The End of FB Rushes!!!!!

The topic line is kind of a tease, but after 2 or 3 weeks of FB's being primary discussion on the board I have to bring up a point that everyone should realize.

I played Starcraft competitively from the day it came out. That game played different that BL, as it was a true RTS. In that game, for the first 2 months Zerg dominated because of 1 particular strat, the 4 pool ling rush.

I know a lot of you probably don't know exactly what that means, but here's why it's overly relevant to our situation against firebarons:

In starcraft, you start the game with 4 resource gathering units. The zerg player would take these 4 (not making any more) and mine minerals til they had enough to build a spawning pool (the building that allowed them to make their base infantry unit). Once they had enough, they'd make the spawning pool, then wait for it to be finished and make 6 zerglings. These zerglings could make it to the enemy base before anyone could have adequate defenses set up, ensuring a win every time.

This went on for the first 2 months of starcraft because the masses didn't know how to stop it. A few people did, here and there, but overall, this rush was dominating. A few months into the game, people caught on how to beat it, and people stopped doing the rush.

Here's why this story is relevant, we know how to beat an fb rush, but we aren't the masses.... Yet.... We are the select few who are taking it on ourselves to make this game's multiplayer exciting. Once enough people realize that people out there know how to beat FB rushes, the rushes will stop. Maybe not altogether, but you'll start to see it as 1 of several strategies that people employ as IH.

Lately as IH, I've been starting the game with 2 groups of razorgirls and a thunderhog, then upgrading my stage. This opening build makes people think I'm going firehogs, so they prepare for the hogs. When I skip right over t2, and go t3 upgraded girls and bassists, they don't know what to do. All of FB's counters die to massed razorgirls, especially the RG DT. This scenario is just another reason why scouting is so important in this game. You couldn't scout as easily in any other rts out there, so it should be heavily abused.

Just remember, think outside the box. Feign one strategy, then employ another and roll over the enemy. The element of surprise is as good as having an extra 10 population to work with.

YI

Hey man I too played SC comp alot. 2 season WGTour with .NeX and b.LUE so I know what you talkins bout(drunk)

But the ZLing 4 pool was infinitely cheaper than the FB rush for multiple reasons a big one being the ability to scout like your a flying god in BL whereas all you got was a black map in SC. Also 4 pool was much faster and meant to show up before you had made any army at all and just kill your workers.

FBS are more like the later developed and much more dominating Mutalisk rush a T2 SC extremely fast flying unit with splash damage (Just like a firebaron except he has a motorcycle not wings). Anyways mutas were weak solo but incredible when massed much like FBS. THey were also used only to rush in and kill your workers like FBS rushing to your stage (see where this is going>?)

Anyways their are always a few key things in RTS games that you can apply teh same principles too for the Mutalisk rush and FBS

1) Scout early, scout often
2) Be aggressive (B-E aggressive) more so than your opponent right off the start usually pressuring a "tech" rusher will cause them to slip up and waste money along the line somewhere giving you an advantage.
3) Scout more
4) Counter mutas with muta killers at your base and use your slower stronger army to capture strategic points more traditionally.
5) Scout again lol

Rinse and repeat.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 11/06/2009 00:54:13

I was waiting for another SC player to correct me on the analogy. Yes, you're right in unit comparison and economic attack of the mutalisk rush vs the FB rush. I figured I wouldn't give a T2 SC strat because if we had people who had never played that game, I figured they'd recognize the term zergling at least.
The main point of my story to get across, was that the FB rush will go away one people get their heads out of their butts (not this forum, the general public).

You're absolutely right though, it's a muta rush.

If someone really wants to call semantics called on me, someone bring up how the rush-tie timer in vanilla starcraft started at 5:00 minutes and got reduced a few patches into the game to 2:00. That patch is really when 4 pool ling rushes started terrorizing battle.net.

YI

P.S.

1) Scout early, scout often
2) Be aggressive (B-E aggressive) more so than your opponent right off the start usually pressuring a "tech" rusher will cause them to slip up and waste money along the line somewhere giving you an advantage.
3) Scout more
4) Counter mutas with muta killers at your base and use your slower stronger army to capture strategic points more traditionally.
5) Scout again lol

That applies to every single game of BL you ever play people. Read that, live it, eat it, breathe it. The biggest advantage that you have in BL compared to every other RTS is your ability to scout and know every move the opponent makes. Other games have fog of war blocking vision when you scroll to a new area with your mouse. When you "scroll to a new area with your mouse" in BL, you see everything.

Great posts. Thank you. It's like listening to articulate professional athletes talking about the secrets of their sport.

the fire baron rush is not becoming a problem anymore. i get annoyed at it though as it means i have to dust out an old strategy for beating it and most of them quit to dashboard when thier invincible instant win strategy has been destroyed.

the main way to defeat a fire baron rush is to counter attack immediatly after destroying the massed amount.
with DD play the "skull" solo so they cannot build. if you have several broods at thier base fire barons will be killed before they can move and with rallied troops coming in it wont last long.

I've had problems myself. It got to a point where nothing but firebarons and one rock crusher was coming my way (I was DD). Used a frightwig to possess the rockcrusher and it helped even things out. The other player did again though. I really hate FB rushes, yet I love turning the strategy on the enemy, even when they wuit.

Hopefully a update can at least make the fire barons more expensive and longer to spawn. A little more weaker would be a plus point.

I was thinking about this earlier this week.

FB rushes are becoming easier and easier to beat. the main thing is because people have started to put pressure back onto the FB rushers.

If they go straight to t2 then I go straight for their base if they build units I harass and kill them while defending mine.

the main key out of every game is make the opponent fight on your terms not theirs.

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