gone up and guineapig still won the game convincingly then i would be more inclined to call this a solid strategy. I basically wanna see a zerg see this build and just say "Ok i won't try to break you early. I'll just outmacro and outplay you." and see how that works.
um you can scout the 3rd and quickly change your strat, in a matter of seconds, it's essential to have at least 4 warp gates after you FE just to be ready
Yeah i know spychi but i was talking specifically about guineapig's play which involved only one probe being out scouting and the front completely walled off. Zerg should have full map control at that point but guineapig's opponent didn't really do that. Guineapig just walls off completely with 3 cannons and goes straight for double stargate first. I was talking about guineapig's particular FE style not any general FE style.
When Zerg sees cans in main near the choke point and the approach is blocked, he thinks that P is going for the Stargate, Z tries a bane bust/Mutas/Roaches
i usually like to fool my opponent, kill his scout and quickly change my strat
I did it in the last PvT, he scouted that I am going for a double gate zealot push, he tried to block his choke, but I put a pylon, throwed there one zealot (he pulled all his SCV's and with one rine killed it which is great cause he is a little bit behind) meanhwile canceled my 2nd gateway and went for FE with DT tech
the moment he started to call me a cheesy noob, I started calling him a fucking Marauder faggot noob retard and whatnot, cause he completly missed rines and went for pure rauders... I also remember one T doing pure marauders, I had an hidden Stargate and 2 Void Rays + one sentry in main and a Zealot, blocked my choke and started charging my Void Rays hahahah, meanwhile the third Void Ray was destroying his base
That's funny because I played a game against a terran a few days ago on Steppes of War who went with a 4 rax w/ tech labs mass marauder play. I saw him blocking his choke and saw it as an opportunity to get VR as I can charge up on the destructible rocks next to his choke. The only problem is that I need to be able to defend the marauder push with 2 gates.
When his push came, I denied it with FF over and over. He then decided to retreat and tech up to tanks. Next thing you know, I destroyed his wall with my VRs against his useless marauders XD.
I present a story......I just got into diamond on my last game yesterday night. I thought I'd try some games tonight. Hoping to work on my macro which is really lacking. Played 15 games. Won only 3 times.
Only twice did my opponents play straight up. Every single Protoss I played was cheesing/early rushing/anything aimed to kill you off early. EVERY ONE. Mass void rays. Mass void ray with ups. Chargelot rush. Fast warp gate zealot rush. 10 gates. Proxy gates. Stim rush. Concussive shell rush. Mass speedlings off one base 2 hatch. Roach rush. Tank with siege rush.
So many one base all-ins. So so many. At least I'm getting practice dealing with and identifying rushes. Roach rush is deadly though. Can't think of how to handle that besides 10 gating or forge first. I find it so surprising and crazy that so many people are cheesing and one base all-in at plat/diamond level.
Just before i went up to diamond only like 1 in 4 people were cheesing/doing one base all-ins. Now in one night 13/15......I think i'm gonna give up laddering for a while. 1v1 is the wild wild west now.:P Is it just me or is Protoss really susceptible to cheese and one base all-ins?? Perhaps i need to do a 2v2 strat. Lots of early cannons for defense.
Or maybe I'll switch to doing one basing really heavily as well. Or a 2 early gate mass zealot pressure in every single matchup. Anyone have any ideas??
More early sentries, or 1 base until you know what his plan is. Just remember that the difficulty in people you play against doesnt go up when you change leagues, it doesnt shoot up in difficulty... they should be about the same as the people you had been playing beforehand.
Unless I am mistaken most of what you described were just common timing pushes, they are not meant to kill you just try to do damage. The proxy gate is probably the closest thing to an all in that you described unless they brought all their drones with that roach rush, if it is the same roach rush I am thinking of that alot of people were doing on the NA servers a few weeks back. The key to beating all of these timings is to flat out know the timings of what COULD happen when, and to find out ways to tell how they are doing any one of those strategies. To put it simply, the key is scouting. If you know what they CANT do, you start to realize just how little the CAN do, and you feel fine doing your normal game. Scouting does not mean just your first probe. It means having the towers, placing pylons around the map, placing a probe at the front of their base to see when they are moving out. Just having good map awareness, including watching the minimap constantly, will help you win alot of games.
How you deal with any of these depends on what you want to do more, win or get better. One of the first things you said in you post was "I was hoping to work on my macro" which means if that is what you wish to do you need to forget about whether you win or lose and just focus on that. Since you are focusing on the macro, there are times you will lose, and lose badly. But, you will improve much more rapidly than if you just play to win. Over the next 10 games you will probably win more games just focusing on winning, but if you focus on improving instead you may lose more in those 10 games but over the course of 100 games you will win way more games by trying to improve right now.
When you focus on the macro side while someone puts all their effort into one big push, you need to keep in mind that since your gameplan goes further if you hold off that push you are in a commanding lead. You just need to not die. If their push fails they have nothing and you just need to expand your lead if they do not up and quit right then. If they are just using these timings as just good pushes then they tend to have a good follow up plan, so you may not be in as big a lead as it seems. I am a bit wary when you say "bringing a 2v2 strategy over" with the cannons if you just turtle up on one base and use the cannons to fend off their all in. If they are smart they can just pull back and expand and just win later. However, if you use those cannons and get up an early expansion then that is a good idea. Cannons are a great way to not die and hold your base from all pushes. There is a game between Adelscot and HuK on Lost Temple where Adel goes 1 gate fe and throws down a cannon to help fend off HuK's 4gate. Since Adel was able to hold off the 4gate and keep his expo up he was able to pull ahead and win convincingly.
Whether you do more 1 basing, or try to power macro is up to you. Do not be afraid to do either if the situation calls for it, and do not be afraid to lose to all ins if you are macroing because that just means that you need to tweak it a bit to find out how to hold off those pushes. It helps to watch replays of people doing those strategies to find out the timings of when something could happen. Like, how fast they can get banshees, how fast they can get stim, how fast they can get concussive if they go for it as fast as possible. Once you know the timings you can do what I said earlier and look for certain tells that will help you guess what the opponent COULD be doing. No expansion for zerg? Could be roach rush or baneling bust. Early second gas for Terran? Could be banshees. No second gas for protoss? Could be early expand or 4gate. Knowledge is power, know how to know. Gratzi on getting to Diamond.
Thanks for the advice silencbank. I call it all-in cos of a thing Day9 said. Opponent attacking constantly and not expanding behind it meaning he wants to kill you NOW and keep pushing with lots of units. I'll keep at it and look over the replays. Probably need to get some cannons up since I expo earlier than my opponent.
am I the only one who thinks that colossi is the most useless strat against terran that already has a startport with reactor? I don't even know why toss techs to robo other than obs or immortals against terran...
btw I laughed last game vs terran I had, he went for pure marines so obviously it was either banshee or thor all in, I guessed it's the banshee one, a hole in one lol, I made 3 phoenixes and he had like 8 banshees, he noticed that too late to react
I just love how phoenixes rape banshees soo much
Metagame dude. If you can hide your colossus tech, and pump out a few before he can scout it, you'll have a major advantage in any battle involving bio balls.
Personally, i think colossus make for very efficient timing pushes, when you're on two bases. They're alot faster to get, than templars. In general, once you decide to get colossus, you have an open timing window, before the terran gets vikings. Even after that, they're not completely useless. I see alot of good P players mix colossus and templars late game.
Also, if you can make a terran think that you go for colossus ( Either by using hallucinations or if he scans the tech ), you can basically force him to make vikings, without know how many colossus you have. This has proven very beneficial for me, in atleast a few games.
To be honest, i think that you have a rather simplistic if not stupid view of these things.
Don't get me wrong, Colossi are great against bioball yet once Terrans get starport it get's denied, also once I get the opening two sentry's in early games, I don't use them later at all, I go heavy on gas and it's a bit stupid for me to "waste" 100 gas on them, I wish that the hallu upgrade would be either cheaper on resources (75/75) or energy (75)
I like to focus later on something new, I just don't like the predictable shit at all
You hide your colossus tech until you get a few out then attack when he is unprepared. He will then make vikings (and less medivacs) and you can transition to storm. I think that's the whole point. Ive seen it goes both ways. It's a matter of execution. A lot of times you will not have the opportunity to get storm by the time your opponent executes his timing attack so you will may need colossi to help defend.
I prefer storm over colossi because of Terran's ability to double pump vikes. Colossus does work a lot of times though but the key is to not reveal it too soon before your attack. A mix of colossus + HT also works great. It looks like Blizz will be nerfing storm though so I might prefer colossi over storm a little more than I do now.
Looking for some general advice:
PvT:
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/gradex1.SC2Replay
PvP:
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/gradex2.SC2Replay
I clearly lost because my opponents had really good harassment, but how do I minimize the damage when I know it's coming and/or bounce back?
There is one specific thing I could recommend for each situation. The Hellion harass could have been prevented by simple building placement. By placing a pylon at the red location just above the vespene geyser, and either a gateway/cyber/robo in the blue square the terrans first hellion drop would not have done as much damage and he would either have to pick up and re-drop, or run around your nexus to get to your probes.
In the PvP you could have placed cannons on the outside of your third base when you pushed out so any DT counter attacks would have been prevented. Just like you did against the banshees from the Terran the cannons give you just enough time to come back or warp in something in order to fend off the harassment.
Judging from those two games I think that you should just get more obs in general (at least in those two circumstances). Even if there is no threat of early cloaked units you can still put them in common drop paths in order to spot incoming drops.
Something amazing to keep in mind: should you happen to be in a PvP with Colossi wars, it is actually better to be on defense. When you attack into a group of Colossi your units group up and give the Colossi better chance for splash. The outcome is quite amazing. An army of 10 zealots and 5 colossi vs an equal army of 10 zealots and 5 colossi will always lose if they attack first. The battle comes out to the defending protoss having 3 colossi left(with minimal micro). Not pertinent to your post, but something all toss players should keep in mind.
I'm kind of curious about what you guys are doing in PvP currently.
Right now, I'm pretty much only 4 gate, since it beats almost every opening out there.
But recently, the 2 gate + 3 stalker opening has become pretty popular. It basically revolves getting 3 quick stalkers, and killing the probe who's going to build a proxy pylon. After delaying the 4 gate, you simply transition into a standard 3 gate robo play.
What annoys me a bit about this 3 stalker build, is that you cut probes. You get a fairly second gateway, without even knowing if your opponent does go for a 4 gate.
So what if he isn''t? Then you just sacrificed a meaty bit of your economy.
Artosis did a video of this build in action, explaining the details :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_X8Jlfj5g
What are you guys thoughts on this? I'm going to try this build everytime in PvP, even though i haven't run into many 4 gate rushes here in mid diamond ( I'm low dia, but i get matched against some pretty highly ranked players ).
I do a 3 gate stargate in PvP lately. Need to improve my void ray micro though.:P The build Artosis talks about seems pretty solid. But I'm not having that much trouble with 4 gates that I feel the need to use that build.
I heard people talking about this video the last few days and had no idea wtf they were talking about. After seeing it though, I really do like it. Something I would like to point out though, yes you DO cut probes at 20, but so do they if they are doing the 1zealot 6 stalker warp zealots in your base type style which is the type of 4gate many are doing (and what Artosis's opponent tried in this game). So not only will you get map advantage with the faster units, you will get tech advantage as well. And you will not be economically behind either, so against a 4gate this build puts you in SUCH a huge advantage.
The thing about the opening though, it is usable against other builds as well due to being able to harass with your earlier stalkers than the opponent. Instead of capping yourself at 20 probes you can just delay the 3rd stalker a bit, get an earlier pylon and keep producing probes (since by this time you will have a good idea if your opponent is 4gating). If you refine it a bit more, you may be able to get that pylon in there and still make those probes (when Artosis did it he had about 200 minerals after his 3rd stalker was being built so it may be possible to get that pylon at about 22 or 24 and not miss probes).
The only weakness this build has may be early zealot pressure off 2gate or 10gate. If you wait until your cyber is up to start getting units the zealots will probably be in your base killing your probes. If you start a zealot and start chrono boosting it since you are ahead since you opened cyber you will have the tech advantage if you can hold off the early rush. But, 2gate is rare and 10gate is not that awesome since you naturally save your nexus energy with the build.
All in all, it seems like a good opening that can safely hold off 4gate (with proper control) and transition quickly to colossi. I may have to play around with it myself to see how well my ideas to use it against non 4gating players. GLHF all my protoss brothers.
Here's some ladder games:
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/3...rad1.SC2Replay
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/3...rad2.SC2Replay
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/3...rad3.SC2Replay
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/3...rad4.SC2Replay
My timings aren't always perfect, I don't scout on 9 like the build order says, and I usually try to squeeze in a pylon before the third stalker to keep more constant probe production. The only problem with this is that if you face a more economical build you get owned, and I've been losing when they chrono zealots to your mineral line.
I guess most protoss know about this already but in case not......
LiquidTyler downloaded the replays from IEM and went through the games giving analysis and commentary. Mostly talking about builds and Protoss strategies. Pretty long videos. I didn't manage to catch any IEM so I've just been watching this instead.
IEM Day 1:
http://www.justin.tv/liquidtyler/b/280679678
IEM Day 2:
http://www.justin.tv/liquidtyler/b/280738615
Liquidtyler is so so amazing. A game from the PAX East Liquid Showmatch. Game 1 between Jinro and Tyler. Casted by Day9 and Husky.
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4868544/
Tyler's timing is so precise. Double forge and instantly start +1 +1. Then timed the twilight council perfectly to finish before +1 +1 then starting +2 +2 immediately. Perfect timing to get the 3rd and 4th gases to get enough gas to get +2 +2.
I just watched that. I don't know how am I supposed to stop that as a Terran player. The Protoss basically just steam rolled that bioball with the +2/+2. 2 Damage from marines hahahah that's GG.
Siege tanks maybe, but then doesn't that leave you open to a rush? Plus stalkers can blink in...ughh...what is a T player supposed to do?
Anyone have videos of TvP where the Terran actually wins lol?
All I can say is...shit :(
that game of liquidtyler was AMAZING!, man, i hope that someday i could manage to macro like that xD.
you know, after 4-5 months without playing a single multiplayer game (damn you blizzard and your monthly fee in Latin america!) i play last night 2 game
the first game was HORRIBLE! my macro was horrible and my micro was just... damn... so bad that i lost the game against 3 zealots!!! yeah! 3 zealots destroy my base.
the second game wasnt that bad, i even won it, but my macro suck balls, and lets not talk about my micro...
in this game you can see me doing everything wrong. My build order was terrible, i dont know what the hell i was doing all the time, i get supply block a couple of time, and when i send an observer to the enemy base and spot that he was doing siege tanks it still takes to me like 2 or 3 minutes to react and start building my first inmortal xD.
somehow i still win that game, =P, i think that the other guy was a zerg player that was practicing on random xD.
First thing is keep up on upgrades. And the main strength of double forge is against bio since the damage from marines is greatly reduced with 2-2. Going mech could work. Tanks, hellions, banshees. Hellions with blue flame would still roast those zealots. The 2-2 build gets a lot of zealots. I saw tyler stream some games when he was still experimenting with it and terran can choose to try and hit before 1-1 or 2-2 finishes. Or do a lot of drops while getting more upgrades. The nice thing for protoss doing this though is colossi with 2-2. Like if i spot mech play i'll just get colossi faster then attack with 1-1 colossi if the terran does something stupid like trying to slowly siege up towards me when he doesn't have much to support his tanks.
@Spike
I know what you mean. I recently got back to playing after like 2-3 months away. Screwed up so badly that in a PvP by the time he had zealot and stalker my first zealot hadn't even come out yet. SC2 is definitely not like riding a bicycle.:D I'll check out the replay later after GSL world championships ends for the day.:P
@Spike
That replay was pretty bad. Hotkeys, build order, no. of production buildings were all weird. Do you want some suggestions on what you did wrong and could improve??
Well it's Ctrl+ a number to assign it to a number hotkey. I would say nexus, gates, robo, stargate, army at least on a hotkey. Sometimes hotkey forges. Just play vs easy ai and look at all the hotkeys and get yourself used to them. Standard build order (keep making probes)
Pylon at 9
Gateway at 13
Gas at 15
Pylon at 16
Core at 17
Second gas around 21
After this just make things when you have money to. Like your zealot isn't even half done yet and you're still making probes and you have 150mins then you can put down a gateway. You have 200min 100gas and everything is making something that is less than halfway done make a robo facility.
Just try to keep making probes. If the money builds up then just plant it down earlier.
You made too many pylons early on. Could have cut back on one. Could have expanded earlier. Don't really need so many cannons all around. If you're afraid of drops/banshees then make a few extra obs. One to patrol the region where drops should come and one obs to sit in base. Then just watch the minimap.
Use chronoboost as much as possible. It helps to put unit health bars up. Can see chronoboost energy, whether gateways/robo/etc are making anything, progress on research. Vs terran spend most of chrono on probes. Most commonly toss chronos first stalker and warp gate once each. Then once chrono on the obs. Other than that all on probes. You could have expanded around 7mins.
Standard protoss build in PvT is 2 gate robo. Gate-->Gate-->Robo planted down in that order. Then make an obs directed towards his base and chronoboost it. If you see his army is something you can handle then expo. If not then get a third gate and make a few more units before expoing. Technically 3 gate robo can't be completely supported off one base. But it'll let you get more units if you feel unsafe or obs sees a big army coming. 4 gate 1 robo on one base is too many production buildings. It means you weren't making out of your gateways enough.
You put 2 in gas. Should be 3 in gas. You can check it by clicking on assimilator and it shows "Current Harvesters: 3". Can spend a bit of time on unit placement. Put the zealots in front and ranged units behind them. Make them into like two lines/arcs.
Don't be afraid to just plant down an expo nexus if you're not sure what he is doing. Just plant it then scout around with a probe or obs. If you see something really dangerous then you can cancel the nexus. Be sure you know what is dangerous though.:P Especially on a big map with long walk distance even if it looks scary at his base by the time he reaches yours you usually already have enough units to hold it off. Depends. You'll need to play more to get a sense of it.
During a battle if there's nothing to micro, i.e. no specific unit you need to target fire then spend the time to quickly go back to the pylon you want to use for warp in and warp in units.
Someone has taken all the videos people recorded of their coaching lessons....
http://www.sc2lessons.blogspot.com/
Mostly inControl coaching lessons. One lesson from Minigun.
thanks alot hammer!!! im going to try it today! =D
but i have a couple of questions: i dont build a single zealot till the 21 probe and 2 gas? =S. That isnt too risky?
and when i start to investigate de Warp Gate?
Well, you should definitely be going with the most standard BO which is :
9 Pylon
Chronoboost probes after Pylon finishes
13 Gate
14 Gas
15 Pylon
17 Core
18 Zealot
After the core finishes you should have just enough minerals to start a stalker. After getting that stalker, start a pylon, and get a second gas up and running
When playing against Zergs, i prefer to get a sentry out first. That allows you to get that second gas up and running at 21, without cutting probes.
Sadly there is no "one build opener to rule them all" as a Protoss. But, what Jack N Drop said were both right about the opening. The pylon on 9, gate on 13 blah blah is the most used opening for all match ups. It is pretty safe against alot of stuff, while not hampering your economy at all. As for the zealot, if you DO decide to build that zealot you generally want to build it with your first 100 minerals after you build your cybernetics core. It works out well enough that your zealot generally finishes about the same time your cybernetics core does and you can make a stalker/sentry pretty safely. Whether you get the zealot or not is up to you tbh, I get it when I am facing Zerg players and Protoss players; but generally skip it so I can use those 100 minerals to get my second gas up against Terran more quickly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting the zealot though while the cybernetics core is building, it is just a stylistic thing for me to not get it vs a Terran.
As for warp gate research timing, 99.9% of the time you want to start the research AS SOON AS your cybernetics core finishes. If you follow either of the openings Jack or Drop gave you, you will have enough gas to start warp gate instantly after your cybernetics core finishes. The other 0.1% of the time is for builds that require you to have ALL of the gas you can mine to be diverted to a certain area of tech instead of warp gate research. It is not necessarily a bad thing to delay warp gate for spending that money on tech instantly but keep in mind that the sooner you tech, the less money you have for defense at the start, and the easier it is for your tech to be scouted since you have nothing that can chase off scouting workers (your zealot is too slow and even if you started a stalker it takes awhile for it to come out of the gateway). All in all, its only 50 minerals/50 gas, just get the upgrade.
An easy way to learn to play is just by watching people better than you play and learning from them. Be it replays or watching streams. Pick a player you like and try to find as many vods or replays you can of them and learn as much as you can from watching them play. It is amazing the stuff you can learn just by watching someone really good play the game at a very high level. Anyway, gl in your game betterment.
Some interesting builds in PvP at MLG Dallas. For those of you who missed it....
Kiwikaki does the same thing in PvP over and over and his game vs incontrol (Loser bracket round 9) on shattered showed why he does that particular build. Looks really interesting.
http://s3.majorleaguegaming.com/140-22371.html
Then the first match between Kiwikaki and Naniwa (Winner bracket round 1). I believe it was the crossfire game. Naniwa did an interesting 4 gate defence.
http://s3.majorleaguegaming.com/140-22330.html
I'll check out those replays later on when I have time but they're both interesting in the PvP matchup. Definitely worth checking out just to get more ideas in PvP i guess.
EDIT: Any other replays you all think were noteworthy?? In case you don't know where they put the replays...
Open bracket: http://s3.majorleaguegaming.com/2011...aft2-open.html
Championship bracket: http://s3.majorleaguegaming.com/2011...ft2-champ.html
In the Kiwi vs Incontrol matches, i think that Inc mainly lost because he expanded early/and before any engagement.
Other than that, Kiwi's blink stalker micro is beastly.
Naniwa's 4 gate defense, was pretty map specific i think. And probably also really hard to pull off.