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I've searched the few threads that discuss how to handle warp-in psi storms, and nothing is really useful.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/123472-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
I'm a fairly low platinum player, so my play is obviously riddled with mistakes. Be as brutal as you like lol. The point of this replay is to show that I'm consistently 30-40 supply ahead as the game progresses, but thanks to storms, my advantage evaporates multiple times.
From what I've picked up on tl, the only answer is mass thors. I'd like to hear, you know, a realistic answer. Most protoss players that do this to me will mass zealots and high templars. The mass of zealots would be devastating to thors, as far as I know.
What I have tried, on many occasions, is cloaking ghosts, moving in, emp'ing the high templars, then stimming my army and moving in. Sounds great in theory, but in practice, the protoss player just creates archons from the useless ht's and warps in 3-4 more ht's, with the khaydarin amulet upgrade, which of course means instant storms, rendering your previous emp's useless.
Ht's are pretty gas intensive, so I've been thinking about doing frequent drops, stimming groups of marauders to take out assimilators, then flying away again. But there again, ht's can be warped in, feedback the medivacs and storm the marauders.
I've been thinking about using mech against protoss but any experience I've ever had using it against protoss has been laughable. Immortals eat mech alive. Even gateway units do well against factory units. My factories in TvP are just expensive scouts. If anyone can link me to a replay where a particularly amazing terran beats an equally skilled protoss with mech, I'd love to see it. I've heard a lot about banshee/thor being a great unit composition against a protoss lategame army but I've never seen it in practice.
I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to hear stuff like "just kill him before he gets the khaydarin amulet". I refuse to believe terran players can't play macro games as well as protoss players. Thanks in advance.
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When you go in with cloaked ghosts how would he have time to warp in more HT's when you attack him right after?...
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On January 04 2011 06:45 Xanczor wrote:
When you go in with cloaked ghosts how would he have time to warp in more HT's when you attack him right after?...
he presses w and summons a bunch of HTs. reason why late game PvX is easy mode.
im just gold so my advice will probably not weigh alot: try to siege contain w bunkers. it negates any HT play. Thats how i usually win TvP these days.
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I'm a low-diamond terran who feels your pain. One thing you might want to consider is sniping the ht's as opposed to emp-ing them, if you know you won't be following up with your army for an amount of time that would be sufficient for him to warp in archons. Otherwise, as Xanczor is implying, you might need to time your attack a bit better to coincide with your emps. A couple archons by themselves are far easier to deal with than they are when thrown into a larger protoss army.
At work, so can't look at the replay at the moment...
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Try catching him outside his base and cloak/emp. He won't likely have another set of templars to storm since they are pretty slow and won't catch up to the army in time.
Although I agree this is pretty hard to deal with late game.
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On January 04 2011 06:47 danielsan wrote:
he presses w and summons a bunch of HTs.
Indeed. A ghost takes 40 seconds plus the time needed to get from the main to the action. Could be 50 seconds at most. A ht takes however long it takes to warp in units. Is it 3 seconds? Ghosts are also 100 minerals more expensive. So ghosts are not the answer.
I've poked around and checked out some mech replays, but the protoss player that loses loses for completely different reasons, such as being 2 bases behind for 10 minutes. I'd love to see a GOOD protoss player 4 gate a terran going for mech, and the terran surviving, and winning through.
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On January 04 2011 06:58 Vezex wrote:
in my experience you either transition to mech based play...
Some replays would be great.
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You need to gain a substaintial advantage before he gets HT. Then you need to do everything to prevent him from getting a good economy. Try kill his 3rd while dropping in his main. Everytime while enganging you need to split up your units, and predict where he is most likely to storm.
Ghost are still your best choice even though they dont hard counter HT. But as I said you need to do a lot of things very well to be able to beat the toss. And still there is no way that your units are cost effective vs his, which is why you need a big economic advantage in the earlier stages of mid game.
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Stay active killing pylons around the map and use mass ghosts. You should be almost constantly attacking once the game gets to the later game and use scans to kill observers and spot high templars so that you can emp them first. If your army runs out of ghosts you need to retreat until you have more ghosts built. If you get good emps off your bio ball will completely wreck his army so stay active with scans and be aggressive!
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On January 04 2011 06:54 Darren1337 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2011 06:47 danielsan wrote:
he presses w and summons a bunch of HTs. Indeed. A ghost takes 40 seconds plus the time needed to get from the main to the action. Could be 50 seconds at most. A ht takes however long it takes to warp in units. Is it 3 seconds? Ghosts are also 100 minerals more expensive. So ghosts are not the answer. I've poked around and checked out some mech replays, but the protoss player that loses loses for completely different reasons, such as being 2 bases behind for 10 minutes. I'd love to see a GOOD protoss player 4 gate a terran going for mech, and the terran surviving, and winning through.
I think ghosts are in fact your best answer - they're just tough to use effectively. For instance, in addition to sniping any pre-existing high templar, you might want to save a ghost or two with some energy to emp any high templar that get warped in during the battle (even if none wind up warping in, they're still fantastic "damage" dealers to gateway units with their emp).
I'm not arguing that it doesn't suck to snipe out 4 high templar and emp 2 of 3 that warp in during the ensuing battle, only to have the 3rd storm your ass, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
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While it depends on the level on your opponents to some extent, in general ghost is a good choice, even if you cant reach the HT or for some reason cant emp them, emp still works wonders on all the toss units.
In the situation you describe, you have to emp the HT before storm, if they have alrdy stormed, either save an emp or 2 for the warp in or emp the rest of his army, but its crucial to land those emp's 1st. If he warps in HT, fall back, or at least move away far enough that he can't insta-storm, then emp, rinse & repeat. Also remember not to just let your ghosts die after they've emp'd, keep them alive.
Otherwise you can try more Thor play, or a more spread out pressured play with drops or lots of small attacks.
That being said, obviously a large part is arriving at the HT situation, putting pressure can often delay his HT or at least reduce the number the toss has.
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I just think it'd be interesting if HTs could only be built from Gateways but not Warpgates.
Like the option to switch back to Gateways is there but why on Earth would you ever use it. Well how about to get HTs.
But I dunno it seems like in order to deal with Psi Storm you just have to be the better player because they are trading energy for resources with you.
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what would be cool is a complete removal of khardjoke amulet.
But what you can do is make mostly marauders and medivacs. Get mass viking if he goes collossus and then add ghost if hes getting templars.
You must get Moebius reactor (or w/e is called, ghost's energy). And keep them in a separated control group. Try so You are the one with map control and Scan his army to see when he is moving out. Control Xel naga towers and leave marines outside his base for scouting. And dont forget to expand and keep ur money low. Also, infantry upgades are very important.
To win a macro game vs protoss you MUST be ahead. So the opening in tvp is very important.
AND, getting supply blocked is worst than you think. its TERRIBLE. (even if u think its terrible, its more terrible)
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You gave no pressure, did no damage, and defended without walls or bunkers or TANKS. TL says that mech isn't viable "for running siege tanks directly down a corridor into a wall of zealots". They're still amazing units if you abuse terrain and walling.
That Planetary fortress was a real hero, with 35 kills. You know what would be even more deadly than a PF on the defense? Two PFs. The TL guys may laugh, but there's no force in the world that can beat two partially supported PFs side by side.
The best possible solution to heavy ground with HT? Thors. They wreck stalkers, they wreck archons, they wreck colossus, They wreck immortals with 250mm, and they wreck zealots if you play your cards right.
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i think someone needs to make a custom map where you can practice your EMP's, i promise you, you will rape P face if you have gosu EMPs, they can turn the game around and in normal games you never get a good opportunity to practice them because there is so much stress involved.
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What Terran has to do is catch the protoss in a position where he CANT pull back, and warp in more templars.
If your fighting in the middle or somewhere by your own base, and protoss feels they wont win. Protoss just pull backs, warps in more templars and units and fights again.
Force the protoss to a position where they have to defend, and with a good EMP or too you can take an EXPO out. If you take an expo out, and lose some units to storm its a good trade. If your JUST fighting out in the open unit trading for storm is something the protoss wants.
Late game, there is no way you will completely prevent HTs from being active. The key is to work the protoss to minimize their number, and get ahead in econ. Terran sort of has to take the stereo typical zerg approach and win with numbers.
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On January 04 2011 06:06 Darren1337 wrote:
Ht's are pretty gas intensive, so I've been thinking about doing frequent drops, stimming groups of marauders to take out assimilators, then flying away again. But there again, ht's can be warped in, feedback the medivacs and storm the marauders.
Stimrauders can take town an assimilator pretty quickly. I think your problem is that your opponent is scouting your drop, so that is why he can prepare for it. By the time he can react to the drop, your marauders should be near done destroying the gas.
Usually, your medivac should be somewhere near the ledge so you can run your marauders in and fly away without being feed-backed. However, if your medivac is somehow feedbacked, destroy as many things as you can before dying.
Also, storm does not 1hko marauders. They can take up to 2 storms.
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Mid diamond protoss player here. The one thing that shuts down my gateway+storm endgame is hellions, of all things. They are extraordinarily good at sniping HT, which, unless you are extremely mindful of your army, will always end up behind everything. They're also very good against zealots. I'd recommend having a dedicated small groups of hellions to just run around the map and snipe things when you get the opportunity...and trust me, you'll get plenty.
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The best way is to go mech heavy in the mid/late game. Sieges are effective.
MM just gets too murdered against effective storm casters.
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On January 04 2011 07:52 giuocob wrote:
Mid diamond protoss player here. The one thing that shuts down my gateway+storm endgame is hellions, of all things. They are extraordinarily good at sniping HT, which, unless you are extremely mindful of your army, will always end up behind everything. They're also very good against zealots. I'd recommend having a dedicated small groups of hellions to just run around the map and snipe things when you get the opportunity...and trust me, you'll get plenty.
Yep hellions are vital vs. Toss late game IMHO.
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Check out MLG Dallas, Jinro vs Socke, game 2. Jinro uses Tanks+marauders+ghosts (ghosts used for nukes as well as EMP). It's by no means an easy game for either player though.
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United States17042 Posts
oh man, there are a bunch of things that you can do better that game other than just looking at ht. You should really worry about scouting better, as it took you a while to determine when his third, fourth, and nat were up (not in that order). You also need to think about when to use scans, instead of just using mules - sometimes, the additional information is worth much more than the additional minerals.
The protoss had more gas, less minerals than you, but had a ton of sentries. The key for T is to balance gas going towards EMP, and the gas going towards bio (if they want to go MMM/ghost/viking, instead of Tank/hellion/thor). If you had better scouting, you can cut corners (example, you shouldn't ever need to go 3 rax/bunker, unless you were having trouble against 4 gate (which you should scout, and then throw up bunkers).
In addition, if you micro'd your maruders out of the storms, you would have had a better chance - maruders can survive one whole storm, but when you combine that with the feedback that should be going on your medvacs, healing your army again takes forever.
So...Better scouting = more emp's/less vikings, and you can/should (which you were) go a maruder heavy composition because they just live longer against protoss splash damage.
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On January 04 2011 07:52 giuocob wrote:
Mid diamond protoss player here. The one thing that shuts down my gateway+storm endgame is hellions, of all things. They are extraordinarily good at sniping HT, which, unless you are extremely mindful of your army, will always end up behind everything. They're also very good against zealots. I'd recommend having a dedicated small groups of hellions to just run around the map and snipe things when you get the opportunity...and trust me, you'll get plenty.
Quoted for truth. I'm a 2400 Diamond Protoss and I'm happy when I see Ghosts, but when the T goes Hellions I curl up in to a little ball and cry myself to GG.
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Yeah Hellion are pretty good agaisn't Zealot and HT, they are really fast so you can run around and poke at zealot or even off position templar.
Another good thing to do is to scout where the templar archive is, drop with with like 2 dropship full of marauder then run away (if you can).
Immediately after, move out with cloaked Ghost and Emp templars. Then you move out with your army with at least 2 unused ghost in case you missed some templars.
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As a protoss player, Hellions just ruin my day. =<
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Thanks for the feedback guys. I practiced a sort of mix between MM, ghosts and mech with a friend of equal skill. I asked him to play kind of randomly, rather than saying "just go ht's". He opened colossi, so that forced plenty of vikings. Then I scouted the templar archives as it was going down and threw down an additional 2 factories, and started upgrading mech. The resulting bio/mech composition actually worked pretty well.
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United States7483 Posts
Drop play (marauder drops with stim are awesome), and snipe key structures. Keep your opponent busy, and take out gas whenever possible. High Templars are very very expensive on the gas. If you can get the templar archives, that's huge.
Don't stop harassing just because it's the mid-late game!
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How about exploiting the timing window where Templar Archives was just built, to when Psi Storm finishes?
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mech vs protoss is just bad. I've been working with it for several days now, and to no avail. (2400 diamond)
Protoss players who i can crush with just MM will somehow beat me vs mech (or at least put up a good fight).
There are some replays of TvP mech floating around however.....
in every one of those replays you'll see that terran player completely outplayed the protoss players, so it really wouldn't make a difference if he went mech or bio
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Tanks by the time he gets his amulet out which i consider tier 3 since it takes two upgrades. You shouldnt still be only a complete bio composition if he goes HT go more tanks if he go Colossus get more vikings the warp in is annoying but HT cost 150gas to make and only very bad macro Toss can warp in more then 2 at a time after being EMPd. It gets real hard if the toss is real good and is spreading his HT and keeping them in the back with an obs on his army, to spot for cloak.
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Painuser has been doing some really cool stuff with Thors and cloaked Banshees in the late game vs Protoss. Use Thors to kill any observers in the area and move your cloaked Banshees in to wipe out his army. You'll have a lot of extra minerals when you do this so build a lot of Hellions like people have been saying to roast Zealots.
In my experience MMM + Ghosts gets rolled everytime.
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As a Protoss player, what really ruins storm usage is a Terran who is good at predicting when and where I'm going to storm.
You also need to change the way you attack. Standard terran timing is to stim, run in, and engage. Against an enemy with storms, particularly a lot of storms, you want to avoid stimming until the first storms go out, at which point you stim and move out.
You also want to try to, if the terrain and timing of the attack permits, spread out your units before you engage, so that when you do, you already have a concave and your units are in a line, not in a ball, making storms exponentially less effective.
When defending against a protoss who is attacking with storm support, make sure you have plenty of bunkers and keep them full of marines. The bunkers will die to the support units eventually, but as long as those marines are inside bunkers they won't die to storm and you won't have to worry about microing them against storm.
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Russian Federation798 Posts
keep the pressure and bait storm where ever you can. If you hold back and eangage at 200/200 or something his templars are going to have like so much energy with 20 storms which obliterates everything. Drop play, poking with infantry etc...
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This comes from a Platinum Terran, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but the way I deal with HTS early-game is to just EMP the shit out of them. Normally I just run a couple of marines ahead of my army to see where he is, that way I have more time to see where his HT are and hit them. My aim is always for the clump of army, but normally I have enough EMPs to just hit his whole army. Also that extra shield damage is excellent for your Bioball to abuse. If he gets his storms off i try to run my army out of the storm and then do some EMPing. If he only gets one or two storms off on me that I dodge rather quickly and I get to EMP his whole army thats a good trade for me.
Once I am on 3 or more bases I keep the minerals for MMG and start transitioning to BCs, which have absolutely no problem with HTs.
Splitting your army also helps, attack at three different places, his army will only be in one. Kill the 2 undefended places and pull back the army that is attacking into defenses, but dont forget to EMP everything you can before pulling back.
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Low diamond protoss player here. When I go HTs the thing that scares me in order of scariest are:
1. Good micro - Lower skill terrans just stim and try to run at me. I move my army away and storm ahead of his army making him run into the storm. Better players dance around. With EMP vs storm, whoever is advancing/chasing is at a disadvantage as their movements are predictable. I also try to peel small numbers of units to storm a large bio ball. Lower skill terrans just 1a around a giant ball and which is easy to harass with say 3 zealots, 2 HTs. Better terrans shut this down with cloacked ghosts sniping the HTs before they reach their main army or by peeling off small numbers of units to attack that are not worth storming.
2. Good macro - Trading armies is quite good for terran as protoss cannot replace their units as quickly as a terran spamming MMM. I've had many battles where I come out on top every time in engagements with HTs but just cannot keep up with the constant MMM onslaught. HTs really cannot hold the line in a cost effective manner vs a maruader heavy army.
3. Helions - I agree with giuocob on the helion point. When P gets HTs we end up with a ton of minerals which get spammed into zealots. Hellions are good not only vs HTs and zealots but are really good for late game harass. MMM drops are more expensive and protoss usually has excess minerals to spam cannons with. Plus if they watch minimap can feedback you medivacs. Hellions cost only minerals and come out of the factory which you wont use anyway if you are going MMM and arent that easily killed by cannons.
4. Turtling - HTs are great defensively but are not good for breaking down a fortified position. Use bunkers and PFs to give time to transition away from MMM
5. Ghosts - Protoss going HTs will be really gas starved and depending on how quickly they have rushed for HTs. Their mobile detection will not be that good. Cloaked ghosts can catch a protoss player off-guard and completely render useless a clump of HTs.
Also remember from another thread that even Blizz has acknowledged that PvT match-ups is a bit little bit broken. Terran has advantage in the early game while Protoss has an advantage in the late game. They said that in Korean diamond T was beating P because they can micro lots of drops that forces P to split forces up creating a state of play similar to the early game. So implies just kill P before he gets to late game.
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The scariest and most frustrating thing about that game was
+ Show Spoiler +He was EMPing as they warped in. Not many Ts seem to be doing this right now, but it really hurt my P soul to watch
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I go Thor/Banshee late-game just because of storm. May not be the best alternative, but I have an impressive late-gate record vs P.
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the easy method is to trade blows. he storms your army, EMP his army and then engage him. don't think you have to EMP his HT's... of course it would be nice - but it's much more important to remove ~50% of his army hp.
the idea behind this is that the longer you take to engage P, the more damage you will take from storm.
if he's got enough gas to throw 5 HT's for uber-storm then you should have enough minerals to have 10 rax pumping marines/marauders.
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In the days of BW, zerg used to qq about storm. My, how the tables have turned.
Seems like spending mins on some blue flame hellions instead of rines would do the trick. Just kite them around a ton to make him waste a lot of storm, and roast the temps themselves if you get a chance. Plus, if he tries to blow those extra mins on chargelots, you'll pwn. Support with tanks and push slowly.
Also, biomech with a nice tank/unit spread, and maybe some mid-map buildings to clog zealot attack paths, would probably do the trick. Minerals are pretty much unlimited to terran once you get to 3 base beacuse of mules, so who cares how many rines he kills with his limited gas, just get 8 rax with reactor and send wave after wave. But you would need better macro than your opponent to pull that off, and it's just conceptually inelegant.
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Diamond toss here.
It's either you EMP him first or he storms first. I would recommend sniping his observer then sneaking up with 2 ghosts and EMP ONLY his sentries and HT's.
EMPing doesn't take lots of skill, it's pretty simple.
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make a marauder-heavy army (rather than marine-heavy.. you can even go pure marauders if toss has no air) along with several ghosts. Then it's down to your micro skill vs your opponent's micro skill.
Dodge storms left and right when engaging your marauder ball while EMPing his HTs and sentries and you will have a fair shot at winning... Remember to always try to pick off HTs and keep their numbers down. That means darting in and out at times with uncommitted attacks before your opponent accumulates an overpowering number of HTs.
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As a toss player that likes HT against terran, I def support the mech vs. HT toss. Thors can't get feed backed anymore, siege tanks for defense heavily deter very gateway based armies, PF's CANNOT BE DESTROYED by gateway based armies, even with storms on the workers lots of times... Maybe set up defensive pfs with scvs??? (lol, force them to waste storm and do lots of damage). IF you can mass up a lot of thors with enough marines to destroy voids, you should be completely fine
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On January 04 2011 06:47 danielsan wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2011 06:45 Xanczor wrote:
When you go in with cloaked ghosts how would he have time to warp in more HT's when you attack him right after?... he presses w and summons a bunch of HTs. reason why late game PvX is easy mode. im just gold so my advice will probably not weigh alot: try to siege contain w bunkers. it negates any HT play. Thats how i usually win TvP these days.
Low tier units being efficiently defeated by high tier units in MY starcraft?
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On January 04 2011 22:40 plagiarisedwords wrote:
2. Good macro - Trading armies is quite good for terran as protoss cannot replace their units as quickly as a terran spamming MMM. I've had many battles where I come out on top every time in engagements with HTs but just cannot keep up with the constant MMM onslaught. HTs really cannot hold the line in a cost effective manner vs a maruader heavy army.
Are you sure you're thinking of the same Terran race that I'm thinking of? At that point in the game, W, Shift+T,T,T,T,T,T,T, GG
I've enjoyed Tank/MMM/Ghost. Tank positioning is key. I try to place them in a line perpendicular to the advancing front so that the more P commits to the attack, the more he's getting blown up by tanks in the well protected rear. Marauders tank storm damage much better than marines and depending on your level of micro basically rape all gateway units. My Marauder to Marine ratio is about 3:1, marines are there simply to help with immortals. Ghosts are obv there to emp an advancing front.
I aim to create an established position somewhere on that map that gives me significant coverage either of his bases or my own, and wait for him to come attack my seiged tanks. Then use BF hellion drops as often as possible to slowly drag em down. This is quite a late game approach though and basically assumes you're already on 3 bases or more as it's very gas intensive. 10-12 Tanks are pretty close to the critical mass, set 3-4 ghosts in a separate control group (set to a flanking position prior to attacking if possible), maybe a viking or two for tank sight, medivacs hovering behind the MM ball. Wait till they feel so pressured that they have to push, EMP + Stim for the GG
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EMP does the trick for me. Cloak 2-3 ghosts and drop a scan before you engage to eliminate any observers. But do make sure your EMP's hit either the HT's or Sentries and dodge incoming storms. Add a couple of tanks if you think you can't land moneyshot EMP's
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once they see you're using cloacked ghosts they just spam observers and feedback your ghosts, but if they dont do that sure it can work, but they can just warpin more HT's if you EMP the ones they already got...
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After i get 3rax and a starport off 2bases ill make my 3rd and start adding factories for a hellion thor marauder marine banshee army.
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Well if you are concerned about him warping in 4 more HT after you emped his other HT, think about this. The more arcons he makes, the less HT he has. So just EMP his Arcons and then use snipe to pick off the 4 that come in AND THEN stim for the kill. Or just try and time your emp with his next warp in.
Timing seems to be your enemy here, not tactics. Just think of ways to exploit the fact that toss can only warp in their units and thats it.
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I hate to be that guy but, kill him before he gets storm + amulet.
Qxc likes to say that as T if you're not attacking, you're losing. You don't have to bum rush him but just stay aggressive. Walk up to his base and run back if you don't see an army you can crush. Snipe expos, drop 4 marauders in the back as you move towards the front and try to snip tech buildings. Killing a templar archive or twilight council can be a huge setback for him.
If it gets to late game you want to split up armies and avoid fighting in an open field. Harssment and multiple small battles are where you win. Big max army vs max army is where he wins.
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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?
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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...
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A TL user by the name of optik678 confirmed that EMP'ing warping-in templars removes their energy, tested on the unit test map. I always thought you could only EMP the templar when it was fully warped in. Storms are instant, EMP is not. Certainly changes my opinion on ghosts vs high templar. I'll probably still try a combination of bio and mech, if only to have an excuse to use factory units lol. It's probably crushing to protoss players to think MMM is still viable even against high templars, with good ghost micro.
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The sad thing is that you're really best off if you stay on bio and just add a few ghosts. Mech play is not the answer, it might work but transitioning into it is quite dangerous and the toss can deal with it the same way he deals with bio, zealots + hts. A mixture of chargelots and archons just ruin the day for any mech.
Getting good emps off _before the battle_ is the only way you're gonna beat an equal supply toss army with storm in a straight battle. Your best option is killing the toss before he gets storm though.
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For me personally I go a raven tank marine timing attach off of one base. I usually expand while attacking. Then if i dont win i contain and add some rax factoires and make ghosts and maruaders while slowly transitioning into mech bio midgame. By this point toss may have 6gas depending on your ability to deny his third. If he does take it i reccommend going for the more meaty units + ghosts which are thor tanks mauraders+ some banshees. Like people said before me cloak emp is a must and check if they have obs if they do sinpe it. Im not top 200 or anything but for my level of diamond which is 2700 this seems to work fairly decently.
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You WILL insta lose if u dont either get ghost or tanks when there are hts out. And u prob wont win with just tanks either. But if i were u i'd go for mech
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i guesss people didnt see hongun.prime vs ogs.hyperdub today?
dont be greedy on ghosts and be ready to emp new warp ins
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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.
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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).
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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)
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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...
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Its like protoss with mutas. You need to hurt him before they come out and your lead will let you win.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Ghosts with EMP are necessary imo, yes protoss can warp in more high templar but it does cause a significant delay to the storms. Without storms, tosses largely gateway army is going to be very vulnerable, use that crucial window to deal damage.
Also, try to avoid letting toss get to 3 bases. If toss is left alone frankly their 200/200 deathball is probably the strongest in the game, so if he goes to 3 bases make him pay as dearly as possible for it, keep him off balance as much as possible, and then attack during a crucial timing window either before HT tech is finished, or before Protoss gets a good enough economy to really start abusing HT tech (i.e. has enough gas to just spam templar wherever he wants on the map)
Use the advantages of terran
- strong early game harass options like cloaked banshees (if done properly NOT an all in)
- utilize the flexibility of 1/1/1 builds to harass protoss significantly, threaten a timing push around 10 minutes, or expand
- if it comes down to late game use plenty of drops and ghost emp plus dont' be afraid to get plenty of higher tech units, not just rax
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most protosses get colossus first and then take third, you cant just atack into a colossus army and expect to do any serious damage, at best you trade armies and then the toss can safely take his third and get templar tech
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well, when i meet HTs with amulet so that they can storm the second they warp. i just get some ghosts with +25 start energy and cloak and just EMP them. so they are worthless  i think that is the safest solution
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On January 05 2011 23:22 JeanLuc wrote:- if it comes down to late game use plenty of drops and ghost emp plus dont' be afraid to get plenty of higher tech units, not just rax
I'm not so sure about the higher tech units. This is usually what gets me killed. If i stay on bio (+ ghosts/medivacs) i have a decent chance with drops and emp. Every time i try to be creative and mix in tech units (tanks, thors, bcs) i just get steamrolled. The infrastructure cost (you will probably only have 1 factory, 1-2 starports), lack of upgrades (infantry will probably already be at 2+/2+ while mech is at 0/0 and the protoss army also has upgrades) and low mobility of terran tech units just doesn't have any synergy with bio. In some cases a splash of tanks is useful (to bait the toss into attacking at a certain position) but thors and bcs just don't cut it in tvp imo.
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The consensus seems to be mobility for Terran against storms. Try MMM drops supported by vikings, and 1 or 2 ravens. Just theory crafting though... Anyone willing to try this?
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Russian Federation266 Posts
I don't know about lower levels of play, but at high diamond Terrans have no problems with using emp against HT. Its a micro battle, whoever is better - wins.
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On January 06 2011 01:23 Tsabo wrote:
I don't know about lower levels of play, but at high diamond Terrans have no problems with using emp against HT. Its a micro battle, whoever is better - wins.
but if players are equal in skill, the protoss usualy wins, thats the problem...
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For epic lulz vs toss bases.
Do a pre-igniter hellion/one ghost drop. Make sure the ghost has 150 energy. Drop by mineral line, while medivac is moving. Ghost first, then hellions in a line ~parallel to the mineral line. Drop 2 emps into the mineral line as soon as the ghost lands. Hellions land and one shot 90% of their probes instantly. Pick up and leave. Swap ghosts, repeat. For best results, use a medivac with hardly any energy so it can't be feedbacked.
Epic lulz.
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Don't listen to the mech bull**** or the drops or what ever. Your main army composition is solid. MMM + ghosts is very good against ht but both are counters to each other ghosts counter HT and HT counters ghosts ( feedback ) so it comes down to a MICRO GAME. Hotkey your army on a single hotkey and your ghosts on a diff hotkey. You need to practice micro because as a terran you must rely on it alot ( unless your a really gg player @ macro which i highly doubt ). Again I pressure you to LEARN AND GET BETTER AT MICRO. To do so you can create a game and in the search bar type in unit tester ( I dont remenber which one it is I think its duo fixed ) play with a friend so he can mciro the hts and the toss army.
Note: I am not saying mech is bad or drops is bad, they are really good but depends what you want to do and what your end goal is. Normaly I choose mech to stare my oponent ( so he stays on 2 base ) and I do drops to make him multi task. I go Bio depending on the map and what I think I can win with and what units he has.
If you want I can help you improve your micro and your Ht Emp's pm me.
btw im a 2.6k diamond. ( but I play with top 200's aka titan ngry stkchance etc )
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thors + ghosts + blue flame hellion is a really good composition against HT.
thors are surprisingly good in TvP! I usually start adding them in my army when I take my 3rd. its easy to take a pretty fast 3rd as protoss are rarely aggressive with HT and Planetaries are completely ownage.
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As a toss player I would have trouble with marauder drops in the back a few emp cloak ghosts for hrs already out followed by a tank push with infantry in the back
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EPT
