|
4v4 Team Game Strategy
A lot of you may be interested in this post. Finally, a strategy on 4v4 Team Game. First of all, I would define 4v4 whether an Arrange Team(AT) or Random Team(RT) game as a more active mindset as compared to solo 1v1 which is more towards a reactive playstyle. What I mean here is in solo, taking the Protoss v Terran matchup where a lot of Protoss players will start with a 1 Gateway 1 Robo Build. The advantage of this build is when your observer is out, you can send it to your opponents base to scout what the Terran player's unit composition and tech he has. This will determine your strategy from here on either of getting a Robotics Bay, more Gateways or setting up an expo. This is deemed a very safe build in PvT. Scouting information is one of the most important aspect of Starcraft. So basically you tailor your build to counter your opponents.
As compared to 4v4 which is a more active playstyle, where basically before you start or in the beginning of a game, you choose and determine a strategy path. This is due to the nature of team games where massing units is given a higher priority. A 400 food army will decimate a 200 food army anytime anyday. For instance, I will go stalkers or I will go zealots and Dark Templar tech or fast Void Ray strategy. You first determine a strategy you want to perform. During the game, perform the strategy. You will see a lot of players chooses the mass Blink Stalker build. This is a very strong strategy and probably my favorite one as well. The main advantages are the ability of constantly warp in units and the ease to transition into Dark Templars or High Templars. Blinking micro is very essential in this strategy. Blinking back a stalker or a few stalkers at a time when they are hit can win your countless battles. Stalker Blink micro is actually very easy to perform. When you see your front line Stalkers are being damage, just click on them and blink them back. Viola.
However, you do not stick to this strategy a 100%. Heres an example, I always build a Pylon at my main entrance at 9 and send this Probe out to scout. Upon reaching your opponents base, you see two Zerg opponents getting a very early Spawning Pool at 6 or 7 which is near completion or has already completed. This is a critical moment where you need to react against them either build Chrono Boost out Zealots and pulling out some Probes to defend or putting down another Gateway at your choke doing a full wall off. You may think this is overreact but let me tell you. You are not facing 6 Zergling like in 1v1 but double or triple the amount. 1 Zealot at a choke can only hold 5 Zerglings. Try your best to hold out as long as possible while waiting for your allies for reinforcement. If you are being taken down, do not worry, your allies will have better tech and a counter push can be done.
Here I'll outline some of the main Protoss strategy.
* 4 WarpGate Stalkers
* Zealot + Fast Dark Templar (Warp in 3 or 4 Dark Templars when your tech is done and send 1 to each of your opponents base and start killing workers. If they move their workers away, focus down the main. Most of the time your Protoss or Zerg opponent will have a detection unless a cannon or two. Only Terran can scan but can only save 1 or 2 of his allies)
* Zealot + Robotics Facility (Collosus)
* Void Ray (I personally thinks that Void Ray is bad in 4v4 due to the ease of countering them)
* Zealots + Phoenix (This is a very good strategy if there are two or more Zergs for your opponent. Hunting down Overlords and countering Mutalisks which is very common in 4v4)
* Zealot rush (This needs the help from everyone on your team for maximum damage either in the form of fast reapers, ling rush etc)
And remember to expo when you have the opportunity. Once your expo is up, make more Warpgates or any production buildings.
Finally remember do not engage a fight alone against two or more opponents unless you have a superior army. Just wait for your allies or you will be totally crushed leaving your allies to 3v4. Basically 4v4 is a teamwork game and only fight when most of your allies are together.
Cheers.
3v3, 4v4 Team Game Strategy - Part 1- Overview
Part 1 - Overview
This is the first series of post where I'll take on regarding Team Games for Starcraft 2, whether in the form of 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4. As all of you know team games are games where you play with your buddies often referred to as Arranged Team Game from Warcraft 3 or where you are playing with random players or Random Team. As stated in my previous article, I have posted on the topic regarding Arrange Team in Random Team. This is a new feature implemented on Starcraft 2, where you can have 2 players; you and your ally, and search using the 3v3 or 4v4 Search feature. This may be an advantage or disadvantage for you as the total MMR (Match Making Rating) which is hidden and not confused with your actual Rating Points where you see in your profile. The average of Team 1 will be close or equal to Team 2. Blizzard is trying to balance out the players of both side of the team. You can read more on this topic in my previous article.
Ok, so you and three of your buddies are ready to rock on the 4v4 Team Game League. What I'll focus on this article will the the general overview of strategy. Normally, a 4v4 game consists of 4 players each contributing 25% to the outcome of the game. This can be changed due to the strategies being used by each team.
If any of you are previous Warcraft 3 players, you should be very familiar with the 2 Night Elves and Undead team in 3v3; and or Orc, Undead and Night Elf combination. You may ask why are both of these two strategies so strong in the Warcraft 3 3v3 team strategy. The obvious answer is optimizing the strength of each races. Take the 2 NE + UD strategy for example. Both the NE players, will train a Keeper of the Growth and Priestess of the Moon and only mass Huntress for the rest of the game. What both of these players are doing is to train efficient and cheap units in the form of Huntress where Priestess of the Moon will synergize with the whole army giving the Range Aura for the whole army. Both the NE players will constantly feed the Undead ally with additional gold and lumber.
The Undead race is often considered a late game race. This race are strongest during the late game with high level heros for Death Knight, Lich and or Crypt Lord. With the additional income for the Night ELves allies, Undead can pretty much mass up Fiends, 2 or 3 Heros, Statues and Frost Wurms which is a fearsome army. Together with Huntress serving as a meat shield for the Fiends, while Fiends are used to focused down opposing units, a win can easily be achieved.
The whole point is Synergy being created. Lets come back to SC2. What we can translate from this to SC2, a combination of units such as Roach, Stalkers and Bioball can be really strong. The Zerg will constantly be pumping out roaches which only acts as a meat shield for ally units such as the Stalkers and Marines/Marauders. Trying to optimize the best strength of each races is the best strategy for every Real Time Strategy Game.
After you have played a 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 team games, you will mostly likely notice a huge difference between them. The most obvious will be the map difference. This will heavily affects the overall game. For instance on smaller maps, players are more likely to engage each other earlier in the game. 2v2 team game is considered more closely related to a 1v1 solo game followed by 3v3 and 4v4. In a 4v4 game, very often one team decides to just mass a type of units and to push up at enemy bases together which results in total destruction of enemy forces. An easy example is a map where 2 allies are sharing the same base. The opponent can decide to kill these 2 players together with their 4 armies. This is very devastating.
So in conclusion, try to work together with your allies by deciding what units are you getting at the beginning of the game. For example, u'll just type out Roach indicating a ground based army which is often followed by Hydra; or Bio often related to Marines+Marauders; or Mass marines; Stalkers or 4 Gate. Try to synergize as much with your team. You would not want all three of your teammates teching real hard to late game units such as Colossus, Banshee or Mutas together where your opponent will just roll over you when they push.
General Checklist on this part:
- Work together with your allies
- Decide your strategy
- Know what your allies are doing
- Synergize your army and Push together
- Try to help each other out, when they are requesting for Minerals or Gas
Stay tuned for Part 2.
Just two sample articles from my blog. Come visit me at sc2tips.blogspot.com to explore more. I'm Top 20 Masters League 1v1 from SEA server and over 1k + Team games played.
Cheers.
uRv.CoveTous
EDIT:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/131487-2v2-terran-protoss-zerg-scorched-haven My 2v2 Replay
Part 2 - Strategy
Part 3 - Maps
Part 4 - Protoss
Part 5- Terran
Part 6 - Zerg
Part 7 Conclusion and Replays
Series is complete!
Bonus Replays
4v4 Team Game Strategy - Part 7- Conclusion and Replays
[url blocked]
|
There are too many blind counters in 4s for it to be possible for solid strategies but common sense usually trumps anything you can put on paper. I've got around 500 4v4 games played and I am around 85%, if you are ever on NA server and want to play hit me up
Perseverance.721
It's a very good post for new or mid/low level players though. Well thought out.
|
This is a well though out post. I agree with the poster before me, that this may not work in a game where all 8 players are decent, but then again, how often is that the case? I intend to send a link to this to some of my gold league friends I do 4s with.
When/if you intend to elaborate on this post, I'd suggest putting in some ideal unit compositions (for example off the top of my head, speedling/zealot harass while a T tech's cloaked banshees and protoss to DT - Detection is always undervalued by most people in multiplayer, and not only do you waste terran mules, but force protoss to robo tech (the ideal protoss late game tech when you went banshees vs HT tech).
|
|
|
Durp, Im intending to write on Strategies often used in 4s (eg. 3 Mass Units, while 1 tech etc) , Unit composition options for each race etc in the coming series. I'm not too sure though.
Perserverance, your right its actually hard to pin point 4v4 due to too many variables eg your allies units and your opponents units. But I'm trying to outline the best options for players. For eg. when my team has 4 Protoss due to random, we may opt for 16 gates strategy, chrono boosting the hell out of warpgate etc. Or normal gates, with mix in robo and dts. etc
Sarcasm you reminded me of a game where I heard a Nuke warning and frantically search around the map. The nuke landed on my expo killing a billion units + workers and then my com crash lol.
Luckily Ive upgraded my comp now. High level of team games are actually tough. For eg both teams with Masters players.
|
I think the most important thing you can do in a 4's game is immediately type..
"Hi, 6 minute attack?"
and get everyone on the same page.
|
I've had the most success in 4 v 4 random doing "counter all" builds like mass voids or blink stalkers...builds where regardless of what my opponents are doing, I'll at least be able to do alot of damage. Unlike a teamate of mine once who simply went mass(10 reactored rax) marines. He rolled right through two zergs, then hit a toss with mass colossi. Not so good.
"Normal builds" generally are the best when done properly.
Blink/mass voids are generally decent vs most army compositions as P.
Roach Hydra can compete vs most enemy army combinations as Z.
MMM/Tank will handle most enemy army combinations as T.
The key to these is to be hitting before the "specialist" units like BCs or Carriers can be massed. Most of the time i go build X, drop an expo, and instruct my teamates to move out as soon as my second is up and running. If we take one or two enemies out, I'll drop another expo, build up, and repeat.
But random team games are impossible to "do well" in consistently. I've had countless games where i was 1st in points by a large margin, eco, units, etc, and had the next 4 players in points be my opponents.
|
Rank #50ish world 4v4RT:
I agree that blink stalkers is a solid strategy in 4vs4. However, the biggest obstacle is getting to the 7 minute mark to where you can have a sizable amount. Unfortunately, you start playing these higher level games where people rush at the 5 minute mark. Zerglings and Hellions are the early game winners in 4v4 as nothing early can stop that combo. A good 4v4 push consists of these two units.
But like sixzeros said, getting everyone on the same page in RT is important and if we're playing some #1 diamond 4vs4AT that consist of players like protoss and garretx, we will lose if any one player goes an economic build or techs. You have to make them understand that.
With that said, most of my games I am favored, so as a terran player I typically get around 14 speed reapers at the 7:30 mark and obliterate everyone's economy. It is too surprising for low to mid diamond players and master's league players can't comprehend that type of attack upon their base since they mostly 1v1. The trick with reapers is not sending 2-3 at a player so that they expect more. The trick is to send a lot of reapers in which you will not have to send them again because of the destruction they have done. This strategy works 90% of the time vs. players at this skill level.
|
YOU didn't win crap with that lol. I watched the replay, and that about the worst possible use of nukes ever. :-( You could have wrecked entire bases, instead you spent 25 minutes to nuke down a single hatchery and single CC, killing almost no workers in either attack. The only lulz moment to be had in the entire game was the OL kills, and that was only about 6 of them. :-(
You can do much better.
|
I've found that in 3v3 at least, 4OC Openings on shared bases can be pretty strong (Especially if you expand to 5 Base Gas after defending the first push) if your other 2 partners go with a rush type of build to mass up a defense. Against a 6 Minute Push, the defenders advantage typically allows your allies to beat out your opponents 3 rush armies, especially if you have a few of your SCVs on auto repair at the door (SCVs can repair Protoss Mechanical Units when they start taking damage after the shields fail... not sure about buildings yet though). Once your OC Macro starts kicking in, sending minerals to your allies so they can afford to expand in spite of using economy killing rush builds should be no problem.
Oh, and I've found that in 3v3 and 4v4, Good Sensor Tower placement is a godsend.
|
Just to add I'm mostly taking about 4v4 Arrange Team. Random team 4v4 is purely trash and I wont bother to even play it due to me not trusting random players. Me and my friends sometimes use the timing mark to determine our attacks for eg 5.30/6 min mark where 4 gates are done. Sometimes it depends heavily on the maps as well. Maps like Megaton has strong defender advantage. Your main point is just to expo yourself and deny any expo from your opponent. You'll win from there. Ill take about more on these in the future.
|
I went 10-0 with a team recently where two of my teammates build pylons/gateway/forge right next to our opponents main at the start of the game and my third teammate and I just play a macro game. 4s is srs bsns
|
Ok my clan has team with 78-0 stats in 4v4 Arrange team. Good enough? lol
|
arranged teams don't count, RT is the only way to go.
Just to briefly contribute content regarding synergy.
I play T and often go MMM in 4v4s. usually around midgame I end up with way too many medivacs. If you have a Z teammate going mutas, give him control and send him a handful of medivacs. He now has a continuously growing ball of healed mutas. OP imo.
|
On January 25 2011 16:58 covetousrat wrote:
Just to add I'm mostly taking about 4v4 Arrange Team. Random team 4v4 is purely trash and I wont bother to even play it due to me not trusting random players. Me and my friends sometimes use the timing mark to determine our attacks for eg 5.30/6 min mark where 4 gates are done. Sometimes it depends heavily on the maps as well. Maps like Megaton has strong defender advantage. Your main point is just to expo yourself and deny any expo from your opponent. You'll win from there. Ill take about more on these in the future.
You are taking 4 v 4 random WAAAAYYYYYY to seriously. 4 v 4 random is just a great place to screw around, take 5 bases, get 200/200 supply with void rays, carriers, and mothership, and just fark around. Sure, you'll lose half your games to 4 7 pools, but w/e, noone cares, just leave and go to the next one. Archon toilet builds, and 200/200 blink stalker builds off 12 gates are amazing. If you can manage the micro, splitting up your blink stalkers into two groups, and putting an observer in each group for vision is ultra fun. You can lose an entire group and with chrono off 3 or 4 bases, you can have it all back in 3 or 4 minutes. 3 base + robo + 12 wg +3 blink stalkers ftw. Split up your group, and have a obs and prism in each group. Mega lulz time, who the fark cares if you don't trust your teamates.
|
I love to attack early, zealots, marines, probes and scv before 6 min, you can easily bunker and canon.
I see some terrans going mass reapers and attacking solo, it doesn't work in team game. Train marines and 3-5 reapers max, it's enough, attack with your allies, when the big battle begins, send reapers, don't try to harass before any major fight with them.
|
Well, 4v4 is fun. Quite nice maps, those 3v3 with dual ramps should be removed.
One good tactic in 3v3/4v4 is that if you spot a rush and you are not the target - send your army to the rally path. You can usually get a bunch of free kills (and hope that your allies can stomp the initial attackers). Some rushers rally their army to the attacking units, which can be --- dangerous.
Another common mistake is that if you succeed in breaking walls/defences you enter the enemy base with your entire army. Only to be hit in the back by the counterattack... Just run in, kill as many workers as possible, get the h*ck out of there before the defenders arrive. Be prepared for counter drops/harass.
|
On January 25 2011 22:36 woowoo wrote:
I love to attack early, zealots, marines, probes and scv before 6 min, you can easily bunker and canon.
I see some terrans going mass reapers and attacking solo, it doesn't work in team game. Train marines and 3-5 reapers max, it's enough, attack with your allies, when the big battle begins, send reapers, don't try to harass before any major fight with them.
It works fine if you make 12-15 and then start pumping MM. In random 4vs4, you must assume your partners are terrible and win the game on your own. Once in maybe 20 games will my partners be decent enough to hold their own.
I am not saying your zealot/marine with canons/bunks bush isn't effective --it is. The problem is that your teammates cannot get units before 6 minutes. Most will either macro up or tech to something stupid such as void rays. You gotta win the game on your own.
|
@covetousrat thanks for starting this threads.
@covetousrat and GAFF any chance you can post a mega replay pack of high level replays?
I am a gold-plat player, and we have a pretty good success rate lately by rushing at the 5 minutes mark. I usually play with 2 more guys, and most of the time the 4th random person would buy into the 5 min rush, even if he's not too dedicated to it. I usually go no gass builds until the first attack, but my buddies are a bit more conservative. Most of the time we manage to take out at least one guy with the first push, usually two (even on shared base mapps like Extinction), and from here on it's pretty easy to get a win. On the rare ocasions when the first push fails, we're pretty much screwed, as we are all behind in tech and macro. Sometimes we fail on shared bases mabe because it takes too long to merge armies and decide where to go, and we get to actually attack around 6mins, or later. We always go for the zerg, and the only serious threat is FF. Also a zerg that manages to tech to mutas can do pretty serious damage to more than one guy. There arent many other things that one enemy can tech to at ~7mins and do damage solo to more than one of us (which would make us even 3v3, or 3v2 in our favor). DTs once exposed are manageable. Same for fast banshee or VR. Collo and tanks need support but if somebody rushes any of them that means he doesnt have much ofanything else, so its tanks or collo + 2other armies vs 4 of our armies.
The problem lately is that some of the diamond players that we have been facing are pretty good at dying slowly, and their allies can get a pretty good idea what unit composition they are facing, and have time to get decent amount of hard counter units (hellions, banes, immortals, collo, bunkers). Overall i think our strat is pretty solid, and since our individual skills are probably below the rank we achieved in 4v4, this would benefit a lot from improved micro, better synchronization, better communication.
Do you think voice communucation is a must?
How about shared control? We had some success with one single person coordinating the initial attack. And couple of times, on extinction, we had only one guy focusing on base macro and micro, defending agains drops and banshees (there's nothing more annoying that 5 allied hidras sitting south of your nexus, while some banshees are going to town on it from the north), and only rallying his troops for us to attack with. This is probably not very usefull at top level, where enough APM can cover this problem easily. However in those games, the guy managing the base had by far the biggest army (as shown on the graphs). Unfortunately we don't have enough time to play together (just ~10 games a week) so we can't really explore all the options.
How about pooling resources at ~5 mins, to build some game ending army (like 10VRs)... anybody have a serious plan?
|
There are two ways to win a 4v4.
1) Synchronise timing windows put armies together and go for a ridiculous timing push
2) Cover each others timing windows into a constant pressure cascade.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
