Alright right up my alley. I am currently 900 diamond with my weakest matchup versus terran.
Second scenario seems to be the worst thing for terrans to deal with. The answer lies in marine, marauder, medivac, tank, and thors. Marines in front tanks decent amount behind. When he engages starting running back and let tanks clean banes. Here is a brood war video that I always think of when someone asks how to use tanks properly. (start at 20 seconds). It requires some practice but midgame tactics should.
I see people complaining about terran being imbalanced. I seriously don't have that feeling as a terran. I was shocked by the answers from zergs when I asked them what to do. Five zergs answered (no joke, seriously): "go 5 rax reaper, that's your only option". I don't go 5 rax reaper because it feels like cheating to me. Some zergs answered "harass me more". I wonder with what I can harass? Against good zergs a fast helion rush does not work. They will always cover their ramp with queens / roaches. Banshees feel very weak for me against a zerg. Whet else can I do?
Terran isn't imba in the midgame. This mutaling + bane is really strong against almost all compositions. T is considered imba because the number of early game options every single terran abuses. If I prepare for them all I am behind in the midgame. If I don't prepare for the right one, I die outright. If my overlord/zergling scouting doesn't get me any important intel, I guess and pray.
This is how every single terran operates. Early game choose aggressive opener (preigniter hellion drop, cloak banshee, marauder hellion, etc.) 3 options from there. Win, gain advantage, or come out even. If Terran does no damage, he basically comes out even. No joke. I don't understand how it happens, but it does.
90% of the time Terran wins or gets a decent advantage because there is just too much for me to prepare for. Terran proceeds to ride advantage out and a-move through my army. I can't get the baneling numbers needed to wipe the bio so my mutalisks can't clean up the mech portion. If zerg comes out even, then it becomes the mutaling bane versus biomech you are talking about. If you micro well, you can win.
15 drones = 15 larva + 750 minerals .... hmmmmm losing drones because of harass is HHHHMMMMMMMMM ...
So you admit you were wrong and 25 workers + mule does not equal 40 drones. Thanks.
On August 28 2010 05:48 kNyTTyM wrote: This is how every single terran operates. Early game choose aggressive opener (preigniter hellion drop, cloak banshee, marauder hellion, etc.) 3 options from there. Win, gain advantage, or come out even. If Terran does no damage, he basically comes out even.
Yes I essentially agree with this. Even if you don't do what feels like damage, you've forced the Zerg into making units equal to yours which allows you to enter the mid-game even.
I mean I've played no beta and under 150 games, but I always find ravens like 5-10 ravens with upgrades to throw down turrets, PDD, or HSMs is just heaven. It's a bit hard to locate sometimes, but it sure makes mutas a bit easier for me
I'm like maybe 550-600 diamond? just sayin, ravens are the sci vessle of SC2, and what'd you do in BW? marine medic tank sci vessle. just sayin
- Harass earlier. If you're waiting for multiple thors and siege tanks, you're waiting too long. You want to hit shortly after his lair completes if he rushed it, before tier 2 tech kicks in. This is around 7-8 minutes gametime. For reference, if you rushed a banshee, it would spawn around 6:25 gametime. - You can delay your expansion in favor of harass. You'll be on much more even footing if you do, imo.
- stop building thors. They suck against smart opponents, take way too much time and resources to build, and move way too slowly. Once I did this my TvZ improved dramatically. - if he's massing mutas, get a few vikings and use your marines as a safe-zone from which you can hit and run. Otherwise use those vikings for overlord harass.
- the best midgame harass is a group of ignitor hellions. You can fry a ton of drones and it's very difficult for zerg to defend 3+ bases. Plus it only costs you minerals, which you will have in excess. They're also great at killing stockpiled larvae.
- build sensor towers. They are a free maphack and they deter the zerg from entering the covered areas. Be careful since I don't think they detect burrowed units
If you are losing to mass ling then you need to be harassing more with your upgraded hellions. You need to lower zerg's ling (and baneling, if possible) count before the battle comes. If his mutas are on the field this will be more difficult, but you'll also be free of harass by those mutas, which make macroing and positioning your units easier. If he is flying around your base, move your thor/marine whatever around your base to follow them, and then send out your hellions and kill lings. If he hides his lings behind his sunks, then great those lings aren't a threat to you until they move out, and if you're scouting/harassing properly you will see when they move out and can prepare your army accordingly. Sieged tanks are good against lings and banelings, so have atleast a few of those here and there. You don't need a shitload of tank/hellion, I'm usually ok with 3fact, producing tanks and hellions alternatively as necessary. Try to somewhat unclump your units before the fight happens, to minimize fungal effect. The problem isn't banelings, the problem is the fungal which prevents you from avoiding banelings. Or, the problem is ling count, which harassing with hellions (I'm talking about midgame/lategame here, not early game shit) alleviates. If he doesn't fungal your entire army, you can run away from lings preventing their surround, and from banelings minimizing their splash. The longer they're chasing you, the more times your tanks get free kills. Also, control-click a marine and run all of your marines away while your maurauders are still shooting. Banelings do dick against maurauders, and even if all of your maurauders die, that's ok if most of your marines survive. Marines are great vs zerg. They're only not great if they're fungaled and hit clumped by banelings. As long as you have a decent medic count, your marine army can fight almost anything zerg has if he's already exhausted his fungal energy and is out of banelings. Also, if a battle is coming up, try dropping zerg's expo just before it or during it. If he removes nothing from his army, your drop should do terrible, terrible damage. If he does, your army is better off. If zerg has no such expo to drop, you've already won. Feel free to drop his main or something instead though.
Oh, looking at your bo, you need more than 2 rax -_- You can support 2port (or a reactorport), 3fact, and 6rax easily on 2base, and still have money for depots/upgrades/expo as necessary.
At 550 Diamond, I 10 SD 11rax 12gas 13 rin/SD to complete wall and deny scouting, fusion reactor when the rin finishes factory with tech lab ASAP. and push with my first tank. normally by the first tank I've got 8-12 marines and can go setup shop outside their natural. which will be up by then. normally pinning the Z to 1 base while taking your Natural is enough of a lead to set you up nicely for the mid game.
Just get a bit more aggressive and you should be good.
On August 28 2010 06:01 Moja wrote:if he's massing mutas, get a few vikings and use your marines as a safe-zone from which you can hit and run. Otherwise use those vikings for overlord harass.
This is one thing that I never see people do enough. They think, oh, Vikings lose to Mutas so I shouldn't build them. But Vikings have so much standoff power. You can poke at the Mutaswarm for ages and as long as you're reasonably close to your Marines, they can't fight back. Also they are great for shooting Mutas that are trying to pick off your outlying base structures that are just out of range of your turrets. If they close to shoot at the Vikings, they must suffer the turret as well.
And if you can't manage any of that, you can at least shoot Overlords.
I'd like to see some replays of you losing to zerg I feel there's more to it than compositions
some hints that might help : build sensor towers, if you're going mech you should progress really really slowly and build a lot of turrets, depots and bunkers for map shaping
A main base has 8 mineral patchs + 2 gas. 4 mineral patches are 'close' and 4 are 'far'. The 'far' patches require 3 workers to fully saturate while the 'close' patches can be nearly optimally harvested with 2 workers. The gas requires 3 workers each. So a main base can be substantially saturated with 26 workers. Any workers beyond 26 will bring in very little additional resoruces. A MULE, however, ignores this saturation effect and allows you to exceed the maximum mining rate ahcievable with standard workers. In other words, 25 scvs + mule will actually mine MORE QUICKLY than 40 drones on a single base.
If the 40 drones are spread out on multiple bases, however, the 40 drones will do a little better than 25 scvs + mule. One an equal number of bases, however, Terran will always out-mine the other races.
lemme explain : You have to make reapers, with nitro, just make them a lot (5 rax is enough) , you will need apm above 60. Hit and run zerg with 1st reaper and add more till you get like 10 , if zerg is still alive proceed with expand or simply finish him with Maruder marine ball. Tada , you just won yoursefl a TvZ sir !
[QUOTE]On August 28 2010 05:54 Klive5ive wrote: [QUOTE]On August 28 2010 05:50 Ciddass wrote: [QUOTE]On August 28 2010 05:44 Klive5ive wrote: [QUOTE]On August 28 2010 05:41 Ciddass wrote: [QUOTE]On August 28 2010 05:37 Bloodyrock wrote: u can never ever out macro zerg[/QUOTE]
wrong
25 workers + mule = 40 drones
nerf 1base T play [/QUOTE] 15 workers ~ 40 * 15 = 600 minerals per minute. mule = 270 minerals hmmmmmm[/QUOTE] 15 drones = 15 larva + 750 minerals .... hmmmmm losing drones because of harass is HHHHMMMMMMMMM ...[/QUOTE] So you admit you were wrong and 25 workers + mule does not equal 40 drones. Thanks.
and now try to remember your last 500 TvZ you played. i am confident that in the first 10 minutes you killed with your openings about 2793 drones. sounds good. now try to remember the last time a Z killed a scv of you. mutalisk ? lucky bastard !
and now try to remember the last time you droped 4 mules simultaneously and had 1000 minerals in a matter of seconds.
A main base has 8 mineral patchs + 2 gas. 4 mineral patches are 'close' and 4 are 'far'. The 'far' patches require 3 workers to fully saturate while the 'close' patches can be nearly optimally harvested with 2 workers. The gas requires 3 workers each. So a main base can be substantially saturated with 26 workers. Any workers beyond 26 will bring in very little additional resoruces. A MULE, however, ignores this saturation effect and allows you to exceed the maximum mining rate ahcievable with standard workers. In other words, 25 scvs + mule will actually mine MORE QUICKLY than 40 drones on a single base.
If the 40 drones are spread out on multiple bases, however, the 40 drones will do a little better than 25 scvs + mule. One an equal number of bases, however, Terran will always out-mine the other races.
Anyone can copy-paste liquipedia. No zerg plays one base so your argument is totally invalid. You also failed further since 40 drones with 2 bases will do a lot better than 25 SCVs and a mule off one base, not just a little.
If the flanking of zerglings is becoming an issue you may want to try to abuse maps walls more? I find sometimes my practice partners will huge walls on their way to my base because it stops my lings from getting successful flanks.
As far as muta/thor splash, stim rines really destroy muta so perhaps just drop the thor as far as anti air and just use it to counter ground when necessary.
Perhaps cloaked ghosts to try to emp infestors? With a strong bio army that may be your only option.
As a 850-900 zerg player, some of the best Terrans I've played against keep switching harass techniques, in the beginning they go blue flame hellion, if I block my ramp they continue to harass the natural while teching to drop, then they drop hellions in my main while hitting my front. The Banshee harass can be effective simply because it's unorthodox as it's easier to react to as zerg having access to queens and overseers.
I've also played against a couple players who do no harass at all and instead turtle up and try to hide their army size, if you can do this they may underestimate and get stomped when you do push or overestimate in which case it's very hard to break a Terran defensively without taking massive losses.
Some good players also poke around with hellions and then roll out right in time for their +1 vehicle attack or armor timing attack. Their comp is usually a mech/bio combination of blue flame hellion/marauder/thor/few marines/scv's. With the +1 upgrade I usually completely underestimate the comp, countering with roach/ling/muta but normally I end up getting roasted.
On August 28 2010 04:58 IFA wrote: You could attempt harassing instead of just sitting in your base until the zerg is on 3 bases... Mutas isn't exactly the quickest unit to tech to, put some early pressure on with hellions.
against good zergs a fast helion rush does not work. They will always cover their ramp with queens / roaches.
On lower ranks it works like a charm, but a good zerg will always have roaches to block his ramp, always.
This statement doesn't make sense to me. Zerg players at a higher level are just blindly getting roaches and have nothing to defend at their natural? QXC said in an interview that he thought Xelnaga Caverns was auto-win for terran specifically because of hellion harass and the distance between main and natural. And if they're just blindly going for roaches then they're mutas are a lot slower. Zerg cannot build everything without sacrificing anything.
EPT
