Hi! This is my first thread on Team Liquid. I am a mid diamond protoss player, and lately my friend, a mid diamond terran, has been doing a 3-5 tank/marine push on me. I have tried all sorts of stuff: immortals with gateway units. a lot of chargelots. colossi(no range, can't get it soon enough), but I can't seem to ever beat it. Sometimes when he delays and gets even more tanks I'll take an expo and try to get more gateways down, but it seems like once he hits a critical mass it's impossible to deal with the tanks' insane damage. I have even got colossi with range when he delayed the push, but since colossi can be seen without vision of the high ground, I am unable to attack the tanks on the low ground.

Are there any specific strategies for dealing with this? It is getting very annoying to play against. Even when I scout it I am still unable to deal with it.

Thanks! :D

Severus_

759 Posts

February 26 2011 16:47 GMT

Post a replay so we can help you.

Kaladin

United States88 Posts

February 26 2011 16:51 GMT

the only recent replay I have is on The Shattered Temple, and SC2Replayed doesn't support it. Is there another site I can use? I'll look for another replay as well

Rkie

United States1278 Posts

February 26 2011 16:57 GMT

if this is pure marine/tank, Chargelots are strong. Stalkers are good because they are stong vs tanks. The key to this is sentries. They cut down the damage of marines to 4 from 6. They also have ForceFields which can prevent kiting. So, gateway units are fine, just have a healthy mix of everything.

SkaPunk

United States471 Posts

February 26 2011 17:01 GMT

Hey 2800 master here. I usually open with A 1 gate 1 robo expand and when I see this coming I make immortals zealots and sentries. What you want to do is to not engage this at your base. Instead, move out ff the rines so they can't kite you throw up a guardian shield, to make your zealots in invincible and pound away before he gets sieges up. Target fire the tanks with theimmortal. If he sieges before your forces get there, great! He isn't in your base and he's stuck. Go expand!

acenapster

Canada58 Posts

February 26 2011 17:02 GMT

That happened to me today on one of the new maps. I am not sure how to solve this except scout earlier. Because I counted when I saw the first tank pop and I would not be able to get a Colossus (I was told this was the counter) in time if I early expanded. (Witch is how I play against Terrans that wall-in)

What I do is I build lots of Sentries will I save up to expand then I build a forge and two cannons, because I have so many Sentries I research Hallucination and use Phoenix to scout. It's been working so far. I think for that push you will scout a Factory after the first Barracks but I'm not sure.

n008z0r

Canada1 Post

February 26 2011 17:02 GMT

You can always try to hold map control until he moves out and try to engage when his tanks are unsieged, or maybe put pressure on before he has lots of tanks? Also you could always counter-attack and FF your ramp until he backs up / you killed all of his marines / you macro a big enough of an army to just smash his push? But yeah that's all i can think of without a replay

Hope this helps.

Kaladin

United States88 Posts

February 26 2011 17:03 GMT

Sigh. For some reason I always forget to use guardian shield. I have a feeling that will help a lot though, thanks.

SkaPunk

United States471 Posts

February 26 2011 17:08 GMT

On February 27 2011 01:57 Rkie wrote:
if this is pure marine/tank, Chargelots are strong. Stalkers are good because they are stong vs tanks. The key to this is sentries. They cut down the damage of marines to 4 from 6. They also have ForceFields which can prevent kiting. So, gateway units are fine, just have a healthy mix of everything.

I would hesitate on stalkers and get more zealots and sentries. Stalkers will get raped by those tanks and just arent that cost efficient against Terran. The obvious exception being against banshees. The key though, isn't unit comp, it's where and how you engage.

SkaPunk

United States471 Posts

February 26 2011 17:11 GMT

#10

I'd love to play your friend and let you watch how I beat it.

Kaladin

United States88 Posts

February 26 2011 17:32 GMT

#11

lol. I will see if he is up for that!

EDIT: name and code?

tuestresfat

2555 Posts

February 26 2011 17:59 GMT

#12

I've had a lot of success with Chargelots with fast +1 and +2 armor upgrades. Depending on your tech route, you may want to get ground weapons before +2 armor, or throw down an additional forge (I don't recommend this before your 2nd expo secured and running).

If templar tech, prioritize armor. If colossi tech, prioritize weapon.

SC2TheDroid

United States54 Posts

February 26 2011 18:08 GMT

#13

Positioning is super important here. What you don't want is to scout poorly and let him A-Frame you and trap you at your front door and slowly leapfrog his tanks up. What you do want is to catch him moving across the map when his tanks are not seiged.

That said there are a couple options. I find that zealot sentry with +1 armor and USE GUARDIAN SHIELD is super important vs marine heavy army. If you can, get some marines out of position use the forcefield and bring it to em. Remember if he is doing an early push here (and has no damage upgrade) you can cut marine damage output IN HALF with guardian shield and +1 armor.

Either that or if you have time, make collosus or just go towards chargelots + high templar. Once the marines are dead, the tanks are easy money. I always recommend having at least a couple stalkers in case banshee support or helion.

DuckS

United States845 Posts

February 26 2011 18:09 GMT

#14

I go by gut feeling. If it's a sketchy map or close positions of some kind, I play a safe build (2 gate robo). Guardian shield is a MUST. Map control is a MUST. Heavy zealots but you want a good number of stalkers and immortals as well. With good awareness and map control, you can try to fight him outside of your base - don't fully commit unless if you're certain you'll win. (you DON'T want him to get in good siege position, just dance with him and pick off what you can while it delays his push, allowing you to warp in more units)

aXGillar

United States10 Posts

February 26 2011 21:37 GMT

#15

3k master terran here. im 19-0 with this build. good luck.

monk

United States8476 Posts

February 27 2011 01:24 GMT

#16

You can't go chargelots vs a marine tank build. Charge finishes way too late as this push can hit with even 2 tanks at around 7 minutes into the game. The correct response is to go sentry light and zealot heavy with just a few immortals. You must stay on 1 base if you didn't fast expand. Eventually you want collosi off of 1 base.

Torres69x

United States14 Posts

February 27 2011 01:55 GMT

#17

I used to have A LOT of trouble with this build leveling up as Plat. The underlying problem is the fact that if you were to get colossus, the terran player can always outproduce your colossi with vikings so going colossi is just pointless in this case.

The trick comes down to using your other tech path... High Templar! They are extremely powerful against the marines and marauders that defend the tanks at close range.

Typically youre going to want to go with a Chargelot Immortal High Templar army, while harassing with DTs as you can. (You do want some stalkers to get the medivacs and blink is essential to defending many different kinds of base harass)

Map control is a must. You MUST know where the terran is, what he is planning, how many production facilities are up, and where to harass. Warp prism play with DTs is excellent. Every now and then send 1 DT to each expansion the terran has to keep their macro off as much as you can.

The best bet is to attack the terran right before he hits you with his push. At this time, his tanks will not be sieged and storms will tear through the bio and zealots will tank all of the unsieged tank damage with immortals destroying and cleaning up.

If you are forced to engage the terran's siege position. (Hopefully this is not a choke or else you will be in a large army deficit after the battle and you MUST have sufficient production facilities and economy to refill lost units asap) Put your immortals up front,walk one in with the rest behind. Chargelots will come around once the immortal has soaked up a massive amount of tank damage. As the zealots are arriving into the terran siegeball send out a few storms and try to forcefield behind to prevent stim retreating. If you have a decent sized army and can handle several tanks blasts there is no doubt that you will win this battle.

From here it depends on who is on top of macro, reproducing faster, and has the economy to support it. Mostly after a battle like this you pretty much win the game outright because the terran will understand that unless he has 4-5 factories he will not be able to come back from this huge loss.

Guardian Shield and Armor upgrades are essential in this match-up as you already know and will immensely allow many more units to survive large battles and to further attack

Hope this helps

saucyOwnerer

3 Posts

February 27 2011 02:05 GMT

#18

I have a simple strategy to crush marine/tank pushes. Get 3 gate forge and get armor 1, sentries, and lots of zealots. This makes the marines useless and the tanks a lot less threatening, and then you just overwhelm the tanks with the lots. You can actually push out on 1 base and end the game with this strategy against marine/tanks.

iChau

United States1210 Posts

February 27 2011 02:36 GMT

#19

On February 27 2011 11:05 saucyOwnerer wrote:
I have a simple strategy to crush marine/tank pushes. Get 3 gate forge and get armor 1, sentries, and lots of zealots. This makes the marines useless and the tanks a lot less threatening, and then you just overwhelm the tanks with the lots. You can actually push out on 1 base and end the game with this strategy against marine/tanks.

And banshees? Marine/Tanks looks exactly like banshees (bunkers+double gas).