• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 10:32
CET 16:32
KST 00:32
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
RSL Revival - 2025 Season Finals Preview8RSL Season 3 - Playoffs Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups C & D Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups A & B Preview2TL.net Map Contest #21: Winners12
Community News
Weekly Cups (Jan 5-11): Clem wins big offline, Trigger upsets4$21,000 Rongyi Cup Season 3 announced (Jan 22-Feb 7)15Weekly Cups (Dec 29-Jan 4): Protoss rolls, 2v2 returns7[BSL21] Non-Korean Championship - Starts Jan 103SC2 All-Star Invitational: Jan 17-1833
StarCraft 2
General
SC2 All-Star Invitational: Jan 17-18 Stellar Fest "01" Jersey Charity Auction Weekly Cups (Jan 5-11): Clem wins big offline, Trigger upsets When will we find out if there are more tournament SC2 Spotted on the EWC 2026 list?
Tourneys
OSC Season 13 World Championship SC2 AI Tournament 2026 Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament $21,000 Rongyi Cup Season 3 announced (Jan 22-Feb 7) $25,000 Streamerzone StarCraft Pro Series announced
Strategy
Simple Questions Simple Answers
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 508 Violent Night Mutation # 507 Well Trained Mutation # 506 Warp Zone Mutation # 505 Rise From Ashes
Brood War
General
[ASL21] Potential Map Candidates How Rain Became ProGamer in Just 3 Months BW General Discussion BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ A cwal.gg Extension - Easily keep track of anyone
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Small VOD Thread 2.0 [BSL21] Grand Finals - Sunday 21:00 CET [BSL21] Non-Korean Championship - Starts Jan 10
Strategy
Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2 Simple Questions, Simple Answers Game Theory for Starcraft Current Meta
Other Games
General Games
Awesome Games Done Quick 2026! Beyond All Reason Nintendo Switch Thread Mechabellum Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Vanilla Mini Mafia Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread US Politics Mega-thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Trading/Investing Thread
Fan Clubs
Innova Crysta on Hire
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
My 2025 Magic: The Gathering…
DARKING
Physical Exercise (HIIT) Bef…
TrAiDoS
Life Update and thoughts.
FuDDx
How do archons sleep?
8882
James Bond movies ranking - pa…
Topin
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1802 users

Simple Questions, Simple Answers - Page 281

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
Prev 1 279 280 281 282 283 485 Next
Forcewater
Profile Joined July 2011
United Kingdom206 Posts
October 27 2016 13:02 GMT
#5601
45678
"Reddit on the other hand has always just been a box full of retarded blind puppies licking and sniffing everything they come in contact with and leaving it moist and oily" - Gamegene
Sheridan
Profile Joined October 2016
60 Posts
October 28 2016 15:47 GMT
#5602
Not such a simple question and answer but I didn't want to make another thread. I just played TvP and tried out the FD build (it was very sloppy and I could use some tips still) for the 2nd time and things went pretty well. I kinda got cocky after I took out his main and I even knew that the only thing he could do to win is probably go DTs. I prepared everything by spamming turrets but he was still able to overrun me with mass zealots and DTs.

Could someone watch the replay and give me general tips on the BO and also what I could have done to better react to DTs with zealots? I am a bit embarrassed to have lost this game but it was really fun to try out the FD build. Appreciate the help.

http://bwreplays.com/5n80m
Forcewater
Profile Joined July 2011
United Kingdom206 Posts
October 28 2016 18:36 GMT
#5603
Your first supply depot was a little late, try to build things as soon as you have the money.

The build you did in this game wasn't an FD. FD stands for Fake Double, which means fake 2 factory, double command centre, and it describes an opening that gives you 6 marines and 1 tank, which you use to push across the map and lay mines to defend your expansion. When you do an FD you build both your barracks and gas on 11 - this results in your second supply depot starting after your factory. A 12 barracks 12 gas build (like yours) will let you get your second supply depot before the factory starts.

Your build was quite poorly optimised - your factory was quite late (again try to build it as soon as you have 100 gas) and there was a significant delay between the machine shop finishing and the tank starting. In addition the upgrade from the machine shop took a long time to start. Siege mode isn't a very strong aggressive option because your tanks can't move - typically you want to get siege mode as late as possible in this matchup. On top of that, your second factory will only be producing vultures which won't benefit from the siege mode upgrade. There was also no production from the second factory for a while.

Although your plan is to be aggressive with two factories, you've been continuously producing scvs. Think about how you plan for the game to turn out; you aren't banking on getting an advantage in an extended game, so investing in more units rather than scvs would be beneficial.

Because you got siege mode rather than mines, the vultures arriving at the fight aren't very useful. Usually with a 2 fac you want to move out with 3 tanks and then have upgraded vultures rallied to the fight because they reinforce much faster. We build vultures and marines primarily to take damage instead of the siege tanks; this lets our tanks attack and get into position. Instead, you used siege mode to push which is quite slow and not very powerful when you only have 3 tanks. Reinforcing with marines or tanks once we've already moved out won't help us very much since they'll take so long to get to the fight.

Killing the nexus is obviously good, but it would be a mistake to think the game is over. A quick count shows that he'd mined about 1000 minerals from the patches on the low ground, so the nexus had paid for itself and brought in a few more minerals. It's definitely a setback for protoss - if he'd defended the nexus then he would have won the game.

When he attacks in, he snipes most of your tanks; try to micro back the ones he's attacking and plant mines so he risks taking a lot of damage.

Investing in a 2nd barracks doesn't make much sense. Marines are weak units as it is vs protoss, but you have no tech or infrastructure to support them whereas you already have upgrades for your tanks and vultures. Mech is strongly recommended vs protoss. Investing further into your military at this point starts to become risky because you're neglecting your economy while you continue to mine out. Once you've already achieved a good position it's not so risky to build a command centre and the advantage you can gain from it is much larger than the advantage you'll get from continuing to pour money into units.

Despite this, you've pretty much won - try to use your vultures to kill off a lot of probes and plant mines around his production. Either way you're walking away with a very large advantage when you leave his base, however your play doesn't show a great deal of planning; you're getting marine upgrades from engineering bays, but nothing from the academy and you're also adding factories. Out of only 2 barracks, you aren't going to see great benefits from the upgrades since you won't have many marines, and your factory units won't have any upgrades even though you'll end up with more of them.

You went a bit overboard on turrets, spending about 500 minerals on excess defences. We much prefer to build units instead of defences because buildings can't move around and accomplish other things for us. If your opponent sees a lot of defences he can simply decide to not attack and then your resources have almost been wasted. Looking at it from this perspective, the extra nexus your opponent made was essentially free (and he didn't have that many units to attack with anyway).

Don't block your comsats!

When he attacks you have units off in the corner not really contributing anything; they could have helped to defend, or they could have been trying to kill some probes while protoss had most of his own units away from home. The reason you lost this fight was because you'd invested almost all of your resources since you expanded into tech: engineering bays, upgrades, factories, machine shops. You can really see the compound effect of your spending here - notice that your main has just about mined out. If you'd followed a more optimal path of spending, your expansion and factories would have been fast enough for you to have sufficient units now.

Regardless, you defended and your factories finished so now you have a lot of vultures. Your army is both much bigger than his, and higher tech; moving out was the right move, you were just too slow and you had a lot of units stuck in your base. Due to that third base, your opponent is economically ahead despite having fewer probes, therefore the onus is on you to do something about it quickly - if you don't, he'll draw too far ahead.

After killing his nexus you got a bit too eager and advanced all of your tanks. Your army was defeated and your opponent won by simply having tons more bases.

Moral of the story: Find an optimised build order done by a pro and copy that. Think about the opportunity cost of your investments. Don't build marines after the first 5 minutes.
"Reddit on the other hand has always just been a box full of retarded blind puppies licking and sniffing everything they come in contact with and leaving it moist and oily" - Gamegene
Highgamer
Profile Joined October 2015
1445 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-10-29 12:14:38
October 29 2016 09:21 GMT
#5604
On October 29 2016 00:47 Sheridan wrote:
Not such a simple question and answer but I didn't want to make another thread. I just played TvP and tried out the FD build (it was very sloppy and I could use some tips still) for the 2nd time and things went pretty well. I kinda got cocky after I took out his main and I even knew that the only thing he could do to win is probably go DTs. I prepared everything by spamming turrets but he was still able to overrun me with mass zealots and DTs.

Could someone watch the replay and give me general tips on the BO and also what I could have done to better react to DTs with zealots? I am a bit embarrassed to have lost this game but it was really fun to try out the FD build. Appreciate the help.

http://bwreplays.com/5n80m


As Forcewater mentioned, you didn't do the FD but some 2Factory-aggression.
The nice thing about the FD opening is that you have that little push (1 tank, 4-6 marines, 2-3 vultures with mines) that can push back whatever force Protoss normally has, which allows you to lay at least defensive mines, so that you can start your natural CC right away. It's also flexible enough to either pressure Protoss if he/she played greedy, or to just turn back with tank/marines and go scouting/harrassing with your vultures. There are several variations of the FD (11rax/11gas; 12rax/12gas; 11rax/12gas), for some of them you have to delay the depot a bit, stop SCV production for a second. Just watch some koreans on stream and chose what you prefer. Just make sure that you build everything perfectly on time, your execution of your opening has to be 100% on point, nothing is disturbing you at this point.
The siege-expand gives you that early siege-mode that keeps goons away, but you're boxed in into your natural and cannot scout with the vultures.
2 Factory openings can win you games quickly, but at the cost of a later expansion, so if Protoss can stop your push, he/she is generally ahead.

As for zealots and DTs, the combo is scary in an infighting - but tanks and vultures shouldn't ever have to be infighting zealots and DTs... A big enough group of vultures and a little control (patrol-micro) can kill that combo easily in the open field. Vast, spread out minefields work well, too.
Your problem was, that you didn't see it coming, and that you placed all your units in a clump in front of your natural CC. If for some reason you don't have enough vultures or time to kill the zealots/DTs in the open field, then build a wall or semi-wall, build a bunker for your marines, block and repair with SCVs, make sure that the zealots don't reach your tanks.
The DT is just the one unit in the game that could have staged a comeback like in your replay... and there's not even control needed for that... no unit can come from your factory that could do something like that, win you a game when the opponent is in your main with 10 units, shooting at your buildings... other calibers of players have lost in 'stupid' ways to DTs, just don't bother too much if you lose a game like that.


As for the later stages: in TvP you want to have only factory units (+ vessels and maybe dropships later on), so unless you go for a very specific bio-mech-timing (like Deep Six) don't even ponder about building more barracks or two engineering bays.
Your general idea - if you don't go all-in on two bases - is to take a 3rd, work on your upgrades, get starport and a few science-vessels. In 'normal' games you end up fighting against arbiters or templars and huge maxed-out Protoss armies, and you won't be able to just grab your stuff and attack, you'll have to create strong timings backed by a strong economy, two bases won't do for long like in this scrappy game.

Generally speaking, you just lack a lot of routine and experience, and thus the eye for detail as well as the broad picture, therefore you miss tactical and strategical chances a lot.
When you were in his main for the first time, you could just have sniped one pylon to unpower all the gates, could have killed all his probes at one point or another, and could have killed his red-HP-nexus before fleeing the DTs.
When you were in his natural for the second time, you should have scouted for more bases. You were incredibly fixiated on his main in this game. Always expect Protoss to take ninja-bases when behind, find them and send the appropriate amount/combination of units there to destroy them. Killing the main is a game ender if it works, but the main is also Protoss' strong spot so your attacks are likely to be costly or be repelled.
Always think ahead in terms of your bases/resources/income. You could have easily secured your 3rd and 4th base earlier in certain phases of the game. Expect that Protoss will send some zealots or DTs there to harrass, so always build 1-2 turrets, a wall if possible, and lay some mines in the direction where his units might come from.

One evergreen-advice is to work on your control, and that concerns every situation in the game, not only engagements... but this is an open-end-task. If you watch the korean pros, everything about their play is incredibly precise, effective, on point. Check out how exactly they do the FD-push for example, it's a precise choreography from the moment they move down the ramp, and they know exactly when they want to jump back to their base and build stuff. Always strife for that perfection over time and your control will improve immensely - and efficient control is the key to good micro/engagements and to (what looks like) multitasking.
Sheridan
Profile Joined October 2016
60 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-10-29 15:04:15
October 29 2016 14:35 GMT
#5605
On October 29 2016 03:36 Forcewater wrote:
Your first supply depot was a little late, try to build things as soon as you have the money.

The build you did in this game wasn't an FD. FD stands for Fake Double, which means fake 2 factory, double command centre, and it describes an opening that gives you 6 marines and 1 tank, which you use to push across the map and lay mines to defend your expansion. When you do an FD you build both your barracks and gas on 11 - this results in your second supply depot starting after your factory. A 12 barracks 12 gas build (like yours) will let you get your second supply depot before the factory starts.

Your build was quite poorly optimised - your factory was quite late (again try to build it as soon as you have 100 gas) and there was a significant delay between the machine shop finishing and the tank starting. In addition the upgrade from the machine shop took a long time to start. Siege mode isn't a very strong aggressive option because your tanks can't move - typically you want to get siege mode as late as possible in this matchup. On top of that, your second factory will only be producing vultures which won't benefit from the siege mode upgrade. There was also no production from the second factory for a while.

Although your plan is to be aggressive with two factories, you've been continuously producing scvs. Think about how you plan for the game to turn out; you aren't banking on getting an advantage in an extended game, so investing in more units rather than scvs would be beneficial.

Because you got siege mode rather than mines, the vultures arriving at the fight aren't very useful. Usually with a 2 fac you want to move out with 3 tanks and then have upgraded vultures rallied to the fight because they reinforce much faster. We build vultures and marines primarily to take damage instead of the siege tanks; this lets our tanks attack and get into position. Instead, you used siege mode to push which is quite slow and not very powerful when you only have 3 tanks. Reinforcing with marines or tanks once we've already moved out won't help us very much since they'll take so long to get to the fight.

Killing the nexus is obviously good, but it would be a mistake to think the game is over. A quick count shows that he'd mined about 1000 minerals from the patches on the low ground, so the nexus had paid for itself and brought in a few more minerals. It's definitely a setback for protoss - if he'd defended the nexus then he would have won the game.

When he attacks in, he snipes most of your tanks; try to micro back the ones he's attacking and plant mines so he risks taking a lot of damage.

Investing in a 2nd barracks doesn't make much sense. Marines are weak units as it is vs protoss, but you have no tech or infrastructure to support them whereas you already have upgrades for your tanks and vultures. Mech is strongly recommended vs protoss. Investing further into your military at this point starts to become risky because you're neglecting your economy while you continue to mine out. Once you've already achieved a good position it's not so risky to build a command centre and the advantage you can gain from it is much larger than the advantage you'll get from continuing to pour money into units.

Despite this, you've pretty much won - try to use your vultures to kill off a lot of probes and plant mines around his production. Either way you're walking away with a very large advantage when you leave his base, however your play doesn't show a great deal of planning; you're getting marine upgrades from engineering bays, but nothing from the academy and you're also adding factories. Out of only 2 barracks, you aren't going to see great benefits from the upgrades since you won't have many marines, and your factory units won't have any upgrades even though you'll end up with more of them.

You went a bit overboard on turrets, spending about 500 minerals on excess defences. We much prefer to build units instead of defences because buildings can't move around and accomplish other things for us. If your opponent sees a lot of defences he can simply decide to not attack and then your resources have almost been wasted. Looking at it from this perspective, the extra nexus your opponent made was essentially free (and he didn't have that many units to attack with anyway).

Don't block your comsats!

When he attacks you have units off in the corner not really contributing anything; they could have helped to defend, or they could have been trying to kill some probes while protoss had most of his own units away from home. The reason you lost this fight was because you'd invested almost all of your resources since you expanded into tech: engineering bays, upgrades, factories, machine shops. You can really see the compound effect of your spending here - notice that your main has just about mined out. If you'd followed a more optimal path of spending, your expansion and factories would have been fast enough for you to have sufficient units now.

Regardless, you defended and your factories finished so now you have a lot of vultures. Your army is both much bigger than his, and higher tech; moving out was the right move, you were just too slow and you had a lot of units stuck in your base. Due to that third base, your opponent is economically ahead despite having fewer probes, therefore the onus is on you to do something about it quickly - if you don't, he'll draw too far ahead.

After killing his nexus you got a bit too eager and advanced all of your tanks. Your army was defeated and your opponent won by simply having tons more bases.

Moral of the story: Find an optimised build order done by a pro and copy that. Think about the opportunity cost of your investments. Don't build marines after the first 5 minutes.


Holy shit, now I am glad I lost that game so that I could receive help like this. Thanks a million, it really kinda slapped me awake in terms of how flawed my actions were in light of the current situations. I won't ever make marines again after 5 minutes in a TvP, thanks to you. Not sure what I was thinking taking those ebay upgrades. Good thing you pointed it out.

1. For TvP, I should first get mines and then vulture speed? last is siege mode? I just found siege mode really good but I guess it's better to have better vults with tanks in attack mode rather than useless vults and siege mode.

2. How do I make a base DT drop safe? 2x turrets at each mineral line, 1x in the front nat, 1x near supply depots, and 1x near the factories? Or just 2x turrets in mineral line, 1x in nat, and a couple of vults with at least 2 scans ready?

@Highgamer

You read me like a book. If I ever feel like I can win, my heart rate goes up and I do fixate on just massing units and rallying them as quickly as possible to the enemy. I can't believe I didn't see the red nexus or the pylons that could have helped me so much. I should have also done what Forcewater said and used my vults to go for his probes or use them to find hidden expos. The sad thing is that I knew that DTs were the only thing that could take me out and yet I still defended poorly and made more marines instead of just massing fac units for the final killing blow. I underestimated how powerful mines are and if I just defended his DT and zealot attack, I am sure I could have countered and won. I really appreciate you telling me to not lose too much sleep over losing in this manner. Can't wait to try again.
B-royal
Profile Joined May 2015
Belgium1330 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-10-29 14:54:57
October 29 2016 14:53 GMT
#5606
How should I respond to a 11 nexus 11 forge (I believe this is the correct bo) when I open with overpool? It seems like on fighting spirit, my lings arrive ever so slightly before the cannon finishes, but he can just block with probes preventing me from doing any real damage if he has decent control.

So is it worth it to invest into 6 lings or should I just try to take advantage of the situation by going 3 drones straight away?

new BW-player (~E rank fish) twitch.tv/crispydrone || What plays 500 games a season but can't get better? => http://imgur.com/a/pLzf9 <= ||
Dante08
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
Singapore4139 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-10-29 16:36:20
October 29 2016 16:35 GMT
#5607
I'm no ZvP expert but I'll share my thoughts. I believe it depends entirely on the early game scouting. I assume he scouted you on the first try and saw you going overpool. In that case I think it's safe to go nexus forge and the cannons will be just in time.

So if you already see him building cannons, I would still make 2 lings so you can kill the scouting probe.

Hame
Profile Joined October 2016
3 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-10-30 08:57:59
October 30 2016 08:57 GMT
#5608
How many drones do you need to defend against 1-base allin in ZvP? How many drones must be on gases?

Like against two-base allin in ZvP i need 3 hatcheries, 42 drones, 10 of them on gases. Also i need some 1 tier tech, like roach warren or bainling nest. So what about defending 1-base allin?
Jealous
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
10260 Posts
October 30 2016 14:38 GMT
#5609
On October 30 2016 17:57 Hame wrote:
How many drones do you need to defend against 1-base allin in ZvP? How many drones must be on gases?

Like against two-base allin in ZvP i need 3 hatcheries, 42 drones, 10 of them on gases. Also i need some 1 tier tech, like roach warren or bainling nest. So what about defending 1-base allin?

Sorry bro, this is Brood War, not SC2. Check the SC2 subsection for their own SQ,SA.

On a side note, I was so perplexed when I was reading about holding a 2 base Protoss "all-in" as Zerg and needing 42! Drones haha.
"The right to vote is only the oar of the slaveship, I wanna be free." -- бум бум сучка!
Hame
Profile Joined October 2016
3 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-10-31 15:03:31
October 31 2016 15:03 GMT
#5610
On October 30 2016 17:57 Hame wrote:
How many drones do you need to defend against 1-base allin in ZvP? How many drones must be on gases?

Like against two-base allin in ZvP i need 3 hatcheries, 42 drones, 10 of them on gases. Also i need some 1 tier tech, like roach warren or bainling nest. So what about defending 1-base allin?

Sorry bro, this is Brood War, not SC2. Check the SC2 subsection for their own SQ,SA.

On a side note, I was so perplexed when I was reading about holding a 2 base Protoss "all-in" as Zerg and needing 42! Drones haha.


oops, thanks
Sheridan
Profile Joined October 2016
60 Posts
November 01 2016 07:47 GMT
#5611
I am terran.

1. 2 hatch muta, what should i do when i see/think my opponent is going 2 hatch muta? also does someone know the general time of when the 2 hatch muta attack hits?

2. Does 3 hatch muta hit at the 6 minute mark? time when 3 hatch muta hits?

3. In TvP, when toss does a gas steal, how should I react? scvs to kill it right away? Usually toss follows up with zealots.

4. 2 gate zealots or proxy gate zealots, I keep dying to this. how can I stop it as terran? Usually it takes time for me to chase the zealots around and they get goon range and pressure my front before i have tanks and or siege mode.
Cryoc
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany912 Posts
November 01 2016 18:47 GMT
#5612
1. 2 hatch muta hits around 6min your base and the standard response is to go 2 rax academy ebay and enough turrets to defend. Afterwards it depends on what how aggressive you want to be and what Z does but common is to either tech up immediately or to go up to 3-4 rax before teching.

2. Normal 3 hatch muta hits your base around 7min.

3. I usually kill the gas and then either siege expand with a bunker at the front + Show Spoiler [Last Nation War 3h20m20s] +
or go for a delayed FD with enough marines to take my natural. If you have good micro you can also go for 1 Rax Expand.

4. If you see a 2gate zealot opening (if you see 2 zealots instead of one early on you also know it is 2 gate), build a bunker between your mineral line and production facilities (which should be placed in a good anti-zealot simcity), so you can always shoot at the zealots without losing marines and getting your factory delayed too much. You should only build 1 vulture if you don't know if it is pure zealots and then go for tanks to be able to deal with possible dragoons.
http://www.twitch.tv/cryoc
Highgamer
Profile Joined October 2015
1445 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-11-01 21:25:06
November 01 2016 21:08 GMT
#5613
To expand a little bit on what Cryoc wrote (the thinking behind it, I feel like that could help):

1. Always remember that the more mutas Zerg builds and the more aggressive Zerg is, the less economy (workers) Zerg has on only 2 hatcheries. Your mindset should be something like: "If i survive with few losses for a few minutes, then the game is even or I'm ahead."
The most important thing is that you survive the first attack, don't let Zerg kill all your marines or force you to evacuate a mineral-line of yours. Build enough turrets a) in your mineral lines and b) close to your barracks. Start with at least 2 in each location and keep building more. Keep your marines close to the turrets, don't chase after the mutas into not-turret-protected ground until you have enough marine/medic to kill the mutas.
Often Zergs squeeze out some lings to run into your natural and snipe turrets while you're defending the mutas in the main. Scout for this and if it's the case (or just in case), build a bunker in the natural.
If you did OK, try to find out if Zerg is following through with full-aggression (mass ling+muta) or if something else is up (expo, lurker-transition). Don't move out blindly or too soon, don't lose your army in the open field if you can keep defending your stronger economy for a while longer, don't walk your army out and get countered without defenses at home.

3. Against the gas-steal, you have the options that Cryoc explained. I'd recommend you go for the siege-expo or delayed FD, with the following mindset: "Protoss just invested an extra 100 minerals super-early to create a timing for aggression before my tank is out. If I don't lose more than a few marines and an SCV or two until my tank is out, then the game is even."
As you see in the video Cryoc posted, you use the SCVs that would be mining gas to kill the assimilator, while chasing the probe away with your first marine(s), then build the refinery and get your factory asap. Keep building marines and micro them against the zealots (use the barrack-supply-wall and pull SCVs if needed, + Show Spoiler +
Flash always pulls 3-4 SCVs immediatelly against an early zealot if he has only 1-2 marines; denying the first zealot any marine-kills is crucial
). Get the bunker out in time against the goons and make sure the goons cannot just run past it (block with buildings or SCVs).

4. Especially the 2gate-zealot-strategy forces the "marine vs zealot"-battle on you that is incredibly stressful, and can only be won if you prepare for it from the moment you place your first depot (which is standard for seasoned players, but an enigma for beginners...). Especially proxied 2gate-zealots take games away even from pro-players if they're lazy.
It's all about good sim-city and good micro. Keeping every marine alive is crucial, their fire-power will add-up quickly if you have enough marines. The bunker cannot protect all your buildings even if they're well placed, you will have to attack the zealots with marines and then pull them back again to the bunker. Your goal is to get your factory up asap despite of the zealot-pressure, drive them out with the first vulture, and then hold your ramp against the goon follow-up, with bunker if you need.

edit: 3. and 4. are the typical bane for Terran beginners in TvP + Show Spoiler +
apart from everything else, lel
, they require spot-on preparation and control that can seem somewhat out of reach until you get the hang of it (relatively speaking, but that's just true, even if well seasoned players tell you it's easy to defend...).
Sheridan
Profile Joined October 2016
60 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-11-02 06:35:17
November 02 2016 05:06 GMT
#5614
Thank you highgamer and cyroc. So basically against 2 hatch i just prepare for mutas earlier and perhaps defend with more rax before going fac. Everything else is nearly same. Bit more defense and delay fac and tech.

I think ill put down 1 more rax and start turrets earlier when i see 2 hatch and delay my fac.


Haha yes highgamer you know my pain. Nearly every other tvp i get zealot harassed and once zeal is in my base its chaos. So 4 scvs attack each zealot? If 2 zeals 8 scvs? Also scv micro is weird to me. I attack move but many times they do nothing. They dont follow the zeal. Do i select 3 or 4 scvs and right click exactly on the zealot and just move my marine around? Also can one scv block my ramp? Or does it take 2?

Sorry for bad format i am on phone. You two have been tremendously helpful!

I will study the replay you gave cyroc

edit: thank you forcewater for showing me the wallins. I made a combined image for anyone else who might want

[image loading]
Highgamer
Profile Joined October 2015
1445 Posts
November 02 2016 08:20 GMT
#5615
On November 02 2016 14:06 Sheridan wrote:
So 4 scvs attack each zealot? If 2 zeals 8 scvs? Also scv micro is weird to me. I attack move but many times they do nothing. They dont follow the zeal. Do i select 3 or 4 scvs and right click exactly on the zealot and just move my marine around? Also can one scv block my ramp? Or does it take 2?



There are several ways and moves to deal with the zealots if you don't have a complete wall-in. In a real game it will always be a combination of all of these that wins.

The first thing is to expect the early-zealot, it comes somewhere between the first marine arriving on your ramp and the second marine popping, i think (depending on where the gate is placed). Expect that red dot appearing on the minimap or watch the ramp, if it's a zealot and not the probe, then pull back immediatelly, don't try to hold the ramp.

Use your barracks-depot wall to fire away at the zealot and then retreat through the gap the zealot cannot pass through.

Apart from that, you can move the marine that the zealot is chasing while the others are firing, but good Protoss players will switch the focussed marine constantly and without marine-range it's a hot dance oftentimes.

You don't want to zealot to kill neither marines nor delay your factory. The quicker your marine-count rises, the easier it gets to deal with the zealots, if you have 4 or more one zealot dies super quickly with a little micro.

Pulling SCVs against the first zealot especially is necessary as the rine-zealot-ratio is only 2-1, even against good micro the zealot can take shots forever. So you pull 3-4 SCVs, have them attack the zealot, while you a) micro your marines and b) send individual SCVs back to mine as soon as they get attacked by the zealot. The SCVs do as much dmg as a marine and can take more hits, so it's like having 5-6 marines vs 1 zealot if you do it right, a safe win.

Maybe you'll have to pull some SCVs again if the first zealot took hardly any damage, sometimes the marines are enough.

SCV-micro is an art of it's own as, like you mentioned, they're clumsy as hell. Always click on the zealot if you want them to attack. Another means is to move-command the SCVs between zealot and marines and then click on the zeal or stop the SCVs, they will block the zealot (and attack) while the marines can keep firing.

Best thing is to practice this against a friend a couple of times - and watch how Flash does it, he does it best.
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2303 Posts
November 03 2016 00:12 GMT
#5616
i'm stuck at b-, can't seem to beat B and higher players, general tips that may help me get past this rank?
StarCraft & Audax Italiano.
B-royal
Profile Joined May 2015
Belgium1330 Posts
November 03 2016 00:35 GMT
#5617
Improve on aspects with the biggest potential gains/influence on the outcome of the game.

1. Decision making (analyze replays and look at the cost and benefits of every attack based on the scouting information you had or should have had).
2. Analyze replays and try to identify your biggest issue: Is it maintaining a solid economy? Is it coordinating proper attacks? Is it harassing your enemies economy during macro games? Is it just pure control issues (inefficient hotkey set up, maybe wrong micro decisions (to give a zerg example, there is such a thing as overmicroing zerglings, making you lose out on dps))
3. Make a mental note of 1-3 things you want to change or do differently in a next game and actively focus on them.
new BW-player (~E rank fish) twitch.tv/crispydrone || What plays 500 games a season but can't get better? => http://imgur.com/a/pLzf9 <= ||
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2303 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-11-03 04:45:54
November 03 2016 04:44 GMT
#5618
my macro is pretty solid, so are my builds, the problem comes when playing with an adventage vs zerg, and super late game vs terran...

decision making and scouting seems to be my two biggest problems at the moment, will work on that. points 1 and 2 are pretty much what i was looking for, thanks for the advice.
StarCraft & Audax Italiano.
Sheridan
Profile Joined October 2016
60 Posts
November 03 2016 05:28 GMT
#5619
On November 02 2016 17:20 Highgamer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 02 2016 14:06 Sheridan wrote:
So 4 scvs attack each zealot? If 2 zeals 8 scvs? Also scv micro is weird to me. I attack move but many times they do nothing. They dont follow the zeal. Do i select 3 or 4 scvs and right click exactly on the zealot and just move my marine around? Also can one scv block my ramp? Or does it take 2?



There are several ways and moves to deal with the zealots if you don't have a complete wall-in. In a real game it will always be a combination of all of these that wins.

The first thing is to expect the early-zealot, it comes somewhere between the first marine arriving on your ramp and the second marine popping, i think (depending on where the gate is placed). Expect that red dot appearing on the minimap or watch the ramp, if it's a zealot and not the probe, then pull back immediatelly, don't try to hold the ramp.

Use your barracks-depot wall to fire away at the zealot and then retreat through the gap the zealot cannot pass through.

Apart from that, you can move the marine that the zealot is chasing while the others are firing, but good Protoss players will switch the focussed marine constantly and without marine-range it's a hot dance oftentimes.

You don't want to zealot to kill neither marines nor delay your factory. The quicker your marine-count rises, the easier it gets to deal with the zealots, if you have 4 or more one zealot dies super quickly with a little micro.

Pulling SCVs against the first zealot especially is necessary as the rine-zealot-ratio is only 2-1, even against good micro the zealot can take shots forever. So you pull 3-4 SCVs, have them attack the zealot, while you a) micro your marines and b) send individual SCVs back to mine as soon as they get attacked by the zealot. The SCVs do as much dmg as a marine and can take more hits, so it's like having 5-6 marines vs 1 zealot if you do it right, a safe win.

Maybe you'll have to pull some SCVs again if the first zealot took hardly any damage, sometimes the marines are enough.

SCV-micro is an art of it's own as, like you mentioned, they're clumsy as hell. Always click on the zealot if you want them to attack. Another means is to move-command the SCVs between zealot and marines and then click on the zeal or stop the SCVs, they will block the zealot (and attack) while the marines can keep firing.

Best thing is to practice this against a friend a couple of times - and watch how Flash does it, he does it best.


Thank you for the explanation on the art of scv-micro. That was a real treat. This is going to help my win% a lot since so many games have zealot rushes.
evilfatsh1t
Profile Joined October 2010
Australia8785 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-11-03 06:16:02
November 03 2016 06:15 GMT
#5620
On October 29 2016 23:53 B-royal wrote:
How should I respond to a 11 nexus 11 forge (I believe this is the correct bo) when I open with overpool? It seems like on fighting spirit, my lings arrive ever so slightly before the cannon finishes, but he can just block with probes preventing me from doing any real damage if he has decent control.

So is it worth it to invest into 6 lings or should I just try to take advantage of the situation by going 3 drones straight away?


the build isnt nexus -> forge
its forge -> nexus -> cannon -> (2nd cannon) -> gate
what pros do is they get 2 lings and 2 drones as most players dont die to ling runbys anymore. just continue to drone up after that, but depending on the situation (such as killing off scouting probe very early and denying the 2nd scouting probe), you could maybe do cheese runbys with ling speed etc.
if you want to play standard though, drone up and scout with lings/overlord for zealots leaving the base. when you see the first zealot move out follow it with your current lings while leaving overlord at toss nat entrance and make 2 lings at base. if the zealot continues to walk towards your base (passes the halfway mark), make your 3rd set of lings (giving you 6). if you see a 2nd zealot leave the base then make more. the reason you dont just make 6 lings in one go is toss typically doesnt expect to do a lot of damage with the initial zealots, they just want you to waste money on lings rather than droning
Prev 1 279 280 281 282 283 485 Next
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
OSC
12:00
Season 13 World Championship
YoungYakov vs BabymarineLIVE!
SKillous vs NightMare
WardiTV1244
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Lowko526
LamboSC2 149
BRAT_OK 77
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 31802
Shuttle 1933
Calm 1880
EffOrt 964
Soma 608
Larva 605
Stork 470
BeSt 343
firebathero 260
Rush 241
[ Show more ]
hero 185
Hyun 98
Mong 85
Barracks 71
Sea.KH 67
Leta 46
Yoon 35
Terrorterran 26
Free 21
ivOry 20
910 18
HiyA 17
GoRush 16
yabsab 14
Rock 13
scan(afreeca) 12
Bale 11
Sacsri 8
Shine 8
Dota 2
syndereN357
420jenkins114
Counter-Strike
fl0m1630
kennyS520
markeloff147
Other Games
B2W.Neo1270
Liquid`RaSZi959
DeMusliM426
crisheroes339
Happy300
KnowMe97
Liquid`VortiX86
QueenE85
Mew2King77
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick2367
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• Michael_bg 5
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos2999
• TFBlade1062
Upcoming Events
All-Star Invitational
10h 43m
INnoVation vs soO
Serral vs herO
Cure vs Solar
sOs vs Scarlett
Classic vs Clem
Reynor vs Maru
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
20h 28m
AI Arena Tournament
1d 4h
All-Star Invitational
1d 10h
MMA vs DongRaeGu
Rogue vs Oliveira
Sparkling Tuna Cup
1d 18h
OSC
1d 20h
Replay Cast
2 days
Wardi Open
2 days
Monday Night Weeklies
3 days
The PondCast
4 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-01-14
Big Gabe Cup #3
NA Kuram Kup

Ongoing

C-Race Season 1
IPSL Winter 2025-26
BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
CSL 2025 WINTER (S19)
OSC Championship Season 13
Underdog Cup #3
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
eXTREMESLAND 2025
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S1: W5
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
HSC XXVIII
Rongyi Cup S3
SC2 All-Star Inv. 2025
Nations Cup 2026
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League Season 23
ESL Pro League Season 23
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.