One of my favorite aggressive TvP builds is the Strong FD, which is a marine-heavy, 2 tank, vulture rally with mines push off of 1 factory. The timing allows it to move out about as fast a a regular FD, except with much more firepower thanks to the second tank. Yet, one of the big flaws of this build (along with poor performance vs DT builds): it has a rather slow economy due to the fact that the production of the 2nd tank delays the CC. Though this is not nearly as bad as the economy of a 2 fac, it is a factor that keeps me from using this build more frequently - if you don't inflict at least a little damage to your opponent, this build puts you behind.
So after playing around with it a bit, I've come down to this build:
8- supply, you should wall unless you are comfortable with handling zeals with 2 marines
10 rax/10 gas- be sure not to have an 11th scv queued. you need the earlier gas.
13 - send scout
14/15ish - factory as soon as 100 gas. pull 2 scvs off of gas.
15/16- supply to finish the wall, then a marine after, or if the probe got in, make a marine first then a supply.
Once you hit 18 supply, your factory will be 1 mm away from finishing. stop scvs to make 1 more marine for 19 supply. when factory is done, put 1 more scv on gas for a total of 2. while addon is completing, you will have the money to build a CC in your base, just like siege expand. so the build from there is:
19 cc
1st tank as soon as fac up - resume scv production
22 sup
24 marine
24 tank
28 mines
28 marine
29 marine
so i compared this build to a standard quick cc siege expand build that goes as follows:
8 sup
11 rax/gas
13 sup to finish wall/send scout
15/16 fac (as soon as 100 gas)
16 1 marine
21/22 cc
22 tank
24 supply
so here are some timings that will better put this into perspective. Note that every single one of these builds was tested at 12 o clock on python:
-Factory timing:
My build - 2:26.
Siege expand - 2:34.
Normal strong fd - 2:25.
-CC starting to build timing:
My build - 3:36.
Siege expand - 3:38.
Normal strong fd - 5:10 (ick)
-Army when CC lands at natural/maynard (~5:35):
My Build - 5 marines, 2 tanks, 1 vulture, vulture queued for reinforcement, mine research.
Siege expand - 1 marine, 3 tanks, siege mode research.
Normal strong fd: 6 marines, 2 tanks,1 vulture, vulture queued for reinforcement, mine research.
-SCV Count when CC lands at natural/maynard (~5:35):
My build: 24 scvs. Also keep in mind 1 scv will follow the push in my build, so in reality, 23 scvs are actually helping my econ back in the base.
Siege expand: 27 scvs.
Normal Strong FD: 22 scvs, 1 scv is following the push = 21 actually helping at the base.
So off of this information, we can say that my build has vastly superior economy (CC lands at 5:40 for my build, while normal strong FD finishes CC on the spot at the natural at 6:40) than strong FD for the cost of 1 less marine in the push. It has inferior economy to a siege expand, because SCV cutting for faster gas and marine production causes there to be 4 less scvs than siege expand upon the CC landing at the natural. It also does not have the defensive capabilities of siege mode research. But on the other hand, it has mines, which have better offensive capabilities for a very fast early push than siege mode.
So I will list the pros and cons of my build:
Pros:
-Powerful early push - definitely stronger than a normal FD push by far. And it's basically not possible to rush with an early game push off of siege expand unless something really strange happened. The initial push is capable of ending most games vs. 1 gate non-tech builds, and can trade armies with a 2 gate with late 2nd gate build. Keep in mind that the strong FD is used to defend 10/15 gate pressure on rampless maps.
-Strong economy - not as good as a siege expand, but not too far behind either. And it is far better economy than a strong FD, and is also superior to a normal FD economy (CC finishes at ~5:55 on the spot at the natural, off of 4 marines).
-Deceptive. If the probe running around in your base sees you put down that CC inside of your main off of only 2 marines, he will naturally think you are siege expanding and do a passive economic build, and maybe even take a 3rd off 1 gate. That's exactly what you want.
-Less risk of gas steal. Unless he sends a probe scout ridiculously early, the fast gas makes the likelihood of a gas steal lower.
-Flexibility. One of the main reasons I like this build a lot is that you have options. It doesn't force you to commit to anything until your 2nd tank pops. This can transition into a variety of normal builds, if need be. On the other hand, 2 fac is do or die. Even the build order of the normal strong FD forces a late command center... at best, you can cut your 2nd tank to place an earlier CC around the timing of a normal FD CC. But in my build, if you scout him doing a DT or reaver build, you can stop after the first tank (vs DT I'd do 1 tank vult, vs reaver, I'd get 2-3 tanks first), and get vults/mines/ebay right away, while having your CC already in progress before you needed to even make the decision to change your build. At the same time, if you scout your opponent doing a greedy 1 gate build, you just proceed with the normal build and rape him with a powerful early game push. If you scout him doing a 10/15 gate or other aggressive build, you are also in luck! Since this build is just like a siege expand build up to researching mines, you can instead get siege mode and play super safe/defensive, and take the lead by having an economic advantage over his comparatively late expo.
Cons:
-Micro-intensive in comparison to siege expand. If you don't control your push well, it will be a lot less effective than it should be, possibly making this a bad build to do if you do not know how to control your units.
-Inferior economy to siege expand - 23 scvs versus 27 scvs upon maynarding scvs is a fact that can't be ignored.
-Susceptible to damage from tech builds - DT rushes/drops and well-controlled reaver drops usually beat the strong FD. However, this should only happen in the unfortunate event that you don't scout his tech. If you think something fishy is up, you really should just play it safe by transitioning into a siege expand with ebay or defensive mines with ebay as mentioned above.
There it is. What do you all think?
None.
