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We've been seeing alot of Terran FE in this matchup which I like a lot as I believe that is Terran's strongest response to the Zerg FE.
After that the Terran's transition to a 3-rax, 1-fact, marine/tank build. Even in the games that the Terran won, I feel that they were really walking a tightrope where 1 mistake could cost them their army. Thus, I don't really like this build that much.
One thing I saw that was nice is the 1 banshee play (e.g. Loner), and I think we'll see a lot of Terrans make at least one. I feel that Terrans can maybe build even more, for they do very well against roach. What do people think of a thor/marine/banshee (and maybe helion) build?
I feel that this build is stronger against muta play? If the Zerg goes roach heavy, maybe add in more banshee?
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marine/tank/raven is great but as you said, it's very risky/difficult to execute correctly. One FG -> baneling or baneling surround and your toast. Very fragile play but in midgame its a great push.
I prefer:
15 OC
1 rine
techlab -> reaper poke -> stim
2nd rax
@400 minerals: CC
@ 100 gas: factory
get 3ish hellions, 10 units of rine/rauder mix, adjust to what he builds; lots of spines/roaches, more rauders and less hellions. Just to put pressure.
Transition into thor/marauder as base, add hellion/rine as needed. Push out at +2 thors and grab 3rd as you do it.
imho thor/marauder push when you asap get +2 and FE is so beastly and much less risky than marine/tank
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Since almost all of them lost, i'm not sure this strat is the best possible. I like builds where you focus on harassment first and then expand more.
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I counted the results up to now. Zerg are up:
+ Show Spoiler +
21-8 in games
9-3 in series
The top Terrans have got some figuring to do.
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I'm glad to see the futile attempts of hellion harass are gone. Still, it seems like the margin of error when doing bio-heavy builds is extremely narrow and I'm still not sure whether perfect execution of these builds will be sufficient to beat almost flawless Z players like the dealer.
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On October 27 2010 04:21 EmilA wrote:
I'm glad to see the futile attempts of hellion harass are gone. Still, it seems like the margin of error when doing bio-heavy builds is extremely narrow and I'm still not sure whether perfect execution of these builds will be sufficient to beat almost flawless Z players like the dealer.
This, if people thought zerg macro was unforgiving they didn't try doing marine/tank pushes versus competent zergs. You get punished so bad for even the smallest of slip ups.
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watch MVP match with zenio. His MMM micro > muta/ling/bling
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Reactor hellion is dead. (Also, watch Boxer play the FD at Blizzcon. He pulled some amazing early aggression that really kept him in the game.
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On October 27 2010 04:41 Benshin88 wrote:
watch MVP match with zenio. His MMM micro > muta/ling/bling
lol, is that why he lost?
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yeah well the GSL matches are showing just how strong zerg is. terrans are getting proper stomped, and yes as terran its always walking a line against zerg. zerg in sc2 marcos even harder than zerg in BW.
main problem is the terran cant afford to lose his army while the zerg can. that always screws the terran.
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yea but zenio did not figure out how to baneling drop from ovies until game 3. mvp played great dont get me wrong but for that amount of effort to beat muta/ling/baneling isnt proper to me.
i've gone (almost)undefeated vs 1900+ zergs using my modified raven build that I took from Terran vs thewind.
basically, OC start, then fact @ 100 gas, tech lab after 2-3 marines (before fact finishes) when fact done, swap with tech lab, get infernal pre-igniter and a starport. make hellion asap (usually few minerals short) then pump 3 hellions. once starport is done, make a dropship. by the time the dropship is done,you will have 3 hellions with blue flame finishing on the travel to the zergs base. put 2 hellions in one dropship and send the other to decoy at expo. drop hellions and kill as MANY drones as possible. ive always had success with good micro(2 hellion w/ blueflame = auto dead drone). meanwhile, make a command centre (because ull be making addons/swapping buildings) first, then swap ur starport with the factory (starport w/ techlab now), make a reactor with the factory and another starport, then either: make a banshees if he went roaches (no cloak); or go raven. if he goes muta/bling/ling you're in great shape. get an eng bay around 8min. get +1 range FIRST. keep pumping ravens, marine, reactor hellions (usually have 3-4 rax with 1 techlab for marine shield). get +2 building armor from eng bay asap. this will thwart ANY muta rush with decently played 2-3 turrets. also, +2 armor makes a PF almost immune to zerg with 4 turrets, so u can expo a 2nd time pretty safely. for the 2-3 times i've forgotten to get turrets up in time for mutas i just used 1-2 auto turrets (they rape mutas with the armor/range). then once u get 4-5 ravens, attack. MAKE SURE U DROP AT's (auto turrets) up first so they soak up damage, then bring your army and micro around the turrets. *remember, this is for the muta/baneling/ling strat* usually the first push ends it, if not the 2nd one will if you dont lose ravens. regardless, the best feature to this build is that YOU are the aggressor in this matchup. rather than relying on HARASSMENT, the zerg must respond to your build, not vice versa. I've seen countless high level games where the T is forced to respond to marine/tank because of baneling/muta.. well it doesnt add up and i've yet to see a Terran really make this build viable (yes MVP did well, but like i said above, it requires too much micro/skill for minimal gains; and no baneling+overlord was used in G1).
If the game progresses past the 1/2nd push with raven/marine/hellion/AT, then I switch to durable materials/HSM upgrades. this allows HSM to last VERY long and panic the zerg. in the event the game does go this far out, trust me, HSM will rape any muta combo (just bait him witth the ravens, he thinks you only got AT's most of the time).
--- if he went roaches i use the banshee build (i hit with 4, since 2 starport pump 4 banshees pretty fast, and 2 hit roaches and queens and can even take out single spore crawlers w/o losing one with micro). also, if i see he goes roaches, I make 2 tanks w/ siege outta my fact w/ tech lab before swapping it to a reactor for blueflame hellions. Sometimes I get 1 viking out first to harass ovies, and force a spire. thats what you want, YOU WANT A SPIRE!
I do have replays but am lazy to upload etc. but my record vs 1900+ zergs is IIRC 11-1. the one time I lost was to a roach/infestor build that caught ALL my ravens with fungal+infested terrans and.. that is GG right there. the whole point of the raven strat, like ive said in other posts, is to KEEP them(ravens) alive. every single raven has exponential value as the game progresses; whereas losing a marine is simply losing a marine, losing a raven is countless AT's, HSM, PDD potential.
PS. use auto turrets around the map to scout any harass, flying mutas, expos.. the autoturret for 50 mana lasts up to 6 min... well worth it to gain some map control and annoy zergs. not to mention, trading damage/potential killing mutas/zerg units for a MANA produced unit is a very, very good trade-off
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Terran in the matchup has to either do either really strong damage with hellion or banshee harass or do a very well microed marine tank 2 base timing attack. I just don't know what else they can do and I have to agree with the walking the tightrope analogy. I just got finished watching the gsl matches from this morning and
+ Show Spoiler +
It really felt like mvp and maka weren't making that many mistakes and playing pretty well while the zergs (especially thewind) did some bad things like throwing away broodlords and letting a mutalisk ball die to only stimmed marines instead of running away and it just didn't matter. The matchup feels really imbalanced right now, possibly as bad or worse than it was before but in the opposite direction.
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On October 27 2010 05:03 2FresH wrote:+ Show Spoiler +yea but zenio did not figure out how to baneling drop from ovies until game 3. mvp played great dont get me wrong but for that amount of effort to beat muta/ling/baneling isnt proper to me.
i've gone (almost)undefeated vs 1900+ zergs using my modified raven build that I took from Terran vs thewind.
basically, OC start, then fact @ 100 gas, tech lab after 2-3 marines (before fact finishes) when fact done, swap with tech lab, get infernal pre-igniter and a starport. make hellion asap (usually few minerals short) then pump 3 hellions. once starport is done, make a dropship. by the time the dropship is done,you will have 3 hellions with blue flame finishing on the travel to the zergs base. put 2 hellions in one dropship and send the other to decoy at expo. drop hellions and kill as MANY drones as possible. ive always had success with good micro(2 hellion w/ blueflame = auto dead drone). meanwhile, make a command centre (because ull be making addons/swapping buildings) first, then swap ur starport with the factory (starport w/ techlab now), make a reactor with the factory and another starport, then either: make a banshees if he went roaches (no cloak); or go raven. if he goes muta/bling/ling you're in great shape. get an eng bay around 8min. get +1 range FIRST. keep pumping ravens, marine, reactor hellions (usually have 3-4 rax with 1 techlab for marine shield). get +2 building armor from eng bay asap. this will thwart ANY muta rush with decently played 2-3 turrets. also, +2 armor makes a PF almost immune to zerg with 4 turrets, so u can expo a 2nd time pretty safely. for the 2-3 times i've forgotten to get turrets up in time for mutas i just used 1-2 auto turrets (they rape mutas with the armor/range). then once u get 4-5 ravens, attack. MAKE SURE U DROP AT's (auto turrets) up first so they soak up damage, then bring your army and micro around the turrets. *remember, this is for the muta/baneling/ling strat* usually the first push ends it, if not the 2nd one will if you dont lose ravens. regardless, the best feature to this build is that YOU are the aggressor in this matchup. rather than relying on HARASSMENT, the zerg must respond to your build, not vice versa. I've seen countless high level games where the T is forced to respond to marine/tank because of baneling/muta.. well it doesnt add up and i've yet to see a Terran really make this build viable (yes MVP did well, but like i said above, it requires too much micro/skill for minimal gains; and no baneling+overlord was used in G1).
If the game progresses past the 1/2nd push with raven/marine/hellion/AT, then I switch to durable materials/HSM upgrades. this allows HSM to last VERY long and panic the zerg. in the event the game does go this far out, trust me, HSM will rape any muta combo (just bait him witth the ravens, he thinks you only got AT's most of the time).
--- if he went roaches i use the banshee build (i hit with 4, since 2 starport pump 4 banshees pretty fast, and 2 hit roaches and queens and can even take out single spore crawlers w/o losing one with micro). also, if i see he goes roaches, I make 2 tanks w/ siege outta my fact w/ tech lab before swapping it to a reactor for blueflame hellions. Sometimes I get 1 viking out first to harass ovies, and force a spire. thats what you want, YOU WANT A SPIRE!
I do have replays but am lazy to upload etc. but my record vs 1900+ zergs is IIRC 11-1. the one time I lost was to a roach/infestor build that caught ALL my ravens with fungal+infested terrans and.. that is GG right there. the whole point of the raven strat, like ive said in other posts, is to KEEP them(ravens) alive. every single raven has exponential value as the game progresses; whereas losing a marine is simply losing a marine, losing a raven is countless AT's, HSM, PDD potential.
PS. use auto turrets around the map to scout any harass, flying mutas, expos.. the autoturret for 50 mana lasts up to 6 min... well worth it to gain some map control and annoy zergs. not to mention, trading damage/potential killing mutas/zerg units for a MANA produced unit is a very, very good trade-off
Replays or it didn't happen. (I'm sure it happened, I just want reps  )
I play in an almost exclusively BoX environment: whether in tourneys or vs friends. (We're mostly 500-2k diamond).
After experimenting a lot and theorycrafting almost as much, lately I've been focusing on various 1 base allin or 1-2 rax->FE -> 2 base allin. I feel that if I let the game drag out to the point where I need a 3rd base, my chance of winning plummet. At the current stage of development, Terrans have the best chance of winning various probable engagements in the early-to-mid midgame.
I vary the timing and the composition of this allin, but in BoX, there's only so many different timings you can do. In my experience, the best bet has been to hide the tech as well as you can and hope you outmindgame your opp. As most Terrans already know from beta, outmacroing a Zerg is essentially suicide unless you are putting up serious harass forcing him to spend money on Defense/side tech.
With the changes to our harassment options, I find that harassment doesn't pay for itself on a case by case basis so I only sporadically employ it to keep Zergs playing honest. (I focus on harass in maybe 20% of my games.)
If other Terrans have found more optimal TvZ playstyles/build orders against 1500-2100 zergs, I'm ready to learn.
Side Note: While I was watching the GSL vods this morning, I thought it was really interesting that at least two different Terrans over three different games went hat block in TvZ (ebay or depot).
Last night, we had 6 people testing various 14-16 hat blocks (depot) to see their viability in TvZ. We came to the tentative conclusion that if the terran merely dances with the scv with placing a depot, the Terran is slightly ahead compared to normal game, and if he places and later cancels the depot postlings, he is slightly behind compared to a normal game. Obviously if he fails and doesn't cancel he's far behind.
Depot + cancel necessitates T delaying gas and placing 2-3 scvs at the bottom of the ramp on close pos/steppes to survive the first 6 lings. There's a very good chance there's a xsition to blings with his slings, so recommendation is to have your second rax go tech asap.
On October 27 2010 05:36 proxY_ wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Terran in the matchup has to either do either really strong damage with hellion or banshee harass or do a very well microed marine tank 2 base timing attack. I just don't know what else they can do and I have to agree with the walking the tightrope analogy. I just got finished watching the gsl matches from this morning and + Show Spoiler +
It really felt like mvp and maka weren't making that many mistakes and playing pretty well while the zergs (especially thewind) did some bad things like throwing away broodlords and letting a mutalisk ball die to only stimmed marines instead of running away and it just didn't matter. The matchup feels really imbalanced right now, possibly as bad or worse than it was before but in the opposite direction.
The word imbalanced is such a hard word to define, I usually don't use it.
+ Show Spoiler +What is the measuring stick for whether something is balanced or not? Assuming perfect play who wins? But what if one side has to have three times the skill to play at the same "perfect" level? If we instead measure balance as "results assuming equal skill", what points of skill should we consider? Progamer only? Every level? What in what proportions is even considered skill?
Reaction speed to certain things? Mechanical requirements to execute a certain task? Game sense to guesstimate the various factors deciding who's ahead/behind? Multitask? Strategical insight? Obviously these all matter, but to what extent?
If one side needs less than 2 second reaction time to all events and the other has a higher requirement for multitask but all else is near equal, is this "balanced"? I think we can begin to see that the further we delve into the "balance" argument, the murkier the lines become until we reach a point where we begin to contradict ourselves because of all the various parameters we keep in mind. Such is the danger of theorycraft.
Instead, I approach various BoX series in a frame of mind that I will do what will give me the best chance to:
A) Win this series
B) Win this tournament
C) Win future tournaments
Let the devs worry about balance. I know it is in the best interests of Blizzard to balance the game, therefore there's no need for me to expend energy to try to figure out for them how to balance it. If I'm going to do that work for them, I better damn well get paid for it.
Instead, all I can do figure the strats with the best ROI for my goals of A, B, and C.
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the thing is zergs potential of denying thirds is too good. assuming they do everything right like fruitdealer then terran should never be able to take a third base and hold it. they can send a ovie there creep it and even lay a creep tumor which mean syour gunna need to pull forces to take that expo...wait for the creep to go away and potential waste a scan to do so and then the zerg automatically knows ur there and can basically just kill you and if you pull forces your vulnerable to a ling banelings roach allin on your main and you lose.
right now it isn't impossible to take a third but with the potential fruit dealer is displaying, terran cannot take a third.
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On a side note, but related to these same matches: They mostly seemed to get MM + some mech.
MM is pretty counterable now that zergs learned to deal with it imo. I never lose to mmm anymore, but mech is pretty dang hard.
Anyways, perhaps the reason they want to expand quick is to fund those thors!!!
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On October 27 2010 05:52 Raiznhell wrote:
the thing is zergs potential of denying thirds is too good. assuming they do everything right like fruitdealer then terran should never be able to take a third base and hold it. they can send a ovie there creep it and even lay a creep tumor which mean syour gunna need to pull forces to take that expo...wait for the creep to go away and potential waste a scan to do so and then the zerg automatically knows ur there and can basically just kill you and if you pull forces your vulnerable to a ling banelings roach allin on your main and you lose.
right now it isn't impossible to take a third but with the potential fruit dealer is displaying, terran cannot take a third.
In my BoX tourneys, Zergs are starting to catch on to:
Get overlord drop and make an extra queen.
Tumor every base on the map, then put a second tumor close by enough to recreep).
So annoying! I think they're trying to pay us back for all the harassment we did unto them.
But FWIW, I never liked harassment based play, I just felt it was my best chance to win.
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On October 27 2010 05:36 proxY_ wrote:Terran in the matchup has to either do either really strong damage with hellion or banshee harass or do a very well microed marine tank 2 base timing attack. I just don't know what else they can do and I have to agree with the walking the tightrope analogy. I just got finished watching the gsl matches from this morning and + Show Spoiler +
It really felt like mvp and maka weren't making that many mistakes and playing pretty well while the zergs (especially thewind) did some bad things like throwing away broodlords and letting a mutalisk ball die to only stimmed marines instead of running away and it just didn't matter. The matchup feels really imbalanced right now, possibly as bad or worse than it was before but in the opposite direction.
Maka marched his MM army half way across the map in the first 10 mintues and go decimated..
Why shouldn't TheWind throw units away when he's on 5 bases against 2? He basically had Maka on his knees at that point.
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On October 27 2010 05:57 Emperor_Earth wrote:
So annoying! I think they're trying to pay us back for all the harassment we did unto them. You deserve it, though :D
Both players in that GSL Match made huge mistakes, not only the zerg player wasted his forces.
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Nice to see a somewhat civil discussion on this topic. I'm with a few of these posters in that though it IS possible for terrans to win with MM/Tank, it really allows for such a small margin of error and is extremely micro intensive. I've tried different avenues and have thus far been unsuccessful. I've noticed a significant increase in the viability of mass roach vs thor play as well.
The problem I've been seeing from my own games as well as professional and GSL games is that even if you have a good unit combination against the zerg's, your tech switching is far more difficult than your opponent. An example would be the transitions between broodlords and ultras in the games vs. Maka. Both require totally different unit compositions.
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On October 27 2010 05:03 2FresH wrote:
yea but zenio did not figure out how to baneling drop from ovies until game 3. mvp played great dont get me wrong but for that amount of effort to beat muta/ling/baneling isnt proper to me.
i've gone (almost)undefeated vs 1900+ zergs using my modified raven build that I took from Terran vs thewind.
basically, OC start, then fact @ 100 gas, tech lab after 2-3 marines (before fact finishes) when fact done, swap with tech lab, get infernal pre-igniter and a starport. make hellion asap (usually few minerals short) then pump 3 hellions. once starport is done, make a dropship. by the time the dropship is done,you will have 3 hellions with blue flame finishing on the travel to the zergs base. put 2 hellions in one dropship and send the other to decoy at expo. drop hellions and kill as MANY drones as possible. ive always had success with good micro(2 hellion w/ blueflame = auto dead drone). meanwhile, make a command centre (because ull be making addons/swapping buildings) first, then swap ur starport with the factory (starport w/ techlab now), make a reactor with the factory and another starport, then either: make a banshees if he went roaches (no cloak); or go raven. if he goes muta/bling/ling you're in great shape. get an eng bay around 8min. get +1 range FIRST. keep pumping ravens, marine, reactor hellions (usually have 3-4 rax with 1 techlab for marine shield). get +2 building armor from eng bay asap. this will thwart ANY muta rush with decently played 2-3 turrets. also, +2 armor makes a PF almost immune to zerg with 4 turrets, so u can expo a 2nd time pretty safely. for the 2-3 times i've forgotten to get turrets up in time for mutas i just used 1-2 auto turrets (they rape mutas with the armor/range). then once u get 4-5 ravens, attack. MAKE SURE U DROP AT's (auto turrets) up first so they soak up damage, then bring your army and micro around the turrets. *remember, this is for the muta/baneling/ling strat* usually the first push ends it, if not the 2nd one will if you dont lose ravens. regardless, the best feature to this build is that YOU are the aggressor in this matchup. rather than relying on HARASSMENT, the zerg must respond to your build, not vice versa. I've seen countless high level games where the T is forced to respond to marine/tank because of baneling/muta.. well it doesnt add up and i've yet to see a Terran really make this build viable (yes MVP did well, but like i said above, it requires too much micro/skill for minimal gains; and no baneling+overlord was used in G1).
If the game progresses past the 1/2nd push with raven/marine/hellion/AT, then I switch to durable materials/HSM upgrades. this allows HSM to last VERY long and panic the zerg. in the event the game does go this far out, trust me, HSM will rape any muta combo (just bait him witth the ravens, he thinks you only got AT's most of the time).
--- if he went roaches i use the banshee build (i hit with 4, since 2 starport pump 4 banshees pretty fast, and 2 hit roaches and queens and can even take out single spore crawlers w/o losing one with micro). also, if i see he goes roaches, I make 2 tanks w/ siege outta my fact w/ tech lab before swapping it to a reactor for blueflame hellions. Sometimes I get 1 viking out first to harass ovies, and force a spire. thats what you want, YOU WANT A SPIRE!
I do have replays but am lazy to upload etc. but my record vs 1900+ zergs is IIRC 11-1. the one time I lost was to a roach/infestor build that caught ALL my ravens with fungal+infested terrans and.. that is GG right there. the whole point of the raven strat, like ive said in other posts, is to KEEP them(ravens) alive. every single raven has exponential value as the game progresses; whereas losing a marine is simply losing a marine, losing a raven is countless AT's, HSM, PDD potential.
PS. use auto turrets around the map to scout any harass, flying mutas, expos.. the autoturret for 50 mana lasts up to 6 min... well worth it to gain some map control and annoy zergs. not to mention, trading damage/potential killing mutas/zerg units for a MANA produced unit is a very, very good trade-off
I think we just played against eachother. tooFreSH right? Your build is insanely annoying.
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EPT
