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ok First of all let me state that I know I am not terran but indeed protoss.
I am Jemag a protoss currently at 1946 in the US diamond ladder.
However, this is a strategy I created for terran against protoss based upon someone I faced at high level.
This strategy is really strong when played well and really solid/stable.
Basically it is a marine ghosts opener into thors.
Sounds weird? It's amazing
I will basically go over the game plan then the advantages of this strategy and finally I'll link a replay.
In the 2nd post I will give the detailed build order.
The game plan :
The opener is fairly straightforward and can be adjusted upon what the protoss is doing.
You wanna go 1 rax with a tech lab + another rax to pump marines and ghosts. (get stim and shields quickly)
From there 2 things might happen
1-If the Protoss player is fast expanding, just delay your factory and expand as quickly as you can
2-If the protoss is staying on one base and is planning to go for a fast colossus build, just start getting ur factory for thor production while throwing an expansion relatively soon. Basically you should have thors on the map when he has Colossus on the map.
Once you have thors you need to play macro heavy from there on. With the 2nd expansion you should get another factory to pump thors as well as 1-2 other rax. This should give you a decent thor number pretty early and make you able to grab your 3rd Expansion really fast.
Basically once you have your 2nd expo running, you wanna get ur 3rd in like 2-4min after and Fourth expansion another 3-5 min after.
When your economy is running, you have to focus mainly on thors marines and ghosts. If he goes for a high colossus count just add a few vikings in the mix. If he goes for low colossus count n mostly immortals, add a few medivacs in the mix.
Underlying Principles and advantages
-This is a macro heavy build, once you get thors you want to expand a lot.
-THIS IS NOT A BUILD FOR PEOPLE WITH A BAD MACRO.
-If you are under trouble while defending, bringing scvs to repair ur thors will help considerably.
- This is a really hard strategy to counter for a protoss:
-Basically emp really helps a ton against immortals and his stalkers
-250 MM cannon can %*@! Colossus
-Marine and viking procure good support and dps
-When doing this build you must focus HIGHLY on attack upgrades (infantry and mecanical) as the build focus on really high damage output
The replay
I am the not one applying the strategy in this replay since I am protoss.
Plz note that the players in this replays were only 1400 diamond and the Terran only used the strategy for the 4-5th time so it is not still perfectly smooth, but you guys can still see how it goes.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161264
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161337
Royal vs NYD (2365 Diamond toss):
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161443
Royal vs Bigbadbeaver (2k+ toss)
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161451
Replay with "early" pressure
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161951
Royal scouts badly (im disapointed in you royal lol)
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161952
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From the terran in the replay : (RoyalTiger)
I'm the Terran in question (the one that didn't do it smoothly enough). Since jemag forgot to put in the BO, I'll do it for him.
- Standard supply, barracks and gas time with orbital command (15 SCV's + 1 marine)
- Make a 2nd marine and start on a 2nd supply depot.
- Start tech lab after 4 marines are out on the field, the reason for this is that you won't be making any marauders and you would need marines to fend off any stalkers push.
- Start on a 2nd barrack once the 2nd supply depot is finished.
- Upgrade stim right when the tech lab is finished and continue making marines.
- Get a 3rd supply depot near the gas (this SCV will start on 2nd gas right when he's done making the 3rd supply depot).
- Scout to see if he is fast expanding or not. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
- Once the 2nd barrack is finished, add a reactor to it and start making an engineering bay.
- Get a ghost academy when you have money.
- Upgrade attack +1
- Get ONE ghost and continue making marines. (Of course you will add more in later but at this stage of the game one ghost is more than you ever need to fend off any rushes.
---- Here is where the build change. ----
A) Protoss is fast expanding.
- Get a CC before you start on factory.
B) Protoss is one basing.
- Get a factory before start a CC.
-Get armory right when factory is done and start making thors and get +1 from the armory.
-Upgrade shield for marines.
-Once you are on two bases (get gas pretty early when you have the expansion, you'll need it) Get a 2nd factory.
- Get 1 more barrack.
- Get one starport.
From there on, you should focus on expanding and getting more production facilities up. If you have excess gas, build more factories for thors. Any excess minerals goes to more CC and barracks.
---- How to engage opponent and tips ----
- If the opponent is fast expanding, poke in with your 1 ghost and marines. DO NOT commit to this attack. Test to see if you can EMP his sentries, if you get one off before the sentries put up guardian shield (or any useful FF's) then engage, if not, back away and save your forces. IF you are engaging, DO NOT over commit, back off right when you feel like you cannot win the battle.
- Macro is key for this build, but scouting is also very important, since you have a lot of marines, you can always do an 8 marines drops around the opponent's base to keep him busy while having thors at home to defend. The investment of 8 marines drop at 3 different locations is not bad at all since you have so much marines and you are focusing on thors.
- During the big battle, have thors in front doing the damage, DO NOT use 250mm unless the colossi are VERY close by. Most of the time it is best to let the thors A-move. Have marines station behind the thors and kill off any zealots coming, Thors should be upfront taking care of every range units Protoss throw at us.
- Make sure you have 3-5 ghosts in your army.
- Storms can wreak marines and leave the thors vulnerable, so keep up with micro.
- Bring SCV's with thors when you attack, 6-8 is a good amount.
- Upgrade attacks whenever you can!
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Feel free to ask any question/comment ^^
Sry for the 2 humonguous posts :O
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I've been trying to incorporate Thors ever since the patch came out. I never thought to drop marauders entirely and just go complete marine/ghost. I like this concept. It might require a bit more micro on my part.
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Could you please post some replays? I have been losing TvP using 2 rax FE. Your help is much appreciated.
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Great build! But its a bit too offensive based for my playstyle and personal preference. But it will be a refreshing change from my defensive builds ~XD~ Ghosts are so good against Protoss.
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Oh sorry for double posting, I forgot to ask: This build relies heavily on whether the enemy protoss is FE or not. What if he hides his FE? (Grabbing 2nd base far from his natural?) You'll need to scout the entire map before you can be sure to go CC first or factory first.. Is there a better way to know quickly whether he is going FE or not? Like watching his unit composition?
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Oh sorry for double posting, I forgot to ask: This build relies heavily on whether the enemy protoss is FE or not. What if he hides his FE? (Grabbing 2nd base far from his natural?) You'll need to scout the entire map before you can be sure to go CC first or factory first.. Is there a better way to know quickly whether he is going FE or not? Like watching his unit composition?
Well one good indicator of a protoss FE is if he is staying on 1 gas instead of 2. This will indicate most of the time either a FE or an all-in 4 gate. Other than that I really think having control of Xel naga towers n good scouting should give u the necessary intel in order to react accordingly.
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Could you please post some replays? I have been losing TvP using 2 rax FE. Your help is much appreciated.
There is one replay in the first post but I will try to get more replays up. It's a little harder for me to give a lot of replays right away since I'm not the one doing the strategy but rather my terran friend.
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Ahh, the so called 'stale match-up' might be evolving. Good work kid ^^
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i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios
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On October 29 2010 10:40 RyanRushia wrote:
i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios
Yeah with a robo facility or two he can pop enough immortals to crush your thors pretty quickly, yes your marines can tear apart immortals if concentrated on but his gateway mix would prevent that. I love your opening, but I don't think thors are the best next step, I believe more in tanks/medivacs/vikings.
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i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios
I know it totally sound weird and non intuitive lol. The truth tho is that emp-ed immortals are really not that effective.
Also a single 250 mm cannon will kill a colossus and will stun him. So you can't "run away from it" no matter how pro you are.
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On October 29 2010 10:40 RyanRushia wrote:
i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios
You could just as easily say marine/ghost wreck immortals and thors wreck colossus.
250mm stuns targets, how would they move out of its area of effect?
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Definitly gonna try this out in plat. 
Seems a little bit scary early game but endgame I think it's very strong.
You'll have enough emp's to remove immortal's shields so I don't think it's an issue with Thors.
Also requesting more replays!
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On October 29 2010 10:48 Yotta wrote:
250mm stuns targets, how would they move out of its area of effect?
250mm cannons have a range of 7, colossi have a range of 9, if he's got zealots you'll never get in range to fire the cannons.
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250mm cannons have a range of 7, colossi have a range of 9, if he's got zealots you'll never get in range to fire the cannons.
Yeah 250 mm cannon is actually done like in the middle-end of a big battle. It really doesn't need to be cast at the start of it and would even be dangerous to do so.
You basically want to spread emps all over his army and focusing any immortal that come too close. Once his ball of unit reach a small decent size and most zealots have melted, now is the time to start using 250 mm cannon. It might seem awkward in the first few battles but it is really effective.
It really feels counter intuitive for a lot of terran, but with the high dps of your army (dont forget the focus on attack upgrades :O) I really think people might be shocked at the battles that will happen. I can honestly say I already seen 4-5 fights where I was sure the toss would totally kill the terran army with this strategy and where the terran easily took it. Also you can always reinforce your army by bringing a couple svcs on auto repair with it.
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Not for nothing but if 250mm has range 7 and immortal has range 5 then couldn't you target the immortals with it? It ignores hardened shields and kills them in one cast of the spell, leaving the rest of your army to deal with the rest of his. Though I think the thors are better off focusing the collosi, which they can hit from range 10 if needed with their air attack.
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On October 29 2010 11:20 Xequecal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 10:48 Yotta wrote:
250mm stuns targets, how would they move out of its area of effect? 250mm cannons have a range of 7, colossi have a range of 9, if he's got zealots you'll never get in range to fire the cannons. If he gets zealots you can attack them with your marines and ghosts from outside colossus range.
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Not for nothing but if 250mm has range 7 and immortal has range 5 then couldn't you target the immortals with it? It ignores hardened shields and kills them in one cast of the spell, leaving the rest of your army to deal with the rest of his.
Hmm I might need to do more tests on that, but I do think that it might not be worth using 250 mm cannon on immortals. Basically, immortals with no shield (emp) will already die really quick, I think using 250 mm cannon would be overkill on those, especially because the 250 mm cannon take a little time to set up.
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Sounds very vulnerable to chargelot play, even with EMP, the lots should be able to demolish thors with enough sentry support. Zealots also have a hardier amount of regular life, as compared to immortals which is the biggest priority of this build.
Also, biomech is also a lot slower on upgrades, going heavy bio means mech is a lot weaker, but investing more in mech means your mass marauder rine won't benefit from stuff like dual engineering bays right away. I also feel like it lack a nice harassment and aggresive timing to it, theres no point where you can 1a win with other terran strategies. It also is fairly immobile, thus making it harder to deny expansion then straight up MMM transition into ghosts.
side note. You should also have the game sense and scouting abilities to know when you need to build turrets or not, there is absolutely no place for it to be in the standard BO.
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Sounds very vulnerable to chargelot play, even with EMP, the lots should be able to demolish thors with enough sentry support. Zealots also have a hardier amount of regular life, as compared to immortals which is the biggest priority of this build.
Also, biomech is also a lot slower on upgrades, going heavy bio means mech is a lot weaker, but investing more in mech means your mass marauder rine won't benefit from stuff like dual engineering bays right away. I also feel like it lack a nice harassment and aggresive timing to it, theres no point where you can 1a win with other terran strategies. It also is fairly immobile, thus making it harder to deny expansion then straight up MMM transition into ghosts.
side note. You should also have the game sense and scouting abilities to know when you need to build turrets or not, there is absolutely no place for it to be in the standard BO.
The thing is that strategy really have a whole other play style than the rest of the current strategies terran uses. I would say terrans at this current moment in time rely heavily on any MMM combination and on timing pushes.
This strategy really isnt about aggressiveness, it is about HIGH MACRO mode. Basically, you don't really need to attack the protoss early, you don't really want to attack him until you get your 3rd base, which will happen really quick. The point is once you get your first expo, you can really go in uber macro mode, almost zerg-like style of play, and keep expanding with very little time intervals.
The thing with this strategy is that you can stay defensive and really dont fear much from the protoss (since you can always bring some scvs to auto-repair defending thors and use bunkers if needed).
As for the zealots, yes it is a somehow of a small vulnerability but you can quickly adjust on it.
Basically if he goes really heavy on chargelots, you just add a few pre-igniter helions. If he goes heavy on colossus you get a few vikings with the starport. If he goes heavy on immortals and low on colossus, just add a few medivacs, etc... It's all about adapting while keeping the core of your army being Thors-marines-ghosts.
oh and about the turret I actually didnt see it in the build order. I havnt done the precise build order but rather the big gameplan and principles around the strategy and my friend did the build order. I will rectify this.
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Why does this entire thread ignore the existence of the protoss stargate?
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Why does this entire thread ignore the existence of the protoss stargate?
What about the stargate? :O
I don't really see any stargate play being effective against this to be honest. Phoenix just plain sux against mass marine ghosts thors as well as void rays. As for carriers, it is really far into the tech path and you should have plenty of time adjusting by getting few viking in the mix, but really shouldn't be a problem.
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Regarding the turret, it costs 100 minerals. Most Protoss players will always have an observer in your base anyways. Most of the time I managed to kill the opponent's observer that way. Beside, it's 100 minerals, it helps more than hurt, why not get it? IF the Protoss DID manage to sneak in some DT without you knowing it, the turret there will save your ass and you don't need to waste scan on DT's. 100 minerals vs the 270 potential minerals, I'll take the turret any day.
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On October 29 2010 12:17 jemag wrote:What about the stargate? :O I don't really see any stargate play being effective against this to be honest. Phoenix just plain sux against mass marine ghosts thors as well as void rays. As for carriers, it is really far into the tech path and you should have plenty of time adjusting by getting few viking in the mix, but really shouldn't be a problem.
Doesn't take much longer to get carriers than it does to get thors.
You are overestimating vikings vs carriers, cost for cost it is a very close fight.
VRs >> thors if I'm not mistaken?
I won't dispute that marines will do well, but if you want them to hit anything, you need to move into range of psi storm. Not that this means 'omfgurdead' or anything, but it's a micro thing and should be winnable by either side.
And last but not least, air units fly, thors are slow as hell.
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That's the whole point Keilah, to have a micro fight and should be able to be winnable by either side. I feel like mass bio ball vs Protoss is a dead end nowadays because once it hits late game, the Terran have to be tricky, pull off gimmicky stuff or already have an advantage or is out right a lot better than the Protoss to win. With this build, it negates that problem and you can go head to head with the Protoss so it comes down to whoever have the better macro/micro/strategy that wins.
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Fair enough. I suppose it's hard to achieve, but if you make it to super-late game, try making a large group of battlecruisers. The things are beasts against anything toss can throw at them, including VRs. Seriously, try a cost-for-cost BC vs VR battle in large numbers.
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I just lost to this vs a terran 
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I think more people would be willing to try this if you made the OP more presentable.
Look at the "[G] TvZ Marine/Raven" thread; well formatted OP = great community feedback.
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The thors soak up alot of damage and are effective against stalkers so a stalker/colossus ball might falter a little against this. I feel like if i were to make a more zealot heavy army or focus down the thors one by one with the stalkers i might come out ahead. Thors also eat entire psi storms because of their speed. Immortals actually seem to be pretty bad against this. I like this it seems pretty solid but i don't think its going to break PvT or anything.
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Just a minor thing, I would recommend getting shield before stim. There have been tests done before on this, and basically, stim early on isn't as good because you have less units and the life damage they take will actually matter since they will most likely be hit in an engagement. Sorry if that sounds confusing. Stim is better used when you have a large force because the units in the back aren't taking damage, and they basically get a free boost to attack. Shields also finishes before stim, which would help in an early attack.
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It's not supposed to break TvP. It's supposed to make it an even battlefield where it's the players' skills determines the outcome instead of T's OPness early game and P's OPness late game that wins the game. Of course this is all theory right now and there are many more patches to come but as of now, I see great potential in this build. But of course it would be nice if every Protoss tries to find a way to beat this build hands down with some rushes or some unit combo (assuming the Terran is at equal skill) so we can test the legitimacy of this build.
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This build sounds like it has potential!
As a protoss I can't remember the last time I played a Terran that didn't go for 3m. Maybe throw in tanks if they are especially adventurous.
I'm all for trying new strats and army compositions, I think it was Day9 who suggested trying out things like 10 times in a row before you decide one way or another.
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The biggest issue is keeping your Thors alive and holding off an early push.
Marine/Ghost is good, but it lacks raw DPS/Health that Marauders normally provide.
It'll fend off a Void Ray or two, but an early Zealot/Stalker push may be very hard to stop.
Thors are tricky, even though Marine/Ghosts hurt Zealots a lot, they'll still block your Thors and hit them a bit before they die. If you add Immortals which deal a whopping 50dmg per hit to Thors, they die very quickly, even without shields as they'll still have 200hp in armor.
Void Rays in numbers will really hurt as you won't have anything that really does bonus damage to them.
EMP is good, but two thirds of Zealot/Immortal health is in armor.
You'll also be relying on EMP hitting pretty much everything, especially all the Immortals.
If even one Immortal has shields after the EMP, it can get messy pretty fast.
Still, it's good on close/small maps and is quite different from 3rax, and any Protoss expecting the standard MMM is going to be unpleasantly surprised. (even more so when you negate the FF with a Thor)
You can get Thors relatively early (around 6-7minutes), but you won't have much else.
The tech needed is also quite gas heavy, Ghosts, Academy, Factory, Armory and the Thors.
Wouldn't recommend it as much on a large map though, Thor mobility is terrible.
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I have been working on this build and tweaking it. As of now, you need 2 bunkers to hold off a 4 gate push and the ghost did not really help much. I'm thinking of getting ghosts a bit later, maybe when the factory is being started or even when the armory is being started. Not sure which one is better yet. I need to do extensive testing with some protoss and terran. If you are interested in getting this build to work (or test it to death and find out it doesn't work), message me on bnet! RoyaLTigeR.723
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Thanks OP! Cool build will try it out tonight. I really need all the help I can get in this MU. I like the early strength of mass marines but I think CS is better than stim as a first upgrade. Most toss run away from stim before you have medivacs.
Concerning positioning the thors up front I'm a little worried what happens in Chokes. Marine range is so small that if the thors form a slight line you'll get huge losses to dps. At the other hand marines die quickly to collossi, storms and zeals so you cant keep them in the front either.
Question to OP: Have you ecountered a speedlot/sentry-heavy combination with this build? Unless you can transition into hellions fast the sentries GS and FF will cut away lots (if not all) of maine dps and make the thors vulnerable to zeals.
Once again I don't mean to bash the build, I appreciate all TvP help!
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FF don't work on thors. =P I ran into that before and the thors and marines own that combo.
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To all the people talking about stargate vulnerability: whoot?
Marines EAT Carriers AND voids. There's no better counter to an air heavy protoss than this build. I'd say it's even beetter than mass vikings.
If you see more than one carrier start armor upgrades. It's a free win.
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On October 29 2010 18:02 RoyaL-TigeR wrote:
FF don't work on thors. =P I ran into that before and the thors and marines own that combo.
Wow thanks for the quick response
Yeah I know huge units crush FF, BUT: what if they do two rows of FF behind the first marine-line. The thors cant walk over marines like collossi so they'll be stuck and the marines can't reach the battle?
EDIT: I guess that's when ghosts come in EMPing the sentries. Still if you're not careful you might get FFsplit.
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On October 29 2010 12:51 Keilah wrote:
Fair enough. I suppose it's hard to achieve, but if you make it to super-late game, try making a large group of battlecruisers. The things are beasts against anything toss can throw at them, including VRs. Seriously, try a cost-for-cost BC vs VR battle in large numbers.
Mainly won by BCs because of Yamato, though. I'm pretty sure Amove Voidrays will win. There were a few threads about this...
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Be very cautious using your Thors to crush FFs, it puts them directly at the front-line and makes them very vulnerable to Stalker/Immortal fire.
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Well I see few holes in this. As mentioned before, I can't imagine this to be successfull against immortals + chargelots. I used to play thors in TvP a lot and let's say, that Immortal > Thor, emp or not. Also, mass chargelots will just slice the marines. I doubt even micro "mad skillz" would help here. 'Tis true, that marines are highly recyclable, but yet I don't know. Without really putting pressure on toss, I can't see this to be success.
Another quite big problem is, how are you going to defend those fast expansions with marines + thors? That army is just so damn slow. With a good harass, the toss will be able too deny your expansions, or at least rape your scvs all the time, while you will be "techno viking" marching with your thors through half of the map.
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You want to have thors in the front line when you engage the enemy. They're the tanker for your army. Marines are in the back standing by to support the thors if there are mass zealots or mass immortals. If there are colossi, the marines stay back and only shoot the zealots that get close.
Regarding FF, how would the sentries FF your forces if the thors are in front and the marines are further back? You also have EMP so if you're quick enough you can negate too many FF's. And regarding the two rows of FF's, can you clarify?
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Nargil, Thors and marines do really well against immortals and zealots actually, especially with EMP's. We can easily test this out on b.net over and over. I'm not saying you're completely wrong, just from my own experience. ^^ And regarding the multiple harassment from the Protoss, I guess you just need to have sensor towers and spread out your army a bit better. I mean.. Protoss can easily say "how do you defend 3 drops with marines while the T is pushing you?" etc etc. It all comes down to how the players stay calm and handle it.
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Ok, i'll try to paint it in txt format
ZZSSZZSSZ
ZZZZZZZZZZ
TTTTTTTTTT
mmmmmm
FFFFFFFFF
FFFFFFFFF
mmmmmm
mmmmmmm
the last rows of m are out of range.
EDIT: It's a frickin masterpiece !!! DaVinci stylEee!
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I dunno, I've used both Thors or Tanks in TvP, and Tanks seem way more effective.
Their DPS is not all that bad and is going to be useful since every Protoss is GOING TO HAVE Stalkers and most likely Templars and/or Colossi. The Range is also ridiculous.
Add the fact that Tanks are way more mobile, and in some situations, I would consider the Tank to have higher DPS. After all, you can't do damage if you're not there. Thors take forever to get anywhere. And for using cannons, goodluck getting in range and losing, what is it? 10 seconds for 500 damage. I'd rather have 2 Tanks shooting for 10 seconds. Who needs Stun when you have Marauders anyways?
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On October 29 2010 18:07 Thezzy wrote:
Be very cautious using your Thors to crush FFs, it puts them directly at the front-line and makes them very vulnerable to Stalker/Immortal fire.
On October 29 2010 18:09 Nargil wrote:
Well I see few holes in this. As mentioned before, I can't imagine this to be successfull against immortals + chargelots. I used to play thors in TvP a lot and let's say, that Immortal > Thor, emp or not. Also, mass chargelots will just slice the marines. I doubt even micro "mad skillz" would help here. 'Tis true, that marines are highly recyclable, but yet I don't know. Without really putting pressure on toss, I can't see this to be success.
Another quite big problem is, how are you going to defend those fast expansions with marines + thors? That army is just so damn slow. With a good harass, the toss will be able too deny your expansions, or at least rape your scvs all the time, while you will be "techno viking" marching with your thors through half of the map.
I think everyone is underestimating how powerful an unmolested marine ball is in combat. This mix will ensure that the main DPS of the army is hiding behind huge, hard to kill units. By the time the zealot line has died the thor line should either be half dead (opp has mostly colossi) or fully dead (opp has mostly immortal) in which case stalker/sentry/immortal trading fire with marines is always disadvantage protoss. And this is how i full expect most fights to go.
The whole point of the thors is to absorb damage from the initial charge and once the zealots are dead move in close to cannon collosi or full hp immortals.
As for defending, the best defence is a relentless offence and this build seems pretty effective at all army sizes (compared to bioball/tank) so lots of pressure shouldn't be too hard
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On October 29 2010 18:18 jacosajh wrote:
I dunno, I've used both Thors or Tanks in TvP, and Tanks seem way more effective.
Their DPS is not all that bad and is going to be useful since every Protoss is GOING TO HAVE Stalkers and most likely Templars and/or Colossi. The Range is also ridiculous.
Add the fact that Tanks are way more mobile, and in some situations, I would consider the Tank to have higher DPS. After all, you can't do damage if you're not there. Thors take forever to get anywhere. And for using cannons, goodluck getting in range and losing, what is it? 10 seconds for 500 damage. I'd rather have 2 Tanks shooting for 10 seconds. Who needs Stun when you have Marauders anyways?
You may be missing the point of the build. the majority of DPS is being done by the marines and the thors are just frontlining whereas bioball tank requires bioball to frontline.. Thor usage in this build isn't about DPS but is about keeping some of the best DPS/cost units in the game alive to do their thing.
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Oh I see what you mean Cibron. Like I said, you're not supposed to have the marines that close anyways. Only thors and ghosts. And with quick EMP, you can cut down the amount of FF the protoss can throw up. I mean, it comes down to micro and positioning and whoever does it better will win. So yeah, that CAN be a problem but it seems quite hard if the terran is paying attention and have good positioning.
jacosajh, have you watched the replays yet? I gave up on this build for a good while until jemag told me to build this way and now I'm seeing potential for it. Of course the BO is not perfect (it has problem vs 4 gates) but I've been tweaking it, etc. It would be nice if we have more people do thorough testing on this to get it working! I mean, look at kcdc's 1 gate FE build, a lot of people doubted it but it turned out to be such a great build! Maybe we can do something with this build also.
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On October 29 2010 18:19 GenericTerranPlayer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:07 Thezzy wrote:
Be very cautious using your Thors to crush FFs, it puts them directly at the front-line and makes them very vulnerable to Stalker/Immortal fire. Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:09 Nargil wrote:
Well I see few holes in this. As mentioned before, I can't imagine this to be successfull against immortals + chargelots. I used to play thors in TvP a lot and let's say, that Immortal > Thor, emp or not. Also, mass chargelots will just slice the marines. I doubt even micro "mad skillz" would help here. 'Tis true, that marines are highly recyclable, but yet I don't know. Without really putting pressure on toss, I can't see this to be success.
Another quite big problem is, how are you going to defend those fast expansions with marines + thors? That army is just so damn slow. With a good harass, the toss will be able too deny your expansions, or at least rape your scvs all the time, while you will be "techno viking" marching with your thors through half of the map. I think everyone is underestimating how powerful an unmolested marine ball is in combat. This mix will ensure that the main DPS of the army is hiding behind huge, hard to kill units. By the time the zealot line has died the thor line should either be half dead (opp has mostly colossi) or fully dead (opp has mostly immortal) in which case stalker/sentry/immortal trading fire with marines is always disadvantage protoss. And this is how i full expect most fights to go. The whole point of the thors is to absorb damage from the initial charge and once the zealots are dead move in close to cannon collosi or full hp immortals. As for defending, the best defence is a relentless offence and this build seems pretty effective at all army sizes (compared to bioball/tank) so lots of pressure shouldn't be too hard
The problem is that with Thors in front, the MMM army is doing less DPS since they probably won't all be able to attack due to range. Like Marines have what, 4 or 5 range, and Thors essentially take up 3 of that? So anything a little short of the Thors and the Marines arne't shooting. In the process, the marines can be reached by range upgraded Stalkers and/or Stormed to oblivion. And Zealots aren't meant to do damage. They just soak up damage. It's the Stalkers/Immortals/Colossi that kill, so even if you kill the Zealots, congrats, you just traded your army for Protoss moveable wall that will be replaced in a few seconds for minerals the Protoss probably has plenty of.
Edit:
I have used a similar build in Beta that I grinded for about a week with mixed success, and what I am saying is from my experience with using Thors.
In my experience, most of my wins with using Thors was the Protoss not having enough Immortals/Colossi due to some decisions that were forced outside of this build.
I guess I can give it another go though.
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You want your Thors in the back, as they have 7 range compared to Marines having 5.
Let some of the Marines take the Zealot fire whilst they and the Thors whack them.
Thors completely exposed on the front mean Marines (good as they are) are gonna have trouble supporting them against ranged units such as Immortals and Stalkers.
Also means every Zealot will get a surround on the Thor, which is bad.
400hp isn't all THAT much when everything is firing on it.
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Ok, this is definitely something I'll try out the coming week. Hopefully Yemag and R-T will be here to adjust the buildorders and stuff as P learn how to counter it better.
Thanks guys!
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On October 29 2010 18:27 Thezzy wrote:
You want your Thors in the back, as they have 7 range compared to Marines having 5.
Let some of the Marines take the Zealot fire whilst they and the Thors whack them.
Thors completely exposed on the front mean Marines (good as they are) are gonna have trouble supporting them against ranged units such as Immortals and Stalkers.
Also means every Zealot will get a surround on the Thor, which is bad.
400hp isn't all THAT much when everything is firing on it.
It all depends on if the P is immortal heavy or collossi heavy. Immortal&Zeal-> marines up front while collossi-> marines behind.
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I like this build, but i think your opener need a little bit of tweaking as you try to get too much at once.
Either I would go for the Gretorp opener, with a very fast second Rax (no addon) and Ghost Academy on one gas, soon followed by a CC.
Or I would do a standard 2 Rax (1 T.Lab, 1 Reactor) opener with Stim and Shield upgrades, and again a CC asap. In both cases I would stay on 1 Gas till the CC has started and then get the second one and start my Fac.
I can post exact build orders if someone wants them.
Also please edit the thread title to TvP Marine / Ghost / Thor or something similiar. At first I thought this thread is about Boxers TvP build, which I consider the new (proven) way / one new way.
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On October 29 2010 18:27 Thezzy wrote:
You want your Thors in the back, as they have 7 range compared to Marines having 5.
Let some of the Marines take the Zealot fire whilst they and the Thors whack them.
Thors completely exposed on the front mean Marines (good as they are) are gonna have trouble supporting them against ranged units such as Immortals and Stalkers.
Also means every Zealot will get a surround on the Thor, which is bad.
400hp isn't all THAT much when everything is firing on it.
He just said that Thors should be in the front taking damage while the main damage dealers are in the back. It seems that even proponents of this build can't agree on that much.
Anyways, I just watched the replays and I'm still not convinced.
In one of the games, the Protoss does no harassment of any kind. Terran expands 2 extra times, on top of natural pretty much for free. And the Protoss probe saturation wasn't very good, making me question just how good the Protoss was. And not to mention that the one and only battle, the Protoss did not position or micro well at all. The Colossus were shooting at the Thors, EMP'ed Stalkers/Immortals getting shot at my Stimmed Marines and not focusing the Thors. No Charge on the Zealots or Blink. Protoss never makes an attempt to expand for a 2nd time after natural despite seeing the Terran do so. Just poor play IMO.
In the second game, the Protoss expands too. A little better in that regard. But, makes basically 75% of his army with Zealots. Could work, but again, in the one and only battle, the Protoss chooses to engage in the worst possible ways. 1. Colossus are shooting at Thors again. 2. Forcefields pretty much the ramp preventing his Zealots from getting to the Marines/Thors. 3. Half of the army is sitting on high ground not doing anything. 4. There is no flank in any way, shape, or form.
In game one, if the Colossus had been shooting at Marines instead, and Immortals/Stalkers focusing the Thors, and Forcefield was actually used, I'm convinced the Terran army would've gotten demolished.
In game two, if Protoss scouted the incoming attack better, a flank would've absolutely demolished that army as well. Or in the very least, traded armies. I still think Immortals/Stalkers/Colossi would destroy this build but maybe Chargelots/Immortals/Colossi would've done well too if a flank was set-up properly.
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Marine ghost opening is old as dirt. It's very abusive and potent although it is heavily underused.
Transitioning to Thors after it is a terrible idea. Being good against 1 response but bad versus every other doesn't really do it justice, Also blind tech is a very bad idea unless it can be used against almost all units.
Anything from the starport, including BCs would be better in almost any situation.
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I haven't seen terran use a lot of tier 3 against protoss lately.. but what about battlecruisers? I don't know the exact cost.. but they are about the same as thors.. could be a very viable follow up after a marine + banshee push..
The only viable option for anti air unless he scounts your BCs very early on is void rays, which vikings + marines will take care of fine. Bcs are great against stalkers, and stalkers take a very long time to kill them.
Just a thought! Ide love to see more BCs in high level play.. I feel like if something gets nerfed just a little bit no one touches the unit for months.
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On October 29 2010 18:43 jacosajh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:27 Thezzy wrote:
You want your Thors in the back, as they have 7 range compared to Marines having 5.
Let some of the Marines take the Zealot fire whilst they and the Thors whack them.
Thors completely exposed on the front mean Marines (good as they are) are gonna have trouble supporting them against ranged units such as Immortals and Stalkers.
Also means every Zealot will get a surround on the Thor, which is bad.
400hp isn't all THAT much when everything is firing on it. He just said that Thors should be in the front taking damage while the main damage dealers are in the back. It seems that even proponents of this build can't agree on that much.
Where exactly did I state to put Thors in the front? (feel free to correct me if I did)
The only time you really want Thors up fromt is when you want to bust an FF (usually on a ramp) but as I have explained doing so can be very risky as the Thors can be focus fired and killed.
Any range units hitting the Thor when it is up front will be out of range of the Marines.
You want the Thors to tank *some* of the damage, but not all of it, especially not all of the Zealot fire as they'll burn through a Thor if they surround it.
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On October 29 2010 18:52 Zythian wrote:
I haven't seen terran use a lot of tier 3 against protoss lately.. but what about battlecruisers? I don't know the exact cost.. but they are about the same as thors.. could be a very viable follow up after a marine + banshee push..
The only viable option for anti air unless he scounts your BCs very early on is void rays, which vikings + marines will take care of fine. Bcs are great against stalkers, and stalkers take a very long time to kill them.
Just a thought! Ide love to see more BCs in high level play.. I feel like if something gets nerfed just a little bit no one touches the unit for months.
BCs are slow, but are more mobile than Thors, but take more supply and cost more. BCs are 400/300. Thors are 300/200. And they can be feedbacked, unlike the Thor which had energy removed, as well as easily focus fired. Most importantly, that's potentially 4 less Marauders + gas for other things. 4 Marauders have way more DPS against common Protoss army than 1 BC, and this is magnified when you see that Marauders get healed, have slowing attack, and can Stim, allowing you to kite and dodge Storms/battles altogether.
And yes, BCs may take Stalkers head-on, but the more BCs you have the less marauders you have, so the more Stalkers he has, and so on. So basically, he'll have enough Stalkers to focus your BCs probably. I don't know because I've never tried BCs against Protoss for these simple reasons. But BCs do work against Terran pretty well, just like it did in SC1. I'm not too sure about vs Zerg, since Corruptors absolutely destroy air units that in equal investment size.
But to get back to the main topic, I also tested Thors/Ghosts/Marine vs Standard Protoss army of equal investment size, and Protoss won like 90% of the time. Provided, this was on a unit tester map, and not real games, so it's isolated from all the other real-game facts like macroing and reinforcing your units. But the results from my test show that Protoss usually has a large army left-over, and with two evenly-skilled players, that's huge. I am really curious to see any games where it's otherwise.
On October 29 2010 18:58 Thezzy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:43 jacosajh wrote:On October 29 2010 18:27 Thezzy wrote:
You want your Thors in the back, as they have 7 range compared to Marines having 5.
Let some of the Marines take the Zealot fire whilst they and the Thors whack them.
Thors completely exposed on the front mean Marines (good as they are) are gonna have trouble supporting them against ranged units such as Immortals and Stalkers.
Also means every Zealot will get a surround on the Thor, which is bad.
400hp isn't all THAT much when everything is firing on it. He just said that Thors should be in the front taking damage while the main damage dealers are in the back. It seems that even proponents of this build can't agree on that much. Where exactly did I state to put Thors in the front? (feel free to correct me if I did) The only time you really want Thors up fromt is when you want to bust an FF (usually on a ramp) but as I have explained doing so can be very risky as the Thors can be focus fired and killed. Any range units hitting the Thor when it is up front will be out of range of the Marines. You want the Thors to tank *some* of the damage, but not all of it, especially not all of the Zealot fire as they'll burn through a Thor if they surround it.
See my posts above. You didn't say it. Someone else said it, and that's what I was referring too. Either way, Marines in front is going to get demolished by Colossus + FF. That is why IMO this build wouldn't work. The unit mix just doesn't allow you to do a whole lot of DPS. The Thor actually counter-acts the ability of the MMM ball that is so effective against Protoss. Slowing from Marauders, mobility and large DPS from stim, healing, kiting, etc. The money would be much better spent on Tanks. DPS would probably be very similar, have higher range, and aren't worthless bricks when casting a useless spell like 250 cannons.
And like I said, IMO the replays the OP provided are POOR examples of this build working.
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On October 29 2010 19:05 jacosajh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:58 Thezzy wrote:On October 29 2010 18:43 jacosajh wrote:On October 29 2010 18:27 Thezzy wrote:
You want your Thors in the back, as they have 7 range compared to Marines having 5.
Let some of the Marines take the Zealot fire whilst they and the Thors whack them.
Thors completely exposed on the front mean Marines (good as they are) are gonna have trouble supporting them against ranged units such as Immortals and Stalkers.
Also means every Zealot will get a surround on the Thor, which is bad.
400hp isn't all THAT much when everything is firing on it. He just said that Thors should be in the front taking damage while the main damage dealers are in the back. It seems that even proponents of this build can't agree on that much. Where exactly did I state to put Thors in the front? (feel free to correct me if I did) The only time you really want Thors up fromt is when you want to bust an FF (usually on a ramp) but as I have explained doing so can be very risky as the Thors can be focus fired and killed. Any range units hitting the Thor when it is up front will be out of range of the Marines. You want the Thors to tank *some* of the damage, but not all of it, especially not all of the Zealot fire as they'll burn through a Thor if they surround it. See my posts above. You didn't say it. Someone else said it, and that's what I was referring too. Either way, Marines in front is going to get demolished by Colossus + FF. That is why IMO this build wouldn't work. The unit mix just doesn't allow you to do a whole lot of DPS. The Thor actually counter-acts the ability of the MMM ball that is so effective against Protoss. Slowing from Marauders, mobility and large DPS from stim, healing, kiting, etc. The money would be much better spent on Tanks. DPS would probably be very similar, have higher range, and aren't worthless bricks when casting a useless spell like 250 cannons. And like I said, IMO the replays the OP provided are POOR examples of this build working.
It's not an ideal build, agreed, Colossi (even without the range upgrade I think) would indeed decimate the Marines. In turn, if P went Immortals it may go a little different.
I'd think pushing up the ramp would be where it all turns messy.
Either the Marines would get stuck or the Thors would get focus fired.
I've been trying Tanks myself as part of a siege expand build, has some promise to it but haven't played with it nearly enough to really say much other than that.
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I just want to mention that 1946 in the US is a magnificent rating.
Wouldn't the standard zealots / high templars strategies defeat this easily?
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I tried this build against my friend yesterday (5 games) and got 1 win. The 4 games that I lost is because I let the Thor/Marine/Ghost army walked to the P base. Chargelots tanked for the P and despite EMP and all marines focusing on zealots (stalkers, sentries and colossi are out of range of even the front marines) the Thors died at the same time as the zealots. Thors died like less than 5 seconds almost at the same time. Marines are simply not a match against sentries/colossi/stalkers.
In final game I loaded all Thors into medivacs and dropped them right on the P after my marines and ghosts engage the P. One Thor died midair with the medivac, but then I killed his whole zealot sentry stalker colossi army with minimal losses.
Sorry folks I don't have replays as we played at a cyber cafe. This build looks promising but I still prefer MMM into ghosts vikings and ravens.
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I just cannot see this beating collossi.
You say that you position your army, that the marines are behind the thors and the thors tank the damage. Yet in a previous post you say that you use the 250mm to take out the collossi nearly the end of the battle, when the thors are long dead and you end up with marine ghost vs stalker collossus.
If you walk your thors up front and try to 250mm at the start of the battle, the thors die probably before the animation goes off. Ask TLO how that plan went.
Also collossi can simply kite the thors as they are more mobile and have higher range.
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Yeah... I couldn't get this to work for me. Maybe my micro isn't up to snuff but it's just too hard to manage. Thors are too damn slow.
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i had been practicing with a build similiar to this except i had 1 marauder with conc shells for easy kills and no combat shield, I love my ghosts
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When this is well executed it works quite well against me. The problem as P is you have to choose your robo units very carefully and not over-commit to them: Colosi don't do well vs. Thors, while immortals will have trouble with the marines, so you always feel a bit uneasy. I guess my issue is understanding how many units of each kind I need to counter what the T has at any given time - which is considerably harder with this build than with the standard mmm ball, where if you get collosi + lance fast, you're in good shape. Chargelots are key as always but get slightly delayed if you make a robo bay / colosus + too many immortals
On the other hand Thors are pretty immobile and clumsy, so drops/warp-ins are more effective than vs. the usual mmm balls, and backstabbing is a threat (keep your army mid-map and go to the T base once they move out).
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On October 29 2010 18:19 GenericTerranPlayer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:07 Thezzy wrote:
Be very cautious using your Thors to crush FFs, it puts them directly at the front-line and makes them very vulnerable to Stalker/Immortal fire. Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 18:09 Nargil wrote:
Well I see few holes in this. As mentioned before, I can't imagine this to be successfull against immortals + chargelots. I used to play thors in TvP a lot and let's say, that Immortal > Thor, emp or not. Also, mass chargelots will just slice the marines. I doubt even micro "mad skillz" would help here. 'Tis true, that marines are highly recyclable, but yet I don't know. Without really putting pressure on toss, I can't see this to be success.
Another quite big problem is, how are you going to defend those fast expansions with marines + thors? That army is just so damn slow. With a good harass, the toss will be able too deny your expansions, or at least rape your scvs all the time, while you will be "techno viking" marching with your thors through half of the map. I think everyone is underestimating how powerful an unmolested marine ball is in combat. This mix will ensure that the main DPS of the army is hiding behind huge, hard to kill units. By the time the zealot line has died the thor line should either be half dead (opp has mostly colossi) or fully dead (opp has mostly immortal) in which case stalker/sentry/immortal trading fire with marines is always disadvantage protoss. And this is how i full expect most fights to go.
why on earth would a protoss player do that...? i mean, just retreat, reposition, and re-engage. the terran is fighting on the protoss' terms, not the terran's, because that terran army lacks mobility with the inclusion of thors.
also, 250mm cannons are awful against colossus. when it is cast follow these steps to ensure your colossus takes zero damage:
1) look for thor 250mm animation to start
2) select warp prism
3) load up colossus into warp prism
4) let thor animation finish
5) unload colossus from warp prism
congrats, you look like an absolute baller and have thwarted his one way to kill the colossus. give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done
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I'd love to see more replays if you got them.
I don't want to dismiss this, since it looks pretty interesting, but both those games were not really action packed and just showed that in a straight up confrontation, the terran will likely win, while I'm a bit more interested in, can toss use the immobility against terran, perhaps get to HT/chargelots(mow down rines with storms behind thors and let chargelots kill thors), break this with a timing push/4gate, if with better micro the colossi with lance can become more of an issue.
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Yeah, really. The two replays provided showcased Protoss fighting on Terrans terms. If I didn't want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I'd say the replays were set-up on purpose. But I really would like to see this work.
If you want to try this against build on someone who'll actually try to micro his units, please PM me so we can play a few games. I play Terran in 1v1, but I play Protoss in 2v2s 3v3s and 4v4s. I don't know alot of the timings in 1v1s for Protoss, but I'm just convinced that it'll take a lower-skilled Protoss to beat a higher-skilled Terran with this build.
But again, I'd like to see Terrans use Thors against Protoss, so I'd like to be proven wrong.
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On October 30 2010 02:49 jacosajh wrote:
Yeah, really. The two replays provided showcased Protoss fighting on Terrans terms. If I didn't want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I'd say the replays were set-up on purpose. But I really would like to see this work.
If you want to try this against build on someone who'll actually try to micro his units, please PM me so we can play a few games. I play Terran in 1v1, but I play Protoss in 2v2s 3v3s and 4v4s. I don't know alot of the timings in 1v1s for Protoss, but I'm just convinced that it'll take a lower-skilled Protoss to beat a higher-skilled Terran with this build.
But again, I'd like to see Terrans use Thors against Protoss, so I'd like to be proven wrong.
We've been testing this build extensively. The first game we play (yes we've been testing this with numerous protoss players from 1500-2000+) we are usually left unaware of the build. Usually this ends in complete disaster.
The next game we play we're usually better prepared but that doesn't change much.
Void rays have been nerfed to hell and HTs can no long gib a shit ton of Thor HP with feedback. Even without upgrades the Thor is doing 60 damage per volley, if you have a handful of Thors you can easily vaporize Chargelots. With stimmed Marines + Ghosts picking up the loose ends.
Immortals, in theory are amazing but against Thors backed with M+G is problematic. 250 Cannon can easily level the playing field as it renders the immortal stunned and dead, EMP and Marine fire negates the powerful shields of Immortals.
Granted Zealot + Immortal assaults can down small number of Thors (we need to experiment more with this, Ghost + Marine combo might still prove very lethal when backed by a small number of Thors), once Thors hit a critical mass of 4-5+ then you're in trouble. The thing with this build is that the Terran player will hit critical mass in a very short period of time.
We're continuing to test this build against other Toss builds of all kinds. So far we've discovered that this Thor build CAN survive an early 4-gate rush with just bunkers, marines, and ghost, while still maintaining the ability to execute this Macro extensive build.
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On October 29 2010 10:40 RyanRushia wrote:
i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios
In order for the 5 range immortals to wreck the 7 range thors, they would have to be at the front of your army. In which case marines would destroy them and you would have to be macroing your immortals or their shots would be wasted.
The second problem with your arguement is that you are using immortals and Colossi. These units both come out of the robo facility and they both take rediculously long to build.
Colossi 65 sec
Immortal 55 sec
Thor 55 sec
With 2 robo facilities up it would take you 3 minutes + to make 4 colossi and 2 immortals.
Not nearly enough to even reach the thor. Then you have to consider that with EMP, immortals are an even worse unit than they already are. Glass cannon marines can quickly demolish your gateway forces and then it's thors vs colossi.
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On October 29 2010 11:50 STS17 wrote:
Not for nothing but if 250mm has range 7 and immortal has range 5 then couldn't you target the immortals with it? It ignores hardened shields and kills them in one cast of the spell, leaving the rest of your army to deal with the rest of his. Though I think the thors are better off focusing the collosi, which they can hit from range 10 if needed with their air attack.
I tested this out a while ago and thors will NEVER use their GTA attack on colossi:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=151085
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damn, what i up with you terrans?
cant you stick to bio and lose once in a while?
NO, you cant! why do you always have to figure out new strategies to implement new unbeatable army compositions?
damn, i want beta back, where every terran just played 3 rax marauder period.
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i dont understand how thors with range 10 and marines with dps of a ultralisk with range lose to air. especially not with the ray nerfed
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On October 30 2010 04:02 ensis wrote:
i dont understand how thors with range 10 and marines with dps of a ultralisk with range lose to air. especially not with the ray nerfed
Cause VRs don't come without Zeals and sentries, and Thors do bonus to light air, which VRs are not. The VRs outrange the marines, and the marines cannot stand toe to toe with the zealots, so they must stim n run kite, which actually makes it worse for them because the VRs pick them off easy.
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If you guys want to do extensive testing on this build, add me!
RoyaLTigeR.723
I understand all your concern and all and those were my concerns as well when jemag first presented the build to me, but once I tried it and gave it thorough testing, I see it has true potential.
First I was discouraged also because I did not understand when or how to do engagements and kept losing. But now I'm understanding the build more and more and it has a lot of potential (granted potential doesn't mean it is a legit build so therefore more testing)
GIVE THIS BUILD A TRY WITH US!!!
YOU DO NOT ENGAGE COLOSSI WITH 250MM!! That would be disastrous. You guys don't realize how much damage Thors in front can do. There are a lot of battles I thought I would lose but I end up winning by a big margin. Like I said, give it a try and do extensive testing on it with me or someone else before shooting it down.
MMG are superior at the early stage because of the pressure and mobility but late game MMG get melt by protoss easily. You have to out flank the protoss, drop on them, do harassment if you are planning to go the bio route. With this build, you can take the protoss HEAD ON. Watch the replays first for a simple idea on how to do the build. The BO is not perfect right now, I am still tweaking it a lot so it would be nice if you guys give it some tweaking also.
Someone mentioned something about positioning and stuff and yes, this build does depends on positioning and how to engage the opponents but doesn't ALL build requires that? If you can just a click your army and win, that would be OP. =\
Someone also mentioned about how colossi rape marines and zealots/immortals rape thors. On paper, yes. But in actual battle, it's otherwise. They're fighting on equal terms, it's up to the micro and positioning that win the battle.
If anyone have doubts about this build, just add me on B.Net (NA) and we'll do testing. I would love to test this build to death to see if it's viable or not.
Thank you for all the feedback!!!
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I just cannot see this beating collossi.
You say that you position your army, that the marines are behind the thors and the thors tank the damage. Yet in a previous post you say that you use the 250mm to take out the collossi nearly the end of the battle, when the thors are long dead and you end up with marine ghost vs stalker collossus.
If you walk your thors up front and try to 250mm at the start of the battle, the thors die probably before the animation goes off. Ask TLO how that plan went.
To be honest I really don't see this build any more vulnerable to mass colossi than a bioball build is, and prolly less vulnerable.
What I meant by the mid-end part of the battle is you have to realise how quickly this build (knowing u focus highly on attack upgrades) melt away protoss units. His ball size will reduce really quickly and once that happens, now is the time to use 250 mm cannon.
Also, like stated in the first posts, you can add a few vikings in the mix if he goes colossi heavy, or a few medvac / pre-igniter helions if he goes chargelot immortal heavy.
For the replays, I will try to get some more up but the thing is that it is hard for me to get some replays as I'm not the one executing the strategy :O. If any high level terran is interested in me guiding him through a couple of games using this strategy, we could get a lot more replays up.
You can add me if you want jemag char code : 336
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On October 30 2010 04:08 tehemperorer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2010 04:02 ensis wrote:
i dont understand how thors with range 10 and marines with dps of a ultralisk with range lose to air. especially not with the ray nerfed Cause VRs don't come without Zeals and sentries, and Thors do bonus to light air, which VRs are not. The VRs outrange the marines, and the marines cannot stand toe to toe with the zealots, so they must stim n run kite, which actually makes it worse for them because the VRs pick them off easy.
On the other hand I'd assume when you get a ball of Thors, they become more effective whilst the VRs become less so, due to splash. So either the VRs are forced to somewhat spread out, making it easier for the rines to get in range of them or face splash, which given enough thors would hurt. I mean after patch, a VR kills a thor taking ~50 hull dmg, but if each thor hits at least 2 VRs, I'd assume they'd be pretty cost effective.
In any case, not opening robo is quite close to suicide vs a 1/1/1, so stargate play I'd assume is even more risky than this build might be.
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Plz add more replays. I really don't feel that the two given give a very good showing of this build. I'm not exactly sure of the versatility of the build of different maps, as the replay only shows caverns. Also, both P in the replays were extremely passive, maybe show that this build can hold off early aggression? Maybe against HT/air?
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On October 30 2010 04:57 Zarahtra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2010 04:08 tehemperorer wrote:On October 30 2010 04:02 ensis wrote:
i dont understand how thors with range 10 and marines with dps of a ultralisk with range lose to air. especially not with the ray nerfed Cause VRs don't come without Zeals and sentries, and Thors do bonus to light air, which VRs are not. The VRs outrange the marines, and the marines cannot stand toe to toe with the zealots, so they must stim n run kite, which actually makes it worse for them because the VRs pick them off easy. On the other hand I'd assume when you get a ball of Thors, they become more effective whilst the VRs become less so, due to splash. So either the VRs are forced to somewhat spread out, making it easier for the rines to get in range of them or face splash, which given enough thors would hurt. I mean after patch, a VR kills a thor taking ~50 hull dmg, but if each thor hits at least 2 VRs, I'd assume they'd be pretty cost effective. In any case, not opening robo is quite close to suicide vs a 1/1/1, so stargate play I'd assume is even more risky than this build might be.
Yeha it's not really hard to spread void rays out, but getting a ball of Thors we are now talking 2-3 basing and it's different from what the OP said about his build I think. 1/1/1 does very poorly against 3gate/Stargate, check my replays
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I'm just not convinced that this build can beat mass collossi play. By the time you add vikings he can probably get blink to help counter them.
now I understand that this build could be very powerful if you have your thors tanking for your marines in your opponent's base. But what if you're stuck trying to defend your bases against collossi? Thors are not mobile at all. He can peek up your cliff, start burning your buildings. you run over, he just runs down the cliff and away. He can kite your thors all day long with collossi as long as he has room to manuver (ie he chooses engagement area well). Honestly I wouldn't even build zealots against this in the late game, just pure stalker/collossi and abuse mobility. Also on alot of maps like metalopolis or LT he can literaly come around behind your ball with his collossi and start burning marines down while your thors are trapped in the front.
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omg RoyalTiger who is a 1300-1400 terran just beat a 2365 toss even if he had sub par macro with this strategy :O
I'm posting the replay right now on the main page
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jemag just keeps on dissing my skills every time he posts something up. I don't want to help him no more.... =[
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add me we'll play later, I just parsed your new replay... If it is as effective as you say I better get used to it :|
tehemperorer.343
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I'm online right now, and I can beat that with Stargate play! Let's do it!
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Are you freaking joking me?
Just watched the two new replays.
A few things.
1. These were custom games. I would like to see it in action vs random people in Matchmaking. Otherwise, you've gotten me thoroughly convinced that these matches were set-up.
2. What is up with both Protoss going so heavy on Zealots/Templars. Templars are nice to have vs anyone, but going so heavy on Templars is useless because of EMP. The Zealots either could've done more but weren't properly micro'ed or were just useless in a lot of the situations. There was even one time when after a battle, NYD warps in enough Zealots to kill the remaining Thors, but decides to run his Zealots passed the Thors instead and get turned into dust. In the game against BigBadWeaver or whatever, he didn't even upgrade at all, and kept DT harassing. If he had just attacked with those DTs along with his forces, he would've won. He had enough DTs to do that much damage, you might not have even noticed the DTs until it was too late. And he kept using the DTs to attack the Thors instead of the Marines.
Any good player will watch those replays will be like WTF?
Are you just trying to get a strategy named after yourself?
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Are you freaking joking me?
Just watched the two new replays.
A few things.
1. These were custom games. I would like to see it in action vs random people in Matchmaking. Otherwise, you've gotten me thoroughly convinced that these matches were set-up.
2. What is up with both Protoss going so heavy on Zealots/Templars. Templars are nice to have vs anyone, but going so heavy on Templars is useless because of EMP. The Zealots either could've done more but weren't properly micro'ed or were just useless in a lot of the situations. There was even one time when after a battle, NYD warps in enough Zealots to kill the remaining Thors, but decides to run his Zealots passed the Thors instead and get turned into dust. In the game against BigBadWeaver or whatever, he didn't even upgrade at all, and kept DT harassing. If he had just attacked with those DTs along with his forces, he would've won. He had enough DTs to do that much damage, you might not have even noticed the DTs until it was too late. And he kept using the DTs to attack the Thors instead of the Marines.
Any good player will watch those replays will be like WTF?
Last edit: 2010-10-30 09:01:58
Are you just trying to get a strategy named after yourself?
I don't really know what you're trying to insinuate to be honest. All the replays were 100% legit, you can simply go and ask the Protoss players in it if you want.
Of course they could have played better but Royal didnt play that good either. Royal actually had problems with his late game macro and still managed to take the win.
I'd be glad to put it against better players but I do not know much players above 2365 and 2065 rating. If you do, just msg me or add me in-game jemag (char code : 336)
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Tried this twice in plat. league. Both times they scout my heavy marine count early and start chronoboosting collossi from 2 robos. The army was basicly collossi and stalker. I was dead before either of us got a third.
My micro/macro wasn't too good, but I don't like how this strategy left me so decimated.
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jemag, can you (or one of those practice partners) try to play against this thor/marine but do this: Make 3 robos and pump colossi with the intention of having at least the same amount as he has thors if not more. The rest should be zealots/chargelots or stalkers if he starts getting vikings. Engage him somewhere close to his base and/or far from yours. As soon as all of the zealots die just retreat and rebuild them at home. He shouldn't be able to survive a couple of those trades, but who knows.
I am curious how will the strat fare against such play.
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jemag, can you (or one of those practice partners) try to play against this thor/marine but do this: Make 3 robos and pump colossi with the intention of having at least the same amount as he has thors if not more. The rest should be zealots/chargelots or stalkers if he starts getting vikings. Engage him somewhere close to his base and/or far from yours. As soon as all of the zealots die just retreat and rebuild them at home. He shouldn't be able to survive a couple of those trades, but who knows.
I am curious how will the strat fare against such play.
Yeah I will try to find a good toss to try this. I could do it but I don't want it to feel bias, as some posters seem to doubt.
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Colossi completly owns Thors unless u have medivacs to help Thors chasing them down.
With the + range and speed the Colossi can kill Thors without taking any damage whatsoever... and u can cancel the strike cannon attack if u run away with ur colossi soon enough from what I saw on the unit test map.
With that said I would not make immortals but colossi instead and micro them.
I don't see how u can chase and kill colossi... I feel like the protoss could just micro them until he finally gets the critical amount to own everything on the ground.
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I really like how people are against this build without testing it themselves. Reminds me of kcdc's thread for 1gate FE as toss where everyone exclaimed that it wasn't possible (and now we see HuK using it as standard)
Claiming the replays are setup? What kind of stupid response is that, i'm sure he is setting up replays and writing long responses so that he can fool us into thinking his strategy is good... idiot
jemag, thanks for your effort in this guide and strategy i definitely like the idea of using thors more in this matchup and was looking for a way to go into macro situations with protoss and come out on top without being forced to be overly aggressive in order to stay in it with low-tech units.
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I really like how people are against this build without testing it themselves. Reminds me of kcdc's thread for 1gate FE as toss where everyone exclaimed that it wasn't possible (and now we see HuK using it as standard)
Claiming the replays are setup? What kind of stupid response is that, i'm sure he is setting up replays and writing long responses so that he can fool us into thinking his strategy is good... idiot
jemag, thanks for your effort in this guide and strategy i definitely like the idea of using thors more in this matchup and was looking for a way to go into macro situations with protoss and come out on top without being forced to be overly aggressive in order to stay in it with low-tech units.
Thank you, the few people who makes sense here. You should come and explore the build with us and refine it even more.
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I merely asked you try this against the general population. If it works, great. Like i said... as a twrran player it would be nice to have different options against protoss. In just not convinced it would work and doing it custom games against people you know doesn't really prove anything to me. I could try it myself but if it fails obviously it'll be because im not good with the build. If you could post like 2 or 3 replays from matchmaking that would be great.
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I merely asked you try this against the general population. If it works, great. Like i said... as a twrran player it would be nice to have different options against protoss. In just not convinced it would work and doing it custom games against people you know doesn't really prove anything to me. I could try it myself but if it fails obviously it'll be because im not good with the build. If you could post like 2 or 3 replays from matchmaking that would be great.
You are more than welcome to find me some protoss to play against. I'm not in the mood for laddering right now and I'm focusing a lot on this build to get it to work out nicely so I've been playing with a lot of protoss players that I know and people introduced me to. Most protoss players who played against this build are all convinced that it can work and they would need to find a good counter to it. But I guess if I'm in the mood I can go do a few ladder games and find some protoss to try this build against.
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I am convinced that this is a legit strat. I don't see my replay up here, but even though I played not too well, it is very hard to beat. At no point did I think I was ahead, even when I tried to outmacro. The Terran player, if good, can defend his expansion quite easily with mass marine to allow him to get to the point where he has 2 bases and can let the thors flow. I usually do air vs T and have great success, but this strat was pretty hard to handle, and I did lose. It is the range of 9 to air that really seals the deal on stargate tech. Im not sayin that I will give up the fight against this build, but please know that it is really hard to deal with!!
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 29 2010 10:47 jemag wrote:Show nested quote +i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios I know it totally sound weird and non intuitive lol. The truth tho is that emp-ed immortals are really not that effective. Also a single 250 mm cannon will kill a colossus and will stun him. So you can't "run away from it" no matter how pro you are.
Range 7 with massive load-up time vs range 9 means you will never ever hit him with Thors... Thors might be good but colossus rape them hard so still gonna need vikings.
On October 30 2010 11:50 Goliathsorrow wrote:
Colossi completly owns Thors unless u have medivacs to help Thors chasing them down.
With the + range and speed the Colossi can kill Thors without taking any damage whatsoever... and u can cancel the strike cannon attack if u run away with ur colossi soon enough from what I saw on the unit test map.
With that said I would not make immortals but colossi instead and micro them.
I don't see how u can chase and kill colossi... I feel like the protoss could just micro them until he finally gets the critical amount to own everything on the ground.
Exactly what I think -.-
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Well, if you notice a large number of colossi then start throwing in vikings. Scouting is still key. You cannot just stick to one unit and win the game. Scouting still plays a big roll.
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I personally find this build annoying to deal with, Royal has used it on my plenty of times thus far and i havent beaten it. We are all working on the build. I think the biggest misconception with threads like this are that people are so bone headed about it.
Well he is saying the build is X, so obviously he is not getting anything but X units, ever, no matter what. Thats just plain dumb.
I also hate micro arguments since its always one sided. Well if the protoss micros he will win. Well what if terran micros as well? Might not be the auto win you claim it would be.
And not all builds can be executed well at all levels of play, keep that in mind. Just because you see a pro gamer do it in gsl doesn't mean you can do it and win with easy like they may have. Does that make the build a fail? obviously not. (but then again if a pro used it successfully we wouldn't have a discussion about it would we :-/) A couple of these responses are B.net forum quality too. D:
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Thanks a lot for this, It's been working great in my TvP matches. For me a lot of times the Protoss will over commit to Immortals once they see 3 Thors allowing my marines to clean up everything.
Again, thanks. Was having trouble in TvP before this but now on a win streak.
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very excited to try this, thanks for the post. going to do the day9 10 times before deciding either way.
bit worried about the fact that emping, then casting the cannons and microing my army out of storm might be a bit much for my skill level
also, so you really use no marauders at all? how do u hold a 2 or 4 gate? thanks
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people generally seem to end up mass thor with no ghosts and barely any rines in the replays, any comments on this from people? the ghosts and rines definitely helped early game though.
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hi
when I see biomech (tanks or thors + a smaller bio army) I tech to templar and use immortal/templar and skip colossus entirely
I do not understand how you expect to beat my army with your composition, which seems to be tailored to counter standard robotics armies
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people generally seem to end up mass thor with no ghosts and barely any rines in the replays, any comments on this from people? the ghosts and rines definitely helped early game though.
I end up not having enough ghosts because I keep forgetting late game. This strategy is still new to me and I still need to get used to it. Do not try to use 250mm in battle, it can get you killed. Only use 250mm when most of his army are gone and you are only facing colossi and they're right next to you. Use it as an opportunistic approach.
hi
when I see biomech (tanks or thors + a smaller bio army) I tech to templar and use immortal/templar and skip colossus entirely
I do not understand how you expect to beat my army with your composition, which seems to be tailored to counter standard robotics armies
That is the army composition that this combo shine best against. The only unit combo that the terran's army have problem with is mass colossi, literally MASS colossi with stalkers. However, good scouting and good viking counts will solve that problem. Who said you have to only mass thors, marines and ghosts?
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I´d love to see a replay against blinkstalkers or a really aggressive play by Protoss. Every Replay added was 20minute Freedom + One big Fight.
Do you have any of those? Maybe even posting some you are losing with this?
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I´d love to see a replay against blinkstalkers or a really aggressive play by Protoss. Every Replay added was 20minute Freedom + One big Fight.
Do you have any of those? Maybe even posting some you are losing with this?
I do have replays of me losing to TofuD (a lot of 4 gate until I made the opener stronger). And I did lost to him when he mass colossi with stalkers (no blinking ones). But that's because I failed to scout his mass colossi so it was my fault.
I have not run into any blinking stalkers yet, if you are willing to do that with me we can have a go or two. Or you can find me some protoss players that are willing to do that.
RoyaLTigeR.723
=]
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Oh, about the 20 minutes freedom, TofuD started doing harassment on me as the testing progress. It doesn't work that well though because I just use the thors to stay at the at the front line while using the more mobile marines to run around and deal with threats (unless it's his whole big army then I bring everything).
I feel like one of the reasons the protoss do not want to commit to any attacks is because they know that they will have a disadvantage if they come to my base and attack. Same goes for me, if I move out before reaching a critical number, I will get melt away. This build is TOO passive for my taste though. So I am thinking of getting a starport up faster and start doing 8 marines drop all around the map while getting up to a big number. That should give the protoss more on their plate. =]
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I watched some of the replays. This is a rather passive build that doesn't use much aggression. I guess its a turtle style of play.
What I noticed from the replays is that the Thors are the real meat of the composition. They simply obliterate every ground unit the protoss can throw at them especially with upgrades. The infantry is really just fodder to soak up damage otherwise meant for the Thors.
Personally I think that any protoss who gets colossus with thermal lances would probably stuff this strategy. Pure speculation of course as I don't play toss myself but as a Terran player, that would be what I would worry about if I went this Thor/Marine build.
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I watched some of the replays. This is a rather passive build that doesn't use much aggression. I guess its a turtle style of play.
What I noticed from the replays is that the Thors are the real meat of the composition. They simply obliterate every ground unit the protoss can throw at them especially with upgrades. The infantry is really just fodder to soak up damage otherwise meant for the Thors.
Personally I think that any protoss who gets colossus with thermal lances would probably stuff this strategy. Pure speculation of course as I don't play toss myself but as a Terran player, that would be what I would worry about if I went this Thor/Marine build.
That's why you get vikings if they have a lot of colossi. And yes, the build is quite passive right now and I'm trying to make it more aggressive by adding the starport earlier and bring out medivacs to do 8 marines drops around the map. It turn out to work really well, especially if they decided to rush you really quick with colossi, then you have the vikings to back it up. =]
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I really like the idea and look of the build. However, I think it has some issues.
1) Why do you need to get ghosts that fast? I assume you're worried about fast immortal pushes, but since you have tons of Marines you should be able to use them to focus down an Immortal's shields immediately. I think you might be okay if you just get a bunker and Thor rush while building a CC in your base. Especially since Thor Marine seems very good defensively (at least on paper). Why not get ghosts after you expand, and try to time it so that you'll have some EMPs out in time for a Templar rush or a big 4-5+ Immortal attack?
2) What's up with that fast engineering bay and turrets? I'm down with rushing for a +1 upgrade if you're going mass marine, but the turrets at least seem unnecessary unless you suspect DTs. You have plenty of marines to deal with void rays and phoenixes.
If there are reasons for any of the above, please enlighten me.
If you cut those things out you could maybe expand earlier, get some marauders to make it harder for Zealots to get to your Thors, get more upgrades, or get a faster starport for emergency vikings or banshee harass. And I think you really will need vikings against a careful Colossus user. The guys you played against just kind of a-moved their whole army, which hilariously makes the Colossus AI target the Thors instead of the Marines.
If I was playing against this build, I'd either Gate Core FE or 2 Gate Robo FE into Colossi with 1-2 Immortals. During the battles I'd move my Colossi forward and try to poke at your Thors/Marines since I have range advantage. If you move the marines forward I can force field them back and pick them off. I think the only thing that would really give me pause there is Viking support. Another issue is that late game incorporating a few Void Rays into your Gateway/Colossus ball will make all the Thors waste their fire on the air, so having a good Viking count will be very important.
That said, I think this could be made into a workable strategy. Keep at it, guys!
EDIT: If you want to try an early push, you might have a timing window when you hit 3 Thors, since 3 Thors one-shot all Protoss gateway units and the Immortal/Colossus count should be low.
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1) Why do you need to get ghosts that fast? I assume you're worried about fast immortal pushes, but since you have tons of Marines you should be able to use them to focus down an Immortal's shields immediately. I think you might be okay if you just get a bunker and Thor rush while building a CC in your base. Especially since Thor Marine seems very good defensively (at least on paper). Why not get ghosts after you expand, and try to time it so that you'll have some EMPs out in time for a Templar rush or a big 4-5+ Immortal attack?
2) What's up with that fast engineering bay and turrets? I'm down with rushing for a +1 upgrade if you're going mass marine, but the turrets at least seem unnecessary unless you suspect DTs. You have plenty of marines to deal with void rays and phoenixes.
1) Yeah actually we been looking at that and it might be as good if not better to get the ghosts a little later on. Still testing it, I'd have to ask Royal if he has updates on this.
2) The engineering bay is mainly for the +1 and as a safety. But yeah I removed the turret from the build order as it's really up to the user to decide on that.
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early chargelot pushes have really been a worry for me as ive tried this build, i feel so naked without marauders to slow things down.
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Really good strategy developing here, however I still see a big problem with chargelots.
What the OP suggested was to add on blue hellions in RESPONSE to that, however, given the units/upgrades you're already producing, you will be severely outproduced by protoss warpgates already churning out lots.
To start getting blue hellions to manageable deal with mass charge lots you need tech lab on a factory, then a reactor factory (how you get them is dependent on your choice), by the time you scout the TC and the lots, I doubt you'll be able to get those hellions up fast in time.
The one thing I do find detrimental is the fact that there is no inclusion of ways to deny expos, it almost feels as if this "macro- geered" play style is reliant on outbasing your opponent midlategame, then just overwhelming his army with a very diverse composition strong against alot of things. Just because you want to play "macro oriented" doesn't mean it has to be passive the ENTIRE game. At no point in the build do I just feel, explode, make the enemy feel absolutely afraid. There is no critical turning point where you can 100% say I have the game, and if that IS the exact play style you want, then bravo, because this build is perfect for it.
If you really want to add a literal explosion to this, then plan on transitioning into nukes, (not nuke rush or anything), once you are gearing up that macro army off 3/4 base, then add some real firepower to those ghosts. Honestly, when a terran gets a fourth base that's so much income he can get whatever he pleases.
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In your more recent replays, you started changing around the build timings and such. Are they better timings? Or should people still refer to your OP?
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Would just like to add that I as a 1800 terran really feel (like the authors) that this build is realy good :D. I have won twice on ladder now using this mass thor marine ghost build (executed very poorly), where I would otherwise do the tricky 2 rax FE bio select style. The build seems to completly destroy gateways units AND immortals (due to the emps) very well. Each match I won with an inferior cost army.
I however can not say what the specific timing weakness are or what the lategame counter is :S (maybe like someone said about mass gateway and colossus)
Chargelots don't seem to be that much of a threat, because of the marines (zealots just evaporat and stalkers spontaneously combust)
Something to think about, is that you might be able to get away with expanding MUCH earlier, like 1 rax FE, if you get a reaper (for scouting) and bunker up with marines and a ghost?
Ohh and one last thing, I have always had the feeling that marauders suck versus chargelots? The slow is kinda an offensive ability imo
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In your more recent replays, you started changing around the build timings and such. Are they better timings? Or should people still refer to your OP?
Well like I said we're still testing out some timings about the ghosts. Also, the timings really depend on wether or not the Protoss goes for a fast expansion.
I'll try to come with more and more precise timings as we refine the build. The thing is there is only 1 terran that I know testing it, so it does take time.
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I hope you guys figure out how to deal with chargelot and colossi. That combo seem like it would absolutely destroy rines, thors and ghost. Will you be able to get enough vikings to make a difference give you spent so much gas on the ghost and thors?
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How does this deal with counterattacks? Sure, it's really hard to kill your main army, but can't Protoss just send a Prism to the back of your base and start warping in every time you move out? Is it possible to win this if it gets to too many bases?
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fantastic strategy, thx dude
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Not if you have medivac picking up Thros and rush your army back to base. But its your choice to either base trade (Terran can fly production buildings away) so if you push into the P's base and destroy it, you have a greater chance to come out ahead.
I haven't watch the most recent replays yet, but I've tried it a few more times with my friend, and my wins seem to become easier every time I use this. Won 7 out of 11 games today against zealot sentry stalker collosi. The key is to space your Thors in front of your MM ball, so that your marines can also move slightly forward between the Thors, but not all the way beside the Thors.
Against any army mix with HTs, drop Thors on P army with medivacs. They HATE that. But I only won 1 game out of 1 against zealot sentry HT colossi with that the day before.
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Hey Jemag and RT, continue saving replays for us as I need more pro replays proving this build. My games so far are against my friend who is only equal to me in skill, which is not much...
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Why Thors instead of stargate tech? BCs would be the starport counterpart to Thors I guess, but banshees are sick too.
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I've been testing a lot of games lately but I need more variety of protoss players to test this build on so I can get a better feel for it. I just sent jemag a few replays so he can add them up on the thread. Once again, if you guys want to help us out or anything, just add me or jemag and we can get some games going on bnet.
RoyaLTigeR.723
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What are you talking about Moja..? This is TvP... O.O
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I really wanna try it but what if he just goest chargelots ?
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I really wanna try it but what if he just goest chargelots ?
Chargelots should be the least of your problem noD. We can test it if you want, but chargelots get annihilate by thors and marines easily.
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On October 31 2010 19:34 RoyaL-TigeR wrote:
What are you talking about Moja..? This is TvP... O.O
That's my point? Thors just feel bad in the matchup... Protoss actually has relatively poor anti-air, so if you wanted to mass a unit for a death-ball-push it seems BCs would be a better option than Thors. They have higher hp, can only be hit by AA, and have yamato (which is 10x better than 250mm cannon). Since this build relies on massing T3, BCs seem like a stronger option. And since they're air units you'll never have pathing problems like you can get with thors.
Banshees are quite good as well, but they center on a very harass oriented playstyle as opposed to macro heavy. They do great until toss gets storm up, and even then they fare decently until he gets pheonixes. They have great mobility, do surprisingly well against stalkers, and force extra gas to be spent on observers because of the threat of cloak. The 3-1-2 build and iEchoics hellion drop build make use of them in the midgame to great effect.
I think my main issue with this build would actually be the lack of mobility though... Asking for a quick 3rd and 4th expansion when you have a very immobile unit composition to defend them seems unrealistic.
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Oh sorry, I didn't know what you mean.
Well, I ask nothing but for you to watch the replays and try this build out yourself several times before judging it or see me perform it on some protoss.
Regarding the immobile part, marines are very mobile, With harassment and stuff, marines can handle that easily. With a big frontal push, that's when you move your whole entire army. But that's where your scouting comes in. I mean... if he's attacking with his whole army at one spot of your base and your army is not even there in the first place... wouldn't you already be at the disadvantage?
Just give it a try first. ^^
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What do you do against early 1 zealot, 3+ stalker harass, since you have no marauders the stalkers should clean up with good micro saving the low shield stalkers so they lose no actual hp. Beyond that small window I dont see many problems for the terran from a protoss perspective. The protoss attack would prolly hit right before you first ghost or right after depending on spawn positions
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Watch the two later replays (and the ones after that when jemag uploads them). It should solve the 1 zealot + 3 stalkers problem. Unless my timing is off, feel free to correct that some how. The opener is not 100% stabled yet. I'm still tweaking it as I encounter more stuff.
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Just watched the royal tiger replay, hmmmm I just discovered that thors are bad against chargelots but mass thor ownz them. Thank you so much I will try this as soon as I can ....
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Just watched the royal tiger replay, hmmmm I just discovered that thors are bad against chargelots but mass thor ownz them. Thank you so much I will try this as soon as I can ....
Yeah! Test this build out more! The more people testing the faster we'll find out how viable the build is and if we should stick with it or scrap it off completely! Thanks for helping out! ^^
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I am gonna try this, but with a faster expo - mostly because my gut tells me I can get away with it. I'll let you guys know how that turns out.
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As a toss myself i can vouch for the effectiveness of thors, they are insane.
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As already stated, i think the build MIGHT have potencial, but your opener is ill-constructed.
First of you need an answer to more or less fast Colossus builds, the biggest threat to your opener imo. On the other hand you dont neither Ghost nor your Ebay that fast.
I will test the following approach:
2 Rax opener (T Lab, Reactor) with Stim and then Shield upgrade. Stim is cruical to stop Void Ray opener i think, therefore i get it before Shield.
The 2 Rax allow a very fast Expo (while the Reactor is building on the second Rax). After the CC starts i would build a Factory and add a Reactor to it on completion, also i would build a Starport.
With the capacity to build either Vikings or Medivacs we are save against Colossus pushes.
Now i would start with the Armory and Thor production on completion. Also add another Factory.
Before adding more buildings, would start my third CC now and adjust accordingly, geting Ghosts at this point is a good idea, as they answer massed Immortals and Templar.
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1200pt diamond toss so take with grain of salt: I just don't see how this gives T an advantage. Stalker+colossus will be way more capable of defending bases in a macro race and storm late-game will still win most games, whereas trying to defend 3+ bases with thors is difficult in practice. tanks are a better mid-game unit imo. they are better at defending and are really good harass units.
EMP is a GG ability though abuse it like storm
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Lategame this doesn't die. It just doesn't. It's a thundering wall of metal that knocks 200/200 P armies aside.
You're going to be a little pressed to get enough economy to maintain that sort of thing though, which is the best way to handle this build imo - keep T limited on bases as much as possible. Of course, PFs, lol.
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Mass zealots + 3-4 guardian shields + armor upgrade or two
That seems to be the most basic counter I can think of, and likely a pretty good one. If you have charge you can manually cast it on a far marine and you'll envelop the army quite fast.
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New replays added!
The "early pressure" version is the latest one!
The one where I failed to scout is the one before that.
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I will test the following approach:
2 Rax opener (T Lab, Reactor) with Stim and then Shield upgrade. Stim is cruical to stop Void Ray opener i think, therefore i get it before Shield.
The 2 Rax allow a very fast Expo (while the Reactor is building on the second Rax). After the CC starts i would build a Factory and add a Reactor to it on completion, also i would build a Starport.
With the capacity to build either Vikings or Medivacs we are save against Colossus pushes.
Now i would start with the Armory and Thor production on completion. Also add another Factory.
Before adding more buildings, would start my third CC now and adjust accordingly, geting Ghosts at this point is a good idea, as they answer massed Immortals and Templar.
Yeah, that seems to be a stronger opener because 1 base Colossi rush seems to own this build hard if they FF your choke right when your army move out to take your natural (marines in the back and only 2 thors in front). You would need the vikings up faster to deal with the colossi. But late game thors still rape.
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Do you just keep producing marines and ghosts even after you have a number of thors or do you do a tech switch like producing hellions over marines for zealots?
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Thors, even mass thors ARE NOT good against chargelots (obiously if yo have a 100 supply of thors and he has 20 thats a nonissue) because they do NOT deal splash damage vs ground. There good vs. the big meaty units of protoss- namely the collosus, and as far as my understanding they are there to tank damage.
As far as people saying "oh, marines are good vs chargelots", remember that we're cutting rine production almost entirely for ghosts AND mech AND eventual air. I'm not saying that there aren't any rines in the play, but they are not the core unit/strategy, inherently making the strategy weak to chargelots.
Get the timings right though, the terrans army should be able to nullify them due to strong composition and army strength
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On October 29 2010 10:40 RyanRushia wrote:
i feel like a robo-centric build would demolish this. colossus destroy marine/ghost and immoral WRECKS thors. also your 250mm portion is somewhat invalid vs good players, because they wont sit there in the AOE and take the full brunt of the damage. I can personally say that i've never lost to thor users as a protoss player... i actually prefer Terran to use them because of how ineffective they are
im not trying to bash on the OP, merely stating that theoretic descriptions (250mm example) aren't always applicable in actual-game scenarios
250 mm does not do aoe and it stuns the collosi so it cannot move out >.<
I have won many games using a MM ball and just making thors like my own little terran 3 gate robo
instead being 3 rax factory If the protoss gets his collossi to close even once its gg alot of fun to do but really hard to micro sometimes
Oh and if you scout robo type build just toss 2-3 ghosts in and the immortals are virtually useless no hardened shields = dead
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Just curious, why has no mention of nukes been made? 100 min/100 gas not too resource intensive since you will have ghosts already at this point. 2 Gacademy -> after EMP, place nuke behind zeals towards where Cols are. Of course a sensible toss will back up but this will give a huge advantage in terms of taking out retreating units. 2 Nukes + will alow you to slowly push inwards and once outside his base, it wouldn't be hard to contain and take out his nat.
The map can play a huge role in this as well . For example, on LT you would simply drop ledge, scan, emp, nuke and move in. I use this quite often in normal matchups and think that it would add a great amount of value to this build.
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Just curious, why has no mention of nukes been made? 100 min/100 gas not too resource intensive since you will have ghosts already at this point. 2 Gacademy -> after EMP, place nuke behind zeals towards where Cols are. Of course a sensible toss will back up but this will give a huge advantage in terms of taking out retreating units. 2 Nukes + will alow you to slowly push inwards and once outside his base, it wouldn't be hard to contain and take out his nat.
The map can play a huge role in this as well . For example, on LT you would simply drop ledge, scan, emp, nuke and move in. I use this quite often in normal matchups and think that it would add a great amount of value to this build.
That's an excellent idea actually. This is still a developing build and not everything is perfect yet. Right now I am having a difficult time dealing with 1 gate 1 robo colossi rush. The whole idea of this is to get thors at late game instead of mass bio (you would still have infantries) because they are meatier and can withstand psistorms a lot better. Yeah, mass zealots WILL beat this but that is why you add in blue helions if you scout it.
The strategy is not meant to be unbeatable, if it is, it would be OP.
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For this strat I recommend skipping all vehicle weapon upgrades, since in 95% of cases the thor will be doing overkill anyway. Vehicle armor should be more useful, since your main strength is the retention of thors each battle.
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Watched some of those replays.
Interesting games but i much rather play this composition than banshee/pdd/marine as a protoss anytime.
Now are you sure that there is not even one toss out there going lance colossi and shooting at your shit from the distance and expanding. It's not like the thors are going to catch up with the colossi when they are kiting.
And what's with the ghost. Why is it automatically in the composition?
Protoss can do just fine with chargelots and colossi.
And since thors are the goliaths of sc2 toss can go mass gate + warp prism and just spam stuff everywhere.
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The ghost is there for immortal because there is a window there where an immortal or two can show up before the thors grow in numbers. It is a very effective strategy, props to jemag for the dev work and to RT for the practice. The solution to this is early pressure from the P player, but you cannot really beat the Terran blockade, only delay his expand. Chargelots are not good against this because of how fast the marine force is replenished, and they act as a meat shield while the thors obliterate everything in their way. As a P, you really have to outmacro this build and stall his macro because it relies on several stages of the gameplan to succeed. All in all, super hard to deal with.
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such a bs build lost a bunch to it, thanks a lot Jemag...
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It confuses me to no end why after seeing thor+marine (mainly thor) that TofuD didn't immediately get charge and start building a zealot army while getting some sentries for guardian shield and spend the rest on upgrades (which he never got, just finished a forge at 18:00) and Immortals or Voidrays since if Royal is going thor+marine he's very immobile and getting a few voidrays to harass different locations would work very well. Add to that Voidrays do amazingly well against thors and marines SHOULD NOT be hitting voidrays if you have tons of zealots.
Oh and the convo at the end made me lawl, especially since he knows zealots do well against thors and yet got almost purely Stalker+Collossi (very few collossi at that).
Honestly though this just makes me sad to watch, these people are 2k+ in Diamond and not trying to be a dick here but honestly I had hoped Diamond would be for the "Elite" or what have you. Instead I feel like I'm watching Platinum or Gold during beta. We need a Rainbow league for the very best on Bnet.
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It confuses me to no end why after seeing thor+marine (mainly thor) that TofuD didn't immediately get charge and start building a zealot army while getting some sentries for guardian shield and spend the rest on upgrades (which he never got, just finished a forge at 18:00) and Immortals or Voidrays since if Royal is going thor+marine he's very immobile and getting a few voidrays to harass different locations would work very well. Add to that Voidrays do amazingly well against thors and marines SHOULD NOT be hitting voidrays if you have tons of zealots.
Oh and the convo at the end made me lawl, especially since he knows zealots do well against thors and yet got almost purely Stalker+Collossi (very few collossi at that).
Honestly though this just makes me sad to watch, these people are 2k+ in Diamond and not trying to be a dick here but honestly I had hoped Diamond would be for the "Elite" or what have you. Instead I feel like I'm watching Platinum or Gold during beta. We need a Rainbow league for the very best on Bnet.
Actually the only 2k+ players were NYD and Bigbadbeaver. Also I really don't think void ray would be a good idea as a mid game option. I think the only way to use void ray in this case would be to put high pressure at the start, abusing high ground vision with void ray + stalkers.
Also, I see a lot lot of comments about chargelots. Chargelots arn't that good against thors + marine ghosts to be honest. The thing is that you also need some kind of splash damage to deal with the infantry behind. If you go straight into chargelot you could get HTs after, which would be pretty risky with the ghosts already on the map or get delayed colossus, which wouldnt be ideal also. I think the safer way would be to go fast colossus and to transition into chargelot a little later on but still this take quite some time to get to and the terran should have more than enough time to respond accordingly.
I don't think there is a 100% clear counter as far as unit combination goes as the build is still pretty adaptive. I think the current weakness in the build resides mainly in the early game and some vulnerability to early pressure, which we are trying to fix with a more refined and solid opener.
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On November 02 2010 09:47 jemag wrote:Show nested quote +It confuses me to no end why after seeing thor+marine (mainly thor) that TofuD didn't immediately get charge and start building a zealot army while getting some sentries for guardian shield and spend the rest on upgrades (which he never got, just finished a forge at 18:00) and Immortals or Voidrays since if Royal is going thor+marine he's very immobile and getting a few voidrays to harass different locations would work very well. Add to that Voidrays do amazingly well against thors and marines SHOULD NOT be hitting voidrays if you have tons of zealots.
Oh and the convo at the end made me lawl, especially since he knows zealots do well against thors and yet got almost purely Stalker+Collossi (very few collossi at that).
Honestly though this just makes me sad to watch, these people are 2k+ in Diamond and not trying to be a dick here but honestly I had hoped Diamond would be for the "Elite" or what have you. Instead I feel like I'm watching Platinum or Gold during beta. We need a Rainbow league for the very best on Bnet. Actually the only 2k+ players were NYD and Bigbadbeaver. Also I really don't think void ray would be a good idea as a mid game option. I think the only way to use void ray in this case would be to put high pressure at the start, abusing high ground vision with void ray + stalkers. Also, I see a lot lot of comments about chargelots. Chargelots arn't that good against thors + marine ghosts to be honest. The thing is that you also need some kind of splash damage to deal with the infantry behind. If you go straight into chargelot you could get HTs after, which would be pretty risky with the ghosts already on the map or get delayed colossus, which wouldnt be ideal also. I think the safer way would be to go fast colossus and to transition into chargelot a little later on but still this take quite some time to get to and the terran should have more than enough time to respond accordingly. I don't think there is a 100% clear counter as far as unit combination goes as the build is still pretty adaptive. I think the current weakness in the build resides mainly in the early game and some vulnerability to early pressure, which we are trying to fix with a more refined and solid opener.
chargelots are amazing vs that combination to tank marine dps while immortals wreck havoc on the thors. I wish i have safed a replay because I actually encountered a very similar build. I was like "wth, do terrans think they can get away with everything?". ghost do really nothing against chargelots because EMP does not have a huge effect on them when they allready charged. and when not, then you can simply retreat.
the only reason why I fear terrans are marauders, because they soak up so much damage from HT/colossi without dieing and they slow down the chargelots so effectively + they get healed.
you suggest a very macro heavy playstile but I garantee you that with the same macro mindset you will destroy protosses with a bio build. means you can allways add medivacs, ghosts, vikings for support.
your idea mb comes from the general missconception many terrans have, that they somehow should have the most effective lategame army. but this is sc2, a different game, so you simply adapt and stay on more bases than the protoss while punishing his immobility.
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On November 02 2010 09:12 Aeruthus wrote:
It confuses me to no end why after seeing thor+marine (mainly thor) that TofuD didn't immediately get charge and start building a zealot army while getting some sentries for guardian shield and spend the rest on upgrades (which he never got, just finished a forge at 18:00) and Immortals or Voidrays since if Royal is going thor+marine he's very immobile and getting a few voidrays to harass different locations would work very well. Add to that Voidrays do amazingly well against thors and marines SHOULD NOT be hitting voidrays if you have tons of zealots.
Oh and the convo at the end made me lawl, especially since he knows zealots do well against thors and yet got almost purely Stalker+Collossi (very few collossi at that).
Honestly though this just makes me sad to watch, these people are 2k+ in Diamond and not trying to be a dick here but honestly I had hoped Diamond would be for the "Elite" or what have you. Instead I feel like I'm watching Platinum or Gold during beta. We need a Rainbow league for the very best on Bnet.
Not sure what replay you were watching.
BUT.
Sentries = 40hp = insta dead after EMP hit + 1 thor volley.
The problem isn't that Chargelots aren't great, it's that Thors and Marines both go into super overdrive once they hit critical mass. Sure I could engage with mass zealots but how much damage am I going to actually do late game? Zealots melt against that composition once it hits critical mass.
Void rays should be the natural counter to Thors but due to their current situation I really do not see it that way. A Zealot + Void ray army CAN jam up a Thor + Marine composition, true. But that same Thor + Marine army will melt your Zealots faster than you can melt his Thors.
Mass Colossi appears to the be the only late game counter to this build. Though there are plenty of pushes you could pull off early game.
Also, I'm not 2k+ I've also gotten a bit rusty over the past few weeks.
yep.
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On November 02 2010 10:24 clickrush wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2010 09:47 jemag wrote:It confuses me to no end why after seeing thor+marine (mainly thor) that TofuD didn't immediately get charge and start building a zealot army while getting some sentries for guardian shield and spend the rest on upgrades (which he never got, just finished a forge at 18:00) and Immortals or Voidrays since if Royal is going thor+marine he's very immobile and getting a few voidrays to harass different locations would work very well. Add to that Voidrays do amazingly well against thors and marines SHOULD NOT be hitting voidrays if you have tons of zealots.
Oh and the convo at the end made me lawl, especially since he knows zealots do well against thors and yet got almost purely Stalker+Collossi (very few collossi at that).
Honestly though this just makes me sad to watch, these people are 2k+ in Diamond and not trying to be a dick here but honestly I had hoped Diamond would be for the "Elite" or what have you. Instead I feel like I'm watching Platinum or Gold during beta. We need a Rainbow league for the very best on Bnet. Actually the only 2k+ players were NYD and Bigbadbeaver. Also I really don't think void ray would be a good idea as a mid game option. I think the only way to use void ray in this case would be to put high pressure at the start, abusing high ground vision with void ray + stalkers. Also, I see a lot lot of comments about chargelots. Chargelots arn't that good against thors + marine ghosts to be honest. The thing is that you also need some kind of splash damage to deal with the infantry behind. If you go straight into chargelot you could get HTs after, which would be pretty risky with the ghosts already on the map or get delayed colossus, which wouldnt be ideal also. I think the safer way would be to go fast colossus and to transition into chargelot a little later on but still this take quite some time to get to and the terran should have more than enough time to respond accordingly. I don't think there is a 100% clear counter as far as unit combination goes as the build is still pretty adaptive. I think the current weakness in the build resides mainly in the early game and some vulnerability to early pressure, which we are trying to fix with a more refined and solid opener. chargelots are amazing vs that combination to tank marine dps while immortals wreck havoc on the thors. I wish i have safed a replay because I actually encountered a very similar build. I was like "wth, do terrans think they can get away with everything?". ghost do really nothing against chargelots because EMP does not have a huge effect on them when they allready charged. and when not, then you can simply retreat. the only reason why I fear terrans are marauders, because they soak up so much damage from HT/colossi without dieing and they slow down the chargelots so effectively + they get healed. you suggest a very macro heavy playstile but I garantee you that with the same macro mindset you will destroy protosses with a bio build. means you can allways add medivacs, ghosts, vikings for support. your idea mb comes from the general missconception many terrans have, that they somehow should have the most effective lategame army. but this is sc2, a different game, so you simply adapt and stay on more bases than the protoss while punishing his immobility.
Yes, MMM is still an option. This build does not claim to be superior to MMM, it just claims to be as viable as MMM. Also, why would the ghost be trying to EMP chargelots when the EMP could be more useful against the Immortals.
This build also has breathing room to add Medivacs and Vikings, This is a macro build, eventually you can have just about everything.
Immortals also become ineffective once the Thor + Marine composition hits critical mass and is supported by Ghosts. Thors have a range of 7, Immortals a range of 5 (EMP also has a range of 8).
Chargelot + Immortal is the best answer in theory but in-game it fails against a well executed Thor/Marine build. Also please note that a "similar" build is NOT this build.
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Yeah, once you reach a critical mass of anything it tends to be pretty hard to break unless you're at a critical mass and than some. But if Protoss is going Zealots, Sentires, and Voidrays he'll be able to attack constantly and keep pressure on much easier than someone who's going Thor+Marine will, denying expansions for instance would be extremely easy.
Nothing melee can stand against a large enough marine force with anything else in there that can take hits. But the point once you see Thor+Marine is to not let that happen and pressure early and keep trading for thor kills since Marines are easily dealt with if there's nothing tanking.
Sentires don't live long at all if focused yes, but I'd hope forcefields and guardian shields would have been used so they would have served a purpose if only for a short time, besides that though if you use thors (it's either them or your ghosts are in front of your thors which is bad) to snipe the Sentries that's a lot of dmg not going to killing the Zealots and Voidrays.
The other thing is though TofuD you barely had any marines, you actually had almost no marines at your big push that killed all the stalkers and a few collossi. So chargelots would have decimated your thors and the voidrays would have made it even worse, and the sentries would have been able to make you choose between emping a sentry or two or the zealots. Either way, my point with the composition I'm proposing is it's much more easily replenished, highly mobile, and very strong against thor+marine.
Talking about this one btw
Replay with "early" pressure
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&&id=161951
Honestly though it really depends how you want to play it, there's many things that can take out Marine+Thor it just depends if you're scouting well enough to know he's ONLY going Marine+Thor. Since really all you'd need to do is toss up 2 robos+5 Gateways off two base and make tons of Immortals and Stalkers.
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On November 01 2010 14:03 sksyen wrote:
Just curious, why has no mention of nukes been made? 100 min/100 gas not too resource intensive since you will have ghosts already at this point. 2 Gacademy -> after EMP, place nuke behind zeals towards where Cols are. Of course a sensible toss will back up but this will give a huge advantage in terms of taking out retreating units. 2 Nukes + will alow you to slowly push inwards and once outside his base, it wouldn't be hard to contain and take out his nat.
The map can play a huge role in this as well . For example, on LT you would simply drop ledge, scan, emp, nuke and move in. I use this quite often in normal matchups and think that it would add a great amount of value to this build.
I'm guessing maybe after EMP, the terran should be going in to kill Toss outright instead of forcing Toss army to retreat?
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EPT
