[!] Pro Terran Strategy Q/A - Page 4
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t.Swift
United States47 Posts
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washikie
United States748 Posts
thanks -washikie masters terran Na server (p.s when asking my question about the fast 3rd orbital im not concerned with the raoch all in i have faced this with that build and survived due to scouting and forgoing the third for faster banshees if i can sniff it out.) | ||
Thezzy
Netherlands2117 Posts
In TvZ, how do you feel about Mass Hellion openings? I'm currently doing MvPs build where he gets a second Reactor Factory after doing a Reaction Hellion FE, producing 4 hellions for a while. One barracks is added a little later and both rax get Tech Labs and can provide an instant switch to double tank, 4x marine production although upgrades are late. (I usually switch to tanks around 8:00 - 8:30 unless I scout something like Roach pressure) I do like Mass Hellion openings but I was wondering if you had seen any other Mass Hellion builds and what kind of success players were having with them? For TvP, I currently do Day9's Mech TvP build where you open with a 1-1-1 cloakshee expand and then get Thor/Raven/Marine and later add Tanks. Do you know any other Mech TvP builds that saw some success as I saw Goody try heavy tank play in IEM but it failed horribly so I'm guessing mass Tank early on isn't very strong against a good Protoss? | ||
ff7legend
United States213 Posts
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phidget
Canada10 Posts
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StateofReverie
United States633 Posts
edit: replay drop.sc/241664 | ||
Moosegills
United States558 Posts
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On August 21 2012 00:30 teamamerica wrote: Thanks a ton! I'll edit my question to reflect it being answered. If Thorzains build dies to marine/hellion elevators as you say (I've honestly not lost to them in my memory but not faced them often either), is there any safe 1rax no gas expand that you recommend, or should I always go with some gas expand (reaper, hellion, marine/hellion, banshee, cloak banshee)? Also, what are your rally points like? TvT - I rally to a staging point near/outside my natural normally TvZ - ^ same TvP - I set my rallypoints as far forward as I think I'll be fighting because otherwise even if I win an engagement. e.g. when I go out around ~9 minutes I normally rally outside the protoss natural, and late game I either rally to a a staging ground near my 3rd/4th or forward again. edit: spoiler tags are good. Thorzain's build is basically a greedier version of the standard 1 rax FE → 3 rax, so the latter is a little safer. The safest thing would be 1 rax FE → dual gas → 1-1-1 (or even 2-1-1) which should be able to deal with most one-base agression (except some proxies maybe) with proper scouting. Same thing as you with rally points, sometimes I rally near the battlefield if I'm absolutely confident I'm winning. ———————————————— On August 21 2012 04:24 ViceRoyce wrote: How to deal with colossus phoenix composition? Mass Vikings out of 2 Reactors Starports. ———————————————— On August 21 2012 04:51 Gyro_SC2 wrote: SO if I understand tvz: you think that the best way to fight zerg is to harass them with something like (hellion-banshee) take a fast third and make a big fight at the 4th of the zerg.¨ (is it true that the terran need to stop the 4th of the zerg to win? or maybe not need but its the best plan to get the advantage)) tvp: on a map where the third is hard, make 5 rax before third and pressure the third of the toss. (is it true that the terran need to stop the 3th of the protoss to win? or maybe not need but its the best plan to get the advantage) In TvZ your near-max push should aim at killing the fourth. Then in lategame it's a matter of deyning fourth and fifth bases to starve the Zerg. In TvP your goal should be to deny the Protoss' third for the longest time you can so he has later access to his precious fifth and sixth geysers. Delaying the Protoss' third while having your own third running gives you a nice economic advantage since the Protoss' income is stuck to ~1600 minerals and 456 gas per minut on 2 bases while you can quickly go beyond 2k minerals per minut with your third running. ———————————————— On August 21 2012 17:53 Thezzy wrote: Awesome thread Ver, some really good bits in there. In TvZ, how do you feel about Mass Hellion openings? I'm currently doing MvPs build where he gets a second Reactor Factory after doing a Reaction Hellion FE, producing 4 hellions for a while. One barracks is added a little later and both rax get Tech Labs and can provide an instant switch to double tank, 4x marine production although upgrades are late. (I usually switch to tanks around 8:00 - 8:30 unless I scout something like Roach pressure) I do like Mass Hellion openings but I was wondering if you had seen any other Mass Hellion builds and what kind of success players were having with them? Double Reactor Hellion is cheesy and all-inish, if it gets scouted you will get foiled hard and if not it can still be defended with proper building placement from the Zerg (fortunately enough many Zergs are terrible at this, or misplace their Queens, etc.). Even if you get decent drone kills you're not sure to be that ahead since your tech/third is delayed. Current Hellions/Banshees builds with triple OCs can give you the same results but with better economy to fall back on if you don't manage to kill many drones. ———————————————— On August 22 2012 00:20 StateofReverie wrote: Ive been working on a tvz build where I get cc first into 3OC double ups and siege tanks. I get the cc first because I try to bait out a fast double expo before spawning pool by the zerg which usually works. If the zerg is greedy and does that, I get a third oc and double engi bays before siege. basically I can either push at 13/16 minutes with 2/2 or 3/3 and I will have a big siege tank count of about 7-8 when I do push. If you want some replays ill upload them but what do you think otherwise? edit: replay drop.sc/241664 I tried this too but ultimately stopped doing this, it's way too passive and the Zerg can easily outgreed you if he scouts your build. Even if it builds a strong max push, creep will be everywhere so you will not be able to maneuver your Tanks as quickly as you would want, so he will have his tier3 ready be the time you reach his fourth and then you will be in trouble. | ||
StateofReverie
United States633 Posts
In reality on larger maps it is too hard to push back creep enough to kill his fourth base so I stay off creep otherwise I lose battles on creep. zerg 5th bases are always easier to shut down because it extends them pretty far so drops then become a lot stronger | ||
.kv
United States2332 Posts
In late game PvT, I'm having issues dealing with the Mass Ghost/Viking+MMM. I'm not sure what the ideal comp is and how to deal with the engagement part. I usually go 4 colossus/4hts/8 stalkers and the rest is chargelot/archon and 1 sentry for GS. That's the comp I usually go for when dealing with this army. I have 4 hts back at my base generating energy as well. The engagement part is a big issue. I've tried multiple ways and still not successful with any of them. One way is where I position my blink stalkers where I see the vikings coming from and attack with colo/chargelot/archon. Wait for the emps and then send my 4hts behind my army to storm the units. But I end up losing my entire army when my storm connects so I don't have zealots dealing the extra damage as well with the storm. Another way is sending my hts in the front to try to feedback any forward ghosts or storm bio units but it's pretty unsuccessful against good Terrans. I'm wondering if I should just incorporate some phoenixes (4 or 5) with upgraded range to deal with vikings a bit more now. I feel like it heavily depends more on the colo staying alive than my HTs. Yes the upgrade and investment is pretty steep but I get to the point where economy isn't really the issue. Or is there a better way of dealing with this comp? | ||
VPVanek
Canada238 Posts
On August 22 2012 02:15 .kv wrote: I posted this in the Protoss Help Me Thread but would like some insight from the Terrans POV. In late game PvT, I'm having issues dealing with the Mass Ghost/Viking+MMM. I'm not sure what the ideal comp is and how to deal with the engagement part. I usually go 4 colossus/4hts/8 stalkers and the rest is chargelot/archon and 1 sentry for GS. That's the comp I usually go for when dealing with this army. I have 4 hts back at my base generating energy as well. The engagement part is a big issue. I've tried multiple ways and still not successful with any of them. One way is where I position my blink stalkers where I see the vikings coming from and attack with colo/chargelot/archon. Wait for the emps and then send my 4hts behind my army to storm the units. But I end up losing my entire army when my storm connects so I don't have zealots dealing the extra damage as well with the storm. Another way is sending my hts in the front to try to feedback any forward ghosts or storm bio units but it's pretty unsuccessful against good Terrans. I'm wondering if I should just incorporate some phoenixes (4 or 5) with upgraded range to deal with vikings a bit more now. I feel like it heavily depends more on the colo staying alive than my HTs. Yes the upgrade and investment is pretty steep but I get to the point where economy isn't really the issue. Or is there a better way of dealing with this comp? You can always just make like 2 colossi, and trick the terran so they overmake vikings. Also you can try putting your temps in a speed prism, to avoid EMP, but be careful of vikings ofcourse! | ||
NewbieOne
Poland560 Posts
I'd have a couple of questions of my own, generally short ones. Some are specific, some not really. Let me start from the more specific ones: 1. One of my favourite builds ever is this, i.e. Thorzain TvT, a react first three-rax without greedy expanding. What I like about it is that it's simply the best optimised threerax for this type of thing. Basically the three-rax that allows you to outmarine (+ shield, 2 tanks, 2 vacs around 11:00) everybody else without making you tankless (although it takes time to practice defence against early tank pushes). My question is, does this build seem to be viable in TvZ or TvP? (But especially TvP given the reliance on marines and the presence of about 2 tanks for sieging/baiting needs.) 2. I've been intrigued by this, i.e. LastShadow's six rax TvP. It just feels like something I could do, plus, focusing just on rax/rines like that for a while could perhaps improve my marine control and maybe some macro concepts. Do you think this is a viable general build for ladder TvP or is it more of a unique oddity from LastShadow? Could it be used convincingly against other races? 3. TvZ custom BO question: + Show Spoiler + TvZ is about the only match-up where I actually know what I'm doing. I've generally consistently worked on the "right build for me". It's always been based on marines, hellions and thors but with varying transition or addition timings, with or without addon swapping, with or without e-bays/third/PF etc., with or without or with a different type of harass etc. The core idea is having both hellions and thors in a right proportion, without dabbling in marines or any other units if I can help it. Normally starting from three naked facts, bunker if roaches, bunker rush if late pool. About the time I go for the hellion push (which is 6-10 around 7:30-8:00 rather than an early 2-4, and generally aimed to remove lings and hopefully fry some drones too), I get armouries (generally 2, for double upgrades but depends on resources) and addons (reactor too or another naked fact because I want to keep making hellions too) and plant the expo in nat (often actually PF if the Zerg gets a lot of roaches, as I prefer to avoid supply-intensive defences against that). Depending on what happens/what he has, after the push I either defend for a while and expand and max out or pressure him but I generally want to have my 200/200 hellion thor plus SCVs before 20:00, 16:00 if possible, unless it's obvious I can cripple him to a point of no return somewhere between 10:00-12:00 or unless 150/200 to be enough or unless 3/3 hits earlier or something else happens situationally. Generally relying on upgrades, expansions (OC/PF depending on Zerg's level of aggression), hellion/thor proportions and micro/positioning, pulling SCVs to repair (and block ling access to some extent), dropping mules for repairs, rather than taking chances with getting airports, tanks, otherwise mixing the composition. I've used this build so much that I've learnt a lot about handling it and this knowledge helps me immensely, so I'm more comfortable doing this than dabbling with rax and ports (needless to say, I'm really happy when I see corruptors when I don't even have a port ![]() ![]() #4 is a bit longer and more personal (and I'll understand if you prefer to skip this one as it doesn't have much to do with strategy for playing, more like strategy for improvement; at the same time, I'll be particularly grateful if you do reply): + Show Spoiler + 4. I'd played almost exclusively single-player campaigns/games vs. AI in many different RTS games for many years before getting online (where I played some Warcraft 2 Battle.net Edition in 2004-2005 (maybe 1500 games, I guess I was a name but not a top gosu) and then Warcraft 3 TFT in 2005-2008 (some 3000 games, something of a high dia/low master player in comparison)), it's hard to break certain still surviving habits (after so many years) that are harmful in human vs human. As in, in SP, especially storyline campaigns, you sort of conserve resources, stay on the defensive, watch your base, prepare for scripted attacks and expect storyline to unfold, avoid setting off triggers on the map, don't need to scout so much (or there's no point or it's actually harmful when you uncover something too early), aren't so pressured to keep maxing your production, don't really harass for distraction (only really for damage), you often cheese because you're supposed to, AI is either dumb or cheating (if not actually both) and there's the reload/restart button which means you don't have to play extra safe. As a result, I kinda struggle with being active, scouting consistently, always finding stuff to do (it's not a problem for me to hit 400 apm in battles but it's like 40-60 average and periods of 0), well, basically doing things, claiming the damn map, getting things done. Particularly in SC2, I feel like I'm racing against time, as in build order/production race plus the likely proxy cheese/some other cheese/lucky drop that makes leaving my base in early game an excruciating experience. Massing more games doesn't seem to be an efficient solution: it helps (with stuff like making more workers, which isn't exactly a WC3 player's top area) but not that much, as people with much fewer games/less experience overlap me rather easily, e.g. a guy I taught to play WC3 overlapped me and later actually coached me in turn. The gap between us was huge eventually, he kinda skyrocketed very shortly after reaching my own level: he got sponsored, had a brush with tournaments etc. in a matter of weeks or at least very few months from there. He inherited some of the characteristic flaws of my style but worked most of them out eventually. He then switched to SC2 in or after beta and made mid-master the moment the league was introduced, while I never made it past high gold in SC2 after 400 games before I stopped playing in late January this year. In fact, our 3v3 partner, who was supposedly a total newcomer to RTS, was always only slightly behind me on the solo ladder, I also had a gold buddy who got dia with much fewer games on record than my number (good for him, btw, hope he enters masters soon and waits for me with the victory toast). This is all too familiar to my WC3 experience like losing games I should've won (not only in my judgement) or actually almost had won, losing after or despite a significant lead, losing to visibly less experienced players (happy for them but anyway ![]() On August 22 2012 02:44 VPVanek wrote: You can always just make like 2 colossi, and trick the terran so they overmake vikings. Also you can try putting your temps in a speed prism, to avoid EMP, but be careful of vikings ofcourse! As a Terran, I kinda regret every viking that could be a marauder or 2 rines (better DPS and more standing power for my ground army, which is my backbone), so I always make sure I don't overdo the number (because after killing off the colossi, which is their sole goal, they're mostly useless save for semi-decent ground support and some limited harass opportunity if they actually live to see it). And it wouldn't be unexpected for a Toss to get just two and then cut production. If I had a strong suspicion that the Toss were going to have a low number of colossi, I'd probably just spawn more MMM (and maybe with more emphasis on marauders), skipping vikings altogether. | ||
Qikz
United Kingdom11978 Posts
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Templar.
Canada133 Posts
(Just starting to play again, was masters level when i quit so my mechanics are generally good.. don't know much for timings anymore though) | ||
Shankapotamus
United States428 Posts
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dynwar7
1983 Posts
Now....I have a chance to ask a high level Terran about this question. This will be short. In TvT, do you absolutely believe that bio simply cannot win vs mech? In TvT, is mech simply the way to go? I mean, people say to outexpand the meching player, drop like crazy etc....but of cuorse the mech player has 1-2 in-base tanks, sieged, and turret rings and sensor tower....and perhaps 1-2 vikings patrolling drop paths....with all these it is extremely difficult to drop the mech player. So without drops, bio has to go head on with mech, and most of them tim will lose right? So, what do you say about bio and mech in tvt? Also, if I play bio in tvt, marine/tank is also a problem, but dont worry about that, just talk about bio and mech. Thank you! | ||
juliansniff
United States50 Posts
My question is fairly simple and I'm pretty sure it hasn't been asked yet. I'm a top diamond Terran that really struggles with TvT. 9/10 times I lost to some form of a 1/1/1 but usually it's the marine tank banshee variation popularized by Puma. I 1 rax FE in TvT and it feels impossible to hold most all-ins. What tips do you have on holding the marine tank banshee all-in (and other allins) with a 1 rax fe? Also, do you think there is a better opening to do in TvT? | ||
Iron_
United States389 Posts
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INTENZ-_-
Sweden137 Posts
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Ver
United States2186 Posts
On August 20 2012 05:11 U_G_L_Y wrote: In TvP, I feel like I need to be out on the map mid game, but it makes warp prisms very difficult to deal with from 10-15 minutes. Any suggestions? You do need to be out on the map that is correct. Unfortunately there is not that much you can do against warp prisms other than making a turret/viking to thwart them and using your rallied units to hold anything that drops. It's frustrating and it's a wonder more Protoss don't do it; all you can really do is make things uncomfortable for them. Although it is obvious, it is useful to keep in mind that they can't warp in to defend and attack at the same time, making the warp prism less threatening to a certain degree if you are pressing them hard. On August 20 2012 06:02 WaKai wrote: HiHi, i play full bio in tvz, but get caught with my pants down with infestor fungals, is there a way to have pre warning? i've tried stim marines but they don't get out far enough for me to have a reliable tell. Is it just scanning ahead all the time? until he attacks? Whenever you move out of range of a watchtower you should stim 4-8 marine/marauder ahead of the army and keep them stimmed. They are essentially your screen. Infestors can't come near marauders or they get toasted instantly. Once you would push forward onto creep you need to scan ahead, which will double as letting you kill tumors. What it comes down to is if you don't have full vision of an area you need to be watching your army 100% and ideally when you are moving you are automatically pre splitting everything just to be safe. On August 20 2012 22:21 DocHolliday wrote: If you normally play a 1 rax fe opening on TvP, do you have any tips for when opponent goes 1 base blink stalker, in particular this kills me on Antiga. As soon as I have identified its 1 base blink should I try and defend natural + main, or lift CC and just hold main? Many thanks! The most important thing vs blink obs allins is that you don't let him snipe your stim. This means you need to put extra care to where your tech labbed rax is placed. I think the ideal way to hold it is lifting into the main, but you should always be able to stop it sitting in the natural anyway. You want to add tech labs asap, as marines are not very useful in holding it, and then start your factory when you can. The key way to play it is that you trade scvs for time whenever he blinks in and push him away. You are basically stalling for stim at first, after which you can really punish him if he blinks too aggressively and has no escape. Then you more or less wait around threatening stims (but not actually doing so) until you get medivacs, after which point the game is won. Alternatively, you can try to hold with a bunker in the main and at the nat and scvs pulled wherever necessary. Rain held ddoro's blink allin on Shakuras from MLG Columbus. | ||
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