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You do realise that if your opponents know you are going this unit composition he can just secure his mineral lines, wall inn to stop runby's and just take expansion after expansion if he adds thors into the mix. When you play tankless Terran Thor's will annihilate you unless you get friggin battlecruisers. With Thors in his army and you have that unit composition there is no way you can engage his army head on so unless you get Siegetank yourself you will lose.
Your banshees will die 2 thors and even if you have viking superiority it won't matter because you have no friggin tanks anyway?.
This build can't remove siegetanks from the equation.
1 Unit solves this whole playstyle.
You will force Siege tanks and with this opener you will have far less siege tanks then your opponent. The success of this playstyle is just harassment based ( as in did you do enough damage or not ) and the Hellion/Banshee/Viking composition is irrelevant , a good terran will force Siege tanks from you if you have that unit composition.
The only reason i can imagine this would work is because most players don't know how to react and don't scout the fact that your not making siege tanks.
I'd say use this maybe to put your opponent offguard from time to time , but would not make this into a playstyle because it will be die when people know exactly how to react 2 it.
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@raX_NT - hmm we all know that now since this build is old lol. if iechoic was still playing, i bet he would be adding ravens into it now since ravens deals with the thors easily. not saying you're soo wrong but thorzain did show us sky terran in the gstl.
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Watching the metagame development in GSL I'd say that more and more Korean Terrans lean towards this composition nowadays. Sadly, I haven't still heard anyone refering to it as the iEchoic-build eventhough Day9 should have popularized it in his daily.
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Tasteless gave iEchoic a shoutout in the GSL match of Keen vs Bomber in game 2 that just happened :D
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Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
On August 21 2011 22:10 raX_NT wrote:
You do realise that if your opponents know you are going this unit composition he can just secure his mineral lines, wall inn to stop runby's and just take expansion after expansion if he adds thors into the mix. When you play tankless Terran Thor's will annihilate you unless you get friggin battlecruisers. With Thors in his army and you have that unit composition there is no way you can engage his army head on so unless you get Siegetank yourself you will lose.
Your banshees will die 2 thors and even if you have viking superiority it won't matter because you have no friggin tanks anyway?.
This build can't remove siegetanks from the equation.
1 Unit solves this whole playstyle.
You will force Siege tanks and with this opener you will have far less siege tanks then your opponent. The success of this playstyle is just harassment based ( as in did you do enough damage or not ) and the Hellion/Banshee/Viking composition is irrelevant , a good terran will force Siege tanks from you if you have that unit composition.
The only reason i can imagine this would work is because most players don't know how to react and don't scout the fact that your not making siege tanks.
I'd say use this maybe to put your opponent offguard from time to time , but would not make this into a playstyle because it will be die when people know exactly how to react 2 it.
That's a valid point, maybe iEchoic should write about what to do against an opponent who holds off the initial harass, and in the midgame begins thor production-- only if he included a section like that could this guide be considered complete... how could he not have thought about sing
NOT REALLY AN EDIT: actually, now that I'm reading it, it seems that he had a BC transition in mind:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/OzB5K.png)
I actually run into iEchoic style openings fairly often on the ladder; my opponent and/or I will open with hellions and a quick expo, and try to get blue flame and deal economic damage. Usually someone makes a banshee, and that's shut down by a viking. After a lot of hilarious hellion shenanigans we usually transition to a more tank/hellion style of play, but there is a phase where this is used-- and I certainly see people continuing to try to vie for air control and making banshees to scare off tanks.
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Its funny how this is the direct counter to mech.
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Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
On August 24 2011 02:22 radiantshadow92 wrote:
Its funny how this is the direct counter to mech.
I actually wouldn't say that. At all. It's pretty even, though it's dangerous for iEchoic.
iEchoic vs Mech feels like a funny match, because both players are dumping minerals into hellions, and mech will have access to vikings just like iEchoic. to be successful against Mech, iEchoic has to win two fights; the air fight (keeping a higher viking count and protecting banshees from enemy vikings) AND the hellion fight (having more blue flame hellions).
The two battles: Vikings and Hellions
- If iEchoic wins both the air and the hellion battle, he rofles all over his opponent's economy and wins.
- If iEchoic loses the air battle but wins the hellion battle, he can't push the mech player because he either doesn't have banshees to back up his hellions against the tanks, or he can't bring them to bear due to the opponent's superior viking count. This simply isn't an option for him. He has to win the air battle; that's kinda what this build is about.
- If iEchoic wins the air battle but loses the hellion battle, he doesn't have a ground-holding unit, and the enemy hellions can zip into his base and eat his scvs. He won't be able to catch them with his banshees, since they're hellions which are pretty fast. He either needs to wall super heroically at every expansion, or never lose the hellion battle.
- And if he loses both the hellion and the air battle, he's dead.
The easiest way for iEchoic to insure himself against massive losses from a potential loss of the hellion battle (since banshees can't catch hellions) is to make a few ground-holding units in the form of tanks, and he doesn't even need to bring them to the fight; he can siege up in a choke somewhere, or near his natural or third or whatever, and just hold ground with, say, 4-5 tanks. It's much safer.
And if he's going hellion/tank/air? He has become a mech player.
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I know the composition of sky Terran is used plentifully with Keen and Thorzain utilising this well, but is the build actually still viable? I always thought 2fact 2port on 1 base with a supply drop sounded a bit gimicky and although the composition that this build leads to is very powerful, I certainly have questions over the build order.
On August 23 2011 22:39 jackasc wrote:
Watching the metagame development in GSL I'd say that more and more Korean Terrans lean towards this composition nowadays. Sadly, I haven't still heard anyone refering to it as the iEchoic-build eventhough Day9 should have popularized it in his daily.
I am pretty sure no one that used it in the GSL went 2 fact and 2 port off 1 base. Therefore, they were doing their own build and not iechoics build.
We don't call every marine marauder build 'The Thorzain Build' unless we see an engineering bay go up at 29 supply, taking 2 off gas when reaching 50, and all that stuff.
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On August 21 2011 22:10 raX_NT wrote:
You do realise that if your opponents know you are going this unit composition he can just secure his mineral lines, wall inn to stop runby's and just take expansion after expansion if he adds thors into the mix. When you play tankless Terran Thor's will annihilate you unless you get friggin battlecruisers. With Thors in his army and you have that unit composition there is no way you can engage his army head on so unless you get Siegetank yourself you will lose.
Your banshees will die 2 thors and even if you have viking superiority it won't matter because you have no friggin tanks anyway?.
This build can't remove siegetanks from the equation.
1 Unit solves this whole playstyle.
You will force Siege tanks and with this opener you will have far less siege tanks then your opponent. The success of this playstyle is just harassment based ( as in did you do enough damage or not ) and the Hellion/Banshee/Viking composition is irrelevant , a good terran will force Siege tanks from you if you have that unit composition.
The only reason i can imagine this would work is because most players don't know how to react and don't scout the fact that your not making siege tanks.
I'd say use this maybe to put your opponent offguard from time to time , but would not make this into a playstyle because it will be die when people know exactly how to react 2 it.
Did you even read the OP? He specifically talks about a required transition to BCs once your opponent starts Thor production. The key is not over-producing Banshees and being able to utilize the right timing window to start BC production. You also need to be vigilant with your Hellion harass.
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On August 24 2011 02:40 Micket wrote:
I know the composition of sky Terran is used plentifully with Keen and Thorzain utilising this well, but is the build actually still viable? I always thought 2fact 2port on 1 base with a supply drop sounded a bit gimicky and although the composition that this build leads to is very powerful, I certainly have questions over the build order.
I never particularly liked the build order as it seems inflexible and easily scouted. If I use this style I usually just open 1/1/1 with either a blue-flame drop or Cloaked Banshees and go from there.
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On August 24 2011 02:32 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 02:22 radiantshadow92 wrote:
Its funny how this is the direct counter to mech. I actually wouldn't say that. At all. It's pretty even, though it's dangerous for iEchoic. iEchoic vs Mech feels like a funny match, because both players are dumping minerals into hellions, and mech will have access to vikings just like iEchoic. to be successful against Mech, iEchoic has to win two fights; the air fight (keeping a higher viking count and protecting banshees from enemy vikings) AND the hellion fight (having more blue flame hellions).
The two battles: Vikings and Hellions- If iEchoic wins both the air and the hellion battle, he rofles all over his opponent's economy and wins.
- If iEchoic loses the air battle but wins the hellion battle, he can't push the mech player because he either doesn't have banshees to back up his hellions against the tanks, or he can't bring them to bear due to the opponent's superior viking count. This simply isn't an option for him. He has to win the air battle; that's kinda what this build is about.
- If iEchoic wins the air battle but loses the hellion battle, he doesn't have a ground-holding unit, and the enemy hellions can zip into his base and eat his scvs. He won't be able to catch them with his banshees, since they're hellions which are pretty fast. He either needs to wall super heroically at every expansion, or never lose the hellion battle.
- And if he loses both the hellion and the air battle, he's dead.
The easiest way for iEchoic to insure himself against massive losses from a potential loss of the hellion battle (since banshees can't catch hellions) is to make a few ground-holding units in the form of tanks, and he doesn't even need to bring them to the fight; he can siege up in a choke somewhere, or near his natural or third or whatever, and just hold ground with, say, 4-5 tanks. It's much safer. And if he's going hellion/tank/air? He has become a mech player.
Or, he could just win the air battle, kill the slow tanks and thors with his BCs or banshees, and use the hellions to harass/prevent his opp running into his main. Hellions don't shoot up -> no need to send your hellions in to kill them.
You only need to send in hellions fast if your opp has a lot of marines.
And yeah, the 1-base style is kind of old fashioned. That was back when every terran didn't expo til they had tanks, 2 rax of marines, and medivacs. Still, it has some major advantages, that let it punish every build that it faces.
1) The drop *will* do a lot of damage if he fast expands. He just will not have much stuff to defend it with. (It also does a ton of damage against certain other builds, such as thor rushers, and fast cloaked banshees, but that's beside the point.)
2) There's a beautiful timing push after your second set of air units. You end up pushing with 8-10 hellions, at least 2 banshees, up to 4, and could have a raven and viking, depending on what you needed first.
This timing push exploits people who held off the drop, and immediately expanded. They don't produce much stuff to defend it, and you can do a surprising amount of damage.
3) As you do the timing push, you can make reactors on one or both factories, and you get spare minerals from the time not spent making hellions -> Expo.
This build is often compared to ling/bling/muta. Just as with ling/bling/muta, you *must* have at least equal bases, and ideally more. If you're down on bases, you will die, because they can seize air control with more income than you. Saying 'he can just turtle and slowly expo' means nothing. You can expo way faster because you have a much more mobile force that can defend more locations.
Oh, and while thors are decent against banshees, banshees can magic box just as well as mutas. Thors need marine support, or their anti-air is bad against good micro.
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Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:51 silverdevilboy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 02:32 Blazinghand wrote:On August 24 2011 02:22 radiantshadow92 wrote:
Its funny how this is the direct counter to mech. I actually wouldn't say that. At all. It's pretty even, though it's dangerous for iEchoic. iEchoic vs Mech feels like a funny match, because both players are dumping minerals into hellions, and mech will have access to vikings just like iEchoic. to be successful against Mech, iEchoic has to win two fights; the air fight (keeping a higher viking count and protecting banshees from enemy vikings) AND the hellion fight (having more blue flame hellions).
The two battles: Vikings and Hellions- If iEchoic wins both the air and the hellion battle, he rofles all over his opponent's economy and wins.
- If iEchoic loses the air battle but wins the hellion battle, he can't push the mech player because he either doesn't have banshees to back up his hellions against the tanks, or he can't bring them to bear due to the opponent's superior viking count. This simply isn't an option for him. He has to win the air battle; that's kinda what this build is about.
- If iEchoic wins the air battle but loses the hellion battle, he doesn't have a ground-holding unit, and the enemy hellions can zip into his base and eat his scvs. He won't be able to catch them with his banshees, since they're hellions which are pretty fast. He either needs to wall super heroically at every expansion, or never lose the hellion battle.
- And if he loses both the hellion and the air battle, he's dead.
The easiest way for iEchoic to insure himself against massive losses from a potential loss of the hellion battle (since banshees can't catch hellions) is to make a few ground-holding units in the form of tanks, and he doesn't even need to bring them to the fight; he can siege up in a choke somewhere, or near his natural or third or whatever, and just hold ground with, say, 4-5 tanks. It's much safer. And if he's going hellion/tank/air? He has become a mech player. Or, he could just win the air battle, kill the slow tanks and thors with his BCs or banshees, and use the hellions to harass/prevent his opp running into his main. Hellions don't shoot up -> no need to send your hellions in to kill them. You only need to send in hellions fast if your opp has a lot of marines.
That's fair. If there is no hellion battle, there's no need to worry about losing it.
On the other hand, if you're having an air battle with the mech player, there's no real reason for the mech player not to poke your front with his hellions at the same time and force a hellion battle-- if it turns out that you don't have as many hellions as he does, he'll win, and then go eat your scvs.
What's the strategy for an iEchoic player to successfully attack a mech player and prevent him from using his hellions to counter attack and force a hellion fight?
Basically what I'm asking is, how do you stop a hellion battle from happening?
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You can't. What you can do is refuse to fight within tank range, and you can have banshees or BCs available to help.
If he's managed to outmacro you to the extent that he can win a hellion battle by a significant amount, or you make a micro mistake that causes a significant amount of losses, you're in *trouble*.
You do have a few options. One is simcity to slow them down, one is PFs, and the last one, which I feel is the best response (though this issue hasn't really happened for me that much), is that if you have already established air control, or have Seeker/Yamato and can force a disengage by his vikings, you can land vikings, and they do *very* well against hellions, especially when upgraded.
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On August 21 2011 22:10 raX_NT wrote:
You do realise that if your opponents know you are going this unit composition he can just secure his mineral lines, wall inn to stop runby's and just take expansion after expansion if he adds thors into the mix. When you play tankless Terran Thor's will annihilate you unless you get friggin battlecruisers. With Thors in his army and you have that unit composition there is no way you can engage his army head on so unless you get Siegetank yourself you will lose.
Your banshees will die 2 thors and even if you have viking superiority it won't matter because you have no friggin tanks anyway?.
This build can't remove siegetanks from the equation.
1 Unit solves this whole playstyle.
You will force Siege tanks and with this opener you will have far less siege tanks then your opponent. The success of this playstyle is just harassment based ( as in did you do enough damage or not ) and the Hellion/Banshee/Viking composition is irrelevant , a good terran will force Siege tanks from you if you have that unit composition.
The only reason i can imagine this would work is because most players don't know how to react and don't scout the fact that your not making siege tanks.
I'd say use this maybe to put your opponent offguard from time to time , but would not make this into a playstyle because it will be die when people know exactly how to react 2 it.
I agree that you need siege tanks after opening iEchioc unless you have a ridiculous enough lead from your early harassment that it doesn't really matter what style you pursued into the mid-game. I don't think stubbornly staying on the style / unit composition / decision tree (BC transition viability = you were really far ahead anyway) is a good idea, but I think the opening is extremely strong if you play it right.
On August 24 2011 06:51 silverdevilboy wrote:
And yeah, the 1-base style is kind of old fashioned. That was back when every terran didn't expo til they had tanks, 2 rax of marines, and medivacs. Still, it has some major advantages, that let it punish every build that it faces.
1) The drop *will* do a lot of damage if he fast expands. He just will not have much stuff to defend it with. (It also does a ton of damage against certain other builds, such as thor rushers, and fast cloaked banshees, but that's beside the point.)
2) There's a beautiful timing push after your second set of air units. You end up pushing with 8-10 hellions, at least 2 banshees, up to 4, and could have a raven and viking, depending on what you needed first.
This timing push exploits people who held off the drop, and immediately expanded. They don't produce much stuff to defend it, and you can do a surprising amount of damage.
For sure! Even though they will always take a CC before iEchoic opening, in my experience for them to survive they end up landing their orbital at around the same time or later than the iEchoic opener. Any earlier, and a air-based timing push (e.g. can use landed vikings) of some sort or harass openings will win you the game.
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I've been using this build exclusively for a while now. (slightly modified so it's 1/1/2 with a reactored factory instead of 2fact, and i don't do supply call-down and save it for scan vs gas-first cloak banshee by getting viking first then raven from the medivac ) You can argue I'm not playing iEchoic or whatever, but my thoughts and opinions:
-You should transiton to mech when you can if you get an expansion up. I used to stubbornly stick to iEchoic style, mass-expand, play like a zerg etc., but there's no reason to if you gain an initial lead with the opening as the unit composition is very fragile, and your BC timing has to be impeccable.
-The game rarely goes past 1 or 2 base. I either win outright with the opening as they start to mine their orbital (something like the air timing push one of the posters mentioned above is quite strong,) or i lose by a micro mistake or because i built wrong units = instant loss to early pushes - there's no room in the build for making a single wrong unit out of those starports.
-2 port makes it a super safe against any build and imo it's almost a build order win vs certain builds like 1/1/1 cloak banshee. The caveat is that in the likely case he expands before you, you must be hyperaggressive and even deciding to stay on 1-base longer than you would feel comfortable because you will lose trying to play catch-up, but your opponent will be hardpressed to hold your attack/harass. You should only catch up your CC after you have done some kind of damage. Don't even start that CC until you've seen your opponent finish his orbital. You might feel like a 1-basing noob but sometimes you have no choice.
-Always get medivac first. IMO you should be working to get 3 hellion BF drop asap. You'll know if you need to cancel the medivac (very rare.) Against a lot of builds, you'll have to trade damage. Get the medivac even if you doubt yourself after scouting gas first proxy starport cloak banshee or something
-Vs any early pressure vs this opening, you must wait for blue flame before you engage - accept SCV losses and win with your massive tech advantage. Always simcity (2 depot, 1starport)
-Watch out for stupid shit like 2rax (1 of them proxied.) Bunker if you can't confirm gas if you want to be safe. (I only get 1 marine in my variation of the build.)
-3 reapers held back and sent at the same time if they know you do this build every game can be pretty hard to hold. And so are other builds that your slightly-worse-than-you terran friends will come up with to try to specifically counter your build.
Air dominance is key, and 2 starport guarantees you can secure it. Just don't die to early pushes and don't expand too early. IMO people who are saying this build isn't viable, etc, haven't faced someone good who can fully utilise his air to harass/contain along with hellions. However, I agree that as a style, you should transition out of it when it's appropriate because you don't need to drag out the game by "playing like a zerg," not to mention getting 1-2 tanks at the right time can save you from certain timings pushes sometimes.
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May we dicuss how the 1.4 pre-igniter nerf (that will definitively pass the PTR) will or will not be the bane of the whole build, especially regarding early survival and efficiency of the first drop ?
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On August 26 2011 22:38 Clairval wrote:
May we dicuss how the 1.4 pre-igniter nerf (that will definitively pass the PTR) will or will not be the bane of the whole build, especially regarding early survival and efficiency of the first drop ?
Yeah, was wondering this as well. Been looking for a new TvT build and nothing has been working out wel but marine tank, and I hate to wait.
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For mid game against marine tank hellions bfh still 3 shots marines with shield so nô changes here.
But for early game:
- it won t worth it to wait for BF to drop cause you wont do more damages.
- you ll have a hard time defending against bio push... Maybe a bunker becomes mandatory??
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Harass-wise, there's no reason you can't just have a vanilla hellion drop - it's still gonna do damage in the same situations, it just won't be as staggeringly fast at doing so. Bio pushes are the problem, you might need to tweak the build to involve less powering and more early units. You can probably delay your blue flame research, though - it doesn't need to be started within your first 300 gas or whatever
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On August 27 2011 00:16 Kortex22 wrote:
For mid game against marine tank hellions bfh still 3 shots marines with shield so nô changes here.
But for early game:
- it won t worth it to wait for BF to drop cause you wont do more damages.
- you ll have a hard time defending against bio push... Maybe a bunker becomes mandatory??
I don't think you have to "wait" for BF to finish to do a hellion drop if your early game goal is to do a BF hellion drop. Also it will be 3 hits instead of 4 (blue flame hits vs non-blue flame on scvs.) I suppose you can try reactor hellion drop if you plan on skipping blue flame..?
I agree the 2 factory instead of reactored factory is wasteful that early in the game especially if you are getting 2starport.
I think the build is very strong, the unit composition is gimmicky and bad and you need to transition out of it most of the time unless your opening simply won you the game.
On August 26 2011 22:38 Clairval wrote:
May we dicuss how the 1.4 pre-igniter nerf (that will definitively pass the PTR) will or will not be the bane of the whole build, especially regarding early survival and efficiency of the first drop ?
We'll have to see, it will be harder for both but not impossible. I plan on sticking through this style into 1.14...
I guess vanilla hellion drop could be interesting, but to play anything like this style I think you will still need to research blue flame. I wish they would make it cost less than 150/150 if damage is being reduced..
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EPT
