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On February 15 2011 07:46 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +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,
You can't produce 4x vikings on one base.
On February 16 2011 03:09 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 17:49 Whitewing wrote: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....
This is sort of the problem with theorycrafting - these builds are verging on the ridiculous, and then the huge downsides of them are ignored. You're going to FE and then blindly just build 3 bunkers in your mineral line? I guess if you want to die to a bio push, a tank push, or, like, anything. Also you'll have no prouduction structures and no detection unless you also build an ebay and turrets, which puts you even more behind. I'll address that anyway though because even if a ridiculous build, someone could theoretically do it.
First of all - forcing your opponent to build three bunkers instead of barracks is already damage. But beyond that, a bunker with marines doesn't prevent economic damage. By time I drop or attack the front you're going to have piss for units - let's say 12 marines, like you said, which is idealistic after making 3-4 bunkers and expoing. Hellions laugh at that. You can actually sit there and just sponge damage from 3-6 unstimmed marines and kill lots of SCVs.
You're underestimating how hard it is to stop hellion/banshee harassment off a FE - if you think it's easy while FEing, watch Jinro do a tamer version of the build and wreck MarineKingPrime's FE with it.
If you play it right, you should do guaranteed damage against a FE. The FEing player only has a limited amount of units (let's call it x) at time y off a FE and you never have to encounter more than half of them (because you can attack whatever expo less are at). That amount of units (we'll call it x/2) cannot stop your hellions before they do economic damage.
There's a difference between gimmicky luck drops and guaranteed drops. For example, dropping blindly into your opponent's base is a luck drop. The build does not ever rely on those. There are some situations where you do guaranteed damage, such as when your opponent moves out, or when he FEs and you get an early attack.
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On February 16 2011 03:31 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 07:46 Bagi wrote: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, You can't produce 4x vikings on one base. Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 03:09 kcdc wrote:On February 15 2011 17:49 Whitewing wrote: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.... This is sort of the problem with theorycrafting - these builds are verging on the ridiculous, and then the huge downsides of them are ignored. You're going to FE and then blindly just build 3 bunkers in your mineral line? I guess if you want to die to a bio push, a tank push, or, like, anything. Also you'll have no prouduction structures and no detection unless you also build an ebay and turrets, which puts you even more behind. I'll address that anyway though because even if a ridiculous build, someone could theoretically do it. First of all - forcing your opponent to build three bunkers instead of barracks is already damage. But beyond that, a bunker with marines doesn't prevent economic damage. By time I drop or attack the front you're going to have piss for units - let's say 12 marines, like you said, which is idealistic after making 3-4 bunkers and expoing. Hellions laugh at that. You can actually sit there and just sponge damage from 3-6 unstimmed marines and kill lots of SCVs. You're underestimating how hard it is to stop hellion/banshee harassment off a FE - if you think it's easy while FEing, watch Jinro do a tamer version of the build and wreck MarineKingPrime's FE with it. If you play it right, you should do guaranteed damage against a FE. You only have a limited amount of units at x time off a FE and you never have to encounter more than half of them (because you can attack whatever expo less are at). That amount of units (we'll call it x/2) cannot stop your hellions before they do economic damage. There's a difference between gimmicky luck drops and guaranteed drops. For example, dropping blindly into your opponent's base is a luck drop. The build does not ever rely on those. There are some situations where you do guaranteed damage, such as when your opponent moves out, or when he FEs and you get an early attack.
First, a FE Terran doesn't have to 'blindly' turtle his mineral lines. He can scout 2 fact, 2 port with with scans or a rax float. At that point, he knows that there's no deadly push that can bust his front and all he has to do is keep his SCVs alive. Secondly, it's not like you can get a medivac and 4 pre-ignitor hellions instantly. There is time to prepare, and if you know what's coming, I suspect that you can defend.
I'm not a TvT expert so I'll defer to your knowledge just as I'd expect you'd defer to me on PvP, but it really seems like if a FE T scouts 2 fact, 2 port, he'd realize that he just needs to turtle his mineral lines really hard in order to win, and I suspect that there's a way he could get it done.
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United States7483 Posts
I'm not a TvT expert so I'll defer to your knowledge just as I'd expect you'd defer to me on PvP, but it really seems like if a FE T scouts 2 fact, 2 port, he'd realize that he just needs to turtle his mineral lines really hard in order to win, and I suspect that there's a way he could get it done.
If you're turtling at your mineral line, your opponent can just pick off anything NOT at your mineral line because that's where your defensive structures are. You pop out of your bunkers, and your tiny army because you dumped tons into defense at the mineral line gets roflstomped.
If you don't build bunkers, your marines are screwed. There's no way with a FE to have enough marauders to stop the hellions in time.
FE is not the way to combat this build, you're opening a glaring vulnerability against a build designed to exploit vulnerabilities.
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On February 16 2011 03:42 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 03:31 iEchoic wrote:On February 15 2011 07:46 Bagi wrote: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, You can't produce 4x vikings on one base. On February 16 2011 03:09 kcdc wrote:On February 15 2011 17:49 Whitewing wrote: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.... This is sort of the problem with theorycrafting - these builds are verging on the ridiculous, and then the huge downsides of them are ignored. You're going to FE and then blindly just build 3 bunkers in your mineral line? I guess if you want to die to a bio push, a tank push, or, like, anything. Also you'll have no prouduction structures and no detection unless you also build an ebay and turrets, which puts you even more behind. I'll address that anyway though because even if a ridiculous build, someone could theoretically do it. First of all - forcing your opponent to build three bunkers instead of barracks is already damage. But beyond that, a bunker with marines doesn't prevent economic damage. By time I drop or attack the front you're going to have piss for units - let's say 12 marines, like you said, which is idealistic after making 3-4 bunkers and expoing. Hellions laugh at that. You can actually sit there and just sponge damage from 3-6 unstimmed marines and kill lots of SCVs. You're underestimating how hard it is to stop hellion/banshee harassment off a FE - if you think it's easy while FEing, watch Jinro do a tamer version of the build and wreck MarineKingPrime's FE with it. If you play it right, you should do guaranteed damage against a FE. You only have a limited amount of units at x time off a FE and you never have to encounter more than half of them (because you can attack whatever expo less are at). That amount of units (we'll call it x/2) cannot stop your hellions before they do economic damage. There's a difference between gimmicky luck drops and guaranteed drops. For example, dropping blindly into your opponent's base is a luck drop. The build does not ever rely on those. There are some situations where you do guaranteed damage, such as when your opponent moves out, or when he FEs and you get an early attack. First, a FE Terran doesn't have to 'blindly' turtle his mineral lines. He can scout 2 fact, 2 port with with scans or a rax float. At that point, he knows that there's no deadly push that can bust his front and all he has to do is keep his SCVs alive. Secondly, it's not like you can get a medivac and 4 pre-ignitor hellions instantly. There is time to prepare, and if you know what's coming, I suspect that you can defend. I'm not a TvT expert so I'll defer to your knowledge just as I'd expect you'd defer to me on PvP, but it really seems like if a FE T scouts 2 fact, 2 port, he'd realize that he just needs to turtle his mineral lines really hard in order to win, and I suspect that there's a way he could get it done.
The problem is that you can't 1rax, scan, and build 3 bunkers, and expect to be in a good situation. You'll notice when pros like MKP run the 1rax FE, they almost never scan early - that money is nearly 100% crucial for the infrastructure you need to kick up quick to defend from attacks. Scanning costs money, and then you lose your scan vs cloaked banshees (which I can have, and produce 2x of), so you need an ebay and turrets. You have to lift your first rax before you have any more producing to scout the build in time if you go that route. Losing a mule, building 3 bunkers, an ebay, and two-three turrets, after building costs, mule costs, and worker construction time, is around 1000 minerals. There are huge costs associated with taking that kind of path.
The timings of the T FE build don't work that way. I understand that you're just brainstorming ideas, and that's cool, but it sort of turns into a "I want some defense, I want production, I want to scan, I want bunkers, and I want detection" without actually being able to do all of those things. There are lots of tradeoffs in starcraft, you can't just have everything while sacrificing nothing. We have to think of what you're sacrificing to do things and not just think of what things would be cool to have at x time.
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I've played against this a few times with my typical marine/tank/viking bullshit and won some and lost some.
People are looking at this as an instant-freewin-recipe for TvT. It's not. It's just a more aggressive style of play. If you spot this sort of bullshit going down, be prepared to protect your economy and try to wrestle air superiority from him instead of ground, and the better player will win.
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I'm far from an expert, but lets assume that you can defend a FE without taking much if any damage from the drop. If this is the case can't your opponent simply choose not to drop and double expand? 3 bunkers + 12 marines is a big investment of 900 minerals that your opponent can use on their own economy. Your scouting will be limited because you only have marines/marauders out and hellions/banshees can snipe them out. This leaves your only option of spotting the double expand is by using 2 scans which will put you further behind.
I'm a zerg player so I could be completely wrong but saying simply if I stop the drop I win doesn't seem like the right mind set. The investment in stopping the drop itself might be enough damage to give your opponent the lead.
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United States7483 Posts
I'm far from an expert, but lets assume that you can defend a FE without taking much if any damage from the drop. If this is the case can't your opponent simply choose not to drop and double expand? 3 bunkers + 12 marines is a big investment of 900 minerals that your opponent can use on their own economy. Your scouting will be limited because you only have marines/marauders out and hellions/banshees can snipe them out. This leaves your only option of spotting the double expand is by using 2 scans which will put you further behind.
I'm a zerg player so I could be completely wrong but saying simply if I stop the drop I win doesn't seem like the right mind set. The investment in stopping the drop itself might be enough damage to give your opponent the lead.
Well, the assumption is wrong, but that aside, not really. Terran expansions cost more than zerg ones do, and they can't build workers anywhere near as fast. Double expanding works for zerg because of how quickly you can saturate a base once you have it, terran can't saturate as quickly, and spreading out like that when you can't take advantage of it for a loooooooong time is foolhardy.
That said, if your opponent turtles THAT hard to stop any harass, you can just walk up and kill him, he'll have no units. You aren't forced to only build hellions/banshee/vikings early on if your opponent does something really stupid, you can make some more marines or marauders out of your barracks, get a few tanks and just walk over your opponent. He'll have no troops at all, or infrastructure to match your production due to spending a lot of early game resources on turrets, bunkers, and a command center.
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Well, the assumption is wrong, but that aside, not really. Terran expansions cost more than zerg ones do, and they can't build workers anywhere near as fast. Double expanding works for zerg because of how quickly you can saturate a base once you have it, terran can't saturate as quickly, and spreading out like that when you can't take advantage of it for a loooooooong time is foolhardy.
Makes a lot of sense now that you say it. I guess I took the play it like a zerg a lil too literally because walking up and killing my opponent is never really a thought that passes through my mind.
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I ran into this a bit today on ladder, but even though the hellions harass did good damage, I was able to produce 4x vikings and thors off my fast expansion. With that it was pretty easy to kill the enemy army.
Even if they have battlecruisers, no one magix boxes vikings or banshees, so once the Thors took out a ton of the vikings my superior viking count can kill the BCs easily.
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On February 16 2011 03:54 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 03:42 kcdc wrote:On February 16 2011 03:31 iEchoic wrote:On February 15 2011 07:46 Bagi wrote: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, You can't produce 4x vikings on one base. On February 16 2011 03:09 kcdc wrote:On February 15 2011 17:49 Whitewing wrote: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.... This is sort of the problem with theorycrafting - these builds are verging on the ridiculous, and then the huge downsides of them are ignored. You're going to FE and then blindly just build 3 bunkers in your mineral line? I guess if you want to die to a bio push, a tank push, or, like, anything. Also you'll have no prouduction structures and no detection unless you also build an ebay and turrets, which puts you even more behind. I'll address that anyway though because even if a ridiculous build, someone could theoretically do it. First of all - forcing your opponent to build three bunkers instead of barracks is already damage. But beyond that, a bunker with marines doesn't prevent economic damage. By time I drop or attack the front you're going to have piss for units - let's say 12 marines, like you said, which is idealistic after making 3-4 bunkers and expoing. Hellions laugh at that. You can actually sit there and just sponge damage from 3-6 unstimmed marines and kill lots of SCVs. You're underestimating how hard it is to stop hellion/banshee harassment off a FE - if you think it's easy while FEing, watch Jinro do a tamer version of the build and wreck MarineKingPrime's FE with it. If you play it right, you should do guaranteed damage against a FE. You only have a limited amount of units at x time off a FE and you never have to encounter more than half of them (because you can attack whatever expo less are at). That amount of units (we'll call it x/2) cannot stop your hellions before they do economic damage. There's a difference between gimmicky luck drops and guaranteed drops. For example, dropping blindly into your opponent's base is a luck drop. The build does not ever rely on those. There are some situations where you do guaranteed damage, such as when your opponent moves out, or when he FEs and you get an early attack. First, a FE Terran doesn't have to 'blindly' turtle his mineral lines. He can scout 2 fact, 2 port with with scans or a rax float. At that point, he knows that there's no deadly push that can bust his front and all he has to do is keep his SCVs alive. Secondly, it's not like you can get a medivac and 4 pre-ignitor hellions instantly. There is time to prepare, and if you know what's coming, I suspect that you can defend. I'm not a TvT expert so I'll defer to your knowledge just as I'd expect you'd defer to me on PvP, but it really seems like if a FE T scouts 2 fact, 2 port, he'd realize that he just needs to turtle his mineral lines really hard in order to win, and I suspect that there's a way he could get it done. The problem is that you can't 1rax, scan, and build 3 bunkers, and expect to be in a good situation. You'll notice when pros like MKP run the 1rax FE, they almost never scan early - that money is nearly 100% crucial for the infrastructure you need to kick up quick to defend from attacks. Scanning costs money, and then you lose your scan vs cloaked banshees (which I can have, and produce 2x of), so you need an ebay and turrets. You have to lift your first rax before you have any more producing to scout the build in time if you go that route. Losing a mule, building 3 bunkers, an ebay, and two-three turrets, after building costs, mule costs, and worker construction time, is around 1000 minerals. There are huge costs associated with taking that kind of path. The timings of the T FE build don't work that way. I understand that you're just brainstorming ideas, and that's cool, but it sort of turns into a "I want some defense, I want production, I want to scan, I want bunkers, and I want detection" without actually being able to do all of those things. There are lots of tradeoffs in starcraft, you can't just have everything while sacrificing nothing.
Like I said, I don't know the timings. If the only way to scout 2 fact/2 port in time with a rax float is to send your first rax, then that obviously won't work. At that point, you're blind, and you'll die to almost anything if you FE with no active barracks. I'm not convinced that the drop hits so early that you need to float your first rax, but I don't know the timings.
Regarding scanning, I have no idea if scanning after a 1-rax FE cuts into your econ too much to defend against other common builds. If there's not a stable way to FE and work in a scan, then it's not an option. I don't know. If you want to defend the harass well, you need to know it's coming, so you're probably going to have to either scan or float a rax. Terran players will have a better sense of what the options are.
As for the defense spending, I agree that it will be expensive, but you don't need everything right away. Assuming it's possible to scout the 2 fact/2 port, you don't need turrets immediately. With 2 fact/2 port, pre-ignitor and a medivac, I don't believe that your opening has the gas to immediately start cloak. Additionally, cloak is really expensive, and a FE player can afford to lose ~5 or so SCVs due to cutting it too close with his detection timing and still be economically ahead.
It seems to me that a FE will have an expansion so much earlier than your opening will that if they can scout your opening, they just have to defend their SCVs to come out ahead. If it costs 1000 minerals, so be it. If they can keep their mineral lines defended, they can afford to dump 1000+ minerals into defense.
Comparing this to my experiences as a Protoss player, if my opponent goes muta-ling really hard, I'll need to dump 1000+ minerals into cannons in order to keep 3 bases running, but I know that if I can just keep my economy healthy, I'll eventually have a timing push with archons or storm that will kill him. He's investing so much into econ harass that it's okay for me to invest heavily into econ defense.
Your opening seems similar to muta-ling in this way. It's a huge investment into a very powerful econ harassment force. It seems to me that if a FE player could scout this, he'd be able to invest heavily into defense and sim-city his infrastructure in a smart way and he'd be relatively safe. This is pretty theory-craft-ish at this point, so when I get home, I'll look a little closer at the timings.
I do want to say that I think your build is really smart and solid. If someone took half the time you spent developing this style and committed that time to figuring out a clever way to timely scout your opening and efficiently defend 2 mineral lines, I suspect they'd come up with some ideas that would work decently. Time will tell.
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United States7483 Posts
As for the defense spending, I agree that it will be expensive, but you don't need everything right away. Assuming it's possible to scout the 2 fact/2 port, you don't need turrets immediately. With 2 fact/2 port, pre-ignitor and a medivac, I don't believe that your opening has the gas to immediately start cloak. Additionally, cloak is really expensive, and a FE player can afford to lose ~5 or so SCVs due to cutting it too close with his detection timing and still be economically ahead.
But the player using this build can expand and doesn't need ANY of those defensive structures.
Your opening seems similar to muta-ling in this way. It's a huge investment in a very powerful econ harassment force. It seems to me that if a FE player could scout this, he'd be able to invest heavily into defense and sim-city his infrastructure in a smart way and he'd be relatively safe. This is pretty theory-craft-ish at this point, so when I get home, I'll look a little closer at the timings.
There are two distinctions that are very important. First, you don't rely on harassment, you rely on pressure. Even if your opponent is completely immune to harass damage, you're applying a ton of pressure and pinning him. He can't threaten you at all, making you completely safe. Yes, you get very strong harass and map control, but the build itself will crush a lot of builds in a straight up fight. You get fast access to a lot of units that are just plain strong, like banshees and ravens. Hellions DEMOLISH marines, so much so that it's not even close. The build threatens a lot of harass but it's strong enough to crush a lot of forces, and those it can't have other weaknesses against the build, like lots of immobility. Muta ling is similar, but it's also a lot more expensive. Mutalisks are very very expensive on the gas, hellions are literally 0 gas. Banshees cost a lot of gas too, but you need a flock of mutas to accomplish what 1 or 2 banshees can do. To justify the cost of going muta ling, you almost have to do damage.
Second, the units in this build are flat out stronger than muta/ling. Blue flame hellions are more effective than banelings at destroying marines and don't auto die when they do their damage. They're also faster off creep, making them more threatening. You can shut down almost any time of anti-air units the terran has with just hellions and vikings. The thor is the only real danger, but using a thor opens lots of holes and banshees aren't actually THAT bad vs. a thor, 3 banshees beat a thor on equal upgrades, 2 banshees beat a thor if the banshees are ahead on upgrades (or if they get off a few rounds while cloaked before the scan goes down or something). 2 Banshees also cost AS much as a thor, and then there is the battlecruiser transition later.
The point is, this build is, in this one particular matchup, a lot more robust than muta ling is, because it uses units that are absurdly good at punishing the vulnerabilities of the terran race in particular.
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well i though ppl use there first 50energy from second oc(1rax expo) to scan, atleast that's, what i do, and i will ussualy see what my opp is doing. He talks about invesment in defence of being 1k, but 4helions + medivac + blue flame 650minerals and 250gas, and not to mention you will have better econ than 2port2fact user. Not to mention he spent so much on his early 2fact and to 2port, his expo will be alot later.
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I generally 1Rax FE in TvT all the time. Once I scan my opponent and see they're doing 2fact/2port I just sim city around my barracks to create chokes at my natural, put some turrets around the edge of my base and some sensor towers. I can afford to do all this because I get such an economic advantage because tech is researched so quickly with this build making expanding nearly impossible.
I then pretty much just go MM and keep some Medivacs at home for healing. Marauders on one control and marines in another. I will just stim my marauders into his army until his hellions are removed, then I stim up my marines to kill his air fleet. I just keep pressing him so he can never get a massive banshee fleet and generally win a war of attrition.
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I dunno, so much theorycraft going around. All I know is that from experience on ladder, 1rax FE is the easiest thing to beat, and whenever we see hellion/banshee in GSL vs FE, the FEing player almost always loses. So I guess i'm going to have to go with the experience over theorycraft side here. Too many variables to decide on a discussion board. There are good ways to handle the build but I don't think 1raxFE is one of them.
Post up reps beating it with 1rax FE and it'll be easier to analyze. There's bound to be tons of people playing the build incorrectly on the ladder so we're gonna need to make sure it's not just an operator error.
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I don't think is breaking it, the game has always revolved around change and innovations the proper thing to say is iEchoic has REVOLUTIONIZED TvT,
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On February 16 2011 04:52 iEchoic wrote:
I dunno, so much theorycraft going around. All I know is that from experience on ladder, 1rax FE is the easiest thing to beat, and whenever we see hellion/banshee in GSL vs FE, the FEing player almost always loses. So I guess i'm going to have to go with the experience over theorycraft side here. Too many variables to decide on a discussion board. There are good ways to handle the build but I don't think 1raxFE is one of them.
I'm not even going to pretend I'm as good as you nor are the people I'm playing executing the build to your expertise. However I do fancy myself a pretty smart player and after losing to this build twice in a row I did some theorycrafting in the shower the next morning and watched the daily regarding the build. I came up with my ideas to beat it and it seemed to work fairly well. The idea was to turn the map control advantage on it's head by going bio and keeping my base fairly secure from hellion drops via sim city, turrets and towers. I don't think I've lost to anyone going 2fac2port since I've started doing this. Grant you I'm only a 3100 Diamond player and play people of similar skill.
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It's true that production is quite expensive for all these productions structures, so one thing I was thinkg about was the idea of balancing: if we're going to balance add-ons and unit composition according to what we scout, why wouldn't we also balance the quantity of units?
I mean, even if I can't drop against a 1 rax FEing player, I know he's not going to attack anytime soon, allowing me to expand myself earlier than I would against a one-basing player who might threaten me if I cut too much. Perhaps not to the point of double expoing, but as long as he's pinned in his base, it's all good for me.
Also, it should promote a more banshee-heavy play since he's not going to get starports too soon himself. Or the gas can be used to skip one or two banshees and get an armory and upgrades if he seems to be focused on bio.
I've yet to run into these builds, as they don't seem that common at my level of play (about 2800 diamond, I still have to spend 800 bonus pool after a pause), so I might be wrong on when a FE-ing player can start to be a threat in TvT.
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On February 16 2011 04:10 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +I'm far from an expert, but lets assume that you can defend a FE without taking much if any damage from the drop. If this is the case can't your opponent simply choose not to drop and double expand? 3 bunkers + 12 marines is a big investment of 900 minerals that your opponent can use on their own economy. Your scouting will be limited because you only have marines/marauders out and hellions/banshees can snipe them out. This leaves your only option of spotting the double expand is by using 2 scans which will put you further behind.
Well, the assumption is wrong, but that aside, not really. Terran expansions cost more than zerg ones do, and they can't build workers anywhere near as fast. Double expanding works for zerg because of how quickly you can saturate a base once you have it, terran can't saturate as quickly, and spreading out like that when you can't take advantage of it for a loooooooong time is foolhardy.
I do believe this is false. Double expanding as Terran in that situation is certainly viable. The comparison with Z is correct since a Command Center is actually cheaper then a hatch:
CC= 400 mn (+10 supply so you save 100 on a depot)
Hatch= 300 mn +50 from drone (+2 supply)
Furthermore with a 3rd OC your income does jump up significantly. Off course you are more vulnerable for a small window but the since the entire build revolves around butchering scv's the second the defensive force moves away, chances are the opponent will either:
1. build to many bunkers/turrets to effectively threaten you.
2. keep his forces in his base since losing all his scv's for an attack that might succeed is not that attractive.
3. not even know you have an expo since he doesn't have mapcontrol (barring a lucky random scan).
So personally I feel this build does have quite a lot in common with ZvT Muta/ling where you take your third the second your muta's start harassing since he can't really attack you immediatly without losing all his scv's or with a weak army due to many defensive structures
(and Hellion/Banshee >>>>>Muta :D)
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I've played against this build and player before, with success, and I can tell you what I beleive counters this type of play. Note that he did beat me the first time I saw the usage of this build. As i'm sure the higher level T's in usa would definitely agree, this build has flaws at top levels. I am in no way saying I am a top player, although I'm working on that  .
* Good scouting, it is hard to hide 2 factories and the use of gas.
* An ideal base layout, supply depots preventing helion runbys in the back
* When you see two factories, you block your base with 3 buildings, at least one being a bunker, keep a couple marines in there throughout the opening. All units are kept near your mineral line until you expand. Due to the nature of gas in this build, he really won't have an ideal siege tank count to push you, and without loses you will be able to also win the viking war, given you don't spam too many tanks.
* Rallying all starport/factory/rax units to a mobile point by the command center.
Note- the build involves adding gas into extra production facilities, an optimal tank/viking macro will keep you in a solid position.
-Not guarenteed to win if you play like this, control/gamesense/scouting are all aspects that should be on par with the opponent.
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United States7483 Posts
I do believe this is false. Double expanding as Terran in that situation is certainly viable. The comparison with Z is correct since a Command Center is actually cheaper then a hatch:
CC= 400 mn (+10 supply so you save 100 on a depot)
Hatch= 300 mn +50 from drone (+2 supply)
This sort of logic is arguing long run vs. short run, and it doesn't really apply here. A CC is 400 minerals right now for a return later, a hatchery is 300 now for a return later. You already made the drone, that's a sunk cost. By this logic, a zerg building is absurdly expensive beyond belief because the drone could be mining instead this whole time. The main problem with a terran double expand is how long it takes to saturate it. Yes, you 'can' do it, but it's almost always a better idea to expand once now, and while saturating it to do some tech and build infrastructure, then expand again. The whole supply thing is also a long run vs. short run thing. What matters is opportunity cost, and 400 minerals NOW for a large return MUCH later (because of how long it takes to saturate) is a big opportunity cost this early on.
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EPT
