| MockHamill Sweden. June 04 2012 20:45. Posts 572 | Profile # |
I have problems deciding between mech and marine/tank in TvT. I have played both a lot but have problems deciding which one is superior. Mech is often stronger in the midgame but marine/tank (bio) seems to lead to a better late game.
Assumption:
1. Bio is stronger early game.
2. Mech is stronger midgame provide that you can stop drops and do not get caught out of position.
3. Defensive tanks are superior to a larger number of offensive tanks which means that the bio player often can hold off a stronger mech army if he holds a good position. This means that the mech player often cannot transform his army advantage into a win or something that gives him a significant advantage late game.
4. Late game TvT typically comes down air superiority.
Problem 1 - Translating air superiority to a win
If the bio player gets late game air superiority by having a larger number of BC, the mech players ground advantage is typically meaningless. Tanks/Hellions do not shoot up and Thors do almost nothing to BC. However if the mech players gets an air superiority advantage the bio player can still defeat the mech player by either
a) Attacking in multiple locations so that the slow BCs can not catch up
b) Use his 3-3 marines combined with his own BC /Vikings to kill a slightly stronger air army of the mech player.
Problem 2 - low gas situations
If both plays mine out a large number of bases or keep killing each others bases the bio player often have a large advantage due to his units being much more gas efficient. Mass Marauder/Marine are much stronger then mass hellion/a few tanks (since the gas cost of tanks are 5 times higher than the gas cost for Marauders). The bio player could also pump all his gas into BC which means the mech player either
a) Puts his all his gas into BC which means that he does not replenish his tank count thus risking to be overrun on the ground or
b) Continuously replenish his tanks to keep his tank count high thus risking losing the air battle due his opponent having more gas invested in BC.
So given all this is it better to mech or not in TvT? And if you do go mech am I correct in assuming that mech largest advantage is in the midgame so that it is better to try the end the game there than aiming for late game? And if you do go mech how do you handle the gas balance between ground and air as well as low gas situations?
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| Dark.EX United States. June 04 2012 21:01. Posts 1505 | Profile Blog # |
Assumption:
1. Bio is stronger early game.
2. Mech is stronger midgame provide that you can stop drops and do not get caught out of position.
3. Defensive tanks are superior to a larger number of offensive tanks which means that the bio player often can hold off a stronger mech army if he holds a good position. This means that the mech player often cannot transform his army advantage into a win or something that gives him a significant advantage late game.
4. Late game TvT typically comes down air superiority.
1. Bio is not stronger early game if the Mech player goes for some sort of Hellion/Banshee timing and the Bio player goes for an FE. It's just like Bio vs Bio, situational and dependent on what the players are doing when it comes to builds.
2. Same thing as 1.
3. Absolutely. I've won a lot of TvT's against Mech players caught out of position against a huge Marine/Marauder ball.
4. Yes. Although if you're good, it's possible to go Marine/Marauder/Ghost/Medivac and use Ghosts to EMP BCs and Nuke the tank lines allowing your Bio to come through.Last edit: 2012-06-04 21:12:46 |
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| iTzSnypah United States. June 04 2012 21:15. Posts 1222 | Profile Blog # |
I like going marine marauder tank lategame and attacking everywhere with hit squads of ~15marines 8 marauders and 2 tanks. The tanks are there to make a defensive line which for some reason nobody likes attacking into 2 tanks. Sure you'll lose a lot of units but that doesn't matter. All your trying to do is distract him until its to the point where you have 5/6 bases and he has 3/4.
Here is an example of what I'm trying to explain:
drop.sc/191311 |
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| deth Australia. June 04 2012 21:55. Posts 1548 | Profile Blog # |
I think it's pretty map dependent really, but in a traditional mech vs bio game, the theory is that if the mech player can prevent bio from doing damage in the early-mid game, mech pushes out with 200/200 on around 52-55 scv's and with +2 weapon upgrades, then rolls up to the bio production line and cuts off the head of the bio player.
Now, that works for top players a hell of a lot, but if either mech fails in the push or bio manages to hold on to their production, mech generally loses because of the way bio holds map control and gets additional bases. And yes if mech cant actually get their push off because bio has somehow contained them, bio rolls ahead with a superior base/gas count, a non-reliance on tank/thor production and can produce their own air army for the win, with a gradual switch out of bio for their own tank lines to defend peripheral bases (e.g. bio holds 6 bases to 4). |
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| xTrim June 04 2012 22:29. Posts 471 | Profile # |
Now that you`ve come up with this, I really want to know:
What are the pros doing in TvT??
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| iaguz Australia. June 04 2012 22:33. Posts 1251 | Profile Blog # |
Pretty much seconding what deth said.
Also note that a lot of bio players like to mix in a few tanks when fighting against mech to better hem them in. MMA does this really fucking well, always love watching his vs mech play.
To answer the question though, mech or marine/tank is a purely stylistic choice. I like to think most of the maps are favourable for it, they tend to have their upsides and downsides. I personally don't play mech very often but I respect how viable it is.Last edit: 2012-06-04 22:35:15 |
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| HeroMystic United States. June 04 2012 22:43. Posts 894 | Profile # |
On June 04 2012 22:29 xTrim wrote:
Now that you`ve come up with this, I really want to know:
What are the pros doing in TvT??
They do both Marine/Tank and Mech, but you'll usually see more Marine/Tank. Theoretically, if Mech can perform a perfect defense such as constantly making a ring of turrets, using sensor towers everywhere to spot the opponent's army, and have low SCV count with ton of Marco orbits, then the Mech player should always win. However Marine/Tank is far more flexible and can afford splitting off marines to handle weakpoints in the army. Marine/Tank also tend to get quicker wins. |
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| vBr Sweden. June 04 2012 22:46. Posts 175 | Profile # |
I'm a mech player gone bio. The simple reasoning to me is that Bio is alot more forgiving and over a series of games, you are bound to throw away a game if you go mech, perhaps to a worse player, because of one game. There is also the fact that there are maps where mech is just not a plausible build (for example TDA).
The strength of mech is when you have a basically maxed out army in tanks, a couple of thors and a few ravens for PDD and vikings. At that point, no bio army can even touch you. But perfect play does not happen very often, which is why bio ends up winning, time and time again.
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| Maxilicious June 04 2012 22:53. Posts 134 | Profile # |
I have the same query as you, so I decided to look up for an answer. Eventually, I did a post on a blog regarding Thorzain's switch from bio opening to BC in a TvT. It shows an alternative approach on how a bio opening can shape up against a mech opening.
In many ways, it is consistent with your assumptions.
(Just sharing my finding, and by no mean I'm trying to advertise the blog.)Last edit: 2012-06-04 22:55:59 |
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| Wildmoon Thailand. June 04 2012 22:55. Posts 2727 | Profile # |
| Mech is very unforgiving. You can't really afford to make mistake like Bio but if you play perfect you should win easily with mech. I have 1 strategy in TvT when I play which is mech. lol Last edit: 2012-06-04 22:58:28 |
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| avilo United States. June 04 2012 22:56. Posts 3235 | Profile Blog # |
Mech is stronger if you are the better player imo in the TvT. It doesn't matter if I'm 4 base to your 8 base when I have an invincible 200/200 mech army with ravens that can kill 2-3 maxes of your bio without even losing any units.
Bio *has* to do damage or slow the mech player, much like Terran *has* to do damage in TvP bio vs protoss.
That's probably the best way I can put it. If you play mech TvT, you're basically playing Protoss Vs Terran, you know that you'll 100% have a free advantage in going to lategame against a player that plays bio heavy.
If you play bio or bio + tanks you have to do your best to gain positions and get +1 base and then convert that into either air units, or lots of tanks of your own which sorta ends up with you becoming more mech heavy the later the game goes, or at minimum making early triple nuke silo.
Basically, if you're playing bio+tank, or any form of bio vs mech you're either saying to yourself:
a) I hope i can do damage
b) I hope he fucks up.Last edit: 2012-06-04 22:57:35 |
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| AKomrade United States. June 05 2012 02:46. Posts 558 | Profile Blog # |
| You can try nukes off of four bases. Forces the opponent to keep making tanks, hellions and thor instead of switching to mass air immediately. Also prevents him from holding areas for too long. You need more than one silo and HAVE to keep control of your later expansions. |
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