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Just came back to playing after a bit of a break so some of this might be due to simply relearning to play at my old level but...
I've noticed ESPECIALLY in TvZ that tanks don't actually serve a purpose in my army other than to act as a gas sink that could better be spent on double upgrades for bio. Tanks are great against banelings, but so are conc shell marauders forming a wall to block the banelings from getting to your marines and critically, marauders with medivac support simply do not die to fungals. At all. Go ahead and fungal my marauders zerg, once you run out of energy I'll flood in with my 3/3 marines and kill you.
I spent so much time learning to split my army to mitigate splash damage that I find I don't actually need tanks at all and if I build them and I can't win with a mid-game timing push then they actually become a liability when zerg goes broodlords. If I go marine marauder then admittedly the marauders are equally useless at fighting the broodlords directly but there's a very critical difference. I can split them away from my army and counter attack far flung expansions with marauder drops, something that just doesn't work with tanks because of that pesky siege-up time. Also my marauders are 3,3 and can stim where my tanks, if I'm lucky are 1,0. 0,0 if I've been under a lot of pressure.
Generally my problem seems to be this, that tanks are admittedly great in large numbers. 6-10 tanks is a truly awesome thing to have in your army, but by the time I've actually amassed that many, zerg has a better flying version that shoots zerglings and I cry terran tears, cursing blizzard for nerfing my beautiful ghosts... Well not really, but you get the idea.
I never built tanks seriously in TvP, messed around with 1,1,1 builds, decided I liked bio better and never looked back, so that just leaves TvT where it's kind of a toss up on the map. If it's a map where I MUST push or hold middle control, I get some tanks because I feel you need to, but I'd dearly love to not have to. Marines though, you do need some kind of splash to fight them or they swarm you so it's either tanks or HSM. Seeing as I have a factory sitting there anyway, it's a lot easier to just get a few tanks with my bio army, but I feel like I want to get 3,3 ups on my bio before I do.
Anyways, I guess that's it, I feel like marauders do the siege tank's job better, plus they share upgrades with marines. I also see this trend a lot in pro matches too, where terrans are increasingly reducing their tank counts or cutting them all together from any strategy that isn't an all-in timing attack of some description.
Anyways, discuss, I suppose.
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The usefulness of tanks aren't only for the straight up engagements, there are other purposes like laying siege on the opponents natural or third, or defending your own base with some carefully placed tanks. On the other hand with the rise of the infestorling play i suppose marauders are becoming an option as you said they are macho as shit. It depends on your style of play, for most people having tanks is a great way to lay down some suppressing fire and forcing the zerg to be more cautious with his infestors or at least throw out some beachballs(infested terrans). For you well mass drops in your thing so keep on keeping on its ultimately your choice. On the plus side at least it forces the zerg into the BL late game and not the Ultras
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Unless you're going to form a water tight wall with marauders every engagment (that's a lot of marauders) any decent zerg will target fire the marines with banelings and kill the marauders with lings.
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As an infestor/ling Zerg player, I honestly prefer when Terran goes marauders instead of tanks. When you go tanks, you can focus down the infestors from far away, seriously cutting down on the number of fungals I have available. But when you go marauders, I simply fungal the marauders along with the marines, and even if I can't actually kill the marauders with the fungals, all of the marines will be dead anyway, meaning the marauders are free food for my lings. And you can't simply say "but I'll just split better", because heavily upgraded lings tear through bio if it's not clumped up.
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Tanks allow you to zone the map and send out drops without fearing that you're going to be completely runby when you push out on the map. I'm not sure how many factories that you're producing out of or what timings you are trying to hit but if you feel like tanks are worthless, you probably need more. Small numbers of tanks are like small numbers of mutas. They cost a ton of minerals and gas only to be completely ineffectual. I am assuming you are playing marine/tank behind a reactor hellion expand. Tanks are like most Terran units because they require attention and great positioning. If you have been out of practice for a couple of months, you might have fallen behind the skill curve for your level of play and just need to shake of the rust and get better again.
Tanks are definitely still viable and pushing the Zerg third base and dropping in the main at the same time demonstrates the power of siege tanks on the field. With bio, you can push the 3rd and drop the main as well but you cannot secure a position on the map. It is simply hit and run...if this is what you want, bio is the answer. After I came back from a break I had a ridiculously difficult time catching back up to my previous skill level relative to the others in my league. It's a matter of catching up on the metagame and refining your style to work in the current state of the game.
If your break was only a couple of weeks, you most likely need to get back in your rhythm before you worry about the usefulness of siege tanks. Marauders are good but against infestor ling play, you won't see the Zerg running out of energy before your marines are dead and his zerglings overwhelm your then-helpless marauders. Play a heavy mech style in practice games or ladder and figure out how tanks work in that composition and try to emulate that role in a biomech style afterwards. Maybe a few replays would help us point out anything that might be off in your tank usage.
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One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors.
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Oh, I love when zergs go ultras. Ultras are terrible at dealing with simcity, so I place depots around my planetary fortresses with zergling and scv sized gaps. The Ultras just wander back and forth trying to get at the planetary fort while the ibex cannons massacre the clumped up zerglings. Once the lings have been burned away, the MANrauders stim in and melt the ultras in seconds, much faster than tanks do.
Also, I'm a giant fan of late game cloaked banshees in tvz. If octo drops are getting shut down, I go for octo cloaked banshee harass. Great recipe for bm on ladder too, which is always a hilarious plus.
It saddens me though, cause I really LIKE tanks. I really like that slow methodical positional play, I just find it doesn't actually work. This is not me saying this as a player either, I see them failing to work time and again in competitive play, except for a few notable exceptions. I'd actually love to know what the secret is to those notable exceptions because as I said, I loves me some siege tanks. From a purely stylistic standpoint, siege tanks are synonymous with terran. It would be like protoss without carriers, they just wouldn't be protoss any more... Yeah... That's another topic though.
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i try my HARDEST to play terran without tanks, and i lose alot of games because of it. I have recently started building tanks out of frustration, and my win rate against zerg and terran nearly doubled. sad fact is, tanks are easier than no tanks, and unless you are mkp or you dont care about your win rate, you will be forced into tanks.
Im just a diamond terran, so maybe in masters you will have the skill to play without tanks, but im just not good enough
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On March 28 2012 15:55 kmh wrote: One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors. Not really...You don't get roaches because you need to spend your gas on units that deal AoE damage, because marines with medivac support are just ridiculously good against no-splash armies. Not to mention, marauders counter roaches too.
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tvz, unless I'm going pure mech, tanks are typically last on my list of priorities, but I still get them.
For example, macro-wise I'll worry about:
1. scvs/supply depots/when should i take my next base 2. upgrades 3. marine and maruader production 4. medvacs 5. tanks
I mean, I get the factory, and I'll have the gas, might as well squeeze in the tanks I can afford. They are amazing at holding big counter pushes since most of my army is typically running around the map in dropships.
Also, you really only need +1 weapons for mech and if you are getting bio upgrades you'll have an armory. +1 just ensures that tanks will one-shot zerglings even after they get their armor upgrades. Other than that, I dont think +2 or +3 make any significant changes except to ultras, and just cause more friendly fire.
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In masters league TvZ marauders are worthless. You just target marauders with mutas and run ling/bane through marauder wall into marines. In many cases any decent zerg will just ignore marauders completely until there isn't a single marine left.
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On March 28 2012 16:21 ipwntbarney wrote: Not really...You don't get roaches because you need to spend your gas on units that deal AoE damage, because marines with medivac support are just ridiculously good against no-splash armies. Not to mention, marauders counter roaches too.
Mixing in roaches is good regardless simply because they tank and let you reinforce with the next wave of lings without giving up too much ground. They do cost gas, of course, but it's worthwhile to do against a no-tank player. Stephano and Nerchio for instance have a lot of success doing this.
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On March 28 2012 15:55 kmh wrote: One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors.
I actually find the opposite. Sufficient numbers of roaches crush through tanks by burrowing under them and killing the tanks with their own splash damage. The main advantage I see to marauders against a roach centered army though is that you have the option to just pack up into the medivacs and run for it. No amount of roaches is going to be able to push up a ramp or through a choke against a healthy number of maruaders with medivacs. Of course I love it when zergs try it.
@Rowin
I actually like to upgrade my ship weapons if I have any left-over gas and if the game goes very late, like 5+ bases, I mix in some cloaked banshees and start harassing in several places at once. Pretty useful vs broodlords too.
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They are not as important as they were ( because zerg are playing with less and less banelings ) but you still need them at some point.
They let you get in good position : sieging an expansion from far aay enough so they hesitate to engage They let you defend a position : shakuras mid map is a prime example They offer you protection against Infestors ( and if they use ITs to absorb tanks shots and stuff, it's less fungal anyway )
But getting them last is the best solution at the moment. Get your production facilities, your upgrades, your medivacs before. Usually i start getting tanks when i put my third up only.
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Ummm... What league are you in I wonder? And do you ever watch pro matches?
They build tanks very often and they are very important. You say marauders work well against banelings? Maybe in early stages, but thats like saying stalkers work well against banelings, sure 1 stalker being killed by banelings is cost efficient. But almost ANYTHING clumped up banelings are good against, even clumped thors. Tanks are not just a "gas sink" they are a VERY VERY important unit in TvZ, and also in TvT. You don't have to play that style, and it requires a lot of APM, but it's very effective. And most pros do get double upgrades still even while producing tanks. And it does cut down on production. But their zoning capability is huge, and forces a large commitment on the zergs part. Even if there is only a few tanks, the Zerg isn't going to retreat after going in to attack unless they snipe key units. They plan to go all out to crush your force because otherwise they take unnecessary tank shots. Use that zoning to your advantage and use a small bio force to attack hatcheries with your tanks posted up. If they go after that small bio force and take tank volleys, your cost efficient. Otherwise they go after the whole army and you hopefully have the better army and good micro. And if by the time you have 6 tanks they have broodlords... Well... Your doing something wrong. Probably not pressuring enough or getting them a little too slow. And also tanks are still viable when broods come out, you just have to use them very properly and have enough Vikings.
If you really LIKE tanks and are having trouble using them efficiently, take some time off from playing with them. Watch some pro tourneys and streams. And then use them like they do. Despite what you think tanks are not pointless and pros use them all the time and not just as a "gas dump"
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I assume you're talking about what works at the highest level. Because otherwise I could say I have great success going 2port every game and it would be useless because that's just ladder where I become good at a style people aren't used to facing and win with.
For vs Z you'd have to link me the games where T forgoes tanks alltogether often. I know now there's a lot of delayed tanks, where you delay tanks to rush fast 3 bases and still put on pressure with faster upgraded bio + medivacs, but I can't imagine any T who forgoes tanks, and I watch way too much sc2 for my own good. Pure bio seems weak to good Zergs who go infestor/ling/bling, or roach/ling/bling. Like I've seen pure bio before in GSL matches and it's decent and you keep up on supply so it looks good, but you're one mismicro'd engagement from being completely dead. And tanks just give you an army you need hive tech to deal with. Sure you're doing fine and you can show me your reps of it working but that means nothing still.
For vs P there are some cool 2base tank timings you see people like Supernova play around with and 1-1-1 is a decent tool to keep in your arsenal for BoX series. Sure you're not comfortable with them but that doesn't mean they're bad.
And for vs T almost everyone goes tanks - marine/tank vs marine/tank, mech vs mech, or bio vs mech into tanks. The exception is bio into air terran playing vs mech but that's pretty rare compared to bio into tanks from what I've seen.
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Im liking the idea of going blue flame hellion + MMM in tvz. At least then you have a higher hp fast moving unit that can absolutely murder lings and not die to fungals (plus they're great for run-bys and map control). You get to reactor them out as well so it saves you on gas, which you could end up spending on some sort of late game avilo-type raven transition or even mass thors.
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Specifically for ZvT, if a Terran doesn't go for tanks, I feel as though you'll struggle big time against banelings. I like to do a cutesy baneling bust, and if you, the Terran player, have no tanks, I'm most likely to be successful.
One thing I do think Terran players need to do is build less of them. Just say 5, and use it to secure a relatively fast 3rd, and then "zone" areas off.
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I feel in TvZ, more tanks than 4 are not worth it. A new Tvz was spotted on MLG when Marineking went marine thor tank
the thors can be the baneling shield, can snipe infestors, are not that easy to kill with fungal and deny all muta agression.
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On March 28 2012 16:33 Noocta wrote: They are not as important as they were ( because zerg are playing with less and less banelings ) but you still need them at some point.
They let you get in good position : sieging an expansion from far aay enough so they hesitate to engage They let you defend a position : shakuras mid map is a prime example They offer you protection against Infestors ( and if they use ITs to absorb tanks shots and stuff, it's less fungal anyway )
But getting them last is the best solution at the moment. Get your production facilities, your upgrades, your medivacs before. Usually i start getting tanks when i put my third up only.
Here's the thing, if I get them last then I find that I don't have the opportunity to actually push with them before Broodlords are out. So I build 4-6 tanks, I walk them across the map, siege up the zerg's expansion and then I have to promptly unsiege and run away from the broodlords and start scrambling to build vikings to deal with that and worse, until I actually kill those broodlords, I'm stuck with these 4-6 massive expensive paper weights which are more likely to kill my own units then cause any hurt to the enemy. Seems like I'd be better off if I never built them at all.
@granite
Oh man, that was totally sick! If I could get that replay to study I would do that build every time, but, alas, it has not as such been made available to the best of my knowledge and all my attempts to improvise that unit composition on my own ended in tragilicious failure. What I learned from the experience; I am not mkp.
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I agree to some extent with the OP, marine marauder can work really well vs zerg, and saying it doesnt work on high level is pure BS as we´ve seen it been done in GSL and won games. The real danger is high eco banebusts early on, marauders only do so much vs bane busts, and once your door is down, lings will stream in and do too much dmg. You can stop small busts with marauders on hold position in front of your ramp, but if its a high eco bust with more banes and loads of nonstop lings it can be incredible difficult to stop without taking heavy losses and getting behind. Good scouting and bunkers obviously helps, but a couple of tanks really makes a difference here.
Personally whenever I do bio vs zerg, I often get 2 tanks just for defensive purposes. You will have the factory anyways since you need it for starport and techlab can be switched afterwards - all you really invested is siege tech and 2 tanks. It also makes you feel alot safer about being active with you bio force or doing drops, knowing you´ve got a couple of tanks back at home to deny any small-medium sized counters. The marine marauder transitions more easily into ghosts (and viking) vs infestor broodlord and most zergs will never go ultras if they see you already have marauders on the field.
Anyways, keep playing bio vs zerg if you feel more comfortable doing so, I´ve seen MKP, Polt and Jinro do it at times and I can´t remember them losing doing so, even if it may be slightly inferior to marine tank play. One thing though, you should keep the zerg on 2 mining bases at best as possible - if the zerg gets to 4 bases (minimum 3 fully mining), he can throw banes at you unmicroed in a constant stream and just overwhelm you. If it gets to this point you will have to get more tanks if he goes mass bane.
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United States2186 Posts
The only reason you get tanks early game TvZ is to hold against allins. However this is a coinflip because if he just 3-4 base 80 drone you have little offensive capability. See heavenslight vs select from lonestar as an example of this problem. Tanks have no offensive capability early on and marine upgrades are much more important.
Basically Terrans want to get marine/hellion/medivac/upgrades early game to have some kind of offensive threat while getting tanks from a full 3 base econ. Your early movements won't have tanks but you'll have enough to hold the bases and when you move out at 160-200 depending on the situation you'll have somewhere between 6-10 tanks. Marines scale very poorly the larger the army sizes are simply due to your inability to micro everything at the level it needs to be while tanks obviously become better and better. Terrans absolutely MUST crush the Zerg maxed lair army cost effectively or they will never get the lead they need to be ahead of the Zerg when hive tech comes.
Demuslims game against Nestea on taldarim from Winter Arena or MMA's games from IEM vs zenio are a good example of how to pressure early with non-tank armies and transition into tank-backed armies with a full 3 base econ.
Tanks in TvP are awful outside of specific timing attacks on 1 or 2 base. These builds coinflip certain things and are useful in a series but not as a reliable build.
Tanks are absolutely necessary TvT except when you are going pure bio/medivac/viking vs mech.
All the nonsense about marauders or hsm (lol) replacing tanks is not backed by any successful play and should be left in the trash bin.
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On March 28 2012 16:57 yoona2012 wrote: I agree to some extent with the OP, marine marauder can work really well vs zerg, and saying it doesnt work on high level is pure BS as we´ve seen it been done in GSL and won games. The real danger is high eco banebusts early on, marauders only do so much vs bane busts, and once your door is down, lings will stream in and do too much dmg. You can stop small busts with marauders on hold position in front of your ramp, but if its a high eco bust with more banes and loads of nonstop lings it can be incredible difficult to stop without taking heavy losses and getting behind. Good scouting and bunkers obviously helps, but a couple of tanks really makes a difference here.
Personally whenever I do bio vs zerg, I often get 2 tanks just for defensive purposes. You will have the factory anyways since you need it for starport and techlab can be switched afterwards - all you really invested is siege tech and 2 tanks. It also makes you feel alot safer about being active with you bio force or doing drops, knowing you´ve got a couple of tanks back at home to deny any small-medium sized counters. The marine marauder transitions more easily into ghosts (and viking) vs infestor broodlord and most zergs will never go ultras if they see you already have marauders on the field.
Anyways, keep playing bio vs zerg if you feel more comfortable doing so, I´ve seen MKP, Polt and Jinro do it at times and I can´t remember them losing doing so, even if it may be slightly inferior to marine tank play. One thing though, you should keep the zerg on 2 mining bases at best as possible - if the zerg gets to 4 bases (minimum 3 fully mining), he can throw banes at you unmicroed in a constant stream and just overwhelm you. If it gets to this point you will have to get more tanks if he goes mass bane.
If bling busts are such a problem, why not make hellions with your reactor'd factory (that you would have replaced with a starport on the reactor) early on? Hellion marauder is pretty strong, and you can do a good early game push with it. Could also get blue flame as part of your tech path.
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If you go hardcore bio with marauders, the zerg should go muta/ling and roll you. A simple flank is all it requires for your "marauder wall" strategy to no longer be relevant.
The thing is that nobody likes to go muta/ling anymore, because the old 2base lair timing doesn't really work anymore. But I think against no-tank mass bio, 3base muta is the ticket to victory and if you don't have any tanks, you (should) lose to big ling/baneling flanks.
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Because you shouldn't. Marauders are prudddddy good.
Seriously speaking, siege tanks are a necessarily component in TvZ. They're very effective in zoning out areas and if the enemy attacks, they're going to be committing themselves into an onslaught of tank fire. Its possible to play tankless TvZ but you're going to need to have the necessary micro to prevent the AOE damage of banelings/fungals.
And its not like Terran are ever gas strarved. I've seen many Terrans bank excess of 1-2k gas simply because they're just making more and more marines (surprise surprise, only minerals). There's not a whole lot of gas dump unless they push for heavy tank productions. Though I'm not entirely familiar if this is true or not, been a while since I played.
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I don't understand how this topic could be this long when the answer is simple: If you don't see any point in making tanks, don't. You'll quickly notice if it works out.
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As a zerg player i find that tanks are absolutely essential for defense. Otherwise if i win an engagement whats to stop me barelling down on your base with lings infest and bane? even i cant out right kill you by getting on top of your production ill most likely be able to bottle you up and force you to engage down a ramp into infest. Pure bio is very good but imo it makes the matchup much like a ZvZ and much more volatile. Also i see no need to rush for any subsantial number of broods when engaging pure bio unless its simply for a killing blow; otherwise i find their lack of mobility a liability.
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United States8476 Posts
Troll -_-. If you split too much against zerg, lings kill you. If you don't, fungals kill you.
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On March 28 2012 16:59 Ver wrote:
All the nonsense about marauders or hsm (lol) replacing tanks is not backed by any successful play and should be left in the trash bin.
Yes, I had my tongue firmly in my cheek there. Suggesting that hsm could be a viable substitute for tank splash would be a little bit like suggesting homeopathy is an effective method for curing anything.
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On March 28 2012 16:59 Ver wrote: The only reason you get tanks early game TvZ is to hold against allins. However this is a coinflip because if he just 3-4 base 80 drone you have little offensive capability. See heavenslight vs select from lonestar as an example of this problem. Tanks have no offensive capability early on and marine upgrades are much more important.
l will just speak from TVZ since I am zerg. I think the main reason is to be safe against the ~11min speed roach/ling bane bust that alot of zergs do and you often see get used to finish off a game. A few tanks in good positions can make you completely safe.
In addition to this the positional advantage and ability to bait out segments of a zerg army before he has everything ready can be devastating when used well, of course this has a flip side of being engaged before you are seiged but good players can usually handle this. As such I think tanks are another map-dependant thing where depending on positioning they really can prove to be absolutely superior to marauders.
Finally as a zerg I am more scared of tanks than marauders and if you don't have a reasonable tank count against me I am a lot less frightened of an engagement, and can risk more all-ins and general attacking play whilst tanks force zergs into a defensive more economic posture since attacking into tanks is basically suicide.
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On March 28 2012 16:59 Ver wrote: The only reason you get tanks early game TvZ is to hold against allins. However this is a coinflip because if he just 3-4 base 80 drone you have little offensive capability. See heavenslight vs select from lonestar as an example of this problem. Tanks have no offensive capability early on and marine upgrades are much more important.
Basically Terrans want to get marine/hellion/medivac/upgrades early game to have some kind of offensive threat while getting tanks from a full 3 base econ. Your early movements won't have tanks but you'll have enough to hold the bases and when you move out at 160-200 depending on the situation you'll have somewhere between 6-10 tanks. Marines scale very poorly the larger the army sizes are simply due to your inability to micro everything at the level it needs to be while tanks obviously become better and better. Terrans absolutely MUST crush the Zerg maxed lair army cost effectively or they will never get the lead they need to be ahead of the Zerg when hive tech comes.
Demuslims game against Nestea on taldarim from Winter Arena or MMA's games from IEM vs zenio are a good example of how to pressure early with non-tank armies and transition into tank-backed armies with a full 3 base econ.
Tanks in TvP are awful outside of specific timing attacks on 1 or 2 base. These builds coinflip certain things and are useful in a series but not as a reliable build.
Tanks are absolutely necessary TvT except when you are going pure bio/medivac/viking vs mech.
All the nonsense about marauders or hsm (lol) replacing tanks is not backed by any successful play and should be left in the trash bin.
Exactly. I'm masters and if a Terran doesn't have tanks for their early defense I just do a delayed bane bust and win ( I learnt this off Idra ages ago). I do see the advantages of maurauders vers Infestor play, especially the massively increased drop effectiveness, but I think you should still have defensive tanks.
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On March 28 2012 17:31 will.pity wrote:
Finally as a zerg I am more scared of tanks than marauders and if you don't have a reasonable tank count against me I am a lot less frightened of an engagement, and can risk more all-ins and general attacking play whilst tanks force zergs into a defensive more economic posture since attacking into tanks is basically suicide.
SO glad you responded with this, because this is exactly why I feel I should NOT build tanks. If I force zerg into an economic mindset, I'm forcing zerg to play in the manner where I feel they are strongest. I don't think anyone would argue that zerg, at it's best, is the more macro-centric race. But if I can show them a weakness, namely that I have no tanks and they actually take that bait then zerg is playing to my greatest strength by attacking into my cunningly constructed defensive mazes and charging head long into my prepared kill zones. Tanks help you defend, but they are by no means necessary. 1 awkwardly placed barracks constricting ling movement and soaking up roach fire does more for your defenses than a couple of tanks shooting from the high ground.
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If you are going to replace tanks with marauders you'll have to micro way better then the zerg to have equal or better outcome. I'm a diamond zerg and in these lower leagues people (me included) can't micro so if a terran plays without tanks I'll just rape him with fungals, but if a terran plays with tanks I'll lose half of my infestors from time to time for nothing.
I don't know how it is at pro level but it feels like if you're going to split like mad to avoid fungals lings will do massive damage and if you miss-micro you'll take huge amount of damage.
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you have gotta be kidding dude. all those beautiful posts from high level players explaining exactly what function tanks have in the metagame and you completely ignore them. i think you just have a peculiar fondness for bio. thats fine if it fits your style and wins you games, but when i watch pros play tvz i see tanks in the midgame. even MKP with his love for marines used a tank push to beat DRG in one of their MLG grand final games.
i will say one thing though, as good as tanks are, it is easy to die to the inevitable broods as a result of overmaking them. but a good solid number like 7 can keep you airtight as you expand or push in the midgame.
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What kind of games are you playing where the zerg has brood lords at the time where you've just gotten 6 siege tanks?
Tanks are good, they force engagements, they're excellent at sniping infestors, they oneshot lings after a single upgrade and they let you turtle more efficiently.
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If marineking beats drg using MMM (mlg finals final match), doesnt mean you can
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TvZ: for Ling Bling Muta TvT: for Pure Marine TvP: to 1/1/1
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On March 28 2012 15:20 Unwardil wrote:I can split them away from my army and counter attack far flung expansions with marauder drops, something that just doesn't work with tanks because of that pesky siege-up time. Tanks do higher single target DPS when unsieged.
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United Kingdom35817 Posts
On March 28 2012 22:37 Sorkoas wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 15:20 Unwardil wrote:I can split them away from my army and counter attack far flung expansions with marauder drops, something that just doesn't work with tanks because of that pesky siege-up time. Tanks do higher single target DPS when unsieged.
Thank you for that total irrelevance.
Has anyone mentioned the final game of MLG yet? Of course, only if you have MKP control and macro :D
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tank is for bannelings. Tank also works on roaches and hydra(god forbid a zerg going for hydra in tvz). tank works on infestors too.
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United States7483 Posts
I wouldn't be quite willing to drop tanks from the composition unless I had MKP like control.
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On March 28 2012 16:22 Reasonable wrote: In masters league TvZ marauders are worthless. You just target marauders with mutas and run ling/bane through marauder wall into marines. In many cases any decent zerg will just ignore marauders completely until there isn't a single marine left.
Mutas? Don't remember the last time I saw those in a TvZ. Every Z and his mother goes ling infestor now.
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If I see a terran skipping siege tanks, I usually just outright kill him with a 12min timing attack with about 7 roaches, 18 blings, 20+ lings with a 2nd wave otw and +1 melee completed.
In the rare occurance that this does not outright kill the Terran player (maybe he made 4 bunkers to defend his Nat, I am usually so far ahead that I can double expand and just make about 90 lings knowing full well that the game is already over.
If you don't make siege tanks in the early game, you will outright die.
As we move into the midgame, you now have to deal with equal/better upgrade lings and infestors. While marauders might sound ideal, they don't actually deal with either of these units beyond being slightly harder to kill.
In general, a midgame terran army consisting of purely marine/marauder/medivac is not scary because I know that he cannot attack without charging his full army into my base, taking away one of the key advantages T has in the MU of always having favorable engagements. Simply throwing down a fungal field to block you into my base and bowling with blings will give me absurd cost-efficiency, and I don't even have to invest in bling speed since I'm not racing against siege volleys.
We all know how bio ends up against late game broodlord infestor comps.
Going for pure bio has a very small window of effectiveness in TvZ, sometime after both nats have been established and before Zerg can adequately saturate his third in order to gain the gas income needed to deal with midgame infantry armies. If you do not deal meaningful damage in this window, you have already thrown the game. Unfortunately, this is blind countered by most hatchery-based aggression (if you're not seeing it now, you will soon).
Flip coins if you prefer, but siege tanks are a more standard and safer way to play vs Zerg.
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Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
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On March 29 2012 00:54 zmansman17 wrote: Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
Aren't hellions the counter to zerglings?
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On March 29 2012 00:57 KimJongChill wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 00:54 zmansman17 wrote: Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
Aren't hellions the counter to zerglings?
Lol, and marines, and tanks. Hell, even marauders and thors can kill lings cost-effectively.
No counter to lings... LMAO
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Well, the real counter to lings is not allowing yourself to get surrounded. Protoss know full well to fight with their backs to the wall and it's the same with anything else. If the lings can't wrap around your army they lose a lot of their effectiveness.
I reject the idea that you can't counter mass lings, you just need to use a lot of the things that are generally NOT good to do when going marine tank. Such as clumping your units up. If you don't see infestors or banelings you SHOULD pack your army into a tight little ball and fight back to back. Or better yet, don't fight at all. Pick up into medivacs and fly to where the zerglings are not, do what damage you can, then fly away again. You should invest in building armor and planetary fortresses beyond your natural because of how fast zerglings are. (For this I mean hold the location with a planetary fortress but then use macro ccs from your main to mass mule drop at the planetary. If the pf gets focused down by a mass of banelings, just fly one of your macro orbitals in to replace it and accept that zerg has actually screwed themselves by doing that.)
As for hellions being a good counter... Yes and no. Often you find yourself wishing that a few of your marines were hellions, but the trouble with hellions is that while they do indeed have a very powerful anti ling attack, it's painfully slow and the firing AI is not such that they will try to deal maximum damage with each shot so once they're actually pinned and cornered they actually end up doing less overall damage than a marine because of how slowly they fire.
I generally find this, that given an open field to micro, hellions are very cost effective vs pure ling, but the second they get pinned by terrain or by fungals, they become dead weight. That's not a problem by it's self, the trouble is that's the opposite to how a marine tank army operates. Ignoring the fact that a reactor hellion factory is a factory that is not producing tanks, a marine tank army wants to establish a position and hold it. Hellions want to do almost the exact opposite. They want to fire off their attack and then run away for a little while as their weapons cooldown and then swoop back in and fire again. In the time it takes for the hellions to fire twice, all your siege tanks are dead so you have to buffer against the lings with your hellions and your other stuff. Then the siege splash kills your hellions.
So that's why they don't work with a marine tank composition, the reason they don't work with a pure bio composition is because every hellion you build is 2 marines you didn't build. You're going for mass bio upgrades and you really can't afford to spend gas upgrading your mech as well, so you have a bunch of 0/0 hangers on with your 3/3 bio army. I would rather have 2 3/3 marines than 1 0/0 hellion. It's pretty much that simple.
Oh, also in response zmansman... If that really IS your name... No I really can't remember your exact name and I'm too lazy to look, anyways, rather than going for mid-game bio timings, have you tried simply waiting until the late game to go into aggression? I've always thought the main advantages that bio has over marine/tank is mobility and raw damage output. My own experience has been that Bio is fairly weak in the mid game, often I'll remain turtled on 2 base for what would feel like an uncomfortable amount of time, only sending out drops to harras and trying to deny zerg's third and fourth for as long as possible, but once I planetary my third and fourth (to replace my depleted main and natural) and zerg is on 5+ bases, that's when I find bio really hits it's stride. Suddenly it's easy to send out 3 or 4 small attacks at least 2 of which are bound to do damage. You hardly even need to micro, you can do it with shift cues and if you can deny zerg the ability to mine minerals then infestor ling gets crushed in about 2 waves of lings. Plus with zerg defending all their far flung expos, you can drop into their main and snipe tech buildings to further deny their ability to instantly remax. All the apm will tax zerg's ability to keep on top of larva injects too, another thing that you need for a heavy ling style to be effective. Just a thought is all based on my own Diamond level experience.
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On March 29 2012 01:14 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 00:57 KimJongChill wrote:On March 29 2012 00:54 zmansman17 wrote: Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
Aren't hellions the counter to zerglings? Lol, and marines, and tanks. Hell, even marauders and thors can kill lings cost-effectively. No counter to lings... LMAO
Marauders and Thors? Seriously... Thors do not kill lings efficiently at all
Some of my most frustrating games against zerg are when they just mass lings hardcore. It makes it really hard to move out early-mid game with your marine/tank/medivac army since you're afraid of being jumped or countered at any moment. The most frustrating part of playing TvZ is the immobility of tanks in my opinion, but that being said, I would not feel safe leaving them out of my army at any point in the game unless I had godly bio control.
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On March 29 2012 02:41 itkovian wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 01:14 Jermstuddog wrote:On March 29 2012 00:57 KimJongChill wrote:On March 29 2012 00:54 zmansman17 wrote: Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
Aren't hellions the counter to zerglings? Lol, and marines, and tanks. Hell, even marauders and thors can kill lings cost-effectively. No counter to lings... LMAO Marauders and Thors? Seriously... Thors do not kill lings efficiently at all Some of my most frustrating games against zerg are when they just mass lings hardcore. It makes it really hard to move out early-mid game with your marine/tank/medivac army since you're afraid of being jumped or countered at any moment. The most frustrating part of playing TvZ is the immobility of tanks in my opinion, but that being said, I would not feel safe leaving them out of my army at any point in the game unless I had godly bio control.
Thors are terrible vs lings yes, but put them in a favorable choke and they become disgustingly cost-effective, costing the Zerg player 25 minerals per shot.
The reason I am laughing about the whole "no counter to lings" and suggesting such an absurdly stupid unit in that situation is because this is the opposite side of the issue Zerg has been dealing with for the past year: the best unit Zerg has vs Terran is the ling, but they die so damn fast they don't even get more than 1 hit off.
Terran has several units that shit all over lings: the marine, hellion, and banshee all are pretty much guaranteed to get their money back vs lings, even when other units are present. But then you take the less good traders like thors and marauders and even they can usually break even too...
I would give you that maybe Terran doesn't have a counter to lings, but they do... And they work quite well... the fact still remains though, Terran doesn't need a counter to lings because even the bad units can hold their own.
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On March 28 2012 16:22 Reasonable wrote: In masters league TvZ marauders are worthless. You just target marauders with mutas and run ling/bane through marauder wall into marines. In many cases any decent zerg will just ignore marauders completely until there isn't a single marine left. What kind of ridiculous statement is that? First off marineking would beat you 100/100 times using marauders even though they're "useless" to you, and secondly, so many zergs go for ling inf into ultra now on ladder and you need marauders against or you're dead (if you're not meching anyways). Mutas simply aren't as good as infestors are.
I do think the usefulness of tanks has declined over the past couple of months, they're just ridiculousy bad vs the mass ling style. They're still essential for certain kinds of builds like double expand and I do think they're the best choice vs muta ling bling. Vs ling infestors they really are bad though (unless you have a lot of marauders to back them up and are approaching +3 attacks and have 3 facs going).
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are you marineking prime? do you have the skill to perfectly split and pick up your thors while macroing back home? is your opponent DRG? if you answered no to the questions above, then tanks can still be for you
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tanks purpose isnt its dps. its the range that makes it so effective for the 111. where u basicly put a clock on the protoss forcing him to engage as you slow push into his base. in tvz i agree mrauders are useful and upgrades are important, thats why we see pro gamers start tank production later than usual but when it starts getting to the mid-late game phase where infesors are out and the zergs can make 200 ling bling then bio becomes shit. maybe not in lower leagues but in like mid- top master level the zerg always has like 200 lings and even ups so if u split u die, if u stay still u get fungled and blinged so thats why u need tanks to focus fire the infestor and bling while ur mmm does the dps. If you watched marineking vs DRG the only games he went without tanks is either because hes doing a mid game timing push with pure bio + thors OR he has blue flame for splash but remember this is ALL in the mid game never late game
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1) Do you want to move out on the map before 200 / 200 outside of drops? 2) Do you want to be defended against counterattacks?
Answer: Yes, to both questions, and get tanks in ZvT.
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BRACE YOURSELVES BECAUSE I'M BOUT TO DROP SOME SILVER LEAGUE KNOWLEDGE
I hate tanks because on certain maps they can siege up and use air to get high ground vision to attack the drones at my natural.
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I mech every game, fast 3rd, mass upgrades, static defense everywhere. I believe tanks, despite their weakness in smaller numbers, are still essential in every matchup.
vs Zerg: 3/3 Tanks destroy ground. In small numbers ( <= 6) they are extremely cost efficient vs everything except maybe Ultra/ling/infestor in a good surround/flank. In large numbers, they'll need Brood Lords, which usually tie with 3/3 Thors/Hellions and a few vikings.
vs Toss: Tanks and BC's are the only units that scale well into the late game vs Toss (although Terran is at a disadvantage regardless). Since I play heavy macro, I've found that a large number of tanks are essential vs the Protoss Death Ball (as well as every other high tier unit and static defense everywhere).
vs Terran: Fully upgrade Bio stands no chance vs 3/3 Tanks, mobility aside.
All of the above are particular to my experiences only, as I prefer a slow siege/defend style play, and so I've utilized mass tanks as my core army often. I usually only lose do to being outmacro'd/outplayed, but my tanks always perform when they are out.
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On March 29 2012 03:36 aebriol wrote: 1) Do you want to move out on the map before 200 / 200 outside of drops? 2) Do you want to be defended against counterattacks?
Answer: Yes, to both questions, and get tanks in ZvT.
Generally when I move out and I have tanks, my army get surrounded and dies instantly or I straight up win with a push the zerg wasn't ready for.
What I've been finding happens if I go pure bio is that I can move out with a relatively small group of marines and marauders as my first medivacs start to pop, (and when I have 1/1 finished) deny the zerg's third base, then pick up and run along home without taking any serious damage. At the same time, both my bases have reached full saturation and I have a macro orbital for mules, so my 2 bases are mining better than the zerg's two bases. Sure zerg makes a round of units and double expands afterwards so I can't stay out on the map for any length of time, but I'm safe from counter attacks because I'm still only on two bases and my reinforcements are rallied to my natural where I have a fairly impenetrable wall-in.
Once I've denied the third to slow down zerg's tech (it's the 5th and 6th gas I want to deny them as long as possible) I dont have any problem with bunkering up hard and restricting my aggression to multi drops if they go ling/infestor or simply turtling and macroing if they go mutas. I LOVE seeing mutas if I'm going bio because they're almost worthless in a straight up engagement. Against ling infestor, I'll use as many groups of drops as the map allows for. Some maps are friggin great for drop play, like cloud kingdom, where you can simultaneously drop the natural with 1 group and dance back and forth between the main and the 3rd with a second group. That right there is a recipe for bm.
Anyways, I don't buy the argument that you can't move out with bio because bio is more mobile than a tank centered army. More mobility = the potential for more map presence. I absolutely agree that without tanks you should never be attacking straight up, but there are loads of little things you can do with bio to annoy zergs. You can kill creep tumors, you can drop their expansions, you can hunt overlords spread around the map, all of these things are valid and effective forms of soft aggression you can do while remaining perfectly safe at home, building up a nice wad of bio. Once you're in the late game, you don't have to kill zerg, you just have to keep denying expos and then you eventually win.
edit:
@Dark[a] I love doing that, especially on shakuras, but what I've found is that you actually get better results with marines and marauders doing the exact same trick. You leave a bunch of MM on the low ground then you elevator in a small number of bio forces into the zerg main. You snipe down the defending queen then go for extractors and drones. If zerg brings in defensive lings, you stim on back to your low ground contingent and THEN pick up into the medivac.
@gameoffear
I used to mech too and then, obviously you need tanks. Tanks are the hitters in that composition, but my problem in mech in tvz was that I couldn't beat a zerg who went corrupter/broodlord and then followed it up with ultras. Or rather, I could when I could get ghosts, but now that doesn't work so broodlords means I NEED vikings. Thors aren't gonna cut it and without marines to help out I need a LOT of vikings. And I can get a lot of vikings and I can win the air battle with good control, but then I have a lot of flying paper weights which can't fight ultra/ling. There's no good solution to that problem that I've been able to come up with aside from macroing like a beast on 3 base, scanning the zerg like hell to catch the hive timing and then moving out to kill him JUST before broodlords are up. And that's just not my style.
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On March 28 2012 15:55 kmh wrote: One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors.
Roaches are good against Marauders? ok...
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Dont cut out tanks, tanks are friggen awesome. There is nothing more satisfying in sc2 than having the enemy desperately rush your tank lines.
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sounds to me like you play wrong race! most terrans WANT to make tanks because they are frikken fun to make. you could always argue a certain unit is better than another one in some situation. starcraft 2 is stylistic. you can pick how you wanna beat your opponent.
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On March 28 2012 15:39 Bearwidme wrote: Unless you're going to form a water tight wall with marauders every engagment (that's a lot of marauders) any decent zerg will target fire the marines with banelings and kill the marauders with lings.
I donno if this has been pointed out yet, but the best zerg in the world couldn't "target fire" enough to kill the spreads of MKPs bio at MLG this weekend, its alot harder than it sounds.
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Man, I also rarely use tanks at this point in the game - and that really bothers me because I loved tanks in BW. Hell, I started playing Terran when SC2 came out just because I love all the fun Terran toys like siege tanks.
Sadly, siege tanks aren't nearly as effective as they were in BW, or (obviously) beta SC2. I know people will say that they're strong, and they have better targeting, but their damage is really kinda "blah" - when you compare it to what you get out of infantry with stim.
You can, in most cases, take the same cost in infantry, stim, run forward, and do more damage in less time than your tank would. That's depressing. Tanks aren't a threat until you have sufficient numbers, in which case they're still such a huge sink in resources that I always think to myself "Man, this cash would have been better spent on something more mobile..."
Infantry is the be-all and end-all of the Terran army. You don't make marines to protect your tanks, you only make tanks to protect your marines. It's sad, really.
That being said; no unit will ever be as much fun as a siege tank. Even if it isn't as strong as it used to be.
EDIT: You know, I'll even go so far as to say that tanks never should have been nerfed in beta. Yep, I'm saying it. Tanks should still do 50 dmg flat out and you know what? Infantry should have been nerfed. I feel that so much of Terran's nerfs all come back to the fact that infantry does stupid amounts of damage. So there. I said it. Flame away.
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On March 29 2012 04:32 Tal0n wrote: sounds to me like you play wrong race! most terrans WANT to make tanks because they are frikken fun to make. you could always argue a certain unit is better than another one in some situation. starcraft 2 is stylistic. you can pick how you wanna beat your opponent.
That's the thing, I do like building tanks. If I could have my way, I would build nothing but, it's just I would never win another game if I did that and what I like more than building tanks is winning games where the opponent says things like 'lol teran 0 skil bg!' and quits. Those are the kinds of wins I've been getting with bio.
I did try protoss for a spell and I liked their noob units (air) but felt completely lost using any kind of gateway focused play. I've never liked playing zerg. Don't know why, but they're not my thing. It might be the injects... Yeah, it's the injects. My macro is bad enough as it is without having to worry about that.
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For vs Z you'd have to link me the games where T forgoes tanks alltogether often. I know now there's a lot of delayed tanks, where you delay tanks to rush fast 3 bases and still put on pressure with faster upgraded bio + medivacs, but I can't imagine any T who forgoes tanks, and I watch way too much sc2 for my own good. Pure bio seems weak to good Zergs who go infestor/ling/bling, or roach/ling/bling. Like I've seen pure bio before in GSL matches and it's decent and you keep up on supply so it looks good, but you're one mismicro'd engagement from being completely dead. And tanks just give you an army you need hive tech to deal with. Sure you're doing fine and you can show me your reps of it working but that means nothing still.
Marine king used a tankless style against DRG a few times in both the Winter Areana and Columbus, however i think you really have to be MKP to pull it off.
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marauders are nice against banelings if you have the control yes and you always want a few marauders in your army just in case, but lategame you want those pairs of siege tanks that one shot the infestors, when they are trying to fungal your vikings or marines. Or if the broodlords are alone with the infestors out of position you want those tanks that 2 shot lings and broodligns while your marines are busy. So imo marauders are more of a marine replacement before cracklings then a tank replacement. As those marauders just add some survivability to your marines when you split against banelings. (ling surrounded marauder with medivac heal = some lings out of the fight) Also thanks to the marauders you can get out your tanks later, so you can use the gas for different things. So Marauders help the terran composition alot without adding to much extra control, but i wouldn't skip siege tanks, they are just more flexible against lategame zerg, then the ghost.
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I think MKP showed the viability of going tankless against Z in the recent MLG. Some people respond asking if anyone has MKP level micro, but DRG is 'pretty good' too. Most likely, your Z opponents wont be as good as DRG, and you don't need MKP level micro to pull it off against an opponent that's many times weaker than DRG.
MMM + blue flame hellion could be a nice composition against ling/bling compositions. is this better than tank play? maybe, maybe not. we'll know if this type of play becomes more popular and becomes a standard alternative to tank play. best complement of any strategy is when people are using it more often
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On March 29 2012 04:07 Unwardil wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 03:36 aebriol wrote: 1) Do you want to move out on the map before 200 / 200 outside of drops? 2) Do you want to be defended against counterattacks?
Answer: Yes, to both questions, and get tanks in ZvT. What I've been finding happens if I go pure bio is that I can move out with a relatively small group of marines and marauders as my first medivacs start to pop, (and when I have 1/1 finished) deny the zerg's third base, then pick up and run along home without taking any serious damage. At the same time, both my bases have reached full saturation and I have a macro orbital for mules, so my 2 bases are mining better than the zerg's two bases. Sure zerg makes a round of units and double expands afterwards so I can't stay out on the map for any length of time, but I'm safe from counter attacks because I'm still only on two bases and my reinforcements are rallied to my natural where I have a fairly impenetrable wall-in. If the zerg made units, and you don't have blue flame hellions or tanks, he can just kill your wall if he spots you moving out and made units.
Granted, it might be random, but having 1 ling in front of terran base and 2 overlords watching the most likely paths for a medivac out of the base, if you just a-move his wall after he moved out, you'll beat it down and win the game. Because when you move out, yes, you rally units behind your wall, but you basically have no units at home at all (at least the most normal timings is to move out with basically all your units, which just fills up the first 2 medivacs).
This build you are doing relies on the zerg not building units until he has to. However, if he does, you are really weak.
Now, it's a gamble, and there's nothing wrong with taking a gamble... but you should be aware that you simply aren't defended vs counterattacks at all when you use those openings.
The build you are mentioning, 3rd orbital around 6:00, fast upgrades, and moving out with units ... if it's spotted, it dies to any attacks off 2 base with delayed lair. So you are relying on the zerg not being aggressive at all.
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tanks are awesome, pro's use them all the time. i watch alot of starcraft 2 and tanks are used to great success all the time, are you perhaps from bizarro world, i would post a link to a reaplay of pros using tanks but ill just put this instead. www.gomtv.net
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I use tank in everymathcup even vs toss in lategame. They are amazing !!!
The tank is not a bad unit.
But im sure you can use a viable style without them.
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I find that late-game TvP, the only alternative to 10~16 tanks + bio would be a mix of Marauders/Marines, Ghosts, Vikings, Medivacs and Ravens, which would require inhuman control to reach the same efficiency as tanks (try to Stim, PDD, EMP and focus the vikings on the collosai all in 2 seconds, WHILE kiting. You got the idea), while with tanks you need to siege them up, and only worry about the bio ball and maby a few EMPs (drops not included). Plus, in late TvP, on some maps, you can usually build (or float and transform) a Planetary in the middle of the map, with a few auto-repeir SCVs, just to create a choke. The only reason to do is is if you hold that choke with a few tanks+bio+vikings, while the other access to your bases is nearby and the rest of the army can stay there, and this way you can drop-harass and out-macro the toss without fear. Of course, all the above is relevant only in the 200/200 late game, but toss can, naturally, turtle it to late sometimes, no matter how hard you try to kill them early-mid, and then you got no choice but to get tanks (and Planetary, and optionally reapers) or simply die in the last fight or in a base trade (if you both trade bases and lost equal amounts of armies in the attack, and got same sizes of armies left, he'll win unless you got better positioning WITH mass tanks left, protecting some last CC).
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On March 29 2012 01:14 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 00:57 KimJongChill wrote:On March 29 2012 00:54 zmansman17 wrote: Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
Aren't hellions the counter to zerglings? Lol, and marines, and tanks. Hell, even marauders and thors can kill lings cost-effectively. No counter to lings... LMAO
If lings are so easily countered, how does Stephano hold off Polt in nearly every game -> 20 minutes with just mass lings. And then even in some games after 20 minutes. If a zerg trades even relatively cost efficiently with mass lings, then the zerg is already far ahead.
Assuming the zerg is expanding and banking gas and upgrades, I would love to be taking even trades with my mass ling army as a zerg player.
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On March 29 2012 06:49 aebriol wrote:
The build you are mentioning, 3rd orbital around 6:00, fast upgrades, and moving out with units ... if it's spotted, it dies to any attacks off 2 base with delayed lair. So you are relying on the zerg not being aggressive at all.
I use a reactor hellion expand into fast double upgrades, favoring getting +1 before stim or combat shields and starting +2 right as +1 finishes. I'm aware of the fast 3rd before gas build, but that's not the one I do. My rational (it could be wrong, but this is what it is) is that even though I have fewer units, the units I do have are beasts due to their heavy upgrades so when I finally do move out onto the map to either deny the zerg's third base or secure my own third, my units are going to trade much more cost effectively in any engagement. Your typical marine/tank push happens with stim and +1 finishing. Against a zerg getting double upgrades, they already have 1/1 on their lings. My push comes as I'm finishing +2 weapons, meaning that third hatch of zerg just melts when I focus it down and because I'm not tied down with tanks, when zerg's units arrive, I just pick up and leave.
Also, I pretty much stay on 2 base with 3 orbitals worth of mules for a very long time, reason being, I don't need the extra gas. You can get 3/3 upgrades, reactor medivacs and a lot of bio on just 4 gas no sweat. When my main is running dry I'll expand to a third and secure it with a planetary, but by then I have plenty of units to secure it. Because I'm not trying to build tanks into the mix as well, I have no dire need to take a fast third. This is of course something where you should consider the map layout. Antiga and Entombed valley positively BEG for you to take a fast 3rd, so I do on those maps because I can safely skimp on defenses and get away with it. When the 3rd is further away, I simply rely more heavily on punishing zerg for trying to take a third either with multi pronged haras or simply walking up and sniping the 3rd hatch if zerg is silly enough to let me (often they are, but that might just be a diamond league thing).
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In TvZ marauders are good early on against roaches, and later on against infestors/ultras. Theres a window where you want super heavy marines tho - Marauders are absolute shit against lings. Other than that, if you manage to maintain aggressiveness against zerg I dont think you need tanks. A lot of pros are able to use tanks super effeciently is because they can maintain map control and freely move their tanks across the map without fearing a sudden ling runby to rape everything. Most terran on ladder play more passively when it comes to tanks so it doesnt feel as strong. Tanks, when played aggressively , is super high risk and super high reward. I also usually just opt for marine marauder too :/ - for mass ling style just throw in some hellions
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I agree that marauders are terrible in an open field fight against lings, but that's where medivacs come on. If zerg catches you with lings in a bad position, it's a pretty safe bet that the infestors are not close enough to hit you with a fungal. A quick hot pickup and go not only gives you an achievement, but means you can redeploy those marauders onto say, a ramp, where lings cannot surround them, and in that situation, maruaders actually do just fine against the lings, especially when you have even armor upgrades to zerg's attack ups.
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Wow what region do you guys play on???? I wish I faced terran with no tanks.... as a zerg player, no tanks means auto win. Tanks are a vital part of terran in all mu.....Allows you to hold map control, defend, put aggression out when needed. With out them, z can just walk all over you with large amounts of speed lings/infestors/roaches/blings pretty much anything they wish, with out much threat of your bio ball. Terran req a larger skill curve with proper postion/micro and if you are cought out of postion then you will die.
Honestly the only person that can really get away with out much early tank use is marineKing, then again he is one of those pros with just flawless micro, and in alot of games he gets last sidge or none, he does get punished for it.
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On March 29 2012 15:43 silentdecay01 wrote: Wow what region do you guys play on???? I wish I faced terran with no tanks.... as a zerg player, no tanks means auto win. Tanks are a vital part of terran in all mu.....Allows you to hold map control, defend, put aggression out when needed. With out them, z can just walk all over you with large amounts of speed lings/infestors/roaches/blings pretty much anything they wish, with out much threat of your bio ball. Terran req a larger skill curve with proper postion/micro and if you are cought out of postion then you will die.
Honestly the only person that can really get away with out much early tank use is marineKing, then again he is one of those pros with just flawless micro, and in alot of games he gets last sidge or none, he does get punished for it.
I play on EU, and I do bio often vs zerg masters, most of the time with 2 tanks early midgame just to prevent busts and then up to 4 to zone off my 3rd as well, but my real army is mmm and lategame with ghost viking. Works fine for me, never felt it was an autoloss, even if i skip tanks if i feel safe enough to rush for stim drop. If i feel a bust is coming and I have no tanks, I usually just reinforce my wall. Depots in front of bunker, and doubling wall if its not a rax or ebay, and if i cant do that, i´ll try to create small chokes behind my wall for the lings, banes or roaches to funnel through.
The only time I feel I absolutely need tanks is when the zerg is mining on 3 bases and can afford to throw a huge number of banes at me, but this is midgame where I usually already have 2 tanks to prevent that.
Early on, 2 marauders on hold position in front of your depots can put a full stop to any early bane busts.
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On March 29 2012 08:20 zmansman17 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 01:14 Jermstuddog wrote:On March 29 2012 00:57 KimJongChill wrote:On March 29 2012 00:54 zmansman17 wrote: Rank 2 master Terran here and I actually use marauders over tanks.
I think Tanks are too weak in TvZ and it always bothers me when I watch replays of Zergs who beat me who only mass lings on even upgrades and trade their army MORE cost efficiently than I do with a healthy swath of Terran units (properly seiged, split, stimmed, etc).
I don't understand how Zergs can mass lings all game (refer to Stephano v. Polt where he massed 165 lings at 20 minutes), defend nearly all timings, trade evenly and save gas for any fast tech/upgrades. It just doesn't feel right that a tier 1 unit doesn't have a good counter in the Terran army. Tanks really aren't good against mass lings, but are good for target firing banelings.
Then ling run bys actually win games and contain Terran extremely well.
I think TvZ is in a sad state of affairs. I agree that something must be done with the tank as its utility just isn't there. As a result, I've opted for strong mid game MM timings. I seem forced to use this comp. at this time.
Aren't hellions the counter to zerglings? Lol, and marines, and tanks. Hell, even marauders and thors can kill lings cost-effectively. No counter to lings... LMAO If marines are so easily countered, how does MarineKing hold off Nestea nearly every game -> 20 minutes with just mass marines. And then even in some games after 20 minutes. If a terran trades even relatively cost efficiently with mass marines, then the terran is already far ahead. Assuming the terran is expanding and banking gas and upgrades, I would love to be taking even trades with my mass marine army as a terran player.
And now your quote references the TvZ situation that has been around since the beginning of the game and continues to exist to this day.
The only thing that has changed is Zergs have found ways to close in on the Terran army before he is sieged up in range of the natural.
Bringing it back to the point of the thread, siege tanks are still an integral part of TvZ, it appears as though many of you have been using them the wrong way for the past year.
As someone mentioned above, they are not the punch of your army, that would be the marine. Siege tanks exist specifically to protect your marine force and allow you to pressure Zerg bases while maintaining a defensive posture.
There's nothing wrong with siege tanks, you've just been doing it wrong.
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On March 29 2012 16:08 yoona2012 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 15:43 silentdecay01 wrote: Wow what region do you guys play on???? I wish I faced terran with no tanks.... as a zerg player, no tanks means auto win. Tanks are a vital part of terran in all mu.....Allows you to hold map control, defend, put aggression out when needed. With out them, z can just walk all over you with large amounts of speed lings/infestors/roaches/blings pretty much anything they wish, with out much threat of your bio ball. Terran req a larger skill curve with proper postion/micro and if you are cought out of postion then you will die.
Honestly the only person that can really get away with out much early tank use is marineKing, then again he is one of those pros with just flawless micro, and in alot of games he gets last sidge or none, he does get punished for it. I play on EU, and I do bio often vs zerg masters, most of the time with 2 tanks early midgame just to prevent busts and then up to 4 to zone off my 3rd as well, but my real army is mmm and lategame with ghost viking. Works fine for me, never felt it was an autoloss, even if i skip tanks if i feel safe enough to rush for stim drop. If i feel a bust is coming and I have no tanks, I usually just reinforce my wall. Depots in front of bunker, and doubling wall if its not a rax or ebay, and if i cant do that, i´ll try to create small chokes behind my wall for the lings, banes or roaches to funnel through. The only time I feel I absolutely need tanks is when the zerg is mining on 3 bases and can afford to throw a huge number of banes at me, but this is midgame where I usually already have 2 tanks to prevent that. Early on, 2 marauders on hold position in front of your depots can put a full stop to any early bane busts. That's how I think you should play heavy bio ... with just a few tanks to make sure you are safe against counterattacks and runbys. Otherwise with no tanks, you just leave yourself so vulnerable. You don't really need the tanks for attacks, but for defense ... they are just something you should have, imho. (mid master zerg EU).
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On March 28 2012 16:10 tpmraven wrote:i try my HARDEST to play terran without tanks, and i lose alot of games because of it. I have recently started building tanks out of frustration, and my win rate against zerg and terran nearly doubled. sad fact is, tanks are easier than no tanks, and unless you are mkp or you dont care about your win rate, you will be forced into tanks. Im just a diamond terran, so maybe in masters you will have the skill to play without tanks, but im just not good enough Yeah. You can play without siege tanks, but you definitely need mid-high master level micro at least to negate splash damage and the root/nuke that is Fungal Growth. It also requires much more APM, which must be spent negating splash and doing a *** ton of drops to keep the Z/T on their toes and to snipe tech/reactors/queens/workers.
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I dont see how pure bio requires more micro honestly. I think it actually requires less. With tank marine I have to first siege my tanks and THEN stim, THEN split and usually I've already eaten a couple bad fungals by that point. With marine marauder I only have to stim and then pull back my marines. That's less actions. I think this 'you need to split better if you don't have tanks' mentality is a myth. The reason you need to split well when you DO have tanks is largely to negate the friendly fire damage of your own tanks. If you have a lot of medivacs, marauders do not die to ling infestor. They just don't, they can sit there in a tight clump getting fungalled all day long but they won't die. Eventually the lings will nibble them down, but the marines can clean up the lings and if the infestors get too close to the marines, hey, just focus fire the infestors with marauders. If you think tanks are good against infestors, you should see 3/3 marauders at work. That is a sight to behold.
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The MKP vs DRG argument isn't that good. even though your opponent might not be as good as DRG, zerg units work differently than terran's and unit control isn't the most important thing for zerg. its just too easy to make mistake or get caught it a bad position.and marauders aren't that good against banes without good split, they have less hp than roaches and stalkers and have smaller sizes. obviously mkp isn't the only terran who can go tankless and still beat zerg, and i'm not saying going tankless is insanely difficult, just that MMM vs zerg not only require good micro, but good timing as well.
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On March 29 2012 06:23 unix04 wrote: I think MKP showed the viability of going tankless against Z in the recent MLG. Some people respond asking if anyone has MKP level micro, but DRG is 'pretty good' too. Most likely, your Z opponents wont be as good as DRG, and you don't need MKP level micro to pull it off against an opponent that's many times weaker than DRG.
MMM + blue flame hellion could be a nice composition against ling/bling compositions. is this better than tank play? maybe, maybe not. we'll know if this type of play becomes more popular and becomes a standard alternative to tank play. best complement of any strategy is when people are using it more often
You forget that zerg micro is far more easier than terran so even low level zerg players have no problems against full bio terran if the terran is noob.
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Again, the micro argument, but think about it.
You're walking across the map to attack and you get jumped mid field by a ling/bling force. With tanks, you have to select your tank group and siege them (2 actions) you then have to stim your marines and begin spliting as best you can. Chances are, lings have already engaged you and you're starting to take friendly fire from your tanks and NOW the banelings crash into you.
Pure Bio force. You see the enemy and you immediately stim (1 action) then you select your marine ground and run them in the direction that will put the marauders between the zerg and the marines. (1 action) Then you patrol your marines (1 action)
Bio has a much easier and straight forward set of reactions and critically you don't have to burn scans to know exactly where the zerg is at all times.
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I like playing bio against zerg because I can relentlessly go aggressive on them with drops and multi pronged attacks. It's a bit harder to do that because tanks eat into your gas, but if you had that gas for faster upgrades + a ton of medivacs, it's almost unbeatable.
Have you guys seen DeMuslim vs Delphi in NASL2 team league? Game 2, Demuslim went tankless (later on) and had like, 20 medivacs (almost one for each unit) and quite literally, infestors NOR banelings could make a dent in that ball (marauders tank a TON of ling DPS, believe it or not)
This is countered by mass lings IMO, early on, until you get your medivacs. Then you have to drop a ton, and eventually overpower the zerg in sheer macro (you need damage done by drops) I still think marine/tank is probably gonna be more easier early on because of AOE and focus fire banelings, but, bio's advantage has always been mobile, aggression, and you can make your units a ton more cost effective with good micro.
If you do go tanks, I usually like to limit myself to 6 max: I feel that I love having more marines, because it makes me feel gosu splitting :D
I can see baneling landmines being a problem (since nobody builds ravens now) because you'll have to scan a lot, banelings do a lot of damage to marines, and those scans could've been mules which is required for mineral-heavy bio. But I'm just theory-crafting here T_T
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On March 30 2012 04:09 Unwardil wrote: Again, the micro argument, but think about it.
You're walking across the map to attack and you get jumped mid field by a ling/bling force. With tanks, you have to select your tank group and siege them (2 actions) you then have to stim your marines and begin spliting as best you can. Chances are, lings have already engaged you and you're starting to take friendly fire from your tanks and NOW the banelings crash into you.
Pure Bio force. You see the enemy and you immediately stim (1 action) then you select your marine ground and run them in the direction that will put the marauders between the zerg and the marines. (1 action) Then you patrol your marines (1 action)
Bio has a much easier and straight forward set of reactions and critically you don't have to burn scans to know exactly where the zerg is at all times.
First of all the patrol method is just terrible way to split your forces there is just too big risk it will fuck up even though you practiced it a dozen of times. Second if you DO count splitting of your marines as a ONE action then youre probably better than marineking himself or never seen zerg that runs his banes from different directions....To be honest position your marauders in motion PROPERLY is way harder than going marine tank (btw you dont have to burn scans how about use marine to spot for you ?) So sorry to say but your thinking is just wrong
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I don't see why you would think that you can only get double upgrades or tanks. I always get double(triple after armory) upgrades in TvZ and at the same time keep building tanks. I only use 2-4 medivacs with my army while having a double medivac drop elsewhere. Instead of getting a lot of medivacs I usually move onto double tank production earlier.
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What is proper marine split technique? What mkp uses?
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what are you talking about tanks are great vs everything except mutalisks and broodlords. tanks splash the shit out of zerglings, banelings, broaches, infestors and ultralisks
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@ Janders What I'm talking about is when you're facing pure zergling, what your tanks mostly end up splashing is your own marines.
As for the tanks or double upgrades, what I'm talking about is getting a 13 minute 2/2 off of a reactor hellion expand build. If you can get a 13 minute 2/2 upgrades while getting tanks and medivacs I would like to see your build so I can steal it.
@ Yoshgo
I don't count the marine splitting as a single action, I count right clicking the marines to a favorable position as a single action. The split from there can either be done with slicing or with patrolling, personal preferance there. Against speed banelings though, you have very little time to make that call and the marauders buy you precious milliseconds to get your marines fanned out to receive them. Conc shells buys you even more time, slowing down the lead banes and causing the ones behind to get bunched up in a baneling log jam as they try to maneuver through your marauders.
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