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~1900 terran here, btw. I'll answer questions I know I can answer safely enough, though me and the OP may disagree on some key areas.
How to stop muta/ling/bling? Attack him at ~13 mins and deny his third. And maybe keep attacking. You gotta stay aggressive, even if it seems bad for you, because if the Zerg army gets too big you'll never kill it.
The only way to stop this is to ensure his mutaflock does not get too large. If it does then you're fucked, well and true, as his army is far too big to handle, he'll have a third up and you struggle to get yours up likewise, and even if you do you struggle to get out of your base because 30 mutas >>> terran bases. If you cannot get out of your base then you cannot stop him from taking a 4th and 5th and eventually ultralisks. And then you're REALLY screwed.
And the only way to stop the mutaflock getting too large is to attack him. He won't attack you. He doesn't need to.
What with? I'm tinkering with a bioball meself, but thor/marine/marauder SHOULD do, as long as your fundamentals are solid.
And no, thor/marine/hellion does not shut down muta/ling/bling by it's own nature. Magic box >>> thors, banelings >>> marines and hellions. Hellions >>> lings, but not banelings, so big fucken deal there. Yes, these are useful units to have (perhaps not the thor, hence why I've been trying out TvZ without tanks or thors until 3rd base, which so far has been going surprisingly ok), but they won't win you the game just because you built them and attacked him.
Anyway, useful information above is over. Here contains my current experimentation with TvZ.
Fuck thors. Seriously. I liked them when their splash meant something, and now I'm over them. Screw tanks as well. Well, correction. Screw tanks BEFORE 3rd base. Tansk after 3rd is great beacuse the Zerg army is huge at that point and I could really do with some tanks to reduce their numbers. Until then, bugger it all.
Why? Well, thors require two things to be really good vs mutalisks. First is upgrades, a +2/+0 thor kills a muta in 2 hits, not 3. Considering how slowly the bastards shoot, that's quite important. Second, an opponent that doesnt' know about magic box, which is basically no-one at high level play. If you lack those things then they don't do particularly well against mutalisks or lings or blings, compared to other options. Thors are also slow to move, and I don't care for that much either.
I do like using thors to dissuade mutalisks from entering my base before I get turrets up. The huge range of thor AA is quite nice. But otherwise I'm going to give them a miss and just depend on a LOT of marines and a LOT of keeping marines alive. Marines don't need bullshit to kill mutas, they just point their guns upwards, hit the stims and pray to god the banelings aren't next to them yet, and they do quite well at that.
I'm not saying Thors are entirely useless. I just don't want to use them in my style of play right now. Maybe later, mighty steel titans, but not yet. I do like adding them against ultralisks because they do LOADS of damage to them, laughing off their thick armour (well, mostly).
As for tanks, I'm not getting any until my 3rd is up, at which point I'll add loads. It's mostly because I don't need them yet. With good micro and creep clearing, a bioball can hold their own long enough against muta/ling/bling and keep their numbers down whilst I get a third up. A bioball can do this without getting fucked by bad positioning. Well, not as much. I'll add tanks later because they are useful later, especially when the distances between bases are shorter (because we're expanding everywhere) and it's harder for the Zerg to find good counterattack paths (another huge reason I hate pushing out with tanks on 2-base, good zergs exploit my lack of mobility hard).
A bioball is also heaps easier to control and macro up. Plus, because I'm skipping mech upgrades so I can afford to get infantry armour, which I've started to value highly. I ignored it before, because I was getting mech upgrades and didn't want to over-upgrade my army, and also because I didn't think I needed it. Marines get splatted by 2 banelings no matter how much armoru you have, so why bother?
True, true, but ultras, lings and mutas do smaller amounts of damage, and that is definitely worth getting at least 1 or 2 points of armour for.
Well, that's over. I'll be trying this out for probably like a week before I decide it's trash and move on.
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On October 18 2010 17:45 iaguz wrote:
~1900 terran here, btw. I'll answer questions I know I can answer safely enough, though me and the OP may disagree on some key areas.
How to stop muta/ling/bling? Attack him at ~13 mins and deny his third. And maybe keep attacking. You gotta stay aggressive, even if it seems bad for you, because if the Zerg army gets too big you'll never kill it.
The only way to stop this is to ensure his mutaflock does not get too large. If it does then you're fucked, well and true, as his army is far too big to handle, he'll have a third up and you struggle to get yours up likewise, and even if you do you struggle to get out of your base because 30 mutas >>> terran bases. If you cannot get out of your base then you cannot stop him from taking a 4th and 5th and eventually ultralisks. And then you're REALLY screwed.
And the only way to stop the mutaflock getting too large is to attack him. He won't attack you. He doesn't need to.
What with? I'm tinkering with a bioball meself, but thor/marine/marauder SHOULD do, as long as your fundamentals are solid.
And no, thor/marine/hellion does not shut down muta/ling/bling by it's own nature. Magic box >>> thors, banelings >>> marines and hellions. Hellions >>> lings, but not banelings, so big fucken deal there. Yes, these are useful units to have (perhaps not the thor, hence why I've been trying out TvZ without tanks or thors until 3rd base, which so far has been going surprisingly ok), but they won't win you the game just because you built them and attacked him.
Anyway, useful information above is over. Here contains my current experimentation with TvZ.
Fuck thors. Seriously. I liked them when their splash meant something, and now I'm over them. Screw tanks as well. Well, correction. Screw tanks BEFORE 3rd base. Tansk after 3rd is great beacuse the Zerg army is huge at that point and I could really do with some tanks to reduce their numbers. Until then, bugger it all.
Why? Well, thors require two things to be really good vs mutalisks. First is upgrades, a +2/+0 thor kills a muta in 2 hits, not 3. Considering how slowly the bastards shoot, that's quite important. Second, an opponent that doesnt' know about magic box, which is basically no-one at high level play. If you lack those things then they don't do particularly well against mutalisks or lings or blings, compared to other options. Thors are also slow to move, and I don't care for that much either.
I do like using thors to dissuade mutalisks from entering my base before I get turrets up. The huge range of thor AA is quite nice. But otherwise I'm going to give them a miss and just depend on a LOT of marines and a LOT of keeping marines alive. Marines don't need bullshit to kill mutas, they just point their guns upwards, hit the stims and pray to god the banelings aren't next to them yet, and they do quite well at that.
I'm not saying Thors are entirely useless. I just don't want to use them in my style of play right now. Maybe later, mighty steel titans, but not yet. I do like adding them against ultralisks because they do LOADS of damage to them, laughing off their thick armour (well, mostly).
As for tanks, I'm not getting any until my 3rd is up, at which point I'll add loads. It's mostly because I don't need them yet. With good micro and creep clearing, a bioball can hold their own long enough against muta/ling/bling and keep their numbers down whilst I get a third up. A bioball can do this without getting fucked by bad positioning. Well, not as much. I'll add tanks later because they are useful later, especially when the distances between bases are shorter (because we're expanding everywhere) and it's harder for the Zerg to find good counterattack paths (another huge reason I hate pushing out with tanks on 2-base, good zergs exploit my lack of mobility hard).
A bioball is also heaps easier to control and macro up. Plus, because I'm skipping mech upgrades so I can afford to get infantry armour, which I've started to value highly. I ignored it before, because I was getting mech upgrades and didn't want to over-upgrade my army, and also because I didn't think I needed it. Marines get splatted by 2 banelings no matter how much armoru you have, so why bother?
True, true, but ultras, lings and mutas do smaller amounts of damage, and that is definitely worth getting at least 1 or 2 points of armour for.
Well, that's over. I'll be trying this out for probably like a week before I decide it's trash and move on.
I would like to see some replays of examples to your bio statement, as infestors to me feel like they would shut down your entire play. Maybe a few examples of this working? As you can get infestors around the same time as mutalisks it shouldn't be too difficult to stop your aggression.
However I do hope you are on to something as tanks are very slow. 8)
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Good infestor play could shut this down, for sure. Thors still wouldn't help in that situation, mind! Tanks would though. Tanks are fun. Also drops. I hate dropping mutalisk players out because it's a huge risk trying to sneak a loaded dropship out, only to have it caught my roaming mutas and lose it all. fuck that. But against infestors it's a much safer bet. And it's easier to shoot down overlords with vikings too!
But against muta/ling/bling, hells fucking yes.
As I said, I will work on a bit more.
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On October 18 2010 18:13 iaguz wrote:
Good infestor play could shut this down, for sure. Thors still wouldn't help in that situation, mind! Tanks would though. Tanks are fun. Also drops. I hate dropping mutalisk players out because it's a huge risk trying to sneak a loaded dropship out, only to have it caught my roaming mutas and lose it all. fuck that. But against infestors it's a much safer bet. And it's easier to shoot down overlords with vikings too!
But against muta/ling/bling, hells fucking yes.
As I said, I will work on a bit more.
Looking forward to your results, however if you are going bio play. add cloak ghosts for emp shots.
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Hmmmm, ghosts, now that's not a bad idea.
My opening that I've been tinkering with is like 12 rax reaper, FE, into 2 cloaked banshees (you do lose a bit of timing with it, but they'll come before mutas arrive, if only just! I'm not 100% I need them to be cloaked because the lair is always up by the time they get there, although almost never an overseer. They do hatch very quickly, but I do get a cool window to shoot drones in whilst it morphs) into lots of rax and bioball, into 3rd at which at point I add factories and tanks.
Some ghosts though, instead of cloak tech (keep teh banshees as they are pretty useful. Even if they do get shot down, you do kill a good amount of drones whilst I get everything else in place.) is not a bad idea. I can see it working. Only thing I don't like is the fact I probably lack the apm to snipe all them banelings AND control my marines at the same time. I dunno. I'll definitely keep it in mind if I scout infestor play (scouting zerg tech is another use of the banshees, unfortunately I usually just sit and shoot drones instead, hehe)
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On October 18 2010 19:37 iaguz wrote:
Hmmmm, ghosts, now that's not a bad idea.
My opening that I've been tinkering with is like 12 rax reaper, FE, into 2 cloaked banshees (you do lose a bit of timing with it, but they'll come before mutas arrive, if only just! I'm not 100% I need them to be cloaked because the lair is always up by the time they get there, although almost never an overseer. They do hatch very quickly, but I do get a cool window to shoot drones in whilst it morphs) into lots of rax and bioball, into 3rd at which at point I add factories and tanks.
Some ghosts though, instead of cloak tech (keep teh banshees as they are pretty useful. Even if they do get shot down, you do kill a good amount of drones whilst I get everything else in place.) is not a bad idea. I can see it working. Only thing I don't like is the fact I probably lack the apm to snipe all them banelings AND control my marines at the same time. I dunno. I'll definitely keep it in mind if I scout infestor play (scouting zerg tech is another use of the banshees, unfortunately I usually just sit and shoot drones instead, hehe)
I hope you are watching the GSL as it shows just how easy it is to stop banshee's.
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On October 18 2010 19:45 Vegasminion wrote:
I hope you are watching the GSL as it shows just how easy it is to stop banshee's.
...
ButterflyEffect's banshees were -extremely- late.
He even built tanks before the banshees.
REAL 2-port banshee (gas before rax, etc.) can be really tricky to stop.
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Didn't watch GSL, but note that part where I said it's an FE build that uses banshees to poke around a bit and kill some drones, and scout. The other option is a drop. I don't like drops quite as much as you don't kill as many drones with a drop (well, generally) as you would with banshees. I'm here to kill drones goddammit, not fuckaround with some lings!
A lot of the inspiration for this build actually came from watching Drewbie wreck Ret and Slush. I'm not entirely sure with the banshees and cloak, I'll hand ye that, but the 12rax reaper opening is a winner. It gives me a tech lab to handle early pressure, allows me to put pressure on him, get great scouting and expand fast. What's to lose?
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On October 18 2010 20:28 iaguz wrote:
Didn't watch GSL, but note that part where I said it's an FE build that uses banshees to poke around a bit and kill some drones, and scout. The other option is a drop. I don't like drops quite as much as you don't kill as many drones with a drop (well, generally) as you would with banshees. I'm here to kill drones goddammit, not fuckaround with some lings!
A lot of the inspiration for this build actually came from watching Drewbie wreck Ret and Slush. I'm not entirely sure with the banshees and cloak, I'll hand ye that, but the 12rax reaper opening is a winner. It gives me a tech lab to handle early pressure, allows me to put pressure on him, get great scouting and expand fast. What's to lose?
You won't have reaper speed as early though, remember that new portion.
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EPT
