"3RAXSTIM" is a strategy for opening a round while playing as Terran in Starcraft 2. This is NOT an all-in strategy and can smoothly transition into a macro game if the timing attack doesn't end the game. The initial push WILL win you a lot of games if handled properly, but if they survive, you'll still be in the lead.Special thanks to Razklath for all his help.
Where I Learned 3 Rax Stim and How it's Worked for Me
I learned how to open with 3rax stim from the viewers of my twitch.tv stream. I was low silver at the time and was probably losing 60% of my rounds on my way to a demotion to bronze. I was facing guys who were in the bronze league (and not top 8) who were slightly favored in the pre-game. A viewer named Razklath said "You are trying to do too much. I think you need to do something more simple until your control improves." We did a few practice rounds where he emphasized what needed to be done, how to judge my performance, etc and I was off.
Starting with my first round after learning the opener through the next day I went 24-4. I was promoted to gold 2 days later and was enjoying Starcraft more than I ever have.
Video example, build order, and guide after the jump
Starting with my first round after learning the opener through the next day I went 24-4. I was promoted to gold 2 days later and was enjoying Starcraft more than I ever have.
Video example, build order, and guide after the jump
"Keep Building SCVs" and The Foundation of Good Play
When you watch a replay you should just click on your command center (CC) and see if you always have an SCV in production. If that building stops producing SCVs for any reason other than to transform into an orbital command center (OC) or a planetary fortress (planetary) then you need to pay more attention to your macro game. PERIOD. If it means you have to queue up an SCV behind each one in production to help you remember, do so. Just don't queue more than 2 (one building, one on deck).
Hotkey ALL the things... seriously... hotkey your army, CCs, production facilities, etc and make sure you're always producing units and always building SCVs. Cycle around and double check everything... ALL the time. If you have an idle production facility (barracks, factory, starport) then you're losing. Also, hotkeying your stuff makes it easier to snap the camera to what you want to see with a double tap of the key.
DON'T WATCH YOUR ARMY. If you ever played basketball... the floor will be there, you don't need to look at it when you dribble. A-Move your army whenever they are moving and then GO BACK TO MACRO. Make sure you're always building SCVs, units, and supply depots.
You can cycle through different units INSIDE a control group by pressing TAB. That means you can have a factory and a starport on the same number. When you press that number it will highlight what is currently active. So, if you want 2 hellions and a banshee and your buildings are on "3" you'd press 3ee'TAB'e. This also helps if you want to move out with marines/tanks/whatever that all have different special abilities. If you're running with a pack of marines and siege tanks and you want to siege up and stim you'd press 1e'TAB't. That allows for less control groups (if you can get used to pressing tab).
Every time you think of it, select your army and re-hotkey them to include all the units.
PLAY AS IF YOU'RE LOSING. That sounds defeatist, but think about it this way, you walk in and take out 2 queens, 12 roaches, and his expo and let your macro slip (not producing SCVs or units, not expanding or building supply depots). He finds a way to stay alive and now all that hard work you just put in is for nothing.
If the push is stopped, leave a marine as a scout for the expo so you know if you're "safe" and can macro or if he's transitioned into a 1 base all in (aka going to cut off production of everything but units to mass up a huge but unsustainable army). In this same vein you want to stim a solo marine ahead when you can so you have an idea what's ahead of you. No use losing your army to 4 sieged tanks on the high ground if you don't have to.
REMEMBER THAT THIS IS AN OPENER... NOT AN ALL IN. What that means is if you feel stuffed by what your enemy has set up at his base don't just sacrifice all your units in a desperation move. You can always drop back and macro. You should be way ahead in supply regardless of what he does and have enough SCVs to saturate your natural expansion as soon as it's ready to go.
My Build Order and Notes to Myself:
(aka what I had up on a second screen while learning)
BUILD AN SCV FIRST
10 Depot (@wall)
12 Barracks(@wall and use this SCV to scout when Barracks completes)
13 Gas (DON'T FORGET TO MOVE SCVS TO GAS... will finish before barracks.)
15 Orbital Command (smash the B key rapidly as the barracks finishes) drop a mule at every 50th energy
16 supply depot (@wall to finish the wall)
1 marine from Barracks AS SOON AS IT FINISHES
Tech lab on Barracks RIGHT AFTER THE MARINE
1 Marauder from Barracks
Stim (If you can't get this while building a Marauder then you didn't move SCVs to gas soon enough)
Keep building Mauraders and SCVs to 24 (typically on the second Marauder)
24 DEPOT - this SCV will build one depot after another for the rest of the game
at 300 minerals build 2 Barracks
Reactors on barracks as they finish
Marines, Mauraders, SCVs, Depots until 7:30
Concussive Shells as soon as Stim finishes (aprox 6:30)
AT 7:30 (should be over 60 supply) ATTACK MOVE TO THE NATURAL AND QUEUE BARRACKS TO NATURAL
DON'T FORGET TO KEEP PRODUCING UNITS
DON'T WATCH YOUR ARMY
EXPO IN BASE AT 8:00
If attack fails:
Fly expo to natural + transfer SCVs
Drop your 2nd gas in your base
Factory
Starport + reactor on factory (swap when both items are completed)
engineering bay
Marines + Medivac + tanks vs zerg/terran (no Marauders vs Zerg. Push fails, cut any further Mauraders)
Medivac (4 or 6) + more Mixed Bio vs Protoss (after your medivacs transition to Vikings (at least 10) to deal with the colossus response you'll most likely get)
But... how do I USE this build?
Okay, so at EXACTLY 7:30 you A click all these units to the natural of your enemy. You're producing 1 Marauder, 4 Marines, 1 SCV, and 1 Supply depot constantly. You are watching your mini map for signs of trouble, but you're not staring at your army. When they get there you're going to hit a real hard timing for your enemy to defend. Most players I was running into at low silver were VERY greedy and would expo first or double expand without any map control or defensive units. In those cases you simply walk in and murder everything. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO PUNISH THE GREEDY! RAAAAWWWWRRRR NOTE: always try to save stim for when you need it. Vs his army? Yes. Vs his refinery? Nope. You don't need it to kill a hatchery, and you won't have medivacs for a LOOOOOOOONG time, so don't over stim. Stim may come in handy for pylons if you want to shut off protoss's facilities quickly, but you have to remember that if they don't quit it should be played as if you're losing. DON'T LOOK AT YOUR ARMY. If you're in good shape in the fight (aka you wipe out their fighting units) just shift command (hold shift and right click) a bunch of their buildings and go back to macro. Scoop up reinforcements as they show up and A move them to the fight. PRIORITIZE ECONOMIC DAMAGE once you've secured yourself in his base. Sure, supply blocking someone is great, but killing every single worker is better. Nothing ends a game quite like not having a worker or 50 minerals to build one.
I typically try to approach Protoss from an angle where they won't see me in time to warp in sentries if they haven't warped them in already. Then when I hit the bottom of the ramp I stim and try to get as many units up the ramp as possible. From there, I move AWAY from the ramp, kill off his army (because you're Terran... DO EET), shut off his buildings by killing pylons, then go after as many workers as you can handle... FROM THE RAMP SIDE FIRST to try and force them away from the ramp. That should take any new sentries' focus off the ramp so you can bring in more units. If he goes with an early robotics bay and has an observer he'll warp in 6+ sentries and this push will be stuffed... but THE FIGHT LIVES ON.
Outcome #1: GG, VICTORY, SCORE SCREEN [enemy may use variations such as: Terran OP, cheese, ur bad, etc]
Outcome #2: OMG THEY'RE READY FOR IT.
Okay, so what do you do when you roll up to that natural and there's simply too much to handle? Did Protoss successfully wall off their ramp with a force field? Are there just so many units that you feel the fight would be worse than a trade (aka you both lose the same value of units)? Guess what? It's time to macro HARD. Good thing you've been building 1 SCV, 1 Supply Depot, 1 Marauder, and 4 Marines this whole time! It was also super awesome of you to build that CC at the 8 minute mark. Now, all you have to do is transfer about 2/3rds of your SCVs from your base to your expo and you're WAAAAY ahead of your opponent.
So, you decided the fight wasn't going to end in your favor, you minimized your losses and showed your army. He's probably thinking of ways to counter a massive bio force at this point [banes, colossus, siege tanks most likely]. You left a marine behind for intel. You'll know exactly when he decides to expand.
Move that CC to the natural, put up a couple of bunkers in front of it and fill those bunkers with your army. Add your second CC to your CC hotkey. If he had something out of the ordinary (like a colossus at 8 minutes) then you're going to need to act fast to counter it. Double your barracks count if not more at this point as well. You were able to keep building 1 SCV, 1 Depot, 1 Marauder, 4 marines all time off 1 base, now you have TWO bases... make use of them.
At this point you may want to start building depots 2 or 3 at a time to avoid the dreaded one-new-depot-won't-be-enough supply block.
At this point you've successfully transitioned out of a super hard bio push into a macro game. I'll go into more about what to do from this point later, but that's the stuff of another night.
Variations, When to Use This Build, When Not to
What's beautiful about the way I build is that all my builds start in a similar fashion. 10 Depot, 12 Rax, 13 Gas*, 15 OC. I scout at 10 supply when the first Depot finishes and hope to have an idea of what I'm up against by the time the OC and marine have finished. If I don't know what he's doing (haven't found him yet) then I just keep producing marines and SCVs until I do. That's typically only an extra marine or two and when you back out of this build it's typically encouraged to have some marines for defense.
*the only time I don't get gas at 13 is when I'm going for a 1RaxFE which I'll cover another time... after I understand it better myself preferably
Vs Protoss I open this way probably 95% of the time thanks to its flexibility and Terran's dominance of Protoss with bio units. I try to follow it up with very quick vikings to prevent any colossus counter push (all-in-y stuff). The other 5% of the time is either banshee harass to bio or 1RaxFE to bio... so they all end up needing a big bio army... why not open with a massive amount of bio?
Vs Terran I ALWAYS build an engineering bay and a turret in my mineral line. You're typically safe to drop the ebay at 6:00 or so. With how many Terran players are going with 1-1-1 builds and early cloaked banshees it's silly to not have a turret. If that means you have to cut Marauders and go with 5 marines at a time for a cycle or two to make up minerals, then by all means, do so. Marines do much higher DPS than Marauders... especially if they have a bio army (or a banshee). The only time you'll be truly punished for not having enough marauders is if they have multiple siege tanks. If they're sieged up you shouldn't be trying to force it anyways, but a healthy number of marauders will do work vs tanks.
Vs Zerg eh.... yuck. Of all the units in the game... bleh... this build will force... banelings. You WILL see banelings if this push doesn't kill every single building they have. In fact, turtling Zerg
This build CAN work and typically has a decent success rate, but the ideal situation for you to run into TvZ is to see a 7 roach rush, 6 pool, etc. Any one base play from Zerg will be turned into a fine red mist by your army. In the spirit of full disclosure: I no longer 3RaxStim vs Zerg. The night I went 24-4 I lost to a 1-1-1 cloaked banshee from Terran and 3 Zergs who all went Ling/Baneling/Muta. That's when I changed what I did. I have a hard time saying "don't use this build vs Zerg." Especially because it worked frequently in low silver and stopped working as I got closer to gold. So, to all you Bronze/Silver Terran... DO EET until it stops working more than half the time.
1 comment:
Awesome post man. I used to use this build pre-increased barracks build time. I felt like it was never as strong. If the push failed I had a hard time recovering and lost every game. This build used to work for me a ton. I racked up 15 consecutive wins using this build, and then I lost like 10 in a row. Your post has inspired me to give it another shot. :)
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