Countering zerg mid-late game as terran

I'm in diamond playing terran and by far my worst matchup is vs zerg.

The biggest problem is mutalisks - terran just have nothing to counter them!

Thors die due to magic boxing, and the splash owning any repairing scvs.
Marines die due to splash.
Vikings are individually quite a bit weaker than mutalisks.
Raven bomb can't catch the mutas, plus ravens are way too expensive to have enough of.

Unless I can pull off a timing push before they get mutas (my usual strat), I almost always lose. I have to turtle so long in order to protect my base from mutas, and when I do leave I invariably have to leave 2-4 thors, 20-30 marines and heaps of turrets to have any chance of driving them off - which then leaves my main force so weak that the mutas and banelings smash my army.

 

I am only a gold ranked Terran player, but I encountered the same problem as you. It is very hard to do good harassment after the recent patch and when you are ready to do some damage ...Mutas our out.

If I have enough time for it, I will definitely go for mass Ravens...

Working with Ravens is micro intensive, but I do enjoy the games where I can go out with 8-12 Ravens. A Raven can put down (up to) 4 auto turrets and one turret can be compared with a level 2 marine (with extra health). So let’s say you have 10 Ravens at his base, it can be compared with a drop of 40 marines.

If he stops Mutas (maybe even gives up air completely) and gets some Ultras out, I think mass Banshee or even BC.

If he goes for Corruptors I am not sure what the best counter is... don’t think Vikings are a good counter. Any suggestions?

 

With seeker missles you need to setup a situation that punishes the zerg player for running. I.e. use it to score free hits in the time he wastes flying up to your units, then having to fly away from them.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how marines are dying from splash while he is magic boxing a thor. Again, it seems you want to catch him up in a situation where he wants/needs to do two opposing things (clump up his mutas to mow throw mm, and separate them to deal with a thor).

 

I've won almost all of my TvZ's except the ones that mass marines + 3 thors with a bunch of workers and attack straight for my base. My banelings melt away from the thors and marine maruader with stim pack can just kite my banelings (maybe not on creep) around while the thors own them.

I did lose to this like 2,000 points diamond Terran player, it was on scrap station and what he did was build up a gigantic bio army with mass tanks, he had turrets and like 3 sensor towers at the gayest spots. My banelings never did their job, even when I flank him the tanks just picked them all off. I was force to go heavy roaches then into hydralisks because he kept poking at my base, so I couldn't give time to build a spire.

So basically kind of contain the Zerg from going anywhere or expanding anywhere else besides his natural and just drain him out with small attacks and medivac harass. Thor drops 4tw.

 

If your banelings are getting kited or thors are killing you, you're not using infestors. Check out fruitseller's videos to see effective infestor use rip terran apart.

It does seem like the only strat somewhat effective against zerg is to kill them before they get infestors and mutas on the board.

 

Infestors for sure, I did forget to make them that game and probably what I should had done, and build mutalisks.

 

Thank you for this thread! vsZ is by far my hardest matchup. What can be done - without supermicro - against mutas and lings? Even if people don't magic box (they don't in bronze and silver) lings tend to take out any thors. And marines get taken out by banelings. So it's always the same: Mutas and lings force me to turtle in the beginning to bring some thors and hellions out. But by the time I get to move out the zerg player will have map control and at least +1 base (e.g. 2v3). Then he sends in corruptors to deal with banshees (which I sometimes build against mass lings/banelings) and eventually morphes them into broodlords. It seems to me that a terran player with marines (to protect the hellions), hellions (against tons of zerglings) and thors (against mutas) has to micro insanely to stand a chance. Although I don't doubt there's a patch coming to address this - what can be done in the meantime?

And I'm bronze, not diamond, so don't give 200 apm multitasking-supermicro advice

 

The main thing about getting better at SC2 is using hotkeys for building ur army ... while you are doing an attack. Maybe you already know it, but I hope this helps.

I started using hotkeys like this:

When the game starts:

Ctrl+F1 (selects all ur SCV's)
Right click on mineral patch so they get to work right away.
Put Command Center on 3 (Ctrl + 3) and press 's' to start building a SCV + set rally point of CC on a mineral patch (new SCV will go to work right away).

Now every time you have 50 minerals and you are not building ur tech or army --> press 3 and 's'

This will help ur economy alot cos you will be building SCV's during the entire game.

This is the same for Rax/Factory etc. learn the hotkeys (!!)... e.g set all your rax on '4' and press 'a' for a marine and 'd' for a marauder. Set the rally point of ur rax(es) on one of your attacking marauders and the new units will auto follow your main army to the place where it attacks.

Dont stop building while you are attacking. Set your main army to 1 (for bronze 1 command group is enough) and do an attack. Quickly press 4 + 'a','d','a','d','a','d','a','d','a','d ... Then select 1 again and continue your attack. Fresh reinformcements will join your main army without going back to your main base, selecting your rax etc.

(beware that the unit that is set as the rally point for your reinforcements is not killed else the new units will stay at your base)


Hope this helps and if you already knew it sorry for the lecture

 

Is OP trolling? Terran having problem vs mutas.....

Thors own mutas.

Vikings out range mutas.

Marines + medivac should have zero problems vs mutas.

Mix that with sensor towers and turrets.

 

Protoss don't even have problems with mutas. :/

 

Thors and marines should be able to deal with mutas.

Khayman makes an excellent point that marines and thors force a zerg player to use 2 conflicting attack strategies with their mutas. They will most likely magic box and target thors first, and this will allow your rines to stim and thin out their numbers (just make sure you have a very large marine force).

It's true that marines die quickly to bounce attacks early-mid game, but if terran has a big marine infantry ball late game then it's usually devastating to mutas. Zerg is forced to train supplementary units to keep mutas viable.

If zerg gets lots of speedlings, which is extremely likely...incorporate hellions in your army to deal with them.

If zerg gets banelings in an attempt to counter your rines, then their muta production will slow down due to baneling gas costs. Use tanks to counter blings, and focus on containing the zerg player so that they can't continue to expand.

If zerg techs to ultras, their muta production will slow significantly. Make sure you have the thor cannon upgrade, and broaden your infantry ball to include more marauders rather than just marines. Again, try to contain zerg so that they can't continue to expand.

 

I just played in ICCUP, played against a 2600 terran player named PainUser, and got owned by helion blue flame harass....granted I played awful but I'm freaking 1700 compare to that crazy pro. So yeah definitely push the pressure on zerg throughout the whole game and you'll get him down. Thors Marines and Helions rape about anything zerg throws at terran, oh and workers to repair.

 

I really don't know how you guys use thors + marines to take out mutas - don't you guys get bling'd, either with infestors or from a bling drop? And, of course, once the marines are dead it's GG.

Still, I'm having probably about 50% success against zerg now - I just always go for a timing push before mutas are out. It's like a coin flip - if I can get in their base before mutas, I win, if they get mutas, they win.

Seriously, all that needs to happen is thor air splash range needes to be tripled - it's only the size of 1 muta atm!! No magic boxing = legitimate counter for mutas.

 

Thors own mutas if playing against newbies. Good Zerg players always do the magic-box when fighting them, which makes Thors pretty crappy.

Vikings have no chance against a decent size group of mutas by the way, sure they have longer range, but since they are slower they wont be able to use it to kite them. So all that extra range will mean is one extra volley of shots before the mutas close in, and then their splash damage will take care of Vikings.

Marines and Medivacs work I guess, if the Zerg player just runs his mutas straight into them instead of flying around.

The OP isn't trolling, it just seems that you have only very basic knowledge of the game.

 

I know this is a noob question, but what should I build as protoss vs. mutas? Phoenixes?

 

Stalkers, and lots of them ^^