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It feels like the TvZ metagame is shifting towards mech play. The only two styles I face on a regular basis is marine/tank (the "old" style) and the newer mech style.
There's a few different variations, the first is to get a reactor on your first barracks and swap it for a factory. You produce 2x hellions per cycle and then run in to your enemies (my) base with 4-6 hellions and INCINERATE le drones.
The other is to get a tech lab for your factory, and get blue flame. You get fewer hellions, but with blueflame that doesnt stop 3-4 hellions from INCINERATING le drones.
The "cheesier" terrans then transitions into banshees, while the more "defensive" terrans get tanks. Then its just hellion/tank/thor.
The reason that mech is getting popular is simple: It is effective.
Most zergs go ling/baneling/muta in ZvT, and mech is insanely good against this composition. A hellion pretty much destroys lings, and is pretty damn good against banes too (banelings arent classified as light, only biological). Tanks are also very good against the ling/baneling composition. And as we all know, even with magic box, a big group of thors RAVAGES a big group of mutalisks.
This, in my eyes, turns terran closer to protoss. Instead of cheap, expendable units, you get big, expensive, cost-effective units. This means, that to beat mech, we (zerg) need either equally costeffective units, or better economy (as day[9] would put it, more shit),
As we all saw in MLG, the way most zergs respond are fast roaches, however I personally dislike this solution. What the fuck is wrong with you, I hear you ask.
The reason is simple: I do not want to delay my mutalisks. Eventhough thors are very, very good against mutas, they are very slow (this is the significant fault of mechplay). So even if your mutalisks cant pierce the terrans defense, it makes him unable to move out until he has 6+ thors (2 per base, and 2 to secure an expo). Of couse, he could also slam down a huge amount of turrets, but then you can usually exploit this with your mutalisks, as when terran has enough thors you have 15-20 mutas (if you skip roaches in early game).
The issue with skipping roaches is that hellions become very dangerous. My solution is to put down a pretty damn big number of spine crawlers (3 per base, basically). The reasoning is that 3 spines with a queen and some lings can usually kill the hellions before they kill too many drones. You'll lose some, but I feel that your earlier mutas is worth that sacrifice. When you get mutas out, you can expand freely and keep the terran on 2 base for a long-ass-time.
When mutas are out. you slap down your roach warren & infestation pit, and tech to brood lords. The only way a meching player can deal with your broods is vikings, since ghosts require a pretty damn big investment if you only have mech stuff, so if you save your mutas, you can usually deal with the t's vikings.
Now: that is the "have more shit" approach.
The only way to deal with mech without having a shit ton of more shit is infestors. Neural parasite is very underrated, and very, very good. with some good micro you can easily NP some thors and some tanks, and then use your roach army to destroy his army. For harass, use your 4 infestor hit squad (kudos to destiny). Burrow 4 infestors (with full energy) and spit out a GAZILLION INFESTED TERRANS. Unless he has his army present, you WILL kill buildings, or expos. Do this when he moves out and you can destroy Every. Single. Production. Building. If he gets turrets? Get drop!
I prefer the "more shit" way to win, since it doesnt require gosu micro (my micro is really bad :o)
However: for the late game I have turned to using infestors for every matchup. If you have the spare gas, infestors are So. Damn. Good *drools*
2 fully charged infestors destroy an entire mineral line with 4 fungals (2x fungal kills a worker, marine or observer).
4 fully charged infestors can kill almost anything with infested terrans.
Neural parasite can snag the most important units, making any army gimped.
Nice colossi, gimme!
So the rundown: against mech terran, get the fast mutalisks and you can exploit the weakness of mech: terran is slow as FUCK.
This enables you to;
1: Have complete map control
2: Stop the terran from expanding for a pretty long time
3: Expand freely
For later in the game, when terrans mech army is getting really, REALLY strong, you need either infestors with neural parasite, or brood lords. If you arent scared of being called OP, get both! :D
(Footnote: you can neural all the terran vikings and force them to kill eachother (the ones left with 10hp die easily to a fungal or two)). Warning: This may cause the terran to rage. This is hilarious.
Thanks for reading!
Song of the post: 21st Century (Digital Boy) - Bad Religion
http://grooveshark.com/s/21st Century digital Boy /1qJRo?src=5
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On August 12 2011 01:12 whitefenix wrote:
For later in the game, when terrans mech army is getting really, REALLY strong, you need either infestors with neural parasite, or brood lords. If you arent scared of being called OP, get both! :D
(Footnote: you can neural all the terran vikings and force them to kill eachother (the ones left with 10hp die easily to a fungal or two)). Warning: This may cause the terran to rage. This is hilarious.
Nice post, this paragraph reminds me of the all the games where I thought I couldn't lose when I had like a 7base to 2base advantage and only made roaches.....and got crushed by tank thor hellion. 
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On August 12 2011 01:12 whitefenix wrote:
Most zergs go ling/baneling/muta in ZvT, and mech is insanely good against this composition. A hellion pretty much destroys lings, and is pretty damn good against banes too (banelings arent classified as light, only biological). Tanks are also very good against the ling/baneling composition. And as we all know, even with magic box, a big group of thors RAVAGES a big group of mutalisks.
//
As we all saw in MLG, the way most zergs respond are fast roaches, however I personally dislike this solution. What the fuck is wrong with you, I hear you ask.
The reason is simple: I do not want to delay my mutalisks. Eventhough thors are very, very good against mutas, they are very slow (this is the significant fault of mechplay). So even if your mutalisks cant pierce the terrans defense, it makes him unable to move out until he has 6+ thors (2 per base, and 2 to secure an expo). Of couse, he could also slam down a huge amount of turrets, but then you can usually exploit this with your mutalisks, as when terran has enough thors you have 15-20 mutas (if you skip roaches in early game).
I cannot disagree more with going mutalisk against a terran player who is massing thors. If he researchings building armor from his engineering bay (which isn't doing anything anyways) and does some scv micro to repair the turrets, it will be very hard for mutalisks to take down the turrets-- and there's no way mutalisks can engage a thor-heavy army without roach or infestor support. Mutalisks for map control is smart, but it's also dangerous-- be aware that banelings arne't great against hellion/tank/thor, and zerglings aren't good against hellions. If he decides you're being too greedy, and he has enough thors that mutalisks aren't an issue in a straight-up fight, even with magic box, he might just pull all his scvs to repair and all-in you. 2 base mech all-ins are a thing.
On August 12 2011 01:12 whitefenix wrote:
The only way to deal with mech without having a shit ton of more shit is infestors. Neural parasite is very underrated, and very, very good. with some good micro you can easily NP some thors and some tanks, and then use your roach army to destroy his army. For harass, use your 4 infestor hit squad (kudos to destiny). Burrow 4 infestors (with full energy) and spit out a GAZILLION INFESTED TERRANS. Unless he has his army present, you WILL kill buildings, or expos. Do this when he moves out and you can destroy Every. Single. Production. Building. If he gets turrets? Get drop!
I prefer the "more shit" way to win, since it doesnt require gosu micro (my micro is really bad :o)
However: for the late game I have turned to using infestors for every matchup. If you have the spare gas, infestors are So. Damn. Good *drools*
2 fully charged infestors destroy an entire mineral line with 4 fungals (2x fungal kills a worker, marine or observer).
4 fully charged infestors can kill almost anything with infested terrans.
Neural parasite can snag the most important units, making any army gimped.
Nice colossi, gimme!
This is right on the money. Infestors are a very strong ground-holding unit with harass potential and the ability to shut down hellion mobility, splash down repairing scvs, and take control of heavy units like thors and tanks. Lastly, they are far more cost-effective than mutalisks against thor-heavy compositions. If I ever go mech, my biggest fear BY FAR is that instead of making a spire and 10 mutalisks, my zerg opponent made an infestation pit, got pathogen glands, neural parasite, and made 6 infestors.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
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A note. You don't have to attack the army. Just counter as soon as he moves out  .
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Just get like 7 mutas for harassing and switch to infestors immediatly. Keep those mutas alive. You can use them to def drops and harass although they won't kill many turrets, they still force quite a few. Roach infestor should rape mech compositions effectively, as long as you fight in a good position.
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I pretty much agree with your post. Although another approach i've found pretty useful is to go a queen/roach composition into infestors later on. The reasoning is that for zerg you generally have 3 ways to primarily spend your excess minerals. Expansions, Lings, and Queens. Against a meching player I've found queens to be far more useful than lings due to transfuse and dealing with the potential Banshee-mech or Banshee/Thor/Hellion mix. In the meantime you rain down havoc with mutas and out expand them.
+2 mutas magic boxed and carefully transfused are a surprisingly effective against most mech timings
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On August 12 2011 01:59 Rotodyne wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2011 01:12 whitefenix wrote:
For later in the game, when terrans mech army is getting really, REALLY strong, you need either infestors with neural parasite, or brood lords. If you arent scared of being called OP, get both! :D
(Footnote: you can neural all the terran vikings and force them to kill eachother (the ones left with 10hp die easily to a fungal or two)). Warning: This may cause the terran to rage. This is hilarious.
Nice post, this paragraph reminds me of the all the games where I thought I couldn't lose when I had like a 7base to 2base advantage and only made roaches.....and got crushed by tank thor hellion.
Been there, done that :/
Broods or infestors are absolutely key
On August 12 2011 02:30 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2011 01:12 whitefenix wrote:
Most zergs go ling/baneling/muta in ZvT, and mech is insanely good against this composition. A hellion pretty much destroys lings, and is pretty damn good against banes too (banelings arent classified as light, only biological). Tanks are also very good against the ling/baneling composition. And as we all know, even with magic box, a big group of thors RAVAGES a big group of mutalisks.
//
As we all saw in MLG, the way most zergs respond are fast roaches, however I personally dislike this solution. What the fuck is wrong with you, I hear you ask.
The reason is simple: I do not want to delay my mutalisks. Eventhough thors are very, very good against mutas, they are very slow (this is the significant fault of mechplay). So even if your mutalisks cant pierce the terrans defense, it makes him unable to move out until he has 6+ thors (2 per base, and 2 to secure an expo). Of couse, he could also slam down a huge amount of turrets, but then you can usually exploit this with your mutalisks, as when terran has enough thors you have 15-20 mutas (if you skip roaches in early game). I cannot disagree more with going mutalisk against a terran player who is massing thors. If he researchings building armor from his engineering bay (which isn't doing anything anyways) and does some scv micro to repair the turrets, it will be very hard for mutalisks to take down the turrets-- and there's no way mutalisks can engage a thor-heavy army without roach or infestor support. Mutalisks for map control is smart, but it's also dangerous-- be aware that banelings arne't great against hellion/tank/thor, and zerglings aren't good against hellions. If he decides you're being too greedy, and he has enough thors that mutalisks aren't an issue in a straight-up fight, even with magic box, he might just pull all his scvs to repair and all-in you. 2 base mech all-ins are a thing.
You are absolutely right, in that getting too many mutas is essentially russian roulette. However, if you get no mutalisks what so ever, the terran has a much easier time expanding. If you do not deny his expansion, you will lose badly as mech terran is insanely cost-effective. What I do is to get mutalisks until I see the first thor, then immediately get an infestation pit, pathogen and hive. He can't move out very easily if I have 10 or so mutalisks flying around, which gives me time to mass lings and infestors. If he hits this timing perfectly (as a properly timed 2base all in might), he cant have more than 1-2 thors (assuming a fairly large map) and then a ling surround with banelings should be enough to hold.
I actually feel that banelings are pretty good vs mech, as long as you get somewhat of a ling surround to ensure that each baneling hits several things.
But again, you are completly right when you say that not getting infestors or brood lords at all will just kill you, since when the thor count rises mutas are only good for countering
On August 12 2011 02:30 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2011 01:12 whitefenix wrote:
The only way to deal with mech without having a shit ton of more shit is infestors. Neural parasite is very underrated, and very, very good. with some good micro you can easily NP some thors and some tanks, and then use your roach army to destroy his army. For harass, use your 4 infestor hit squad (kudos to destiny). Burrow 4 infestors (with full energy) and spit out a GAZILLION INFESTED TERRANS. Unless he has his army present, you WILL kill buildings, or expos. Do this when he moves out and you can destroy Every. Single. Production. Building. If he gets turrets? Get drop!
I prefer the "more shit" way to win, since it doesnt require gosu micro (my micro is really bad :o)
However: for the late game I have turned to using infestors for every matchup. If you have the spare gas, infestors are So. Damn. Good *drools*
2 fully charged infestors destroy an entire mineral line with 4 fungals (2x fungal kills a worker, marine or observer).
4 fully charged infestors can kill almost anything with infested terrans.
Neural parasite can snag the most important units, making any army gimped.
Nice colossi, gimme!
This is right on the money. Infestors are a very strong ground-holding unit with harass potential and the ability to shut down hellion mobility, splash down repairing scvs, and take control of heavy units like thors and tanks. Lastly, they are far more cost-effective than mutalisks against thor-heavy compositions. If I ever go mech, my biggest fear BY FAR is that instead of making a spire and 10 mutalisks, my zerg opponent made an infestation pit, got pathogen glands, neural parasite, and made 6 infestors.
Infestors are just amazingly versatile, and insanely good against any race. I'm actually very confused that people aren't using them more than they are.
Referring to skipping mutalisks entirely, I used to do this in mech, what would happend is that the terran wouldn't attack, he would play extremely defensive and expand as much as he could. Without the map control from mutas, a passive terran can pretty easily match your expansions ( at least in my experience ). If i could skip mutas and just get infestors i would love that, but i havent been able to make it work for me.
It feels like I have to do an attack with my infestors before he out-expands me, but attacking a defensive mech player with good tank placement is very, very hard
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if you go roach over muta and they start playing defensive then that's your queue to tech up to something like broodlords and take the map
Playing the econ game against zerg is just kinda dumb imo and by the time you're on 4 bases as mech you're just spread too thin. Roaches can hold off mech for a while because they aren't gonna get to 200/200 quickly, and by the time they are you should be at hive tech.
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On August 15 2011 05:09 Itsmedudeman wrote:
if you go roach over muta and they start playing defensive then that's your queue to tech up to something like broodlords and take the map
Playing the econ game against zerg is just kinda dumb imo and by the time you're on 4 bases as mech you're just spread too thin. Roaches can hold off mech for a while because they aren't gonna get to 200/200 quickly, and by the time they are you should be at hive tech.
I've tried this, the problem I had is that when terran has economic freedom he can do whatever he pleases, and counter you kinda fast. The ultralisk is not really that good against massive siege tank numbers, at least without some transfuses or huge numbers of ultras, and the brood lords is So. Easily. Countered..
I mean with 4 bases a meching terran could get 5-6 ghosts with moebius and cloak, and snipe the shit out of your broods.. or just get vikings, which is difficult to counter once they hit huge numbers.
The weakness (at least in my opinion) with mech is that they 1: move slow as shit, and 2: take a long damn time to be rebuilt. If you give them free reign they can build such a big number of production facilities that the second weakness becomes much less apparent, which is very dangerous for zerg. The terran will get to a point where his army is very hard to stop. The first wave will die fast, but then the second wave hits shortly after, with no energy on your infestors, or even worse, with EMPs.
If you have any tips on how to beat a mech terran with a large number of bases, I'm all ears ^^
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Whenever I play Mech, I really don't care THAT much about Infestors. Either they do fungal growths which my scvs will patch up, or they'll try to NP and my tanks will clean them up.
I win a lot of games against zerg when they try to throw units at me and investing a lot of gas just to let it splat on the ground and throw some green goo. I find a lot of zergs complacent with their upgrades and units, not realizing that mech isn't fragile at all.
The zergs that put up a good fight get good (read: armor) upgrades.
The zergs that really scare me are the ones that go for fast broodlords.
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On August 15 2011 18:13 Gamegene wrote:
Whenever I play Mech, I really don't care THAT much about Infestors. Either they do fungal growths which my scvs will patch up, or they'll try to NP and my tanks will clean them up.
I win a lot of games against zerg when they try to throw units at me and investing a lot of gas just to let it splat on the ground and throw some green goo. I find a lot of zergs complacent with their upgrades and units, not realizing that mech isn't fragile at all.
The zergs that put up a good fight get good (read: armor) upgrades.
The zergs that really scare me are the ones that go for fast broodlords.
Armor upgrades you say? I will definitely try getting fast +2 armor against mech then. I might try a build where you get just a few mutas (10-15) and then tech to hive immediately, while getting a third and maybe even a fourth. You'll have the spire up already, so its a pretty easy transition, and should work well.
While the hive is building you could start researching fungal and neural for infestors, while saving gas for broods, and then get the infestors AFTER the brood lords.
This could actually be pretty good, thanks for the tip!
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Honestly armor upgrades against mech aren't really useful. All mech units do very high dmg (except bfh against non-light) and reducing that by 1 or 2 isn't going to help as much as attack upgrades, which will make you kill those big units faster.
Mech isn't as slow as most people think. Hellions can be really good at counter attacking and against mass mutas I do just that. If you have 20 mutas, you're not likely to have a lot of other gas units. 8 bfh will do a lot of damage before they die and can also snipe larvae after the drones in an expansion are dead.
I think the best way to fight mech is with roach flanks and infestors until you get to hive tech and get ultras/bl. You have to be really careful though since without enough roaches you'll just get rolled over instantly.
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On August 18 2011 01:02 Sotamursu wrote:
Honestly armor upgrades against mech aren't really useful. All mech units do very high dmg (except bfh against non-light) and reducing that by 1 or 2 isn't going to help as much as attack upgrades, which will make you kill those big units faster.
Mech isn't as slow as most people think. Hellions can be really good at counter attacking and against mass mutas I do just that. If you have 20 mutas, you're not likely to have a lot of other gas units. 8 bfh will do a lot of damage before they die and can also snipe larvae after the drones in an expansion are dead.
I think the best way to fight mech is with roach flanks and infestors until you get to hive tech and get ultras/bl. You have to be really careful though since without enough roaches you'll just get rolled over instantly.
On the armor thing, I think you've misunderstood how upgrades work. If you take a siege tank for example. Since it does huge damage (35? I really should know this) an attack upgrade does not increase the damage by 1, it increases the damage depending on how much base damage a unit has. So the siege tank wouldn't really benefit from +1 damage, it gets more like +3 up to +5 damage (someone correct me on this), and armor upgrades work the same way. +1 armor upgrade is INSANELY important in ZvT as otherwise tanks one-shot banelings and zerglings. I was toying with the idea to get +2 armor really fast, because like you said all mech units do huge damage, especially the siege tanks.
Hellions are annoying for counters, but thats also the reason I keep some spines and a lot of lings at my main entrance. Sure, I'll lose 10-30 lings, but thats an okay sacrifice, if I can do some damage with my mutalisks.
You're right when you say that how you engage is crucial until you have hive tech. What I've found is that when you have a pretty big space, and neural parasite the thors, you can pretty much kill it every single time if you have enough lings/roaches. If he has a huge army, you will have time to get your broods out.
Before hive it all comes down to positioning and micro, if he has great micro and can snipe your infestors with hellions, you are in a tough spot. If you get a bad engage, you just die outright.
I really don't like calling anything overpowered, because it makes you less motivated to find solutions, but I do think it's stupid that the terran only needs to go 1-a, while the zerg needs perfect positioning and really good micro.
Once you get broods out though, it's a completly different story 
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On August 18 2011 18:13 whitefenix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2011 01:02 Sotamursu wrote:
Honestly armor upgrades against mech aren't really useful. All mech units do very high dmg (except bfh against non-light) and reducing that by 1 or 2 isn't going to help as much as attack upgrades, which will make you kill those big units faster.
Mech isn't as slow as most people think. Hellions can be really good at counter attacking and against mass mutas I do just that. If you have 20 mutas, you're not likely to have a lot of other gas units. 8 bfh will do a lot of damage before they die and can also snipe larvae after the drones in an expansion are dead.
I think the best way to fight mech is with roach flanks and infestors until you get to hive tech and get ultras/bl. You have to be really careful though since without enough roaches you'll just get rolled over instantly. On the armor thing, I think you've misunderstood how upgrades work. If you take a siege tank for example. Since it does huge damage (35? I really should know this) an attack upgrade does not increase the damage by 1, it increases the damage depending on how much base damage a unit has. So the siege tank wouldn't really benefit from +1 damage, it gets more like +3 up to +5 damage (someone correct me on this), and armor upgrades work the same way. +1 armor upgrade is INSANELY important in ZvT as otherwise tanks one-shot banelings and zerglings. I was toying with the idea to get +2 armor really fast, because like you said all mech units do huge damage, especially the siege tanks. Hellions are annoying for counters, but thats also the reason I keep some spines and a lot of lings at my main entrance. Sure, I'll lose 10-30 lings, but thats an okay sacrifice, if I can do some damage with my mutalisks. You're right when you say that how you engage is crucial until you have hive tech. What I've found is that when you have a pretty big space, and neural parasite the thors, you can pretty much kill it every single time if you have enough lings/roaches. If he has a huge army, you will have time to get your broods out. Before hive it all comes down to positioning and micro, if he has great micro and can snipe your infestors with hellions, you are in a tough spot. If you get a bad engage, you just die outright. I really don't like calling anything overpowered, because it makes you less motivated to find solutions, but I do think it's stupid that the terran only needs to go 1-a, while the zerg needs perfect positioning and really good micro. Once you get broods out though, it's a completly different story
+1 siege tanks 1shot lings/blings with 3 armor. So armor for ling/bling becomes useless after mech has +1 vehicle weapons. Sure armor is great when T doesn't have +1 attack but you can't go on an assumption like that imo.
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On August 18 2011 18:13 whitefenix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2011 01:02 Sotamursu wrote:
Honestly armor upgrades against mech aren't really useful. All mech units do very high dmg (except bfh against non-light) and reducing that by 1 or 2 isn't going to help as much as attack upgrades, which will make you kill those big units faster.
Mech isn't as slow as most people think. Hellions can be really good at counter attacking and against mass mutas I do just that. If you have 20 mutas, you're not likely to have a lot of other gas units. 8 bfh will do a lot of damage before they die and can also snipe larvae after the drones in an expansion are dead.
I think the best way to fight mech is with roach flanks and infestors until you get to hive tech and get ultras/bl. You have to be really careful though since without enough roaches you'll just get rolled over instantly. On the armor thing, I think you've misunderstood how upgrades work. If you take a siege tank for example. Since it does huge damage (35? I really should know this) an attack upgrade does not increase the damage by 1, it increases the damage depending on how much base damage a unit has. So the siege tank wouldn't really benefit from +1 damage, it gets more like +3 up to +5 damage (someone correct me on this), and armor upgrades work the same way. +1 armor upgrade is INSANELY important in ZvT as otherwise tanks one-shot banelings and zerglings. I was toying with the idea to get +2 armor really fast, because like you said all mech units do huge damage, especially the siege tanks. Hellions are annoying for counters, but thats also the reason I keep some spines and a lot of lings at my main entrance. Sure, I'll lose 10-30 lings, but thats an okay sacrifice, if I can do some damage with my mutalisks.
I know perfectly well how upgrades work. The thing is, this isn't marine tank so it doesn't matter if the lings don't die from 1 tank shot since they're going to die pretty much instantly to hellions anyway. Mutaling is going to get raped no matter how upgraded their armor is. I'd rather use my tanks to shoot down roaches and infestors.
There are 2 ways of upgrading mech - either armor or attack. Currently getting 2+ armor for your mech army is something people do, since thors will be tough as fuck. 3 armor thors that are getting repaired will be pretty much impossible to kill with 0 attack upgrades or some other massive advantage.
Even against spines 6-8 hellions are going to kill a ton of drones just by shooting once. If you have 3 spines at every base, the terran has already done a lot of damage.
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On August 18 2011 19:12 Sotamursu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2011 18:13 whitefenix wrote:On August 18 2011 01:02 Sotamursu wrote:
Honestly armor upgrades against mech aren't really useful. All mech units do very high dmg (except bfh against non-light) and reducing that by 1 or 2 isn't going to help as much as attack upgrades, which will make you kill those big units faster.
Mech isn't as slow as most people think. Hellions can be really good at counter attacking and against mass mutas I do just that. If you have 20 mutas, you're not likely to have a lot of other gas units. 8 bfh will do a lot of damage before they die and can also snipe larvae after the drones in an expansion are dead.
I think the best way to fight mech is with roach flanks and infestors until you get to hive tech and get ultras/bl. You have to be really careful though since without enough roaches you'll just get rolled over instantly. On the armor thing, I think you've misunderstood how upgrades work. If you take a siege tank for example. Since it does huge damage (35? I really should know this) an attack upgrade does not increase the damage by 1, it increases the damage depending on how much base damage a unit has. So the siege tank wouldn't really benefit from +1 damage, it gets more like +3 up to +5 damage (someone correct me on this), and armor upgrades work the same way. +1 armor upgrade is INSANELY important in ZvT as otherwise tanks one-shot banelings and zerglings. I was toying with the idea to get +2 armor really fast, because like you said all mech units do huge damage, especially the siege tanks. Hellions are annoying for counters, but thats also the reason I keep some spines and a lot of lings at my main entrance. Sure, I'll lose 10-30 lings, but thats an okay sacrifice, if I can do some damage with my mutalisks. I know perfectly well how upgrades work. The thing is, this isn't marine tank so it doesn't matter if the lings don't die from 1 tank shot since they're going to die pretty much instantly to hellions anyway. Mutaling is going to get raped no matter how upgraded their armor is. I'd rather use my tanks to shoot down roaches and infestors. There are 2 ways of upgrading mech - either armor or attack. Currently getting 2+ armor for your mech army is something people do, since thors will be tough as fuck. 3 armor thors that are getting repaired will be pretty much impossible to kill with 0 attack upgrades or some other massive advantage. Even against spines 6-8 hellions are going to kill a ton of drones just by shooting once. If you have 3 spines at every base, the terran has already done a lot of damage.
Yes, when you start getting in to the later game you do need to change to roaches, but I feel that earlygame lings are sufficient, and I get roaches after my mutas so as to save as much gas as possible. And yes, if his mech army has +3/+3, worst case scenario is that i have +2/+2, but more likely I will also have +3/+3.
Mutaling is only to give you some map control in the mid game, when his army starts getting big mutaling will get absolutely MAULED.
Well, spines alone won't do it. You need some sort of unit defense. If it's far enough in to the game that he can sacrifice 8 hellions and not care, you will most likely have roaches out, which deal with hellions quite well. Even if you dont, a good spread of a good number of lings as well as 3 spines pretty much holds off 6-8 hellions on most maps (not the ones with very big naturals, e.g xel'naga). You do need a good overlord spread though, to check for blueflame drops. If you spot it in time its no problem, it its a surprise, you will lose many, many drones.
To be honest I had no idea meching terrans prefer armor over attack upgrades, but it does make sense. However, if he has +3 (!!) armor on his thors, there is no chance in hell that you won't have time to get broods and infestors out, which deals with thors very well even if your ground army hasn't had time to get +3 attack yet. I guess brood/infestors places under "massive advantage"
To get down and dirty. I treat a mech-ball the same way I would a protoss death ball. The only way I can beat it is to have an equally good death-ball. The only way to do that is to get brood lords and have good infestor micro. (If he skips tanks, you can go ultra over brood lord if you want to, but if he skips tanks he is likely brain-damaged).
How do you mech players prefer to deal with broods? I mean thors are just plain sucky against broods, and I've seen both cloaked ghosts and vikings in response, neither of which is very hard to deal with if you have infestors (you do need to spread your infestors if he has ghosts, as otherwise EMP will make you a very sad zerg player )
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I mean a total of 3 armor. That's 2 armor upgrades and it's pretty good since it helps thors survive neural parasite better. Mech doesn't work really well late game in TvZ. You either have to do some serious damage with your mid game pre-hive push or do some sick hellion harass. Either way the late game push tends to be the final nail in the coffin, rather than a normal attack.
It's actually quite plausible to get 8 hellions a bit after expanding, assuming the terran doesn't suicide 4 hellions from a reactor opening. Even if you spot a bfh drop you need to pull mutas back to destroy the dropship, which is just what the terran needs you to do so he can get turrets up and push.
As for broods, you really need to have an advantage at that point of the game since vikings and ghosts can be killed pretty easily.
Basically it's survive until hive vs. win/get huge advantage before hive.
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On August 19 2011 19:35 Sotamursu wrote:
Either way the late game push tends to be the final nail in the coffin, rather than a normal attack.
Basically it's survive until hive vs. win/get huge advantage before hive.
These two lines sum up mech TvZ beautifully.
I, like you, feel that Hive is the big key for zerg. Infestors are also key, because many, many mech pushes are designed to hit before hive, and one of the best ways to survive it is a few infestors with fungal and neural.
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EPT
