Barracks add on's and army setup vs Zerg?

[Syl3ntFury]

Now that everyone helped me out with toss and I can deal with them, just wondering how you all deal against zerg? Marines counter mutas/zerglings but get raped by roaches. Marauders counter them but hydras seem to rape em. so when your building your racks, how many do you normally use and what add on do you use? An what do you use against mass hydras?

[farcus]

Before reading this, keep in mind I'm trying to develop my own ways to play so this may sound unorthodox or may not, but will definitely suck. But in sharing the way I think hopefully others can gain and develop new counters/strategies as well.

You are correct about roach rape, there's not much I can do if a get a good blend of roaches/hydras. For an early/mid game with ideally little focus on air (cringes), I try to keep a 5:3:2 blend of marines, marauders and helions. The helion pre-igniter upgrade does +10 to light units which decimates the zerg. It also has the ability to do AOE damage so if you can keep them behind some marines with the upgraded armor and shield just a little in front, there's not much that can be done. If you have time the concussive shot for the marauders can be really damn effective for kiting some mutalisks. I have done it fairly well where my helions and marines are busy and had the opponent try to flank with mutas and my marauders did the cleaning. Now like I said, this is without AIR in mind so it is an incomplete strat. However recently keeping a 5:3:2 ratio of marines to marauders to helions has done fairly well.

The key to any strat is timing, and each one has it's own timing. It's just a matter of having as many counters ready in mind and knowing about them before the GG.

[Arovien]

MMM will keep the zerg swarm at bay til u get ravens for their HSM ability which destroys their huge clusters of units. Heck, you can just win with MMM if you keep pressure on them; not letting them expand for a 2nd time.
Regarding the rax add-ons, usually want more techlab addons then reactors by starting with 2/1 when producing from 3 raxs. If need be, you can make marines on the techlab ones.
Against mass Hydras, you go marines with medivac support and tanks. Seiged tanks rape through hydras like no other til ravens.

Don't go hellions against roach/hydra. Hellions are only good in the early game where zerg only has zerglings. Hellions are countered by any range zerg unit, doesnt even matter if hydras are light.

[BSOS]

Now that everyone helped me out with toss and I can deal with them, just wondering how you all deal against zerg? Marines counter mutas/zerglings but get raped by roaches. Marauders counter them but hydras seem to rape em. so when your building your racks, how many do you normally use and what add on do you use? An what do you use against mass hydras?

STIMPACK is the bane to zerg existence. it is a must to have against zerg.
Marines > hydra / muta / ling
Marauders > roaches
Siege tanks > baneling
Medivac > Stimpack

what this means is compose your army of a good counter to his composition....
if he's going muta/ling, then you go mass marine and turrets in ur base....
if he's going roach/hydra, then you 2/1 marauder/marine with medivacs to heal the stims (if you happened to get the tech for it, siege tanks too... a few is good)...
and against Ling/bane, get mass marines and tanks and a few medivacs, always.

remember, scouting is everything

i recommend you just go Marine/Marauder/Medivac against any sort of zerg build... just be wary of banelings and infestors.

endgame, vikings > brood lords