EPTThink about it; Thorzain had vikings when there were no Colossi around. Tyler had the better army composition but he was missing the crucial charge upgrade, and he needed to be ahead in the weapon/armor upgrades
[D] Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF Liquid'Tyler (Analysis) - Page 4
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dookudooku
255 Posts
Think about it; Thorzain had vikings when there were no Colossi around. Tyler had the better army composition but he was missing the crucial charge upgrade, and he needed to be ahead in the weapon/armor upgrades | ||
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
If the terran goes mass-thor, the gameplay gets completely reverted, back to the way PvT looked like in BW. This means, I think (..herpderp...) you need to expand aggressively early on, you need double forge for getting "some" sort of upgrade advantage and you need to play an aggressive hit/run-based style early on. I've seen Hasu do a blink-stalker+colossus play where he gives vision with colossi and blinks all around the terrans bases. Chargelots do NOT work lategame since any terran with a brain will have blueflame hellions. Yes the hellions will die very, very fast...but not only do they decent damage to chargelots, but what's worse is, they PREVENT the chargelots from attacking the thors. They don't cost gas and are a perfect meatshield to block the charge. Goody does this as part of his standard heavy tank play. Works exactly the same way. As long as the terran has something in front of the mech-units that prevent the zealots from charging onto the money-units, then they profit. I think it's funny how people claim that eventually chargelots will just overwhelm hellions...when all the terran has are pretty much factories. Why again should the protoss be able to produce chargelots so much faster than the terran hellions? Did warpgates suddenly lose the necessary cooldown when producing zealots? So, again people, the problem is not that chargelots were bad vs hellions (well, they are), but that the purpose of chargelots is to charge onto the money-mech-units. With hellions in play they don't. They charge onto hellions while thors roast everything. I did some testing too, and - I know it's a bit ridiculous, but what the hell - in a fun 2v2 with a silver-friend, we ended up in a stalemate vs two terrans, one did purely thors with the aforementioned couple of hellions for anti-chargelots. What I did was immortals/carriers and it worked like a charm. Is it possible to get this combo in a sufficient number in 1v1 on high level of play? I have no clue. But since I saw how hard immortals/carriers own mech I've started having this combo as my ultimate tech-goal vs mech. Strike cannons own immortals and thor splash owns interceptors. BUT they can only do one of these. So either the immortals or the carriers do good damage, and by good I mean the thors just disappear in seconds. I can't find the rep for my life, but I saw one game of Hasu which was just beautiful...he started out with the aforementioned aggressive colossus + blink play, took expansions early and while harassing all over the map he slowly teched to carriers. The terran was simply not able to outright attack until lategame and THEN he was greeted by carriers and had to gg out. | ||
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truthless
Sweden120 Posts
Game1: + Show Spoiler + I'm afraid I missed the beginning of this, so not sure at what point Tyler scouted the Thors, but I felt like he responded rather poorly. I would've prefered to see double stargate over double robo, especially with the hellions thrown in instead of marines. Game2: + Show Spoiler + Blink stalkers against Terran has never been that great imho. 3gate expand or just pure 4gate all-in would've both been better options and he would've hit at an earlier timing where Thorzain would've been weaker. I just don't agree with the blink rush at all. Game3: + Show Spoiler + At this point Tyler just fell apart. He's not chronoing his upgrades half the time and he doesn't even start his Council until after 1/1 finishes. Great response from Thorzain though, going with double upgrades of his own, but I feel like if Tyler had been playing at his best and done a proper 2/2 rush with 2-3 colossi, Thorzain would've had a hard time holding it (see Tyler vs Jinro showmatch on Metalopolis). | ||
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Ada
Germany150 Posts
On April 11 2011 16:49 sleepingdog wrote: So either the immortals or the carriers do good damage, and by good I mean the thors just disappear in seconds. Depends on your air weapons upgrade. You need to chronoboost them as soon as possible. The fast armour upgrades on thors counters interceptors even better than zealots. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On April 11 2011 01:41 Thorzain wrote: You can't count it as 8*2 - armor = damage. You must count it as (8-armor)*2 = damage. So armor upgrades are even better against zealots than what you described. 29 34 40 50. If the toss goes zealot heavy and without attack upgrades, Thor's health is effectively 552 if I upgraded +2 armor as I did vs Tyler. Yes, I made a miscalculation there in the first step, but since the damage of the Zealot increases by +1 for each attack per offensive upgrade (thus it is effectively a +2 upgrade, right?), it should stay at 29 / 31 / 34 / 37 hits, right? Since Tyler did upgrade his offense as much as you did - I think - the upgrade advantage didnt really apply. Your Thors simply survived because Tyler had Colossi / Immortals which were easy prey for the Strike Cannons and then there werent enough Stalkers and Zealots left to seriously damage the Thors. For a regular game of TvP it could become a standard tactic to snipe the Forge(s) with 1-2 dropships of Marauders just to guarantee this advantage for the main mech army ... and if the Protoss is stupid enough NOT to have a Forge for upgrades it seems to be kinda autowin. The one Achilles heel for Terrans with this Thor heavy build could probably be blink Stalkers ... run in, snipe a Thor and blink out before you lose too much. The mobility could also be used to harrass the bases of the Terran, but as long as the Protoss goes Colossus / Immortal it shouldnt be that difficult if you can manage the strike cannons effectively enough. There is a countermeasure to Stalkers though ... PDD. | ||
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Yaotzin
South Africa4280 Posts
Especially on the big maps, I just don't see how Thors can be viable. Simply too slow and vulnerable to any sort of hit and run or harass. One thing is sure: 8+ colossi is a stupid response! | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On April 11 2011 23:39 Yaotzin wrote: Stalkers and carrier/void are probably both viable - they're both much more mobile than Thors, and do OK at worst in a fight with them. Lots of expands either way, nothing Thors can do about that. Especially on the big maps, I just don't see how Thors can be viable. Simply too slow and vulnerable to any sort of hit and run or harass. One thing is sure: 8+ colossi is a stupid response! There are problems with both carriers and void rays. Carriers use their tiny Interceptors to fight and there will be a swarm of them if you have several Carriers. The Thor area attack against air will most likely kill them by the bunch and that leaves the Protoss with a lot of supply which cant attack (producing Interceptors takes some time). Void Rays are used best for focusing down a target and because of this they will clump up again to be susceptible to the area damage again. Magic boxing the Void Rays wont be as useful because there will be lots of Marines and maybe some SCVs around the Thors as additional targets. For big maps *some* Thors might be useable if you transport them with Medivacs. Just imagine four Thors as a "drop force" (plus maybe some SCVs for repairs?). You want to secure your bases with a big number of Turrets and maybe some Marines / Marauders in a Bunker supported by a Tank or two. If you do that you could just slowly inch your way across the map and none of the maps are that bad ... some more Siege Tanks might be a good idea to help against flanks, but they are always potential traitors who kill your own units. So in the end Thors are probably better than Tanks. | ||
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Yaotzin
South Africa4280 Posts
On April 12 2011 01:27 Rabiator wrote: There are problems with both carriers and void rays. Carriers use their tiny Interceptors to fight and there will be a swarm of them if you have several Carriers. The Thor area attack against air will most likely kill them by the bunch and that leaves the Protoss with a lot of supply which cant attack (producing Interceptors takes some time). Well the idea is to have a mix and engage with the voids. Gotta target the voids or they charge up and vaporize. Would be a fun positioning battle with carriers/void vs thor/viking ^_^ I'd back the more mobile army personally. Void Rays are used best for focusing down a target and because of this they will clump up again to be susceptible to the area damage again. Magic boxing the Void Rays wont be as useful because there will be lots of Marines and maybe some SCVs around the Thors as additional targets. Well micro them...it's not hard to make a line, say, before you engage. Voids have a natural tendency to drift pretty far apart anyway. Thor damage is crap against non-light so you don't need an awesome magic box or anything. For big maps *some* Thors might be useable if you transport them with Medivacs. Just imagine four Thors as a "drop force" (plus maybe some SCVs for repairs?). Jeez that sounds risky :0 It's GG if you get ambushed. What could they do that MMM drops couldn't, other than cost more? You want to secure your bases with a big number of Turrets and maybe some Marines / Marauders in a Bunker supported by a Tank or two. If you do that you could just slowly inch your way across the map and none of the maps are that bad ... some more Siege Tanks might be a good idea to help against flanks, but they are always potential traitors who kill your own units. So in the end Thors are probably better than Tanks. Tanks are way better against a mass of units though eg stalker/zealot. I'd like to see Thorzain play against someone actually playing well. Tyler was a mess. There have been various moments where it looked like pure/mostly mech might make a comeback in TvP but they all faded away. (Goody being the only exception I can think of, he's weeeird.) | ||
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rsvp
United States2266 Posts
Please continue doing what you're doing as your efforts are appreciated, but I think it would help you if you simply played the game more. The more experience you have as a player, the more you'll be able to understand when watching others play, and the better your analysis will be. Now to the games: I thought that this series was pretty straightforward. Each game had basically just 1 engagement which decided the game. Tyler played way too safe and standard. Thorzain (probably expecting Tyler to play safe/standard) was able to capitalize on this with rather greedy and unorthodox builds. Couple this with a few (uncharacteristically) poor decisions and timings on Tyler's part, we had a very one-sided 3-0 for Thorzain. Now game specific: Game 1: I loved Thorzain's build here. I have no clue what Tyler was thinking going mass colossus though, he just seemed like he was lost and didn't know how to respond to mass thors. Nevertheless, his lack of anti-air was unexcusable - forget the thors, he knew there were vikings on the field and he only had 8 stalkers in the late game. Also, he was behind early by doing an unnecessarily safe 3 gate robo followed by sentries and no pressure at all. You did catch the fact that Thorzain knew his build would be weak to 2 base gateway attacks, so the fast armor upgrades along with 3 bunkers was a great move on Thorzain's part. I myself don't have enough experience with mech (especially versions without tanks) so I can only theorycraft as well on how to combat it. Mass gateway/immortal is a possibility, but I still think mass carriers late game is the best answer. The problem with that is how to get there without dying, and that I don't know. Game 2: 3 gate blink sucks imo, end of story. I don't think Tyler prepared this build knowing his opponent would fast expand like you suggested in your analysis, it seemed like it was a reactionary build. Game 3: Like in game 1, Tyler put himself behind with a 3 gate robo without pressure against a pretty fast FE. Thorzain's execution of his game plan was spotless, whereas Tyler's was... really bad. Mass bio is going to beat gateway, especially when Tyler didn't have an eco or upgrade advantage. Tyler should have attacked when he moved out at least just to trade armies, but I guess his 2/2 upgrade timing was off since maybe he forgot his council, and then his 3rd was late. Finally when the engagement occurred, Tyler's control of his army was questionable to say the least, and his force fields could have been much better. | ||
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confusedcrib
United States1307 Posts
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Snowbear
Korea (South)1925 Posts
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confusedcrib
United States1307 Posts
On April 12 2011 07:31 Dente wrote: I don't understand how you can have enough gas to support 2fact thors and a reactor starport. Can anyone explain this? Watch the VOD very closely, he get's the second thor factory with his third base, and did not get a reactor until he scouted colossus. I mention this in saying that he gets so much more comfortable in his play once his third base is up. (My timings might be wrong but it's based on memory and I think that's right). But ya, just stare at the production tab so you can see all of the timings | ||
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dookudooku
255 Posts
On April 12 2011 03:19 Anihc wrote: Game 3: Like in game 1, Tyler put himself behind with a 3 gate robo without pressure against a pretty fast FE. Thorzain's execution of his game plan was spotless, whereas Tyler's was... really bad. Mass bio is going to beat gateway, especially when Tyler didn't have an eco or upgrade advantage. Tyler should have attacked when he moved out at least just to trade armies, but I guess his 2/2 upgrade timing was off since maybe he forgot his council, and then his 3rd was late. Finally when the engagement occurred, Tyler's control of his army was questionable to say the least, and his force fields could have been much better. Tyler was completely broke on gas -- he didn't build assimilators at his natural until his 1/1 upgrades were almost done. I would be really shocked if this was intentional; this mistake probably costed him the game. | ||
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
Mass zealots for blocking strike cannon range. Mass collosus to kill everything. Carriers to waste thor/viking damage on interceptors. I believe thors always prioritize air targets but I am not positive about that. Just some theorycrafting... Maybe zealots, blink stalkers and void rays. Void rays can take thors if spread, blink stalkers to deal with the vikings, zealots to absorb thor ground damage. Might not work amazingly if terran target fires the stalkers with thors before they can take the vikings out becuase the void rays can't really attack vikings because they can just kite back. Further theorcrafting. IMO an even stronger composition is marines with thors rather then hellions as long as you keep them BEHIND the thors. Any composition with mass marines, FORCES either colossus or HT. HT definitely would not be a good tech path against heavy thor so that leaves colossus. By adding in vikings to the composition to help deal with collosus kiting thors this composition is just so deadly. Marines as the mineral dump rather then hellions would also totally screw over any attempt at an air composition, and it would allow for a safer bio based opening. (obviously this is kind of what I have been doing in TvP lately. | ||
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Fyrewolf
United States1533 Posts
On April 11 2011 16:49 sleepingdog wrote: I can't say how glad I am for Tyler getting roflstomped in game 1.....I VERY OFTEN lose vs mass-thor + addition in lategame (mostly banshees, which means I need stalkers since thors lol on phoenixes by definition). Mass-thors are sick, sick strong vs all kinds of protoss units. If the terran goes mass-thor, the gameplay gets completely reverted, back to the way PvT looked like in BW. This means, I think (..herpderp...) you need to expand aggressively early on, you need double forge for getting "some" sort of upgrade advantage and you need to play an aggressive hit/run-based style early on. I've seen Hasu do a blink-stalker+colossus play where he gives vision with colossi and blinks all around the terrans bases. Chargelots do NOT work lategame since any terran with a brain will have blueflame hellions. Yes the hellions will die very, very fast...but not only do they decent damage to chargelots, but what's worse is, they PREVENT the chargelots from attacking the thors. They don't cost gas and are a perfect meatshield to block the charge. Goody does this as part of his standard heavy tank play. Works exactly the same way. As long as the terran has something in front of the mech-units that prevent the zealots from charging onto the money-units, then they profit. I think it's funny how people claim that eventually chargelots will just overwhelm hellions...when all the terran has are pretty much factories. Why again should the protoss be able to produce chargelots so much faster than the terran hellions? Did warpgates suddenly lose the necessary cooldown when producing zealots? So, again people, the problem is not that chargelots were bad vs hellions (well, they are), but that the purpose of chargelots is to charge onto the money-mech-units. With hellions in play they don't. They charge onto hellions while thors roast everything. I did some testing too, and - I know it's a bit ridiculous, but what the hell - in a fun 2v2 with a silver-friend, we ended up in a stalemate vs two terrans, one did purely thors with the aforementioned couple of hellions for anti-chargelots. What I did was immortals/carriers and it worked like a charm. Is it possible to get this combo in a sufficient number in 1v1 on high level of play? I have no clue. But since I saw how hard immortals/carriers own mech I've started having this combo as my ultimate tech-goal vs mech. Strike cannons own immortals and thor splash owns interceptors. BUT they can only do one of these. So either the immortals or the carriers do good damage, and by good I mean the thors just disappear in seconds. I can't find the rep for my life, but I saw one game of Hasu which was just beautiful...he started out with the aforementioned aggressive colossus + blink play, took expansions early and while harassing all over the map he slowly teched to carriers. The terran was simply not able to outright attack until lategame and THEN he was greeted by carriers and had to gg out. Immortal/Carrier is probably extremely expensive, but you struck a point about how to deal with important units. The Thors get overloaded in their role. Collosus+Air does the same to a Terran that only produces Vikings to deal with it, as the Vikings cannot shoot both effectively. ThorZain did get Vikings for anti-air, so I really have to question immortal/carrier as a response, and would probably not be my personal composition choice. But when a unit is overloaded and forced to perform too many roles in an army, it either ignores one of them and creates an opening for you to exploit, or performs all of them simultaneously and inadequately. | ||
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gavinashun
101 Posts
Here is my first pass ... will post 1 more update (after I get home from work lol) * Standard 10 supply, 12 rax, 13 gas (actually 14), scout at 15, orbital/marine * Rax is going to go marine --> TL --> maurader --> readper --> marines for a while * supply @ 18/19 * Command center at natural @ 21 * Bunker/supply @24 * Stim at first 100 gas * Rax 2 @ 27 --> marines * Eng @ 29 (+1att followed by +1armor) * [Phase of 2x marines from rax] * Rax 3 @ 35 * Factory @ 41 * Triple gas at 44 (2 nat, 1 main) * Starport at 54 * Reactor at factory --> tech labs on other rax into heavy maurader production --> double medivac --> Combat shield / shell --> vikings --> armory --> 2nd eng --> 2nd starport --> +2/+2 Something like that. I know that this format is not the most useful - I'll post a better analysis once I play around with it and figure it out a bit better. If anyone else wants to help that would be great! | ||
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Jayrod
1820 Posts
On April 12 2011 08:26 statikg wrote: If tyler had sprinkled a few carriers into his composition it would have been perfect IMO. Mass zealots for blocking strike cannon range. Mass collosus to kill everything. Carriers to waste thor/viking damage on interceptors. I believe thors always prioritize air targets but I am not positive about that. Just some theorycrafting... Maybe zealots, blink stalkers and void rays. Void rays can take thors if spread, blink stalkers to deal with the vikings, zealots to absorb thor ground damage. Might not work amazingly if terran target fires the stalkers with thors before they can take the vikings out becuase the void rays can't really attack vikings because they can just kite back. Further theorcrafting. IMO an even stronger composition is marines with thors rather then hellions as long as you keep them BEHIND the thors. Any composition with mass marines, FORCES either colossus or HT. HT definitely would not be a good tech path against heavy thor so that leaves colossus. By adding in vikings to the composition to help deal with collosus kiting thors this composition is just so deadly. Marines as the mineral dump rather then hellions would also totally screw over any attempt at an air composition, and it would allow for a safer bio based opening. (obviously this is kind of what I have been doing in TvP lately. This is pretty much the perfect example of how NOT to post on the strategy forums post-purge. Sprinkling in carriers? You can't just sprinkle in a unit that takes 2.5 minutes to build each and load up with interceptors. You also cant keep said interceptors alive through thor splash. He was 2 tech tiers away from carriers to begin with. Those comments are kind of an indication that you either didn't watch the games or didn't fully understand what was going on in them. Your advice would be great if Thorzain and Tyler played on fastest map ever though... A big part about this style from thorzain that helped him roll Tyler so bad with it is the simple fact that its new. Protoss need time to figure it out, which is why i've been running tests ad nauseum to find unit comps that not only work, but are accessible. Carriers aren't one of them unless you already have an advantage of some kind. That has always been the issue with them. From Tyler's position in that game with no stargate down. It takes 272 game seconds to get 1 carrier with 8 interceptors built. Thats over 4.5 minutes to get 1 6 food unit out. It wasn't an option for him and its not an option for toss in MOST games (not all). You start getting into cost as well. Name a unit that comes close besides a motherhip? The carrier is 350/250 to begin with AND you have to put another 100 in right up front to load it up AND the units enabling it to do any damage can all be killed (particularly well by stimm'd non-focus firing marines). Carriers are sick and powerful if you can surprise your opponent with them somehow or do some clever build that doesnt somehow outright die early game (1 base carrier builds were fun and effective until people got better at the game). If you can't surprise your opponent or don't already have a lead, any tech switch needed to start countering them will be faster and less expensive. Things I've learned so far from testing: -Void rays are very good against thors if well-controlled and well supported with chargelots/stalkers -Immortals even with strike cannons on the field are very good vs . this unit comp if supplemented by alot of chargelots with attack upgrades to nullify the thor armor upgrades. -Hallucinates do make a big difference but you should hallucinate chargelots and not stalkers, even if PDD concerns you. Ideally you wont want more than a couple of sentries and you should probably stop making them altogether if they are committed to mech. They really don't help other than hallucinate and guardian shield is negligible vs. mech style -Heavy chargelot/blink stalker with no sentry performs surprisingly well... but again in most games you will have some food tied up in those early sentries. Overall, no matter what method you choose to try to combat this style, you will need chargelots. Blue flame performs well against them, but not as well as you would think. Hellion DPS is very finicky and charge exploits that the same way a good surround exploits them with speedlings. | ||
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Weirdkid
Singapore2431 Posts
On April 12 2011 09:43 gavinashun wrote: I really like thorzain's MMMV build in game 3 - love how he times those upgrades, and pushes out at 2-2. I'd really like to crack this build order - anyone want to help? Here is my first pass ... will post 1 more update (after I get home from work lol) * Standard 10 supply, 12 rax, 13 gas (actually 14), scout at 15, orbital/marine * Rax is going to go marine --> TL --> maurader --> readper --> marines for a while * supply @ 18/19 * Command center at natural @ 21 * Bunker/supply @24 * Stim at first 100 gas * Rax 2 @ 27 --> marines * Eng @ 29 (+1att followed by +1armor) * [Phase of 2x marines from rax] * Rax 3 @ 35 * Factory @ 41 * Triple gas at 44 (2 nat, 1 main) * Starport at 54 * Reactor at factory --> tech labs on other rax into heavy maurader production --> double medivac --> Combat shield / shell --> vikings --> armory --> 2nd eng --> 2nd starport --> +2/+2 Something like that. I know that this format is not the most useful - I'll post a better analysis once I play around with it and figure it out a bit better. If anyone else wants to help that would be great! Yea I think you got the ordering kind of right. But I don't think it's really very nice to post it here like that. One of the reasons TSL doesn't release replays is so that players can keep their build orders secret. While I too have copied the shape of that build in my own recent TvPs from studying the VOD, I think they would probably appreciate it if we don't discuss it so openly. | ||
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naventus
United States1337 Posts
Colo is great against helliontank, but 100% a mistake against thor comps. Yea it gets pretty tricky around 8+ thor, but at that point P should be at the cusp of carrier. | ||
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confusedcrib
United States1307 Posts
On April 12 2011 14:18 naventus wrote: P should be able to trade aggressively against thors; the build is extremely easy to scout. Going heavy gateway with VR. If you spread your VR, they act as meat shields for the ground army, destroying thor DPS. Of course, they dont do efficient damage this way, but that's why you need carriers. Colo is great against helliontank, but 100% a mistake against thor comps. Yea it gets pretty tricky around 8+ thor, but at that point P should be at the cusp of carrier. The only way I can see this being viable is if you can out expand your opponent to support the air necessary to overcome vikings. Perhaps you can use double forge gateway as survival to getting your fourth or fifth base up and then go carrier all at once :/ but it seems very difficult to deal with. | ||
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