Source
r/starcraft2_class•
amphetamine

[TvT] Defending against cloaked banshees in an early bio build

[high silver if it matters]

If I manage to scout a [likely] cloaked banshee production while I'm still on one base and in the middle of a standard MM build, what's my best course of action to get sufficient detection and defense up at my main?

At this point I'm usually rallying my army to a forward point nearer to the opponent's base, and don't have a lot of defense at my main. Do I pull my marines back and build up my energy for scans? Leave my army in place but set the new rally point near my CC and build turrets?

Since this is how the last occurences played out- let's assume that I've scouted it just as the tech lab is going down, and therefore I have only the 3 minutes for my opponent's banshee cloak to research and his travel time to my base.

Am I already messing up my progression to allow this to happen in the first place? Should I have built a couple turrets before letting myself get so vulnerable?

Thanks in advance for any advice/help!

I don't have any replays of this, I'm afraid. I will save the next one if it comes up.

tl;dr: He'll arrive with his two cloaked banshees in ~3 minutes. I have no detection and an out-of-position marine army. What do I do?

Posted Aug 15, 2011, 12:04 AM UTC

415
inediblebuffalo•

You have 3 minutes to make marines and save for scans. That is more than enough time.

You can delay your attack, kill the banshees or setup turrets. Then go kill him with your superior army.

3
amphetamineOP•

yeah, I agree that it's sufficient time if my production is up to par. My question was which path is generally optimal (I understand there are variables).

Like.. are turrets a waste of minerals? Am I better off building bunkers and putting some marines in them (and using scans)? I would already have stim by this point. And I probably won't have time to research the turret range upgrade.

1
inediblebuffalo•

If you have the resources to spare, adding a turret to each base will make dealing with any banshees easier for the rest of the game, giving you more time to focus on macro and such.

Keeping marines and scans is a short term solution that is better if you are already gonna kill him soon.

2
amphetamineOP•

thanks for your answers

1
sora1607•

Do 1-1-1 build. Swap Starport to either rax and fact that had tech lab. Make a raven, follow by a viking. You should have the raven out by the time banshee comes to your base. You should keep on making marines and you will be able to easily deflect the banshee with marine/raven. If the opponent waits for more than one banshee, you will have enough time to get out the viking.

2
amphetamineOP•

I've read a lot of mentions of 1-1-1, but haven't seen an authoritative build order for this. Do you have a link?

1
sora1607•

Try the liquidpedia. It's a very common terran build and I remember seeing it there. Otherwise, just get 14 gas, 15 orbital, 19/20 gas, fact when you get 100 gas, starport right after and swap. Just remember to not get supply blocked and constantly making marine/scv. Make a hellion too for map control

1
amphetamineOP•

thanks

edit: here's the link if anyone else would like it

1
G_Morgan•

FTR you can delay the second gas until after the factory without delaying the starport. You will have just enough gas to build the port exactly as the factory finishes. It lets you expand earlier or get more marines out.

Of course you then need to be more judicious in what units you build. You can't expand at 6:30 and build out of everything. Also you won't be able to jump immediately into gas heavy production out of both the port and the fact. Which you choose depends on your scouting.

I know normally we say "you can't afford this" but the flexibility is worthwhile.

2
posting_from_work•

1-rax builds that go for a very fast expansion (cc built right next to the main orbital command) with initial marines do really well against cloaked banshee harass. Either the first banshee will harass immediately without cloak, leaving it vulnerable to marines, or by the time cloak finishes you have twice as many scans available, a whole ton of marines, & can replace SCVs really quickly if your opponent ineptly goes for your mineral line (supposed to shoot at marines if defending player has expanded)

Watch some GSL matches from before mech play / hellion openers were popular :-)

2
amphetamineOP•

thanks for the info, will look for the replays

1
G_Morgan•

The other cool thing about fast expand against banshees is that even if he does a lot of damage he'll still probably be behind. He literally has to kill 20 SCVs to catch up. Any sort of half way competent shut down leaves you way ahead.

You also have double OCs for scans.

2
PPewt•

Don't 3rax, get stim relatively early, get an engineering bay relatively early, be on 2 orbitals (more scans).

I also suggest avoiding 1/1/1; non-pro players (and especially sub-masters players) do not have good enough banshee control to need vikings/ravens until stim, so just FE and use Marines since greed that you're essentially guaranteed to get away with is always nice.

2
amphetamineOP•

thanks for the tips

1