The Protoss Players Thread

[Drake Clawfang]

This is, without question, the cheesiest game I have ever done. I do a cannon contain in his base, blasting several buildings and units and expanding my network to make sure nothing can get out. He gets Siege Tanks out and tears down my wall then pushes into my main, but a force of Zealots hold him off while moar cheese - Dark Templar - tear into his base.

A lot of fun. I should have made those cannons to target his geyser earlier though, and gone for the Gateway earlier. The plan was to Warp the DTs in on the pylons powering the cannons, putting them right at his base when I knew he wouldn't have detection, but unfortunately he scouted me, the gates didn't get up until after the wall was down and the first wave of DTs didn't do much. Also some fun early micro while my 4-HP probe dodges his SCVs until it regens shields and the cannons come up.

But mostly this was just fun, being so cheesy .

[JackhammerIV]

This is, without question, the cheesiest game I have ever done. I do a cannon contain in his base, blasting several buildings and units and expanding my network to make sure nothing can get out. He gets Siege Tanks out and tears down my wall then pushes into my main, but a force of Zealots hold him off while moar cheese - Dark Templar - tear into his base.

A lot of fun. I should have made those cannons to target his geyser earlier though, and gone for the Gateway earlier. The plan was to Warp the DTs in on the pylons powering the cannons, putting them right at his base when I knew he wouldn't have detection, but unfortunately he scouted me, the gates didn't get up until after the wall was down and the first wave of DTs didn't do much. Also some fun early micro while my 4-HP probe dodges his SCVs until it regens shields and the cannons come up.

But mostly this was just fun, being so cheesy .

You didn't do the most optimised cannon rush. Usually you send out the probe between 6 to 8 supply if you wanna hide the forge on the map (depending how far away you wanna hide it). Because at 0:59 you had the money for the pylon but you only made that first pylon at 1:39.

And really....for a Terran he really doesn't know how to deal with cannon rushes......seems like the typical lower league response of "Lemme get siege tanks so i can kill the cannons from afar". Good work I guess. But cannon rushing terran typically doesn't work out so well. Mostly because of bunker+repair and flying buildings.

Well as you rise up the leagues you'll find cannon rushing terran doesn't give you much of an advantage. And you need a better followup to the cannon rush. First gateway at 8:20 isn't particularly good followup to cannon rush. And no reason that after 4 minutes for your nexus to not be constantly making probes and having under 25 energy. You're only making buildings (cannons).

[Drake Clawfang]

oh I have no interest in perfecting this build, I don't cannon rush and hate people who do, cheese is for noobs. I just did it for fun.

[Gradius]

cheese is for noobs.

What about all the pro-gamers & grandmasters who use it?

I just did it for fun.

Maybe all the people who have ever done it to you on the ladder did it for fun.

I also didn't know DTs were cheese. Comes way after 5 minutes, isn't all-in, and it's the opponent's fault for not scouting & having detection. Should we just redefine cheese to be "any attack whatsoever done before 10 minutes"? :P

[Twilice]

Maybe getting double gas before gateway to rush dt or something is considered cheese, but I don't know that because I would never do that xD I would instead semi fast expand and have the dt ready around when he tries to kill my expand since he will invest more in the army and less in the tech.

[Drake Clawfang]

What about all the pro-gamers & grandmasters who use it?

Lucky noobs

It's ironic you mention that because I've seen HD's recent replays with Nachandir, or something like that, who uses mad cheese. He beat Idra 2-0, both times with two proxy barracks. And yeah, that type of playing doesn't impress me, it isn't a show of skill that you can use cheap strategies like that and win. I'm gold and I could do two proxy barracks, if I played Terran that is. If you have to rely on unfair cheese tactics to beat an opponent, then IMO you aren't all that skilled a player.

[JackhammerIV]

Well if you lose to cheese then you're not that skilled a player. You might like a macro style but it has to hold up against a variety of cheese and rushes. Cheese is just a way to punish a macro style or not being 100% safe. It's just the game. Whether cheese takes less skill is debatable. The best cheese makes your build look like standard macro play but isn't while denying scouting to the cheese.

[Gradius]

Lucky noobs

You're entitled to your opinion as long as it's clear that these same lucky noobs could outmacro both of us combined. Nestea, MC, and White-ra, the best players in the world, do some cheese once in a while to stay unpredictable or exploit an opponent's weakness.

It's ironic you mention that because I've seen HD's recent replays with Nachandir, or something like that, who uses mad cheese. He beat Idra 2-0, both times with two proxy barracks.

Idra isn't a great player to begin with. He plays like a robot, and is only good because of superior mechanics. It doesn't surprise me he would lose to cheese.

And yeah, that type of playing doesn't impress me, it isn't a show of skill that you can use cheap strategies like that and win. I'm gold and I could do two proxy barracks, if I played Terran that is. If you have to rely on unfair cheese tactics to beat an opponent, then IMO you aren't all that skilled a player.

I agree it takes less skill, but I still think it's a valid tactic that's part of the game. Recognizing this fact will make you look like less of a hypocrite when you decide to cheese once in a while. I mean you just played a cheese game "for fun", but you hold yourself above other players on battle.net who cheese you? How do you decide which ones are doing it for fun and which ones are just cheesing noobs? It's kind of arbitrary. If you want to be a good player then start adapting your builds to survive cheese, and add some of your own to your arsenal.

[Drake Clawfang]

You're entitled to your opinion as long as it's clear that these same lucky noobs could outmacro both of us combined. Nestea, MC, and White-ra, the best players in the world, do some cheese once in a while to stay unpredictable or exploit an opponent's weakness.

Well there's the difference. Cheese once in a while is fine, it's when you rely on it that you're noob.

I agree it takes less skill, but I still think it's a valid tactic that's part of the game. Recognizing this fact will make you look like less of a hypocrite when you decide to cheese once in a while. I mean you just played a cheese game "for fun", but you hold yourself above other players on battle.net who cheese you? How do you decide which ones are doing it for fun and which ones are just cheesing noobs? It's kind of arbitrary. If you want to be a good player then start adapting your builds to survive cheese, and add some of your own to your arsenal.

I don't know which ones do it for fun and which are cheesing noobs. Why I don't judge, usually. I'm making the general statement that if you have to rely on cheese to win all the time and can't play a macro game, you're not a good player. Way back during the beta I played Zerg and would often just 10 pool rush opponents. Did it work? Often. Does that mean I was good? No.

In other news, two more replays. This "Sense" one, I don't know why but I sensed Banshees, I saw a Barracks with a Reactor and two bunkers on his ramp but nothing else, seemed a bit fishy. So I got a cannon up by my minerals and got a Robotics Facility to pump out an obsever, and sure enough, there were Banshees incoming. From there, match wasn't too hard, he went Marines, Banshees and eventually takes against my Stalkers and Chargelots, and we held them off.

The "Immortal" one, opponent when full mech, Hellions, Tanks and Thors, I countered with Chargelots, Stalkers and Immortals, I think I had too many Immortals but ultimately they won the day. The decisive blow game with a quick drop into his mineral line, did some damage to his economy, then eventually did some DT harassment, he had no detection except for comsat sweeps and thus my DTs crippled him. The only point of note there is that I targeted his Refineries specifically, I knew he was going heavy mech build and if I could cut off his gas that would really slow him down.

[JackhammerIV]

PvT (Sense) on random new Blizzard map whose name I will never remember...
So let's just go through the logic behind your "sense".
-Your first scout saw a building barracks but a completed refinery. So he went refinery before barracks. Immediately anticipate a tech build. Factory or starport tech. Because as you can see just as his barracks finishes he has enough for a factory with that early refinery. So you can cross out any barracks pressure early on.
-Technically you shouldn't have let him scout the 3 gateways. By skipping the first zealot you basically signal wanting a quick second gas. That way when the stalker comes out you'll just have enough to make the 2nd and 3rd gateway. This denies the terran from scouting your 3 gate. What are the benefits of doing this?? Well you see the bunker terran made.....he made that after scouting you. Good terrans make that bunker blind to be safe. Quite a few terrans in lower leagues don't unless they specifically scout something to be scared about. So by denying him info on your 3gate you can randomly catch a terran without a bunker and just break his wall (I've done that before).
-The forge and the robo facility is double detection. You're overcompensating for lack of detection while "sensing" banshees.
-You made no move to run up terran's ramp to see what's going on either with the first stalker or the first 3 stalkers. If you did this and saw a bunker with lots of marines and knowing he took an early gas definitely be fearing the banshee.
-Really late expansion despite not seeing him move out at all and also knowing he's gone a tech build. If you know he's going cloaked banshee it's easy to do a 2gate robo straight into expand. You have a much earlier nexus and even if you lose some probes it's fine since you're making more probes than he can make SCVs.
-Your blink finishes and you have a bunch of stalkers sitting there. Getting blink that quick you'd want to be aggressive with it since you have a micro advantage. Even just sit on low ground and use the obs to help you snipe something. Or if you're really daring blink into his base using the obs and run around once sniping things then blinking out and running.
-After the initial scout your next scout went at 8minutes....really late.
-You saw the banshees and double starport with techlab at 8:55 but don't make a second observer until 9:32. Seeing that many possible banshees you know he's gonna invest in cloak and maybe a raven to snipe observers. So time to make more observers and if you want hard counter the banshees with the help of phoenixes. (The terran should have moved out with the banshees earlier. If he did the rally towards the bottom edge and attacked with 3 banshees with cloak your observer would be far away. He could kill the cannon and probes. Or could snipe pylons or sentries)
-Really a case of double detection. Minerals on cannons and gas on observers. Makes your overall army smaller. Nothing wrong with just picking one like relying on cannons and when you're just about to move out make observers for your army. Or just making observers to detect then when you wanna upgrade go for the forge. Then before leaving to attack make cannons.
-Problems macroing during battles which I wouldn't mind as much if you micro'd amazingly. With the double detection you were having your 4th and 5th gateway were way late. They should have been up in time to help with the terran push if you wanted to go gateway heavy.
-Micro you could have done....put the zealots at the expo. Forcefield between the marines and the cliff trapping some marines but blocking them from helping to defend the banshee (A lot of times you're trying to kill the banshees but the marines end up just firing on you nonstop with nothing to stop them). Blinking back individual stalkers that are getting hit. A lot of the time you were letting stalkers run around the back while letting terran have a nice arc where all his stuff is hitting you. Could be better about target firing banshees. The first banshee you killed got off 3 shots and the second banshee you killed got off 4 shots. With better target firing you could kill off those first two banshees without letting them make an extra shot each. Also when he moves for his expo if you target fired better before that he'd have 3 banshees not 4. [A much better micro way to handle it would be zealots at expo and send them in to attack the marines if you want or let them stay at expo. Stalkers and sentries together. Guardian shield before moving forward. Attack move. Micro the stalkers and sentries forward again and attack move. Forcefield below the cliff where marines are to push some out of range. Target fire banshees. Blink back weakened stalkers.]
-You also targetted a PDD that had run out of energy instead of hitting the banshees....you should have chased the single banshee and raven with the stalkers and the observer.
-Your warp in choice as he moved to the expo was...weird. If you warp in stalkers you can attack both marines and banshees and stalkers do pretty well against marines. Plus you can pull probes to help against the marines. He did a tech build so you can sack some probes knowing his expo is way later.
-Also your observer ran right in and you didn't make a second observer. He could have sniped the observer and killed your expo if he was better. Really even when you have 4 stalkers and not macroing you didn't individually blink back stalkers.
-Between 13mins to 15mins you didn't warp in anything despite having tons of money.
-Could have taken that third base way quicker. You just blocked his attack. You can either go for a counter attack kill move or just expand and be safe. Your third observer made (and second observer on the map at the time) only came out at 17mins. After that attack ended warp in more, make more observers, make probes, expo and since you're spread out make cannons to detect and hit banshees at your expo.
-You have a probe at the watchtower close to terran and you don't make any proxy pylons to reinforce your attack. Also your problem with observers comes back to bite you. You attack with only one observer knowing he's going 2 starport cloaked banshee. At least you managed to kill his expo but if the terran bunkered on low ground and sniped the obs you'd have lost a big part of your army without killing his expo letting terran back into the game.
-You don't reassign nexus rallies or transfer probes to the third base. Also no cannons to defend your expo or third from cloaked banshees.
-A lot of missed warpins. Didn't continue to upgrade regularly. Somehow you only like at most having two observers against mass cloaked banshee.
-Those stalkers blinked into the main should have retreated instead of basically suiciding. You killed a lot but it was still a risky move staying in there as long as you did.
-By the end of the game still no cannons. Very few observers. Lack of upgrades. Not immediately taking both gases at third. No other tech at all. No colossi or templar which I don't mind seeing as you go mass gateway. But in that case second forge for upgrades and make the kill move sooner. Lots of missed warpins even at times when you should be macroing (no battles happening).