Synystyr Profile Blog Joined September 2010 United States 1415 Posts Last Edited: 2012-08-02 18:27:49 #1

Apocalypse.....now!



Disclaimer:

+ Show Spoiler + Please do your best to read through everything before critiquing the guide and leave any and all questions! Players below Platinum level may have trouble executing this style of play due to the mechanics and control necessary. I'd also appreciate if you guys checked out the replays too. I did my best to use only good quality games Thanks!



About Me/Credentials:

+ Show Spoiler +



I was once a High Master level player in the first seasons of SC2, but took an extended break from the game and have returned just a month ago. This season, I am currently Rank 1 diamond about to break into Masters. You can find my Battle.net profile Hello TeamLiquid and welcome to my TvP Sky Terran guide. This guide is take two of an old, but popular build I created and used during the first year of SC2. You can find the guide on TL here. Please be aware that this guide is outdated, so some of the information/advice may not be useful anymore.I was once a High Master level player in the first seasons of SC2, but took an extended break from the game and have returned just a month ago. This season, I am currently Rank 1 diamond about to break into Masters. You can find my Battle.net profile here. I play Sky Terran against Protoss 100% of the time.



Build Order Background:

+ Show Spoiler + This build focuses on building up an air based army using each and every Starport unit to defeat a Protoss opponent. You will use tactics such as observer sniping, storm dodging, constant harassment and expansion denial to earn victories. This style abuses the lack of Protoss units that are sufficient anti-air combatants and allows you to play the game on your terms/create unfavorable situations for your opponent.



In my experience, playing MMM against a Protoss can be difficult due to the powerful ground forces and splash damage they have, which can melt bio armies at the slightest mistake. I found that eliminating the power of the ground units(Colossi, Sentries, Zealots and Immortals) by taking to the skies was a much better alternative. Mid and lategame Sky Terran armies are incredibly difficult to deal with and demand a much different response than the standard composition a Protoss would make against a tradition Terran army. If unscouted, you should win 90% of the time.



Version 1 of this guide relied a bit on an opponent's lack of knowledge against Sky Terran styles and the ability to deny scouting to hit with a timing attack where standard Protoss didn't have enough anti-air to respond. This time around, I will go over how to play against someone who knows exactly what they are going up against to counter any critique that this is a cheesy style against unlearned opponents.





How/why does Sky Terran work against Protoss?

+ Show Spoiler +

+ Show Spoiler [Banshee vs Stalker] + The core unit matchup you will face using this style.



Banshee:

140 HP

12 Dmg x 2 per attack

0 Armor

150 Minerals 100 gas cost

Light Classification

3 Supply

17.6 DPS



Stalker:

80 HP 80 Shields (160 Effective HP)

10 Dmg (+4 vs armored) per attack

1 Armor

125 Minerals 50 gas cost

Armored Classification

2 Supply

6.94 DPS (9.72 vs armored)



As a light unit, the banshee only takes 10 damage per shot from the stalker, which allows the banshee to take 14 hits before dying to one stalker, whereas it only takes a banshee 8 shots to kill a stalker. In a one-on-one encounter, the banshee flies away with half its health left. Without micro, A Protoss would need twice as many stalkers as there are banshees to win an encounter. Both units have 6 range while the Stalker has a slightly better movement speed than the Banshee by .2



+ Show Spoiler [Viking vs Phoenix] +

The second matchup of importance is for air superiority, if your Protoss opponent chooses to contest it: Viking vs Phoenix



Viking:

125 HP

10 Dmg x 2 per attack (14x2 vs armored)

0 Armor

150 Minerals 75 Gas cost

Armored Classification

2 Supply

10 DPS (14 DPS vs armored)



Phoenix:

120 HP + 60 Shields (180 Effective HP)

5 Dmg x 2 per attack (10x2 vs light)

0 Armor

150 Minerals 100 Gas cost

Light Classification

2 Supply

11.1 DPS (22.2 DPS vs light)



On paper, Phoenixes have a small advantage in a head on engagement against Vikings. In a realistic game scenario, the ability to poke with the 9 range of your Vikings, plus the fact you are upgrading your air units and your opponent(99% of the time) isn't, should tilt this matchup into your favor. Be mindful that you will be reinforcing with waves of 4+ vikings at a time while Protoss will only likely have 2 starports running. This matchup snowballs quickly in favor of the winner of the first contest for Air dominance.



+ Show Spoiler [High Templar vs Sky Terran] +

This will likely be the response by Protoss once they scout your Air based army. Air units have a tendency to stack up, making it easy to land a storm on the majority of your units. All air units but Vikings have an energy bar as well, making Feedback strong against this army. However, a few things to note:



It takes two full storms(8 seconds of sitting in them) to kill a banshee.

A high templar can be sniped in 4 banshee shots.

HTs are much slower than Starport units.



Your goal is to kite out of storms and use moving shots to poke and prod at the Protoss army. Snipe high energy HTs when possible. Feedback can be good against small numbers of air units, but the Protoss simply will not have enough energy to feedback everything later on. If you can dodge storms, you will win this matchup. There's only so much energy that Protoss has



+ Show Spoiler [Other less notable, but important matc…] +

You will see the occasional Void Ray or Archon response. Void Rays lose to Vikings quite handily and also take a long time to build. They are more of a response to BCs, but Yamato can 1 shot them.



Archons are very powerful vs stacked air armies, but only have a range of 4 and can be kited properly by banshees. Be mindful of where the archons are located in the army when engaging. I don't have too much experience vs any Carrier/Mothership play, but Vikings and BCs with Yamato Cannon do quite well against both.



Your goal is to build up a critical mass of banshees to overwhelm your opponent, while maintaining air superiority with Vikings/BCs so that you can gain full map control/ability to roam and freely kill observers, leaving your cloaked army unchecked. 1-2 Ravens added into the the composition give you a few PDDs and detection to protect your banshees. Battlecruisers are used lategame to secure air dominance versus Phoenix heavy players. Engagements are usually won by denying Protoss detection against your banshees. Let's start by reviewing the relevant unit matchups. Full analysis of everything will be provided farther into the guide.Your goal is to build up a critical mass of banshees to overwhelm your opponent, while maintaining air superiority with Vikings/BCs so that you can gain full map control/ability to roam and freely kill observers, leaving your cloaked army unchecked. 1-2 Ravens added into the the composition give you a few PDDs and detection to protect your banshees. Battlecruisers are used lategame to secure air dominance versus Phoenix heavy players. Engagements are usually won by denying Protoss detection against your banshees.



Build Orders

+ Show Spoiler +



+ Show Spoiler [2 Rax Expand] +

10 Supply Depot

12 Barracks

14 Barracks

15 Orbital

15 Marine

16 Supply Depot

Nonstop SCV/Marines when you can

21-22 CC @ Natural

26 Supply Depot

27 Refinery x2 ---> 3SCVs on each gas

~30 Bunkers(1-3) @ Natural's choke

(Supplies are volatile at this point, will just give basic layout)

Orbital @ Nat

Engineering Bay -> 2-3 Turrets to deny Obs (1 at Natural choke for DTs, 1-2 in main)

Factory

Double Gas @ Nat -> 3 SCVs on each gas

Armory + Starport as Factory finishes, add Tech Lab to Factory to hot swap with completed Starport

Raven + Cloak OR Banshee + Cloak depending on whether you need defense immediately or not.

+1 Ship Weapons immediately after Armory finishes, upgrade +2 and +3 whenever possible

Add 3 more starports when money allows AFTER starting +1 Ship weapons and cloak. (Hold off until confirmed obs kill if you can)

Push out with 8-10 banshees after +1 finishes.

Expand/add racks/ports as needed



DISCLAIMER: You can use a 1 Rax Expo if you feel you can safely expand and defend off it and properly transition into Sky Terran. This BO is simply much safer vs any early pushes, but delays tech and earlier timing attacks. I use 1 Rax Expos myself to execute Sky Terran more frequently now.





+ Show Spoiler [Cloaked Banshee Expand] +

10 Supply Depot

12 Barracks

13 Refinery -> 3 SCVs

15 Orbital

16 Marine -> Constant production

16 Supply Depot

@100Gas Factory

~20-21 Refinery#2 -> 3 SCVs

Supply Depot

Starport after Factory finishes, add tech lab to factory to hot swap with Starport

Banshee + Cloak -> Harass/scout(Do not lose, can be used to roam map to find forward pylons and additional harass)

Build CC in base immediately at 400 minerals after Banshee+Cloak is started

Raven after Banshee

Add Armory(+1 weapons), 3rd and 4th gas and additional Barracks after taking natural.

Add 3 additional starports after sweeping the base with your Raven+Marines

Push out/Expand after 9-10 banshees and +1 Ship weapons finishes



For this guide, I will illustrate two build orders I use and how to execute them. Both rely on getting an early, safe expansion up in order to afford the high costs of your army. I consider these more of two different openers that transition to the same thing, rather than a precise build. These are general layouts and shouldn't be followed exactly but adapted more for each in game situation.



Build Order Analysis

+ Show Spoiler +



WARNING: There's a lot of text in here. Some of the information is repeated in each section as well, as the builds end up transitioning very similarly as the midgame starts.



+ Show Spoiler [2 Rax Expand Analysis] +

We open with a 12/14 Barracks expand. My reasoning behind this is to establish a very safe expansion that can hold off early attacks with extra marine production and bunkers. Starport based armies are expensive, especially gaswise, so it's important to expand ASAP. The 12/14 opening can also apply pressure on greedy expands and in general, can throw the Protoss off a little bit. You want to be scouting for Chronoboost allocation and whether Protoss takes a second gas with your initial scout. Generally you won't glean much, but if you scout an early expand, you can cut corners in terms of bunkers and turret timings and get your tech rolling faster instead.



Look to kill the scouting probe if possible by scouting your nearby locations. Maynard 5-7 SCVs as your expand finishes. If you are bunkering heavily, do you best to create a FULL WALLOFF. Runbys really can hurt, and a bunker wall is very intimidating to try and pass. Get your gasses mining as soon as you can and get a Factory immediately at 100 gas. Create a turret ring that will block/snipe Observers and their predicted flight path when they try to get in. This can generally be done with 3 turrets on most maps. It's important to place your first turret at the natural choke as soon as you can, just in case of DTs (I've lost to DTs before because I turreted my main before my nat). Occasionally I'll get High Sec Auto Tracking to really deny the Observer. Well placed turrets are also great at stopping/delaying Warp Prism or Blink Stalker play, which is occasionally a response to bypassing the bunker wall at the natural.



I like to do a scan at around 6:10~6:20 in the Protoss main to get a good feel of what tech path they are choosing. You can generally figure out if they have expanded, are all-inning you or their current tech path with a good scan. Important things I've learned to look for are Robo timings and general production capability. If you don't sense an obs coming soon, you can delay your turrets. I scan the natural around 8-9 minutes later on to check on army size and composition. Usually the Protoss is in the dark as to my current tech path at this point in time, but will see I am turtling behind 3 bunkers.



I like to use my first banshee to do some delayed cloaked harass. Most Protoss don't expect this and you can force their army back home and sneak a few probe kills in. I usually hold position over the mineral line so my banshee isn't chasing any units. If possible, pick off stalkers to lower their count instead of probes. I've found that the less stalkers, the better. Do your best to conserve this banshee and use it to clear watchtowers and scout for pylons. Poke in and out when you can to keep Protoss on their toes.



At this time, you should be focusing on getting your Banshee production flowing out of 4 starports, as well as Air attack upgrades in the armory. You should be able to barely afford this gaswise on two base and start creating an excess of minerals. I usually add anywhere between 3-5 Barracks and expand once to three times depending how much my macro slips Once you get a larger number of banshees(usually 2 rounds), I choose between two options. I'll either move out with all my marines, banshees and Raven and try to kill my opponent straight up, or move out with only my banshees and Raven and try to poke his undefended locations.



The standard Protoss army at this time is usually Zealot heavy, with a handful of Stalkers/Sentries and either Colossus or Templar depending on the player. Your goal is to take out all the anti-air you can and to snipe observers. An undetected fleet is an unkillable fleet. If you win the initial engagement, aim to take out mining bases (Focus fire Nexus), sniping key tech structures (Cyber Core, Forges, Templar Archives) to delay proper responses and keep rallying in Banshees/Vikings as needed.



If the engagement is lost, salvage what Banshees you have left and try to defend. You can always reset an engagement if you can snipe all observers in the area, so make that a priority. It is very hard to come back if you lose a lot of Banshees early. Abuse banshee mobility as best as you can by flying to his bases and keeping the Protoss away from your base.



You should notice a huge amount of minerals in your bank throughout the midgame stage of the game. Use it to expand aggressively and to create a sizeable marine ball at home with mass Barracks. This marine ball can be another force used to roam the map to defend zealot harass and poke in other locations than your banshees to keep Protoss split/multitasking. I add on anywhere between 3-5 starports and a Fusion Core after expanding to my 3rd base or more. Focus on getting the gasses on your extra bases running quickly. I usually use PFs for my later expansion with a turret in the mineral line. Building Armor and High Sec Auto Tracking are good upgrades if you can afford them at this stage.



If you and the Protoss are even throughout the midgame, you want to create a sizable force of Banshees and Vikings as well as a Raven or two and start roaming the map, looking especially to pick off new expansions. Banshees are very good at sniping buildings quickly and escaping. The Raven and Viking support will stop any Air counter attacks, provide detection to snipe Obs and protect your army with PDD. 1-2 PDDs and a focus fire on the Nexus works quite well. Denial of additional resources for the Protoss with your Sky Terran while taking your own is your goal in the lategame. Max out and only engage in favorable situations, prioritizing picking apart the Protoss slowly through constant stabs in different locations. Storms and stalkers are still strong at any point in the game and your army is more fragile than I'd like.



Add BCs ONLY if the Protoss starts massing Phoenixs. BCs are excellent against Phoenix and also screw with the AI, which causes them to attack the BCs and not your banshees. Viking also mess with AI in the same way. Otherwise, Banshee and their mobility do much better against mass Stalker armies. BCs can't kite and will be focused down quickly. They are more of a tanky air unit than damage. Always be sure to know when and when you don't need more Vikings, you don't want too much supply to be taken up by them when you may need more Banshees to kill stalkers. We open with a 12/14 Barracks expand. My reasoning behind this is to establish a very safe expansion that can hold off early attacks with extra marine production and bunkers. Starport based armies are expensive, especially gaswise, so it's important to expand ASAP. The 12/14 opening can also apply pressure on greedy expands and in general, can throw the Protoss off a little bit. You want to be scouting for Chronoboost allocation and whether Protoss takes a second gas with your initial scout. Generally you won't glean much, but if you scout an early expand, you can cut corners in terms of bunkers and turret timings and get your tech rolling faster instead.Look to kill the scouting probe if possible by scouting your nearby locations. Maynard 5-7 SCVs as your expand finishes. If you are bunkering heavily, do you best to create a FULL WALLOFF. Runbys really can hurt, and a bunker wall is very intimidating to try and pass. Get your gasses mining as soon as you can and get a Factory immediately at 100 gas. Create a turret ring that will block/snipe Observers and their predicted flight path when they try to get in. This can generally be done with 3 turrets on most maps. It's important to place your first turret at the natural choke as soon as you can, just in case of DTs (I've lost to DTs before because I turreted my main before my nat). Occasionally I'll get High Sec Auto Tracking to really deny the Observer. Well placed turrets are also great at stopping/delaying Warp Prism or Blink Stalker play, which is occasionally a response to bypassing the bunker wall at the natural.I like to do a scan at around 6:10~6:20 in the Protoss main to get a good feel of what tech path they are choosing. You can generally figure out if they have expanded, are all-inning you or their current tech path with a good scan. Important things I've learned to look for are Robo timings and general production capability. If you don't sense an obs coming soon, you can delay your turrets. I scan the natural around 8-9 minutes later on to check on army size and composition. Usually the Protoss is in the dark as to my current tech path at this point in time, but will see I am turtling behind 3 bunkers.I like to use my first banshee to do some delayed cloaked harass. Most Protoss don't expect this and you can force their army back home and sneak a few probe kills in. I usually hold position over the mineral line so my banshee isn't chasing any units. If possible, pick off stalkers to lower their count instead of probes. I've found that the less stalkers, the better. Do your best to conserve this banshee and use it to clear watchtowers and scout for pylons. Poke in and out when you can to keep Protoss on their toes.At this time, you should be focusing on getting your Banshee production flowing out of 4 starports, as well as Air attack upgrades in the armory. You should be able to barely afford this gaswise on two base and start creating an excess of minerals. I usually add anywhere between 3-5 Barracks and expand once to three times depending how much my macro slipsOnce you get a larger number of banshees(usually 2 rounds), I choose between two options. I'll either move out with all my marines, banshees and Raven and try to kill my opponent straight up, or move out with only my banshees and Raven and try to poke his undefended locations.The standard Protoss army at this time is usually Zealot heavy, with a handful of Stalkers/Sentries and either Colossus or Templar depending on the player. Your goal is to take out all the anti-air you can and to snipe observers. An undetected fleet is an unkillable fleet. If you win the initial engagement, aim to take out mining bases (Focus fire Nexus), sniping key tech structures (Cyber Core, Forges, Templar Archives) to delay proper responses and keep rallying in Banshees/Vikings as needed.If the engagement is lost, salvage what Banshees you have left and try to defend. You can always reset an engagement if you can snipe all observers in the area, so make that a priority. It is very hard to come back if you lose a lot of Banshees early. Abuse banshee mobility as best as you can by flying to his bases and keeping the Protoss away from your base.You should notice a huge amount of minerals in your bank throughout the midgame stage of the game. Use it to expand aggressively and to create a sizeable marine ball at home with mass Barracks. This marine ball can be another force used to roam the map to defend zealot harass and poke in other locations than your banshees to keep Protoss split/multitasking. I add on anywhere between 3-5 starports and a Fusion Core after expanding to my 3rd base or more. Focus on getting the gasses on your extra bases running quickly. I usually use PFs for my later expansion with a turret in the mineral line. Building Armor and High Sec Auto Tracking are good upgrades if you can afford them at this stage.If you and the Protoss are even throughout the midgame, you want to create a sizable force of Banshees and Vikings as well as a Raven or two and start roaming the map, looking especially to pick off new expansions. Banshees are very good at sniping buildings quickly and escaping. The Raven and Viking support will stop any Air counter attacks, provide detection to snipe Obs and protect your army with PDD. 1-2 PDDs and a focus fire on the Nexus works quite well. Denial of additional resources for the Protoss with your Sky Terran while taking your own is your goal in the lategame. Max out and only engage in favorable situations, prioritizing picking apart the Protoss slowly through constant stabs in different locations. Storms and stalkers are still strong at any point in the game and your army is more fragile than I'd like.Add BCs ONLY if the Protoss starts massing Phoenixs. BCs are excellent against Phoenix and also screw with the AI, which causes them to attack the BCs and not your banshees. Viking also mess with AI in the same way. Otherwise, Banshee and their mobility do much better against mass Stalker armies. BCs can't kite and will be focused down quickly. They are more of a tanky air unit than damage. Always be sure to know when and when you don't need more Vikings, you don't want too much supply to be taken up by them when you may need more Banshees to kill stalkers.





+ Show Spoiler [Cloaked Banshee Expand] +

Nothing too flashy with this build, just a standard Cloaked Banshee expand. I like using this as an opener as it gets you the tech you need for your mid/lategame at an early stage of the game and allows a few faster timing attacks at the cost of less defense and delayed economy. It's nice that this build does look similar to 1-1-1 and sometimes forces Immortals as a response.



You want to be scouting for the same things as you normally would and look for any early timing attacks that might kill you while you tech. Keep your Cloakshee at home if you need to defend and add bunkers as needed.



I like to harass as much as possible with the Banshee but not at the cost of it's life. Aim to pick off stalkers over probes IF you know you can get a one or two (No detection any time soon). Do your best to get a full scout of the base as well and save the banshee to clear watchtowers and scout for forward pylons.



I get a Raven immediately after the first Banshee so that I can sweep my base for any observers and try and sneak the extra starports if I can. The earlier you can get the Raven out without dying, the better, as you get to start saving energy for those precious PDDs. Remember to continuously upgrade Ship weapons as the game progresses.



Repeated information from previous analysis, can skip if you read it

At this time, you should be focusing on getting your Banshee production flowing out of 4 starports, as well as Air attack upgrades in the armory. You should be able to barely afford this gaswise on two base and start creating an excess of minerals. I usually add anywhere between 3-5 Barracks and expand once to three times depending how much my macro slips Once you get a larger number of banshees(usually 2 rounds), I choose between two options. I'll either move out with all my marines, banshees and Raven and try to kill my opponent straight up, or move out with only my banshees and Raven and try to poke his undefended locations.



The standard Protoss army at this time is usually Zealot heavy, with a handful of Stalkers/Sentries and either Colossus or Templar depending on the player. Your goal is to take out all the anti-air you can and to snipe observers. An undetected fleet is an unkillable fleet. If you win the initial engagement, aim to take out mining bases (Focus fire Nexus), sniping key tech structures (Cyber Core, Forges, Templar Archives) to delay proper responses and keep rallying in Banshees/Vikings as needed.



If the engagement is lost, salvage what Banshees you have left and try to defend. You can always reset an engagement if you can snipe all observers in the area, so make that a priority. It is very hard to come back if you lose a lot of Banshees early. Abuse banshee mobility as best as you can by flying to his bases and keeping the Protoss away from your base.



You should notice a huge amount of minerals in your bank throughout the midgame stage of the game. Use it to expand aggressively and to create a sizeable marine ball at home with mass Barracks. This marine ball can be another force used to roam the map to defend zealot harass and poke in other locations than your banshees to keep Protoss split/multitasking. I add on anywhere between 3-5 starports and a Fusion Core after expanding to my 3rd base or more. Focus on getting the gasses on your extra bases running quickly. I usually use PFs for my later expansion with a turret in the mineral line. Building Armor and High Sec Auto Tracking are good upgrades if you can afford them at this stage.



If you and the Protoss are even throughout the midgame, you want to create a sizable force of Banshees and Vikings as well as a Raven or two and start roaming the map, looking especially to pick off new expansions. Banshees are very good at sniping buildings quickly and escaping. The Raven and Viking support will stop any Air counter attacks, provide detection to snipe Obs and protect your army with PDD. 1-2 PDDs and a focus fire on the Nexus works quite well. Denial of additional resources for the Protoss with your Sky Terran while taking your own is your goal in the lategame. Max out and only engage in favorable situations, prioritizing picking apart the Protoss slowly through constant stabs in different locations. Storms and stalkers are still strong at any point in the game and your army is more fragile than I'd like.



Add BCs ONLY if the Protoss starts massing Phoenixs. BCs are excellent against Phoenix and also screw with the AI, which causes them to attack the BCs and not your banshees. Viking also mess with AI in the same way. Otherwise, Banshee and their mobility do much better against mass Stalker armies. BCs can't kite and will be focused down quickly. They are more of a tanky air unit than damage. If you do get BCs, make sure you grab the Behemoth Reactor and Yamato Gun upgrades in that order. Ship Plating is extremely strong on them as well. Always be sure to know when and when you don't need more Vikings, you don't want too much supply to be taken up by them when you may need more Banshees to kill stalkers. Nothing too flashy with this build, just a standard Cloaked Banshee expand. I like using this as an opener as it gets you the tech you need for your mid/lategame at an early stage of the game and allows a few faster timing attacks at the cost of less defense and delayed economy. It's nice that this build does look similar to 1-1-1 and sometimes forces Immortals as a response.You want to be scouting for the same things as you normally would and look for any early timing attacks that might kill you while you tech. Keep your Cloakshee at home if you need to defend and add bunkers as needed.I like to harass as much as possible with the Banshee but not at the cost of it's life. Aim to pick off stalkers over probesyou know you can get a one or two (No detection any time soon). Do your best to get a full scout of the base as well and save the banshee to clear watchtowers and scout for forward pylons.I get a Raven immediately after the first Banshee so that I can sweep my base for any observers and try and sneak the extra starports if I can. The earlier you can get the Raven out without dying, the better, as you get to start saving energy for those precious PDDs. Remember to continuously upgrade Ship weapons as the game progresses.At this time, you should be focusing on getting your Banshee production flowing out of 4 starports, as well as Air attack upgrades in the armory. You should be able to barely afford this gaswise on two base and start creating an excess of minerals. I usually add anywhere between 3-5 Barracks and expand once to three times depending how much my macro slipsOnce you get a larger number of banshees(usually 2 rounds), I choose between two options. I'll either move out with all my marines, banshees and Raven and try to kill my opponent straight up, or move out with only my banshees and Raven and try to poke his undefended locations.The standard Protoss army at this time is usually Zealot heavy, with a handful of Stalkers/Sentries and either Colossus or Templar depending on the player. Your goal is to take out all the anti-air you can and to snipe observers. An undetected fleet is an unkillable fleet. If you win the initial engagement, aim to take out mining bases (Focus fire Nexus), sniping key tech structures (Cyber Core, Forges, Templar Archives) to delay proper responses and keep rallying in Banshees/Vikings as needed.If the engagement is lost, salvage what Banshees you have left and try to defend. You can always reset an engagement if you can snipe all observers in the area, so make that a priority. It is very hard to come back if you lose a lot of Banshees early. Abuse banshee mobility as best as you can by flying to his bases and keeping the Protoss away from your base.You should notice a huge amount of minerals in your bank throughout the midgame stage of the game. Use it to expand aggressively and to create a sizeable marine ball at home with mass Barracks. This marine ball can be another force used to roam the map to defend zealot harass and poke in other locations than your banshees to keep Protoss split/multitasking. I add on anywhere between 3-5 starports and a Fusion Core after expanding to my 3rd base or more. Focus on getting the gasses on your extra bases running quickly. I usually use PFs for my later expansion with a turret in the mineral line. Building Armor and High Sec Auto Tracking are good upgrades if you can afford them at this stage.If you and the Protoss are even throughout the midgame, you want to create a sizable force of Banshees and Vikings as well as a Raven or two and start roaming the map, looking especially to pick off new expansions. Banshees are very good at sniping buildings quickly and escaping. The Raven and Viking support will stop any Air counter attacks, provide detection to snipe Obs and protect your army with PDD. 1-2 PDDs and a focus fire on the Nexus works quite well. Denial of additional resources for the Protoss with your Sky Terran while taking your own is your goal in the lategame. Max out and only engage in favorable situations, prioritizing picking apart the Protoss slowly through constant stabs in different locations. Storms and stalkers are still strong at any point in the game and your army is more fragile than I'd like.Add BCs ONLY if the Protoss starts massing Phoenixs. BCs are excellent against Phoenix and also screw with the AI, which causes them to attack the BCs and not your banshees. Viking also mess with AI in the same way. Otherwise, Banshee and their mobility do much better against mass Stalker armies. BCs can't kite and will be focused down quickly. They are more of a tanky air unit than damage. If you do get BCs, make sure you grab the Behemoth Reactor and Yamato Gun upgrades in that order. Ship Plating is extremely strong on them as well. Always be sure to know when and when you don't need more Vikings, you don't want too much supply to be taken up by them when you may need more Banshees to kill stalkers.

In this section, I will explain how to execute each build order and the quirks to why they work. I will also go over when to attack, how to engage and other various scenarios as best as I can.WARNING: There's a lot of text in here. Some of the information is repeated in each section as well, as the builds end up transitioning very similarly as the midgame starts.



How to Engage

+ Show Spoiler +

Once you have your army and are ready to push, it is very important that you micro your army properly, because this army is not very easily replaceable, due to the high cost of the core of your army.



When you engage, you should already have a general idea of what kind of army composition you should be facing. If your scout denying went well, then you should be looking at a Colossi + Gateway army mixture. Otherwise, you may see Stargate units, fast Templar tech or heavy upgraded Blink Stalkers.



The general rule of thumb when engaging is to follow three simple steps:



1. Use PDDs from Raven

2. Use Marines/Vikings to snipe Observers/Scan as needed

3. Cloak Banshees and spread/micro as needed



When you push into the Protoss base, you should have capped out the energy in your Raven. This allows for two PDDs and really helps you shut down the AA of the Protoss.



By far the most important part of this push is to snipe the observer as fast as possible. No detection means you have free reign to kill whatever you want.



Against Colossi + Gateway

When facing Colossi + Gateway, be prepared to lose your entire ground army to the push, as the Protoss will have built an army for that purpose. Your banshees will automatically focus fire any stalkers or sentries in that army, and should easily clean up anything left behind. This is the ideal situation.



Against Stargate

When facing a Stargate composed army (Stalker/Zealot/Phoenix), it is important to note what is there and if you can win the fight. If the composition is Phoenix heavy, RUN AWAY. It is absolutely not worth it to trade your Banshees for killing the Protoss ground army. His army is much more easily replaceable. However, if you were able to take out the Observer, kill everything you can, but do not chase into the Protoss base. Pull back, get your Vikings/BCs out and push back in. If you can do some harass with a Banshee or two, go for it, but be careful venturing out until you gain Air superiority.



Against Templar Tech



Engaging against HTs is completely dependent on your storm dodging skills. Banshees have a nasty habit of stacking on each other when they engage, so you need to be very wary of storms on top of them. The best way to handle this is to split your banshees up as much as possible to mitigate storms and to kite away from the location of the templar. It takes 2 full storms to kill a banshee, so keep moving as much as you can to try and minimize damage. Those who are good at moving shots will be rewarded here.



Feedback should not be an issue simply because there are too many banshees to feedback. If the Protoss decides the feedback your banshees, then he sacrifices storms, which is much scarier to face in my opinion. Do note that any banshees hit by feedback are no longer cloaked and will most likely die. This is the tradeoff that the Protoss is looking at when they decide between storms and feedbacks. Feedbacks on your Raven are never good, of course. Feedback is also one of the reasons I do not use BCs unless against Phoenixes, as the damage is not negligible (especially if you have the +energy upgrade) and softens them up too much for Stalkers to kill.



-----



In general, try not to engage head on against Stalker heavy armies, but instead try to pick units and structures off here and there to cripple the Protoss until you can deal a death blow.



Counters:

+ Show Spoiler +

There are a few timing attacks I've encountered that have given me a few problems. These are attacks that usually hit before my 4 starports start producing units, or something that bypasses the bunker wall. I'll go through a few of the ones I have issues with and how I deal with it.



Blink Stalker Rush

This is usually done in lieu with an observer in order to blink into your base and skip the bunkers. I was able to stop this with good turret placement that sniped the observer and stopped the play from continuing. High Sec Auto Tracking can help if you scout this early. If the blink into your base is successful, good Stalker micro will probably kill you if your starports are not ready.



4 Gate Warp Prism

Same idea as the Blink Stalker rush. It is harder to stop the Warp Prism with your turrets, but easier to defend the drop with SCVs and marines, as you can micro vs non-blink stalkers and zealots. Be wary of the double pronged attack, which drops and warps units into your base while sending a wave of units to the attack your bunker wall, where you probably pulled marines from to deal with the units in your main. Try to pull only a few marines to defend inbase and enough to stop the push on the bunkers.



Sentry Bust

This type of attack focuses on forcefielding the back of your bunkers to prevent SCVs from repairing it and then busting them down in the time they are not being healed. I think I've died more to this than survived, but depending on size of the army and timing of the attack, you may be able to defend if you produced enough marines and can delay until your cloaked banshees kick in.



Fast Thermal Lance 1 Base Push

This one gets me every time T_T. The colossi can siege the bunkers from a distance, pick off SCVs and grant high ground vision to pick off turrets and allow warpins into the base. I think it's a build order loss in this scenario unless I adapt quickly when I scout it (Tanks?).



Proxy Void Ray/Zealot

Another tough one. Two Void Rays will hit while you have only a limited number of marines. Low ground pylon Zealot warp-ins into the main with Void Ray vision really tax your marine numbers and will kill you if you lose too many marines. If scouted, turrets on the edge of your base will stop Void Rays from entering. If you can't stop the push from happening, try to use SCVs to surround your marines, kill the zealots and then force the Void Rays out.





Replays:

+ Show Spoiler +

2 Rax FE Opener:

(The ideal execution)

(Long game vs Fast HT tech)

(Unscouted banshees, Protoss holds and goes Phoenix)

(Turtling to hide Banshees as long as possible, more ground units)



Cloaked Banshee Opener:

(Easy, straightforward win)

(Another easy win)

(Standard execution)

(Base trade happens)



Losses:

(vs CreatorPrime in Playhem, mass Phoenix)

(Loss to GM, upgraded stalkers)

(1 Base Colossus/WP elevator)

http://drop.sc/227839 (The ideal execution) http://drop.sc/227838 (Long game vs Fast HT tech) http://drop.sc/227840 (Unscouted banshees, Protoss holds and goes Phoenix) http://drop.sc/227843 (Turtling to hide Banshees as long as possible, more ground units) http://drop.sc/227846 (Easy, straightforward win) http://drop.sc/227844 (Another easy win) http://drop.sc/227847 (Standard execution) http://drop.sc/227845 (Base trade happens) http://drop.sc/232859 (vs CreatorPrime in Playhem, mass Phoenix) http://drop.sc/227842 (Loss to GM, upgraded stalkers) http://drop.sc/227841 (1 Base Colossus/WP elevator)



Conclusion/Discussion

+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: How was the quality of my guide?



[5] High quality, this guide is very detailed and would like to see more like it. (46)

60%



[4] Good quality, definitely a helpful guide for many, but could be cleaned up in a few ways. (16)

21%



[1] Low quality, wasn't helpful. Needs a lot of work. (9)

12%



[3] Decent guide, good insight, but leaves something to be desired (4)

5%



[2] Had some useful information, but not something I'd be interested in using (2)

3%



77 total votes (46)60%(16)21%(9)12%(4)5%(2)3%77 total votes Your vote: How was the quality of my guide? (Vote): [1] Low quality, wasn't helpful. Needs a lot of work.

(Vote): [2] Had some useful information, but not something I'd be interested in using

(Vote): [3] Decent guide, good insight, but leaves something to be desired

(Vote): [4] Good quality, definitely a helpful guide for many, but could be cleaned up in a few ways.

(Vote): [5] High quality, this guide is very detailed and would like to see more like it.





I also have a few discussion questions and general things I'd like to ask the community. I'd really appreciate if you guys partook/had some insight into these.

+ Show Spoiler [Questions] +

1. Once the midgame starts, I begin to accumulate a lot of minerals and have trouble spending them. Are there any other options to spend the money on something more useful? The mass barracks and expands are nice, but unupgraded marines aren't that great outside of early game. Any spots in the build I could squeeze in upgrades?



2. Are there any other ways to tech up to mass Starport production more quickly or safely? I like my openers, but everything has a weakness and I'm always looking to optimize the style more. I hope my overview of Sky Terran in TvP was helpful to you guys. I'd first like to poll you guys on the quality of my guide for future reference for other guides I have planned.I also have a few discussion questions and general things I'd like to ask the community. I'd really appreciate if you guys partook/had some insight into these.



For those of you who would like to reach me, my ingame ID is "Synystyr.193"

PMs are also welcome too!



This concludes my updated guide to playing Sky Terran in TvP. Thanks for reading and hope that the huge walls of text weren't too much to get through. Leave constructive criticism, questions or discussion in the comments and I'll answer as best I can. Hope to see more of this style of play take over the scene soon!! For those of you who would like to reach me, my ingame ID is "Synystyr.193"PMs are also welcome too!This concludes my updated guide to playing Sky Terran in TvP. Thanks for reading and hope that the huge walls of text weren't too much to get through. Leave constructive criticism, questions or discussion in the comments and I'll answer as best I can. Hope to see more of this style of play take over the scene soon!! Sky Terran TvP V2.0: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=355839