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| boredrex United States. July 11 2012 06:38. Posts 119 | Profile # |
Let me begin with a story, when I was more noobish than I am now. In TvP, I would use the two thor strike cannon rush to collect protoss tears. It was my favorite build, my go to build. With it, I managed to beat protoss players in diamond, and I thought I was good. Until the patch came, then I realized how bad I was.
Since then, Thors have been relegated to one thing for me - anti mutalisk defense, with the occasional Thor in TvT to attack vikings. Thors have become a back burner unit for a long time for me.
The recent patch that increased the Queen range exposed the Terran late game weakness. Terran doesn't have an effective unit composition versus Zerg. But today, I was struck with a sudden thought that made me wonder if this is really 100% true.
Lets start by looking at the units in question.
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/0/0b/Thor.png)
Thor
The Thor is a pretty strong unit with decent Armor. Their ground to ground attack is strong and fast, weighing in at 30x2 damage. Their Air attack has a very long range, at 10. This is longer than a brood lords range, but the DPS versus Broodlords is atrocious as the ground to air attack is strong, but very, very slow.
Strike Cannon is upgraded at the factory tech lab. It costs 150 mins 150 gas and 110 seconds of time. Strike Cannons takes 2 seconds to activate at a range of 7, 6 seconds to pound at the target, and 2 seconds to exit. During the 6 seconds of pounding, it deals 500 damage to the target unit.
500 damage is coincidentally enough to nearly kill this unit.
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/5/5f/Ultralisk.png)
Ultralisk
The Ultralisk is a very powerful unit, particularly against mech compositions, and also against bio with infestor support. Very few units are quite as good at breaking a siege line as this 500 hp 5 armor juggernaut. Typically though, Ultras aren't the problem, it's typically the transition AFTER Broodlords into UItras that maims a terran.
So my point I suppose...
Thors are not the greatest unit against Broodlords. In fact, I'd rank them on the bottom when it's just thors with Broodlords. However, with viking and raven support, a Thor is a helpful addition to the army to deal with Broodlord infestor. It tanks brood lord shots, it does mild splash versus Broodlord/corrupters, and is overall just a really meaty unit.
Against Ultras with full upgrades, Thors actually do win, with a one hit difference. However, Ultras are usually produced so many at a time, that trading ultras for Thors is better, since it takes a lot more infrastructure to make so many thors again. But what if we start including strike cannons?
Strike cannons will leave an ultralisk with so little health that I think even a hellion could kill it in one hit. I'm pretty sure it would only have one or two heath after, due to natural regen. Ultralisks are immune to stun, but by the time a ultra being targeted by this reaches a thor, it might get a hit or two off, depending on if its on creep or not.
In conclusion, I believe that Thors are a helpful addition to an army to deal with BL infestor armies. If a Zerg player transitions, perhaps having 5 or 6 thors with strike cannons at the ready could create a cost efficient unit trade and protect the rest of the terran army.
TL:DR: Let's talk about using Strike cannons against ultralisks and thors as support units against broodlords.
Also, there are a some outdated threads in the archives about strike cannons, but they mostly involve the TvP match up. This is why I feel this warranted a new topic.
Edit Mostly a few ideas I thought of
1) Thors are very, very weak versus corrupters. Corrupters do clump however, and AFAIK, it's not common to get flyer carapace (feel free to prove me wrong, I usualy se attack but not defense). The role of the thor in infestor BL corruppter situation is provide support to a viking fleet with a raven or two to drop PDD
2) The DPS of the Thors normal, fully upgraded attack is higher than strike cannons, but strike cannons does provide two benefits. 1) it front loads DPS in the first 8 seconds, and 2) it is easier to target 6 strike cannons than to even focus fire ultras - thors are so slow that if they aren't close enough to focus fire in the first place, they are unlikely to contribute any meaningful DPS.Last edit: 2012-07-11 07:09:14 |
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 Toastie.NL Netherlands. July 11 2012 06:42. Posts 232 | Profile # |
I believe normal attack has higher dps - also, you dont have as much overkill and Thors beat Ultralisk also in higher numbers because of the range attack.
Thor vs Broodlord ; only if you got vehicle upgrades advantage OR the erg is a terrible splitter. Attacking upgraded corruptors isn't worth the effort. |
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| iKill Denmark. July 11 2012 06:44. Posts 781 | Profile Blog # |
If you include the full cast time of strike cannons, thor normal ground attack does as much damage
there's no reason whatsoever to use strike cannons on targets unaffected by stuns except to burn energy vs HTs |
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| Firesilver United Kingdom. July 11 2012 06:47. Posts 1152 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 06:44 iKill wrote:
If you include the full cast time of strike cannons, thor normal ground attack does as much damage
there's no reason whatsoever to use strike cannons on targets unaffected by stuns except to burn energy vs HTs
If you use it vs an Immortal it ignores hardened shield.
Last edit: 2012-07-11 06:48:20 |
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| Pazuzu United States. July 11 2012 06:49. Posts 244 | Profile # |
Thors in TvP arent very useful unless they have no idea its coming; feed back + immortals makes them die way to fast. However I agree wholeheartedly that these can play a larger role than now in TvZ.
Something i always wondered about was why terrans don't use thors to try and thin up corruptor counts. Corruptors stack incredibly easily especially when attacking vikings, so let the thors simultaneously tank broodlord shots and thin out/soften up the corruptors with their huge air range, then let the vikings mop up the rest. The biggest problems ive found for terran is that once the vikings are dead, brood lords won't die once they hit a certain mass/have some infestors.
I like that you're thinking about this! TvZ is going through some changes now after the queen buff and thoughts like this are helpful! glhf! |
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| boredrex United States. July 11 2012 06:54. Posts 119 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 06:42 Toastie.NL wrote:
I believe normal attack has higher dps - also, you dont have as much overkill and Thors beat Ultralisk also in higher numbers because of the range attack.
It depends on how you look at it. The normal attack, fully upgraded will deal 610 damage over 10 seconds, while strike cannons does 500 over 8 seconds, but you also cna't attack for the next 2. It's a slight distinction to 500 damage over 10 seconds. In addition, against ultras, their effective DPS is l51. ower thanks to their incredible armor. A fully upgraded Thor normally does 39 damage twice, but against a fully upgraded ultra, it's 34. This comes out to 52 DPS, which admittedly, is still higher than strike cannons, but the difference is that 1) it's easier to target, since one cast, one ultra and 2) the 500 damage happens in the first 8 seconds, as opposed to the full 10 seconds.
It's a valid point, and I didn't think about it, so I'm sorry about that.
Thor vs Broodlord ; only if you got vehicle upgrades advantage OR the erg is a terrible splitter. Attacking upgraded corruptors isn't worth the effort.
This is true, but I would never use thors alone versus broodlords. I'm saying have them along with a lot of vikings and some ravens when the broodlords are out to charge energy for strike cannons and deal some splash, and when the ultras come, kill them.
Oh right, and I forgot the splitting issue. well, corrupters usually clump. BLs, not so much.Last edit: 2012-07-11 06:56:52 |
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| Oboeman Canada. July 11 2012 06:57. Posts 3407 | Profile # |
| What about using it against infestors? Sure, it does enough damage to kill an infestor six times, but it's one way to makesure that the infestor absolutely dies if it gets in range of a thor even briefly. Seems like something to think about if you're doing the funny bio-mech build with an army that is always moving and never stops to siege up. |
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| Archybaldie United Kingdom. July 11 2012 06:58. Posts 759 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 06:49 Pazuzu wrote:
Thors in TvP arent very useful unless they have no idea its coming; feed back + immortals makes them die way to fast. However I agree wholeheartedly that these can play a larger role than now in TvZ.
Something i always wondered about was why terrans don't use thors to try and thin up corruptor counts. Corruptors stack incredibly easily especially when attacking vikings, so let the thors simultaneously tank broodlord shots and thin out/soften up the corruptors with their huge air range, then let the vikings mop up the rest. The biggest problems ive found for terran is that once the vikings are dead, brood lords won't die once they hit a certain mass/have some infestors.
I like that you're thinking about this! TvZ is going through some changes now after the queen buff and thoughts like this are helpful! glhf!
The problem with thors vs corruptors. Corruptors are "armored" units ... meaning the thor deals 4 attacks of 6 damage, However when we factor in the default 2 armor ... that becomes 4 attacks of 4 damage aka 16 damage (with no upgrades)
So it takes a single un upgraded thor 12.5 shots to kill an unupgraded corruptor. However when you include zergs regeneration that becomes 14 shots for a single thor to kill a corruptor.
HOWEVER ... the more corruptors stacked on 1 spot the more valuable the splash of the thor becomes. But still even then its still a bit lackluster in my opinion especially because the thor splash radius isnt too big (the default spread distance between corruptors when they are just stopped doing nothing means the thor splash tends to hit 1-3 targets so they would have to be heavily stacked to splash effectively).Last edit: 2012-07-11 07:02:35 |
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| Dark.EX United States. July 11 2012 06:59. Posts 1504 | Profile Blog # |
Thors with Mech are amazing units, and you can use them to great effect if you can get to the late-game with mass Thor, with 5-10 Hellions to roast Broodlings/Zerglings, around 4-7 Tanks to kill Roaches, Banelings, and Infestors, and 5-15 SCV's to repair the Thors, you can easily kill the BL/Infestor deathball with focus firing from your Thors. Unfortunately this doesn't work once the Broodlord count gets to something like 20+, and you have to get Ravens and or Vikings at that point.
As for Strike Cannon, unfortunately it doesn't really fulfil any roles. Theoretically it could be used on a Colossus, but the Colossus can just run away as it's faster than a Thor and has more range, and the Stalkers and Zealots will screw over the Thor trying to strike cannon the Colossus. Against Ultralisks, it does less DPS than the Thor's normal attack, especially when the Thor gets +Weapon upgrades. The only way I see Strike Cannon being used at the moment is in TvT against a PF or other Thors, as it actually does 1-shot other Thors and it stuns the PF. |
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| boredrex United States. July 11 2012 07:00. Posts 119 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 06:57 Oboeman wrote:
What about using it against infestors? Sure, it does enough damage to kill an infestor six times, but it's one way to makesure that the infestor absolutely dies if it gets in range of a thor even briefly. Seems like something to think about if you're doing the funny bio-mech build with an army that is always moving and never stops to siege up.
It's probably a waste to target infestors, but dead infestors are dead infestors.... Also, two unupgraded shots will kill an infestor with max upgrades. Last edit: 2012-07-11 07:02:31 |
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| UniquE. Canada. July 11 2012 07:11. Posts 126 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 06:44 iKill wrote:
If you include the full cast time of strike cannons, thor normal ground attack does as much damage
there's no reason whatsoever to use strike cannons on targets unaffected by stuns except to burn energy vs HTs
ya because zerg has HT
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| Belial88 United States. July 11 2012 07:15. Posts 5217 | Profile Blog # |
Mass thor is ridiculously strong in TvZ mech - there's a critical mass you get to that just owns any number of broodlords. Also, when you include mass repairing SCVs, it's just ridiculous, and even non-critical mass thor vs initial broodlords of zerg with mass repair do very well against them.
But going mass thor and skipping tanks leaves you vulnerable to roach aggression. (So maybe if you do good with hellion harass or banshees, you can follow up by going pure thor...).
I dont see a use for strike cannon in TvZ, and people don't make ultras against mech anyways. I also don't know if terran can really just suddenly mass thors for lategame unless they were going mtech, and even then massing just thor is risky.
thors are pretty useless against corruptors thor, even with splash and clumped corruptors...Last edit: 2012-07-11 07:15:40 |
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| Toastie.NL Netherlands. July 11 2012 07:15. Posts 232 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 07:11 UniquE. wrote:
Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 06:44 iKill wrote:
If you include the full cast time of strike cannons, thor normal ground attack does as much damage
there's no reason whatsoever to use strike cannons on targets unaffected by stuns except to burn energy vs HTs
ya because zerg has HT
Read better |
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| boredrex United States. July 11 2012 07:38. Posts 119 | Profile # |
On July 11 2012 07:15 Belial88 wrote:
Mass thor is ridiculously strong in TvZ mech - there's a critical mass you get to that just owns any number of broodlords. Also, when you include mass repairing SCVs, it's just ridiculous, and even non-critical mass thor vs initial broodlords of zerg with mass repair do very well against them.
But going mass thor and skipping tanks leaves you vulnerable to roach aggression. (So maybe if you do good with hellion harass or banshees, you can follow up by going pure thor...).
I dont see a use for strike cannon in TvZ, and people don't make ultras against mech anyways. I also don't know if terran can really just suddenly mass thors for lategame unless they were going mtech, and even then massing just thor is risky.
thors are pretty useless against corruptors thor, even with splash and clumped corruptors...
I'm just saying get a handful of thors, maybe 5 or 6. Mass thor is strong, but also something I only see in 4v4s. |
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| ajkayken July 11 2012 07:44. Posts 77 | Profile # |
| mass thor doesnt do a single thing to broodlords.... |
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| ktimekiller United States. July 11 2012 18:30. Posts 626 | Profile Blog # |
I have no idea where everyone is coming up with the idea that thors. are not effective against broods. Even against spread broods, thors serve many functions to combating a brood army making them absolutely essential.
1. Great buffer
2. Great poking range against air
3. High damage even against armored in the long run. Considering that a fight against a brood army takes quite a while, their sustained dps is very important.
4. Prevents clumping of brood and corruptors. Both brood and corruptors are far more effective while utilizing least amount of space. The thor prevents this.
5. Did i mention great dps?
6. Sick dps |
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| ProfSc United States. July 12 2012 04:31. Posts 51 | Profile # |
I use mass thor no-tank mech in TvZ all the time and have decent success with it. Basically, the build revolves around using forgg's style to get map control with hellions and banshees to secure a third. From there it's possible to max out by 17 minutes easily on 2/2. You can add on starports to pre-emptive viking production. Pull 20 scvs for auto-repair. As long as you hit that timing, the zerg player is either in an awkward position where he's made a ton of roaches and needs to get infestors/BLs or is just beginning to morph ultras and BLs. Your opponent is either stuck spending their ENTIRE bank to kill the push or you win the game. (Just watch out for like... 140 blings.... then you need to split thors =P )
As for early roach aggression, thanks to the banshees and hellions, you can easily get 4-5 tanks up to defend your three bases. Attacking a compact Terran? Come on, we're the defensive race after all. |
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| LucidityDark United Kingdom. July 12 2012 04:54. Posts 134 | Profile # |
| Isn't ultralisk losing frenzy in HOTS and the thor staying in the game too? Maybe strike cannons could be used effectively then? |
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| SickeL July 12 2012 05:00. Posts 87 | Profile Blog # |
| Thors can only be made when there are no other thors in HOTS. |
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| LucidityDark United Kingdom. July 12 2012 05:01. Posts 134 | Profile # |
On July 12 2012 05:00 SickeL wrote:
Thors can only be made when there are no other thors in HOTS.
They updated HOTS, the thor super unit is out and normal thors are back in the game. |
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