EPT[G] iEchoic's 1/1/2 Hellion Drop TvP - Page 20
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iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
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Sleight
2471 Posts
I would really appreciate you expounding upon the dynamics of a seemingly passive opening, by which I mean, you pre-emptively bunker, which suggests teching or something tricky. Also, without having a force at his front or moving around the map, why wouldn't his army be in close proximity to his mineral line? I know that from the time a flying vehicle appears on the minimap to when I can get my marines from ramp to mineral line, there is only a 5 second lag or so and Stalkers are markedly quicker. How do you approach this as baller-Terran? If they are prepared with a stalker force around their base, do you have any tips on ways to eek out some damage or do you just retreat and tech faster? Also, maybe I am just reading it incorrectly, but I can't see a clear 2nd Starport timing from your explanation. I would appreciate you explaining your mindset for building the 2nd Port. Lastly, with a perfect split and on time Depot and Rax, when you build a 13 Refinery, at 16 food you can either a) make a 2nd marine and delay your factory to about 110 gas or b) skip it and just make an scv so your Factory comes down right at 100 gas. If you are making nonstop Marines, why wouldn't you 14 Refinery which lets you continue pumping Marines without getting any extra gas buildup, meaning increased mineral count early, which seems to be most critical until the 2nd Starport goes down. What are your thoughts on this? | ||
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micjmac
42 Posts
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ForDarkness
Australia63 Posts
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GyaaChan
2 Posts
-I get rushed with stalker/immortal -- How do I really defend against that saying I rushed into hellion drop ship? | ||
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
GyaaChan, try to really get out your banshees fast and make a second bunker and be sure to hotkey some scvs for fast repair crew. It is definitely tough to handle a toss who is going for a fast stalker immortal push but I don't see that very often these days, almost always collosus or HTs. | ||
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nongosu
Canada25 Posts
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iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
First of all, I want to post a new variation to the strategy that is now viable since patch 1.1.2. It's a variation on the lategame composition that allows you to transition into a Thor/Marauder/Marine/Battlecruiser composition. Weird, right? Well, it turns out that after you expo, if you throw down a fusion core an an armory, and another rax with a reactor (and a tech lab on your factory), you've unlocked two very high-throughput units (the thor and the battlecruiser x2) from your factory and 2x starport. The advantages to this are: - Very high throughput of units from existing structures. With three new structures - the armory, fusion core, and one more barracks (the armory already gives you utility from upgrading units and unlocking infantry upgrades), you are able to liquidate up to 3 bases worth of income through your existing structures. This saves both worker build time and resources, as the alternative involves building 3-4 more raxes with addons and not using the factory. - The previous 'counter' to this composition, mass void rays, has been nerfed in 1.1.2 - HTs no longer counter thors - It's kick-ass. Seriously, how badass are thors are battlecruisers in the same mid-game composition? - The composition is very strong against any aoe-based protoss composition (templar, colossus), forcing your opponent out of his strongest lategame options. If people try this and like it, I'll edit into the OP. Let me know. Here's a replay: ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-160283.jpg) This is the first game I tried it and I basically improved it on the spot when the idea hit me, so the timings are a bit late. I could get BCs faster and do 1 less rax. On October 18 2010 10:07 Schmieds wrote: Nice guide, I've been using it to good effect. One question, though. Are mass stalkers a problem using this build? On October 23 2010 13:13 micjmac wrote: How do you handle a blink into your main to bypass the bunkers? There's two different kinds - blink stalkers and just mass stalkers. Blink stalkers are a bit tricky, and also a bit all-in if they rush it. There's basically two dynamics behind fast blink stalkers: a), you must hold it off or you die, and b) you win if you hold it off because they rushed blink at the expense of detection. If it comes later than a straight blink rush, it is usually late enough that your banshees can handle it. Usually, blinking in occurs at around the time my first set of banshees comes out. Basically, as soon as I see stalkers blink in, I pull all my SCVs off the line, all my marines and banshees join the fight. I research cloak ASAP. Usually I can fight it off with relatively minimal losses (usually no more than 5-6 SCVs). I also usually hit a goldmine with my hellion drop seeing as they're near my base preparing to blink in. If you can do an all-in defense and hold it off into cloak, you're usually okay. Mass stalkers w/o blink just require you to have advance warning and being ready to repair before they start hitting your bunker. On October 18 2010 21:11 NathanNever wrote: Hi, Gz for your guide. It's very nice.  I'd like to see a replay in wich you use the ghosts vs templar army. Thank you. Sure thing. ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-160285.jpg) On October 23 2010 04:54 MarshalClaw wrote: Hi iEchoic... How would this build do if the P player started out by stealing both of your gas (then went with mass blinkers or did a quick warp prism zealot drop in your main (and continued to warp in new units)? Thanks. -MarshalClaw You'd definitely have to change your build. Personally I would just 5rax marine all-in him and collect my win. You can also 1rax no-gas FE. Okay, a lot of good questions here: On October 23 2010 08:26 Sleight wrote: Dear iEchoic, I would really appreciate you expounding upon the dynamics of a seemingly passive opening, by which I mean, you pre-emptively bunker, which suggests teching or something tricky. Also, without having a force at his front or moving around the map, why wouldn't his army be in close proximity to his mineral line? Lately I have been doing what I can to deny scouting of my bunker. My first marine I'll send outside to kill probes before they can see it. After that, most people won't stalker poke because it's basically death if you open concussive. A good amount of the time, you won't get your bunker scouted at all. But let's say he does do a stalker poke and sees it, and then assumes the worst and camps his army in his mineral line. When you drop and see this, you won't do much damage, and you should immediately run back and load into your medivac. But you can still exploit it. He's handing you map control, and now your hellions can act like a zergling backstab. Seeing as his entire army is inside his mineral line, you're free to take all the xel'nagas on the map. As soon as he moves out, drop him. There are still advantages you gain from your opponent sitting in his base and handing you map control. I know that from the time a flying vehicle appears on the minimap to when I can get my marines from ramp to mineral line, there is only a 5 second lag or so and Stalkers are markedly quicker. How do you approach this as baller-Terran? If they are prepared with a stalker force around their base, do you have any tips on ways to eek out some damage or do you just retreat and tech faster? Ideally, they shouldn't be able to scout your medivac. I always try to find an open spot on the ridges of their base and drop my hellions there and then run them in. However, there's some protoss players who line the side of their base with pylons (especially when they play me and know what I'm going to do). This makes your drop harder, but it interestingly also screws them in another way. Lining pylons along the sides of your base is just asking for all of them to die to your initial banshees. You can roll to the outside, kill the pylons, and they can't really do anything about it. Once you get 4 banshees, if they try to attack you with stalkers, you can move to the edge of their range and focus down the stalkers. 2 volleys = a dead stalker. One volley = dead sentry. If your hellion drop goes bad you can always pull back and hide it for a backstab or another drop later. Check out my replay against SungPa above and you can see that he does a good job of scouting for my drop and keeps most of his army near his minerals (he must know what I do) and I am able to exploit it with banshees on the ridges and another surprise drop. Also, maybe I am just reading it incorrectly, but I can't see a clear 2nd Starport timing from your explanation. I would appreciate you explaining your mindset for building the 2nd Port. My 2nd port always comes after I queue up my 3rd hellion and my medivac, while they are still building. Lastly, with a perfect split and on time Depot and Rax, when you build a 13 Refinery, at 16 food you can either a) make a 2nd marine and delay your factory to about 110 gas or b) skip it and just make an scv so your Factory comes down right at 100 gas. If you are making nonstop Marines, why wouldn't you 14 Refinery which lets you continue pumping Marines without getting any extra gas buildup, meaning increased mineral count early, which seems to be most critical until the 2nd Starport goes down. What are your thoughts on this? I always favor SCVs and then build structures and then units, in that priority when there's tension between SCVs and any other unit. I do think it's small enough that it won't change the outcome of 99% of games, but just in principle I always think it's good to have the mentality of "as long as I'm constantly producing, my opponent cannot outmacro me, and I can increase that advantage through harass". It's personal preference really. On October 23 2010 17:01 ForDarkness wrote: hi echoic. im your fanboy. =) when u gonna give me another beat down yo :D On October 23 2010 01:31 enigmaticcam wrote: Hello! Brand new gold player here! First I want to say thanks to iEchoic for posting this awesome build. I'm new to StarCraft, and this is my first build that I practiced. I played it over and over against the comp AI, refining it so I could perform it smoothly. And for a while when I first started out, I would use it against all three races, simply because it was so effective at my level. I have a replay I was hoping to get some help on. I actually posted this replay in another help thread, but I figured I could post it here too so the experts on this build can see it. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/94294-1v1-terran-protoss-scrap-station I basically was overwhelmed with stalkers. My Hellion drop seemed like it killed enough probes, but I couldn't deal with all his stalkers, and missed his warp prism drop in my line. Not sure how I could've done better. Any help would be greatly appreciated! You executed the build really well, so nice job there. These games are a bummer because you really had the win at your fingertips and just a few mistakes caused you to lose it. I think the biggest, game-losing mistake was getting overeager and attacking head-on once you fought off the first push. If you think about it, you had 4 banshees which composed almost your entire army, and then a few marines. It wasn't enough to beat him at that point in the game. You could have directly flown over with your banshees, done some harassment, and had about the same force, all while scouting him and doing some nice damage. If you think about it, you let your few marines fool you into moving the long way around the map even though there weren't enough of them to do much. You'd probably see the warp prism, and even if you didn't, all you'd have to do is fly a screen and a half back and hold off the warp-ins easily with 4 banshees + a handful of marines. I also think you GGed too early. I actually think you could have still won that if you had produced banshees and marauders and pulled SCVs to kill the drops. You had way more workers than he did. Either way, you basically had it, just little things to remember. | ||
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EmilA
Denmark4618 Posts
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iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
On October 25 2010 07:04 EmilA wrote: If only I could do something like this in TvZ I think I may have discovered a promising TvZ build and I'm in the process of refining and testing it. If all goes well I may post a guide up in the near future. I feel the same way as you at the moment, trust me. | ||
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Jengo
United States15 Posts
On October 25 2010 07:06 iEchoic wrote: I think I may have discovered a promising TvZ build and I'm in the process of refining and testing it. If all goes well I may post a guide up in the near future. I feel the same way as you at the moment, trust me. That would be awesome. Zergs are killing me non stop as well. I think I may have won 2 games against zergs since the last patch. May have to start using 6 rax all ins or something to get my rating back up. | ||
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jelle
Denmark88 Posts
On October 25 2010 07:04 EmilA wrote: If only I could do something like this in TvZ I think I may have discovered a promising TvZ build and I'm in the process of refining and testing it. If all goes well I may post a guide up in the near future. I feel the same way as you at the moment, trust me.[/QUOTE] This! +1 ! I would also like to see your view on alot of other aspects, of well, all the matchups.. Like, your thoughts on mid-late game, what scouts make you take which decitions about army composition.. Best regards, and keep up the good work | ||
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micjmac
42 Posts
On October 25 2010 07:06 iEchoic wrote: I think I may have discovered a promising TvZ build and I'm in the process of refining and testing it. If all goes well I may post a guide up in the near future. I feel the same way as you at the moment, trust me. I can't wait. That MU is a killer for me. I have two more questions for you though (well sort of, lol): 1. I am 1300 plat, so most of the toss I play against do 4-gate pressure builds. The amount of stalkers and immortals sometimes feels overwhelming, esp. when my opponent has good micro at my front door. Occasionally, they are able to bust through my choke (if I don't scout the push), and then they do a runby and it's GG. For the other instances, where I am on top of my macro and spot the push, how should I transition my BO after they pull their forces back (they usually never suicide)? When I banshee harrass in this spot, I get counter pushed, and the marines and bunkers just don't hold up (remember they are sitting right outside of my main just taunting me lol). Should I just abandon banshee harassment and also abandon the 4 banshee + marine timing push? I never know what to do in this spot. 2. What is your most preferred BO/style of play for TvT? | ||
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nuaythebest
Thailand12 Posts
Sorry for bad English though. | ||
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enigmaticcam
United States280 Posts
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CrayonKing
Cambodia124 Posts
I just had one question. What do you do if your drop fails? i.e they have a substantial amount of stalkers patrolling their mineral lines/surrounding area? or for some reason they have 3 cannons in their mineral line? or you only manage to kill 1 probe?? I feel that if I do not have a successful drop, then my push/their push will crush me since I have committed a decent to hellion/dropship. So this is more a situational question. What would be your next steps? of course this would depend on their unit composition but would you continue on with your "Adapting to Protoss Strategies" or what would you do different since you are in a slight disadvantage now? Thanks and i appreciate the help | ||
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enigmaticcam
United States280 Posts
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MarkMcKay
United States6 Posts
I was doing this build with quite a bit success, but skipped the hellion drop and went for 2 starports and just pump banshees. If they would continue with stalkers, I would continue to pump and get the +1 weapon upgrade from Armory and just constantly attack his stalkers, always killing 1-2 depending where his obs was and then retreat and repair. Now with the added hellion drop winning this matchup has become much more stable. the question to you is: I do a variation where I sneak out 3-4 scvs to a starting place or expansion place near by his base, build one turret and then just retreat&repair. also building a sensor tower so will know when he moves out. Can't believe how often the toss is so pissed at the sentry tower that he will walk there to kill it while I fly in his base and do ALOT of damage, often getting the GG right there. Sometimes I even get so bold to build my 3rd base there with a few bunkers and a rax. Do you think this is a useful extension to "your" strat? Also, do you agree that there are 2 things the toss does that will definitely loose him the game? 1. attack main through the choke 2. split his armies (keeping 2-3 stalkers +1 cannon in the mineral line) I think I only loose when I scout his void rays too late, don't see his push coming so bunker dies too quickly or, my biggest problem, blink stalkers. I know you've attached quite a few replays, can you point me to the one again where you battle blink stalkers? Thanks. | ||
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micjmac
42 Posts
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micjmac
42 Posts
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