I'm mainly a terran player, and I have a problem when it comes to facing a good zerg. After I wall in my main, they rush in with banelings and follow with speedlings and proceed to decimate my base. How can I stop this? I've read about walling with barracks and factories instead of supply depots, but 99% of the time I use a depot to wall at 9/11 pop before I scout, and there's no way to predict a baneling bust that early in the game.

Would a reaper rush delay their economy long enough for me to bring in siege tanks? Or should I fast expand with a planetary fortress? Or is there a better way to defeat this strat?

How about, instead of turtling, actually put pressure.
therefore, there're no walls to bust.

dam op terrans

Siege tanks with marines and marauders holding up the wall.
If the lings make it in and you have nothing, fight with scv and hope for the best.

If the enemy is good (I'll assume so since I'm in the diamond league and have been fighting people in platinum/diamond who use this), they can have 5 banelings out before you can get a sieged tank. According to other sources, if you build a wall out of barracks and factories instead of supply depots, the banelings have a hard time busting through the thicker wall. At that point, you can tech rush to banshees and easily win. However, in order to beat non-baneling rushes, you probably need a fast depot up at the choke point to complete the wall, and it's impossible to tell what they're going in the first two minutes of the game.

It seems there's no easy solution for TvZ rushes...

No. You would get literally 'reaped' if you went reaper against baneling Z. I'll just put it down simply. Too many speedlings.

There is a simple counter for a baneling Z. It's barrack addon hellions. Make a barrack and factory walled around your entrance, preferably so that factory AND barrack covers your entrance. Make tech lab while you make your factory. Keep pumping marines and switch Factory with Barrack once factory completes. Immediately research hellion attack, and add a reactor for the barrack. When that all completes, you should have around 2 hellions. Note that this is about the timing Zerg would come with banelings. Your upgrade wouldn't be complete, but if he wasted his banelings, then you're in luck. On your 3rd or 4th hellion, rush out, and your research would be complete by then. Go go, catch his lings, catch his drones, win. Even if you don't win, and the Z manages to either get Mutalisk or roaches out, (usually, they would prefer mutalisk. if you got the timing right, it would just be a GG though.)

Layer your structure wall. Also, while you're at it, you can try repairing your structure wall. Assuming you have a normal narrow ramp, you have your barracks, continue wall-off with factory. If you have a place in your wall that is defended only by a supply depot or an add-on, build another supply behind it, or throw a bunker up. A handful of marines and two hellions is more than enough.

Banelings are pretty darn expensive. An early investment on the zerg's part is pretty risky if the other team survives.

I play protoss, and the best thing I can think of to counter an early baneling/ling wall break is to have sentries to block your ramp while stalkers sit behind the wall. Once you have enough stalkers, your sentries/stalkers should be able to handle the lings easily as long as you have enough mana to use the globe shield thing.

I don't play terran much, but if I see a bane bust coming, I move 1/2 maurders down the ramp, with some spacing. Depot | | Maur | | Maur. This way, they can attempt to snipe off a few / slow them down for anything else to shoot at them. Depending on how my wall is built, I might reinforce it. Like one game today I had depot / barracks / barracks. I built 2 more depots behind the depot and when the first depot fell, i just brought my troops back and raised the 2nd wall.

50/25/0.5, actually. Not super-cheap but nowhere near expensive either.

Banelings are expensive because you must sacrifice early economy for them to be useful. Its generally not as worth it when he has a decent army up.

Just had to post this. Made by a guy who commentates mostly pro starcraft 2 matches. Pretty sure it will help you out.

So like, the same technique?

Bunkers. Put down the bunkers and he'd be done for, during which you may want to quicktech to Siege Tanks and/or Banshees since he probably won't have evolved into T2 and hence will still be exposed.

Just my advice as a Zerg player. Zerg is rather exposed in terms of anti air until midgame, when the hydras/mutas come out.


EDIT: Aw fuck, seriously, is this topic that old and still in the first page?

I tried bunkers, but only a wall made of pure rax/fact can hold against baneling bust. Bashee rush is pretty win against this build.

This.

Banshees win against any early Zerg aggression... For the simple lack of sufficient Zerg anti air during Tier 1, Queens don't count, and it's pretty much unscoutable without sacrificing Overlords.

Also don't give up, as a zerg I know that it is a pain in the ass to see the enemy rebuild between baneling busts if the first and second ones fail, because it virtually stops zerg teching, so if you manage to survive two or three busts, you are almost certain to be leading the game.