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Alright, not looking for suggestions on build order etc. I've been working with a build to maximize my ability to focus on macro so I'll expand my strategy and starts as I get up toward high gold.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=250701
This guy was playing on a friends account, and claimed to be masters but that's not important. Also I know that this guy is WAY above my level of play and there are way too many mistakes on my part to hope to beat him currently, but I wanted to know what I could do to avoid this kind of muta harass from players around my level with relatively good micro.
This was by far the most infuriating game I've ever played, I could do nothing to stop him! Off to play some Counter Strike or TF2, cannot take anymore SC2 tonight. Only two games into my night. 
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That dude is so not in masters. Anyway, it's close air, don't place your supply depots so close to his base in that kind of a row, they're easy pickings for mutalisks. Instead rather place them at your natural to block zergling movement. The same goes for your ebays really. Anyway. That early mutalisks tell me he can't have that many gas units, such as banelings, so go knock on his door with your marineforce, maybe even take some SCV's with you. I didn't watch past the point you had 3 SCV's...
I prefer some turrets against mutalisks, and I often build great many, a single turret just gets instantly sniped but a row of three causes some damage. Place them to defend your reactors, ebays and SCV lines at least. I don't think it's unreasonable to research an upgrade for them, either. Come to think of it the funniest thing happened last week, somebody was going mass muta against my mech army and I had maybe like 15 Turrets in my base (gold income with mules, isn't it great), well he just flew in, retreated from a bunch of turrets to another and another and so on until his mutalisk count was decimated I couldn't even do anything while I was watching that happen, it was so silly.
So anyway. I wouldn't necessarily spend so much on turrets on two bases but some turret rows to protect your valuable reactors and mineral lines is pretty helpful.
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@Norrit
I watched your replay, but honestly I stopped at about 12:05, because by then the mutas had done significant damage, including forcing you to overreact with something like half-a-dozen turrets in your main. I have taken a notepad file and made notes of some things I saw that were good, and some things that you need to keep in mind or that could use improvement.
+ Show Spoiler +First and foremost your build order was a little wonky - you ended up having nowhere to dump your minerals in terms of army units because of your rax that were building addons instead of units, which left you with a CC's-worth of minerals floating for most of the early game. I suggest looking some more standard openers (10 depot, 12 rax, 13 gas, 15 orbital, factory @100gas, reactor on rax @50gas, hellion out of fact, swap, and double-pump hellions while making CC and more rax, or something to that effect) so that you aren't floating tons and tons of minerals with no purpose.
On a similar note your second ebay was ridiculously early. Did you have a specific reason for building it when you did, or were you just trying to dump minerals? When it comes to upgrade structures there are two styles: the fast double-ups (+1 wep/+1 armor simultaneously), which requires getting 2x ebays at the same time, and then there's 1 ebay getting one +1 after the other, then you add on a second ebay and an armory at the same time so you can get double +2's and a vehicle +1 at the same time. But your ebay timing didn't convey either strategy since it came well after your first, but well before your factory finished which would allow you to make an armory.
Honestly, you're better off getting ~4-5 rax before addons. You can get the xlab for stim since that takes a long time to research, but I've played TvZ's where I've gotten away without having reactors for the first dozen or so minutes of the game. You're better off augmenting your marine count earlier and getting more rax instead of spending gas on addons. You spent 325 gas on upgrades and addons before you even got a factory. That's just far too much gas spent without teching, unless you're planning on going MMM. To be honest you're better off getting factories and +1 upgrades rather than that many addons for pure marines in the early game.
However, for most of the game you had a decent worker count respective to your opponent. This more than anything leads me to agree with Demogonis: I don't think your opponent was Diamond, or even Platinum.
You had an issue with idle workers, at ~5:44 by your rax, and at about 8:46 by your depots, and again at 10:49 -- I suggest as a Terran that when you send a worker out to build, you always shift-click them back to the mineral line so that when they're done building they go back to mining.
On a similar note, you built 2 depots simultaneously in the early game and only had 1 rax with a 2nd building, and your first was getting an addon to boot. A depot adds 8 supply, and takes 35 seconds to build. If you're only producing out of your CC, you can only make SCVs, which take 1 supply at a time, and 17s to build. Therefore it will take you 136 seconds to become supply blocked assuming perfect macro. In 136 seconds you could build almost 4 depots one-after-another with a single SCV, which would add on 32 additional supply. My point is that 1 SCV is enough to build depots constantly in the early game without you becoming supply blocked. You don't need to use 6, or even 2, as you did at certain points in the game.
If you watch the Day[9] Daily, he talks about "extending the purpose," of structures and units. For instance, if you have to make supply depots (which you do), you can use them for more than just additional supply. You can put them near the edges of your base to gain vision over your main to become aware of drops, or use them to wall yourself in at your main or natural to defend from ling runbys, all of which extend the purpose of the depot, which is mainly there to get you additional supply. I see some sense of trying to extend the purpose of your depots by putting them out in your main. The risk of doing this is that they are vulnerable to drops and muta harass, or being blown up by banelings as they try to break in to your main/natural. But like Demnogonis, I don't think your placement was spectacular. Putting them that far out leaves them completely undefended. If your zerg opponent had wanted to, he probably could have blown a few of them up for free, which would have left you in a world of hurt. You're better off keeping the depots closer to your main CC / mineral line. If you want to set them out to see more of your base, that's good - but be wary about leaving them completely undefended like that. If you must put one or two out there, make a turret to watch over them, in the early game a turret will deter muta harass.
On a similar note, your ebay(s) could have been in the space on the high ground between your main and your natural CC. This is a good spot because its hard to harass there. Something to remember is that mutas come between 9 and 9:30 if your opponent is teching straight to them. So by 9:30 you should have an ebay up and 1 turret in each mineral line to defend from muta harass. I liked that you tried to pull SCVs to repair that one turret, and if you put the turret in your mineral line instead of out past the vespene geyser, you'll be better able to repair the turret and keep it up. As you get towards the 12-13 minute mark you should probably add 2 additional turrets next to each other on the outer-edge of your outer-most refinery (in this case that means putting 2 turrets next to the leftmost geyser in your main). This keeps mutas from blowing up your gas, and 2 turrets further deters muta harass to your mineral line, and then the turret in your mineral line is an added bonus. The later the games goes on the more those turrets are just to buy you time while marines run over to defend.
So if your turret was in the mineral line and your depots behind the mineral line or near the CC they would have been pretty well covered by the turret, making them less vulnerable to harass. Also putting the ebays on the high ground between the main and natural means they're defended from mutas because you'll have turrets in each base's mineral line which will keep mutas from flying straight by in most cases. So that placement alone would mean less running willy-nilly for your marines. When dealing with muta harass it's about controlling space, and minimizing your marine's travel time from place to place.
The last thing I'd mention is that at 9:22 most of your marines are exposed to the xel'naga watchtower's vision. This tells the zerg, "oh hey, his main must be mostly undefended!" Which makes them bold enough to muta harass freely. If you want to get map control I suggest leaving most of your marines at home and poking out with small groups to steal the xel'naga watchtower. In this case there were 2 lings at the tower and 2 between the tower and the Zerg's natural. You could kill those with 4-5 marines, easy, leaving the rest of your army at home to defend. The benefit is 2-fold:
1 ) your army can defend muta harass more easily because they're not out on the map 2 ) he doesn't know what your army comp/size looks like because he only sees 4-5 marines.
This was a major reason that muta harass began in the first place: if you watch the replay you'll see that when your marines are exposed to that xel'naga tower his mutas fly in to your base.
Honestly if you work on turret/depot placement to minimize harassment and maximize defense, and then work on your build so you end up with a more consistent marine production I think you'll be fine against muta harass. It's all about being aware of the game time and the timing of their spire so you can be adequately prepared for harass. I've actually had Zergs where I've meched against them and gone hellion/Thor, and ended up with so many turrets just as their mutas were arriving that they could do literally 0 damage to my main, and they just GG because their army can't beat mine straight up and they can't harass to get back in to the game. If you can manage the turret placement and timing, you'll be fine. :D
I know the spoiler post is kinda long, but I hope that helps!
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On January 22 2012 21:19 Wren.822 wrote:@Norrit I watched your replay, but honestly I stopped at about 12:05, because by then the mutas had done significant damage, including forcing you to overreact with something like half-a-dozen turrets in your main. I have taken a notepad file and made notes of some things I saw that were good, and some things that you need to keep in mind or that could use improvement. + Show Spoiler +First and foremost your build order was a little wonky - you ended up having nowhere to dump your minerals in terms of army units because of your rax that were building addons instead of units, which left you with a CC's-worth of minerals floating for most of the early game. I suggest looking some more standard openers (10 depot, 12 rax, 13 gas, 15 orbital, factory @100gas, reactor on rax @50gas, hellion out of fact, swap, and double-pump hellions while making CC and more rax, or something to that effect) so that you aren't floating tons and tons of minerals with no purpose.
On a similar note your second ebay was ridiculously early. Did you have a specific reason for building it when you did, or were you just trying to dump minerals? When it comes to upgrade structures there are two styles: the fast double-ups (+1 wep/+1 armor simultaneously), which requires getting 2x ebays at the same time, and then there's 1 ebay getting one +1 after the other, then you add on a second ebay and an armory at the same time so you can get double +2's and a vehicle +1 at the same time. But your ebay timing didn't convey either strategy since it came well after your first, but well before your factory finished which would allow you to make an armory.
Honestly, you're better off getting ~4-5 rax before addons. You can get the xlab for stim since that takes a long time to research, but I've played TvZ's where I've gotten away without having reactors for the first dozen or so minutes of the game. You're better off augmenting your marine count earlier and getting more rax instead of spending gas on addons. You spent 325 gas on upgrades and addons before you even got a factory. That's just far too much gas spent without teching, unless you're planning on going MMM. To be honest you're better off getting factories and +1 upgrades rather than that many addons for pure marines in the early game.
However, for most of the game you had a decent worker count respective to your opponent. This more than anything leads me to agree with Demogonis: I don't think your opponent was Diamond, or even Platinum.
You had an issue with idle workers, at ~5:44 by your rax, and at about 8:46 by your depots, and again at 10:49 -- I suggest as a Terran that when you send a worker out to build, you always shift-click them back to the mineral line so that when they're done building they go back to mining.
On a similar note, you built 2 depots simultaneously in the early game and only had 1 rax with a 2nd building, and your first was getting an addon to boot. A depot adds 8 supply, and takes 35 seconds to build. If you're only producing out of your CC, you can only make SCVs, which take 1 supply at a time, and 17s to build. Therefore it will take you 136 seconds to become supply blocked assuming perfect macro. In 136 seconds you could build almost 4 depots one-after-another with a single SCV, which would add on 32 additional supply. My point is that 1 SCV is enough to build depots constantly in the early game without you becoming supply blocked. You don't need to use 6, or even 2, as you did at certain points in the game.
If you watch the Day[9] Daily, he talks about "extending the purpose," of structures and units. For instance, if you have to make supply depots (which you do), you can use them for more than just additional supply. You can put them near the edges of your base to gain vision over your main to become aware of drops, or use them to wall yourself in at your main or natural to defend from ling runbys, all of which extend the purpose of the depot, which is mainly there to get you additional supply. I see some sense of trying to extend the purpose of your depots by putting them out in your main. The risk of doing this is that they are vulnerable to drops and muta harass, or being blown up by banelings as they try to break in to your main/natural. But like Demnogonis, I don't think your placement was spectacular. Putting them that far out leaves them completely undefended. If your zerg opponent had wanted to, he probably could have blown a few of them up for free, which would have left you in a world of hurt. You're better off keeping the depots closer to your main CC / mineral line. If you want to set them out to see more of your base, that's good - but be wary about leaving them completely undefended like that. If you must put one or two out there, make a turret to watch over them, in the early game a turret will deter muta harass.
On a similar note, your ebay(s) could have been in the space on the high ground between your main and your natural CC. This is a good spot because its hard to harass there. Something to remember is that mutas come between 9 and 9:30 if your opponent is teching straight to them. So by 9:30 you should have an ebay up and 1 turret in each mineral line to defend from muta harass. I liked that you tried to pull SCVs to repair that one turret, and if you put the turret in your mineral line instead of out past the vespene geyser, you'll be better able to repair the turret and keep it up. As you get towards the 12-13 minute mark you should probably add 2 additional turrets next to each other on the outer-edge of your outer-most refinery (in this case that means putting 2 turrets next to the leftmost geyser in your main). This keeps mutas from blowing up your gas, and 2 turrets further deters muta harass to your mineral line, and then the turret in your mineral line is an added bonus. The later the games goes on the more those turrets are just to buy you time while marines run over to defend.
So if your turret was in the mineral line and your depots behind the mineral line or near the CC they would have been pretty well covered by the turret, making them less vulnerable to harass. Also putting the ebays on the high ground between the main and natural means they're defended from mutas because you'll have turrets in each base's mineral line which will keep mutas from flying straight by in most cases. So that placement alone would mean less running willy-nilly for your marines. When dealing with muta harass it's about controlling space, and minimizing your marine's travel time from place to place.
The last thing I'd mention is that at 9:22 most of your marines are exposed to the xel'naga watchtower's vision. This tells the zerg, "oh hey, his main must be mostly undefended!" Which makes them bold enough to muta harass freely. If you want to get map control I suggest leaving most of your marines at home and poking out with small groups to steal the xel'naga watchtower. In this case there were 2 lings at the tower and 2 between the tower and the Zerg's natural. You could kill those with 4-5 marines, easy, leaving the rest of your army at home to defend. The benefit is 2-fold:
1 ) your army can defend muta harass more easily because they're not out on the map 2 ) he doesn't know what your army comp/size looks like because he only sees 4-5 marines.
This was a major reason that muta harass began in the first place: if you watch the replay you'll see that when your marines are exposed to that xel'naga tower his mutas fly in to your base.
Honestly if you work on turret/depot placement to minimize harassment and maximize defense, and then work on your build so you end up with a more consistent marine production I think you'll be fine against muta harass. It's all about being aware of the game time and the timing of their spire so you can be adequately prepared for harass. I've actually had Zergs where I've meched against them and gone hellion/Thor, and ended up with so many turrets just as their mutas were arriving that they could do literally 0 damage to my main, and they just GG because their army can't beat mine straight up and they can't harass to get back in to the game. If you can manage the turret placement and timing, you'll be fine. :D I know the spoiler post is kinda long, but I hope that helps! The thing is though, a properly played 2base muta doesn't have to do any damage to the terran, so I don't get why they gg. The mutas are mainly to scout what composition the terran is using, doing damage is just a really sweet bonus which can downright win you the game if the terran plays badly.
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@Demnogonis haha, I kinda had that feeling but oh well! I'm definitely going to be more mindful of turret use and placement from here on out. Can you think of a good vid or replay which shows good turret usage?
@Wren.822 gotta run this morning but I will defintely read your wall-o-text when I get the chance. Thanks for the tips! It seems that my problem with this kind of harass is mostly to do with building and turret placement.
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OP, I really recommend watching how someone like MMA in the Global Starcraft League (GSL) counters Mutas. Get up some Thors, and place a good amount of Turrets in the hot spots of your base (production, mineral lines, siege tank lines). If you put up a really good coverage of Turrets, lots of Muta players will run into one turret, retreat, run into another, retreat, etc., until they have almost no Mutas. Use that to your advantage. Also, Thors KILL Mutas. Against Mutas with no armor upgrades, two volleys kills a Muta. So, then, if you have two Thors, and he clumps up his Mutas in range of them, you have just killed all of his Mutas.
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On January 23 2012 02:07 Nuclease wrote: OP, I really recommend watching how someone like MMA in the Global Starcraft League (GSL) counters Mutas. Get up some Thors, and place a good amount of Turrets in the hot spots of your base (production, mineral lines, siege tank lines). If you put up a really good coverage of Turrets, lots of Muta players will run into one turret, retreat, run into another, retreat, etc., until they have almost no Mutas. Use that to your advantage. Also, Thors KILL Mutas. Against Mutas with no armor upgrades, two volleys kills a Muta. So, then, if you have two Thors, and he clumps up his Mutas in range of them, you have just killed all of his Mutas.
It's 3 volleys from unupgraded thor to unupgraded missiles. +2 Attack on Thors will kill a muta in 2 shots.
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here's just a little improvements you can and should do every game: you didn't scout his expo, his pool, gas etc anything. You NEED to know what tech he has, otherwise you have no idea what is going to come. again, you didn't scout the lair timing and whether he is getting muta or infestors.
you should have pulled your scvs as soon as the muta hit the ones building those supply depots. your scvs were basically doing nothing while the muta were crushing your mineral line.
In future, build the supply depots away from the zerg if it is close air, because if not, they are easy target for muta to harass if your mineral line is well protected. Best is build them around the natural, it creates an artificial wall that blocks off zerg pushes
He isn't master, he is probably silver/gold level only.
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I've actually had Zergs where I've meched against them and gone hellion/Thor, and ended up with so many turrets just as their mutas were arriving that they could do literally 0 damage to my main, and they just GG because their army can't beat mine straight up and they can't harass to get back in to the game. If you can manage the turret placement and timing, you'll be fine. :D
what league is that in?
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Master Terran here. You NEED stim and medivacs. A good player will poke around your base and pick off lone units and buildings/addons. The stim lets you get there very quickly and the medivacs heal your marines so you can stim them multiple times.
If you lack stim, your buildings will take damage. If you lack medivacs, your marines will be very very fragile.
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Yeh, and you have to pressure zerg so he cant get drone count up and get higher tech, at the start you could have poked with your marines, forcing him to make units. You probably would have won it right away too.
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Streaming my response + replay anaylsis right now: http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/HardCorey
VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/hardcorey23/b/306258444 (starts at 1:30)
Consensus: Some small things would really help you with mutalisk harass. A tighter base where you build depots and engineering bays behind the mineral line, missle turrets more condensed around the important areas. Additionally when a zerg invests big into mutas early on and you have that many marines a counter push can be really strong. He didnt have banelings which is huge so a "just go fucking kill him" mentality is really good.
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On January 23 2012 03:36 cactusjack914 wrote:Show nested quote + I've actually had Zergs where I've meched against them and gone hellion/Thor, and ended up with so many turrets just as their mutas were arriving that they could do literally 0 damage to my main, and they just GG because their army can't beat mine straight up and they can't harass to get back in to the game. If you can manage the turret placement and timing, you'll be fine. :D what league is that in?
It was actually high gold / mid plat. Since mech play gets you a dirth of minerals I dump them in to turret rings to defend structures because the Thor is so god-awful slow. I've played Zergs who failed to crush my army, then took a muta flock to my base to try and get me to turn around, found tons of turrets, and left the game.
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