the way i see it right now, hellions are somewhat underused in tvt. hellions have some great advantages that can enhance the matchup of tvt
1) superior speed- scouting is easy as the hellion is the fastest terran unit. it can always scout ahead the army, which is great, especially for a mech army as you can siege up the tanks much faster as soon as the hellion warns of danger 2) respectable damage- damage output is respectable vs marines and workers, and very good vs them once blue flame is done. if you get a flank with hellions allowing max splash damage, itll melt those marines (and make MKP sad) 3) great meatshield- the hellion should not b underestimated as a meatshield. it is the great meatshield vs marauders since it takes 9 hits to kill to a hellion and the expensive tank also dies to 9 hits too. the hellion survives 3 tank blasts same as a marauder too! the hellion can take hits very well for a cheap 100mins 4) massable- hellions are easily massable, can be reactored and made in only 30 game secs. 5) drops- killing workers is the most devastating, you can easily roast 4-5 workers to a whole worker line. and if the hellions are lost, eh...the eco damage is worth it and the hellions are easily irreplaceable
in conclusion, hellions are awesome and should be used more
while i say tvt, i also think this applies to tvz and tvp
if there's anything i dont know about the hellion thats also awesome, please do tell me.
I got to put an emphasis on how the splash damage of the Hellion works. Always try to position your hellions optimally in order for you to get the most out of the splash damage a hellion makes. I hate to see a terran go hellions and then position their hellions wrong and then see them lose those hellions to a ling surround because the hellions weren't microed right.
Hellions fire in a straight line, so get those units into single file! or make it so you got a choke point!.
I would have to say hellions are incredibly luck based. Infact most strategies around hellions assume your opponent is bad.
Some Examples:
TvT Opening with blue flame or even a non blue flame (slightly less bad) drop. The idea is that your super clever hellion is going to clear out all his workers because hey who puts troops in their own mineral line.
Why its bad: Youre assuming your player is so bad he wont know youre going to drop him. Assuming he plays a very standard 1/1/1 opening into siege tanks you have ultimately autolossed. He will have a viking already to scout/hunt drop ships, even if he fails and doesnt a quick response to protecting his mineral line will deny further worker kills.
So you've killed a few workers atleast, yea youre ahead! No, worker count isnt everything here. assuming at best you saved your hellions from death for future harass he leaves 1 tank behind unsieged to protect workers and moves out immediately to your base. He now has 2-3 tanks, vikings, and has at most 2-3 marines less because of travel time. Siege infront of base GG. You cant expand you cant drop you cant kill his tanks because he has the sight advantage as well as more tanks because you spent all your time being clever with hellion production time. While he has complete map control. You cant counter drop because the viking count is now far enough ahead he can pick of dropships leaving your base.
Its almost as bad compared to an MM start, you may be ahead but he still has a higher army more marines marauders for your super late siege tank to get sniped by and most importantly stim. GG you've lost to instant counter attack. All youre hoping is he went from a FE and you can kill all his workers because he was jsut that bad at stopping an early drop. Even still if you dont kill enough hes most likely still ahead because of how slow your expo is.
Hellions in your main army tvt.
I get harassing with them a little vs non PF expos but for unit army comps theyre lousy. Theyre only good vs marines can you scout ahead with them? Of course but you can do it for half the cost with a marine. If you can find some one with bad enough control with pure marine to put them in a line for you you can kill a fee but go play in unit tester and see how well they do when they find a ball of marines with stim, they still melt after you reach a critical numer of marinesunless you can alpha a large number of them.
Final reason marines are better, medivacs, they dont get heals their EHP threshold is far to low because of this.
Great unit for TvZ okish for some tvp depending on comps, absolutely garbage asside from harass options in tvt.
What if i'm going mass marauder tank viking? Hellion drops are incredibly useful most definately; but incorporating them as anything other than a mineral dump (in which case you have marines) is fairly dangerous i think.. However, Hellions, with blue flame and Terran Mech upgrades does a ridiculous amount of damage so in the right situations it can be very deadly..
On January 21 2011 07:55 bkrow wrote: What if i'm going mass marauder tank viking? Hellion drops are incredibly useful most definately; but incorporating them as anything other than a mineral dump (in which case you have marines) is fairly dangerous i think.. However, Hellions, with blue flame and Terran Mech upgrades does a ridiculous amount of damage so in the right situations it can be very deadly..
Another auto loss for going heavy hellion. Hellions have solid dps vs light especially good vs zerg who have mostly light units. However a hellion literally not lying has less dps than a drone vs nonlight units.
Hellions die too fast to bio and its damage output due to cooldown is ridiculously low in comparison. Hellions are at best support units in TvT alongside your bio or harassment purposes.
To illustrate abominare's point, here's a video of a blue hellion drop vs reactored marine tank 1/1/1. even at its worst.
I've found that hellions are best in early to mid game as support units, however once you're fully into midgame, the best use I've found for them is for scouting, but I no longer use them en masse
Problem is, they can't shoot air, thats why marines are used more often. I think however that Hellions will come into style soon. As you said, theyre fast, take quite a few hits etc.etc. I'd like to see them used like vultures in SC1 so fast and microeable etc.
Doing a couple of hellion drops throughout the game can be so devastating vs T expansions--especially since they can usually sneak around mineral lines and hit scvs without being hit by PF's. But I don't really find them useful as part of a main army--yes, they may tank as many shots from a tank as a marauder, but marauders are infinitely better vs tanks than hellions.
TvP and TvZ hellion harass usually gets less effective as the game goes on, because once they see blue flame upgrade and get dropped once they usually build a couple of cannons/spine crawlers at each expo. Even so, they still can be effective if you find holes/combine with marauder drops, etc.
Did anyone watch Drewbie vs Deathrow on PsY's channel? Despite Drewbie's flawed play, Deathrow's pre-igniter hellions into 2 starport banshee really gave me chills.
They are used more, they are used a lot. One of the huge strengths of Hellion drop is you can do it again, and again, and again. You really don't need a thread stressing its usefulness :p
The only place I'd like to see them used more is late-game blue-flame drops.
Even the pros tend to open up with a hellion drop, get out when things are getting rough, then incorporate the hellions into the army and that's that.
I think hellion drops would be most effective in the later game when their major army is already occupied. It only takes about 5 seconds for 4 hellions to get from the edge of your base, kill 1/2 your SCVs, and make it back to the medivac, but people never want to sit on those resources. they'd prefer to throw the hellions away to tank splash and marine fire... so sad...
Other than that, Hellions are fine, and being used to their full effectiveness in TvT.
I open blue flame drop -> 3 rax marine tank expo elevator push in TvT almost every single game, map dependant.
Blue flame fucking rapes any marine ____ opening. Poke around, kill units, run, repair, scoop up with dship, drop, and roast. No shame in running away.
Marine/scv/returning hellions are enough for marine tank pushes if you engage before they can siege out your ramp
One problem with this that comes to mind is you obviously have to compare them to marines since they are both mineral dumps. Marines are bulkier per cost, have greater dps in general, can't shoot up and barracks are infinitely cheaper than factories. In short, hellions are only worth it for blue flame drops and not really good for massing imo.
EPT
