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As of right now, I don't have video demonstrations, but if anyone could help me out with it I would be appreciated.
Right now, the problem in many matchups is breaking the tank line. Tanks are strong, right? Too strong? Well, I'll leave that up for balance discussions (and this is not one).
So, how do we break tank lines? First I would like to present a list of facts to get the mind going, then some of my own examples of cute micro techniques that should be used more often to exploit SC2's mechanics.
1) In BW, the mechanics of the game were exploited to break tank lines. Dropping a zealot made tanks over kill and instantly kill it. Stasis was a powerful way of doing so. Mine dragging was the most awesome way to do so (that's a fact).
2) SC2 could use some development in exploitation of game mechanics vs tanks. As of right now, it seems tough due to the "smart AI". But there are some features that can still be used against the tanks.
3) Tanks still do friendly fire damage and with 1.1 they will still be doing the same amount of damage to tanks and marauders.
4)A large problem in many matchups tends to be the marine tank push.
So, with these in mind, what are some things we can do? Here are some I've come up with:
1) Infested Tarran Drop (I call it IT Drop for short to make it sound like a technical problem): Simple, burrow your infester, snipe tanks and marines by plopping infested Tarran into the bunches/clumps to cause friendly fire, and retreat. This I have used successfully. Unburrowed (or detected) lets you fire once but lose the infester.
2) Single Roach Plop! (Plop him!): Send one roach in, unburrow in a nice clump for damage. Have one close behind to follow up. This can be used to snipe marines in front as he will usually scan.
What failed:
3) Single Stalker Blink: That's what I said, a single stalker. Blink it into the clumps. You're exploiting the mechanic that it will only be shot while in range, and it will also cause splash damage. Well, with one stalker, you're not causing splash damage to yourself, but to him. The problem? You cannot blink into the clump as it will send you to the outside... also the range isn't enough.
Any other ideas? Of course warp prism is one that will get thrown around, but remember that this isn't BW so Tarrans will have a bunch of anti-air (marines) with their tank push, making shuttles less of an option.
EDIT: For the most part, assume this is the Tarran midgame push. Probably won't have collosi out, chances of having HTs are slim, but you have to stop this big push.
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Drops are less of an option, sure, but marines aren't everywhere. dropping on vulnerable tanks does quite well. I'm protoss, so my field of expertise is of the toss, but I've found the best way to stop tanks is to simply lead attacks with single units, and mid-battle, spread them out. Blink stalkers to the side to let zealots and immortals through, research charge, and space out small groups of units during the fight.
beyond that, VR's do well, and phoenixes have a nice ability to pick up tanks. They will probably die, but every second tanks aren't firing counts, and it really helps.
Finally, Archons are great tank-soaks. it takes a tank 8 shots to kill an archon, so if you have no immortals, Archons help.
But with that said, it just comes down to micro. Don't attack move tanks. ever. Keeping that in mind has saved me countless times.
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Breaking the tank line can be done as zerg with bling drops, but its important that you draw the infantry outta position first, whether by faking a retreat, dangling high valued units just outside of range, or by forcing him to retreat with harassment of the mineral line. As zerg, however, at least until the patch, I recommend NOT "breaking" the tank line. I recommend keeping an eye on where his army is by spreading the creep and positioning yourself to flank him with ling/bling/infestor when he moves out or harassing his minerals when he moves out. I wouldnt recommend running into the tank line as Zerg, unless you have some crazy idea. Infestors with Neural parasite on the tanks work wonders if there isnt too many tanks.
Breaking the tank line as Toss is best done with a stargate. Phoenixes and Void Rays are great for tanks. Charging in with chargelots while picking up tanks with phoenixes is a very potent tactic. I'd recommend scouting out for reactor starports after you do this and warping in an appropriate number of stalkers.
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Actually dropping zealots is pretty good still, on tanks, it will be even better once the tank damage goes down. I was thinking about getting ~3-4 warp prisms full of immortals, and move dropping them, while engaging with your main army. The problem is tank lines are usually protected by vikings. A large tank ball (12+) will melt pretty much anything, so probably the best policy is to attack everywhere else, abusing pylons and warp prisms to hell.
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Warp Prisms are paper compared to Shuttles, so they are not viable usually. A better option would be Hallucinating units and walking them into Tank lines or unit clumps, which is what Blizzard probably intended.
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Ultralisks/roach, and zerglings.
I'm assuming air isn't an option for whatever reason. Otherwise, mutalisk obviously.
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most tanks either have alot of maruders or marines with them, if they have alot of maurders use mutas, or as toss use Phoenixes, they can pick up the tanks and you can bring in the chargelots, if they havnt gotten alot tanks up yet immortals in the front lines should be effective enough.
if they have more marines then the zerglings/banlings combo should work, (infestors if you got 'em) or as toss chargelots just seem like a overall good idea against siege tank lines.
if you can try and get around the army and force them to unseige by attacking a undefended area or just try and catch them unseiged by useing the observor
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dont break the tank line attack when they unseige
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On August 31 2010 09:58 Chronopolis wrote:
Actually dropping zealots is pretty good still, on tanks, it will be even better once the tank damage goes down. I was thinking about getting ~3-4 warp prisms full of immortals, and move dropping them, while engaging with your main army. The problem is tank lines are usually protected by vikings. A large tank ball (12+) will melt pretty much anything, so probably the best policy is to attack everywhere else, abusing pylons and warp prisms to hell.
lol really? 3 or 4 warp prisms full of immortals? If you have enough resources and production time to somehow fill 4 warp prisms with immortals and not even have to call it your "main army," you might as well a-move all 8 of those immortals into the siege line and take the game by sheer overwhelming force.
By that same logic, 20 carriers will also break a siege line.
EDIT: Re-reading that, I hope what you really meant is 3-4 warp prisms full of zealots. I'm still against getting 3-4 warp prisms out of a robo bay instead of observers, collosi, and immortals, but I think you meant to type "zealots," which would be much more reasonable.
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hmm, the infestor thing sounds cool, i will try this next time on the ladder, but yeah just today i pushed in with my main force and had roaches/lings dropped onto the tank line and i barely won, so it wasnt that effective.
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really, if it's just marine/tanks, muta/ling/bling can pretty much charge right in and blow it apart if you come in from a some different directions.
probably much more difficult for toss; you'd need to send in immortals/archons and what not to soak and hopefully snag some storms in too.
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On August 31 2010 11:24 dave333 wrote:
really, if it's just marine/tanks, muta/ling/bling can pretty much charge right in and blow it apart if you come in from a some different directions.
probably much more difficult for toss; you'd need to send in immortals/archons and what not to soak and hopefully snag some storms in too.
Archons seem like a costly way to deal with seige tanks. with only two range and there splash damage most likly not affecting the other tanks dont see it being very effective. Blink stalkers or chargelots seem like a better route to go and have better perks in the long run. BTW sorry if im completly wrong I only played beta
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I do not remember what replay I saw this on.
If the tank line is that thick, I assume there are lots of tanks already.
As terran, they dropped nukes on the tanks.
If they did not unsieged, they got hit by the nuke. If they did, there is your small window/chance to attack.
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It was TLO on Steppes of War, I believe. I don't remember his opponent though (but was obviously Terran).
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Protoss has it easier when it comes to breaking the tank line.
Hallucination assuming it's an early tank contain and he hasn't opted for a raven or turrets
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On August 31 2010 12:13 ocdscale wrote:
It was TLO on Steppes of War, I believe. I don't remember his opponent though (but was obviously Terran).
I'm pretty sure TLO did it a couple times during the NaDa showmatch.
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This stupid trick is completely worthless in a real game situation unlike fazing... I have no idea how the thread lasted that long.
ANYWAY, I have been learning more and more how to deal with a solid tank build up, and even before the patch I have finally figured it out. When the patch comes out it will be even easier.
Chargelot/HT/Immortal, in a nutshell. Chargelots first, followed by HT and Immortals. No Immortals don't go first. With the change to the patch, HT and Zealots will take an additional hit to bring down. Storm his Marines, and above all, storm his clumps of tanks. Chargelots following around his infantry will encourage friendly fire, combined with Storm, they will all die very quickly. Make sure to morph in Archons when out of energy (they take a TON of fire from tanks... 11 shots next patch). Send your Immortals in on an attack waypoint on the tanks (they should all be low HP from storm) then mop up the infantry.
This actually has made me think about the viability of Archons vs Tanks... Hooo hummm...
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On August 31 2010 16:01 Zanez.smarty wrote:This stupid trick is completely worthless in a real game situation unlike fazing... I have no idea how the thread lasted that long. ANYWAY, I have been learning more and more how to deal with a solid tank build up, and even before the patch I have finally figured it out. When the patch comes out it will be even easier. Chargelot/HT/Immortal, in a nutshell. Chargelots first, followed by HT and Immortals. No Immortals don't go first. With the change to the patch, HT and Zealots will take an additional hit to bring down. Storm his Marines, and above all, storm his clumps of tanks. Chargelots following around his infantry will encourage friendly fire, combined with Storm, they will all die very quickly. Make sure to morph in Archons when out of energy (they take a TON of fire from tanks... 11 shots next patch). Send your Immortals in on an attack waypoint on the tanks (they should all be low HP from storm) then mop up the infantry. This actually has made me think about the viability of Archons vs Tanks... Hooo hummm...
wow, you're a real dick aren't ya? completely worthless trick? I'm not sure you understand the full mechanics of starcraft...
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TvT, just an idea here, not tried it yet.
Assuming your against a standard marine/tank/viking etc.. EMP orbital(s) and send a few banshees into the siege line and move in the rest of your army once it's safe. It's potentially game winning if it could work, the problems would be an enemy raven or if he realises what your up to and pushes and expensive, but if you can keep your plans secret it would work, assuming it sounds viable.
It's only an idea anyway, any thoughts?
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On August 31 2010 18:58 Supersrsbnz wrote:
TvT, just an idea here, not tried it yet.
Assuming your against a standard marine/tank/viking etc.. EMP orbital(s) and send a few banshees into the siege line and move in the rest of your army once it's safe. It's potentially game winning if it could work, the problems would be an enemy raven or if he realises what your up to and pushes and expensive, but if you can keep your plans secret it would work, assuming it sounds viable.
It's only an idea anyway, any thoughts?
I don't play with Terran, well at least not this long  I either did Reaper rush then won or lost right after that.
But I was thinking, you don't even need to EMP his base. Take your Banshees (+-5 by this time I think.) and target a tank then fly away as soon as they fire. This is will only cause one of two things - immediately building a raven or comsat scanning (which wastes energy) or this will make him push through, which if I can picture this correctly - should allow your banshees to take over and build loads of Marines or Marauders in the base.
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EPT
