Have Some Builds

Hello and welcome to Have Some Builds! The game’s been out for a few of weeks now, and people have been searching for a hub for general builds. This should be a good start, with most of these builds coming from professional players and tournaments. By no means are these the end all of builds, but rather a starter pack for people to use on the ladder. We tried to include at least 1 build per matchup. If you have any suggestions for future builds, let us know in the comments and we’ll get onto researching them. The game is still in its early stages and most of the meta is barely figured out, so hopefully people can use these builds and tweak them to their benefit. Have fun with them!

Terran

Quick 1 base hellion/banshee vs. All

• 14 supply
  
• 15 gas
  
• 16 barracks
  
• 19 orbital
  
• 19 factory
  
• 19 marine
  
• 20 gas
  
• 20 supply
  
• 20 reactor on barracks
  
• 22 starport
  
• Swap factory onto reactor, 2x hellion production
  
• 28 tech lab on barracks
  
• 34 cloak
  
• 34 banshee
  
• CC after 6 hellions/2 banshees

The only real purpose behind this build is to churn out as many early hellions and banshees as possible. It has little defense in the early game (1 marine) and gets the reactor out as soon as possible for double hellion production when the factory finishes. Scout with an SCV early enough to see if you can risk the early reactor. Once your hellion production starts, you should be safe from most aggression.

Start the starport and the tech lab on the barracks. We know this part all too well from HotS, and the gas timings even line up for cloak and a banshee when the swap happens. From here you should have the army advantage, and you can start your hellion/banshee assault. Behind this, you can start your second command center to start your economy.


2 reapers, 2 hellions into cloaked banshees vs. Terran

• 14 depot
  
• 14 gas
  
• 16 barracks (2x reaper)
  
• 17 gas
  
• 19 orbital command
  
• 20 factory
  
• 23 hellion
  
• 25 starport
  
• @ reaper #2 complete, barracks techlab
  
• @ tech lab complete, swap starport add-on, banshee + cloak, reactor barracks, widow mine
  
• 36 depot
  
• cut SCVs
  
• @ 3:40, command center
  
• resume SCV production
  
• 42 siege tank

The all popular 2 reaper, 2 hellion opening in TvT. With the added grenade feature on reapers, this makes them have much more utility in the early game and you can get a little bit more damage done with this opening compared to HotS. With the early units, this has built in anti-cheese features against 2 rax reaper. Follow this up with cloaked banshees for extra harassment, and behind all of the aggression you can take your natural base.




TY Cyclone opener vs. Terran


Initial opening:

• 14 supply depot
  
• 16 barracks
  
• 19 command center
  
• 20 orbital
  
• 20 supply depot
  
• 20 2x gas
  
• 26 orbital #2
  
• @ 100 gas, factory
  
• @ 50 gas, reactor on barracks
  

When the barracks completes, you want to rally the worker across the map to see what the opponent is doing.

Against a macro opponent

• @ 100% factory, tech lab
  
• 32 CC #3
  
• @ 100% tech lab, tank
  
• @ 300 minerals, 2 barracks, tech lab on barracks #1
  
• @ 100% tank, cyclone
  
• @ 250 minerals, 2 engineering bays
  
• @ 100%, tech lab, stim
  
• Starport
  
• @ 100% engineering bays, 1/1
  
• Add natural gasses
  
• @ 100% barracks, add 1 reactor, take over first reactor with barracks 2
  
• @ 100% starport, reactor
  
• Resume tank production, add armory, research combat shields, pause medivacs
  
• 2x barracks (2 reactors)
  
• Start 2/2
  
• Add second factory, @ 100% factory, tech lab
  
• +1 vehicle weapons
  
• Continue the macro, upgrades, sensor towers, etc. Drop, attack, do tvt things.
  

If the opponent isn’t going for something like a fast banshee, you can be greedy as well. The cyclone is primarily to defend against medivac or banshee harass. In a couple of games, TY delayed his CC and opted for a faster starport in order to do a quick tank drop, but it never really accomplished a lot. Other than that, this stage of the game is very similar to HotS with a few changes. Sensor towers in your bases are much more important because large drops are much stronger in LotV thanks to the ability to pick up sieged tanks. Also, when you move across the map, you always want to have your tanks sieged in medivacs so you can drop them and have them in the fight immediately. While the pace is faster and the risk higher, the concepts behind HotS marine/tank and LotV marine/tank are very similar.


Against an aggressive opponent

• Faster port/engineering bays/turrets vs 1 base cloaked banshee
  
• @ 100% factory, tech lab/starport/engineering bay
  
• @ 100% tech lab, cyclone
  
• @ 100% engineering bay, turrets in mineral lines
  
• @ 100% starport, tech lab
  
• @ 100% tech lab, raven
  
• Start tank production
  
• Add 1 viking for banshee defense
  
• 3rd CC

Against an aggressive opponent, you’re going to have to adapt to what they’re doing. This is an example of what TY did against a cloaked banshee opener. The defensive cyclone can help defend against hellions and is very effective against banshees. Once the threat of aggression is gone, you can return to the same idea from the more macro oriented opening by adding your 3rd CC, additional barracks, a second engineering bay, and so on.


Reaper expand into cloak banshee vs Zerg

• 14 depot
  
• 15 barracks
  
• 16 refinery
  
• 19 reaper
  
• 20 orbital
  
• 20 command center
  
• 21 reactor (2 marines)
  
• 22 factory
  
• 26 orbital
  
• 27 refinery
  
• Swap factory onto reactor
  
• 27 starport
  
• 28 tech lab on barracks
  
• 2x hellion production
  
• 41 cloak
  
• 41 banshee

The defacto hellion/banshee opening from HotS. All the similarities are there – reaper scout, expansion shortly after, reactor to follow it up, immediate hellion production, and the cloak banshees at the end. The playstyle is the same too: scout with the reaper, wall up your natural base, and execute the hellion/banshee attack.

One thing you’ll notice is you’ll have a higher mineral income compared to HotS. This will give you extra spending money towards an earlier third, or extra production facilities earlier on. It’s very situational; depending on what you scout, you might want to have the extra production facilities to hold off any potential aggression, or if you scout an early third base, you can drop one yourself.

There are early vulnerabilities in this build in the form of nydus plays and roach busts. Keeping the initial reaper alive is crucial for scouting purposes; you need to know what is coming at potential attack timings to react accordingly. Prioritize keeping the reaper alive and scouting what could be coming over getting drone/ling kills. If there is an early third base and drone production, you can focus on getting damage done with the hellion/banshee push, and if you scout a lair on the way and two base, you can assume that an attack is coming either from a nydus worm, or a roach/ravager push. In the latter case, you’ll want to keep the banshee at home to defend the attack.



Got Freedom? CC First Bio/Liberator vs. Protoss

• 14 supply depot
  
• 17 command center
  
• 18 barracks (at ramp)
  
• 19 barracks (at ramp)
  
• 21 barracks
  
• 22 orbital #1
  
• 23 orbital #2
  
• 26 2x gas
  
• 29 supply depot then supply depots as necessary
  
• ~30-35 bunker if no in base natural or if the Protoss is being aggressive
  
• @25 gas tech lab
  
• @Tech lab ttim
  
• @ 100 gas factory, refinery, and engineering bay in that order as minerals are available
  
• Start marauder production
  
• @ 100% factory, starport and reactor on factory, 4th gas
  
• +1 infantry weapons
  
• Add reactor/tech lab the other two barracks
  
• 3rd CC at 400 minerals.
  
• 2 medivacs then 2 liberators
  
• Combat shields
  
• 2 more barracks
  
• Concussive Shells/+1 Armor
  
• 2 more medivacs and more liberators
  
• Push with 1/1 and 4 liberators
  
• Add armory for +2 weapons
  
• Rally liberators forward.
  
• From this point continue with upgrades, add an additional 2 barracks and a reactor starport port. Your 6 barracks should have 3 tech labs and 3 reactors.

It has yet to be seen if CC first is indeed safe against Protoss as a standard build, but on maps with in base naturals it’s probably okay. Both Bomber and Byun leaned towards CC first on maps with in base naturals. The overall point of this build is to basically survive until you have liberators. At this point your defensive and offensive strength increases significantly.

Early Game

You'll get a quick 3 barracks to produce enough units to defend against Protoss aggression and to poke later on in the early game. Bomber, in true Bomber fashion, doesn’t really scout, but Byun scouts with his 18th worker. Your first two barracks should be placed at your main ramp, so that adepts can’t make their way in. Barracks are also pretty beefy so you'll only have one potential weak point in your wall against adepts before you have enough marines to push them away. With 3 barracks pumping marines, you’re going to have enough to defend against things like oracle harass as well. If Protoss is doing something on one base or a proxy stargate or something of that nature, you won’t be able to just follow the build order. Changes and reactions will have to be made, like an earlier engineering bay for example.

Mid Game

Thanks to decreased marauder strength, the effectiveness of adepts against marines, the energy cost of photon overcharge, and the risk of adept/warp prisms, premedivac pushouts in the hots style are weakened. So Bomber and Byun pretty much stay home until at least medivacs are out. Building the second and third barracks addons relatively late allows your money to climb up to build your third base. Byun leans towards a more hotslike drop harass mid game, but Bomber just wants to have a big engagement. You can do whichever style you prefer. In the meantime you need to be vigilant about warp prisms coming into your base with adepts and killing SCVs, especially as you’re pushing out. On maps with an in base natural, building depots between the main and natural may be beneficial in shutting down adepts transferring from one base to the other with their shades, just like a map without an in base natural. One of the benefits of getting liberators is that liberators are faster than unupgraded warp prisms. This was a weakness of the viking, even if you found the warp prism, you couldn’t catch it. From this point forward you have to balance medivac and liberator production. You want a lot of liberators, but you need to make sure you have enough medivacs to heal your army, so replace them as they’re lost.

As you move across the map, you need to be mindful of your liberators. They’re very fast and you don’t want them to get killed as they are extremely important in your push. When you siege the enemy, you want your army to cover for the liberators and also for the liberators to cover each other. Don’t get too overeager pushing liberators forward just to lose them. Slow and methodical is the way to go. You’re probably going to be dancing in, out, and around the circles as you engage the Protoss army. Disruptor shots will zone your ground army, blink stalkers will try to take out your liberators, and colossus will shoot your army from outside liberator zones. You also have to pay attention to pylon placement as you move liberators forward because they can’t shoot the pylons.

Late Game

The late game production is 6 barracks, a factory, and 2 reactor starports. Expansions will need to be taken as bases mine out. Liberators are very effective at helping defend those expansions and they remain an important part of the army for the remainder of the game. Their range upgrade is buried behind the fusion core and you will have to take a starport off of a reactor and research it. You don’t need to worry about rushing to it, but you’re going to want it eventually, especially as templar enter the field. Ghosts can be added on later, especially against high templars with storm. Both sides can be wiped out by one bad engagement, so you need to keep tabs on the Protoss army and your positioning.


Widow mine drop vs Protoss

• 14 depot
  
• 16 barracks
  
• 16 gas
  
• 19 reactor
  
• 19 command center
  
• 20 factory
  
• 2x marines
  
• 30 widow mine
  
• 32 starport
  
• 34 gas
  
• 38 widow mine (tech lab when done)
  
• 44 medivac (tech lab when done)
  
• 48 barracks
  
• 50 barracks
  
• Gas 3/4 after starting stim/combat shields
  
• 2x ebays after gas 3/4 complete

A throwback to the classic widow mine drop in TvP. It’s interesting to note that this build skips the standard reaper in favor of an earlier reactor. An SCV scout essentially serves the same purpose as you can see their gas and expansion timings, but you won’t be able to scout proxy locations around your base. You also get earlier marines that can be used to defend against the earliest possible oracles, and any 2 gate adept pressure.

This build stops at a single medivac and two widow mines, but you can make another medivac and widow mine before the tech labs. This will still nicely line up with your second and third barracks finishing, and you’ll have enough gas to start both stim packs and combat shields immediately. It’s stylistic really, if you’re good at multitasking you can go ahead and get two medivacs out for two-pronged pressure, and if not you can start earlier bio upgrades. Start the third and fourth gas after stim/combat shields is started, and when those two gas complete, start your two ebays. You’ll have another 200 gas to start your +1/+1.

There are vulnerabilities in this build in the form of warp prism + adept pressure. Marines are terrible against adepts, and those are pretty much the only units you’ll have to defend. Diligence must be had when scouting with the SCV, as you can react with a cyclone to start rather than instant widow mine production. Offensively, you’ll want to load up your widow mines into the medivac first, followed by the marines, so you can drop the payoff units first. Be very careful of pylon positioning around the mineral lines, and try to stay out of range of the pylons, or pull back until the overcharge wears off.

Zerg

2 base Ravager/Ling all in vs. Terran

• 13 overlord
  
• 17 hatch
  
• 18 gas
  
• 17 pool
  
• 19 overlord
  
• 2 queen + 6 lings
  
• speed (leave 3 drones in gas)
  
• 31 roach warren
  
• 30 overlord
  
• 32 2nd gas
  
• 31 overlord
  
• 33 evolution chamber (for ling drop prior to push)
  
• go up to 8 lings total
  
• 6 roaches
  
• overlord
  
• follow up with lings

Ling drop with the initial lings as soon as possible to keep Terran in their base. You’ll have enough gas for four ravagers at the initial push. Continue to morph in ravagers as gas allows. Some general Terran timings:

• Reaper finishes at 2:00 (30 second travel time)
  
• Second one finishes at 2:30
  
• Tank drop at ~5:00

The 13 overlord, 17 hatch is the standard timings for a fast expand. This will allow you to have lings out when the first reaper arrives at your base and you can delay long enough until your queens are out. After your queens are out, it becomes much harder for the Terran to scout what you are going for. Once your roach warren completes, just start pumping roaches and move out across the map to the Terrans natural base and deny it.

TY vs Solar, on Lerilak Crest Sandisk ShoutCraft Invitational II, Grand Finals



14/14 ling bane all in vs. Zerg

• 14 pool
  
• 14 gas
  
• 14 overlord
  
• @ 100% pool, queen + non-stop lings
  
• @ 100 gas, speed
  
• 22 baneling nest (build from gas drone, leave 2 on gas)
  
• 21 overlord
  

One of the fastest speedling/baneling rushes possible. With this build, all resources are invested into aggression, leaving you nothing to expand with. Consistent injects will keep your minerals low and give you constant stream of reinforcing lings to attack the enemy with. As soon as your baneling nest finishes, you’ll want to start morphing in as many as gas will allow just outside of their natural as to keep them out of range of queens. Once they are done morphing, the ol’ ling/baneling wars will commence. Even if they pool before hatch, chances are you’ll have an overwhelming amount of zerglings and you can slowly chip away at their queen and zergling count.

Snute vs iA GPL International Challenge



Early pool into proxy hatch ravager all in vs. Protoss

• 12 pool
  
• send drone scout while making 14th drone
  
• 14 overlord
  
• send 2nd drone when overlord pop if 4p map
  
• @ 100% pool, 10 lings + queen
  
• 21 supply proxy hatch
  
• creep tumor with queen and walk it across map
  
• 22 overlord
  
• 22 gas
  
• 21 roach warren
  
• 2 more drones
  
• roach warren done → add 2nd gas
  
• 26 overlrod
  
• roaches, ravagers, queens, from proxy hatch as resources allows

This is a bit of a cheesy strategy, but it works. Again, aggression is the option with the new ravager unit. Take the earliest possible pool (12) and immediately make 10 lings to pressure the Protoss wall. Even going gate/core first, they’ll have a difficult time holding the wall and mothership core won’t be out in time to hold the first set of lings. Prioritize pylons powering gateways first, then probes. After their mothership core is out, the first phase of aggression is over. The next phase will come when your roaches are coming out. Be mindful of not overspending gas on roaches as you’ll need gas for ravagers. Once your ravagers are finished, you can use the first overlord as vision up the ramp and you can start bombarding their wall again with corrosive bile. The first queen that you made will be with this push and can provide transfuse to your ravagers.

Moosegills vs Hachico, on Prion Terraces

Protoss

Safe fast expand into blink/robo/disruptor with fast 3rd base vs. Terran

• 14 pylon
  
• 16 gate (probe scout is optional)
  
• 16 gas
  
• 20 nexus (stop worker production)
  
• 20 cybernetics core (resume worker production)
  
• 21 gas
  
• 22 pylon
  
• 25 mothership core
  
• 27 adept
  
• 27 warpgate
  
• 31 adept
  
• 32 robotics facility
  
• 38 adept
  
• 39 pylon
  
• 45 adept (4 adepts in total to defend)
  
• 46 observer (send to scout)
  
• 48 pylon (stop worker production)
  
• 48 double gateway
  
• 48 twilight council (resume worker production)
  
• 50 double gas natural
  
• @ 100% observer, start 2nd observer (send outside your 3rd for map vision)
  
• @ 100% twilight council, start blink with chronoboost
  
• @ 100% 2nd observer, start immortal with chronoboost
  
• @ 100% warptech , warp in 1-2 sentries.
  
• 5:15-5:30 3rd nexus.

This build allows you to take a 100% safe 3rd base into blink/disruptor while defending Terran aggression. After dropping the third nexus, you must scout the Terran base to determine if you are safe or not. If you are safe from early aggression, make a fast single/double forge and a disruptor. If there are signs of aggression coming (finished starport, no 3rd CC, no engineering bays, bio pushout), warp in units to defend, preferably blink stalkers and delay your disruptor production. Make observers to spot incoming drops and from here transition into a stalker/disruptor combo.


Safe Gateway Expand Adept pressure into tech vs. Zerg

• 14 pylon
  
• 16 gate (scout)
  
• 18 nexus (stop worker production)
  
• 18 cybernetics core
  
• 18 double gas (resume worker production)
  
• 21 pylon
  
• scouting probe: early aggression? Chronoboost zealot
  
• @50 gas, chronoboost warptech
  
• 25 mothership core
  
• 27 adept (chronoboosted) (optional: stalker to deny overlord scouting.)
  
• 30 pylon
  
• 34 2nd adept
  
• 34 add 3 gateways (in wall)
  
• 38 3rd adept
  
• 39 tech (stargate, twilight or robo)
  
• 44: 4th adept
  
• @4:00: warp In 4 adepts at home (or proxy pylon), 8 total and attack with psionic transfer.
  

This basic build aims to slow down the Zerg economy while having a lot of versatility in the back, allowing you to tech into any option. Initially, you start with a gateway expand to stay relatively safe against any early pools, and if there are early lings on the way you can chronoboost a zealot for defense. From here you’ll slowly trickle out adepts and aim for an 8 adept attack right after your 4 gates finish. This will force out units instead of drones from the Zerg, while you can continue to produce probes, take a third base, and keep your tech choice open. Depending on what you scout, you’ll want to take either of these three:

• Robotics facility will aim to get out disruptors quickly to deal with roach/hydra/viper. Be cautious about fast mutalisk builds. A warp prism or a sentry at any time in this build can help you scout for this.
  
  
• A twilight council can go for blink or dark shrine. If you want to play for lategame, both disruptor and blink should be a part of your game plan.
  
  
• It is also possible to transition into stargate for oracles for more harassment, or phoenix to help against mutalisks.

Nexus first into double adept pressure/scout with safe robo vs. Protoss

• 14 pylon
  
• @ 16 supply, stop worker production
  
• 16 nexus
  
• 16 gate (resume worker production)
  
• 18 double gas
  
• 21 2nd gateway
  
• 21 pylon
  
• 22 cybernetics core
  
• 31 adept (chronoboosted)
  
• 33 adept (chronoboosted)
  
• 33 warpgate
  
• @ 100% adept, go back to chronoboosting both nexus
  
• 36 mothership core
  
• 39 stalker
  
• 41 stalker
  
• 42 pylon
  
• 44 robotoics facility
  
• 49 stalker
  
• 51 stalker
  
• @ 100% robotics facility, observer
  
• 51/54 pylon
  
• 52/54 3/4 gas
  
• 5:00 twilight council
  
• @ 100% twilight council, blink.
  

This build can kill some probes early while being safe versus dark templars. It is also safe versus air. Quickly get two adepts out and try to get some probe kills with them. Once these are finished, start stalker production and your robotics facility. The adepts should keep them on the defense while you slowly build up your stalker/disruptor composition.