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I did 1-2h of testing with different mass hellion compositions against P at a few different supply points (100/150/200).
If the stalkers are not microed properly, helllions do incredibly well once they surround the stalkers. This requires the T to run the hellions into melee range and get a surround off. Clumped stalkers get completely destroyed by mass hellions. However, preconcaving / blink usage will allow the stalkers to win decisively. Even with good EMP usage, the hellions will still lose if the P micros.
Tank actually hurt more than they help. If you bring tanks, and he brings a handful of zeals, the splash will decimate your hellion lines much faster, and allow him to break into your tanks. Not to mention that hellions lined up are far worse than if they surround.
We tried a number of different compositions with gas dumps into tank/ghost/raven/viking vs colo/phoenix/vr/immo. Phoenix is the real killer here - will completely dismantle your tank line and/or soak your vikings against colo. It will also give P uncontested map control because of the hellion based army. Overall, my feeling is that mech is not going to stable because hellions are just not consistent compared to mass marauder.
We've seen mech (or rather mass tank) play be ok on some maps, but I would argue that it's more because of it being a surprise and P's not having a prepared response (consider Jinro's game on LT last season); against close position/tank creep strats before post 200/200 production, P has to have some of delaying strategy (stargate play) + expansions elsewhere. If the P can survive to trading production cycles, then mech really falls apart.
Replays:
http://topreplays.com/Replays/Details/4631/roam_vs_palanq
http://topreplays.com/Replays/Details/4632/palanq_vs_roam
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The idea is to test composition, not game flow. There's no statement here about whether or not there exists a viable gameflow to a/this mech comp. This is just to explore the viability of mech in maxed fights (so imagine a game scenario with both players camped at 3-4 base, remaxing back to 200). The question is what should you make?
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I wish you would have shared some of your testing replays 
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These are just joke games. Anyone can invite their friend and mass hellion against them. Doesn't work in any other scenario.
If you siege your tank and keep your hellions beside them, zealots are a breeze and stalkers don't do well against tanks. So then you need viking for the inevitable phoenix and colossus. Then you get into a basic mech playing game.
And if mass tank is surprising P... well I doubt it's any higher than platinum play.
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The problem is that you're counting on the fact that Protoss is not microing AT ALL. Simply grabbing four stalkers, moving them here, grabbing another five, moving them there, rinse and repeat will spread out your army enough that hellions are no longer cost effective.
Also, colossi own hellions so hard due to their tendency to line up.
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This has been bothering for a while now...
Dark General. The line is "Everybody's gotta do sometimes, RED". It was taken from the movie platoon. Link to that quote is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/quotes about halfway down the page.
Yeah, the wraith said it. He took it from Platoon.
Anyway....
Lots of reasons why, although blue flame hellions seem like a good idea they are very hard to properly implement into your playstyle. this is why you're better off just using marines. Blue flame hellions also lose a lot of their worth once the zealots get charge, as they get very few 'good' hits from their attack.
What would be better is to post high level replays featuring solid hellion inclusive compositions, builds and strategies. I'd like to see that.
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Your post doesn't seem to mention Thors at all, which is odd given how effective they can be against protoss. Did you do any hellion/thor testing that you could add to this report?
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of course these aren't real games, just some datapoints to think about. no one really knows what the ideal T lategame composition should look like. basically mass hellion is surprisingly good vs stalkers as long as you can manage to hit 2-3 stalkers per shot, but in mixed fights the effectiveness of hellion-heavy armies is really dependent on composition and positioning.
T is relatively inflexible in unit composition since lategame P can have 2-3 robo + stargate + tons of gateways, can bias composition pretty effectively with chronoboost, and only has 1 set of upgrades (for ground). In contrast, T has 3 sets of potentially important upgrades, and more separated production. For this reason to a large degree T needs to decide what to make and P has the luxury of responding to it. If you want to move into lategame with a lot of factories then you will need to
explore the viability of mech in maxed fights (so imagine a game scenario with both players camped at 3-4 base, remaxing back to 200). The question is what should you make?
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After seeing the reign of Protoss at the moment in the GSL, and the problems terran seem to have against lategame HT play, I dont understand why people still do not include hellions in lategame T play, or earlygame in that regard.
lategame toss will often have zealots with charge + ht with amulet play, and maybe the odd stalker here and there.
Hellions absolutely rip through ht's + zealot balls. Not only that, but they are so darn cheap. It barely is a tech investment, and you can combine it with your marauder balls.
GSL spoiler
+ Show Spoiler +
F.e. today in the sanZenith vs SCfou set
Also in the early game you see toss often going 6-8 sentries before even thinking of warping in stalkers. The terran will build a factory to get a starport, and lift it.
However it is barely an investment to research blue flame (you dont even have to per se), and use the factory later to just make hellions.
What do you rather have, 10 marines against a sentry zealot mix, or 5 hellions.
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On March 10 2011 19:38 Fluxx wrote:After seeing the reign of Protoss at the moment in the GSL, and the problems terran seem to have against lategame HT play, I dont understand why people still do not include hellions in lategame T play, or earlygame in that regard. lategame toss will often have zealots with charge + ht with amulet play, and maybe the odd stalker here and there. Hellions absolutely rip through ht's + zealot balls. Not only that, but they are so darn cheap. It barely is a tech investment, and you can combine it with your marauder balls. GSL spoiler + Show Spoiler +
F.e. today in the sanZenith vs SCfou set
Also in the early game you see toss often going 6-8 sentries before even thinking of warping in stalkers. The terran will build a factory to get a starport, and lift it. However it is barely an investment to research blue flame (you dont even have to per se), and use the factory later to just make hellions. What do you rather have, 10 marines against a sentry zealot mix, or 5 hellions.
Because hellions are not micro-able like marines are with medivacs, and their line splash damage doesn't do well late game when units are charging in their face. Not to mention the flame does very little versus most of the units P will have.
That, plus you will have no mech upgrades, plus the factory+reactor to produce them in any meaningful numbers, + having to have already have researched blue flame from a tech labbed factory. It's not viable to suddenly switch and randomly make hellions while the opponent just keeps making more of the same to kill you. Marines are macro-able, cranking out tons of hellions really isn't, and they don't even do as good as marines.
If you go mech, then yah, you'll have a ton of hellions, but that's mech.
Lots of people are saying if you go bio and can't kill the protoss, at some point you need to switch over to mech, or at the very least mass tanks with whatever you already had, which seems about right. The only problem is in mass unit ball vs mass unit ball scenarios tanks are actually very weak, and you have to already be perfectly sieged ahead of time otherwise your army is steamrolled. It's also incredibly hard to all of a sudden go from having lots of bio units that are upgraded, to unupgraded mech units that late in the game.
You also have to already have the infrastructure for lots of factories, armory upgrades, and lots of gas for tanks/thors.
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EPT
