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On December 31 2014 09:34 [PkF] Wire wrote: I'm currently trying my hand at T and it's a lot of fun, far more than what I expected. Of course I'm a lot worse with T than with P, but I'm not doing that bad (around top platinum/low diamond).
I don't have a lot of problems in TvP and TvZ, I easily found stable, safe and "repeatable" (meaning : I do the same build every game, which is what I like to do) macro build orders and I'm improving quickly (I reaper expand in both match-ups, followed by a combat shield + stim timing then standard bio with the intention of pulling scvs in TvP, and a hellbat banshees timing into a huge 14:00 mech push in TvZ). I still need to learn to dodge storms and to use ghosts in TvP -I now see how hard it is !- but I have very solid win ratios against the opponents I'm matched up against with those strategies, especially in macro games.
TvT is, alas, another story... I don't get it. Strangely enough, I don't understand PvP either. I must have a problem with mirrors, go figure.
After a lot of games where I tried to gasless or reaper expand and got destroyed, I tried to 11-11 2 rax my opponents out of frustration (with very little success !), and at last I figured out the safest way to go seemed to be a 1-1-1. I played 5 TvT games going marine hellion elevator myself with mixed success (+3 -2, all games decided before the 9:00 mark...), but I don't feel comfortable at all playing that style. It feels dirty and I wish to play something more defensive, more stable.
1) This is what I'm doing atm : 1-1-1 with naked rax producing marines until 7-8, naked factory producing hellions until 3-4, starport with tech lab for raven then viking. I build a CC in my base as soon as minerals allow and then scan the opponent's base around 6:30. I proceed to add a tech lab on the factory for tanks and then expand while building up my viking count.
Does it sound right to you, or is it (as I expect) overly defensive ? I wish to play something that is very safe and can blindly defend marine hellion medivac timings and banshees, ideally with a reaper because I get no scouting with my current build (I never worker scout). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
2) Once I secure my expand, I wish to go mech. If I recall correctly, ForGG plays a fun TvT style that features heavy hellion usage. I wish to try that style, but I can't seem to find the setup he's aiming to after he has expanded (how many factories ? Which add-ons ? When does he add armories, etc). If someone could give me some pieces of advice on that I'd be immensely grateful.
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help, whichever league you are. I have virtually no experience playing T (I think around 25 games those last two days) so even if you're gold you have probably more insight than me on a lot of things about T and I'll be glad to hear it.
Hi I can answer some questions. If you quote this post I will see anything anyone asks. I'm top 50 GM on NA, was top16 in dreampool but fallen a bit since then.
On January 01 2015 05:34 Pokebunny wrote: Hi I can answer some questions. If you quote this post I will see anything anyone asks. I'm top 50 GM on NA, was top16 in dreampool but fallen a bit since then.
On December 31 2014 09:34 [PkF] Wire wrote: TvT is, alas, another story... I don't get it. Strangely enough, I don't understand PvP either. I must have a problem with mirrors, go figure.
After a lot of games where I tried to gasless or reaper expand and got destroyed, I tried to 11-11 2 rax my opponents out of frustration (with very little success !), and at last I figured out the safest way to go seemed to be a 1-1-1. I played 5 TvT games going marine hellion elevator myself with mixed success (+3 -2, all games decided before the 9:00 mark...), but I don't feel comfortable at all playing that style. It feels dirty and I wish to play something more defensive, more stable.
1) This is what I'm doing atm : 1-1-1 with naked rax producing marines until 7-8, naked factory producing hellions until 3-4, starport with tech lab for raven then viking. I build a CC in my base as soon as minerals allow and then scan the opponent's base around 6:30. I proceed to add a tech lab on the factory for tanks and then expand while building up my viking count.
Does it sound right to you, or is it (as I expect) overly defensive ? I wish to play something that is very safe and can blindly defend marine hellion medivac timings and banshees, ideally with a reaper because I get no scouting with my current build (I never worker scout). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
2) Once I secure my expand, I wish to go mech. If I recall correctly, ForGG plays a fun TvT style that features heavy hellion usage. I wish to try that style, but I can't seem to find the setup he's aiming to after he has expanded (how many factories ? Which add-ons ? When does he add armories, etc). If someone could give me some pieces of advice on that I'd be immensely grateful.
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help, whichever league you are. I have virtually no experience playing T (I think around 25 games those last two days) so even if you're gold you have probably more insight than me on a lot of things about T and I'll be glad to hear it.
Terran vs Terran Mirrors are all about the early game pressure - it's why you see so many 9/10 pools in ZvZ and 1 base all-ins in PvP.
Likewise in TvT; if you watch some of the TvTs between top Terrans, they'll always go for some sort of early pressure that hits anywhere from 6:30 (marine-hellion elevator) to 8:30 (autoturret tank drop)
So yes, your opener in TvT sounds far too conservative. You want to apply some sort of early pressure to the other Terran. I tend to float between cloaked banshees or marine-hellion elevator. Even if the guy defends, he won't want to leave his base in a hurry if you're able to save your harassing units.
If you want to stay safer against early harass and hit a bit later, here is the 8:30 drop build. It works surprisingly well and should give you safety vs earlier harass. As QXC said, if your micro is good there's a good chance of you ending the game immediately; if not, you probably still did some decent damage and you have an expansion behind this. https://terrancraft.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/tvt-auto-turret-tank-drop/#more-1870
ForGG's mech
I'd have to watch ForGG more often - haven't seen him play much TvT lately. But here's a good blue flame hellion timing that he used last year:
You'll notice right away that it opens up with some well orchestrated early pressure with hellions in the natural and a marine medevac drop in the main. It transitions nicely to mech play as well.
This is the game where Strelok marched up his door early and applied early tank pressure. I would assume that he normally moves his hell-train out earlier than the 16:40 in this video because of it.
Hi is there any solution to win a protoss player that just play very defensive? literraly he just sit until he has 3bases and the roll all over me... he defends pretty much any drop and then put cannons so is really difficult to do any damage... should it just wait and mass army with vickings? and win in the middle of the map?
On January 01 2015 05:34 Pokebunny wrote: Hi I can answer some questions. If you quote this post I will see anything anyone asks. I'm top 50 GM on NA, was top16 in dreampool but fallen a bit since then.
Omg help vs protoss please. I already know that late game terran needs ghosts and vikings but it's difficult for me to get the right balance. Here's a replay: http://drop.sc/391069 . In this game I feel like I was ahead going into mid-late game because I had denied his 3rd base twice and his fourth (greedy son of a not going to say it) once. I saw a templar archives and a lot of zealots and thought he was going zealot archon templar so I went ghost heavy but it turns out he was actually going for the normal protoss deathball with colossi and templar (what? who does that now?). We fought multiple big engagements but I lost in the end. The reason I stopped running around sniping bases is because I was afraid of his army (maybe that's my problem) and didn't want to do multi-prong drops for the same reason. I was lacking in my vehicle upgrades and cloak (I thought I pressed it)because I was low on gas. Maybe it was my army control with ghosts and vikings?
Hi I can answer some questions. If you quote this post I will see anything anyone asks. I'm top 50 GM on NA, was top16 in dreampool but fallen a bit since then.
When going hellbat / banshee against zerg how do you keep from floating minerals? You only have 3 production buildings and 2 of them (factory + starport) won't be used for production for a while (used for making reactor addons). When I do this it seems I build CC, 2 engies, 3rd and 4th gas, and a few more barracks all at once.
When going hellbat / banshee against zerg how do you keep from floating minerals? You only have 3 production buildings and 2 of them (factory + starport) won't be used for production for a while (used for making reactor addons). When I do this it seems I build CC, 2 engies, 3rd and 4th gas, and a few more barracks all at once.
I'm assuming that your build is somewhat like a standard 3cc reactored hellion banshee build. After your banshee (and cloak if you want) is started, you can drop your 3rd cc once you hit 400 minerals. After your 3rd cc, it's your choice to go 2 ebays+2 gas(very macro) or 2 rax(safe although still macro). Although this is macro play, if you're looking to do damage with the hellbats then maybe spend more minerals on your production and if you're looking to end the game early I might not even go for a 3rd cc.
Any advice on late game TvT? I know the OP has the ideal comp but I'm just really bad at controlling it and it feels awful against a turtle mech player that has turrets everywhere
On January 02 2015 13:16 Chaggi wrote: Any advice on late game TvT? I know the OP has the ideal comp but I'm just really bad at controlling it and it feels awful against a turtle mech player that has turrets everywhere
You use your tanks to prevent the opponent from advancing tanks/turrets, try to pick off their frontline tanks with seekers (use PDDs to prevent missile turret damage) so you can advance your tanks while zoning out their air force with PDDs and seekers to make them back up. If you get really lucky, they screw up and eat a seeker, but you can't count on that. Seekers are to push their air force back and to kill tanks, and PDDs are to mitigate damage from turrets or their air fleet. You are focused on slowly pushing forward your tanks and securing more of the map while making your opponent spend gas on replacing tanks/air which they should eventually run out of, and in the best-case scenario, you can push to win, but that's unlikely. I would recommend against building battlecruisers because they are easily picked off and end up being deadweight; if you build some, you shouldn't put them in your viking/raven army and should probably just keep them further back. Bring them up to the front lines to yamato tanks/turrets/vikings but pull them back immediately; they are too slow to keep up with the agile viking/raven army.
Note that even playing bio, you need some tanks. Pure bio + air is really only bio with battlecruisers to catch the opponent by surprise and win the game off of 1 attack, and isn't sustainable as a long-term lategame composition.
Also, because doing any damage is dependent on your opponent screwing up, you need to be decisive and swift with your raven-viking movement. You need to learn to spot weaknesses and areas where you can pick things off, and also avoiding such positional mistakes yourself. It helps to split your opponent's attention so they are more likely to miss some seeker missiles somewhere, so make sure to apply pressure in multiple locations. However, remember that if you spend too much time focusing on the rest of the map and you end up losing your raven/viking fleet, you have essentially lost the game. Only multitask to the extent that you are still confident with your raven/viking control.
Some good examples of this are:
Avilo's stream (for all his faults, he does understand lategame TvT pretty well, and will reliably play it almost every TvT)
MMA vs Yoda G1 WCS EU Finals for really high-level raven viking play
Any other pros who play mech (Supernova, Morrow) although in general they will turtle less than Avilo and win/lose games earlier, so you're less likely to see TvTs go to raven viking often. Pros who play bio aren't that great to watch to learn this.
On January 01 2015 09:41 SC2BF3Love wrote: Hi is there any solution to win a protoss player that just play very defensive? literraly he just sit until he has 3bases and the roll all over me... he defends pretty much any drop and then put cannons so is really difficult to do any damage... should it just wait and mass army with vickings? and win in the middle of the map?
You should be able to deny his 3rd long enough to have yours up before him. At this point you have to decide if you want to 3 base allin with scvs or try to play the late game and take 2-2 upgrades, ghosts, and a 4th base. If the former you want to maximize production with 7-8 rax, 2 ports, cut scvs at 55-60 and don't go past 1-1 upgrades. If the latter you need to build up your upgrades and army comp to fight his full 3 base tech army.
On January 02 2015 03:59 KingofGods wrote: When going hellbat / banshee against zerg how do you keep from floating minerals? You only have 3 production buildings and 2 of them (factory + starport) won't be used for production for a while (used for making reactor addons). When I do this it seems I build CC, 2 engies, 3rd and 4th gas, and a few more barracks all at once.
I don't play the hellbat version of this build but yeah you basically add all your production at once. Your transition involves 3rd cc, 2 more rax, 2 ebays, 2 more rax, as well as starting stim at a reasonable time and a reactor for your starport. You want to have all your midgame infrastructure ASAP so you can play active on the map and contest a 4th base after your initial pressure is over.
On January 01 2015 11:50 NexT_SC2 wrote: Omg help vs protoss please. I already know that late game terran needs ghosts and vikings but it's difficult for me to get the right balance. Here's a replay: http://drop.sc/391069 . In this game I feel like I was ahead going into mid-late game because I had denied his 3rd base twice and his fourth (greedy son of a not going to say it) once. I saw a templar archives and a lot of zealots and thought he was going zealot archon templar so I went ghost heavy but it turns out he was actually going for the normal protoss deathball with colossi and templar (what? who does that now?). We fought multiple big engagements but I lost in the end. The reason I stopped running around sniping bases is because I was afraid of his army (maybe that's my problem) and didn't want to do multi-prong drops for the same reason. I was lacking in my vehicle upgrades and cloak (I thought I pressed it)because I was low on gas. Maybe it was my army control with ghosts and vikings?
Hi I can answer some questions. If you quote this post I will see anything anyone asks. I'm top 50 GM on NA, was top16 in dreampool but fallen a bit since then.
1) Don't try to hold your natural against 1 base 4gate. You would have instantly lost the game if your opponent was any good, likewise you would have easily won the game if you just had two bunkers on your ramp. There is no transition from a 1 gas 4 gate.
2) You played like you were going 3 rax tech but you only had 2 rax and therefore banked a lot of money. Just do exactly what you did but add the 3rd rax earlier and leave it with no addon (like make it right after the 2nd rax).
3) You lost a CC to 5 stalkers... I don't really see what the point is in talking about the lategame since you threw away an easily won game before 10 min. But I will keep watching.
4) You start viking production too late, you have to assume protoss is going colossus until you see otherwise. You should have instantly lost the game at 17 min (again) because of this, but your opponent has two afk colossi for a while and also doesnt know how to warp in at forward pylons and banks 2k cause of it.
5) When you thought you denied 3rd + 4th he also took the top left corner because his macro was so bad so he still had a 3rd.
6) Your viking count is extremely low throughout the midgame. I'm not sure why you are still making medivacs when you have 6 medivacs and 2 vikings, and the other guy has 5 colossi.
7) Your micro around 23~min is horrendous, you lose a lot of units before you even realize you are fighting and your vikings are in a bad position.
8) Again at 25min too few vikings. You need at least 2 vikings per colossus, preferably 3.
I think you just never scouted top left so you just never realized you were on equal bases, upgrades, and tech pretty much all game. Other core flaw was not making enough vikings, you never even had a second starport (though you probably could have gotten away without it if you constantly made vikings). By 31 min the protoss is banking 5k/1.5k and is maxed with 5 bases while you are not even maxed. At that point it doesn't even matter if you win a fight because you have to kill two armies to win the game. Your lack of vikings and terrible control seals the deal around 32:30.
Also, pretty much every protoss will continue to make both templar and colossi if their economy is good. Your point here:
I saw a templar archives and a lot of zealots and thought he was going zealot archon templar so I went ghost heavy but it turns out he was actually going for the normal protoss deathball with colossi and templar (what? who does that now?)
makes no sense because as I said you always have to assume colossi unless you have scouted a lack of colossi (no robo producing or you know he can't afford it for example 2 base templar).
On January 02 2015 03:59 KingofGods wrote: When going hellbat / banshee against zerg how do you keep from floating minerals? You only have 3 production buildings and 2 of them (factory + starport) won't be used for production for a while (used for making reactor addons). When I do this it seems I build CC, 2 engies, 3rd and 4th gas, and a few more barracks all at once.
I don't play the hellbat version of this build but yeah you basically add all your production at once. Your transition involves 3rd cc, 2 more rax, 2 ebays, 2 more rax, as well as starting stim at a reasonable time and a reactor for your starport. You want to have all your midgame infrastructure ASAP so you can play active on the map and contest a 4th base after your initial pressure is over.
But I die quite a bit from counter attacks while building up my infrastructure even after I kill the 3rd.
On December 29 2014 15:37 llaMWell wrote: How do you guys cope with the fact that protoss is so ridiculously much easier to play lategame? I'm getting so pissed off and frustrated that I don't even know what to say. I feel like I should just uninstall, burn my PC and move on. This is so fucking stupid. I mean I keep losing to these horrible platinum players just because I literally can't manage to do anything against a turtling protoss. It doesn't matter if I'm 70 supply up simply by macroing, have millions of bases and barracks, tons of ghosts and vikings, once I have to face the army I'm dead no matter what I do.
I've tried playing toss myself for a few days to see if it really is that easy in PvT, and it seriously fucking is. After a few days of playing protoss I'm 100 % sure I would crush my own terran which I have been practicing for like 2-3 years, and I don't even know what all the protoss hotkeys are! (I'm having an easier time beating other protosses with protoss than with my main race! How fucking silly isn't that?) Like I can't be the only one feeling this way. Is this seriously how the game is meant to be?
Read the second part of my response to you in the other thread:
You should be asking "How do I improve my lategame vs Protoss" or "how do I win before the lategame vs Protoss" along with a replay instead of posting what comes off at worst a balance whine and at best an incredibly unspecific query which is effectively impossible to answer. We can't help you much without a replay anyway.
Without a replay, we don't know what you are doing vs. Protoss currently, what is going wrong with it, etc. (Read: problems we can fix.) As is, it is clear you are doing multiple things wrong but it's impossible to tell what.
I'm not doing anything "wrong" other than just being bad, which my opponents of course also are (this is platinum). I know what to do, the point is that it's just so extremely more hard to do what I have to do, than for the protoss to do what he's got to do, and that's what really gets to me. And that is a fact. Zealots and archons require ZERO micro, collossus micro is easy (they can move over everything, and they're big, thus easy to grab), and storms can be massed and spammed and kills bio in a second. At this level of play, there is essentially zero difference between an unmicroed protoss deathball and a microed one, except for the storms not being casted.
So my question was: For those of you who actually realize that this is a fact, how do you cope with it?
In WOL I could just overpower them mid game with better macro and never let it go to the lategame. After planetary nexus that does of course not work anymore, and it requires pressing one freakin button on protoss' part.
My solution could of course be just switching to protoss, it's just that I get ZERO satisfaction beating terrans knowing how insanely much harder the whole game was for them. I don't want to play on easy mode, I just wished we all played on the same difficulty.
Replay, since you asked, even though it doesn't really matter: http://drop.sc/390915
This is a freakin gold league protoss. I scouted his proxy double oracle, I did what I'm supposed to do to defend it (of course he still got 10 workers, because why the fuck not), but it doesn't matter, I'm still ahead in everything, but of course I still cannot possibly close out the game and the lategame is forced which I am doomed to lose.
If you just came here to vent, then I'm sure you're already satisfied. As for winning this matchup - I am a former master's level terran player from S2/S3 WOL, I started playing again a few weeks ago, and I'm learning the Core with the Staircase method. Currently I'm beating Gold and Platinum protoss players as Terran using only unupgraded (no stim, no CS) marines with proper macro. I am saying this not to brag that I'm some macro god come to crush low level toss, just that ultimately the only thing that is limiting you in this matchup is your mindset. Watch your own replay to discover how you lost. Work on your fundamentals and the rest will come naturally. Look up "Deliberate practice" Try multitasking trainers or unit control maps. Except at the highest levels of play, balance in the game is largely negligible. If protoss comes easily to you, then by all means play it if you are focused on winning. If you aren't focused on winning, then your losses shouldn't hurt this much.
On January 02 2015 03:59 KingofGods wrote: When going hellbat / banshee against zerg how do you keep from floating minerals? You only have 3 production buildings and 2 of them (factory + starport) won't be used for production for a while (used for making reactor addons). When I do this it seems I build CC, 2 engies, 3rd and 4th gas, and a few more barracks all at once.
I don't play the hellbat version of this build but yeah you basically add all your production at once. Your transition involves 3rd cc, 2 more rax, 2 ebays, 2 more rax, as well as starting stim at a reasonable time and a reactor for your starport. You want to have all your midgame infrastructure ASAP so you can play active on the map and contest a 4th base after your initial pressure is over.
But I die quite a bit from counter attacks while building up my infrastructure even after I kill the 3rd.
Shrug, watch pro games of people doing the build and figure out what they are doing, it shouldn't be complicated to figure out.
I played a TvP on Nimbus and my opponent did a forge fast expand (no cannon rush). I went for standart reaper expand into bio. He walled up the ramp and because I scouted him on last position the first cannon was finished and denied any reaper harassement. I won that game, but I realised that I had no clue what the right counter to a FFE is as terran. So assuming that your reaper doesn´t get a bunch of kills, because of the map architecture, is going for a quick third command center a good answer, because he delays his tech so much?
On January 10 2015 21:09 XPA wrote: I played a TvP on Nimbus and my opponent did a forge fast expand (no cannon rush). I went for standart reaper expand into bio. He walled up the ramp and because I scouted him on last position the first cannon was finished and denied any reaper harassement. I won that game, but I realised that I had no clue what the right counter to a FFE is as terran. So assuming that your reaper doesn´t get a bunch of kills, because of the map architecture, is going for a quick third command center a good answer, because he delays his tech so much?
That's a fine reaction, however, you can also just play standard and skip defensive things like Bunkers and Turrets for a while in favour of getting fast Barracks and add-ons. Your assumption that his tech is super delayed is the key point, as he voluntarily gives up any tech edge in harassment he might get with a normal build in exchange for a safe expand. Personally, I would favour one of two reactions:
1. Third CC ASAP, go into Bio-Mine and steamroll him with your production edge, using drops exploit a lower-tech, low-mobility army.
2. Go up to your full set of add-ons quickly and do a Polt style push off 3 rax with Concussive Shells, Stim, and +1, counting on his lack of heavy units to force him to continuously trade with you until enough Medivacs and reinforcements arrive to seal the deal.
Of course, it is possible for him to do a later push or all-in with his fast armour upgrades. Chargelot/Archon/Storm +2 Armour comes to mind. As always, scouting is critical, so don't autopilot the game just because the opponent does something silly like FFE.
EPT
