EPTThe Terran Help Me Thread - Page 62
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Make sure you read the OP before asking a question. Asking a question already addressed in the OP will result in moderation action. Also, please put some effort into your questions. | ||
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thoradycus
Malaysia3262 Posts
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Sianos
580 Posts
This thread will answer your questions quite a bit. In TvZ the most important things are fast reactors on your raxes, combined with constant upgrading with your ebay, a fast +1 Attack for your Tanks and a quick 3rd like 10 or 11 minutes. If your opponent is going mutas you should place some turrets at around 10 minutes. Your reactors on your rax, should be able to pump out a lot of marines to deny the early muta pressure. Your fast armory should allow you to produce thors if the muta flok get´s out of control. Your second factory should be build after you build your 3rd CC and you should add more raxes and a ghost academy frome there. Then it´s the time where i have a lot of trouble. If i move out with my army, scanning ahead i always walk into his creep as soon as i reach the middle of the map and get flanked from everywhere. I´m currently experimenting with holding a position in the middle of the map to deny the Zerg creep and having a bit more map control. I´m using my 10 minute push for this with decent results (Diamond Terran here), but i´m still refining little things. What do you guys think about holding a position in the map in the early game at arround 10 minutes, to have some mapcontrol and having your reinforcements getting to the middle a bit safer? | ||
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MepHiii
Poland191 Posts
On November 07 2011 03:53 TheDwf wrote: Hi, At the 16' mark, you could have simply a-moved to victory (or at least contain him, preventing him from catching up thanks to the gold) after you broke the contain. Remember that in small fights (which was the situation at this point), unsieged tanks can advance against sieged tanks, especially if Marines draw the enemy fire. It's sometimes better to simply attack move rather than using Siege mode. One of your problems lies in the production facilities : if you're planning on playing Marines/Tanks, you should get reactors on your Barracks way earlier, and make your third Factory only once you get your third base. You also forgot to get Combat Shields and stopped upgrading your Marines after 1/1. On the 22'30 fight, you lost all your Marines unnecessarily : since you got your Tanks in position to prevent him from mining his gold, you had no need at all to throw away all your Marines. Had you used them to kick his fourth base instead, you could have won easily. thank you very much for the extensive answer  ALT + NUM3 for you | ||
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cive
Canada370 Posts
On November 07 2011 04:03 thoradycus wrote: can anyone give a few tips in regards to protoss scouting? a lot of the times in TvP i misread an opponent's build order. For example, when i scan the base, how many pylons should i see to determine whether or not there is a proxy? Especially due to the nature of protoss (warp-ins), pylon counting is much less effective than in SC1. By proxy I assume you are talking about 4 gate warp-ins or 2 gate zealot. They are both scary only if there's something in your base. When your SCV reaches opponent base and you feel strange (no gateways or only one pylon) have an SCV scout around ur own base. Otherwise, I just scout the obvious areas when I feel like it, and scan with my FE orbital. If I'm not FE'ing, I probably have a timing or a banshee to "scout" with. | ||
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MysteryHours
United States168 Posts
On November 07 2011 00:21 Absentia wrote: OK I can no longer win TvZ....literally. I don't even know where to start because although I do make mistakes, I don't know if I'm missing some kind of fundamental idea about the matchup. It's driving me insane. I can't win vs Protoss much either but at least in that matchup I don't feel completely helpless. If anybody wants to watch my replays and help me out it'd be greatly appreciated. http://drop.sc/53550 http://drop.sc/53552 http://drop.sc/53551 I watched the first game. You hellions weren't used very effectively. Your first 4 start off exerting presence but then he brings some lings out and you retreat all the way back to your base, leaving his lings free to break the rocks for a fast 3rd. When you finally move back out again his rocks are already down and you've let him keep the watch tower the whole time with a single ling. The point of early hellions is to control the map, you should have had that watch tower the entire time and heavily harassed any lings trying to move out. You use 3 scans before 10:30, that's quite a lot of minerals missed out. You should be very stingy with early game scans. His attack at 10:30 was pretty much where the game ended. You didn't micro at all, you didn't even try to move your hellions back to prevent a surround. After the attack he takes the oppotunity to marco hard and by the time you get your third going he's saturated his 4th. | ||
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KenDM
Netherlands206 Posts
On November 07 2011 00:19 MysteryHours wrote: The DT drop hurt but you were still ahead after that was cleaned up. In the future a turret in each mineral line can help slow down something like this but ultimately you're going to need to keep some forces at home to deal with drops. Be active with scouting and if you see a dark shrine or DTs on the field add a raven to your army. What lost you the game if you didn't seal the deal during your doom push. At 26:00 you're mowing through his base and he's got nothing left defending. This is when you need to split off some units to scout any remaining bases. After you cleaned up the DTs you could have marched right up to his last base and won the game but instead he was given enough time to make a bunch of void rays. Even at the point where you quit you might have still been able to win. Your army was much bigger, so instead of trying to deal with the void rays you could have started a base trade with him, while sending some SCVs around the map to build command centers. Thanks for the feedback. Do you think my mechanics were enough to deal with Silver Protoss in general? I had a very hard time scouting and preparing for 1base all ins from Toss, luckily this guy did expo earl (not early, but not after 1base pushing me anyway). He also didn't push with immortals to begin with, so I had a little bit of extra safety due to lack of aggressiveness in his build. I just want to be able to scout and defend one base all ins from Protoss. As of now I don't even care about my other match ups anymore, I just need to defeat at least 5 Protoss in a row. That's how good I want my TvP to become. What's the best advise early-mid-game you can give me? Appreciate the feedback by the way! | ||
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Absentia
United Kingdom973 Posts
On November 07 2011 06:12 MysteryHours wrote: I watched the first game. You hellions weren't used very effectively. Your first 4 start off exerting presence but then he brings some lings out and you retreat all the way back to your base, leaving his lings free to break the rocks for a fast 3rd. When you finally move back out again his rocks are already down and you've let him keep the watch tower the whole time with a single ling. The point of early hellions is to control the map, you should have had that watch tower the entire time and heavily harassed any lings trying to move out. You use 3 scans before 10:30, that's quite a lot of minerals missed out. You should be very stingy with early game scans. His attack at 10:30 was pretty much where the game ended. You didn't micro at all, you didn't even try to move your hellions back to prevent a surround. After the attack he takes the oppotunity to marco hard and by the time you get your third going he's saturated his 4th. Thanks for the advice...somewhat. It doesn't really help much at all though. As I mentioned, I know I make mistakes but pointing them out doesn't really help. For example, if I'm scanning too much, when are some good times to scan? I normally scan @ around 6:30-7 and 9-10 to find out a) the lair timing b) the lair tech Is that not correct? The last part is just commentary... I know he's going to be macroing behind the attack and I know that I probably lost the game at that point....but why did I? Should I have waited for siege mode before taking my third? There's a reason why I posted 3 replays. I'm not losing games because I don't clear the watchtowers with hellions in that one game. I have a general, thematic problem across the matchup. | ||
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Barbeques
United States3 Posts
http://drop.sc/53722 Thanks for your time. | ||
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MysteryHours
United States168 Posts
On November 07 2011 08:11 KenDM wrote: Thanks for the feedback. Do you think my mechanics were enough to deal with Silver Protoss in general? I had a very hard time scouting and preparing for 1base all ins from Toss, luckily this guy did expo earl (not early, but not after 1base pushing me anyway). He also didn't push with immortals to begin with, so I had a little bit of extra safety due to lack of aggressiveness in his build. I just want to be able to scout and defend one base all ins from Protoss. As of now I don't even care about my other match ups anymore, I just need to defeat at least 5 Protoss in a row. That's how good I want my TvP to become. What's the best advise early-mid-game you can give me? Appreciate the feedback by the way! I think you have the fundamentals down to compete in silver. There's always little things, like remembering to transfer SCVs when you take a new base, but you seem to have the general idea of what to do in the match up. It looks like what you need to focus on is having a solid build you're confident with and knowing how to identify and hold off all-ins. I personally use a 1 Rax gasless FE, it's a standard macro oriented build that can hold any all-in assuming you scout it and know how to react. If you're interested in the specific build PM me and I'll send it to you. I'm still learning the art of scouting protoss builds myself but I can give you some tips. With your initial scouting SCVs, make note of where his pylons are. You should be able to see at least 2 and maybe 3 before you're chased away. He should always have at least as many pylons as you have depots, so for example if you only see 1 pylon and you have 2 depots, you should become suspicious of proxy pylons. If you see a very early forge then you're being cannon rushed, immediately check the inside of your base for pylons and then the outside perimeter. After your initial scouting SCV is done, you ideally want to have it camp near protoss' natural so you can poke a little later to check for an expo. You should always scan his base at around 5:45. You do this in your replay but you scan near his nexus instead of where you scouted his first pylons where his buildings are most likely to be. Early twilight council suggests DT rush or blink stalkers. Early stargate suggest VR rush. 4 gates is obvious. 3 gates and a robotics facility is pretty standard, but stay on alert for warp prism drops or immortal play. If protoss hasn't expanded by around 6:15 this suggests a 1 base all-in. Keep in mind for all these timings that in the lower leagues your opponent's builds may be wonky and inefficient and may not adhere to standard timings. There are also very strong 2 base attacks you need to worry about, for example 6 gate and 2 base immortal, these can be just as devastating if you're not prepared. Any time you suspect an all-in, get bunkers up at your natural right away. For naturals without a choke like Xel'Naga Caverns or if you don't have time to bunker your natural you'll need to bunker your main instead and hold off on taking your expo. If you suspect an all-in and it hasn't hit yet, you can have a marine scout around the perimeter of your base for a proxy pylon. Get ready to pull SCVs for bunker repair. I would go ahead and build 2 bunkers at your choke regardless of what you scout. If you confirm an all-in, add a 3rd bunker. Put depots in front of your bunkers to slow down zealots. When the all-in hits, make sure you're defending as a unified force. Stray marines can be picked off very easily. If you're being hit and you don't have a good bunker defense or you know you're not going to hold, pull back and collect your army. Pull your SCVs and have them lead an attack with your army behind them. If he hasn't expanded and you have a 2nd CC, don't be afraid to use SCVs in the fight as you can replace SCVs quickly after the fight and you also have MULEs. Here's a replay where I hold a 4 gate with a 1 Rax FE build. http://drop.sc/53724 | ||
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MysteryHours
United States168 Posts
On November 07 2011 09:10 Absentia wrote: Thanks for the advice...somewhat. It doesn't really help much at all though. As I mentioned, I know I make mistakes but pointing them out doesn't really help. For example, if I'm scanning too much, when are some good times to scan? I normally scan @ around 6:30-7 and 9-10 to find out a) the lair timing b) the lair tech Is that not correct? The last part is just commentary... I know he's going to be macroing behind the attack and I know that I probably lost the game at that point....but why did I? Should I have waited for siege mode before taking my third? There's a reason why I posted 3 replays. I'm not losing games because I don't clear the watchtowers with hellions in that one game. I have a general, thematic problem across the matchup. Fair enough. I'm not really qualified to give general matchup theory to a masters level player so maybe someone else can jump in here. Also if you haven't read it already you should check out [G] Doc's Somewhat Definitive Guide to TvZ. In response to your scanning question he advocates not scanning before 10:00, and then only to determine if Zerg is going infestor or spire. | ||
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Absentia
United Kingdom973 Posts
On November 07 2011 10:28 MysteryHours wrote: Fair enough. I'm not really qualified to give general matchup theory to a masters level player so maybe someone else can jump in here. Also if you haven't read it already you should check out [G] Doc's Somewhat Definitive Guide to TvZ. In response to your scanning question he advocates not scanning before 10:00, and then only to determine if Zerg is going infestor or spire. Sorry; I come across as a ass in my response. I appreciate your help. | ||
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halpimcat
215 Posts
On November 07 2011 00:21 Absentia wrote: OK I can no longer win TvZ....literally. I don't even know where to start because although I do make mistakes, I don't know if I'm missing some kind of fundamental idea about the matchup. It's driving me insane. I can't win vs Protoss much either but at least in that matchup I don't feel completely helpless. If anybody wants to watch my replays and help me out it'd be greatly appreciated. http://drop.sc/53550 http://drop.sc/53552 http://drop.sc/53551 I saw the last two replays, the one on tal'darim and metalopolis. I see you're going tank/marine. The main fundamental mistakes you made on both games were your overuse on scans, early map control, horrible timings, and overall defensiveness. You inferred earlier that you know you scan too much, which is good because they are really hurting you. You need to rely less on them and start learning how to infer what the zerg is doing by scouting with your hellions, understanding basic timings, and looking at the zerg's army composition/size. For example, the metalopolis game. Personally I think you should have been dead as shit after the roach all-in but the zerg's shitty play allowed you a half chance into the game. You scanned his base right after and saw the lair. Good. But two minutes later you scanned again, at the same spot. What new thing did you expect to see? You should know that with the sheer amount of roaches he made early on he shouldn't have enough gas to instantly go hive tech, and doing so would be suicide anyway anyway. There should be 3 main reasons for you to scan: to find out how fast he is teching (not by searching for a spire or infestation pit, but by looking for a lair/hive or extra hatcheries in base), to clear creep, and to see his army size/composition/location, but ONLY when you're pushing out and ONLY once. You'd scan the same army sitting in his base 3 times in the course of 60 seconds while moving towards his base. Not a good idea. Scan the base closest to you while moving out once. If he's not there, stim 1-2 marines in front of you to make sure he can't ambush you. As soon as you gauge how close your army is to his, siege up where you think it's safe and push your way up slowly. Get tanks faster. You'd make a good batch of hellions and then your factory is idle for a long time after. Immediately start tank and siege production after you stop making hellions. The general idea for going fast tanks is to push out with 3-4 tanks and a healthy size of marines to shut down the zerg's 3rd base, generally made at the 8-11 minute mark. What you want to do before then is to roam the map with your hellions, prevent creep spread, gain map control, roast zerglings that move off creep, poke the mineral line when it's SAFE, and check for 3rd+ expansions. All while macroing at home. You move out with your marine/tank(/medivac) army at this point and deny the third while you take your own. What you never did in the two replays I saw is pressure the zerg at all. When you finally tried to push with yuor army in the tal'darim game, your army was pitifully small and zerg was already on 3 saturated bases. Generally you'd be even more behind than you were in those replays because zerg overmade units without being prompted, but a competent zerg would've had 70 drones in an instant cause you gave him no pressure. You don't even have to commit to sacking the 3rd base because the threat of your moving army forces zerg to make units instead of drones, and you can run back to your base as the damage you dealt was an economic one. If you don't like the idea of a tank/marine push around the 11 minute mark you can delay tank production for faster dropships and do multi-pronged drops to hit their economy before mutas come. I mentioned learning to scout and react without using scans. For example, if he opens with a LOT of zerglings, don't attack. THey're likely upgraded and will destroy any early tank/rine push designed for destroying the third I told you about. If he has that many lings, he won't have enough money to make a quick third anyways other than an in-base hatch. Take the opportunity to drop harass and expand yourself instead. There are dozens of other popular things zerg can do but you have to watch for the signs. Know that if he has a lot of units, he can't have too many drones, and vice-versa. If he's made an early lair or is teching quickly, he can't have that big an army. Blah blah blah. You also made a lot of fundamental mistakes in your games, but you should start with what I wrote above and through experience work your way up from there. | ||
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theBOOCH
United States832 Posts
Next is how to hold it. With the VR all-in, I don't really know what to build and where. 2 bunkers isn't enough to hold it, and they can always attack with their voids elsewhere. I'm fine with building more bunkers, but I don't want to overbuild bunkers or something. Again, I know scouting is key, but there's always a limit to how much info you can have. My unit comp is iffy too. If I spot the VR all-in, chances are I won't have my factory down yet, so vikings, which could help, are sort of out. Still, If I can get them, I will. Also, I've been building more marines lately in general, and if I spot the all-in, I just build marines. Should I keep building a few marauders? Also, assuming I have one rax with tech lab and two with reactor when I spot the all-in, how many additional raxes should I throw down on two bases to keep safe. Also, is it worth it to try and tech to vikings if I don't have a factory, or get ghosts, or be worried about DTs? Or should I pour all my money into holding the push. Also, any tips on controlling my army. I feel like this all-in takes a lot more micro to hold than to execute, so I feel I'm too taxed already, but any tips might help keep me more efficient. I have about 90 APM in these games. Finally, should I be worried about being too passive if I think I've held the all-in? Sometimes I think it's over and I'm worried they've expanded or something, even though I know they probably haven't, but it's not safe to go out on the map because they still have a bigger army. Should I just forget about that and assume they've committed fully? Thanks, guys! P.S. Is it wise to automatically get a couple bunkers after a 1 or 2 rax expand, and if so, before or after additional raxes (I'm guessing after rax 3, but before factory). | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On November 07 2011 18:08 theBOOCH wrote:I've read a lot of the Help Me thread posts on how to spot and hold a VR all-in, but I'm still having trouble scouting and holding it. I made a post about it last page (61, third post from bottom) with a replay attached, maybe it'll help you a bit. | ||
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Carlotto
France49 Posts
Thank you  | ||
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MysteryHours
United States168 Posts
On November 07 2011 18:08 theBOOCH wrote: P.S. Is it wise to automatically get a couple bunkers after a 1 or 2 rax expand, and if so, before or after additional raxes (I'm guessing after rax 3, but before factory). Yes, unless you're sure you not facing early pressure you should get a couple bunkers by default, and they should go down before you start teching but after your early rax have gone down. Here's a post from this thread about preparing for a VR/stalker all-in http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=11760419 | ||
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MasonosaM
United States74 Posts
Also, what should I do if the zerg is staying on two base for a really long time? I feel leery about venturing out when this happens and usually wait for a heavier push and for his third to go up instead of just moving out at the standard time. Should I still attempt to apply pressure in some way at around the 9-10 minute mark? Perhaps just taking the watch towers and back? For TvP, I usually can macro just fine and do drops dealing damage without losing them, and I can be ahead in every way all game but when it comes to the big maxed engagements I somehow manage to fuck up more than 70% of the time. How should I go about attacking a maxed protoss army? I have the jist for the unit comps I need but my control of the maxed army just isn't up to par. If someone could give me a series of actions they do when attempting to engage that would be great or just describe it that would be awesome. Thanks in advance! | ||
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MyLastSerenade
Germany710 Posts
when i try to hit earlier i stay in front of his spine wall and cant do much. when i see a spire i tend to not drop because mutas are a threat even when i see they are out of position, often reinforcing mutas kill my drop or he sees it and places some zerglints to counter it. i know my macro isnt the best but i think it is quite ok for my skilllevel and dont think that this an big issue in this game. http://drop.sc/54442 | ||
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Willzzz
United Kingdom774 Posts
Did you really need 2 bunkers when you had the xel'naga towers locked down with your hellions? I guess you were scared of roaches but they take a long time to cross the map with no real creep spread and you were making tanks anyway. Your push was kinda late and weak, when you saw you couldn't push into his base you should have either re-inforced or much safer just retreated back to base. Leaving such a small army in a vulnerable position is asking for trouble. No idea why you wasted a scan just to take a few pot shots on buildings with 1 tank. Later on you don't have enough production, I would recommend getting 2 factories myself. Tanks are so good in big numbers. You end the game with about 7 MULEs worth of energy on just 2 OC, that could have been a whole army of extra marines. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On November 08 2011 04:36 MyLastSerenade wrote: can maybe someone watch my replay and tell me what timing i should hit for a push in that game? feels like i loose every tvz the same way, my timing is too late and then he crushes my initial force with some sling / bling and then just overruns me...... when i try to hit earlier i stay in front of his spine wall and cant do much. when i see a spire i tend to not drop because mutas are a threat even when i see they are out of position, often reinforcing mutas kill my drop or he sees it and places some zerglints to counter it. i know my macro isnt the best but i think it is quite ok for my skilllevel and dont think that this an big issue in this game. http://drop.sc/54442 Hi, Some comments about the game : a) You should stay in front of his natural with your Hellions, especially as you see the Roach Warren (you may need the few extra seconds to set up your defence in case he decides to attack straightaway with Roaches); b) About the push, there was no real reason to do it. The primary goal should be to get rid of the third, but given your respective spawn positions you can't really do that without risking being flanked, surrounded or simply countered (as you did not wall your natural before leaving out, something you absolutely need). This kind of 10' push should have a purpose, and here it had none. You sat in front of his base for two minuts doing nothing, so he got all the time he needed to make units and crush it. The proper way would have been to use the cliff; with an earlier Medivac, you may elevator some Marines to harass his mineral line while using Siege tanks to cover them. This way, there is a real threat with your push. c) From this point, he should be ahead, but thanks to his bad macro you could have still won... Problem is, at 14'30 you have 30 SCVs at your natural and 14 at your first base (meaning 6 of your SCVs are wasted). You have too much gas because you did not make a second Factory (which means you have a low Tank count since you lost some of them at your first push) and did not make a Reactor for your Starport. Then... d) For some reason, you feel the need to go and sit near the Xel'Naga Tower that he was holding (giving him full sight of your small army). You have only 3 tanks, so you will never be able to deal with all his lings/banelings at this point. Logically enough, your exposed army get swept away, because once again he got all the time he needed to make units and engage. In short, you are unnecessarily agressive (without actually being agressive, because there is no real threat in your pushes). You did not know it, but you had superior economy (because your opponent's macro is terrible) ; there was no need to go, you should have simply built a second Factory and a Sensor Tower to see the path leading to your third, waited for a higher Tank count and then try to go his natural. Be careful with those 10' pushes. They are not a "standard" thing, you should aim at something precise with them (not winning the game straightaway, unless the Zerg is bad; most of the time, it's simply a way to punish the Zerg player if he took too quickly his third). If you lose them without doing much damage, you will likely lose the game. | ||
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