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Poll: Bunker or MarinesBunker (63) 88% Marines (9) 13% 72 total votes Your vote: Bunker or Marines (Vote): Marines
(Vote): Bunker
Hellow,
you have the following scenario:
You play for example in a TvP and you want to push up the Terran's ramp which is protected by 1 Bunker and a couple of marines. You got a zealot, stalker, sentry army.
Do you focus first on the Bunker or do you kill of the marines and kill the Bunker at last?
The bunker is filled with 4 marines. And the terran has no other units around the bunker than marines.
I often, or most of the time, see people and pro player focus first the bunker.
But isn't it more efficient to kill the marines and then the bunker?
Targeting the bunker means you spend 400 damage (+1 armor) and you do not decreases the enemie's army and therefor you dont lower the damage. If you kill instead 8 marines your enemy has a lot less damage. And then you take down the bunker after all other units are down.
One reason, I imagine, is that you want to have the bunker down before any SCVs arrive to repair it. But if we say you can block the SCVs with Forcefields or we leave this aspect entirely out.
Focus on the Bunker or focus the marines?
I talked about this with some friends and most of them said, they would focus the bunker first instead of the marines, but they could not really give me an adequate reason.
In my oppionen you simply lose 400 damage accomplishing nothing but destroying 100 minerals. Compared to 8 marines not realy worth it.
But lots of pro players aim for the bunker.
Can someone give me a good reason why it is so?
And what do you guys do? Focus marines or bunker?
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Well, I'm definitely not a pro (just masters) and this might belong in strategy rather than general. An important part of focusing the bunker is that typically you're attacking with a large portion of your army as zealots. The bunkers tend to mess with zealot AI in that they focus the bunker anyway. If you wanted to target individual marines, you would have to only do it with stalkers because zealots would run around being useless and end up back on the bunker anyway. Long story short they focus the bunker so they don't have half their army hitting a repairing bunker and half shooting marines.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
You target the bunker because you want to kill it before the scvs get in position to repair.
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Of course it is more efficient to kill the marines in the open, but the reason is exactly the one you chose to omit - that by targeting the marines SCVs will have time to come off the line, also, the bunker is a part of the simcity usually, meaning that your zealots can't get surface area on the marines who are standing in the open before it has been destroyed.
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I've actually thought about the same thing and I usually target the units outside the bunker if it's possible, because like you said I start killing units and taking away from the opponents dps right away. The only exception is if I'm actually so all-in I know I have to kill my opponent right then and there I focus the bunkers down before they can pull scvs to repair, because i have to kill them anyway. If I'm only poking to do some damage I focus units and pull out early enough so I've killed more units than I've lost.
EDIT: And of course if the units outside the bunker are well defended behind the bunker or it's otherwise too difficult to target them down then of course target the bunker.
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Im a protoss player and the only reason why i would be troubled with marines is the fact that they can sit their asses in their bunkers. So without the bunkers the marines are especially weak when there are zealots in their faces and they would die off very fast. They have to kite instead of just standing there and shoot.
Another point is, marines not in the bunkers hide behind them so when zealots try to squeeze in between 2 bunkers they would have less surface area to attack those marines. So by killing the bunkers first you get a larger surface area to deal with the marines. In addition to this point if the zealots try to move to the back of the bunkers to kill the marines not in the bunkers, they can move backwards while the bunkers continuously deal damage to my army.
Another thing about killing bunkers is you can always kill the bunkers then retreat temporarily and regather a larger army, let zealot shields regen a little and push up again.
All in all killing the terran army becomes much more efficient once the bunkers are down, which mostly takes around 5 seconds to do so. But in the case where the bunkers do not go down because of scvs repairing them it becomes very disadvantageous to the protoss player, so thats where force fields come into play, where you block off those scvs.
Hope my explanation was somewhat accurate and helped you.
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Like you said, you want to rush down the bunker first not because it's technically more cost-efficient, but because you want to kill it before the scv's can get there to help repair it, which in itself would reduce your cost-effiency even further than the simple fact that you're targeting the bunker first. Force Fields are merely the failsafe.
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Isnt it because you need a large ammount of firepower to be able to kill the bunker. If you attack it last, a lot of your units will be dead and it will be difficult to destroy the bunker.
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On March 19 2012 21:12 T.O.P. wrote:
You target the bunker because you want to kill it before the scvs get in position to repair.
Basically this. Although I suppose if you play toss you can always forcefield around it to 1). Prevent repair and 2). Stop the marines from kiting once the bunker goes down
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On March 19 2012 21:38 FlaminGinjaNinja wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2012 21:12 T.O.P. wrote:
You target the bunker because you want to kill it before the scvs get in position to repair. Basically this. Although I suppose if you play toss you can always forcefield around it to 1). Prevent repair and 2). Stop the marines from kiting once the bunker goes down
Often your zealots (which are your primary both tanks and damage dealers) will either be kited, prevented from progressing because of walls on top of this. Once you get down the bunker marines (without stim) are pretty weak against a gateway mix.
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Just my 2 cents, but doesnt it depend on the position of them? Im just a gold level player (and on a losing streak might i add) but if the bunker is up front and the marines are either beside or behind it, then you forcefeild them back and concentrate the bunker, giving you the advantage. then you can back up and reattack after sheild are back up. or if the marines are in front of the bunker (ive seen it done lol) then you forcefeild them forward, then concentrate them down without the bunker in the way. then back up and re attack the bunker, and forcefeild the scvs away. Maybe im over estimating the number of sentries here.
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On March 19 2012 21:12 T.O.P. wrote:
You target the bunker because you want to kill it before the scvs get in position to repair.
This + the fact that you have most units in the start of your fight = bunker goes down faster then it would after you've killed off 8 marines.
Your thoughtprocess is good though, just apply it more towards unit-only based scenarios.
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Another reason is the fact that at the beginning of your attack you have more firepower to kill the bunker. That means you are more efficient because you spend less time on killing something that isn't units. If you were to focus the bunker after killing marines you might have lost some units and hence have less firepower. That means you spend more time trying to get the bunker down and will take more damage from it which will increase the efficiency of the bunker.
This is just one aspect though. The other ones mentioned like surface area and the fact that marines can micro back and you will have to funnel through a bunker to follow and kill them, repairing SCV's, etc. are all factors in that decision as well.
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Zealot attacks will be wasted on bunker if not focused becuase SCVs will come and repair them, in the end it is actually less efficient to attack the marines at the back.
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If you did attack the marines first the enemy could simply micro them back which would then lead to you having to focus the bunker down anyways.
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You kill the bunker first because the Terran forces you to.
Your logic is solid, and that is the very reason why spare marines are being positioned behind (or in some cases next to) the bunker. With a bunker in front and marines behind, the T will force the P to start with the bunker, thus "wasting" 400 damage. If a T would prefer you to kill his marines first, he'd place the marines in front of the bunker to have the marines "protecting" it. But obviously thats not a good idea.
The P simply has to follow suit, since the T has the power to position his units/bunkers as he wish. If the P really wants to break through, hes gonna have to live with doing the bunker first and doing the fight on the Ts terms.
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First, without the bunker you'd usually be able to roll over the army... So, you eliminate the bunker and warp in reinforcements to make up for the units you lost in the fight (maybe pull back to regen shields) and are now able roll the defending army without bunkers.
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It depends, if you are not trying to win/do a ton of damage right then and there, I'd say go for the marines, as it is ensured damage and removes enemy resources from the game permanently right then and there. However, if you want to break the defensive position of the Terran, you must ignore the few marines and go for the bunker. If you are wanting to push, you must break the bunker fast before the SCVs can come to repair it, making it more cost-efficient for you. However, if you are 100% confident there are no SCVs around, and you still want to push, it is better going for the marines first, by eliminating these units, you immediately eliminate enemy DPS being dealt against you, making your time spent killing the bunker less painful for your units.
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Marines also get range in a bunker if I'm not mistaken, so Bunker is definitely the target to go for.
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i think it depends, i dont have solid number but you can try to do a calculation like how fast your FULL army can kill a bunker then marine, and how fast your army can kill the marine then the REMAINING kill the bunker. then how much dps marine can deal during that time.
also, take into consideration: marine are usually position behind bunker, making it harder for your whole army to attack (zealot need to walk around)
and also, how about your stalker alone dps is not enough to kill marine in 1 shot, they can micro marine-bunker by popping the full health marine from bunker out and push the low health marine into the bunker.
its a lot of calculation and decision, but generally you can see that in many case, targeting bunker is easier since its static, while marine can run away. in such situation where you have to do a lot of stuff, just going by the rule of thumb to attack bunker first is most sensible. unless u can make accurate on-the-fly calculation
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What to target is allways game depending.
If you atack as p a terran and only fight 1 bunker this means you are 1 base allin against an techallin or an early expansion.
In both cases you have to end the game with this attack. You have to kill rines and bunkers and you have an army that can do that or you lost the game already.
So the question is: what to target first, if you are committed and have to kill both NOW.
A) If workers can come to reapair fast : you go with all for the bunker
B) f not (e.g. downramp and ff block the ramp): You go with stalker sentry for the rines and zealots for the bunker.
C) if there is no wall and the bunker is not down ramp you can consider: run by.
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On March 19 2012 21:12 T.O.P. wrote:
You target the bunker because you want to kill it before the scvs get in position to repair.
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The point of a bunker is to tank damage for your marines without letting them be killed. If the marines are available to kill, kill them first.
Thing is, the bunkers are usually placed in front. You'd have to walk up while they shoot you just to get at the other marines. In that common scenario, it's better to isolate the bunkers with force-fields and kill them first.
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You kill the marines first because that will lower their DPS the fastest.
If SCVs come "repair" the bunker it won't matter because the bunker is unhurt. Kill all marines outside the bunker.
When you are done they will have 4 marines in a bunker.
When pros focus down the bunker it is usually because they have used Forcefields to isolate it from the other units.
If you can lands FFs behind the bunkers so all the marines outside the bunker cannot fight then using your whole army vs their 1-3 bunkers is cost efficient.
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The marines will most likely kite-- if you target the marines with your zealots/stalkers, only your stalkers will be shooting the marines while the zealots walk around chasing them. If you target the marines with your stalkers and the bunker with your zealots, you're splitting up dps, and you might not kill the marines anyways if they get behind the bunker and range your stalkers, thus you wasted several shots.
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You need to kill the bunker first. It gets more effective as army sizes get smaller. (This assumes repair of course). The whole idea is you need enough damage to kill it faster than repair.
Burst > Bunker
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I think it depends on your style of pressure. If its an invested 3 gate pressure (lots of sentries) you want to kill that bunker ASAP because you can warp reinforcements that'll be stronger than his reinforcements. Once the bunker is down, the terran is stripped from a lot of tanking and a saving grace to punish a greedy protoss who doesn't runby but try and kill the bunker and SCvs repairing.
If you're doing light pressure off of 3 gates or other types of early pressure before either t or p tech kicks in, you have to decide how much you want to commit to doing damage rather than freaking out the opponent/scouting for army counts to determine infrastructure.
Another situation is if you're setting up an allin/timing, such as going 6/7/8 gate off 2 base with +1, you may want to prioritize army over the bunker so your later attack hits relatively harder.
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as some people here said: when you killed the units outside, you lower the terran dps first and after that the terran has only the units in the bunkers left.
plus: when he has scvs pulled they do absolutely nothing, because the bunkers are not damaged.
you can deal with the bunker and the scvs, when the army outside is gone.
conclusion: you first kill the outside army, then the scvs waiting for repair, while 4 marines shoot at you (haha), and from that point on you have basically won the game.
btw: i made a thread about 1 year ago with the exact same content but got roflstomped from people saying the same things like in this thread, "he will get scvs to repair, you dont have enough units after that to finish the bunker" etc. i am still shocked that even players thinking they're really good are not able to think analytically.
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It would make sense to kill the marines to reduce the overall DPS but as T.O.P. mentioned, you want to kill the bunker before the scvs get there to infinite repair 
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You target down the bunker while you have the units to actually do so. If you kill the marines first, you will lose too many units to later focus it down. Also, if ANYTHING targets the bunker while you're attacking the marines, you are wasting dps. Whereas if you are focusing the bunker but something attacks a marine instead, you aren't wasting anything.
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I think it's kinda easy:
Scenario 1: Sole Bunker, no SimCity. If you try sniping the marines, the Terran can just kite you, while you take lots of damage from the bunker (4 Marines with increased range, who might even stim in the bunker). In theory, if you can snipe a few marines while only taking shield damage on a few zealots/stalkers, I think that would be a goodie, but in reality a good Terran will just deny you that comfort.
Scenario 2: Bunker with surrounding SimCity (i.e. Depots, Rax). Your zealots can only attack the Bunker to begin with. Since you dont want to split up your fire, you focus the Bunker with your entire army. Period.
On March 20 2012 02:05 cari-kira wrote:
as some people here said: when you killed the units outside, you lower the terran dps first and after that the terran has only the units in the bunkers left.
plus: when he has scvs pulled they do absolutely nothing, because the bunkers are not damaged.
you can deal with the bunker and the scvs, when the army outside is gone.
conclusion: you first kill the outside army, then the scvs waiting for repair, while 4 marines shoot at you (haha), and from that point on you have basically won the game.
btw: i made a thread about 1 year ago with the exact same content but got roflstomped from people saying the same things like in this thread, "he will get scvs to repair, you dont have enough units after that to finish the bunker" etc. i am still shocked that even players thinking they're really good are not able to think analytically.
1) SCVs pulled can still tank/block plus he has instant-repair once you start attacking the bunker.
2) Like stated above, the terran is unlikely to let you snipe his Units. Either he has SimCity or he will kite you around his bunker, resulting in free damage for him.
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On March 19 2012 21:12 T.O.P. wrote:
You target the bunker because you want to kill it before the scvs get in position to repair.
This.
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it bothers me to no end to see people attacking a bunker that is mass repaired with their whole army. even pro games used to do this all the time up until a few months ago.
even when it was perfectly possible to just run past they just stood there and lost their whole army for practically nothing.
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On March 20 2012 02:22 willverrecken wrote:
it bothers me to no end to see people attacking a bunker that is mass repaired with their whole army. even pro games used to do this all the time up until a few months ago.
even when it was perfectly possible to just run past they just stood there and lost their whole army for practically nothing.
I think running past a bunker is more of a commitment that attacking a bunker that is mass repaired. You don't really know what could be behind that bunker
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i wish i would meet more people on ladder that want to focus the marines first. But on the other hand bunker placement is often really horrible so it doesn't really matter what you do.
But i agree its important to prevent repair, if the terran gets a repair surround you have a problem. Also marines have a higher range in the bunker, meaning you can't kite with stalkers, without the bunker you can kite with your stalkers again and still do nice damage to the marines and workers, even if you attack didn't go to well.
Personally i like that the sentry push got more popular again, since you can play alot of mind games with bunkers baiting your opponent to do big mistakes. Just hope taking immortals along with you will stay unpopular heh.
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If you can't break through with him having repaired the bunker, target the bunker before SCVs get there. If you can roll him pretty easily then just a-move and kill loose units to mitigate some overall damage. Of course the second option wouldn't happen unless he either didn't scout the attack, is bad, or you're already ahead, so yeah, target the bunker for the most part.
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On March 20 2012 02:24 MaV_gGSC wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 02:22 willverrecken wrote:
it bothers me to no end to see people attacking a bunker that is mass repaired with their whole army. even pro games used to do this all the time up until a few months ago.
even when it was perfectly possible to just run past they just stood there and lost their whole army for practically nothing. I think running past a bunker is more of a commitment that attacking a bunker that is mass repaired. You don't really know what could be behind that bunker
but you have to know if there can be anything threatening behind that bunker otherwise you wouldn't be attacking in the first place. the only times you should be attacking terran is when you know he can't possibly have many units/tech.
if you don't know that then why are you attacking anyway?
you shouldn't just randomly attack just cause you're bored.
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Thats silly bunker = lifeline of terran
Kill all bunkers and eliminate army fast gg. As a terran player I do w.e. I can to keep my bunkers alive..
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EPT
