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First, great thread.
I've been playing around with your build and have had decent success. The great thing about this strat is that it's obviously a lot stronger midgame and late game than is MM.
I've altered it a few ways.
I make less hellions and more rines too fend off voidrays.
I tend to max out at 4 factories, whereas you go as high as 6 at times.
I'll add another rax if I sense any kind of early agression.
I get ebay quicker and upgrades quicker it seems.
It seemed like you over-produced tanks in a lot of your matches which leaves you susceptible to strong air play.
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On January 03 2011 15:27 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2011 14:52 Lightspeed wrote:
Actually, GoOdy (High Europe ladder, EPS player) plays Mech almost exclusively TvP, and he's being successful with it to the point of regularly winning tourneys like CraftCup. Although one might argue that it's rather very diligent probe harras with blueflame hellion that's winning him games than mech per se. Anyway, his playstyle sort of proves that it is possible to play mech TvP, it's just that a certain skillset is needed: positional awareness, thorough scouting, never stopping harrasment, not missing upgrades. Relays should be easy to find. His hellion harrass timing is the same timing i used in the ghost mech guide ages ago. Sure, if you can somehow kill 40 probes...you're going to win no matter what. Doesn't mean mech is viable though. The last tournament matches I saw, he won the first game with hellion harrass, and then protoss just abused mech the second two games for freewins. Doing that was great when tanks being accumulated actually meant something TvP. Now zealot/immortal/collosus rips through them because of the patch where zealots take an extra shot, and tanks do less damage. And at this point most good Protoss can stop hellion harrass, or if they take any damage, it's not much to matter.
Well, given GoOdy's other traits (sub 100 APM, doesn't hotkey production facilities, queues stuff 5 deep 10 minutes into the game) I think it's amazing that he manages to win games at this level at all. I am not going to argue that mech is in any way more viable or "better" than MMM + V/G, but just as the latter really boils down to perfect ghost control once amulet templars are on the field, it might be ok for the the former to require hellion harass to do a lot of damage to be able to win games with it. I mean, between forcefields, chargelots and storms things don't look to bright for bio either if all you do is stim and kite.
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I have to say that air switches are not a problem, but you need to scout them ASAP. Vikings dominate the air and when the speedupgrade for voidrays is removed in the next patch, we can kite those voids forever. You also have to expand and expand and expand and expand when you go mech, so you have your half of the map VERY quickly.
Something very important are the attack upgrades for your tanks. When tanks are +2 and when you hit a critical mass, even immortals can't kill you. +3 is even better. You need to turret up lategame and you need to add some buildings on the map, so units get distracted.
I'm still not done with my mechbuild and I'm learning every day. I played several 3k+ tosses and I won pretty easily (even against those who switched to mass voidray / carrier). The games I lost were due mistake (bad placement, sieged too late, etc) or due FE problems. Yes, as mechterran you need to FE (because you need more gas asap). The problem is that you don't have a critical mass of tanks early game so you are very weak against early agression (and I'm not talking about a 4 gate, but about pushes with 2 collosus, 6 stalkers, some zealots and an immortal around 10:00). I'm still figuring out how to FE safely.
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On January 03 2011 17:39 Dente wrote:
I have to say that air switches are not a problem, but you need to scout them ASAP. Vikings dominate the air and when the speedupgrade for voidrays is removed in the next patch, we can kite those voids forever. You also have to expand and expand and expand and expand when you go mech, so you have your half of the map VERY quickly.
Something very important are the attack upgrades for your tanks. When tanks are +2 and when you hit a critical mass, even immortals can't kill you. +3 is even better. You need to turret up lategame and you need to add some buildings on the map, so units get distracted.
I'm still not done with my mechbuild and I'm learning every day. I played several 3k+ tosses and I won pretty easily (even against those who switched to mass voidray / carrier). The games I lost were due mistake (bad placement, sieged too late, etc) or due FE problems. Yes, as mechterran you need to FE (because you need more gas asap). The problem is that you don't have a critical mass of tanks early game so you are very weak against early agression (and I'm not talking about a 4 gate, but about pushes with 2 collosus, 6 stalkers, some zealots and an immortal around 10:00). I'm still figuring out how to FE safely.
The thing with mech is your plan HAS to be tailored to the map. A lot of the trouble with FE'ing is getting too greedy and trying to land your CC even though the toss has been 1 basing the entire time. It's better to just build scvs and drop mules in your main while scanning occasionally to see what he's been doing. Usually it's safe to expo once you get siege mode and a couple bunkers down.
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On January 03 2011 18:28 QQmonster wrote:
The thing with mech is your plan HAS to be tailored to the map. A lot of the trouble with FE'ing is getting too greedy and trying to land your CC even though the toss has been 1 basing the entire time. It's better to just build scvs and drop mules in your main while scanning occasionally to see what he's been doing. Usually it's safe to expo once you get siege mode and a couple bunkers down.
I never land my CC before I see the protoss expanding, but even when he expands, there is a big possibillity of me dying. Like I said: I played on steppes against a toss who went 3gate robo. When I saw him making a nexus, I landed my CC. He came immeadiately with 2 collossae, 1 immortal, 6 stalkers and some zealots at 10:00 (!). There was no way I could stop that with my 4 tanks  .
Another scenario: on scrap station: I see a toss going 1 gate FE. No problem since I was 1 rax FE'ing. Strange enough 30 seconds after I landed my CC, he was at my nat with a lot of stalkers (he broke my rocks). I lost some scv's and after a lot of defending, he just crushed me with his army.
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I dont know who you guys are playing but the tosses i got just dont let me get my 3rd up and expand all over. There is now way you can safely defend your nat and 3rd with a few tanks at the 10-12 min mark. And if you dont get your 3rd and he gets 4-5 bases then your screwed no matter what you do.
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Just saw sksyen attempt a T v P Mech play on his stream. Wasn't effective at all. The Protoss massed Zealot/HT/Archon/Immortals and a few Stalkers and dominated the Thor/Tank/Marines and a few Hellions.
Even with Banshees out. the HT just feedbacked everything and the Raven and yea.. Mass Speedlots clean up Tanks and Thors rather quickly
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On January 03 2011 22:01 SecretA5DC wrote:
Just saw sksyen attempt a T v P Mech play on his stream. Wasn't effective at all. The Protoss massed Zealot/HT/Archon/Immortals and a few Stalkers and dominated the Thor/Tank/Marines and a few Hellions.
Even with Banshees out. the HT just feedbacked everything and the Raven and yea.. Mass Speedlots clean up Tanks and Thors rather quickly
Theoretically speaking, hellions should be the mineral sink, not marines. Marines won't benefit from the mech upgrades, do not particularly excell at harassing probes, do not counter chargelots, and do not scale with enemy numbers. Sinking gas into banshees and a Raven also cuts into the number of tanks. So yeah, apparently not really committed to mech
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On January 04 2011 00:06 Lightspeed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2011 22:01 SecretA5DC wrote:
Just saw sksyen attempt a T v P Mech play on his stream. Wasn't effective at all. The Protoss massed Zealot/HT/Archon/Immortals and a few Stalkers and dominated the Thor/Tank/Marines and a few Hellions.
Even with Banshees out. the HT just feedbacked everything and the Raven and yea.. Mass Speedlots clean up Tanks and Thors rather quickly Theoretically speaking, hellions should be the mineral sink, not marines. Marines won't benefit from the mech upgrades, do not particularly excell at harassing probes, do not counter chargelots, and do not scale with enemy numbers. Sinking gas into banshees and a Raven also cuts into the number of tanks. So yeah, apparently not really committed to mech
Indeed. Storm and collossus just destroy marines. Hellions are a much better when you mech. Early game you need some rines, but never more then 20. If he goes air you have to scout it very fast (with hellions being everywhere you will most likely spot it). Vikings + turrets and you are fine (turrets are so strong...). Do NOT make banshees or thors, because if you do, you won't be able to reach that critical mass of tanks as fast as possible.
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Dente plz post some of your replays, i love to see mech in tvp
also i agree monstly on the part where you u say "not make thor", u penalize your number of tank if build some thor and they are shit vs void.
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On January 04 2011 00:06 Lightspeed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2011 22:01 SecretA5DC wrote:
Just saw sksyen attempt a T v P Mech play on his stream. Wasn't effective at all. The Protoss massed Zealot/HT/Archon/Immortals and a few Stalkers and dominated the Thor/Tank/Marines and a few Hellions.
Even with Banshees out. the HT just feedbacked everything and the Raven and yea.. Mass Speedlots clean up Tanks and Thors rather quickly Theoretically speaking, hellions should be the mineral sink, not marines. Marines won't benefit from the mech upgrades, do not particularly excell at harassing probes, do not counter chargelots, and do not scale with enemy numbers. Sinking gas into banshees and a Raven also cuts into the number of tanks. So yeah, apparently not really committed to mech
It's too gas intensive to produce a large number of Tanks and Thors.
Keep in mind Yen had 3 bases including a Gold on Meta and was working on Refineries on all of them. The Protoss had 3 also and as working on a 3.
If I can get a replay I'll put it up. I just find it hard to see it being viable considering none of the Korean pros even bother going in that direction even in late games.
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well, if a toss is going air, they will just mix in a few pheonixs. the viking-phenoix battle is about even, and it will prevent them from kiting your voids too much. hopefully more terrans go mech :D maybe then i can use the warp prism more often
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On January 04 2011 01:28 SecretA5DC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2011 00:06 Lightspeed wrote:On January 03 2011 22:01 SecretA5DC wrote:
Just saw sksyen attempt a T v P Mech play on his stream. Wasn't effective at all. The Protoss massed Zealot/HT/Archon/Immortals and a few Stalkers and dominated the Thor/Tank/Marines and a few Hellions.
Even with Banshees out. the HT just feedbacked everything and the Raven and yea.. Mass Speedlots clean up Tanks and Thors rather quickly Theoretically speaking, hellions should be the mineral sink, not marines. Marines won't benefit from the mech upgrades, do not particularly excell at harassing probes, do not counter chargelots, and do not scale with enemy numbers. Sinking gas into banshees and a Raven also cuts into the number of tanks. So yeah, apparently not really committed to mech It's too gas intensive to produce a large number of Tanks and Thors. Keep in mind Yen had 3 bases including a Gold on Meta and was working on Refineries on all of them. The Protoss had 3 also and as working on a 3. If I can get a replay I'll put it up. I just find it hard to see it being viable considering none of the Korean pros even bother going in that direction even in late games.
Viability at GSL level is not neccesarily viability for everyone else. For me for example, bio play against toss beyond storm is not viable because I lack the Ghost control needed. Likewise Mech is not really viable for me either because I seriously lack game awareness and positioning skills. So for me against Toss the only viable options are a 1 base all in or just rolling over and dying.
I can sort of understand (I think) why no one switches to mech late game, major techswitches are really hard to pull off unless you are really at an advantage anyway. Suddenly throwing down 6 fax and double armory while the game is close? Not going to happen.
Anyway, take for example the main engagement between GoOdy and mTwRine in G3 of Craftcup #24 (http://www.bitsperbeat.com/sc2/wp-content/themes/NewCup/replays/19379.sc2replay):
At 20:20 a ~5000/3200 Protoss army (Zealots, Archon, Stalkers, Immortals, Voids) clashes into an ~4900/2700 Terran army (Tank, Thor, Hellion, Viking) with 750/550 in reinforcements for T arriving 10 seconds into the fight. At 20:50 Protoss lost everything, T retains half of his army. T had positional advantage imo even though he was not sieged at the beginning of the fight.
Now these two players are certainly not GSL level, also the game was at around 4 or 5 AM and I don't even know if it proves a point, but I think if really commited to, I mean the same level as most players commit to bio with diligent upgrading, dropping, positioning their ghosts an so on and so forth, mech might be as "viable" as anything else. Worst thing, ladder will rank you down until you start winning 50% of your games with it 
Would love to see the replay you mentioned
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i only want builds/strategys to work at the highest level of play or else they're not "viable"
if the pros don't do it, i won't even give it the light of day
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Which of those losses and wins would you recommend as your best games? Were there any that you thought you did well but were outplayed?
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With no more flux vanes this will be slightly easier to achieve now 
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I've tried mech some times, and in every game i end up lossing! Why's that :o
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On January 12 2011 14:37 Raiznhell wrote:With no more flux vanes this will be slightly easier to achieve now
But what about the easier to spam Phoenixes?
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On January 12 2011 23:03 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2011 14:37 Raiznhell wrote:With no more flux vanes this will be slightly easier to achieve now But what about the easier to spam Phoenixes?
Well you're going mech anyways so 1~2 thors should take care of any phoenixes.
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EPT
