Starcraft 2 - 3v3 Strategy

I just played a bunch of 3v3 games and did really well, so I thought I'd share my experiences.

The Early Attack
First, discuss with your teammates what you consider an "early attack".  I played (as Zerg) with Terran and Protoss allies, and my 10-pool build gave me a LOT of Zerglings before they even had much of a force ready, because they were using builds with later attack units.  As a result, my economy was much smaller, I still hadn't expanded by 40 food (which is death for a Zerg player), and though we eventually knocked out one opponent, we couldn't take on the armies of the other two.

You should NOT try the early attack strategy when your opponents have a common main.  The whole idea of the early attack is to overwhelm one player and remove them from the game, turning the game into a 3v2, where even if your side has sacrificed economy for the push, your 3 economies will still beat (or at least keep up with) the 2 opponents remaining.  If your early game push fails, you are going to lose the game unless you do a lot of economic damage.  What sometimes happens on these big 3v3 maps is that the two attacking armies pass each other, and the game turns into a 2v2 as each side eliminates one opponent.

The Harass+Expand
In another game, we illustrated the fact that if one player early expands (preferably not the one in the most vulnerable map location!) and chooses a harassment units (Mutalisks in my case), it can go very well.  However, what sets apart a gold-to-platinum player from a bronze one is knowing when to switch out of the build.  I've been both on the giving and receiving end of a partnership where one player massed nothing but Void Rays, and the opponent massed nothing but Marines.  Needless to say, the Void Ray player loses, almost regardless of what the other two players do, UNLESS the Void Rays stay with the rest of the joint army.  If they are used for defense or attack by themselves, they tend to get chewed up.  What they SHOULD be used for is decimating bases and harassment.

Alternately, if you don't want to go for the big mid-game push, you can pick one player for harassment, while the others expand and tech.  However, if the map doesn't have common bases (i.e. each player is spread out), this approach can leave you highly vulnerable to pushes, since you don't have much ground defense.

Specialize
In general, 3v3 requires you to specialize.  For example, the Protoss player could make an army with more heavy-hitting units, such as Colossi, Void Rays, or Immortals, while the Terran player goes MMM, and the Zerg player makes the meat shield of Roach.  You'll frequently see things like mass ling+bane, mass hellion, or mass (blink) Stalker.  Most massing strategies rely on fast units that can shut down enemy expansions and give map control such that those players can expand and switch into heavy-hitting endgame armies.

Big, High-Damage Units
The problem with big 3v3 battles is that they rarely take place in wide-open places where all units can attack.  This means that if you're going for a big push, you need to have the big, high-damage units such as Colossi or Siege tanks to deal splash damage at range.  Units such as Broodlords can be good (although very slow!), and anything with AOE such as Infestors or High Templar do more damage than in 1v1 or 2v2, where players don't have such a large mass of units, and can more easily micro the whole army around the AOE.

Fixed Defenses
In smaller games, fixed defenses chew up a lot of resources that you could put into army.  However, on big 3v3 maps, with so many opponents, the importance of denying harassment is game-winning.  DO NOT expand without adding fixed defenses.  At the very least, slowing down an opponent's attempt to deny expansions can give you time to call for help, and possibly even crush the opponents' combined army while they are in your territory and far from their own reinforcements.

I don't know how many times I've turned around a big army by rushing 20-30 Zerglings into the opponents' main, or an expansion.  Best of all, if the opponents are controlling their armies separately, you have a good shot at dividing the combined army and then killing the smaller army with the help of your allies.  If your opponents don't build fixed defenses, or even just a good wall, more opponents simply means more targets.

Cheese
If you die to cheese in a 3v3, you probably deserve it.  There is really no such thing as "all in cheese", because even if one player sacrifices economy to "cheese", he has two allies backing him up such that he can recover economically.

However, with the large maps and common main bases, cheese is extremely unlikely - it just doesn't arrive soon enough to be effective, and is defended too easily (even just with workers)!  However, if you forgo scouting, and you get double 6-pooled, chances are that you won't have a wall up soon enough to block it out, and the game will be over.  3v3 doesn't mean you can omit scouting, or assume your allies will do it.

I've seen things like a double-worker rush, where two players send workers to attack one player, and you MUST respond by pulling your own workers to save that ally, or else you will be the next target and things will only get worse from there.  If you DO pull your workers, your side will have an advantage of numbers, and in reinforcements, and you should defend the worker-attack easily and win the game.  Don't fall for this cheese.

Starcraft 2 - More 2v2 Ladder

I'm gradually increasing my ranking with 3 different teammates in the 2v2 ladder.  What I've learned is:

• Scouting is more important the longer the match goes on
• There is such thing as attacking too late with a rush - your opponent's economy will outstrip yours the longer you wait.
• It is vital that your opponent send whatever he has with your rushing force.  Even 3 marines can make a big difference when the number of defenders is so low.
• Preventing your opponent from expanding or killing his expansion only works if you have enough troops to hold back his counterattack.
• It is usually better to keep attacking a weakened opponent than to stop and go heavy economy.  Usually, you will forfeit your advantage and the scales will balance again, since you sacrificed early economy to attack, and the small amount of damage you can inflict that early in the game usually balances the cost of making the attack in the first place!

Starcraft 2 Protoss 3v3 Strategies

When you're looking for a 3v3 Strategy in Starcraft 2, it's important to realize how difficult it really is to wipe out three separate opponents when they have the defender's advantage.  Thus, you really need an overwhelming force that's strong against some of the toughest units in the game, which the opponent could field en masse.

If you've read my other 3v3 strategy, you'll note that specializing and making the big damage-dealing units for your team is a great way to use Protoss.  If you can get a teammate to feed you gas, you can get Colossus or Immortals out before the opponents will have enough of the counter units.  Chrono-boost allows you to get these units out even more quickly as well.

I suggest that the Protoss player go Immortals when you see mass Roach, mass Stalker, or Mech.

This unit hard-counters most big units, and many tough, mass-produceable units like Roaches and Stalkers.  Let your allies go with Colossi or Siege Tanks or Banelings/Infestors to counter mass-zealot or marine, while you annihilate pretty much everything else.  Mix in a few anti-air units, and you have quite the killer army.




Shutting Down Mass Muta
The other function of the Protoss player is to shut down Mass Muta strategies by threatening mass Phoenix.  Mass Phoenix can actually be better than you might think, even in straight-up army battles, because they can lift and kill high-dps units, such as Hydras, Templar, Ghosts and Infestors.  While this requires a lot of micro, it CAN turn the tide.  However, you should avoid such scenarios whenever possible, and instead use Phoenixes to snipe Overlords or other scouts, to discourage further Muta production, to maintain air dominance, and to protect against drops.

Photon Cannons
The Protoss player also has another item in his arsenal that can be overlooked:  Photon Cannons.  This single building can be placed virtually anywhere (except on creep), and can also defend against nearly anything (or at least slow it down).  Use Photon Cannons liberally at expansions (yours and teammates'), and you'll find that enemy harassment dries up quickly.  What you must be careful of is not to overbuild cannons before you have the economy to support it, otherwise you won't have much of an army, and you or your allies can be hit where you don't have cannons.  Cannons can't counterattack, either.  However, because team games tend to be longer than 1v1's, your side will eventually have the resources to cannon up key expansions and choke points.

Chargelots
I also think Chargelots are among the best meat-shield that you can get in almost any race.  They are fairly tough, small enough to be fielded in large masses, aren't worth using Neural Parasite on (unlike Archons) and only cost minerals.  Better still, they move in quickly and chew up other players' meat shields quite well (even Roaches, which are usually thought to be their counter unit).  Because of the mass of units in a big 3v3 battle, the Zealots will not be able to be kited, and will do great damage for their cost, especially with attack upgrades.  However, Zealots can also suck when faced by enemy Colossi and Infestors, so their use can be limited by the opponents' unit composition.  Yet, in 3v3, it's not as likely that the enemy army will be able to micro well, if only because of the sheer amount of stuff on the screen, and then Zealots can perform uite well (it doesn't matter if they are Fungal'ed if they are already doing damage!).

Dark Templar
Protoss also have the most annoying unit in team games:  Dark Templar (DTs).  Almost every player has lost a game to the sudden appearance of 5+ DTs in their main base, and a team game gives a Protoss player the ability to mass Dark Templar without the risk that their own base will be flattened by a counterattack if the DTs are spotted early.   If you aren't facing any Protoss opponents (i.e no enemy Observers), I recommend throwing in even 4-5 DTs at the front of your army.  They will prevent enemy melee units from reaching units directly behind them, and many opponents won't realize they even exist - stuff is dying so fast that they won't notice the extra damage from the extremely-powerful DTs.

Mass Blink Stalkers
Last, you shouldn't ignore the possibility of going mass blink-Stalkers.  Stalkers are a fast unit with decent damage, and should be used in packs to continually harass enemy locations.  Because they can stand up to or run away from many enemy units, and have the speed to run away from many more, Stalkers are great for harassment.  I recommend accompanying them with an observer, so they can blink to high ground when pursued by their one counter:  mass upgraded Speedlings.

3v3 Team Games

Today I played some 3v3 team games with some Starcraft 2 friends, and found that early aggression is the key to success.  The other lesson was if you're NOT going to attack really early, don't sacrifice economy for defenses, because if they DON'T attack, you'll be behind.

One of the prime reasons for this is that you get to combine the power your armies and push against a single point, and your opponents have to struggle to react to it. 

I had a terrible time keeping control of the sensors towers in one game, and that allowed the opponents to both know when WE were coming and consolidate their forces.  Lesson learned there:  if you're going to try for the sensor towers, don't just throw away units - move a good chunk of your forces there (and move them away if you see something coming you can't beat)!