How do you clear expo without barracks though? Banshees come at play at 4 mins.
Isn’t that considered a bit late for a supposedly fast low tech expansion?
H&H is actually one of the easiest commanders to play in Brutal+1. The mistake players usually make is going P2 or P3 while the real power is in P1. P1 Strike Fighters is easy mode against anything ground based and Mag Mines delete air waves without any real threat allowing an easy transition to end game armies.
However, this isn’t a solo commander. Strike Fighters and Mag Mines will destroy the majority of waves but going hard into them leaves little left over to clear out stray units which is why a bare minimum contribution from an ally is needed for average players until the death ball is established (otherwise you need to use micro to fight pulling back individual units due to the fragility of Hans units).
There is also early game vulnerability to contend with due to slow ramp of economy and game knowledge and a bit of luck being required when defending early game waves in terms of correct placement of mag mines. Best recommendation is to get the Galleon building at the rocks soon after the first supply and then follow up with a CC next to rocks straight after. Build a Hellion out of the Galleon to help knock the rocks down rather than a second galleon. Then focus on gas production to pay for early strike fighter platforms and then hangar bays. Put off getting a raven for as long as possible. A tight build order can help the early game transition a lot.
After some 4000 B+ games H&H has one of my highest win rates and H&H allies also produce some of the highest win rates.
You build it nearby, OC it right away, and move it into place after the Banshees come in and clear the spot. Timing should be fairly consistent, though if it doesn’t work out then you could always make an SCV.
So you typically reserve first banshee for that? I often do it as well, but then what happens with your first objective? With banshees gone, delayed barracks (so also delayed factories and armories)? I assume you pop the Hyperion?
Depends on the map, many of them the Banshees can go over to deal with it after clearing the expo. Hyperion comes off cool-up right when they leave, so yeah it’s next to deal with objectives/waves.
After Hyperion, then it’s down to the army or the second Banshees depending on mastery/amon comp.
Generally I don’t use my army with Raynor until after Hyperion/Banshee no. 2
I get it it’s like playing kerrigan in a way till our eco and army size grows sufficiently
Artanis p3 has spoiled me on early expansions and solid “free” Calldowns while also providing a decent army that’s not too fragile early on
Rushing an on-site expo sacrifices early CC into OC, both of which have more impact. The reason for the expo CC is to get started with the extra SCV production, so some long-distance mining and loss due to moving the CC is acceptable.
Fast rock clearing matters a lot more for those races who can’t move their CC.
Here’s a good balanced comment from LilArrin, though there’s a slight difference in build order for P3 vs P0.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft2coop/comments/gw6g0f/do_not_overestimate_mules/
Thanks man will check it out
final question probably
do you make extra cc’s as raynor p1 early on? like at least a 2nd on the spot for the xpansion? if only for the faster saturation? or is it just not worth it and maybe add one or two more later for the scans?
In a standard brutal game I never really found myself in a situation where I needed to build an additional OC for the scans. Usually my ally gets good detection late game and 2 OCs can cover for the early to mid game.
I’d absolutely go for the expo CC asap. You want to start pumping out those SCVs. Since there’s no cloaked units for a while the OC should usually be left while you get eco and then army. I can’t remember all the timings, but banshees get cloak at 12 mins and most cloaked units don’t come till tech level 4 waves. Early bases also don’t usually have dts or lurkers/hosts.
I’m sure there’s a video out there, probably Lila’s channel, where you can see a great P1 build.
Yeah, unless you’ve got a mutator that requires extra scans, then the 2 OCs should be enough. Where possible, any Terran CO should really get their expo CC up and running quickly, to get to saturation faster.
As P1 it is probably building the CC as second structure next to rocks and Barracks as third structure.
However, what is even better is not playing P1. P3 requires a similar amount of skill in most circumstances but has a much wider applicability especially in Brutal+1 games.
I think what P2 needs is the transform speed upgrade to affect Vikings. It’s just too slow and you’d have to rely on vultures for tank support.
Anyways doesn’t an extra OCC help with quick repairs?
I would argue that the factory in general could use a little touch up. the transformation upgrade for siege tanks affecting vikings too would be nice
p2 should have ignite afterburners free, just like stim is free automatically for bio
I am not sure how an extra ooc in particular helps. I mean yeah it will net you some extra minerals, however (unless we are talking p1) that’s hardly ever a problem or a thing to worry about. medics can also repair mechs as well with their heal.
btw, I found that laying 2 ccs by the expansion even as p1 feels the best. you saturate fast enough without overcommitting anything. 3 ccs are just the right amount of investment/speed of saturation, especially for uncontested expansions (void thrashing, void launch, oblivion express, rifts, mist opportunities)
for don I think 2 ccs (one extra that is) is perfect to saturate as p1
Interesting. Have you compared to LilA’s P1 @ at the 10 & 15 min marks?
havent been using maguro and timed clock but that’s my experience, I have practiced a lot with the basic 3 commanders (cause I came back to sc2 way too late and havent bought any other commander yet haha…). generally the no more than 4 ccs rule of thumb of lilarrin (in terms of pre saturation at least) seems to hold. 4 ccs for p0, p2 and p3 and 3 ccs for p1
There is no way no how that the 400 mineral investment + 1 SCV not mining for that period of time could be remotely paid for by the SCVs that a 3rd CC could provide on the way to full saturation.
Just consider that you must be taking an SCV during a period of economy expansion when most SCVs are mining at 100% mining rate (when there is 2 or less SCVs on each mineral patch) and then your triple SCV production probably won’t start until you already have 2+ SCVs on each patch so the efficiency has already dropped dramatically.
Rather than building a third CC as P1 instead practise pairing SCVs on close mineral patches to maximise early game income. Or, you know, don’t play P1.
This assessment extends to all other commanders incidentally, no commander is going to build 3 primary production structures just for worker production (unless maybe playing against Killbots). If other commanders do it is for another reason (Raynor dropping Mules, Kerrigan need extra larva etc).
I do large scv transfers and take gas reasonably early to start upgrades, factories and so on. I could be wrong, I am not claiming absolute mastery on the subject, nor that it is a hill worthy of dying on. I will try without the 3rd one again, and see how it goes.
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Found a build for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqRjRB9U2d0
14: Depot
17: CC @ expo
19: Barracks + Gas
20: Depot
22: Marine + saturate gas + marine
24: Marine
25: Bunker
26: Marine
27: Tech lab
28: Ebay
29: Gas + move expo CC + combat shield
31: Barracks + attack 1
32: Barracks
…
By 8:30 he’s cleared the second set of thrashers and has 20-25 marines with medics.
I can’t see a 3 CC build even getting you to that level by 10 minutes.
Edit: Here’s single CC with three slivers cleared by 7 mins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNkA1NkfF4E
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