Man, I am in a huge SC2 rut. I can’t remember the last game I won on the ladder (luckily, I’ve only been playing two or three games a day). Most of the games, I’ve been rolling Terran, so, naturally, that’s the race that I’ve been the most frustrated with lately. Here is but one example of my failings as Terran.
I go for a three rax against Protoss, having recently tried various other builds to my detriment. Anticipating stalkers with a transition to colossi, I go heavy on marauders with concussive shells. My build and timing is nearly perfect. I have no build delays over a second or two, and I move out with ten units (6 marauders, 4 marines) while I expand, build a factory, and pump out some more marines behind the push.
I get to the other guy’s base, walk up the ramp (marauders-first), and am greeted by four zealots backed by a number of stalkers. The zealots begin shredding the marauders to pieces while the stalkers provide some supporting fire. Stupidly, I don’t back off, even though I have concussive shells. My entire army is wiped out at the expense of a measly two zealots.
He then moves out to counterattack. I’m thinking “Blunder rule, blunder rule. I’ll be able to hold him off” — the rule Day[9] referred to about waiting for a certain amount of blunders before you all-out attack your opponent. But it didn’t even matter. He so efficiently decimated my army that not even my near-constant marine production during my attack could hold off his forces — especially when the colossus arrived.
Here is the replay with commentary:
Lessons learned:
1. It’s rarely a good idea to push early against Protoss, for various reasons, but if you do, you gotta scan the base before waltzing in.
2. For goodness’ sake, if your marauders (with concussive shells, no less) are getting torn to pieces by zealots, RETREAT!
3. The blunder rule doesn’t applied if your blunder is actually an uber-fail.
Also, the Stim Nerf has hit this timing quite hard (but you didn't get stim early enough at all). You also picked up on the not scouting bit, which would have saved you a lot of headache. Starting stim when you got your first Tech Lab may have been a good idea.
Microing that last Marauder was probably not a good idea either. You could have go back to your base and done other macro-y things.
Also, when you saw him moving out you should have put down a couple bunkers at the top of your ramp.
And also, SCV at the watch tower early on. Scout his base, move to watch tower.
On March 31 2011 05:18 Falcon_NL wrote: that blunder rule applies for the blunders your opponent make. Not your own blunders, that would be dumb as fuck xD
Lol, I know. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that. I meant that I saw my opponent coming after me after I made one blunder, so I thought that HE was making a blunder rule mistake. I thought, "Well, I've only made one blunder, and now he's moving out to attack me, so I should be able to hold him off." I was basically applying it in reverse and coming to the conclusion that I would be okay.
On March 31 2011 05:01 tofucake wrote: Marine before OC.
Also, the Stim Nerf has hit this timing quite hard (but you didn't get stim early enough at all). You also picked up on the not scouting bit, which would have saved you a lot of headache. Starting stim when you got your first Tech Lab may have been a good idea.
Microing that last Marauder was probably not a good idea either. You could have go back to your base and done other macro-y things.
Also, when you saw him moving out you should have put down a couple bunkers at the top of your ramp.
And also, SCV at the watch tower early on. Scout his base, move to watch tower.
Yeah, I wasn't really trying to have stim at that first attack. That's why I went for the concussive shells first. But maybe you're right. I might have been better off going stim first and holding back my first push a little longer.
I do actually move my SCV to the watchtower after scouting, too. Obviously I need to work on doing that more consistently.
Good point about pulling the marauder all the way back and focusing on macro. That micro really didn't help a bit and just pulled my attention away from other things.