Updated: 14/01/2012. Added transition and more replays.
I made an in-depth guide on youtube for low level Terran players. I present you:
Simple Starcraft: Terran tutorial. 3 Rax Build. Get out of Bronze! Dominate in Silver and Gold!
Introduction:
A bit of a cheesy name, but whatever I am teaching the 3 rax opening here. And I know it is outdated and all-inish, but the main idea behind is that for low level players the problem is poor mechanics and the goal here is to work on that. In this build I am trying to remove some big (and no doubt important) aspects of this game out of the equation. Dumb Starcraft down for the sake of quick improving one's mechanics before he or she gets to play "for real". In addition this will hopefully help you to learn how to analyze your replays and help to learn some other builds in the future.
You dont have to worry much about what your opponent is doing. Hell, you dont even have to think what you are doing either, just follow the steps. It is just a fact that any solid opener being well executed can straight up win you a game in the lower leagues. I list some benchamrks and timings -literally minutes and the amount of buildings\units you should have - and you should be fine as long as you follow them. If you do all this, but the opening leaves you significantly behind and you are STILL stuck somewhere below plat - you are welcome to come and bash me in this thread as well as showing the replay so I can give some pointers I missed out. But I really tried to take away all the excuses I heard when I helped my friends to get better and I am trying to do the same to you :D
Oh, btw, since you are reading this on TL I assume the very basic knowledge of the game: unit and building selection, unit movement, attacking (a-move), production, hotkeying. While we are on this topic and in case you did not already, then take a look at Day[9]:
Now back to me. Sadly ... nah I'm fine :p But seriously if you havent heard about Day[9] before you should definitely check him out.
3 rax build order:
10 Supply Depot 12 Barracks 13 Refinery 15 Orbital Command, Marine 16 Supply Depot Techlab on your barracks after the 1st marine Start Marauder and Stim research Another Supply Depot around 24 food, constant Supply Depot production after that At 300 minerals build 2 more barracks When these barracks are done add reactors on them Get concussive shells after stim Move out when concussive shells is almost done Cut army production and get a command center, then go back to army production
The benchmarks:
- Start stim at 3:50 - 2 x barracks at 4:15 - 2 x reactor at 5:20 - Move out at 7:30 with ~7 marauders and ~13 marines - Command center at 8:00 and you should have ~30 scvs at this point in time
You should really focus on getting this right. It is okay to be off by ~20 seconds and 2-3 units, but not more. This push has a high chance of winning the game in the lower leagues. However you should have a sense of who is going to win the engagement. Dont be silly and run into bunkers\spine crawlers\cannons on the ramp. Sentries and banelings can cause a lot of trouble. A well positioned siege tank (by the 8 minute mark I doubt there will be multiple tanks with siege) with marines can hold it. Do not try to break things like that. Instead flot your new command center to your natural and continue from there.
Dont think too much about scouting info or your late game. Instead try to never get supply blocked and try doing that imba stutter-step micro you see pros do. Most importantly, keep building reinforcments and scvs while you fight. USE HOTKEYS!
When you lose a game, watch the replay. Ask yourself why did you lose. Dont ever blame balance. Check the timings. Check the engagement. Could you have macro'd \ micro'd better? If you could, could you have won the game? I bet you could!
Transition:
So for marine tank transition (TvT, TvZ) you want start combat shields immediately after concussive. Build a factory and 2nd gas. When shields are done, give techlab to factory and start tanks. Build a rector on that rax. Get starport and double ebays. 3 rax with reactors, factory with techlab, starport with reactory and 2 ebays. Never stop making scvs.
For TvP get combat shields, factory, put reactor on factory and get starport, swap them. 2 more rax, 2 ebays. 3 rax with techlabs, 2 rax with reactors, starport with reactor, 2 ebays. And again, never stop making those scvs.
What if ... ?
Some people might be worried about various cheeses and all-ins. And again you will face a good allin in the lower leagues very rarely, meaning you met someone doing a placement match, smurfing or something like this. All the other variations of allins are poorly exectured with timings completely off and you should be fine. Here is a quick rundown:
- Worker rush. The proper response is to box all your workers and a-move. Simple. Well if you notice your opponent is doing some cool micro - he aint no ordinary bronze player. If you wanna be fancy as well try to get good concave, use mineral walk and hold position to save low hitpoint workers. But that's pretty advanced micro.
- 6 or 7 pool. As soon as you see lings from the highground finish the walloff, halt building the barracks if necessary. Then pull scvs to repair and wait for your marine. This I would say is the worst that can happen in the lower leagues and it is your fault if you did not react when you saw the lings coming. A good zerg will try to delay the wall and you need to get suspicious about that. Anyway, if they somehow managed to get in your base run with scvs, wait for the marine and PROTECT the marine, surround it. Try to get good concave, use the mineral line.
- Cannon rush. As soon as you see a probe enter your base, make one of your scvs follow it, so that you can see if he is trying to put down some cannons. Dont leave probe unatteneded in the dark corners of your base. If he starts to put down cannons pull the scvs to kill them, but do not pull them all, leave some to mine. And again I highly doubt you meeting this on the low level of play, but a good cannon guy will put the pylons and cannons behind the mineral line, restricting the access to your scvs. As a response Terran can just float buildings to the natural and be relatively okay.
- Proxy gates \ proxy barracks. Once you scout no buildings and no expo - build a bunker on the ramp, you should be good. If you see incoming forces before you finish your bunker - pull scvs. Remember: it is okay to lose some scvs (not too much) when fighting cheese, because your enemy sacrificed economy to do this.
- Any type of early roach pressure either 1 or 2 base. You just laugh at it and win, because you have marauders and they completely shit on roaches.
- DTs, banshees. Okay. These would actually kill you if done right. They can hit you around 7:00 and according to our plan we move out at 7:30. However, again, and I can not emphasize this enough - people who can do a banshee build by 7:00 probably wont be playing you in bronze. In the unlikely scenario that they do you best response would be to take all of your guys, all of your scvs and counter going for the base race, dont forget to float your buildings because both banshees and dts cant hit air. If you wanna be cool you can start saving energy for scans at 7:00. And the realistic scenario is your enemy is trying to do his DT rush and then just dies to your attack because he didnt have enought units and he didnt have DTs out yet, because he doesnt know or cannot execute a proper build.
- Void rays. I actually do not know the right timing for this as I have not seen one in quite a long time. Anyway I think you should have enough marines to deal with it. Or your enemy dies to your attack even before he gets his voids out, just the way he dies when he tries to tech to DTs.
- Baneling bust. 2 base baneling bust usually comes later than your attack timing, so we would not worry about them. 1 base baneling bust ... watch the video, I went over some replays. But basically you either scout it and build bunkers or if the zerg tries to hide it then he has to delay it and you will have enough forces to deal with it.
- 4 gate. And again ... the ultimate 4gate with good protoss micro would kill you. Normally you must scout it and the way you do it is by looking at the chronoboost energy saved up. However I had absolutely no problem whatsoever at holding silver level 4gate and I did a decent job (and won the game) versus platinum level 4 gate by using this build. Watch the video.
I cant come up with anything else at the moment.
What's next?
Try doing the phase 2 and phase 3 exercises from this thread:
What happens when you hit platinum and above? I am pretty sure you can do the same build till masters, but that would be wasteful. Your mechanics should be more than enough for 1 base play. You should switch to something different. I suggest strong 2 base timings that are not all-in. Marine Tank push in TvZ in TvT. Fast medivacs and push\drop\both at the same time in TvP.
You should learn some real openings. More on that a tiny bit later. Scout more, scout actively, scout smartly. Learn timings of other races. Control watch towers. Learn scan timings and best locations to scan. Constantly work on your stutter step, this makes or breaks Terran. Incorporate upgrades in your builds. Multitask harder, be more aggressive. In my personal opinion ability to make good drops makes the difference between Master and GrandMaster terrans and sadly I am not GrandMaster yet.
Back to builds. You can either go for various 2 Rax openings - there is a different one for each matchup. The idea is pretty much the same - pressure and expand behind it, but you get your expo much earlier.This is slightly behind current metagame as people tend to do 1 rax FE TvP, TvT is crazy and TvZ is reactor hellion FE. 1 rax FE is much more defensive and you have to scout really well. There are different variations in rhellion and once again, tvt is crazy - so you have to pick something for yourself. Good stuff you can read here on TL:
To learn about 1 rax FE just watch any macro Terran these days. My favorites is qxc and sometimes you can really see him drill out his builds on the stream, like covering all possible timings and transitions.
My god it's hard to post replays. Drop.sc is good, but I hate that it renames replays >_< Anyway ... the first push rarely wins the game in gold+, but the build should get you ahead. Here we go:
TvT:
3 rax vs gas first hellion Here I pressure with marauders from the start because I know he is gonna low on units (he's going gas first, I can see that because his barracks are later than mine and his factory is uber fast).
He defends with A LOT of spine crawlers and lings. Notice how I am AHEAD on workers at this point in time. Late game he gets lots of mutas so I get thors. Rage\qq in the end.
Notice how I try to hide what I am doing. Catching zerg out of guard. After killing natural, dont walk up the ramp and lose all your army. Expand, play macro, kill later with 100% guarantee.
Good zerg. Somewhat tough game. I'd say here 3 rax put me behind, zerg was droning like crazy after my first push (which is right thing to do). Won thanks to drops sniping tech buildings all the time.
One more diamond level 4 gate. I like the way he sneaks in his 4th gate, but the way he tried to put up offensive pylons so early made me cautious. But eventually I just had more army than him.
Actually, this is a great first build to learn to execute well. It's great for bronze/silver/gold and for rapid improvement in basic micro/macro/multitasking! Good luck to those who use it
Tried your benchmarks against a random very easy AI and they were finesee edit. The thing here is you have a pretty delayed first expansion and that can set you back late game if you are not able to do damage with your initial push. I think it could be wise to scout if the opponent has early expanded and maybe push a bit earlier if so (even if you have to bring 2-3 scvs). The way you talk about it.. people seem to all-in quite a bit in lower leagues.. Also, I don't think grabbing all SCVs and doing a base trade is really good for improvement in the banshee scenario. I think if a player is up against that he could try different things as drop a scan against a walled-in terran at # minute mark or just save a scan for the 7-8th minute mark and have your marines positioned around the mineral line with marauders in front of your base, if a banshee comes defend with marines in group 1 and attack the front with marauders in group 2.
Another point would be fighting a protoss on a map with a tight ramp that's easily forcefieldable. Gotta be careful when moving up there because if you get your army split in half, you're cooked. I think if you are up against a one-base protoss by the time you reach his natural expansion, might as well just back to your base and drop a bunker or two. I think you need talk about this scenario a little bit more. Other than that it's a pretty good guide, straightforward, a bit all-inish for me but three rax timing sure can be strong at times.
Hope this completes/helps a bit!
edit: actually I was ahead in the benchmarks by quite a few second except for the stim;; I guess that's fine for lower leagues. barracks at 4:00 and 4:04 Reactor at 5:10 and 5:11 CC at 7:35
3 raxing past gold/platinum won't get you far, but I used it in order to develop my mechanics when I first started playing. I think this guide is a great idea.
On January 03 2012 02:22 subV wrote: 3 raxing past gold/platinum won't get you far, but I used it in order to develop my mechanics when I first started playing. I think this guide is a great idea.
Why do retards say this? I bet I could go on bnet right now at mid high masters and 3 rax 3 games in a row and win 1--2 easily, even if I drew a zerg.
It's just hard to transition out of, and you are behind on your expo.
Quite a solid guide though, on a short run through it. Just skipped through the video a few steps, it actually isn't bad.
On January 03 2012 02:22 subV wrote: 3 raxing past gold/platinum won't get you far, but I used it in order to develop my mechanics when I first started playing. I think this guide is a great idea.
Why do retards say this? I bet I could go on bnet right now at mid high masters and 3 rax 3 games in a row and win 1--2 easily, even if I drew a zerg.
It's just hard to transition out of, and you are behind on your expo.
Quite a solid guide though, on a short run through it. Just skipped through the video a few steps, it actually isn't bad.
You can make your point without being so rude...
But yes, a three rax with good execution will get you very far into masters. Very nice guide for beginners, and a good build to works on execution.
The benchmarks arent exact and you can be faster if you stack scv on close patches. But I dont expect and I dont ask low level players to do this. Just have constant production and dont float loads of minerals. Stim timing depends depends on whether you float your barracks for the techlab or not and do you get marauder first or start stim.
I observed around 20 games of players in bronze-gold and the thing is they just never have enough units and always float minerals. The openers like 3 supply depos for instant wall make a me die a little inside.
Names, I like your additions. Yes, it is close to impossible to break ramp of a semi-decent protoss due to sentries and forcefields. But
1) As far as I can see low level protoss players favor stalkers over anything else. 2) Again, low unit count. You would see something like 2 sentries, 2 zealots and 2 stalkers and they will melt 3) Most of the time they are dont react quickly enough to forcefield natural ramps like antiga\taldarim 4) If its the ramp of the main you can safely fall back and you are at least even, because you already started your expansion CC and protoss didnt.
If you are feeling you wanna do something fancy - the best would be to poke up with 1 unit to see what are the defenses. It takes experience to figure out can you win a battle or not. As a rule of thumb lots of sentries, lots of zealots, low on stalker = hard to break. So you better go back, put down a couple of bunkers for safety and macro. Repair the bunkers, when repairng put the scvs in front - it makes it harder to forcefield the bunkers. The way I would play after this is probably get combat shield after concussive. Add factory, then starport and reactor on factory. Swap, get medivacs. Get ebay for upgrades.
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. This guide is exactly what I've been looking for and it helps newbs like me by giving us an actual plan of attack. Thanks a ton! Time to go take some poor bastard's ladder points!!!
I like it. There is a supring lack of simple build order guides on TL that cover anything in any depth. You would think this is the opposite... but people just assume you can find it someplace else or are too afraid to post their interpretation of standard builds because all the negativity that exists on these forums. Its simple. helpful, and detailed. Well done. I really hope more guides like this pop up.
On January 03 2012 05:13 Alvalanker wrote: So what happens when I get in to Plat and I can't use this strat anymore? lol
Use something else. Get better at this. Better yet, don't shit on threads if you have nothing constructive yourself to contribute.
I know I am kind of blowing up on you, but posts like this are the reason, I feel, why there is a vacuum where there should be a wealth of information in build order guides.
Thank you sir! I decided to register after reading your post. I just got out of bronze doing a variation of 3 rax in TvP and TvZ but I never had success with it in TvT. After reading your 'what if' the fear of getting rolled by banshees while I'm approaching the opponents base is gone. But what if there's a tank and bunker at their walled in ramp? Scan, decide you won't make it, go home and get Medivacs?
In TvP i used to get two tech labs and stim, conc and shields. I'd push around 8:30 9. No expo, just rally rax near opponents base. Often the marauders would be the last left after the first few waves of units. I'm wondering how having fewer marauders will affect this?
In TvZ it's same as above but with ebay and +1 attack without conc shells. I'd have a slight smaller army but I felt it helped against lings very well. Your thoughts on this? Thanks again for a solid BO, I can't wait to try it out
I have final year exams next week, Sinister. Maybe after that
Tiotion, you can try doing an earlier attack in TvZ and TvT - dont research concussive shells and go for the stim timing. This should hit before the siege upgrade is done. If he or she is going banshees the first banshee would just pop and he must use it to defend. You dont have to scan, just send one unit forward.
I dont feel getting ebay and +1 fits in this build, you would have to delay barracks. And in any case it would delay the push for far too long. I feel more marines are better. Say you have 5 marines with +1 in your build, but it is much better to have 13 marines without upgrade. More hp, more dps.
2 marines have more dps than a marauder against armored target. Marines are awesome :D
Try this build and tell me how it goes. Post some replays if you think you followed the build by the letter but still lost.
Good guide on a revival of a build made for low level development.
When I taught my friends on how to play, i used the same build but I always make them to get an ebay as soon as 6:30 hits the clock and make sure they have 50-100 energy on the CC when they push out.
- 4 gate. And again ... the ultimate 4gate with good protoss micro would kill you. Normally you must scout it and the way you do it is by looking at the chronoboost energy saved up. However I had absolutely no problem whatsoever at holding silver level 4gate and I did a decent job (and won the game) versus platinum level 4 gate by using this build. Watch the video.
I don't understand. How does someone going for a 3 rax ever lose to a 4 gate? 3 rax is pretty much the opposite of what 4 gates are trying to exploit. You might not be able to kill a 4 gater like you could somebody going a more tech oriented play, but 3 rax should fair pretty well especially once stim finishes.
Also you might want to put something in on how to react if a zerg just builds a ton of speedlings.
MstrJinbo, stim wont finish in time for the 4gate timing. Watch the 4gate #2 segment in the video. The 4gate hits by 6 min, my reactors production did not kick in yet. If I havent build a bunker, repair depos, kill the probe and pylons I would've died.
A ton of speedlings? I dont think you can adjust your play. You wont suddenly get blue flam hellions or anything. You do the same thing. That's knda the point. You pretty much always do the same thing but do it better each time. The ladder game in the video zerg made quite a few lings followed by some defensive banelings and died. You will be far above gold level by the time you face a zerg who can comfortable 15 hatch, identify this push is coming and build enough lings to hold it off.
Hello! Let me start off by thanking you for the guide. I am having some problems pulling it off and was hoping you guys could help me out.
I found this post earlier today and decided to give the strategy a try. I watched most of your YouTube video and watched two of your vods and decided to just try it on ladder. So far I am 2-6 (win/loss) with it and am quite frustrated. I don't really know what I'm doing wrong so I uploaded a replay of my latest loss hoping you guys could give me some advice.
- You cut scv production when adding 2 additional barracks. Dont do that, constant scvs, wait a little bit more and then add those barracks.
- A couple more hiccups in scv production.
- Floating buildings to make reactors. Build these barracks so you would have space for addons immediately.
- Minor supply block.
All these are little things, but if you add them all up you have a 20 sec delay and then boom you opponent does not have stim to defend.
But whatever, you are new to this build. When you attack you have 7 marauders, 19 marines, 28 scvs and you have CC. You are ahead. What you did wrong during the engagement on your opponent's ramp:
- You focus fired the buildings - supply depot and reactor. Dont do that! You make all of your guys die for a cost of a supply depo! Think about it ... you deliberately let the supply depo tank all the damage you made. What you should do instead: just let your guys shoot the bad guys over the wall. One more tip, slightly advanced. If you watch the replay you can see half of your units bunch up at the bottom of the ramp and dont shoot until units in front die and they take their place. Move them to the side so they can shoot from the low ground.
- You dont reinforce your army well. Tap the barracks hotkey to check are you producing or not.
- You pretty much dont build any scvs during the attack. Same as above.
- You overextend a bit. Once you saw you cant break it after the first or maybe the second wave, rally to your natural and macro.
As a result, your resources got up to 700 minerals, 300 gas. Keep your money low! Get combat shields, get factory, 2nd gas, more rax, ebays!
After you expanded and right before the drop. You are high on minerals and low on gas. Get the gas on your natural ASAP.
Now lets compare you and your opponent at this point. 93 food vs 71 food. He has more tech, you have expo. You have 6 marauders, 34 marines, 1 tank and 38 scvs vs 3 marauders, 20 marines, 3 siege tanks and 4 medivacs. His weakness here is that he unloads in your base and units unload one by one, meaning you can kill them before they can even shoot!
Again you reacted to the drop somewhat poorly. Good work on focus firing tanks before the sieged. Next time try to use only your marauders to focus tanks. Pull your scvs to fight, man! If you did this you hod the attack easily. And you would still have more scvs and you would produce them faster. Last, make yourself to make good arcs in engagements, because again half of your units didnt fight here. Simplest solution in that situation was to lift up the CC, so your units can run under it. But I would even do that, just pull small packs of units and surround the enemy, you have way more and he is unloading his units 1 by 1.
The build worked, you were ahead all the time. You only need to work on your mechanics and that is the point of the build Hope it helps.
This was the first build I learned and it got me to silver...Then it stopped working. But still, props to the OP. I think it is a little outdated because bronze-gold players have gotten better.
NoisyNinja, thanks, but believe it is still the work and it is the best thing that you can do. Because it is the easiest! Look at how many mistakes you can do just in first 10 minutes of the game. Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you did EVERYTHING right? Post the replay where you lost despite doing everything right
On January 03 2012 13:11 NoisyNinja wrote: This was the first build I learned and it got me to silver...Then it stopped working. But still, props to the OP. I think it is a little outdated because bronze-gold players have gotten better.
Replay or it didn't happen. 3 rax works even in masters, as other people have said. If you can execute this crisply on some dude in silver and have him hold it, i will give you several million esports dollars. And that random silver dude a progaming contract. Neither of which I actually have to give.
I don't think this is the most optimal way to 3-rax. Getting techlab-reactor-techlab on your rax is better in TvP. I also would never recommend 3-raxing in TvT or TvZ, maruders are pretty useless in those matchups. However, I will say that 3-raxing in TvP will work in ANY league pretty well with the right BO and execution. It kills 15 nexus and 1 gate expo, has an okay percentage vs 3-gate expand, and usually wins vs stargate all-in. It works real good if you make it look like a maruder expand and then pull half your scvs.
I wont do that build in higher leagues. But if I had to, that's what I think:
Marauders tank damage in TvZ, kill roaches, kill spines. If you pull the scvs I believe it would pretty deadly vs zerg. I think Kas used to do something like this in the early days. One of the games was up on day9 daily, where he killed the hatch but then 1 baneling hatched and killed like all the marines and scvs. After that it was an interesting game because both players suffered huge losses.
Won't be too effective vs 1 base toss - you wont break the ramp and he can probably tech to colosus which would very problematic to deal with. Any game with protoss FE and ramp on natural would be hard, depends on forcefields, how you bait forcefields, etc. 2 techlab variations vs void rays? You dont have enough marines to kill the void rays, but again - micro dependent. The advantage of 2 techlabs is combat shields, but I'd rather have just more marines.
In TvT marauders kill bunkers and tanks. Hell, there are tons of pure bio builds in TvT. With stim (and concussive) marauders can kit marines all day before they get stim. When morrow played Terran he had a 5 marauders with stim timing. And again, they absorb damage. If enemy marines focus marauders your marines will kill them faster.
- You cut scv production when adding 2 additional barracks. Dont do that, constant scvs, wait a little bit more and then add those barracks.
- A couple more hiccups in scv production.
- Floating buildings to make reactors. Build these barracks so you would have space for addons immediately.
- Minor supply block.
All these are little things, but if you add them all up you have a 20 sec delay and then boom you opponent does not have stim to defend.
But whatever, you are new to this build. When you attack you have 7 marauders, 19 marines, 28 scvs and you have CC. You are ahead. What you did wrong during the engagement on your opponent's ramp:
- You focus fired the buildings - supply depot and reactor. Dont do that! You make all of your guys die for a cost of a supply depo! Think about it ... you deliberately let the supply depo tank all the damage you made. What you should do instead: just let your guys shoot the bad guys over the wall. One more tip, slightly advanced. If you watch the replay you can see half of your units bunch up at the bottom of the ramp and dont shoot until units in front die and they take their place. Move them to the side so they can shoot from the low ground.
- You dont reinforce your army well. Tap the barracks hotkey to check are you producing or not.
- You pretty much dont build any scvs during the attack. Same as above.
- You overextend a bit. Once you saw you cant break it after the first or maybe the second wave, rally to your natural and macro.
As a result, your resources got up to 700 minerals, 300 gas. Keep your money low! Get combat shields, get factory, 2nd gas, more rax, ebays!
After you expanded and right before the drop. You are high on minerals and low on gas. Get the gas on your natural ASAP.
Now lets compare you and your opponent at this point. 93 food vs 71 food. He has more tech, you have expo. You have 6 marauders, 34 marines, 1 tank and 38 scvs vs 3 marauders, 20 marines, 3 siege tanks and 4 medivacs.
Again you reacted to the drop somewhat poorly. Good work on focus firing tanks before the sieged. Next time try to use only your marauders to focus tanks. Pull your scvs to fight, man! If you did this you hod the attack easily. And you would still have more scvs and you would produce them faster. Last, make yourself to make good arcs in engagements, because again half of your units didnt fight here. Simplest solution in that situation was to lift up the CC, so your units can run under it. But I would even do that, just pull small packs of units and surround the enemy, you have way more and he is unloading his units 1 by 1.
The build worked, you were ahead all the time. You only need to work on your mechanics and that is the point of the build Hope it helps.
This helps a ton! Will report back with results after 3 games.
So I've played 2 games (both TvP) and have had very good results. I am still making little mistakes (but as you said, they add up) but I still won both games pretty hard. I wish I could play more but I must get some sleep.
Thanks a lot man, seriously.
Oh! One more question. If I'm trying to break a protoss' ramp and he has 2 cannons there, should I focus his stalkers/zealots or his cannons first? Thank you, again.
On January 03 2012 13:11 NoisyNinja wrote: This was the first build I learned and it got me to silver...Then it stopped working. But still, props to the OP. I think it is a little outdated because bronze-gold players have gotten better.
Replay or it didn't happen. 3 rax works even in masters, as other people have said. If you can execute this crisply on some dude in silver and have him hold it, i will give you several million esports dollars. And that random silver dude a progaming contract. Neither of which I actually have to give.
Umm....I can't get a replay mainly because I was promoted to silver (from bronze) over a year ago. Since then, I haven't used it because it stopped working. I'm platinum now and fast expand every game and hold 3 raxes with 1 or 2 bunkers.
On January 03 2012 13:50 Khazidhea wrote: I wont do that build in higher leagues. But if I had to, that's what I think:
Marauders tank damage in TvZ, kill roaches, kill spines. If you pull the scvs I believe it would pretty deadly vs zerg. I think Kas used to do something like this in the early days. One of the games was up on day9 daily, where he killed the hatch but then 1 baneling hatched and killed like all the marines and scvs. After that it was an interesting game because both players suffered huge losses.
Won't be too effective vs 1 base toss - you wont break the ramp and he can probably tech to colosus which would very problematic to deal with. Any game with protoss FE and ramp on natural would be hard, depends on forcefields, how you bait forcefields, etc. 2 techlab variations vs void rays? You dont have enough marines to kill the void rays, but again - micro dependent. The advantage of 2 techlabs is combat shields, but I'd rather have just more marines.
In TvT marauders kill bunkers and tanks. Hell, there are tons of pure bio builds in TvT. With stim (and concussive) marauders can kit marines all day before they get stim. When morrow played Terran he had a 5 marauders with stim timing. And again, they absorb damage. If enemy marines focus marauders your marines will kill them faster.
In TvP, Toss FE's a very high percentage of the time. And when they don't, they oftentimes go for void rays. 3-rax is autoloss vs Collosi all-in and is generally a loss vs robo tech before expo, but is very effective against everything else. So, the times when you have to play vs 1 base toss is very small.
With 2 techlab variations, you do have enough marines vs void rays, as long as you make sure to constantly make marines out of the reactored rax (that means cutting maruder production if you have to) if you scout 2 gas.
With 2 techlabs, you don't get combat shields. You just can't afford it to make it finish as stimpack finishes. Instead, you get conc shells on your second tl, you should just have enough resourcees to afford it 50 secs before stimpack to complete (conc shells takes 50 secs).
Also, if you execute the 3-rax well (never show your full army size, make it look like maruder expand), you will almost always be able to just stim up into the natural before the FF's block off the natural, even on Shakurus because no one can react that fast if they aren't preparing to. I've beaten many grandmaster tosses who are much better than me by perfecting the 3-rax, and it for sure is a viable strat in any league in TvP.
I can give you some replays vs high masters if you want
On January 03 2012 13:16 Khazidhea wrote: NoisyNinja, thanks, but believe it is still the work and it is the best thing that you can do. Because it is the easiest! Look at how many mistakes you can do just in first 10 minutes of the game. Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you did EVERYTHING right? Post the replay where you lost despite doing everything right
I am sure I am doing everything right. I have perfected the build to about Masters level macro and micro (platinum level now). This is the only build I have mastered so far, but most opponents at my level are able to stop it.
DSNOVA, thanks, man. I really love to hear that! In the situation with cannons on protoss ramp I'd rather kill units. Because they die faster. Now if you cant kill him - you trade units and go back. As a result has 2 useless canons and no units while you still have something and producing more. You dont even attack immediately after that, go back to macro and you should be so far ahead, because he invested money (300 minerals, think about it) in these 2 useless-for-a-very-long-time cannons. You would only face these cannons again when you are going for the killing blow and you have so much stuff that you dont care about just 2 cannons.
kofman, replays are always welcome, man Hiding this kind of allin would be a requirement on a higher level, but I dont feel like ever relying on someone not being fast enough to forcefield. Hm getting the concussive would allow for a faster timing, makes sense. But in a brute fight vs toss I would pick the 2 reactor variation, marines just kill stuff so much faster and protoss favor sentry zealot over stalkers these days, so I dont need that much marauders. And I just used to die when doing 2 Rax pressure vs VoidRays because I did not have enough marines and it always felt so stupid, when you have more workers, expo, killed everything on the ground but just cant shoot up and these things are fully charged and just instantly melt anything that pops out of barracks. In the end of the day I guess boils down to personal preference
NoisyNinja, well then you cant really comment "it doesnt work in silver" on what was over a year ago, can you? You cant say that you did everything right a year ago, when timings were different, like stim was faster; and you cant say you had masters level macro and micro because (no offense) the master league did not exist back then and you are not in master league even now. You most likely did some other variation of the 3 rax and had small mistakes in your play - and that is why it did not work. You improved since then and now you are in plat. You tried 3 rax in plat and it does not seem to work. Again you probably didnt try exactly my variation and timings. But even if you did and it failed I am fine with it. Because I went as far as to say that once you hit plat you'd better switch to builds all the cool kids use these days.
P.S. My English sucks, sorry >_< Hope I mad my point clear and did not offend anyone.
On January 03 2012 13:16 Khazidhea wrote: NoisyNinja, thanks, but believe it is still the work and it is the best thing that you can do. Because it is the easiest! Look at how many mistakes you can do just in first 10 minutes of the game. Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you did EVERYTHING right? Post the replay where you lost despite doing everything right
I am sure I am doing everything right. I have perfected the build to about Masters level macro and micro (platinum level now). This is the only build I have mastered so far, but most opponents at my level are able to stop it.
That's an entirely different thing to saying it stopped working in silver. You've almost certainly become better. If you went back to silver as you can now, I very much doubt they'd be able to hold it. I also call bull on "masters level macro and micro." You can't define that. Again, replay or it didn't happen.
Plus, even in plat this should be winning games fairly often; plat players aren't so good. Trust me, I'm well versed in playing badly at sub-masters. The point is that this certainly works above silver.
To the OP, just curious, what league are you yourself? It's nice to see someone paying so much attention to their thread, as well.
Thanks, Belisarius. I'm unranked :D Well I was always in masters, but I havent played actively for a couple of seasons. I am confident that just a couple of hours of playing the game would be enough for me to play at high diamond - low masters level. I do that from time to time. But nothing better than this, my mechanics are bad and I am behind in the metagame.
I just had this thing: I wanna make a good starcraft guide for beginners before the New Year. I am afraid I cant keep up this thread alive for much longer =\ because I have final year exams next week and I have to study hard. I would appreciate if you guys would do that for me :D
On January 03 2012 14:15 Khazidhea wrote: kofman, replays are always welcome, man Hiding this kind of allin would be a requirement on a higher level, but I dont feel like ever relying on someone not being fast enough to forcefield. Hm getting the concussive would allow for a faster timing, makes sense. But in a brute fight vs toss I would pick the 2 reactor variation, marines just kill stuff so much faster and protoss favor sentry zealot over stalkers these days, so I dont need that much marauders. And I just used to die when doing 2 Rax pressure vs VoidRays because I did not have enough marines and it always felt so stupid, when you have more workers, expo, killed everything on the ground but just cant shoot up and these things are fully charged and just instantly melt anything that pops out of barracks. In the end of the day I guess boils down to personal preference
P.S. My English sucks, sorry >_< Hope I mad my point clear and did not offend anyone.
http://drop.sc/83095 http://drop.sc/83093 http://drop.sc/83092 These are all of me doing the 2 tech 1 reactor build. However, I think you're build is much better than 2 tech 1 reactor in TvT and TvZ, cause you get a lot more marines and also have shields.
And btw, your English is perfectly fine. you seem like a perfectly normal speaker to me...
On January 03 2012 02:22 subV wrote: 3 raxing past gold/platinum won't get you far, but I used it in order to develop my mechanics when I first started playing. I think this guide is a great idea.
Why do retards say this? I bet I could go on bnet right now at mid high masters and 3 rax 3 games in a row and win 1--2 easily, even if I drew a zerg.
It's just hard to transition out of, and you are behind on your expo.
Quite a solid guide though, on a short run through it. Just skipped through the video a few steps, it actually isn't bad.
Yeah...if your opponent is solid, you're pretty much dead in the water...
Khazidhea, mega props to you man. I haven't seen so much effort put into a strategy aimed at low level players. I highly suggest that this post is added to the recommended threads thread, because it will get players out of bronze in a few days.
So i got home and tried out your style of 3 rax and i have to say to looks much stronger than mine (mind you, it was kinda random...i knew i wanted 3 rax, 2 tech 1 react but timings always changed). With your vid its much more streamlined. Also, after playing 5 or so games against the comp, its funny to see how my benchmarks always vary, even though i think i'm doing it better than the last time. So thanks for including those too.
I haven't tried this out on ladder yet, as i want more practice, but would you mind posting some TvT replays? In particular, ones where T wall off? As i mentioned earlier, i got rolled by a drop when my army was retreating from an intial push that was blocked by a wall. When my army got back to clean it up I was so far behind that I died soon after. I would like to see how you handle TvT with this BO.
And yeah, your English is really, really good too.
Wow, this was EXACTLY what I was looking for! More guides for newbie terrans please! I am going to drill this build and start my terran pwnage on the ladder soon =)
I was looking at a lot of terran guide, but this is brilliant. Please do a few other builds as well to help us fellow newbs out. Trying to ladder sc2 is just such a daunting task, I feel like i really have to practice and prepare before playing sc2. This will gimme the much needed boost. thanks again =D
Great guide, thank you. I´d like to add that Trump, a master leauge terran, teaches this build on his stream. He´s a very good (and patient) teacher and you can watch his lessons for free. Link: www.justin.tv/trumpsc/videos (search for lessons) He also streams his ladder games and commentates while playing.
I hadn't gotten the chance to see the video just yet, however I have a question about your build order.
"10 Supply Depot 12 Barracks 13 Refinery 15 Orbital Command 16 Marine Techlab on your barracks after the 1st marine Start Marauder and Stim research At 300 minerals build 2 more barracks When these barracks are done add reactors on them Get concussive shells after stim Move out when concussive shells is almost done Cut army production and get a command center, then go back to army production"
Shouldn't you make your marine at 15? 16 doesn't seem right. (after your Orbital Command finishes)
I'm not bashing the guide, I'm just making sure for us lower end noobs.
necroticah, what I was trying to say is get 15 scvs and then build OC and marine at the same time. Because you are building marine your supply will be 16. Also some people say you should build 16 scvs before OC, there was a thread about. In the long run its better.
kofman, I do not have shields in my build. But yeah more marines. I watched the game on shattered, I dont have time to watch more replays right now. Man, this was funny - he had no idea. And this guy doesnt like sentries. Plus a lot of space on shattered. Gg.
Tiotion, I dont have any replays of TvT at hand and I dont really have time to make any. Check out the replay by DSNOVA earlier in this thread and my analysis to it, there is a drop in there. He actually lost the game just the way you told: wall, then drop. But he had so many other mistakes and still was ahead most of the time. So yeah, perfect example.
Now think about this. You are saying that your opponent is able to defend your attack and drop you at the same time. That is only possible if he has A LOT MORE stuff than you do. Or he is a really good player and does something like defensive bunker (actually he needs more than 1 bunker to hold off 3 rax), repairs it (them) and does some sort of hellion drop \ banshee harass. You wont meet this kind of player in lower leagues. In fact by doing this build you should have WAY MORE stuff than your opponent. When you see that your attack cant kill him, start rallying to your natural and pull back. You should have enough to hold any drops.
Depending on time you drop the Rax and opt to build your final SCV before OC the Marine could be as late as 17. Then again, that's a bit more advanced than basic level gameplay.
Nice guide! I'm usually Z and played a little P as well but this made me try terran. Ran a few games vs AI and the build was kinda easy to learn and felt pretty smooth. Tried playing a few custom games but I'm not sure how to follow up if my push fails in TvT so I had to wing it which was a bit hard for me since I've just played terran in the campaign You do mention unit compositions in the video but not really how to get there.
Should I stop making marauders and go for marines+tanks+medivacs+upgrades right away if i looks like the push will fail or what's the plan? In both my TvT:s I was facing marine/tank/viking/medivac builds. Marines+tanks stopped my push and we were about even in army and SCV:s after that.
First game I just kept making MM and added medivacs but lost to a tank push. Second game I tried adding a fact+T for tanks, a starport+R for medivacs/vikings and then 2 ebays for upgrades and then an armory. Won that one due to an imba MMM drop (nice to not be on the receiving end for a change!) but think I got lucky since I was kinda stuck on 2 base and he had more tanks than me. No point posting replays since my macro was bad, would just like some kind of rough gameplan like you posted for TvP earlier:
"So you better go back, put down a couple of bunkers for safety and macro. Repair the bunkers, when repairng put the scvs in front - it makes it harder to forcefield the bunkers. The way I would play after this is probably get combat shield after concussive. Add factory, then starport and reactor on factory. Swap, get medivacs. Get ebay for upgrades."
Also, when should I (very roughly since I know it depends on a lot of things) take a third vs T/P/Z?
chlindell, try to have a 3rd 15 minutes into the game.
Well once again the goal of doing this build is to improve your mechanics, but if you want some details on how to follow up TvT here we go:
I like what you did in the second game - adding factory for tanks, startport with reactor and ebays. After the combat shields are done you can float rax and get reactor on it and build a new factory on the now vacant techlab. So you'd have 3 reactored rax, reactored starport and 2 factories and ebays ... actually that sounds like too much production for 2 base, but I dont have anything exact figured out and I guess you'll be fine anyway.
To not lose vs a siege push get a lot of vision on the map - control watchtowers, etc. Engage far away from your base when the opponent is moving and not sieged, as soon as he sieges juts fall back unless you are 100% sure you can kill of that army. If the opponent has no expansion and you do, pull scvs from your natural to clear the tanks, kill everything and then counter attack - it would be very difficult for him to hold. And drops are the best thing a Terran has. Imba marinvacs :D
I've been really discouraged about my crappiness since getting back into SC2 after 6 months break and was very keen on learning good macro mechanics to get out of bronze and move beyond. I won the first match I played using this build (TvZ). Despite the fact I fell back into bad bronze habits of not building scvs, getting supply blocked etc, the build gave me a solid base to keep going and eventually i wore my opponent down. Granted, he seemed as bad as I was, but its encouraging nonetheless!
this can get you out of bronze, but against different matchups you need different variations and also need to adapt to what is scouted.
I find on ladder most people are cheesy because they want to win many games to rank up, but I prefer long ones. So the general rule is just do be 1 base up and defend their 1 base aggression = WIN. Unless you see expand ALWAYS expect one base all-in type of build.
I think if people want to do cheesy builds should follow the GSL ones.
Vs Zerg - Hellion marauder stim timing . - 2 port banshee (wait for 4) This is non gsl, but if 2 player map = 6 RAX, if they FE
Vs T Many builds, but at gold/plat level I found that mech is good. Do hellion expand and have then positioned well on the ramp and go quick raven then into tanks.This can hold 3 rax, I also build a bunker with the initla 2-3 marines as well. - Cloak banshees are still good too, but I usually prefer to defend. This is because if they scan you with banshees, it can get difficult
Vs P This is hardest if they play long game, so I almost wish they try to all in me. I build 2-3 bunkers do 1 rax marauder expand, into 2 more rax and tech to starport, and do a medivac stim timing, which will end the game.
I feel this 3 rax is too risky, if they FE into 2 spines, with ling and bane support, it will be difficult for you to break it and how to transition nicely?
It was very helpful. I drilled the build 10 times vs AI, then took it onto ladder. Still along way to go. I rarely have as many units as you did vs AI at the 7.30 mark. My best I think was 1 marauder short of your benchmark. I always move out anyway and see what happens. I have also yet to start stim by 3.50, usually by 4.00. BTW the benchmarks were very helpful for the newbie, as it becomes clear the inefficency of our/my execution.
But even so this build in bronze is quite good. I have begun to feel sorry for my opponenets when this build wins easily.
Hopefully I can refine my play (start using ctrl groups!) and climb the ladder.
There are a lot of cheeses, but if you arent good and controlling your army and reifnorcing - marauder hellion will get owned. Lings surround hellions, kill them no problem, clean up marauders. You say 2 spines with ling and bane support. How about the same vs marauder hellion? You cant just throw around arguments like that.
It's been stated multiple times - it is very hard to transition out of, but you have a high chance of winning or dealing a lot of damage even in master league, watch replays by kofman on 2nd page. And all that is just ... uhm ... side effect. Because what you wanna is train your mechanics. You should be able to outproduce your opponent at all points in time. Hope it helps
There is a lot of good information on these forums, but this is the post that finally made me join. I'd already decided to teach myself mechanics using this method, so your post was very timely! I especially like the benchmarks; it gives me an objective target to work towards.
The build I had been using used a second reactor for a 1:1 Marine:Marauder ratio rather than your build's 5:1. It also allows me to have combat shields when I start my push. Would you mind saying a few words about why you prefer your build?
Also, might Combat Shields be better than Stims for the early push (given that we're not likely to be doing awesome micro tricks at our level), especially using your Marine heavy build? That would be an extra 130 hp spread across your Marines when you first go into battle.
I prefer combat shields defensively and stim for timing attacks. I didnt do much testing on 2 techlab variation ... we had some discussion in this thread, the conclusion was you cant really get both combat shields and stim, but you can get stim and concussive and thus attack earlier. I like more marines as it is more dps.
Finally, as long as you just produce from every structure it wouldnt matter that much, you should win anyway :D
Woah that is not a bronze level zerg you are playing against, mate. He 15 hatched, scouted your aggression, had good map presence and reacted well. Plus he did not waste his banelings on marauders and on the other hand your pretty much did not micro.
Is it a custom game? If it was ladder you just got really unlucky. I would ignore it and do the same stuff you did, because your execution was pretty good.
A couple of things you did wrong:
- messed up the wall - you did not cut production to get CC at 8 min - you move out when the upgrade is done. instead, move out earlier so you would engage when the upgrade is done.
Now if you wanna learn how to have a chance of actually beating good zerg here is what you can do. Deny overlord scout, dont let him see 3 rax. Marauders kinda give it away but keep 1 marauder in front, behind the depos, keep 3 on the edge for the overlord and the rest is hidden. You do not really need concussive vs zerg so you can attack right after stim, 50 seconds earlier.
Plus micro. Spread marines vs banes and use marauders kinda like a wall. Man, this is not such an easy thing to do.
If you see defenses like these (and you should've realized in this game you cant break them - you saw banelings and spines) ... retreat, build more stuff and then ALLIN with all your scvs hoping that he overdroned this time. But seriously this zerg was playing far above bronze level and you need a proper build to kill him.
I met the guy while laddering, he was top 8 silver. About the wall, I know I messed up, I used to wall properly but then I read a post (I think it was yours) saying that if you have to lift off to add the tech lab, you did it wrong. I figured I'd place stuff randomly in front of the ramp to be able to build the tech without lifting off I just read about the building grid so I'll make sure to turn that on, it should allow me to wall better.
As for concussive, should I only wait for it when facing against protoss? I've played about 15 games in total with your build (and maybe 25 games of SC2 in total) and the only time it made a significant difference was against protoss, where they'd sometimes try to move back their zealot,allowing me some free kills. Should I move out earlier versus terran also?
I know I didn't micro and to be honest,I had spotted the banelings but I simply don't know how to micro accordingly. I'm sure there's a guide about that kind of stuff somewhere, if you could link me to a good guide with this kind of basic stuff I'd really appreciate.
Thanks for the guide, it was very well written and it's quite simple, but I feel like I'm learning a lot of stuff when doing the build over and over again. I have no prior RTS experience and before meeting this zerg, my record was something like 12-2.
its funny how people say 3 rax doesnt work in masters and u realize people metagame themselves to death by building no units after the usual "2 rax" timing (vs P) and prepare for 9 minute pushes and ur push just happens to be right between the two timings
Yeah you can try playing without concussive in tvz and tvt, its up to you. About the micro - just TRY to do it. As far as I can see everything else is good, so now TRY to improve your micro. Dont worry about any fancy techniques, just move back 1 step, shoot, move back, shoot. If you see banelings - split marines.
There are custom micro maps for stutter step, baneling micro. But for now do it in real games because you dont have to reinforce army or build workers in those maps.
This Zerg must've been playing his placement match or something.
it works rather well still on some maps still in TvT and TvP. not really a thinkers strat but it works none the less. it's the equivalent of smashing the triangle piece through the rectangle hole in a kids toy. it'll go through if you hit hard enough.
On January 03 2012 10:14 CCalms wrote: It's spelled "cannon" btw...
Call a little more attention to this because in the video and in the post ... it's kinda glaring at 4 mentions.
Unless you're talking about what ESPORTS can to about sets of rules that are hastily being thrown out there. Then we can talk about which standard we're rushing. Please edit.
As to the post, pick whatever Terran allin suits you if you wanna throw out some aspects of the game to focus in on others. I have no problem with this method of teaching. I personally learned more doing slightly-stupid builds (Okay, over a year ago, 3gate expo PvZ into 5gate, never ceasing the attack, proxy pylon walking to his base) just to focus my mind. You can develop some bad habits from doing nonstop allins like this, so you gotta pre-assume that your practice partner support network or coach can help you ditch the bad habits and keep the good ones.
On January 03 2012 21:08 necroticah wrote: Great Guide and I'm definitely gonna try it.
I hadn't gotten the chance to see the video just yet, however I have a question about your build order.
"10 Supply Depot 12 Barracks 13 Refinery 15 Orbital Command 16 Marine Techlab on your barracks after the 1st marine Start Marauder and Stim research At 300 minerals build 2 more barracks When these barracks are done add reactors on them Get concussive shells after stim Move out when concussive shells is almost done Cut army production and get a command center, then go back to army production"
Shouldn't you make your marine at 15? 16 doesn't seem right. (after your Orbital Command finishes)
I'm not bashing the guide, I'm just making sure for us lower end noobs.
You are correct, it's the OP's mistake and the OP should be edited. You always list when you make the marine, not when it's done. It's much easier to know, the food count, when it starts rather than when it's finished.
edit: just noticed there's no supply depots in the build. A person that needs work on their mechanics definitely needs everything involved in the build.
On January 03 2012 10:14 CCalms wrote: It's spelled "cannon" btw...
Call a little more attention to this because in the video and in the post ... it's kinda glaring at 4 mentions.
Unless you're talking about what ESPORTS can to about sets of rules that are hastily being thrown out there. Then we can talk about which standard we're rushing. Please edit.
As to the post, pick whatever Terran allin suits you if you wanna throw out some aspects of the game to focus in on others. I have no problem with this method of teaching. I personally learned more doing slightly-stupid builds (Okay, over a year ago, 3gate expo PvZ into 5gate, never ceasing the attack, proxy pylon walking to his base) just to focus my mind. You can develop some bad habits from doing nonstop allins like this, so you gotta pre-assume that your practice partner support network or coach can help you ditch the bad habits and keep the good ones.
Ooops I think my edit didnt go through, but the "canon" \ "cannon" should be fixed and I put up an annotation to cover up this mistake in the video.
I dont think you can teach just any allin to the beginner. Some of them require good micro and most of them would require very precise timings. Plus more often then not for a successfull allin you would need to pull scvs and you would never expand. Here we have an expansion because at lower level players often overcommit to defenses for no reason and it is not uncommon for the first push to "fail" and then it somewhat transitions into macro game.
RooStaR, I switched the description to 15 OC + Marine. I talked about the depos in the vid, but now I added them to the descirption as well.
You might consider explaining how to defend a roachrush, either onebase 7RR oder 2base 8RR, since 7RR hits at about 5/5:30 and 8RR at 7:00 min (both possible with massling followup to use the broken wallin) and both can be dangerous if you dont respond correctly and have only marines.
Qgelfich, did you read it at all? Or watched the vid? Or you just typed some random thing that came to your mind?
I mean, seriously? You say "only marines", but the build clearly states get marauders after the first marine! I am pretty sure roach rush vs this = autolose for zerg. You have marauders to kill roaches, you have marines to kill overlords ... but you dont even need to kill that overlord because marauders will kill roaches anyway. I would be amazed if you show me a replay of someone losing to it.
Interesting, as I've been three-raxing myself to get solid mechanics down and concentrating on timing of buildings, units, and also tech. I can't say when exactly I'm hitting milestones, but then I'm using a different version of this build. Is there any significant difference between this build, and the one described by Adrenaline Seed in this thread? Accelerated Learning for Low Level Terrans
Both wind up with a strong timing attack at ~7:00 to 7:30, and I have to say 3raxing has gotten me from Bronze to Silver in the course of one season (last season). But is there much of a difference in your building timings versus Adrenaline Seed's with regards to specific vulnerabilities/weak windows in the build? From what I can tell, you're going for a pretty standard OC opening into 3 rax - but heavier on the marines than the build I use as you go with two reactors and one tech lab instead of two tech labs and one reactor.
Wow that's a pretty cool thread, haven't seen it before. I'll put the link to it in the OP.
The timings changed due to stim research time nerf and the difference between 2 techlabs vs 2 reactors was discussed a lot in previous posts, please take time to read it. But basically 2 reactors = more marines = more dps.
The weakness of both builds is beinf overly aggressive with a very late expo, on the verge of being all-in. But the point is to improve your mechanics using a simple build which you can easily benchmark so dont worry too much about it. I think I gave a lot of details on the build so you can easily compare what I should do and what actually happened. It should not be hard to switch from 2 techlabs to 2 reactors or vice versa.
I heard "3 rax was good in TvP" when I was at a lower level and devised my own build order for 3 rax with 2 reactors. It had stim, concussive and +1 weapons and was slightly more allin than this version.
I can confirm that it worked until about mid platinum.
I'm sure it would work at higher leagues (and indeed I use a different 3 rax if I scout a protoss doing an appropriate build now), the build mainly requires micro and the ability to not overextend.
One main point is if the protoss is on 1 base, what are they doing? They should be on 2 base by the time you get there. Chances are they are doing some 1 base push. This means it is probably not wise to attack up the ramp. If you put down your expo and a couple of bunkers you will be ahead on expo so this is a viable transition. You can also transition straight into factory as you push, which helps you get quick medivacs so your bio force is a lot stronger.
Good work sir, now in the future instead of trying to heLp my own newbie friends WhO just bought the game, I can just send them Here. pretty much everything in the First 9 minutes of their First few games is covered Here. This is a great Way to learn someone about the game. Kudos, bro. oh well, just think of that wiki logo as a cool present
If you do not want to micro vs banelings, just get siege tanks. Pros do this as well, once you see banes just stim and run back, and try to target tanks on the banes. Once the banelings are gone, your marines, medivacs + stim are very effective vs muta, lings (even roaches).
The other option is to just move marauders foward during engagements (do not stim I think they can obsorb 6 banes). Or even better if you have thors to tank the banes (They can tank i think 20 banes)
Hmm. I'll have to try out this version; more marines will probably make it more effective in a number of circumstances, although the trade-off of more marines and less marauders versus more marauders but an overall smaller group of marines has been problematical for me in some games where the hero banshee pops out while my marine count has been whittled down enough, and the added DPS against a protoss that has remained on one base to throw a few immortals into the mix should be helpful as well. (Plus, stim is done earlier in this particular version.)
When it comes to protoss, I usually will either save a scan or throw a single marine up the ramp to check for sentries; likewise the same for the presence of siege tanks. A zerg with a queen and a spine crawler at their natural usually isn't a problem if you micro the marines around abit, especially if a swarm of zerglings pops out.
Even when I don't outright win with the first push, I usually can manage enough damage to offset my losses and the lack of an earlier expand so I don't get too far behind, or even wind up a little ahead.
I have plans for making a "slightly higher level" terran guide in about two weeks, after I am done with my exams. Actually, three different builds, one for each matchup.
Wow, this guide is amazing. I am the target audience, a silver level player who is switching from Protoss to Terran, and I Thank you very much for all your hard work making this guide.
One thing that I especially liked about the guide that I have not seen in lower level guides (when I was starting Protoss), was "here are examples of me executing the build with very low apm and low multitasking/scouting/decision making." This was one thing that for example that day[9] didn't do in his mechanics dailies, where he split his workers at the begining, and was still doing a lot more with his camera.
I have been using this build and winning the vast majority of my games. While I am positive I could use this build for a long time, I am eagerly awaiting the "slightly higer level" terran guide.
Thanks to this awesome guide i've been using the 3rax build all day. However, i encountered a 1rax expand build which seems like a hard counter to this strategy. Basically i'd have to beat ~20 combat shielded marines with a bunker with my 3rax stim army and that just doesn't work. At that point i either trade armies and i'm behind because my expo is later than his. OR I fall back and i'm still behind because of my late expo.
So do you switch strategies when you scout no-gas (which probably means a fast expand) with your first scv scout? I'm thinking tanks...
Elp, please attach a replay next time. I really doubt in low level player doing a good 1 rax FE. But if you wanna be fancy (and you dont wanna be fancy, you wanna work on your mechanics while doing easy build) - you can apply pressure earlier and expand earlier. Assuming he has a wall you can harass the wall abusing greater range of marauders and marauders kill depos really fast. Even if he doesnt you can still be annoying using larger range of marauders. But if while you are doing that your minerals get to a 1000 ... your mechanics are still too bad to try this kind of stuff.
On January 07 2012 07:47 Elp wrote: Thanks to this awesome guide i've been using the 3rax build all day. However, i encountered a 1rax expand build which seems like a hard counter to this strategy. Basically i'd have to beat ~20 combat shielded marines with a bunker with my 3rax stim army and that just doesn't work. At that point i either trade armies and i'm behind because my expo is later than his. OR I fall back and i'm still behind because of my late expo.
So do you switch strategies when you scout no-gas (which probably means a fast expand) with your first scv scout? I'm thinking tanks...
I'd love to see a replay of that. Are you sure you are executing the build correctly?
The reason I ask is that a Marine has a 25 second build time, as does the Tech Lab (which is necessary for Combat Shields). Barracks have a 65 second build time. So even if your opponent started his Barracks immediately, and minerals were never an issue, if your attack hits at 7:30, he has only had time to make about 13 Marines from his one Barracks. You should have about 13 Marines and 7 Marauders with Stim.
Given that he is trying to defend an expansion (rather than his ramp), this seems like you should easily wipe out his expansion, even if he has a Bunker or two. You may not have the muscle to fight your way into his base (especially if he has further Bunkers on his ramp), but if nothing else you have put him back down to one base, whereas you have your expansion starting. Plus, you have the ability to produce units more quickly than him.
Worked up the nerve to finish up my placement matches today...turned out to be a pretty fun experience.
Won 2, lost 3 in placement (had to leave early one game, might have won it, who knows?). Got placed in Silver. Played two more games and just crushed both of my opponents. Just have to thank the OP for putting this guide up, it really helps us noobs. Looking forward to your next installment.
2 of the games I lost were against zergs that 15 hatched, put up 3-4 spines, and then made a ton of lings and banes...any thoughts on how to deal with this? If I see it again, I'll try to put up two CCs and get my tanks out quickly, but I could use some more input. Thanks again!
didnt watch the games, but i used 3rax to get up to plat terran, and i always had trouble holding a 3gate stargate all in. maybe add in how to counter that?
You can run any strat to master (grandmaster), including 6 pool. Depends on how well you do it. This particular strat is easy to execute and helps you to get better fast. I've mentioned this in like every other post. Dont trash talk in here please.
Double reactor should give you enough marines to kill void rays. Watch it, try it, if you still have problems - post replay here.
Against zergs try to attack earlier - go with stim timing, dont wait for concussive and expand earlier. As always, if there are lots of defenses - dont attack into that - the zerg is low on drones, you should be at least even. It's gonna take much better than gold zerg to build just enough defenses and under\overcommit.
Attach replays guys, you cant just talk theory all the time. Show me what exactly happened. Especially at your level, I'm pretty sure you make lots of mistakes and you lose because you didnt have enough stuff. So far I have only seen one replay where the build actually failed, but then again the enemy was pretty damn good, leagues above the 3 rax guy.
I'm a silver league newb having just entered my first season of my first online RTS. I practiced your version of the 3 Rax against the computer for a week. This week I have begun using it on the ladder, playing 3 games a day. Under ladder pressure I can't get 7 maruaders/13 marines by 7:30. But I hope to continue to improve my mechanics, until I can do so consistently. I have gone from Silver #100 to Silver #35 in a week (thanks largely to bonus pool points). Thanks so much for giving me a detailed model to follow.
Alas, I'm still a newb, so I can't make a transition to the mid-game. In fact, I lose every midgame. Could you provide or link to a blueprint for transitioning from the 3-Rax opening to the midgame. Knowing I should go marine-tank-medivac just isn't enough.
ps, Your video is very good for people like me. Even though it is 40 minutes long, it felt very short. I highly recommend it to lower level players.
I was talking about transitioning a bit in this thread:
On January 04 2012 10:11 Khazidhea wrote: After the combat shields are done you can float rax and get reactor on it and build a new factory on the now vacant techlab. So you'd have 3 reactored rax, reactored starport and 2 factories and ebays ... actually that sounds like too much production for 2 base, but I dont have anything exact figured out and I guess you'll be fine anyway.
Cant really give you exact benchmarks. Depends on the matchup, the specific game situation, too many variables, sorry. As a general rule I would say add 3 production facilities for each new expo, dont forget upgrades, dont forget to build scvs and produce army and this should be enough to keep your money low.
Again, throwing in some random numbers. Good time for 2nd push is when you have 3 tanks with siege mode, a bunch of marines with stim\combat shields and 1\1 upgrades. 3rd push when you are maxed.
One more random tip: in TvZ put up 1 turret in each mineral line at 10 minute mark against mutas.
Those are a lot of gas heavy facilities for just 2 base. 4-5 rax and 1fact is more feasible. Not to mention the advantage of having a more mobile army as opposed to having to constantly wait for gas to get tanks/dual Medivacs.
I'm not sure how useful this build is against another Terran. I've played a bunch of games using it in silver league, and it loses to pretty much anything the other guy does. I've lost to mass marine pushes off multiple raxes before my own 2 reactor raxes get going, any attempt to storm their ramp even when they don't have siegemode yet ends in failure. And if I don't try to storm their ramp, I would have been better off just going for a marine tank build. Whereas atleast with the Protoss and Zerg games I win when they don't respond very well.
This is basically a timing push, but Terrans don't seem to have any particular vulnerability to exploit the way Protoss and Zerg do. I suppose my question is, how does this build play out in TvT when it "works"? I just can't see myself breaking a one base Terran(and they are ALL one basing) with this build when they've got the defenders advantage.
How to hold 3 rax as terran ? Honestly I always lose to it not because I don't know how to hold it off, but because I don't know how to scout it. I always go banshee (without cloak) fast expo. I scout with the depot building SCV in TvT but if it's cross poss or I'm not lucky my scout can get denied by a walloff (rax+2 depots). Now I have no idea what's in his base. Do I have to use a scan ? In order to scan this I have to use the 2nd scan which is i think not ideal because it can't reveal cloaked banshee. TvT you use your 3rd scan normally. I've attached a replay. Here i faced cross position and a wallin. I know that if I built a bunker at the top of the ramp I would have held this. During his push he makes micro mistakes but still he's able to beat me. Can someone help and analyze my replay and tell me how can I beat this in an efficient way.
It's funny how one guy says he can never win with 3 rax and the other one that he cant defend it.
Actually, scratch that. Djtopa the build you lost to is a marine-scv allin, no gas - be more specific please Btw his execution was god awful. Now if I were going for banshee I would probably build a bunker. Get a hellion from factory before techlab - it would help and you still have enough time to build techlab for the swap. If you controlled the watchtower you might have seen it coming.
In addition, you played that engagement totally wrong. You saw the amount of scvs he brought with him? He had only 3 scvs at his base. That means if you fight with your scvs and defend with more than 3 scvs alive you are ahead. You had option to open the depos and fight head on - but I dont think it is the best one and I am not even sure if you have enough to kill his army. Moreover if he it was a good marine-scv allin and not this strange variation you would never have enough. In my opinion let scvs repair the wall (your scvs bunched up and did nothing), build a bit further behind (you kinda did it) and dont let your marines die. Dance marines back and forth, put the hurt ones in the back. Finally, I think it is a good idea to pull workers from gas and put the on minerals.
Monkeyballs. That's a funny name :D Please next time give me a replay. Now, you dont neccesarily win with you first push. Sometimes you can, sometimes you cant. Contain, delay his expo and continue playing your macro game. You cant break it before they have siege mode? You are microing wrong then, if they went for tanks and you hit before siege you should usually win.
I played today - first time in agess. Used a silver league account, got promoted to gold and was playing some diamond guys by the end of my ladder run. Was only 3 raxing and I think I lost only one game where I miss-microed and lost all marines to banelings. I made a bunch of replays and kinda figured a way I like to transition. Gonna update OP with this.
Transition:
So for marine tank transition (TvT, TvZ) you want start combat shields immediately after concussive. Build a factory and 2nd gas. When shields are done, give techlab to factory and start tanks. Build a rector on that rax. Get starport and double ebays. 3 rax with reactors, factory with techlab, starport with reactory and 2 ebays. Never stop making scvs.
For TvP get combat shields, factory, put reactor on factory and get starport, swap them. 2 more rax, 2 ebays. 3 rax with techlabs, 2 rax with reactors, starport with reactor, 2 ebays. And again, never stop making those scvs.
More replays:
My god it's hard to post replays. Drop.sc is good, but I hate that it renames replays >_< Anyway ... the first push rarely wins the game in gold+, but the build should get you ahead. Here we go:
TvT:
3 rax vs gas first hellion Here I pressure with marauders from the start because I know he is gonna low on units (he's going gas first, I can see that because his barracks are later than mine and his factory is uber fast).
He defends with A LOT of spine crawlers and lings. Notice how I am AHEAD on workers at this point in time. Late game he gets lots of mutas so I get thors. Rage\qq in the end.
Notice how I try to hide what I am doing. Catching zerg out of guard. After killing natural, dont walk up the ramp and lose all your army. Expand, play macro, kill later with 100% guarantee.
Good zerg. Somewhat tough game. I'd say here 3 rax put me behind, zerg was droning like crazy after my first push (which is right thing to do). Won thanks to drops sniping tech buildings all the time.
One more diamond level 4 gate. I like the way he sneaks in his 4th gate, but the way he tried to put up offensive pylons so early made me cautious. But eventually I just had more army than him.
Thanks for the replays! I've only watched the last three in your TvT list so far. Makes me feel better that you get caught out by drops fairly often too, and that your initial pushes with the marauders and marines achieve very little just like mine.
Edit : Watched the rest of the TvT games. The only time this particular build seems to offer an advantage was against the early hellion guy and the 1rax FE guy. In all the other games it just put you behind until you switched to marine/tank/viking. Also I noticed you were generally ahead on SCVs. Is that just your superior macro or is 3rax just more economical compared to the mostly 1base tech stuff they were doing?
I'd say the game versus 1-1-1 marine tank I was also significantly ahead. The fact that I expo so much earlier is HUGE. It might be a good idea to pressure reaper expands as well, usually it's only one rax.
You must train yourself to never stop making scvs (well until you start losing games when you had too much scvs and it is like a 100 scs). So yeah you can say I was ahead because my macro is better. Also earlier expo = more scvs. So I am ahead of those who tech on 1 base. Those who FE, I dont know, seems like they shit their pants when attack comes and miss stop scv production. After that it's 2 base vs 2 base and we are at least even.
The TvZ games were interesting to look at aswell. With the marauders there you can power through spine crawlers and soak baneling damage with a bit of micro. And even when it gets repulsed quickly with mass ling you manage to inflict a lot of damage. And 8 marine drops look pretty awesome later on. Do you have any particular way of knowing when you've got enough marines and tanks to push out with?
Thank you very much for posting this, it has changed the way i play terran. I am a low-level player (silver) and it is helping me a bunch. If ever you should have a zerg video let me know.
Yeah zerg has to commit to defense, notice how we are equal on workers after my first push. Sometimes they are afraid of follow up and build more army and get behind on workers. A good zerg will drone up instead.
I just started playing yesterday from a 9 months break (well only played like 100 games at that time aswell). Was doing pretty decent at silver at that time. However, I just started using this build and its pretty good. Only lost 3 games yesterday but now to the problem!
I'm having problem to win when I can't finnish them off with my first push. I don't know how to transition properly. I always do my second CC around 8 min mark before I push out. But I'm too far behind the opponent when I can't do any damage with my first push and then I just go back and do some factories but I can't seem to transition into tanks/medivacs before my opponents push is coming. Mostly protossplayers, deathball just fucks me over. I have yet to start with drops, maybe thats my answer?
And darktemplars? How the hell do I counter them? God I know its a noob-question but I get a good push and a single DT is destryoing my bio-army. Lost 2 times to it yesterday. The only way I know is turrets and scans, but I didn't have any scans.
Hi Lion. I'm in silver league as well, and Protoss is the only matchup I don't have a big problem with using this build. I haven't encountered any DTs when I push, but I always save my 3rd Mule for a scan so that I use it on the ramp during the attack. Also I think my attacks may be coming earlier than yours, I'll run the replays to check.
Here's some replays of my TvPs. http://drop.sc/92240 Think he went 3gate robo. My push stopped him expanding before me, it went to lategame but I had vikings to deal with his colossi. Edit : Even though he did a good 4 zealot prism drop on my workers, I still stayed ahead economically, and just killed him with a big MMviking ball as he tried to take this third. I had a massive supply lead. http://drop.sc/92239 Sort of contained him on the ramp, he never got a big enough army to take on my MM force. And I was able to outmacro since he couldn't expand and I could. http://drop.sc/92238 He early expanded and had nothing to stop my attack, really quick game. Edit : He actually went nexus first, and I ended up moving out at 6:40 or so, stim finishing just as I arrived. http://drop.sc/92237 Same thing. He early expanded and I hit him when he had not many units. Edit : I think I was late getting gas, so I built 2 extra rax instead of building 2 reactors, and built marines instead of marauders. My army left the base at 7:20 but I ended up waiting for reinforcements and attacked at 8:20. Luckily he had way too many sentries and no good FFs. http://drop.sc/92241 I think this was a 4gate, just a very bad one.
http://drop.sc/92242 This was a loss, and a good example of what not to do. Instead of trying to contain him on one base I kept suiciding my army on his ramp. And I never really caught up after that. Edit : And even then, I stopped him expanding for a good bit. But threw the advantage away by not expanding on time myself, falling behind on SCV production, and letting him take the gold base unopposed. Could probably still have won otherwise.
Great guide. This is like telling new protoss players to 4 gate so they can improve mechanics. Simple and effective. Worry about expanding at the right time later. I actually don't run into 3rax too often anymore, which is a shame since getting hit by this build is beneficial for the defending player as well.
Is there a guide similar to this for zerg and protoss, I am one of the hated randoms and a guide like this for all 3 races would really help me. Thanks in advance guys :D. This guide is great, Only lost once since using it when I spawn Terran.
Thanks! This helped me alot, won quite a few games with just the first push. Been doing other builds too, because doing the same build over and over again just gets boring
I've noticed that there's a huge variety in skill levels though, some people just crush the push I die like 5 minutes later. Others don't even have warp gate or ling speed by the time I arrive. (you need that asap, right?)
Also what are general timings for a 3rd base and the amount of SCVs I should have by ~10minutes and ~15minutes?
Just wanna tell my experience with that build. First: I really like this guide. It's a simple build even boons like me can manage to pull off decently. I last played ladder in season 1 and 2. Season 1 I got promoted to silver (yay!) and ended there in s2 at like rank 20. Lost motivation made me stop playing sc2 completly though I've always been following streams as this game is great to watch, even when you dont play it actively. With the new season I restarted as I read about this build. Jumped into the game played your bo vs ai, met some old buddies played some games, lost horribly. Then my 5 placement matches (you apparently have to do 5 placement matches again after missing a few seasons). No matter which race I faced I played this bo. Went 4-1 (lost vs. a gold player) and got placed in platinum. yay again :D . But i will propably fall down as I'm truly not a platinum player. I will just go on with that build. Lets see what happens Btw thanks for the transitions!
Just one thing that worked out for me one time vs tanks: I scouted a T going for a factory after first rax (techlab) and assumed he'd go tank. So i pushed out earlier and caught him without siege and killed his front with 2 or 3 marauders + a few marines and scvs. he left, though there was only 1 marauder left. guess the guy was not the best player around as he did not pull scvs (k.. i also forget that all the time when im pressured :D ). Don't even know if that destroys the meaning of this build, but it worked for me.
Thx again for that build as it gives a clear and simple attack plan to which you can stick to. I think when i started sc2/rts I made it to complicated trying to follow the hard to execute bos and trying something new in every game. Now it seems way simpler - something I can work with.
€: just checked my match history. i went 3-2 in placement matches not 4-1.
Having just switched to Terran from Protoss (after a long time of trying to decide which race to play), having something like this is very useful, so thanks
My only problem at the moment is transitioning into the midgame from it - I seem to either win on my first push, or make a horrible mess of it later.. .Still, that's something for me to work on, and it's helping me get my mechanics better, which is always good, so again, thanks :D
I've tried 3 Rax a dozen times now, and have improved noticeably. Not exactly from Bronze to Silver--more like improving my average resource/unit/building count from one-quarter my opponent's totals up to nearly half. I'm still a long way from winning my first game, but it's progress of a sort.
You want your 3rd around ~13 min. You want around 40 scvs at 10 minutes and 70 by 15 minutes. You dont need more than 70 scvs. However the scenario of having 70 by 15 is rare as most often you will be harassed and lose scvs.
The things you are talking about when people crush the push - learn to identify a situation when you cant break him and then back off (dont attack at all), expand, transition, macro.
I tried this build last night on ladder after getting the timings down in practise games, and had a pretty serious win rate with it. I had managed to tank down to #60 silver while trying (badly) to learn Zerg, and this rocketed me back up to ~#20 in 11 games. Two losses, nine wins- and I had to transition out of this 3 or 4 times while not knowing Terran very well. Amusingly enough, most Terrans at this level, when cornered, will either turtle up with tanks or go cloaked banshees so it's not too difficult to work around that.
Count me as another satisfied customer. I started playing SC2 a few weeks ago, never having played an online multiplayer RTS before, mostly because I had gotten into watching pro matches and I wanted to become a more informed spectator. I'm 31, and I don't have the time, reflexes, or inclination to spend a ton of time getting really good at the game, so I just wanted to be halfway decent (i.e., not in bronze). Using this build and playing a game or two a day has already improved my mechanics to the point where I pretty consistently get big supply leads against my bronze opponents, and win if I don't do something incredibly dumb (or sometimes, even if I do).
I have the same experience as Catnap with these low level Terrans--I rarely kill them with the first push (partly because I still tend to be a bit late with it), but then they just turtle up on one base while I expand all over the map, deny their silly hidden expansions, and build up a huge army to kill them. In addition to the cloaked banshees, I find that sending in cloaked ghosts to nuke my army is another popular move, but you just need to build a raven to deal with that strategy.
Like others have said, I'd love to see a follow-up to this with a slightly more advanced/less all-in build. The thing I especially love about this guide is that it includes timings for everything in addition to supply counts, since getting everything done fast is the real challenge for a newbie.
After using this build, I got the following response after a game, which I think is a good sign
Girugamesh: silver my !@#$ :/ Girugamesh has reconnected. You: I'll take that as a compliment The player you are trying to whisper is not currently accepting messages from players who are not on their friends list. Girugamesh: go play ur main acc ty You: screenshotted The player you are trying to whisper is not currently accepting messages from players who are not on their friends list.
http://drop.sc/94223 Apparently being able to spot drops and "hidden" expansion attempts makes me a smurf!
Lol Monkeyballs, that was great. Haven't had anyone bm me yet...just lots and lots of rage quits.
This build is just too good at the low levels. I've been playing mostly gold players (4 in silver now) and am still crushing them most of the time. Getting better at transitioning after the first push as well. Beat my first 15 hatch zerg today, pretty proud of that. Have only lost to terran once so far...started saving energy after the 3rd mule in case they're going cloaked banshees and that's worked well.
Trying not to sound like I'm giving a testimonial on an infomercial right now, but this shit works. I began playing like a week ago and so far I'm 14 - 6 on the ladder. Starting to feel guilty for beating up on all the newbs...
Let us know when you post your next guide Khazidhea!
I've been enjoying this build too, and I'm mid silver after only a handful of games. I'm not finding it "auto win", but it is certainly solid.
More importantly, I think the build is actually teaching me a lot - mechanics, multitasking, macro, etc. For those that enjoy such things, I've been blogging about my progress, and you can find my blog here.
You should scout after the barracks are done, I dont think there is any reason to scout earlier while doing this build. You only need to find where your opponent is.
In general, I would do the same late scout in TvZ and TvT because I think you cant really see anything and you risk losing the scouting scv. In TvP would scout after rax on 2 player maps, scout on 14 on small 4 player maps (Shattered, Shakuras) and scout on 13 on big maps (Taldarim, Terminus). This way in TvP I can get in before the stalker, count gas, pylons and chronoboost - these combined tell you a lot. I need this in TvP because normally I do 1 rax FE with marines only and I need to prepare for whatever is coming.
I'm Bronze and I use the following compositions/builds:
1) TvT (Marine Tank Medivac Viking)
2) TvP (Your build order but 2xtech labs instead of 2xreactors so I can pump out more maruaders)
3) TvZ (Your Exact Build)
I'm trying to execute this build to perfection, apart from messing up my wall and stop producing scv's after I push I think i'm getting the rest right. If you (or anyone else) could be kind enough to answer the following questions for me:
1) What is the difference between using your build and Trump SC's 3 Rax Build? I know at my level I shouldn't be worrying about maximum efficiency but timing wise it works out that you get STIM earlier but he gets more units earlier but at the 7:00 mark your unit count is exactly the same! Can you maybe help me out with the pros and cons of both builds even though I know they are very similar
2) What happens after executing this attack in TvP and it ends up being an almost 1 for 1 army trade and I feel that I can win by putting pressure. Would it be feasible to rather build eng bay and get +1 Weapons / +1 Armor and carry on putting pressure instead of expanding? If not why not?
3) Is there no way someone can use Yabot or some other tool to execute both the builds and see a graph at the end of both builds (looking at resources and armies)
I'm Bronze and I use the following compositions/builds:
1) TvT (Marine Tank Medivac Viking)
2) TvP (Your build order but 2xtech labs instead of 2xreactors so I can pump out more maruaders)
3) TvZ (Your Exact Build)
I'm trying to execute this build to perfection, apart from messing up my wall and stop producing scv's after I push I think i'm getting the rest right. If you (or anyone else) could be kind enough to answer the following questions for me:
1) What is the difference between using your build and Trump SC's 3 Rax Build? I know at my level I shouldn't be worrying about maximum efficiency but timing wise it works out that you get STIM earlier but he gets more units earlier but at the 7:00 mark your unit count is exactly the same! Can you maybe help me out with the pros and cons of both builds even though I know they are very similar
2) What happens after executing this attack in TvP and it ends up being an almost 1 for 1 army trade and I feel that I can win by putting pressure. Would it be feasible to rather build eng bay and get +1 Weapons / +1 Armor and carry on putting pressure instead of expanding? If not why not?
3) Is there no way someone can use Yabot or some other tool to execute both the builds and see a graph at the end of both builds (looking at resources and armies)
I'm by no means a Master's Terran, but I can attempt to field your question, and I'd be happy to see higher-level input from elsewhere if some of my thoughts are deemed mistaken. : )
1 ) I used to use that same 3rax build (though I got it off the TL forums instead of a youtube vid). Before the rax build time nerf you could get ~52 supply by 6:40 with stim and concussive and push, which is what it seems like Trump did in that video. However, since the nerf you can only get to about 45-47 supply. The major difference is that with this build you will end up with a different mix of marines and marauders. At high gold/mid plat (which is where I am at consequently) I tend to see Protoss players use a higher ratio of zealots to stalkers, which necessitates a higher ratio of marines to marauders to burn them down. I actually stopped using Trump's 3 rax in favor of this one because I was losing consistently to Protoss and found that the higher marine count helped burn down those zealots which made it easier to get at the stalkers which were doing a bulk of the damage (since I was stutter-kiting zealots the stalkers just got free hits all day). Now-days I tend to use the 1rax marauder FE w/concussive, but that's beside the point.
Yes, you do end up with fewer units earlier on because of the difference in timing on the 2nd and 3rd rax, but keep in mind that "earlier on" is still early enough that you won't really get attacked. The Protoss player may do a poke to see what you're up to, but if you can't hold a poke, then you've got more significant issues. Once those double reactors kick in your unit count will climb higher much faster considering marines build faster than marauders, which is probably why you're noticing an equaling-out of the supplies between the two builds despite one starting the 2nd rax earlier than the other.
2 ) I'd say it really depends on what their infrastructure looks like. It may feel like you can win by applying additional pressure, but keep in mind the way the warp mechanic works: they can do a round of warp-ins (~8 supply on 4gates), CB their gates, and warp in again ~22 seconds later. Most maps have a 30+ second rush distance if I remember correctly, so they'll get at least two warp-ins before your army arrives again, and then they have the defensive warp-in advantage and may continue to reinforce while you're attacking. Defensive 4gates, and even 3gate robo with an immortal would be difficult to break on one base, esp. if they micro their immortal to FF your marauders. The only time I would even consider pressuring them again is if they tried to expand, in which case they have resources tied up in a Nexus -- but as soon as they cancel and use that money for another warp-in cycle, I think it's best to consider the cancel as damage dealt and just retreat. Honestly, when I used to make that kind of timing push I always expanded behind it so that by the time my push has concluded I had my natural, at which point I added an ebay for +1 and a 4th rax, then got bunkers ASAP.
These days I don't commit to those kinds of timing pushes anymore. I feel like you really are better off just pressuring them without committing to an attack. If they're one-basing, I'm always wary of a timing attack and won't expand, I just leave the CC in my main for added econ. But if they expanded, I lower my CC to get my second base running while poking and prod at theirs, but I try to remain prepared to back away and take a xel'naga while getting up to 5 rax and an ebay for +1.
I welcome comments on my decision-making, as I am still learning this game, as well. But that's how I would look at those situations, lickwidice. : D
One problem with this build - TL first. Reactor should come first, marines are good/v.good v all units early and should be the core of the army.
2nd problem, Combat Shield is stronger than stim generally speaking. So I would buy it first, it also researches quicker! A marine w only stim loses to a marine w only CShield (survives with 7hp). Also, it makes a marine 33% tougher v a tank - 4 shots required instead of 3. Tougher vs zealots and stalkers. DTs take 2 slices, not one to kill a CShield marine.
Hey thanks for this build, I've had a lot of success in the lower leagues with it but I'm starting to lose quite frequently. I was wondering if you could have a look at this specific replay where I was sure my first push could finish him but failed. Keep in mind I'm fairly new to SC2 so my mechanics etc aren't great. Thank you.
On January 20 2012 18:58 Daggeroth wrote: Hey thanks for this build, I've had a lot of success in the lower leagues with it but I'm starting to lose quite frequently. I was wondering if you could have a look at this specific replay where I was sure my first push could finish him but failed. Keep in mind I'm fairly new to SC2 so my mechanics etc aren't great. Thank you.
You stopped building units at 8:30 while you're killing the two thors. Keep producing units and rally them into the opponents natural. And 4 marines + 1 marauder are sitting in your base. With them and the units you missed to pruduce you would have crushed the few marines and the last thor who popped out of the factory.
I think it would have been even better to destroy his rax at the ramp and the supply depot. Then move back, wait for more units and combat shield to finish (it was almost done) and kill him.
lickwidice, the trump's build is a _tiny_ bit outdated with rax build time nerf and most importantly stim research time nerf, so the timings are a bit different these days. However the main thing here is more marines vs more marauders and there was quite a lot of discussion about it in this thread. I prefer more marines because it is much more dps.
Expanding would be better, because if you traded armies, he cant really put pressure and you cant one base all game long - you will run out of resources eventually. Beside, in TvP I think its either he does not have sentries and dies or forcefields the ramp and you cant do anything. Learn to expand
I never used yabot. Do both builds vs AI and compare it yourself? I cant really help here.
Wren.822 - this guy is doing it right! I like the way he thinks about the game.
BioTech, reactor first will delay your stim by A LOT. I do favor the marines, that's why I go double reactor later on.
As you have some marauders in your army, stim is better because it benefits both marines and marauders. I can argue that stimmed marine\marauder would take less hits from melee units thanks to kiting more efficiently. In addition lings just melt under stimmed marines. It's about burst damage you know. In TvT marauders kill tanks faster. And marauders can kite marines without stim all day long. Generally speaking you go stim first for timing attacks and shields for defense.
I will have a look at the replay later, Daggeroth. But seems like KiNGxXx pointed out the main thing - you stopped building units. Keep an eye on that. Remember, the build is designed to be simple just so that you can focus on keeping up the production (aka macro).
KiNGxXx did point out one of the major problems with your play: slippages in macro. I watched your replay and took some notes on things I saw that were good, and things that could be improved. And while KiNGxXx takes the more offensive approach to crushing your opponent, I am more of a macro player, myself, so I will provide a slightly different perspective on how I would have played that game out.
For starters you have gaps in your SCV production. Note that when your Orbital finishes you manage to sneak half-a-worker ahead of your opponent, which is awesome. But between 18 supply and your push there are gaps here-and-there in your worker production that last anywhere from 1-20 seconds that allow your opponent to get as much as 6 workers ahead. That's huge in terms of early-game income. So if you can work on smoothing out your opener and doing everything flawlessly in the first few minutes then you'll be in a much better position. I suggest opening up a game vs the easy AI and just do that opener over and over, quit the game at 7:00 and watch the replay, look for gaps in your macro, and do it again with those gaps in mind until you can do those first 7 minutes by rote. That's how I improved my openers.
As far as unit production goes the huge gap from 8:29-9:06 KiNGxXx pointed out where you were attacking and not producing is a glaring error. However, I would also note that from 3:53 (when your xlab finished) until around 4:21 you weren't producing a marauder out of your rax. That first marauder could have started earlier. Also, you had almost 400 minerals by the time you started rax 2 and 3. Try to get that first worker back to your mineral line as soon as the 2nd depot is done, then just pull two more to do rax 2 and 3 at around 250 minerals, and they should start right around 300, or shortly thereafter (it depends on where you put those rax relative to the mineral line, obviously).
Your expansion CC could have gone down while your army was marching across the field. It's okay to cut army units as you're moving out in order to build that CC, but as soon as it starts you should resume making units. And that's also a good time to start rallying to the bottom of your ramp instead of in to your main. You know your opponent isn't attacking you, and it will give you a footing on the low-ground to secure your expansion when the CC is done.
The push timing was pretty spot-on, right around 7 minutes. It could have come a tad earlier, but in this circumstance it didn't much matter since your opponent was rushing Thors and those take a dog's age to build in the early game. But if you leave your main when concussive is about 20-25 seconds away from finishing, you'll arrive shortly after it completes and you can begin your attack immediately, instead of delaying the push that extra 20-30 seconds due to travel time.
I would agree with KiNGxXx regarding that push in to your opponent's main: you were better off killing the depot and the rax. Once his marines ran away if you just attack the production there at the ramp you force him to do one of two things:
1. Come to you with his army, or 2. Sacrifice the depot and rax, potentially becoming supply blocked.
When he chooses option 1 (because frankly, who wouldn't?) you are then free to retreat down his ramp and leave, your army still intact, as opposed to rushing headlong in to his base not-knowing what you're going to find, and having that much farther to go if you decide you want to retreat. And who knows? Focusing down the depot first might blow it up before you are forced to run away, doing guaranteed damage instead of taking a risk that he doesn't have a tank back there to blow your charging army to bits.
I liked your use of the high ground to kill all those marines when he came to your base, with one caveat: don't stim.
If you move-command your units to the edge of the cliff, then attack, you will still do a fair amount of damage, esp. if you focus down the weak marines first (shift+r-click, r-click, r-click, r-click), and your army takes no damage to itself. After he pulled that Thor away and scanned was a good time to move down your ramp. If he blew a scan you know he's moving some sort of army in to position and wants to know the location and size of your own army. You had a decent ball, and you definitely don't want to engage a Thor or any splash-damage unit in that little choke at the top of your ramp, you'll be giving the opponent a better opportunity to concave at the bottom of your ramp. You want to move down and take a defensive posture at the bottom of your ramp, giving you a good surface area to concave, and again -- space to secure your natural expansion. Consequently, moving down would have also denied him that first tank placement that kept you in your base the rest of the game. By taking the space at the bottom of the ramp you can also further abuse the high ground by rallying reinforcements to the edge of that cliff and extending your concave to the high ground, forcing him to expose vikings or use a scan to damage them.
I also feel like your army composition could have been further improved by getting a 2nd xlab instead of a 3rd reactor. When you see thors and tanks, you want more marauders if you're going to stick to going with bio.
The depot placement was great if you planned on getting a faster expansion - as then the depots are tucked away between your two CC's and hard to harass, but they were exposed since you didn't have your natural expansion, risking a supply block. You can do one of two things to fix this: either expand more aggressively so they aren't exposed like that, or put them in a different position.
I think your major two issues that game were: 1 ) macro slips that let your opponent catch up / pull ahead, which is something you always want to work on, but considering your opponent was of similar-skill and had his own bumps in macro I think you still could have won if you made some different decisions.
Which leads me to number 2...
2 ) leaving your army in your base after killing all those marines. If you had taken the low ground and expanded you could have chosen to play defensively with faster tanks by delaying your medivacs, put a tank and a turret on your high ground to keep his tanks from leapfrogging in to your natural, taken an economic advantage with your second base, then started dropping off 2 base to force him back. Or you could have played offensively by macroing up a larger ball with additional rax, destroy his tanks before their counts got unmanageable.
Thank you so much for your time and your replies. I'm going to go play now with that in mind. I'm sure my TVP will be stronger. I found a build that I like way more (1Rax FE), but I do not intend on implenting it until I can perfect this build and get at least a 60% win rate with it until I am out of gold (I'm in bronze now)
On January 22 2012 17:31 lickwidice wrote: Wren.822 and Khazidhea.
Thank you so much for your time and your replies. I'm going to go play now with that in mind. I'm sure my TVP will be stronger. I found a build that I like way more (1Rax FE), but I do not intend on implenting it until I can perfect this build and get at least a 60% win rate with it until I am out of gold (I'm in bronze now)
Are you doing a naked 1rax, or a 1rax marauder FE? There are distinct advantages/disadvantages to both. I mentioned in my previous post that I do a 1rax marauder FE with concussive. The advantage is that with 2 marauders and a marine + concussive you can take map control away from the protoss player's poking army, and if you catch their stalker/zealot out on the map you can generally kill their units for free. This delays your CC only slightly (I think it's something like 23 CC instead of 20CC) and gets you the safety of having control of the map, and the ability to pressure your opponent a bit while you expand safely instead of having to expand while relying on bunkers to stay safe.
The naked 1rax, or the CC first, is great for players with impeccable macro because you can expand super fast and eke out an economic advantage as early as possible (~17-20 supply), and still remain safe. This requires a lot of scouting and map awareness, however. I am not super comfortable doing it. Perhaps someone with more experience with a naked 1rax can expound upon its virtues and flaws in a more detailed manner. But I'm glad you found he feedback useful. :D
On January 22 2012 17:31 lickwidice wrote: Wren.822 and Khazidhea.
Thank you so much for your time and your replies. I'm going to go play now with that in mind. I'm sure my TVP will be stronger. I found a build that I like way more (1Rax FE), but I do not intend on implenting it until I can perfect this build and get at least a 60% win rate with it until I am out of gold (I'm in bronze now)
Are you doing a naked 1rax, or a 1rax marauder FE? There are distinct advantages/disadvantages to both. I mentioned in my previous post that I do a 1rax marauder FE with concussive. The advantage is that with 2 marauders and a marine + concussive you can take map control away from the protoss player's poking army, and if you catch their stalker/zealot out on the map you can generally kill their units for free. This delays your CC only slightly (I think it's something like 23 CC instead of 20CC) and gets you the safety of having control of the map, and the ability to pressure your opponent a bit while you expand safely instead of having to expand while relying on bunkers to stay safe.
The naked 1rax, or the CC first, is great for players with impeccable macro because you can expand super fast and eke out an economic advantage as early as possible (~17-20 supply), and still remain safe. This requires a lot of scouting and map awareness, however. I am not super comfortable doing it. Perhaps someone with more experience with a naked 1rax can expound upon its virtues and flaws in a more detailed manner. But I'm glad you found he feedback useful. :D
Hi,
I was talking about 1 rax (1xMarine) and then quick FE so no marauders.. but I like your idea more because I do struggle against stalkers and without maruaders he is picking off my "free" units across the map. I am still perfecting the 3 rax build but Ideally my standard opening in TvT and TvP will be something like you said, 1 rax marauder FE. I see alot of master players build reapers instead but I find that to be a waste for me right now because I can't micro it like they do and even if I do try to micro it it affects my macro so severely that it throws out my game completely.
I find that the 3 Rax build works well but puts me at a disadvantage if the game lasts longer then 20 minutes but either way it is helping me improve my mechanics / macro / positioning etc. so I'm still going to stick with it. Once again, thanks alot for your input.. I'm sure alot of other players like me will also find value in these posts =)
Hi Khazidhea, Thanks for making this guide. I didn't use your guide, but I used the same approach to improve my own skill and focus on core mechanics. Thankfully I have high level friends who were able to guide me through it.
A couple points I'm curious about.
1) Why get concussive shells? I used to get these out of habit but it doesn't really help if you engage at your opponents base. Concussive, to me, helps in two scenarios: a) intensive stutter step micro and b) trapping one-off units when the opponent retreats. (a) is not something I would encourage a gold or plat level player to do for an early push because most likely their economy will suffer greatly while they are focusing their attention/APM on this. (b) is not a scenario which would come up if you are attacking at their natural, the most likely engagement point.
I think that first putting the resources in to combat shields would be much better. Especially given the 4:1 marine:marauder ratio.
2) I think the general layout of 2 reactor, 1 tech is a good balance but the reactor timing seems tricky to me. Reactors take 50-seconds to build and marines take 25 seconds. So, if you build a reactor, you effectively are building 2 fewer marines. Turn this around, it takes an additional 75 seconds (3 rounds of marine production) after the reactor finishes for it to come out ahead of a naked barracks. In my experience, and in your video, with the reactor timing you show, you end up moving out before this up-swing happens. Here are a couple suggestions for tweaks to the build order that I tried to solve this problem:
(a) Make the reactors when you build the CC. Since you have to stall your army production at this time anyway, it's a good fit for the downtime of your rax's.
(b) Put a reactor on the first rax, TL on second, reactor on 3rd. Move out with stim but without concussive. I expect you will find that you have 4-5 more marines this way. (Bonus for this methid: add shields, concussive and +1 armor for a sweet 2nd timing attack if the first fails)
Thanks for making this guide, Khazidhea. I've been playing Zerg in 2n2 and other teamgames from the very beginning of the beta on, and haven't focused on 1n1 yet. I laddereda little bit as zerg, too, and managed to get placed into platinum where i struggle as a zerg player to keep up with my enemies. Now i have tried this build literally having NO idea of 'how to terran', hell, even this production-cycle in the buildings is totally new to me!
And it just kicks ass. Here's my first replay, i later recognized i expanded 'to early'. I haven't analyzed the replay yet cause it's 1:30 am and i'm going to bed now, but my terran opponent really disliked the fact that your build is just huuuuge.
Azira, the marine marauder ratio is not 4:1 as you start producing marauders earlier. Getting techlab first is essential to get stim going early. Reactor first would delay for WAY TOO LONG.
I like the idea of skipping reactors until the push - it is something I would like to test, maybe you are right.Maybe use 3 rax naked rax or something instead. I might update the OP, but cant really change the video.
Concussive shell is arguable, I agree. I clearly mention in the vid that concussive is "kinda optional". But it does help, especially in TvP. In addition, you have to learn how to stutter step at some point and doing this with concussive is easier than without. I wouldnt recommend bronzie to stutter step, but a gold\plat player should start looking into that. Concussive also has this random factor of accidently hitting something like a baneling and giving a few extra seconds to micro marines back. Zealots - usually what would happen you start hitting zealots, they try to attack you, try to retreat an die. If you happen to engage in open field - it would definitely help chase you opponent.
Finally, in the transition section I say how you should go for shields right after concussive. I would always go for +1 weapons first - it is way better to do it in every matchup for terrans. In TvP I would wait for medivacs for a second push and in TvZ and TvT I wait for tanks.
Practised the Build vs AI, got on Ladder (Bronze) and startet to wreck face.
vs Zerg, the only game i lost so far was because the power to my building went off. They always have much less stuff than me. (i think because learning the inject/larva is kinda hard for bronzies like me.
vs. Protos, the games are closer, but i almost always do enough damage to kill them off with my second push, 5rax bio with 1/1 and medivacs off 2 bases (if i dont slaughter them outright)
the only matchup i struggle is TvT, in most games they survive my first push, after that, it goes to a macro game. And i struggle with my transition (dont like tanks all that much, and bio vs tanks has its problems with bronze apm, I really look forward to HotS in TvT , + I only get cheesed by terran, mostly banshees.
Just got promoted to gold league after about 35 games, still really happy with how well this build covers the basics. Starting to run into a few problems now that I'm playing platinums almost 100% of the time. I'm finding that the first push is doing less and less damage as my opponents get better.
Against protoss, I'm completely fine with sticking to the 3rax. It's hard to remember the last time I lost to a toss using this build.
High platinum terrans are starting to beat me. My loses against T usually come when they get siege mode and an expo up right before my attack hits at about 8:00. 3rax still wins me a lot of games, especially when they try to cheese.
Zerg is by far my weakest matchup. Ling bling muta destroys me. I usually only win against an opponent that goes roaches and my first attack still usually does nothing...except force a lot of units. Need to get better at my macro and learn when to attack/not attack.
Should I be moving on to another build, or should I stick with the 3rax and focus on improving my macro/scouting/game sense? I'm quite sure this build can get me a lot farther, but I'm starting to feel like it's not setting me up very well for the mid to late game.
In my opinion, every type of strategy can be used in upper leagues if they're refined. I can normally get away with 3raxing protoss players all the time.
Also, I suggest getting concussive before stim. Unless you want to push faster and without concussive, getting concussive stops early pokes by stalkers.
On January 25 2012 02:33 MrMoist wrote: >Not really suitable for high levels of play
In my opinion, every type of strategy can be used in upper leagues if they're refined. I can normally get away with 3raxing protoss players all the time.
Also, I suggest getting concussive before stim. Unless you want to push faster and without concussive, getting concussive stops early pokes by stalkers.
Agreed. MMA used essentially the same build to beat IMMVP in the GSL one game. It's a strong timing that has potential build order wins and if you deny scouting then it can be very hard to defend.
On January 24 2012 04:03 ReallyBigShark wrote: Against protoss, I'm completely fine with sticking to the 3rax. It's hard to remember the last time I lost to a toss using this build.
High platinum terrans are starting to beat me. My loses against T usually come when they get siege mode and an expo up right before my attack hits at about 8:00. 3rax still wins me a lot of games, especially when they try to cheese.
Zerg is by far my weakest matchup. Ling bling muta destroys me. I usually only win against an opponent that goes roaches and my first attack still usually does nothing...except force a lot of units. Need to get better at my macro and learn when to attack/not attack.
Same here! I'm playing against gold players (having a really hard time against Zerg) and wonder whether I should use a different BO in TvZ. I thought about Bomber's TvZ-style (Day9:395) but this will/would need some time(a lot^^) and train to use it in the ladder.
On January 25 2012 04:50 nic1868 wrote: Same here! I'm playing against gold players (having a really hard time against Zerg) and wonder whether I should use a different BO in TvZ. I thought about Bomber's TvZ-style (Day9:395) but this will/would need some time(a lot^^) and train to use it in the ladder.
3 Rax is an awesome build to get started with, but I'd say in gold league it's about time to learn the standard midgame and get the general idea of each matchup.
As for TvZ, i honestly reccomend staying away from Bomber's 3OC build which was shown in that daily until you get up to the higher leagues. Not only the build is map dependant, it is also harder to execute than usual cookie cutter builds, and going from 3 rax to 3OC is practically skipping the logical "next chapter in the book". (Dont get me wrong, its quite a useful addition later on when you know what youre doing.)
If you're just getting into gold, IMHO the ideal choice is the old 2 rax FE -> 10minute-ish marine tank stim push which was fairly common before the reactor hellion came into fashion. The reason i suggest the economical 12/14 2 rax over hellions is because at your levels, not only you might not reap the full benefits of early hellion openings like creep deny and thourough scouting, theres a solid chance you might even be putting yourself behind with losing them to spines, surprise lings or plain macro bumps thanks to babysitting and kiting. The two rax will give you a decent, easy to execute pressure option in the early game as long as you learn not to overcommit and try to do dmg without taking it.
Back then i used to do something in the lines of: 2 rax > CC > 2 gas > rax > factory > lab on rax > swap, start tank prod.> lab and stim > gas > ebay, later +1 > starport > gas > push with 3,4 tanks and stim nearing completion. (thanks Doc!)
You'll be learning marine tank control, sniping zergs third, when to pull back, adding more production and your 3rd and stuff like that.. just get the build down first. When you get more comfortable and maybe around plat, its a good time to replace 2 rax with reactor hellion opener. Good luck!
2 rax FE seems to be the perfect solution for me. I haven't tried the build yet, but it sounds great and fits to my skill level. I can't wait to use it and hopefully increase my win-ratio in TvZ
I've been trying out some naked 3 rax builds that go like the following:
supply rax (pump marines nonstop after done) rax (pump marines nonstop after done) orbital supply rax (pump marines nonstop after done) supply supply CC double gas orbital supply ... (basically similar to 1rax fe + 2 rax follow up)
i usually have 8+ marines to push at 5 minutes. take 2 scv's with you to buid bunkers as necessary. it does ok damage against an opponent that fast expands. if the opponent is on one base, i make a bunker near the ramp and put a few marines in there, and move the rest back to base. build another bunker in the nat and wall off while the bunker at the opponents natural buys some time to keep the speedlings or stalkers at bay.
it's not the most aggressive build, but keeping your scv's off gas and constantly mining minerals helps you build your CC sooner while keeping a decent sized army knockin on their door
First of all, thanks for doing this: by learning and using this build I feel I have improved much over de past weeks, by being low-bronze at first and now ranked 2 in the same league. My matches from the past two weeks have been 35-10 or something like that. However, I have some questions that someone might help me with:
1. How important is it to attack at 7:30 (or something around that)? I sometimes wait until some more units come out, but is that costing me games? And is there an indication about how many units I need with those adjusted buiding times (like 6 marauders and 10 marines)?
2. Sometimes protoss gives me trouble, when they use sentries. One forcefield can block some of the ramps in two-player maps and I find myself having trouble what to do? Should I pay attention to when the forcefield has gone away and attack at that moment, or should I do something else?
@Negius 1) This 3rax build gets you a big army relatively early, but the longer you wait to attack generally the worse the game will go for you. He'll either have expanded before you and got an economic lead, or he'll have developed some high tech units that can defeat your barracks army more easily. For example siege tanks in TvT. 2) Yes a competent Protoss will keep you forcefielded out of his main base. In this case what you want to do is set up a contain, IE set your army at his natural just out of range of his units. That way you delay his expansion while you can expand yourself and sending more units down. You might have to retreat back to your own base at some point but the main thing is to get a lead on having your 2nd base up.
In TvP ramp case, run 1 marine up to see how many sentries he has. If its more than 1 dont even try to break it, expand and proceed to macro.
You can attack earlier than 7:30 in TvT and TvZ without concussive shells, it's a personal preference. I wouldnt recommend attacking later than that for the reasons monkeyballs mentioned above.
Delaying the attack against terran is also very dangerous due to the increased possiblity of seige tanks. This push into 3 or 4 seige tanks is basically throwing those units away.
I like the idea of focusing on one build in order to improve your basic mechanics. However, I hate all-ins. Is there a more macro orienteted build for Terran, which I can use in lower leagues against all three machups?
This build order doesn't seem to make any sense. Nothing seems synchronized. The point was to pump out max units and attack with stim but the barracks with reactors come very late.
With 2 reactored barracks you'd expect to have more than 13 marines lol. In fact a 2 rax techlab/reactor build probably produces more units and hits earlier.
Secondly stim is started way early and is not used until 4+ minutes later. Again this should be delayed for earlier barracks or something.
LOL I remember in season 1 getting out of bronze with a build prety similar to this in every match up then i four gated my way to gold, then i three-racks SCV al-in my way to top diamond, and then.. I began to play normally and am in plat
Great guide, I have always done a sort of 3/4 rax build against protoss with an attack anywhere between 5 and 8 minutes, but it was never really a solidified thing, this has helped me to make it into a more definite build. One thing i was wondering though is if you see the toss still on 1 base, with a gateway/cybercore wall in, what is the proper thing to do? Double expand? because 1 expand hasnt seemed to be working for me. They always take their own natural right after I leave, so they are not too far behind, and if i stay too long, I risk loosing my army. If the toss fast expands, it is easy to clean up the natural, and if they are dumb enough to fight stalkers vs MM, I can take their main too. But this has really stumped me. Any help?
ProbeEtPylon, I believe aggressive play would train your mechanics way faster. You can do 1 rax FE in every matchup, but your scouting, micro and macro have to be pretty good to pull it off.
vnlegend, 2 rax TvP style with reactor first and concussive would hit earlier - that's true. But here I aim for a stim timing, that's why stim is so early. By the time 2 rax gets stim 3 rax will outproduce whatever 2 rax produce fore sure. Lastly, stim is 'not used' only for 1 minute while the concussive shell is researched. I also mention how concussive is an optional upgrade, you can skip it and attack right after stim. If you can show a build that has more marines, but still includes marauders, early stim timing and a (late) expo, please share with us.
lordofsoup, protoss would not usually wall-in like this vs terran. The buildings are vulnerable to ranged units this way. For example terran can pick the buildings from the low ground with medivac vision. Dont doulbe expand. If you follow the build, you will start your cc as you move out. Camp his ramp until you float your cc to your natural. Then leave. If protoss starts his expansion now, he is behind. Check out the transition section if you are not sure what to do next.
When I started sc2, with no previous RTS experience, I used this to go from silver to low diamond ... Of course, this was a few weeks after release, so everyone was considerably shittier haha.
My issue is mid to late game after that, even when i have a macro advantage, i just cant seem to properly deal with high templars. It seems like 2 high templars can rape my army even though i have an advantage from the three rax. I did pretty well today, a couple of really fast expanding protoss went down so easily, I didnt even have to micro
lordofsoup, what league are you in? how big is your macro advantage? Post some replays. I hate talking pure theory. People sound like they are Code S material and it is not a big deal they were floating money in that particular game. If you float 1k minerals and your army dies to storms, I can argue that you could have had 20 more marines in that army.
Realistically you need ghosts to deal with HTs and vikings vs colosus. To win you absolutely have to avoid storms either by emping\sniping templars or just baiting storms and running out of them. It is a very micro intensive dance of ghosts and templars. Then protoss brings colossi and you have to pull ghosts back, bring vikings. It's hard! But unless you are in masters, dont even think about it. There is a reason your opponent is not in masters yet! You can have double his army size by having much more production and keeping money low. Most likely they wont upgrade units, so yeah, storms deal damage, but everything else would just evaporate against 3\3 marine\marauder.
On January 31 2012 03:45 ProbeEtPylon wrote: I like the idea of focusing on one build in order to improve your basic mechanics. However, I hate all-ins. Is there a more macro orienteted build for Terran, which I can use in lower leagues against all three machups?
went 4-1 yesterday and 4-1 today, should be promoted soon. one thing that killed me was getting hit by banelings in the middle of the field while the push was rolling. he killed my units, and instantly attacked my base, i could not build enoght units in time -gg. guess i have to start micro at least a bit^^
On February 07 2012 03:39 Snotling wrote: went 4-1 yesterday and 4-1 today, should be promoted soon. one thing that killed me was getting hit by banelings in the middle of the field while the push was rolling. he killed my units, and instantly attacked my base, i could not build enoght units in time -gg. guess i have to start micro at least a bit^^
you could also place your marauders in front when the banes come in. at the lower levels, they wont target your marines very often. your rauders will soak up the 10+ banes that come at you (and you'll still have a couple left if you placed your units well)
On February 07 2012 03:39 Snotling wrote: went 4-1 yesterday and 4-1 today, should be promoted soon. one thing that killed me was getting hit by banelings in the middle of the field while the push was rolling. he killed my units, and instantly attacked my base, i could not build enoght units in time -gg. guess i have to start micro at least a bit^^
you could also place your marauders in front when the banes come in. at the lower levels, they wont target your marines very often. your rauders will soak up the 10+ banes that come at you (and you'll still have a couple left if you placed your units well)
ill try that next time. altought at the point i noticed the banes it was way to late for that. so i guess i have to start scouting
On January 31 2012 08:04 enigamI wrote: When I started sc2, with no previous RTS experience, I used this to go from silver to low diamond ... Of course, this was a few weeks after release, so everyone was considerably shittier haha.
Well... these days i did that sometimes vsP on good maps (like Metalopolis) on a *mid-master account*, and that works quit well :D But i trick the opponent by showing only 2 marines and a bunker on the top of the choke. So the toss prepare for 1-1-1 defense, and most of the time 1-1-1 defense are horrible vs that :p (not enough FF, too many immortals, .. )
The thing is, when I'm versus a.i. and I don't have anything bothering me like scouting and fending of early pressure. I nail this build pretty well. Mostly I'll have everything 10 seconds earlier and have 33 scv's at 8:00. Do you guys have a tips for learning multitasking?
why teach this shit if it doesn't work against people who can play the game? Why don't you teach 1 rax reaper exp or something that is alot better and also works in all match-ups, every map. just a tip.
On February 10 2012 03:45 Sennin wrote: The thing is, when I'm versus a.i. and I don't have anything bothering me like scouting and fending of early pressure. I nail this build pretty well. Mostly I'll have everything 10 seconds earlier and have 33 scv's at 8:00. Do you guys have a tips for learning multitasking?
do you make the most of hotkeys? try doing this build without looking at your main base except when you make your buildings. this should help you when you scout as well as engage in battles outside your main.
also, i think a common mistake that people make are spending too much time on micro when attacks happen. you could always be pre-emptive by spreading your marines on the high ground near the ramp, or any open spots where reapers could hop in if you suspect reaper harass.
at the lower levels, it's good enough to learn to make favorable engagements by picking location and formation and using the effort to micro the battle towards continuing macro (make more scv, depots, production buildings, etc).
On January 31 2012 08:04 enigamI wrote: When I started sc2, with no previous RTS experience, I used this to go from silver to low diamond ... Of course, this was a few weeks after release, so everyone was considerably shittier haha.
That's my story too!! i left for the mandatory service in the army for 9 months after that though..When i started playing again after that it was a rough downfall to gold.The game had evolved like hell.The road back to diamond after getting demoted to gold was a bumpy a lengthy one i have to say.Still a great build to start playing terran as it includes sense of timings basic MMM micro and all that stuff!
I have a few questions about this build: -when do you send your scout -do you cut production after 7:30 to get the money for the expansion since I seem to have my money low.
I have looked at alot of terran starter guides, and most off them say start with 3rax. My question here is then, what if you plan to switch race, in my case its from EU plat zerg, to terran, should I still go 3rax? Or should I try to have 1 build per matchup, like marine tank / MMM / some tvt build.
On February 13 2012 18:47 Sennin wrote: I have a few questions about this build: -when do you send your scout -do you cut production after 7:30 to get the money for the expansion since I seem to have my money low.
Actually the BO in the 1st post says cut production to get a CC out and then go on cranking out MM. I usually send my scout right after starting the 1st Rax, just against Zerg it's right after starting the 1st Depot, cos of chance of 6-Pool. (Oh, how I love to see ragequits after failed 6-Pools. :D)
On February 13 2012 22:50 Pusekatten wrote: I have looked at alot of terran starter guides, and most off them say start with 3rax. My question here is then, what if you plan to switch race, in my case its from EU plat zerg, to terran, should I still go 3rax? Or should I try to have 1 build per matchup, like marine tank / MMM / some tvt build.
I'd recommend starting off with just 1 BO. Imo the races are so much different to play that you have to start nearly from scratch when you raceswitch. However you're probably able to do more BOs soon, cos of the overall game experience.
Worst build ever created, dies to absolutely every single banshee opening, which is about 90% of the times. How will this build learn me to play terran when I cant even get past the 15min mark?
You're producing Marines like crazy with this, that kill Banshees easily. All you need is some detection. Either safe a scan or squeeze in an ebay and a turret somewhere and you're fine.
You got an adequate amount of marines by the time cloaked banshees may arrive, so why talk this build down blindly? Sure no detection and stuff, but do you really get bansheed in 90% of your tvts? Can't really believe that. There is pretty much no general strategy which is suitable for all kinds of possible bos so scouting is always important (i always wanted to say that :D, though im still pretty bad in that). If you blindly follow an anti-banshee build, you will propably lose against other stuff. I think the positive feedback in this thread (and not to forget the effort of creating this thread by the OP) proves that this build is pretty successful in the lower leagues - which it's meant for. And its not supposed to give you detailed information on how to transfer into a heavy macro-lategame build, although there are some attempts to help you with that. Additionally you are supposed to win or severly cripple your enemy after ~8 mins and win from that on... if something like that goes wrong and you lose a lot of units you are generally pretty much screwed. Especially with some semi-allins like this build is.
so i made my way up to nearly Gold league with this build...now i am hitting an brick wall in gold. Everyone seem to defend easily versus this build and i have no clue what to do.
Normally i do expand and pull the rest of my arines back. Build an ebay for turrets and upgrades. Factory and Starport. I mostly get crushed by players taking to much bases. I try dropping...even tried to play mech which seems to me at least very difficult since siege tanks are pretty weak and thor are to slow.
Do you guys have a good follow up if the defense of your opponent is to good?
On February 14 2012 20:44 cutler wrote: so i made my way up to nearly Gold league with this build...now i am hitting an brick wall in gold. Everyone seem to defend easily versus this build and i have no clue what to do.
Normally i do expand and pull the rest of my arines back. Build an ebay for turrets and upgrades. Factory and Starport. I mostly get crushed by players taking to much bases. I try dropping...even tried to play mech which seems to me at least very difficult since siege tanks are pretty weak and thor are to slow.
Do you guys have a good follow up if the defense of your opponent is to good?
Well, if they can hold their expansion to your first push, then yes, they will be ahead(everything else being equal), that is the crucial weakness of this build. Really no way around it.
However, if you held them to one base, you should be fine and be able to outmacro them.
Having a hard time to follow-up in an acceptable way is for sure pretty normal after going for this build. I think it's the nature of this build (3 rax early aggression, pretty late expand, almost no tech), that you are behind after your aggression gets repelled. This has been stated a few times in this thread already. I can only speak for myself here, but i've managed to get out of this hole a few times and still won - by far not always cause you are behind already. Just focus more on your macro than paying too much attention to micro your initial push (or defend an even earlier enemy push). I've been there already and it's really important to get up your expansion (maybe even before your first attack hits the enemy doors - when your army is on the way) and immediatly take more gases and factory & starport as soon as possible. It's situational which addons you put on factory and starport - and DONT forget upgrades/ghosts/other stuff if needed. Concentrate on the follow-up steps and dont mess up. [[Hey, it's so easy to write this stuff down, but i have trouble too to keep that all going]] After the OP-bo it's getting already quite complex at least for me as i'm not a very high rated player (in plat but i dont feel very platinish) and you have to be on top of your macro. There are so many things to think of and to get it well done but if you watch the replay you will find tons of things that you could have done better. And as bitterdam said last weekend at IEM: Don't watch the replays you lost, watch the replays you won.. there are still soooo many things you can improve - pretty good tip imho to keep the motivation up.
On February 14 2012 22:46 crz1 wrote: And as bitterdam said last weekend at IEM: Don't watch the replays you lost, watch the replays you won.. there are still soooo many things you can improve - pretty good tip imho to keep the motivation up.
I wouldn't sign that, because you can get into the mindset of "i got away with this and that mistake and still won, so it wasn't too important". Imo watching replays of losses is the better way. However you could try to watch all your replays as if you've lost the match and search for mistakes.
As for the follow up after this opening, when your opponent managed to defend against the push (@cutler): If you have taken your natural during the push you are probably not that far behind i guess. Usually you've still destroyed quite a bit of stuff, maybe even some of his workers (=economy) and have forced him to concentrate a bit more on producing army, because he has to be afraid that you'll push again soon (this is even more important against a Zerg). What unit combo you produce now is heavily dependant on the units of your opponent. I think your best bet is to try a follow up for each MU (like others chose 1 BO for each MU) with just a rough plan of what composition you want to have. Like for example MMM+Vikings against Protoss, maybe Bio+Mech against Zerg and Marine+Tank+Viking against Terran. Play around and try things out. Now a very wise man (who goes with the nick Day[9] ) recently had a Daily (i think 406) about Lategame and managing bases, that is getting yourself more bases and denying your enemies bases, which is worth a look. It might help you with the problem of your enemies getting more bases and crushing you with just more stuff.
On February 14 2012 18:28 Pusekatten wrote: Worst build ever created, dies to absolutely every single banshee opening, which is about 90% of the times. How will this build learn me to play terran when I cant even get past the 15min mark?
Really? I've been doing a pretty similar build for awhile now and I've seen two banshee openings. Mine hits a little earlier so I'm arriving at base around the time the banshee is popping out so just save energy for scan. I call down two mules and start saving energy. In this build the banshees are probably arriving at your base around the time you push out and what I would do in that situation is a base trade. Lift off your orbital, pull all scvs, and move everything to your opponents base. He will not have enough to defend with . This build should punish a 1/1/1 because all that economy he put into tech you put into units so you should easily be able to overwhelm your opponent. His only hope is to make a planetary fortress.
On February 14 2012 18:28 Pusekatten wrote: Worst build ever created, dies to absolutely every single banshee opening, which is about 90% of the times. How will this build learn me to play terran when I cant even get past the 15min mark?
Really? I've been doing a pretty similar build for awhile now and I've seen two banshee openings. Mine hits a little earlier so I'm arriving at base around the time the banshee is popping out so just save energy for scan. I call down two mules and start saving energy. In this build the banshees are probably arriving at your base around the time you push out and what I would do in that situation is a base trade. Lift off your orbital, pull all scvs, and move everything to your opponents base. He will not have enough to defend with . This build should punish a 1/1/1 because all that economy he put into tech you put into units so you should easily be able to overwhelm your opponent. His only hope is to make a planetary fortress.
Normaly they have a scouting scv or marine, or scan that sees Im going 3rax. And they put up bunkers accordingly. I have tried to conntinue my push, and rally all new units to his base, rally new marines to kill off the banshee in my base, and run marines back to my base. All off those pushes have been stoped by having 2 or in some cases 3 bunkers + helions who burn all my marines on the tiny ramp.
Pusekatten, I mentioned that this build is intended for players below platinum and you said you are plat zerg switching to terran. I also said that banshee is a weakness of this build.
Terran is the least represented race in silver-master leagues. I can say that I play close to no TvTs in master league. Cant really comment on popularity of banshee opening in plat TvTs. But anyway, I really doubt that you are losing 90% of your games.
If you are really afraid of banshees here is what you can do. Scan their main at 6 min - that's when starport will be usually constructed. Normal banshee comes out at 7:30, gas first banshee - a little bit earlier. If they scan you (letting scouting scv or marine in by the time you are commited to 3 rax is your own fault), see 3 rax and build bunkers - you can save scans (or get ebay\turrets), cut army production and expand earlier. Building 3 bunkers would delay his expansion by a lot. You should have no problem dealing with banshee if you are prepared like this. He cant really kill you with his army, because he spent all resources teching to banshees.
I expect a plat level player to be able to do this sort of little tweaks to the build on their own, I cant cover all the possible situations in the game.
I can however look at replays from time to time, so how about you post a replay? It doesnt take too long to do that and maybe I can give you some actual tips instead of pure theorycrafting. Did you watch replays? Did you hit benchmarks?
I think this is a great vid / post and that you spent the time to put it together is fantastic.
I have some comments about the focus of the video, things that I noticed which I thought could have been done better. They are mostly about focusing the guide a bit more for your audience; bronze to plat players.
In the opening AI game you raced through control groups and hotkeys at quite a pace while going through the build. I think you would have been better off mentioning these in the intro in a kind of "These are the things you should already know about before you attempt to follow this guide" kind of thing. This isn't a guide for people who just picked up the game.
At the end you were taking time to 8x through games after failed baneling busts, for my money this doesn't have much teaching value, it's a ton of pretty vague info delivered very quicky. You'd be better off pausing the game at the end of the bust and just saying: "I am now ahead". This is an opening guide not a complete match up guide. Maybe go over the composition (Marine, medivac, tank) again and talk briefly about priorities (Add tanks then medivacs for example) or decisions (tanks b4 expo or expo b4 tanks?).
What about transitioning to a strategy like this in TvT? You already have three useful addons and little investment in bio tech. If the other Terran denies your push with marine/tank like folks have been mentioning, you could use your MM to contain him and deny his expo as long as possible and then when he pushes back you can come in with kamikaze blue flame hellions to roast his marines and banshees to mop up his tanks.
If you start building a factory and grab your other three gas immediately after you expand, you could replace your 3 raxes with a factory and two starports, maybe pump out a raven just in case he goes for cloaked banshees, expand aggressively, and have a pretty effective/unexpected midgame composition against most Terrans.
Unfortunately, I dont think hellion + air strategies are viable after BFH nerf. I used to play that style all the time, had a really sweet build, but it just doesnt work.
In addition, after getting concussive and stim you are commited to bio or biomech play. Switching to bfh and air tech is too expensive.
On February 14 2012 18:28 Pusekatten wrote: Worst build ever created, dies to absolutely every single banshee opening, which is about 90% of the times. How will this build learn me to play terran when I cant even get past the 15min mark?
You should be able to scout the banshee build pretty easily and prepare for it with a slight adjustment to your build.
If when you scout with your SCV you see a gas running before the rax is finished (meaning 11 gas 13 rax) then you can expect fast banshees, because the point of the 11 gas opener is to get 100 gas right as the rax finishes so you can make a fact, and then throw down your 2nd gas so you can get the starport right as the fact finishes, techlab on fact, swap, and start banshees+cloak as soon you land. It is painfully obvious when this build is going down if you scout the 11 gas.
For this reason you don't see 11gas/13rax often anymore. You will see the 12rax/13gas and then double-gas as the factory is going up. It delays the banshees, and sometimes also means no cloak if they are using their gas for anything else, but if you scan at about 5:20 and you spot the starport, or a naked factory, you should be suspicious. Begin cutting marauders in favor of add'l marines, throw down an ebay and prepare turrets because by 6-6:30 you will see the banshees. Generally the 1 turret in your mineral line, or 1 turret on the outside-edges of your gas geysers (depending on if you have double gas or single, and the amount of space behind the mineral line on the map) will prep you to stop banshee harass. Then you start +1 to get the additional utility from the ebay and resume your 3rax production as normal.
On February 14 2012 20:44 cutler wrote: so i made my way up to nearly Gold league with this build...now i am hitting an brick wall in gold. Everyone seem to defend easily versus this build and i have no clue what to do.
Normally i do expand and pull the rest of my arines back. Build an ebay for turrets and upgrades. Factory and Starport. I mostly get crushed by players taking to much bases. I try dropping...even tried to play mech which seems to me at least very difficult since siege tanks are pretty weak and thor are to slow.
Do you guys have a good follow up if the defense of your opponent is to good?
Cutler: don't overcommit your army to the attack - scan his natural/ramp ahead of your army (depending on if you know whether or not he expanded) and see what kind of defenses he has. If it looks like you can't break him, test the waters and see if he's paying attention - just little pokes and prods. If it really seems like you can't do it, pull back, expand, get your second gas and begin siege tank production, cut marauders, and get a marine/tank/medivac/viking composition. You will likely still have some marauders, which is fine.
If you want to begin double-producing medivacs, you will need 4 saturated gas geysers, so don't start medivac production too early. You can survive on marine/tank with a few vikings to establish air dominance, or to at least contest your opponent's air dominance. Once you have siege tanks and a few vikings think about expanding again so you're on a 3-base economy. You will want a LOT of barracks to dump minerals into marines, on 3 base I would consider 7rax, 2 fact, 2 starport - rax and ports with reactors, facts with xlabs with 6 saturated gasses for massive marine/tank/medivac/viking production. Also do NOT NEGLECT UPGRADES! Double ebay and an armory, get infantry upgrades and vehicle +1 wep, or (if you see more air/air upgrades from your opponent) get +1 ship armor because they may be considering a sky terran switch.
What are the strengths/weaknesses of this build: compared to yours?
They're both very similar, except this one pushes out 50 seconds earlier (with Stim finishing around when you'd arrive at enemy base, and Concussive Shell sooner) and gives you more marines early to help with early pressure (like busts). I'd drop the Reapers from it for lower levels, as it requires heavy micro. At around 7:30~ the unit counts are also very similar, although the push timing is a lot earlier. Thoughts?
Thank's for the great guide! Within 10 days it took me from purchasing the game to #1 bronze in my division and playing silvers/golds half the time. I have a very tough time in TvZ though. If zerg doesn't stay on 1 base, I basically lose, which is 2/3 of the time. I check the benchmarks, I hit 27-29 SCV-s by 7:30, and the 7 marauders and 13 marines finish within 7:40. The problem is that by the time I get to the opponents natural, especially on bigger maps, They have ~20 army supply with 2-3 queens and 2-3 spines, tons of larva that can pop 26 zerglings in a flash and clean up everything. My reinforcement's are much slower than zerg's. It seems impossible to deny the expansion, usually I can't even take out drones to deal some economic damage. And in the meantime zergs have MORE workers, a running expansion, more tech and almost equal to equal army. If I retreat, they just over run me by the time I can macro up tanks and medivacs to push out. I tried cutting production when I scout the expansion and immediately expand myself and rush into tank-marine-medivac, but I'm still behind and it feels one sided. Any input, advice to help me improve is welcome! Perhaps an alternate build? Thank you!
Thanks Sennin! Is this true even if I take my natural way after zerg does? So should I cut production and expand when I see an early hatch zerg or just follow the build and expand at the 8 min mark, denying zerg's third with the ~30 supply army?