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Hello fellow TLers! Two weeks ago, I was searching for a way to add Dark Templars in my play and I came up with a strategy that is, so far, very effective in the PvP mirror matchup. I suppose people will learn to counter it, so it will not be as effective as it was up until now, but it is still nice to have in your arsenal of strategies.
This guide starts off by explaining the general guideline of the strategy, followed by the build order and, finally, the strategy explained in details (against 4 gates or 2 gates robo). Replays are also available at the end of this post.
Overview Like mentioned in the topic name, this strategy consists of rushing to get some Dark Templars out. I used some concepts learned from trying out the Tester Build (4 gates mass zealots with pylons in your base) and I applied those concepts into this strategy. Essentially, this strategy requires you to warp in ~9 zealots near the opponent's base around the 5m40s mark and put pressure on him until your Dark Shrine is completed at the 7m mark.
From experience, this is NOT an all-in strategy. You do not sacrifice your economy to make this rush possible. You will produce ~24 Probes. Of course, you will probably lose if you lose all your zealots and your DTs without damaging his economy. Under normal circumstances though, should this strategy fail, you should still be in the game and potentially win it.
Lastly, this strategy does not work against proxy gates, 12/14 gates mass zealots rush or the Tester Build. You will need to adapt to those strategies if you encounter them. Explanations are given towards the end of this post.
The Build Order 9 Pylon 12 Gateway 14 Assimilator 15 Pylon 16 Cybernetics Core 18 Zealot 24 Assimilator 24 Gateways x2 24 Twilight Council 25 Pylon 26 Dark Shrine 32 Pylon
I will now go into the details of the strategy.
In The Beginning 9 Pylon 12 Gateway 14 Assimilator 15 Pylon 16 Cybernetics Core 18 Zealot
There isn't anything special to do in the beginning. You can do a standard 12 Gateway. You can use 1 or 2 Chrono Boosts on your Nexus to speed up Probe production. Save your energy afterward and use it for a quick Warp Gate Research. Make sure to not lose your scouting probe and get it out of the opponent's base before his first stalker comes out.
Alternative #1: I have never tried to do this strategy with a 13 Gateway. Although it could probably work, your rush will be delayed by 10-17 seconds. Because of that, it might be more dangerous against a Protoss who's going 4 Gates, since he should be leaving towards your base around that time (6m mark). A Protoss doing the standard 2 Gates Robo will have more time to get an observer out too. As such, I would not recommend doing it.
Alternative #2: You do not have to make a zealot out, but you will be vulnerable to a zealot harass. If you opt to not make one, make sure the opponent isn't making a zealot to harass you.
Alternative #3: You can make a stalker after the Core is built. You will have an easy time to kill the scouting Probe and you can afterward intercept any incoming scouting Probe. This will allow you the ability to do this rush "undetected". Unfortunately, the actual rush will be ~20 seconds late, since you will lack the vespene gas to do it more quickly.
Alternative #4: What I like the most about this strategy is how you can branch out and do another strategy if you want. So far, the build order is nearly identical to a 4 gates push or a 2 Gates robo (at least mine). Because of that, it makes it harder for the opponent to see it coming.
Preparations for the Rush 24 Assimilator 24 Gateway x2 24 Twilight Council 25 Pylon 26 Dark Shrine
At this point, it requires you to invest your economy to prepare for the DT rush, so I wouldn't recommend having a change of heart from now on. If you made a zealot/stalker earlier, send them to your opponent's base.
Afterward, stop making probes at 24 and make an assimilator, followed by 2 Gateways and a Twilight Council. Resume the probe production afterward. Once the Twilight Council is built, start building the Dark Shrine and transform your gateways into Warp Gates.
Also, around the 25 supply mark, make a proxy pylon near the opponent's base. If you lost your scouting probe, send one as soon as possible to make that proxy pylon outside his base. This is very crucial, since this strategy won't work otherwise. I messed up vs. Taurent on LAN - I forgot to make the proxy Pylon. The game ended up... very one-sided. Having 10 zealots in your base against a 4 gates push mass zealots/stalkers/sentries is not an ideal situation to deal with, trust me!
Alternative #5: While I don't particularly like it, you can build 3-4 Pylons in the opponent's base. This tactic is much more "aggressive" than making a single pylon outside the opponent's base, since his attention will be on destroying the Pylons ~30 seconds before the first wave of zealots would normally arrive. By doing this though, you will lose a wave of zealot (3), so it won't be nearly as good in my opinion. If you do this, it's a good idea to have an additional pylon outside his base in case that you lose your pylons in his base.
Finally, here comes the rush!
DT Rush against 4 Gates Since you will have Chrono Boosted the Warp Gate Research, you will be able to start warping Zealots around the 5m40s mark, which is earlier than a 4 Gates push.
Your goal against an opponent going for 4 Gates is to buy some time. Your Zealots WILL be slaughtered by his zealots/stalkers/sentries. Split your zealots in 2 groups and send one in his mineral line to kill some Probes or force him to control his Probes and his main army. Keep sending new waves of Zealots every 23 seconds. Send three waves of zealots (9 zealots total, 10 if you made one earlier). After those waves, your Dark Shrine will be coming up in any seconds now. Once that happens, make three DTs and Chrono Boost all of your Warp Gates.
Slaughter Incoming (My Zealots)
As of today (September 6th 2010), at this point in the game, you have won the game. Players don't expect it, so they don't have any detection if they go 4 gates. If he tries to send all of his Probes and army to your base now, make a DT or maybe even two (if you have the gas), in your base and hold position at your ramp. 2 DTs are enough to block stalkers from entering - only zealots will be able to enter now. If he does that, you can also just leave 1 or 2 DTs in his base to finish it and send 1-2 in your base to finish off his army without detection.
Base Trade? Anytime.
DT Rush against 2 Gates Robo This one is more tricky, since your opponent might have an observer out. If he built an immortal first, it is counter-intuitive to make an observer while there are a bunch of zealots entering your base, so you should have some DTs out when he won't have any detection. If he builds an observer first, your DTs could be detected (if he keeps his observer in his base).
Your goal against a 2 Gates Robo is to destroy either of these: his army or his economy. Doing a 10 zealot rush against a 2 Gates Robo is pretty good: he will have a smaller army than yours (his Robotics Facility just went up) and you can overwhelm him with your waves of Zealots. DTs might not be necessary to win, but they kill Probes with one hit (when Zealots take 3 hits for single kill).
Army Differences
Do Not DT Rush If... Just to state the obvious, do not go for a straight DT rush like I've mentioned in this guide if he goes for a proxy gates or 12/14 gates mass zealots strategy. You will lose long before you build a Twilight Council. If you stop a 12/14 gates rush, you can try out this DT rush. I have personally never tried it - I prefer doing standard games when my opponent does that.
You must not DT Rush also against a Tester Build. Essentially, the player doing the Tester Build will start warping in 4 Zealots every 23 seconds at the 5m10s mark, which is almost 30 seconds earlier than when you will while you do this strategy. The reason is that he got a 10 Gate and sacrificed heavily his economy so that he can warp in zealots in your base as fast as possible. Also, he will have 4 Gates vs. 3 Gates for you. To sum it up, you will lose.
Speculations on Potential Weaknesses I have tried this strategy about 20 times and I have lost only twice with it - my first attempt at trying it and against Taurent where I forgot to make a proxy Pylon. Because of that, what I will write in this section is pure speculation on what the other player's could do if this becomes popular. I see three potential ways of dealing with this strategy.
3 Gates Robo To counter the incoming waves of zealots, you could make units out of 3 Gates to counter it. As for your Robotics Facility, you will need to only build a single unit out of it - an observer. This way, you can match up against his waves of zealots with your own units being made from your 3 Gates.
Early Forge If you notice he is doing this, it might be worth it to make an early forge (especially if you have 4 Gates). Making a forge and cannons costs no gas, so you can make stalkers/sentries like you would normally. Timing would be a key factor with this counter: you will need to have at least 1 cannon up by the time his DTs arrive. That cannon should be at your ramp, otherwise he could destroy anything that is out of the cannon's detection range. After the third wave of zealots, you could place all of your units at your ramp to block the DTs from entering until the cannon goes up.
Not A Bad Idea, But No Photon Cannons
Constant Harass As of right now, since I only make one zealot until the 5m40s mark, I am pretty vulnerable to an opponent who puts constant pressure against me. If you keep on sending zealots/stalkers against someone who does this strategy, he will be forced to make a bigger army himself, which will slow his DT rush, giving you the time needed to get detection. It is good to mention though that this does happen to me once in a while. When the opponent harasses me like that, I tend to go 2 Gates Robo or 4 Gates myself instead.
Conclusion To conclude, I hope that you will like this strategy as much as I do. Normally DT rushes are very easy to counter, because they are so easy to see coming, but this DT Rush is quite unexpected. It barely slows down your economy (only 2 Chrono Boosts on your Nexus) and you can just choose to do another strategy after ~4 min in-game. Should it fail, you will have 3 Gateways (always useful), 1 Twilight Council (that could be used if you want chargelots or blink stalkers) and a Dark Shrine (which could be useful for harassing purposes later on in the game). It is also hard to see coming, since it looks like a 4 Gates push or a variant of a Tester Build with stalkers.
Feel free to comment this strategy, but if you wish to criticize it, try to be constructive as it could help me out write better guides. I will most likely post more guides once in a while, since I like coming up with new strategies.
The replays are posted below. Have a good time playing Starcraft II!
P.S: I do not have that many replays of the build order shown above. Since I've done it about 20 times, I experimented a lot with it to see what is best. I have put lots of experimental replays in the zip file.
Replays
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First of all, very well put together. I play terran and i've been considering switching to protoss from time to time. It's an interesting strat that his adaptative and out of the usual. I don't have any sort of constructive critisism but I can definitively beat a few toss friend with this hehe.
Edit : Btw...I'm glad terran got scan !
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Very nicely written, although I would be hesitant to call it "Kitsune's DT rush" since there's a few korean players who have been doing more of less this exact build a lot lately.
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i wouldnt call this rush yours, not only korean players use this rush but i see people do this all the time, as i do it as well, but a good post for lower ladder ppl that dont know it
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On September 07 2010 11:14 Plexa wrote: Very nicely written, although I would be hesitant to call it "Kitsune's DT rush" since there's a few korean players who have been doing more of less this exact build a lot lately.
Oh sorry, to be honest I don't really like watching other player's replays so I never saw it before. If you want, you can remove the Kitsune part on the topic name. :p
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One thing I don't understand: Unless you build a stalker (delaying the rush), how is he not seeing the darkshrine? Isn't his probe alive until your stalker comes out?
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On September 07 2010 11:41 Muirhead wrote: One thing I don't understand: Unless you build a stalker (delaying the rush), how is he not seeing the darkshrine? Isn't his probe alive until your stalker comes out?
I can think of two scenarios that are related to your question.
The first one is that you actually get the Probe kill w/o a stalker, either with the zealot or with some Probes (if he moves near your mineral lines and you surround his probe). Now that is a poor play by the other Protoss, but it happens every 4 or 5 games or so against diamond Protoss players, surprisingly.
Once your Cybernetics Core goes up, you can also start making the stalker. If you see that the opponent does not care losing his probe, you can choose to not cancel the stalker and kill it. Often, the opponent will want to save his scouting probe and will pull back his scouting probe outside of your base before the stalker comes out. You could cancel your stalker then if you want. That would be the second scenario.
If you choose to let him scout you permanently, then I guess at the moment, this strategy works out because players don't seem to make the link between 3 Gates + Twilight Council = DT Rush. The players I play stubbornly keeps going for their 4 Gates push or 2 Gates Robo, which both don't work well vs. this strategy. My first wave of zealot is made at the same time as the Dark Shrine, so their attention tends to be toward stopping my zealots rather than scouting my base. You can also hide the Twilight Council and the Dark Shrine in a corner of your base if you like, although the opponent my still notice them.
Like I said in the OP, I never played against anyone who adapted to this strategy (as in, making a third gateway if they're going 2 gates robo when they see the Twilight Council or going for an early forge if they have 4 Gates). It is definitely beatable, but I still think you can come up with a game advantage if you do it, since you should be able to destroy some buildings or some/lots of his probes while doing it.
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On September 07 2010 11:41 Muirhead wrote: One thing I don't understand: Unless you build a stalker (delaying the rush), how is he not seeing the darkshrine? Isn't his probe alive until your stalker comes out?
I actually do a minor change to this build myself - I like to proxy the dark shrine, I have a replay of me using it but unfortunately I'm at work, I'll post it when I get back.
But great guide, well written.
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Proxy could work, though the late gateways and absence of other tech may make your opponent more cautious than you would like him to be (i.e. rush out the obs).
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Im not Knocking the Strategy but as a P player i have ran into this before hate to say this but i can 3gate+ robotics with and swing highest DT iv seen when i do is 5 and i go right threw them because i always build an observer
Its Legit if your opponent does not have detection
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Yeah, just tried this build and it worked pretty well on Desert Oasis because you can get a proxy pylon close to his entrance by putting it in the corner of his natural. What also helped me was the fact he was pushing out with his 4gate army when I sent in my zealots to destroy his mineral line. Once he saw that I had taken out his minerals, he thought he could base race me but summoning in the DTs to defend at that point worked much better.
I like this strategy because even if they get observers early, they rarely stay at the base and they take forever to get back on some maps. As long as they don't spot the Dark Shrine, you'd be free to wreak havoc on his minerals and army for a good 40 seconds to a minute. This works well but I fear cheese with this build because your army is rather thin until that DS comes out.
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I'm a big proponent of proxy building the dark shrine if you go dt since it's effectiveness is cut pretty dramatically if it's scouted.
Since the only tech path to beat it (robo) will pretty much always reasonably lead into colossus wouldn't it make sense to follow it up with a stargate into a few phoenix? I notice in the game that you lost that he was able to win with a colossus follow up and you spent money on a robo that didn't really have time to produce anything as well as blink research. You had a probe 5-10 advantage after the rush so wouldn't it make sense to go phoenix, pick off the colossus, and try to hold him back in the base with phoenix harass on his mineral line while you expanded?
I like the strat, I'm going to start trying it in a few games.
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On September 07 2010 11:14 Plexa wrote: Very nicely written, although I would be hesitant to call it "Kitsune's DT rush" since there's a few korean players who have been doing more of less this exact build a lot lately.
Where are you getting these replays from????
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Works fine !!
Just read it , and in 2-3 match I was able to pull it off nicely
Only loss now is against proxy 2 gates .. and i m top 5 plat
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Well written, so I'll chip in for the build. This is how I would do it efficiently, anything else would be a variation.
9p, 12gate, 14gas, 16p, 17core, 18z, 22stalker+wg, 26p+gas+2gate+citadel, 26proxy p, dark shrine, 3z, 3z, p, 3z, 3dt --10z/1stalker/3dt <7:40 --boost probe 3x, stalker1x, wg3x, dts3x --stalker kills scout so they have no clue rather than seeing 3G+citadel (typically means blink but no stalker means charge or dts). Also probe production+3rd pylon in base means bit later zealots, but more economy and less suspicious of proxy. If they are not scouting you go for faster gates+citadel.
issues: 1)This is a low eco build so soft counter is anything that is higher eco +holds it off well. Main problems are with forge/forcefield/wallin holding off your attack. 2)This is no detection dt build so issues vs dt+forge builds. 3)early pressure, proxy pylon could be denyed/killed weakening build. 4)have to adapt to 2gate, korean 4wg, perhaps other things
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I'd like to try this. DTs are such badass units that I never get to use enough.
And Collossus rushing is getting old.
Now, presumably you're proxying the Council and Shrine on your second Pylon, right?
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dts rush used to get me to silver back in the beta day This build is somewhat vulnerable to 1 gate robo since the obs would be out really fast. Second if the opponent has some scouting skill, he will see only 1 stalker 1 zeal and will know something fishy is going on Overall, well put dt guide. Hopefully, the people that use this build lrn how to play normal be4 they get to diamond
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I appreciate the effort to do something different in PvP. However, it seems like you have made a build that has a poor match up against every PvP opener currently on the field except for 4-gate and there are already builds that can do that. I read your advice for 2 gate robo and im not sure how you think you are going to have more forces than they are when you are trying to produce a 7 minute dark shrine. Also, you are opening with 1 gate until you hit 24 supplies after you drop an assimilator, so any 2-gate player who scouts or puts pressure on you at all will crush you because you aren't building a sentry and some stalkers.
Not to mention the fact that proxy 2-gate, cannon rushing and void rays are all superior forms of cheese to this one. This strat will beat people, especially at sub diamond levels, but ultimately, it's just another cheese strat whose weakness is scouting.
Long story short, decent strat, but don't try to bring this to a pro unless you can cheese like a korean.
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I havent tried this yet but I want to emphasize that this BO seems to look alot like a heavy zealot pressure from the other end sans the second gas. Heavy gateway/zealot builds require a different response (usually) than a robotics build can offer... at least in the amount of time it takes to get there. Protoss are taught in PvP that you really need to match gateway counts or lose. If they try to match your gateways then you've already won. If they figure out that you're doing DTs then you havent lost because you have units, are already down a tech path, and could use DTs for either map control or just turn them into archons for a little meatsheild.
The problem I foresee is that the tech path you just went down is pretty well countered by the robotics route. HT is not good vs toss really, Dark Templar are squishy when they have an observer, archon morph is okay, but they are countered by immortals and just the high damage/HP of toss units. Blink stalkers might be a good transition, but again, theyre already down the immortal tech tree and immortals shit on stalkers. You do mention the ~ 4 min transition if they go robotics and you cant do damage to them or keep them in their base. My concern is that the best transition you can do would be to the same thing theyve already gone for, collossus. Toss dont really have a great counter for collossus. Phoenix are okay, but you need quite a few to make a dent and I dont see your stalker counter being high enough to take advantage of gravitron if phoenix's are your recourse for collossus/CC.
Ill give this a try though it seems there are a couple flaws. My problem with DT builds have always been that you can get them fast, ~6 minutes ish, but that you can only get a couple of them... 4 or 5, but 3 with the first warp in and thats if you save up entirely. If you lose those for some reason and they push with their army that has an observer. I dont see how you could possibly hold or expand. If they contain you from that point I dont see you transitioning.
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