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On April 26 2011 12:08 Griffith` wrote:
Wow PTR 1.3.3 is going to be crazy good for mech if it goes through as it means siege expand will be:
1. quite safe against 4gate and 3gate expand
2. better Terran mid and late game as ghosts will cost 66% less gas
PS. Mass Hellions are cost effective against Mass Stalkers, even when microed.
siege expand has always been safe against 4gate, the threat of skipping starport is voidray openings. plus killing toss army has never been the problem with mech, the real problem is blink/colossi into your main whenever protoss feels like it, which the ghost buff doesn't address. i don't think the new patch is going to be significantly better for mech than the current one, though there might be some interesting ghost timings now.
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On April 26 2011 14:16 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2011 12:08 Griffith` wrote:
Wow PTR 1.3.3 is going to be crazy good for mech if it goes through as it means siege expand will be:
1. quite safe against 4gate and 3gate expand
2. better Terran mid and late game as ghosts will cost 66% less gas
PS. Mass Hellions are cost effective against Mass Stalkers, even when microed. siege expand has always been safe against 4gate, the threat of skipping starport is voidray openings. plus killing toss army has never been the problem with mech, the real problem is blink/colossi into your main whenever protoss feels like it, which the ghost buff doesn't address. i don't think the new patch is going to be significantly better for mech than the current one, though there might be some interesting ghost timings now.
I've never had an issue with blink stalkers, I don't know why people keep fretting over it. Sensor towers + 2 siege tanks camped on ledges make it very hard for stalkers to be cost effective.
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Cheaper Ghost/ All the 4 gate non-sense gone is huge buffs for mech play.
I think im going to do FE---> Mech----> 3rd base/Dual Armory with a nice 2-1 timing attack that has EMP now that ghosts are cheaper.
Or, I might do reactor rax into fast Thor with strike cannon to stop 1 gate FE then into full mech.
Im so happy to switch back to this style, absolutely love this comapred to bio.
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I agree, the way terran is going right now, with much much more ghost play to counteract infestors and toss deathballs, EMP +Thor only gets stronger. The FE ->Mech -> 3rd base upgrade timing attack that is floating around will definitely be stronger in 1.3.3.
but srsly guys, WHY is there only ~30k views on this wonderful guide, and the trashy outright arrogant greedy Spanishiwa build has like 230k????????? CMON terrans, read this
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On April 26 2011 14:30 Griffith` wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2011 14:16 rauk wrote:On April 26 2011 12:08 Griffith` wrote:
Wow PTR 1.3.3 is going to be crazy good for mech if it goes through as it means siege expand will be:
1. quite safe against 4gate and 3gate expand
2. better Terran mid and late game as ghosts will cost 66% less gas
PS. Mass Hellions are cost effective against Mass Stalkers, even when microed. siege expand has always been safe against 4gate, the threat of skipping starport is voidray openings. plus killing toss army has never been the problem with mech, the real problem is blink/colossi into your main whenever protoss feels like it, which the ghost buff doesn't address. i don't think the new patch is going to be significantly better for mech than the current one, though there might be some interesting ghost timings now. I've never had an issue with blink stalkers, I don't know why people keep fretting over it. Sensor towers + 2 siege tanks camped on ledges make it very hard for stalkers to be cost effective.
? sometimes the toss blinks like 10+ stalkers up the cliff.
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Great guide! I've been doing a lot of experimenting with mech in TvZ and TvP. In the last TvZ I played, a zerg doom dropped my main in the midgame. I was able to fend it off and rebuild my productions quickly. Right after then I realized the potentials of PF. Good to see you further fleshed out how to effectively use PFs with mech.
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On April 26 2011 22:25 thoradycus wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2011 14:30 Griffith` wrote:On April 26 2011 14:16 rauk wrote:On April 26 2011 12:08 Griffith` wrote:
Wow PTR 1.3.3 is going to be crazy good for mech if it goes through as it means siege expand will be:
1. quite safe against 4gate and 3gate expand
2. better Terran mid and late game as ghosts will cost 66% less gas
PS. Mass Hellions are cost effective against Mass Stalkers, even when microed. siege expand has always been safe against 4gate, the threat of skipping starport is voidray openings. plus killing toss army has never been the problem with mech, the real problem is blink/colossi into your main whenever protoss feels like it, which the ghost buff doesn't address. i don't think the new patch is going to be significantly better for mech than the current one, though there might be some interesting ghost timings now. I've never had an issue with blink stalkers, I don't know why people keep fretting over it. Sensor towers + 2 siege tanks camped on ledges make it very hard for stalkers to be cost effective. ? sometimes the toss blinks like 10+ stalkers up the cliff.
10+ Stalkers isn't a whole lot tbh. I can usually trap the stalker ball every time if they blink into my base by doing flanks. As mentioned previously, mass hellions are cost effective against mass stalkers, and EVEN more so if they've already casted their blink. (What you do is you move the hellions adjacent to the stalkers, so each hellion shot can hit 2+ stalkers, NEVER a-move hellions into stalkers).
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You need to do more testing. If the P keeps his stalker ball clumped he will lose against the hellions being close and splashing everything. If he does even the most rudimentary blinking to reconcave his ball, he will trivially beat the hellions.
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On April 27 2011 00:58 naventus wrote:
You need to do more testing. If the P keeps his stalker ball clumped he will lose against the hellions being close and splashing everything. If he does even the most rudimentary blinking to reconcave his ball, he will trivially beat the hellions.
No he won't, I did over 1 hour of testing on the UMS map test with my friend. (both of us are at masters level)
1. You can't blink together as a ball, (ie. 1 control group blinking), hellions surround stalkers far too fast.
2. Splitting stalkers with blink is probably just as APM intensive as marine splitting.
3. In the above scenario, if he were to blink up a cliff, the blink will still be on cooldown.
Furthermore, in our test, the costs assumed that gas and minerals were even in value. So we were being really generous in our testing.
ie. 125/50 stalker = 175 "cost".
hellion: 100/0 = 100 "cost".
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Im intrigued by this style of play. My issue vP with using mech was always the lack of mobility... PF spamming and turrets would definitely work well.
Im not sure if if is as strong as bio, but it's a different viable strategy for sure. Great writeup
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One thing I have had issues with when trying to play mech is actually forcing an engagement. I find that on fairly big maps with alot of open space in the centre (TalDarim, Shattered Temple, ICCUP Testbug etc) as I start pushing towards their main, or their freshest expos, or pushing anywhere TBH, the toss can just take his 200/200 army and counter, walk straight into my main and wreck my infrastructure. I understand you are placing sensor towers/PFs in key locations, but there's nothing stopping him from just walking straight past it. Then if I try and go back to defend, not only do I sometimes have a poor angle to engage, but my production is gone/damaged so I cannot rebuild my losses. This kinda forced me to give up on mech since not only was I vulnerable in the early game, but I was getting my ass kicked in the late game too.
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On April 27 2011 01:46 BigBossX wrote:
One thing I have had issues with when trying to play mech is actually forcing an engagement. I find that on fairly big maps with alot of open space in the centre (TalDarim, Shattered Temple, ICCUP Testbug etc) as I start pushing towards their main, or their freshest expos, or pushing anywhere TBH, the toss can just take his 200/200 army and counter, walk straight into my main and wreck my infrastructure. I understand you are placing sensor towers/PFs in key locations, but there's nothing stopping him from just walking straight past it. Then if I try and go back to defend, not only do I sometimes have a poor angle to engage, but my production is gone/damaged so I cannot rebuild my losses. This kinda forced me to give up on mech since not only was I vulnerable in the early game, but I was getting my ass kicked in the late game too.
This is the hard part of the build, you pretty much have to be doing hellion harass the entire game. By doing this you start to get a good idea of where the toss army is and if hes trying to counter you. By good scouting/PF's you can react to the toss better and be in a good position to defend.
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On April 27 2011 02:44 XXXSmOke wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2011 01:46 BigBossX wrote:
One thing I have had issues with when trying to play mech is actually forcing an engagement. I find that on fairly big maps with alot of open space in the centre (TalDarim, Shattered Temple, ICCUP Testbug etc) as I start pushing towards their main, or their freshest expos, or pushing anywhere TBH, the toss can just take his 200/200 army and counter, walk straight into my main and wreck my infrastructure. I understand you are placing sensor towers/PFs in key locations, but there's nothing stopping him from just walking straight past it. Then if I try and go back to defend, not only do I sometimes have a poor angle to engage, but my production is gone/damaged so I cannot rebuild my losses. This kinda forced me to give up on mech since not only was I vulnerable in the early game, but I was getting my ass kicked in the late game too. This is the hard part of the build, you pretty much have to be doing hellion harass the entire game. By doing this you start to get a good idea of where the toss army is and if hes trying to counter you. By good scouting/PF's you can react to the toss better and be in a good position to defend.
I understand that, my hellion harass usually works quite well up until he takes a third/late game and can afford to plant cannons all over his expos. How are you supposed to harass then? I've messed with the idea of dropping a few tanks and using siege to hit the probe line, but this always seemed cost inefficient as it only takes a round of warp ins to clean it up and it's not like tanks are dirt cheap.
Also it makes sense that you would adjust position if you see the toss countering , but what I didn't make quite clear was that whenever I actually commit to an attack to deal some damage, this is when he can counter freely, so I don't understand the process here, am I supposed to dance around the middle of the map until i can get a good enough position to force an engagement? Or just commit to a base race? (which I find quite difficult vs late game P)
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When you mech like FlaSh, the key thing is to keep on harassing while you build up your 150ish 2/2 food push. But you HAVE to push, and it needs to be done the instant you finish either 2/1 or 2/2.
Think of upgrading siege tanks as upgrade damage on psionic storms. Usually, if the protoss insists on a base race, Terran should always win, as simply lifting off and flying away puts you at a great advantage. Most maps will have no more than 3 attack paths into your main. Do what Flash does, spam structures/PFs/etc to make it very difficult to break without severely cost-ineffective trades.
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Yeah, something I liked from the replays as well were the in-base planetaries on the ledges. This makes it a LOT harder to blink up into the main as you A) have to deal with planetaries and B) are much more restricted in space which is actually key.
It really is taking sim city to the extreme, but those planetary fortresses are just so cost efficient it's gross. Personally from the replays posted, I think you could have planted a few more sensor towers (as you definitely had the money to do it). I would probably try and drop a tower each time before I expanded just to be able to really know whereabouts his army is moving to... And frankly as a slow-moving toss player, I am very leery of moving into any Terran territory where there is a sensor tower... It usually allows the terran to pick the site of the engagement and it can be extremely risky to make a push.
I forget which game it was (I think it was against the bad mannered player) you had sensors covering up to your main and the front door, but you hadn't taken the third or fourth expo and it was completely dark. If he had gone for blink much more quickly, he could have gone up the cliff to the empty 4th expo, through the third and up into your expansions without you noticing until he was there. If you had one extra tower positioned at the edge of your territory, you could have spotted the movement occuring behind your siege line. Obviously he didn't exploit that and it certainly is easier to notice these things as an observer in a game, but having makeshift Xel'Naga towers for 125/100 is a great deal.
And again, just having "vision" there will psych the Protoss out. Once you started your missile turret grid in every game the Protoss players were beginning to play in the dark. Most of their mid to late game vision was only the positioning of your offensive PFs... And then on top of that knowing where they are moving to it really limits the options the Protoss would have. Essentially, it's about tightening the "noose" as quickly as possible, because once you split the map in half, you've won. Siege Tanks in large numbers and PFs are so cost efficient it's ridiculous... So even a maxed 200/200 Protoss army can't even really engage the siege line as that is exactly what the siege line is designed to do... Take on "superior" armies.
What really needs to be fleshed out is the time when you haven't split the map in half yet. The Protoss player still has avenues of attack when you have your second expo up and started. Once you get the third and fourth expo if he hasn't killed you, it's pretty much game over because eventually his only avenue of attack would be to attack the siege line directly... Which is exactly what you want.
EDIT: As a side note, this strategy seems very similar to the "Left 2 Die" Blizzard custom... PFs and siege tanks just covering as much as possible. If you play that map on brutal/left2die, any notions you might have about Planetary Fortresses being expensive will be thrown out the window. Obviously a case of apples and hamburgers, but if you haven't played Left 2 Die, I might try it out just to give an small idea for how this strategy would operate in "real world" applications. You also learn that if you leave a window open where units can get inside the siege line, it quickly falls apart which must be objective #1 when executing this strategy: lock all the doors and windows =P
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On April 27 2011 06:21 BigBossX wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2011 02:44 XXXSmOke wrote:On April 27 2011 01:46 BigBossX wrote:
One thing I have had issues with when trying to play mech is actually forcing an engagement. I find that on fairly big maps with alot of open space in the centre (TalDarim, Shattered Temple, ICCUP Testbug etc) as I start pushing towards their main, or their freshest expos, or pushing anywhere TBH, the toss can just take his 200/200 army and counter, walk straight into my main and wreck my infrastructure. I understand you are placing sensor towers/PFs in key locations, but there's nothing stopping him from just walking straight past it. Then if I try and go back to defend, not only do I sometimes have a poor angle to engage, but my production is gone/damaged so I cannot rebuild my losses. This kinda forced me to give up on mech since not only was I vulnerable in the early game, but I was getting my ass kicked in the late game too. This is the hard part of the build, you pretty much have to be doing hellion harass the entire game. By doing this you start to get a good idea of where the toss army is and if hes trying to counter you. By good scouting/PF's you can react to the toss better and be in a good position to defend. I understand that, my hellion harass usually works quite well up until he takes a third/late game and can afford to plant cannons all over his expos. How are you supposed to harass then? I've messed with the idea of dropping a few tanks and using siege to hit the probe line, but this always seemed cost inefficient as it only takes a round of warp ins to clean it up and it's not like tanks are dirt cheap. Also it makes sense that you would adjust position if you see the toss countering , but what I didn't make quite clear was that whenever I actually commit to an attack to deal some damage, this is when he can counter freely, so I don't understand the process here, am I supposed to dance around the middle of the map until i can get a good enough position to force an engagement? Or just commit to a base race? (which I find quite difficult vs late game P)
Once Toss is on 3 base they have also usually sim citied pretty well too, this is where hellion harass turns more into consistent poking at the protoss army to see where hes at. My usual poke force is about 6 helliosn, which is plenty to punish him if he is out of position.
The idea behind the hellion poking is to stall your mech while you get the cirtical supply/upgrades/ and ghosts. Once I get around 2-2 upgrades plus a huge amount of tanks. I start to push out and attack him, setting up a position carefully based on hellion intel.
It sounds like your never attacking, which isnt good for mech. Mech is very decision based there are points where you can kill him, and you need to push out asap before he gets stronger, this is waht the hellion intel is for. Avoid base trading at all costs, Toss will win most of them.
But definately make sure you start pushing out based on your hellion info. Once my hellions find his army I began to push out as I know where his ball is so I can use that to make sure im sieiged and ready to fight in time while I slow push the map.
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On April 27 2011 01:46 BigBossX wrote:
One thing I have had issues with when trying to play mech is actually forcing an engagement. I find that on fairly big maps with alot of open space in the centre (TalDarim, Shattered Temple, ICCUP Testbug etc) as I start pushing towards their main, or their freshest expos, or pushing anywhere TBH, the toss can just take his 200/200 army and counter, walk straight into my main and wreck my infrastructure. I understand you are placing sensor towers/PFs in key locations, but there's nothing stopping him from just walking straight past it. Then if I try and go back to defend, not only do I sometimes have a poor angle to engage, but my production is gone/damaged so I cannot rebuild my losses. This kinda forced me to give up on mech since not only was I vulnerable in the early game, but I was getting my ass kicked in the late game too.
Generally you shouldn't be going back and defending with mech - because of its immobility. By the time your thors and tanks get back there, it will be much too late and then you won't have the production to rebuild your army when you fight them head on, so it's not worth it. It is much better to push into your opponents bases when he runs by your main army.
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So if I'm understanding you correctly, Griffith, you stay on 1 rax/2 factory/ until you start your third base?
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On April 27 2011 01:07 Griffith` wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2011 00:58 naventus wrote:
You need to do more testing. If the P keeps his stalker ball clumped he will lose against the hellions being close and splashing everything. If he does even the most rudimentary blinking to reconcave his ball, he will trivially beat the hellions. No he won't, I did over 1 hour of testing on the UMS map test with my friend. (both of us are at masters level) 1. You can't blink together as a ball, (ie. 1 control group blinking), hellions surround stalkers far too fast. 2. Splitting stalkers with blink is probably just as APM intensive as marine splitting. 3. In the above scenario, if he were to blink up a cliff, the blink will still be on cooldown. Furthermore, in our test, the costs assumed that gas and minerals were even in value. So we were being really generous in our testing. ie. 125/50 stalker = 175 "cost". hellion: 100/0 = 100 "cost".
Yes, he will. Because all good protoss micro their blinik stalker + collosus to just kite all hellions. Or they do the blink+collosus into your main, and then basetrade with proxied DT tech.
No matter what your tests say, you'll never ever ever surround a mass stalker ball in a real game with mass hellions, because the collosus are not too far behind, and even then the stalkers will win straight up with micro.
Mass stalker + collosus is the hardest thing for mech to deal with, because protoss can get their third base and fourth base up faster than you, and threaten the backstab into your main for the rest of the entire game, meaning that the game almost always ends up in a base race, as your army will be slowly pushing to their main, sometimes unkillable with enough tanks/hellion/viking, so protoss just says screw it and blink/walks into ur main with stalker collosus and does the base trade like i said above with DTs.
I have a fast +2+2 mech build and almost every game i've played with it has either had the outcome of
a) me getting them to finally engage my army straight up (somehow) and me rolling them over
b) them forcing me to unsiege/siege across the map until i'm near their base, at which point they have banked enough resources that they finally ignore your army and walk into ur main with all their stalkers/collosus while expoing everywhere on the map with dt tech. Since your army is almost at their base, there is no turning back because they will just blink/walk out ur base if you go to defend, so it's always a guaranteed base race, and you do not have the mobility to go kill their nomad bases, while they simply warp in dts everywhere and you will have no more orbitals.
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EPT
