So in trying to improve my macro I've been doing very marine heavy builds and just trying not to miss production cycles.
My problem is in TvT and my marines just disintegrating in siege lines. Is there something I can do control wise to deal with this? It would be something to start incorporating in as well.
The main thing is, I don't want to change my build. If it means I lose that matchup for now, I lose it.
Posted Apr 8, 2012, 4:41 AM UTC
Attack when they are unsieged. Expand like crazy as he builds up his army.
You can rebuild your army much faster than a mech terran, take advantage of this.
You are also more mobile. Drop, attack where he isnt.
If you insist on bio-heavy play in TvT, why not mix in some marauders? They're not amazing against tanks, but they're a heck of a lot better than marines. Seems like a good logical progression from mass-marine macro practice - now you need different addons and more gas, too.
Marines are cheap units. Sure, they kick ass with upgrades etc, but they are cheap units (the cheapest for T). Never send cheap units into splash damage. This applies to all race combinations for nearly every situation.
Mix in a ghost or 2 for nukes! Nukes are great for forcing an unsiege; then you can stim and run in with your marines. After all the nerfs to ghosts lately people don't really expect to see them as often, especially in tvt.
Especially good if you can EMP away their scans first on their CCs with a drop so they can't just scan and tankasplode you. Obviously this is a problem if you can't get in and out of their bases with a Ghost/medivac. Also obviously doesn't work if you have a ton of CCs you'd have to EMP to make it work.
I once saw a video that showed how to deal with siege lines with just marines. You had to split your marines into small clumps and MOVE them instead of A-MOVING them. Take steps, and keep getting closer to the tanks and firing.
Not sure, though. I play Zerg. I have enough trouble as it is.
The main thing is, I don't want to change my build. If it means I lose that matchup for now, I lose it
Get used to losing this matchup.
Tanks eat marines. I'm pretty sure marines are the worst unit against tanks other than maybe banelings, given that lings move fast enough to get close.
With careful (meticulous) spreading and some cute drop-on-top shit, you might be able to break smallt-to-medium numbers of tanks, but if he's well fortified you're pretty much fucked.
I take it you build medivacs as a support? If so, throw in some Vikings for air superiority, map control and vision. What you normally do is you have two opposing tank lines, and whoever gets vision can shoot as soon as scans run out for both parties. So even if you refuse to build tanks against tanks, some vikings may help in discovering any holes.
You absolutely have to take map vision. Marines will crush if you catch the opponent unsieged midway map, and even if he sieges on time you run your bioball away and his advance is delayed for a long time and you can make more stuff meanwhile. If you let him walk to your base and siege up in range of your stuff, you lost. You have to know when he is coming and do what you need to to stop his advance. Take the towers, send scouting marines or vikings, be liberal with scans.
That said, marine are an aggressive unit, not a unit you want to max out on. Marines cost 50 bucks a supply space, so if you max out on marines you're going to have the cheapest possible army - you have a huge income that you cannot spend and your opponent who's building expensive per supply units can still build more stuff and have a much more expensive army than you. With marines you always want to trade them, to cause damage and to lose them so that you can keep spending your income.
Sooner or later you need to transition out of marines into a more powerful composition.
Idk, just try to pick your fights. I've been doing marines only lately, just because it's simple and lets me focus on macro and getting better at that. Usually I get my macro up and I can afford to rebuild my army many times over but my army can be wiped out in a moment by siege tanks and then I lose the game while I'm resupplying. I can't afford to wait for can't opponent to unsiege because I'm at 200/200 and floating thousands of minerals so I try to make sure my upgrades are 3/3 asap, try to do drops, scout expos and snipe them.
When I do win it's usually because I've starved the opponent out.
edit: Goal is not to win but to improve macro, I'm in bronze :) using Halby's mineral drill
Watched the Halby drill earlier. I get why he suggests queuing but I just can't bring myself to do it.
But yes I'm trying something similar.
As you get better you should be queuing less, for myself the queuing is necessary :)
If the tanks are unprotected, just drop on top of them. If they are, then have a medivac move drop while your army is moving in. I can't do it myself, but I'm practicing :D
basically you do your split like you would v banelings, just in reverse. so move your small groups closer to the tanks and spread out. if you do it correctly it feels great.
you really can't attack into siege lines with marines, best thing is to have map control and catch him unsieged, or run past him when he is on his way to your base and kill his base
This seems like something I can do and decent practice as well.
Again, I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just more worried about improving macro wise than winning. Just disheartening to see a double supply gap erased instantly.
EDIT: Expanding like crazy and keeping map control seems to be working to contain and starve my opponent for now.