|
well thats a revelation - MMM ball has an effective, viable counter.
Honestly, MMM has the upper hand, disregarding FF, during the entire portion of the early game. Abuse it. Scout constantly. Deny expos. Drop frequently, forcing cannons or too many stalks. When he does try to go for HT tech, there will be a nice little window pooled resources doing absolutely nothing for him. Abuse it!
Instead of relying on two units to do all your dirty work for you, try playing a more cerebral game. Mindfuck your opponent. Be the biggest asshole you can be with drops, marauder-heavy snipes/play, and nasty contains. The game CAN end with a well timed push before any tier 3 units even start.
Some tips to handle storm if it can't be helped - feint attacks to force storms/FF. A bit demanding, but superior ghost play will just straight up win the game for you. Match your opponents unit composition (if you see that he's forgoing zlots for more stalkers, which ALOT of toss do, wean over to more marauders). Dropships, period. Great tank positioning en masse tears apart basically anything. Planetary fortress spam is win.
AND SO MUCh MORE I CAN'T EVEN THINK OF AT THE MOMENT. YOU GET MY DRIFT?
NOTE - 2500 toss, nothing fancy, but I completely roll any terran who tries your gameplan of 1a+t+click and expects to win. I've been peeled apart humiliatingly by terrans who actually explore the game (scouting, flanking, map positioning, game sense, BM to psyche out opponent).
|
As a protoss player, I can say that the way to beat a toss player with HT is to abuse the slow movement speed of the Templar. Dropping into multiple bases at once, destroying our economy, these will not only begin to bring you ahead to the point of being to kill us, HT or no, it'll drive us absolutely CRAZY.
Drops are a toss players worst nightmare...besides a MMtank contain (ugh)
|
On January 05 2011 09:32 FistofKhala wrote:
As a protoss player, I can say that the way to beat a toss player with HT is to abuse the slow movement speed of the Templar. Dropping into multiple bases at once, destroying our economy, these will not only begin to bring you ahead to the point of being to kill us, HT or no, it'll drive us absolutely CRAZY.
Drops are a toss players worst nightmare...besides a MMtank contain (ugh)
I'm pretty sure you're forgetting about warp in...
|
On January 05 2011 07:45 Aoi_10 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2011 07:35 dslyecix wrote:
Just a question, at what point during warp-in does EMP damage units and remove energy? If you EMP while they're warping in does it do anything or do you need to wait for them to be 100% completed?
I'd actually like to know this too. I assume you can EMP as soon as they begin warping in, since that's when you can begin, you know, killing them. Would appreciate someone who actually knows chiming in, though...
It works. I don't think you do 100% of the shield damage but the energy is removed.
|
I've been going for the straight thor rush with scvs, and then throwing down a few more facts and making more thors+armory upgrades. Throw down all gases and pump thors, any extra mins into mass marauder. THrow in 2 starport reactor medivac and you've got a solid build. It takes sig more micro because of having to cannon the immortals, but thors are good to repair and can really take on most toss units sides immortal, and outrange colossus,while rauders just go to work on all gateway units
|
Drops are still effective even with warp-ins provided they do not kill your medivac with feedback. Small amounts of units just are not cost effective to storm. Also, stimmed marauders take down buildings really fast so sniping key tech buildings gives you a huge advantage.
The amount of terrans in plat, low diamond that cannot micro is just shocking :-) Everything in one giant ball and 1 - a -t.
|
well kinda cheesy and not a move i'd go my self, but block both his gas with both your assimilators if you somehow psychicly see it coming.
also, I personally have never seen ht's in 1v1....too hard to transition to.
|
2200 Terran here.
Your job in TvP is to not let it get into late game. You have an extreme advantage early game, use it, and don't let him get out a lot of colossus or HT.
|
|
|
Its like protoss with mutas. You need to hurt him before they come out and your lead will let you win.
|
Thors . . . why don't people realize how obscenely good Thors are in TvP. Try to position them so they don't get surrounded by chargelots and research 250mm strike to take out immortals and colossi.
Thors in adequate numbers can even beat void rays head on.
|
On January 05 2011 14:25 chenchen wrote:
Thors . . . why don't people realize how obscenely good Thors are in TvP. Try to position them so they don't get surrounded by chargelots and research 250mm strike to take out immortals and colossi.
Thors in adequate numbers can even beat void rays head on.
Because they're not. Thors are incredibly slow. They are also easily countered by zealots and immortals on the ground, which are compatible with HTs since they are mineral heavy, and any kind of decent void ray mass or carriers.
Mixing in a few thors with your army isn't bad, especially since you already have the factory from teching to starport and the armory for bio upgrades, but mass thors is absolutely not the answer in TvP.
|
On January 05 2011 14:48 thesmoosh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2011 14:25 chenchen wrote:
Thors . . . why don't people realize how obscenely good Thors are in TvP. Try to position them so they don't get surrounded by chargelots and research 250mm strike to take out immortals and colossi.
Thors in adequate numbers can even beat void rays head on. Because they're not. Thors are incredibly slow. They are also easily countered by zealots and immortals on the ground, which are compatible with HTs since they are mineral heavy, and any kind of decent void ray mass or carriers. Mixing in a few thors with your army isn't bad, especially since you already have the factory from teching to starport and the armory for bio upgrades, but mass thors is absolutely not the answer in TvP.
thor marine armies with some few ghosts mixed in are actually extremely strong.
keep in mind that zealots can only be effective against thors if they get a good surround, which is only possible if there are only few thors on the field. the more of them u get, the more they will protect each other from getting surrounded. immortals, while doing obscene amounts of dam against armored targets, are helpless once emp´d because of their pitiful range 5 combined with a large collision size...
|
I have found that even if your surprised using mmm, and you see ht, you can make it turn out fine
the biggest thing is that ht move so slowly, so when you first engage the enemy, oftentimes, they are not at the scene of the battle. So, you can get a few shots of, maybe even kiting them, and then when you see the ht are closing in on casting range, you immediately move back, and usually the enemy will waste a few storms as they have already casted on where you WERE.
Then you can reengage, and if your micro allows, continue on kiting
If you find yourself backed into a corner, split up your army from the delicious ball it is clumped into, into smaller groups, just as you would split your army against banelings
obviously, if you have alot of marines, your still going to get murdered, but the same will occur vs collosi, so I find having a much larger ratio of marauders helps.
|
I can deal with HT by themselves.
My issue is that if you throw in zealots or god forbid chargelots, there isn't a whole lot you can do.
I saw someone saw to use upgraded hellions, but upgraded hellions still lose in hit and run or a direct fight against chargelots if you have low numbers and get 1 shotted by storm.(which you can only avoid with low numbers)
Worse yet, hellions are terrible against every single other unit a protoss player could make, which is bad because warpgates + late game macro means you will not get many free kills before some stalkers show up.
T has to win in the first 15 minutes against Z or P. Mules and reactors do not scale nearly as well as warpgates, chronoboost, or queens. It drives me nuts
Worse yet the only viable factory unit are thors so it takes forever to transition away from MM, when protoss is also getting the two best counters to MM at around the same time.
|
Theorycrafting is great, but if you'd like a replay...
Check out the latest Day[9]Daily (http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4593518/). While neither you nor your opponent is probably at the level of White-Ra/TLO, the Toss is just roflcoptered by well-placed EMPs, though the later game evolves away from MMM. Watch the decisive battle in the replay and you'll see why top-level Ts continue to favor ghosts over hellions against HTs. HTs are EMP'd in the initial wave, and by the time more HTs are warped in, the battle is over. Particularly if you can snipe Obs while attacking, cloaked ghosts with EMP are nigh unstoppable.
Hellions must be micro'd incredibly carefully, and can't reach HTs at the back of the Toss army (e.g. behind a wall of stalkers). I'm a Plat Toss, and well-placed EMPs are my bane.
Good luck!
|
MC vs TOP, xel naga caverns, Kaspersky.
TOP shows how you play MMM+ghost against Protoss. He outplayed MC in that game with sheer macro and numbers. Honestly, that's the only way you can win against a colossus+HT composition, other than gosu micro. TOP doesn't have amazing micro, and he definitely doesn't have MC's micro. You can tell; he didn't control group his ghosts, and he could have had better EMPs. Yet, despite his only average EMPs, his strategic play was excellent. TOP abused the fact that HT+colossus is far more immobile than marauder+viking+medivac. He dropped MC's main at one point with 2 medivacs full of marauders and the vikings that had been rendered useless by the fact that MC had stopped making colossus. TOP gained the macro advantage very early in the game (earlier CC than MC's nexus) and then relentlessly beat MC over the head with MMM.
If you think about it, bio is an inferior composition to colossus+HT+gateway units simply because of how HTs and colossi work. You're never going to win with bio alone unless you pursue that macro advantage, and prevent your opponent from getting a third. You have to abuse the weaknesses of Protoss units while playing your own strengths.
Things TOP did to secure and maintain his macro advantage:
1.) He 1 rax FE'd and then quickly followed it up with lots of marauders. He kept the fight in MC's territory. If I remember correctly, fighting never progressed beyond the middle xel'naga tower on TOP's side.
2.) While engaging MC's army, TOP taxed MC's multitasking and at the same time did economic damage by sneaking 6 marines into his natural early in the game. MC responded well, but lost several probes and a lot of mining time. This served to cement TOP's advantage, because he chose not to engage MC's army, just fake, and run away.
3.) TOP abused the high ground by the gold and MC's third. The EMPs were clutch here, and marauders are forgiving with storms because of how much damn HP they have. Despite MC landing more than one storm, TOP prevailed because he managed to snipe more templars than it was worth it for MC. MC never had the caster advantage because TOP made sure the numbers didn't get out of hand.
4.) TOP forced MC to engage in a poor position by parking his army outside the ramp to the gold, and then going for a drop at the main. He used his vikings after he had sniped the colossus to help. This was the critical move that basically killed MC. After this point, MC had difficulties reinforcing because he lost a couple of warpates, several pylons, and so much production time.
5.) In addition to dropping in the main, TOP simultaneously engaged the third as MC sent the remnants of his battered army to defend. TOP denied MC's expansion so well in this game. If you don't deny the Protoss player's third, he can produce out of both his robotics facilities AND his warpgates constantly. However, in this case, TOP's aggression and macro sealed the deal, because MC didn't have enough income to sustain even his warpgates. He had to abandon the colossi because he simply didn't have the money for them.
6.) TOP made almost no marines beyond the early game. If you think about it, against a colo/HT toss user, they're pointless. A lot of T players lose because they have too many marines that get killed by one or two storms. It takes excellent force fields and usually at least four well placed storms to kill a bunch of marauders.
|
On January 05 2011 09:23 Ryuu314 wrote:
Don't skimp on ghosts. They cost the same amount of gas as HTs and add on the fact that bio units are cheaper than Protoss units you should easily have equal numbers of ghosts as they have HTs. Quite simply, it becomes a micro battle in EMPing their HTs (and sentries if you can) while dodging their storms. Protoss has to storm your forces while keeping their HTs spread and attempt to dodge EMPs. I think it's pretty even, imo. Watch the Hongun v. Hyperdub matches to get a good idea at how to EMP well.
Also, don't be afraid to trade armies with Protoss. You can reproduce a Terran bio ball much faster than a Protoss can replenish his death ball. If at any point you completely destroy the Protoss ball, you've likely won simply because you can recreate a sizable army faster than Protoss. Warp gates let them get that first wave of units back pretty fast, but the cooldown on the warpgates will let you pull ahead easily.
You should never get as many ghosts as the protoss gets HTs. Even if you have the resources for it, it's simple overkill. While a HT is a core unit in the lategame protoss army, the ghost is only support. EMP is very powerful but you have to keep in mind that emp doesn't kill. You still need sufficient units to actually kill the shieldless stuff the protoss throws at you (especially the zealots that still have 100 hp). Getting more than 4-5 ghosts is almost always overkill, since you can usually cover the whole protoss deathball with 2-3 emps. Also, ghosts cost 100 minerals (2 marines, 1 hellion or 1 zealot) more than hts and are quite useless without energy. Archons on the other hand are a quite useful purpose for spent HTs.
And the second part is just garbage. Sorry but saying a terran can reproduce a bioball faster than a protoss can reproduce a gateway ball is just not true. First of all you get basically one production round as head start and also your production buildings are cheaper than the terrans. A techtab rax costs 200/25, a gateway only 150/0. If he has more barracks than you have gateways, it's your own fault. The actual build time of terran barracks units are only marginally faster than warpgate cooldowns for protoss units (NOT factoring in chronoboosting). For example, 25s marine, 28s zealot, 30s marauder, 32s stalker, 40s ghost, 45s HT. So if you just use a few of those 100 energy nexi you have sitting around, your building time is far faster.
|
As a Terran player I would say that you NEED Ghosts and later blueflame helions.
If the toss has Hts and we are "staying" in an area (most likely 3rd/4th base) then I usually try to "snipe" the HTs mb with Ghost EMPs blue flame Helions or 3-4 stimmed rauders.
I like to get 2-3 vikings to snipe there oberservers (if you have 3-4 bases your minerals mostly dont limit your army size its the gas - so you can use the scan more frequently) and try to EMP more HTs.
And to to Lurk Ghosts cost 150/150 not 100/150
|
The answer is just ghosts and proper micro.
Remember that templar are the only really good thing against terran lategame. If you have a proper viking fleet and upgraded your bio well, your bio will rip through his units basically as bio benefits from upgrades greatly whereas toss units do less so.
Getting off good emp's and moving in directly is just the answer, sure he can make archons and warp in new HTs but you can do massive damage in the meantime. If he lands a storm on your army it isn't really much oft a problem as long as you can pull back. Remember you have medivacs to heal using only energy too.
The key thing to do as terran vs protoss lategame is just to force fights and trade AS MUCH AS possible. Small fights benefit the terran immensely because storms don't do that well in them and medivacs are insane in small skirmishes. If you can trade constantly so it's just 100/100 armies against eachother terran gets the advantage. 200/200 armies benefit toss because toss can reinforce faster and toss has more aoe effects, the only way to engage big armies beneficially is too get off good emps. In general i'd advise to drop as much as possible and fight on defense in case of big fights, planetary fortresses and bunkers are great pop free ways to do so.
Finally if you really hate winning with bio you can always opt for adding in battlecruisers later, they are still very hard to counter for toss in straight up battle's.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
