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People approach the 'make mass viking' thing the wrong way. Some people assume that if you were to open two-port viking against this build on one-base, you'd just win. Here's the problems:
1) That build sucks, bad. That loses to literally every other build in the game, and nobody does it for that reason. It has to be a blind counter, because scouting info comes late and your 2nd port would come up late if you actually scouted the build and tried to react. Remember that the marine forces out your SCV before the second refinery goes up and the only subsequent thing you'll see is one poking hellion, which can mean anything.
2) You're creating a hypothetical situation where one player scouts and one doesn't. The ideal scenario is "2fact2port player doesn't scout and makes 1x vikings and I make 3x vikings then olloollololo win". Well, that can go just as easily the other way. What about "2fact2port player sees 3x vikings, makes 2x tanks and lands his vikings, and 1as and wins"? Obviously whatever player doesn't scout is going to lose.
3) Pure 3x viking has zero harassment options. Also, building any non marine or hellion units will cut into your viking gas, so you have to decide between marines, hellions, and losing air control. Those units die to blue-flame quickly. Blue-flame hellions are the perfect unit to complement mass viking, because every non-gas unit you build dies to them, and every gas unit reduces your viking count. In a real-game scenario, flying around with a bunch of vikings doesn't give you much room to get a leg up on your opponent.
4) I still maintain that you will not ever be able to attack with your vikings even if you do that. Even if the 2fact2port player's 2nd starport is a bit delayed, it is already made up for by time you move across the map to attack. This is defender's advantage - it's the reason that even if you 6pool and you get zerglings faster, an 8pool beats it, a 10pool beats that, a 12-pool beats that. The 2port viking opening only works if your opponent doesn't respond correctly (which admittedly will probably be pretty common on ladder).
I am definitely not saying that the build is unbeatable, I think it can be beaten by outplaying your opponent with a standard-esque build and solid defense and positioning, but I think people are desiring a 'hard counter' too much, and going into unrealistic builds to do so.
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I feel like a lot of misunderstanding has been coming from when exactly you can expect to do damage with your hellions and when exactly you cannot expect to do damage with your hellions. I've created a new section in the OP, called Guaranteed vs Gambled Hellion Drops, so check it out!
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Theorycrafting post ftw:
I was wondering if there was any micro that could allow the Marines to kill Hellions cost-effectively, like can be done with banelings.
Hellion w/pre-igniter
DPS 9.6, pr attack: 24
HP 90
Marine w/Combat shield
DPS 7, pr attack: 6
HP 55
Hellion needs 3 shots to kill a Marine
Marine needs 15 shots to kill a Hellion
This information is actually a bit misleading, since both the Hellion and the Marine attack at the same time the first time they attack. In other words, at time 0 both Hellion and Marine attack, then at time 0.8608 and 1.7216 the Marine attacks again, then the helion attacks at time 2.5. This ends up at time 5 seconds when the Hellion (over)kills the Marine and is left with 60hp.
The conclusion is that without Micro the Hellions, without splash kills Marines cost-effectivly. (Stimming the marine allows him to attack more, but he gets killed at time 2.5 and the Hellion is left at 65hp, so that's even worse)
This leaves the Marine/Marauder - composition. This is also quite effective at handling banelings and I do wonder if it might no be the solution for this problem as well.
Hellion w/pre-igniter
DPS 3.2, per attack 8
HP 90
Marauder
DPS 6.7, per attack 10
HP 125
Hellion needs 16 shots to kill a Marauder
Marauder needs 9 shots to kill a Hellion
Going with the same method as above (ignoring the Marauders superior range), the Marauder kills the hellion in 12 seconds with 85hp left. Stimming would allow the Marauder to kill in 8 seconds with 69 hp left.
A Marauder can nearly take on two hellions alone, leaving the reminding Hellion at 40 health.
The whole point of moving out with a Marine/Marauder army would be to keep the marines alive after the Hellions go in for the attack, splitting them, much in the same way as is done vs banelings. This would require the player with the Hellions to micro them so they fire against the marines instead of the Marauders. The Marine/Marauder player would also have to try to get his marines to attack the banshee.
This is assuming the MM player isn't going factory/starport. If he can get a single Viking out he should be able to position it back/around his marines to keep it out of enemy return viking fire.
tl;dr
Kite and split marines and let Marauders take/give damage long enough for the hellions to die so the marines can take care of the air units.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 16 2011 04:27 blackbrrd wrote:
Theorycrafting post ftw:
I was wondering if there was any micro that could allow the Marines to kill Hellions cost-effectively, like can be done with banelings.
Hellion w/pre-igniter
DPS 9.6, pr attack: 24
HP 90
Marine w/Combat shield
DPS 7, pr attack: 6
HP 55
Hellion needs 3 shots to kill a Marine
Marine needs 15 shots to kill a Hellion
This information is actually a bit misleading, since both the Hellion and the Marine attack at the same time the first time they attack. In other words, at time 0 both Hellion and Marine attack, then at time 0.8608 and 1.7216 the Marine attacks again, then the helion attacks at time 2.5. This ends up at time 5 seconds when the Hellion (over)kills the Marine and is left with 60hp.
The conclusion is that without Micro the Hellions, without splash kills Marines cost-effectivly. (Stimming the marine allows him to attack more, but he gets killed at time 2.5 and the Hellion is left at 65hp, so that's even worse)
This leaves the Marine/Marauder - composition. This is also quite effective at handling banelings and I do wonder if it might no be the solution for this problem as well.
Hellion w/pre-igniter
DPS 3.2, per attack 8
HP 90
Marauder
DPS 6.7, per attack 10
HP 125
Hellion needs 16 shots to kill a Marauder
Marauder needs 9 shots to kill a Hellion
Going with the same method as above (ignoring the Marauders superior range), the Marauder kills the hellion in 12 seconds with 85hp left. Stimming would allow the Marauder to kill in 8 seconds with 69 hp left.
A Marauder can nearly take on two hellions alone, leaving the reminding Hellion at 40 health.
The whole point of moving out with a Marine/Marauder army would be to keep the marines alive after the Hellions go in for the attack, splitting them, much in the same way as is done vs banelings. This would require the player with the Hellions to micro them so they fire against the marines instead of the Marauders. The Marine/Marauder player would also have to try to get his marines to attack the banshee.
This is assuming the MM player isn't going factory/starport. If he can get a single Viking out he should be able to position it back/around his marines to keep it out of enemy return viking fire.
tl;dr
Kite and split marines and let Marauders take/give damage long enough for the hellions to die so the marines can take care of the air units.
You completely ignored AoE. The hellions will be hitting more than one unit per attack, making this kind of theorycrafting pretty useless, unfortunately. You can attack marauders and roast marines behind them, unless the marines are so far back as to be out of range, in which case you're just going with all your marauders vs. all his hellions, hoping your marauders win with your marines not participating. Marines have the same range as the hellions do, and less than the banshees do, so if your hellions can attack the marauders, and the marines need to be in range of the air above the hellions, the hellions can hit the marines. You can't leave your marines back or the air takes out the marauders.
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@ blackbrrd:
There's a huge problem with splitting vs hellions:
- Splitting vs banelings works because the banelings have to move into your units to attack. This means that even the marines further from the front line will get to attack
- Splitting vs hellions does not work because the ones beyond the front line will just stand there and do nothing while 100% of my hellions attack, given that marines do not out-range hellions.
I've had people try to split and it actually hurts them. Splitting is not very effective against ranged units.
Quick paint illustration:
![[image loading]](http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3451/examplenr.png)
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i think small groups of marines split are good (not completely clumped in one big ball), but spreading them out in small groups is not so good
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I were thinking about the problem with slash damage and totally forgot to mention it in my post. Mostly because any type of marine-splitting where you are trying to kill the hellions will probably fail miserably, since the hellions have higher dps/hp and the same range as the marines. It's what the top part of my post is trying to say, but failing. 
I assumed you would have a ball of marine/marauder, see the hellions move inn and just move the marines out. This would leave the Marauders with range 6 spread, enabling most of them to shoot, while all of the marines are moving away.
Blue is Marauder, red is Marine:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/Ka1pM.png)
The top part of the picture you are a-moving your marine/marauder ball
At the bottom part of the picture you have used the move command on your marines.
If the hellion-player is moving after your marines to kill them the marines will need to be split up manually and moved around your marauders. The point is to have enough marines left over to kill banshee/vikings, the Marauder isn't important.
One thing to note is that splash damage increases exponentially so exchanging units vs the hellion-player is a must. When the hellion attacks hits about three marauders even Hellions become cost-effective vs marauders. (Hitting two marauders at a time isn't actually enough...)
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Additionally, assuming that the marine player micros and the hellion player doesn't micro is silly. Say you split your marines into a line formation that is perpendicular to your hellion splash. What is to stop the hellion player from pulling a few hellions to the sides to take advantage?
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I think at that point you'd essentially have a bunch of hellions and banshees attacking some marauders. I could also micro my hellions back and let my banshees kill the marauders, and only bring in the hellions whenever marines threaten the banshees.
If you check out the game vs Maker in the day9 game, my hellions initially attack a marauder, but the splash runs through and melts all the marines behind it, forming a cup of dead marines behind the marauder. The marines would have to be well-away and then my banshees would have free reign on the marauders.
Given the banshee's range, your marines have to be past the marauders to fire at the banshees.
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holy shit dude this build broke tvt... GJ!!
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iEchoic I do kinda agree with you there, but if this is early in the game, wouldn't the Banshee count be quite small at this point, with a lot of Marauders? In other words you just allow the marauders to take a beating until you can get the rid of most of the hellions?
I was thinking about the game on Metaopolis on the last Friendday Wednesday where he pushes in with Marine/Marauders and all his marines. You only had one banshee and he was in your base...
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4745995/, around 47 minutes into the replay. (Checked the replay and it skims over the that is interesting - when he moves his MM into your base. Would it be possible to post that replay here?)
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2500 diamond player here, I just played a game against someone using that build. I decided to open with a Thor-Drop (with dual medivac: one filled with scvs and marines and the other with the Thor). Since he controlled the watchtowers, I had to go all around the map. I managed to drop in his main and delay his mining for a long time. But I knew he would probably be dropping my main with hellions at the same time: when he did, I just lifted my command center and runned my scvs to the natural. I also used bunkers and supply depot to block his hellions, stucking them in my main (they don't do much to buildings).
![[image loading]](http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/4381/hellionsdrop.jpg)
These poor hellions were faced with a lifted supply depot and a bunker when they tried to pursue the scvs.
After this drop / counter-drop happened, I decided to keep up with the thors/vikings and used marines in bunker to protect my base. I had enough vikings to crush his own vikings/banshee and the thor just detroyed the hellions. Then he left.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-189453.jpg)
Do you guys think this Thordrop early agression + vikings/ bunkered marines can be a counter that could be used every game or you think that with proper control he should have crushed me ?
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United States7483 Posts
Thor drop is very risky because your opponent has air control, a little bad luck and you lose the drop ship, a lot of bad luck and you lose the thor too.
Also, a thor rush with a medivac that quickly means you don't have much of anything left to defend, and to be honest, you got pretty lucky that he didn't kill more scvs when they tried to run.
With proper control (look, those hellions in the pick are shooting a supply depot instead of the scv's right next to them -_-) he probably should have crushed you in this game.
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LOL - 2 times i encountered this tactic today ... 1 win / 1 loss
Getting back to beta wall tvt :D - bunker + tank at my mineral line (vs hellion drop,) then taking expo , expo again - and play 3 base vs 2 = win !
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This game is reduced to - how the initial hellion drop works. If u can do damage - there are 400 minerals well spent ... if u can t he uses those 400 minerals to expo and out-macro u.
Maybe I m wrong but ... i donno ... it feels so easy to out-macro this tactic and always make more vikings than him after u have the first base.
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@iEchoic
Thanks for that update on the early drop. That makes a lot of sense. Is the early drop the first time that you attack his mineral line? going up the ramp seems like a dumb gamble.
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I'm just curious, if one thor is like mega hard to defend.. what do I do to fend off the second thor, already running towards my base? i'm pretty much out of scv's and offensive units. I do drop and take out his eco during the first thor, but I can't do it fast enough to prevent a second thor coming to my base just right after the first...
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This build has effectively caused me to stop laddering and take a break from sc2. I'd say that is a testament to its success.
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Ghost Marauder > Hellion Banshee.
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On February 17 2011 09:53 Hawkke wrote:
Ghost Marauder > Hellion Banshee.
Ghosts cost more, are less mobile, have less health, and do less damage than banshees. If you're spending your gas on ghosts and I'm spending my gas on banshees I win, because -- as day9 says -- I just fucking kill your ghosts, while your marauders watch.
If you're suggesting ghosts as a way to kill hellions, then, sure -- ghosts don't take extra damage from them. But this is only relevant if you have a pile of marines to kill the banshees with, and I don't think the ghosts will kill the hellions before the hellions kill most of your marines and then the banshees eat everything else.
Ghosts don't seem all that useful unless you're planning on using their spells, neither of which is relevant here. (Remember the banshees in this strategy do not rely on cloak.)
If you want ghost/marine/marauder, where the marauders and ghosts try to keep the marines safe, then it comes down to micro, where you have a disadvantage. If the marines are in the ball or in front of it the hellions kill them; if the marines are behind then the banshees start blowing up marauders/ghosts.
Plus, the banshee/hellion player is more mobile than you; that marine force that you're trying to keep safe from the hellions is the only thing you have that can shoot up well enough to kill banshees, and they have to cover anywhere in your base that's not covered by turrets while simultaneously not getting killed by hellions.
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thanks for the awsome build echoic i havent lost a tvt since i saw your daily
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EPT
