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I faced it thrice now. Twice in ladder, once in practice. I've come to the conclusion that a decent early pressure does wonders.
I do gas first
10 supply 11 gas 13 rax 16 OC 17 factory 3 marine 1 hellion poke up the ramp. Kills both marines easy, and they are forced to pull scvs. After 1 hellion, tech lab for blue flame research, and a port after you start 2nd hellion.
Worked decently well. Quick poke -> blue flame drop -> tank mara viking expo. Didn't make it that far, because the poke + drop killed enough.
Just wondering how some of the better T's who run this build think of an early poke to gain eco advantage before hellions run amuck?
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-189122.jpg)
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How about a reaper expand?
My friend did this one against me once, it's actually quite effective mostly because it confirms that it's the hellion air build and you can do a bit of damage with them. You can also transition into marauders very easily because of the tech labbed rax too.
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On February 13 2011 14:12 Pl4t0 wrote:
The void in the metagame will be filled with an idea similarly brilliant to iEchoic's, and the metagame will shift in order to adapt. It might be a bit of a rough patch for a while, but we've seen styles come and go in each matchup: this may just be another one of them.
Nothing shifted at all..lol. Standard marine/tank/viking/medivac beats this. So does any mech play...the only thing that this absolutely destroys is 1 rax FE's or abusing cloak banshee/hellion vs marine marauders n such...
At maybe gold/diamond level, and lower masters, it seems "omg amazing," but beyond that no one sees this build ever...for good reason. It's more of a 1 time thing you can catch someone off guard with, not at all something you can keep doing over and over again for wins versus tip top Terrans that build siege tanks.
Not to mention it's a heavy 1 base play, and the times they don't 1 base it...defeats the entire purpose of doing it in the first place so it's not optimal then.
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On February 15 2011 06:03 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2011 14:12 Pl4t0 wrote:
The void in the metagame will be filled with an idea similarly brilliant to iEchoic's, and the metagame will shift in order to adapt. It might be a bit of a rough patch for a while, but we've seen styles come and go in each matchup: this may just be another one of them. Nothing shifted at all..lol. Standard marine/tank/viking/medivac beats this. So does any mech play...the only thing that this absolutely destroys is 1 rax FE's or abusing cloak banshee/hellion vs marine marauders n such... At maybe gold/diamond level, and lower masters, it seems "omg amazing," but beyond that no one sees this build ever...for good reason. It's more of a 1 time thing you can catch someone off guard with, not at all something you can keep doing over and over again for wins versus tip top Terrans that build siege tanks. Not to mention it's a heavy 1 base play, and the times they don't 1 base it...defeats the entire purpose of doing it in the first place so it's not optimal then.
I've experienced it and countered it absolutely fine with a FE, on multiple occasions. Simple marine marauder pump is fine against it, stimmed MM trashes hellion/banshee combo simply because of numbers. You don't even need the medivacs, as you instead get more MM (since the healing doesn't do much to keep alive the marines anyways), and concussive shells nab retreating hellions that try to poke in and engage.
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I've seen Root.Drewbie defend against it using a turret and a siege tank in every mineral line and getting air superiority (he got it by throwing down 4 reactored starports). Other than that, you can go the usual MM tank business.
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On February 15 2011 06:14 Linz wrote:
I've seen Root.Drewbie defend against it using a turret and a siege tank in every mineral line and getting air superiority (he got it by throwing down 4 reactored starports). Other than that, you can go the usual MM tank business.
Indeed.
I dont understand how someone can say its hard to keep up with the viking count. 2 reactored starports is all you need and you'll be in a huge lead, since one of his will have a tech lab on it. If you cant get an expo up (not likely since this push comes so late) and cant figure out what to do, just spend all your gas on vikings. Maybe some thors and build a few well placed turrets and he wont be able to do anything.
The hellions are not that hard to deal with, especially since 75% of my opponents start their TvT with blueflame hellions. I always simcity and leave one tank behind.
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its not broken its just a new play style against the basic mass infantery or marine tank viking
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marine + bunker + tank slow push across the map with lots of turrets in your mining bases to kill off medivacs and banshees?
Marines in bunkers next to siege tanks... the hellions are useless against and the banshees die to stimmed marines in bunkers, no? Just throwing ideas out there
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I posted earlier that I open TvT basically protecting my mineral line and then if a harass comes, I usually shut it down and then either counter or if a harass never happens I get into a good position to transition into tank/marauder/viking (thors later on once I take a 3rd). I open 1-1-1 to get a raven while also getting seige/marines and then just get some vikings after. This is my standard, if I scout and see the 2fact/2port, I wait for the drop shut it down, and then move to seige up and take control of the game. The raven ends up PDDing to pretty much stop the few vikings and banshees, and I usually get a marauder or two to help out the marine dps, I usually exchange against the hellions but I have 3 tanks by then to do some serious damage, an auto turret also does a great job. I'm sure other things work also.
#1http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=189306
#2http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=189306
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I've read a lot of posts about this and people never really say anything about thors. I go marine/thor/siege tank/viking, and with careful micro, it is a pretty easy win. You can usually put pressure on them before they can tech to bc's without sacrificing a large army count.
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I gave this build some thought and what I would do against this is fast expand and defend for a while. Sim city your base to defend against Hellion harass. When moving out I would plant a bunker in your Mineral lines with a Turret to detect for you.
I think your army would be more efficient and with an economic advantage you can afford to drop some base defense in your mineral line.
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On February 15 2011 06:03 avilo wrote:
At maybe gold/diamond level, and lower masters, it seems "omg amazing," but beyond that no one sees this build ever...for good reason. It's more of a 1 time thing you can catch someone off guard with, not at all something you can keep doing over and over again for wins versus tip top Terrans that build siege tanks.
I don't understand how you can say this when the guy who came up with the build is near the top of Master's and has had success with the build all the time. The first part of your statement is just blatantly false.
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On February 15 2011 13:52 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 06:03 avilo wrote:
At maybe gold/diamond level, and lower masters, it seems "omg amazing," but beyond that no one sees this build ever...for good reason. It's more of a 1 time thing you can catch someone off guard with, not at all something you can keep doing over and over again for wins versus tip top Terrans that build siege tanks.
I don't understand how you can say this when the guy who came up with the build is near the top of Master's and has had success with the build all the time. The first part of your statement is just blatantly false.
You could argue that people didn't quite understand the target of the strategy until he explained it in detail. For example, when I saw it I thought after seeing mass banshee hellion "I know as soon as I start pumping vikings he's going to contest my ability for air dominance."
If I hadn't known that, I probably would have lost last time I played.
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On February 15 2011 06:03 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2011 14:12 Pl4t0 wrote:
The void in the metagame will be filled with an idea similarly brilliant to iEchoic's, and the metagame will shift in order to adapt. It might be a bit of a rough patch for a while, but we've seen styles come and go in each matchup: this may just be another one of them. Nothing shifted at all..lol. Standard marine/tank/viking/medivac beats this. So does any mech play...the only thing that this absolutely destroys is 1 rax FE's or abusing cloak banshee/hellion vs marine marauders n such... At maybe gold/diamond level, and lower masters, it seems "omg amazing," but beyond that no one sees this build ever...for good reason. It's more of a 1 time thing you can catch someone off guard with, not at all something you can keep doing over and over again for wins versus tip top Terrans that build siege tanks. Not to mention it's a heavy 1 base play, and the times they don't 1 base it...defeats the entire purpose of doing it in the first place so it's not optimal then.
Yeah true. It's easy to get caught with the wrong unit combo though. I played vs it earlier tonight vs poke in a tournament and I had WAY too many tanks. I opened tank/medivac/viking and I stopped the hellions easily but found myself with 7 tanks vs banshee/viking, it was tragic.
QXC does a build with a really fast reactor hellion, I think that would semi hard counter this build without a bunker, this build has two strong timings, when blueflame finishes and when banshee/cloak finishes. Reactor hellions would give this build troubles I feel. Also fast expand with a bunker into reactor vikings so you don't fall behind in vikings, the trick honestly is scouting so you know 100% they went 2fact/2port.
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i think its to easy to spot and counter, your basicly relying your drop to do the economice damage, but any 3k+ master terran will be ready for it. after that he got expo running earlyer then you and just mass viking and marauders+tanks, not to mention if your drop didnt do any damage he will already be army wise ahead. And i believe there is timing window, when 2port2fact got his first expo and trying to get his 3base up, just like tvz as you sayed, where you can just roll the opponent with superior army. I played it myself agains good terrans and got tryed to do it on me couple of times to.
All in all, its good strategy for lower league players.
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United States7483 Posts
i think its to easy to spot and counter, your basicly relying your drop to do the economice damage, but any 3k+ master terran will be ready for it. after that he got expo running earlyer then you and just mass viking and marauders+tanks, not to mention if your drop didnt do any damage he will already be army wise ahead. And i believe there is timing window, when 2port2fact got his first expo and trying to get his 3base up, just like tvz as you sayed, where you can just roll the opponent with superior army. I played it myself agains good terrans and got tryed to do it on me couple of times to.
All in all, its good strategy for lower league players.
This isn't how it works. It doesn't rely on economic damage like people keep repeating. If your opponent turtles on one base, you have map control and expand. Bam, you're ahead. If your opponent fast expands, you are guaranteed to do economic damage. Stopping 4 blue flame hellions before they roast a ton of scvs takes a lot of firepower, something you can't do early on with two bases. If he slow expands after it's safe, you expand again and you're way ahead (earlier expansion and you're taking your 3rd as he takes his second). The iEchoic build plays like a zerg, but with terran units. In other words, it's reactionary, and it punishes you the moment you have an opening available. If your opponent moves out, you're guaranteed to do econ damage with the counter drop, unless he splits a bunch of his forces and leaves them in his base, which is also a win because his push is weaker.
This build isn't hope based, and it isn't a one trick pony. You pin your opponent with the build: either he turtles and gives you free reign to expand, OR he moves out and takes econ damage. Either way, you're ahead on econ.
You cannot counter this build if it's played properly, the term does not apply. There is no 'counter.' The way to beat it is to simply outplay it. Use whatever strategy you were going to and execute it better.
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i've faced a few players using the strat, and won all of them using mass marauder/tank/vikings. place a few siege tanks at each expo and hellions become useless.. and even if they get a few banshees on you, stimmed marauders/sieged tanks do way too much dps. i'd just suicide in and steal CCs while expoing myself. maybe once people get better at the build it'll become more viable (my opponents were 3000-3300 masters)
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not to mention proper building placement to block of path to mineral line and tactical turrets at the edges of your base to stop easy drops at all. And yes this build does really on economic damage to win.
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On February 15 2011 18:53 Dephy wrote:
not to mention proper building placement to block of path to mineral line and tactical turrets at the edges of your base to stop easy drops at all. And yes this build does really on economic damage to win.
I've done this build a few times. My medivac was shot with turrets(did the build before on the same guy), but I got 3 helions out before it died. Still did tons of damage. If you simcity it gets harder, but also harder for your probes to move away.
Personally I think the build is awesome. But now every terran I meet goes this build, so it becomes a fight for air control again. 
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On February 15 2011 17:49 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +i think its to easy to spot and counter, your basicly relying your drop to do the economice damage, but any 3k+ master terran will be ready for it. after that he got expo running earlyer then you and just mass viking and marauders+tanks, not to mention if your drop didnt do any damage he will already be army wise ahead. And i believe there is timing window, when 2port2fact got his first expo and trying to get his 3base up, just like tvz as you sayed, where you can just roll the opponent with superior army. I played it myself agains good terrans and got tryed to do it on me couple of times to.
All in all, its good strategy for lower league players. This isn't how it works. It doesn't rely on economic damage like people keep repeating. If your opponent turtles on one base, you have map control and expand. Bam, you're ahead. If your opponent fast expands, you are guaranteed to do economic damage. Stopping 4 blue flame hellions before they roast a ton of scvs takes a lot of firepower, something you can't do early on with two bases. If he slow expands after it's safe, you expand again and you're way ahead (earlier expansion and you're taking your 3rd as he takes his second). The iEchoic build plays like a zerg, but with terran units. In other words, it's reactionary, and it punishes you the moment you have an opening available. If your opponent moves out, you're guaranteed to do econ damage with the counter drop, unless he splits a bunch of his forces and leaves them in his base, which is also a win because his push is weaker. This build isn't hope based, and it isn't a one trick pony. You pin your opponent with the build: either he turtles and gives you free reign to expand, OR he moves out and takes econ damage. Either way, you're ahead on econ. You cannot counter this build if it's played properly, the term does not apply. There is no 'counter.' The way to beat it is to simply outplay it. Use whatever strategy you were going to and execute it better.
Why do you say this is guaranteed to do economic damage to a FE? On a map like Metal, you could put a bunker on each side of your mineral line in your main and another on the far side of your mineral line at your natural and you'd be safe against hellion and banshee harass. It's not hard to get 12 marines after a FE....
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EPT
