New Protoss Builds Part 1 of 3 (PvP)

I have found a few new builds I have been utilizing since I have started laddering again (27 Wins, 32 Losses so far). This is what I have discovered in the Matchups. The one thing I have learned this past week, and after all my thinking of Protoss tactics without actually playing, is that Protoss are best when they have 2 bases supporting them. Our units take very long to build and are very expensive but very fast and powerful when we finally get them out. So it only makes sense that we need a very good economy to help run it all.

PvP

This matchup is so weird to me. It always throws me for a loop. Here are a few examples of the games I played. At first, I tried going something other than 4 gate against Toss, trying to find out what they were doing then do the appropriate build, however I soon found out that most other Toss as this level of play was doing the same thing in most cases. In fact, I was always beat when the opponent did a build without reacting to mine, thus my build was slightly behind and I ultimately lost. The PvP matchup seems more and more like a staring contest, seeing who will "Blink" first so someone has an advantage.

2 gate Rush vs Fast Forge

This match I saw him have 2 gates really early. My build always gets a Core first. If I see those 2 gate ways early enough, I have enough time to grab a Forge and place a few Cannons down while also grabbing a Sentry to FF the ramp to trap some of his Zealots as I pick them off. I quickly transitioned into a 4 gate and apply the pressure on him until I finally push into his base and win.

4 gate vs Cannon defense

This game was odd. I held my own against constant pressure only using Cannons and enough units from 3 gates. I was very surprised it worked and the only reason I won was because my opponent didn't expand, which is a common epidemic for lower league Toss. They have this mindset that the 4 gate is a Win all Build, and its not. Its fundamental weakness is your constantly building units and not generating enough to expand.

Colossus will rip through any army of equal size.

Fast 3 Colossus with a Council as a fake out

This guy was very smart. I scouted a Council and a Robotics Facility and immediately thought he was going Immortal/Zealot with Charge as I saw many Zealots already. I began to get an expansion while also going for some Immortals as well with Stalkers to kite the Zealots. Yes You can still effectively kite Zealots even with Charge. However, when he pushed he had 3 Colossus and I had just expanded. It was gg shortly thereafter.

So this is what I have taken out of all this. 4 Gate is still the best way to go in this matchup. The fast 3 Colossus could have been easily taken down if I had gone 4 gate and applied some early pressure. However it is still important to grab a Robotics Facility at some point to grab an Observer in case there are Dark Templars coming out, which happened at some point in another game where it was 4 gate vs 4 gate. Most PvP matches don't last very long as one of the players will quickly gain a disadvantage and the other will take that advantage.

Next will be PvZ. Probably my favorite matchup.

When to.....

Ever wonder when you should be doing ______?

I do. I have a terrible time knowing when to start teching up.

I typically start with 4 gate and get some units up. once 8-12 units are up I begin pushing out. I poke in, see if those initial units are still their, if not I know hes teching up and wont have many units. Thats a clear sign for me to do one of two things. Expand or drop 1 of 4 tech buildings, a Forge, Robotics Facility, Stargate, or Twilight Council. Lets assume I am up against a Terran player. I tend to Expand because it is relatively safe if my army is outside his base and preventing him from moving out. With only  half a dozen marines at his cliffs, that tells me hes either going for some tanks, or Banshees. More than likely its Banshees.

Do I drop a Robotics Facility down instead of expanding?

No, I still will expand, because getting that 2nd base up and going while preventing him from getting his is so important. I'm now in a position to know what hes probably doing, and I have now limited his choices. He can either continue with Banshees and get cloak and probably hold his ramp off if I decide to push in again, or make some more ground forces to push me back. Both are perfectly reasonable. Most players I have faced tend to continue with their Banshees and get cloak. Its important to poke up his ramp to see whats their, as if some Marauders suddenly pop up, I know hes looking to buy time before cloak is ready and hes going to make a push a bit later with not only a force, but also Banshees.. That means I need to have dropped a Robotics Facility sometime after my Nexus gets placed.

See how important Scouting is? I began scouting more frequently and accurately because I primarily play in a reactionary way to my opponent. Because I do this, I need to be knowing what my opponent is doing pretty often. If I see some heavy Marauder play I need to grab an Immortal or a lot of Stalkers ASAP. An observer would also help as well as these provide a way of keeping track of your opponent without having to sacrifice the occasional probe up his ramp.

So what things do you wait for either in your build order, unit count, or what your opponent does to justify teching up?

Starcraft Noob: Idea

I had this idea after reading a few posts about Protoss Shield upgrades. It seems that having 2 separate upgrades for defense(1 for shields 1 for armor) is kinda redundant. What if the Shields upgrade increased the max shield available to the unit instead of reducing the damage the shield takes, perhaps a set amount or a percentage of the units current Shield points. This could make getting the shield upgrade more viable as currently its, "Well I've upgraded my weapons and armor to the max I might as well get the shields upgraded" To top it off, the games which you get that far are few and far between.

The units that would take most advantage of this would be the Immortal and the Archon. Lets say the upgrade would give 10% more shield life. That would give the Immortal the chance to shrug off 1(if fully upgraded up to 3) extra big attack, but still keep it vulnerable from smaller hitting creatures.

The Archon would gain 35 shield per upgrade, or 105 total, which puts its hp at 455(i think right?). Which would increase the viability of this particular unit as I have also read too many threads concerning the uselessness of this unit.

As for buildings well our most important building, the Pylon, would gain 30 shield points, not a big upgrade but still, as the game goes on the importance of this building grows. This could be a great way for us to help protect our key buildings without giving us an huge early game advantage.

But in some cases like the nexus, its shield life would increase by 100 at a time. However, Zerg's Hive have 2500 Health by the time they upgrade it, and Terran's have the ability to not only repair their buildings but also upgrade their Command Center to a Planetary Fortress as well as have separate armor upgrades for their buildings.

Back to 4 Gating

So I find myself going back to four gating. My three Gate Robo build was not working out as well as I had hoped. After three week of not playing Starcraft 2, going back to four gating just seemed natural. Its an easy build:

4 Warp Gate Build Order


9 Pylon
13 Gateway
14 Assimilator
16 Pylon
17 Cyber Core
19 Gateway
20 Stalker
23 Gateway
24 Pylon
24 Gateway

By the time you hit your 26th supply(provided you only build 1 Gateway unit and are constantly building probes) Warp Gate tech is ready and you will need to produce mass amounts of Pylons. I like to drop 3 more at once to expand my supply to 50. Then start warping in units and gradually be placing Pylons down as 4 gateway units count as 1 Pylon worth of supply. This is also a good time to put a proxy Pylon somewhere.

Chrono Boosts
Chrono Boosts play a big part in any Protoss Build. No matter what opening build you are doing, you should be going for Warp Gate research. It is the cheapest research with the biggest benefits. It cuts training down by five seconds per gateway unit and allows any Gateway unit to be warped in to your Pylon influence in four seconds. Ideally you can use 4 Chrono Boosts on Warp Gate before it finishes. Each one cuts 10 seconds off the time. However, if your timing isn't perfect you can end up wasting half of the 4th one so I tend to stick with 3. By doing this I can also use 3 Chrono Boosts on my Nexus as well.

Poking and Scouting
While you are getting your base setup, send a probe every now and again to poke into the base, yes you will lose a probe but you will be able to tell what his unit comp is or isn't. In my latest match, my opponent went for heavy Stalkers and very little Zealots, I saw this by simply suiciding a probe onto his ramp. So I quickly put down a Twilight Council and started researching Charge. Zealots with just the movement speed increase move almost as fast as a stalker.

What to transition into.
Before transitioning into Colossus or Voidrays or whatever, you need to take an expansion. Having two bases mining is so important in Starcraft 2. You will want to take you small force in and cause some trouble, make him think twice about moving out. This will allow a safe expansion to be warping in. Once you have two bases its time to decide what to do next. Two bases can support up to 8 Warp Gates and a Forge. However this way leaves yourself vulnerable to Cloaked units. You may want to grab a Robotics Facility to grab an Observer. This will also open up a transition into Colossus. You can make one Robotics Facility and get up to 6 Warp gates for faster unit production. Picking up a Twilight Council as well to grab Charge or Blink is also useful as the building alone allows you to research more effective armor and weapons upgrades.

There you have it, the 4gate build order. It is a heavy macro oriented build. To learn more about macro and how to master it check out my post about the subject here.

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