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Before I start writing, I warn you that I'm biased against Terrans, I feel that SC is not perfectly balanced, even though they are balanced in general. You might know me from threads such as "T is overpowered"
We look at the concept of bunker rushing. This is done in early game TvZ and usually initiated in the timing window where Z does not have zerglings yet (because of 12 hatch)
There are two major different levels of bunker rush. The less severe level is where T uses his scouting SCV to start building a bunker, and bring in each marine. The more intense/riskier level is where his pulls at least 7+ SCV and ensure the construction of bunker is successful, while bringing in each marine. Because the riskier level of Bunker Rush is more...risky and we know what happens when it fails, I'm going to talk about the bunker rush that is done with 1 or 2 SCV.
My question and topic is: Is Bunker Rush worth it? Even if it fails?
My answer is Yes. This is why T is overpowered. We look at the reasons why:
The SCV starts building a bunker (100 Minerals)
The Zerg realizes this and pulls 6+ drones from his main to attack the SCV building the bunker. Normally, when T sees that many drones coming, he stops building the bunker with that scv to save that scv (bunker is not canceled yet) he holds on till his marine comes and micros it enough to take out 1~2 drones (which is very likely)
The Zerg is focusing to kill that 1 marine. By the time the drones do kill that marine, you can expect the casulty of at least 1 drone (or none). But, a 2nd marine accompanied by another SCV will be coming down, the 1st SCV finished building the bunker (because the drones were distracted with marine)
So Z has to try to pick off the 2nd marine before it gets into the bunker. If it fails to, the Zerg will have a hard time taking down the bunker. Even if it is successful and the bunker is empty, the drones have lost a lot of mining time, MUCH slower lair, and Z has to use up larvaes to rebuild drones, while the T can go on about its normal build order with the loss of 1~2 SCV + 2 marines.
Taking Down the Bunker:
At this point, the zerglings are being made but Z player knows that 6 zerglings + 4 drones is not enough to take down a bunker that has the repair support of 2 SCV. If 6 lings + 4 drones DO take down that bunker, you can expect heavy losses for Z. Cost of 3+ drones = 150 + mining time while bunker = 100 + 2 marines = 200 minerals. The Z usually has to wait till more lings pop out, and more larvaes used up for lings means less drone production in early game (which kills Z economy)
Canceling the Bunker: This is the biggest point of my thread
The T notices that Z will overwhelm the bunker so T just decides to cancel it after his 1st marine died. At this point, Z has already produced 6+ lings. Z lost mining time for 6+ drones. T has dealt Z psychological damage. Z is surprised and caught off his usual build order timing. Z has neglected drone production for early ling production. Z's lair will be slower and has suffered economical damage. The cost of canceling a bunker is 25 minerals. 25 + 50 mineral (1 marine) = 75 minerals. The T has lost a total of 75 minerals to deal this much damage to Z's economy and timing and mentality. I think its definately worth it, is it not?
Additional Note: I am fine with the existance of bunker. I just feel like T should not be allowed to build it so early in the game however. Maybe a requirement to bunker might be construction of Factory that might make it more fair. You might say, then T cannot protect expo without bunker?! Well, T really shouldn't take FE in the 1st place without a ground army that is strong enough to ensure its protection. Just like how P never takes an expo (unless its a gamble 14 nexus) unless he has a strong enough P ground army/cannon to protect it for the time being. Just like how T can have a much inferior army early game, but be safe from attacks just because it blocked the ramp with SCVs and marines (can you say cheap?)
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You might have a point at lower level TvZ, but on the level of Korean gosus and pros, you paint a far too dark picture for the Zerg.
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come on dude, why you trying to cockblock boxer : (
leave his bunker rush alone
anyway lol but i dont think the bunker rush is that over powered...all zergs gata do is avoid the marine getting in with the drones
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Damn I expected a short OP with little to no analysis on bunker rushes, instead theres a long winded one, nice. Anyway personally I think bunker rushes are just like cannon rushes and are more to fuck with your opponent then a way to win the game. Of course one could cite Boxers triple bunker rush against Yellow, legendary stuff. But overall bunker rushes arent as viable anymore, alot of the time you see Terran proxy rax instead, opting to use more scvs and a double rax to take out the opponent. This also leaves you able to mobilize your army and not depend on the bunker to win the game for you.
About moving the bunker higher up in the tech tree thats just stupid. You are way to scared of bunkers or something. Just send your second overlord to your natural and you should be able to spot it before it goes up and rines arrive. Pull 2-3 drones and go kill the SCV. Its not that hard.
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If even a failed bunker rush was an advantage, Terrans would do it every game.
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If it bothers you that much just six pool every game, its even cheesier than a bunker rush.
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If you pull SIX drones, there is no chance in hell that single rines will be able to even kill one drone if they did the "less severe" rush.
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every race at some level of play has a hard time against their unfavored MU; the premise of your frustration is not exlusive to TvZ...i'm pretty sure if a zerg player only practiced 4pooling and fast scouting he would win a lot of ZvT games.
the only solution to effectively counter a bunker rush is to have a well timed BO, search/scout your opponent constantly, and it may come down to drone micro or cancelling a building to counter/pursure another build order. you might also want to try playing terran before calling it overpowered.
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And you're leaving out the part where Terran has to go 8 rax and 10 supply which hurts Terran a lot. If you're good with zerg drone micro, it shouldn't be a problem, Zerg micro is way too good for bunker rush to be constantly effective.
Bunker rushes can be used effectively but it does not say that Terran is over-powered. TvZ is like the hardest mu in the game, how can you say that Terran are over-powered T_T.
Edit: Changed wording.
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is awesome32276 Posts
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You wrote this super long post explaining all situations of a bunker rush when you could have just made a normal QQ post that said "I hate bunker rushes, i often die to them and since i don't know how to deal with them they should move the bunkers higher up in the tech tree to allow worse players to have a chance."
Now to add to the discussion, to stop people from doing 4/5pools lets move zerglings up the tech tree or atleast make it so that you have to have atleast 9 population before being able to make zerglings. Who's with me?
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On November 15 2008 01:31 F13 wrote:
At this point, Z has already produced 6+ lings. Z lost mining time for 6+ drones. T has dealt Z psychological damage. Z is surprised and caught off his usual build order timing. Z has neglected drone production for early ling production. Z's lair will be slower and has suffered economical damage. The cost of canceling a bunker is 25 minerals. 25 + 50 mineral (1 marine) = 75 minerals. The T has lost a total of 75 minerals to deal this much damage to Z's economy and timing and mentality. I think its definately worth it, is it not?
One detail you didn't take into account is that T has lost investment time on 100 minerals early on. Although starting the bunker, and then cancelling it only loses 25 minerals, it also ties down 100 minerals that until later cannot be invested in something else, ie whatever T would have built with those minerals (rax, scv's, academy, depot, ...) will come later.
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Calgary25983 Posts
Your analysis is one situation that could happen. You state it like it's the likely outcome, when it's not. Often if Zerg defeats a Bunker rush cleanly, the win, just as Terran wins if they execute the rush clearly.
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On November 15 2008 01:31 F13 wrote:
The Zerg realizes this and pulls 6+ drones from his main to attack the SCV building the bunker.
It's not necessary to pull 6 drones off of mining to kill 1 scv. I find that 2 drones work just fine.
If I get paranoid when an scv enters my natural and lingers there, I don't even wait for the bunker
to start building. I immediately send 2 drones down there. This is especially important on maps where your main is a considerable distance away from your nat...the drones need to be able to arrive before the bunker can finish building. By sending 2 drones immediately, you stand a good chance of having your drones arrive just as he starts constructing the bunker, and that could be enough to dissuade him from bunker rushing.
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On November 15 2008 01:42 SpiralArchitect wrote:
About moving the bunker higher up in the tech tree thats just stupid. You are way to scared of bunkers or something. Just send your second overlord to your natural and you should be able to spot it before it goes up and rines arrive. Pull 2-3 drones and go kill the SCV. Its not that hard.
Great feedback. The only problem for this is that sometimes its not possible to scout the bunker construction till its almost done or done. I often find myself using the 2nd overlord to scout the opposite section of the map if my 1st ovie did not scout a Terran base near my base.
On November 15 2008 01:59 koreasilver wrote:
If you pull SIX drones, there is no chance in hell that single rines will be able to even kill one drone if they did the "less severe" rush.
Well, if T can micro the SCV with the marine, there is a possibility that drone gets picked off. Maybe you just have superior micro than me but this is how I see it
On November 15 2008 02:13 Senx wrote:
You wrote this super long post explaining all situations of a bunker rush when you could have just made a normal QQ post that said "I hate bunker rushes, i often die to them and since i don't know how to deal with them they should move the bunkers higher up in the tech tree to allow worse players to have a chance."
Now to add to the discussion, to stop people from doing 4/5pools lets move zerglings up the tech tree or atleast make it so that you have to have atleast 9 population before being able to make zerglings. Who's with me?
If I didn't know how to deal with them, how would I have known to pull out drones to pick off scv/ marine? Please not post crap like this and at least try to be insightful rather than sounding mocking if you want other people to take your post seriously. And to prove a point, I can assure you that ZvT is my best matchup while ZvP being my worst.
Too bad 4/5 pool will fail miserably if it is scouted 5 seconds before lings arrive to base. T just has to block ramp with scvs and wait for the 1st marine. And if Z scouts Bunker rush 5 seconds too late? Well thats too bad, Z will get punished severely for it. See my point? T always goes unpunished for something they should be punished for (Ex. T Overexpanding - > Z attacks T expansion - > T lifts CC and sends SCV to main, main entrance blocked, T saves expansion vs. Z overexpanding -> T attacks Z expansion -> Z cannot lift hatchery -> drones die much faster and easier than SCVs die because marine is ranged and fastest DPS -> Z loses expansion)
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United States47024 Posts
On November 15 2008 02:39 F13 wrote:
Well, if T can micro the SCV with the marine, there is a possibility that drone gets picked off. Maybe you just have superior micro than me but this is how I see it
Doesn't this imply that this applies only to low-level play, since at pro-level, the drone micro will easily be good enough to take care of this?
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On November 15 2008 02:35 BruceLee6783 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2008 01:31 F13 wrote:
The Zerg realizes this and pulls 6+ drones from his main to attack the SCV building the bunker.
It's not necessary to pull 6 drones off of mining to kill 1 scv. I find that 2 drones work just fine. If I get paranoid when an scv enters my natural and lingers there, I don't even wait for the bunker to start building. I immediately send 2 drones down there. This is especially important on maps where your main is a considerable distance away from your nat...the drones need to be able to arrive before the bunker can finish building. By sending 2 drones immediately, you stand a good chance of having your drones arrive just as he starts constructing the bunker, and that could be enough to dissuade him from bunker rushing.
Good point but this really depends on how soon you realize it. Bringing only 2 drones when bunker is 95% done with marine coming soon is not going to help. I can understand being paranoid when SCV enters natural and lingers there but most of the time, they might be somewhere else, and even if they are lingering there, they might do that just to make you pull out drones to check for bunker rush even if there is none (to make you lose mining time)
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On November 15 2008 02:47 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2008 02:39 F13 wrote:
Well, if T can micro the SCV with the marine, there is a possibility that drone gets picked off. Maybe you just have superior micro than me but this is how I see it Doesn't this imply that this applies only to low-level play, since at pro-level, the drone micro will easily be good enough to take care of this?
Yes and No. Micro is always two-sided. Just because someone micros his vulture to kill zerglings does not mean the Z player is not trying to micro Lings to kill that vulture.
Even at Pro level, if T combines 1 marine with SCV, he can micro enough to take out a drone. I can see the 6 drones at the micro advantage, but always remember micro works both ways
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On November 15 2008 02:13 Senx wrote:
You wrote this super long post explaining all situations of a bunker rush when you could have just made a normal QQ post that said "I hate bunker rushes, i often die to them and since i don't know how to deal with them they should move the bunkers higher up in the tech tree to allow worse players to have a chance."
Now to add to the discussion, to stop people from doing 4/5pools lets move zerglings up the tech tree or atleast make it so that you have to have atleast 9 population before being able to make zerglings. Who's with me?
What are you talking about? Moving stuff up the tech tree? There is a reason 15min no rush became standard a long time ago. Damn noobs...
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United States47024 Posts
On November 15 2008 02:49 F13 wrote:
Yes and No. Micro is always two-sided. Just because someone micros his vulture to kill zerglings does not mean the Z player is not trying to micro Lings to kill that vulture.
Even at Pro level, if T combines 1 marine with SCV, he can micro enough to take out a drone. I can see the 6 drones at the micro advantage, but always remember micro works both ways
Not quite. There's a theoretical scenario that micro always approaches. Even if both players have near-perfect micro, things will still approach that scenario. In this case, that scenario is the drones passing the SCV, and stomping on the marine. In practice, the SCV can stop up the drones, but with good micro, it won't happen cuz you're trying to stop 6 drones with 1 SCV, ffs.
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EPT
