TvZ woes : Advice greatly appreciated

Ramza

Ok, so out of all my matchups, this is easily my worst. Hate it. I lose literally about 9/10 of all my TvZs Annoying to win games in TvT and TvP, only to lose the proceeding games to Zerg players. I need to work out this matchup so I can perform better

I just honestly don't know what to do. Read some builds but can't really seem to grasp how to handle TvZ.

I know constant pressure is the key, but I can never succeed in pressuring them enough

Any replies would be greatly appreciated in helping me with TvZ

Zombrex

Ramza wrote: »

Ok, so out of all my matchups, this is easily my worst. Hate it. I lose literally about 9/10 of all my TvZs Annoying to win games in TvT and TvP, only to lose the proceeding games to Zerg players. I need to work out this matchup so I can perform better

I just honestly don't know what to do. Read some builds but can't really seem to grasp how to handle TvZ.

I know constant pressure is the key, but I can never succeed in pressuring them enough

Any replies would be greatly appreciated in helping me with TvZ

Its funny, I was just complaining to a friend that I hate Protoss, I love getting Zerg as Terran. Maybe Zerg players are better in Silver :pac:

What is the issue, early rushes or him getting tons of Mutas?

As a side I noticed that you went from Bronze to top of your Silver division. Do you play placement matches when you get promoted from a division?

Kirby

We all have bad matchups. No worries. We've had a few matches so I'll give some build advice.

You tended to open up with MMM every time. Vary it up. Go 1-1-1 and try early banshees. Or go Early Marine/Hellion play and heavy harrass. Then expand and get siege tanks. Once you have 5 or 6 of them you can entrench into the gold expansion. Thats very hard for a zerg to break through and we usually have to get broodlords.

Or try early ghost play. That nearly ALWAYS ctaches zerg offguard. There is a good video of Idra getting Ghost rushed and rage quitting on youtube

Zombrex

Kirby wrote: »

We all have bad matchups. No worries. We've had a few matches so I'll give some build advice.

You tended to open up with MMM every time. Vary it up. Go 1-1-1 and try early banshees. Or go Early Marine/Hellion play and heavy harrass. Then expand and get siege tanks. Once you have 5 or 6 of them you can entrench into the gold expansion. Thats very hard for a zerg to break through and we usually have to get broodlords.

Or try early ghost play. That nearly ALWAYS ctaches zerg offguard. There is a good video of Idra getting Ghost rushed and rage quitting on youtube

Yeah nuking this workers is a good tactic against Zerg, as Zerg players in my experience tend not to evolve overseers and thus are weak on detection.

I've had a few very satisfying experiences nuking a zerg's workers on their second or third expansion on the high ground before they realize what is happening.

Ramza

Every single I match I try marine harass, even when it does pay off and I expand, I can never capatlise on it

And don't get me started on Mutas, omfg

Yeah, it seems like I'm on top of things, oh yeah, I scan, and see a bazillion banelings, mutas and lots of other crap, then I'm like wtf

Never know what to do, I'll try and post my replays from my TvZs from now on, got some here but will wait till my next game

And when you move division you just get places wherever you are fit to be based on wlr and points

Zombrex

Ramza wrote: »

Every single I match I try marine harass, even when it does pay off and I expand, I can never capatlise on it

And don't get me started on Mutas, omfg

Yeah, it seems like I'm on top of things, oh yeah, I scan, and see a bazillion banelings, mutas and lots of other crap, then I'm like wtf

Never know what to do, I'll try and post my replays from my TvZs from now on, got some here but will wait till my next game

And when you move division you just get places wherever you are fit to be based on wlr and points

Banshee harass I find is good against mid game Banelings, they go down very easily. Also putting extra structures on your ramp, such as supply depos at the bottom of your ramp slow them down, giving tanks a chance to take a lot of them out.

I've attached a replay where I really didn't think i would survive his push at around the 35 minute mark but managed to hold it with tanks and Mauraders despite something like 30 banelings arriving at my front door. Shows what you can do if you just keep zerg units funnelled and stop the banelings before they can take out structures to allow the rest to spread out.

Mutas your best bet is marines and Thors, but get rid of the Banelings first. There is a good video on Youtube of 30 Thors taking out 90 Mutas with hardly a scratch (though this was in the beta which was a bit different).

But as always scouting a Spire and taking it down with Banshees before it can spawn that many Mutas is the best defense against them.

Orizio

Thors/Marines/Vikings for mutas. Or hellions into banshee to harass.

That IdrA match was against Drewbie iirc.

BlitzKrieg

The best thing to do firstly is to know what your opponents do that keeps catching you out. Watch replays cause there are a set number of BO's (build orders) that zerg players open with which (sadly) are very easy to read in comparison to others. And in silver/bronze unless you harass most zerg players wont try and kill off the scv until pool hits so you can scout for quite some time.


So scouting. I usually as zerg scout at 9 (unless zerg or random opponent then I scout at 8 in case of cheese). I think terran is sort of the same. So get the 8th/9th scv you build over to your opponents base and do a ring *behind* his mineral line. What you will see will tell you alot.

The basic signs are:

no drones being made spawning pool near completion = 6/7 pool very fast group of 6 zerglings inbound, put bunker down and get one marine in there fast and you will win/ or you can try and micro your scvs with the marine to trap and kill zerglings. Either way fight off that first wave and you will have a stronger eco then him and can probably hit back fairly quickly crushing him.

14+ drones and more being made. spawning pool being built = basic one base opening your opponent is getting a steady eco and will be focusing on gettign alot of zerglings out in early game or trying for a secure expansion. Either way a wall in will protect you from early harass and you'll need to keep an eye on his natural expansion. Either way your opponent is not being aggessive giving you plenty of time to put together a good force.

here are the ones who know what they are doing:

14+ drones plus spawning pool and 1 gas. This is almost standard zerg safe opening. Its transcends into either mass speedlings/banelings with mutas or roach/hydra. Against terran its almost always speedlings/muta. As I'm not a terran player myself I wouldnt know the best counter, but I as a zerg player have had issues with terrans fast teching up to thors with mass marine. Makes the mutas pointless and the thors unless he has great micro can be used as shields for the marines and they eat muta.

14+ drones and 2nd hatchery. Fast hatchery is a zerg player going for strong economy, this is deadly if left uncontested as it essentially means that the zerg player can do anything they want once the 2nd hatch is safe. The issue with mutas is they need 4 vespine gas sources coming in constantly to be consistenly made. With this someone can amass mutas really quickly. Equally they can drum up zergling forces damn quick tech to tier 3 etc etc. Again I neither play terran nor do I use this as much as I could as even in top end silver alot of players scout for 2nd hatch first and shift their BO to fast hellions/banshee to counter. So I only use it on maps where I feel between rush distance/opponents BO it is safe. Which is not very often.

So learn the different openings and with some help here the counters to them.

Ramza

Thanks for the reply, here is a replay I had recently

Going on a losing streak tonight, can't seem to win anything =[

BlitzKrieg

Ramza wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, here is a replay I had recently

Going on a losing streak tonight, can't seem to win anything =[

Ok took a quick look at 4x speed.

Please dont take offence at what I say.

1. Your Macro for the most part is ok, a tad slow in some places (expanding) but its consistent for the most part. I didnt think to look at the resource levels at the end, but I'd say you were a tad on the rich side as you droned up quite heavily (he was on two bases and you almost had as many scvs. Dont be afraid to keep the mineral numbers low by spending them on excess supply depots/bunkers (you can sell the bunkers for the full refund if they are at full health)

2. Your Micro sucks

quite badly.

And I'm not sure if its unit awareness or simply control. If its unit awareness its not a major problem, just take some time to get an idea how to use units and what enemy units do. If its control, then its going to be simply practice and it will take time and mean a few more loses, as usually good macro compensates for bad micro initially until you start reaching higher levels.

-Hellions dont engage static defences. Hell best hellion play is to not engage at all. You kite with hellions which I thought you were doing then you didnt, hence my confusion. At that point all his defences were down in his expansion you could have ran past his defences into the main and killed an excess of drones. Or parked at the top of the ramp and roasted the zerglings as they get packed together coming after you. Either way engaging zerglings on creep is a bad idea if its open area and they can surrond you.

-banshee's also do not engage static AA. I think this one was more you not being aware that zerg spore crawlers double as stealth detection, best avoid attacking with banshees when they are around as they will eat banshees.

-Siege Tanks. Ok this is a tricky one. Two things about Siege tanks, first they are not an aggressive unit, you tend to use them in 3 ways. As defence that moves up as you expand, As support when dropped in with medivacs along with marines/marauders to hold a position, as the cornerstone to an army that is slowly moving up the map point to point. Secondly Siege Tanks never lead an army as they are again surprisingly weak, more so when on the move as their offensive power is greatly diminished and they will not deter any opposing units so putting your army between the siege tanks and his army is the best solution as it will allow them to deal substantial damage while they are clogged up in your forces. Zerglings are quite good surprisingly at killing siege tanks since one of the earlier patches as they can close the distance and siege tanks in siege mode cant shoot units in melee range. So out of position siege tanks = dead against any zerg player.

-SCV small point, as Terran keep your priorities. You want to be secure first, so you need only 1 scv away from the mineral line at first to put down supply bunker, then a 2nd to scout. Rarely would you need to pull more. Less of all to grab a watchtower. Send a marine to do this. Esp as holding them is more important to zerg then it is to Terran, you dont need to have them until you have at least rax up which at that point a marine will do better.



-Scouting, checking out your opponent is only half the battle, reacting accordingly is the second. You sort of did this, but it was too slow. He went hatch first and droned up excessively. You actually could have built two rax and spammed marines up to his expansion and won in the first 4 minutes. He had 2 queens and a single spine crawler in his main base when you had 4 marines and building a factory. You scouted the expansion (which if you microd your scv you could have delayed a bit. but thats not a major issue) and he didnt get much in the way of units for quite some time. You were partially right to go hellions, but they came too late. You only need 2 to put the hurt on and you waited for 3. Banshees was also correct but poor unit awareness lost them. when he went hydra (which is weird and not a good decision) you picked siege tanks which were again the right choice, but they were poorly managed. So honestly you were going the right way just that you didnt seem to be sure of how to use your units.

Containment This is a bit more washy, but at the mid point after your failed harrasments, you knew your opponent had amassed an army and you had done little to wear it down. Your priority here should shift from assault to containment, you want your opponent to break his army on yours for a much larger cost then to you.

That means you want him to meet on your terms, This is a point where his units are weakest and yours strongest.

You knew his unit make up -speedling, baneling and hydra. All land based.

Speedlings are best in open fields, worse in chokes, either your base door or near your gold expansion where you can force them into tight spaces.

Banelings eat marines but siege tanks can decimate them at range.

Hydralisks are slow off the creep and are again weak to siege tanks.

The best thing for you was to set up bunkers either near the gold or in your base and siege up your tanks behind them. Better near the gold if you want to keep expanding yourself obviously which is needed. But in your base would have been easier to defend. You had alot of siege tanks (6+ at one point) them behind bunkers which will protect marines from banelings and give small range boost would have decimated his army and you could have pushed back straight away destroying his expansion. But in mid-late game Terran needs to start drawing battlelines and containing your opponent. Dont let the creep spread, use scan or raven to find creep tumors and kill them. Your opponent was horribly slow at teching up so ultralisks were unlikely for a while.

Containment is something terran does well, Zerg *can* do early with zerglings/muta. While moving mobs like MMM, hydra/roach stalker/collossi are for pressure and not containing.

Ramza

Thanks for the info, maybe I could add you for some games?

seraphimvc

TvZ :P basically what blitz said can help you to really improve your play overall. but, if you want to 'win your way to diamond', you dont care if people rage you and you probably will have a hard time when you try to play normal games in diamond:P try them:

1. 2 port banshee, 2/3 banshee go in before 9mins and pumping nonstop or different follow-up strategy depends on the situation
2. pure marines(~10 would be best) push at 5mins
3. MM push at 7mins

with some micro and remember to slightly hide your tech and always do a scan before you move out, if you see he has big army = he is low drone = you keep making army and go in attack in the next 3-5 mins(he will need to pump drone during this period, if he doesnt, keep macro up).

as for the replay, you should be able to win:

1. leap frog with your tanks, always put 1-3 tanks behind your main army, lure him with some kiting to the tanks range, gg.
2. get upgrades, he has 2 armor. click on the units while you scan.

it was a free win for you basically - ling/bling/hydras are the worst compo vs tanks. get a 70/30 compo of maruaders with marines and tank upgrade you win straight away.

p/s: try to add you but fail :pac: is it not ramza, code 588?

Ramza

Ramza 846

And thanks for info!

I'm usually on the sc.ie chat channel on Bnet

seraphimvc

may need to change your code in the friend code thread :P

and another advice, midnight tend to have alot of hardcore players :P and bear in mind that dont play the game when you are tired(seeing how early morning this is), unless you just wake up like me :P

Arciphel

That post by Blitz is one of the best I have seen in my (admittedly short) time playing SC2 and checking this forum Well done for taking the time to commit it all to screen,

brimur69

Arciphel wrote: »

That post by Blitz is one of the best I have seen in my (admittedly short) time playing SC2 and checking this forum Well done for taking the time to commit it all to screen,

Seconded!

Blinn

Something you have to be aware of when playing against zerg is how their economy works. They can make workers a lot faster than you, but can't make units at the same time.

If you're aware of this simple fact you can hurt and annoy zergs a lot by simply doing small things like... getting a decent amount of marines, moving towards his base, then going home. Do this often- feign aggression to force units to be made while getting a more cost effective army yourself so when the fight comes he has few drones.

Also ctrl clicking marines, stimming and running away the instant you see banelings while your sieged tanks and marauders are dealing with it is like the number 1 thing that lets me beat zergs in masters.

Khazidhea

Just a solid build will get u in diamond (masters).


4-5 marine 1 hellion push into banshees is very strong. Like really strong. Dont suicide ur units if something is crazy going on, like 1 base banelings or just lots of spines\spores.

2 rax (no gas korean style) marine\scv allin or even 4 rax is also one of the things I used to do. It requires micro, but the again your opponents arent the best micro players either, right? And marien step-shoot micro is essential for terran.


And while I mostly agree with what Blitz said, one thing is wrong for me. 9 scout is too early. 8 scout is WAAAAY to early. 10 depo on ramp, 12 rax on ramp and 13 scout. I complete this wall with a factory and put the first depo the way I can put a couple more buildings to form a 2nd layer for a baneling-proof wall.

BlitzKrieg

And while I mostly agree with what Blitz said, one thing is wrong for me. 9 scout is too early. 8 scout is WAAAAY to early.

As I said with zerg because you get supply blocked at 9 waiting for an overlord to pop its better to do first scout there which is mostly for unusual BO. You scout again either with overlord or the first zergling at around 14-16. But thats a zerg scout routine, I dont know when is the best for terran or protoss. 8 scout is purely because of random or anti cheese. On a map like steppes of war in a ZvZ if you fail to scout early then a 7 pool can really f*ck you up in a zerg mirror as its a short rush distance.

Khazidhea

Oh ZvZ ... my apologise, I thought it was TvZ Im so dumb

To recover, a little trick in tvz: on 4 player maps scout with ur 11th scv in the direction of close-air spawn, u might c an overlod. Then send him right back to mining and dont forget 12 rax.

Orizio

Khazidhea wrote: »

Just a solid build will get u in diamond (masters).


4-5 marine 1 hellion push into banshees is very strong. Like really strong. Dont suicide ur units if something is crazy going on, like 1 base banelings or just lots of spines\spores.

2 rax (no gas korean style) marine\scv allin or even 4 rax is also one of the things I used to do. It requires micro, but the again your opponents arent the best micro players either, right? And marien step-shoot micro is essential for terran.


And while I mostly agree with what Blitz said, one thing is wrong for me. 9 scout is too early. 8 scout is WAAAAY to early. 10 depo on ramp, 12 rax on ramp and 13 scout. I complete this wall with a factory and put the first depo the way I can put a couple more buildings to form a 2nd layer for a baneling-proof wall.

How is this done?

BlitzKrieg

scoot and shoot (a quick google will pop up some vids/guides of varying quality)

Its what I'm focusing on improving with my hydras/roaches atm (aswell as burrow micro)

It can be used with any ranged unit, but with marines its stupidly poweful due to the numbers you can mass

essentially you are using the move and attack move functions to shift your marines away from your opponents while still delivering a substantial amount of damage.

Its good against units that need to use melee or get surronds (like zerglings) or have shorter range then your unit (roaches) there's a nack to it which takes mostly practice and time and for most effeciency you need to be really comfortable with hotkeys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpYOERUEAl8

Tenger

I watched a review where the T player uses the Stop hotkey to make his marines stop and shoot, then clicks elsewhere, hits Stop, they shoot, click.

seraphimvc

kiting?? move -> A + move or some people like to use S. it is the war3's orb walking version in sc, right?

Zombrex

Ramza wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, here is a replay I had recently

Going on a losing streak tonight, can't seem to win anything =[

Had a quick x8 speed run through of that game. I really think if he had kept up the Banshee harass you probably would have won comfortably. Two banshees managed to take out the entire set of workers for his expansion. Imagine if while doing that you had a few more baking and could over whelm the spore crawler at his main and take out his workers there. While he has to divert all resources back to worker production you can start picking off his tech structures or start harassing his units.

It also would have helped to scout the expansion going up. I always think it is a good idea to have a unit at his expansion site in order to know at the very least he has killed it because his attention has turned to getting an expansion.

When he has expanded to fast tech and fast build units you aren't going to kill him in a straight unit on unit push. You need to target his weakness, which is what you started with the banshee harass but didn't keep up.

Because he expanded and then teched to Banelings you are so far ahead on air tech that you should able to have out banshees and vikings faster than he can keep up, particularly if the banshee scouting and harass stops any Spire going down.

As Day9 says, don't panic and think he has a million zerglings I need a million marines. You won't catch up with him. Target his weaknesses. He is has expanded and making a large land army, he won't therefore have teched far with air. Bunker down where you are weak (eg tanks at main) and attack with air until you have got him scrambling to defend against you.

Hope that helps, I'm still learning myself so I'm sure there are some mistakes in there

If you are ever up for a game I'm Wick #810, give me a shout I'm always looking for sparing partner

Blinn

Wicknight wrote: »

a few more baking

This rules. Get some lings cookin, banshees baking and an immortal on the grill.

Zombrex

Blinn wrote: »

This rules. Get some lings cookin, banshees baking and an immortal on the grill.

Ummm, lings ...

seraphimvc

ohya ramza, i forget to tell you that it is best not to a-move with medivac with your army together(it wont efficiently heal if it keep moving with the army). just put medivacs follow(press move) your army.

i wonder how do lings taste like....hmmm

Blinn

seraphimvc wrote: »

ohya ramza, i forget to tell you that it is best not to a-move with medivac with your army together(it wont heal when it moves with the army). just put medivacs follow(press move) your army.

This is not true...

seraphimvc

rephrased. caused' i played a few games with ramza and was wondering his medivac didnt heal the marines that much as i expected. the terran friend told me this medivac move thing :pac: i am not entirely sure really but it seems people always use a separate group for medivac anyway.

Jonny7

Some other poster mentioned this I think and its great

Just put zerg under pressure

This causes him to sacrifice economy, to build defensive zerglings..

The more zerglings and spinecrawlers he makes, the poorer he gets (compared to your nonstop scvs)

He also gets behind in tech, thats where banshees come in

Once you learn a nice little build order and manage to get better at this you can stay one step ahead of zerg, which is the key to T v Z, however if you back off and let him "breathe" then he'll get big and thats not good

Lastly, just for fun, bring your units right up to the edge of his creep and then backing off.. you'll notice it freaks him out and usually stops building drones each time

Of course if he is IMNestea, then he defends his base with 1 zergling and calmly keeps building drones

ps. the current GSL - www.gomtv.net is one of the most interesting ways of learning and being entertained at the same time, some of the games should be free to watch