The Terran Help Me Thread - Page 435

Hey there,

I'll try to break it down as much as possible without making it sound like a math test. While I generally wouldn't call your strategy bad to begin with, nowadays it seems to be outdated. What you call out as a 1 rax fast expansion with a timing behind it, usually will not work anymore, because most of the Protoss have their expand up early and rush for either colossus or storm. Your timing if you play it well should hit before the 2nd colossus and before storm (low units in that case) but its not a push that you can actually win the game with against any Protoss that is not completely bad. He can stall time if he needs with forcefields and as you already said you die and fall behind.

Here's my take on your situation, without completely screwing you over. A 1 barracks fast expand is in most cases a good and save build, stick to it. While you try to execute a 3 barracks stim+medivac timing, I'd suggest for playing a bit more clever. First of all, you should know what Protoss is up to but lets assume you know how to figure out if a 5 6 7 gate is coming towards you, if you don't you can write me an PM or ask here and you will be helped I guess, but writing it out now would make it too long of a post.

If you constantly build units from your 3 barracks while teching up you should have a good force to move out with before your 2 medivacs are done. You can rally them behind but move out a bit, check the watchtower, send an scv to his base if you are unsure whats up / where he is. If you catch him out on the map (aka not watch tower, not his base) I'd be a bit more defensive but other than that, you can apply pressure. Pressure doesn't always mean attacking. Pressuring can be showing presence on the map, denying his vision. As soon as your medivacs are there, poking is fine but actually attacking is dumb. Protoss has the best defensive ability when it comes down to defending ramps, terrain in total. He can make up for supply deficit with simply cutting your army, he can deny fire power or forcefield-circle you to bug you.

You got medivacs, mobility and the smaller your mid-sized forced is the stronger you will be in a battle against an equal force. Protoss AoE scales on big battles. So the best thing you can do if you see he's not low on units and has colossus out is to load up your medivacs, feel free to scan his mainbase. Obviously this kind of gives away what you are trying. A good Protoss will have colossus/sentry/zealot in front of his natural while he has stalkers as drop defence in his main. This obviously means that he is ready to defend your drop, but he still doesn't have his complete army together. Attacking and losing your army is worth than putting it into dropships and camp it outside his mainbase, in the open space/air. What can he do about it without a stargate? Right, nothing. He has to be ready to defend and its always a threat. If you drop and lose your army, you fall behind. If you attack and lose your army, you fall behind. If you attack and its successful you win. If you attack and trade, Protoss can take a 3rd base and you lose your opinion to pressure because with warpgates he can replenish faster, also he could do a 2 base timing in which case your loss of units/trade would also be bad.

So in 3/4 cases you don't really get an advantage, but disadvantage. In 1 case you win. See the problem? If you park 2 dropships outside his base, he will think twice about a 2 base timing. Its either weaker cause he has to leave units behind or he has to take the risk of your dropships being unloaded, destroying tech/economy leading to him not supporting his 2 base allin anymore. In general it will make him more defensive, taking a 3rd base. While doing that you can easily go up to a 3rd yourself without much pressure. Start building vikings in case of robo(colossus) after 4 medivacs (personal preference, as you park 2 outside his base, can also build 6) or add a 2nd starport. Go ghost tech if you see twilight/dual forge. With your 3rd base building you should be up to 5 barracks, after a running 3rd to 6-7. From that point on, you are neither behind nor ahead, but you have established a good economy and from that point on, its down to mechanics.

Good luck!