StarCraft 2

I can't figure out a way to beat this other than getting a really fast cyber which would significantly hamper my eco while allowing my opponent to sit back and try an early expand if he chooses not to be aggressive. Please give this replay a watch and offer your suggestions.

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/repl...s&id=117383

What you've said here is basically the "standard Protoss build order".

9 pylon
12 gate (scout)
14 gas
15-16 pylon
17-18 core (these timings vary for me depending on whether I gas steal)

And then second gas, second Gateway before Robo. Simple Zealot/Stalker/Sentry out of 2 Gateways will suffice until you get your first Immortal out, at which point provided you micro it well he may as well just turn back.

Terran expansion is the standard response to a fast core. You tech to +range Colossus (or no +range if you're comfortable) and counter-expand. Then you tech to Storm and the game actually begins.

I said this in another thread but against this kind of rush i'd try and either go for a 1 immortal timing with some zealots and sentries and try and get to him before his stimpack is researched or just go mass zealots.

In this patch marauders basically rape all protoss land units and protoss air to ground is crap so you don't really have a chance once he gets a big pack of stimmed marauders out.

Yeah honestly nothing has been working for me in PvT lately. No matter what I do M&Ms always beats it. It is by far my toughest matchup. I can try to make an early push with immortals sentries stalkers and zealots but if hes smart he can just bunker and by that time he probably has stims for his M&M which makes my life a lot harder. Colossus dont work out for me. Stims own them and if T needs to they can just get vikings. I'm trying to tech to hts as fast as I can but by the time I usually do he is pushing my base. I need to tech to hts even faster but to do that I will have to sacrafice my ability to defend earlier in the game, and terran is capable of attacking really at any point as is obvious in this replay.

@Adrenal I used just about that same build order and stalkers aren't really a viable counter to marauders imo. Sentries can barely touch them. Zealot spam is just idiotic in my opinion. Any decent terran can micro 2-3 marauders and keep them from even being hit by zealots. Stalkers are 125/50 and barely can beat a 100/25 marauder 1:1 but they also come out later than marauders so by the time you have one he could very well have 2 or 3 marauders in your base.

My PvT is at the point where terran doesnt even need ghosts to win. All they need is pure M&M with stims, and I'm not a bad player I'm 18 in my plat division right now and I've been zergs and protoss in the top 10 of plat divisions recently. PvT is just not working out for me though. I lose to players who I know I should be beating. Im not gonna say PvT isnt balanced because I dont know, but nothing I've tried has worked out for me.

This post has been edited by McDaniels: Mar 30 2010, 21:38 PM

the same with me. i win 90% PvZ, and about 50% PvP, but PvT is smthing really weird... i tried a lot of strats: backdoors,drops+warping+6units and atcking the front door at the same time, making T to close on their base and not giving then to exp, going colossus(4-5 is just nothing for a big pack of marrauders,even with an immortal and about 8stalkers+few sentries)...
if someone knows how to play PvT I'd like to listen

This post has been edited by Taviscaron: Mar 30 2010, 23:45 PM

im working on a new strat for PvT. I'm in the process of testing it against good terran players. All of the ones I know were laddering today though except one who i was able to beat with it. I'll test it more tomorrow hopefully if more people are willing to play. If it works well I'll post it here.

given Im a noobie

I have the exact opposite issue but I am the terran and make the marine/marauder blob.. I've got the feeling Im getting decimated. But according to you guys I have a " high" chance of winning my matchup.

the problem is in my micro / composition. What should I prioritize when attacking with my group? and should I be marauder heavy or mariner heavy? this is still pretty early game under 6 mins.

basically what happend yesterday was. I scouted my enemy with 1 gate and 1 pylon no CyberneticsCore and no early gas So I figured `a zealot cloud inc`. I come back after a short moment with 6 marines and scouted he FE'd.. By then I had triple rax and was going to try and match his numbers

I think I responded wrong. I tried harassing the new nexus and kiting the zealots while more marines came in. This ended in him just out macroing me with sheer amounts of stalkers/zealots/immortals. I should have bunkered up and expanded aswell? Its hard cos I was in doubt if I should use my energy for a scan (I did mules to match eco a bit). In retrospect I should have scouted more I think.

man Starcraft is so awesome!!

This post has been edited by flakshell: Mar 31 2010, 08:15 AM

Like I said in the replay, try one gate/robo, that's how all europeans do it and that's how that build gets pwned by sheer amount of immortals. Add second gateway while robo is building.

As stated, zeal spam is useless vs this. I tried 16Nexus into 3 gateway and could pump out equal amount of zeals as terran did mauraders early game. But he just a-moved his units so my zeals never even hit them. you need to keep pumping zeals to defend since you lose so many and in the end you get screwed.

I think the way to go is what Darksanta said. 1 gate into fast robo. You place your gateway, core and pylon so that 1 zeal can block and you use sentries to stop any early rush. Then get 2 warpgates and one robo bay and pump out immortals, sentris and zeals. Mix in stalkers of course if needed vs air.

Then walk out and own. And this of course works perfect vs zerg who go early roach spam aswell.

I dont have the exact build for this since I havent had time to play the last couple of days, but Ive seen the top EU players do it aswell as Nony

You misunderstand my post. Here's how standard PvT works out;

Step 1: Toss goes 1-gate cyber --> second gate --> Robo. Second gate before Robo is necessary to prevent early Marauder pressure. Toss gets a mixed Zealot/Stalker/Sentry force. Toss chronos his first Immortal.

Step 2: Terran goes for whatever build he sees fit. Toss reacts and gets an expansion up. Terran MM pushes, Toss micros his Immortal/mix correctly and wins the fight (I can supply Plat replays of this if you'd like or you can take my word for it) then expands. Terran fast expands, Toss gets +range Colossus (or not +range if comfortable) and expands. etc etc

Step 3: Toss expansion is up. Toss gets a second Colossus and scouts the Terran well while teching to HTs. But in reality, Terran pretty much always goes for MMM + Ghosts + Viking support. This I would class as "a weak point" for Toss (no Storm out, Terran has Vikings). Terran often chooses to expand again as if he pushes and fails it's 2 base vs 2 base and we all know Toss will win with Storm tech up.

Step 4: Storm tech out. Toss control-group splits his HTs to dodge EMPs and scouts well with Observers to not get surprised in the middle of the map (recipe for disaster). Toss keeps an Observer with his army to prevent cloak-EMPs. Toss covers the map with Observers and pushes any Terran expansions that go up.

From this point the game becomes a matter of simple objectives. The Terran is attempting to catch the Toss off-guard and land good EMPs in the middle of the map, at which point he wins fights. The Toss is attempting to dodge these EMPs by scouting well and not getting surprised while pushing Terran expansions. The Terran needs to fight when the Toss has no mana for Storm, the Toss needs to fight when he has mana for Storm. Whichever player achieves this objective usually wins.

I can also supply a Plat replay of early 2-3 Marauder pressure (I faced this in my first round of ZOTAC #5 and won) but frankly I rarely see this so I can't give you much.

I'm surprised that you claim to be at a Plat level and still see early fights in cases of "Marauders beat X, Y and Z units individually therefore Marauders beat X + Y + Z". Often the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The idea is that while pure Marauders > pure Zealots and pure Marauders > pure Stalkers, the Zealots act as a meat shield while the Stalkers make enough of an impact on the Marauders that once the Zealots are all gone the Stalkers can focus fire the Marauders down and win. And by the time the Zealots are dead you should have at least 1 (usually 2) Immortals out... and Immortals melt Marauders in small fights. (3 Immortal hits kill a Marauder, 20 Marauder hits kill an Immortal.)

EDIT: Perhaps my description of how to win those fights isn't great, I don't know. I just "do it". I'm sure you know how it is, sometimes you do something instinctively and when it comes to describing how you find it tough.

Anyway, like I say; if you'd like me to give you some links to my plat replays from Patches 6 and 7 then you're more than welcome.

This post has been edited by Adrenal: Mar 31 2010, 14:02 PM