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After playing another game against a 1400~ diamond zerg I'm really at a loss on how to handle the mass mutaslisk harass. I hover around the 1200~ rank. Here's the common setting...
It's Lost temple, cross positions. I early gas+factory and wall my ramp against the current flavor of the month which seems to be a six roach push. I don't like using "reaper cheese" but I did drop a tank on the ridge stalling his expansion so I'm doing good. I'm ahead in mineral pull, expanded before him and sitting on two factory, 3 barracks (2 tech, 1 reactor) and 1 starport and I'm pumping a few tanks, 1 thror, marine/marauder and medivacs.....then come the mutalisks.
As he bounces around my base constantly (I've even got turreted sensor towers to get a little warning), I'm basically running back and forth trying to fight them off. Even with stim done I barely catch one usually as he pulls out. He snipes a tank and then finally hits the critical amount to take on my turrets without much problem....which makes it even worse. He finally decides to fight in a full showdown after a few small skirmishes. I've got 10-12 marines with stim/shield, 2 thror and 2 medivac at this point (and maybe 8 turrets around my base). He did out maneuver me a bit (fighting at my expo so he could run in 10-15 lings) but using the "magic box" technique and bringing in some overlords for cover my thrors are basically useless and he takes everything I have with 3-4 mutas left. I had a higher army count. They chase my few tanks around and from this point on a constant stream of lings/mutas run into the base as mutas kill the few marines that step out.
How can I keep up with the mutas without winning early reapers? As more people start to use the "magic box" to make thrors pointless I'm really struggling with a way to handle zerg without trying full bio but there are a lot of counters to it (especially baneling/infestor). Given how mobile the mutalisks are on some larger maps, I can't jump around to defend. Vikings seem pretty useless given the number required to handle them and raven missiles (lol) are a joke.
Here's a great example of the "style" of harass (http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4095292/) but it was just worse honestly given the distance between expos in Lost Temple.
Help?
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If you know he's going mutas and you've kept him to 1 base, you can mass vikings more efficiently than he can mass mutas, and vikings will win 1:1 against mutas.
That is just a suggestion though, but I am not 1200 level zerg or terran.
When they're on one base, even just going marine medivac hellion (with maybe some marauders and/or tank and/or thor thrown in) would do pretty well I think, as long as attack is done before they get expansion secured and infestors. Problem with that would be counter-attacks with mutas, but with a relitively early attack, I don't think they'd have enough mutas to stop out much important stuff when there's several turrets being repaired by SCVs.
While what you said you did was similar to my second paragraph, the main problem might have been that you got both tanks and thors. You shouldn't need both when facing mutas, you can use the extra gas for more of the other, and/or the extra minerals for more marines or hellions.
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I've read your entire post, but I don't think I can give you a good and useful answer without a replay.
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i'm going through the exact same thing right now =[.
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Thors and Marines. You seem to have the idea that your Thors shut down and fall apart the moment they come out, since Magic Box was discovered. Thors still kill Mutas cost for cost, and they are required to fly directly over top of your Thors in order to work effectively. Marines with Stim make that impossible. Turrets are also cheap, quick to build and very strong, especially with armor upgrade (seriously, get it).
Thors, protected by Marines with stim and Turrets in your main.
Don't leave your Thors alone, or they will get picked off.
Keep in mind he can't be magic boxing while Harassing, and he can't be stacked while killing thors. This means any pot shots you can get while he is stacked are super effective. Magic Boxing takes planning and positioning and really can't be just done on a whim.
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If you have like 4-6 thors, even one volley will kill quite a bit of mutas. They can't magic box while flying around your base. Also get that +2 building armor early.
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I am not diamond, but from my experience and what i have seen in replays and streams mech is a bad idea vs mutas because it has very low mobility. Bio ball moves faster (stim) and you have the benefits of burst DPS from stim which help snipe mutas in the short moments they appear to harass.
Yes Thors are good, but since they are slow you are basically comitting to a defensive play which means the zerg player can double expand, have gas from 3 bases and get that critical mass of mutas so damn fast that you won't know what hit you. (I am random player and i do mutas as zerg, and i can tell you if you keep the zerg in 1 or 2 bases his mutas will not be a significant threat for a while, especially if he keeps harassing and losing a couple at a time to your stimed marines.)
Also tower range upgrade and optionally armor if you are on 2 bases are very important.
What I do when I am human vs muta zerg is to 1) make 3-4 well placed towers near my mineral line so i can keep some mobility 2) macro up the SVCs count and deny his expansion as much as possible then 3) do an almost all in timing push with all i got before he gets a critical mass of mutas that would obsolete the missile towers. It generally burns down to my bio ball micro / control / placement vs his banelings... But overall i'd rather deal with banelings than with the nightmare that is a huge well microed muta ball.
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On September 09 2010 16:50 Xapti wrote:
If you know he's going mutas and you've kept him to 1 base, you can mass vikings more efficiently than he can mass mutas, and vikings will win 1:1 against mutas.
That is just a suggestion though, but I am not 1200 level zerg or terran.
When they're on one base, even just going marine medivac hellion (with maybe some marauders and/or tank and/or thor thrown in) would do pretty well I think, as long as attack is done before they get expansion secured and infestors. Problem with that would be counter-attacks with mutas, but with a relitively early attack, I don't think they'd have enough mutas to stop out much important stuff when there's several turrets being repaired by SCVs.
While what you said you did was similar to my second paragraph, the main problem might have been that you got both tanks and thors. You shouldn't need both when facing mutas, you can use the extra gas for more of the other, and/or the extra minerals for more marines or hellions.
vikings > mutas 1:1 ?? are you sure?? mutas have that ricochet effect, in large numbers I can't see vikings winning 1 to 1
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same problem, expanded as well as 3rd base, went to wipe his base out but he just kept spamming mutas so i made 40 turrets to defend my main and expo, still not enough and ended up losing to pure mutas
had 4 thors, massive mmm ball, few tanks.
just when i thought 40 wouldve been more than sufficient or an overkill... nope
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Actually I'm in fear of this tactics since Beta phase one. Fortunatelly most Zergs still think Mutas were bad as soon as a Thor appears, but simply mass Muta contain is so efficient and easy and they take down a thor in like a second before even the second saliva gets fired.
I think the Viking idea is really good. Just Viking/Marine will hold him off and if he doesn't switch he might lose the air fight and all overlords afterwards. Vikings are really good at defending and scale very well with armory techs.
On September 09 2010 17:20 Sotamursu wrote:
If you have like 4-6 thors, even one volley will kill quite a bit of mutas. They can't magic box while flying around your base. Also get that +2 building armor early.
Commiting on Thors against mass Mutalisk is like a statement "I will never ever ever get out of my base again". Really. Once those Thors leave the base, the Mutas fly in and have destroyed everything before the thors are even half way to the Zerg base, where they then get destroyed by other zerg forces plus the homecoming mutas, who are very strong against Thors as well once they have huge numbers.
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If you kept him on one base and then he went mutas...he should have at most 5-8 mutas that come and harass. If you turreted the mineral line then your scvs should be safe for a while. But since he is on 1 base, you should take your forces and go crush him... Force him to defend with his mutas at his base while you are ahead. If you run around your base, you're giving him time to catch up and contain you.
Obviously this is alot harder to beat if the zerg is ahead of you or is on equal bases with you because then he will have numerous ground forces in addition to his air.
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![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-147616.jpg)
Here is an example from ~1k Diamond, and my first encounter with the Muta/Ling harass build as shown in Day[9]'s daily of Maka vs. Check... not my finest game as it was very late. I know I botched my Reaper harass and should have left my Marauders at least to defend my natural at the beginning of his Muta harass, but still this is a very difficult strategy to beat (just as Reaper opening feels for Zerg I imagine). I also realize I should have thrown down a sensor tower to help protect my backdoor, yet I don't think it would have lived long, and upgraded range/building armor.
Terran just can't be stimming Marines every time the Mutas move from your backdoor to natural or 3rd, you need probably 4-6 Thor out at once to properly defend. Plus the Zerg just throws Speedlings wherever your force isn't...
Edit: I can't believe I'm saying it but I think ~3 Ravens with Seeker Missiles might be the best way to defend... 125 energy will make the Mutas at least back up and if they commit to an attack then 2 Seeker Missiles should put a large dent in their numbers. Thoughts?
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Well, if you're buiding turrets in time, getting loads of anti air and keeping your medivacs and tanks away from the sniping mutalisks (my most hated TvZ thing, ARGH! STAY AWAY FROM MY PRECIOUS TANKS YOU UNHOLY FUCKER OF MOTHERS!) then what's to say? You know what you're supposed to do, just do it better!
If there's one way to mutas away from your base it's pretend to push (or actually push!) 9/10 of hte time the zerg moevs his mutas back because he has to defend now or risk losing everything in a most inefficient manner.
the magic box does own thor vs mutas, but marines balance that out as no fucking way does a zerg want to go near your marine mass with mutas.
If you've got your turrets up, got a thor or two out and a good deal of marines then you are prepared. FULLY PREPARED. For mutas. Just remember the constraints of Zerg and you'll be fine. If he tries to brutalise turrets then quickly pull some scv's to repair it. Lots of SCV's. It is very hard for mutas to crunch through a massively repaired turret or two.
It is very inefficient for the zerg to just keep massing mutalisks like that. It's a transitionary thing, and if they don't transition from their muta/bling/ling combination then the terran just has to grind the zerg into the ground with repeated marine/tank/dropship/marauder pushes.
What else can you do? Well, some poeple like to get ghosts. 3 snipes = dead mutalisk. 30 snipes = 10 dead mutas! I basically never get ghosts (only viable from a 3base economy) but if you are in a 3 base position then why not? What you gonna spend all that gas on anyway? This happened to me yesterday. I didn't get ghosts vs his constant muta/blin/ling combo and I ended the game with like 1600 gas. That could have been ghosts! Holy crap!
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TBH I am not sure if their is a way to stop mass muta/ling when they get the 2nd base up and running. They pump them out too fast and they can fly around between bases so easy it will near impossible to defend everything. The only way to stop this unfortunately is to win before the spire gets up otherwise it is GG.
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few turrets and a thor or two
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I'm having this problem for a very long time and I can't actually find a replay where a terran wins against muta baneling (mass muta's + speedling + banelings). I'm a 1050 diamond terran.
People who advice to build "a few turrets and a thor or two": when muta's reach a critical mass your turrets are worth nothing. They just lose some muta's but that's no problem since they are expanding like crazy. I think there is a small timing window where you can beat the zerg (early game when his muta count is low) but it's hard. There are games where I attacked the zerg and while moving towards his base, he makes some speedlings and banelings and always destroys my army. If I attack him with whole my army then he just destroys my turrets, kill some scv's and then fly to my army that is entering his base. Somethimes I kill his second or third base, but that doesn't matter it seems.
Zergs advice me:
- to drop more units in his base: muta's always catch my medivacs. Overlords on key spots and there is no way that you reach his base.
- to harass more: the only thing that works are reapers. Helions are ALWAYS shut down by a queen at the ramp and a spinecrawler at the natural. Yes, I pressure him with hellions so he has to make more units, but most of the time it doesn't do enough damage.
I'm atm winning more then 60% of my TvT and TvP, but only 20% of my TvZ (and those wins are coming from 5rax reaper abuse...). I'm losing to 600 diamond zerg players but winning against 1000+ terrans and protosses. I made a thread and I followed every single advice given there, but nothing works. Can some topterrans help or can anyone post some nice TvZ replays where a terran doesn't win because of 5rax reaper?
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Hyrule19029 Posts
Keep defending, get 4 Marauders in a Dropship and eat his Hatch, then laugh.
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On September 09 2010 20:41 Dente wrote:
I'm having this problem for a very long time and I can't actually find a replay where a terran wins against muta baneling (mass muta's + speedling + banelings). I'm a 1050 diamond terran.
People who advice to build "a few turrets and a thor or two": when muta's reach a critical mass your turrets are worth nothing. They just lose some muta's but that's no problem since they are expanding like crazy. I think there is a small timing window where you can beat the zerg (early game when his muta count is low) but it's hard. There are games where I attacked the zerg and while moving towards his base, he makes some speedlings and banelings and always destroys my army. If I attack him with whole my army then he just destroys my turrets, kill some scv's and then fly to my army that is entering his base. Somethimes I kill his second or third base, but that doesn't matter it seems.
Zergs advice me:
- to drop more units in his base: muta's always catch my medivacs. Overlords on key spots and there is no way that you reach his base.
- to harass more: the only thing that works are reapers. Helions are ALWAYS shut down by a queen at the ramp and a spinecrawler at the natural. Yes, I pressure him with hellions so he has to make more units, but most of the time it doesn't do enough damage.
I'm atm winning more then 60% of my TvT and TvP, but only 20% of my TvZ (and those wins are coming from 5rax reaper abuse...). I'm losing to 600 diamond zerg players but winning against 1000+ terrans and protosses. I made a thread and I followed every single advice given there, but nothing works. Can some topterrans help or can anyone post some nice TvZ replays where a terran doesn't win because of 5rax reaper?
couple of turrets and a thor or two is to defend until you have enough tanks/marine/medivac to push his base, its like in BW, you defend vs mutas until your army is big enough to make a push
if he keeps harassing your base when you push him with 40 marines 2-3 thors and 10tanks he's gonna die so hard
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On September 09 2010 20:48 Pulimuli wrote:
couple of turrets and a thor or two is to defend until you have enough tanks/marine/medivac to push his base, its like in BW, you defend vs mutas until your army is big enough to make a push
if he keeps harassing your base when you push him with 40 marines 2-3 thors and 10tanks he's gonna die so hard
When you have a thor or two, enough turrets and an army that can fight the zerg, the zerg is 2 base ahead and you lose when you move out. You need marines and a good zerg will ALWAYS flank you and block your marines with his speedlings. Result: banelings destroy every marine and the muta's eat your tanks for breakfast.
Thanks to the new larvae mechanic, the zerg can just make enough units to defend in a minute. I ALWAYS lose my army when I push out, any time. I want to see replays.
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On September 09 2010 20:50 Dente wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2010 20:48 Pulimuli wrote:
couple of turrets and a thor or two is to defend until you have enough tanks/marine/medivac to push his base, its like in BW, you defend vs mutas until your army is big enough to make a push
if he keeps harassing your base when you push him with 40 marines 2-3 thors and 10tanks he's gonna die so hard When you have a thor or two, enough turrets and an army that can fight the zerg, the zerg is 2 base ahead and you lose when you move out. You need marines and a good zerg will ALWAYS flank you and block your marines with his speedlings. Result: banelings destroy every marine and the muta's eat your tanks for breakfast. Thanks to the new larvae mechanic, the zerg can just make enough units to defend in a minute. I ALWAYS lose my army when I push out, any time. I want to see replays.
lol dont A-move your units in 1 hotkey
micro the marines back so the tanks kill the banelings and the thor+marines kill the mutas
even if the zerg is 1 or 2 bases ahead, a well positioned terran army demolishes zerg - which is why they need to have more bases than terran
if both Zerg and Terran are on 2 bases, Zerg is gonna get steamrolled
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On September 09 2010 20:57 Pulimuli wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2010 20:50 Dente wrote:On September 09 2010 20:48 Pulimuli wrote:
couple of turrets and a thor or two is to defend until you have enough tanks/marine/medivac to push his base, its like in BW, you defend vs mutas until your army is big enough to make a push
if he keeps harassing your base when you push him with 40 marines 2-3 thors and 10tanks he's gonna die so hard When you have a thor or two, enough turrets and an army that can fight the zerg, the zerg is 2 base ahead and you lose when you move out. You need marines and a good zerg will ALWAYS flank you and block your marines with his speedlings. Result: banelings destroy every marine and the muta's eat your tanks for breakfast. Thanks to the new larvae mechanic, the zerg can just make enough units to defend in a minute. I ALWAYS lose my army when I push out, any time. I want to see replays. lol dont A-move your units in 1 hotkey micro the marines back so the tanks kill the banelings and the thor+marines kill the mutas even if the zerg is 1 or 2 bases ahead, a well positioned terran army demolishes zerg - which is why they need to have more bases than terran if both Zerg and Terran are on 2 bases, Zerg is gonna get steamrolled
Zergs FLANK. You can't micro your marines when they are blocked by zerglings coming from everywhere.
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The easiest way is just to keep pressuring zerg. Each time he goes in to harass, just push his base. In a base trade, most terran armies kill faster than mutalisks, and in the event he pulls back to defend, not only did you stop his harass, but now he's in a situation where it'd do him no good to run his mutas off, and instead he'll need to be engaging your army directly.
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You have to use scan to see where the zerg army is, watch top-level replays to see how they deal with zerg
Drewbie vs Artosis on xelnaga caverns is a good replay for biomech
also oGsTheStC has some nice TvZ builds
sc2rep.com and search for players you want to watch
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On September 09 2010 20:59 Pulimuli wrote:
You have to use scan to see where the zerg army is, watch top-level replays to see how they deal with zerg
Drewbie vs Artosis on xelnaga caverns is a good replay for biomech
also oGsTheStC has some nice TvZ builds
sc2rep.com and search for players you want to watch
Please dont try to copy drewbie, he is not a good player. I kind of understand Idra's youre the worst player ive ever seen (or something to that extent), as he has such abysmal tank control its not even funny. He just straight a moves his bio/thor/tank/medivac ball into the Z gold expo and starts to siege all his clumped tanks when the first lings of the big speedling/bling/muta ball are already attacking him.
SPREAD YOUR TANKS! JESUS
Seriously, if you have good tank spread that is not too greedy (i.e. you have 20% of your tanks in the back that only shoot when the opponent commits) you can just roflstomp whatever amount of muta /speedling/bling/infestor/roach Zerg throws at you.
KEEP YOUR GODDAM BIO IN THE BACK!
Bio is fucking useless against banelings. 2 Banelings hit your marines? Guess what you just lost 5 minutes of constant factory production to 3 mutalisks that survive and shoot down your remaining 1 almost dead thor and 6 low health tanks. Also keep it spread out and when banelings engange, RUN AWAY! You can pick off mutas and expos and overlords with your bio, but never leave your tanks too far behind. You need those tanks to keep your bio alive and you need the bio to keep your tanks alive. One does not work without the other.
LEAPFROG YOUR TANKS!
Never ever ever have all your tanks unsieged. Never. Even if its just 2 tanks that are sieged. That 13 range and 50 splash damage will give you such a significant advantage over having all your tanks unsieged it will change the outcome of battles.
BUILD TURRETS CLOSE TO YOUR TANKS!
I saw this on BratOKs stream where he beat dimaga in a intense 30 minute TvZ even though Dimaga had way more stuff. Turrets are so good against mutas its not even funny. If you manage to have good tank spread with a few turrets by them, 1-2 thors and a good amount of upgraded marines (Combat shields and armor upgrades are key) with medivacs, you can beat any Zerg army that consists of banelings, speedlings and mutas. It works like this: You have good tank spread with heavy HP units in the front (Thors, Marauders) to soak baneling damage. Zerg moves in and loses 20% of his speedling/baneling army without doing any damage. You stim your bio and wait until the banelings are close, then your run the fuck away through those sieged tanks while they speedling/baneling mix either tries to chase you and gets insta-gibbed by your sieged tanks or attack moves and wastes a shitton of banelings on your tanks (takes 9 banelings), Thors (takes 21 banelings), Marauders (takes 5 banelings iirc). So after your Tanks have taken care of everything on the ground all that remains is mutalisks. Mutalisks are terrible fighting units and stimmed marines + 1-2 Thors + your missile turrets will fight that off easily. Congrats you have just killed the entire Zerg army and can move in for the kill.
To show this out of Z's perspective. My Zerg training buddy fucking hates it when i put missile turrets by my army (that is way in his face and could just unsiege and a-move-kill his entire base if he decides to try cute stuff in my base) since it makes his mutas almost worthless. Also they provide cost-efficient detection so his burrowed roaches cannot get under my siege tanks to nullify their 13 range and actually use their splash damage and minimum range against me.
edit:
As for dealing with muta harass. If you have 12 marines and he has a critical amount of mutalisks you have already lost the game. I put up a modest amount of turrets (2 per minline and maybe 3 for my production buildings to not lose add ons) and macro like crazy so I can just steamroll the Zerg with all his wasted ressources to mutas. It's like BW, defend defend defend and macro, then hit with a nice timing attack once you get enough stuff to effectively fight mutalisks. Never had trouble with them unless I made big mistakes (which happens often enough  )
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If its a map like Xelnaga caverns, trying to move your army to his base is a freaking pain. It's a very open, big map.
Only thing you can do is scan/try to find his army, and then move forward in one big move, only to slow down once you get close to his army.
What fucks up my play is infestors. The battle between tanks/marines/ravens (+thors/marauders) and muta ling bling would is fine, but once you add infestors its not so much fun anymore :>
Problem with TvZ is if you do ONE missmicro you lost your entire marine force in one go; the fights just dosn't end up even, with both sides going back to expo/lick wounds. Either you massacre him or he totally rapes you. Infestor/bling either does nothing or everything.
It's kinda fun though, TvZ always keeps my focus/adrenaline up
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Once mutas hits the field, you just aint gonna be able to harrass him anymore. Z will tell you drop here and there, hellion harrass more, etc, but they are all stopped by OL placement, mass mutas and splings. Its kinda like loosing ZvT and T goes "oh hey use nydus more kk"... take it with a grain of salt.
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On September 09 2010 20:41 Dente wrote:
I'm having this problem for a very long time and I can't actually find a replay where a terran wins against muta baneling (mass muta's + speedling + banelings). I'm a 1050 diamond terran.
People who advice to build "a few turrets and a thor or two": when muta's reach a critical mass your turrets are worth nothing. They just lose some muta's but that's no problem since they are expanding like crazy. I think there is a small timing window where you can beat the zerg (early game when his muta count is low) but it's hard. There are games where I attacked the zerg and while moving towards his base, he makes some speedlings and banelings and always destroys my army. If I attack him with whole my army then he just destroys my turrets, kill some scv's and then fly to my army that is entering his base. Somethimes I kill his second or third base, but that doesn't matter it seems.
Zergs advice me:
- to drop more units in his base: muta's always catch my medivacs. Overlords on key spots and there is no way that you reach his base.
- to harass more: the only thing that works are reapers. Helions are ALWAYS shut down by a queen at the ramp and a spinecrawler at the natural. Yes, I pressure him with hellions so he has to make more units, but most of the time it doesn't do enough damage.
I'm atm winning more then 60% of my TvT and TvP, but only 20% of my TvZ (and those wins are coming from 5rax reaper abuse...). I'm losing to 600 diamond zerg players but winning against 1000+ terrans and protosses. I made a thread and I followed every single advice given there, but nothing works. Can some topterrans help or can anyone post some nice TvZ replays where a terran doesn't win because of 5rax reaper?
Exactly the same problem here, I have around 60% in TvP and TvT however less than 40% at TvZ due to the same muta/bane/lings combo. Sometimes they go for roach/lings/infestors or other things which allows me to have that 40% win rate....
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Senor Towers will give you alittle more heads up about if your expo or main is going to get attacked. so you can position your marines their.
I am lower rated than you so i hope this helps.
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On September 09 2010 21:55 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2010 20:59 Pulimuli wrote:
You have to use scan to see where the zerg army is, watch top-level replays to see how they deal with zerg
Drewbie vs Artosis on xelnaga caverns is a good replay for biomech
also oGsTheStC has some nice TvZ builds
sc2rep.com and search for players you want to watch Please dont try to copy drewbie, he is not a good player. I kind of understand Idra's youre the worst player ive ever seen (or something to that extent), as he has such abysmal tank control its not even funny. He just straight a moves his bio/thor/tank/medivac ball into the Z gold expo and starts to siege all his clumped tanks when the first lings of the big speedling/bling/muta ball are already attacking him.
There's nothing wrong with the build Drewbie uses in that game, sure his micro is non-existent in that game but anyone with decent micro would have won that game faster than he would have.
= the build itself is good, the execution was poor.
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How about putting more pressure on earlier? I'm a protoss player, so not sure if I can have any authority in saying this (but at least we are in similar point ranges), but in PvZ I try to make it so that the Z is constantly having to cover his ass with mutas so that harass he can do is more limited. I handle whatever else he throws at me by warping blink stalkers in and continue to pressure his front... I wonder if the same thing could be done with a tank/bio contain into tank/thor with turrets in your main dealing with additional harass and a few vikings to spot for the tanks, be annoying with overlords and also help a bit with mutas. Seems like a logical transition out of a viking --> overall harass opening.
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I'm the opposite.. I'm zerg and have a huge trouble against terrans. Sure if I get a bad terran I can easily muta/ling harass, but once those turrets are up and marines are pumpin, I have no chance. I've been demolished by thors/marines, ghosts/marines.. Muta's used to work for me about a week ago, now everyone puts up turrets and marines.
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how trustable is unit tester ?
i tried muta x bc and even 3 bc were able to top 20-25 muta even kiting....
course they are slow as hell but perhaps 3 bcs well positioned could be a defense while thor goes out from base ? (with some marines against corruptor course...)
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How could you even let him harrass you that easily? Sensor towers are good but, come on, Missile turrets are what counters muta harrass. They eat mutas as you should know, played campaign amright? Then just go Thors, 2 thors ain't enough. Maybe you had wasted too much money on other stuff? A replay would help alot but in general a missile turret is 100 minerals. Super cheapo and kills so many mutas, he won't even try to sacrifice mutas to kill workers, if he isn't a complete nab.
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On September 09 2010 23:21 noD wrote:
how trustable is unit tester ?
i tried muta x bc and even 3 bc were able to top 20-25 muta even kiting....
course they are slow as hell but perhaps 3 bcs well positioned could be a defense while thor goes out from base ? (with some marines against corruptor course...)
If they have mutas and they see BC's the next batch of fliers will be corrupters which dominate BC's. And given how Zerg operates, that won't be one or two corrupters, but probably 6-7, which is enough when added in group to take out that many BC's.
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My own build lately on maps like desert oasis and scrap station is rax->fact-> dual port. Given the spire normally takes just about as long, one reactor/one plain port pumping vikings is easy on one base, and when you take out the first batch a quick landing can take out a queen. That puts you in a great place to build up, and expo.
Don't be fooled, there's no one way to do this MU against mutas. Play what you feel is right, find your opponents weakness and exploit it. If you feel he can't micro well, then do small harass while you're fighting off mutas.
Sensor towers are key in almost every MU im noticing, it's almost cheating but it's true.
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If they go crazy mass muta, it pays to invest in +2 building armor or even plus 1 range for your turrets especially if you are going mech and have minerals to burn. But you should also consider trying to deny a third base so they can't actually go crazy mass muta.
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Upgraded Turrets+ Sensor Towers > Mutalisks.
Obviously contain is a psychological manuver. You are being beaten because he is playing mind games with you.
As a terran, you only need to protect a small core of your base. You have mobile buildings, amiright?
Turrets beat mutas cost for cost. Turret up your minerals. Double up if you have to. Attack his base. Let the mutas kill your outlying structures like supply and engie bays- that's fine. You're going to win at base trades, IF you have a solid core of turrents. 5/6 upgraded turrets around your main will beat any muta swarm.
If they mutaswarm is such a threat, MOVE all your buildings next to your turret clump. Win. Stick a viking above your turrets to force him to engage.
The solution is to basetrade. You'll probably lose bad if he has many more bases then you, but that's generally how the game works anyway. If that's the case, try sending hellions to all of his bases at once.
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OP: Without a replay it's hard to tell for sure, but it sounds like the game you played was the kind where one player has already effectively won by making the right decisions, but the process just takes a while to play out - a bit like in chess where victory can become inevitable a dozen moves before checkmate.
From what you describe, your opponent did exactly the right thing and you didn't anticipate or shut it down quickly enough, so it became unmanageable. You knew your harassment had put him behind, so you could in principle have anticipated his likely response: to pin you back with mutalisks while he overcame that deficit. He sure wasn't going to come charging down the barrel of your tanks, right?
I think a small number of vikings and perhaps the turret upgrade would have been a solid move in anticipation of his harassment - not to kill the mutalisks 1-1 with vikings, but to deny your airspace to him. The real strength of vikings is their synergy with GTA: you can hit mutalisks at range 9, forcing him to either stay away or commit to enduring overlapping fire from first turrets and then stimmed marines. If there'a even one thor down there too, target-firing your vikings is essentially suicide because the mutas will bunch.
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I play protoss (~1000), but if I played terran this might be my suggestion:
Get the upgrades for your turrets, and get A LOT of turrets in the areas he seems to be sweeping in from. If he is really dedicated to his muta harassment, then he has obviously dropped a ton of money. Judge how much money he has spent, and don't be embarassed to spend that equally on static defense. When he goes to harass, check to see if he is engaging the turrets. If he is, stim your 15 - 20 marines and get them over there asap. The turrets with upgrades should buy you enough time to get your marines there.
Sensor towers here should help too.
I've also decided that taking the gold expansion might be a good idea here. Since his main goal should be to harass your mineral lines, he'll have to primarily focus on your biggest source of income. Load up the gold with extra turrets.
If he is attacking with a significantly large pack of mutas before you have your static defense up, you might have to play aggressively, and attack his base. He will have to choose between saving his own base, or killing yours. Worst case scenario might involve a base race in which I think terran will come out on top. Zerg have less buildings and usually have them placed in obvious locations. Stim up, lift off and gg.
The reason why I don't think thors are a particularly effective investment is cause they are very slow, and if you decide to split your army, enough mutalisks will pick them off 1 by 1...making it a very successful harassment. Also, a smart zerg player will not engage an army that is obviously more powerful than the mutalisks, so they will just bounce around till they find a weak point.
On a personal note: These games have been very problematic for me as protoss because without blink, my stalkers move much slower. As the harassment begins I just calmly keep a close eye on where his mutas are moving and try to estimate where he is going to pop in and move my ENTIRE army accordingly. I don't want to split because he can devastate my entire army little by little. At the same time, I steadily increase my defense to the point of 4-6 canons at each mineral line with an extra pylon at which point, you are safe.
Another small tip: Move your workers towards your army before he gets there.
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Something I didn't account for which was stated above is the use of vikings just to force them to focus fire. Since I can't really make vikings always to counter something I won't necessarily see (like he made the spire at a random spot on the map), at least 1-2 viking ontop of turrets with their range of 9 would have helped more than medivacs considering it'd force him to focus/bunch up so the thrors would be more effective. I also was getting the +damage upgrade on marines, which I'll grab +armor first now.
I still think it's incredibly hard to defend against mutas in general.
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I think the best comprehensive counter to Muta/Bling/Sling is Marine/Thor/Tank. As someone mentioned earlier, you really need a combination of all three of those units. Marines chew Mutas up, especially with stim. Thors are your "meat" to protect your tanks from ling surrounds and to provide a constant threat to the Mutas. Tanks are to take care of the Ling/Bling rushes. I've found that Terrans that lack one of these units are prey. Not enough Marines and your mech gets chewed up by magic box. No Thors and you're susceptible to surrounds and Mutas harassing your tanks. No tanks and the Zerg player will just rush in with Slings/Blings to decimate your Marines and then his Mutas can simply mop up whatever is left.
You do need to be careful though. As Zerg with Mutas, I have map control. I can place my Overlords over the map at will and see exactly where you are. Plan your moves and for God's sake don't let your army get spread out in transitions or you'll be worm food.
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EPT
