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Hello.
Very good idea - I tried it yesterday (although against like copper people because i got resetted)
It is very funny. Some people leave outright because they are intimidated by the animation.
Another thing which is very good is to keep hellions near his nat as you drop the ghost - then cloak the ghost (which you dropped at some remote spot in his main) and target the nuke on his hatch or where its most appropriate and instantly attack with the hellions. so hell be microing his natural while he gets the nuke message.
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I hope to post some replays later, but there have been rare instances (i.e. versus noobs) where this strat astonishingly worked vs. toss and terran. I wouldn't reccommend it though, unless a toss player FEs.
Getting the Moebius reactor after your first nuke finishes is a good idea, especially if the zerg is going lots of muta. Personally however, I find it more effective to position your nuke over his spire/baneling nest, wound them just enough with your 3 marauders, and then smile as he loses most of his tech. I do have a question for the OP though: should you really abandon the ghosts completely if zerg goes roaches? In some of my games, I was able to win with nukes while still pumping lots of maruaders. My unit composition would be: Ghosts, marauders, hellions, medivacs, and maybe a few vikings to kill overseers.
Snipe is also sweet. A ghost at 200 energy (Moebius Reactor helps make this possible) can kill 4 hydras almost instantly. In some instances, when I don't have enough hellions to block them off or kite properly, I try sniping banelings. One-shotting them of course, sniping banelings really helps with the life expectancy of your maruader ball.
It should be mentioned that I don't get many marines unless his muta force is overwhelming. Typically though, turrets can hold them off until you mass enough ghosts to simply obliterate him. If you feel snipe isn't enough, research either high-sec auto tracking or building armor. (Probably the latter, since you want as much DPS from your turrets as possible.) Building your CC once you push out with first nuke is typically a good idea, especially if the zerg FEed. You gotta keep up with his economy, especially if the nuke doesn't kill many drones.
I've been considering building multiple ghost academies at late game just to nuke all his bases at once. What could a zerg do if you killed his overseer? 3 nukes (2 at main, 1 at natural) plus your main force pushing in is pretty much GG.
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Very very very well written and in-depth. Gonna try this strat out :D. Even if it doesn't work it should be fun. Thanks.
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On April 23 2010 01:58 Blanke wrote:
I've been considering building multiple ghost academies at late game just to nuke all his bases at once. What could a zerg do if you killed his overseer? 3 nukes (2 at main, 1 at natural) plus your main force pushing in is pretty much GG.
I though you can only build one nuke at any time, am I wrong?
Also, I though you wasnt able to use the snipe ability on workers... guess I was wrong too.
Anyway, the strat sound like fun to try, will watch the replays first to have a better grap of the strat, nice work.
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What I meant Kawoq is that you could potentially build 2 ghost academies later on if your rush didn't end it. Then you can have 3 nukes ready from three academies.
I believe probes are immune to snipe because they're robotic, but drones and SCVs are definitely biological.
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On April 23 2010 03:37 kawoq wrote:
Also, I though you wasnt able to use the snipe ability on workers... guess I was wrong too.
I believe it works vs biological units only? So it wouldn't work vs probes. That might be what you are thinking of.
edit: oops must read entire thread... already answered
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thanks for that awesome guide !
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Didn't they change snipe to work against any unit? Can't check in the beta, and though I play terran I've never built a ghost except as an EMP bot :<
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Just don't try to emp a nexus and then nuke it - that only worked in sc1, now it takes like 8ish emps to take down the shields lol.
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Interesting strat indeed, will give it a shot.
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Amazingly well thought out. I would definitely try if I was still terran.
Nice build bro.
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The best thing about this build is how you feel inside when that nuke destroys all his tech and most of his workers. Having some problems keeping my macro up after i start moving, but I guess that's just because I'm not used to the build.
Awesome build, and fun to play.
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On April 22 2010 11:34 PaleBlueDot wrote:
Nuke sucks. End of story. While they have made it easier to get, and have made the ghost an appealing unit to just have around, you are basically putting your money into a 100 mineral, 100 gas baneling that takes longer to get, has a 60 second build time, will NEVER hit an army unless your opponent is either very unlucky, or stupid, and can be easily disrupted. Not only that, but it doesn't take out any important buildings (depending how important you consider supply buildings, which wouldn't work against zerg since they move.) Ghosts are good, but expensive. They don't need a sorry excuse for a nuke to make them good. If blizzard really wanted you to use a nuke, they would make the actual nuke itself an investment, and make it 1 shot any building in the game. As it stands now, you hear nuke detected, move all your workers, and check to make sure its not on your army, and you will lose nothing but supply cap at worst. Right now, as in SC1, there is no reason to have the nuke in the game except to make a fool out of your enemy.
If you move all of your drones off minerals and gas for 20 seconds, it will cost far more than 100/100 for the nuke.
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This seems really interesting. But, what if instead of spire, the zerg goes for a hydra/infestor build? That's the build I've had the most trouble with so far in ZvT. It seems that hydra/infestor would roll over the hellions/marines. Also, it would make the medivac/nuking section mostly oblique, since it'd be really difficult to land the units.
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Just a note for those who say it's not worth it. Even if your nuke kills NO UNITS, and NO BUILDINGS, you have cost them mining time.
16 workers @ 1 min/sec, and 6 workers @ 1 gas/sec over 20 seconds (the timing of the nuke) = 320 mins/120 gas.
If you're playing smart and scout for overseers, you can pretty much guarantee that you won't lose your ghost.
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Rigid's answer to your replay against him:
"Ok i wasnt gonna post here b/c frankly i was pretty shocked this replay was even posted. So heres the deal this was my first game of the day which is never good and during the whole game my dogs were fighting at one point if you watch the replay i go afk b/c i have to physically break the dogs up and seperate them into different rooms. Now i understand john is trying to show off a nuke strat vs zerg but honestly i dont think it would work. Granted it worked this game but thats partially b/c i let it happen. Anyways gg john you out played me this game but it wouldnt happen again!!! "
lol
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Australia7069 Posts
I am really impressed. Tbh i thought your 1 thor push strategy was really meh, as in, you'd be winning an already won game. But this is amazing. The idea of dropping the marauders while harassing with the hellions is genius. What i saw you left out was the offensive nuking. Sometimes if you're being attacked after you lost a battle, and you throw nuke in your choke, it makes your enemy retreat, or if they dont see it die. I feel like you discussed the offensive capabilities of the ghost but the not the defensive as much.
Still, this is inspirit. I will definetly be trying ghosts over thors in my upcoming tvz's
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On April 23 2010 07:11 itzbrandnew wrote:
Didn't they change snipe to work against any unit? Can't check in the beta, and though I play terran I've never built a ghost except as an EMP bot :<
I'm pretty sure it only works on Biological units.
@OP: I really like the suggestion of using more Ghosts and, more importantly, how to use them in PvZ (Looking at Snipe, doesn't it look like it's designed to kill everything Zerg?). What I don't like is the rigidity of the build order and strategy you laid down. For example:
1) Relying on the Hellions for distraction against the nuke: I'm pretty sure a single Spine Crawler would deter 2-4 Hellions with support from a Queen. Two well placed Crawlers would pretty much reduce damage significantly, possibly completely with some luck.
2) Going for the nuke every time. If the Nuke is stopped, you're going to be hurting a bit, as it means a wasted 100/100 on the nuke and the cost of the Ghost. Since you also brought a Medivac and two Marauders, you likely lost those, too. More likely: What if you get to their base and see that pulling this off just isn't likely to happen? For example, you see a Lair and Overseer prepared after your Ghost academy was spotted. You could bring two Ghosts to quickly and easily snipe the Overseer, but then your nuke won't kill the Hatch as intended.
3) You didn't even mention the Moebius upgrade, although I'm sure you assume it'll be obtained. Considering the usefulness of snipe, I'd rate it pretty high on the list of desired upgrades.
I'm sure there's more, but I'm pretty tired and have forgotten anything else I might have wanted to say. Great job, though! I'm sure there are many adjustments that could be made to this build, should people pick it up and fiddle with it.
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I'm beginning to question the viability of actually nuking the zerg's main base. Unless your opponent is a complete noob and thinks radiation is good for his drones life expectancy, you may only end up destroying his extractors, possibly spire and/or spawning pool if you're really lucky. The main problem I have with doing this is the investment in cloaking.
You told us to research it ASAP once the academy goes up. I understand why for timing purposes, but afterwards you need to save energy for snipe if you plan on continuing ghost production. (Which by all means you should.) Cloak will only be used again for nukes. (Which again likely wont succeed if your opponent isn't noobish and gets overseers/spore colonies after the first one.) What if instead of cloak, you researched Moebius reactor right away when the first maruader was still building? Moebius takes 80 sec, a marauder 30 sec, so depending on your macro, it might just finish before your first ghost comes out after 40 sec.
But why fast Moebius research? Well, I'm thinking a hellion, marauder, ghost, and medivac army makes for great pushes vs. a tier 2 zerg. Check this out:
Hellions > Zerglings, Banelings, possibly hydras depending on positioning. (You'll want Infernal Pre-ignitor if zerg is massing ling/bling, so get a second fact at some point if that's the case.)
Maruader > Roaches and zerg buildings. Pretty obvious by now, but with both concussive grenades and stimpack, the tired roach push will routinely fail.
Ghost > Hydras, Mutas because of snipe like you said. This requires extensive micro and unfaltering knowledge of the enemy position however. 1 ghost can snipe 4 hydras, or 2.5 mutas at 200 energy. Ghosts will be your gas dump when getting maruaders and hellions.
And of course, medivacs to compliment the life expectancy of your ghosts and maruaders.
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I have used ghosts in my last few ZvT's. It works really well. If the Z gets mutas, they get sniped by ghosts.
Snipe also works well vs corrupters.
If Z gets sunkens to defend vs the all-in, you nuke.
Really, nuking in general is just a great idea. For 100 minerals/gas your opponent starts to panic, and when nuking in a battle he has only one option: target the ghost.
Targeting the ghost means that the Z is going to lose about a quarter of his army just to get in range, making the nuke effective even if it doesn't go off.
Nuking really allows you to pick your battle because it forces the Z to attack. If he doesn't he loses that base and is devastated.
I was having difficulty in TvZ when the Z gets ling/muta, but I haven't lost vs top 8 plats since I adopted this build.
EDIT: Upgrading cloak early and dropping on the main aren't very good ideas vs higher level players. Nuking works far better vs expos that are defended than on the main because it costs far less. You don't have to wait for cloak and medivac, and your timing push works a lot better because, at that time, Z will be on 2base and just started massing up units rather than drones.
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EPT
