|
I'm 2800 Terran in the Master league and lately I've been losing to Protoss a lot in macro games. I've tried mech, or transitioning out of MMM but it's hard as chargelots + colo/templars own me. Then I started using Poltprime's build and now I'm winning a good amount. After beating this P with the same build he says "fucking Terran and their endless 1-base allins."
I normally play Terran but I've switched to Protoss a few times. The last time I did it, all my PvT's, about 15 games, were Terran mostly 1-basing with marine/tank/raven/banshee +/- scvs. Unable to beat these builds, I said screw this and went back to Terran. So I kinda agree with the P earlier.
Is this how it is on the ladder? As Terran am I forced to play aggressively or be doomed to lose? My Terran brethren all seem to prefer 1-base timing attacks as opposed to stuff like 1rax expo. It was very eye-opening playing as Protoss because while I'm trying to do standard MMM and expanding, they're doing pretty sick builds. POLTPRIME!
|
I'm not master league... but, it sounds like you need to have better scouting.
You want to attack, so, know when to attack by scouting better? Also positioning is pretty key in pvt because force fields will fuck you if you get caught in a choke for too long.
Cheers!
|
As a toss a fair bit below you (2750 diamond) I'd say that about 75% of my terran opponents do some form of the 1 base raven all-in and I almost always lose when they do it (even when I scout it, I know this means I'm bad) and I win about 60% when they do anything besides a raven all in.
I think the raven 1 base all ins are difficult to stop because there are so many variants and they require very different compositions as a toss (raven tank marine, raven banshee marine, raven helion tank, and even just the % of each among those matters).
FWIW IMMvp did several raven all ins vs tester and it wasn't even close, he just roflstomped him each time so they seem viable at a pretty high level, even when scouted.
|
Yes, it's true, you actually should 1base allin vs toss. I'm always fast expanding as terran and I'm losing alot .
|
I alternate between 1-base Raven Thor timing at ~12 minutes and 2 Rax FE.
I personally do not think pulling 12 out of 28 SCVs to help with repairs at 12 minutes is all-in, as the timing push puts up a natural very nicely. I can certainly keep going if the push doesn't kill him dead.
My late-game compositions are a mixture Marauder/Thor/Medivac/Ghost/Viking/Marine, with how many of each corresponding to the Stalker/Phoenix/HT/Colossus counts.
1800 Diamond Terran, though, so maybe things are a lot harder late-game in Masters.
|
On January 21 2011 18:43 Scare_Crow wrote: I personally do not think pulling 12 out of 28 SCVs to help with repairs at 12 minutes is all-in,
surely you jest....
you have to do damage to his eco in order to survive after that it is most certainly an all in, however due to the nature of this being retardly strong and almost guarenteed eco dmg i can see why you dont think so.
|
I dont like the personal state of game. Yesterday i had a game vs. a zerg and he told me after i loose it was noobstyle to fastexpo why not all-in? Are you kidding me? The same thing with Protoss... I really like fast expanding but i dont know what to do in the mid-late game. It feels like nothing really works. Think you have to constantly harrass the Protoss and switch to a more mech-based play because bio just melts to colossus and/or HT. Vikings imho are not the right counter to colossus so i guess maybe try thors with cannons or a good amount of tanks. Would be prefer the first tactic because tanks are so immobile :/
|
To be honest I have had no luck at all trying anything but strong all-in builds. I've done countless FE builds where eventually my opponent has enough collosus or just masses zealots/stalkers and rapes my face. I've done banshee teching builds and harassed quite a bit where i've had 9-11 kills per banshee and still can't close it out. I've tried aggressive expanding builds with contains and soon as my contain is broken I'm back to losing again. I dunno why, my tvt and tvz's always come down to making a mistake or a horrible mistake but TvP is like a 10% win rate for me. I can easily destroy lower level (any diamond toss or lower end master league) toss without even trying but soon as I fight anyone with a clue I lose. I won't even start on all the 4-gate rushes ugh...Seriously bunkers with repair are completly useless if toss brings sentries.
|
I would like to say as a protoss player, The banshee raven push isn't all-in. I will admit it sparks a bit of rage when people call good timing pushes all-ins.
Do the banshee/raven push, it will get you a few tech labs and I think if you get a bunker you can squeeze out a reactor after a couple marines. If push fails, play leggos with your buildings and get a better unit comp, because you just found out exactly what he was going with your push.
|
On January 21 2011 18:50 Fadetowhite wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 18:43 Scare_Crow wrote: I personally do not think pulling 12 out of 28 SCVs to help with repairs at 12 minutes is all-in, surely you jest.... you have to do damage to his eco in order to survive after that it is most certainly an all in, however due to the nature of this being retardly strong and almost guarenteed eco dmg i can see why you dont think so.
Yeah, but 'I need to do eco damage or else I will be very behind' seems to be define every timing push or teching strategy. If we're just going by that definition 4-Gate is all-in, since the expansion timing is very delayed for that build, and it needs to do eco damage against any FE or normal expo timing, or you're at a serious disadvantage.
Back to the original topic: I have the most trouble against Protoss when trying to macro as well, and I frequently lose games in which the Protoss abuse warp-ins and are just everywhere, and I usually win games when Protoss just forms a death-ball. I feel that when Protoss has the resources to get every unit he wants, he has a very large advantage over a Terran who can do the same, which starts to occur at 6 gas.
I guess that's why the 1-base play is really popular, it's not easy to win late. Also, FE loses to 4-gate, I haven't made it work yet. Maybe the Protoss are pushing the Terran in the direction of 1-basing, since the alternative just outright loses to 4-gate, and late-game does not benefit Terran very much.
|
I always do a fast expand vs P and try to play a macro game. So this is how I get most of my wins.
|
On January 21 2011 19:07 Scare_Crow wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 18:50 Fadetowhite wrote:On January 21 2011 18:43 Scare_Crow wrote: I personally do not think pulling 12 out of 28 SCVs to help with repairs at 12 minutes is all-in, surely you jest.... you have to do damage to his eco in order to survive after that it is most certainly an all in, however due to the nature of this being retardly strong and almost guarenteed eco dmg i can see why you dont think so. Yeah, but 'I need to do eco damage or else I will be very behind' seems to be define every timing push or teching strategy. If we're just going by that definition 4-Gate is all-in, since the expansion timing is very delayed for that build, and it needs to do eco damage against any FE or normal expo timing, or you're at a serious disadvantage. Back to the original topic: I have the most trouble against Protoss when trying to macro as well, and I frequently lose games in which the Protoss abuse warp-ins and are just everywhere, and I usually win games when Protoss just forms a death-ball. I feel that when Protoss has the resources to get every unit he wants, he has a very large advantage over a Terran who can do the same, which starts to occur at 6 gas. I guess that's why the 1-base play is really popular, it's not easy to win late. Also, FE loses to 4-gate, I haven't made it work yet. Maybe the Protoss are pushing the Terran in the direction of 1-basing, since the alternative just outright loses to 4-gate, and late-game does not benefit Terran very much.
To be fair, I think a lot of people do define 4-gate as kind of all-in(ish). I also don't know what you're talking about when you're saying that FE outright loses to a 4-gate. What kind of FE are you doing? What type of scouting do you do? What defenses do you put up when you see (or just suspect) it's a 4-gate?
I do a 2 rax (sometimes 1rax, depends on map and position) expand, works very well. Haven't lost due to the 4-gate or 3-gate+stargate builds yet (not because of the builds anyway).
I won't commentate who has the advantage mid to late game, I haven't explored enough of the game yet to commentate balance.
Edit: Also, I am starting to think the phrase "all-in" is getting really worn out. I really don't know what is defined as an "all-in" any more. Is it that you make a commitment? Or is it as soon as you use more than 5 workers in a push?
Really sorry that I went off topic. The way I usually win games in TvP these days is with 2rax FE into bio mech. Works fairly well. Have a lot of refining to do but it seems to work out if I play well.
|
I fe on maps like LT or Meta (non close) and JB but on close position LT/Meta, Scrap, XNC etc I do 1 base pushes because the P will do the same and defending your expo on such maps is really not worth the trouble.
|
@Aldehyde Some kind of 4 gates are definitly all ins, regardless how you wanna put it. As a protoss, i can tell you, if you korean 4 gate, you cut probes at around 20 ish, and mass up gateway units, try to build pylons to work in Zealots behind terran fortifications, you spend a lot of minerals doing that and you have to do a significant amount of damage.
All in means, if that attack, which is a special kind of timing attack fails horribly, you have literally no shot of getting back into the game, no chance. You cut probes to have that army at that time. If the army is gone and your opponent is not significantly crippled you lose for shure.
There are types and variants of the 4 gate which are not an all in, but that 4 gate is delayed and is most likely not designed to win right then and there. If you face a korean 4 gate or 10 Gate into 4 gate or something like that, you hold off the push without loosing or cutting too much SCVs and you won.
Timing is crucial when performing a 4-Gate.
The 10 Gate into 4 gate is an all out all-in and should hit with 6 Stalkers and 1 Zealot at about 5:30
The korean 4 Gate is an all in the P can recover from if he does significant damage to the T and it hits at about 6:30 ish.
The 4 Gate variant including 2 Assimilators that hits way later (past the 7:30 minute mark) is no all in at all and the sentries allow to retreat safely, but a 3 Raxing terran will most likely crush it if caught in the open field.
There are 1000 more variants which i don't even know about =)
|
raven banshees stimmed mm + scvs at 11 minutes in tvp 1 gate FE into 4 gate 1 robo in pvt
Low masters
|
Hello, OP, I'm in the master league aswell.
What can I say is that protoss is obviously stronger than terran late game so most players are just abusing these timing windows (like 8 and 12 minutes) to make insane pushes (there are a lot of different all-ins and semi all-ins that require a completely different anwser and are hard to predict) and outright win the game.
It's very hard to find macro PvTs these days.
I would think that a patch is required to fix this matchup by giving less power to terrans early game and less access to giant tech army of death to protoss in the late game.
|
On January 21 2011 20:39 Aldehyde wrote:
I do a 2 rax (sometimes 1rax, depends on map and position) expand, works very well. Haven't lost due to the 4-gate or 3-gate+stargate builds yet (not because of the builds anyway).
I won't commentate who has the advantage mid to late game, I haven't explored enough of the game yet to commentate balance.
nice! got any replays about holding a 3gate void ray push with 1 rax fe? troll
|
@Baibars:
Yeah, I know what an all-in is per se but everyone is shouting all-in about everything. Gets kind of annoying to see after a while. Seems, to me, like you always have to do damage or retain your units when you do a push otherwise you're open to counter attacks.
For example, in TvZ I use a timing push after stim and +1 finishes. It consists of marines exclusively. If I don't do damage with it and also lose all my marines, the probability of me dying right then and there is pretty high but I still wouldn't call it all-in.
That's all I meant, even though I said it in a stupid way.
On January 21 2011 21:14 Manimal_pro wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 20:39 Aldehyde wrote:
I do a 2 rax (sometimes 1rax, depends on map and position) expand, works very well. Haven't lost due to the 4-gate or 3-gate+stargate builds yet (not because of the builds anyway).
I won't commentate who has the advantage mid to late game, I haven't explored enough of the game yet to commentate balance.
nice! got any replays about holding a 3gate void ray push with 1 rax fe? troll
As I said, me doing a 1 rax expand depends on the map. I rarely do it. I do 2rax FE 85% of the time and 1rax the rest. But please, continue ignoring half my post and just focus on a small part of it.
|
I 2 Rax FE and then do a larger scale, later push of the PoltPrime timing attack. It works wonders because at this point in the game, if you deny the first scouting observer, the Protoss will most likely commit to Colossus tech, which is absolutely terrible against mass banshees.
Here's the guide I made/follow on this build.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=172190
|
As a mastersleague toss I´ll have to say that I have had more and more success in defending these allins (just abusing forcefields and be really slick about using every warpin from your gates until the push comes is usually the key), and I do not think that making this your standard build is the way to go about tvp.
The Protoss giant ball of doom is almost unstoppable in a heads up fight once the armies max out, and this is a fact that terrans have to keep in their minds when heading into a lategame tvp. However, the one thing that the protoss ball does not have is mobility. Terrans who abuses marauderdrops from the midgame and forward to really keep the protoss economy at bay the whole time are a pain in the ass to deal with since 2 medivacs with marauders craves like an half army to deal with since they are so beastly in small battles. I do believe that this is the way terrans have to play to be able to succeed in lategame tvp (I have no opinion wheater this makes a "balanced" game or not, it´s just the way I feel about the matchup).
I can understand that storm feels very hard to deal with for terrans since the bioball is fragile in big battles, but if you dont ever get to that huge fight your big deathball wont do you any good.
Also, thors are incredibly strong lategame as long as you have something to deal with those chargelots.
|
I have to admit i win a lot of PvT in lategame, because most Terran can't really counter my HTs. Some of them can, but it depends on heavy ghost micro with EMPs but also snipe.
Most games I loose because of drops, multiple drops at all my expansions. I'm trying to feedback the medivacs, but a smart Terran wont use the ones with max energy. So Protoss has to split a small army at every expansion, so its mainarmy will be smaller or he has to go Phoenix to stop the drops. What do you think about this?
Sometimes i think so many Terrans are used to play 1 base plays and have no lategame experience yet. Like Protoss wich 4gated all day long and when people learned to counter it they were lost.
|
I do blueflame hellion drops, followed by some kind of biomech with heavy banshee count. Works ok'ish at around 2,4k master and you dont have to worry about the lategame. Its very harass orientated though.
Imho you cant transition into mech from pure MMM. It takes too long. Sure, there might be certain situations where it does work, but generally it wont. If you have 5+baracks, reactor starport, a lonely factory floating around somewhere and no single mech upgrade, it takes too long for your tank count to build up. There is a huugee timing window where a decent protoss can easily overrun you.
So, i do: 1-1-1 opening, gas before baracks, no 2nd gas before i expand. constant scv and marine production you have about 4 hellions with blueflame once the first medivac pops -->harass expand, get more factories, start tank production out of 2 factories and hellion production out of 1 with reactor. siege expand with bunkers in direction of your opponent, harass with hellions and banshee the whole time. BE ANNOYING!
You are vulnerable to 4gates, so you need to scout with your 1st hellion. Get need atleast 1 bunker at your choke. The Protoss will expect cloak banshees, but thats ok.
|
The above is really one of the style of builds I hate facing the most as protoss. Terran can prevent me scouting the fact that he's going the style of build, hence I'll be forced to get a fast observer in case he goes cloaked banshees, and in general just to actually scout, further delaying what I actually need to get to start making a proper composition to answer his choice of army.
Both races have their advantages. To me terran gets so many great choices of openers, and great variety of timings to push a semi all-in while protoss lategame has what terran had in broodwar, in the superstrong and hard to break deathball, which is then countered by mobility.
While it might not be the intended balance equilibrium, it does help somewhat create a balance in this matchup that one race gets a strong and diverse early/early midgame while the other struggles somewhat lategame.
|
I've been having some sort of success with the following strategy:
1. Open bio and fake some agression while expanding. 2. Go for a raven and keep producing bio, this will shut down observer scouting and also help you survive (point defense drone rocks). 3. Expand again if possible, and stop all bio production and put down 3-5 factories with tech lab (depends if you are 2 or 3 base). 4. Get a lot of siege tanks and, when you hit a critical ammount (around 15) get thors and more ravens (2 more ravens should do it).
The idea behind this is to force the wrong set of units from the protoss. He will probably have high templars or colossus and a lot of zealots/stalkers. The tanks, if well positioned are able to dizimate the protoss forces (while the thors take the damage). 3 Ravens with lots of energy (which you should be banking through the game) will make wonders against a stalker heavy army.
A full 200/200 mecha army with some bio is stremely hard for a protoss to deal with, they're best response is probably mass void ray with some immortals, which is hugely expensive.
The tricky part of this build is to transition smoothly so that you don't die to any timming atack. Grummler's strategy suggestion a few posts above seems to be a farily reasonable way to transition.
|
On January 21 2011 22:00 Autunno wrote: I've been having some sort of success with the following strategy:
1. Open bio and fake some agression while expanding. 2. Go for a raven and keep producing bio, this will shut down observer scouting and also help you survive (point defense drone rocks). 3. Expand again if possible, and stop all bio production and put down 3-5 factories with tech lab (depends if you are 2 or 3 base). 4. Get a lot of siege tanks and, when you hit a critical ammount (around 15) get thors and more ravens (2 more ravens should do it).
The idea behind this is to force the wrong set of units from the protoss. He will probably have high templars or colossus and a lot of zealots/stalkers. The tanks, if well positioned are able to dizimate the protoss forces (while the thors take the damage). 3 Ravens with lots of energy (which you should be banking through the game) will make wonders against a stalker heavy army.
A full 200/200 mecha army with some bio is stremely hard for a protoss to deal with, they're best response is probably mass void ray with some immortals, which is hugely expensive.
The tricky part of this build is to transition smoothly so that you don't die to any timming atack.
Mhm, most (master) protoss will defeat you between step 3 and 4.
|
On January 21 2011 22:08 Grummler wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 22:00 Autunno wrote: I've been having some sort of success with the following strategy:
1. Open bio and fake some agression while expanding. 2. Go for a raven and keep producing bio, this will shut down observer scouting and also help you survive (point defense drone rocks). 3. Expand again if possible, and stop all bio production and put down 3-5 factories with tech lab (depends if you are 2 or 3 base). 4. Get a lot of siege tanks and, when you hit a critical ammount (around 15) get thors and more ravens (2 more ravens should do it).
The idea behind this is to force the wrong set of units from the protoss. He will probably have high templars or colossus and a lot of zealots/stalkers. The tanks, if well positioned are able to dizimate the protoss forces (while the thors take the damage). 3 Ravens with lots of energy (which you should be banking through the game) will make wonders against a stalker heavy army.
A full 200/200 mecha army with some bio is stremely hard for a protoss to deal with, they're best response is probably mass void ray with some immortals, which is hugely expensive.
The tricky part of this build is to transition smoothly so that you don't die to any timming atack.
Mhm, most (master) protoss will defeat you between step 3 and 4.
I had just edited my post to say that you're strategy was a fairly good way to transition =P. Yes, my build is kind of raw because I've only used against diammond level Protoss, never faced a Master league one.
But the main idea is: mecha play is awesome, transitioning is the tricky part.
|
the thing with all-ins or any early timing attacks is the following: their strength is not determined by the amount of damage they have to at least do for you to stay in the game, it is determined by the likelihood of this attack doing the required damage.
4gate and the polt attack are good examples. if these attacks get crushed, u lose. but in fact they almost always do decent damage. even if the opponent is prepared they have a good chance of doing enough damage.
the problem with tvp is that toss clearly has the superior lategame tech, so that their armies are stronger in a long game. at the same time, warpin mechanics, in particular in combination with amulet templars, shut down almost all harass. this means that the strongest weapon in the terran arsenal, their superior harassment options, dramatically lose effectiveness against toss in the lategame. therefore, terrans most of the times arent able to get an eco advantage in the lategame, so that they get rolled by the superior protoss tech unless they were already going into the lategame with some sort of advantage.
this means that a terran has to secure some sort of advantage in the early- or midgame if he wants to be able to fight a toss on even grounds in the long run. because of the strength of 4gate or 3gate + X attacks it is very risky to aim for some sort of direct economic advantage by fast expanding or something similar. this only leaves early timing attacks or harassment based openings (cloaked banshees, blue flame hellion drops) as feasible openings in tvp. or at least such openings have a higher chance to succeed than directly playing for the lategame.
|
ok. 2.6 masters terran here.
A few weeks ago I had a lot of trouble when trying to play macro games against toss. I have found the comp you all are looking for.
heavy bio. Siege tanks from your one factor. Better upgrades than the toss. And ghosts around when you take ypur third
|
thumbs up Black Gun.. think thats our only chance
|
On January 21 2011 22:31 Black Gun wrote: this means that a terran has to secure some sort of advantage in the early- or midgame if he wants to be able to fight a toss on even grounds in the long run. because of the strength of 4gate or 3gate + X attacks it is very risky to aim for some sort of direct economic advantage by fast expanding or something similar. this only leaves early timing attacks or harassment based openings (cloaked banshees, blue flame hellion drops) as feasible openings in tvp. or at least such openings have a higher chance to succeed than directly playing for the lategame.
I think it's really crucial to distinguish between early- and midgame: Because early on everything holds true what you've written, playing greedy can bite you in the ass against 4-gaters. But after you've confirmed that you are playing against a macro toss, I do NOT understand why so, SO few terrans go for a quick third. Instead many decide to suicide parts of their armies. Meaning, they press T and move in, get cut in half, lose half of their army and retreat. Why...just: why? I mean, everyone and their grandmother knows that toss love their sentries. Also everyone knows that toss will never attack before colossi or HTs are out, unless they are going for the aforementioned early aggression. So, once both have established their expansion, in my opinion it's incredibly safe for terran to get a fast 3rd. Back this up with drop-play to keep toss busy. I completely agree that terran cannot enter lategame on even footing, because the amulet-tech will give toss an inherent advantage. Nevertheless, if you manage to be ahead on bases, toss will have a hard time to capitalize.
|
Your really can finish off the protoss at the late game but you can force them to gg by keeping their robo/stargate unit count low. When the protoss techs he techs hard and the futuristic war machine of another planet are scary. Colossus, void ray, phenoix, dts, and high templar all viable and scary as hell options. My advice is to constantly apply pressure, or dont let him get pass a certain number of units. Constantly send an scv to check on the protoss' army size and composition. Dont worry about losing alot of your army because you can hold stalker/zealot/sentry off with bunkers and MM all day every day, just worry about killing off colossus or target fire any thing that you wouldnt want your opponent to have alot of in the late game and back off. Rebuild your army while making an expansion, if he tries to push with only 1-2 tech units punish him for it. If he tries to pressure you with gateway units punish him for his lack of tech. Attack again once you scout that he has more colossus or whatever and use this push to take a 3rd base. Add on barracks and what ever tech structure you like to use (factories or starports). Harass with drops or banshees. This will provide you with additional scouting. If you have kept his tech count low you should be able to deny his 3rd when ever he tries to take it. Constant scouting is important though, because you have to know what and how many of X the protoss has or when/where he tries to take his 3rd.
Another way to deal with the robo/stargate ball of death is to go thor/viking/marine/marauder/tank. To do this you play like you would anyways but when you get your 3rd you get extra factories instead of barracks.
|
I think this is the main problem in TvP: Terran are too strong early game, but very weak late game (at least in this matchup). Even if you try to play a standard game and "scout better", you will still mostly need to all-in if the protoss fast expands, because you can't match him in the long run. And on the other side, protoss almost always need to expand if he doesn't want to fall behind economically, because he can't match the terran on 1 base and without any tech.
So yeah, you most likely need to 1-base all-in to stop a protoss that fast expands, but I wouldn't recommend it since we need people to try things if we want to metagame to upgrade a bit.
|
To win lategame TvP, you need to do drops and be everywhere at once. The Protoss deathball is so immobile at the later stages that it's very prone to drop-heavy playstyles. Expand aggressively (Use dem Planetaries) and drop everywhere and you'll be fine if you can keep your macro going.
|
I'm surprised so many people struggle with bio fe builds in tvp. I use almost nothing but variants of 1/2rax fe, occasionally 1/1/1 allins but not often. I consider tvp my best matchup, I was 36th NA before the masters patch.
|
On January 21 2011 21:35 GruGloG wrote: As a mastersleague toss I´ll have to say that I have had more and more success in defending these allins (just abusing forcefields and be really slick about using every warpin from your gates until the push comes is usually the key), and I do not think that making this your standard build is the way to go about tvp.
The Protoss giant ball of doom is almost unstoppable in a heads up fight once the armies max out, and this is a fact that terrans have to keep in their minds when heading into a lategame tvp. However, the one thing that the protoss ball does not have is mobility. Terrans who abuses marauderdrops from the midgame and forward to really keep the protoss economy at bay the whole time are a pain in the ass to deal with since 2 medivacs with marauders craves like an half army to deal with since they are so beastly in small battles. I do believe that this is the way terrans have to play to be able to succeed in lategame tvp (I have no opinion wheater this makes a "balanced" game or not, it´s just the way I feel about the matchup).
I can understand that storm feels very hard to deal with for terrans since the bioball is fragile in big battles, but if you dont ever get to that huge fight your big deathball wont do you any good.
Also, thors are incredibly strong lategame as long as you have something to deal with those chargelots.
That exactly is the problem. Terran can't win lategame straight up fights. They can win if they get a significant advantage before the battle happens (money emps) or if they manage to wear down the protoss so they have an advantage in army size and economy. This is NOT balanced ... why ? Why does the terran have to do continuos multi-pronged drops in order to even stay in the game while the protoss just sits in his base and waits for the terran to make a mistake ? Many terrans have gotten very good at this and actually win a lot of games with it. However, what many ppl don't realize is that protoss, too, can to drops. Almost noone does, however ... why ? Because protoss don't have to, they can just win in a straight-up battle. I wager that, in the current state of the game, once protoss figure out how to multi-drop like top terrans do atm, it will be lights out for terran in lategame TvP.
TvP is fine. Fine as in it's about 50:50 win ratio. However, terrans mostly win early game and protoss mostly win late game. Some people say that's because terrans are bad at macro or that terrans just don't have lategame figured out yet - that's bullshit. It's as wrong as saying protoss don't know how to defend in early game or they just have the wrong strategy. It's just simply the design of the matchup. Until something changes, terran will have an advantage in the early stages (6-12 min) due to some very strong timing windows and protoss will have the advantage in the late stages of the game (15min+) because their high-tech units are much more efficient in the matchup. And of course, as a terran, i will try to end the game early (while I have the advantage) rather than fight an uphill battle in the lategame (assuming my goal is to actually win the game).
It's just that simple.
|
On January 21 2011 21:39 sTRRike wrote: I have to admit i win a lot of PvT in lategame, because most Terran can't really counter my HTs. Some of them can, but it depends on heavy ghost micro with EMPs but also snipe.
It's true. In short, to avoid a lengthy imba post: in my view, P has more dirty tricks in his sleeve (all sorts of HT, DT and/or warpin play, archon toilet, cheap cloaked detection, archon toilet), mistakes cost T more than P (not noticing HTs or DTs, getting in a vortex etc.) and TvP is prone to require disproportionately better micro of the Terran player. At least as long as you don't prepare a good timed attack with lots of MMM (that you need for sheer survival, which is even then not guaranteed) or a good later one with tech stuff (which can be riskier). So my favourite way is to go to a Prot's base practically as soon as I'm done with infantry tech lab upgrades for this reason and even then do a frog jump to shut down his production and supply limit at the same time by taking down pylons. No offence, guys. If I played Prot, I'd be doing the same things. I'd be happy to hear some complaining about Terran if only for noting down and future use.
|
I'm a terran that loves to use this build, and I dont believe the Polt timing attack is an "allin" unless you bring more than half your scvs to repair/attack. I do believe that having some 3 - 4 scvs is fairly important to having this attack successful though.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Polt_Timing_Attack_(vs._Protoss)
Kinda like the 7 roach rush is not an allin unless you bring more than half your drones.
|
I'm a 2.5k master terran myself with about 200 points in my bonus pool, FWIW.
Protoss is definately my most difficult matchup at the moment. I usually go with the FE + MMM build, add vikings and ghosts and try to kill the toss as fast as possible. That seems to be the standard among the "pro" people as well. I have to agree with the guy above that its kinda ridiculous as it stands right now - the protoss can sit in his base and get his ball of death, and you HAVE to abuse a hole in his defense to be able to compete. Sometimes I get lucky... But way too often I dont and end up losing to attack-move colossi + gate units.
Once its 3-4 bases and the templars join the fight, its pretty much impossible unless you can get some perfect drops and wreck his economy.
I personally consider the matchup kinda broken.
|
I've moved away from Bio play in my TvP games as well.. Protoss have great counters to MMM, Colossus or HT's w/ storm just seem to melt my army...
|
lots of all ins.. sometimes the terran will just push with some kind of stim timing on two bases before the p has any kind of meaningful tech and the p misses an ff or 2 and just kind of dies..
sometimes picked apart by harass style with banshee/blue hellion which doesn't outright kill the protoss but in the later stages of the game they just don't have enough
macro games are usually won by the terran when they make a transition to thor or tank/ghost/bio instead of just staying on mmm + viking for too long
|
I really hate the BC nerf in the context of the TvP matchup. They have the potential to be a solid lategame option, and pre-nerf you would see them every now and then, but as things are now they are just terribly inefficient.
A buff to BC could be just what this matchup needs, since buffing them would hardly break any other MU (corruptors and vikings counter them hardcore).
|
On January 22 2011 00:15 Alejandrisha wrote:macro games are usually won by the terran when they make a transition to thor or tank/ghost/bio instead of just staying on mmm + viking for too long
I'd like to see an example of this as my personal experience is that it's just impossible. You can play mech style (like goody for example), but you have to actually open mech to do it (1/1/1 openers work great). Playing bio in the early stages of the game and later transitioning won't work as the protoss will already be on the advance and won't just let you make a severe investment like transitioning into mech. He will just kill you while you desperately try to get the 3-4 factories you need for mechplay at this stage of the game up and running.
|
You don't need 3-4 factories. Try 1 or 2 tech labbed facs once you get on 3 bases. for example, on xel naga t can take a pretty greedy 3rd which usually goes up before the protoss gets his on even terms. once you mule that up you can easily throw down a tech lab on your idle factory and pump 2 or 3 thors. i'm not saying mass thor i'm saying a couple up front for the charge zels/colossus lasers to auto focus.
|
On January 22 2011 00:10 Bagi wrote: I'm a 2.5k master terran myself with about 200 points in my bonus pool, FWIW.
Protoss is definately my most difficult matchup at the moment. I usually go with the FE + MMM build, add vikings and ghosts and try to kill the toss as fast as possible. That seems to be the standard among the "pro" people as well. I have to agree with the guy above that its kinda ridiculous as it stands right now - the protoss can sit in his base and get his ball of death, and you HAVE to abuse a hole in his defense to be able to compete. Sometimes I get lucky... But way too often I dont and end up losing to attack-move colossi + gate units.
Once its 3-4 bases and the templars join the fight, its pretty much impossible unless you can get some perfect drops and wreck his economy.
I personally consider the matchup kinda broken.
The only reason Toss sits in their base and waits for their death ball is because they have trouble dealing with early/mid game Terran, if Toss could apply as much pressure as Terran could during early and mid game then trust me, they would, hell I would also, but right now it feels like if you don't have storm or get hit with one bad marauder drop then everything falls apart.
Anyway, from watching HuK's stream how Terrans beat him in late game macro battles, with pretty good effectiveness is just building a TON of marauders (with some ghosts and marines) against Storm and hitting multiple places on the map, forcing him to use gas spawning templars everywhere vs cost efficient marauders or switching to bio mech with Thors/Blueflame Hellions.
|
On January 22 2011 00:28 Alejandrisha wrote: You don't need 3-4 factories. Try 1 or 2 tech labbed facs once you get on 3 bases. for example, on xel naga t can take a pretty greedy 3rd which usually goes up before the protoss gets his on even terms. once you mule that up you can easily throw down a tech lab on your idle factory and pump 2 or 3 thors. i'm not saying mass thor i'm saying a couple up front for the charge zels/colossus lasers to auto focus.
Again, i challenge you to actually show me that it's possible. I have tried to do so numerous times and i have failed every time. Also i watch a lot of pro replays and i never saw this kind of mech transition being effectively used.
2-3 thors is just a joke at that stage of the game. This is what will happen when the battle occurs:he will throw up storms behind your thors, forcing your bio to run away and easily pick off your thors that are now alone and too slow to run away.
For mech to work, you need sieged tanks as support (the more the merrier) and your just not get the neccessary numbers out in time from 1-2 factories.
|
PoltPrimes 11 minute - SEMI ALL IN push.
2 rax, 1 with reactor, other with tech lab, Pump marine/marauder and get upgrades. Get 1 raven, and make2 banshees. WHen your ready push in and attack. Use banshees to snipe Sentries/colossi/immortals. Use PDD to absorb stalker damage, use Stim+micro to kite zealots.
Reinforce with scvs if you'd like or expand if attack fails. it should do significant damage (Protoss most likely has to pull probes to defend.
|
It's seems 1base all-in is the only option to me. I was playing macro games but those colossi ball/amulet HT are so deadly. Then I was doing the 2 Thor push (by janook) but it doesn't work anymore post patch. So I switched to Poltprime's timing attack and it didn't work either until I threw in a dozen of scvs. It's pretty sad.
|
1 base all ins are not the only option at all. if they are going colossus ball or templar keep the count from getting to a critical mass by constantly attacking. remmeber any races end game army is scary when they turtle it to 200 supply
|
I'm in the same boat. I win two ways:
1) Timing attack against protoss at 8:30 mark (2 medivacs out, stim complete, big bio) 2) Protoss attacks me early and I stomp them. Then I expand, do a drop or two and mass mmm.
|
On January 22 2011 00:39 JasonX wrote: PoltPrimes 11 minute - SEMI ALL IN push.
2 rax, 1 with reactor, other with tech lab, Pump marine/marauder and get upgrades. Get 1 raven, and make2 banshees. WHen your ready push in and attack. Use banshees to snipe Sentries/colossi/immortals. Use PDD to absorb stalker damage, use Stim+micro to kite zealots.
Reinforce with scvs if you'd like or expand if attack fails. it should do significant damage (Protoss most likely has to pull probes to defend.
You can push a minute later and get cloak with your 2 banshees, and not have to pull SCVs, just marauder, marine, raven and cloaked banshee. I find the push comes slightly later but not as all in.
I usually play ghost marine bio, 2 rax, reactor techlab, pump marines and 2 ghosts and 1 medivac and push with 23~ infantry and a medivac, expand behind push.
I am not afraid to take the matchup late game although if they open collosus and switch to HT and do drops, etc the match up is significantly harder lategame..
As for the bronze players who said "a nerf needs to be done so T is weaker at the start.." are a little lost. Not only would 4 gate be too strong but TvZ would be so broken.
|
Drops really are what fuck me up i feel like terran should never do mid/lategame attack unless they are dropping in the protoss main at the same time.
So simple and so effective, 4 marauders and 1 medivac requires sooo many more protoss units to take down
|
sometimes picked apart by harass style with banshee/blue hellion which doesn't outright kill the protoss but in the later stages of the game they just don't have enough
It's possible to do some great damage to the Protoss with banshees but it's risky from my limited experience. If you manage to take down the forge and robo quickly and prevent another from being built, then, as long as he doesn't have any serving observers, you're golden, as long as he doesn't go for your base. But better prots are likely to spawn an observer first thing they do with their robo, especially since it produces colossi anyway and observers are dirt cheap post-patch.
This is generally why I sometimes delay the banshee push and strike when I have four and at any rate at least two. That way I won't die so easily and will be able to gun down some buildings. Generally, this is a bit like harassing the Orc in Warcraft 3: you basically go after the burrows to supply-block him, the rest doesn't count that much. With Prot, you have the advantage of shutting down some buildings too if you're lucky. And he can't repair, so if you hang around long enough, you can finish off some buildings. He'd need to be very good to protect everything he has. Generally, a lot depends on how fast you're on his feet and how fast he is. If you pull off the build flawlessly as in without wasting a second (not getting distracted by harass or scout, no delays in SCV production, no delays with gas, mules the instant 50 energy hits, tech lab already farmed and factory removed after starport is built, hitting all hotkeys without a second delay etc.), this can be effective, especially if you execute the raid in the same manner you did the build. The weakness is always in what Day9 says: if you see cheese, just go and kill them (not verbatim).
|
On January 21 2011 23:03 heyyouyesyou wrote: Your really can finish off the protoss at the late game but you can force them to gg by keeping their robo/stargate unit count low. When the protoss techs he techs hard and the futuristic war machine of another planet are scary. Colossus, void ray, phenoix, dts, and high templar all viable and scary as hell options. My advice is to constantly apply pressure, or dont let him get pass a certain number of units. s. This is right. The reasoning behind it is that (i think i remember qxc saying this) bio is better in smaller numbers. Take a couple marines and mauraders and go kill some stalkers. If all your units die and you kill some of his then thats a good exchange for you because your bio works better in small numbers and protoss needs large numbers.
|
I don't like 1 basing against toss so I generally 1 rax fe or 2 rax fe. I add early ghosts and do a marine marauder ghost timing attack with one or two emps. They nullify the immortals and if you get the sentries that is huge. Ghosts are always good to have against toss. Late game I have double ebay for beastly upgrades and add ravens. Drop play is also strong because of the general immobility of the toss army. Just watch for warpins.
|
United States7483 Posts
4 Rax, one with tech lab, one with a reactor all pumping marines with stim usually kicks my ass.
|
I FE vs T every game, so I see most every response people do. At ~3k, I'd say about 40% do a 1 base all-in, 40% do an early expansion, and 20% do harass into expansion (usually banshees). Harass into expo is the hardest to beat IMO.
If T sends a reaper, it's 90% a FE.
|
On January 22 2011 00:22 Lurk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 00:15 Alejandrisha wrote:macro games are usually won by the terran when they make a transition to thor or tank/ghost/bio instead of just staying on mmm + viking for too long I'd like to see an example of this as my personal experience is that it's just impossible. You can play mech style (like goody for example), but you have to actually open mech to do it (1/1/1 openers work great). Playing bio in the early stages of the game and later transitioning won't work as the protoss will already be on the advance and won't just let you make a severe investment like transitioning into mech. He will just kill you while you desperately try to get the 3-4 factories you need for mechplay at this stage of the game up and running.
You don't need to add in Thors, but you should have Factory units to support your Bio in big confrontational fights. If the P has no Colossai, just add in some Blue Flame Helions/Tanks along with standard Maurader/Medivac and you'll be able to fight evenly with P late game.
Alot of people here always cry about how T can't fight P late game but don't realize that they have alot of good abilities that really cripple P late game, such as PDD and EMP.
|
You can do the NaDa 1rax FE (which is supply rax OC supply ref 3 marines, reactor, 2nd CC in base) very effectively. It's been working for me into the 3300+ master's range. However, on maps like steppes, delta quadrant, and other short maps, you may want to consider another strategy.
Check out NaDa vs oGsMC on Shakuras Plateau from the GSL season 4.
|
United States7483 Posts
Alot of people here always cry about how T can't fight P late game but don't realize that they have alot of good abilities that really cripple P late game, such as PDD and EMP.
Not to mention that seeker missile if used properly can annihilate the protoss deathball.
|
Lmao, winning from toss. Give me a break. That't not possible. How are you supposed to counter storm/dt's/collosus/mass sentry's/phoenix. I srs had a game where all those units were used. You can't do anything about it. Pray he screws up is what I always do. Just played like 10 tvps in a row. I fucking hate how toss are finally realizing to play their race. There are so many things toss can do you just die too. And their unit compositions are incredibly strong. You can only win by getting ahead through dropping. Too bad that relies on the protoss screwing up.
Alot of people here always cry about how T can't fight P late game but don't realize that they have alot of good abilities that really cripple P late game, such as PDD and EMP.
Rofl, you don't think terrans have aren't doing this? Every TvP where a 3rd is involved terran should have EMP. Late game DT's basically force a raven.
|
It's okay for me that blizzard nerfs T hard or buffs toss / zerg, but then I don't see me winning any games. This terran race is so gimmicky and you really have to do some unexpected allins / drops to be able to win. What terran unit can actually battle protoss lategame? You have to drop drop drop drop drop...
|
Strats I use
Big Maps - I prefer mech with two reactored starports, hellion/tank/viking/marauder
Small Maps - 1/1/1 quick hellion drop then contain with tanks/hellion/viking/marauder or Banshee Rush.
4 Rax all marine timing rush can work at times, best used against voidray/DT or fast techers
|
On January 21 2011 21:35 GruGloG wrote: As a mastersleague toss I´ll have to say that I have had more and more success in defending these allins (just abusing forcefields and be really slick about using every warpin from your gates until the push comes is usually the key), and I do not think that making this your standard build is the way to go about tvp.
The Protoss giant ball of doom is almost unstoppable in a heads up fight once the armies max out, and this is a fact that terrans have to keep in their minds when heading into a lategame tvp. However, the one thing that the protoss ball does not have is mobility. Terrans who abuses marauderdrops from the midgame and forward to really keep the protoss economy at bay the whole time are a pain in the ass to deal with since 2 medivacs with marauders craves like an half army to deal with since they are so beastly in small battles. I do believe that this is the way terrans have to play to be able to succeed in lategame tvp (I have no opinion wheater this makes a "balanced" game or not, it´s just the way I feel about the matchup).
I can understand that storm feels very hard to deal with for terrans since the bioball is fragile in big battles, but if you dont ever get to that huge fight your big deathball wont do you any good.
Also, thors are incredibly strong lategame as long as you have something to deal with those chargelots.
not at all man. EMP and viking positioning can easily change the tide of the battle.
|
hehe chill out guys.
I just wanted to know how people are winning TvP's and whether the guy's "endless 1-base allin" accusations are true.
Playing by yourself on the ladder can often give you tunnel vision. I would sometimes watch other people's streams to see what they're doing and what kind of strats are around.
Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo.
Maybe I will try a 1/1/1 harassment style with hellions and banshees into mech. I still see a big weakness in this build vs 4gate/3gate robo/3gate vr though. Even 2 bunkers would probably not be enough as they can FF your bunkers to prevent repairs.
A good build for me would be one that can survive a 1-base P attack and at the same time can do enough damage to break even vs a 1gate FE. At the moment all I've got is POLTPRIME!
|
One of the openers I like to use against Protoss that fits under your context is a 2 Rax Stim push while expanding.
10 Depot 12 Rax 13 Gas 15 Orbital 15 Marine 16 Depot Tech Lab on Rax after 1st marine -> Make 1 more Marine + Stim after Tech Lab finishes 2nd Barracks -> Constant marines Use Tech Lab Rax for constant Marauders Move out with 5 Marines + 5 Marauders after Stim finishes, research Conc. shells. Expand while attacking.
This allows you to deal out some very powerful early pressure to a Protoss at about 6:30. Against a 1 Gate FE, this push can either destroy or force a cancel on the Nexus, and against a 4 Gate, it breaks about even in army sizes. However, the Protoss most likely has a forward pylon and warped in reinforcements can be a lot of trouble, so don't hesitate to throw down a bunker or two by your expo.
Hope that helps a bit. I'll supply a replay or two after work ^_^
|
On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote:
Maybe I will try a 1/1/1 harassment style with hellions and banshees into mech. I still see a big weakness in this build vs 4gate/3gate robo/3gate vr though. Even 2 bunkers would probably not be enough as they can FF your bunkers to prevent repairs.
you need at least one bunker and a sieged tank...also, you should be able to scout a 4gate and adapt accordingly.
|
The term "All-In" is thrown around so casually, and I think it's due to a wide spectrum of players posting on the forums. I suppose if you see scvs in an army the first thought would be "all-in". But plenty of times I've sent my army to contest a fast expand from protoss to which the protoss pulls 10-12 probes from the line to support and that wins the fight. Is that an 'all-out' ? For a terran sending scvs it's an all-in/cheesy. A protoss pulling probes to win a fight, it's just defense. Double standards people!
The tvp matchup I think is a straightforward concept. In simplest terms, Protoss has AOE, Terran does not. Seige tanks are awesome as they are, are immobile, require excellent placement, and require you to fight on your terms, and are hard to replace. Delay or limit the ability for protoss to create that mobile AOE, and you will win.
Really the match is won when you delay the aoe. Terran really just need to cripple protoss's economy while continuing to macro and expand production capacity. Terran can't replace an *effective* army fast enough, it can only replace *AN* army (which will surely die later without proper support).
TvP I don't think will change any time until heart of the swarm, I think it requires some pretty major overhauls. I think this is due in part to a number of factors, EU vs NA vs SK pro scenes playing differently, GSL, the wide range of players among all leagues all across the board. At Blizzcon the devs had said TvP is skewed and than terran early game is better and protoss late game is better. Unfortunatley the mid-late game is a wide open window while early game is kind of limited to the first attack. Also since then we've scene the reaper removed from the game, depot before rax, and not much else to buff terran aside from the thor change. While protoss has had considerable tweaks, and now fast phoenixes! gives me the shakes!
|
I win usually beat toss by them having bad decisions to fight in PDD's .. late game is harder. I think the viking count plays a big part in how the game unfolds.
|
As a terran, I'm lost in TvP late game. I'm being forced lately into 1 rax fe -> 4 rax heavy pressure because it's 90% toss expo early, and try to keep them on gateway units instead of letting them greedily tech.
Once you see collsai, double port and double reactor with infantry upgrades ASAP to try and force HT tech. I enjoy a mid game drop to try and snipe the templar archives once it's done if I by chance catch the timing in a previous drop.
I've found sniping pylons, and a cycore, or a robo as being very effective means of hindering a protoss a bit to let you try and muster a marine mara tank hellion force to rush in and try to end the game
Tanks I'm finding are a great force engagement unit. Siege up and walk to them, they'll come once that tank rings out. If you can land a money EMP early game on sentries you're lucky and should pull every SCV and go all in lol
|
I don't think Ravens are all that good vs any Protoss that's already been through some (feedback on PDD, gg) and either my micro is bad or EMP isn't all that effective unless you're doing a surprise attack or targetting a tight cluster of simple combat units. Never had luck taking down HTs with it.
|
If I see bio as toss, I consider the game won for me before it starts. I can do any numbers of builds to ruin it. The only time I lose to it is in the typical marine raven ALL MY FUCKING SCVs all in, and only if I didn't see it coming.
Seriously just go banshee. They are flying DTs. The majority of my losses to terrans are from banshee + bio or banshee + thor. Its the most obnoxious thing in the world. Both easy as hell for terran to get and ridiculously hard to respond to as protoss.
|
United Arab Emirates660 Posts
Most of the time, i lose to well timed pushes like the thor scv all in or ghost push etc! don't go macro vs toss, at least not without harassing the hell out of him! im 2600 toss btw (masters).
|
im a 3000 level master terran been making top 200 since october i win my Tvps by doing marine banshee or marine ghost medivac one base timing pushes, in order to have a high win rate with these u have to know when to attack obviously and that requires practice and scouting
|
its very difficult to defend marauder drops in multiple locations at the same time, i think if the game goes to more than one base and you aren't dropping almost constantly as terran you are making a pretty big mistake.
|
I do iEchoic, expanding if I recall around the time my hellions hit(basically when I have the cash), make tech lab on fact, armory and 2x refineries while the CC is building. I then go start making banshees from 2x ports, thor from 1 fact and rines from 1 naked rax(along with the initial raven and medivac I made).
Research cloak(cut banshee production if needed), add 2 raxes and push out when cloak finishes. Scan where you fight and kill all observers and your banshees clean up(if the opponent had a lot of air, though the banshees wont clean it up, the thors/rines can handle it fine, since the ground army is so much smaller).
You have plenty of minerals, so a 3rd can be taken around the time you push out. Vs templars you gotta be careful, make sure your banshees don't bunch up to much, be liberal on cloaking, try have raven(low on energy) + 3 vikings searching for observers.
I've yet to fail with the build, when I've gotten my expo. Only issue is VR rush/cheese, when I dont spot it/4gate, basically the weakness of iEchoic(well you can hold both off, but you gotta be prepared and hope). This build is pretty crazy strong, since toss detecting is so... limited(well zerg's detection is more infestors + FG vs this combo).
Edit: 2.1k masters... No scrub, but ofcourse there are a lot of possible refinements in my play.
|
On January 22 2011 07:48 Pookie Monster wrote: im a 3000 level master terran been making top 200 since october i win my Tvps by doing marine banshee or marine ghost medivac one base timing pushes, in order to have a high win rate with these u have to know when to attack obviously and that requires practice and scouting Got any replays pookie? I'm so struggling vs toss lately, I don't play enough to get enough practice.
I'm thinking of a marine ghost medic all in, would love something to work off. PM or post works if you can
|
On January 21 2011 18:43 Scare_Crow wrote: I alternate between 1-base Raven Thor timing at ~12 minutes and 2 Rax FE.
I personally do not think pulling 12 out of 28 SCVs to help with repairs at 12 minutes is all-in, as the timing push puts up a natural very nicely. I can certainly keep going if the push doesn't kill him dead.
My late-game compositions are a mixture Marauder/Thor/Medivac/Ghost/Viking/Marine, with how many of each corresponding to the Stalker/Phoenix/HT/Colossus counts.
1800 Diamond Terran, though, so maybe things are a lot harder late-game in Masters.
How do u only have 28 SCVS at 12 mins???
And imo sending 43% of your workers to oppo base to attack/repair at any point in the game is an allin.
|
outmacroing the protoss is the only solution and to do that u must harass and be agressive. Ive been opening with 1-1-1 into 2 rax with medivacs and then add siege tanks (before or after expanding). This will defend any push if scouted correctly and you apply pressure. Then continue with MMM and Tanks. You add ghost or viking if necessary or blueflame hellion Another thing i do is 1rax FE into heavy marine, a little push (which can do heavy damage) then get 2 factories and start pumping marines and siege tanks (from about 4/5 rax (all reactored excpet 1 which is tech lab). Marine Tank and Ghost or Viking will beat (or equalize) his doom ball. Specially because the first push (with 5/6 tanks but reinforcing all time) he will either have ht or collosi but not both. Then you expand and keep pushing. You will make a shitload of tanks in no time. Key are ghost if he has ht or viking if he has colossus and always having a large amount of marines
|
T is basically not good in fighting straight up battles vs P imo, it's somewhat a reverse situation of TvP broodwar imo.
T must use mobility to extreme's when fighting with bio against P as straight up fights become hard to win when colossi enter the battle.
Big battles are winnable though but you need to have a few things going right for you as terran: - good unit spread. Colossi and HT are both alot less effective when T has a nice bio spread. When you harass with 1 or 2 dropships as T it is crucial to have your home force in a nice concave in case he comes attacking back. - good EMP / viking usage, without reducing HT / colossi a little bit you simply not going to win a big fight
Mech is also an option I think but only on small maps or maps with a linear attack pattern. Using mech reverses the roles a bit again, P will have a hard time winning a head on fight but P will have the better unit mobility, for close spawns and linear maps (steppes & jungle basin) mech is quite a viable option imo.
Each matchup has one player having the naturally weaker army whereas the other player will have more mobility, P is basically the turtling race of sc2 and T the most aggresive race of sc2 (using bio that is). Waiting and playing for the macro game is generally not gonna pay off for T using pure bio, with siege tanks the roles change a bit.
Also people suggesting the lategame thor change don't get it. Thors stink vs upgraded zealots, imo you either go straight up bio (with perhaps a splash of siege tanks) or you go straight up mech. These lategame thor changes are just not good, if you want to switch lategame you are better off with battlecruisers which are quite respectable units still (though they should be buffed vs ground again).
|
I'm a masters 2.8k toss, and i'll be honest here, i pretty much only do 4gate, 3gate blinkstalker, or 5gate zealout/sentry. Each build is good vs whatever the opponent is doing, and i start each off with the same standard 14 gateway, 15 gas 16 pylon, and gas steal the opponent. If i don't get the typical 2 rauder 2 rine scv push eventually i scout and if i see bunker(s) on the ramp with only 1 or 2 rax and no expo then i go blinkstalker to stop any tech builds, as my push comes before theirs and is able to outmicro the few bunker'd units they have. If they DO push, then i hold with a zealout and sentry and 2-3 probes, then continue to scout. If it's an early expo build then 5gate zealout sentry, if it's just MMM then 4gate with some stalkers too. Each build is very effective early game, but if the push is too late or they all-in with mass rauder/rine it's many times hard to stop, as gateway units get easily kited and melted by the stimmed rax units. Overall my playstyle is very micro intensive and for the most part all-inish, although there are clear times to expand after each build. I very rarely lose to polt timing pushes or any other fast 1base allin, and more often lose the macro battle as my tech is always late (i hate robo and high templar is longer to get than collo). Usually i lose to the 90 ish food army of MMM that comes when they achieve 2base, if they can hold my initial pushes. Some advice i would offer to terran is make like 7 bunkers when you expand, not 2, as the 100 mineral investment makes your units WAY stronger and can even be salvaged later on when you want to have money for your 3rd.
|
On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote: Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo. E!
Yeah, the straight transitions into thors is not that good, but if you start out with siege tanks you may enough stuff to survive (assuming you are 3 bases, which means that you can produce about 4-5 thors at once (if that`s all you are doing).
|
On January 21 2011 18:34 vnlegend wrote: I'm 2800 Terran in the Master league and lately I've been losing to Protoss a lot in macro games. I've tried mech, or transitioning out of MMM but it's hard as chargelots + colo/templars own me. Then I started using Poltprime's build and now I'm winning a good amount. After beating this P with the same build he says "fucking Terran and their endless 1-base allins."
I normally play Terran but I've switched to Protoss a few times. The last time I did it, all my PvT's, about 15 games, were Terran mostly 1-basing with marine/tank/raven/banshee +/- scvs. Unable to beat these builds, I said screw this and went back to Terran. So I kinda agree with the P earlier.
Is this how it is on the ladder? As Terran am I forced to play aggressively or be doomed to lose? My Terran brethren all seem to prefer 1-base timing attacks as opposed to stuff like 1rax expo. It was very eye-opening playing as Protoss because while I'm trying to do standard MMM and expanding, they're doing pretty sick builds. POLTPRIME!
How are most TvPs won?
Stim a-move?!
EDIT: THIS IS A JOKE
|
try going for iEchoic 1/1/2. it forces the toss to tech in an unstandard way and lets you choose the gamepace
|
On January 23 2011 01:23 Autunno wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote: Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo. E! Yeah, the straight transitions into thors is not that good, but if you start out with siege tanks you may enough stuff to survive (assuming you are 3 bases, which means that you can produce about 4-5 thors at once (if that`s all you are doing).
Why would you want transition into thors in the first place ? There is really little in the protoss arsenal that the thor is actually useful against. That, and the fact that thors are really immobile and thus don't work well in combination with bio. Also, the presence of one voidray on the battlefield can shut down thor dps due to stupid attack priorities (unless you manually target fire all your thors which would require like 500 apm).
Thors work well with other mech such as tanks, hellions and vikings. In this combination, they are not slowing down your mobility (since you are immobile anyways) and provide a good cover for your tanks.
I don't see any reason why i would ever get thors to add to my bio. Bio is basically a dead end, once you commit to it, you are stuck with it. Sure, you can add medivacs/vikings/ghosts but transitioning into something else will prove extremely difficult.
|
On January 23 2011 01:39 Lurk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 01:23 Autunno wrote:On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote: Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo. E! Yeah, the straight transitions into thors is not that good, but if you start out with siege tanks you may enough stuff to survive (assuming you are 3 bases, which means that you can produce about 4-5 thors at once (if that`s all you are doing). Why would you want transition into thors in the first place ? There is really little in the protoss arsenal that the thor is actually useful against. That, and the fact that thors are really immobile and thus don't work well in combination with bio. Also, the presence of one voidray on the battlefield can shut down thor dps due to stupid attack priorities (unless you manually target fire all your thors which would require like 500 apm). Thors work well with other mech such as tanks, hellions and vikings. In this combination, they are not slowing down your mobility (since you are immobile anyways) and provide a good cover for your tanks. I don't see any reason why i would ever get thors to add to my bio. Bio is basically a dead end, once you commit to it, you are stuck with it. Sure, you can add medivacs/vikings/ghosts but transitioning into something else will prove extremely difficult.
I`m playing mecha bio (more mecha heavy then bio) against protoss. Thors are good because they can take a lot of damage, they are not the damage dealers here (and also shutdown immortals, which are the biggest threat against a tank heavy army). But if you are going bio heavy I agree with you, there`s no place for thor in this composition.
|
I agree that it seems that the stronger Terran one base all ins are the way to go at the moment - I am having basically no luck with fast expand mech play, as it seems to be quite easy for Toss to crush you before you reach a critical mass. I have lost a lot of games trying to macro hard as T recently vs Z and P (I accept that I'm not a good player), and I think I'm going to have to start making use of Raven timing attacks in TvP. As someone mentioned on the first page, a Zerg I recently played started calling me out as a 'noob' for trying to play Macro vs zerg.
I'm not saying any of that is bad, I just need to learn some of these 1 base stats and start using them to their full potential.
|
[QUOTE]On January 23 2011 02:00 Trowa127 wrote: As someone mentioned on the first page, a Zerg I recently played started calling me out as a 'noob' for trying to play Macro vs zerg. /QUOTE]
I pratically only play macro game against zergs (Jinro inspired), and it has been work quite effectively against diamond level players. It`s actually easier to play macro games against Z than P, as Z isn`t that agressive usually (mutas are not that hard to counter as T).
|
I've been having success drawing games out against toss- in general, I try to make it as much of a macro game as possible, and keep throwing stuff at them until they collapse.
Thinking about it, I think that I've ended up burning through their gas faster than I burn through my minerals, leaving them with no gas to keep making their units. Simply speculation on why it works.
I've had success transitioning into banshees when it gets really late, and I'm religious about my upgrades, moreso than my opponent, meaning that a longer game is better for me.
I'm also a cheesy bastard, and I try to stay one base ahead of toss, usually with my first or second expansion being sneaky. (islands on island maps, hidden spots on shakuras, extra mains on meta, etc.)
|
Last month I try to do something else then only bio against toss, results: 90% loses of my 200 games agains toss. Im trying hard to optimize builds etc, but as times goes on, Im losing hope
After losing like 20 games in a row, i just decide to 3-rax my next opponent, and suprisingly, i ALWAYS win that game!
StarCraft II WoL is a quite broken game atm, you cannot "counter" protoss properly, because the unit compositions with gateway + higher tier is just impossible to break, except when toss screwes up when controlling or sometinh!
I trow all my hopes into SCII HotS, i hope terran will get some robust, rofl-stomping aoe units (like collosae or HTs), but stronger
|
Depending on map and position i do 3 radically different builds. If it is a reasonably choked map and the positions are Far i go for a 1 rax into siege expand. Meaning i expand off 1 rax without any addon (just pumping straight marines). Usually if a fast 4g hits it arrives before i have the siege tech finished, so i need to build at least 2 bunkers to hold my ramp. Once siege is done i move out and secure my natural. From there on i play heavy mech, but this style has been somewhat hit and miss, mostly because i am not used to tank positioning anymore. If i make a mistake in my tank line the toss rolls me. If i do not make a mistake and keep my scouting up (scouting for a possible air switch of the protoss is VERY important. If he shows up with 5 void rays while you only have a few marines and thors as AA you are dead) i usually win.
The maps i play this build on most are Scrap station and LT (if cross positioned). On LT i focus on getting a contain up by the far Xel'Naga tower. If i achieve that position properly and reinforce no toss on 2 base can break out on the ground.
On Shakuras or Xel'Naga i play 2 rax bio into expand. The first rax gets a techlab after 3 marines, and starts stim immediatly. The rax without addon pumps marines all the time, the other pumps marauders full time (if i get my timing right i usually only have 100 gas for stim when the addon finishes so the first Mara gets "cut down" to a marine). As soon as stim is close to being done i move out and try to pressure. The timing is usually right when he is moving out to attack if he goes for 4g, in 4 of 5 games i have caught the toss in the middle of the map without a proxy pylon in sight (sometimes i am really lucky and he has his army "split up" because he didn't micro well, meaning stalkers in front of the zealots and sentries even more behind). in such a small micro fight on open ground my bio almost always wins. Sometimes they manage a perfect retreat with forcefields but most of the time i kill off his initial push and can expand safely. From this position i usually go for a 2 base raven, banshee bio push at around 13 minutes in the game. If the protoss has teched well he can have a colossus out, but mostly only 1 without range. If he went for templar storm research usually hasn't been finished.
The biggest weakness of the second build is the 3g1robo build so far. If he does that well (keeping his army together while moving out) i have to retreat up my ramp and fight there. If he attacks along a weird route i might miss his army on the way and end up completly out of position as well, both things hurt badly :/
Anyway, tl;dr from my (admittedly only diamond) perspective i need to focus on damaging the protoss in the early game before the true high tech arrives, or i need to go pretty straight for mech to be on an equal tech basis. Pure bio against templar tech or a huge colossi ball simply doesn't work (frankly it shouldn't work). So if he reaches that stage of the game i better have included some later game tech as well to compensate (usually either ghosts and vikings or ghosts and tanks).
Personally i feel that most terran ignore the absurd power of a raven in the early/mid game. A fast raven coupled with a 2/1/1 build which produces units of one base makes a beastly push and a 100% solid defence to expand behind.
Edit: Forgot the 3rd build. If i get a Protoss on steps of war (a map i absolutly detest and which i have turned down now) i usually go for a 3 rax all in, simply because i want to end the game. Hasn't really worked out that well lately, mostly because i have finally reached the level where people know how to forcefield a ramp :p
|
On January 23 2011 11:02 Pestilence wrote:Last month I try to do something else then only bio against toss, results: 90% loses of my 200 games agains toss. Im trying hard to optimize builds etc, but as times goes on, Im losing hope After losing like 20 games in a row, i just decide to 3-rax my next opponent, and suprisingly, i ALWAYS win that game! StarCraft II WoL is a quite broken game atm, you cannot "counter" protoss properly, because the unit compositions with gateway + higher tier is just impossible to break, except when toss screwes up when controlling or sometinh! I trow all my hopes into SCII HotS, i hope terran will get some robust, rofl-stomping aoe units (like collosae or HTs), but stronger We have those. They are called Ghosts and Tanks. In combination they have the most absurd front loaded dps you can unleash on a Protoss ball i have ever seen. (Have a replay somewhere where a protoss practice partner tried to break out through a 15 siege tank line on LT. 2 Emps into the choke to help as well and he went from 200 supply to 45 (drones) in 20s.
Yes the protoss have nice toys, but learn to appreciate our own toys and it isn't that bad.
|
1. Using ghosts in any and every situation. 2. Doing drops.
|
I may be lucky, or I may have found something, but I have 80% win rate vs Toss as a Terran player. I am 2480 Diamond beating 2200-2800 Toss players. I have only one build I use because the TvP matchup is solid. It is typically a 2-Rax Fast Expand build. That may sound very plain, but I have found a very comfortable way of using the build. Sometimes depending on how the first 6 minutes go I may make it a 3-Rax expand. It's very flexible. I'd like to share it.
* Standard Terran opening. Get your Rax, then Gas, then OC. * Make one marine to threaten the scout and also patrol around inside and outside your base for Proxy. * Right after the marine, make a Tech Lab and train a Marauder while researching Conc. Shell. * Around this time you'll begin building a second Rax. Keep it naked for now, train marines from it. * Using the first marine, check Xel'naga towers. * When you have 2-3 Marauders (2 for close position, 3 for cross position) push out with your units + 1 or 2 scv. It'll be around 4:00-4:30. Conc. Shell will be finished, and as you approach the Toss base, be wary of the ramp. You'll be behind if it gets FF, splitting your army. * As you push, place your CC. Build 2 bunker (in case you must retreat)
3 things may happen: 1) You'll get FF'd out, in that case keep your army there for a minute, trying to bait more FF. 2) Stalker/Zealot. Kill the stalker then kite the Zealot. You'll have ~2 marauder, 2 marine in his base while his units are warping in. When possible, shoot warping in units because they take more damage. If he resorts to sending his probes at you, kite the probes in the direction of the ramp. Probes can kill your army if they get the surround. What you should do is keep luring them toward you because that's less mining time, while more units rally. Many times it is GG right there. (always target lone pylons powering buildings) 3) All Zealots. He's going for a Chargelot build. It is so easy to kite 3,4,5 Zealots with 1 or 2 marauders. Play it well, it's an easy GG.
Let's assume 1). You get FF'd out. You have an expansion, he does not. Retreat, build up a heavier army. I prefer 4-rax, 1 fac, 1 port. Start getting that MMM. Constantly scout to see what he's doing. From there you have momentum. Trade armies as good as you can in your favor, as you have greater income at this point and can replenish your forces faster, and Terrans in small groups are very efficient.
This whole build leads up to drops and timing pushes and mass expanding. It's the only build I use vs Toss of all ratings, and it works well.
|
Once p has coll and Templar you will need to have good scouting to see his balance of units... More coll u get vikes, more temps get ghosts.. But I will say bio against coll and temp is hard. Crush him early before he gets both. Coll and temps are so much gas!
|
TvP is a lot like P/TvZ where if you just let the P macro up you will lose. A lot of people seem to confuse well timed pushes and all-ins quite a bit. A marine/tank/banshee/raven push isn't an all-in even with 2-3 scv's thrown in. It's when you start send 10+ scv's with the push that it becomes an all-in. It's like most other timing pushes, if the push fails to do damage you will be behind.
|
A Push can be all in even if you don't send a single SCV as well. If you mine out your main and natural completly while bunkering down to build a 200 supply army that push that comes out better win you the game or make a truly massive dent in your opponent because your most likely almost completly dry and won't have any chance to macro back up (never mind stockpiling extra production buildings or ressources).
|
DISCLAIMER: I might not have taken off my "EMP-is-so-strong-dare-I-say-IMBA" glasses during the time that I wrote this post, and therefore might be basing the way a terran can play alittle too poorly. Also, sorry for the essay.
I'm having a problem seeing how so many terrans fear lategame protoss armies seeing as you have ghosts and their emps outrange a HTs storm/feedback AND it gets the sentries energy as well, so no FFs.
Basically this means EVEN if he has good spread of his hts, you only need 3-4 emps to cover his ENTIRE army. I mean protoss can do gimmicky stuff such as building pylons and warp in right at his army, but it's gimmicky. You can just not fight there or go in and emp his warping in HTs. He can also run 1 ht out at a time but this doesn't seem that effective at all cus you can just well, kill it(lol). Only thing I see HTs are good for vs T is storm drops, cus in armies vs T any player with good reaction time just emps it before it gets in range to storm. This is what I always face when I meet competent Terrans. Note that I'm not basing this paragraph off of PERFECT or REALLY GOOD micro skill. With decent enough micro and reaction time, this should easily be a feasible way to deal with HTs.
It feels like the thought process/gameplan of a Terran can almost always be this vs Protoss going into late earlygame-midgame: "Ok what units can he transition into, I can timing push him if he tries to get HT's because of how much time it takes him to get them. He can't really get phoenixes or voidrays due to marines + turrets being an easy and cheap way to defend myself against it. So that leaves me with colossus first, so I'll get vikings. Now I just need to keep track of when he gets his HTs out or go a couple of ghosts pre-emptively because that is his only other high tech unit he can use AND they're great against sentries + (possible) immortals." I feel this is what terrans are not doing enough, you can just do this forceful kind of style of narrowing down what choices he has unit composition wisely. Again, not basing this off of PERFECT or REALLY good macro/micro/gamesense to achieve, just being decent at these things should suffice.
And no this actually doesn't work the same way for protoss BECAUSE of the aforementioned large timing window for early HT tech or cheap defense to counter air.
This also means you are forcing him into colossus as his only viable t3 unit, or dare I ridiculously say coloss + carriers(LOL), but since you already went vikings you'll be countering his carriers quite nicely as well. If he even does this which I doubt he will, just scout it in time and don't let him get a critical mass of carriers and you're set.
Basically what I can see working is to just go excessive on the colossus (2robos) so that they live long enough to do their necessary dmg to the groundforce. For you terrans this means you can in a pretty practical way counter this through having a high viking count to ghost count ratio(this being due to not as many emps needed due to AOE). Or try some sort of colossus phoenix/voidray(to counter vikings) mix.
I'm obviously not a tip-top pro player who knows exactly what I'm talking about. Came up with this through just (maybe not so much?:D)common sense and alittle not so useful experience(look me up lol). This is the way I mostly THEORETICALLY feel terrans can think about and deal with protosses in a not so far-fetched realistic way that doesn't require INSANE skill to pull off.
TLDR; EMP nullifies sentries, immortals and HTs(cast range issues) so you can blindly go Vikings -> Ghosts/EMP and control his unit composition quite easily. If HT tech first = large timing window for a timing attack. Balancing your own unit compo.is not that much of an issue due to the lower costs of Vikings+Ghosts vs Coloss/HT(misbalancing unit compo not as dangerous as T vs P). Key word is control, if you are CONTROLLING the game, you are at an advantage to take the win.
|
One thing, yes emp has higher range but your ghost isn't always in the perfect position (and actually if he is in the front line of your army you might loose him to a good feedback or fast colossus snipe). Usually in an endgame battle against a full Toss ball i hit most of his Hts and sentries with an emp, but 1 or 2 always escape me. Either because they lag behind where i expect them to be, or because they are at a weird position in the army (in the middle of the zealots, stuck behind an immortal completly in the back etc.).
Also i think you are disregarding just how expensive Ghosts are compared to how little damage they directly do. A Storm can kill an army (granted one storm alone can't, but the point remains it deals damage), an EMP can only cut down their shields. 4 Ghosts and 10 marauders cannot destroy a protoss army no matter how well they emp and micro simply because they don't deal direct damage fast enough. 4 Templars properly microed with enough energy saved up can lay down a storm field which only your marauders survive and those will be half dead by the time they get out. You'd be surprised how fast a single colossus can mop that mob of 5hp units up. If you build enough ghosts to completly nullify every single HT/sentry/immortal you won't have the Gas to stock up vikings to deal with the colossi. If you spend all your ressources on gimmicky stuff (vikings, ghosts) a simple zealot mob will be able to kill you (if he has researched charge, which trust me every protoss who lays down a twilight council has done sooner or later).
To some extent i agree with you. Even if i haven't seen a single HT in his army i will still have at least 1 ghost with me. I also have a single raven with my army and usually at least 2 vikings (even if he has absolutly no colossi in sight) just to be prepared, scout ledges, shoot observers etc. But those units cannot make up the bulk of my army, because they don't actually kill the normal warpgate stuff he has in any case. When i started to play i loved ghosts and built at least 4-5 every single game, but sooner or later i noticed that maybe i should have invested that Gas into something usefull like updates or medivacs
tl;dr: Everything in moderation, especielly "special forces" units which don't actually kill stuff.
|
Yeah I don't think I considered many of the "human" and smaller factors of the game when posting, such as the ones that you mentioned.
I pretty much agree, and I like your EMP vs Storm comparison. I just feel that the difficulty of getting a storm off vs emps can sometimes be so hard that it almost feels too risky to even get them. (Which is why I try to just go for a slightly safer way of just overcompensating for his viking count with mass colossus.) If he hits a couple of good emps, I basically have to run and that will be costly because of stim MMM (concussive shell) killing off a good chunk of my army. Or fight a loosing battle just trying to take out as many units as possible to maybe save myself with templar + zealot warp ins after the fight. Very scrappy way of playing.
I might be underestimating the power of storms here though, because just getting even 1 or 2 good ones off can be quite devastating. Thinking back on it you will be able to have storms available more often than ghosts can have emp available making it possible to maybe "run" him over with storms(referencing to the previous paragraph). Certainly not cost-efficient though but definitely possible considering the type of economy you will have at the time that you get them(3rd on it's way/up and running, maybe even 4th).
This even shows in the pro's play as they never don't get HTs in lategame. Saw it today even in TLOpen. Some toss(on xelnaga caverns) just kind of wittled down the terran with constant storm drops and always kept a bigger army so he could expo safely. Just drain him out economically while still being able to defend. (Unsure if he actually won or not but still a very strong use of storms in making his gameplan become a reality)
I think all things considered, the gameplan/way of thinking still might be a viable way to see it as, just not as easy as I perhaps might be making it out to be in my first post. Actually kind of stating the obvious as it seems that this is pretty much what happens in any TvP, you go viking->ghosts except I was perhaps mistakenly thinking you could capitalize on it as much as I thought.
But yeah you terrans are kind of controlling the unit compo we get though. Because of what you said with the pre-emptive viking and ghost acquirement existing in your play and many others, and proving to be effective! Thanks for your input, given me some new ways to think of this matchup in. :D
tl;dr: I partially admit I overestimated EMP and underestimated storms, also thinking out loud about possible answers to EMPs. Emp-op glasses slightly coming off...
|
I've actually kind of stopped playing because pvz is the only fun matchup. PvP and PvT are all about 1 base all-ins =[
|
1 rax long positions 2 rax shorter positions followed by a 1 rine 2 marauder/concussive shells push followed by expand and bunkering up.
get stim and add another couple raxes, then get 2 ebays and a factory and take all your gases
get 1+ armor/weapons, combat shields and then start your starport
make 2 medivacs first if possible to build up the energy and give mobility faster, unless you have no choice but to start vikings asap.
once starport is done put a tech lab on the rax, once you scout templar transition research blue flame and start making hellions, once blue flame is done swap fact onto a reactor and start pumping hellion/marauder/medivac
voila, you have now owned early pressure, collosi and high templar plus youve had harrassment options pretty much all game long.
make sure you are very active with your vikings trying to snipe collosi, do drops, and use your hellions very actively to snipe zealots/ high templar once it gets to that point
protoss can NOT go zealot/high templar vs marauder/hellion
if he transitions to air just spam marines/vikings and proceed to win game
|
I think the Raven push is extremely effective against toss, but it is so easy to scout. If scouted, the real conflict is unit composition. To me this makes the build seem too fragile. It seems like relying on your opponent to respond in a less-than-optimal way in order to win.
As a low diamond P 1800, the most vulnerable I feel, is off 2 bases making the switch from 1 robo colli into the chargelot HT w/ amulet. That is the real crux of the P late game vs T and it seems like I lose most games when I have only those initial HTs with 1 storm each and the amulet is ticking away.
T simply cannot match the versatility and cost-effective nature of 10+ gateways in the late game. Let's say a P has charge and the amulet. He can make a Zealot and a HT for 150/150 ANYWHERE(in the power matrix), that is something that T simply cannot contend with.
|
I prefer doing a 1/1/1 build with blue flame helions. You end up with 8 marines and the medivac with 3 helions and can ferry the rines in the base and distract attention while blue flame helions own probes. Ofc this is vulnerable to a 4 gate attack, though you can hold it with 2 well positioned bunkers and some scv's to repair. The transition is an expansion and marine/marauder/tank/medivac.
|
Alot of people fastexpand/earlyexpand and proceeds too heavily on producing more workers then army. When anyone half decent scouts a fast expansion with little def they will do a timing push to punish you for it. When the expandin player loose to this 4-5 in a row he gets angry and shouts something like "FUCKING 1-BASE ALL IN EVERY TIME, JUST ONCE GIVE ME A MACROGAME" and trust me alot of all the complaints fit in this category.
TvP is a very weird matchup, on both sides there are people who thinks its a cakewalk and some who thinks it's hell.
|
You can win macro games against toss but you need to be on top of drops and have good micro with emp ECT
Protoss think PvT is hell because they have trouble with all the one base pushes. Or they can't spread their units/forcefield well enough to deal with basic bio stuff
Terran think TvP is hell because they feel like they can't win once the P gets warp in storm and collossus. Probably get annoyed at some of the one base void ray builds too
|
On January 22 2011 03:13 iEchoic wrote: You can do the NaDa 1rax FE (which is supply rax OC supply ref 3 marines, reactor, 2nd CC in base) very effectively. It's been working for me into the 3300+ master's range. However, on maps like steppes, delta quadrant, and other short maps, you may want to consider another strategy.
Check out NaDa vs oGsMC on Shakuras Plateau from the GSL season 4.
I do a very similar build on bigger maps.
On the smaller maps I like to open with a two rax, first techlab second reactor. I upgrade conc, sheilds, stim (in that order). My BO goes like this.
Supply, Racks, Ref, OC, supply, 3 marines before my techlab, 2nd barracks, conc, reactor on second barracks, in base command center, then sheilds. I get sheilds before stim because I personally like to play it defensively until i am ready to lift my command center to my natural. When i do this i push out with my army and do a little poke near my enemys base whil building 2-3 bunkers at my natural. If i think i can do damage i do, if not i just pull back to my bunkers that should be nearly completed and i macro up. 2 more barracks, get my gas going, and start teching towards medivacs / vikings for the col that are usually coming. (i scout before making vikings to make sure im correct, sometimes they trick me and go templars so i just make medis and ghosts)
The reason i move my army near their base is for three reasons. It gives me time to get my bunkers up, it allows me to see if they have taken their natural, and i can see their unit comp. The reason i dont do this with an scv is because sometimes if stim is finished i am able to do some real damage. I dont want to WIN the game with that attack i want to swap armies, because the smaller the protoss ball is the better. Id rather have 15 less stalkers/ zealots coming at me when im trying to fight off the col.
Just my 2 cents.
|
Honestly, you can't engage Protoss head on in macro games, unless you have absolutely perfect EMPs. At 3k Masters, you could be ahead 1~2 bases with superior upgrades, but if they a-move, they can usually tear your shit apart with the second wave of reinforcements (HTs and Chargelots).
So if your going to macro, drop, drop, and drop some more while getting many Barracks and good economy, and don't let them take bases.
|
So if your going to macro, drop, drop, and drop some more while getting many Barracks and good economy, and don't let them take bases.
This. Watch pretty much any tvp macro game and see that when the terran stops drop harassing, he starts losing.
|
It seems like most of them either end with some kind of stim timing attack before storm is out, some kind of marine/tank/raven all-in or a long macro game. (~2700 master). If you want to win a macro game you should try and do economic damage before they have storm, and then just start harassing all over the place and expanding like mad while pumping mass MM. EMP also helps, but its more important that you are dropping him and getting in his grill at every opportunity.
|
On January 25 2011 01:51 Mowr wrote:Show nested quote + So if your going to macro, drop, drop, and drop some more while getting many Barracks and good economy, and don't let them take bases.
This. Watch pretty much any tvp macro game and see that when the terran stops drop harassing, he starts losing.
How do you drop when he has lots of cannons, HT or just the ability to warp in HT to pwn your drops?
The thing is that late toss units are so much more cost effective that they can affford to build a lot of cannons at their main/naturals, so you basically cant drop. And from then on your preetty much death as terran unless he misplaces his HT so you can get lucky EMPs off. Ive been wondering whether thor/hellions transition could get work, but not sure.
|
On January 21 2011 21:45 Grummler wrote: I do blueflame hellion drops, followed by some kind of biomech with heavy banshee count. Works ok'ish at around 2,4k master and you dont have to worry about the lategame. Its very harass orientated though.
Imho you cant transition into mech from pure MMM. It takes too long. Sure, there might be certain situations where it does work, but generally it wont. If you have 5+baracks, reactor starport, a lonely factory floating around somewhere and no single mech upgrade, it takes too long for your tank count to build up. There is a huugee timing window where a decent protoss can easily overrun you.
So, i do: 1-1-1 opening, gas before baracks, no 2nd gas before i expand. constant scv and marine production you have about 4 hellions with blueflame once the first medivac pops -->harass expand, get more factories, start tank production out of 2 factories and hellion production out of 1 with reactor. siege expand with bunkers in direction of your opponent, harass with hellions and banshee the whole time. BE ANNOYING!
You are vulnerable to 4gates, so you need to scout with your 1st hellion. Get need atleast 1 bunker at your choke. The Protoss will expect cloak banshees, but thats ok. Do you have any replays you could share?
|
The more i play vs toss the more I am convincedthat you should 1 base all in every game. There is not a solid strategy. The toss army is tons more cost effective, he can be ahead in expanding no matter what you do, toss can reproduce much faster. To win TvP past 15 min you need 1000 lucky drops. The whole match up is broken and dumb to watch/play.
|
On January 25 2011 02:11 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 01:51 Mowr wrote: So if your going to macro, drop, drop, and drop some more while getting many Barracks and good economy, and don't let them take bases.
This. Watch pretty much any tvp macro game and see that when the terran stops drop harassing, he starts losing. How do you drop when he has lots of cannons, HT or just the ability to warp in HT to pwn your drops? The thing is that late toss units are so much more cost effective that they can affford to build a lot of cannons at their main/naturals, so you basically cant drop. And from then on your preetty much death as terran unless he misplaces his HT so you can get lucky EMPs off. Ive been wondering whether thor/hellions transition could get work, but not sure. You don't, you pretty much just lose. At least that's what's been happening to me lately. I guess the only answer is dual/triple pronged attacks, to at least get some damage done. With sizable armies on each front capable of burning down cannons and at least stand up against a single wave of warp ins, it should be enough. At least, that's the only way I've been able to beat Protoss in the late game stages...
|
As a random player, I want to state that I start feeling threatened as protoss by a terran player who has built up a well macro'd marauder heavy bioball with 6+ medivacs. So often a push comes without any sort of tech beyond barracks units, and I'll crush that.
When I draw Terran, I'll do a Polt timing attack, starting my CC about the time that my raven gets out.
When I scout that I'm fighting Raven based play as a protoss I just feedback the raven and go otherwise zealot heavy.(maybe 2-3 cannons in key positions if I'm worried about detection)
|
Is there a detailed guide explaining the raven all in everyone is talking about?
|
Zurich15234 Posts
On January 27 2011 17:32 DestroManiak wrote: Is there a detailed guide explaining the raven all in everyone is talking about? There are tons of variations. What they have in common is a raven, banshee(s) and marines. of 1 base. Idea is to drop a point defense drone to nullify stalkers and win the fight with the high DPS of marines and banshee. There are variations with/without stim/tanks/medivacs/SCV/etc.
It's strong against any stalker heavy / robo army naturally, but dies ridiculously fast against zealot / sentry heavy compositions.
The attractive thing from the Terran point of view is that the build negates pretty much all the countless 1 base aggressive build Protoss can do. It does reasonably well against 4 gate, denies DT, void ray, 3gate robo, and ends in a very strong counter attack.
However, it is very weak against 1 gate expand, as you don't have a strong attacking force until all the components (raven with energy, marines with stim, basnhee, etc) come together. So if you somehow know T is going that route the direct counter to this is 1 gate expand into speedlots with sentry.
|
for a longer game you need to keep colossus down. just like tanks they reach a critical mass
that being said once storm is in play coupled with colossus you're in trouble. I haven't experimented with mech enough but the answer must lie in there somewhere
I would sort of hate to lose the power of early bio though. probably going to look for a transition from 2rax or 3rax into biomech.
need the mobility of bio early on for punishing eraly fe's and containing. ...well maybe you don't NEED it but I like the advantage it gives me.
something attractive about immobility in this matchup, actually, is that forcefields lose value.
|
|
|
I main as zerg, and only play about 3-4 PvTs per week at 2600 diamond level. My experience is a little limited, as I fast expand off 1 gate in every game that isnt on close positions. I generally go for fast 5/6 gate + robo to pump observers (usually get at least 4, 2 initially and more when drops come into play) and then keep macro up, fast third and zealot legs -> late storms. heavy sentry emphasis. I can only remember one loss in the last 2 weeks, conc maurader expand pressure (nearly killed my expo) -> macro and hit a good timing push right before storm. One base timing pushes /w raven usually are held quite fine.
|
early raven marine "all-in" realy works if you dont want to drag the game for to long. while i like to go 2raxFE with then build 3-4 raxxes with 3tech 2/3 reactor and do a +1 / stimpack push. it REALY works well. and ghosts is also realy nice if you are facing sentry/templar heavy armies.
|
I'm P and Polt timing pushes and their like are incredibly tough to hold unless you know the exact response.
I think the most viable late game build for T is tank/thor/banshee/marine and some ravens. There is no counter to it (unless you let your banshee energy build up too much and be super vulnerable to Feedback, so get cloak and use it).
Too many Ts are just going MMM to the end, maybe with a few tanks, but this just doesn't cut it as chargelots and storm completely rape this comp (along with the Colossi that'll usually be present late game) unless you are perfect about how and where you engage.
It's going to take a major change in the TvP standard for their late game to be viable, and I think Mech (after a bio opening to pressure) is the future.
|
Whoa interesting, I've actually got some data that I think related to this. I realize page 7 is a little late and all the points I'm going to make have probably been discussed, but hard data is always nice.
Since I've been in Masters, I've been keeping track of my wins/losses with a spreadsheet, in order to see how I need to improve. It led to some interesting things that I was unaware of. For one thing, I was 2W 7L on Delta Quadrant, so that map got deselected. Even more interesting though were the race matchups.
I'd felt that I'd been having lots of trouble with Terrans 1-Basing. Thor rush, Marine/Banshee/Raven, any of the strong 1-Base plays were a problem. It turns out that was true, but it also turned out that when T didn't 1-base, PvT was by far my best matchup.
PvT "Normal" (mostly barracks play): 15W, 4L PvT "1-Base" (any variety of 1 base play): 1W, 3L PvT "Cheese" (marine/SCV all-in on close positions) 0W, 1L PvT Overall: 16W, 8L
1-Basing is clearly giving me the most trouble, but I had no idea that I did so well in standard play.
One thing to keep in mind is that I rarely go Colossus in this matchup, I prefer 1 base chargelot into 2 base templar. I think this build catches Ts off guard, but I have no idea how much or little that contributed to the outcome. Also, results may not be typical, since I don't know of many other players who do this build.
Still though, you always hear the complaint that it's impossible to win once P gets Storm and Amulet. While that may not be true, it certainly looks like it's an uphill battle to me. One thing a lot of Ts gloss over though is just how strong some of those early pushes are, and just how hard they are to deal with.
tl;dr: please don't 1-base me on ladder, I would prefer to play a long macro game, and 1-basing is far too effective.
|
Mech really is the way to go I believe. It's difficult, but I promise you its REALLY easy to keep a protoss pinned into his base (works even better at 3-4 base) with mech because you get helions and you can send them all over the map to kill probes or do drops with. Investing in cannons is a good way to stop it but regardless, it still poses a threat and if I have to suicide 4 helions to almost kill an entire mineral line its worth it. I play terran at 2700 masters and I don't think people realize how much more important it is to have a good probe count compared to terran. I open with blue flame helions as its almost guaranteed to do decent eco damage to protoss. Banshees just dont cut it anymore with every good protoss just putting their stalkers in good positions in their base with observers. Also, taking a fast 3rd isn't the easiest thing in the world for whoever has mentioned that. When we try fast 3rds, we have to cut down on a full production cycle which is HUGE for terran in this matchup. You need to constantly be ahead/equal on food or else the protoss army is still going to rape you, even if you go mech. So, taking fast thirds can only work if he doesn't realize it and just goes and kills you.
|
The problem with containing a protoss is that it's so easy for him to completely backstab you. All it takes is one well placed pylon or a warp prism and an endless stream of gateway units will rape your base and force you to retreat. I'm by no means saying that mech isn't viable or that a contain is a bad idea. It's just that it happens more often to me that the protoss backstabs me than him actually breaking my contain.
|
On January 28 2011 05:46 FenneK wrote: I'm P and Polt timing pushes and their like are incredibly tough to hold unless you know the exact response.
I think the most viable late game build for T is tank/thor/banshee/marine and some ravens. There is no counter to it (unless you let your banshee energy build up too much and be super vulnerable to Feedback, so get cloak and use it).
Too many Ts are just going MMM to the end, maybe with a few tanks, but this just doesn't cut it as chargelots and storm completely rape this comp (along with the Colossi that'll usually be present late game) unless you are perfect about how and where you engage.
It's going to take a major change in the TvP standard for their late game to be viable, and I think Mech (after a bio opening to pressure) is the future. As I see it, tanks are rather worthless for this setup. What you are likely going to face mostly with that combination is zlots/immos/hts along with possibly phoenixes/VRs. Tank sucks vs all those(and ontop of that, they splash thors harder than they dmg the zlots). Personally I think rine/thor/banshee with a raven into rauder/thor/banshee with a raven, ghosts and vikings sprinkled in is insanely good and will be the future of TvP. Aslong as you keep your energy low on the banshees and keep them not stacked up, they really are insane, just gotta babysit them a bit.
I don't really understand why everyone is so fascinated by forcing the tank to work, Or well atleast I see no advantage in that particular combo of units to waste resources on a unit that is likely dealing more friendly dmg than offensive.
|
On January 28 2011 08:48 Zarahtra wrote:
I don't really understand why everyone is so fascinated by forcing the tank to work, Or well atleast I see no advantage in that particular combo of units to waste resources on a unit that is likely dealing more friendly dmg than offensive.
Agree to an extent, they are best used for defense and cliff drops...but my mech transitions to more thors than tanks once I have my gas 4-6 gas fully going.
|
|
|
|