[A] Starbow - Page 141

On November 03 2012 06:08 Traceback wrote:


In BW there were aggressive pushes such as 2 fact expands etc. In starbow the problem is every push must have some sort of anti air (marines or gols) or anti immortal (mass tank + marines). Mass tanks take too long to get up, and fast goliaths open you up to a ton of immortal busts and also delay aggressive pushes.

So we are left with marines. Marines though, are terrible against toss in the mid game. Range stalkers can kite marines all the way across the map, after which 1-2 immortals crush small tank contains. Plus the requirement for larger numbers of marines (to deal with immortals) limits vultures (and therefore mines) making contains much weaker against the zealots that are built (due to immortal 1:2 min to gas ratio).

At the same time, if you push out against stargate and he just counter's you with a void ray, you just die unless you either invest in turrets or keep up marine production (further delaying mid game tech/3rd base). Maybe if you switch to some gols after you push, but due to marine production your probably on a low factory count making your army extremely weak back at your base.

So let's say he goes robo (not stargate). He can still kite you all the way across the map while chronoing immortals.Due to the fact you have to be producing marines before any sort of robo is scouted, you are stuck with a low mine count against immortals (which already absorb a ton of mines due to shields) and zealots.

So what about the things you suggested:

- Early Vulture + tank push - No anti air production means it's total gamble if he goes stargate.

- Early bio push with P-matrix - Ranged stalkers can kite you all the way across the map when you try to push. And it delays your factories so much that you have limited mines and are forced into a passive mid game. Plus he can just focus fire non shielded marines negating most of the shields effect. Stim is so short that, to catch stalkers, you have to sacrifice so much HP that your medics can't keep up. It's kinda a gamble that he's going stargate too since if he just goes robo or scouts it and goes tons of stalkers, it shuts down bio pushes so hard. If you delay the push, reavers come out.

-Vulture drop - Mines plant so slow that toss can just pull his probes. If he is making an immortal, it absorbs any mines laid, if he is going air it kills drop ships + the fast starport delays your tech so much that defending a immortal or stargate counter attack become extremely hard. If you try to use aggressive mines, the stalker zealot just kills them before they burrow. Even if it does moderate damage, to get it in time you would have to go 2 fact -> starport to get tanks, vultures, and a drop ship (with the factory upgrades). In order to get all this in any sort of timely manner leaves you open to all sorts of starport and immortal timings. If you try to get enough marines to hold these off, the drop would come after the toss has more than enough gates to stop it.

If you try a 1 base vulture drop, well... I'm pretty sure most people can figure out why that probably wouldn't be worth it. Especially since you can't aggressively mine to kill stalkers.

-Wraiths 1 base - Toss normally goes robo or stargate after his expand. If he goes robo, unlike BW you can get obs right away, making it so toss can easily defend the cloak with obs + stalkers while preparing for an immortal bust (since 1 base wraith would slow down your mech so much). If he goes stargate, wraiths can shut down void harass, but they do damamge to ground so slowly, the toss would have to build cannons or a robo. It would hurt the toss a bit, but 1 base would put terran so far behind in expo + midgame that a strong corsair + stalker push (maybe with blink) would almost certainly leave the terran with not enough tanks to defend.

-Wraiths 2 base - If he goes robo into blink with immortal stalker zealot, all the wraith gas would be very ineffective and would set the terran behind (since blink stalkers would own wraiths so hard mid game). It would set tank production behind so much that the toss could probably break you during wraith production. It just seems really shaky, the toss could even go for like 5 gate blink obs and probably break the terran or at least force him to cower in the corner for 10 minutes afterwards.

If someone has some other idea for how the heck to push a toss (even his 3rd base) without it being a total dice roll or pulling a ton of SCVs, please post some ideas.Marine tank push seems to be the most promising, but due to the lack of mines + immortal stalker, it's so fragile. Sure it could maybe work, but if it takes 5x as much work for the terran than for the toss, is that balanced? It's easy to say, vulture tank push with turrets and ghosts beats toss. However things like void shield which are use and a-move abilities, the fact that terran can't use mines reactivity makes it so much harder. In BW one of the weakest parts of terran was the fact that toss was so mobile flanks were deadly. In starbow, toss is almost twice as mobile when you combine blink, warpins (especially from prisms), and how mobile an anti tank unit such as the immortal is (which are conveniently does not die to mines due to hardened shield).