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[G] Terran Mechanics/Improvement Guide - Page 3

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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enigamI
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada385 Posts
February 03 2012 09:03 GMT
#41
This probably my favorite guide on tl as a Terran player. Simple, quick, and a perfect (at least for me) blend of specific, situational knowledge and general guidelines. Thank you, I'm glad it's a still a blog for selfish reasons.
Intuitionza
Profile Joined September 2011
South Africa10 Posts
February 13 2012 15:30 GMT
#42
Wow, I was beginning to lose hope as a high plat/low diamond as trying to play terran, but your guide has kinda given me a fresh start where I hope to get rid of all my bad habits and I now see a lot of things that will make my journey to master and above easier.

A note on sound, I've turned off the "error sound" in the options and this seems to give the best of both, you will hear the nuke I think, but definitely nydus etc, but not hear when you are dropped or supply capped or out of minerals etc.

Perfecting one's macro(particurly with the most economic builds as you can risk), knowing the "cheese" timings for successful defense and using different hotkeys for unit control from my point of view is probably the biggest factor in the difference between diamond and master/gm players. Which your guide definitely has got me thinking, Embrace the crazy late game tvp or tvz where you are using as much as 4 hotkeys for units it will make you so gosu when you get it right

Tx again for the new hope. best guide I've read on tl
keonru
Profile Joined July 2010
Germany8 Posts
March 30 2012 10:59 GMT
#43
Just wanted to thank you dude, this guide deserves much more attention imo.
It#s basicly my Terran Bible. Hope you keep this updated, and thanks again.

cheers
Cycle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States300 Posts
March 30 2012 17:26 GMT
#44
Crazy bump, but this thread deserves it. I personally also hid my control groups, and I noticed myself paying even more attention to other things. I never noticed how much time I spent looking at them until I removed them lol.
| chKCycle.551 | NA | Master League Random | Checkmate Gaming |
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10383 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-09 08:10:30
April 09 2012 08:08 GMT
#45
Wow I'm still surprised how few replies this thread has. Maybe it's just the title? It's like 4 guides in one, if each were posted individually they would deserve like 15 pages. TvZ, TvT, TvP, and most importantly, tips and how to improve! All 4 parts of this are so helpful and so informational. On top of that, the explanations make sense and pretty much all of the information is "true", aka reliable. Or maybe it's cus the guides are so good that there are so few replies because usually many of the replies to a guide are criticizing the guide/build xD.

I reread this guide again and learned more stuff again. Good review haha. I didn't remember the part about building unfinished Ebays in TvT. I build OCs but not ebays.


Question: If you see this, do you ever build (and finish) barracks instead? they're 25 more minerals and build more slowly but give more HP for cost once they're finished, and you can lift them for vision and can bring them with your army.

Question: Also I remember you said mech tvp was bad (derp), but I mean, what exactly did you realize between the time you wrote that guide or played those replays and when we last talked? Both you and "gorapadong" use hellion harass a lot, and it looks really effective. But when I do that often times I have trouble not dying to a counterattack, namely when there's a bunch of chargelots and you don't have enough hellions to deal with those. Would you have to just try to build a wall of ebays and sit behind it?

Question: And would you still say that the reactor hellion opener for mech TvP is "good" (the most "safe" and "best")? It seems it might be weak against some all-ins just because you don't have as many marines, or (as you said earlier) does simply running the hellions into the opponent's base and killing their probes solve those problems? There's also reactor barracks expand, cloak banshee expand, etc. etc.
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
EpeenKingPrime
Profile Joined February 2012
Netherlands61 Posts
April 09 2012 12:51 GMT
#46
This helped me a ton.

Thanks a lot!
Neelia
Profile Joined September 2010
Germany599 Posts
April 09 2012 13:36 GMT
#47
On December 24 2011 19:46 gfever wrote:
--Hotkeys--
Reason why I frown upon players who use one group for all their buildings is that it limits the rally points of the buildings. I have builds that have specfic buildings rallied to different places at once. Also I come from a BW background so that also comes into play. Also sometimes I want to specficly build things from my starport and don't want to tab thur twice to get there. Or I want to hit my factory group twice so my screen jumps to that location so I can research seige. You don't have those options with tabbing. Only con is that if you want everything to rally at one point it takes more actions, other than that macro cycles take the same strokes. You want to have your army in as many army groups since in theory this will improve your control if you are fast enough. Clicking is far inferior compared to Clicking + keys. Execution time is very important skill.


I always wondered why people don't use a combination of both. For my production facilities my hotkey setup is the following:
4 - Barracks, Factories, Starports
5 - Command Centers
6 - Factories
7 - Starports
(I use ^ (remapped to 8 or 9) to 3 as army hotkeys)

With this setup I have the benefits of both worlds. There may be a oversight on my side as I'm pretty bad but changing my hotkeys from different keys for different buildings to the one I use now has helped my macro quite a bit.

Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10383 Posts
April 09 2012 16:58 GMT
#48
^ Makes sense, I have thought about that too Though usually I play mech so I don't need to worry about the barracks, so i only have 6 factory and 7 starport xD
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
gfever
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States180 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-09 18:37:03
April 09 2012 18:36 GMT
#49
On April 09 2012 17:08 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Wow I'm still surprised how few replies this thread has. Maybe it's just the title? It's like 4 guides in one, if each were posted individually they would deserve like 15 pages. TvZ, TvT, TvP, and most importantly, tips and how to improve! All 4 parts of this are so helpful and so informational. On top of that, the explanations make sense and pretty much all of the information is "true", aka reliable. Or maybe it's cus the guides are so good that there are so few replies because usually many of the replies to a guide are criticizing the guide/build xD.

I reread this guide again and learned more stuff again. Good review haha. I didn't remember the part about building unfinished Ebays in TvT. I build OCs but not ebays.


Question: If you see this, do you ever build (and finish) barracks instead? they're 25 more minerals and build more slowly but give more HP for cost once they're finished, and you can lift them for vision and can bring them with your army.

Question: Also I remember you said mech tvp was bad (derp), but I mean, what exactly did you realize between the time you wrote that guide or played those replays and when we last talked? Both you and "gorapadong" use hellion harass a lot, and it looks really effective. But when I do that often times I have trouble not dying to a counterattack, namely when there's a bunch of chargelots and you don't have enough hellions to deal with those. Would you have to just try to build a wall of ebays and sit behind it?

Question: And would you still say that the reactor hellion opener for mech TvP is "good" (the most "safe" and "best")? It seems it might be weak against some all-ins just because you don't have as many marines, or (as you said earlier) does simply running the hellions into the opponent's base and killing their probes solve those problems? There's also reactor barracks expand, cloak banshee expand, etc. etc.


I was thinking of making walls of barracks that i can left up and down so i can move my tanks forward more easily, that is probraly more benefical than making unfinished ebays. Something I am still quite experimenting with. But it works well if maps are smaller. On maps that are really large its hard to use them cuz they move so slowly. So i need to instantly make a wall when i get to a position ASAP. So reason why I use Ebays.

Its def not viable because of the EMP nerf. Its too hard to EMP 2 immortals with one emp now. Those replays I believe were before the EMP nerf. The EMP was esential in making this mech army work but now its just annoying to mech since the benefits with the risk u put urself into isn't fair.

I'd say reactor hellion is probraly the best kind of opener or atleast something that is tailored into a friendly mech style. I usually do a rax hellion expand into ebay. I keep making marines one at a time and hellions 2 at a time and use turrets to zone out parts of my base so I only focus on areas where their arn't turrets. This is also means you are on 1 gas more longer unless you scout just standard expo build from protoss so ebay is unesscary so you can start getting 3 gases quickly.

On April 09 2012 22:36 Neelia wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2011 19:46 gfever wrote:
--Hotkeys--
Reason why I frown upon players who use one group for all their buildings is that it limits the rally points of the buildings. I have builds that have specfic buildings rallied to different places at once. Also I come from a BW background so that also comes into play. Also sometimes I want to specficly build things from my starport and don't want to tab thur twice to get there. Or I want to hit my factory group twice so my screen jumps to that location so I can research seige. You don't have those options with tabbing. Only con is that if you want everything to rally at one point it takes more actions, other than that macro cycles take the same strokes. You want to have your army in as many army groups since in theory this will improve your control if you are fast enough. Clicking is far inferior compared to Clicking + keys. Execution time is very important skill.


I always wondered why people don't use a combination of both. For my production facilities my hotkey setup is the following:
4 - Barracks, Factories, Starports
5 - Command Centers
6 - Factories
7 - Starports
(I use ^ (remapped to 8 or 9) to 3 as army hotkeys)

With this setup I have the benefits of both worlds. There may be a oversight on my side as I'm pretty bad but changing my hotkeys from different keys for different buildings to the one I use now has helped my macro quite a bit.



When u want to rally your barracks you will be rallying also ur fact and starport which I don't want in certain situations. I don't want to reset my rally points on my fact and starport everytime i want to set up my barracks rally.
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/gamfvr, My Terran Guide: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=297764
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10383 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-10 00:53:50
April 10 2012 00:49 GMT
#50
Thanks for answering!

I never thought of getting an early ebay, I will try that out. Sounds so sexy. Actually I haven't seen/heard anyone [with significant skill] but you do it.

And oh yeah the EMP nerf T_T. It's like each ghost is 400/200 4 supply now.
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
EpeenKingPrime
Profile Joined February 2012
Netherlands61 Posts
April 11 2012 21:57 GMT
#51
I've been trying your mech opening in TvZ for like 10 games, and lost 8 of them.

This is obviously because I still make a ton of mistakes and have been used to marine tank for quite a while now.

This is how it generally goes:

I have to leave like 3 thors at my bases because turrets alone won't defend mass mutas, so my main army is already 3 thors down. Then for a ling run-by I need another 2 tanks 3 hellions spread accross my bases.

This leaves me with a severely weakended main army and then 5 out of my 8 losses I get to kill one of his expos, and by the time I push further he has broods out, so I have to pull back.

By this point zerg can take the whole map while I make some more vikings. He then has a superior 5-6 base economy to my 3 base and just slowly batters my mech army down.

help much appreciated!
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10383 Posts
April 12 2012 03:21 GMT
#52
you have to know his hive timing, around 15 minutes is normal, if it's after 16 mins it's a bit late and 14 or before it's early, you can kill him

You should therefore having vikings already up to support.

Against lings you don't need to leave hellions behind. If it's a huge problem send hellions back, if you have banshees u can do that too. Rally reinforcements is an option as well but you shouldn't need to.

Use planetaries for hard to defend bases and just right click it before the lings surround it. Keep pressing repair on it.

Against Mutas you should have turrets and sensor towers up to see them come. You may just need to work on turret positioning. There should be no problem here as well. SCVs + repair + armor + turret range upgrade should be enough, and rallying reinforcements. If it's a surprising number he probably got too many muta and you have to know when you can forget about defending and just kill him.

Make sure to save scans lategame, so that you can scan his army composition and such. If he has BLs then a good amount of his army is immobile. Try to send 4 hellions to bases to kill workers and/or use banshee/viking/raven fleet(s).
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
EpeenKingPrime
Profile Joined February 2012
Netherlands61 Posts
April 12 2012 10:51 GMT
#53
Did you watch Nada versus Leenock today?

Nada opened mech 2 games then did some weird transition to biomech, what's your opinion on that transition?

First game he pushed out at about 150 supply and got smashed by a maxed leenock on mainly roaches.

Second game leenock started hive before 12 minutes and Nada did not have vikings ready to deal with early broodlords.

I guess the main errors on Nada's part were not exactly knowing what leenock is doing. In game one he should have waited untill he had a maxed mech (or biomech I guess) army. The second game Leenock did not have a standing roach army so I guess that he should have pushed at around 12 minutes, right as the hive was coming up.

Ooh and thanks for the reply. I do need to weave in building armor. It would help a ton against muta and ling counters.
Riffandroll
Profile Joined November 2011
Canada71 Posts
April 13 2012 09:01 GMT
#54
This guide is too good :-)
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity. - Nietzsche
gfever
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States180 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-16 09:16:13
April 16 2012 09:14 GMT
#55
On April 12 2012 19:51 EpeenKingPrime wrote:
Did you watch Nada versus Leenock today?

Nada opened mech 2 games then did some weird transition to biomech, what's your opinion on that transition?

First game he pushed out at about 150 supply and got smashed by a maxed leenock on mainly roaches.

Second game leenock started hive before 12 minutes and Nada did not have vikings ready to deal with early broodlords.

I guess the main errors on Nada's part were not exactly knowing what leenock is doing. In game one he should have waited untill he had a maxed mech (or biomech I guess) army. The second game Leenock did not have a standing roach army so I guess that he should have pushed at around 12 minutes, right as the hive was coming up.

Ooh and thanks for the reply. I do need to weave in building armor. It would help a ton against muta and ling counters.


Caught up with the VoDs and what I thought of during the whole game is that push of 150 supply. I was right with pushing for a 4th at 175 supply. Normally you would reach a higher supply if he opened bio first instead of mech. But Nada lost the game with just pushing too far out. Nothing really to comment on. I do believe Nada used the mech opening into bio as sort of a mind game tactic to fake Leenock into going into fast hive.

2nd game Nada didn't really do any pressure tactics. Its because his build didn't really allow that to happen. There were parts of the game that Nada could've just walked right up and denied a base. Not the correct game sense for Nada.
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/gamfvr, My Terran Guide: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=297764
decaf
Profile Joined October 2010
Austria1797 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-18 15:43:48
April 17 2012 18:20 GMT
#56
Watched the youtube video you posted. First off, it's easily one of the most valuable videos on sc2 out there. You give so much insight, I love it. Really hope you do some more on the other matchups.
I stopped meching because I just recently switched to terran so it was kinda hard and I opted for the easier bio/marine tank play, but I'll definitely start meching again, once I feel comfortable enough.

Something I always wonder is how do you hold the 1-1-1 build? Or what do you do on smaller maps? Is this like your go-to strat for all maps or do you deviate a lot? I have a hard time holding off a variety of 1-1-1 builds with my macro TvT builds, but I guess that's just something you have to suck up - if not, correct me~

edit: replied by posting a video, sick! Lot of useful information in there, really enjoy your videos. Can't wait till I can finally play again and try out those things on my own.
For the second video the game sounds were just a little be too loud though, rest was perfect. Keep it up.
chambertin
Profile Joined August 2011
United States1704 Posts
April 29 2012 06:37 GMT
#57
Most underappreciated/unseen/diamondintherough guide ever....

Please put up a tvz vid when you can... Much thanks!!!
"I know one thing, that I know nothing" - Socrates?
3FFA
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States3931 Posts
April 29 2012 13:47 GMT
#58
Still not sure why this hasn't been moved away from blogs xD. Awesome guide. I use quite a few of these tips myself during my play, although not all. A ton of it also applies directly to BW as well as SC2. 5/5
"As long as it comes from a pure place and from a honest place, you know, you can write whatever you want."
EpeenKingPrime
Profile Joined February 2012
Netherlands61 Posts
May 14 2012 14:03 GMT
#59
Please keep updating the Terran Bible

The crusade made me bump this thread
gfever
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States180 Posts
May 14 2012 23:52 GMT
#60
On May 14 2012 23:03 EpeenKingPrime wrote:
Please keep updating the Terran Bible

The crusade made me bump this thread


I will, atm I am getting back into laddering and testing builds for TvZ. I'll post more guides once I figure stuff out. For the time being I'll be posting videos on my youtube channel since its easier for me instead of writing it up atm.
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/gamfvr, My Terran Guide: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=297764
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