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!!!UPDATE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE POST AND NEW REPS!!!
Hi everyone,
some of you might know me, even from Brood War days when i used to stream over here.
I'm PredY from Czech republic, high level Terran player, currently on about 3700 pts, but playing mainly custom games.
TLPD
Liquipedia
1. Introduction and Goal of this thread
Last couple of weeks my TvP was terrible and i was losing to every single decent protoss out there. Recently i've had a lot of free time and was able to practise as much as i wanted to, and i focused especially on TvP.
I'd like to provide a little guide and discuss a strategy/build/style that involves early bio composition with transition into mech in mid/late game once on 3 base. This is not a build order guide!
I'm sure this is not something we haven't seen before. I'm sure people here will claim they've been playing like that for months. It's been discussed before but i've never seen a guide or set of replays over here at TL.net.
My inspiration comes from IMMVP vs ST_Squirtle game on Terminus re at GSTL, where i was able to see the build in the motion. I've theorycrafted about it before the game and had it on my mind for some time. Some of the posters might remember that.
2. General gameplan and Openings
As i said, this is not a specific build order. That means you can do any kind of non-allin opening like blue flame hellion drop or cloak banshee or as i prefer, fast expansion (with a reaper, marauders, or completely without gas).
General idea is to get good enough bio production off 2 base, with relatively fast 3rd base. Pressure and harass your opponent to buy time to transition into mech. Once on 3 base, preferebly gold, get 3-4 factories (2-3 tech labs) and start pumping thors (tanks) and hellions. Don't forget to double armory upgrade. Once maxed, start getting mass orbitals to mass mule and sacrifise your SCVs to get as biggest army as possible.
3. Scouting
Scouting, as always, is VERY important. You see collosus, you go vikings. You see HTs, you go ghosts. You see a lot of zealots, you build more hellions. You see Carrier/voidray tech, you get more startports and pump vikings. Only with practise you'll get to know when a where to scan. Don't be afraid to scan though!
4. 2 base mid game bio and pressure
What I aim for in the beggining of each game:
- safe fast expansion with bunkers if needed to hold off any kind of 1 base pressure
- get fast stim and 3rax, then add engineering bay for upgrades, then factory for starport medivac tech
- add 4th rax so you can have big enough bio production for mid game
- have stim/shield/granades/1-1 upgrades and couple of medivacs and be ready to move out
- if you scan and don't see a fast expansion, get 4th rax before factory to hold off any kind of 1base allin play (optional)
That was always my plan when fast expanding. Then i move out to pressure protoss who is taking 3rd base while i'm getting mine, or try to snipe free buildings or drop into mineral line to snipe few probes. Be very careful about your units though. Don't commit unles you are 110% positive you'll win right in that spot, because if you lose your bio army you will probably lose the game, since you're getting your 3rd base up and you're in transition into mech!
5. Transition into mech on 3 base
This is probably the most difficult part. Because you cut your bio production a bit to get factories which you support once you saturate your 3rd base. That means you reinforce your bio army, but not too much. Therefore don't ever commit to a fight and lose your army. Also, usually at this time, protoss will want to push you. That means either stay on 2 base a little longer and hold the push with bunker or you should be able to defend your 3rd with few tanks you have out already.
NEW: Start getting thors off 2 base after medivac tech. They help greatly. You can get +1 armor because that benefit thors the most.
The best technique i found to stall protoss is use a lot of drops, especially killing probes and sniping protoss buildings, and at the same time pressure with your main force. Meantime you build up a decent mech force.
6. Late game maxed armies, mass orbitals and mules.
Once maxed or getting close to max, start building command centers in your main or expansion. You should also grab 4th base very soon as well. Once on 4base you want about 8 Orbitals. Then you take almost all your mineral mining SCVs and sacrifise them, what you want left is about 24 SCVs mining gas on 4 base and about 2-3 SCVs at each expo to mine minerals or build buildings. That means you'll be around 40 SCVs ideally, with 160 pop of army. That is the true reason of the mech being so strong.
7. Unit composition, when to push and harassment.
When you're getting your Orbitals and sacrifising SCVs, that should be the time of your push you should have about 8 factories, 3rax and 1-2 port, with 2-2 uprades preferebly done. This all depends on the scouting though! If you scan carriers you get more startports etc. what i suggest is, ALWAYS get Ghosts, even tho protoss will go HTs most probably in every game. Also on each map, you'll want to take bases slower/faster, depends on the position and lay out.
What happens to your BIO? You'll probably lose a lot of it during your harassment and pressuring while getting your mech army, and most probably you'll lose the rest when you do your first big push or defend a big push of protoss. What to do with the 4rax? Get ghosts, and ocasionally get some marauders and use them to drop and snipe units/buildings, but you don't have to. At this point in the game you should focus on mech.
8. Strenghts and Weakness.
What i like about this build is you're able to put early pressure with bio composition and use marauders to drop and snipe buildings. Also having mass mules to free up SCVs and have big ass mech army with upgrades is pretty scary. Always double armory upgrade!
Weak point of this is mainly the period of transition into mech. A big 2base push with a lot of collosi and upgraded gateway units or storm is very hard to deal with. That's why it's quite important to drop protoss a lot and stall time.
Also remember, you don't have to always transition into mech, you can just keep your production of bio the whole game so you're not being predictable.
9. Replays
It's very hard to provide an exact guide since the build is very dependant on how a game goes, so i just tried to provide the general idea, please watch the reps to see certain scenarios.
Those reps are old, check out the updated ones
+ Show Spoiler +
Please ask questions, try to discuss the replays. Keep balance talk out of here.
Provide ideas for me to try, wanna see a certain scenario? Have a better opening idea? Comment in the thread and i'll try it with my practise partners. I'll try to keep the thread updated with new ideas and replays.
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UPDATE
finally, i got to play some games and i got 5 new replays
i followed some of the suggestions from the thread and did following:
3 rax (intead of 4rax of which i talk in the guide!) with thors (and +1) after medivac tech and i LOVE it
Thors are so freaking badasses and i recommend everyone 3rax thors into 3rd expo into mech, with mass Thors with other mech support
http://www.mediafire.com/?vuia9sv5d11yyf4
+ Show Spoiler +very good game including carriers, MAS thors rock
http://www.mediafire.com/?q7v96950crd46wb
+ Show Spoiler +very good harassment from inso, pretty actionpacked game
http://www.mediafire.com/?1957f9fpepdz171
+ Show Spoiler +short game but shows how thors are good early on
http://www.mediafire.com/?yt51yyf80zyo3ie
+ Show Spoiler +good harassment from my side, good push from protoss though
http://www.mediafire.com/?0zjm3c45rauugsj
+ Show Spoiler +agressive from protoss, thors save my ass again and very good drop wins me the game
please ask questions and comment the replays!
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I like what i'm seeing
once perfected this will be a strong strat without a doubt 
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Thank you Predy, nice thread
Going to watch them all for sure.
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i do something similar atm. usually of a 2rax expo i try to poke/drop with 4-5rax of bio,get a 3rd and add 2fac tanks (later thors/hellions).
i have problems with strong macro P play tho. (early nexus 2 forge warpgate play , slowly getting 1-2 collosus or tech to ht with a fairly early 3rd). seems like i cant keep up in army power or punish him if i dont go allout bio so if my harrass gets stopped i will be behind on the 3rd timing and usually lose shortly after when i start investing ressources into mech.
i dunno if im just playing too scared early on ( the average 3k P still allins quite alot) or my TvP vs the newer style pvt is just bad ~
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thx for this, gonna watch all replays
want to see TvZ as well =)
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On February 19 2011 21:42 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
i do something similar atm. usually of a 2rax expo i try to poke/drop with 4-5rax of bio,get a 3rd and add 2fac tanks (later thors/hellions).
i have problems with strong macro P play tho. (early nexus 2 forge warpgate play , slowly getting 1-2 collosus or tech to ht with a fairly early 3rd). seems like i cant keep up in army power or punish him if i dont go allout bio so if my harrass gets stopped i will be behind on the 3rd timing and usually lose shortly after when i start investing ressources into mech.
i dunno if im just playing too scared early on ( the average 3k P still allins quite alot) or my TvP vs the newer style pvt is just bad ~
well seems like the exact same situation i described in the weakness part. you should probably aim for faster 3rd, if you know the lay out of protoss base try to distract him and with 8 marauder drop snipe forges/tech buildings which should slow him down.
hope more feedback's coming
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How would you repel dual robo Colossus all-in off 2 bases? I already find that hard with 2 reactored ports pumping out vikings, seems almost impossible with a small number of tanks AND having to proect a vulnerable third.
I know you said drops but multiple times I've had Protosses just roll into my base with 6 Colos and not giving a damn about some dropped bio in their mineral line.
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On February 20 2011 00:15 Mercury- wrote:
How would you repel dual robo Colossus all-in off 2 bases? I already find that hard with 2 reactored ports pumping out vikings, seems almost impossible with a small number of tanks AND having to proect a vulnerable third.
I know you said drops but multiple times I've had Protosses just roll into my base with 6 Colos and not giving a damn about some dropped bio in their mineral line.
i'll try to play against that and then post results/replays
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Great guide PredY :D
What do you think about getting fairly fast blue flame hellions and utilizing those in your build? I have been using them a lot mixed in with bio in TvP and I find that they're very effective, but would that work well in this build?
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On February 20 2011 00:25 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 00:15 Mercury- wrote:
How would you repel dual robo Colossus all-in off 2 bases? I already find that hard with 2 reactored ports pumping out vikings, seems almost impossible with a small number of tanks AND having to proect a vulnerable third.
I know you said drops but multiple times I've had Protosses just roll into my base with 6 Colos and not giving a damn about some dropped bio in their mineral line. i'll try to play against that and then post results/replays
Thanks, that'd be much appreciated.
Do you have any preference between Tanks or Thors? I like Thors a lot better in this matchup personally and since you are utilizing Chosts and got a reactored Starport the only real danger to them should be Carriers. I see you mostly utilizing Tanks though,
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I am extremely interested in this style of play. Based on your post it appears you have really figured out how to do the new SC2 mech properly.
A couple points of note. Firstly you say in your post that the transition period is weak. Secondly, I see no reason to straight up sacrifice scvs. I think both of these problems can be solved at a stroke. It seems the smarter thing to do is make calculated thor/bio pushes and bring large groups of scvs for mass repair on the thors as you start amassing orbital commands. I have found that correctly timed and executed thor pushes with infantry support are FAR more effective than a mixed army of infantry and tanks, hellions, etc. Tanks become effective when you have a lot of them, thors remain effective when your army is largely infantry. And if you take the strike cannon upgrade they can shut down colossi or immortals in small numbers very effectively. I propose switching over from a bio army into a bio/thor army and bring scvs for repairing the thors. You will do significant damage, and possibly win. And even if the push fails, you have reduced the enemy army size, giving you time to build a large ball of tanks.
As for micro during the push, park the scvs in front, the thors in the middle, and the hellions and bio behind, with all the scvs on auto repair. They will act as a buffer and also repair the thors and each other. Zealots will waste their charge on them, and the enemy will not be able to close range effectively to engage as they would like. Also, they will be forced to focus fire thors, which if you are prioritizing mech armor upgrades (double armory means you don't have to pick over weapons) then you want them to focus fire your thors with everything. Their only other option is to shoot scvs, which is fine since it frees up supply for you, and buys time for your thor's big guns to deal more damage. If you keep the ball tight, then if they are in range to shoot scvs then they are in range of your thors.
The one exception to this plan of attack is if they have large numbers of range-upgraded colossi. This tactic will not be able to deal with that in the same way. The best plan is to simply bum rush their position with everything, and try and snag what colossi you can with the thors' cannons, and stim and take down the rest as quickly as possible. It's not pretty, but if you kill a significant number of colossi then you have bought plenty of time to mass up on tanks and vikings and whatever else you please, even if the entire army dies.
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 00:38 Leaky wrote:
Great guide PredY :D
What do you think about getting fairly fast blue flame hellions and utilizing those in your build? I have been using them a lot mixed in with bio in TvP and I find that they're very effective, but would that work well in this build?
In one of the games on testbug i use a lot of hellions. They are a great unit a i love them, but as bio, you can't allow protoss to kill many of them, so using them with medivac or in not suicidal ways is always good, and with "standart" play you should have at least 3 factories and 1 with reactor so you'll always have couple around. But i feel you have to go for tanks/thors first to secure your bases.
But for example if you open blue flame hellion drop, then in midgame you can switch the factory with a reactor and make couple here and there, because you have the upgrade done already.
+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 00:43 Mercury- wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 00:25 PredY wrote:On February 20 2011 00:15 Mercury- wrote:
How would you repel dual robo Colossus all-in off 2 bases? I already find that hard with 2 reactored ports pumping out vikings, seems almost impossible with a small number of tanks AND having to proect a vulnerable third.
I know you said drops but multiple times I've had Protosses just roll into my base with 6 Colos and not giving a damn about some dropped bio in their mineral line. i'll try to play against that and then post results/replays Thanks, that'd be much appreciated. Do you have any preference between Tanks or Thors? I like Thors a lot better in this matchup personally and since you are utilizing Chosts and got a reactored Starport the only real danger to them should be Carriers. I see you mostly utilizing Tanks though,
I actually like both but i go for tanks first because i feel they are the better defensive unit and also i'm used to building them anyway, plus if you want to get thors first they are so expensive. both are awesome units tho. I still add them later on because they are very good at tanking the damage.
+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 01:01 ledarsi wrote:
I am extremely interested in this style of play. Based on your post it appears you have really figured out how to do the new SC2 mech properly.
A couple points of note. Firstly you say in your post that the transition period is weak. Secondly, I see no reason to straight up sacrifice scvs. I think both of these problems can be solved at a stroke. It seems the smarter thing to do is make calculated thor/bio pushes and bring large groups of scvs for mass repair on the thors as you start amassing orbital commands. I have found that correctly timed and executed thor pushes with infantry support are FAR more effective than a mixed army of infantry and tanks, hellions, etc. Tanks become effective when you have a lot of them, thors remain effective when your army is largely infantry. And if you take the strike cannon upgrade they can shut down colossi or immortals in small numbers very effectively. I propose switching over from a bio army into a bio/thor army and bring scvs for repairing the thors. You will do significant damage, and possibly win. And even if the push fails, you have reduced the enemy army size, giving you time to build a large ball of tanks.
As for micro during the push, park the scvs in front, the thors in the middle, and the hellions and bio behind, with all the scvs on auto repair. They will act as a buffer and also repair the thors and each other. Zealots will waste their charge on them, and the enemy will not be able to close range effectively to engage as they would like. Also, they will be forced to focus fire thors, which if you are prioritizing mech armor upgrades (double armory means you don't have to pick over weapons) then you want them to focus fire your thors with everything. Their only other option is to shoot scvs, which is fine since it frees up supply for you, and buys time for your thor's big guns to deal more damage. If you keep the ball tight, then if they are in range to shoot scvs then they are in range of your thors.
The one exception to this plan of attack is if they have large numbers of range-upgraded colossi. This tactic will not be able to deal with that in the same way. The best plan is to simply bum rush their position with everything, and try and snag what colossi you can with the thors' cannons, and stim and take down the rest as quickly as possible. It's not pretty, but if you kill a significant number of colossi then you have bought plenty of time to mass up on tanks and vikings and whatever else you please, even if the entire army dies.
Well what i aimed for so far was to get one big ass 150~ pop army, that's why i sacrifise the scvs to get more units for the push. Tho the SCVs can be used the way you described as well. As i said before i get tanks first because they seem to be a better defensive unit, but i might be wrong about that actually . I still use thors tho. They are very good at tanking the damage especially if you have 20 tanks sitting behind them and 15 vikings above to kill the collosi.
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I seen that in most of your replays you opt for ibo mech. Problem with that is that I feel that it is so weak against chargelots + collosus/HT. How would you beat a mass of chargelots without 10+ blueflame hellions?
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I also have the most trouble with Mass Chargelots. I was wondering if you thought that limiting your tanks if you scout mass chargelots would solve the problem of my splash decimating my hellions.
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Hi Predy,
Thanks for the general guide, I ve been having alot of trouble in TvP as well.
I watched your game vs Infruna on xel naga <I hold off 2base collosi push from protoss with a few tanks already in the mix>, once you got your third base up you looked great and the build looked awesome. But when you were dropping him (relaly nice drop killing over 10-14 probes, i felt like if he had just walked into your natural he woulda won the game. This is alot of the period I can't deal with, when they get 3 colossi + gateway and a-move into my base i just lose.
So I just want to know if during that game during that drop, you had some way to preventing him from atking you that I didn't know or if you think you could have held that off with what you had and how.
Thanks
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Yes, your endgame move is to have a 150+ pop army of mainly tanks, which I love, it's awesome. It also seems completely compatible with being aggressive during the transition, since you have units which are completely expendable.
What I suggest is that the transition period is weak because you are going directly for tanks, which are relatively inefficient in small numbers. During the transition period it is possible to be very aggressive using the remaining bio, and limited thor production. This places into your scheme at step 5.
Detailed breakdown: + Show Spoiler +
Begin building thors instead of tanks while on two bases, research strike cannon as well as vehicle 1/1. It's pretty natural to get two or three thors, begin building tanks, and then push out as you take your third, and all the upgrades finish right then, bringing scvs. You can even do this a second time with a few more thors, and bring more scvs, assuming the first one went reasonably well. It is quite feasible to start producing thors off of two bases from 1-2 factories, and later transition into mass tank from three bases out of many factories.
Drops are still on the table, and you can also initiate a straight up assault which the protoss will have a hard time stopping at all, and has no method of stopping efficiently. If you have 1/1 or better as well as mass scv repair the thors are guaranteed to outperform their cost, possibly by an extreme amount, and they may even survive to stand in front of the tank line later.
I have found that there is a window where a small group of mass-repaired thors simply cannot be efficiently beaten by any unit the protoss could conceivably have at that stage of the game. With 1/1, and mass repair, even a single thor can take on a preposterously large army of pure gateway units, and you will have two, three, or more. With strike cannon, small numbers of colossi and immortals are no problem (although lots of either are a big problem). Void rays are no threat since you have marines, and he can't possibly have carriers. Also, if he has made carriers, you can simply go kill him. Your swelling tank count will act as a defense and ensure a win if the protoss fails to defend and attempts a base trade.
Another note about the strike cannon upgrade that might make it worthwhile to delay siege mode, and delay tank production. There is a sweet spot with strike cannon to be aware of, that four strike cannons will take down a nexus in 6 seconds. Three thors plus whatever marines you've got along for the ride can probably do the same job. If you didn't need to use any cannons on colossi or immortals, a free nexus kill is very nice. If you push out on two bases with three thors, the protoss will typically have their natural, and their army will have a very hard time stopping you.
Something to be aware of; naked thors do not fare well compared to when they have mass scv repair as well as marine support, and the support assets almost always die during the battle. So if for some reason you wind up with just some thors all alone in enemy territory, fall back. When you have just demolished an enemy army, and pounded their natural nexus to powder, it is very tempting to just walk up the ramp and try to end the game. It is, surprisingly, better to just fall back and make a serious doom push of it later, adding in the surviving thors, than to just throw them away.
The move of attacking with the thors itself, however, is the main advantage. A group of thors with a lot of scvs to repair, and with marines and some marauders behind is going to be very scary for the protoss. It forces the protoss to defend, and more importantly if the protoss tried to take the entire map they will immediately lose. That type of absurd macro play is typically a huge weakness of trying to build up a large tank count while turtling. Also, moving in with thors will likely force the protoss to tip their hand about what they will be using against your tanks, and thors are much stronger against those units than tanks are. If he's fielding immortals, you will fare tolerably against them with thor/marine and know to get ghosts. If he is fielding void rays you should also do alright due to your marine count, and also know to get vikings to deal with the voids and a possible carrier transition later.
Moreover, the fact that you are in his face with thors and marines prevents many of the fancy tech choices you must otherwise scout and react to. Thors do not care about psi storm. You have mass orbital commands to scan if he makes dark templar. There is no real perfect option except carriers, which for all intents and purposes are out of the question, and if you scout you should have plenty of time to get vikings, assuming for some reason you cannot simply kill him for his greedy tech choice.
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 01:58 Hider wrote:
I seen that in most of your replays you opt for ibo mech. Problem with that is that I feel that it is so weak against chargelots + collosus/HT. How would you beat a mass of chargelots without 10+ blueflame hellions? On February 20 2011 02:06 Mattness wrote:
I also have the most trouble with Mass Chargelots. I was wondering if you thought that limiting your tanks if you scout mass chargelots would solve the problem of my splash decimating my hellions.
well i get at least 1 reactor factory so i always have hellions around, but as i stated, scouting is the key. when you scan and see mainly zealot composition, you go for more hellions instead of tanks. you can build hellions from tech lab factories too you know :D (j/k)
+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 02:29 SheerStress wrote:
Hi Predy,
Thanks for the general guide, I ve been having alot of trouble in TvP as well.
I watched your game vs Infruna on xel naga <I hold off 2base collosi push from protoss with a few tanks already in the mix>, once you got your third base up you looked great and the build looked awesome. But when you were dropping him (relaly nice drop killing over 10-14 probes, i felt like if he had just walked into your natural he woulda won the game. This is alot of the period I can't deal with, when they get 3 colossi + gateway and a-move into my base i just lose.
So I just want to know if during that game during that drop, you had some way to preventing him from atking you that I didn't know or if you think you could have held that off with what you had and how.
Thanks
yeah that was one of the older replays, where i did only 3rax and faster tanks. The drop was indeed great. but i'm never worried about his army in the particular moment i think. I can hold it off at my natural. But in general, you're right, it's very tough time when getting 3rd and transitioning. You can hold off most of 2base 1robo collosi push that is not allin with 4rax 1port i think, unless you've been slowed down earlier. You need good concave and the most important thing is, keep making vikings, never have delay in the production, that is very difficult and imporant, since you'll need as many vikings as possible. Use SCVs if needed as well. Try never to get supply blocked and keep the macro up.
+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 02:51 ledarsi wrote:Yes, your endgame move is to have a 150+ pop army of mainly tanks, which I love, it's awesome. It also seems completely compatible with being aggressive during the transition, since you have units which are completely expendable. What I suggest is that the transition period is weak because you are going directly for tanks, which are relatively inefficient in small numbers. During the transition period it is possible to be very aggressive using the remaining bio, and limited thor production. This places into your scheme at step 5. Detailed breakdown: + Show Spoiler +
Begin building thors instead of tanks while on two bases, research strike cannon as well as vehicle 1/1. It's pretty natural to get two or three thors, begin building tanks, and then push out as you take your third, and all the upgrades finish right then, bringing scvs. You can even do this a second time with a few more thors, and bring more scvs, assuming the first one went reasonably well. It is quite feasible to start producing thors off of two bases from 1-2 factories, and later transition into mass tank from three bases out of many factories.
Drops are still on the table, and you can also initiate a straight up assault which the protoss will have a hard time stopping at all, and has no method of stopping efficiently. If you have 1/1 or better as well as mass scv repair the thors are guaranteed to outperform their cost, possibly by an extreme amount, and they may even survive to stand in front of the tank line later.
I have found that there is a window where a small group of mass-repaired thors simply cannot be efficiently beaten by any unit the protoss could conceivably have at that stage of the game. With 1/1, and mass repair, even a single thor can take on a preposterously large army of pure gateway units, and you will have two, three, or more. With strike cannon, small numbers of colossi and immortals are no problem (although lots of either are a big problem). Void rays are no threat since you have marines, and he can't possibly have carriers. Also, if he has made carriers, you can simply go kill him. Your swelling tank count will act as a defense and ensure a win if the protoss fails to defend and attempts a base trade.
Another note about the strike cannon upgrade that might make it worthwhile to delay siege mode, and delay tank production. There is a sweet spot with strike cannon to be aware of, that four strike cannons will take down a nexus in 6 seconds. Three thors plus whatever marines you've got along for the ride can probably do the same job. If you didn't need to use any cannons on colossi or immortals, a free nexus kill is very nice. If you push out on two bases with three thors, the protoss will typically have their natural, and their army will have a very hard time stopping you.
Something to be aware of; naked thors do not fare well compared to when they have mass scv repair as well as marine support, and the support assets almost always die during the battle. So if for some reason you wind up with just some thors all alone in enemy territory, fall back. When you have just demolished an enemy army, and pounded their natural nexus to powder, it is very tempting to just walk up the ramp and try to end the game. It is, surprisingly, better to just fall back and make a serious doom push of it later, adding in the surviving thors, than to just throw them away.
The move of attacking with the thors itself, however, is the main advantage. A group of thors with a lot of scvs to repair, and with marines and some marauders behind is going to be very scary for the protoss. It forces the protoss to defend, and more importantly if the protoss tried to take the entire map they will immediately lose. That type of absurd macro play is typically a huge weakness of trying to build up a large tank count while turtling. Also, moving in with thors will likely force the protoss to tip their hand about what they will be using against your tanks, and thors are much stronger against those units than tanks are. If he's fielding immortals, you will fare tolerably against them with thor/marine and know to get ghosts. If he is fielding void rays you should also do alright due to your marine count, and also know to get vikings to deal with the voids and a possible carrier transition later.
Moreover, the fact that you are in his face with thors and marines prevents many of the fancy tech choices you must otherwise scout and react to. Thors do not care about psi storm. You have mass orbital commands to scan if he makes dark templar. There is no real perfect option except carriers, which for all intents and purposes are out of the question, and if you scout you should have plenty of time to get vikings, assuming for some reason you cannot simply kill him for his greedy tech choice.
very well writen, thanks for that mate. as i said, i like tanks because im trying to be more defensive when taking the 3rd faster. you're very much right about tanks being weak when in small numbers, that's why i have the bio which is on its own very good ball of units.
i like your idea about using thors before tanks to push. i'll definately try that out, i'd call it the aggresive style of transition since you're attacking, while with tanks it's more of a defensive style of transition. what i'm worried about tho is that you want to get MMM and thors with double upgrades off 2 base which doesnt seem i can support it with 4 geysers. Unless you skip vikings which i prefer the most against collosi.
I think more variations like these would make this style much better and less predictable, keep it coming! I'll try to update with new replays of going thors as soon as i get to play some games or even you post some replays!
EDIT: what i'm mainly looking into and trying to figure out, is what is the safest and fastest way to get 3rd base and transition into mech. that is the weakest spot of this build so far. as adviced before, im gonna try to get thors instead of tanks and see how it goes.
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You die every time you transition into mech because
A) you dont have bio production
B) tanks take a while to build up critical mass
Herp derp this is obvious but when youre in the game vs the protoss and he sees your bio army isnt getting any bigger, he can just constantly engage, warp in and re engage and prevent you from ever building up your tank critical mass.
If you want tanks I would suggest starting the factory sooner so that you have the critical mass when you move to take your third, not just starting tank productions as youre taking the third because you have no way to defend it from relentless attacks.
Protoss can afford to do this since you are being very passive while switching tech and he just expands a base or two up on you, so unless you get a fluke harrass and kill 50% of his economy he can afford to just throw food at you and then warp in more until you are left with no bio and no tanks.
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United Arab Emirates245 Posts
I love you predy for guiding your terran brethren with this protoss dilemma.
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On February 20 2011 05:36 QQmonster wrote:
You die every time you transition into mech because
A) you dont have bio production
B) tanks take a while to build up critical mass
Herp derp this is obvious but when youre in the game vs the protoss and he sees your bio army isnt getting any bigger, he can just constantly engage, warp in and re engage and prevent you from ever building up your tank critical mass.
If you want tanks I would suggest starting the factory sooner so that you have the critical mass when you move to take your third, not just starting tank productions as youre taking the third because you have no way to defend it from relentless attacks.
Protoss can afford to do this since you are being very passive while switching tech and he just expands a base or two up on you, so unless you get a fluke harrass and kill 50% of his economy he can afford to just throw food at you and then warp in more until you are left with no bio and no tanks.
how much of the guide did you read? also you didn't watch the reps.
i DO have bio production, i never said don't get tanks on 2 base, in one of the reps i do so. also half of the guide desribes how to be agressive and put pressure. GOD. READ. THE. POST. please
next time i'm not gonna respond to such posts
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If you are so kind I would also be very grateful to know your reasoning behind doing the bio into mech transition instead of a standard opening (FE, Hellion drop, Banshee, whatever) into mech transition, because I'm also trying out a lot but at my level of play (~3,2k masters) there are a lot of obvious bumps (macro, micro, everything) and I'm often times not really sure what was bad and what was good about what I did, because there are so many possibilities for the protoss to react once it gets into the midgame and I rarely got time to play more than 5 or 6 games per week, and of course it's just not very high level.
It would just be really really cool if you could talk a bit about your thoughts on the different options you have as a terran once you hit the mid game stages if you want to get a mech composition eventually. I think the reasons why you are prefering the bio into mech transition at the moment are explained very well in your first posting. But it would be cool to hear what your thoughts are on mech mid game pushes (3 or 4 factory on 2 base) or other options (massive hellion harass instead of bio pressure) and what you dislike about it.
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On February 20 2011 07:32 Bommes wrote:If you are so kind I would also be very grateful to know your reasoning behind doing the bio into mech transition instead of a standard opening (FE, Hellion drop, Banshee, whatever) into mech transition, because I'm also trying out a lot but at my level of play (~3,2k masters) there are a lot of obvious bumps (macro, micro, everything) and I'm often times not really sure what was bad and what was good about what I did, because there are so many possibilities for the protoss to react once it gets into the midgame and I rarely got time to play more than 5 or 6 games per week, and of course it's just not very high level. It would just be really really cool if you could talk a bit about your thoughts on the different options you have as a terran once you hit the mid game stages if you want to get a mech composition eventually. I think the reasons why you are prefering the bio into mech transition at the moment are explained very well in your first posting. But it would be cool to hear what your thoughts are on mech mid game pushes (3 or 4 factory on 2 base) or other options (massive hellion harass instead of bio pressure) and what you dislike about it.
well i'm a big fan of mech, and for months i was the one defending pure mech play vs protoss over here on tl forums (a tough task indeed). what i used to try was a fast 3base mech, kind of like in brood war, where you got siege or mines expand and with little amount of factories you'd take your 3rd base and then boom the production. That unfortunately didn't go too well obviously, especialy because you can't pressure with mines. a protoss who sees you do pure mech build should always get fast 3rd and mass up a big force countering yours (zealot, immortal etc), beccause it's hard to push in mid game.
lately though, i was doing a 2 base pure mech build that involves fast expansion and no starport, but instead i get 4 factories (2tech lab 2 reactor) (you can actually get a starport too just for medivacs) and harass a lot with hellions while building tanks/thors and get a ghost too, then do a big 2base push which was very strong.
i still felt pure mech was very difficult to pull off as you can't harass efficiently once protoss gets good sim city with buildings, but i'm not saying it's not viable. I was able to win a lot of games with pure mech, be it either 3base macro style or 2base push.
i found out that if protoss goes fast expansion you can go mass hellions and just trade them for probes over and over again. anyway i like bio into mech a bit more as it feels more safe and generally "better" tho i dont want to discourage from going full mech since it's still very powerful when played out well. definatelly try out that 2base push
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
predy! we played for meteor garden on sc2gg
I've actually been trying to do something very similar for a long time but I couldn't survive that 2 base P push with lots of colo. Thanks for your reps 
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I don't do this particular build but I have to say that I feel bio into mech is in the long run the only real viable TvP build. Opening mech or 1-1-1 leaves you too vulnerable to a lot of lot of allinish shit and puts you at a disadvantage against a very macro heavy opening while bio deals with this it gets raped in the later stages of the game. Bio into ghostmech and playing your air composition reactively for the win.
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Hey Predy, I've been working on something similar on the US server, I'll just let my replays speak for themselves, Tell me what you think in comparison to your style and I'll do vice versa when I've watch all of your replays (only seen one as of me posting this).
[url blocked]
Just off the top of my head, I don't think getting a 4th rax is ideal, or getting upgrades from the engibay, If you cut those two things you can get your mech rolling a lot faster, but what do I know lol, I'll have a more educated post after I watch all of your reps.
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Haven't watched through the reps yet, but awesome post nonetheless! The idea of a transition into mech once you have your third is something ive also been thinking about but I haven't really gotten into the whole theorycrafting part, and the few games i've tried I've had sick problems during the actual transition phase.
I'll look through the reps and comment further, gogo predy!
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actually I did read the post and I did watch the replays and in the 3 games I watched you got killed 3 times for the exact same reason.
You have bio production capabilities, but you said it yourself in the OP you cut bio to get the factories up. You can't support Bio AND Mech production at the same time off 2 bases, so while youre transitioning you're basically sitting on the army you had while switching, while the tosses army and economy is constantly growing.
Which leads to my point that he can just throw food at you and hammer your measly army into the ground.
If you want to switch into mechanical units after having opened up with bio you need the economy to throw down the factories and start producing instantly so that your powering up doesn't lose steam.
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i would like to suggest a simple bio mech opening that my terran friend owns me with all day long. It is a simple 1/1 fast seige into expo opening, it holds a 4 gate and a 6 gate so you know it is a really safe build and allows him to take safer expos that are more open to harass. As the game goes on you free up you bio supply by sacing it and you can make a decent tech switch. Played a few games vs it and i will say it is quite hard to handle especially if you let him seige up. so just a suggestion and i will say it is 10x harder to handle than pure bio especially since you can still do drops ect but you have like 10 tanks and a few thors.
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I really like your style of play, I actually started doing a variation of this when I caught a couple of your replays a week or so ago against mnmvader i believe and it's working very well for me
Very well written guide and thx for reps
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Nice thread. I just tried this out in the lower leagues and after 40minutes the protoss opponent just gg'd for no apparent reason, lol. Anyway.. Im new kinda semi-new so this is pretty awesome as this seems to work. Well, what doesnt work in the lower levels..
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On February 20 2011 08:36 meRz wrote:Haven't watched through the reps yet, but awesome post nonetheless! The idea of a transition into mech once you have your third is something ive also been thinking about but I haven't really gotten into the whole theorycrafting part, and the few games i've tried I've had sick problems during the actual transition phase. I'll look through the reps and comment further, gogo predy!
Me too except I've been doing variation of the marine/Thor push except super fast expand and harass with hellions.
Glad someone is getting success with a super fast bio expand onto 3 base. That's definitely how this match up is going in the future. I personally want to figure out a redux of the tornado terran style.
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Thank you so much for writing this. I also have been having a lot of trouble in TvP, and thought your playstyle was very interesting and strong the moment I saw it, but I never spent the time to figure it out.
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terran can play with MMM + siege tanks ... that is only think they can add... but agean terran if go mecha it dont simply work agenst good players....
Maby when HOTS arive terran mecha will be standar agenst all races...but now in WOL i think it dont work like it should..
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 08:30 captainwaffles wrote:
Hey Predy, I've been working on something similar on the US server, I'll just let my replays speak for themselves, Tell me what you think in comparison to your style and I'll do vice versa when I've watch all of your replays (only seen one as of me posting this).
[url blocked]
Just off the top of my head, I don't think getting a 4th rax is ideal, or getting upgrades from the engibay, If you cut those two things you can get your mech rolling a lot faster, but what do I know lol, I'll have a more educated post after I watch all of your reps.
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hi, sorry i haven't responded earlier but it was night here
i watched the replays, and i liked it. you're right about E-bay upgrades, those aren't needed.
3 or 4 rax? well i don't know that myself . in one of the reps i posted, on xelnaga, i do 3rax with fast tanks. it's one of the older replays and since then i started doing 4rax and later tech because if you build tanks from 1 factory it takes a lot of time to build a decent sized tank force and meantime the protoss will most probably attack you and then you have 1/3 less marauders (2rax tech lab instead of 3) and it's very difficult to hold it off. BUT i've been thinking that 3rax and factory for thors could work much better, because you get also +1 very soon. i'll have to give it a shot.
what i didn't like was you didn't get reactor starport so even when you saw protoss going vikings you didn't get any, which you should always do. sometimes you lost because you didnt scout air tech or HT tech so you didn't have ghosts/vikings ready, but that'll come with the practise.
all in all your style was very similar obviously and very good, think about the 4rax or 3rax thors. oh and one more thing, you didn't make mass orbitals and didnt sack scvs which im sure you'll start doing. I think that's one of the most important thing about this build because you free up about 30-40 supply of scvs which is huge keep it up
+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 08:36 meRz wrote:Haven't watched through the reps yet, but awesome post nonetheless! The idea of a transition into mech once you have your third is something ive also been thinking about but I haven't really gotten into the whole theorycrafting part, and the few games i've tried I've had sick problems during the actual transition phase. I'll look through the reps and comment further, gogo predy!
hey mate yeah as you can see that is the most difficult part of it. you can try it and post some reps as well
+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 10:19 Avril_Lavigne wrote:I was also inspired by the exact same game and I've had much success with it, I will be providing replays later tonight I'm a 2900 Master League with 300 bonus pool just for a little credibility EDIT: alright guys i'm back here's a my list of replays inspired by MVP vs st squirtle GAME 1 ON LTGAME 2 ON METAGAME 3 ON XEL NAGAGAME 4 ON LTGAME 5 ON XEL NAGA
good games, always get ghosts vs HTs though
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On February 20 2011 19:58 PredY wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On February 20 2011 08:30 captainwaffles wrote:
Hey Predy, I've been working on something similar on the US server, I'll just let my replays speak for themselves, Tell me what you think in comparison to your style and I'll do vice versa when I've watch all of your replays (only seen one as of me posting this).
[url blocked]
Just off the top of my head, I don't think getting a 4th rax is ideal, or getting upgrades from the engibay, If you cut those two things you can get your mech rolling a lot faster, but what do I know lol, I'll have a more educated post after I watch all of your reps.
. hi, sorry i haven't responded earlier but it was night here i watched the replays, and i liked it. you're right about E-bay upgrades, those aren't needed. 3 or 4 rax? well i don't know that myself . in one of the reps i posted, on xelnaga, i do 3rax with fast tanks. it's one of the older replays and since then i started doing 4rax and later tech because if you build tanks from 1 factory it takes a lot of time to build a decent sized tank force and meantime the protoss will most probably attack you and then you have 1/3 less marauders (2rax tech lab instead of 3) and it's very difficult to hold it off. BUT i've been thinking that 3rax and factory for thors could work much better, because you get also +1 very soon. i'll have to give it a shot. what i didn't like was you didn't get reactor starport so even when you saw protoss going vikings you didn't get any, which you should always do. sometimes you lost because you didnt scout air tech or HT tech so you didn't have ghosts/vikings ready, but that'll come with the practise. all in all your style was very similar obviously and very good, think about the 4rax or 3rax thors. oh and one more thing, you didn't make mass orbitals and didnt sack scvs which im sure you'll start doing. I think that's one of the most important thing about this build because you free up about 30-40 supply of scvs which is huge keep it up
Hmm, I've thought of getting thors from the 1 factory against a more gateway based army (i.e. going twilight/templar tech) and getting the tanks later, the only bad thing i could of why it could be bad (or not optimal) is because thors are fucking expensive. I think it would delay the other factories going up, possibly making yourself more vulnerable to a timing attack, but I'm just spitballin' from the top of my head, I'll try it out.
I don't like getting a reactor on the starport because it just sets my factories back further. I think you need them when you push, to keep the collo at bay from just forcing you to siege every half second, but my main concern is getting my mech army after my 3rd is up. So my line of logic is, if they attack me, I should have enough tanks/bunkers to hold, I might be wrong, I'll try out the reactor port in some future game and see how it feels.
Yeah, I really like the Mass Orbitals after the 4th base, very...good for lack of a better word. more scans, more mules, bigger army, and hell, if you lose a CC... fly another over! lol.
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What is your take on transitioning into mech after 2rax FE? It feels much more safer.
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If u will have some reps of 3rax thors, please post them..
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On February 20 2011 20:19 Bleak wrote:
What is your take on transitioning into mech after 2rax FE? It feels much more safer.
well it's something different from what i do, as you don;t get big enough bio force do attack or pressure and it's more of a pure mech play, i think that's viable as well, but i think you have to be on 3+ base to play mech effectively, because on 2base you'll have so much overmins if you go pure mech and then you're forced to expand with not too many units and if they shut down your hellion harass it's hard.
On February 20 2011 20:38 Weezing wrote:
If u will have some reps of 3rax thors, please post them..
yeah i'll try to play some games today, right now tho none of my good protoss friends are online, if anyone know 3.6k+ pts protoss msg
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the day Terrans learn to transition into Mech is a sad day for Protoss 8(
Appreciate your efforts.
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Hey PredY,
good to see something new. Pitty you lost to Underdark yesterday in TLO, was a painful game to watch from your perspective as you couldn't event get to this mech transition. Id like to suggest something you could try.
What about starting your tank production right when you switch your starport with factory for medivacs/vikings..
Or say at least after 1-2 sets of those. I see at about 12:00 in your game vs Underdark there is enough room to make this happen. You could probably take your 4th gas a bit earlier, so you can start working on tanks right after you switch.
This way you could match 2-3 collosi with your 3-4 Tanks and give your bio at least some chance to fight force fields + Colossus. In those mid game skirmishes, you lose a good portion of bio without dealing any damage thanks to superior position of Protoss. With firepower and range of tanks Protoss can't engage at will throwing down force fields and just abusing the range of Colossus.
I dont know, maybe this would eat a lot of resources, but at least something you could think about.
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I watched the last replay the one in which you lost. You were ahead in food the whole game but in the final battle the bio army you kept took up the supply that was meant for tanks. They melt to storm and colossi instantly before they could do any real damage and basically that caused you the game. The way I see it, it's dangerous to keep too much bio in a 200/200 army when you're facing an all-AOE toss deathball, even you have been ahead the whole game. Better off make a smooth transition into full mech by slowly throwing away your bio in mid game thru harrassments.
Another thing, have you tried full mech right from the beginning? It's a little difficult on the current ladder map pool due to small distances, but I think it could be fully viable on a big map. I've been experimenting this for months with decent success, but it really gives me a headache when toss tries to punish my immobility.
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Been watching the reps.
So I guess the basic idea is:
-Mass marines and bunkers to defend like Synystyr's primary build.
-Add marauders and medivacs(marauders and medivacs are the unit that lets you push out to take a third)
-Use medivacs and hellion production out of 1 fact to start dropping while you add factories so Protoss cannot move out.
You also want to stay on the mineral heavy units to stockpile gas for your factories.
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On February 20 2011 22:26 Terranium wrote:
I watched the last replay the one in which you lost. You were ahead in food the whole game but in the final battle the bio army you kept took up the supply that was meant for tanks. They melt to storm and colossi instantly before they could do any real damage and basically that caused you the game. The way I see it, it's dangerous to keep too much bio in a 200/200 army when you're facing an all-AOE toss deathball, even you have been ahead the whole game. Better off make a smooth transition into full mech by slowly throwing away your bio in mid game thru harrassments.
Another thing, have you tried full mech right from the beginning? It's a little difficult on the current ladder map pool due to small distances, but I think it could be fully viable on a big map. I've been experimenting this for months with decent success, but it really gives me a headache when toss tries to punish my immobility.
as it is diffirent from this guide i don't want to discuss it very much, but yes, it is definately viable, but mech is the strongest on 3base and with pure mech it's hard to get there (because 1 immortal comes and it's over lol j/k). it difficult once protoss realizes whats going on and scouts for hellion harass. also it's very frustrating, at least for me. but definately viable.
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I have a question, in the replays I've seen. Your opponent always seem to go mass gateway? What happens when Protoss goes robo heavy or transitions in stargate? The bunker openings are vulnerable to a variety of early game air (warp prism/void ray) combined with a large ground push or blink plays. How do you deal with that?
I know that Synystyr will pop out a Thor first in some of his builds to deal with this.
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On February 20 2011 23:29 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I have a question, in the replays I've seen. Your opponent always seem to go mass gateway? What happens when Protoss goes robo heavy or transitions in stargate? The bunker openings are vulnerable to a variety of early game air (warp prism/void ray) combined with a large ground push or blink plays. How do you deal with that?
I know that Synystyr will pop out a Thor first in some of his builds to deal with this.
well not sure what you mean exactly.
i think FE with bunkers is able to hold off a many kinds of protoss 1base allins. i must admit i lost a game vs protoss going for warpprism, but that was mainly because lack of scouting from my side.
i think with 3+ bunkers and scvs repairing them you should be fine to hold off any kind of frontal attacks. when facing warpprism, kill it at all costs. 3gate voidray could be good vs this but if you keep few marines in the bunkers with scvs reparing and have some marines fighting the voidrays, as you have stim you should be fine i guess.
i think 2base allin (double robo or mass upgr) is very strong because they will hit when you transition into mech, i gotta try to play against that.
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This is funny, just losted a couple of games to toss and thought i should look for some help, and there it was, on first page. Since I'm no where near Masters I guess I'm not loosing mainly b/c of my composition but that my macro/micro slips. But that doesnt mean that this will not help me.
Even tough i guess i will need som more practise before i can do this 100% i thank you. Allways fun the see people but some effort in thier "strats" and topics.
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TLO just did exactly what I posted above and it worked wonders.. But he did not transition into mech, just kept MMM + Tanks/Vikings + upgrades.. Well, he was about to mass banshees, but the game was over already. No need to transition into mech, you just keep having pros of both Mech and Bio - Firepower + mobility, nicely done..
Check the replay, its uploaded here - http://www.esl.eu/eu/sc2/go4sc2/cup83/download/25117023/
Around 12-13 minutes, without 2 bunkers + 2-3 Tanks, eviL could've pushed in and basically kill all the bio.. I think, this is pretty safe way how to get the power of Tanks in TvP..
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On February 20 2011 23:51 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 23:29 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I have a question, in the replays I've seen. Your opponent always seem to go mass gateway? What happens when Protoss goes robo heavy or transitions in stargate? The bunker openings are vulnerable to a variety of early game air (warp prism/void ray) combined with a large ground push or blink plays. How do you deal with that?
I know that Synystyr will pop out a Thor first in some of his builds to deal with this. well not sure what you mean exactly. i think FE with bunkers is able to hold off a many kinds of protoss 1base allins. i must admit i lost a game vs protoss going for warpprism, but that was mainly because lack of scouting from my side. i think with 3+ bunkers and scvs repairing them you should be fine to hold off any kind of frontal attacks. when facing warpprism, kill it at all costs. 3gate voidray could be good vs this but if you keep few marines in the bunkers with scvs reparing and have some marines fighting the voidrays, as you have stim you should be fine i guess. i think 2base allin (double robo or mass upgr) is very strong because they will hit when you transition into mech, i gotta try to play against that.
Well I think that I was mixing 2 ideas so I will try to articulate better.
1) There are several builds that Protoss can do that are designed to force Terran to pull units from the bunkers at the front. Among these are warp prism harass and void ray plays. This forces Terran to pull units out of bunkers to deal with it because you traded taking an early expo for production.(IE, they hit before your 3/4 rax kick in) At this point, Toss can do an immortal/sentry push through the front while part of your army is in the back.
Additionally there is the blink stalker play which is pretty much an all in that allows Toss to bypass the bunkers entirely. Synystyr goes for a pair of fast Thor to deal with this, how do you deal with this?
2) Your opponent seems to always go mass gateway. I think this is probably just what the ICCup maps favor for now but what happens if Toss gets immortals in the mid game instead of a stalker heavy army? By immortals, I mean a lot of immortals (8+). Your mech army takes a long time to mass so Protoss has plenty of time to either go air or carriers. How does your build fair against this?
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On February 21 2011 03:41 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 23:51 PredY wrote:On February 20 2011 23:29 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I have a question, in the replays I've seen. Your opponent always seem to go mass gateway? What happens when Protoss goes robo heavy or transitions in stargate? The bunker openings are vulnerable to a variety of early game air (warp prism/void ray) combined with a large ground push or blink plays. How do you deal with that?
I know that Synystyr will pop out a Thor first in some of his builds to deal with this. well not sure what you mean exactly. i think FE with bunkers is able to hold off a many kinds of protoss 1base allins. i must admit i lost a game vs protoss going for warpprism, but that was mainly because lack of scouting from my side. i think with 3+ bunkers and scvs repairing them you should be fine to hold off any kind of frontal attacks. when facing warpprism, kill it at all costs. 3gate voidray could be good vs this but if you keep few marines in the bunkers with scvs reparing and have some marines fighting the voidrays, as you have stim you should be fine i guess. i think 2base allin (double robo or mass upgr) is very strong because they will hit when you transition into mech, i gotta try to play against that. Well I think that I was mixing 2 ideas so I will try to articulate better. 1) There are several builds that Protoss can do that are designed to force Terran to pull units from the bunkers at the front. Among these are warp prism harass and void ray plays. This forces Terran to pull units out of bunkers to deal with it because you traded taking an early expo for production.(IE, they hit before your 3/4 rax kick in) At this point, Toss can do an immortal/sentry push through the front while part of your army is in the back. Additionally there is the blink stalker play which is pretty much an all in that allows Toss to bypass the bunkers entirely. Synystyr goes for a pair of fast Thor to deal with this, how do you deal with this? 2) Your opponent seems to always go mass gateway. I think this is probably just what the ICCup maps favor for now but what happens if Toss gets immortals in the mid game instead of a stalker heavy army? By immortals, I mean a lot of immortals (8+). Your mech army takes a long time to mass so Protoss has plenty of time to either go air or carriers. How does your build fair against this?
well... i just scouts and scans and when see no expo i should scout what kind of 1base it is and then prepare. i believe blink would be very strong but fast expo with fast stim is fairly good vs any 1base P build i think.
about 2nd point, i'm never worried about immortals since i get ghosts almost every time i transition and about air, well again, have to scout it, but usually you have vikings because of collosi and thors, which stall fairly well against carriers to get vikings up.
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little update, unfortunately i wasn't able to get any of my protoss friends to play with me today, fucking tournament day in europe today. and on top of that, i won't be able to play sc2 for next few days so i won't be able to try all the suggestions therefore no replays updates from me  . i promise i'll update with new replays towards the end of the week tho.
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South Africa442 Posts
I really like the idea, looking forward to watching the replays. I loved TvP Mech in StarCraft 1, to me the siege tank was what Terran was all about, it was their 'defining unit', and it was awesome, but in StarCraft 2 there's just a bunch of Marauders running around the map most of the time, it doesnt feel 'Terran' to me, it feels more like StarCraft 1 Protoss.
It seems the key to making mech work in SC 2 is finding a replacement for the vulture, and M&M harass with drops may be the best substitute at the moment.
I was also wondering if a Marine-Tank-Hellion mix could work against Protoss in the early stages, using hellion harass and marine drops to pressure protoss while keeping tanks back to defend, gradually building up their numbers before pushing on 3 bases and switching to pure mech production. I have no idea if this would work well though.
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Hey predy. I'm not quite as good as you (I'm 3700~ masters on NA but have no good tournament results) but I'm heading towards the same kind of playstyle. I also fooled around with bio-->mech transitions exactly as you describe it. Most of the times, as the Terran, we find ourselves doing anything we can to buy time to get the critical transition down. It is then we are so very vulnerable to pushes, because the fact of going mech is you NEED that 3rd set of gas fast and then soon the 4th. So the conundrum is doing the transition and defending a third. A lot of times I find this impossible vs standard 2 base colossus play, as they will just turtle until their big push, and ignore a drop at that point.
Thus, I have been trying to work out a few openings that allow for faster mech, and even pure mech play. To my surprise I'm having a good amount of success.
On a lot of maps, you can go 1 rax FE and hold off most kinds of pressure. I like to get the factory and the 2nd gas ASAP after dropping the expansion CC. This way, for any 1 base push you are assured to have 3 or 4 tanks, and bunkers with marines. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy safe.
Of course, depending upon what you scout, you can go fast starport, fast blueflame, ghosts (good for annoying immortal timing attacks), or medivac. I'm astounded by all the possibilities really, because after so many games of bio, and now switching to mech, there are SO many new things to learn.
Anyhow, back on topic, going mech opening FIRST allows you to be much safer when trying to take a 3rd. On some maps like LT, you won't have a problem, cause you can extend your tank line at the Xel'Naga. In fact, cross positions that map is my favorite for this new mech style. However on something like metalopolis, you have to be quite careful with your army to be able to successfully defend your 3rd and natural. There are a few ways of doing it, personally I like the early sensor tower.
The beauty of not opening bio into mech is that you can usually defend with fewer units, meaning almost always (in my experience so far), you have a faster 3rd, 4th, 5th than the opponent.
Things really start rolling with your 3rd up. This is when I like to get up to 4 or 5 factory, 1 reactor, and start massing tank+hellion (and of course some ghost). All the hellions allow you to constantly have vision of their army and expos so long as your are vigilant about it. Now you can run around with blueflames into unsuspecting probe lines, drop them, etc etc. Also, like you said, double armory is quite potent and you need to make sure to have vikings if they got too many colossus or void ray.
I also agree with your transition into mass orbital. It really frees up some much needed pop, and most games I find myself floating 2k+ minerals around when my 4th is finishing anyway.
Late game is more or less just mass tank+hellion with some thor+ghost+viking sprinkled in as needed. It's quite fun running around with such a potent army like in the BW days. The most important thing here is picking your spots to fight. My favorite part of the lategame is the fact that I can throw units into the protoss ball constantly, and remax my army faster as long as I'm not losing too many tanks each go around.
If you want to see some replays I have of this, let me know. I think my style is a bit safer for getting the 3rd and into the lategame, but struggles more against 1 and 2 base pushes which you seem to have covered well with the early bio.
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United Arab Emirates245 Posts
I find alot of trouble switching into mech when my protoss opponent uses the Pheonix/Colossi mix, that's extremely potent vs most mech because once he has those ton of pheonix he can use them to lift up the tanks + get a ton of map control and deny drops. So will I have to stick to bio if that's the case, or what exactly? Im confused now =(
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Wow, those reps got me going. Care to upload more replays? I really liked seeing this strat play out.
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 21 2011 17:28 lizzuma wrote:
Hey predy. I'm not quite as good as you (I'm 3700~ masters on NA but have no good tournament results) but I'm heading towards the same kind of playstyle. I also fooled around with bio-->mech transitions exactly as you describe it. Most of the times, as the Terran, we find ourselves doing anything we can to buy time to get the critical transition down. It is then we are so very vulnerable to pushes, because the fact of going mech is you NEED that 3rd set of gas fast and then soon the 4th. So the conundrum is doing the transition and defending a third. A lot of times I find this impossible vs standard 2 base colossus play, as they will just turtle until their big push, and ignore a drop at that point.
Thus, I have been trying to work out a few openings that allow for faster mech, and even pure mech play. To my surprise I'm having a good amount of success.
On a lot of maps, you can go 1 rax FE and hold off most kinds of pressure. I like to get the factory and the 2nd gas ASAP after dropping the expansion CC. This way, for any 1 base push you are assured to have 3 or 4 tanks, and bunkers with marines. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy safe.
Of course, depending upon what you scout, you can go fast starport, fast blueflame, ghosts (good for annoying immortal timing attacks), or medivac. I'm astounded by all the possibilities really, because after so many games of bio, and now switching to mech, there are SO many new things to learn.
Anyhow, back on topic, going mech opening FIRST allows you to be much safer when trying to take a 3rd. On some maps like LT, you won't have a problem, cause you can extend your tank line at the Xel'Naga. In fact, cross positions that map is my favorite for this new mech style. However on something like metalopolis, you have to be quite careful with your army to be able to successfully defend your 3rd and natural. There are a few ways of doing it, personally I like the early sensor tower.
The beauty of not opening bio into mech is that you can usually defend with fewer units, meaning almost always (in my experience so far), you have a faster 3rd, 4th, 5th than the opponent.
Things really start rolling with your 3rd up. This is when I like to get up to 4 or 5 factory, 1 reactor, and start massing tank+hellion (and of course some ghost). All the hellions allow you to constantly have vision of their army and expos so long as your are vigilant about it. Now you can run around with blueflames into unsuspecting probe lines, drop them, etc etc. Also, like you said, double armory is quite potent and you need to make sure to have vikings if they got too many colossus or void ray.
I also agree with your transition into mass orbital. It really frees up some much needed pop, and most games I find myself floating 2k+ minerals around when my 4th is finishing anyway.
Late game is more or less just mass tank+hellion with some thor+ghost+viking sprinkled in as needed. It's quite fun running around with such a potent army like in the BW days. The most important thing here is picking your spots to fight. My favorite part of the lategame is the fact that I can throw units into the protoss ball constantly, and remax my army faster as long as I'm not losing too many tanks each go around.
If you want to see some replays I have of this, let me know. I think my style is a bit safer for getting the 3rd and into the lategame, but struggles more against 1 and 2 base pushes which you seem to have covered well with the early bio.
hi i'm not very sure what you mean, if you uploaded few reps i'd be glad. I used to do reactor rax expo into factory and MMM tank viking but it was fairly risky vs all that 1base stuff like blink stalkers really raped me since i had only few tanks and no stim marines.
+ Show Spoiler +On February 21 2011 19:09 XothermeK wrote:
I find alot of trouble switching into mech when my protoss opponent uses the Pheonix/Colossi mix, that's extremely potent vs most mech because once he has those ton of pheonix he can use them to lift up the tanks + get a ton of map control and deny drops. So will I have to stick to bio if that's the case, or what exactly? Im confused now =(
well i think there are few ways how to play against that. either stick with bio and vikings to snipe the collosi, or get more thors to counter the phoenix + ghosts. i think if it's strong 2base play then i guess you shouldnt transition but if protoss aims for 3rd base you can switch and with thors/vikings/ghosts you should be able to counter it
+ Show Spoiler +On February 21 2011 19:14 Aldehyde wrote:
Wow, those reps got me going. Care to upload more replays? I really liked seeing this strat play out.
i can't play sc2 for few days but i will play more towards the end of the week so i'll upload some
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Predy, i watched all your replays. They are great, but in each of the winning ones, you bassicly outmacroed your opponent, so i have felling you would won that games even if you have continued with bio army instead of switching into mech.
Now i'm looking forward to see more of your games, since i belive your expanding technique and map awareness are just awesome.
I want to know thou, in which of games that you won, you think that you could have lost if you hadn't have made the mech transition?
good day, svizcy
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On February 22 2011 02:11 Svizcy wrote:
Predy, i watched all your replays. They are great, but in each of the winning ones, you bassicly outmacroed your opponent, so i have felling you would won that games even if you have continued with bio army instead of switching into mech.
Now i'm looking forward to see more of your games, since i belive your expanding technique and map awareness are just awesome.
I want to know thou, in which of games that you won, you think that you could have lost if you hadn't have made the mech transition?
good day, svizcy
hi, actually i kinda felt the same.
i must say i kinda forgot what the games looked like :D but i think in the second replay where i lose my 3rd base that was pretty tough, or the game on xelnaga where the tanks helped me a lot, but i won that one because of my good drop.
i think there's a good example though, in the first replay where i lose, i lose my army but he doesn't finish me off so i can rebuild a bit and there you can see where my 2/2 mech completely rapes his ground army. unfortunately i was way behind already but i fought well anyway
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Yeah sorry, it was 4 a.m. when I posted and it was kind of vague.
My strategy is basically to try to 1 rax FE into pure mech, or 1 rax 1 fact expand when the map is not as safe. I feel it's safer for getting the third than your build. On the other hand, your build allows for mid game agression, while I basically have to turtle until my third is up. The basic idea is for me is to have 1 rax 2 fact 1 port off of 2 base. After getting 4 or 5 tanks (basically however many make me feel safe based on what I scout), I start researching blue flame and doing hellion production. Then eventually moving into 5 or 6 factory on 3 base, and adding them as money allows.
A relatively early starport allows you to go medivac for a possible delayed blue flame drop, raven for DT/blink stalker, or banshee for heavy zealot/immortal builds. I feel like with a good 1 rax FE, you'll have plenty of marines and bunkers for any 1 base play, and faster tanks as well to help get the third up.
Obviously the build is vulnerable in the early game but I think it has a lot of potential. Here are 2 replays:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/142538-1v1-terran-protoss-scrap-station
+ Show Spoiler +1 rax expand into early starport. Taking my 2nd and 3rd quite early felt quite safe because of his unit composition and the map.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/142542-2v2-terran-protoss-shakuras-plateau
+ Show Spoiler +Again, 1 rax expand because of the map into mech. Because of my spy marine at his third, I felt comfortable turtling on 2 base for quite a while.
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On February 22 2011 03:46 lizzuma wrote:Yeah sorry, it was 4 a.m. when I posted and it was kind of vague. My strategy is basically to try to 1 rax FE into pure mech, or 1 rax 1 fact expand when the map is not as safe. I feel it's safer for getting the third than your build. On the other hand, your build allows for mid game agression, while I basically have to turtle until my third is up. The basic idea is for me is to have 1 rax 2 fact 1 port off of 2 base. After getting 4 or 5 tanks (basically however many make me feel safe based on what I scout), I start researching blue flame and doing hellion production. Then eventually moving into 5 or 6 factory on 3 base, and adding them as money allows. A relatively early starport allows you to go medivac for a possible delayed blue flame drop, raven for DT/blink stalker, or banshee for heavy zealot/immortal builds. I feel like with a good 1 rax FE, you'll have plenty of marines and bunkers for any 1 base play, and faster tanks as well to help get the third up. Obviously the build is vulnerable in the early game but I think it has a lot of potential. Here are 2 replays: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/142538-1v1-terran-protoss-scrap-station+ Show Spoiler +1 rax expand into early starport. Taking my 2nd and 3rd quite early felt quite safe because of his unit composition and the map. Again, 1 rax expand because of the map into mech. Because of my spy marine at his third, I felt comfortable turtling on 2 base for quite a while.
thanks im gonna watch them (when i download patches ^^) but i have an idea what you do, i used to do smth similar. what was a big pain were blink stalkers or very agressive 1base immortal pushes or 6gate pushes but those werent as big pain as blink stalkers.
i mentioned earlier that pure mech builds are definately viable tho i don't like them very nuch since it's hard to pressure and protoss can abuse it well. i still play like that a bit
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What is the point of going to bio at all in the first place? To prevent the fast 3rd from the toss? Im not very fond of bio openings tbh, it seems like all the units are pretty much a waste and you are delaying your mech army and filling supply with units that will turn out to be useless.
Having watched quite a few of Goody's replays and from my own experience i feel like he and some of the other mech players out there go too tank heavy which forces them to turtle for quite a long time. Using more hellions seems like a much better solution to me and essentially playing it like BW terran (except added a few thors to tank shots and for killing phoenix)
Hellions beat immortals quite handily and if a person leaves an opening even once you can completely cripple them with your hellion harass.
I have a bunch of replays here PredY that maybe you should check out to see the viabilty of pure mech openings (i posted a few games of my losses to show how I typically lose when I do lose (not that often,I probably win 90% of my tvp's on ladder in the past 2-3 weeks)
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays?filter-hidden-top-player-name=tQSadist&filter-map=
I essentially use the same build all the time but im posting it because it would be nice if we could get a pure mech opening vs toss that was completely solid =) I know phoenix is a counter to hellion harass but even when harass is denied they have had to build phoenix's and hellions are a good unit anyway.
BioMech just seems too weak to me during the transition and you can still die to all the lame stuff bio dies to early-midgame anyway.
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I am very intrigued by this, as a protoss. It seems that once the game gets into late-stage macro, bio balls just cannot compete with a robo/storm army if I can keep T from gaining anything by harass. I have played some interesting games where T stayed bio and added mech as support, but I don't think it was the same strategy as you described here.
I look forward to facing Terrans using these ideas, would be a nice change from hearing constant stims and storms all damn game.
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I hope more comes of this. As a Protoss, I rarely see Mech Terrans/ Mech switches, so when I do I'm not exactly sure what my army is capable of against theirs, I just build stuff that (in theory) should work well, while it works most of the times, the odd timings some Terrans do catch me off guard.
Colossus->Templar switches are pretty ingrained right now, I know when I should and shouldn't, Templar->Carrier not so much
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On February 22 2011 04:44 Sadist wrote:What is the point of going to bio at all in the first place? To prevent the fast 3rd from the toss? Im not very fond of bio openings tbh, it seems like all the units are pretty much a waste and you are delaying your mech army and filling supply with units that will turn out to be useless. Having watched quite a few of Goody's replays and from my own experience i feel like he and some of the other mech players out there go too tank heavy which forces them to turtle for quite a long time. Using more hellions seems like a much better solution to me and essentially playing it like BW terran (except added a few thors to tank shots and for killing phoenix) Hellions beat immortals quite handily and if a person leaves an opening even once you can completely cripple them with your hellion harass. I have a bunch of replays here PredY that maybe you should check out to see the viabilty of pure mech openings (i posted a few games of my losses to show how I typically lose when I do lose (not that often,I probably win 90% of my tvp's on ladder in the past 2-3 weeks) http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays?filter-hidden-top-player-name=tQSadist&filter-map=I essentially use the same build all the time but im posting it because it would be nice if we could get a pure mech opening vs toss that was completely solid =) I know phoenix is a counter to hellion harass but even when harass is denied they have had to build phoenix's and hellions are a good unit anyway. BioMech just seems too weak to me during the transition and you can still die to all the lame stuff bio dies to early-midgame anyway.
again, my post wasn't meant to say that it is better than pure mech, or pure bio. i offer it as another option, as i also wrote you shouldn't do it every game to not become predictable. therefore i don't really want to discuss pure mech since it's not connected with my guide
but i like mech, i mech from time to time, and i like the way you do it too (tho the opening could be safer imo since i saw you lost to voidray allin - i mean currently there is NO safe build order since every build has its counters or blind counters, even "my" build is weak to strong 2 base plays), what i personaly don't like about mech is protoss can get a very good map control and with good observer positioning and with watch towers and good building placement almost completely shut down hellions. althought that doesnt completely mean you 100% lose but it hurts you so much. still, there are good maps for pure mech (LT, metal)
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Wow thanks for sharing... 3700 on Masters right? Holy eff haha
Will take a look at these
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On February 22 2011 05:37 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 04:44 Sadist wrote:What is the point of going to bio at all in the first place? To prevent the fast 3rd from the toss? Im not very fond of bio openings tbh, it seems like all the units are pretty much a waste and you are delaying your mech army and filling supply with units that will turn out to be useless. Having watched quite a few of Goody's replays and from my own experience i feel like he and some of the other mech players out there go too tank heavy which forces them to turtle for quite a long time. Using more hellions seems like a much better solution to me and essentially playing it like BW terran (except added a few thors to tank shots and for killing phoenix) Hellions beat immortals quite handily and if a person leaves an opening even once you can completely cripple them with your hellion harass. I have a bunch of replays here PredY that maybe you should check out to see the viabilty of pure mech openings (i posted a few games of my losses to show how I typically lose when I do lose (not that often,I probably win 90% of my tvp's on ladder in the past 2-3 weeks) http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays?filter-hidden-top-player-name=tQSadist&filter-map=I essentially use the same build all the time but im posting it because it would be nice if we could get a pure mech opening vs toss that was completely solid =) I know phoenix is a counter to hellion harass but even when harass is denied they have had to build phoenix's and hellions are a good unit anyway. BioMech just seems too weak to me during the transition and you can still die to all the lame stuff bio dies to early-midgame anyway. again, my post wasn't meant to say that it is better than pure mech, or pure bio. i offer it as another option, as i also wrote you shouldn't do it every game to not become predictable. therefore i don't really want to discuss pure mech since it's not connected with my guide but i like mech, i mech from time to time, and i like the way you do it too (tho the opening could be safer imo since i saw you lost to voidray allin - i mean currently there is NO safe build order since every build has its counters or blind counters, even "my" build is weak to strong 2 base plays), what i personaly don't like about mech is protoss can get a very good map control and with good observer positioning and with watch towers and good building placement almost completely shut down hellions. althought that doesnt completely mean you 100% lose but it hurts you so much. still, there are good maps for pure mech (LT, metal)
Ya I agree with this, I dunno i just feel like BioMech like any mech build is amazing when it gets going, but those strong 2 base builds are pretty common from what ive played against (dunno how it is on europe =) ) and id struggle to hold them even when not transitioning to mech so doing it while transitioning seems like it can get ugly quite often to me ;(
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Hi, great post predy. Just a curious question though, 3 of the replays (at random) i was watching involved you always being ahead in supply count. How is this done? Was this due to just oversaturating your scvs or macro skills simply being better than the opponent was was it the hellions with blue flames that saved the day?
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On February 22 2011 05:51 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 05:37 PredY wrote:On February 22 2011 04:44 Sadist wrote:What is the point of going to bio at all in the first place? To prevent the fast 3rd from the toss? Im not very fond of bio openings tbh, it seems like all the units are pretty much a waste and you are delaying your mech army and filling supply with units that will turn out to be useless. Having watched quite a few of Goody's replays and from my own experience i feel like he and some of the other mech players out there go too tank heavy which forces them to turtle for quite a long time. Using more hellions seems like a much better solution to me and essentially playing it like BW terran (except added a few thors to tank shots and for killing phoenix) Hellions beat immortals quite handily and if a person leaves an opening even once you can completely cripple them with your hellion harass. I have a bunch of replays here PredY that maybe you should check out to see the viabilty of pure mech openings (i posted a few games of my losses to show how I typically lose when I do lose (not that often,I probably win 90% of my tvp's on ladder in the past 2-3 weeks) http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays?filter-hidden-top-player-name=tQSadist&filter-map=I essentially use the same build all the time but im posting it because it would be nice if we could get a pure mech opening vs toss that was completely solid =) I know phoenix is a counter to hellion harass but even when harass is denied they have had to build phoenix's and hellions are a good unit anyway. BioMech just seems too weak to me during the transition and you can still die to all the lame stuff bio dies to early-midgame anyway. again, my post wasn't meant to say that it is better than pure mech, or pure bio. i offer it as another option, as i also wrote you shouldn't do it every game to not become predictable. therefore i don't really want to discuss pure mech since it's not connected with my guide but i like mech, i mech from time to time, and i like the way you do it too (tho the opening could be safer imo since i saw you lost to voidray allin - i mean currently there is NO safe build order since every build has its counters or blind counters, even "my" build is weak to strong 2 base plays), what i personaly don't like about mech is protoss can get a very good map control and with good observer positioning and with watch towers and good building placement almost completely shut down hellions. althought that doesnt completely mean you 100% lose but it hurts you so much. still, there are good maps for pure mech (LT, metal) Ya I agree with this, I dunno i just feel like BioMech like any mech build is amazing when it gets going, but those strong 2 base builds are pretty common from what ive played against (dunno how it is on europe =) ) and id struggle to hold them even when not transitioning to mech so doing it while transitioning seems like it can get ugly quite often to me ;(
yeah i'm gonna get my practise partners play strong 2 base plays vs me later this week and i'm gonna try some stuff against that and post replays
+ Show Spoiler +On February 22 2011 06:07 qazqwezxc wrote:
Hi, great post predy. Just a curious question though, 3 of the replays (at random) i was watching involved you always being ahead in supply count. How is this done? Was this due to just oversaturating your scvs or macro skills simply being better than the opponent was was it the hellions with blue flames that saved the day?
i think fast expansion helps a lot vs non-fast expanding protoss given you don't die to some kind of allin, also be careful about your supply depots and generally macro very well
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Thanks for the post Predy. I have a question for you (personally at 3600 masters level):
When I try Mech (then eventually gave up), my main probolem is that I usually win the huge 200/200 clash against the Toss (usually near one of his bases since I tend to attack immediately when I max). However, my surviving army is usually small enough where 15 chargelots warping-in will immediately clean up the survivors before my reinforcements can arrive. They would then win the ensuing tempo game because I cannot reproduce as fast as him and defend all my bases against his more mobile army.
Oh, the Toss army will be predominately mass chargelot + immortal.
What is your big picture game-plan in this situation?
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On February 22 2011 06:25 link0 wrote:
Thanks for the post Predy. I have a question for you (personally at 3600 masters level):
When I try Mech, my main issues is that I usually win the huge 200/200 clash against the Toss (usually near one of his bases since I tend to attack immediately when I max). However, my surviving army is usually small enough where 15 chargelots warping-in will immediately clean up the survivors before my reinforcements can arrive. They would then win the tempo game because I cannot reproduce as fast as him and defend all my bases against his more mobile army.
Oh, the Toss army will be predominately mass chargelot + immortal.
What is your big picture game-plan in this situation?
hi, that's why the mass orbitals and sacking SCVs in late game when maxed plays such a huge role. when maxed you basically start getting about 3 CC on 3base and then 2-3 more when on 4 base. so far what i've done is to just sack SCVs, not use them in my attack, but let protoss kill them (you usually also get a good scouting , just spare SCVs for gas and about 2 at each base to build stuff.
Also start getting more factories and remax again. Then you should have about 150~ pop of units with at least 2/1 or 2/2 upgrades which should do very well against 120~ pop of P units and unless you fuck up your positioning or miss EMPs and stroms screw you up, you shouldn't lose too much and then you should be able to reinforce with hellions (since you'll probably lose almost all of them, as they are tanking a lot of damage). And if you get at least 8-10 factories, i don't think you should have troubles reinforcing. IF you are letf with little amount of units, just fall back, and turtle a bit again and get maxed again while harassing with your hellions
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On February 22 2011 06:34 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 06:25 link0 wrote:
Thanks for the post Predy. I have a question for you (personally at 3600 masters level):
When I try Mech, my main issues is that I usually win the huge 200/200 clash against the Toss (usually near one of his bases since I tend to attack immediately when I max). However, my surviving army is usually small enough where 15 chargelots warping-in will immediately clean up the survivors before my reinforcements can arrive. They would then win the tempo game because I cannot reproduce as fast as him and defend all my bases against his more mobile army.
Oh, the Toss army will be predominately mass chargelot + immortal.
What is your big picture game-plan in this situation? hi, that's why the mass orbitals and sacking SCVs in late game when maxed plays such a huge role. when maxed you basically start getting about 3 CC on 3base and then 2-3 more when on 4 base. so far what i've done is to just sack SCVs, not use them in my attack, but let protoss kill them (you usually also get a good scouting , just spare SCVs for gas and about 2 at each base to build stuff. Also start getting more factories and remax again. Then you should have about 150~ pop of units with at least 2/1 or 2/2 upgrades which should do very well against 120~ pop of P units and unless you fuck up your positioning or miss EMPs and stroms screw you up, you shouldn't lose too much and then you should be able to reinforce with hellions (since you'll probably lose almost all of them, as they are tanking a lot of damage). And if you get at least 8-10 factories, i don't think you should have troubles reinforcing. IF you are letf with little amount of units, just fall back, and turtle a bit again and get maxed again while harassing with your hellions
Thanks, I like this. Will give it a shot.
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I have been trying this out today with some success. It feels really strong late.
Here's a replay of an epic game on Shakuras. Felt like it went on forever.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/142690-1v1-terran-protoss-shakuras-plateau
I could have won this if i actually kept on upgrading and started sacking workers when I had an advantage.
I also wasted a lot of tanks that I should have just backed off with instead. But the game showed me the strength of this tank/hellion/viking combo late game. With ghosts and some infantry added, it gets sick.
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On February 22 2011 09:40 Aldehyde wrote:I have been trying this out today with some success. It feels really strong late. Here's a replay of an epic game on Shakuras. Felt like it went on forever. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/142690-1v1-terran-protoss-shakuras-plateauI could have won this if i actually kept on upgrading and started sacking workers when I had an advantage. I also wasted a lot of tanks that I should have just backed off with instead. But the game showed me the strength of this tank/hellion/viking combo late game. With ghosts and some infantry added, it gets sick.
good game. yeah you didnt sack any workers and they just took up supply. also you didnt get upgrades for mech
i noticed you did a big push with your bio and mech, which is okay if you have enough infrastructure to rebuild your army fast, but i think its better to use many drops to waste your bio units
also you kept building bio the whole game which i think is not useful at all. just build only mech and ghosts (tho you can get marauders here and there to use for drops since marauders are the best unit to snipe buildings with)
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I really gotta say, them thors with upgrades are reeaaaallllyyyy impressive. I have also been facing the extra 20 zealot warpin to clean up tanks when i go straight into mech, but this bio-first into mech is really nice. Ghosts are really essential for sure, but it seems like they are always laggin it and get to the fight to late for emps. But thats just me. But with enough of those thors, no amount of Templars will do jacksquat. And constant marauder drops can sometimes find tech switches like the techswitch into air. Its pretty easy to stop since u can just switch starports onto the rax that used to have reactors since marauder + ghosts should be the only bio you make. Constant pokes are great to find tech switches too. Hellion run by just tears up mineral lines and they are great vs the almost always high count of speedlots. I think us terrans can hold our own vs that protoss imball now ^^
Heres a replay:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/143132-1v1-terran-protoss-metalopolis
I didn't exactly follow the guide since I wasnt exactly going for this type of build at first, but in the middle of the game, i remembered this thread and decided to just give it a shot. At one point, I had one thor cuz i remember some other post about how thors just tore stuff up and that really saved my arse from the brink of losing the game.
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On February 22 2011 06:25 link0 wrote:
Thanks for the post Predy. I have a question for you (personally at 3600 masters level):
When I try Mech (then eventually gave up), my main probolem is that I usually win the huge 200/200 clash against the Toss (usually near one of his bases since I tend to attack immediately when I max). However, my surviving army is usually small enough where 15 chargelots warping-in will immediately clean up the survivors before my reinforcements can arrive. They would then win the ensuing tempo game because I cannot reproduce as fast as him and defend all my bases against his more mobile army.
Oh, the Toss army will be predominately mass chargelot + immortal.
What is your big picture game-plan in this situation?
When you attack you need to queue pure hellions back to your army, and after you wipe out his army you need to unsiege, retreat and regroup reinforcements and then proceed to win. You're getting over eager and aren't patient enough and thats why the desperate zealot warp ins are so effective.
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Died to this style of play recently and it blew me away. Bio opening, harass into more harass with pulled scvs and a gigantic army of upgraded mech units. My first wonder was how he could afford this much stuff and still take a safe 3rd and later 4th. After watching the replay, I saw how the frequent expanding and mass orbitals at the end feeds the army the keeps the fast expansions safe.
My thoughts:
1. I'm protoss and hate hate hate when I can't zealot/immortal a fast and heavy mech play early and get stonewalled at the end. The bio opening has me going towards colossus/gateway expecting MMM+Vikings all day long and suddenly I'm confronted with enough hellions to make short work of my chargelots with a tank/thor backbone that remains alive after the vikings have dealt with my Colossi. I replace my army tending towards immortal/HT or immortal/airforce. Still, I'm coming at a Terran with a planetary at 4th and heavily upgraded units. Like going at a brick wall.
2. I wish my army could be as big as the Terran's. I wish I had a plan to put enough serious pressure on where Terran is scared to build the extra orbitals that let them sac SCVS for Big Armies. I still don't have the answer for this even after a lot of practice with 3.2k Terrans. Siege tanked expos with the hellions dicking around and Thors hanging with the tanks. Blue-flame hellion drops throughout the midgame and lategame. Don't have an answer for this yet.
3. Scouting/reaction is my job =P Okay this one is a lighthearted complaint. I'm the FE macro player that sends his observer out and sees the Terran's opener and my next structures/units counter it. Now, I see bio and then a bunch of factories and a third with the terran content to sit and upgrade while harassing with drops. But but, ou're supposed to attack into me as I go to attack you ... aww what the hell.
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I tried getting a reactor on the starport, its totally awesome if they get colossus, the Vikings and Tanks are so good together, here are the reps: [url blocked]
I wonder, if they go HT/Chargelot/Immortal, would getting a ghost academy instead of the reactor be good, maybe a 4th rax? Ghosts are expensive in gas- I just did the math, you should be able to afford everything but your factories would be delayed by a lot. Would have to bunker up I think, til' the facts get up.
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I played a game where i scouted the robo bay and when i didnt have vision anymore, the protoss player cancelled it and made a templar archives, and with the couple of vikings i got since i saw the robobay, i was able to scout around and see the tech switch. Scouting is just soooo soooo important with this play.
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Have you tried a Mass Thor composition with fewer tanks, PredY?
In my experience, Thors have a tendency to roll completely through Protoss armies if you have a slight advantage in units or with EMP. Even more so than tanks to some extent. Thor balls are literally steam rollers.
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I've encountered a big problem with my strategy against toss when I'm doing a 1 rax FE. The thing is, is when protoss get 2 gas at the start and they get on the offense, then they just forcefield my ramp preventing me from coming out. how can I prevent this? should I stop the macro to save for bunkers? I feel like if I don't continuously pump units he can just break my defense. how do I stop this? if a replay is needed pls reply
edit: I've tried laddering my units out of my base with medivacs but it's pretty risky as he can just walk into my base and forcefiled me out. I want to figure out a way to prevent this without falling too behind because as I am stuck in my base he's expanding and teching and I'm on 2 orbitals in one base getting mined out. Should I just stick to a 2 rax FE instead?
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 23 2011 13:15 captainwaffles wrote:
I tried getting a reactor on the starport, its totally awesome if they get colossus, the Vikings and Tanks are so good together, here are the reps: [url blocked]
I wonder, if they go HT/Chargelot/Immortal, would getting a ghost academy instead of the reactor be good, maybe a 4th rax? Ghosts are expensive in gas- I just did the math, you should be able to afford everything but your factories would be delayed by a lot. Would have to bunker up I think, til' the facts get up.
when i faced fast HTs i always got ghosts before switching to mech i think that's the best choice
+ Show Spoiler +On February 23 2011 14:23 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Have you tried a Mass Thor composition with fewer tanks, PredY?
In my experience, Thors have a tendency to roll completely through Protoss armies if you have a slight advantage in units or with EMP. Even more so than tanks to some extent. Thor balls are literally steam rollers.
thors are really good and i'm gonna try some stuff with them, i still like upgraded tanks more since they have splash damage but i love to use thor to tank some damage
+ Show Spoiler +On February 23 2011 14:49 Avril_Lavigne wrote:
I've encountered a big problem with my strategy against toss when I'm doing a 1 rax FE. The thing is, is when protoss get 2 gas at the start and they get on the offense, then they just forcefield my ramp preventing me from coming out. how can I prevent this? should I stop the macro to save for bunkers? I feel like if I don't continuously pump units he can just break my defense. how do I stop this? if a replay is needed pls reply
edit: I've tried laddering my units out of my base with medivacs but it's pretty risky as he can just walk into my base and forcefiled me out. I want to figure out a way to prevent this without falling too behind because as I am stuck in my base he's expanding and teching and I'm on 2 orbitals in one base getting mined out. Should I just stick to a 2 rax FE instead?
hm yeah when getting forcefielded your ramp you are slowly falling behind since you don't use your advantage of expo and your medivac tech is late. i like to get the expo right on the natural and rather get bunkers and defend with scvs because i hate that as well
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Oh man!!! I'm at work and I'ma bout to crap my pants in anticipation of watching all theese 3500+ masters TvP replays! Awsome thread!
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You can max with Thors faster off less infrastructure so it may be feasible to build equal parts tanks and Thors. Tank splash is quite good but the +6 that Thors get each upgrade of untyped damage is pretty sweet. It also semi-counters any sort of air shenanigans or warp prism bulldog(lol?).
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Heh, so the theory craft does work.
I just didn't expect it to be possible that you could ever have enough Thors to shutdown Carriers. 0.0
Well anyway, if you want another idea to try out if you run into mass immortals:
+ Show Spoiler +
Go mass Thor/Marine into Thor/hellion. Use the hellion to tanks the Protoss army Immortals have notoriously poor range so you can literally shove so many hellions in their face that they can't actually get into range. Hellions tank better than most Terran units in TvP due to their lightness and they will in all likelyhood be doing massive splash to take the shields off Protoss balls. Heck, if you have enough you can immediately de-shield immortals.
Looks like you did that anyway.
I'm curious though how this fairs against not colossus openings ?
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I'm not sure if it's actually related to these replays, but right after I downloaded some of them a virus appeared on my computer pretending to be the windows antivirus software, shutting down my computer and demanding that I tell them my credit card details in order to remove a bunch of supposed threats. I'm not accusing you of trying to take my money, you being a respectable member of the community and all, but I just felt I should throw that out there.
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On February 24 2011 08:28 Ezekyle wrote:I'm not sure if it's actually related to these replays, but right after I downloaded some of them a virus appeared on my computer pretending to be the windows antivirus software, shutting down my computer and demanding that I tell them my credit card details in order to remove a bunch of supposed threats. I'm not accusing you of trying to take my money, you being a respectable member of the community and all, but I just felt I should throw that out there.
Must be from something else. Those files are only SC2Replays, nothing else.
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Ah yes! these reps were awesome! I noticed there were a lot of times where the Thor saved your ass, imagine if you had 1 tank instead...I definitely like the thor first more than massing tanks ASAP.
I think this is way all terrans will play eventually, its just so solid. I would like to hear some top (high on ladder or tournament winners) protoss and terran players thoughts on this.
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This is solid? Relying on throwing away your SCV (meaning you have so much min banked for CC's that the opponent hasn't forced be converted) to gain a 30-40 food advantage. No use of EMP. Protoss throwing away his maxed army in first game (and continuing to pump colossi after scouting thor).
Let's ignore the fact that a good P could potentially run circles around your army, he can simply outproduce you with warpgate cycles against thor cycles.
A game that demonstrates the viability of camping 4 base against 4 base vs P's that don't really know what to do doesn't illustrate anything.
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I'm not gonna sit here and theorycraft about things that could of happened. The game isn't broken man, of course a toss could win if he played smart! But you're probably right about the SCV thing, if a toss is harassing and poking at expos and what not, sacrificing scvs wouldn't be a good idea. But if a game goes long enough (if its been relatively even), Terran should throw some scv's away for more army. Its good to have more units than your opponent..
Likewise, playing Marine/Tank in TvZ is really *solid* it doesn't mean terran can never lose, or zerg can never win.
To bottom line it, teching up to deal with the protoss deathball is pretty solid, better than making MMM all game and crossing your fingers that they can't defend multiple locations at once.
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On February 24 2011 16:13 naventus wrote:
This is solid? Relying on throwing away your SCV (meaning you have so much min banked for CC's that the opponent hasn't forced be converted) to gain a 30-40 food advantage. No use of EMP. Protoss throwing away his maxed army in first game (and continuing to pump colossi after scouting thor).
Let's ignore the fact that a good P could potentially run circles around your army, he can simply outproduce you with warpgate cycles against thor cycles.
A game that demonstrates the viability of camping 4 base against 4 base vs P's that don't really know what to do doesn't illustrate anything.
i don't know if it's solid. what's a solid TvP build then? (LOL)
i don't rely throwing away my SCVs, i just use sc2 mechanics to make my build stronger.
about EMP - you're right i didn't really use that. i write about getting ghosts in every gametho . that's just my imperfection, sorry about that.
"a good P can run circles around my army" no he can't. not on those maps with 10 watch towers. you know thors don't have to siege they are pretty mobile
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Why open bio if you want to go mech? seems counter intuitive. I siege expand every game and my TvP is extremely strong (I inhouse against masters level toss regularly)
I transition into marine tank blueflame hellions and 2-3 ghosts (if they go HT or Robo route, you dont even need vikings to kill colossi. Only time I get vikings is if they MASS colossi or go stargate)
Note that I literally harass the toss every minute with BFHs though
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Great guide! Currently, I play a sky-terran style. I'll definitely study your guide if I decide to try out mech play.
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On February 24 2011 17:19 Griffith` wrote:
Why open bio if you want to go mech? seems counter intuitive. I siege expand every game and my TvP is extremely strong (I inhouse against masters level toss regularly)
I transition into marine tank blueflame hellions and 2-3 ghosts (if they go HT or Robo route, you dont even need vikings to kill colossi. Only time I get vikings is if they MASS colossi or go stargate)
Note that I literally harass the toss every minute with BFHs though
i open bio because i try to combine strenghs of bio early mid game and of mech late game. also the build is not that easy to read from protoss since you can stick with bio all game or just add a factory for blue flame hellions with bio
i just offer that as a new option, not to replace other styles
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predy if i may point out in the first replay you got 3 rax only 1 with a tech lab why not get a reactor on 1 of the rax and maybe put up a bunker?? it seems safer to me
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On February 24 2011 18:01 Chrumchrum wrote:
predy if i may point out in the first replay you got 3 rax only 1 with a tech lab why not get a reactor on 1 of the rax and maybe put up a bunker?? it seems safer to me
i actually just forgot to get add-ons :D
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Them thors are really effective in the time period where the protoss army will just faceroll a terran bio army. Even like 1-2 in the transition period are soo soo useful.
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Wow, the new reps with the Thor as a stepping stone look a LOT safer than your first bunch of reps. It seems like Thors are strong as soon as they come out, unlike Tanks which seem to need a medium-large number of them to be effective. Plus you don't need to worry about the air switch as much. If there was ever a solid transition from bio in the midgame, this is it.
Awesome play, thanks for sharing. ^^
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On February 24 2011 21:33 Shlowpoke wrote:
Wow, the new reps with the Thor as a stepping stone look a LOT safer than your first bunch of reps. It seems like Thors are strong as soon as they come out, unlike Tanks which seem to need a medium-large number of them to be effective. Plus you don't need to worry about the air switch as much. If there was ever a solid transition from bio in the midgame, this is it.
Awesome play, thanks for sharing. ^^
yeah i still need to face 2base allin to see how it fares but i really like thors..
little bump for those who missed new reps
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Would you consider a transition out of mech into air play once you've established a few bases and have a solid ground army? The Protoss would more than likely be going heavy ground with Immortal/Zealot/Colossi, so a few hidden starports at an expansion could pump out a decent amount of banshees and really catch the Protoss off guard, especially if you do multipronged harass. You could even bomb straight into his ground army with them, because he would be lacking sufficient AA.
You wouldn't be able to be super aggressive in the transition period, but you'd have your tank line + Thors to help stagger pushes. Thoughts?
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I'ts an interesting transition, although I've noly got to this point in one of my games. It compensates for the fact that mech gets better in higher numbers by opening bio, and slowling switching into a mechanical style, which vives you a good strong backbone to put your mech behind.
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On February 25 2011 00:59 Synystyr wrote:
Would you consider a transition out of mech into air play once you've established a few bases and have a solid ground army? The Protoss would more than likely be going heavy ground with Immortal/Zealot/Colossi, so a few hidden starports at an expansion could pump out a decent amount of banshees and really catch the Protoss off guard, especially if you do multipronged harass. You could even bomb straight into his ground army with them, because he would be lacking sufficient AA.
You wouldn't be able to be super aggressive in the transition period, but you'd have your tank line + Thors to help stagger pushes. Thoughts?
hmmm very interesting i must say. you're right that you'd probably haveto be less agressive but if you get 2-3 ports that could do very well and the banshees could easily be part of your main army too and they are very mobile. i think that'd be perfect as a little variation, but i don't think it'd be too gamechanging since you get hellions and marauder drops to kill expos. still great idea, cheers
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On February 25 2011 01:04 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 00:59 Synystyr wrote:
Would you consider a transition out of mech into air play once you've established a few bases and have a solid ground army? The Protoss would more than likely be going heavy ground with Immortal/Zealot/Colossi, so a few hidden starports at an expansion could pump out a decent amount of banshees and really catch the Protoss off guard, especially if you do multipronged harass. You could even bomb straight into his ground army with them, because he would be lacking sufficient AA.
You wouldn't be able to be super aggressive in the transition period, but you'd have your tank line + Thors to help stagger pushes. Thoughts? hmmm very interesting i must say. you're right that you'd probably haveto be less agressive but if you get 2-3 ports that could do very well and the banshees could easily be part of your main army too and they are very mobile. i think that'd be perfect as a little variation, but i don't think it'd be too gamechanging since you get hellions and marauder drops to kill expos. still great idea, cheers
Agreed, it'd just be an interesting twist on things, especially in a BoX situation where your opponent knows your play style well. Also, Starport play off 3-4 bases can let you easily transition into Battlecruisers if you so choose to, and I've always found them to be the ultimate unit against Protoss once you acquire Yamato.
You already have the mobile harass force with marauder/hellion, but banshees can be mixed in quite well with the main army and can really help with sniping Colossi or Immortals quickly.
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On February 25 2011 01:14 Synystyr wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 01:04 PredY wrote:On February 25 2011 00:59 Synystyr wrote:
Would you consider a transition out of mech into air play once you've established a few bases and have a solid ground army? The Protoss would more than likely be going heavy ground with Immortal/Zealot/Colossi, so a few hidden starports at an expansion could pump out a decent amount of banshees and really catch the Protoss off guard, especially if you do multipronged harass. You could even bomb straight into his ground army with them, because he would be lacking sufficient AA.
You wouldn't be able to be super aggressive in the transition period, but you'd have your tank line + Thors to help stagger pushes. Thoughts? hmmm very interesting i must say. you're right that you'd probably haveto be less agressive but if you get 2-3 ports that could do very well and the banshees could easily be part of your main army too and they are very mobile. i think that'd be perfect as a little variation, but i don't think it'd be too gamechanging since you get hellions and marauder drops to kill expos. still great idea, cheers Agreed, it'd just be an interesting twist on things, especially in a BoX situation where your opponent knows your play style well. Also, Starport play off 3-4 bases can let you easily transition into Battlecruisers if you so choose to, and I've always found them to be the ultimate unit against Protoss once you acquire Yamato. You already have the mobile harass force with marauder/hellion, but banshees can be mixed in quite well with the main army and can really help with sniping Colossi or Immortals quickly.
exactly, good for boX series. good stuff
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amazing stuff predy, ive been playing on the KR server and protoss players love to turtle and while making that giant deathball. this build does really well against that. thanx
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On February 25 2011 01:16 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 01:14 Synystyr wrote:On February 25 2011 01:04 PredY wrote:On February 25 2011 00:59 Synystyr wrote:
Would you consider a transition out of mech into air play once you've established a few bases and have a solid ground army? The Protoss would more than likely be going heavy ground with Immortal/Zealot/Colossi, so a few hidden starports at an expansion could pump out a decent amount of banshees and really catch the Protoss off guard, especially if you do multipronged harass. You could even bomb straight into his ground army with them, because he would be lacking sufficient AA.
You wouldn't be able to be super aggressive in the transition period, but you'd have your tank line + Thors to help stagger pushes. Thoughts? hmmm very interesting i must say. you're right that you'd probably haveto be less agressive but if you get 2-3 ports that could do very well and the banshees could easily be part of your main army too and they are very mobile. i think that'd be perfect as a little variation, but i don't think it'd be too gamechanging since you get hellions and marauder drops to kill expos. still great idea, cheers Agreed, it'd just be an interesting twist on things, especially in a BoX situation where your opponent knows your play style well. Also, Starport play off 3-4 bases can let you easily transition into Battlecruisers if you so choose to, and I've always found them to be the ultimate unit against Protoss once you acquire Yamato. You already have the mobile harass force with marauder/hellion, but banshees can be mixed in quite well with the main army and can really help with sniping Colossi or Immortals quickly. exactly, good for boX series. good stuff
Don't forget the Raven so you can use Thors to kill every obs you force from him which indirectly hurts his immortal production.
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I'm really skeptical about sticking on Bio till the third base. I find that bio really loses effectiveness near the end of 2 bases. So I would think to start transitioning to mech earlier.
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On February 25 2011 12:36 Techno wrote:
I'm really skeptical about sticking on Bio till the third base. I find that bio really loses effectiveness near the end of 2 bases. So I would think to start transitioning to mech earlier.
not sure about that. i think you could do 2rax only. then you probably can't fast expand but try to go for cloak banshee or hellion drop because you can't defend fast expansion with only 2rax.
i'd imagine whe going for tech harassment on 1base, then getting your expo you could add just 1more rax and get thors earlier. that might work. but i'm not sure how that'd work out since bio on 2rax is never big enough to put enough pressure imo, you'll still have enough bio for drops obviously but you will never have enough bio to pressure, so it's basically late mech build with a little of bio and i don't know how fast would you be able take your 3rd base
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there was a vod I think of a game where jinro or tlo went 1 rax fe on shakuras against protoss and switched to heavy starport play with thors after taking third, but that was gg anyway. I like synyster's unit composition, but I find that it goes down to good storm and phoenix w observes micro.
With starport play your mineral dump is also usually marines, which dont cut it against HT/collosi.
That is the reason I like mech better. Maybe some mix of hellion, thor and starport could work.
PredY: I wanted to ask if it is better to go for attack upgrades first and not armor for your mech. My reasoning follows this thread [G] Critical Upgrade Analysis
Also in your recent replays u go 1 marine, techlab into expand and add 2 more raxes with quite quick addons.
How does it against 3gate voidray allin
and to the BoX play. Wouldn't it be better to go 2 marines 1st, so he is unsure if you tech or go for marauder/fe play, then techlab and only 2 SCV's on gas, while you build your FE and additional raxes. I was experimenting with it and I find it works kind of better, u may have a little later factory, but not by much, just a question?
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On February 25 2011 19:48 gently-cz wrote:
How does it against 3gate voidray allin
I would assume it would de like every 1 rax fe since you dont swich into mech yet when the push comes, so it come down to micro and crysis managment
and ofcorse scouting
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On February 25 2011 19:48 gently-cz wrote:there was a vod I think of a game where jinro or tlo went 1 rax fe on shakuras against protoss and switched to heavy starport play with thors after taking third, but that was gg anyway. I like synyster's unit composition, but I find that it goes down to good storm and phoenix w observes micro. With starport play your mineral dump is also usually marines, which dont cut it against HT/collosi. That is the reason I like mech better. Maybe some mix of hellion, thor and starport could work. PredY: I wanted to ask if it is better to go for attack upgrades first and not armor for your mech. My reasoning follows this thread [G] Critical Upgrade Analysis Also in your recent replays u go 1 marine, techlab into expand and add 2 more raxes with quite quick addons. How does it against 3gate voidray allin and to the BoX play. Wouldn't it be better to go 2 marines 1st, so he is unsure if you tech or go for marauder/fe play, then techlab and only 2 SCV's on gas, while you build your FE and additional raxes. I was experimenting with it and I find it works kind of better, u may have a little later factory, but not by much, just a question?
the armor would probably better as you say althought i don't think it makes such a difference
i always make more marines once i get fair number of marauders so i'm never worried about 3gate voidray when fast expanding
about the opening - there's no set opening for that build and you don't have to do it every game so i don't think you'd be that much predictable but it's always good to get the expo once the scouting probe is gone
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On February 25 2011 20:18 PredY wrote:
the armor would probably better as you say althought i don't think it makes such a difference
Thor Damage
+0 Attack: 30 x 2 = 60, 120, 180 (3 shots Gateway Units)
+1 Attack: 33 x 2 = 66, 132, 198
+2 Attack: 36 x 2 = 72, 144, 216 (3 shots no-shield Immortal)
+3 Attack: 39 x 2 = 78, 156, 234 (2-shots Zealots)
Thors already 3-shot Zealots and Stalkers. Getting +1 and even +2 attack does not change the amount of shots it takes to kill a gateway unit even if Toss gets armor upgrades.
When you get to +3, you start 2-shotting Zealots. I guess with +2 you also 3-shot shield-less Immortals.
But the point is, getting +1 armor first is going to benefit you more immediately than attack upgrades.
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On February 25 2011 21:57 Shlowpoke wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 20:18 PredY wrote:
the armor would probably better as you say althought i don't think it makes such a difference Thor Damage+0 Attack: 30 x 2 = 60, 120, 180 (3 shots Gateway Units) +1 Attack: 33 x 2 = 66, 132, 198 +2 Attack: 36 x 2 = 72, 144, 216 (3 shots no-shield Immortal) +3 Attack: 39 x 2 = 78, 156, 234 (2-shots Zealots) Thors already 3-shot Zealots and Stalkers. Getting +1 and even +2 attack does not change the amount of shots it takes to kill a gateway unit even if Toss gets armor upgrades. When you get to +3, you start 2-shotting Zealots. I guess with +2 you also 3-shot shield-less Immortals. But the point is, getting +1 armor first is going to benefit you more immediately than attack upgrades.
yeah i just checked that myself and +1 armor is better. good find
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How does that scale with protoss upgrades. Its likely they'll start upgrading before you start upgrading your mech.
And I suppose its going to depend on how you use your Thors. You can either have them tank or you can have them as support. If you are using them defensively, you should be able to have them in the back and your old bio army in the front. If you are doing this, you might upgrade attack. It might not drop hits to kill from the Thor but it should save your bio some shots. You're also going to use tanks for support so the tank splash is always nice.
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On February 25 2011 22:50 Antisocialmunky wrote:
How does that scale with protoss upgrades. Its likely they'll start upgrading before you start upgrading your mech.
And I suppose its going to depend on how you use your Thors. You can either have them tank or you can have them as support. If you are using them defensively, you should be able to have them in the back and your old bio army in the front. If you are doing this, you might upgrade attack. It might not drop hits to kill from the Thor but it should save your bio some shots. You're also going to use tanks for support so the tank splash is always nice.
yeah i guess you can get armor upgrade if you plan to stay on thors for a longer time but probably tanks and hellions will benefit from +1 weapons more
also today i had quite a success defending 2base 5gate pushes even without the first thor and without bunkers but i had to use scvs and was pretty close, so next time i rather get bunkers ^^
i feel a well executed 6gate push would be very hard to defend because theres no way you get the thor out, so you might want to get 4rax to get more units out. although how to scout the 6gate build in time i don't know..
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On February 26 2011 06:10 PredY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 22:50 Antisocialmunky wrote:
How does that scale with protoss upgrades. Its likely they'll start upgrading before you start upgrading your mech.
And I suppose its going to depend on how you use your Thors. You can either have them tank or you can have them as support. If you are using them defensively, you should be able to have them in the back and your old bio army in the front. If you are doing this, you might upgrade attack. It might not drop hits to kill from the Thor but it should save your bio some shots. You're also going to use tanks for support so the tank splash is always nice. yeah i guess you can get armor upgrade if you plan to stay on thors for a longer time but probably tanks and hellions will benefit from +1 weapons more also today i had quite a success defending 2base 5gate pushes even without the first thor and without bunkers but i had to use scvs and was pretty close, so next time i rather get bunkers ^^ i feel a well executed 6gate push would be very hard to defend because theres no way you get the thor out, so you might want to get 4rax to get more units out. although how to scout the 6gate build in time i don't know..
Do you have the replay of holding off the 5 Gate? It sounds pretty good if you can do the 'just barely' hold off
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On February 26 2011 06:29 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2011 06:10 PredY wrote:On February 25 2011 22:50 Antisocialmunky wrote:
How does that scale with protoss upgrades. Its likely they'll start upgrading before you start upgrading your mech.
And I suppose its going to depend on how you use your Thors. You can either have them tank or you can have them as support. If you are using them defensively, you should be able to have them in the back and your old bio army in the front. If you are doing this, you might upgrade attack. It might not drop hits to kill from the Thor but it should save your bio some shots. You're also going to use tanks for support so the tank splash is always nice. yeah i guess you can get armor upgrade if you plan to stay on thors for a longer time but probably tanks and hellions will benefit from +1 weapons more also today i had quite a success defending 2base 5gate pushes even without the first thor and without bunkers but i had to use scvs and was pretty close, so next time i rather get bunkers ^^ i feel a well executed 6gate push would be very hard to defend because theres no way you get the thor out, so you might want to get 4rax to get more units out. although how to scout the 6gate build in time i don't know.. Do you have the replay of holding off the 5 Gate? It sounds pretty good if you can do the 'just barely' hold off
sure. i'm actually not sure how well he executed that because for months i did mech builds and i didnt meet any 5/6 gaters so i'm not experienced with that, would love if someone could tell me how well he did
http://www.mediafire.com/?kyv2kjj1a69mgtb
+ Show Spoiler +this one is not precise because of proxy gate
http://www.mediafire.com/?y2a39lpq0an1jv8
+ Show Spoiler +this is a 5gate push, had to lift my expo and defend my ramp because i decided i'd do a drop meantime
if those games are good example how to play vs 5gate i'd be glad to add them to the main post but as i said im not sure ^^
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I'm going 1-rax expand into mech, while getting blue flame and siege mode etc. I feel like Mech isn't that bad at all.
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i updated the post a little so it match the "newer" style of thors on 2base. might add more reps tomorrow as well
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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?
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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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On March 02 2011 14:08 Antisocialmunky wrote:
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.
Well you need 3 bases for any Thor heavy Mech.
Off of 4 gysers you can produce a constant 2 Tanks and 2 Vikings in addition to Hellions and marines. This is without Upgrades. But you don't really need constant Vikings leaving room for upgrades or 3 Factory Tanks rather then 2.
The thing is that a Third makes Mech exponentially stronger. But if your good with your harass you can mass on 2 base longer then you think.
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On March 02 2011 14:08 Antisocialmunky wrote:
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.
I think going Marine/Thor/Banshee is most ideal in the mid game, I haven't lost a game where I was able to pull off Synystyr's build and gotten the composition, however the problem with that build is that sometimes you can't pull off the fast expand.
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I don't like Thor too much against protoss due to the mobility issue and cost. Maybe when I have a 3-4 base and can afford it. Quick question... with the income tab in replays, does the number below your mineral and gas represent the amount you rake per minute? On two base 4 geyser the number is about 450 vespene. So say I am on one factory tank, one starport for medivac/raven, that's 125/150 gas right there, so I have 175 gas left. I need gas for buildings and upgrade so I usually hold off on that second factory. That's why I am thinking 2-3 rax marauder (if he is ground heavy) and a second reactored starport.
One three base, I can add my additional factory (for tanks) and 2 more rax for maraud. If he is air heavy, I can stop maraud production, research the combat shield and switch to mass marines. This will free up gas, so I can add Thors on a third factory using the old tech labs from my barracks, which are now reactored. Maybe add ghost if he is temp heavy instead of Thor.
What do people think about that?
Also, how do seeker missles fair against protoss void play because I may give that a gander.
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Watching Huk's stream atm, he was playing an epic macro game on metalopolis where the terran beat him with a strong bio/thor build. Those thors are scary from a protoss POV, gateway units in small amounts really dont even scratch them.
Been playing with it myself and I'm pretty sure thors are the way to go in this matchup. I rarely lose if I manage to get a 150+ supply ball going. Might try to post some replays if I get some good games done.
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Russian Federation367 Posts
Hello, PredY. I am 3500 ms league, eu terran and I love mech soooooooo much. Last month it became too hard to play goody style with only defence so I tryed to find some new ways in TvZ and TvP. Ive been very interested in your style, especially since I tryed something like this a lot of time ago, but I have a trouble. After some games (10-15 maybe) with your build I faced one P push which I dont know how to defence, here is the replay: http://replayfu.com/r/ZCpMZd
Problem for me is that I cant just push it after exp since P got imm+fast colossus, I cant just defence with bunker/thor/viking because opponent doing a lot of stalkers which are insanely good agains bunkers and viking.. any suggestions from you?
p.s. sry for some unmanner it was a bad day.. smth like 6-8 looses in a row >_<
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I'm not Predy but your play looked exactly like mine, and I've been having problems with the protoss 2 base timing pushes too.
I think the best reaction is to simply actively scout his composition, like all the damn time. If I suspect the 3-4 colossus push, I do not rush to thors, but only put gas into vikings as if it was a regular MMM-build. Only once I have a "safe" number of vikings (at least 6, preferrably more), I can start putting gas in thors. If I scout heavy gateway play and/or templar tech, I will switch to thors much earlier, but against heavy robo vikings are essential.
Also, I think you went a little too marine-heavy. Marauders would've been alot more effective against that push.
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Wow, haha, I think I accidentally created a similar build on my own just by trying shit out alot.(lost like 15 TvPs in a row doing crazy shit)
I originally went 3 rax TTR super safely into expand while getting armory and starport around the time my 2nd orbital finishes, I don't add any more barracks but 2 factories pumping thors. Once I felt colossi might be out I added reactor on the starport. I was ahead in that game after I held a 4 warpgate but I was still convinced by the strongness of the composition when I attacked him.
I haven't had time to really perfect it but it seems quite alot similar.
I'd like to hear more closely about upgrading from Predy.
I feel that bio armor isn't quite as useful because marines still die to two colossi attack regardless of armor. So I normally try a timing push just when I get 0-2 on Thors and 2-0 on infantry. It makes sense to me that the thors are there to soak the damage while bio deals it. And your bio dies to the protoss AoE regardless of armor.
I also got owned by a push with 2 hallucinated Colossi in it. I was just about to get my 2nd thor out and I think i could have easily held it had I not been so surprised by the colossi( I had just scanned only his immortals)So I died because I immediately tried to focus down the colossi. I guess nothing else helps here but better scouting 
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Russian Federation367 Posts
On March 09 2011 02:34 Bagi wrote:
I'm not Predy but your play looked exactly like mine, and I've been having problems with the protoss 2 base timing pushes too.
I think the best reaction is to simply actively scout his composition, like all the damn time. If I suspect the 3-4 colossus push, I do not rush to thors, but only put gas into vikings as if it was a regular MMM-build. Only once I have a "safe" number of vikings (at least 6, preferrably more), I can start putting gas in thors. If I scout heavy gateway play and/or templar tech, I will switch to thors much earlier, but against heavy robo vikings are essential.
Also, I think you went a little too marine-heavy. Marauders would've been alot more effective against that push.
ok, I will try to be more flexible at choosing what I need now more thors or vikings.
p.s. And yeah - I got some troubles with supply, so maybe I had too less units than I could.
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Ive been experimenting with a thor/ghost army composition, and while this works wonders against protoss ground units (as you dont need hellions to be able to beat chargelots, and thors are a bit more mobile than tanks), thors kinda suck when opp gets air, as it messes up the attack priority of the thor. E.g. was in a 200/200 battle my opp had gateway units+ immortals + 10 1/0 Vrs. I had 10+ thors, 2-4 ghosts, and 17 1/1 Vikings. My thos were upgraded 2/2 to his 2/1 ground force. Even though I emped like 80% of his army I lost the battle as my thors wasted time shotting the Vrs. Im not sure how good thors are late game when he mixes in VRs or perhaps carriers with his ground force.
Do any1 have a solution to this problem or do they just get like 1-3 thors + lots of tanks?
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On March 09 2011 03:24 Hider wrote:
Ive been experimenting with a thor/ghost army composition, and while this works wonders against protoss ground units (as you dont need hellions to be able to beat chargelots, and thors are a bit more mobile than tanks), thors kinda suck when opp gets air, as it messes up the attack priority of the thor. E.g. was in a 200/200 battle my opp had gateway units+ immortals + 10 1/0 Vrs. I had 10+ thors, 2-4 ghosts, and 17 1/1 Vikings. My thos were upgraded 2/2 to his 2/1 ground force. Even though I emped like 80% of his army I lost the battle as my thors wasted time shotting the Vrs. Im not sure how good thors are late game when he mixes in VRs or perhaps carriers with his ground force.
Do any1 have a solution to this problem or do they just get like 1-3 thors + lots of tanks?
Can't you like manually aim at ground units and let the vikings/marines/ghosts deal with the air.
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it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots.
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On March 09 2011 03:43 huyNh wrote:
it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots.
I was getting ghosts as well. Mostly to deal with immortal. But anyway this combo did really well vs all ground units.
Anyways I watched predys games against insos, and I felt like Inso was not responding very well. Would like to test predys opening vs a 3gate expand where he can basically deny your expo by forcefielding your ramp forever till you get medis. Do you have any plan on how to deal with that other than getting quite a lot behind. I think one needs to scout a lot to be sure they are not 5/6 gating on 2 bases as that is basically impossible to counter with only 2-3 bunkers whicle teching up meanwhile. Would love to see replays with Predy playing against better players ( I def. think his macro was a level or 2 above Insos as well), who has equal mechanics and responds better to what Predy is doing. (like getting getting a few VRs vs thors with some immortals instead of Collosus.
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+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:50 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 03:43 huyNh wrote:
it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots. I was getting ghosts as well. Mostly to deal with immortal. But anyway this combo did really well vs all ground units. Anyways I watched predys games against insos, and I felt like Inso was not responding very well. Would like to test predys opening vs a 3gate expand where he can basically deny your expo by forcefielding your ramp forever till you get medis. Do you have any plan on how to deal with that other than getting quite a lot behind. I think one needs to scout a lot to be sure they are not 5/6 gating on 2 bases as that is basically impossible to counter with only 2-3 bunkers whicle teching up meanwhile. Would love to see replays with Predy playing against better players ( I def. think his macro was a level or 2 above Insos as well), who has equal mechanics and responds better to what Predy is doing. (like getting getting a few VRs vs thors with some immortals instead of Collosus.
yeah that happened to me a while ago. i just did medivacs asap i don't think there's anything else you can do. problem is you have 3rax already so you can't skip a rax for a factory but you can cut the bio production to get medivacs asap but still puts you behind. that's why i like no gas expo with marine and bunkers as they can't do that. unfortunately not possible on all maps.
i actually think collosi are very good response to that build since you can kill the voids with marines/vikings quite easily and Canon immortals with thors.
+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote:Wow, haha, I think I accidentally created a similar build on my own just by trying shit out alot.(lost like 15 TvPs in a row doing crazy shit) I originally went 3 rax TTR super safely into expand while getting armory and starport around the time my 2nd orbital finishes, I don't add any more barracks but 2 factories pumping thors. Once I felt colossi might be out I added reactor on the starport. I was ahead in that game after I held a 4 warpgate but I was still convinced by the strongness of the composition when I attacked him. I haven't had time to really perfect it but it seems quite alot similar. I'd like to hear more closely about upgrading from Predy. I feel that bio armor isn't quite as useful because marines still die to two colossi attack regardless of armor. So I normally try a timing push just when I get 0-2 on Thors and 2-0 on infantry. It makes sense to me that the thors are there to soak the damage while bio deals it. And your bio dies to the protoss AoE regardless of armor. I also got owned by a push with 2 hallucinated Colossi in it. I was just about to get my 2nd thor out and I think i could have easily held it had I not been so surprised by the colossi( I had just scanned only his immortals)So I died because I immediately tried to focus down the colossi. I guess nothing else helps here but better scouting
i don't like getting infantry upgrades anymore but put all the gas into marauder/thor/mech upgr/vikings
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do you have any replays of doing bio FE into mech TvP vs a phoenix opener? possibly even proxy stargate phoenix?
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On March 09 2011 05:24 PredY wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:50 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 03:43 huyNh wrote:
it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots. I was getting ghosts as well. Mostly to deal with immortal. But anyway this combo did really well vs all ground units. Anyways I watched predys games against insos, and I felt like Inso was not responding very well. Would like to test predys opening vs a 3gate expand where he can basically deny your expo by forcefielding your ramp forever till you get medis. Do you have any plan on how to deal with that other than getting quite a lot behind. I think one needs to scout a lot to be sure they are not 5/6 gating on 2 bases as that is basically impossible to counter with only 2-3 bunkers whicle teching up meanwhile. Would love to see replays with Predy playing against better players ( I def. think his macro was a level or 2 above Insos as well), who has equal mechanics and responds better to what Predy is doing. (like getting getting a few VRs vs thors with some immortals instead of Collosus. yeah that happened to me a while ago. i just did medivacs asap i don't think there's anything else you can do. problem is you have 3rax already so you can't skip a rax for a factory but you can cut the bio production to get medivacs asap but still puts you behind. that's why i like no gas expo with marine and bunkers as they can't do that. unfortunately not possible on all maps. i actually think collosi are very good response to that build since you can kill the voids with marines/vikings quite easily and Canon immortals with thors. + Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote:Wow, haha, I think I accidentally created a similar build on my own just by trying shit out alot.(lost like 15 TvPs in a row doing crazy shit) I originally went 3 rax TTR super safely into expand while getting armory and starport around the time my 2nd orbital finishes, I don't add any more barracks but 2 factories pumping thors. Once I felt colossi might be out I added reactor on the starport. I was ahead in that game after I held a 4 warpgate but I was still convinced by the strongness of the composition when I attacked him. I haven't had time to really perfect it but it seems quite alot similar. I'd like to hear more closely about upgrading from Predy. I feel that bio armor isn't quite as useful because marines still die to two colossi attack regardless of armor. So I normally try a timing push just when I get 0-2 on Thors and 2-0 on infantry. It makes sense to me that the thors are there to soak the damage while bio deals it. And your bio dies to the protoss AoE regardless of armor. I also got owned by a push with 2 hallucinated Colossi in it. I was just about to get my 2nd thor out and I think i could have easily held it had I not been so surprised by the colossi( I had just scanned only his immortals)So I died because I immediately tried to focus down the colossi. I guess nothing else helps here but better scouting i don't like getting infantry upgrades anymore but put all the gas into marauder/thor/mech upgr/vikings
Well IMO collosus is not that good a choice imo as it makes the threat of an air switch much weaker, and thors are pretty good vs collosus and absolutely sux when one add in vikings. On the other hand immortals are fine vs thors if you just have enough of them. Even with the use of strike cannons, well positioned immortals are cost effective vs thors. And when mixing up a few VRs your thors just sux (from my experience). Anyway do you have any replays where a toss tries to go for this kind of composition as an reaction to you transition to mech.
I would like to see if you could beat a 6gate all in as well?
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On March 09 2011 06:01 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 05:24 PredY wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:50 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 03:43 huyNh wrote:
it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots. I was getting ghosts as well. Mostly to deal with immortal. But anyway this combo did really well vs all ground units. Anyways I watched predys games against insos, and I felt like Inso was not responding very well. Would like to test predys opening vs a 3gate expand where he can basically deny your expo by forcefielding your ramp forever till you get medis. Do you have any plan on how to deal with that other than getting quite a lot behind. I think one needs to scout a lot to be sure they are not 5/6 gating on 2 bases as that is basically impossible to counter with only 2-3 bunkers whicle teching up meanwhile. Would love to see replays with Predy playing against better players ( I def. think his macro was a level or 2 above Insos as well), who has equal mechanics and responds better to what Predy is doing. (like getting getting a few VRs vs thors with some immortals instead of Collosus. yeah that happened to me a while ago. i just did medivacs asap i don't think there's anything else you can do. problem is you have 3rax already so you can't skip a rax for a factory but you can cut the bio production to get medivacs asap but still puts you behind. that's why i like no gas expo with marine and bunkers as they can't do that. unfortunately not possible on all maps. i actually think collosi are very good response to that build since you can kill the voids with marines/vikings quite easily and Canon immortals with thors. + Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote:Wow, haha, I think I accidentally created a similar build on my own just by trying shit out alot.(lost like 15 TvPs in a row doing crazy shit) I originally went 3 rax TTR super safely into expand while getting armory and starport around the time my 2nd orbital finishes, I don't add any more barracks but 2 factories pumping thors. Once I felt colossi might be out I added reactor on the starport. I was ahead in that game after I held a 4 warpgate but I was still convinced by the strongness of the composition when I attacked him. I haven't had time to really perfect it but it seems quite alot similar. I'd like to hear more closely about upgrading from Predy. I feel that bio armor isn't quite as useful because marines still die to two colossi attack regardless of armor. So I normally try a timing push just when I get 0-2 on Thors and 2-0 on infantry. It makes sense to me that the thors are there to soak the damage while bio deals it. And your bio dies to the protoss AoE regardless of armor. I also got owned by a push with 2 hallucinated Colossi in it. I was just about to get my 2nd thor out and I think i could have easily held it had I not been so surprised by the colossi( I had just scanned only his immortals)So I died because I immediately tried to focus down the colossi. I guess nothing else helps here but better scouting i don't like getting infantry upgrades anymore but put all the gas into marauder/thor/mech upgr/vikings Well IMO collosus is not that good a choice imo as it makes the threat of an air switch much weaker, and thors are pretty good vs collosus and absolutely sux when one add in vikings. On the other hand immortals are fine vs thors if you just have enough of them. Even with the use of strike cannons, well positioned immortals are cost effective vs thors. And when mixing up a few VRs your thors just sux (from my experience). Anyway do you have any replays where a toss tries to go for this kind of composition as an reaction to you transition to mech. I would like to see if you could beat a 6gate all in as well?
possible. i hold off 5gate before but you can't ever get into supply block and you have to have 3+ bunkers and scvs ready to repair, which is tricky because you have to know it's coming and it's hard to scout
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On March 09 2011 06:01 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 05:24 PredY wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:50 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 03:43 huyNh wrote:
it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots. I was getting ghosts as well. Mostly to deal with immortal. But anyway this combo did really well vs all ground units. Anyways I watched predys games against insos, and I felt like Inso was not responding very well. Would like to test predys opening vs a 3gate expand where he can basically deny your expo by forcefielding your ramp forever till you get medis. Do you have any plan on how to deal with that other than getting quite a lot behind. I think one needs to scout a lot to be sure they are not 5/6 gating on 2 bases as that is basically impossible to counter with only 2-3 bunkers whicle teching up meanwhile. Would love to see replays with Predy playing against better players ( I def. think his macro was a level or 2 above Insos as well), who has equal mechanics and responds better to what Predy is doing. (like getting getting a few VRs vs thors with some immortals instead of Collosus. yeah that happened to me a while ago. i just did medivacs asap i don't think there's anything else you can do. problem is you have 3rax already so you can't skip a rax for a factory but you can cut the bio production to get medivacs asap but still puts you behind. that's why i like no gas expo with marine and bunkers as they can't do that. unfortunately not possible on all maps. i actually think collosi are very good response to that build since you can kill the voids with marines/vikings quite easily and Canon immortals with thors. + Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote:Wow, haha, I think I accidentally created a similar build on my own just by trying shit out alot.(lost like 15 TvPs in a row doing crazy shit) I originally went 3 rax TTR super safely into expand while getting armory and starport around the time my 2nd orbital finishes, I don't add any more barracks but 2 factories pumping thors. Once I felt colossi might be out I added reactor on the starport. I was ahead in that game after I held a 4 warpgate but I was still convinced by the strongness of the composition when I attacked him. I haven't had time to really perfect it but it seems quite alot similar. I'd like to hear more closely about upgrading from Predy. I feel that bio armor isn't quite as useful because marines still die to two colossi attack regardless of armor. So I normally try a timing push just when I get 0-2 on Thors and 2-0 on infantry. It makes sense to me that the thors are there to soak the damage while bio deals it. And your bio dies to the protoss AoE regardless of armor. I also got owned by a push with 2 hallucinated Colossi in it. I was just about to get my 2nd thor out and I think i could have easily held it had I not been so surprised by the colossi( I had just scanned only his immortals)So I died because I immediately tried to focus down the colossi. I guess nothing else helps here but better scouting i don't like getting infantry upgrades anymore but put all the gas into marauder/thor/mech upgr/vikings Well IMO collosus is not that good a choice imo as it makes the threat of an air switch much weaker, and thors are pretty good vs collosus and absolutely sux when one add in vikings. On the other hand immortals are fine vs thors if you just have enough of them. Even with the use of strike cannons, well positioned immortals are cost effective vs thors. And when mixing up a few VRs your thors just sux (from my experience). Anyway do you have any replays where a toss tries to go for this kind of composition as an reaction to you transition to mech. I would like to see if you could beat a 6gate all in as well?
I'm not sure about the extended Thermal Lance timing but you can strike cannon(Thors outranged unupgraded colossus)/marauder them down without it. By the time thermal lance is out, you should have a few vikings or tanks to force coloussus back so they can't range you.
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On March 09 2011 08:50 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 06:01 Hider wrote:On March 09 2011 05:24 PredY wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:50 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 03:43 huyNh wrote:
it's not easy manually shooting units in a 200/200 battle. thors by itself on the ground, unless comes in a ridic critical mass, will die to zealot/immortal/voidrays. i find against this combo, you need some bio/ghost along with it to deal with the zealots. I was getting ghosts as well. Mostly to deal with immortal. But anyway this combo did really well vs all ground units. Anyways I watched predys games against insos, and I felt like Inso was not responding very well. Would like to test predys opening vs a 3gate expand where he can basically deny your expo by forcefielding your ramp forever till you get medis. Do you have any plan on how to deal with that other than getting quite a lot behind. I think one needs to scout a lot to be sure they are not 5/6 gating on 2 bases as that is basically impossible to counter with only 2-3 bunkers whicle teching up meanwhile. Would love to see replays with Predy playing against better players ( I def. think his macro was a level or 2 above Insos as well), who has equal mechanics and responds better to what Predy is doing. (like getting getting a few VRs vs thors with some immortals instead of Collosus. yeah that happened to me a while ago. i just did medivacs asap i don't think there's anything else you can do. problem is you have 3rax already so you can't skip a rax for a factory but you can cut the bio production to get medivacs asap but still puts you behind. that's why i like no gas expo with marine and bunkers as they can't do that. unfortunately not possible on all maps. i actually think collosi are very good response to that build since you can kill the voids with marines/vikings quite easily and Canon immortals with thors. + Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 03:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote:Wow, haha, I think I accidentally created a similar build on my own just by trying shit out alot.(lost like 15 TvPs in a row doing crazy shit) I originally went 3 rax TTR super safely into expand while getting armory and starport around the time my 2nd orbital finishes, I don't add any more barracks but 2 factories pumping thors. Once I felt colossi might be out I added reactor on the starport. I was ahead in that game after I held a 4 warpgate but I was still convinced by the strongness of the composition when I attacked him. I haven't had time to really perfect it but it seems quite alot similar. I'd like to hear more closely about upgrading from Predy. I feel that bio armor isn't quite as useful because marines still die to two colossi attack regardless of armor. So I normally try a timing push just when I get 0-2 on Thors and 2-0 on infantry. It makes sense to me that the thors are there to soak the damage while bio deals it. And your bio dies to the protoss AoE regardless of armor. I also got owned by a push with 2 hallucinated Colossi in it. I was just about to get my 2nd thor out and I think i could have easily held it had I not been so surprised by the colossi( I had just scanned only his immortals)So I died because I immediately tried to focus down the colossi. I guess nothing else helps here but better scouting i don't like getting infantry upgrades anymore but put all the gas into marauder/thor/mech upgr/vikings Well IMO collosus is not that good a choice imo as it makes the threat of an air switch much weaker, and thors are pretty good vs collosus and absolutely sux when one add in vikings. On the other hand immortals are fine vs thors if you just have enough of them. Even with the use of strike cannons, well positioned immortals are cost effective vs thors. And when mixing up a few VRs your thors just sux (from my experience). Anyway do you have any replays where a toss tries to go for this kind of composition as an reaction to you transition to mech. I would like to see if you could beat a 6gate all in as well? I'm not sure about the extended Thermal Lance timing but you can strike cannon(Thors outranged unupgraded colossus)/marauder them down without it. By the time thermal lance is out, you should have a few vikings or tanks to force coloussus back so they can't range you.
I dont think i made my self clear. Thors are fine vs collosus, and with vikings + thors collosus actually sux.
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While the +1 vehicle weapons does not benefit the thors when you are pushing with them, it is important to double armory so your tanks have an upgrade advantage. The thor benefits hugely from the +1 vehicle armor, especially with a handful of scv's to repair, and your tanks need those weapons upgrades as quickly as possible. Having your tank ball hit critical mass when you are 2/2 or 3/3 because you invested in a second armory is totally worth it if you intend to follow up the thor push with mass tanks.
The thors only really require 0/1 and the cannon to make the push. A 1base thor all-in is quite feasible also. Wait for 2 thors, vehicle armor 1, and the thor cannon. You then bring nearly all your scv's to repair the thors and make bunkers for your marines.
Another possible modification to this general idea, which is quite different, is get your armory for vehicle weapons, but open with a ghost+MM push off 2 bases, and then use the time you just bought to take your third and build tanks. I am skeptical of this style because bio is quite predictable in the current metagame. The push is late enough that colossi could obliterate you. Where thors can simply cannon the colossi, ghosts will be useless. However if the protoss scouts factories and reacts "correctly", ie with an extra expansion, or perhaps immortals or air, this push would be the perfect countermove. The possibility of doing this push seems more useful than actually doing it- the thor push seems stronger in all circumstances, but requires a different response from the protoss.
The sort of play I think should be avoided is the "turtle and build 1000 tanks" style. Tanks in SC2 have very hard counters available for the protoss. Worst case scenario they can take the entire map and build carriers, against which there is no truly effective answer from terran as goliaths are gone. Vikings can get the job done, but require starports and are paper airplanes (0 armor is a huge difference against carriers). The protoss cannot be allowed to do this, so some push that hits before the 1000 tanks can be built seems necessary.
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So Predy, is this build still good? Found any obvious weak spots?
Been using it a bit seems to work quite well
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i kinda abandoned this since it's very hard to stop 2base 5gate collo build but still can see it viable on map like terminus re because its easier to defend 3bases
currently trying marine tank raven banshee build
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vs tos fast expand/4gate/3gate into robo.
Works best on maps with large/no ramp and short to medium (tempted is to do FE)
1. Get 3 techrax. MAKE SURE THE TECHLABS DO NOT GET SCOUTED. 1st refinery@13, 2nd refinery@19
2. Push when stim finishes with 10 ish marauders, bring ALL scv's.
3. FOCUS on pylons and Probes. Supply-blocked protoss is a dead protoss.
Obviously this is an all in strategy, but it works pretty much always given the above points
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i think the coolest part of the OP was sacrificing scvs once maxed and transitioning in to mass mules for mineral income, but it was all very well done.
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realy good guide predy i love it <3 i watch all the new replays now and try this asap
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EPT
