{"id":146,"date":"2013-02-25T00:17:58","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T08:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/starcraft.kevinleung.com\/?p=146"},"modified":"2013-04-06T13:25:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T20:25:35","slug":"hots-protoss-builds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/?p=146","title":{"rendered":"HotS Protoss Build Orders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(Update: check out <a href=\"http:\/\/starcraft.kevinleung.com\/?page_id=262\">my updated guide<\/a> for playing Protoss for the maintained version of this post)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I mentioned I was compiling a list of basic Heart of the Swarm (HotS) Protoss builds as a gift, and I think I have a decent set of them. They&#8217;re all safe, basic builds to explore how Protoss flows. They&#8217;re tested, but they aren&#8217;t completely optimized, so take this as a starting point for own play.\u00a0Feel free to critique as well: I&#8217;m happy to maintain and update this post.<\/p>\n<p>So the basic set of builds I think a Protoss player should have, from safest to riskiest, are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 15px;\">3 Gate Expand<\/span><\/li>\n<li>1 Gate Robo<\/li>\n<li>1 Gate Expand<\/li>\n<li>Blink Stalker<\/li>\n<li>Stargate<\/li>\n<li>Forge Fast Expand (FFE)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re unfamiliar with how build orders are usually written out, here&#8217;s a quick guide:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Unless noted otherwise, you should be building probes continuously<\/li>\n<li>The numbers before the unit\/building is what supply you should be at, not how many of those to build. For example, &#8220;9 Pylon&#8221; happens when you&#8217;re 9th probe is building, and it says &#8220;9\/10&#8221; in the upper right<\/li>\n<li>Earlier pylons are noted in the build. Later pylon timings are left off and should be built maybe 4ish supply before you are supply blocked<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with a standard Protoss opening that is the starting point for almost builds:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Standard Protoss Opening<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>9 Pylon (you won&#8217;t have enough minerals for your 10th probe immediately, but that&#8217;s okay)<\/li>\n<li>11 Chronoboost probes<\/li>\n<li>13 Chronoboost probes<\/li>\n<li>13 Gateway (scout around here)<\/li>\n<li>15 Assimilator (3 in gas)<\/li>\n<li>16 Pylon<\/li>\n<li>17 Cybernetics Core<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>From here, you can go 3 Gate, 4 Gate, Robo, etc. For example, your 3 Gate expand is the standard safe build, where you start with 3 Gateways, then take your natural expansion.\u00a0This is maybe more useful for PvP, but in my mind, it&#8217;s strictly for team games. Everyone is obsessed with 6-7 minute attacks, so this should get you in a good spot to be ready for that, but also to set you up for the mid game.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>3 Gate Expand<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standard opening<\/li>\n<li>18 Zealot<\/li>\n<li>21 Assimilator (you don&#8217;t have to put 6 probes in gas yet; use your judgment)<\/li>\n<li>23 Warpgate<\/li>\n<li>23 Stalker (Chronoboost)<\/li>\n<li>26 Mothership Core<\/li>\n<li>30 Stalker<\/li>\n<li>31 Gateway Gateway<\/li>\n<li>37ish Nexus<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For the 1 Gate Robo, you can build the Robotics Facility just before the Mothership Core (MsC). The MsC builds quickly, especially with a Chronoboost. This build may be outdated because the Observer for scouting can be replaced with the MsC and free hallucinations, but the build is still useful in PvP against Blink Stalkers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1 Gate Robo<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standard opening<\/li>\n<li>18 Zealot<\/li>\n<li>21 Assimilator<\/li>\n<li>22 Warpgate<\/li>\n<li>22 Stalker (Chronoboost)<\/li>\n<li>26 Robotics Facility<\/li>\n<li>28 Mothership Core<\/li>\n<li>either another 2 Gateways or a Nexus, depending on the scout<\/li>\n<li>5:20ish Observer when the Robo is done<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The 1 Gate Expand is from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itsgosu.com\/game\/sc2\/articles\/perfect-s-hots-pvt-guide-1_851\">itsgosu<\/a>\u00a0and is used in PvT (and PvZ if you don&#8217;t want to FFE). You <em>can<\/em> 1 Gate Expand out of the same opening as the 3 Gate expand (up to the Msc), but the optimizations here are valuable and demonstrate how to refine a build. Note the very aggressive poke with the first 3 units: it&#8217;s a little odd but possibly valuable.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1 Gate Expand<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standard opening<\/li>\n<li>18 Zealot (rallied to enemy)<\/li>\n<li>22 Stalker (Chronoboost)<\/li>\n<li>Mothership Core<\/li>\n<li>4:20 Nexus<\/li>\n<li>Warpgate<\/li>\n<li>Second Assimilator<\/li>\n<li>Follow the guide (either air or Zealot\/Archon)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Now things start to get real. The Blink Stalker and Stargate openings are both 1 base openings and mainly used in PvP. Admittedly, neither of these builds are perfectly optimized, but I wrote them up to be safe and easy. The Blink Stalker build starts out with a 3 Stalker rush and should get you ready for a 8-8:30 attack.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>PvP Blink Stalker<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standard opening<\/li>\n<li>18 Assimilator (3 in gas)<\/li>\n<li>20 Gateway, Stalker, Warpgate<\/li>\n<li>25 Mothership Core<\/li>\n<li>26 Stalker Stalker (pressure with the Stalkers and MsC. Halt probe production around here if you&#8217;re all-in)<\/li>\n<li>30 Twilight Council, Stalker Stalker<\/li>\n<li>34 Gateway<\/li>\n<li>37 Blink<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Remember when I said that these builds would be easy? Well, the Stargate build is identical, except you get a Stargate instead of a Twilight Council. From that, you can go into either Phoenix or Oracle. Either way, you can do it off of 1 Stargate and just chronoboost the units out.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>PvP Stargate<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standard opening<\/li>\n<li>18 Assimilator (3 in gas)<\/li>\n<li>20 Gateway, Stalker,\u00a0Warpgate<\/li>\n<li>25 Mothership Core<\/li>\n<li>26 Stalker Stalker (you can cut these for an earlier Stargate, too)<\/li>\n<li>30 Stargate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Finally, a Forge Fast Expand (FFE). This is exclusively for PvZ. To see how it works, I recommend you <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/P3w61sIdFjs?t=8m21s\">watch Apollo<\/a> work through a FFE. Really, the only twist with HotS is that the MsC is an amazing defensive unit, so you should get that ASAP if youp&#8217;re worried about all-ins. (for a more efficient take on this build, see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/allthingsprotoss\/comments\/1a9rx8\/hots_protoss_build_orders\/c8vkekz\">Gemini_19&#8217;s comment<\/a>)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Forge Fast Expand<span style=\"line-height: 15px;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>9 Pylon at the low ground (after building, send the Probe to scout, then leave at natural to watch for an expo)<\/li>\n<li>11 Chronoboost<\/li>\n<li>13 Chronoboost<\/li>\n<li>14 Forge (wall)<\/li>\n<li>16 Nexus (halt probe production here)<\/li>\n<li>16 Cannon<\/li>\n<li>16 Gateway (wall; finish the wall with a probe on hold position)<\/li>\n<li>17 Pylon<\/li>\n<li>19 Assimilator, Assimilator<\/li>\n<li>20 Cybernetics Core, Zealot (Zealot first if you&#8217;re really scared)<\/li>\n<li>28 Mothership Core, Stalker, Warp Gate (when Core completes)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So overall, things should feel very similar to WoL, where we&#8217;re just tacking the MsC on after Warpgate and Stalker. Hopefully, this is a good starting point for your own builds, which you can optimize and refine to your own playstyle.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I&#8217;m open to any feedback you have. Since this is targeted to newer players, I&#8217;m also happy to give more details about the motivations and goals of various builds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Update: check out my updated guide for playing Protoss for the maintained version of this post) I mentioned I was compiling a list of basic Heart of the Swarm (HotS) Protoss builds as a gift, and I think I have &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/?p=146\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-build-orders","category-protoss","tag-generalbuild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.spawningtool.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}