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I've been having some fun with this the past couple days. I usually go iEchoic-style, which (at least for me) is much more micro-intensive. And unsettling in the beginning of the game, when you're not sure what your opponent is doing and pretty open to early pressure.
One reason I like this is that it essentially forces you to scout not once, but twice after your initial scouting scv flees/dies and before the 7-minute mark.
As for mid-late-game transitions, I've been having the most luck going marauder-tank, with a few ghosts mixed in. I'll try hellions as you suggest at some point, but my concern is that I'm already starting off behind in the tank count, and don't really want to be using factory time for something other than tanks.
Also, while it hasn't happened yet, I figure it's only a matter of time before someone gets (relatively) early cattlebruisers and rolls me.
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On September 05 2011 23:48 nay wrote:
Zoia, I think alot of people just don't understand how effective this build is, because they don't look at it from both sides. Most people when they scout your base with the scv, they will assume oh reaper FE (because thats the norm if you see a tech lab on the rax immidiately after 1 marine). Now if I was the person that scouted the Techlab, I would go ok time to punish his FE by either helion drop or banshees. Normally I wouldn't go OH TANK RUSH ! or 3 Rax combat shield push ! because normally a 1 Rax FE reaper would have a bunker at his ramp and usually a factory (to get tanks/helions) right after the CC is put down. And your build directly counters the normal reaction to a 1rax techlab.
Most people don't want to deviate from the norm, and probably don't want a build that counters the norm to become popular, thus all the negative criticism.
The majority of the diamond / master lvl players I did this on, reacted just like you stated in your post, usually going for some type of helion / banshee harass into Expand.
Also the reapers don't even have to be that effective to win the game, you can kill only a few scvs with your reapers, and it will provoke an immediate response / counter attack with helion/marine drop or banshee, and then you get to make them go surprise face when they see you have ghosts and marauders.
Your build is very effective, the negative critics just can't think outside the box
I think that is very unfair, instead of saying "all the negative critics can't think outside the box", how about you address our points that have been stated. This build is very weak to a turtle Terran who has a good number of tanks and multiple bunkers, because your tech to that point in the game is much behind his tech in the midgame, and even with a fast second factory you are going to be behind on tanks.
On September 05 2011 23:47 jakek95 wrote:
After watching this build its pretty sick! Really impressive, vs Iechoic i see that massing ghost would be a problem, Although since your get a factory straight after expand and if scout the 2 port react hellion rush 2 thor and that just counters it hard, if you read the echoic posts he even says that thor just all out counter to this until BC'S come out ( just push and win before they come as there build time is ridiculously long)
Unless the opponent is Thor rushing, the iEchoic Sky Terran style is more than capable of dealing with thors, because you can easily tech to BCs off of 2 base, and constant hellion harass allows you to get good scouting info which allows you to react to the Thors easily. Since the Thors off of this build will be at the very earliest around 13 minutes, seeing as you expo at 10 minutes, factories take 1 to build, armories take around a minute to build, and Thors take a minute to build, it would be quite simple to have a healthy number of BCs out in time to defend any Thor push coming off of this build.
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Sorry but iEchoic loses to thor rush
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Looks quite promising for such an odd unit composition, nicely written guide  .
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i support this thread since i lost this this strat to ZOIA 3 times without a chance lol
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often i find this build results in a situation where my opponent has a bunker, wall off and a couple of siege tanks in his base.
is it best to just contain in this situation or go for a bust with the marauders?
or get nuke asap??
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On September 07 2011 22:58 jimbob615 wrote:
often i find this build results in a situation where my opponent has a bunker, wall off and a couple of siege tanks in his base.
is it best to just contain in this situation or go for a bust with the marauders?
or get nuke asap??
Depends how tough his defenses look.
If there's say more than 2 tanks spread out, try and get a nuke and force an unsiege (or if they're not paying attention, destroy their tanks and bunkers out right) You don't need cloak, just nuke out of tank range.
You can always try and soft contain until you've built one, i've found the nuke is the diversion you need to stim in and kill the tanks. Perhaps if you scout the number of tanks he has with reapers you can build a factory a bit earlier and try and time your push for one the nuke is nearly done (also you'll want scan energy).
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this build sounds like I only will build tons of hellions and a few tanks x3. And tech up to bcs :x
Still sounds like alot of fun to play around with, even though marines aren't the best targets to use snipe on. And if the opponent uses emps.
I guess thats one of those builds that if both sides play it, it will end up in marine medivac only xD.
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~1000 masters terran here. I tried this out in a few games expecting it to feel gimmicky rather than a solid opener.
In short, yes and no.
It plays out like a very solid all-in in most cases. Sometimes, the opening reapers just kill enough SCVs that you can transition into whatever you want from there (SCDPride style), and sometimes the initial marauder/ghost pressure will just kill the opponent outright, especially in the current hellion metagame.
When it doesn't work properly though (most notably, when the oppoent has gone for a solid 1/1/1 into expand with a fast combat shield after scouting ghosts), that's when it becomes "micro-intensive", as you pretty much have to camp outside their base and force them to siege and unsiege over and over until you have enough standard army at home to defend the push. Kinda like every other all-in TvT build.
In short, I give it a little more credit than I expected to. I'll keep it in my back pocket as an all-in opener against someone I know loves hellion openers, but it's not my cup of tea for the long macro style of TvT I like to play.
It was fun to mess around with though. Kudos on finding a style that uses ghosts for more than just banshee defense, I'll try out any strat that gets me nuking by 10mins.
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I think this should be a reaper opening into a bio based TvT style with ghosts/Nukes to make tanks unsiege because marauders rape unsieged tanks. It would be funny if someone BC rushed to counter this build :D
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On September 04 2011 17:19 Zoia wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2011 16:02 Pillage wrote:
Wouldn't this build lose outright to mass, marine heavy bio? I realize ghosts are good against light units and that reapers do pretty well against them too, but your barracks production time is tied up extremely long building ghosts + reapers, so I would think you could just be run over by a big bio ball since you have 0 tanks. I'd like to see some reps where you lose with this, just so we can pin down its weaknesses. How often do you play against someone who is going pure marine right off the bat especially when players are going hellions all the damn time. Even if they do you would scout it with your reaper and you can just bunker up. I've had to do it once and it really wasn't that big of a deal. You'll hold and it'll end up being more all in than what you are doing. I'll dig up some of the replays and add them
"How often". So your build is gimmicky? It relies on the opponent not doing xx?
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On September 08 2011 00:49 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2011 17:19 Zoia wrote:On September 04 2011 16:02 Pillage wrote:
Wouldn't this build lose outright to mass, marine heavy bio? I realize ghosts are good against light units and that reapers do pretty well against them too, but your barracks production time is tied up extremely long building ghosts + reapers, so I would think you could just be run over by a big bio ball since you have 0 tanks. I'd like to see some reps where you lose with this, just so we can pin down its weaknesses. How often do you play against someone who is going pure marine right off the bat especially when players are going hellions all the damn time. Even if they do you would scout it with your reaper and you can just bunker up. I've had to do it once and it really wasn't that big of a deal. You'll hold and it'll end up being more all in than what you are doing. I'll dig up some of the replays and add them "How often". So your build is gimmicky? It relies on the opponent not doing xx?
Every build realies on the opponent "not doing xx"!
In PvT you can't even scout the Gas sometimes, of course you have to gamble then, doesn't mean that your 3 Gate Expand becomes gimmicky only because it loses against 1/1/1..
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On September 07 2011 21:49 Zoia wrote:
Sorry but iEchoic loses to thor rush
It is very possible to hold, but your build is hardly a Thor rush, and Thors coming off of your build are going to be very late and easy to hold using the iEchoic Sky Terran style. As outlined in his thread, the best solution is to use all your scvs and units to take down the Thor, since the repairing SCVs on the Thor have the same priority, they will help take down SCVs and they and the rest of your units can take down the Thor.
At the same time you use your early medivac and some BFH to kill his economy, since he will have nothing at home to defend, forcing an eco trade for both sides, with an edge to the iEchoic player as his eco will be less battered by the Thor than the Thor player's eco will be by BFH.
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Ah I see one of your replays is a game vs Sadistx. After he got rolled by this build he ran it by me 4 or 5 days ago. I haven't really drilled it enough to have a full understanding of the build, but I have experimented a little and have not really liked it much.
When I get home I can include my replays, (perhaps I wasn't executing the build correctly) but I attempted it about 5 times on ladder TvT (I'm top 50 grandmaster terran on NA) and won only against a blueflame drop opening. The build very quickly felt like a hard metagame type build designed to autowin against a couple other openings, but not really ideal for a midgame setup. I just was not liking the setup or position it puts you in after early game. Or the expand timing.
When the other guy was not going blueflame I found myself losing to a midgame timing because my expo was too late, or their tank/marine or tank/bfh midgame army shits on this ghost/marauder composition.
I played against Select a couple days ago and tried it, but I didn't really handle cloak banshee correctly at all. Probably shouldn't be pushing vs cloak banshee threat, but I was finding if you don't push with this build before 9-10 minute mark you get behind.
I also tried it on Saturday in the tlopen but autolost to 2port cloak banshee. Perhaps I didn't handle that correctly either but it felt like you give up all map control and expand so late just to fend off banshees.
Since the Saturday game when I tried the build and lost for the first time to a crappy terran I swore to never do this build again haha. :p
I will provide replay examples in a couple hours when I get home, maybe I was just doing things wrong!
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I'm low masters atm but have been higher and I think that this build will suffer greatly against a gas first banshee opening. The first reaper scout can be denied if they guess your hop up spot right with 2 marines and even if you see this fast banshee opening and throw up the ghost academy right away, you will lose if you don't start pumping mass marines immediately, which delays the ghosts, which delays everything else. Gas first banshee hard counters this I would say.
I like the idea behind the build but I have to add my voice to the - build is a good counter to the current hellion metagame side.
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On September 08 2011 03:02 Shootemup. wrote:It is very possible to hold, but your build is hardly a Thor rush, and Thors coming off of your build are going to be very late and easy to hold using the iEchoic Sky Terran style. As outlined in his thread, the best solution is to use all your scvs and units to take down the Thor, since the repairing SCVs on the Thor have the same priority, they will help take down SCVs and they and the rest of your units can take down the Thor.
Okay my build vs Iechoic against a thor rush
Iechoic - Thors > banshees
Thors > hellions
My build - Ghost > repairing SCVs
Maruader > thor
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I've been struggling to find Terran opponents lately on the ladder or in customs but I've just had two in a row and I won both of them quite comfortably. Against someone doing a hellion drop reapers are soooo good against them, a few shots can destroy them completely. If the medivac is already on its way then the reapers have free reign of the mineral line and my marauders can clean up the drop.
8 or so marauders 2 shot tanks or something and i've found they can be pretty resilient despite the absense of a medivac. With one push I stimmed about 3 times to take out tanks while under fire and I still had about 4 left in his base.
So far i've only lost when:
-I didn't make ghosts quick enough for banshees.
-I make silly mistakes like forgetting to learn stim or trapping my marauders in a choke.
-The push does damage but doesn't outright kill him and I lose later on (i've not had much practise with transitioning back to tank/viking)
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On September 08 2011 07:14 Zoia wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2011 03:02 Shootemup. wrote:On September 07 2011 21:49 Zoia wrote:
Sorry but iEchoic loses to thor rush It is very possible to hold, but your build is hardly a Thor rush, and Thors coming off of your build are going to be very late and easy to hold using the iEchoic Sky Terran style. As outlined in his thread, the best solution is to use all your scvs and units to take down the Thor, since the repairing SCVs on the Thor have the same priority, they will help take down SCVs and they and the rest of your units can take down the Thor. Okay my build vs Iechoic against a thor rush Iechoic - Thors > banshees Thors > hellions My build - Ghost > repairing SCVs Maruader > thor
What exactly is your point? Your build hardcounters a rarely used TvT build, and the iEchoic style is quite capable of holding a Thor rush. Also, if we are comparing styles, the iEchoic is much more suited for the midgame, as it easily transitions to a really strong lategame style and gets a lot of really useful tech which allows you to play a macro game quite easily.
Your build is a very allin 1 base bio build that has a strong first attack, but good players are going to hold your attack and at that point you are in trouble as your tech is very lacking as is your economy as you don't expand till 10 minutes.
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I agree that this build looks like a strong counter to the hellion centric meta-game. I've only just gotten the hang of Meching at my level. The prevalence of early bio in the early game really hurt the advantage of map control that the BFH's give you. The inclusion of reapers to take the fight to the BFHing player is a stroke of genius.
I would however like to prepose a soft counter. The build which i'm atm (which I stole off the Slayers_Boxer) has a really nice 3 raven/marine/BFH which hits with 4-5 PDD's after your opponents expo goes down with the goal of forcing the abandonment of the natural. That many PDD's, I believe would give me the army advantage and force you to micro your ghosts to emp my ravens. (If you can multitask like Boxer you can also drop some BFH's in the main to increase your economic lead.)
I know 3 ravens seems llike a large investment at this stage of the game (especially with with the subtle anti-Raven sentiment going around on the forums) but where else are you going to invest your early gas? Tanks get eaten alive by marauders and banshees don't seem to be heavy enough hitters to slay the marauder centric composition you prepose (Ghosts also work well against banshees)
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EPT
