[Estancia]

Greetings, I am a silver protoss player.
My usual play style is a protoss deathball style where I play defensive until I gather a deathball and push out for an all in.
The problem with this build is that this allows the zerg player to get ****load of bases and contain/harrass me to death.
So far my only successful offesnive play would be 4gate during PvZ (even in PvP I always go for defensive 4gate), and my only form of harrass is dt which I transition into archons later on (in ZvP again, I never harrass against other races)
This is giving me lots of problems, because this gives the opponent opportunity to expand and tech like mad while I usually play defensively on only 2-3 bases, and this is exploited extremely well in PvZ (in silver and for other races, even given the chance people usually stay on 2-3 bases ). In the end they completely overwhelm me with 200 maxed army + 8 hatch with insane number of larvae)
I need some builds that allow me to play aggressively in mid to late games, and some tips that will help me.
Thanks

[Primex]

Hey! I'm also a silver protoss, I find that if you 3gate into an expo and get a robo you can then pressure there 2nd or 3rd. With some immortals and gateway units. If you want to chat and discuss strategies add me in-game :P Primex.740

[ProAnnn]

Try going stargate tech against zerg. Get 2 void rays and like 2 phoenix out and go harass. At your level they wouldnt really make spore preemptively so they most likely will take alot of damage

[Estancia]

Originally Posted by ProAnnn

Try going stargate tech against zerg. Get 2 void rays and like 2 phoenix out and go harass. At your level they wouldnt really make spore preemptively so they most likely will take alot of damage

This has its own problem because speedlord scoutings will completely ruin your build.
Maybe I should try pressuring with immortals and gate blob.

[ProAnnn]

Voidray should get out before speedlords..

[Estancia]

Originally Posted by ProAnnn

Voidray should get out before speedlords..

Or I mean, normal overlords.
If they are lucky they will send it from the side I built the stargate, and i can't risk putting it in the middle D:

[porkchop]

Originally Posted by Estancia

Or I mean, normal overlords.
If they are lucky they will send it from the side I built the stargate, and i can't risk putting it in the middle D:

im a toss too, in silver, and im having a difficult time aswell with pressure, i feel that if i add this to my game, i can make it to plat,, but yes the best thing is to 3gate xpo, then stargate, by that time, a void or 2 helps extremely, regardless if they get hydras, try to poke an overlord or 2, then when or if you see more queens or better a hydra den being built , just shft into colosi,

what i always do in PVZ is 3gate xpo, into stargate and robo, robo is normally for obs, since when u have 2 voids out, and see spores just back out, and kill some overlords,

P V Z
6-pool - 2:50
10-pool 3:45
5RR - 4:45
7RR - 5:00
Roach Ling all-in: 6:45
15 hatch - 2:10
21 hatch - 3:10
Fast 3rd - 6:15-7:00
Fast 4th - 9:30-11:00
Normal 3rd - 11:30
Normal 4th - 16:00
2-base roaches - 9:30
2-base hydra - 10:30
.
Banelings...anywhere between 6:00 and 11, depends on what they throw in with banelings.
Fast infestors - 9:00
Fast lair - 11:00
Broodlords - off 4 bases, at 18-21:00
Ultra - anytime off 6-8 gases.
Hydra doomdrop - 8:30-11:30 (depends on how much drones they skip and how much shit they want to bring).

[noobinater]

Don't play a boring ass pure deathball style? Get out on the map with gateway units and scare the z.

Quick Comments

deL:

Good advice on how to lose PvZ even faster.

[Insidious]

I Usally play a 3 Gate sentry expand build against zerg, and then as soon as the Nexus is building throw up a robo and then robotics bay allows for a colossi push. also as soon as your robo is built get out an OB that allows you to see whats going on in the Zerg Headquaters if u see he is playing a heavy tech build.. u can get your colossi 3-4 and all ur gateway units of 2 base and then go attack.. u dont have to wait for 3-3-3 upgrades from ur forge.. so attack earlier if he is going heavy tech.. the only really heavy early pressure is a 4gate build but then u dont really learn anything :/.. hope that helps

[Next_rim]

I play all-air and don't move out until I have secured a fast 3rd. I use cannons and mothership to repel timings, then slowly cruise around with my voidray+carrier ball and try to contain him on 3 bases, while I grab 4th and 5th. Then a-move him with 200/200 3:3 carrier ball and watch him ragequit. If things get out of hand, I add DT's and do an attack on all his mining bases to buy time.

Sounds deathballish? Except for starting min 7, I'm actively present on the map with my voidray and phoenix, do pokes and fly-bys, constantly patrol his potential bases, deny him xel'nagas and am 100% aware of what he is doing.

Deathball =/= sit at base till 200/200. If you play ground, use your fast stalkers (with blink perferably) to gain map control, kill free lings and ovies, potentially prevent 3rd and 4th. Blink stalkers are very fast and mobile, they can run away pretty much from anything cept for slings on creep.

[pikk0n]

Question was how to play offensive but how about being MORE defensive and make that standard deathball push to a zerg on 7 bases but you yourself on 3 bases MINIMUM! You don't HAVE to sit on 2 bases when massing a deathball. You can just as easily grab a third and defend it at the same time. Just mass cannons and get gateways to mess with the Zerg's AI a little to buy your deathball time to move from your 2nd to your 3rd? With your third up, you can have around 3 robo and 9 gateways or 2 robos and 12 gateways easily. So even against a zerg on 7 bases, your 200/200 army isn't going to suffer much damage against a zerg's 200/200 army. Deal with the second wave of 200/200 zerg army (since he is sitting on 7 bases) by quickly warping in more stalkers/sentries off your 9 gates and by then, the zerg should be low on larva. Your army count should be halved by then but at your silver level, don't expect the zerg to put on some crazy micro to buy himself enough time for injects and more larvas so he can remacro a 3rd 200/200 army. He'd have missed a lot of injects from the 2 engagements and most likely misrallied.

You should win if you can secure your third by being defensive and who's to say you can't secure your 4th just as easily on a map such as Shattered Temple? Your third can easily be the gold or the expo behind the rocks. The problem with being offensive is, at the lower levels, we tend to get outpositioned and lose the game because of it. I'm plat and have lost quite a few PvZs when I moved out in an attempt to be aggressive but failed due to inferior micro. Well, if you mess up your FF, kiss your army goodbye but if your FF is godly, you'd win easily by being aggressive. That said, in silver level, how quickly would the zerg be on 7 bases anyway? And even if he was, he'd be WAY underdroned with most bases for show and larva anyway. Abuse FF with your deathball and grab a third. Protoss 101. Hehe.... Watch the BM from zergs about FF imbaness and protoss imbaness if you do this defensive deathball tho. Just a deathball off 2 bases = deaththreats to you. Hehe....

[Xeen]

If the guy wants hints on how to be aggressive, you probably shouldn't be giving him tips on how to do the opposite.

I'm not a fan of Stargate builds personally, they have to do damage to really break even since the tech is pretty dead-ended in comparison to things like TC, and most importantly, they're harass and not pressure. So long as Z secures their third and gets a few spores over there, they're fine, and what they're doing in the meantime is making pure drones because you've guaranteed your actual army count isn't going to be high for awhile. Still a viable style though.

OP: Gateway units and control. Go up to 4-5 gates around 7 minutes, push out and get map presence while adding TC/more gates/upgrades, going up to 6gates and blink around 9-10. You need to have enough stuff to contest the zerg's map control and potentially cancel a greedy third, so make stuff and poke around. You can secure an expansion (including the gold if Zerg is forced into a very defensive position) behind this because you have map control. It also keeps Zerg from droning because the threat of you walking into their base is there.

This is a replay of Light vs TargA from the previous Master's Cup that shows a decent example of adding gates and tech behind threatening pressure: http://drop.sc/23018

[dazaris]

When I'm looking to be offensive I usually open up by making a crack about my opponent's mother or place of birth. If you don't get a reaction there telling him he's terrible or a "noob" can work too. Warning though, being offensive does take some APM and it can be hard to maintain your macro while making racial slurs.

If you're looking for some video tutorials, CombatEX, a player notorious for being offensive has released some videos on youtube, the first of which you can check out here:

YouTube (Profile Pages)

YouTube (Profile Pages)

Disclaimer: This post is intended as a joke and is not meant to be taken seriously. For actual advice please read the other replies posted in this thread.

[Next_rim]

I'm not a fan of Stargate builds personally, they have to do damage to really break even since the tech is pretty dead-ended in comparison to things like TC, and most importantly, they're harass and not pressure. So long as Z secures their third and gets a few spores over there, they're fine, and what they're doing in the meantime is making pure drones because you've guaranteed your actual army count isn't going to be high for awhile. Still a viable style though.

You might be confusing stargate opening and dedicated stargate build. While opening is harassive and buys you time to tech to robo or mass gates, stargate build gets mommaship and voids to grab very safe 3rd, and harass is a mere option, not a liability. And while zerg is droning, I'm chronoing probes. By the time my 3rd goes down (min 9, when mommaship pops), Zerg is usually ahead by at most 10 drones, given he pulled off a fast 3-rd. Then it becomes a matter of efficient army trade and containing zerg on 3 bases.

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

You might be confusing stargate opening and dedicated stargate build. While opening is harassive and buys you time to tech to robo or mass gates, stargate build gets mommaship and voids to grab very safe 3rd, and harass is a mere option, not a liability. And while zerg is droning, I'm chronoing probes. By the time my 3rd goes down (min 9, when mommaship pops), Zerg is usually ahead by at most 10 drones, given he pulled off a fast 3-rd. Then it becomes a matter of efficient army trade and containing zerg on 3 bases.

Are you seriously suggesting a 9 minute mothership build as a legitimate strategy.

Replay?

[Estancia]

Thanks for your tip guys.
So so far these were the suggestions :
- Stargate opening
- 3gate sentry expand into robo push
- Be more defensive but get thrid
- Offend the opponent

For the fourth point, I found out that talking to your opponent a lot also helps, because he will mess up his build timing while typing.

Stargate tech seems too risky. I'll try out robo tech. Thanks

[SkyBreaker]

Read/watch this; inControL's PvZ coaching VoD (it's slightly older, but it's fundamentals still apply) and watch Day 9 Daily #323.

GL&HF

Quick Comments

Daboo:

I stopped watching dailies when they became more fun than analytical,but this one seems really good.

[porkchop]

Originally Posted by SkyBreaker

Read/watch this; inControL's PvZ coaching VoD (it's slightly older, but it's fundamentals still apply) and watch Day 9 Daily #323.

GL&HF

***** is this the one that shows MCs build? or the 3gate into fake expo to 5gate build?

Originally Posted by Estancia

Thanks for your tip guys.
So so far these were the suggestions :
- Stargate opening
- 3gate sentry expand into robo push
- Be more defensive but get thrid
- Offend the opponent

For the fourth point, I found out that talking to your opponent a lot also helps, because he will mess up his build timing while typing.

Stargate tech seems too risky. I'll try out robo tech. Thanks

also after trying the 3gate sentri xpo build, try to make a prism, while ur poking at the back you can always sneak in the main and warp some lots, just to damage his eco, this also applis to T and P, in silver this always gives you the game,

[Daboo]

^^ it's the one gate expo, into 3 gate air build (MC's build).

[porkchop]

Originally Posted by Daboo

^^ it's the one gate expo, into 3 gate air build (MC's build).

yeah but in our skill level the 1gate expo is pretty much impossible to pull of in our skill level, actually, come to think of it, maybe it really dpends on the map ,

[Next_rim]

Xeen,

Here is one recent kind of 9-min (10-min actually),

And 2 more for those interested in all air, heavy variations, that evolve into mommaship eventually. The one with cannons on Nezarim is vs masters, two other vs diamonds. And I have loads of em replays from s2, with or without 9(10/11 min) mommaship, with straight carriers, with 3-gate into all-air, DT into all-air, 1base close spawn mommaship rush etc. I don't ALWAYS do mommaship rush, but it is my eventual late game build to transition into all-air play this way or the other, and secure a 3rd with mothership

1) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...50aa658a27ac8c

2) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...413be7767b0a34
.
3) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...3c9bf0147f2c9e

[Insidious]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Xeen,

Here is one recent kind of 9-min (10-min actually),

And 2 more for those interested in all air, heavy variations, that evolve into mommaship eventually. The one with cannons on Nezarim is vs masters, two other vs diamonds. And I have loads of em replays from s2, with or without 9(10/11 min) mommaship, with straight carriers, with 3-gate into all-air, DT into all-air, 1base close spawn mommaship rush etc. I don't ALWAYS do mommaship rush, but it is my eventual late game build to transition into all-air play this way or the other, and secure a 3rd with mothership

1) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...50aa658a27ac8c

2) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...413be7767b0a34
.
3) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...3c9bf0147f2c9e

ahah.. well these replays are kind of funny... i am impressed that you dont follow tradition prortoss game plan . however i think i see this not working as often as it does work.. but very cool

[Insidious]

also Porkchop was right warp prisims are really cool if you want to harass the opponent. there are some great replays especially from WhiteRa where he uses warp prisims to drop HT's and Dt's in the back of opponents base you can mix this up anyway you like..

As far as transitioning into stargate after 3 gate xpo this can really work well but it requires you to kill a fair amount of units if u are going this much outside your teach path because you are spending at least 400mineral and 300gas just to get one void ray out.. and to get the right amount of damage in return for that tech you need to kill at least that much stuff.. also it requires a lot of micro. I think it would be safer at silver level to get a robo with an Observer.. if u want to push then get colossi if u want to harass to take a fast third then warp prisim drops.

[souljah]

personally i go 3 gate expo, throw down 3 more gates and get blink with +1 attack... right when blink finishes under constant chronoboost, i push out with a stalker force to snipe outlying lings, overlords and basically force zerg to make units instead of drones. if i see a force that im not confident of, i just back off as the whole point of being agressive against zerg was to force them to make units instead of drones. and you can easily transition into robo tech or mass blink stalkers with good upgrades (cos of your early twilight) .

Important note though is to not over-commit to your "pokes". If he has a huge force, its damage done in terms of units m ade instead of drones, so just pull back and continue macro-ing up

[Next_rim]

however i think i see this not working as often as it does work.. but very cool

I'm sporting 60-ish % PvZ winrate, which is not bad. I don't exactly play Idras and NesTeas, but most diamond and masters zerg have very hard time with it. I either lose very early game to a well-executed timing, or very late game in macro wars (fail to secure 5th and 6th, while zerg has solid 5th mostly).

Air upgraded dps is so powerful that it allows for infinite cost-efficient trade. Zerg can be mining 10 gases, and still struggle to rebuild enough hydra and corruptors to deal with it. I'm always ahead in upgrades (3:3 vs at most 2:1 air). Voidrays counter corruptors, carriers counter hydras and muta, and that's it for zerg AA. Loads of infestors are annoying, but it can be microed around, or flanked, since they are slow. And I'm all over the map too usually, with DT's and occasional zealot parties killing free stuff at expansions.

[Insidious]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

I'm sporting 60-ish % PvZ winrate, which is not bad. I don't exactly play Idras and NesTeas, but most diamond and masters zerg have very hard time with it. I either lose very early game to a well-executed timing, or very late game in macro wars (fail to secure 5th and 6th, while zerg has solid 5th mostly).

Air upgraded dps is so powerful that it allows for infinite cost-efficient trade. Zerg can be mining 10 gases, and still struggle to rebuild enough hydra and corruptors to deal with it. I'm always ahead in upgrades (3:3 vs at most 2:1 air). Voidrays counter corruptors, carriers counter hydras and muta, and that's it for zerg AA. Loads of infestors are annoying, but it can be microed around, or flanked, since they are slow. And I'm all over the map too usually, with DT's and occasional zealot parties killing free stuff at expansions.

ah ah thats pretty 60% is pretty good.. I have no doubt this works for you .. it seems that if your investing in full air plus Dt's then most of the time I imagine you are catching your opponent of gaurd with your all air army.. but against top players zerg would more be prepared for something like this? but Hats of to you for not getting traped into "traditional play"

[Next_rim]

ah ah thats pretty 60% is pretty good.. I have no doubt this works for you .. it seems that if your investing in full air plus Dt's then most of the time I imagine you are catching your opponent of gaurd with your all air army.. but against top players zerg would more be prepared for something like this? but Hats of to you for not getting traped into "traditional play"

Not really offguard, they easily scout it min 8 with OS or speed OL. It's just better players are more comfortable on playing 5-6 bases. As for top top, my 1500+ s2 masters clanmates stomp over me with machine-like executed 10-pools, so idk how well prepared they are

[Insidious]

ahah, I know what its like to be stomped on well I am deffinetly going to play a few games going heavy air. just to mix it up a bit instead of just colossi tech

[deL]

This may help

Quick Comments

Maynarde:

Will definitely help with playing offensively

[Digby]

I'm beggining to like 3 gate expand into TC then 5 gates and getting blink, take a 3rd around the same time as the zerg, harass the main with DTs and push the 3rd with Blink Stalkers, it allows you to get an early 4th and do a lot of damage.
(I've found in some games, DTs deal a lot of damage mentally too...)

[Matsu727]

Try doing some 2 base timing attacks, they hit a lot harder and only 2-3 minutes later than a 4 gate Check out Ace's play in the GSPA vs Slush I believe? Great games

[iM yang]

Just wrote the most bad ass post ever and it didn't save so you're stuck with this shitty one.

DT expand, makes people rage, yada yada.

Hallucinate less you punish idiots and make mass void rays/collo to make idiots with hot girlfriends rage quit.

Pushing while expanding;
Going 7 gate blink and pressuring hard while expanding behind it is really popular. Your stalkers can't get caught because they have blink, you're just everywhere at once.

Getting a couple colossus and expanding behind it is somewhat old school but still works well, especially on XNC. The important thing is so take your half of the map like a BOSS, stop that creep spread, punish him for coming at you. Makes you feel like a total baller when you're expanding and killing his stuff.