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On January 18 2011 11:08 Mercury- wrote:
Watched on max speed, some cliff notes:
- terrible army composition, never go that stalker heavy vs Terran
- questionable macro decisions, 3 forges instead of going for stuff like carriers
- zero pressure on the Terran
- not enough expansions (he was even/ahead on expos while doing a Thor build... that should never happen)
- you let him come to you and engaged at your nat, leaving you no option to rebuild your army
Army composition is something that has come up a lot. Can't but agree on that.
With my leftover gas, I could have gone both carriers and 3 forges..
This is about playstyles, and I do not feel like I lost because I didn't try to drop vs his 50 turrets that where spread around his base.. You can't really pressure a meching terran on that map.
He was never ahead on expoes? I expanded earlier than him both times. When he attacked, we where both on 3 bases, yes. But thats because I felt that he was going for a 200/200 attack and didn't feel safe expanding again. I probably should have, thought..
This is a very terran'ish though process. "I am going to attack and then rebuild my army". This does not work with protoss who is dependent on the collosus/immortas or whatnot you have to make outside of the gateway. Since he attacked me, I had the upper hand with that I could warp inn reinforcements right into the battle (Which, if you had slowed down, you'd see that I warped in 12 stalkers in the back. Since the marines was dead, I should probably have gone with zealots instead)
Again, not saying I didn't do mistakes, god no. But I think you are a bit off because we have different playstyles 
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Semantic question, can warp prisms pickup units under 250mm strike cannon?
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On January 18 2011 23:28 Carefoot wrote:
Semantic question, can warp prisms pickup units under 250mm strike cannon?
Yes, and the dmg will instantly stop. It is fully possible to use this to micro your immortals. There is just 2 problems: 1. If you have more than 6 immortals this is going to be difficult. 2. warp prisms dies incredible easy to thor AA
EDIT: Just tried is with the unit tester, and it would not allow me to pick up the immortal after it has started taking damage from the 250mm cannon. Not sure if this is accurate or not. WIll have to do further testing.
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I really think you must out expand him and constanly hit him, Charged Zealots would work good I think.
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Not saying I know what will work or even trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but if I remember right in the Challenges for Single Player where you divide up your units and try to lose under a certain amount, the hint was to use the carriers on the thors. And if you did it was so easy to micro the carriers away and absolutely own them even in mass. And someone else said HT's for support, you can storm the viks to so that both are countered.
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So is thor builds in PvT the new trend? I've been seeing a lot of player mixing in thors in w/ their bio lately, w/ mixed success.
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one thing i am very confident will work is mass rays and or chargelit immortas colosi but with the game changeing unit the mothership
as i see it the mothership is a great tank against thor
it will cloak the immortals and rays and chargelots
with the added bonus of vortexing half his army
(f you have enough archons you can thow them in the vortex t onoe sho the thor XP)
if he scans then either he will kill chargelots immortals or voidrays but by that time the thors will be killed
(i always get + 3 sheild vs terrain for marines that and with a few sentries for guardian sheild thethor's air damage will be very weak)
if he gets vikings you must vortex them first
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Microed Collosus actually do pretty good. Sure if I manage to get of a sucessful 250mm cannon your collosi will die. But the collosus out ranges the thors cannon ability so if you move forward and see the cannons coming out back the collosus up and the thor's strike cannon attack gets canceled because the target is out of range. However, Im not sure if it makes the cannons go on cooldown or not.... maybe I should go test that real quick.
The cannons still have a little bit of range outside the range indicate by the white spell circle. so You have to move the unit just a little bit further so the cannon ability cancels. However it does not make the thor go on cooldown for the ability meaning if it fails due to a collosus moving out of its range the thor will put up his guns and as soon as that animation is done you can tell it to select a new target.
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you shouldn't use Immortals (at least not mass) once he gets 250 mm. Their canon is supposed to keep mech viable. If Immortals > Thors even after that upgrade, then there would be almost never any good reason to mech in TvP.
Also Colossi move faster don't they? So they could kite. But anyways mass Colossi isn't what I want to suggest.
You could either go air with mass voids or just in general air, so that you can exploit the Thor's immobility, possibly killing all or most of his workers when he pushes out so that you effectively force him to all in. Mass voids versus mass Thors would win btw.
Zealots also work pretty well considering their cost efficiency against the Thors. So a mixture of Zealots + Voids, with a couple of sentries for Guardian Shield and some Immortals made out of an otherwise idle Robo should be great.
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On January 22 2011 09:04 terranghost wrote:
Microed Collosus actually do pretty good. Sure if I manage to get of a sucessful 250mm cannon your collosi will die. But the collosus out ranges the thors cannon ability so if you move forward and see the cannons coming out back the collosus up and the thor's strike cannon attack gets canceled because the target is out of range. However, Im not sure if it makes the cannons go on cooldown or not.... maybe I should go test that real quick.
The cannons still have a little bit of range outside the range indicate by the white spell circle. so You have to move the unit just a little bit further so the cannon ability cancels. However it does not make the thor go on cooldown for the ability meaning if it fails due to a collosus moving out of its range the thor will put up his guns and as soon as that animation is done you can tell it to select a new target.
I would just like to state that you are actually wrong on this one. As even happened once in the replay. Once the thor is within range and starts rising those canons from his back, it does not matter that you move your collosus back, it will still get stunned, take damage, and die..even if it is outside range.
Edit: Also just tried this with the unit tester. Once the thor has locked onto its target, even tho it hasn't started doing damage yet, it will still start shooting way outside of its range.
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On January 22 2011 09:17 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
you shouldn't use Immortals (at least not mass) once he gets 250 mm. Their canon is supposed to keep mech viable. If Immortals > Thors even after that upgrade, then there would be almost never any good reason to mech in TvP.
Also Colossi move faster don't they? So they could kite. But anyways mass Colossi isn't what I want to suggest.
You could either go air with mass voids or just in general air, so that you can exploit the Thor's immobility, possibly killing all or most of his workers when he pushes out so that you effectively force him to all in. Mass voids versus mass Thors would win btw.
Zealots also work pretty well considering their cost efficiency against the Thors. So a mixture of Zealots + Voids, with a couple of sentries for Guardian Shield and some Immortals made out of an otherwise idle Robo should be great.
Much like terran mech is now countering every single protoss ground unit? Yepp, sounds agreeable.
As has been stated several times. Yes, collosus can kite, but if the collosus gets within the range of the thors 250mm even for a split second, it instantly dies.
I have fiddled with air a lot more for this matchup, and voidrays (if you micro them propperly) does do incredibly well vs thors. Its not about immobility though, because the thors doesn't siege. They move around exactly as quickly as a regular protoss army does. If you try to "abuse mobility" against terran mech in PvT, you could very easily just end up losing to a push.
Zealots might do well vs thors alone, but theres this phenomenon where if the terran has enough bio units, the dps of the bio ball becomes so high that nearly infinte zealots vaporize before they even reach the terran units (something I have burned myself on a lot of times, as I am one who usually include speedlots in my build).
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Please guys, before you come forward with any more theories. At least go into the unit test map on starcraft 2, build around 5 thors and 2 control group of marines, and see what cost equivalent protoss units actually beats that. (the answer is: it doesn't exist)
But thats not to say that the mass thor build doesn't have any weaknesses. That is why I wish that any players even remotely high on the ladder could tell me what their experience is.
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On January 22 2011 09:26 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 09:04 terranghost wrote:
Microed Collosus actually do pretty good. Sure if I manage to get of a sucessful 250mm cannon your collosi will die. But the collosus out ranges the thors cannon ability so if you move forward and see the cannons coming out back the collosus up and the thor's strike cannon attack gets canceled because the target is out of range. However, Im not sure if it makes the cannons go on cooldown or not.... maybe I should go test that real quick.
The cannons still have a little bit of range outside the range indicate by the white spell circle. so You have to move the unit just a little bit further so the cannon ability cancels. However it does not make the thor go on cooldown for the ability meaning if it fails due to a collosus moving out of its range the thor will put up his guns and as soon as that animation is done you can tell it to select a new target. I would just like to state that you are actually wrong on this one. As even happened once in the replay. Once the thor is within range and starts rising those canons from his back, it does not matter that you move your collosus back, it will still get stunned, take damage, and die..even if it is outside range. Edit: Also just tried this with the unit tester. Once the thor has locked onto its target, even tho it hasn't started doing damage yet, it will still start shooting way outside of its range.
You are free to believe me or not that is your choice. I did it in the unit tester too. If you look at what I said, On January 22 2011 09:04 terranghost wrote:The cannons still have a little bit of range outside the range indicate by the white spell circle. So you do have to constantly kite you your objective is to try not to let them get into range with the cannons. If they are attacking you with their main guns then they are in range for the cannons. I do admit that the cannons can still attack outside of the circle but it isn't unlimited range like the yamato cannon even a stimmed marine couldn't out run that.
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A ball of mass colossi will evaporate a ball of mass thors. Immortals are very good against them too when armies are fairly big - the thors get focused and killed before they can unleash their cannons as in tlo vs sangho. Chargalots annihilate thors for cost (although not for supply - make sure you stay on top of armour upgrades so thors don't 2 shot them). Thors are countered so bad by non stargate units anyway there is no need for vr/carrier but they are always an option. One thing to note - don't get stalkers - thors destroy them.
Edit - you could add one carrier to tank the damage as as far as I know thors auto target air over ground.
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On January 22 2011 09:56 Excludos wrote:
Please guys, before you come forward with any more theories. At least go into the unit test map on starcraft 2, build around 5 thors and 2 control group of marines, and see what cost equivalent protoss units actually beats that. (the answer is: it doesn't exist)
But thats not to say that the mass thor build doesn't have any weaknesses. That is why I wish that any players even remotely high on the ladder could tell me what their experience is.
Try 5 colossi with lance and equivalent cost of chargalots to marines.
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i have encounterd this build a few times. The best counter i have done is vr and immortal backed up by gateway units. need to have charge on zealots if it goes into mid-late game. just vr or just immortal gets raped by thors. Sucks that us brotoss needs a combined units just to take down the mighty thor but with the combo we can.
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On January 16 2011 12:33 Orlando Mavado wrote:
Magic Box is a serious glitch that needs to be patched out as it completely negates the effectiveness of combined splash.
What if Blizzard had patched out the 11 muta + overlord thing in BW? Sounds like you're on the QQ train to me.
Magic Box is one of the few ways to use skill to defeat this Mass Thor idea. OP must've thought Magic Box was only for Mutas. It works for any air unit that needs to be spread to avoid splash.
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On January 18 2011 22:20 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2011 11:08 Mercury- wrote:
Watched on max speed, some cliff notes:
- terrible army composition, never go that stalker heavy vs Terran
- questionable macro decisions, 3 forges instead of going for stuff like carriers
- zero pressure on the Terran
- not enough expansions (he was even/ahead on expos while doing a Thor build... that should never happen)
- you let him come to you and engaged at your nat, leaving you no option to rebuild your army Army composition is something that has come up a lot. Can't but agree on that. With my leftover gas, I could have gone both carriers and 3 forges.. This is about playstyles, and I do not feel like I lost because I didn't try to drop vs his 50 turrets that where spread around his base.. You can't really pressure a meching terran on that map. He was never ahead on expoes? I expanded earlier than him both times. When he attacked, we where both on 3 bases, yes. But thats because I felt that he was going for a 200/200 attack and didn't feel safe expanding again. I probably should have, thought.. This is a very terran'ish though process. "I am going to attack and then rebuild my army". This does not work with protoss who is dependent on the collosus/immortas or whatnot you have to make outside of the gateway. Since he attacked me, I had the upper hand with that I could warp inn reinforcements right into the battle (Which, if you had slowed down, you'd see that I warped in 12 stalkers in the back. Since the marines was dead, I should probably have gone with zealots instead) Again, not saying I didn't do mistakes, god no. But I think you are a bit off because we have different playstyles
Um that's how you combat Thors, it's not a question of playstyles. You expo around the map because his army is too immobile and relies on critical mass. Then you try to engage him as far away from your own base as possible as soon as you see an opening. Your army will most likely get killed but he will take heavy losses, you then instantrebuild with WGates + whatever robo and SGates you have and finish him off. This is how it works with Zerg too except Zerg can need up to 4 waves sometimes because their units suck in high numbers.
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You're at the 10 minute mark and you have an army of 9 stalkers and 4 zealots and 3 sentries. You have no cannons at your backdoor, no observers at this time. I can think of a million ways Terran can make a Protoss pay for being a macro probe ho with zero regard for surviving on this map.
I think you're looking at this replay and saying you lost because Terran produced Thors and Marauders and there is no counter too them. There are quite a few good counters that use normal unit mix (Stalker/Immortal/Sentry is just fine).
You lose because you decide to turtle with no defense against any harass. I never saw you do anything during that time except fail at a simple backdoor defense against 3 hellions who ripped through 30 probes.
At the 15 minute mark you don't even have 1/1 researched, no blink, and are making a colossus instead of immortal? Still no observer over your main army.
You lost because you made bad decisions.15 sentries at the final battle and you throw down 2 forcefields? What were the colossus even for?
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On January 23 2011 02:18 murkk wrote:
You're at the 10 minute mark and you have an army of 9 stalkers and 4 zealots and 3 sentries. You have no cannons at your backdoor, no observers at this time. I can think of a million ways Terran can make a Protoss pay for being a macro probe ho with zero regard for surviving on this map.
I think you're looking at this replay and saying you lost because Terran produced Thors and Marauders and there is no counter too them. There are quite a few good counters that use normal unit mix (Stalker/Immortal/Sentry is just fine).
You lose because you decide to turtle with no defense against any harass. I never saw you do anything during that time except fail at a simple backdoor defense against 3 hellions who ripped through 30 probes.
At the 15 minute mark you don't even have 1/1 researched, no blink, and are making a colossus instead of immortal? Still no observer over your main army.
You lost because you made bad decisions.15 sentries at the final battle and you throw down 2 forcefields? What were the colossus even for?
With all due respect, this is my standard PvT build, I know how to make it work and how to react to what the terran is doing. You can't just say "If I had gone this build then you would just die", because if he had done anything else, then I would have reacted differently too.
How is Stalker/immortal/sentry ANY counter to thors? Seriously? Those might be the 3 worst units you can make against them.. (In a direct combat that is. I have not tried abusing blink stalkers vs thors, which people have stated should work)).
(warning: Wall of text)
I do not mind feedback, but this feels like you trying to be harsh just for the sake of it. Why I had collosus? Might be because he also had marines + the fact that collosus outrange thors. Sure I lost probes, but you will also notice I was never BEHIND on workers. I could probably win if I didn't lose a single probe, but that is starcraft, you can't really know what is going to happen every single match. No matter what you say, he was behind me in economy and resources 95% of the game. His minerals spent on army was bigger than mine at the end, but I was able to immediately warp in 8 stalkers instead. Why would I need an observer over my main army? I knew what he was not going for cloaked banshees. Sure it wont hurt, but I rather scout around with them. The massive amounts of sentries was a bad attempt at lowering my high gas count, and a mistake. But Its not like I didn't use them. I threw down a lot of forcefields that just disappeared right away because thors trample them, and I used guardian shield.
Please, don't just rant for the sake of ranting. Its not helping me even in the slightest.
With that said, I have learned from this thread. After taking the feedback from everyone, + playing around with friends and unit test map, it seems like you should either try to abuse mobility with blink stalkers, in map where this is possible, or go for voidrays combined with collosus and gateway units with focus on speedlots. Voidrays are really really good vs thors, but also dies incredibly fast vs the marines. This is why you'll need collosus and normal gateway units as well. If there are marines around the thors, the thors will have trouble moving around, and thus the small 2 longer range on the collosus can actually be exploited.
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EPT
