|
Recently Idra in an MLG interview stated the following
Terran is more gimmicky and harass-based,
Once the game is balanced, I feel Zerg and Terran will probably be equally difficult to play, in very different ways. Zerg is mechanically difficult, trying to hit every larva injection and manage creep spread while taking advantage of Zerg’s mobility to buy time. That takes a lot more speed and accuracy than the other races. But Terran will require very intelligent play because they have so many options for aggression, but they have to make something happen with them or they'll just be overwhelmed by the more macro-oriented races. So everything will come down to decision making and harass-based multitasking.
I remember BW being about Protoss being the harasser race, and Terran just turtled and built up. Terran now can turtle better then ever and mech is still possible, just more demanding then Bio(Although has the potential in becoming a viable option in the future IMHO)(Hellion Tank Raven).
My question is what has changed from Starcraft BW to SC2 that makes Terran a non-macro race? Is it possible to play a heavy macro style Terran? And what makes Protoss more of a macro race then Terran in SC2?
/discuss
Edit: Forgot to put [D] can a mod edit the title?
|
My guess is the maps arent really large enough to have a macro style terran.
|
I don't think so. Terran can't handle either infestor+ultra or ht/zealot/stalker spam lategame cost-effectively. In addition, zerg can out-macro terran when left undisturbed, and protoss' anti-harassment lategame with mass cannons and templar warping in anywhere on the map is incredibly hard to break. Tanks are terrible since the patch in TvP so map control is hard to establish and and ultras already beat tanks.
Terran needs to successfully apply pressure throughout the game to come out even in the lategame. There was a drewbie quote that I agree with about TvP lategame, essentially about how protoss units are more cost effective later on and the t player needs to harass and out-macro early on to be on even footing.
I don't think there is any reason to play a Terran style that macros without aggression.
+ Show Spoiler +See the GSL finals for examples.
|
Doesn't it all have to do with worker production capabilities? My RTS experience starts with Wc3, so I can only imagine how BW was played, but Queen Inject and Chrono Boost just allow to produce workers in a breath-taking speed compared to what I remember of BW, allowing to get your economy/new bases going much faster.
I know from my experience that it's at least at my lvl of play (1900 Europe) very possible in TvZ to play without the early "gimmicky" harass and skip to pure macro while staying defensive and macroing up - the slower macro mechanics are partly compensated fore by a lot more cost effective units (mainly because of the aoe abilities and hard counters for basically everything)
You have to begin using drop play sometime in the midgame so that the Z can't just take as many bases as he wants to, but in my play book it isn't less of a 'macro' style if you just deny expansions of your opponent using small forces.
|
On October 12 2010 11:47 iEchoic wrote:I don't think so. Terran can't handle either infestor+ultra or ht/zealot/stalker spam lategame cost-effectively. In addition, zerg can out-macro terran when left undisturbed, and protoss' anti-harassment lategame with mass cannons and templar warping in anywhere on the map is incredibly hard to break. Tanks are terrible since the patch in TvP so map control is hard to establish and and ultras already beat tanks. Terran needs to successfully apply pressure throughout the game to come out even in the lategame. There was a drewbie quote that I agree with about TvP lategame, essentially about how protoss units are more cost effective later on and the t player needs to harass and out-macro early on to be on even footing. I don't think there is any reason to play a Terran style that macros without aggression. + Show Spoiler +See the GSL finals for examples.
Well Tanks don't seem to bad when you have hellions with pre igniter. The only issue i have with TvP mech is Voids.
Maybe what we need is for NaDa to pull off a crazy Terran Macro style like he did in BW.
And against Zerg, NOBODY can out Macro a zerg even in BW. Terran if he meched would push off off to bases with a massive army and force a Third and possible fourth in one push.
|
In pvt atleast it simply comes down to the addition of the marauder. By effectively shutting down the usage of Protoss earliest units it puts them in a commanding position until later in the game. I certainly think FE/macro style Terran is very viable in this matchup because it is very hard for a Protoss to apply pressure until t3
I don't have much experience in tvz but I'd imagine it has a lot to do with zerglings being much weaker overall and mutalisks not what they were in BW.
|
On October 12 2010 11:44 raf3776 wrote:
My guess is the maps arent really large enough to have a macro style terran.
Yeah i think the issue has to do with maps. Personally i feel Jungle basin is very Terran Favored and great for TvP Mech.due to the safe natural and the a Third that can be taken on a 2 base push. And theirs no way the protoss can NOT engage the mech.
|
The main difference I think is in the way the races defend.
Terran defense is the most static (relying on turrets, tanks, pfs) and the army needs to stay together to defend harass (having 4-5 marines per base just makes them muta fodder or gets them killed by 8 zealots warping in, whereas 8 zealots can warp in to take out a drop). Zerg has a mobile defense due to creep and a lot of fast units (and queens). Protoss can warp in defensive units if needed.
As the most static it is also the defense that suffers the most from being spread out. This means that a Zerg on 2 bases defends about the same way as a Zerg on 5 bases (in fact with creep spreading out the 5 base Zerg can be better defended because he will get more warning and surrounds). On the other hand a 5 base Terran is just asking to get hit by speedlings, banelings (I now regularly use 30+ banelings to annihilate a Terran base) mutas or infested Terrans. PFs are good at compensating for this but can die (to banelings mostly) and cut into the Terran macro advantage (which is due to MULEs). The static defenses are also a lot of economy put into units with absolutely no offensive potential.
Because of this Terran is better off having 2 (maybe 3) bases at a time so they can defend effectively.
Again, to compare, Zerg can have 5 active mining bases (and preferably 6-8 hatcheries to produce from) and just keep pummeling any weak spot on the Terran front. Zerg is already wide open and vulnerable so has little to lose by spreading out.
To take a clear example, say you are on LT, close positions. The ideal Terran Third base is the Gold so they can block the opposing natural and only have a small area exposed (as all their bases are adjacent). To them the short air position main is a poor choice because it opens up a whole new access by land and gives a giant gap to fly mutas/BLs into between the 3rd and the main. For Zerg the ideal expansion is the short air. The extra access is far from the opponent meaning more time to react and better surrounds from the main. The gold is near useless as it would just get shelled and destroyed by the Terran from his natural.
Hope I helped.
Edit for another example:
The double expands at 2 mains on DQ the way Cool was pulling them off are great for Zerg. They split the opposing forces, force a commitment and allow surrounds. For Terran this would be suicide, opening many avenues of attack and a lot of undefendable surface. So the Terran is better off with a slow and progressive style rather than a crazy macro mode.
|
I feel that I can't win anygame (except mirror) without making at least 1 harass successful, be a hellion drop iechoic style, be a banshee cloaker or not, be marine drop, be nuke, be sieged tank into cliff, something that exploits range visibility or anything I do feel that If me and my opponent just say let's not attack each other for 10 minutes I will always lose, badly ...
|
I think terran can definitely play macro style, but mostly with mech.
However, harassment options are so strong in the early game, and medivac drops are incredibly powerful. It seems silly not to utilize such powerful tools.
|
I think idra makes a somewhat valid point. Terran units, excluding the battlecruiser are really not super impact units when used on other races. On the other hand, protoss and zerg both have very powerful units (broodlord/ultralisk/collosi/HT). Most of terran games against protoss revolve around MMM and then either ghost to counter HT or vikings to counter collosi. But the fact is terran would probably he happier delaying the HT/Collosi tech and continue using MMM rather than making units that specifically counter those.
TvZ is a bit different since the Thor is actually a pretty good unit in the matchup and really is not bad against too much (excluding Broodlords and maybe mass lings unsupported). However, the zerg macro mechanic is just much stronger in the sense that Zerg can tech switch really fast (from mutas to ultras), while Terran does not have this flexibility. This would show that Terran would probably be better off ending the game earlier or just making sure they have a lead when going in to the end game.
TvT I feel is a bit different. It is definitely very harass heavy in the beginning, but the macro game is generally more apparent here because building BCs after you have the air advantage generally wins you the game. So there is an advantage to late game macro.
It just seems like that although Terran could play a macro game, it is much more productive to abuse their mobility and strong harass mechanics so they have an advantage when it gets to the point where protoss and zerg can build units that are either much more powerful or produce powerful units at a much faster rate.
|
Yes terran can play macro style, see http://sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/2007
The 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.
|
I think the problem is that T's late-game units are just less cost-effective than T's earlier game units. Thus, there's no real reason to turtle and macro when T is just putting himself in an increasingly disadvantageous position.
While P's army becomes exponentially stronger with additional HTs and Colossi, or Z's army becomes exponentially stronger with more bases and thus more production/tech swap capability, T's only exponentially-scaling late-game unit is the battlecruiser, which has been nerfed and needs upgrades to reach max effectiveness.
However, unlike the Mutalisk, there isn't really an all-purpose T air unit that can transition into BCs - Vikings and banshees are just too niche to get the job done, and neither is viable against Z in the midgame.
You could say that tanks become exponentially more effective as you stack them up, but it's just too easy to techswap against a large tank army with Z. Attack, see what you manage to kill, then techswap into the right combination to kill the remainder. Did T lose more thors? Pump out a ton of muta/ling and finish the remaining bio/tank army. Did he lose a lot of tanks? Roach/ling to finish the remainder off. Did your armies wipe each other out? Field some ultras, which will eat whatever ragtag group he can cobble together before his numbers are large enough to reach critical mass.
Tanks are obviously much more difficult to use against P, simply because P air is so strong and tanks have been nerfed heavily against Zealots. Moreover, surviving the early/midgame is much more difficult when meching against Protoss, as opposed to bio.
So basically, there's no real reason to play a macro-style game as T when you're just putting yourself further and further behind the higher the opponent can climb up the tech tree.
I honestly prefer to play a macro game (and I really enjoy TvT for this reason) but I've found that it's just too difficult to survive against heavy, heavy mutalisk/ling harass or void/warp prism harass without the vision/mobility of creep or the ability to instantly warp in units anywhere on the map. Having too many bases just makes my immobile army overextended and my workers vulnerable to harass (baneling drops, HT drops, DTs, etc.) Massing off of 2 bases, or macroing while engaging in constant aggression to keep the enemy's foodcount low, have worked out much better for me.
|
I think "macro management" can have enough leeway to incorporate the vital terran harass into the scope of things.
Sure, short term terrans can focus on working off of 2 bases, but the eventual goal of SC2 is constantly being able to secure expansions. Personally, I think TvT is where terran macro is best seen, that MU all about building up you're forces with the right composition.
Short answer- watch more TvT's
|
drewbie has a macro oriented game, so yeah you can, but with the obvious easy harass that medivacs provide it would be stupid not to use them... banshees are pretty effective when used at the right time... so yeah you don't need to be super agressive all game long, some harass here and there and proper macro and u shud be fine
|
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 ....
|
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.
|
The problem with terran lategame isnt inherent in the race, it's a by-product of typical terran playstyle. As players get better at holding off early terran aggression terrans will probably start playing towards late game more, and its only then we should be considering any imbalances. Right now it's laughable to suggest that because aoe counters bio the entire TvP/Z matchup is imbalanced. It's just ludicrous to say such a thing with any kind of objectivity.
Edit: beaten XD
|
personal experience tells me that terran late game army is significantly worse in head on battles than protoss or zerg. I could be wrong, but I would not be surprised if that was the case.
|
Hmm, this is interesting. Its not a long time ago that everyone was like - 200/200 Terran is unbeateable, you cant let them get there.
Of course the most recent patches affected this to some degree. But still I think TvZ its pretty strong to play mech/macro oriented game. I still see a lot of players having success with good old Hellion/Tank/Thor + Viking..
And I just dont get it. It seems like if you cant end the game fast enough and refuse to play mech, its the worst nightmare to play against Muta/Ling/Bling.. I personally hate bio vs Zerg as I just refuse to endlessly pump bio from raxes only to get FGed and teared apart. Speaking for myself.
Against P its way more difficult to mech or play a macro oriented game. The biggest problem here is the air. Voids and Phoenixes early/mid game forces Terran to play extra safe, which often result in turtling. And if you get behind against protoss in base count, its downhill right from there. Still I like to mech against P at least on several maps, because dodging storm forever is not that funny.
Im amazed, how GoOdy actually go mech every game against P and he makes it look so easy. However, he is probably the only one Ive seen meching against P in like month.
Lastly, Blizzard stated, they are going to do something in TvP and I cant imagine something other, than making mech a bit more playable against Protoss, because buffing bio would erase mech from this matchup forever. Maybe something like sieged tanks cant be lifted off by Phoenixes? Makes at least same sense, like Stalkers cant escape from FG.
|
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.
|
1) Build Orbital Commands
2) Call Down Mules
3) ?????????/
4) profit
User was temp banned for this post.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Yes it can, absolutely. *Waiting for the next iloveoov*
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
terran can be played macro style on any map that is largely considered zerg favored due to a free expansion
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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!
|
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.
|
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.
|
for all the Terran OP floating around i dont feel comfortable playing into the late game without some sort of advantage vs P or Z
|
If you want to play bio based you'll find a lot of harass and aggression because banelings are really effective but you have a lot of mobility/advantage in smaller unit numbers if he has mostly banelings.
You can play turtle mech with hellion harass as well.
Macro and harass can go hand in hand. It's actually pretty stupid not to harass against zerg. Why?
Terran: macro advantage: mules for free money (well, technically, its 150 mins for what mines the same as 3 scvs if your minerals are unsaturated, which is usually the case in early macro games, which would gave terran not that much of an advantage at all from mules if not used to get extra minerals off a lower base count. Of course people only see when T misses macro and makes 3 mules and complain about how imba they are. Really terran has much stronger things than mules.
Zerg: macro advantage: can produce workers with 100% of money.
So you use your extra money to make units so you can delay the zerg's droning. Otherwise you're just wasting units. The only theoretical way to match a zerg on workers is to mass expo//OC but then you're spending 400 minerals +worker cost and he's spending all his money on drones and then building hatches when he money floats for 300+1 worker.
Basically zerg can macro harder in a shorter period of time, you need to harass with your units.
|
On October 12 2010 17:07 nailertn wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I disagree, it shows that terran CAN keep up with zergs economy if they try for it which is what i think the OP was getting at. Idra was spread fairly thin this game as well and the terran player didn't take advantage of that at all with drops. The zerg ground army is generally more mobile than the terran ground army, but i believe this is offset by planetary fortresses/turrets. Terran production off 3+ bases isn't bad at all, i agree it isn't as good as zerg AND zerg can switch techs far quicker, but this is offset by terrans unit efficiency.
I don't think this terran lost because he played macro, i think he lost because idra outplayed him and he was extremely passive most of the game, which is something terran cannot afford to be.
|
On October 12 2010 14:51 meRz wrote:
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.
This guy speaks the truth.
I fucking hate how I have to fear every single battle in TvP and TvZ late game because it might just be gg if I make a mistake.
|
On October 12 2010 18:16 zbedlam wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 17:07 nailertn wrote: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. I disagree, it shows that terran CAN keep up with zergs economy if they try for it which is what i think the OP was getting at. Idra was spread fairly thin this game as well and the terran player didn't take advantage of that at all with drops. The zerg ground army is generally more mobile than the terran ground army, but i believe this is offset by planetary fortresses/turrets. Terran production off 3+ bases isn't bad at all, i agree it isn't as good as zerg AND zerg can switch techs far quicker, but this is offset by terrans unit efficiency. I don't think this terran lost because he played macro, i think he lost because idra outplayed him and he was extremely passive most of the game, which is something terran cannot afford to be.
Idra stopped all early harassment attempts cold with infestors and speedlings. Factor in the vision and speed provided by creep + ovies and there is a defense I would not have felt comfortable poking at on this particular map if I were in his shoes. A slow tank push would have been asking to be backstabbed considering the number and layout of the bases. I think these explain the terran's passivity. Maybe you are right and he could have been more agressive but if so, I am lost as to how.
Anyway the real question is not whether terrans can keep up with zerg economy or not but if they should. So ask this: Was the terran even with zerg in income? Maybe. Was the terran even in production capacity? Maybe. (Although a switch to air and it goes downhill.) Was he ahead? Definately not. Does he have an advantage in the early game? Definately yes. Gearing for a late-game where he might be even but surely not ahead instead of exploiting an obvious early advantage sounds like a bad plan. Indeed army efficiency should make up for these shortcomings but this is where ultra / infestor comes into the picture. I just don't feel terran has the right answer to them. Though I would love to be proven wrong because I despise treating zerg like an enrage timer just as much as any zerg must hate terran 1 / 2 base pushes but right now this seems to be the logical way to play TvZ.
|
I'm thinking a Flash style mech could work as a transition in Sc2.. Seing as hellions are so good. Ravens could work against mutas, instead of goliaths.
|
On October 12 2010 12:56 noveyak wrote:
I think idra makes a somewhat valid point. Terran units, excluding the battlecruiser are really not super impact units when used on other races. On the other hand, protoss and zerg both have very powerful units (broodlord/ultralisk/collosi/HT). Most of terran games against protoss revolve around MMM and then either ghost to counter HT or vikings to counter collosi. But the fact is terran would probably he happier delaying the HT/Collosi tech and continue using MMM rather than making units that specifically counter those.
TvZ is a bit different since the Thor is actually a pretty good unit in the matchup and really is not bad against too much (excluding Broodlords and maybe mass lings unsupported). However, the zerg macro mechanic is just much stronger in the sense that Zerg can tech switch really fast (from mutas to ultras), while Terran does not have this flexibility. This would show that Terran would probably be better off ending the game earlier or just making sure they have a lead when going in to the end game.
TvT I feel is a bit different. It is definitely very harass heavy in the beginning, but the macro game is generally more apparent here because building BCs after you have the air advantage generally wins you the game. So there is an advantage to late game macro.
It just seems like that although Terran could play a macro game, it is much more productive to abuse their mobility and strong harass mechanics so they have an advantage when it gets to the point where protoss and zerg can build units that are either much more powerful or produce powerful units at a much faster rate.
I disagree in TvP you get plenty of powerful units by choosing to go into the upper tiers. Ghosts wreck Templar play if you are on the ball, Ravens are one of the greatest casters in the game, and Siege Tanks are still a great unit. Even with the nerf to their damage vs. light, they still hit a pack of zealots for as much as they would a pack of stalkers due to the frame size of zealots. The reason a lot of terran players like to keep the game at 1.5 is because that is where they rule the game. TvP Marauders own first tier protoss pretty hard.
|
another reason that terran macro style of play isnt being used is because of the sheer effectiveness of bio and how terrans can end most games before 20 minutes. since they are playing that kinda way they aren't focused on working out how to play a late game.
not being biased but zerg players overall tend to have better late game sense then terrans. just because they literally play to get to late game. if you watch any top level zvt. the game always goes like this if the zerg wins.
survive harass.
reach late game.
macro-roll terran.
win 20 minutes later.
there is litterally no way around it. unless the terran makes gamechangeing mistakes. and most loses from zergs are before late game.
where as terran plays to end it before late game then rather then to take the lead into late game and continue it. one main reason for this is perhaps the small sized maps just scream "15 MINUTE MATCH PLOX!"
so imo its not that terran is weak late game or too strong early game. its just how players currently are playing terran like that. and how blizzard is to bloody stuborn to accept that the Iccup maps will develop sc2 exponentially fast. and help it survive as an e sport
|
On October 12 2010 14:51 meRz wrote:
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.
This post pretty much nails it.
Implement Terratron, like the toss mothership! ;D
|
On October 12 2010 21:47 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 12:56 noveyak wrote:
I think idra makes a somewhat valid point. Terran units, excluding the battlecruiser are really not super impact units when used on other races. On the other hand, protoss and zerg both have very powerful units (broodlord/ultralisk/collosi/HT). Most of terran games against protoss revolve around MMM and then either ghost to counter HT or vikings to counter collosi. But the fact is terran would probably he happier delaying the HT/Collosi tech and continue using MMM rather than making units that specifically counter those.
TvZ is a bit different since the Thor is actually a pretty good unit in the matchup and really is not bad against too much (excluding Broodlords and maybe mass lings unsupported). However, the zerg macro mechanic is just much stronger in the sense that Zerg can tech switch really fast (from mutas to ultras), while Terran does not have this flexibility. This would show that Terran would probably be better off ending the game earlier or just making sure they have a lead when going in to the end game.
TvT I feel is a bit different. It is definitely very harass heavy in the beginning, but the macro game is generally more apparent here because building BCs after you have the air advantage generally wins you the game. So there is an advantage to late game macro.
It just seems like that although Terran could play a macro game, it is much more productive to abuse their mobility and strong harass mechanics so they have an advantage when it gets to the point where protoss and zerg can build units that are either much more powerful or produce powerful units at a much faster rate. I disagree in TvP you get plenty of powerful units by choosing to go into the upper tiers. Ghosts wreck Templar play if you are on the ball, Ravens are one of the greatest casters in the game, and Siege Tanks are still a great unit. Even with the nerf to their damage vs. light, they still hit a pack of zealots for as much as they would a pack of stalkers due to the frame size of zealots. The reason a lot of terran players like to keep the game at 1.5 is because that is where they rule the game. TvP Marauders own first tier protoss pretty hard.
Huh? Ghosts are a possible counter to HTs, if you land good EMPs, but they're not going to cut it once P is on 3 bases and can insta-warp 75 energy HTs. Ravens are a joke against P - one is ok early game for a PDD, but lategame feedback is just LOL and PDD doesn't do anything against a colossus/zealot army. Siege tanks are not great against P, they're not even good - any good T player will agree on this point. Gretorp even went so far as to call them "worthless" in TvP, if I remember correctly. They don't cut it against speedlots, blink stalkers or, surprisingly, Archons - I had to dramatically outmacro to squeeze out a win earlier using hellions+tanks+ghosts against Archon/Zealot, like 5 bases to 3 outmacro, and it was still a stupidly close game. Also, they soak up your gas and can't hit P's strong air units.
T keeps the game at 1.5 because it's where they're strongest, yes. But it's not like they really have any other choice in a serious TvP.
|
On October 12 2010 22:12 PanzerKing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 21:47 bobcat wrote:On October 12 2010 12:56 noveyak wrote:
I think idra makes a somewhat valid point. Terran units, excluding the battlecruiser are really not super impact units when used on other races. On the other hand, protoss and zerg both have very powerful units (broodlord/ultralisk/collosi/HT). Most of terran games against protoss revolve around MMM and then either ghost to counter HT or vikings to counter collosi. But the fact is terran would probably he happier delaying the HT/Collosi tech and continue using MMM rather than making units that specifically counter those.
TvZ is a bit different since the Thor is actually a pretty good unit in the matchup and really is not bad against too much (excluding Broodlords and maybe mass lings unsupported). However, the zerg macro mechanic is just much stronger in the sense that Zerg can tech switch really fast (from mutas to ultras), while Terran does not have this flexibility. This would show that Terran would probably be better off ending the game earlier or just making sure they have a lead when going in to the end game.
TvT I feel is a bit different. It is definitely very harass heavy in the beginning, but the macro game is generally more apparent here because building BCs after you have the air advantage generally wins you the game. So there is an advantage to late game macro.
It just seems like that although Terran could play a macro game, it is much more productive to abuse their mobility and strong harass mechanics so they have an advantage when it gets to the point where protoss and zerg can build units that are either much more powerful or produce powerful units at a much faster rate. I disagree in TvP you get plenty of powerful units by choosing to go into the upper tiers. Ghosts wreck Templar play if you are on the ball, Ravens are one of the greatest casters in the game, and Siege Tanks are still a great unit. Even with the nerf to their damage vs. light, they still hit a pack of zealots for as much as they would a pack of stalkers due to the frame size of zealots. The reason a lot of terran players like to keep the game at 1.5 is because that is where they rule the game. TvP Marauders own first tier protoss pretty hard. Huh? Ghosts are a possible counter to HTs, if you land good EMPs, but they're not going to cut it once P is on 3 bases and can insta-warp 75 energy HTs. Ravens are a joke against P - one is ok early game for a PDD, but lategame feedback is just LOL and PDD doesn't do anything against a colossus/zealot army. Siege tanks are not great against P, they're not even good - any good T player will agree on this point. Gretorp even went so far as to call them "worthless" in TvP, if I remember correctly. They don't cut it against speedlots, blink stalkers or, surprisingly, Archons - I had to dramatically outmacro to squeeze out a win earlier using hellions+tanks+ghosts against Archon/Zealot, like 5 bases to 3 outmacro, and it was still a stupidly close game. Also, they soak up your gas and can't hit P's strong air units. T keeps the game at 1.5 because it's where they're strongest, yes. But it's not like they really have any other choice in a serious TvP.
He called them useless, at wednesday's day 9...
With all words...
Tho 35 isnt a bad damage, the 3 seconds per shot is, it's not like the protoss will stay still for 30 seconds while he is being siege shoted =X
|
I think Raven and Ghost are really underused in terran gameplay; You can't pretend to go toe to toe with other races late game when you don't fully exploit the casters of your race.
Maybe TLO can show us how to use them in a standard way 
|
On October 12 2010 22:17 Samhax wrote:I think Raven and Ghost are really underused in terran gameplay; You can't pretend to go toe to toe with other races late game when you don't fully exploit the casters of your race. Maybe TLO can show us how to use them in a standard way
Tlo has the best harasses/early pushes I ever saw, except for the game against white ra that made him famous that he nuked him like 11 times ....
|
He has also shown the best standard use of ghost in TvT against Hyperdub.
|
On October 12 2010 16:42 crms wrote:
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.
This makes it a balance nightmare though... If zerg(and to lesser extend toss) are stronger lategame than terran, terran has to have a good ability to hurt the zerg before that time(which terran has atm). The problem I feel is that if they touch this ability(medivacs and hellions, reapers and marauder nexus sniping) then terran will be in trouble, since on even footing, they are behind in straight up macro game.
If terran was to play BW TvP style, then tanks would need to be a lot stronger. I personally don't feel this would be OP if the base map would be like 2-4times bigger, since it'd be A LOT harder to use them. Hence I'd personally want the base map size to be made bigger and then they should've balanced the game, but I suppose they want SC2 to be more of a 'inyourface'' game than BW's huge huge maps.
|
Yeah, I don't buy the "Terran has no late game power" argument.
Terran macro mechanics are disgusting,.
The MULE helps you pump up minerals crazy fast through the first half of the game, then you can dedicate energy for scans completely as you get to the point where minerals aren't an issue.
Reactors make marines, hellions, and vikings come out with such speed, there really is no reason not to be including at least 2 of these units in any army comp.
PFs and super-turrets make base harassment a non-issue.
The Terran army is more cost efficient anyway.
These 4 things add up to a stupid late game, and we all know how effective Terran early game is.
The fact of the matter is that Terran doesn't need to play macro style. Other people have said it, and I will repeat the same: "why give your opponent a chance to get his good units out when you have the brawn to win 90% of your games in 15 minutes or less?"
|
On October 12 2010 14:51 meRz wrote:
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.
Disagreement on a few points there.
1. We can chronoboost our tech units out faster than you can rebuild after a big conflict.
However, keeping in mind that chronoboost saves 10 seconds off of a units build time.
Colossus: 300m200g 75sec
Thor: 300m200g 60 sec
Immortal: 250m100g 55 sec
Siege Tank: 150m125g 45 sec
Medivac: 100m100g 42 sec
Warp Prism: 200m 00g 50 sec
Viking: 150m 75g 42 sec
Phoenix 150m100g 45 sec
Banshee: 150m100g 60sec
Void Ray: 250m150g 60sec
BC: 400m300g 90 sec
Carrier: 350m250g 120 sec
With the exception of phoenixes which build equivalently with vikings, and void rays which cannot compose an army, every single other non gateway unit we have takes longer to build Every single unit in our arsenal that is meant for combat takes considerably longer to build than yours.
A colossus needs 1.5 chronoboosts to come out in the same time as a thor. A warp prism needs one to beat a medivac out by 2 seconds. An immortal needs one to come out on par with a siege tank. And a carrier needs 3 to come out at the same time as a BC. Blizzard has accounted for chrono boost in the late game by making all of our units build incredibly slow without it.
2. Gateway units and cooldowns.
Marine: 50m 25sec
Marauder: 100m25g 30 sec
Ghost: 150m150g 40 sec
(parenthesis are WG cooldowns as opposed to regular build time)
Zealot 100m 38sec(28)
Sentry 50m100g 42sec(32)
Stalker 125m50g 42sec (32)
High Temp 50m150g 55sec(45)
Dark Temp 125m125g 55sec(45)
Since we're talking about late game here it's fair for me to assum that marines will be constructed out of a barracks with a reactor on it.
Now lets assume that the protoss player has 8 warpgates.
Lets assume that the terran player kept up with him and build 8 barracks (which they almost never do even though they have the "slowest" build times)
Toss warps in 2 templar, 2 stalkers, and 4 zealots.
Two 45sec cd's.
Two 32 secs
Four 28 secs.
2 of the Raxes have reactors, 4 have tech labs and the other two are naked.
The two reactor raxes and the two naked raxes can make 6 marines in 25 secs, before the gateways for zeals have cooled down.
The other 4 raxes will pump out two marauders and two ghosts before the stalker and HT gates cooldown leaving the raxes with 3 seconds, 2 seconds, and 5 seconds to spare respectively.
Army values for the toss gate units are 750m400g.
For the terran units 800m350g. Thats seems pretty even to me. I understand and sympathize that you would have trouble if I warped those units in at your doorstep, but if I have a proxy pylon that close to your base, it's on you. It has been my experience, that most often, terran cannot rebuild as quickly not because they lack warp gates, but because they do not bother to build enough production structures to match the toss player. I know scv's have to build the raxes, but you have mules.
3. Colossi and HT's are cost efficient late game.
HT's after you get psi storm and khaydarin amulet yes the protoss finally gets a unit that is cost efficient, all we had to do was create a 3 minute window where we are incredibly vulnerable, followed by another 1 minute before we have more than 1 templar with storm. Considering how mega powerful your tier 1.5 is against ours, we can't go into templar early in the game and expect to survive any kind of timing push without first going robo for immortals. So yes, in the late game templar are well worth the cost of their production.
Colossi however.... only against MMM and by that I mean really only against marines and so so against marauders. For 300m200g and 75 seconds of build time (without chrono) These guys do a lot of damage to clustered ground units. 30damage on up to three targets when clustered every 1.65 seconds from 9 range.
Two siege tanks in siege mode fire at a little less than half that speed(3). They do 50 damage to their target if armored.
100% .4687
50% .7812
25% 1.25
A ball of zealots is going to get hit for about 105 if they are hit from the front (35+35+1/2(35+35))
If they are hit in the middle (35+35+35+ 1/2(35+35) +1/4 35+35+35) 165.
Less stalkers will get hit for more damage.
From the front: (50+50 + 1/2(50)) 125.
In the middle (50+50 + 1/2(50+50) + 1/4(50+50) 175.
This is a rough estimate of damage done based on the number of tightly balled units a siege tank could hit in the unit test map.
Best case scenario a colossus hits 3 targets twice doing 180 damage slower than the siege tank by .3 seconds.
3 stimmed marauders are doing 180 damage back to the colossus at the same speed.
I know it takes time to siege (4 seconds game time), but it is still easily worth it if you keep the tanks in the back and leap frog.
I realize that this dabbles in theorycraft (much like the idea of a colossus always having 3 targets to burn) but regardless that is a lot of damage for a unit that costs half as much as a colossus to do. When arguing efficiency, siege tanks cannot be beat. They are one of the only units in the game that are so efficient that it is literally suicide to rush an army with sieged tanks unless you severely outnumber them.
In closing, I am not arguing that early pressure is a bad strategy for terran. In fact it is a great strategy that uses your greatest advantages to prevent the other player from probing/droning excessively and outmacroing you.
However, protoss cannot re-army faster than you if you have a similar number of structures. The high templar is our only very efficient late game unit. Colossi only if you create a marine heavy ball.
And using units other than bio ball is a good thing.
|
u do realize that colo has 9 range and with critical number of them marauders wont even get in range before they die ?
|
On October 12 2010 22:44 Jermstuddog wrote:
Terran macro mechanics are disgusting,.
In lategame mule is pretty meh. More minerals? What you gonna do, make more marines for my colossi/templar/infestors/ultras to eat? Yeah whatever.
The MULE helps you pump up minerals crazy fast through the first half of the game, then you can dedicate energy for scans completely as you get to the point where minerals aren't an issue.
Scans don't really help you do anything though..
PFs and super-turrets make base harassment a non-issue.
They can't stop storm/blings, but really it's beside the point. Even if the P or Z doesn't harass your workers at all, they're still ahead lategame.
The Terran army is more cost efficient anyway.
Not lategame it isn't. Ultras, infestors, templar, colossi, carriers, speed rays etc etc are incredibly difficult for T to stop in a cost efficient manner. And even if you do we can replenish our army or just hard tech switch far faster than T.
The fact of the matter is that Terran doesn't need to play macro style. Other people have said it, and I will repeat the same: "why give your opponent a chance to get his good units out when you have the brawn to win 90% of your games in 15 minutes or less?"
Nah, they have to win or do real damage early. As the game goes on P and Z unlock their very powerful, very cost efficient units. You unlock, uh, BCs? Many bases for T just means...more of the same stuff. Many bases for Z and P means new, better units can be produced.
|
Reason mech is flimsy is that it's not the same isntagib machine it was, it's not that it's bad vs anything when fighting. It's just that it's while not neccessarily much worse than bw mech in direct confrontations it's really really immobile, something that spider mines used to help with a lot, hellions are good vs light but you can lose 2 pages of them to a handful of anything that isn't.
The reason it kind of worked now in sc2 is that it was just that cost effective, you could afford to spread your stuff a bit but now after people have figured out the appropriate counters and well the tank got nerfed quite a bit. It's a really shaky style.
bw recall in the back +mines = blue goo
sc2 blinkstalkers in the back = gg
Bio while great early/mid game does not really hold a candle to an untouched Z or P later on. There might be a reason T was the "horrible race (yes like 1 in 10 zotac finalists was a T on a good day)" until they beefed tanks up with the splash fix and made stim/conc/shields/speed take way less $$, they then now put tanks back in their place pretty much and the only difference to bio from those times is the time it takes to get those upgrades, hence all those pesky 1base pushes and harassment.
Terran can be played "macro" style but it has to have some pressure/harassment/specific timing it really seems.
|
On October 12 2010 22:17 noD wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 22:12 PanzerKing wrote:On October 12 2010 21:47 bobcat wrote:On October 12 2010 12:56 noveyak wrote:
I think idra makes a somewhat valid point. Terran units, excluding the battlecruiser are really not super impact units when used on other races. On the other hand, protoss and zerg both have very powerful units (broodlord/ultralisk/collosi/HT). Most of terran games against protoss revolve around MMM and then either ghost to counter HT or vikings to counter collosi. But the fact is terran would probably he happier delaying the HT/Collosi tech and continue using MMM rather than making units that specifically counter those.
TvZ is a bit different since the Thor is actually a pretty good unit in the matchup and really is not bad against too much (excluding Broodlords and maybe mass lings unsupported). However, the zerg macro mechanic is just much stronger in the sense that Zerg can tech switch really fast (from mutas to ultras), while Terran does not have this flexibility. This would show that Terran would probably be better off ending the game earlier or just making sure they have a lead when going in to the end game.
TvT I feel is a bit different. It is definitely very harass heavy in the beginning, but the macro game is generally more apparent here because building BCs after you have the air advantage generally wins you the game. So there is an advantage to late game macro.
It just seems like that although Terran could play a macro game, it is much more productive to abuse their mobility and strong harass mechanics so they have an advantage when it gets to the point where protoss and zerg can build units that are either much more powerful or produce powerful units at a much faster rate. I disagree in TvP you get plenty of powerful units by choosing to go into the upper tiers. Ghosts wreck Templar play if you are on the ball, Ravens are one of the greatest casters in the game, and Siege Tanks are still a great unit. Even with the nerf to their damage vs. light, they still hit a pack of zealots for as much as they would a pack of stalkers due to the frame size of zealots. The reason a lot of terran players like to keep the game at 1.5 is because that is where they rule the game. TvP Marauders own first tier protoss pretty hard. Huh? Ghosts are a possible counter to HTs, if you land good EMPs, but they're not going to cut it once P is on 3 bases and can insta-warp 75 energy HTs. Ravens are a joke against P - one is ok early game for a PDD, but lategame feedback is just LOL and PDD doesn't do anything against a colossus/zealot army. Siege tanks are not great against P, they're not even good - any good T player will agree on this point. Gretorp even went so far as to call them "worthless" in TvP, if I remember correctly. They don't cut it against speedlots, blink stalkers or, surprisingly, Archons - I had to dramatically outmacro to squeeze out a win earlier using hellions+tanks+ghosts against Archon/Zealot, like 5 bases to 3 outmacro, and it was still a stupidly close game. Also, they soak up your gas and can't hit P's strong air units. T keeps the game at 1.5 because it's where they're strongest, yes. But it's not like they really have any other choice in a serious TvP. He called them useless, at wednesday's day 9... With all words... Tho 35 isnt a bad damage, the 3 seconds per shot is, it's not like the protoss will stay still for 30 seconds while he is being siege shoted =X
The argument that siege tanks are useless because units don't atnd still is kind of like saying colossi are useless because vikings can kill them or High Templar are useless because EMP has a longer range than psi storm. Siege tanks are supposed to force your opponent to either commit to a full fight or refuse to engage. They also make any area on the map with a ramp or other choke territory where you are at a disgusting advantage. Just because units can run away doesn't make siege tanks bad. Should I run away when your army is at the front of my base? Should I run away when you doom drop in the back? Mobility is something you trade for damage.
"I had to dramatically outmacro to squeeze out a win earlier using hellions+tanks+ghosts against Archon/Zealot, like 5 bases to 3 outmacro, and it was still a stupidly close game. Also, they soak up your gas and can't hit P's strong air units."
Why the hell didn't you have any marauders? Concussive shells + stimpacks + emp = free win.
Why are you using helion tank ghost against that build anyway. You have nothing to tank for your army. Thats like me going sentry stalker high templar against mass marauders.
|
Vatican City State95 Posts
Whenever I find myself forced into a macro game vs a Zerg I instantly start going for Battlecruisers. Because once they have ultra's storming in no amount of tanks/thors ground units are going to stop them. With BC's I can handle them effectively and force the Zerg to tech switch to air but at that point my air dominance is to far ahead.
|
On October 12 2010 23:52 kentonator wrote:
Whenever I find myself forced into a macro game vs a Zerg I instantly start going for Battlecruisers. Because once they have ultra's storming in no amount of tanks/thors ground units are going to stop them. With BC's I can handle them effectively and force the Zerg to tech switch to air but at that point my air dominance is to far ahead.
How are you goign to stop ultras from rampaging your base?
If you switch to BC*s take into account Z probably have armor upgrade and maybe even ultra armor. A slow-BC is never going to kill the ultras in time.
Also "time"; lategame you can pop a ton of corruptors to react to his BC's
|
On October 12 2010 23:30 Payout wrote:
u do realize that colo has 9 range and with critical number of them marauders wont even get in range before they die ?
Define critical number. 10 colossi? 15? It takes of lot of those puppies to kill marauders before they get in range. Considering it takes 5 shots for a colossus to kill a marauder and stimmed marauders move really fast you would need an awful lot of colossi to burn them all down.
i do realize that colo has 9 range. However dedicating more than a specific amout of colossi to a ball is a disaster. The gas used to make each colossus is taking away from other units my army desperately needs, like stalkers to keep the colossi from all dying to vikings. In reality, it makes much more sense to use zealots and stalkers as a barrier to keep the colossi out of marauder range. Then I better hope the T player doesn't have vikings, because their bio ball can now mercilessly destroy my stalker/zealot ball.
|
On October 12 2010 23:44 Grebliv wrote:
Reason mech is flimsy is that it's not the same isntagib machine it was, it's not that it's bad vs anything when fighting. It's just that it's while not neccessarily much worse than bw mech in direct confrontations it's really really immobile, something that spider mines used to help with a lot, hellions are good vs light but you can lose 2 pages of them to a handful of anything that isn't.
The reason it kind of worked now in sc2 is that it was just that cost effective, you could afford to spread your stuff a bit but now after people have figured out the appropriate counters and well the tank got nerfed quite a bit. It's a really shaky style.
bw recall in the back +mines = blue goo
sc2 blinkstalkers in the back = gg
Bio while great early/mid game does not really hold a candle to an untouched Z or P later on. There might be a reason T was the "horrible race (yes like 1 in 10 zotac finalists was a T on a good day)" until they beefed tanks up with the splash fix and made stim/conc/shields/speed take way less $$, they then now put tanks back in their place pretty much and the only difference to bio from those times is the time it takes to get those upgrades, hence all those pesky 1base pushes and harassment.
Terran can be played "macro" style but it has to have some pressure/harassment/specific timing it really seems.
I agree. The other races have to harass too though. Thats not a terran unique thing.
|
@Yaotzin:
Everything you mentioned has nothing to do with late game units being weak and everything to do with early game units being beastly.
Marines are down right broken IMO. The only way to deal with them is area damage. There isn't a single unit in the game that can stand up to them straight up. This is much different from brood war and has a lot to do with terran power.
When going up against Zerg, Terran has the Thor, which destroys everything in the Zerg army. The only units Zerg has that are effective are the zergling, which gets countered by literally every other unit in the Terran army. And the Broodlord, which is too expensive, slow (both movement and DPS) and unweildy to make a huge impact on the game.
Against Protoss, you have the Ghost which is just scary. 1/2 to 2/3 of your army will start every fight with no shield, you have to spend an excessive amount of attention microing your HTs, or its GG right there, and this unit out ranges your casters, blends in with your opponents army, and can turn invisible if really needed.
I don't even need to mention the medivac, we all know how ridiculous that unit is.
All of these units are T3 quality units and are available within the first 10 minutes of the game.
But you don't see Terran players hinging on any one unit excessively. Marines and Marauders can muscle through anything P or Z can make in the equivalent tier and T has all the best early game all-ins. (All this hinges on how strong bio is)
The way the game breaks down in TvX is the terran player techs when he wants, and the other guy has to balance tech, economy, and army size in perfect portions, assuming he doesn't screw up scouting.
I understand they wanted bio in every T army, but damn...
|
yeah i really do not like late game vs protoss. I find it to be nearly impossible unless i emp like 20 templars luckily and the protoss just hasnt gone collosi lol
they need to make tanks better vs protoss basically 
|
On October 13 2010 00:05 Jermstuddog wrote:
Marines are down right broken IMO. The only way to deal with them is area damage. There isn't a single unit in the game that can stand up to them straight up. This is much different from brood war and has a lot to do with terran power.
This applies to every ranged unit...I do believe things like dark swarm/plague/lurkers were used to stop big balls in BW, so yeah it's exactly the same.
Against Protoss, you have the Ghost which is just scary. 1/2 to 2/3 of your army will start every fight with no shield, you have to spend an excessive amount of attention microing your HTs, or its GG right there, and this unit out ranges your casters, blends in with your opponents army, and can turn invisible if really needed.
Why all the theorycrafting? In actual games, P players have proven that ghosts simply don't shut down HTs.
I dunno why they hide in armies for you. Turn on health bars? That purple bar is really pretty obvious :0 Plus the game doesn't let you feedback units without energy, so you can just spam it until you hit his ghost.
But you don't see Terran players hinging on any one unit excessively. Marines and Marauders can muscle through anything P or Z can make in the equivalent tier and T has all the best early game all-ins. (All this hinges on how strong bio is)
Er, no, not really. Anyway this is about T early game strength, which is not in dispute.
The way the game breaks down in TvX is the terran player techs when he wants, and the other guy has to balance tech, economy, and army size in perfect portions, assuming he doesn't screw up scouting.
I understand they wanted bio in every T army, but damn...
And then, if they balance it right and get to the late game, they lol all over the poor Terran who got no new toys to play with.
You need to get over your "terran is sooooo op" mindset. They are, but it's purely an early game thing. If you can survive in decent shape to late game, they really start to suck a bit.
|
Unfortunately, I main Zerg, and thors and marines maintain their power all the way through the late game, well after ultras have shown up.
There is no "hard tech switching" as these two units counter everything except large amounts of broodlords, which are just as immobile as thors and tanks and get SUPER hard countered by a handful of vikings.
TvP is a little different, but by no means is T weak in the late game.
The typical 40 min TvP I see:
Marine, marauder, ghost, medivac, maybe some vikings or a raven
Vs
Zealot, sentry, stalker, immortal, colossus, high templar, archon, observer, possibly some void rays or warp prisms
The complaint seems to be that a MMM ball w/ ghosts can't win vs protoss 40 min in to the game, no shit, they're using a much more diversified army.
|
On October 13 2010 00:44 Jermstuddog wrote:
Unfortunately, I main Zerg, and thors and marines maintain their power all the way through the late game, well after ultras have shown up.
Marines  They're terribad against bling/infestor..
There is no "hard tech switching" as these two units counter everything except large amounts of broodlords, which are just as immobile as thors and tanks and get SUPER hard countered by a handful of vikings.
Thankfully you don't need them!
TvP is a little different, but by no means is T weak in the late game.
In disagreement with pretty much every T, pro and not.
The typical 40 min TvP I see:
Marine, marauder, ghost, medivac, maybe some vikings or a raven
Vs
Zealot, sentry, stalker, immortal, colossus, high templar, archon, observer, possibly some void rays or warp prisms
The complaint seems to be that a MMM ball w/ ghosts can't win vs protoss 40 min in to the game, no shit, they're using a much more diversified army.
Other than ghosts, there's nothing to add to a MMM ball to make it stronger. P gets lots of new toys as they tech up, that make their basic zealot/stalker ball stronger and stronger and stronger. T mostly just has to make a bigger MMM ball. At a certain point, that's not enough anymore.
|
Upgraded hellions absolutely destroy zealots.
Banshees have started showing up lately to add their scary high dps.
Thors are like 4 marauders rolled into 1 for 100 more gas while costing 100 less minerals and 2 less supply, we all know how stupid SCV repair can get on thors.
The cliche complaint about Zergs being uninventive really does apply to Terrans in late game, but nobody gets there because they destroy early game so hard.
When they lose late game it must be because things are "unbalanced".
I don't buy it. Try using more than 4 units.
(I will admit that tanks seem a bit weak since the patch, I'm thinking +10 dmg vs armored would give them enough bite where they need it to see the light of day again.)
|
On October 13 2010 01:21 Jermstuddog wrote:
Upgraded hellions absolutely destroy zealots.
Banshees have started showing up lately to add their scary high dps.
Thors are like 4 marauders rolled into 1 for 100 more gas while costing 100 less minerals and 2 less supply, we all know how stupid SCV repair can get on thors.
The cliche complaint about Zergs being uninventive really does apply to Terrans in late game, but nobody gets there because they destroy early game so hard.
When they lose late game it must be because things are "unbalanced".
I don't buy it. Try using more than 4 units.
(I will admit that tanks seem a bit weak since the patch, I'm thinking +10 dmg vs armored would give them enough bite where they need it to see the light of day again.)
See, this is the problem right here. You think of T units in a vacuum and say "WoW, what are T players talking about? They never use these units, but these units are really good!" What you should be doing is looking at the endgame units that your opponent will be fielding and realizing that, oh wait, those counter the units you think are so awesome.
Upgraded Hellions (not regular hellions) are useful for killing zealots, and that's about it. What's the most common complement to zealots in a mid-late game P army? Colossus. Colossus eat Hellions. Even if the colossus don't mow them down easily, after you kill his zealots, what do you do with the hellions? The point of the Zealots is to tank - once they've done their job, it's up to the Colossi and the other units to do the rest. If your plan is "I'm gonna make hellions to kill his zealots!" you're going to lose miserably, because Zealots are not the damage-dealing core of his army.
What about banshees? Yeah, their DPS is pretty good, even though they cost 3 supply. But what unit will P be making in addition to colossus, late-game? High templar. What unit absolutely destroys bunched-up banshees with storm, and cripples their HP with feedback? High Templar.
You know what else HT destroy? Thors. Oh, and void rays eat thors. As do carriers. And Immortals. Colossi easily outmicro them. In fact, pretty much every P unit except Sentries and Phoenixes do well against the Thor. What does the Thor do well against, in the P army? The phoenix. When are phoenixes fielded, in PvT? In the early game, not the late game.
See how much more logical our complaints are when you actually think of things in context, and not in a meaningless vacuum?
|
Ugh, these responses went off the deep end after the 2nd page (like usual).
On October 13 2010 01:21 Jermstuddog wrote:
Upgraded hellions absolutely destroy zealots.
Banshees have started showing up lately to add their scary high dps.
Thors are like 4 marauders rolled into 1 for 100 more gas while costing 100 less minerals and 2 less supply, we all know how stupid SCV repair can get on thors.
The cliche complaint about Zergs being uninventive really does apply to Terrans in late game, but nobody gets there because they destroy eaaly game so hard.
When they lose late game it must be because things are "unbalanced".
I don't buy it. Try using more than 4 units.
Thors just get feedbacked, they don't work AT ALL. They are terrible vs chargelots even when they don't get feedbacked, and when they do, they're just completely terrible garbage because they only have (hp - energy) effective HP.
SCV repair against templar? They'll all die within 3 seconds of one storm.
Banshees get feedbacked and stack harder and are slower than mutas so storm rips them up. Templar hard-counter them.
None of these ideas work. I've tried them.
|
On October 12 2010 23:44 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 22:17 noD wrote:On October 12 2010 22:12 PanzerKing wrote:On October 12 2010 21:47 bobcat wrote:On October 12 2010 12:56 noveyak wrote:
I think idra makes a somewhat valid point. Terran units, excluding the battlecruiser are really not super impact units when used on other races. On the other hand, protoss and zerg both have very powerful units (broodlord/ultralisk/collosi/HT). Most of terran games against protoss revolve around MMM and then either ghost to counter HT or vikings to counter collosi. But the fact is terran would probably he happier delaying the HT/Collosi tech and continue using MMM rather than making units that specifically counter those.
TvZ is a bit different since the Thor is actually a pretty good unit in the matchup and really is not bad against too much (excluding Broodlords and maybe mass lings unsupported). However, the zerg macro mechanic is just much stronger in the sense that Zerg can tech switch really fast (from mutas to ultras), while Terran does not have this flexibility. This would show that Terran would probably be better off ending the game earlier or just making sure they have a lead when going in to the end game.
TvT I feel is a bit different. It is definitely very harass heavy in the beginning, but the macro game is generally more apparent here because building BCs after you have the air advantage generally wins you the game. So there is an advantage to late game macro.
It just seems like that although Terran could play a macro game, it is much more productive to abuse their mobility and strong harass mechanics so they have an advantage when it gets to the point where protoss and zerg can build units that are either much more powerful or produce powerful units at a much faster rate. I disagree in TvP you get plenty of powerful units by choosing to go into the upper tiers. Ghosts wreck Templar play if you are on the ball, Ravens are one of the greatest casters in the game, and Siege Tanks are still a great unit. Even with the nerf to their damage vs. light, they still hit a pack of zealots for as much as they would a pack of stalkers due to the frame size of zealots. The reason a lot of terran players like to keep the game at 1.5 is because that is where they rule the game. TvP Marauders own first tier protoss pretty hard. Huh? Ghosts are a possible counter to HTs, if you land good EMPs, but they're not going to cut it once P is on 3 bases and can insta-warp 75 energy HTs. Ravens are a joke against P - one is ok early game for a PDD, but lategame feedback is just LOL and PDD doesn't do anything against a colossus/zealot army. Siege tanks are not great against P, they're not even good - any good T player will agree on this point. Gretorp even went so far as to call them "worthless" in TvP, if I remember correctly. They don't cut it against speedlots, blink stalkers or, surprisingly, Archons - I had to dramatically outmacro to squeeze out a win earlier using hellions+tanks+ghosts against Archon/Zealot, like 5 bases to 3 outmacro, and it was still a stupidly close game. Also, they soak up your gas and can't hit P's strong air units. T keeps the game at 1.5 because it's where they're strongest, yes. But it's not like they really have any other choice in a serious TvP. He called them useless, at wednesday's day 9... With all words... Tho 35 isnt a bad damage, the 3 seconds per shot is, it's not like the protoss will stay still for 30 seconds while he is being siege shoted =X The argument that siege tanks are useless because units don't atnd still is kind of like saying colossi are useless because vikings can kill them or High Templar are useless because EMP has a longer range than psi storm. Siege tanks are supposed to force your opponent to either commit to a full fight or refuse to engage. They also make any area on the map with a ramp or other choke territory where you are at a disgusting advantage. Just because units can run away doesn't make siege tanks bad. Should I run away when your army is at the front of my base? Should I run away when you doom drop in the back? Mobility is something you trade for damage. "I had to dramatically outmacro to squeeze out a win earlier using hellions+tanks+ghosts against Archon/Zealot, like 5 bases to 3 outmacro, and it was still a stupidly close game. Also, they soak up your gas and can't hit P's strong air units." Why the hell didn't you have any marauders? Concussive shells + stimpacks + emp = free win. Why are you using helion tank ghost against that build anyway. You have nothing to tank for your army. Thats like me going sentry stalker high templar against mass marauders.
I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Of course mobility and range/damage are tradeoffs, the point I'm making is that you WILL NOT WIN against a good P if you give up map control and let him freely expand (by focusing on tanks.) If you try to push too early, your tanks won't have the numbers to stop him from rolling over your half-assed bio/tank ball. If you turtle and macro, he'll outexpand you and overwhelm you with sheer numbers, or a transition to game-ending tech (i.e. carriers.)
Tanks become exponentially more effective the more you add onto your army. Adding tanks to a bioball is less effective than just adding on more medvacs and more units - there's no synergy with upgrades and it just makes you less mobile. Also, it's silly expecting T's bio units to "tank" for your siege tanks. A couple of storms and guess what? You have to pull back your bio. Now there's nothing between your tanks and P's Zealots. The tanks start splashing each other, and now you're fucked. At least hellions can poke at his zealots and move out of the storms without taking much damage... but they're too useless against his immortals, stalkers and colossi to do much else.
Fact is, T doesn't really have anything that can "tank" storms or colossi such that siege tanks are a viable option in TvP. It just doesn't work in practice.
EDIT: Honestly, I just don't understand how people can let themselves get sucked into such absurd cognitive dissonance. Do you seriously believe that every single top T in the world is making the same mistake? Do you think that they're ALL wrong and you're right, even though you don't have a fraction of a percent of their skill and knowledge in playing TvP? The sheer audacity of that kind of attitude blows my mind.
|
On October 13 2010 03:04 PanzerKing wrote:
See, this is the problem right here. You think of T units in a vacuum and say "WoW, what are T players talking about? They never use these units, but these units are really good!" What you should be doing is looking at the endgame units that your opponent will be fielding and realizing that, oh wait, those counter the units you think are so awesome.
...
See how much more logical our complaints are when you actually think of things in context, and not in a meaningless vacuum?
Lol, this is the same argument Zerg players have been making since release in ZvT all game long (not just 20+ min in) and Terran players have been quick to call out the QQ. The best part is, you only end up in this situation when you've messed up, where Zerg is in that situation every time they play a Terran opponent.
Anyway, I've used banshees and hellions vs Protoss personally. Both kick ass. The thor is admittedly more situational, but by no means are they useless.
So much of the Terran race has gone unexplored because of the face-rolling style bio offers.
|
On October 13 2010 03:29 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 03:04 PanzerKing wrote:
See, this is the problem right here. You think of T units in a vacuum and say "WoW, what are T players talking about? They never use these units, but these units are really good!" What you should be doing is looking at the endgame units that your opponent will be fielding and realizing that, oh wait, those counter the units you think are so awesome.
...
See how much more logical our complaints are when you actually think of things in context, and not in a meaningless vacuum? Lol, this is the same argument Zerg players have been making since release in ZvT all game long (not just 20+ min in) and Terran players have been quick to call out the QQ. The best part is, you only end up in this situation when you've messed up, where Zerg is in that situation every time they play a Terran opponent. Anyway, I've used banshees and hellions vs Protoss personally. Both kick ass. The thor is admittedly more situational, but by no means are they useless. So much of the Terran race has gone unexplored because of the face-rolling style bio offers.
We're talking about top-level play, not lower leagues or games so simple that you could have beaten the opponent with any unit. Without a replay of successful Thor use against a good P player, you're just making things up to prop up a failed argument.
|
On October 13 2010 03:29 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 03:04 PanzerKing wrote:
See, this is the problem right here. You think of T units in a vacuum and say "WoW, what are T players talking about? They never use these units, but these units are really good!" What you should be doing is looking at the endgame units that your opponent will be fielding and realizing that, oh wait, those counter the units you think are so awesome.
...
See how much more logical our complaints are when you actually think of things in context, and not in a meaningless vacuum? Lol, this is the same argument Zerg players have been making since release in ZvT all game long (not just 20+ min in) and Terran players have been quick to call out the QQ. The best part is, you only end up in this situation when you've messed up, where Zerg is in that situation every time they play a Terran opponent. Anyway, I've used banshees and hellions vs Protoss personally. Both kick ass. The thor is admittedly more situational, but by no means are they useless. So much of the Terran race has gone unexplored because of the face-rolling style bio offers.
Didn't you just say you mained zerg? Why do you even feel like you're qualified to argue about this? Do you main zerg and play a high-level terran somehow?
I love banshees and hellions. I made an entire strategy about banshees and hellions becuase I love them so much. Once you get into the lategame they stop working as your core army.
You have never beaten anyone good at the game lategame with banshees and hellions, I would bet a million dollars on it.
|
I think the Terran metagame is underdeveloped because of the efficiency of their early game harasses. Any of their harass is like the 4 gate; easy to pull off and can potentially win the game. However, recently players have been trying to do every gimmick in the Terran arsenal, and never winning with one. They then go to the next gimmick, and if that doesn't work, on to the next gimmick. About 12 minutes in, most of these types of players don't know what to do with themselves, so they end up losing even though they are on the same amount of bases as their opponent.
Terran army compositions can be tweaked much better imo, but like I said, the development is behind. Look at TLO's new play in TvT... It's not tank/viking/bio, its hellion/thor, and it makes sense too. Hellions for bio, thors for mech. If T were so worried about mass gateway armies in PvT backed by HT, they know they can go ghost and they know to scout ahead to get off the EMP, to snipe during the battle, to make the P waste storms, etc.
As a P player, I thought to myself, "cool, just get 3 void rays and a small gate army, kill off all the marines in the first engagement, and win with voidrays." It works really well. T players try this: Marine/Marauder/Viking/Banshee... My only anti air in PvT are stalkers which don't do too well against an equal number of banshees, so kill off all the stalkers.
T players need to think up new things that players haven't seen a billion times; Hellion drops, Marauder drops, tank drops, cloaked banshees... It was effective when I didn't come to expect that crap every single TvP I played. Maybe it isn't the race that's hurting T, it is how they are currently being played. Yeah, in the end game P is going to warp in a ton of Zeals and HT to replace lost units. Get reactored hellions late game, there's no excuse for not being able to handle Z/HT
|
@bobcat
A few counterpoints:
You do realize that Terran cannot queue up units when they're sitting at 200/200 right? When T and P exchange armies at max, Protoss will be sitting on fully ready warpgates that can insta replenish 30 supply worth of units. Terran won't be getting anything out for another 30 secs and by then Protoss will be ready with another round. It'll be a race Terran cannot win. He MUST be ahead in any major exchange and that's exceedingly hard against Protoss endgame units.
Most of Terran's higher tech units are ineffective late game. Besides medivacs and vikings (and situationally ravens), there's really nothing else we can build that won't get slammed hard. BCs and Thors are vulnerable to Void Rays and HT feedback. Chargelots and HTs make tanks almost counter-productive. Banshees are non-viable once detection is properly placed. Why do you think in a lot of TvP pro replays, the T always seems to stick mostly with 1.5? It's not because it's OP. There's really no viable alternative. Alternatives are sub-par and in every situation I've seen, ghosts+mmm+medivac/viking would have done just as well or better. There is no other optimal deviation possible.
|
Yeah, I do main Zerg, I'm sitting around 1530 rating right now.
When I'm feeling frisky, I play T, becaused they're my 2nd favorite race, my rating might drop down to 1400 on days I play Terran.
If that's not high enough, I'm sorry, I figured being better than 97% of SC2 players would be enough...
At any rate, I can get you a replay of me beating a ~1500 rating protoss with about 8 Tanks and 30 hellions (3 bases each), but I'm sure you'd never deliver on your million dollars anyway.
|
On October 13 2010 04:11 Jermstuddog wrote:
Yeah, I do main Zerg, I'm sitting around 1530 rating right now.
When I'm feeling frisky, I play T, becaused they're my 2nd favorite race, my rating might drop down to 1400 on days I play Terran.
If that's not high enough, I'm sorry, I figured being better than 97% of SC2 players would be enough...
At any rate, I can get you a replay of me beating a ~1500 rating protoss with about 8 Tanks and 30 hellions (3 bases each), but I'm sure you'd never deliver on your million dollars anyway.
Don't really care to get into your argument but I just want to point out real quick that 8 tanks/30 hellions isn't close to a max army. 3 base isn't late game to me. I'm thinking more like just about every available expo taken with max armies and banking resources.
|
On steppes of war (the map I have my replay on) that is 60% of the bases, we were each poking at our respective golds, but neither had the means to secure it.
Unfortunately, I can't give a max army made up largely with hellions, I figure anything over 30 of them is a bit excessive.
|
On October 13 2010 04:22 Jermstuddog wrote:
On steppes of war (the map I have my replay on) that is 60% of the bases, we were each poking at our respective golds, but neither had the means to secure it.
Unfortunately, I can't give a max army made up largely with hellions, I figure anything over 30 of them is a bit excessive.
Indeed it would be. Just about anything can be done in the early to mid-game.
The point still stands, however. 60% is not 100% or even 90% and besides, the max army requirement should be accepted as conditional for the late-game. I've seen plenty of games that take all expos, even on SoW (actually it's surprisingly frequent on that map).
|
On October 13 2010 01:06 Yaotzin wrote:
Other than ghosts, there's nothing to add to a MMM ball to make it stronger. P gets lots of new toys as they tech up, that make their basic zealot/stalker ball stronger and stronger and stronger. T mostly just has to make a bigger MMM ball. At a certain point, that's not enough anymore.
I don't play Terran, but... what about ravens and vikings? PDD?
Also, I know nobody uses it anymore, but seeker missile WOULD one shot HT grouped closely together (they're too slow to dodge).
Lastly, if you're already transitioning to vikings and ravens to help combat colossi and stalkers, why not get battlecruisers? It really sounds like a lot of Terran players just say:
P gets a lot of new toys as they tech up because a straight zealot/stalker ball really struggles against upgraded bio with or without medivacs. It's not that T doesn't have tools to deal with colossi and high templar, it's just that I rarely see Terrans using all the options at their fingertips.
|
On October 13 2010 04:11 Jermstuddog wrote:
Yeah, I do main Zerg, I'm sitting around 1530 rating right now.
When I'm feeling frisky, I play T, becaused they're my 2nd favorite race, my rating might drop down to 1400 on days I play Terran.
If that's not high enough, I'm sorry, I figured being better than 97% of SC2 players would be enough...
At any rate, I can get you a replay of me beating a ~1500 rating protoss with about 8 Tanks and 30 hellions (3 bases each), but I'm sure you'd never deliver on your million dollars anyway.
If you seriously think 1500 protoss is good you're direly mistaken. I regularly play 1600 people on ladder and jesus I get the most stupid shitty all ins thrown at me. 1500 rating really is the new 1000 rating.
8 Tanks and 30 hellions isn't lategame. 30 minutes into the game with 150+ armies is late game. Stop spewing your nonsense in this thread when EVERY SINGLE PROGAMER disagrees with you (for IdrA go to post 1, TLO said in TvP there isn't a late game transition, you have to stick to MMMG for the entire game, etc.)
If you want to continue sticking to your opinion I recommend you post some replays of a Terran pro beating a seemingly equally skilled protoss on comparable economies past the 30 minute mark. I haven't seen a single TvP where the T wasn't either very far ahead or much better than the Protoss.
The game is so retardedly balanced and Blizzard still sit on their asses thinking their TvP 49,6% statistic shows balance, when every single Protoss cries about early game imbalance and Terrans get absolutely buttfucked in late game.
|
On October 13 2010 04:48 Toxigen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 01:06 Yaotzin wrote:
Other than ghosts, there's nothing to add to a MMM ball to make it stronger. P gets lots of new toys as they tech up, that make their basic zealot/stalker ball stronger and stronger and stronger. T mostly just has to make a bigger MMM ball. At a certain point, that's not enough anymore. I don't play Terran, but... what about ravens and vikings? PDD? Also, I know nobody uses it anymore, but seeker missile WOULD one shot HT grouped closely together (they're too slow to dodge). Lastly, if you're already transitioning to vikings and ravens to help combat colossi and stalkers, why not get battlecruisers? It really sounds like a lot of Terran players just say: P gets a lot of new toys as they tech up because a straight zealot/stalker ball really struggles against upgraded bio with or without medivacs. It's not that T doesn't have tools to deal with colossi and high templar, it's just that I rarely see Terrans using all the options at their fingertips.
How would you get close enough to seeker without getting feedbacked? BCs are horrible for the same reason plus it's just inviting void rays.
|
On October 13 2010 04:55 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 04:11 Jermstuddog wrote:
Yeah, I do main Zerg, I'm sitting around 1530 rating right now.
When I'm feeling frisky, I play T, becaused they're my 2nd favorite race, my rating might drop down to 1400 on days I play Terran.
If that's not high enough, I'm sorry, I figured being better than 97% of SC2 players would be enough...
At any rate, I can get you a replay of me beating a ~1500 rating protoss with about 8 Tanks and 30 hellions (3 bases each), but I'm sure you'd never deliver on your million dollars anyway. If you seriously think 1500 protoss is good you're direly mistaken. I regularly play 1600 people on ladder and jesus I get the most stupid shitty all ins thrown at me. 1500 rating really is the new 1000 rating. 8 Tanks and 30 hellions isn't lategame. 30 minutes into the game with 150+ armies is late game. Stop spewing your nonsense in this thread when EVERY SINGLE PROGAMER disagrees with you (for IdrA go to post 1, TLO said in TvP there isn't a late game transition, you have to stick to MMMG for the entire game, etc.) If you want to continue sticking to your opinion I recommend you post some replays of a Terran pro beating a seemingly equally skilled protoss on comparable economies past the 30 minute mark. I haven't seen a single TvP where the T wasn't either very far ahead or much better than the Protoss. The game is so retardedly balanced and Blizzard still sit on their asses thinking their TvP 49,6% statistic shows balance, when every single Protoss cries about early game imbalance and Terrans get absolutely buttfucked in late game.
Yup, inflation. We'll all be 10k soon just by maintaining 50% winrate 'cause of bonus pool.
|
I think terran macro is harass into an army comp that will be superior than the protoss/zerg.
In TvZ, hellion thor crushes mutaling which is very popular for Zergs in the MU.
And TvP its all about where you engage armies in the first place.
|
On October 12 2010 14:01 Everlong wrote:Im amazed, how GoOdy actually go mech every game against P and he makes it look so easy. However, he is probably the only one Ive seen meching against P in like month.
So, I did a quick replay search and created a mini GoOdy TvP Mech Replay pack. These are all post-tank nerf btw.
Here it is:
GoOdy TvP Mech Replay Pack
GoOdy manages to play with mostly Hellion Tanks but incorporates early-game marauder play and marauder drops while macroing up a scary tank force. In the mid game his Hellions keep the Zealot count low or discourage them completely so the tanks can do their work. Be sure to check out the Desert Oasis game where he does a Hellion/Tank/Single Thor push in the midgame while taking the whole map.
MouzHasu does something interesting against him: No Zealots and mostly Stalkers. This makes the Hellions useful only for harassment, but got me thinking: Hellion-Tank-Raven with PDD would be pretty scary. Air would be strong against it, but if you slow push while building turrets I think it could be pretty effective.
|
On October 13 2010 05:12 Shlowpoke wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 14:01 Everlong wrote:Im amazed, how GoOdy actually go mech every game against P and he makes it look so easy. However, he is probably the only one Ive seen meching against P in like month. So, I did a quick replay search and created a mini GoOdy TvP Mech Replay pack. These are all post-tank nerf btw. Here it is: GoOdy TvP Mech Replay PackGoOdy manages to play with mostly Hellion Tanks but incorporates early-game marauder play and marauder drops while macroing up a scary tank force. In the mid game his Hellions keep the Zealot count low or discourage them completely so the tanks can do their work. Be sure to check out the Desert Oasis game where he does a Hellion/Tank/Single Thor push in the midgame while taking the whole map. MouzHasu does something interesting against him: No Zealots and mostly Stalkers. This makes the Hellions useful only for harassment, but got me thinking: Hellion-Tank-Raven with PDD would be pretty scary. Air would be strong against it, but if you slow push while building turrets I think it could be pretty effective.
I think pure Mech (w/ Ghost) is viable in TvP if you make sure you scout often (you should have plenty of scans since you don't need mules) for any air transition (pre build at least 1-2 Starports, when you see Air Transition, swap a reactor to the Starport and mass Vikings). It's just ALOT harder to do than pure bio aggressive play, so hardly anyone does it. Bio is just stronger early-mid game. But Mech I believe is better in the late game and allows for macroing games in TvP where you split the map in half.
|
|
|
Yeah lots of dumb posts, You cant go mech against toss. the void ray switch makes it too easy. and you cant afford vikings with mech. Ive tried many times and let me tell you, every toss knows how to void ray switch.
Jungle basin is not a legit mech map, because the third is hard to take which means having to spread your units out.
seeing lots of bad opinions but i am a 1450 terran diamond player.
noveyek and iechoic made good posts with good info.
of course terran cannot play a macro style, as many terrans have learned, certainly i was a macro terran from BW so i learned the hard way, costing me alot of losses.
All of the crying of terran imba comes from players like toss players or zerg players from BW who sort of want their imba fast DT's back or their imba muta stack back, but really these races have the late game advantage and can play to the late game. If the proposed terran nerfs go through, i am switching to toss because i do prefer a macro late game style.
Once the toss has late game 8 colossi, the terran cant do much. if he has enough vikings, he doesnt have enough bio units on the ground.
I have learned that you should just play 1 base all in against both races, unless its verse zerg and its a good map to go mech like zel naga or steppes.
Against toss, i always go with a 3 rax push and try to break the protoss before they get into the mid game and get that first colossi out. that comes @ about the 10 minute mark if they are going fast colossi. So i try to push out @ 9 minutes and if my push fails, i just gg and leave. You can try to play a macro game, but you run into the colossi. and if your opponent is tricky and techs to both patterns and goes with a switch to HT, god help you lol. SO the best thing to do against toss is to realize they are imba late game, and go for that 1 base all in. reaper cheese is brilliant as well against toss.
against zerg, you really have to harass and stop them from macroing up. the zerg has so many weapons, banelings are just brutal against T, and the T has no real way to prevent the Blings from reaching his marines. when combined with muta harrass, its hard for T to leave his base.
SO bottom line is against both races, you want to go one base all in, with some kind of gimmick.
the GSL really reflected this terran reality I feel.
|
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.
erm... idra won that
|
200/200 Terran armies can't beat a T3 200/200 army from either of the other races... I've tried every combo of mech and bio with ghost and raven support vs the other two races, and barring BCs there is just nothing that can stand toe to toe.
Problem with BCs is corruptors hard counter them, and vikings get killed by hydras, so corruptor broodlord hydra is a quick switch at that point to kill you, or upgraded ultras just shrug off the damage and kill your base. Thors are the only counter to ultras, but broodlords counter thors hard, and hydras counter them for cost if massed. By the time you get 200/200, the problem is even if your comp wins and kills 2 bases, they are still on 5-6 hatcheries on 3-4 bases and will tech switch and kill you before you can produce a counter.
TvP, nothing is really viable except for MMM+G+R because voidrays hard counter everything else Terran can make so if your marine count ever drops, gg. Banshees and Thors add some damage and tanking but your primary army will always have to be bio, and then its just a matter of ghost v templar. I can win if I'm +1 base on the protoss but their drops are just as effective if not more so because they can storm an entire mineral line in seconds while I can't reinforce in time even MMM. After that I produce workers too slow and tend to fall behind eventually unless my harass is even more successful.
|
Yeah i see alot of protoss answering terran questions, inviting them to play macro and come to the late game. even going as far as to suggest terran go mech against toss. It is kind of funny, have you ever heard of the concept of 2 wolves and a chicken voting on whats for dinner?? lol kind of whats going on here.
I am a terran, my advice is, sure play a few macro games against toss and a few macro games against zerg, and see how you fair. then come back and study the 1 base strategies, generally i find my win % is much better when i open harrass and then do a mid game timing push... or just go no harrass and early all in. just as i mentioned in my last post, you can see this style reflected in the GSL.
Look at ensnare, this guy is a top terran player and always goes for a 1 base play against protoss, even on a huge macro map like delta quadrant.
|
On October 12 2010 14:49 iamke55 wrote:
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.
true, great post. there is alot of understanding here and this is good advice
|
On October 13 2010 06:00 Cyber_Cheese wrote:Show nested quote +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. erm... idra won that
LOL, even when they try to give us links to a terran macro game, they are linking to games where terran lost.
|
i played Terran macrostyle against Protoss on some maps almost exclusivly.
It works out pretty well,
i usually play rax, reactor, CC, fact, rax teclab teclab
and pump out tanks marines marauder (usually at least one bunker - depends on the map) to defend my exp against 4warpgateallins etc.
after my exp is up and running, I
a) use the reactor rax to scout for his tech, build up 3 more fact and an armory and get thor/tanks/hellion/ghost if he goes HT
b) same if he goes colossi, but less thors and more vikings
c) if he goes voidrays i stick to bio. voidrays are not the best choice in my oppinion. in open field or if you attack him they are pretty bad against marines with stim.
simultaniously getting my thirdbase
I usually push out a little, not up to his base while getting my third.
+ constant hellion harrasement at his bases if there are no cannons etc.
gaining mapcontrol isnt too hard with hellions and if he builds cannons i usually add some marauders back into my play. (because he got less zealots. and my hellions aren't that effective against stalkers etc.)
tank/thor/ghost is always the backbone of my army. And upgrading is very important.
|
On October 13 2010 03:59 tehemperorer wrote:
I think the Terran metagame is underdeveloped because of the efficiency of their early game harasses. Any of their harass is like the 4 gate; easy to pull off and can potentially win the game. However, recently players have been trying to do every gimmick in the Terran arsenal, and never winning with one. They then go to the next gimmick, and if that doesn't work, on to the next gimmick. About 12 minutes in, most of these types of players don't know what to do with themselves, so they end up losing even though they are on the same amount of bases as their opponent.
Terran army compositions can be tweaked much better imo, but like I said, the development is behind. Look at TLO's new play in TvT... It's not tank/viking/bio, its hellion/thor, and it makes sense too. Hellions for bio, thors for mech. If T were so worried about mass gateway armies in PvT backed by HT, they know they can go ghost and they know to scout ahead to get off the EMP, to snipe during the battle, to make the P waste storms, etc.
As a P player, I thought to myself, "cool, just get 3 void rays and a small gate army, kill off all the marines in the first engagement, and win with voidrays." It works really well. T players try this: Marine/Marauder/Viking/Banshee... My only anti air in PvT are stalkers which don't do too well against an equal number of banshees, so kill off all the stalkers.
T players need to think up new things that players haven't seen a billion times; Hellion drops, Marauder drops, tank drops, cloaked banshees... It was effective when I didn't come to expect that crap every single TvP I played. Maybe it isn't the race that's hurting T, it is how they are currently being played. Yeah, in the end game P is going to warp in a ton of Zeals and HT to replace lost units. Get reactored hellions late game, there's no excuse for not being able to handle Z/HT
i agree a lot with this. we Terrans havent tried hard enough yet to develop different, more macro- and lategame-oriented playstyles. think of bw tvz, which had a very stable metagame for years which said that once zerg gets out some defilers with lurkers or ultras and is not completely dead economically, he proceeds to roflstomp the terran. then, after several years of professional gaming, the metagame shifts and terrans discover that a mech transition starting in the midgame is possible and is beating the shit out of zerg lategame.
this example shows that in particular the lategame of an rts as complex as sc, which only rarely is reached on reasonably equal grounds, can hold much of undiscovered yet viable strategies.
i think idras assertion is correct in tendency, but i dont agree with the statement that terran cant be played in a more macro- and lategame-focused style at all. as a T player, i can say they cant be played in a totally passive way, but the early game advantage can be used to pressure the opponent and secure a macro advantage. from there on, a solid macro style can be just as effective as continuing the harass.
|
This thread makes a lot of sense of my experiences as terran. My play style is harass-macro and instinctively I feel like the longer the game goes on the less and less chance I have of winning (which is usually right). Only rarely have I won 45 minute games in tvp or tvz. 45min wins are common in tvt however.
|
On October 13 2010 06:12 Kryptix wrote:
200/200 Terran armies can't beat a T3 200/200 army from either of the other races... I've tried every combo of mech and bio with ghost and raven support vs the other two races, and barring BCs there is just nothing that can stand toe to toe.
How about 15 thors, 10 helions and like 2 workers per thor issued with move on it and auto-repair? That's 140 supply . I'd like to see a zerg composition that beats that except in a real game scenario except broodlords.
|
On October 13 2010 06:35 Black Gun wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 03:59 tehemperorer wrote:
I think the Terran metagame is underdeveloped because of the efficiency of their early game harasses. Any of their harass is like the 4 gate; easy to pull off and can potentially win the game. However, recently players have been trying to do every gimmick in the Terran arsenal, and never winning with one. They then go to the next gimmick, and if that doesn't work, on to the next gimmick. About 12 minutes in, most of these types of players don't know what to do with themselves, so they end up losing even though they are on the same amount of bases as their opponent.
Terran army compositions can be tweaked much better imo, but like I said, the development is behind. Look at TLO's new play in TvT... It's not tank/viking/bio, its hellion/thor, and it makes sense too. Hellions for bio, thors for mech. If T were so worried about mass gateway armies in PvT backed by HT, they know they can go ghost and they know to scout ahead to get off the EMP, to snipe during the battle, to make the P waste storms, etc.
As a P player, I thought to myself, "cool, just get 3 void rays and a small gate army, kill off all the marines in the first engagement, and win with voidrays." It works really well. T players try this: Marine/Marauder/Viking/Banshee... My only anti air in PvT are stalkers which don't do too well against an equal number of banshees, so kill off all the stalkers.
T players need to think up new things that players haven't seen a billion times; Hellion drops, Marauder drops, tank drops, cloaked banshees... It was effective when I didn't come to expect that crap every single TvP I played. Maybe it isn't the race that's hurting T, it is how they are currently being played. Yeah, in the end game P is going to warp in a ton of Zeals and HT to replace lost units. Get reactored hellions late game, there's no excuse for not being able to handle Z/HT i agree a lot with this. we Terrans havent tried hard enough yet to develop different, more macro- and lategame-oriented playstyles. think of bw tvz, which had a very stable metagame for years which said that once zerg gets out some defilers with lurkers or ultras and is not completely dead economically, he proceeds to roflstomp the terran. then, after several years of professional gaming, the metagame shifts and terrans discover that a mech transition starting in the midgame is possible and is beating the shit out of zerg lategame. this example shows that in particular the lategame of an rts as complex as sc, which only rarely is reached on reasonably equal grounds, can hold much of undiscovered yet viable strategies. i think idras assertion is correct in tendency, but i dont agree with the statement that terran cant be played in a more macro- and lategame-focused style at all. as a T player, i can say they cant be played in a totally passive way, but the early game advantage can be used to pressure the opponent and secure a macro advantage. from there on, a solid macro style can be just as effective as continuing the harass.
u cant possibly claim that T arent innovative with their strategies because thats complete bulshit.
terrans were one of the very first who started fast expanding and used wiked unit combinations like marine/tank/ raven/banshee, ghost mech, ghost reaper etc while other races played exclusively 4WG or massed hydra/roach,
even now after multiple mech nerfs which led into less build variety (basically mech is just an addition not a core of T army anymore - with exception of tvz but bio-mech is way to go in this MU) we still see new trends like mass mulple front drops but theres not much u can do with bio beyond that, keeping constant pressure is the only way to win with terran, with mech u leave too much free space/time for other races u will get run over by their superior high tech army.
|
Just make more production facilities late game... if your 200/200 there is no use saving up money as Terran. Its better to throw down like 10 + rax/fac/starport so you can churn out a lot of units and reinforce just as quick as toss and z.
|
On October 13 2010 07:29 Payout wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 06:35 Black Gun wrote:On October 13 2010 03:59 tehemperorer wrote:
I think the Terran metagame is underdeveloped because of the efficiency of their early game harasses. Any of their harass is like the 4 gate; easy to pull off and can potentially win the game. However, recently players have been trying to do every gimmick in the Terran arsenal, and never winning with one. They then go to the next gimmick, and if that doesn't work, on to the next gimmick. About 12 minutes in, most of these types of players don't know what to do with themselves, so they end up losing even though they are on the same amount of bases as their opponent.
Terran army compositions can be tweaked much better imo, but like I said, the development is behind. Look at TLO's new play in TvT... It's not tank/viking/bio, its hellion/thor, and it makes sense too. Hellions for bio, thors for mech. If T were so worried about mass gateway armies in PvT backed by HT, they know they can go ghost and they know to scout ahead to get off the EMP, to snipe during the battle, to make the P waste storms, etc.
As a P player, I thought to myself, "cool, just get 3 void rays and a small gate army, kill off all the marines in the first engagement, and win with voidrays." It works really well. T players try this: Marine/Marauder/Viking/Banshee... My only anti air in PvT are stalkers which don't do too well against an equal number of banshees, so kill off all the stalkers.
T players need to think up new things that players haven't seen a billion times; Hellion drops, Marauder drops, tank drops, cloaked banshees... It was effective when I didn't come to expect that crap every single TvP I played. Maybe it isn't the race that's hurting T, it is how they are currently being played. Yeah, in the end game P is going to warp in a ton of Zeals and HT to replace lost units. Get reactored hellions late game, there's no excuse for not being able to handle Z/HT i agree a lot with this. we Terrans havent tried hard enough yet to develop different, more macro- and lategame-oriented playstyles. think of bw tvz, which had a very stable metagame for years which said that once zerg gets out some defilers with lurkers or ultras and is not completely dead economically, he proceeds to roflstomp the terran. then, after several years of professional gaming, the metagame shifts and terrans discover that a mech transition starting in the midgame is possible and is beating the shit out of zerg lategame. this example shows that in particular the lategame of an rts as complex as sc, which only rarely is reached on reasonably equal grounds, can hold much of undiscovered yet viable strategies. i think idras assertion is correct in tendency, but i dont agree with the statement that terran cant be played in a more macro- and lategame-focused style at all. as a T player, i can say they cant be played in a totally passive way, but the early game advantage can be used to pressure the opponent and secure a macro advantage. from there on, a solid macro style can be just as effective as continuing the harass. u cant possibly claim that T arent innovative with their strategies because thats complete bulshit. terrans were one of the very first who started fast expanding and used wiked unit combinations like marine/tank/ raven/banshee, ghost mech, ghost reaper etc while other races played exclusively 4WG or massed hydra/roach, even now after multiple mech nerfs which led into less build variety (basically mech is just an addition not a core of T army anymore - with exception of tvz but bio-mech is way to go in this MU) we still see new trends like mass mulple front drops but theres not much u can do with bio beyond that, keeping constant pressure is the only way to win with terran, with mech u leave too much free space/time for other races u will get run over by their superior high tech army.
but this is exactly what i was referring to: most terrans nowadays focus their whole builds, timings and strategies around early- or midgame attacks. as zerg and protoss get better and better at countering this harass or timing attacks, this focus on early attacks is hurting terran players more and more. because most of the terrans so far have only invested their thinking into tailoring harassing and/or timing attack techniques, it is imho fair to say that the terran lategame potential is not fully explored yet. the tendency will probably be that Z or P are better off in the lategame, but this doesnt mean a lategame-oriented terran style isnt feasible at all.
|
On October 13 2010 05:12 Shlowpoke wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 14:01 Everlong wrote:Im amazed, how GoOdy actually go mech every game against P and he makes it look so easy. However, he is probably the only one Ive seen meching against P in like month. So, I did a quick replay search and created a mini GoOdy TvP Mech Replay pack. These are all post-tank nerf btw. Here it is: GoOdy TvP Mech Replay PackGoOdy manages to play with mostly Hellion Tanks but incorporates early-game marauder play and marauder drops while macroing up a scary tank force. In the mid game his Hellions keep the Zealot count low or discourage them completely so the tanks can do their work. Be sure to check out the Desert Oasis game where he does a Hellion/Tank/Single Thor push in the midgame while taking the whole map. MouzHasu does something interesting against him: No Zealots and mostly Stalkers. This makes the Hellions useful only for harassment, but got me thinking: Hellion-Tank-Raven with PDD would be pretty scary. Air would be strong against it, but if you slow push while building turrets I think it could be pretty effective.
I LOVE U TY
ME--->  <------ U
|
So we probably have to look at terran game theory from a slightly different viewpoint. It has been brought up in this thread by zerg and protoss players that all terran units are available very early on, it is as if terran does not have tiers at all. Essentially you got acces to your entire arsenal really early. You can tech to 1-1-1 while expanding and being very safe so the only two units that feel like a tier away are the battlecruisers and the thor who both require an additional building, but the armory is such a core building anyway since it contains all the upgrades.
So what is the result of this? Well terran has their entire toolkit wide open from the start of the game, hence this sets up for some insanely strong early timing pushes which is what most protoss and zerg players would refer to when not being particularly happy with terran.
BUT on the other side of the same coin, all the terrans are feeling like the endgame is near impossible because obviously if you have all your tech in the first ten minutes, that also means that there is nothing left to transition into. The very same game state that makes terran so strong earlygame against toss and zerg is also what makes terran weak lategame.
For obvious reasons I have a hard time seeing blizzard balacing this out. Because whenever they nerf a unit to not make terran so strong early game, terran also gets exponentially weaker lategame, and vice versa.
When they nerfed the tank twice the early contains against protoss and one base marine/tank pushes became a lot less potent. At the same time it became impossible to hold several bases lategame against toss since the number of tanks needed at any given position to hold off small pushes became too high.
|
It seems like there's quite a bit of innovation for Terran, but a lot of it is in TvT. It's one of the only match-ups where pretty much every unit seems to be used.
TvP has a lot of opening for both sides, but the midgame is almost always some flavor of MMM against a Robo-bay Protoss.
TvZ was innovative for a while (it was the first matchup where Terran players went full mech), and Terran still has a variety of effective unit compositions. (Thor/Hellion/Banshee, who would've guessed?)
|
On October 13 2010 06:29 trotskyist wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 06:00 Cyber_Cheese wrote: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. erm... idra won that LOL, even when they try to give us links to a terran macro game, they are linking to games where terran lost.
I was making a point that terran _can_ play macro, i guess that was lost on you two. Yes the terran did lose the game, he also got outplayed all game long if you bothered to watch it.
|
On October 13 2010 07:52 ComTrav wrote:
It seems like there's quite a bit of innovation for Terran, but a lot of it is in TvT. It's one of the only match-ups where pretty much every unit seems to be used.
TvP has a lot of opening for both sides, but the midgame is almost always some flavor of MMM against a Robo-bay Protoss.
TvZ was innovative for a while (it was the first matchup where Terran players went full mech), and Terran still has a variety of effective unit compositions. (Thor/Hellion/Banshee, who would've guessed?)
TvZ is still innovative. TvT since the Tank Nerf has become more interesting. But TvP is just like you said it. MMM vs Robo. And even thats dieing out now that alot of protosses are incorporating Phoenixes to take down vikings and medivacs.
I won't be surprised that after a couple months Terran is considered the weakest race due to their inability to keep up into the late game.
In BW it seemed that most late game compositions were even in power relying on Spells and real skill in order to get the upper hand.
For example. MEch>GateWay
Gateway+Arbiter>MEch
MEch + Sci = Gateway + Arbiter
As fun as Starcraft 2 is i believe it will be awhile before all the races are balanced. The only issue is that things like Terran Earlygame PWNage and late game weakness pretty much throws off the Stats.
If BW taught us anything Harass over time is countered and nulled thus only serving as a surprise tactic. IMHO the same will be for SC2.
|
My problem with late game TvP is that anything you might want to transition into out of the stuff that falls to storm so quickly can get fedback or is the tank. Which are even worse against protoss by the time charge is available.
It's quite problematic that HTs counter small cheap units but (in the case of terran) also the big expensive units.
Colossus/Phoenix is also kind of iffy.
What I found to be ridiculously powerful late game however is mass ravens if you get enough gas to sustain a good number and get the 3759 upgrades for them. Beware of feedback though.
|
On October 13 2010 07:21 VoirDire wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 06:12 Kryptix wrote:
200/200 Terran armies can't beat a T3 200/200 army from either of the other races... I've tried every combo of mech and bio with ghost and raven support vs the other two races, and barring BCs there is just nothing that can stand toe to toe. How about 15 thors, 10 helions and like 2 workers per thor issued with move on it and auto-repair? That's 140 supply . I'd like to see a zerg composition that beats that except in a real game scenario except broodlords.
some fungal growth + ultra later, then spawn another wave of fungal + ultra. Some guy tried to mass thor in GSL against fruitdealer.
Fruit dealer dealt him some fruit he couldn't refused.
|
On October 13 2010 07:48 Raiden X wrote:I LOVE U TY ME---> <------ U Lol. Glad you enjoyed GoOdy's style as much as I did. Definitely my favorite Terran player to watch after seeing those matches.
I found a few more (Updated replay pack here):
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-157093.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-157094.jpg)
In one of the recent Day9 dailies Gretorp was on and Day9 asked him what he thought about tanks post-nerf. He said something to the effect of "there's no good time to get them."
But GoOdy seems to have found a sturdy, flexible mech opening that still includes harassment options. It doesn't have the potential to quickly kill off the opponent like mass barracks play does, but imo this leads him into a stronger mid-late game than a MMM-centered army could.
|
On October 13 2010 08:46 Shlowpoke wrote: Lol. Glad you enjoyed GoOdy's style as much as I did. Definitely my favorite Terran player to watch after seeing those matches. I found a few more (Updated replay pack here): In one of the recent Day9 dailies Gretorp was on and Day9 asked him what he thought about tanks post-nerf. He said something to the effect of "there's no good time to get them." But GoOdy seems to have found a sturdy, flexible mech opening that still includes harassment options. It doesn't have the potential to quickly kill off the opponent like mass barracks play does, but imo this leads him into a stronger mid-late game than a MMM-centered army could.
You mean that a 2250 player is able to beat a 1500 player with a weaker strategy. That's not exactly an earth-shattering development. 1500 just doesn't cut it. Shit, I'm 1500 and I've never played an RTS before and I play the game maybe twice a week - not exactly progamer or high-level by any stretch of the imagination. You'd have to show him beating a comparably-skilled opponent who played well and used an effective strat, to persuade anyone here.
|
On October 13 2010 07:21 VoirDire wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 06:12 Kryptix wrote:
200/200 Terran armies can't beat a T3 200/200 army from either of the other races... I've tried every combo of mech and bio with ghost and raven support vs the other two races, and barring BCs there is just nothing that can stand toe to toe. How about 15 thors, 10 helions and like 2 workers per thor issued with move on it and auto-repair? That's 140 supply . I'd like to see a zerg composition that beats that except in a real game scenario except broodlords.
Flank with roach/ultra and it's a win, or at least a trade in your favor. T has to focus-fire the ultras, leaving the roaches free to move in and focus-fire the thors. 2 SCVs on auto-repair won't do shit when the thors are being one-shot by a clump of roaches. Any T turtling and building up a thor/hellion army has left you free to expand across the map, so you should have at least a one-base advantage on him, probably two. Regenerate your army and push while his numbers are small, collect your points.
|
I've watched all the Goody reps from the replay pack except for the one where he played Sjow, I'm not even gonna bother watching someone off race to consider a strategy.
1 game he got absolutely wrecked by a bunch of speedrays (Delta Quadrant)
1 game the P just threw his blink stalkers into his sieged tanks. Not really sure what to think about that one.
1 game MaNa just played absolutely horribly and let Terran walk all over the map and siege in front of his base (Its DO even)
The strategy is absolutely horrible and Goody is mediocre at best. I know he's #1 in EU ladder, but that doesn't say anything. I don't see any efficiency or good timings or whatever. The Protosses just played absolutely horribly.
|
On October 12 2010 11:56 Raiden X wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 11:47 iEchoic wrote:I don't think so. Terran can't handle either infestor+ultra or ht/zealot/stalker spam lategame cost-effectively. In addition, zerg can out-macro terran when left undisturbed, and protoss' anti-harassment lategame with mass cannons and templar warping in anywhere on the map is incredibly hard to break. Tanks are terrible since the patch in TvP so map control is hard to establish and and ultras already beat tanks. Terran needs to successfully apply pressure throughout the game to come out even in the lategame. There was a drewbie quote that I agree with about TvP lategame, essentially about how protoss units are more cost effective later on and the t player needs to harass and out-macro early on to be on even footing. I don't think there is any reason to play a Terran style that macros without aggression. + Show Spoiler +See the GSL finals for examples. Well Tanks don't seem to bad when you have hellions with pre igniter. The only issue i have with TvP mech is Voids. Maybe what we need is for NaDa to pull off a crazy Terran Macro style like he did in BW. And against Zerg, NOBODY can out Macro a zerg even in BW. Terran if he meched would push off off to bases with a massive army and force a Third and possible fourth in one push.
I think it would be cooler to see iLoveOOV do it, he was a macro beast.
|
Pretty much every terran that I've hit on the ladder in the past week does a 1 base timing attack with 4 banshees + marines, raven + banshees + marines, marine + tank + ghost or some variation. There is no scouting or adapting done for the first 10 minutes; he hits however many units and then just a-moves into the enemy base. Sounds like it wouldn't work, right? wrong. I've seen almost no creativity or exploration on the ladder from terrans. It might be true that terran is capable of playing a macro game, but these timing attacks are so strong and so easy to execute that these players are fighting having to play one.
|
I rarely have problems late game as Terran (low-mid Diamond). My problems seem to the 1 base all ins from my opponent, or epicly bad harass by myself. I normally feel like if I survive the first 10 minutes of play, I've got the game in the bag. But I guess this just could at the low-mid diamond level.
|
I've have yet to find out a solution for TvP lategame. Like what many posters have said, TvP revolves around in your face tactics since Tanks are a joke. Tanks are hardcountered by pretty much every Protoss unit and ability (Zealots, Blink Stalkers, Pheonix, Voidrays, Immortals etc). I'm a BW Terran player and i believe its quite disgusting how MMMG is currently the only endgame option vs Protoss.
|
On October 14 2010 03:10 Musiq wrote:
I've have yet to find out a solution for TvP lategame. Like what many posters have said, TvP revolves around in your face tactics since Tanks are a joke. Tanks are hardcountered by pretty much every Protoss unit and ability (Zealots, Blink Stalkers, Pheonix, Voidrays, Immortals etc). I'm a BW Terran player and i believe its quite disgusting how MMMG is currently the only endgame option vs Protoss.
Agreed, I am a BW terran player too and it sucks how they killed mech. yes terran was hard to play in BW, but atleast you did have a strong capability with your army
your right the entire toss army is aimed around countering tanks lol. pretty sad, but i am sticking to the 1 base all ins and it works sometimes. better than never, which going late game against alot of colossus never works lol
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
