I have been working on a Double Armory build in SCII. So far it has been going well, versus practice partners and on the ladder. The basics of this build is to get fast upgrades so your tanks do more damage in its splash radius and your other units can kill the enemy easier while getting a good economy.
10 - Depot 12 - Barracks 13 - Refinery @100% gas 3 SCVs 14 - Scout @100% Barracks, make 2 Marines 16 – Orbital Command 16 – Supply Depot 17 - Factory @100% Depot, Bunker (in natural) 22 – Command Center @100% Factory Tech Lab @100% Tech lab, Tank 26 – Supply Depot 26 - Siege Mode 28 - Engineering Bay @125 minerals- Engineering Bay Continue SCVs and Tanks Nat gas ASAP (Rest is more modifiable, While Pumping Tanks+ SCV’s) ~33 - Armory @100% Armory, Vehicle Weapon (1) ~ 41 - Depot ~ 46 - Depot ~ 50 Factory ~ 51 CC @50% Vehicle Weapons (1), Starport OR Factory @100% Vehicle Weapons 1, Vehicle Plating 1 @100% Vehicle weapons 1, Second Armory
NOTES
If the other player is being very aggressive in Early-midgame, make more marines, while delaying your Command Center. Also, if they are being aggressive in the midgame, you can just add more factories earlier. Adding the engineering bay faster can effectively counter void rays or DT’s. On your Starport, make sure to either get another Starport OR make some Vikings then add a tech lab. Make ravens if they go DTs and for PDD, also ravens can help soak up damage for you. Be sure to get preigniter for hellions so they can own Zealots, or do small drops into their base. Continue to get bases and adding factories into the late game.
The most important part of this strategy is getting the upgrades. Around 2/1 upgrades, just as in Brood War, you can move out. Versus a faster expanding protoss you can move out later, or vs. a slower expanding protoss, you can move out later, although putting pressure on and continuously attacking from 2/1 upgrades can deal a lot of damage.
A thing to note is that getting Ghosts can be very beneficial to your overall strategy, so instead of letting that barracks go to waste you can get EMP for ghosts. This will effectively render immortals defenseless against tank fire. Another thing that you should note is that sensor towers can be very efficient for spotting attacks, drops, and backdoor attacks.
Doing a 1/1/1 build after getting your expansion up can be very beneficial in fighting off the air attacks, adding your factories later. You can also drop hellions to do some economic damage.
Getting your 3rd up is an important part of this strategy, but it might be hard to get it. Putting up walls using buildings and a Planetary Fortress, plus tanks in this maze can be very helpful, especially on maps with faraway thirds, like Blistering Sands. If you move out earlier, you can take your third along your push path. You want to choose a push path with expansions on it and take those as you push along on that path. No Protoss is going to want to attack those expansions, since your army should be relatively close. Continue to reinforce your push and attack, the important part is to continue pressuring the Protoss after your first big attack.
I deal with blink stalkers by not rallying to my natural. I usually rally my factories in my main, and having around 2 tanks in my natural. So they can attack while I bring my forces down the ramp or just siege up from my main.
Yeah was just wondering since i tried to play mech myself (BW habit) annd the only problem i had was early game Voidrays (might not be used much early due to patch) and Blink stalkers.
On October 16 2010 12:15 petzergling wrote: 1 rax no stim w/ tanks u are gonna have a whole lot of fun against any early aggression like void rays, 4gate, immortal pushes, etc
VRs are killed by marines. 4 gate build can be tweaked. immortal pushes marine tank basically counters. marines slice shield, tanks kill everything else.
Sorry guys, edited the OP, which I realized was quite bad. Earl game voidrays can be countered by getting around 4 marines, or an early engineering bay.
I highly doubt that you're going to hold a 3 Gate/ Stargate build with this, but it's kinda making me curious about the viability of it. I might try forgoing Bio in favor of hellions and a buttload of turrets and see what happens.
TLO already does a Double Armory build btw, although I've only seen it against Zerg sofar.
On October 16 2010 12:20 NiTrOuS wrote: Sorry guys, edited the OP, which I realized was quite bad. Earl game voidrays can be countered by getting around 4 marines, or an early engineering bay.
Hey Nitro its TMO, I think just getting out 4 marines is better than getting an engineering bay they can be used for scouting once you hold out. The enginerring bay would be better for later in the game but early on when we're both 2 bases I would say that the marines are going to be a better choice.
Hmm, I feel like a 3 gate 1 stargate build could be a good soft counter to this, although instead of getting a second factory you could a starport, and then add another factory. Tanks are very good though, even versus immortals, especially if you have a defendable natural like on Fighting Spirit, LT, or Gods Garden.
Overall if things go accordingly, the counter to this is either out macro the Terran (hard due to the small blizzard maps) or exploit the fact you have so little anti-air (carrier switch).
I'll give this replay a watch, but I do suggest you play some really filthy aggressive builds (like any of these haters gonna mention) to see the limits and possible necessary variations of the opening.
For any people who doubt the Siege FE, morrow did one pre tank-nerf. Yes, that was pre-nerf, so I'm going into this with cautious optimism.
On October 16 2010 12:45 NiTrOuS wrote: I think that would be a good idea, although I would prefer getting a raven for PDD, turrets, and Seeker Missiles versus zealots.
You wouldn't need seeker missiles your hellions just melted my zealots easily so getting ghost would be better IMO. If your going for a more air heavy army then i can getting a raven would be better.
Yeah, I have a feeling a carrier switch wont be so effective though, because terran has scan so early and getting vikings is a simple matter. I get vikings quite quick, and carriers cant abuse cliffs as much anymore because vikings are also flying. Pre tank-nerf doesnt seem to do too much, because in the early game protoss go stalkers instead of zealots, so tans still do 50 damage. And to manicsquare, you have a point there, I have an unused barracks.
On October 16 2010 12:49 Musiq wrote: Overall if things go accordingly, the counter to this is either out macro the Terran (hard due to the small blizzard maps) or exploit the fact you have so little anti-air (carrier switch).
doesnt marine raven (PDD+Seeker+auto turret) do well enough to hold it off til you get some vikings out from the starport? Ive never tried it, so im not sure
On October 16 2010 13:14 Yaotzin wrote: Have you even tested this against the various early aggression builds, or stargate openings..?
One of those replays should involve a small stargate opening where i stop him from mining at his natural but I then give up on void rays after he gets enough turrets down. The counter to early voids as he said is an early E-bay or about 4 marines. I personally think that it works better if he goes 4 marines.
Yes I have in fact, I just don't have the replays. Vs. a 4 gate it is advised to skip the 3rd and straight up add more factories and starports. Versus voidrays, I usually make ~4 marines OR turret up as seen in the first replay. I scouted it too late in the first replay, so I had to spam turrets. The thing I was weakest against was an early immortal push, but if you add 8 marines you can easily hold it off.
With the mega mech upgrades + armory, wouldn't you make at least SOME thors? Maybe when you claim your third expo.
With the recent patch they can actually be quite good in TvP. I mean, if you're getting +2/+1 mech theres really no reason why you shouldn't be building a few thors also to benefit from that.
Thors=AA, so it will help against any stargate shenanigans.
On October 16 2010 13:14 Yaotzin wrote: Have you even tested this against the various early aggression builds, or stargate openings..?
One of those replays should involve a small stargate opening where i stop him from mining at his natural but I then give up on void rays after he gets enough turrets down. The counter to early voids as he said is an early E-bay or about 4 marines. I personally think that it works better if he goes 4 marines.
The first 2 links are the same game so I can't see ^_^
Yes I have in fact, I just don't have the replays. Vs. a 4 gate it is advised to skip the 3rd and straight up add more factories and starports. Versus voidrays, I usually make ~4 marines OR turret up as seen in the first replay. I scouted it too late in the first replay, so I had to spam turrets. The thing I was weakest against was an early immortal push, but if you add 8 marines you can easily hold it off.
Turret against voids.....
You look extremely vulnerable to voids in those replays, especially at your front. Looks like an easy snipe+chargeup on the depots.
Midgame on you had like 4 vikings as your only anti-air...kinda begging for a void backstab, voids pushing straight on your army, or phoenix play.
How do you stop the immo push with only marines? Once the bunker is down the stalkers have you in serious trouble..
In general it's hard to draw much from games with so little aggression. That toss could've gone 200/200 void and gged you.
WTF is this? Bronze league play? I saw the replays, and the protoss didn't even make an army,- he had 103 harvesters at 3 base and maxed out all his pylons to 200 pop and was floating so much money. He was at 170 pop with no army and you were at 126.
Those replays demonstrate nothing, and the low APM of the protoss player already proves it- bronze level. When i was watching those replays i was facepalming at very instant where he could have won.
I hope this thread gets deleted because seriously, go ladder and try it why you will instantly lose against any half decent player. Playing on ICCUP - i thought you guys were competitive but replays showed every indication of a low level player and protoss never scouts actively and whole game was turtle like a noob.
On October 16 2010 13:38 tournamentnow wrote: WTF is this? Bronze league play? I saw the replays, and the protoss didn't even make an army,- he had 103 harvesters at 3 base and maxed out all his pylons to 200 pop and was floating so much money. He was at 170 pop with no army and you were at 126.
Those replays demonstrate nothing, and the low APM of the protoss player already proves it- bronze level. When i was watching those replays i was facepalming at very instant where he could have won.
I hope this thread gets deleted because seriously, go ladder and try it why you will instantly lose against any half decent player. Playing on ICCUP - i thought you guys were competitive but replays showed every indication of a low level player and protoss never scouts actively and whole game was turtle like a noob.
Totally... low APM = Noob.
and themiddleone is platinum (i believe). I will play some games vs NitrOuS (Diamond 1200, ME ANXIETE not Nitrous), as you care about rank so much after SKT vs KT is i have time. check back up tomorrow night or something
TournamentNow, =(, youre so mean. TheMiddleOne is actually platinum and I'm diamond, and I have used this strategy on the ladder. If you play protoss I could play against you as soon as the proleague SKT vs. KT is finished, and I'll fix the replays right now. Thanks for informing me Yaotzin.
Well if you have 3 raxes, you wont have as good as an economy and colossi/HT are quite good vs. BIO, especially in later game, while going double armory allows you to get a good economy, a powerful midgame/lategame army, and avoiding the problem of how good protoss things are later in the game.
I watched about 15 minutes of the first replay, and I'm stopping there compltely unconvinced. The
Why?
First up, play this build on SC2 maps. Oh what, you don't like them? Well, stiff fucking shit, your strategy is worthless on a map no-one plays on. Like, that map you were using is really good for mass turtling because it's huge and the terrain layout of the main and the natural and third support it. Awesome, I can totally apply that logic to any of the maps in the current SC2 map pool.
Wait, no I can't!
Second, the protoss is playing poorly. His build is unrefined, you're both floating crazy, and the counter to mech play is Immortal, HT, chargelot, and building some observers!
Third is that I would hate to go for a purely passive lategame strategy against protoss because the lategame favours them so very hard. Pure mech is dealt with by the above combo, plus a mothership, and the protoss WILL out-eco you the whole time.
I don't like this strategy, and I don't like the chances of pure mech in this matchup at it's current state. Ghost mech MAYBE, but not pure mech.
I see, well I'll get a replay on Ladder maps ok? I feel like it is viable on the current ladder maps, and how does lategame favour protoss hard? I was just wondering because this has actually been working for me in the ladder.
On October 16 2010 14:03 iaguz wrote: I watched about 15 minutes of the first replay, and I'm stopping there compltely unconvinced. The
Why?
First up, play this build on SC2 maps. Oh what, you don't like them? Well, stiff fucking shit, your strategy is worthless on a map no-one plays on. Like, that map you were using is really good for mass turtling because it's huge and the terrain layout of the main and the natural and third support it. Awesome, I can totally apply that logic to any of the maps in the current SC2 map pool.
Wait, no I can't!
Second, the protoss is playing poorly. His build is unrefined, you're both floating crazy, and the counter to mech play is Immortal, HT, chargelot, and building some observers!
Third is that I would hate to go for a purely passive lategame strategy against protoss because the lategame favours them so very hard. Pure mech is dealt with by the above combo, plus a mothership, and the protoss WILL out-eco you the whole time.
I don't like this strategy, and I don't like the chances of pure mech in this matchup at it's current state. Ghost mech MAYBE, but not pure mech.
Srry my play is bad as they said I am in plat and I don't play like super competitive. Haven't tried Immortal,HT, chargelot yet but just getting chargelots with stalkers they got fryed once he gets so many hellions. I'm also concerned with HTs because I think the same logic would apply.
On October 16 2010 14:03 iaguz wrote: I watched about 15 minutes of the first replay, and I'm stopping there compltely unconvinced. The
Why?
First up, play this build on SC2 maps. Oh what, you don't like them? Well, stiff fucking shit, your strategy is worthless on a map no-one plays on. Like, that map you were using is really good for mass turtling because it's huge and the terrain layout of the main and the natural and third support it. Awesome, I can totally apply that logic to any of the maps in the current SC2 map pool.
Wait, no I can't!
Second, the protoss is playing poorly. His build is unrefined, you're both floating crazy, and the counter to mech play is Immortal, HT, chargelot, and building some observers!
Third is that I would hate to go for a purely passive lategame strategy against protoss because the lategame favours them so very hard. Pure mech is dealt with by the above combo, plus a mothership, and the protoss WILL out-eco you the whole time.
I don't like this strategy, and I don't like the chances of pure mech in this matchup at it's current state. Ghost mech MAYBE, but not pure mech.
Srry my play is bad as they said I am in plat and I don't play like super competitive. Haven't tried Immortal,HT, chargelot yet but just getting chargelots with stalkers they got fryed once he gets so many hellions. I'm also concerned with HTs because I think the same logic would apply.
I think youre forgetting mech doesnt really fall to storm anymore since storm is weak, and hellions are quite strong vs. chargelots and HTs. A mothership can be easily scouted and I can add on more vikings, since I dont really get thors. I think I should get thors and ghosts though, improving this strat.
On October 16 2010 14:03 iaguz wrote: I watched about 15 minutes of the first replay, and I'm stopping there compltely unconvinced. The
Why?
First up, play this build on SC2 maps. Oh what, you don't like them? Well, stiff fucking shit, your strategy is worthless on a map no-one plays on. Like, that map you were using is really good for mass turtling because it's huge and the terrain layout of the main and the natural and third support it. Awesome, I can totally apply that logic to any of the maps in the current SC2 map pool.
Wait, no I can't!
Second, the protoss is playing poorly. His build is unrefined, you're both floating crazy, and the counter to mech play is Immortal, HT, chargelot, and building some observers!
Third is that I would hate to go for a purely passive lategame strategy against protoss because the lategame favours them so very hard. Pure mech is dealt with by the above combo, plus a mothership, and the protoss WILL out-eco you the whole time.
I don't like this strategy, and I don't like the chances of pure mech in this matchup at it's current state. Ghost mech MAYBE, but not pure mech.
Srry my play is bad as they said I am in plat and I don't play like super competitive. Haven't tried Immortal,HT, chargelot yet but just getting chargelots with stalkers they got fryed once he gets so many hellions. I'm also concerned with HTs because I think the same logic would apply.
WHAT your themiddleone?
HT's are weaker now. thors cant get feedbacked.
Yeah Anxiete I'm TMO and he doesn't use thors for this or he doesn't use them against me at least. I mean if i could get close enough to tanks Storms would be useful but considering that he goes in with hellions first I don't think I could get that close. I think that it will have to be a mostly void ray army.
The problem is that air is easy to scout, so I can just add on vikings and thors, and reduce hellions and tanks. Its actually a very adaptable build, allowing for air upgrades OR mech upgrades.
On October 16 2010 14:19 NiTrOuS wrote: The problem is that air is easy to scout, so I can just add on vikings and thors, and reduce hellions and tanks. Its actually a very adaptable build, allowing for air upgrades OR mech upgrades.
I think going for an air army of viking and banshees would be an interesting for fun build. But on a more serious note I think that going vikings would be better because thors are more easily countered with immortals than tanks are especially if u have hellions acting as a wall for the tanks.
Yeah, I also agree that vikings would be a good choice, and that ravens, ghosts, and maybe even thors mixed in would also help a lot. Ravens specifically can detect and use PDD against the mothership attack, negating it.
I am definitely going to have to try this out, I have been trying to find some good ways to mech against protoss, and this seems as good as any. I would imagine that Thors somewhat early on would be great, especially against immortals, as 250mm cannons destroy them in 1 shot.
Well, it does get upgrades fast, and I guess thors could be good. You have to make sure to adapt though to what the protoss throws at you, like 4 gate you make more marines and get later expansions.
I was messing around with this build in some custom games today, and I have to say that it is really good.
This is a replay that I played against a random player, and I have to say that mass tanks works really well. I think that this build is probably at its weakest early on, but once your economy kicks in the amount of units you can build just gets ridiculous.
I feel like, instead of adding that many factories on you could have gotten a starport, but at least you tried the build. Anyways, as you can see the tanks with upgrades are very powerful vs. all ground, including immortals, even though they are supposed to countered by them. Chargelots melted to your hellions and DTs also. This is also played on a ladder map, showing it is viable.
On October 17 2010 07:25 Shootemup. wrote: I was messing around with this build in some custom games today, and I have to say that it is really good.
This is a replay that I played against a random player, and I have to say that mass tanks works really well. I think that this build is probably at its weakest early on, but once your economy kicks in the amount of units you can build just gets ridiculous.
May i ask what rank you are? im trying to get NitrOuS to organize it. he isnt doing well.( at organizeing this thread)
I am almost 900 Diamond, I have no clue what my opponent was as it was a custom. Also, I agree that even after the numerous nerfs to tanks, they are still incredibly good, imagine if they still did a flat 60 damage :D
I feel that starports are only really necessary if the Protoss goes for air tech of some kind. I was making sure to constantly scan him with my Orbitals, as I didn't really need the minerals once it got to late-game. I feel that this build is great on ladder maps with easily defendable naturals, but more open naturals would be a struggle to hold.
On October 16 2010 12:15 petzergling wrote: 1 rax no stim w/ tanks u are gonna have a whole lot of fun against any early aggression like void rays, 4gate, immortal pushes, etc
VRs are killed by marines. 4 gate build can be tweaked. immortal pushes marine tank basically counters. marines slice shield, tanks kill everything else.
so your telling me that 1 rax making marines can hold of void rays, immortal pushes, zealots, etc?
On October 16 2010 12:15 petzergling wrote: 1 rax no stim w/ tanks u are gonna have a whole lot of fun against any early aggression like void rays, 4gate, immortal pushes, etc
VRs are killed by marines. 4 gate build can be tweaked. immortal pushes marine tank basically counters. marines slice shield, tanks kill everything else.
so your telling me that 1 rax making marines can hold of void rays, immortal pushes, zealots, etc?
1 rax marines and tanks can hold off quite a bit actually, however, stargate openings are the hardest to deal with from what I have experienced with this build.
Umm actually, as I said you can skip marines and make an engineering bay first vs. Voidrays, or make up to 8 marines, easily holding off immortal pushes (Since marines own immortals pretty bad) and zealots arent that good versus tanks behind a wall. Since you probably wont be making marines anymore by the time you take your natural, you can use it as part of a wall to hold off zealots, and 8 marines can be on high ground. Since you constantly make tanks, there should really be no problem versus 4 gate. If you get an early engineering bay, turrets are quite good holding off void rays, and then you can add a starport and make vikings, so you end up with a 1/1/1 with 1 expo.
I tried the build, sort of. Changed some things around to suit my situation. I would say a starport with a reactor + well placed sensor towers is a requirement to this build. Tanks are just too immobile to keep unseiging and seiging. I played on Shakuras plateau, and he broke through the rocks leading into my main. You need those towers to warn you ahead of time. The starport will get you started if they do go air, and if not, medivacs for hellion drops.
One weakness I found was the lack of scouting. If he did any proxy stargate or something, I probably would've lost very quickly, as this is a very defensive build most of the game. And not very mobile either, save for hellions. So I ended up opting for 4 marines off the bat instead of 2. I got lucky scouting a support bay, so I knew he was going colossi. But you can't really rely on lucky scans to do your scouting, as you really need those mules to stay even with their chronoboosted probes.
In your 1st replay, when you got your 3rd, it was completely undefended. If your toss opponent scouted, he could've easily shut it down. That's not a good way to make a build, to depend on your opponent to not scout you. Especially when they have map control. I found blue hellion drops to be ridiculously effective for drops and zealots. I suggest getting a starport earlier, optionally a reactor as well, and doing hellions drops before expanding. Rather than just hoping on them not scouting.
I also opted for a ghost with energy and cloak for emp. I know you completely ignored it, but it's so effective vs. templars/immortals. Templars especially.
I find the early game + taking a 3rd expo to be extremely difficult. Because you're guessing what they're going to do, and you give up map control to get those tanks.
Here's a replay, but I didn't follow your build though. I couldn't remember your build at the time, all I knew was 2 armories and lots of tanks/factories/hellions ;P
I play as Random, and Terran is my worst race, best is Zerg. So yeah, my APM is quite low as I was confused a lot during the game. My opponent could've expanded more and earlier, but he didn't. Not sure why, maybe he was afraid of me pushing out.
Well, I feel that it doesnt really matter how much you change the build, as long as you get the basics down. The aim for this build is to get 2 early armories, and a fast natural. I think the sensor towers are actually quite effective like you say, and I'll add into my play. I feel like this style wasnt supposed to be exactly as the BO is, but a more adaptable mech build vs. protoss allowing your tanks splash to take off health and letting other units finish them. I think youre right at how I left my 3rd open in that game :D. I like your ideas, and the ghosts are essential as you say.
Could give some advice on how to safely take a 3rd with this build? And earlier scouting methods to know if he's going air, dts, or robo. Or at least things to look for (and at what time), to make safe assumptions. I don't want to rely on any lucky things.
Umm, I suggest to take a 3rd, you should probably pressure the protoss, or just expand. It usually depends on the map you play, for example metalopolis and LT its easy to take a 3rd, while on maps like blistering sands its quite a big harder. I suggest making engineering bay depot wall around a pfort, and adding turrets. If you play on iccup maps, its actually quite easy to take a 3rd. As for the map I played on, Fighting Spirit, you can wall off the ramp with depots and put tanks behind it. To scout, you can use scan because this build isnt too mineral heavy as it is gas heavy. Mostly, once you start pushing out at whatever time you set for yourself, keep pushing along wherever you are and take the expansions where your army is near, so if your 3rd or whatever base is attacked, your army is nearby.
Let's say the map is Blistering Sands. The Protoss has map control with an observer outside your base. Which expo would be your 3rd, and how would you take it safely? Or would it be better to just build up and move out with +2 on 2 bases?
I feel it would be safer to start moving out on +2 and while pushing taking the 3rd near your back door and continue pushing like that.
The light blue is your spawn and nat, the red is your push path, and the green is where you expand. That is how I would expand, then taking the gold and things, since there are rocks.
What I fear is that big area outside the nat. You can get attacked from 3 angles there.
Can a seiged tank on the tower platform reach over the entire middle path? If it can't, the 3rd near the backdoor would a rather poor choice since you would have to defend 3 chokes instead of 2, by going for the one further north. Which would also give access to a safer gold.
Well I feel that going from the 3rd near the backdoor can easily be reinforced if you break down your backdoor and gains control of the "sweetspot" infront of your main, meaning you really only have to watch the other choke. Another thing you have to account for is that the Protoss is getting pressured all the while, probably not going to be counter attacking soon, and if they do go for a base trade, you can lift :D.
Can you up some more replays of yourself in maps similar to this? Where the 3rd isn't so easy to take. Preferably against higher diamonds. The one I played against in my replay was ~1700, but didn't seem like it. I seem to be missing something, and I could learn a lot from replays.
I keep thinking your entire army needs to be together in order to take on his entire army. And his is much, much more mobile. So if you spread yourself too thin, you're in a lot of trouble.
After more practice of this build, ghosts are MANDITORY. Immortals, if micro'd, just destroy the hell out of your tanks. I've lost so many games to them, then I got a ghost. Also, the lack of anti air really sucked for me. They got 1 void ray and I had to retreat the entire army. Luckily I had built up a turret nearby, and immediately started pumping out vikings. But had he made more void rays, I would've been in big trouble.
Almost turns into a game of BW, where I push out with tanks, hellions, scvs, a couple of ravens, and build turrets along the way.
Umm sorry guys, been busy lately and using the build haha. So here is a replay on Jungle Basin, which I consider has a weirdly placed 3rd, although not as bad as Blistering Sands. Here is the replay :
Anyways as in the replay, I kind of got my armory a bit late since Im a bit out of practice, but anyways its still basically the same build. You do not really have to wall off, for most people I faced havent really gone 4 gate anymore, so I sim citied it and got 4 marines, and a sort of delayed expansion. I noticed if you get your engineering bay at 28, you can easily fend off voidrays and dark templar. Since getting a fast third on this map is hard, I added 3 factories, and then a starport, pushed out at 2/1 and then took a 3rd. I constantly reinforced, denied his 3rd and 4th, and took care of his voidrays with vikings. With the new change to voidrays, its much harder to deal with them but they still lose to many vikings. Another thing to note is that, with double splash damage from tanks and hellions, you can kill many enemies at once. I think that adding thors could be more beneficial than adding vikings now, considering that Voidrays now do much less DPS at full charge. Another thing I'd like to point out is that, even if you are getting contained it is OK, just mass up and at whatever upgrades you feel is good, push out.
Just watched the last replay. Senth didn't play that well. After seeing all your tanks, he kept making zealots/stalkers/collosus. He added void rays really late. If he went void rays earlier, he would have taken out ALL your tanks before you added vikings. He had an observer in your base so he knew you didn't have a starport...
How is engineering bay good against void rays? 3-4 void rays can take down a turret easy and you can't put turrets everywhere. They can snipe your tanks so easily without marines.
Ooh bright idea- the counter to mech play is immortal, no?
Ok so with the double armory we are heavily investing in mech, however we also can build thors.
Include: researching the 250mm cannon to counter immort play. All of a sudden, what does protoss have against mech? chargelots- hellions to support tank thor. HT- Flatup, no they won't be good Colo- more 250mm cannon. Air- thors do strong anti air attacks and could even switch to making vikings.
That leaves mass stalker, with blink should work, but idk those double upgrades with thor tank seems like it would be very powerful.
Perhaps the build should be more economic based though, because what I just listed above requires a lot of resources.
i do the siege expand vs toss alot and and surviving early pressure is easy once you figure it out, it all comes down to placement: where you put your tanks where you build your bunkers what position your opponent is at.
On October 25 2010 15:27 nalgene wrote: Does this work vs zerg?
This exact build is dicey vs. Zerg, as tanks are very bad to the standard Lair Tech from Zerg, Mutalisks. I do a type of build similar to this TvZ, I just use hellions early game to force my opponent to not mass zerglings, and then I go for Thors, which deal with Mutas and Roaches pretty well, although the new 4 range Roaches seem to hold their own a lot better vs. Thors, meaning a more defensive playstyle and tanks after the first 4 or so Thors is critical.
On October 25 2010 13:09 Zvendetta wrote: Ooh bright idea- the counter to mech play is immortal, no?
Ok so with the double armory we are heavily investing in mech, however we also can build thors.
Include: researching the 250mm cannon to counter immort play. All of a sudden, what does protoss have against mech? chargelots- hellions to support tank thor. HT- Flatup, no they won't be good Colo- more 250mm cannon. Air- thors do strong anti air attacks and could even switch to making vikings.
That leaves mass stalker, with blink should work, but idk those double upgrades with thor tank seems like it would be very powerful.
Perhaps the build should be more economic based though, because what I just listed above requires a lot of resources.
I feel that a Thor opening has a lot of potential for the reasons you stated, as it would dominate any Immortal heavy composition, at least early game. Thors are also decent against Gateway units before the Chargelots come out. I am also more inclined to use Thors now as they aren't completely useless late-game as High Temps don't absolutely crush them anymore.
I feel thors are not really effective in this strategy, and they are too expensive. I feel like having tanks worth of 300 mins 200 gas is a much better investment than one thor. Vikings can easily replace the AA capabilities and with good sim city there are no problems with immortals. Hellion and Tank splash together can do very well versus anything protoss can throw at you from the ground, especially once they get 3/3 upgrades. Maybe if you want to pursue the thor tech path you'd have to make one tank then save up, or something similar.
It fares quite well vs. 1 or 3 gate robo immortal push, especially if you add 4 marines on with a single bunker if scouted or not. If you dont scout, you'll probably have to pull some SCVs. I get my second gas quite early, probably when I get 75 mins after the factory goes down.
Actually, 300 mins and 200 gas is just shy of two tanks, and the fact that Tanks are not as good in small numbers compared to Thors may warrant some investigation, at least for the early game. For the late game, I agree that Tank-Hellion is the best combo, as tanks get really scary really fast in large numbers with their no overkill, combined with EMP it is just ridiculously strong.
For a 3 gate robo push you should continue to pump marines, especially on maps with more open naturals, I find that 8 marines is usually enough to hold off the initial push, after that the mass tanks should take care of the rest.
In BW mech was extremely powerful. Tank, vulture, goliath was extremely effective because they all recieved the double armory upgrades. Unfortunately, we dont have these units and mech is really not what it was in beta. You need a more diversified army. Thor + tanks will have serious problems vs blink stalkers or voidrays.
On October 28 2010 10:16 CraftedSC wrote: In BW mech was extremely powerful. Tank, vulture, goliath was extremely effective because they all recieved the double armory upgrades. Unfortunately, we dont have these units and mech is really not what it was in beta. You need a more diversified army. Thor + tanks will have serious problems vs blink stalkers or voidrays.
Yes, it is quite dificult to go pure mech against protoss. However, with the no overkill, Blink Stalkers actually aren't much of a problem, especially if you use the Hellions to keep a distance between enemy Stalkers and your Tanks. A Late-Game pure mech army, with a few ghosts thrown in, will dominate just about any Protoss ground army. The Real issue is Void Rays, but you can throw down some Starports real quick to get some Vikings to deal with the Voids, and you have two Armories to get some fast ups for you Vikings as well with this build.
Well, I was thinking that pure mech is quite good actually, as for when I have two bases I rally into my main and blink stalkers arent a huge problem. With the easier mechanics, you can easily group tanks into 1 group and siege up, and the power of upped hellions is undervalued. Upped hellions can do a lot of damage to stalkers that blink up to your tanks. Voidrays are quite easy to deal with especially with the starport timing and engineering bay timing as Shootemup said. Adding ghosts would be very beneficial, and if you have more than three bases, I would have no problem even adding ravens in. This totally nullifies protoss on the ladder because everyone on the ladder DOES NOT UPGRADE (Atleast what Ive seen).
On 3 bases, you have enough gas to produce 4 tanks constantly, but you won't very much gas surplus. However, it does leave you with a lot of minerals, even if you're producing hellions from 2 reactor factories. So perhaps a rax or 2 with reactors to provide marine support would be useful. It would do very well against immortals and void rays.
Maybe you could approach this build with a barracks opening. That way you'll have the stim and shield upgrades when you use them later. And opening with infantry is much safer. Use the extra barracks to float into their base to scout, much cheaper than a scan.
I like the concept behind this build. Bio is too weak against protoss IMO. Also, I really enjoyed mech play in BW, so that is a plus too. I'm concerned about void rays and blink stalkers. Do you have more replays to demonstrate this strategy against a variety of protoss builds/unit compositions? I think if refined even further, this build could be real solid. I might try to tinker around with this a bit since I am losing almost every TvP on the ladder lately, so I have nothing to lose really.
I don't get why they don't change the thor, less ground damage but more air damage (most likely faster attackrate instead of more dmg, with less amount of attacks because of armor) with less (or no) splash and without that +light modifier. It would be so beneficial to overall playstyle of terran mech, because a good amount of thors could actually counter protoss air, and it would stop these weird 1-base thor+scv timing pushes which are not really nice to watch for spectators. I'm not sure how they intended the role of the thor, but for it's the main AA of the terran mech-tree, but it just fails to do that... I mean the thor is pretty damn slow, it should be able to counter every air unit cost by cost and not only the light ones with 0 or 1 armor.
This would 100% be something I would like to see at least tested by Blizzard. Else we have to wait for HotS to get some good mech AA I guess.
But, besides a good reliable AA-path (Vikings are so bad for your unit mix and they even suck against VRs) terran mech against protoss is damn fine imo
Well Vikings dont suck that much, and if you're slow pushing it shouldn't be that much of a problem. Maybe if you mixed Vikings/thors to deal with air and immortals, maybe that could work? And replays are on the OP
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