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On March 02 2011 18:05 TheRealDJ wrote:
MKP, y u no get blue flame!? Its a shame since I think he could've taken the game with it in the initial push in his game in gsl with a modified version of your build.
well he was more going straight mech (hellions, tanks, thors) which sadly cannot to attributed to iechoic, as it's been a thing for a while. popularized most by jinro i guess, who as far as i know, did it ONCE in gsl and them completely abandoned it.
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This build made me realize how strong can Battlecruisers be in TvT.
Even if the opponent is not going for Thors, I like to get them when I have 4 satured gas, then using 3 starport, two with tech lab and 1 with reactor. If you are ahead in vikings count, there is not much he can do. Marines are almost worthless against BCs, especially if you have armors upgrade. Remember: BCs have a initial 3 armor class. Count for yourself: how much damage can marines do if you get armors upgrades ? Plus they are gonna be roasted with hellions.
Banshees are great to start of, but I lost a few games where marauders and tanks were able to get the hellions before getting enough hits on marines, and then they focused fired the banshees down. That just cannot happen if you use BCs in mid/late game.
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United States700 Posts
A bright side to the horrible new maps is that this build has been even more effective for me, except in the super close positions of course. I've had quite a few mirror matches where we nuke eachother's mineral lines and play really low econ games. I'm not sure if Backwater Gulch is good or bad for this build but I vetoed it anyway. For the most part there's just too much space to defend and they can't be safe from every angle and mode of attack without resigning to two bases for 20 minutes. So much fun 
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Hey, for some reason I can't download the pack of replays (damn Mac)... Would you be able to post them individually? I'd really help a lot, thank you.
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Hi there, my first post on TL =)
I'm losing my TL posting virginity because I like this build so much it's hard to believe a typical 1/1/1 can easily defeat it lol.
Two points about these two clashing builds based on the replay.
1) Echoic mentions that scouting is key, which your opponent didn't really do. AJak used a scan but didn't really make use of the information. If my scan revealed only Barracks and Factory, I'd think you're either hiding production buildings or expanding (the expansion could be verified by running a hellion or SCV around the map).
2) According to Echoic's build order, the first tech lab attached to a Starport should be swapped with the one on the Factory and not build a new one, meaning AJak wasted time waiting for the tech lab to finish before he/she could make a Viking to defend against your Banshee(s). If AJak did do the swap, then he/she could've made a Raven (for Auto-turret) or Viking to be defensive since the scan revealed a lack of production buildings.
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I just hate what u've done with this strat, seems like tvt is broke for now.
I truely hope for something to happen, i just tried everything.
Before spam nooblolilol, 3750 europe T here.
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I've been having some fun with this build, but I have a question. Why the 2 fact? Why not 1-1-2?
In the replays in this build it seems that iEchoic doesn't put addons on his factories when he is on 1base. If this is true, then why not get a reactor on your rax and swap it?
Pros:
- Air Superiority vs any build (including standard iEchoic) as you will get your 2nd starport earlier.
- Easier defense against banshee rushes (since you are opening 1-1-1 into 1-1-2).
Cons:
- Fewer hellions early game.
Thats the way i see it at least. Granted I'm a lowly plat. Anyone have any opinions about this?
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I think anyone above gold can execute this build pretty effectively, given you keep up with your macro. I off-race Terran and I must say, I have a lot of fun with this build. Much more enjoyable to play than tank. :D
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As destiny would put it, it was simply a matter of mechanics. You were out macroed. He was on 3 base before you saturated your second one, so he was able to outproduce you, getting upgrades and basically win that way. You need to play like zerg, staying one expansion ahead of your opponent since he's stuck in his base protecting it from your harassment. Likewise you stayed on 2 fact 2 starport the entire time.
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On March 08 2011 13:12 RawK wrote:
I've been having some fun with this build, but I have a question. Why the 2 fact? Why not 1-1-2?
In the replays in this build it seems that iEchoic doesn't put addons on his factories when he is on 1base. If this is true, then why not get a reactor on your rax and swap it?
Pros:
- Air Superiority vs any build (including standard iEchoic) as you will get your 2nd starport earlier.
- Easier defense against banshee rushes (since you are opening 1-1-1 into 1-1-2).
Cons:
- Fewer hellions early game.
Thats the way i see it at least. Granted I'm a lowly plat. Anyone have any opinions about this?
Hi, I just tested something out and I believe the reason 2 fact is better than 1/1/2 is because you'd have to wait for Infernal Igniter to finish before you can swap the Reactor onto the Factory. And there's a timing window when you can be manhandled by fast Marines (and Marauders) if you don't have enough Hellions due to waiting for the reactor. I'm making this statement based on the Replay where the player tried to Marine rush Echoic and also myself practicing the BO against Very Hard AI (which IMO has an efficient BO for early MM rush). So it seems better to go 2 fact for a stronger defence since this build only uses 2 Marines and no bunker to defend. It's possibly doable in Scrap Station though due to longer rush distances and a Tower that's half way of the rush path.
I've paid a lot of attention to the build order and so I try to pick up on these nuances.
As for the defence against Banshee rushes, like Echoic says, this is a reactionary build. If a scan or barracks float or scout reveals a 1/1/1 build, then make a Viking (rather than Banshee) after the first Medivac.
I don't know if Echoic reads all these posts, but I've studied the opening quite a bit.
I'm only a Platinum player too, but I beat my friends who are Diamond players (I avoided laddering to avoid TvT until now!)
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I'm having quite a bit of trouble against 2 rax marine marauder stim SCV allins
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United States7483 Posts
On March 09 2011 03:12 Catch]22 wrote:
I'm having quite a bit of trouble against 2 rax marine marauder stim SCV allins
Scout it and get a bunker or two, and get some scv's to repair it. This type of thing is somewhat tough to hold, but with hellions and a bunker you should hold.
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i like going 3 rax vs T cause for me it's more fun to do and i would like to say 3 rax always beats this build. Like badly i should push with 3 - 4 marauders and 3 - 4 marines and instantly win cause the other terren doesn't have blue flame yet nor enough units to defend. Plus constantly rallying men in his base while he is trying to tech to blue flame and get banshees means i am producing way more men then him.
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On March 09 2011 04:43 ForkieLifter wrote:
i like going 3 rax vs T cause for me it's more fun to do and i would like to say 3 rax always beats this build. Like badly i should push with 3 - 4 marauders and 3 - 4 marines and instantly win cause the other terren doesn't have blue flame yet nor enough units to defend. Plus constantly rallying men in his base while he is trying to tech to blue flame and get banshees means i am producing way more men then him.
Plus you've got jedi mind tricks to remove 'build bunker' from his SCV command list.
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something i've been experimenting with a lot is instead of adding BC's is adding Ravens with Hunter seeker to counter Marines heavy armys to this style. And its been working out pretty well. But i am only mid-masters so i don't know really know how valuable my opinion on the matter is.
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This is a fucking rediculously stupidly build..
All i get in ladder now is people who spam air so to get upper hand in this the one who makes more vikings wins and u have to spam vikings whole game because both are trying to win the air battle.
Fucking stupid idea and 100 times worse than tanks.
Thanks for ruining TvT.
Hope this stupid idea will wear OUT soon!
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I've been using hellion heavy builds in TvT for a long time, tried this strat out a few days after this post went up, very much enjoying it. I would however like to point out that this build relys heavily on scouting throughout the game, as this build has become more popular, people are getting better at defending hellion drops, so the games tend to go on longer.
Since I started using this build my TvT win rate has been around 85% or so, mostly losing to idiotic mistakes (lifting factory before blue flame finishes, dropping a mule instead of a supply drop after I start my second starport, etc..)
To maintain a strong late-game play, you must maintain constant scouting, and prep drops for the instant you see your opponent move out. Once they move out you can either force them to turn around or lose tons of SCVs, or have a smaller fighting army due to leaving units behind or building static D.
Any MMM ball gets cleaned up by mass hellions + a couple banshees, and any form of mass tank/marine play will have to be very turtle-ey due to the immobility of tanks, if your opponent is turtling hardcore, instantly start mass expanding, they'll only be able to pressure through drops, so make a hotkey of 8-10 hellions to go around cleaning up marine drops, maybe add a banshee to the hotkey if they're dropping marauders. If your opponent is making vikings+ tanks, they'll be using up all their gas, and they'll also be turtling quite hard, meaning you should have more bases, and therefore more gas, and therfore more viking production, and the capactiy to build ravens, ravens reign supreme in viking wars late game TvT. If you want to break a terran who's turtling with tank/marine/turrets then you should start getting BCs, once you hit +3 armor on the BCs push forward with 3-4 and a group of 10 or so SCVs on auto repair, BCs don't take much damage from turrets and marines don't do hardly anything vs them, so bring forward some vikings or a raven or two and drop some PDDs in case they have vikings out, with decent micro you'll be able to push back the tank/turret line, most likely they'll start consolidating their army wherever you're pushing, so now is a perfect time to use those drops you have prepped, you can do them all at once if you have the APM, or sequentially to force them to run a defense squad around, most likely you'll do a good bit of damage with the drops and force the tank line further back. Play like your BCs are brood lords and your hellions are zergling run-bys, except if they can't send marines to defend. Once you push through to their main the game is over, as they can no longer win the viking wars by any means, and they won't have anything to kill the BCs, if you think you've won, start putting hellions all over the map to spot for possible ninja expos or new production facility clusters.
Just my thoughts and tips for using this strat into the late game, early game stuff is all explained quite well in the main post, but basically the idea is kill their marines with the hellions, and get a banshee to clean up the marauders, dont' worry about vikings + marauders as they won't have the gas to get out more vikings than you that early in the game (during the time that you're dropping), so either they defend the drop, or they move out and lose all their SCVs, if they move out run ur SCVs around waiting for the banshee, slowly picking off marines with the hellions, then running away to repair them, meanwhile killing their SCVs, this does require a lot of micro, but that's the bane of having such powerful yet fragile units.
My late game composition consists of MASS hellions with + attack and + armor (I drop tripple armory when I get my third up for +air armor and mech+attack/armor).
Key Reaction Units:
Your main composition will consist of tons of hellions, no matter what you see (since that's your mineral sink, and you need them for eco dmg threat, and defending drops)
If you see lots of enemy vikings, start making ravens instantly, he's most likely not going to move out until he thinks he has more vikings than you, so you'll have enough energy for PDD, which just rocks viking wars and it stops marauder drops as well, if you only have energy for auto turrets, use em, they do great DPS and soak up damage.
If you see thors, instantly stop production and drop a fusion core, and start upgrading air armor, be careful when you start building too many BCs, and your army becomes extremely immobile, so you must keep track of your opponents army so you don't get caught out of position, you can elect to just not make BCs and instead get 1 or 2 of em and just magic box with a crap ton of banshees, but that's a bit riskier. If you start getting too many BC, add a ton of vikings, as if you lose the viking war and you have only hellion BC left, you're gonna lose all ur BCs, unlike with banshees, where you can retreat to your PDDs/turrets/re-inforcements.
In the vary rare occasion that the game turns into a war of attrittion, get ghosts + cloak ASAP, just 2-3 will do fine depending the number of OCs your opponent has, drop/walk the ghosts to the enemy orbital commands, and emp them, then just move in with your banshees and collect the win, this strat has saved me multiple times from un-winnable situations where my opponent has been more efficient with tanks than i have with hellions.
Just a few little tips and tricks for this build, hellion micro is very unique, and requires a good bit of practice to get good at (knowing when you have enough hellions to take out a MMM ball, and having the apm and accuracy to move hellions up/to the side to get the optimal splash damage.
If you're having trouble with this build, watch your replays, and look at how much vision of the map that you have, if you don't have almost complete map vision then you're doing it wrong and tanks may be a better option for your playstyle, if you have map vision, are you watching your minimap, do you have more expos than your opponent? are there opportunities to harrass? are you making enough raven/vikings? are you clumping up your hellions vs tanks or other control issues?
If you're having trouble with the initial drop, chances are high that your timings are off, and you should be dropping sooner if your macro was tighter.
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On March 11 2011 09:58 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2011 09:33 Enforcerone wrote:
This is a fucking rediculously stupidly build..
All i get in ladder now is people who spam air so to get upper hand in this the one who makes more vikings wins and u have to spam vikings whole game because both are trying to win the air battle.
Fucking stupid idea and 100 times worse than tanks.
Thanks for ruining TvT.
Hope this stupid idea will wear OUT soon! No you don't need to do that at all. This build is a strong build if you haven't ever played against it before or don't know how to build a strong unit composition of marine/tank/viking/med or hellion/tank/viking/raven/thor. If you are going to go bio, you're fine with just marine/marauder/medivac and micro. Then you just add in some thors and it doesn't matter how many vikings they have. If you go mech, same deal. You can build some vikings and then entirely switch to ground thor/tank/hellion and you'll have a huge ground advantage you can usually just win the game from always having the stronger army. And in some of those situations, the opponent will try to be "smart" and stop building vikings because he sees you aren't contesting air control anymore, and then you can just start building lots of vikings/ravens yourself and you have both air and ground control then, while all they have are hellions.  Also, versus almost anyone that goes OFFENSIVE banshee hellion two fact two port off of one base, you can always have your expansion up way sooner than them and just defend for a free advantage literally every game. I was playing this style ages b4 the cat was let out of the bag about it lol but I rarely post TvT replays/strategy cause i enjoy a 90%+ win% TvT ^_^ it's a good solid build order counter to 1 rax FE Terrans because of mobility, but it's very flimsy if the person knows that you're doing it. Just play defensive and accumulate marine/tank or marine/hellion and you're fine. Also, you can leave 1 tank at each of your CC's and hellions aren't gonna do jack shiot to your mineral line if you're careful Some people over exaggerating this play style. It's a nice style but people that are dying to it are losing mostly because they have little to no experience playing against it.
Personally i find Mech to be the best solution. Their aren't any "hardcounters" which demonstrates how solid Hellion Banshee is as a TvT composition.
Bio Mech and Bio work to, but i really hate losing that many Marines  . What usually kills me is the BC transition. 1-2 BCs really murder.
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EPT
