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So, I'm a Protoss player that's fascinated with the TvP matchup. It goes without saying that the most common style for T right now is MMM with Viking/Ghost support. Not a lot of variation from that.
There's only one player I've seen that uses a mech-focused TvP build - GoOdy. The general look of his build is some form of aggression (Reaper, Marauder, or Banshee) into an expansion. He then gets lots of Pre-igniter Hellions and Tanks as part of his main army. It's kind of like Brood War TvP, but with less mines and more Vulture drops.
Here's a replay pack featuring him against players such as NightEnd, Adelscott, MaNa, and Hasu:
GoOdy Mech TvP Replay Pack
My questions to all the Terran players are:
Why don't people use this style? GoOdy seems to have decent success with it. Does it have some inherent flaw that makes it inferior to MMM? How does it hold up late-game in comparison to MMM?
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Ooo nice. I've been wanting to see some games with a mech TvP to cast.
Thanks Shlowpoke - I'll take a look in a few hours when I'm home and we'll see how it rolls!
Edit: Also as a preamble answer to the main question posed: In BW the Mech build had a couple of "ways to counter" whereas now in SC2, Mech actually has a few more extra ways to counter - immortal drops, zealot charge, blink stalkers plus a couple of other things make it (in my eyes) a little bit more intensive to pull off.
That said; I have only seen a couple of "proper" games with Mech, so I would like to see the reps before I go on.
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Tbh I think for Terran any economic play-style that can involve dropping igniter hellions into people's mains has some kind of a shot, so maybe we'll see more of this.
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probably because mmm is alot easier to execute then mech. also most bw players I know seems to prefer mech > mmm
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Mech is great to slow play TvP, however if the protoss is smart he'll just switch to voidrays and rape ur army from the air. That's really the only downside to mech as Thors suck and you'd need alot of vikings. I mean you could land your vikings but they are really shitty and tough to replace.
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On October 29 2010 16:54 nEAnS wrote:
Mech is great to slow play TvP, however if the protoss is smart he'll just switch to voidrays and rape ur army from the air. That's really the only downside to mech as Thors suck and you'd need alot of vikings. I mean you could land your vikings but they are really shitty and tough to replace.
if not void rays then the constant swithes from ground to air (hi instant warp in from 15 gatways) and mobility issues will kill you
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Mech doesn't work because mass gate + colo still beats you because hellions are just too awful.
Also if you don't have rax core production, any good P will delay your expansion too much and get a huge macro adv taking a 3rd before you, or just bust you straight up with mass stalker.
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A decent toss could probably beat mech, with only zealots.
That said, throw in some immortals, blink stalkers, prism dropping on tanks(little anti air, even with thors they will be targeting zealots on the ground)
As a toss play id much rather face mech than bio. Bio terran has great mobility with stim, they can pop in a destroy a expo before you can do much, much more effective cost for cost. Not to mention early game pressure. Vs mech, once you get zealot charge i feel i can do whatever i want.
Im not sure but maybe as toss transitions into HT or colossus adding mech instead of pure bioball might be viable.
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no ground army of protoss can beat 200/200 mech army of terran with ghosts, the air is only way, unfortunately the air is so strong the vikings sometimes aren't gonna cut it, which is pretty unfortunate
edit: similar upgrades
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On October 29 2010 18:21 PredY wrote:
no ground army of protoss can beat 200/200 mech army of terran with ghosts, the air is only way, unfortunately the air is so strong the vikings sometimes aren't gonna cut it, which is pretty unfortunate
edit: similar upgrades
Yeah, saw your games with Socke. You either don't make enough vikings and they melt to the voids, or you make so many that he just switches to mass gateway and rolls over it. Virtually nothing you could do to stop him taking over the map either, giving him the gas to do whatever he wants.
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I think Terrans shy away from this style because it is way too hard to counter Voidrays late game with a pure mech composition. Voidrays just tear though Vikings. As an example, check out two recent games between aTnSocke and PredY (Game One and Game Two). PredY goes pure mech both times. Even in the second game where he knows he needs to counter Voidrays he can't do it.
EDIT: Saw PredY posted previously in this thread.... funny. =)
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hehe well i think Socke is just on another level than me obviously that's why the games were quite onesided, he did really well and i didnt have any practise partner of socke's level unfortunately. he probably did the best counter to my strategy and i didn't really know what to do, i knew voidrays were good obviously but i didnt expect him to get upgrades and 2-0 vray > 0-0 vikings.
i was really angry at myself after game one because i didnt stick to my plan i made 4th factory instead of starport and my timing push was way off. also my hellion harass attepmts were futile i didnt do enough drops but that was because socke was all over the place with good map control (damn you xelnaga towers). i think if i could play 30 practise games with socke i'd tune in the build im sure. i dont want to write it off because it really works against people that are not socke level ^^
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When I played Goodys mech style he also built turrets all over the map, doesnt he anymore?
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On October 29 2010 19:45 Pepe- wrote:
When I played Goodys mech style he also built turrets all over the map, doesnt he anymore?
He does, e.g. couple of days ago (last week? week before?) against Mana in what I think was a CraftCup. From what I've seen he's got a few different variations, like 1 Rax FEing or going 1-1-1, adding Thors or not, doing a very early Bio poke off of 1 or 2 Rax, getting Vikings or not but the general tone seems to be to turtle on 2 base while being as annoying at possible with blueflame drops (sure P can take all the base he wants but expos are quite useless with roasted probes) and then slow pushing at ~150 to 170 supply while taking a third. Must be really annoying 
Edit: wasn't Mana but Nightend
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On October 29 2010 16:09 Duckvillelol wrote:
Ooo nice. I've been wanting to see some games with a mech TvP to cast.
Thanks Shlowpoke - I'll take a look in a few hours when I'm home and we'll see how it rolls!
Edit: Also as a preamble answer to the main question posed: In BW the Mech build had a couple of "ways to counter" whereas now in SC2, Mech actually has a few more extra ways to counter - immortal drops, zealot charge, blink stalkers plus a couple of other things make it (in my eyes) a little bit more intensive to pull off.
That said; I have only seen a couple of "proper" games with Mech, so I would like to see the reps before I go on.
I love you. I was looking for replays like this x)
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I played mech for a very long time (2000 diamond) but after the tank nerf it's almost impossible. Why?
- Because a combination of collossae and immortals + speedlots will destroy you.
- Because a toss can take his 3th and even his 4th so fast when you go mech. By the time you can attack he will outmacro you with ease.
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The difficulty with heavy meching as well, once the protoss takes his 3rd and 4th bases, is he can throw down 3-4 stargates and pump carriers. Yes, they're slow to make, but what can you counter carriers with? Vikings? Thors? Pfft. As protoss, I like making a death ball of chargelots, HTs and carriers. HTs storm anything that is a threat to the carriers (like marines or vikings), zealots make up a bit of a mineral sink and carriers clean up everything else. Thors are only marginally useful against carriers to begin with. Because of how excellent carriers are I don't even bother with collosi in PvT almost ever, especially if the terran is meching. They also work far better than void rays against missile turret spam which is very common with mech heavy terrans.
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I think many of the people commentating should really watch the replays. It's not like the players he is winning against are pushovers, quite the contrary. I'm not sure when a Protoss can reasonably take a third and fourth and start pumping carriers while having to defend blueflame drops, but I'd wager it's not before the main mech push comes. The results Goody is having seem to speak for this playstyle.
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Mech does not work vs competent protosses now that Tanks have been nerfed. P can double expand vs mech, sacrifice one of them and still be yards ahead.
There's a reason why mech is almost non-existant at top level. It is weak.
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EPT
it's strong when executed right but there are many pitfalls along the way - and if your main attack fails then the game is pretty much over. Protoss rebuilds way faster and will have a better economy so even if you kill each others armies you will still end up behind. 
