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On March 10 2011 21:18 Fluxx wrote:
I really do not understand the elitistic way people treat replays. Or the actual necesity of replays in theorycraft threads.
The argument that "The players are weak", "I will do better then those players" is a void argument.
For everyone who posts here there will be at least thousand players who will be far superior then you, even when you play in the masters league.
Mech is viable, Jinro proved it. How you transition into it is another story.
Be it hellion marauder play, banshee harass, or heavy macro play on GSL maps, Do not treat people as trash who put proper effort into idea's and threads.
Take a random GSL or IEM player and they will make you look worse.
It is the thought that counts
Dude, you dont prove anything by winning a game or 2 with mech, and btw why do you think Jinro went back to playing bio which he even cant win with.
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On March 15 2011 02:24 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2011 21:18 Fluxx wrote:
I really do not understand the elitistic way people treat replays. Or the actual necesity of replays in theorycraft threads.
The argument that "The players are weak", "I will do better then those players" is a void argument.
For everyone who posts here there will be at least thousand players who will be far superior then you, even when you play in the masters league.
Mech is viable, Jinro proved it. How you transition into it is another story.
Be it hellion marauder play, banshee harass, or heavy macro play on GSL maps, Do not treat people as trash who put proper effort into idea's and threads.
Take a random GSL or IEM player and they will make you look worse.
It is the thought that counts Dude, you dont prove anything by winning a game or 2 with mech, and btw why do you think Jinro went back to playing bio which he even cant win with.
If he can't win by "back to playing bio" its not like that makes bio any more viable
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On March 14 2011 06:58 Honeybadger wrote:
Colossi rip PF's to shreds when you get more than 6. But if they're in the front, I do see the value in slowing down the death ball to let you set up a brutal concave/position
I'm pretty sure that any siege unit can rip a stationary defense to shreds. However, what about when the PF is supported by siege tanks? 1500 health seems like a lot to go through while getting exposed to siege tank fire, and doubly so when there are Vikings overhead. Aren't the PFs supposed to serve a pseudo-Vulture role? They tank damage and counter the Zealots, in this case by forcing the Zealots into small gaps, nullifying the ability to auto-spread with charge. Also, don't PFs not do friendly fire splash? So they can take down Zealots that are close to tanks without killing the tanks.
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This looks very promising as an idea, particularly using PF's extensively to make up for mech's immobility. PF's not only do not cost supply, they PROVIDE supply. A slow creep across the map with PF's, tanks, and turrets allowing you to take bases and gradually encroach on the enemy base sounds great. Very terran.
My concerns are about the 2 base timing, where you might have difficulties getting this gravy train rolling. Furthermore, tanks just don't feel that strong compared to BW tanks. Marauders offer so much by comparison... But I want to believe. I want this to work. They take out spider mines and goliaths, but I want mech to still work. Honestly.
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After the amulet nerf, bio is gonna be stronger then ever.. so yea mech..
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PvT is giving me nightmares... but I have a build I am working out the kinks with. Basically, I need whatever feedback I can get without getting too specific regarding replays or in game details. Just tell me what you think.
Pure Mech:
Simply put, I don't believe in a tank helion primary composition build. It's simply not tanks/vulture brood war. Basically, immortals will run through it and speed lots will clean up the rest. He can pick up tanks with phoenix with his plenty of gas left over. He can go voids. Too many hard counters. Helions with spider mines and it might be a different story.
Solution: So how would a terran deal with the above? Vikings for void, maybe a couple of ghosts to slow down the immortal play. Sounds good... the problem? GAS!!! 250 for two tank factories, 150 a pop for a ghost, 200 for a reactored starport. Can't do that off two base. And if you don''t have all three, you are ****ed once the protoss makes the adjustment.
Or am I wrong about this? Can a terran just sit on his two base (3 if defensible), pump the appropriate amount of ghost/viking and just push at 175-200 supply and pummel the protoss? Can a terran get by harassing with helion drops (that means medivac gas too) to buy time for his massive push? This might work at a diamond/low master level, but not top play, but I am not a pro gamer so tell me if you think that works for my level. After all...
- You get the scouting information you need with a Viking fly by. You can judge whether he is air or ground heavy.
- If he has heavy phoenix, you can add a Thor and hope you have enough tanks to withstand graviton beams.
-2-3 Ghost production, while researching the energy boost upgrade. wait till you have energy for 4-5 EMP's, again you want that timing to hit when your last ghost is around 145 energy.
That SHOULD be viable in most cases, but expect your mineral count to be ridiculously high. Basically, you need to send your scvs into battle since you will be tapped at your main and your third won't be up in most cases. You will also be way over saturated with helion and that money will go to waste. Maybe the turrent play isn't a bad idea but we'd be moving at a turtle/snails pace here. I don't see why this build couldn't work on a delta quadrant when you are sitting on 3 base the whole time.
The Alternative (the bio/mech mix):
First of all, both builds (the previous one I laid out and the one which I will lay out here open with a
reactored barrack to cover for any void/phoenix cheese or early rush schemes (immortal bust, 4 gate, etc), so we are not abandoning bio. It's the basic 1-1-1 rine, tank, one medivac (more for the vision than healing) push to begin with, a decent timing push. Now for the build:
So after the timing push, my expansion should be underway. I have a reactored barrack and a factory. I can add a lab on the port to add a raven to defend with a PDD and have mobile detection.
Now for the rest. So I basically take my natural then build the following.
1. 2 additional rax (3 rax total). One tech lab, nothing on the third. As far as your first reactored barrack, you can keep it if he is air heavy or immortal heavy, or you can swap it for a lab.
2. 2 additional factory (3 factory total). One reactored for helion, the other teched for tanks.
3. An additional port (two ports total), nothing on it yet.
4. Bay and armory (got to to get some upgrades going)
Now I have every option in the book at my disposal. For example,
-If he is two stargate phoenix heavy, I simply transition to Thor. I pump out rines out of 3 rax (one teched, two reactored) and I can build a reactor on my second port and mix in Vikings, Ghosts can be viable if you decide to stay one factory Thor as opposed to two factory Thor.
-If he is robo heavy with collosus/immortal, I go two rax marauder, one reactored rax with tank and helion support. I add a reactor to my second port and I am free to pump medivac/Viking. Ghosts will not be viable because of the gas intensity unless you have 6-8 geyser gas.
-If he is ground heavy, immortal, speed lots, high temps, Go two rax tech, one rax reactored. Add tech lab to your second port and go cloaked banshees. Keep your three factory play to tanks/helions or possibly Thor/tank/helion. Ghosts will probably not be viable on two base.
-Mass stalker, easy, two rax marauder one rax marine and raven support. Medivacs are affordable as long as he isn't mixing collosus.
So that's terrans mid game against toss in a nutshell from a decent diamond player. Can't see what would be more flexible than that. Drawbacks of course...
1) Your bio/mech upgrade ratio will be garbage. You will be at 1-1 while he is at 2-2.
2) CONSTANT SCOUTING INFORMATION. Once the protoss gets to three base 6 gas, anything is in the books. Not only that, you need to abandon whatever build you commit to once the protoss adjusts, meaning swapping buildings on reactors and labs. Not easy to do in the middle of the battle. But once the mothership is out, you need to throw this game plan out the window. Keeping your PvT a mid game, 20 minute session needs to be a priority.
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How do you guys use your hotkeys? I've come to the conclusion that you absolutely need 4 hotkeys to do mech properly
1 - entire army
2 - siege tanks
3 - ghost
4 - dropship harass (while attacking)
there's no other way for me to be able to fumble around trying to control click my tanks and ghosts - its TOO critical to be able to land EMPs, even a 1 second delay could mean life or deathh
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1-Thors/ghosts/vikings
2-Siege Tanks
3-Hellions
4-Harass
4 keys are needed to do this right.
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On March 15 2011 08:43 Blamajama wrote:
PvT is giving me nightmares... but I have a build I am working out the kinks with. Basically, I need whatever feedback I can get without getting too specific regarding replays or in game details. Just tell me what you think.
Pure Mech:
Simply put, I don't believe in a tank helion primary composition build. It's simply not tanks/vulture brood war. Basically, immortals will run through it and speed lots will clean up the rest. He can pick up tanks with phoenix with his plenty of gas left over. He can go voids. Too many hard counters. Helions with spider mines and it might be a different story.
Solution: So how would a terran deal with the above? Vikings for void, maybe a couple of ghosts to slow down the immortal play. Sounds good... the problem? GAS!!! 250 for two tank factories, 150 a pop for a ghost, 200 for a reactored starport. Can't do that off two base. And if you don''t have all three, you are ****ed once the protoss makes the adjustment.
Or am I wrong about this? Can a terran just sit on his two base (3 if defensible), pump the appropriate amount of ghost/viking and just push at 175-200 supply and pummel the protoss? Can a terran get by harassing with helion drops (that means medivac gas too) to buy time for his massive push? This might work at a diamond/low master level, but not top play, but I am not a pro gamer so tell me if you think that works for my level. After all...
- You get the scouting information you need with a Viking fly by. You can judge whether he is air or ground heavy.
- If he has heavy phoenix, you can add a Thor and hope you have enough tanks to withstand graviton beams.
-2-3 Ghost production, while researching the energy boost upgrade. wait till you have energy for 4-5 EMP's, again you want that timing to hit when your last ghost is around 145 energy.
That SHOULD be viable in most cases, but expect your mineral count to be ridiculously high. Basically, you need to send your scvs into battle since you will be tapped at your main and your third won't be up in most cases. You will also be way over saturated with helion and that money will go to waste. Maybe the turrent play isn't a bad idea but we'd be moving at a turtle/snails pace here. I don't see why this build couldn't work on a delta quadrant when you are sitting on 3 base the whole time.
The Alternative (the bio/mech mix):
First of all, both builds (the previous one I laid out and the one which I will lay out here open with a
reactored barrack to cover for any void/phoenix cheese or early rush schemes (immortal bust, 4 gate, etc), so we are not abandoning bio. It's the basic 1-1-1 rine, tank, one medivac (more for the vision than healing) push to begin with, a decent timing push. Now for the build:
So after the timing push, my expansion should be underway. I have a reactored barrack and a factory. I can add a lab on the port to add a raven to defend with a PDD and have mobile detection.
Now for the rest. So I basically take my natural then build the following.
1. 2 additional rax (3 rax total). One tech lab, nothing on the third. As far as your first reactored barrack, you can keep it if he is air heavy or immortal heavy, or you can swap it for a lab.
2. 2 additional factory (3 factory total). One reactored for helion, the other teched for tanks.
3. An additional port (two ports total), nothing on it yet.
4. Bay and armory (got to to get some upgrades going)
Now I have every option in the book at my disposal. For example,
-If he is two stargate phoenix heavy, I simply transition to Thor. I pump out rines out of 3 rax (one teched, two reactored) and I can build a reactor on my second port and mix in Vikings, Ghosts can be viable if you decide to stay one factory Thor as opposed to two factory Thor.
-If he is robo heavy with collosus/immortal, I go two rax marauder, one reactored rax with tank and helion support. I add a reactor to my second port and I am free to pump medivac/Viking. Ghosts will not be viable because of the gas intensity unless you have 6-8 geyser gas.
-If he is ground heavy, immortal, speed lots, high temps, Go two rax tech, one rax reactored. Add tech lab to your second port and go cloaked banshees. Keep your three factory play to tanks/helions or possibly Thor/tank/helion. Ghosts will probably not be viable on two base.
-Mass stalker, easy, two rax marauder one rax marine and raven support. Medivacs are affordable as long as he isn't mixing collosus.
So that's terrans mid game against toss in a nutshell from a decent diamond player. Can't see what would be more flexible than that. Drawbacks of course...
1) Your bio/mech upgrade ratio will be garbage. You will be at 1-1 while he is at 2-2.
2) CONSTANT SCOUTING INFORMATION. Once the protoss gets to three base 6 gas, anything is in the books. Not only that, you need to abandon whatever build you commit to once the protoss adjusts, meaning swapping buildings on reactors and labs. Not easy to do in the middle of the battle. But once the mothership is out, you need to throw this game plan out the window. Keeping your PvT a mid game, 20 minute session needs to be a priority.
This is good in theory and i tried it couple of times now. What is the problem with this in my experience is that "you just don't have enaugh shit" out in midgame to defend, so even if you do ok at defending your nat, he gets one base ahead of me, just because his army > my army and i can't move out.
If you have some good replays,i would love to see them but as it is for now, i feel that bio start with really early transition into mech is the best way for me. (1 rax expand with tech lab for early maras, then straight into mech)
The problem is passivity ofc., cause bassicly i have nothing except 1-2 banshees to herras in middgame.
good day, svizcy
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On March 15 2011 08:43 Blamajama wrote:
[...] This might work at a diamond/low master level, but not top play, but I am not a pro gamer so tell me if you think that works for my level. After all...[...]
I guess you don't know the german terran player goody :x
On sunday he was in his 3rd go4sc2 final in a row with pure mech play.
Everyone knows that he will go mech, but nobody can really beat him. 
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On March 15 2011 19:32 Brocklyn wrote:I guess you don't know the german terran player goody :x On sunday he was in his 3rd go4sc2 final in a row with pure mech play. Everyone knows that he will go mech, but nobody can really beat him.
Is this guy a turrent builder or what? What does he do for anti-air?
Edit: I am officially abandoning pure bio until further notice, a buff/nerf or whatever. The bio/mech mix, as a user quoted above, always leaves you short in a key area that the protoss will exploit. I am transitioning to 4 factory (2 reactored 2 teched) build with 1 rax marauder and 2 port (reactored and teched) for Viking/raven with a focus on armory upgrades only. I find that this build requires little adjustment for the mid game and can deal with many units in the protoss arsenal.
1. Speed lots - saturated blue flame helions from two reactors
2. Stalkers- Raven/PDD
3. Collosus- Tank/Viking
4. Immortal- Combination of helion, handful of rines and marauder with concuss, and tank barrage should slow them down to keep their numbers manageable.
5. Phoenix-Seamless transition to 3-4 Thor before pushing out. Research strike cannons to deal with robotic units.
6. High temps- Bad against heavy mech, roasted by helions. Mix in ghosts in place of marauders once you acquire 3rd and 4th base.
7. Carrier/Mothership- Add extra reactored port (you'll have plenty of time to have this up in time)
As long as your 1-1-1 opening is executed, transitioning to this build should be no problem. Remember, you are trying to deter any heavy immortal/void/phoenix play by reactoring your first barrack, pressuring him to tech up to collosus/high temp. Keep pumping marines from this barrack until your second factory for reactored helions is done, and then swap and add a tech lab on rax for marauder. This will balance your anti-air to more ground to ground just in case you built too many Vikings.
Also, If you are mineral heavy, make sure that third factory gets a reactor. If you have too much gas, get tanks from your third factory and hold off on the barrack/4th factory add on swap.
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1-Thors/ghosts/vikings
2-Siege Tanks
3-Hellions
4-Harass
4 keys are needed to do this right.
I like this, although I've been putting harass at 9 or 0 (keys that are always empty)
but 9 and 0 are probably too far away to effectively be 100% active with harassing, so I guess your method works better.
I like 1-tab for Ghosts, and their function along with viking and thor are similar enough (anti-air)
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If you have one spellcaster per unit group, the spell casters will always be highlighted first IIRC. So that set up works. Watching some old VODs of flash - he uses about 3 hotkeys just for the tanks alone O_O. He can leap frog tanks so quickly that its almost as if they're not even immobile.
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I've been going 2 rax pressure expand into 3 rax, single factory tanks.
I add an armory and make a thor after ~3 tanks.
Feels good, man.
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Sounds alot diff than avilo. Will try when i get home
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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.
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Although I am a Protoss player, I must say this style of play really made me drool a little bit. Although admittedly, I haven't finished watching all the replays so I have yet to see everything... But the two games I saw I was giggling.
To be fair, I feel that in both the games I saw the Protoss players were trying to attack the wall head on... Whenever they did they sustained HUGE losses. hi im new is correct in that you need to work your way around the "defensive grid". I could see blink stalkers being very effective early on... The problem is you have to act fast before the "noose" gets wrapped.
I'm personally thinking of the first game vs. Far. At one point there was a warp prism warping in units to the unprotected side of the "siege line". That single warp prism caused such a huge hole and gap that unfortunately wasn't really exploited. With only a couple of Archons he did quite a bit of damage. So obviously it is important to make sure that all the "side doors are locked".
Though people will say that PFs are very expensive to make... Watching these games made that statement feel exactly the opposite. What's so crazy about mass planetary is that it allows you to continually push forward the siege line while giving room to fall back. In a typical army vs. army scenario, the winning army will gain a lot of ground in terms of moving towards the opponents base... With mass planetary, you can A) fall back to a more favorable position and let the planetaries just dish out as much damage as they can, or B) while you are remaking your army they will have to battle through a ton of planetaries just to get to your production facilities.
I really like it... I may be a Protoss player but when I start working on those Terran achievements, I'm going to have this page bookmarked to have ready in my back pocket. This doesn't feel like mech... This is like, the crackheaded turtle lol.
I'm going to put my insane thought into a spoiler, love it or hate it all you want... But it is just a thought coming from a very imaginative player who loves going for crazy strats (low diamond btw, and I do realize that this should not be attempted to be incorporated into every game).
+ Show Spoiler +
Just a thought (coming from low level diamond): I noticed you had a LOT of minerals accumulating (as once you're on 3-4 bases with a max army, planetaries become ridiculously cheap). Now I know this may sound absurd, but how about building a few (or even a lot of) backup Orbital Commands to use literally for the energy. There are a couple of applications that I could see being very useful in this type of build the main one being a mass mule calldown.
Once you have the money and the territory carved out, having a bunch of Orbitals is actually pretty ridiculous. I've only ever done it for fun in vs ai games, but I could actually see it working in this type of build as you are turtling so hard that you dont ever really lose any units (and thus don't need to rebuild them). With a bunch of Orbitals you could sac some scvs to free up more supply if you so choose, as you'll have lots of mules... You can call down tons of mules on site to repair pfs more effectively, making them even more efficient as not only will the opposing army be trying to kill off the pf, but now their units will try and aggro the mules as well. Third and finally, which I could see only being used in extreme circumstances... Mass mule calldown on an opponent's expo.
Now this truly crazy thought that I envision would take a ton of Orbitals and would not be feasible in most circumstances (I would probably go with a spare 2 maybe 3 orbitals)... However, if you build up enough energy on 7 Orbital Commands (including your base orbitals)...You can call down 27 mules (50 energy spent on scan) on the opponent's expo at any time you want. Assuming they don't stop the mules in time, you've just robbed that expo of 810 minerals (assuming that no mules make it back for a return trip). Since this build revolves around winning in the late game, you're trying to win a war of attrition. Imagine on Shattered Temple, you've divided the map in half, the Protoss has put an end to most of the Hellion harass and now you're in attrition mode. He has a somewhat saturated second or third expo that is running out of minerals but it still providing a healthy stream of income.
Imagine cutting down those minerals hugely... And not even costing you a dime. Whats so stupid is that since there are no warning bells that go off as nothing is being attacked, unless they are literally watching that expo when you decide to do it, their reaction time is not likely going to be the greatest... And once they see the big blob moving on the minimap, it's already too late as those minerals have been mined and are gone from his expansion.
Like I said, an insane strategy... But consider that you already have 4 Orbitals up, a ton of resources sitting in the bank, you can afford to spend 550/1100/1650 on a few extra Orbitals. Both games I've watched so far you won with 5k in the bank. I don't know how all your games look, but it looks to me like you wouldn't mind spending a little extra money. Something to consider... I doubt this wacky dream of mine will ever come to fruition where you rob an opponent of an expansion via mass mule, but this is the first strategy I've seen that would actually have a feasible chance of incorporating it.
Ahem... Anyways, I really like this build and kudos man. It's really funny how you see the CCs being built at home and leapfrogging ahead of the tanks to become pfs... at which point the tanks move up safely and more CCs are being built... The game vs. cLSMancito was just hilarious how the wall of PFs just keep creeping closer and closer to hit base... And if he at any point tried to attack the brick wall he'd lose way more than he was killing.
The leapfrogging of PFs really shore up a weakness of Siege Tanks which is that they are very very vulnerable when they unsiege and move up, and leave a bunch of empty space behind them that can be abused. With this type of play, you shore up both problems with a very cost effective choice. Nevermind that it doesn't cost supply, and in the event of losing a bunch of workers you can replenish that count REALLY quickly.
I've rambled on too long. Thumbs up. I like it.
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EPT
