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glglgl
I'm in no position to help you, but I feel your pain. If you want to practice we could, as I'm a mid D terran player.
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I've stopped BW'ing but one thing I clearly remember from PvT is that you need to pay extra attention to T army's unit compo. More tanks he has, the more zealot-heavy your army is. This might be common knowledge but I say this because most T players at D+ or lower level tend to not have enough vultures, and do not lay down enough mines everywhere. Meaning you can make your army zealot heavy + flank and you would not even need storm/arbiter to take down his army.
Oh yeah, try to go 12 nexus more. If you execute it right, the only way he can insta-kill you is with BBS. You can block FD/Strong FD if you do it correctly.
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i only get D+ with a rec of like 40-70 but my PvT is my best matchup and i can beat D+ koreans (60% rec) sometimes still.
i personally feel that at this low of a level it's easier for toss than it is for terran.
because i don't play that much and i get cheesed enough, i always open 2 gate and try to apply early pressure to the T. watch out for opportunities to pick off tanks if they're positioned poorly (big advantage if you can pick them off). your nat expo should be finished and started by the time his cc is up or floating down to his nat. get obs (try to keep one over his facts, one at his nat entrance, one at his likely third location, and one with goons to minesweep), add to 4 gates. from there you can transition to 2 base arbiter or get more bases (try to get at least one more than T at all times). for army composition i try to get around 2 control groups of dragoons and then start pumping zealots. then it's just recalls or carrier transition.
also, don't engage sieged up terran army head on (duh) unless you have ht, stasis, or sizable army lead. keep watching for chances to pick off units especially tanks which he will have difficulty replacing if you keep recalling/denying new mining bases.
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Also, when fighting an army, make sure you group your zealots separately from your goons.
Regularly, your goons will start fighting first (with vultures/tanks). When goons start engaging, you want to run your zealots past the vultures and make them stick next to the tanks.
This way, the zealots do more damage to tanks while some of the tanks fire at zealots, dealing splash damage to other tanks.
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Watch his fact count early on. If you see a timing push, I find that adding a shuttle and some zealots works wonders if you don't have speedzeals yet. Typically after you expand to your third you'll want to get a citadel + legs, and make a few rounds of zealots. Should be around 12 goons as your core force and then pump zealots while using gas to tech arbiters. Once on 3 base arbiter you either want to be aggressive with recalls to stop him from expanding and pushing or you want to expand like a mad man. If the Terran really wants to he can make a 3 base 200/200 army of death and your job is to keep it from straight up killing you (recalls, stasis, sick push breaking skills) and to ensure that you can produce more 200/200 armies while he cannot.
Oh, and pylon walls rock for us nooby tosses. Do them up.
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On January 13 2011 16:10 supernovamaniac wrote: Also, when fighting an army, make sure you group your zealots separately from your goons.
Regularly, your goons will start fighting first (with vultures/tanks). When goons start engaging, you want to run your zealots past the vultures and make them stick next to the tanks.
This way, the zealots do more damage to tanks while some of the tanks fire at zealots, dealing splash damage to other tanks.
Wait, what? I thought it was better to send in zealots first to soak up the damage because goons melt faster than zealots.
Wasn't it the case that you send in zealots first, and then when zealots die, you pull back your goons. Get your zealot reinforcement and repeat
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On January 13 2011 16:13 lastmotion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2011 16:10 supernovamaniac wrote: Also, when fighting an army, make sure you group your zealots separately from your goons.
Regularly, your goons will start fighting first (with vultures/tanks). When goons start engaging, you want to run your zealots past the vultures and make them stick next to the tanks.
This way, the zealots do more damage to tanks while some of the tanks fire at zealots, dealing splash damage to other tanks. Wait, what? I thought it was better to send in zealots first to soak up the damage because goons melt faster than zealots. Wasn't it the case that you send in zealots first, and then when zealots die, you pull back your goons. Get your zealot reinforcement and repeat
You're correct in that you pull out when your zealots have died, but you do so because the goons by themselves are not particularly effective and will die quickly. Therefore, the zealots need to at least live long enough to make it into his tank line and do some damage, and running them in first ensures that they get torn up by mines and splash before they even have a chance. That's why you first send in the dragoons to absorb the first volley while sending zealots in during the chaos.
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On January 13 2011 16:17 Funnytoss wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2011 16:13 lastmotion wrote:On January 13 2011 16:10 supernovamaniac wrote: Also, when fighting an army, make sure you group your zealots separately from your goons.
Regularly, your goons will start fighting first (with vultures/tanks). When goons start engaging, you want to run your zealots past the vultures and make them stick next to the tanks.
This way, the zealots do more damage to tanks while some of the tanks fire at zealots, dealing splash damage to other tanks. Wait, what? I thought it was better to send in zealots first to soak up the damage because goons melt faster than zealots. Wasn't it the case that you send in zealots first, and then when zealots die, you pull back your goons. Get your zealot reinforcement and repeat You're correct in that you pull out when your zealots have died, but you do so because the goons by themselves are not particularly effective and will die quickly. Therefore, the zealots need to at least live long enough to make it into his tank line and do some damage, and running them in first ensures that they get torn up by mines and splash before they even have a chance. That's why you first send in the dragoons to absorb the first volley while sending zealots in during the chaos.
I always preferred sending a few zealots to clear the first messy bit, then sending both zealots and goons and pushing straight through to the tanks with the zealots from there. Because especially early on (such as a push against your third), you are going to have a core group of goons and you don't want to waste them, which would force you to spend more gas and delay your important tech.
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^ This is what I was thinking
Competent Terrans will position their tanks/mines so that when goons try to pick off mines, tanks are in range of the goons. Therefore, driving in with goons first will only hurt the goons, while if you sent in zealots first (even if its a small number), not only will it soak up the tanks but the sacrificial zealots also get rid of the mines since its gonna die anyway. I'm no PvT gosu so I could be 100% wrong
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At D+, you don't need much of control, just get a good BO (like 2-gate exp) and just macro off of 6-7 gates.
If you can macro well, you'll plow through D+ Terrans.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
If you feel like your mechanics are not the main thing holding you back atm, I always suggest build more obbies. You can then cut back on them once you have a better feel for how the terrans play. And at D+ you can pretty much always get away with teching slightly slower.
Also if your main goal is to improve and not to win, don't use reaver openings. Obviously they are viable, and good to have in your repertoire eventually, but they are trash for learning the matchup.
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On January 13 2011 16:43 Cambium wrote: At D+, you don't need much of control, just get a good BO (like 2-gate exp) and just macro off of 6-7 gates.
If you can macro well, you'll plow through D+ Terrans. Take this advice for sure. You should play PvT kind of like a Zerg in the sense that you want to be ahead of the Terran in bases. Just get a strong economy and plow through him with macro.
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10387 Posts
ok since I wasn't clear about how I play, I should post what I know about my play
I always open up 1 gate Core-zealot (13 core, 14 zlot, 16 pylon and Range after Dragoon). If I see that they are expanding, I continue to pump goons, but put down a Nexus before Robo. If there's a walloff, I put a Robo before Nexus because I heard somewhere that its good against 2 fact. If I don't see any SCVs pulled off gas, I'll just 2 gate to be safe.
Sometimes I straight up go 2 Gate Range, and I'll compensate by delaying my robo in favor for a faster third. This works when I'm not trapped in my base due to mines being laid outside, otherwise the Terran will punish me for delaying obs so much.
I haven't really used 12 Nexus simply because I never practiced it, and I feel like I want to learn to play well w/ 1 gate core openings before I abuse 12 Nexus. Also I don't want to risk losing to BBS
I've done some experimentation w/ Reaver-based strategies, where I use the Reaver to harass/scout, but usually doesn't turn out too well since I'm not very used to using it.
After getting my expo, I increase gate count to 2 gates and pump Dragoon/Obs, while trying to grab a Third as quickly as possible. After getting the third, I lay down a third gate and a citadel, and increase gate count to at least 6. Usually I'll have a scout in his base, and change gateway numbers accordingly. I time my fourth either when my Arbiter is out/in the making or soon after his third goes up.
Now some of the problems I've grappled with were weird early pushes, or timing pushes in general. If they surround the base in turrets, then I'm blind and I usually die to an incoming push. This is partly due to me being dumb, and also making too many Dragoons and not enough Zealots. In part I've been able to remedy this by making a Shuttle with 4 Zealots, which has been enough to fend off pushes so far.
Fighting 3 Base turtle play has had mixed results. Sometimes I do well w/ recalls and stuff and wear him down hardcore. Sometimes they do a massive 2-1 timing and I just roll over and die which idk why D:
Also usually when I'm maxed out i have about 22 goons 2 obs and aobut 3-4 control groups of Zealots and some Arbiters.
how well does this work v. Rax-Expand?
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By scouting it soon enough and planting 4 proxy gateways I believe.
Also, his tanks will be delayed, meaning less tanks to you can overpower him more easily, at least in theory
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
Most of your opening variations sound pretty stock standard
On January 13 2011 17:26 ArvickHero wrote:Now some of the problems I've grappled with were weird early pushes, or timing pushes in general. If they surround the base in turrets, then I'm blind and I usually die to an incoming push. This is partly due to me being dumb, and also making too many Dragoons and not enough Zealots. In part I've been able to remedy this by making a Shuttle with 4 Zealots, which has been enough to fend off pushes so far. Fighting 3 Base turtle play has had mixed results. Sometimes I do well w/ recalls and stuff and wear him down hardcore. Sometimes they do a massive 2-1 timing and I just roll over and die which idk why D: Also usually when I'm maxed out i have about 22 goons 2 obs and aobut 3-4 control groups of Zealots and some Arbiters. how well does this work v. Rax-Expand?
If you are struggling vs timing pushes in general, I think the key to look out for, is when he pushes out: what does your army composition look like? Eg if you have like 22 goons, but zealot speed has only just finished and you have like 5 zealots then thats one of the most common ways to lose to a timing push without actually being outmacroed by too much. Eg if they are turreted up to the extent that an ob can't get into their base, assuming you are at, or about to be at 3 bases, it might pay to tech slightly quicker to allow you to get to the right unit composition quicker. Rather than working on 'maxing out to the right unit composition' as quickly as possible.
As for your maxed out army, try to accommodate for some storm in there. I know the pros really seem to favour arbies over storm lately, but it really is far less forgiving if you ever screw up a push break.
Storm kills a great deal of their force, so even if you lose a major battle, your chances of wearing down his blob with reinforcements is still pretty good. If your army dies in a push break with stasis, everything unstasises and continues on their merry way to shitting over your reinforcements.
As for bulldog, it works pretty much as well vs rax expand as it does vs seige expand. It hits at the timing where they have about the same number of units. But it is a pretty cheesy all in build and won't help you learn the matchup in any way. It's good to do for the lols, or to pull out as a suprise build in a BO series. Not much good for anything else.
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If you have good reaver control, it is also good to get the reaver after your exp is done. You can manage to harass his economy or army with it, you can prevent his fast third and finally you can defend your third fairly easily against annoying vultures or even use it to defend push. However if you manage to lose the first reaver quickly you put yourself in a fairly bad position.
I also have problems with PvT - it used to be my very good MU, but now it is my worst. Very common mistakes are: - engaging terran from bad position, losing units for small damage done - trying to take out his third, losing all units and the cc survives + scvs run away - i thought you don't really need upgrades, but the opposite is the truth. You have to match the terrans upgrades when engaging huge macro figths or you are dead - never ever let mines shit your dragoon army, good terrans have vultures running everywhere whole game, so count the mine could be anywhere. - you have to know what is the terran plan, if they want to kill you with huge timing blow from specific number of facs or they want to creep slowly towards you while taking exps, or harass you to economic crisis while making bigger army from better eco.
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Hungary11238 Posts
It's hard to analyse exactly what goes wrong by what you tell. But it looks like your Gateway count is low for your respective number of expansions. I mean, 6 Gates off 3 bases is really not adequate, even as a rule of thumb.
PvT, after some time, comes down to you being able to replenish your army quickly rather than killing him. If he turtles, what you need the most are Gateways and sufficient income to bump up quickly to 200/200 again after an exchange. You don't really need to kill him actively if you are ahead in expansions.
Some content on Liquipedia might still be interesting for you. For example http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Push_Breaking is still very good. Mixing up your BOs with a DT drop here and there or a 10/15 isn't bad either. These might look cheesy on the paper, but it's interesting to transition out of them into a proper macro game.
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TvP was my weakest match up in BW, only tip i can give you is be up in the Terrans face at all times and never ever let him control the map. Snipe tanks whenever he unsieges and moves forward, threaten to counter and all that annoying stuff will probably break any low level Terran in half.
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