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Just came back to playing after a bit of a break so some of this might be due to simply relearning to play at my old level but...
I've noticed ESPECIALLY in TvZ that tanks don't actually serve a purpose in my army other than to act as a gas sink that could better be spent on double upgrades for bio. Tanks are great against banelings, but so are conc shell marauders forming a wall to block the banelings from getting to your marines and critically, marauders with medivac support simply do not die to fungals. At all. Go ahead and fungal my marauders zerg, once you run out of energy I'll flood in with my 3/3 marines and kill you.
I spent so much time learning to split my army to mitigate splash damage that I find I don't actually need tanks at all and if I build them and I can't win with a mid-game timing push then they actually become a liability when zerg goes broodlords. If I go marine marauder then admittedly the marauders are equally useless at fighting the broodlords directly but there's a very critical difference. I can split them away from my army and counter attack far flung expansions with marauder drops, something that just doesn't work with tanks because of that pesky siege-up time. Also my marauders are 3,3 and can stim where my tanks, if I'm lucky are 1,0. 0,0 if I've been under a lot of pressure.
Generally my problem seems to be this, that tanks are admittedly great in large numbers. 6-10 tanks is a truly awesome thing to have in your army, but by the time I've actually amassed that many, zerg has a better flying version that shoots zerglings and I cry terran tears, cursing blizzard for nerfing my beautiful ghosts... Well not really, but you get the idea.
I never built tanks seriously in TvP, messed around with 1,1,1 builds, decided I liked bio better and never looked back, so that just leaves TvT where it's kind of a toss up on the map. If it's a map where I MUST push or hold middle control, I get some tanks because I feel you need to, but I'd dearly love to not have to. Marines though, you do need some kind of splash to fight them or they swarm you so it's either tanks or HSM. Seeing as I have a factory sitting there anyway, it's a lot easier to just get a few tanks with my bio army, but I feel like I want to get 3,3 ups on my bio before I do.
Anyways, I guess that's it, I feel like marauders do the siege tank's job better, plus they share upgrades with marines. I also see this trend a lot in pro matches too, where terrans are increasingly reducing their tank counts or cutting them all together from any strategy that isn't an all-in timing attack of some description.
Anyways, discuss, I suppose.
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The usefulness of tanks aren't only for the straight up engagements, there are other purposes like laying siege on the opponents natural or third, or defending your own base with some carefully placed tanks. On the other hand with the rise of the infestorling play i suppose marauders are becoming an option as you said they are macho as shit. It depends on your style of play, for most people having tanks is a great way to lay down some suppressing fire and forcing the zerg to be more cautious with his infestors or at least throw out some beachballs(infested terrans). For you well mass drops in your thing so keep on keeping on its ultimately your choice. On the plus side at least it forces the zerg into the BL late game and not the Ultras
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Unless you're going to form a water tight wall with marauders every engagment (that's a lot of marauders) any decent zerg will target fire the marines with banelings and kill the marauders with lings.
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As an infestor/ling Zerg player, I honestly prefer when Terran goes marauders instead of tanks. When you go tanks, you can focus down the infestors from far away, seriously cutting down on the number of fungals I have available. But when you go marauders, I simply fungal the marauders along with the marines, and even if I can't actually kill the marauders with the fungals, all of the marines will be dead anyway, meaning the marauders are free food for my lings. And you can't simply say "but I'll just split better", because heavily upgraded lings tear through bio if it's not clumped up.
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Tanks allow you to zone the map and send out drops without fearing that you're going to be completely runby when you push out on the map. I'm not sure how many factories that you're producing out of or what timings you are trying to hit but if you feel like tanks are worthless, you probably need more. Small numbers of tanks are like small numbers of mutas. They cost a ton of minerals and gas only to be completely ineffectual. I am assuming you are playing marine/tank behind a reactor hellion expand. Tanks are like most Terran units because they require attention and great positioning. If you have been out of practice for a couple of months, you might have fallen behind the skill curve for your level of play and just need to shake of the rust and get better again.
Tanks are definitely still viable and pushing the Zerg third base and dropping in the main at the same time demonstrates the power of siege tanks on the field. With bio, you can push the 3rd and drop the main as well but you cannot secure a position on the map. It is simply hit and run...if this is what you want, bio is the answer. After I came back from a break I had a ridiculously difficult time catching back up to my previous skill level relative to the others in my league. It's a matter of catching up on the metagame and refining your style to work in the current state of the game.
If your break was only a couple of weeks, you most likely need to get back in your rhythm before you worry about the usefulness of siege tanks. Marauders are good but against infestor ling play, you won't see the Zerg running out of energy before your marines are dead and his zerglings overwhelm your then-helpless marauders. Play a heavy mech style in practice games or ladder and figure out how tanks work in that composition and try to emulate that role in a biomech style afterwards. Maybe a few replays would help us point out anything that might be off in your tank usage.
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One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors.
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Oh, I love when zergs go ultras. Ultras are terrible at dealing with simcity, so I place depots around my planetary fortresses with zergling and scv sized gaps. The Ultras just wander back and forth trying to get at the planetary fort while the ibex cannons massacre the clumped up zerglings. Once the lings have been burned away, the MANrauders stim in and melt the ultras in seconds, much faster than tanks do.
Also, I'm a giant fan of late game cloaked banshees in tvz. If octo drops are getting shut down, I go for octo cloaked banshee harass. Great recipe for bm on ladder too, which is always a hilarious plus.
It saddens me though, cause I really LIKE tanks. I really like that slow methodical positional play, I just find it doesn't actually work. This is not me saying this as a player either, I see them failing to work time and again in competitive play, except for a few notable exceptions. I'd actually love to know what the secret is to those notable exceptions because as I said, I loves me some siege tanks. From a purely stylistic standpoint, siege tanks are synonymous with terran. It would be like protoss without carriers, they just wouldn't be protoss any more... Yeah... That's another topic though.
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i try my HARDEST to play terran without tanks, and i lose alot of games because of it. I have recently started building tanks out of frustration, and my win rate against zerg and terran nearly doubled. sad fact is, tanks are easier than no tanks, and unless you are mkp or you dont care about your win rate, you will be forced into tanks.
Im just a diamond terran, so maybe in masters you will have the skill to play without tanks, but im just not good enough
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On March 28 2012 15:55 kmh wrote: One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors. Not really...You don't get roaches because you need to spend your gas on units that deal AoE damage, because marines with medivac support are just ridiculously good against no-splash armies. Not to mention, marauders counter roaches too.
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tvz, unless I'm going pure mech, tanks are typically last on my list of priorities, but I still get them.
For example, macro-wise I'll worry about:
1. scvs/supply depots/when should i take my next base 2. upgrades 3. marine and maruader production 4. medvacs 5. tanks
I mean, I get the factory, and I'll have the gas, might as well squeeze in the tanks I can afford. They are amazing at holding big counter pushes since most of my army is typically running around the map in dropships.
Also, you really only need +1 weapons for mech and if you are getting bio upgrades you'll have an armory. +1 just ensures that tanks will one-shot zerglings even after they get their armor upgrades. Other than that, I dont think +2 or +3 make any significant changes except to ultras, and just cause more friendly fire.
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In masters league TvZ marauders are worthless. You just target marauders with mutas and run ling/bane through marauder wall into marines. In many cases any decent zerg will just ignore marauders completely until there isn't a single marine left.
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On March 28 2012 16:21 ipwntbarney wrote: Not really...You don't get roaches because you need to spend your gas on units that deal AoE damage, because marines with medivac support are just ridiculously good against no-splash armies. Not to mention, marauders counter roaches too.
Mixing in roaches is good regardless simply because they tank and let you reinforce with the next wave of lings without giving up too much ground. They do cost gas, of course, but it's worthwhile to do against a no-tank player. Stephano and Nerchio for instance have a lot of success doing this.
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On March 28 2012 15:55 kmh wrote: One big reason to want tanks is speedroaches. The reason why no zerg really wants to go for a big amount of roaches is that any big number of tanks completely shut roaches down. However, with no tanks around, speedroaches actually become very valuable: especially when paired up with lings and infestors.
I actually find the opposite. Sufficient numbers of roaches crush through tanks by burrowing under them and killing the tanks with their own splash damage. The main advantage I see to marauders against a roach centered army though is that you have the option to just pack up into the medivacs and run for it. No amount of roaches is going to be able to push up a ramp or through a choke against a healthy number of maruaders with medivacs. Of course I love it when zergs try it.
@Rowin
I actually like to upgrade my ship weapons if I have any left-over gas and if the game goes very late, like 5+ bases, I mix in some cloaked banshees and start harassing in several places at once. Pretty useful vs broodlords too.
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They are not as important as they were ( because zerg are playing with less and less banelings ) but you still need them at some point.
They let you get in good position : sieging an expansion from far aay enough so they hesitate to engage They let you defend a position : shakuras mid map is a prime example They offer you protection against Infestors ( and if they use ITs to absorb tanks shots and stuff, it's less fungal anyway )
But getting them last is the best solution at the moment. Get your production facilities, your upgrades, your medivacs before. Usually i start getting tanks when i put my third up only.
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Ummm... What league are you in I wonder? And do you ever watch pro matches?
They build tanks very often and they are very important. You say marauders work well against banelings? Maybe in early stages, but thats like saying stalkers work well against banelings, sure 1 stalker being killed by banelings is cost efficient. But almost ANYTHING clumped up banelings are good against, even clumped thors. Tanks are not just a "gas sink" they are a VERY VERY important unit in TvZ, and also in TvT. You don't have to play that style, and it requires a lot of APM, but it's very effective. And most pros do get double upgrades still even while producing tanks. And it does cut down on production. But their zoning capability is huge, and forces a large commitment on the zergs part. Even if there is only a few tanks, the Zerg isn't going to retreat after going in to attack unless they snipe key units. They plan to go all out to crush your force because otherwise they take unnecessary tank shots. Use that zoning to your advantage and use a small bio force to attack hatcheries with your tanks posted up. If they go after that small bio force and take tank volleys, your cost efficient. Otherwise they go after the whole army and you hopefully have the better army and good micro. And if by the time you have 6 tanks they have broodlords... Well... Your doing something wrong. Probably not pressuring enough or getting them a little too slow. And also tanks are still viable when broods come out, you just have to use them very properly and have enough Vikings.
If you really LIKE tanks and are having trouble using them efficiently, take some time off from playing with them. Watch some pro tourneys and streams. And then use them like they do. Despite what you think tanks are not pointless and pros use them all the time and not just as a "gas dump"
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I assume you're talking about what works at the highest level. Because otherwise I could say I have great success going 2port every game and it would be useless because that's just ladder where I become good at a style people aren't used to facing and win with.
For vs Z you'd have to link me the games where T forgoes tanks alltogether often. I know now there's a lot of delayed tanks, where you delay tanks to rush fast 3 bases and still put on pressure with faster upgraded bio + medivacs, but I can't imagine any T who forgoes tanks, and I watch way too much sc2 for my own good. Pure bio seems weak to good Zergs who go infestor/ling/bling, or roach/ling/bling. Like I've seen pure bio before in GSL matches and it's decent and you keep up on supply so it looks good, but you're one mismicro'd engagement from being completely dead. And tanks just give you an army you need hive tech to deal with. Sure you're doing fine and you can show me your reps of it working but that means nothing still.
For vs P there are some cool 2base tank timings you see people like Supernova play around with and 1-1-1 is a decent tool to keep in your arsenal for BoX series. Sure you're not comfortable with them but that doesn't mean they're bad.
And for vs T almost everyone goes tanks - marine/tank vs marine/tank, mech vs mech, or bio vs mech into tanks. The exception is bio into air terran playing vs mech but that's pretty rare compared to bio into tanks from what I've seen.
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Im liking the idea of going blue flame hellion + MMM in tvz. At least then you have a higher hp fast moving unit that can absolutely murder lings and not die to fungals (plus they're great for run-bys and map control). You get to reactor them out as well so it saves you on gas, which you could end up spending on some sort of late game avilo-type raven transition or even mass thors.
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Specifically for ZvT, if a Terran doesn't go for tanks, I feel as though you'll struggle big time against banelings. I like to do a cutesy baneling bust, and if you, the Terran player, have no tanks, I'm most likely to be successful.
One thing I do think Terran players need to do is build less of them. Just say 5, and use it to secure a relatively fast 3rd, and then "zone" areas off.
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I feel in TvZ, more tanks than 4 are not worth it. A new Tvz was spotted on MLG when Marineking went marine thor tank
the thors can be the baneling shield, can snipe infestors, are not that easy to kill with fungal and deny all muta agression.
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On March 28 2012 16:33 Noocta wrote: They are not as important as they were ( because zerg are playing with less and less banelings ) but you still need them at some point.
They let you get in good position : sieging an expansion from far aay enough so they hesitate to engage They let you defend a position : shakuras mid map is a prime example They offer you protection against Infestors ( and if they use ITs to absorb tanks shots and stuff, it's less fungal anyway )
But getting them last is the best solution at the moment. Get your production facilities, your upgrades, your medivacs before. Usually i start getting tanks when i put my third up only.
Here's the thing, if I get them last then I find that I don't have the opportunity to actually push with them before Broodlords are out. So I build 4-6 tanks, I walk them across the map, siege up the zerg's expansion and then I have to promptly unsiege and run away from the broodlords and start scrambling to build vikings to deal with that and worse, until I actually kill those broodlords, I'm stuck with these 4-6 massive expensive paper weights which are more likely to kill my own units then cause any hurt to the enemy. Seems like I'd be better off if I never built them at all.
@granite
Oh man, that was totally sick! If I could get that replay to study I would do that build every time, but, alas, it has not as such been made available to the best of my knowledge and all my attempts to improvise that unit composition on my own ended in tragilicious failure. What I learned from the experience; I am not mkp.
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