I've been having trouble with baneling bust recently. Even if I scout it or expect it and prepare for it I just fail miserably at stopping it. Here is an example of a game where I thought I was prepared for it but didn't go my way:
If the Zerg is 1 basing, it's obvious you have to survive the bust by staying on one base yourself. As the Zerg is kind of All-In you will be in a good position after you successfully survive the bust, even if you are on one base, too.
If the Zerg is doing a bust on 2 bases it gets kind of tricky for me too, I have to admit. Especially on maps with wide open Naturals. Usually they scout my attempt to expand quite fast and decide to make a 2 base aggression (baneling/roach/ling). Hard to hold imho, even with several bunkers. Generally I would suggest to get tanks and focus the banelings or get a Banshee and try to kill the banelings, when he is out on the map or morphing them somewhere outside of his own base, where he can't defend them with queens.
As I usually play a 1-1 marine (with stim/shield) double medivac drop after a 1 Rax gasless FE, these busts kill me frequently, because I don't have enough tech to deal with such attacks costefficiently. I guess you have to get the info early enough to decide to tech up, in order to get tanks.
Your problem has nothing to do with his composition. In fact, that wasn't even a baneling bust.
You sit on one base for a long, long time with nothing to show for it. You start a command center @ 8:30, this is too late for any sort of standard play. The Zerg gets 2 base off a ~15 hatch and by virtue of a that, he has a higher income and can out produce you.
Get a build off a Day9 daily or some thread, and that will help you.
OK.... so here goes my advice... i'm a high masters terran, and the only times i am 2-base busted are the ones explained below..
first an analysis on what "map control" is:
- Map control is not only having your units out in the map giving vision. Exerting map control is a state of the game when one player limits its opponents choice regarding whether he should move out or not/how many units he needs to make in order to get aggressive and not get crushed by your "unknown" force/etc. Therefore, by having map control you usually deny zergs ability to all-in you without you having a glimpse of what is going on. By not exerting map control you give zergs the possibility to do all sorts of stuff without you even knowing.
A rushed siege tank build order does not give you any map presence at all. Period. There are 2 builds that gives you good map control, and they are reactor hellion FE and 2 rax pressure FE (this one I wouldn't recommend, because after your marines are dead you lose map control...). There was a very good thread explaining the details of the "Standard reactor hellion play in tvz".
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- Secondly, scouting: It seems you are silver league player, so don't get overwhelmed by all the things you have to do... Believe me, I have troubles with scouting, army movements, engagements, composition... All the time! There's always room for improvement. So by scouting I mean you have to check: is he pooling before hatching? how early? is he going hatch before pool? what is his pool/gas timing after that? is it taking too long to make a pool? maybe a greedy 2x hatch first? is he researching speed after hatch first - pool - gas? did he take off the drones after that? many times zergs can forget to take drones out of gas after 100 gas to start researching speed, but always keep in mind that if drones are not pulled back there's always the possibility to see fast gas units being produced (banelings, really fast lair tech, roaches, etc)...
In this game your zerg opponent did not pull his drones off gas, so you, once again, had no clue about what was going on. Had you had scouted him around 4 mins (where ling speed is not done yet, so you can sneak a SCV to his base) you'd have seen the baneling nest. By using a reactor hellion opening, you can delay the all-in or even completely avoid it. If your hellions get shooed away (best case scenario, so they fight lings after the banes bust the front)/cleaned up (horrible, horrible case) by a nasty number of lings, then you have a good chance that the all-in is coming, and have enough to hold it.
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- Thirdly, as I mentioned, the only times I was busted were when I had no map presence... Simply put, zerg is free to do whatever they want if you give them map presence. I was surprised that when I was in low diamonds I'd face zergs and they had 4 bases in 15 minutes with 80 drones. I thought - "how the fuck can I stop that?".. But that was lack of map presence... If you deny that to zergs, they will have to think much more about either droning or making an army, because one wave of drones that are not army could mean winning or losing the game.
The map presence and scouting just go so well against zerg for so many reasons...it helps you get out of the 'under siege' mentality...It lowers the time required for you to do a cross map push, and it can help you clean up Zerg creep off the map.
Ask yourself every minute or so 'Do I know what he's doing, and do I know where his army is?' if the answer is No to either, try to find out.
EPT
