[ACX]

Hi all,

I'm willing to help out any BSGPD (, , , , ) players in mGG. However I need to point out that I can't help Zerg players or any TVZ related stuff because I have trouble with it myself. I might not be the best player in the clan or one of the top, but i'm willing to share my knowledge and help develop upcoming players as best as i can. I want to do this because I want to help out mGG in some way and make mGG's BSGPD players the best in SEA + I have spare time. Since I've switched between Protoss and Terran a few times now, I have some decent knowledge of the two races so that is my "area of expertise". I will help out with things such as basic mechanics/macro, match-up specifics, builds, etc. I can also go through and analyse replays and pick out on things that you can improve upon.

Details:
fAny.615, ojaesung (skype name).

If you need my help, just ask! This is during my school summer holidays so this is the best time to ask. This is also my first time doing this so bear with me.

Quick Comments

Fairyking:

Why you gotta copy everything I do? :P <3

[ToRFracTaL]

Good initiative to help out fellow mGG members. Good job!

[ToRSpookToR]

^^ what this guy said.

[mGGDrGooSe]

How do I beat immo/sentry??? Protoss IMBA IMBA!

[ACX]

In all seriousness..

First off, you need to scout it coming (I think you know when it's coming, if not, just tell me).

I believe immo/sentry is quite vulnerable when it first moves out because that is when the army size is smallest. I believe a macro hatch after taking 3 bases (don't know timing cos I'm not a zerg player) will help to pump out a lot of lings/roaches. You should preemptively set up a nice surround with your lings/roaches (some units left, some in front, some right) when the immo/sentry first moves out (note this is not a committed resistance) and future engagements. The aim of your first engagement with the immo/sentry when it first comes out of the base shouldn't outright kill the army (if it does, great!) but to wear it down by forcing them to use FFs and killing off key units such as sentries or immortals, and delay their force coming (giving you time to prepare, build up your own army, build spines and set up a nice surround). As a bonus, you could try and bait out FFs with your initial force.

In conclusion, I feel the best way to deal with immo/sentry is to:
- Harass and wear down the immo/sentry force when it first comes out.
- Delay their army coming to your base such as engaging very early (with not much commitment), counter-attacks into their bases (though they mostly block off when they move out), picking off lagging stalkers, sentries, probes, etc.
- Setting up a nice surround with your army to deal maximum damage and to force out many FFs as possible.

That is probably as much I know about immo/sentry all-ins by Protosses in Zerg perspective. I think the experienced Zerg players can help you with this more. Hope this helped!

[Seffy]

Originally Posted by Spirit

I believe immo/sentry is quite vulnerable when it first moves out because that is when the army size is smallest.

This. If it's okay, I'd like to add in some points as well:

EDIT: I've added in a picture of a sentry-immortal composition just about once it gets to your base; it's not accurate but what matters is the overall unit composition. And also I've given a better explanation regarding DPS (damage per second) of the Protoss army.



In the above image is a reference to a typical army composition of sentry-immortal once it gets to your base. Zealots, stalkers, 7 (this can either be 6 or 7) sentries and 3 immortals. Protoss players may either go for that warp prism and moving out while it is being built, or just have a probe build forward pylons. Scouting is important, you need to move out a long time before they get to your base and their army becoming this big.

Baiting the FFs is definitely the best advantage you have by the time you pull it off. Immortals just out-range the roaches, and one of the primary reasons of force fielding is so the immortals can abuse this range advantage and destroy your army outright. Taking this advantage away from them will easily allow you to be able to surround them in later engagements due to the lack of sentry energy.

Because your third/natural actually would have/more likely have choke points, that's the disadvantage that goes to you when fighting there. They can just force field the choke, abuse the immortal range and then it's game over. By ensuring you can engage them before they get there, you should be able to fight in a more open area, which in turn forces them to surround themselves with a lot of force fields, and that's what you've got to bait out.

Also, you may be able to force more sentries out when they try to back the army up. Sounds bad right, because of force fields? Nope. They make the sentries to make the force field they can do right out COUNT. If they don't count, it's a waste of sentry and drastically reduces the overall DPS of the army. This is less likely to happen, but I've been pressured into doing something like this. Explanation of just how much damage this army can do if not held back is below.



The above image is something I'd consider important. It shows the damages and the weapon speed by the time this push comes in. It is important to note that they will have at least a +1 weapons upgrade finished by the time they get to you, +1 armor may or may not be there. Range, damage and weapon speed of these units are very important to consider. As you'd notice, it is a high DPS army. First tip: Get at least +1 armor and +1 attack! This is VERY important and ensures you'd have a much better chance at winning engagements. Because you'd have Lair tech (or hopefully have it) by the time they'd move out, you shouldn't have the hardest time getting +2/+2 on 3 bases, and if you do get this, you're going to be way ahead.

Zealots have 9 damage, but attacks twice, so that's 18. The weapon speed is 1.2 so... pretty much every 1.2s it strikes (not sure if in-game time or not, but I will assume in-game time). This means that your lings will only need to be hit by 2 sets of 2 attacks from a zealot, when your lings are un-upgraded! So get those upgrades!

Stalkers attack every 1.44s, with a +1 upgrade damage of 11 to normal units, but 15 to armored. Roaches are armored units, so they will take that 15 every hit, but the lings only take 11. Towards lings, they aren't as dangerous as a zealot would be, but to roaches they are a huge danger if they have sufficient stalker numbers. Stalkers have a range of 6 compared to the roach's 4.

Sentries' don't do much, they do 7 damage per second, simple as that. They're tickle cannons, as everyone calls them. But they make the strategy work with their force fields, so they're a backbone for the army.

Immortals are pretty much the backbone of DPS for the army. 3 of them will just destroy everything while they're alive. With +1 attack, they do 22 damage, but 55 towards armored. The weapon speed is 1.45 so they attack every 1.45s, and have a range of 6. Immortals also have a passive ability called "Hardened Shield". The ability allows the immortals to only take a maximum of 10 damage per hit while it has shields. Once the shields are down it takes full damage. So lings pretty much give full damage all the time, while roaches can only deal 10 while shields are on, and then full damage once they're gone.
So killing immortals would be best done if you surround them with lings to wear the shields down quickly, then focus with roaches.

Your roach has 145 health and is an armored unit. An immortal deals 55 damage to armored units. Basically, your roahces, will be 3 shot to their death in just over 4 seconds (around 4.35 if I did my maths correct). Roaches deal 18 damage with +1 upgrade, but deals this every 2 seconds and a range of 4. It has 2 less range than the immortal, so roaches are out-ranged by immortals as I've pointed out before. So when force fields are done, roaches can't do anything and just get shot to death. 3 immortals will sweep the floor with your roaches. Force fields last 15 seconds, and killing a roach takes around 4.35 seconds. So just before force fields finish, that's 3 roaches dead. That only goes for ONE immortal. So with the three on there, that's 9 of your roaches dead while the force field is active. This is just from immortals alone. With the stalkers around they'd deal extra damage on top of the immortals, and also out-range the roaches, so that 15 seconds of being force fielded will just destroy your whole army.

This is why it is important that you DON'T fight at choke points, because they can just abuse force fields to make sure your roaches are behind the choke while they can freely shoot away at roaches, or force roaches to make a suicide train.

Focusing the sentries down will ensure you victory in later engagements, provided that you didn't let them recover fast enough. Then again, by the time you reduce their army, you'd be WAY ahead in macro, as they try to pump more units, you're able to do the same at a much higher rate by this point.

Take note that you will need roach and ling speed if you want this to work. Because when you force them to retreat, they would lack the force fields to ensure they can all back off with minimal damage.

I've personally experienced losing to a zerg with my sentry-immortal all in because of the above points. I'm still Gold, but I'm mainly just strengthening Spirit's point. I hope it helps.

Quick Comments

	syfChase:	Excellent post!!
	fray`Alpha:	I freaking love pretty pics >.<
	mGGPaRAnorMaL:	MY EYES

[EnTaroRainbow]

Dear Spirit,

How do u TvT? When is it an good time to:
1. rush in to kill his tanks
2. drop marines onto his tanks
3. drop his base
4. build vikings

[ACX]

Dear Spirit,

How do u TvT? When is it an good time to:
1. rush in to kill his tanks
2. drop marines onto his tanks
3. drop his base
4. build vikings

Hey, this was meant to be for mGG players exclusively but I'll help you out anyway.

1. You want to rush in and kill his tanks while the opponent is repositioning/unsieging his tanks. You can also rush in and kill his tanks if you have a superior force that can just tank the siege fire.

2. You should drop onto his tanks if he doesn't have much units to protect his tanks because it's not a good idea to drop the guy's tanks if he has stuff to shoot your medivacs down (vikings, marines, etc). However, drops don't have to be a "doom drop", drops on tanks can also be used to deviate tank fire so your army can stim and rush in.

3. Any time. It's good to apply pressure to your opponent whenever you can and deal damage to their economy, production, etc. Specifically, it's a good idea to do drops when your opponent is distracted which leads to another viable strategy of doing multi-pronged drops. For example, drops can be done while you're pushing and sieging next to his expansion.

4. Build vikings if you want to attain air superiority. Air superiority has the benefit of extending the vision of your siege line and additionally preventing drops on your siege tanks. I don't think there is a specific time on when you should get vikings with the exception if you're going mech, you should get vikings while producing tanks. To be honest, for bio play, I don't exactly know when but I like to get vikings after getting around 2-4 medivacs.

Hope it helped. If anyone sees something wrong, feel free to correct me and if you have additional things to add, go ahead!

[EnTaroRainbow]

IM PIEEEE!!!!!!!!! y u hate me?

Quick Comments

	ACX:	SORRY haha, didn't know it was you.
	mGGNemesis:	LOL

[mGGDrGooSe]

Originally Posted by Spirit

Hey, this was meant to be for mGG players exclusively but I'll help you out anyway.

BM Spirit! I think this just turned into a ask me anything thread :P Now you shall spend all day everyday answering all of the communities questions!!! xD

[FSBenAD]

Ohh really.. I have all types of awesome mGG related questions... Like how does a Goose play Starcraft?.. and how does a goose become a doctor? What language did you program the NemBot in to play starcraft?

Ok I'l go back in my corner, but awesome initiative spirt, I am sure your clan mates will be lining up to take the offer

Quick Comments

	mGGNemesis:	trololololol
	mGGPaRAnorMaL:	NemBot has been reprogrammed to 'NemBotElie' we added a feminine side to the bot.

[syfChase]

For those who aren't im mGG but still have questions they would like answered, consider posting them in this thread on the battle.net forums

http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/t...1006105?page=1

Like Spirit, I also have a ton of spare time over the holidays, I will answer all questions

[Seffy]

TvZ question:

When do you think you decide to either do bio/tank, or do mech instead?

[ACX]

TvZ question:

When do you think you decide to either do bio/tank, or do mech instead?

IMO, I think it depends on the map and its size. I would do mech on smaller maps such as Ohana because it complements mech's immobility and its earlier strong timing. For example, a common mech push with 2/2 will hit Zerg much earlier on a map like Ohana than on a map like Metropolis. For bio/tank, I would stick to larger maps because mech isn't as effective on it and drops are very effective (especially multi-pronged) since the zerg army will have to move back and forth for drops (travelling long distance) while you could push and kill their expansion and just fall back, taking an economical advantage.

However, don't feel compelled to do one style over another, just take note of the pros/cons of each style on different maps. This can be used in the metagame as well.

Just as a future reference to any mGG players, I can personally help you become a better player as a whole (like coaching?) instead of just answering questions here and there, but the choice is yours and i don't mind either.

Quick Comments

Seffy:

Thanks! :) Will keep this in mind when laddering T.

[VorteX]

I had a rush before in previous ladder games i had:

1) How do we defend against one base play from a protoss to defend blink stalker rush as terran? After 1 rax FE, i scanned his base and say a quick twilight council and quite a few gateways on one base. So my response was to throw down extra 2 or 3 bunkers at my expo. Than he saw my defence and use obs to blink up into my main and when i bring my army he blinks down and attack my expo (as a cycle), so i build so turrets to keep obs out, by than he already massed some stalkers and cols in it. I lost the game.

2) TVT, the opponent rushes alot of reapers around 6 to 7 min mark. Defended the first wave with my marines, but lost to the 2nd wave of reapers out numbered. So i lost the game.

So how do we deal with this?

[RicocheT]

Originally Posted by mGGxJieun

TvZ question:

When do you think you decide to either do bio/tank, or do mech instead?

Whenever I feel like it PEWPEW.

Okay honestly, I enjoy Mech on maps where there's an early 3rd. For instance Antiga is probably one of the best mech maps out there. A map like Entombed you also can mech on, but you have to be aware that there's a crapload of space around you when you're pushing out and if you get surrounded, you're not gonna have a good time. Ohana is one of the best maps to Mech on, Cloud is quite decent as well (esp. if you're able to take high ground when siegeing the Zerg). Big wide open maps such as Condemned Ridge I feel is tough to mech on since you want to keep your army together, not spread it out. I don't mech much but that's just my opinion on the matter.

Pure Bio only really counters ling/infestor. If going pure bio, drop like crazy. Muta/Ling/Bling will hard counter your ass, make tanks and thors if going bio against muta/ling/bling, otherwise you will die...painfully.

Marine/Tank is good against everything. Although it kind of fell out of favour when the ling/infestor metagame first shifted around, a lot of terrans still have a lot of success with this bread and butter style. Also helps that while powerful, M/T is also quite mobile.

Originally Posted by xWhiteDragon

I had a rush before in previous ladder games i had:

1) How do we defend against one base play from a protoss to defend blink stalker rush as terran? After 1 rax FE, i scanned his base and say a quick twilight council and quite a few gateways on one base. So my response was to throw down extra 2 or 3 bunkers at my expo. Than he saw my defence and use obs to blink up into my main and when i bring my army he blinks down and attack my expo (as a cycle), so i build so turrets to keep obs out, by than he already massed some stalkers and cols in it. I lost the game.

2) TVT, the opponent rushes alot of reapers around 6 to 7 min mark. Defended the first wave with my marines, but lost to the 2nd wave of reapers out numbered. So i lost the game.

So how do we deal with this?

I'll try address these points if possible as well.

1. Ahh the dreaded blink-stalker all-in. If you see that he's doing 1 base blink stalker, get your gasses asap and make tech labs on your rax, and pump marauder as hard as possible (with conc. shells). Bunker your main as well. Some Terrans will also lift up their natural and move it away so they only need to focus on defending their main. If needed pull scvs to help buffer damage against the stalkers. Most often the Protoss will transition into collo, so scan/scout for a robo bay.

2) Interesting build. 2 rax reaper rush is something I don't see much nowadays, extremely rare in fact. However what I've done is bunker my mineral line since marines wont hold up to reapers in a fight and played defensive.

[ACX]

1) How do we defend against one base play from a protoss to defend blink stalker rush as terran? After 1 rax FE, i scanned his base and say a quick twilight council and quite a few gateways on one base. So my response was to throw down extra 2 or 3 bunkers at my expo. Than he saw my defence and use obs to blink up into my main and when i bring my army he blinks down and attack my expo (as a cycle), so i build so turrets to keep obs out, by than he already massed some stalkers and cols in it. I lost the game.

Just adding onto Rico's points (they are absolutely correct).

I think there are several factors you need to tick off or check to conclude the opponent is going blink stalkers all-in.

I think one of the most significant indicators of a blink stalker all-in is the map. Maps with space/cliff on the side for the stalkers to blink onto is a likely map for a blink stalker obs play. Therefore, maps such as Cloud Kingdom, Antiga Shipyard, Metropolis, etc are quite common and viable choice to do that strategy. You can feel a little bit relieved when you play on maps such as Daybreak, Ohana, Entombed Valley, etc because there is little space for the blink stalkers to manoeuvre around.Next is quite obviously the tech path he's going which you can do quite easily by scanning or sending a scv. If you see a twilight council upgrading something, you can assume or narrow it down to a blink stalkers (1 base), chargelots (2 base), HTs (2 base), DTs (1 or 2 base), or a combination of the two. To verify he's going doing a 1 base blink stalker all-in, you can hide and send your initial scv scout to his natural at 6:00. If you don't see an expansion, it's safe to assume he's doing a 1 base all-in (given that he doesn't ninja an expansion).

Okay so the above is to know if it's coming or not. Your response should be just as Rico mentioned, pump out those marauders. I like to play safe generally so if I sense a blink stalker all-in coming, then I would lift my CC into my main and get 2 tech labs + reactor on my initial 3 barracks. You would get stim as per usual and concussive shell on the other tech. Keep making marauders/marines and pull some (not all) scvs to confront their blink stalker force. Meanwhile, you should keep making scvs and supply depots. When your production is still going, get a factory -> SP -> Medivacs, then you should be able to push out with your MMM and counter since Marauders > Stalkers with the right amount. While you push out or after you fended his attack off for sure, land your CC back at your natural and transfer scvs since you've been constantly producing scvs.

2) TVT, the opponent rushes alot of reapers around 6 to 7 min mark. Defended the first wave with my marines, but lost to the 2nd wave of reapers out numbered. So i lost the game.

Since the major attack comes at 6-7 minutes, you have quite some time to prepare for it. Get 3 barracks (1 tech) after or before your expansion (depending if you scout a 1 base all-in or not). I would constantly produce marauders and marines. Get concussive shell to catch the reapers and stim straight after. Like Rico said, bunker at your mineral line is still a viable option. The key to fending off these 1 base all-ins or plays, is to constantly produce units. A nice strategy to counter these reapers is to anticipate them coming over the cliffs to your main so you can shoot them down while they jump up and down.

Hope it helped!

[ToRSpookToR]

Originally Posted by Spirit

e. I would do mech on smaller maps such as Ohana because it complements mech's immobility

i don't like mech on ohana due to the 5th being bloody hard to take with mech you need mobility to get between the bases not saying mech is bad on ohana though...

[ACX]

i don't like mech on ohana due to the 5th being bloody hard to take with mech you need mobility to get between the bases not saying mech is bad on ohana though...

Yeah, fair point.

I think it's kind of hard most of the time to take your 5th as mech in general due to mech's immobility. I believe this is a con of playing mech overall where you just gotta "deal with it". You just gotta set up good defense with a few tanks, turrets and be wary of zerg's movements with the help of sensor towers and such. This was kind of a good time you mentioned this because from just watching a game of Flash playing mech on Ohana, you will always face some pressure at your 4th/5th in the late game but it's still manageable. But yeah.. I might be wrong, I'm only a !

[Seffy]

Hi Tiffany.

I got my ass whooped by baneling busts in PvZ (was trying to do immo-sentry, and I got baneling busted ez pz). I'm thinking this is a hard counter to the immo-sentry build, but surely it can't be? It hit before I moved out as well, so it was a fairly good timing from the zerg.

What's the best thing I can do to minimize or eliminate the damage taken from this zerg build?

Quick Comments

mGGPaRAnorMaL:

A Move