[G] TvZ Turrets - The best muta deterrence

for those of you watching high level plays like in the GSL, I'm sure you guys have seen how devastating the effect mutas can have on your base when you poop out that single thor only to have it magicbox-ed and killed
or when you go marine tank with 1 or 2 turrents but the muta ball is just too big and so the harassment tends to keep you locked in your base while zerg takes map control

WELL NO MORE I SAY

its time to understand why more than 2 turrets can save you hundreds of minerals and possibly push zerg into another unit composition

HI-Sec Auto Tracking: Gives + 1 range to turret and planetary range



this upgrade is game changing in your deterrence against mutas. where before mutas were barely out of reach of your second turret, they will most likely be taking a few more shots than they should, and of course they would be taking oncoming fire slightly earlier than they'd expect

Now you might be thinking, yeah 2 turrents on either side of the mineral line should be enough to stop mutas

really? do you really believe they wont hit around 15-20 mutas and just blow up that turret and move on to your workers next?

how many times have you had mutas:
1. just fly in, take out your turrets and a few SCVs,
2. fly off, you rebuild,
and then they fly back in again and steps one and 2 are repeated over and over

effectively you already losing minerals and workers leading to a worse economy if you had built more turrets

Now when I say deterrence, I mean when they make mutas, they are going to be just as useless as lings to a walled off base.

and heres how you are going to achieve it:
You're not going to build, 1 turret, not 2, but 3 and maybe even 4 turrets by your mineral line/production facilities

Below, on Xelnaga Caverns you will see how these 3 turrets will not only do a large amount of dmg to mutas, but it might also cause a hesitant reaction in the zerg player, the question for them being, "how much dmg do i wanna take to make my mutas cost effective"

this amount of turrets will also allow a sufficient delay time for reinforcements to come, generally, once they are done with the turrets and want to work on the workers, my reinforcements would arrive just in time to shoo them off


on the same map, but at the expansion mineral line
these 3 turrets deter any form of muta harass that might come your way. I place all the turrets on one side because I know that the other side that mutas usually fly in from after destroying my turrets in the main will be well defended


This is how i protect my addons and important upgrade buildings. These 4 turrets ensure that mutas wont fly in and pick off emerging siege tanks, armories/ebays (while upgrading), depots, and of course addons

as you can see, my siege tank is warmly nuzzled in there without a care in the world


on maps where there is only 1 point of entry for mutas to enter your main for harass, a prime example being Shakuras Plateau, you can effective defend your whole main from any muta harass as follows:


of course you can build the turrets a bit further out if you want more space for your buildings but either way the end result is: you have effectively blocked off ANY possible destruction of tech labs, upgrade structures, depots or SCVs with just 400 minerals

now before you go: "u mad bro? I need those minerals for marines"

let me ask, how much minerals have you lost having your tech labs, SCVs, turrets, supply depots and those small groups of marines next to that 1 turret you thought would hold off against those mutas a few hundred?

having your techlabs or reactors destroyed which seriously hinder you unit count or even supply depots destroyed which could possibly lead to a supply block at critical moments, this is the price you pay when you make only 1 or 2 turrets

you know yourself that 1 turret and 8 marines wont hold off 15 mutas, losing that alone is gonna cost you 500 minerals, and then you just add whatever else the mutas destroy to that list

why invest 200 minerals into 2 turrets when you are going to lose it to a big murder of mutas? Just invest 400 minerals immediately just one time, and have complete deterrence


heres a good example of what happened when i built only 2 turrets to protect my addons


and heres how safe I will be after investing 400 minerals



effectively, the 400 minerals are a long term and a worth it investment
I cannot stress enough how just 400 minerals will save you lots of time having to rebuild techlabs, units, depots, and reactors (oh god dont even get me started on how long it feels to rebuild one)

1. mutas will not destroy your turrets repeatedly saving you minerals on rebuilding them and lost SCVs
2. you can save the addson for important unit structures like your factories or reactor-ed barracks/starports
3. a slight possibility that zerg will go into a different unit composition
4. it brings you the knowledge of security, you can push out of your base knowing that you wont have to turn around your hold army

you aren't going to immediately just drop down 4 turrets just for the sake of it, scout out the spire first, scan it.

first off understand what unit composition hes going for

if its muta ling bane then yes, most likely hes going to be pretty muta heavy and you might wanna get more turrets

if he however is going for maybe just 6-8 mutas for light harassment, 2 turrets do just fine

secondly, you want to gradually build up the turrets. by gradually i mean you can do it one at a time, or you can build 1 and have the SCV building it Q up the next one, but remember to Q another as you go

you don't ever wanna send 4 SCVs at a time that's just, a waste of mining time and not to mention a waste of immediate minerals (key word immediate)

also another important thing, to maintain a healthy unit production and defense, make sure you have already expanded and you have kept up with your worker count

also the turret range upgrade is extremely important,
do not bother making more than 2 turrets if youre not going to get this upgrade


this is by no means a form of deterrence off 1 base

props to Antisocialmunky for the numbers

Mutas are:
9(+1.000) first hit
3(+0.333) first bounce
1(+0.111) second bounce

+3 Mutas are:
12
4
1

+2 building armor makes that:
10
2
0.5.

Or with just +1 on the standard timing:
8
1
0.5

This applies to depots and add-ons as well.

So vs mutas, with +2 building armor reduces their damage by 4.5 out of a max of 17 damage or around 25% at +3 or 33% of 15 damage at +1.

personally I've never had a reason to get building armor but I guess you can get it if you opponent is one of those "diehard must kill something with these mutas" kind of people

here's a replay on how powerful of an effect turrets have against a flock of 30 mutas:
http://www.mediafire.com/?cx11cwu44jslzde

- around the 13min mark his mutas fly into my base and achieves absolutely no dmg at all except killing one SCV. he loses 3-4 mutas instead
- at 23:50 mark, he flys 30 mutas into my main, with 3 turrets guarding my production structures
- literally in seconds, 1 muta goes down, and shortly after 2 more before all 3 turrets die
- by that time my reinforcing units have already arrived to deal with the mutas

although he has terribly muta control, the key point is to note the amount of dmg he takes with just 3 turrets with +1 range at the 23:50 mark, compared to what I've lost

I will be doing a short update on my helion harass tips guide
you can find it here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=233188

I will also be writing up a new TvZ guide when I have the time which will incorporate this kind of heavy turret defense while being able to heavily produce units, so look forward to that in the next couple of days