I am new to the forums so here goes nothing. I just recently switched to terran and used to be zerg (diamond level). Im doing fairly well but something has come to my attention. The ghost has begun to be used in TvP basically every game. In TvZ more people are gunning for the ghost because of EMPs on the infestors, or snipe on the brood lords. And in TvT there are those ghost rushes but after those no one uses the ghost. Lets just say it has a lot of 'untapped' potential. We do not see people stretch that 100 mineral 100 gas nuke. Sure the ghost has the EMP aspect, and that is very important. But i want to know why we do not go for the nuke. Just think about it:
-Nukes are hard to find. Just the fact that the player is moving around looking at his army and all of his bases is giving you, the terran nuker, some free time. -Nukes are troublesome when found. Say he does not have spore crawlers, or any for mof detection. He cant kill the ghost. What can he do? He can move his army sure. But if the nuke is on a new expansion, about to hit ~30 drones, probes, or SCVs, what can he do but move them? He can lose 30 workers which is a big win for the terran, or he can pull workers off of minerals and vespene gas and waste mining time. Start nuking each base, and you cant go out and take your third or fourth. You WILL be ahead!
I know, i know, some strategies do not need a ghost to win the game. That's fine, I am fine with that. I am cool with that. The big question here would be about why people dont throw down a tech lab, grab a ghost with cloak and a nuke, then go nuke a base. Worse case scenario he loses A LOT of mining time. I want to know what people think of the nuke. It seems really good to me. Keeps the enemy on his toes.
I read this post in some sort of car salesman voice.
I think the nuke will enter the picture with the meta-game changing towards the direction it's changing in. I'd say it shouldn't be a core part of your plan, but still be a viable after-thought if the opportunity presents itself.
Essentially: You shouldn't aim for the nuke, but you simultaneously shouldn't completely ignore the potential therein.
Also the fact that it catches people so off-guard is huge. I've lost units in stupid ways because I've been nuked out of nowhere while a push was going on, and I had to focus on the fight instead of scouring my bases for a little red dot.
The trouble is making it cost-effective, because you have to either use it:
A) as a catalyst to get something rolling. (i.e.: it's how you initialize a push, or what buys you time while you expand) B) to do Terrible terrible damage C) to control space during an engagement (making it cost-effective by essentially saving you from losing an otherwise dead-meat army, by buying them time to retreat by nuking into a choke, etc.)
Super late game it's a nice form of harassment, and in TvT it can be used in cute tactical ways to gain ground, that's about it. Otherwise, your money is generally better spent on other things. Plenty of marathon games on Tal'Darim with all expos taken see a fair bit of nuking at far-away expos though. Won't be like a mid-game nuke build or anything, I think.
their expensive to get to and in tvz and tvp i'd not a big fan of them because when they here a nuke they will pull all probes and move their army and you will waist a large investment(remember the teching to them is an investment in itself--ghost cloak, the ghost, the academy and the nuke--add that up and you start needing to do alot of damage).However i think nukes should be used in TvT since its such a positioning battle and nuking his units is a great way to force him to give up a location which is so essential in TvT. That said it is a very expensive investment which is extremely gas heavy so your seige tank count will be very low so i'm not sure it's worth it even here I'm not a big fan of nuking mineral lines because A. he will pull workers so you will do 0 damage and waist gas which could be used elsewhere B. its very easy to lose the ghost since you have to get it there without being seen by detectors or just the ripple on the screen. -It's a big investment
But if the nuke is on a new expansion, about to hit ~30 drones, probes, or SCVs, what can he do but move them? He can lose 30 workers which is a big win for the terran, or he can pull workers off of minerals and vespene gas and waste mining time.
--not a good argument the ghost is 150,150 and the nuke is 100,100. If he pulls the workers just the cost of the nuke alone puts him at an eco advantage since a nuke takes 20 seconds to drop. --remember that the money invested into this harassment is taken from your army as well and that will add up and you'll find yourself behind in the food count very quickly
I don't see how it is difficult to make nukes cost-effective. If a Terran player has already invested into using Ghosts for the purpose of EMP and snipes, the extra resources required for a nuke is relatively low. You might want to research cloak as well, but I don't think it is absolutely necessary.
A Terran player who is using ghosts will mix them in with the army. Having a nuke up your sleeve will be great even if you have no idea how/when you will use it. In that case, you won't really need cloak since you have your entire army surrounding your ghost.
Of course, if you plan to do any sneaky nukes cloak will be crucial. In that case, making nukes cost effective will be a challenge. Investing in Ghosts solely for the purpose of nuking is a pretty bad strategy.
I think keeping a nuke handy as a wild-card is the best option.
I agree with the above poster. If you already have ghosts, and you're in the late-mid-game/late game, why not just spend 100/100 on a nuke? You never know when the opportunity will arise when it'll be useful. Nuke his retreat path, nuke your retreat path so he won't follow, nuke his mining bases, nuke his this, that, or the other! In a big 'ol positional macro fest, 100/100 is a small investment, and you might use it to pay dividends
Most people have the idea that the nuke has to do massive damage to the opponent's mineral line or towards its army. But I feel that in most TvP's and TvZ, if you are able to sneak into their main base, targeting the supply depots or pylons would result in a better result. Even if the opponent sees the red dot, he wouldnt be able to react to it even if he wanted to. Another idea of nuking in TvT would be to target the add ons, most production buildings are grouped near each other, and one nuke could possibly kill 2-3 add-ons. I feel that nukes are better used in a guarenteed damage sort of way than a getting lucky in one shot kind of way. (Sorry my english isnt that good) ><
Nukes are ridiculously cost effective, I'm not sure why they aren't used more. If a nuke only kills 2 measly Stalkers, it puts the Terran ahead by 150 minerals.
There's no excuse for not using nukes in a TvP that goes past 20 minutes, they are so powerful for such a tiny investment.
Well, there was a guy some time ago who posted a guide on how to break siege lines with nukes on late game TvT. (I have seen TLO do this to break siege lines as well)
He nuked right out of the enemy siege tank range and put his opponent in a terribly diffucult situation: a) Opponent unsieges and tries to flee. Then, he cancels the nuke and attacks while his opponent is unsieged (with a more marauder heavy bio than you normally would have) b) Opponent stays there (lol) c) Opponent tries to move in to kill the ghost. Then, he simply falls into your siege line and gets annihilated. Even if he gets the ghost you are far better in the army trade.
Nukes have their place. Bomber vs Moon showed that it can be a constant and viable harassment option when your money is floating above 100/100 at late game. The stress of finding 1 little red dot at your 6 bases, whie the enemy army is moving is definately worth the 100/100. You just give your opponent the chance to fail really hard. And if he doesn't he has wasted apm, mining time or lost a great siege/concave position.
The problem as someone above posted is that it requires you to be creative, spend apm, micro and all that stuff. Just as overseers underused while, they are the best scout in the game but actually require micro/apm to use (since scan is cast--see--forget and observers are invisible so they are cast and forget as well).
I agree with the nuke usage, it can go from being cute and loosing with a smile to completely devastating your opponent's army/economy. And noone should dare say that 100/100 is a big cost, since your ghosts are already on the field and you ARE GONNA BE OVER 100/100, no matter how awesome you think your macro is. Of course if you are talking about a nuke rush, then the cost is meaningful, but i am talking avout no rushes here, only late game.
On June 26 2011 17:14 ProxyKnoxy wrote: TvZ strat:
IF you're up against a 5 base zerg, buy 5 ghost academies, 5 ghosts, cloak, and 5 nukes.
Go to each of their bases and set a nuke at their worker line. Will they realise it's more than one nuke? Doubt it. Boom, bang, drones die, you win.
Why stop at 5? A better idea is to make 10 ghost academies with 10 ghosts cloak and 10 nukes to guarantee that you'll do damage to the zerg.
Between that much resources invested, theres a fairly good chance that even if the zerg loses one or two bases worth of drones that he will simply all-in you, and having invested so much money into the ghosts theres a fair chance you wont be able to hold it.
While I agree that nukes are underused, you have to realize that Terran is risking more than 100/100.
What if the ghost dies before the nuke goes off? That's 300/200. If it went there in a medivac, that's another 100/100 bringing the total to 400/300. Not to mention that if he does, by chance, have detection, then you won't be doing any damage at all.
The one thing that bothers me about nuke play is I've seen good players, so many times, simply constantly try to nuke expansions when as a previous poster stated you can go for supply depots (often times 1000 minerals+ worth of damage) or pylon/warpgates (though that takes 2 nukes.) These are things that your opponent -have- to rebuild and the cost of doing so generally outweighs what you would get even if the opponent didn't pull workers simply because of the sim city that people tend to work towards in late game.
On June 26 2011 17:14 ProxyKnoxy wrote: TvZ strat:
IF you're up against a 5 base zerg, buy 5 ghost academies, 5 ghosts, cloak, and 5 nukes.
Go to each of their bases and set a nuke at their worker line. Will they realise it's more than one nuke? Doubt it. Boom, bang, drones die, you win.
Why stop at 5? A better idea is to make 10 ghost academies with 10 ghosts cloak and 10 nukes to guarantee that you'll do damage to the zerg.
Between that much resources invested, theres a fairly good chance that even if the zerg loses one or two bases worth of drones that he will simply all-in you, and having invested so much money into the ghosts theres a fair chance you wont be able to hold it.
I think he is trolling you.
Anyway, I personally use Nukes whenever my strategy involves Ghosts in some parts of the game.
TvP: After my 3rd base, I get Ghosts for EMP anyway and most likely get the energy upgrade and Cloak. The Academy is going to be idle after those so why not start Nuking? If the Protoss has a Pylon cluster, which he most likely won't, you might win the game there. You can also force the opposing army to move out of position.
TvZ: The Zerg gets Infestors, I get Ghosts as a response. Again, why not get Nukes to assist my mid-lategame harass. It's not as effective as drops are, but when it's used alongside drops, it's much better.
IF you're up against a 5 base zerg, buy 5 ghost academies, 5 ghosts, cloak, and 5 nukes.
Go to each of their bases and set a nuke at their worker line. Will they realize it's more than one nuke? Doubt it. Boom, bang, drones die, you win.
Please don't do this, you can hear each nuke going off so they will know to pull all drones, then you will have wasted 500 gas and 500 minerals only to do damage to the hatch and it won't even kill it (it'll even regen over time). This is relaying on your opponent just being a bad player
Every once in a while I play a TvT where the other guy uses lots of nukes. You're right, they can be aggravating and sometimes devastating. One thing I always notice, though, is that they never have a whole lot of stuff, as in economy, other units, etc. I think ghosts are just too much of an investment and if your opponent does deal with them well, you just can't keep up.
i think if a zerg goes Roach heavy, i mean SLOW, a ghost / nuke is good when he want to max the roach count, you can attack the 3rd and nuke the natural, and of course, if he moves worker why aren't Hellions waiting for them ?
On June 26 2011 19:23 Phoose wrote: i think if a zerg goes Roach heavy, i mean SLOW, a ghost / nuke is good when he want to max the roach count, you can attack the 3rd and nuke the natural, and of course, if he moves worker why aren't Hellions waiting for them ?
Cool, so you have ghost with nukes, hellions with BF even, and you have killed all the drones at natural. And then when zerg moves his big roach army, u stop him with...? You die.
When harassing with nukes you need to think - If i am investing my money into this, what am i skipping on? Can I harass, and not get killed afterwards? Too many people harass, harass destroy most of opponents economy, and just get killed, because they invested so much.
On June 26 2011 17:14 ProxyKnoxy wrote: TvZ strat:
IF you're up against a 5 base zerg, buy 5 ghost academies, 5 ghosts, cloak, and 5 nukes.
Go to each of their bases and set a nuke at their worker line. Will they realise it's more than one nuke? Doubt it. Boom, bang, drones die, you win.
Although the idea sounds great/funny (heck why not?) you do undertsand that most zergs will detect this coming and realize the amount of apm and time you spent on this, they might lose drones at one or two bases but I would dread the counter coming and the fact that your main army would probably not be positioned properly in time. Sounds like just one heck of a lucky shot to me.
Funny I had the same thought a week or two ago. I think nukes are going to be used more often as ghost use increases. With the decrease in gas required it's easier to get them and by mid-game an extra 100/100 shouldn't be hard to swing.
As long as you are careful in how you target the nuke it can be very cost effective.
It puzzles me how people say that nukes are so effective to make ground in TVT, the chances of the guy not having the energy for a scan is minute and nukes are a big investment. Essentialy, any time that somebody tries to do cute nuke stuff against me I just scan and he has lost alot of minerals and gas, for no reward.
I've found drop harass to be much more porent when backed up with a nuke, as the opponent cant sebd his dudes to repell it out of fear of losing them to the nuke, which gives the rest of your units enough time to do significant damage to key tech structures. My two cents.
On June 26 2011 22:51 Geordie wrote: It puzzles me how people say that nukes are so effective to make ground in TVT, the chances of the guy not having the energy for a scan is minute and nukes are a big investment. Essentialy, any time that somebody tries to do cute nuke stuff against me I just scan and he has lost alot of minerals and gas, for no reward.
If your opponent is using a nuke where all it requires is a scan to kill the ghost then he's using the nuke wrong IMHO.
To successfully drop a nuke you have to protect the ghost and/or maneuver your opponent into being hit.
Played a TvT today on Shattered Temple where I'd lost control of the middle after moving the majority of my forces back to clear out the rocks at the gold expansion.
After doing a hellion run-by at a couple of his expansions, I used nukes to gradually push his tank line back into his natural. I sieged up at his gold after that (while holding the middle) and then just pushed my forces around the side into his third to kill off the game. Even landed a couple of nukes on the expansion while he was trying to fend it off (somehow, the nukes didn't one shot the tanks :[ )
I'll upload the replay for you if want, just fire me a PM.
there's a certain resource investment to it. if you want to get nukes out consistently and efficiently, you're gonna need more than 1 ghost academy. I've seen a few games with mass nuke plays, there's a lot of duds.. sometimes it's just not worth it. You spend too much of your game focusing on money nukes and you disregard the more important stuff of the match up.
also, did the three g's in the OP hurt anyone elses eyes? ^^;
I think nukes on mineral lines are cost effective in TvT and TvZ if you already have the ghost academy and energy+cloak upgrades. Even if your opponent spots it and pulls workers.
The average base mines about 14 minerals/sec and 3.6 gas/sec. Assuming your opponent spots the nuke dot and pulls his workers for 20 sec, you've inflicted 280 minerals and 72 gas of economic damage. Which is pretty good compared to the 100/100 cost of the nuke, as long as you can save the ghost. Its a good way to increase the military power of army when you're already maxed at 200/200.
Of course much like killing mules, causing your opponent to pull workers is not "real" economic damage because you're simply delaying your opponent from getting those resources. They won't have those resources right now, but their base will last 20 sec longer before it mines out.
Nuking mineral lines is nice in TvT and TvZ because nukes will one shot refineries and extractors, unlike assimilators. Assuming your opponent rebuilds the refinery/extractor right away (10+30 sec) the nuke will inflict an additional 75 minerals and 72 gas of economic damage. Then you're looking at 355 minerals and 147 gas of damage compared to the 300/200 of the ghost+nuke even if the ghost dies afterwards. And if you can save the ghost then you definitely win.
The problem with ghosts in TvT is that detection is so easy with scan. You can mitigate this by EMPing orbitals, but chances are pretty good your opponent will have a scan from another orbital before the nuke hits. So if you can surprise them with EMP+Personal Cloaking its a cute gimmick that might work once per game but not more than that.
Another thing to consider about nukes in TvZ is that nuking a hatchery will also kill all the eggs and larvae there. All zerg units have a spawn time > 20 sec, so you can just camp the base with your ghost and the instant you see the opponent morph larvae to eggs launch the nuke. When it hits all those eggs will be killed.
Another trick is to watch the opponents spawn larvae timing; if you start to Nuke after the spawn larvae reaches the halfway point, your Nuke will hit immediately after the 4 larvae pop.
Also remember that larvae count as units. Even if your opponent pulls drones and you don't think you can land a nuke, you can still snipe larvae.
I don't think Nukes are very good in TvP because Protoss buildings have such high health and they can quickly warp in stuff to kill your ghost. If the P simcities poorly and clumps up a bunch of pylons or cannons it can be cost effective, but you never want to depend upon your opponent being bad.
Another thing to consider with ghosts is that they have a sight range of 11, which is exactly the same range as all detectors. So if you can see a detector with your ghost, you know they can see through your cloak. So the opposite is true; if the detector is out of your field of vision then they can't see through your cloak. So if you're going to nuke a missile turret or something, make sure to dip back slightly out of sight range before nuking it.
One of the most attractive aspects of nukes are their 0 supply costs which in macro maps is huge. Presently terrains are kinds of lazy vs toss...go mass marauder and build vikings as needed with emps added into the late game. But if terrain goes nukes they can make them cost effective vs toss.
If you nuke a mineral line and a fully saturated probe line runs for 20 seconds that is 224 lost minerals and about 76 gas.
If you nuke a 2 pylons (500 damage will knock them out) that is 200 lost resources, plus supply blockage (maybe), plus tech blockage (maybe) for merely 100/100. Backed with a mule economy for terrain I don't see this as a bad trade.
Nuking gateways IMO is kind of dumb...they only cost 150, are quick to rebuild and they take two nukes to finish. Unless you get can 2 for 1 deals...
Nexus takes 4 nukes (minus emps or prior damage) which for 400m/400g to take down a 400/0 structure but does 228 gas per minute...that could be worth it. Think the key for terrain is to bring multiple ghosts so they can do multiple nukes at once.
Other nice thing about nukes is that they can be used like forcefields. If you don't want to protoss player X in area z (could be your choke, your retreat path, etc)...just lay down a nuke and cancel it if need be. Your army can probably easily do 100m/100g worth of damage to pay for itself or could save 100m/100g worth of units by keeping the protoss army away.
Interesting PvT game in which HD did that featured 40 nukes that I think is from MLG:
I think we should completely change our mind about nukes as Dmg dealing spell into nukes as tactical giant forcefield. I am using nukes in tvz to cover my angle while sieging up siege tanks and prevent zerg from going in and insta - killing me. U can take almost any suitabe position once u are covered by red dot :D(but watch over it and dont let this fall on your head). Considerable dmg dealing with nuke is in most cases impossible and it drains your apm and gas for almost nothing.
I think people just to lazy to want to worry about using Ghosts
But damn, Ghosts work better and better the later a game goes.
You launch a nuke super lategame, now your opponent is busy trying to find out where it is, and he will eventually use more effort trying to protect himself from the nuke than the terran who is nuking.
Not to mention even if he pulls his workers from the correct base, and doesn't lose any, he will lose way more than the 100/100 (resource and time wise) that was needed for the nuke just from lost mining time.
Tail end of a forty minute tvt on shakuras, trump vs iplayforfood
Iplayforfood was vastly ahead and had a viking/raven/battlecruiser 3-3 upgraded maxed army, trump had unupgraded marines, a couple ghosts, and had begun pumping vikings from two reactor starports. Each player had two mining bases, the rest of the bases on the map were mined out.
Trump put down four more ghost academies for constant nukes and began to nuke the mineral line of food at each of his two bases over and over while making vikings and marines and pushing back the battlecruisers. Food was basically broke and had no income. While the nukes were costly for trump, he still had some income left over to keep producing units, putting him closer and closer to the lead each second that passed. Soon trump was able to kill food's battlecruiserravenviking ball and he made an absolutely crazy comeback.
You say people can pull workers to save them so they don't die to a nuke. You say its a waste because you lose mining time, can you provide analysis and charts to back your claim. I need to know how much minerals am I loosing waiting for nuke to go off and how much he is loosing for not killing anything.
EPT
