I haven't seen any specific guides for Terran on how to do this, so I thought I would do my own!
Since Protosses and Zergs have been showing off all these new builds that are being thrown around, It thought it'd be appropriate to help keep up with the times with the recent build that Flash used against Jaedong, which was fast science vessel to fend off 3-hatch muta.
There's been some criticisms, but I think the build holds some merit, and while I haven't tested it out completely, the basic outlining of the build is done.
And finally, here's my FPVOD for how to do the build:
The most impressive timing is that the vessel comes out at 7:12, which is the fastest I believe, so that's really good. When the vessel pops, the irradiate should be ready at approximately 7:30.
If you want to push out at around the 9 minute mark, provided you do not lose science vessels, you will have 3 vessels, 2 tanks and three control groups of mnm (24 marines and some medics). In my opinion, that's much better than the 3 tank 1 vessel push, and you will be supporting your attack with 4rax instead of 3.
And now to answer a few questions:
ZnF, why the hell do you get stim so late when you obviously have the gas? Are you an idiot?
Maybe. I get the stim late only because I'm paranoid that I might not have the timing of my gas to the point where I can get my vessel and irradiate at the same time. This may change later on as I get better at doing the build, but for now, it doesn't seem to be a problem.
You're still getting stim before either a 2hatch or 3hatch muta, and since stim timings are only important for those at this moment, I don't see a huge problem.
Another thing to note is that since I got my 2nd gas late in the FPVOD, I might have enough gas for range/+1 weapons right after. More on that later.
I was under the impression that there was a reason why ling all-ins work against Terran...and it's because most Terran openings are vulnerable to ling all-ins. :D
But for this instant, that's probably the biggest thing that frightens me with this build. Early speedling or even ling pressure is pretty good against this build because you're only making units off of 1rax for a good period of time. This makes early game pressure a bit harder because lings will just be really good.
However, make note that depot placings in the natural and a bunker should be pretty safe against most ling attacks. If you're more unsure, it's not a problem to get firebats because you won't need as many marines. Factor in the 4rax that you're getting and you'll offset your marine losses with a more powerful midgame attack.
The beauty of this build is that it helps you transition one way or the other. Flash might've developed this to irradiate Jaedong's pesky mutalisks, but in my opinion, the build might even be optimized just to kill lurker openings.
Lurkers depend on lack of detection, and in this build, your vessels come out so fast that you'll have plenty of detection.
If you want to make yourself even safer, you can drop the irradiate upgrade and instead go for tanks. Since Lurker tech means the Zerg will be staying on lair tech for a good period of time, you can push out a little bit later with your attack. The faster tank tech means that you can potentially have up to 4 to 5 tanks in your attack, and that pretty much demolishes lurkers.
If you guys have any more comments, questions, concerns, feel free to let me know! This build is a work in progress and I'm curious to see what people think!
I will try to get a couple of ingame VODS to show you guys how I do it. If any high level players want to try this out to test it around, let me know!
I don't think Flash is the first player to do this build Also, pretty much every time I've seen a progame where a terran rushed science vessels he's gotten crushed hilariously : 3
On May 16 2011 01:52 Crunchums wrote: I don't think Flash is the first player to do this build Also, pretty much every time I've seen a progame where a terran rushed science vessels he's gotten crushed hilariously : 3
Oh I know, I just cited it because it was the most recent example. Bad word choice on my part though.
And since there wasn't any precise build order, I just thought I'd experiment with it.
I don't remember that many instances where Terrans rushed science vessels. I just thought this was promising so I'm messing around with it.
^^^^I don't see why this is all of a sudden being a huge discussion as this build's been popular for quite a while.
The biggest problem is its inflexibility in the early game since your on 1 rax. It's difficult to defend ling aggression and of course you can't have any semblance of map control or pressure till you get your tanks out.
and the vessel isn't specifically for defending mutas. While it's nice, you still need to accommodate with more defense than you would normally have.
All in all, it's a lot more technical of an opening then the standard 3 tank 1 vessel push.
The reason why I posted this up is because there was no specific outline for the build. Sure we can try to blindly go in and just rush for science vessels, but for something as technical as you described, we should have something tangible to look to.
But thanks for the input! Gonna watch.
On May 16 2011 02:04 GTR wrote: yeh dunno why you'd credit flash for this, i'm sure fantasy was the one who started it.
I was thinking about it crediting Fantasy, because I remember he started this on HBR.
But Fantasy's play was a build that opened up with a mech variant before transitioning. The one I saw with Flash is different and keeps only on mnm
I'm sorry if the title is misleading, but this build was based on how Flash executed the opening.
I DO agree that it was Fantasy that did it though.
Wow, this is awesome! It's always really nice to have FPVOD-s to look at, and I find this a very interesting build. There is, however, a reason, why people don't use this too often - it is, nonetheless intriguing. Thanks again! I wish somebody would take up the role of Stylish and create more awesome FPVOD-s for terrans
One thing to note: The idea of a fast science vessel build is not new--it was invented by oov last year for the SKT Terrans to showcase in their vs Z games in the proleague playoffs.
--Oov's build involves a faster factory and starport for agression with one vulture and one wraith--this forces the zerg to build a sunken and some early hydralisks.
--The second vessel pops around 7:45; irradiate already finished by 7:15 (idk when the first vessel timing is, but I'm guessing its on par with this build--but irradiate is faster!)
--Not sure which build is safer vs mutas--Oov's build delays the mutas a bit by forcing hydras but it does that at the cost of econ slightly
--Modesty goes lurker/ling allin and Canata shows how to deal with it. A few bunkers, a tank, and a vessel up front COMPLETELY neutralize all lurker agression. Irradiate lurkers and poke at them with a tank whenever it is safe to do so and you should be just fine. The Wraith here is IMMENSELY helpful as it scouts the lurker allin (honestly if you do Oov's variant you CANNOT LOSE THE WRAITH otherwise you might as well have just done Flash's variant instead)
--Even though Canata loses a couple of his early vessels to good scourge, he completely rolls over Modesty and that game wasn't even close.
I'll look for more games that feature this--I'm CERTAIN fantasy did this once and Canata more than once
On May 16 2011 08:39 CaffeineFree-_- wrote: Fantasy did the vul drop into valk into mnm with fast vessels. It was designed to build up vessel count fast to combat 3 gas lurker/ling swarm
Yeah, my memory is faulty.
In multiple games SKT Terrans showcased a rax-gas-fac-port-CC opener (referred to with incredulity as 1port cc wtf is oov doing to our metagame? in many live chats and LR threads)
this build just feels like too risky imo, even though it gives a HUGE payoff if it rolls into midgame
honestly like flashs mnm micro is top notch and i feel that any muta first opening would still win, i mean look at that jvf vod, jaedong just harasses with mutas, and runs lke 12 zerglings into the nat, what can flash even do, there simply isnt enough mnm force to defend all that
i imagine that a 2 hatch muta would be even worse to defend
high risk high reward, if the zerg players muta harass fails id have to say you basically win a mnm push with like 4 vessels and 2 tanks which comes like 2 minutes eariler than the 9 min push is pretty much gg for zerg, i dont see how you could hold it off at that point of the game. If flash perfects this build i expect to see the meta of tvz change or something
I feel this is really quite a difficult build to pull off against 3 hatch muta. You are way too dependent on irradiates to deflect mutas and you have a much smaller marine count.
I think this build is safer if you open up with mech and then move to a bio transition.
i think in general, JD is too good for this build.. flash just had faaaarrr to few mm/turrets to deal with aggression from JD, but more impotantly, he had far too small an army to exert map control. if the irr was a win, flash would'v had a bit of time to regroup, but jd could easily get 2 groups of lings and scourge in no time. if flash tried to move out, he would scourge those vessels so bad it wouldn't even be funny.. with less than 2 groups of mm, there's no way, imo, he'd really be able to stop the ling sac and with vessels down, he's back to square one with JDs 4th easily takable.
another point about the 6 stims.. with so few mm/turrets, flash has no choice but to stim every time because he didn't have enough defence to cover his base. with the build that flash went, its easy to se the heavy gas nature, but tally up the min of fac+port+tower+sci fac+irr research+vessel.. thats all minerals that would be pumped into rax and mm, ie defence against muta and map control, and a tvz w/out, map control mid game is pretty futile against the best zvt in the world..
edit: tbh, imo this is exacty what day9 means when he talks about "counter builds"; they just dont stand up against solid play. a wc3->bw lesson comes to mind: there are no heroes in bw..
after watching the vod closely, there's something else i noticed: flash could not come out his base to force sunk defence, a most critical move in tvz to keep down the drone and ling numbers and/or delay z's 3rd. i think this build is really just frustrated reaction to jd's amazing muta play recently.
i would like to see a vod or rep of high level, equal play where t actually manages to get solid map control before z can take a 4th before i'd consider this a 'viable' build.
On May 17 2011 17:07 xxpack09 wrote: Can someone actually post the VOD of Fantasy doing this build? Because I don't remember that game... I only remember the Canata one
Fantasy was already doing that kind of fast vessel build in 2009 Ever OSL, and notably lost miserably to Shine in ro16 back then. But it's a little different build because he does some overlord hunting with a wraith, and also build a couple of vults, so he has very few marines and can't defend against Shine's two hatch muta.
Honestly I've been thinking of going back to this build recently just to mix things up a bit. Maybe I'll rep dump some games from my laddering. (I would actually have to be laddering first for this to happen though).
EPT
