I have returned: StarCraft II

[Falaras]

Because there is a big wall preventing you from seeing what's inside after the firt 2 minutes. If you go up my ramp, the only thing you will see is a marauder or marines (and it will probably die before you get to see what's inside the base). Overlord can scout on a smaller map, but overseer usually dont come until later.

Barrack -->factory is a pretty common build on terran. It's not like I've to dedicate myself exclusiverly to reaper, and can't evaluate the risk involved with my build after a scout. Once the factory is down, I can change to mech, go back to mass marauder+medivac (same tech as reaper), get fast banshee. Sure, reaper were delayed by 50sec (lost 2-3 reapers building a factory), but it doesnt change much after.

The longer you put off the Reapers the less effective they will be, so if you go Marauder or Marine first you are giving even more of a reason for you not to use reapers. At the same time I've tried something like what Boxer did where he goes Barracks -> Tech lab -> 3 reapers and 4 zerglings poking up your ramp forces you to have to show you are going Reapers. There is no good time to get them anymore now that they take significantly longer to make and are significantly weaker. I don't know what you are talking about with no scouting, zerg have sacrificial overlords, terrans have scans, toss can have some problems until they get their map hacks observer out.

If you go barracks -> Factory how do you expect to hold off a Roach push now that they can shoot over supply depots? Almost every zerg on the ladder is using roaches right now and without 2-3 rax marauders you are pretty much fucked. Delaying by a minute certainly hurts reapers, most games don't even last much past the 20-30 minute mark so losing a minute off your reapers is HUGE.

[Bweigelt]

The longer you put off the Reapers the less effective they will be, so if you go Marauder or Marine first you are giving even more of a reason for you not to use reapers. At the same time I've tried something like what Boxer did where he goes Barracks -> Tech lab -> 3 reapers and 4 zerglings poking up your ramp forces you to have to show you are going Reapers. There is no good time to get them anymore now that they take significantly longer to make and are significantly weaker. I don't know what you are talking about with no scouting, zerg have sacrificial overlords, terrans have scans, toss can have some problems until they get their map hacks observer out.

If you go barracks -> Factory how do you expect to hold off a Roach push now that they can shoot over supply depots? Almost every zerg on the ladder is using roaches right now and without 2-3 rax marauders you are pretty much fucked. Delaying by a minute certainly hurts reapers, most games don't even last much past the 20-30 minute mark so losing a minute off your reapers is HUGE.

Double Hellion expand into an early Thor will hold off any Roach push a Zerg can throw at you even off one base. I'm sure you could do an early reaper or two instead of the Hellions and have the same effect, it would only be 25 more gas but would come quicker. Transition into 2fac 2 starport Marine Thor Banshee/medivac(Banshee's against Roaches, Medivac against ling/bling). It's a free win if he pushes you with early roaches or if he tries to go 1 base muta, really the only thing you have to worry about is early Infestors with NP, but they have to rush like crazy to get there because there's a push that hit just before 11 minutes. Pretty much any unit combo you come up against will come down to micro, if you can out produce and out micro him you win. That's how it should be really.

[Kaylia]

The longer you put off the Reapers the less effective they will be, so if you go Marauder or Marine first you are giving even more of a reason for you not to use reapers. At the same time I've tried something like what Boxer did where he goes Barracks -> Tech lab -> 3 reapers and 4 zerglings poking up your ramp forces you to have to show you are going Reapers. There is no good time to get them anymore now that they take significantly longer to make and are significantly weaker. I don't know what you are talking about with no scouting, zerg have sacrificial overlords, terrans have scans, toss can have some problems until they get their map hacks observer out.

If you go barracks -> Factory how do you expect to hold off a Roach push now that they can shoot over supply depots? Almost every zerg on the ladder is using roaches right now and without 2-3 rax marauders you are pretty much fucked. Delaying by a minute certainly hurts reapers, most games don't even last much past the 20-30 minute mark so losing a minute off your reapers is HUGE.

I agree they are less effective the longer you wait. However, most people, even in diamond league can't micro unit at 2 place at the same time. If you wait for the right time, you can do crazy mineral damage with 5-6 reapers..

Also, you need to remember they are pretty solid in a group mixed with marauder. Can rape a group of marine/zergling in no time.


Barrack -->factory can easily hold against roach push. Just build a bunker with a single marauder, and they will flee like little girl.

[Falaras]

I agree they are less effective the longer you wait. However, most people, even in diamond league can't micro unit at 2 place at the same time. If you wait for the right time, you can do crazy mineral damage with 5-6 reapers..
Also, you need to remember they are pretty solid in a group mixed with marauder. Can rape a group of marine/zergling in no time.
Barrack -->factory can easily hold against roach push. Just build a bunker with a single marauder, and they will flee like little girl.

What level of Diamond are we talking about? Because I wouldn't even call low diamond a real league just an extension of platinum. once you get higher up people definitely can multitask two units...
And 1 marauder in a bunker won't last any time versus something like a 5 roach rush or any kind of roach timing attack, not sure where you got that from. I won't even go into Reapers in a normal army, if it was viable we would have at least seen a a pro replay, I haven't seen anything like that on the ladder even.

[Bweigelt]

What level of Diamond are we talking about? Because I wouldn't even call low diamond a real league just an extension of platinum. once you get higher up people definitely can multitask two units...
And 1 marauder in a bunker won't last any time versus something like a 5 roach rush or any kind of roach timing attack, not sure where you got that from. I won't even go into Reapers in a normal army, if it was viable we would have at least seen a a pro replay, I haven't seen anything like that on the ladder even.

I really don't see how the Roach buff changed anything about early TvZ except helping defend harass. A roach rush now is the same as it always was and there aren't any new timings or anything. It makes no difference because marines can still shoot roaches from behind a supply depot without getting hit. It's just a lot more common to see early roach pressure now, but it's still as easy to hold off as it ever was.

[Kaylia]

What level of Diamond are we talking about? Because I wouldn't even call low diamond a real league just an extension of platinum. once you get higher up people definitely can multitask two units...
And 1 marauder in a bunker won't last any time versus something like a 5 roach rush or any kind of roach timing attack, not sure where you got that from. I won't even go into Reapers in a normal army, if it was viable we would have at least seen a a pro replay, I haven't seen anything like that on the ladder even.

My rating atm is similar to your (1160), so yeah, I guess we are in low crystal.



And dude, you can defend against roach push with factory build. If you want to test it, im down for a few practice match later. Barrack -->factory is one of the most generic start on terran. If it couldnt survive against a simple roach push, you wouldnt see it often.

[Falaras]

I really don't see how the Roach buff changed anything about early TvZ except helping defend harass. A roach rush now is the same as it always was and there aren't any new timings or anything. It makes no difference because marines can still shoot roaches from behind a supply depot without getting hit. It's just a lot more common to see early roach pressure now, but it's still as easy to hold off as it ever was.

Roach with minimal micro can bust down a wall very fast and kill units behind it, also if you think defending harass is something that didn't change the match up you are crazy.

[Bweigelt]

Roach with minimal micro can bust down a wall very fast and kill units behind it, also if you think defending harass is something that didn't change the match up you are crazy.

I said early TvZ. As in the early game. Obviously not being able to harass as well in the early game effects the late game but it has no bearing on a roach rush. And if you can't defend a roach rush without marauders I don't know what to say. I haven't made a marauder in TvZ in probably a month and I've never been broken by roaches. And again not being able to harass as well isn't that big of a deal. Just the threat of hellions allows you to expand even if he goes early roaches because hellions don't really mean much against them anyway. So they have to keep at least a couple roaches back or they will lose a lot of drones. A Terran on two bases beats a Zerg on two bases, you just have to deny them a third. So while it's a different style it's not like the match up is suddenly imbalanced for zerg.

[Falaras]

I said early TvZ. As in the early game. Obviously not being able to harass as well in the early game effects the late game but it has no bearing on a roach rush. And if you can't defend a roach rush without marauders I don't know what to say. I haven't made a marauder in TvZ in probably a month and I've never been broken by roaches. And again not being able to harass as well isn't that big of a deal. Just the threat of hellions allows you to expand even if he goes early roaches because hellions don't really mean much against them anyway. So they have to keep at least a couple roaches back or they will lose a lot of drones. A Terran on two bases beats a Zerg on two bases, you just have to deny them a third. So while it's a different style it's not like the match up is suddenly imbalanced for zerg.

I hope your joking about that threat of Hellions thing, they just aren't a threat anymore. Zerg can straight up 14 hatch 100% of the games now, there's a lot of talk on TL about builds to deal with Zerg now and discussion about fast expanding builds and they just don't work. A zerg can punish you for fast expanding so easily, you can't punish a zerg for fast expanding anymore. A terran that took his two bases at equal time and can stop the zerg from overproducing drones beats a zerg on the same amount of bases, a terran that can't harass and has to expand and a much later food count does not beat a zerg on equal bases. I don't like to say things are imbalanced, I'm sure for a while TvZ will be heavily zerg favored but in a few weeks or months it will be fine.

Barrack -->factory is one of the most generic start on terran. If it couldnt survive against a simple roach push, you wouldnt see it often.

We can't really say anything is generic anymore considering there hasn't been a real 1.2 tournament yet and no published ladder results. I almost always factory opened before 1.2 but its way to much of a gamble now, at least in my opinion.

No clue why my signature hasn't updated but I have been 1300ish for about 2 weeks now, although since 1.2 has come out my W/L ratio has fallen by a few %. I will say that the difference between playing a 1100 and a 1400 is mind blowing, although I don't know your statistics at all, you could very well be playing 1500 or higher players.
Edit: Apparently you have to manually update now, that's gay.

[Kaylia]

No clue why my signature hasn't updated but I have been 1300ish for about 2 weeks now, although since 1.2 has come out my W/L ratio has fallen by a few %. I will say that the difference between playing a 1100 and a 1400 is mind blowing, although I don't know your statistics at all, you could very well be playing 1500 or higher players.
Edit: Apparently you have to manually update now, that's gay.

I haven't done many 1v1 in the last few week, still sitting on 200 bonus pool. Last time I checked, my matchup were around 1100-1300 I think, and I have no idea if i played against 1500 in ladder.

Anyway, that's beyond the point. Terran is not forced to open with 2 rax to survive, especially with bunker and repair at a choke. By the time someone get 7 roachs, you will have at the very least 3 marauders from your barrack, which should be enough to push it back. I can't imagine at what point someone would have enough roach to run over you, unless you are not building any units from your barrack.

[Thulius]

I haven't done many 1v1 in the last few week, still sitting on 200 bonus pool. Last time I checked, my matchup were around 1100-1300 I think, and I have no idea if i played against 1500 in ladder.

Anyway, that's beyond the point. Terran is not forced to open with 2 rax to survive, especially with bunker and repair at a choke. By the time someone get 7 roachs, you will have at the very least 3 marauders from your barrack, which should be enough to push it back. I can't imagine at what point someone would have enough roach to run over you, unless you are not building any units from your barrack.

I don't know much about terran build orders; how long does it typically take to get out 3 marauders on 1 gas? I recently played a game where I hit a 3rax terran's ramp with 6 roaches around 5:48 (+6 lings shortly after), just as his first marauder was popping out. Watching the replay his tech lab seemed super late compared to his gas so I'm sure he could've had at least one extra out. He also went tech lab > reactor > tech lab so that might've slowed him down, but I'm just having a hard time seeing that many extra marauders in that time.

It was on steppes of war and the guy was only about 1100 diamond so that's probably skewing the results a bit, but it just seems like you'd have to be making a lot of assumptions (keeping an SCV in position to repair, skipping your first marine) to be ready for a roach push with anything but a 2 rax opening. I really don't do roach pushes often enough to have an idea how it goes down on other maps though.

[Kaylia]

The only assumption I'm making is the terran is scouting the zerg while going for a 1 barrack -> 1factory build. Obviously, if he isnt making any units and get rushed, it could hurt.

[edit]
Just tested this versus insane computer. My ramp got it by 4 roach after my 2nd marauder spawned, and it was enough to push them back (killed 3, 4th ran away). The timer might be off by a few seconds since the game started at normal speed instead of faster.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4826/maraudera.jpg
You can see the factory and 3 marauder in this screenshot

So, to answer your question, someone could have 3 marauder + a bunker at the 5min48 mark from a single rax. A second and third rax were building, and I didn't bother repairing at all since my marauder werent even inside the bunker. I didn't skip any scv in the process, had a satellite, and made a bunch of tiny microing mistake cause its 7am and im sleep deprived.


[edit]
Also, I scouted when my barrack was completed if it matter, and skipped the marine like I usually do if I'm going tech lab. I had 2 rafinery and way too much gas (200), meaning this build order could be improved a lot.

[Thulius]

Alright cool, like I said I'm not familiar with terran build orders so I wasn't sure if it was just my opponent performing poorly or what. 3 marauders definitely would've held off my push, no arguing with hard numbers I guess.

[Bweigelt]

I hope your joking about that threat of Hellions thing, they just aren't a threat anymore. Zerg can straight up 14 hatch 100% of the games now, there's a lot of talk on TL about builds to deal with Zerg now and discussion about fast expanding builds and they just don't work. A zerg can punish you for fast expanding so easily, you can't punish a zerg for fast expanding anymore. A terran that took his two bases at equal time and can stop the zerg from overproducing drones beats a zerg on the same amount of bases, a terran that can't harass and has to expand and a much later food count does not beat a zerg on equal bases. I don't like to say things are imbalanced, I'm sure for a while TvZ will be heavily zerg favored but in a few weeks or months it will be fine.
We can't really say anything is generic anymore considering there hasn't been a real 1.2 tournament yet and no published ladder results. I almost always factory opened before 1.2 but its way to much of a gamble now, at least in my opinion.

No clue why my signature hasn't updated but I have been 1300ish for about 2 weeks now, although since 1.2 has come out my W/L ratio has fallen by a few %. I will say that the difference between playing a 1100 and a 1400 is mind blowing, although I don't know your statistics at all, you could very well be playing 1500 or higher players.
Edit: Apparently you have to manually update now, that's gay.

No I'm not joking about the Hellion thing. It is still a threat and Zerg still has to be careful to 14 hatch. There are so many ways to disrupt a 14 hatch. You can fast expo in TvZ, please tell me how a Zerg is going to punish it when you have a bunker down + another couple marines as well as a Thor out when the expo finishes. You can also adapt the build to have the Thor come out later and instead pump out four hellions in which case the zerg has to make a choice between going for your base or defending his. Even if he breaks your front the second that Thor comes out it's over and he's going to be behind unless you somehow lost all your scv's.

[Falaras]

No I'm not joking about the Hellion thing. It is still a threat and Zerg still has to be careful to 14 hatch. There are so many ways to disrupt a 14 hatch. You can fast expo in TvZ, please tell me how a Zerg is going to punish it when you have a bunker down + another couple marines as well as a Thor out when the expo finishes. You can also adapt the build to have the Thor come out later and instead pump out four hellions in which case the zerg has to make a choice between going for your base or defending his. Even if he breaks your front the second that Thor comes out it's over and he's going to be behind unless you somehow lost all your scv's.

2 Queens on Ramp, 1 or 2 Spines, you should never lose a single unit to any kind of non-drop hellion play. Fast expoing as a terran is a bitch, and roaches+lings can easily break it. It doesn't even matter what opening you use to expand (1 rax, 2 rax, hellion, ect) a fast expand can be stomped out easily, and good luck getting a fast Thor when you are cutting units to expand. The important thing to know about terran is expanding doesn't give you more production capacity unless you spend even more, where as the opposite is true for zerg. I would love to see the timing of when a fast expanding terran gets a second thor out versus when a 14 hatching non harassed zerg gets mutalisks out because I have trouble thinking the Thor would be out first.

[Bweigelt]

2 Queens on Ramp, 1 or 2 Spines, you should never lose a single unit to any kind of non-drop hellion play. Fast expoing as a terran is a bitch, and roaches+lings can easily break it. It doesn't even matter what opening you use to expand (1 rax, 2 rax, hellion, ect) a fast expand can be stomped out easily, and good luck getting a fast Thor when you are cutting units to expand. The important thing to know about terran is expanding doesn't give you more production capacity unless you spend even more, where as the opposite is true for zerg. I would love to see the timing of when a fast expanding terran gets a second thor out versus when a 14 hatching non harassed zerg gets mutalisks out because I have trouble thinking the Thor would be out first.

The Zerg can't punish your expo fast enough and defend his drones at the same time though. He can do one or the other. You can have a Thor out in time as well. See here: http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/1737 This game is pre-patch but it still follows the same basic pattern, double hellion (drewbie actually goes for 4 I usually don't, against a roach rush you can only go for 2 and you might have to throw out a marauder from your rax before you swap addons again) and the zerg 14 hatches and suffers no harassment damage.

[Falaras]

The Zerg can't punish your expo fast enough and defend his drones at the same time though. He can do one or the other. You can have a Thor out in time as well. See here: http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/1737 This game is pre-patch but it still follows the same basic pattern, double hellion (drewbie actually goes for 4 I usually don't) and the zerg 14 hatches and suffers no harassment damage.

Pre-patch means no need for a fast marauder or four to defend the roaches meaning you can do the reactor on barracks opening. The terran was the aggressor like they could be back then allowing for training almost no units. Without building any marauders (or any units that cost gas actually) he got 2 thors out right before Mutas finished. Defending your drones just takes 2 queens and a spine, they can easily box you in your base with roaches.

[Kaylia]

Alright cool, like I said I'm not familiar with terran build orders so I wasn't sure if it was just my opponent performing poorly or what. 3 marauders definitely would've held off my push, no arguing with hard numbers I guess.

Actually, it would have been 2 marauder and 3rd one building (that number is not when the unit spawn but when the unit start building...dunno how i missed that).


If you want to test this build in a real game, I'm actually curious to see how well it would go for both side. The odds that I get TvZ in a small map, and that someone goes roach is relatively slim, but I would like to know for sure if it's safe.

Pre-patch means no need for a fast marauder or four to defend the roaches meaning you can do the reactor on barracks opening. The terran was the aggressor like they could be back then allowing for training almost no units. Without building any marauders (or any units that cost gas actually) he got 2 thors out right before Mutas finished. Defending your drones just takes 2 queens and a spine, they can easily box you in your base with roaches.

If you're able to keep your scout alive, you wont have to build more than 1-2 marauders if there is a roach warden down.

[Bweigelt]

Pre-patch means no need for a fast marauder or four to defend the roaches meaning you can do the reactor on barracks opening. The terran was the aggressor like they could be back then allowing for training almost no units. Without building any marauders (or any units that cost gas actually) he got 2 thors out right before Mutas finished. Defending your drones just takes 2 queens and a spine, they can easily box you in your base with roaches.

I don't get what your saying. If the zerg goes for a 14 hatch you are not going to have to worry about roaches as you'll have a thor out in time. If he's going for 5 roach rush then you adjust build to account for it. You'll see it before you have to throw down the factory so it's easy to change the build to defend against that.

[Falaras]

If you're able to keep your scout alive, you wont have to build more than 1-2 marauders if there is a roach warden down.

2 Marauders in a bunker versus 5 Roaches:
It takes 5 seconds for 5 roaches to kill a bunker, in 5 seconds the marauder will attack 4 times (3.33 but given marauder has a high range I'll say 4) which will do 100 damage not even killing 1 roach. Once the bunker is dead the roaches take 4 seconds per marauder while the 2 marauders will do 100 damage not even killing one roach in 4 seconds.
Roaches are cheaper, can be produced faster, same speed, do 4 less damage but have 20 more health, the only thing going bad for it is that it has 2 less range than a Marauder. I think people overestimate the Marauder, even versus armored it barely out damages a marine.

I don't get what your saying. If the zerg goes for a 14 hatch you are not going to have to worry about roaches as you'll have a thor out in time. If he's going for 5 roach rush then you adjust build to account for it. You'll see it before you have to throw down the factory so it's easy to change the build to defend against that.

We are talking about FEing still right? Having a thor out in time to defend a FE against roaches? lol. Zerg has the lovely ability to hatch all their Roaches at once too, which means scouting it won't be the easiest thing. And a thor won't kill 5 Roaches without repairing or back up.