The Protoss Players Thread

[Norfindel]

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.

[protoswarrior]

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.

[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.

[Jdawsman]

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. :/

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.

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.

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

Edit: Sorry for double post.

[Norfindel]

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

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.

[protoswarrior]

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

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 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!

[Norfindel]

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.

[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.

[dejai]

9 Pylon
12 Gate is stronger.

[Corgon]

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