Dealing with early rushes. (or, teach Orizio SCII)

Orizio

I'm sure this has come up before, but nonetheless I'd thought I'd start a thread on it for other noobs. Very simply I only started playing a while back and am not very good (as you can tell from the sig), obviously a bronze terrain.

A particular problem is these early rushes. Today, I played a protoss player who built cannons outside my base (cutting off my natural and winning him the map) a few minutes in as I was putting up my second and third barracks. My solo marine was scouting, so even though I saw his probe I couldn't counter it without taking SCV's off the line (which I didn't do). Result was an annoyed 'gg' when I couldn't expand. Another that hardly needs explanation is a 6 pool zergling rush. How does one effectively counter these? (particularly the toss zergling rush, as Zergs are rare in Bronze).

Similarly a cloaked banshee rush, although I've come across this so often I automatically build vikings to counter it.

gearoidof

Hey, scout early scout often is my best advice. My build is to scout with the SCV who built the 1st supply depot

1) Cannon proxy - Kill the builder, and he can't build more cannons. It takes 6 SCVs to kill a cannon before it's built, so you should keep an eye on any probes in your base, and if he does build a cannon, just gang rape it with SCVs.
Worst case scenario, you can just move your base, HQs can move, quite handy :P

2) 6 pool - This is an all in, which means that if he doesn't succeed, you win! The counter to a 6 pool is to wall off your ramp, and a proper wall off takes 2 supply depots and a barracks. You should be scouting him, and if you see him going for a 6 pool (denoted by lack of workers/already built spawning pool) then you should make sure you're walled off completely, and when the attack arrives, get your SCVs to repair the buildings. 3 SCVs on each building will out-repair zerg attacks on it, and as long as you have just 1 marine shooting them, you'll win.

Chicks

If for some reason I don't scout a cannon rush until there's already cannons in my natural, i'll do a drop in his base to try to ruin his economy before he expands. If he's gone forge first there usually won't be too many units at his base to defend. If I do enough damage to hold him back for a while, I'll try to expand to another location if don't have enough units to kill the cannons. I'll try to take an island expo or something that won't be scouted for a while, at least until I have it defended. A few marauders with stim can deal with a small number of cannons quite easily too.

With 6 pool, as gearoidof said, you need to wall off. Place your first depot on 9 supply, the barracks immediately after and then make 1 marine, get orbital command, and finish your wall with one more depot as soon as you have enough minerals. Your wall should be done just in time before his lings arrive. Depending on map positions and rush distance, it's sometimes better to finish your wall before you get orbital command. On maps with bigger ramps you'll need an additional barracks in your wall to close it off, so delay orbital command until your wall is complete if you do scout a 6 pool. It's pretty easy to deal with after a little practice.

What do you mean by toss zergling rush? Like sending down one zealot to your base really fast?

Agent J

1) Scout

As others have said & i never do enough of myself. See what the other guy is doing early enough & you can counter anything. If you see an early spawning pool then you have plenty of time to seal yourself off


2)Cannon rush.

If its just outside your walled off ramp. Build a factory & siege tanks. Get 2/3 of them together & start blasting them. They well outrange cannons & use your orbital scan to get the view if needed. Everyone say this with me

Target the pylons first!

(assumings its a lot of cannons)

If its inside your base... its a lesson to close off your base asap & scout the dark areas when you do it. Thats happened to me before. You think you are safe.. having sealed your base.. go for the protected expansion... oh whats that i the shadows? Wall of cannon death!


3)Banshee rush

Again scouting will help you out here. If by a scout/orbital scan see a starport with a tech lab assume you have banshees incoming.

As a general rule i tend to stick 2 AA up at the mineral line asap( I have a fear of void rays ok?). I know people argue aganist static defenses but its up to yourself. (Aganist protoss i think AA around your base is essential aganist cloaked protoss scout)The other thing to bear in mind aganist a cloaked banshee is this equation

Marines + Orbital scan = Dead cloaked banshees

Nobody ever bloody told me that orbital scans reveal cloaked until i found it out myself..

4) Watch replays

This is probably most important. I know it is the last thing you want to do but when you find yourself GG after a few mins wondering what you just got hit with. Go to the replay & watch it carefully to see what they did right & what you did wrong.

Orizio

Thanks for all the very helpful replies. I do scout but as I'm largely unaware as to what I'm looking for in a protoss and zerg base its not that helpful. Need to start playing a few more games with non-Terran races I guess. A lot of the stuff people suggest is common sense but I suppose a beginner tends to panic when up against something strange.

Anyway, a few more general questions...

What is the best terran troop for mass marine? (helion?)

What is the best terran troop for roaches?

Same question, but for siege tanks.

What does ones w/l ratio have to be to get out off bronze?

Thanks for any replies again.

Ramza

Scout inside your base prior to leaving your base, a really neat thing to do and doesn't delay your primary scout to an undesirable result. I send my first scout just as I put down my Rax on 12, but before Refinery at 13. Grab an scv, shift click around your base, then send him to your natural, then his base. Best route to take imo as cheese tends to be in said positions

For 6 pool (and in general), don't do 9 depot since you will cut worker production, do standard ; 10 depot (2 SCVs made and 2 in queue), 12 rax, 13 refinery, 15 marine, then OC at 150 minerals.... and so forth. Your second supply depot can be made at 16 or 17, it doesn't really matter. Since your CC is being upgraded at that time you will only be making marines. I usually opt for 16 depot to complete wall since one or two marines with a faster wall is better imo and you're not damaging economy by doing so.
By the time the zerglings can make it to your wall you can hold them off, I don't even think you need to repair at that stage, 3/4 marines behind a wall can rape 6(?) zerglings anyway. It's GG then since it's an all in for the Zerg player

So just scout accordingly, and don't lose the head when you see cheese, stop it dead ASAP. I used to freak out and panic when I first started playing

Orizio wrote: »

Thanks for all the very helpful replies. I do scout but as I'm largely unaware as to what I'm looking for in a protoss and zerg base its not that helpful. Need to start playing a few more games with non-Terran races I guess. A lot of the stuff people suggest is common sense but I suppose a beginner tends to panic when up against something strange.

Anyway, a few more general questions...

What is the best terran troop for mass marine? (helion?)

What is the best terran troop for roaches?

Same question, but for siege tanks.

What does ones w/l ratio have to be to get out off bronze?

Thanks for any replies again.

As far as cheese goes, when you scout you will see very few workers and no tech whatsoever in his base, you know it's cheese then. But like I said it should never come to that since I always scout around my base before leaving it to scout. Even if you do get to his base and forget/don't scout your own, you can still stop it, if you're alert.

No gas usually signifies a fast expand or an early mineral heavy build opting to get gas later as it may not be needed in the early game
Respectively a lot of gas probably means they will not expand early and are going for a tech heavy build, with respect to his tech buildings, depends on each race tbh

For mass marine just get siege tanks. Cloaked banshees would come to mind but one scan and marines rape banshees. For example, in a game i recently played, I noticed a guy putting down 3 barracks with one refine, I seem some reactors go down so I knew he was more than likely going mass marine. With siege tanks with siege mode, you can rape marines easily with Vikings and small bio force as a backup, but Siege tanks mainly. Back home I teched up, got viking, siege tank, and w/e marines I had and moved to his base for when Siege mode would complete, and rallyed to outside his base. Now, with siege tanks you can shoot farther than you can see, so use vikings to patrol the air space in his base, giving the tanks vision. The splash damage from tanks rapes marines, if they try and push out they will be killed by the tanks and the supporting bio force. It really leaves them in a tough spot

Siege tanks are also an incredible unit vs Roaches

Anything aerial, since tanks can't shoot air

I'm not sure, i'm on a 55%ish w/l ratio, and still in bronze, but hanging in there

Also, if any of my info is incorrect or sketchy please let me know

RoyalMarine

Orizio wrote: »

Thanks for all the very helpful replies. I do scout but as I'm largely unaware as to what I'm looking for in a protoss and zerg base its not that helpful. Need to start playing a few more games with non-Terran races I guess. A lot of the stuff people suggest is common sense but I suppose a beginner tends to panic when up against something strange.

Anyway, a few more general questions...

What is the best terran troop for mass marine? (helion?)

What is the best terran troop for roaches?

Same question, but for siege tanks.

What does ones w/l ratio have to be to get out off bronze?

Thanks for any replies again.

tanks can eat mass marines easily.

marauders eat roaches alive.

banshee beats tank?

not sure on the win loss ratio.

Chicks

Oh, what I mean is rally your 9th scv to where you're gonna wall off..you tell another one to build when that one's done, and when your 9th scv makes it to the ramp you will have 100 minerals to make your depot.

Toxic7

This video might be helpful when learning how to deal with cannon rushs
The nerd rage at the end is also quite funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTLaqxPoPjE

Daenad

6 pool: wall in and be rdy to send few scvs from min line to repair wall. Hotkey a few if necessary and make sure your rax rally point is to the inside of your wall/

cannon rush: As soon as I see it I drop a bunker between it and the mineral (out of range of course) and one toward the entrance if necessary and rally marines to it. Even if i spot it as hes dropping 1st pylon I sometimes let him continue as it encourages him to save minerals for it and not spend on gateways and probes. After hes contained I take day9s advice and go f***ing kill him. Failing that lift of and go to expo.

Marine push: respond with marines and a bunker at entrance fast and it will most likely fail.

Baneling Bust: If you can, make a strong wall 2rax 1supply or stronger and get a few marauders. I generally place a marauder or 2 outside the wall in front of supply depot. If hes silly and orders the banelings to attack the supply depot the marauder will block them and mess with their ai. If he attacks marauders his banelings are delayed and lower in number as hes had to kill marauder. If he sends in lings in 1st to hit marauder they get eaten up.

As for scouting,
If you see early 2 gas expect tech or a guy who likes having a trust fund. So Banelings or fast muta, or banshees or fast mech, voids are most likely for toss at your level.

Seeing bunkers also indicates he either saw your push coming or hes teching. For the former he will have a lot of units for the latter he wont.

Almost empty toss base, scout your base asap, if theres a forge its a cannon rush, if there's not, its prob a gateway rush. If the workers are sitting there doing nothing hes afk so go kill him.

Aside from that there isn't much info I can add to what has already been said so I'll leave the rest up to Day9. Most important thing is don't panic and keep building scv's and supply depots and always scout, always.

Don't know the W/L you need but if you want to get out of Bronze always be building SCV's and don't get supply blocked.

Orizio

Thanks again for the replies to the tedious questions, and I'll go through the posts in a few minutes. Quick question though - how does one avoid getting supply blocked at 11? Usually there is a few seconds in which I can't build my depot, or I'm building my depot and I get blocked from building my twelfth SCV or I don't have enough minerals for my barracks as I am ramping off. Usually its 2 of the above and for a combined toal of 10 seonds of blockage but I assume its avoidable...?

NeoSlicerZ

Accept that it's normal. 10 depot is standard.

Ramza

Orizio wrote: »

Thanks again for the replies to the tedious questions, and I'll go through the posts in a few minutes. Quick question though - how does one avoid getting supply blocked at 11? Usually there is a few seconds in which I can't build my depot, or I'm building my depot and I get blocked from building my twelfth SCV or I don't have enough minerals for my barracks as I am ramping off. Usually its 2 of the above and for a combined toal of 10 seonds of blockage but I assume its avoidable...?

Since it's a given you will be constantly making units, you want to build supply depots at about 2 food or so before your cap so it gets made in time, later in the game when you are macroing up and producing more units it's up to you to decide when to build in advance

seraphimvc

it would be easier for us to tell you what exactly you did wrong there losing to cheese by give us a replay.

and for cheese, i am pretty confident to say that bronze/silver are pretty much the learning phase for you to master the anti-cheese. the reason that cheese are so common in lower leagues because cheese can be easily to execute and so deadly if you didnt scout them in time. that said, i encourage you to learn some cheese build with different race and then you will realise whats the good and bad by doing a cheese. bear in mind that a well-executed cheese by high diamond is a whole new level than the nooby cheese :pac: i personally have a huge fear to the insanely quick 2 port bancheeseeee.

some good advice above and here is my 2cents:
it is always about scouting, since you are in bronze just use an extra scv keep scouting your own base and send one to scout the oppo early (around 10supply). this is bad for macro obviously but losing the 2scv mining time is better than losing the game plus you oppo are not supposed to be high level diamond anyway. pull most of your scv to kill the priority: 1.probe 2.pylon, if 1 cannon is up and you have less than 3 marines, forget it and just lift off to somewhere.

TvP: cannon is VERY expensive. the usual case is that the toss will have an empty base and no gateway = no units.
Options:
fast dropship with marines asap;
banshee;
tanks fend up;
simply mass up units and go for the all-in attack asap(dont make any additional scv). bring 1/2 marauders in case he has cannons in base(but he wont have many). the key thing is you need to go for the kill ASAP(1 siege tank is enough) while he still think he has the game.
bear in mind that good cheeser always know how to stop to overcommitted his cheese and go for other tech/gateway etc, and thats another whole new story:D
if he goes early mass zealot?bunker up. dt cheese?dont engage and wait for a scan available(you always make orbital once you have your first rax done unless you wanna do some insane 2 rax cheese...).

TvT:the most common (and viable) cheese in tvt prob is banshee :pac:which is so easy to be countered anyway. always scan opponent's base at between 7-9mins.
if you see he is doing bancheese, early game you can build marines, save scan. you also can either go for kill now (since he should has very few units) or macro up get turret or get viking or a raven(depends on how many banshee he is making).

TvZ: you should be able to see that coming with your early scouting scv and you need pull ALL your scv to repair the buildings(while making more scv obviously :P). 1 marines is enough to take down a 6/7/8pool. a failed 6pool = instant lose, not always tho :P watch actionjesus's games.

you need to know that a cheese/half-cheese/early harass is a always hurtful to his econ(and meaning he wont have many units made). if you can defend his cheese and counter attack asap then the game is yours, providing that your macro is at least at the same level with the oppo. if i were you i will get some replay to learn off the all-in builds :pac: when you grind to higher league then maybe you can play some macro long game, under the condition of the terran oppo dont do crazy all-in of course :P GLHF!!

edit:god i wrote a long post:P cheese is so much to talk about lol. sc2 is always about timing really, when you know what sort of cheese can coming to you with your scouted info(quick double gas, quick rax, slow gate, so eagerly to kill your scout etc) in what timing, i believe that you will play the game better. to play good in sc2 actually requires alot of decent understanding of the game :P unless you do all-in builds all the time of course!

Cuddlesworth

Toxic7 wrote: »

This video might be helpful when learning how to deal with cannon rushs
The nerd rage at the end is also quite funny

He should have pushed with the 4 or so marines he had and kept reinforcing. Would have won it simply by the amount of cannons the guy had in his base.

Jonny7

you can scout with your 7/8th scv or your 10th scv (the one that builds the supply depot)

watch day9 (search day9 at www.blip.tv) and try the other races, then you won't be so scared of what lurks in the darkness

Oh yeah and learn to use all the hotkeys

Ramza

I wouldn't go as far as to say that banshees or any other type of harass is cheese at all. Dropping or hellion harass vs Zerg is another example, doesn't cripple your eco. at all and transitions very well

Tenger

Ramza wrote: »

I wouldn't go as far as to say that banshees or any other type of harass is cheese at all. Dropping or hellion harass vs Zerg is another example, doesn't cripple your eco. at all and transitions very well

Indeed a number of players (mentioned by Day9) get 1-2 banshees then switch the techlab to build tanks/thors. The threat of those first banshees forced the opponent to repond in a certain way (detection/ant-air) allowing the terran to transistion into heavy mech play.
In the same vein the early helion/marine drop harass helps to utilise your minerals while you build up to 4 gas to go heavy teach units.

Orizio

How does one put up a replay btw?

RoyalMarine

use the attach feature of boards.ie, and go to my documents/acounts/107189953/2-s2-1-284365/replays/multiplayer/file.sc2replay and upload!

those folders might not be called the same.....

Orizio

I'm at a point in which I'm winning more games then I'm losing - however as you can see from my sig I lost a load of games at the very beginning of my account. Should I jettison this one and start anew to get into silver? Is that even possible?

Daenad

Don't worry about your previous loss just keep playing an improving, it's not how many you beat its who you beat if you start regularly beating silver players you will soon be in silver, regardless if a few months ago you lost to a blind man with two broken arms who thought he was playing pacman at the time. Anyway if you want to read about the way people guess league promotions work read here.

seraphimvc

as a general advice i'd say forget the league and play for the fun ^^ the league system is designed to get casual players to get involved more to the multiplayer game ie 'grind' the league level :P

and rumor that blizzard will reset the ladder at some point, some may say that the reset will take place as soon as the next patch(in January). your bronze will be scrapped if you do well for the new placement :P but your hidden ranking will still be the same tho. just do your best and have fun really!!

Orizio

Replay.

Analysis would be appreciated. Keep in mind that I am terrible though. :pac:

seraphimvc

just my 2cents :P

1.a standard early wall off should be 2 depot with 1 rax in between them.placing 3 depots there is simply asking for a bling bust :P and in the case of tvt/tvp, wall in is not really recommended (for many reasons such as 1 siege at your choke and your wall is gone, wasted). you usually wall in to prevent speedling run in in tvz. and in some tvz if you see he goes aggresive early bling play you will need a bunker or rax build behind the depot to prevent the burst in.

2.cool marine scout lol and i like how you build the depot around the cliff to prevent any shinanigans :P but imo one depot at the backdoor, one at the side is enough, you dont wanna give away too many free depot kill to the enemy's air or happy void ray charge up.

3. you have a nice small army at 10mins and your reaper should have seen that he has very few zeals and go stargates - 1 fully working base with 4 gates+2 stargate is pretty much like saying 'here, orizio, have a free win'!

standard Toss early BO should be 4/5gate, 3 gate1robo, 2gate+stargate. his 1 base wont be able to support his crazy 4 gate+2stargate that early = he wont have a sizeable army.

and oh you win lol (i am watching and typing at the same time). i thought you did pretty well this game. his sneaky secret base simply means that you need to aware of the map more, getting good map control is a good way to improve your play. anyway, you should be able to end the game at 10mins right after you scout he has 2 stargates up. you should send your army right away and keep pumping reinforcement.


all in all, i think you should be able to reach at least Gold with your strong early play(there is no reason to make that many units for turtling :Pyou have to go for an attack or you will lose to the oppo's macro).

my suggestion would be try to focus on main bio play for now, throw down more rax (your money is floating anyway), get 1/2 tanks or make some medivac with your army. you can try tech play once you gain more confidence, after your bio build is more solid or when situation needed. vikings werent needed at all for that game unless you are sure that he has 10+secret void rays hiding somewhere (which is impossible, and if that really happens marines do better job than vikings in early game). vikings are usually made to counter colosus or early ovie sniping :P

and dont afraid to expo when you have the lead, you made a cc sitting in your base :P i'd throw down 3 expo after you kill his main since you have the money :P good nonstop building scv btw! overall a gg but i think this is total BO lost from the toss.

i was expecting a cheese game that you said in your OP

Ramza

Ok, you're new to the game so just some pointers

You need to learn a build order. Judging from your replay you were building things for the sake of building them and didn't really have a solid goal in mind, if you get me. Go to www.liquipedia.net, and look up Terran strategy. Also, watch some YouTube videos, watch Day [9] and just read up in general for build orders. Most important of all practice them. IMO, a good one to get started is a 3 rax opening or a standard 1/1/1

Your wall in was imperfect. I don't agree with rallying an SCV to your wall, it gets there too late, your first depot was 20 minerals late. At 55 minerals, grab an SCV off mineral line (one which has just brought back minerals to the CC), right click to ramp, press B and mash S, when you get 100 minerals, you can build, and slap it down as soon as you can. I recommend turning on the build grid on the options menu, it helps a lot with wall ins as it shows where is best to place buildings for the wall

As again, build order ; your gas was late, you got it at 14. At 13 supply, after making your rax on 12, grab an SCV off the mineral line, press B, then R, slam it down on the geyser ASAP (75 minerals). Again, you rallied an SCV to beside your CC to build the gas. Don't do that, it's pointless, and you lose out on mining time. Grab SCVs off the mineral line when you need work done.

You want to send your scouting SCV when your rax is building imo, just grab an SCV and send it to his base. Hotkey it so you can switch views easily

With gas, same as mineral fields, it takes 3 SCVs to optimally harvest one. Upon completion of a refinery, the SCV that built it mines from it automatically, so when it is done, grab two SCVs from minerals and get them mining vespene, making 3 altogether

As before, your wall in was imperfect, you cancelled the second depot, and there was a big gap in your wall. You need to have a mental plan in the early game of what you want, things transition later on. Opening standard (orbital command opening), is the best way ; 10 depot, 12 rax, 13 refine, 15 marine, 16 OC

Also, supply depots ; why did you make that SCV build a tonne of depots when you didn't need them? I hope I'm not being harsh but you only need a depot before you get supply capped. This ties in with what I was saying before, you need to have a good build order in mind and what needs to be done. With time you will improve

A lot of time you were idle when producing units and to me seemed like you just built buildings for the sake of it. Although it worked, just make sure you know what you want. At certain times your minerals exceeded 1k :O

And as for hotkeys, you had 3 raxes on different hotkeys, you can place all 3 on one hotkey and just press [hotkey], AAD, DDA or whatever, for marines and marauders respectively. And oh, you always want to rally behind your wall, and when you want to send a unit out, lower a depot, then raise it when it leaves.

You can add me for some games if you like, I'm almost out of bronze but been playing a few months, would be happy to help. My id is in my sig

Orizio

Thanks for all the advice. I'll have to re-watch it again because I almost always ramp-off with a depot/barracks/depot tightly - iirc I might have misplaced the first depot which ****ed up everything else. I have a feeling I built multiple factories and starports because I wanted some kind of viking/tank army. The CC was just sitting there because I can't multi-task.

Also, I build vikings because in bronze I'm scared ****less of voidrays/banshees/mutas. Voidrays and cloaked banshess in particular are what people automatically go for.

Usually my 'plan' is to build three barracks, then sneak two reapers behind his mineral line and start sniping SCV's etc and then push with marines/marauders. If none of that works I lose because my mid-late game stuff is terrible.

Orizio

Ramza wrote: »

And as for hotkeys, you had 3 raxes on different hotkeys, you can place all 3 on one hotkey and just press [hotkey], AAD, DDA or whatever, for marines and marauders respectively. And oh, you always want to rally behind your wall, and when you want to send a unit out, lower a depot, then raise it when it leaves.

You can add me for some games if you like, I'm almost out of bronze but been playing a few months, would be happy to help. My id is in my sig

Was confused as to how this worked - much appreciated.

seraphimvc

Orizio wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice. I'll have to re-watch it again because I almost always ramp-off with a depot/barracks/depot tightly - iirc I might have misplaced the first depot which ****ed up everything else. I have a feeling I built multiple factories and starports because I wanted some kind of viking/tank army. The CC was just sitting there because I can't multi-task.

Also, I build vikings because in bronze I'm scared ****less of voidrays/banshees/mutas. Voidrays and cloaked banshess in particular are what people automatically go for.

Usually my 'plan' is to build three barracks, then sneak two reapers behind his mineral line and start sniping SCV's etc and then push with marines/marauders. If none of that works I lose because my mid-late game stuff is terrible.

all strat have its weak and strong point. :P my advice was meant for how to improve your strat and some reminder of the basics. once you are able to play your standard style very solid and you will evolve very quickly from there when the oppo beat you strat once you reach higher league. you will think/analysis yourself or ask here again for how to improve yourself from your loss etc.

just focus on do the best macro you can while pumping as many as units as you can. like (under no harass condition) 10mins ->near 100supply, 20mins ->200/200 max out will be a good goal. unit counter ,micro, cutesy tactics etc you wont need them until you get into higher league.

i am interested to see how will your opening turn out eventually :P early 2 reapers delay your push but allow you to do mild harass (bear in mind, 1 stalker is enough to shut that off) and scouting all the info you need. i mean, people really barely make any reaper now and i always think it is still a good scouting unit. i like your opening and i'd like to see you play out your opening in a very solid way and how far can you go with that

and oh, your opening is quite vulnarable to early cheese/early agreesive play btw. just remember marauder >cannons (with some marines backup), dont make a single reaper when you get cannoned XD and for your curiosity i only play 1v1 with the practice partner and rarely ladder 1v1 now :P the reason is related to a unit called marine XD you are welcomed to add me if you want some practice game^^ Burningsera.792.

Orizio

Some cheese attached. More Toss cannon rush within the first few minutes of the game as I was ramping up. Comments welcome, and yes, I know I panicked.

F69Baal

To get promoted your win/loss ratio doesnt matter per se.

You need to get a nice win streak or a nice w/l ratio against favored players (meaning players from higher division, typically silver in your case)

Once you get a w/l ratio over 55% (roughly) vs silver players BNet will promote you.

Good Luck!

PS: playing a couple custom games offrace (for instance PvT ZvT) will greatly help you understand the matchups and the timings of the other races.

Orizio

Cheers. I've won maybe all of my last 10 games and even one against a zerg. A kind of 2x2x2 build worked well, with marines/tanks/vikings and an early-ish expansion. Its the way I'll go against zerg in future.

I have a 50% record exactly now but I've only been playing bronze players.

Daenad

The trick with zerg (or at least the trick I use) is pressure, pressure and more pressure. Do not let a zerg rest for a minute, unless he 6 pools first 2 marines you make send them to his base as it'll force him to make lings instead of workers.

Also do things like send a large army towards his base until a scout unit sees them, kill the scout then retreat back to your base. He'll prob **** himself and produce a ton of units, that's good, he's not producing workers. In short, if he's producing workers it's bad.

Drops are also very useful for killing his workers and keeping him busy, though watch out for muta's. Btw troops on a drop don't have to be on a one way mission, if he sends mass ground attack units at them simply load em back into the medivac a fly outta there. Sounds logical but many people don't.

On the subject of mutas, if he goes that route make sure you have an eng bay and a turret or 2 on your min line. If he goes after you workers mass repair these turrets.

Don't fight on creep unless you absolutely have to (e.g you're taking out an expo or doing a strong push) and if you have your entire army grouped to group 1, group only your marines to 2. If he sends in banelings you can eaily retreat your marines leaving your marauders to kill em.

Orizio

Thanks. I actually didn't put any pressure on him, as he just ran much of his army into my siege tanks (such are the joys of bronze league) and I killed off his mutas with vikings/marines. Don't think he even expanded. Probably a terrible player but I'm guessing a MMM/tanks/viking army is pretty effective for zerg.

What would you say is the best build against Zerg as terran? Or some of the more effective ones.

Cuddlesworth

Orizio wrote: »

Thanks. I actually didn't put any pressure on him, as he just ran much of his army into my siege tanks (such are the joys of bronze league) and I killed off his mutas with vikings/marines. Don't think he even expanded. Probably a terrible player but I'm guessing a MMM/tanks/viking army is pretty effective for zerg.

What would you say is the best build against Zerg as terran? Or some of the more effective ones.

At bronze level you could win 90% of your games with just marines. Constant pressure and good macro will wipe the floor with players at that level.

seraphimvc

Orizio wrote: »

Some cheese attached. More Toss cannon rush within the first few minutes of the game as I was ramping up. Comments welcome, and yes, I know I panicked.

been busy lately :P just watched the replay.

about the cheese:
1.dont panic! you did the right thing by pulling 5/6 scv to kill the pylon, but try keep in mind that you need to kill the probe to feel 'safe'. try to trap the probe in base and kill it with a marine asap or just simply follow the probe by a scv until your marine is out.

2.dont forget to scout! go at about 10 or 11 supply if the spawn position can be close position. what usually happens is that the cheeser can go cannon and then follow by mass gate units or void ray or dt. scout to see if he has any gas ->no gas = mass cannon or zealots. quick double gas = void ray.

3.rax rally point. he shouldnt win the game if you put the marine behind the wall. pull some scv to repair when zealots attack. or even a bunker if you feel like the money is floating. remember marines cant go heads on with zealot, 1 zealot can kill at least 3 marines if you dont micro your marines. kite them to dead!!

tat game was an easy win if you can pump out like 10marines and go for his base. you have the vision allow you to kill the cannons from top without losing 1 unit (just kill the zealot which give the cannon sight). keep macro while you are at pressure, you have 1000mineral floating in the end!

it is called a 'cannon contain' which is quite common in PvZ during the first 2 months after launch iirc :P but it is not that good in pvt since the toss who did the contain was hoping to delay your expo, he will either do a very quick timing attack (before you gets enough army to deal with), or go expo to gain the macro advantage, but either way, you should play your standard 1 base play and go roll him over(he spent alot on the cannons and shouldnt able to outproduce you on units count). get some marauder +marines asap and go for it = win. get a siege tank if you wanna show him you are the boss (the timing needs some practice tho)!

alternatively, go 2 port banshee if you feel like he should have a taste of his own medicine :P

Orizio

Thanks again Sera. Yet more cheese, this time from Terran...

Irratating as hell. And as far as I can tell, impossible to react properly to. He had 5 marines up with more on the way before I had a tech lab up, with one marine.

DapperGent

You had 20 scvs to his 5, plus you went tech on your barracks after only one unit, you never scouted and you were queuing up supply depots while having 10+ food cap space and only two unit producing structures, you were spamming a total fright of minerals on early supply, you just can't do this early. You also walled off against a terran, you don't wall off against terran for this exact situation he plants a few marines outside your base and they destroy two depots and a racks when you can't really hit back.

Your 20 SCVs would have eaten his marines if he couldn't micro well which he probably couldn't. TBH this should have been a funny easy win for you and will be in the future.

All like IMO.

seraphimvc

you're welcomed!

as for the terran cheese:

1. remember i said your reaper->mass bio play is quite vulnerable to early aggression? there you go an example. and again 1 scout at 10 or 11 supply should allow you to stop that 2-rax play.

2. i believe your oppo tried to pull the infamous 2-rax all-in play(which is quite common nowadays) but with a slightly early timing and no scv bring with him (standard timing is ~10marines at around 5mins). note that he do the 'maka rax' outside his base, if you scouted him you should know that he is up to something fishy, and no gas => fcking 2 rax marines play.

3.it is still debatable that you should wall in against 2rax (Terran usually dont wall in in tvt and tvp, or maybe you wall in early but move the rax later) but if i were you i will build the rax/depot near your CC(save time and prevent food block) and build a bunker near the choke. you should be able to make 1 bunker+4 marines in there right before he arrives and if he didnt back off or try to run pass your bunker to your mineral line, you win. pull some scv to repair bunker if you can.

you will need to practice the position of the bunker(slightly away from the choke so he wont be easily run by without his marines die) and build more rax and pump out marines, once you finish his first wave of attack, and considering you nonstop produce marines at the mean time, you win if you counter attack immediately with all your marines. of course you can choose to play a longer standard game from there, either way, your macro should be better than him(in this game you had 20scv he had 5 :pac:).

i think this oppo is silver or higher? that means you'll be promoted soon

edit: ye like dapper said you can even kill his marines by pulling all your scv to fight them. with some micro of course (select low hp scv and click mineral patch).

Orizio

I wasn't building, or planning to build reapers. I've never come across an attack this early on against terran so I was just going for another marine/marauder attack. Not quite sure I get the 'spamming' minerals remark - I had too many SCVs or was building too many supply depots...? Because I just assume constantly building SCV's is a good thing. Also I tend to queue up a few depots because otherwise I'll forget and get supply blocked.

Fair enough about the SCVs, I just dislike using them to attack. Plus I assume he would have had more marines on the way and would have just worn me done.

As far as I can tell I've yet to play anyone other then ****ty bronze players. I have a habit of winning a load of games and then going right back to square one against someone ranked lower then me because of some cheesy attack or something I'm not familiar with or just making stupid decisions. Going by my ranking/points its pretty obvious I am only beating extremely bad players.

Orizio

Also, a little bit more terran cheese before I go to sleep...:(

seraphimvc

Orizio wrote: »

I wasn't building, or planning to build reapers. I've never come across an attack this early on against terran so I was just going for another marine/marauder attack. Not quite sure I get the 'spamming' minerals remark - I had too many SCVs or was building too many supply depots...? Because I just assume constantly building SCV's is a good thing. Also I tend to queue up a few depots because otherwise I'll forget and get supply blocked.

Fair enough about the SCVs, I just dislike using them to attack. Plus I assume he would have had more marines on the way and would have just worn me done.

As far as I can tell I've yet to play anyone other then ****ty bronze players. I have a habit of winning a load of games and then going right back to square one against someone ranked lower then me because of some cheesy attack or something I'm not familiar with or just making stupid decisions. Going by my ranking/points its pretty obvious I am only beating extremely bad players.

your supply is fine but certainly can be improved, i remember you queue up the 2 depots building which i think is little silly at this early game, i 'd rather get 2 marines queueing in a rax or build an extra rax.

nonstop making scv is a hallmark core skill of a good player (in early game anyway), but you have to cut down the scv production when you are facing an early rush. or you are confident and ready to use your scv in fight:P

when you see such an early attack, you should be 99% sure that he is doing an all-in (low scv count, low econ, he fails the attack = he lose), so just keep in mind that it doesnt matter how many marines he will keep sending after the first wave, your marines count will always ahead of him if you can fend off his first attack anyway.

the thing with battlenet is that it will always give you a higher (hidden) ranking player (from my experience anyway lol) after your win. so just keep trying! even if you lose you are still improving yourself remember dont jump straight into next game after you lost, go analyse the replay and tell yourself what did you do wrong there and what should you do to improve your game play.

Khazidhea

All right ... I might sound a bit harsh. And excuse my English. But honestly ...

First of all that wasnt cheese. Actually I dont even know what this was xD
But YOU should stop worrying about "stopping cheese". You need solid builds, or even A build.

Right now you are trying to squeeze out like +1% of winrate by learning how to deal with specific kind of cheese. Instead you can get +90% winrate on your level of play by just mastering 1 build. Might sound boring ... But it will probably not be boring for you.

I suggest you watch Day[9]. His episodes 13* were focused on Brat_OK play in Beta in all 3 match-ups. It might be outdated, because that was back in beta, but he just covered basics of the build and you should do it to. Then pick up any random terran game. By Sjow for example because he uses the same freaking build and doesnt even send an early scout (you probably should, there is a lot of theory behind to do it or not to do it). But like 90% of terrans will do the same opener, it's 1-1-1 with OC on 15. Learn it.

Link to Day[9]: http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/3752216/
Well ... its a bit different opener from what I am about to teach you. Watch it after you nailed down the 1-1-1 and you want something new. Or I dont know. It would be just too much information.

I'll tell you what - marine + tank is your main army. Then you add something specific to deal against something specific or to just do something specific. It depends on your own playstyle, enemy unit composition, enemy playstyle, map, etc.

One little tip - dont wall of against terran. No use. Both of your units are ranged so your wall will eventually just fall for free. Walling off is also depatable. You can even hold 6pool without wall on some maps. I personally wall of only in TvZ and sometimes in TvP, very rarely.


The opening. Read it here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Orbital_Command_Opening

6 steps, should be really easy. Yes you can fall to random 6 pools, cannon rushes. Just scout inside your base with your 13 scv, then proceed to scout your opponent. Kill proxy stuff with half of your scvs, pull more if you areally scared, but usually u dont have to. If a proxy gate finishes build a bunker near it. Then keep marines in front of your base to prevent later attempts to sneak later proxies. I suggest you vote down blistering and jungle basin and probably shakuras or scrap. Focus on the safe maps first.

Once you got your OC opening there are just couple more steps to get to 1-1-1.

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/1_Rax_Fact

Hmmm actually liquepedia page for 1-1-1 is ****. So do 1 rax and keep pumping marines. Add supply depos when neccessary. Numbers to look for are 16\19, 22\27, 31\35 and then u just kinda feel it. Dont queue up depos, dont queue up ANYTHING, maaaaaybe 2 scvs or 2 marines, but no more than that.

DONT FORGET TO PUT 3 SCVS on gas. In the next patch it will tell you how many scvs are on gas, but currently u can just see it. There are 2 guys always traveling and 1 waiting a little bit before going in refinery.

Keep pumping SCVs and marines, no addons. At 100 gas build factory. Keep pumping marines and scvs. You can put a 2nd gas right after factory but you will have to cut a marine or a scv, DONT do it. Build those, wait a bit, put 2nd gas. Fact is finished - build 1 hellion and start starport, scout the front of your opponent with your hellion. Check expansion, get his unit composition. In the meantime build techlab on factory.


And thats is like core of your build. You can build marines, tanks and vikings\medivacs. Switch addons to get a fast banshee for harass and later tanks. Add 2nd rax and get reactor, switch with startport to get double viking or medivac.




Now that last game. Using the standard opener by the time his marines attacked (8 mins or so) you could have a banshee in his base killing his scvs and handful of marines, a siege tank or two, maybe hellion. You could have defended easily.

Your mistakes in defense. Well your tried to just kill him. Instead you should have waited up on your ramp. Marines kill marauders. Hellions are good against marines, but they just died quickly and the attack angle was wrong (no splash). Build bunkers, pull scvs to fight if neccessary to survive.

You have 2 starports that build nothing. Queued up supply depos. And lol he has no OC, he has gas that he doesnt even use ... well he build reactors and thats it xDD he has 600 gas in bank. Oh wow u have 1200 gas ...

You have a lot more holes in your play you need to fix before you start worrying about cheese. Worrying about anything, like "pressuring zerg so he doesnt drone up" - hell I am pretty sure, zergs dont even know what to do with their money when they drone up at this level of play. All the "rushes" come tooo late. Like this many marines and nothing else at 8 min? Pathetic. 4-gate? Uber-late 4gate at 12 mins or something is easy to stop.


Hope this helps. I hope I wasnt TOO harsh and made you feel bad, I didnt want to. As for credentials - I am 2500 diamond Terran and I havent played in a while, so I have about 200 bonus pool on top of it. I won some tournaments, I played some top-players like jimpo, Gomas, Brat_OK. And I am still PRETTY BAD. Like you tend to build a lot of supply depos and I always forget to and get supply blocked xD Or micro fails (you dont need to worry about that until ... lets say platinum).

seraphimvc

Orizio wrote: »

Also, a little bit more terran cheese before I go to sleep...:(

I am not sure if that is qualified as a cheese but i think that is one stupid strat lol, 3rax-reactor mass marines play is just.....funny??lol

1. i am begging you Oriz, please scout! make it a habit! after you built your first depot, send that scv to his base and stay alive as long as you can.

2. hellion is pretty useless (altho it has extra damage to marines) unless you micro marauder stay at the front tanks them and position well. but even if you are a micro god, siege tank is still the best answer when you see 3rax+reactor play. just bunker up front and back door and pull some scv to repair and push out once you have 4/5 tanks+bio ball.

i believe your gameplay should be at least in silver league, you just need to improve your response to certain strategy/cheese which is hugely based on the scouting+map control. send 1 marine to stand at the xelnaga towers, scan at certain timing etc. playing in blind is just bad practice.

Orizio

Yeah I assume hellion's would have worked well against mass marines, should have gotten tanks, but I panic and don't think clearly. Ho-hum.

'Cheese' doesn't seem the right term obviously but mass marines just seems pointless (unless you are playing really bad players like myself )

Orizio

seraphimvc wrote: »

I am not sure if that is qualified as a cheese but i think that is one stupid strat lol, 3rax-reactor mass marines play is just.....funny??lol

1. i am begging you Oriz, please scout! make it a habit! after you built your first depot, send that scv to his base and stay alive as long as you can.

2. hellion is pretty useless (altho it has extra damage to marines) unless you micro marauder stay at the front tanks them and position well. but even if you are a micro god, siege tank is still the best answer when you see 3rax+reactor play. just bunker up front and back door and pull some scv to repair and push out once you have 4/5 tanks+bio ball.

i believe your gameplay should be at least in silver league, you just need to improve your response to certain strategy/cheese which is hugely based on the scouting+map control. send 1 marine to stand at the xelnaga towers, scan at certain timing etc. playing in blind is just bad practice.

No, never! My SCV's are precious I tell you, precious, let the grunt scout (five minutes too late...) :P

Was the scouting really the problem here though? I knew mass marine was coming, I just reacted very badly to it. Presumebly I saw it too late?

seraphimvc

Khazidhea wrote: »

Instead you can get +90% winrate on your level of play by just mastering 1 build. Might sound boring ... But it will probably not be boring for you.

excellent post khaz:D and i totally agree with you on that mastering one solid BO is enough to get him out of bronze.

Orizio

seraphimvc wrote: »

your supply is fine but certainly can be improved, i remember you queue up the 2 depots building which i think is little silly at this early game, i 'd rather get 2 marines queueing in a rax or build an extra rax.

nonstop making scv is a hallmark core skill of a good player (in early game anyway), but you have to cut down the scv production when you are facing an early rush. or you are confident and ready to use your scv in fight:P

when you see such an early attack, you should be 99% sure that he is doing an all-in (low scv count, low econ, he fails the attack = he lose), so just keep in mind that it doesnt matter how many marines he will keep sending after the first wave, your marines count will always ahead of him if you can fend off his first attack anyway.

the thing with battlenet is that it will always give you a higher (hidden) ranking player (from my experience anyway lol) after your win. so just keep trying! even if you lose you are still improving yourself remember dont jump straight into next game after you lost, go analyse the replay and tell yourself what did you do wrong there and what should you do to improve your game play.

Fair enough.

seraphimvc

Orizio wrote: »

No, never! My SCV's are precious I tell you, precious, let the grunt scout (five minutes too late...) :P

Was the scouting really the problem here though? I knew mass marine was coming, I just reacted very badly to it. Presumebly I saw it too late?

lol btw, my favourite units are Drone and OVERLORD!!!

you should expect high chances he is going mass marine after you saw them by your rambo marine. give it a scan asap and you will see the 3rax reactor-->siege asap. you were building marauders even after you scouted his 7 marines MM actually works ok vs Marine ball (with marauder cover marines) but you should make more marines in your army(get stim+shield).

String

Orizio wrote: »

No, never! My SCV's are precious I tell you, precious, let the grunt scout (five minutes too late...) :P

Was the scouting really the problem here though? I knew mass marine was coming, I just reacted very badly to it. Presumebly I saw it too late?

Its always good to leave that scout outside the base of the opponent or at xelnaga tower etc so you have enough time to prepare when they are coming

Ramza

Scouting is very important, make a habit of it