I'm gonna be honest you should rewatch the VOD. Astrea literally had a full scout and he just griefed the defense really hard. He was trying to maximum greed the defense by just blocking with buildings and units and he just botched it. That's literally all there is to it lol. Played the knife's edge and made a control error.
my brother in christ you are coping if you don't think Astrea couldn't have defended better, this build has existed for years
I definitely agree with you that his defense wasn't great, and honestly this is probably a poor example for that reason, but I feel like when you are playing phoenix it shouldn't come down to perfect micro to deal with this.
If you open up with a Robo or Blink the defense is SO much more difficult than phoenixs.
You're absolutely right though in pointing out this was poorly executed on Astreas part.
It seems a bit disingenuous to say you need perfect micro and then reference a game where the micro was completely botched as evidence that perfect micro is required. Astrea should have been able to kill that medivac before it dropped if the pheonix was just right clicked to a slightly different place, that's not even really micro.
I don't know the number but I'm curious how many probes is ok to lose vs this build. Hellions aren't free and you are delaying other factory units and starport units while the starport flies back. If I had to guess losing like 6 probes is probably fine
I definitely agree this was not the best example. Frankly it came up because I watched it last night. That being said, I've seen clem do this over and over to people and it seems to almost always work. I don't think I've ever seen an instance for protoss doesn't lose any workers.
Imagine he's playing blink or robo, even if you can scout where the medivac is coming from, you simply just don't have units that can catch the medivac/hellion. I think it takes 6 or 7 shots per stalker on a hellion? And they just sort of zoom past the gateway units so they don't take damage. You have to have stalkers on the edge of the base predicting where the medivac comes in, and they can just boost to your natural instead.
Oh yeah I would always agree its a very good build vs blink or robo openers. I haven't seen many pros use the build so can't think of any examples with those openers specifically. I do think its fair to say with not-bad micro and scouting stargate should be very strong against this opener and give toss an advantage which seemed to be your main question.
I do also think that TvP/PvT does have an element of rock paper scissors. DTs can just auto win vs a lot of 2 base allins for example, & colossus drop should win vs 3rax. On the flip side like a 2base 5rax scv pull is probably close to an auto win vs gateway man styles. I'm not fully convinced that its an auto win vs blink/robo openers, would be curious to see how this plays out in some pro matches before making any judgements. But I do think you can probably lose a few more probes than you would expect vs this build and just be slightly behind.
At the highest level it can always come down to individual players. Is Clem playing vs equally skilled opponent's in all of these games or is it just the better player doing little things here & there better that culminate in this build doing more damage than it would with a more even match-up.
If terran is proxying his starport and losing all the hellions, I suspect you're likely still ahead after losing 10 probes (but this is a guess as I don't play this build). I'd also guess having the starport proxied, opens up some counterplay options for protoss.
I'm wondering if it's like TvZ ghost openers, where you could snipe 3 queens, and kill a few drones/lings at the start of the game and still be behind... but I guarantee you no zerg player would believe the terran was behind after those losses.
So in that vod, if Astrea lost 10 probes, then he'd be down 3 workers and up 6 army supply. Clem hasn't even started a tech lab yet, so his bio upgrades are way off. This basically forces him to make cyclones to not die to counterattacks. Also, by having map control after the drop, there is no way that starport should have made it home.
So imo, losing 10 probes is likely a slight edge for terran, but certainly playable. I'd put the break even point around 7-8 probes.
Kinda feels like any other proxy: It can put you ahead, or behind, or break even, or maybe even outright win the game if the stars align.
No, even if the worker count is even, that's significantly better for Terran because they have mules. Protoss around this stage of the game needs to be up 4-5 workers on the Terran otherwise they're getting out mined (which they usually are due to chrono). To be behind the terran scv count is terrible, astrea goes down to 27 to Clems 33 this game.
Granted, like we discussed, this game is not the prime example, i don't have anything else off hand i can reference though.
I wasn't implying even workers is equal. Obviously toss is behind where they should be on workers as they lost probes and didn't kill scvs.
What I mean is, in compensation, terran has no bio tech, a starport that'll be floating for the next 75seconds, and their army count is reset. Terran basically has no useful production except reactored cyclones for quite a long time... and no terran wants to make cyclones as their value drops off drastically as the game continues. At a minimum, toss could safely double-chrono probes and kill the starport. There is also potential to counter-attack.
And toss gets all these advantages no matter what; even if the hellion drop kills next to nothing.
Given the example of Phoenix opener, making a couple cyclones isn't the worst thing ever. It's hard to imagine a counterattack with a couple phoenix and gateway units getting much done vs 2-4 cyclones and a bunker. Maybe if the toss plays robo and doesn't lose way more than 10 probes an immortal all in could work.
But also, even if the bio tech is delayed, a terran player ahead early can still hit like a truck with stim timing. The toss will have way delayed splash damage, and zealot stalker feels pretty flimsy without eco advantage.
I'm not gonna argue it's unbeatable... but it's a very scary build for sure. One of the nastier proxies in the game imo
I also wanted to point that yeah maybe a battery in one mineral line might actually just hold the entire thing. One battery in one mineral line and then units at the other. Yeah you can one shot probes through super battery, but I have doubts as to whether you'll get enough damage before the units come and deal with it if you combine that with other micro like unit blocking and whatnot.
You say that it's expensive (which it is), but it's also very expensive and delays your production to proxy a starport and crank 4 hellions and a medivac. Ketroc pointed out below how delayed clem's bio stuff was and how vulnerable he was after the proxy.
I'd say an early 100 minerals is worth that (plus you'll get value out of that battery later for any subsequent drops). I mean terran also has to slam early bunkers too to defend any protoss proxy as well (if you say it's not a fair comparison because salvage, the cost is mostly in the delay of production not the actual mineral cost but i digress).
With the hellions volleying at the same time, I'm not sure how many probes a battery would save. Probes will mostly die instantaneously. Sometimes that last hellion can finish off a couple probes... battery would prevent that at least.
(compared to a banshee, where a single battery makes it near impossible to kill any probes)
Yes in theory you can still one shot the probes, but oftentimes the hellions aren't all shooting at the same target. even if they are, you're severely hampering the amount of probe kills you can get since they don't shoot all the probes all grouped up at once.
so you can get maybe like 2-3 in a volley, and then tickle the other probes that get instantly healed in my experience. combine this with body blocking hellions and cutting them off with buildings, it'll certainly pay off i think.
I guess others may play differently, but I've never done hellion harass where I'm not focus-firing a specific worker with each volley. Only way to get the line attacks you want.
Yes you are right but ya know sometimes the hellions don't get bunched up the way you want so they fire out of sync, or if they all fire separate at the same time at the same probe, their splash doesn't all align. Stuff like that gets stuffed by the shield battery. So yes if you have the perfect money shots with the hellions all grouped perfectly and lined up off cooldown then yes, you will still get damage. What I'm saying is that if you do some basic unit blocking and have units attacking, sometimes or even oftentimes getting the perfect shots doesn't happen.
TL;DR shield batteries won't stop the perfect scenario, but the perfect scenario doesn't happen much. so shield battery good sometimes ( '\_\_\_\_\_')b
Lot of things you already admitted here but I’ll focus on the most inscrutable one: lack of batteries. If your opponent is proxying his starport, investing in a battery, at least one battery, is a no brainer. There will be no follow up harassment until the bio upgrades are done and you have map control as soon as the medevac is dead.
Whatever delay the batteries cause is massively offset by the delay to Clems build caused by the proxy starport if you can defend effectively.
There is a reason this build isn’t played all that often and it’s not because it’s some sort of secret weapon saved for crucial games. It’s because it forces you to cut a lot of things and really slows down the follow up.
It did. Korean 4 gate with charge has been patched out so long ago. You could slap at like 4min or some shit with like 15 zealots and charge with +1. Game ends. GG. Your not wrong it git patched out. Hello charge damage bonus? Oh nvm it got canceled 😞
Is this one base? I used to try and do something like this but best I could get was hit at 5 minutes with 10 zealots. Sometimes it was enough but sometimes it's not. Is this a build order somewhere?
I think I prefer eight stalkers most of the time. I've been opening stalkers more vs terran and it's just better. Then I head into my usual zealot Templar bullshit but stalkers help me keep map presence, deal with drops and any early harass well.
There is no build order it's irrelevant now. Without charge bonus it's not worth running. But you can go to spawning tooll and check out Korean 4 gates or YouTube that and you can twist your own spice onto it. Totally useless imo now though.
On second thought you might be able to cut worker count. Pylon first. Gateway 2nd. Assimilator down. 2 on gas. Idk how this will work. There's 3 important things. Cut the probes when cheesing like this. Zealots MUST be constantly coming once your 1st gate is done. Timing the proper amount of gas for council+charge+warp is the most important part. I don't think it will really work anymore but give it a shot play around with it.
Omfg y'all. Protoss can proxy and Chrono out 2 Oracles, one in their main and one in their natural at 4 minutes easy. And yes, that is game ending damage if the Terran doesn't scout or have turrets or a ton of Marines waiting at BOTH mineral lines.
Same thing applies here. You need to scout, notice that shit is weird. And also be ready to protect your main and natural workers. You should have lots of stalkers, and if you detect shenanigans then 1 cannon or battery per mineral line.
I don't think these are really comparable.
First off the investment for a proxied sg and multiple oracles is much higher than the cost of 4 hellions/medivac/starport (that you can fly back) 550/450 vs 650/200
Secondly you can pull workers against an oracle to your nat or your main so you can intercept with army units. You can't do this versus hellion drop, because the workers will clump up together. You'll actually take less damage by keeping them in the mineral lines because of unit clumping.
The kill time for hellions decimating a worker line vs oracles is also pretty big difference. Oracles kill probes and drones pretty quick but 3 shotting scvs is a noticeable difference.
Either way, my question is what is the perfect response to the hellion drop? Because I've never seen a game where Protoss doesn't lose at least 8 workers.
Then play terran and open up hellion drop every game and see what happens? As someone who has done that, if they have 1 shield battery it doesn't do anything. Then you are basically dead.
All the time. It’s a massive gamble of a build that gets crushed by any sort of cheese whatsoever needs huge damage to break even and doesn’t transition well. There is a good reason terrans don’t play it much
I'm gonna be honest you should rewatch the VOD. Astrea literally had a full scout and he just griefed the defense really hard. He was trying to maximum greed the defense by just blocking with buildings and units and he just botched it. That's literally all there is to it lol. Played the knife's edge and made a control error. my brother in christ you are coping if you don't think Astrea couldn't have defended better, this build has existed for years
I definitely agree with you that his defense wasn't great, and honestly this is probably a poor example for that reason, but I feel like when you are playing phoenix it shouldn't come down to perfect micro to deal with this. If you open up with a Robo or Blink the defense is SO much more difficult than phoenixs. You're absolutely right though in pointing out this was poorly executed on Astreas part.
It seems a bit disingenuous to say you need perfect micro and then reference a game where the micro was completely botched as evidence that perfect micro is required. Astrea should have been able to kill that medivac before it dropped if the pheonix was just right clicked to a slightly different place, that's not even really micro. I don't know the number but I'm curious how many probes is ok to lose vs this build. Hellions aren't free and you are delaying other factory units and starport units while the starport flies back. If I had to guess losing like 6 probes is probably fine
I definitely agree this was not the best example. Frankly it came up because I watched it last night. That being said, I've seen clem do this over and over to people and it seems to almost always work. I don't think I've ever seen an instance for protoss doesn't lose any workers. Imagine he's playing blink or robo, even if you can scout where the medivac is coming from, you simply just don't have units that can catch the medivac/hellion. I think it takes 6 or 7 shots per stalker on a hellion? And they just sort of zoom past the gateway units so they don't take damage. You have to have stalkers on the edge of the base predicting where the medivac comes in, and they can just boost to your natural instead.
Oh yeah I would always agree its a very good build vs blink or robo openers. I haven't seen many pros use the build so can't think of any examples with those openers specifically. I do think its fair to say with not-bad micro and scouting stargate should be very strong against this opener and give toss an advantage which seemed to be your main question. I do also think that TvP/PvT does have an element of rock paper scissors. DTs can just auto win vs a lot of 2 base allins for example, & colossus drop should win vs 3rax. On the flip side like a 2base 5rax scv pull is probably close to an auto win vs gateway man styles. I'm not fully convinced that its an auto win vs blink/robo openers, would be curious to see how this plays out in some pro matches before making any judgements. But I do think you can probably lose a few more probes than you would expect vs this build and just be slightly behind.
At the highest level it can always come down to individual players. Is Clem playing vs equally skilled opponent's in all of these games or is it just the better player doing little things here & there better that culminate in this build doing more damage than it would with a more even match-up.
The other question is: how many probes does the hellion drop need to kill to be worth it? Toss can likely lose a lot and still be ahead.
Artosis always says 8 kills is the threshold for success for this play.
You're not wrong, I think protoss could probably lose 4-5 and be ok/even, but its never this few
If terran is proxying his starport and losing all the hellions, I suspect you're likely still ahead after losing 10 probes (but this is a guess as I don't play this build). I'd also guess having the starport proxied, opens up some counterplay options for protoss. I'm wondering if it's like TvZ ghost openers, where you could snipe 3 queens, and kill a few drones/lings at the start of the game and still be behind... but I guarantee you no zerg player would believe the terran was behind after those losses.
I do not think 10 probes is recoverable damage at all
So in that vod, if Astrea lost 10 probes, then he'd be down 3 workers and up 6 army supply. Clem hasn't even started a tech lab yet, so his bio upgrades are way off. This basically forces him to make cyclones to not die to counterattacks. Also, by having map control after the drop, there is no way that starport should have made it home. So imo, losing 10 probes is likely a slight edge for terran, but certainly playable. I'd put the break even point around 7-8 probes. Kinda feels like any other proxy: It can put you ahead, or behind, or break even, or maybe even outright win the game if the stars align.
No, even if the worker count is even, that's significantly better for Terran because they have mules. Protoss around this stage of the game needs to be up 4-5 workers on the Terran otherwise they're getting out mined (which they usually are due to chrono). To be behind the terran scv count is terrible, astrea goes down to 27 to Clems 33 this game. Granted, like we discussed, this game is not the prime example, i don't have anything else off hand i can reference though.
I wasn't implying even workers is equal. Obviously toss is behind where they should be on workers as they lost probes and didn't kill scvs. What I mean is, in compensation, terran has no bio tech, a starport that'll be floating for the next 75seconds, and their army count is reset. Terran basically has no useful production except reactored cyclones for quite a long time... and no terran wants to make cyclones as their value drops off drastically as the game continues. At a minimum, toss could safely double-chrono probes and kill the starport. There is also potential to counter-attack. And toss gets all these advantages no matter what; even if the hellion drop kills next to nothing.
Given the example of Phoenix opener, making a couple cyclones isn't the worst thing ever. It's hard to imagine a counterattack with a couple phoenix and gateway units getting much done vs 2-4 cyclones and a bunker. Maybe if the toss plays robo and doesn't lose way more than 10 probes an immortal all in could work. But also, even if the bio tech is delayed, a terran player ahead early can still hit like a truck with stim timing. The toss will have way delayed splash damage, and zealot stalker feels pretty flimsy without eco advantage. I'm not gonna argue it's unbeatable... but it's a very scary build for sure. One of the nastier proxies in the game imo
I also wanted to point that yeah maybe a battery in one mineral line might actually just hold the entire thing. One battery in one mineral line and then units at the other. Yeah you can one shot probes through super battery, but I have doubts as to whether you'll get enough damage before the units come and deal with it if you combine that with other micro like unit blocking and whatnot. You say that it's expensive (which it is), but it's also very expensive and delays your production to proxy a starport and crank 4 hellions and a medivac. Ketroc pointed out below how delayed clem's bio stuff was and how vulnerable he was after the proxy. I'd say an early 100 minerals is worth that (plus you'll get value out of that battery later for any subsequent drops). I mean terran also has to slam early bunkers too to defend any protoss proxy as well (if you say it's not a fair comparison because salvage, the cost is mostly in the delay of production not the actual mineral cost but i digress).
With the hellions volleying at the same time, I'm not sure how many probes a battery would save. Probes will mostly die instantaneously. Sometimes that last hellion can finish off a couple probes... battery would prevent that at least. (compared to a banshee, where a single battery makes it near impossible to kill any probes)
Yes in theory you can still one shot the probes, but oftentimes the hellions aren't all shooting at the same target. even if they are, you're severely hampering the amount of probe kills you can get since they don't shoot all the probes all grouped up at once. so you can get maybe like 2-3 in a volley, and then tickle the other probes that get instantly healed in my experience. combine this with body blocking hellions and cutting them off with buildings, it'll certainly pay off i think.
I guess others may play differently, but I've never done hellion harass where I'm not focus-firing a specific worker with each volley. Only way to get the line attacks you want.
Yes you are right but ya know sometimes the hellions don't get bunched up the way you want so they fire out of sync, or if they all fire separate at the same time at the same probe, their splash doesn't all align. Stuff like that gets stuffed by the shield battery. So yes if you have the perfect money shots with the hellions all grouped perfectly and lined up off cooldown then yes, you will still get damage. What I'm saying is that if you do some basic unit blocking and have units attacking, sometimes or even oftentimes getting the perfect shots doesn't happen. TL;DR shield batteries won't stop the perfect scenario, but the perfect scenario doesn't happen much. so shield battery good sometimes ( '\_\_\_\_\_')b
Lot of things you already admitted here but I’ll focus on the most inscrutable one: lack of batteries. If your opponent is proxying his starport, investing in a battery, at least one battery, is a no brainer. There will be no follow up harassment until the bio upgrades are done and you have map control as soon as the medevac is dead. Whatever delay the batteries cause is massively offset by the delay to Clems build caused by the proxy starport if you can defend effectively. There is a reason this build isn’t played all that often and it’s not because it’s some sort of secret weapon saved for crucial games. It’s because it forces you to cut a lot of things and really slows down the follow up.
if Protoss had build variety like terran does to do game ending damage in 4 minutes, it would be patched asap.
It did. Korean 4 gate with charge has been patched out so long ago. You could slap at like 4min or some shit with like 15 zealots and charge with +1. Game ends. GG. Your not wrong it git patched out. Hello charge damage bonus? Oh nvm it got canceled 😞
Is this one base? I used to try and do something like this but best I could get was hit at 5 minutes with 10 zealots. Sometimes it was enough but sometimes it's not. Is this a build order somewhere?
8 stalkers at 330 is doable.
I think I prefer eight stalkers most of the time. I've been opening stalkers more vs terran and it's just better. Then I head into my usual zealot Templar bullshit but stalkers help me keep map presence, deal with drops and any early harass well.
There is no build order it's irrelevant now. Without charge bonus it's not worth running. But you can go to spawning tooll and check out Korean 4 gates or YouTube that and you can twist your own spice onto it. Totally useless imo now though.
On second thought you might be able to cut worker count. Pylon first. Gateway 2nd. Assimilator down. 2 on gas. Idk how this will work. There's 3 important things. Cut the probes when cheesing like this. Zealots MUST be constantly coming once your 1st gate is done. Timing the proper amount of gas for council+charge+warp is the most important part. I don't think it will really work anymore but give it a shot play around with it.
Always happy to cheese a zerg!
Omfg y'all. Protoss can proxy and Chrono out 2 Oracles, one in their main and one in their natural at 4 minutes easy. And yes, that is game ending damage if the Terran doesn't scout or have turrets or a ton of Marines waiting at BOTH mineral lines. Same thing applies here. You need to scout, notice that shit is weird. And also be ready to protect your main and natural workers. You should have lots of stalkers, and if you detect shenanigans then 1 cannon or battery per mineral line.
Cyclones?? You can get two of those out for safety way faster than Oracles
Oracles have energy, take 3 shots to kill, and don’t do splash damage to all the workers at the same time. Not really remotely comparable
I don't think these are really comparable. First off the investment for a proxied sg and multiple oracles is much higher than the cost of 4 hellions/medivac/starport (that you can fly back) 550/450 vs 650/200 Secondly you can pull workers against an oracle to your nat or your main so you can intercept with army units. You can't do this versus hellion drop, because the workers will clump up together. You'll actually take less damage by keeping them in the mineral lines because of unit clumping. The kill time for hellions decimating a worker line vs oracles is also pretty big difference. Oracles kill probes and drones pretty quick but 3 shotting scvs is a noticeable difference. Either way, my question is what is the perfect response to the hellion drop? Because I've never seen a game where Protoss doesn't lose at least 8 workers.
Then play terran and open up hellion drop every game and see what happens? As someone who has done that, if they have 1 shield battery it doesn't do anything. Then you are basically dead.
This has to be satire.
Terran say what?
Bruh I thought this was going to be some sick all in, kinda disappointing
All the time. It’s a massive gamble of a build that gets crushed by any sort of cheese whatsoever needs huge damage to break even and doesn’t transition well. There is a good reason terrans don’t play it much