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Why throw away the scvs?
Just bring them along for repairs and don't replace them if you lose em.
I do a very similar build for TvP (~3000 Master), with the difference that I expand with 2 rax before adding a third (unless that is what you meant by 3 rax). With 2 bases I find you can smoothly support about 3 add-on rax, 1 thor factory, and 1 reactor starport, and once you get a third you just add on factories and pump more thor hellion (unless it's carriers of course).
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On February 27 2011 07:48 iaguz wrote: Question: if Khaydarin amulet gets removed like its being shown on the PTR, would you still play mech even thoguh bio just becomes tons more viable lategame as a result? yes it does and it makes me a sad panda because we will keep seeing bioballs forever it seems. i hoped korean terrans would start mixing things up but i don't see that if the patch changes stays the way they are now
bio into mech is a very good build anyway and i don't see a reason stop doing it. always good to know more builds to switch things up
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Despite the possible removal of amulet, Phoenix/Colossi is still a really powerful combination that will beat Bio/Viking. Thors, especially PredY's 3 base mass Thor game plan feels very solid not only against Phoenix/Colossi, but eveything else.
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Like I've said, this isn't mech, this is mass thors.
Just think about it abstractly, say you can only reasonably sit on 3 bases of active gas, thats 3 thors a minute. Can there be a viable protoss strategy that puts out enough units to destroy 3 thors a minute?
As long as the P reacts quickly enough, and starts trading gateway production cycles against you off of 2 - early 3 base, instead of crawling more and more bases and letting you max out, then he can win. If he insists on maxing bases, then he better have mothership to vortex half your thors.
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On February 27 2011 08:01 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2011 07:48 iaguz wrote: Question: if Khaydarin amulet gets removed like its being shown on the PTR, would you still play mech even thoguh bio just becomes tons more viable lategame as a result? yes it does and it makes me a sad panda because we will keep seeing bioballs forever it seems. i hoped korean terrans would start mixing things up but i don't see that if the patch changes stays the way they are now bio into mech is a very good build anyway and i don't see a reason stop doing it. always good to know more builds to switch things up
On the contrary, I think it becomes increasingly viable with regards to your build. Clearly Protoss have been using HT to defend against drops, and without the warp in, they may revert to using stalkers... While yes, marauders can fill that requirement, tanks will also do quite well, especially as a transition in order to immediately supply the critical mass you need for them to be effective.
Just a thought.
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I've been doing the bio into mass thor strategy myself for a longer while now, and I have to agree with Predy: it is absolutely fantastic if you can pull it off. Regular protoss gateway-centric 200/200 deathballs get absolutely decimated by thors + EMP, its not even close. Thors also benefit way more from their respective upgrades, which makes them really scary once they hit 3-3.
In a way, the current metagame favors the mass thor strategy, as most protoss players will play more passive and tend to assume the defensive role, which allows for a safer tech switch. Once they get templars + colossi out, many protoss players seem to think they have "won" and are at a loss once they are hit by a ball of thors that eats the storms and laughs. In a way the roles have been reversed as a protoss player benefits way more from army trades against thors, whereas the terran seems strong only once there are enough thors on the field to negate immortals and such.
Build a few orbitals for mules, pull most of your SCV's to repair the thors and it all becomes even more effective. I advice anyone tired of bio play to try it out, I feel like the only counter protoss has is air, and even then thors can be really deadly if the toss doesnt spread his air units.
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On February 27 2011 08:26 naventus wrote: Like I've said, this isn't mech, this is mass thors.
Just think about it abstractly, say you can only reasonably sit on 3 bases of active gas, thats 3 thors a minute. Can there be a viable protoss strategy that puts out enough units to destroy 3 thors a minute?
As long as the P reacts quickly enough, and starts trading gateway production cycles against you off of 2 - early 3 base, instead of crawling more and more bases and letting you max out, then he can win. If he insists on maxing bases, then he better have mothership to vortex half your thors.
actualy that is exactly what he shouldnt do throwing away gateway units at thors which demolish every single gateway unit, even the zealot once they reach enough number, as toss you just go either air transition or mass immortal colossi
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Yeah, you're better off trying to delay the third long enough for you to get the army you want. You might be able to do it with DTs and Warp Prism drops.
I mean, you can't go straight carriers, because interceptors do 2 shots a pass, a carrier switch is harder to pull off in this game against highly upgraded units. Especially when that highly upgraded unit can shoot up and there's 160 food of it unlike BW.
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If you guys liked this thread you should go support the nomination to have PredY become a hilighted poster! Check it out here.
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Gonna watch all of them. I always like the mech style of terran. Thanks!
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On February 27 2011 08:26 naventus wrote: Just think about it abstractly, say you can only reasonably sit on 3 bases of active gas, thats 3 thors a minute. Can there be a viable protoss strategy that puts out enough units to destroy 3 thors a minute?
I'd be pretty happy if P had to do multiple warp prism drops and pull my army out of position to win. Cause we've all been calling that shit balanced for months!
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just a few questions as always. I really love this build and did a little math. When I look at the final army composition, mass thors seems, pretty good, but due to big unit size, usually not all of them are in the battle. What if you build like 8 thors to make the front wall and then switched to tank production. I think your dps would be much greater. Incorporate a raven or two to prevent army ambushes with blink stalkers. Final composition would be around 8 thors 12 tanks 12 vikings 12+ hellions this gives you around 130 supply and rest of units +scv's
On 4 base you should get like 2500 minerals and around 900 gas income. the production would be then 7 factories 2 on reactor 5 techlab (2thor/3tanks) @ 2000 minerals and 750 gas, which leaves enough room for viking and ghost production, which aren't usually as much needed to replenish, as well for upgrades. You can replenish around 50 supply of your mech units in a minute.
also I've found a nice video, that shows the effectiveness of mech and how you should control and engage with it. How to engage various armies as Terran start@ 11:40
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that video is misleading, notice that thors have the strike canon upgrade, so T knew they are going to face immortals and teched perfectly for it, yet P was not given the same benefit. In reality PvT I don't think you face such a convenient line of units that are perfect targets for strike canon.
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I personally prefer having a massive amount of Thors with few tanks rather than a massive amount of tanks with a few Thors. The reason for making a gigantic Thorball is that Thors have 7 range and you can have 2 or 3 levels of Thors focusing down zealots and Immortals. As for stalkers, they aren't actually too good against Thors if you can't focus them down one by one and this requires getting all your stalkers in close. However, Thors just rip apart stalkers - not as bad as tanks but still bad enough. After the battle, any non-fatal damage will just be repaired.
I mean, the tank army is probably more powerful but the mass Thor ball is more flexible and generally better against everything else that's not a colossus.
Something like 16 Thors, 10 tanks with misc support (vikings hellions) as the rest.
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On March 01 2011 23:23 Antisocialmunky wrote: I personally prefer having a massive amount of Thors with few tanks rather than a massive amount of tanks with a few Thors. The reason for making a gigantic Thorball is that Thors have 7 range and you can have 2 or 3 levels of Thors focusing down zealots and Immortals. As for stalkers, they aren't actually too good against Thors if you can't focus them down one by one and this requires getting all your stalkers in close. However, Thors just rip apart stalkers - not as bad as tanks but still bad enough. After the battle, any non-fatal damage will just be repaired.
I mean, the tank army is probably more powerful but the mass Thor ball is more flexible and generally better against everything else that's not a colossus.
Something like 16 Thors, 10 tanks with misc support (vikings hellions) as the rest.
I've been experimenting with a "cutoff point" of about 6 Thors, because they're so much supply. Then just make Tanks from the techlab facts and hellions from the reactor facts (only 1 or 2 reactors) and vikings from the 1 reactor port and ghosts after the 4th goes up.
And as a side note, you can't actually mech on 5 geysers, referring to Crevase (new gsl map). It just doesn't work...
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This question is for tQsadist. I was wondering if that 1 rax marauder expand you do holds a 4 gate. You pretty much only have 2 unit producing structures until the second factory finishes. If you could post a replay of you holding an aggressive 4 gate with that opener I would greatly appreciate it.
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I am looking for a modified build against protoss that incorporates bio and mech, rather than completely switching it up in the middle as this strategy proposes.The build goes something of:
1. Rax (reactored), Fatory (tech) - two tanks (with siege) marine (no upgrades) scv push. 2. Expand if possible or continue with aggression to win quickly 3. Starport for raven and medivac.. 4. 2nd factory (with reactor switch from barrack), halt marine production. 5. Second push - Tanks, blue flame helion, raven and remaining marine.
The idea for the opening is to have that early defense (siege tanks) should you be 4 gated. The raven will help ward off DT aggression. The rines are there to kill void ray rushes just to give a few of the reasons I use this. This goes for maps that have easily defended naturals and high grounds, and places where a macro game is more likely. In Caverns and Shattered temple I prefer MMM/Viking/Ghost.
Back to the build, after the second push which I mapped out above, I am looking for an optimal composition for assist a primary bulk of Tanks/helions. Following the production of a second factory that is reactored with existing one on my barrack, I completely lose anti air capabilities. I am also vulnerable to anti armor units that eat tank/helion. Some questions I have are:
1. After halting marine production by lifting my rax, I need anti air. Is a second star port reactored for Viking the only way to go outside of marines? Is it enough to hold off a toss that goes mass phoenix or voids off 2-3 bases? If so, how soon do I generally need it if I have limited scouting information?
2. I have two factories as I have two bases. One teched, one reactored.I don't feel I have the gas to support a 3rd-4th factory for additional tanks or helions because I like having some ravens and Vikings. What should the remainder of my composition be? I am thinking of the following:
A. Mass Marauders (off 2-3 rax) with complete upgrades in addition to tank/helion/Vikings off one building each.
Pros: Marauders are simply toss killers. Having a bunch of them slows down just about any ground unit. Perfect base unit. Cons:Vulnerable to air units and robotic bay units. And do you really want to transition to marauders mid game when they are vulnerable mid game as opposed to earlier when they are most effective?
B. Mass RINES in addition to Tanks/helis.
Pros: Takes care of annoying Phoenix and void ray and can support tanks nicely.
Cons: Same as Marauder but less effective. Absolutely swallowed by high temps and Collossi. And I never upgraded them early game, so they die instantly.
C. Just stick with tank, heli, Viking all game.
Pros. Still a decent mix. Only focus on your armory upgrades. Cons:Immortals can tear through them as can other anti mech. May not be strong enough ground to ground against some of Toss' options.
The point being, can I afford to transition to mass bio along WITH my early mech, afford all the upgrades for my bio and mech and air upgrades if he is air/collossi heavy, and afford everything to have a formidable composition. I mean sure, there comes a point when you realize you need every unit and tech that terran has to beat toss, but where do you cut your losses and sacrifice something here to get something there?
In broodwar, bio/mech mixing was frowned upon. Completely unnecessary, In SC2, you need a good mix. But getting both air/bio/ground is tough to do. So what composition should I transition to in mid/late game?
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From what we've seen in SC2, it seems to be a general consensus that Bio is good early on but becomes more and more fragile as the game progresses because units have low health and high dps which fall to AOE.
Mech on the other hand makes for a powerful army but it is expensive and makes it hard to expo. Thus the general idea with this style of play is to abuse the mobility and power of early bio.
And as for you question about a 'little bit of everything' build. You can do it, but you are paying more overhead in tech and consequently will have fewer units. Of course you can afford everything if the game goes on long enough but you're going to have less units, slower upgrades, and an inability to mindlessly produce the right unit composition.
The last issue can be seen in many matchups like TvZ. In TvZ you get marines + something else (medivacs or tanks usually) for your main composition. However, often you end up with too much of the support unit and not enough of the main unit - marines. Thus you end up with too many tanks or medivacs and no marines to keep them safe and you lose the support units for free. If you have like 90% the same production building like the factory, you can easily panic build the type of unit you need.
I mean, you never have composition problems mashing out nothing but marines and marauder out of over 9000 barracks with one or 2 reactor ports. Nor do you usually have problems with Thor/Tank/Hellion because you can always spam out a ton of hellions if you need to.
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On March 01 2011 23:23 Antisocialmunky wrote: I personally prefer having a massive amount of Thors with few tanks rather than a massive amount of tanks with a few Thors. The reason for making a gigantic Thorball is that Thors have 7 range and you can have 2 or 3 levels of Thors focusing down zealots and Immortals. As for stalkers, they aren't actually too good against Thors if you can't focus them down one by one and this requires getting all your stalkers in close. However, Thors just rip apart stalkers - not as bad as tanks but still bad enough. After the battle, any non-fatal damage will just be repaired.
I mean, the tank army is probably more powerful but the mass Thor ball is more flexible and generally better against everything else that's not a colossus.
Something like 16 Thors, 10 tanks with misc support (vikings hellions) as the rest.
Personally I'm having more success going 1 Rax Rauder into Expo, or 2 Rax Stim Combat into Expo, and following that with alot of Marine Tank. Then adding Blue Hellions and Vikings.
With this Combo theirs not much Toss can do against you. Air isn't Viable. Zeals die really fast to marines and Hellions. Collosi die ubber fast to Focus Fire. The only Threat i feel is Storm but, That can be dealt with by spreading your marines and dancing about or sniping Temps with Tanks using Vikings for vision.
To many THors leaves you vulnerable to Void Ray+ Blink+Charge. Espcially if they Magic box the Voids.
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The build I was trying to make work was something like - 2 Rax 3 Bunker Marine opening into a Mass Marine/Thor composition to push out to take a fast third (Somewhat like the 2 Thor push except to take a 3rd base instead of doing some sort of rush) into Viking/Hellion with Thors and a small number of tanks. Tanks and Vikings deter colossus while maxxing as quickly as possible and push out with 3 attack upgrade Thors before Toss gets carriers. However, I think Predy's style of play is probably better because its not based just on being able to expand extremely fast.
You really need to be able to get 6 gas for any sort of heavy mech play to work in this game.
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