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On December 11 2012 03:28 Breach_hu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 03:26 Dvriel wrote: Thanks for the replays Breach_hu.Gonna watch them now.Still dont understand why no one of the WoL pros are in HotS playing mech or just trying the BETA There are a lot of good players, who play Terran in HotS beta, but they are usually playing Bio now. I don't know that NHSGolem is you and really damn good English speaker xDDDD Thanks for sharing replays
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On December 11 2012 04:00 Pookie Monster wrote: Im masters now on the Beta. Ive won every game where i have gone mass Thors without tanks and have lost every game but one where i had mostly tanks with just a few thors for support. my experience with the Beta thus far is that there is 0 reason to make tanks vs protoss with the Thors now being hard countered only by immortals due to their formidable anti armored air attack, and no longer being soft countered by templars with feedback.
My optimum army is now Thor - Battle Hellion - Ghost- couple Ravens- couple Vikings. if he goes mass immortal add in banshees instead of vikings.
I think,after watching the Golem replays,Blizzard succeed with the goal DK said in the post "DKs thought about patch8".He said,Blizz want to see players massing Thors.Ok then,you got it.Thors now can be massed and become the core unit for our HotS mech in company with Banshee,Hellbat(BIO/Mech unit),Medivac and Vikings+Ghost as support caster.The only thing I ask myself is: Is this the Mech Blizz want? Is this the positional mech people played in BW? Sc2 is not BW,so the game should not be the same.Arent we asking too much trying to make the Tank the Core mech unit,same as in BW???Maybe we should change this
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On December 11 2012 04:48 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 04:14 Hider wrote:On December 11 2012 03:48 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 11 2012 03:43 Hider wrote:On December 11 2012 03:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 11 2012 01:11 Hider wrote:On December 11 2012 00:58 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 10 2012 19:52 Sapphire.lux wrote:On December 10 2012 19:27 Qikz wrote:On December 10 2012 19:24 Everlong wrote: [quote]
Yeah, I think that is true if you want to play the traditional BW style mech (which truly is mech). But I'm not sure this playstyle has it's place and bright future in SC2 due to the nature of how units clump, how much dmg they do, how fast the game is and how the maps look like. Blizzard wants Terran to use all tech paths. But who knows. Now it's good time to try to buff tank and see how it playes out. But I'm afraid that if they were ever willing to do so, they would've done it before all those changes supposed to help mech. Blizzard is just not going to buff tanks I'm afraid. I think they will buff tanks, but they wanted to try everything else before they tried it to see if it really was the weak tank causing the issues or not. They made the warhound as a "core" unit for HOTS after all. I think they know the Tank "problem" in TvP and they just don't want mech to be BW like, for whatever reason. On December 10 2012 19:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 10 2012 18:05 Sissors wrote:[quote] Mech IS mass tanks. Sure augmented by other units, but mech is the positional play inherent to tanks. Sure you can make a hellbat - thor army, but thats not what is meant by mech. [quote] I would say more than a few Disagree... any heavily factory based composition is mech. Maybe you should call mass tanks as BW style mech, but even that sounds weird. SC2's a different game, units have changed and so do the strategies. Also, just because tanks are much more positional than other mech units doesn't mean those other mech units still aren't more positional than bio. Their slow nature and transformation abilities make it more important to position them before the battle, unlike bio where you are faster and can reposition easier. If you are talking about mass tanks... why not just call it mass tanks? Or tank heavy mech. Otherwise if I talk about thor hellion tank. with less than half of my army being mech, I will have to call it thor hellion tank banshee all the time...? You can build so many hellions, if I have 3 reactor factories and 3 TL factories on 3 base like Liquid Sea, and I'm saving up more lots of hellions to suicide them at 2 of his bases (which have lots of canons), while also saving some for defense, and my hellion supply is larger than half my army... suddenly it's not mass tank, and it's not mech? I don't think so You know that by "mech" people are not referring to the unit description or the building it comes from, but about the play style. Marine Tank is much more mech like then Thor+Hellbat. Hell, Thor/ Hellbat plays much more like bio then mech. Though i agree we should probably use terms like: Tank based mech, to be more clear. And lets not kid ourselfs with "positioning" here, a Thor Hellbat composition is a "1a" comp, without the positioning aspects of Tank based comps and without the micro abilities of bio. Thors in general are ugly units when massed. First of all I don't think a significant majority of the people consider that to be the definition of mech. Yes, mech has been iconically defined by positional siege tank play from BW, but that doesn't have to be the same with SC2. As we can see, tanks are quite weaker in SC2, and thus are already used in different ways. They are still positioning units, but because of their even small differences in usage, it's already a different style. Also if we are to define it by play style, then how shall we define play style? The overall focus of the player in a game? The overall intended focus of the player from the start of the game, before anything happens? Let's take a game where a mech player is going hellion siege tank. He happens to burn all of his opponents' probes due to a mistake he made. Since the terran doesn't want to drag it out, he attacks with all his SCVs+2-3 tanks + Hellions, before siege mode is even done. He kills the protoss. Are we here to then say he played bio? The playstyle is certainly not positional -- he harassed like a bio player and attacked aggressively. If someone asks "did he go bio or mech", what will the answer be? He was intending to go mech but ended up playing more like bio. Are you really saying that it's not ok to ask "did he go bio or mech" but instead he must ask "did he open with barracks tech and barracks units or did he open with factory tech and factory units"? Also lets not kid ourselves with positioning here, a mass baneling army will destroy a thor hellion composition, as seen in Nestea vs Nada in GSL, on Belshir Beach. It is not 1a. You can 1a but even with protoss deathballs that is an exaggeration. Watch thor hellion boxer vs zenio back in GSL; notice that thor hellion positioning? Whether or not the majority of the players just clump up and 1a doesn't matter, when there is a significant advantage to positioning them, and because of that people should strive to micro them and not just 1a, even pros. Nada got punished heavily by it, so there is no reason not to micro your army to the best you can, even if you are ahead. Im sorry but you are just wrong. Mech revolves around tanks and positional play. That's what people imply when they argue that they want mech to be viable. Tankless mech is more boring than bio (because at least you can micro that). Mass thors for instance, is just boring gameplay. I assume Blizzard has the same deifnition, but they really are clueless to the fundemnetal problem. In WOL the only style of mech that was viable was the ultra heavy turtling invented by Lyyna. But it's not really an entertaining way of playing (as you need to wait like 35/40+ min of turtling and getting ravens/bc's, ghosts, ........) to be able to beat the toss in a striaght up fight. I believe the kind of mech that should be viable in tvp is the same kind of mech that is viable as in tvt (mech vs bio). You can turtle and defned well o n3 bases against drops/multipronged harass etc, which are always entertaining. BUt when you get that 200 ball of tanks/hellions (maybe 1-2 thors), you own the bio player in a straight up fight. So either the bio player needs to counterattack or tech up to air. The same thing sohuld apply to the protoss. The protoss should be abusing the immoblity while teching up to tempest/carriers etc. (or he could just commit completely to harass and thuse never allow the terran to reach 200 food of mech army). ANyway the fundemental problems could be fixed by giving terran mech options to deal with archons and immortals (without the use of EMP). I am interested in knowing how seeker missile could solve this problem, but I think ravens probably are too gas heavy to really be viable along with mech (untill you are on 4+ bases). One "easy" solution could be to change the cost of ravens to 200/150 or something like that (maybe even 200/125), and see how it works out. That change wouldn't really distrube the balance of the other matchups signifcantly. You say I am just wrong, but you don't address any of my counter examples? Also your argument just saying that lots of people don't call that mech... is weak, don't you think? Our observations can obviously differ, so I think we should stick to arguing it based more on "reasoning" and not "most people do this", because let's be honest, lots of people use other terms wrong too (for example people considering starport units to be mech just because they are mechanical). I am not saying I want mech to be thor hellion. Also mech revolving around tank play being blizzard's focus is subjective. They have never (correct if wrong) stated that mech should be heavily centered on tank. They have mentioned they like positional strategies, but that does not mean the tank is the only unit that has to fulfill that role. Even Thors, for anti-muta as an example, is positioning; it's like an AA siege tank. I would like to stay away from balance and viable strats as well, as I think that can be an entirely different argument. There have been many successful mech games in TvP with tank hellion. If you want me to list some replays/games where mech worked, without significant mistakes on any side, and showing that there are no huge holes to make it completely unviable (difficult is one thing, but is it not up to the player to decide what strategy they are most comfortable with?) Anyways, as good as Lynna is, he's not a Code S player (duh), and yet you see mech very rarely, though it does win games (again, whether or not protoss are simply losing because they are not used to it is another thing -- if someone was to argue that they are losing due to inexperience, and that they will adapt and crush mech if mech becomes popular, then someone else could equally argue that the mech player could adapt as well, since the game is asymetric). I would like to not go further than that, but maybe if you think it's necessary then we can. On December 11 2012 02:06 Sapphire.lux wrote:On December 11 2012 00:58 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 10 2012 19:52 Sapphire.lux wrote:On December 10 2012 19:27 Qikz wrote:On December 10 2012 19:24 Everlong wrote: [quote]
Yeah, I think that is true if you want to play the traditional BW style mech (which truly is mech). But I'm not sure this playstyle has it's place and bright future in SC2 due to the nature of how units clump, how much dmg they do, how fast the game is and how the maps look like. Blizzard wants Terran to use all tech paths. But who knows. Now it's good time to try to buff tank and see how it playes out. But I'm afraid that if they were ever willing to do so, they would've done it before all those changes supposed to help mech. Blizzard is just not going to buff tanks I'm afraid. I think they will buff tanks, but they wanted to try everything else before they tried it to see if it really was the weak tank causing the issues or not. They made the warhound as a "core" unit for HOTS after all. I think they know the Tank "problem" in TvP and they just don't want mech to be BW like, for whatever reason. On December 10 2012 19:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 10 2012 18:05 Sissors wrote:[quote] Mech IS mass tanks. Sure augmented by other units, but mech is the positional play inherent to tanks. Sure you can make a hellbat - thor army, but thats not what is meant by mech. [quote] I would say more than a few Disagree... any heavily factory based composition is mech. Maybe you should call mass tanks as BW style mech, but even that sounds weird. SC2's a different game, units have changed and so do the strategies. Also, just because tanks are much more positional than other mech units doesn't mean those other mech units still aren't more positional than bio. Their slow nature and transformation abilities make it more important to position them before the battle, unlike bio where you are faster and can reposition easier. If you are talking about mass tanks... why not just call it mass tanks? Or tank heavy mech. Otherwise if I talk about thor hellion tank. with less than half of my army being mech, I will have to call it thor hellion tank banshee all the time...? You can build so many hellions, if I have 3 reactor factories and 3 TL factories on 3 base like Liquid Sea, and I'm saving up more lots of hellions to suicide them at 2 of his bases (which have lots of canons), while also saving some for defense, and my hellion supply is larger than half my army... suddenly it's not mass tank, and it's not mech? I don't think so You know that by "mech" people are not referring to the unit description or the building it comes from, but about the play style. Marine Tank is much more mech like then Thor+Hellbat. Hell, Thor/ Hellbat plays much more like bio then mech. Though i agree we should probably use terms like: Tank based mech, to be more clear. And lets not kid ourselfs with "positioning" here, a Thor Hellbat composition is a "1a" comp, without the positioning aspects of Tank based comps and without the micro abilities of bio. Thors in general are ugly units when massed. First of all I don't think a significant majority of the people consider that to be the definition of mech. Yes, mech has been iconically defined by positional siege tank play from BW, but that doesn't have to be the same with SC2. Even in SC1, many times a player would have a very very high goliath count to deal with carriers, much more than his tanks. If we were to define what he's doing in that particular moment, or even in the overall duration of the game if they were doing carrier vs goliath for that long, would we no longer call it mech? What playstyle would we refer it to, goliaths? It's similar to how we both agree on trying to be more specific about things (like tank based mech), we could call it goliath heavy mech, but even then it means that it isn't the only kind of mech. As we can see, tanks are quite weaker in SC2 in many aspects, and thus are already used in different ways. They are still positioning units, but because of their even small differences in usage, it's already a different style. Also if we are to define it by play style, then how shall we define play style? The overall focus of the player in a game? The overall intended focus of the player from the start of the game, before anything happens? Let's take a game where a mech player is going hellion siege tank. He happens to burn all of his opponents' probes due to a mistake he made. Since the terran doesn't want to drag it out, he attacks with all his SCVs+2-3 tanks + Hellions, before siege mode is even done. He kills the protoss. Are we here to then say he played bio? The playstyle is certainly not positional -- he harassed like a bio player and attacked aggressively. If someone asks "did he go bio or mech", what will the answer be? He was intending to go mech but ended up playing more like bio. So would it not be ok to ask "did he go bio or mech" but instead he must ask "did he open with barracks tech and barracks units or did he open with factory tech and factory units"? Also, although a thor/hellion kind of composition can 1a, especially when ahead (and usually used as an all-in build or push), 1a'ing isn't the maximum you can micro your army to, and thus we shouldn't describe it as a 1a composition. For example, a mass baneling army will destroy a thor hellion composition, as seen in Nestea vs Nada in GSL, on Belshir Beach despite having so many BFH in front of his thors. You can 1a but even with protoss deathballs that is an exaggeration. If you remember thor hellion boxer vs zenio back in GSL, he noticed Zenio's composition and spread out his thors so much so that banelings and fungals would do almost nothing. He would run his hellions behind his thors, instead of tanking for his thors, just like marines running behind tanks, forcing the infestors and banelings to be ineffective, while the still alive hellions prevent the zerglings from engaging and disallowing them from surrounding the hellions. Whether or not the majority of the players just clump up and 1a doesn't matter, when there is a significant advantage to positioning them, and because of that people should strive to micro them and not just 1a, even pros. Nada got punished heavily by it, so there is no reason not to micro your army to the best you can, even if you are ahead. I agree with the marine tank being a lot like mech, but it is also a lot like bio. But again if we were to strictly define it by playstyle, then would bomber's 3 base marine tank build (used several months ago to success) be considered mech since he literally defends and does not drop or harass, and just does a 3 base push? Honestly, i think this blog explains it better then i could ever do: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=360325We could rename the barracks to factory 0.5, and add mechanical status to the marine and marauder and we would have "mech" right (ironicly, that's what Blizzard was doing with the Warhound lol)? Of course not, mech as a style is something rather unique to starcraft. Use long range but imobile units to control areas of the map, so on and so forth. The siege tank is what makes this style what it is, there's just no getting around that. On mass Thors. Come on, doing a little spreading is positioningor micro? That is at most a small tactic that is used only on occasion...hardly a characteristic of the style. Like i've said, you don't have the positioning aspects of tank-mech nor the micro of bio. It is a very boring way to play, let alone spectate. Similar to BL/C/Inf actually. Slow moving,easy to control death army, BORING. I think it's worth fighting for this unique style instead of being all jolly that we can mass Thors and pretend it's interesting. I'm not pretending (whether you are addressing just me or people in general) or wanting thor based mech to be the main and most fun way to play mech. However it is a type of mech. If you only consider tank heavy based mech (and again, even you said it's good to clarify mech as tank based mech -- so that means tank based mech isn't the only kind of mech, or would you like to rephrase it?) to be mech, then what is thor hellion? I have to say it's thor hellion? Also I understand what Falling is saying, that mech in BW was very positional and the tank was very iconic. I do enjoy tank based mech. I'm not saying I want mech to not be positional, and I'm not saying that I want thor/hellion to be the main mech composition. I don't think that blog really addresses what I'm saying though. I'm not saying at all that mech just means the unit is mechanical. However, all factory units are more positional than barracks units. You say that a little thor spreading is not positioning micro -- then what is tank spreading? Do you not spread thors to help deal with mutas picking off tanks while you push? Do you not position thors with hellions vs baneling ling muta infestor, leap frogging thors slowly as Boxer and others did, to push forward? Again, you can split with bio as well -- however, mech is slower to position, especially because they have to transform, while bio can stim instantly and is, arguably, less forgiving on positioning because they have the speed to run away (especially with medivac pick up + emergency thrusters now). Mech cannot micro as well in fights as regards to stutter stepping and such, nor can it reposition in a fight as easily or effectively as bio can. Therefore, it is more positional than bio. It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units). Again, just like the other poster, I don't feel you really address my counter examples at all. If you are talking about the style, do we say someone like bomber who is going defensive turtle marine tank on 3 bases is going mech? We can say he is playing like mech, or he is playing defensively as if meching, but he is going bio [composition]. Bio/mech is the composition, not the playstyle. If we go by this, then we can easily signify a mass tank style as... tank heavy mech, or tank centered mech. Again, do you call those carrier vs goliath battles in BW to be bio? No, there is positioning. They aren't tanks, but there is still positioning and micro -- things like making sure to, as you push or move your army, to stay away from cliffs to prevent carriers from microing too well. I don't want to accuse you of not fully reading my post, but I feel neither of you really addressed my counter arguments to show why the meanings you want "mech" to be associated with (as well as its connotations) should be the way you say they should be. And again, if I missed some point somewhere, please feel free to correct me. So I guess in short, we are not separating the ideas "playstyle" "composition" and "tech" well enough. I think mech and bio should refer (its main, plain usage, with no further clarification) to composition (barracks, factory, starport). To refer to playstyle, we can say "he is playing like mech" or "he is playing defensively and positionally like mech". When a game has not progressed very far, but they are about to have much more factory/barracks/starport buildings/tech than the others, then we can say they are going either bio, mech, or starport. Other people have said the same thing, becuase it makes 0 thing to talk about non positional a moving units such as maurauders/thors/warhounds as mech units (unless tanks are included in the composition). Mech needs that strategically/postionaly element, and that's what people say when they talk about mech. Carrier vs goliath battles arose after initla tank play. IF terrans in bw just only massed goliaths the whole game, tvp would be boring as ashit as well. I'm getting frustrated because I've provided specific examples and even specific games that support my argument that thors are more positional than bio units, and you don't address that at all. If you're not going to address the actual arguments in my post, we can't really get anywhere constructive. I know my posts are really long, and possibly too wordy, but if you don't want to read it all you maybe shouldn't post, because again we won't be able to discuss things accurately nor timely. Initial tank play... but it's not heavy tank based. At that point in time, most of the supply is NOT in tanks. Therefore, how can you still call that mech, as I believe you say mech means or should be heavily tank centered (where much of your supply is in tanks, and your playstyle is very positional, whether it be defensive or aggressive). I'm not talking about the overall playstyle nor composition of the game, I'm talking about that specific point in time. Would you or would you not consider that moment or phase of a theoretical game, where the players are going heavy carrier vs heavy goliath, to be mech? If you still consider that mech, then it is an exception to what you're saying that mech is tank based or heavy on tanks. And with that we can easily make an exception for thors too, which again, are AA siege tanks, even if they are not as strong as tank's long range power. the thing is that your definition of positional play is different. Here we are talking about controlling space. I don't think that's the thing. Positional play is basically the same thing as controlling space is it not? By positioning your army well, you are controlling that space by making it hard for him to engage. By controlling space, you are setting up a offensive/defensive position. (Right?) And I think even if our definitions differ slightly ( i don't see in what way ) you could still answer the question?
Regardless of whether or not the term 'mech' applies, he is saying what makes tank heavy based play different from bio heavy play is the way you control the army and space in general; because tanks, if caught unsieged, will lose a fight horribly cost in-effectively, you have to slowly siege / unsiege tanks across the map to ensure you don't get caught off guard. In return, your army can't be broken cost effectively by ground units no matter what your opponent does (assuming you control well ofc). Thor based 'mech' is completely different because it operates more or less the same as a bio based army; you move your army across the map in a ball and attack your opponent from a good position / with a good concave.
Obviously, the dynamic of Tank based mech is that because your opponent cannot break it on the ground cost effectively, they need to either have a vastly superior economy to send wave after wave at your Mech army or transition into air, which if they do the latter requires an appropriate response from Terran (Vikings are my go to, Thors would work as well in HotS with the new anti-armored missile). This doesn't make it not Tank based mech, because the Terran player (in theory) continues to make Tanks to dominate the ground but may need to prioritize other units for anti-air in order to survive. It could also eventually evolve into pure air vs pure air (like sometimes happens in late game TvT) if the Protoss player continues to make air only.
I guess what you're arguing is that while bio can easily stim and maneuver into a good position (i.e. choke ect), Thor based mech has to be careful about engaging from such positions and not getting caught out in the open... but frankly, I personally find it hard to see the difference, except that Thor based mech is a weaker version of Bio due to lack of mobility and it's a lot stronger out in the open at the cost of having a lower skill cap (i.e. more reward at low skill less reward at high skill) rather than requiring an entirely different skill set.
As a disclaimer, I only play bio or tank based mech vP (I actually play tank based mech in TvP in WoL to good effect, and recently Liquid'Sea has as well :D) because I hate how Thor based mech feels, and as has been pointed out many times in this thread there really aren't any pro replays to reference, so this is purely my opinion on Thor based mech, but I know many players agree with me.
tl:dr Thors operate in a far more similar fashion to a giant, more supply efficient, slower moving Marine than they do a "AA siege tank" as you claim.
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On December 11 2012 03:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I'm not pretending (whether you are addressing just me or people in general) or wanting thor based mech to be the main and most fun way to play mech. However it is a type of mech. If you only consider tank heavy based mech (and again, even you said it's good to clarify mech as tank based mech -- so that means tank based mech isn't the only kind of mech, or would you like to rephrase it?) to be mech, then what is thor hellion? I have to say it's thor hellion?
Also I understand what Falling is saying, that mech in BW was very positional and the tank was very iconic. I do enjoy tank based mech. I'm not saying I want mech to not be positional, and I'm not saying that I want thor/hellion to be the main mech composition. I don't think that blog really addresses what I'm saying though.
I'm not saying at all that mech just means the unit is mechanical. However, all factory units are more positional than barracks units. You say that a little thor spreading is not positioning micro -- then what is tank spreading? Do you not spread thors to help deal with mutas picking off tanks while you push? Do you not position thors with hellions vs baneling ling muta infestor, leap frogging thors slowly as Boxer and others did, to push forward? Again, you can split with bio as well -- however, mech is slower to position, especially because they have to transform, while bio can stim instantly and is, arguably, less forgiving on positioning because they have the speed to run away (especially with medivac pick up + emergency thrusters now).
Mech cannot micro as well in fights as regards to stutter stepping and such, nor can it reposition in a fight as easily or effectively as bio can. Therefore, it is more positional than bio. It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units).
Again, just like the other poster, I don't feel you really address my counter examples at all. If you are talking about the style, do we say someone like bomber who is going defensive turtle marine tank on 3 bases is going mech? We can say he is playing like mech, or he is playing defensively as if meching, but he is going bio [composition]. Bio or mech is the composition, but not necessarily the playstyle. If we go by this, then we can easily signify a mass tank style as tank heavy mech, or tank centered mech (with the more vague term to be simply mech, of which we can clarify as stated if it's not clear).
Again, do you call those carrier vs goliath battles in BW to be bio? No, there is positioning. They aren't tanks, but there is still positioning and micro -- things like making sure to, as you push or move your army, to stay away from cliffs to prevent carriers from microing too well. I don't want to accuse you of not fully reading my post, but I feel neither of you really addressed my counter arguments to show why the meanings you want "mech" to be associated with (as well as its connotations) should be the way you say they should be. And again, if I missed some point somewhere, please feel free to correct me. Or maybe, as I feel, you guys simply misunderstood me, so didn't feel the need to address the rest of my post, which is understandable, but if that's the case, then I would like to clarify:
I guess in short, we are not separating the ideas "playstyle" "composition" and "tech" well enough. I think mech and bio should refer (its main, plain usage, with no further clarification) to composition (barracks, factory, starport). To refer to playstyle, we can say "he is playing like mech" or "he is playing defensively and positionally like mech". When a game has not progressed very far, but they are about to have much more factory/barracks/starport buildings/tech than the others, then we can say they are going either bio, mech, or starport. We can signify both a playstyle and composition by saying something like "thor based mech" or "tank based mech", in which the playstyles of those two kinds of mech compositions are not specific playstyles, but inclusive of all playstyles that take advantage of the respective main unit (thor or tank in this example). From there, we can clarify even further the specific focus/goal/strategy/playstyle the player is doing. For example, he might be playing a very defensive tank heavy mech, or might be playing a very aggressive tank heavy mech. I can see where this is going. A few clarifications on where i stand (and others like falling)
"Mech play" is, i think, unique to starcraft. There are a lot of games where you can build robots, but we do not refer to that as "mech play" for a good reason. When you use words like "starcraft" and "mech" in one sentence, you are not just talking about "machines", "robots", etc, you are talking about a way of playing. By the simple word "mech" you imply a lot of things actually. Most of these are described in that great blog post.
I'll give an example. If Blizzard makes Starcraft 3, and they say Zerg will have Mutalisks thus "Muta play", this implies a lot of things. What is "muta play"? Playing with units that are called Mutalisks? No, it's more then that. It's playing a harass based style with fast flying units that are great at being where the opponent is not, but not very good at fighting the enemy directly. Now, if the Mutalisk in SC3 is a slow, 10 supply, ground unit, will you have "Muta play"? You will play with units called Mutalisk sure, but the style that we call "muta play" would be lost.
Now if when HOTS comes out and Terran has the choice of playing Bio and Thor based compositions (with Hellbat and starport), will that be "mech play"? I say HELL NO. What is implied by "mech" is completely absent from that.
On December 10 2012 19:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units).
NO, NO, NO, NO. I feel like you didn't read the blog i posted or you didn't understand it. It is not about having a slow army that needs some splitting...BL/C/Inf is slow but it's not mech lol.
You have siege lines. Why? Because Siege Tanks deployed in lines cover more ground, this allows you to control space, thus to expand. By controlling more and more space you "choke" the opponent. In SC2 mech is very watered down compared to BW, but with new units like widow mines it can get better. But ONLY if the Siege Tank remains the core. Take away this unit and replace it with a slow Robot and you get a slow, 1a blob of units like we can see in many RTS games.
About the Goliath example, i'm not sure what to say. That is one instance that happens at a specific time in a game. You have Tanks with lots of Vulture support for 90% of the game, and if Protoss does a successful Carrier transition you build Goliaths, and Tanks. Again, I'm not sure what you mean here...but making Goliaths in BW is not something you want as a Terran player, you do it because you are forced by this one unit, the Carrier. It is a counter unit basically, not a core one. The SC2 comparison would be making Vikings to counter Colossus, i gues.
You do not seem to understand what this terms imply, so you are getting in to technicalities. Like Blizzard that thought it to be a good idea to make a mechanical marauder and call massing that unit "mech play". Massing Thors is not as bad, but still pretty damn bad compared to what mech should be (and is to a certain degree in TvT)
We have BW for more then 10 years, SC2 with mech in TvT and sort of in TvZ, so there is no need for ambiguity when it comes to describing what mech is. Mass Thor is something, but "mech style" it is not.
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On December 11 2012 05:41 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 03:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I'm not pretending (whether you are addressing just me or people in general) or wanting thor based mech to be the main and most fun way to play mech. However it is a type of mech. If you only consider tank heavy based mech (and again, even you said it's good to clarify mech as tank based mech -- so that means tank based mech isn't the only kind of mech, or would you like to rephrase it?) to be mech, then what is thor hellion? I have to say it's thor hellion?
Also I understand what Falling is saying, that mech in BW was very positional and the tank was very iconic. I do enjoy tank based mech. I'm not saying I want mech to not be positional, and I'm not saying that I want thor/hellion to be the main mech composition. I don't think that blog really addresses what I'm saying though.
I'm not saying at all that mech just means the unit is mechanical. However, all factory units are more positional than barracks units. You say that a little thor spreading is not positioning micro -- then what is tank spreading? Do you not spread thors to help deal with mutas picking off tanks while you push? Do you not position thors with hellions vs baneling ling muta infestor, leap frogging thors slowly as Boxer and others did, to push forward? Again, you can split with bio as well -- however, mech is slower to position, especially because they have to transform, while bio can stim instantly and is, arguably, less forgiving on positioning because they have the speed to run away (especially with medivac pick up + emergency thrusters now).
Mech cannot micro as well in fights as regards to stutter stepping and such, nor can it reposition in a fight as easily or effectively as bio can. Therefore, it is more positional than bio. It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units).
Again, just like the other poster, I don't feel you really address my counter examples at all. If you are talking about the style, do we say someone like bomber who is going defensive turtle marine tank on 3 bases is going mech? We can say he is playing like mech, or he is playing defensively as if meching, but he is going bio [composition]. Bio or mech is the composition, but not necessarily the playstyle. If we go by this, then we can easily signify a mass tank style as tank heavy mech, or tank centered mech (with the more vague term to be simply mech, of which we can clarify as stated if it's not clear).
Again, do you call those carrier vs goliath battles in BW to be bio? No, there is positioning. They aren't tanks, but there is still positioning and micro -- things like making sure to, as you push or move your army, to stay away from cliffs to prevent carriers from microing too well. I don't want to accuse you of not fully reading my post, but I feel neither of you really addressed my counter arguments to show why the meanings you want "mech" to be associated with (as well as its connotations) should be the way you say they should be. And again, if I missed some point somewhere, please feel free to correct me. Or maybe, as I feel, you guys simply misunderstood me, so didn't feel the need to address the rest of my post, which is understandable, but if that's the case, then I would like to clarify:
I guess in short, we are not separating the ideas "playstyle" "composition" and "tech" well enough. I think mech and bio should refer (its main, plain usage, with no further clarification) to composition (barracks, factory, starport). To refer to playstyle, we can say "he is playing like mech" or "he is playing defensively and positionally like mech". When a game has not progressed very far, but they are about to have much more factory/barracks/starport buildings/tech than the others, then we can say they are going either bio, mech, or starport. We can signify both a playstyle and composition by saying something like "thor based mech" or "tank based mech", in which the playstyles of those two kinds of mech compositions are not specific playstyles, but inclusive of all playstyles that take advantage of the respective main unit (thor or tank in this example). From there, we can clarify even further the specific focus/goal/strategy/playstyle the player is doing. For example, he might be playing a very defensive tank heavy mech, or might be playing a very aggressive tank heavy mech. I can see where this is going. A few clarifications on where i stand (and others like falling) "Mech play" is, i think, unique to starcraft. There are a lot of games where you can build robots, but we do not refer to that as "mech play" for a good reason. When you use words like "starcraft" and "mech" in one sentence, you are not just talking about "machines", "robots", etc, you are talking about a way of playing. By the simple word "mech" you imply a lot of things actually. Most of these are described in that great blog post. I'll give an example. If Blizzard makes Starcraft 3, and they say Zerg will have Mutalisks thus "Muta play", this implies a lot of things. What is "muta play"? Playing with units that are called Mutalisks? No, it's more then that. It's playing a harass based style with fast flying units that are great at being where the opponent is not, but not very good at fighting the enemy directly. Now, if the Mutalisk in SC3 is a slow, 10 supply, ground unit, will you have "Muta play"? You will play with units called Mutalisk sure, but the style that we call "muta play" would be lost. Now if when HOTS comes out and Terran has the choice of playing Bio and Thor based compositions (with Hellbat and starport), will that be "mech play"? I say HELL NO. What is implied by "mech" is completely absent from that. Show nested quote +On December 10 2012 19:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units). NO, NO, NO, NO. I feel like you didn't read the blog i posted or you didn't understand it. It is not about having a slow army that needs some splitting...BL/C/Inf is slow but it's not mech lol. You have siege lines. Why? Because Siege Tanks deployed in lines cover more ground, this allows you to control space, thus to expand. By controlling more and more space you "choke" the opponent. In SC2 mech is very watered down compared to BW, but with new units like widow mines it can get better. But ONLY if the Siege Tank remains the core. Take away this unit and replace it with a slow Robot and you get a slow, 1a blob of units like we can see in many RTS games. About the Goliath example, i'm not sure what to say. That is one instance that happens at a specific time in a game. You have Tanks with lots of Vulture support for 90% of the game, and if Protoss does a successful Carrier transition you build Goliaths, and Tanks. Again, I'm not sure what you mean here...but making Goliaths in BW is not something you want as a Terran player, you do it because you are forced by this one unit, the Carrier. It is a counter unit basically, not a core one. The SC2 comparison would be making Vikings to counter Colossus, i gues. You do not seem to understand what this terms imply, so you are getting in to technicalities. Like Blizzard that thought it to be a good idea to make a mechanical marauder and call massing that unit "mech play". Massing Thors is not as bad, but still pretty damn bad compared to what mech should be (and is to a certain degree in TvT) We have BW for more then 10 years, SC2 with mech in TvT and sort of in TvZ, so there is no need for ambiguity when it comes to describing what mech is. Mass Thor is something, but "mech style" it is not.
I think it's fairly clear you both are using the same term to refer to different things. Now that you've both made clear what you mean when you say "mech", not much can be gained from further debate. Simply caption your use of mech to avoid confusion, or continue this epic battle, which will never be resolved.
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the reason why mech in TVP is rarely seen is because its harder to play then bio.
Mech can work in TVP and does, its just that most people rather go the easy route with bio. :/
Also one of the main problems with mech is the immortal.
the design of the immortal is wonky.
its Very tanky(yet ironically the collosi has more shields) and does very high damage with a good fire rate only slightly slower then a stalker.
So whats the immortal supposed to be? a Tanky unit? and high damage Unit?
it hard counters mech(i.e tanks and thors( to some extent)) and ultralisk.
If only Dustin or david would make immortals harden shields a activated ability to promote micro and decision making.
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On December 11 2012 05:58 Zergrusher wrote: the reason why mech in TVP is rarely seen is because its harder to play then bio.
Mech can work in TVP and does, its just that most people rather go the easy route with bio. :/
Also one of the main problems with mech is the immortal.
the design of the immortal is wonky.
its Very tanky(yet ironically the collosi has more shields) and does very high damage with a good fire rate only slightly slower then a stalker.
So whats the immortal supposed to be? a Tanky unit? and high damage Unit?
it hard counters mech(i.e tanks and thors( to some extent)) and ultralisk.
If only Dustin or david would make immortals harden shields a activated ability to promote micro and decision making.
Yeh that's QXC suggestion. Unfortunately not a very good one. Pressing a button = Micro? Also that doesn't solve anything. Since it's always the toss that decides when to attack (a mech player) he can just wait to active untill he attacks. That's goanna own mech just as much as it did before. I rather give terrans interesting abilities to counter archon + immortlas (without the use of emp which i don't think should be a necessity for mech to be viable).
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On December 11 2012 05:58 Zergrusher wrote: the reason why mech in TVP is rarely seen is because its harder to play then bio.
Mech can work in TVP and does, its just that most people rather go the easy route with bio. :/
Also one of the main problems with mech is the immortal.
the design of the immortal is wonky.
its Very tanky(yet ironically the collosi has more shields) and does very high damage with a good fire rate only slightly slower then a stalker.
it hard counters mech and ultralisk.
If only Dustin or david would make immortals harden shields a activated ability to promote micro and decision making.
The problem is that Mech has very, very few advantages over Bio and is significantly worse at just about everything else. It remaxes much slower, fairs worse in direct engagements, has slower movement speed, gets caught out of position more easily with more damaging ramifications, has arguably less drop potential (can't really threaten tech, only workers, and medivacs take away from Starport production and don't provide healing like they do for bio), ect. The only things I can really think of that work in Mech's advantage is it can set up a hard contain as opposed to a soft contain and punishes hesitation / sloppy play from Protoss more easily. Nonetheless, I feel like in at least 90% of situations where Mech ends up working for me, I was either so far ahead Bio would have worked just as well (if not better) or it worked because the opponent responded poorly (i.e. blindly going double forge chargelot stalker collosi).
It isn't about Bio being easier, it's about Bio being better in almost every situation.
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On December 11 2012 06:09 Pursuit_ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 05:58 Zergrusher wrote: the reason why mech in TVP is rarely seen is because its harder to play then bio.
Mech can work in TVP and does, its just that most people rather go the easy route with bio. :/
Also one of the main problems with mech is the immortal.
the design of the immortal is wonky.
its Very tanky(yet ironically the collosi has more shields) and does very high damage with a good fire rate only slightly slower then a stalker.
it hard counters mech and ultralisk.
If only Dustin or david would make immortals harden shields a activated ability to promote micro and decision making. The problem is that Mech has very, very few advantages over Bio and is significantly worse at just about everything else. It remaxes much slower, fairs worse in direct engagements, has slower movement speed, gets caught out of position more easily with more damaging ramifications, has arguably less drop potential (can't really threaten tech, only workers, and medivacs take away from Starport production and don't provide healing like they do for bio), ect. The only things I can really think of that work in Mech's advantage is it can set up a hard contain as opposed to a soft contain and punishes hesitation / sloppy play from Protoss more easily. Nonetheless, I feel like in at least 90% of situations where Mech ends up working for me, I was either so far ahead Bio would have worked just as well (if not better) or it worked because the opponent responded poorly (i.e. blindly going double forge chargelot stalker collosi). It isn't about Bio being easier, it's about Bio being better in almost every situation.
also what messes over mech is Immortals, and lack of good cheap AA
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On December 11 2012 05:53 The_Darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 05:41 Sapphire.lux wrote:On December 11 2012 03:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I'm not pretending (whether you are addressing just me or people in general) or wanting thor based mech to be the main and most fun way to play mech. However it is a type of mech. If you only consider tank heavy based mech (and again, even you said it's good to clarify mech as tank based mech -- so that means tank based mech isn't the only kind of mech, or would you like to rephrase it?) to be mech, then what is thor hellion? I have to say it's thor hellion?
Also I understand what Falling is saying, that mech in BW was very positional and the tank was very iconic. I do enjoy tank based mech. I'm not saying I want mech to not be positional, and I'm not saying that I want thor/hellion to be the main mech composition. I don't think that blog really addresses what I'm saying though.
I'm not saying at all that mech just means the unit is mechanical. However, all factory units are more positional than barracks units. You say that a little thor spreading is not positioning micro -- then what is tank spreading? Do you not spread thors to help deal with mutas picking off tanks while you push? Do you not position thors with hellions vs baneling ling muta infestor, leap frogging thors slowly as Boxer and others did, to push forward? Again, you can split with bio as well -- however, mech is slower to position, especially because they have to transform, while bio can stim instantly and is, arguably, less forgiving on positioning because they have the speed to run away (especially with medivac pick up + emergency thrusters now).
Mech cannot micro as well in fights as regards to stutter stepping and such, nor can it reposition in a fight as easily or effectively as bio can. Therefore, it is more positional than bio. It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units).
Again, just like the other poster, I don't feel you really address my counter examples at all. If you are talking about the style, do we say someone like bomber who is going defensive turtle marine tank on 3 bases is going mech? We can say he is playing like mech, or he is playing defensively as if meching, but he is going bio [composition]. Bio or mech is the composition, but not necessarily the playstyle. If we go by this, then we can easily signify a mass tank style as tank heavy mech, or tank centered mech (with the more vague term to be simply mech, of which we can clarify as stated if it's not clear).
Again, do you call those carrier vs goliath battles in BW to be bio? No, there is positioning. They aren't tanks, but there is still positioning and micro -- things like making sure to, as you push or move your army, to stay away from cliffs to prevent carriers from microing too well. I don't want to accuse you of not fully reading my post, but I feel neither of you really addressed my counter arguments to show why the meanings you want "mech" to be associated with (as well as its connotations) should be the way you say they should be. And again, if I missed some point somewhere, please feel free to correct me. Or maybe, as I feel, you guys simply misunderstood me, so didn't feel the need to address the rest of my post, which is understandable, but if that's the case, then I would like to clarify:
I guess in short, we are not separating the ideas "playstyle" "composition" and "tech" well enough. I think mech and bio should refer (its main, plain usage, with no further clarification) to composition (barracks, factory, starport). To refer to playstyle, we can say "he is playing like mech" or "he is playing defensively and positionally like mech". When a game has not progressed very far, but they are about to have much more factory/barracks/starport buildings/tech than the others, then we can say they are going either bio, mech, or starport. We can signify both a playstyle and composition by saying something like "thor based mech" or "tank based mech", in which the playstyles of those two kinds of mech compositions are not specific playstyles, but inclusive of all playstyles that take advantage of the respective main unit (thor or tank in this example). From there, we can clarify even further the specific focus/goal/strategy/playstyle the player is doing. For example, he might be playing a very defensive tank heavy mech, or might be playing a very aggressive tank heavy mech. I can see where this is going. A few clarifications on where i stand (and others like falling) "Mech play" is, i think, unique to starcraft. There are a lot of games where you can build robots, but we do not refer to that as "mech play" for a good reason. When you use words like "starcraft" and "mech" in one sentence, you are not just talking about "machines", "robots", etc, you are talking about a way of playing. By the simple word "mech" you imply a lot of things actually. Most of these are described in that great blog post. I'll give an example. If Blizzard makes Starcraft 3, and they say Zerg will have Mutalisks thus "Muta play", this implies a lot of things. What is "muta play"? Playing with units that are called Mutalisks? No, it's more then that. It's playing a harass based style with fast flying units that are great at being where the opponent is not, but not very good at fighting the enemy directly. Now, if the Mutalisk in SC3 is a slow, 10 supply, ground unit, will you have "Muta play"? You will play with units called Mutalisk sure, but the style that we call "muta play" would be lost. Now if when HOTS comes out and Terran has the choice of playing Bio and Thor based compositions (with Hellbat and starport), will that be "mech play"? I say HELL NO. What is implied by "mech" is completely absent from that. On December 10 2012 19:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
It must rely on prior positioning because there is little you can do in the battle besides target firing (and is that not similar to tank based mech? You siege up, then target fire the right units). NO, NO, NO, NO. I feel like you didn't read the blog i posted or you didn't understand it. It is not about having a slow army that needs some splitting...BL/C/Inf is slow but it's not mech lol. You have siege lines. Why? Because Siege Tanks deployed in lines cover more ground, this allows you to control space, thus to expand. By controlling more and more space you "choke" the opponent. In SC2 mech is very watered down compared to BW, but with new units like widow mines it can get better. But ONLY if the Siege Tank remains the core. Take away this unit and replace it with a slow Robot and you get a slow, 1a blob of units like we can see in many RTS games. About the Goliath example, i'm not sure what to say. That is one instance that happens at a specific time in a game. You have Tanks with lots of Vulture support for 90% of the game, and if Protoss does a successful Carrier transition you build Goliaths, and Tanks. Again, I'm not sure what you mean here...but making Goliaths in BW is not something you want as a Terran player, you do it because you are forced by this one unit, the Carrier. It is a counter unit basically, not a core one. The SC2 comparison would be making Vikings to counter Colossus, i gues. You do not seem to understand what this terms imply, so you are getting in to technicalities. Like Blizzard that thought it to be a good idea to make a mechanical marauder and call massing that unit "mech play". Massing Thors is not as bad, but still pretty damn bad compared to what mech should be (and is to a certain degree in TvT) We have BW for more then 10 years, SC2 with mech in TvT and sort of in TvZ, so there is no need for ambiguity when it comes to describing what mech is. Mass Thor is something, but "mech style" it is not. I think it's fairly clear you both are using the same term to refer to different things. Now that you've both made clear what you mean when you say "mech", not much can be gained from further debate. Simply caption your use of mech to avoid confusion, or continue this epic battle, which will never be resolved. haha you are probably right.
Just to make it clear, i'm arguing for "mech style" at the pro level, for me and others to enjoy it as spectators. From a players perspective i don't really care, i've played this way in WOL and i'll do it in HOTS regardless of how good or bad it is.
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On December 11 2012 06:19 Zergrusher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 06:09 Pursuit_ wrote:On December 11 2012 05:58 Zergrusher wrote: the reason why mech in TVP is rarely seen is because its harder to play then bio.
Mech can work in TVP and does, its just that most people rather go the easy route with bio. :/
Also one of the main problems with mech is the immortal.
the design of the immortal is wonky.
its Very tanky(yet ironically the collosi has more shields) and does very high damage with a good fire rate only slightly slower then a stalker.
it hard counters mech and ultralisk.
If only Dustin or david would make immortals harden shields a activated ability to promote micro and decision making. The problem is that Mech has very, very few advantages over Bio and is significantly worse at just about everything else. It remaxes much slower, fairs worse in direct engagements, has slower movement speed, gets caught out of position more easily with more damaging ramifications, has arguably less drop potential (can't really threaten tech, only workers, and medivacs take away from Starport production and don't provide healing like they do for bio), ect. The only things I can really think of that work in Mech's advantage is it can set up a hard contain as opposed to a soft contain and punishes hesitation / sloppy play from Protoss more easily. Nonetheless, I feel like in at least 90% of situations where Mech ends up working for me, I was either so far ahead Bio would have worked just as well (if not better) or it worked because the opponent responded poorly (i.e. blindly going double forge chargelot stalker collosi). It isn't about Bio being easier, it's about Bio being better in almost every situation. also what messes over mech is Immortals, and lack of good cheap AA
I've only very recently started experimenting with Ghosts (in WoL) and it seems to make quite a big difference vs both Immortals and Archons, which are the best mid game options Protoss has vs Mech atm. And Vikings have always been extremely effective as a cheap AA unit that can double as a meat shield. I've recently started to feel like Mech vP has potential to work at a high level in WoL, and Liquid'Sea is only helping to confirm my suspicions. If anything I feel like it's less viable in HotS with the Tempest thrown into the mix.
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United Kingdom12010 Posts
Just working on a new opening for myself which involves 2 fact hellion straight after a command center.
The reason why I go for 2 fact and not a reactor is if I spot something I need to react too, I can add techlabs on both and start tanks or thors depending on what I see.
I go for about 4 hellions and so far it's been doing quite a bit of damage due to how greedy the toss' I'm facing are being going nexus first, but I'm going to keep on trucking with it and see where it takes me. Twice now it's led me to move up to adding loads of factories and just pushing with 2 techlab and about 4 non factories while taking my third base depending on what they're doing and how much damage I've done.
If they go for a third base I usually opt to push and expand after scanning to see if they've not already spammed immortals, and I've been using mines quite a bit with it. Anyway, thought I'd post it to see if anyone else has any opinions on it and I'll go back to playing.
Depot Rax Gas Orbital/2nd Depot (wall)/Marine ~Mine 3 SCVs on Gas~ ~Carry on marines if one base and add bunker, only 1 marine if fast nexus~ 2nd CC at 400 minerals At 200 Gas Build 2 factories as you should have about 300 minerals at that point ~2 Hellions OR Mines (depending on what you scout) when facts finish at same time 2nd Gas
From here it entirely depends on what I scout.
If 1 base still 2 more mines then techlabs for tanks - Pull nat back into main - Armory (if stargate) - Ebay - Third factory (Reactor) ~Siege Mode OR Thor Production (if stargate)
When threat over just take your nat again and play standard, if you're far ahead try a nice push when they go for a third base. It's surprisingly powerful with enough hellions
If 2 base - Ebay/more hellions - 3rd CC at 400 minerals - Armory - 2 techlabs on factories - Third factory (reactor) ~ Turret in each mineral line (if stargate) ~ Thors (if stargate) ~ Tanks (if robo) ~ Tanks if mass gateway
From there if I scout they go for a third base really quickly on minimal units, I add a few more factories on and at about 6 tanks with my mines or hellions and a few SCVs I push down through the map making with SCVs on auto repair and I set up a killzone outside of their third base while doing damage with the hellions and flooding hellions off of my 2 base. I add turrets there if there's any possibility of them having a stargate, but the main aim is to just kill the third base and try and get away, while also relying entirely on the smaller tank count with large hellions to deal with what the toss has on the ground and turrets if air.
When I've killed the third I pull back my tanks while leaving some hellions behind incase he still has an army (that I can beat) I'll stay and kill it. From therel I'll push into the nat and win, but I'll have to pull back and take my advantage by being up a base and building up a bigger army/getting double ups.
I'm only Diamond level in WoL and I've only just started ranked after ages of unranked in HoTS, could someone better than me give the build a try? It's still economic focused, but with the hellion production you can really punish a greedy toss.
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On December 11 2012 06:56 Qikz wrote: Just working on a new opening for myself which involves 2 fact hellion straight after a command center.
The reason why I go for 2 fact and not a reactor is if I spot something I need to react too, I can add techlabs on both and start tanks or thors depending on what I see.
I go for about 4 hellions and so far it's been doing quite a bit of damage due to how greedy the toss' I'm facing are being going nexus first, but I'm going to keep on trucking with it and see where it takes me. Twice now it's led me to move up to adding loads of factories and just pushing with 2 techlab and about 4 non factories while taking my third base depending on what they're doing and how much damage I've done.
If they go for a third base I usually opt to push and expand after scanning to see if they've not already spammed immortals, and I've been using mines quite a bit with it. Anyway, thought I'd post it to see if anyone else has any opinions on it and I'll go back to playing.
Depot Rax Gas Orbital/2nd Depot (wall)/Marine ~Mine 3 SCVs on Gas~ ~Carry on marines if one base and add bunker, only 1 marine if fast nexus~ 2nd CC at 400 minerals At 200 Gas Build 2 factories as you should have about 300 minerals at that point ~2 Hellions OR Mines (depending on what you scout) when facts finish at same time 2nd Gas
From here it entirely depends on what I scout.
If 1 base still 2 more mines then techlabs for tanks - Pull nat back into main - Armory (if stargate) - Ebay - Third factory (Reactor) ~Siege Mode OR Thor Production (if stargate)
When threat over just take your nat again and play standard, if you're far ahead try a nice push when they go for a third base. It's surprisingly powerful with enough hellions
If 2 base - Ebay/more hellions - 3rd CC at 400 minerals - Armory - 2 techlabs on factories - Third factory (reactor) ~ Turret in each mineral line (if stargate) ~ Thors (if stargate) ~ Tanks (if robo) ~ Tanks if mass gateway
From there if I scout they go for a third base really quickly on minimal units, I add a few more factories on and at about 6 tanks with my mines or hellions and a few SCVs I push down through the map making with SCVs on auto repair and I set up a killzone outside of their third base while doing damage with the hellions and flooding hellions off of my 2 base. I add turrets there if there's any possibility of them having a stargate, but the main aim is to just kill the third base and try and get away, while also relying entirely on the smaller tank count with large hellions to deal with what the toss has on the ground and turrets if air.
When I've killed the third I pull back my tanks while leaving some hellions behind incase he still has an army (that I can beat) I'll stay and kill it. From therel I'll push into the nat and win, but I'll have to pull back and take my advantage by being up a base and building up a bigger army/getting double ups.
I'm only Diamond level in WoL and I've only just started ranked after ages of unranked in HoTS, could someone better than me give the build a try? It's still economic focused, but with the hellion production you can really punish a greedy toss.
Yesterday I faced 1 base Tempest push.Only two of them were shooting at my base.How are going to stop them if go for this BO? Actually the best one is the 1-1-1.Go check the NSHSGolem opening and try it,with the transition you like most.Its the best and prepares you for everything P can go,but you must be agressive and need lot of APM.
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United Kingdom12010 Posts
I faced one base tempest before the patch, but since then it's pretty easy to see it coming since they'll have a fleet beacon and you can add a starport or two instead of doing factory production.
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Mech style was so dominant in BW TvP because it was the winningist composition. People put a lot of time into it and really defined it well. Part of the reason for this was that TvP bio was pretty bad. If you want a style where terran can go for 75 or 85 supply invested in tanks to be viable (or even be the best), you need to balance the entire matchup with it in mind. Terran mech and Terran bio aren't two different races.
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The reason why mech was good against protoss in BW is simply because tanks do a high absolute amount of damage. 70, with +5 per upgrade. Against units with high amounts of HP, that is a very desirable feature. Against small, squishy units like zerg, it's not as valuable. There are more targets, so a more fungible damage source is more efficient, such as M&M.
In SC2 they made zerg's units big and squishy, so tanks at 70 damage would be GREAT against zerg. So they nerf the tank, and it is now useless against protoss units, which are big and durable.
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United States4883 Posts
On December 11 2012 06:56 Pursuit_ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 06:19 Zergrusher wrote:On December 11 2012 06:09 Pursuit_ wrote:On December 11 2012 05:58 Zergrusher wrote: the reason why mech in TVP is rarely seen is because its harder to play then bio.
Mech can work in TVP and does, its just that most people rather go the easy route with bio. :/
Also one of the main problems with mech is the immortal.
the design of the immortal is wonky.
its Very tanky(yet ironically the collosi has more shields) and does very high damage with a good fire rate only slightly slower then a stalker.
it hard counters mech and ultralisk.
If only Dustin or david would make immortals harden shields a activated ability to promote micro and decision making. The problem is that Mech has very, very few advantages over Bio and is significantly worse at just about everything else. It remaxes much slower, fairs worse in direct engagements, has slower movement speed, gets caught out of position more easily with more damaging ramifications, has arguably less drop potential (can't really threaten tech, only workers, and medivacs take away from Starport production and don't provide healing like they do for bio), ect. The only things I can really think of that work in Mech's advantage is it can set up a hard contain as opposed to a soft contain and punishes hesitation / sloppy play from Protoss more easily. Nonetheless, I feel like in at least 90% of situations where Mech ends up working for me, I was either so far ahead Bio would have worked just as well (if not better) or it worked because the opponent responded poorly (i.e. blindly going double forge chargelot stalker collosi). It isn't about Bio being easier, it's about Bio being better in almost every situation. also what messes over mech is Immortals, and lack of good cheap AA I've only very recently started experimenting with Ghosts (in WoL) and it seems to make quite a big difference vs both Immortals and Archons, which are the best mid game options Protoss has vs Mech atm. And Vikings have always been extremely effective as a cheap AA unit that can double as a meat shield. I've recently started to feel like Mech vP has potential to work at a high level in WoL, and Liquid'Sea is only helping to confirm my suspicions. If anything I feel like it's less viable in HotS with the Tempest thrown into the mix.
I've played around with ghosts now too, especially doing LiquidSea's MASS MASS hellion opener, and I've come to the conclusion that a tank/hellion army with viking/ghost support completely destroys protoss ground armies unless they get you unsieged or at a really good angle. It's actually quite amazing. I know terran players don't want to have to add in ghosts to their mech composition, but they really should be going for 8-10 full energy ghosts...
...and then nuking the shit out of things.
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@Pursuit_
+ Show Spoiler +Yes, I very well understand the idea of tank heavy based play, and why it is different than thor heavy compositions. I understand tank based play is more positional than Thor based compositions. However, Thor based compositions, in comparison to bio compositions, are still more positional, for all the reasons I've already said. I am in no way saying they are as positional as tanks, nor that they are as good at holding ground than they are ( I even mention that their AA, though like a AA siege tank, is still not as good in the air as siege tanks are on the ground ).
Does not splitting up your thors and hellions, to cover your hellions from mutas, but ultimately to reduce the effectiveness of an enemy engagement (by making splash do almost nothing), not count as positional play? It is a way of holding ground, in that you have a favorable engagement, and that if he engages, he will be having a not very ideal engagement. Again, in no way is it as good as siege tanks sieged up, but the idea of positioning and ground control is still there.
Ok, I think I see where the confusion is. The part about me arguing about thor/hellion relying on positional play (because of its lack of other forms of micro other than target firing in battle or kiting with hellions – compared to the massive stutter stepping and splitting MMM involves), and thus being positional units... I am mentioning this only to show there is a difference between bio and thor/hellion, and thus, although you could describe thor/hellion as having similarities to bio, it is not one and the same. Whether it is closer to bio or tank heavy mech play is not relevant here, so I won't go further.
“Thors operate in a far more similar fashion to a giant, more supply efficient, slower moving Marine than they do a "AA siege tank" as you claim. “
Just as you said, it is similar – but not exactly the same (obviously, because they are different units). I won't argue how similar or how dissimilar it was, and doing so wasn't my intention in my previous posts, but there are similarities.
My main point in response to this post is that thor/hellion does have the ability to control ground similar to tanks. While even bio, split up or simply harassing the opponent out of position, can be also positional, the focus on positioning your units in the sense of an engagement is different. Bio doesn't have to rely completely on splitting up or getting a good arc before the battle. Meanwhile, tank based mech does, or else you're being very inefficient, like if you were to siege when chargelots are already running in. This is where thor/hellion is again similar to tank heavy mech. As see in the Nada game, if you don't position them well, there's not much you can do in a fight (similar to tank based mech), and as seen by Boxer, positioning them well before the fight allows you to control ground and even siege your opponent by preventing enemy units from traveling in that area. Similar to tank based mech, you can also push forward your thors slowly, leapfrogging them so that none of them clump up.
I'm tired so I hope I didn't reword/repeat too much though I feel I did...
@Sapphire.lux
+ Show Spoiler +Again, I understand that mech is not mechanical, and that it does not mean mecha, robot, or whatever. However, just like you said, if the game switches from SC2 to SC3, and mutas change, obviously I agree the kind of muta play from SC2 would not be present simply by making the slow, different mutas in SC3. If this applies to how you're using the term mech, then we are simply using them in different ways. When you use the term mech, you are referring to all the things associated to it as they were in BW. When I use the term mech, I'm talking more about SC2. So that's why I kept mentioning thor/hellion as being something in between tank heavy play (BW style) and bio (both BW and SC2 style). To me, Thor/Hellion is different enough from bio, and because it is built with the factory tech and thor/hellions can support tanks or vice versa, it is part of SC2 mech play. Also, because Thor/Hellion are support units for even a heavy tank composition, and because Thor/Hellion have situations where going heavy on them is better than going heavy in tanks, then if you consider those goliath transitions to still be part of mech, then you must consider thor/hellion to be mech too. The exact styles, strengths, etc. of mech in BW and SC2 are different, but they still share many similarities, and thus even if you are referring to the mech in BW when you say mech, you should also call all SC2 factory based compositions to be mech (expect perhaps just thor all ins, which are mech units but not used for mech play, but only because thor all ins are just "kill him now" pushes, and don't need any positioning/ground control).
But I will go back to one of my counter examples. If there is a phase in a BW game where a large portion of your army is goliaths in response to his carriers, then in that specific point in time, are you still playing mech? Are you playing goliaths? Were you playing mech but transitioned into goliaths? Because goliaths support mech, does not the term “mech” encompass the contributions of the more mobile and less reliant on positioning goliath?
Goliaths are similar to the place of thors in SC2. And by similar I mean not exactly the same. Both heavy numbers of thors and goliaths are viable in certain situations in certain phases of the game. If someone says that thor/hellion is closer to bio than mech, then does that mean you should call it bio? If you do not call that mech, what is it called? If you want to call it thor/hellion, then let's continue. Let's look back at BW, most of your army is goliaths in response to his heavy carrier numbers. For that specific phase of the game, would you describe the terran as playing mech (not counting what happened before)? Would you describe the terran as playing goliath? Maybe even bio, since they, just like thors, don't control space as well as tanks?
Because both goliaths and thors support mech in their respective games, they should be considered mech as well. If you cannot consider them mech, then you can't call them bio either can you? So what do you call them?
I read the blog, and well understand its point that mechanical units = / = mech style play (mech style play here referring to BW mech).
I feel like you guys are exaggerating the points of what i'm saying. For example, I said that splitting thors to strengthen both your position, thus making an engagement favorable for you, is similar to tanks siegeing up, holding ground, and making an engagement favorable. They are both also similar because again, they can't really move much at all in a battle (with tanks staying put haha). Of course if you're doing a 2 base thor hellion all-in, you probably don't need to split, because you either already won or lost depending on your opponent's reaction. You certainly don't split thors and hellions and slow push vs a Protoss. But I am using those games (boxer vs zenio, nada vs nestea) to show that although thor/hellion is not as strong or reliant on pre-positioning and controlling space as tanks are, they can still act similar in many situations.
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Mech takes more knowledge to implement correctly than bio. Given the current state of affairs and how most players on ladder are inherently lazy, taking the time to perfect a rare art of Mech will be a great way to improve and learn about the inner workings of the game.
EX: Some key revelations I had before I was masters meching protoss
-At first I thought tanks were bad, but I just spent my money on other useless things like banshees (over 6) and building armor upgrades. I started winning games with the mentality of tanks > immortals and zealots, before I was in a defeatist mindset.
-4 bases is good. Before I thought i had to win before protoss could get 4 base. Now I realize that I just retard his growth with constant harass and runbys, taking a fast 3rd or even 4th before the protoss third makes the protoss very uncomfortable. I've done this where the protoss scouts me right away, I lift off my secret CC with scvs in it and place it at my normal 3rd location, while building my 4th in base.
-Let the protoss kill my 4th and 5th when it is at another spawning location. I then trap their entire army at the entrance of the spawning location. I always watch the replay where the protoss looks at his army, his base, and goes back and forth for 10 seconds thinking before suiciding his army at a chokepoint in front of 20 tanks. I had a bank saved up and fly reserve CC's morph them into PF's and continue onward.
-20 Warp gates is no biggie if you have over 90 food left after a big engagement. Your helions will arrive just in time, and armor upgrades are twice as effective vs zealots so unsieged tanks don't do quite that bad, you still need to micro the injured ones etc.
-Blink stalkers give me the most trouble mid to late game, but one critical PDD makes the protoss doubt in blink stalker's potential where he stops making them all together. This is a terrible mistake, but due to the way our brains our wired we associate PDD with stalkers dying, and don't make any more as long as their are 2-3 ravens out on the field.
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Sorry i'm just starting to play HotS but how do you go mech vs the viper when they can do the green cloud to render tanks useless? If i unsiege then they still die.
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