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On March 22 2010 16:54 ChApFoU wrote:
I've been away from the game for quite a time too but as far as I remember mech vs zerg is kinda weak on most map and is countered by muta/ling into ultra/cracks/defiler. You might want to get ranged hydra if he's harassing hardcore with vultures early on. Don't forget that if you see him getting short of gas and lacking of vessels and goliath you can revert back to a surprise mass muta scourge.
There was an amazing mech T vs Z VOD around here not too long ago. The Terran was Flash but I don't remember who the zerg was, maybe Kwanro.
that game was more like how not to play against mech haha
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On March 22 2010 16:54 ChApFoU wrote:
I've been away from the game for quite a time too but as far as I remember mech vs zerg is kinda weak on most map and is countered by muta/ling into ultra/cracks/defiler. You might want to get ranged hydra if he's harassing hardcore with vultures early on. Don't forget that if you see him getting short of gas and lacking of vessels and goliath you can revert back to a surprise mass muta scourge.
There was an amazing mech T vs Z VOD around here not too long ago. The Terran was Flash but I don't remember who the zerg was, maybe Kwanro.
Day[9] advises against getting ultra to face mech.
Because they have so much hp, they take all the damage mech can throw at you instead of cutting it short like a ling would. They are very cost ineffective, and so he recommends a mix of hydra/muta/ling abusing your mobility early to take a ton of expansions.
Already been posted, but if you haven't listened to day[9]'s podcast on this, just do that.
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After countless battles with Mech Terran on destination and such I've come to the conclusion that facing Mech is quite complicated as well as simple.
I refer to the complex spectrum in terms of the many variations of Mech Terran such as fantasy build/vulture run by/vulture drop/pure goliaths/tanks.. However i will teach you some vital skills required to handle whatever Mech you face.
In the simple spectrum i refer to the simplicity of the game plan and that is out number your opponents units, out number his expansions and don't let him expand to more than 3-4 gas. Simple but its not as easy as it seems.
At lower level D-/D/D+ verse a Mech you should mainly be looking at pumping 2 primary units and that is the Zergling and Hydralisk. Everyone seems to underestimate the power of Zerglings against Mech late game. A combination of Zerglings and Hydra's is way more devastating than just pure Hydra's or Muta's OR Hydra and Muta. And of course going Hive late game is also very vital for the upgrade as well as Defilers. Defilers enhance the potential power of Zerglings and is key ingredient in weakening the Immense power of Mech.
When taking on Mech and you have scouted his early gas that is going up simultaneously with the Barracks he will 90% of the time make 1-2 vultures but if his doing a mine/speed vulture slaughter build where he pumps many vultures to some how scrummage his way through your choke point then you will lose unless you lose no drones whatsoever. A good way to prevent these vulture run by's is by placing you're Overlords in the correct spots to see what his doing if you see no speed upgrade and only mine, you know his expanding and making goliaths.
Although i cannot explain the nitty gritty of everything i would just like to summarise make sunkens early on to prevent Vulture's block your choke if possible with hydra's/Lings and put the overlords in the right spot to scout what his doing ( most important )** and i personally like to go early Hydra Den as well as the Ranged and Carapace upgrade for that extra fire power.
And the last thing that i want to say which is a big mistake many Z players make against Mech Terran is NEVER i repeat NEVER battle front on against a Seiged line of tanks and mines and goliaths and what not UNLESS you outnumber his units so immensely and only when you have so many hatcheries and so much resources available and even that i don't encourage.
Play tag with the Terran. Your the mouse his the Cat his fat and slow and lazy run and run around terrorizing his expo's never walk front on into him, drop his main drop his natural drop his expo's do whatever it takes to make him work for it.
-Intermediate Mech expert analyst/specialist.
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konadora
Singapore66145 Posts
3 Hatch Muta will be fended off easily with goliaths and turrets, unless you strike immediately and have decent micro. 3 Hatch fake muta into expand + hydras would work really well. Against Mech, the key thing you have to take note is that you must ALWAYS be far ahead than the Terran in terms of economy (unless you're Kwanro).
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On March 21 2010 21:53 Gao Xi wrote:
This should be in strategy.
Regarding the problem:
You should get hive pretty fast, but not as fast as you would if you were playing Bio, swarm really helps. You get hive around 4 gases usually. Once you have swarm, you should be getting ultras. Since the terran usually has a shit ton of tanks that will just rip through hydras even under swarm.
If you're attacking the mech ball while seige tanks are seiged, bring some lings and throw them first to draw tank fire, and move in with your hydras just behind the lings.
um no..
tanks deal over 70 amage, if you replaced those ultras with lings here is what would happen (assuming you mass hydra/muta as you should, then sprinkle in lings to take the initial fire instead of ultras)
1. you minimize the damage that tanks can do (tanks vs ultras will do full damage, while vs lings they would do a max of 35 damage
2. have more money for other stuff
3. if you continue ultra production then any halfway decent terran (flash did this too) will jhust mine up the field and your ultras will pop so fast, and its very bad for you because that is a lot of gas
a common misconception is to get a lot of carapace upgrades fast. well vs mech your shit is gonna die super fast, it is more important to do as much damage to the mech ball as humanly possible, you should max out on your attack first, prioritize your attack dmg upgrade, then if you want you can get carapace, but it is not htat effective
dont be afraid to expand zerg!! and one of the main reasons i used to lose to mech is i never kept hydras/mutas/ near my expaansions to ward off the vultures. even if a vulture gets one drone kill iit was worth it, keep like a sunken or two (even inside your main base, since vultures running past your nat sunken line is not uncommon (trust me))
as mentioned earlier, just get a lot of stuff, dont rely on lurkers/hive as much (im not sayin defilers are bad, but use it for plague more then dark swarm)
and please listen to the day9 podcast i linked, day9 basically says the same stuff i am
On March 21 2010 22:42 lazz wrote:
hydras.. mutas... expand a shitload..
dont get hive btw you dont need that shit vs mech
yes you do somewhat neeed it. when you hear day9 say stuff about hive vs mech, he is saying you shouldnt RELY on hive as much as vs bio which iss why you get it later
edit: i see a lot lot of people here saying hydra/ling is the way to go, and i disagree. you SHOULD sprinkle in some lings if you odnt have them, just to soak the initial fire, but here is the logic behind hydra/muta
1. (terrans point of view) oh he has a lot of hydra, ill just make mass tanks then i can push out)
2. terran is about to push out and sees a shit load of mutas. "ok now i need some mass goliath here to counter the mutas"
do you see what is happening here? by havin hydra/muta (and lings ^^) you are DELAYING his inevitable push, and delaying that push that long means more expansions for you, N A SHIT LOAD MORE UNITS to crush his push, and when he does finally push out, you will have like 4 control groups of hydras and 4 control groups of mutas then you can just attack move ftw
or if your kwanro you can ling bomb(lol)
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can someone recommend somepro mtches with good use of 2 hath muta? i feel like if the terran plays well you won't end the game, so I'm wonderng how much damage i have to do to make it worthwhile to open 2 hatch muta.
Almost every game they have enough turrets and quickly build up goliath count so I can't snipe many goliaths /turrets;
freaking range.
if i opened 2 hatch should i just get the minimal 6 and transition into hydras while expoing and droning fast, simila to what i do with 3 hatc muta?
i thought that most pros go valk early on in a fantasy type build to hold, but i can't even deal much damage when they just go fact with goliaths and range to defend
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Go with hydra muta while expanding alot. Get upgrades for mutas and hydras. Keep making mutas even if the opponent has turreted up. Use lots of drops cuz the main weakness of mech is mobility. And you have to finish your opponent early because you will not be able to win a 200 vs 200 battle against mech. So by the time you get dark swarm, move out.
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The best counter to mech is just to expand a shitton and make a shitload of crap and throw them at the terran intelligently. To scout mech early send an early drone scout, on 2 player maps you should be able to get in before his walloff completes, otherwise if your drone arrives at his base when he already has a wall there's a good chance that he'll be meching. Make a sunken to defend against early vulture harrass and make a den + some hydras to fend off possible vulture drops/speed runbys.
From then on it's really preference, some people prefer hydra/muta, some people prefer hydraling, some people prefer hive play. I'm much more lenient towards mass hydra/muta and delay that hive tech a lot until I have a monstrous economy.
Make sure that you're making a ton of bases. This is an absolute must versus mech. First of all, taking more bases means that that mech player has less bases to take himself. 2, if he decides to push out and tries to kill your expos, you can just counterrack and kill his third/nat/whatever base, a terran losing a base hurts a lot more than you losing 350 minerals and some drones.
I find many lower leveled mech players to be overly aggressive with their midgame units, but more competent mech players would concentrate more on just setting up a ton of bases and making a crapload of defenses. Against the former just spam some hotkeys with your hatches and push him back with box select and a-move as early timing windows for terran mech pushes are really thin unless he managed to do a ton of damage with vultures/drops. Against the latter just take more bases, don't have to saturate each of them but just having some mining is fine. Make sure that your terran opponent isn't expanding too much beyond a third or fourth base. Once you build up a ton of resources, spam some hatches and attack him with your huge 200 force. If you didn't screw up too bad you would lose your whole army but doing some decent damage to the T as well. Then with your massive amount of hatches just produce another 200 army and repeat until you break the terran defences. Do note that this is my style of play but you may prefer hive play over this if you have more success. But from my experience, one thing that I seriously stress is to never make ultralisks. Against m&m they're great but vs mech they're the worst possible things you could make. Tanks and mines will wipe out half your ultras and by the time they arrive at their targets another round of tank shots would take out them all. Lower tier units are much more effective vs mech.
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On March 22 2010 04:47 Gao Xi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2010 22:42 lazz wrote:
hydras.. mutas... expand a shitload..
dont get hive btw you dont need that shit vs mech what? Ultras under swarm take very little damage, goliaths and vultures do no damage to units under swarm. It should help a lot versus a late game mech army with a lot of tanks.
Ultralisks MELT under tank fire. +6 carapce doesnt do shit vs 85 splash.
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I'm not even close to the best but I feel I have a decent understanding about how mech works.
Ahzz has amazing videos on how to deal with mech and I definitely recommend going to his youtube channel and watching zvt mech.
A couple rules I would say
-expand like crazy - this has been pointed out a lot but it's important to realize how vital this is. You are able to expand fairly early and secure at least 3 bases, if not more.
-don't throw expensive units around (there's an argument going on and Ultralisks are NOT effective against mech AT ALL) stick to hydra/muta with upgrades and maybe some lings to spend any extra money
- Don't worry about rushing to hive - hive is mainly important for defilers and upgrades but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near as vital as it is in zvt bio. Just chill at lair for a bit until you can comfortably take it without any risk.
- Build units to counter his - if he makes tanks, make mutas and when he makes goliaths, make hydras- this keeps you in control of unit production and makes life living hell for him as he tries to counter what you make
-don't fall behind in upgrades - with all those bases you should definitely be able to afford it
- as a rule of thumb (for me) I follow Ahzz's advice and get a hydra den with my FIRST 50 gas after 3 hatches are down. This negates any vulture harass (with 1 sunken and 1-3 hydra(s) at ramp) and also severely limits the 2 port wraith build.
So in summary, ultras and lurkers are fantastic against bio, but hydra/muta is much more effective against mech.
EXPAND EVERYWHERE
keep up on upgrades
and don't panic when you see mech and as long as you can handle vulture harass you can easily secure enough bases to win
EDIT : When he moves out, consider a small (not too small like 12-16lings?) drop in his main just to keep him on his toes and make him paranoid.
EDIT 2: Defilers still rock
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One common mistake I make while versing mech is not being agressive enough. You should always try to secure as many bases as possible while massing your army, so as not to give T map control and overpower you.
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Day9 answers it best. Watch his analysis of Effort v Ruby on eye of the storm and Kwanro v Puma on Judgement day.
I think his livestream is livestream.com/striderdoom but if its not then just search day 9 daily on the TL search bar.
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On March 25 2010 00:52 SubtleArt wrote:
Day9 answers it best. Watch his analysis of Effort v Ruby on eye of the storm and Kwanro v Puma on Judgement day.
I think his livestream is livestream.com/striderdoom but if its not then just search day 9 daily on the TL search bar.
Also yes you need mutas AND hydras. Pure hydra allows him to mass as many tanks as he feels like massing while hydra / muta forces goliaths and turrets as well as gives more options for harass.
As a Terran I always lose to mech when zerg expands a lot in the midgame. Screw the bio ZvT concept of holding him back with mutas to secure a 3rd. Just take an extra 2 bases early in the midgame cause midgame mech pushes are weak as hell and you can generally crap out a ton of stuff if Terran pushes midgame.
Oh and always 3 hatch vs mech...its almost always better. You don't have maphacks (I hope) so you can't know right away if its mech but on maps like desti where bio is shit just 3 hatch right away
This is from a terran perspective btw.
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I don't think Terrans go mech much nowadays. Zerg players have adapted well against fantasy. Now that everyone spreads overlord to cover every nearby expansion and build good sim city, it's hard for mech to win in any map other than Desti. What I do is usually 2hatch using hatchery-den-spire to make a sim city. Get 7-8 mutas to clear mines -> harass + expand + drone powering -> Get overlord speed + build ~8 hydras -> expand again.
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Just a fun thing to keep in mind vs mech is even though lurkers are terrible vs it, a lot of meching players fail to get up adequate detection early on so lurkers can sometimes still do pretty good damage.
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EPT
