Life in the Middle 18/03/2012

Over the last week I have been working hard on my macro and using bio more to constantly harass the enemy. In team games I have been practicing with mass Marines and drops, something someone suggested, to improve my control and drop effectiveness. Team games are very useful in certain situations; they are less stressful and they give you a chance to practice builds and try different units without risking your MMR. Doing damage with drops and getting out alive is something vital to learn as a Terran and well worth spending a lot of time practising on.

I think I'm getting to the point where I macro too much sometimes; I think 90 SCVs is probably too many.  

At the moment the only match-up I am consistently struggling with is TvZ. For the most part I am doing a 6 Hellion fast expand but just can't seem to do any damage when they go mass Zergling. Even without Banelings I find mass Zergling hard to deal with. More Hellions seem like they should be the answer but I don't like to use Hellions too much as the game progresses as they are so weak against Raoches and Mutas. The main point of having Hellions outside the Zerg's base is to deny creep but they can also contain them on two bases for a while and force them to make extra Zerglings.

Early Roaches make Hellions less useful in the early game.

Sometimes when I get frustrated I go for fast Siege Tanks or Banshees instead of playing the builds I have properly learnt which is bad as it normally leads to me throwing the game because I'm annoyed. I need to work on reacting better to losing and to make sure I always know why I lost. I am someone who normally has a very calm disposition but StarCraft 2 has the ability to make me rage like nothing else can and this seems to happen to a lot of others too. I was playing earlier and people kept raging at me, saying stuff 'like nice a-move', when I had been stutter stepping my ass off and choosing my engagements wisely.  

So. Many. Banelings.

One thing I have learned about TvP is to never engage in a choke; especially when the opponent has splash damage units. Against a Protoss you always want to be able to stutter step backwards and spread out to form a good concave, even when they don't have splash damage. My current strategy is a one Rax fast expand, adding on another two barracks and two gases after the expansion is down, and going for fast upgrades and a reactor Starport. I like this build as it allows me to get out early Medivacs, which help to negate how effective forcefields can be in the early game.

O cheers buddy; this from a guy who was 40 supply down and rushed to Colossus without Sentrys.

In TvT I am focusing on bio at the moment, leaving Siege Tanks until later in the game, and using Medivacs and run-bys to out-position my opponents. Having to know where everything is so that I don't get caught out has really improved my map awareness and forced me to get better at scouting the whole map. I am enjoying the challenge of TvT at the moment; it's really testing my ability to micro and split more than how I used to play. Reapers are great to open with in TvT as you can normally kill some SCVs with just one and then use it to scout when Marines start to come.

Saw it coming so set up a flank and crushed.

At the moment I am not really sure what to do against Infestors, I always try split but still seem to lose a lot of units to fungal growth, is it worth getting out Ghosts now that they have been nerfed? Apart from to EMP Infestors is there any point to Ghosts any more? Thank you for reading, you can follow this blog from the pane to the right and find me on Twitter (@RobinTerran) if you so desire.