The Terran Help Me Thread - Page 425

Don't attack in a head-on fight a Protoss having Storm unless (a) you have Ghosts, preferably with EMPs ready or (b) you are confident in your dodge Storms while outnumbering him (situational).

You certainly don't want to be Marauder-heavy against Templar tech as they always come with Charge Zealots, and Marauders are terrible against Zealots. You want lots of Marines with some Ghosts and a handful of Marauders.

Mass Marauders and 20+ Vikings (don't be afraid to make that many Vikings, a Protoss can't recover from losing such an expensive Stalker/Colossus army). You want a Colossus to die at each volley at the beginning of the fight so that his firepower quickly decreases.

Good scouting and proper reactions are the best ways to hold off cheeses; 1 rax FE (or CC first) gives you the advantage of an early boost in your economy so the game is automatically yours should you defend convincingly his cheese.

To scout proxies against 2 gas openings check how many Pylons there are in his base. There should be 3 around the 4' mark; if you don't see 3 Pylons it's worth searching in the vicinity of your base to see if there is something. If you see a proxy Stargate early you can kill the Pylon with your first Marines while preparing 1 or 2 extra Barracks at home.

Against Blink Stalkers all-ins I never have troubles when scouting it early. Signs are:
- 2 gas;
- 3 Pylons in his base (and thus no proxy) with one of them being able to fuel a building in the back of his base (outside of common scan areas);
- A favorable map (e. g. Daybreak and Entombed Valley are impractical due to the map layout);
- No Zealot, no Sentries (some builds can get a Zealot, but no Sentry is sure);
- One or two Stalkers camping in front of his natural to dispose of your scouting SCV;
- No scout or 9 scout from him are also a possible sign (he doesn't scout because he doesn't care since he wants to blindly all-in, or he wants to make sure you go 1 rax FE).

With my first 50 gas I make 2 Tech Labs, then I continuously make Marauders and search Concussive (first) and Stim (second). When Protoss makes his first Blink in my base (7'15 - 7'30) I have enough to fend him off without pulling any SCV, then I defend while teching to Medivacs. Be sure you never get supply blocked and pay attention to the location of your Tech Lab searching Stim, you don't want it to be cancelled.

When scouting a Protoss you want to look at the following things:

- Energy on Nexus.
- Number of gases (and look how much gas he mined to know if he took them at the standard timings) + how many Probes are mining.
- Number of Pylons (should be 3 shortly before your SCV has to leave).
- Pylon placement (Pylons in the corner should make you suspicious).

You will never hold massive Gateway timings with only 2 Bunkers, you need at least 4 to hold them. Scan natural around 7'30, if you saw no gas or if he's just taking them it usually means X gate is coming. You should have sneaked a SCV earlier on the map to rule out fast third.

When the Protoss attacks, focus Sentries—especially those casting Guardian Shield.

Yes if you think about a direct engagement, but it's precisely not how you should deal with it. Fast thirds out of 1 or 3 gate that rely on mass Gateways to hold your Medivac pressure don't get a Robotics and thus don't have Observers before a long time, this is the weakness you want to exploit. The other thing to consider is that their tech/upgrades are delayed, so this is one of the few situations in which you can be ahead upgrade-wise.

Usually signs are:

- Dual gas
- 3 Pylons in his base, usually with one of them being able to power buildings in a hidden or semi-hidden corner of the base
- No early expand
- You saw only Stalkers (sometimes they build a Zealot, but usually they don't; sure thing is they don't get a Sentry)
- One Stalker stays in front of his natural to deny further scouting
- No early proxy around your base (though sometimes the Robotics is proxied...).

The map can be a big indication too, Protoss players sure love their Blink Stalkers all-ins on Antiga.

If you're unsure, have a scan ready at the 7'15 - 7'30 mark, this is when DTs show up. This way, if it happens to be Blink Stalkers, you can try to snipe the Observer if the Protoss player is careless.

—

Leaving 8 Marines in your Bunker was the fatal mistake. You had 21 Marines and 20 SCVs (in your main) to 11 Stalkers, it would have been really easy to fend him off had you taken the time to gather your troops together and engage with SCVs in the front and Marines behind. Here, you first engaged with SCVs alone, then with half of your Marines; it cannot work as Blink Stalkers' strength precisely lies in dealing very efficiently with small group of units.

Your opponent's build order was impossible to read as it made zero sense. He went for a very delayed second gas so there was no way you could have

guessed he was going for a delayed Blink all-in; that being said, scanning his main at 7'50 (which you can do even if he does expand) would have revealed his plan.

Basically, he made something rather stupid which happened to work not only because you panicked, but also because you went for full Marines with delayed Stim and Medivacs; against a standard 1 rax FE → 3 rax medivacs, attacking at 8'30 (standard timing is 7'15 - 7'30 with 7-8 Blink Stalkers) would be too late as Stim would be nearly complete and 2 Medivacs could already be on the way given the fact that his build looked like a 1 gate expand.

You cannot really bust a Protoss with a 10 minuts push if he plays right, whether he went 1 gate expand or FFE. You're not at all forced to triple OC against 1 gate expand, but that's an option; against FFE you definitely want to play greedier than usual and triple OC is a common reaction to FFE, but bear in mind that he can still hit some kind of Gateway timing, perhaps with +1 armor upgrade complete, so be careful. Lining up your Armory with the completion of +1 attack (which should be launched early) is a must against FFE as the early Forge allows them to hit +3 armor insanely fast. You really don't want to be in this awful situation in which you're fighting +3 armor Charge Zealots with +1 attack bio.

Banshees are really strong TvP, if only for the moment. Long term it's hard to tell, but possibly not. They are very useful for getting the Protoss out of his comfort zone and letting you dictate the pace of the game. They are more risky though and expose you to more coinflip scenarios on certain maps, which is why they are mostly used on larger maps where robo based allins are not as strong. Basically Protoss have had to play against one dominant style of Terran for over a year now (rax expand into bio/medivac) and opening banshees gives you more initiative and makes it harder for him to set up his perfect drop defense that is all too common nowadays.

The general thought on tanks is that they are really strong before charge is out and bad after, especially as getting tanks means you are cutting marine upgrades to some degree, which means that when he reaches +2 armor his zealots will just massacre your army. I've experimented with mid-lategame tank play a fair amount and found that it's just not very good . The main problem really comes down to zealots. Tanks can focus fire certain ranged units but they cant move and thus sit there tanking zealots, when normally you'd be kiting to avoid zealot damage. You have to pull your marines behind the tanks to avoid dying to storm/colo, but then the zealots just destroy everything. In short, tanks would need to be 2 supply to make them worthwhile in later armies. If, and this is a big if, you somehow get 20+ tanks in your army they actually become pretty strong, but then you begin to have issues with reinforcements (such as winning a battle with 12~ tanks left over and losing them to a 20 mid-battle zealot warpin).

1 rax CC holds 3 gate robo better than 2 rax pressure into cc. This is because you'll generally have more marines with a 1 rax CC build than a 2 rax pressure build. You generally need 3-4 full bunkers on a map with a choke in your natural along with good marine production and repairing scvs. In contrast, with 2 rax pressure, you'll probably need even more bunkers, 5-6. Also, on a map without a good choke like Xelnaga Caverns, it's pretty much impossible to defend your natural. Keep your cc in your main while teching to medivacs.

Well, whenever you enter lategame against Protoss you have to make sure than no DT can walk into your bases without being intercepted. This means walls (depends on map though, for instance you can't really wall your third on Ohana without major investments while 4 Depots are enough on Entombed Valley's third), Turret rings (with the upgrade range if you can afford it) to prevent War Prisms from entering your air space and Turrets at every entrance. No other way, otherwise you get dismantled.

Against 2 Gateways in my base, I use 11/11 and I build my Barracks between my CC and geysers. Regardless of your building layout you will have to micro anyway, so pull back SCVs after they take 2 hits and remember that a Marine cannot take any hit from a Zealot if you move it manually with caution.

Proxies outside your base are simply thwarted by a wall.

Well, you can probably try to lift your Barracks and land them on your natural, but you probably lost anyway if he manages to settle in your main while your Medivacs are nowhere close. You need Depots near the edges of your base so you can see Warp Prisms from afar and quickly react; maybe a Bunker near your production if this is something you face a lot.

Most 4 gates don't even come with Sentries, 2-3 Bunkers with SCVs ready is enough.

Quite straightforward: since an Armory takes 65 seconds to complete, you need to make your Armory 65 seconds before 1/1 finishes, so if you don't know exactly when you start your EBs with your build, just check when 1/1 is near 95/160.

3-4 vikings

Yes, actually you overmake Vikings so you can ignore Phoenixes (don't waste shots on them, they're not the damage dealers in his army) and kill Colossi reasonably fast without losing all your Vikings to Phoenixes/Stalkers/Archons before they get the job done. Be sure to get air attack upgrades; well, you won't have more than +1 against such a strategy but against 3-bases Phoenixes/Colossi be sure to get +2 too, and +3 in lategame TvP if you can afford it.

If you have enough Ghosts, try to hit Colossi too with EMP so you can divide your focus fire and kill 2 Colossi instead of one at the beginning of the fight when you still have enough Vikings. Spread them to mitigate Archons' damage.

Don't bother with the all-ground approach, it's generally impossible to deal with 3+ Colossi without Vikings unless you badly outnumber him. Uncontested Colossi just deal way too much damage, you will lose like 10+ supply each time they attack and his Zealot wall won't even be down by the time most of your bio is reduced to ashes.

Needless to say, you need a second Starport to deal with Phoenixes/Colossi.

Ghosts: progressively head towards 20-30 by lategame. Ghost count in your initial max depends on his army composition. Note that Ghosts are extremely expensive and quite slow to produce so depending on how midgame went you might not always have the necessary time and/or economy to get as many Ghosts as you would need.
- If mostly Zealots/Archons/HTs aim at 10-15; no more since he should inevitably get a second and perhaps a third Robotics going for a Colossi switch, and seeing your whole Ghost squad evaporate to mindless lasers because you overmade Ghosts instead of getting Vikings really hurts your Terran soul.
- If Storm-less max for some kind of 3-0-3 timing try to get 6-8 Ghosts in your max (ideally you would want more but from experience sometimes you barely have time to have the first round of Ghosts ready, not to mention resources issues).

Vikings: 3-4 per Colossus, don't forget air attack upgrades. If you manage to get 20-30 Ghosts and 20+ Vikings you have gold in your hands.

To scout his army composition, you mostly scan his army or use your flying Factory or poke with a stimmed Marine.

You can know he's getting Storm when you see HTs (otherwise Protoss would immediately morph them into Archons*) or if you see a Templar Archives being Chronoboosted/researching (check this link for animation).

*[I mean later in midgame, after going Colossi first; with some Templar openings Protoss may keep two HTs to use Feedback on your two first Medivacs before morphing into an Archon.]

If Protoss opens with Colossi and produces more than 3 of them he will likely max without Storm, probably going for a 3-0-3 Zealot/Stalkers/Archons/Colossi timing.

By (advanced) lategame you shouldn't really have to wonder if he has Colossi or Storm since he should have both: Colossi-free armies can't really handle mass Ghosts outside of defensive positions and Storm-less armies lose much of their appeal once upgrades are equal (assuming your Viking count is appropriate and you have several Ghosts to carpet EMP his army).

No no no ! Caporal Joe may be a brave soldier and all, but if you no longer need his services by all means dispose of him and get a Ghost or a Viking instead. If you're stuck with a low-tech bio army with some kind of banking (or a high income) you must increase the efficiency of your army; if you fight with your low-tech or inadequate army hoping you will be able to remax on a better composition, you will likely end up not being able to remax at all since if you lose the fight too badly (and you will if Protoss has many Archons/Colossi while your Ghost/Viking count is too low) Protoss will trample upon you with Zealots warp-ins. Get rid of your excess of Marines/Marauders (depending on his composition) with suicidal raids or simply kill them yourself. Do this progressively of course.

Don't even try to fight 5 Colossi with 4 Vikings, you know what will happen. Retreat, kill some of your SCVs (which is why you need more OCs) and/or basic infantry and then come back with ~17+ Vikings. Double Reactor Starport at least by lategame.

Ideal scenario: kill the proxy with your first Marines. Proxy Robotics should start around 4'10 so he needs to make his third Pylon by 3'45 somewhere near your main; hopefully by this point you saw dual gas with your scouting SCV, which should immediately trigger a safety search around your base with your first Marines and/or a SCV (e. g. search at your third then your fourth on Ohana with the first one, and send the second Marine or a SCV around your fifth).

Upon scouting the proxy, rally all Marines and 1-2 SCV(s), attack the Pylon and start a Bunker nearby. Generally Protoss has only 1 Stalker and 2 Sentries before he starts his first Immortal at ~5'15, so you should be able to cancel/delay the proxy with your first Marines.

Bad luck: even though I don't have much trouble holding natural with several Bunkers, I think it's actually not really worth trying it because you won't be able to use the extra mineral line there anyway; SCVs have to be ready near the Bunkers, so they don't mine, and if you don't mine from your second mineral line then you actually have no advantage staying on your natural so why not have the superior security of a narrower ramp?

Besides, being on your natural really puts you in an awkward spot against the simple, unscoutable threat of a Prism drop/elevator; you have no way to know if he is making this Warp Prism, but if he does and you have everything on your natural you will lose to 4 Sentries landing in your main and repeatedly blocking your ramp while Prism warps Zealots. And if you do leave troops in your main to parry that threat, the front is weaker (possibly for nothing) and he can thus force his way more easily through your defence. Retreating to your main relieves you from blindly choosing between those different scenarii without any possible intel; sure, you will have to lift your Barracks and you will lose two Depots if you walled, but the ramp allows you to defend more easily and thus tech faster to Medivacs than you would if you tried to hold your natural (since you need less Bunkers and less SCVs to repair). This way you're also in a better spot than overdefending and realizing your opponent never had any intention to commit and was simply scaring you while going 3gR expand.

If you want to hold your natural [assuming a favourable map, forget about it on maps with backdoor rocks such as Entombed Valley or Ohana]: yes, you have to slow down your teching; usually I get 1-2 extra Barracks while removing 2-4 SCVs from Refineries, progressively resuming normal gas income depending on how things go. Your Bunkers should be in a concave so most of them can target Sentries, especially the one casting Guardian Shield (your arch-enemy).

General idea is: stall for Medivacs/Stim (if you went CS first), then drop 16 Marines to flank (spread them) while using SCVs + your other Marines to attack at the front. You should be able to break the contain if you didn't take too much damage from the initial harassment (Banshees or Marines/Hellions elevators). If you post some replays we'll be able to get down to the specifics.

No, it will not do anything as your opponent will easily match your Marine count and even exceed it since he will have two additional production cycles at home while you cross the map. Just build your third on its location and retain map control / better position thanks to your slightly faster tech.

Shortly after your first Banshee, then tech Tanks afterwards.

Barracks → 3 or 4 Marines (depending on your gas timing) → Reactor
Factory → Tech Lab → Tank

Against gas first Marines/Hellions elevators you will have an awkward moment while your Tank is being produced, so move away your SCVs or have a Bunker at the likely drop location so he has to waste some time bypassing this defence.

As long as you start Siege as soon as possible and constantly produce Marines/Tanks/Vikings you should not have any problem defending 1-base Tank pushes unless he proxies a flying Barracks and the Factory and surprises you.

In Marines/Tanks wars, your army is supposed to be on the map trying to get a better position than your opponent's army; most of the time it means both armies end up looking at each other, which means you should know his army size (thanks to Xel'Naga Towers and/or scans and/or a Medivac flying slightly forward protected by your sieged Tanks) and you should be able to know if suddenly 40+ supply is missing. Besides, you should patrol Marines at key locations so you see Medivacs heading towards your base; Sensor Towers fulfill a similar role.

With mech vs bio, it can be harder since usually you don't have map control, but Vikings with good positioning and Sensor Towers + Turret rings (gradually strengthened as the game goes on) should be enough to considerably weaken his drop; unless your opponent is at such a massive advantage that he can afford to trade 1:5 and still come out ahead, heavy Turrets rings should be enough to deter doom drops: yes, if he wants to commit with, say, 6 Medivacs, he will land some troops, but he should lose half of his Medivacs before they reach dry land making his drop a very costly move. Besides, mass Hellions can clear wounded bio without Medivac support quite easily if you line up his troops properly. Leaving 1-2 Tanks in your base/behind Turrets is an option too, especially on some maps (e. g. Entombed Valley's natural, Shakuras' main base) in which Marines/Marauders can hit your Turrets from the low ground.

Keeping track of the location/size of his army is also essential (you can use Hellions or scans for that). Make sure you lift your Barracks and place it on a common drop path.

That's simply wasted minerals more than 95% of the time. Besides, 6-pool doesn't even auto-win against CC first.

Situational since it depends on your opponent's army composition. In direct fights, unsieged Tanks are better than sieged ones against Ultralisks, but you might want to use Siege Mode anyway to kill Infestors (and/or Zerglings if there are many of them and you don't have enough Hellions).

You can't prevent Zergs from having Overlords on common drop routes if they get Mutalisks. Even when they get Infestors your Viking can only clear Overlords in air space, above the ground it is vulnerable to Fungal + ITs. Two Vikings is overkill by the way, only one should do.

Out of a 1 rax expand, this is the one I use:

12 Barracks
15 OC
16 Marine
16 CC
17 SCV
17 Refinery
17 Refinery
17 Supply Depot
18 SCV
19 Marine
20 SCV
21 Marine
21 Bunker
22 Factory
22 Reactor on Barracks
22 OC on natural
23 SCV
24 SCV
25 SCV
25 Starport
26 SCV
30 Hellion x2 (5'45)
31 SCV
32 SCV
32 Tech Lab on Barracks
32 Supply Depot x2
33 SCV
34 SCV
38 Hellion x2
39 SCV
40 SCV
40 Cloak (6'40)
40 Banshee

Supply counts and timings are slightly off if you SCV scout.

If you want to be sure no early Baneling bust is coming while you're going triple OC, aim at having your SCV in the Zerg's base by 3'30. If you notice gas taken before Pool, you can get dual gas right away; if not, you can triple OC knowing that any agression will come later with delayed gases.

Note that ironically enough, triple OC is safer against pure Roach agression because you can fill the Bunker with 4 Marines instead of 3 if you don't cut Marines, and you recover faster from SCVs losses thanks to your third OC being already complete.

Zergs can get dual gas after they take care of your scouting SCV, so scouting no gas does not mean he will not be agressive.

Yes, now that maps are quickly covered with creep, fighting with Marines/Tanks is much harder than before. Creep really makes it easier for Zergs to clear your pre-Hive timing and tech with relative impunity. Be sure that your build incorporates something to slow creep as much as possible at the beginning of the game (as it's an exponential thing) and pay attention to your upgrades, Marines trade horribly against Zerglings on creep if you're at an upgrade disadvantage.

Something like 7-8 Barracks + 2-3 Factories + 1 Reactor Starport.

If they busted your Nat but didn't bust your main, going up to 8-10 hellion and 2 banshees (rally a third) to attack is really strong against a third or infestor. You will need to get eBay and over turret if opp goes 2 base muta followup but that is rare and you should trade really well if they do this before mutas finish.

Against 10 pool you cancel your CC on low ground, wall and expand inbase. Against 14 pool pulling some SCVs to shield Marines should do.

With CC first there is none.

Yes, double expand before pool is a reaction to CC first. With 1 rax FE it depends whether you scouted it in time or not; if yes you can keep producing Marines to attempt a Bunker rush on his third, otherwise if you already cut your second Marine your attack will be too weak, so you might as well go 1 rax double or even triple expand (e. g. Taeja vs LosirA on Antiga @ TAC3 Grand Finals).

CC14 has better economy than 1 rax FE. If you refer to 16 vs 15 OC (not counting the Marine), the 16 variation is slightly better in the long term.

It's a possibility. Personnally, I never do this because I refuse to give up my Depots at the natural. Honestly, if you went 1 rax expand → dual gas → second Depot → Hellions → Banshees losing 10 SCVs is kind of standard, you have no other choice given your build order. Depending on the timing of his Roaches, I just counter with my first 4 Hellions if I have the possibility. Otherwise, clench your teeth and avenge your lost SCVs when his attack is fended off.

Be sure not to lose your Hellions against Roaches for nothing. Ironically enough, losing SCVs instead may be better because if you retain your Hellions, you threaten to kill many Drones in return while if you lose them (the first 4 or 6 ones), you're left with little possibility to strike back.

Your Bunker needs to be located in such a way it's not easily surrounded by Speedlings and yes, you need to surround said Bunker with your SCVs at the natural and you need to hit as many times as possible with your first 2 Hellions. Your goal is to kill as many Speedlings as possible; you will get overwhelmed anyway if he makes 30+ of them but the more Speedlings you kill, the easier it will be for you to take back your natural. Rally Hellions #3 and #4 inside your main, of course, and resume Marine production after Lab is complete so you can make a new Bunker to protect your natural while your Hellions/Banshees are on the map.

Depends on what you mean by “early”. I don't think it's really worth it but if 10 pool are common on your server and it annoys you, you might give it a try (at least on 2-spawns maps... on 4-spawns you probably would have too many chances to miss an early pool anyway). At the last MLG Flash did scout early against Life to make sure he was able to CC first directly on natural.

You can't know for sure, but you don't care since you will not deviate from your build anyway (except you can get a fourth Marine as soon as possible

if you scouted early gas). Gas doesn't necessarily mean agressive play, same as gasless doesn't necessarily mean passive play. Zergs can get Metabolic Boost early to defend / have some map presence / prevent you from building your third on its location, you see players like Leenock or Life do that even if they intend to get an early third. Your two first Hellions should scout whatever he's up to.

This is not what happens. Either he tries to attack the Bunker and kills repairing SCVs, losing Roaches in the process, or he camps near your mineral line, in which case you just retreat your SCVs (thus not losing any) and rally elsewhere while your Banshee clears Roaches.

You have possibilities to come out ahead with (a) a Hellion counter [not possible against all Roach pressure builds, but against some you have time to attack with 4 Hellions before/while he reaches your natural] or (b) a Hellion/Banshee counter-attack after the attack is cleared, taking advantage of his lower Queen count (and possible lack of Zergling speed depending on his build). Which is why retaining your Hellions is crucial.

No need to do that, just make a Bunker after second Supply Depot (CC-Gas-Gas-Depot-Bunker) and you shall be fine against Zerglings poke with your 3 Marines in the Bunker, which starts around 4'15 and is ready when Zerglings arrive.

Yes if you build your CC and Barracks as part of the wall. If scouting after Barracks means after you started your Barracks (2'45 - 2'50), your scouting SCV should come across the oncoming Zerglings, so you can quickly close your wall with a second Supply Depot if you built your CC on lowground; obviously you will have to cancel this CC.

No, you have no minerals to spare going early scout. Scout one position with the SCV building the first Barracks (after the Barracks is complete, I mean), then another position with the SCV building the second Barracks (same), so by ~3'45 at worst you will know where Zerg is. Rally Marines to the middle of the map until you know his starting position.

5 Barracks (usually 2 Reactors + 3 Tech Labs), 8 Barracks (3R + 5L) on 3 bases. Beyond that it depends on your economy, if you have several OCs you can get 12+ with Tech Labs on all those additional Barracks.

Nuke harass is a good option, problem is that you're usually trying not to die to the first BL push so you don't have enough time or resources to invest in Ghosts. You need to deal a certain amount of damage with your pre-BL timing (and/or your maneuvers afterwards if the map/creep allows you to do so) so you have time to set up your Ghost follow-up; if you're at a disadvantage you will not be able to defend his push on your fourth and your weakened army (because of the massive investment) will certainly not stand his.

And about Ravens: yes, they're rather mediocre but they're mandatory against high BLs/Corruptors/(Queens)/Infests counts; Vikings alone are beyond horrible once numbers get high, you can barely scratch the Corruptor wall.

Basically you get your third + double EB + gases at natural when you move out (if it's a Stim timing, CS timings hit earlier), around 9'30 - 9'45.