I see both toss and zerg players complaining about terran tanks being imba. I hope that the admins don't close this thread because this is (in my opinion) an interesting discussion.
My questions for toss and zerg players:
1) Imagine 10 tanks protected with mines and vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine zerg units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
2) Imagine 10 tanks protected with vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine protoss units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
3) How bad are basedrops (with overlords) as a zerg? Did you ever moved a whole mech army up your ramp as a terran? It takes a lot of time. By the terran is up, you could have killed a lot of stuff. Then you just load everything back in the overlords and you retreat. Expand and repeat.
4) How bad are armydrops as a zerg? I can imagine terrans having a very hard time if a zergs loads his overlords with zerglings and ultra's, and drops it on the siege tanks. Splash will destroy a lot of their own tanks and ultra's will just finnish everything off. Thors are weak vs overlords so those will not be sniped that fast.
5) I never saw a protoss player using hallucinations against me going mech. Let those take the first shots, spread your army, spread your HT's and storm him to dead. Is this viable?
6) Make more use of a mothership. A mothership costs 400/400. An arbiter costs 100/350. Mech is immobile so you can expand a lot as a protoss. Minerals will not be a problem. A mothership can vortex, it cloacks, it attacks. But: I understand it's a little bit weak. Is it not worth the money?
All these things are theory and I want to know if they work (and if they don't: why?) and if they are true/false. I want to ask people to post as much as replays as possible. It would be nice to see terrans posting replays where their mechplay gets destroyed by a zerg or a protoss player.
The main question is: are tanks IMBA, and why? What could be a sollution? Please make sure your post has evidence in it! Be objective.
Drops are possible, but I think terran players are overstating how easy they are to accomplish. If the T player has a big ball army, then yeah, but if they're also being good about scouting and keeping units separate, then it's hard to find an opening that'll cause enough damage.
I think right now the number 1 problem are the maps people play on. Metalopolis and LT are the best maps for ZvT and even those have some features that are easily exploitable by T. Blizzard's maps suck, people need to start playing real maps in order to judge this kind of balance.
On June 02 2010 20:08 lew wrote: Oh and as a terran player I really don't have a problem with a terran nerf. People should just play the game as blizzard offers it.
Yeah, one patch they make Stim a lot cheaper and the next patch they fix it by dropping Viking ground damage by 2. Your nerf really makes it hard to want to keep playing T. I'm glad you're sticking with it.
On June 02 2010 20:17 Jibba wrote: Drops are possible, but I think terran players are overstating how easy they are to accomplish. If the T player has a big ball army, then yeah, but if they're also being good about scouting and keeping units separate, then it's hard to find an opening that'll cause enough damage.
I think right now the number 1 problem are the maps people play on. Metalopolis and LT are the best maps for ZvT and even those have some features that are easily exploitable by T. Blizzard's maps suck, people need to start playing real maps in order to judge this kind of balance.
Unfortunately though blizzard maps are the ones we're going to be playing while laddering, so that isn't really a valid argument. Hopefully after the game comes out, and some more professionally made maps come out, in HotS they take lessons from the maps people make.
All in all though I think blizz's sc2 maps are quite good (some of them), if you look at the blizzard bw maps they tend to be weird, mechanic broke, and race favoring (expo with 4 mineral patches anyone?) Many maps lacked naturals, which they honestly should have thought would be anti zerg considering their hatcheries are cheaper than nexus/cc.
The problem with mech terran is that their units are way more cost effective than that of the other two races because basicaly all their units are a (very) hard counter to something in particular and do just fine with the rest. For exemple vs Zerg : Tanks rape hydra very bad., and if well placed own every thing else that doesn't fly. Hellion own hydra and zergling Thors vs mutalisks is a joke Vikings vs anything else that flies a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
That being said, the only way to beat a terran mech as zerg is : a) get an early timing push when he doesn't have his mech build in place b) get all sorts of possible harass you can using mobility (6 mutas, nydus, drops etc...)
Droping in base is pointless, as you will still get killed by 3 tanks placed at three different corners of the base.
I beleive protoss have the same kind of problems with this build
Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
No, that's not how Z and P players responded to bio AT ALL.
P responded with either colossi/speedlot or mass storm if they were smart, because their 1a just gets silly raped by emp + stimmed bio. I don't think you can completely circumvent bio in TvP, you need at least ghosts late game and a few marines/marauders early game.
Z has this wonderful spell called fungal growth, which is like storm + plague + lockdown combined, costs 75 mana, does not require research and is available at lair tech, which makes pretty much any attempt at going bio = roflskate, unless you already had a huge advantage. Thus terran players responded by going mech. It's not really imba, since it's incredibly gas intensive.
Z just also got another buff for their ultras, which should weaken mech somewhat.
I play zerg at a fairly high level, and despite tanks being very strong in the current form, I wouldn't call them imbalanced. I haven't had that much trouble beating tank heavy terran balls with speedling/roach, burrowed roaches, infestors, or broodlords. You just have to be very careful not to engage too early, or in a bad position.
With speedling/roach, flanking and surrounding is key. Once your lings get to his units his tanks will start to be counter-productive. Usually terrans will keep them unsieged vs roaches, so the lings are there mostly to take maurader/tank fire.
Burrowed roaches... well I'm sure you can figure out how to use them.
With Infestors, grab any thors you can first then as many tanks as possible while whatever else you have takes the damage.
With broodlords just make sure they stay alive, and he won't be able to siege his tanks near them because broodlings will poop on his army.
Mech still has the same problems it did in broodwar, which is he can't stop me from taking the map. ^^
edit: oh and i heard mutas kill tanks pretty good if 2+thors aren't around;)
Terran players are seriously overestimating how viable drops are. Yes you can do a lot of damage if, and only if terran isnt very good or arent expecting it at all. If he has turrets, vikings (like usually he does) and leaves a few tanks in the base, the drop harass quickly becomes a suicide mission.
The other point was that "drop lings and ultras" or units in general on to the tanks. Well thats a good idea if he has only tanks. Throw some thors and marines in there and your units are dead before they hit the ground.
Mech isnt impossible to beat, but now you just have to seriously outplay your opponent.
The problem isn't tanks. The problems is tanks and thors and vikings and lack of swarm.
Before there was no fast air unit other than vessels, because wraith were trash and vessels had obvious drawbacks of not being able to attack. Now vikings are extremely fast, extremely fast to build and they do dominate air, and they aren't all that bad on the ground either. You can use them to hit with their ridiculous range and then pull back into the tank/turret line which makes them very powerful.
Then after that threat we have to deal with the thor. Goliaths didn't used to do splash. It used to be that you could take a reasonable amount of goliaths with mutas, and then if he over produced, they were somewhat vulnerable on the ground. Thors are pretty damned good both on the ground and in the air.
But the biggest problem is that you used to be able to swarm to get near the tanks and completely nullify every attack that terran had outside of splash, and that helped a lot. Zerglings with swarm were a decent counter to tanks in BW. In SC2 you'll be lucky to get a single zergling out of 50 up to the tanks alive.
Edit: Oh yeah and drops. They are so risky now with vikings and sensor towers. Have you ever had 5 overlords die enroute before? It's gg right there. There is no surprise anymore once the game gets to a certain point. And even if you land the drop, are there tanks nearby interweaved into the buildings? Because if there are your drop isn't going to do much.
no its just that zerg players complain. just watch some of the gomtv protosses, they humiliate terran with a build that goes like this: 1.heavy stalker opening with quarter zealot mix +1-2 sentries. 2. as time passes by army becomes more zealot heavy. 3.tricks terran into overproducing factory units. 3. charge is upgraded and zealot + forcefields buy a lot of time. brute force with a ton of gateway. inefficient but you can brute force it with stronger economy. 4.1-2 stargates you win > mass void ray.
zerg just attack move too much. they play too much simcity and allow terran to critical mass tanks that's all. all the zerg players are playing them the wrong way. zerg are meant to make great use of mind games by burrowing and fighting only when they can win. most zerg players just attempt to cancel out with brute force and watch the battles go to see if their army can win the fight. that's why against terran always burrow if you cannot win the fight.
zerg players need to have the mindset to force terran to get a goddamn useless raven to detect. hydras are only meant to comprise no more than 20% of your army, most of it should be a mix of roaches mutas and zerglings.
Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
No, that's not how Z and P players responded to bio AT ALL.
P responded with either colossi/speedlot or mass storm if they were smart, because their 1a just gets silly raped by emp + stimmed bio. I don't think you can completely circumvent bio in TvP, you need at least ghosts late game and a few marines/marauders early game.
Z has this wonderful spell called fungal growth, which is like storm + plague + lockdown combined, costs 75 mana, does not require research and is available at lair tech, which makes pretty much any attempt at going bio = roflskate, unless you already had a huge advantage. Thus terran players responded by going mech. It's not really imba, since it's incredibly gas intensive.
Z just also got another buff for their ultras, which should weaken mech somewhat.
The one problem is that fungal growth is like a shitty version of all of those spells. It stops movement, but doesn't stop attacking. It does damage, but barely any. Also it has a tiny ass radius compared to storm. It's only real major factor is that it can delay a terran from attacking you, or prevent retreat. It's damage is barely noticable, compared to the fact that it stops them from moving.
really imho people really need to wait for this abit. since when is mech playble and often used? like 2 weeks?
most people just play wrong against it cause they are used to bio evrygame. when i see a P get mass stalkers and colloxen against my rine/tank/raven/banshee i just giggle, swap a port with a reactored rax and win 3 mins later. and still like evry 2nd toss does exactly that even at upper mid diamond (~500 rating atm). same goes for Zs massing hydraling and trying to aclick me death at the front.
so imho first we need the people to adapt before we can even see if something is imba. terran was thru the most "style changes" while Ps for example still very often do exactly the same that they did 3 months ago at the start of the beta.you just cant go 2/3 gate robo and aclick vs evry strat and then cry out when it doesnt work anymore.
The problem with mech is that players dont use too much bio to defend tanks, they use vikings. Therefore the drops and mothership you suggested would be completely raped.
My first impression of that post was that it comes down a lot to the maps.
I think you are totally right about the immobile mech army, the leak of drops and how powerful they are (see White-Ra vs Maka D9D #127 to get a glimbs on what drops are worth). I think Zerg just has to get used to more micro based play in case they face terran mech. The tables have turned, Protoss is now facing much more often a marauder based army while zerg has to face much more tanks. Remember in BW where Protoss faced exclusivly tanks and zerg almost always MM (and Tanks in case of lurker/hydra)? So what Zerg has to get used to is, what Protoss did a couple of years ago - the abuse of mobility - which means burrowed roaches (their regeneration rate is now more easy available), drops perhaps even infested terran, who knows. Like suggested in the OP even ultra might be your weapon of choice.
To my honest opinion this is the main issue and it's no longer like "swarming a-click", it is more and people begged for it: more caster/ability-heavy play (see overseer buff and infestor changes).
What i clearly see in general is the design of the current maps which is in most cases pretty tight and small which offers a lot of opportunities to create a choke for the tanks (Inceration Zone, Steppes of War for instance). I mean even Paranoid Android had that gigantic bridge which offers spreading your units. So I think with time there will be a lot of maps that give your more opportunites to surround your enemy. Tough we have to keep an eye on the fact that the pathfinding AI is much smarter now, which might causes clear balance issues on certain maps.
I never go mech against a toss player since immortals will just eat tanks and thors alive. I sometimes try to use ghosts to emp them before they can take out my line of defense, but I just find bio play to be better against toss for me.
As a terran player, I don't think terran mech is very imba because at prepatch platinum 2000+ and postpatch 500+ mech has not allowed me to get away with bad micro/macro.
TvZ Terran mech definitely stomps zerg's only-gruond army with a tank-heavy army. However, FE into 2 base mutalisks pose a problem because MM lacks mobility and vikings are not great against mutalisks (1st wave of muta will overwhelm w/e initial number of vikings against a non-viking core build, and afterwards when zerg can just pump mutas and terran wants to make only the minimum amount of vikings). Therefore terran needs to get thors. But thors make for very critical weaknesses 1. It makes terran's anti ground significantly weaker b/c 2 tanks are much better investment. 2. A thor-centric army is terribly vulnerable to infestors later on. 3. Thor is not a viable AA against blords or corrupters, only mutas.It's very specialized, and if the opponent stops muta production it's a pretty mediocre investment that can hurt you through neural parasite 4. Having less tanks and more thors will delay the timing push against the inevitable ground army of lings/roach/hydra. Unless the zerg goes complete mutaling, which is a strong combo against bio but not very great final composition against mech.
So for these reasons terran want to get minimum number or thors to deal with mutas and use your resources and factories building tanks.
The overall weakness with mech is that it is very immobile and lets the zerg expand twice, which is enough for end-game army composition over time. Once the zerg gets broodlords, it counters all terran ground. Therefore, the terran's main challenge is to survive the zerg's first tech and macro up to have a final composition that can fight a superior zerg ground army and zerg's 3-base macro while being able to stand against broodlord support.
Right now, on my level of play, I feel that TvZ is very balanced; a better player will be able to win, and the better skill/play will definitely make itself clear during watching the replay.
TvP Colossi do really well against tanks. And makes tank army much more immobile because a tank army cannot engage even an inferior colossi army unsieged because they get destroyed.
I used to think that mech was overpowered against protoss ground, but affter few games where I saw protoss's strengths in colo, stalker blink, and superior production mechanic allowing quick tech changes, I don't think it's op. Different maps will give advantage to different strategies, of course, in that in small maps mech is a lot more powerful b/c mobility is less of an issue, and in backdoormaps mech is a lot weaker b/c of the vulnerability during late-early and early-midgames.
about hallucination: Against mech I'd rather have something that isnt gonna die in a split second, aka immortals. It's really the only thing that can take shots of a real mech army and not die in the very first volley of shots. Of course immortals become useless with the first emp. What I find pretty annoying is that, opposite to bw, tanks dont even need hellion protection against zealot numbers that arent way superior, even with charge cause of the smarter attacking on the tanks. Also tanks just generally do waaaay less friendly fire damage than in sc1.
Not necessarily saying that anything is OP though, I might just need to improve as a player.
Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
No, that's not how Z and P players responded to bio AT ALL.
P responded with either colossi/speedlot or mass storm if they were smart, because their 1a just gets silly raped by emp + stimmed bio. I don't think you can completely circumvent bio in TvP, you need at least ghosts late game and a few marines/marauders early game.
Z has this wonderful spell called fungal growth, which is like storm + plague + lockdown combined, costs 75 mana, does not require research and is available at lair tech, which makes pretty much any attempt at going bio = roflskate, unless you already had a huge advantage. Thus terran players responded by going mech. It's not really imba, since it's incredibly gas intensive.
Z just also got another buff for their ultras, which should weaken mech somewhat.
The one problem is that fungal growth is like a shitty version of all of those spells. It stops movement, but doesn't stop attacking. It does damage, but barely any. Also it has a tiny ass radius compared to storm. It's only real major factor is that it can delay a terran from attacking you, or prevent retreat. It's damage is barely noticable, compared to the fact that it stops them from moving.
1. It deals guaranteed damage and cannot be dodged unlike storm. 2. The damage is considerable against marines, which are a huge part of bio, it also drains medivacs of energy very quickly after the fight is over (if you actually have any bio left rofl) 3. The immobilizing effect is much much better than you imagine, if you actually have units other than infestors. It also removes bio's greatest advantage - mobility. 4. One thing I forgot before - does not hit friendly units, so it can be cast when your army already engaged right into the midst of battle. 5. Techwise you can get it much earlier than storm (200 gas for archives, 200 gas for storm compared to 100/100 for lair/pit).
The small radius is the only thing that makes it not game breaking, but only slightly OP. Otherwise it is a much better spell than storm all around.
I think that one of the main reasons why tanks are so powerful are map pool. Maps are too small, even large maps like kulas or lt can be easily controled by a batch of tanks, Build 2-3 sens tower and u will see all the drops.
Because of maps there are very few possibilities to spread your army in attack to minimize splash damage, and splash is much more powerful now. Like how many units can be hit by 1 tank in BW ? In sc2 it's like 8-10hydras\roaches.
Because of small maps it's hard to use immobility of tanks against good terrans, because distances isn't that big. And u cant make terran spread tanks to much so that u can break through tank line because maps aren't that big. Usually u can cover almost all your bases with just 1 army ball in the center of the map. And there are also vikings, they compensate immobility of the tanks and can defend against drops rather easy.
And 1 more reason - just look in TvT. Why there is only tanks+viking against tanks+vikings? Why terrans don't use thors\drop thors on tanks or maraders\drop maraders on tanks or use immobility of tanks make haras drops or harass with banshes? The answer is very simple - because tanks are imba, and if you would try using infantry or thors or banshe against standart terran mech you will most likly lose.
In fact TvT is the greatest prof how tanks are powerful, other races don't have anything that terran can't do against tanks, but still the only working stategy against tanks is tanks. And that is why other races who don't have tanks suffer a lot.
This is what seperates good players from bad ones. Bad players encounter a strategy that seems tough and then come here to whine about how overpowered it is, while good players find a way around it. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. It's the failure to take the game for what it is and trying to win, and instead trying to make Blizzard ease it up for you. All these comparisons and the theorycrafting is just rationalizing. Get out there and play more games, find and way to win and quit the whining. Yes, your whining may possibly help Blizzard, but trust me when I tell you that you're never going to get anywhere as a player when you resort to whining rather than trying.
And please, don't give me crap about how highly ranked you are(speaking to anyone who responds), rank means nothing in this game at this stage. Without any prior SC experience I went top 10 platinum with 70% wins in my first 30 games just by macroing and attack-moving all the units I could build.
a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
This is realistic. Try to [b]directly attack a terran mech build 100/200 with a regular 200/200 zerg army and you will lose. I don't have any high level replays of this because high level players know not to 1a a terran mech army, which is in fact my point... I am pretty confident that : 10 tanks, 15 hellions, 3 thors, 12 vikings, a couple marines and a few turrets (a little more than 100 i think ?) can wipe out most zerg (non full air) configuration in a 1a attack with minimum micro.
My opinion on the terran mech build is that, the terran needs to be as skilled as his zerg opponent in order to stay alive in the mid-early game. After that, the zerg player has to greatly out play the terran if he wants to stand a chance.
It's sort of imbalanced in the sense that late game = win for terran. It's not imbalanced if you consider the fact that a slightly better zerg player will still be able to defeat his terran opponent most of the times.
I think that one of the main reasons why tanks are so powerful are map pool. Maps are too small, even large maps like kulas or lt can be easily controled by a batch of tanks, Build 2-3 sens tower and u will see all the drops.
Because of maps there are very few possibilities to spread your army in attack to minimize splash damage, and splash is much more powerful now. Like how many units can be hit by 1 tank in BW ? In sc2 it's like 8-10hydras\roaches.
Because of small maps it's hard to use immobility of tanks against good terrans, because distances isn't that big. And u cant make terran spread tanks to much so that u can break through tank line because maps aren't that big. Usually u can cover almost all your bases with just 1 army ball in the center of the map. And there are also vikings, they compensate immobility of the tanks and can defend against drops rather easy.
And 1 more reason - just look in TvT. Why there is only tanks+viking against tanks+vikings? Why terrans don't use thors\drop thors on tanks or maraders\drop maraders on tanks or use immobility of tanks make haras drops or harass with banshes? The answer is very simple - because tanks are imba, and if you would try using infantry or thors or banshe against standart terran mech you will most likly lose.
In fact TvT is the greatest prof how tanks are powerful, other races don't have anything that terran can't do against tanks, but still the only working stategy against tanks is tanks. And that is why other races who don't have tanks suffer a lot.
a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
This is realistic. Try to [b]directly attack a terran mech build 100/200 with a regular 200/200 zerg army and you will lose. I don't have any high level replays of this because high level players know not to 1a a terran mech army, which is in fact my point... I am pretty confident that : 10 tanks, 15 hellions, 3 thors, 12 vikings, a couple marines and a few turrets (a little more than 100 i think ?) can wipe out most zerg (non full air) configuration in a 1a attack with minimum micro.
My opinion on the terran mech build is that, the terran needs to be as skilled as his zerg opponent in order to stay alive in the mid-early game. After that, the zerg player has to greatly out play the terran if he wants to stand a chance.
It's sort of imbalanced in the sense that late game = win for terran. It's not imbalanced if you consider the fact that a slightly better zerg player will still be able to defeat his terran opponent most of the times.
Zerg can easily take many more expands than Terrans could dream of doing, so they don't need to be cost effective. Late-game is actually a losing battle for Terran most of the time because Zerg tends to expand a lot and once their economy kicks in they walk all over Terran. An imaginary 200/200 Terran army would probably beat an imaginary 200/200 zerg army, but this is alright because this isn't a 200 vs 200 supply arena. Zerg has many, many ways to handle a game to ensure that it never reaches that point. If the Zerg let's Terran expand as many times as he does, and loses because he can't fight cost effectively, he has failed to play Zerg in any sensible way and deserves to lose the game. Instead of focusing on how Zerg isn't cost effective, why not focus on how incredibly mobile and able to grasp map control they are? How Zerg can take expansions and scout any attempt the enemy makes at expanding quite fast? How incredibly quickly they can produce more units and switch up their unit composition to surprise Terran?
On June 02 2010 20:17 Jibba wrote: Drops are possible, but I think terran players are overstating how easy they are to accomplish. If the T player has a big ball army, then yeah, but if they're also being good about scouting and keeping units separate, then it's hard to find an opening that'll cause enough damage.
I think right now the number 1 problem are the maps people play on. Metalopolis and LT are the best maps for ZvT and even those have some features that are easily exploitable by T. Blizzard's maps suck, people need to start playing real maps in order to judge this kind of balance.
Unfortunately though blizzard maps are the ones we're going to be playing while laddering, so that isn't really a valid argument. Hopefully after the game comes out, and some more professionally made maps come out, in HotS they take lessons from the maps people make.
All in all though I think blizz's sc2 maps are quite good (some of them), if you look at the blizzard bw maps they tend to be weird, mechanic broke, and race favoring (expo with 4 mineral patches anyone?) Many maps lacked naturals, which they honestly should have thought would be anti zerg considering their hatcheries are cheaper than nexus/cc.
Did the SC1 Ladder mean anything to you?
The SC2 maps have plenty of those things you described.
I honestly think tank thor should be nerfed. Its becoming like roach hydra was for zerg, viable in every matchup, every game. Now, its not the best idea to go for in every game, but if you have solid early play, you can safely go for blind thor + tank (that is, just build thor tank without further scouting.) and do fine in the mide and late game.
a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
This is realistic. Try to [b]directly attack a terran mech build 100/200 with a regular 200/200 zerg army and you will lose. I don't have any high level replays of this because high level players know not to 1a a terran mech army, which is in fact my point... I am pretty confident that : 10 tanks, 15 hellions, 3 thors, 12 vikings, a couple marines and a few turrets (a little more than 100 i think ?) can wipe out most zerg (non full air) configuration in a 1a attack with minimum micro.
My opinion on the terran mech build is that, the terran needs to be as skilled as his zerg opponent in order to stay alive in the mid-early game. After that, the zerg player has to greatly out play the terran if he wants to stand a chance.
It's sort of imbalanced in the sense that late game = win for terran. It's not imbalanced if you consider the fact that a slightly better zerg player will still be able to defeat his terran opponent most of the times.
Zerg can easily take many more expands than Terrans could dream of doing, so they don't need to be cost effective. Late-game is actually a losing battle for Terran most of the time because Zerg tends to expand a lot and once their economy kicks in they walk all over Terran. An imaginary 200/200 Terran army would probably beat an imaginary 200/200 zerg army, but this is alright because this isn't a 200 vs 200 supply arena. Zerg has many, many ways to handle a game to ensure that it never reaches that point. If the Zerg let's Terran expand as many times as he does, and loses because he can't fight cost effectively, he has failed to play Zerg in any sensible way and deserves to lose the game. Instead of focusing on how Zerg isn't cost effective, why not focus on how incredibly mobile and able to grasp map control they are? How Zerg can take expansions and scout any attempt the enemy makes at expanding quite fast? How incredibly quickly they can produce more units and switch up their unit composition to surprise Terran?
Weird rationalization. Following your logic you'd call a game balanced in which one race always has to end the game early to win, because if they don't the other race will dominate. Shouldn't it be more like: every race has an equal chance to win at any time (early, mid, late game)?
I mostly agree with you Keyser. I just think ZvT might require a little bit more APM on the zerg side to keep up with the terran's cost effectivness. The hardest thing i find when going against terran mech as zerg is that you can't use your mobility to "pick off" stray units as you would do against protoss or zerg. The terran can just leave 1 tank, 2 turrets and 2 hellion (possibily a thor) at any expensions and you know you are going to lose at least at much as he is if you try to attack there. In fact when i'm not going heavy muta, i have a lot of problem dealing with a particular type of harass. The terran drops 1 tank and 2 hellion in my base. and has 12 vikings a little behind and a raven as well for PDD if i send to many hydras. The tank eather manages to escape while i'm dealing with the hellions or else just does a bunch of damage anyways with total lost for him 2 helion and 1 tank and usualy a lot more on my side. Any ideas ?
Yesterday we've seen on ICCUP.tv "moman vs Lz". Lz won the game without much hassel while we saw moman playing like a god. I was CLEARLY giving moman the game till Lz got enough tanks. After that... it was clear that moman couldn't do anything.
After the game Lz and moman were invited to talk about their game and they asked Lz if HE felt that it was imba and said no. Than team root proceeded to make fun of him and asked the same question to all zergs or terran that would join in the king of the hill. MOST if not ALL admit that it was AT LEAST kinda unfair.
So that being said, I play both terran and zerg at diamond level (zerg being my best) and my POV on this matter stand still and its that thors AND tanks are wayyyyyy too strong.
Thors can own: Roaches/Hydra/Muta/Corrupter... Weak against: Zerglins (and not even sure about it since they reduced the circle)
Tanks can own: Zerglins/hydra Weak against: Air/Roaches (but even roaches are getting raped with proper tank count ~8)
So basicaly, Ling + muta + roache should be able to beat this combo.... but it's not the case so.... yah it's pretty OP! Sometime when I play Terran I'm sooo afraid of my zerg opp army and than I almost say GG and end up winning against a larger force cause of tanks/thors and i'm like OHHHH YAH!!!
@nyshak nope, the game isn't completely rock paper scissor where you own him there> and then that's it. Timings are existent in this game. Think SC1, Terran maxed out 3/3 on mech is the strongest on average.
Armies have completely different unit costs therefore when protoss win on average vs terran their army costs a like a buckload more gas and allthough inefficient in either minerals or gas, at least you've won the game.
Different armies different strength, same goes when zerg beats terran they spend too much gas or either minerals by the time the game ends. One resource or the other. not every unit can be microed to achieve efficiency and cost effectiveness. As long as you win that's the most important thing.
On June 02 2010 20:08 lew wrote: Oh and as a terran player I really don't have a problem with a terran nerf. People should just play the game as blizzard offers it.
Yeah, one patch they make Stim a lot cheaper and the next patch they fix it by dropping Viking ground damage by 2. Your nerf really makes it hard to want to keep playing T. I'm glad you're sticking with it.
He's saying he wouldn't have a problem with a future nerf... I think.
Only way to deal with any terran nowadays is to go lings/infestors/Brood---Ultra (Whatever of those you prefer)
You can controll the game with lings/infestors pretty damn well and harras his economy good enough, and keep him at bay while you tech, though, you need thirde exp (at least I get the feeling of it) to pull this off seemingly good, or end it mid/early game with the infestor /Ling combo.
And those of you saying "WTF tanks own infesoters" Yeah, they do but the burrowed speed buff we got and the small amount of resources spent on the burrow skill, really can make/break the game at an alarming speed, mix some banelings in there and you got a good strat that requires some micro / macro,
Short answer: No. Long answer: It can't be considered imba at least in my mind that early after the changes that made it stronger. Imo most of the things people say are 'imba' (which along with op is a word I hate) will stay as either strong solid strategies or simply the standard.
On June 02 2010 20:08 lew wrote: Oh and as a terran player I really don't have a problem with a terran nerf. People should just play the game as blizzard offers it.
Yeah, one patch they make Stim a lot cheaper and the next patch they fix it by dropping Viking ground damage by 2. Your nerf really makes it hard to want to keep playing T. I'm glad you're sticking with it.
He's saying he wouldn't have a problem with a future nerf... I think.
Yeah he is , thought that would be pretty obvious =o
to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
It's tough for a lot of these crappy players to deal with mech because all they see is ball vs ball. Look at how great players deal with terran. They can keep terran off balance long enough to outexpand and outproduce. A static terran army perfectly set up will beat anything protoss or zerg can throw at it, but that's not how you fight them! You need to constantly force them to manipulate their army composition. Too many thors, too many tanks, too many hellions and their army suddenly gets rolled over. Terran is all about balance, and if the only thing you're doing is making shit and a-moving, then you're not exactly forcing them off balance are you? There are giant gaps between when and where terran can attack, and good players can exploit this.
I'll concede that a one base thor push vs zerg is too strong, but this isn't because of the thor, it's because of the marauder. Banshees could use a damage nerf as well, but that's neither here nor there.
a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
This is realistic. Try to [b]directly attack a terran mech build 100/200 with a regular 200/200 zerg army and you will lose. I don't have any high level replays of this because high level players know not to 1a a terran mech army, which is in fact my point... I am pretty confident that : 10 tanks, 15 hellions, 3 thors, 12 vikings, a couple marines and a few turrets (a little more than 100 i think ?) can wipe out most zerg (non full air) configuration in a 1a attack with minimum micro.
My opinion on the terran mech build is that, the terran needs to be as skilled as his zerg opponent in order to stay alive in the mid-early game. After that, the zerg player has to greatly out play the terran if he wants to stand a chance.
It's sort of imbalanced in the sense that late game = win for terran. It's not imbalanced if you consider the fact that a slightly better zerg player will still be able to defeat his terran opponent most of the times.
Zerg can easily take many more expands than Terrans could dream of doing, so they don't need to be cost effective. Late-game is actually a losing battle for Terran most of the time because Zerg tends to expand a lot and once their economy kicks in they walk all over Terran. An imaginary 200/200 Terran army would probably beat an imaginary 200/200 zerg army, but this is alright because this isn't a 200 vs 200 supply arena. Zerg has many, many ways to handle a game to ensure that it never reaches that point. If the Zerg let's Terran expand as many times as he does, and loses because he can't fight cost effectively, he has failed to play Zerg in any sensible way and deserves to lose the game. Instead of focusing on how Zerg isn't cost effective, why not focus on how incredibly mobile and able to grasp map control they are? How Zerg can take expansions and scout any attempt the enemy makes at expanding quite fast? How incredibly quickly they can produce more units and switch up their unit composition to surprise Terran?
Weird rationalization. Following your logic you'd call a game balanced in which one race always has to end the game early to win, because if they don't the other race will dominate. Shouldn't it be more like: every race has an equal chance to win at any time (early, mid, late game)?
I am not sure where you found your conclusion. That is not the destination your reach when following my "logic" at all, but rather the destination you reach when misunderstanding completely. Just because a 200 pop vs 200 pop fight ZvT is in the Terran's favor, that does not in any way mean the Zerg isn't competitive in the late game. In fact I went to great lengths in my post, that you quoted, to explain that Zerg actually has the advantage late-game most of the time. You can't simply break a game up into "this and that race has an advantage at time x" though. Zerg has an advantage late game if they managed to secure a lot of expansions, which they have the ability to do. Terran however also has tools to prevent these expansions, and need to use them. The late game is in the favor of whoever managed the mid-game better. Zerg wants to expand midgame, Terran wants to stop the expands midgame. If a battle on equal terms(economy-wise) occurs, Zerg has failed to expand midgame and/or the terran has done a better job at preventing Zerg from doing so. This is not a disadvantage for Zerg, but rather a failure to understand how to take advantage of Zerg's strengths.
The way you describe early, mid and late game, you seem to suggest that these 3 parts are seperate and not related to one another, which is a great mistake. Both races can win all three "stages", it is just that ZvT tend to be decided in the midgame. The game may very well carry on into the lategame, but the actions in the midgame almost always decide how it will turn out.
Let me simplify:
If both races sit in their base doing nothing until 200 supply each, the Terran will probably win, but that is not a fair representation of late-game balance. If such a situation occurs, I would say to the Zerg that he lost because he didn't use the advantages Zerg have(like expanding).
If the Zerg expanded and the Terran did not, Zerg would reach 200 supply faster and win. If so, I would tell the Terran he lost because he didn't stop the expands.
If the Terran expanded too, so both players had two bases, the Terran would probably win, and I would tell the Zerg that he lost because he didn't use the advantages Zerg have(expanding again).
If the Zerg expanded many times and the Terran only expanded once, the Terran would lose and it would be because he didn't stop the expands.
Because Zerg has a natural advantage at expanding, and Terran has a natural advantage at winning even supply fights(provided the positions aren't skewed in the favor of Zerg, like surrounds), you end up with a situation where the Terran must be aggressive to win and Zerg must expand to win. So really, when the late-game comes, the outcome is already decided most of the time.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with my main point, which is that balance is irrelevant to anyone trying to become good. Irrelevant in the sense that the current balance shouldn't even enter your mind as you play the game, and in the sense that talking about it or whining about it not being in your favor is not a good way to improve your situation, even if you were right. Most of the time, percieved imbalances are just related to current trends and not the actual game, so there's almost always a way to turn the matchup around by playing differently. You won't find the best players complaining about balance because it is the losers' way of dealing with difficulties.
On June 02 2010 20:57 Kfish wrote: dark swarm used to help get close to tanks
arbiter stasis field used to help get close to tanks
corsair disruption web used to help get close to tanks
queen broodling used to help agains tanks
tanks used to all shoot at even one unit, now they are "smarter"
you could exploit the tanks firing then droping a reaver or templar to storm, now you can't as much
Tanks in SC2 are not to be treated as tanks in SC1 :|
Tanks destroyed Zerg units even under swarm, because they had LOL low HP (expect lurkers that already were burrowed).
phoenix lift ability is nearly the same expect its a channeling "spell" and tanks cant unsiege and drive away to resiege.
now you have infestors for NP + they have FG and are not THAT useless like Queens were in SC1
yes right, but now terran doenst have vultures to snipe HTs (and dont say hellions are a counter to HTs because they ARE on PAPER but in reality every ranged P unit kills them before they even get near to the HTs)
yes because now p have stalker with blink and immortals and void rays. P shouldnt have any problems with mech play, its different compared to sc1 but not harder (imo pure mech play is even easier to beat).
in TvZ/ZvT its the same like sc1. zerg uses his mapcontroll for mass expos and his nydus/doom drop to win BUT they have now broodlords that are like guardians but outrange vikings + make double the damage + are strong like shit + make tanks attack own units (thx to broodlings).
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
What fantasy world did you live in? People had 10 years to come up with counters and there were still tons of complaints about DTs, P max army vs. T max army, 1a2a3a, bisu build, get ultras->win, etc.
I see what you mean, and your right ofc. I misunderstood. I disagree about the last bit though. Especially on TeamLiquid I've hardly seen real whining. Instead, for the most part, I see players who try to give constructive feedback based on their experience. Plus, discussing the balance of the game is totally legit and actually makes you better as long as you reach a conclusion and then try it out ingame (which I do).
I can't see how tanks are any less fair than broodlords which are essentially flying siege tanks. Both units got sick range, both units can only hit ground. Both units are kind of bad when you just got one or two but when they reach a critical mass they can keep any units from even getting in range.
But at the same time both units are slow, and vulnerable to attacks from the air. Taking them out when well supported by other units is hard though but not impossible.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
I guess by "never" what you are really trying to say is "in your games" since your play is often exceptionally uncreative. Cool didn't seem to have these problems vs Maka during the World Cup. The way I see it, people are way too quick to point out the counters to something that could be done. Both burrowed roaches and nydus worm was used to great effect in recent tournaments, by players who are a step above you at the moment, so obviously just because counters exist, the best players find ways and no one has an impenetrable defense. Infestors even broke a siege line in the semi finals by mind controlling tanks/thors up a cliff with an overlord scout. Basically the ways are there, but Zerg needs to be a bit more creative. On the bright side, destroying a mech ball is generally much more of a gain than destroying Zerg units. I think people, including some top players, are too quick to look for a solution that will solve the problem every time rather than consider all the options(nydus, infestors, burrowed roaches, overlord drops, mineral line harass w/lings/banes/mutas, traps etc) and find one that will suit that particular game and situation. You can find counters to all of them all day long on a forum, but in my experience from playing and watching top games there always tends to be at least one solution for every game, and all the options above are used regularly.
Honestly, you're a good player, but you're never going to be among the very best if you don't quit the pessimistic "they'll just do x"-attitude and start believing you can find a way every game.
Tanks are really no different than they were in BW, so im not sure why people are screaming imbalance over them. note: do not run masisve balls of roach hydra into sieged tanks. That will pretty much solve your problem. Tech switch or even build a handful of mutas, and the thors he produced will either have to protect his base or protect his tanks, they are too slow to do both.
Last nights ICCUP match of MoMaN vs LZ, all the zerg were screaming imbalance when all he had to do was build 10 mutas, and smash LZ's mineral lines while his thors were outside protecting his tanks. But instead he threw 3 200/200 ground armies against a tank line. He lost, big suprise (not that MoMan didnt play absolutely amazing tho, fake drops, ftw. <3)
On June 02 2010 22:46 ymirheim wrote: I can't see how tanks are any less fair than broodlords which are essentially flying siege tanks. Both units got sick range, both units can only hit ground. Both units are kind of bad when you just got one or two but when they reach a critical mass they can keep any units from even getting in range.
But at the same time both units are slow, and vulnerable to attacks from the air. Taking them out when well supported by other units is hard though but not impossible.
The difference is tier 2 vs tier 3.5? and upgrades, since upgrading air is not really viable for Zerg. Even if you can get there (and avoid the Vikings and Ravens), there's an underlying issue that lategame Zerg ground should be viable, and right now it's not. Yes, it's a different game, but ultraling is just a staple of Zerg. I don't want my TL icon to be a Broodlord, I want it to be an Ultralisk.
Terran mech to me just feels like it's extremely unforgiving, it might not be totally OP and it might be mostly a map issue, but I feel like a ZvT is just waiting around for the terran to do a mistake and throw the game away. Like moving out with tanks without turrets or a raven then dying again and again to burrowed roaches is something a lot of terrans do to throw away games, dropping works if the terran does a mistake and doesn't expect it, if he's greedy and try to expand a lot with orbital commands instead of planetary fortresses he can get easily punished for that. It's still too early in my opinion to yell out that it's OP, but I'll gladly say that it feels slightly too strong at the moment.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
I guess by "never" what you are really trying to say is "in your games" since your play is often exceptionally uncreative. Cool didn't seem to have these problems vs Maka during the World Cup. The way I see it, people are way too quick to point out the counters to something that could be done. Both burrowed roaches and nydus worm was used to great effect in recent tournaments, by players who are a step above you at the moment, so obviously just because counters exist, the best players find ways and no one has an impenetrable defense. Infestors even broke a siege line in the semi finals by mind controlling tanks/thors up a cliff with an overlord scout. Basically the ways are there, but Zerg needs to be a bit more creative. On the bright side, destroying a mech ball is generally much more of a gain than destroying Zerg units. I think people, including some top players, are too quick to look for a solution that will solve the problem every time rather than consider all the options(nydus, infestors, burrowed roaches, overlord drops, mineral line harass w/lings/banes/mutas, traps etc) and find one that will suit that particular game and situation. You can find counters to all of them all day long on a forum, but in my experience from playing and watching top games there always tends to be at least one solution for every game, and all the options above are used regularly.
Honestly, you're a good player, but you're never going to be among the very best if you don't quit the pessimistic "they'll just do x"-attitude and start believing you can find a way every game.
maka didnt play mech, he used bio+2 fac tank which has significantly more weaknesses. he also played aggressively, while what we're talking about is pure defensive mech with viking support which is far stronger. there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
infestor mc range is 3 or 4 shorter than tank range, as i said infestors are useful in alot of situations and should be made, but they are not a solution to turtle mech. i dunno what game you're talking about but infestors are not gonna let you break a tank line that you couldntve anyway.
burrowed roaches are not something that you can just use to take advantage of a situation, you have to get 2 expensive slow upgrades well before hand. its a significant investment that really just isnt worth it given how easy to prevent it is, and how valuable gas is. nyduses and overlord drops are something that you can use to take advantage of vulnerabilities, but given how easy it is to prevent both of them they are not a solution to mech. they win you a game here and there, but depending on your opponent making significant, basic mistakes is not a good way to approach the game.
you talk about taking advantage of weaknesses and particular situations, you dont realize just how easy it is for terran to eliminate those weaknesses, not allow those situations to happen because of sensor towers + the ridiculous efficiency of their units. when terran can see every drop coming from halfway across the map, hold attacks with a handful of units that cost a quarter as much, absolutely hard counter most of zerg's unit choices. you're making the assumption that terran has to play perfectly to be invulnerable, and thats just not the case. of course terrans have lost games, but this mech play is relatively new and very unrefined, and most top players, including all of the best terrans on the us server + morrow will tell still you that its overpowered already. you get a competent player using it and they would literally never lose to zerg on most of the current maps.
On June 02 2010 22:20 Keyser wrote: If the Zerg expanded and the Terran did not, Zerg would reach 200 supply faster and win. If so, I would tell the Terran he lost because he didn't stop the expands..
This isn't really the case, though. If the Zerg expands everywhere, leaves the Terran to do his thing on his main+natural, and gets a 200 supply army then Terran will have enough firepower by then to chew through anything the Zerg can throw at him. Especially if he has a good defensive position. The only real way I can see to stop a mech play is to make an early timing push and constantly harrass to delay the Terran from getting his critical amount of firepower as much as possible. If he properly defends all your attempts to delay him, you're going to need to throw several max supply armies at him to take him down.
I'm a mid (top 5 2v2, ~20ish 1v1) Diamond player, and to be quite frank, I've never really had any big problems with Terran Mech.
I usually abuse Mutalisks (both harass and focus fire etc in fights) in addition to mass zerglings. With the Zerglings (in huge numbers) you can flank and over them the same way a flood fills the interior of a sinking ship.
In late/long games I tend to use Roaches and/or Ultralisks as a supplement, but I generally have no big problems vs Terrans.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
Here's a rare moment when I completely agree with Idra.
In SC2, TvZ mech play is ridiculously strong. Compared with SCBW, everything is more difficult for the Zerg. Remember, Zerg's wildfire macro was and is essential to beating mech play.
Subtle!!!
Terran has more openings (think Reapers, Hellions, Banshees, FE, infantry mass, etc.). Non-retarded Terran players can conceal many of these openings until the crucial moment and so Zerg's ability to macro is more constrained than in SCBW.
The Blizzard maps are small. This complements Terran's array of openings and further constrains Zerg's ability to macro.
Blizzard maps are not only smaller, they have less money. Mech play is extremely efficient so less money is a huge disadvantage for Zerg.
Obvious
Terran Mech units are much better than their SCBW equivalent while relevant Zerg units are statistically pretty similar to their SCBW counterpart.
Relevant Zerg
Zergling: Slightly worse than before. Cost is the same.
Hydralisk: Roughly the same as before. Cost is substantially increased. Relatively slower off creep.
Mutalisk: Roughly the same as before.
Roach: New and exciting! Although powerful in straight forward combat, 3 range means that the Roach is easily abused by Siege Tanks with 13 range. At 2 supply per, this is not an ideal unit for a maxed out battle situation.
Infestor: If your macro has dropped off and you have a lot of Vespene, this is a good way to reduce your Vespene store. The Infestor will not help you against mech armies. If you think Neural Parasite is generally effective, PM me so I can tell you about target firing.
Banelings: Not against mech, sorry. Drop these on the enemy SCVs or something.
Relevant Terran
Siege Tank: In SC2, the Sieged Tank does equal damage to all units instead of reduced damage against small units (as in BW). Units in SC2 clump way more than in SCBW, further enhancing the Siege Tank. The unsieged Tank is much more effective against armored units than its SCBW equivalent. The Siege Tank's 3 supply cost (and 25 more Vespene) is important; however, the additional benefits far outweigh the additional costs.
Thor: Thor or Goliath? Not even close. Thors rape Mutalisks. Goliaths kind of, sort of, beat Mutalisks. Thors are great support against ground units while Goliaths are mediocre at best.
Engineering Bay: Terran mech has always suffered from mobility problems against Zerg. Two major developments have negated that issue. First, the Sensor Tower is ridiculously good. Second, the SC2 Missile Turret is insane. The new Missile Turret costs an additional 25 minerals, but in return the new turret has 50 more HP and does 24 damage instead of 10 to Mutalisks (and there's a range upgrade). The Engineering Bay makes mech's lack of mobility a much smaller issue.
Hellions: You probably wouldn't be making Zerglings anyway given that they clump up and the new Siege Tank deals a round 60 damage (and has smarter AI). But supposing you did make Zerglings, Hellions completely rape them. Hellions also have a lot of potential against Hydralisks. This potential is wasted given how Tanks rape Hydralisks, but there is potential nonetheless. Unfortunately the Hellion is not as cool as the Vulture. The Hellion is unwieldy, slower, and does not have Spider Mines. I don't like the Hellion, but it's damn good at what it does.
In a nutshell, Zerg's on the receiving end of a bad deal.
tanks dont overkill but it still takes them about 0.1 second to react that the enemy is dead so they can change their target. so 10 tanks vs 10 targets then all targets doesnt die immediately it still takes a little time for the tanks to figure out who to attack
so its better than overkill but its still not as good as many would think it would be
i honestly dont think mech should be called imba YET because zerg players r still figuring out new bos and playstyles to beat it
it works pretty much as sc1 where terran would mech then zerg would take 5 bases when he would normal have 3 against bio and that would pretty much even out most of times but in sc2 zerg players didnt really learn to adapt all the new expansion timings yet
mech is also very map dependant where large maps it sucks hard and small maps like stepps of war its just increadible strong
so my guess on this would be that we have too little experience with different types of maps to call mech imba because most maps in the map pool are so small and favors mech because of that
oh and btw, tanks is a very different unit than sc1. it deals very little splash on their allies and they attack so fast and r so incredibly strong unsieged too. what i mean by that is that u dont really get into positions where ur tanks teamkill ur own units compared to sc1 where there were tactics like shuttle bombs and minedragging walking close etc all just to abuse terrans splash dmg on himself. but this doesnt play into role at all in sc2 and i think this is also a reason why the tanks r so good now
i wouldnt disagree if blizzard changed so the siege cannon did extra dmg vs armored instead of making pure dmg against all. they r just so insanely strong against light units like marine, ling, hydra which imo ruins the gameplay a little because that is supposed to be what hellions counter
zerg has been OP as fucking hell all beta and now terrans win alittle and u suddenly think mech is op because ur 100% roach dont win vs me 80% tank 20% thor )
On June 02 2010 23:00 Ighox wrote: Terran mech to me just feels like it's extremely unforgiving, it might not be totally OP and it might be mostly a map issue, but I feel like a ZvT is just waiting around for the terran to do a mistake and throw the game away. Like moving out with tanks without turrets or a raven then dying again and again to burrowed roaches is something a lot of terrans do to throw away games, dropping works if the terran does a mistake and doesn't expect it, if he's greedy and try to expand a lot with orbital commands instead of planetary fortresses he can get easily punished for that. It's still too early in my opinion to yell out that it's OP, but I'll gladly say that it feels slightly too strong at the moment.
I agree it's unforgiving, catch a terran mech army completely out of position and it's toast... But if you have your army 100% out of position then you aren't playing in high diamond.
I'm 500 diamond so take it as you will but personally I find that even if I do continually harass well, the mech army gets bored of defending and comes and stomps my 3-4 bases without a problem anyway.
I feel the problem with this matchup for TvZ is not so much tanks, but thors.
Imagine this matchup without grouped (4 or so) thors being so ridiculously powerful against mutas (like, one shotting 5-20 at a time if your muta control isn't insanely good).
There, you can build mutas to counter the tanks. Now, the terran player can react by adding more marines to react to the muta threat, which in turn can be countered by banelings (mainly drops), and the dynamic continues.
I know that everyone here is focused on the tanks, but I personally see mech as not the tanks being the problem, but all the reasons I can't counter the tanks being a problem.
Also, Broodlord + Corruptor does not counter mech, thors still deal with them piecemeal IF played correctly (repairing is required, as is not blowing your own shit up with tanks).
On the matter of constantly harassing... can be effective for a little while after getting drop but it is quite an investment to baneling bomb, muta harass, ect. Once there are a sensor tower or two, a thor in the mineral line and missile turrets freaking everywhere (mech has little problem with minerals), plus responsive vikings, harass is simply not cost efficient.
tl;dr - The problem isn't so much the tanks as the T mech's incredibly effective responses to any attempt to counter the tanks. Harass can be dealt with.
I do not think there are any random players out there who can honestly say T Mech vZ is just as difficult to win with as it is for Z vs Mech. I feel I have to play 3-4 times better as Z to win then I do when I play TvZ pure mech. Its just ridiculous that there actually are terrans going 'lol its not imba learn to play' how about, dont tell another race how to play unless you play random, eh? No, it doesnt matter if you're rank 1 diamond with a 9001 ELO, it really doesnt. You cannot comprehend what its like for zergs vs mech unless you play both zerg and terran at the same level.
Idra, what do you think of the patch 14 changes to the roach as a response to mech play? With regen free with tunneling claws at lair, is it now feasible to use roaches to defend till hive? Ultras are very helpful against mech if you can survive till hive.
On June 02 2010 23:07 IdrA wrote: there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
You're a lunatic. There are very few good terrans, so punish the ones that (almost manage to) win? Your perception of relative player skill is also bizarrely warped in favor of Zerg players. Maybe if you had slightly better analytical skills and wouldn't get so emotionally involved, you wouldn't have to play 13 hours a day to be sub top.
This is a bit off topic, but nevertheless related...
On the issue of maps, it really seems like Blizzard went cliff crazy and choke crazy. This really sucks for Zerg as there are frankly very few maps which feature wide open battlefields. I agree in theory that terrain features make the game more interesting, but it is a little unfair when both Protoss and Terran have units that can abuse cliffs in particular (Reapers, Tanks, Blink Stalkers, Colloxi, Thors, even Vikings) and Zerg have nothing of the kind.
Zerg's one cutesy mechanic is the Nydus worm, which can be strong but hardly gives you many in-battle options. So really Zerg isn't particularly at any advantage on most maps with some exceptions. the major exceptions I can think of are Scrap Station and Metalopolis. Still, the advantage zerg has is strategic rather than tactical; long distances means more macro.
All this is to say that I agree that when more maps come out things might even out a bit, but for the moment on Bliz maps, any units or play that can abuse cliffs will be a bit IMBA in my opinion.
On June 02 2010 23:00 Ighox wrote: Terran mech to me just feels like it's extremely unforgiving, it might not be totally OP and it might be mostly a map issue, but I feel like a ZvT is just waiting around for the terran to do a mistake and throw the game away. Like moving out with tanks without turrets or a raven then dying again and again to burrowed roaches is something a lot of terrans do to throw away games, dropping works if the terran does a mistake and doesn't expect it, if he's greedy and try to expand a lot with orbital commands instead of planetary fortresses he can get easily punished for that. It's still too early in my opinion to yell out that it's OP, but I'll gladly say that it feels slightly too strong at the moment.
I feel the problem with this matchup for TvZ is not so much tanks, but thors.
Imagine this matchup without grouped (4 or so) thors being so ridiculously powerful against mutas (like, one shotting 5-20 at a time if your muta control isn't insanely good).
YES. This is the best post in this entire thread. I completely agree with this. I can muta harrass and pin him to two bases, but eventually he moves out, and I am usually fairly helpless unless they make a horrible mistake, such as letting me kill all their tanks with burrowed roaches.
I really do agree with this. The power of 4-5 thors negates mutas when the big push comes, which means that the terran player only has to worry about Broodlords. If the zerg has none, he can basically ignore air. The best part about thors is that the terran player didn't "waste" resources making them to counter air, because they are awesome versus roaches too.
I may make some people angry, but watchin Sen lose pretty badly to TLO's mech play in the Kapersky Cup illustrates the strength of mech and the imbalance of certain maps like Kulas. TLO is not the same caliber player as Sen. Yet every tool at Sen's disposal was not enough.
On June 02 2010 23:07 IdrA wrote: there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
You're a lunatic. There are very few good terrans, so punish the ones that (almost manage to) win? Your perception of relative player skill is also bizarrely warped in favor of Zerg players. Maybe if you had slightly better analytical skills and wouldn't get so emotionally involved, you wouldn't have to play 13 hours a day to be sub top.
You're way off. This is pretty much on par with me saying that if you had better analytical skills you'd realize you were wrong
I don't know if this means anything but I asked Artosis last night if he wanted to play in the KOTH and he would not even play because of TvZ mech.
Also if anyone thinks it's not OP watch Sheth vs. QXC. Sheth was throwing everything he could think of at QXC and not making a dent. It was sort of bad....
I'm a 500 rating random player and the thing that makes things is as T or hard vs T mech is the small fighting places on the maps, if maps were bigger design whise I'm sure mech balance wouldn't even be an issue. With the "clump into balls" AI and small fighting groudns it's just too much effort to correctly spread and flank a T.
On June 02 2010 20:08 lew wrote: Oh and as a terran player I really don't have a problem with a terran nerf. People should just play the game as blizzard offers it.
Yeah, one patch they make Stim a lot cheaper and the next patch they fix it by dropping Viking ground damage by 2. Your nerf really makes it hard to want to keep playing T. I'm glad you're sticking with it.
On June 02 2010 23:07 IdrA wrote: there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
You're a lunatic. There are very few good terrans, so punish the ones that (almost manage to) win? Your perception of relative player skill is also bizarrely warped in favor of Zerg players. Maybe if you had slightly better analytical skills and wouldn't get so emotionally involved, you wouldn't have to play 13 hours a day to be sub top.
Wow who's emotional here? I'm pretty sure IdrA has a valid point. The skill level is not on par; the Zerg players are clearly way better and the fact that they are even having a hard time with Mech shows how strong it is. Whether you agree with the assessment of the player skills that IdrA has to offer is one thing, but its hard to determine that anyone wants to "punish" good "Terran" players from what he's saying, especially if its true.
Personally I've enjoyed the way TLO has played because I think it is imaginative and fun to watch, but I'm hardly good enough to judge the relative skill levels of any top players.
Also, you do know that many top players play that much too right?
k so i read a few posts but im short on time... Im a strong terran that loves to use mech. But one thing ive only seen once and i mean ONCE! is a protoss do something similar to SC1 using dropships with the speed upgrade and dropping zeals in the middle of my tanks if i made a push. surprisingly that still seemed really effective, sadly as i said ive only seen it once. and for zerg i have a friend that uses ultra/ling drops, and thats surprisingly effective late game with the plus armor damage now. ( he doesnt just send 1 overlord he sends quite a few so you cant pick off the one carrying the units...)
On June 02 2010 23:07 IdrA wrote: there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
You're a lunatic. There are very few good terrans, so punish the ones that (almost manage to) win? Your perception of relative player skill is also bizarrely warped in favor of Zerg players. Maybe if you had slightly better analytical skills and wouldn't get so emotionally involved, you wouldn't have to play 13 hours a day to be sub top.
terran would do fine if there were more good players playing it.
As a zerg player, I can handle mech I don't jsut 1A I WIN!....
Banelings vs MMM they die pretty fast and I use fungal growth and have to surround to cut off escape, etc etc.
vs Mech you have to have a lot more skill and coordination as zerg then the terran who just 1a...something is close! Seige....unsiege 1a....SIEGE..../win game.
On June 02 2010 23:07 IdrA wrote: there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
You're a lunatic. There are very few good terrans, so punish the ones that (almost manage to) win? Your perception of relative player skill is also bizarrely warped in favor of Zerg players. Maybe if you had slightly better analytical skills and wouldn't get so emotionally involved, you wouldn't have to play 13 hours a day to be sub top.
terran would do fine if there were more good players playing it.
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
Which is exactly my point. Terran ground owns zerg ground post roach-nerf. And thors own air. What does the zerg have left? And if another person says "mobility" I am going to cry.
It is the combination of units that are hard to deal with, not the individual units themselves.
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
No one is confused that Thors are supposed to balance mutas. The problem is that with Zerg have no answer to this unit composition.
For the longest time, it is always Terran and Protoss have to pressure Zerg because Zerg cannot be left alone. From what I can tell, mech is a very defensive play style that requires some setup time. Surely a Zerg pressuring a Terran and not letting him get setup would be effective. I think Zerg can do quite a bit off one base. Most of the mech opening I have seen involve some harass to an expanding zerg till they can get comfortable with their defenses. Having an army and pressuring would force the terran into other options, and the game can go from there.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
I guess by "never" what you are really trying to say is "in your games" since your play is often exceptionally uncreative. Cool didn't seem to have these problems vs Maka during the World Cup. The way I see it, people are way too quick to point out the counters to something that could be done. Both burrowed roaches and nydus worm was used to great effect in recent tournaments, by players who are a step above you at the moment, so obviously just because counters exist, the best players find ways and no one has an impenetrable defense. Infestors even broke a siege line in the semi finals by mind controlling tanks/thors up a cliff with an overlord scout. Basically the ways are there, but Zerg needs to be a bit more creative. On the bright side, destroying a mech ball is generally much more of a gain than destroying Zerg units. I think people, including some top players, are too quick to look for a solution that will solve the problem every time rather than consider all the options(nydus, infestors, burrowed roaches, overlord drops, mineral line harass w/lings/banes/mutas, traps etc) and find one that will suit that particular game and situation. You can find counters to all of them all day long on a forum, but in my experience from playing and watching top games there always tends to be at least one solution for every game, and all the options above are used regularly.
Honestly, you're a good player, but you're never going to be among the very best if you don't quit the pessimistic "they'll just do x"-attitude and start believing you can find a way every game.
maka didnt play mech, he used bio+2 fac tank which has significantly more weaknesses. he also played aggressively, while what we're talking about is pure defensive mech with viking support which is far stronger. there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
infestor mc range is 3 or 4 shorter than tank range, as i said infestors are useful in alot of situations and should be made, but they are not a solution to turtle mech. i dunno what game you're talking about but infestors are not gonna let you break a tank line that you couldntve anyway.
burrowed roaches are not something that you can just use to take advantage of a situation, you have to get 2 expensive slow upgrades well before hand. its a significant investment that really just isnt worth it given how easy to prevent it is, and how valuable gas is. nyduses and overlord drops are something that you can use to take advantage of vulnerabilities, but given how easy it is to prevent both of them they are not a solution to mech. they win you a game here and there, but depending on your opponent making significant, basic mistakes is not a good way to approach the game.
you talk about taking advantage of weaknesses and particular situations, you dont realize just how easy it is for terran to eliminate those weaknesses, not allow those situations to happen because of sensor towers + the ridiculous efficiency of their units. when terran can see every drop coming from halfway across the map, hold attacks with a handful of units that cost a quarter as much, absolutely hard counter most of zerg's unit choices. you're making the assumption that terran has to play perfectly to be invulnerable, and thats just not the case. of course terrans have lost games, but this mech play is relatively new and very unrefined, and most top players, including all of the best terrans on the us server + morrow will tell still you that its overpowered already. you get a competent player using it and they would literally never lose to zerg on most of the current maps.
You make a lot of good points that I won't argue with since you know more about SC2 than I do, but if playing games like SF3, Q3, AoE2 and WC3 at a high level(one of them professionally) has taught me anything, it is that thinking about a situation as impossible or even really tough is a terrible approach. Games evolve, and I have no doubt that Zergs will find a style of play that can beat mech. As you say, the mech play you describe is relatively new and unrefined. That can just as easily be used as an argument in favor of Zerg, since Zerg hasn't found a proper counter yet. If it turns out no one can find a counter after a good while, there may be a problem, but I feel it's just too early. You can be the guy that found a way, or you can be the guy that stopped talking about it after someone else found a way.
Even if there is an imbalance there, it's just not worth thinking about. It's infinitely better to assume the game is perfectly balanced even if it isn't, as anything else just makes you lose focus.
So the guy has sensor towers and vikings to stop your drops, thors, tanks and some hellions. Lings die to hellions, roaches/hydras are destroyed by the fortified tank line if you attack, you can't really muta harass due to thors/vikings/towers. Fine. He can't stay there forever. He needs to either 1.) Stop your expands or 2.) Expand more himself. Even a mechforce like that can't beat a Zerg with overwhelming economy.
So that's a weakness, right? His mech mainforce isn't mobile. Zerg has awesome mobility and scouting potential(outside bases). You have the tools to catch him in an unfavorable position every step of the way no matter what he wants to do after his natural. And if you can catch him even once like that, that's a serious blow. On some maps you can literally force the Terran to place himself in a terrible position if he wants to move forward.
If I am right, the strategy may very well still be a little too good in practice, but that's not worth thinking about, and if I am wrong, and you are thinking to yourself that what I am saying is absolute garbage, due to some highlevel insight I am not aware of, it doesn't change the fact that thinking about a given strategy as imbalanced is the best way to lose against it. As Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or can't, you are probably right".
I'm with you shifty. I have a friend that I practice ZvT with. If he goes mech, sure I can annoy him with my "mobility", but eventually he just gets pissed and stomps my base.
On June 02 2010 22:46 ymirheim wrote: I can't see how tanks are any less fair than broodlords which are essentially flying siege tanks. Both units got sick range, both units can only hit ground. Both units are kind of bad when you just got one or two but when they reach a critical mass they can keep any units from even getting in range.
But at the same time both units are slow, and vulnerable to attacks from the air. Taking them out when well supported by other units is hard though but not impossible.
The difference is tier 2 vs tier 3.5? and upgrades, since upgrading air is not really viable for Zerg. Even if you can get there (and avoid the Vikings and Ravens), there's an underlying issue that lategame Zerg ground should be viable, and right now it's not. Yes, it's a different game, but ultraling is just a staple of Zerg. I don't want my TL icon to be a Broodlord, I want it to be an Ultralisk.
After over 9,000 posts on a Starcraft forum how can you talk in terms of tiers? What are you talking about anyway with regard to late game Zerg ground? We know nothing more about late game SC2 than we did about late game BW in 1999 when people had never heard of a Defiler, Science Vessel, or Arbiter. New maps are gonna emerge and the game will be released, big events are gonna happen that will shed light on the late game issues. Until those events occur we have no idea.
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
Thors are also hard counter to hydras, and very efficient against roaches.
Furthermore, what we are discussing here is exactly the fact that terran have hard counters to everything while NOTHING hard counters Thors+tanks.
That said, not having hard counters doesn't meen you lost the game, just meens you have to be that much better than your opponent.
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
Thors are also hard counter to hydras, and very efficient against roaches.
Furthermore, what we are discussing here is exactly the fact that terran have hard counters to everything while NOTHING hard counters Thors+tanks.
That said, not having hard counters doesn't meen you lost the game, just meens you have to be that much better than your opponent.
Mutas attack air and ground aswell and are very effective at it, i don't really see how you can complain about a slow ass ground unit that does the same
zerglings / infestors counter thors, but i guess you knew that
But ohwait, now your gonna say a unit that counters the zergling and infestor, and then we make nice circles
On June 02 2010 23:43 iCCup.Diamond wrote: I don't know if this means anything but I asked Artosis last night if he wanted to play in the KOTH and he would not even play because of TvZ mech.
Also if anyone thinks it's not OP watch Sheth vs. QXC. Sheth was throwing everything he could think of at QXC and not making a dent. It was sort of bad....
Sheth vs QXC seemed more like frustration/fatigue than really an impossible scenario. Absolute refusal to make any air, running ultras into a ramp with solid 1000hp wall off and tanks, not mixing empty ovies to tank the AA dmg while dropping, triple infestation pits (!?), waiting for tanks to siege at his expo before running the nydus troops into them, not HSM'ing his ravens even when infestors trapped them in place...don't get me wrong Sheth is a good player but I think he was kind of burnt out by those last games.
I agree the map pool helps mech so much. Steppes of War is pretty much invincible mech defense for the first 3 bases, with 2 more to add on once you turret/tank the watchtower. Bigger maps like desert oasis or even metalopolis make crawling a mech ball across the map really impractical by comparison, so Z can get a lot more bases than T with mutas.
On maps like incernation zone (is it written that way?) and steppes of war it feels really strong (mech that is) cause of the map. on 4 player maps i dont ve the same feeling like on the forementioned maps so i guess this "tvz problem" can be dealt with by new maps but i dont know for sure. i dont play mech vs z as i play it like i did in bw with bio and tanks as support O_<.
It may be a map problem, but if it is should it be left as is? While some map features will always favor races, it seems less than ideal to force all maps to be large for any semblance of balance. It'd be much better if it was at least close on smaller maps between the two matchups. That way you can have a wide variety of maps in a tournament and players can pick maps that favor their style/matchup without giving them free wins.
Right now I'm not really that concerned about Terran mech, in part because I believe playing the game as is is more important, but more so because I'm concerned about Zerg vs Map balance more. Zerg seem to be way too polarized on map balance. Small map? Anti-zerg. Tough to secure 3rd? Anti-zerg. Choke filled map? Anti-zerg. Expansions away from your opponent? pro-zerg. Sweet spot backdoor? pro-zerg. Main ramp in creep distance from natural? pro-zerg. Good choke on natural? pro zerg. Cliffs near base? Anti-zerg. Open natural? anti-zerg.
I don't think I'm neutral to any map in the pool as a zerg when considering ZvP and ZvT. The closest would be close spawns on metalopolis (back to back close not across close)
There's just so many map features that significantly change the map balance for zerg. Zerg need better options that make them less map dependent, both so they can be boosted vs stuff like mech on some maps AND so they can be better balanced on strong economy positions (diagonal metalopolis for example)
I get the impression that Terran and Protoss are much more flexible to map features. They can 1 base, expand, make use of chokes, make use of wide open areas, do fine on 2 bases, do fine with 3, and so on. Sure they're not completely immune to map features (a good thing), but it seems to be a better balance where it has a 2ndary effect on the game rather than skewing the matchup heavily.
On June 02 2010 23:56 PredY wrote: funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
Thors are also hard counter to hydras, and very efficient against roaches.
Furthermore, what we are discussing here is exactly the fact that terran have hard counters to everything while NOTHING hard counters Thors+tanks.
That said, not having hard counters doesn't meen you lost the game, just meens you have to be that much better than your opponent.
Mutas attack air and ground aswell and are very effective at it, i don't really see how you can complain about a slow ass ground unit that does the same
zerglings / infestors counter thors, but i guess you knew that
But ohwait, now your gonna say a unit that counters the zergling and infestor, and then we make nice circles
Once again you missed my point.
Mutas are ok at everything but 2 thors kills infinite mutas. If the zerg is a micro god, you may need a third thor for infinite muta kill.
I'm trying to find a unit composition that counters Tank+Thor and there just isn't any. If your answer to Terran mech is going mutas/lings/infestor i think you may need to experiment that for yourself to see how ridiculous that is.
Explain to me how your going to mind control or zergling surround a thor sitting next to a bunch of tanks ?
On June 02 2010 20:36 whatthemate wrote: no its just that zerg players complain. just watch some of the gomtv protosses, they humiliate terran with a build that goes like this: 1.heavy stalker opening with quarter zealot mix +1-2 sentries. 2. as time passes by army becomes more zealot heavy. 3.tricks terran into overproducing factory units. 3. charge is upgraded and zealot + forcefields buy a lot of time. brute force with a ton of gateway. inefficient but you can brute force it with stronger economy. 4.1-2 stargates you win > mass void ray.
zerg just attack move too much. they play too much simcity and allow terran to critical mass tanks that's all. all the zerg players are playing them the wrong way. zerg are meant to make great use of mind games by burrowing and fighting only when they can win. most zerg players just attempt to cancel out with brute force and watch the battles go to see if their army can win the fight. that's why against terran always burrow if you cannot win the fight.
zerg players need to have the mindset to force terran to get a goddamn useless raven to detect. hydras are only meant to comprise no more than 20% of your army, most of it should be a mix of roaches mutas and zerglings.
Its quite obvious that you dont play as zerg
you have it all backwards, zerg units are overall the least supply effective units in the entire game, which is why as a zerg, you exploit the fact that you can rebuild your army in 1/4 of the time he can (ok, 1/4 is an exaggaration, but you get the point). this is exploited not by "fighting only when they can win", no, thats not it at all, if there is such as situation, then you as zerg have practicly already won the game. the extreme production of the zerg is exploited by attacking when "both sides will take losses", see, its not necessary to win the fight, as long as he takes losses approximately equal to yours.
what zergs complain about is that its practically impossible to get a situation where "both sides take losses" vs a mech army, either you win big-time (not counting cannonfodder such as lings), or you lose your entire army without making a dent on the tanks.
this was not the case against bio, which is the reason why it feels so much more simple to vs bio than vs mech. if I send in a bunch of roaches, hydras and lings, I might win, I might lose, but he is sure to take losses, which is what we wanted to accomplish.
but then again, why use roaches, hydras and lings when bio gets dissintegrated by banelings? which is a perfect example of zerg favouring the "both sides take losses" strategy
On June 02 2010 22:46 ymirheim wrote: I can't see how tanks are any less fair than broodlords which are essentially flying siege tanks. Both units got sick range, both units can only hit ground. Both units are kind of bad when you just got one or two but when they reach a critical mass they can keep any units from even getting in range.
But at the same time both units are slow, and vulnerable to attacks from the air. Taking them out when well supported by other units is hard though but not impossible.
The difference is tier 2 vs tier 3.5? and upgrades, since upgrading air is not really viable for Zerg. Even if you can get there (and avoid the Vikings and Ravens), there's an underlying issue that lategame Zerg ground should be viable, and right now it's not. Yes, it's a different game, but ultraling is just a staple of Zerg. I don't want my TL icon to be a Broodlord, I want it to be an Ultralisk.
After over 9,000 posts on a Starcraft forum how can you talk in terms of tiers? What are you talking about anyway with regard to late game Zerg ground? We know nothing more about late game SC2 than we did about late game BW in 1999 when people had never heard of a Defiler, Science Vessel, or Arbiter. New maps are gonna emerge and the game will be released, big events are gonna happen that will shed light on the late game issues. Until those events occur we have no idea.
He compared a unit that's obtainable early-mid to something that you can ONLY get at the end of the game. That's why tiers are important. The switch to BLs is extremely difficult to make, and once out, they're fairly fragile.
I've said about a million times that we need real maps to truly analyze the state of balance in SC2. How much more can I mention it?
On June 02 2010 20:25 Geiko wrote: The problem with mech terran is that their units are way more cost effective than that of the other two races because basicaly all their units are a (very) hard counter to something in particular and do just fine with the rest. For exemple vs Zerg : Tanks rape hydra very bad., and if well placed own every thing else that doesn't fly. Hellion own hydra and zergling Thors vs mutalisks is a joke Vikings vs anything else that flies a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
That being said, the only way to beat a terran mech as zerg is : a) get an early timing push when he doesn't have his mech build in place b) get all sorts of possible harass you can using mobility (6 mutas, nydus, drops etc...)
Droping in base is pointless, as you will still get killed by 3 tanks placed at three different corners of the base.
I beleive protoss have the same kind of problems with this build
Its not that OP. a 100 food terran will get demolished by 200 food zerg. You just need the right air to ground nit ratio balance.
I have found that mech is very strong against zerg.
-Usually, the best answer to mech is a quick push or flank when the terran is just getting started in getting his army up. -the problem is that the scouting is very difficult in sc2. -without being able to properly scout, you just do not know the proper timing on when to push into the terran's army and by the time you do scout, the terran will have a huge army.
The idea of dropping into the terran's main is very interesting. It is however risky since improper micro can cause many of your units to die quickly. And the terran will have many vikings which he can split apart and kill your overlords. So thats a problem.
I think that we Blizzard should definitely add something like a spell to counter the terran mech army. Maybe some explosive creep tumors (for 35 energy)? When exploded they can cause 25 damage to units in a nearby radius.
On June 03 2010 00:22 Housemd wrote: I think that we Blizzard should definitely add something like a spell to counter the terran mech army. Maybe some explosive creep tumors (for 35 energy)? When exploded they can cause 25 damage to units in a nearby radius.
That'd basically be a burrowed baneling. Potentially effective, but slow to come out and will only work once as afterwards the Terran will make sure to have detection (which they should have anyways as it prevents burrowed roaches as well).
apart from that, i wouldn't be surprised if sieged damage were to be "returned" to something like 35 + 35 vs armored (...eventually)
anyways... i wanted to derail this thread in order to talk about dropping stuff onto a bunch of tanks. what keeps us from doing so? is it because every kind of shittle is "armored" and it takes 6-7 vikings to two-shot overlords/medivacs/warp prisms? if that is the case, what could possibly be wrong about that trinity losing this attribute?
or is the minimum range of sieged tanks too small (it's 2.0 - less than two marauders/roaches are in diameter)? what would fundamentally change if it were "nerfed" up to 3.0 or even 4.0?
tech is a monster against zerg. drops only work if your opponent neglects to get anti-air (thors, vikings, marines), and if you can't do a drop, there's no way you can attack the army head on. your whole ground army will die before they even get in range of a tank. if you mass corrupters and broodlords you may have a chance...
and to spicy crab, go see Sheth vs qxc. this is what opened my eyes. you can skip to 53 or 130 min to see mech games (read slaughter). the lost temple one is more depresssing imo
EDIT: another problem that idrA mentioned that I think is huge and people may be underestimating is the sensor tower. I'm not a terran player, but I have a feeling only the pros are really seeing the power of the sensor tower. if terran goes mech, really your only chance is harassment and drops, but with the sensor tower that has a billion range, the opponent can position themself to intercept your units, be they overlords, mutalisks, or nydus worms.
I think the main problem with mech is the map selection. mech is super balanced on larger maps. Kulas Ravine, while really choke heavy has alot of backways and stuff that mech has a hard time covering, lost temple can be good depending on positions for outmaneuvering mech, Desert Oasis is great for beating mech. the other maps tend to suck when facing mech though.
On June 03 2010 00:22 Housemd wrote: I think that we Blizzard should definitely add something like a spell to counter the terran mech army. Maybe some explosive creep tumors (for 35 energy)? When exploded they can cause 25 damage to units in a nearby radius.
That'd basically be a burrowed baneling. Potentially effective, but slow to come out and will only work once as afterwards the Terran will make sure to have detection (which they should have anyways as it prevents burrowed roaches as well).
Hmmmmm...then maybe something like that is dropped from an overseer. Or even make the ultralisk a flying unit for 20 seconds in which they can use this spell. I prefer the overseer one but im trying to kill two birds in one stone. (ultralisks and this problem)
Ultra/roach drop onto mech is very effective if they are a big ball, just use some muta/corruptor/dummy ovies to draw fire so you won't lose the valuable ones to vikings on the way in. Not the best inside their base where turrets/spread tanks will pick you apart but tends to work alright if they try and roll in your front.
Also, people are HIGHLY overrating thors AA ability if you think 2 of them hard counters mutas without significant backup.
What Protoss player a-moves nowadays? Seriously any P that a-moves into the enemy just go reroll Zerg please.
Now onto serious business, I don't think its imbalanced, it does give terran great map control, but theres a lot of options to bust a siege. From the Protoss point of view, theres a bunch of options. Crabmortals in the front take the first siege shots pretty well, and if you focus fire a couple of crabmortals can eat a bunch of his tanks before going down. Hallucinated zealots are another good option if you're good on sentries. They have decent hp plus they spawn in pairs. The good old zealot bombing still works, even though its extremely rare to not see any anti air in a terran siege, if you see no anti air by all means go zealot bomb. It's the best method hands down, now you can even deploy the warp prism on top of them and warp directly underneath, you dont even need to load the zealots. Another option, make phoenixes and lift all tanks, then proceed with your "a-move" sir. Even if all phoenixes die, your ground units should arrive within range by the time the tanks are dropped back. And if they have viking support the answer is clear: void rays. Charge them up with a pylon or rocks or whatever beforehand and the vikings melt. The mothership too. If its an extreme turtling opponent just recall your units inside his base and nevermind his blockade.
As far as zerg goes, mass muta/choguling or broodlords sounds good i guess. If they got no turrets, then research burrow for roach and sneak them up, then pop them close to the tanks so they blow up each other. Doom drop another option, just put some empty overlords in front to take the first turret shots...
k so i read a few posts but im short on time... Im a strong terran that loves to use mech. But one thing ive only seen once and i mean ONCE! is a protoss do something similar to SC1 using dropships with the speed upgrade and dropping zeals in the middle of my tanks
Yes... You're such a strong Terran player that you don't build Thors, Vikings, or Marines which all almost instantly kill a warp prism because it's made of paper.
I feel if Thor's bonus and or splash damage was removed so that both races could COUNTER tanks (phoenix w/ Graviton, mutas) it would be a balancing change as more vikings, or marines would be much easier to deal with for both races.
Or could the problem be having 13, 9, and 7 range on these units?
As a toss player my issue lies with ghosts nullifying what is supposed to be our hard counter to tanks. 150 gas + 150 minerals (or 200 gas, 350 minerals if you want to take into account the building) to completely kill any hope of utilizing the unit that was made specifically to kill mech is silly. Heaven forbid they start getting a raven or two in there for PDD, as blink stalkers feel like the only hope sometimes... Even then, marauders are often the choice against toss, over thors as vikings deal handily with any air threat toss has.
The lack of open space on maps might also be the problem. Almost every map has critical choke points scattered throughout which leave very small openings, and makes it extremely hard to break through or flank your opponent. Not all of us have one control group syndrome, but it doesn't make a difference.
Everyone talking about utilizing drops should realize early/mid game is not the problem. If it goes past that, that's where all of us non-terrans are having the issues and sensor towers are covering the map making no element of surprise. Perhaps the addition of sensor towers just added to this problem.
Almost every composition of units either race can get is outperformed by a large margin, and terran players will say they're not because of mistakes on their part when they end up losing. I wish the bioball days were back.
funny how everyone here argues imba/not imba but noone has suggested any balance solutions yet
I suggest reducing thor splash damage to air. Then mutas become a better response to tank/hellion play, which the terran will respond to with marines/vikings etc. Right not I feel like T players simply say, "Mutas? lol build thors."
MAYBE and only MAYBE its because thors are THE HARDCOUNTER to mutas? they are made to own mutas.
Thors are also hard counter to hydras, and very efficient against roaches.
Furthermore, what we are discussing here is exactly the fact that terran have hard counters to everything while NOTHING hard counters Thors+tanks.
That said, not having hard counters doesn't meen you lost the game, just meens you have to be that much better than your opponent.
Mutas attack air and ground aswell and are very effective at it, i don't really see how you can complain about a slow ass ground unit that does the same
zerglings / infestors counter thors, but i guess you knew that
But ohwait, now your gonna say a unit that counters the zergling and infestor, and then we make nice circles
Once again you missed my point.
Mutas are ok at everything but 2 thors kills infinite mutas. If the zerg is a micro god, you may need a third thor for infinite muta kill.
I'm trying to find a unit composition that counters Tank+Thor and there just isn't any. If your answer to Terran mech is going mutas/lings/infestor i think you may need to experiment that for yourself to see how ridiculous that is.
Explain to me how your going to mind control or zergling surround a thor sitting next to a bunch of tanks ?
While the terran army is incredibly immobile, why not drop his base, gop around, harass his mineral lines, wait till he has to fall back or pushes, then attack
2 thors will never kill an infinite amount of mutas, try it for yourself
I agree that the terran army is more cost effective than the zerg but is this actually a flaw? Or is it in fact inevitable. It seems to me that the terran army HAS to be more cost effective than a zerg army if you factor in the speed at which a zerg player can replentish a 200 supply army after that huge battle in the late game where both players loose most of their army. It is not enough for terran to win a battle against zerg in late game you have to win it with a large enough margin to not get rolled over by the tsunami of reinforcements that come flooding in right afterwards.
Given, these balance factors don't apply as much on all maps, right now terran unit retention would have an advantage on steppes of war and incineration zone type maps, while zerg has the advantage on maps like desert oasis and metalopolis. I really think that map layout means everything to this discussion.
I think we still need to see more games to get a good idea about mech. I find it interesting that some of the top zergs are able to beat the top terrans going mech and everyone else cries imba. For now I think it's ok but it's very tough to deal with.
One observation that holds true throughout Beta and really to other games:
When you start hearing these things from any people representing a race that is perceived to be winning too much about the other races just not learning the right BOs, the maps being coincidentally imbalanced in their favor, the other races clearly just haven't been building the right units, etc, that race is always too strong.
This is particularly true for people that main terran (I'm one of them). We heard the EXACT same arguments from Protoss about the Immortal timing pushes. Now we're saying the exact same thing to the Zerg. It's OK to admit that some things are too strong. It's not our fault.
People definitely overstate the effectiveness of thors vs mutas in stopping mutas from harassing or being effective. It's true in a head on battle the mutas aren't going to be able to take out tanks if they're protected from thors, but mutas can tear up lone thors or dance around them to harass.
The problem though is this... Terran mech is SO cost effective vs Zerg on the whole that a Terran player is not really behind by investing in missile turrets, especially since it renders the mutas and 200/200 spire pretty ineffective. So while thors alone won't cover mutas it's just so economical and feasible for the Terran to turret up a bit without really sacrificing too much (especially since it helps with drops as well).
On June 03 2010 00:43 Takkara wrote: One observation that holds true throughout Beta and really to other games:
When you start hearing these things from any people representing a race that is perceived to be winning too much about the other races just not learning the right BOs, the maps being coincidentally imbalanced in their favor, the other races clearly just haven't been building the right units, etc, that race is always too strong.
This is particularly true for people that main terran (I'm one of them). We heard the EXACT same arguments from Protoss about the Immortal timing pushes. Now we're saying the exact same thing to the Zerg. It's OK to admit that some things are too strong. It's not our fault.
people have to do what terrans did. adjust.
i mean thru how many openings and unit comps did T go since the start of the beta? i dont think any other race has seen remotly as much change and adjusting then T. sure mass bio spam always was there but you saw lotsa experimenting till they ended up with the current style.
while Z/P are doing exactly the most exact thing (Z atleast tweaked the openings,P is exactly the same) as 3 motnhs ago, aclick their huge 1 control group army into a well protected tank battery and then complain its imbaimba when it doesnt work so great.
i wont say its perfectly balanced cause i dont know. but i wont agree its a problem yet either.
I think in order for it to really be imbalanced, terrans would really need to start really winning against zerg with mech in tournaments with a decent frequency.
It's hard to say "TvZ is soo terran favored" and then watch a tournament end up with 1 terran in the Ro8 (and seven zergs), or to have all the terrans use a mech-ish style and have Zerg win almost all of the games, like in some recent Asian tournaments. I guess there's the argument that "terran players suck" or that "terran play hasn't evolved enough yet", but . . .
On June 02 2010 22:46 ymirheim wrote: I can't see how tanks are any less fair than broodlords which are essentially flying siege tanks. Both units got sick range, both units can only hit ground. Both units are kind of bad when you just got one or two but when they reach a critical mass they can keep any units from even getting in range.
But at the same time both units are slow, and vulnerable to attacks from the air. Taking them out when well supported by other units is hard though but not impossible.
and of course, lets also mention that BL : tank tech and cost is roughly the same, lets demonstrate
Hallucinate is a joke against mech. You build a bunch of sentries to hallucinate zealots that get instantly destroyed, and then what? Are you going to blow all his tanks up with those expensive sentries? You won't have enough firepower to do anything if you get enough hallucinated zealots to have any lasting effect.
On June 03 2010 00:41 ymirheim wrote: I agree that the terran army is more cost effective than the zerg but is this actually a flaw? Or is it in fact inevitable. It seems to me that the terran army HAS to be more cost effective than a zerg army if you factor in the speed at which a zerg player can replentish a 200 supply army
It's a matter of critical mass. You can throw a 200 supply Z army at 150 supply T army, and the T army will suffer minimal losses. Zerg has no units or spells that can counter T mech once it reaches that critical mass. It doesn't really matter how strong Z's economy is, or how fast they can replenish units (it's faster, but not that much faster) when they're largely ineffective.
i think Mech is very hard to counter, ppl just need to learn ways to counter it. i just played a 2v2(on Twilight) vs 2 terrans went mass mech, i noticed they were gonna attack and i knew they'd whipe my whole Z army, so i just Nydas wormed in there base and destroyed there entire base which led to a win. So it is really hard to counter, but players jus need to learn counters. Like alot of tournys terran barely makes it far at all, so really, not so imba
On June 03 2010 01:02 koppik wrote: I think in order for it to really be imbalanced, terrans would really need to start really winning against zerg with mech in tournaments with a decent frequency.
It's hard to say "TvZ is soo terran favored" and then watch a tournament end up with 1 terran in the Ro8 (and seven zergs), or to have all the terrans use a mech-ish style and have Zerg win almost all of the games, like in some recent Asian tournaments. I guess there's the argument that "terran players suck" or that "terran play hasn't evolved enough yet", but . . .
Have there even been a lot of tournaments lately?
The argument around players seems really hypocritical.
There aren't any good Terran players isn't a valid complaint, but then saying that Zerg players aren't adapting or are a1 moving IS. Basically people are saying that you can't just say Terran players suck, but then say that Zerg players do suck (remember high profile Zerg players are claiming the matchup isn't fair or is heavily map dependent).
Likewise people say that Zerg players need time to adapt their strategies, but then claim that a lack of tournament wins are proof of balance. Well mech is a fairly new strategy, so how can people point to a lack of tournament wins while also saying the difficulties players are having are because they haven't had time to fully work out the counter strategies.
I dunno it just seems like some people are making hypocritical arugments.
On June 03 2010 00:52 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: i wont say its perfectly balanced cause i dont know. but i wont agree its a problem yet either.
I doupt TvP is that huge of a problem cause they have immortals that rapes tanks and thors while speedlots and such just killl and blah blah blah..... THEY HAVE A COUNTER.
Problem is that zerg have 0 counter since the combination of hellions, tanks and thors will just rape anything you can throw at them.
Basicaly what I'm saying is that
PvT: Immortals > tank / thor speedlots > tank / thor Blink Stalkers >= sieged tanks .......
TvZ: Thors > Roaches / Hydra / Muta / Corrupter and even Broodlords if supported by hellions Tanks > Roaches (3range anyone?) / hydra (we could almost add ultra) Hellions > zerglins
and MOST Tmech will go 2-3 thors + 8-10 tanks and 4-5 hellions.
Now... Mutas are supposed to be better (>) than TANK (uh seriously) but can't reach em cause 2-3 thors will litteraly kill ungodly ammount of mutas. Roach is out of the question cause of the poor range they have. By the time they can hit on tanks they are kinda dead.... burrow is out of the question since most GOOD Tmechs will use towers around their tanks or do at least 1 detector. Hydras are just getting plain raped by any units of this comp, broodlords doesn't live long enough to tell the story as they have no mobility and SOOOOO easily countered by vickings/thors and muta is again out of the question since they are being raped by thors. Ultras (even with the new speed) aren't quite the solution cause of their HUGENESS and have an hardtime to even hit once. infestors NP is on a RANGE: 9 while siege tanks are on RANGE: 13. So zerg has to use drops but now Turrets have 50 more hps and hit hard (from what I beleive) than in SC1 also vicking will destroy any type of OVs that will try to do any drops and IdrA did a good point imo and altho detect towers are underused when terran learns to use them.... it's going to be zomg for Z. Finaly Nydus isn't the solution since 4-5 SCV can deal with it if you have good map awareness.
Basicaly what I'm trying to say is that Tmech isn't imba at all! Zerg needs to L2P!
Well the counter to bio/turtling teching terran is to go 1 gate cyber duel gas SAVE THAT GAS get one robo and while that robos building build a stalker if u have the extra 50 gas. if not, zlot. when ur robos done start that immortal. you really need to be careful with the probe production, because this is just about an all-in, once that immortal is building YOU will have enough gas to add on a second robo. (immortals build slow even with crono) ur second robo should warp in right after ur 1st immortal steps out. start another immortal. crono boost...then build a stalker or two. for his first banshee that he might get. as soon as you have two immortals and 2 stalkers rally ur 2 robos to ur immortals...and ur gate way to ur stalker..you will prolly still have cash...as u get way more mins in sc2 than BW.. so you can even add on another gate AND get ur warp gate upgrade strated so even if they attack doesnt penitrate his wall...you can just remake ur army and come back for round two. beucase you have forced him to produce marines/mara. u can even get a cent throw up a shield over the two immortals so you can get up that ramp..they kill supply depots in like literally 3 shots.... then u have those extra troops rallyed ...i dont know im in diamond and i dont think iv had a terran yet to stop that build. even if he gets that first siege tank out...immortals will clean that up..you gotta figure out way to hit a terran as fast as possible. when they get room to tech..look out.
On June 03 2010 00:52 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:people have to do what terrans did. adjust.
i mean thru how many openings and unit comps did T go since the start of the beta?
There's not going to be any BO or unit comp to counter mech for Z. There's no adjustments to be made. It comes down to trickery and battle tactics to beat mech, and generally just hoping that they screw up. I agree it's too early to tell, but it's showing very evident signs that if mech play is perfected (yes, mech can be even stronger), it will be impossible to stop.
The reason tanks are so much stronger in SC2 is for two reasons. One, Muta are less practical in the mid game vs mech. Two, tanks do full damage to everything, rather than reduced damage like they did in BW. As a result, a critical number of tanks is much lower than a critical number in BW.
It also doesn't hurt that Roaches are basically BW hydras with low range and higher food and SC2 Hydras are unusable due to the different damage set up.
Those are the main problems people are having, but I don't think all options have been examined enough for anyone to claim imbalance. Right now I'm just calling it hard for zerg
I don't think the "trick" to beating mech is any particular unit by itself. It's a strategy. Whenever a top zerg crushes a top terran going mech, the zerg was aggressive. You can't play the match-up using the IdrA-style "come get me" turtling zerg. The terran will say "no thanks" and proceed to build tanks and 100 turrets on his side of the map.
Ultras are not useful against mech. With their low HP and tanks doing a ridiculous 60 (+5) damage a shot, ultras just melt while everything around it gets killed. Dropping is good; but dangerous. A few turrets around a terrans base will cause you to lose about half of your drop force. Then its GG.
Also, I see some terrans automatically get a raven against Z if they see roaches, or against P if they suspect some DT play, so against T, hallucinations don't work. Also, burrowed roach attacks don't work.
You could go Mutalisks, but he would see that you went Muta; and just go kill your base.
Yes, Terran mech is incredibly Imbalanced.
I would suggest a huge nerf to sieged damage 60 (+5) to 45 (+5) That might not even be enough though, IMO.
On June 02 2010 14:29 Salv wrote: PvT vs siege tanks right now is a huge, huge problem, and I'm going to explain why. There are two variations to a tank heavy build that I see. The first is to make tanks, hellions, and vikings, and the second is to make tanks, marines, and vikings.
This can be beat with a unit composition of colossi, phoenixes, stalkers, zealots, immortals. The exact ratio you use I am not totally sure on, but the theory behind this is really easy. When you see tanks first being made, you need to add a stargate and start making phoenixes, it's critical that when he does push out that you have a lot of phoenix's to lift up the tanks. Phoenixes don't take much damage from vikings, so you will be able to get lifts on the tanks, and that should take care of the majority of his tank army for now. Your colossi will rip up the marines very, very quickly, you only need four seconds or so to completely decimate them. After that, you can re-lift tanks with your remaining phoenix's and then move in the rest of your army.
So what's the problem? The problem is if you opponent makes siege tanks, hellions, and vikings, you're going to in a lot of trouble. For the above strategy to work, you have to add a stargate and pump phoenix from the beginning of the game, once you know he is doing a siege tank build. If you try this versus siege tank, hellion, and vikings, it will fail really bad. The problem is that colossi and your regular army can't tear through hellions quick enough. Colossi don't hit as many because hellions are bigger, and they have more HP. You can move in with phoenix's and lift tanks, but you won't be able to get through the rest of his army in time before the tanks land, and when they do, your army is going to get smashed.
So what works versus siege tank, hellions, and vikings? Nothing. I have played over twenty games with a practice partner and he has not lost a single game, and we have tried every possible combination. Siege tanks simply destroy every thing on the ground when you hit a certain number of them (~15). Vikings also do not lose to anything in the air that Protoss can offer. Vikings beat void rays, they are even with carriers, and while they lose slightly to phoenixes in even cost, phoenixes aren't going to help you deal with the actual tank force. Every possible combination I have tried, and every possible combination has failed. Open up unit tester and try different mixtures yourself, as long as you give the Terran ~15 tanks, nothing will come close to winning.
The weakness of the Terran tank army is mobility, I could easily imagine in a game being able to harass their base with blink stalkers when they move out too far away from their main, or just counter their expansions when they push you a la SC:BW. However you still have to deal with their army at some point, and you simply cannot. The only strategies I have been able to think of are to either avoid their army and try to destroy their ability to rebuild, and then have carriers building some where on the map. Carriers will be an even resource count of vikings slightly, and I suppose if the Terran couldn't replenish, you would win the game.
The other strategy would be to not let Terran get to a critical number of tanks, unfortunately they can do this off of two base. I've tried strategies of blinking in to a Terran's base to whittle down their tank numbers, but this doesn't work very well either. The best strategy is to simply rush the Terran and kill them that way, before the option of massing tanks even opens itself up.
In Starcraft PvT, the Terran ball was very hard to kill too, when they had 3-3 upgrades it was a very difficult battle. However stasis and good flanking ensured that you could whittle it down, unfortunately that isn't possible for SC II, you cannot even effectively take away a third of their army while sacrificing your own. I am completely out of options for this style of play and I have yet to see a replay of how to properly deal with this.
The real problem with ZvT when the game gets a little long is the Thor/Tank combo. Nothing Zerg is really strong enough to take that on, even with flanking, without disproportionate losses. And if the T has done his job keeping some pressure on you and not letting you overexpand wildly, you are in serious trouble.
But yeah, Thor air AOE + Tank ground AOE = ouch. Even excluding thors, a good marine support with tanks = shreds any Z ground and marines can put some serious hurt on potential muta snipers.
I'm thinking eventually either Thor or Tanks will have to be nerfed, or they will have to buff some kind of Zerg response to that. Right now in the ZvTmech lategame Z needs to outplay his opponent significantly.
Thors aren't HARD counter for muta. i might surprise u but 4 mutas will kill 1 thor, 8mutas will kill 2 thors 12 will kill 3 thors etc. 20mutas +2corraptors will kill 5 thors and you will have 7 mutas +2 corraptors left after this if you will simply make 2 groups by 10muta and cor in each and attack from 2 sides(it isn't that hard right? )
I mean that yeh thors counter muta but they can be killed by muta for a reasonable price and all you need for this is a little micro to not make muta stack, just A move and muta will do fine with thors. I rather often win terrans with muta just because the rely on thors too much and don't build marines vikings as antimuta support for thors. I'm 300 plat zerg.
Hallucinations would probably be very helpful against T mech. Since toss can just hallu a few immortals to be tankfood. I do, however, think mech vs zerg is a little overpowered. Its simply impossible to do anything from the ground, a maxed terran army shouldnt rape a maxed zerg army and only lose like 20 supply. The only real viable way ive found to play against mech is to just expo everywhere and avoid terran until broodlords are out, as engaging him when he is seiged just melts my army to bits with virtually nothing done to his.
On June 02 2010 20:02 lew wrote: * Already one mistake in the title: terren (must be terran ofcourse :p).
I see both toss and zerg players complaining about terran tanks being imba. I hope that the admins don't close this thread because this is (in my opinion) an interesting discussion.
My questions for toss and zerg players:
1) Imagine 10 tanks protected with mines and vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine zerg units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
2) Imagine 10 tanks protected with vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine protoss units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
3) How bad are basedrops (with overlords) as a zerg? Did you ever moved a whole mech army up your ramp as a terran? It takes a lot of time. By the terran is up, you could have killed a lot of stuff. Then you just load everything back in the overlords and you retreat. Expand and repeat.
4) How bad are armydrops as a zerg? I can imagine terrans having a very hard time if a zergs loads his overlords with zerglings and ultra's, and drops it on the siege tanks. Splash will destroy a lot of their own tanks and ultra's will just finnish everything off. Thors are weak vs overlords so those will not be sniped that fast.
5) I never saw a protoss player using hallucinations against me going mech. Let those take the first shots, spread your army, spread your HT's and storm him to dead. Is this viable?
6) Make more use of a mothership. A mothership costs 400/400. An arbiter costs 100/350. Mech is immobile so you can expand a lot as a protoss. Minerals will not be a problem. A mothership can vortex, it cloacks, it attacks. But: I understand it's a little bit weak. Is it not worth the money?
All these things are theory and I want to know if they work (and if they don't: why?) and if they are true/false. I want to ask people to post as much as replays as possible. It would be nice to see terrans posting replays where their mechplay gets destroyed by a zerg or a protoss player.
The main question is: are tanks IMBA, and why? What could be a sollution? Please make sure your post has evidence in it! Be objective.
Sorry for my bad English.
Terran mech is more then fine vs toss if not a bit weak if he plays it right with immortals and stalker blinks to back of base ontop of tanks etc.
Mech vs zerg is only imba when and if you let the terran get to 200/200 of tanks and other mix viks/ravens/thors with atleast 1or2 weapons on air and ground. Then it is imba because he has 10000 turrents to speed his min and rader towers covering everwhere if he is good. But i don't know it was like that in BW to full upgrade meatel was rape and a half. Untill he gets the 200/200 mix tho mech is fine you can hars pick off tanks slow him down stop his expand slow his crawl drops nydus infestor MC blah blah
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
You seem to like whining that overlord drops suck, nydus sucks, and that I suck at Terran? lol?
You play Z, you know infestors are not for breaking a siege line. But fungaling a lot along with everything else may whittle down the first ball.
And no, not joking for mass muta, some T only build 2-3 thors and all tanks/hellions and vikings. Corruptor/muta/broodlord obviously is going to work, I did not mean just muta, but I meant more mutas than normal.
and btw, I do know how to play T, I was one of the first people thor meching like 13 patches ago tyvm
one problem might be that some maps are really small. Obviously incineration zone, and steppes of war might be hard zvt.
On June 03 2010 01:13 Konsume wrote: doupt TvP is that huge of a problem cause they have immortals that rapes tanks and thors while speedlots and such just killl and blah blah blah..... THEY HAVE A COUNTER.
Ghost EMP completely nullifies immortals.
As a mid-high Platinum (now Diamond) Protoss player I was completely baffled how to stop Terran mech, so I learned Terran to see what other players would do against it. The answer? Nothing much. I roflstomp Protss players just as easily as I got crushed myself. The PvT matchup needs some work.
On paper you can get a flank on the tanks. On paper you can send in immortal to absorb siege tanks. On paper you can out-expand the Terran.
None of this works in the game. Few of the maps actually allow you to get the necessary flank. The addition of Xel'Naga watch towers and Sensor Towers makes this problem 100x worse. The hunkered-up Terran player will always see you coming, and he will be prepared. With the way bio units clump, spotting ghosts is almost impossible in the heat of battle, while your own templar have a giant glowing beacon for the Terran to target.
IMO it comes down to these two three things. My suggested solutions:
(i) Do something about the Sensor Towers. Reduce their cost and their range, and slightly increase their build time. Make the Terran work harder to establish a perimeter, because once it's up, it's impossible to get a decent flank. (ii) Quit putting Xel'Naga watch towers on every single map. (iii) When a Protoss player has a templar selected, highlight the units with energy that can be feedbacked. That way they can actually find the ghosts. Give the same bonus for Terran and highlight units with energy that can be EMPed. (iv) Make Immortals immune to EMP. It is a hardened shield, after all.
I'm not attached terribly to either Protoss or Terran, and from my experience, this would encourage more diverse play than just sieging up and waiting for the Protoss player to suicide eventually.
On June 03 2010 00:52 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: i wont say its perfectly balanced cause i dont know. but i wont agree its a problem yet either.
I doupt TvP is that huge of a problem cause they have immortals that rapes tanks and thors while speedlots and such just killl and blah blah blah..... THEY HAVE A COUNTER.
Problem is that zerg have 0 counter since the combination of hellions, tanks and thors will just rape anything you can throw at them.
Basicaly what I'm saying is that
PvT: Immortals > tank / thor speedlots > tank / thor Blink Stalkers >= sieged tanks .......
TvZ: Thors > Roaches / Hydra / Muta / Corrupter and even Broodlords if supported by hellions Tanks > Roaches (3range anyone?) / hydra (we could almost add ultra) Hellions > zerglins
and MOST Tmech will go 2-3 thors + 8-10 tanks and 4-5 hellions.
Thors suck vs corrupters and broodlords hard core. 16 dmg to corrupters and 20 dmg to broodlords and they shoot very very slow. Only way thor is good vs them is if you force ball these units like a noob. As they are they spread out very very well and splash does not even hit broodlords and maybe hits 2 corrupters. Just don't force ball them like a retard.
Also thors get raped by roachs hard not even close to cost effective only thign saving them is the tanks in the back. Thors are there to deal with mutas period everythign else the tanks will rape alot better then a thor.
Ultras need a buff a nitch like the immortal. Make it so that only direct hits can dmg it and when its hit by somthing that splash direct that splash will not hit units around it. Then give it the highest threat value of any target. There you have units late game that can deal with 200/200 mech not effect early game/mid and can deal with colos as well when toss gets them in like groups of 10 : P
On June 03 2010 01:41 dargul wrote: Thors aren't HARD counter for muta. i might surprise u but 4 mutas will kill 1 thor, 8mutas will kill 2 thors 12 will kill 3 thors etc. 20mutas +2corraptors will kill 5 thors and you will have 7 mutas +2 corraptors left after this if you will simply make 2 groups by 10muta and cor in each and attack from 2 sides(it isn't that hard right? )
I mean that yeh thors counter muta but they can be killed by muta for a reasonable price and all you need for this is a little micro to not make muta stack, just A move and muta will do fine with thors. I rather often win terrans with muta just because the rely on thors too much and don't build marines vikings as antimuta support for thors. I'm 300 plat zerg.
The only problem with this is when they get +2 or +3 attack. If the game goes mid to late game I lose a large percentage of those games so I try to end it asap kind of similiar to how toss used to want to beat zerg with the mid game timing push and if zerg survived they had a large advantage. Like when idra played tlo on lt, I don't think I could ever win a game like that atm. It's really hard but I've seen other people win so I guess I just have to have insane apm and really refine a build order against mech that can still adjust to the thousand other openings terran has. I have more of a problem scouting something too late or not being able to adjust to certain openings like 4 helion preigniter push or delayed helion rine push into viking because I'm so worried about stuff like tank rine pushes, thor drops, and tank helion thor.
On June 03 2010 01:49 xnub wrote: Terran mech is more then fine vs toss if not a bit weak if he plays it right with immortals and stalker blinks to back of base ontop of tanks etc.
I see this argument from Terran players everywhere, but it's not really valid. First off, ghost tech is cheap and fast, compared to either Immortal tech or Blink tech, and Ghosts hard counter Immortals (and observers, and sentries, and HTs) when any semi-competent player is using them. EMP hits before feedback, blink, charge, psi storm, force field and upgraded Colossus attacks. This means that a few ghosts can blanket an entire Protoss army in EMPs before it can even start fighting, so Immortals will die in 4 hits from tanks instead of 14, blink stalkers will die in 2 hits from tanks instead of 3, and when they arrive, even Marines will be able to take them out quickly, since they'll have had to walk through tank fire just to be able to use blink. Even then, this may work if the stalkers seriously outnumber the Terran army, but if the Terran techs a little more, they can get a Raven for PDDs, which will nullify any sort of skilled stalker play before the Protoss player can respond.
Basically, what most people consider to be Protoss players 'playing it right' is, in fact, Terran players 'playing it wrong.' The only way you can conceivably beat a highly teched Terran army is to catch it out of position, or to beat the player before they get a decent force.
I think ones people realize u can set SCVs to auto repair and attack with 2 tanks+5Rines+5scvs and win on their first attack in every match up practically X_X
On June 03 2010 02:02 SharkSpider wrote: The only way you can conceivably beat a highly teched Terran army is to catch it out of position, or to beat the player before they get a decent force.
And with the abundance of Xel'Naga watch towers and sensor towers, you will never catch a competent Terran out of position . Those silly watch towers are half the problem IMO -- Terran just siege up outside of them and see everything coming.
On June 03 2010 00:29 Tidesson wrote: Now onto serious business, I don't think its imbalanced, it does give terran great map control, but theres a lot of options to bust a siege. From the Protoss point of view, theres a bunch of options. Crabmortals in the front take the first siege shots pretty well, and if you focus fire a couple of crabmortals can eat a bunch of his tanks before going down. Hallucinated zealots are another good option if you're good on sentries. They have decent hp plus they spawn in pairs. The good old zealot bombing still works, even though its extremely rare to not see any anti air in a terran siege, if you see no anti air by all means go zealot bomb. It's the best method hands down, now you can even deploy the warp prism on top of them and warp directly underneath, you dont even need to load the zealots. Another option, make phoenixes and lift all tanks, then proceed with your "a-move" sir. Even if all phoenixes die, your ground units should arrive within range by the time the tanks are dropped back. And if they have viking support the answer is clear: void rays. Charge them up with a pylon or rocks or whatever beforehand and the vikings melt. The mothership too. If its an extreme turtling opponent just recall your units inside his base and nevermind his blockade.
Once a Terran gets a key number of tanks (~15), no ground army works. Immortals will die too quickly, they also have hellions to drain shields, and the splash damage when there are that many tanks will lower the immortal shields far too quickly for damage to be done. Zealot bombing doesn't work at all, they have vikings. Vikings will shoot down your warp prism before it's anywhere close to the siege tanks. Lifting siege tanks with phoenixes can work versus marine/tank/viking because your colossi can quickly clean up the marines and then your army can waltz right next to the tanks. This doesn't work versus hellion/tank/viking because hellions are sturdier and don't melt under colossi fire. You will have time for one volley of lifts before your phoenixes die to vikings, and you won't have done enough damage to the hellions to destroy the tanks. Void rays lose in equal cost numbers of vikings, badly. You can even have fully charged void rays engage vikings and they will still lose. Try some of your ideas out before you suggest them, you complain that others are just crying imba, but you're just theorycrafting ideas that actual players know do not work.
On June 03 2010 01:13 Konsume wrote: PvT: Immortals > tank / thor speedlots > tank / thor Blink Stalkers >= sieged tanks
Wrong. That will work when they have few siege tanks (~5), and it's not a problem for a Protoss to keep a Terran in their base until later mid-game, the problem is that when they move out with many siege tanks (~15), nothing works. Immortals, speedlots, blink stalkers all die incredibly fast, you will kill two or three tanks at best. If you don't believe me, try this out yourself. All these people theorycrafting ideas of what would work is ridiculous because they haven't tried it themselves. I have played multiple PvT's with a friend of mine and every possible combination and style of attacking was attempted; nothing showed promise.
On June 02 2010 20:38 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: so imho first we need the people to adapt before we can even see if something is imba. terran was thru the most "style changes" while Ps for example still very often do exactly the same that they did 3 months ago at the start of the beta.you just cant go 2/3 gate robo and aclick vs evry strat and then cry out when it doesnt work anymore.
What does work? Explain what would be a good solution. Terran players are great at saying, "You can't just A-move anymore!", which is fine, except nothing works. I welcome a reply that proves me wrong.
On June 02 2010 21:09 Keyser wrote: This is what seperates good players from bad ones. Bad players encounter a strategy that seems tough and then come here to whine about how overpowered it is, while good players find a way around it. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. It's the failure to take the game for what it is and trying to win, and instead trying to make Blizzard ease it up for you. All these comparisons and the theorycrafting is just rationalizing. Get out there and play more games, find and way to win and quit the whining. Yes, your whining may possibly help Blizzard, but trust me when I tell you that you're never going to get anywhere as a player when you resort to whining rather than trying..
And after your extensive testing as yielded no actual results? I have tried every composition possible, and I have tried in multiple games to play in different styles, early harass, try to keep their tank numbers low, etc. After losing 15-0 to a friend of mine where we tried multiple solutions and nothing worked remotely well, that's when I come on the forums to talk about how there seemingly is no solution.
On June 03 2010 01:49 xnub wrote: Terran mech is more then fine vs toss if not a bit weak if he plays it right with immortals and stalker blinks to back of base ontop of tanks etc.
I see this argument from Terran players everywhere, but it's not really valid. First off, ghost tech is cheap and fast, compared to either Immortal tech or Blink tech, and Ghosts hard counter Immortals (and observers, and sentries, and HTs) when any semi-competent player is using them. EMP hits before feedback, blink, charge, psi storm, force field and upgraded Colossus attacks. This means that a few ghosts can blanket an entire Protoss army in EMPs before it can even start fighting, so Immortals will die in 4 hits from tanks instead of 14, blink stalkers will die in 2 hits from tanks instead of 3, and when they arrive, even Marines will be able to take them out quickly, since they'll have had to walk through tank fire just to be able to use blink. Even then, this may work if the stalkers seriously outnumber the Terran army, but if the Terran techs a little more, they can get a Raven for PDDs, which will nullify any sort of skilled stalker play before the Protoss player can respond.
Basically, what most people consider to be Protoss players 'playing it right' is, in fact, Terran players 'playing it wrong.' The only way you can conceivably beat a highly teched Terran army is to catch it out of position, or to beat the player before they get a decent force.
Does not matter much if the stalkers blink right ontop of the tanks then its GG and he is going tanks and ghost from the start he has very very low #'s of tanks/ghost and you can break it easy. Also stalker blinking into sides of base and avoid the tank line is super easy and fast.
This is literally the most pathetic thread I've ever read. You simply can not unify your irrational ranting with Terran's success rate in tournaments. Saying "Terran is overpowered, the only reason they haven't been winning is because the players suck" is the worst straw man argument I've ever heard.
Set up the best Z players vs the best T players, see who wins more games.
EDIT: oh and if you're a PROTOSS player whining about terran, you're incompetent. No offense.
On June 03 2010 02:13 HalfAmazing wrote: This is literally the most pathetic thread I've ever read. You simply can not unify your irrational ranting with Terran's success rate in tournaments. Saying "Terran is overpowered, the only reason they haven't been winning is because the players suck" is the worst straw man argument I've ever heard.
Set up the best Z players vs the best T players, see who wins more games.
EDIT: oh and if you're a PROTOSS player whining about terran, you're incompetent. No offense.
On June 03 2010 02:13 HalfAmazing wrote: This is literally the most pathetic thread I've ever read. You simply can not unify your irrational ranting with Terran's success rate in tournaments. Saying "Terran is overpowered, the only reason they haven't been winning is because the players suck" is the worst straw man argument I've ever heard.
Set up the best Z players vs the best T players, see who wins more games.
Explain why it's irrational with out using the argument that Terrans haven't dominated tournaments. Explain why the people posting here are wrong, post what the solution is.
I've tried blinking on top of tanks. The result was that all the stalkers selected for a blink clump in the same spot and get instakilled. You can split them up, but the results are similar--you just can't kill enough before all your stalkers die to splash. You might be able to warp single stalkers next to single talks to kill them with their own splash damage, but it's a ton of effort and stalkers aren't much cheaper than tanks.
Protoss doesn't really have much of a problem with a Terran mech build because there are so many counters to tanks and Thors. Anything from upgraded charge zealots to immortals to even void rays. A mostly mechanical Terran build is easily countered. Immortals hurt tanks early, Void Rays give vision for cliff tanks, while hitting them hard as well. Out in the open, charge zealots are pretty effective at cutting down tanks, especially if there's no biological units to back them up. Went stalker heavy ? Blink into the tanks. Obviously this doesn't work very well with tons of tanks OR with tanks that have backup, but lone tanks are doomed.
On June 03 2010 01:13 Konsume wrote: PvT: Immortals > tank / thor speedlots > tank / thor Blink Stalkers >= sieged tanks
Wrong. That will work when they have few siege tanks (~5), and it's not a problem for a Protoss to keep a Terran in their base until later mid-game, the problem is that when they move out with many siege tanks (~15), nothing works. Immortals, speedlots, blink stalkers all die incredibly fast, you will kill two or three tanks at best. If you don't believe me, try this out yourself. All these people theorycrafting ideas of what would work is ridiculous because they haven't tried it themselves. I have played multiple PvT's with a friend of mine and every possible combination and style of attacking was attempted; nothing showed promise.]
If that's the problem, then ... What you're doing wrong is letting your opponent get fifteen tanks. Don't let him outmacro you; put the pressure on him constantly.Don't ever let your opponent be walking around with fifteen tanks.
I love how T's are clinging to their race with such a furry that if it gets brought down a peg or two, they will just die. Are there some things that need tweeking? Yes of course. Is the game in beta? Yes it is. So stop re-assuring yourself that you are good, when it could be a little bit more on the units you mass. Also you could just be playing mentally challenged people who don't know how to counter such things. All and all happy gaming.
as a Zerg player i think i always lose unless i go muta, if i go ground i cant win versus mech or MnM, Marauders rape all zerg units unless you have fungal and a big army of hidra ling, but then they start to pump tanks or hellions and its just too dificult to match the T's ground.
On June 03 2010 02:19 NeonGenesis wrote: You didn't read his full post apparantly.
[nevermind] You were referring to someone else.
I might as well remind everyone of sensor towers again. The range on those is such that you can never reasonably catch a Terran out of position. They will always see you coming, and you can never get the flank that works so well on paper.
On June 03 2010 02:15 ThePassingShadow wrote: Protoss doesn't really have much of a problem with a Terran mech build because there are so many counters to tanks and Thors. Anything from upgraded charge zealots to immortals to even void rays. A mostly mechanical Terran build is easily countered. Immortals hurt tanks early, Void Rays give vision for cliff tanks, while hitting them hard as well. Out in the open, charge zealots are pretty effective at cutting down tanks, especially if there's no biological units to back them up. Went stalker heavy ? Blink into the tanks. Obviously this doesn't work very well with tons of tanks OR with tanks that have backup, but lone tanks are doomed.
If that's the problem, then ... What you're doing wrong is letting your opponent get fifteen tanks. Don't let him outmacro you; put the pressure on him constantly.Don't ever let your opponent be walking around with fifteen tanks.
Clearly you are simply theorycrafting, none of this works in a regular game. The strategy of not letting you opponent get ~15 tanks has been tried, and the best way to do this is to simply rush and win the game. Other than that, you cannot effectively keep their tank numbers low when they are content to turtle with their natural and mass up.
It's not a case of being outmacroed, it's a case of the Terran producing units, which when built up enough, cannot be stopped. It's not like the Terran is mass expanding with 5 siege tanks, and I'm just too much of a dope to attack, they stay in their base. Besides attacking right in to their choke (which can also work, but then the problem becomes, if they go tank, you have to win right away), you cannot effectively limit their tank numbers. Try some of your own ideas out before you post them, because the idea that, "Zealots own tanks, immortals own tanks, blink stalkers own tanks; how can Protoss players complain?" is getting really annoying to read when the people have no idea what they are talking about.
first of all i can't believe some ppl saying terrans win only because they use imba units and strats and don't have any skill otherwise! wtf is that also im sure top terrans agree that mech is really strong (vs z) and wouldn't mind if blizz nerfed smth, we would just get on with it and tweak the builds again oh and mech vs P is crap on most of the maps (its ok on LT i think) because P can either rush or just build up zealots ht immortals void rays and own.
On June 02 2010 20:07 Umpteen wrote: From what I've read, the biggest difference is that tanks no longer overkill, so:
a) it's harder (impossible?) to exploit the slow seiged firing rate. Send in a zergling and only one tank will fire.
b) Spreading units out is less effective, because tanks will auto-target a broad spread of units instead of the closest.
I never played BW competitively, so if I'm wrong about this, I apologise.
EDIT: typo.
I think the no over kill, might be the biggest culprit of the imba mech play.
this no over kill reduces the effectiveness of running a unit in, or zealot bombs or anything else that was effective in sc2, this is one of the biggest buffs to the unit from sc:bw.
Id like to see it removed even for a week or two just to see how it plays out, but i doubt that would happen,
On June 02 2010 20:07 Umpteen wrote: From what I've read, the biggest difference is that tanks no longer overkill, so:
a) it's harder (impossible?) to exploit the slow seiged firing rate. Send in a zergling and only one tank will fire.
b) Spreading units out is less effective, because tanks will auto-target a broad spread of units instead of the closest.
I never played BW competitively, so if I'm wrong about this, I apologise.
EDIT: typo.
I think the no over kill, might be the biggest culprit of the imba mech play.
this no over kill reduces the effectiveness of running a unit in, or zealot bombs or anything else that was effective in sc2, this is one of the biggest buffs to the unit from sc:bw.
Id like to see it removed even for a week or two just to see how it plays out, but i doubt that would happen,
On June 02 2010 20:02 lew wrote: 1) Imagine 10 tanks protected with mines and vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine zerg units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
From my experience in BW, zerg units even if they are not clumped and are microed will still get slaughtered by that army. The only way zerg could beat tanks in sc1 was with mutas until they got air defense, and then the only way was pretty much dark swarm. Likewise, in sc2, early/mid game you can fight tanks with micro or mutas, but then late game Zerg will have nothing to actually fight the terran army with except Brood Lords and hope that Terran doesnt have vikings along with their 5 million tanks + other units. And no hydras cant counter the vikings because vikings outrange hydras so they can attack Brood Lords without hydras hitting them. And if you bring the hydras closer to the vikings, the tanks will kill all of them.
Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
Maps need to be bigger. solves the problem. Also Mothership (LOL i know it's actually good in this case for once) and carriers (LOL again yeah, try it instead of knocking it, I've tried it already so shh) do pretty well in addition to ground units. motherships do wonders by vortex/mass recall and less so the cloak. but as in sc1 the best way to beat a TON of tanks is keep them sieged by their base and catch them when they are moving.
On June 03 2010 02:29 PredY wrote: first of all i can't believe some ppl saying terrans win only because they use imba units and strats and don't have any skill otherwise! wtf is that also im sure top terrans agree that mech is really strong (vs z) and wouldn't mind if blizz nerfed smth, we would just get on with it and tweak the builds again oh and mech vs P is crap on most of the maps (its ok on LT i think) because P can either rush or just build up zealots ht immortals void rays and own.
On June 03 2010 02:15 ThePassingShadow wrote: Protoss doesn't really have much of a problem with a Terran mech build because there are so many counters to tanks and Thors. Anything from upgraded charge zealots to immortals to even void rays. A mostly mechanical Terran build is easily countered. Immortals hurt tanks early, Void Rays give vision for cliff tanks, while hitting them hard as well. Out in the open, charge zealots are pretty effective at cutting down tanks, especially if there's no biological units to back them up. Went stalker heavy ? Blink into the tanks. Obviously this doesn't work very well with tons of tanks OR with tanks that have backup, but lone tanks are doomed.
If that's the problem, then ... What you're doing wrong is letting your opponent get fifteen tanks. Don't let him outmacro you; put the pressure on him constantly.Don't ever let your opponent be walking around with fifteen tanks.
Clearly you are simply theorycrafting, none of this works in a regular game. The strategy of not letting you opponent get ~15 tanks has been tried, and the best way to do this is to simply rush and win the game. Other than that, you cannot effectively keep their tank numbers low when they are content to turtle with their natural and mass up.
It's not a case of being outmacroed, it's a case of the Terran producing units, which when built up enough, cannot be stopped. It's not like the Terran is mass expanding with 5 siege tanks, and I'm just too much of a dope to attack, they stay in their base. Besides attacking right in to their choke (which can also work, but then the problem becomes, if they go tank, you have to win right away), you cannot effectively limit their tank numbers. Try some of your own ideas out before you post them, because the idea that, "Zealots own tanks, immortals own tanks, blink stalkers own tanks; how can Protoss players complain?" is getting really annoying to read when the people have no idea what they are talking about.
How much do fifteen tanks cost ? 150/125 x 15 = 2250/1875
If you're not putting enough pressure on your opponent to stop them from getting fifteen tanks from one base, then they could have won by other means even earlier. By the way, I never said "zealots own tanks" etcetera. They have to be used appropriately. You want to put the pressure on them really early before they can get a lot of tanks. I play Protoss against Terran every single day in Diamond League and against high-level Diamond League friends and the best way to deal with tanks is to prevent them from reaching critical mass.
I'm really not trying to start an aggressive discussion here; please don't post things like "when the people have no idea what they are talking about". Watch some replays; it'll really help. There are tons of and tons of PvT replays out there where the Protoss player comes out on top. Check them out, like I have and others have. Early pressure with zealots, sentries and stalkers can prevent early tanks; tech into immortals or void rays if you see an extremely marauder-heavy army. Box your opponent in; if he cannot expand, he has no hope of making FIFTEEN siege tanks. If your opponent is just hanging back in his base using siege tanks for defence, check to see how many he has. If he's only got one and you can break through to take it out, do so and keep putting pressure on him; maybe use a proxy pylon to reinforce. If he's got more tanks than you can handle, just keep his natural under your control, keep macroing, expand yourself, and you should come out ahead. Make sure to scout around the map to make sure he doesn't float any CCs over there. It's pretty effective.
Again, I'd like to stress that I'm only trying to be helpful here, not attacking you.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
On June 03 2010 02:15 ThePassingShadow wrote:Immortals hurt tanks early
No... just no. Maybe if they were immune to EMP, but as it is, immortals are the least cost effective unit vs tanks.
If they get a ghost academy, AND a ghost, AND a tank, AND siege mode, and have enough energy to EMP an immortal, I don't think we're talking about 'early' anymore.
It takes a LONG time to build up a mech army, just take advantage of that and expand~! You should be able to have 3 saturated bases and a 4th coming vs a 2 base mech timing push.
On June 03 2010 03:04 Lz wrote: try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
The problem LZ is that the maps tend to be a little too small for this. but besides that i agree with you (as a random/zerg player)
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
Hi Lz! CatZ dropped all over you in Lost Temple last Sunday night with banelings into your workers, roaches and hydras on cliffs, and even ended up with some broodlords, but when you decided it was time to move out, he still got rolled. (Here's the game)
Do you think (as I did) that infestors would be the only real way to deal with your 10+ tanks and 5 thors?
I think terran mech needs a slight nerf. You can't expect every kind of build be perfectly balanced between races. I just hope Blizzard don't overdo it when they get to it. If terran mech gets nerf significantly, zerg will just start to roll over terrans if everything else stays the same.
On June 03 2010 03:07 superbabosheki wrote: It takes a LONG time to build up a mech army, just take advantage of that and expand~! You should be able to have 3 saturated bases and a 4th coming vs a 2 base mech timing push.
Agreed. It's so funny when a Zerg masses up to 200/200 off of 2 bases, sends his "OVERWHELMINGLY HUGE, UNSTOPPABLE, SUPER DUPER ARMY (HEY IT'S 200/200 AFTER ALL!) into a defensively positioned mech army, loses, then doesn't have the production capacity to reproduce a large enough army in time, and loses when terran counters. Stop trying to win in the first 10 minutes, set up for the long game, and zerg does quite well vs mech. Don't be stupid and impatient.
I think theres tons of ways to counter mech. 1 such way is to go for more nydus worms, drops and mutas and banelings. Zerg has lots of mobility and if you can use that mobility in the early-mid game mech is significantly weaker.
On June 03 2010 03:04 EleanorRIgby wrote: Maybe give mutas a hive tech upgrade that nullifies splash damage?
Or just spread your mutas like a big boy?
I'm just tired of the complaining really, i have a zerg practice partner and we have probably played 20 tvz mech games and he has found a style that really stands up to it if not more.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
Hi Lz! CatZ dropped all over you in Lost Temple last Sunday night with banelings into your workers, roaches and hydras on cliffs, and even ended up with some broodlords, but when you decided it was time to move out, he still got rolled. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNAUspM640AHere's the game)
Do you think (as I did) that infestors would be the only real way to deal with your 10+ tanks and 5 thors?
i think he lost his natural to a thor on his cliff.. and he didnt expand very much.. THINK BW.. Becasue mech works same way.. 3 base terran (1 of those being a GOLD) vs. 4 base zerg no gold.. who going to win... hmmmm Terran due to there units allways being more cost effective.
On June 03 2010 03:19 Lz wrote: i think he lost his natural to a thor on his cliff.. and he didnt expand very much.. THINK BW.. Becasue mech works same way.. 3 base terran (1 of those being a GOLD) vs. 4 base zerg no gold.. who going to win... hmmmm Terran due to there units allways being more cost effective.
Hey Lz, could you count for me "how much hits it took from that thor to kill the WHOLE expansion? and also count in seconds how much time it took to kill that expansion?"
Took 28secs for a SINGLE thor to kill a WHOLE expansion With 22 hits (well 44 if you concider each attack 2 hits)
28 SECONDS!!! and it was only 6min40 in the game!!!
if we get the same numbers of hit and time to kill the expansion, I would like you to look me right into my eyes and say that Tmech isn't overpowered ESPECIALY thors with mobility provided by the medivacs
Another thing to point out, is that in many of these games that are being used as examples of mech being overpowered (i.e. Sheth vs QXC) there's essentially a stalemate situation where neither terran nor zerg can attack the other, without losing their entire army. The Sheth vs QXC game on steppes of war for example, Sheth throws giant wads of zerg blob at QXC's tanks, loses them, and QXC is STILL not in a position to attack, because zerg can rebuild a large enough army very quickly due to saved up resources. Clearly over time terran gains a massive advantage when zerg does this, as he simply has more resources unspent at the end of the game. If at any time QXC decided to unsiege all of his tanks and engage zerg, with both having a 200/200 army, zerg would win convincingly as he'd flank the shit out of him and keep a maxed out army due to superior production mechanics.
On June 02 2010 20:47 GoDannY wrote: To my honest opinion this is the main issue and it's no longer like "swarming a-click", it is more and people begged for it: more caster/ability-heavy play (see overseer buff and infestor changes).
Zerg has such powerful abilities/casters vs Mech too.. such as.. uh.. frenzy.. and uhh.. infested terran... and corruption... yeah. Why not changelings too? Don't even mention FG vs tanks. It's good against bio, and that's nice, but it's terrible vs Mech.
I mean really GoDannY, how often do you play Zerg? Would you mind pointing me to these awesome casters and abilities I don't know about?
Thats like saying "oh lategame zerg bw army isnt imba vs T" "all you need are 50 science vessels and tanks when you had only been building MM"
Anybody notice they increased speed cost for overlords? Cause I know you arnt proposing to slowdrop ultras and such on top of tanks. If slow for maruder can be 50/50 which is much more powerful then overlord speed.....why is it cheaper?
On June 03 2010 03:30 HalfAmazing wrote: Another thing to point out, is that in many of these games that are being used as examples of mech being overpowered (i.e. Sheth vs QXC) there's essentially a stalemate situation where neither terran nor zerg can attack the other, without losing their entire army. The Sheth vs QXC game on steppes of war for example, Sheth throws giant wads of zerg blob at QXC's tanks, loses them, and QXC is STILL not in a position to attack, because zerg can rebuild a large enough army very quickly due to saved up resources. Clearly over time terran gains a massive advantage when zerg does this, as he simply has more resources unspent at the end of the game. If at any time QXC decided to unsiege all of his tanks and engage zerg, with both having a 200/200 army, zerg would win convincingly as he'd flank the shit out of him and keep a maxed out army due to superior production mechanics.
So Terran can't lose if they don't do anything and that makes it balanced?
I'm not really sure I follow your line of thought on this one. What does it matter if QXC can't move out if he's going to win by sitting back and progressively building more forces and upgrades. Don't forget that siege tanks scale much much better than enemy armor (+5 dmg/upgrade). Armor upgrades only mitigate 20% of the effect of a siege tank's weapon upgrade. This might actually be part of the problem to be honest.
Not only do tanks hit a critical mass, but 3/3 tanks vs 3/3 enemy units fair better than 0/0 tanks vs 0/0 units. 2 0/0 tanks leave a 0/0 roach with 27hp. 2 3/3 tanks leave a 3/3 roach with 3hp.
For that matter Thors also scale well vs ground in comparison to armor upgrades (armor upgrades offer 33% mitigation of the extra ground damage).
After some extensive testing, the mothership is by far to most critical unit in breaking a terran tank ball. Someone posted about the mothership, and I had tested it before, but I wasn't impressed by the small vortex radius. This time i tried mass recall, and it works in a weird way. Remember back to SC:BW PvT, if you hit a recall, the blue wormhole animation would appear, and about two seconds later, the units near that wormhole would be teleported to the arbiter. If the arbiter died before the wormhole sucked the units through, nothing would happen.
That's not how mass recall works. The second you hit mass recall, all your units targeted disappear, but it's not for two seconds later that they appear under the mothership. So it's possible for your units to be in limbo, where they are being recalled to the mothership, and they are no where on the map. What happens if the mothership dies while your units are still in that teleporting limbo? They will still appear where the mothership was, meaning that you can cast a mass recall just as your mothership is about to die and the units will warp in.
I tried recalling immortals, stalkers, and zealots, as well as immortals, colossi, stalkers, and zealots. The first composition did a lot of damage, killing most of my opponents army, the second composition beat the entirety of the Terran army and a few immortals were left over. The actual testing was done with either:
5 immortal, 18 stalkers, 7 zealot, 3 colossi, 1 mothership -VS- 16 siege tanks, 7 vikings, 19 hellions, 1 raven. The cost of these two armies are very, very similar, and if anything, the Protoss would have the economic advantage. The second composition was the same, except three more immortals instead of the 3 colossi.
There are a couple flaws from what I could see. Firstly, a ghost EMP would render this useless. Secondly, later on when the Terran has more vikings, the mothership wouldn't be able to survive as long before it has to use it's recall. In tested situations where I had to recall earlier than ideally expected, there was still significant damage done to the Terran, where they had about 20% of their army leftover.
The ghost EMP and mass vikings at first would make me think this strategy couldn't work, but I don't know how many Terrans would have a ghost, or would be able to use their ghost quickly enough, but the mothership moves at a decent speed for a mass recall when you allow it to accelerate to it's maximum movement. Secondly, as long as you wait until the Terran isn't near a Xel'Naga watch tower, they would have to react near instantly to your mothership to catch it in an EMP. Actual in game testing will reveal whether or not that's going to happen often, but at that stage in the game, although losing a mothership sucks, it wouldn't be game-ending as you can simply chronoboost out another, and because the Terran turtled, you should have the economic advantage.
Well, now that we have input from a player like Lz, this makes what I have to say feel a lot less important lol. I'm a plat zerg/terran player, so I have experience both using and defending against mech. Obviously I'm not the greatest, but w/e.
As Zerg, I feel able to consistently beat this using mass muta into broodlord, though that is considerably hard to get to if the Terran decides to run a few hellions into the worker line every few minutes and roast up some drones. Usually queen/speedlings can hold this off, though. Also, as has been said already, spreading about 10-15 mutas allows you to kill at least 2-3 thors fairly easily.
From the Terran side of things, the most annoying thing players do to me is some sort of roach rush before I have enough tanks to deal with it. Hell, even a 6 pool can win fairly easily on a bad day/small map. Although, a build crafted by a friend of mine (13 fortress rofl) shuts that down fairly well, and leaves me free to mech up and expand without fear of anything on the ground. Also, I can usually have a handful of turrets and a thor up before the inevitable mutas arrive.
However, the Zerg just takes the whole map and (if I'm too passive) overruns me with broodlords/mutas eventually. Usually I end it before that happens, though, but I'm relatively sure that's due in part to the Zerg losing their early army in their failed push against the Planetary Fortress, not just because of racial imbalance.
Just my 2 cents.
Edit: Wow! Like five new posts came up as I was writing this xD
On June 03 2010 02:22 Salv wrote: The strategy of not letting you opponent get ~15 colossus has been tried, and the best way to do this is to simply rush and win the game.
On June 03 2010 02:22 Salv wrote: It's not a case of being outmacroed, it's a case of the Protoss producing units, which when built up enough, cannot be stopped.
On June 03 2010 03:03 ThePassingShadow wrote:
How much do fiftten [let's make it ten to make it a bit more realistic] colossus cost ? 300/200 x 10 = 3000/2000
If you're not putting enough pressure on your opponent to stop them from getting ten colossus from one base, then they could have won by other means even earlier. [...] You want to put the pressure on them really early before they can get a lot of colossus. I play Protoss against Terran every single day in Diamond League and against high-level Diamond League friends and the best way to deal with colossus is to prevent them from reaching critical mass.
On June 03 2010 03:03 ThePassingShadow wrote:There are tons of and tons of PvT replays out there where the Terran player comes out on top. Check them out, like I have and others have. Early pressure with marines and marauders can prevent early colossus; Box your opponent in; if he cannot expand, he has no hope of making TEN colossus.
Susbtituting the word "colossus" by "tanks" and "protoss" by "terran", and you'll get the original post. Just to say, how similar the two situations are, and of course, some protoss units were nerfed, and for good reason, and now the same reasoning should be applied to terran, since so far they've been farily immune to nerfing, though in my opinion needing it, or giving the other races better means to counter mech. Also, it seems a lot of the advice given here, is like a lion giving advice to a deer on how to escape death. First it was the protoss, now it's terran, though probably not to the same extent.
That would be a fine comparison, however if I really wanted to play a game where I sat at my base at got 15 colossi, there isn't much the opponent could do to not allow that. The difference is, when I move out with 15 colossi, that type of army would be easily, easily countered.
IdrA just destroyed TheLittleOne on Lost Temple when TLO went mech in the TL Altitude Invitational. He expanded like crazy, did a drop into the Terran main, and dealt with Thors using Broodlords (which were in turn protected from Vikings by Infestor Fungal Growths and Corruptors).
I think it can be done. It's virtually the same problem Zerg had to deal with in SC:BW.
On June 03 2010 03:51 The_Piper42 wrote: IdrA just destroyed TheLittleOne on Lost Temple when TLO went mech in the TL Altitude Invitational. He expanded like crazy, did a drop into the Terran main, and dealt with Thors using Broodlords (which were in turn protected from Vikings by Infestor Fungal Growths and Corruptors).
I think it can be done. It's virtually the same problem Zerg had to deal with in SC:BW.
In broodwar zerg had dark swarm though. For the rest of the non elite diamond players like myself I think we have an impossible time beating terran after they get a secured third. I stay in the game but in reality it's already gg because I have no way to beat upgraded mech even if I'm on 4-5 bases to their 3. It doesn't help when almost half your food count is going to drones and then the rest of your army is laughable and there's just not enough stuff you can get. As long as I end the game before they get their expo saturated I'm ok. I'm not so sure how good for the game that is but I guess the same thing is true pvt.
On June 03 2010 03:19 Lz wrote: i think he lost his natural to a thor on his cliff.. and he didnt expand very much.. THINK BW.. Becasue mech works same way.. 3 base terran (1 of those being a GOLD) vs. 4 base zerg no gold.. who going to win... hmmmm Terran due to there units allways being more cost effective.
Hey Lz, could you count for me "how much hits it took from that thor to kill the WHOLE expansion? and also count in seconds how much time it took to kill that expansion?"
Took 28secs for a SINGLE thor to kill a WHOLE expansion With 22 hits (well 44 if you concider each attack 2 hits)
28 SECONDS!!! and it was only 6min40 in the game!!!
if we get the same numbers of hit and time to kill the expansion, I would like you to look me right into my eyes and say that Tmech isn't overpowered ESPECIALY thors with mobility provided by the medivacs
On June 03 2010 03:37 dogabutila wrote: Anybody notice they increased speed cost for overlords? Cause I know you arnt proposing to slowdrop ultras and such on top of tanks. If slow for maruder can be 50/50 which is much more powerful then overlord speed.....why is it cheaper?
you cant see it that way. look at warpgate tech it costs 50/50 and is pretty much the strongest tech/researchable thing in the whole game. still its fine.
Terran mech isn't imba. If tanks were imba then by now statistics would have proven it. All terran players would just mass tanks to autowin and we'd see a huge leap in terran wins in higher level play (which is not the case at all). Lets see, what else is mech? Thors? Are they imba too now?
If one unit in the matchup proves to be great, there will be a way to poke at its weaknesses, unless you can mass a full bio ball and a full mech ball in one game sitting aka do the impossible.
The only minor issue for the tank that I feel should be addressed (assuming it will not cause a major change) is the already mentioned overkill trait from BW that no longer exists in SC2. Tank control seems too intelligent (noob friendly) and more difficult to micro against as they don't overkill if you send in scapegoat units, which leaves the only real option to bomb drops on tanks.
On June 03 2010 01:41 dargul wrote: Thors aren't HARD counter for muta. i might surprise u but 4 mutas will kill 1 thor, 8mutas will kill 2 thors 12 will kill 3 thors etc. 20mutas +2corraptors will kill 5 thors and you will have 7 mutas +2 corraptors left after this if you will simply make 2 groups by 10muta and cor in each and attack from 2 sides(it isn't that hard right? )
I mean that yeh thors counter muta but they can be killed by muta for a reasonable price and all you need for this is a little micro to not make muta stack, just A move and muta will do fine with thors. I rather often win terrans with muta just because the rely on thors too much and don't build marines vikings as antimuta support for thors. I'm 300 plat zerg.
The only problem with this is when they get +2 or +3 attack. If the game goes mid to late game I lose a large percentage of those games so I try to end it asap kind of similiar to how toss used to want to beat zerg with the mid game timing push and if zerg survived they had a large advantage. Like when idra played tlo on lt, I don't think I could ever win a game like that atm. It's really hard but I've seen other people win so I guess I just have to have insane apm and really refine a build order against mech that can still adjust to the thousand other openings terran has. I have more of a problem scouting something too late or not being able to adjust to certain openings like 4 helion preigniter push or delayed helion rine push into viking because I'm so worried about stuff like tank rine pushes, thor drops, and tank helion thor.
So he is getting upgrades and you are not ? umm get upgrades ? Thors still suck vs them anything armored they tend to do shitty shitty dmg
Tanks also do full dmg to everything. A hydra won't take half dmg vs siege tank fire like it would in SC1, it takes full dmg.
I believe a speedling could run by a tank firing it and still live in SC1? I feel like tanks are also a lot more effective vs speedlings in SC2 because they all run next to each other and all get hit and die.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
I dont see mech as a problem with p, the problem i see with z is that they attack me too soon. They attack with 4-5 tanks, some marines and a few hellion and no matter how much units i send or try to flank i alwais get fucked if they can get a position on my natural.
On June 03 2010 04:11 FabledIntegral wrote: Tanks also do full dmg to everything. A hydra won't take half dmg vs siege tank fire like it would in SC1, it takes full dmg.
Tanks didn't do half damage to hydras anyway. Explosive damage = 75% damage to medium units, which means that it takes 2 hits to kill a hydra regardless of which game you're in.
On June 03 2010 04:11 FabledIntegral wrote: I believe a speedling could run by a tank firing it and still live in SC1? I feel like tanks are also a lot more effective vs speedlings in SC2 because they all run next to each other and all get hit and die.
Only if the speedling has 1 armor upgrade and the tank has none.
And just because micro is harder makes it an imbalance issue? If that were the case, then explain how Protoss mechanics in SC1 are less demanding than the other races, but in high-level play the races are balanced.
On June 02 2010 20:36 whatthemate wrote: no its just that zerg players complain. just watch some of the gomtv protosses, they humiliate terran with a build that goes like this: 1.heavy stalker opening with quarter zealot mix +1-2 sentries. 2. as time passes by army becomes more zealot heavy. 3.tricks terran into overproducing factory units. 3. charge is upgraded and zealot + forcefields buy a lot of time. brute force with a ton of gateway. inefficient but you can brute force it with stronger economy. 4.1-2 stargates you win > mass void ray.
zerg just attack move too much. they play too much simcity and allow terran to critical mass tanks that's all. all the zerg players are playing them the wrong way. zerg are meant to make great use of mind games by burrowing and fighting only when they can win. most zerg players just attempt to cancel out with brute force and watch the battles go to see if their army can win the fight. that's why against terran always burrow if you cannot win the fight.
zerg players need to have the mindset to force terran to get a goddamn useless raven to detect. hydras are only meant to comprise no more than 20% of your army, most of it should be a mix of roaches mutas and zerglings.
This post is correct, especially with the increased regen rate from tunneling claws now. If you let the terran move out of his base on the ground without a raven after you get lair tech, you're playing the game wrong.
Burrowed banelings + roaches force terran to either move around with medivacs, harass with vikings, or get a raven. use this to your advantage. Raven is a huge investment, slows down pushes, and makes your army vulnerable if it dies.
I wasn't having problems with 1800 rated platinum terrans last patch when I switched to zerg (from protoss). As long as you don't crash your units into siege tank lines, mech is not unbeatable. Yeah, its difficult to play against, but you need to play smart!
On June 03 2010 04:11 FabledIntegral wrote: Tanks also do full dmg to everything. A hydra won't take half dmg vs siege tank fire like it would in SC1, it takes full dmg.
Tanks didn't do half damage to hydras anyway. Explosive damage = 75% damage to medium units, which means that it takes 2 hits to kill a hydra regardless of which game you're in.
On June 03 2010 04:11 FabledIntegral wrote: I believe a speedling could run by a tank firing it and still live in SC1? I feel like tanks are also a lot more effective vs speedlings in SC2 because they all run next to each other and all get hit and die.
Only if the speedling has 1 armor upgrade and the tank has none.
And just because micro is harder makes it an imbalance issue? If that were the case, then explain how Protoss mechanics in SC1 are less demanding than the other races, but in high-level play the races are balanced.
Oh whatever. It's still the difference in damage that I'm talking about.
And I never said it made it an imbalance issue, that's completely irrelevant. Although please please plesae enlighten me how you can possibly send zergling towards the enemy in SC2 save controlling them literally individually without them running right next to each other, which wouldn't happen as much in SC2. If tanks are more efficient in SC2 than SC1 at killing, are you possibly going to tell me that doesn't make tanks better?
I lost a game against TvP when protos just massed stalker and templars. Ridicilous masses...
We both turtled until we both were at 200/200.
I wanted to try BC one game so I had saved to 15 BC and around 20 tanks. The rest were vikings, workers, mm, ghots... I was fully upgraded on the air, dont know how it was with the ground.
and....
He just crushed me.
Blinking stalkers in the base in such numbers the tanks had no chance. BC also melted to stalkers and templars.
The way I could have won would probably be with ghosts using emp better. But my comp is to old it just freezes when large battles are taking place. Not unusual with 3-5 seconds of total freeze makes it impossible to cast spells in battle.
Just a remark into the discussion. I have won many games with tech too. Before patch I were top 10 platinum.
On June 03 2010 01:58 avilo wrote: one problem might be that some maps are really small. Obviously incineration zone, and steppes of war might be hard zvt.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
I guess by "never" what you are really trying to say is "in your games" since your play is often exceptionally uncreative. Cool didn't seem to have these problems vs Maka during the World Cup. The way I see it, people are way too quick to point out the counters to something that could be done. Both burrowed roaches and nydus worm was used to great effect in recent tournaments, by players who are a step above you at the moment, so obviously just because counters exist, the best players find ways and no one has an impenetrable defense. Infestors even broke a siege line in the semi finals by mind controlling tanks/thors up a cliff with an overlord scout. Basically the ways are there, but Zerg needs to be a bit more creative. On the bright side, destroying a mech ball is generally much more of a gain than destroying Zerg units. I think people, including some top players, are too quick to look for a solution that will solve the problem every time rather than consider all the options(nydus, infestors, burrowed roaches, overlord drops, mineral line harass w/lings/banes/mutas, traps etc) and find one that will suit that particular game and situation. You can find counters to all of them all day long on a forum, but in my experience from playing and watching top games there always tends to be at least one solution for every game, and all the options above are used regularly.
Honestly, you're a good player, but you're never going to be among the very best if you don't quit the pessimistic "they'll just do x"-attitude and start believing you can find a way every game.
maka didnt play mech, he used bio+2 fac tank which has significantly more weaknesses. he also played aggressively, while what we're talking about is pure defensive mech with viking support which is far stronger. there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
infestor mc range is 3 or 4 shorter than tank range, as i said infestors are useful in alot of situations and should be made, but they are not a solution to turtle mech. i dunno what game you're talking about but infestors are not gonna let you break a tank line that you couldntve anyway.
burrowed roaches are not something that you can just use to take advantage of a situation, you have to get 2 expensive slow upgrades well before hand. its a significant investment that really just isnt worth it given how easy to prevent it is, and how valuable gas is. nyduses and overlord drops are something that you can use to take advantage of vulnerabilities, but given how easy it is to prevent both of them they are not a solution to mech. they win you a game here and there, but depending on your opponent making significant, basic mistakes is not a good way to approach the game.
you talk about taking advantage of weaknesses and particular situations, you dont realize just how easy it is for terran to eliminate those weaknesses, not allow those situations to happen because of sensor towers + the ridiculous efficiency of their units. when terran can see every drop coming from halfway across the map, hold attacks with a handful of units that cost a quarter as much, absolutely hard counter most of zerg's unit choices. you're making the assumption that terran has to play perfectly to be invulnerable, and thats just not the case. of course terrans have lost games, but this mech play is relatively new and very unrefined, and most top players, including all of the best terrans on the us server + morrow will tell still you that its overpowered already. you get a competent player using it and they would literally never lose to zerg on most of the current maps.
Good that they made it one less upgrade for the roaches the latest patch then. Maybe we will see more play with them when they dont need "2 expensive slow upgrades" anymore.
On June 03 2010 04:29 rtano wrote: I lost a game against TvP when protos just massed stalker and templars. Ridicilous masses...
We both turtled until we both were at 200/200.
I wanted to try BC one game so I had saved to 15 BC and around 20 tanks. The rest were vikings, workers, mm, ghots... I was fully upgraded on the air, dont know how it was with the ground.
and....
He just crushed me.
Blinking stalkers in the base in such numbers the tanks had no chance. BC also melted to stalkers and templars.
The way I could have won would probably be with ghosts using emp better. But my comp is to old it just freezes when large battles are taking place. Not unusual with 3-5 seconds of total freeze makes it impossible to cast spells in battle.
Just a remark into the discussion. I have won many games with tech too. Before patch I were top 10 platinum.
I don't know how, BC's literally eat stalkers alive, stalkers are a horrible counter to BC's...
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
I guess by "never" what you are really trying to say is "in your games" since your play is often exceptionally uncreative. Cool didn't seem to have these problems vs Maka during the World Cup. The way I see it, people are way too quick to point out the counters to something that could be done. Both burrowed roaches and nydus worm was used to great effect in recent tournaments, by players who are a step above you at the moment, so obviously just because counters exist, the best players find ways and no one has an impenetrable defense. Infestors even broke a siege line in the semi finals by mind controlling tanks/thors up a cliff with an overlord scout. Basically the ways are there, but Zerg needs to be a bit more creative. On the bright side, destroying a mech ball is generally much more of a gain than destroying Zerg units. I think people, including some top players, are too quick to look for a solution that will solve the problem every time rather than consider all the options(nydus, infestors, burrowed roaches, overlord drops, mineral line harass w/lings/banes/mutas, traps etc) and find one that will suit that particular game and situation. You can find counters to all of them all day long on a forum, but in my experience from playing and watching top games there always tends to be at least one solution for every game, and all the options above are used regularly.
Honestly, you're a good player, but you're never going to be among the very best if you don't quit the pessimistic "they'll just do x"-attitude and start believing you can find a way every game.
maka didnt play mech, he used bio+2 fac tank which has significantly more weaknesses. he also played aggressively, while what we're talking about is pure defensive mech with viking support which is far stronger. there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
infestor mc range is 3 or 4 shorter than tank range, as i said infestors are useful in alot of situations and should be made, but they are not a solution to turtle mech. i dunno what game you're talking about but infestors are not gonna let you break a tank line that you couldntve anyway.
burrowed roaches are not something that you can just use to take advantage of a situation, you have to get 2 expensive slow upgrades well before hand. its a significant investment that really just isnt worth it given how easy to prevent it is, and how valuable gas is. nyduses and overlord drops are something that you can use to take advantage of vulnerabilities, but given how easy it is to prevent both of them they are not a solution to mech. they win you a game here and there, but depending on your opponent making significant, basic mistakes is not a good way to approach the game.
you talk about taking advantage of weaknesses and particular situations, you dont realize just how easy it is for terran to eliminate those weaknesses, not allow those situations to happen because of sensor towers + the ridiculous efficiency of their units. when terran can see every drop coming from halfway across the map, hold attacks with a handful of units that cost a quarter as much, absolutely hard counter most of zerg's unit choices. you're making the assumption that terran has to play perfectly to be invulnerable, and thats just not the case. of course terrans have lost games, but this mech play is relatively new and very unrefined, and most top players, including all of the best terrans on the us server + morrow will tell still you that its overpowered already. you get a competent player using it and they would literally never lose to zerg on most of the current maps.
Good that they made it one less upgrade for the roaches the latest patch then. Maybe we will see more play with them when they dont need "2 expensive slow upgrades" anymore.
He was talking about burrow + movement underground. You still need to get those 2 expensive slow upgrades.
On June 02 2010 22:14 avilo wrote: to OP: no, it's not. and to person mentioning what LZ said after playing moman, LZ was spot on.
And too many players right now have "one control group command and conquer syndrome" so that is also making mech very lol strong versus Zerg.
It is the same as SC1. If you suicide into their army, you're going to lose.
Overlord drops, nydus worms, burrowed roaches, mass MASS muta (SC1 ZvT vs mech style was mass hydra/muta), infestor usage...all of these are good versus mech. The people saying that muta's suck seem to be the ones that build 12 and stop producing them entirely.
And I actually think mass banelings have potential with muta and/or mass roaches versus mech.
edit: and oh how I miss the days of brood war where players would actually brainstorm and come up with strategies / solutions to builds and such rather than giving up and saying, "oh that's imba! nerf it blizzard!"
just sighs. those were the good old days.
overlord drops are a joke given sensor towers + vikings flying around. burrowed roaches and nydus worms both depend on your opponent not playing properly, as there are very simple 100% solutions to both, and i assume you're joking when you say mass muta. mutas were good vs sc1 mech... because thors didnt exist. i dont see how infestors are gonna do anything to break a siege line. sure theyre helpful in a lot of situations but the real problem is that theres never any way for zerg to kill terran before they get this big invincible army. nothing you've suggested changes that.
everyone says that you're not supposed to attack a mech ball, thats true. but if thats true then there has to be other ways to win the game. the combination of sensor towers turrets and vikings, and the fact that thors counter mutas so ridiculously hard, kinda puts an end to any of that.
and again, you dont even know how to play terran. dont try to give zergs advice based on what beats you because it doesnt beat good players.
I guess by "never" what you are really trying to say is "in your games" since your play is often exceptionally uncreative. Cool didn't seem to have these problems vs Maka during the World Cup. The way I see it, people are way too quick to point out the counters to something that could be done. Both burrowed roaches and nydus worm was used to great effect in recent tournaments, by players who are a step above you at the moment, so obviously just because counters exist, the best players find ways and no one has an impenetrable defense. Infestors even broke a siege line in the semi finals by mind controlling tanks/thors up a cliff with an overlord scout. Basically the ways are there, but Zerg needs to be a bit more creative. On the bright side, destroying a mech ball is generally much more of a gain than destroying Zerg units. I think people, including some top players, are too quick to look for a solution that will solve the problem every time rather than consider all the options(nydus, infestors, burrowed roaches, overlord drops, mineral line harass w/lings/banes/mutas, traps etc) and find one that will suit that particular game and situation. You can find counters to all of them all day long on a forum, but in my experience from playing and watching top games there always tends to be at least one solution for every game, and all the options above are used regularly.
Honestly, you're a good player, but you're never going to be among the very best if you don't quit the pessimistic "they'll just do x"-attitude and start believing you can find a way every game.
maka didnt play mech, he used bio+2 fac tank which has significantly more weaknesses. he also played aggressively, while what we're talking about is pure defensive mech with viking support which is far stronger. there are very few good terrans on the asian server and ensnare is the only top one who plays pure mech regularly, but if you look at some of the sen vs tlo and check vs rainbow games it shows you how ridiculously strong mech is. ya the zergs won the series, but really those zergs shouldnt even be losing games to those terrans.
infestor mc range is 3 or 4 shorter than tank range, as i said infestors are useful in alot of situations and should be made, but they are not a solution to turtle mech. i dunno what game you're talking about but infestors are not gonna let you break a tank line that you couldntve anyway.
burrowed roaches are not something that you can just use to take advantage of a situation, you have to get 2 expensive slow upgrades well before hand. its a significant investment that really just isnt worth it given how easy to prevent it is, and how valuable gas is. nyduses and overlord drops are something that you can use to take advantage of vulnerabilities, but given how easy it is to prevent both of them they are not a solution to mech. they win you a game here and there, but depending on your opponent making significant, basic mistakes is not a good way to approach the game.
you talk about taking advantage of weaknesses and particular situations, you dont realize just how easy it is for terran to eliminate those weaknesses, not allow those situations to happen because of sensor towers + the ridiculous efficiency of their units. when terran can see every drop coming from halfway across the map, hold attacks with a handful of units that cost a quarter as much, absolutely hard counter most of zerg's unit choices. you're making the assumption that terran has to play perfectly to be invulnerable, and thats just not the case. of course terrans have lost games, but this mech play is relatively new and very unrefined, and most top players, including all of the best terrans on the us server + morrow will tell still you that its overpowered already. you get a competent player using it and they would literally never lose to zerg on most of the current maps.
Good that they made it one less upgrade for the roaches the latest patch then. Maybe we will see more play with them when they dont need "2 expensive slow upgrades" anymore.
He wasn't talking about Glial and Tunneling. Its burrow and tunneling. Burrow = 100/100 100 seconds Tunneling Claws = 150/150 110 seconds
Just wondering something since I'm nowhere near a top player myself. Through the early stages of beta, I always heard that Tanks were now useless especially being 3 food and more expensive. I think it was Jinro who said he always wanted to go mech, but it wasn't viable. Now though everyone agrees they're at LEAST very strong, if not even imbalanced. The smart firing was there all along, so was it just the "re-centering" of splash damage that suddenly made them so much better?
On June 03 2010 05:12 numberThirtyOne wrote: Just wondering something since I'm nowhere near a top player myself. Through the early stages of beta, I always heard that Tanks were now useless especially being 3 food and more expensive. I think it was Jinro who said he always wanted to go mech, but it wasn't viable. Now though everyone agrees they're at LEAST very strong, if not even imbalanced. The smart firing was there all along, so was it just the "re-centering" of splash damage that suddenly made them so much better?
On June 03 2010 05:12 numberThirtyOne wrote: Just wondering something since I'm nowhere near a top player myself. Through the early stages of beta, I always heard that Tanks were now useless especially being 3 food and more expensive. I think it was Jinro who said he always wanted to go mech, but it wasn't viable. Now though everyone agrees they're at LEAST very strong, if not even imbalanced. The smart firing was there all along, so was it just the "re-centering" of splash damage that suddenly made them so much better?
It was the 10hp buff.
Lol .
Anyways, the roach nerf made a difference for ZvT. Previously against a mass tank army you could spam Roaches to overwhelm them. Tanks still tear through roaches, but tearing through 60 roaches + the rest of the zerg army is significantly harder than doing so vs 30 roaches + rest of the zerg army. Doubly so when the tanks were firing off center. So the Terran couldn't do a turtling strategy and come out alright.
Agreed, the roach nerf was the main change. A 200/200 army was so much more powerful prenerf, not to mention that you could replenish very quickly even as the battle was progressing using stored-up larva.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned... but as a protoss player I get hallucinate for scouting purposes anyway. Against terran mech I use it to hallucinate immortals (which still have hardened shields just like normal immortals) to take the initial tank shots (or even get the terran to waste an emp), it has worked pretty well for me so far (backed by blink stalkers/chargelots/templar as needed). Otherwise i'll echo the sentiment that people need to not 1a into tank masses and should instead figure out new ways to abuse mech immobility.
On June 03 2010 03:46 Duelist wrote: Imagine you're at the time before all patches.
On June 03 2010 02:22 Salv wrote: The strategy of not letting you opponent get ~15 colossus has been tried, and the best way to do this is to simply rush and win the game.
On June 03 2010 02:22 Salv wrote: It's not a case of being outmacroed, it's a case of the Protoss producing units, which when built up enough, cannot be stopped.
On June 03 2010 03:03 ThePassingShadow wrote:
How much do fiftten [let's make it ten to make it a bit more realistic] colossus cost ? 300/200 x 10 = 3000/2000
If you're not putting enough pressure on your opponent to stop them from getting ten colossus from one base, then they could have won by other means even earlier. [...] You want to put the pressure on them really early before they can get a lot of colossus. I play Protoss against Terran every single day in Diamond League and against high-level Diamond League friends and the best way to deal with colossus is to prevent them from reaching critical mass.
On June 03 2010 03:03 ThePassingShadow wrote:There are tons of and tons of PvT replays out there where the Terran player comes out on top. Check them out, like I have and others have. Early pressure with marines and marauders can prevent early colossus; Box your opponent in; if he cannot expand, he has no hope of making TEN colossus.
Susbtituting the word "colossus" by "tanks" and "protoss" by "terran", and you'll get the original post. Just to say, how similar the two situations are, and of course, some protoss units were nerfed, and for good reason, and now the same reasoning should be applied to terran, since so far they've been farily immune to nerfing, though in my opinion needing it, or giving the other races better means to counter mech. Also, it seems a lot of the advice given here, is like a lion giving advice to a deer on how to escape death. First it was the protoss, now it's terran, though probably not to the same extent.
this line of thinking was wrong all along.
in brood war games between very skilled players often went into the late game where players are essentially going to have what they want.
lets take carriers in PvT for example; if the only way to beat carriers is to end the game before the opponent gets them then terran will have to all-in the protoss player and if he wins on the all-in then hes golden but if he gets stopped then he just loses. if that were the case, would any progamer play terran? absolutely not. because instead of rewarding solid play the game is rewarding risky, gambling play by terrans and you would never want to have to count on that to win games. you want to be able to count on solid play to win.
luckily BW iss balanced in the whole length of the game in mind for the most part and it shows in that statistics for win rates dont really correlate with game length.
i usually end up using a map control strategy and starving them out, or ill nydus with speedlings. they never expect an early nydus they always think theyre so safe in their fag blockoff shit
I have a question - why can't we make Roaches cost 1.5 supply? Zerglings are .5 supply each. So it's definitely feasible.
That, or why not just let the Zerg supply cap be 220 instead of 200, a 10% advantage over the other two races? I feel like it'd help a lot considering the core roach/hydras are both 2 supply each!
In my own totally professional silver league opinion (rank 2 in my division, get at me =P), i've found that the units themselves aren't imbalanced in and of themselves, but in the skill it takes to use them. For example, it doesn't take much skill to just build siege tanks and thors and turtle up. however, for a zerg player like myself, countering that is much much harder.
I have done it with mutalisks, but remember, i'm in silver league, where i'm pretty sure i'm one of the rare few who even attempts to micro his units (meaning my micro was incredible for was being compared to). Mutas can take down thors without sustaining heavy losses if you spread them out (and especially break off groups to flank), and they hold up all right to balls of vikings. i've noticed i only see one or the other, rarely both. so once i take out everything that hits air, i can obviously pick off the siege siege tanks.
but here's my problem. i have to micro to the fullest extent of my ability to take down an army that the guy basically told "go here and do whatever ya'll feel like". i'm not complaining that i have to micro a lot, i'm all for things being a challenge (kinda why i play zerg). i just think that mech is way too easy for terrans. they should have to micro more to get good results from their mech force.
On June 03 2010 03:58 PrinceXizor wrote: well an ultralisk takes 17 hits to kill a CC.
Can you get an ultralisk 7min into the game?
Can we compare ultralisk with thors concidering that you'll need to get 2 arse long upgrade on your hatchery in order to get to them but build the ultracavern?
Can you accept the fact that ultralisk will hit a bit harder but won't be able to hit air AT ALL! not like thor literaly dicimate everything that flies....?
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
The difference is that in scbw you had dark swarm and lurkers which you could use to at least defend your base while now in sc2, you can't defend your base with anything and it ends up in base trading antics.
Maybe its just me but doesn't it seem like base trading is a hell of a lot more common in sc2 than in bw? It seems like base trading is almost a standard strategy nowadays in sc2? It might also just be because I play Zerg and Zerg has very few in any defensive units in sc2 as opposed to sc1 where they had defiler and lurker.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
The difference is that in scbw you had dark swarm and lurkers which you could use to at least defend your base while now in sc2, you can't defend your base with anything and it ends up in base trading antics.
Maybe its just me but doesn't it seem like base trading is a hell of a lot more common in sc2 than in bw? It seems like base trading is almost a standard strategy nowadays in sc2? It might also just be because I play Zerg and Zerg has very few in any defensive units in sc2 as opposed to sc1 where they had defiler and lurker.
I would agree that it's much more common than it was previously (base trading).
On June 03 2010 03:58 PrinceXizor wrote: well an ultralisk takes 17 hits to kill a CC.
Can you get an ultralisk 7min into the game?
Can we compare ultralisk with thors concidering that you'll need to get 2 arse long upgrade on your hatchery in order to get to them but build the ultracavern?
Can you accept the fact that ultralisk will hit a bit harder but won't be able to hit air AT ALL! not like thor literaly dicimate everything that flies....?
if you were the person i was responding to then you are just mad you got proved wrong. yeah you can rush ultras but most zerg don't because 1 base is too crappy unlike 1 base terran. but the point is you said (if it is you) that zerg doesn't have a unit that can level expos in 28 seconds, but an ultra can.
On June 03 2010 06:35 Ordained wrote: Why is the answer to this a base trade when every Terran I have ever talked to say "Do not basetrade with Terran." This sounds odd.
The main reason why is because they can lift buildings and you end up losing the base trade. It only works if you actually have another base/expo somewhere so that you get ahead of them once you stopped them from mining/destroyed their base. I really think the only way to beat high supply Terran mech is base trade and expo while he is atacking your base.
The terran will either continue attacking your base in which case your expo will be up and producing, or maybe even double expo, the terran can go attack your expos in which case your base is free, or the terran can split his army in which case you can destroy each piece individually. Or the terran can go back and defend his base in which case You will have both your expos and your mains still alive.
I suppose Starcraft 2 is a new game so standard strategies like this might arise that I don't believe were in SC1, and I guess theres really no problem with that. It just feels weird. I don't believe there were any standard strategies in sc1 where the counter was an expo base trade, was there?
The major issue to me is dealing with tanks in zvt - because they do full damage to every unit, there is no real unit that can get away with doing an effective job against it. Previously, hydras could sortof do kindof something against tank, but now all units are fully effected by it. Probably the largest issue of this is the lack of overkill in starcraft 2. In starcraft bw, you could often run zerglings up to a seige tank line, and a few zerglings would absorb a LOT of shots - but in sc2, if you send a lot of zerglings towards a tank line, the shots will be spread out and most of your zerglings will be killed off. Remove overkill, and tanks become a lot less of a problem, and will help zvt greatly.
On June 03 2010 06:35 Ordained wrote: Why is the answer to this a base trade when every Terran I have ever talked to say "Do not basetrade with Terran." This sounds odd.
The main reason why is because they can lift buildings and you end up losing the base trade. It only works if you actually have another base/expo somewhere so that you get ahead of them once you stopped them from mining/destroyed their base. I really think the only way to beat high supply Terran mech is base trade and expo while he is atacking your base.
The terran will either continue attacking your base in which case your expo will be up and producing, or maybe even double expo, the terran can go attack your expos in which case your base is free, or the terran can split his army in which case you can destroy each piece individually. Or the terran can go back and defend his base in which case You will have both your expos and your mains still alive.
Agree. I was being sarcastic. I have had to do the Basetrade/ expo strategy a few times but it seems like its always a lose if they are smart. They can always find my hatchery and 1 shot it before I can get my corruptors/ mutas to every corner of the map. This is terribly one sided in the Terran's favor.
I have also done the "harrass his expos" strategy. I kept a Terran to 2 bases, me having 4, 1 mined out 3 saturated fully. 60-70 drones mining and it seemed like, when he finally got angry he just pushed out and I couldnt do anything to stop it.
Doom drops are doom drops, if it goes unscouted then its a huge success, but you leave yourself to base trading.
The only disadvantage Protoss have against Terran is if he cliff-humps with tanks. While its always an advantage to have observers to remove fog, its still a pain in the ass to somehow take those tanks out. Using Colossi is one prime example, but it strays away from your main group and can easily be sniped by Vikings.
I suppose the only way to counter tanks in a Protoss standpoint effectively would be to go Phoenix, but then again your also at a disadvantage because lifting tanks does get them out of the picture, but its a huge investment to go Phoenix.
We need our Arbiters back, the mothership doesn't belong.
On June 03 2010 06:56 jamesr12 wrote: I blame the maps for the most of the balence issues, to many cliffs in prime postion for tanks
Thats an interesting point. Every map seems to favor terran, no race gets the biggest advantage with ramp/1 entrance then terran does. Its like heaven for them.
On June 03 2010 06:56 jamesr12 wrote: I blame the maps for the most of the balence issues, to many cliffs in prime postion for tanks
Thats an interesting point. Every map seems to favor terran, no race gets the biggest advantage with ramp/1 entrance then terran does. Its like heaven for them.
On the other side, if you had larger maps with wider ramps and less cliffs to abuse with tanks, I believe zerg would have a big advantage over the terran army. It's not that easy to get a good balance.
On June 03 2010 06:56 jamesr12 wrote: I blame the maps for the most of the balence issues, to many cliffs in prime postion for tanks
I definitely agree with this. At the same time, I'm not sure if enough games get played on the more open custom maps (like the SC1 remakes) for us to reliably say if it's a big problem on open maps.
On June 03 2010 06:56 jamesr12 wrote: I blame the maps for the most of the balence issues, to many cliffs in prime postion for tanks
I definitely agree with this. At the same time, I'm not sure if enough games get played on the more open custom maps (like the SC1 remakes) for us to reliably say if it's a big problem on open maps.
yeah we don't know if tanks are imba yet but they will most certianly be weaker on more SC1 like maps
On June 02 2010 23:00 Ighox wrote: Terran mech to me just feels like it's extremely unforgiving, it might not be totally OP and it might be mostly a map issue, but I feel like a ZvT is just waiting around for the terran to do a mistake and throw the game away. Like moving out with tanks without turrets or a raven then dying again and again to burrowed roaches is something a lot of terrans do to throw away games, dropping works if the terran does a mistake and doesn't expect it, if he's greedy and try to expand a lot with orbital commands instead of planetary fortresses he can get easily punished for that. It's still too early in my opinion to yell out that it's OP, but I'll gladly say that it feels slightly too strong at the moment.
I agree it's unforgiving, catch a terran mech army completely out of position and it's toast... But if you have your army 100% out of position then you aren't playing in high diamond.
I'm 500 diamond so take it as you will but personally I find that even if I do continually harass well, the mech army gets bored of defending and comes and stomps my 3-4 bases without a problem anyway.
I feel the problem with this matchup for TvZ is not so much tanks, but thors.
Imagine this matchup without grouped (4 or so) thors being so ridiculously powerful against mutas (like, one shotting 5-20 at a time if your muta control isn't insanely good).
There, you can build mutas to counter the tanks. Now, the terran player can react by adding more marines to react to the muta threat, which in turn can be countered by banelings (mainly drops), and the dynamic continues.
I know that everyone here is focused on the tanks, but I personally see mech as not the tanks being the problem, but all the reasons I can't counter the tanks being a problem.
Also, Broodlord + Corruptor does not counter mech, thors still deal with them piecemeal IF played correctly (repairing is required, as is not blowing your own shit up with tanks).
On the matter of constantly harassing... can be effective for a little while after getting drop but it is quite an investment to baneling bomb, muta harass, ect. Once there are a sensor tower or two, a thor in the mineral line and missile turrets freaking everywhere (mech has little problem with minerals), plus responsive vikings, harass is simply not cost efficient.
tl;dr - The problem isn't so much the tanks as the T mech's incredibly effective responses to any attempt to counter the tanks. Harass can be dealt with.
I think this might be one of the major problems with ZvT mech. Ever since they buffed turrets, T really don't "need" thors to hard counter muta harass. Add a sensor tower and vikings and you're fine. Mutas are not a small investment... a decent muta harassment force like say 9 of them is 900 min/900 gas, so being forced to put down a few turrets which cost only minerals and with T being flooded with spare minerals anyways due to the MULEs is no problem at all.
Also... all these theory-crafted "solutions" that the T players are tossing are all from exploiting clear and obvious MISTAKES from the T (e.g. dying to burrow roaches, nydus, overlord drop, having no AA to counter muta, etc.). If you play at a higher level where the T play doesn't have obvious holes like lower level players.. then these tactics don't work anymore. Z needs a working strategy that assumes the T plays solidly for this matchup to be balanced.
This is an admittedly cheap-seats observation, but it seems to me there is a zerg counter to a large mech army (mass corruptors and broodlords); it just might not be accessible enough right now.
Here's my thinking, so you can straighten me out:
For a start, corruptors and broodlords are funky on a number of levels:
For a start, you're only making two units. The terran has split himself three ways (tanks, thors and vikings); only two of them can even hit you, and of those only the vikings are a real cause for concern. Assuming the thors are even out in front to begin with rather than buried in the middle to defend against mutas, you can flop a volley of broodlings at their feet and the terran's short-bus siege drivers will promptly put the whole caboodle into low orbit. We can think of siege tanks as a broodling upgrade the Terran pays for.
Ok, so - Vikings. Yes, they have some wicked range. But again the 3 unit vs 2 unit dynamic seems to apply. If I'm heavy on broodlords right off the bat, they are going to make a squealing, shitting mess of his expensive thortank carpark awfully quickly, even if he has a lot of vikings. Not the best trade to make - but wait a minute: if we suspect he has lots of vikings, we can go light on broodlords instead and start with a stonking great corruptor-ball to defend them. A stonking great corruptor-ball, moreover, we can cannibalise to replenish and augment our broodlord strike force more or less [i]in situ[i], making the broodlord's leisurely pace less of an issue.
I genuinely think the problem might not be having a counter. I think the problem might be getting to it. How do you transition to mass C/BL in the face of terran tech without getting rolled meantime? What are you transitioning from? When?
Maybe some adjustments are necessary - along the lines of the recent patch changes, maybe: tweaking hive and greater spire research times. Or maybe it's down to the players to iron something out. Or maybe I'm talking utter crap.
As a Terran player I feel my best matchup is vs zerg and that is strictly because of the mechball. I personally would welcome a darkswarm effect. This would make the matchup much more dynamic and focus around location and manoeuvrability rather than the zerg sending waves of units in to a brickwall in hopes of knocking it down.
[B] a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
Have you seen Qxc vs Sheth (Sorry if i mispelled ;p) ? I Don't remember which tournament it was tho but those last 2 games were quite horrible to see for zerg players. It was map dominance from Sheth and like, 16-17 ultras at a time versus only half of Qxc army.. nothing more to do there for him, he kept going on and on from 200/200 to under 100. I mean, that was pretty ridiculous that despite having all those strong units he couldn't manage to take out 1 expansion where half Qxc's army was sitting. I saw this on Iccup tv. I realize maybe he could have done something else but still, that was a lot of units and it was at top level.
I think Dark Swarm would fit in very nicely to this matchup. Terrans still have Hunter Seeker Missile to draw zerg from the swarm and would create alot of micro intensive fights for both sides.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
This thread and community whining is so horrible, I need to re-quote LZgamer again, cause I 100% agree, 100% spot on.
[B] a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
Have you seen Qxc vs Sheth (Sorry if i mispelled ;p) ? I Don't remember which tournament it was tho but those last 2 games were quite horrible to see for zerg players. It was map dominance from Sheth and like, 16-17 ultras at a time versus only half of Qxc army.. nothing more to do there for him, he kept going on and on from 200/200 to under 100. I mean, that was pretty ridiculous that despite having all those strong units he couldn't manage to take out 1 expansion where half Qxc's army was sitting. I saw this on Iccup tv. I realize maybe he could have done something else but still, that was a lot of units and it was at top level.
That's also a situation where sheth could have gotten a billion corrupters and broodlords and fought instead of getting a metric shit ton of ultralisks, which are slow and melt to tank fire. Not to mention the fact that he didn't get any lings at all, which I think could have gotten at least a few hits off, not really doing a lot of damage, but at least some instead of just a ton of slow moving ultralisks that just die. Also, that game looked a lot like sheth had given up and was just being annoyed and showing how shitty ultralisks were.
On June 02 2010 20:02 lew wrote: Thors are weak vs overlords so those will not be sniped that fast.
Although I really like these ideas, have you ever seen 3-4 thors vs a group of overlords? Especially now with the increase in gas cost for a viable overlord drop (you are not dropping without Pneumatized Carapace, I assume, haha) Add 1-2 vikings as Terran mech style seems to be evolving into, and the overlords really have no chance...
Lz simply gets outplayed, yet still wins on the power of mech alone. My friend plays terran fairly strongly in BW, and was shocked that zerg lost this game.
i am really sick of the terran playing posters that are just calling everyone whiners. this website is for the community to come together and share ideas and help each other. the other players arnt saying shit either except that this or that is imba cry cry cry instead of putting forth any input at all. if you dont have any strat or input that relates to the topic stfu and dont post anything at all. specially if your a noob ass bronze/silver/gold/plat player.13 pages of shit posts with scarce information here and there. you trollers are killing team liquid.
i got a few reps at home where i beat some rather crafty mech terrans. my strat mostly revolves around strait muta/ling with bling/ling drops. very gas heavy even on two base but they are the only units that seem to work.
People simply havent figured out to abuse the weaknesses of Terran Mech. As long as that is the case it seems IMBA, but so does a cannon rush until you figure out how to beat it.
[B] a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
Have you seen Qxc vs Sheth (Sorry if i mispelled ;p) ? I Don't remember which tournament it was tho but those last 2 games were quite horrible to see for zerg players. It was map dominance from Sheth and like, 16-17 ultras at a time versus only half of Qxc army.. nothing more to do there for him, he kept going on and on from 200/200 to under 100. I mean, that was pretty ridiculous that despite having all those strong units he couldn't manage to take out 1 expansion where half Qxc's army was sitting. I saw this on Iccup tv. I realize maybe he could have done something else but still, that was a lot of units and it was at top level.
That's also a situation where sheth could have gotten a billion corrupters and broodlords and fought instead of getting a metric shit ton of ultralisks, which are slow and melt to tank fire. Not to mention the fact that he didn't get any lings at all, which I think could have gotten at least a few hits off, not really doing a lot of damage, but at least some instead of just a ton of slow moving ultralisks that just die. Also, that game looked a lot like sheth had given up and was just being annoyed and showing how shitty ultralisks were.
I've seen a game where people get Corruptor Broodlords and still get raped. HSM from 10 ravens = 20 HSM = 2000 AOE damage = dead Corruptor Broodlords easily. Not to mention the Terran is turret whoring and has mass vikings...
Siege Mode and Tanks are really strong tbh, it's stronger with Ghost and Helions protecting, you really don't need those marines, turrets will do against air units, mech is super strong imo
[B] a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
Have you seen Qxc vs Sheth (Sorry if i mispelled ;p) ? I Don't remember which tournament it was tho but those last 2 games were quite horrible to see for zerg players. It was map dominance from Sheth and like, 16-17 ultras at a time versus only half of Qxc army.. nothing more to do there for him, he kept going on and on from 200/200 to under 100. I mean, that was pretty ridiculous that despite having all those strong units he couldn't manage to take out 1 expansion where half Qxc's army was sitting. I saw this on Iccup tv. I realize maybe he could have done something else but still, that was a lot of units and it was at top level.
That's also a situation where sheth could have gotten a billion corrupters and broodlords and fought instead of getting a metric shit ton of ultralisks, which are slow and melt to tank fire. Not to mention the fact that he didn't get any lings at all, which I think could have gotten at least a few hits off, not really doing a lot of damage, but at least some instead of just a ton of slow moving ultralisks that just die. Also, that game looked a lot like sheth had given up and was just being annoyed and showing how shitty ultralisks were.
I've seen a game where people get Corruptor Broodlords and still get raped. HSM from 10 ravens = 20 HSM = 2000 AOE damage = dead Corruptor Broodlords easily. Not to mention the Terran is turret whoring and has mass vikings...
And why would he get Corruptors/Broodlords vs a bunch of Ravens with seeking missile and thor+ vikings tell me ? There's no dark swarm in Sc2 and that's a LOT in a TvZ.. ofc in SC BW the same army composition wouldn't win but it would at least make more dmg cause of the tanks AI.. plus no freaking high lvl Zerg player would go with this army without defilers.. your reasonning is stupid i must admit.. It's not weither or not zerg must use their brain more.. it's imbalanced that's all
Well why tanks are so extremly good in SC2 is caused by 2 factors, these being the "smart" fire of the tanks where they will not all fire at a single unit (no overkilling) and the way units clump and move more like a ball in SC2.
P doesn't clump the way Z does and so should not take as much damage from tanks even if the damage is quite substanical.
Now P from my understanding has a big toolkit on how to deal with mech some more viable than others. Immortals, illusion, Mothership recall / cloak (may not be viable at all) are some of them.
From the Z point of view we have baneling or ultra/ling drops and the nydus (which might I add can be taken out by the mineral line before it pops if noticed early =/ ) and ofc broodlords but we are close to never going to be allowed to tech there much like the mothership and even if we are we have to get a ton of hydras (which get demolished by tanks) to protect them from the amount if vikings T can mass produce.
At this stage of a TvZ game it's all about the range of the units T has the tank range of 13 and the viking range of 9 where as zerg has the BL range of 9 and hte hydra range of 6 (5+1)
This means that in order for the BLs to do shoot the tanks they need to be 9 range away from them and at which time the vikings can shoot back by staying just above the mech army. Now zerg has 3 options at this time, either you 1.pull back your broodlords or risk loosing them 2. you move your hydras forward to deal with the vikings and take heavy seige damage. 3. Moving BLs back and then hydras forward a little bit to try and get a viking or 2 this usually just result in hydras getting shot at by tanks or BLs tanking heavy damage.
This is the most "standard" way Z gets locked into.
Now for P it's not so much about range as how much mineral / gas you can throw into breaking the seige and how quickly you can get those units out. P has a way of brute forcing a seige rather than fighting a range war like Z does.
Gotta run to work now, might finish this up when I get back home.
On June 03 2010 13:47 frogmelter wrote: I've seen a game where people get Corruptor Broodlords and still get raped. HSM from 10 ravens = 20 HSM = 2000 AOE damage = dead Corruptor Broodlords easily. Not to mention the Terran is turret whoring and has mass vikings...
Just how big is this hypothetical Terran army exactly?
I watched 2-3 games today were zerg got broodlords agains terran mech and then got raped by vikings after having pushed back the terran army a bit. gg
The only way zerg can win such a confrontation is with mass air while still managing to hold off the terran push before that. Good luck with that. Once you get over something like 150 food, especially on a small map, there is very little you can do.
On June 03 2010 13:47 frogmelter wrote: I've seen a game where people get Corruptor Broodlords and still get raped. HSM from 10 ravens = 20 HSM = 2000 AOE damage = dead Corruptor Broodlords easily. Not to mention the Terran is turret whoring and has mass vikings...
Just how big is this hypothetical Terran army exactly?
Also seeker missiles cost 125 and Ravens have 200 energy
I don't have any experience in SC1, but I think many people look at this the wrong way.
I do play terran, but that was just by random when I installed the beta, I don't really care what race is the strongest, as I feel the game is quite balanced already, and it is up the player to win.
Anyways, for wc3 players, I see terran as night elf, and zerg as human.
Can 2 base human lose to 1 base elf? Of course, does that make it imbalanced? No, because of human's incredible ease of expansion.
Can 3 base zerg lose to 2 base terran? Sure, does that make it imbalanced? No, because of zerg's incredible ease of expansion.
Are terran units 1 for 1 better than zerg units? Yes. But zerg has a much easier time getting a large economy than terran. If you let a ZvT go to a 6 base vs 6 base, you deserve to lose, imo.
A great zerg player can often deny the terran from taking a 2nd or 3rd expansion, while getting 2,3, or 4 expansion himself.
On June 03 2010 18:24 nihlon wrote: I watched 2-3 games today were zerg got broodlords agains terran mech and then got raped by vikings after having pushed back the terran army a bit. gg
Well, that's good info Did they dive in with mass BLs, or did they push in with a small number of BLs initially, with a big corruptor force for defence?
On June 02 2010 20:22 slowmanrunning wrote: Many maps lacked naturals, which they honestly should have thought would be anti zerg considering their hatcheries are cheaper than nexus/cc.
I seriously hate this statement anytime I hear this. How significant is the difference of 300(for hatch)+50(for drone)+(mining time in the length of a new drone) and 400 for CC?
On June 02 2010 20:22 slowmanrunning wrote: Many maps lacked naturals, which they honestly should have thought would be anti zerg considering their hatcheries are cheaper than nexus/cc.
I seriously hate this statement anytime I hear this. How significant is the difference of 300(for hatch)+50(for drone)+(mining time in the length of a new drone) and 400 for CC?
how significant is the difference between 500 for a hatch + queen and 400for cc/nex+ X for 4 warpgates and a robo or 2 facs+addons+a starport+ 2 rax?
people forget that zerg with expanding not only get a cheap expo but also alll the production they need to support that expo while the other races have to invest more in the expo, need way longer to saturate it AND have to spend lots of money and time for production buildings to make use out of that expo.
Zerg can't fight mech terra head on, period. So zerg needs to do some early harassing, a lot of expanding, make perfect counters, flank, drop, nydus etc. Conclusion: Zerg has to work a lot harder to win, which is pretty much the definition of "imbalanced".
On June 04 2010 06:36 Philosophy wrote: Conclusion: Zerg has to work a lot harder to win, which is pretty much the definition of "imbalanced".
The statement is over-broad and very vague. At most levels of play in SC1, Terran has to "work harder" than Protoss to win at TvP, simply because the mechanical demand of performing basic actions for Terran is harder than for Protoss. Yet we see no imbalance in higher level play.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
The difference is that in scbw you had dark swarm and lurkers which you could use to at least defend your base while now in sc2, you can't defend your base with anything and it ends up in base trading antics.
Maybe its just me but doesn't it seem like base trading is a hell of a lot more common in sc2 than in bw? It seems like base trading is almost a standard strategy nowadays in sc2? It might also just be because I play Zerg and Zerg has very few in any defensive units in sc2 as opposed to sc1 where they had defiler and lurker.
in how many high level games do you see base trading?
basetrading is because average joe's fail at scouting and splitting force/multi tasking.
between the queen and spine crawler, zerg have some good defensive units.... not to mention fungal growth / neural parasite which are infinitely better than plague or dark swarm for defending.
On June 03 2010 02:53 hejakev wrote: Platinum protoss player here. Tanks have become more of a tier 3 unit, where they were a tier 2 unit in SC1. More often than not, I will have zealot charge, stalker blink, or a bunch of immortals to help me with the tanks. I have yet to see a successful tank-heavy build like people would do in BW.
I went up against someone who litterally just got mass tanks vikings and cloaked banshees. I had maxed supply of hydra roach and couldnt break his army. I ended up winning by dropping in his base due to his immobile army and expanding while we traded bases. I feel there was no way that a zerg could break an army like that. Granted I won due to base trading antics, but I feel that is a strange way to have to win against a build.
try and break a maxed tank gol vult vessel army in scbw with hydra ling ultra or any unit combo you want and its going to fail~ straight up.. maxed Mech army has allways > zerg in scbw or sc2.. nothing new.. thats why zergs have to use there brain.. sadly they would rather QQ then actually nydas worm , drop or over expand at first sight of mech.
The difference is that in scbw you had dark swarm and lurkers which you could use to at least defend your base while now in sc2, you can't defend your base with anything and it ends up in base trading antics.
Maybe its just me but doesn't it seem like base trading is a hell of a lot more common in sc2 than in bw? It seems like base trading is almost a standard strategy nowadays in sc2? It might also just be because I play Zerg and Zerg has very few in any defensive units in sc2 as opposed to sc1 where they had defiler and lurker.
in how many high level games do you see base trading?
basetrading is because average joe's fail at scouting and splitting force/multi tasking.
between the queen and spine crawler, zerg have some good defensive units.... not to mention fungal growth / neural parasite which are infinitely better than plague or dark swarm for defending.
There was a couple base trades in the BIO today including demuslim being on the losing end of one. and day9 did a daily on crisis management in a base trade situation with a couple high level players. it happens. it's more likely that the pros will see ahead of time that they won't win the situation they are in and gg. not that base trades don't happen.
I don't have any experience in SC1, but I think many people look at this the wrong way.
I do play terran, but that was just by random when I installed the beta, I don't really care what race is the strongest, as I feel the game is quite balanced already, and it is up the player to win.
Anyways, for wc3 players, I see terran as night elf, and zerg as human.
Can 2 base human lose to 1 base elf? Of course, does that make it imbalanced? No, because of human's incredible ease of expansion.
Can 3 base zerg lose to 2 base terran? Sure, does that make it imbalanced? No, because of zerg's incredible ease of expansion.
Are terran units 1 for 1 better than zerg units? Yes. But zerg has a much easier time getting a large economy than terran. If you let a ZvT go to a 6 base vs 6 base, you deserve to lose, imo.
A great zerg player can often deny the terran from taking a 2nd or 3rd expansion, while getting 2,3, or 4 expansion himself.
Starvation baby.
1. i dont think you realize how hard it is to push a turtled terran. 2. lets say i totally outplay a meching terran get on 4 bases leaving him to only his nearly mined out main and his nat. he turtles i expand. this is where its stupid because a terran can get to 200/200 on 2 bases. and after that it dont matter how many bases i have. if i cant kill his ball ill lose one base then 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 and it will be gg. a 200/200 zerg army should not be so incredibly fucking weak against mech. period.
I see Thors as being problematic because they're so good against mass Muta, and no slouch on the ground either. Sure 1-2 Thors won't necessarily single-handedly erase a mass Muta force, but a Terran with good unit composition of Thors, Vikings, and turrets certainly can. The thing I don't quite understand is how the Thor is intended to fit into the Terran army composition - Without Thor, Terrans still have Vikings and Marines, which are themselves pretty good against Mutas, and then Thor comes in with even better AA against them. I don't really understand why Terran needs something to hard counter a strategy they can already softcounter through scouting and having the right unit composition.
Perhaps a dark swarm-like spell is the answer. Something that helps a zerg ground unit gain some ground instead of getting stomped by tanks from so far away would be great
I don't have any experience in SC1, but I think many people look at this the wrong way.
I do play terran, but that was just by random when I installed the beta, I don't really care what race is the strongest, as I feel the game is quite balanced already, and it is up the player to win.
Anyways, for wc3 players, I see terran as night elf, and zerg as human.
Can 2 base human lose to 1 base elf? Of course, does that make it imbalanced? No, because of human's incredible ease of expansion.
Can 3 base zerg lose to 2 base terran? Sure, does that make it imbalanced? No, because of zerg's incredible ease of expansion.
Are terran units 1 for 1 better than zerg units? Yes. But zerg has a much easier time getting a large economy than terran. If you let a ZvT go to a 6 base vs 6 base, you deserve to lose, imo.
A great zerg player can often deny the terran from taking a 2nd or 3rd expansion, while getting 2,3, or 4 expansion himself.
Starvation baby.
1. i dont think you realize how hard it is to push a turtled terran. 2. lets say i totally outplay a meching terran get on 4 bases leaving him to only his nearly mined out main and his nat. he turtles i expand. this is where its stupid because a terran can get to 200/200 on 2 bases. and after that it dont matter how many bases i have. if i cant kill his ball ill lose one base then 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 and it will be gg. a 200/200 zerg army should not be so incredibly fucking weak against mech. period.
This is exactly what I've found. Unless someone can come up with some transitions that work I feel like I'm losing a whole bunch of games to inferior players with 40 apm while I'm trying to do drops and harass and doing a decent job but they still just end up a-moving my nat then my main when I basically don't kill them off. There's not much I can do to keep them from raping me eventually. Even if I do totally decimate their main and they suicide push my base often times I'll win the game but I just have my third left and I have to rebuild everything. The harass stuff with roach drops and mutas can only do so much and I think terrans are starting to learn how to deal with it and I'm having a harder and harder time.
TL;DR: Terran wins by default once supply gets to a certain level, and Zerg has no reliable way of preventing him from getting there.
Long version:
I agree with guitarizt... The problem is twofold:
1) Zerg lacks the ability to effectively harass or contain Terran in the early game. 2) Once Terran gets to a certain point, no Zerg unit mix is effective, and Terran basically has to 1a2a3e (Siege Tanks!) to win.
And yes, the Terran can get to the "I win" point by mining out his main and his natural. All he has to do is watch for drops and counter Muta harass, both of which are made easy by Sensor Towers and Vikings. Zerg has no real way to apply pressure, and a long macro game will end in the Terran's favor, decisively, 99% of the time.
Zerg's options upon seeing a walled Terran (often walled at the natural with lifted off Barracks) are:
1) Go Roach. This fails because, simply put, Roaches are terribad. They aren't strong enough to break decent Terran early/mid-game defense, and they set you back severely on tech. If your Roach push fails (and it will), you can't catch up to the Terran before he reaches "critical mass". 2) Baneling bust. This also fails against a competent Terran with a proper wall. He will probably have a Siege Tank before you can get a good quantity of Banelings, too. 3) Try Muta and get beaten off because he sees it coming (scans). Then you can try to mass Muta, but that is basically feeding his Thors, because he'll rush them out in lieu of more tanks if he sees that you're going air. 4) Realize that his defense isn't breakable in the early or mid-game, expand, and start macroing. You're Zerg, after all. You can try to harass via drops, but a competent player will prevent it. Either way you have an excruciatingly long, boring game until he rolls out of his natural at 200/200 and stomps on whatever army you've got. Hydra/Speedling, Hydra/Roach, Muta/Anything, Baneling/Anything, hell, Anything/Anything/Anything... You name it, he can stomp it hardcore. And probably have most of his blob left. The only way to beat it is if you catch him with his Siege Tanks undeployed, or he parks them on top of a bunch (30+ minimum) of burrowed Lings and/or you manage to Baneling his bio support. Then the rest of your army might have a chance. But note that both of those things rely upon the Terran making a dumb mistake.
Either way, a perfect Terran game beats a perfect Zerg game. Hell, a pretty sloppy Terran game can beat a near-perfect Zerg game. You basically have to play like God and hope that he throws the game away.
I have still yet to see extremely heavy corruptor/broodlord armies attempted, even in games where the zerg clearly has the opportunity to do so. It seems like the most logical response to to a tank/thor heavy terran. Vikings may do well against corruptors, but not so well that 50/200 viking or so will beat 100/200 corruptor. Not even close. Then what your left with is nearly useless thors vs broodlords, while the tanks do nothing but blow themselves up. Even if T manages to mass up enough vikings to kill Z after their inital assault, the damage will be huge, and they are unlikely to have the tanks needed to counter a fallow up rouch/ling sweep.
On June 05 2010 18:42 D3lta wrote: I have still yet to see extremely heavy corruptor/broodlord armies attempted, even in games where the zerg clearly has the opportunity to do so. It seems like the most logical response to to a tank/thor heavy terran. Vikings may do well against corruptors, but not so well that 50/200 viking or so will beat 100/200 corruptor. Not even close. Then what your left with is nearly useless thors vs broodlords, while the tanks do nothing but blow themselves up. Even if T manages to mass up enough vikings to kill Z after their inital assault, the damage will be huge, and they are unlikely to have the tanks needed to counter a fallow up rouch/ling sweep.
The problem is that if you're going for Brood Lords and Corruptors, you need an assload of gas (at least 6 geysers). This leaves you vulnerable. There is also the fact that he could roll out and kill you basically at any time late in the game before you reach Broodlord critical mass.
He'll also be able to adjust to a more Thor-heavy army. Thors are not useless against Brood Lords. Remember that Thors have huuuuge anti-air range.
That's what I think people dont get. It's not the strength of terren mech that makes it OP. Though the thor AA should lose at least some of it's splash(I think it should be 33% like ultra)
The main problem, especially for zerg is that blizzard basically took all our counters to siege tanks from SC1 (lurkers, dark swarm, spawn broodling) and removed them without giving really anything to compensate. Compound that by the fact that terran can do now with 4 thor what they had to build 10+ goliaths to do before and the new siege tank no-overkill feature. it just makes terran mech stronger and easier to play vs zerg and gives the zerg much less options to counter it.
And no I dont 1a ever. Though I see in alot of replays people that do. Or even worse people that box select a. Cringe.
On June 05 2010 18:42 D3lta wrote: I have still yet to see extremely heavy corruptor/broodlord armies attempted, even in games where the zerg clearly has the opportunity to do so. It seems like the most logical response to to a tank/thor heavy terran. Vikings may do well against corruptors, but not so well that 50/200 viking or so will beat 100/200 corruptor. Not even close. Then what your left with is nearly useless thors vs broodlords, while the tanks do nothing but blow themselves up. Even if T manages to mass up enough vikings to kill Z after their inital assault, the damage will be huge, and they are unlikely to have the tanks needed to counter a fallow up rouch/ling sweep.
The problem is that if you're going for Brood Lords and Corruptors, you need an assload of gas (at least 6 geysers). This leaves you vulnerable. There is also the fact that he could roll out and kill you basically at any time late in the game before you reach Broodlord critical mass.
He'll also be able to adjust to a more Thor-heavy army. Thors are not useless against Brood Lords. Remember that Thors have huuuuge anti-air range.
How does having 6 geysers leave you vulnerable in these huge ass turtle games? Most of the examples people give for mech imbalance include games where Z players had a good 5 bases, while the T player had to juggle base to base with tanks/thors to keep his expos up. If a T player is playing heavy turtle/turret up and get tech upgrade style (like in the QXC vs Sheth games), he's handing over map control to Z, along giving him plenty of opportunity to resource/drone up. The assumption he is making is that he can on 3 bases, make an army that will counter anything Z throws at him, because he knows the Z WILL have more econ than him. Any kind of attempt to move out, even in 200/200 late game, is extremely risky and slow affair for the T. It leaves expos open, and the possibility of getting caught with your pants down. All Im saying is if a guy has an opportunity to make that many ultras, he could have done corruptor/broodlord instead.
BTW, thors do like 4 attacks that do 1 damage to armored units with 2+ armor. There attacks are also quite slow. In other words, fighting broodlords with thors is like fighting thors with mutalisks..probably worse.
as a protoss player i have no problem with mech. Build orders that people do are really terrible at the moment. i think 1 gateway, 1 stargate Fast expand will be standard for protoss players in the future against 1/1/1 and when it is, hopefully there will be less whining.
As for zergs, im not too sure as i never play the zvt matchup hehe.
On June 05 2010 19:08 Snowfield wrote: Mech just got insane nerfs, get over it
I got destroyed yesterday by infestor / ling / roach, i mean, 9 infestors who took over 90% of my tanks.... i mean, srs?
10 damage is not an "insane nerf" for a unit with huge range and huge splash. You just need 2 more of them before you can gib any Zerg land army. The upgrade nerfs pretty much just bring them in line with other races, and even at 3/3 don't make a big difference.
Also, realize that both Lings and Roaches are easily counterable... And that Infestors are vulnerable, cost more than Tanks, and require both energy and an upgrade to be able to neural parasite. Sounds like bitching to me.
looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
On June 05 2010 18:59 Icetrain wrote: The main problem, especially for zerg is that blizzard basically took all our counters to siege tanks from SC1 (lurkers, dark swarm, spawn broodling) and removed them without giving really anything to compensate.
On June 05 2010 18:59 Icetrain wrote: The main problem, especially for zerg is that blizzard basically took all our counters to siege tanks from SC1 (lurkers, dark swarm, spawn broodling) and removed them without giving really anything to compensate.
Have you played SC1?
lol. who used spawn broodling to counter tanks successfully?
anyways... if all you zergs are just trying to whine until you get dark swarm back it's not going to work, until at least heart of the swarm comes out. P:
but seriously, I'm not saying everything is perfectly balanced, but there's too much complaining... it's beta, you've been playing with the new patch for like 2-3 days... something will be figured out... or already has been, since sen is apparently a beast at zvt...
Basically if this was sc1 and it was out for a month a Protoss would insist firmly that mech is greatly imba. And as it turns out that is not the case. This is why I think that everybody is too quick to dismiss everything and not try harder to think of a way to win.. P.S. Actually in my opinion patches should happen from now on allot less frequently.. more like one on 2-3 months. Now that the big obvious flaws are out of the way they should not be too quick to "fix" things that may actually not be actual problems.
Can people that used to be plat 1800+ plz post some zvt and even pvt mech reps where the other player was good and they won? Not some cheesy lucky win either where they weren't expecting burrowed roaches or something but something that would work against a mech terran in a bo5 or bo7 series?
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything) and you think that is huge? LOL and obviously if they have a smaller army they will lose but when tanks will destroy all of your ground units with zerg killing like 3 tanks then yes its almost safe to say that its imba and i play random
I think terran needed the buffs but the tank splash change was the biggest change in the game yet that I can remember and second is probably the roach 2 supply change. That combo makes me TT.
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
But yeah, infestors just hard counters mech very hard, when you have roaches to tank damage, infestors can just run in and capture everything, i think terran has to go ghosts with their mech or marauder / medevacs to kil stuff and hope the enemy doesnt get banelings
But pure mech is suecide vs a good zerg player, just because infestors can turn the entire battle around very fast, and roaches can tank/deal a ton of damage
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
Agreed.
And I think the word dynamic is key here, instead of the damage. Damage was nerfed, but the dynamic remains the same.
Infestors counter mech? I would love to see that, as the neural parasite has range 9 and the siege tank has range 13. Also, anything that might tank damage for the infestor to get closer is instagibbed (and that includes Ultralisks as well).
TLO has said that he has found a reliable way to defeat tank as Zerg and I would love to see it (especially against a player like QXC who plays a defensive mech style). Currrently, the only strategy that sounds plausible to me is to dominate air with corrupters (kill vikings and ravens) and then transition half of that force into broodlords.
But the problem I see with the above strategy is that the terran player will simply land the vikings to nullify the damage of the corruptors... Or he unsieges the tanks which should nullify the broodlings (theory crafting here, but I don't think broodlings would do a lot when there are also a few hellions involved).
Ah well, waiting for a Sen vs. Tmech and TLO vs Tmech
On June 05 2010 22:21 Snowfield wrote: I don't think you have played against it enough to comment if you say that, roaches have alot of HP.
We'll see in the comming days, but i really think zerg play is going to change to counter terran mech more heavily
I might be wrong, but we'll see
Yes I hope so. Although I don't think the matchup is "fair", I think it's the most interesting matchup currently. Now watching Haypro vs. Maka, I just wish that Maka drops his marines play and goes full mech.
Edit: Not that I would tell Maka how to play. Awesome second game
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
10 are still enough. Hydras needed 2 hits to die before, now they still die in 2 hits. Roaches died in 3 hits, now they still die in 3 hits. Lings died in 1 hit, nothing changed.
The tank damage nerf didn't really change much in ZvT.
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
10 are still enough. Hydras needed 2 hits to die before, now they still die in 2 hits. Roaches died in 3 hits, now they still die in 3 hits. Lings died in 1 hit, nothing changed.
The tank damage nerf didn't really change much in ZvT.
You forget about splash damage though, while it doenst affect direct hit (in hits to kill (vs zerg only)), it affects the splash to other units
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
10 are still enough. Hydras needed 2 hits to die before, now they still die in 2 hits. Roaches died in 3 hits, now they still die in 3 hits. Lings died in 1 hit, nothing changed.
The tank damage nerf didn't really change much in ZvT.
You forget about splash damage though, while it doenst affect direct hit (in hits to kill (vs zerg only)), it affects the splash to other units
Like Tanks didn't kill Zerg units fast enough already, it's ridiculous how fast your army dies against well placed tanks. Not only do you have to deal with their MMM ball you can't even reach their tanks. If you do reach them with burrowed roaches you don't even have enough to kill the tanks while the MMM ball rips everything a new one. Or am I the only one that feels they should have won certain battles as zerg but get raped by tanks.
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
10 are still enough. Hydras needed 2 hits to die before, now they still die in 2 hits. Roaches died in 3 hits, now they still die in 3 hits. Lings died in 1 hit, nothing changed.
The tank damage nerf didn't really change much in ZvT.
You forget about splash damage though, while it doenst affect direct hit (in hits to kill (vs zerg only)), it affects the splash to other units
Mid range splash: before: 30 dmg, now: 25 dmg Long range splash: before: 15 dmg, now: 12,5 dmg
That's not really noticable, it only means that your army dies 5 seconds later. I don't think the siege tank dmg output should be nerfed more, Zerg just needs a good way to deal with it. Either give them some kind of ability (Dark Swarm that only works on 1 unit?) or make some maps that don't have 10000 abusive siege tank spots.
On June 05 2010 19:37 Cashout wrote: looks like hating terran is a new trend , im being accused of using imba race in like half of my games (yes even after patch 15 with all the huge nerfs) even when opponents played horrible mined less, had smaller army they still think they should win LOL
terran got buff after buff while zerg and toss got nurf after nurf and now you get a 10 dmg decrease in your tanks (which in tvz doesnt really effect anything)
10 damage doesnt affect anything? ok :S
It really doesn't. Now you just need 16.7% more tanks before you can instagib any land army... So 10 -> 12. Wooo. The dynamic of the matchup doesn't change at all.
10 are still enough. Hydras needed 2 hits to die before, now they still die in 2 hits. Roaches died in 3 hits, now they still die in 3 hits. Lings died in 1 hit, nothing changed.
The tank damage nerf didn't really change much in ZvT.
You forget about splash damage though, while it doenst affect direct hit (in hits to kill (vs zerg only)), it affects the splash to other units
Mid range splash: before: 30 dmg, now: 25 dmg Long range splash: before: 15 dmg, now: 12,5 dmg
That's not really noticable, it only means that your army dies 5 seconds later. I don't think the siege tank dmg output should be nerfed more, Zerg just needs a good way to deal with it. Either give them some kind of ability (Dark Swarm that only works on 1 unit?) or make some maps that don't have 10000 abusive siege tank spots.
Think of it this way: it used to take 3 mid range splash hits to kill a hydra, now it takes 4. Being able to survive an extra volley of tank hits is pretty significant, no? Obviously tanks are still brutal against hydras, but it's a significant nerf.
The problem is the maps, all maps execept desert oasis are super small, also they have a lot of choke points, i want to see some bw-like maps, and i have seen some of them made by users and they also look small for me, maybe is the resolution change from sc2 but i hate playing in most of them specially IZ and Kulas.
On June 05 2010 18:59 Icetrain wrote: The main problem, especially for zerg is that blizzard basically took all our counters to siege tanks from SC1 (lurkers, dark swarm, spawn broodling) and removed them without giving really anything to compensate.
Have you played SC1?
well...lurkers slow the push, and you kind of need them if you can't figure out if they're going mech, valkonic, or a bio switch. Spawn broodling was used both at blizzcon 2009 by zero, as well as in effort's recent game against flash. Dark swarm is a good tool to have regardless. So, he's not...wrong, exactly...
On June 05 2010 18:59 Icetrain wrote: The main problem, especially for zerg is that blizzard basically took all our counters to siege tanks from SC1 (lurkers, dark swarm, spawn broodling) and removed them without giving really anything to compensate.
Have you played SC1?
well...lurkers slow the push, and you kind of need them if you can't figure out if they're going mech, valkonic, or a bio switch. Spawn broodling was used both at blizzcon 2009 by zero, as well as in effort's recent game against flash. Dark swarm is a good tool to have regardless. So, he's not...wrong, exactly...
I saw that! Broodling strats have actually been doing really well against tanks, and I don't think it's because the terran is unprepared for it. Every 125 energy is a free tank kill, that's pretty solid in my book.
The dilemma of terran mech for the balance team is that given how immobile it is, it has to be super strong or there will be basically no reason to get it instead of bio. The problem I think with mech at the moment is not that the mech itself is too powerful - it has to be powerful - but that it's too easy to defend even when your army is on the other side of the map. One or two planetary fortresses surrounded by turrets can pretty much hold off anything, and aren't that expensive to get late game when your army is maxed out anyways. In Starcraft 1 this wasn't as bad because turrets did half damage vs mutas and there was no planetary fortress, so you always had to leave some units at home for defence.
However, did you consider that the match maker is supposed to give players a 50% chance to win? IMHO As long as the match maker works, the percentages should always be close to 50%. If there is an imbalance, the match maker would just put players of one race with stronger/weaker players of the other race.
Though maybe the random race prevents this, I have no idea.
Then the blue reply:
Yeah, I sort of left out that it isn't a straight win/loss %. The numbers we're looking at are win/loss by player and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill, and generates a more objective win/loss number.
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
I just facepalm when I read the blue post for the first time. Stuff like this doesn't help my impression of them. =/
Why? Isn't it great they're using a more refined method than straight up comparing win/ loss ratio? Especially since this keeps rush-wins from severely impacting balancing at higher levels.
I just facepalm when I read the blue post for the first time. Stuff like this doesn't help my impression of them. =/
If the guy making posts in the forums was good enough at programming/math to do the balance himself, he would not be the guy posting in the forums.
I'm sure the statisticians doing the number crunching know full well what they are doing. They probably generate a composite W/L ratio for each race weighted by the overall rating each player. Do you really want a bottom diamond player who losing to terran 80% of the time to be weighted the same as someone who is like #5 in north america and loses 55% of the time?
Hell, they can probably do really cool stuff, like index only games where the terran player made >5 thors and >10 tanks or something. Who knows...
...and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill...
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
Seriously? How do I get this guys job?
I don't get what you are on about. Any PR person in a big company has usually broad but quite shallow knowledge about things going on in the company. You can't expect a community manager to instantly know all facts in detail. You wouldn't either.
On June 02 2010 21:09 Keyser wrote: This is what seperates good players from bad ones. Bad players encounter a strategy that seems tough and then come here to whine about how overpowered it is, while good players find a way around it. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. It's the failure to take the game for what it is and trying to win, and instead trying to make Blizzard ease it up for you. All these comparisons and the theorycrafting is just rationalizing. Get out there and play more games, find and way to win and quit the whining. Yes, your whining may possibly help Blizzard, but trust me when I tell you that you're never going to get anywhere as a player when you resort to whining rather than trying.
And please, don't give me crap about how highly ranked you are(speaking to anyone who responds), rank means nothing in this game at this stage. Without any prior SC experience I went top 10 platinum with 70% wins in my first 30 games just by macroing and attack-moving all the units I could build.
Just bending over and taking it isn't a good suggestion. There's a reason that people complain - some things need to be fixed. Yea, some complaints are unwarranted, but when a topic is as controversial as this one is, then it obviously isn't just some random person complaining.
...and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill...
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
Seriously? How do I get this guys job?
I don't get what you are on about. Any PR person in a big company has usually broad but quite shallow knowledge about things going on in the company. You can't expect a community manager to instantly know all facts in detail. You wouldn't either.
I don't know anything about blizzard's inner workings and I posted in here or the other thread by raelcun that the 50/50 numbers had to be off just from my experience and the experiences of other diamond zergs and terrans on ladder. Then a day or so later he posts that the numbers are skewed. Seriously get some smarter people in there. I hate to be harsh but I'd do their job for free.
And please, don't give me crap about how highly ranked you are(speaking to anyone who responds), rank means nothing in this game at this stage. Without any prior SC experience I went top 10 platinum with 70% wins in my first 30 games just by macroing and attack-moving all the units I could build.
There have been a million posts on this already. Rank means nothing it's all about rating. I was in top ten in 1vs1 and 2vs2 but then I got stuck into a league with the likes of joseki pinder and others after one of the resets and I was like rank 17.
Do you really want a bottom diamond player who losing to terran 80% of the time to be weighted the same as someone who is like #5 in north america and loses 55% of the time?
I don't want this but if they're going to try to make the game balanced at all levels of play than clearly they are aren't being congruent with the earlier patch changes. It's like they're just doing whatever they want without justification and they'll skew the facts to fit their vision.
On June 02 2010 21:09 Keyser wrote: This is what seperates good players from bad ones. Bad players encounter a strategy that seems tough and then come here to whine about how overpowered it is, while good players find a way around it. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. It's the failure to take the game for what it is and trying to win, and instead trying to make Blizzard ease it up for you. All these comparisons and the theorycrafting is just rationalizing. Get out there and play more games, find and way to win and quit the whining. Yes, your whining may possibly help Blizzard, but trust me when I tell you that you're never going to get anywhere as a player when you resort to whining rather than trying.
And please, don't give me crap about how highly ranked you are(speaking to anyone who responds), rank means nothing in this game at this stage. Without any prior SC experience I went top 10 platinum with 70% wins in my first 30 games just by macroing and attack-moving all the units I could build.
Just bending over and taking it isn't a good suggestion. There's a reason that people complain - some things need to be fixed. Yea, some complaints are unwarranted, but when a topic is as controversial as this one is, then it obviously isn't just some random person complaining.
Do you think that if you try out different builds, train them, refine them to counter a dominant strategy is "bending over and taking it"?
common! this isnt world of warcraft where you are stuck with 3 or 5 buttons and a bit of movement. its starcraft2. its a strategy game. and it will continue to be that way.
On June 02 2010 21:09 Keyser wrote: This is what seperates good players from bad ones. Bad players encounter a strategy that seems tough and then come here to whine about how overpowered it is, while good players find a way around it. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. It's the failure to take the game for what it is and trying to win, and instead trying to make Blizzard ease it up for you. All these comparisons and the theorycrafting is just rationalizing. Get out there and play more games, find and way to win and quit the whining. Yes, your whining may possibly help Blizzard, but trust me when I tell you that you're never going to get anywhere as a player when you resort to whining rather than trying.
And please, don't give me crap about how highly ranked you are(speaking to anyone who responds), rank means nothing in this game at this stage. Without any prior SC experience I went top 10 platinum with 70% wins in my first 30 games just by macroing and attack-moving all the units I could build.
Just bending over and taking it isn't a good suggestion. There's a reason that people complain - some things need to be fixed. Yea, some complaints are unwarranted, but when a topic is as controversial as this one is, then it obviously isn't just some random person complaining.
Did you even read what he said? Whining for a nerf is bending over, adapting and overcoming is the opposite of that. Also, the only reason this is so controversial is because all players tend to copy the same build and then expect it to work all the time against anything. It takes creative minds like TLO's to find counterbuilds that defy the popular playing trends.
The sole reason man as a species dominates all live on Earth is because of its creative adaptability, use it
I believe that mech is a strong (the strongest imo) choice agianst both Protoss and Zerg, (somewhat stronger against zerg until broodlord/corruptor) but is not overpowered. Each race has plenty of ways to counter it (ironically terran has the best tools to beat hellion/tank, in marauder/thor/banshee) and there is still a minimum amount of skill and knowledge required to actually play mech correctly (sweet spots on maps, how fast and where to push so that you dont get an expo cut off and countered, etc).
To me zerg doesn't feel creative at all as much as it feels like just timing everything correctly as far as droning and transitioning goes. Blizzard has already said they like the game the way it is now and they won't change much next phase and if that's true I'm probably switching to terran because I do feel like I can be more creative when playing terran.
Terran mech is tough to beat; no doubt about that. However, the difficulty lies more in the fact that unlike most strategies 1a'ing into the Terran mech is suicide. I play Zerg so I do know what it's like to be on the receiving end.
Terran starts approaching my base? I take half my force and overlord drop into his base. Delay him long enough and you hide ultras in ovies which you then drop on his mech. Yeah he has vikings and thors so you either a) send ling/roach/hydra to attract attention or b) you send a bunch of empty overlords ahead of the filled ones, or c) do both.
Most games I lose is because of macro. Both zerg and protoss have mobility, terran does not, so abuse the hell out of it.
expand expand expand, and when he moves out wreck his base. Sure its a risk, he might roll you but with enough hatcheries/money u can replenish fast enough.
Blizzard has already said they like the game the way it is now and they won't change much next phase and if that's true I'm probably switching to terran because I do feel like I can be more creative when playing terran.
Just say: " I want wins!" instead of talking about creativity...
My theory is that they intentionally made terran the strongest race right now, having in mind that a majority of new players will favor Terran after playing through the campaign, therefore they'll have an easier start into the multiplayer. It's pretty intuitive to build up a defensive position and the first thing every nooby wants to try, are tanksüüü followed by that Gundam/Transformer unit they incidentally added...
Blizzard has already said they like the game the way it is now and they won't change much next phase and if that's true I'm probably switching to terran because I do feel like I can be more creative when playing terran.
Just say: " I want wins!" instead of talking about creativity...
My theory is that they intentionally made terran the strongest race right now, having in mind that a majority of new players will favor Terran after playing through the campaign, therefore they'll have an easier start into the multiplayer. It's pretty intuitive to build up a defensive position and the first thing every nooby wants to try, are tanksüüü followed by that Gundam/Transformer unit they incidentally added...
I love it how all these conspiracy theories come out as soon as one thing is a bit overpowered in one patch. Blizzard already nerfed mech, they obviously know what they're doing, they will nerf it again if it's still too good, it's better they do it in small increments rather than one massive nerf so they don't overdo it.
I think the question isn't whether Terran mech is op or not, as those numbers can be adjusted. It's that terran mech is so EASY to play. Think in BW where Terran mech is good, it still requires superb vulture micro to make the most out of it.
The Siege Tank now doesn't overkill, basically simplifying the units quite a bit. The Hellion requires some micro but not nearly the level of vulture. And finally the Thor is the ultimate A move unit. Just send him into battle for forget.
Platinum terran player on US server here. Big Walls o' Text incoming, but I think a lot of Zerg players will benefit from what I have to say. I've read this entire thread and while I acknowledge that mech is very powerful, I'd like to explain what I think Zerg players should be doing against a turtle-mech terran.
In my experience, the most successful Zerg players typically will 2 base muta harass against terran prior to taking their third base and proceeding to a Lair-tech ground army followed by Hive-tech corruptor/broodlord/hydra or corruptor/broodlord/ling. Zerg players that skip the harass phase with mutas are usually much less successful against my mech build. Let me elaborate.
Muta harass delays tank production by forcing earlier production of thors and making the terran waste minerals on turrets. Thors will, of course, be a normal part of any terran mech army for their anti-air, but if the zerg player can force the terran to blow his gas on 2-3 thors at around the same time terran is just beginning to try to saturate his natural, it can really assist the zerg in keeping the tank count low and extending his economic lead over the terran. The terran can't usually move out at this time because as long as the zerg player is smart with his mutalisks the terran will be forced to babysit his mineral line at his main and his natural and play defense with the slow thors or invest in turrets.
Note that the muta harass is key. Doing damage to SCVs and supply depots is basically a huge bonus. Regardless of actually damaging the terran workers, the terran will now need to account for the mutalisks, which is, by default, an economic hit on his tank production.
Around the same time, zerg should be working towards taking map control/spreading creep while saturating their third. The next critical step that I think can really have a huge impact on the matchup is whether the zerg player can successfully keep the terran player on 4 geysers or at least seriously delay the terran taking his second expanison while the zerg is teching to corruptor/broodlord.
A control group of about 16-20 hydras is probably most useful at this time. This force should obviously never fully engage the terran at his chokepoint. It's really meant to delay the terran and designed as a "show " of hydra-tech to the terran while he wastes gas on establishing that critical mass of siege tanks that crushes hydralisks. Keep in mind that the terran has to respect your ground army and won't automatically assume you are teching to greater spire provided you have an active force that you are using to selectively harass him.
Corruptor/Brood Lord/Hydra, or alternatively Corruptor/Brood Lord/Crackling if hellions are lacking, is a really successful endgame combo to the terran mechball. Adjust the ground unit composition based on the tank count. It's very frustrating trying to target brood lords with thors. Broodlords have range 9.5 to the thors 9 while broodlings obstruct the thors movement. If the tanks are not micro'd well, the splash on the broodlings will damage the thors. If the tanks are unsieged then go balls to the mechwall with your ground forces. After the first battle, zerg should be able to incur enough damage such that the factory losses are too much for the terran to recoup, and the zerg can transition appropriately to a mop-up force.
Abuse the timing windows at your disposal as zerg. Don't allow the terran to turtle comfortably. Starve the terran for gas or force him to spread himself thin. Think of creative ways you can abuse the terran's attempt to easily take and protect his third base on maps like Steppes of War or Kulas Ravine.
One more note, if you are letting a terran get supply maxed off of two bases then I suspect your macro is too slow. It takes a while to hit the supply max with a decent unit composition off of 2 bases due lack of gas, so these slow terrans should get abused by a zerg player that knows when to harass and when to power drones. Also, sack overlords liberally to keep an eye on weird techswitches to banshees or infantry, all-in troop movements, or just to get a sense of the terran's unit composition and economy until you are sure you have the advantage.
Hey guys, in my last game of the beta I joined a custom match, PvT. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO PLAY IT OUT.
The guy rushed to siege tanks, I went DT tech (sounds like the most recent Day9 Daily =P). After some early harassment with my DTs the game went on. I was feeling good, having had my main and nat, and about to take the gold. He was STILL on 1 base, and was just harassed.
As the game went on I kept harassing him with blink stalkers from behind his nat (Map was blistering sands). He then builtt missile turrets and had tanks sitting around. Finally after 45 MINUTES OF PLAY, I FINALLY DESTROYED HIS NAT AND MAIN. It is just absurd how many units he made off o 2 bases. It was in the hundreds. It was just absurd. I could not believe 1- how annoying siege tanks are and 2- how much efficiency they can get off of 2 bases
Terran is just obnoxious. I honestly think they need to give them a different unit other than tanks. They are just absurd and give terran WAY too much defense.
On June 08 2010 15:58 Surrealz wrote: Hey guys, in my last game of the beta I joined a custom match, PvT. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO PLAY IT OUT.
The guy rushed to siege tanks, I went DT tech (sounds like the most recent Day9 Daily =P). After some early harassment with my DTs the game went on. I was feeling good, having had my main and nat, and about to take the gold. He was STILL on 1 base, and was just harassed.
As the game went on I kept harassing him with blink stalkers from behind his nat (Map was blistering sands). He then builtt missile turrets and had tanks sitting around. Finally after 45 MINUTES OF PLAY, I FINALLY DESTROYED HIS NAT AND MAIN. It is just absurd how many units he made off o 2 bases. It was in the hundreds. It was just absurd. I could not believe 1- how annoying siege tanks are and 2- how much efficiency they can get off of 2 bases
Terran is just obnoxious. I honestly think they need to give them a different unit other than tanks. They are just absurd and give terran WAY too much defense.
Yet another whine of a non-terran who tries to go with his head through a wall - with some siege tanks behind it - and fails. You WON dude, so why complain about siege tanks being IMBA?
Todays Day[9] showed nicely how to beat a terran mech with Zerg. The general strategy applies to both Zerg and Protoss ... 1. let the Terran expand so he has to defend at more than one place 2. take lots of expansions and get tons of resources while he is doing that 3. creep up the map (= build pylons everywhere) 4. DONT use small infantry like Hydralisks and Roaches but rather take the big ones in addition to the swarm unit. This is actually not comparable for Protoss, but using DTs, hallucinations (to soak up shots while charging the tanks), blink, charge ... should work as well.
Creativity is required to play this game and doing the "bull rush" does not work against Mech. Stop complaining about it ...
One last hint: You DONT need to kill the army, but rather the bases and if a Terran is spread out he cant defend effectively everywhere. Use mobility to make him move and you win.
On June 08 2010 15:58 Surrealz wrote: Hey guys, in my last game of the beta I joined a custom match, PvT. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO PLAY IT OUT.
The guy rushed to siege tanks, I went DT tech (sounds like the most recent Day9 Daily =P). After some early harassment with my DTs the game went on. I was feeling good, having had my main and nat, and about to take the gold. He was STILL on 1 base, and was just harassed.
As the game went on I kept harassing him with blink stalkers from behind his nat (Map was blistering sands). He then builtt missile turrets and had tanks sitting around. Finally after 45 MINUTES OF PLAY, I FINALLY DESTROYED HIS NAT AND MAIN. It is just absurd how many units he made off o 2 bases. It was in the hundreds. It was just absurd. I could not believe 1- how annoying siege tanks are and 2- how much efficiency they can get off of 2 bases
Terran is just obnoxious. I honestly think they need to give them a different unit other than tanks. They are just absurd and give terran WAY too much defense.
Yet another whine of a non-terran who tries to go with his head through a wall - with some siege tanks behind it - and fails. You WON dude, so why complain about siege tanks being IMBA?
Because our only method of stopping terran mech is to go air. Even in Day9's latest daily he went Phoenix to lift the tanks, and STILL almost lost his entire army. Also, the problem with going air against tanks is that alot of terran are using a marine/tank/raven army comp, so the mass marines will rip through the air units you bring in. Its just really, really, REALLY hard to kill any number of siege tanks right now. They are obnoxious, and the level of power/defense they give is unmatched by any other unit in this game.
On June 08 2010 15:58 Surrealz wrote: Hey guys, in my last game of the beta I joined a custom match, PvT. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO PLAY IT OUT.
The guy rushed to siege tanks, I went DT tech (sounds like the most recent Day9 Daily =P). After some early harassment with my DTs the game went on. I was feeling good, having had my main and nat, and about to take the gold. He was STILL on 1 base, and was just harassed.
As the game went on I kept harassing him with blink stalkers from behind his nat (Map was blistering sands). He then builtt missile turrets and had tanks sitting around. Finally after 45 MINUTES OF PLAY, I FINALLY DESTROYED HIS NAT AND MAIN. It is just absurd how many units he made off o 2 bases. It was in the hundreds. It was just absurd. I could not believe 1- how annoying siege tanks are and 2- how much efficiency they can get off of 2 bases
Terran is just obnoxious. I honestly think they need to give them a different unit other than tanks. They are just absurd and give terran WAY too much defense.
Yet another whine of a non-terran who tries to go with his head through a wall - with some siege tanks behind it - and fails. You WON dude, so why complain about siege tanks being IMBA?
Because our only method of stopping terran mech is to go air.
So do you complain about not being able to use DTs effectively when the Terran has detectors too? Just curious, because some strategies (like the infantry assault vs. Mech) are SUPPOSED TO not work well against certain other strategies.
Plat 2k before reset, diamond 11 post reset. I favor tech openings that lead to macro games and I strongly preferred mech over bio. But with the last couple patches, I feel that pure mech does not have the endgame potential as it did before.
There are a lot of posts that talk about terrans some of which seem unjustified as a terran player.
TvZ Mech is almost unviable now because of the tank nerf and ultralisk buff. Yes, ultralisk buff. A lot of people have been complaining that ultras are too weak, but they do an INSANE amount of damage once it gets to your mechline. With 25mana frenzy, there's no point in neural parasite. Frenzy 4 ultralisks, and they will wreak havoc on a tankline. If you say that 450 is a low amount of health, think about it in terms of tanks. You need roughtly 8 shots to 1 shot an ultralisk. And ultras are so big that splash is wasted. With 3 supply tanks, the usual number of tanks the terran has is around 15. Similar supply of 7 ultralisk charging at a tankline will DEMOLISH them. With their splash and armored bonus backed up by frenzy, there is no way that a pure mech army can take zerg army with ultras head on. I've tried battling ultras with sieged tanks and unsieged tanks, and on open maps like desert oasis, mech is a suicide against zerg's ground army.
Now, I'm not saying that ultras are imbalanced. They do their job of countering terran mech REALLY well. But they are not very great against marauders with similar upgrades and backed up by medivac. This is probably why people have the wrong idea that ultras are trash, because they probably faced more bio than mech in the earlier stages of beta. Right now, siege mode is almost a joke; many times in tank fights it's better to leave them unsieged even when charging because the transform time and the lower dps gives a terrible disadvantage. Yes,a 100 supply's worth of pure roaches and hydralisks that charges at 60 supply's worth of sieged tanks -. -. That's what tanks in siege mode are supposed to be: Incredible long range damage dealer that CANNOT MOVE. Siege sacrifices a TON of mobility for high damage output, but it's just not there right now, shown best in a mech fight vs ultralisks.
You may argue, why don't you just get 30 tanks? The problem with this is that zergs can go broodlords which absolutely demolishes terran's ground army. If you have a army that is too centered on tanks, you will not have enough supply buffer to produce enough vikings, and the game can be lost at one strike by the zerg.
Thors hard counter mutas, just like how banelings hard counter marines. With micromanagement, mutas can fight thors to a certain extent as well as marines can fight banelings. If there were no banelings, there would really not be a solid answer to mass marines as zerg. If there were no thors' splash, there would really not be a solid answer tot mass muta as terran especially considering the presence of banelings and also the superior mobility of mutalisks.
Neural parasite being able to control air units is a HUGE buff. Yes, it's an upgrade now and costs 100 energy. But after it has been researched, the infestor can mind control medivacs and ravens, which is huge as hell. Just the threat of HSM being used against terran's bioball makes HSM an ability better left unresearched. I would probably never go battlecruisers against zergs because of infestors, or if I do, I would have to get ghosts. And if the game is a case where i can pump BCs AND ghosts, I probably would be in a situation where I can do anything. The fact that now it can take medivacs make dropship harass so much dangerous, altho fungal growth being instant cast made it that dangerous already. I'm not gonna say dropship play is completely negated, because it's not. But there's a lot of risk involved because of neural parasite. And seriously, 50 energy to take your opponent's colo, immo, thor, carrier, bc, raven, tanks, etc...was too much anyway.
All-in-all, I think TvZ is a pretty balanced matchup as of now, and I remember statistics quoted on TL that TvZ is msot close to being balanced. When I lose, there has never been a time where I thought that zerg was imbalanced. And when I win, I had to work damn hard for it against a formidable opponent, who in many times when I watched the replay did not have the best macro, very few actually able to keep their resource count less than 300 during mid-lategame. And so much proportion of TvZ posts are crying that Terran is imba -. -;
On June 08 2010 15:58 Surrealz wrote: Hey guys, in my last game of the beta I joined a custom match, PvT. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO PLAY IT OUT.
The guy rushed to siege tanks, I went DT tech (sounds like the most recent Day9 Daily =P). After some early harassment with my DTs the game went on. I was feeling good, having had my main and nat, and about to take the gold. He was STILL on 1 base, and was just harassed.
As the game went on I kept harassing him with blink stalkers from behind his nat (Map was blistering sands). He then builtt missile turrets and had tanks sitting around. Finally after 45 MINUTES OF PLAY, I FINALLY DESTROYED HIS NAT AND MAIN. It is just absurd how many units he made off o 2 bases. It was in the hundreds. It was just absurd. I could not believe 1- how annoying siege tanks are and 2- how much efficiency they can get off of 2 bases
Terran is just obnoxious. I honestly think they need to give them a different unit other than tanks. They are just absurd and give terran WAY too much defense.
Yet another whine of a non-terran who tries to go with his head through a wall - with some siege tanks behind it - and fails. You WON dude, so why complain about siege tanks being IMBA?
Because our only method of stopping terran mech is to go air.
So do you complain about not being able to use DTs effectively when the Terran has detectors too? Just curious, because some strategies (like the infantry assault vs. Mech) are SUPPOSED TO not work well against certain other strategies.
You completely took what I wrote out of context. I included there that marines will completely counter any kind of air assault on said siege tanks. Not to mention any smart player is going to build a turret or two by their wall of tanks.
Also, terrans only need 1-3 bases to amass a huge army, and they have MORE than enough siege tanks to defend that with that many bases. Its really insane just how efficient siege tanks are.
No, marines won't counter carriers, when he has less resources than you and is investing in a lot of tanks. You would've won that game much faster if you just went carriers, since he was sitting on 2 bases and letting you do whatever you want. Complaining that you need siege units to effectively overcome a strong defense is pretty silly.
On June 08 2010 15:58 Surrealz wrote: Hey guys, in my last game of the beta I joined a custom match, PvT. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO PLAY IT OUT.
The guy rushed to siege tanks, I went DT tech (sounds like the most recent Day9 Daily =P). After some early harassment with my DTs the game went on. I was feeling good, having had my main and nat, and about to take the gold. He was STILL on 1 base, and was just harassed.
As the game went on I kept harassing him with blink stalkers from behind his nat (Map was blistering sands). He then builtt missile turrets and had tanks sitting around. Finally after 45 MINUTES OF PLAY, I FINALLY DESTROYED HIS NAT AND MAIN. It is just absurd how many units he made off o 2 bases. It was in the hundreds. It was just absurd. I could not believe 1- how annoying siege tanks are and 2- how much efficiency they can get off of 2 bases
Terran is just obnoxious. I honestly think they need to give them a different unit other than tanks. They are just absurd and give terran WAY too much defense.
Yet another whine of a non-terran who tries to go with his head through a wall - with some siege tanks behind it - and fails. You WON dude, so why complain about siege tanks being IMBA?
Because our only method of stopping terran mech is to go air.
So do you complain about not being able to use DTs effectively when the Terran has detectors too? Just curious, because some strategies (like the infantry assault vs. Mech) are SUPPOSED TO not work well against certain other strategies.
You completely took what I wrote out of context. I included there that marines will completely counter any kind of air assault on said siege tanks. Not to mention any smart player is going to build a turret or two by their wall of tanks.
Also, terrans only need 1-3 bases to amass a huge army, and they have MORE than enough siege tanks to defend that with that many bases. Its really insane just how efficient siege tanks are.
No Marines or turrets will counter Brood Lords and the Broodlings will even make tanks kill each other. You only need 1-2 to do this, so its not a huge deviation from a ground army. The more the terran builds in Marines or air, the less he has as mech units. Vikings are pretty useless against Zerg ... if the Zerg goes about it the right way (see Day[9] daily 131).
On June 08 2010 19:10 lololol wrote: No, marines won't counter carriers, when he has less resources than you and is investing in a lot of tanks. You would've won that game much faster if you just went carriers, since he was sitting on 2 bases and letting you do whatever you want. Complaining that you need siege units to effectively overcome a strong defense is pretty silly.
Thank you for agreeing with me and even Protoss has intelligent ways to deal with the Terran mech. What Surrealz doesnt seem to understand is that he should NOT force his way into a sieged Terran position. If the Terran only wants 1-3 bases he should have A LOT more resources, because no map has only 6 bases and the Terran gives up the claim to the rest of his half past the 2-3 he really wants.
Carriers to kill unguarded turrets as one form of harrass is a way to whittle down the resources of the Terran and slowly bleed him to death. A Mothership to call the Carriers back before they die is a nice method to minimize your losses in resources. At the same time you can have DTs, Stalkers, Chargelots and HTs ready to intercept any Terran forces who peek out from under the turtle shell.
There is one really nice saying: "Never bring a sword to a gunfight.", so dont try to complain about being inefficient if you do. If you have to win in 15 minutes its your problem, but against a defensive mech player you will want to make him move and leave his defensive position. Attacking him is "playing his game" and if you lose to that its your own fault.
Now, I'm not saying that ultras are imbalanced. They do their job of countering terran mech REALLY well. But they are not very great against marauders with similar upgrades and backed up by medivac. This is probably why people have the wrong idea that ultras are trash, because they probably faced more bio than mech in the earlier stages of beta. Right now, siege mode is almost a joke; many times in tank fights it's better to leave them unsieged even when charging because the transform time and the lower dps gives a terrible disadvantage. Yes,a 100 supply's worth of pure roaches and hydralisks that charges at 60 supply's worth of sieged tanks -. -. That's what tanks in siege mode are supposed to be: Incredible long range damage dealer that CANNOT MOVE. Siege sacrifices a TON of mobility for high damage output, but it's just not there right now, shown best in a mech fight vs ultralisks.
Siege mode a joke? Yes of course you dont siege during a battle, but before a battle. Since terran has nothing to spend minerals on, using a lot of scans is a good idea.
On June 08 2010 16:38 nujgnoy wrote:
.
All-in-all, I think TvZ is a pretty balanced matchup as of now, and I remember statistics quoted on TL that TvZ is msot close to being balanced. When I lose, there has never been a time where I thought that zerg was imbalanced. And when I win, I had to work damn hard for it against a formidable opponent, who in many times when I watched the replay did not have the best macro, very few actually able to keep their resource count less than 300 during mid-lategame. And so much proportion of TvZ posts are crying that Terran is imba -. -;
I dont think you realize how difficult zerg macro is.
The reason why this MU is imba is that zerg has to play really well in order to counter the terran. The terran decides how the game is played out. Does he make a timing push with a few siege tanks/thors + hellions or MMM. The zerg then has to defend really well by splitting up his forces and microing really well while injecting larva and macroing, and getting a good combination between drones and units. This might be easy for players like TLO and Sen, but for most other players this is extremely difficult, and they will on most maps lose to terran players of equal skill lvl.
I've been playing Terran exclusively in the last 2 weeks and I really don't think mech is op unless either the terran player is very good or the other player is very bad. I'd say Zerg can have a really hard time vs it but not so much P or T who have a ton of weapons against it.
Now, I'm not saying that ultras are imbalanced. They do their job of countering terran mech REALLY well. But they are not very great against marauders with similar upgrades and backed up by medivac. This is probably why people have the wrong idea that ultras are trash, because they probably faced more bio than mech in the earlier stages of beta. Right now, siege mode is almost a joke; many times in tank fights it's better to leave them unsieged even when charging because the transform time and the lower dps gives a terrible disadvantage. Yes,a 100 supply's worth of pure roaches and hydralisks that charges at 60 supply's worth of sieged tanks -. -. That's what tanks in siege mode are supposed to be: Incredible long range damage dealer that CANNOT MOVE. Siege sacrifices a TON of mobility for high damage output, but it's just not there right now, shown best in a mech fight vs ultralisks.
Siege mode a joke? Yes of course you dont siege during a battle, but before a battle. Since terran has nothing to spend minerals on, using a lot of scans is a good idea.
All-in-all, I think TvZ is a pretty balanced matchup as of now, and I remember statistics quoted on TL that TvZ is msot close to being balanced. When I lose, there has never been a time where I thought that zerg was imbalanced. And when I win, I had to work damn hard for it against a formidable opponent, who in many times when I watched the replay did not have the best macro, very few actually able to keep their resource count less than 300 during mid-lategame. And so much proportion of TvZ posts are crying that Terran is imba -. -;
I dont think you realize how difficult zerg macro is.
The reason why this MU is imba is that zerg has to play really well in order to counter the terran. The terran decides how the game is played out. Does he make a timing push with a few siege tanks/thors + hellions or MMM. The zerg then has to defend really well by splitting up his forces and microing really well while injecting larva and macroing, and getting a good combination between drones and units. This might be easy for players like TLO and Sen, but for most other players this is extremely difficult, and they will on most maps lose to terran players of equal skill lvl.
Trust me, when it goes lategame, try ultralisks vs mech. If you play decently you'll be on a good standing.
This really isn't about how difficult zerg macro is. But no one party has complete dictation of the game. The reason why terran seems to have the dictation of the game is that most zergs FE, which forces the terran to do something, either counter expand or harass/gain advantage and make a timing push. That's the nature of the MU. Why do you think terran has to be aggressive and try to make those timing pushes? If a T doesn't the zerg can pump drones and in a few cycles worker count will be 70 to 40. I understand it's not easy to scout a walled off terran, but remember zerg can make buildings anywhere with spawn creep with lair, and periodic single scans won't cover the entire base, so difficulty in scouting goes both ways once it reaches late stages of the midgame. Once it reaches lair, you have ways to scout terran with OL, OS, Changeling, mutalisk etc. And if some things easy for good players and hard for most players, the latter should learn the game until they become easy as well.
Finding out what your opponent does is a key in every matchup. In TvP, if a terran techs or fast expands (does that sound familiar to zergs?) the protoss can respond by teching or counter expanding. If the protoss decides to tech, terran has to find out whether it's robo, stargate, or templar and respond accordingly. Scans are not as useful since protoss can build buildings anywhere, and they are the best race in terms of spreading buildings around thanks to warpgates. So after countless games I learned to scout effectively and the little details that I need to pay attention to.
EDIT: Just to add, most zergs' lair comes EXTREMELY fast, and then the terran has to constantly scan/scout to try to find out the opponent's plan: mutas, hdyraroach, doubling, etc. And then with the 3rd going up, the t also has to find out if the Z is going mass lair ground (pure lair mass ground unlikely), broodlords, ultralisks, or masss mutas. And if a T gets caught by mass mutas unprepared, it will mean that his army will be wiped out. Keeping a significant number of thors is a actually a double edged blade b/c tanks are much more cost efficient for any other ground units (maybe except ultralisk) and they can do a lot of damage once neural parasited.
Simple fix = not making tanks "smart-fire" anymore, because that is what really made tanks able to be beaten in BW, you could run afew units in front to absorb tank fire THEN run your army in.. in SC2, only 1 tank will fire on your distraction units, then the rest of your units take the brunt of the tank fire, which means tanks in large numbers are literally unbeatable by ground units, add in thors who do insane GtA dmg, you got an unbeatable force.
Just make it like BW, so tank fire can be juked, and its all ok.
On June 09 2010 00:50 Skyze wrote: Simple fix = not making tanks "smart-fire" anymore, because that is what really made tanks able to be beaten in BW, you could run afew units in front to absorb tank fire THEN run your army in.. in SC2, only 1 tank will fire on your distraction units, then the rest of your units take the brunt of the tank fire, which means tanks in large numbers are literally unbeatable by ground units, add in thors who do insane GtA dmg, you got an unbeatable force.
Just make it like BW, so tank fire can be juked, and its all ok.
Why fix something that isn't broken? Mech is not broken. Are you suggesting the only strategy a lategame zerg should need to employ to beat a sieged mech terran is to throw a few lings ahead of his army so that he can 1a to victory? For 150 minerals, 125 vespene and 3 supply, I would hope my tanks are as smart as they are.
What's hilarious to me is how quickly people forget that in SC1, zerg didn't have a great answer to a grouping of siege tanks with bio support until hive-tech either. They could delay the push with lurkers and muta harass, but until the defiler was out, attack moving lair tech zerg ground forces into a tank line would be just as suicidal as it is now in SC2, and that's the way it's supposed to be. For their cost, the AI of siege tanks is fine. The solution is to not let the terran get 20 siege tanks and if he does, then you should have had ample opportunity to go broodlord/corruptor to win.
Since I've had some time off from sc now and I've been thinking about this more here are my thoughts:
We don't know for sure if mech is broken. What if mech isn't broken? I've been jumping to conclusions too hastily with sc2 and it's only hindering my growth as a player. If I started playing bw now and I didn't know better I would say things like defilers and dark swarm are imba. We can't hope to have the game figured out in a few months and there were a lot of patches coming out that changed zerg every other week. I still wish blizzard didn't try to balance the game at the lower levels since it doesn't make any sense but whatever. They just need to work on battle.net 2.0 and if they had chat channels, lan, server reliability, and got rid of separated regions I would be all for sc2.
Even though I don't think mech is imba and only might be I'm still switching to terran and toss when the game is launched. Zerg isn't as fun for me to play anymore and it feels like I'd have to spend 100x the amount of time on zerg as I would on protoss to be at the same level. In sc1 sure mech was super strong and it was still hard to deal with on certain maps, but I at least knew what I had to do and I felt like if I played well (dark swarm ftw) I would win. Zerg's lack of the same game changing hive tech in sc2 is disappointing. Infestors, ultras, and bl's aren't as fun to use as defilers, lurkers and guardians. Frenzy and corruption make me feel like I'm playing magic. I hate magic.
Just as a suggestion for zerg vs terran mech (i dont play zerg, protoss is my main), but after a little thinking i was wondering if you could use corrupters, mutas, and infestors against the thor/viking/tank combo. This is how i see it, you send in corrupters first to use corruption on tanks and act as cannon fodder to thors+vikings, and then these are closely followed by frenzied mutalisks that target the corrupted tanks. Then follow this up with some combination of ground units lings/ultras or ling/roach. The only reason I suggest frenzied mutas, is so that even if a large number of them die with increased dps from corruption+frenzy they might still be able to kill enough tanks However it would seem like this kind of unit composition seems impossible to have all at once in sufficient numbers as zerg. So maybe you could start off with the corrupters and frenzied mutas and then quickly send in a stream of lings and pump some more from your hatchs? Lastly i see this being used in a late game situation (some what obvious) where the zerg player has a higher number of bases This is strictly theorycrafting and i am in no way saying this is the viable counter against terran mech (seeing as i dont even play zerg) just wondering what others think of it.
On June 09 2010 06:51 cryostasis wrote: Why fix something that isn't broken? Mech is not broken. Are you suggesting the only strategy a lategame zerg should need to employ to beat a sieged mech terran is to throw a few lings ahead of his army so that he can 1a to victory? For 150 minerals, 125 vespene and 3 supply, I would hope my tanks are as smart as they are.
Personally, I don't think it's an issue of balance, but an issue of allowing sloppy play. Without overkill, you don't need to stagger/spread out your tanks because they won't overkill the first unit and splash damage from zealot/ling bombs won't be that high. It lets bad players get away with having their siege tanks in a big ball, which should not be a viable way to play, period. If you have crappy tank positioning, you should get punished harshly for it.
For properly positioned siege lines, slightly less optimal siege tank AI barely makes a difference. You shouldn't have all your tanks blowing their shots on the same unit if they're spread out and staggered, because they will enter firing range for each tank at different times. What worse AI does is punish bad players for playing badly, and gives zerg/protoss a chance to do good push-breaking with bombs, and catching the Terran player unsieged. As is, there's not enough downside to sloppy positioning.
On June 09 2010 06:51 cryostasis wrote: What's hilarious to me is how quickly people forget that in SC1, zerg didn't have a great answer to a grouping of siege tanks with bio support until hive-tech either. They could delay the push with lurkers and muta harass, but until the defiler was out, attack moving lair tech zerg ground forces into a tank line would be just as suicidal as it is now in SC2, and that's the way it's supposed to be. For their cost, the AI of siege tanks is fine. The solution is to not let the terran get 20 siege tanks and if he does, then you should have had ample opportunity to go broodlord/corruptor to win.
Lair play with a large base advantage did just fine against mech. For a long time, the strategy advocated was "don't get cute with hive, just get a lot of lair tech 'stuff'".
...and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill...
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
Seriously? How do I get this guys job?
I don't get what you are on about. Any PR person in a big company has usually broad but quite shallow knowledge about things going on in the company. You can't expect a community manager to instantly know all facts in detail. You wouldn't either.
Then they should get someone else. Literally any of us here on TeamLiquid would have a better comprehension of Blizzard's technical inner-workings, given the opportunity. As a rep, this person should have an infinitely better understanding of the ONLY FEATURE BNET 2.0 OFFERS OVER 1.0.
...and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill...
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
Seriously? How do I get this guys job?
I don't get what you are on about. Any PR person in a big company has usually broad but quite shallow knowledge about things going on in the company. You can't expect a community manager to instantly know all facts in detail. You wouldn't either.
Then they should get someone else. Literally any of us here on TeamLiquid would have a better comprehension of Blizzard's technical inner-workings, given the opportunity. As a rep, this person should have an infinitely better understanding of the ONLY FEATURE BNET 2.0 OFFERS OVER 1.0.
...
srsly?
go.
Where and
Explain this equation to me. hint: It something you should know being such a knowledgeable player and all that.
For properly positioned siege lines, slightly less optimal siege tank AI barely makes a difference. You shouldn't have all your tanks blowing their shots on the same unit if they're spread out and staggered, because they will enter firing range for each tank at different times. What worse AI does is punish bad players for playing badly, and gives zerg/protoss a chance to do good push-breaking with bombs, and catching the Terran player unsieged. As is, there's not enough downside to sloppy positioning.
The difference in SC2 is that tanks are noticeably more resource intensive relative to their SC1 counterparts. I don't think that the improvement in AI was some act of laziness on Blizzard's part. Of course you could argue that they should have basically just ported the SC1 siege tank to the new game to preserve the importance of strategic staggering of tanks . I won't really disagree with that, but making the game "easier" for terran players in one instance does not automatically indicate imbalance with respect to a match versus zerg or protoss in SC2. The game is just way too young for us to make that assumption.
For properly positioned siege lines, slightly less optimal siege tank AI barely makes a difference. You shouldn't have all your tanks blowing their shots on the same unit if they're spread out and staggered, because they will enter firing range for each tank at different times. What worse AI does is punish bad players for playing badly, and gives zerg/protoss a chance to do good push-breaking with bombs, and catching the Terran player unsieged. As is, there's not enough downside to sloppy positioning.
The difference in SC2 is that tanks are noticeably more resource intensive relative to their SC1 counterparts. I don't think that the improvement in AI was some act of laziness on Blizzard's part. Of course you could argue that they should have basically just ported the SC1 siege tank to the new game to preserve the importance of strategic staggering of tanks . I won't really disagree with that, but making the game "easier" for terran players in one instance does not automatically indicate imbalance with respect to a match versus zerg or protoss in SC2. The game is just way too young for us to make that assumption.
I don't actually think the AI was really improved. Ranged unit target priority works in basically the same way. The only difference is that in SC1, there was a small frame delay in the shot animation and the unit taking damage, and now, tank damage is instant. Projectile-firing units still overkill in SC1-like fashion, so it should be possible to implement tanks in the same way.
Like I said, I don't feel it's necessarily an issue of imbalance, but I at the same time, I feel like a lot of the low-level complaints about tanks might arise in part from the fact that one of the most difficult parts of using them is less harshly punished.
no idea why the got rid of armor types, it is really needed so that units like zlings and marines dont die in one shot to tanks. its ridiculous how u can lose 5 blings or zlings to one tank shot.
i remember some ppl posting that armor types are too confusing lol the armor types in sc1 and wc3 were so intuitive.
On June 10 2010 04:42 Bluerain wrote: no idea why the got rid of armor types, it is really needed so that units like zlings and marines dont die in one shot to tanks. its ridiculous how u can lose 5 blings or zlings to one tank shot.
i remember some ppl posting that armor types are too confusing lol the armor types in sc1 and wc3 were so intuitive.
Armor types still exist. It's just that the Tank specifically does not do reduced damage to anything in Siege Mode.
And how are the armor types in Warcraft 3 intuitive? How can the relationship between a "Magic" type damage and any armor type be considered intuitive at all?
On June 10 2010 04:42 Bluerain wrote: no idea why the got rid of armor types, it is really needed so that units like zlings and marines dont die in one shot to tanks. its ridiculous how u can lose 5 blings or zlings to one tank shot.
i remember some ppl posting that armor types are too confusing lol the armor types in sc1 and wc3 were so intuitive.
Armor types still exist. It's just that the Tank specifically does not do reduced damage to anything in Siege Mode.
And how are the armor types in Warcraft 3 intuitive? How can the relationship between a "Magic" type damage and any armor type be considered intuitive at all?
yea there are armor "names" in sc2 beta but they dont mean anything lol.... they dont mean anything because there arent any attack types. there are just attacks that do bonus damage to certain armor.
for wc3, it is quite intuitive. piercing does extra to unarmored (pointy things should be extra damage to things w/o armor), melee does extra to medium armor (regular armor should guard against arrows/piercing but not a sword/melee), magic does extra to heavy armor (heavy armor should protect vs both normal physical attacks like arrows/swords but not against magic, spells should penetrate a thick heavy armor). seems as logical as u can get for a game.
For properly positioned siege lines, slightly less optimal siege tank AI barely makes a difference. You shouldn't have all your tanks blowing their shots on the same unit if they're spread out and staggered, because they will enter firing range for each tank at different times. What worse AI does is punish bad players for playing badly, and gives zerg/protoss a chance to do good push-breaking with bombs, and catching the Terran player unsieged. As is, there's not enough downside to sloppy positioning.
The difference in SC2 is that tanks are noticeably more resource intensive relative to their SC1 counterparts. I don't think that the improvement in AI was some act of laziness on Blizzard's part. Of course you could argue that they should have basically just ported the SC1 siege tank to the new game to preserve the importance of strategic staggering of tanks . I won't really disagree with that, but making the game "easier" for terran players in one instance does not automatically indicate imbalance with respect to a match versus zerg or protoss in SC2. The game is just way too young for us to make that assumption.
I don't actually think the AI was really improved. Ranged unit target priority works in basically the same way. The only difference is that in SC1, there was a small frame delay in the shot animation and the unit taking damage, and now, tank damage is instant. Projectile-firing units still overkill in SC1-like fashion, so it should be possible to implement tanks in the same way.
Like I said, I don't feel it's necessarily an issue of imbalance, but I at the same time, I feel like a lot of the low-level complaints about tanks might arise in part from the fact that one of the most difficult parts of using them is less harshly punished.
i remember reading tanks dont overkill, and say theres 30 tanks and 1 zealot enters range, the # of tank shots needed to kill it is how many tanks will attack, so that they all dont waste shots.
On June 10 2010 04:32 zhul4nder wrote: Regarding the mothership, I don't think vortex works with sieged tanks.
It vortexes them and they come back unsieged.
Wow. That is pretty extreme. Take out the Tanks and the rest of the Terran army is Zealot food... Then they spawn in undeployed and you gobble them up too. I wish Zerg had something like that, even from a fragile, expensive, late-game unit.
Still, though. 400/400 and it gets owned by Vikings.
For properly positioned siege lines, slightly less optimal siege tank AI barely makes a difference. You shouldn't have all your tanks blowing their shots on the same unit if they're spread out and staggered, because they will enter firing range for each tank at different times. What worse AI does is punish bad players for playing badly, and gives zerg/protoss a chance to do good push-breaking with bombs, and catching the Terran player unsieged. As is, there's not enough downside to sloppy positioning.
The difference in SC2 is that tanks are noticeably more resource intensive relative to their SC1 counterparts. I don't think that the improvement in AI was some act of laziness on Blizzard's part. Of course you could argue that they should have basically just ported the SC1 siege tank to the new game to preserve the importance of strategic staggering of tanks . I won't really disagree with that, but making the game "easier" for terran players in one instance does not automatically indicate imbalance with respect to a match versus zerg or protoss in SC2. The game is just way too young for us to make that assumption.
I don't actually think the AI was really improved. Ranged unit target priority works in basically the same way. The only difference is that in SC1, there was a small frame delay in the shot animation and the unit taking damage, and now, tank damage is instant. Projectile-firing units still overkill in SC1-like fashion, so it should be possible to implement tanks in the same way.
Like I said, I don't feel it's necessarily an issue of imbalance, but I at the same time, I feel like a lot of the low-level complaints about tanks might arise in part from the fact that one of the most difficult parts of using them is less harshly punished.
i remember reading tanks dont overkill, and say theres 30 tanks and 1 zealot enters range, the # of tank shots needed to kill it is how many tanks will attack, so that they all dont waste shots.
the ai has been vastly improved
Yeah exactly. Call it whatever you want. Changed animations, improved AI, it doesn't really matter. The fact is the tanks do not waste their shots while in siege mode. This we can all agree on.
On June 10 2010 04:42 Bluerain wrote: no idea why the got rid of armor types, it is really needed so that units like zlings and marines dont die in one shot to tanks. its ridiculous how u can lose 5 blings or zlings to one tank shot.
i remember some ppl posting that armor types are too confusing lol the armor types in sc1 and wc3 were so intuitive.
Armor types still exist. It's just that the Tank specifically does not do reduced damage to anything in Siege Mode.
And how are the armor types in Warcraft 3 intuitive? How can the relationship between a "Magic" type damage and any armor type be considered intuitive at all?
yea there are armor "names" in sc2 beta but they dont mean anything lol.... they dont mean anything because there arent any attack types. there are just attacks that do bonus damage to certain armor.
for wc3, it is quite intuitive. piercing does extra to unarmored (pointy things should be extra damage to things w/o armor), melee does extra to medium armor (regular armor should guard against arrows/piercing but not a sword/melee), magic does extra to heavy armor (heavy armor should protect vs both normal physical attacks like arrows/swords but not against magic, spells should penetrate a thick heavy armor). seems as logical as u can get for a game.
You do realize the WC3 system is LESS versatile right? You can achieve the EXACT SAME effect in SC2 if oyu wanted, so literally NOTHING was lost going from WC3->SC2. BW's armor system was downright bizarre for anyone who was new to the game.
I admit SC2's system is not the most elegant, but it actually is the best if used right (ie. Blizzard is not using it right.)
...and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill...
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
Seriously? How do I get this guys job?
I don't get what you are on about. Any PR person in a big company has usually broad but quite shallow knowledge about things going on in the company. You can't expect a community manager to instantly know all facts in detail. You wouldn't either.
Then they should get someone else. Literally any of us here on TeamLiquid would have a better comprehension of Blizzard's technical inner-workings, given the opportunity. As a rep, this person should have an infinitely better understanding of the ONLY FEATURE BNET 2.0 OFFERS OVER 1.0.
...
srsly?
go.
Where and
Explain this equation to me. hint: It something you should know being such a knowledgeable player and all that.
Tanks were somewhat imba, but with the nerf now I'm not so sure, 50 damage doesnt install kill a marine alone, but then a lone thank is never great anyway
On June 10 2010 22:56 proFits wrote: Tanks were somewhat imba, but with the nerf now I'm not so sure, 50 damage doesnt install kill a marine alone, but then a lone thank is never great anyway
Tanks were NOT imbalanced, but rather there were a lot of units which were inappropriate to be used against them. As a 3-food-unit it seems acceptable to be able to acquire this ability.
After watching several replays - such as those listed as proof of terran mech being imbalanced by Raelcun in his own thread, but also several terran matches shown by Day[9] (dailies 131 and 133) - I have come to the conclusion that the opponents either have no plan how to counter the terran mech tactic in all its versions OR they simply make mistakes in their own execution. Sheth vs QXC are two nice examples of the first and MoMan vs LzGamer is an example of the second. Sheth simply has no real plan as to what to do and he admits it more or less at the end of the LT map and MoMan loses because he does NOT spread the creep and is unable to defend his third / fourth base efficiently and runs out of resources. If he hadnt done that he probably would have won, because his harrassment and assault tactics were very solid and efficient.
Most of the times the non-Terran loses he gives up on air and the Terran has free reign of the skies with Vikings and Ravens. If you dont do that you have a chance of winning, but trying to go with the head through the wall is a failure in strategy.
On June 10 2010 22:56 proFits wrote: Tanks were somewhat imba, but with the nerf now I'm not so sure, 50 damage doesnt install kill a marine alone, but then a lone thank is never great anyway
Tanks were NOT imbalanced, but rather there were a lot of units which were inappropriate to be used against them. As a 3-food-unit it seems acceptable to be able to acquire this ability.
After watching several replays - such as those listed as proof of terran mech being imbalanced by Raelcun in his own thread, but also several terran matches shown by Day[9] (dailies 131 and 133) - I have come to the conclusion that the opponents either have no plan how to counter the terran mech tactic in all its versions OR they simply make mistakes in their own execution. Sheth vs QXC are two nice examples of the first and MoMan vs LzGamer is an example of the second. Sheth simply has no real plan as to what to do and he admits it more or less at the end of the LT map and MoMan loses because he does NOT spread the creep and is unable to defend his third / fourth base efficiently and runs out of resources. If he hadnt done that he probably would have won, because his harrassment and assault tactics were very solid and efficient.
Most of the times the non-Terran loses he gives up on air and the Terran has free reign of the skies with Vikings and Ravens. If you dont do that you have a chance of winning, but trying to go with the head through the wall is a failure in strategy.
Sure the zerg players make mistakes. But it is extremely difficult to avoid mistakes as zerg compared to play mech as terran. At the top lvl play, zerg vs Terran is probably balanced. But at gold-medium diamond, this MU is extremely difficult for zerg, because they cant micro and macro perfectly through the whole game.
On June 10 2010 22:56 proFits wrote: Tanks were somewhat imba, but with the nerf now I'm not so sure, 50 damage doesnt install kill a marine alone, but then a lone thank is never great anyway
Tanks were NOT imbalanced, but rather there were a lot of units which were inappropriate to be used against them. As a 3-food-unit it seems acceptable to be able to acquire this ability.
After watching several replays - such as those listed as proof of terran mech being imbalanced by Raelcun in his own thread, but also several terran matches shown by Day[9] (dailies 131 and 133) - I have come to the conclusion that the opponents either have no plan how to counter the terran mech tactic in all its versions OR they simply make mistakes in their own execution. Sheth vs QXC are two nice examples of the first and MoMan vs LzGamer is an example of the second. Sheth simply has no real plan as to what to do and he admits it more or less at the end of the LT map and MoMan loses because he does NOT spread the creep and is unable to defend his third / fourth base efficiently and runs out of resources. If he hadnt done that he probably would have won, because his harrassment and assault tactics were very solid and efficient.
Most of the times the non-Terran loses he gives up on air and the Terran has free reign of the skies with Vikings and Ravens. If you dont do that you have a chance of winning, but trying to go with the head through the wall is a failure in strategy.
Sure the zerg players make mistakes. But it is extremely difficult to avoid mistakes as zerg compared to play mech as terran. At the top lvl play, zerg vs Terran is probably balanced. But at gold-medium diamond, this MU is extremely difficult for zerg, because they cant micro and macro perfectly through the whole game.
I don't understand this idea that Zerg has to play perfectly against Terran to win in this matchup. Zerg just has play the matchup properly and not engage the tanks head on. I'm sick of Zerg players that probably go 3 base mass roach/hydra with no harass or drops complaining that there is no easy way to beat Terran mech. The answer is muta harass into broodlord/corruptor OR hive-tech melee with infestor support. Look at how TLO used ultras to beat Jinro on one of Day[9]'s latest dailies, and that was pre-nerf with siege tanks doing the base damage of 60. It can be done. If he counters with mass marauders, switch back to air. Simple. Terran can't have enough gas to do everything if you keep him on 4 geysers.
Pretty soon this won't be "playing perfectly" against Terran, it will just be "how you play against Terran" in SC2 as Zerg.
On June 02 2010 20:17 Jibba wrote: Drops are possible, but I think terran players are overstating how easy they are to accomplish. If the T player has a big ball army, then yeah, but if they're also being good about scouting and keeping units separate, then it's hard to find an opening that'll cause enough damage.
I think right now the number 1 problem are the maps people play on. Metalopolis and LT are the best maps for ZvT and even those have some features that are easily exploitable by T. Blizzard's maps suck, people need to start playing real maps in order to judge this kind of balance.
Unfortunately though blizzard maps are the ones we're going to be playing while laddering, so that isn't really a valid argument. Hopefully after the game comes out, and some more professionally made maps come out, in HotS they take lessons from the maps people make.
All in all though I think blizz's sc2 maps are quite good (some of them), if you look at the blizzard bw maps they tend to be weird, mechanic broke, and race favoring (expo with 4 mineral patches anyone?) Many maps lacked naturals, which they honestly should have thought would be anti zerg considering their hatcheries are cheaper than nexus/cc.
Dont forget the original Hunters, were 7 bases had x mineral patches, and 1 base had y minerals. Haha.
Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
[QUOTE]On June 11 2010 03:39 Rabiator wrote: [QUOTE]On June 10 2010 22:56 proFits wrote: After watching several replays - such as those listed as proof of terran mech being imbalanced by [url=http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=129070]Raelcun in his own thread[/url], but also several terran matches shown by Day[9] (dailies 131 and 133) - I have come to the conclusion that the opponents either have no plan how to counter the terran mech tactic in all its versions OR they simply make mistakes in their own execution. Sheth vs QXC are two nice examples of the first [/QUOTE]
There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
You can only claim that the game is imbalanced if Sheth played perfectly. He didnt and his strategy was flawed. Running 8 Ultralisks into a dozen sieged tanks is NOT a good plan and not using a Nydus Network to increase the mobility of these Ultralisks is bad too. Allowing the Terran to get air superiority (and thus VISION for the tanks) is bad as well ...
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
Uh huh ... sieging is "really easy" and you cant screw up your own play by making mistakes there? Well positioning is much more important for a slow moving army as it is for a fast one, simply because you cant change / correct it easily. Obviously running into a sieged army is making the job really easy for the sieged Terran, but what if the opponent dodges your sieged tanks and instead attacks somewhere else? Thors and a few tanks moving up and down ramps take a huge amount of time and thats what you have to make them do if you want to win ... NOT attacking the sieged tanks but rathere everywhere else. MoMan did a great job at assaulting the positions of LzGamer in the match listed by Raelcun and every Zerg should take a few hints from those.
Personally I consider Terran mech to be HARD to play, simply because it is the least forgiving race to play. If you build the wrong unit you are screwed and you could almost never catch up with building "the right stuff" unless your opponent lets you. Zerg have dozens of larvae on stockpile to produce a bunch of different units at once and Protoss have their Warp Gate AND Chrono Boost(!), but Terrans have three different production facilities and getting a lot of something different from the stuff you planned to get takes time and preparation. Mech alone is rather vulnerable to air (unless a Zerg is stupid enough to try Mutalisks) and if he doesnt have a Starport or two to produce Vikings he will not gain air superiority. Not having air superiority severely limits the usefulness of tanks!
People seem to always be under the assumption of "if I can't a-move into it, it's overpowered" when concerning SC2's balance (including blizzard) which is a really silly way of thinking about game balance. You can't a-move into tanks in SC1 either, or dark swarm, or mines, or reavers, or lurkers.. but are all of those overpowered and deserving of a nerf?
Given, the tank AI is better in SC2 so tanks should be a bit weaker, but still. If you could a-move into a ball of tanks what purpose do they even serve? They'd be completely useless.
On June 11 2010 07:02 Rabiator wrote:Mech alone is rather vulnerable to air (unless a Zerg is stupid enough to try Mutalisks) and if he doesnt have a Starport or two to produce Vikings he will not gain air superiority.
That's a very convoluted way of saying that brood lords work well against mech, except if terran builds a starport upon scouting a hive.
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
You can only claim that the game is imbalanced if Sheth played perfectly. He didnt and his strategy was flawed. Running 8 Ultralisks into a dozen sieged tanks is NOT a good plan and not using a Nydus Network to increase the mobility of these Ultralisks is bad too. Allowing the Terran to get air superiority (and thus VISION for the tanks) is bad as well ...
So you're suggesting using a nydus near the tanks to help ultralisk getting into range ? have you allready have used a nydus ? seriously ?
Allowing terran to get air superiority... hmmm.... against viking + raven + thor what do you want to do ?
Explain to me how it works you illiterate. You obviously couldn't do that without the wikipedia page. Obviously he knew the existence of the system too.
We were never questioning his awareness of the systems existence.
...and some sort of math I don't understand that factors in player skill...
That's really vague... but yeah, it's more than just us making sure the matchmaker is working.
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
You can only claim that the game is imbalanced if Sheth played perfectly. He didnt and his strategy was flawed. Running 8 Ultralisks into a dozen sieged tanks is NOT a good plan and not using a Nydus Network to increase the mobility of these Ultralisks is bad too. Allowing the Terran to get air superiority (and thus VISION for the tanks) is bad as well ...
So you're suggesting using a nydus near the tanks to help ultralisk getting into range ? have you allready have used a nydus ? seriously ?
Allowing terran to get air superiority... hmmm.... against viking + raven + thor what do you want to do ?
I would like to know how Terran managed to get 5 bases worth of gas for tank/thor/viking/raven while Zerg apparently has jack squat.
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
That zerg was horrible. He had 13000 minerals and 10000 gas at various points throughout the game. Thats a 200/200 army right their. Except not once in the entire game does he engage terran with an equal army. If he built 5 hatches and pumped out zerglings and ultralisks non stop with a some infestors, he would have won the game incredibly easily. In one case he had 5 bases to 3 and he was just sitting on 6000 minerals with a 170/200 army with a terrible composition. If he had pumped out ~125 food worth of lings and ultra, one attack would have decimated the terrans ground army and he would be able to instantly macro up a second army.
Failing at that, in points later game when he was sitting at 100/200 and terran at 200/200, if he had macroed up all his hatches and spawned corruptors from his pool of 10k minerals and gas, he would have had 40 corruptors to the terrans 18 vikings and ONE reactor starport and 1 techlabport. Morph 5 of them into broodlords and just attack a.
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
That zerg was horrible. He had 13000 minerals and 10000 gas at various points throughout the game. Thats a 200/200 army right their. Except not once in the entire game does he engage terran with an equal army. If he built 5 hatches and pumped out zerglings and ultralisks non stop with a some infestors, he would have won the game incredibly easily. In one case he had 5 bases to 3 and he was just sitting on 6000 minerals with a 170/200 army with a terrible composition. If he had pumped out ~125 food worth of lings and ultra, one attack would have decimated the terrans ground army and he would be able to instantly macro up a second army.
Failing at that, in points later game when he was sitting at 100/200 and terran at 200/200, if he had macroed up all his hatches and spawned corruptors from his pool of 10k minerals and gas, he would have had 40 corruptors to the terrans 18 vikings and ONE reactor starport and 1 techlabport. Morph 5 of them into broodlords and just attack a.
ROFL. I haven't watched the replay, but seriously, these are the zerg players we are hearing the complaints from. It isn't possible for a Terran that has been on 2 bases to have enough thors, vikings AND tanks to hold off all the possible methods of zerg attack if the zerg scouts properly. This topic is getting stale.
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
You can only claim that the game is imbalanced if Sheth played perfectly. He didnt and his strategy was flawed. Running 8 Ultralisks into a dozen sieged tanks is NOT a good plan and not using a Nydus Network to increase the mobility of these Ultralisks is bad too. Allowing the Terran to get air superiority (and thus VISION for the tanks) is bad as well ...
So you're suggesting using a nydus near the tanks to help ultralisk getting into range ? have you allready have used a nydus ? seriously ?
Allowing terran to get air superiority... hmmm.... against viking + raven + thor what do you want to do ?
You dont think I am that dumb, do you? You use the Nydus to strike EVERYWHERE ELSE and that is the bases.
In one of those example matches - I cant remember which one - the Zerg successfully Overlord-dropped the island expo on LT. Afterwards the 5-6 Overlords were in a somewhat dangerous position due to several Vikings being close. In these situations it might be a good idea to have the Nydus as a "backup evac" for your ground forces, so you can get them out even if the Overlords are shot down. The expo had quite a lot of minerals too and it might have helped a lot to set one up there too, to have a base in the back of the Terran.
Air superiority - "must have" for a Terran mech to maximize the efficiency of tanks - therefore it is a "requirement" to deny it to the Terran if you want to beat him - Air superiority is gained by the Terran through Vikings and Ravens mostly; Turrets, Marines and Thors "only" give localized air control
The Viking: - anti-air damage 10(+4 vs armored), 2 seconds delay between shots, range 9 - armor: 0 - hit points: 125
The Corruptor - damage: 14(+6 vs massive), 1,9 seconds delay between shots, range 6 - armor: 2 - hit points: 200
The Raven - most efficient kill method with the Seeker missile - 1 Raven = 3 Vikings (Gas-wise)
So if I compare these two the Viking seems to be a lot better, because it has a longer range and you can do the "fancy range dance" to shoot down the Corruptors, BUT the armor on the corruptors and their much higher hit points should even that out. The most important thing is the numbers you have on the battlefield and the higher the Viking count becomes the harder it will get to gain air superiority, BUT the Terran wanted to go mech and wont make 50 Vikings, right? If he does you could easily build lots of ground forces and win. - 9 Corruptors are needed to shoot down a Viking in one volley - 16 Vikings are needed to shoot down a Corruptor in one volley - Zerg should not allow the Terran his "peace and quiet" to build lots of Ravens
The point of the Corruptor is also that the "other anti air" of the Terran really sucks against it. Thors do 4 damage each shot due to the 2 armor and Marines 3 ... The point is to have sufficiently high numbers of Corruptors to win in an even fight and then push the Vikings into a corner where they can not do the "range dance" anymore. Once you have removed their air force you can replenish your units faster than he can and gain air superiority easily. Upgrading the armor on the Corruptors will make Marines practically useless and if you have too many Corruptors you can always morph them into Brood Lords and start owning the Tanks and bases. You dont need that many, just enough to punch a hole into the Terran ground defenses so your Ultralisks and Zerglings and Roaches can move in to destroy the rest.
Brood Lords - even a single one - make Tanks kill each other with Splash damage. USE THIS to get rid of the expensive units in a rather cheap way.
you guys should probably watch the day9 where TLO plays against mech...
anways... I don't think terran mech is overpowered since I could never win with it against zerg, but whatever...
anyways... Sheth doesn't suck, he happens to be one of the best zergs there are right now... he was just pointing out that he didn't know how to beat mech, and trying to face it head on or in any kind of fight really, with a 200/200 mech army is just like suicide. And... anything on the ground was something that he figured out didn't work once the army maxed...
I think that some of the zerg players are letting their competitive nature spill out a little bit, which I totally understand and respect. But that is why I always look at the opinions of strong random or multiple race players. Mainly because they get both ends of the story. And still even if something seems strong (I hate the word imba) to everybody, people seem to forget that it doesn't take a day to figure out how to deal with some strategy or style or sometimes even a month.
On June 11 2010 18:27 aznhockeyboy16 wrote: you guys should probably watch the day9 where TLO plays against mech....
Exactly.. to quote TLO directly from that episode, "You can't face a terran mech army in a straight up fight, but you can abuse his immobility."
I don't understand why people think that something is imbalanced just because you can't a-move into it. It's ridiculous the amount of "IS ______ IMBA?? I CANT WIN VS IT IN A STRAIGHT UP FIGHT!" type posts that go on around here lately. Doesn't anyone remember SC1 at all? lol. There were so many units and army compositions you had to actually do other things to, to beat them rather than a-move into them.
And then to make matters worse, Blizzard actually is convinced then that things like tanks are overpowered and are in the exact same mindset of "if people can't a-move into it, it definitely needs to be nerfed"
zzzzzzzz.
This is what makes SC2 boring, people. Who honestly wants to watch two armies a-move into each other every single match rather than have actual dynamic movement and positioning and attacks.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
On June 11 2010 05:54 Graven wrote: Watch this five game series between QXC and Sheth. If you want to save time, just watch Game 2, 4, and 5. If you still think the game is balanced...lol.
You can only claim that the game is imbalanced if Sheth played perfectly. He didnt and his strategy was flawed. Running 8 Ultralisks into a dozen sieged tanks is NOT a good plan and not using a Nydus Network to increase the mobility of these Ultralisks is bad too. Allowing the Terran to get air superiority (and thus VISION for the tanks) is bad as well ...
So you're suggesting using a nydus near the tanks to help ultralisk getting into range ? have you allready have used a nydus ? seriously ?
Allowing terran to get air superiority... hmmm.... against viking + raven + thor what do you want to do ?
I would like to know how Terran managed to get 5 bases worth of gas for tank/thor/viking/raven while Zerg apparently has jack squat.
Watch games 2,4, and 5 and you'll see how.
All of you can sit here and write he could have done this or that, but what you can't do is tell me that Sheth could do anything against that final army.
Also, I've already explained why going all-in to a strat early can backfire due to Terran's easy switchup abilities. You're all discussing this as if Sheth has map hacks...watching the replay is totally different than playing a game.
And finally, I played Random most of the Beta, but admit that Zerg is probably my favorite race. I'd like to think I'm looking at this very objectively though.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
i seem to recall that in scbw, terran was considered the most apm intensive race, whether going bio or mech. sc2 is not that much different: leapfrogging tanks to the right position, controlling vikings to maintain air dominance/give sight, positioning thors so that mutas don't flank your tanks, making sure ravens are putting down point defense drones and not getting sniped, using medivacs to get tanks on the high ground, emp-ing with ghosts (against toss)...the list goes on. simply a-moving tanks and pressing e to siege is a good way to lose a hell of a lot of gas quickly.
in scbw, the ways to beat terran mech were also micro-intensive - zealot bombs, mine drags, storms, dark swarms, etc. did people call "IMBA!!1!" when flash dominated toss for a good while with his double armory mech push? no, the others learned to adapt and beat it. and terran mech will evolve to reflect that.
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
i seem to recall that in scbw, terran was considered the most apm intensive race, whether going bio or mech. sc2 is not that much different: leapfrogging tanks to the right position, controlling vikings to maintain air dominance/give sight, positioning thors so that mutas don't flank your tanks, making sure ravens are putting down point defense drones and not getting sniped, using medivacs to get tanks on the high ground, emp-ing with ghosts (against toss)...the list goes on. simply a-moving tanks and pressing e to siege is a good way to lose a hell of a lot of gas quickly.
in scbw, the ways to beat terran mech were also micro-intensive - zealot bombs, mine drags, storms, dark swarms, etc. did people call "IMBA!!1!" when flash dominated toss for a good while with his double armory mech push? no, the others learned to adapt and beat it. and terran mech will evolve to reflect that.
Mech is drastically less APM intensive than in SCBW due to the fact that the stronger tank AI does not punish poor positioning as much. You don't need to stagger your tanks to minimize overkill, and bombs against heavily clustered tanks are not nearly as damaging.
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
i seem to recall that in scbw, terran was considered the most apm intensive race, whether going bio or mech.
Who gives a flying fuk?
Niether SC1 or APM is relevant in this discussion.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
Couple things: Vikings SUCK OUT LOUD against mutalisks. They are not a good tradeoff economically for a Terran in the early game when the zerg player working off of 2-3 saturated bases. 100/100 is dirt cheap for how good mutalisks are. Terran can be abused with mutas just like Terran could be abused by mutas in SC1 until the Thor is out. Vespene for Zerg should be much more readily available than for the Terran who is always gas starved and stuck on his main and his natural geysers until you let him have more. Also, overlords need to get sacked every once in a while. You can't build blindly.
You also said terran is the most versatile race by far. I would disagree. Terran buildings, specifically, are the most versatile, but that is out of necessity. Terran has the worst ability of the 3 races to raise a quick army of a needed unit since they need lots of producing structures and all units have build times, so to compensate for this, Blizzard gave them the ability to swap add-ons for easier production.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
Couple things: Vikings SUCK OUT LOUD against mutalisks. They are not a good tradeoff economically for a Terran in the early game when the zerg player working off of 2-3 saturated bases. 100/100 is dirt cheap for how good mutalisks are. Terran can be abused with mutas just like Terran could be abused by mutas in SC1 until the Thor is out. Vespene for Zerg should be much more readily available than for the Terran who is always gas starved and stuck on his main and his natural geysers until you let him have more. Also, overlords need to get sacked every once in a while. You can't build blindly.
You also said terran is the most versatile race by far. I would disagree. Terran buildings, specifically, are the most versatile, but that is out of necessity. Terran has the worst ability of the 3 races to raise a quick army of a needed unit since they need lots of producing structures and all units have build times, so to compensate for this, Blizzard gave them the ability to swap add-ons for easier production.
While I agree that if it's just mass Muta vs. mass Terran, it's a good spot for Zerg, but it's not that simple. Thors, Ravens and Tower's enter the equation and it's over for Zerg air dominance. As for your Vespene comment, you're just wrong, so I'll assume you haven't played Zerg very much.
As for your versatility comment, I wrote nothing about raising an army quickly. Terran is dead last among the three races in that department...where they're first is.......versatility, haha. The 1/1/1 strat gets them all their needed tech immediately in a game, allowing them to go in any direction at any time. For Zerg and Protoss, they need to invest heavily in specific directions -- that's fine...I'm ok with those differences. The issue is that Terran can not only switch quickly, but switch to absolutely dominant options. Terran have BY FAR the best "final army" possible among the three races...they also have the best ability to turtle...and they also have the best ability to switch directions tech-wise. It's just too much and it creates an imbalance. My solution is actually very simple -- nerf siege tanks further. They're a ridiculously OP unit -- Blizzard imported them in from SC1 and it just doesn't fit in this game with the removal of other's races options (like Dark Swarm) and the improved AI of the Tanks. The change could be as simple as raising the food cost to 4 and seeing the results.
I'm not bias as I don't play the beta, but I do watch it every day on live streams for hours sometimes. So I will say, no matter how much debating goes on, at the end of the day Terran mech is imbalanced. The tanks should over kill as they did in SC1 and that would fix a lot. Also if Zerg goes mass air against the mech I have seen those raven bombs fucking destroy all air in SECONDS. Just take away the tanks new AI and problem solved... Maybe.
obviously zerg/terran won't stop this argument. It is quite apparent that the thing zerg players want changed is the overkill factor. And terrans believe their new higher supply tanks to be close to useless without the overkill.
My solution is to make it where if something enters the tanks firing range it must shoot however it prefers not to overkill.
For example a force of 2 roaches (that are one hit away from death) come in to a base guarded by 2 tanks. If the roaches enter side by side both tanks will fire upon a separate roach. If the roaches enter single file the tanks will both fire upon the first roach because they must both fire because something enter their firing range.
This would make bombing more effective force terrans to spread their tanks more however in a massive battle. Tanks would still prioritize their targets.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
Couple things: Vikings SUCK OUT LOUD against mutalisks. They are not a good tradeoff economically for a Terran in the early game when the zerg player working off of 2-3 saturated bases. 100/100 is dirt cheap for how good mutalisks are. Terran can be abused with mutas just like Terran could be abused by mutas in SC1 until the Thor is out. Vespene for Zerg should be much more readily available than for the Terran who is always gas starved and stuck on his main and his natural geysers until you let him have more. Also, overlords need to get sacked every once in a while. You can't build blindly.
You also said terran is the most versatile race by far. I would disagree. Terran buildings, specifically, are the most versatile, but that is out of necessity. Terran has the worst ability of the 3 races to raise a quick army of a needed unit since they need lots of producing structures and all units have build times, so to compensate for this, Blizzard gave them the ability to swap add-ons for easier production.
While I agree that if it's just mass Muta vs. mass Terran, it's a good spot for Zerg, but it's not that simple. Thors, Ravens and Tower's enter the equation and it's over for Zerg air dominance. As for your Vespene comment, you're just wrong, so I'll assume you haven't played Zerg very much.
As for your versatility comment, I wrote nothing about raising an army quickly. Terran is dead last among the three races in that department...where they're first is.......versatility, haha. The 1/1/1 strat gets them all their needed tech immediately in a game, allowing them to go in any direction at any time. For Zerg and Protoss, they need to invest heavily in specific directions -- that's fine...I'm ok with those differences. The issue is that Terran can not only switch quickly, but switch to absolutely dominant options. Terran have BY FAR the best "final army" possible among the three races...they also have the best ability to turtle...and they also have the best ability to switch directions tech-wise. It's just too much and it creates an imbalance. My solution is actually very simple -- nerf siege tanks further. They're a ridiculously OP unit -- Blizzard imported them in from SC1 and it just doesn't fit in this game with the removal of other's races options (like Dark Swarm) and the improved AI of the Tanks. The change could be as simple as raising the food cost to 4 and seeing the results.
I've mostly played Terran but I have played some Zerg. On almost all 1v1 maps, except for Incineration Zone, which is not a good map, Zerg should have an easier time than Terran taking a 3rd base for the extra 2 geysers. Yeah, Kulas can kinda suck for Zerg too, but these maps will fall out of favor in ladder sooner rather than later because of this.
The "versatility" ties in to how quickly Terran can adapt for a counter attack. These aspects of each race are not unrelated, so the speed at which you can raise a force of units that you need is implied. Terran has the easiest access to the various tech trees but also has by far the slowest production capability. These factors are supposed to balance one another. Also, Terran's ability to turtle is out of necessity. Terran has always been the most fragile race. Not turtling, at least to some extent against Zerg and Protoss, is suicide.
Also, I never said mass muta. You continue to simplify the potential unit matchups in TvZ. Mutas actually hold their own until the Terran has more than 1 Thor, and even then, the Thors are slow as hell. Mutas are meant to abuse Terran's immobility, and muta vs Thor is a perfect example of this. Corruptor/Muta is a formidable air dominance combo. Every 2 Thors you force the terran to build is about 3 siege tanks he won't have in his army. Making the Terran build Thors should make your melee units happy.
Your suggestion that siege tanks be nerfed further is alarming. Siege tanks were of questionable value until they buffed the way the damage is recorded just a few patches ago. Even if Terran does have the best "final army" as you said, which is debatable, it's up to Zerg not to let Terran get that army. I've already suggested replays and possible options to pursue for that goal.
Everyone keeps focusing on the Overkill (one of the big differences between BW and SC2); I think they're missing another important change:
Patch 11: Siege Mode splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.
There were a number of changes before patch 11 that directly improved Mech: Patch 8 decreased build times for tanks and thors Patch 7 gave thors splash Patch 6 decreased factory and techlab cost
But it wasn't really until after Patch 11 that mech play started to catch on. Some might say this is a delayed effect from earlier patches, but I really think its the change in the nature of splash damage that really gave mech its power.
You have to remember prior to patch 12 you could have an army of 200 roaches, and many zerg players did. The effect of patch 11 on this army was heavily noticeable. Given a small enough choke and enough tanks (say 36 supply) the roaches couldn't even get close. After patch 12 I saw that army cut in half (with hydra having half the hp of a roach). The result was an even more effective mech army. The 1:1:1 build started to become dominate. Tanks with viking/marine backup.
Now, granted I don't feel Mech is imbalanced, but it does feel that any straight up battle is a guaranteed loss. It does feel like I'm playing with one hand behind my back. Not unbeatable, but frustrating. Simple solutions, such as Doom drop or tunneling claws are not going to beat this combo. What's more the tech is already in place to swap in thor or hellion in response to muta/ling. Instead I find more effective solutions to be:
1) Ultralisks (they're larger than the splash) 2) Nydus (hitting him from 2 sides with full force) 3) Drop at a base away from his army 4) Hiding speedlings to shove in his back door 5) Sacrificing infesters (or harassing his mineral line with them) 6) Creep highways (this is less of a solution and more of a necessity).
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
Youre not thinking about consequences and definetely not about tech switches.
Your thesis: Vikings and Thors counter Zerg air HARD. 1. Totally half-true IMO, because Corruptors are ARMORED and Thors only do half damage against them (see one of my earlier posts or look up the stats yourself). 2. The stats of the units do NOT matter if superior numbers are on your side and since we are "whining about terran mech being overpowered" here you cant expect that the Terran will outnumber the Zerg if the Zerg goes "full air" or "mostly air". So the Zerg should win OR the Terran is stuck with a shitload of Vikings which wont do well against Zerg ground once the Terran has killed the Zerg air forces. 3. The Thor is only good on paper, especially small chokes and other things which make their movement hard, are things which make it easy to run circles around them and evade them. Building lots of turrets is a much better anti air IMO, because they shoot much faster and are good against armored units as well.
Your thesis: "if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings" The tactic for Zerg is NOT to start with air as you suggest, but rather lure the Terran into spending resources on ground forces and then do the tech switch and go full air (Corruptors mostly to be morphed into some Brood Lords). Think before posting and think around the corners and not in a straight line.
On June 12 2010 17:29 tzenes wrote: Instead I find more effective solutions to be:
1) Ultralisks (they're larger than the splash) 2) Nydus (hitting him from 2 sides with full force) 3) Drop at a base away from his army 4) Hiding speedlings to shove in his back door 5) Sacrificing infesters (or harassing his mineral line with them) 6) Creep highways (this is less of a solution and more of a necessity).
3a) Faking drops at a different base. 1a) Sending in mid-sized armies at several spots at the same time. To defend at all the Terran has to split up his tanks, BUT 5 sieged tanks dont kill Ultralisks as fast as 10 do and consequently some might reach the tanks to kill them. Effectively this is summed up as "dont have the one-control-group-syndrome".
Air superiority - "must have" for a Terran mech to maximize the efficiency of tanks - therefore it is a "requirement" to deny it to the Terran if you want to beat him - Air superiority is gained by the Terran through Vikings and Ravens mostly; Turrets, Marines and Thors "only" give localized air control
The Viking: - anti-air damage 10(+4 vs armored), 2 seconds delay between shots, range 9 - armor: 0 - hit points: 125
The Corruptor - damage: 14(+6 vs massive), 1,9 seconds delay between shots, range 6 - armor: 2 - hit points: 200
The Raven - most efficient kill method with the Seeker missile - 1 Raven = 3 Vikings (Gas-wise)
So if I compare these two the Viking seems to be a lot better, because it has a longer range and you can do the "fancy range dance" to shoot down the Corruptors, BUT the armor on the corruptors and their much higher hit points should even that out. The most important thing is the numbers you have on the battlefield and the higher the Viking count becomes the harder it will get to gain air superiority, BUT the Terran wanted to go mech and wont make 50 Vikings, right? If he does you could easily build lots of ground forces and win. - 9 Corruptors are needed to shoot down a Viking in one volley - 16 Vikings are needed to shoot down a Corruptor in one volley - Zerg should not allow the Terran his "peace and quiet" to build lots of Ravens
Uhm, are you aware that Vikings have two attacks? It only takes 9 vikings to one-shot a corruptor. In even numbers, vikings will have a slight edge against corruptors even if both are just attackmoved. If you factor in micro, vikings will easily win. On top of that, once ravens come into play, the corruptors will be completely destroyed by PDD.
Terran mech might well be balanced after the recent nerfs, but I'm pretty sure that going for corruptor broodlord is not the best way to defeat mech.
On June 12 2010 17:27 cryostasis wrote: Even if Terran does have the best "final army" as you said, which is debatable, it's up to Zerg not to let Terran get that army.
That's not an answer. No race should ever have an "I win" scenario -- such a scenario is the exact definition of imbalance. And as far as "final" armies go, it's not remotely debatable. It's counter-intuative for the race with the best turtle ability and the most versatility to also have an unbeatable final army. Those factors force opposing races to severely alter their play, creating mistakes. It's an inherent advantage built in for Terran right now.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
Youre not thinking about consequences and definetely not about tech switches.
Your thesis: Vikings and Thors counter Zerg air HARD. 1. Totally half-true IMO, because Corruptors are ARMORED and Thors only do half damage against them (see one of my earlier posts or look up the stats yourself). 2. The stats of the units do NOT matter if superior numbers are on your side and since we are "whining about terran mech being overpowered" here you cant expect that the Terran will outnumber the Zerg if the Zerg goes "full air" or "mostly air". So the Zerg should win OR the Terran is stuck with a shitload of Vikings which wont do well against Zerg ground once the Terran has killed the Zerg air forces. 3. The Thor is only good on paper, especially small chokes and other things which make their movement hard, are things which make it easy to run circles around them and evade them. Building lots of turrets is a much better anti air IMO, because they shoot much faster and are good against armored units as well.
Your thesis: "if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings" The tactic for Zerg is NOT to start with air as you suggest, but rather lure the Terran into spending resources on ground forces and then do the tech switch and go full air (Corruptors mostly to be morphed into some Brood Lords). Think before posting and think around the corners and not in a straight line.
On June 12 2010 17:29 tzenes wrote: Instead I find more effective solutions to be:
1) Ultralisks (they're larger than the splash) 2) Nydus (hitting him from 2 sides with full force) 3) Drop at a base away from his army 4) Hiding speedlings to shove in his back door 5) Sacrificing infesters (or harassing his mineral line with them) 6) Creep highways (this is less of a solution and more of a necessity).
3a) Faking drops at a different base. 1a) Sending in mid-sized armies at several spots at the same time. To defend at all the Terran has to split up his tanks, BUT 5 sieged tanks dont kill Ultralisks as fast as 10 do and consequently some might reach the tanks to kill them. Effectively this is summed up as "dont have the one-control-group-syndrome".
Let me make sure I understand this. You're suggesting that the best Zerg strat vs. Terran right now is for Zerg to go mass ground, forcing Terran to go heavy tank. Then, Zerg should bank tons of larvae and suicide their army to the tanks. Lastly, Zerg should mass Muta and Corrupters with the saved Larvae, rallying them to Terran's base before they know what hit them, and in turn, preventing Terran from gathering enough AA because of the food cap. If the Zerg does this well enough and the Terran is half retarded, Zerg will catch his opponent completely off-gaurd with no turrets, Vikings or Thors and crush him! Sounds like an awesome and perfectly balanced game.
Be honest, you dabble in hard drugs at times...am I right?
Every imba complaints in starcraft 2 right now are solved by only proper micro(If you have low apm, You are the problem, not the balance). Everyone just love blizzard. That is why everyone depends their wins to the nerfs blizzard does to the other race. Edit: not really. Army composition, More superior macro, practice and faith in God could do it too.
Air superiority - "must have" for a Terran mech to maximize the efficiency of tanks - therefore it is a "requirement" to deny it to the Terran if you want to beat him - Air superiority is gained by the Terran through Vikings and Ravens mostly; Turrets, Marines and Thors "only" give localized air control
The Viking: - anti-air damage 10(+4 vs armored), 2 seconds delay between shots, range 9 - armor: 0 - hit points: 125
The Corruptor - damage: 14(+6 vs massive), 1,9 seconds delay between shots, range 6 - armor: 2 - hit points: 200
The Raven - most efficient kill method with the Seeker missile - 1 Raven = 3 Vikings (Gas-wise)
So if I compare these two the Viking seems to be a lot better, because it has a longer range and you can do the "fancy range dance" to shoot down the Corruptors, BUT the armor on the corruptors and their much higher hit points should even that out. The most important thing is the numbers you have on the battlefield and the higher the Viking count becomes the harder it will get to gain air superiority, BUT the Terran wanted to go mech and wont make 50 Vikings, right? If he does you could easily build lots of ground forces and win. - 9 Corruptors are needed to shoot down a Viking in one volley - 16 Vikings are needed to shoot down a Corruptor in one volley - Zerg should not allow the Terran his "peace and quiet" to build lots of Ravens
Uhm, are you aware that Vikings have two attacks? It only takes 9 vikings to one-shot a corruptor. In even numbers, vikings will have a slight edge against corruptors even if both are just attackmoved. If you factor in micro, vikings will easily win. On top of that, once ravens come into play, the corruptors will be completely destroyed by PDD.
Terran mech might well be balanced after the recent nerfs, but I'm pretty sure that going for corruptor broodlord is not the best way to defeat mech.
Damn ... that was an oversight on my part and I apologize for missing that two-shots part for the Vikings. Nevertheless we are complaining about Terran MECH here and this most likely means that the Terran will not fully go air, but as a Zerg you could do that. Sure the Ravens will screw up Corruptors, but you should not let him have time to mass too many of them and attack to neutralize his existing air force before he is ready. PDDs take time, because the Ravens need to gain a lot of energy.
Oh and lets not forget the 20% more damage debuff which Corruptors have now ... it should be used, same as trying to lure the Vikings (+Ravens) over some of your own ground based air defenses. Just a few Hydras would work wonders and before the Ravens are out burrow works nicely for them. Infestors and Fungal Growth will stop Vikings from running away too. This is something where you need to be creative and not try to use only one type of unit. Its the mix which will give you victory.
On June 11 2010 05:56 Graven wrote: There was nothing Sheth could have done. And the argument that he should have gone all-in earlier is ridiculous. no single army composition should be unbeatable...especially something as simple to create as mass siege tanks.
Oh come on ... Sheth let QXC have free reign of the Skies and with that came his doom. I think IdrA had a match with a TON of Corruptors and just a dash of Brood Lords which he won relatively easily.
"There is nothing he could have done" is just the easy way out of trying to think ... thats basically giving up. Dont blame the others if you do that; it was the same with the Marauder builds at the beginning of beta and the upgrade for concussive shell would not really stop anyone from doing exactly the same stuff now; with Stim Pack being cheaper now it is almost the same cost ... but people have figured out how to beat that.
Just watch the "TLO vs JinrO" game from Day[9] daily 131. The difference here is that JinrO does NOT use much air, which allows TLO to use his Overlords much more compared to other matches. Air dominance is the key to beating mech and if the Terran is freaking out with TONS of Vikings he will have A LOT less mech units and you could switch to ground really fast and waltz over his few tanks. Its really very very simple, but no one tried it. I havent seen a TvZ yet, where the Zerg had air dominance (mass corruptors and a few Brood Lords) and lost to a mass of mech.
The difference in the TLO vs. Jinro game was the map -- there was just too much space for Jinro to try and defend. If Sheth played QXC on Meta, I'd bet on Sheth. And going Corrupters/Brolords at the end wouldn't have mattered -- could he have rushed to them and won? Maybe, maybe not...the problem still remains that an unbeatable army like the one QXC had should not be possible...and if it is, it shouldn't be so easy to achieve.
I think another key point is the flexibility for Terran...there's really no way to know exactly what they're doing. You can scout out a Factory, start going air to prep for mass mech, and then face a big ball of MMM (assuming they made the factory just for the Starport. There ability to switch playstyles so quickly should prevent them from creating a final army like that -- currently, they have it both ways, which prevents Zerg from reacting all-in one way or another.
To be completely honest, this argument is really silly. I'm finding it impossible to even understand the perspective of someone who doesn't think Terran are OP on many maps right now.
Obviously Metalopolis is a rather open map, BUT bottlenecks can help screwing up a Terran mech army too. There are two other differences though: - Jinro has ZERO!!!! Vikings and this leaves TLO with "air dominance" (Overlords) and he uses that to spread creep - TLO attacks in several places at once. Several attack groups of 3 Ultralisks plus maybe a few Speedlings attack Jinros rather spread out positions. Using a drop on one and a small attack force on another base, using 1-2 Infestors with burrowed movement to punish the Terran for not having Turrets / Ravens as detectors and generally spreading creep for maximized Zerg mobility are key tactics of TLO which keep JinrO on the defensive and which eventually lets him GG.
The key component is to have air dominance as the Zerg and if you have that you have the Terran on the defensive. If the Terran does the "extreme turtling" he contains himself and you can simply take every other base on the map and wear him down with twice as many resources.
You can't have it both ways. To have air dominance as Zerg takes extreme amount of Vespene and can be countered HARD by Vikings and Thor's (probably the two best AA units in the game); and later Raven's with HSM. Hypotheticaly, if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings and still slowely expanded inching out with turrets.
Youre not thinking about consequences and definetely not about tech switches.
Your thesis: Vikings and Thors counter Zerg air HARD. 1. Totally half-true IMO, because Corruptors are ARMORED and Thors only do half damage against them (see one of my earlier posts or look up the stats yourself). 2. The stats of the units do NOT matter if superior numbers are on your side and since we are "whining about terran mech being overpowered" here you cant expect that the Terran will outnumber the Zerg if the Zerg goes "full air" or "mostly air". So the Zerg should win OR the Terran is stuck with a shitload of Vikings which wont do well against Zerg ground once the Terran has killed the Zerg air forces. 3. The Thor is only good on paper, especially small chokes and other things which make their movement hard, are things which make it easy to run circles around them and evade them. Building lots of turrets is a much better anti air IMO, because they shoot much faster and are good against armored units as well.
Your thesis: "if Sheth went mass Muta to start, QXC would have just delayed the Tanks in favor of earlier Vikings" The tactic for Zerg is NOT to start with air as you suggest, but rather lure the Terran into spending resources on ground forces and then do the tech switch and go full air (Corruptors mostly to be morphed into some Brood Lords). Think before posting and think around the corners and not in a straight line.
On June 12 2010 17:29 tzenes wrote: Instead I find more effective solutions to be:
1) Ultralisks (they're larger than the splash) 2) Nydus (hitting him from 2 sides with full force) 3) Drop at a base away from his army 4) Hiding speedlings to shove in his back door 5) Sacrificing infesters (or harassing his mineral line with them) 6) Creep highways (this is less of a solution and more of a necessity).
3a) Faking drops at a different base. 1a) Sending in mid-sized armies at several spots at the same time. To defend at all the Terran has to split up his tanks, BUT 5 sieged tanks dont kill Ultralisks as fast as 10 do and consequently some might reach the tanks to kill them. Effectively this is summed up as "dont have the one-control-group-syndrome".
Let me make sure I understand this. You're suggesting that the best Zerg strat vs. Terran right now is for Zerg to go mass ground, forcing Terran to go heavy tank. Then, Zerg should bank tons of larvae and suicide their army to the tanks. Lastly, Zerg should mass Muta and Corrupters with the saved Larvae, rallying them to Terran's base before they know what hit them, and in turn, preventing Terran from gathering enough AA because of the food cap. If the Zerg does this well enough and the Terran is half retarded, Zerg will catch his opponent completely off-gaurd with no turrets, Vikings or Thors and crush him! Sounds like an awesome and perfectly balanced game.
Be honest, you dabble in hard drugs at times...am I right?
No I am NOT saying to go "mass ground", but you will need a decent sized ground force to fend off an early push, right? And if you hide your Spire and build a decently sized air force after the push has been dealt with you should be fine. Saving Gas for this air force is a key part IMO, because you will need a lot of it. Spine Crawlers, Roaches, Zerglings and maybe Queens and Spore Crawlers are all nice mineral heavy costs.
On June 12 2010 18:32 Rabiator wrote:2. The stats of the units do NOT matter if superior numbers are on your side and since we are "whining about terran mech being overpowered" here you cant expect that the Terran will outnumber the Zerg if the Zerg goes "full air" or "mostly air". So the Zerg should win OR the Terran is stuck with a shitload of Vikings which wont do well against Zerg ground once the Terran has killed the Zerg air forces.
I don't really think that this strat is viable, which might be why you don't see zerg players doing it. You need an early-mid game ground force to hold off a mech push and you cannot build it in reaction to an incoming mech push: if you do, you'll end up with tanks sieged up in front of your natural right as your army pops out.
I also wouldn't brush aside the consequences of losing air superiority to a large mass of vikings while you do not yet have a good amount of hydras to prevent overlord hunting.
This debate is beyond frustrating. Tanks HARD counter ALL ground units in the game. It's not balanced and it's not debatable. Even if air units were a good counter, which they often aren't, it still wouldn't prove anything. The idea that Terran can mass 20 of one unit and make all opposing ground units worthless is ridiculous. It'd be the equivalent of like 25 Hydras hard countering 200/200 Carriers. I can't fathom the mindset of people who truthfully believe Terran mech is balanced right now. You'd have to be playing a different game.
On June 12 2010 23:24 Graven wrote: This debate is beyond frustrating. Tanks HARD counter ALL ground units in the game. It's not balanced and it's not debatable. Even if air units were a good counter, which they often aren't, it still wouldn't prove anything. The idea that Terran can mass 20 of one unit and make all opposing ground units worthless is ridiculous. It'd be the equivalent of like 25 Hydras hard countering 200/200 Carriers. I can't fathom the mindset of people who truthfully believe Terran mech is balanced right now. You'd have to be playing a different game.
And What do you think 20 tanks did in SC1???
mind you in sc1 tanks cost 50% less food and 25 less gas.
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
i seem to recall that in scbw, terran was considered the most apm intensive race, whether going bio or mech.
Who gives a flying fuk?
Niether SC1 or APM is relevant in this discussion.
people were arguing that terran mech is imba because its 'easy', requiring a simple a-move and siege, i.e. that terran mech is ridiculously powerful and easy to do, while countering it is highly micro-intensive.
my point is that the basic mechanics of mech haven't changed since scbw (of course units and the ai are different), and so since its generally accepted that scbw mech takes a hell of a lot of practice and apm to do well, sc2 mech certainly isn't easy to do well.
On June 12 2010 23:24 Graven wrote: This debate is beyond frustrating. Tanks HARD counter ALL ground units in the game. It's not balanced and it's not debatable. Even if air units were a good counter, which they often aren't, it still wouldn't prove anything. The idea that Terran can mass 20 of one unit and make all opposing ground units worthless is ridiculous. It'd be the equivalent of like 25 Hydras hard countering 200/200 Carriers. I can't fathom the mindset of people who truthfully believe Terran mech is balanced right now. You'd have to be playing a different game.
Have you used patch 14 ultras with infestor and crackling support? I bet most of you dont..
the reason why people don't use motherships is because its arduous to get there. you need a stargate and fleet beacon plus it takes like a 160s to pop out. might as well get phoenixes to lift the tanks.
Even if people get mothership how does that change anything. All the enemy can see is the mothership beacause your whole army is cloaked which means that the mothership will be focused and die very quickly
Patch 11: Siege Mode splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.
There were a number of changes before patch 11 that directly improved Mech: Patch 8 decreased build times for tanks and thors Patch 7 gave thors splash Patch 6 decreased factory and techlab cost
.
TERRAN
* Thor
o Radius decreased from 1.375 to 0.8125. o Model size reduced to match new radius. that is what helped the thor
Siege Tank
* Life increased from 150 to 160. in patch 11 this change also happened in addition to the previous changes is what made mech usable.
THe more reliable splash is irrelevant because it only helps in the initial push once the enemy starts pouring in your attacking in the middle and regardless of where splash hits its gonna do the same damage.
(of course it also helps a little once the opponents army is almost defeated)
As a Terran player, whilst I don't think that Terran mech is imbalanced I do think that bad siege tank placement should be able to be punished.
Every time I go mech, I place my tanks the exact way I would in SC:BW; I try to minimise overkill, I try to make sure that drops on top of my tanks are ineffective due to them being spread out etc. However, most of this is completely pointless and merely habits I picked up from SC1. I feel that every Terran player should be doing these things anyway, and if not they should be able to be punished for it.
The lack of overkill is, for lack of a better word, bad. It encourages lazy play by the Terran player as they don't have to actually try to use their tanks properly.
Stuff like:
This debate is beyond frustrating. Tanks HARD counter ALL ground units in the game. It's not balanced and it's not debatable. Even if air units were a good counter, which they often aren't, it still wouldn't prove anything. The idea that Terran can mass 20 of one unit and make all opposing ground units worthless is ridiculous. It'd be the equivalent of like 25 Hydras hard countering 200/200 Carriers. I can't fathom the mindset of people who truthfully believe Terran mech is balanced right now. You'd have to be playing a different game.
Patch 11: Siege Mode splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.
There were a number of changes before patch 11 that directly improved Mech: Patch 8 decreased build times for tanks and thors Patch 7 gave thors splash Patch 6 decreased factory and techlab cost
.
TERRAN
* Thor
o Radius decreased from 1.375 to 0.8125. o Model size reduced to match new radius. that is what helped the thor
Siege Tank
* Life increased from 150 to 160. in patch 11 this change also happened in addition to the previous changes is what made mech usable.
THe more reliable splash is irrelevant because it only helps in the initial push once the enemy starts pouring in your attacking in the middle and regardless of where splash hits its gonna do the same damage.
(of course it also helps a little once the opponents army is almost defeated)
As to your first point, I agree an extra 10 HP helped (I think thor change in size was a buff and a nerf, based on the SCV use, but probably more of the former), but its really the change to splash that changed it.
I'm not sure if you've ever suicided 50 Hydra into a tank line (I have), but the tanks naturally target the leading Hydra. Since Hydra aren't particularly fast, the target tends to consistently remain the leading line of Hydra. Pre-patch 11, this meant that my hydra army would close ground (albeit at seriously losses) and eventually kill a couple tanks. Post-patch 11, this was no longer the case. As targeting the leading line became more effective I started to notice that my Hydra line would "break" at a certain distance away from the tank line (usually out of range). You'll notice the same effect with Roaches, though their higher hp will get them closer.
You argue that the splash will start targeting the middle. That's actually not desirable behavior. If the splash only targets the middle then those first lines will start to get in range and do damage. However, if the splash continually targets the leading line, then the tanks can stay "safe."
I made a quick example of this here: [url blocked]
Send the hydras up the ramp into the natural and watch how the tank shots kill the outer 2-3 hydras, but the inner ones stay intact. Pre-patch 11, it would have been the outer 1-2, thus you can see the increase in lethality.
You'll also notice that the hydras die on the bottom side much quicker as that is the first side to come in range. Further evidence that the tanks choose the closest target.
even so i believe changing the splash back to what i used to be and keeping all the other siege tank buffs build time health and the ability to get the tech for them faster. the tanks would still operate just fine.
I posted this before but I think making tanks be forced to shoot if something came into their range would fix alot they still wouldnt overkill however it would allow people to force tanks to shoot on a distraction force and would punish bad tank placement.
On June 13 2010 01:16 Jimmeh wrote: As a Terran player, whilst I don't think that Terran mech is imbalanced I do think that bad siege tank placement should be able to be punished.
Every time I go mech, I place my tanks the exact way I would in SC:BW; I try to minimise overkill, I try to make sure that drops on top of my tanks are ineffective due to them being spread out etc. However, most of this is completely pointless and merely habits I picked up from SC1. I feel that every Terran player should be doing these things anyway, and if not they should be able to be punished for it.
The lack of overkill is, for lack of a better word, bad. It encourages lazy play by the Terran player as they don't have to actually try to use their tanks properly.
This debate is beyond frustrating. Tanks HARD counter ALL ground units in the game. It's not balanced and it's not debatable. Even if air units were a good counter, which they often aren't, it still wouldn't prove anything. The idea that Terran can mass 20 of one unit and make all opposing ground units worthless is ridiculous. It'd be the equivalent of like 25 Hydras hard countering 200/200 Carriers. I can't fathom the mindset of people who truthfully believe Terran mech is balanced right now. You'd have to be playing a different game.
Is completely idiotic though.
Your suggested change won't change balance where it matters: high level play. Giving noob Silver level Terran more of a challenge is irrelevant. You're completely idiotic. (see wut I did there?)
On June 12 2010 23:24 Graven wrote: This debate is beyond frustrating. Tanks HARD counter ALL ground units in the game. It's not balanced and it's not debatable. Even if air units were a good counter, which they often aren't, it still wouldn't prove anything. The idea that Terran can mass 20 of one unit and make all opposing ground units worthless is ridiculous. It'd be the equivalent of like 25 Hydras hard countering 200/200 Carriers. I can't fathom the mindset of people who truthfully believe Terran mech is balanced right now. You'd have to be playing a different game.
Have you used patch 14 ultras with infestor and crackling support? I bet most of you dont..
Sure I do. I use Ultra's all the time against Terran. No matter how you slice it, you can't face a Terran head-on at that point in the game. What Terran have now been able to do is solidify everywhere else enough to prevent harass on many maps -- two or three sentry towers give vision almost everywhere. Combined with Vikings and Turrets, surprise attacks become impossible on many maps.
I'm willing to make this debate about map balance to be honest. If all maps were like Metalopolis, then Terran mech wouldn't be OP. As it is, Terran mech either needs to be nerfed or several maps need to be removed from the ladder.
On June 11 2010 06:47 MIKE HUTN EASY wrote: I agree its completely beatable (terran mech) and all ur solutions make perfect sense except one HUGE problem, to do army drops, vortex', splitting army, burrowing half, doing storms and fungals, all work but it requires an insane amount of micro while the terran just A-moves and seiges thats why its imba, the micro and the fact that u need a perfect unit composition and placement to beat as opposed to just A-moving
i seem to recall that in scbw, terran was considered the most apm intensive race, whether going bio or mech.
Who gives a flying fuk?
Niether SC1 or APM is relevant in this discussion.
people were arguing that terran mech is imba because its 'easy', requiring a simple a-move and siege, i.e. that terran mech is ridiculously powerful and easy to do, while countering it is highly micro-intensive.
my point is that the basic mechanics of mech haven't changed since scbw (of course units and the ai are different), and so since its generally accepted that scbw mech takes a hell of a lot of practice and apm to do well, sc2 mech certainly isn't easy to do well.
But the units, AI and maps being different is EVERYTHING, haha. I haven't played BW in a long time, but when I did play, not once did I ever even think about labeling tanks imbalanced. The combination of changes in SC2 have made the unit OP in a variety of different settings. The fact that we're even debating this for 20+ pages shows something is off...there's never a case of all smoke and no fire in situations like this. Until Terran players accept the reality and begin brainstorming a solution along with everyone else, we're stuck with this petty bickering.
On June 12 2010 17:27 cryostasis wrote: Even if Terran does have the best "final army" as you said, which is debatable, it's up to Zerg not to let Terran get that army.
That's not an answer. No race should ever have an "I win" scenario -- such a scenario is the exact definition of imbalance. And as far as "final" armies go, it's not remotely debatable. It's counter-intuative for the race with the best turtle ability and the most versatility to also have an unbeatable final army. Those factors force opposing races to severely alter their play, creating mistakes. It's an inherent advantage built in for Terran right now.
It is an answer, but it was obviously over your head. You clearly lack understanding of the importance of timing and the ebb and flow of starcraft games. I don't know what type of scenario you are envisioning where the Zerg player leaves the Terran player alone for a half hour while he builds this "I win" army off of 2 bases. Are you kidding me? I'm laughing thinking about it. Seriously, have you even used mutalisks? Ever?
Explain how a Zerg player playing against a Terran player who is turtling has a disadvantage, on say, Metalopolis. In your scenario where the Terran is turtling, a good Zerg player should have control over the entire map and all of its resources, possibly doubling his opponents worker count entering midgame. A good Zerg player will be relentlessly spreading creep all over the map right up to the gate of the Terran to take advantage of the speed bonus. A good Zerg player will have control of the skies with mutas and overlord placement. Now explain to me how a Terran player who is turtling and slowly building a 200/200 final army off of his main and natural is going to be in a better position than a Zerg player who has all of the maps resources. Don't just say: "Well, yeah, but the Terran army is unstoppable!!!11" Clearly, this isn't the case.
Your continuing comments about an unbeatable "I win" final army are laughable when we have seen examples in, you know, actual replays, of Zerg players crushing mech Terrans.
PS - Did you watch TLO vs Jinro yet? Probably not.
On June 12 2010 17:27 cryostasis wrote: Even if Terran does have the best "final army" as you said, which is debatable, it's up to Zerg not to let Terran get that army.
That's not an answer. No race should ever have an "I win" scenario -- such a scenario is the exact definition of imbalance. And as far as "final" armies go, it's not remotely debatable. It's counter-intuative for the race with the best turtle ability and the most versatility to also have an unbeatable final army. Those factors force opposing races to severely alter their play, creating mistakes. It's an inherent advantage built in for Terran right now.
Explain how a Zerg player playing against a Terran player who is turtling has a disadvantage, on say, Metalopolis.
I stopped reading there. You picked one of the few maps that Terran don't have an advantage over Zerg, lol. I don't doubt what followed was inspirational and brilliant writing though, so if you can replace that first sentence with, I dunno...Steppes of War...and still use the rest of the paragraph accurately, I'll happily read it next time. If not, thanks for playing.
On June 12 2010 17:27 cryostasis wrote: Even if Terran does have the best "final army" as you said, which is debatable, it's up to Zerg not to let Terran get that army.
That's not an answer. No race should ever have an "I win" scenario -- such a scenario is the exact definition of imbalance. And as far as "final" armies go, it's not remotely debatable. It's counter-intuative for the race with the best turtle ability and the most versatility to also have an unbeatable final army. Those factors force opposing races to severely alter their play, creating mistakes. It's an inherent advantage built in for Terran right now.
Explain how a Zerg player playing against a Terran player who is turtling has a disadvantage, on say, Metalopolis.
I stopped reading there. You picked one of the few maps that Terran don't have an advantage over Zerg, lol. I don't doubt what followed was inspirational and brilliant writing though, so if you can replace that first sentence with, I dunno...Steppes of War...and still use the rest of the paragraph accurately, I'll happily read it next time. If not, thanks for playing.
Steppes of War would work fine actually. Terran still wouldn't be able to take his third that easily with proper harassment. Continue reading.
EDIT: Actually, you know what? Don't even bother. You're clearly over your head in this argument. Don't let the truth get in the way of your childish bitching.
2nd EDIT: I picked Metalopolis on purpose. I thought Terran was unstoppable no matter what? So map design actually plays a role in the matchup? Who knew?
I'm supporting cryostatis in this thread. Besides, this should have been closed after the damage nerf to tanks anyway, and the core issue was never the actual stats of units, but map design on maps like steppes of war that prevents zerg from getting more than 1/2 the bases and basically FORCES Z to split the map at best.
If you notice brood war games, zerg can usually take a 3rd base much earlier than the terran and protect it with 2 lurkers. Because of the absence of lurkers, the map design must allow for such a 3rd base for zerg that is easily defensible without a unit that requires detection.
Metalopolis allows for this with taking a base that's really far from the terran, thus making it extremely hard for a turtling player to destroy it without leaving the natural undefended.
Another issue that all the zergs posting one-liners seem to miss is that you cannot be passive with zerg and you simply cannot wait until there's a critical mass of tank/viking on the map. As the metagame progresses, there will be strategies developed that can severely hurt the terran before midgame and allow zerg to get the uncontested 3rd.
On June 12 2010 17:27 cryostasis wrote: Even if Terran does have the best "final army" as you said, which is debatable, it's up to Zerg not to let Terran get that army.
That's not an answer. No race should ever have an "I win" scenario -- such a scenario is the exact definition of imbalance. And as far as "final" armies go, it's not remotely debatable. It's counter-intuative for the race with the best turtle ability and the most versatility to also have an unbeatable final army. Those factors force opposing races to severely alter their play, creating mistakes. It's an inherent advantage built in for Terran right now.
Explain how a Zerg player playing against a Terran player who is turtling has a disadvantage, on say, Metalopolis.
I stopped reading there. You picked one of the few maps that Terran don't have an advantage over Zerg, lol. I don't doubt what followed was inspirational and brilliant writing though, so if you can replace that first sentence with, I dunno...Steppes of War...and still use the rest of the paragraph accurately, I'll happily read it next time. If not, thanks for playing.
Steppes of War would work fine actually. Terran still wouldn't be able to take his third that easily with proper harassment. Continue reading.
EDIT: Actually, you know what? Don't even bother. You're clearly over your head in this argument. Don't let the truth get in the way of your childish bitching.
2nd EDIT: I picked Metalopolis on purpose. I thought Terran was unstoppable no matter what? So map design actually plays a role in the matchup? Who knew?
If you read my posts, you would have known. Map imbalance is an equal issue to mech imbalance right now. Logically, if one strat for one race is causing multiple map issues, the race is adjusted, but it'd work just as well if several maps were removed from ladder play (again, if you read my posts, we wouldn't be moving in circles).
On June 13 2010 00:08 Brokengamer wrote:Have you used patch 14 ultras with infestor and crackling support? I bet most of you dont..
Yes because Ultralisks are cost effective and won't get mowed down by Marauders...
If you cant beat marauders with infestor and crackling support then you must be a bad player.. And patch 14 ultras are good against marauders as long you got a fungal growth on them. Geez
This build isn't about harrasment either. It can face T mech head on. On the Jinro vs TLO game I dont why TLO have to resort to such guerilla tactics but that might because jinro was turtling too much.. I agree that some maps are just favored against terran.. The more cliffs and chokes the more powerful T mech is.. and even ultra-infestor can only handle T mech in an open field but at least you can contain them.
EPT
no z in ladder what so ever <: pm me!
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