Hi there, Any good tips on how to deal with well-micro'ed mutalisks in sc2? This was a tough thing to deal with in sc1 as well but now we have different unit compositions to work with. I'm thinking about this because I was defeated today as terran by a diamond level zerg that had exceptional micro with mutalisks (average apm 90-ish). Looking over my replay I'm not sure what I could have done. I mean, it's not like I made no mistakes, but at no point did it seem like, "Oh, I could have countered with this..." It's not like I got steamrolled, as I put up a fight and had decent game-sense to not mess up too badly or overreact, but I still lost. I'm not going to post a replay because I'm more interested in general tips that protoss and especially terran can do to avoid awesome mutalisk micro. Basically he got five mutas, charged at my mineral line (but I scanned his spire so I expected them and put up two turrets), so he backed off, came around the side, and began trying to pick off depos. I pushed him back with marines. Meanwhile I'm trying to pump out more marines and a few vikings while also trying to secure my natural and worried that since he's forcing me to turtle a bit, he's probably taking advantage of that by expanding. So I got my natural part of the way up and mining and tried building two turrets near it, but then he came back with a total of 11 mutas and was able to focus fire down my turrets. When I pulled my marines over, he'd swing around to the other side of my base, focus my turrets at attack my main mineral line. I built a few more vikings, but assumed (correctly) that his strat was to make me overreact by building a lot of anti-air tech and then transitioning back to ground units. So I built thors (good against muta and ground), expecting to be hit with zerg ground, and possibly ultras. Eventually the muta harass got so bad I realized I had no hope of trying to win the macro contest and instead decided to push out with thors, hellions, marines, and vikings to try to do some damage to his natural. As I assumed, he had transitioned to ground units including ultras (with about half of his mutas still around as well), and was able to win the macro battle and overrun my army and win. What to do? Should one always try to build a very compact base against zerg? How many vikings to make? How many turrets, and what is the best placement to protect two bases? Any tips would be helpful.
yes i understand your need for good terran anti mutas. i always have this problem but i guess a solution could be to just put early pressure so you can delay the zerg spire and prepare for the mutas better. marines are one of the best counters for mutas but they just dont have the mobility to chase the mutas around your base. unlike the void rays which are slow and take a long time to just get out of the marine line of fire which by the time it starts moving faster, the marines will have shot them down. the terran viking can only either attack ground or air and the transformation from the 2 modes will be the deaths of the vikings. terran banshees can only attack ground so air will pwn them. the zerg mutas can attack air and land and the attack can hit multiple targets but their range is horribe. i think its a 3. but their mobility is just annoying. i need tips too so please post any advice for this. i have the same problem
I as a zerg can tell you, early pressure it is. The worst thing a terran can do to me, is early containment. It's not even an all in, just send your first marine/s with an scv, and if your opponent doesn't see you or react, put down a bunker underneath his ramp. I hate it when they do it
Build more mobile anti-air. If he has 11+ mutas you can afford to build more without really 'overreacting'. Just make a smaller, comparative investment. Besides, vikings are dual purpose. If you drive the mutas out you can then go harrass his Ovies and mineral line, forcing any ground units he transitioned to on defense for awhile. Also, like said above, try to put pressure on him. If your marines are capable of dealing with the mutas, but the mutas won't sit still for it, try launching a siege on his base, forcing him to use (and sacrifice) some of those mutas to defend. But yeah, you don't want to play the game of chasing after his bouncing mutas. I've solo'd opponents who get caught in that mindset on twilight fortress, where you can so easily bounce between each person's main mineral line. You either need to be mobile like the mutas, invest in enough static D that they can't come near (which in a way is already making those mutas pay off for the zerg), or force the zerg player into a situation where he has to bring his mutas to you (e.g. an offensive siege).
I'd be a bit wary about sending my marines to attack while he has mutas. If I attack with marines, I think a better response from a zerg player would be to not sacrifice his mutas to stop them right away, and instead attack right over the mineral line of my base. My marines have to go through the front door (until later when I get drop ships, but by that stage of the game muta harass shouldn't be as much of a problem), whereas his mutas can go straight for my weak spot. I think a good zerg player with active muta harassment would respond to a marine push by decimating my scvs and THEN responding by sacrificing his mutas to my marines since by that time he'll have hurt me more than I've hurt him. The rest of the advice seems solid. Thanks.
I'm operating under the assumption you would be able to effectively split your force to both launch an attack and still defend your resource line (e.g. using a turrent + marines + marines in queue), but you aren't able to effectively defend your entire base because the mutas won't sit still, meanwhile the zerg player is continuing to mass units and/or amassing a change-up strategy while you struggle to counter mutas. If you can't do both then yeah, you probably shouldn't attack, unless you're confident you can both kill/cripple him and have enough left over to recover/defend whatever is left on your side. It is sort of the reverse game I play with my speedling build vs a zerg opponent who has gone mutas. His mutas will beat my lings 1 on 1, but if he sends them out I'm going to raze his base much more effectively and faster than he can mine, thus preventing his mutas from attacking right away.
