I made a discussion topic because simply, lots and lots of Terrans have been complaining about how difficult it is to play vs P, especially late game. And no, this is not an "imbalance" topic. I simply would love to see what it is that makes T think P are very hard to beat especially come late game.
Now, before going any further, I want to make this discussion a friendly, yet high quality discussion. Constructive criticism are always welcome. So please, debate in a healthy, friendly manner.
Ok. I guess to start with, I would like to ask. What is it that makes you T players think it is very incredibly hard to vs P late game? For example, just use the search function and type TvP and you will get so many results asking for help. For myself, in my humble opinion it consists of 3 things:
the constant and very fast reinforcements of gateway armies, especially zealots. I had 3 marauders with stim, and was very surprised how long it took them to kill a zealot.
HT Well, HT's storm is very damaging and you have to be able to spread your bio ball extremely well. Even with ghosts it is a very difficult task to do.
Back on topic, I just won a TvP where I used bio. I got lucky, I chose a really good engagement - I think engagement is extremely crucial in TvP especially, I won thanks to that. Now, people will say that if the P gets colossus, we get Vikings. If they get HT we get Ghosts. What if they get both? It gets more difficult for use because we have to micro both the Ghosts and the Vikings, whereas the P can just a move the Colossi, and spam storms.
So, in my humble opinion, I think that if you play bio in TvP, you need to be aggressive and end the game ASAP, because late game, bio simply does not stand a chance, generally speaking.
Lastly, what do you think? Is bio still the way to go? Or mech is?
Thank you for reading, I hope this will be a good and friendly and healthy discussion.
If you have a good spread and firing arc you can win lategame battles if you control well. Also terran is simply a lot stronger mdigame because of drops, so if you don't do any damage then you're supposed to be behind.
From watching a lot of pvt's lately, im really starting to believe that T is in the situation where we Zergs were in before knowing how to get to BL corruptor infestor army compositions: You cant let the P get a third up. Except I think its a lot harder for T than for Z to keep him on 2 bases... I really believe that end game Bio isnt viable anymore just because Protoss' have had a year and a half of fighting against that and know they know how to position, when to engage, etc. I really think T needs to rethink the endgame. I ve seen a few interesting posts about sky terran, marine thor banshee, etc. but have never seen them used at high level...
the problem being Terrans using only bio to kill end game protoss.
Its's even hardly belivable that in some cases (misplaced forcefields, good positioning) a simple bio army can stim and destroy a whole T3 so-called "deathball" - it happens
what i rarely see in TVP are ghost (yea they will be nerfed but at low level nobody uses them) - raven (extremly painfull vs stalker, the stalker targetting the viking who targets the colossi)
So what is the point ? protoss decide to invest in slow, costly, energy/micro requiring units and should loose to stimmed bio with autohealing medivacs ? thats doesnt make sense. Yea the raven is useless until he has energy; so is the templar; then why protoss manage to have templar when terran dont manage to have raven or ghost?
My humble opinion on that, is that the terran have to stop trying doing always the same units, because they work alone until plat/diamond level and actually make things that counters what the protoss is doing.
Terran suffers from their "too powerfull bio army" which makes them reach better level than their skill should allow them; and one day this stop working and they find themself incapable of evolving though that, because they were never used to.
On February 15 2012 23:13 Arcanefrost wrote: If you have a good spread and firing arc you can win lategame battles if you control well. Also terran is simply a lot stronger mdigame because of drops, so if you don't do any damage then you're supposed to be behind.
I agree, but the amount of micro and other things needed for bio T to win a battle vs P is very very micro intensive, I dont think even people in Diamond can do well. It just takes so much effort.
On February 15 2012 23:23 Douillos wrote: From watching a lot of pvt's lately, im really starting to believe that T is in the situation where we Zergs were in before knowing how to get to BL corruptor infestor army compositions: You cant let the P get a third up. Except I think its a lot harder for T than for Z to keep him on 2 bases... I really believe that end game Bio isnt viable anymore just because Protoss' have had a year and a half of fighting against that and know they know how to position, when to engage, etc. I really think T needs to rethink the endgame. I ve seen a few interesting posts about sky terran, marine thor banshee, etc. but have never seen them used at high level...
I agree too, I think T needs to rethink about army composition, engagements, etc.
On February 15 2012 23:28 darkstars111 wrote: the problem being Terrans using only bio to kill end game protoss.
Its's even hardly belivable that in some cases (misplaced forcefields, good positioning) a simple bio army can stim and destroy a whole T3 so-called "deathball" - it happens
what i rarely see in TVP are ghost (yea they will be nerfed but at low level nobody uses them) - raven (extremly painfull vs stalker, the stalker targetting the viking who targets the colossi)
So what is the point ? protoss decide to invest in slow, costly, energy/micro requiring units and should loose to stimmed bio with autohealing medivacs ? thats doesnt make sense. Yea the raven is useless until he has energy; so is the templar; then why protoss manage to have templar when terran dont manage to have raven or ghost?
My humble opinion on that, is that the terran have to stop trying doing always the same units, because they work alone until plat/diamond level and actually make things that counters what the protoss is doing.
Terran suffers from their "too powerfull bio army" which makes them reach better level than their skill should allow them; and one day this stop working and they find themself incapable of evolving though that, because they were never used to.
Yes I concur. I think T needs to stop using bio with medivac. Its tier 1 and 2(?) vs lots and lots of Tier 3 P units, so on paper, even this looks P is going to win. But Bio is very cost efficient and quite fast to reinforce and very mobile too.
The only choice I think we have is Bio, Mech, or BioMech, as some people are trying out in the Strategy section.
On February 15 2012 23:30 Sated wrote: Not even a masked balance whine. Close please.
What..? Who are you? Try posting something constructive or dont post at all. Maybe because you think you have the "Liquipedia Contribution" you can say whatever you want?
I follow the guidelines, and this is a discussion on why T complain vs P late game, and not a balance whine, and I put efforts into this thread.
Standard play in PvT both players go one gate/rax exp, with terran delaying gas and protoss taking the first gas at a normal timing. So at around 5 min 20 seconds Protoss is on 2 base with 3 gates and warpgate finishing or just finished and Terran will be on 2 base with 3-4 rax and some add ons. Usually around 8 minutes is when Terran starts factory and Protoss will have their first observer half way across the map.
The problem for Terran trying to engage Protoss' natural is the forcefields on the ramp. Look at XNC, many protoss will agree with me saying that TvP on that map was incredibly difficult. You have little to no terrain at the natural to help your forcefields create chokes to hold off high numbers of bio unit with medivacs. Forcefields are the greatest asset the protoss player has until HT tech and even after HT tech forcefields and sheild are extremely good against terran in general. Thors get shredded by charging zealots, which always seem to find them selves on the other side of the forcefields the thors are trying to step on anyway. Thor being the only way Terran can break a forcefield.
If Terran trys to go up a 2 ff wide choke into the natural like a lot of the newer maps feature their army gets cut by ff's then the storms drop behind the forcefields and the stalkers blink to engage the vikings while the bio can't get up the ramp. Not to mention any cannons that may be at the base.
Edit 1: Terran can use drops to take map control until the Protoss gets blink or HT tech. Feedback can shut down medivac drops and blink stalkers can shut drops too. Plus at 2x robo can produce 3-4 observers while teching to colossus and spot all the drops. Terrans goal once the game develops into a 2 base vs 2 base stalemate is contain the protoss while taking more expansions, and getting those production buildings going.
HT vs Ghosts goes like this the HT gets to feedback the ghosts and kills them/makes them useless or the Ghosts EMP/snipe and make the HT useless/kills them. It comes down to who ever is on the ball and takes the action first. Sure maybe EMP can out range the protoss, but if you drop the ball and miss your emp opportunity the HT can still feedback those ghosts. not to mention the HT are going to be spread out.
Please, don't suggest Mech. If you think it is even remotely possible atleast start with a bunch of replays from pros using it... and you won't find any. Can you guess why? There was a good discussion on SotG where incontrol demolished the argument, and rightfully so.
Biomech is really awkward beyond 1 or 2-base pushes. Not only do you need two different armor/wep tech routes, bio's mobilty gets severely reduced by the siege tanks immobility. Also marines in the lategame... unless you are MVP, it ain't gonna work it very well, which is why you see alot of ghosts+marauder+medivac+viking compositions, simply because it dosn't melt as fast to storms and collosus.
Protoss was basically made to counter any ground-based mech-type compositions.
Here's my two cents. For the record I'm a Terran player, but you'll never hear me say unit 'x' is over or under powered because that solves nothing. You have to play the game as it is and accept everything in it as the way it's going to be.
When I used to go all bio I had a huge problem late game. I'd have my marauder, marine, medivac balls, maybe a ghost or two sprinkled in, and I'd see some of the following 'deathballs':
Now as you can see the compositions there vary widely. Why then, as a Terran player, would I just assume my same basic MMMG composition is best suited to fight them all?
I think that's what Terrans are missing right now. You can't mass 2 units, add in a sprinkling of support units (ghost, medivac, viking) and simply expect to counter everything Protoss can do. How would that make sense?
The closest I've seen to anyone acknowledging this idea is Warden and his 'Terran Deathball' idea.Here
I know it seems the 'standard' for pro players are to mostly ignore hellions, tanks, thors, banshee, ravens, battlecruisers and reapers, and some other useful things like seeker missles. But i think a lot of strength can be found in these seldom used options.
For example, the first Protoss composition: Chargelot, archon, HT: A battlecruiser or two worked in could provide some great support. Draw the fire of archons, float past the archons and wreck HTs.
Or hellions. HTs clump up when the move. Push in with your bio ball, pull back to draw in the chargelots and archons, and flank with the hellions to hit the much slower and clumped up HTs with an AOE effect. Target down the archons with your bio ball and have the hellions join in to mop up the chargelots when all the HTs and Archons are gone.
Or a well placed seeker missle from a raven to accomplish the same thing.
Why not a line of 3-5 tanks behind your bio ball? For the second composition for example: stab out, attack the stalkers, pull back when they chase, and let a tank barraige or two soften them up. Draw the collosus into tank too to help tank them down quicker. 3-5 tanks won't break the bank and you can definitely get them out faster than you can max out a bio ball. Why are these units forgotten?
So my overall conclusion is that Terran isn't horribly inbalanced one way or another against Protoss at all. Terran is just limiting it's own potential by trying to use a fraction of their available units while Protoss has found numerous compositions to work with.
With a little more creativity from my Terran brethren I think we can come up with strategies that don't rely on simply massing two units and trying our best to dodge storms and collosus infernos.
The second a Protoss player scouts Mech, they're going to alter their composition to include immortal, pheonix, charge, and HT/archon. The lack of mobility of mech allows the protoss player to build warp prism for storm drops, and you basically get a reversal of roles, this time protoss can go and take map control to delay the slow push from the tanks and get up on a 3rd/4th faster than terran.
Using blink to engage sieged tanks is a disaster. That's not the way to engage tanks. The proper strategy for engaging tanks is to research charge first, and go in with zealot immortal and guardian shield, use pheonix to lift tanks or voidrays to focus them, and then the stalkers are used to target fire marines while the tanks are hitting zealots. The engagement is going to be on Protoss' terms unless the terran was able to push the protoss all the way to his natural.
If there are no marines and its a pure mech style, the immortals are just going to be too good if protoss chronoboosts 8 immortals and pushes with guardian shield its going to be tough to hold even with 3 bunkers.
On February 16 2012 00:27 nOondn wrote: biomech never work ....
The most closed-minded statement I've ever heard.
Perhaps it won't work for you. IF you're one of those players that can only look at a pro's replays and try to emulate them then yes, there's no chance you'll ever think on your own and come up with a style that can work.
For the rest of us non-sheep who have the ability to think outside the box there will be non-bio builds that are options. It's just a matter of finding the right balance. Just because something hasn't been done yet doesn't mean it can't be done.
If we relied on people with closed minds to rule the world we'd all still be living in caves and grunting.
So save your completely useless and unconstructive comments for some other forum.
Banshee Thor Raven Hellion is a strong composition. PDD shuts the stalkers down long enough for thor to snipe the observer then cloak banshee's kill everything. The Hellions are for killing the zealots attacking the thors long enough to get that observer snipe.
What to if the Toss just sits on 2 Bases and defends ~150 then takes a third and allways is ready for drops and then just maxes and moves out. I always lose to that once HT's and Colossi both are out i'm dead . I can handle 1 of the 2 but with both out i will lose so much in fights . After that the Toss just expands all around and i can never get a foothold again.
On February 16 2012 00:50 Sabin010 wrote: Banshee Thor Raven Hellion is a strong composition. PDD shuts the stalkers down long enough for thor to snipe the observer then cloak banshee's kill everything. The Hellions are for killing the zealots attacking the thors long enough to get that observer snipe.
Play it with Maines and as Push and its a thousand times stronger . Helions just suck tooo much against anything that isn't light and even against Zealots they at times really really suck since they fire so strange.
On February 16 2012 00:27 nOondn wrote: biomech never work ....
The most closed-minded statement I've ever heard.
Perhaps it won't work for you. IF you're one of those players that can only look at a pro's replays and try to emulate them then yes, there's no chance you'll ever think on your own and come up with a style that can work.
For the rest of us non-sheep who have the ability to think outside the box there will be non-bio builds that are options. It's just a matter of finding the right balance. Just because something hasn't been done yet doesn't mean it can't be done.
If we relied on people with closed minds to rule the world we'd all still be living in caves and grunting.
So save your completely useless and unconstructive comments for some other forum.
i try a lot of mech,bio mech on korean server (master league) with my own style ... -_- .
yeah if you use marines you only need one factory, and move out at around 12 minutes with a one base all-in or even 1 rax exp with reactor marines. Then the marines can snipe the observer too. I'm a protoss player so I'm kinda looking at the match up from the other side.
On February 16 2012 00:50 Sabin010 wrote: Banshee Thor Raven Hellion is a strong composition. PDD shuts the stalkers down long enough for thor to snipe the observer then cloak banshee's kill everything. The Hellions are for killing the zealots attacking the thors long enough to get that observer snipe.
Play it with Maines and as Push and its a thousand times stronger . Helions just suck tooo much against anything that isn't light and even against Zealots they at times really really suck since they fire so strange.
And yet 3/4 of Protoss gateway units are light. Though I agree that the Blueflame-Nerf and especially the Zealot Charge buff hurt hellions alot in TvP straight up fights. But they are still usable and very strong as long as there aren't too many colossi/archons around.
For example, the first Protoss composition: Chargelot, archon, HT: A battlecruiser or two worked in could provide some great support. Draw the fire of archons, float past the archons and wreck HTs.
Or hellions. HTs clump up when the move. Push in with your bio ball, pull back to draw in the chargelots and archons, and flank with the hellions to hit the much slower and clumped up HTs with an AOE effect. Target down the archons with your bio ball and have the hellions join in to mop up the chargelots when all the HTs and Archons are gone.
Or a well placed seeker missle from a raven to accomplish the same thing.
Norseman you seem to have figured it out...except the fact seeker missiles move at a snails pace and HT have this amazing ability that is an EMP with damage that can insta-gib a raven and any BC who engages a Protoss army. Your logic of using other units that are just as flimsy if not worse against the same composition is baffling.
For me, I have a really hard time balancing my unit composition after we've traded armies in the mid-late game. Specifically ghosts, vikings and marines. If I crush the collossus count I end up stuck with "dead supply" in vikings while he goes templar/archon/chargelot. Maybe I over make vikings?
The other big thing is the basic unit control and engaging. Getting those good emp's off on HT and sentries, attacking collossus with vikings, and trying to micro bio away from as much collossus splash dmg as possible all at the same time doesn't ever go well for me. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?
Edit: I've been having some success going up to 3 and 4 starports after max (assuming i've made it past 3 bases also) and reinforcing with a more banshee heavy air force.
On February 16 2012 00:03 Norseman wrote: Here's my two cents. For the record I'm a Terran player, but you'll never hear me say unit 'x' is over or under powered because that solves nothing. You have to play the game as it is and accept everything in it as the way it's going to be.
When I used to go all bio I had a huge problem late game. I'd have my marauder, marine, medivac balls, maybe a ghost or two sprinkled in, and I'd see some of the following 'deathballs':
Now as you can see the compositions there vary widely. Why then, as a Terran player, would I just assume my same basic MMMG composition is best suited to fight them all?
I think that's what Terrans are missing right now. You can't mass 2 units, add in a sprinkling of support units (ghost, medivac, viking) and simply expect to counter everything Protoss can do. How would that make sense?
The closest I've seen to anyone acknowledging this idea is Warden and his 'Terran Deathball' idea.Here
I know it seems the 'standard' for pro players are to mostly ignore hellions, tanks, thors, banshee, ravens, battlecruisers and reapers, and some other useful things like seeker missles. But i think a lot of strength can be found in these seldom used options.
For example, the first Protoss composition: Chargelot, archon, HT: A battlecruiser or two worked in could provide some great support. Draw the fire of archons, float past the archons and wreck HTs.
Or hellions. HTs clump up when the move. Push in with your bio ball, pull back to draw in the chargelots and archons, and flank with the hellions to hit the much slower and clumped up HTs with an AOE effect. Target down the archons with your bio ball and have the hellions join in to mop up the chargelots when all the HTs and Archons are gone.
Or a well placed seeker missle from a raven to accomplish the same thing.
Why not a line of 3-5 tanks behind your bio ball? For the second composition for example: stab out, attack the stalkers, pull back when they chase, and let a tank barraige or two soften them up. Draw the collosus into tank too to help tank them down quicker. 3-5 tanks won't break the bank and you can definitely get them out faster than you can max out a bio ball. Why are these units forgotten?
So my overall conclusion is that Terran isn't horribly inbalanced one way or another against Protoss at all. Terran is just limiting it's own potential by trying to use a fraction of their available units while Protoss has found numerous compositions to work with.
With a little more creativity from my Terran brethren I think we can come up with strategies that don't rely on simply massing two units and trying our best to dodge storms and collosus infernos.
...but that's just my opinion.
You sound like you never and i mean never actually played the game if you did you'd know why this only works in theory . Everytime i try things out of the ordinary besides Bio/1-1-1 stuff i lose super badly against even the most standard Toss army its really sad.
I think a lot of people think its hard to play tvp because they haave to control marines and maruders well, on top of that land great EMPs and/or snipes, and control vikings; and if you don't control well then you lose. A lot of people don't realize that they need to be going more marine heavy than maruder heavy too, then in battles control click your marines and take a few steps back with them so that they do their damage from behind the marauders.
I would say that this match up isn't hard but definitely takes more practice to master
On February 16 2012 00:41 zezamer wrote: Bio is the way to go in late game.
Army control and positioning wins/loses you lategame tvp matches.
Game is balanced.
Exactly. MMMGV is Terran's T3 basically. What happens with mech and sky terran is that you get overrun by much faster gateway reinforcements, you need barracks units to compete. And drops are great.
I know it's not easy though. I have lost maxed 3/3 bio to a smaller 0/0 toss army only because I got caught at a terrible position.
On February 16 2012 01:00 Joedaddy wrote: For me, I have a really hard time balancing my unit composition after we've traded armies in the mid-late game. Specifically ghosts, vikings and marines. If I crush the collossus count I end up stuck with "dead supply" in vikings while he goes templar/archon/chargelot. Maybe I over make vikings?
The other big thing is the basic unit control and engaging. Getting those good emp's off on HT and sentries, attacking collossus with vikings, and trying to micro bio away from as much collossus splash dmg as possible all at the same time doesn't ever go well for me. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?
Edit: I've been having some success going up to 3 and 4 starports after max (assuming i've made it past 3 bases also) and reinforcing with a more banshee heavy air force.
Once Terran has air control with superior viking force the options are A) land the vikings in mineral lines B) reinforced with banshee's.
Protoss should stop colossi production once the vikings become too much to deal with, and an air tech swap is out of the question. The response is going to be archon, and immortals out of the robo to keep them producing units.
On February 16 2012 00:28 Sabin010 wrote: The second a Protoss player scouts Mech, they're going to alter their composition to include immortal, phoenix, charge, and HT/archon. The lack of mobility of mech allows the protoss player to build warp prism for storm drops, and you basically get a reversal of roles, this time protoss can go and take map control to delay the slow push from the tanks and get up on a 3rd/4th faster than terran.
Using blink to engage sieged tanks is a disaster. That's not the way to engage tanks. The proper strategy for engaging tanks is to research charge first, and go in with zealot immortal and guardian shield, use pheonix to lift tanks or voidrays to focus them, and then the stalkers are used to target fire marines while the tanks are hitting zealots. The engagement is going to be on Protoss' terms unless the terran was able to push the protoss all the way to his natural. If there are no marines and its a pure mech style, the immortals are just going to be too good if protoss chronoboosts 8 immortals and pushes with guardian shield its going to be tough to hold even with 3 bunkers.
As someone who's been working on mech builds heavily lately I'd love to address some of your points.
The second a Protoss player scouts Mech, they're going to alter their composition to include immortal, pheonix, charge, and HT/archon.
Correct. And the second a Protoss scouts a bio ball they're going to get HTs, collosus, archons, etc. There are units that do good against other units regardless of what they are. Why is this a negative for mech and not bio?
This one is my FAVORITE: The lack of mobility of mech...this time protoss can go and take map control to delay the slow push from the tanks and get up on a 3rd/4th faster than terran.
I challenge that it's easier to have map control with mech than bio. Hellions are faster than marines and marauders by far and have more potential to do eco damage.
Early game example: Let’s say I can have 2 medivacs full of units (8 marines, 4 marauders, 2 medivacs – 1,000 minerals, 300 gas, 20 supply). You have the tower on Shattered Temple let’s say and it’s cross positions. The Protoss army is pushing towards the tower. You can load one or both medivacs and do a drop, but if the Protoss army keeps pushing you have nothing to defend at home. So if the Protoss keeps pushing it's probably gg. If he pulls back and decides to defende the drop you might snipe a building or two, but you're not going to do much eco damage and the building or two you manage to get will be replaced pretty quickly.
Same resources with a mech build: 3 hellions, 2 siege tanks, siege mode, 4 marines, one bunker (1,000 minerals, 350 gas, 16 supply).
My hellions are at the tower, Protoss army pushes. My hellions can flank the army and speed into the expo/main and start killing probes. If the Protoss pulls back he won’t be able to get there in time before I kill a good amount of probes. If he pushes forward I have 2 siege tanks sieged on the high ground and marines in a bunker to keep the army back.
I would feel more comfortable with the second option.
And as for mobility: why are marines and marauders so mobile? They don’t move faster than hellions. They’re mobile because of medivacs…. The same units that can pick up mech units too. One thing I’ve been playing with in my mech games is a mid-game 3-thor drop into the Protoss main when engaging their army. Even if a Protoss has 10 warpgates when you do this there is not a good unit composition to handle this. If it was 24 marines or 16 marines and 4 marauders being dropped instead that would be a much easier drop to handle.
A thor drop of that size would almost definitely require a bulk of the army to pull back and assist. Regardless of how quick that happened the thors would make quick work of some key buildings. Then, while the Protoss army is pulling back to fight off this threat, I move my main army into position and siege up the natural or the third. I also send hellions in to take down workers.
This is all theory, of course. Nothing is as easy as it sounds in a post. But my point remains: the events I’m outlining aren’t that crazy. Mid to late game you can easily have 3 thors that you could split off your army and still have a VERY strong main army. Hellions speed can be abused. There are ways to make this work.
At lowly diamond level, the Terrans that I lose to late game have good macro. Sure, the engagements might be more favroeable for them or they might land some clutch EMPs or make the right amount of vikings. Yes, Terran does need to position and micro well if they go MMMG. However, in so many of the discussions over the last few months about late game TvP, I see Terrans shying away from questions of macro. Many of my losing opponents forget to macro as they focus on micro and then end up slamming down 2 CCs rather than four or five more rax when they look up and find themselves floating 1.5 to 2.5k minerals.
I'm not trying to dismiss your concerns. I used to play T and I agree that the late game is tough for T in this MU. However, I think the solution, at least below master's level, lies in worrying less about micro and more about having enough production structures (and producing units WHILE you are fighting) so that your army remaxes at close to the same rate as the toss. After all, warp gates have cooldowns. Just because we warp-in instantaneously does not mean that we don't have to wait (for a production cycle) for the cooldown to end.
I am a Terranplayer (plat.) and i think the match-up in it self is quiet balanced! The big problem are WE as players. As a Terran player you have to play much more active. I have to drop, scout like crazy so i know what to toss is doing and at the same time macro good.I as a Terranplayer have not good enough apm to do all the things at once. A defensiv protoss player camps in his base, cronos his upgrades , defends drops (which is very easy with one ht and some zealots). So he has more "time for his unitcompositon". Once he is on 3/3/3 and 200 with alot of gates he moves out.
Here comes the tricky part. I as a terran has to engage perfect. If i dont, i die. Typical szenario in palt league, nobody is scouting very good, both armys move out. I see the army but i am not in a good position, i panic mass emp, miss half of them in the same time 25 charge zealots sprint at my army storm hits my army, feedback on my medivacs. Everything dies. Even if i trade army and i have 20 + barrack, 25 instant warp in zealots a really hard to deal after a big fight.
So what i am trying to say, protoss at my level has a much easier time in the fight. Once the protoss gets in higher level it gets very hard for him as well. He has to spread his hts, put godd ff, move his colossi out of harms way and so on and on.
As a terran player it is very frustrating feeling, to mirco your heart out, play very active and than in the end 3 storms and 30 zealots with a move kill everything.
We've already seen successful and viable late-game terran innovations from some players. They include adding mass nukes, ghost heavy/marine light compositions, and mass bc transitions. Some combination of the 3 of these is the future of late game TvP imo.
All of your ideas only make the matchup harder as getting hellions with your bio ball requires more micro unless you want to just suicide your bio ball. Microing bio/hellions/vikings/ghosts is insane in itself. As for adding tanks to your unit comp. Thats a bad idea as chargelots and archons hard counter the hell out of siege tanks not to mention immortals. Seeker missile is just too damn expensive and you're left vulnerable building up your raven count. Not to mention that feedback rapes ravens and HT's can feedback ravens before they get into range. Also, protoss units are very beefy which makes seeker missile less effective.
I think that if tanks had an upgrade on the armory that increased their effectiveness vs bio units and thors were more mobile and had no energy on them we'd see more mech play. Right now mech is garbage TvP as mineral only units counter the standard mech comp. not to mention by the time that you push out with a mech army a good toss player will be on 3-4 bases and capable of remaxing on archon/chargelot after a big engagement. Blizzard screwed up by giving BC's and Thors energy as now they require ghosts to emp them and any good terrans know that maxing up on ghosts AND bc's or thors is nearly impossible.
I think the most obvious solution would be a gas heavy unit, like the raven. I find it extremely odd that every tvp I watch has the Terran player floating 2k+ gas by the latter stages of the game. Yeah, I get it, you don't have anything to spend your gas on... so why mine it? Blows my mind that even pro level terran players haven't adjusted their builds for mass over-gas.
The solution seems tough though, because its already more than possible to stop a perfect protoss composition with MMMVG. It seems like any alternate composition would require more micro, not less...
On February 16 2012 00:28 Sabin010 wrote: The second a Protoss player scouts Mech, they're going to alter their composition to include immortal, phoenix, charge, and HT/archon. The lack of mobility of mech allows the protoss player to build warp prism for storm drops, and you basically get a reversal of roles, this time protoss can go and take map control to delay the slow push from the tanks and get up on a 3rd/4th faster than terran.
Using blink to engage sieged tanks is a disaster. That's not the way to engage tanks. The proper strategy for engaging tanks is to research charge first, and go in with zealot immortal and guardian shield, use pheonix to lift tanks or voidrays to focus them, and then the stalkers are used to target fire marines while the tanks are hitting zealots. The engagement is going to be on Protoss' terms unless the terran was able to push the protoss all the way to his natural. If there are no marines and its a pure mech style, the immortals are just going to be too good if protoss chronoboosts 8 immortals and pushes with guardian shield its going to be tough to hold even with 3 bunkers.
As someone who's been working on mech builds heavily lately I'd love to address some of your points.
The second a Protoss player scouts Mech, they're going to alter their composition to include immortal, pheonix, charge, and HT/archon.
Correct. And the second a Protoss scouts a bio ball they're going to get HTs, collosus, archons, etc. There are units that do good against other units regardless of what they are. Why is this a negative for mech and not bio?
This one is my FAVORITE: The lack of mobility of mech...this time protoss can go and take map control to delay the slow push from the tanks and get up on a 3rd/4th faster than terran.
I challenge that it's easier to have map control with mech than bio. Hellions are faster than marines and marauders by far and have more potential to do eco damage.
Early game example: Let’s say I can have 2 medivacs full of units (8 marines, 4 marauders, 2 medivacs – 1,000 minerals, 300 gas, 20 supply). You have the tower on Shattered Temple let’s say and it’s cross positions. The Protoss army is pushing towards the tower. You can load one or both medivacs and do drop, but if the Protoss army keeps pushing you have nothing to defend at home. Also, while you might snipe a building or two, you’re not going to do much eco damage.
Same resources with a mech build: 3 hellions, 2 siege tanks, siege mode, 4 marines, one bunker (1,000 minerals, 350 gas, 16 supply).
My hellions are at the tower, Protoss army pushes. My hellions can flank the army and speed into the expo/main and start killing probes. If the Protoss pulls back he won’t be able to get there in time before I kill a good amount of probes. If he pushes forward I have 2 siege tanks sieged on the high ground and marines in a bunker to keep the army back.
I would feel more comfortable with the second option.
And as for mobility: why are marines and marauders so mobile? They don’t move faster than hellions. They’re mobile because of medivacs…. The same units that can pick up mech units too. One thing I’ve been playing with in my mech games is a mid-game 3-thor drop into the Protoss main when engaging their army. Even if a Protoss has 10 warpgates when you do this there is not a good unit composition to handle this. If it was 24 marines or 16 marines and 4 marauders being dropped instead that would be a much easier drop to handle.
A thor drop of that size would almost definitely require a bulk of the army to pull back and assist. Regardless of how quick that happened the thors would make quick work of some key buildings. Then, while the Protoss army is pulling back to fight off this threat, I move my main army into position and siege up the natural or the third. I also send hellions in to take down workers.
This is all theory, of course. Nothing is as easy as it sounds in a post. But my point remains: the events I’m outlining aren’t that crazy. Mid to late game you can easily have 3 thors that you could split off your army and still have a VERY strong main army. Hellions speed can be abused. There are ways to make this work.
Correct. And the second a Protoss scouts a bio ball they're going to get HTs, collosus, archons, etc. There are units that do good against other units regardless of what they are. Why is this a negative for mech and not bio?
The mobility of the Phoenix is going to give the protoss map control and force turrets. It allows the Protoss enough reconnaissance to know not only what Terran is capable of now but what they're capable of 3 minutes from now. It will force the 3rd and 4th to come out later because of the minerals sunk on turrets or the 3rd cc can't be started until there is a thor to protect the scv building it.
The problem with the second analogy is the timing of when you're going to have those two compositions is different. You're not going to 1 rax cc, place a factory, faster than 8 minutes unless you're going for an earlier gas which just delays the cc. Then you still need to get seige. The observer is going to be on that watch tower at 8 minutes, and see what ever you have there. The only way I see this timing work is if the Terran goes for one base and the bunker is placed out in front of the natural to feint a 1 rax cc, but protoss will scout the gas if its taken before the first marine is made.
I've been struggling a lot lately in TvP.... In my opinion TvP lategame is extremeley due to the simple argument:
There is nothing terran can do (apart from the 1-1-1) that requires proper response from Protoss...
Terran has no tech switch from/to that makes the Toss' tremble, something like "shit he made X units... i'd better make Y orelse I lose big time..." and because of that Toss' can (and will) play the way the want..
However, I can point 3 switches that Terrans have to respond accordingly or they will just lose the game:
- Oh he made Colos... make vikings... if not enough - gg - Oh he made Temps... make ghosts... if not enough - gg - Oh he is pure zea archon.... mass mraines with few marauders... too many marauders - gg
.... Then everyone says, drop the Protoss, keep it busy, etc etc....
Think for a second: you have one medivac with 2 marauders and 4 marines...
Protoss is caught out of position and say, screw this I'm hitting terran right now! - So you are down 1 medivac in your "head on battle" while he has his full army with equal supply (provided both are the same level, macroing equally).... As in order to beat chargelot colo templar you NEED micro, therefore you are down 1 medivac with 4 marines and 2 marauders that are dropping.... Also, while you micro your slightly weaker main army, you are not microing your small drop which is getting wasted by 5 zealots that were warped a little bit to the side...
TLDR: i'm fed up with it, I personally think it's ridiculously hard to beat a toss, though i DO keep trying and since i got empire kas' build it's getting better (fast upgrades, lots of workers, about 10 raxes with ghost support at 12ish minutes!!
Bioball does get owned late game but its very hard to transition out of bio. Upgrades are also really difficult esp with protoss chronoing upgrades like mad and their units are so tanky anyways. Mech is fairly easy to counter as protoss. Protoss is weakest to timing attacks from terran (1base/2base pushes). Terran needs to keep the game low econ and be applying constant pressure, if protoss macros untouched then they will be ahead.
I think the pro terrans should be focusing on 1base and 2base timings alot more heavily in tvp and focusing on not letting the toss macro into a 3rd base because once they get that 3rd up and you are players of equal skill toss will gain a huge lead with colloso + ht+ upgrades. I started out as a top masters, almost gm level protoss, good at all match ups but pvt was defintely the easiest matchup, at least for me out of all match ups for all races. The only times i was scared as a toss in pvt was from early aggression and strong well executed timing pushes.If the game went "standard" (bioball) and past 3 base, id be winning against the gm level terrans and i think pvt pushed my ranking up very high.
Ive been doing a marine banshee thor 2 base timing with some success although if the push gets delayed hts can be strong against it, and ive tried some of wardens "terran deathball" compositions and they can be suprisingly pretty strong, and the most success ive been having in tvp is in the "non standard" builds but again not very macro orientated builds. Basically 2 base timings, 1/1/1ing reactor hellion openings into marauder pushes. Sometimes i do go bio and when i do i try to copy polt's style alot and go maruder heavy. Focus on continuously trading cost efficiently, lifting units when they ff and dropping outside to punish zealots and use the ffs against him. But the problem i find with going bio vs toss is that its really difficult to kill the toss outright. Toss can get his 3rd up and then the game starts to swing hugely into the tosses favour. Multiprong attacks dont really work if you are players of equal skill, you have to be alot faster than you opponent to make them effective.
2rax openings into 1base medivacs can be pretty nice too in close spawns, better than 1.1.1ing sometimes because the 2rax denies his expo and you can force a 1base vs 1base situation and the race strongest at 1basing is probably terran. Also with these timings it is very important to know how many scvs to pull as they can tip the scales into your favour. Terran really needs to keep the toss guessing and applying constant pressure.
You've got to do so many things at the same time, emp, make sure your vikings don't get too far, stutter step, dodge storms, I'm just not fast enough, I want to practice but all my tvp games have one big engagement and I lose.
I usually max out way faster than they do, but they just turtle and I can't reinforce fast enough after the fight.
One thing I saw from last night's GSL. It was Game 1 Gumiho vs Puzzle. Tanks are a good supplemental unit to have in a bio army. I am not saying get 10 tanks. 4-6 will do. You don't even use your factory normally in bio so your are not wasting build time and the tanks provide a very sturdy defense versus most 2 base Protoss allins.
On the aggressive end with tanks you can feel safer to use larger drops in the midgame because you have such a strong defensive backbone with you 4-6 tanks. And when it comes to making pushes having the splash damage to go along with the bio ball could be a great help in battles.
On February 16 2012 01:23 NrGmonk wrote: We've already seen successful and viable late-game terran innovations from some players. They include adding mass nukes, ghost heavy/marine light compositions, and mass bc transitions. Some combination of the 3 of these is the future of late game TvP imo.
i wanna see the mass BC transition without it being a gimmick... do u have the vods for that? it really interests me, because once i was playing mech vs toss (season 4 i played all mech) and i started using BCs after suiciding hellions for probe kills, chargelot kills, etc etc so my army was tank thor several ghosts and bc in 4 bases...
generaly nobody uses templars for storm vs mech, so not many feedbacks are available as well, and you do have ghosts so, bcs do well enough, and with yamato they snipe void rays
On February 16 2012 01:32 xsevR wrote: I think the most obvious solution would be a gas heavy unit, like the raven. I find it extremely odd that every tvp I watch has the Terran player floating 2k+ gas by the latter stages of the game. Yeah, I get it, you don't have anything to spend your gas on... so why mine it? Blows my mind that even pro level terran players haven't adjusted their builds for mass over-gas.
The solution seems tough though, because its already more than possible to stop a perfect protoss composition with MMMVG. It seems like any alternate composition would require more micro, not less...
Why this doesn't happen is because the Terran on most cases loses units constantly and thus has to rebuild . Yeah you have tons of Gas leftover but guess what you don't ? Minerals ..... . Unless you basically sit are allowed to sit on your ass for 5-10 Minutes there's no way to switch into Ravens.
On February 16 2012 01:23 NrGmonk wrote: We've already seen successful and viable late-game terran innovations from some players. They include adding mass nukes, ghost heavy/marine light compositions, and mass bc transitions. Some combination of the 3 of these is the future of late game TvP imo.
i wanna see the mass BC transition without it being a gimmick... do u have the vods for that? it really interests me, because once i was playing mech vs toss (season 4 i played all mech) and i started using BCs after suiciding hellions for probe kills, chargelot kills, etc etc so my army was tank thor several ghosts and bc in 4 bases...
generaly nobody uses templars for storm vs mech, so not many feedbacks are available as well, and you do have ghosts so, bcs do well enough, and with yamato they snipe void rays
hate to say it but that 2k gas could be 2k minerals if you just didn't mine the gas in the first place.
Battlecruiser is viable if Terran made enough vikings to take air dominance, even if there is a warp prism backstab, protoss won't be able to base race a terran who has air dominance.
Im also interested in seeing terran pre stim before droping to use medivac energy to prevent a feedback snipe on a full medivac.
As for the post about a late game 3 thor drop in protoss main. If you catch anybody with their pants down you're going to be able to win. The drop has to be unseen, and if scouted you may end up with the thors isolated and picked off. Its like saying, "Well if Terran moves out ill just swing 3 carriers into his main. Oh but he had vikings well I just use mass recall on the carriers with my mother ship, and then vortex half the bio-ball after the carriers take out a bunch of add-ons."
On February 16 2012 00:01 KaiserJohan wrote: Please, don't suggest Mech. If you think it is even remotely possible atleast start with a bunch of replays from pros using it... and you won't find any. Can you guess why? There was a good discussion on SotG where incontrol demolished the argument, and rightfully so.
Biomech is really awkward beyond 1 or 2-base pushes. Not only do you need two different armor/wep tech routes, bio's mobilty gets severely reduced by the siege tanks immobility. Also marines in the lategame... unless you are MVP, it ain't gonna work it very well, which is why you see alot of ghosts+marauder+medivac+viking compositions, simply because it dosn't melt as fast to storms and collosus.
Protoss was basically made to counter any ground-based mech-type compositions.
Can you post the link to that VOD? I'd love to hear incontrol's argument because this is a very interesting subject for a lot of people.
Protoss can't base race Terran with out air control unless the Protoss has a much larger army with ground control and enough stalkers to fight the terran head on. Terran will just lift off and use their banshee bc viking combo to pick off all the protoss tech, nexi, army, etc.
Its very interesting, I really thank and appreciate all you for contributing.
After reading all the comments, I can see that some players think MMMVG is still the way to go in lategame TvP, whereas some players also suggest mech as being viable in TvP lategame.
I think what we need as a T is to practice a lot and find out if mech truly works or not
Myself? I love mech so much, but perhaps I just need to mix in some starports units. I know Banshees are really good vs P too. And since I love ghosts so much, I should increase my APM a lot so I can accomodate some nukes to kill the oh-so-annoying Gateways
In my opinion, a lot of Terrans under-estimate the amount of Micro a Protoss has to do, but at the same time, the Protoss over-estimate the amount of stuff they have to do.
I'd say that Terran is more APM intensive, but punishes mistakes less than protoss. The difference is that you can make them more easily, such as letting the Protoss go un-checked for a long time.
On the other hand, Protoss have less decisions, but if they make the wrong ones, they get behind.
The big difference is that often, the Protoss can simply sit back and macro up without doing any sort of pressure, but Terran always has to do stuff like that. Protoss decisions are also easier to make correctly than Terran ones.
The same thing applies to Zerg to an extent, though Zerg is slightly more like Terran is in TvP, due to the fact that their maxed armies are smaller, and easier to kill.
The 200/200 fight is more or less in favor slightly of Protoss because of all the micro Terran has to do, but with good micro it should go in the Terran's favor I believe. I think the deal breaker though is the 15-20 Gateways that Protoss has late game and the fact that they can get 30-40 supply instantly. Generally Terran is never fighting a 200/200 Protoss army, it's like a 230-240 army. Chargelots already take a long time to kill and when they die a new round of Chargelots appear. ><" Also, banked gas is not useless for Protoss as those can be Archons or Templar whereas Terran is always struggling to spend their gas late game.
Most of the time when people are complaining though, they always sit in storms, can't kite well, and usually don't have the right unit composition so I'm not sure you should listen to the TvP threads lately. In my opinion, it's the equivalent of losing their marine tank army to blings cause they can't micro.
I believe that most Terran's think they have to 'out-macro' a Protoss to have a chance of winning. For example the ever-so popular 3OC before gas; I must have more SCV's than the Protoss has probes is the wrong way of looking at the match-up. I've came to the conclusion that being mildly greedy while teching produces the highest winrate for me. TvP is a tech-war match up. It comes down to who can have the most tech while still having a decent sized core army. Most Terrans screw up the Eco/Army/Tech proportions. An example is, right after 3OC the standard is to rush for double medivac's. So the Terran has 4 naked barracks producing marines, and double medivac's while having a HUGE economy. Why does Terran rush Medivac's? So he can start drops, not to bolster his core army. Why does a Protoss rush Colossus when he gets to 2base, to bolster his core army so that it plainly just kills yours hardcore. By the time a Terran has the Tech in place both players are 4base+. In which Terran should lose because the Protoss has had ample time to prepare his deathball to perfection.
Bio is just more micro-intensive, regardless of matchup, whether it's Marine splits in TvZ or drops/flanks in TvT or the big deathball control in TvP. You just have to control better, coax him into engaging in a bad position, dodge/snipe/EMP storms, snipe Colossi, and kite Zealots.
It's not easy but it's super rewarding if you do it well. Also I highly recommend practicing on Darlgein's Micro Trainer, the Terran vs Deathball scenario, it's not perfect but it beats one big fight every 20 minutes
Other compositions are still iffy... Genius would have beaten MKP's mech on Dual Sight had he not lost so many Probes, and they are also learning to deal with 1/1/1 better, and it's an all-in, pretty much, even if you expand as it's late and the composition loses effectiveness to Protoss tech. Thors are a little too big to synergise with your bio units, but BCs can be a viable switch, although it does leave you vulnerable and suffers from reinforcing problems.
On February 15 2012 23:11 DontLoseSightOfIt wrote:
So, in my humble opinion, I think that if you play bio in TvP, you need to be aggressive and end the game ASAP, because late game, bio simply does not stand a chance, generally speaking.
I completely agree. I have won most of my games early-mid game with heavy aggression on the Protoss. It is incredibly crucial that you try to snipe random pylons, probes, sentries, and anything else possible in TvP for that little advantage which adds up to incredible amounts early game. If you let a Protoss be, he will run you over. That, or you just have to beat the Protoss in bases, apm, micro, macro, mechanics, engagement, etc in late game.
Interesting game for this topic for those with GSL:
asd vs Alicia G2 Code A GSL 2012 Season 1
Mass BC transition, with ghosts, still MMM. Lost. Both players IMO played pretty poorly though. lol. Alicia with the show me the money float, I think asd got far too many BC and never got yamato either, didn't nuke with this ghosts and got caught out of position.
Eh, I used to complain about P a lot but I realized that it's basically all about getting favorable engagements. I am having way more trouble vs. Z than vs. P definitely.
I probably have some of the worst troubles ever with Protoss but I still think that the matchup is relatively balanced from early to mid. I think it's the Terran's fault if Protoss gets too high up on bases, and that most Terrans can do a lot better to balance out their armies instead of spamming Marauders or Marines randomly and actually think about the unit composition.
With that being said, the only part I'm really annoyed about is how easily the Protoss army is like a giant ball of doom that can kill you at any second. At no point in the matchup do I really feel safe. I always feel like if I drop too much, or if I expand too fast, then the Protoss army will just come and kill me. It doesn't really help that they can get upgrades faster than me with 2 AoE dealing units that require 2 entirely different lines of tech tree to deal with.
But I have a lot I can fix, and I think the matchup from a metagame standpoint needs work. Watching the latest GSL Round of 8 has given me hope and maybe a view on what the future of the matchup will be like.
I still would love to see how many people think Mech is a viable strategy vs P late game. Yes with bio someone said it is very rewarding if you win late game, but....it is extremely difficult.....so many things which I am sure you know about. Whereas with Mech it is still difficult but perhaps does not require as much micro as Bio.
When I say mech I dont mean pure mech as in hellions tanks thors, but those mixed with say, Ghosts, banshees, Raven etc. Mainly Mech, basically.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is upgrades in the endgame. Protoss can rely on stalker/sentry/immortal early on, switch into heavy colossi, then tech switch into zealot/archon. It's not an unlikely army composition change. The difficulty terran has switching into mech or air is that they have different upgrades. Protoss have air and ground upgrades, which make switching into mass carriers a horrible idea considering the upgrade advantage terran/zerg has when that happens. The same goes for terran. Tank/thor/BFHellion switch is very risky because the terran must invest in factories and the appropriate armory upgrades. Air switch is a bad investment too for the same reasons.
There was a video avilo put up on youtube showing how he switches into BCs and nukes in the late game, hiding behind planetary fortresses when he's cutting down his bio so he doesn't die instantly. I think that's the best alternative to continuing bio late game, which is mass BC switch and rushing to 3-3 air upgrades. Having a good handful of bio is always useful though for dealing with pylon harrassment or mass stalkers to respond to the bcs.
Not sure if this composition sounds interesting to anyone. But I have been testing out Marine/Medivac transitioning to Ghost/Tank in my T v P MU. I've just come back to the game after a 2 month break because of how much this MU pissed me off.
My game plan atm is just to sac constant drops into the Protoss base and do as much damage as possible, making a conscious effort to NOT lose my 2 or 3 medivacs (I try to aggressive expand behind it). Whilst at home getting that ghost/tank army up. I'm having "some" success with it, but can't draw to any conclusions... still working on it. But basically Im trying to get to a ghost/tank/marine composition with a Raven or two in the mix.
EPT
