Hello dwellers of the Vu!
Let us commence with the blogging.
Smarter, Bigger, Faster, Dead
When you’re Terran, and your ally is an inexperienced Terran, and your opponents are Zerg and Terran, and you’re on Discord IV, AND the Terran foe leaves, for the love of your monitor LEAVE THE GAME. It will not be pretty.
Why? Well, for starters that essentially means two free gases for the Zerg buddy. And when Zerg gets gas, that can only mean two things: fast infestors, or a HELLUVA lot of mutalisks.
And when I mean a lot, I mean A LOT. Three missile turrets will not repulse them. FIVE missile turrets are a joke. That Zerg guy will literally scramble both of your bases with glaive wurms with such terrifying ease. Expanding is virtually a no-go.
It’s a terrifying ordeal when mutalisks outnumber marines. Basic math stands that the ending will NOT be pretty, stim or no.
OH GOD IT BURNS
This was a 2v2 on Shattered Temple, and my opponent had the unfortunate luxury of having a Protoss player on their side, while I had a Terran pal who had a bright idea… but that was about it.
What he did, which was a common and arguably smart tactic, was float his command center to one of the blocked-off expansions. That would have worked really well in our favor; unfortunately, he wasn’t the quickest on his macro and tech.
I decided, with an arrogant determination, to pressure the Protoss base. The first push was toward the front; it appeared that he had done a fast expand. At first I took the upper hand; of course, with warp gate tech done already a few zealots added later in the firefight ended that push rather quickly. My second push came with a disturbing bit of information: a robotics bay. I, with the massed marines army, was not too thrilled about that. And by my third push–a drop into the main base–there were already several colossi on the field. Ah crap.
So I decided to pressure the other foe’s base. The drops worked fairly well; I destroyed the main base with relatively few losses.
That’s when the colossi began to roll in.
My main was under siege by what would accurately be a maxed out Protoss army, with stalkers, immortals, and colossi. I had vikings, but 7 vikings against 7 colossi? Surely you jest.
After a bit of nip-and-tuck, it was too little too late. With nothing but marines, I could not stand against a Terran-Protoss ball of doom.
GG.
Banshees? Nope.
On this 2v2, full-Terran game on Shattered Temple, I decided to go into a roughly made banshee rush. Being the complete buffoon, I failed to defend my base against a reciprocal banshee rush. Having poor turret placement is one way to quickly lose the game.
They, on the other hand, had perfect turret placement, which worked well against my poorly microed banshee.
Well… let’s leave it at that.
Banshees? Hell yes.
This time, I tried my hand at a 1v1 Xel’Naga Caverns, TvT.
And yes, this time, I chose to go banshees first. I had the rare luxury of playing against a less apt player than I (those a few and far between these days), so he had a barracks-reactor first opening. Though he had an engineering bay up, he didn’t have any turrets up, and judging by the lack of scanning, I’d say that I adequately put this player into a panic. He did a “gtg” comment (which I guess would work as a GG) and abruptly left as my banshees tore through marines and SCVs alike.
An admirable defense, but one not well enough.
I think I have to do two things to my strategy. I have to stop using massed marines and medivacs (it’s a good strategy, but it only works on high ground). I also have to relearn how to make marauders, ESPECIALLY against Protoss or Zerg. Marauders don’t fare much against a Terran opponent–their main armored unit, the siege tank, is often out of attack range, and marines usually buffer most of the damage. They do make good base breakers, though.
7 Comments
Yeah, make marauders. Marauders one of the best ground units in the game. They do massive damage with stim.
Against that many mutalisks as Terran, maybe you could consider getting Ravens with Seeker Missile and/or Thors, assuming you’ve gotten to the middle/late game. Thors will force the Zerg to magic box to avoid getting all of his mutalisks slaughtered. The mutalisks will have to spread out, which gives your marines a bit of an advantage since the mutalisks won’t focus on the edge of the infantry ball and more of the marines will be able to attack at once.
As for Ravens, if you can get a Seeker Missile off before your Raven gets wtfpwned, it’ll usually guarantee that the mutalisks will either take massive damage (thus becoming much easier prey for your marines) or be forced to fly away to escape that fate, buying you some time. However, this doesn’t work so well if the mutalisks are magic boxed.
How were the upgrades in that game? For both your infantry and your opponent’s mutas?
& you might want to use Marauders in base drops, unless you’re going for their workers. Marauders drop buildings much faster, especially when stimmed – great for tech structures or CCs/nexii/hatcheries :p
As for Ravens, if you can get a Seeker Missile off before your Raven gets wtfpwned, it’ll usually guarantee that the mutalisks will either take massive damage (thus becoming much easier prey for your marines) or be forced to fly away to escape that fate, buying you some time. However, this doesn’t work so well if the mutalisks are magic boxed.
How were the upgrades in that game? For both your infantry and your opponent’s mutas?
& you might want to use Marauders in base drops, unless you’re going for their workers. Marauders drop buildings much faster, especially when stimmed – great for tech structures or CCs/nexii/hatcheries :p
This was arguably mid-game. I went with my boss-rax build, so I didn’t have a factory until later on, and by that time, the mutalisks were harassing like no tomorrow. There was no way in hell that I could have gotten either thors or ravens with seekers before he would hand me a can of whoop-ass.
I didn’t see his upgrades; I assume it was either +0/+0 or +1 attack, but I was sitting well with +1/+1.
I need a more aggressive plan for Zerg games. Otherwise they just mass something and roll me over…
I didn’t see his upgrades; I assume it was either +0/+0 or +1 attack, but I was sitting well with +1/+1.
I need a more aggressive plan for Zerg games. Otherwise they just mass something and roll me over…
I see… still, maybe it would be possible to buy enough time. Even against a huge flock of mutalisks, tight clusters of turrets could at least deter the mutas while causing moderate to heavy losses and giving you some time to tech. Problem then, though, is that your other buildings are left vulnerable and you can’t make as many marines… Still, this is just theorycrafting, it’s hard to say what could really work without a replay to analyze and a test map to try it on.
I think against Zerg, it’s better (at least at metal-league levels) to go for a heavily mixed army, rather than mostly infantry. There’s the 1/1/1 build which works well and lets you get just about everything fairly early on – plus a raven to stop infestor/baneling shenanigans and potentially surprise an air-unit ball with a seeker missile later on.
Regardless, mass marines are really vulnerable to banelings and infestors, though they are an appropriate response against mass mutalisks. Even if you use an infantry-only army in the early game, I’d say try to at least start on a factory before the midgame, so at least you’re not too far behind on tech when a muta death ball shows up.
I didn’t see his upgrades; I assume it was either +0/+0 or +1 attack, but I was sitting well with +1/+1.
I need a more aggressive plan for Zerg games. Otherwise they just mass something and roll me over…
I see… still, maybe it would be possible to buy enough time. Even against a huge flock of mutalisks, tight clusters of turrets could at least deter the mutas while causing moderate to heavy losses and giving you some time to tech. Problem then, though, is that your other buildings are left vulnerable and you can’t make as many marines… Still, this is just theorycrafting, it’s hard to say what could really work without a replay to analyze and a test map to try it on.
I think against Zerg, it’s better (at least at metal-league levels) to go for a heavily mixed army, rather than mostly infantry. There’s the 1/1/1 build which works well and lets you get just about everything fairly early on – plus a raven to stop infestor/baneling shenanigans and potentially surprise an air-unit ball with a seeker missile later on.
Regardless, mass marines are really vulnerable to banelings and infestors, though they are an appropriate response against mass mutalisks. Even if you use an infantry-only army in the early game, I’d say try to at least start on a factory before the midgame, so at least you’re not too far behind on tech when a muta death ball shows up.
I tried the dense turret thing. But between turrets, losing SCVs to harassments and building marines, that’s a lot of minerals down the drain, and it’s a little hard to recover from when you can’t get an expansion effectively up and running.
You’d think I would learn to not mass marines when I played a game when 5 banelings rolled over every marine I had.
Infestors… I don’t know, for some reason I haven’t seen a lot of that play. I’ve seen hydra/roach, mothership/tank, brood lord/corrupter and all other hell combinations, but infestors never seem to appear in any mix. Yes, they’re horrible, horrible things that spew fungus and infested terrans everywhere, and I should probably beware of that.
You’d think I would learn to not mass marines when I played a game when 5 banelings rolled over every marine I had.
Infestors… I don’t know, for some reason I haven’t seen a lot of that play. I’ve seen hydra/roach, mothership/tank, brood lord/corrupter and all other hell combinations, but infestors never seem to appear in any mix. Yes, they’re horrible, horrible things that spew fungus and infested terrans everywhere, and I should probably beware of that.
That’s what MULES are for, no? ;P
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Not entirely sure how accurate this is but infestors, like other casters, tend to show up more at higher levels of play… worst thing about them is that they can kill all of your stuff (and bases if you’re not careful) for the cost of energy – aka free. :p
Assuming they’re kept alive, of course.
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Not entirely sure how accurate this is but infestors, like other casters, tend to show up more at higher levels of play… worst thing about them is that they can kill all of your stuff (and bases if you’re not careful) for the cost of energy – aka free. :p
Assuming they’re kept alive, of course.
Heh, I think mutalisks are the one and truly hard counter to workers (50 energy MULE vs. flock of death that can cross the map in 30 seconds or less). But I still hate reapers.
Yea, I tried the whole infestor trick with ravens… most of them died.
Ravens are the most fragile pieces of crap ever. But their turrets are disturbingly sturdy.
Seekers… slow as hell.