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On April 04 2012 14:00 YyapSsap wrote: On paper hellions do look good against zealots. They are still good against zealots if your given room to kite. However in a straightup fight, hellions needs to act as buffers for the tanks and hence there is no room to kite or else the tanks will just melt. They were somewhat viable due to that extra +5 dmg before the nerf since it meant getting rid of zealots quicker but not anymore. I think it was in the "where did all the T go" thread where a user tested all sorts of formations for zealots vs hellions and in almost all cases the hellions lost without the aid of kiting.
Maybe a transition into air could be possible since most Ts get upgrades for air anyway but the transition leaves for a dangerous timing where the P can just roll you over due to the weakened MMM army.
Thats exactly the reason i suggested not to use tanks, but rather a marauder/hellion style mix, with slow kiting would be much easier, and marauder hellion does well against stalkers too, tanks are just not an option in the matchup unless your rushing with 1-1-1 or some variant of it. It is possible to play a mech oriented style WITHOUT TANKS. With that being said though, probably the best unit terran has for tanking damage is marauders, if you were hellbent on making tanks work you'd probably need a marauder heavy composition - but i still doubt you'd have much success - tanks just weren't designed for that matchup
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mech in bw consisted of lots of tanks and vultures. i experimented with mech for about 50games about 2 months ago. i won about half with very heavy hellion, siege tank, raven banshee play. just like bw constant vulture harass killing probes, found that hellions are good for that . i still think of going mech sometimes, but u have to micro alot more (more so than bio i think) which when ur playing 20 games a day, its alot more strain if u play with high apm like i do.. mech is possible but u need lots of hellions at least like 3-1 ratio to tankz an constant harass
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On April 04 2012 13:46 Tarrot wrote: Here are the basic reasons mech doesn't work, or is extremely difficult to pull off.
1: Siege Tanks are worthless vs. Protoss. Zerg units clump up, Bio clumps up, Protoss units very rarely clump up nearly as tight unless you have stalkers. Even in this case, Zealots w/ charge negate siege tank range (and are light), stalkers can blink in and avoid massive AOE damage, and Immortals are self-explanatory.
2: Hellions are not nearly as useful against Protoss armies as they are against Terran or Zerg armies. The only light unit in the Protoss army is the Zealot who, with charge, disperses rather fast rather than stay in a ball or clump (ala marines/lings/hydras). Its a lot more difficult for Hellions to take out Zealots than other units.
3: The Thor is pretty powerful if protected, but it has to be aware of feedback, and is countered fairly well by the Immortal, or by Zealots. Strike cannon in theory is actually useful against Immortals, but in practice the charge up time and the targeting time leave it vulnerable to being picked off.
So, of the three Mech units, one is gimped to the point of almost being useless, one can be useful against the other side's buffer, but not nearly as powerful, and one is fairly good, but can suffer heavy damage from two key units. Mech can win, but everything in theory points out how much more of a climb uphill it is to win.
Your incorrect in almost all of your points. Please watch some of Vile Illusions replays of mech to get a better understanding. Also the day9 daily where he covers it.
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There are some things in this thread that people are saying that I strongly disagree with based on several months of playing mech TvP:
1) "Mech gets rolled by XXX unit(s)"
Sorry, but unless XXX is Carrier/Mothership you're just straight up wrong. I'm currently operating under the assumption you're talking about 3-3 maxed unit compositions because that is when mech should be attacking. Mech is powerful because in general it has a ton of hitpoints, armor, does decent splash, and does a fricking ton of damage. In my experience a good mech composition has 3-4 tanks, a bunch of hellions and thors, 3-6 ghosts, and 4-6 vikings if there are collosi. Zealots? Melted in the first 3-5 seconds, and if you target fire your tanks right you won't get friendly fire. Stalkers? Don't do enough damage to really matter. Immortals? One EMP and they become terrible against a mech comp. Voidrays are either insignificant due to a very small count of them, or are insignificant because there are a lot of them and they all die to thor AA splash. If you have the right mech composition and a non-awful engagement, you'll be totally fine.
2) Mech is too immobile.
This point is more interesting to talk about. The general problem is that it's hard to defend your own bases and hard to deny Protoss more bases. There are a few solutions to this, which mainly rely on playing to the strengths of mech and not playing it like you would a bio army. Defending your bases can be a bit tricky, but it's mainly reliant on the map. Entombed Valley is by far the best map for mech ever. It is extremely easy to defend 3 bases there. Fortunately for the meching terran, 3 bases is really all you need. Obviously there are some maps where it's very difficult to defend and mech might not be the best strategy there. On good maps it is possible to get your nat and 3rd up fairly quickly and safely due to the defensive power of siege tanks+bunkers+depot walls. This leave the problem of the protoss expanding everywhere and having a gigantic economic advantage. The reason protoss can't quite do that is because hellions can take great advantage of a spread out protoss and are only minerals and therefore fine to lose, and because if a protoss does something way too crazy and expands greedily, you can just go kill him because you'll have a bigger army. Realistically, You'll probably end up seeing a protoss getting his nat up at about the same time, his third up slightly sooner, and getting a fourth and fifth before you do. This is when mech needs to make decisions that wouldn't be possible with Bio. Instead of trying to shut down his economy, mech needs to go for the jugular and end it after maxing. By going straight for the production it comes down to if your mech army can beat his composition and remax. After your battle with the protoss, you'll probably have a handful of thors left and a couple hellions. If you played smart and brought a good number of SCV along with your army for repairs, you'll be fine against any gateway remax, because Zealot/Stalker doesn't do very well against Thor/Hellion with repairs. After the remax fails to work, it'll be GG. Because you destroyed most of his production. When did you give protoss a chance to abuse mech immobility? You didn't, because you really don't care if his econ is better than yours. Besides, even if they have tons of bases they will either have a similar amount of workers (even econ) or more and your max army will be much larger and win by a bigger margin, making the remax even less meaningful. And if they try to base-trade, go for it. Your army is better, you should have brought SCVs with you anyways, and terran buildings can fly to boot.
Mech has some weaknesses, yes. But in my opinion those aren't big enough to say that bio is strictly better. When I play mech and I don't make horribly stupid mistakes, I tend to only lose to protoss that figure out what I'm doing and do a 1-2 base timing before I can really hit my stride with my production.
I've probably missed a bunch of stuff, but the tl;dr is that mech can work against an evenly skilled P if you know what you're doing with mech as well. Maybe not on the pro level because I obviously have no experience there, but anything below GM (and maybe there too) you're fine.
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Everyone please read Zyrnak's post, with the exception of debatable unit compositions, and in my opinion Antiga being a better mech map, he's right on everything he said.
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I'm a diamond terran who switched from zerg so i could play mech, especially vs protoss.
it's very different then the others, and rather then look at timings i look at consistently getting a bigger and more scary mech army to fight the toss.
heres what i do, hellion thor claoked shees with raven support is great, up until the protoss starts to max out and continually buff their army, after a while the toss army NEEDS some form of splash damage and that can only be given to seige tanks.
however if you go straight for seige tanks your very susceptable to immortal timing push's, seeing as you need to have a minimum of about 6, or they just dont have the DPS to be worth having as opposed to thors.
so to recap:
1: Open cloak shees and harrass when possible, try to control the xel naga towers, force them to reveil their tech ect ect. 2: secure your 2nd and third with BF hellion, Thor, banshee and raven army composition, and when necessary pull scv's to repair your thors. Snipe observers when ever you can and use your shee's to prioritize for Robo units. Immortals or collossus.
3: once your very secure, expand to a forth and begin to split the map with Plantary fortress's, Trade thors for Seige tanks and begin to pressure.
4: final transition is into Hellion, Tank, Banshee and Battle cruisers.
you get that final transition, no matter how good their death ball is, their fucked It's an incredibly rewarding way to play and i wouldnt reccomend it any other way.
I've been a terran for about 2 and a half months now and NEVER built a maruder.
GL hf Meching~
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On April 04 2012 11:39 Fission wrote: the problem is that seige tanks are basically useless against P hardly... the issue is chargelots making your tanks shell your own army constantly, if you watch for example MKP when he does his 2 base pushes he uses the tanks to target collosi then stalkers manually so that his splash doesn't hit himself.
so really it works to an extent but.. you need some micro (more than the average) to make it work.
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Mech is really strong, but you have to play the map. Do it right and it's a huge pain for the protoss to deal with. Do it wrong and you get caught unseiged or out of position and you lose everything.
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On April 04 2012 11:08 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2012 10:38 IMPrime wrote: AFAIK mech does not work outside of timing attacks because of no spider mines. Spider mines wouldn't change anything. It's the fact that a) Protoss don't have a 'good' answer to bio like they did in SC1 (storm/reaver vs colossus/storm) b) Mech is immobile and protoss is mobile c) Protoss have siege units that are viable I'm not going to say that mech doesn't work, because strictly speaking nothing is more terrifying that maxed 3-3 terran mech, but I will say that the preceding reasons make bio a better option.
What?
A) Protoss have a ton of great answers against bio and the only reason bio is even viable is because Mech is worse and because we have the Marauder which gives us a unit that doesn't automatically die to Storm/Collo/Archon. B) The same was in SC1. Warp gates have been interchanged with recall for mobility. C) Yes, the Colossus is better than the reaver due to its crazy range and speed
Mech simply isn't viable because Protoss have much better counters to it that doesn't exist with Bio. Couple the fact that tanks cost more and do less damage than SC1 and you have no spider mines, plus the maps are disadvantageous, add in chargelots that are much faster than speed zealots, plus Immortals which take only 10 damage from tank volleys + Colossus that deal significant damage with 9 range.... (Blink Stalkers are...meh. Not that big of a deal unless it's blink stalker rush and you move out...picking off tanks is so annoying)
If Protoss add all these things in SC1, Mech wouldn't have been viable there either. T would have had 5% winning against P. The only reason T does well in SC2 vs P is because of the Marauder. Take away the Marauder and ... it's not pretty.
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Proper mech needs Ghosts/vikings/tanks/thors/hellions/raven and banshee right? Now sure how, but controlling them might be really difficult.
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Why do people insist that chargelots and immortals are the bane of mech play? Chargelots get roasted by hellions easily and once an immortal gets EMP'd it is just a ground unit that does good single-target damage. If you guys think that playing mech means only making units from the factory, you're crazy. Bio wouldn't dream of trying to TvP without ghosts, and neither should mech. If you have your ghosts and other support units, I'm not sure what "counters" mech compositions other than Carrier/Mothership
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Won't trying to go Mech die straight up to an Immortal bust timing?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 04 2012 15:28 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2012 11:08 Plexa wrote:On April 04 2012 10:38 IMPrime wrote: AFAIK mech does not work outside of timing attacks because of no spider mines. Spider mines wouldn't change anything. It's the fact that a) Protoss don't have a 'good' answer to bio like they did in SC1 (storm/reaver vs colossus/storm) b) Mech is immobile and protoss is mobile c) Protoss have siege units that are viable I'm not going to say that mech doesn't work, because strictly speaking nothing is more terrifying that maxed 3-3 terran mech, but I will say that the preceding reasons make bio a better option. What? A) Protoss have a ton of great answers against bio and the only reason bio is even viable is because Mech is worse and because we have the Marauder which gives us a unit that doesn't automatically die to Storm/Collo/Archon. I wouldn't say 'a ton' of great answers, but the point I was getting at is that there are units/abilities in SC1 which essentially made bio play obsolete (outside of timing pushes) because bio units would just die after one shot/storm. This isn't the case in SC2 as even marines can be microed out of a storm to save them. Although once protoss gets to 3+ colossus and blanket storms it gets a little ugly for the terran.
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On April 04 2012 15:42 Zyrnak wrote: Why do people insist that chargelots and immortals are the bane of mech play? Chargelots get roasted by hellions easily and once an immortal gets EMP'd it is just a ground unit that does good single-target damage. If you guys think that playing mech means only making units from the factory, you're crazy. Bio wouldn't dream of trying to TvP without ghosts, and neither should mech. If you have your ghosts and other support units, I'm not sure what "counters" mech compositions other than Carrier/Mothership
because the devastation caused by a zealot / immortal army if your mech army is caught out of position scars terran players for life and they never touch it again.
immortals don't just damage tanks and thors, they tear them to shreds. Even if you EMP them, immortals have 200 hp, range 6 and do 65 damage per shot with attack upgrades.
Most people won't micro their tank fire, instead they will move their hellions, or worry about emp'ing the immortals. This means the tanks fire on the zealots and the immortals are 'usually' commanded to focus fire the tanks and armoured targets. Even if you have a bunch of hellions left and i have only immortals the hellions aren't going to do shit. Once the tanks are dead I can warp in stalkers for clean up and the immortals march on towards your production.
Mech isn't bio with different units, it's a totally different style of play, especially vs protoss. All the skills and understanding you have developed are pretty much useless when you go from TvP bio to TvP mech. You need specific numbers of tanks, movement paths, sentry towers, PFs to block counter attack paths, turrets to deny drops, the whole deal. Bio has hardly any of these considerations.
And most of all, even playing against someone inferior to you, it takes ages to kill them. If you're laddering mech punishes you by cutting the number of games you can play per night. That's why 6-pool to masters works. The ladder doesn't care how you play, or how long it takes, a 6 pool win is worth just as much as a 45 minute brilliant game of positioning, and you can get 10 to 1 games by 6-pooling.
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I go bio into bioair every TvP. MMM early game, MMM + banshee midgame and mostly bc, banshee marauder late game. You get the advantages of bio early and midgame and the higher pop efficiency of mech late game. Protoss has no good answer to mass bc when combined with bio and ghosts. I lose early or midgame if I screw up but hardly never late against an equal opponent.
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Mech would not work in BW either if protoss had immortals, or chargelots who don't take full tank damage you know. The only thing that made mech work in BW TvP is just that tanks killed everything.
If you don't give tanks full damage to shield, I never see mech working out as we want to. Even with warhounds to kill stalkers and colossi, or battlehellion to aoe fry zealots.. Tanks ain't scary enough against protoss.
Do you know how many tank shot you need to kill an Archon ? A non emp Immortal? A zealot ? You even need more tank shot to kill stalkers than you did to kill dragoon. And dragoon didn't have blink !
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It's a hell of a lot harder to get caught out of position with mech than it is with bio, because with mech you don't care about minerals. This means that the much-beloved MULE isn't something you should be using past the midgame. It is much more important to use your scans to take out observers and know your opponent's exact army composition and position. In addition, since you're going to be low on bases comparatively, you really don't want or need to mine them out quicker. Since you have scans and hellions to scout, you'll never get caught out of position unless you're extremely careless, especially since your thors ourange almost everything they have. You'll have the range and the vision advantage. As for PFs and Turrets and Sentry Towers, you're thinking that TvP mech in some way plays at all similar to playing TvT. The two are nothing alike. You don't need a specific number of tanks, you need the couple that you made for defense at the start while your armories were building and not really any more. Turrets for drops? The point at which drops are dangerous is the point before turret rings would be feasible. After that, you're army is either in your base defending and plenty okay to defend drops, or you're attacking him head on and ending the game and drops don't matter. Likewise for PF's, not particularly necessary. Their counterattack is either a small one which means that their main army is further weakened and they will lose horribly, or it's their entire army and a PF doesn't make a difference. And how does it take forever to win mech TvP games? I max on three base and end the game right as the mech army reaches the peak of it's power, which is between the 15-20 minute mark.
Again, TvP mech is very different from TvT. They don't play anything alike, and they don't have the same unit composition. Tank-heavy TvP is a very fragile way to play. Thor-heavy TvP is much more reliable.
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This discussion is pointless. I mean , as long as a strategy isn't "standard" (to be understood : "used by pro to win every single tournament) , people will say it cant work , basing their whole argumentation on -"Pros dont do it" -"even player XXX stopped to do it" -"every unit from race YYY counter XXX" (usually assuming only 1 unit is massed , without any micro,uppgrades,etc) So basically we end up with -People who tried to play it in a "standard mindset" (like playing mech in a bio way) and fail, who're going to say its a bad way to play -People who never tried it, and will always use the arguments above -People who seriously try it , know when its good and when its not, which basically are the only people who should be discussing the viability of this play ,but the problem is that , as soon as you say "i tried it for more than 2 games", people will start bashing at you : "Omg noob gimmick play" "Your opponents are just bad" etc . .
That's a bit sad, but well, the fact is that only standard play is "accepted".
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What I have found is when trying to go pure mech is hard because they can air switch on you or use collosi + blink and pick you apart. I have found two things that ease the pain on both fronts.
1.) Build Ravens an sensor towers. Sensor towers give you advance knowledge of which side an attack is coming in from. With Point defense drones a few tanks and ghost can hold its own against large numbers of protoss armored units. YOur hellions/marines are fast they can get back and forth. ITs the armored tanks that are slow so you need something to buy you time. Ravens can support you in the ground or the air. One of the biggest problems being the air transition. You DO NOT want to over make vikings becuase then you get overrun on the ground. However making only a few vikings which can be useful against collosi or air and then using your raven energy whether it be PDD or seeker missle or even autoturrets it isn't as bad.
2.) Create chokes and keep your base on the move. One of the biggest problems with mech is its immobility as has been discussed over and over and over again. This point can be map dependent. (For example do this would work alot better on a map like shattered temple as opposed to T Alter.) Tanks benefit from keeping shit away from them you are TERRAN build shit supply depos are cheap and can be built on the run chances are you will need more than 200 supply worth eventually anyway. E bays are big cheap and have much health. Raxes can help produce extra support on the spot can liftoff and fly to new locations are slightly cheap and have lots of health. Use these building make chokes for yourself make the toss army funnel into places you want them to.
As the game moves further along you end up with alot more places to cover. Counter attacks become very annoying to deal with. Your main at this point the only thing worth defending in your main base will be your ebay (allows you to make PF's), your orbial command, your factories, and depos. Armories should have already finished upgrading. Factories and OC's can lift off and leave if need be and E bays you should have plenty of these on the front line. So the only reason to want to defend your main base is to keep your supply alive, I try to build as many of depos as I can closer to my natrual or the front line so if it becomes too hard to defend multiple locations then I can just pack up shift my whole base over.
These are the two things that I have found most helpful of course I am only diamond so use with a grain of salt.
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On April 04 2012 15:54 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2012 15:28 Wegandi wrote:On April 04 2012 11:08 Plexa wrote:On April 04 2012 10:38 IMPrime wrote: AFAIK mech does not work outside of timing attacks because of no spider mines. Spider mines wouldn't change anything. It's the fact that a) Protoss don't have a 'good' answer to bio like they did in SC1 (storm/reaver vs colossus/storm) b) Mech is immobile and protoss is mobile c) Protoss have siege units that are viable I'm not going to say that mech doesn't work, because strictly speaking nothing is more terrifying that maxed 3-3 terran mech, but I will say that the preceding reasons make bio a better option. What? A) Protoss have a ton of great answers against bio and the only reason bio is even viable is because Mech is worse and because we have the Marauder which gives us a unit that doesn't automatically die to Storm/Collo/Archon. I wouldn't say 'a ton' of great answers, but the point I was getting at is that there are units/abilities in SC1 which essentially made bio play obsolete (outside of timing pushes) because bio units would just die after one shot/storm. This isn't the case in SC2 as even marines can be microed out of a storm to save them. Although once protoss gets to 3+ colossus and blanket storms it gets a little ugly for the terran.
Well but the true reasons why mech isn't used, is not that bio is better. If that were the reason we might have a simular situation like we have in TvZ, where generally Bio(with tanks) is played, but from time to time every good player throws in a mech build. In TvP however the reason, for mech not being used, is simply that Protoss has too good answers to mech compositions. 1. Chargelots: In a blink of an eye they close the gap. So at times even the first volley of tank shots allready deals friendly fire to you. That hurts and sucks! 2. Archons: They allways take the minimal damage from any unit. No bonus damage received from Hellions or Tanks here. That makes them VERY beafy, too beafy to be honest. 3. Immortals: Hardcounter to Thors and Tanks, Softcounter to Hellions. This Unit is simply the key, to unlock every mech-ground-composition.
The other point is: A mass Ghost/Tank mixture sounds really good for the lategame, even with the mobilty problems. BUT the transition is really hard to play. against an insanely high tank count, everything just melts except for immortals and archons, which can be emp'ed to death. BUT to get such a gas intensive composition, seems very hard. But this thread made me interested. I think I'll give it a try.
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