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im a protoss main but was thinking about this being a good terran strategy vs toss 4-5gate early mass t1 timing attacks or 3gate 1 robo early mass t1 timing attack
heres how the general strategy would go. you play standard terran not cutting any scvs and wall off with 2 depots 1rax (more for scrap station). you get a fast thor which can comes out right before 6 minutes im not sure about the exact BO but some terrans do it against me as toss and the thor comes out right around the time i could get a void ray if i did a void ray rush. the bo has the terran pumping marines out of 1 rax behind the wall to beat back any fast zealot rush with a thor coming soon after. not sure on the exat bo but i can dig out some replays if need be . im sure many terran know the general build to do that
so after the thor comes out its good early because it 2shots zealots and stalkers and it 1shots sentrys. a single thor can take quiet a few toss units by itself killing them all while surviving to be repaired. but thors become weaker as the game goes on
i was thinking after you get that fast thor and expo to match the toss's expo, eventually you get to the lategame and i was thinking a good army combination going into lategame vs toss would be spending all of your gas on banshees while pumping what thors you can out of 1 factory, and spending your leftover minerals on marines with 2-3 medivacs to heal up between battle. the only thing you would upgrade would be marines attack, and possibly ship attacks. ground upgrades wouldnt be that great since you arent making that much thors
marines destroy void rays, your few thors will pwnzzzzz any pheonix, and the toss is not going to get carriers. but how does the army do against ground
most toss get heavy warp gate t1 armies against terran with psi storm, so you would have 2-3 thors in the front of battle to tank for a while and you wanna split your marines into 2-4 groups to avoid storm hitting too much of your units. by the time your thors die eventually your remaining army of high damage marines and banshees would clean up his ground force quickly.... or at least that would be the hope...
also getting cloak is a good idea not for the cloak, but because you want to constantly be using it to drain your banshees of all their energy. you want all your banshees to have the least amount of energy as possible so feedback does the least amount to your banshees as possible
my idea isnt really an all around strategy, its just a thought that marine/few thor/banshee/few medivac would be the ideal late game army terran should be trying to get against toss
so some terrans out there... try getting thor banshee marine against toss and see if it works out well or not
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I'd be curious to see fast a BO and some plat replays.
I like the idea of FE after the thor (to get 4 gas), using the fast armory for air upgrades and transitioning into banshee/viking/marine. I'm gonna give this a try as soon as bnet is up.
The only thing I'd be worried about is you'd be hard pressed to hold off 4 warp gates +immortals.
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An interesting build, Thors have energy too, and it's usually never used in battles, thus leaving it vulnerable to the HT because of feedback. Feedback is seriously underused, even when the situation calls for it.
Thors have a max of 200 energy, and most of the time it's never used in a battle, so it's basically 200 free dmg against the thor at the cost of only 50 energy for the HT. So the idea of going in Thor first to let them soak up dmg is actually a bad idea against someone who knows to feedback instead of storm.
BCs & Banshees also have 200 energy, Using feedback is actually MUCH better against Thor/Banshee/BC than the very nerfed psi storm (unless the Banshees use their energy with cloak as you mentioned). Especially since BCs and Thors especially tend to be too big to clump up for psi storm to work its magic effectively.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Watch me vs Hasuobs from Razer Domination, on Metalopolis.
It's basically this exactly, except I get hellions instead of marines (and some ghosts), since I wanted to snipe hts with hellions, and they rape zealots.
Cliffnotes:
Feedback is very strong.
You should probably emp your own units.
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Hrm I came up with a slight variation which hasn't been defeated yet(top 10 platinum EU accounts), where I tech fast armory with two early gasses, throw down a thor, then stop thor production, build two starports and get addons, begin continuous banshee production, add on a cc when you have enough mins, then start throwing down as many banshees and marauders as you can, adding on a third port and a 2nd rax, getting a 2nd thor, and pushing with a mass of banshee marauder and 2ish thors, maybe a few vikings if he goes for some phoenixes. It completely annihilates any ground based army, and counters air decently, you have to play reactive though.
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Interesting build, but I find it quite inefficient against a colossus-stalker army with 2-3 immortals mixed in. The thor is a pretty good meat shield but the sheer range of the colossus is just too powerful for marines and with the thor being focused combined with its slow moving, its almost impossible for it to even fire at the colossus.
As for banshees, they get raped by mass stalkers with blink. What I would suggest is to go for a viking build instead of banshee. Its range makes it much better against the colossus and the marines can take down the stalkers pretty quickly while they are busy focusing on the thor.
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yes feedback is very powerful it can basically 1shot your banshees and deal nice damage to your thors
a good gameplan to combat feedback would be to keep your thors as the front of your army. they more slow but it aint that slow they are slightly slower than a marine.
late late game your army would consist of about 4 thors, as much gas as you can spend on banshees, and the rest is marines. and 2-3 medivacs as you see fit
when the battle starts, your thors are in front and you would want your first action to be spamclicking all of your thors to use their 250mm ability on the closest unit whatever it is. it could be a zealot who cares. if you spamclick your thors to shoot 1 zealot with their spell, they will all drain their mana and load up their spell for a second and when the zealot dies the thors will have less energy and take less damage from feedback
at that point it would be about micro. the zealots are in front so if you make your thors shoot the zealot before templars can come up and feedback the thors then you will take less damage from feedback. or etc maybe the enemy will feedback first
as for banshees, you want cloak and between battles you want to constantly be cloaking all your banshees in order to drain their mana so they never go above 30 mana. the purpose of cloak isnt to cloak but to just drain your mana
2 stalkers cost 250 minerals 100 gas. 1 banshee 3 marines is 250 minerals 100 gas. cost per cost banshee/marine will handily destroy stalkers even with blink
i think this army composition will show lots of effectiveness in late game TvP however my main is protoss so i wouldnt know... if your main is T try it and post a replay if it sucks or is good... heh
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Sounds like a beastly combination to deal with. I haven't seen thors and banshees in combination used against me as toss (30ish plat on US), but i'd wager this would require some real head-scratching to counter.
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HT counter all 3 .... Feedback thors weeeee feed back banshee storm the rines. Then get a bunch of stalkers cause again stalkers with blink > any air good vs rines and rape thors.
if you see him fast thor just hars with your first few stalkers to shoot walls kill the rines what not and ya get HT's and Stalkers and laugh.
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So how many HT is the P going to have there? Enough to feedback every thor before he uses 250mm while also feedbacking every banshee and casting enough storm to blanket every marine?
That sounds a little hyperbolic, to say the least. Chances are he won't have enough to do all that unless he's running a lot more expos and out-pacing your army size significantly.
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HT's aren't nearly as expensive as Thors, so he could easily have enough to deal with every Thor. Also, the 250mm cannon ability on the Thor has a bit of a delay before it actually starts to do damage, plus it is a channeled spell. Thus, even if you do manage to successfully cast the spell before HTs feedbacking you, the Thors are pretty much taken out of the battle for the first few crucial seconds, leaving them very vulnerable.
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Yes, but we aren't talking about a few thors, we're talking about thor and banshees in numbers. HT aren't going to come out fully upgraded and ready to blast mutipul feedbacks. Nor would a protoss player build HT to the exclusion of other units. I think it's exaggeration at best to say "oh a toss will just feedback all 20 of my feedback-able units.
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the idea is that they are supposed to be vulnerable. compared to your stimmed marines and many banshees, your ~4 thor have pretty low dps. they are there to add sheer HP to your army while your lowish hp marines and banshees do the dirty work.
this works on the same principles of how the standard muta->expand game plan worked:
get a handful of a powerful unit which is temporarily uncounterable just to expand, and later use them to soak up damage. i think we all know that 3 hat / 2 hat spire is pretty solid.
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banshees are 100gas each
thors are 200gas each
ht are 150gas each
sentry is 100gas each
stalker is 50gas each
usually your enemy will be getting healthy numbers of stalkers and sentrys (force field is god) so their ht numbers
you only make a few thors out of 1 factory. the rest of your gas is on banshees. as long as you have cloak and cloak your banshees constantly, the high templars casting feedback on your banshees wont be too bad for you
a high templar can be seen as having 100 energy (unupgraded) and 125 energy upgraded. because generally 1 templar will not live long enough during a equal skilled back and forth game to use up 125+ mana
so a upgraded templar can cast two feedbacks. given your banshees will always be using cloak and wont have more than 30 mana at any time thats at best turning 1 high templar into two feedbacks which is 60 damage. your thors will probably be taking 80 damage from feedbacks as long as you spamclick the ability fast right when battle starts against the most nearby unit
so if the ht uses a storm thats a storm + 30 dmg feedback, or if he uses two feedbacks he is dealing 60 damage for 150gas. not really a good deal at all. also i should be aware two ht's can turn into a archon with 350health (shields) and 25 damage so that should be accounted as well
it seems ht arent too bad for their cost when you factor in archons you get afterwards
but a toss cant really mass ht's since they are 150gas and he is getting stalkers and sentrys too. in the end... will it even out? i dont know.... a good terran would have to try it and see if its a good army or whatever
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I use a similar strategy almost always with good success. The thing is, by going banshees you force your opponent to go stalkers, and stalkers are just terrible. Thors are also heavily underestimated, with +2 dmg upgrade they will one shot every toss unit after EMP except for immortals and colossus and for them it takes two shots. For the minerals you just have to balance marines and hellions depending on his army composition. EMP is of course a must, no matter what strategy you use.
The biggest problem with this type of army is bulkiness of thors. On some maps like kulas ravine that have a lot of chokes, positioning your army can be very hard for you while toss can easy position his colossi, add in force fields and it can be a nightmare. Ofc if your army is mostly air without many thors, this is a much lesser problem.
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On April 20 2010 11:18 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Watch me vs Hasuobs from Razer Domination, on Metalopolis.
It's basically this exactly, except I get hellions instead of marines (and some ghosts), since I wanted to snipe hts with hellions, and they rape zealots.
Cliffnotes:
Feedback is very strong.
You should probably emp your own units.
I'm curious, do you find yourself picking up cloak in the later stages of the game (ie: when he has high templar) to more effectively position for emping? Obviously he will have observers, but possibly with flanking, you may be able to catch him off guard sometimes.
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I don't think this strategy would work very well unless the P went a heavy robo build. Any good amount of HT's would dominate most of the army via FB and storm. If I'm on two base I will have atleast 8 templars spread out so an EMP would not be too effective. Even if the Thor Banshee energey is drained, FB and storm is an instant cast and the marines will melt to storm. I think a better army composition would be viking banshee marine. This has happened to me where the the T will snipe all the obs so the banshees get a bunch of free shots even after I had 3 obs in my control group. Of course this can be countered by having more obs and FB'ing the banshees however usually the timing of the push comes before I have sufficient HT's or obs.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 21 2010 00:11 QueueQueue wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 11:18 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Watch me vs Hasuobs from Razer Domination, on Metalopolis.
It's basically this exactly, except I get hellions instead of marines (and some ghosts), since I wanted to snipe hts with hellions, and they rape zealots.
Cliffnotes:
Feedback is very strong.
You should probably emp your own units. I'm curious, do you find yourself picking up cloak in the later stages of the game (ie: when he has high templar) to more effectively position for emping? Obviously he will have observers, but possibly with flanking, you may be able to catch him off guard sometimes.
For ghosts? Yes, but I don't think you have the gas for that if you mech (unless you have a 3rd) so I'm not doing pure mech anymore~_~
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I think it sounds like a fun build but I am a little weary of how easily the HT seem to counter this build. Marines and Banshees provide the DPS for this build and HT will easily nullify the marine's DPS - either by killing them outright with storm or using storms to force them to spend more time running then shooting.
To keep feedback from crippling the thors you have to spamclick the 250mm cannon to target what is likely an inconsequential unit in their army (like a zealot) meaning for 6 seconds his observer and a few pheonix can heavily damage your banshees or stalkers can blink in and wreck them.
I feel like Banshee/Marauder/Marine or Banshee/Viking/Marauder would be a much better formation, as Marauders can take a hit or two from a storm and the army as a whole is very mobile (and does a ton of damage to ground to boot)
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Banshee/thor/hellion would be far superior. Marines suck in every way possible vs protoss due to guardian shield and later vulnerability to coli's and storm. Hellions give your army added mobility and mop up HT/zealots faster than any unit in the game. In addition if you need more you can just flood from factories instead of making a round of thors.
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Do the thors even stand a chance once immortals are out?
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If you have the thors, and the star ports, why would you not just Thor drop? We all know that Thor drop vs Protoss is very powerful... they kill probes like no tomorrow, 250mm cannon one hits a pylon.
To me, it just seems counter intuitive to want mass rax, factories, and starports in a single build. Wouldn't it be better to just focus on two of the production buildings instead of all 3?
We all know thor + marauders is very powerful
bio + banshees also very powerful
But getting thors + bio + air seems to me like you will be missing out on:
- Medivacks since you will be making banshees
- very weak vs mass stalker immortals... since well immortals sort of eat thors, and stalkers are very good vs bio and air.
- - -
I don't have a key yet, but it just seems like just straight mm&m or mech would be a lot stronger strat then trying to focus on air, bio, and mech.
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On April 20 2010 15:19 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
So how many HT is the P going to have there? Enough to feedback every thor before he uses 250mm while also feedbacking every banshee and casting enough storm to blanket every marine?
That sounds a little hyperbolic, to say the least. Chances are he won't have enough to do all that unless he's running a lot more expos and out-pacing your army size significantly.
Don't need all HT's. Stalkers are there to clear up what the HT's can't get cause stalkers rape all 3 to. Then when your stalker army is big and shit add on more and more HT's he will prob get the point after like 6 or so that he needs to switch up or lose.
+ his build is alot more gas needed then stalker HT
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On April 21 2010 02:33 Slunk wrote:
Do the thors even stand a chance once immortals are out?
If they have too many immortals compared to your thors, it can become a problem. The 250mm cannon 1 shots immortals.
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On April 21 2010 09:23 altek wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 02:33 Slunk wrote:
Do the thors even stand a chance once immortals are out? If they have too many immortals compared to your thors, it can become a problem. The 250mm cannon 1 shots immortals.
Ya but it takes so long to go off unless he is going way to many Immortals the stalkers / w/e else he has in his army will just kill the thors anyways. Lots times you watch the thors die before the 250mm goes off lol. Maybe one on one and all but in army vs army its not allways the greatest
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On April 21 2010 02:33 Slunk wrote:
Do the thors even stand a chance once immortals are out?
Thors one shot stun immortals, so no.
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EPT
