FrogBuildWeekly #7 PvT minimapvision mass observer (PvT Economic)

Description

Introduction

Like the previous week this build is inspired by a single learning outcome - finding an efficient way to learn to look at the minimap. And just like all previous weeks we continue the unit theme which will be the observer this time. Don’t expect your minimap vision to be great for the rest of time just by doing this for a week, but hopefully it will be improved and you will also get used to focusing on improving it, aka improve at improving it. The strategic idea is to have the opponent completely surrounded by observers and to have blink tech, using this any stray drops/harassment groups will be shut down completely in the middle of the map, and you are allowed to keep your main army in the middle of the map without any threats. This allows for some interesting army movements where you can find your opponent out of position and punish it, but also have a constant counter attack threat. I personally found this very fun to play. Because we cannot casually just add 6-7 observers in our opener without being punished for it the idea is to defend the first one or two waves of terran aggression before transitioning to it. You can do whatever opener you want here as long as it has blink stalker. My suggestion is using the hallucination opener from a previous week and using this observer style as the follow-up, so together these 2 guides will form a complete strategy. But there is not much synergy so if you would rather open with something else that is completely fine. Link to halluc opener: https://lotv.spawningtool.com/build/85654/

Build overview:

After defending a terran wave of aggression using blink and the strength of your choice (perhaps zealot or colossus) the follow-up will begin, which is what is discussed this week. Ideally you here already have 2 robos, but if you have 1 quickly start a second one. Chrono boost observers until you have 6-7 after which you want colossi. A single forge is recommended since this takes up a lot of gas, this forge is probably built in the earlier stages though. After you have some colossi add in a couple of disruptors if you can control it together with force fields. Expanding is better than usual for two reasons; you have complete vision of the opponents army movement which makes it much easier to defend spread out bases, and because your army is sitting midmap you have the option to counterattack/baserace which is much more efficient if you have more bases that the opponent has to kill. If you have 3 bases left when you killed 30 scvs you can simply recall, so this puts a very small timer on the terran to kill bases. For a visual explanation see vod. As usual minerals will be left over so chargelots will be part of your army. When I said you surround the oponent with observers I meant that literally, you want complete coverage around the opponent so that you can be certain that nothing gets out.

Key techniques

• Don’t reveal the fact that you have information about the opponent unnecessarily, for example if you see the opponent fly out a drop with an observer and you only have 2 stalkers nearby, don’t attack the medivac with them unless you can kill it because it will tell the opponent that you know where the medivac is. Likewise don’t go into medivac vision if you cannot kill it if it runs away, wait until you have enough stalkers to blink forwards the moment the medivac sees the stalkers and kill the medivac even if it tries to fly away. Also don’t position your main army too good unnecessarily because it will give your opponent a hint that you have an observer seeing their army, for example if they scan your army and they move out to the left (which an observer sees) and you instantly start running to the left then they get a huge hint that there is an observer on their army. Instead wait until the last moment and surprise their army in a weird location.

• Because you want an army sitting in the middle of the map you want strong “pushback” in your army; a retreat mechanic that allows a smaller army to retreat. Keep in mind that unless you have purely stalker zealot your army will be too slow to run from bio. However disruptors can force the opponent to either run back to lose a lot of units. Likewise colossi with sentries kiting backwards will never be overrun by liberators or bio (with proper micro). Try to plan ahead and visualise how you can run away.

VOD

Replay - FBOTF7 PvT mass obs

Build Order

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Analysis

Learning how to do it

• So the main focus is the minimap vision, if a big drop gets past the observers without you knowing you might simply lose the game if your army is in the middle of the map. The idea with minimap vision is to do it between tasks, and also even sometimes create habits to watch minimap during other tasks. So for example if you need to put 3 probes in gas you watch minimap then put 3 in gas then look at minimap while thinking of the next thing to do. The more often you look the better, try to never go 2-3 seconds without looking. Just by doing this you will become faster at reading the minimap and thinking about other things at the same time. The more high-level thing you can do is to mix in looking at minimap while doing tasks, for example when you build an assimilator (which does not require accuracy since you can click even beside the gas and it will suggest the location). I also do this sometimes while building gateways if the pylon has enough room to allow you to focus on something else at the same time. You can create these types of habits by forcing yourself to always do it, but if you just settle with making yourself look at the minimap often between tasks that can be good enough to get a big boost in that skill (as long as you have not already done that a lot in the past).

• Some of the “pushback” of the armies may require some theorycrafting on your part beforehand, how to position force fields? how do use disruptors? (the answer here is probably shooting just one at a time) And how to use blink stalkers? Should colossi be in the back or in the front? Should zealots be in the back or in the front? (If you’re relying on kiting back you want the colossi in the front and the zealots behind. Use force fields to keep colossi alive and in an emergency attack with zealots while kiting back colossi to keep colossu alive. This way you kill a bunch of terran units before the zealots enter the fight and because colossi walk over stuff and have huge range they can be kept alive in the later stages of the fight even if they took some damage early.)

• Being able to control spread out units is key, you cannot move your entire army to chase a drop, it should be in the middle of the map to do other things. Use the “counter attack” control group explained in previous weeks guides (see zealot mothership). This group should not be seen as strictly a counter attack group but rather a “units that are away from my main army”-group. Additionally use the trash control group if you need spread out units in even more locations, for example if you want 2 stalker to defend a base against a liberator that went to the corner of the map.

Build simplifications

• save nexus energy for recalls, this allows you to defend even if you missed something on the minimap, since army is midmap you can otherwise be in trouble.

• keep one observer close to the opponents army so you have more time to see a drop heading out.

• prepare your macro in a simple way so that you don’t have to think too much about what to build, most of the focus will be on watching minimap and abusing the opponents army movement. For example say that you build colossu/disruptor in equal numbers from 2 robos and make upgrades nonstop from 1 forge and then spend money on zealot/stalker while stopping around 75 probes. Build extra gateways to make it easier to spend money.

• If you struggle with staying alive against a push after having built 6-7 observers you can choose to only do this when you’re ahead, or wait until the lategame.

Potential improvements/additional difficult techniques

• Set up a prism for counterattacks.

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Details

• Created by: FightingFrog 
• Published on: Dec 23, 2018
• Modified on: Dec 28, 2018
• Patch: 4.7.1

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