EPTLoTvT
In this article I’m going to discuss the current state of TvT in LotV. It’s difficult to write about a matchup when the game is in beta but I do believe there’s a good chance TvT will remain somewhat similar to HotS. This is because the key unit to the matchup, the Siege Tank, will probably remain more or less unchanged and I cannot imagine Blizzard buffing or nerfing certain units to create an environment where this is no longer the case.
First, a disclaimer. I have not been practicing Mech in LotV so my understanding of Mech vs Mech is limited. There is an interesting new dynamic to Mech which might actually shove it out of the matchup entirely, which I will discuss later.
Marine/Tank TvT remains very similar to how it was in Heart of the Swarm in that it’s still about placing Siege Tanks in range of something your opponent controls. Terran units generally have the lowest hit points for cost ratio and this is reflected by how capably Siege Tanks pulverise them. The key difference in LotV is that now Siege Tanks can be moved around in Medivacs whilst in Siege mode, a Tankivac if you will, and this has several huge implications in regards to positioning and micromanagement.
Tanks need no longer be pre-positioned quite as carefully in order to repel attacks and setting up your own is much easier. There’s a small .75 second delay between when a Tank lands and when it can shoot so it will generally favour the one who plants their Tanks first but overall attacking and defending is a lot more fluid. The careful positional game of yore is still part of LotV but it’s much more tense as brief lapses of concentration can result in rather sudden consequences.
The Tankivac opens up a lot of micro opportunities. A skilled player can use it to reposition wounded tanks out of range of enemy Marines mid combat, use them for harassment and punish someone for not having any Vikings out through constant redeploying. Having tanks already set up also makes Doom Drops significantly more dangerous as any Marines stationed for drop defense will get mashed before they can get much done. It is very difficult to manage Tankivacs once you’ve got about four of them in a control group so be careful when choosing where to drop them before a fight starts. It’s very easy to get overexcited and drop them all right in front of your Marines as they charge into battle and completely screw up their concave.
I don’t think Tankivacs break TvT but it does make it feel a lot more tense. The importance of knowing where the opponent’s army is has gone up and a lack of awareness can be very devastating. It reminds me of HotS beta TvT when Doom Dropping was how most games ended and setting up a three base economy was extremely difficult but eventually we adapted and TvT became the positional tug of war we know and love. I would give it some time to see if LotV develops a similar way before deciding what to do about the Tankivac.
The structure of build orders in TvT remains very similar to HotS. Early game is about expanding and making a Starport and the extra minerals of the 12 worker start makes this all move along quite smoothly. Proxy Barracks strategies are almost effectively removed, which is nice, but there’s still plenty of opportunity to be aggressive in the early game with the usual suspects. Talk about the new reaper, there are some quite effective early reaper builds off a gas first and the new grenade can be a nightmare to marines. Medivac with a Mine and Marines, cloaked Banshee , Raven Viking Tank pushes are all viable just as they were in HotS only there’s less chance you’ll outright end the game early on. There’s almost always a midgame.
Just as in HotS, midgame TvT is about jostling for position with Tanks, Marines and Medivacs, and the late game is just an extension of the mid game but with more bases and upgrades. I’ve not had a game turn into a true stalemate situation and considering how strong Tankivacs are at attacking I do not expect to see such a situation unless the map was built a certain way. I find games also become very scrappy in LotV as it’s quite possible to have one player move out on the map with a push and the other moving a few Medivacs around the map for a big drop so players will have to continue to learn how to make snap judgments in difficult situations.
LotV brings us two new Terran units in the form of the Cyclone and the Liberator. They don’t have much place in core compositions but they do have a function.
The Cyclone has a bit of value defensively, having one Cyclone out will assist against a Banshee or a Medivac if for some reason you can’t make a Viking instead but once the game has turned into Tankivacs vs Tankivacs it has no place. It also doesn’t really function well as an aggressive opening option either. I am informed that it has a place in Mech vs Mech as part of 3 base timings but as my disclaimer made clear I cannot state this with any personal authority.
The Liberator does not function as an early game harassment unit since it’s pretty easy to keep it away with Vikings and Marines but I can think of one use for it. In HotS, against Mech, it was common to open with bio/tank pressure and then attempt to surprise the Mech player with a superior air army that included Banshees. Hopefully the Mech player had not added Thors and was vulnerable. Now in LotV, the Liberator can easily perform the role of the Banshee in a similar situation and not only is it less vulnerable against the Thor because of its Armoured status, it can smack them around in Defender mode.
The weakness of the Liberator is a mobile foe that can get around the radius but Mech is not a composition known for its mobility. If you were to set up a few Tanks and Liberators and maintain air control with Vikings and perhaps a Raven then I cannot see what the Mech player can really do about it. Add to this the general ease that Bio has securing addition expansions and this might be enough to force Mech out of the matchup entirely.
Overall I think TvT is in an alright spot. It rewards skillful play and caters to people who like to play a certain way, either with tight aggressive builds or defensive macro play. The introduction of the Tankivac and the 12 worker start shakes up the core gameplay enough to be different and challenging but not enough as to alienate Terrans coming over from HotS. I would definitely be concerned that Mech will become completely unviable due to Liberators and would encourage Blizzard to keep an eye on that. I hope this was informative, thank you for reading.
iaguz.
ON TANKIVACS.
I’ve been using the Tankivac a lot more recently and it deserves it’s own discussion so here goes. I’ve already described its role in TvT so now let’s talk TvZ and TvP and then talk about the Tank and Medivac as a whole. This piece is a lot more speculative than I would prefer but the game is fresh enough that there’s plenty to figure out.
The first thing Terrans did in the beginning of the LotV beta was open Tankivac harass in TvZ and the major Zerg response has been to open 2 base Muta. Not only because it’s just a solid build but once Terran has 2-3 Tankivacs out there is no Zerg response that doesn’t involve Spire units. As long as the Terran is careful not to lose his Medivacs to Queen shots (which is a little trickier than it sounds as the sight of a Medivac is only about one unit longer than the Queen’s anti air range) he can theoretically kill infinite Zerg ground units with its superior range and mobility.
As a result of the Tankivacs metagame, as well as the strength of Liberator harass openers, 2 base Muta is the go to Zerg opener. The Mutalisks pop out so soon that they will not only deflect Tankivacs before the Zerg takes any real damage, the Terran will be caught in a very disadvantageous position. Assuming they are going for a standard quick 3cc setup their infrastructure will be delayed enough that the Mutalisks threaten to set the Terran back a lot more than they would like and easily a lot more than they can handle.
If the Zerg opts for a strategy bereft of Mutalisks then they can look forward to Tankivacs giving them issues should a Terran build them. Want to go for some hatch tech aggression? Tankivacs can handle that. Roach/ravager midgame? Tankivacs got you covered, the Corrosive Bombs should never connect. Some kind of defensive Lurker thing into eventual Ultras? Tankivacs should be able to break through that in time handily. However against the standard Ling/Bane/Muta composition Tanks, even with Medivacs, are not quite as good as Widow Mines. They’re well suited to belting Roach based comps but the speed of Lings and Mutas and the mechanical difficulty of splitting Marines against Banes whilst managing Tankivacs is just a bit too much. Also they don’t do nearly enough against Ultralisks if the game should make it to that stage (but then, what does?)
The quandary that is posed here for Terran is how do you decide if and when to make Tankivacs. If you want to open with them you risk being set back by Mutalisks but if you don’t have them your army might suffer vs Roaches. Is the answer to scout, and if so when and with what? And from a broader perspective, is the Tankivac simply too oppressive? Does it force Zergs to have to open Spire just in case, and use Muta based compositions throughout the the midgame? These are not questions I have answers to and I believe time (and Koreans) will tell.
I’ve avoided using Tankivacs in TvP up until very recently. I’ve been mucking about with Bio/Liberator/Ghost and Tanks just don’t really fit into the styles of play I was doing but the recent development in PvT have demanded I switch it up. All the cool Protosses like to open fast Nexus, make an adept or two to pressure, add a robo for a warp prism for a bit of harass and an observer or two, throw down a 3rd nexus at around 4 minutes, add a Forge, Twilight Council and Robotics Support Bay and go for a mostly Disruptor/Blink Stalker composition.
Against a pure bio player this strategy feels impossible to deal with. The Warp Prism will likely harass successfully and a deftly controlled Disruptor/Gateway is very difficult to beat with Marauders and Medivacs, particularly on the defense when Photon Overcharge can get involved. Thing is, Stalkers, Disruptors and Photon Overcharge are all things that Tanks happen to be favoured against, especially when you can dodge the Disruptor blast and avoid Blink stalker shots and reposition mid-fight with the Medivac. My TvP game plan lately is just to go all in with Marine/Tank/Medivac on two base and my success rate is almost 100%.
The old weakness of Tanks in TvP was threefold: they didn’t do enough damage to Zealots, Archons and Immortals, they’re quite brittle and fall quickly once Protoss can focus them, and it’s very easy to catch a Terran unsieged and punish them. Thanks to the Medivac, the second and third weaknesses are mitigated substantially, which is a pretty big deal. It will be interesting to see if Protoss turn to Chargelots and High templar to secure a 3rd or perhaps they will be forced to delay taking a 3rd for quite some time? Perhaps Tankivacs are OP? I daresay there’s a lot more to learn about Tankivacs and TvP.
I find it very difficult to control Tankivacs en masse. Having 1-4 is alright but anything more and it gets very difficult to coordinate properly. Picking up multiple Tanks with Medivacs is fiddly as is landing them. Sometimes the Medivac refuses to land a Tank in a position where a Tank can siege normally, sometimes it’s off trying to heal wounded bio units instead of getting into fucking position, sometimes some Medivacs have their boost off cooldown and others don’t. I find the trick is to have a line of units that you can drop/load kite back towards and then just focus on being as abusive as possible with a handful of Tankivacs. Any excess Tanks you have should be part of this defensive line.
What this all leads me to think about the state of the Siege Tank in LotV is that the unit is incomplete without an accompanying Medivac. Opposing Tankivacs, Ravagers, Disruptors, Lurkers, these are all things that can spell doom for a regular Tank but that a Tankivac responds to favourably. For a Bio/Tank player it’s simple to line up 1 or 2 factory Tank production alongside a single Starport but for a Mech player I suspect it’s much harder to spare the gas for those Medivacs.
A Mech player must split his gas carefully between his Anti Air and Tanks and is generally rather stretched between all that. Will it become necessary that a Meching player mix in 3-4 Medivacs simply to ensure his Tanks are as strong as they would be if a Bio player is using them? I don’t really play Mech so I’m conjecturing out my arse here, but it’s an interesting discussion topic; the state of Tank Classic and what this means for Mech.
I guess I’m ending this piece with a lot of questions and no real suggestions. I like Tankivacs and don’t really want to see them go, but I feel I might understand it if Blizzard decide to scrap them eventually, hopefully with some sort of compensatory buff. But considering how much of the game has been built around Tankivacs existing I don’t feel this will happen. I definitely feel there’s a lot more to the unit than is currently understood and look forward to seeing what top tier Korean Terrans make of them.
Thanks for reading,
iaguz.
