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The conventional logic of TvP is probably familiar to everyone by now. Bio is easily superior to gateway armies and can crush them with relative ease. But your army is only superior against straight gateway units; add in high templar, colossi, or archons (to some extend immortals, but only in the early game), and the opponent should come out ahead. Archons and immortals can be combatted simply with more bio and upgrades, but HTs and colossi simply can't. This is why ghosts and vikings are added to the mix: they cut down whatever targets can trade favorably (very favorably) against bio, and then the bio proceeds to sweep through. In terms of metaphor, the Rebels must ensure the Death Star is not operational before they can engage the Imperial Fleet.
Everything but MMMVG then is ruled out because it does not accomplish these goals as effectively. The roles are 1) the Gateway Army Killer, 2) the Colossus Sniper, and 3) the HT/Archon Negater. Are siege tanks any good in TvP? Well they're not as good a Gateway Army Killer, because zealots can really wreck them. They're okay as Colossus Snipers, but vikings are clearly superior. And they can function as HT Negaters, but not especially well as Archon Negaters. They don't fit in any of the prescribed roles. So no, they're not as good.
Of course this logic is flawed. The fact that tanks don't fit perfectly into the roles prescribed by MMMGV doesn't mean they're worthless in the match-up; it just means a different system has to be defined to make them work. Perhaps tanks are present to kill stalkers, high templar, archons and to some extent colossi (with viking help), hellions are present to kill zealots and DT's, and banshees are present to kill immortals. As a matter of fact I have seen Jinro use mech TvP on his stream with some success (although as a matter of personal opinion, I'd have to conclude that while the logic is flawed, the conclusion is true: siege tanks are garbage TvP).
Thors have been rejected for a similar reason. Do they kill gateway armies well? Not especially, they do pretty badly against zealots. Do they destroy colossi? In early engagements they do alright, but generally, no. How about high templar and archons? They trade decently against archons, but high templar are the counter to thors more than the other way around.
So if they don't conform to one of the traditional army roles, why use thors? As a comparison, I'd like to consider marauders. They don't snipe colossi well; they can't negate HT or archons; and against a gateway army, they are less effective than marines. So why are they useful? Well in the late-game, they're not. But earlier on, when you may not have a flock of vikings or a clump of ghosts ready to negate your opponent's late-game tech, marauders make your army less fragile. They trade alright against stalkers, snipe down stray colossi fairly effectively, and absorb fire otherwise killing marines pretty effectively. When the first colossus comes out, you'd better retreat with pure marines, but if marauders are in the mix, you might still hold your own.
So where do thors come in handy? In many of the same spots as marauders, but they're better. A thor has 400 health where a marauder has 125. Since every thor could otherwise be 3 marauders, the marauders have an overall HP advantage, but since the Protoss army is so built around AoE, putting that HP in one target instead of 3 is a big boon. They kill stalkers pretty well, none too brilliantly, but enough to hold their own. And as for sniping colossi, 250mm strike cannon kills a colossus if you can lock them in the stun.
The most common condemnations of thors are that 1) they get killed by zealots, 2) they can be feedbacked, thus both negating 250mm strike cannon and cutting down their health (usually by about half, in my experience). To the first point, the answer is the same as for marauders; the point is not for the thors to deal damage to the zealots, but for them to take shots from the zealots while the marines or ghosts kill them. And to the second point, feedback is certainly quite frustrating when using thors, but no more so than storm; feedback has the same range and almost as much energy cost as storm, but only a fraction of the potential for harm that storm presents.
Obviously the biggest problem with most units is not that they aren't good; the issue is where to put them in your build. Aside from some silly 1-1-1's and some Thorzain build from a while back, Thors aren't used all that often. But here's my suggestion: when the midgame is drawing to a close, and your third base is up and running, so you're just starting to get more gas than you know what to do with, lift one of your tech lab barracks and land your factory there. Instead of ship weapons, start researching vehicle armor from your tech lab. There's no reason you would need a lot of thors for them to be good, so you only need one, maybe two factories producing at a time. Research 250mm cannon at some point, and when you can, use it on immortals, archons, or colossus. My limited experience has found it useful, and I think it has promising possibilities.
I expect the coming week to be rather busy, so I won't be able to play much. When this next weekend comes, I'll experiment with mid-late game Thors TvP, and maybe blog about it again (this time with replays!). In the meantime, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on the subject!
Tl;dr: In the mid-late game TvP, start replacing your marauders with thors, and your late-game army will be a little sturdier, giving you a bigger window to snipe colossi and EMP templar and archons, and helping your bio stay alive a little longer and win by a larger margin. Post thoughts.
  
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Thors are avoided almost solely due to fear of feedback. During the brief period where Blizzard patched out Thor energy, they were extremely strong against Protoss. If you can minimise the risk of feedback, they likely will be useable.
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The reason thors are not added into the army is because you lose mobility. Bio is excellent at hitting multiple angles, but more importantly grants the ability to retreat if deemed necessary. If you meet up with the protoss army with the conventional setup, you will have the option to run away and take minimal losses. If you use the thor mix in a situation where you would normally back off, you really do not have that option due to their immobility. Therefore, you are either going to kill the protoss army, or take heavy losses yourself. As we all know, a heavily one-sided engagement in TvP usually means the end is near. Losing the ability to flee seems like an error in strategy in this case.
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Five words : replaceability, tech, mobility, ugrades, medivacs. You could also arguably add dps.
To explain, Thor build time is too long, required tech structures to "pump out Thors" is too much, Thors are too slow, Thors would be unupgraded against 2/2 or 3/3, Thors can't be healed by medivacs which probably compensates the fact that it has more HP. Also, stimmed marauders will dish out more damage.
I hate to ask, but what league are you in?
PS : tanks do work great in small numbers as a support in 2-base pushes, but the most effective and forgiving core army is the bioball.
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Well, I have attempted to use thors a few times in this TvP. The first time i built up a nice army of about 6 thors supported by marines/medivacs and some tanks. I figured this would be an awesome combation since thors own. And Well my thors all got feedbacked and died in 5 secs and then the toss proceeded to kill me. Thors are great heavy hitters but I think they need to take off the energy bar to be more useable. You can emp your own thors but thats a lot of gas going toward this build so if you lose this army you really can't remax too fast.
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On May 22 2012 20:25 Jumbled wrote:
Thors are avoided almost solely due to fear of feedback. During the brief period where Blizzard patched out Thor energy, they were extremely strong against Protoss. If you can minimise the risk of feedback, they likely will be useable.
I think it's primarily this and the immortal, where, when thor energy was re-added people just kind of screwed off the thor.
Then down the line people got a lot better at using ghosts to deal with high templar...but still forgot the thor and why they hated the thor in tvp. They they think of the thor and make blind statements about the immortals eating them all alive without considering how to deal with the immortals and then mention high templar without remembering ghosts. Basically it's easier to complain than to actually work and do things. People don't want to take responsibility for things. Hell, even protoss doing better recently get's a lot of credit from immortals getting one more range and upgrades getting slightly cheaper. How mcuh of that actually impacts anything protoss were doing? But even in their positives it's hard for people.That's my conclusion, and where I get off my soapbox.
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On May 23 2012 00:14 HeeroFX wrote:
Well, I have attempted to use thors a few times in this TvP. The first time i built up a nice army of about 6 thors supported by marines/medivacs and some tanks. I figured this would be an awesome combation since thors own. And Well my thors all got feedbacked and died in 5 secs and then the toss proceeded to kill me. Thors are great heavy hitters but I think they need to take off the energy bar to be more useable. You can emp your own thors but thats a lot of gas going toward this build so if you lose this army you really can't remax too fast.
Having to use a negative ability on your own T3 unit to make them moderately effective /sigh. Should be able to toggle off Thor and BC energy.
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I think thors are okay in the late midgame. Maybe as a late game transition they kindaaa work, but I haven't played around with them enough in the late game to know. I win a lot of my games where i add in thors, but I can't tell if it's the thor that gets me the win, or if more mmm would do the trick. I personally would rather get my thor feedbacked than eat a storm, so getting rid of templar energy that way is a win.
I think something to think about is adding thor/scv into a late midgame or early lategame attack. At this point in the game, terran should ideally be adding on orbitals to free up more supply, and instead of straight sacing scvs, put them on auto repair to give thors a little more durability.
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Could always make some marines to strike cannon if you fear feedback ^^
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Ah, people mentioned the mobility issue. I forgot to write about that. The thor's movement speed is 1.875, where marines and marauders run at 2.25. This difference might not be so significant if it weren't for the fact that stim speed is so much more, clocking in at 3.375. This might not be so huge either though, since stim lasts for only a brief time. A couple possible answers come up:
1) Only bring the thors once the big engagement is happening. The primary way to exploit mobility is drops, and there's no need to bring your whole army for drops. For general army movement as well, hoping to snipe a base perhaps, there's no particular need to bring the thors since you're planning to retreat if the Protoss army is there anyway.
2) Put the thors in medivacs. This is obviously a risky proposition, since the medivac can be sniped, but again, there's no particular reason you need very many thors. Pick a medivac that has low enough energy it can't be feedbacked to death, and put a thor in. When the Protoss army is close, drop it out again. If the protoss sneaks up on you, you're screwed, but between storms and colossi, you were screwed anyway if you let them sneak in that close.
To the feedback point, as mentioned, feedback is far less devastating than storm, and has the same range. The thor has 400 health, and its max energy is 200. That means if your Thor is maxed out on energy (and it generally won't be), it will lose half its health. Psi storm, meanwhile, does 80 damage to your 125-health marauder, knocking out over half the health of not one but several marauders, and completely killing your marines.
As for not being healed by medivacs, bring some SCV's. You're sacking them late-game anyway. It only takes 2 or 3 to match medivac heal rate, and unlike infantry, you can heal thors as fast as you want depending on how many SCV's you bring. C'mon, guys, at least give a little time to thinking of solutions to a problem before you assert that the problem is insurmountable and the strategy not viable.
Kukaracha: I get nervous any time anyone asks me what league I am in. To be perfectly clear, I am not discussing balance, or commentating a professional match, or criticizing the standard metagame as being grossly inefficient, or any of the things that forums insist require tip-top skill level to comment on. I am merely proposing, pondering, and discussing new strategies that might get an edge over my opponent, which I thought was encouraged at all levels of play. If you must know, I am in platinum league.
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Thors would also be nice to break ffs if your opponent overbuilds sentries. I think you have a good point. They're certainly niche, but in the right circumstances thors could be quite useful TvP
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They didn't give Protoss enough time to metagame back against the Thor change.
After Thorzain I believe pwned that tournament with Thors they got nerfed back.
A combo of Voidrays/immortals/charglots would destroy a mass Thor build. If you cannon strike Immo's with a bunch of chargelots the chargelots own Thors so bad, plus a few void rays...
nope! blizzards logic! nerf back after a week!!!
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Alright, I play Protoss so I'm no expert on the matter.
Thor: 300/200
6 supply 47 dps
0.81 CR
Marine: 50
1 supply
10.5 dps (stim)
0.38 CR
Marauder: 100/25
2 supply
10 dps (stim)
0.58 CR
We can reasonably say that each Thor in your army is "replacing" 6 supply of marines and marauders.
From a dps perspective, any combination apart from 3 marauders is going to have higher dps AND cost less than a thor-less army. So as damage dealers Thors are pretty crap.
CR stands for collision radius, which I'm going to use as a rough estimate of size. The numbers do seem a bit funky to me though... According to this, two marines is almost as wide as a Thor... if we go off that, then a Thor is really not worth it. I don't know. Darn, I was going to do all sorts of cool math.
I also couldn't find any numbers on the splash radius of a colossus, though I believe its about 60 degrees (dunno how that translates to collision radius units though).
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Tanks are great... Have you never heard of marine-tank in every match-up?
If not, try it out. Marine-tank is damn strong when used properly.
Before the Thor nerf you could go marine, hellion, thor and own shit up. A protoss would have to play brilliant to beat that shit. BUT! I also think that toss should have had more time to approach the lategame thor army.
Plz don't say silly 1/1/1's. Why are those builds silly? If you win with it, you win with it. It is brilliantly thought out, and it really punish anyone playing greedy, or not prepared for it coming.
And please remember, greed is also cheese.
In general i like how you theorize and compare units, but excluding the tank like that... what kind of %&/ is that -.-....
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Oh man, my tank criticism is getting some hate. Let me clarify.
The siege tank is easily my favorite unit in Starcraft 2 and the reason I play Terran. It can be used situationally in TvP, particularly as part of 1/1/1 all-ins, or as an early marine-tank push (I've seen Naama do this a lot, I think), or as part of one of the many mech styles that I've seen popping up here and there. Because I love the siege tank, I wanted very much to find a TvP style where the basic strength of the army was in tanks. The issue is that the Protoss army has a number of units that can survive a pretty high number of tank shots and approach very quickly. Blink stalkers get on top of you very easily, which can be somewhat addressed by spreading tanks. Zealots approach very quickly, which demands that your tanks be clumped so they kill all the zealots before they reach your tanks.
In my efforts to find a place for the siege tank, I frequently wound up in games where it was late-game, I had as many bases as a mech army could defend (this worked best on Xel'naga, back when that was in the map pool). Then the 200 food vs 200 food battles would commence (if I was lucky. If I wasn't he expanded quickly and mech couldn't stop that, so he had 200/200 when I had around 120 food). And tanks didn't win those convincingly. Usually they didn't win at all, and the reinforcement tanks and hellions could barely hold off the impending destruction. And in any engagement before max food, there just weren't enough tanks to handle the zealots. If he was smart, he'd just flood zealots at me and whatever they reached, died from tank fire. Hellions don't actually kill zealots as fast as you'd think; however big your pack of hellions, out of 10 or so zealots 1 or 2 will still reach the hellion back and destroy you with friendly fire. Eventually I had to give up on the siege tank entirely. Siege tanks are far better en masse, so a style that had just a few tanks with mostly bio wouldn't fare much better (tank friendly fire wrecks bio really quickly).
The main issue was not that tanks couldn't win fights. They did, fairly often even. If you got out a few ghosts to EMP immortals, it went even better. The issue was that they didn't completely wreck the other army. Because in an even or slightly T-favored trade, mech loses every time. 20 tanks are probably 200 times better than 1 tank, and if they traded armies and kept your army size low, you simply couldn't keep up. Once they were holding you around 100 food, you started losing every engagement.
The best use of siege tanks I've seen in TvP past early/mid game timing pushes is the mech + mass PF style. You literally fill the map with planetary fortresses, starting them outside your main and adding them just a little past the first ones like creep tumors. With PF support (they draw zealot agro and constrict movement, more than anything else), a mech army can convincingly defend protoss attacks. The issue is that there is precisely no way to put on aggression. Hellion runby's and hellion drops are about the only option, or I suppose banshees. Both hellions and banshees can be shut down hard by a good protoss. And then they could proceed to build their economy completely unhindered, since you weren't going to be attacking any time soon. Sometimes you win, though, if they don't recognize their safety and don't expand enough, or if they dump an army into your PF+tank line, or if you manage to trade so efficiently that you simply win the war of attrition.
So when I say I believe tanks are garbage TvP, it's not that there is no possible use for them. It's just that the tank is meant to be the least-mobile and most-powerful unit in the game. It's supposed to destroy vastly superior armies, and if your opponent wins, its because they could build so much larger armies than you because of their greater mobility that even losing every battle decisively, they manage to throw such a mountain of stuff at you that they eventually break your army's death ball. The way the Protoss army is structured, the tank simply can't do that. In general, it breaks even on a good day. And with all their other drawbacks, that simply won't cut it.
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On May 25 2012 02:31 Nizzy wrote:
They didn't give Protoss enough time to metagame back against the Thor change.
After Thorzain I believe pwned that tournament with Thors they got nerfed back.
A combo of Voidrays/immortals/charglots would destroy a mass Thor build. If you cannon strike Immo's with a bunch of chargelots the chargelots own Thors so bad, plus a few void rays...
nope! blizzards logic! nerf back after a week!!!
We'll let Thors have no energy if we can nerf Marine DPS and Medic healing for it.
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Templars feed back can beat thors, medivacs, and then turn into Archons for free while massing cheap costing chargelots should run over Marines just fine.
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EPT
