[ROOTProbe]

Hey guys, eCKo'Probe here. With the recent buff to Terran I have been thinking more and more about how to play against them. While I have been playing this style for over a year and a half, I have made changes to it recently to make it more efficient. So I thought I would write a guide to help anyone who wants to use it as well. This style was used by Startale Protoss players to great effect during WoL, and is the sole reason why i love Parting so much.

+ [OVERVIEW] +

The goal of this build is to safely establish a third base against Terran aggression while opening Templar. It gets a quick Robo for observers and charge + archons to hold off Terran’s Medivac timing. It also gives you the chance to be a bit aggressive while with macro colossus builds often you are more defensive. In my opinion this style is also more fun.
The build.

+ [EARLY GAME] +

The basic early game idea is to secure a fast expansion preferably with double gas. Obviously there are a variety of ways to get to the same point, however below is how I have been opening.

9 Pylon
Chrono
Chrono
13 Gateway

SCOUT

15 Gas

2 in this Gas

Chrono
16 Pylon
18 Core

I rally a probe from my nexus to build each of these buildings (Except 9 Pylon).

18 Gas

2 in this Gas

19 Zealot
Cancel Zealot

You wouldn't cancel the Zealot if you are being Ebay blocked, or proxied.

21 Nexus 3:40
21 Mcore
23 Stalker
25 Pylon

Fill Gases and start warpgate

From the first gateway we produce Stalker -> Stalker -> Sentry. I find that these are enough units to stop aggression, and you can always warp in from the three safety gateways you will have.

Keep the sentry further back to avoid it being sniped by a marine poke

+ [PROBE SCOUT REACTIONS] +

The reason we probe scout early is to get a general idea what build we will be up against. If you scout and see no rax and no cc, then he will be proxy raxing you. To play against that you need to not expand, get a zealot, stalker and Mcore, and hold off his push to win the game.

If you scout gas first, you would be thinking that a possible banshee or widow mine drop is coming. In both cases you have the Robo and fast forge for detection and mineral line defence. Your build might be slightly delayed if you build the cannons but you should be fine to continue with it.

If you scout a reaper build or early expand, while there can be a couple of different couple of follow ups, you can keep your build the same as you will be safe until you get to scout again with your observer. Some things to look out for however would be a proxy factory follow up, or a drop that you might spot when you first obs is on the way to their base.

If you feel you might need early units, you can build the 2 gateways before the forge, and if you think you might be facing against widow mine drops, you can add a cannon. Overall the combination of the Robo, forge and 3 gateways allows you to be safe against pretty much everything.

+ [BUILD ORDER] +

5:00 Robo
6:00 Forge
6:30 2 x gateways
7:00 2 x gas
7:40 Twilight Council
8:00 2 x gateways
8:40 Templar archives + Charge
8:50 2 x gateways
Storm/Nexus/Upgrades

+1 armour is started immediately when the forge finishes. When +1 armour finishes O usually start +1 attack, so you can later add a second forge and be more efficient with your upgrade spending. However sometimes I also go +2 armour, it is up to you!

Out of the Robo we produce 5 observers and then a bit later we produce a warp prism. First and second observer are sent to the Terran’s base. First one checks in the main for the timing on rax, 3cc, upgrades, bio or mech etc. The second observer will sit out the front of the Terran’s base to spot the units as they move out. The third observer will go outside your base to the usual attack path. The fourth and fifth observers will usually be placed in the areas where drops come in from.


Example observer placements

+ [OBSERVER SCOUT REACTIONS] +

When your observer reaches the Terran’s base you have to look out for a few things. First thing to look for is whether he is playing mech or bio. If he is playing bio the build continues normally, but against mech you might think about adding some immortals while doing roughly the same build, maybe with a faster storm and only one forge.

You then want to look at the number of rax. If he has only one, he should have a factory and starport and would be applying some form of drop aggression. Cannons are useful in that situation. If he has 2 or 3 rax and a factory/starport starting he will usually be poking the front to force a nexus cannon. Using the nexus cannon is fine, and you can also warp in some zealots as they are cheap.

Checking if an Ebay has been built also helps you. If there is no Ebay his medivac timing will hit earlier, and if there is an Ebay then his play will be standard.

+ [DEFENCE] +

In order to defend against the 10 minute timing with Medivacs we will chronoboost charge and our upgrades, build 2 archons, and the rest of the time build zealots. 2 archons deal enough splash damage to be able to kill off the small Terran army and combined with guardian shield and time warp your zealots with +1 armour slaughter Terran units.

Defending drops can be the hardest thing when doing this build. We have built a strong ground army that deals well with the frontal push, however drops can rip us apart. This is the main reason why we built 5 observers earlier. If we know the drop is coming we can easily warp in stalkers + zealots in and clean the drop up. You will also have money left over as zealots and archons are very cheap. With this money I build 2 cannons in the drop locations. Cannons + zealots + stalkers = dead drop. 4 stalkers and 2-4 zealots is usually a good number to have.

The best defence is a good offence! We build a warp prism so we can counter attack and buy us time to get established. 4 zealots in the main will either bring units back buying you time, or force the Terran to multitask, allowing you to get more favourable engagements. It can also kill a lot of scvs if they are not reacting.
Defending drops while counter attacking with a warp prism.

+ [DEFENDING WIDOW MINES] +

With the recent buff to widow mines, Terran now has a really effective way of dealing with zealot clumps. Because of how hard they can shut down this style, widow mines get their own section! I feel while the buff does make it harder, this style is still completely viable.

I believe the key to making this style work against widow mines is delaying until storm. You already have plenty of obs on the map for detection so that is not a problem we will have. But, when you have storm completed you can win fights against the Terran if you have HT that flank from behind and the sides. Without storm your Zealots will take shots from the Widow Mines and then get kited to death by Bio. Therefore you need to be selective about your engagements and try and crush the Terran army in one go. You can also try and split your zealots to reduce the damage from the Widow mines.

+ [MIDGAME TRANSISTION] +

During all this time your observer at his base must be keeping watch on when he builds his 3rd cc and 4th and 5th Rax. If he builds the 3rd cc this means you must also try and expand, or else you will fall behind. However if he builds the Rax first, he will be applying heavy pressure, and surviving this pressure will put you in an amazing position. Therefore we take the third a lot slower and turtle on 2 bases. Until we think we can deal with his army, since we may have killed some of it, or we see them taking a third and we have a big enough army, we then take a third.

Regardless of our third timing, after building the 2 archons , we start storm and continue our upgrades. At this point I would consider adding a second forge, but it depends on how you feel you are dealing with the Terran. If you are ahead, then getting the 2nd forge is amazing.

Constantly warping in zealots and HT is the next step in the midgame. While archons were good at defending the initial push, when the Terran gets a large enough army, archons are not going to be able to deal with the bio. This is why we need to get storm ready for any pushes that come out after the 13 minute mark, as the bio army is too large and need to be stormed to die.

+ [LATE GAME] +

We are finally on three saturated bases, held off Terran’s aggression and have a few choices to make. One way you can play the late game, is to switch into double Robo Colo quickly while rushing to 3/3 at the same time. You can then hit a strong timing with 4-6 Colo, storm and 3/3 and often the Terran will just die if they don't have enough Vikings, they are behind in upgrades, or don't control their army and ghosts properly. While this can be very strong it’s not my preferred way to play it out.

Another way you can play late game, and is my favourite way, is to continue on Templar tech. You add lots of gateways and Templars, get aggressive and do lots of drops. I usually will go up to 16 gateways and then go out on the map and try and kill the Terran with flanking high Templars while warping in zealots into all their bases. Lots of fun. Behind this you would add a fourth base, dark shrine and eventually you will still need to go double Robo.

The key to winning games in the late game is your split of your high Templar and gateway count. You should HT lying around everywhere so that you can flank with them. Good places to put them are on the top of cliffs and behind the Terran aggression to cut off a retreat. You could also put some in warp prisms and use them for storm drops. A high gateway count is essential so that you can instantly remake your army and break through the Terran. I think somewhere in the high 20's and 30's would be a good number of Gateways to have.

Flanking HT save the day!

+ [REPLAYS] +

http://drop.sc/378945
Observer saw the Terran building a 3rd cc so took the nexus quicker as holding the aggression is easier. The King Sejong Station is a good map for drops, however my defence against them was easier thanks to cannons and observers.

http://drop.sc/378946
The Terran opened with a proxy widow mine build, followed up by one base Medivacs. While my build was delayed slightly, I was safe against the proxy and my observer saw there was no natural base taken. Because of this I was constantly building units, even added in an immortal, to hold off the timing.

http://drop.sc/378947
The Terran committed to 5 rax aggression with no 3rd cc follow up. I delayed my third nexus, but took it once I killed enough of his initial push. Once storm was finished I had no problem holding his all in.

http://drop.sc/378948
The Terran opened with a standard 3 rax medivac timing, followed up by a 3rd cc. After scouting the cc I took a nexus faster. While my defence against his frontal push was okay, my defence against his drops was not the best. If I had been paying more attention to the minimap I would have been able to clean up the drop easier. During the midgame flanking High Templar allowed me to crush his Terran army, giving me control of the game.

http://drop.sc/378949
Observer scouted the 5 rax aggression. I delayed my third base until I pushed back his first attack and delayed him with a warp prism. After that I had a massive lead and crushed him.

I hope you have enjoyed this build and use it on ladder! It is a really powerful build, and has been my stable PvT opener ever since I saw Parting do it when he was on Startale. I truly believe that this is a great build for lower league players. You can work on your macro as often you are just building Zealots and High Templar and you won’t be losing games due to the fact you lost one colossus. This was also my first guide I have ever written, so any feedback would be much appreciated!

[FLuX]

Ahh I read the title and thought "Don't widow mines make this style suck now?". Glad you wrote a paragraph about reacting vs widow mines.

Good guide buddy If only I played protoss and could make use of it.

Quick Comments

ROOTProbe:

Other builds sometimes don't have a robo for obs, and we have 5! Also yea storm still lets us win :D

[mGGVersus]

IT'S OUT !!!!!!

#yop

[ace223]

Amazing read, very detailed and Is sure to help my play
Straight to my Build book.

Would love to see more #YOP

[SLCNPezz]

This has been a strong build for the last 6months, and it's a really well written guide. However, I think it's fallen out of style since the patch on widow mines.

I really don't think it's the best choice in the current metagame, because it struggles against stim combat-shield timings which are REALLY common now, and it also trades badly against widow mines in the mid-game.

Do you still think it's a solid style probe? We've seen hardly any players use it any more in proleague and gsl.

I personally prefer the come-back of the double forge macro collosus style with zealot archon stalker to support. I feel like it's the best way to win against terran atm, to turtle to 3-3 and hit a timing. However, I'm opening 1gate robo into 3 gates with a late-ish double forge/robo bay in order to hold these stupid stim timings .

[ROOTProbe]

Added a game casted by duckvillelol to the replay section.

+ [Casted Game] +

[eCKo`Enak]

I started using this build alot and my pvt has jumped up 20% after a week or so of using it. So ty for letting me steal this, good sir!

#YOP

Quick Comments

ROOTProbe:

good to hear :D

[Seanybops]

Well Probe beat Heart with this so ya