Why do Terrans drop MULEs in battles?

Question

I have seen many pro players dropping mules after and during battles. Sometimes they use scans instead.

This seems counter-intuitive, I mean they could get a ton of minerals for that.

Why do they do it? MarineKing does that very often.

Asked by ayckoster

Answer

There are three reasons that I've seen mules dropped away from the mineral line in competitive play:

Manner mules

By far the most common reason is that a Terran player has decided that they've won the game, that it's obvious that they've won the game, and the other player should have realized they've lost and gg'd out already.

Throwing down mules away from your base in that situation says "I've won so big, look at me throwing away resources, because I don't even need them to crush you completely."

It's considered impolite or (in the common SC2 phrase) "bad manner", hence the name.

Forcing the enemy to shoot their own units

Facing off against another Terran, it's possible to cause the enemy's tanks to kill each other by landing a mule in the middle of a group of sieged tanks...the tanks target the mule, and kill each other with the splash damage.

Repairing mechanical units

When an important mechanical unit or group of mechanical units (most often a Thor, but sometimes a group of tanks) is severely damaged far from the players base, that player can repair it by sending down a mule, without having to wait for an SCV to cross the map, or retreat the unit(s) back to their home base.

If the unit(s) repaired are important because of their strategic position, repairing them can be more important than the loss of minerals due to dropping a mule away from the mineral line.

Tanking damage

I haven't actually noticed it myself, so it's not in my list of three, but, as Wikwocket points out, it's also possible that a mule might be sent down to draw fire away from strategically important units, even outside of the strategy of using the enemy's tank splash damage against them.

Answered by Theodore Murdock

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Is there a Terran wall-in guide?

Question

Does some kind of Terran wall-in guide exist that focuses on the different ramp types. I struggle with some of the strange 2v2 ramps, especially if they face northeast and I want addons on my Barracks very fast.

Sometimes my wall is not complete or the buildings are weirdly paced so my units cannot defend very well as the buildings take up too much space. Other times my ally helps me wall-in but he places his buildings so I cannot add addons without breaking the wall.

I always think that I am at a disadvantage if my base faces northeast.

Asked by ayckoster

Answer

Make sure that the building grid is enabled in Options, that will help you place buildings on the fly without having to memorise anything.

As for your ally blocking addons, your best bet is to lift the building and build the addon elsewhere when you're ready, while replacing it in the wall with supply depots. Alternatively, you could use the Voice over IP client to plan out your wall in with your ally.

Answered by JamesCW

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What are good Z+T strategies for multiplayer Starcraft 2?

Question

In a 2v2 game, if two Zergs are in one team they often do a "double-6-pool-rush". Even though almost everybody knows this opening, it is still very difficult to counter it, although possible.

Does there exist a similarly good opening for a Terran and Zerg team?

Asked by Budda

Answer

If you just want a basic rush opener for Z+T, you can go 6-Pool and Mega-Rax. Mega-Rax is the same sort of thing as 6-pool, just build lots of barracks and marines. Skip gas collection, but do get an Orbital Command for MULEs. Build 3 early barracks and more as you can afford them. One advantage of the Z+T composition is that Zerglings can form a front, tanking damage, while the marines can stand behind them and dish out damage. You can Google "Mega Rax" for more ideas or an exact build order.

However, I'd encourage you to broaden your horizons. These "builds" are all-in rushes. If they do not work, for example if your opponents have defended walls, you are left with a slow economy (especially for the Zerg), no tech advantages, and only the capability to build the most basic units. Opponents going for Roaches, Marauders, Tanks, Stalkers etc will steamroll you if your initial wave doesn't win the game.

So, of course feel free to play with rushes if you enjoy them, but you may also consider looking at other nice strategies and synergies, such as Medivacs healing Zerg units, or maybe Muta harassment + tank pushing, etc.

Answered by Wikwocket

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Is it possible to determine or control where a SCV moves during construction?

Question

Is it possible to determine where a SCV will move next while building or on which side of the building it will finish?

Here is my scenario:

Enemy is going 6pool and his lings will arrive before my 2nd Supply goes up. Can I somehow control the SCV so he does not get attacked while building or finish outside of my wall?

Asked by ayckoster

Answer

No, you won't be able to control the path specifically.

However, there is some micro that you can use to get a small benefit out of it. You could select the SCV and stop construction (make sure you're not cancelling the building) before the SCV travels to the outside part of the building and then restart construction inside the wall, you'd have to do that a lot to ensure that your SCV stays inside the base.

Answered by Sorean

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When is an appropriate time to transition into Ghosts?

Question

I'm a new SC2 player trying to learn Terran. Right now, I'm practicing pretty basic builds like a standard OC opening, 1Rax FE, 1/1/1 with the Cloaked Banshee harass, etc. I've exercised most Terran units in the builds I've practiced so far with the very notable exceptions of Ghosts and Battlecruisers. I'm less interested in the Battlecruisers at the moment and am particularly interested in when Ghosts are effective and what I should be looking for to know when it is an appropriate time to transition into building a Ghost Academy and producing some of those units.

Asked by Jeremy Privett

Answer

Since the recent Snipe nerf, the only matchup where you get ghosts is TvP. A good timing for getting the ghost academy and starting ghost production is around when you take your 5th and 6th gas. Before that you won't really have enough gas for upgrades, ghosts and constant medivacs/vikings and the Protoss won't have High Templars and Archons out anyways.

However, no matter the game state, as soon as you scout either High Templars, Archons or a significant number of immortals, you need to get Ghosts ASAP.

PS:
Forget about BCs, except for the very gimmicky BC rush they have easy to get hardcounters in all matchups (vikings, corruptors, voidrays), making them almost completely useless unless you somehow manage to suprise the opponent.

Answered by dbemerlin

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What are the popular openings / builds for Terran in StarCraft 2?

Question

I don't have too much interest in playing Terran, but I'd like this information mostly to better understand what I'm up against.

Asked by McKay

Answer

There are literally dozens of Terran builds and possibly hundreds of Cheeses. As a result I'm going to try and lay out a couple of the broad strokes, but unlike Protoss or Zerg these are not going to be succinct build orders.

The three major builds in Terran play are:

• Bio
• Mech
• 1:1:1

Obviously there is a lot of variation and overlap between these builds but I'm going to try and lay out the broad strokes here.

Terran bio revolves around building a Marine/Marauder/Medivac force for a nice timing push. This is sometimes called the MMM build. Openings usually consist of 3 Barracks (sometimes called Rax), 2 with techlabs and 1 with a reactor. A Terran economy can readily support 3 Barracks . The timing push here usually comes at about 40 food with a heavy Marauder/Marine force with Stim. The build continues to evolve into the late game by adding on a Factory and Starport for Medivac support. Medivacs are key to Stim based play, as any force that stims is necessarily at reduced HP for the remainder of the game. Additionally, Medivac's provide for drops which increases the mobility of your army. You can also transition into Bio mech, or add Ghosts on for TvP.

Terran Mech grew out of early hellion harass. This usually involved building one Barracks before going to 2 Factory and pumping out hellions for early harass and then transitioning into a more stable Thor/Siege tank force. This is especially effective vs Zerg players going Muta/Ling as upgraded Hellions are powerful vs Zerglings and Thors do splash damage to Mutalisk. Additionally, heavy Siege tank forces are effective vs Hydra/Roach armies. Top Zerg players (such as Artosis and IdrA) have said that Terran Mech is so powerful it is "Broken" (a term to mean unbalanced) against Zerg. A key point to remember is that the initial Barracks can be used for scouting or to produce Marines (which help an early Mech army).

The 1:1:1 was first popularized by the player The Little One (TLO) and has become the standard in TvT play. The name derives from having one of each unit producing structure: 1 Barracks, 1 Factory, 1 Starport. The synergy that units from these buildings provide have cause this build to become increasingly popular outside of TvT play. The basic idea here is to build a Marine, Tank, Viking force, using the Vikings to give Line of Sight to the Siege tanks (which can fire further than they can see) and using Marines to fight off Air harass.

One of the important points of this strategy is to use Vikings to establish air dominance. In a losing battle, the Vikings can always land and wait for Marine support (as Vikings are an air to air unit). The power from this build comes in its flexibility. Usually 1 techlab and 2 reactors, these addons can quickly be switched, allowing the deployment of Banshees (once air superiority has been obtained) and Hellions, or swapping to Marauders to break a Siege tank grouping. Unless there are serious balance changes in the future a number of SC2 Commentators (Huk, Day9) have suggested that this will become the standard Terran play.

I'll briefly mention a couple of the standard Terran Cheese strategies.

6 Rax into Reaper harass is a popular TvP strategy, as early reapers built from a proxy Rax (a Barracks built close to the opponent) will arrive before the Protoss has Stalkers and thus are unbeatable with good micro.

Banshee rush, especially against Zerg opponents has also been popular as Zerg does not have a staple unit before Tier 2 that can attack air.

Thor drops (often a part of mech builds, or biomech) are very effective. While rushing thor drops can be considered a Cheese, use of them as part of a normal build is present at even the competitive level.

Standard Terran opening is:

1. 9 Supply
2. 12 Barracks
3. 15-22 Orbital Command

How to read these: The number indicates the number of Supply you should have when you build your first structure. This number is usually SCVs but may include other units.

Answered by tzenes

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SC2: Counter turtling terran

Question

i'm playing protoss but i always have the same problem when facing a terran:

As i get my death-bowl, expand and do all the usual things, the terran just turtles non stop. He gets about 12 siege-tanks in his base and about 20 vikings. Once i can't stand that turtling any more i just decide to engage with my entire army ( even a mother-ship ). And then as i arrive at his main my bowl just gets crashed and splashed by all the siege tanks. Btw, did i tell you, that he also surrounded his whole base with 20 missile-turrets?

I want to know how to break this, or any other turtling build.

Thanks in advance :)

-DD

Asked by DailyDoggy

Answer

I love to turtle, and I can tell you it's the kiss of death against anyone but the computer. Unless the two of you have already mined the entire map dry, you can nickle and dime him to death with little trouble. Remember, every mineral you force him to spend, he can't replace, while you have the resources of the entire map to draw from.

Things to do:

Hallucinate, Hallucinate, Hallucinate. Make a couple of carriers, and give them each four imaginary void ray friends, and then pick a small hole in his turret net. Remember, death of a thousand cuts. If he counters with his vikings, teach him the very important lesson: the Phoenix is king of the Air-to-Air. Don't listen to the haters. The phoenix may not be able to stand toe to toe, but they don't need to, and this type of fight is perfect for them. Don't be afraid to take losses, you can afford them. Phoenixes are also great for harassing the tanks. Lift 'em, and punish 'em. Gas heavy units are priority targets in a turtle situation.

Immortals. They are made to take down siege tanks, so use them. Unless he's got a bioball hidden in the back, he won't have a good counter.

Mothership. Use it for the warp, and it should put enough of the tanks out of the way to let you kick in the door, and at a very reasonable cost.

Remember, the turtle is the weakest option. Just expand, tech, and tear him down.

Answered by Satanicpuppy

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Is a Sensor Tower useful in Starcraft 2?

Question

Is there any point to building a Sensor Tower? Doesn't it immediately reveals your own location on the minimap? What good does it do?

Asked by ripper234

Answer

The point of building the sensor tower is to sense enemy positions in fog-of-war, and highlight them in the main view and on the minimap. This allows a defending player to cover multiple potential attack routes and, when an attack is spotted, rally their forces and ready their defenses to respond to the incoming attack. It also serves to cover "unexpected" attack routes, such as air or a medivac drop coming from behind your mineral line.

(more of a pretty image than an effective use of a sensor tower.)

In most matchups, the enemy will already know where you are (eg on a 1v1 map), or can find out with little effort by sending an expendable unit around the map - so the outline only betrays the fact that you've spent 100 gas on a building, and that you've got an engineering bay. That's all. The sensor tower's outline on the minimap shows up to enemies primarily to inform them that if their units go inside this area, they will be highlighted. The enemy can use this information to either avoid entering the sensor tower's area until the last second before an attack, or to deliberately "show" forces to the defending player to scare them from attacking, and allow expansion.

If nothing else, the sensor tower can act as a deterrent from surprise attacks and harassment, because the enemy knows that you'll know they're coming. Players tend to stack up their units just outside of sensor tower range without even thinking about it, and a comsat scan just outside can reveal the composition of the enemy army.

Looking at the movement pattern of the red dots can also give away the composition of the enemy army, if you're familiar with how the units move, and at what speeds; a flock of mutalisks will fly in a very close formation and spread out quickly when stopped, while a bunch of reapers stop at every ledge for a moment as they jump.

Perhaps the most effective use of the sensor tower would be in deterring void ray / mutalisk / reaper sneak attacks; seeing a few units move towards your buildings over impassable terrain gives the game away, and allows you to have marines in position long before the voids are there to ruin your day. Another effective use is grabbing a sensor tower and some vikings, and putting the hard word on some nearby lurking overlords, robbing your enemy of precious vision and supply.

If you want to read a bunch of people talking about the benefits and drawbacks of the sensor tower, read the Sensor Tower thread on the TeamLiquid forums.

Answered by jshu

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Countering MMM + Vikings as Protoss?

Question

I was in a match on Blistering Sands versus a Terran that was going MMM. I naturally built Colossi, and to counter he got Vikings. Granted, in that match I was really bad on letting my opponent have intel (he owned both watch towers from about 6 minutes in), but I'm not sure what to do. Do you simply attack before he gets many Vikings? Or is there a Protoss unit that can down them effectively? I had at least as many Stalkers as he had Vikings but they couldn't protect my Colossi enough so that they would survive. (Maybe that's just my bad micro though :P)

Answer

As Protoss you have the ability to tech switch (due to warp gates) significantly faster than a Terran player. While Protoss has the ability to defend Collosus from Terran with stalkers or (not recommended:) phoenix there are smarter choices.

Instead of attempting to counter them, you could instead exploit what his army -doesn't- have. (If you have an hour to spend, watch this day9 video where Gretorp discusses the value of exploiting what an army is lacking, not what counters it) Your Collosus tech was built to counter his MMM. Is it the only solution to MMM?

Once the Terran player has exposed his viking tech you can switch to high templar easily through warp gates, a direct counter to the MMM ball. (I'm assuming this is fairly late game) By doing this, your Terran enemy has wasted resources on Vikings which have very little utility against a Protoss ground army.

Abuse the fact that you can switch tech's faster then the Terran and make him counter you. High level Zerg's are amazing at this! You have the ability to set the momentum of the fights where Terran is looking to seize the moment when his ball can finally overwhelm you.

If this seems like a lot of work, out number his vikings 2 to 1 with stalkers + blink, but expect him to be able to snipe a few colossus due to his amazing 9 range.

Hope this helps!

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Does a Ghost EMP work on Command Centers and other buildings?

Question

If so we could block the MULEs and scans, etc.

What about other buildings?

I'm assuming it will wipe Protoss shields. That means if you have a double ghost you could throw down a nuke with one and EMP with the other right before the nuke hits.

Answer

Yes, EMP will drain the energy of buildings. It will also do, IIRC, 100 damage to shields, but not necessarily take them out completely.

I have not confirmed, but I have read that it will also reveal cloaked and burrowed units for a period of item as well.

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As a Terran, what's a good counter to early Mutalisks?

Question

I always seem to have trouble against Zerg as Terran, but ESPECIALLY if there are a mass of early Mutas harrasing me. I know Marines are great against them but that's not good enough, because they aren't as mobile as the Mutas and unless that's their only unit I can't really just rely on the amount of Marines it would take as I need to build other units. However Vikings I've realized pretty much suck against Mutas as far as I can tell. I heard Thors are good but that's not reasonable for early game.

Anyone?

Answer

Obviously Missile Turrets just aren't good enough, as they're designed to stop harass (3-4 Muta) and not larger pushes. A large number of people will tell you Thors are the answer, and with their bonus to light and aoe this seems reasonable.

Let's take a moment to consider this. Mutalisk vs Thor.

First I'm going to need to pull in some numbers from a spreadsheet. We can see that Mutalisks get 8.15 dps and Thors get 16 dps vs light air. So already Thors have an advantage. Additionally, with splash, the Thor hits more than one Muta at a time. So this reasonable assumption seems to hold up very well.

Let us pretend we are Jane Goodhall for a moment and observe this match up in the wild. I happen to have a good match: Sen vs Demuslim (you can fast forward to 10 minutes in).

Strangely the Marine/Thor combo seems to die out to a pure Muta approach. Now part of this can be attributed to Sen's excellent play, but Demuslim is a very good player so that can't be the reason (where as Sen could stomp me with any unit). So why are thors dying?

Well Sen will attack with Muta ratios of 4:1 or 5:1, well beyond the cost ratio. Demuslim never seems to be able to field enough Thors. This is largely a result of the Thor's long build time (compared to Muta coming out of Hatcheries), and slow speed. Demuslim tries to compliment this with dropships, but those are more cost with no real combat benefit. What's more Demuslim is forced into making slow pushes against a very mobile Zerg force. By comparison, its very easy for Sen to build a lot of expansions and just get gas out of them, allowing for a more gas heavy force (remember gas is our limiting fact for building).

I won't ruin the end of the match, but at the very least we can see that Thors seem to die out to Mutalisks outside of the 30 vs 90 scenario.

So what's a Terran to do?

Well you can compliment your Thors with SCVs, but what you really need is more damage. Luckily enough there is a very cheap way for Terran to get more damage. Marines! Stimmed Marines are very effective vs Mutalisks. What's more they have no additional gas cost. What's more those Medivacs that you're carrying Thors around in really boost the survivability of those Marines. The best part is, there is no Terran strategy which doesn't allow for easy production of Marines. I'd also add that building Turrets is a very cheap way to slow down a Mutalisk attack and give your Marine/Thor forces time to get into position.

Finally, its worth noting that the first 2 points of armor do double work against Mutalisks as they reduce bounce damage as well.

---

I wrote this answer before Idra vs Tarson in IEM when Idra debut the "Magic Box." The Magic Box is a technique that Zerg can use to keep Mutalisks spread out as the engage Thors to minimize splash.

To execute the "Magic Box" you do the following:

1. Group your Muta and send them to a location
2. Tell your Muta to Stop S
3. Wait till your Mutalisks spread out, they'll be far enough apart as to take NO Thor splash
4. Move M (do not Attack Move) to the Thor
5. Tell your Muta to Stop S or Hold H above the Thor

Note: that Thors will do a lot of damage to Muta without splash, however, this should significantly increase the Muta survivability.

Source Material

---

I originally wrote this post to debunk the idea that Thors hard counter Mutalisks. In my rush to do so I forgot to provide a very good counter: Ghosts.

Once again let me provide viewing materia: Jinro vs Blank.

Its worth noting that all Zerg units are biological and thus the Ghost ability "Snipe" is effective against all of them. However, Ghost dps is fairly low (6.67) and only really improves vs light (13.33) and are actually more cost effective vs Mutalisks than Thors (though at lower hp). However, what really makes them work is that "Snipe." Snipe is worth 45 hp (goes through armor) for 25 energy, which means a full Ghost can Snipe 3.6 Mutalisks worth of damage (at only 1.5 the cost). What's more Ghosts have a faster build time (40s vs the Thor's 60s); are built out of Baracks (so synergize nicely with MMM play); can be healed by Medivac; and even go invisible to get the jump. Finally, when compared to Marines, Ghosts are NOT light (they have no armor type) and have 100 hp (twice the hit points), so aren't as susceptible to banelings (though are very weak against Muta into Roach).

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Why don't Marines get back into Medivacs?

Question

Sometimes during marine drop when I detect that coming opponent forces are overwhelming I am trying to get all marines back into Medivacs and go back to my base.

Usually I have marines and Medivacs in one group and when I need to go back I do right-click this group on each Medivac with 'shift' key pressed.

Usually one Medivac is fully loaded while all others are empty and 5-10 marines are left... I am trying to get them back into empty Medivacs (keep right-clicking on them), but that doesn't help: marines stay on the ground, medivacs don't go to them to pick-up.

Question: Why? What am I doing wrong?

Answer

The problem here is that your marines and medivacs are in the same group.

When marines and medivacs are selected, and all medivacs are empty, right clicking a medivac will tell the marines to go in. When at least one medivac is full, the default action on right clicking will be to tell all units to move to that medivac (default action for the full medivac apply to the whole group).

Try having marines and medivacs in two separate groups (1 and 4 for example), double tap 4 to focus your medivacs, press 1 to select marines, shift right click right click right click, and when they're all loaded press 4 and fall back :)

EDIT: You can also select your group, right click a medivac, hit tab to select the medivacs, then press the shortcut 'load' instead of relying on the right click default action, that should work too :)

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Why do players float buildings around with troops?

Question

Why do terran players float buildings with their armies? Does the computer automatically target buildings?

Answer

There's a couple of advantages to having a floating building with your army.

• if you otherwise lack Air Units, they provide line of sight to shoot up cliffs
• if the building is over your army, it is much harder to select the units under the building for focus-fire, since the building is in the way.

Generally, any building that is being floated (by a good player, anyway) would otherwise have been idling - Barracks after switching to a mech army, for instance, or command center without a mineral patch to land at.

There may be other reasons, but those are the biggest, I think.

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Whats the best methods of hiding a nuke attack from the opponent?

Question

I'm a Silver League Terran player I normally don't use nuke gameplay in SC2 since the army normally moves out the nuke's blast area. I would like to start incorporating it into my play style as a harass tactic, and to block paths of the opponents army.

So whats the most effective method of hiding the red nuke dot on the map so the opponent does not know where the nuke is going to land?

Answer

As you have already discovered, using a nuke against enemy units is very difficult since a player is very likely to notice it. The trick is to only use it to harass enemy units when your opponent is otherwise distracted. When you do use it, it is best to use it against an area on the map he is not currently focused on. If your enemy is attacking you, launch a nuke on one of his bases (a successful nuke will deal massive damage to any of the bases, and destroy any workers as well).

However, I believe you may be narrowing your focus too much. The nuke is useful against more than just units, it is devastating to buildings as well. The following buildings will be destroyed from one nuke (source):

Pylon, Supply Depot, Extractor, Refinery, Tech Lab, Reactor, Photon Cannon, Bunker, Missile Turret, Sensor Tower, Spine Crawler, Spore Crawler, Creep Tumor

Of these, I would say the supply depot is the most tempting targets. Terran players will often clump up their supply depots together. One well placed nuke can put a huge dent in the enemies supply cap.

Finally, the defensive nuke. The defensive nuke will almost always be seen by the enemy, but that's fine. One of the most useful features of the defensive nuke is that it can hold off an opposing army, either giving your units time to retreat or finish building some units. Managing to kill enemy units with it would be ideal, but considering you need to place it in the opposing armies path for it to work, it's very unlikely your opponent won't notice it when moving his army.

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What's the best counter to marine spam?

Question

I've seen this cheesy strategy a few times now - loads of marines with all the upgrades and medivacs. This wasn't a rush but still wasn't able to counter playing as zerg.

What's the most effective (zerg) way to counter this strategy?

Answer

There are a number of ways you can handle this, and I'll try to break them down for you:

• Roach Work
• Baneling Style
• Infestor Harassment
• Brood lord
• Back Dooring

Roaches are what many people consider the Marine's natural Enemy. With high HP (almost 3 times a Marine) and that 1 base armor its not surprising people would believe this. Unlikely in Starcraft 1, Marine's can't upgrade their attack range, so the shorter range of the Roach is punished less. The biggest issue you have to worry about with Roach based play is where you engage your opponent. Ideally you want to engage on open ground, on creep, and with a nice arc. Try to remember that because of the Roaches' short range remember to "move" into melee range, instead of "attack move."

Baneline Style is very popular against MMM in general, and usually used to compliment Roach or Hydra work. If you initially engage with your Roaches (in more Marauder based play you'd use Hydralisks here), and then bring in Banelings from the side or behind (flanking in military terms), you can usually make quick work of any Marine based force. Remember you never attack with Banelings, as they explode on death to do damage. Instead just "move" near the Marine force and let the Marines kill them off. I cannot stress how important baneling speed upgrade is against a Marine force, even on creep.

Infestor Harassment is also a nice compliment to dealing with Marines. While Medivac will heal most of the damage quickly, in the middle of a fight, Infestors can prevent Marines from backing up, while dealing incredible dps (9*#of marines). They are an excellent compliment to a Roach or Zergling based strategy. If you're dealing with Infestors alone, remember that it will usually require 2 Fungal Growths to kill a pack of Marines; where "usually" is influenced by the use of Stim and the presence of Medivacs.

If you're coming from a late game Air strategy it'll make more sense to use Broodlords. Brood Lords are effective because of their high damage, and because Broodlings draw fire from Marines. Because Broodlords are slow, its normally useful to engage from the edge of a cliff, where few Marines can hit you. Unless you have a very large number of Broodlords, this kind of play is unlikely to be effective on its own, and is best complimented with a cheap ground force (something ling based).

Backdooring is usually an effective technique for shutting down late game Terran pushes. Terran style tends to be fairly turtle dependent, so most Terran players will run for their base when ever its in trouble. You can leverage this with Muta Harass, Zergling Drops, or even Nydus Canal. The very fact that you are in his base will often make a Terran call off his assault, giving you more time to prepare.

With the exception of the last strategy, all these strategies are what I like to call "meat and potatoes" strategies. They have some method for killing the Marines and some method for distracting them. This is because Marines are extremely cost effective dps and once they hit critical mass, almost impossible to destroy for a short range based Zerg force. You strategy should look something like this: I need something for him to hit (let's say Ultralisks) and something to kill him (let's say Hydralisks, two units I didn't recommend). You would then engage with your Ultra heavy force, backed by long range Hydra. The Marines will naturally target the Ultra who have high HP and Armor, while the Hydra do the lion's share of the damage. When designing an anti-Marine strategy keep this in mind.

---

I used to include an explanation of Arcs here, but I've since moved it

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How to harass Zerg with Terrans (in the early game)

Question

I saw and read a lot of recommendations to harass Zerg if you play Terran (1x1). From one perspective it should pretty easy: put bunker and 4-8 marines there... actually anywhere you want to have a pressure point. It can be expansion, choke point, whatever.

BUT. There is "but" my concern here is that such "pressure" point is very vulnerable to bannelings/roaches. When Zerg detects this pressure he will get bigger army and wipe-out bunker with marines. If I had marines only - he could kill them with bannelings easily. If I have bunker - he will destroy it with bigger amount of roaches. So I will need to have constantly increasing forces close to the bunker... that means my base will be undefended...

I could add 1-2 siege tanks, but it is already mid game

So the question is: how to harass Zerg with Terran (in the early game) properly?

Answer

Before we talk about "how to harass" you first need to know why...

Why do you want to harass Zerg early?

The Zerg race is like a virus, it will spread out and overwelm you.

So, if you don't want to be overwelmed, you will have to deny your opponent from spreading out.

This is where a harass comes into play: You essentially prevent your opponent from performing a part of his plan. By placing your Bunker at the bottom of his ramp, you delay him from performing an Fast Expand and sending Zerglings towards your base / expansion / ...

As a bonus, you force him to create counter units against your bunker. This allows you to anticipate...

Why can't I keep the pressure up?

The Bunker is like a firewall, it will work until the virus takes it down.

BUT! As you see: Unless you have planning on performing a cheese inside his base, you will be unable to keep up the pressure. This is why you only send what you need for the harassment to work and no more. So that you can keep your defense up, take the Xal Naga towers, and so on...

How can I keep the pressure up?

The law of diminishing returns: Putting too much effort into something specific isn't worth it.

So, once your harassment is in place forget about it. Instead, work towards your next harassment.

Your opponent will manage to start spreading out so we need to figure out three things:

1. Where does your opponent spread to? --> Scouting
2. How can I efficiently prevent or deny him from spreading out? --> Harassment
3. What unit composition will he use to overwelm me? --> Scouting

As your opponent has Zerglings and Banelings or Roaches, your Marines will not help you in preventing him from the spread. They aren't fast for scouting purposes either. But, there is an unit in the Terran repository which answers these three questions quite well! The Hellion:

When playing Zerg, Hellions can also be used to ravage Drone lines. They are also effective against Zerglings but will fall to larger numbers of units quite quickly. With good micro, Hellions can take out large numbers of Zerglings (even Roaches prior to their range buff in patch 1.12 1).

This fast driving unit allows you to gain excellent map control to figure out where your opponent is, with a bunch of them you can easily take out Drones and Zerglings. As Roaches and Banelings are slower they are less likely to be at his non-natural expansions. And if they are they probably aren't in his natural base, allowing you to let the harassment take place if he didn't build up defense against it.

So, together with scanning his creep for buildings this perfectly answers the questions!

But what about Banelings and Roaches?

If the virus gets stronger, so should you.

Let's see how useful your Rax still is and what else you can use the Fact for:

Counter against Roaches:

• Marauders, instead of wasting minerals into self-suicidal Marines you can now reuse your Rax.

• Tanks, in an unsieged mode do nice DPS and can be turned into sieged mode against swarms.

Counter against Banelings:

• Marines, if you have any left, can be spread out to waste the Banelings.

• Marauders, again, have Consecutive Shells and can tank Baneling damage.

• Hellions, can kite Banelings if you micro properly.

A word of caution: Don't take Marauders out alone on the battlefield, they are easily overwelmed.

Supported by Hellions in the front and/or Tanks in the back they are a deadly anti-ground force.

Don't forget to expand when you move out!

But what about Mutalisks and burrowed Roaches?

If you don't take the necessary precautions, a virus will infect you.

You can do four things, perhaps combine them:

1. AA turrets, a static defense. A must for your mineral line, also helps you see cloaked Roaches.

2. An armory, which is essentially needed for a Mechanical play-style. Besides allowing you to do upgrades for both Vehicles and Air, they give you access to the powerfull Thor. Word of caution is that this is a slower unit and is more a kind of static defense, they should only be taken on the field if you have enough map control or AA turrets in your base to anticipate your opponent...

3. A starport, which gives you access to vikings, hellion drops, raven, banshees, and BC!

4. Stimmed Marines, just swap addons with a Factory and you can quickly transition into them.

Vikings are also useful to take out overlords/seers and become essential against later brood lords.

You are talking about some kind of Mechanical play? Interesting!

Sometimes, you have to use 'the stuff that you barely use' a lot!

This is a popular way to deal with Zerg, see the Mech tree in the left side at LP II - Terran Match-ups.

If this doesn't work out, it also lists a 3 Rax +1 Timing Push and the fresh 4OC economy-wise play.

Why does an attack I planned fail?

Turn your opponent crazy! But secure your expansions against a counter attack...

Don't focus on getting a single thing out, if the Zerg figures out that you are going to attack something specific (he can figure that out by creep, which gives vision; overlords and burrowed units) he will have his army ready to counter you. Instead, you might want to attack at two places at the same time: Attack the closest expansion with your army while dropping hellions at one of his other expansions or his base; similar you could kite units away, or force them to run away by using the Raven's abilities...

Bonus: Demonstration VOD

Because a video tells you more than a thousand words.

In a 1:1:1 setting, I found a replay for you that has a mix of game-play summed up in this answer.

Although I couldn't find better quality because it's RO32: GSL Season 3 - TheBestfOu VS Liquid`Ret

Unless you don't care about a non-english version that starts with an advertisement.

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Is a Zerg fast expand impossible to stop with Terran?

Question

A friend (platinum) told me that early Zerg expand cannot be stopped by Terran. In 99% of games a good Terran can build a bunker and can bring ONLY 1 marine inside. The Zerg's task here is keep 6 zerlings running between the bunker and pass from which Terran reinforcements are coming and kill all incoming reinforcements.

In this case 1 marine in a bunker won't make a lot of problems for the hatchery.

He also told me that next task for Zerg is to build one Spine Crawler far away from the bunker, but in way that it will be able to kill the bunker. In the same way if the bunker doesn't reach a mineral line the hatchery can produce drones and that can gather minerals...

From what he is saying, I see that Terran can NOT prevent Zerg from early expanding. He can (and MUST) only delay a quick Zerg expansion.

Is this true? Are there any other ideas here?

Thanks a lot!

Answer

Starting based on my previous answer, which explained why:

Why can't I keep the pressure up?

The Bunker is like a firewall, it will work until the virus takes it down.

Some opponents will scout and be smart enough to prevent you from throwing down the bunker by scouting for your incoming SCV and deny him from finishing the bunker. Or deny the marines from getting inside the bunker. With the bunker and marines you damaged his worker and army, forced zerglings and delayed him... Nothing more!

But I want to deny his expansion.

Because in theory, that could make me win the game...

BUT. You can't, let me quote IvoFlipse:

The problem with a Zerg going for a Fast Expand is that a Hatchery
is also his Barracks, Factory and Starport all mixed into one building.

It would be unbalanced if you were able to deny Zerg from getting additional production.

The Bunker Rush is less effective if your opponent scouts it and uses enough micro...
See Donblas A for other alternatives, or give up and transition into Hellions or Medivacs or Banshees.

Let's look at it from the other side!

Because you can think the way your opponent does.

Terran can create an extra CC in his main and then go and drop it at his natural, Zerg can only prevent CC from being dropped there by placing Zerglings at his natural which the Terran has to build something against in order to remove the Zerglings so he can land. With the Zerglings he forces and damages Marines, also resulting in the FE to be delayed... Nothing more!

And yes, he has alternatives: Deny you from gas by placing Extractors in your main, go Mutalisks, ...

Another idea...

Because theory crafting could result in succes...

We had a conversation about this based on your questions, and came up with the following idea:

• Produce 6 Marines, 3 Hellions and 2 Medivacs.
• Run the 6 Marines towards your enemy exposition.
• Slightly after, drop Hellions into his Mineral line at his base, focus on Queen and Workers.
• Heal and pick up up units once they get heavily damaged and retreat to protect your natural.

While in theory you can pull this off, it is once again based on how well you both micro.

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Why are there so many Terran players at GSL

Question

In the GSL tournament hosted by gomTV (often refered as gomTVT), there are a lot of Terran players. On the ladder, the race balance seems to be a lot better.

Why is Terran so favored in top level play?

Answer

Terran is extremely versatile. In GSL, where you have to face many opponents with varying playstyles who have had a chance to study your previous games, you can easily be sniped. The best Terrans, like MVP, are capable of playing dozens of different "standard" styles effectively. On the other hand, the best Zergs and Protosses are still funneled into three or four basic "standard" strategies that don't allow much room for strategic innovation or trickery.

On ladder, you'll rarely see anyone enough to get a good grasp of their playstyle and how to go about countering it, but teams in GSL specifically prepare for days to match up against one opponent. Additionally, there has been talk that the 1-1-1 build is the root of the problem because it allows so much versatility to either expand or hit incredibly hard-to-stop pushes.

Finally, Boxer and Nada were two of the first to switch from professional BW to SC2. In Korea, their influence should not be underestimated- they are probably the two biggest names in competitive StarCraft ever and that's liable to cause a good number of up and coming players to favor Terran. This is most notable on the SlayerS team, which is made up primarily of a number of incredibly good Terran players, all new faces: MMA, Ganzi, Ryung, Taeja.

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Should Terran build bunkers after the wall during 2v2?

Question

Let's consider a match of 2v2 where:

1. Terran is in team with either Zerg or Protoss;
2. Terran can't wall-in for both bases together (their bases are too far away from each other).

From one perspective Terran should close the entrance to their own base with barracks/supply AND bunker. In this case, their 4 marines get 400 more hit-points.

From another perspective, very rarely will opponents attack a walled Terran. Instead they will go to the unwalled Zerg/Protoss. In this case, Terran will spend 100 minerals per each bunker build without real value: instead of taking 2 additional marines per bunker to help their teammate, they will keep concrete on the trash at their own base.

What do you think of that: should the Terran build bunkers on their own choke behind the wall?

Thanks.

Answer

Your question seems to be Should the Terran build bunkers as part of their initial wall-in?

If that's your question, I would advise not building bunkers as part of the wall. The cost of building a very early bunker just in case an opponent is rushing is not worth it. Yes, you can salvage the cost back later, but spending 100 minerals on a bunker instead of a depot or 2 SCV's early on will slow down your economy and production.

If you are building a bunker to counter a specific threat, that's one thing. But building one just on the off chance you're rushed is over-committing in my opinion. The rush may be in the form of zerglings or zealots, in which case your bunker doesn't help at all (since you are already hiding behind a supply depot wall). And as you said, some people will see your wall and just head for your teammate, also wasting the bunker.

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StarCraft 2: Should Terran build bunker after the wall during 2v2

Question

Let's consider a match of 2v2 where:

1. Terran is in team with either Zerg or Protoss;
2. Terran can't wall-in for both bases together (their bases are too far away from each other).

From one perspective Terran should close the entrance to their own base with barracks/supply AND bunker. In this case, their 4 marines get 400 more hit-points.

From another perspective, very rarely will opponents attack a walled Terran. Instead they will go to the unwalled Zerg/Protoss. In this case, Terran will spend 100 minerals per each bunker build without real value: instead of taking 2 additional marines per bunker to help their teammate, they will keep concrete on the trash at their own base.

What do you think of that: should the Terran build bunkers on their own choke behind the wall?

Thanks.

Answer

Your question seems to be Should the Terran build bunkers as part of their initial wall-in?

If that's your question, I would advise not building bunkers as part of the wall. The cost of building a very early bunker just in case an opponent is rushing is not worth it. Yes, you can salvage the cost back later, but spending 100 minerals on a bunker instead of a depot or 2 SCV's early on will slow down your economy and production.

If you are building a bunker to counter a specific threat, that's one thing. But building one just on the off chance you're rushed is over-committing in my opinion. The rush may be in the form of zerglings or zealots, in which case your bunker doesn't help at all (since you are already hiding behind a supply depot wall). And as you said, some people will see your wall and just head for your teammate, also wasting the bunker.

Check more discussion of this question.