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On April 04 2013 08:05 Magpie842 wrote: Hey guys. This is a very basic question really. I'm gold league at the moment but progressing solidly and have beaten platinum and diamond players quite a bit recently. I'd like to broaden my style by embracing CC first builds in HOTS (for maps like Whirlwind, Korhal city and occasionally others) and I need a starting point. I throw a depot and then the CC around 15 supply (going from memory) and then I just kind of move into gas, raxes, factory + starport but with other builds I feel far more confident and 'tight'.
Can someone suggest a good CC first opening for HOTS? I tend to favor bio if that makes any difference.
I dont like cc first, for the reason of risk (in already the first minutes of the game without knowing whats comming). But, I saw an opening on stream by optikdream (also master) where he did a :
10 depot 12 rax 16 Orbital command into CC into depot and double gas. into factory
I like it because your cc is 100 minerals sooner, because of the delayed depot (no wall off early but no supplyblock either). The advantage is a mule sooner, earlier double gas+rax=sooner tech and u have 1 marine to defend. A CC first also has disadvantages. It doesn't answer your question directly, but if u want a more economical opening then depot/rax/depot/cc without risk and not delaying tech, this one could work.
On April 04 2013 08:18 govie wrote: 10 depot 12 rax 16 Orbital command into CC into depot and double gas. into factory
I like it because your cc is 100 minerals sooner, because of the delayed depot (no wall off early but no supplyblock either). The advantage is a mule sooner, earlier double gas+rax=sooner tech and u have 1 marine to defend. A CC first also has disadvantages. It doesn't answer your question directly, but if u want a more economical opening then depot/rax/depot/cc without risk and not delaying tech, this one could work.
This is the 1 Rax FE that was standard in WoL, in this case flavored for vT and vZ with the double gas factory followup.
As answered in the OP, doing these gasless expands carries risks that you have to be aware of.
On April 04 2013 09:08 Magpie842 wrote: Thanks very much Govie. I'll give this a try.
Also, on the topic of CC firsting, I forgot to ask: Should I SCV scout after the first depot?
No definite answer. OP has this on regards to CC first vs Z (only matchup I tend to risk it).
Your choice as it's wasted minerals most of the time. Besides, 6-pool doesn't even auto-win against CC first (MarineKing vs Suhosin, Ohana, Code A 2012 Season 3). To parry the threat of a 10 pool, building your CC as part of the wall is also possible.
Flash sometimes use an early scout, either to be sure his opponent is not going 10 pool so he can build his CC directly on the natural (Flash vs Life, MLG Fall Championship 2012, Antiga [starts at 17'20]) or to go for an early EB block (Flash vs Revival, SPL, Ohana).
Hello there, I am just in Gold currently trying to work my way up the ladder and have a couple simple questions. The first is regarding my macro. I seem to do fine on 2 base (keeping my minerals low and avoiding supply blocks), but when I hit 3 base economy my resources (particularly my minerals) seem to completely skyrocket. What should I be doing to avoid situations like this? Perhaps add in a lot more production facilities? Secondly, should I even really worry about working on my micro such as trying to do multi-prong drops and what not or should I really just focus on perfecting my macro til I reach the higher leagues?
On April 04 2013 16:04 Serenity12 wrote: Hello there, I am just in Gold currently trying to work my way up the ladder and have a couple simple questions. The first is regarding my macro. I seem to do fine on 2 base (keeping my minerals low and avoiding supply blocks), but when I hit 3 base economy my resources (particularly my minerals) seem to completely skyrocket. What should I be doing to avoid situations like this? Perhaps add in a lot more production facilities? Secondly, should I even really worry about working on my micro such as trying to do multi-prong drops and what not or should I really just focus on perfecting my macro til I reach the higher leagues?
Question #1) This is one of the most difficult things for players in plat and below, and honestly often times in diamond and masters as well. You can easily support 9 Barracks/Factory/Reactored port off those three bases (including mostly reactor addons) so yes, you want to immediately add on production as you take your third. It's even okay to sometimes overmake production. Dont be afraid to have 15+ Barracks on a bio play if you hit four bases that are well saturated. As soon as your scv's hit your third your income will explode, almost like taking two extra bases. The reason for this is you should already have most of your infrastructure for upgrades/tech in place so you won't be spending money on that and in a lot of cases you'll only have three barracks so your production will be way below your income.
Question #2) Do whats fun man, that being said 99% of people that play starcraft do not understand how to drop, where to drop and when to drop. Drop play is much more advanced then "oh I got medivacs, time to drop" and sadly it's the thing people focus on by far the most for terran, especially in pro play.
Drop Do's 1. Drop to buy time. If you're in a situation where your opponent can kill you but a drop might keep him occupied until your key tech comes online, drop to buy that time. 2. Drop to force your opponent off a position. If your opponent is heavily sieged up at his third, a drop might be just what you need to pull him away from that base long enough for you to attack it. 3. Take advantage of players skipping defenses against drops. If a Zerg opts to skip muta/inefstor and go straight for hive tech you can take advantage of that by abusing him with drops. The same thing applies to Protoss and Terran, if they are not leaving units at home/turrets/cannons in key spots that are easy to drop then punish them for it. 4. Drop to avoid confrontation. In a lot of situations you're better off not fighting your opponents army straight up, or you don't really want to. In these situations you want to go for drops to try and do damage, these are the times you bring 2medivacs of stuff (typically in a TvP)
Drop Don'ts 1. Don't drop because you have a medivac and can't think of anything else to do with it 2. Don't drop if it puts you in a position where your opponent can just kill you (unless it's a desperation move) 3. Don't doom drop (The only exception to this is in TvT when you doom drop into production with marine/tank/some other rare times)
There's obviously a lot more to dropping then that, but honestly at your level you should really just be focused on making a ton of stuff and walking cross map for the victory.
On April 04 2013 16:04 Serenity12 wrote: Hello there, I am just in Gold currently trying to work my way up the ladder and have a couple simple questions. The first is regarding my macro. I seem to do fine on 2 base (keeping my minerals low and avoiding supply blocks), but when I hit 3 base economy my resources (particularly my minerals) seem to completely skyrocket. What should I be doing to avoid situations like this? Perhaps add in a lot more production facilities? Secondly, should I even really worry about working on my micro such as trying to do multi-prong drops and what not or should I really just focus on perfecting my macro til I reach the higher leagues?
Question #1) This is one of the most difficult things for players in plat and below, and honestly often times in diamond and masters as well. You can easily support 9 Barracks/Factory/Reactored port off those three bases (including mostly reactor addons) so yes, you want to immediately add on production as you take your third. It's even okay to sometimes overmake production. Dont be afraid to have 15+ Barracks on a bio play if you hit four bases that are well saturated. As soon as your scv's hit your third your income will explode, almost like taking two extra bases. The reason for this is you should already have most of your infrastructure for upgrades/tech in place so you won't be spending money on that and in a lot of cases you'll only have three barracks so your production will be way below your income.
Question #2) Do whats fun man, that being said 99% of people that play starcraft do not understand how to drop, where to drop and when to drop. Drop play is much more advanced then "oh I got medivacs, time to drop" and sadly it's the thing people focus on by far the most for terran, especially in pro play.
Drop Do's 1. Drop to buy time. If you're in a situation where your opponent can kill you but a drop might keep him occupied until your key tech comes online, drop to buy that time. 2. Drop to force your opponent off a position. If your opponent is heavily sieged up at his third, a drop might be just what you need to pull him away from that base long enough for you to attack it. 3. Take advantage of players skipping defenses against drops. If a Zerg opts to skip muta/inefstor and go straight for hive tech you can take advantage of that by abusing him with drops. The same thing applies to Protoss and Terran, if they are not leaving units at home/turrets/cannons in key spots that are easy to drop then punish them for it. 4. Drop to avoid confrontation. In a lot of situations you're better off not fighting your opponents army straight up, or you don't really want to. In these situations you want to go for drops to try and do damage, these are the times you bring 2medivacs of stuff (typically in a TvP)
Drop Don'ts 1. Don't drop because you have a medivac and can't think of anything else to do with it 2. Don't drop if it puts you in a position where your opponent can just kill you (unless it's a desperation move) 3. Don't doom drop (The only exception to this is in TvT when you doom drop into production with marine/tank/some other rare times)
There's obviously a lot more to dropping then that, but honestly at your level you should really just be focused on making a ton of stuff and walking cross map for the victory.
Thanks so much for the input. Now I have some good key points to focus on. I definitely am guilty of some of those drop don'ts you listed :p
On April 04 2013 16:04 Serenity12 wrote: Hello there, I am just in Gold currently trying to work my way up the ladder and have a couple simple questions. The first is regarding my macro. I seem to do fine on 2 base (keeping my minerals low and avoiding supply blocks), but when I hit 3 base economy my resources (particularly my minerals) seem to completely skyrocket. What should I be doing to avoid situations like this? Perhaps add in a lot more production facilities? Secondly, should I even really worry about working on my micro such as trying to do multi-prong drops and what not or should I really just focus on perfecting my macro til I reach the higher leagues?
When your minerals go up you can add more barracks and factories. You also throw down more command centers, you don't have to move them to take a 4th, until you feel like you can safely do it, but you can use them to produce scvs, mules and scans. The way I have cut down on supply blocks is constantly having at least one-two workers building depots until I reach 200 limit. As soon as that worker is appears idle or i check and he is nearly done i throw down another depot. The thing with drops is that you can't really just drop. Your best option to pull of a drop is to load a medivac out and que it up to go to the main of the enemy, while your army pushes the natural/3rd base. If he chooses to fight your main army, your drop will do dmg, if he chooses to deal with the drop you can nuke the 3rd and go home. The key is try to support the drop with army movements in the front to draw eyes away from the drop.
On April 04 2013 16:04 Serenity12 wrote: Hello there, I am just in Gold currently trying to work my way up the ladder and have a couple simple questions. The first is regarding my macro. I seem to do fine on 2 base (keeping my minerals low and avoiding supply blocks), but when I hit 3 base economy my resources (particularly my minerals) seem to completely skyrocket. What should I be doing to avoid situations like this? Perhaps add in a lot more production facilities? Secondly, should I even really worry about working on my micro such as trying to do multi-prong drops and what not or should I really just focus on perfecting my macro til I reach the higher leagues?
Question #1) This is one of the most difficult things for players in plat and below, and honestly often times in diamond and masters as well. You can easily support 9 Barracks/Factory/Reactored port off those three bases (including mostly reactor addons) so yes, you want to immediately add on production as you take your third. It's even okay to sometimes overmake production. Dont be afraid to have 15+ Barracks on a bio play if you hit four bases that are well saturated. As soon as your scv's hit your third your income will explode, almost like taking two extra bases. The reason for this is you should already have most of your infrastructure for upgrades/tech in place so you won't be spending money on that and in a lot of cases you'll only have three barracks so your production will be way below your income.
Question #2) Do whats fun man, that being said 99% of people that play starcraft do not understand how to drop, where to drop and when to drop. Drop play is much more advanced then "oh I got medivacs, time to drop" and sadly it's the thing people focus on by far the most for terran, especially in pro play.
Drop Do's 1. Drop to buy time. If you're in a situation where your opponent can kill you but a drop might keep him occupied until your key tech comes online, drop to buy that time. 2. Drop to force your opponent off a position. If your opponent is heavily sieged up at his third, a drop might be just what you need to pull him away from that base long enough for you to attack it. 3. Take advantage of players skipping defenses against drops. If a Zerg opts to skip muta/inefstor and go straight for hive tech you can take advantage of that by abusing him with drops. The same thing applies to Protoss and Terran, if they are not leaving units at home/turrets/cannons in key spots that are easy to drop then punish them for it. 4. Drop to avoid confrontation. In a lot of situations you're better off not fighting your opponents army straight up, or you don't really want to. In these situations you want to go for drops to try and do damage, these are the times you bring 2medivacs of stuff (typically in a TvP)
Drop Don'ts 1. Don't drop because you have a medivac and can't think of anything else to do with it 2. Don't drop if it puts you in a position where your opponent can just kill you (unless it's a desperation move) 3. Don't doom drop (The only exception to this is in TvT when you doom drop into production with marine/tank/some other rare times)
There's obviously a lot more to dropping then that, but honestly at your level you should really just be focused on making a ton of stuff and walking cross map for the victory.
Thanks so much for the input. Now I have some good key points to focus on. I definitely am guilty of some of those drop don'ts you listed :p
General rule is that your first drop should allways be a vikingdrop (4 in penguinmode), just to brake the ice for a couzy game!
How to play TvT bio vs mech, or should i say bio-tank vs mech?
It seems like mech is incredibly strong especially with their free siege mode and 100 minerals hell bats. Obviously drops should be good, but the mech player can just make turrets and vikings making these drops a gamble.
Mech trumps Bio-Tank pretty badly. If you see he is going mech I'd stop tank production. As for how to play against it with bio you basically need to constantly be dropping his bases. Your army pretty much always has to be near your opponent's base. That is because once the mech'er moves out you need to stim in, pick off some stuff and run away before the tanks fully enter siege mode. Run away a bit. Rinse and repeat while keeping the drops going.
Also flanking is very powerful in bio vs mech since his hellion/bats are good damage sponges and the tanks are the real threat. So if you do your constant annoying pokes you can generally know where his main tank force is at so you can flank it when you know he's re-positioning his tanks.
On April 05 2013 02:45 Tenks wrote: Mech trumps Bio-Tank pretty badly. If you see he is going mech I'd stop tank production. As for how to play against it with bio you basically need to constantly be dropping his bases. Your army pretty much always has to be near your opponent's base. That is because once the mech'er moves out you need to stim in, pick off some stuff and run away before the tanks fully enter siege mode. Run away a bit. Rinse and repeat while keeping the drops going.
Also flanking is very powerful in bio vs mech since his hellion/bats are good damage sponges and the tanks are the real threat. So if you do your constant annoying pokes you can generally know where his main tank force is at so you can flank it when you know he's re-positioning his tanks.
you can do tanks against a mech player because if you want to truly challenge the mech player, you have to have tanks to prevent his shove forwards. you use your bio to try and snipe his tanks and get better positioning on him(the way you would in a bio-tank vs bio-tank) (see http://www.gomtv.net/2013gsls1/vod/71469 Taeja vs Dream on Entombed Valley if you have the pass OR Polt vs Bomber Game 3 on Daybreak)
sorry about video, I cant get it to not do that...
Hey guys I am having MAJOR troubles in TvT (I have a 14% win rating). I don't like going tanks, as I hate tank line stalemates. Is there any way to play a more active TvT? I do like siege tanks its just sitting for 45+ minute games with either player too scared to engage is so boring and I would love to actually play the game more in TvT. I end up getting impatient and moving forward and losing everything. How should I change my TvT to be more active with tanks (or other units?).
Have people forgot that you could reactor hellions out of a factory in TvP? I'm still not up to my MMR as I'm not losing any points for losses yet....but I think I've lost 1 TvP lately opening gas first or 13 gas reactor hellions into FE and standard bio/medic play.
I do it mostly on large maps, korhal, newkirk, and whirlwind but fuck is it easy and makes for some fast cheesy games if you like that. I'm at like 740? points masters, so still low/mid masters but they just aren't stopping it. The 2 stalker/msc or zeal/stalker/msc poke costs them by having no units at home, and a sentry not ready yet.
Anyone else toying with such a build? Would love to get this opening a bit tighter, and more dirty. I'm more than positive it's just bad protoss players that can't scout or defend a non standard opening.
On April 05 2013 08:38 Kezzer wrote: Hey guys I am having MAJOR troubles in TvT (I have a 14% win rating). I don't like going tanks, as I hate tank line stalemates. Is there any way to play a more active TvT? I do like siege tanks its just sitting for 45+ minute games with either player too scared to engage is so boring and I would love to actually play the game more in TvT. I end up getting impatient and moving forward and losing everything. How should I change my TvT to be more active with tanks (or other units?).
Try that 4 hellbat 2 medivac drop thread. Sounds hellbat drop. It's fun. I do it, and go into bio afterwards. Most people go into mech. It's flexible, and punishes some openings with proper boost and drop micro.
hey, im looking for some updated replay (packs preferably) of all terran matchups to learn some general all around builds. replays from a korean tournament would be awesome but i heard they dont release MLG replays anymore, anyone know where i can find a replay pack?
is 1 marine tech lab + 2nd rax viable against defending double 8 proxy reaper? i could defend the first reaper with marine+scv and had maurauder when he had 3 reaper. i had no clue how to react so i just did that, dont know if it works against better people tho.
On April 05 2013 08:38 Kezzer wrote: Hey guys I am having MAJOR troubles in TvT (I have a 14% win rating). I don't like going tanks, as I hate tank line stalemates. Is there any way to play a more active TvT? I do like siege tanks its just sitting for 45+ minute games with either player too scared to engage is so boring and I would love to actually play the game more in TvT. I end up getting impatient and moving forward and losing everything. How should I change my TvT to be more active with tanks (or other units?).
tvt is my best matchup in going bio only vs mech. you unfortunately cant skip tanks if your opponent plays marine/tank (you can try but unless you dont majorly outplay him ull lose). bio vs mech and marine/tank vs marine/tank is NEVER boring. its by far the best matchup in my eyes.
Hey, i'm a newly promoted diamond player looking for advice in tvp, especially vs the new standard heavy teching toss that rushes templar, double ups, and prevents drops. My micro seems to be one of the biggest problems with the matchup as i have trouble splitting my army, dodging storms, and microing ghosts. Here's the Replay. In this game I stay ahead in ups and bases but still get rolled due to poor micro, let me know what I can improve on please.
On April 05 2013 08:38 Kezzer wrote: Hey guys I am having MAJOR troubles in TvT (I have a 14% win rating). I don't like going tanks, as I hate tank line stalemates. Is there any way to play a more active TvT? I do like siege tanks its just sitting for 45+ minute games with either player too scared to engage is so boring and I would love to actually play the game more in TvT. I end up getting impatient and moving forward and losing everything. How should I change my TvT to be more active with tanks (or other units?).
Just hit him around the 8/9 minute mark with a descent 1base push (no drop) (1/1/1 or 2/1/1 etc). A 8/9 minute push of 1 base will punish any early expanding T or P player (mech players need gas so they will mostly expand early). Be sure your pushing early enough to punish him and to mix 1 raven in the composition against T with a couple of scv's on repair.
Some mech players will also 1/1/1 and then expand. They will hellbat/widowminedrop u when u move out. Vikings can defend hellbats drops (because air/ground mode and they have armour).
On April 05 2013 12:37 teddyoojo wrote: is 1 marine tech lab + 2nd rax viable against defending double 8 proxy reaper? i could defend the first reaper with marine+scv and had maurauder when he had 3 reaper. i had no clue how to react so i just did that, dont know if it works against better people tho.
Sounds risky to me, with proper micro a reaper should damage both your units, escape and regen then come back to finish your initial marine, then with downtime with TL and rax building he could cause some damage. Could even focus down scv building 2nd rax to be a pain.
So far in TvT I have just been pumping constant marines off initial barracks as in most cases you should have more marines then they have reapers due to cost and build time. Make sure you're positioning then at likely reaper access areas and try to micro well as the reaper will try to run away and heal and we don't want that
EPT
