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In my last blog I discussed my new tendency to 2-rax in all match-ups. I was never much for hellion openers TvZ anyway, so I had always either 2-rax pressured or 1-rax FE'd. Post-patch, it seemed like there was no reason to stop this trend. While the 2-rax was not directly affected, since the patch zergs have been playing much greedier, and a strong push early on is a great deal more effective. I'll begin by discussing the minutiae of the build.
This is not the standard gasless 2-rax, either 11/12 or 12/14. This is a barracks on 12, refinery around 14, and the second barracks comes down immediately after orbital. The first barracks builds one marine and then a reactor; the second immediately grabs a tech lab.
Here there is a decision point. My old plan was to mine exactly enough gas for combat shield, build marines three at a time while it researched, and then push when it finished. This has had some success against players who don't get gas immediately and rely on spines for defense. The marines can do what the hellions used to: push in, kill creep tumors and any slow lings who come to defend, and get out. The expansion in this case comes down at 5:10, about a minute and a half after a 1 rax FE.
My experience is this gets killed by an opponent with spellings (or roaches, but this is awfully early for roaches). But there is an alternative: leave two guys in gas, and instead of building marines out of the tech lab, build marauders. This helps against the roaches, of course, but more practically, marauders add a lot of strength against zerglings. Position the force against the wall, make sure the marauders are in front and on the outside, and push in. The marauders are largely just a bio wall for your marines to stand behind.
This push is considerably stronger. It should kill off the creep that has been spread by this point (which should be considerable, if he's Spanishiwa-ing like everyone is nowadays). When he brings out queens and lings to defend the creep, you should win the first fight. Banelings are potential trouble, but this is awfully early for banelings as well, and with marauders in your force and proper splitting, you should come out firmly on top.
If he has spines, though, you won't push in and kill him. You'll just take down one army, stick around to make sure the creep recedes, and then be on your way before he comes back to finish you off. This last part is where I have trouble; by the end of the first engagement my bio wall of marauders is nearly dead, and pure marine with no stim or engineering bay upgrades doesn't fare too well against a swarm of lingoes. I need the marines around long enough to make sure he doesn't get to keep that extensive creep spread. Unchecked, he'll have creep at my base by the time I'm trying to take a third.
Other problems: with the extra money spent on marauders, the expansion isn't coming down at 5:10 any more. It's probably not even coming down until the push moves out, i.e. somewhere in the 7 minute range. I don't think this constitutes an all-in, but it's definitely a commitment to one-base pressure.
In the midgame, your position is a little tough to describe. After the push, you should have a CC finished, orbital if you were able to keep track of your macro at home while pushing (I struggle here, too. Remember, i'm only platinum league), and you have 2 barracks with a head start on your marine upgrades. You could even start stim as the push moves out and have it close to done by the time you return home or get killed by speedlings. This transitions nicely into heavy bio play; I prefer to use my next gas on a bio +1 upgrade, then get the factory and starport, and add on the second engineering bay and armory when the second bio +1 upgrade is almost done. This gives a fairly quick 1-1 bio force with dropships.
The reason I've been favoring this build is because I feel a need to put pressure on the erg early game. The Spanishiwa styles I've been seeing would destroy hellion pressure. As a quick note, the main issue as I see it with hellion pressure is that the zerg can start a creep tumor chain before you get there. Then when you arrive the creep tumor pushes out and the queens defend. If you rush in with the hellions to snipe, they simply cancel the creep tumor and hit you with the queens until you leave. Repeat ad nauseum.
Hellion pressure was nice because it was noncommittal pressure. It was low cost because hellions can do well in small numbers; bio needs more significant numbers to trade well. An hellion pressure can transition cleanly into whatever it is you want to do; if you want to go bio heavy, just make 3 or 4 hellions and then plant a starport on that reactor. If you want to transition into mech, you've already got your first factory and several hellions out. If you want to take a quick third, the hellions will keep zerg back in his base and scout any attacks before they come.
But if hellion pressure is still useful, I don't know how to do it. And without that hellion pressure, we can either pressure with something else or give up the idea of pressuring and just try and match the zerg macro. And since I'd rather not have this turn into ZvP with a 200/200 zerg army out by the 12 or 13 minute mark, that means pressuring zerg is going to have to be a commitment from now on. I'm curious what pressure anyone else has come up with; surely someone from above plat has any number of builds better than my dumb little 2-rax.
  
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Getting an expo up 4 minutes late just to kill a few creep tumors doesn't sound like a good trade. 
My TvZ gameplan is to 1rax cc, but if I scout that the zerg hasn't taken gas after pool, instead of the cc I make 4 more rax. Against a Spanishiwa build, you can move out with 2 dozen marines and 20 scvs around 6:30, at which point he won't have even started zergling speed or a baneling nest. If you deny his scouting with a few marines, you'll show up at his base when he has 1-2 spines and a few queens for defense. It's a joke. If zergs are going to econ cheese you, cheese them back.
If they take their gas like a normal build, I'm perfectly happy to play a macro game.
http://drop.sc/179419 This was pre-patch against a reasonably high masters player.
http://drop.sc/179421 This was post-patch against a friend who did a weird build and kinda tricked me. Didn't help him much.
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I suspect the trade is not worth it, as you mention. I've been 2-raxing mostly to figure out how that build works and get a solid understanding of early game timings—how many units they can have, and when. Although its not just to kill creep tumors. The goal is to kill creep tumors. If he doesn't build defense, you just kill him. If he builds defense, then you kill off a significant chunk of army, and pull back when he tries to make more and finish you off.
If I 1rax cc, then I'm inclined to think the best next step is to build ~4 barracks and deny his third as long as possible. You have to put on pressure at some point, and I'd like to keep things down to 2 base if I can help it.
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On May 14 2012 14:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:
If zergs are going high econ against you, all-in them.
Fixed the quote to what I think are better expressions. Using cheese the way you did does not seem right to me.
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I don't see how this would allow you to deny zerg's third, he should have speedling/baneling in time, or at least speedlings, which rape marine/marauder when there is no medivacs.
imo reactor hellion is just the best opening by far. You aren't necessarily supposed to put pressure on zerg with the hellions, you just deny zerg from running a drone out to take his third. Killing creep tumors is a second goal too.
Blizz stated that they think hellions are a little too effective at killing creep, that's why they buffed queens (the original buff was 50 starting energy for queens), and that in general zerg is too susceptible to all-ins (this is probably more due to scouting though).
Running in 4-6 hellions into Zerg's base, imo, is never really worth it. Unless you kill at more than 10 drones, you lose more in army value than Z does in drones, and zerg takes a free third and spreads creep out, the exact reason you went reactor hellion in the first place.
I feel cc first into hellions and 1 rax fe into hellions aren't really great builds, because the hellions come so late that zerg can handle them with just speedlings, whereas reactor hellion can't be dealt with using just speedlings, at least, not without completely killing your economy. Anything but reactor hellion, banshees, or going double fact hellions (which is really only a mech opening) allows zerg to take a free third basically.
That's how I look at it, at least.
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In terms of openings designed to stop a third base, I think hellions do okay, but marauder hellion and banshee are the only things that seem reliable. At a certain point I think I'll have to just start assuming the third base, but in the mean time I want to find any and all ways to pressure the zerg into relatively low econ. The creep spread makes tank pushes significantly weaker. 3 tank push won't cut it, maybe 6 or 7 tanks could
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On May 14 2012 14:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:Getting an expo up 4 minutes late just to kill a few creep tumors doesn't sound like a good trade. My TvZ gameplan is to 1rax cc, but if I scout that the zerg hasn't taken gas after pool, instead of the cc I make 4 more rax. Against a Spanishiwa build, you can move out with 2 dozen marines and 20 scvs around 6:30, at which point he won't have even started zergling speed or a baneling nest. If you deny his scouting with a few marines, you'll show up at his base when he has 1-2 spines and a few queens for defense. It's a joke. If zergs are going to econ cheese you, cheese them back. If they take their gas like a normal build, I'm perfectly happy to play a macro game. http://drop.sc/179419 This was pre-patch against a reasonably high masters player. http://drop.sc/179421 This was post-patch against a friend who did a weird build and kinda tricked me. Didn't help him much.
Your words make sense to me and i am going to try this out on the ladder soon.
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I'm in diamond and have always did this build:
12/14 rax
Expand behind it:
Get one gas and add 2 more rax.
Get tech lab and combat shields.
Get factory and 2nd gas at 100 gas.
Push out as combat shields is about to finish and deny 3rd and pressure if he doesn't have banes or 3+ spines. Kill creep and go home otherwise. (as you play build more you get better feel of what to do).
IMPORTANT: send a few marines ahead to check for baneling bust. This is timing of baneling bust and you will die if you move out all clumped up as he sends in banes. If you are in base and spread you will hold easily.
Add starport and reactor on factory as it finishes.
Get 2 more gas at natural.
Get 3rd CC
Get stim.
Get 2 ebays.
Swap Starport and produce double medivacs.
Start tank production/seige mode.
Pressure/ take map control with 2 medivacs and stim marines and take 3rd (and gases). Add armory and factories and more rax.
Basically, this build keeps waves of pressure on the zerg to kill creep and prevent overly greedy play, you also trade armies consistently and hopefully favorably.
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EPT
