The Protoss Players Thread

[JackhammerIV]

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.

[spychi]

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

[Peanutbutter]

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...

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.

[spychi]

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

[Thumper]

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.

[Gradius]

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?

[silencbank]

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.

[Peanutbutter]

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 ).

[JackhammerIV]

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.

[silencbank]

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.