The Protoss Players Thread

No, seriusly, what to do against Terran? I have not many problems with the rest of the matchups, but i find that everything the Terran haves is much more cost-effective than my units. I tried adding Immortals, Stalkers, getting Charge earlier, upgrades, adding Colossi, adding some Void Rays (obviously not all of those at the same time, ok?), but still have no clue of how to win this matchup. When there are Tanks and Marauders there, my army just disintegrates without causing much damage.
WTH is going on??? It's getting on my nerves. I would have voted against the race a long time ago if that would be possible, as i would be much more than interested in playing less PvT.

If you're going against Tanks and Marauders in early midgame with only tier1-1.5 gate units and Immortals/Colossi, you're doing something wrong. Usually if you are seeing tanks, you will need storm to support your chargelots, or if you DID go for Colossi (with thermal Lance of course), you would need to micro those things to prevent them from dying to tank fire or Marauder focus-fire.

The thing about a Terran that uses tanks is that they cannot push fast. If they do, unsieged tanks die sooo quickly that they'd need some kind of meatshield, which marauders don't fulfill too greatly as chargelots can eat through marauders while you havea few stalkers focus down the tanks. And, later on when you get storm or colossus, you can soften up either units then attack.

ALSO, very important point to note is to NEVER attack a tank pushing terran frontally. bait his army to siege up where you will get 1-2 flanks and just surround his units fast. If you have sentries, use GS to reduce damage and 1-2 FF to choke marauders' paths. Chargelots will do the rest. AND always keep up on forge upgrades.

Norf, aim for the following in your games (after launch):

pylon
gate
assim
pylon
core
zealot (while core is building) - save chronoboost here
Stalker/Warpgate research simultaneously - chrono both.

This ^ helps you fend off early reapers, and allows for some early pressure if your probe scouted marauders.

Follow up with
1 more gate
pylon/assim
council
make more zealot/stalker in equal ratio and squeeze in a sentry or 2
add another gate when u can
get charge and use chronoboost solely for that research
scout his natural or ramp and find out if he is fast CC'ing or going for an early timing push with rines/tank or marauder/rines.

Always scout to know what to make more of (ie zealots or stalkers or sentries)

After you get the council and you have enough zealots, think about getting your natural while teching to templar.

From here on, you add 2-3 more gates and pump constant zealot/templar with a few stalkers and sentries for support.



The robo route is only different in that you will have to rely heavily on stalkers, 2-3 sentries and unupped zealots until your robo is up and you can get colossi. You'll need to expo more aggressively, like as soon as you have your first few sentry/zealot/stalker. You'd need to expo asap and robo right after your 3rd gate. get an obs to scout his tech and build accordingly.

So if he goes for banshees, obviously you get your stalkers and cannons at your mineral lines and reinforce your production structures with more pylons. If you scout heavy 2 port banshee dont even think to go colossus, instead just use the robo purely for obs and get a stargate to pump[ Pnx. If you only see 1 port banshee then you can still make Colossi. Although temp tech is more useful since you can feedback the banshees which will most likely accompany tank/marauder/rine or MMM-tank . Temps can feedback/storm these unit combos more easily than colossi can handle them since if your colossi dont have enough support, ie stalkers to defend it against banshee and infantry focus fire, then your colossus is in a lot of trouble.

All in all Norf, you just need to keep up macro.

I know you're getting frustrated but it seems you're not making the right tech choices at the right time.



The general idea for pvt can be:

EARLY GAME:
Zealot/Stalker (1-2 sentry)

MID-GAME
Zealot/HT purely, with only a few stalkers as needed, and just use this phase to expo all over the map (get your 3rd base fast).

LATE-GAME
Find a suitable transition tech such as 2-3 Robo Colossi, or 2 stargate Void Rays, or Mass Immortals to support your zealot/temp if you dont see ghosts.




If you have a clear plan, you can make it happen in a large number of games. You WILL lose a lot in the beginning until you get used to playing according to plan, but you will start winning by the end of it. You can't just think : Oh Im gonna get this unit combo and this upgrade, but then you never transition out of it in time. May have worded that wrong, lol... but anyways. Get a core plan down and follow it. Also, saturate your expos with 30 probes - transfer as necessary and constantly produce workers - hotkey all nexi to one hotkey; makes it easier.

Thanks, that's a lot of info, i really appreciate the time and effort it takes to write such a detailed explanation. I'll try to follow it. It's just that PvT seems like 10x more difficult than PvP or PvZ (well, that later is like a walk thru the park compared with PvT, the last Zerg player i played was as frustrated in ZvP as me in PvT).

I 100% agree about don't attacking siege tanks frontally. The amount of damage done to your units is so utterly ridiculous that no amount of them will suffice. I also find very difficult if not impossible to use Colossi in the presence of Siege Tanks, as the Terran player just needs to click, and they die. They outrange everything, and deal ridiculous amounts of damage to every kind of unit, except the Immortal if it still has shields left, but Infantry/Ghosts can take care of that really easy.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

Need some PvZ advice. Can't seem to beat the strategy where they just plant a million crawlers next to all their expos and outmacro you. I had more workers than him the entire game, but I think I lost because I was kept on two bases for too long. :/

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I'd just grab some void rays coupled with a nice ground army and use the voids to snipe the spines and then push in with the whole force.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

Thanks, that's a lot of info, i really appreciate the time and effort it takes to write such a detailed explanation. I'll try to follow it. It's just that PvT seems like 10x more difficult than PvP or PvZ (well, that later is like a walk thru the park compared with PvT, the last Zerg player i played was as frustrated in ZvP as me in PvT).

I 100% agree about don't attacking siege tanks frontally. The amount of damage done to your units is so utterly ridiculous that no amount of them will suffice. I also find very difficult if not impossible to use Colossi in the presence of Siege Tanks, as the Terran player just needs to click, and they die. They outrange everything, and deal ridiculous amounts of damage to every kind of unit, except the Immortal if it still has shields left, but Infantry/Ghosts can take care of that really easy.

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Using phoenix's to lift enemy siege tanks is a strategy i think you'll find worth your while.

Edit: Sorry for double post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jdawsman

Using phoenix's to lift enemy siege tanks is a strategy i think you'll find worth your while.

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That's something i would like to try. It looks easy to counter for the Terrans, but everything looks that way, so what the hell, it'll give it a try.

lol... can't believe I forgot that! :D Jdawsman is absolutely right :D

Instead of stargate > voidray, you can go stargate > Phoenix. The thing is you need to have a solid ground army to support the phoenix because they're so fragile, they die really fast to marines and turrets.

However, if you have a solid ground force of zealot/stalker/sentries Phoenix increases your survival vs tanks exponentially and allows you to transition into tier 3 tech way more easily - i.e. Colossi from 3-4 robo.

You're welcome ^_- btw.

Maybe we should be practice partners. I am a completely noob Terran; I am going to be learning it during full game release, but I prolly won't be on bnet till the end of August - will be out of country. When I am back though, we can play a lot of TvP (for me) / PvT (for you) to improve both our skills :D You will pwn me hard at first, but once I start getting closer and closer, we will both become much much better at the matchup. We just need like 100-200 games or something :P

Hope to see you online man, and good luck!

Yes, that would be great, thanks! :)
When we get our retail-game characters, let's practice some PvT/TvP.

EDIT: By the way, i used some Phoenix. Good advice, didn't make much damage, just killed like 2 or 3 units inside his base, but the guy overbuilded Turrets, played 1 base, and i even lifted a few Siege Tanks with them. I also used a few Hallucinations to suicide scouting.
Maybe the guy was worse than usual, or the Phoenix there really had a big psychological effect.

I really need help against Protoss, PVP. I always have my 4 to 5 units sitting outside his base, but when I rush in he has like 10 zealots! I cant exactly remember my build but...

8 pylon
11 gate
12 pylon
13 gate
chrono zealots
cy core
pylon near enemy base
so on and so forth

This build works perfectly against terran where i can rally my gates to terrans base and just harass until re-enforcements get there.

I almost never lose to terran.

9 Pylon
12 Gate is stronger.

What do you mean by stronger by the time I have my first gate up I'm already training a zealot

Question for you guys,

I usually go 3 gate, robo.
But I'm hearing 4 gate is better.

I rely on obs because its hard for me to play in the dark. I have shitty game sense.
Also, I like the option of getting immortals or jumping into collosus during the mid-game.

What are the advantages of 4 gate over 3gate, robo?
In what situations would 4 gate be superior? inferior?
Is there a difference, in your opinion?

I would prefer 4 warpgate because if all of a sudden you have a air rush, boom, you have 4 stalkers. And I too have bad game sense in the terms of "Man, I should have rushed earlier" or "Wow, he really didn't have that much units, I could have rolled over him." Observers are good, cuz you know everything about your opponent. I would suggest gate, cy core, gate-council, gate, gate, robo, foundry. I am a bronze so don't take my word for it, but watching replays against my toss losses, I have found that more gates, the better.

What dejai probably meant by stronger is that at 12 gate you do not lose any time building probes while chronoboosting them. So, if you chronoboost as soon as your pylon is finished, it will end right before you can build your 13th probe after you have set down your gateway. "Stronger" is a loose term to use since each has their own strength and weakness, but a 12 gate can pretty much handle most early aggressions short of a 6 pool pretty well.

About the 3gate robo vs 4gate, there is no "better" since they have their own strengths and weaknesses. 3gate robo is skewed more towards a mid game win, while a 4gate tries to win it closer to the beginning. If you want your mid game to be colossus then why not just keep going with your 3gate robo? Maybe try to add a twilight council in there as well and go for 3gate robo blinking stalkers and then go to a stalker colossi army. If it is working for you, what needs to change really? If it is not working find out WHY it is not working. Are you pushing too late? Are early harassments killing you? If you keep trying to "force" your play to work you will be able to find out all of the intricacies of it and know what to look for to see if they are doing something to beat it.

What you said is true. I prefer the 4 gate though because it gives you a better reaction and comeback time just in case something happens to your main force.

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Originally Posted by Corgon

I really need help against Protoss, PVP. I always have my 4 to 5 units sitting outside his base, but when I rush in he has like 10 zealots! I cant exactly remember my build but...

8 pylon
11 gate
12 pylon
13 gate
chrono zealots
cy core
pylon near enemy base
so on and so forth

This build works perfectly against terran where i can rally my gates to terrans base and just harass until re-enforcements get there.

I almost never lose to terran.

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If you find so much difference in macro, then it would be better that you don't rush until your macro gets on par with him, but prepare to defend his rush, and go for a longer game. In PvP, GW units alone get raped by Colossi, but for that you need an expansion. A lot of the games i played ended like this.
Scout as often as possible to see what he's doing. Scout the expansions to see when are they taken.

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Originally Posted by Dale

Question for you guys,

I usually go 3 gate, robo.
But I'm hearing 4 gate is better.

I rely on obs because its hard for me to play in the dark. I have shitty game sense.
Also, I like the option of getting immortals or jumping into collosus during the mid-game.

What are the advantages of 4 gate over 3gate, robo?
In what situations would 4 gate be superior? inferior?
Is there a difference, in your opinion?

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Robo is good if you like to harass because you get observers and you can always throw up a Warp Prism and drop units or warp units into his base (Assuming he doesn't have fast air units like Vikings, Phoenix, or Mutas).

With 4Gate you will have a superior army, at least initially. You can also find room for hallucination so you can still have excellent scouting.

4 Gate can back fire though if your aggression fails. It does not really put you in a great position for the mid game in fact it generally ends with a counter push and a loss. However recovery is certainly possible, quite dependent on the amount of damage you do. Remember you need to warrant having units on the map early you want them to work for you while you have the advantage.

I usually use 4 warpgate to help me get my expansion up (or win). Basically, I use my typical 4 warpgate push where I proxy pylon and push in immediately after warpgates are done, if I deal any damage or think I can win I continue to push. If it looks like he has a big unit advantage, I fall back and continue to pump. If it looks like things are about even, I might expand.

what dejai say is correct. if the push fails, you fall way behind in the macro of your enemy. the timing is limited also. with the 3gate 1robo route, it allows you to tech up as well as defend your base. it also allows you to get a expo alittle faster since your not constantly warping in units. then again, the 4gate push is extremly hard to defend against unless they scout it out.

Alright, I need help with PVP. I have recently been getting rolled by Protoss and I have no idea what I am doing wrong. For a while I switched to super early stargate and keeping my choke with zealots but after a few wins with mass void ray rushes, it seems as though everyone has adapted. I get rolled within the first few minutes with zealots and stalkers, I don't even know how they get so many units out so fast. they only have 2 gates. Before I tried my zealot rush which usually works quite well against Terran but by the time I have my 5 zealots out there, they have 10! and I am macroing like crazy. I just don't know what to try, Collosi take too long, zealots don't work, void rays don't work (once I got super massed by a ***ton of carriers mid game, I have no idea how that happened 'they had 5 stargates and 3 expansions') I tried carriers myself but had no luck. I really need help.

Also, what is a good defense against brood lords, I have tried 18 archons (yes, 18) with mass stalkers, that did not work. I tried air units, but usually they roll around with a bunch of corruptors. Brood lords are so powerful and they just produce those little things like crazy. What should I do. Should I maybe push up once I have fended off the early zerg rush?

Oh and I forgot who it was but they suggested me to 2 gate against zerg and rally troops at the choke so they don't get surrounded, this works fantastic...until the brood lords come.

I'm really torn against Zerg. After i've had my Zealots up (Warpgate at 12) i'm fending off the first rush(es) perfectly fine. Then suddenly the Zerg switches tech and goes for a legion of Mutalisks to make my economy plans crash and burn. As i usually have 3 warpgates up i will be able to get stalkers up and resist the harassment. But after that, i usually lose in economy and end up losing.

Anybody else having problems with this?

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Originally Posted by Vrebona

I'm really torn against Zerg. After i've had my Zealots up (Warpgate at 12) i'm fending off the first rush(es) perfectly fine. Then suddenly the Zerg switches tech and goes for a legion of Mutalisks to make my economy plans crash and burn. As i usually have 3 warpgates up i will be able to get stalkers up and resist the harassment. But after that, i usually lose in economy and end up losing.

Anybody else having problems with this?

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Strange, because I have actually never run into mutas in any of the 30 something games I have played so far. I am not sure how pheonixs will hold, you should try those out in VS AI to see.

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Originally Posted by Corgon

Alright, I need help with PVP. I have recently been getting rolled by Protoss and I have no idea what I am doing wrong. For a while I switched to super early stargate and keeping my choke with zealots but after a few wins with mass void ray rushes, it seems as though everyone has adapted. I get rolled within the first few minutes with zealots and stalkers, I don't even know how they get so many units out so fast. they only have 2 gates. Before I tried my zealot rush which usually works quite well against Terran but by the time I have my 5 zealots out there, they have 10! and I am macroing like crazy. I just don't know what to try, Collosi take too long, zealots don't work, void rays don't work (once I got super massed by a ***ton of carriers mid game, I have no idea how that happened 'they had 5 stargates and 3 expansions') I tried carriers myself but had no luck. I really need help.

Also, what is a good defense against brood lords, I have tried 18 archons (yes, 18) with mass stalkers, that did not work. I tried air units, but usually they roll around with a bunch of corruptors. Brood lords are so powerful and they just produce those little things like crazy. What should I do. Should I maybe push up once I have fended off the early zerg rush?

Oh and I forgot who it was but they suggested me to 2 gate against zerg and rally troops at the choke so they don't get surrounded, this works fantastic...until the brood lords come.

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havent played much pvp but usually everyone just does the 4gate push into expo or fast blink. i like going for 2 gate into robo and extra gateway. usually gives me enough units to defend and expo. then i quickly pass him up in macro and just out macro the guy.

are you target firing with those stalkers and archon? i dont see how they can survive if you have so many although i doubt you had 18 archons. also, i dont see how they are at tier 3 while you are still pumping out tier 1 units. you are doing something wrong

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Originally Posted by Vrebona

I'm really torn against Zerg. After i've had my Zealots up (Warpgate at 12) i'm fending off the first rush(es) perfectly fine. Then suddenly the Zerg switches tech and goes for a legion of Mutalisks to make my economy plans crash and burn. As i usually have 3 warpgates up i will be able to get stalkers up and resist the harassment. But after that, i usually lose in economy and end up losing.

Anybody else having problems with this?

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i dont see much muta play either. the most i'll see is maybe 6 and they usually retreat quite quick after they see a few stalkers. if you are having trouble, try buying a cannon or 2 around your base. after the harrass, you'll want to scout because they usually try to expand again or tech to hydra.

phoenix do not do well against muta. best bet is just to get stalkers. tempars are okay but muta usually dodge the storm easily. archon is pretty good though.

Took your advice against a protoss who had a thing for harassing with void-rays. Having him economically busy with the rays(without expansion) i could expand into a site of rich-minerals. After that i could easily afford 10 photon-cannons to guard my nexus and set an observer outside his base to watch for incomings.

After that i just sent 10 stalkers, 10 zealots down to his base and began sieging. Reinforced them with a proxy-pylon discretely placed in earlygame and it was done.

Thanks for the advice :)

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Originally Posted by duckyy

havent played much pvp but usually everyone just does the 4gate push into expo or fast blink. i like going for 2 gate into robo and extra gateway. usually gives me enough units to defend and expo. then i quickly pass him up in macro and just out macro the guy.

are you target firing with those stalkers and archon? i dont see how they can survive if you have so many although i doubt you had 18 archons. also, i dont see how they are at tier 3 while you are still pumping out tier 1 units. you are doing something wrong

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Yeah I am not sure, I usually get rolled before I can even go 4 warpgate.

And I do focus fire my stalkers and archons. Oh and I had 18 templars that went into archons, got a little confused, sorry.

Corgon, please post the replay, so we can see exactly what happends.

kk, I will try to dig one up.

I dont know what you all are doing right, but I find it hard to find a zerg game that I play where they DONT go mutas. The only one I can think of off the top of my head was one where I tried my normal 2 gate and horrible botched it and died before they could get that far. Phoenixes in numbers can kill mutas, but you have to worry about corrupters as well which the phoenix can lose to. Sentries are a great way to defend mineral lines while cannons are warping in since their guardian shield lowers alot of the bounce damage that mutas have. And blinking stalkers are a great way as well to chase off mutas after you have a solid cannon defense since stalkers by themselves do not do a ton of damage to mutas or many light units for that matter.

In PvP there is no one single build order I use. It all depends on how they have their base set up (and sometimes the map itself) that dictate what I do. If the opponent walls closes off his ramp, I do a 3 gate robo bay opening and try to attack and expand about the time my first immortal is done. If the opponent builds close to his base instead of walling in his ramp I go with the 4 warpgate build. If I can not break into their base I expand and back up, if I do break in I start constantly applying pressure, even possibly adding another gate for extra insurance. The only exception to this rule is the mighty and great Blistering Sands with its fantastic backdoor entrance where I always do the 4 gate regardless of how well the entrance is defended. That map is made for 4 gate and how I love it...when I win.

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Originally Posted by Corgon

Yeah I am not sure, I usually get rolled before I can even go 4 warpgate.

And I do focus fire my stalkers and archons. Oh and I had 18 templars that went into archons, got a little confused, sorry.

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have you tried walling off? this really helps stop early harrass so you can set up for the 4gate. 2 gate pressure is also very nice if the rush distance isnt that long. if you watch Day9 video on socke vs madrow, you'll see very nice building placement and good 2 gate pressure. it also forces the zerg to get alot of lings or go fast roach and not getting that fast expo.

you'll need to post up a replay. unless hes has mass up like 10+ broodlords, i dont see how storm+stalkers+archons would lose. or he was just out of reach of your units.

phoenix are a bad choice against muta. you'll need more phoenix than he has muta so it isnt very cost/time effective. he can get a batch of 6 muta in 25 secs and you'll have maybe 2 when he reaches your base. the stalker have a high rate of fire and is the most useful unit your army. they have tons of armor and shield and you always have them in a group. so they are better to get than phoenix to ward off muta harass

K

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Originally Posted by silencbank

I dont know what you all are doing right, but I find it hard to find a zerg game that I play where they DONT go mutas. The only one I can think of off the top of my head was one where I tried my normal 2 gate and horrible botched it and died before they could get that far. Phoenixes in numbers can kill mutas, but you have to worry about corrupters as well which the phoenix can lose to. Sentries are a great way to defend mineral lines while cannons are warping in since their guardian shield lowers alot of the bounce damage that mutas have. And blinking stalkers are a great way as well to chase off mutas after you have a solid cannon defense since stalkers by themselves do not do a ton of damage to mutas or many light units for that matter.

In PvP there is no one single build order I use. It all depends on how they have their base set up (and sometimes the map itself) that dictate what I do. If the opponent walls closes off his ramp, I do a 3 gate robo bay opening and try to attack and expand about the time my first immortal is done. If the opponent builds close to his base instead of walling in his ramp I go with the 4 warpgate build. If I can not break into their base I expand and back up, if I do break in I start constantly applying pressure, even possibly adding another gate for extra insurance. The only exception to this rule is the mighty and great Blistering Sands with its fantastic backdoor entrance where I always do the 4 gate regardless of how well the entrance is defended. That map is made for 4 gate and how I love it...when I win.

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You probably run into mutas more often customer your in diamond rank better players seem to use them more often

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Originally Posted by Corgon

Alright, I need help with PVP. I have recently been getting rolled by Protoss and I have no idea what I am doing wrong. For a while I switched to super early stargate and keeping my choke with zealots but after a few wins with mass void ray rushes, it seems as though everyone has adapted. I get rolled within the first few minutes with zealots and stalkers, I don't even know how they get so many units out so fast. they only have 2 gates. Before I tried my zealot rush which usually works quite well against Terran but by the time I have my 5 zealots out there, they have 10! and I am macroing like crazy. I just don't know what to try, Collosi take too long, zealots don't work, void rays don't work (once I got super massed by a ***ton of carriers mid game, I have no idea how that happened 'they had 5 stargates and 3 expansions') I tried carriers myself but had no luck. I really need help.

Also, what is a good defense against brood lords, I have tried 18 archons (yes, 18) with mass stalkers, that did not work. I tried air units, but usually they roll around with a bunch of corruptors. Brood lords are so powerful and they just produce those little things like crazy. What should I do. Should I maybe push up once I have fended off the early zerg rush?

Oh and I forgot who it was but they suggested me to 2 gate against zerg and rally troops at the choke so they don't get surrounded, this works fantastic...until the brood lords come.

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Regarding PvP:
There isnt really one build you can do, but in the very early game it is generally decided to be aggressive or passive. If he does 2+ gates he is probably going to try and be a little aggressive, try to keep your probe alive inside his base and watch him.

If he gets 2 gates, you get 2 gates. If he chrono boosts his zealots and you dont have a wall, you need to chrono boost your zealots as well. Early game PvP you need to match what he is doing if he is being aggressive. Likewise, if you see he is being passive you can take this opportunity and be aggressive.

If he is just using 1 gate, keep an eye on what he chrono boosts. If he uses it on his cyber core to get warpgates out more quickly, he is more likely to be doing a 4 warpgate push (doesnt guarantee 4 warpgates though). You can match this with a 2 or 3 gate robo build (robo build also lets you get an obs so you can go check to be sure).

Regarding brood lords:
If you dont have blink or air units you really cant beat brood lords... its a sad truth. The broodlings take too long to kill and you cant just walk over them to get to the brood lords so they deal huuuuge amounts of damage before you can even reach them.

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Originally Posted by Postulate

... With 4Gate you will have a superior army, at least initially. You can also find room for hallucination so you can still have excellent scouting.

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Gah! I didn't think of that.
4 gate = more gas! (as compared to 3 gate, robo)
That means more sentries.
I can block off my ramp for defense, & superior army for offense.

This will require me to keep my scouting probe alive a bit longer.
I'll have to up my micro, but I think it's doable.

Still having PvT trouble. If anybody could check out this huge game & give some advice, that'd be solid.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

Still having PvT trouble. If anybody could check out this huge game & give some advice, that'd be solid.

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Everything was solid until around...20 minutes in. The only real problems i saw that could be seen as crucial are unit positioning and picking your battles. For example around 20 minutes the situation is that your enemy has a planetary fortress,vikings, a tank, and MM. In this situation you chose to place your colosi on a ledge a little ways away from the rest of the ground army (zealots and stalkers) of course that is fine assuming that your opponent does not have vision, and in this case he did. If your colosi were more bunched with the rest of the army you may have stood a better fighting chance (in this situation). Regardless of this personally i believe that fight was not needed, the planetary fortress just deals to much damage and with other units to back it up you probably should have just retreated. Now i know that you would like to try to take out that expo so you will have the advantage, but you have to consider if your potential losses are worth the cost. At around 25 minutes in you attacked another one of his expansions but your units streamed in opposed to grouping together for a more effective attack. Your colosi got there much later and much of your ground force was severely damaged before their arrival. In the final battle that lost it for you i believe you should have retreated. The space in which you were fighting was too narrow and with siege tanks hitting you the splash was damaging tons of your units. So to summarize, you have great macro and gamesense but you need to watch your unit positioning and pick your battles to be most effective. That's my 2 cents, and if you ever wanna practice PvP you can always ask me. :P Keep up the good work!

Yeah, i decided to not attack a PF again since i attacked one with 12 Stalkers during the beta, and the 12 Stalkers died, but not the PF. Seriously, it's a waste of resources. It's cheaper for the Terran player to rebuild the damn thing, than for you to rebuild what you lost.

I had some sucess with air units, as at least some Terran players begin to play very safe after seeing Phoenix going around. They need to use money on Turrets instead of units, and you can lift Siege Tanks, workers, Marines, etc, with them. It's fun to send Void Rays against their CC, then lift the Marines with the Phoenix, which buys time for the VRs to charge, and then you can just attack-move them to get rid of the remaining Marines, SCVs, whatever until he sends something else.

That said, you and your oponents have better skill, so your mileage can vary.

I honestly dont think you did all that much wrong. You kept producing units and had a very good over arching scheme of how you wanted to play. I do not think that it was your build that lost you the game but just a few of the little things. I noticed that the push you made where you warped units into their expansion and then attacked his front that you had your zealots and stalkers and sentries all in one control group. While it is not a terribly huge deal, the level that you play at it could give you a huge advantage since every little thing counts. You could have easily taken out more things at the front and still been able to scamper away to safety.

I also think that you should have been more proactive about taking down those rocks that lead to the high ground expansion south of your base. That way when you built your 4th base, you could have built it there instead of all the way on the bottom of map. With a robo heavy build like yours you are a very immobile force. Not to mention with your army where it was to protect your natural expansion and the gold minerals, it was a very save expansion to take. Yea it does have one less mineral patch that all the other normal yield expansions, but that far into the game it is relatively safe. And a safe 7 patches or minerals is better than a risky 8 that is quickly found out.

Last thing I want to mention was that later in the game you were mineral starved and gas heavy. Now it is obvious why it happened because of the raid on your gold mineral base, but what could have helped you was to take off all probes mining gas and putting them on minerals. Or instead of that start making units that are gas heavy such as sentries or maybe tech to high templar. If you wanted to keep your strategy as it was then you should have probably switched the probes you had mining gas in your natural to minerals.

Honestly there was not alot of things you did wrong at all. And the stuff you messed up on had nothing to do with strategy just execution. From what I have noticed at the level you are at (looked to be platinum or diamond from the replay) one mistake can swing the favor to the other opponent quickly that is very hard to overcome. While you attacking the planetary fortress might not have been the best thing, I do not think that is what changed the tide. After the battle it was relatively even, especially since you had just taken out the base. I think the game changing moment was losing the workers at the gold expo, and subsequently becoming mineral locked. I think if you had take the probes off gas you would have had a much larger force for the final battle that could have swung it in your favor.

The thing i noticed was the charge at the Planetary Fortress. In my opinion the Colossi would have done a better job behind the stalkers where they had some protection from the Viking instead of being massacred on that hill.

Still, it's the little things that count in that league and overall both of you did a good match.

Thanks for the help guys. :)

Does my frequent void ray abuse make me a bad player? I just love the little death rays so much. Today, I beat a guy with four void rays, 3 zealots, and 8 stalkers. I felt a little cruel. I just waited for him to attack, took out his rine/marauder/hellion army via cliff abuse, then sent 4 void rays and took out his CC. It was just a matter of time after that. Blew his front door wide open and pushed in with four rays and a ground army far smaller than his.

More seriously though, how do you micro void rays? I pick a target and charge up, but I can hardly maneuver them much because of the slow acceleration/turning. Fear of losing my charge forces me to all but a-move right at the enemy. It's super difficult to keep all your charges, and keep moving wounded ones to the back. Any advice on how to do this? I've been forced to dive right into the enemy base, so I have something behind me to keep a charge on in case of emergency.

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Originally Posted by Roland

Does my frequent void ray abuse make me a bad player? I just love the little death rays so much. Today, I beat a guy with four void rays, 3 zealots, and 8 stalkers. I felt a little cruel. I just waited for him to attack, took out his rine/marauder/hellion army via cliff abuse, then sent 4 void rays and took out his CC. It was just a matter of time after that. Blew his front door wide open and pushed in with four rays and a ground army far smaller than his.

More seriously though, how do you micro void rays? I pick a target and charge up, but I can hardly maneuver them much because of the slow acceleration/turning. Fear of losing my charge forces me to all but a-move right at the enemy. It's super difficult to keep all your charges, and keep moving wounded ones to the back. Any advice on how to do this? I've been forced to dive right into the enemy base, so I have something behind me to keep a charge on in case of emergency.

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No it doesn't make you a bad player, any strategy of yours that wins is not because its OP it's because the other player didn't scout or pressure you enough to counter whatever you went to. As for the microing voids i'd say its quite difficult without the speed upgrade for them, other then that they are a a-move brute force unit used for focusing down key targets like colosi,thors, and brood lords.