On May 07 2012 11:44 Kharnage wrote: actually what I usually see is terran have their ghosts out front trying to pick off HT's before an engagement. Usually they rely on cloak to keep the ghost safe once the EMP's are fired off. It is rare that I see ghosts being kept safe at the back, and never do I see terran picking up ghosts with a medivac to get the m out of the line of fire. .
But, I mean, really, you wish the terran player to pick up the ghosts? You might as well wish for a pony while you're at it
Yeah, seriously? What's the logic here?
"I'm worried about getting hit by feedback, so I'm gonna put my ghosts in a dropship that has energy and doesn't have cloak. Problem solved!"
(1) 1:1 marine/marauder ratio is actually pretty bad in the lategame. The heart of the Protoss army is going to be Zealot/Archon, with enough stalkers to pick off vikings, and then some HT and perhaps Immortals thrown in. Marauders aren't cost or supply effective against most of those units. Just against stalkers and colossi. You're better off with a ratio somewhere between 2:1 and 4:1 marine/marauder.
(2) If he gets to your extra orbitals, you've already lost anyway. (the point about sudden SCV loss is real with templar + warp prism)
1) I went with 1:1 marine/marauder ratio just as a guess, but maybe it's more like 2:1-3:1. Even if you go 3:1 marine:marauder, it's a pretty weak bioball, you're gonna end up with a lot of fairly useless/vulnerable/expensive vikings/ghosts if you control properly. I'm more of the opinion that you need to control a smaller number of ghosts and vikings really well, while pulling the protoss out of position with drops and hit-squads since you have more bio/medivacs, rather than focusing on the "power" units.
2) Yeah, I agree, I just wanted to make sure people don't think that it's like you can just transition over to mules and not give a fuck. It makes your econ a lot more vulnerable; losing 20 SCV's when you only have 50 is a huge difference from losing 20 when you have 70 in terms of how much it affects your income.
Useless, vulnerable, and expensive? Only one of these is true. Ghosts are nowhere near useless, as they do 22 damage with a 1.5 attack speed against Zealots, plus they can regenerate energy to EMP in future battles, believe it or not. They may be vulnerable IF you leave them in front soaking Colossus shots while there is an observer on the field or they are not cloaked.
Vikings aren't useless, but landing them right on top of the Protoss army is a terrible idea in any circumstance unless you're really, really, really far ahead. A better idea is to land them behind your bio so that they do some extra DPS against the Zealots and Archons, but you can still lift them in case he gets more Colossus. If you have 6+ Vikings left over after a battle, you can keep them and he can either go Colossus and play defensively, or not get colossus and have a highly reduced army capability, since Marine/Ghost/Medivac shits on pure gateway.
I really love how you harp on the attack dmg, while you ignored the post that shows that a simple chargelot without shields has the same hp and deals more dps to a ghost than the ghost deals to the chargelot.
On May 07 2012 11:44 Kharnage wrote: actually what I usually see is terran have their ghosts out front trying to pick off HT's before an engagement. Usually they rely on cloak to keep the ghost safe once the EMP's are fired off. It is rare that I see ghosts being kept safe at the back, and never do I see terran picking up ghosts with a medivac to get the m out of the line of fire. .
But, I mean, really, you wish the terran player to pick up the ghosts? You might as well wish for a pony while you're at it
Yeah, seriously? What's the logic here?
"I'm worried about getting hit by feedback, so I'm gonna put my ghosts in a dropship that has energy and doesn't have cloak. Problem solved!"
(1) 1:1 marine/marauder ratio is actually pretty bad in the lategame. The heart of the Protoss army is going to be Zealot/Archon, with enough stalkers to pick off vikings, and then some HT and perhaps Immortals thrown in. Marauders aren't cost or supply effective against most of those units. Just against stalkers and colossi. You're better off with a ratio somewhere between 2:1 and 4:1 marine/marauder.
(2) If he gets to your extra orbitals, you've already lost anyway. (the point about sudden SCV loss is real with templar + warp prism)
1) I went with 1:1 marine/marauder ratio just as a guess, but maybe it's more like 2:1-3:1. Even if you go 3:1 marine:marauder, it's a pretty weak bioball, you're gonna end up with a lot of fairly useless/vulnerable/expensive vikings/ghosts if you control properly. I'm more of the opinion that you need to control a smaller number of ghosts and vikings really well, while pulling the protoss out of position with drops and hit-squads since you have more bio/medivacs, rather than focusing on the "power" units.
2) Yeah, I agree, I just wanted to make sure people don't think that it's like you can just transition over to mules and not give a fuck. It makes your econ a lot more vulnerable; losing 20 SCV's when you only have 50 is a huge difference from losing 20 when you have 70 in terms of how much it affects your income.
Useless, vulnerable, and expensive? Only one of these is true. Ghosts are nowhere near useless, as they do 22 damage with a 1.5 attack speed against Zealots, plus they can regenerate energy to EMP in future battles, believe it or not. They may be vulnerable IF you leave them in front soaking Colossus shots while there is an observer on the field or they are not cloaked.
Vikings aren't useless, but landing them right on top of the Protoss army is a terrible idea in any circumstance unless you're really, really, really far ahead. A better idea is to land them behind your bio so that they do some extra DPS against the Zealots and Archons, but you can still lift them in case he gets more Colossus. If you have 6+ Vikings left over after a battle, you can keep them and he can either go Colossus and play defensively, or not get colossus and have a highly reduced army capability, since Marine/Ghost/Medivac shits on pure gateway.
I really love how you harp on the attack dmg, while you ignored the post that shows that a simple chargelot without shields has the same hp and deals more dps to a ghost than the ghost deals to the chargelot.
And I love it how chargelots are 'meat shields' while ghosts are weak
regardless of the stats, zealots are expendible and ghosts are not. Look after your sneaky little friends
Zealots are melee units. For an even sillier comparison the same mineral cost in 3/0 cracklings has three times the DPS as a 3/0 zealot, at least til they start dying off.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that ghosts have the most utility when ignoring energy-based abilities for the set of templar, ghosts and infestors (in a distant third). They are absolutely the most robust of the three, having more hp, no armour-type disability, and always having medivacs to pal around with. They also cost more and have the most annoying production cycle, so there ya go.
Has anyone really tried out the 6 racks mass bio pushes over and over, just gradually added tech and grabbing a 3rd, I've heard something along the lines of the BW pros switching over and using that style, but I have yet to find any replay or instance of it being used effectively.
On May 07 2012 14:00 Angel_ wrote: As far as I can tell, there are three ways for Terran to handle tvp.
The current most used method is a variance of what the daily explained: Get a lead and then win, whether that be getting a lead and then pushing at 200 or whenever and you've outpaced the protoss, or get a lead, keep more bases, and then suffocate them. Both involve getting a lead in the mid-game and abusing it.
The second is just to have really good control. You see this more recently with terran going straight MMM with no ghosts or vikings, or a few ghosts in the late late game, and just making huge arcs, and being really aggressive with tiny numbers of units to stim forward and smash templar, as well as baiting storms and kiting and all that fun stuff that really just underlines "If I have the better micro and am aggressive enough with it, I can win because my units will be more cost effective"
The third, that people just frankly don't use, is to have a good amount of control, and force positioning. If you can have your ghosts in front cloaked and pick off observers and have your vikings safe but still ready for colossi and the right count so you dont punish your ground army and your medivacs safe but still useful and spread with your mauraders in the front and your marines in the back and you can control that well AND make the protoss attack head into it...they shouldn't beat you. People don't do it because it's fucking hard to make a protoss say "you're going to attack here into my army at the angle I want" and because it involves a really good amount of fast control to snipe drop emps Shift attack colossi and stim groups of marines and spread and kite if needed at the drop of a hat.
I expect that as terran get better at all three we're going to see more problems where the terran mid-game is just too strong, or where protoss have to keep developing. More likely, we'll see a terran nerf in the midgame (something nice and random like medivac timing) AND protoss will start developing, just as it's happened at every other point in the protoss matchups (4 gate ----> 2 base all ins ----> lategame ------> ? (? = more aggression in the midgame and/or different openings and/or faster _____ tech) (simplified list)). I hope that as both develop nothing will be nerfed because some people just can't figure it out or do what they need to. I understand the game wants to be balanced at every level of play in every aspect without each race being a mirror, but, frankly...I think that's a naive idea. Right now terran need to be aggressive in the early and mid-game. I'm okay with that.
There is a fourth option that people overlook and say "oh well getting that many ghosts is suicide because your army has no DPS" about, when really that's not the case at all. It's basically getting 15+ ghosts as I've said multiple times, and getting 14+ Vikings to take out all the Colossus really quickly. The remaining MMMG army will crap on the remaining Zealot/Stalker army that has no shields.
I've done this multiple times, it hasn't worked out the way that every protoss seems to think. You still lose enough of your army that you can't really replenish it well, and his warped in reinforcements should be enough to push your army back.
What units are you leaning to in MMM? Mainly Marauders? Mainly Marines? How many medivacs are you getting? Are you sacrificing SCV's and making macro orbitals in the down time?
On May 07 2012 16:18 kodas wrote: Has anyone really tried out the 6 racks mass bio pushes over and over, just gradually added tech and grabbing a 3rd, I've heard something along the lines of the BW pros switching over and using that style, but I have yet to find any replay or instance of it being used effectively.
I've done it with 5rax and it works okay in diamond if you're really on top of your rally points/macro and don't overextend, but that doesn't mean much. I don't know about 6rax, it seems to me like you'd be sacrificing too much tech/upgrades to make it work.
edit: that said every time I've done it against fast colossus it's not even funny, maybe my mechanics aren't up to par but it seems pretty easy to counter
All the defences the protosses put up in this debate will be pointless and purely theoretical without any supporting facts until any terran from the pro scene shows us how to CONSISTENTLY beat protoss with the MMMVG late game composition. U think those terran coaches in Korea didn't think of all the ideas that you posted here? U think u can micro better than the korean terrans?
What the facts are showing us now: Protosses are consistently beating Terran during late game in pro scene. My heart is bleeding everytime when i see a terran won a close engagement, pushing in with their half dead bio armies with energy less mediviacs, but is drived back by 1 or 2 storms at the ram or a mass chargelots warp-in. It breaks my heart when i see a terran micro-ing like a god and snipe out 5 HT in a blink of an eye, but the remaining 2 surviving HT just cast out 1 or 2 storms and all the MMG either died or hurt badly.
That, is what happening now in all levels of play. Im a platinum Terran in SEA server, currently in my league, Top 20 players consists of only 2 terrans. I rarely play TVT now a days, i played alot of zergs and protosses with Terran potraits (don't tell me you don't know what this means) There is no foreign Terran representative in the GSL. Liquid Jinro is gone. Only Huk Naniwa manage to manage to make their names. N guess what race they are playing.
On May 07 2012 16:18 kodas wrote: Has anyone really tried out the 6 racks mass bio pushes over and over, just gradually added tech and grabbing a 3rd, I've heard something along the lines of the BW pros switching over and using that style, but I have yet to find any replay or instance of it being used effectively.
ive done it sort of, with just silly as balls games. like, 1 rax expand pretending we're working on fundamentals going all the way up like 9 rax and just doing stupid amounts of marine pressure then taking five gas at once when you drop your third down and getting double reactor starports. but there's no upgrades at all until really late and it's just a fucking silly as all balls build.
to theorycraft (raw napkin silly ideas theorycrafting warning) because im tired, if you did the same thing on one gas or two gas and got upgrades from the get go and two tech labs for stim and combat shield and just kept marine pressure marine pressure marine pressure, and threw on your other tech labs and what not at the correct times for colossi or storm (which would change depending on your success (when you attack, how, forcefields, map, etc...), but you could safely guess it'd be colossi first)...idk. it's funny in tvz because it works. i dont know about tvp. if you time things wrong or are too greedy or tech too fast and sac units or not greedy enough or tech too slow or throw away too many marines you can just die. to me it's like a six or seven gate from toss, but...you don't actually need thors or battlecruisers or any really slow producing units generally other than maybe ghosts, other than medivacs...which you can make four at a time pretty easily if that's ALL you're spending gas on. a toss on the other hand goes six or seven gate, and then has no tech whatsoever, and a massive gap until they can have tech, and then another big gap till that tech has researched AND they have enough of those units to make a difference. MM becomes upgraded MM when stim finishes, and further upgraded from there. There's no "My 7 gate didn't kill him...I need to throw down a robo and bay and start colossi and turtle hard until i have at least three or four, and figure out how the fuck im going to get templar at the same time and have enough stuff to stay alive"
the biggest strength of it to me is that frankly, most opponents just don't expect you to be able to produce that much raw shit at that time, or to be doing anything with THAT many units at those times.
On May 07 2012 16:56 Crushgroove wrote: T has an advantage early and mid-game so lets whine about their late game difficulties if the protoss is un-abused for the whole early-mid game?
I don't even....
That's THE WHOLE POINT of starcraft... press advantages when you can, and time attacks to your advantage.
I agree with your point that certain timings exist and that advantages should be found and pressed, however, the issue here is a bit deeper I feel, namely that people are bothered by the fact that playing a longer macro game, usually a "good" game by most standards, appears to be futile following some certain period and that Blizz thinks this is fine. In other words, the Protoss "advantage" lasts from the beginning of the late game to some arbitrary period, usually when the game simply ends, due to the ineffectiveness of higher T tech against a late game protoss.
At 12 mins I'm running around with MMM, at 30 mins I'm also running around with MMM with some ghosts and vikings thrown in for support, and my unit composition becomes increasingly fragile due to numerous protoss AoEs, while my reinforcement ability is falling increasingly behind as gateways are added.
On May 07 2012 16:56 Crushgroove wrote: The amount of stupidity and mis-interpretation in this thread is staggering.
T has an advantage early and mid-game so lets whine about their late game difficulties if the protoss is un-abused for the whole early-mid game?
I don't even....
That's THE WHOLE POINT of starcraft... press advantages when you can, and time attacks to your advantage.
In a vacuum I agree with you but the maps have been designed with different goals in mind, so the "advantage" is not there anymore. People wanted macro maps to play on so they got maps where it is easy to defend, so the Stim+Medivac timing is not so effective anymore.
On May 07 2012 14:53 Chunhyang wrote: With this said, can't hate the T for all-inning I guess. That is their destiny. It was what they were built to do.
Watch this game:
you know why beasty won this game? Basically (aside from all other mistakes creator made) because creator attacked multiple times in beasties chokepoint while beasty was turtleling heavy on his 3base. BUT you can not turtle that way on any map in the current mappool. Terminus had one entrance to three bases. Every current map has at least 2! (and bigger ones too). So yeah good work! Why don't show a steppes of war game, decided by a 4rax stim? Would have the same value!
Early/mid game: - Protoss has one more production cycle than terran - Protoss has no travel distance - Immortal/sentries make bunkers useless => Terran can't get ahead of Protoss safely
Late game: - Protoss has one more production cycle than terran - Protoss has better units => Terran losing only one battle will lose the game
Zerg doesn't suffer as much because - Zerg has an equally broken inject larva - Zerg has a broken unit called Infestor
All the defences the protosses put up in this debate will be pointless and purely theoretical without any supporting facts until any terran from the pro scene shows us how to CONSISTENTLY beat protoss with the MMMVG late game composition. U think those terran coaches in Korea didn't think of all the ideas that you posted here? U think u can micro better than the korean terrans?
What the facts are showing us now: Protosses are consistently beating Terran during late game in pro scene. My heart is bleeding everytime when i see a terran won a close engagement, pushing in with their half dead bio armies with energy less mediviacs, but is drived back by 1 or 2 storms at the ram or a mass chargelots warp-in. It breaks my heart when i see a terran micro-ing like a god and snipe out 5 HT in a blink of an eye, but the remaining 2 surviving HT just cast out 1 or 2 storms and all the MMG either died or hurt badly.
That, is what happening now in all levels of play. Im a platinum Terran in SEA server, currently in my league, Top 20 players consists of only 2 terrans. I rarely play TVT now a days, i played alot of zergs and protosses with Terran potraits (don't tell me you don't know what this means) There is no foreign Terran representative in the GSL. Liquid Jinro is gone. Only Huk Naniwa manage to manage to make their names. N guess what race they are playing.
How your platinum league is looking doesn't show anything at all. Really - what if GM and Masters are full of T's and all the Z's and P's are getting destroyed so they're down in platinum? (I don't think that's the case - but really, platinum being overcrowded by races does NOT show anything)
If you win a battle narrowly against a protoss and he has got HT's with storms ready, then he didn't bring all his units in the first place. And if you've got orange/red units then you really shouldn't be pushing. You could take a base and throw down more production. You can easilly push your advantage without going for the kill. If you take a 4th and maybe even a 5th and just keep on denying the protoss expansions without EVER going for the main, you'll be in great shape.
The ONLY thing, you wrote in your post of value was
U think those terran coaches in Korea didn't think of all the ideas that you posted here? U think u can micro better than the korean terrans?
Because, you're right. People can't micro aswell as the koreans - and people aren't theorycrafting on the level of the korean coaches. But as long you see T doing nothing at all against a protoss in the current metagame, it's pretty much his own fault. Is this fair? Well, it's the same in PvZ
The amount of stupidity and mis-interpretation in this thread is staggering.
T has an advantage early and mid-game so lets whine about their late game difficulties if the protoss is un-abused for the whole early-mid game?
I don't even....
That's THE WHOLE POINT of starcraft... press advantages when you can, and time attacks to your advantage.
Actually, I would argue it is more like this
super early game - Advantage terrans (mass marines)
early game - Advantage Protoss (sentries with gateway or immortal timing)
early mid game - Advantage Terran (Stim + Medivacs)
late mid game - Advantage Protoss (3rd base, AoE tech)
And terrans were fine with this previously (actually more than fine, they had advantage over protoss) because the early mid game was so powerful for terran with stim and medivacs. So what happen? Maps, Maps AND Maps. Currently GSL maps are much larger and the ramps much smaller. This is making that early mid game with Stim/Medivacs much weaker. All terrans KNOW they have to do damage during that period. But the complaint is that they find it almost impossible due to the maps. Drop play is harder, charging up the ramp is harder (you basically have to pray that the Protoss misses that forcefield).
Look at TvZ, terrans have to apply mid game pressure but drops (even if scouted) can still trade pretty evenly. And terrans can push mid game to kill creep and to make zergs make units. With Protoss, you can only pressure once via drops/stim up ramp/multi pronge because with forcefields, you can't really retreat like you can vs zergs. So you have to gamble that the Protoss makes a mistake during the pressure. Else, you have lost too much and basically head to the mid game even. And from Blizzard's point of view, this means protoss will have advantage for the rest of the game.
On May 07 2012 17:48 ultratorr wrote: Warp gate => Terran has no defender's advantage.
Early/mid game: - Protoss has one more production cycle than terran - Protoss has no travel distance - Immortal/sentries make bunkers useless => Terran can't get ahead of Protoss safely
Late game: - Protoss has one more production cycle than terran - Protoss has better units => Terran losing only one battle will lose the game
Zerg doesn't suffer as much because - Zerg has an equally broken inject larva - Zerg has a broken unit called Infestor
(Broken means badly designed)
Solution: Fix warp gate.
- Protoss has no travel distance - Immortal/sentries make bunkers useless
These two don't get along very well -.- Immortals has to walk all the way to the enemy base. Saying WG makes T have no defenders advantage is just plain wrong. You've got no clue. It makes the protoss have no defenders advantage hence he's got the same rally for all the WG units, which has been confirmed to be balanced around their offensive abilities to balance WG rushes.
- Protoss has better units
If you're talking about gateway unit, you're just plain wrong. Sentries might be good, but their damage is next to nothing. Both zlots and stalkers get destroyed by bio untill you've got upgrades, charge or have a way more expensive army.
If you're talking about colossus/HT/Archon (and ignore ghosts), maybe you're right. But the entire point of Blizzards post was, that you shouldn't make you P opponent get a money mixture of those heavy units.
On May 07 2012 16:56 Crushgroove wrote: The amount of stupidity and mis-interpretation in this thread is staggering.
T has an advantage early and mid-game so lets whine about their late game difficulties if the protoss is un-abused for the whole early-mid game?
I don't even....
That's THE WHOLE POINT of starcraft... press advantages when you can, and time attacks to your advantage.
In a vacuum I agree with you but the maps have been designed with different goals in mind, so the "advantage" is not there anymore. People wanted macro maps to play on so they got maps where it is easy to defend, so the Stim+Medivac timing is not so effective anymore.
On May 07 2012 16:56 Crushgroove wrote: The amount of stupidity and mis-interpretation in this thread is staggering.
T has an advantage early and mid-game so lets whine about their late game difficulties if the protoss is un-abused for the whole early-mid game?
I don't even....
That's THE WHOLE POINT of starcraft... press advantages when you can, and time attacks to your advantage.
In a vacuum I agree with you but the maps have been designed with different goals in mind, so the "advantage" is not there anymore. People wanted macro maps to play on so they got maps where it is easy to defend, so the Stim+Medivac timing is not so effective anymore.
Then find a different timing.
I think mr. Day9 has analyzed and understood this matchup a bit better than alot of us. In his daily #432 he mentions, that a protoss should never attack between 12-16 minutes. He will just die. Unless the P is doing some weird all-in the T can easilly hold it, while dropping the P. Why wouldn't a T exploid this to expand while putting on pressure?
On May 07 2012 16:47 gengka wrote: All the defences the protosses put up in this debate will be pointless and purely theoretical without any supporting facts until any terran from the pro scene shows us how to CONSISTENTLY beat protoss with the MMMVG late game composition. U think those terran coaches in Korea didn't think of all the ideas that you posted here? U think u can micro better than the korean terrans?
What the facts are showing us now: Protosses are consistently beating Terran during late game in pro scene. My heart is bleeding everytime when i see a terran won a close engagement, pushing in with their half dead bio armies with energy less mediviacs, but is drived back by 1 or 2 storms at the ram or a mass chargelots warp-in. It breaks my heart when i see a terran micro-ing like a god and snipe out 5 HT in a blink of an eye, but the remaining 2 surviving HT just cast out 1 or 2 storms and all the MMG either died or hurt badly.
That, is what happening now in all levels of play. Im a platinum Terran in SEA server, currently in my league, Top 20 players consists of only 2 terrans. I rarely play TVT now a days, i played alot of zergs and protosses with Terran potraits (don't tell me you don't know what this means) There is no foreign Terran representative in the GSL. Liquid Jinro is gone. Only Huk Naniwa manage to manage to make their names. N guess what race they are playing.
Yeah, and ignore the fact that terrans have won every major international tournament in the last few months except one that I can think of (last MLG) and that protoss haven't won any. MKP and Polt both have excellent win rates against toss- both of them play aggressive mid games and get into late games with advantages which is the whole point of what Blizzard is saying. To say that terran are having no success in the pro scene when they are winning almost every tournament is absurd.
On May 07 2012 14:53 darkness wrote: From my (protoss) view, late game really helps me a lot, but I'm weak between 7 min and 12 min. Not sure about other protosses, but yeah.. If Blizzard wants to fix late game, then they should also fix period when protoss is most vulnerable. I assume 7-12 min.
Edit: Also one more thing I was thinking about recently. I'm not sure if I'm right, but I think Terran's flaw is the marine has too low hp for late game. I mean units with late game upgrades benefit better because they last longer, but the marine dies too quickly at that point.
I think there should be a good DPS bio unit that is unlocked as 2.5/3 tier or something to replace marines. Feel free to discuss.
Or mech
Unfortunately every Protoss unit is designed to hard-counter it.
Well, I don't think mech is the answer because terrans get engineering bay upgrades which don't affect mech. This is also another advantage of protoss that every ground unit benefits from forge upgrades. Be it colossus, immortal or just gateway units.
I don't think there is a way for mech to catch up with protoss upgrades if you stick with bio up to mid game.
Sorry for the BW reference, but 90% of BW TvZ is +1 5 rax where you go mass bio with +1 ups with 5 rax off 2 bases, get 3rd base with mine research, then lift off all your raxes and transition to pure mech, and start getting mech upgrades, some even go triple armory and get air-attack upgrades for valkyries. It shouldn't matter if the upgrades are separate.
EPT
