|
First: I'm bad. I'm in gold league.
Now to my question, I find it hard to attack a Terran opponent that has a lot of siege tanks (5+) sieged everywhere, especially on maps that have the cliff/high-ground advantage.
When I see this I have tried to get void rays (is this proper?) because they are the only you that can hard counter them, but I find them not cost-effective against marines (which the Terran player will usually pump out as well). Stims and medivacs really hurt the expensive void rays, and I cannot get my ground force in effectively because of the siege tanks. Collosi do not out-range a sieged tank, right (with the extended thermal lance upgrade)?
Recently, as soon as I see more than 3 tanks I will research Zealot charge and I have found them MUCH more effective not only in terms of damage, but also in terms of resources. I will try to proxy them somewhere close to the enemy, or in a corner behind their base so that I can kill a few tanks before the enemy's main army comes.
Is this the right choice? Or am I supposed to get better with void rays?
Thank you!
|
Even in Dimoand ive been destorying protoss players with a Siege tank ghost combo. Void rays would be very good. But the Best you can probley do is High templars unless they have sensor towers which they probley wont since your in gold. If they are bunched up use high templars storm.
|
Thanks for that idea! I will try that! But usually they are lined up, fairly separated on along a cliff, or they are spread throughout the base to defend critical spots... 
|
Phx's to lift up the tanks + chargelots, with HTs later to take out the marines.
Mass void ray does work if he makes too many tanks/marauders and not enough marines, but this is late late game I wouldn't try to mass void rays early on.
Immortals work if they don't have ghosts or a ton of marines. Another thing you can do is research hallucinate and use hallucinated immortals to tank for your chargelots.
But usually the safest route is to just try to outmacro the terran, and catch them when they are moving their army to take an expo.
|
Sweden33719 Posts
If he's making marine/tank, I actually think mass colossus are pretty good, as his marines will die way too quick, and his army will be really immobile.
The problem is that tank/viking should pretty much rape this.
Best way to deal with mass tanks is probably to just not fight him - use a lot of warp prism harass (dts are nice in this role for midgame) and get some void rays. Phoenix might be worth a try as well, but if his combo is tank marine, I'm unsure of how good it is.
Expand a lot, and at different places on the map - mech is slow, warp in is fast. Force fielding expansion ramps is pretty nice for holding off pushes on maps like LT while you commit to counter attacking or warping in stuff in his main.
An idea worth exploring would be avoiding taking your natural and instead expanding to another main or an island, to give him less easy push targets.
|
Blink stalkers are the best answer if you are having trouble reaching the tanks. If he is relying on open ground or is slow pushing, then I would use a combination of immortals and chargelots.
The other thing is you can just have a big ground army and catch him out of position when he is pushing. I used to think that a Terran player who had enough time to build up tanks would roll my Colossi, but that isn't so. If you can beat his economy (Not that hard considering tanks provide little map control), then a big group of Colossi will melt tanks anyways. Colossi are pretty fast and have a lot of health, so when you attack he has to choose what he wants to kill, Colossi or your ground army.
|
Sweden33719 Posts
On June 02 2010 06:33 Percutio wrote:
Blinks stalkers are the best answer if you are having trouble reaching the tanks. If he is relying on open ground or is slow pushing, then I would use a combination of immortals and chargelots.
The other thing is you can just have a big ground army and catch him out of position when he is pushing. I used to think that a Terran player who had enough time to build up tanks would roll my Colossi, but that isn't so. If you can beat his economy (Not that hard considering tanks provide little map control), then a big group of Colossi will melt tanks anyways. Colossi are pretty fast and have a lot of health, so when you attack he has to choose what he wants to kill, Colossi or your ground army.
Agree with everything here. Colossi are really strong as long as you can catch him while he's re-sieging, and due to their range+strength (and the fact that siege tanks only have their max range with spotters), it will sort of force the terran to either commit all tanks at once (as having just a few in range will mean those tanks die, then the colossi retreat), or get vikings.
Blink is excellent for constantly killing add-ons and other important buildings whenever a T tries to move out. Very annoying and the stalkers are so fast they are hard to catch for a meching player (no marauder slow, no spider mines).
|
Typically if you try to push against siege tank compositions on maps where the main/nat are easy to defend you're going to lose unless your composition is perfect. I've had a couple games on LT where I flat out refused to attack even with like a 50 food advantage because its just so goddamn expensive to attack a sieged up army.
Depending on the situation you either want to go with the advice elsewhere in this thread - namely, attacking only when the T tries to take another base and is thus forced to move, or just outmacroing and getting a fuckton of production buildings up to rapidly replace losses.
If the T turtles really hardcore you can slowly build up a bunch of carriers to whittle away at tanks while you wait for the T to mine himself out, but this probably wont work against good Ts.
|
On June 02 2010 06:30 FrozenArbiter wrote:
If he's making marine/tank, I actually think mass colossus are pretty good, as his marines will die way too quick, and his army will be really immobile.
The problem is that tank/viking should pretty much rape this.
Best way to deal with mass tanks is probably to just not fight him - use a lot of warp prism harass (dts are nice in this role for midgame) and get some void rays. Phoenix might be worth a try as well, but if his combo is tank marine, I'm unsure of how good it is.
Expand a lot, and at different places on the map - mech is slow, warp in is fast. Force fielding expansion ramps is pretty nice for holding off pushes on maps like LT while you commit to counter attacking or warping in stuff in his main.
An idea worth exploring would be avoiding taking your natural and instead expanding to another main or an island, to give him less easy push targets.
PvT vs siege tanks right now is a huge, huge problem, and I'm going to explain why. There are two variations to a tank heavy build that I see. The first is to make tanks, hellions, and vikings, and the second is to make tanks, marines, and vikings.
This can be beat with a unit composition of colossi, phoenixes, stalkers, zealots, immortals. The exact ratio you use I am not totally sure on, but the theory behind this is really easy. When you see tanks first being made, you need to add a stargate and start making phoenixes, it's critical that when he does push out that you have a lot of phoenix's to lift up the tanks. Phoenixes don't take much damage from vikings, so you will be able to get lifts on the tanks, and that should take care of the majority of his tank army for now. Your colossi will rip up the marines very, very quickly, you only need four seconds or so to completely decimate them. After that, you can re-lift tanks with your remaining phoenix's and then move in the rest of your army.
So what's the problem? The problem is if you opponent makes siege tanks, hellions, and vikings, you're going to in a lot of trouble. For the above strategy to work, you have to add a stargate and pump phoenix from the beginning of the game, once you know he is doing a siege tank build. If you try this versus siege tank, hellion, and vikings, it will fail really bad. The problem is that colossi and your regular army can't tear through hellions quick enough. Colossi don't hit as many because hellions are bigger, and they have more HP. You can move in with phoenix's and lift tanks, but you won't be able to get through the rest of his army in time before the tanks land, and when they do, your army is going to get smashed.
So what works versus siege tank, hellions, and vikings? Nothing. I have played over twenty games with a practice partner and he has not lost a single game, and we have tried every possible combination. Siege tanks simply destroy every thing on the ground when you hit a certain number of them (~15). Vikings also do not lose to anything in the air that Protoss can offer. Vikings beat void rays, they are even with carriers, and while they lose slightly to phoenixes in even cost, phoenixes aren't going to help you deal with the actual tank force. Every possible combination I have tried, and every possible combination has failed. Open up unit tester and try different mixtures yourself, as long as you give the Terran ~15 tanks, nothing will come close to winning.
The weakness of the Terran tank army is mobility, I could easily imagine in a game being able to harass their base with blink stalkers when they move out too far away from their main, or just counter their expansions when they push you a la SC:BW. However you still have to deal with their army at some point, and you simply cannot. The only strategies I have been able to think of are to either avoid their army and try to destroy their ability to rebuild, and then have carriers building some where on the map. Carriers will be an even resource count of vikings slightly, and I suppose if the Terran couldn't replenish, you would win the game.
The other strategy would be to not let Terran get to a critical number of tanks, unfortunately they can do this off of two base. I've tried strategies of blinking in to a Terran's base to whittle down their tank numbers, but this doesn't work very well either. The best strategy is to simply rush the Terran and kill them that way, before the option of massing tanks even opens itself up.
In Starcraft PvT, the Terran ball was very hard to kill too, when they had 3-3 upgrades it was a very difficult battle. However stasis and good flanking ensured that you could whittle it down, unfortunately that isn't possible for SC II, you cannot even effectively take away a third of their army while sacrificing your own. I am completely out of options for this style of play and I have yet to see a replay of how to properly deal with this.
|
As a terran player I can tell you that I very much fear early-mid timing pushes with an immortal and a colossus or two, coming in right before I start to get my critical mass of tanks/ghosts.
Once I get six or seven tanks I feel pretty safe. Tanks are pretty immobile, I find there's almost always one little corner of my base I can't really afford to defend and I just have to hope toss doesn't find it. Really great terran players will probably be able to cover every thing a bit better then, but for 90% of the crappy terran players on diamond ladder (like me) you can probably find a hole somewhere and abuse it.
Oh yeah, and phoenixes can lift up siege mode tanks so if the terran doesn't have enough marines ,tanks, or vikings you can pick up all of his tanks and push in. You'll be amazed how badly you destroy him when most of the resources he spent on his army are floating up in the air. I have gotten WRECKED like this before so it is something to consider.
Even if he takes out your phoenixes it will give you time to close the distance and take out the rest of his army, especially if you have a good number of phoenixes.
|
On June 02 2010 14:48 SpicyCrab wrote:
As a terran player I can tell you that I very much fear early-mid timing pushes with an immortal and a colossus or two, coming in right before I start to get my critical mass of tanks/ghosts.
Once I get six or seven tanks I feel pretty safe. Tanks are pretty immobile, I find there's almost always one little corner of my base I can't really afford to defend and I just have to hope toss doesn't find it. Really great terran players will probably be able to cover every thing a bit better then, but for 90% of the crappy terran players on diamond ladder (like me) you can probably find a whole somewhere and abuse it.
Oh yeah, and phoenixes can lift up siege mode tanks so if the terran doesn't have enough marines ,tanks, or vikings you can pick up all of his tanks and push in. You'll be amazed how badly you destroy him when most of the resources he spent on his army are floating up in the air. I have gotten WRECKED like this before so it is something to consider.
Even if he takes out your phoenixes it will give you time to close the game and take out the rest of his army, especially if you have a good number of phoenixes.
The best way to kill a Terran that is looking to go for a siege tank style of play is to kill them quickly. Blink stalkers and immortals can do a decent push against Terran, and that is what I favour PvT right now, because late game is a lost cause. Phoenixes can lift up the siege tanks, and that is viable versus a marine/tank/viking opening, but it will fail badly against a hellion opening. If the Terran is poor enough to not make enough vikings then you probably could have won numerous other ways as well.
|
Many options, see how white ra does it vs maka, hidden stargate void ray.
other builds include 5 x phoenix and zealot spam to win.
|
On June 02 2010 14:52 Salv wrote:
Blink stalkers and immortals can do a decent push against Terran
They can have siege mode before these two techs are finished. MAYBE you could pull it off if you go some suicidal hardcore tech build which would die to one marauder and a marine early on. My timing might be very off though. This is just my experience.
On the subject, I have tried MANY many builds against a good few terran practice partners. What I have discovered is that a stargate is almost necessary...not matter what. Phoenix is crucial vs tanks. Without them, good luck unless you catch the T EXTREMELY out of position. Also, 4 gate push is pretty good against terran doing 1/1/1. It's definitely a tough thing to go against though, at least for me.
|
I've had a fair bit of trouble with this too, and the best strategy I've found is
1) Poke early and contain. Until he has seige tech he usually won't be able to push out (when he does you have to back off). While doing this...
2) Expand like a no one's business. Like FrozenArbiter said, he's slow, you're fast. Get a macro advantage.
3) Plant an obs at his front door and a Warp prism at his back. Poke with the warp earlier if you want, but when you see him moving out and you can't get in position in time, drop 3 zealots in his base and destroy his mineral line. He'll pull back and you can get into position for the next time he moves out.
I still can't beat it head on, but I don't think its the kind of build you're supposed to take head on.
|
As a low-diamond terran player I have to say fighting against toss with like 4-5 phoenixes (Combined with a normal toss army - colossus/immortal/gateway units) can be a pain in the ass with the lift-off ability. It takes a well-placed EMP to counter, which can be tough since the toss usually is the one engaging when your tanks are set up. My two cents.
|
Later on you can mass voidrays + HTs with storm. On high level 2v2 this combination is frequently used, luckily enough not in 1v1. That combination beats everything that terran has, the marines get melted away with storm, vikings clump up in battle so storm is also very effective versus them, and the rest is raped by the voidray, especially if you catch him with his guard down and he doens't have mass vikings yet (the only remotely viable counter).
|
The biggest problem for me when I play against terran is when T starts to get ravens and drops down the drone defense, pretty much making my stalkers completely useless. I've played my friend about 20 times and one of the only ways to really slow him down is constant zealot harass as early as possible. Skipping the gas and going straight 2 gate off the bat and just pounding his base. The drawback of this is that on 4 player maps it will take longer to get to his base. From there on out I think you just need to out expand T and prevent them from expanding. Oh and my friend throws up towers constantly around his siege tanks, it's literally a moving wall of defense and slowly squeezes me out.
|
Have to 2nd that hallucination. It's cheap and quick to tech up. FF aren't that good vs mech armies, so sentries are kinda useless. Even guardian shields don't do much since mech tend to have high base dmg. Make a bunch of fake immortals and bum rush them in front follow by heaps of charge lots and whatever else u want, colossus or HT. The point of all this is whatever u do, just make sure ur zealots survive til they get into melee range. Once in, tanks will splash their own armies.
|
On June 02 2010 14:29 Salv wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 02 2010 06:30 FrozenArbiter wrote:
If he's making marine/tank, I actually think mass colossus are pretty good, as his marines will die way too quick, and his army will be really immobile.
The problem is that tank/viking should pretty much rape this.
Best way to deal with mass tanks is probably to just not fight him - use a lot of warp prism harass (dts are nice in this role for midgame) and get some void rays. Phoenix might be worth a try as well, but if his combo is tank marine, I'm unsure of how good it is.
Expand a lot, and at different places on the map - mech is slow, warp in is fast. Force fielding expansion ramps is pretty nice for holding off pushes on maps like LT while you commit to counter attacking or warping in stuff in his main.
An idea worth exploring would be avoiding taking your natural and instead expanding to another main or an island, to give him less easy push targets. PvT vs siege tanks right now is a huge, huge problem, and I'm going to explain why. There are two variations to a tank heavy build that I see. The first is to make tanks, hellions, and vikings, and the second is to make tanks, marines, and vikings. This can be beat with a unit composition of colossi, phoenixes, stalkers, zealots, immortals. The exact ratio you use I am not totally sure on, but the theory behind this is really easy. When you see tanks first being made, you need to add a stargate and start making phoenixes, it's critical that when he does push out that you have a lot of phoenix's to lift up the tanks. Phoenixes don't take much damage from vikings, so you will be able to get lifts on the tanks, and that should take care of the majority of his tank army for now. Your colossi will rip up the marines very, very quickly, you only need four seconds or so to completely decimate them. After that, you can re-lift tanks with your remaining phoenix's and then move in the rest of your army. So what's the problem? The problem is if you opponent makes siege tanks, hellions, and vikings, you're going to in a lot of trouble. For the above strategy to work, you have to add a stargate and pump phoenix from the beginning of the game, once you know he is doing a siege tank build. If you try this versus siege tank, hellion, and vikings, it will fail really bad. The problem is that colossi and your regular army can't tear through hellions quick enough. Colossi don't hit as many because hellions are bigger, and they have more HP. You can move in with phoenix's and lift tanks, but you won't be able to get through the rest of his army in time before the tanks land, and when they do, your army is going to get smashed. So what works versus siege tank, hellions, and vikings? Nothing. I have played over twenty games with a practice partner and he has not lost a single game, and we have tried every possible combination. Siege tanks simply destroy every thing on the ground when you hit a certain number of them (~15). Vikings also do not lose to anything in the air that Protoss can offer. Vikings beat void rays, they are even with carriers, and while they lose slightly to phoenixes in even cost, phoenixes aren't going to help you deal with the actual tank force. Every possible combination I have tried, and every possible combination has failed. Open up unit tester and try different mixtures yourself, as long as you give the Terran ~15 tanks, nothing will come close to winning. The weakness of the Terran tank army is mobility, I could easily imagine in a game being able to harass their base with blink stalkers when they move out too far away from their main, or just counter their expansions when they push you a la SC:BW. However you still have to deal with their army at some point, and you simply cannot. The only strategies I have been able to think of are to either avoid their army and try to destroy their ability to rebuild, and then have carriers building some where on the map. Carriers will be an even resource count of vikings slightly, and I suppose if the Terran couldn't replenish, you would win the game. The other strategy would be to not let Terran get to a critical number of tanks, unfortunately they can do this off of two base. I've tried strategies of blinking in to a Terran's base to whittle down their tank numbers, but this doesn't work very well either. The best strategy is to simply rush the Terran and kill them that way, before the option of massing tanks even opens itself up. In Starcraft PvT, the Terran ball was very hard to kill too, when they had 3-3 upgrades it was a very difficult battle. However stasis and good flanking ensured that you could whittle it down, unfortunately that isn't possible for SC II, you cannot even effectively take away a third of their army while sacrificing your own. I am completely out of options for this style of play and I have yet to see a replay of how to properly deal with this.
Carriers do not beat vikings in equal cost, they've got to have an advantage in cost or upgrades to win.
A carrier does beat 3 vikings, but this is only because the carrier deals his full DPS all the time, while an army of carriers will lose DPS as it's being damaged, since some of the carriers will be destroyed.
For example: 3 carriers vs 9 vikings is a win for the vikings with 3 of them surviving.
|
I played a terran yesterday that did everything right during his late game push. I had him contained for the rest of the game but couldn't stop the push on LT.
After I lost for being dumb and thinking i had an opening when i really dint... i started thinking a little.
- He can't move freely.
- His expos are almost empty. DTs can kill a planetary fortress or all its workers ridiculously fast.
- If he's tanks are out of position for even a little bit you can send in 3:4 ratio of phoenix and rape his entire army then proceed to kill the tanks
- If its late into the game suiciding a mothership into his tank cluster to vortex is huge.
- If its REALLY late into the game you can even recall into his base to kill production buildings Send your mothership back and recall again to prevent a base trade situation
All these things have 1 thing in common. You need to know exactly where he is or rather where his tanks are. That was prolly my biggest mistake. I should've kept like 3 observers flying around his army constantly to keep me informed of where his tanks and infantry were at all times.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
