Online | StarCraft II Survival Guide – Counter Tactics

Starcraft 2 has turned into quite a dog-eat-dog online experience. Here are a few pointers for beginners to help cope and deal with some of the game’s most common griefing and rush tactics.

Starcraft 2’s multiplayer hinges a lot on the first 10 minutes. Executing build orders and maintaining a level economic efficiency is key if you plan to have any chance at winning. What is most common in these early minutes of the game, however, is the rush. Each race’s rush tactics take different forms, but more or less serves the same function: to disrupt your build order and kill your economy.

Terran:

The most common rush from a Terran player is a Marine rush. Marines are relatively cheap to produce, and will more or likely come in twos or fours – depending on how many Barracks your opponent have built. When playing Zerg, the best way to counter a Marine rush is by massing zerglings. Two batches of zerglings per every 2 marines will more times than not win over. When playing Protoss, on the other hand, Zealots are great in killing groups of Marines, but have to close the distance in order to be effective – allowing for the Marines to inflict quite a bit of damage on the Zealots before they can be effective. To remedy, make a note of it to create Stalkers relatively early in your build order. When Terran, the best defense is Marine parity along with walling off your entrance ramp with supply depots.

The other kind of Terran rush is a whole lot trickier to parry. Reapers are highly mobile units that can jump up or down from points of elevation – Bypassing walled off entrances altogether. When rushed by reapers, your opponent will jump to the back of your minerals and start to snipe your workers. Ranged units are imperative to counter a reaper attack. Zealots and zerglings are too slow to catch up to a harassing reaper – especially if your opponent is micromanaging the unit. Essentially, the best counter is a tight and efficient build order that can quickly build ranged units or defensive structures.

Protoss:

Protoss rushes are not necessarily the most common tactic that happens when facing a Protoss player. When you do, however, it consists of quickly made Zealots that, once they are built, are sent to your base. It is likely that your opponent is playing with Macro (focusing on build orders and unit production as opposed to micromanaging their attacking units). What that implies is that the Protoss player is building numerous Gateways with Warps (with the hopes in quickly amassing a large army by the 9 to 10 minute mark) or a series of Stargates (in the hopes of building a quick fleet of Void Rays – a unit that is deadly if not properly parried early game). A relentless stream of Zealots, while relatively rare online, is still difficult opposition to overcome. Having a range advantage over the Zealots is key, especially if you are able to stop their advance by a walled off ramp.

What is more common, and in many ways the most insidious, is the proxy rush. A Protoss player will get a probe and build a pylon near the mouth of your ramp, followed by a few Photon Canons – providing they built a Forge in their base (which they probably did). The massing of Photon Canons at your entrance essentially prevents all movement out of your base. While this may initially seem as a non issue, it becomes a problem when you are needing to expand and are running out of minerals to mine. By the time you make a move to destroy the proxy in order to expand your economy, your opponent more or likely has expanded and has cultivated a tremendous amount of wealth and military might. Be wary of proxies being built in and around your base. Even one Pylon may be dangerous as it can serve as a spawning point for Warpgates. If you see a Pylon being built, do what you can to destroy it AND the probe. If you fail to kill the probe, they will only try again.

Zerg:

Zerglings are the common rush unit.  You should expect to encounter a steady stream of zerglings throughout the course of early play. Walling off ramps, creating defensive structures near minerals and tight macro build orders can stave off a Zerg rush, but build accuracy and reaction time is of the utmost importance. When walling off a ramp, there must not be any gaps in the wall. If there is, zerglings will simply slip in and attack your workforce – rendering your mighty wall ineffective.

Check out some basic survival tactics here.