United States2186 Posts
On August 21 2012 12:25 Absurd Bunny wrote:
Hi Ver, I've been reading some of the questions and answers that you give and they have upped my game. Although they do help me in my game, they do not answer the answers I'm looking for that I have problems with. I'm currently in gold league.
1. In almost every matchup, I will do a 1 rax fast expand, sometimes against zerg if it's tal darim altar or entombed valley, I might do a command center first. But when I scout something like zerg, protoss, or terran going double gas on one base and goes to all in, I don't know the proper counter.
I know that there is an all in coming, but I don't know what units are going to come, how many there are going to be, and what units I should make to counter it, how many bunkers, should I lift my second base, halt scv production, etc etc. What is a correct counter to this?
2. I'm having hard times with TvP and TvZ, TvT I'm doing much better but the mistakes I make are much easily to correct and have to do with mechanics. I want to do bio TvZ, I can micro well against banelings and infestors, but I don't know how to get a good amount early game, or build up supply to at least defend against zerg, but the thread on it here with the build isn't working for me and I can't get enough units to defend all ins and do the timing correctly. I'm getting scvs and building units on time and constantly, but I can't seem to defend when an all ins coming. Is there a different build order that can go bio TvZ or a FE transition that can do it?
3. (this is TvP) I know how to get the units in TvP, I can defend early game pushes, all ins, and win in the midgame, but the lategame and the units that protoss comes out with are something can I win against too, or survive, but I can't get the engagement right, even if the area we are fighting is good, or even if I have the better units. I always get mmmvg for the lategame, but I can't seem to get the emps, and I barely get nukes, but if I do it won't work either. Usually the Templars storm before I can get the ghosts to emp, or the emps don't go and I lose the battle. I know the first thing to do is stim, or if there's no observer to cloak ghosts and emp, then stim, but if he has observers, what should I do? I stim the mmm, a move the vikings, and try to use ghosts to emp, but it seems like he always gets the first storm, and I die first, or something happens in the engagement when I emp, I still lose.
4. What is the best way to increase map awareness? I've been laddering today and I played a lot of TvTs, and I still won over 50% of them, but there are a lot of drops that I don't see even though I have a sensor tower, or I only see it after he drops and is attacking.
Thanks, this thread is very useful to me and I've been moving up and am now in high gold with the answers that you give to other people. I wish more people would start doing things like this!
1) Ultimately this depends on the allin and without more specific information I can't give any real advice. Basically depending on what your scv scouts you can narrow it down, then potentially you can determine the allin based on hidden scv or a scan, then you can make the correct response. Yeah it's stupidly hard 
2) Best build to doing [ire bio is not doing it. Second best bio build is one of Taeja's openings where you stay marine heavy but transition into 2 fact tanks. Take a look at Taeja vs Annyeungprime from Liquid vs Prime in the TAC.
If you are really fixated on bio, I suggest the Taeja vs Sheth games from Redbull Lan and MKP vs Stephano on Cloud Kingdom from MLG Anaheim. But no top Terran has stayed with pure bio because it is gimmicky and bad.
3) This is really tricky but it comes down to watching a lot of pro games, especially fpvods, and just getting a feel for how the units work and how your army flows from your hands. TvP engagements is all about feeling comfortable, which means knowing when to watch your army, knowing what needs to be done, and having enough practice doing it that your hands just move freely. In specifics, it means you intuitively know the range of emp, snipe, and storm, your hands automatically spread your units without thinking, and you can gauge when to spread if you think a storm is coming. Marineking is probably the best person to watch for this, along with Taeja.
4) Nothing easy here, it just requires training your eyes to react to it without looking at it. I suggest watching through fpview of replays or vods of progamers of your race with a close eye on the minimap the entire time, just with the intention of noticing anything red coming in.
On August 21 2012 13:14 washikie wrote:
You mentioned the 1 rax cc into hellion banshee build for mech and i was wondering what you think of this open when it is used to transition into a more bio mech focused play vs the straight up mech play? Also i was curious if you think that if you go for a more mineral heavy play such as bio with this build if its a good idea to go 1 rax => cc => reactor factory => in base orbital => and than cloak banshee or does this delay banshees to long to be worthwhile? I have been playing around with this kind of opening and im not sure if its a good or bad idea vs the normal hellion banshee than third.
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.)
hellion/banshee can transition into either bio or mech with no disadvantage either. That build is fine. Hellion/banshee of almost any variant is safe vs almost any allin except perhaps on hte really short rush distance maps. You definitely don't need to go double gas before depot after rax cc to be safe (which delays the third cc a lot). The faster hellion/banshee is really only good for punishing excessively greedy Zergs (i,e Marineking vs Spanishiwa on Cloud Kingdom, from MLG raleigh) or for holding allins.
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?
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?
Double reactor hellion is a gimmick that is rarely seen precisely for that reason. It actually 100% relies on the Zerg being bad (or used on cloud kingdom, where they cant get a reliable scout). Basically if you do it and they see it coming with an ovie scout, they'll just make roach and wall what they need to while pushing creep and droning like normal. You also have a weakness to (rare) mass roach allins. Alternatively, if they are rushing 2 hatch muta you can have a build order loss so long as they see it and can get 2 spines/wall up in time at the natural.
If you want an example where the Zerg was too lazy to scout and the Terran got a nice position from it, see Dream vs Sleep on Entombed from the GESL. Unfortunately, there's just no way to stop that overlord on non-cloud kingdom maps.
@TvP Mech- Tanks are a terrible unit against Protoss except in holding allins, beating up sentries/stalkers, and being annoying at certain positions/chokes. Any kind of success with mech is going to come from hellion/banshee and doing damage to their econ, or for some thor/banshee timing as these units are very strong vs Protoss.
That build you said does not even make sense though. It seems to be a bastardization of the more practical cloak banshee cc -> banshee/thor/(light) rine 2/3 base timing that players like Jjakji used several times. Jjakji vs puzzle from GSL semis, Jjakji vs Mana from Iron Squid, both on Daybreak, are good examples. Adding tanks to it later makes very little sense as they don't really do much, and that build is a timing attack play anyway. Ghost transition would serve the purpose much better so you can reduce the damage of feedback.
There is no stable mech build. You could probably transition into mech from Taeja's cloak banshee/tank/triple cc opening (used vs Seed on Ohana from TAC finals or Bischu on Cloud Kingdom from TAC). Ultimately the only strength of mech is blue flame runbys in the midgame to butcher their probe count. Whatever mech build you choose should emphasize that.
On August 21 2012 18:04 ff7legend wrote:
Recently ive been seeing a number of terrans go for a marine tank push TvP. I was wondering what the pro's and cons of doing this. Im just trying to see the benefits of going this strategy over a standard bioball
There aren't many. It's mostly a coinflip/threat of a coinflip, as dedicated tank pushes can break protoss who are playing too greedily. It also gives you great defense against most allins. The main reason most pro Terrans use it is to make the Protoss think they are doing a dedicated tank timing, which makes them play more defensive and use chronos on units instead of upgrades/probes. Dedicated tank timing attacks are not good but the threat of them is enough to make the Protoss play safe.
Marine/tank/medivac attacks also murder the Parting build, which is a unique trait, as the Parting build will have a mass of slow zealot/sentry. The tanks focus fire the latter and hte marines just kite the slow zealots.
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 build too but it doesn't work very well even on a map like Antiga (the best map for it) once you play people who will have the entire map in creep at 12-13 mins with no pressure. Your first push has to be essentially perfect and you have so little leeway/time. Not recommended.
On August 22 2012 01:46 StateofReverie wrote:
i sort of bend the rules here. Even though I have a large timing window to attack, I also send a drop to take out any outlying expansions and I also use another drop a couple minutes before I push to exterminate some zerg creep. You can say I have 2 goals when I push out. It lets me take a fourth base and to pressure him. the only way he has tier 3 out if he gets like a 13 min hive which I always scan for to see mutas, roaches, or tech.
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
This doesn't make sense. Isolated drops without a push threat are completely useless as they will spot it with overlords/creep and eihter kill it (if they went muta or corruptor) or just deny it from doing anything. If you send out 3-4 dropships to 2-3 spots you can force enough units home that you can have a window to clear creep but this is a last ditch desperation move only if they get an excessive amount of creep as you are sacrificing a lot of units to do it. Fighting for the 4th is critical, as 4 base hive is generally too powerful to keep in check and you need to force them to bleed lair units to save it. If you are trying to deny their 5th that means they already have ultras or broods out and you must remain on the defensive or just rely on splitting them up.
Taking a 4th base early is very important though, that's spot on.
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?
The most important things to do in lategame PvT are: 1) Warp Prism harass (zealot/dt + storm raids) 2) stagger your templars 3) Keep expanding 4) Protect expansions with cannon templar
It's perfectly okay to lose lategame PvT fights: the game would be completely broken if Protoss could win them reliably. The Protoss lategame strength is cost efficiency, better harassment/harassment defense, and the ability to overrun the Terran army in fights by warping in dozens of zealot/archon/dt mid battle.
The Parting vs Jjakji from Code S is extremely important watch for Protoss players. Jjakji wins every battle but the last one and loses anyway because Parting throws storms from every angle and just relies on Protoss being more cost efficient. I could try to describe what I mean by staggering templars (as that is the key to getting off storms) but it's better to just watch Parting do it, as he is the master.
No you should never use phoenix TvP, they are a supplysink. You will win lategame fights if either a) you have too many colossus for their viking count or you kill all their vikings quickly with storm (vikings are a high priority target yes, and generally more stormable than the rest of the Terran kiting army). or b) you land 1 or 2 storms.a) is not a reliable method of winning, as it relies on them being bad, but b) is something you can control.
Go into the unit tester with a Terran friend and do a normal battle in lategame conditions, with a general 1a on each side and cast as much as possible. Now enter the battle with both of your armies completely pre split and in massive concaves. If you do it right the Protoss will slaughter the Terran every time. I'm guessing your armies are really clumped up in battles and 4-5 emps just massacre everything. But if your army is pre spread enough so that the Terran requires 10-15 emps to hit everything, he is going to get completely smashed.
On August 22 2012 08:30 NewbieOne wrote:Hey, Ver. Sorry to hear about the team. I hope you can find a great one soon where you feel home! Thanks for giving your time to help others in the game! 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  ). My question is, is this build liable to get roflstomped at higher levels of play due to all the corner cutting in it and the higher skill of, say, master zergs compared to plat zergs (who can't normally break this even with a hearty bunch of lolfestors/gglords )? Basically, I'm wondering if this is a build that works because of its merits (simple, lean, compact, adaptable, well-practiced) or a build that works right now just because my opponents are "bad" but wouldn't work between two players at master skill. Also, would it be better (as in more efficient without being significantly riskier), in your opinion, to throw in banshees and/or ravens into this build anyway, like most players do, at the cost of giving some of the advantages of this build? #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  ), losing games because of getting less sharp due to tiredness etc.This is a bit saddening, as in it feels like something's wrong with me. Some time this autumn, I should finish my Ph.D. procedures and be able to take a month off before I move on to more cramming. Do you think I should mass ladders like 12 hours a day for a full month to refresh my mechanics and force a skill jump? Or play fewer games but stop and analyse every replay? Or play custom games with much higher skilled people and lose game after game until I start winning? Or use the AI/training maps to address specific areas? What do you think would be the best thing to do here?
Thank you for the kind words
1) Thorzain's TvT build works perfectly fine in TvP as it is just an optimization of the standard opening. I think he began using it in both matchups at the same time. It is bad in TvZ because it fits in the 'scoutable 2 base timing attack' mold which auto loses to any competent Zerg.
2) This is a gimmick, don't bother. When you get builds, it's very important to consider the source. Take them from Thorzain or the top korean pros, no other.
3) If you want a bludgeon type marine/thor/hellion build, I highly suggest the build Marineking has used on Metropolis (and entombed) in his TvZs in the past 3 months (from KSL finals vs curious is one example). This build feels gimmicky though when I've used it because if they just turtle bl/infestor/queen you can't really break them and you have barely 1 timing attack before they have broods. On a larger map you don't have even that, and when broods are out your chances of winning goes down drastically unless they commit too early instead of turtling for critical mass.
4) I have been in a somewhat similar position, as I am going for my phd while playing competitively. This really depends on what level you want to get to. The most important thing is to watch enough games that you know what to do and to play a little bit every day or 5-6 days a week so you can keep your skill. I have been forced to take a month or two off at a time due to school and my skill level plummets when I do; it takes another month or two to get back to my old level or higher (of playing maybe 20-25 hrs a day).
Grinding ladder games is a long term solution, not a short one, and is only worthwhile if your theoretical knowledge is pristine AND you pour over every replay. My results often drop briefly when playing more than 4 hours a day for longer than a couple days.
I would personally recommend a three step procedure:
1) Watch enough top kor pro games in each matchup to gain a strong idea of what you should be doing. Revisit them every week or so to match up your play with theirs and see what is different.
2) Practice your build orders on a map alone and practice specific micro on a micro map. Always do this in your first game of the day.
3) Play the people who are much better over and over, alternating this occasionally with ladder.
Show nested quote +On August 22 2012 02:44 VPVanek wrote: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! 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.
Can't skip vikings if they have more than 1 colo You should change that way of thinking about vikings though: if they don't have colo (from vikings, or just bad), and don't land storms (which relies on emp), your army will massacre theirs even if you have a disproportionate number of supply in vikings so long as you have enough medivacs, ghosts, and marines (marauders rather suck).
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