Hi, New forum member. New beta player (5 placement matches, 4W-6L in copper league). Searched and couldn't find what I was looking for. Read the Terran's Guide to the Universe. Question #1 Build: I'm building Supply Depot and Barracks at 10 and 11 supply at the choke. Starting Refinery early to get Gas. I'm building Factory right after Barracks is complete. Start building Tech lab while Starport #1 gets built immediately after Factory is done. Swap Starport #1 onto tech lab from Factory. Start making Banshee while researching Cloak at tech lab. Use the same SCV to start building Starport #2 and build tech lab at factory. Swap Startport #2 onto tech lab from Factory. Wait for Banshee 3x to finish, and waypoint to the opponent's mineral line. Start making 2x Viking or 2x Banshee. Combat: I drop a scan to scout and if the coast is clear I cloak and go for the workers. If it's covered with defense I go for the opponent's ground-to-ground units. Follow-Up (Here's where I'm lost): I pump out Banshees or Vikings depending on their counter, but my ground forces at this point consists of a group of 20+ Marines from the Choke Barracks with no upgrades. In a few of the matches, the initial attack and the following air units were strong enough to hurt them really hard, and by the time the Marines arrived they were just there for clean-up duty. The matches I'm concerned about are when my Banshee harass gets eventually countered by anti-air of some kind. I've caused some economic damage but static defenses or detection rebuffs me. How do I convert my economic advantage of two bases (2nd having recently just started up) into a win at this point? What would be the next best build to finish the game? I've been waiting for the 3x banshee so I can keep from revealing my hand too soon, then they one-shot or fast-kill units/buildings. Should I just swing in with 1x and 2x and 3x Banshees as they come out? Is my build order clean? P.S. - My mid/late macro is horrible. Trying to remedy this with each game. My large-combat micro is rubbish as well. Question #2 I've seen kiting on Youtube replays, but I don't know what I'm supposed to press on the keyboard to do it? I tried using the mouse to run away then click on an enemy unit to focus-fire then click to run away, but it seems slow compared to what I saw in the replay. How do I plan this with the cooldown-time for a given units' weapon? Question #3 If I have 3x of a Production building like a Starport, each equipped with the same add-on, what do I press to get all of those buildings to construct a unit at the same time rather than forming a queue into one single building? Thanks in advance for the advice. I know I'm getting ahead of myself as far as my skill-level but I'd like to know the theory so I can try to apply it even in my losses.
Sounds like you have done your homework, you know a little bit about the game so I'm going to attempt to give you some pointers to help you out a bit. First thing you should know is if you are destroying his mineral line you should be building more and expo, and getting a huge advantage over your opponent, because if you are harassing his minerals he is on the same mineral line for a while just trying to repair his only resource gain. Another thing, Banshees are only going to work for so long, once you opponent realizes what you are doing they are building to counter it, such as AA units like you said. This is how you simply beat that. You said you get Marines at the beginning so I'm going to assume you build a reactor on your first Barracks, so when you build your second Starport swap it out for the barracks because you can then produce double Vikings. When your opponent gets AA units you now have a counter for him, and great one at that. With all your Expansion you have over your opponent you should outnumber him by a significant amount, leaving him yet again with nowhere to turn, and to think up a new strat. This should pretty much get you the win, as long as everything goes smooth that is. Just remember that expanding over your opponent and dominating his expo is what can get you the win. As for the kiting you just have to be quicker about it, practice it while you are in the copper league. Chances are in copper, the players do not know how to kite and you shouldn't have a problem kiting them around and getting the idea of it. That way once you are in a higher league you will be ready to learn more advanced kiting moves. To get all your buildings with the same add-ons to build the same unit, simply double click one building, it should select all the buildings of that particular type, and give you all the same options as if you only had one clicked, the only difference is they are shown as units in the middle and there will be black boxes. Proceed to make units and you will see the boxes light up, so you will know who is making what and how many there are. Other than that keep it up, better than most starter players. I hope I helped you
Banshee's are not built to win the game, they are a harassment unit. However, they sometimes can win the game if you can prevent him form getting a counter to your unit so they turn invincible (pretty difficult to do). On top of that, marines by themselves are just a meh unit. combine them with marauders and you now have some M&M, add stimpack and you can do an ape **** amount of dmg. Add Medvacs from your starport already and you are good to go. instead of like 3x starport or whatever go like 3 rax's aswell and you should be able to have a nasty army. Lastly, macro games consist of you gaining a resource advantage (aka what banshees are good for) and then just being able to out-produce him, or limit him from gaining any further expansions, etc. etc.
Thanks for the feedback. At the moment, my follow-up to the Banshee harass has been to spit out the MarinesMauradersMedivacs M&M&M combo. I was just wondering if there was some alternative since that army feels a little low-tier. I was wondering if I should take my Starports and and mineral-gas advantage and just shoot for end-game Battle-cruisers? Is there such a thing as a mid-game Bunker-barracks "rush" (after the banshee harass) where I plop down at the bottom of the opponent's ramp to stop him from expanding while I just spam out reactor-marines to swarm him? Is it viable to just jack his natural expansion and start building up a force from there? Should I convert over to a mech-army and start sieging his base?
Once they get AA, you're gonna have to tech to either MM with medivacs and/or tanks, or go mech. Expand when you start the harass, if not before. I suggest as you first harass with the air, to put down the factories or rax's you need. Once they are finished stop building air and start on your new army. After you've transitioned out of this early air harass, look for opportunities to make air. You built the starports and it's a waste to just let them sit there. You could build some Banshees with a little extra resources you have and just sit on them until you see that expo without the missile turrets. Or build 6 vikings or so and start overlord sniping. Just keep your opponent on their toes.
After a relatively succesful banshee harass no need to rush him and try to kill him with bunkers or whatever. Now that you made a huge blow to his economy and morale, you must feel confident, and it is good because your in an excellent position. Take your time, calm down and focus. I say this because alot alot alot alot alot of players after a succesful Banshee/Hellion/Reaper harass try to end the game while the ennemy is weak. The best way is to calm and opt for a longer game than rushing him and trying to finish him. You expand once or twice. Make more units production buildings, research some upgrades for your army. Make a good army and then make a scan on his base to see how advanced he is after the succesful harassment. If you feel confident, attack. You can of course keep the presure on him. This is good actually. You amke and army but in the same time you keep some presure by either making a tank drop on a high ground. What you could also do is see when he expands and send aabout 6 or 7 Hellions with blue flame and just bring his morale down by killing a whole bunch of workers in his expo.
Thanks for the continued responses. I've actually stopped this Banshee rush build during the phase 2 beta. I felt like I was securing Wins but short-changing my own learning experience. My confusion at how to transition out of the Banshee harass was because I didn't have a solid grasp of the game. I shifted towards improving my basic fundamentals at the expense of the W/L ratio. At the same time, I was concerned about creating a negative-play-experience for some of my fellow silver-league players. Several opponents would just immediately drop if I caught them unawares and crippled them. More often than not, they were at the same skill level as I was; just simply trying to figure out the gameplay and learn their Race. Personally, I don't mind dealing with proxy rushes or DT-rushes and whatnot. But, I'd hate to think I was making some little kid out there ragequit the game. The Wins just aren't that important to me. I'm not discounting the strength of the Banshee rush. Instead, I'd just like to re-visit this when I'm at a skill-level where I know my opponents will have the skills and game-awareness be prepared for the possibility of such a tactic.
