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So my buddies and I have started playing a decent amount of 3v3. In 1v1 I am plat and they are gold. Nothing special, but we don't play near enough to reach our maximum potential. I actively read everything I can on multiple forums, and I feel like I have a real good understanding of 1v1 strat/tactics. My teammates, on the other hand, have come up with their strategies on their own (with minimal references from forums/youtube).
Now, we play T (me), P, and Random. When we started playing 3v3 we all used our 1v1 builds. I would either open 1/1/1 or 3 rax (this more commonly as we would encounter quicker attacks). Very soon I realized that even though I could defend any of the players 1v1, we were constantly at a disadvantage while their 3 combined rushes rolled through our armies 1-by-1. Obviously, it is advantageous to have your 3 armies combined when attacking. Since this is difficult to do on the defense (you don't know where they are going to hit until it is too late), I convinced my friends that we need to be more aggressive, combine our armies, and hit THEM one at a time (I know - obvious to you guys, but this is against their tendencies).
Here is where we are running into soome troubles. We have been doing much better as we rush quick (I now can use either 10-rax marine, marauder, or reaper rushes), but I want to know what respective builds would work best for Terran/Toss/Random. I am effective at harrassing with reapers, but then our armies are split up. 3-rax marine rush is the quickest for me, but it really hurts my economy. Marauder push is a little slower, but it (and reaper rush) is much easier to transition out of if we don't win outright.
How about my teammates. The protoss typically puts out 4-7 zeals in the initial push (give me control of them) then continues to tech to void rays. Most games we either win before the voids come out, or we are in deep trouble before the voids come out. A few games the voids have put us over the edge after our initial push has been denied. The random player typically just puts out a nice ammount of marines/lings/zeals then transitions into more tier 1/2 units.
What do you all recommend we do in terms of strategy/build to improve our play. I'm looking for things like, "If you are T/T/P, then both reaper harrass while the other straight techs to voids - try to contain them with harrass until the voids are up", not, "make sure you scout and use good macro". Thanks in advance!
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In terms of openings and getting units out there, I (as protoss) 10-gate pretty much every single game, my T partners tend to 10-rax and my zerg partners 9 or 10 pool. Its the only way to ensure you don't lose to early cheeses. Also, it has the added advantage of allowing you to put pressure on your opponents early. The mid and late game tends to unfold much as a 1's game does, so you can revert back to your usual compositions. Other than that, attack and defend together, and use lots of harassment techniques. Because your opponents have so many bases, they're bound to leave one inadequetly defended against harass - punish them for it.
Zerg should pretty much always go speedling muta because of the mobility and harassing potential. Everytime my teammates have opted for roach and/or hydra, it just feels so immobile and weak. Zerg can expand much more easily with zergling-muta. You could always try all 3 of you saving up your gas and trading it to your zerg teammate so he can get as many mutas on the field as possible early in the game, allowing for absolute zerg domination. Its REALLY hard to defend against.
Reapers are almost always a good choice - just don't over commit to reapers; you need defense.
With protoss, I find its all about getting as many gateway units on the field at once. I've always found going for colossi or void ray tech to be really flimsy in the early game. That said, a good army of void rays tends to steamroll later on, so you really just have to get a feel for it.
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I have about 600 points in diamond (sc2ranks puts me at 90th percentile in diamond) in 3v3 random as terran. I generally don't play with people I know, and my win rate is about 56%.
Engaging a combined army with just your own army is generally a horrible idea UNLESS you have a large positional advantage. You need to play the map. This is hugely important. Know the maps and know the important spots to defend from.
You can try the combined rush strategies, but generally I found that the better opponents will scout you religiously for both your compositions and movements, can be prepared for most of the cheesy type rush plays.
A lot of the 3v3 maps are quite large with lots of expansions. I suggest tailoring your play to setting up positional advantage. Control the xel naga towers, and control the expansions.
And it's not quite true that you can't know where they are going until it's too late. If you have a toss on your team, they should be making observers. Terrans should be scanning. Zergs should be sacrificing overlords. You need to be scouting around to see where your opponents are camping their armies. Send a lone marine ahead to see what's going on. CONTROL THE XEL NAGA TOWERS.
Furthermore, your army needs to mobile in 3v3. If you go infantry as terran, then you had better get some medivacs pretty damned soon so you can load up and fly around to where you need to be. Even if you are going tank heavy, medivacs are essential so you can setup those tanks where they need to be ASAP. Avoid making units that can't get around easily, like thors and immortals, or even hydralisks as zergs generally have a tough time making a creep highway in 3v3.
I'm not sure I agree with your sentiment of rushing for a combined army and then attacking. That sounds all-inish and inflexible. Think about how your opponents might respond.
Let's say for example that you attack a zerg on my team with your combined forces, and I am the farthest away from the zerg as terran, with a protoss in the middle. The toss is able to get there in time to help defend. I opt to drop one of you, and they are able to hold out for a while due to the positional advantage of defending. How do you respond to the drop? Your army is now on the other side of the map, trying to bust my ally.
I think the big thing in 3s is to not panic if a teammate is getting hammered on. You need to keep tabs on where your opponents have their armies, and attack whenever you can get away with it, whether it's just you, or two of you, or all three.
My wins are split about halfway between two different things that happen:
1. Out expanding my opponents by taking up superior positions on the map and macroing better.
2. Immediately counter-attacking the other team if they do an early push and fail.
My losses, however, are almost always because my opponents out-expand me. You will find combined rushes will work less and less because there's this tit for tat factor in 3v3. If you combine forces and rush a single person...Like I said above, you are liable to counter attack. It's pretty common in my games for one teammate to die early on on BOTH sides, because one team rushed and the other countered.
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As a Terran you can help your teammates alot by going quick siegetanks and hold watchtowers in critical positions (most maps have those), and also make a lot of marines with stim and shield, cause those are great for defense aswell as offense. Zerg definetely should be going speedling/muta (sometimes with banelings aswell), mobility is just so great. For the same reasons protoss usually should go some zealots into mass blink stalkers into DTs (3 DTs at once in all 3 bases are SUCH a pain in the ass for your enemies  ) and then into Templars with storm for the late game...
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I agree with Gnial about Zerg mobility being HUGE. I play 3's with two of my RL friends as Z/P/T which gives us an incredible amount of versatility. Our typical strategies are the same regardless of the enemy composition. Our T will open reapers into a 3-Rax bio build. Our P teammate almost always 2-gates hard zealots for us and I will open speedling -> muta.
I would argue that 10-gate/rax/pool just to stop cheese is kind of silly. Unless you get double 6-pooled or something and even then your 10-rax isn't going to save you, you'll NEED your teammates help. Don't sacrifice economy, 3's is more about macro than micro tbh. Survive the early cheese and secure an economic advantage and the game is already yours.
Also, by opening with reapers and speedlings we have excellent harass capabilities. Forcing your opponent to play defensively is the key to victory. They should be afraid to leave their bases at all.
Summary:
MACRO MACRO MACRO
Things like bancheese, VR rushes, dts, etc, etc are awesome in 1v1, but you can't surprise all 3 opponents. It'll be nearly impossible to land a killing blow with these strats.
P.S. The hardest strat to counter that I've come by is from T/T/P. Both T go hard rines and the P will just mass zealots. If they are able to combine their forces, it's SO hard to stop in the early game. The Z's (add a sentry for GS...ewwww) chew threw lings/rines so hard and with his own ranged units in support it's just a shit-show. GL in your future endeavors though. I really enjoy the 2's, 3's brackets, it's nice to play with the synergy between races.
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Homegrown.vt made me think of another point:
If you can counter two armies or more at once, DO IT. I have won TONS of games as well just by busting out with hellions against early cheese like reaper/speedling/zealot.
scout scout scout!!!
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On August 25 2010 03:10 homegrown.vt wrote:Unless you get double 6-pooled or something and even then your 10-rax isn't going to save you, you'll NEED your teammates help.
Would you like to see a replay of me getting triple cheesed with ling/ling/zealot, and holding it off BY MYSELF with no wall as terran? Good simcity saves the day!
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On August 25 2010 03:23 ltortoise wrote:
Would you like to see a replay of me getting triple cheesed with ling/ling/zealot, and holding it off BY MYSELF with no wall as terran? Good simcity saves the day!
Honestly, if you managed to do that then your opponents must've been pretty bad and they were banking on A-moving their early cheese to victory. (I'd still like to see it, it sounds pretty epic). That being said, your scvs can prolly handle double 6-pools but you won't be in very good shape when the dust settles.
The reason I said that in my previous post was to point out that 10rax-ing isn't going to make the difference between life and death. I would still say that going with a more economic build will pay off with greater dividends than 10-raxing every game to stop phantom cheese attacks.
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Nice responses guys. I forgot to mention in my initial post that, even though we are solid in 1v1, we are only in silver right now (although we should be ranking up soon and we constantly play golds).
Let's say for example that you attack a zerg on my team with your combined forces, and I am the farthest away from the zerg as terran, with a protoss in the middle. The toss is able to get there in time to help defend. I opt to drop one of you, and they are able to hold out for a while due to the positional advantage of defending. How do you respond to the drop? Your army is now on the other side of the map, trying to bust my ally.
I agree. However, there are 2 reasons why I struggle with acting upon this advice right now (even thought I know it is good). 1) We are still in silver. I know that is no reason to use cheese tactics, and that is not what I am trying to do. However, the counter response which you explained is not often executed by the people that we are playing against (silver/gold). Most enemies experience the same problem as my group did early on (this is also reason #2). We cant quite hold off those 3 armies with our 2 armies (+ the positional advantage that you speak of), and nor can our enemies usually. You see, we often react too slowly or are out of position. The result is a 3v1, then another 3v1, then another 3v1. 3 armies versus 1 is never a good thing (unless you are the ones with the 3x armies :D ) as far as I'm concerned. As I said in the OP, we can avoid this by being on the attack first. Our armies are always together, and if we are smart/lucky, we can pick theirs off 1-by-1. If they position themselves well, then we meet 3v3 on equal playing fields and it will come down to who macro/microed better. If they scout better than us and are in great position (like your example above), then they will hold us off with 2 armies + positional advantage while the 3rd army counter attacks and cripples us. If that happens, then we are playing against a group who is far more skilled than us  . I agree that we don't want to get ourselves out of position by keeping all 3 armies together - I was really just refering too early rushes rather than mid/late game where you can drop/air harass our base while we are out of position.
Back to my main point. What should we typically open with (obviously altered depending on what our opponent presents). To simplify, just assume we are T/P/Z.
Here is what I'm gathering so far from the responses... As a general rule, defend the cheese and focus on macro + enough harass/pressure to keep them on the defensive. Don't expect to be successful trying to win with early rushes every game (at least above silver/gold). Keep the enemies on the defensive, but not for the quick win - instead for map control/expansion.
T: 12 rax reaper (10 rax defense if scouted cheese?) harass into MMM plus tanks/vikes into the mix after a bit?
Z: medium-to-late pool (once againt, depending on scout/cheese) - speedlings until mutas can be teched.
P: Not a ton of input here so far: Simply mass gateway units early and often. Possible DT harrass at some point. Try to avoid fast tech to void ray/collossus, but some voids later to harass could be nice.
We were very vulnerable to cheese attacks early on, so I am tempted to learn towards producing units quicker rather than later until we get better at scouting as a team. I am good with it 1v1, but once we jump into 3v3 we seem to lack the coordination/communication to effectively scout together. I think one of the major things we need to work on is map vision if we aren't going to hit them hard early. We need to have more of a heads up if we plan to get into a nice defensive position. We also need to learn how to harass better without losing too many units. I am good with reapers, but what should P & Z do in terms of early harrass? Specific Builds/BOs are welcome too.
Thanks again for all the the tips! (and sorry for the inevitable typos - not gonna proof read this)
Edit - Also, does any of this change too much for 2v2 or 4v4. We play 3v3 most often but would like to improve all of the above.
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I only 3v3 random and just got into Diamond, I find it the most frustrating thing when you get allies that are total idiots.
Example, Terran player flys cc straight away to between his main and natural making the scv's go between both sets of minerals. Then I got 3vs1'd with an early rush and because of him there was no quick backup.
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I've been playing a lot of 3v3 aswell. Sadly only #1-2 platinum with my team. We're still waiting to get promoted. I have to agree that attacking seems better because defending will always keep your armies seperate.
I am really looking forward to some of your guys strategies because we as well are looking for some advice from better teams.
Our composition is P/T/Z. However we seem to have trouble dealing with double/tripple early agression to our protoss buddy. For example: How do you guys as Protoss in a 3v3 fend of off/8 rax reaper + 8/10 pool. On shared base maps it won't be a problem. However with some distance to help the protoss player it seems like the only response is a counter attack on the terran player, which basically leads to a 2v2 if all things go well. However the T can fly of to some Island expansion while the toss is more or less out of the game.
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I've discussed the multiplayer aspect of the game at length in this SC2 Multiplayer thread. Feel free to browse it with your buddies, I'm sure you'll find quite some useful things in there.
As a more focused response I can say that if you play T/P/R, most efficient way (from my experience on gold bucket) to improve your win-rate for 3v3's would be to do:
T: early Reaper > mid MMM > late upgraded BC's
P: early Zealots&Stalkers > mid mass Blink Stalkers & some support > late mass VR's
Z: early Speedlings > mid Mutas > late mass Corruptor/some Broodlords + mass fully upgraded lings
* early game rushes should not be very damaging to your economy, as usually opponents would most likely counter-attack after you fail the rush.
* mid-game should be focused on getting a very good mixed ball either to steamroll your enemies, or to easily defend their attacks - Medivacs are incredibly good for a T/Z ball - you can keep some after the Zerg's flyers for maximum effect.
* VR's tend to be incredibly good after a certain number, but early in the game every one you lost is very damaging to your economy & army strength.
* fully upgraded zerglings tend to do wonders in lategame if they're left unchecked in an enemy base. They grind it to the ground in seconds. Usually you're left with quite some minerals and you should have all upgrades already for them. If the enemies win the air-battle, a Zerg player who has 4-5 bases can quickly overwhelm all enemy bases with Zerglings very fast. If the enemies will retreat to defend, Zerg's allies should be able to rebuild their armies. If they'll continue to attack, you can win outright by eliminating their bases.
* as Toss, mass Warpgates into mass blink stalkers is great even for lategame. Just be sure you do their upgrades. Build pylons all over the map - at every expansion you or your allies have, in your allies bases, near the opponents, etc. It's a great way to reinforce your army wherever it is. Try and do it as a habit. It's like having a nydus network of your own.
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Really you should just let your teammates do whatever theyre comfortable with. You should say something like 'attack in 7' and let them use whatever build they like to get the max amount of units. if you roll terran or protoss you could go a different unit type than your friends. ie spawn terran you go rauders teammate goes hellions or whatever.
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It happened to us more than once when we went air (VR/muta/banshee) to encounter a massive enemy ball full with marauders, lings, colossus, zealots, roaches, sieges, hellions, etc. but only a few anti-air - needless to say that we insta-won...
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remember that you can do fairly aggressive openings that are not too bad from an economic point of view, by just delaying tech for a bit.
For example, as terran, you can do a 12 barracks-13 barracks no gas play, which allows you to get a bunch of early marines, has a good timing push at 7 marines, and allows you to do whatever you like after that, add on a third barracks and gas, get an expo, or double gas and make a factory for example.
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EPT
