Edit 2: The patch on PTR + new maps are basically a huge buff to this build. Faster BCs, stim nerf (slows stim timing attacks) and larger maps are all things that will strengthen this build dramatically.
Edit: the Day[9] vod is up! Check it out: link - probably the best place to start if you're new.
Intro I'm not one who likes using siege tanks in TvT. About a month ago, I began brainstorming a tank-less build & composition with the following properties:
- Must be able to react to all TvT openings - Must be very mobile (and gain map control as a result) - Must be able to do economic damage faster than other mobile builds (such as cloaked banshee)
The result is a 2fact2port opening that relies on a hellion + air composition. I've found that all Terran compositions can be beaten with only these units:
As of me writing this, I am a top 50 US player, and I estimate that I win 80-90% of my TvTs. This build has proven to be effective at a high level.
I have to mention that this build is very difficult to execute. This is not the type of build you read about, try, and immediately win all your games with. It took me several days to get the basics down, and even now I feel that it could be executed better by players better than I. The mechanics and game sense requirement to execute this is high - lower-level players will find it a good test of their mechanics, and players better than I can probably make it stronger than I can. However, if you have the patience and mechanics to learn it, I guarantee that it will give you a rich payoff. The road to shunning tanks is not an easy one, but it is a rewarding one.
This build utilizes two fast factories and then two fast starports. Infernal pre-igniter is researched as soon as possible. Fast 2 factories gives you a powerful early aggression-stopper (vs marines and hellions), and gives you map control.
A fast medivac is created to give a counter-attack and economic damage threat. This is a hard-counter to rushed cloaked banshees + bunker at front.
The 2 starports give you tremendous flexibility in countering terran openings. Banshees can be countered by simultaneously creating a raven and a viking, while dropping hellions. Reactored starport openings can be countered by actually creating 3 vikings at once instead of two. Marine/tank openings can be countered by creating vikings and banshees simultaneously.
The composition basically works the same as muta/ling/bling, and has a similar playstyle.
- Blue flame hellions act as the banelings (they kill marines, and are disposable) - Banshees act as the muta air-to-ground attack (cleaning up ground units after banelings hit) - Vikings act as the muta air-to-air attack (holding air superiority). - Should it get to that point, battlecruisers can act as broodlords, countering thors (although BCs are much easier to get and are also quite good vs marines)
This build works for the same reasons muta/ling/bling does, and as a result, it has the same properties as typical ZvT. This means that:
- This build is more powerful on longer rush distances due to the mobility advantage - Keeping map awareness and map control is very important - Losing air control is bad (similar to how losing all your mutas results in you being vulnerable to drops and banshees)
TL;DR: Play like a zerg player. Keep that mentality in mind.
NOTE: this build order is very weird. You must watch the replays in order to understand how it functions correctly.
10 supply 12 rax 13 ref 15 OC 15 make one marine, then queue another (only make 2 marines) 16 supply 17 ref (supply counts discontinued from here - keep making scvs nonstop) factory factory tech lab on rax swap first factory onto rax make 1 hellion & get preigniter make 1 hellion on second factory >> clear xelnagas with hellion starport starport supply drop (see faq) medivac >> poke up ramp with a hellion, try to scout composition >> build order discontinued here, starport production is dependent on opponent's composition
This build gains early map control over all terran compositions I am aware of. This allows you easy counter attacks (because you see when they leave their base), advance warning, and easy dropship counters. Your viking superiority + hellion mobility renders all enemy drops actually beneficial for you, because everything in the dropship will simply die and the dropship will get shot down, similar to how dropping vs a zerg player who has good map awareness generally ends with mutas killing your drop quickly.
Units that shoot air units Marine (countered by hellions) Thor (countered by battlecruiser) Viking (countered by having more vikings, which is easy when you have 2ports) Ghosts (are terrible)
Only four good terran units actually shoot up (discounting the battlecruiser, because BC is only viable after vikings). These units are all countered by either hellions or air units. Creating air units necessitates the use of one of these three units, and each of these three units must be built in a mass such that they do not die before killing off all air units.
From there, notice:
Air attacks by units that attack air units Marine (very fast attack speed, low damage) Thor (fires multiple low-damage rockets) Viking (fires multiple low-medium-damage rockets)
What does this mean for us? In a late-game composition, upgrading air armor is very strong, due to the low-damage attacks of these units. In addition, these three units are infantry, mech, and air, which makes upgrading all three of them incredibly inefficient. Any one to two of these can be hard-countered with ease.
What else? Two of the three of these attacks (thor, viking) are mitigated by PDD. Since we are using ravens for detection instead of turrets, we have a natural synergy here, and create little inefficiency.
Banshees necessitate your opponent getting detection. This is either a raven (which is not efficient for him, because we're going to be controlling the air, and his raven will be dying), or an ebay + turrets, which creates inefficiency.
Hellions necessitate your opponent leaving defenses (non-turrets) in his base at all times. This creates additional inefficiency or economic death.
Mass air necessitates mass marine, viking or thor. We are not forced into anything. We do not build turrets, we build a raven. Our raven, should we need to build one, has synergy against two of the three AA options for our opponent.
This is a reactive build. You must counter your opponent's openings. Your reaction to your opponent's style will take place in the form of changing the output of your two starports. Your factories will always produce hellions.
Think of your factories as your 'core buildings' and your starports as your 'reaction buildings'.
While there are more specific instructions below, here's some basic principles: 1) You must always have more vikings than your opponent at all times. This is priority #1. 2) All ground units except thors can be combated with banshees. If your opponent gets thors, you must get battlecruisers. 3) Do not build engineering bays or turrets, ever. You don't need them for air control, and you have a raven for detection. 4) Because your composition is reactive and your composition more mobile, you need to hold map control until your opponent pushes out at all times. As soon as your hellions pop, you need to control the xel'naga towers. This is crucial in fighting off certain pushes.
Tells: no bunker at front, marines only, should see tank on subsequent pokes
Your starports should open 1banshee1viking after your intial medivac. The viking is incase your opponent gets a viking or banshee, and the one banshee is to clean up the remaining marines and then the tanks. This is where controlling the xel'naga towers is very important. If your opponent moves out with his marines and tanks, you need to burn off a majority of the marines with hellions. The xel'naga gives you the vision to see what side of the unit ball the marines are on and get a good attack angle.
Once the marines are dead, roll in with your banshee and clean up, force a retreat.
Tells: bunker at front, no tanks or marauders on subsequent pokes up ramp
Your starports should open 1raven1viking after your intitial medivac (swap with factory once preigniter is done). Your hellion drop will likely do huge damage, and dropping fast is a high priority. If the banshee arrives before your viking/raven pop, run your scvs away. You will do much more damage with your hellions than he will with his banshees.
Your starports should open 2x banshee after your initial medivac. Mass banshee + blue flame hellion mops up bio relatively easily. Research cloak ASAP. In the event of a FE, you need to be very proactive about banshee harass and hellion drops.
Tells: usually bunker at the front - can be hard to scout for.
This is the hardest opening for this build, but it is also the most rare. Several other openings like cloaked banshee opening is countered by the Thor opening, so I sometimes consider Thor a 'counter' build instead of a legitimate TvT opener.
You're going to have to go for an economy trade if your opponent attacks. As soon as his thor leaves his base, drop hellions and rack up kills. Open 1banshee/1viking. You really need to go all-in on this thor and do more economic damage to win. Send your SCVs on it, land your vikings if there is no air to shoot, attack with your banshees and hellions. If you execute it right, you should have done more economic damage than your opponent, although it's usually close.
Tells: hard to scout for, check starport upon hellion drop. Usually opens with one tank, no bunker
This build relies upon holding air superiority. If your opponent makes 2 vikings at once, make 3. Create reactors on your rax while creating vikings. You should not have a problem holding air superiority as long as you're proactive about scouting for it.
- Your barracks, even though not producing, can be incredibly useful. Use it to create reactors and techlabs nonstop, continually lifting to produce more for your factories and starports. - Your barracks can also be used to lift and scout your opponent's base on scrap and close-air metal/LT. - Air armor is your #1 priority for upgrades
Q: Why the supply drop? A: The supply drop gives you an instant benefit of 100 minerals, and a benefit of 50 additional minerals from the opportunity cost of not building a supply depot over the course of a supply depot build time. A MULE gives you 270 minerals over the course of 90 seconds. The supply drop is placed in the build at a key point where minerals are very tight. Saving 100 immediate minerals allows you to produce a second starport while continuing hellions - something not possible using a MULE.
Q: What are the expo timings? A: I play this by ear. If your opponent is turtling, it's generally safe to keep expanding. If your opponent is being aggressive, keep producing. Think of it like a zerg player would. See replay vs ThisIsJimmy to see a quick 3rd base vs a turtling opponent or my game vs Sixto to see a more 1-base play.
Q: Why 2facts? Why not just make a reactor? A: 2facts allows you to create 2x hellions while researching preigniter. It removes the inherent danger that comes with using only one factory to produce hellions. 2factories makes you much safer vs 2rax openings and early cheese, and gives you infrastructure for later down the road.
Q: Do you get cloak? A: I only get cloak if I know my opponent will not have mobile detection soon (FE, bio), and sometimes not even then. Banshees are more of a combat unit than a stealth unit for me, although you can play around with this.
One thing that I think is important to learn is the difference between guaranteed hellion drops and gambled hellion drops. We'll define these as:
Guaranteed Drops: these are drops that you can expect to do economic damage with because, from scouting, you know the opponent has a vulnerability. It is reasonable to expect damage to be done, and if it is not, you may or may not be behind.
Gambled drops: these are drops that you do to force your opponent to keep troops in his base or exploit his weaknesses in defense. These builds are a gamble because they may or may not work, and you should never use them if they will put you significantly behind if they fail.
It is important to note that the build never relies on gambled drops to win. That is not to say that you shouldn't use them - they can be very powerful, and have other tangible benefits, such as forcing your opponent to build turrets, sensor towers, and keep units in his base. But your strategy should never rely on these to win, as they can be stopped without doing damage.
Situations where you can expect a guaranteed drop: - If your opponent opens fast thor and moves his thor out of his base - If your opponent opens quick cloaked banshee - If your opponent FEs (the amount of units produced by a FE by drop time is not sufficient to kill your hellions before they do damage, especially considering they need to be spread over two bases) - If your opponent is moving out of his base to attack you. Note that there are two situations here: your opponent leaves no units in his base, or he leaves units in his base to defend. Either one is considered damage, because leaving units in your base to defend reduces the size of his attacking force, and having no units forces guaranteed damage.
Situations where you have a gambled drop: - Any situation where an opponent's army is sitting in his base - Any 1base-vs-1base situation where your opponent has not moved out to attack
At the bottom of this section is the option to download a small replay pack of 7 replays. I've picked out a couple choice replays though, below.
This demonstrates a response to a heavy bio/FE play. Note how much my macro slips, going 1k/1k resources at one point. Also notice the quick 3rd base in response to his heavy turtling. Still a relatively easy win, despite getting minimal damage with the initial hellion drop.
This replay demonstrates a game vs an aggressive marine + hellion attack. Blue flame does a very easy job repelling enemy drops and punishing aggressive openers by killing SCVs.
The first question I always get is 'don't you just die to a tank/marine push'? This demonstrates the proper response. It is cleaned up with ease, and an easy win ensues.
Download entire replay pack (7 replays): link Also see: vileDeathRow vs Drewbie (by PsyStarcraft): link
Edit: VTPokebunny has posted some reps of him executing it well, worth watching:
Nice, I've been looking for something like this ever since statikg told me about his Banshee->Viking->BC thing. Couldn't get that to work consistently but this is definitely interesting for the new bigger maps.
I'm a player who likes to open up with a couple of quick barracks to produce a group of 6-8 marines as quickly as possible. Do you think this build would be sufficiently strong early to prevent the inevitable front door harass a few minutes into the game? Would your single hellion and 2 marines cut it?
Last edit: 2011-02-02 09:05:46
Antisocialmunky United States. February 02 2011 09:04. Posts 5065
On February 02 2011 09:03 SoLaR[i.C] wrote: I'm a player who likes to open up with a couple of quick barracks to produce a group of 6-8 marines as quickly as possible. Do you think this build would be sufficiently strong early to prevent the inevitable front door harass a few minutes into the game? Would your single vulture and 2 marines cut it?
On further spawns (any cross positions, xelnaga's okay usually, scrap is okay), I've had no trouble. On closer positions (steppes, DQ, close position on 4player map), it can be tricky to hold off. I usually have to run my SCVs for a moment until I get my next two hellions out (so 3 hellions) and do repair micro to hold it off. It is a tough micro game and I take damage often on close positions.
The build is very, very strong vs 2rax openings as blue flame + 2port banshee is very hard to stop without early tech, so I consider any risk worth it. I've never lost to a 2rax opening as long as I don't immediately die.
I actually forgot to add 2rax to the list of openings, I'll edit that in soon, thanks for reminder.
Last edit: 2011-02-02 09:07:05
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
Antisocialmunky United States. February 02 2011 09:09. Posts 5065
On February 02 2011 09:09 Antisocialmunky wrote: Random question:
What happens if you play against this strategy with this strategy?
Imagine a nuclear holocaust where all people on both sides die, and you have to continually rebuild from scratch. Basically that.
It's the only scenario where having more hellions is better than more vikings because hellions kill other hellions better than banshees do, and even if you have banshees you're not going to stop hellions from killing all your SCVs.
Although you can go for air control and do banshees. You basically have to decide to control one or the other and see how it pans out. I've only played against it once or twice (vs teammates) so I don't know for sure.
Last edit: 2011-02-02 09:12:20
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
palookieblue Australia. February 02 2011 09:11. Posts 325
On February 02 2011 09:09 Antisocialmunky wrote: Random question:
What happens if you play against this strategy with this strategy?
Imagine a nuclear holocaust where all people on both sides die, and you have to continually rebuild from scratch. Basically that.
It's the only scenario where having more hellions is better than more vikings because hellions kill other hellions better than banshees do, and even if you have banshees you're not going to stop hellions from killing all your SCVs.
Although you can go for air control and do banshees. You basically have to decide to control one or the other and see how it pans out. I've only played against it once or twice (vs teammates) so I don't know for sure.
This sounds like Broodwar ZvZ. What have you done?
PS. Also, why does ThisIsJimmy appear so often on the losing side of replays? I feel bad for him sometimes. :-\
On February 02 2011 09:11 palookieblue wrote: Thanks for this - will try out and report back. ((:
One question: I've encountered a lot of SCV+Marine all-ins, or just 4-6 naked rax all-ins: in your experience, can hellions hold this off?
This build hard-counters 4-6 rax allins very easily. Just spread your hellions at the top of your ramp and press H. Everything that comes up will die. Check out the game vs SlayerSBekHo in the replay pack (he didn't allin, but I thought he was, so just do what I did).
Woohoo, another iEchoic build! I've been using a modified version of your TvP build to great effect for the last few months and look forward to trying this out.
Intrigue: "as i've said to many others your troubles in life may be directly correlated to your dirty protoss icon"
I'm assuming if they go mass tank with marines in bunkers and missile turrets (slow pushing, basically) you should try your hardest to harass their base with Hellions? What if, just for arguments sake though, they got a way to many amount of marines in their base or something in bunkers around their mineral lines with missile turrets, and said push is coming. It may not be economically viable for them, but with this build what would I do?
iEchoic United States. February 02 2011 09:36. Posts 1707
On February 02 2011 09:33 Fruscainte wrote: I'm assuming if they go mass tank with marines in bunkers and missile turrets (slow pushing, basically) you should try your hardest to harass their base with Hellions? What if, just for arguments sake though, they got a way to many amount of marines in their base or something in bunkers around their mineral lines with missile turrets, and said push is coming. It may not be economically viable for them, but with this build what would I do?
Try to out-expand them, and in this situation, BCs would be better than banshees, even if no thors are present. Nothing can actually really kill BCs cost-effectively except vikings (which you shouldn't have to worry about) - even turrets, especially once you have yamato (when you factor in the fact that you can attack wherever there are the least turrets, and the cost of all turrets must be taken into account even though only a couple are attacking).
This is probably one of the more difficult playstyles to defeat, and I've lost to it a couple times, but it became much easier once I just started mass expoing, attacking weak spots with hellions, forcing lots of turrets and bunkers, and going BCs. It's going to have to be played the same way a great zerg player handles it - never attack the main army, instead, poke at weak spots and get a large economic advantage.
Also remember you can pull back wounded BCs to repair, and if marines chase, you can burn them with hellions.
Last edit: 2011-02-02 09:38:13
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
[Atomic]Peace United States. February 02 2011 09:38. Posts 451
Theoretically this sounds nice but it seems like everything is dependent on the hellions which die easily. In TvZ the banelings' job is to blow up all the marines so the mutas can clean up everything. Terrans adjust to this by having more tanks/a few thor and less marines.
I believe this strat can be countered by adding 1-2 thors to any normal army composition. With scans, or a raven, a solid ground-based army can probably bust you before you can get to BCs. Although most people don't get Thors, unless meching, and thinking of it might end up being too late.
Edit: OK I watched the reps. Apparently the opening is designed to do economic damage, everything else afterward isn't important.
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/c/cf/Hellion.png/180px-Hellion.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/d/d3/Banshee.png/180px-Banshee.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/c/c0/Viking.png/180px-Viking.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/9/93/Battle_Cruiser.png/180px-Battle_Cruiser.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/OzB5K.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-185700.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-185698.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-185702.jpg)
palookieblue Australia. February 02 2011 09:11. Posts 325
