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SC2 matches right now are basically won just by the opening. There are very few games where both players are on equal footings going into the late game, and are fielding equivalently effective armies, where tactics and control are making/breaking the game.
From T perspective, current mid/late unit compositions don't work. They are extremely dependent on mistakes in positioning by the opponent. My theorycraft is that there is a underused unit that actually stabilizes T army in mid/late game fights.
TvZ
Most of the problems have been masked by small maps where T can crawl with few avenues for attack. Larger maps reveal biomech doesn't work. TLO vs Idra is a recent example. Tank/thor don't do well enough against muta/bane/massling. Z can come onto your army so fast and hard, and your mech output is completely destroyed by long CD and bad AI. The eventual broodlord switch also fucks this comp hard. Not only that, on large maps, mech based plays have problems securing a 4th/5th base against muta.
Thor is the wrong choice for gas usage. It consumes 1 base gas/min, for damage output that does less than 2 stimmed marines against the typical Z army (shooting box muta, ling); The same cost buys you a 5 marines and a raven, which I claim is stronger in every direct army scenario against Z. More marines is more stability against banes, meaning more marines left over to fight muta.
Think about combat micro, Z comes on T, T stims, spreads marines, kites through tanks. Mutas shooting the whole time, as ling/bane force movement. T wins if not enough marines are killed, but sits there and receives frontloaded damage. Here's where raven comes in - it's the one unit that nullifies frontloaded damage; sufficient PDD on top of your army means that your marine/tank is ONLY fighting the bane/ling army. Instead of 6 thors, you have 6 raven, and 25 more marines. He goes on you, you have on 6 PDD, soaking 120 muta shots, reducing the marine loss before his banes run out. If T can save a critical mass of marine, then he can continue to push onto Z.
(Thor is more HP than a single PDD [but a full raven is 2 PDD, which is more], but less output than the marines, less mobility than ravenmarine, less stability after marine army is destroyed.)
Raven also lets you set up 4th/5th safely. If you wanted to defend against 30 muta before, what would be your option? You could spend ridiculous amounts of minerals on 10 turrets or send a part of your army, and still possibly be overpowered. If you have similar gas count to muta in raven, you can deposit an auto / muta at the expansion. Throw down 15 autos, and your raven will still have enough to be useful in direct combat. With the upgs, autos are FOUR minutes, 3 armor. This is huge - basically free (four minutes is more than enough to regen 50 mana) turrets (that also shoot ground!) at any expansion.
Auto+PDD also allow T to truly entrench themselves on the map. 200T that is forced to move around is going to have problems being efficient enough to burn through a second set of prod larvae. Auto spam within arms reach from map center can basically add another 20-40% to T army size vs Z expos, fuck up bane approach, shoot the fuck out of muta. The ridiculous lifespan of autos is what makes this viable. On a tangent, consider that the short range on auto ability means that it's really designed to be used out of combat, which is what we are doing - setting up prefight.
And lastly, HSM is the natural counter to broodlord. No need to balance viking count vs ultra etc.
 
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Sounds interesting. What I think though is that we acquire 2 Thors at first (To defend the muta harass stage) and then transition to raven ( 2 starports 1 raven 1 medivac constant) and tanks with 1 factory
The scary thing is the interval to getting energy for ur first few ravens and pre critical mass tanks. Once you reach those though, I suppose it will be fine.
As for TvP, I have no comment as of yet. I'll think about it more before I add to this.
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As for TvP, if you're planning on using EMP + PDD AND vikings, you're going to need some pretty damn good control to get a nice PDD, EMP the stalkers, and not lose your vikings after forcefields block off bio.
Most of the time, it's rare you'll get the chance to get off an offensive PDD as well as good EMPs, but if you, I suppose it should be effective assuming you can EMP majority of the sentries as it would prevent retreating forcefields.
However, if you're planning on going vikings heavy, this means you'll be vulnerable to any kind of early gate pressure. (3-gate, 4-gate)
What's the proposal to deal with the fairly common wg pressure?
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TvZ late midgame and lategame is fine. Watch Supernova vs Zenio and Strelok vs Zenio from the FXOpen. Also watch Ensnare's TvZ. TLO is pretty bad at tvz, he relies too much on his timing attacks at non standard timings. When they dont work he gets way behind and the game just drags on (ie. dont base current TvZ trends on TLO's games).
Just remember that TvZ is all about timings (off 2 base) and macro transitions.
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I have two things I want to say: 1 is a problem I have with this idea, and 2 is a general comment
1. Although your theory has been well-thought out, it's still only that: a theory. The scientific method asks us to test our hypotheses before we draw any conclusion about them. I'd like to see how these strategies perform in game before you start claiming the Terran meta-game with this revelation.
2. These two styles you are proposing are incredibly caster-heavy and control-dependent. If these styles turn out to be very effective when properly done, I would only suggest these to people whose play-styles invite that sort of micro-intensive strategy. There are other people (like me), who prefer a defensive, siege-tank-oriented strategy aimed at beating the zerg at its own game (map control, strong late-game (BCs are surprisingly effective against Mutas (especially with Thor support)).
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On April 15 2011 08:53 Marksman wrote:
Sounds interesting. What I think though is that we acquire 2 Thors at first (To defend the muta harass stage) and then transition to raven ( 2 starports 1 raven 1 medivac constant) and tanks with 1 factory
The scary thing is the interval to getting energy for ur first few ravens and pre critical mass tanks. Once you reach those though, I suppose it will be fine.
As for TvP, I have no comment as of yet. I'll think about it more before I add to this.
If you get 2 thors first (forget even transitioning thor ---> raven off 2base), zerg can freely take his 3rd and maybe even 4th while youre stuck on 2 base with a low tank count due to the gas being spend on thors and ravens.
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On April 15 2011 10:38 Entropic wrote:
If you get 2 thors first (forget even transitioning thor ---> raven off 2base), zerg can freely take his 3rd and maybe even 4th while youre stuck on 2 base with a low tank count due to the gas being spend on thors and ravens.
Very true. Thats why I play mech now and use hellion harass. A third base is not really useful if there's no drones :V. Though I have to say that muta harass nullifies hellion harass if you are not pushing.
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Mizu:
I'm worried about how gas intensive the whole thing is. EMP alone isn't that great if he gets good FF off, or against a properly positioned P. If anything, that would be the first thing I might consider ditching until temps. I'm not sure what the strongest openings vs P will be. Having fast port is so nice against VR and DT, but maybe FE+1turret is superior - get 4 rax then rush up and collect raven+viking asap. Use PDD to win fights against FF reliant P.
mbr:
Yep, agreed. This is why its theorycraft, and a blog post. I do think the general idea could make sense, especially in light of securing 4/5 against Z.
entro:
Just watched the games. I agree the unit comp makes sense and is reasonable (it's just bio+tank). I like the low medivac count, and I like the absence of thor. My only point is that vs muta heavy, I would add in raven.
I also agree that current play is basically 2 base timings, and the game goes a bit out of control past that, which is really what inspired my post - what can we change about what T is producing to toe to toe in an extended game.
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I recently have the feeling that TvZ is very Zerg favoured (being mainly Zerg myself). The terran relies mostly on the one big push since most harass gets shut down hard by the newer style of heavily upgrades speedlings and infestor/muta and most Zergs learned to use it properly.
I never thought of adding ravens to the mix, it might actually be a great idea, though it requires some micro. It might even be possible to create a quick auto-turret wall against banelings (like forcefields, just not that effective, but lasts longer and does damage) to give marines more time and room to evade them.
I will definatly play around with that idea today.
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On April 15 2011 08:11 roam wrote:
TvZ
Most of the problems have been masked by small maps where T can crawl with few avenues for attack. Larger maps reveal biomech doesn't work. TLO vs Idra is a recent example. Tank/thor don't do well enough against muta/bane/massling. Z can come onto your army so fast and hard, and your mech output is completely destroyed by long CD and bad AI. The eventual broodlord switch also fucks this comp hard. Not only that, on large maps, mech based plays have problems securing a 4th/5th base against muta.
Think about combat micro, Z comes on T, T stims, spreads marines, kites through tanks. Mutas shooting the whole time, as ling/bane force movement. T wins if not enough marines are killed, but sits there and receives frontloaded damage. Here's where raven comes in - it's the one unit that nullifies frontloaded damage; sufficient PDD on top of your army means that your marine/tank is ONLY fighting the bane/ling army. Instead of 6 thors, you have 6 raven, and 25 more marines. He goes on you, you have on 6 PDD, soaking 120 muta shots, reducing the marine loss before his banes run out. If T can save a critical mass of marine, then he can continue to push onto Z.
If Z runs away, you have 6 useless ravens. If I understood correctly you still have tanks, right? If not, your bio is dead.
(Thor is more HP than a single PDD [but a full raven is 2 PDD, which is more], but less output than the marines, less mobility than ravenmarine, less stability after marine army is destroyed.)
I wouldn't really say ravens are more mobile than thors, you have to commit to a fight with them and once you've done so, you can't do shit with them for a long time.
Raven also lets you set up 4th/5th safely. If you wanted to defend against 30 muta before, what would be your option? You could spend ridiculous amounts of minerals on 10 turrets or send a part of your army, and still possibly be overpowered. If you have similar gas count to muta in raven, you can deposit an auto / muta at the expansion. Throw down 15 autos, and your raven will still have enough to be useful in direct combat. With the upgs, autos are FOUR minutes, 3 armor. This is huge - basically free (four minutes is more than enough to regen 50 mana) turrets (that also shoot ground!) at any expansion. 30 mutas will still one shot auto-turrets, I'd rather have thors that can 3 shot the whole flock, if they are out of position.
Auto+PDD also allow T to truly entrench themselves on the map. 200T that is forced to move around is going to have problems being efficient enough to burn through a second set of prod larvae. Auto spam within arms reach from map center can basically add another 20-40% to T army size vs Z expos, fuck up bane approach, shoot the fuck out of muta. The ridiculous lifespan of autos is what makes this viable. On a tangent, consider that the short range on auto ability means that it's really designed to be used out of combat, which is what we are doing - setting up prefight.
I guess they could be used this way, but even then I'd have to see how well they work in-game.
And lastly, HSM is the natural counter to broodlord. No need to balance viking count vs ultra etc.
HSM is hardly a natural counter to broodlords. I takes 3 hsm to kill 1 broodlord and since you've been spamming turrets and PDD left,right and center you won't nearly have enough to take care of anything more than 1-3 broodlords. Zergs can easily make 5 at a time in late game.
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EPT
