Losing to early pressure Halp!

Maicros

Hi Guys,
I am having some trouble with early marine push's because of my low unit count. To be honest any really early attack would finish me. I put my build together playing vs the AI but its a bit predictable. In a nutshell my build revolves around getting 3 gateways and early Dt's. The Dt's come out around the same time I have enough for an expansion. Is there anything I can do to stop these builds without deviating too much?

Thanks for the help
Ps. I only got ranked today so go easy on me

BlitzKrieg

What units do you build?

A sentry is a good unit early game if you know your army will be smaller then your opponent for some time, it allows you to block your ramp giving you time to warp in back up. But you should practice forcefields a bit before you begin starting with a sentry first. But once you master them you'll find they are a great early game unit vs both zerg and terran early pressure.

Thats something small you can do that shouldnt pull you away from your current build too much, but put up the build list and the more knowledgable protoss players here migh pass on some more nuggets of wisdom. (minor zerg player myself, currently away with the less micro intensive shogun 2)

Lanaier

DTs wont help you.
If you must go templar tech get HTs and psy-storm instead
Psy-storm will own marines in the face.
(you can hold the ramp with FFs long enough to research, try and hide it from scans though)

How early is early?
Have you tried a defensive 4 gate?

DTs are not really viable for anything other than harass, you cant be defensive with them.
The main idea vs Terran is to get him to waste scans on your DT, either for the econ advantage, to force turrets or move in more DTs after his scans are gone.
You'd really have to catch someone off guard to win the game with just DTs

Have you got a replay?

Lanaier

Maicros wrote: »

Hi Guys,
I am having some trouble with early marine push's because of my low unit count. To be honest any really early attack would finish me.

Download Yabot and practice your build timings, I bet you could 4gate proxy him before his push if you had the timing down.

Maicros

Ok so I use the Dt's as a way too safely aquire a nexus and then transition into HT's although I have been messing with the idea of a mass DT assault. I have spent most of my timegetting this opening down and need to work on my transitions. Which tech route I seek after the attack depends on scouting info I got from my DT's.

I added two replays because I only executed my build to satisfaction on one of the games e.g the PVZ one.

I know that my.... well everything isn't perfect but refer to the end of my first post.Thanks!

Laisurg

Tbh going early Dt screws you for unit count a bit so i'd suggest scrapping that completely as terran will have scan anyway, as someone else suggested going a sentry build and force fielding the ramp is pretty good for biding time, 4 gate can work wonders as well and is pretty easy to pull off.

NeoSlicerZ

The terran counter to super fast DTs is to once initial DTs are dead, PULL ALL SCVs with like 2-3 scans (assuming you f/ed) and go kill the protoss. After his expo dies, bring your scvs back.

Maicros

Pull all scvs AFTER they are dead? As in too help attack? That sounds a bit mental! My problem is not after the DT attack but before the attack. I find that I can have 2-3 stalkers and about 2 zealots before I get my Dt's but I am not overly worried about after because by the time my dts are in your base I will have 3 more for defence if nessecery. I also add on my fourth gate and if my attack gets killed I start getting double upgrades rather than expand immediatly. Against a Terran I would continously send in 1 DT at a time just to waste his scans since thats 270 minerals. The scouting information gained would also tell you what is the best tech path to follow up with.

I also wouldn't call my Dt's super fast since I can get 3 gates up and running before they arrive and the fouth after the first round of Dt's. Not to mention that the opponent has to be wary of them all game long leading to increased spending on turrets and other static defenses.

That said I'm a nooblet

Ps from the replay what do you think I need to work on the most

godspal

Things you may need to improve on.

1. Building placement. in the first game if you had placed a pylon at the front of your base, in that bottle neck, you would have easily spotted that 2 rax bunker rush.
In the second game, you had a very ineffective wall. You're lucky your man didn't rush by with all those lings and destroy your probes.

2. Building Timing. You should be sending your probe out a bit early to make your building. In the first game you were sending your probe at 170 mineral to build your gateway, you should be sending your probe at 130 or so, that few extra seconds would have prevented that bunker from going up.

3. DT Rush is a bad build. You have absolutely no flexibility with that build, the reason you beat the computer with that build is that the computer is terrible at detecting hidden units. You should be looking at things like the forge fast expand or 3 gate, expand.
Also when you attack you should be either planning to expand or expanding at the same time.

These are minor issues, and if you work on them you should lose to less rushes. I say less because today I lost to a 2 Gate, 6 pool and Marine-SCV All-in. The thing about cheese and all-in builds are that when you fend them off relatively unscathed you win, its just a matter of capitalising on how much your opponent has ****ed up.

Oh and before I forget avoid the 4-Gate the easiest build to win with, its also the easiest build to learn, apparently there is MP3 song that takes you through the build, chrono boost and all.
The thing is, anyone worth his salt can scout, and fend off the build, and around high-silver, and low-gold about 80% toss players only do the 4-gate, because they only know the 4-gate and know nothing else and they will remain in the silver and gold leagues indefinitely, because they are unfamiliar with the rest of the game.
(I also say that after one guy 4 gated me, and I fended off and expanded, a couple of minutes later in come the DTs, and I fended that off, and expand again, and then in come like 3-4 VRs.)

And if you want to get better at starcraft, here is the god of teachers:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Day9_Daily

NeoSlicerZ

4gate is actually a superb build to learn warp in, chrono building timings aswell as micro. PvP 4g is very unforgiving and also teaches the first important timing. WG wrt to extra gates.

Lanaier

The losing to early pressure replay:

-No scouting.

-Attacking bunker with one zealot while it was being healed, attack the scv first.

-Nexus sitting on a lot of energy, chrono WG research, chrono your warpgates on cooldown.

-Gateway not rallied to your units

-No scouting, at least take the xelnaga and you would have been warned. Had his attack somehow failed you still wouldn't have even known where his base was.

-No control groups

PVZ replay

-Not rallying your workers in time.

-No wall-in in case of early zerg rush, if he had focused his lings on your probes instead of buildings he might have still been in the game (probably not though)

-Too much attention on the DT battles, macro up during battles. There's no point staring at DTs hitting a hatchery for 20 seconds.

-Control groups a bit late, and you made your gates a control group right before WG finished so a bit pointless (you can use W to select all warp gates.)

Maicros wrote: »

Which tech route I seek after the attack depends on scouting info I got from my DT's.

Well actually by that stage you've already committed to a tech route: DTs.
It's not like you'll be able to suddenly transition into colossus if it fails.

The scouting you're basing your decisions on should be done by the time you have DTs, which are a big resource sink and thus a huge gamble.
It only works in specific circumstances.

As for the idea of a mass DT assault, you're banking a lot on him not scouting it, and the cost of massing DTs is so great that you would need to expand anyway, and could have a more diverse army composition.

Lanaier

NeoSlicerZ wrote: »

4gate is actually a superb build to learn warp in, chrono building timings aswell as micro. PvP 4g is very unforgiving and also teaches the first important timing. WG wrt to extra gates.

Agree.

Just because the 4 gate is easy is no excuse not to learn it.
You see it a lot for a reason, it's powerful and it really does teach you the protoss basic opener.

UnholyGregor

dont go one base dt
3gate expo, every game. keep doing it until you get good with it. The only way to learn the game is to paly standard. dont mess around with wierd **** until your masters at least.

or you could 4gate every game and get to masters in a week.

Maicros

Hmm ok you have swayed me I will have try 4 gate and 3 gate expand. I did two games the other night and just lost to early pressure. I think my macro is my worst aspect at the moment nd uis atrocious durning battles but still plenty to work on.

Thanks guys! Hopefully ill get to have a match with with some of you later on.

UnholyGregor

do the same build every game, really, just master one build, and the rest will come to you in time

Orizio

If you go 3 gate expand then you'll get out macroed by people like me who go one rax reaper FE and do a two base push. Not really an expert on PvT though, so ask Funky and Neo.

BTW, add me as Feanor/980, and we can play a bit.

UnholyGregor

Orizio wrote: »

If you go 3 gate expand then you'll get out macroed by people like me who go one rax reaper FE and do a two base push. Not really an expert on PvT though, so ask Funky and Neo.

BTW, add me as Feanor/980, and we can play a bit.

if he does an agressive 3gate push,, he can do a lot of economic damage if you're not expacting it, requiring you to pull scv's and you could easily be behind if caught unawares.

Im pretty sure this guy is sub-gold league, and i think his no1 priority is learning the game. He needs a solid all round build to do this. The least of his worries are timing attacks and macro.

Maicros

Nearly right I managed to get into gold and have won a few games. It will be awhile before I can get back to the same level as I have to learn a completly new build(s).I like the idea of a fast expand but I am having as major prolem trying to find the right time to transition into collosi or HT's let alone choosing one.I get the feeling this is going to take awhile

Khazidhea

You can go 6 gate and still crush. You can build pure stalkers and 1a, no micro and get to masters. It was proven by some guy on TL. He worked up a new account to masters massing up stalkers.

But I would recommend 4gate. The 6-minute one with cutting probes at 20. I still lose to that from time to time.

Get to masters and then switch to 3gate expo. Drop 1 gate and dont cut probes

UnholyGregor

Khazidhea wrote: »

You can go 6 gate and still crush. You can build pure stalkers and 1a, no micro and get to masters. It was proven by some guy on TL. He worked up a new account to masters massing up stalkers.

But I would recommend 4gate. The 6-minute one with cutting probes at 20. I still lose to that from time to time.

Get to masters and then switch to 3gate expo. Drop 1 gate and dont cut probes

I dunno, i think its a bad idea to only 4gate, as you will get really high on ladder fast, then reach a level where it doesnt work anymore, and you will be playing players way better, and you will get cushed every game.

I think its better to play standard and work your way up from the bottom.

Lanaier

The OP was on Reddit but it was discussed on TL a couple of times.

The important difference is that guy was already playing at a Diamond level, and he didn't even get to diamond btw, he was being matched with diamond opponents but he only played a total of 18 matches.

Just macroing up and 1-Aing Stalkers isn't going to prepare you for some of the types of one-base play common in lower leagues, or the cheese.
If you don't know how to defend against a zerg/cannon rush or a 4gate macro isn't going to help you.

Not to mention that once you get to a level where everyone else knows the importance of macro....macro is all you'll have.


http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=187162

Khazidhea

The thing is all that cheese in lower leagues is done wrong as in 4gate coming at ~9 minutes (instead of the proper ~6). Basically your macro should guarantee you a huge army advantage to the point that enemy's cheese does not matter.

Against any super early ling pressure you just wall off.
Canon rush uhm dont know much about it. Might be tricky. Chase the probe, if there is already a lot of cannons up, sac your main, take natural and with all your army try to kill the protoss, he probably does not have anything home. But then again I am pretty sure you won't be facing a lot of players who canon rush properly or they won't be stuck in lower leagues.

Lanaier

I love a cannon rush.
If you're in Masters you probably never get to see it, which is a shame as it's usually a free win.


As long as they don't pull off the BOSS Cannon Rush just relax.

If you don't manage to kill the probe by the time some cannons are up just let him continue to waste resources on cannons while you build an army and rally to your ramp.
Once the cannons start to reach your probes move the in-range probes to your new base where ever that may be.
Once you have a reasonable force and can afford a nexus base pull all workers to the new base and send your force to his.

If you can somehow snipe his probe before you pull out it saves you needing to rebuild production buildings if it somehow gets to that.

Doing it at the natural opens the possibility of his cannons reaching you from the cliff.

Maicros

ok well I have tried the 3 gate expo and I like it since I can also 3 gate push if I want. In general I think I will use HT against terran and Collosi against zerg. Right now I am practicing against my brother so I can work on my build.

While I know some cheese builds I don't know how to scout them aka what are the signs of a cheese build?

Thnx for all the help guys!

godspal

Well you are going to find it hard to scout an x-Pool build. 9 Probe should scout for that.
Then for Marine-SCV-All-in, no gas, when you scout 12 Probe.
2 Gate... Well its pretty simple, 2 Gates.
Proxy builds... I don't know how to do this with Toss.

Other builds are about being alert:
3 RR, 5 RR, 7RR, Marine-Marauder Push.

Probe/Zealot at the Xels, Zealot going to the wall/into the base Etc.

EDIT: Oh Cannon Rush, once you see the forge, be vigilante, a pylon should be placed at the choke/ramp of your base and your eyes should be on the mini-map for that probe.

Lanaier

Maicros wrote: »

ok well I have tried the 3 gate expo and I like it since I can also 3 gate push if I want. In general I think I will use HT against terran and Collosi against zerg. Right now I am practicing against my brother so I can work on my build.

While I know some cheese builds I don't know how to scout them aka what are the signs of a cheese build?

Thnx for all the help guys!

Cannon rush -you see a forge first.

6-pool - count the drones, should be very few.
If he goes for a slightly later rush you should generally wall off against zerg anyway so you'll be ready by then.

Maicros

ok awsome I can't wait to start playing some ladder, once I refine my play that is