I think its a bit sad, that mainly TvP we currently see nothing but MMM + Viking. I can see all the reasons behind this, but Id like to discuss if there is another way.
People claim, that P and Z lategame is way stronger, than T. Sure, if you spam T1 units whole game, you cant expect to do well later, when your opponent has access to some top tier units. But it just seems that everyone is trying to find ways, how to actually make this MMM spam viable late game. Are all the Terrans so lazy to try adding some higher tier units or is it actually so effective to MMM your opponent to death? If so, isnt there something wrong with T tech tree, or size of maps, or whatever?
It also seems that T is forced to go this way as all other options are being constantly nerfed by patches. Reapers are gone. Hellions are going to have hard times because of Roach range and medivac being slowed down. Tanks were hit by recent patches a lot. We currently dont see singe tank in TvP and it seems like people are trying to go around tanks even in TvZ. Blizzard stated - "Tanks are performing too well against ground units overall". Well, now they dont perform at all.
edit: Im not complaining about balance. I would like to see marauder nerfed for example to see, how Terrans used the rest of their arsenal. I play Terran btw. To make this clear.
MMM is very mobile and has high dps. There isn't much more you would want out of a unit composition. Transitioning into bc or thors or tanks is viable and may become standard in the future but if P is going heavy colossi then mmm w/ viking is the best way to go.
On October 17 2010 18:07 Saechiis wrote: Sure, all Terrans are doing MMM because they haven't considered doing something else and they're lazy.
Im not complaining about balance ---> I would like to see marauder nerfed ? Does not compute.
I play Terran. You could try to read whole the sentence and maybe, just maybe it will make more sense to you.
Id like to add one more thing. Please, try not to just find holes in logic and discredit my post. We have more than enough of those posts on tl. Thank you.
Will we see something other than zealot sentry stalker? What about roach ling?
MMM are the core units just like how Toss and Zerg have those core units. Yes, it does seem like Terran only make MMM but did you watch any of the games at MLG, select opens with a reaper and uses it throughout the game as harass. But it was nerfed!! How can someone use a unit thats been nerfed!?!?!
That is why Starcraft and people who play Starcraft are amazing: They adapt to what is available to them. Even though terrans use MMM as their main army, it won't be long till it changes because Toss and Zerg figure out ways to stop it. In my opinion it has already happened. Toss can use key forcefields and zerg just got the roach buff.
I'm terran and I do hellion thor tank, with armor and ranged upgraded turrets when I push. might even throw a PF down in the middle of my push. Obviously still get 4-5 vikings if P goes heavy Colossi.
It's just a very common style and I'm sure will be the 'standard' for TvP. Just like in BW there were standard compositions to use in the different matchups. I've seen players use tanks and hellions with there marine and maruarders. I think it's just the fact that people have realized the MMM is good and are using it.
And also,
Im not complaining about balance. I would like to see marauder nerfed for example to force Terrans use more of their arsenal.
You contradicted yourself with just one sentence, lol.
I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Yet if you play mech, most of your damage comes from siege tanks and here are just some reasons, why they don't work like they did in BW: Blink Stalkers, Immortals, Chargelots, no mines, Phoenixes,...
The answer is obvious. Late T tech sucks. Mech like tanks and thors don't do so hot against chargelot, blink stalkers, immortals or ultra. Nerfing marauder is a terrible idea. You can't nerf a core unit of a race that has no high tech they can rely on except BC. Plus playing mech you can't remake units as fast as other two races.
Mech vs P is horrible, absolutely useless in my experience. Tanks get owned by zealots with charge, immortals, blink stalkers, voidrays, and they arent really good vs anything : /
Hellions are also pretty bad, the only unit they are even ok against is the zealot. Thors get owned by immortals and i think VR's aswell.
Nerfing MMM wouldnt make terran players go mech, they'd still go MMM because it's all they really can go.
Also, why do people say that all terran uses is tier 1?
Ghost, viking, medivac, is that tier 1? That is like saying protoss only go tier 1 because because of zealot/stalker/sentry. Totally disregarding colossus/HT.
On October 17 2010 18:30 positron. wrote: The answer is obvious. Late T tech sucks. Mech like tanks and thors don't do so hot against chargelot, blink stalkers, immortals or ultra. Nerfing marauder is a terrible idea. You can't nerf a core unit of a race that has no high tech they can rely on except BC. Plus playing mech you can't remake units as fast as other two races.
Thors do fine against zerg ground units of all tiers and terrans do use things other than M&M in ZvT. I do agree with TvP being rather bland at the moment though, perhaps with the thor changes in 1.12 we may see them incorporated into lategame T army against P.
From what I have seen, terran needs ghosts in their army to compete with protoss, and going anything other than heavy bio is tough with ghosts because of their high gas dependancy. Would also note that making PDF's feedbackable was probably the worst game change in 1.12 because it lowered the possibility of using an already rarely used unit in TvP lategame -.-
On October 17 2010 18:30 positron. wrote: The answer is obvious. Late T tech sucks. Mech like tanks and thors don't do so hot against chargelot, blink stalkers, immortals or ultra. Nerfing marauder is a terrible idea. You can't nerf a core unit of a race that has no high tech they can rely on except BC. Plus playing mech you can't remake units as fast as other two races.
Thors do fine against zerg ground units of all tiers and terrans do use things other than M&M in ZvT. I do agree with TvP being rather bland at the moment though, perhaps with the thor changes in 1.12 we may see them incorporated into lategame T army against P.
From what I have seen, terran needs ghosts in their army to compete with protoss, and going anything other than heavy bio is tough with ghosts because of their high gas dependancy.
Nah you only need to go ghost because the protoss goes HT, which he only does if you're going MMM. If you're going mech he's just gonna build a few immortals, VR's, blink stalkers and charge zealots. I'd actually like to see a high level game where a Terran won with mech vs protoss.
Marine Marauder Medivac, two of these units are considered CORE units for all terrans, i don't think you'll ever see a terran not build some MMM at some point in the game , they are the MEAT of the terran, granted there are viable mech builds, but even they incorporate Marines and marauders to soak and deal dmg. its not that terran players havent considered other options but not building the Core units to protect your self while your teching to w/e your heart desires without which you would prolly just lose. Marines have some of the highest dps of the available ground units can shoot at air and ground. mainly your going to see MMM vs protoss due to the amount of gateway units most protoss send at the terran player. Zerg fights generally end up as mech fights, i have alot of tanks n thors and a good amount of other CORE units such as the marines/marauders to back up my tanks/thors.
Yes, mech in TvP is problematic, since P has already many answers. Its not like P needs to think about how to play. Just make specific units and its done. Id like to see one change adressing mech TvP, which is Phoenix lifting tanks in siege mode. But its true that SC2 is too young. It will probably change over time again. Hopefully..
Everything else is waaaay too immobile. With 3+Expansions you need a mobile Army to defend and attack.
+Everything else got nerfed (Viking in Beta, BCs, Tanks, Reaper, Hellion via Roachrange) +if you go Air, its so expensive that you can´t build other stuff, solo Air is too weak.
On October 17 2010 18:11 petzergling wrote: pretty sad that all protosses use is gateway units and collosus
i think they should nerf warp gates and collosus
Ok, I got it. You disagree..
Now, could you actually think about it and come up with something less sarcastic and aggresive?
Lets see, Terran late game.
Thors --> Raped by immo BC's --> After damage reduction, blink stalkers and voids rape them until they hit critical mass, which isn't going to happen Tanks --> Useless against chargelots and immo
What else is there? HMMMM...
Raven? They're used in MMM balls too.
I don't exactly see your point here, terran is using T1 structure units with a T3 structure unit or two, while protoss is doing the exact same thing.
There's nothing here to discuss, MMM has great DPS, is versatile, and can be replenished quickly, and can be microed to increase their efficiency. Everything else just isn't as good. Sure, there's marine/banshee play, but I'm sure you'll be complaining about how you're only using T1 units for the bulk of your army.
If you don't want people to be sarcastic and aggressive, don't make stupid posts. There's no discussion to be had here, MMM works, deal with it. If you don't like it, experiment and see if other things work for you.
On October 17 2010 18:56 Everlong wrote: Yes, mech in TvP is problematic, since P has already many answers. Its not like P needs to think about how to play. Just make specific units and its done. Id like to see one change adressing mech TvP, which is Phoenix lifting tanks in siege mode. But its true that SC2 is too young. It will probably change over time again. Hopefully..
I think MMM will always be a staple composition in TvP at least until one of the expansions maybe. I agree that phoenix lifting siege tanks while sieged should be removed, but honestly I don't think it would help that much, when blizzard fixed tanks they fixed it for TvZ which was absolutely needed, however TvP didn't need quite as much siege tank "fixing" this reduced the viability of mech support too much imo, hence all we see is MMM :/
Raven? They're used in MMM balls too.
I fail to see their lategame usefulness with them being countered by HT's even more now, and the toss player will almost certainly have HT's if you went bio.
If you don't want people to be sarcastic and aggressive, don't make stupid posts. There's no discussion to be had here, MMM works, deal with it. If you don't like it, experiment and see if other things work for you.
23/25 contributions to my post werent sarcastic, aggressive nor stupid. One would say this points to fact, that there is something to discuss here? Maybe these 2/25 stupid posts are from stupid people?
the fact is that all races do the same thing. Lings/Blings/Roach/infestors, sometimes ultra. What's the difference with MMM tanks ? or Zealot/Sentry/Stalkers Collo ? Sometimes we see broodlords as we can see thors or DT, etc...
I have a somewhat unpopular opinion. Just warning you.
Mech is underpowered. The reason why some players allege that it is overpowered is because, in a heads up battle, it beats pretty much everything on the ground. So. How is it possible that a unit composition that "beats everything" is underpowered?
Simple. The second you hit that "s" key to build those siege tanks, you lost the initiative. The enemy will determine when and where the battle happens. You cannot engage with tanks. You can contain and force an engagement, but that's as close as you are going to get, and will only happen if the enemy lets you within spitting distance of his base. Which means either you are going to win anyway, or your enemy is an idiot.
Siege tanks have the ability to "checkmate" an enemy by sieging up within range of their main, or by a critical mining base, or what have you, and keeping them covered. There is literally nothing the enemy can do to win if they cannot break you right there, and you're already sieged up and ready to rock, so it's not gonna happen. They also have the ability to secure territory and make armies pay for charging your entrenched position. They are excellent at both jobs. The problem is that every tank you make weakens your army by 150 minerals, 125 gas, and 3 supply, and adds about a Marauder's strength to your mobile offensive capacity, which can be had for much cheaper, and in a faster, healable, stimmable package at that. The tank's strength is the ability to lay down a CRUSHING amount of firepower in a single salvo when sieged up in numbers. The problem then becomes- you have a large number of tanks, and no bio army. You cannot unsiege or you will be routed by a standard issue army. The best you can do is leapfrog cautiously. The tank never carries its own weight.
The reason why tanks were "too strong" in people's eyes was primarily the maps were small. Consider Steppes of War. Tanks are excellent on that map because there is essentially one route of attack, and the distance between the two bases is very short. You can leapfrog away and eventually you reach the enemy base, and then checkmate. Without ever making an assault, and without ever exposing anything. On standard size maps, and in future we will see larger maps, this will not be the case. We will never see tanks because you cannot defend just one base forever and expect to win. You cannot really use tanks to guard a base that they aren't sieged up on already, and you cannot use them in an offensive capacity without getting a big bio ball anyway, and it's just more efficient to phase them out for more bio and medivacs (or vikings, situation permitting). Tanks are now more expensive than they were in brood war, most notably the extra supply cost. Yet they are actually weaker (and yes, the no-overkill AI is a buff, but go brood war style mech on a very large BW map and you'll get what I'm saying).
I was going to bring up Thors, but this post is getting long. Suffice to say they are not a replacement for the Goliath in terms of anti-air in that they suck against armored air, and its dependence on its mediocre splash damage means good players won't lose much of their light air either unless you have a LOT of thors, and then we run into the same problem we had with tanks, but much worse since each Thor is 300/200 and a whopping 6 supply. An anti-air solution with a TON of baggage resulting in an overpriced, useless, clunky monstrosity. I'll go with marines instead, and we're back at bio again.
So mech is bad in one matchup but to make up for it marauders are godly against p. Ask zerg how they feel about thors. Yes immortals destroy unprotected thors but vikings and marauders destroy protoss t3 if it is unprotected as well. Be happy that all your air units are viable in every day builds and they are all very useful.
Thanks ledarsi, I appriciate this kind of answer. You pretty much explained to me, why there will probably be no mech/macro play in the near future if nothing changes in terms of balance. I dont expect larger maps as Blizzard evidently wants SC2 to be more action packed game. I also dont think, that people will do well forever with Marine/Marauder. Its clearly visible, that both P and Z are countering this bio play better and better.
I think MMM is used because its the most effective, not because there literally are no other options. If P finds a way to shut it down (templar tech without dying getting it) Terran will adapt.
I lost so many times with MMM against Protoss that I almost started to auto-resign as soon as I got a Protoss opponent. Templars and to a lesser degree Colossus just crushed my MMM ball.
Then I started to experiment with mech. Turns out that Tank/Hellion is cost effecient vs everything Protos has on ground as long as you have decent positioning. If he goes Immortals just add some marines. And Suddenly I could wipe out Templar supported armies without needing perfect EMP micro.
So in my opinion Mech is much better than MMM vs Protoss espeically if you do not have 150+ APM and perfect EMP micro.
I don't think any of the races have fully explored their arsenals yet, nevermind had time to evolve more effective strategies than plain old MMM.
Take ghosts for example. As far I can see, players are only beginning to dabble with a few ghosts, the same goes for ravens in something like a mech powerhouse supported by raven. Has anyone, for example, tried using standard slow mech play and a few hunter seekers, which force the enemy into chaos either running away allowing you to advance/siege up or take fantastic damage from the seekers.
Honestly if you are a stage where you can afford a pile of mech units, perhaps a Day9 response of 'get more mech units' is the wrong path to choose, particularly when you are playing Terran.
MMM is great early and late game, SeleCT has demonstrated that at MLGDC (where he bored me to death with literally nothing except MMM), but for me we have yet to see a lot from terran in a zerg like macro play to support those exotic lategame gimmicks that, as qxc demonstrated in g2 vs IdrA MLGDC, can really win the game for you. Infact for me qxc was the best terran player in the tourny by a year and a mile with an almost zergish economic style.
first of all, i agree with all (most) statements on tanks.
from the terran units design most units are good in defending positions(immobile stuff)- others designed for herassment(supermobile stuff).
but u wont see a terran using this, as it means to give away map control and relying on herass (which might be denied easily).
the bio is allaround and mobile and the only way to escape this very strict "defend and herass" play.
i tried to be very aggressive with mech by build turrets on a direct way to the enemies base and put tanks into position (mainly unsieged). few banchees to fly around - most of the time run away. and as explained above, suddently i had the urge for building bio to protect myself in all sorts of situations.
On October 17 2010 18:11 petzergling wrote: pretty sad that all protosses use is gateway units and collosus
i think they should nerf warp gates and collosus
they did nerf warpgates you shmuck
MMM isnt the ONLY way to go, but it is the EASIEST, thats why you will see alot of diamond players using it because they got to diamond with it and some can't do anything else witch sucess.
On October 17 2010 18:01 Everlong wrote: edit: Im not complaining about balance. I would like to see marauder nerfed for example to see, how Terrans used the rest of their arsenal. I play Terran btw. To make this clear.
Why do you want to see? Play yourself and post your finds for us! To nerf an unit, to force the Terrans to use the others? Wow! I think a have seen this movie before. It was called the Reaper-Nerf-Series. Not that reapers were really nerfed. Only their use in the early game.
For my part, I watched the MLG games and I watch a lot of replays and tournament streams, and I wonder, as you do: "Fuck, why dont this guy mix 2-3 Ghost against Protoss? This would even open the door for siege tanks" or "2-3 Thors would be nice".
MMM is used heavily because the have a good synergy and it's easily producable. Thors, tanks you have to siege and unsiege, are slow, unflexible. They can be used but they need an change in the playstyle. Being slower. Slower equals to: other races can outmacro u. (Yes I know, we have Mules. Mules=More minerals, rising the natural gathering ratio of 3:1 minerals/gas of each base to 4:1. Which units do you optimaly produce with an ratio of 4:1? Marauders! And Marines + Medivacs (6:1)). Terrans dont have chronobost. They cannot produce 30+ units at once, as Zerg can. They simply try to find their way. Some are "lazy" and rise MMM+Viking against Protoss to an art. See Select and others. Some are generaly more creative, see TLO.
By the way: why do Terrans have to rely to their fast units? Because their units are generaly slow AND they have the worst static defence!!! Yes, the worst, not the best, as generaly claimed. As the game proceeds they cant just build Photon Canons or Spine Crawlers (those are dynamic-static! as IdrA showed us!) in their bases to defend their SCVs and Military Facilities from harassment, while the army is moving out. Yes, we have the "imba" Planetary Fortress. Usualy it's our 3rd Base, far away from the Barracks, Factories, Starports. And they cant be positioned in the base in a way to protect everything. They are too clumsy for that. But they could be used to build Strongholds on some points of the map.
Resuming: MMM+Vikings overpowered? I am not sure. Are there other ways to play? Maybe. Could we see some more units in the mix? Definitely. Do Terrans have weaknesses? A lot! How old is the game? 2 Months! Relax and watch it evolving and to return to the begining: be creative yourself!
Realistically thinking about Terran, I think Stim will get nerfed in the future.
Bio is just too strong with stim. Look at Bio without stim to any army (that doesn't bring massive amounts of area damage) and they will barely lose most fights. Then slap stim down and they will completely obliterate the opposition. Zerg, Protoss, Terran doesn't matter. Stim is too much.
On the other side, Siege Tanks need to get +10 armor back on their siege mode and Terran players need to start using non-sieged Sieged Tanks, everybody treats them like BW, but they do 25dps vs armored and 15 vs non-armored. They're basically Immortals that have the option of sieging up.
i usually go zealot templar which is kinda the same thing. the only race that doesnt have to do this is zerg since thier production facility makes all types of units. if i need to build a rax/gate to get tank/templar why wouldnt i use it. for example i get a mothership sometimes if i have the bases for it and i build outta the stargate just because i have it. i will agree that MMM is fucking old. every game. . . .which is why i quit laddering 1s around the first patch. MMM is not that micro intensive so people think is noobish, but thor rush mass repair is even more noobish with less micro and higher win % especially without mana.
I think most Terrans are just really lazy to be honest. If they can't cheese a win or timing push to a win in the first 8~ minutes then they just keep massing what they already have.
I think the late game solution for Terran is primarily ghost/m&m ground armies backed by lots of Starport units (banshees RAPE ground units, vikings can protect them from phoenix, medivacs for stim spam, and ravens can protect everything from stalkers).
Making T1 units all game long as Protoss researches multiple techs off multiple tech buildings and diversifies their army will eventually result in a loss. If you let him get Twilight Council/Charge/Blink/Templar Archives/Psi Storm/and Amulet, as well as Robo/Robo Bay/Range, as well as holding off all early aggression. Yup, you might lose.
Why don'¨t people go mass banshees with ravens? Point defense drone is good protection against stalkers and the DPS is just insane when you have massed up 5-10 banshees. In addition, the very first banshees may be used for the normal harass. Add a bunch of marines as support and micro well and the P has to really really play well to win.
On October 17 2010 21:31 borny wrote: Why don'¨t people go mass banshees with ravens?
Templar, Phoenix, 4 gate.
3/1/2 is unique in that it exploits a timing window, where Protoss is obligated to get Robo tech for detection, but can't yet afford a Stargate/Templar tech.
If the Protoss survives that build's first big push (Force the PDD), he's in great shape to take the game.
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
borny: a basic problem i encounter with mass banchees is: if u have a lot of banchees and raven (which come later compared to stalker) you can expect the toss to have even more stalker. and if he has blink - can blink under the point defence drone and the energy of it will be trained in no time. or blink away if the battle is not forced to happen at this location.
if he sees it coming he can get some VR to kill 50 HP point defence drone. maybe some vikings to kill his observer?
i tried to play mass banchees with tanks and missleturrets. it will demolish any ground army but i am not really good at macroing enough rines to defend air outside my turrets...
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
a) not a single pro regularly posts on this forum. b) we can't have nice things (good players discussing interesting topics in an objective manner)
instead it's just this constant slew of balance bullshit. bah
Next thread: [Q] Will we see something other than Zealot Stalker Sentry? I don't want to talk about balance but I really want to see Sentries Force Field nerfed so Protosses use more of their arsenal.
How mush do you believe the robotic bay cost? How mush do you believe the range upgrade for the colossus cost? How mush do you believe the Templar archive cost? How mush do you believe the storm upgrade cost?
How long time do you think it takes to tech to ht with storms after getting a robo facillity for observers(else you die from cloaked banshee)?
On October 17 2010 18:16 hot_waffles wrote: Will we see something other than zealot sentry stalker? What about roach ling?
MMM are the core units just like how Toss and Zerg have those core units. Yes, it does seem like Terran only make MMM but did you watch any of the games at MLG, select opens with a reaper and uses it throughout the game as harass. But it was nerfed!! How can someone use a unit thats been nerfed!?!?!
That is why Starcraft and people who play Starcraft are amazing: They adapt to what is available to them. Even though terrans use MMM as their main army, it won't be long till it changes because Toss and Zerg figure out ways to stop it. In my opinion it has already happened. Toss can use key forcefields and zerg just got the roach buff.
It's still a young game, nothing is "standard"
Hes using 1 reaper to scout, the nerf did nothing to the reaper in that regard.
On October 17 2010 18:20 UisTehSux wrote:
It's just a very common style and I'm sure will be the 'standard' for TvP. Just like in BW there were standard compositions to use in the different matchups. I've seen players use tanks and hellions with there marine and maruarders. I think it's just the fact that people have realized the MMM is good and are using it.
Im not complaining about balance. I would like to see marauder nerfed for example to force Terrans use more of their arsenal.
You contradicted yourself with just one sentence, lol.
No he didnt, hes making it clear that he doesnt think terran is too weak, hed just like their strengths to be spread out over more units.
Anyhow; you cant make anything else because everything else sucks vs P. Vs T and Z its obviously not a problem, lots of units that work there (basically every unit), but vs P... Tanks are so rarely worth it, they dont even do that well vs colossi, and they suddenly turn you from the mobile player to the immobile one - that is not good, you dont have warp-in to counter-act the lack of speed.
Thors suck terribly vs almost every protoss tech unit.
On October 17 2010 21:30 ichangedmyname wrote: I think most Terrans are just really lazy to be honest. If they can't cheese a win or timing push to a win in the first 8~ minutes then they just keep massing what they already have.
I think the late game solution for Terran is primarily ghost/m&m ground armies backed by lots of Starport units (banshees RAPE ground units, vikings can protect them from phoenix, medivacs for stim spam, and ravens can protect everything from stalkers).
Making T1 units all game long as Protoss researches multiple techs off multiple tech buildings and diversifies their army will eventually result in a loss. If you let him get Twilight Council/Charge/Blink/Templar Archives/Psi Storm/and Amulet, as well as Robo/Robo Bay/Range, as well as holding off all early aggression. Yup, you might lose.
Sounds good in theory, but storm rapes every single unit in this composition.
On October 17 2010 21:41 Withdraw wrote: i see bunch of theorycrafting noobs in this topic
Since I dont think, that an accomplished, skilled player would waste his time posting such garbage, what can I say? Welcome to the club mr. flamer...
Edit: TL-Forums need an "report inappropriate post" button.
There is one, but its not available until youve been a member for a certain period of time (unsure how long exactly).
On October 17 2010 21:07 Jermstuddog wrote: Realistically thinking about Terran, I think Stim will get nerfed in the future.
Bio is just too strong with stim. Look at Bio without stim to any army (that doesn't bring massive amounts of area damage) and they will barely lose most fights. Then slap stim down and they will completely obliterate the opposition. Zerg, Protoss, Terran doesn't matter. Stim is too much.
On the other side, Siege Tanks need to get +10 armor back on their siege mode and Terran players need to start using non-sieged Sieged Tanks, everybody treats them like BW, but they do 25dps vs armored and 15 vs non-armored. They're basically Immortals that have the option of sieging up.
Stimmed bio vs any non-splash army in SC1 means the stimmed bio wins too.... Thats just how it is.
To be honest, I think Terran Barracks units are just like Protoss gateway units, perhaps stronger than their alien counterparts but still, protoss can win games with gateway units only as Terran can win with barracks units only.
Perhaps Terran tends to make more barracks units than anything else, but I can't see anything else they can make.
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
Was a joke, chill d f out.
Shit like that got the Void Ray nerfed to oblivion. Perhaps MMM should get the Void Ray treatment and then we'll see more Mech.
I go Hellion Tank. With Fast upgrades. Off of 2 bases you can produce out of 3 Tech Factories making Tanks and a Reactor Hellion Production.
Don't Worry so much about immortals just focus Them down first. Unless he's going VERY heavy on the Immortals just get 1/2 ghost Tops.
If you see collosi/Voids make a handful of vikings. Don't over do it.
Spread out your Tanks or you will die to Chargelots and Blink.
If you see HEAVY stargate mass Thor Viking Hellion. Hellion is so you don't die to mass zealots. Since Stargate is gas heavy he will have alot of minerals
Note:Thor with upgrades are pretty decent against Voids and Carrier. Remember to bring a few SCVs to repair. Air upgrades aren't That necessary, double mech upgrades are the focus. If you some how can afford it then go for it, but vikings are pretty damn good without upgrades so you decide.
For more info on pushes refer to this site. Even though its from BW. The ideas are the same when it comes to pushing and expanding during the mid game in comparison to the protoss.
HOW TO OPEN: 14cc->Marines bunker and repair. Don't be afraid to lose some SCVs if his push fails your ahead with 2 expos and can rebuild very quickly 1 Rax FE->Same as above. Slower expo but safer 2 Factory timing push with Tank non reactor hellion and marines into expo. This MUST do DMG. Siege is very important here. This can be done off of one gas for a faster push. Or 2 gas for siege. I prefer 2 gas. 1/1/1-> Safest opener but also the slowest in grabbing an expo. MUST GET SIEGE. And have constant marine production to stop the push. Get a viking to scout. You can do a 1/1/1 timing push or just turtle to a second this varies. Harass is recommended, but don't over commit to things like cloak. Pre igniter is fine since you will need it later, but it takes gas which could be another Tank or factory. Reactor hellion drop is fine. Tank drops were appropriate.
Note 2: Only the 2 factory and 1/1/1 are safe on any map even open naturals. 2 factory is actually better on open naturals because you can easily contain Protoss to 1 base. The other openings are limited to maps like lost and Jungle Basin and Blistering Sands. Basically any map with a defendable choke at your natural
WHY MECH ISN"T SO POPULAR and other Notes: Its harder to do then MMM, but reaps in IMO better results especially in the L8 game. Also you have to be smart like getting Turret Range is oh so important and spamming turrets with your extra minerals, bunkers to block paths or to create obstacles, and offensive turrets. Mules aren't important after early game since this is a gas heavy build. Spend it on Scans since position and timing is very important
Here some replays They aren't mine but GoOdy is a good player and check out his opponents
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
Was a joke, chill d f out.
Shit like that got the Void Ray nerfed to oblivion. Perhaps MMM should get the Void Ray treatment and then we'll see more Mech.
No, then we will simply not see any terrans win TvP. Mech currently does not work. Its just not realistic to try to play a 30 minute game EVERY time, especially as its not even a guaranteed win (mech has some serious issues with mass speed void rays - at least pre-patch - as well as carriers).
I used to always mech before going to Korea, but I just dont think it works anymore, tho Im gonna check out those Goody replays and see if hes doing anything different enough for me to change my mind.
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
Was a joke, chill d f out.
Shit like that got the Void Ray nerfed to oblivion. Perhaps MMM should get the Void Ray treatment and then we'll see more Mech.
No, then we will simply not see any terrans win TvP. Mech currently does not work. Its just not realistic to try to play a 30 minute game EVERY time, especially as its not even a guaranteed win (mech has some serious issues with mass speed void rays - at least pre-patch - as well as carriers).
I used to always mech before going to Korea, but I just dont think it works anymore, tho Im gonna check out those Goody replays and see if hes doing anything different enough for me to change my mind.
You're right. Massive nerfs like that would only limit strategy diversity. Shutting down options is not the answer. I believe it's a combination of MMM being too flexible and Mech being too inflexible as for why there's only one choice right now for TvP.
On October 17 2010 22:13 ChickenLips wrote: Seeing threads like this makes me understand why
a) not a single pro regularly posts on this forum. b) we can't have nice things (good players discussing interesting topics in an objective manner)
instead it's just this constant slew of balance bullshit. bah
Next thread: [Q] Will we see something other than Zealot Stalker Sentry? I don't want to talk about balance but I really want to see Sentries nerfed so Protosses use more of their arsenal.
Jesus christ.
agreed, the main problem is most forum posters now simply have a surface level understanding of the game and they simply refer to damage tables and statistics when thinking about he game and strategy instead of really contemplating something. 15minutes before each post would do wonders for the community.
Back on topic: If you don't go MMM you should be happy that others do. Yes most T go MMM but since your playing at a lower level of competition where P blindly prep for MMM instead of scouting and reacting your strategy should be more effective. Ever consider that? See how something you didn't like actually benefits you?
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
Was a joke, chill d f out.
Shit like that got the Void Ray nerfed to oblivion. Perhaps MMM should get the Void Ray treatment and then we'll see more Mech.
No, then we will simply not see any terrans win TvP. Mech currently does not work. Its just not realistic to try to play a 30 minute game EVERY time, especially as its not even a guaranteed win (mech has some serious issues with mass speed void rays - at least pre-patch - as well as carriers).
I used to always mech before going to Korea, but I just dont think it works anymore, tho Im gonna check out those Goody replays and see if hes doing anything different enough for me to change my mind.
I was about to mention Goody. Im just blown away, how well he uses mech play vs. Protoss. Of course he faces a lot of weaker opponents. But there are several good replays when he mechs against very good Protoss players like Kiwikaki, etc.. The last patch made Void Ray a bit weaker and I can think of Thor as an option now. Does actually anyone know, how Thors stand against carriers with +1/+2 upgrades? I mean, surely you need Vikings..
Mech in BW was kind of OP haha, you only ever went Bio against zerg, and recently terrans have been trying to open mech or switch to mech against zerg too as often as possible. Mech was always supposed to just offer you a few options for supporting your bio.
The roles of hellions and tanks seem clear but I'm not sure what role Thors are supposed to fill. Hellions take care of lings and zealots really well--basically they are firebats but slightly less useless against the things they don't hard counter and fast enough to be used as harass. Ok, good unit. Tanks are what they were always supposed to be--a really good defensive unit, and a unit that can safely apply pressure and gradually gain map control with its range and damage, but can be countered by air and some other specialist units, and need support against melee units.
What are thors supposed to be really good against? They can shoot air, but are not that good against air so they can't take the goliath's job of AA. The ground units they are strong against, tanks are strong against too, and the units they suck against, tanks suck against too. So what's the point of making thors? Seems like vikings and tanks fill their roles much better than they do, especially at that price point and supply cost.
I think there's a lot of untapped potential in T tech, it's just been so easy to go MMM that none of that potential is rarely experimented with. Terran units are all ranged, by this very nature alone they synergise fantastically well with each other in any ball composition. I predict the future of TvX will involve transitioning to a split rax/starport play where terrans make a group of banshee for scouting/harassment/expansion denial and as a good reinforcement to their main army (banshees are remarkably good in a straight-up fight, think broodlords minus the broodlings) and some ravens which are a fantastic support unit. You might even eventually see mixing in some BC becoming standard. Yes, the core of a T army will probably always consist of MM but there is so much potential that is never tapped because often T players just stick with what CAN work, (MM), and when it doesn't work, they blame the weakness of late tech when the truth is they're not forced to experiment nearly as much as P or Z have due to the versatility of the T1 MM mix compared to ling/roach or zealot/stalker/sentry.
sjow has some weird thor/tank mech tvp build (just saw him crushing one guy on stream but it was stepps of war and early stage of the cup- the toss was quiet good tho), he also won with pure mech build with dimaga in recent craft cup so maybe we will see something new.
I'll rephrase what I'm saying from another perspective: MM can be made to work, through superior micro and army positioning, against nearly every army composition you can imagine. Roach ling is horrible against many army compositions, and zealot/stalker/sentry sits somewhere in the middle in terms of versatility. This is why you see a lot of terrans still stuck in the MM mindset, while P and Z have moved on to bigger and better things.
if u nerf marauders T will be the next zerg since mmm are the staple unit which would expect to be made everygame just like how u expect stalkers an roaches to be made almost everygame
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
Was a joke, chill d f out.
Shit like that got the Void Ray nerfed to oblivion. Perhaps MMM should get the Void Ray treatment and then we'll see more Mech.
No, then we will simply not see any terrans win TvP. Mech currently does not work. Its just not realistic to try to play a 30 minute game EVERY time, especially as its not even a guaranteed win (mech has some serious issues with mass speed void rays - at least pre-patch - as well as carriers).
I used to always mech before going to Korea, but I just dont think it works anymore, tho Im gonna check out those Goody replays and see if hes doing anything different enough for me to change my mind.
I was about to mention Goody. Im just blown away, how well he uses mech play vs. Protoss. Of course he faces a lot of weaker opponents. But there are several good replays when he mechs against very good Protoss players like Kiwikaki, etc.. The last patch made Void Ray a bit weaker and I can think of Thor as an option now. Does actually anyone know, how Thors stand against carriers with +1/+2 upgrades? I mean, surely you need Vikings..
Thors are indescribably terrible vs carriers when the eco is kinda equal At least now they cant be feedback raped I guess.
I watched most of the reps, and well, I think most of my points still stand... Hard to fight void rays, you cant end games in under 25 minutes (which is bad when you have to play qualifiers and such, you are gonna be exhausted - I know I always felt pretty tired after 5 rounds of meching compared to 5 rounds of much shorter M&M games).
I think the strat is gonna get weaker when Ps learn how to play vs it too --- but if the P just goes his regular anti-m/m, ie templars, hes gonna get rolled since templars are kinda terrible vs mech (until you have carriers).
I dunno, its not good to be forced into such insane passivity
I did like that Goody incorporated marauder drops into it tho, its hard to kill expos otherwise.
On October 17 2010 22:36 Hautamaki wrote: Mech in BW was kind of OP haha, you only ever went Bio against zerg, and recently terrans have been trying to open mech or switch to mech against zerg too as often as possible. Mech was always supposed to just offer you a few options for supporting your bio.
The roles of hellions and tanks seem clear but I'm not sure what role Thors are supposed to fill. Hellions take care of lings and zealots really well--basically they are firebats but slightly less useless against the things they don't hard counter and fast enough to be used as harass. Ok, good unit. Tanks are what they were always supposed to be--a really good defensive unit, and a unit that can safely apply pressure and gradually gain map control with its range and damage, but can be countered by air and some other specialist units, and need support against melee units.
What are thors supposed to be really good against? They can shoot air, but are not that good against air so they can't take the goliath's job of AA. The ground units they are strong against, tanks are strong against too, and the units they suck against, tanks suck against too. So what's the point of making thors? Seems like vikings and tanks fill their roles much better than they do, especially at that price point and supply cost.
Thors are the best choice vs ultras, and with 3-3 upgs, they will do fine vs broodlords as long as you have repairing scvs and hellions to kill the broodlings.
On October 17 2010 22:13 ChickenLips wrote: Seeing threads like this makes me understand why
a) not a single pro regularly posts on this forum. b) we can't have nice things (good players discussing interesting topics in an objective manner)
instead it's just this constant slew of balance bullshit. bah
Next thread: [Q] Will we see something other than Zealot Stalker Sentry? I don't want to talk about balance but I really want to see Sentries nerfed so Protosses use more of their arsenal.
Jesus christ.
agreed, the main problem is most forum posters now simply have a surface level understanding of the game and they simply refer to damage tables and statistics when thinking about he game and strategy instead of really contemplating something. 15minutes before each post would do wonders for the community.
Back on topic: If you don't go MMM you should be happy that others do. Yes most T go MMM but since your playing at a lower level of competition where P blindly prep for MMM instead of scouting and reacting your strategy should be more effective. Ever consider that? See how something you didn't like actually benefits you?
Im sorry to make you feel like this post is "constant slew of balance bullshit. bah". I rarely post at tl.net. I can see that this isnt as interesting for you as some thread where proffesional players would shere their thoughts. But this isnt real. I try to manage this thread as well as I can not to become another "balance whine". So even if I manage to attract several good players (Jinro), Im not an admin that could manage this thread to your (and my) liking.
On October 17 2010 22:39 Withdraw wrote: sjow has some weird thor/tank mech tvp build (just saw him crushing one guy on stream but it was stepps of war and early stage of the cup- the toss was quiet good tho), he also won with pure mech build with dimaga in recent craft cup so maybe we will see something new.
well, when playing MMM and getting medivac and raven u could just switch into air: 2:1:3 build-order raven banchee viking (so if u dont have to get marines to defend VR) what about the phoenix? can be killed by few marines in the mix, right?
It's true that mech just doesn't work vs. protoss, so MM is the only viable way to go. But I feel it's a big problem in sc2. I personally hate PVT match up, because MM is so boring to play against. And more importantly, it's even more boring to watch.
On October 17 2010 18:25 AngryPanda wrote: I don't play Toss to much but all i can say is just build HT's and start lol at the mmm ball. just go HT's and stalkers. Feedback the medic's and storm there ball they will lose half there army to 3-4 good storms. I never lose to terran as toss anymore with any kind of HT build.
Kinda sounds like toss needs a nerf if you never lose to terran.
Yes. One kid beating up on terrible Terrans in some shit division means Toss needs a nerf.
Was a joke, chill d f out.
Shit like that got the Void Ray nerfed to oblivion. Perhaps MMM should get the Void Ray treatment and then we'll see more Mech.
The Void Ray isn't a core unit.
7 range to 6 was not nerfed to oblivion.
Most recent patch changes the unit's role.
It was insane for Void Rays to outrange marines in bunkers.
On October 17 2010 21:30 ichangedmyname wrote: I think most Terrans are just really lazy to be honest. If they can't cheese a win or timing push to a win in the first 8~ minutes then they just keep massing what they already have.
I think the late game solution for Terran is primarily ghost/m&m ground armies backed by lots of Starport units (banshees RAPE ground units, vikings can protect them from phoenix, medivacs for stim spam, and ravens can protect everything from stalkers).
Making T1 units all game long as Protoss researches multiple techs off multiple tech buildings and diversifies their army will eventually result in a loss. If you let him get Twilight Council/Charge/Blink/Templar Archives/Psi Storm/and Amulet, as well as Robo/Robo Bay/Range, as well as holding off all early aggression. Yup, you might lose.
Sounds good in theory, but storm rapes every single unit in this composition.
Isn't that what the Ghosts are for? I'm pretty sure that composition will roll anything if the Ghosts get their EMPs off.
At that point it becomes a thing of who has better micro. I also think that composition allows stealth to be abused, as ravens + vikings will insta sniper observers allowing banshees to go uncontested.
MMM is stronger of an opening in TvP, especially if you want to be aggressive. But if you open with MMM it's hard to transition to full mech. A lot of people don't add tanks later because they feel the gas can be better used for other things like medivacs and ghosts.
Until people find a good way to transition or open mech in TvP, MMM will be the dominant strat.
On October 17 2010 19:54 CurLy[] wrote: MMM with vikings (ghosts/ravens)
is pretty much Zealot Sentry Stalker, with colossus (immortals/templars)
See how it works?
Sorry, but Im not buing this. Ravens are rarely used and during MGL I think I saw ghosts used 2-3 times?
Even medivacs are not as used as you need those vikings to snipe collosi.
So that leaves you with Marine/Marauder + Vikings most of the time and if you can, you sneak in as many medivacs as you can. No other options..
True Ravens are rarely used, but I think Ghosts are awesome against Protoss. Collossi without shields is a scary prospect for Toss player when facing MMM and Vikings. Ask any Toss player that.
if been going mech against protoss you have to position better sure but massing seige tanks with marines helions and thors is just great i get some vikings too.
look up goody he does a nice banshe into mech build.
it's kind simple, no terran can beat P 200/200, it's not like don't want go mech, it's more like cant ... dts and zealots cut tanks/thors like a knife cuts butter ... immortals lol at tanks and thors, stalkers rapes hellions ... if u let it go to tier 3, u lost ...
I as a terran player feel like using anything else other than that could lose you the game... you could make 2 thors... or make 6 marauders with slow + marines for equal minerals. I've been using helions more lately though as many P is going lots of zealots against me. so get early pre-igniter with helions then and medivac drop them into enemy mineral lines has been working. put a bunker for early defense and i can usually harrass well. sometimes i go into that 112 build and start pumping marines/heliions/banshee's/ravens. get those ravens in case of dt's and if not the stalkers get stopped by a pdd. If you add like 2 ghosts (for a big fight) you just double emp and finish them off.. if you try to build heavy units like a bc and thors they just get target fired and become a waste of minerals when those could have gone into mmm
Simple answer - no. T's lategame units are not effective against P's lategame army composition. It is simply not worth building them. There is no reason to build a Thor against P, battlecruisers need upgrades to reach max effectiveness but they're too expensive and too slow to build to be practical, Siege tanks are weak against speedlots and make your army immobile, and Ravens are a joke against Feedback. T's lategame units are simply not worth it in TvP.
I'd actually like to see a high level game where a Terran won with mech vs protoss.
So would everyone else. But you won't because mech vs Protoss is not really viable. Terran's only real option is to MMM, maybe with some ghosts or vikings, depending on what the Toss does.
Just looking at BW as an example science vessels were essential vs zerg due to lurkers. In order to force terran to use units such as ravens there has to be some really good cloaked/perm-cloaked options that force every single race to use detectors at a certain point. Another thing that I've noticed is that you normally need only 1 unit to counter the opponents big damage dealer eg. collosus and vikings; and that's where it all stops. Most of these counter battles don't loop onto themselves which creates dead ends.
Id like to point out, that with the recent patch, vikings can actually kite VRs (with speed), which is huge for Terran late game. This allows Terrant to play mech without the possibility to lose instantly due to hidden Stargate tech.
Protoss has 4-6 options to deal with mech, depending on the situation or how you look at it. Before critical mass of tanks, blink stalkers work wonders and phoenix lifting most of the tanks cripples the Terran army's strength in a battle. A meching Terran really doesn't want to make anti-air unless he has to, so hiding void rays and massing those up can let Protoss just a-move his voidrays and Terran won't have the time to stop it. Since the tank nerf, zealots are now vastly more powerful with charge. The last 2 options are pretty obvious: immortals wreck everything and storm tears the clumped up units of SC2 to shreds. I'd like to mech every now and then, but since Protoss has so many options it just doesn't work.
On October 18 2010 04:50 dudeman001 wrote: Protoss has 4-6 options to deal with mech, depending on the situation or how you look at it. Before critical mass of tanks, blink stalkers work wonders and phoenix lifting most of the tanks cripples the Terran army's strength in a battle. A meching Terran really doesn't want to make anti-air unless he has to, so hiding void rays and massing those up can let Protoss just a-move his voidrays and Terran won't have the time to stop it. Since the tank nerf, zealots are now vastly more powerful with charge. The last 2 options are pretty obvious: immortals wreck everything and storm tears the clumped up units of SC2 to shreds. I'd like to mech every now and then, but since Protoss has so many options it just doesn't work.
That is some general knowladge, which exists here on tl.net forums. Protoss have so many counters that mech isnt viable. But in reality, you see people trying other things than MMM. And recently I saw many "pure mech" games vs Zerg. And of course watch some of GoOdy replays and you will see fairly early, that all your blink stalkers, phoenixes, void rays, immortals are not so good as it looks on the paper. Its not like you just put them in some editor to 1a into each other. And besides that, its actually fun playing with something different from MMM spam all the way to victory, or defeat.
If you don't want people to be sarcastic and aggressive, don't make stupid posts. There's no discussion to be had here, MMM works, deal with it. If you don't like it, experiment and see if other things work for you.
23/25 contributions to my post werent sarcastic, aggressive nor stupid. One would say this points to fact, that there is something to discuss here? Maybe these 2/25 stupid posts are from stupid people?
From your reactions to people who disagree with you it looks like you're the agressive one. MMM is used most because it's the most effective in the current flow of the game, banshees, ghost and ravens get mixed in for the lategame to supplement this core army.
Maybe you shouldn't make an OP suggesting Terrans are just lazy and are all about spamming T1 units all game? Maybe a more delicate approach would've attracted positive attention?
The fact that you're claiming to be a Terran yourself makes me wonder what unit composition you use in TvP?
If you don't want people to be sarcastic and aggressive, don't make stupid posts. There's no discussion to be had here, MMM works, deal with it. If you don't like it, experiment and see if other things work for you.
23/25 contributions to my post werent sarcastic, aggressive nor stupid. One would say this points to fact, that there is something to discuss here? Maybe these 2/25 stupid posts are from stupid people?
From your reactions to people who disagree with you it looks like you're the agressive one. MMM is used most because it's the most effective in the current flow of the game, banshees, ghost and ravens get mixed in for the lategame to supplement this core army.
Maybe you shouldn't make an OP suggesting Terrans are just lazy and are all about spamming T1 units all game? Maybe a more delicate approach would've attracted positive attention?
The fact that you're claiming to be a Terran yourself makes me wonder what unit composition you use in TvP?
Sorry, but since there are so many flamers and trolls, Im forced to react approprietly to them. If I didnt, my post would be filled with posts like "Another balance whine thread, lol, noob...". So please, dont try to discredit my post only because Im trying to defend its existence.
edit: And as far as I see, my post attracted enough people including very good players and also yourself. Of course I use MMM + Viking if I want to just play SC2. But if I want to enjoy it, make some earned wins, I try to play mech, or at least something different from MMM.
People claim, that P and Z lategame is way stronger, than T. Sure, if you spam T1 units whole game, you cant expect to do well later
That's not really how it works, Marines and marauders are a T1 unit at teh start of the game, but after you get stim, shields, slow, 3/3 upgrades, you can't say that "they have been spamming a T1 unit the whole game and deserve to lose"
People claim, that P and Z lategame is way stronger, than T. Sure, if you spam T1 units whole game, you cant expect to do well later
That's not really how it works, Marines and marauders are a T1 unit at teh start of the game, but after you get stim, shields, slow, 3/3 upgrades, you can't say that "they have been spamming a T1 unit the whole game and deserve to lose"
Yes, but we are talking about units, right? Since MMM means Marine/Marauder/Medics. Of course, that Terran needs to use some technology from higher tier. But units, UNITS man, are what we are talking about.
MMM is the bread and butter, the alpha and omega, that's what you base your play off.
But at the same time, there are tons of strats, like the fast thors, the 111, the 321 etc that incorporate plenty of other units, mainly ravens, thors, banshees and ghosts
It's like saying "Will we ever see anything else then Stalker zealot sentry?" do you hear how dumb that sounds?
Terran strategies are so much more diverse then anythign protoss has, idk why we worry about terran in that department.
Also, yes, mech sucks against toss, immortals rape, and zealots with leg upgrade close the siege distance kinda fast
On October 18 2010 05:52 Snowfield wrote: It's like saying "Will we ever see anything else then Stalker zealot sentry?" do you hear how dumb that sounds?
I can see how dumb that sounds. But unfortunatelly we dont have to ask this question, since we actually currently see a lot more than Stalker/Zealot/Sentry from Protoss players.
On October 18 2010 06:02 Snowfield wrote: Like what lol, it's always stalker sentry zealot + X unit, Colossi, HT, DT, phoenix etc
terran have alot more varied strats then protoss does
Oh really? How many games from Terran perspective did you see in MGL other than MMM? And how many games from Protoss perspective did you see in MGF that included Collosi, HT, DT, Void Rays, Phoenixes, Immortals, even mother fucking mothership. So if Terran have a lot more varied strats then protoss does, why arent they used?
On October 17 2010 22:44 J-C-erloeser wrote: does the viking out-kite a speed-upgraded VR after this patch?
I tested it and.... yes.
Wow o_o That DOES make mech a lot stronger now.
Im not sure mech is ever going to be good on metalopolis, but on steppes, it should be.
Yeah when i saw the patches i almost pissed my self and started to practice my mech again. Although Mech games are longer its good to have in the arsenal to keep the opponent from developing specific counter builds.
I've also been testing out some2 fact timing pushes like in BW to keep some of my TvP games down in game length.
Most people are playing mech Flash style which is Turtle Turtle Defend Defend Push. BW was filled with scary 2 factory timing pushes.
And when i comes to thors i don't make any unless i see Phoenixes. For voids i just make Vikings and kite every thing. Once the voids are dead its gg for the Protoss. Now carriers are different i make every anti air i can get. Marines from my 1 rax, Thors, Vikings, Hellions(for ground fodder against zealots). Carriers are the biggest pain.
Strategic drops with tanks or Thors are also good at this point to take out the fleet beacon and Stargates.
On October 18 2010 06:02 Snowfield wrote: Like what lol, it's always stalker sentry zealot + X unit, Colossi, HT, DT, phoenix etc
terran have alot more varied strats then protoss does
Oh really? How many games from Terran perspective did you see in MGL other than MMM? And how many games from Protoss perspective did you see in MGF that included Collosi, HT, DT, Void Rays, Phoenixes, Immortals, even mother fucking mothership. So if Terran have a lot more varied strats then protoss does, why arent they used?
Because the Terrans in GSL favored MMM over the other strats
TvP? No, probably not. Mech builds are just not as viable as is BW because of immortals, blink, charge, and the lack of spider-mines. That said, I think there's interesting transitions late game to raven and/or maybe tank support.
With the recent patch, they're actually viable in TvP now. I'm not saying mass thors will be as good as in TvZ, but honestly the 250mm cannon will demolishs immorts and they're no longer susceptible to HT's.
I don't have a problem with MMM, because its interesting to see what a terran uses to support the bioball (medivac vikings, ghosts, or mech)
On October 18 2010 06:10 Lobotomist wrote: TvP? No, probably not. Mech builds are just not as viable as is BW because of immortals, blink, charge, and the lack of spider-mines. That said, I think there's interesting transitions late game to raven and/or maybe tank support.
Immortals arent an issue when you have enough STUFF. They have a range of 5. Any early mech push of coarse has marines. And if they spam them stop a cycle of tanks in favor for 2 ghosts.
Blink and Charge are only and issue if you ball up you mech. But if you spread them out and micro you hellions this negates the effectiveness of Blink and Chargelots. Spread them out Like Checkers set up.
Spider-mines were only needed because the vulture couldn't kill multiple zealots at the same time like the hellion can. And Stalkers are weaker then dragoons with their shorter range.
On October 18 2010 06:10 Lobotomist wrote: TvP? No, probably not. Mech builds are just not as viable as is BW because of immortals, blink, charge, and the lack of spider-mines. That said, I think there's interesting transitions late game to raven and/or maybe tank support.
Immortals arent an issue when you have enough STUFF. They have a range of 5. Any early mech push of coarse has marines. And if they spam them stop a cycle of tanks in favor for 2 ghosts.
Blink and Charge are only and issue if you ball up you mech. But if you spread them out and micro you hellions this negates the effectiveness of Blink and Chargelots. Spread them out Like Checkers set up.
Spider-mines were only needed because the vulture couldn't kill multiple zealots at the same time like the hellion can. And Stalkers are weaker then dragoons with their shorter range.
If you're going for an early Mech push I don't see how you would have a tech labbed Rax and Ghost Academy up? Also having more stuff is a response to an opponent doing cutesy stuff and not having a normal amount of units. When you're going Mech though you'll be the one with less units.
On October 18 2010 06:02 Snowfield wrote: Like what lol, it's always stalker sentry zealot + X unit, Colossi, HT, DT, phoenix etc
terran have alot more varied strats then protoss does
Oh really? How many games from Terran perspective did you see in MGL other than MMM? And how many games from Protoss perspective did you see in MGF that included Collosi, HT, DT, Void Rays, Phoenixes, Immortals, even mother fucking mothership. So if Terran have a lot more varied strats then protoss does, why arent they used?
Because the Terrans in GSL favored MMM over the other strats
Ok, so the best terrans that made it to GSL are playing MMM and the rest of the world plays those "other varied strats", is that, what you are saying?
Different players play different things, just because the two terrans that made it any far did MMM doesn't mean the game hasnt evolved, there are plenty of other strategies that work, MMM is just the simplest imo
On October 18 2010 06:29 Snowfield wrote: Different players play different things, just because the two terrans that made it any far did MMM doesn't mean the game hasnt evolved, there are plenty of other strategies that work, MMM is just the simplest imo
You are talking about TWO terrans at MGL? Are you serious? Go, download all replays TvP from MGL and tell me, how many were different from MMM..
for the last few weeks i've been toying around with mech build against protoss, because i got fed up by bio builds. i've had fairly good succes with mainly tanks, hellions, thors (not so much tho, they take up a lot of supply) and viking support, obv good upgrades and a ghost or two. problem is i haven't found a good midgame push, that means my gameplan is basically a lot of suicide hellions harasses (even with medivacs) and turtling up to 200/200 on 3 base
i usually go rector rax and techlab factory into expand, which i feel is not too safe, as i think it might be too weak against 3gate immortal push, but i feel like when going 1/1/1 with a raven my expo is a bit late and im behind when P actually goes fast exp as well (which they do quite often now)
then i go 4factories total (2tech lab 2reactor) and reactor starport and get 3rd base up while upgrading.
as i said, im not sure what opening is the best yet but what you need is a lot of OC for scans, because you absolutely need to scan air transition from protoss otherwise you're dead, if P goes carriers you should go a lot of vikings, but i've been also thinking going marines for supper to kill the incerteptors, because the vikings are not that good vs carriers. once you hit 200/200 and have usuallu 3/1 upgrades you have to attack obviously, a take a whole map if possible.
also i haven't really had a chance to try that vs the top protosses because i don't have many on my F list, but i'd love to.
i think once you get on 3-4 base with good eco and ugrades the mech is sooo good.
also im no scrub so please no responses in type of "it might work in bronze league"
i might as well post a new thread if i have time with some replays, or if anyone is intersted in helping optimalizing the build order i'd be happy enough to send you some replays
On October 18 2010 06:35 PredY wrote: for the last few weeks i've been toying around with mech build against protoss, because i got fed up by bio builds. i've had fairly good succes with mainly tanks, hellions, thors (not so much tho, they take up a lot of supply) and viking support, obv good upgrades and a ghost or two. problem is i haven't found a good midgame push, that means my gameplan is basically a lot of suicide hellions harasses (even with medivacs) and turtling up to 200/200 on 3 base
i usually go rector rax and techlab factory into expand, which i feel is not too safe, as i think it might be too weak against 3gate immortal push, but i feel like when going 1/1/1 with a raven my expo is a bit late and im behind when P actually goes fast exp as well (which they do quite often now)
then i go 4factories total (2tech lab 2reactor) and reactor starport and get 3rd base up while upgrading.
as i said, im not sure what opening is the best yet but what you need is a lot of OC for scans, because you absolutely need to scan air transition from protoss otherwise you're dead, if P goes carriers you should go a lot of vikings, but i've been also thinking going marines for supper to kill the incerteptors, because the vikings are not that good vs carriers. once you hit 200/200 and have usuallu 3/1 upgrades you have to attack obviously, a take a whole map if possible.
also i haven't really had a chance to try that vs the top protosses because i don't have many on my F list, but i'd love to.
i think once you get on 3-4 base with good eco and ugrades the mech is sooo good.
also im no scrub so please no responses in type of "it might work in bronze league"
i might as well post a new thread if i have time with some replays, or if anyone is intersted in helping optimalizing the build order i'd be happy enough to send you some replays
Im very interested in this, since there are not many replays involving mech TvP. So what people claim is, that mech is bad, because its not played. Your overall strategy seems a lot like something Im playing around. I only try to add at least 1 Raven, before I push out of my base, because 1 well placed PDD can buy your tanks enough time to siege if you somehow get caught in uncomfortable position. Upgrades are way more important than it actually looks.
Marauder+ medivac is one of the best ways to deal with High Templar if you're not great with ghosts. The HT can psistorm your marauder, but the medivac heals them, so nothing dies or gets weakened. Any other unit than Marauder takes damage from psistorm, so if you play cat and mouse with a Protoss with a lot of high templar, your army wears down and dies.
So I always tell the player I'm coaching now: Get marauders+medivac, get ebay upgrades on infantry, and engage their army once you got a reasonable amount. Marauder+medivac vs zealots mean you kite and kill his zealots then you move on into the meat of his army. Any time you're low on health, you run and heal full.
about this air battle thing. played some factory/viking and also raven/banchee/viking... 1) it seems very hard to kite the voidrays, if it is a group battle. still it seems that vikings have the advantage -when it comes to army costs. 2) the melee group games are increasingly full with ppl playing carriers. so when i was trying mech and encountered carriers i really had trbl to kill the main-carrier-ship like it was the plan in SC1. tried all raven abilities- no viking kiting: => turret repairing and mass rine helps
i just can support the statement, that carriers are killing it all (mech).
On October 18 2010 06:46 GoodNewsJim wrote: Marauder+ medivac is one of the best ways to deal with High Templar if you're not great with ghosts. The HT can psistorm your marauder, but the medivac heals them, so nothing dies or gets weakened. Any other unit than Marauder takes damage from psistorm, so if you play cat and mouse with a Protoss with a lot of high templar, your army wears down and dies.
So I always tell the player I'm coaching now: Get marauders+medivac, get ebay upgrades on infantry, and engage their army once you got a reasonable amount. Marauder+medivac vs zealots mean you kite and kill his zealots then you move on into the meat of his army. Any time you're low on health, you run and heal full.
Yes, you can kite few Zealots, but all in all you wont kill anything. Running away from opponent wont win you games. This actually gives Protoss enough time to reach those top tier units, which are so effective vs. your T1 units. With mech army, you are guaranteed to kill many, many things.
On October 18 2010 06:52 J-C-erloeser wrote: about this air battle thing. played some factory/viking and also raven/banchee/viking... 1) it seems very hard to kite the voidrays, if it is a group battle. still it seems that vikings have the advantage -when it comes to army costs. 2) the melee group games are increasingly full with ppl playing carriers. so when i was trying mech and encountered carriers i really had trbl to kill the main-carrier-ship like it was the plan in SC1. tried all raven abilities- no viking kiting: => turret repairing and mass rine helps
i just can support the statement, that carriers are killing it all (mech).
Ok, but its not just that by the time "Carriers are killing it all" you are left only with Hellion/Tank/Thor.. If Protoss is tech switching to something like carrier, Im pretty sure you can have your fleet of Vikings/Battlecruisers, which also is "killing at all", suprisingly. And with the minerals floating when meching, its not that hard to throw several scans out there.
On October 18 2010 06:35 PredY wrote: for the last few weeks i've been toying around with mech build against protoss, because i got fed up by bio builds. i've had fairly good succes with mainly tanks, hellions, thors (not so much tho, they take up a lot of supply) and viking support, obv good upgrades and a ghost or two. problem is i haven't found a good midgame push, that means my gameplan is basically a lot of suicide hellions harasses (even with medivacs) and turtling up to 200/200 on 3 base
i usually go rector rax and techlab factory into expand, which i feel is not too safe, as i think it might be too weak against 3gate immortal push, but i feel like when going 1/1/1 with a raven my expo is a bit late and im behind when P actually goes fast exp as well (which they do quite often now)
then i go 4factories total (2tech lab 2reactor) and reactor starport and get 3rd base up while upgrading.
as i said, im not sure what opening is the best yet but what you need is a lot of OC for scans, because you absolutely need to scan air transition from protoss otherwise you're dead, if P goes carriers you should go a lot of vikings, but i've been also thinking going marines for supper to kill the incerteptors, because the vikings are not that good vs carriers. once you hit 200/200 and have usuallu 3/1 upgrades you have to attack obviously, a take a whole map if possible.
also i haven't really had a chance to try that vs the top protosses because i don't have many on my F list, but i'd love to.
i think once you get on 3-4 base with good eco and ugrades the mech is sooo good.
also im no scrub so please no responses in type of "it might work in bronze league"
i might as well post a new thread if i have time with some replays, or if anyone is intersted in helping optimalizing the build order i'd be happy enough to send you some replays
Finally someone good who knows his stuff
The problem I have however is that (as seen in the replay below between Goody and Adelscott) if you lose your army, you are screwed. Good Protosses will just take half the map, put up a shitton of warpgates and once they lose their maxed army immediately have another 40 supply on the map (diligently taking out expansions) while the Terran has to wait about a minute (45 seconds + distance to battlefield) until his new siege tanks are where they can do damage.
Mech is really really good if maxed. However it seems so fragile (forgot to siege tanks? gg, forgot so scan that edge of the maps where the 3 stargates are? gg) and why not go bio where you can take an easy win in 15 minutes, enjoying all the mobility and 'goodness in low numbers' it gives you?
On October 18 2010 06:59 Snowfield wrote: lol, kiting zealots kills all the zealots, then you go back and kill the rest, it's running, it's run-and-shoot
With mech you can't kite anything, zealots just legcahrge your siegetanks or stalkers blink on top and then it's like wat
Oh, are we talking about Brozne/Silver players that are actually throwing legions of Zealots at you, while you are dancing with your marauders endlessly?
I can imagine those are the guys you meet with your league points yes, assuming this is you, there where quitea few everlongs but all the others were sub diamond
Thing is, they attack you, you run back, they run back, but you have concussive shells and kill them, then you do this all day
Of course there are problems in TvP going mech as Predy and ChickenLips stated. That is not what this thread is about. Its about discovering how to implement mech play into billions of boring MMM stim blobs kiting a bunch of shielded alien stuff.
On October 18 2010 06:02 Snowfield wrote: Like what lol, it's always stalker sentry zealot + X unit, Colossi, HT, DT, phoenix etc
terran have alot more varied strats then protoss does
Oh really? How many games from Terran perspective did you see in MGL other than MMM? And how many games from Protoss perspective did you see in MGF that included Collosi, HT, DT, Void Rays, Phoenixes, Immortals, even mother fucking mothership. So if Terran have a lot more varied strats then protoss does, why arent they used?
Protoss is always going to go Stalk/Sen/Lots + X (HT, Col), that's a given, so why is it so hated on MMM + X (ghost, Thor, etc)? People keep saying Terran is the most versatile, I challenge that HIGHLY...except on rare occasions the versatility of Terran is almost purely in early-early mid game. Terran has the most versatile openings, in fact doing Polt pushes are amazing (raven, banshee), but in the later stages of the game if Protoss has stabilized, it's ridiculous not to fall back on MMM and whatever unit might help counter the other Protoss X unit. Maybe if the Terran had pretty colored unit animations people wouldn't complain so much.
its not about bio-kiting is it? i thought we would find a way to transition into toss-save-mech? just a suggetion to stop this concussiv shell depate. (and when MLG is an argument ... you saw quite some kiting action against P and Z - but not necessarely running away- but around)
On October 18 2010 06:52 J-C-erloeser wrote: about this air battle thing. played some factory/viking and also raven/banchee/viking... 1) it seems very hard to kite the voidrays, if it is a group battle. still it seems that vikings have the advantage -when it comes to army costs. 2) the melee group games are increasingly full with ppl playing carriers. so when i was trying mech and encountered carriers i really had trbl to kill the main-carrier-ship like it was the plan in SC1. tried all raven abilities- no viking kiting: => turret repairing and mass rine helps
i just can support the statement, that carriers are killing it all (mech).
Ok, but its not just that by the time "Carriers are killing it all" you are left only with Hellion/Tank/Thor.. If Protoss is tech switching to something like carrier, Im pretty sure you can have your fleet of Vikings/Battlecruisers, which also is "killing at all", suprisingly. And with the minerals floating when meching, its not that hard to throw several scans out there.
you are certainly right. i was overcommiting and ignored BCs (+yamato cannon). should solve the problem (not tested) when playing mech. however the vikings with thor didnt do a cost efficient job.
i dont think that some units are not usable in these match ups, i think its just that the mmm ball is much more effective then going something different. People dont use certain units because they want to make sure they win the game and mmm works well, so why change it? i personally dont see anything wrong with using different units but i think it comes down to what people know works and what is harder to make work.
Ok guys, thank you for all your input.. At least we discovered an interesting fact, that Viking can kite Void Ray with speed post patch. Im exhausted, maybe tomorrow I will post some more.
edit: Oh, any btw, that gray blob is certainly boring to look at.
The problem is that Blizzard has really sucked at some of their patch changes. Nerfing the BC was boneheaded. It took a ton of time to tech up to, was really slow, and really bad-ass looking. Shooting lasers all over the place with big death ships was fun, and their power was made up for by their incredibly bad mobility.
BCs are beyond terrible now. I think they may be some of the least cost-effective units in the game when you consider the tech required to get them and their speed. Why? What the hell was the reason for this? I played a 3v3 the other day and fast-teched bcs. I made like 4 of them and they all got obliterated by one player's t1 4-gate army.
MMM is the most mobile and efficient army at the moment. I don't think units are unexplored as much as all other Terran units are pretty bad against protoss.
personally i think part of the reason why MMM is used so much is simply the healing. Terran have the only units that don't regen health (shields for toss) by themselves. This means that when you bring BC's out you have to repair them and that uses up resources and means using up more supply on SCV's than maybe you would like. Toss and zerg are designed to have units that can fight and then heal up on their own, they are also easily replaceable. Zerg can build like a zillion units at once and toss can CB their gates/robo etc.
Terran mech units aren't quite so replaceable in the sense that our mech is designed to be repaired. But actually repairing them can be a chore and not always cost/time effective, where as our Bio is highly replaceable and can be healed up without any need for taking APM or focus away from whatever else we are doing. This could be considered lazy i suppose, but the other two races don't have the option to repair/heal apart from queens.
Perhaps this is just me, but MMM is just so effective, cheap and sustainable that switching over to a more mech heavy style seems counter productive in some ways. All T's back-up their army with mech in the same way protoss do, but our T3 tech is hard to get and innfective in small numbers. BC's are only really good once you have like 7-8, where as Collosus are effect once you have 2-3 and become expenentially better the more you get. Ultras are great once Z can get them because they can make 10 at once, T's are limited to maybe 2-3 BC's building at a time, same with thors (which actually mass thors are becoming more popular slowly, and i personally would lvoe to see more of it).
Im diamond place 15 in my divison and i always play Mech vs Protoss. A lot of ppl complain about immos being to strong and blinkstalkers etc but actually protoss cant fight ur mechball if u go raven 1 or two +tanks and helions with blueflame and ofc upgrades.Protoss can clean it up with colossi or HTs so u have to build Vikings or ghosts aswell. My build is like: I open standart ( 10 supply,12 rax ,13 gas ,15 Orbital )+ walling my ramp always.Then i build bunker and wait till i have 2 tanks and raven,I also constantly build marines from 1 rax,before getting my first tank I build hellion if my scan didnt give me any informations and go scout with it. After i have raven and 2+3 tanks and rines i take natural but if my helion sees my opponent takes FE i go fast CC aswell. Anyway after having 2 bases build tanks from 3 factories and helions with blueflame from 1 factorie with reactor + i upgrade mech at armory. 2 bases are enough for this. After my raven has 200 energy i go push my opponent if i see he goes colossi and stalker etc if he goes HTs i add Ghosts and try to expand. In 200 vs 200 clashes it comes down how you siege ur tanks and micro helions so they take out zealots and dont die to storm or colossi instant + DPP and emp at HTs if possible,it requieres more APm then hit and run with MMM but if toss makes 1 misstake or you micro well its like 80% u win the clash. Probs of this build in my opinon are : hard to scout,u have to scan a lot instead of mules to get information , because its important to know if ur opponent goes mass AIR or HTs and the timing is very important. If toss catches you while tanks are unsieged ur pretty much done. If you trade armies toss is able to produce his army much faster then you. Toss has also opportunities to harass. All in all I think this build is also strong against toss but it requieres MORE APM and more knoweledge of the game,so its practically more difficult to play mech but its not weaker as some mentioned.The most players just go MMM because its easier to controll, IMO
just another point, the terran macro (mules) helps out bio more than it does mech
your mech push is only as strong as your gas income (tanks, vikings, thors, ravens, upgrades). you can obviously make more hellions but you're not jacking up that core section of your army
on the other hand, for every mule you drop, you're getting more rax, rines, and marauders. with the mapset, it's simply a lot more feasible to support mass bio play with mech units as gas allows.
if you start to see maps where you can get 3 base gas easy and turtle, you might start to see some big viable mech play. it'll also open up more dangerous options for gas heavy z's at hive and late game p too.
til then, the maps are your biggest obstacle for your argument
edit: and yeah, immos beat naked tanks pretty nicely even with splash
Marines and Marauders are Terrans core units and... Terran is the only race that doesn't have automatic heals so... guess what? Medivacs are good for unit retention.
So of course, every build will still be MMM+X, we're seeing Vikings vs Collossus, Thors and Tanks vs Banelings etc... We build are core then supplement it with counters to what you counter. It's all we have.
Tbh honest i just think its about time before T moves away from the bio-ball. Atleast in the PvT matchup, the bio balls are really starting to get olbirated. The worst part is the later the game gets, the worse of you are as T because P can now get out HT and colossus with ease. I think bio is a great opening but there needs to be a transition out of it late game or else terrans are just gona keep getting further and further behind as protoss get better at defending and drawing out the game.
The problem with terran mech is that it is very difficult to support it off of one base, and it is very difficult to play aggressive early game. In BW terran mech could easily expo because of the fear of spider mines and vulture run-bys. This forced protoss to play somewhat conservatively until they know what tech you chose to go first, speed, mines or siege. However, in SC2 terran does not posses the same map control spider mines, and the harass unit can be stopped by the protoss warp-in ability, without forcing them to pull back their army.
I do feel that a bio FE into a mech army could do very well once people start figuring stuff out.
hey guys im back so i watched the goody vs adelscott game, what happened was basically that goody was running really low eco and pushed too early with 160 vs 200 P army and although he won few battles he couldn't cope with better eco protoss. what i like was he build ghosts for the immortals tho.
my general ideas are: -once you get good eco running 3-4 bases with good upgrades and you're maxed, it's pretty good. -don't know the optimal opening, but rax fact tank expand, 1/1/1 raven expand, blue flame hellions drop seems all to be decent. -a lot of orbital commands for a lot of mules/scan - absolutely need to scan air transition from P turtle heavy
cons: -yet i tried to go heavy macro games, haven't found a good midgame push, my ideas are tanks/hellions/thors with canons/ghosts/raven but it's gas heavy tho -very long games, can be really tiring -hellion harass is so difficult if P has map control and can warpin units everywhere -hard to deal with carriers, don't know the optimal number of vikings -CAN'T KILL P EXPANDS, tank drops aren't really that good, perhaps marauder drops? don't want to invest in bio though...so far i focused mainly in killing probes. warpin and canons stop that well.
i don't really see the issue. your tier 1 buildings create the macro army of cost-efficient units. everything else you get supports that. will we start seeing something other than zerglings and roaches? will we start seeing something other than zealots, stalkers and sentries? no, we won't, because they're versatile, cheap, and acquired with little to no tech investment. no reason NOT to get them. there's plenty of reasons not to get one unit over another beyond those basic choices though, and you may very well see the basic units get ignored from time to time, but not with any regularity at this stage of balance.
the reason medivac is the far and away best/most commonly used support for terran's macro army (marine/marauder) is because it is such a direct and impressive upgrade to terran's army. it makes them live longer, it lets them ignore terrain, and it makes them move faster, the latter 2 upgrades also being useful for mech units as well in a smaller but still significant capacity. everything else is much more disconnected in terms of strengthening the already versatile terran bio army. of COURSE they're going to pick the obvious best option. they don't have to, but if you want to win, it's always an excellent choice which has no inherent weaknesses that any other build doesn't also have except unit-specific counters.
i think this patch is a step forward towards balancing terran's bio support in terms of putting the medivac's strengths on par with the other potential support units, but it remains to be seen if it's enough. i doubt it really is, but i wouldn't be surprised to see people less likely to go all medivacs all the time except to get vikings like they do now, though many still will because if you still react as quickly as is necessary, the patch changes very little for medivacs except how long it takes to move across the entire map and bio-drops in TvT (viking speed > medivac speed now). i wonder if perhaps taking the medivac off of reactor and putting it on techlab would be a proper nerf which simultaneously encourages versatile starport use without teching even further but who knows.
i think mech has its place and maybe because of reactor hellions that it could stand to become a core part of a terran macro army with only marines for anti-air purposes but i think this patch was also a step backwards for that because of roaches becoming unkitable by hellions which scares people away from using them even if they weren't directly nerfed. thors however are increasingly becoming a key unit for terran support and they were buffed to not be feedbacked which increases their later game usefulness and simultaneously, buildings have more life now and 250MM is on cooldown so perhaps 250MM actually has some use that remains to be seen. again, who knows what mentalities this patch will bring about.
i like the above view very much. also the idea about putting medivac into the techlab units ... even thou it hurts sooo bad- it seems right. -ur more probably to get raven and banchee then - transition into BC is less painful.
but maybe, when the medivac goes into the tech-lab TANKS could go into reactor units? (the siege mode still would be tech-lab)
this would change a-lot, true but hurts bio a little to favour mech units in the mix.
On October 18 2010 19:37 Herculix wrote: i don't really see the issue. your tier 1 buildings create the macro army of cost-efficient units. everything else you get supports that. will we start seeing something other than zerglings and roaches? will we start seeing something other than zealots, stalkers and sentries? no, we won't, because they're versatile, cheap, and acquired with little to no tech investment.
Lategame MM is still the bread and butter of the tanking, dps, and versatility. For lategame Toss, Gateway units are just the meatshields and are practically useless because of how easily they're annihilated.
I think its ok to have medivacs on reactor and tanks on tech lab. There is nothing wrong with that. Id say it will take some to discover how to properly play mech in TvP. I watched all replays from PredY and I have to say Im quite impressed how well he tweaked this build. I recommend everyone that comes to this thread to watch those games.
To PredY - several things I noticed: 1. Have you concidered 2 turrets instead of 1 in each base? It seems like when facing phoenixes, this hurts you quite a bit even if you have force of rines running around. 2. 250mm cannons should be payed more attention. Its great tool how to deal with Immortals, which is basicly the worst thing Protoss can throw at your mech army. Besides that, building Thors (at least 3-4) will help you to catch up, when there is some hidden or very fast air tech switch. And next thing is, that using 250mm cannons on immortals can result into ghosts being not so necessary. Curious how this would be viable? 3. Harrasing P expos is very hard as you stated - drops are not that effective, since your opponent will usually cove whole map and 2-3 photon cannons at each expo pretty much shut down everything, including the second best harrasing option - banshees.
Other than that, I really enjoy your mech style and wish you good luck with it.. :-)
Well, you basicly get ghosts to eliminate hardened shields from Immortals, right? Of course its good for shield removal generally, but the basic idea is, that you dont fear Immortal when you can EMP their shields. And if you can 250mm one shot Immortals, you dont have to deal with their shields. And also note, that you stun them, which results in minimum damage inflicted by Immortals. And if your army composition is mostly mech, than Immortals are the damage dealers..
TLwiki: "Since the damage received is considered Spell damage (like Yamato Cannon), neither armor values nor the Immortal's Hardened Shield apply, and the Strike Cannons will kill an Immortal."
On October 17 2010 22:20 JunC wrote: To be honest, I think Terran Barracks units are just like Protoss gateway units, perhaps stronger than their alien counterparts but still, protoss can win games with gateway units only as Terran can win with barracks units only.
Perhaps Terran tends to make more barracks units than anything else, but I can't see anything else they can make.
Protoss definitely cannot win with zealot/stalker/sentry only, that's the lowest DPS composition of all three races. You won't do anything with MMM balls or hydra balls without having AoE DPS. Storms are nice, but toss units melt so fast to both of those that delayed DPS from storms doesn't look enough. You need to have some burst AoE and eventually you will need colossi in every MU. 1 storm duration is not enough to kill even a single hydralisk and hydras can do immense amounts of damage while it goes off. Hydra balls are even more a concern than MMM, vs marines (rauders are not really a huge source of DPS later in the game) you at least have 3 innate armor to tank damage, but unlike BW, hydras now do full damage to everything so you cannot use zealots to tank. Srsly, consider that hydras already did well vs zeals even with their 50% reduced damage in BW, now they just melt zealots into oblivion. You need storms/colossi to survive, and eventually in a macro game with lots of units having both is much better than having only one of the two.
I've been away from the game for a while and am curious to know if marine/banshee/hellion with raven support was still popular early game for T vs P. I remember a lot of terrans using this on the ladder and it proved to be quite difficult to handle unless I go for fast HTs.
On October 18 2010 10:52 xixecal wrote:I do feel that a bio FE into a mech army could do very well once people start figuring stuff out.
Tried it, and it's not completely awful but it's very very hard to defend your expo against a timing push on a map like metalopolis as opposed to LT (open nat = hard to bunker = hard to transition.)
Also, everyone talking up Thors is forgetting major points - EMP is an AOE ability, which means it his more than just the one immortal, one ghost can launch more than one EMP, Ghosts are faster to rebuild if lost and don't clog up the queue in your factories and Ghosts are substantially cheaper than Thors.
EDIT: Also, if attempting a bio FE into mech build, you will almost certainly lose to a timing push without EMP.
MM can get surprisingly large without losing effectiveness.
Compare to zerglings where they lose effectiveness quite quickly if you have too many (I found it to be around 30). On the other hand, roaches don't lose effectiveness until you get like 50+ of them.
I don't really know how Gateway units work. I know stalker/colossus balls are basically absurdly powerful, but just gate units hit a wall of effectiveness pretty early.
I actually think it has a lot to do with a ratio of Unit Size / Unit Health / Unit Range. Terran has relatively long range for the small size of the units. Roaches have a ton of health for the small size of the unit.
I think the big problem with Terran now is that in BW it was a hit and run race. tanks were used to hold the base while vultures(and maybe wraiths) went to drop mines and kite enemy units into said mines. now the terran dont have the same effect. reapers allowed this play style to a degree, but we know what happened there, and hellions are not as fast as vultures, dont have the range, and dont have mines and we lost the goliath, which combined with vultures and tanks were a really powerful force, now we have some walking building that is countered by the same thing that counters tanks.
Point is Terran mech is not the same style as BW mech, which for me is a problem because i keep trying to use it as BW mech which does not work well...
On October 17 2010 18:30 positron. wrote: The answer is obvious. Late T tech sucks. Mech like tanks and thors don't do so hot against chargelot, blink stalkers, immortals or ultra. Nerfing marauder is a terrible idea. You can't nerf a core unit of a race that has no high tech they can rely on except BC. Plus playing mech you can't remake units as fast as other two races.
actually.. thor vs ultra has been shown to favor the thor. the unit that can attack ground and air from a range wins against a unit that can only attack ground melee. q.q some more about it terran. you're late game tech is just unused, not unusable. cattlebruisers had to get nerfed because anyone that used them would almost auto win against any ground army.
also someone said toss only goes gate and colossi, but what about HT builds or the oh so cried about 4gate opening that terran can stop with like 3 marauders and a wall or carriers (which are indeed underused from build time). for toss the easiest way to fight rines and marauders is gateway+colossi sometimes..
On October 18 2010 06:46 GoodNewsJim wrote: Marauder+ medivac is one of the best ways to deal with High Templar if you're not great with ghosts. The HT can psistorm your marauder, but the medivac heals them, so nothing dies or gets weakened. Any other unit than Marauder takes damage from psistorm, so if you play cat and mouse with a Protoss with a lot of high templar, your army wears down and dies.
So I always tell the player I'm coaching now: Get marauders+medivac, get ebay upgrades on infantry, and engage their army once you got a reasonable amount. Marauder+medivac vs zealots mean you kite and kill his zealots then you move on into the meat of his army. Any time you're low on health, you run and heal full.
Dude you still need to dodge storms. You can't just stand under it and take the damage, coz that will be dangerous. Check this out:
See how Select dodges the storms? Though I feel that he should at least build some ghosts for EMP.
EPT
Not that reapers were really nerfed. Only their use in the early game.
At least now they cant be feedback raped I guess.
