On May 20 2010 02:58 megacake wrote: i've been frustrated with effectiveness vs. terran mech too. Has anyone tried mass (and i mean MASS, like 50-70) bling? could bling combined with roaches to mop up the rest be the answer?
I have no idea why anyone is even entertaining the idea of mass baneling. Baneling are just terrible against siege tanks. They die wonderfully to siege tank range and splash and you can lose 50 baneling to just 5 siege tanks. The units Zerg should be using is really mutalisk and roach. Roach because they're the best ground unit against Hellion, Thor, AND siege tank, and move at 3 speed once upgraded making them a fast unit. Mutalisk because any time Terran is missing Thor support over the rest of the unit composition, everything else mech dies, and is a fast unit.
Well, here's a bit of a case study on how to beat mech with ultralisks. This is a game between Dimaga and Avilo. Avilo starts off with a reaper bunker rush and he transitions into mech. 4-5 thors, a dozen tanks and a lot of vikings.
After losing around 6 games in a row to Terran Mech I've just stopped playing ladder. Mutas, Infestors, Hydras, Lings; all ineffective against that powerful ball of anti-Zerg firepower. Brood Lords take a minimum of 10 minutes to create, and that's with absolutely no costs on units or delaying of tech buildings.
But before that 10 minutes happens, you are getting rolled by the Mech army already made and at your front door.
I just played two games against a meching two times and lost both of them. But I don't think its unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination. I think once a decent stratagy is created and we get used to terran going mech instead of MMM it will balance itself out eventually. Until then we'll just half to tough it out.
maybe there should be an upgrade for banelings that gives them an explosive bonus to mech or armored units...ala, morph to baneling (get upgrade), morph again to ultrabaneling...
On May 20 2010 04:30 Warrior Madness wrote: Well, here's a bit of a case study on how to beat mech with ultralisks. This is a game between Dimaga and Avilo. Avilo starts off with a reaper bunker rush and he transitions into mech. 4-5 thors, a dozen tanks and a lot of vikings.
Perhaps we take a page out of the Protoss strategy guide for Brood War... In order for Protoss to win against Terran mech there was usually successful use of the zealot bomb. Try this with lings and banelings.
You can tech to mutas and send a few in to distract the thors while you drop your bling/ling combo on top of the tanks. Overlord speed is cheap and if you are operating on a couple of bases then you probably will be low on gas but have a mineral abundance so losing an overlord or two does not spell disaster. Send in additional blings and lings once tanks are finished to deal with thors and then go crazy with mutas. What's even better about this tactic is the fact that it only requires lair tech and the resource cost is minimal compared to other possible counters.
This is all theory as I have not tested it out and I'm only in the gold division so the T I play against tend to make more mistakes than the platinum T. However, if I get the chance I will give it a shot, what do we have to lose at this point.
to be honest i'm starting to feel like you guys complain that you can't just walk straight into a line of placed siege tanks roflstomping everything Amoving your big ball of stuff. It's not like toss or terran can. In fact, try to watch a TvT, it usually gets into a boring mexican standoff, where they both have siege tanks, and neither can push towards the enemy lines, so it goes into an air domination match for map control (if it gets past mid game and a critical amount of tanks is reached).
Basically, i don't really see why as zerg you should be able to walk into a goddamn killing field of a 200/200 army with lots of siege tanks just waiting for you to do that and actually come out as the winner.
On May 20 2010 06:40 LeChat wrote: to be honest i'm starting to feel like you guys complain that you can't just walk straight into a line of placed siege tanks roflstomping everything Amoving your big ball of stuff. It's not like toss or terran can. In fact, try to watch a TvT, it usually gets into a boring mexican standoff, where they both have siege tanks, and neither can push towards the enemy lines, so it goes into an air domination match for map control (if it gets past mid game and a critical amount of tanks is reached).
Basically, i don't really see why as zerg you should be able to walk into a goddamn killing field of a 200/200 army with lots of siege tanks just waiting for you to do that and actually come out as the winner.
On May 20 2010 06:40 LeChat wrote: to be honest i'm starting to feel like you guys complain that you can't just walk straight into a line of placed siege tanks roflstomping everything Amoving your big ball of stuff. It's not like toss or terran can. In fact, try to watch a TvT, it usually gets into a boring mexican standoff, where they both have siege tanks, and neither can push towards the enemy lines, so it goes into an air domination match for map control (if it gets past mid game and a critical amount of tanks is reached).
Basically, i don't really see why as zerg you should be able to walk into a goddamn killing field of a 200/200 army with lots of siege tanks just waiting for you to do that and actually come out as the winner.
Because, if you hadn't noticed, zerglings/banelings/ultra's are melee, we need to ram them through the killing field before they can even do anything. Roaches and hydra's simply get outranged by tanks, thus getting slaughtered.
It doesn't matter if you attack in a ball or not, when you get too close to a mechball, everything just dies. How can a zerg fight off a mech ball if it can't even get in range to do ANY damage at all.
On May 20 2010 06:56 Chaosvuistje wrote: [ Roaches and hydra's simply get outranged by tanks, thus getting slaughtered.
Erm. Everything gets outranged by siege tanks. That was exactly my point. That's why neither toss nor terran run their army into a line of sieged tanks, and that's why zerg shouldn't as well.
On May 20 2010 06:40 LeChat wrote: to be honest i'm starting to feel like you guys complain that you can't just walk straight into a line of placed siege tanks roflstomping everything Amoving your big ball of stuff. It's not like toss or terran can. In fact, try to watch a TvT, it usually gets into a boring mexican standoff, where they both have siege tanks, and neither can push towards the enemy lines, so it goes into an air domination match for map control (if it gets past mid game and a critical amount of tanks is reached).
Basically, i don't really see why as zerg you should be able to walk into a goddamn killing field of a 200/200 army with lots of siege tanks just waiting for you to do that and actually come out as the winner.
Yeah, except a 120 supply army terran can ROFLSTOMP a 260~ supply Zerg (yes, im resorting back to when roaches were 1 supply and you coudl literally get 60 more roaches)
Do you see the issue here? OVER 2 X the supply cap, and the Terran's army will still win... Ultralisks would be the only hope, but with my recent tests in builds, the T push comes before more than 3 ultras can come out (3 ultras, and 10 roaches, 20 speedlings wont do ANYTHING to the mech ball) And i've been trying broodlords too... yeah-NO. Thors still do enough to kill them with marine and viking help...
Here are some ideas that I've seen work against the Terran push and later on the maxed Terran army.
Drops. Burrow walking. Broodlords. Overlord bombing (banelings and roaches mainly). Cutting off reinforcements. Backstab. Doomdrop. Muta harrass. Strong early so you can take the map. Abuse his immobility. Snipe Ravens with corruptors and make him use scans to find your 3-6 burrowed roach groups going after individual tanks. Make him siege/unsiege as many times as you have APM to while he's pushing you, always try to flank/run around if possible to delay him even further. Get 3 queens early and start many creep tumors, creep the whole push distance up. Put 2 banelings and 4 lings into scouting overlords and drop them on all his mineral lines. Nydus worm.
I'm a 1900-2000 plat terran and my standard build TvZ is the mech you described. When I lose it's either to tactics (drops everywhere, out positioned, etc) or to late game broodlord/corruptor (which is hard as shit to counter since thors are a joke against corrupter/broodlord so you need many many vikings to stop it)
Yeah, except a 120 supply army terran can ROFLSTOMP a 260~ supply Zerg (yes, im resorting back to when roaches were 1 supply and you coudl literally get 60 more roaches)
Do you see the issue here? OVER 2 X the supply cap, and the Terran's army will still win... Ultralisks would be the only hope, but with my recent tests in builds, the T push comes before more than 3 ultras can come out (3 ultras, and 10 roaches, 20 speedlings wont do ANYTHING to the mech ball) And i've been trying broodlords too... yeah-NO. Thors still do enough to kill them with marine and viking help...
to the point of being boring, i'll write again what i wrote before. When he pushes, he has no way to defend his base. You sneak a few lings even with a drop and demolish his economy. Most important, when he pushes you should have a nice long tongue of creep along the path he has to walk to come into your base and you should by that time have tunneling claws researched. You don't wait for him at a choke, you split your army, and make your roaches engage him from behind, where he won't scan. Bye siege tanks. You can't do that in time? You load your your guys into OL and drop 'em behind him out his field of view. The raven if present, btw unlikely unless you went mutas hydras, PDD's useless against roaches and HSM not that effective, so a T will rely on scans to increase his view or to spot roaches. And he'll do that in front of his tanks. So you pretty much have free reign behind him. And you're on creep, and you have faster units. I see no reason why not to exploit that.
Also, lol @ a 120 T army stomping a 260 Z one.
edit: ah, btw, i play random, so don't take me for some sort of terran taliban
Of course. Hey everyone, listen to LeChat. He's figured out how to counter it when Day9 and other Pro-gamers haven't yet.
Listen pal, none of this drop-harass shit works when he has just one Thor, some Marines and a Hellion sitting in his base while his main force is roflstomping your base and economy. If the harass does manage to somewhat succeed, congrats, you killed 8-9 SCV's while he is murdering your Queen, entire Economy, and Tech buildings.
This isn't a problem of Zerg not being aggressive enough, it's that their units are so buttfucking weak and so incredibly easily countered that they can't do any damage AT ALL. And to even get to that position of out-numbering the mech ball, you must pump drones and expos hard all early game, making early harassment vs. Z a total joke.
On May 20 2010 05:15 nihlon wrote: Solution = Infested terran. Promise.
No, but seriously, maybe we should give it more than a week before we proclaim some unit combos unbeatable? *dunno*
I'm not sure, I saw a different game with 10+ tanks. The only time you could actually get near with ground army is when they are on the move and even that generates only a small window in which you can destroy his critical mass. Assuming he got sufficient thors/rines/other anti air units, it seems quite impossible to approach the tank mass, unless you simply overwhelm from say 5 sides for example.
Onto more theoretical approach, say you got 10 tanks sieged and tanks shoot tactically (dont overkill), 60 damage at the target and around it 30 or 15 dmg. Basically 600 dmg with a reload time of 3 seconds.
Now what kind of army can survive while its moving in? Let's assume the units get within the 13 range of the siege tanks and it takes them 2 seconds for fast units and 5 seconds for slower units (e.g. roach without creep). Obviously the fast units get in fast, but before that they get already 600 dmg spread out over the group, basically any zergling/baneling/drone dies instantly. So what about Hydras? 80 hp, assume it takes them 3 secs to get in close, that obviously means that every hydralisk that was shot directly is close to dead or has died due to aoe, if it survived it will die the next volley. Unless of course we have say 40 hydras coming in. So what about roaches and queens? Maybe 3 shots and most of them are down?
Let's show some videos:
from 3:37 onward, what would you do against that? 48 roaches vs 14 tanks 3 thors, I think the tanks will win hands down. From 8:12 onwards ourk attempts to make a drop. At 8:43 he moves in his roaches closer to the tanks (although I think not all of the tanks are within range) and you see his roaches obliterated within secs. Prior to this he lost a couple loose roaches, so about 30 (he sent in 36 of the roaches with 9 OLs) roaches moved in and died within secs? Obviously Ourk should never let his opponent get so many tanks, but what if you simply couldn't prevent it?
I saw another perfect video that illustrated how massive armies of Zerg die to about 12 tanks and a thor when stationary, but when moving die to zerg. I just can't seem to find it, but remember a couple things: it was on Blistering sands with terran left corner (I thought it was TLO but not sure), and zerg right corner. The game goes on for a while with the Zerg focussing roach+hydra, while Terran gets 1/2 thors, 10-12 tanks, couple hellions and about 8 vikings. The first battle was onesided win for Terran that had a lot of scvs repairing the tanks and hellions that were attacking the '4th' expansion of Zerg (bottom right, not the gold). Many roaches were obliterated within seconds that tried to flank the tanks. The zerg manages eventually to get a lot of his units back (simply cuz he had 4 bases and terran just 2) and kills off the terran but didnt defeat him. Not much later on, the Terran had a similar build basically but didnt have any scvs repairing and the zerg overran him. As the Terran was out of resources, he gave up. Ive been looking everywhere on youtube but I just can't seem to find it.
EPT
