Introduction
In Starcraft 2, there is a 'best counter' for every unit.
Boot Camp StarCraft: Remastered (Terran Campaign #1) Written by medievaldragon on December 7, 2019. Posted in StarCraft Remastered, StarCraft Walkthrough Guide. TERRAN CAMPAIGN: REBEL YELL. In the decade since the end of the Guild Wars, the oppressive Terran Confederacy has stood unchallenged in its supremacy over colonized space. Each of StarCraft II's three races has its own fascinating personality and playstyle, with a varied and distinct suite of specialized units and buildings. Choose one to master, or play all three!
In this guide I will give detailed information for Terran players to counter every Starcraft 2 Terran units.
Everyone hates mirror matches, you feel like no matter what you do, your opponent can do the same, what's the point? This is the wrong way of thinking. Yes, you're playing against the same race, but you still have the choice of units. And just like with the other races, there is a best terran unit counter for every terran unit.
Once again, please remember that this guide is written with pure unit statistics in mind, you must still adapt this information to your game depending on the situation, you can't always produce the best unit counter in time, so sometimes you'll have to go for 2nd or 3rd best, which is why I'm always listing at least 3 options.
On with the guide!
Table of Contents
Best Terran Counters vs Marines
1. Siege Tank - In siege mode, a siege tank kills several marines in one shot. Plus, they severely outrange them.
2. Hellion - With their +6 damage vs light units and their AoE damage, Hellions are great vs marines, who generally are bunched up in packs.
3. Reaper - They deal 18 damage per round of attack against marines, killing them with 3 shots.
4. Ghost - Sniper Round does just enough damage (45) to kill a single marine. For only 25 energy, why not have fun with it?
Best Terran Counters vs Marauders
1. Marines - None of the bonuses of the Marauder apply against marines. They're not armored, and since they have about the same firing range, they don't care much about being slowed by concussive shells.
2. Banshee - If you see your opponent making a lot of Marauders, the best counter is easily Banshees. Just make sure to take out anti-air units first, such as marines, and then start getting free kills on those helpless Marauders.
3. Marauders - That's another option. Make Marauders too, make more of them than your opponent and upgrade them.
Best Terran Counters vs Ghosts
1. Ghost - Just make sure you are the first to fire EMP Round on the enemy ghost, then just cloak and kill.
2. Raven - Mobile Detection is extremely valuable against ghosts, obviously. Also, Seeker Missiles do just enough damage to kill them in one shot.
3. Siege Tank - 2 Tanks in siege mode paired with a detector = instant death for a ghost trying to sneak to your base to nuke.
4. Viking - In Assault mode, they do pretty well vs ghosts. They only take 10 damage while dealing 14 at a much faster pace. In a 1vs1 fight, if both start shooting at the same time, the Viking will kill the ghost and still have more than 50% of its total HP remaining. Since ghosts generally stand safely behind the main front line, you can fly over and land right behind the ghosts in some sort of pincer attack.
Best Terran Counters vs Hellions
1. Thor - Thors do exactly 90 damage against ground units, which is just perfect to take care of hellions. Not to mention, it will take a lot of hellions to take down a single thor.
2. Siege Tank - Don't bother with siege mode, normal mode is perfect against Hellions. A solo tank can take out 3 hellions at the same time and leave the battle with 1/3 of its HP remaining.
3. Viking - In Assault mode, they dominate hellions easily. They can kill 2 Hellions at the same time and leave the battle with 40% of their HP remaining.
4. Banshee - Obviously a perfect counter since hellions can't hit air targets.
5. Marauder - Marauders are armored, thus only taking 8 damage per attack from Hellions, while dealing 10 themselves. Plus, they are rather large so that means the Hellion's splash range will rarely hit multiple marauders at the same time.
Best Terran Counters vs Siege Tanks
1. Banshee - The safest way to deal with tanks.
2. Battlecruiser - Obviously safe as well, but very tech heavy.
3. Thor - With their huge HP, they can withstand the initial barrage of tanks in siege mode and kill them in 2 rounds of attacks.
4. Marauders - 2 Marauders cost less than 1 Tank to produce, yet if you have them fight, the tank will die exactly at the same moment as when the first marauder dies, leaving you with one full HP marauder. A pretty good deal. That's with the tank in normal mode though. In siege mode, the odds turn more into the tanks favor, but as long as you spread your marauders to avoid splash damage, you'll still have the better end of the bargain.
5. Viking - A nice trick to deal with a tank in siege mode is to fly your viking right over it and switch to assault mode. The tank won't be able to shoot your viking because it will be too close, so your opponent will have to switch out of siege mode and waste precious seconds while your Viking will be doing loads of free damage.
Best Terran Counters vs Reapers
1. Siege Tank - In siege mode, a tank will one-shot a Reaper before he is even in sight.
2. Marauder - 1 Marauder vs 2 Reapers has the Marauder come out alive with just a little HP left. Pretty good deal.
3. Viking - 1 Viking in Assault Mode vs 2 Reapers has the Viking come out alive with 40% HP left. Once again, pretty decent deal.
4. Thor - Thors one shot Reapers, it's actually a little overkill, which is why I put it at position #4.
5. Banshee - Of course, obviously the best counter if you have the tech and the ressources. Don't forget to always start by killing units that can hit air, and then finish with Ground to Ground units.
Best Terran Counters vs Vikings
1. Viking - It's quite simple, either you make more vikings than your opponent and take control of the air, or you simply give up on the air superiority, stop producing anything that flies and force your opponent to switch his Vikings to assault mode. Attacking his main base for example is a great way to get Vikings to the ground.
2. Thor - If you take the ground superiority approach, thors are the best counter. Not only do they hurt Vikings while they're in the air, but they totally obliterate them if they dare to come to the ground.
3. Siege Tank - If your opponent sends his Vikings flying towards your tanks, immediately switch out of Siege Mode and you'll be fine. Tanks in normal mode easily dominate Vikings in Assault Mode.
4. Marauder - Marauders cost half the production cost of Vikings, and yet in a one on one battle, they both die exactly at the same time, a draw. So that's still a pretty sweet deal if you consider the production costs and lower tech requirements of the Marauder.
Best Terran Counters vs Medivacs
1. Viking - Nothing better to chase those down than Vikings.
2. Battlecruisers - A little overkill, but still the 2nd best option.
3. Marines - They can shoot air units, that's about all you need against Medivacs.
Best Terran Counters vs Ravens
1. Viking - Nothing better to chase those down than Vikings.
2. Ghost - A quick EMP Round before they get the chance to use their energy will be a huge factor in any big battle.
3. Battlecruisers - Actually quite a decent choice. If your opponent uses the Defense Drone, it won't be very effective agains the battlecruiser's 6 attacks per round, which will quickly deplete the energy of the Defense Drone.
4. Marines - They can shoot air units, that's about it. Watch out for Seeker Missiles.
Best Terran Counters vs Banshees
1. Viking - The king of Terran anti-air. Use it, abuse it.
2. Marine - Marines do surprisingly well against Banshees. In terms of production cost, 5 Marines = 1 Banshee (and requires much less tech). Yet, 5 Marines will easily defeat 1 Banshee, and you'll have 3 Marines left at the end of the battle. With Combat Shield, it gets even better, since Banshees will then need 3 attacks to kill 1 Marine (compared to 2 attacks without the Combat Shield upgrade).
Best Terran Counters vs Medivacs
1. Viking - Nothing better to chase those down than Vikings.
2. Battlecruisers - A little overkill, but still the 2nd best option.
3. Marines - They can shoot air units, that's about all you need against Medivacs.
Best Terran Counters vs Ravens
1. Viking - Nothing better to chase those down than Vikings.
2. Ghost - A quick EMP Round before they get the chance to use their energy will be a huge factor in any big battle.
3. Battlecruisers - Actually quite a decent choice. If your opponent uses the Defense Drone, it won't be very effective agains the battlecruiser's 6 attacks per round, which will quickly deplete the energy of the Defense Drone.
4. Marines - They can shoot air units, that's about it. Watch out for Seeker Missiles.
Best Terran Counters vs Banshees
1. Viking - The king of Terran anti-air. Use it, abuse it.
2. Marine - Marines do surprisingly well against Banshees. In terms of production cost, 5 Marines = 1 Banshee (and requires much less tech). Yet, 5 Marines will easily defeat 1 Banshee, and you'll have 3 Marines left at the end of the battle. With Combat Shield, it gets even better, since Banshees will then need 3 attacks to kill 1 Marine (compared to 2 attacks without the Combat Shield upgrade).
3. Thor - One Thor can take out 2 Banshees and survive, but not 3. That's still decent, especially because of the huge range of their anti air missiles.
3. Battlecruiser - Sadly too slow to chase them effectively, but they do kill them fast if they get in range.
Best Terran Counters vs Thors
1. Battlecruiser - Being a flying armored unit, the Battlecruiser doesn't take that much damage against a Thor. Even better if you research Yamato Cannon to ensure a quick kill. A single Battlecruiser can kill 2 Thors and survive, without even using Yamato Cannon.
2. Marine - Marines are just way too small for Thors, shooting them is a waste of time for the slow attacking giant robot. This makes them the cheapest and safest counter to Thors. Stimpack is great in this situation, because Marines will get one-shot by Thors no matter what, so might as well sacrifice some HP for some extra damage.
3. Thor - Make sure your Thor uses 250mm Strike Cannon before the enemy Thor does, and that will be a flawless victory for your Robot. It's a double-edged weapon, if your opponent is quicker on the 250mm Strike Cannon, you lose your Thor and his stays full HP.
4. Marauder - They get the benefit of their +10 damage vs Armored units, and they have enough HP (125) to survive a single Thor attack round (90 damage). You will need 4 Marauders to win vs a single Thor, which isn't great when you compare the production costs, but it's still decent. Pubg corporation phone number. It gets much better with Stimpack though, as it doesn't change anything for Marauders in terms of survivability against Thors (Their health drops down to 105 after using stimpack, so Thors still need two rounds of attacks to kill them).
Best Terran Counters vs Battlecruisers
1. Viking - 3 Vikings can barely take out a Battlecruiser (just barely). Go with at least 4 Vikings vs 1 Battlecruiser and you'll get much better results.
2. Marine - 15 Marines cost about the same as one Battlecruiser (and require much less teching). Yet, they clearly win the fight and the battlecruiser goes down with 6 marines left standing. Do the same with the Combat Shield upgrade, and you'll have 8 marines left standing. With Combat Shield + Stimpack: 10 Marines left standing. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Note: Everything else is poor vs battlecruisers. For example, 2 Thors, despite costing a lot more ressources, can't even take down a single Battlecruiser, without even using Yamato Cannon.
List of other 'Best Unit Counters' Guides
Terran
Protoss
Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy: Best Counters vs Protoss Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy: Best Counters vs Terran Units (coming soon)
Zerg
Sony playstation 3 emulator for pc. Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy: Best Counters vs Protoss Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy: Best Counters vs Terran Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy: Best Counters vs Zerg Units (coming soon)
Introduction
In Starcraft 2, there is a 'best counter' for every unit.
In this guide I will give detailed information for Terran players to counter every Starcraft 2 Zerg units.
Please keep in mind that this is a general terran unit strategy guide, it is based on pure unit statistics. So you must adapt depending on the situation in-game. For example, if I say that Vikings are the best unit counter against Mutalisks, don't go for Vikings if you haven't even started building a Starport as your opponent shows up with 6 mutalisks, you won't have time for that, produce marines and/or missile turrets instead and then build a starport if you manage to hold off the first mutalisk batch.
My point is, adapt this information to your game depending on the situation, you can't always produce the best unit counter in time, so sometimes you'll have to go for 2nd or 3rd best.
Win casino slot machine. With that said, let's get started with this guide!
Table of Contents
Best Terran Counters vs Zerglings
1. Hellion - Thanks to its flamethrowers, the Hellion does massive AoE damage against packs of Zerglings and also benefits from their +5 damage vs light units, killing them in 3 shots (2 shots with the Infernal Pre-Lighter Upgrade), which means that 2 or 3 hellions can together take out several Zerglings simultaneously everytime they shoot.
Even better, with their incredible movement speed, they can fire and run away unscathed with proper micro, making the hellion the best Terran counter vs Zerglings.
2. Reaper - Dealing 2 x (4 dmg + 5 dmg vs light) = 18 dmg to Zerlings everytime they shoot, and they shoot rather quickly. This means that with no upgrades, they will need only 2 attacks to kill a Zergling. Not as good as the Hellion vs Zerglings, due to a lack of AoE and no super speed, but in certain situations they can do really well, especially with a ledge nearby for some hit and cliff jump harassment.
3. Marines + Bunker or Walling - Not as good as the above two options, but still the best option if your opponent tries an early Zergling rush before you get the chance to tech for Hellions or Reapers. Generally, Terran players will simply wall off their entry point quickly with their first barrack and a supply depot. Then place a few marines behind and shoot away while the poor Zerglings will try to chew at your buildings to enter.
Best Terran Counters vs Queen
1. Ghosts - Sniper Round deals 45dmg to biological units, plus they have a natural +10 dmg bonus with Biological units. Which means that they can take out a Queen quickly, without taking a single damage (as long as they remain cloaked). Not to mention, Queens do very poor damage versus ground units.
2. Reapers - With their excellent mobility and bonus vs light units, reapers are great to harass drones and queens. Climb the nearest cliff, take a few shots at the Queen, if she runs away, take out some drones and run away if your opponent sends a heavy force against you. Rinse and repeat and keep pressure on your opponents economy and on his queen. If you manage to take out a queen early with your reapers, this will be a huge step back for your opponent. Even better, if your opponent has his drones and queen run away, simply attack his hatchery. Reapers do crazy damage against buildings, don't forget that.
3.Marauders - With their long range and their concussive shots, Marauders can easily take out a Queen without leaving her a chance to run for cover. A couple of marauders combined with a bunch of reapers is the ideal early queen gank squad.
Note: In any case, no Zerg opponent will ever mass produce Queens, so you shouldn't build the above units specifically to counter 1 or 2 Queens. Starcraft 2 balance issues. However, it's still good to know what units work best against them.
Best Terran Counters vs Hydralisks
1. Siege Tanks - Easily the best counter to Hydralisks. While in Siege Mode, tanks can kill several Hydralisks with only two shots. Don't use them solo though, protect them with a squad of marines or reapers and they'll rip Hydralisks to shreds from the safety of their huge range (13 in siege mode).
2. Ravens - Two things make the Raven great against hydralisks. Hunter-seeker Missile is great against stationary units, Hydralisks like to stand there and shoot and don't move very fast, plus HSM does 100 damage, just enough to kill a bunch of hydras in one shot. The other thing which makes them awesome against hydralisks is the Point Defense Drone, which will absorb many shots from hydras and save your troops a whole lot of damage.
3. Reapers - With their +4 dmg vs light units and their nice mobility, Reapers inflict 18 dmg per attack against Hydralisks, a lot better than what Hydralisks do (Only 12 dmg per attack), and they cost a lot less to produce.
4. Marines - One single Marine will lose versus a single Hydralisk. However, 3 Marines will easily defeat a single Hydralisk, while costing about the same amount of ressources and less building requirements. With the combat shield upgrade or a single infantry armor upgrade, mass marines become an excellent counter to Hydralisks.
Best Terran Counters vs Banelings
1. Siege Tanks - In siege mode, they kill banelings in one hit, before they even get anywhere near. With the help of a medivac and good micro (Unload - Shoot - Load), they become an even better counter.
2. Reapers - They do 18 damage per attack to Banelings, thus killing them with two shots. With proper hit and run (aka 'Kiting'), they can kill them in two shots before the banelings get a chance to explode near them. However, reapers are light units, so they take full damage from banelings and can quickly be obliterated without proper micro skills. Pair them with a few marauders to help with the kiting, using concussive shot on the closest banelings to slow them down.
3. Marauders - With their range of 6 and their concussive missiles which slow movement speed, Marauders can 'kite' banelings with proper micro and kill them before they even get in range to explode. Moreover, Marauders are Armored units so they only take 15 damage from Baneling explosions. However, they only deal 10 damage per attack to light units, so it's best to pair them with other units which do a lot more range damage versus banelings, such as reapers and siege tanks.
Tip: While kiting, let one of your units lag behind to force the banelings to explode and take out only that unit.
The Battle Report #1 between David Kim and Matthew Cooper shows that technique, with David Kim feeding units one by one to the banelings while kiting them (see video below).
Any unit will do, but some fill that role even better. The Hellion is a great unit to feed to banelings, with their 90HP, it will take 3 baneling explosion to kill a single Hellion, while doing nice damage to banelings (bonus vs light units). Their incredible mobility also makes it easier to position them quickly between the banelings and your infantry. Position them sideways in front of the banelings to block them as much as possible.
VIDEO: Watch David Kim feed Marines to Banelings one by one to minimize their effect
Best Terran Counters vs Roaches
1. Siege Tanks - Roaches have high speed health regeneration, so you must use brute force against them, killing them with heavy fire before they get the chance to back off or burrow to regenerate. Siege Tanks in siege mode fit that role best. They are also good vs roaches even when they aren't in siege mode, dealing 15 dmg + 10 vs armored.
2. Raven - The Raven brings 3 extremely viable cards to the table against roaches. They fly, so roaches can't hurt them. They are dectectors, preventing roaches to burrow and regenerate. Hunter-seeker Missile deals a massive 100 damage in an area, which is enough to finish off roaches mid fight before they even think about burrowing. Combine it with infantry to guarantee an efficient mass roach killing.
3. Thor - With do a massive 90 damage vs ground units, so of course they do great against Roaches. Their Armored status and 400 HP also allows them to take a lot of punishment from Roaches. However, don't send them alone, pair them with other appropriate units such as Marauders, Siege Tanks and Ravens.
4. Marauders - Marauders outrange Roaches significantly and also outgun them thanks to their +10 dmg vs armored units. Their concussive missiles also help them finish off low HP roaches before they manage to escape, this only works until your opponent researches burrow though, so make sure to get an Orbital Command ASAP or a raven for detection. This makes them the best early counter to roaches.
Best Terran Counters vs Infestors
1. Ghosts -EMP Shot not only drains all energy from Infestors, but also reveals them for 5 seconds. Use your intuition to guess where they're burrowed, EMP Shot that area and if you are successful, you'll have 5 seconds to turn these ugly bugs into a pool of blood, which should be plenty at this stage of the game.
2. Ravens - Detection is great against Infestors. They also move very slowly, thus making it hard to dodge a carefully placed Hunter-Seeker Missile. Be careful though, Infestors can use Neural Parasite on your Ravens and nullify that tactic, be the first one to act.
3. Orbital Command - Build one if you haven't already. Build a second one if your opponent is going for Infestors. Always save some energy to scan and destroy these bugs quickly before they turn your army against you.
Best Terran Counters vs Mutalisks
1. Vikings - They do 20 damage per attack against Mutalisk, which is more than twice as much, while costing about the same ressources. With their great mobility, they can chase mutalisks really well and make your opponent wish he hadn't produced any.
2. Thors - +4 damage vs light. This grants the Thor a solid 4x 14 damage versus Mutalisks. With their insane range of 10, they can kill Mutalisks before your opponent even sees your Thor. With their 400 HP and armor of 1, thors can even withstand a heavy mutalisk pack.
3. Battlecruisers - They do farily well vs heavy Mutalisk forces. However, teching to Battlecruisers is very ressource heavy, so only go for this option if your opponent is going for mass mutalisks.
4. Marines - Without upgrades, they die pretty quickly to Mutalisks and their multi-shots. However, with the Combat-Shield and Stim-Pack upgrades, they become a very good counter against Mutalisks.
Best Terran Counters vs Corruptors
1. Thors - Being a ground unit, the Thor is immune to Corruptors. Adobe xd cc v17 0 12. Plus, with it's huge range of 10 (double as much as the corruptors), the Thors counter Corruptors best.
2. Vikings - Vikings cost slightly less ressources than Corruptors, however they are better than them in every aspect. They deal 28 damage per attack (thanks to their bonus vs armored) and have a range of 9. To top it off, you can quickly switch a low HP viking to ground mode before it is finished off by corruptors, thus preventing the loss of a unit. They also have superior mobility.
3. Marines - They can't be hit by corruptors and can kill them pretty quickly with the Stimpack upgrade.
4. Raven - Point defense drone is great against Corruptors and their relatively slow attack speed.
Best Terran Counters vs Ultralisks
1. Banshee - Well duh, free hits. They do significant, long range damage to ground units and can't be harmed by Ultralisks. If you see your opponent teching for Ultralisk, make sure to bring a few extra Banshees into the fray.
2. Battlecruisers - With the Yamato Cannon upgrade, battlecruisers can make quick work of the zerg powerhouse. Each Yamato Cannon does 300 dmg, which means that you can instantly kill an Ultralisk if you've got two of those.
3. Thor - The Ultralisk is only devastating against small ground units, because of his splash cleave attack. A Thor will only take 20 damage per attack from an Ultralisk, while dealing 90 damage every attack, which is almost 5 times as much. If your opponent crazy enough to stick his Ultralisk on your Thor while your smaller infantry units chew at its husk, you've got yourself a pretty good deal. Plus, the Thor's 250mm canon does 500 damage while also stunning the target for 6 seconds! This is huge, it's like this ability was made specifically to counter Ultralisks! Thors are in my opinoin the best ground unit to counter ultralisks, by far.
4. Marauders - With their +10 damage bonus vs Armored, a squad of Marauders does pretty well against an Ultralisk, especially if you spread them out nicely, preventing the Ultralisk from taking full advantage of its splash cleave attack.
Tip: Always spread out your ground infantry units as much as possible when going up against an Ultralisk to minimize the effect of its Splash Cleave.
Best Terran Counters vs Brood Lords
1. Vikings - 2 x 14 dmg per attack which can't be retaliated, superior mobility and cheaper to produce.
2. Battlecruisers - Yamato Cannon for some one-shot fun.
3. Raven - Point Defense Drone is great against the broodlords attacks, which hit quite hard, but at rather slow pace. Plus, their movement speed isn't the best, so a well timed Hunter Seeker Missile will quickly make a dent at their HP.
4. Thor - Superior Range (10) and Superior Firepower (4x 10dmg). If you can't access the above units, then this is your Plan B.
List of other 'Best Unit Counters' Guides
Terran
Protoss
Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy: Best Counters vs Protoss Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Terran
Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy: Best Counters vs Terran Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Terran Tech Tree
Zerg
Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy: Best Counters vs Protoss Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Terran Mech
Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy: Best Counters vs Terran Units (coming soon)
Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy: Best Counters vs Zerg Units (coming soon)
