Hope you had a great Christmas and are ready to get back on track to dominating your league in Starcraft 2!
Personally I had a wonderful time with family and lots of great food to go with it. How was your Christmas?
Today's Q&A is going to focus on Protoss, but the general ideas will apply to all 3 races. So if you've been having trouble dealing with Marines and Marauders you need to read this post, it should help you overcome this powerful rush and win more of your matches vs Terran.
Here's the QUESTION:
As Protoss: "I still need help with the marine and marauder rush if anyone has ideas. Thanks 
"
ANSWER:
Since Starcraft 2 is such a dynamic game and is still very new, there's a lot of different ways you could get attacked early with Marines and Marauders. There's a 2 Barracks timing push that Terran players will use to get an expansion out, there's also a 3 Barracks all-in type Marine & Marauder push which will come a little later but have more units in it.
Regardless of how you're getting rushed by Marines and Marauders, I'm going to assume two things:
- It's too early for you to have High Templar
- It's too early for you to have enough Colossi
If you fast tech to Colossi you may be able to get 1 or 2 out, but you'll be sacrificing too many Gateway units to get them, so I wouldn't suggest it.
Because of these two things, it basically boils down to Gateway units vs Barracks units.
Now if you read forums, you'll probably get the feeling that Barracks units own Gateway units always, no matter what. But this just isn't true!
It may be easier to control Barracks units (stim, attack-move), but a skilled Protoss player has some powerful abilities at his disposal.
So if you're having trouble with this type of early aggression from Terran, you need to start practicing with Sentries. Sentries alone can turn the battle into something you'd lose handily into a win, but it's harder than just attack-moving.
Sentries have 2 abilities that make them an essential part of your army:
- Guardian Shield
- Force Field
Guardian Shield: This ability costs 75 energy and lasts 15 seconds. It will put up a bubble of protection around the Sentry that activates it. Every one of your units inside the bubble will take 2 less damage per shot from incoming ranged attackers.
This will take Marines down from 5 damage (6dmg – 1 armor) to 3 damage per hit, which is half of their normal dmg! (Total hits to kill 1 Zealot: 45)
It also reduces Marauders damage from 9 to 7 against your Zealots and Sentries, with not as big of an effect against your Stalkers (19 to 17).
Using Guardian Shield alone will help you win more battles against Terran infantry. When you use it with the Sentry's second ability your army will become even more powerful.
Force Field: This ability costs 50 energy (which is cheap!) and each Force Field lasts for 15 seconds. When you're being attacked you can use Force Fields in a variety of ways to give you the advantage in the battle.
If you have a lot of Zealots, put Force Fields behind the Terran army to prevent them from kiting, all they will be able to do is sit and die. If you have a more ranged army, use Force Fields to split the Terran forces and contain them in a small area so they can't get a big concave on your army.
When you place a Force Field, any unit under the spot where you put it will be pushed to the outside of the field. With proper placement you can cut units out of the Terran army so they are too far away to do damage while you kill the units closer to you.
If you have a Colossus, you can use Force Fields to keep the majority of units out of range while you kill them from afar with your lasers.
So if you play Protoss, it's very important that you use Sentries to you advantage to win against the early M&M aggression. It won't give you an auto-win though, it will take practice to use Force Fields right and remember to put up that Guardian Shield.
Other Things To Think About
No matter what race you play, you've always got to do a few things to avoid being killed in the early game.
First of all you need a build order to follow. If you just play by feel every game then you aren't making the most of your resources and you could probably have more units out than you do. Watch pro replays and find a build order that you like and practice, practice, practice!
Secondly, knowing what your opponent is doing is very important. Don't stay in your base and hope that your opponent isn't doing a certain strategy. Send troops out once in awhile to scout the map, take Xel'Naga watch towers and check out your opponent's base to see what he's up to. The more of the map that you can see the better!
Third, get to know your units if you haven't yet. By knowing which of your units is armored or light, and what enemy units will do extra damage to them you will have an advantage over people who don't. And not knowing everything you can about the game puts you at a big disadvantage no matter what.
Try this stuff out and let me know if it helps you in your games against those pesky Terran players (like me!)
