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Introduction:
The lategame of TvP has been somewhat of a hot topic lately. When Artosis and Idra made an episode in "you-know-what" on early TvP, they were bombarded with questions about lategame where terrans often feel less comfortable. We havent really seen defined strategies pop up in the pro scene, as most games still are quite short, except for rare occasions like IMMVP vs squirtle. With new maps times are changing, so I thought of making a more general discussion thread for the lategame TvP woes, where people can share their strategies and general "gameplan" when they enter lategame against a protoss.
Probably the most common problem is people sticking with bio/medivac/viking and eventually dying to protoss AOE. There are always people giving vague advice like "just go mech", "thors" or "go banshee/BC". I'm not going to say any of these are bad options, but effectively transitioning into such things can be hard. Its alot more help if you describe your plan in more detail: how many unit production structures you make, when you attack, what strengths/weaknesses you feel your build has, what to watch out for and so on.
My own findings:
I'm a 3200 masters terran myself. I like to make devise my own unit comps, and lately I've been deliberately a bit more passive against protoss just so that I could get a better feel of our lategame options. I used to go bio all game long, but I feel like it hits a wall at a certain point in the game and just stops being effective.
At the same time I think that the early game strengths of the bioball are too good to pass up, so my goal has been to keep doing that but to have a lategame as well. I've felt that banshees and BC's take both too long to build and are very easily dispatched by stalker/HT, so I didnt want to rely on them either. That means my lategame would have to rely on mech.
My first thought was to make a heavy biotank composition. It seemed to make alot of sense as tanks make a ton of DPS against a tightly clumped protoss deathball. However, I noticed the only times I won were when 1) I had plenty of time to position my tanks/units and 2) it was before the big zealot-heavy army (4-5 bases, excess minerals all spent on zealots). After seeing my own army get ambushed and my bio get blown up by my own tanks, I realized it wasnt working. Thanks to zealots, I feel like tanks do not mix with bio very well: they are better left for a pure mech build, where friendly fire is less of an issue and hellions help dealing with them.
So it was up to thors to save my sorry ass. And to my suprise, they worked pretty damn well. One of the biggest problems of the bioball is how quickly everything dies. Tanks are really no exception to this, as they are only a little more durable than a marauder. Thors on the other hand are just awesome. Its a great feeling when your army can actually go head to head against the mighty deathball with thors soaking up the hits. Thors also negate forcefields, which really help your marauders get more shots in.
In a very rough sketch, but what I'm currently aiming for at 3 bases is something like a 7/2/2 for production facilities. The army consists of marauder/thor/medivac/viking/ghost. I usually do not start thor production until my 3rd is up, up to that point its best to focus on aggression with the regular bio army.
Ghosts are absolutely essential, such a great unit. Even if you feel like you can eat a storm or two, you dont want to unless you absolutely have no choice. Always scan ahead when moving, EMP everything before or right as you engage and hope that more templars arent on the way.
With thors you wanna keep each and every thor alive. If you see a battle is about to go horribly wrong, you might wanna consider picking up thors with your medivacs and taking them to safety. Marauders are for the most part disposable, but thors are too expensive to let go. They seem to work much better in greater numbers as well.
Imo marines are not worth it lategame. I always felt that marines were necessary because of their DPS, but stimmed marines often die to the first storm even if you micro them out asap. They are just too much of a liability. Now I let a starport use that early reactor instead.
However as this is not meant as a guide, nor is it defined enough to become one, I'll just stop here and hope this sparks some conversation. Do post your own opinions/findings and show everyone else what works for you, even if its a mech build from the first unit, doesnt matter.
If you just feel like I'm a noob who needs to be told, correct me, I dont mind. I felt like I needed to start with something, but I made this thread as an opportunity to learn from others, not to show off my own gameplan. The purpose of this thread is just to share our ideas on how to be effective against protoss in longer games, so that maybe we can all do a bit better against them.
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3000 masters T and more or less same situation as you. The "go mech" answers really piss me off to say the least. Not even the best terrans have found a solid way of playing mech. Like you, I've tried tanks and it only worked in scenarios where P for unexplainable reasons went stalker heavy instead of zealot heavy - a scenario where bio would do fine as well.
I've tried a mass thor strategy that has worked out decently. Never, ever have I added ghosts to thors though - can you really support a composition so gas heavy?
And I feel the same about marines. Absolutely worthless. If you stim out of a storm most will be red hp anyways and unable to stim/die to next hit. If he's collosus heavy each marine will get off one shot at best.
How do you feel about strike cannons?
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Speaking as a 2400 Diamond T, I think that EmilA is on the right track, minus one thing - banshees. Back at MLG Dallas, PainUser had some really sick games against Tyler (particularly, his final match on Kulas Ravine), where he made a very smooth transition from a Bio early-midgame to a Thor/Banshee/Viking lategame.
I can't seem to find a link to the exact replays, but there's a link to the replay packs:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=167059
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I think you have the right idea. I havent had enough sucess with tanks to keep building them in TvP. Also, marine just die too quick to be useful. Whenever I go thor I try and get the +1 armor on them making them pretty beefy. I guess you could go strike cannon but i have had difficulty gettin in range of the collossus. But if you do get the strike cannon you can pretty much roam around with 4 thorship and snipe nexus wich is a thing to think about.
Overall I think this is pretty gas heavy but if you can get enough of the green stuff this is the composition to go.
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Mech sucks, as shown by Goody's valient attempts.
From my own personaly experiments at 3500 Masters level, you can usually beat a 200 Toss army with a 200 Mech army if you get off some good EMPS and have good seige positioning.
HOWEVER, your surviving army won't be able to hold off the 20 zealots that warp in instantly. The toss then pushes right back at you because Mech takes FOREVER to rebuild.
I believe the only good answer is early/midgame pressure with biomech and keeping up with +attack upgrades.
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I think tanks are actually terrible in TvP. Here's how the tank timeline goes:
1) Everyone accepts tanks suck since the recent nerf to light damage (this change was largely done for TvZ, in order to buff hydras and allow lings to take two shots with +1 armor, but a side-effect was that they became quite bad in TvP).
2) Jinro goes tanks vs MC. MC plays the worst he's had in a long time and makes loads of mistakes (and Jinro played well also, but not because of tanks), giving Jinro the game. People attribute the win to the power of siege tanks, seemingly unable to analyze the actual reasons the game went the way it did.
3) Siege tanks are now amazing
Thors and hellions have potential usage, but I can't see siege tanks going too far in lategame TvP. There are some strong early-game usages (like the way TSL_Rain did it against MC in GSL3) but I see no reason to use them late-game. Their damage is bad, their mobility is bad, they give you zero ability to harass, they open you up into another upgrade line (so you need to upgrade vehicle and bio). As is, bio is better in almost every situation.
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3K Diamond Random player here, so a bit below you guys, but I agree completely with Bio being unviable late-game against Protoss, with Amulet Templar so prolific. Marauders work much better than Marines but are less effective against the Zealots that make up a large part of that late-game compositions (soooo many minerals).
Thors have worked extremely well for me in the late game, but the composition still need something to take care of the huge Zealot numbers you see in a late-game macro TvP. Since you can't dump minerals into Marines (unless you want to waste your extra minerals), I've found Hellions work very well here, especially if you've been upgrading your Mech.
Haven't considered using Ghosts in this composition, sounds like a good idea to mitigate Templar damage since you'll still be using Marauders.
And I only like strike cannons if the Protoss' response is to get a ton of Immortals, which will wreck Thors unless you can get them to clump up for an EMP OR hit them with strike cannons.
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I've been experimenting (read: losing ladder points) with Hellion/Thor/Viking mix. I probably should have added in ghosts because there is no reason not to, but it always slips my mind, so I will probably start testing that as well. The biggest problems I have come across are a kind of sloppy early game where I don't want to invest too much into rax, but the first thor comes out pretty damn late, so maybe tanks are a needed stepping stone and that if I miscalculate how many vikings I need I get rolled by either the colossus portion or the immortal portion of their army, which they make more of when they see mech. Just seems really finicky to say the least. Ghosts might help make it flow better with the vikings since they really help against the immortals, but I will have to try it. The only thing I don't like with mech is that their 200 army still seems a wee bit stronger (though that may be a problem due to my mechanics or something) and they can get it faster with a faster third against mech (barring any hero hellions). Anyone have any luck with tank heavier compositions?
Also, what are the thoughts on banshees? There are so many pros and cons there that it is a bit strange. Pros being more DPS than vikings, light armor (less damage from stalkers), beat stalkers 1v1, can be cloaked, and (can) force more stalkers, which are bad against mech generally speaking. The cons however are: light armor (phoenix are showing up now more than they used too. I used to think the thors AA would kill the phoenix off first, but I am not sure if I want to gamble with my thors firing up first and hoping my banshee live long enough to kill the colossus), vulnerable to feedback, more expensive than vikings, can not be reactored. They are a good unit no doubt, but is it what we need here?
3k Masters Terran
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2.2k masters terran, I havent really tried mech vs protoss because i m bad enough in that MU without having to lose to them for free. One thing about seige tanks is that even though they really suck against zlots and immortals, at least once you hit +3 attack they are much better vs zlots (+9 dmg vs +3 armor for zlots not to mention shields would have to be +3 as well.)
I think this is the train of thought for MVP vs Squirtle. are thors really any better than tanks once you hit +3, certainly they are more beefy and can hit air (sorta) but a huge mass of tanks plus blue flame hellion support (+ drops?) might be good.
My point being that maybe tanks are better than thors if you are going to be using mech, once you hit +3 attack. They can prevent harrass plus protoss love to hvae that death(ball) easy splash but yes less mobile somewhat. thoughts?
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On February 17 2011 10:20 EmilA wrote:
I've tried a mass thor strategy that has worked out decently. Never, ever have I added ghosts to thors though - can you really support a composition so gas heavy?
Well my plan isnt so much to go mass thor as it is to go mass marauder with thor support. Marauders are the closest thing I've had for a mineral sink, not perfect but I think they have more use than hellions. This leaves a little gas for ghosts, but the good thing is that you dont need many, 3-4 is enough and even 1-2 can make a huge difference. I also dont dip into thors until I got 3 bases exactly because of gas.
How do you feel about strike cannons?
Can be useful in smaller skirmishes against immortals, but even then EMP makes them kinda pointless. Impossible to catch colossi with them, but I guess thats what vikings are for.
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On February 17 2011 10:53 SheerStress wrote:
2.2k masters terran, I havent really tried mech vs protoss because i m bad enough in that MU without having to lose to them for free. One thing about seige tanks is that even though they really suck against zlots and immortals, at least once you hit +3 attack they are much better vs zlots (+9 dmg vs +3 armor for zlots not to mention shields would have to be +3 as well.)
I think this is the train of thought for MVP vs Squirtle. are thors really any better than tanks once you hit +3, certainly they are more beefy and can hit air (sorta) but a huge mass of tanks plus blue flame hellion support (+ drops?) might be good.
My point being that maybe tanks are better than thors if you are going to be using mech, once you hit +3 attack. They can prevent harrass plus protoss love to hvae that death(ball) easy splash but yes less mobile somewhat. thoughts?
the problem with tanks is that they have horrible raw dps, the real dps comes from splash. this is bad because zealot charge is a natural spreading mechanism which makes the tanks deal less than optimal damage. thors dont suffer from this kind of drawback. additionally, charging zealots mean that tanks will damage your own troops. and tanks can get caught out of position.
i personally am convinced that thors should be the backbone of a lategame tvp army. thor/ghost melts gateway units incredibly quickly. but i think marauders are too gasheavy in an army that requires thors, ghosts and vikings. they are probably good in the early- and midgame, but imho they should gradually be replaced by hellions later in the game.
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The problem right now for top tier TvP players is for the Teran to somehow figure out how to safely transition from bioball into mech without the protoss crushing them or getting way too ahead expansionwise. It is too gas heavy to do so on 2 mining bases, but while the Terran is going for the 3rd the Protoss has the upper-hand since the Terran is either lower on barracks(because of the planned transition to factories) or not very mobile due to tanks. The protoss army will be mobile at this whole time. It also seems to be easier to shut-down Terran harassment by protoss players because of sentry shield/cannons(which can shoot air and ground both).
Even bioball/ghost mech when done right on a macro map (See IMMVP VS Squirtle on the GSTL), the protoss late game composition is still very hard to beat when the protoss uses something like Mothership (which they have plenty of time to get vs meching Terrans) and especially the Vortex spell, which negates almost all of the immobile Terran army for a short time.
Not saying it can't be done but it is very hard to do the transition strategy as compared to just bioball ghost vikings.
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I agree with the sentiments on Helion thor. Thors defeat collosi, soak storms, and are good tankers AND dps dealers, while helions rip through the only thing that gives them trouble: Chargelots.
The only think you would really have to worry about is void rays... Vikings to deal with them (flybys of army with vikings 9 range to snipe rays) and collosus is probably the answer to that.
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Main problems I see as a Terran are that HT's and Colossi severely limit your unit options.
Bio (except for Ghosts) is out of the question at that point, as they are little more than cannon fodder.
Anything with an Energy bar (other than Ghosts) will be owned easily by Feedback.
This pretty much limits you to:
Ghosts
Vikings
Helions
Tanks
Thors
Tanks are probably too immobile for a late game army. So I'd probably go with Thor/Helion/Vikings/Ghost.
EMP (duh!)
Strike Cannon any Immortals
Vikings focus Colossi
Maybe even drop a nuke somewhere to screw with him. It would be especially evil to drop one near his closest pylon...
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I want to be the troll here and say, "Oh really, it's been a year and Terran finally have developed a strategy other than massing Tier 1 all game in every match up?".
Instead I will just say from a Protoss prospective, I am not really scared of tanks. I feel like the only thing Terran has an advantage of against Protoss late game is their mobility/drops/ability to snipe tech. By going tank you give that advantage to Protoss, and still leave with them the tools to kill your mech. Void ray/immortal/zealot or something of the sort depending on how Terran builds crushes mech pretty handily. 3 armor zealot bombs are also pretty funny.
I dunno. I feel like bringing some tanks is important, but I think air is really where Terran will end up going against Protoss.
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Its just a wild guess, but isn't this build a little too fragile against Protoss air? I mean, sure the vikings are a great help, but some VR with a Stalker or HT support can still make a huge damage to a mass marauder army. Even Carrier can become some sort of problem actually, if the Protoss player manage to snipe some vikings/ghosts;
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It's so true that tanks suck in TvP, as a Protoss they're so easy to get rid of. Honestly, the only thing they're good against are Stalkers, maybe Collosus, but that's it. You're better off going Thor/Helion/Marauder, although I do feel 1 or 2 tanks in an army is good to poke a Protoss and force an engagement at an unfavorable angle.
Iono I think the advantage of Bio > Gateway units could buy enough time for one to switch to mech, but it'd have to be done at the right time. 'Cause once the Protoss techs up, he'll move out and apply pressure or expand. But until that moment, Terran has all the early game map control with stimmed bio.
I think it's becoming clear that late game bio dies too easily, and since BCs are bad now and susceptible to feedback, ghost//mech// has got to be the way to go.
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the unit composition id suggest is thor/2-5 ghosts/hellion/viking. the idea behind this composition is the following: the protoss army only has 2 units which act as "real" antiair: stalkers and phoenixes. phoenixes are no options against a thorheavy army, so stalkers are the only thing protecting his colossi from the vikings. (if he doesnt have colossi he will probably get destroyed as thor/hellion easily resists storms and hellions are good at suiciding to snipe hts. thors absolutely roflstomp pure gateway that was emp´d.)
so to sum it up: assuming the majority of his ball has been emp´d,
- thors shut down any phoenix play
- thor/hellion forces colossi; templar/gateway alone doesnt cut it
- thor + emp + hellions deal with the charging zealots in no time
- thor + emp makes quick work of stalkers
- without stalkers or phoenixes, the vikings can take out the colossi
ofc things will still go badly if he can use a critical mass of colossi in conjunction with storms, so even this army composition will rely on preventing at least some storms by good emp.
also note that emp prevent mass immortal play aswell as mothership vortex archon toilet shenanigans.
edit: note how i suggest to skip marauders in favor of hellions. this balances the mineral/gas ratio a bit more than going for (either tank or thor)/marauder/ghost/viking. 
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On February 17 2011 11:13 ImmortalTofu wrote:
Thors defeat collosi
This was pretty funny. Thors in low numbers can beat colossi, but honestly that rarely happens. More often you'll get a semi-turtle protoss who will not move out unless you screw up early, and them moves out off of 3 bases (2 on some maps) with 6-8 collo + (immortal or void vs. mech armor) + zealots where the zealots and X support keep the thors out of range while one volley of that many collos murder the thor line. More often its vikings that beat colossi, its only the thors when the gateway units get rolled under whatever circumstances.
On Februaru 17 2011 11:14 Fadestep wrote:
I want to be the troll here and say, "Oh really, it's been a year and Terran finally have developed a strategy other than massing Tier 1 all game in every match up?".
Instead I will just say from a Protoss prospective, I am not really scared of tanks. I feel like the only thing Terran has an advantage of against Protoss late game is their mobility/drops/ability to snipe tech. By going tank you give that advantage to Protoss, and still leave with them the tools to kill your mech. Void ray/immortal/zealot or something of the sort depending on how Terran builds crushes mech pretty handily. 3 armor zealot bombs are also pretty funny.
I dunno. I feel like bringing some tanks is important, but I think air is really where Terran will end up going against Protoss.
You don't want to be the troll? You already play protoss, might as well go all out.
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2800 Master Terran. I agree the difficulty is in the transition. anytime i attempt to start a game with mech/port play without the bio first i get rocked. but transitioning into mech with all the gas it implies is so hard when when toss already has the infrastructure for storm they need in gates.
i haven't found hellions that viable unfortunately. i'm thinking about just mass expoing with my mins and hope some of them stay alive long enough to get the gas i need to keep up.
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EPT
