EPTWhy mech style is rarely used in TvZ?
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SiarX
131 Posts
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Akio
Finland1838 Posts
Of course it's still historically a viable strategy and this isn't meant to be definitive, just my two cents  | ||
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KameZerg
Sweden1767 Posts
A marine with stim and medic is the equivalent of a ranged crackling that can heal itself. | ||
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Nirli
Bulgaria379 Posts
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oBlade
United States5901 Posts
On June 09 2023 01:25 SiarX wrote: What are reasons for that? After all siege tanks can destroy hydras and hit through dark swarm, which is bane of bio terran, and vultures and goliaths are powerful support units. That's a nice fantasy but the reality is if your opponent has hive tech, your units are going to be the ones covered in dark swarm as you desperately try to save 3000 gas worth of units from some 25 cent rabid dogs. It's more than viable but it's not a default way to play TvZ because it's a choice that restricts your options in several ways that put you at a disadvantage against someone who knows what they're doing. On the other hand, you can exploit someone who doesn't know what they're doing, and it's also situational. From the opening you generally lack map control vs. muta openings as you have to rely on limited vultures to scout, deny, and harass. But you need that factory time to train tanks and gols probably for what will usually be a huge 2-base timing. If you lose most of this army while pushing and not taking out any bases, you usually just die. Mech is sensitive to catastrophic mistakes and getting caught out of position more than bio. You might think wait, my marines always somehow walk into lurkers and die all at once, isn't that the same? No, marines are dirt cheap and 2 minutes later you have 2 more control groups to zoom around the map stimming and bothering your zerg opponent's attention span. Bio you can stim, maneuver, and micro. Mech you can slip up and just lose everything. Lurker (or hydra) openings are in some sense what you want because that means he's started down the road of the composition that you're best equipped to fight. Depending on the map, you might want to go less all-in with your timing and crawl to take third and fourth bases. But this takes sense/experience/judgment because you taking your third base on mech, after you watch the replay, will usually end up with zerg taking a LOT more bases than you taking your third base on bio, due to again, not having map control. Don't misunderstand - Mech is a threat to the zerg user, but not if the terran player isn't aware of how to threaten him with it and acts passively, in which case the zerg will take a bunch of stuff and probably walk over you. A lot will hinge on your one and only army, and reading your opponent's economy and composition, and what units he has left, and whether you should split your army if you're ahead, where you should push and commit, etc. Not as clear as bio - let's stim and attack here, oh wait he swarmed the sunkens and lurkers, okay let's go over here instead, nope same, okay let's go back to the first place, oh look the swarm ran out and he's busy doing something else, we can wreck all his shit now. Late game conversion to mech happens much more naturally, as you preserve and build up an upgraded count of tanks (and ball of science vessels) from a long bio game, with a strong enough economy you can mass factories if you have a big war with ultras. This is good on 4 player maps when you've taken a second main and have space to build more production too. If your games last long enough, you should end up HAVING to do either this or BCs. | ||
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imBLIND
United States2626 Posts
Imo, its more of a matter of taste...would you rather starve your opponent out to death, or would you rather cripple their economy early? | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28743 Posts
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Leonix
161 Posts
Mech(from the start) has many problems, it is weak at the beginning since you skip tier 1, as much as possible. Scanners are delayed. More slow when the push comes. Different pushes can be defended more or less perfectly with enough practise in theory. Though Zerg seems to enjoy the run bys with vultures and often misses the terran army move out and also gets supply blocked exactly at that moment, for some reason... There are many ways to play vs different mech plays at different parts of the game. Queen OP vs mech, some people say, but only if you have 150 energy. Mech is not as consistent as bio, though many Zergs lose vs it and dont like to play vs mech and claim: "The strategy vs mech, is not letting the terran get an insane army" or "Just kill them before they are big" Than there those players with low apm that use terran and beat you with mech, some of those play on the Katrina all day long, others coach you and just destroy you every game with mech with no apm ... Perhaps just game knowledge and location hotkey, who knows? I imagine the main reason mech is "rarely seen", as you suggest, is because hardcore terrans like to challenge themselves with more mechanical demanding strategies. After all, they always enjoy to play the longest games, literally and to become actually better at Starcraft, specially with the maphack On. | ||
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kogeT
Poland2041 Posts
On June 14 2023 04:18 Leonix wrote: There is this one pro gamer, that is pretty much unbeatable with mech. Everytime he plays vs Zerg he loses to the one secret build order of Zerg, though. Mech(from the start) has many problems, it is weak at the beginning since you skip tier 1, as much as possible. Scanners are delayed. More slow when the push comes. Different pushes can be defended more or less perfectly with enough practise in theory. Though Zerg seems to enjoy the run bys with vultures and often misses the terran army move out and also gets supply blocked exactly at that moment, for some reason... There are many ways to play vs different mech plays at different parts of the game. Queen OP vs mech, some people say, but only if you have 150 energy. Mech is not as consistent as bio, though many Zergs lose vs it and dont like to play vs mech and claim: "The strategy vs mech, is not letting the terran get an insane army" or "Just kill them before they are big" Than there those players with low apm that use terran and beat you with mech, some of those play on the Katrina all day long, others coach you and just destroy you every game with mech with no apm ... Perhaps just game knowledge and location hotkey, who knows? I imagine the main reason mech is "rarely seen", as you suggest, is because hardcore terrans like to challenge themselves with more mechanical demanding strategies. After all, they always enjoy to play the longest games, literally and to become actually better at Starcraft, specially with the maphack On. Who is the pro you have in mind? | ||
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Smorrie
Netherlands2925 Posts
Mech generally makes your life a lot easier defending against muta harassment. There are a couple really strong timing pushes and once you get some upgrades on those goliaths, they are so strong. Seems so far most posts are detailing how suboptimal mech is, but it's easy to get stomped really hard (as Z) when you don't respond appropriately. Generally it also requires less mechanical skill, making it a comfortable strategy for T. | ||
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Mutaller
United States1051 Posts
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Li_Xin
51 Posts
1) Flash is the only pro I've seen that seems nearly unbeatable when he goes mech in TvZ, the other terran pros seem to struggle a lot with it. 2) Flash almost always open with bio and switches to mech later, doesn't seem to like opening with it very much. 3) Flash builds a lot of vessels when he goes mech as well and is very careful about keeping them alive other pros seem to struggle to keep vessels alive when going mech and aren't nearly as careful with them. Also, zergs obviously have 2 options: ling/ultra/defiler with overlords to drop them or hydra+queen. But neither seem to work very well vs Flash's mech lol. Sorry, I don't like to suck Flash's dick but from what I seen he really is by far the best at mech TvZ. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6811 Posts
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Crimson)S(hadow
Philippines596 Posts
though goliaths (esp with range) do a much better job at nullifying muta harass than marines, they are far less mobile and clunky to move around. these days, if korean pro zergs read mech, they get burrow instead of ling speed and burrow lings around the map and basically have map hack vs mech, since mech skips scan/detection all the way until vessals (which are also delayed since mech is itself gas-heavy). despite this, mech can be still effective as shown by royal, you need to apply pressure to prevent zerg from expanding too easily while trying to keep army losses to a minimum, because a win condition of terran is getting to late game with 3/3 mech | ||
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KrillinFromwales
68 Posts
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iopq
United States1053 Posts
On June 09 2023 01:25 SiarX wrote: What are reasons for that? After all siege tanks can destroy hydras and hit through dark swarm, which is bane of bio terran, and vultures and goliaths are powerful support units. The siege tank is a lie, it's actually self-propelled artillery On June 21 2023 10:06 Crimson)S(hadow wrote: straight mech is just less pressure on zerg. MM pushes hit around 5:00 - 5:30, while goliath +1 timing hits around 8:00. not only is the 8:00 goliath push later than bio, it is also easier to defend than the MM push because you only need 1 sunk in each base. though goliaths (esp with range) do a much better job at nullifying muta harass than marines, they are far less mobile and clunky to move around. these days, if korean pro zergs read mech, they get burrow instead of ling speed and burrow lings around the map and basically have map hack vs mech, since mech skips scan/detection all the way until vessals (which are also delayed since mech is itself gas-heavy). despite this, mech can be still effective as shown by royal, you need to apply pressure to prevent zerg from expanding too easily while trying to keep army losses to a minimum, because a win condition of terran is getting to late game with 3/3 mech You don't know that, what if the Terran does a speed vulture run-by? Speed vulture drop? Two starport wraith into mech? Mech switch into bionic? There's a ton of variations and timings and you can't just be safe against the one and expect to win. At the same time, Terran can't just take 3-4 bases and get 3-3 mech because the Zerg will make 20 queens and smash the Terran army when it peeks out | ||
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Dgamerskis
10 Posts
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Crimson)S(hadow
Philippines596 Posts
On June 27 2023 23:27 iopq wrote: The siege tank is a lie, it's actually self-propelled artillery You don't know that, what if the Terran does a speed vulture run-by? Speed vulture drop? Two starport wraith into mech? Mech switch into bionic? There's a ton of variations and timings and you can't just be safe against the one and expect to win. At the same time, Terran can't just take 3-4 bases and get 3-3 mech because the Zerg will make 20 queens and smash the Terran army when it peeks out from what i see from soma, if you chose to get burrow instead of ling speed (after suspecting tech/factory opening) here are the responses: -two port wraith: i've seen soma just burrow drones from the initial wraith harassment, allowing him to skip spores/hydra den until mutas/scourge arrive -vulture runby: simcity by putting buildings to block vultures at the entrance to the natural, using spire/3rd hatch/den/evo ect. cadenzie talked about putting a forward overlord to spot run-bys earlier as well. if it's a map where you can't make a vulture tight wall, you also want your lings near the ramp to block the vultures while the sunk kills them. (pull your drones from the nat to body block as well, so if your lings get targeted down your drones can body block) -speed vulture drop: just burrow drones at main if you can't evacuate them to natural in time, and wait for mutas to deal with speedvults. since terran is 1base teching, burrowing and waiting for mutas isn't that bad for you. also, since drones are considered "hovering units" even when burrowed, even if terran upgraded mines with the vulture drop, the mines won't trigger and target your burrowed drones. note: this is just my perspective from an A rank zerg who watches soma a lot, better zergs probably have a deeper understanding of the responses vs tech openings | ||
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iopq
United States1053 Posts
But sometimes you only see that the opponent blocked off the entrance with a barracks and two supply depots - that's scouting dependent (like drone scouting your opponent last) at that point (if you have no idea of the timing of the CC or if there is one at all) you should get a sunken, but you wouldn't know to get burrow or hydra den so you could end up losing to some BS like floated factory that you never saw coming. Even if you see the factory land and don't prevent it from landing you can't surround the first vulture because the factory lifts off after the vulture pops out I'd say factory first openings are very diverse and difficult to read if you don't get overlord scout first. Even on two player maps you can lose your first overlord if they start by bunker rushing you and then switching to factory. This is a well-known switch, but then you don't know their follow-up (could be two rax, could be cc, could be factory) so you have to be ready for everything | ||
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iopq
United States1053 Posts
Mong is among the last of the terrans who do a late mech switch | ||
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