New player here, is a wall off pretty much always going to be a cyber core and 2 gateways? Or a cyber core, a gateway and a pylon? I know you always wall off vs zerg and try to wall off reapers vs terran too, but do you wall off vs terran too?
Do you always wall off your natural or sometimes your main base too?
Posted Sep 4, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC
Depends on how big the gap is. You can put your tech building (twilight, robo, stargate) in your wall to wall off slightly faster but it gives your opponent a much easier time seeing what you went for. Better to put a gate there and hide your tech in my opinion. There's a wall-off guide on the side bar learn them.
On the first question, a wall off doesnt need to consist only of gateways and cyber cores, but those have a lot more health than pylons, making them more resistant to baneling busts. To complete a baneling wall, put a stalker in the hole and complete a sheild battery in range of the stalker. It will take a huge amount of banelings to bust such a wall.
On the Terran question, it is actually a gamble to wall the natural against Terran with your first pylon. Usually your first pylon will go to wall the reaper jump or allow your gateway to wall it. PvT walls are intended to stop hellions later on so it can be safely delayed until after your adept scouts the terran base with a shade. The reason walling immediately is a gamble, is that you can die immediately to a proxy 2 rax marine play. If terran puts a bunker to complete your wall, you will not be able to stop him from killing all your low ground tech buildings and pylon. This will severely retard your production in the early game and you will be unable to defend the rush.
On the question about walling the main, this is done against Protoss and Random opponants. Against Protoss its needed to defend adept shades in the early game by blocking with a pylon or sheild battery. Against random its the safest bet against all three races to wall in the main because walling the low ground is too risky against terran and protoss cheese.
The buildings from which a wall off is constructed depend on your build. If you are going forge first it will contain a forge, for example. As you mentioned it is also matchup dependant. It is common to wall off your natural against zerg, and to partially wall off your main (with two gateways) versus protoss. Whether to wall your natural or your main against zerg depends on when they will attack you, a main wall works well against early ling pressure, but prevents you from making a natural wall for some time. Conversely a natural wall makes expanding easier, but is weak to early pressure. Building a wall against terran is generally counter productive, as most terran units are ranged so a wall simply impedes your own mobility, however walling off is helpful against hellions. Depending on the map you can sometimes wall off reapers, but doing this may leave your building exposed to a cyclone attack for example. So in summary it depends on the build you and your opponent are doing, if/where/what you wall off.
When would you ever wall off your main in PvZ? That'd mean you'd build your pylon on the high ground and doom yourself to being unable to hold your natural if they ling flood you in the early, early-mid game.
If you are meta gaming a 12 pool, or going for a one base build yourself, and don't plan on expanding anyway.