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On October 12 2010 13:41 zbedlam wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 13:28 noD wrote:
The problem is never macroing, the prob is get a 200/200 supply, terran will lose to P and probably to Z (except for bizarre combinations like 15 ravens with hsm or 25 cloaked banshees .... Pretty sure 200/200 terran with marines/thors and vikings if the zerg is using broodlords will at least come out even with any zerg 200/200 army. The reason terrans lose their lategames to zerg normally is they spent the first 20 minutes focusing on killing the zerg instead of building SCV's/expanding. If the zerg does manage to survive this period they are generally ahead.
This relates to all of this and there is a small yet hugely important distinction that is being missed. Terran 200/200 will fare well against a zerg or protoss 200/200, protoss will be slightly stronger, zerg will be slightly weaker. The problem however as I see it and what makes me wonder if I as a macro player will even stay terran for much longer is that it does not matter if the three races are balanced at 200/200 because once your armies clash, even if you trade of precisely equally. You both loose your entire army, zerg and protoss can get BACK to 200/200 way way faster and can tech-switch way easier.
In zergs case you don't even have to come out even after the battle, in a lategame situation zerg can literally suicide the entire army into terran and loose all of it and even if terran retains 25% of the army and stands victorious after the battle, terran will get crushed by the next wave of units, now back at 200/200 and vastly tailored by unit composition to clean up.
Its the long production times and the need to tie production buildings down into the very separate Barracks, Starport and Factory that screws terran lategame macro up.
Even if you as terran do some 1-1-1 build that extends throughout the entire game where you retain an exact balance between raxes, factories and ports. That still means that you can only tech-switch at one third of magnitude that zerg can.
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1) Build Orbital Commands
2) Call Down Mules
3) ?????????/
4) profit
User was temp banned for this post.
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It is true that 200/200 Terran should be able to beat 200/200 Zerg easily (with proper unit composition), BUT if both sides are left alone to macro up Z will reach it much sooner than the T will. It might be like 200/200 Z vs 150/200 T, at which point the Z will start to throw armies away and chip away at the Terran ball and rebuild them quickly while continuing to expand. Also, the TvZ matchup hasn't changed that much from BW. You had to put pressure on Z there as well or just get rolled by 5-6 gas ultra/defiler/cracklings.
TvP on the other hand, I do think that P has a slight advantage in late game due to colossi/storm although they can be individually countered by vikings/EMP respectively. This is the matchup that has changed since BW, with Terrans usually being the aggressor in SC2 early-mid game.
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On October 12 2010 13:41 zbedlam wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 13:28 noD wrote:
The problem is never macroing, the prob is get a 200/200 supply, terran will lose to P and probably to Z (except for bizarre combinations like 15 ravens with hsm or 25 cloaked banshees .... Pretty sure 200/200 terran with marines/thors and vikings if the zerg is using broodlords will at least come out even with any zerg 200/200 army. The reason terrans lose their lategames to zerg normally is they spent the first 20 minutes focusing on killing the zerg instead of building SCV's/expanding. If the zerg does manage to survive this period they are generally ahead.
Can't say I agree with marine/thor (aka baneling/infestor soup) vs any zerg army. There really is no terran comp that comes out even with (or better than) every zerg comp. And even if there was, the beauty of late game macro zerg is that they can reproduce that max food army at a vastly superior rate.
In the end I'd say Idra is correct, and though I've always considered terran the easiest to play mechanically (I'm a 1300 terran), I can certainly see his point regarding the difficulty in playing an aggressive / harassment based style (decision making, strong multitasking).
In terms of why he says the other (macro-oriented) races can overwhelm terran in the late game... I'd say iEchoic, PanzerKing, and noveyak summed it up the best.
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The problem with FEing as T in ZvT, from a Zerg perspective, is you're going to still have to apply the same pressure on the Z to avoid being run over. The point that you're run over on 2 bases, though, will be around ~100 food instead of later, as Z can just produce astronomical numbers of drones when they see that you Expo'd early. At that point, they just trade armies and/or kill you and take a 3rd. Z eco, left to its own devices, just destroys T's. Additionally, Banelings are absurdly cost effective against the only units T can really mass until lategame. The onus is on the T, even when he expo's, to hamstring the Z's income.
Just my opinion, of course. I don't play T.
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IMO terran must be played aggressively in SC2 or they will have a lot of trouble against both zerg and protoss. They don't have an endgame army anything close to the 3/3 mech from Brood War. Unit tester may or may not favor terran armies, but the ability of protoss to warp in 75 energy templars anywhere with pylons, and the ability of zerg to rebuild their army in a minute, means that terran lacks the ability to sustain a powerful lategame push.
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Yes it can, absolutely. *Waiting for the next iloveoov*
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In TvP it's basically death if you aim to take it to the long game. The warp in-mechanics and the super strong late game units (HT's with +25 energy & Colossus) are ridiculously cost effective once you start dipping into the late game. Tanks are not as good as they were in BW, having 6-10 tanks in your lategame army might actually hurt you more than help you in a 200 vs 200 in TvP. Trading armies is always a huge risk in a lategame TvP for the terran, at least on smaller maps like blistering sands or steppes, whereas protoss can have 10-15 units instantly replenished and CB any other tech unit they need to produce, while T has to macro back up from the start.
TvZ lategame is kind of the same, if you trade armies in TvZ lategame you've already put yourself on the backfoot. While Zerg units are not instant, you can get more of them in a short period of time, so a lategame TvZ fight almost exclusively has to end in favor of the Terran in order for them to keep up.
This is why Terran is played with a sort of "in your face" style right now, in both TvZ and TvP, the longer the game goes, the less cost effective the terrans are. Mules are a great way to maintain an economic lead/staying on the same level while harassing, but they are not all that great if you've just lost your entire army. Inject larva and CB both play important roles in long drawn out macro games. They allow you replenish a lot faster.
There is of course the exception of mech in TvZ, a mech army if composed & upgraded right, can be extremely cost effective. Although that comes at the cost of no mobility at all except for hellion harass. Which is why Mech really only excells on maps where you basically don't have to move around a whole lot to engage your opponent head on, and there's not much room for flanking / countering(Xel Naga, Steppes, Blistering). Mech TvP is just... not good.
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in BW terran had 70-dmg tanks and 125-dmg mines with 20-dmg vultures. it also had 20-dmg anti-air static D for only 75 min. i'm not saying any of this is unfair, but these tools are perfect for turtling. so no matter how hard protoss or zerg macros, terran is able to fend off attacks. now, with the absence of mines, the horrid damage of tanks, and charge, terran simply is not able to set up a reliable method of defense to carry out its macro game. for the same reasons mentioned, mech is weakened to the extent where bio is actually more effective in dealing with protoss than mech is. tie all this in with the newly-introduced medivac, and you have yourself a race that benefits much more by harassing than by turtling and macroing.
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You can't play macro styled Terran in sc2 in T v Z or T v P in high level play. This is a fact.
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Define 'macro styled'.
If you mean 'I'm not going to move out of here until I have 4 saturated bases, with plenty of dudes, upgrades, production structures and tech', then yeah. Terran totally cannot do that anymore. They have to pressure and attack and harass whilst they establish a macro position. They advance down their tech too fast for it to be allowed to be powerful enough to promote macro play. Nothing wrong with that.
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terran can be played macro style on any map that is largely considered zerg favored due to a free expansion
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Idra kind of annoys me when he talks about TvZ it seems like he wants Terran to try to out macro a zerg player rather than harass. The only problem is that is not really possible, and if it is possible, than zerg is much stronger late game with ultras in the mix. Basically the kid wants Terran to play a way in which a zerg player should beat them most of the time, and if they don't then they are dishonorable.
From what Ive read and what Ive noticed when I play is that Terran is a little stronger early game then the other races and a little weaker late game then the other races. So a macro style does not seem like the best idea to me.
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Not at this stage of the game in its current form. A terran that sits back and tries to macro leaving a Z unharrassed will get run over. You can see it clear as day in GSL finals. What makes T so hard as Z is to get into the midgame healthy enough to win in the late game after Terrans early abuse.
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After trying a series of fast expand builds with turtles against zerg for about 50 games~ (I know that that isn't a high amount of games played but for the longest time I only tried to make that sort of build work) I determined that that sort of macro play was just completely useless against a good zerg. I went about 10 and 40 for total of the games and the games I won was just because I was a better player.
Idra is completely right. Terran needs to make use of some solid harass to slow the other races macro builds down (see reaper rush, hellion rush, hellion drop, cloak banshee rush, tank on cliff drop).
Stick to harass builds to get your economy well beyond theirs then roll over their army with good composition and good placement.
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On October 12 2010 12:59 zbedlam wrote:Yes terran can play macro style, see http://sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/2007The reason why the majority of terrans choose not to play macro style is terran 1-2 base play is extremely effective and they can often end games quicker than if they were to play a macro style game.
The replay you linked perfectly exemplifies why terran does NOT want to go into a macro game against zerg. Drops and nydus were enough to give Idra's opponent a tough time, never mind he skipped mutas altogether - the worst possible nightmare for a terran stretched that thin.
Even if he defended his expos succesfully, he could not possibly have kept up with the ground / air switches nor the unit production rate.
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While Terran cannot necessarily play the "Turtle-macro" style anymore, I see very little to nothing stopping them from trying the "Contain-macro" instead. Getting map control early against Protoss/Zerg shouldn't be that hard, and if you have mapcontrol you can expand freely. The fact that you have troops out there also forces the Zerg to have units of their own, stopping them from droning like homicidical maniacs on crack.
You can macro, but you can't be passive. You can't even spend all your minerals on drones like Zerg players do, so it should be obvious that you have to invest them somewhere. Invest them in troops, and then you'll force the Zerg player to make equal amounts of units. Then he can't spend that larva on drones, instead. His worker production goes down, whereas yours stays about equal to his.
The issue a lot of Terran players have is that they assume that because 6 marauders did nothing last game, four won't do even that this game. Against Zerg, you do not need to cause damage. You need to force him to react, even if it just building up 12 zerglings. A lot of times Zerg players have next to no troops if not pressured in the midgame. They can happily be chilling at 50 drones and 2 zerglings. If they do, no surprise Terran falls behind in macro.
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Cannot really get map control from a Zerg going heavy mutalisks. If he gets enough to take down turrets easily (and if hes overlord dropping ><) then you don't move around the map freely unless you're going to push him, because you need your forces back in base to stop Zerg doing anything to it until you're ready to push out and either expand or kill.
You can have map control right up until all them mutas hatch. Once they do, get back to your base!
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On October 12 2010 13:41 zbedlam wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 13:28 noD wrote:
The problem is never macroing, the prob is get a 200/200 supply, terran will lose to P and probably to Z (except for bizarre combinations like 15 ravens with hsm or 25 cloaked banshees .... Pretty sure 200/200 terran with marines/thors and vikings if the zerg is using broodlords will at least come out even with any zerg 200/200 army. The reason terrans lose their lategames to zerg normally is they spent the first 20 minutes focusing on killing the zerg instead of building SCV's/expanding. If the zerg does manage to survive this period they are generally ahead.
Coming out even in 200/200 as T means you're losing. Even when macroing like a crazy fiend, T will not have the production capability of Z/P when the opponent macro'ed just as much. Z can also completely tech switch as you please. Your reactor starports are not going to be pumping banshees anytime soon no matter how hard you try. In general there is just so much money bound in all these buildings you have to make.
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On October 12 2010 14:54 holyhalo5 wrote:
in BW terran had 70-dmg tanks and 125-dmg mines with 20-dmg vultures. it also had 20-dmg anti-air static D for only 75 min. i'm not saying any of this is unfair, but these tools are perfect for turtling. so no matter how hard protoss or zerg macros, terran is able to fend off attacks. now, with the absence of mines, the horrid damage of tanks, and charge, terran simply is not able to set up a reliable method of defense to carry out its macro game. for the same reasons mentioned, mech is weakened to the extent where bio is actually more effective in dealing with protoss than mech is. tie all this in with the newly-introduced medivac, and you have yourself a race that benefits much more by harassing than by turtling and macroing.
It did make more sense to have them as the defensive race, while now the styles are blurred. They certainly don't fit the defensive style despite having some additions like the PF which are specifically catered for it.
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EPT
