EPTUpgrades are so so important though for this kind of play to work. 3 armored BCs are godly however, they take FOREVER to kill, and you can drop MULEs to repair on the spot if you need to. Armor also makes it so much harder for stalkers to kill banshees. Stalkers don't trade well with banshees at all, so the more armor, the better!
[D] TvP lategame think tank - Page 6
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Synystyr
United States1446 Posts
Upgrades are so so important though for this kind of play to work. 3 armored BCs are godly however, they take FOREVER to kill, and you can drop MULEs to repair on the spot if you need to. Armor also makes it so much harder for stalkers to kill banshees. Stalkers don't trade well with banshees at all, so the more armor, the better! | ||
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Mercury-
Great Britain804 Posts
On February 18 2011 00:03 Jumbled wrote: While protoss can 1a into mech in the right circumstances, they can't simply do it any time they like. When a protoss does take on a mech army head-on, they've generally spent some time building up a composition designed for that purpose, which means chargelots, immortals, often colossi for the extra range to hit the tanks, and sometimes phoenixes to lift tanks during the attack. What that means is that mech can achieve a good contain, but you shouldn't expect it to last forever. You have to either close the deal or tech-switch. However, I agree that mass tanks as your main force isn't the best option in TvP. Thors are definitely scarier to the protoss army overall, and make a good core for your forces with the right upgrades and support. Uh, it's not like the Protoss wouldn't get Immo/Chargelot/Colossus regardless lol Phoenixes arguably aren't even needed. | ||
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TERRANLOL
United States626 Posts
On February 17 2011 13:41 chenchen wrote: Battlecruisers get fedback like crazy. Since yamato is so expensive, battlecruisers always have a large amount of energy because it can't spend it in short bursts. Mass thors Thors in large enough numbers off of three or four bases wreck everything protoss has that's supposed to counter thors. Just ask Artosis. Thors in large enough numbers with strike cannons wreck colossi, immortals, void rays, blink stalkers . . . you can't just go mass thors. The important part about it was that he was really only thors and ghosts. In addition, he opened banshees to keep the protoss in his base while he threw down several expansions. Then he started massing thors and ghosts. When artosis engaged, he empd the whole army. | ||
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CleverDream
United States17 Posts
Early game transitions are in Terran's Favor. You can always open reaper and force stalkers, then to follow up with maurauders. Mid game. MMM to pin us to our base while you expand freely. Its only until after we get storm+amulet that we have an actual advantage. Colossi isn't even an option since its not hard to get a few vikings out (since you already have the Starport). Late game. Carrier, Mothership, Storm, mass warp gate, Protoss finally has an advantage. And then transition starts over again (somewhat, since you want to rebuild your army ASAP). Rarely my games will go into late game. It will usually end much much sooner. Maybe at my level, late game just means who's macro is more consistent. @palebluedot: Playing toss is trolling because _______? Maybe I shouldn't feed it but if its base on something I would like to know why you think that. I mean its not like we can make a banshee.... | ||
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p1cKLes
United States342 Posts
I guess I’ll try to give my two cents, which is probably what it is worth. With the little bit of playing that I’ve done I can definitely see the problem of going bioball all the way to the end. I can also see the big problem of tanks. It seems like with PvT tanks tend to be more of a defensive unit rather than an offensive unit because of the mobility factor. You really have to keep them way behind the front line or they’ll easily be picked off. I see them more of a retreat defensive tactic. Allowing you to retreat and odds are as soon as the tanks start shelling, Protoss will pull back. Which means It does seem like the only other available unit due to resources and time is the thor which does pretty well against most units, but it’s only ok with the zealot, which means you need a little additional to help to pick off the zealot and the hellion seems like the only unit for the job. The EMP is obviously a must need for almost any protoss game. Ok, before I start sounding like I’m just re-iterating what everyone is already saying, I’ll just end it here with it does seem logical to use a thor/hellion/Viking/ghost combo, but difficult to mass mech quickly, which means it gets pretty costly both in resources and time. So you have to be even more vigilant in not losing the units and constantly repairing them. | ||
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superstartran
United States4013 Posts
On February 18 2011 02:09 Mercury- wrote: Uh, it's not like the Protoss wouldn't get Immo/Chargelot/Colossus regardless lol Phoenixes arguably aren't even needed. If you have that the Terran has Thor/Emp/Helion/2-3 Tanks which means it's an even fight. People need to realize that you cannot just 1a mech. It never was that way in BW, and still isn't that way in SC2. You have to have good positioning, good macro, good army management, and you need to constantly harass with Helions/Medivac drops to keep P economy in check, because in both games once the P hits critical mass econ it's very hard to stop him from doing either an air switch, or he'd run you over with Templar/Gateway. Same concepts apply here in SC2, it's just that mech is a little weaker to compensate the fact that the Ghost cripples P in head on fights. | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
On February 17 2011 10:34 link0 wrote: 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. Goody plays a specific style of mech which makes him very predictable andbeatable. Also, mech isn't making pure tanks. The other two factory units do just fine vs zealots. | ||
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lorkac
United States2297 Posts
(yes, I'm suggesting you kill off 30-40 scvs in the lategame to give you a bigger army. | ||
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gakkgakk
Norway902 Posts
For instance going mech on LT, and trying to get a third base, makes it a pain to defend against blink stalkers. Thors and tanks are very slow and hellions really dont cut it vs stalkers. | ||
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Ponyo
United States1231 Posts
At that point you can take the map, really just have your forces in arcs so collosus/templar play is diminished as much as possible. | ||
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mesohawny
Canada193 Posts
On February 17 2011 11:19 PaleBlueDot wrote: 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. You don't want to be the troll? You already play protoss, might as well go all out. lol omg i love the terran tears, ive been waiting so long for these. | ||
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
12rax 13gas -> bunker around 20 - 2-3 marines as minerals allowed @100gas -> factory @50 gas -> reactor on barracks @100 gas -> factory @25 gas -> tech lab on barracks @150 gas -> blue flame this was all accomplishable in good time off of the one gas by the time the 4gate hits you should have a bunker with 2-3 marines as well as 3-4hellions. I needed to pull some scvs but luckily every 30 seconds another 3 hellions pop, and blue flame is up for the second wave of 4gate, and if its a really fast 1gas 4gate then they will have to have some zealots which basically become free kills. I didn't go into the late game because I just massed up hellions and killed his entire army eventually with just the hellions, it will be more interesting to test into the late game but I thought it was interesting that this WAS a successful mech opening that held a 6minute 4gate. I also tested with a friend and found that in large numbers hellions can easily beat gateway units for cost (where gas = minerals), I was microing my hellions first up close like roaches into kindve a surround and fire method, later in smaller numbers i just tried to take maximum advantage of the splash through good positioning. He tried to micro his stalkers around but he didnt do a great job. Now this is still very much a work in process, so obviously if the toss didnt 4 gate I would have to cut hellion production at some point to expand and then the eventual idea is to get thors and air to supplement the hellions. I think its important to get 1stargate quickly to allow for hellion drops, so since u already have the infrastructure I think that a reactor on the starport would be the right decision since you can pretty much definitely expect a reaction of collosus (void rays would also be countered by this) Since u have so many hellions hanging around it seems pretty obvious that you should be doing hellion drops and harassing at their expansion. I am imagining after expanding throwing down another factory and making 1xthor 6xhellion and either 1xbanshee or 2x viking. I would put a tech lab on the 3rd factory so that you can make another thor when gas allows (probably not often). I imagine an intelligent player would react to this build by making mass stalkers and transitioning into collosus so the biggest problem is going to be how to hold against the collosus. I think the idea would be to try to kite back the zealots with your hellions, kiting back behind the thors if necessary and once the zealots are dead, running straight up to the stalker line to try to do maximum damage (hellions are disposable). The main dps though is going to be thors so you want the thors to survive as long as possible the hellions DO play a dps role though so its gonna be important to get them in there and get +dmg upgrades. I am also thinking that strike cannons will be much more viable without any zealots blocking your thors from reaching the collosus, this means that the protoss will have to be kiting you back or get owned. A big question would be, can you afford to make a quick starport for hellion drops or do you need to rush to thors faster in order to hold large numbers of stalkers/sentries. Anyway massive theorycraft alert, unfortunately I don't have a ton of time to test this out this weekend but I will try. Hopefully this writeup will give people an idea to start working on. Its obviously gonna really depend on having the right ratio of vikings to ground units vs collosus, but thats hardly a new skill for us in TvP. Other protoss compositions: HTs - owned by hellions and thors, easy to escape storm, lots of hp, go down instnatly to hellions voids - already have vikings phenoix - destroyed by thors mass gateway - hellions means no zealots, thors kill everything else with hellion meatshield and splash support damage Other weaknesses - starport opening - this build basically has no defence against a starport opening so if you scout 2gas and your thinking its gonna be tech, you need to change it up immediately, I think that making alot of turrets and doing a blue flame drop since they are on 1 could be very effective You can easily beat DTs with this build even without a turret by firing on your buildings/other units with the hellions and since u have a ton, the splash should get the (light and lowhp) dts. | ||
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samboi
England69 Posts
By the time the protoss and yourself are on 2/3 bases you really will have wanted to tech to something silightly higher than MM and once i have enough mech to hold my bases i will use the marines that seem pretty useless late game to do drops, MM drops are very effective lategame against protoss and really can prevent them from expanding anywhere risky, aswell as this the drops act alot like it would for muta PvZ where alot of the time 1 drop will often make the other player over-react and bring his whole deathball back inside base giving you time to move out and position up for the big encounter, aswell as gaining more time for yourself if needed and maybe additional scouting on the enemy. The big mech encounter is where most terran go wrong,, you need to look at his and your own army if you are too tank heavy you need to bring the toss into a choke but other than that terran would 100% benefit from big open spaces and a decent arc on the enemy, Thors in an arc backed up by tanks and bio usually destroy any ground army they encounter.. The protoss army however with its colossus and HT's and forcefields works best with its enemy bunched up in a choke to get max AOE and splash damage, so be carful when advancing terran and make sure you dont get caught with ya pants down lategame out of position :p | ||
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Endorsed
Netherlands1221 Posts
On February 18 2011 02:47 CleverDream wrote: Plat Protoss here. It seems the only time we have an advantage over Terran is in the late game. Early game transitions are in Terran's Favor. You can always open reaper and force stalkers, then to follow up with maurauders. Mid game. MMM to pin us to our base while you expand freely. Its only until after we get storm+amulet that we have an actual advantage. Colossi isn't even an option since its not hard to get a few vikings out (since you already have the Starport). Late game. Carrier, Mothership, Storm, mass warp gate, Protoss finally has an advantage. And then transition starts over again (somewhat, since you want to rebuild your army ASAP). Rarely my games will go into late game. It will usually end much much sooner. Maybe at my level, late game just means who's macro is more consistent. @palebluedot: Playing toss is trolling because _______? Maybe I shouldn't feed it but if its base on something I would like to know why you think that. I mean its not like we can make a banshee.... Plat protoss. That's all. I'm sorry, the difference in level is just huge. Trying to do early game damage as terran has just become suicide. @palebluedot: Playing toss is trolling because _______? Maybe I shouldn't feed it but if its base on something I would like to know why you think that. I mean its not like we can make a banshee.... No, you make DT's and expand. You basically end up ahead or even against ANY bio opening. Anyway, I really liked Gretorps build at Gretorp and Friends. He basically had a Marine/marauder/vikings/banshee/thor/ghost. Unit combination, and it completely rolled. But it's EXTREMELY difficult to get there. Also TT1's unit combo against it was probably the worst you can do. But it basically was the normal Gateway collosus ball. | ||
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chonkyfire
United States451 Posts
Back in sept/october I used to love playing banshees against toss, I would really make as many as i could with tanks, but this is when protoss didn't even know what a phoenix was it seemed... Now a day I don't like banshees against toss at all really, they are just too hard countered by phoenix templar and cannons. The only match up I really like banshees in is vT | ||
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Lurk
Germany359 Posts
The reason you basically have to either 2+ rax or 1/1/1 is simple - stargate openings. Without the marines from 2+ barracks or vikings, you'll have a lot of trouble vs either voidray or phoenix play. Also, DT openings spell trouble if you don't have a starport in time. This is why i recommend a 1/1/1 variant when opting to play mech. It can involve blue flame hellion drop (my favourite), banshee play or tanks - followed up by either a quick expansion or a strong timing push using a raven. After you expand, add 2 more factories and start producing thor/hellion, use your starport to get a couple vikings. You'll also want to get a couple tanks, but DO NOT overdo on tanks. Thors are better than tanks in virtually any situation against toss. The reason you get a couple is to get positional advantage (higher range than collossi). Also, don't be shy on the hellions, they'll basically become the core unit of your army - cheap, fast, expendable. Try to lose hellions instead of gas units whereever you can. The key to success with mech is to get critical mass - you'll never get there if you keep losing thors in skirmishes. Also, utilize hellions for drops and runbies to keep the protoss economy down. Even if he has 2-3 stalkers at his mineral line, you'll still be able to kill a lot of probes. Use the map control you get from hellions to take a quick third and add 2-3 more factories and get those upgrades. With hellion/thor/viking there really is very little the protoss can do to stop you. When i got to this point, the only thing that stopped me was an unscouted mass air switch (voids or carriers). Scout for mass stargates ! The only weaknesses of the thor are zealots, armored air units and to some extend, microd collossi. All of those can be easily handled by either hellions or vikings. Tanks on the other hand, are only really good vs nonblink stalkers and collossi. They die to zealots, blinkstalkers, air, immortals and even storm. That is on top of being immobile, having a blind spot and doing friedly fire. | ||
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XXXSmOke
United States1333 Posts
On February 18 2011 06:00 Lurk wrote: I've been experimenting with mech play in TvP for about the last 2 month at average masters level (2900), my experience is as follows. The only stable openers i could get to work involved either early bio play (with 2+ rax) or 1/1/1. FE can also work of 1 or 2 rax, but it significantly delays your tech and most times i was better of with a 1/1/1 into expand as i was able to level the eco with harass instead. The reason you basically have to either 2+ rax or 1/1/1 is simple - stargate openings. Without the marines from 2+ barracks or vikings, you'll have a lot of trouble vs either voidray or phoenix play. Also, DT openings spell trouble if you don't have a starport in time. This is why i recommend a 1/1/1 variant when opting to play mech. It can involve blue flame hellion drop (my favourite), banshee play or tanks - followed up by either a quick expansion or a strong timing push using a raven. After you expand, add 2 more factories and start producing thor/hellion, use your starport to get a couple vikings. You'll also want to get a couple tanks, but DO NOT overdo on tanks. Thors are better than tanks in virtually any situation against toss. The reason you get a couple is to get positional advantage (higher range than collossi). Also, don't be shy on the hellions, they'll basically become the core unit of your army - cheap, fast, expendable. Try to lose hellions instead of gas units whereever you can. The key to success with mech is to get critical mass - you'll never get there if you keep losing thors in skirmishes. Also, utilize hellions for drops and runbies to keep the protoss economy down. Even if he has 2-3 stalkers at his mineral line, you'll still be able to kill a lot of probes. Use the map control you get from hellions to take a quick third and add 2-3 more factories and get those upgrades. With hellion/thor/viking there really is very little the protoss can do to stop you. When i got to this point, the only thing that stopped me was an unscouted mass air switch (voids or carriers). Scout for mass stargates ! The only weaknesses of the thor are zealots, armored air units and to some extend, microd collossi. All of those can be easily handled by either hellions or vikings. Tanks on the other hand, are only really good vs nonblink stalkers and collossi. They die to zealots, blinkstalkers, air, immortals and even storm. That is on top of being immobile, having a blind spot and doing friedly fire. I like the idea of your play, however immorts counter thors very hard while the only thing that counters immorts are marines ghosts or banshees. It seemes to be a huge problem is that the second you go pure mech, toss gets double robo and can chronoboost a shit ton of immorts and over run you so fast. What about a MMM+Thor+A few tanks mix. It seems like your mech in this MU really needs some fodder to stay alive along enough to do its damage. I do agree tho hellions | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
I have the super aggressive playstyle other people were referring to, except I include ravens and quite a large number of ghosts. Bio really isn't that gas intensive, so it usually goes to Thors, Ghosts, Ravens, and upgrades. | ||
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dohgg
310 Posts
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XXXSmOke
United States1333 Posts
On February 18 2011 06:30 FabledIntegral wrote: Surprised at how many people think Tanks are a good lategame transition, I've always found them to be awful considering how they perform vs Zealots and even HT. I'll see templar incoming, grab 2 tanks and focus fire the templar (in siege mode), then be like "oh... yeah... it doesn't kill it, fml." And with Zealots? Jesus, isn't it like 5 shots? That's terrible. Blink stalkers helps close the gaps in on them, void rays dominate, and a carrier transition will dominate. They aren't good vs Colossus or Immortals (you ever try to fight like 10 siege tanks vs like 7 colossus? the colossus will roll you). They are only good vs stalkers, and like I said, they are worse than tanks were vs goons in BW because of less dmg output, faster unit, and blink. I have the super aggressive playstyle other people were referring to, except I include ravens and quite a large number of ghosts. Bio really isn't that gas intensive, so it usually goes to Thors, Ghosts, Ravens, and upgrades. It depends on what the tanks are coupled with and their upgrades. Plus 3 tanks with mech support are amazing, and smash any ranged units the toss has. Tanks supporting bio is terrible, the tanks always ended up slashing your own bio and doing shit damage. | ||
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