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Hello everybody,
this is BallbreakerTV and my name is Ballbreaker, a Terran that is currently placed in Master's League.
This is my battle.net page: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/2110773/1/VOiD/
I am currently at about 50% vs Terran, 70% vs Protoss and 80% vs Zerg, so TvT seems to be my only weak point.
I decided to help lower league players out, as a lot of them seem to struggle with the same issue, such as not knowing what to build at what time or how to macro properly.
As I am a high Master league Terran player (I am not playing too many ladder matches, but I want to change this!) that is exclusively playing top Master players and, from time to time, Grandmaster opponents, I believe that I can share my view on specific match-ups / build-orders and help lower league players out with that. The first idea that came to my mind is to create a blog in which I would be able to put all of my thoughts and write well thought out guides on a specific theme.
Table of Content:
- Terran Basics
- Pros and cons of the Terran race in Starcraft 2
- Unit roles – What unit serves which purpose?
- Synergy between units – Unit compositions
- Understanding Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups
- Pros and cons of the Terran race in Starcraft 2
- Terran vs Protoss
- TvP – An overview
- Basic Build-orders:
- Special Build-orders:
- TvP – An overview
- Terran vs Terran
- TvT - An overview
- Basic Build-orders:
- Special Build-orders:
- TvT - An overview
- Terran vs Zerg
- TvZ - An overview
- Basic Build-orders:
- Special Build-orders:
- TvZ - An overview
Click on the theme you want to read a guide on to go to my blog.
As you can see the guide is completely dedicated to the Terran race as I am not that familiar with the other races to write a complete guide on those races.
I am going to keep uploading several guides and keep you informed about the Starcraft 2 scene on my blog. If you want you can subscribe to my blog (go to the bottom of the blog) to be updated about everything new that is happening! Also, I encourage everyone to leave comments and tell and just give me some feedback
.Just as a little extra I started to work on a Starcraft 2 encyclopedia in which I explain all the different keywords to know (such as leap-frogging tanks/kiting, etc..). You can find it at
http://btvpedia.wordpress.com
One thing to note: I am not a native speaker as I am from Germany, so I hope that you don't mind the little language mistakes that might occure.
So here we go, all of my guides are listed below!
Pros and Cons of the Terran race in Starcraft 2
+ Show Spoiler +
Note: This is my first guide so if there are any mistakes or things that are hard to understand, please let me know and I will correct them as soon as I can! This guide is not for people without any Starcraft 2 experience!
In Starcraft: Broodwar Terran was the race with the beefiest units, but in Starcraft 2 several things changed. Now Terran is centered a lot more around dropping and in general harassing your opening, by killing of workers or tech structures and denying him expansions, while building some yourself and get an army that is able to counter your opponent.
I will not talk about any specific buildorders yet, but I will rather lay bare the pros and cons of the Terran. In later stages of my guides I will talk about each unit and what role they serve in each matchup.
PROS
You can repair structures and units (excluding biological units, such as the marine and the marauder).
Terran is the only race that can effectively repair some of their units and all structures. Of course Zerg can transfuse their buildings, but it is much less effective than the Terran’s repair.
This ability can actually be used offensively. You can just bring some SCVs along with your Mechanical Army (e.g. Tanks, Thors, Helions – I will talk about all the different strategies in a later part of the guide) and “heal” your army up after a fight. This makes the Mech army a lot more potent, as usually a lot of units survive with rather low HP.
Of course repairing is not for free. To fully repair a unit (from 1 to full HP) you need to spend 25% of the resources, you needed to build it anyways, again. Keep in mind that it is still worth it to repair your units if they are on low HP, especially with expensive and very important units.
You can do the same to biological units as you can do to mechanical. The only difference is that not your workers serve as the “healers”, but rather Medivacs, which can be used as dropships as well, leaving you a possibility to catch your opponent off guard. You don’t have to pay resources to heal up your bio army, but your Medivacs have a finite amount of energy that they can use to heal.
Mobile as Zergs and strong in defense as Protoss
Terran have the ability to be nearly as mobile as a Zerg player and nearly as strong in defending a position as Protoss, but it just don’t quite cut it. Lings and Banelings, as well as Roaches and Mutalisks still outrun the majority of the Terran army. Also, Forcefields provide a better way to defend a position and to pick off several units than Siege Tanks do (although they have incredible range, a good Protoss player won’t let you draw into his base with forcefields). So Terran is somewhat in between the other two races and you can use this to your advantage. Against Protoss you can attack at multiple locations, while using drops, helions and stimmed marines and marauders. For a Protoss it is quite hurtful to be forced to split up his army, as the Protoss units have a close synergy to each other (e.g. if there are no stalkers, his Colossi will die easily to your Vikings). Against Zerg you will most likely be building an army that is more static than you would against Protoss. Once you have a sieged up position it becomes quite hard for a Zerg to break it. Now you can use drops or fast units to attack his bases while you keep his army at one spot from which he cannot escape without taking heavy losses.
Several ways to outplay your opponent
As a Terran you have a lot, if not the most possibilities to kill your opponent. You can rely on one base all-ins (cutting worker production and not expanding in order to get a big/scary army) or you can go into heavy macro-mode, fortifying with Sieged Tanks or Marauders. Whatever you do, you still have to attack your opponent as often as you can. It does not have to be a direct engagement, but you can drop him at multiple locations and keep him busy and do damage without taking any yourself.
The MULE
The Mule (Mobile Utility Lunar Excavator -> http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/MULE) is the counterpart to Zerg’s larva inject and Protoss’ Chronoboost. It harvests 270 Minerals in 90 seconds before it dies. It is actually a stronger SCV that can only harvest minerals (don’t put it into gas geysers, it will not give you any reward!) and is called down from the Orbital Command for 50 energy. You should call down MULEs as often as you can in order to keep with your opponent. If dropped on gold minerals, the MULE harvests about 370 minerals in its duration.
CONS
Quite micro-intensive
In order to drop at multiple locations, while keeping your macro up, you need to have a decent APM. Also in the bigger battles you need to perform multiple actions almost at once, such as using EMPs on enemy casters, stiming your Marines and Marauders and Sieging up your Tanks, as well as building new units back home. This required micro can sometimes be hard for newer players if they don’t move their fingers as fast as higher level players do. Still, there are several ways to improve your micro. I will discuss this topic in a later guide, because I think it is more important to teach the fundamentals rather than more specific and harder parts of the Starcraft 2 gameplay to master.
No “real” static ground defense
Zergs have the Spinecrawler and Protoss the Photon Cannon. Terrans however don’t have such thing. The only anti-ground building they have is either the Planetary fortress which is rather planted at expos and not at key positions, such as chokes, or the bunker, which takes much man power and resources. Fast units such as the Marine with stim and Medivacs can of course almost nullify circumstance.
I hope that you like this first part of my Terran guide ! I would appreciate if you tell your fellow Starcraft 2 friends about it and maybe leave a comment!
Next Guide: Unit roles – What unit serves which purpose?
Ballbreaker
In Starcraft: Broodwar Terran was the race with the beefiest units, but in Starcraft 2 several things changed. Now Terran is centered a lot more around dropping and in general harassing your opening, by killing of workers or tech structures and denying him expansions, while building some yourself and get an army that is able to counter your opponent.
I will not talk about any specific buildorders yet, but I will rather lay bare the pros and cons of the Terran. In later stages of my guides I will talk about each unit and what role they serve in each matchup.
PROS
You can repair structures and units (excluding biological units, such as the marine and the marauder).
Terran is the only race that can effectively repair some of their units and all structures. Of course Zerg can transfuse their buildings, but it is much less effective than the Terran’s repair.
This ability can actually be used offensively. You can just bring some SCVs along with your Mechanical Army (e.g. Tanks, Thors, Helions – I will talk about all the different strategies in a later part of the guide) and “heal” your army up after a fight. This makes the Mech army a lot more potent, as usually a lot of units survive with rather low HP.
Of course repairing is not for free. To fully repair a unit (from 1 to full HP) you need to spend 25% of the resources, you needed to build it anyways, again. Keep in mind that it is still worth it to repair your units if they are on low HP, especially with expensive and very important units.
You can do the same to biological units as you can do to mechanical. The only difference is that not your workers serve as the “healers”, but rather Medivacs, which can be used as dropships as well, leaving you a possibility to catch your opponent off guard. You don’t have to pay resources to heal up your bio army, but your Medivacs have a finite amount of energy that they can use to heal.
Mobile as Zergs and strong in defense as Protoss
Terran have the ability to be nearly as mobile as a Zerg player and nearly as strong in defending a position as Protoss, but it just don’t quite cut it. Lings and Banelings, as well as Roaches and Mutalisks still outrun the majority of the Terran army. Also, Forcefields provide a better way to defend a position and to pick off several units than Siege Tanks do (although they have incredible range, a good Protoss player won’t let you draw into his base with forcefields). So Terran is somewhat in between the other two races and you can use this to your advantage. Against Protoss you can attack at multiple locations, while using drops, helions and stimmed marines and marauders. For a Protoss it is quite hurtful to be forced to split up his army, as the Protoss units have a close synergy to each other (e.g. if there are no stalkers, his Colossi will die easily to your Vikings). Against Zerg you will most likely be building an army that is more static than you would against Protoss. Once you have a sieged up position it becomes quite hard for a Zerg to break it. Now you can use drops or fast units to attack his bases while you keep his army at one spot from which he cannot escape without taking heavy losses.
Several ways to outplay your opponent
As a Terran you have a lot, if not the most possibilities to kill your opponent. You can rely on one base all-ins (cutting worker production and not expanding in order to get a big/scary army) or you can go into heavy macro-mode, fortifying with Sieged Tanks or Marauders. Whatever you do, you still have to attack your opponent as often as you can. It does not have to be a direct engagement, but you can drop him at multiple locations and keep him busy and do damage without taking any yourself.
The MULE
The Mule (Mobile Utility Lunar Excavator -> http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/MULE) is the counterpart to Zerg’s larva inject and Protoss’ Chronoboost. It harvests 270 Minerals in 90 seconds before it dies. It is actually a stronger SCV that can only harvest minerals (don’t put it into gas geysers, it will not give you any reward!) and is called down from the Orbital Command for 50 energy. You should call down MULEs as often as you can in order to keep with your opponent. If dropped on gold minerals, the MULE harvests about 370 minerals in its duration.
CONS
Quite micro-intensive
In order to drop at multiple locations, while keeping your macro up, you need to have a decent APM. Also in the bigger battles you need to perform multiple actions almost at once, such as using EMPs on enemy casters, stiming your Marines and Marauders and Sieging up your Tanks, as well as building new units back home. This required micro can sometimes be hard for newer players if they don’t move their fingers as fast as higher level players do. Still, there are several ways to improve your micro. I will discuss this topic in a later guide, because I think it is more important to teach the fundamentals rather than more specific and harder parts of the Starcraft 2 gameplay to master.
No “real” static ground defense
Zergs have the Spinecrawler and Protoss the Photon Cannon. Terrans however don’t have such thing. The only anti-ground building they have is either the Planetary fortress which is rather planted at expos and not at key positions, such as chokes, or the bunker, which takes much man power and resources. Fast units such as the Marine with stim and Medivacs can of course almost nullify circumstance.
I hope that you like this first part of my Terran guide ! I would appreciate if you tell your fellow Starcraft 2 friends about it and maybe leave a comment!
Next Guide: Unit roles – What unit serves which purpose?
Ballbreaker
Unit roles – What unit serves which purpose
+ Show Spoiler +
Here we go with the second part of my Starcraft 2 Terran guide!
In the first part I discussed the positive and negative sides of the Terran race. Now I would like to talk about the different units in the Terran arsenal and in what situation you should use them, what their general strengths and weaknesses are. So, let us start!
Worker unit
SCV (Space constructing vehicle)
The SCV is the terran worker unit. It can collect minerals and vespene gas.
However, there has to be a Command Center nearby in order to receive the minerals.
Barracks units (Infantry)
Marine
The Marine is the most basic Terran unit, but can be effectively used throughout the game. It is healable and dropable by Medivacs and has a high attack speed, so it is ideal for killing workers in a drop. Also, the marine is capable of attacking air units, making it a great allround infantry unit. Stimpack is available, making the Marine attack 50% faster and move 50% faster as well.
Marauder
An anti-armored unit with great mobility and smashing attack? May I introduce to you, the Marauder. It can be healed by Medivacs, just like the marine and can use Stimpacks, which give the Marauder a 50% attack speed and movement speed increase, making it mobile and strong at the same time!
Reaper
A fast fighter with the ability to jump up and down small cliffs is found in the reaper. It is pretty costly and fragile, but can decimate workers and undefended buildings in the blink of an eye, thus making it a good harass unit.
Ghost
The first Terran caster which is available after you built a Ghost academy. It has a moderate movement speed and can attack ground and air units. There are four abilities the ghost can cast.
The first is the Sniper round. Instantly dealing 45 damage, ignoring armor, it proves itself to be good at fighting big units, such as Ultralisks and Broodlords. However it can only be casted on Biological units!
Then we have the EMP. A shock wave that instantly removes 100 energy and 100 shields from any unit it hits. Can be used with great success against Protoss and casters in general. It also detects cloaked units if casted on their current position.
The third ability is the Ghost’s personal cloaking field. If activated, the Ghost becomes invisible as long as he still has energy. Cloak consumes 0.9 energy per second, so it can’t be casted infinitely!
A nuclear warhead may be called down by a ghost. It is rather rarely seen, as it takes 20 seconds to deploy, leaving your opponent enough time to react accordingly. Of course you can drop several nukes at the same time, confusing your opponent, as it is quite hard to find the little red dot indicating the nuke’s final destination.
Factory units
Helion
The fastest Terran unit with splash damage and bonus damage against light. The Helion can decimate larger groups of Marines/Zealots and Zerglings in no time, but is very fragile if up against armored units, such as the Marauder, the roach or the Stalker. Also, Helions do really well against Workers, as all worker units are light, rather than armored. All these attributes make the Helion another great harass unit, but unlike the reaper it can be used along with other units throughout the game to great effect!
Siege Tank
The siege tank does additional damage to armored units and, when deployed in siege mode, it does splash damage (e.g. hitting more then one unit at the same time, if clumped up). It is good against almost every ground-unit, but has no anti-air defense, so it has to be accompanied by marines or vikings to be effective. As Terrans don’t have any stationary defense, the siege tank might serve as one in some situation, because you can repair it with SCVs and it does great damage to any small unit packs.
Thor
A lonesome Thor-driver shouts “Thor is here!!!” when his little toy is finally coming out of the factory and is “ready to roll” !
The Thor is a mechanical Terran unit that has an outstanding ground attack and does splash damage against air units. With its 400 HP it has a great sustainability, so you can let Thors tank the damage while Marines for example to the damage to your opponent. There is a close synergy between the Thor and the units it is accompanied with.
Starport units
Viking
The Viking is an air-to-air fighter with additional damage to armored units and a superior range to all other air-to-air units, making microing a must! It is good against almost every air unit, except for the Mutalisk and, to an extend, the Phoenix.
Banshee
The Banshee is the complement to the Viking, because it has only an air-to-ground attack. It is good in early and lategame to kill workers at undefended bases, because of its ability to cloak (same cloak that the Ghost has, it needs to be researched as well). In a straight-up fight Banshees die rather quickly. However one Banshee can take out one Queen and one Stalker with ease, which are the most commonly seen counter-units in early game.
Raven
The second Terran caster is the Raven. It has four abilities it can use.
The first is a passive ability. The Raven detects every cloaked unit around it, so it is often-times needed if your opponent went for some sort of DT or Banshee build. Of course the Scan serves the same purpose, but it is limited in use!
The Auto-Turret is an attacking tower that lasts for 180 seconds (270 with its uprade). Each Auto-Turret consumes 50 of the 200 maximum energy a raven can ever get. It is able to attack both, air and ground targets with a high attack speed, so there are some ways to harass with it.
The Point Defense Drone (short: PDD) blocks incoming projectiles of quite a lot of units (Marauder, Banshee, Viking, Battlecruiser, Queen, Hydralisk, Mutalisk, Corrupter, Broodlord, Stalker, Phoenix, Carriers), but it is limited in energy. Every PDD costs the Raven 100 Energy.
The last ability is the Hunter Seeker Missile. It deals 125 splash damage, but it needs some time until it detonates (it is hard to explain, you better go watch it in a real game). It is rarely used as it consumes 125 energy.
Medivac
The Terran transporter, the “Medivac”, can load up to 8 units and deploy them at a location you like. Also it can heal biological units, while using its energy. Used often in bio-heavy armies.
Battlecruiser
With 550 HP and a base armor of 3 the Battlecruiser is the beefiest Terran unit and can withstand massive amounts of damage taken. However, it takes quite a long time to build and is rather slow in movement, making it a lategame unit. Once they are out, you have to protect them with other units, because Battlecruiser don’t fair very well on their own. If a specific synergy is reached, Battlecruiser can be a great addition to your army.
I hope that I gave you a good insight on what unit serves which purpose. I have not added any counters or units they counter, because if used correctly every unit can counter another. Of course, Ghosts counter other casters with proper use of the EMP, but a lot of Marauders can actually kill a bunch of Zerglings, although they are supposed to be the proper counter.
Next Guide: Synergy between units – Unit compositions
Ballbreaker
In the first part I discussed the positive and negative sides of the Terran race. Now I would like to talk about the different units in the Terran arsenal and in what situation you should use them, what their general strengths and weaknesses are. So, let us start!
Worker unit
SCV (Space constructing vehicle)
The SCV is the terran worker unit. It can collect minerals and vespene gas.
However, there has to be a Command Center nearby in order to receive the minerals.
Barracks units (Infantry)
Marine
The Marine is the most basic Terran unit, but can be effectively used throughout the game. It is healable and dropable by Medivacs and has a high attack speed, so it is ideal for killing workers in a drop. Also, the marine is capable of attacking air units, making it a great allround infantry unit. Stimpack is available, making the Marine attack 50% faster and move 50% faster as well.
Marauder
An anti-armored unit with great mobility and smashing attack? May I introduce to you, the Marauder. It can be healed by Medivacs, just like the marine and can use Stimpacks, which give the Marauder a 50% attack speed and movement speed increase, making it mobile and strong at the same time!
Reaper
A fast fighter with the ability to jump up and down small cliffs is found in the reaper. It is pretty costly and fragile, but can decimate workers and undefended buildings in the blink of an eye, thus making it a good harass unit.
Ghost
The first Terran caster which is available after you built a Ghost academy. It has a moderate movement speed and can attack ground and air units. There are four abilities the ghost can cast.
The first is the Sniper round. Instantly dealing 45 damage, ignoring armor, it proves itself to be good at fighting big units, such as Ultralisks and Broodlords. However it can only be casted on Biological units!
Then we have the EMP. A shock wave that instantly removes 100 energy and 100 shields from any unit it hits. Can be used with great success against Protoss and casters in general. It also detects cloaked units if casted on their current position.
The third ability is the Ghost’s personal cloaking field. If activated, the Ghost becomes invisible as long as he still has energy. Cloak consumes 0.9 energy per second, so it can’t be casted infinitely!
A nuclear warhead may be called down by a ghost. It is rather rarely seen, as it takes 20 seconds to deploy, leaving your opponent enough time to react accordingly. Of course you can drop several nukes at the same time, confusing your opponent, as it is quite hard to find the little red dot indicating the nuke’s final destination.
Factory units
Helion
The fastest Terran unit with splash damage and bonus damage against light. The Helion can decimate larger groups of Marines/Zealots and Zerglings in no time, but is very fragile if up against armored units, such as the Marauder, the roach or the Stalker. Also, Helions do really well against Workers, as all worker units are light, rather than armored. All these attributes make the Helion another great harass unit, but unlike the reaper it can be used along with other units throughout the game to great effect!
Siege Tank
The siege tank does additional damage to armored units and, when deployed in siege mode, it does splash damage (e.g. hitting more then one unit at the same time, if clumped up). It is good against almost every ground-unit, but has no anti-air defense, so it has to be accompanied by marines or vikings to be effective. As Terrans don’t have any stationary defense, the siege tank might serve as one in some situation, because you can repair it with SCVs and it does great damage to any small unit packs.
Thor
A lonesome Thor-driver shouts “Thor is here!!!” when his little toy is finally coming out of the factory and is “ready to roll” !
The Thor is a mechanical Terran unit that has an outstanding ground attack and does splash damage against air units. With its 400 HP it has a great sustainability, so you can let Thors tank the damage while Marines for example to the damage to your opponent. There is a close synergy between the Thor and the units it is accompanied with.
Starport units
Viking
The Viking is an air-to-air fighter with additional damage to armored units and a superior range to all other air-to-air units, making microing a must! It is good against almost every air unit, except for the Mutalisk and, to an extend, the Phoenix.
Banshee
The Banshee is the complement to the Viking, because it has only an air-to-ground attack. It is good in early and lategame to kill workers at undefended bases, because of its ability to cloak (same cloak that the Ghost has, it needs to be researched as well). In a straight-up fight Banshees die rather quickly. However one Banshee can take out one Queen and one Stalker with ease, which are the most commonly seen counter-units in early game.
Raven
The second Terran caster is the Raven. It has four abilities it can use.
The first is a passive ability. The Raven detects every cloaked unit around it, so it is often-times needed if your opponent went for some sort of DT or Banshee build. Of course the Scan serves the same purpose, but it is limited in use!
The Auto-Turret is an attacking tower that lasts for 180 seconds (270 with its uprade). Each Auto-Turret consumes 50 of the 200 maximum energy a raven can ever get. It is able to attack both, air and ground targets with a high attack speed, so there are some ways to harass with it.
The Point Defense Drone (short: PDD) blocks incoming projectiles of quite a lot of units (Marauder, Banshee, Viking, Battlecruiser, Queen, Hydralisk, Mutalisk, Corrupter, Broodlord, Stalker, Phoenix, Carriers), but it is limited in energy. Every PDD costs the Raven 100 Energy.
The last ability is the Hunter Seeker Missile. It deals 125 splash damage, but it needs some time until it detonates (it is hard to explain, you better go watch it in a real game). It is rarely used as it consumes 125 energy.
Medivac
The Terran transporter, the “Medivac”, can load up to 8 units and deploy them at a location you like. Also it can heal biological units, while using its energy. Used often in bio-heavy armies.
Battlecruiser
With 550 HP and a base armor of 3 the Battlecruiser is the beefiest Terran unit and can withstand massive amounts of damage taken. However, it takes quite a long time to build and is rather slow in movement, making it a lategame unit. Once they are out, you have to protect them with other units, because Battlecruiser don’t fair very well on their own. If a specific synergy is reached, Battlecruiser can be a great addition to your army.
I hope that I gave you a good insight on what unit serves which purpose. I have not added any counters or units they counter, because if used correctly every unit can counter another. Of course, Ghosts counter other casters with proper use of the EMP, but a lot of Marauders can actually kill a bunch of Zerglings, although they are supposed to be the proper counter.
Next Guide: Synergy between units – Unit compositions
Ballbreaker
Synergy between Units – Unit compositions
+ Show Spoiler +
Number three. The next part of my guide arrives…NOW!
Now that you know a little about every unit in the Terran armory, we will take a closer look about which units work best with each other in the match-up they are most commonly used in.
Unit compositions including Biological (Barracks) Units (Bio)
MMM (Marine/Marauder/Medivac)
This unit compositions consists of Marines, Marauders and Medivacs, just as the name says. Medivacs heal all units involved, while Marauders do damage to armored units and Marines to everything else.
This composition is especially strong in early game against any race, as you can produce a lot of strong units fairly fast.
However, in the later stages of the game MMM becomes weaker and weaker, as units that do splash damage, such as the Baneling, the Colossus and the Tank decimate MMM numbers rapidly. Here you have to add units that “counter” the splash-dealing units. The Viking is an excellent addition to this unit mixture if you are up against, for example, the Colossus. Against Banelings it is advised to build Tanks to quickly shoot down any incoming Banelings. Tanks are the hardest thing to react to, as you usually have to build Tanks yourself, leading into a, possible, hour-long TvT.
Mass Marines (Marine/Medivac)
Mass Marine seems to be easy to execute, but in fact, it is not! It requires much more micro and multi-tasking than most Terran unit compositions.
You have to be attacking your opponent at any point in time to prevent him getting higher tech units that decimate swarms of Marines in the blink of an eye, such as the Colossus. A good way to keep your opponent busy is to keep dropping some Marines with Medivacs. You do as much damage as you can and once he brings his army up to fight you, you pull back. Multiple drops at once are harder to execute but usually reward a lot more.
In a straight up fight you have to be splitting your Marines to avoid as much Splash damage as you can, so try to learn that in custom games with friends. Another technique you need to learn to be successful with massed Marines is the hit-and-run against melee-attack units. Once the enemy fighters come too close, you retreat a little, start attacking again, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, … It is hard to explain in words, I might do a video on it.
Unit compositions including Mechanical (Factory) Units (Mech)
Full Mech
Helions and Thors. Basically all you build while going for full Mech. Sometimes you might have to add some Vikings and Ghosts though.
The Helions are there to harass your opponent and do great damage to packs of light units, while the Thors act as an anti-air/anti-ground supporter. Your Thors should always be positioned in front of your Helions to soak up the damage.
Once a high number (about 8-10) Thors with enough supporting units is reached, full Mech becomes almost unstoppable. You will be able to stomp almost every other unit composition at 200 supply.
However, Mech is slow at reproduction, so once you lost the majority of your Thors, it is hard to find your way back into the game, so it is advisable to keep your Thors alive! The movement speed of Thors is rather slow too, making it hard to defend multiple bases with a full Mech army.
A fast third base is always needed while playing mech.
Do not try to play full Mech against Terrans, as Tanks rip Helions and Thors apart fairly fast. Against Protoss it can work, but in early-game your do not have a lot of defenses.
GoOdy-style Mech
The GoOdy-style mech is centered around Tanks, in comparison to full Mech, which is centered around mostly Thors. It is the strongest Terran unit composition, as it is unbeatable, with the right set of supporting units along with your sieged up Tanks (it really is unbeatable at 200 supply, every other unit composition vaporizes almost instantly, as GoOdy shows in most of his matches). It is possible though, to outproduce this style of Mech and attack with drops or at multiple locations, as Tanks are slow at movement.
Usually you will end up with about 15 Tanks (assuming that you are at 200 supply), a bunch of Helions, a few Thors (maybe 3 to 4, more if needed (such as against mass Mutalisks from the Zerg opponent), some Vikings and Ghosts if needed (against Broodlords/Colossi, or high Templar).
Unit compositions including Biological and Mechanical Units (BioMech)
Marines, Tanks and Medivacs
Consisting of Marines, Tanks and Medivacs this unit composition is viable in every match-up.
Marines serve as the anti-air unit, while Tanks do outstanding damage to ground units. It is usually required to do a lot of drops while playing with this unit composition.
Marines, Tanks and Medivacs + Marauders
Marauders do great against Protoss, as they have a bigger unit size than Marines have and thus are able to absorb a lot more splash damage than their little brothers do.
It is needed to take a first third base, to be able to keep up your production, as most units consume a lot gas.
Marines, Tanks and Medivacs + Banshees + Ravens
Usually used for a big mid-game push, to kill a Protoss opponent before the 15 minute mark. The Raven’s PDD makes all Stalkers useless for a while. Your Tanks restrict area, your opponent can not run into your siege line, without taking heavy losses. Finally, your Marines and Banshees rip his army apart.
Unit compositions including Air (Starport) Units (Air)
Viking, Banshee
Vikings kill air, Banshees kill ground. Easy, but not efficient when played at a non-pro level, unfortunately.
Viking, Battlecruiser
A lot like the “Viking, Banshee” composition. Vikings kill everything that is in the air, while Battlecruiser try and kill all ground units approaching. It is a very late-game composition, as you can’t afford building Battlecruiser early in the game!
A mixture between both unit compositions (Vikings, Banshees and Battlecruisers) with additional Ravens can really cripple an opponent. With great use of the PDD, there are only few units endangering this composition.
Extraordinary unit compositions
-Banshee, Helion
-Marine, Raven
-Marine, Battlecruiser
-Mass ghost
-… (there are a lot more unit compositions anyone hardly ever uses, so I have only listed the most “common” *lol*).
Now that you know a little about every unit in the Terran armory, we will take a closer look about which units work best with each other in the match-up they are most commonly used in.
Unit compositions including Biological (Barracks) Units (Bio)
MMM (Marine/Marauder/Medivac)
This unit compositions consists of Marines, Marauders and Medivacs, just as the name says. Medivacs heal all units involved, while Marauders do damage to armored units and Marines to everything else.
This composition is especially strong in early game against any race, as you can produce a lot of strong units fairly fast.
However, in the later stages of the game MMM becomes weaker and weaker, as units that do splash damage, such as the Baneling, the Colossus and the Tank decimate MMM numbers rapidly. Here you have to add units that “counter” the splash-dealing units. The Viking is an excellent addition to this unit mixture if you are up against, for example, the Colossus. Against Banelings it is advised to build Tanks to quickly shoot down any incoming Banelings. Tanks are the hardest thing to react to, as you usually have to build Tanks yourself, leading into a, possible, hour-long TvT.
Mass Marines (Marine/Medivac)
Mass Marine seems to be easy to execute, but in fact, it is not! It requires much more micro and multi-tasking than most Terran unit compositions.
You have to be attacking your opponent at any point in time to prevent him getting higher tech units that decimate swarms of Marines in the blink of an eye, such as the Colossus. A good way to keep your opponent busy is to keep dropping some Marines with Medivacs. You do as much damage as you can and once he brings his army up to fight you, you pull back. Multiple drops at once are harder to execute but usually reward a lot more.
In a straight up fight you have to be splitting your Marines to avoid as much Splash damage as you can, so try to learn that in custom games with friends. Another technique you need to learn to be successful with massed Marines is the hit-and-run against melee-attack units. Once the enemy fighters come too close, you retreat a little, start attacking again, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, … It is hard to explain in words, I might do a video on it.
Unit compositions including Mechanical (Factory) Units (Mech)
Full Mech
Helions and Thors. Basically all you build while going for full Mech. Sometimes you might have to add some Vikings and Ghosts though.
The Helions are there to harass your opponent and do great damage to packs of light units, while the Thors act as an anti-air/anti-ground supporter. Your Thors should always be positioned in front of your Helions to soak up the damage.
Once a high number (about 8-10) Thors with enough supporting units is reached, full Mech becomes almost unstoppable. You will be able to stomp almost every other unit composition at 200 supply.
However, Mech is slow at reproduction, so once you lost the majority of your Thors, it is hard to find your way back into the game, so it is advisable to keep your Thors alive! The movement speed of Thors is rather slow too, making it hard to defend multiple bases with a full Mech army.
A fast third base is always needed while playing mech.
Do not try to play full Mech against Terrans, as Tanks rip Helions and Thors apart fairly fast. Against Protoss it can work, but in early-game your do not have a lot of defenses.
GoOdy-style Mech
The GoOdy-style mech is centered around Tanks, in comparison to full Mech, which is centered around mostly Thors. It is the strongest Terran unit composition, as it is unbeatable, with the right set of supporting units along with your sieged up Tanks (it really is unbeatable at 200 supply, every other unit composition vaporizes almost instantly, as GoOdy shows in most of his matches). It is possible though, to outproduce this style of Mech and attack with drops or at multiple locations, as Tanks are slow at movement.
Usually you will end up with about 15 Tanks (assuming that you are at 200 supply), a bunch of Helions, a few Thors (maybe 3 to 4, more if needed (such as against mass Mutalisks from the Zerg opponent), some Vikings and Ghosts if needed (against Broodlords/Colossi, or high Templar).
Unit compositions including Biological and Mechanical Units (BioMech)
Marines, Tanks and Medivacs
Consisting of Marines, Tanks and Medivacs this unit composition is viable in every match-up.
Marines serve as the anti-air unit, while Tanks do outstanding damage to ground units. It is usually required to do a lot of drops while playing with this unit composition.
Marines, Tanks and Medivacs + Marauders
Marauders do great against Protoss, as they have a bigger unit size than Marines have and thus are able to absorb a lot more splash damage than their little brothers do.
It is needed to take a first third base, to be able to keep up your production, as most units consume a lot gas.
Marines, Tanks and Medivacs + Banshees + Ravens
Usually used for a big mid-game push, to kill a Protoss opponent before the 15 minute mark. The Raven’s PDD makes all Stalkers useless for a while. Your Tanks restrict area, your opponent can not run into your siege line, without taking heavy losses. Finally, your Marines and Banshees rip his army apart.
Unit compositions including Air (Starport) Units (Air)
Viking, Banshee
Vikings kill air, Banshees kill ground. Easy, but not efficient when played at a non-pro level, unfortunately.
Viking, Battlecruiser
A lot like the “Viking, Banshee” composition. Vikings kill everything that is in the air, while Battlecruiser try and kill all ground units approaching. It is a very late-game composition, as you can’t afford building Battlecruiser early in the game!
A mixture between both unit compositions (Vikings, Banshees and Battlecruisers) with additional Ravens can really cripple an opponent. With great use of the PDD, there are only few units endangering this composition.
Extraordinary unit compositions
-Banshee, Helion
-Marine, Raven
-Marine, Battlecruiser
-Mass ghost
-… (there are a lot more unit compositions anyone hardly ever uses, so I have only listed the most “common” *lol*).
Understanding Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups
+ Show Spoiler +
Hotkeys and Shortcuts are essential to use in Starcraft 2, even at lower leagues as they simplify the game a lot and can award considerable advantages in battles and economy.
Brief Introduction:
Putting buildings and units on Hotkeys is already done by most of the Starcraft 2 players, but there are more things to know. I will describe things that are considered standard, such as using control groups, and facts that might be new to a lot of viewers!
What is meant by “Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups”?
Without Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups you would be forced to play with your Mouse only. You would not be able to quickly select several buildings at the same time without even looking at them. Imagine Starcraft 2 like this…it would not make half as much fun as it does now. So what is the exact definition of “Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups”? Hotkeys are predefined Keys on the keyboard that serve a single, or multiple purposes that ease up the gameplay! In Starcraft 2 there are two different sets of Hotkeys. At the one hand we have the standard Hotkeys. For example, to attach a Tech-lab to either a Barracks, Factory or Starport we would have to press “X”. To build an SCV we would have to press “S”. On the other hand we have the Grid Hotkeys. The basic layout is found below:
Source: http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/article/110/1109259/gridf.jpg
Now, in order to attach a tech-lab to a production building we would have to press “Y”. To build a worker “Q”. As you can see the grid Hotkeys are bound to the building grid (5×3 grid on the bottom left of your screen in a Starcraft 2 game) and are therefore the same for every race (e.g. building a worker with every race requires you to hit “Q” once, with standard hotkeys they differ). Some Hotkeys serve the same purpose for every race. Let’s take a look at those. In order to illustrate it in a sufficient way I have added a basic UK keyboard layout below:
The numbers belong to the explaining text.
The “Delete” and the “Insert” button let you pan the camera. “Insert” if for panning to the right, whereas “Delete” lets you pan to the left. This can be used to place buildings more precisely if the vision is blocked by the terrain or units.
The “Control” Key is probably the most important predefined Hotkey. Usually you use it to create another Control Groups. You select the units or buildings you like and press “Control” + “0″ to “9″ to bind the selection to a specific Key on your keyboard. Let’s look at an example. You want all of your Barracks to be bind to “5″ to be able to reproduce quickly after a big battle. What you have to do is select all your Barracks and hold “Control” while pressing “5″. Now you can always go back to your selection by simply pressing “5″ . Of course a Control Group can be overwritten. Another great use of the “Control” Key is to remove single units from the current selection. In order to do that, just click on the portraits of the units you want to be removed. To explain this a little better I have uploaded an image:
“Shift” adds units or queues up things to do. If you already have some Barracks on “5″, but you want more to be added there are two ways to do this. You can either select the Barracks that are currently not in the selection and then hit “Shift” + “5″, or you can press “5″, hold “Shift” and select the Barracks you want to add to the Control Group. Then, just do the same thing you did to originally create the Control Group, hit “Control” + “5″. Both ways are equally efficient and good, it is just a matter of style. Holding Shift and Clicking on one unit will select every unit from the same type (Marines/Marauders/and so on) on your current screen.
The last key I will describe here is the “Tabulator”. In a selection with several unit types you usually only use the ability given by the most “important” unit. For example, caster units are more important than normal units, but the second caster is more important than the first. If you, as a Terran, have some Ghosts, Ravens and Marauders and Vikings in a selection and you want to Stim, plant a PDD and EMP your opponent’s army you would normally have to individually select your Marauders, your Ghosts and your Ravens, but the “Tabulator” lets you do it a lot faster. At first, you will have your Ravens selected as they are the most “important”. You plant the PDD and press “Tab” (short for Tabulator) once to directly go to your second caster unit, the Ghost. You land down a couple of EMPs and move on to your Marauders to stim them by pressing “Tab” once again. Of course in some situations it is better to stim your Marauders first, but this is just an explanation on how the “Tabulator” key works.
You can take screenshots from the current scene with the “Print” key.
The MOVE-command orders your selected units to move to a location without paying attention to enemy units nearby. The STOP-command clears all actions a unit was originally supposed to do. The HOLD-command forces your units to stay at a location even if they are attacked they will not go away. The PATROL-command gives the selected units the order to patrol between two locations. The ATTACK-command is somewhat similar to the move-command, but if units are ordered to do an attack-command they will attack every aggressive unit on their way. Shortcuts are camera Hotkeys that allow you to go to a certain position on the map. This is especially useful if you have several bases and want to build some supply depots or turrets for Mutalisk defense near one of your command centers. As double-clicking the Command Center Hotkey leads you to the nearest Command Center to your current position, it is good to have have additional ways to go to every single base of yours. To set up a camera Hotkey go to the place you want to be saved and press “Control” + “F5″..”F8″ (F5 to F8). To go the recently saved position press “F5″..”F8″ (F5 to F8). Control Groups can safe several buildings and units on a single Hotkey. This selection is usually assigned to the number keys (0 to 9), but this can be changed. Now the question might come up how you should use Hotkeys and Control Groups to increase your efficiency in a normal game. We are going to take a look at this now ! The shift-queue is a great way to let things happen “automatically”. In order to do such a “shift-queue” you basically only have to hold “shift” while pressing the Hotkey for the desired action. This can be used in almost every situation to safe some time. If you need to unsiege some Tanks do restrict more area to your opponent for example you can select a Tank press “Y” to unsiege (grid Hotkeys) then hold “shift” and right-click the location you want it to siege up again and press “Y” once more. Another possible use of the “Shift-queue” is to build a building and directly send the SCV back to mining once the building is completed. You could also land an EMP at a certain location and tell the Ghost to move back to your main army once the EMP-command has been executed. Setting up Control Groups is something every player has to find out for himself as there are no specific rules for this. I always use the following Hotkeys:
Main Army
Air units/Ghosts
Harass units
Command centers
Production facilities (I tab between them)
-
-
Drops
Drops
This is not a rule on how to set up your Control Groups, rather guidelines that show how most players set up their set of control groups. How to learn playing with several control groups for your army. This is a long process and can really be tricky for your mind the first time to play with several control groups. A good way to learn this is of course to play a lot of game and FORCE you to set up different Hotkeys for casters, air units and your main army. Another good thing is to just open up Word and type in a certain succession of keystrokes you would normally use in a real game. A famous example is the following:
1t2t3t4qq5qqqq6ww7w for grid Hotkeys
1a2a3a4ss5aaaa6ss7d for standard Hotkeys
This is a typical scenario on 2 bases. What it does (explained with the standard Hotkeys):
1a2a3a = Let all your army units attack up to a certain location
4qq = Build 2 workers
5aaaa = Build 5 Marines
6ss = Build 2 siege Tanks
7d = Build a Medivac
Keep typing this scenario over and over again and after a while you will be able to do it faster and faster . This is it for now, I might add some more stuff in the future.
Ballbreaker
please visit my blog instead to watch this guide, as I was not able to upload the belonging pictures (not on my pc anymore)...sorry!
Brief Introduction:
Putting buildings and units on Hotkeys is already done by most of the Starcraft 2 players, but there are more things to know. I will describe things that are considered standard, such as using control groups, and facts that might be new to a lot of viewers!
What is meant by “Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups”?
Without Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups you would be forced to play with your Mouse only. You would not be able to quickly select several buildings at the same time without even looking at them. Imagine Starcraft 2 like this…it would not make half as much fun as it does now. So what is the exact definition of “Hotkeys, Shortcuts and Control Groups”? Hotkeys are predefined Keys on the keyboard that serve a single, or multiple purposes that ease up the gameplay! In Starcraft 2 there are two different sets of Hotkeys. At the one hand we have the standard Hotkeys. For example, to attach a Tech-lab to either a Barracks, Factory or Starport we would have to press “X”. To build an SCV we would have to press “S”. On the other hand we have the Grid Hotkeys. The basic layout is found below:
Source: http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/article/110/1109259/gridf.jpg
Now, in order to attach a tech-lab to a production building we would have to press “Y”. To build a worker “Q”. As you can see the grid Hotkeys are bound to the building grid (5×3 grid on the bottom left of your screen in a Starcraft 2 game) and are therefore the same for every race (e.g. building a worker with every race requires you to hit “Q” once, with standard hotkeys they differ). Some Hotkeys serve the same purpose for every race. Let’s take a look at those. In order to illustrate it in a sufficient way I have added a basic UK keyboard layout below:
The numbers belong to the explaining text.
The “Delete” and the “Insert” button let you pan the camera. “Insert” if for panning to the right, whereas “Delete” lets you pan to the left. This can be used to place buildings more precisely if the vision is blocked by the terrain or units.
The “Control” Key is probably the most important predefined Hotkey. Usually you use it to create another Control Groups. You select the units or buildings you like and press “Control” + “0″ to “9″ to bind the selection to a specific Key on your keyboard. Let’s look at an example. You want all of your Barracks to be bind to “5″ to be able to reproduce quickly after a big battle. What you have to do is select all your Barracks and hold “Control” while pressing “5″. Now you can always go back to your selection by simply pressing “5″ . Of course a Control Group can be overwritten. Another great use of the “Control” Key is to remove single units from the current selection. In order to do that, just click on the portraits of the units you want to be removed. To explain this a little better I have uploaded an image:
“Shift” adds units or queues up things to do. If you already have some Barracks on “5″, but you want more to be added there are two ways to do this. You can either select the Barracks that are currently not in the selection and then hit “Shift” + “5″, or you can press “5″, hold “Shift” and select the Barracks you want to add to the Control Group. Then, just do the same thing you did to originally create the Control Group, hit “Control” + “5″. Both ways are equally efficient and good, it is just a matter of style. Holding Shift and Clicking on one unit will select every unit from the same type (Marines/Marauders/and so on) on your current screen.
The last key I will describe here is the “Tabulator”. In a selection with several unit types you usually only use the ability given by the most “important” unit. For example, caster units are more important than normal units, but the second caster is more important than the first. If you, as a Terran, have some Ghosts, Ravens and Marauders and Vikings in a selection and you want to Stim, plant a PDD and EMP your opponent’s army you would normally have to individually select your Marauders, your Ghosts and your Ravens, but the “Tabulator” lets you do it a lot faster. At first, you will have your Ravens selected as they are the most “important”. You plant the PDD and press “Tab” (short for Tabulator) once to directly go to your second caster unit, the Ghost. You land down a couple of EMPs and move on to your Marauders to stim them by pressing “Tab” once again. Of course in some situations it is better to stim your Marauders first, but this is just an explanation on how the “Tabulator” key works.
You can take screenshots from the current scene with the “Print” key.
The MOVE-command orders your selected units to move to a location without paying attention to enemy units nearby. The STOP-command clears all actions a unit was originally supposed to do. The HOLD-command forces your units to stay at a location even if they are attacked they will not go away. The PATROL-command gives the selected units the order to patrol between two locations. The ATTACK-command is somewhat similar to the move-command, but if units are ordered to do an attack-command they will attack every aggressive unit on their way. Shortcuts are camera Hotkeys that allow you to go to a certain position on the map. This is especially useful if you have several bases and want to build some supply depots or turrets for Mutalisk defense near one of your command centers. As double-clicking the Command Center Hotkey leads you to the nearest Command Center to your current position, it is good to have have additional ways to go to every single base of yours. To set up a camera Hotkey go to the place you want to be saved and press “Control” + “F5″..”F8″ (F5 to F8). To go the recently saved position press “F5″..”F8″ (F5 to F8). Control Groups can safe several buildings and units on a single Hotkey. This selection is usually assigned to the number keys (0 to 9), but this can be changed. Now the question might come up how you should use Hotkeys and Control Groups to increase your efficiency in a normal game. We are going to take a look at this now ! The shift-queue is a great way to let things happen “automatically”. In order to do such a “shift-queue” you basically only have to hold “shift” while pressing the Hotkey for the desired action. This can be used in almost every situation to safe some time. If you need to unsiege some Tanks do restrict more area to your opponent for example you can select a Tank press “Y” to unsiege (grid Hotkeys) then hold “shift” and right-click the location you want it to siege up again and press “Y” once more. Another possible use of the “Shift-queue” is to build a building and directly send the SCV back to mining once the building is completed. You could also land an EMP at a certain location and tell the Ghost to move back to your main army once the EMP-command has been executed. Setting up Control Groups is something every player has to find out for himself as there are no specific rules for this. I always use the following Hotkeys:
Main Army
Air units/Ghosts
Harass units
Command centers
Production facilities (I tab between them)
-
-
Drops
Drops
This is not a rule on how to set up your Control Groups, rather guidelines that show how most players set up their set of control groups. How to learn playing with several control groups for your army. This is a long process and can really be tricky for your mind the first time to play with several control groups. A good way to learn this is of course to play a lot of game and FORCE you to set up different Hotkeys for casters, air units and your main army. Another good thing is to just open up Word and type in a certain succession of keystrokes you would normally use in a real game. A famous example is the following:
1t2t3t4qq5qqqq6ww7w for grid Hotkeys
1a2a3a4ss5aaaa6ss7d for standard Hotkeys
This is a typical scenario on 2 bases. What it does (explained with the standard Hotkeys):
1a2a3a = Let all your army units attack up to a certain location
4qq = Build 2 workers
5aaaa = Build 5 Marines
6ss = Build 2 siege Tanks
7d = Build a Medivac
Keep typing this scenario over and over again and after a while you will be able to do it faster and faster . This is it for now, I might add some more stuff in the future.
Ballbreaker
please visit my blog instead to watch this guide, as I was not able to upload the belonging pictures (not on my pc anymore)...sorry!
TvP – An overview
+ Show Spoiler +
In the Terran vs Protoss match-up, the Terran usually has to dictate how many expansions and workers the Protoss may build, unless he wants to be overwhelmed by a big Protoss army consisting of highly teched units.
Brief introduction:
At first I will once again display the most common unit compositions a Protoss player goes for. Afterwards I will show you how to counter these Protoss builds and how to force the Protoss to stay defensive and react to your harassment.
The most common Protoss unit compositions and their main counters:
There are only a few working unit compositions for a Protoss player up to the early stages of the late-game, because there is a close synergy between gateway units and scarier units such as the high templar, the Archon or the Colossus.
“Deathball” Style – Colossus, Stalker, Zealots
The most used Protoss units are all seen in this composition. We have the Zealots, preferably with their Charge upgrade, to Tank some damage and chase the enemy away from your important Colossi that do the main damage and kill almost every ground unit cost efficiently. Zealots and Colossi alone are of course week to aerial attacks, so you usually see Stalkers along to protect the Colossi against Vikings and to do some extra DPS (damage per second) to ground units nearby. The Protoss that is going for the “Deathball” Style of playing is going to try to survive early game attacks and the mid-game, because this composition shines in late-game and is rather weak to massive amounts of Biological units (Marine/Marauder) until a big enough number of Colossi are on the field.
How to counter: MMMVG (short for Marine/Marauder/Medivac/Viking/Ghost) is the perfect counter to the “Deathball” style if you micro correctly. If you, however lack micro and do only slight mistakes, you army will be killed in the blink of an eye, so it is important for you to stay sharp in the heat of battle! If you are engaging you have to constantly move your Marines and Marauders back to minimize the damage taken by Zealots. The Concussive Shell upgrade for your Marauders helps you quite a lot in that regard, as it slows enemy units down if they are hit by a Marauder. Your Vikings should be in an individual control group and focus fire the Colossus, so they die as soon as possible. Before the battle starts you should land some EMPs on the Protoss army. If he has Sentrys along with his “Deathball”, try to EMP those to deny any possible forcefields. If, in the later stages of the game, the Protoss has High Templar or Archons you absolutely HAVE to EMP these, unless you want to die to the great splash damage both units do to biological targets.
MMMV + Tanks do great versus this unit composition. Again, you have to do proper kiting with your Marines and Marauders and focus fire the Colossi with your Vikings/land good EMP on possible high Templar or Archons. Also, you have to micro your Tanks. If your Tanks fire at the Zealots, they will A) not do as much damage (they do extra damage to armored units, but Zealots are specified as light) and B) hurt your own units because of the friendly fire they do. If your Tanks fire at the Stalkers/Colossi however, you will do great damage, as those units tend to clump up and are therefore susceptible to area of effect (short: AoE) damage.
Vikings + Banshees form a rather special unit mix that is not likely seen at the current state of the game. Nevertheless it is quite potent against this composition. You usually mix in a couple of Ravens to snipe any observers nearby, leaving your Banshees invulnerable with cloak, as observers are the only way for a Protoss to detect cloaked units. You want to focus Stalkers/Air units to make your Banshees do the most damage possible.
Mass gateway style – Stalker, Sentrys, Zealots, High/Dark Templar
Stalkers and Sentrys form the core of this unit composition. They are accompanied by Zealots to tank the damage and in late-game High templar to storm packs of enemy units and dark templar to harass and morph into Archons that do great splash damage as well. This unit mix shines in every stage of the game except for the late late-game. In early game there are several three gate expo timings that involve a strong push to force the Terran to pull SCVs in order to repair a bunker/Tank. In mid-game a six gate is one of the strongest pushes around. As it involves a lot of combat units that tend to clump up, Tanks do great against this kind of push. Compositions that consist of mainly biological units will have a hard time defending if there are no bunkers around. In late-game, high Templar seem to be a great addition to this composition, as they are hard to counter and do great damage even with a single storm. Archons serve as great tanking units later on.
How to counter: MMMG (Marines/Marauders/Medivacs/Ghosts) will have a hard time surviving the several timing pushes that a Protoss that is going for the mass gateway style might do, as good forcefields and zealots to tank/do damage are great against smaller packs of Marines and Marauders. The longer the game lasts however, the better MMMG gets against pure gateway only, so the Protoss will be forced to mix in a couple of high Templar. With great use of EMPs, storms can be completely avoided and Archons are a lot easier to deal with than storms are. Kiting is again important! Vikings are usually only needed in late-game.
MMM + Tanks is a lot safer against all the different Protoss timing pushes, as Tanks have a great range and can hit the expensive units (Stalkers/Sentrys) even behind forcefields. As this composition is a BioMech style, it is great at defending, because of the Tanks and still very mobile because of the biological units involved. Once you are in a sieged up position it is hard for a Protoss to break your contain without any Colossi or air units.
“GoOdy” Style Mech is great against this composition, too once you are at three or more bases. You have to constantly drop Helions to keep the worker counter of your opponent low and to deny bases overall. The backbone of your army are of course your siege Tanks. If you are in a sieged up position, there is virtually no way the Protoss can kill your army cost efficiently. If you are on the move however, the Mech army is pretty weak, as Tanks that are unsieged do not do any splash damage. Also, Mech is pretty stationary, because of the fact stated above. In order to compensate for that you have to make good use of your Helions and keep the Protoss defensive.
hightech style
This style is not seen very often. Still, it involves mostly Colossi and air units accompanied with only few Gateway units. The Colossi, once in a big enough number are there to kill any enemy ground unit, while the air units give the extra “punch” and draw back Vikings and Marauders.
How to counter: Basically you just have to know that your opponent is going for this style. Once you do, early MM pushes do great against this composition and can win the game outright. If your opponent plays it out safely however and starts with a lot of gateway forces, you should tech yourself and get a good amount of Vikings, along with your preferred unit mix, out.
How your army should look like
Marines/marauder/medivacs(/Ghosts/Vikings)
At the end you want to have a lot of Marauders and only few Marines for anti-air support and extra DPS. In order to do that you want to have 3 Barracks with a tech-lab attached and only one Barracks with a Reactor as the add-on. The more bases you get you want to only attach tech-labs on your new Barracks. You should always have a couple of Medivacs, but not too many as you need Vikings in case of Colossi. If you are up against Gateway units only, you want to get more Medivacs. 8 should be a sufficient number. Ghosts are always a nice thing to have, but once High Templar are up, you want to get up to 10 ghosts in order to EMP everything the Protoss has. As EMPs do not only take away the energy from the units it hits, but also some of the shields, it is a great weapon against Protoss armies.
marines/marauders/Tanks(/Vikings/Ghosts)
With this composition you want to get mainly Marines in the earlier stages of the game and wanna make a switch to Marauders once you have Vikings out for aerial defense. You want to constantly make Tanks from one Factory and as soon as you have your third base up and running you may want to get a second Starport and a second Factory, so you get out more higher Tech units. Medivacs may be built too, but only if you have air superiority.
How to dictate the game
You want to keep dropping your opponent throughout the game in order to A) keep his worker count low, B) keep his expansion count low and C) kill important tech structures and keep your opponent in a defensive position, so you can freely expand and get the units you would like to have in a big encounter.
You absolutely NEED to know what your opponent is up to, because otherwise you will die easily to mid-game Voidrays along with a lot of Gateway forces or fast HTs or DTs/Archons. Of course, drops are a good way to scout again, but if your opponent is well prepared against any kind of drop you might want to throw a scan in order to find out what is going on and to be able to properly react to it. Especially in early-game it is essential to know what he is going for in case of fast DTs that might be warped directly in your mainbase with a warprism or a proxied Pylon.
Tank pushes provide a good way to restrict an area to the Protoss opponent. Attacking into a siege line is always hurting the Protoss, even if he takes the lead at the end. This can be effectively used to deny further expansions.
I hope that I gave a good insight on the Protoss race, what they usually build in the Terran vs Protoss match-up and how to react to this. Please leave a comment about what you liked and what I could improve on!
Ballbreaker
Brief introduction:
At first I will once again display the most common unit compositions a Protoss player goes for. Afterwards I will show you how to counter these Protoss builds and how to force the Protoss to stay defensive and react to your harassment.
The most common Protoss unit compositions and their main counters:
There are only a few working unit compositions for a Protoss player up to the early stages of the late-game, because there is a close synergy between gateway units and scarier units such as the high templar, the Archon or the Colossus.
“Deathball” Style – Colossus, Stalker, Zealots
The most used Protoss units are all seen in this composition. We have the Zealots, preferably with their Charge upgrade, to Tank some damage and chase the enemy away from your important Colossi that do the main damage and kill almost every ground unit cost efficiently. Zealots and Colossi alone are of course week to aerial attacks, so you usually see Stalkers along to protect the Colossi against Vikings and to do some extra DPS (damage per second) to ground units nearby. The Protoss that is going for the “Deathball” Style of playing is going to try to survive early game attacks and the mid-game, because this composition shines in late-game and is rather weak to massive amounts of Biological units (Marine/Marauder) until a big enough number of Colossi are on the field.
How to counter: MMMVG (short for Marine/Marauder/Medivac/Viking/Ghost) is the perfect counter to the “Deathball” style if you micro correctly. If you, however lack micro and do only slight mistakes, you army will be killed in the blink of an eye, so it is important for you to stay sharp in the heat of battle! If you are engaging you have to constantly move your Marines and Marauders back to minimize the damage taken by Zealots. The Concussive Shell upgrade for your Marauders helps you quite a lot in that regard, as it slows enemy units down if they are hit by a Marauder. Your Vikings should be in an individual control group and focus fire the Colossus, so they die as soon as possible. Before the battle starts you should land some EMPs on the Protoss army. If he has Sentrys along with his “Deathball”, try to EMP those to deny any possible forcefields. If, in the later stages of the game, the Protoss has High Templar or Archons you absolutely HAVE to EMP these, unless you want to die to the great splash damage both units do to biological targets.
MMMV + Tanks do great versus this unit composition. Again, you have to do proper kiting with your Marines and Marauders and focus fire the Colossi with your Vikings/land good EMP on possible high Templar or Archons. Also, you have to micro your Tanks. If your Tanks fire at the Zealots, they will A) not do as much damage (they do extra damage to armored units, but Zealots are specified as light) and B) hurt your own units because of the friendly fire they do. If your Tanks fire at the Stalkers/Colossi however, you will do great damage, as those units tend to clump up and are therefore susceptible to area of effect (short: AoE) damage.
Vikings + Banshees form a rather special unit mix that is not likely seen at the current state of the game. Nevertheless it is quite potent against this composition. You usually mix in a couple of Ravens to snipe any observers nearby, leaving your Banshees invulnerable with cloak, as observers are the only way for a Protoss to detect cloaked units. You want to focus Stalkers/Air units to make your Banshees do the most damage possible.
Mass gateway style – Stalker, Sentrys, Zealots, High/Dark Templar
Stalkers and Sentrys form the core of this unit composition. They are accompanied by Zealots to tank the damage and in late-game High templar to storm packs of enemy units and dark templar to harass and morph into Archons that do great splash damage as well. This unit mix shines in every stage of the game except for the late late-game. In early game there are several three gate expo timings that involve a strong push to force the Terran to pull SCVs in order to repair a bunker/Tank. In mid-game a six gate is one of the strongest pushes around. As it involves a lot of combat units that tend to clump up, Tanks do great against this kind of push. Compositions that consist of mainly biological units will have a hard time defending if there are no bunkers around. In late-game, high Templar seem to be a great addition to this composition, as they are hard to counter and do great damage even with a single storm. Archons serve as great tanking units later on.
How to counter: MMMG (Marines/Marauders/Medivacs/Ghosts) will have a hard time surviving the several timing pushes that a Protoss that is going for the mass gateway style might do, as good forcefields and zealots to tank/do damage are great against smaller packs of Marines and Marauders. The longer the game lasts however, the better MMMG gets against pure gateway only, so the Protoss will be forced to mix in a couple of high Templar. With great use of EMPs, storms can be completely avoided and Archons are a lot easier to deal with than storms are. Kiting is again important! Vikings are usually only needed in late-game.
MMM + Tanks is a lot safer against all the different Protoss timing pushes, as Tanks have a great range and can hit the expensive units (Stalkers/Sentrys) even behind forcefields. As this composition is a BioMech style, it is great at defending, because of the Tanks and still very mobile because of the biological units involved. Once you are in a sieged up position it is hard for a Protoss to break your contain without any Colossi or air units.
“GoOdy” Style Mech is great against this composition, too once you are at three or more bases. You have to constantly drop Helions to keep the worker counter of your opponent low and to deny bases overall. The backbone of your army are of course your siege Tanks. If you are in a sieged up position, there is virtually no way the Protoss can kill your army cost efficiently. If you are on the move however, the Mech army is pretty weak, as Tanks that are unsieged do not do any splash damage. Also, Mech is pretty stationary, because of the fact stated above. In order to compensate for that you have to make good use of your Helions and keep the Protoss defensive.
hightech style
This style is not seen very often. Still, it involves mostly Colossi and air units accompanied with only few Gateway units. The Colossi, once in a big enough number are there to kill any enemy ground unit, while the air units give the extra “punch” and draw back Vikings and Marauders.
How to counter: Basically you just have to know that your opponent is going for this style. Once you do, early MM pushes do great against this composition and can win the game outright. If your opponent plays it out safely however and starts with a lot of gateway forces, you should tech yourself and get a good amount of Vikings, along with your preferred unit mix, out.
How your army should look like
Marines/marauder/medivacs(/Ghosts/Vikings)
At the end you want to have a lot of Marauders and only few Marines for anti-air support and extra DPS. In order to do that you want to have 3 Barracks with a tech-lab attached and only one Barracks with a Reactor as the add-on. The more bases you get you want to only attach tech-labs on your new Barracks. You should always have a couple of Medivacs, but not too many as you need Vikings in case of Colossi. If you are up against Gateway units only, you want to get more Medivacs. 8 should be a sufficient number. Ghosts are always a nice thing to have, but once High Templar are up, you want to get up to 10 ghosts in order to EMP everything the Protoss has. As EMPs do not only take away the energy from the units it hits, but also some of the shields, it is a great weapon against Protoss armies.
marines/marauders/Tanks(/Vikings/Ghosts)
With this composition you want to get mainly Marines in the earlier stages of the game and wanna make a switch to Marauders once you have Vikings out for aerial defense. You want to constantly make Tanks from one Factory and as soon as you have your third base up and running you may want to get a second Starport and a second Factory, so you get out more higher Tech units. Medivacs may be built too, but only if you have air superiority.
How to dictate the game
You want to keep dropping your opponent throughout the game in order to A) keep his worker count low, B) keep his expansion count low and C) kill important tech structures and keep your opponent in a defensive position, so you can freely expand and get the units you would like to have in a big encounter.
You absolutely NEED to know what your opponent is up to, because otherwise you will die easily to mid-game Voidrays along with a lot of Gateway forces or fast HTs or DTs/Archons. Of course, drops are a good way to scout again, but if your opponent is well prepared against any kind of drop you might want to throw a scan in order to find out what is going on and to be able to properly react to it. Especially in early-game it is essential to know what he is going for in case of fast DTs that might be warped directly in your mainbase with a warprism or a proxied Pylon.
Tank pushes provide a good way to restrict an area to the Protoss opponent. Attacking into a siege line is always hurting the Protoss, even if he takes the lead at the end. This can be effectively used to deny further expansions.
I hope that I gave a good insight on the Protoss race, what they usually build in the Terran vs Protoss match-up and how to react to this. Please leave a comment about what you liked and what I could improve on!
Ballbreaker
4 Ghost Drop (vs Terran)
+ Show Spoiler +
This build is somewhat similar to the 4 Helion drop, but with Ghosts and it usually rewards more and can really impress the opponent you are facing !
Basic build order:
+ Show Spoiler +
Once cloak finishes your Ghosts should have sufficient energy to cloak and to EMP his Orbital Command, to drain all energy. He will be left without a scan, so you can snipe almost all of his SCVs. If he runs them away try to chase them a little. You can always get a few snipes of. If he runs out of his base, attack his add-ons (Tech lab, Reactor). If your Ghosts are out of energy (only a few Energy remaining) get them back in your Medivac and fly back home.
Adaption:
A common build in TvT is a cloaked Banshee rush. With this guide build there is no problem in holding that off. Just EMP his Banshee and kill it with extra damage to light units .
Against a Marine/Reaper rush, you will have 2 Marines and a bunker, which is enough in most cases.
If you are up against a fast siege Tank push, you need to trick your opponent a little. Fly one Ghost over and EMP his Orbital Command. Now you can cloak the rest of your Ghosts and slowly kill all of his forces. Afterwards drop him with all of your Ghosts and try to kill his workers. At the same time you have to expand.
Helion harass get completely shut down with this build, as Ghosts with a Medivac are actually pretty strong against Helions, even with their Blue-flame upgrade.
Against a fast expand you have to expand immediately after your drop, which will most likely do a lot of damage, as your opponent usually dedicated all of his Orbital Command Energy to MULEs to get a better income.
Transition:
You should expand while you are doing your Ghost drop. Get a Tech lab on your Factory and two more Barracks. Keep pumping Marines and Tanks. Also get Siege Tech. Once your expansion and Siege Tech are done, fly your Command Center to your Natural and siege up. You might want to build a bunker to be safe. If you want, you can drop your Ghosts again, but be aware that he will probably have a Missile Turret up or Scans free (in that case EMP his Orbital Command again).
Replay:
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=219006
This game was against a high Diamond Player. He is a friend of mine, so we play quite a lot with each other!
Ballbreaker
Basic build order:
+ Show Spoiler +
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery
15 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot
16 Marine [chase away the scout]
18 Factory
19 Refinery
20 Marine [if needed build a bunker now]
22 Ghost Academy [hide it somewhere in your base]
23 Tech Lab [on Barracks]
23 Supply Depot
23 Helion [scout with it/take a watchtower]
27 Ghost
31 Starport
32 Ghost
33 Supply Depot
34 Medivac
37 Ghost
40 Supply Depot
40 Personal Cloaking
12 Barracks
13 Refinery
15 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot
16 Marine [chase away the scout]
18 Factory
19 Refinery
20 Marine [if needed build a bunker now]
22 Ghost Academy [hide it somewhere in your base]
23 Tech Lab [on Barracks]
23 Supply Depot
23 Helion [scout with it/take a watchtower]
27 Ghost
31 Starport
32 Ghost
33 Supply Depot
34 Medivac
37 Ghost
40 Supply Depot
40 Personal Cloaking
Once cloak finishes your Ghosts should have sufficient energy to cloak and to EMP his Orbital Command, to drain all energy. He will be left without a scan, so you can snipe almost all of his SCVs. If he runs them away try to chase them a little. You can always get a few snipes of. If he runs out of his base, attack his add-ons (Tech lab, Reactor). If your Ghosts are out of energy (only a few Energy remaining) get them back in your Medivac and fly back home.
Adaption:
A common build in TvT is a cloaked Banshee rush. With this guide build there is no problem in holding that off. Just EMP his Banshee and kill it with extra damage to light units .
Against a Marine/Reaper rush, you will have 2 Marines and a bunker, which is enough in most cases.
If you are up against a fast siege Tank push, you need to trick your opponent a little. Fly one Ghost over and EMP his Orbital Command. Now you can cloak the rest of your Ghosts and slowly kill all of his forces. Afterwards drop him with all of your Ghosts and try to kill his workers. At the same time you have to expand.
Helion harass get completely shut down with this build, as Ghosts with a Medivac are actually pretty strong against Helions, even with their Blue-flame upgrade.
Against a fast expand you have to expand immediately after your drop, which will most likely do a lot of damage, as your opponent usually dedicated all of his Orbital Command Energy to MULEs to get a better income.
Transition:
You should expand while you are doing your Ghost drop. Get a Tech lab on your Factory and two more Barracks. Keep pumping Marines and Tanks. Also get Siege Tech. Once your expansion and Siege Tech are done, fly your Command Center to your Natural and siege up. You might want to build a bunker to be safe. If you want, you can drop your Ghosts again, but be aware that he will probably have a Missile Turret up or Scans free (in that case EMP his Orbital Command again).
Replay:
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=219006
This game was against a high Diamond Player. He is a friend of mine, so we play quite a lot with each other!
Ballbreaker
TvZ – An overview
+ Show Spoiler +
As a lot of you voted for Terran vs Zerg to be the theme of the next part of my guide, here I go with the fourth guide, “TvZ – An overview”!
Brief Introduction:
To get started, I will list the common unit compositions a Zerg usually goes for if facing a Terran player. Then I will discuss the main counters of the units used and how you should dictate the game, e.g. what the Zerg has to build in order to stay alive.
A Zerg’s unit composition and how to properly counter:
There are usually only a few unit composition a Zerg goes for in mid to early late-game, namely Muta-Ling-Baneling, Roach-Infestor, Roach-Baneling. I will discuss all of these and briefly describe, what units fair best and how your army should look like in the end.
Muta-Ling-Baneling
This was and still is the most common Zerg vs Terran build. The Mutalisks are there to harass the Terran and, usually, force him to build turrets and therefore wasting minerals on “dead” units (e.g. units that can’t go into a fight, as they are stationary, like Missile Turrets), while the Banelings clean up all light units (usually Marines or Helions) and the Zerglings Tank a little and kill bigger units, such as the Thor or the Siege Tank.
This build is excellent in Mid-Game, as Banelings do great damage to clumped up Marines and, once they are gone, the Mutalisks will kill everything else. However, in the later stages of the game, if Thors and more Tanks are mixed in, Banelings are not such a great thread to your Marines anymore, as you can just move them behind your Tanks and Thors and let them be vaporized by the Siege Tank’s splash damage. So, in order to survive as a Zerg in late-game they tend to go for a Hive (which makes sense in a way). Broodlords AND Ultralisks are a big danger to an ordinary Terran unit composition. If there is no anti-air support, Marine/Tank dies almost to a hundred percent against Broodlords. Mech is a lot stronger in that regard, as Thors have the same range as Broodlords and can therefore hit them anyways, although they are rather weak against massive air units. Ultralisks are usually not as a big of a thread as Broodlords are, as Tanks and Thors rip them apart very easily. With a few Marauders mixed in, Ultralisks can be kited forever and are therefore a gigantic mineral sink.
How to counter: Mech in general is pretty strong against this unit composition. Just Thor Helion can deal with any unit involved. However, once Broodlords are on the field you have to get some Vikings to bring them down. Infestors can Neural-Parasite your Thors, making them attack your remaining units. In order to quickly kill Infestors that are casting Neural Parasite, you might want to add in some Banshees. As they are flying units, they are not blocked by any Zerg ground units and can kill Infestors pretty easily and efficient. Marine Tank is good against this Zerg build, too, but only if you are in a sieged up position. Once you are on the move you can be flanked and killed very easily. To prevent that, always get one of the watchtowers. Only move out once you have vision and maybe scanned his army. There is a great way to move your Tanks. It is called “Leap-frogging”. If you are in a comfortable position in front of the Zerg’s base and want to push up to kill him, you should always unsiege only a few Tanks that are positioned in the back and move them in to the front, so once the Zerg roles in to defend your attack, you will be in a nice position and can target-fire his Banelings (select all your Tanks and right-click in the middle of their Banelings. You will be able to kill a lot, as they tend to clump up), so your Marines do the rest of the work ! If there are Mutas on the field already, you do not want to loose any Tanks to them. You need to spread your Marines out, so they attack incoming Mutalisks right away. Against Broodlords you, once again, need some Vikings. Infestors NEED to be target fired by your Tanks as well, as they are an even bigger thread to your Marines, than Banelings are.
Roach-Infestor
A unit composition that is used more frequently recently. It basically involves upgraded Roaches. In late-game a Zerg will add about 10 Infestors for fungal growth and Neural-Parasite against big targets, such as Thors and Tanks. Roaches serve as the damage dealers. In early-game they are really good for base defense, as they are almost immune to Helions and can therefore shut Helion harassment down pretty easily. In the later stages of the game, Roaches become a lot weaker with growing Tank and Thor numbers. However, Infestors can “safe the day” for a Zerg, by Neural-Parasiting all the big units and preventing smaller units from running away with fungal growth. Usual follow-up is Infestor-Roach-Broodlord-Corrupter.
How to counter: Mech is usually week against this composition. Roaches counter every single unit that is usually involved in a mechanical Army. If you see your opponent going for this type of build, you better make sure to build some Marauders from 1-3 Barracks on three bases. Marauders kill Roaches cost for cost and are, if positioned behind Thors that are soaking up damage, almost immortal. Marine Tank however is brilliant against this build right off the bat. There are no Mutalisks to effectively shut down any Drop harassment, making the Zerg vulnerable to this style. Also, Tanks do great against Roaches AND Infestors. If you are sieged up in front of his base, it is basically already GG. Once he moves out, he will die to the Tank’s splash damage. Move your Marines to the back and split them up a little, in order to minimize the damage done by fungal growth. Beware of Tunneling Claws though. Roaches that pop up right underneath of your Tanks will quickly murder them, as splash damage is not as effective in that kind of situation. Build a turret at the location you have sieged up, to quickly spot his burrowed Roaches and kill them.
Roach Baneling
Korean Zerg style that is rarely seen on other servers. Roaches serve as the tanking units, while Banelings murder every light unit and maybe do splash damage to clumped up Tanks. Usual follow-up is Roach-Infestor-Broodlord-Corrupter.
How to counter: I do not have as much experience with fighting this build as I have with fighting off the other two, but Tanks seem to murder this build if spread out. You can do excellent Drop harassment and keep the Zerg on a small amount of bases. Marine Tanks and Mech seem to be a viable option against this Zerg build.
How your army should look like:
Of course, there are two main compositions to use. Mech and Marine Tank, as stated above a couple of times.
Mech
You need to scout a lot in order to make Mech work. If there are a lot of Roaches you have to get a bunch of Marauders as well as Thors. Helions are not as important, but you should always have a few for harassment. If there are no Roaches at all, but a lot of Lings and Banelings, build a whole bunch of Helions and keep them positioned behind your Thors in a big fight. You can even poke in with your Helions and maybe snipe a few Zerlings. But be aware! Zerlings on creep are a whole lot faster than Helions.
Marine/Tank
Key point of this build are Tanks. Marines serve purely as the anti-air and, in early and mid-game, as the anti-Zerling unit. You should produce Tanks from two factories and have a bunch of reactored Barracks, as well as one, better two Starports, producing Medivacs and later Vikings against Broodlords. You want to have about 10 Medivacs at 200 supply, so you can do multiple Drops at the same time and don’t have to worry too much about loosing one dropship (although it always hurts to loose a fully loaded Medivac). Thor are needed if your opponent went for a whole lot of Mutalisks in order to keep them away from your Tanks (Thors are great for this with their great anti-air range of 10, compared to the Marines 5 range).
How to dictate the game:
You want to dictate the game at every point possible. The best way to do so is by pressuring your opponent with Drops, multi-pronged attacks at several bases to snipe drones or even hatcheries. A drop is excellent to draw your opponent’s attention away. Once you see his army moving away, you attack with your main army and get into a good position at his natural/third base or whatever. You are almost guaranteed to take the game if he attacks you know (running into sieged up Tanks is bad you know :p).
If you are good at scouting you might want to get ahead of your opponents, e.g. building Thors if you see him go for a lot of Mutalisks in advance. This will help you out greatly, as well as taking a lot of bases, forcing the Zerg to either attack you now with a rather weak army, or to expand once again, giving you enough time to build up a big army and harass your opponent to the fullest!
This is it for now. I will add some explanations later on (such as a detailed analysis on Leap-frogging and so on), but I hope that you already like this version of my guide !
Brief Introduction:
To get started, I will list the common unit compositions a Zerg usually goes for if facing a Terran player. Then I will discuss the main counters of the units used and how you should dictate the game, e.g. what the Zerg has to build in order to stay alive.
A Zerg’s unit composition and how to properly counter:
There are usually only a few unit composition a Zerg goes for in mid to early late-game, namely Muta-Ling-Baneling, Roach-Infestor, Roach-Baneling. I will discuss all of these and briefly describe, what units fair best and how your army should look like in the end.
Muta-Ling-Baneling
This was and still is the most common Zerg vs Terran build. The Mutalisks are there to harass the Terran and, usually, force him to build turrets and therefore wasting minerals on “dead” units (e.g. units that can’t go into a fight, as they are stationary, like Missile Turrets), while the Banelings clean up all light units (usually Marines or Helions) and the Zerglings Tank a little and kill bigger units, such as the Thor or the Siege Tank.
This build is excellent in Mid-Game, as Banelings do great damage to clumped up Marines and, once they are gone, the Mutalisks will kill everything else. However, in the later stages of the game, if Thors and more Tanks are mixed in, Banelings are not such a great thread to your Marines anymore, as you can just move them behind your Tanks and Thors and let them be vaporized by the Siege Tank’s splash damage. So, in order to survive as a Zerg in late-game they tend to go for a Hive (which makes sense in a way). Broodlords AND Ultralisks are a big danger to an ordinary Terran unit composition. If there is no anti-air support, Marine/Tank dies almost to a hundred percent against Broodlords. Mech is a lot stronger in that regard, as Thors have the same range as Broodlords and can therefore hit them anyways, although they are rather weak against massive air units. Ultralisks are usually not as a big of a thread as Broodlords are, as Tanks and Thors rip them apart very easily. With a few Marauders mixed in, Ultralisks can be kited forever and are therefore a gigantic mineral sink.
How to counter: Mech in general is pretty strong against this unit composition. Just Thor Helion can deal with any unit involved. However, once Broodlords are on the field you have to get some Vikings to bring them down. Infestors can Neural-Parasite your Thors, making them attack your remaining units. In order to quickly kill Infestors that are casting Neural Parasite, you might want to add in some Banshees. As they are flying units, they are not blocked by any Zerg ground units and can kill Infestors pretty easily and efficient. Marine Tank is good against this Zerg build, too, but only if you are in a sieged up position. Once you are on the move you can be flanked and killed very easily. To prevent that, always get one of the watchtowers. Only move out once you have vision and maybe scanned his army. There is a great way to move your Tanks. It is called “Leap-frogging”. If you are in a comfortable position in front of the Zerg’s base and want to push up to kill him, you should always unsiege only a few Tanks that are positioned in the back and move them in to the front, so once the Zerg roles in to defend your attack, you will be in a nice position and can target-fire his Banelings (select all your Tanks and right-click in the middle of their Banelings. You will be able to kill a lot, as they tend to clump up), so your Marines do the rest of the work ! If there are Mutas on the field already, you do not want to loose any Tanks to them. You need to spread your Marines out, so they attack incoming Mutalisks right away. Against Broodlords you, once again, need some Vikings. Infestors NEED to be target fired by your Tanks as well, as they are an even bigger thread to your Marines, than Banelings are.
Roach-Infestor
A unit composition that is used more frequently recently. It basically involves upgraded Roaches. In late-game a Zerg will add about 10 Infestors for fungal growth and Neural-Parasite against big targets, such as Thors and Tanks. Roaches serve as the damage dealers. In early-game they are really good for base defense, as they are almost immune to Helions and can therefore shut Helion harassment down pretty easily. In the later stages of the game, Roaches become a lot weaker with growing Tank and Thor numbers. However, Infestors can “safe the day” for a Zerg, by Neural-Parasiting all the big units and preventing smaller units from running away with fungal growth. Usual follow-up is Infestor-Roach-Broodlord-Corrupter.
How to counter: Mech is usually week against this composition. Roaches counter every single unit that is usually involved in a mechanical Army. If you see your opponent going for this type of build, you better make sure to build some Marauders from 1-3 Barracks on three bases. Marauders kill Roaches cost for cost and are, if positioned behind Thors that are soaking up damage, almost immortal. Marine Tank however is brilliant against this build right off the bat. There are no Mutalisks to effectively shut down any Drop harassment, making the Zerg vulnerable to this style. Also, Tanks do great against Roaches AND Infestors. If you are sieged up in front of his base, it is basically already GG. Once he moves out, he will die to the Tank’s splash damage. Move your Marines to the back and split them up a little, in order to minimize the damage done by fungal growth. Beware of Tunneling Claws though. Roaches that pop up right underneath of your Tanks will quickly murder them, as splash damage is not as effective in that kind of situation. Build a turret at the location you have sieged up, to quickly spot his burrowed Roaches and kill them.
Roach Baneling
Korean Zerg style that is rarely seen on other servers. Roaches serve as the tanking units, while Banelings murder every light unit and maybe do splash damage to clumped up Tanks. Usual follow-up is Roach-Infestor-Broodlord-Corrupter.
How to counter: I do not have as much experience with fighting this build as I have with fighting off the other two, but Tanks seem to murder this build if spread out. You can do excellent Drop harassment and keep the Zerg on a small amount of bases. Marine Tanks and Mech seem to be a viable option against this Zerg build.
How your army should look like:
Of course, there are two main compositions to use. Mech and Marine Tank, as stated above a couple of times.
Mech
You need to scout a lot in order to make Mech work. If there are a lot of Roaches you have to get a bunch of Marauders as well as Thors. Helions are not as important, but you should always have a few for harassment. If there are no Roaches at all, but a lot of Lings and Banelings, build a whole bunch of Helions and keep them positioned behind your Thors in a big fight. You can even poke in with your Helions and maybe snipe a few Zerlings. But be aware! Zerlings on creep are a whole lot faster than Helions.
Marine/Tank
Key point of this build are Tanks. Marines serve purely as the anti-air and, in early and mid-game, as the anti-Zerling unit. You should produce Tanks from two factories and have a bunch of reactored Barracks, as well as one, better two Starports, producing Medivacs and later Vikings against Broodlords. You want to have about 10 Medivacs at 200 supply, so you can do multiple Drops at the same time and don’t have to worry too much about loosing one dropship (although it always hurts to loose a fully loaded Medivac). Thor are needed if your opponent went for a whole lot of Mutalisks in order to keep them away from your Tanks (Thors are great for this with their great anti-air range of 10, compared to the Marines 5 range).
How to dictate the game:
You want to dictate the game at every point possible. The best way to do so is by pressuring your opponent with Drops, multi-pronged attacks at several bases to snipe drones or even hatcheries. A drop is excellent to draw your opponent’s attention away. Once you see his army moving away, you attack with your main army and get into a good position at his natural/third base or whatever. You are almost guaranteed to take the game if he attacks you know (running into sieged up Tanks is bad you know :p).
If you are good at scouting you might want to get ahead of your opponents, e.g. building Thors if you see him go for a lot of Mutalisks in advance. This will help you out greatly, as well as taking a lot of bases, forcing the Zerg to either attack you now with a rather weak army, or to expand once again, giving you enough time to build up a big army and harass your opponent to the fullest!
This is it for now. I will add some explanations later on (such as a detailed analysis on Leap-frogging and so on), but I hope that you already like this version of my guide !
2 Rax Rush
+ Show Spoiler +
The 2 Barracks Rush (short: 2 Rax Rush) is a tactic originally designed to catch fast-expanding Zergs off guard and force them to pull drones in order to stop your early Marine/SCV attack.
Basic build-order:
10 Supply Depot (prepare for double barracks wall-off)
12 Barracks
14 Barracks
15 Orbital Command
15 Marine (kill the drone if it is in your base)
16 Supply Depot
From here on out you have to continuously make Marines and, once your Orbital Command finishes, SCVs. It is important to not miss a single SCV or Marine to make your attack the most threatening. Once you have 3 Marines, move out. Take additional two SCVs with you (along with your scouting SCV). If you can, try to take out any Overlord in the way, this will supplyblock your opponent and give you some time to get your Bunkers at his natural expansion up. Keep rallying your Marines to your Bunkers. He will most likely try to kill your push or at least your SCVs with his Drones and the few Zerglings he has. Try to micro your Marines back, focusing the Drones as their are far more important to him than his Zerglings. Don’t loose any SCVs in the process if you can!
If your bunkers are up, congratulations, your push was successful! The Zerg now has to make either a lot of Zerglings or give away his natural Expansion. If he pushed you away however (e.g. killed your Marines and building bunkers), safely expand and take your gases. You might want to move out again with 10 Marines and 2 SCVs as most Zergs only build drones once they have held off a 2 rax bunker rush.
Variants:
11/11 Barracks:
10 Supply Depot
11 Barracks
11 Barracks (proxy somewhere)
14 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot
Pretty much an all-in if it fails or is scouted. If not, you will do a lot of damage.
12/12 Barracks:
10 Supply Depot (send out to a hidden location)
12 Barracks
12 Barracks (proxy with your SCV)
14 Orbital Command
15 Supply Depot
This is my personal favorite. It provides a good economy and faster Marines than the usual 12/14 Barracks. You proxy your second Barracks in order to make it impossible for the Zerg to determine whether you are going for a 1 Barracks expand or some kind of proxy Rush/Cheese.
Adaption:
If you see no expansion with your scouting SCV and an early gas, you might not want to move out with your initial Marines, but rather expand a lot sooner and get one or two Bunkers up at your ramp. No expansion usually indicates a baneling bust or a Roach rush. Both builds crush the 2 Rax attack. If your opponent really goes for a Roach rush, you will most likely be able to scout it, as he is probably not going to get any Zerglings in order to get his Roaches and Drones up a lot sooner.
Against a Speedling expand you have to wait for some more Marines before you move out. 5 to 7 should be a sufficient number, with 2 SCVs for Bunkers. An early gas and a fast upgrading pool (the pool vibrates a little if it upgrades something) show you what build he is going for. He will most likely expand at around 20-22 supply, leaving you enough time to get a few more Marines and still be able to build bunkers close to his hatchery (his creep won’t be spread far enough).
Transition:
The most common transition after a 2 Rax attack is to take a quick expansion. If you are constantly building Marines and SCVs you should have the money to build an expansion at around 27 supply. Don’t take any gases yet! Your gas-timings rely on whether your push worked or not. If it worked and you forced a lot of Zerglings you want to take quicker gases at around 30 supply (take both at the same time). If your push failed however, you want to take late gas and get a third and maybe fourth Barracks up in order to defend against any 2 Base counter-attack from your Zerg opponent.
If you went for the 4 Barracks version, it is advised to go for a Marine-Tank play. Get two factories and get siege tech, stim and a couple of Tanks. You want to take your third and fourth gas once you have expanded.
You have already taken your gases and have two factories up? Nice! Start building up a lot of Helions, expand and get their blueflame-upgrade. Get a Starport as well and harass him like if there is no tomorrow. Take 4 Helions in a Medivac and drop his main, while you are forcing his attention to his natural expansion, by attacking this mineral-line as well. You are actually guaranteed to do a lot damage. Also, Helions do great in denying further expansions. While harassing you want to get either a Thor-Helion army up or a Marine-Tank-Helion. Either way, you have made a good choice . Grab a third expansion relatively quickly and move your army into a good position.
Replay:
Have to play a game ^^ . Gonna do this as soon as I can!,
Ballbreaker
Basic build-order:
10 Supply Depot (prepare for double barracks wall-off)
12 Barracks
14 Barracks
15 Orbital Command
15 Marine (kill the drone if it is in your base)
16 Supply Depot
From here on out you have to continuously make Marines and, once your Orbital Command finishes, SCVs. It is important to not miss a single SCV or Marine to make your attack the most threatening. Once you have 3 Marines, move out. Take additional two SCVs with you (along with your scouting SCV). If you can, try to take out any Overlord in the way, this will supplyblock your opponent and give you some time to get your Bunkers at his natural expansion up. Keep rallying your Marines to your Bunkers. He will most likely try to kill your push or at least your SCVs with his Drones and the few Zerglings he has. Try to micro your Marines back, focusing the Drones as their are far more important to him than his Zerglings. Don’t loose any SCVs in the process if you can!
If your bunkers are up, congratulations, your push was successful! The Zerg now has to make either a lot of Zerglings or give away his natural Expansion. If he pushed you away however (e.g. killed your Marines and building bunkers), safely expand and take your gases. You might want to move out again with 10 Marines and 2 SCVs as most Zergs only build drones once they have held off a 2 rax bunker rush.
Variants:
11/11 Barracks:
10 Supply Depot
11 Barracks
11 Barracks (proxy somewhere)
14 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot
Pretty much an all-in if it fails or is scouted. If not, you will do a lot of damage.
12/12 Barracks:
10 Supply Depot (send out to a hidden location)
12 Barracks
12 Barracks (proxy with your SCV)
14 Orbital Command
15 Supply Depot
This is my personal favorite. It provides a good economy and faster Marines than the usual 12/14 Barracks. You proxy your second Barracks in order to make it impossible for the Zerg to determine whether you are going for a 1 Barracks expand or some kind of proxy Rush/Cheese.
Adaption:
If you see no expansion with your scouting SCV and an early gas, you might not want to move out with your initial Marines, but rather expand a lot sooner and get one or two Bunkers up at your ramp. No expansion usually indicates a baneling bust or a Roach rush. Both builds crush the 2 Rax attack. If your opponent really goes for a Roach rush, you will most likely be able to scout it, as he is probably not going to get any Zerglings in order to get his Roaches and Drones up a lot sooner.
Against a Speedling expand you have to wait for some more Marines before you move out. 5 to 7 should be a sufficient number, with 2 SCVs for Bunkers. An early gas and a fast upgrading pool (the pool vibrates a little if it upgrades something) show you what build he is going for. He will most likely expand at around 20-22 supply, leaving you enough time to get a few more Marines and still be able to build bunkers close to his hatchery (his creep won’t be spread far enough).
Transition:
The most common transition after a 2 Rax attack is to take a quick expansion. If you are constantly building Marines and SCVs you should have the money to build an expansion at around 27 supply. Don’t take any gases yet! Your gas-timings rely on whether your push worked or not. If it worked and you forced a lot of Zerglings you want to take quicker gases at around 30 supply (take both at the same time). If your push failed however, you want to take late gas and get a third and maybe fourth Barracks up in order to defend against any 2 Base counter-attack from your Zerg opponent.
If you went for the 4 Barracks version, it is advised to go for a Marine-Tank play. Get two factories and get siege tech, stim and a couple of Tanks. You want to take your third and fourth gas once you have expanded.
You have already taken your gases and have two factories up? Nice! Start building up a lot of Helions, expand and get their blueflame-upgrade. Get a Starport as well and harass him like if there is no tomorrow. Take 4 Helions in a Medivac and drop his main, while you are forcing his attention to his natural expansion, by attacking this mineral-line as well. You are actually guaranteed to do a lot damage. Also, Helions do great in denying further expansions. While harassing you want to get either a Thor-Helion army up or a Marine-Tank-Helion. Either way, you have made a good choice . Grab a third expansion relatively quickly and move your army into a good position.
Replay:
Have to play a game ^^ . Gonna do this as soon as I can!,
Ballbreaker
Blueflame Helion Drop + Expand
+ Show Spoiler +
The Blueflame Helion Drop is nothing new and a lot of people used it in the earlier stages of Starcraft 2, but it is seen very rarely nowadays. In my opinion this is completely wrong, as the Helion Drop is one of the most deadliest builds in the Terran arsenal!
Basic build-order:
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery
15 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot (close your wall-in)
@100 Gas Factory
@100% Factory Tech-lab (on Factory)
@100% Tech-lab Infernal Pre-igniter
@100 Gas Starport
@100% Starport Viking, then Medivac
You should have exactly 4 Helions, a Medivac/Viking and 4 Marines right now. Your expansion will be done or close to being done, too. Before you move out with your Medivac to drop your 4 Helions, clear the way with the one Viking you built. You want to kill every Overlords on your road and then fly in with your Medivac. This way you will do the most damage, as he will not be prepared!
If he pulls his Drones, you are the luckiest man in the world! All his workers will clump up and you can vaporize them in a single swipe. If he keeps mining, try to scoot around his mineral line and snipe small packs of workers. You will still do a lot of damage. If he brings in your forces, retreat into your Medivac and fly back him.
In the meantime you should have landed your Command Center to your natural Expansion and upgraded it to an Orbital Command. Put your initial four Marines in a bunker close to your Command Center and take all four gases.
Adaption:
If he has Roaches already out, try to do as much damage as possible, but don’t suicide your Helions. As your Drop comes quite early, investing into a lot of Roaches is bad for your opponent and giving you a lead already (you have forced the Zerg to stop Droning and building up expensive army supply). However, with many Roaches on the field you need to immediately throw down one more Barracks and a Techlab on your first. Start pumping out Marauders and get a second bunker close to your Command Center.
Seeing a lot of Zerglings you should try to snipe as many as you can with some Medivac micro (load your Helions in if he attacks you after you did some damage and unload them when he leaves). You can also use low-grounds and the Medivac’s vision to great effect. Just experiment with this a little and always make sure to keep your Medivac alive!
Against an incoming Baneling Bust you may want to focus fire his Zerglings. Some Banelings alone won’t do great damage. After that, drop him and roast away on his drones .
Transition:
The best Transition to this opening is heavy Mech play. Build up a lot of Helions and keep harassing your opponent with Drops and run-bys. In the meantime you should get your Armory (at the 8-9 min. Mark roughly to be safe against early Mutalisks) and start pumping as many Thors as you can. If you feel secure take your third base. This should happen relatively quickly. An army consisting of 10+ Thors a bunch of Helions, some Vikings for possible Broodlords and Ghosts to EMP your opponent’s Infestors is close to unbeatable for a Zerg player. In order to get this composition up, you need to know what your opponent is doing. The most efficient way to do this is to constantly drop his main base. If he for example goes for a big midgame roach push, you need to mix in some Marauders to repel him. Against Broodlords you need Vikings and against Infestors with Neural-parasite you need some Ghosts for thei EMP ability. Banshees also work if you snipe his Infestors, but Ghosts are more effective against other units (especially with their snipe ability that deals 45 damage instantly). Ultralisks are useless against a lot of Thors and possible Marauders.
You can also transition into Marine/Tank with permanent Helion drops throughout the game, to keep the Zerg’s drone count low. I don’t advise this composition too much, as it is generally a lot weaker than a Mech army and can be killed instantly by Zerglings and Banelings if you are not prepared and sieged up. You need to keep his expansion count low with Marine Drops and his drone count low with Helion Drops so it is quite Multi-tasking and micro-intensive. Against Infestors you have to spread your Marines and let your Tanks fire at the Infestors so you don’t get fungalgrowthed. A lot of higher level Terrans seem to be successful with this composition, but in my eyes it is too easily countered by Infestors and Zerg’s Tier 3 Units (Broodlords and Ultralisks).
Another way to play this out is Marine/Thor. This unit mix is much like the Thor/Helion mix, with the only difference that you don’t need to react to Roaches, as Marines deal with them just fine. However, this unit composition is bad against Infestors and a Baneling-Zergling-Combo with enough Banelings to kill all your Marines, leaving you with only Thors, which are rather bad against a lot of Zerglings.
Replay:
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=220342&st=0#post8560159
Ballbreaker
Basic build-order:
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery
15 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot (close your wall-in)
@100 Gas Factory
@100% Factory Tech-lab (on Factory)
@100% Tech-lab Infernal Pre-igniter
@100 Gas Starport
@100% Starport Viking, then Medivac
You should have exactly 4 Helions, a Medivac/Viking and 4 Marines right now. Your expansion will be done or close to being done, too. Before you move out with your Medivac to drop your 4 Helions, clear the way with the one Viking you built. You want to kill every Overlords on your road and then fly in with your Medivac. This way you will do the most damage, as he will not be prepared!
If he pulls his Drones, you are the luckiest man in the world! All his workers will clump up and you can vaporize them in a single swipe. If he keeps mining, try to scoot around his mineral line and snipe small packs of workers. You will still do a lot of damage. If he brings in your forces, retreat into your Medivac and fly back him.
In the meantime you should have landed your Command Center to your natural Expansion and upgraded it to an Orbital Command. Put your initial four Marines in a bunker close to your Command Center and take all four gases.
Adaption:
If he has Roaches already out, try to do as much damage as possible, but don’t suicide your Helions. As your Drop comes quite early, investing into a lot of Roaches is bad for your opponent and giving you a lead already (you have forced the Zerg to stop Droning and building up expensive army supply). However, with many Roaches on the field you need to immediately throw down one more Barracks and a Techlab on your first. Start pumping out Marauders and get a second bunker close to your Command Center.
Seeing a lot of Zerglings you should try to snipe as many as you can with some Medivac micro (load your Helions in if he attacks you after you did some damage and unload them when he leaves). You can also use low-grounds and the Medivac’s vision to great effect. Just experiment with this a little and always make sure to keep your Medivac alive!
Against an incoming Baneling Bust you may want to focus fire his Zerglings. Some Banelings alone won’t do great damage. After that, drop him and roast away on his drones .
Transition:
The best Transition to this opening is heavy Mech play. Build up a lot of Helions and keep harassing your opponent with Drops and run-bys. In the meantime you should get your Armory (at the 8-9 min. Mark roughly to be safe against early Mutalisks) and start pumping as many Thors as you can. If you feel secure take your third base. This should happen relatively quickly. An army consisting of 10+ Thors a bunch of Helions, some Vikings for possible Broodlords and Ghosts to EMP your opponent’s Infestors is close to unbeatable for a Zerg player. In order to get this composition up, you need to know what your opponent is doing. The most efficient way to do this is to constantly drop his main base. If he for example goes for a big midgame roach push, you need to mix in some Marauders to repel him. Against Broodlords you need Vikings and against Infestors with Neural-parasite you need some Ghosts for thei EMP ability. Banshees also work if you snipe his Infestors, but Ghosts are more effective against other units (especially with their snipe ability that deals 45 damage instantly). Ultralisks are useless against a lot of Thors and possible Marauders.
You can also transition into Marine/Tank with permanent Helion drops throughout the game, to keep the Zerg’s drone count low. I don’t advise this composition too much, as it is generally a lot weaker than a Mech army and can be killed instantly by Zerglings and Banelings if you are not prepared and sieged up. You need to keep his expansion count low with Marine Drops and his drone count low with Helion Drops so it is quite Multi-tasking and micro-intensive. Against Infestors you have to spread your Marines and let your Tanks fire at the Infestors so you don’t get fungalgrowthed. A lot of higher level Terrans seem to be successful with this composition, but in my eyes it is too easily countered by Infestors and Zerg’s Tier 3 Units (Broodlords and Ultralisks).
Another way to play this out is Marine/Thor. This unit mix is much like the Thor/Helion mix, with the only difference that you don’t need to react to Roaches, as Marines deal with them just fine. However, this unit composition is bad against Infestors and a Baneling-Zergling-Combo with enough Banelings to kill all your Marines, leaving you with only Thors, which are rather bad against a lot of Zerglings.
Replay:
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=220342&st=0#post8560159
Ballbreaker
These versions of my guides are not as well formated as they are on my blog, so I suggest you going to my blog to watch them instead.
I hope that you like my blog and my guides of course. If you do so, please leave a comment here at tl.net or at my blog. Criticism is welcome too of course.
I might do some streaming in a bit, as I am going to get a new internet connection with better upload pretty soon.
Yours,
Ballbreaker (a.k.a. VOiD)+ Show Spoiler +
