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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37120 Posts
On December 01 2011 06:02 xOff wrote:
I always am scared to "Poke" a protoss army because of the risk or getting forcefeilded and losing half my army :/
ahahahah!! Don't we all? 
Good comment though. You are absolutely right. A Terran could be ahead of Protoss but the minute u mess up and get half your army force fielded off and lose them, you're in serious trouble.
The way to deal with this is to avoid unnecessary battles. Don't engage your opponent if u really don't need to. Do drops and harass here and there. The only time u should really "engage" your opponent is if you have decent EMPs and vikings to take down colossi. Other wise, you'll get ripped to shreds :[
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On December 01 2011 06:25 KenDM wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 04:42 RoboBob wrote:On November 30 2011 12:00 ithinknot wrote:
Hello, i am a platinum level terran player and i have been trying to understand how i can utilize my race to the best of its ability. i have been under the impression that it really is beneficial for the zerg and protoss to sit back and let games become drawn out without any kind of pressure against them so the zerg can take a ton of bases, and the protoss can go for the death ball, my issue is i have read that while zerg and protoss make units in waves, terran has a constant flow of units so it had been said that they can attack and defend, i have had a problem where i cannot find the right balance between attacking, and defending. one of my issues i have found is ill push on a zerg base at the 7 min mark, but he will out mass me and overwhelm me, but i don't rally my units to my forward army for reinforcing so its like i'm attacking in waves too. whenever i attack should i always rally my production to my enemies base for constant reinforcements? or is there a different way terran units should be used to keep the ememy from getting too large of an army? any help is most appreciated, thank you!
On Attacking: In SC2, Terran is built to be a very offensive race. We need to be on the attack in every matchup except TvT (obviously). We can't let a Zerg sit because with their macro mechanics (inject and creep) they will be able to max and remax quicker and larger than us. We can't let a Protoss sit because with chronoboost they will out-tech and out-gas us. Terran units tend to be cheap on resources, expensive on supply. Protoss units are the opposite. That means their 200/200 balls are more powerful than ours, but they're also more expensive to obtain. So we always want to kill them before the game devolves into a 200 vs 200 scenario. That doesn't mean a 200 vs 200 battle is impossible, it just means that it's unfavorable. As a Terran you should ONLY be defending in the following scenarios: 1. You know for certain that you are up 1 base vs Protoss 2. You know for certain that you are equal or up on bases vs Zerg 3. You are doing a 1 base fast tech build, such as Cloakshee, Thorship, or Doomdrop 4. You are doing a macro orbital build in TvZ 5. You are doing a 1 Rax FE in TvT Other than that, the default mode is always attack. When in doubt, attack. You will lose a lot of silly games because you attack at a really stupid time. But that's the best way for us to learn as Terran. It's the complete opposite of Zerg, which learns the best by losing a game where they defend too much and drone too hard. ----- On Rallying: You always want to rally units inside your base, and then every 1 or 2 game minutes send everything at the rally point to the front. The main reason being that all Terran units get stronger in balls. It's much better to send a single ball of 10 Marines across the map every minute instead of sending 1 marine every 6 seconds. 10 Marines will force a pack of Mutas or Lings to back off. But sending 1 Marine 10 times against the same pack won't do anything. If you don't have the apm to do that, then it's okay to rally everything straight to the front. But as your apm increases that's a really important habit to develop. What about a 1 base all-in from Protoss? Like 4Gate rushing, or just a powerful 3 Gate Robo?
If you both you and Protoss are on one-base, you win because you have Mules and he doesn't. There's a really good reason why Protoss hates 1-1-1. The only way you can lose is if you hide up your ramp and don't make Marauders.
Obviously if you went for a 1 or 2 Rax FE and the P is one basing, then you will need to Bunker down. That's listed as exception #1.
Bunkers still work against 3 gate+Immortal pushes, just make certain to target fire with your bunkers properly. Against 1 base Colossi you basically repair the bunkers and kill the rest of the P army so the Colossi are left nekid. The Colossi shouldn't have range. By the time they do you should have tech to counter them, even after expanding. There's nothing more satisfying than dropping Marauders on nekid Collosi =)
It's really tough to hold a 1 or 2 Rax FE vs 1 base Blink or Warp Prism, which is kinda why I don't like doing it. But with pro level micro and scouting it is very doable.
The answer to all 1 base defense in TvP is the Marauder, really. You need at least some gas to get Vikings against VRs anyway.
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How do you deal with a macro protoss? zealots are destroying every army i get.
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On December 01 2011 06:02 xOff wrote:
I always am scared to "Poke" a protoss army because of the risk or getting forcefeilded and losing half my army :/
Well it does depend upon map but with good unit control you should be able to stay safe. You can afford to wait for your first 2 medivacs and then you can just lift out of trouble.
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Hi! Two questions today:
1. What does MU mean? I keep seeing it.
2. I originally used to do 1 rax FE in TvP, but I kept losing in platinum due to 4 gate all-ins, fast DT's, etc. As a result, I adopted the SelecT's 2 rax expand (with reactor push), doing early pressure with 7 marines + 1 marauder for early toss FE lockdown. However, Sometimes I arrive at toss base and there is no FE. I kind of just turn around and make bunkers. I guess what I'm trying to say is, is SelecT's 2 rax FE strictly a counter-build? If so, what should be my normal go-to in TvP if I am denied scouting or if I don't scout any expo?
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match up
The 2 rax build is for small maps with open naturals.
Yeah if toss has no expo, just go home and defend your expo ftw. Keep a scout so you know when he does expand.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37120 Posts
On December 01 2011 06:56 Willzzz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 06:02 xOff wrote:
I always am scared to "Poke" a protoss army because of the risk or getting forcefeilded and losing half my army :/
Well it does depend upon map but with good unit control you should be able to stay safe. You can afford to wait for your first 2 medivacs and then you can just lift out of trouble.
EDIT: my comment was stupid and did not bring any help whatsoever. I apologize
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On December 01 2011 08:00 Seeker wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 06:56 Willzzz wrote:On December 01 2011 06:02 xOff wrote:
I always am scared to "Poke" a protoss army because of the risk or getting forcefeilded and losing half my army :/
Well it does depend upon map but with good unit control you should be able to stay safe. You can afford to wait for your first 2 medivacs and then you can just lift out of trouble. What? Wtf? Stalkers can kill medivacs..... Are u talking about drop plays?
Why are you spamming this thread, if you don't understand what he said you obviously have no place here. He's talking about pushing with your bio and first two medics, when he FFs you lift the units he cut off. He cannot kill the medics in time at that point in the game without suffering insane losses from background marauders.
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On December 01 2011 07:39 Willzzz wrote:
match up
The 2 rax build is for small maps with open naturals.
Yeah if toss has no expo, just go home and defend your expo ftw. Keep a scout so you know when he does expand.
Thanks for the info!
I actually have another question. Was not walling off against protoss players originally a solution to void-ray rushes(as they charge up on the outside of your depot, where the marines can't shoot without lowering supply depot)? Or was their a general consensus one day amongst Terran players that walling off in TvP was not necessary?
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37120 Posts
On December 01 2011 08:11 iAmJeffReY wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 08:00 Seeker wrote:On December 01 2011 06:56 Willzzz wrote:On December 01 2011 06:02 xOff wrote:
I always am scared to "Poke" a protoss army because of the risk or getting forcefeilded and losing half my army :/
Well it does depend upon map but with good unit control you should be able to stay safe. You can afford to wait for your first 2 medivacs and then you can just lift out of trouble. What? Wtf? Stalkers can kill medivacs..... Are u talking about drop plays? Why are you spamming this thread, if you don't understand what he said you obviously have no place here. He's talking about pushing with your bio and first two medics, when he FFs you lift the units he cut off. He cannot kill the medics in time at that point in the game without suffering insane losses from background marauders.
Ahhhh..... my bad, my bad. I misunderstood/misinterpreted what he meant entirely.
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So, how exactly does one deal with a chargelot/archon composition late-game in TvP? During the midgame my protoss opponent made colossi, so I responded with 4-6 vikings to go around and gun them down. I have no problem pushing during the mid-game and I kill off his deathball and consequently lose my bioball to dark templars since I suck at controlling my army and didn't have a scan or ghosts ready at the time. I'd like to think this was the sole reason I lost the game since I didn't lose much army to the colossi/stalker/sentry composition at the time and I could have rolled the rest of their base.
Jump forward about 10 minutes, and apparently protoss swapped to a zealot/archon composition. This composition just kills me because apparently MMM is garbage when chargelots can just close the distance and cut you to ribbons while archons vaporize everything in a few shots. I feel like it's uncounterable, but what the fuck do I have to do to beat that composition? Mass hellion/thor?
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On December 01 2011 09:48 ultimania92 wrote:
So, how exactly does one deal with a chargelot/archon composition late-game in TvP? During the midgame my protoss opponent made colossi, so I responded with 4-6 vikings to go around and gun them down. I have no problem pushing during the mid-game and I kill off his deathball and consequently lose my bioball to dark templars since I suck at controlling my army and didn't have a scan or ghosts ready at the time. I'd like to think this was the sole reason I lost the game since I didn't lose much army to the colossi/stalker/sentry composition at the time and I could have rolled the rest of their base.
Jump forward about 10 minutes, and apparently protoss swapped to a zealot/archon composition. This composition just kills me because apparently MMM is garbage when chargelots can just close the distance and cut you to ribbons while archons vaporize everything in a few shots. I feel like it's uncounterable, but what the fuck do I have to do to beat that composition? Mass hellion/thor?
Doubt you have the upgrades and infrastructure to make this change, so have to go with what you've got. Obviously you need to avoid getting surrounded, so try to fight it in the open, and shoot and run constantly to avoid that extra hit or two while you are next to them. When they charge, run away, it'll give you time to kill them while moving away from the archon's.
Obviously ghosts are hugely useful, for their emp's on those archons, or on clusters of zealots. Also consider sending a dropship to harass their bases, if only to force a warp in away from their army.
When fighting it is usually advisable to retreat towards your base or wherever your units are reproducing from, as you know the next wave of zealots are coming soon. That is how I try to manage it, either hoping they turn around if I am not sure I'll win, or will wave into me. You cannot stand and take it, nor a surround, so really just try to trade well in open ground while destroy any nexii you find alone and unguarded.
Obviously a hellion or two is nice in the mix, but without 3/3 they'll be a waste of minerals versus 3/3/3 zealots.
I also cry tears at these tech swaps ;(
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United States4991 Posts
On December 01 2011 09:48 ultimania92 wrote:
So, how exactly does one deal with a chargelot/archon composition late-game in TvP? During the midgame my protoss opponent made colossi, so I responded with 4-6 vikings to go around and gun them down. I have no problem pushing during the mid-game and I kill off his deathball and consequently lose my bioball to dark templars since I suck at controlling my army and didn't have a scan or ghosts ready at the time. I'd like to think this was the sole reason I lost the game since I didn't lose much army to the colossi/stalker/sentry composition at the time and I could have rolled the rest of their base.
Jump forward about 10 minutes, and apparently protoss swapped to a zealot/archon composition. This composition just kills me because apparently MMM is garbage when chargelots can just close the distance and cut you to ribbons while archons vaporize everything in a few shots. I feel like it's uncounterable, but what the fuck do I have to do to beat that composition? Mass hellion/thor?
Don't switch to Hellion/Thor. Hellions aren't actually that great unless they're also well-upgraded (and they die very badly to switches by the Protoss), and if he's going Archon he already has HT, which will hurt your Thors a ton.
Use MMM + Ghost + Medivac. Learn to stutter step (better, if you already do it some). EMP is still a good spell. MMMG is still an acceptable mix against Zealot/Archon, but you need to a) not be behind in upgrades b) not be behind macro-wise and c) actively control your army [well]. Stutter-step is very effective, and EMP is always good, even with the radius reduction. The point of stutter-step by the way is not really to completely avoid getting hit against charge, but after the one hit from the charge his Zealot will be slowly crawling after you and blocking other Zealots.
Also note that Zealot/Archon by itself is ineffective at killing Medivacs, so if he really doesn't have other things with his army you can just pick up and run away from an unfavorable engagement.
e: by the way, your army shouldn't be getting hit a bunch by the Archons. If you're just standing there, yes they're good vs you. If you continually stutter-step away though, they're going to be significantly less effective.
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When does an economic lead turn into an army lead? I like to fast expand on most matchups but am never quite sure when it's safe to move out because my army never seems that much bigger than my opponent's.
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On December 01 2011 07:32 recoil56 wrote:
Hi! Two questions today:
1. What does MU mean? I keep seeing it.
2. I originally used to do 1 rax FE in TvP, but I kept losing in platinum due to 4 gate all-ins, fast DT's, etc. As a result, I adopted the SelecT's 2 rax expand (with reactor push), doing early pressure with 7 marines + 1 marauder for early toss FE lockdown. However, Sometimes I arrive at toss base and there is no FE. I kind of just turn around and make bunkers. I guess what I'm trying to say is, is SelecT's 2 rax FE strictly a counter-build? If so, what should be my normal go-to in TvP if I am denied scouting or if I don't scout any expo?
1. It means match up. ie. TvZ, PvP, etc.
2. 1rax FE is commonly accepted as the best TvP build out there when it comes to macro play. Coming from the Protoss perspective it is very hard to do damage against it (I'm master toss). If you're having trouble versus conventional 4gates basically all you need to do is scout it with a scan, or scouting marine or SCV, and then build 2 more bunkers at your front and pull SCVs to repair before the attack is at your front door. Because the PvT variation of 4gate is normally 1 gas, he will not have many sentries to prevent the bunker repair. Just repair and you should be fine 
Against dts, again, scout it, build engie bay, save scans. Easy free win since you'll be so ahead in army I'd just do a timing and kill him outright, but again you have to save scans.
Select's 2rax reactor first is a pressure build yes. It is designed to kill a 1gate expanding Toss, and believe me it does its job very well. The whole point is that one way or another, you're ahead in economy, base wise, if you do this build. Even if he does FE and you don't kill it, you base should be up before his or at least at the same time. If he didn't expand, you're ahead, and you should prepare for some tech or army all in. If he did expand and you kill it, you're game winningly ahead.
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On December 01 2011 10:50 halpimcat wrote:
When does an economic lead turn into an army lead? I like to fast expand on most matchups but am never quite sure when it's safe to move out because my army never seems that much bigger than my opponent's.
It takes a good while at the very least, and it's still relative to whether or not your opponent goes for a fast expand as well or not. If you're fast expanding during your matches, consider that you've just dumped a huge amount of minerals early into an expansion, and are bidding on surviving long enough with a small army count on two bases early in the game to where you can macro up to that point. Once you have enough workers off of two bases, you'll notice your minerals/gas pile up, take advantage of this by adding on more production. (For example, the 1rax FE has you usually grab two more raxes during the expansion. Depending on your gameplan, you'd either start teching to a factory/starport or add on more raxes for heavy bio play)
Just remember at the end of the day, if you fast expand, your opponent does not, and they don't pressure you enough to compensate, the rest of the game is a formality as you'll have such an economic lead that you can just throw large numbers at your opponent and win.
I even added a graph to illustrate this point:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0V9Xp.png)
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On December 01 2011 08:17 recoil56 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 07:39 Willzzz wrote:
match up
The 2 rax build is for small maps with open naturals.
Yeah if toss has no expo, just go home and defend your expo ftw. Keep a scout so you know when he does expand. Thanks for the info! I actually have another question. Was not walling off against protoss players originally a solution to void-ray rushes(as they charge up on the outside of your depot, where the marines can't shoot without lowering supply depot)? Or was their a general consensus one day amongst Terran players that walling off in TvP was not necessary?
From my own experience I can say that in a few different situations a depot-rax-depot wall does more harm than good in TvP. Void-ray is one example but even against stalkers on a map like Taldarim where there is no ramp the buildings get in the way and stalkers can pick at depots and kill your marines if you try to come out.
For myself I will typically build my first depot at the ramp, build my rax a little behind it, and if I scout/sense some kind of early all-in coming I'll throw down the second depot and a bunker where the rax would go. Having the bunker there will prevent stalkers from sniping depots and should at the very least buy you enough time to do something useful to defend against voidray.
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are there any viable strategies or builds against zerg that do not use siege tanks? i was thinking that by having the thors to soak up a lot of the bane damage that it would really allow the marines to do the work, i also wanted to use the gas for either ravens or banishes for harassment or is the siege tank just too cost effective against zerg? any help is most appreciated, thank you!
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On December 01 2011 14:19 ithinknot wrote:
are there any viable strategies or builds against zerg that do not use siege tanks? i was thinking that by having the thors to soak up a lot of the bane damage that it would really allow the marines to do the work, i also wanted to use the gas for either ravens or banishes for harassment or is the siege tank just too cost effective against zerg? any help is most appreciated, thank you!
Any strategy that doesnt involve tanks means that the clock is ticking faster.
If you open 1 rax FE and go pure marines, mix in some marauders IF A) Your micro against banelings isnt good enough, B) Hes starting to mix in too much roaches to be effective in small numbers. As marines are the end-all in TvZ make sure those upgrades pump out fast enough. If you think its fast, make it faster. If huge muta clouds either mix in some thors, or, as you mentioned, ravens.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605
But really, adapt to how you play. If no tanks you want to be even more aggressive than before. You'll have more dropsships with no tanks so be ready to drop everywhere. Take control of the map with groups of marines everywhere but MAKE SURE THAT IF YOU LEAVE THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MAP FUCKING SPLIT THEM UP FIRST.
Even without tanks, if the game goes long some kind of AoE is needed. If I open up the slayers build (bf hellion, marine, dropship) and the game doesnt end right there Id tend to get some hellions to follow my marines. But remember - even when you go tanks they were only to support the marines. If you went the other way then you might as well play mech.
Dont go overboard on the hellions - they are only there to help against mass ling numbers / kite banelings.
EDIT:
As for ravens - its usually a very good idea to have some whether as a mass raven strategy of just for support (make sure they stay alive) as a zerg who sees you going mass marines will be more likely to play burrow banelings against you. Also helps against creep.
Couple more things - expand MVP style - you WILL end up sitting on a fuck ton of minerals if you play aggressive enough - if you can macro like a boss while microing your marines against banelings WITHOUT tanks then you dont need to be on TL -_-. If you put on enough pressure you should be able to take bases quite nicely.
Dont be afraid to lose your squad of marines - but make sure they are cost effective. I like to drop them on top of banelings just to piss the zerg off. - 2 Banelings for 1 marine - fucking cost effective.
Make more barracks - If you can barely get out of your base because of the rax maze, make more outside and use it to block off certain points. Like I said, you'll have an insane mineral buildup so experiment with it some more.
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On December 01 2011 14:19 ithinknot wrote:
are there any viable strategies or builds against zerg that do not use siege tanks? i was thinking that by having the thors to soak up a lot of the bane damage that it would really allow the marines to do the work, i also wanted to use the gas for either ravens or banishes for harassment or is the siege tank just too cost effective against zerg? any help is most appreciated, thank you!
You can do tons of stuff. Hellion/Thor works fine without Tanks, you just need keep ~8 SCVs at the front at all times to keep your Thors alive vs Roaches. You will probably need Marauders to survive early Roach pressure though.
There's tons of early pushes that don't require Tanks. Hellion/Marauder is quite strong as long as you can hit the money spot before Mutas come out. MKP's done some crazy things with pure mass Hellion. 2 port Cloakshee is just as good as in other matchups. 5 Rax Reaper is still potent if you can nail the switch to Marauders properly.
There's also plenty of marine-heavy builds that depend upon spreading to work. Marine/Raven, 16 Marine drop, 6 Rax, etc.
All those builds *can* work. But the thing is, it's just so much easier to build Siege Tanks. So all that stuff is sub-optimal.
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