[L][D]HotS Terran Mech Resources/Q&A - Page 3

Build for 2 base push

- 11 gas -> 13 rax
- 16 OC
- Reaper and after 100 gas factory

Reapers job is to scout in the early game so I try not to lose until I know what is going on. You may want to suicide it to scout the base but I prefer it to scout the map.

- After reaper continuous marine production and few mines.

Wall at your ramp is fairly necessary to survive poke with just widow mines and marines.

Of course now my decision making depends on what I scout so if Protoss stays on one base I build engineering bay for turrets and bunkers if some kind of push is coming.

- When factory is on its way add second gas.
- When factory is finished build a starport.

When starport is finished I build a tech lab for Ravens but you may want to build viking straight away for possible oracle
.
- Build CC when you can afford it and set it up when you feel safe to move out to your expansion.
-Build depending on what your gas needs are and what you scout mix of ravens and vikings. I usually end up with 2-3 ravens and 2-3 vikings with push timing.
- After about 4 marines and raven in production I start building reactor with my barracks for factory.
- Start building second factory and add third one when you can.
- When reactor is done move one of you factories with it and start building second reactor for your third factory.
- Around 8-9 minutes add tech lab to one of your factories and start build at least 2 tanks for the push.
- Continuously build hellions and few mines
.
Around this time you should add your armory for hellbat upgrade. Of course you could build before any hellion production to build hellbats immediately but I like to deny scouting with my mobile hellions and force protoss to build stalkers for mobile hellions. You will have map control too so look for and destroy any possible pylons.

Now depending on situation you will want to move out. The time is usually around 12 - 14 minutes depending early game. The main army should be 2 or more tanks, 2-3 ravens, 2-3 vikings, few mines, lots of hellions and whatever what was left of you marines and perhaps even the reaper. Move out, build a CC and head for protoss third if there is any (scout with you hellions before you move out.) or move to natural. Of course it may be bit risky to attack 2 base protoss, so you shouldn´t be too aggressive and too careful especially if he is ahead or you don´t know the exact composition of protoss force. The main point of this build is to establish a third while denying his third or keeping at least keeping protoss occupied. There is also the situation where you are ahead of protoss. If that is the case, you should be able to at least damage him heavily with this push.

Now on to engagement. Engage quite slowly and set up you tanks in firing range of something whether it be his army or his base. Siege tanks are there to force the engament or to destroy his base. Mines should be positioned on whether or not protoss has air. If there is air don´t let your mines to blow up on anything else than air units with mines and vikings it is fairly easy to crush most air play. Else set them up to get the best mine hits possible. Hellbats are there to buffer the damage and keep your tanks and air units intact. Ravens are perhaps the most integral part of this build and use heavily depends on protoss composition so I am giving list of priorities.
First of all make sure your ravens survive always after that:

1. Use 1 PDD to protect you from photon overcharge.
2. Hunter seeker missile void rays or immortals (If both seeker missile whatever is the biggest threath. )
3. Use more PDDs when needed (Lots of stalkers, phoenixs or last one´s energy ran out.)
4. Turrets to protect you from whatever he has.
Ravens usually have energy to do 2 of these things so be curtain that he won´t have surprise immortals/void rays.

This build requires you to have at least the control of to build production facilities, keep building reinforcements while this push happens and start setting up a third or it will turn just an somewhat effective all in so you may not want to do this with too low micro/macro capability.

Reinforcements are quite important too as you can keep getting hellions quite fast with your 3 racks so don´t worry too much about at losing them. The main point of this is to let your pricy units survive ravens , siege tanks and vikings.

Retreating is also good solution if staying becomes too risky usually at that point push has traded you cheap hellions to prevent the third or traded them for other units. You should consider this if there is a risk of you loosing all of your army and there is a possibility to retreat. Also as addition mines make excellent tools for retreat as protoss has to be quite careful to engage them.