Hi Everyone, OK, I know I'm going to get stomped on this one but this topic is to revist Mech play vs Protoss. I am a high master Terran who has tanked his account to learn new mech builds and some have actually worked; I think it needs refining.
I feel this matchup is relatively unexplored - and the common answer is because "TvP mech Sucks". I refuse to believe this mentality - I just think it is more challenging than bio. Day9 did a show in January on it but, other than that, the build (or even attempt) for players to duplicate this on ladder is uncommon.
Recently a old style with some twists of using Thors/Cloak Banshees/Marines/Raven (1) with a scv push as emerged - Boxer used this in the last GSL (but lost). This is obviously after there is early banshee harass. But I rarely see mass tanks and helions anymore. What I am interested in exploring is perhaps a mech/bio hybrid army. For instance, one of my builds that worked was a early helion drop into expand (this is of course vs standard Toss 3 gate robo expand). Then drop 2 reactor barracks and 3 factories to produce tanks (no stim only combat shields). Then basically push while the colosi count is relatively low; even bunker outside of the protoss base if possible and slow push (similar to bw). As the game gets longer transition into more tanks/thor/emp - no bio upgrade only armory.
I feel Terran has been scared to think outside of the box in late game and simply tries to take the mass Protoss ball head-on, which is very diffcult with just bio and emp (especially after the emp nerf). I think a answer could be a mech/bio composition if transitioned and played correctly.
Obviously I'm a big fan of GoOdy being a mech player and even he has transitioned out of mech (only vs P). But I watch his stream and he still uses it occasionally. After talking to him after one of my showmatches he disclosed the helion nerf was the main reason for his switch. But why cant we replace helions with marines? Or a combo of the two? Remember, I'm exploring mech hybrid or pure mech timings that rely only on the mech upgrade. If bio is used then only combat shield and stim marines.
I would appreciate any Protoss or Terran input. AND ANY TVP MECH REPLAYS - they are so scarce. Thanks community!
Also review this thread: He is also high masters (lynna) and has a great-long game mech/strategy build
lategame tvp with mech is too hard for me personally. The immobility of mech vs the map dominating warp gate mechanics just makes defending bases a nightmare.
On April 04 2012 09:12 malaan wrote: lategame tvp with mech is too hard for me personally. The immobility of mech vs the map dominating warp gate mechanics just makes defending bases a nightmare.
With hellions not really... The problem is that mech loses in straight up battle against zealot charge (+ some stuff).
Use sensor towers and build depots and barrackses and planetaries around the map. Mech terran is all about turtling and using terrain for your advantage. You never really need to even attack protos, just let him dry out of money after continuous attempts at killing your mech army which just demolishes any protos composition, specially when protos can not even engage favorably because of all the shit you have been built around the map.
Maxed mech army with upgrades is the most powerful army in this game, so use that advantage. Battlecruisers, ravens, and tank support with some thors with blueflame hellions is very powerful even in straight up fight and protos cant trade armies efficiently.
On April 04 2012 09:43 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Use sensor towers and build depots and barrackses and planetaries around the map. Mech terran is all about turtling and using terrain for your advantage. You never really need to even attack protos, just let him dry out of money after continuous attempts at killing your mech army which just demolishes any protos composition, specially when protos can not even engage favorably because of all the shit you have been built around the map.
Maxed mech army with upgrades is the most powerful army in this game, so use that advantage. Battlecruisers, ravens, and tank support with some thors with blueflame hellions is very powerful.
That's just wrong, mass carrier will beat whatever the terran has except mass BC ^^
On April 04 2012 09:43 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Use sensor towers and build depots and barrackses and planetaries around the map. Mech terran is all about turtling and using terrain for your advantage. You never really need to even attack protos, just let him dry out of money after continuous attempts at killing your mech army which just demolishes any protos composition, specially when protos can not even engage favorably because of all the shit you have been built around the map.
Maxed mech army with upgrades is the most powerful army in this game, so use that advantage. Battlecruisers, ravens, and tank support with some thors with blueflame hellions is very powerful.
That's just wrong, mass carrier will beat whatever the terran has except mass BC ^^
On April 04 2012 09:12 malaan wrote: lategame tvp with mech is too hard for me personally. The immobility of mech vs the map dominating warp gate mechanics just makes defending bases a nightmare.
With hellions not really... The problem is that mech loses in straight up battle against zealot charge (+ some stuff).
With 8~9 blink stalkers, you need a large amount of hellions to defend which could also cause your main army to get rolled because theres no buffer for your tanks against the mass lots.
On April 04 2012 09:12 malaan wrote: lategame tvp with mech is too hard for me personally. The immobility of mech vs the map dominating warp gate mechanics just makes defending bases a nightmare.
With hellions not really... The problem is that mech loses in straight up battle against zealot charge (+ some stuff).
With 8~9 blink stalkers, you need a large amount of hellions to defend which could also cause your main army to get rolled because theres no buffer for your tanks against the mass lots.
That's what your field of spider mines is for. Oh wait...
Beastyqt has had some success with his thor-banshee build, and he does post on these forums occasionally. Illusion has some mech TvP replays as well in his replay thread:
1) i agree, after you won the game early, you can do whatever you want, even mech
2) i agree, you can do good allins with mech. But you have to hit before p have 3 base because mech can not beat a deathball at all
conclusion: Mech is good for allin and playing around if you allready won. Also you can beat P with mech if you are a way better player.
It is NOT solid because:
-you cant fastexp wich mech: - you do an allin and exp after it, it does not care what you follow up - bio exp into mech: allways brings a very long timing window where you die to an push -you can not beat deathball with mech, only if a) the p totaly dont know what to do because he never played against mech b) you allready won and have way better sup / ups
--- Did you try the Thor (3 armor ) + rines (+3 atack , shild - no stim) + banshee (+3 atack) stuff? it works quit good when the p never saw it before. would not try it 2. time against same enemy tho.
---- PS: - this belongs into strategies not main - oh day9 said its good, than it must be true ... + Show Spoiler +
On April 04 2012 09:43 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Use sensor towers and build depots and barrackses and planetaries around the map. Mech terran is all about turtling and using terrain for your advantage. You never really need to even attack protos, just let him dry out of money after continuous attempts at killing your mech army which just demolishes any protos composition, specially when protos can not even engage favorably because of all the shit you have been built around the map.
Maxed mech army with upgrades is the most powerful army in this game, so use that advantage. Battlecruisers, ravens, and tank support with some thors with blueflame hellions is very powerful.
That's just wrong, mass carrier will beat whatever the terran has except mass BC ^^
On April 04 2012 09:43 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Use sensor towers and build depots and barrackses and planetaries around the map. Mech terran is all about turtling and using terrain for your advantage. You never really need to even attack protos, just let him dry out of money after continuous attempts at killing your mech army which just demolishes any protos composition, specially when protos can not even engage favorably because of all the shit you have been built around the map.
Maxed mech army with upgrades is the most powerful army in this game, so use that advantage. Battlecruisers, ravens, and tank support with some thors with blueflame hellions is very powerful.
That's just wrong, mass carrier will beat whatever the terran has except mass BC ^^
mass vikings? mass ravens? mass marines?
A few HT support > all that you listed.
Like many have said already, mech timings work pretty well. Ive done it myself. But for a straightup macro game, I dont consider it so viable because so how unforgiving/unflexible it is compared to the standard MMMVG.
i wish heavy metal would work, mech with support works fairly easy. But siegetanks just don't do enough damage anymore to have any sort of zone control, pfs actually have to do that. But the new maps allow mech play, while some time ago most maps just favored bio play really heavily. (or low tech in general which is the toss way to go against mech)
my fav. composition currently is mech with ghost support. I hope they never find out air with upgrades would poke me.
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.
Mech is incredibly hard to pull off, but it in theory a better option than bio against protos. You cannot just play mech in conventional ways like playing with bio. You have to have fucking good macro and like I have said, build a lot of buildings around the map to make terrain too hard for protos to engage. When map is split in half, the game becomes war of attrition, and mech terran will win this war if played correctly. Protos just has nothing in their arsenal to win that game.
Does this mean terran is overpowered? yes Why no one plays mech then? Pros play for living and they rather play more convenient styles and lets be honest, most progamers just copy others build without any intellectual though put in it. Mech is also hard as hell, while good terrans can utilize bio with good succes so they have no reason to change.
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.
Wouldn't spider mines alleviate some of the immobility issue? It should significantly help in terms of map control over a sensor tower (delay their expansions), not needing to spend so much resources into PFs and force the P to be careful/produce observers or get punished by mini nukes. Plus back stabs would be less dangerous due to having mine fields in your main for those pesky blinkstalker/warp prism harass that often occurs. It would make a world of difference I reckon.
shredder will be very nice, but i am a bit worried about how much damage it can take
mech immobility is not even an issue if you actually learn how to use sensor towers and look your minimap. And if they are doing multipronged attacks, then its just even better because you can afford to split your armies because you have the most effective army in the game. Also if they are gonna just come in your base, there is buildings alot and chargelots etc have hard time to get even one hit
Some people think that mines would help, but I don't. If Terran had spider mines blink/obs back stabs would still be commonplace/mandatory vs mech and given you have an obs seeing mines isn't an issue. Clearing mines in front of tanks wouldn't be difficult either with colossus and immortals would be amazing at soaking them up, further charge would probably pull more mines into tanks
On April 04 2012 11:44 Plexa wrote: Some people think that mines would help, but I don't. If Terran had spider mines blink/obs back stabs would still be commonplace/mandatory vs mech and given you have an obs seeing mines isn't an issue. Clearing mines in front of tanks wouldn't be difficult either with colossus and immortals would be amazing at soaking them up, further charge would probably pull more mines into tanks
On April 04 2012 11:44 Plexa wrote: Some people think that mines would help, but I don't. If Terran had spider mines blink/obs back stabs would still be commonplace/mandatory vs mech and given you have an obs seeing mines isn't an issue. Clearing mines in front of tanks wouldn't be difficult either with colossus and immortals would be amazing at soaking them up, further charge would probably pull more mines into tanks
This exactly. Collosi are giant killer minesweepers. Really I feel the issue is more the collosi then it is the immortal. Collosi are great for destroying all the low health hellions that tend to arc around their target(Zealots). Once the Hellions are gone the tanks pretty much melt. Terran Bio would have the same issue if not for Conc, stim, and Medivac. Conc and stim allow for double dps kiting while taking minimal damage from splash. Then the medivacs unlike regular medics can hover over and heal the bio.+ Show Spoiler +
I hate to qq, but every change from BW to SC2 that was done to Protoss and Terran was essentially made to kill mech.
On April 04 2012 11:34 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Mech is incredibly hard to pull off, but it in theory a better option than bio against protos. You cannot just play mech in conventional ways like playing with bio. You have to have fucking good macro and like I have said, build a lot of buildings around the map to make terrain too hard for protos to engage. When map is split in half, the game becomes war of attrition, and mech terran will win this war if played correctly. Protos just has nothing in their arsenal to win that game.
Does this mean terran is overpowered? yes Why no one plays mech then? Pros play for living and they rather play more convenient styles and lets be honest, most progamers just copy others build without any intellectual though put in it. Mech is also hard as hell, while good terrans can utilize bio with good succes so they have no reason to change.
What? How do you possibly come to that conclusion based on the misguided interpretation you gave.
It really bothers me when this topic gets brought up continuously in strategy forum posts with the, hurr why do you stay on tier 1 all game then comment. If you can max, mech IS a decent composition to combat protoss late game. The problem is that Protoss can very easily abuse the immobility aspect of mech and expand freely over the map to bank enough mineral and gas to INSTANTLY REMAX WITH WARPGATES the second a battle commences. Why is this a problem for the terran? Mech takes SOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO long to rebuild, and there is not one specific catch all composition to roll through any Protoss tech switches late game, and if you manage to kill that first army, there's another one not too far behind, which will probably contain units that are better suited to deal with your unique composition than the previous wave, based on what he's killed off. Because he has the knowledge that the Terran cannot reinforce fast enough to add more of what he lost. Mech is a composition based on specific counters, you build units based on exactly what your opponent is making or what you believe they will make. Bio mech compositions are great, and have a very clear use on specific maps in BoX formats. But this is the essential problem with mech, if you get to endgame, you suffer through endless harassment to spread your core thin and are broken by a Protoss who has waited patiently for you to get to this point only to use the warp mechanic take advantage of your reinforcement speed. Then ofc there's carriers ><.
Mech is hard to play, yes but it's not the reason pros don't play bio, seriously this is a really perverse way of thinking. Pros do what it takes to win, if there's a specific composition that fares supreme above ANYTHING the Protoss can throw at them like you state in your post...they'd use that. Not to mention the skillcap for bio oriented play is inherently much higher than mech play because it rewards better micro a much greater amount, and there is so much potential to do so. And I'm not saying mech cannot work 100% iron first rawr. I'm saying it's not nearly as efficient and is much too coinflippy to utilize in every TvP, this is even true of TvT games were clearly lesser players take games off of established pros due to one poor engage or a moments hesitation in thinking while meching against bio.
I just, I can't come up with words to express how wrong
lets be honest, most progamers just copy others build without any intellectual though put in it
that is. Koreans may not be the majority but they LIVE the game they play, and top foreigners aren't that far behind, maybe not in the team house lifestyle, but they put a massive amount of thought into their play, and below that line, it's a wash of what constitutes a pro.
edit: I may sound like I'm harping on the playstyle but I've meched from release until the BF patch in every matchup, now just in TvT and TvZ.
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.
how exactly would you describe storm+forcefields+colossi, if not a 'good' answer to bio lol?
On April 04 2012 09:43 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Use sensor towers and build depots and barrackses and planetaries around the map. Mech terran is all about turtling and using terrain for your advantage. You never really need to even attack protos, just let him dry out of money after continuous attempts at killing your mech army which just demolishes any protos composition, specially when protos can not even engage favorably because of all the shit you have been built around the map.
Maxed mech army with upgrades is the most powerful army in this game, so use that advantage. Battlecruisers, ravens, and tank support with some thors with blueflame hellions is very powerful.
That's just wrong, mass carrier will beat whatever the terran has except mass BC ^^
mass vikings? mass ravens? mass marines?
I've actually had a mech game go to mass Carrier (and some Stalkers) vs 200/200 Viking/Thor. The Carriers won with barely a scratch on them.
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.
how exactly would you describe storm+forcefields+colossi, if not a 'good' answer to bio lol?
Oh quite simple actually. All of those require a mass of stuff to kill bio - i.e. 3+ colossus, 4ish templar and so on. Once you get to those levels I agree that protoss starts to melt bio. However, contrast this against BW where 1 reaver shot would kill a clump of bio and one storm was enough to kill half an army comparatively bio is a lot easier to deal with in SC1 because the damage dealing stuff really packs a punch.
Yes, it is always funny to read that Korean pros aren't trying new strategies. Just because they aren't meching in GSL, it doesn't mean they aren't trying... They make their living from winning so I am sure they are trying everything they can. The problem with mech is that it is heavily timing based... And there is no counter to chargelots with mech... According to Liquid wiki, zealots are weak vs hellions, but once zealots have charge, they actually rape hellions... And for people who claims the Avilo sky Terran build is good, sure, if the game is NR 20...
On April 04 2012 11:44 Plexa wrote: Some people think that mines would help, but I don't. If Terran had spider mines blink/obs back stabs would still be commonplace/mandatory vs mech and given you have an obs seeing mines isn't an issue. Clearing mines in front of tanks wouldn't be difficult either with colossus and immortals would be amazing at soaking them up, further charge would probably pull more mines into tanks
Yeah, you are right about these things. But one things for sure. Id rather have them then not have them!
Also it sure seems like from BW to SC2, P got alot of different tools to dealing with mech in BW TvP which is a good thing BUT what blizzard didn't do is keep the mech the way it was nor did they compensate that by buffing some mech units in SC2. Now the entire tech tree is gimmicky at best in the matchup and we are forced to using bio that doesn't feel like Bio (marauders..? 125HP bio unit??).
On April 04 2012 11:44 Plexa wrote: Some people think that mines would help, but I don't. If Terran had spider mines blink/obs back stabs would still be commonplace/mandatory vs mech and given you have an obs seeing mines isn't an issue. Clearing mines in front of tanks wouldn't be difficult either with colossus and immortals would be amazing at soaking them up, further charge would probably pull more mines into tanks
blink stalkers do not counter mech
They don't need to beat mech straight up to be a counter. Blink stalkers can harass you to death if you mech and never have to fight you because they're so mobile. You'll never sustain the economy you need to fund mech and you'll lose.
On April 04 2012 12:07 Caliber wrote: ghost b/c also super unexplored late game vs P
Ryung used Ghost BC on daybreak against Killer and (I think) Parting in one of the GSL groups a season or two ago, he basically dominated them with immaculate positioning and sick EMPs protecting his BCs from feedbacks.
Hellions take 7 shots to kill a Zealot, Sieged up Tanks take 5 and the reload time is 2.5seconds/3seconds meaning it takes a Hellion 17.5 seconds to fry a single zealot and a tank 15 seconds. I don't know about you but that's a lot time for a unit that has a charge ability to get to what it needs to hit. If Hellions are buffering for the tanks they can't kite and it will take a zealot about 7 seconds to kill a hellion. That doesn't even count the tanks own splash hitting the hellions.
Thors don't enter into the conversation, they get rolled by immortals, void rays, and feedback. I also don't think they'd be able to kill off the 7 zealots they essentially cost to make (factoring gasx2) one on one, it wouldn't even be close.
You're immobile with mech as well, so the zealots can warp into your main, toss can have two more bases than you with a couple cannons to stop runbys etc. The Zealot, basically by itself can kill a mech army lategame. Let alone once you start adding in stalkers against hellions, immortals against tanks, void rays against the whole composition, templar against thors/banshees and it gets really messy.
The problem is for every one unit a mech unit can kill effectively there's 3 or 4 more than can kill that unit with ease. There's also several units that flat out wreck the everything in the composition. Tanks can kill stalkers but get rolled by voids, zealots and immortals. Hellions can kill zealots (in the right situation) but get rolled by immortals, voids, ht and stalkers. Thors can kill zealots and stalkers but they get wrecked by immortals and high templar. Mech also can't deal with immortals at all and well micro'd void rays are going to be rough too.
Mech is for timing attacks, and that's it. It simply can't be anything better and it will still probably get rolled in hots unless the mech warrior lookalike is immune to immortals, is cost effective against zealots, stalkers and void rays and in general is the most overpowered unit in the game.
On April 04 2012 12:16 Corsica wrote: for all you mechers, i suggest check ST_Sound vs MvP_TAiLS in GSTL on Dual Sight...It was more like 2 base timing push but still...
2 base timing are very effective, but past that mech really starts to fall apart when protoss starts unlocking most of their tech and have the resources to switch around.
In a 2 base timing Protoss can only chose one of the following:
1) Charge and/or Blink 2) Immoral + GW 3) 1 or 2 Colo with very little GW support 4) Mass GW 5) Voidray with little GW support 6) Phoenix w/ GW support 7) Archon w/ Little GW support
2 Base mech pushes involve Marines, Hellions, and Tanks with Starport support+ Show Spoiler +
. All GW compositions are easily crushed by Marine Hellion Tank. In these scenarios you can substitute siege mode for a fast BF. And if Toss tries to Tech he doesn't have enough stuff to hold your timing attack. However lategame Protoss has the resources to support Tech with lots of GW support.
I think the biggest problem is that people are making opinions without actually testing it or playing it themselves. I go mech in every game against protoss, sure its on the diamond level, but there its having a very good success rate. I find that the problems people are saying are not actually problems.
The classic immobility one people always say. That's just such a dumb statement. That's not a Starcraft term. Saying all the factory and starport units are all slow is just wrong. If you need to get around the map fast you use hellions and viking/banshee.
Another misconception is that people think tanks are just bad against all the protoss units. But their just thinking of tanks verse zealots. Tanks verse immortals etc. When there are generally 6 other unit types in your army. Drastically changing that equation. I find actually the longer the game goes on the stronger the mech army becomes. Specifically because you have more units to put in front of your tanks, which is the most important concept of any mech vs Protoss engagement.
I hope everyone reads this post, because every time I see someone say something like "tanks are bad against protoss" or "mech is to immobile to use" just makes me so angry.
edit: A third example of misconceptions is harassment is to good against mech. Which is not actually that hard to deal with. Turrets, hellions, banshees, and ravens to a lesser extent, all deal with the harassment quite effeciently.
Everyone is always skeptical of this style, but I think that if a great player puts their mind to something ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! I love innovative play, and people who can believe in themselves. So whoever makes this work is going to seriously be MY HERO! =D
On April 04 2012 12:48 KING CHARLIE :D wrote: Everyone is always skeptical of this style, but I think that if a great player puts their mind to something ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! I love innovative play, and people who can believe in themselves. So whoever makes this work is going to seriously be MY HERO! =D
On April 04 2012 12:29 Filter wrote: Hellions take 7 shots to kill a Zealot, Sieged up Tanks take 5 and the reload time is 2.5seconds/3seconds meaning it takes a Hellion 17.5 seconds to fry a single zealot and a tank 15 seconds. I don't know about you but that's a lot time for a unit that has a charge ability to get to what it needs to hit. If Hellions are buffering for the tanks they can't kite and it will take a zealot about 7 seconds to kill a hellion. That doesn't even count the tanks own splash hitting the hellions.
Thors don't enter into the conversation, they get rolled by immortals, void rays, and feedback. I also don't think they'd be able to kill off the 7 zealots they essentially cost to make (factoring gasx2) one on one, it wouldn't even be close.
You're immobile with mech as well, so the zealots can warp into your main, toss can have two more bases than you with a couple cannons to stop runbys etc. The Zealot, basically by itself can kill a mech army lategame. Let alone once you start adding in stalkers against hellions, immortals against tanks, void rays against the whole composition, templar against thors/banshees and it gets really messy.
The problem is for every one unit a mech unit can kill effectively there's 3 or 4 more than can kill that unit with ease. There's also several units that flat out wreck the everything in the composition. Tanks can kill stalkers but get rolled by voids, zealots and immortals. Hellions can kill zealots (in the right situation) but get rolled by immortals, voids, ht and stalkers. Thors can kill zealots and stalkers but they get wrecked by immortals and high templar. Mech also can't deal with immortals at all and well micro'd void rays are going to be rough too.
Mech is for timing attacks, and that's it. It simply can't be anything better and it will still probably get rolled in hots unless the mech warrior lookalike is immune to immortals, is cost effective against zealots, stalkers and void rays and in general is the most overpowered unit in the game.
This is, unfortunately, the reality. Mech its simply not viable in SC2 if both players are aware of what the other is doing and are of equal skill. The warp-in mechanic fundamentally breaks mech.
Vile Illusion regularly goes mech in TvP. It's really sick actually. If you look through his VODs, I'm sure you can find a build pretty easily. These are old, but these are replays that Illusion did for the Day9 episode where he suggests going mech TvP:
On April 04 2012 11:44 Plexa wrote: Some people think that mines would help, but I don't. If Terran had spider mines blink/obs back stabs would still be commonplace/mandatory vs mech and given you have an obs seeing mines isn't an issue. Clearing mines in front of tanks wouldn't be difficult either with colossus and immortals would be amazing at soaking them up, further charge would probably pull more mines into tanks
The idea of the immortal tanking spider mines gives me chills... That'd be amazing.
i played a game the other day ( im diamond so take it for what its worth) and the guy simply kept on maxing out on mass seige tanks, helion and i simply did not know how to stop it because he would literally melt all of my units over and over again. Mech is viable- just harder to pull off but its probably the strongest late game terran has.
Overall terran is a very mid game oriented race that HAS to take advantage of its drop ability.
The whole point of mech is that you're supposed to be trading mobility for static power - if the P 1a's into a rooted mech army, the P army should melt. Instead what we have is the P army will crush the mech without hardly even losing supply. What's the point?
---------Bio----------------Mech------------- Mobility | High | Low Flexibility | High | Low Multi-harass | High | None Mobile Power | High | None Static Power | Med/Low | Low
??? Why would you EVER play mech over bio, other than some insane preferential thing?
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.
The problem with mech against most protoss is the terran metagame mindset that you cant mech without tanks. I play protoss and honestly, when you get late game and want to use zealots for reinforcements and to tank damage nothing is scarier than a decent amount of blueflame hellions, people seem to forget that zealots are light...
I think it could be very interesting to try a composition which is not strictly mech, but perhaps marauder hellion banshee or something to that effect. Mid to late game tanks just dont cut it in TvP, but banshees can do devastating damage against almost everything but phoenix and stalkers, and the hellions will force a more stalker heavy army which marauders will do well against
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.
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.
I very much agree with your 3 points, but I think spider mines would make a massive difference. Could you imagine laying an anti-recall minefield with turrets in your main and seeing if Toss will still try to blink up to your main or warp in while you push out. Also imagine how useful the FD would be against fast storm/voidray timing attacks (the main reason I die with mech). Also imagine how much easier securing a faster 3rd would be allowing you to get the much needed gas to not have to do a predictable timing attack off 2 base. Imagine actually being able to do a contain, and not some gimmicky timing attack that has to kill him before he has time to reinforce. Chargelots would also be a lot less powerful due to the smarter Tank-AI plus mines, also mines should do full damage to Immortals and due to clumping mines would be a bit more powerful to compensate for weaker tanks, meaning Toss has to be smarter than just 1A into your army and win.
Well, mines would be hugely OP if they used the BW implementation. Units are just so clumped up in SC2 compare to BW, that is why the AoE units are so good...
It's sad how bad Terran mech is in SC2 compared to BW . It really is, especially when you look at what P/Z players have at their disposal, it's no wonder Terran over-rely on their only strong point - medivacs and tier 1 units.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 !
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.
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".
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.
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.
As chill as I think the idea of a TvP "Mechsploration" would be, I've tried personal mechsplosions on the ladder, and despite many mechscavations and mechschanges of units, I've come to mechspect mech to be mechsponentially worse than the standard bio TvP because of the tools Protoss has available.
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.
If you read my original post, I didn't say mech doesn't work but I did say that the factors I identified make bio a more attractive option.
On April 04 2012 17:29 Blazinghand wrote: As chill as I think the idea of a TvP "Mechsploration" would be, I've tried personal mechsplosions on the ladder, and despite many mechscavations and mechschanges of units, I've come to mechspect mech to be mechsponentially worse than the standard bio TvP because of the tools Protoss has available.
Tanks for your brilliant conclusion. I've had the same experience.
On April 04 2012 11:34 Mongolbonjwa wrote: Mech is incredibly hard to pull off, but it in theory a better option than bio against protos. You cannot just play mech in conventional ways like playing with bio. You have to have fucking good macro and like I have said, build a lot of buildings around the map to make terrain too hard for protos to engage. When map is split in half, the game becomes war of attrition, and mech terran will win this war if played correctly. Protos just has nothing in their arsenal to win that game.
Does this mean terran is overpowered? yes Why no one plays mech then? Pros play for living and they rather play more convenient styles and lets be honest, most progamers just copy others build without any intellectual though put in it. Mech is also hard as hell, while good terrans can utilize bio with good succes so they have no reason to change.
this is just fucking dumb obviously if its like "the ultimate strategy and playstyle" which it fucking is not for several reasons the main reason being that its not actually that cost efficient against the protoss army and it can very well lose a maxed vs maxed fight... youre basicly just saying that mech is the best strategy ever and its OP as fuck but everyone just sucks and dont know how to do it, but i know this because... i just know
All the games with mech in TvP have been all ins in the pro games... and the day9 daily of the subject was awful as fuck and isnt a good example of a strategy being good or viable
On April 04 2012 17:43 KAmaKAsa wrote: All the games with mech in TvP have been all ins in the pro games... and the day9 daily of the subject was awful as fuck and isnt a good example of a strategy being good or viable
yes, they always show those "2 base mech all-in" and claim that is "mech".
Their damage is only substantial against Zealots, and even then isn't worth their supply cost given their health and survivability.
Without an effective mineral dump Mech is entirely reliant on the cost effectiveness of Siege Tanks and Thors vs a Protoss Deathball.
While effective in timing attacks and all ins it simply isn't a valid long term gameplan considering how quickly Protoss is able to both get ahead in upgrades, out maneauver Terran Mech Armies, and reinforce thanks to Warp Tech.
Mech has all of the weaknesses it has in the other matchups without maintaining the cost effectiveness it maintains in the other match ups.
Bio is simply the superiror game plan in the late game in virtually every way.
That Day9 daily is so misleading its almost intelligently offensive, and I'm really wondering why people keep bringing it up. The protoss players play right into the mechplayers hands in each game and nobody plays very well overall. I'm pretty sure Illusion himself has said mech isn't really viable in TvP, so there goes having him as the posterchild of it.
Artosis claiming mech would be viable has to be some elaborate troll on his part, or alternatively he misses BW TvP so much he wants to keep people discussing the possibilities of mech. Deep down I'm sure he knows how awful mech is.
When Goody gives up mech for bio in TvP, you know mech is absolutely horrible. You know when MVP says 'mech will never work vs Protoss', mech is awful.
Its just worse than bio. Its only advantage is a more powerful lategame army, but it still loses to a chargelot remax so there is no difference to bio there. Its just easier to micro than bio, and toss aren't used to it. Protoss armies destroy mech armies without even using zealot bombs, flanks, blinking single stalkers towards tanks. They just a-move their army cos thats how easy it is. Imagine what would happen if Protoss had to try to defeat mech.
On April 04 2012 17:29 Blazinghand wrote: As chill as I think the idea of a TvP "Mechsploration" would be, I've tried personal mechsplosions on the ladder, and despite many mechscavations and mechschanges of units, I've come to mechspect mech to be mechsponentially worse than the standard bio TvP because of the tools Protoss has available.
Tanks for your brilliant conclusion. I've had the same experience.
I'm glad others have had the chance to work these things out for themselves. I wouldn't anyone to just trust my findings on a Thor ity.
On April 04 2012 17:49 Vindicare605 wrote: Hellions are borderline useless in late game TvP.
Their damage is only substantial against Zealots, and even then isn't worth their supply cost given their health and survivability.
Without an effective mineral dump Mech is entirely reliant on the cost effectiveness of Siege Tanks and Thors vs a Protoss Deathball.
While effective in timing attacks and all ins it simply isn't a valid long term gameplan considering how quickly Protoss is able to both get ahead in upgrades, out maneauver Terran Mech Armies, and reinforce thanks to Warp Tech.
Mech has all of the weaknesses it has in the other matchups without maintaining the cost effectiveness it maintains in the other match ups.
Bio is simply the superiror game plan in the late game in virtually every way.
Also alot of Protosses are learning how to wall off. Not to mention that Cannons are very good against Hellions and Stalker warp ins make it near impossible to make a late game Hellion drop work.
All we can do is hope Blizzard listens for HOTS. Unfortunately I see tanks dieing all together if Warhounds and Battle Hellions make it in. Not to mention how supply the new Mech units are. If you decide to go mech your gonna have a very small, slow,expensive, immobile army.
I've been exploring mech in TvP at a masters level as well, but I just think it's too hard late game as nothing really deals with 3/3 chargelots well unless the protoss attacks into a very severe choke of siege tanks. As such I've been trying to look at mech in a different way than most other matchups, and rather than turtling then trying to hit a maxed timing where protoss has everything it needs to deal with mech, you need to go for a very early two base timing and do enough damage to get you far ahead enough for pure mech to be viable.
My search lead to the Thors/Cloak Banshees/Marines/Raven build that you mention. Granted it is not pure mech, it's the closest thing that terran has that is viable. It's something that I've found to be extremely strong after seeing it used recently a couple of times in GSL/GSTL. I think its possible to hit a stronger timing attack than the 1/1/1, and as its done off two base its not as all in, in fact you don't even need to drag scv's.
This build just makes sense and has a very natural flow and logic behind it:
Open up with a 1rax fe. Make sure you wall off at your ramp in an attempt to deny scouting information, this is important as it may make the protoss feel vulnerable and cause them to get a robo for observers and juicy scouting information. You want the protoss to go robo! If they do get a probe in, don't fret, your next move will force a robo. Get a double gas as fast as you can after your CC (bunker up natural for defense) for cloak banshees. This may seem illogical as the protoss should already have observers, if you denied scouting, but you want them to really commit to robo tech on the off chance they haven't got observers already. Make sure you don't lose a single banshee, even if it means doing zero damage with the banshees.
This opening is all because it leads to a natural transition into collosus for the protoss as the robo is already there, which more importantly means, no high templar! If you then get fast four gas, and make sure you have constant production from 2 orbitals (stop scv's at 2 base saturation), 2 factorys (producing 2 thors at a time), 2 rax (1 reactor, one no addon), and 1 starport (1 raven after the first two banshees to deny scouting observers with thors, rest banshee), and hit a +1 veichle weapon timing, it is almost impossible for the protoss to stop.
The thors will instantly kill any observers around due to their massive range and auto targeting against air, you then send your cloak banshees to take down the collosus and immortals, your raven has enough energy for a PDD to nullify the stalkers while your marines kill the zealots fairly easily. Make sure you fight away from cannons, however if you are forced to engage near cannons, you should have enough thors to focus them down straight away and elminiate any detection against the banshee.
If you don't outright kill them with the +1 push, as long as you have taken down enough robo tech in the engagement and denied any third, as long as you keep producing thors, banshees and rines, and make sure you have one raven, the protoss is forced to keep producing robo units (immortals for thors, observers for banshees) and any high templar count is sure to be insignificant due to a lack of gas.
3 days ago i decided to mech in tvp, currently im 12-3 vs Master tosses (500pts-850pts) if some1 could PM me on how to upload reps I could show you how. Also check out Lynna's guide (hope i didnt butcher te name). The thing i've got problems with is people going fast 3 nexus into chargelot archon. It seems though that +1 armor thors with scvs repairig are pretty darn good. (sorry for the terrible post, hard to type during classes :p )
Every Terran miss our mech playfrom sc1. Believe it or not, Tank in sc2 is actually better than tank in sc1. Unfortunately, hellion can't compare to valture and spider-mine.
On April 04 2012 20:08 Garmer wrote: also mech, mean that you use only thor hellion and tank, not stuff like bc raven viking and banshee, this is not mech for me...
So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking
mech isn't that hard vs protoss. personally i reckon it's harder meching vs zerg.
looked away to macro, ling surround loose game. slightly over extend? ling surround loose game. miss their tech switch into mutas, loose everything, never expand again.... then loose the game. just >:U!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at my post on page 4 to see how to mech vs protoss.
On April 04 2012 20:32 Bodzilla wrote: mech isn't that hard vs protoss. personally i reckon it's harder meching vs zerg.
Well assuming you aren't being really reckless with your mech force, a zerg will likely lose his entire army attacking into you at most points in the game. Not that mech in TvZ doesn't have its own advantages and weaknesses, but at least that clause is generally guaranteed. The zerg must rebuild/reposition and it is here where you can try to make an advantageous move. Now in TvP if the same thing happens its very possible that the toss has not only destroyed your army, but actually has some tech units left, and is now warping in chargelots 8 at a time. Against a mechball which is slow to reinforce, slow to move around, and requires prepared positioning to function properly, it just becomes an awful situation for the terran.
Why i reckon it's harder personally is you have to pressure zergs and key points during the game to either deny thirds, stop them getting an insane drone count themselves and expand more safely.
With a very slow unmobile army which is mech it's to me personally harder to do.
On April 04 2012 20:32 Bodzilla wrote: mech isn't that hard vs protoss. personally i reckon it's harder meching vs zerg.
You are correct - if you are in diamond or lower it's not particularly hard to mech vs Protoss - except that there's no pro players to copy. However at higher levels it's absolutely the hardest thing to do in the game - it was arguably the hardest thing in broodwar too, and it was a lot easier there. It's no less powerful in SC2 (in fact it might actually be more powerful in some circumstances), but it's definitely harder to play.
Proper mech play centres on tanks on the ground with usually hellions (but you can have marines instead, depending on a lot of other stuff) as support, harass and buffer units. Some Thors can be used (but are not actually required), but the essential support units that you CANNOT do without are the ghost and the viking. Vikings take the place of the Goliath (in fact they are the same unit, except that they fly) with the added bonus of being required to stop warp-prisms and observers from flanking your army/counter-attacking into your main. They also can extend your vision range immensely. The Ghost is primarily needed for EMP vs Archons and Immortals (especially immortals). Shieldless immortals are next to useless vs a large number of tanks (vs small numbers of tanks immortal-zealot is quite good though, even if it gets EMPed)
Anybody who says mech isn't viable is ignorant or an imbecile - however by the same token it's SOOOOOOOOO hard that it's ridiculous. I'd love to see mech made better in the mid-game somehow (late-game it's fine/OP as hell, but getting there vs a good player is hard as buggery).
My tips to mech players: Build tanks, they are amazing. Thors are OK units - but I'm not convinced they are good enough to be the backbone of your army in the late-game. 1 thor is better than 2 tanks, but 10 tanks are WAY better than 5 thors. Build turrets, LOTS of turrets. Turrets protect your base from observers and more importantly, warp-prisms. Be VERY active with your hellions and vikings, this is hard to do so I suggest focusing attention on your hellions and patrolling your vikings around your bases and army. It's ok to be a a couple of bases down if you play mech - so long as you move out perfectly with your army at max or close to it, this is also map dependent as some maps it seems impossible to stop counter-attacks. That said, you NEED 3-bases at a minimum before you move out to be assured of victory
In conclusion I'll say this: Mech is SO powerful that sometimes I think it's OP, but then I play somebody who's active with their units and defence becomes an absolute nightmare. The end-game mech army is I think unbeatable on the ground (I've MAULED the mooted immortal-chargelot based armies in the late-game even vs players up 20 supply with and I've never lost in the late-game without being able to identify how I could have won). The trade off to this is that if Protoss plays perfectly leading up to this, I don't see Terran being able to win on a lot of maps unless they are a better player - although I'm not sure this is a bad thing. btw, I say mech is unbeatable on the ground, but the lack of marines in the ideal mech combo and the lack of infantry upgrades make carrier-phoenix based combinations IN CONJUNCTION with the afore mentioned chargelot-immortal theoretically as dangerous as fuck.
On April 04 2012 20:08 Garmer wrote: also mech, mean that you use only thor hellion and tank, not stuff like bc raven viking and banshee, this is not mech for me...
So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking
if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know...
on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time...
Thors are great early game and into the midgame, however once the protoss player gets close to maxing out is to me when you switch into mass seige tanks. Thors are are a bit more mobile which make it easier to defend against toss on the ground on maps and because they're so large you can pull SCV's as neccessary to repair them really effectively.
They're just not good to attack with or put pressure on, and late game they cant deal with toss's overwhelming units, which is where the seige tanks come in.
i've posted it before but i'll say it again seeing as you seem to be reasonably interested.
1: Cloaked banshee opening, expand behind it, constant marine production and bunkers when needed for defense.
2: transition into BF hellions and thor/banshee to defend your nat and your third. Theres no need to be aggressive, you'll just make yourself very vulnerable to a backstab.
3: Replace your thor army with seige tanks to splash the protoss army
4: secure your 4th, split map with PF's sensor towers, transition into Hellion tank banshee BC.
if you get to step 4, there's pretty much nothing they can do to you
On April 04 2012 20:08 Garmer wrote: also mech, mean that you use only thor hellion and tank, not stuff like bc raven viking and banshee, this is not mech for me...
So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking
if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know...
on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time...
Vs P, Vessel is normal tech route to be taken if P goes Arbiters, and even normal is P goes Carriers, Given that T can transition out of it towards mass Goliaths when the Tech route is scouted.
I didn't bother reading the entire thread (as I've read plenty of threads like these before), but has it ever been talked about on transitioning to mech rather than bum rushing to it?
I know in TvZ, Marine/Tank into Mech is very viable which allows to perform early pressure and early pushes. However in TvP I'm wondering if something similar can be done.
I have been having much more success vs P with mech than I had with bio (in Platinum). This is probably due to the easier control in late game scenarios imo.
One thing I don't like about mech playing mech styles that open 1-1-1 expand or similiar is that if you get a little behind in the early game it becomes very difficult to come back into the game. Protoss will accelerate away to a quicker max and take a favourable engagement on thier terms. There is not much you can do after the early game if they can afford to invest in a few cannons/stalkers to defend your banshee or hellion harass. With bio there is more oppertunity to use moblity and drops to slow them down.
What I've found with mech is that the people who do it successfully are those that harass the crap out of the protoss from the beginning of the game and never really stop. The thing with mech and protoss in my opinion is that there comes a point where the protoss army will counter mech too hard. The key to doing mech successfully is hindering the protosses ability to produce an effective army (Mainly zealots, immortals and ht's). Mech loses in the games where protoss is able to get an effective army and trade while being able to reproduce.
In my opinion the key to meching in TvP is banshee and helion harass. You do this relentlessly and do a lot of damage to the economy of protoss you can win but if you aren't able to do this you're going to get rolled over.
It's possible. There seems to be a ton of different openings to get to mech and a ton of different ways of people to play mech in TvP. I tend to open with a reactor rax into FE, and then add on a factory and crank out marine/tank as I power my economy and add on more factories and get upgrades, eventually transitioning into Thor/Hellion + Ghost/Viking support. As the game goes on I'll throw away the marines to free up supply, and the 4-6 tanks I made at the beginning are all the tanks I need later in the game. This opening doesn't leave much room for pressure, but it does do fine at defending against it and gets a fairly solid economy.
On April 04 2012 18:06 Micket wrote: When Goody gives up mech for bio in TvP, you know mech is absolutely horrible. You know when MVP says 'mech will never work vs Protoss', mech is awful.
I hate this line of thinking, with that way of approaching things, no one other than the best players will experiment, leaving us a very dry game.
I feel like there's a flow in TvP. At the start of the game (1), small gateway armies can outmicro small bio armies and win. Then, as the armies get larger, and upgrades like slow, stim, and shield kick in (2), Terran starts to win the fights. I would also consider medivacs as an upgrade to bio units, in their straight-up fight role. Protoss has to fall back on high tech in the form of colossi, storm, and archons. Once they have one or two of these (3), and twilight upgrades, the Protoss army is again stronger than Terran's bio, and warp-ins add an extra potency to the Protoss army. This is why dropping is so important, it moves the fight from stage 3 to stage 2.
The reason Terrans complain about the matchup is a perceived weakness - you could relate this to the endgame state of PvZ, where Zerg moves from hatch/lair (ling/muta, roach/hydra, etc.) compositions to brolord/infestor. Fortunately, at this point, Protoss has a final composition of their own (mothership/archon) that can fight on somewhat even terms. I think mech play could shore up this endgame state in TvP, but it has several weaknesses, namely that: a) Tanks are not as scary as in Brood War b) No spider mines to limit Protoss mobility through Terran armies c) difficult to transition; you'll notice almost every suggested mech build with an expansion has a very vulnerable period before the first (thor, banshee, tank) is out. d) immobile (well-debated already) e) hard to replenish if the army is lost f) hard to use correctly or in small numbers.
Of course d)-f) are common to any mech play, and the reason that bio will always see high-level play in every matchup (imo).
You'll notice a) and b) compare mech to Brood War, I'd just like to state for the record that I do think mech styles have been given some buffs in SC2. a) Banshees have much better air-to-ground than wraiths did, and vikings beat wraiths at air-to-air by virtue of range b) Ravens are more of a utility unit than Science Vessels were for the TvP match-up c) Thors do a lot better against Protoss units than Goliaths did (feel free to correct me though, I didn't play that much BW) d) Hellions can butcher probes more efficiently than Vultures could e)add-on system can help transition from barracks to factories (or starports)
In my opinion, once players figure out ways around disadvantages c) and b) , we'll see a 4th stage of TvP, where Terran slow pushes Protoss using Thors, Tanks, and a mineral dump buffer unit, while harassing with Hellions, Banshees, drops or both.
I will admit that I'm using the term "mech" loosely. What I mean by "mech" is a composition in which almost no gas is spent on infantry. I don't think armies of pure factory units are very good in TvP.
I really don't think straight up mech works - protoss in SC2 is basically designed to counter it. Hell, they even added a specific unit that negates tank damage, can be easily massed in a macro scenario, benefits from the same upgrades as every other ground unit and is simple to micro. On top of that, protoss has several semi-counters, like how archons absorb a lot of siege tank fire in kind of the same way that Immortals do, because of the siege damage modifier, or chargelots which are actually good enough against BF Hellions so that protoss isn't in a situation where making them is the wrong thing to do. I don't know.. I don't see how any kind of experimentation with mech will change any of these things.You can probably get mech to work if your EMPs are good, but the same can be said for bio. But with mech, you trade the advantage of bio's mobility for.. what, exactly?
I do think mech as a defensive backbone for heavy air harass builds can be really, really good though. The composition protoss has to get to deal with mass banshee is not very good against siege tanks, thors and hellions. Even unupgraded factory units do well against stalkers and templars, especially if the tanks are firing from behind a few Planetary Fortresses. The constant pressure of the banshees also means that blink stalker backstabs are less likely, and you can deal with them with your banshees and hellions easily enough. AND the mineral surplus from going mainly for gas units means terran can mass expand as if he was a zerg player, especially if the banshee harass is very successful.
Mech is good however I am a firm believer that Bio Mech is the best! just because that Hellions don't seem as good as marines. What if instead of Hellions as buffers we had marines?
Instead we have a comp that is Marine Tank Medivac Thor with some banshees and ghosts and ravens and whatever else you may need.
There is alot of stuff marines can do. That hellions can't basically. I am not saying go mass marines and tanks but basically what you have for mech except have marines to buffer over having hellions buffering.
spacebob's point C is probably the biggest weakness of mech, IMO. I feel that if mech can make it into the mid/lategame on even footing with the protoss, then the terran player is in a very solid position. The problem comes in when the protoss applies early pressure. I'm fairly sure that if someone can find a very safe opening that transitions to mech well while staying economically similar to protoss, then mech will become a perfectly viable way to play.
My personal thoughts aside (I'm a bio-boi) I feel I have to say this:
Too many posts about "the problem with mech is this [bla]" and too few about "this is how I make mech work", along with what your definition of "work" is. (different ppl have different aims with their play, and thus "works" has different meanings).
If you've come to convince people to stop playing mech, you've come to the wrong thread!
I for one would love to have more options than this bio bs :D
Thanks for linking that day9 mech show. I missed it completely. Love mech and trying to figure out good ways to do it in TvP. I feel like the map has a lot to say. Like Tal Darim is to big, but shakuras is perfect. Metalopolis too. One day, we mech guys will find the unbeatable strat! You just wait protoss, its coming!
I want to bring up a thread I made a while ago, just because I spent some time on the pictures in it ^^ I'm a horrible SC2 player, but I still think some of the ideas in the thread are worthwhile...
Planetary Fortresses are great! They basically let you have a massively larger army than what the supply cap suggests. After 200/200 you should never stop making fortresses. And before max, making just one PF in a strategical position means you can take more bases and defend them easier. I'm pretty convinced that the best way to play lategame tvp, even if you're going for bio, is dotting fortresses around the map. PFs are awesome at just keeping you alive. Avilo did a nice video where he talked about combining PFs with nuke harass while massing BCs.
Fortresses eat away at the protoss warpgate resupply after big engagements, they allow terran to turtle and build their army back up (which is especially important for mech) and pressing forward with fortresses instead of just cutting the map in half with them puts a lot of psychological pressure on the protoss player - you're basically consuming the map with command centers.
On April 05 2012 10:33 Quotidian wrote: I want to bring up a thread I made a while ago, just because I spent some time on the pictures in it ^^ I'm a horrible SC2 player, but I still think some of the ideas in the thread are worthwhile...
Planetary Fortresses are great! They basically let you have a massively larger army than what the supply cap suggests. After 200/200 you should never stop making fortresses. And before max, making just one PF in a strategical position means you can take more bases and defend them easier. I'm pretty convinced that the best way to play lategame tvp, even if you're going for bio, is dotting fortresses around the map. PFs are awesome at just keeping you alive. Avilo did a nice video where he talked about combining PFs with nuke harass while massing BCs.
Fortresses eat away at the protoss warpgate resupply after big engagements, they allow terran to turtle and build their army back up (which is especially important for mech) and pressing forward with fortresses instead of just cutting the map in half with them puts a lot of psychological pressure on the protoss player - you're basically consuming the map with command centers.
PFs are really good.. when you've got 24 SCVs repairing it
On April 04 2012 20:08 Garmer wrote: also mech, mean that you use only thor hellion and tank, not stuff like bc raven viking and banshee, this is not mech for me...
So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking
if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know...
on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time...
On April 04 2012 20:08 Garmer wrote: also mech, mean that you use only thor hellion and tank, not stuff like bc raven viking and banshee, this is not mech for me...
So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking
if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know...
on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time...
If you can repair it, it's mech
No it isn't.
Mech = factory units.
Let me break it down for you, so you can understand the discussion a little better.
Bio = MMMGV = Marine Marauder Ghost Viking
BioMech = Marine Tank with support units that can include anything from Marauders to Vikings to Ravens.
Sky Terran = Starport units supported by Bio. The key unit separating Sky Terran from Bio is the Banshee.
Mech = Hellion/Thor/Siege Tank with potential Viking/Raven or Ghost support.
This isn't a thread about the viability of Sky Terran. That's a different discussion with different points to be made.
IF you're trying to advocate that somehow Terrans mix Factory units with Starport units in the late game with upgrades supporting all of them, well then you're just being completely unreasonable because that unit composition requires an amount of gas only obtainable on 4 or greater bases. Something you'll never have in TvP with an immobile unit composition like Mech.
On April 05 2012 10:33 Quotidian wrote: I want to bring up a thread I made a while ago, just because I spent some time on the pictures in it ^^ I'm a horrible SC2 player, but I still think some of the ideas in the thread are worthwhile...
Planetary Fortresses are great! They basically let you have a massively larger army than what the supply cap suggests. After 200/200 you should never stop making fortresses. And before max, making just one PF in a strategical position means you can take more bases and defend them easier. I'm pretty convinced that the best way to play lategame tvp, even if you're going for bio, is dotting fortresses around the map. PFs are awesome at just keeping you alive. Avilo did a nice video where he talked about combining PFs with nuke harass while massing BCs.
Fortresses eat away at the protoss warpgate resupply after big engagements, they allow terran to turtle and build their army back up (which is especially important for mech) and pressing forward with fortresses instead of just cutting the map in half with them puts a lot of psychological pressure on the protoss player - you're basically consuming the map with command centers.
PFs are really good.. when you've got 24 SCVs repairing it
Insightful post...
+range and +armor PFs are really good if you have two next to each other with tanks in between/behind them.. you don't even need to repair. Etc. PFs are really good, period
On April 04 2012 20:08 Garmer wrote: also mech, mean that you use only thor hellion and tank, not stuff like bc raven viking and banshee, this is not mech for me...
So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking
if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know...
on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time...
If you can repair it, it's mech
No it isn't.
Mech = factory units.
This isn't a thread about the viability of Sky Terran. That's a different discussion with different points to be made.
IF you're trying to advocate that somehow Terrans mix Factory units with Starport units in the late game with upgrades supporting all of them, well then you're just being completely unreasonable because that unit composition requires an amount of gas only obtainable on 4 or greater bases. Something you'll never have in TvP with an immobile unit composition like Mech.
the fact of the matter is, straight up 100% factory units doesn't work in SC2 like it did in BW, pretty much because of game design, so people should trying to make it work. But you can still play a tvp style that feels like mech, in that you siege up, hold positions, harass a ton and eventually you just roll the protoss army. You can go unupgraded air units into upgraded factory units, or you can upgrade air and not get factory upgrades until later.. both can work. But I think regardless of what your long term plan is, opening cloaked banshees is always the best thing to do. I personally always get air upgrades first, because you very often survive big battles because you've sniped observers and now your 6-8 banshees are killing everything. And heavy banshee harass keeps the protoss on 2 bases usually, while terran can take a 3rd and sneak a 4th. If you take the protoss' 4th on Shakuras for instance, and PF it up, the instant the protoss sends his army to take it out, you siege up his natural. If you also have a PF back home to fall back on, you can trade armies and come out way ahead with 3 mining bases to his almost mined out 1.
Regarding the upgrade synergy issue, I think that whole notion is completely overplayed. I remember I used to feel like protoss could just roll my factory army.. but then I started to check what the upgrade disparity was. Usually my factory units would be underdeveloped, and still the protoss army with superior upgrades would take significant losses. An important thing to consider is that unupgraded factory units can go toe-to-toe with an upgraded protoss army that has been struggling to deal with banshees for the first 20 minutes of the game, just because that kind of protoss army will not do well against factory units. Gas isn't really an issue. If protoss can get a gas heavy army up pretty much every game, so can terran.
No Tanks, no Mech. Every Protoss unit just slaughters tanks to an almost comical degree. Even when set up in a perfect defensive position, chargelots and immortals can rip through tanks without a second thought.
It sucks, but the (formerly) iconic Terran unit just isn't usable in the match-up. I would give up on Mech until HotS. Battle Hellions and Warhounds, at least, seem useful. But I don't think there's any way to save tanks, and without tanks it can hardly be called Mech at all...
Blizzard was after short <20 minute games when designing this game. Since mech produces very long games they had to make it less viable somehow.
Nevertheless I think something needs to be done about viability of Terran high tech units in TvP. Upgrades are also problematic because they split bio and mech so most Terran players choose to follow one path or the other instead of mixing their armies.
Meching for weeks now, and as a Diamond level, I managed to beat some mid master with the Lyyna's Build. The compo is basically thors, tanks, hellions, ghost and banshee en mid and late with a transition to raven/BC in very late game. The midgame is the hardest period but with a 111 expand opening, a good banshee cloak harass you can easily manage to roach the lategame, where you're basically inbeatable.
Mobility of the protoss is an illusion : If he tries to poke you with Blink Stalker, you have a big amount of banshees and hellions to clean it up and with sensor tower, you're ready to welcome him. Plus, if he commits to much en blink stalkers, you've win the game because stalkers just suck against everything, they melt to thor, to tanks, to banshees, raven nulify them.
On April 05 2012 20:57 Janko wrote: Blizzard was after short <20 minute games when designing this game. Since mech produces very long games they had to make it less viable somehow.
Nevertheless I think something needs to be done about viability of Terran high tech units in TvP. Upgrades are also problematic because they split bio and mech so most Terran players choose to follow one path or the other instead of mixing their armies.
people overestimate how difficult it is to get both upgrade paths. It's possible to go bio/tanks in both tvt and tvz, and get enough upgrades for the compositions to be viable. The same is of course true for tvp.
I feel like the lack of mention of the PDD is a huge oversight. Ravens are obviously needed to snipe the obs but the PDD has just as much if not greater impact in the engagements.
Attacking with a mostly stalker army into that position with 2 or 3 PDDs is an insta-loss. Same way if a Terran Bio army just stood under a storm w/o trying to dodge it. The protoss should bate the PDDs and back off, sort of like trying to bate a FF or seige.
Also a couple phoenix shut down banshee’s and free up the stalkers. HT IMO are the best counter to banshee…storm/feedback and archons waste them. Add in the feedback on thors/BCs and HT are just the go-to unit against Mech IMO.
One of the reasons PDD gets so little mention is that the only units it effects are stalkers, which are so horribly cost-inefficient against mech armies that the PDD doesn't matter. I only get a raven if I think my opponent might go DT's, and even then I might just build 2-3 macro orbitals instead to save gas.
This is just my view on TvP mech: It works, but it is to some extend just as fragile as bio is. I feel like it's really dependant on Ghosts, and if you mess the ghost control up it's gonna be way way way expensive to replenish your army.
On top of this it's really gas heavy, might be the most gas heavy army to have to build up on from the early game of any composition out there. I mean you can barely even afford getting one upgrade if you do the Jiakji style for example. The way I play it is opening with cloaked banshees, and then beginning thor pump at home with a reactored rax for dumping minerals, and then later on in the game on 3 base you can start adding bf hellions. For the very lategame I can afford a few ghosts, but it's really hard to get that money composition.
The problem with mech imo. is that it's so susceptible to feedbacks. <.< That's why you have to have great EMP control, but if you can get the HTs it works just as well as standard bio, even better sometimes I'd say(depending on how good the opponent is at adjusting his army composition).
A great thing about mech in TvP is also that archons aren't thaaaaat effective, and neither is storm if you bring a lot of scvs for repairing up. I feel like a big problem in TvP lategame is that terran doesn't have a good gasdump, while protosses had a really really sick one in Archons(100 minerals, 300 gas for one). That doesn't become such a big deal now seeing as how they don't damage mech anywhere near as much as bio.
Siege tanks aren't useless against protoss obviously, but you should rely more on hellion/thor/banshee/ghost/raven imo.