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Hi!
I'm a low level Terran who plays almost only 3 Rax. The BO helped me to get into the gold league (this guide was very useful http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=299901) and now I want to take the next step. What I'm looking for are new builds for all match-ups. They should match my skill level and help me to progress.
TvZ:
Actually I already found such a BO for TvZ: the 2 rax FE. This is the short description how i play it (Thanks Batcha! :D) :
2 rax > CC > 2 gas> bunker at natural choke > 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
Also I go out with my Marines when I got 4-6 of them and clear the watch-tower to scare the Zerg a little bit. (make lings not drones! )
I'm quite comfortable with the build but maybe you see some points to improve.
TvT:
For TvT I'm kind of lost. 1 rax FE, 1/1/1(not the all-in), 2 rax FE or something completely different. TvP:
This is my strongest matchup. Even if my first push fails I still have a 80-90% win-rate with the 3 rax. Honestly I haven't spend too much time to think about a TvP build (never change a winning team^^).But IMO I'll need a different build if I want to improve.
That's it. Thank you for reading and I hope you can help me with some advice and ideas (and that my English is not too bad to understand )
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Wouldn't your TvZ 2rax FE work just as well against Terran? And Protoss, if you just skip the tank production and add a few more tech lab rax for marauders.
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I am in your situation at the moment.
I played a couple of season before. I really can't even remember how I used to open before. Then after a break on 1,5 seasons I came back for season 5.
I began opening 3 rax, it got me to gold. Then I found that the players I met knew better and I couldn't beat them as much as I would have liked.
Then, I tried a couple of things.
Now I just open cloaked banshees. I get my factory up, I make a starport and while it is building I make one hellion and then add a tech lab on the factory. Once starport is done, I give the tech lab to the starport. I push out two banshees, cloak and then switch to tank production and get siege.
Basically: I open cloaked banshee and then follow up with an expand and marine + tank push with siege.
I do this in every MU. Not sure if its ok against every race in long term, but it has worked this far. I do however keep my eyes open, so I variate if needed. At least bunkers are needed against protoss 4 gate lewl
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the only thing i can really suggest is a 1 rax expo to a 3 factory push, seeing as how its pretty much the only thing i do
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Should consider 1 rax no gas fe. And then transition right into mech (tank/hellion/vikings.) If you can handle the micro, shouldn't be a problem to do this build. Or, transition into sky terran (viking/ravens/banshees)
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for tvp, you might have to start getting used to other builds, such as 1 or 2 rax FE. Since now toss's (like me) know how to hold 3rax with a 16 nex, 1 gate FE, or 2g robo. Maybe in lower leagues they can't, but they will in the higher leagues. With the Toss's FE, they can easily support 6 gates (or a 7gate allin), so you need to either match that economy, or just do bunker rush.
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You actually have a tremendous field of options for just mildly diversifying your 3rax into a wide variety of excellent builds.
For TvZ I would suggest looking into the 2rax into reactor hellion into banshees into marine tank push, or some combination of that stuff. The key idea in TvZ is to keep pressure on at all times. This serves three purposes- it forces units, which could be drones. It also makes it difficult for the zerg to expand (3rd/4th mostly). Also, it gives you the scouting and tools to deny his expo when it does go down, which is very powerful. And thirdly, it gives you a great deal of control over the zerg's army size and composition. If you are constantly harassing with hellions, then zerg is eventually going to be forced into roaches or mutalisks, for example. Zerglings will be grossly inefficient, and the longer he makes lings into your hellions, the better off you are.
In TvP the exact opposite is true. Instead of focusing on your opponent's economy, you want to be focused on their army. Obviously killing probes is good, but protoss is not crippled by pressure in the same way as zerg. The key here is to try to keep your engagements with the army at a low burn. In a single, straight up, head-to-head confrontation, a strong protoss army will crush the terran army. However terran has excellent tools for fighting long, protracted battles, like tanks, healed infantry, cloak banshees, etc. Keep the Protoss army size down as much as possible and eventually you can push into their base and win the game.
TvT is about positioning and composition. There are a huge number of compositions possible, and each one has a few types of compositions that one-up it. Generally you want to try to have the advantageous composition in the stronger position. Your intermediate objective is to secure a critical location on the map which lets you gain bases while denying your opponent. If you secure more bases, and harass when you can get away with it, you should have an economic advantage which translates into more units, and more higher tech units, and then a win. However TvT is unusual in that if you make a mistake, a small group of units can do a TREMENDOUS amount of damage to you- such as a few hellions in your mineral line, a nuke, or accidentally walking into a tank line. Don't screw up.
In general the barrier you are running into is that you have to switch over from pre-planned opening mode into general, mid-game decision-making and understanding of the game. After the opening it becomes much less rigidly defined and robotic, and requires you understand why you are doing what you are doing rather than blindly execute things that happen to be strong.
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Fellow gold level terran here. These are what I use:
TvZ I use a reactor hellion expand, which you should be able to find many top level guides for around. Now, I know you said you already have a reliable TvZ build, but it's always good to have another option. One thing that I would note that I've noticed about this build is that as it grew popular, my winrates and first-harass success rates have dropped dramatically. Either way, I suggest you try this out once or twice and see if you like it.
TvT I use a early push with about 2 tanks with siege tech, a few marines, and a viking to spot. I honestly am too lazy too look up the optimal build order for it (except of course for the standard 12rax, 13 refinery and 15 oc), but it seems to work for me anyway, most of the time. This is very good versus any bio play, as well as any fast expand. If your opponent is also going siege tech, it's a bit trickier, but with good positioning and spotting you should be good. One thing to always remember though, is the possibility of cloaked banshees, and, to a lesser degree, drop play such as blue flame hellion drops.
TvP Well, if you like 3 rax, and it works, my advice is use it. However, another good opening (that I use) is the 1 rax expand. I get concussive shells early and poke in with 2 marauders and 1 marine. The point of the pressure is not to do any damage, it's just to keep them in their base while you expand. Retreat if it looks like they may be able to kill your marauders. Then, add 3 more barracks and go for medivacs and upgrades.
However, I see build orders more as loose guidelines than anything else. It's always better to react to what he's doing well than to have a set-in-concrete order of what you will do and when.
Hope I could help, good luck!
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First, Thank you so much for the answers!
I think I should use macro-orientated builds, if I want to improve my play. The FEs seem to be good options to get into late-game. The only thing that scares me is holding allins and early pushes. So the question is: how hard is it to hold e.g. a 4gate with a 1 rax FE and should I start with a build that is safer (2 rax?).
Hellion Expand: Seems to be THE TvZ build and this I decided to play the 2rax FE because it is easier to concentrate on my macro. Microing those hellions would cause mistakes in my play and I want to avoid this for now. However the Hellion Expand is the first thing on my list when I get used to the new builds in TvT and TvP.
@ledarsi Thanks for the general matchup advices. The reason why I'm doing all of this is to really understand the matchups and improve my decision-making (just like you wrote at the end of your reply).
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Day9 recently did 3 terran dailys about extremely macro oriented builds. While I feel the TvZ and TvP ones aren't completely practical at your level (holding all in's takes really good micro with those that you wont have yet) the TvT build is simly amazing.
http://day9.tv/d9d394/ TvT build. http://day9.tv/d9d399/ TvP build. http://day9.tv/d9d395/ TvZ build. Watch those 3, regardless of weather or not you're going to do the builds since it gives you good advice about the matchups in general.
TvZ you want to open with a reactor hellion expand. The Day9 daily covers this well.
12 rax 13 gas 16 orbital factory @ 100 gas reactor @ 50 gas Expand Swap the factory on to the reactor Techlab on the rax Swap the rax and factory again when you have 4 hellions done Make a second rax and an engineering bay, get a techlab on that rax and get +1 and combat shields Get a 3rd CC From here it's up to you what you do, you want to get 2/1 upgrades and stim. It helps to plop down 2 more rax and a reactor starport after this and a second factory. Push out when 2/1 upgrades are done and some medivacs. While pushing out make 3 more rax all with techlabs and a ghost academy. When you remax your army make a lot of ghosts because they're really good vs lategame zerg. If they make ultralisks get marauders out and if they make broodlords get a second starport for vikings. A raven helps at this point too, as well as nukes and drops.
I know you said you wanted to go for 2 rax expand early game. Don't unless you're going to go for an 11/11 expand. 2 rax takes more micro to be effective than reactor hellion expand does. Don't think of a reactor hellion build as designed for killing probes, it's made to take early map control and deny creep spread. To do that all you have to do is park them outside zergs base and scare the shit out of him. Just keep them alive, and kill creep tumors. Don't do ANYTHING else. 2 rax takes a lot of micro to maintain map control and to stop zerglings. All you have to do with hellions is run away if you see anything and stay outside their base.
The hellions have the added benefits of scouting and the POTENTIAL to get worker kills if they aren't defended. Like if they don't make any defense at all other than queens you can just run into their base and kill every single worker pretty easily. It's easy for you to win the game with them. They also deny creep spread, deny scouting, and deny an early third base.
TvP do a 1 rax gassless expand.
12 rax 14 go scout, make a supply depot to finish your wall off then push t to move the scv off working on it to scout after it's about 10% done. This will deny all scouting from toss. Finish this depot with the scv that's making the rax. 16 Orbital Make a cc when you can afford it with the scv that made the rax. Start it on the lowground. This should be around the time your second marine is building and your orbital command is finishing. Make 2 more rax Make a bunker Get 2 gas Techlab on third rax Combat shields, then stim Ebay, +1 attack Factory -> Starport -> Reactor Fact -> Swap -> Scout with the floating factory, make sure you make an armory before it dies.
Push out when your 2 medivacs finish, you should be around 100 supplyish 10 minutes into the game with the medivacs. If you're not practice this on a custom map vs very easy till you are. Don't get supply blocked. With this push pull back if you can't do damage. It will usually win the game up till daimondish if you're macroing right, but all you need to do is take map control. Stay out in the middle of the map and be aggressive. If their army is out of position drop them.
When you drop all you have to do is scare them. Kill a pylon and pull back. The goal of a drop isn't to do damage, it's to get their army out of position and annoy them. Never lose a drop, ever ever ever ever ever. It helps to have like 2 medivacs floating just outside their base at all times. If you ever see their army out in the map just drop them. They will either have to pull back or split their shit. If they have units waiting drop somewhere else with 2 medivacs.
Try not to let the game go on to the lategame. Lategame toss is really really good. You need to outmicro them really badly to win battles. Try and get ghosts if they go templar, get 2 starports if they go collosi then get ghosts anyways. Stay on 3 bases but don't go above that till you start getting mined out, and build way more rax than you need. Get like 20-30 rax in the lategame and make sure you have 3/3 upgrades. http://www.complexitygaming.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4456 this guide explains it better than I can.
All the all in's can be held with bunkers. If you don't scout an expansion by like 6:30 make 3 bunkers and get scvs out ready to repair. They don't have to be mining.
TvT build is pretty self explanatory in the Day9 daily. The only thing it doesn't cover is the super lategame. Once you start getting to like 5 base vs 5 base and you can't end the game, tech to battlecruisers and 3/3 ship upgrades. Without the upgrades the BC's are worthless. Get like a million starports and vikings and ravens and all sorts of shizzle. Assuming you were able to get to 3/3 air without dieing you win the game now with a maxed starport army. If you teched too fast a good opponent will kill you and if you did it too slowly your opponent will tech themselves and kill you. So yeah... idk. It kind of takes practice.
Micro http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=237869 That map will teach you everything you need to know about microing. Hellion kiting, marine kiting, marine splitting, marauder kiting, tvz pushing, and tvp pushing. For marine splitting I reccomend looking up a map called marine split challange instead of using the dargleins version.
TvZ micro with marine tank comes down to focus fireing banelings with tanks. If you do that you wont even need to split. Just select all your tanks on 1 hotkey and hold shift and spam a click on every baneling they have. From here just stim and run your marines back, split if you can, but for the most part just make sure they're attacking so your tanks don't die to lings. With ghosts snipe is really important, hold r and spam click things to snipe, but don't do it too fast.
TvP micro comes down to a few things in the follwing importance/order. 1. Getting a good concave, make sure your units are spread out around the toss deathball 2. EMPing. Make sure you get EMP's off on every single templar. 1 storm and they will win 99% of the time. 3. Dodging storms... yeah sometimes it happens, don't stand in them 4. Focus fireing collosi with your vikings, just shift click the collosi one by one 5. Stutter stepping back against zealots. Do this with small cunks of your army not the entire thing
If you can't EMP and get a concave you will lose to a 1aing protoss almost every time. You want to really try to not get into very late game scenarios against them unless you can really take map control and stop them from expanding.
In TvT just make sure you spread out against tanks. Using the day9 build you will be using mass marine vs small numbers of tanks so it helps to engage them properly. Basicly you want to just bumrush the tanks and minimize the shots you take. Stim the marines up front and while attacking with your entire army then stim the rest of them. This ensures the first few shots are wasted on just a few marines and that then the tanks die. Once you're fireing start splitting the marines while running towards the tanks.
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Thanks Gray22!!!!!
Already won my first ladder games with the TvP build. The Thorzain TvT feels good against AI :D Tomorrow I'll try it against real opponents!
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Thank you Gray...
I just started to play again after a few seasons break. Getting a new baseline since I've been gone is a great help.
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also gold, and I'd say one thing in gold league TvT is it's surprising how few Terrans build vikings. I see banshees, drops all over the place and the odd crazy Thor all-in, but honestly so many people play the standard tank/marine game without building significant numbers of vikings (many prefer to scan instead... ) . Know this, and abuse it!
I also start adding in battlecruisers slowly once I'm on 3 base. Might be too fast for higher league play, but the number of games it's won me against Terrans who think starports can only make medivacs :D
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Imo a good build order for TvP is to 1 Rax FE then add 3 extra rax, this gives you a lot of marines to hold 4 gates and 3gate robo attacks whilst also allowing you to be the aggressor if you scout the protoss skipping units and taking a fast expo, after that i generally take a third as well as all my geysers and tech to medivacs
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