This match-up is probably my favorite match-up to play in SC2, I had pretty high hopes for this if I'm honest. My expectations for this were pretty simple. I would just straight up die to any early pool business. In fact, over the course of a couple of days, I died straight up to a lot of things. Mutalisks swooping over the cliffs around my natural, Lurkers absolutely shredding my paltry bio forces, and Defilers spouting fanta-clouds of doom.
And I loved it.
TvZ feels a lot more visceral in comparison to the games I have played TvP. The whole match-up feels really cut-throat, not that that is a bad thing at all. The sounds of Zerg appear to be a lot more menacing than in SC2, (dat Zergling attack audio.)
I was stumbling quite hard through the past couple of days, when I saw logging in recently that my sins were indeed forgiven, and I was presented with a new slate to etch my terrible winrates upon. ICCup's new season has started.
Around this time, I found somewhat of a foothold in the match-up. Ringo came to me in a dream, he said;
''Stop being bad, execute your build better, get 3 barracks, and tech to Factory and Starport, get 3 Tanks with Siege and Science Vessels with Irradiate. Macro baby, macro.''
And gradually, I am improving.
My mid-late game is admittedly horrible, my unit control is abysmal, and I let a won game go on for 20 minutes, but I am slowly getting better.
Here are two games of TvZ, the first is just to show my build, and also how bad I was at finishing the game, Defilers and Lurkers are pretty scary still ;;
Here is a BONUS TvP game showing probably the game that made me just sit in my chair with sick nerd chills, this was the point BW hooked me, line and sinker.
So far, I am pretty content with my progress, I need to slowly learn the different stages of the game, trying to learn everything at once would just confuse me I feel, there is simply too much to learn. Keeping the pieces bite-size until I arrange them all together, jigsaw style, is the best bet to getting a grip on the game, hopefully you guys feel the same way.
Hope you are still enjoying my blogging, my next one will probably be on TvT, and that might take a long time. I have still a very long way to go in learning TvZ, and as always I want to take my time with it and enjoy it.
Thanks for reading, any critique or comments are always read and appreciated.
TvZ is an incredibly fun matchup to watch. Well not to play for me as I'm protoss.
In general, I would say 2 rax academy is not really a good build though as it's fairly easy to defend against and leaves you economically crippled.
You can easily defeat early lings with 1 rax by doing a ling tight wall-in or putting 3 scvs in the ramp. Not counting 4pool as it's way too early to wall against.
Glad to see that you are enjoying TvZ. It's the best matchup in BW IMO and one of the only matchups that I can play nonstop. The matchup is just really exciting especially with all the different possibilities. It sounds like you've only tried biomech so far. I'm sure you'll love the matchup some more once you play SK Terran (MnM with mass vessels off 2 port) and pure mech (pure mech with vultures, tanks and goliaths). Best of luck!
On June 03 2015 18:09 Endymion wrote: TvZ is the hardest MU in the game, so it's good that you enjoy it now ^^
Early on, it's hard for the Z but later on, it's hard for the T unless you are able to keep up with the macro and multitasking in general.
On June 04 2015 05:48 BigFan wrote: Glad to see that you are enjoying TvZ. It's the best matchup in BW IMO and one of the only matchups that I can play nonstop. The matchup is just really exciting especially with all the different possibilities. It sounds like you've only tried biomech so far. I'm sure you'll love the matchup some more once you play SK Terran (MnM with mass vessels off 2 port) and pure mech (pure mech with vultures, tanks and goliaths). Best of luck!
On June 03 2015 18:09 Endymion wrote: TvZ is the hardest MU in the game, so it's good that you enjoy it now ^^
Early on, it's hard for the Z but later on, it's hard for the T unless you are able to keep up with the macro and multitasking in general.
i have never lost to an SK terran unless they had 450+ apm, that style is impossible for any terran to pull off without godlike speed. can't comment on how fun it is before defiler ultra ling crushes all pitiful human resistance though :p
On June 04 2015 05:48 BigFan wrote: Glad to see that you are enjoying TvZ. It's the best matchup in BW IMO and one of the only matchups that I can play nonstop. The matchup is just really exciting especially with all the different possibilities. It sounds like you've only tried biomech so far. I'm sure you'll love the matchup some more once you play SK Terran (MnM with mass vessels off 2 port) and pure mech (pure mech with vultures, tanks and goliaths). Best of luck!
On June 03 2015 18:09 Endymion wrote: TvZ is the hardest MU in the game, so it's good that you enjoy it now ^^
Early on, it's hard for the Z but later on, it's hard for the T unless you are able to keep up with the macro and multitasking in general.
i have never lost to an SK terran unless they had 450+ apm, that style is impossible for any terran to pull off without godlike speed. can't comment on how fun it is before defiler ultra ling crushes all pitiful human resistance though :p
the style might be hard to play but its a really strong style. Imagine having 7-10 vessels with irradiate and d-matrix at your disposal. Late game is really hard though lol. My heart stops once a zerg gets plague on my vessels ;; I've won games with it though but here and there, not consistently.
On June 04 2015 06:59 mau5mat wrote: I can't remember who, but I watched a game of someone going Bio + Goliath, is that a thing or was it just player/map specific strategy?
hmm there's a Mind vs Killer game in 41 Starleague Season 2 where Mind did that but he got crushed lol. I believe the map was Neo Medusa. It's likely player/map specific. I've done it before for fun and its good against mutalisks but mostly that. I wouldn't hesitate to do it for fun. Part of playing a new game is to try stuff once you know normal game flow, usual compositions etc...
You might want to learn 1 rax FE instead, because 2 rax academy is only good against pool first builds. Against 12 hatch (which is standard) you should lose every time, since they can just build some sunkens when your push comes and the game's basically over.
On June 04 2015 06:59 mau5mat wrote: I can't remember who, but I watched a game of someone going Bio + Goliath, is that a thing or was it just player/map specific strategy?
I remember Hwasin used to play around with that build. It's more of a timing attack that you can use against a muta build especially against 2 hatch muta. It's quite powerful against muta/lings, but I've never seen anyone else use it. I'm guessing it's because it transitions poorly to lategame play.
On June 04 2015 05:48 BigFan wrote: Glad to see that you are enjoying TvZ. It's the best matchup in BW IMO and one of the only matchups that I can play nonstop. The matchup is just really exciting especially with all the different possibilities. It sounds like you've only tried biomech so far. I'm sure you'll love the matchup some more once you play SK Terran (MnM with mass vessels off 2 port) and pure mech (pure mech with vultures, tanks and goliaths). Best of luck!
On June 03 2015 18:09 Endymion wrote: TvZ is the hardest MU in the game, so it's good that you enjoy it now ^^
Early on, it's hard for the Z but later on, it's hard for the T unless you are able to keep up with the macro and multitasking in general.
i have never lost to an SK terran unless they had 450+ apm, that style is impossible for any terran to pull off without godlike speed. can't comment on how fun it is before defiler ultra ling crushes all pitiful human resistance though :p
the style might be hard to play but its a really strong style. Imagine having 7-10 vessels with irradiate and d-matrix at your disposal. Late game is really hard though lol. My heart stops once a zerg gets plague on my vessels ;; I've won games with it though but here and there, not consistently.
On June 04 2015 06:59 mau5mat wrote: I can't remember who, but I watched a game of someone going Bio + Goliath, is that a thing or was it just player/map specific strategy?
hmm there's a Mind vs Killer game in 41 Starleague Season 2 where Mind did that but he got crushed lol. I believe the map was Neo Medusa. It's likely player/map specific. I've done it before for fun and its good against mutalisks but mostly that. I wouldn't hesitate to do it for fun. Part of playing a new game is to try stuff once you know normal game flow, usual compositions etc...
op i can't stress bigfan's post enough, there's a ton of nuance in bw compared to sc2 so there's a lot more learning that you'll do before you start becoming consistent.. i know that when i started taking BW seriously i would feel anxious whenever someone did an unorthadox build because while unorthadox, a strange build in a good player's hand is still just as deadly if not more so than a normal build if you don't know its weaknesses. this is juxtaposed, imo, with sc2 where compositions and how they behave/engage strange builds are fairly straightforward due to how well damage types are explained in sc2, and how uniform engagements are. for example:
"The Goliath's air attack is actually two simultaneous rocket attacks, meaning a unit's armor should be counted twice. In addition, it is an explosive attack type, so it does 50% damage to small units, 75% damage to medium units, and 100% damage to large units, meaning it is most efficient against heavier air units." ~ liquipedia
since mutas are regarded as small air units, they take 50% damage from goliaths, making them a counter in large numbers to mech play (and the more uncommon goliath based bio play). it also means that +1 air carapace is super good for mutas vs mech, and +1 vehicle weapons is very good for goliaths vs mutas (also +1 vehicle weapons gives goliaths +2explosive damage per missile, netting you +4 explosive damage pre armor). since this information isn't readily displayed in client in bw, it can make it hard for new players to learn the nuances of the game.
likewise, hydras are medium ground units that also deal explosive damage, making them bad vs mutas without plague support. unfortunately, they take 100% damage from goliath ground weapons since the goliath's ground weapon is a machine gun and not missiles. unfortunately for terrans, goliaths are large ground units, meaning that hydras deal 100% of damage to them. As such, a strong zvt anti mech composition mid game is hydra muta.
There seems to be some discrepancy with the answers here.
Archons and Siege Tanks ordinarily deal only their splash damage, like people have said. However, the thing to remember is that every shot that Dark Swarm deflects will land in the exact same location every time depending on the location of the attacking unit. So, it's predictable where the shots will land, and that means with proper targeting you can force shots to land in certain places. For example, Dark Swarm will always cause shots to fall short by about 0.5 matrices. This is the same radius as the Archon's 1/4 splash ring and the Siege Tank's 1/2 splash ring. That means that any unit attacked by a Siege Tank or Archon will suffer this amount of damage, yet the shots will always land in the same place.
To extrapolate, let's say that there is a unit who is standing 0.5 matrices behind the intended target relevant to the direction of the attacking unit. This second unit will receive only splash damage because Dark Swarm causes the shot to fall short, but the intended target will receive full damage because Dark Swarm is causing the fire to land directly on it. We have already stipulated that burrowed units do not take damage from splash, which is why Lurkers are especially effective. However, given that the shot trajectory in terms of Dark Swarm is predictable, even a Lurker would receive full direct damage based on this fact.
Also, the SCC is wrong. Worker units deal zero damage under Swarm.
Firebats will deal their full damage because their attack is line splash damage, the same principle as Lurkers. That means that as long as the unit is stationary, the shot can never miss. Even though they're a terrible, awful attempted counter to Lurkers, if you've got enough of something... ]
~ Excalibur_Z from 2006
Edit ~ actually idk how much of the darkswarm post is true, i think it just blocks all direct damage but splash stays (ie tank direct hits do no damage, but the aoe from the hit does.. archons do full since their attack is just considered aoe though?) i dont think tank shells are displaced
On June 04 2015 05:48 BigFan wrote: Glad to see that you are enjoying TvZ. It's the best matchup in BW IMO and one of the only matchups that I can play nonstop. The matchup is just really exciting especially with all the different possibilities. It sounds like you've only tried biomech so far. I'm sure you'll love the matchup some more once you play SK Terran (MnM with mass vessels off 2 port) and pure mech (pure mech with vultures, tanks and goliaths). Best of luck!
On June 03 2015 18:09 Endymion wrote: TvZ is the hardest MU in the game, so it's good that you enjoy it now ^^
Early on, it's hard for the Z but later on, it's hard for the T unless you are able to keep up with the macro and multitasking in general.
i have never lost to an SK terran unless they had 450+ apm, that style is impossible for any terran to pull off without godlike speed. can't comment on how fun it is before defiler ultra ling crushes all pitiful human resistance though :p
It's more of a trend shift. SK Terran was very powerful when Zerg stayed on lair a lot longer. mines and tanks are just a lot more efficient when you've got 4 bases and you need to stop zerg ultra defiler. Your 12 vessel cloud isn't as valuable when it can just get plagued and killed with one muta in 5 seconds. Not an apm problem, but a strategy mismatch problem.
Other problem is no high level examples of SK Terran, because high level zerg don't play lair tech zerg much anymore. Killer did it a bit in SSL a long time ago.
EPT
