I don't have too much interest in playing Terran, but I'd like this information mostly to better understand what I'm up against.
Starcraft – What are the popular openings / builds for Terran in StarCraft 2
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There is no unit that will magically let you beat a Zerg air mix, even Thors fall to mass Muta with a little micro. Instead let's break down what there is and discuss possibilities:
One of the things you need to ask yourself is: Is he Corruptor heavy or Muta heavy? This question will influence the result. If he's Corruptor heavy you're going to want more of a ground response. If he's Muta heavy, you're going to want more of an air response. I'll break down units for you based on this decision.
Corruptor Heavy
This is usually an indication he's going Broodlords, so its not a bad idea to build some extra Thor/Phoenix/Corruptor
- Marines. Any Terran bio structure will have these. They're more cost effective than Muta and with Stim they'll really tear through them. Highly recommended.
- Ghosts. Zerg air is all bio, and a full Ghost gets 8 shots (360hp) which means that Ghosts eat through Muta. When they're out of energy, you're left with a beefy unit (100hp) with +light damage (and Muta are light). Always a good choice.
- Thor. Without SCV, Thor tend to die to Muta very quickly. What's worse, SCVs get hit by bounce. Unless you have a bunch of these guys backed by 15+ SCVs I wouldn't make them the bulk of my strategy (plus corruption will really kill them).
- Missile Turrets. Surprisingly effective vs Muta, especially if you get the range/armor upgrades.
- Hydralisks. For a high dps unit you can't beat the Hydra. Their low hp means you're going to want to engage on creep where you can abuse your longer range.
- Infestors. AMAZING against Muta, especially with Hydra. Use fungal growth and "lol" at your opponent as he watches his 50+ Muta helplessly die.
- Queens. Mass queens are nasty anti, and the healing means you can win this battle without losing a single one (and not spending any gas either).
- Stalkers. Blink micro is the way to go. If he's big enough to push, don't blink in. Instead blink out Stalkers at low HP, they have a longer range than Muta.
- High Templar. You actually aren't going to get a ton of damage in with these as Muta are very fast, but sometimes you have to work with what you got, and these aren't bad.
- Archon. Too slow, too short range, skip them.
Muta Heavy
Against a Muta heavy force you're going to have more success with air to air as every air to air unit stomps on Muta (and breaks even with Corruptors). You're going to want to back this up with a mineral heavy ground force (Queen/Marine/Stalker).
- Phoenix. The anti Muta; they move while they shoot and have a longer range and faster speed. If he chases you he's dead.
- Voidray. Not the best as the Corruptors will eat them up, but if you can get charged you'll win. To help charge a large force spread them out and do NOT focus fire.
- Carriers. Completely nullify the bounce. Unfortunately you die fast to Corruptors so focus fire them down first.
- Corruptors. This should be obvious: Corruptors beat Muta.
- Muta. Ok, who has the bigger Muta ball. The reality of this battle is, if you can get off 1 fungal growth, you'll win almost instantly.
- Vikings. Longer range means you're going to have to harass with these. Don't get into a straight up battle unless you have backup or superior force.
- Battlecruisers. Not great vs Muta, but better than nothing. Bring some SCVs if you want to win.
- Ravens. Little known fact: most large air forces are decimated by Seeker Missile... with the exception of well played Mutalisks. This is very much an estimation of your opponent. If he hasn't shown heavy micro, this is a good way to go. If he has, it is unlikely Seeker Missile will be useful. It's worth noting that both of the Raven's other abilities work against Zerg Air, so it's still useful to keep a couple of these around.
Remember, if you see Muta/Corruptor you need to think "How can I use what I have?" NOT "What should I build?"
It sounds like you're building a large army and using it to gain map control, but then are falling prey to things like drops and backdooring.
If you have map control your first thought should never be: Crush my opponent, as you're essentially sacrificing an advantage (map control) for an unsure victory (because he doesn't control the map doesn't mean he can't take you). Instead your thought should be: take the map. I think you'll find this change in philosophy will lead to situations where you have a much more powerful economy than him and you're able to kill him with attrition.
Now if you're falling prey to things like BD here is a quick check list for you:
- Are you scouting? an Observer should be the first thing you build out of Robo. If you don't go Robo, a Hallucination works just as well. Sometimes scouting means sacrificing some Zealots in a pointless charge to just get inside his base.
- If you're scouting, are you seeing it coming? Overlords on the edge of your base, Starport with Reactor + 3 Rax, all of these are indicative of certain strategies you should watch out for.
- If you see it coming, how are you responding? If you have map control that means you should be able to respond quickly. Shutting down these back door attempts is often a bigger victory than a straight up conflict
- Finally, Do you have map control? If you don't have map control that means he does, and if he's beating you with map control then your problem is not "how do I deal with a base trade?" but rather, how do I regain the advantage.
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Best Answer
There are literally dozens of Terran builds and possibly hundreds of Cheeses. As a result I'm going to try and lay out a couple of the broad strokes, but unlike Protoss or Zerg these are not going to be succinct build orders.
The three major builds in Terran play are:
Obviously there is a lot of variation and overlap between these builds but I'm going to try and lay out the broad strokes here.
Terran bio revolves around building a Marine/Marauder/Medivac force for a nice timing push. This is sometimes called the MMM build. Openings usually consist of 3 Barracks (sometimes called Rax), 2 with techlabs and 1 with a reactor. A Terran economy can readily support 3 Barracks . The timing push here usually comes at about 40 food with a heavy Marauder/Marine force with Stim. The build continues to evolve into the late game by adding on a Factory and Starport for Medivac support. Medivacs are key to Stim based play, as any force that stims is necessarily at reduced HP for the remainder of the game. Additionally, Medivac's provide for drops which increases the mobility of your army. You can also transition into Bio mech, or add Ghosts on for TvP.
Terran Mech grew out of early hellion harass. This usually involved building one Barracks before going to 2 Factory and pumping out hellions for early harass and then transitioning into a more stable Thor/Siege tank force. This is especially effective vs Zerg players going Muta/Ling as upgraded Hellions are powerful vs Zerglings and Thors do splash damage to Mutalisk. Additionally, heavy Siege tank forces are effective vs Hydra/Roach armies. Top Zerg players (such as Artosis and IdrA) have said that Terran Mech is so powerful it is "Broken" (a term to mean unbalanced) against Zerg. A key point to remember is that the initial Barracks can be used for scouting or to produce Marines (which help an early Mech army).
The 1:1:1 was first popularized by the player The Little One (TLO) and has become the standard in TvT play. The name derives from having one of each unit producing structure: 1 Barracks, 1 Factory, 1 Starport. The synergy that units from these buildings provide have cause this build to become increasingly popular outside of TvT play. The basic idea here is to build a Marine, Tank, Viking force, using the Vikings to give Line of Sight to the Siege tanks (which can fire further than they can see) and using Marines to fight off Air harass.
One of the important points of this strategy is to use Vikings to establish air dominance. In a losing battle, the Vikings can always land and wait for Marine support (as Vikings are an air to air unit). The power from this build comes in its flexibility. Usually 1 techlab and 2 reactors, these addons can quickly be switched, allowing the deployment of Banshees (once air superiority has been obtained) and Hellions, or swapping to Marauders to break a Siege tank grouping. Unless there are serious balance changes in the future a number of SC2 Commentators (Huk, Day9) have suggested that this will become the standard Terran play.
I'll briefly mention a couple of the standard Terran Cheese strategies.
6 Rax into Reaper harass is a popular TvP strategy, as early reapers built from a proxy Rax (a Barracks built close to the opponent) will arrive before the Protoss has Stalkers and thus are unbeatable with good micro.
Banshee rush, especially against Zerg opponents has also been popular as Zerg does not have a staple unit before Tier 2 that can attack air.
Thor drops (often a part of mech builds, or biomech) are very effective. While rushing thor drops can be considered a Cheese, use of them as part of a normal build is present at even the competitive level.
Standard Terran opening is:
How to read these: The number indicates the number of Supply you should have when you build your first structure. This number is usually SCVs but may include other units.