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Spoilers!
ThorzaIN played 3 different styles today against Tyler and won with each one. I wish the analysis could have more information on what made him decide to go with the different styles, if the replays get released at some point than I can add in more information about what ThorzaIN sees to make his build decisions, but lacking his vision only I am forced to assume that they were map specific builds. With that being said ThorzaIN brings some diversity to the matchup and some great decision making that every Terran can learn from. Tyler also teaches us some builds that do not work as counters to certain styles.
Let me just briefly say that Tyler plays amazingly, he is one of the safest players out there and hammers out his build to be safe against everything. I'm only saying this up front because this analysis does focus on Thorzain more than Tyler and I don't want people to think that I am dissing Tyler as a player, in fact, Tyler probably has the best style to ladder with.
Game One: Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF Liquid'Tyler on Xel'Naga Caverns
+ Show Spoiler +Thorzain opens with the standard timings for a 1-1-1 opening but gets the fastest possible siege tank by switching the factory for the tech lab on the barracks, while Tyler seems to be doing his standard vs. terran 3 gate robo expand, with his fast sentry. For more on Tyler's opening and it's vulnerabilities check out the TLO vs. Tyler analysis. Thorzain then expands behind it, builds a starport on the tech lab, and begins an armory. Thorzain immediately gets a raven while using a hellion to scout his opponent at 7:15. The expansion goes out, two bunkers are begun, and plus one armor is started for Thorzain as Tyler's expansion goes down and he begins +1 attack. Tyler is going for the very standard colossus opening while Thorzain is getting a 3rd bunker, a viking, a second factory, and a reactor on the barracks. It looks like Thorzain is going to being going thor viking, with some marine support.
Thorzain switches the reactor for the factory and begins pumping helions and starts +2 armor. Tyler and Thorzain begin their thirds at the same time and Thorzain adds a third factory while Tyler is going double robo colossus. Upon scouting with a viking Thorzain gets a reactor on his starport in response to the double robo colossus. Thorzain added on a third factory and begins pre-igniter and 250 mm cannons as +2 armor finishes, and Tyler's +2 weapons finishes.
Tyler pressures Thorzain's third but Thorzain manages to get it up. Thorzain is able to kite some zealots and do some major damage to their health, as Tyler adds a third robotics and 4 more gateways, bringing his number up to 7. Thorzain tears apart Tyler's colossus with his vikings and strike cannons. Tyler tries to rebuild his third base as Thorzain gets his fourth base and begins banshee production. Thorzain at this point is able to just roll over what is left of Tyler's army and force a gg.
Analysis:
+ Show Spoiler +Thorzain played this one out beautifully. Important subtleties of Thorzain's build are: (I'm only going over the subtleties because anyone can watch the production bar on the VOD and see how to do it)
- Hellion Scout while building the starport on the tech lab used for one siege tank. The hellion let's you see if your opponent has expanded yet (indicating number of bunkers needed) as well as unit composition, an early hint of what will come later (gateway style or robo style). The fast raven is very important because having to get an e-bay for turrets in case of DTs would eat into the build immensly, especially because you don't need the e-bay for anything else
- The immediate armor upgrade allows to hold any 6 gate all in or something that is extremely zealot heavy. Up until infernal pre - igniter is researched mass gateway zealot is a hell of a problem for this build, that's why you see 3 or 4 bunkers go down by Thorzain (I think). The build requires a slow build up of thors and so is vulnerable to early wg or immortal pushes. Once Thorzain's third completes he seems to feel much more comfortable, adding on the extra factory, salvaging the bunkers, and beginning strike cannon and pre igniter. This tells me that against a more aggressive opponent this build may have some issues.
- The reactor starport vikings are ESSENTIAL to this build. They force colossus to not out micro the thors with their range. The two things that Protoss has that are best against thors are immortals and void rays. The strike cannons combined with the pre igniter can do okay against the immortals, but otherwise this build is too vulnerable to immortal colossus, or immortal void ray. Not to mention, judging by the banshee production beginning late into the game, I suspect that Thorzain would begin going sky terran as a good use of his viking count.
- The viking scouting the double robo colossus. I think that if Thorzain were to see a high immortal count he may want to get a few ghosts, combined with the 250 mm cannon he should be able to deal with it.
I think thorzain's build is vulnerable to two things, early aggression before his third base finishes and what Day9 touched on briefly at the end, the mass gateway with immortal style. The good thing about this style by Thorzain for protoss is that it is really easy to scout out and Thorzain can't really pressure you with it. I think that Tyler was really anxious about the style by Thorzain and because of that attacked into it. I think the best answer to this style would be double forge (otherwise zealots will be even worse) mass gateway, use warp prisms to abuse mobility while expanding and building up a big immortal zealot stalker force. Blue flame hellions are good against Zealots, but Zealots are not zerglings and that is important to remember. A blue flame hellion does 9.6 dps v light while a single marine with stim does 10.5 (using liquipedia's numbers). This means that if you spread your zealots to minimize splash damage the Zealots with charge should do okay against blue flame hellions. You need them to tank damage for the immortals and stalkers to go to work. If you're a protoss and scout a terran not getting vikings up then you can get away with void rays as well. The real power in gateway robo though is that you can rebuild much faster than your opponent and use warp prisms to abuse mobility and whittle down his forces.
I think what's even more dangerous about Thorzain's style is the late game banshee viking tech switch. I would like to see him do this again to see how this works out, but I'm having a hard time even theory crafting how to deal with that transition. Let me know what you guys think, because I haven't seen too much of this style so I'm not sure what works best.
Game Two: Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF Liquid'Tyler on Terminus RE
+ Show Spoiler +Thorzain goes for a 1 rax FE while Tyler is again getting two gases up but is this time getting two more gateways and a twilight councl hidden in the gas rather than his typical robo play. Thorzain went barracks gas barracks gas, a little bit safer variant of some of the Koreans who immediately get both gases and a factory. Tyler moves stalkers acorss the map as blink is finishing and a proxy pylon is getting set up to watch the high ground.
Thorzain has gotten a third barracks and a fast stim. Tyler has cut probe production at this point and does an amazing blink past for vision and gets the stalkers on the high ground. The stimmed marines with the SCVs to tank damage are able to kill off the stalkers and reinforcements. At this point Thorzain is ahead in army size and expansion while Tyler is forced into getting a late expo. Thorzain is going two factory tank with three barracks marine maurader. Tyler is just too far behind to hold Thorzain's counter attack and Tyler is forced to gg.
Analysis:
+ Show Spoiler +This game is fairly simple, as essentially Tyler's build was meant to kill Thorzain and it was damn close doing it, but all Thorzain had to do was not die to be ahead. This game teaches two important things.
1. It is important to recognize that Tyler's build is extremely well timed out and is a good build to know against Terrans who you are confident will fast expand on this map. Had ThorZaIn done the more Korean version of that fast expand (immediately getting double gas and rushing for tanks, or double expanded like a couple weeks ago, he would have been dead.
2. This is why you tech slowly when 1 rax fast expanding, had Thorzain gone straight for the siege tanks without marine and stim support, he would have very likely died to Tyler's push. Always be sure to add on extra barrack before double gassing. If you want more examples of how terran should tech after fast expanding check out game one of the GSTL 2 finals and compare it to the MKP vs. MC series
Game Three: Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF Liquid'Tyler on Metalopolis
+ Show Spoiler +Tyler again goes double gas at standard timing and going for his standard 3 gate robo while Thorzain appears to be going for a one rax fast expand with a tech lab. Thorzain makes a now common move of building a reaper to be able to scout Tyler's base and expansion timing. Thorzain begins an extremely fast +1 weapons with only 3 barracks while teching to factory and starport. Thorzain is continuing to macro on 3 rax and a reactor starport while Tyler is going double forge with 5 warp gates and one robo that is continuing to build observers. Both players are fairly even in harvestors, but terran has a notable advantage at this point due to the earlier expo timing. Thorzain gets in an aggressive position as +1 infantry armor, combat shield, and concussive shell all finish. Thorzain begins an armory, a second forge, and a second starport.
At this point Thorzain is actually even with Tyler in upgrades. Tyler and Thorzain both begin third bases with Thorzain slightly ahead. Thorzain begins three more barracks and Tyler is looking to get aggressive with 22 but pulls back. Thorzain's 22 finishes just after Tylers as he begins 33. Thorzaine is continuing to get more vikings and just landing them, preparing for eventual colossus. Due to Thorzain's nullification of the upgrade advantage that is crucial to going gateway against MMM, Thorzain crushes Tyler's army and takes the win.
Analysis:
+ Show Spoiler +If you play a standard MMM TvP, go back, watch this replay, and watch Thorzain's timings. He has a beautiful timing push line up early on with +1 +1, combat shield, and concussive shell all finishing at the same time. If this timing push doesn’t work he has a 2nd e-bay, an armory, and +1 armor all finish at the same time to begin +2+2. Even then he is smart enough to go viking preemptively because it is very standard for protoss to transition into. I have been struggling for a very long time to safely get upgrades as Terran in the matchup and this game absolutely showed me how to balance tech, upgrades, and army size perfectly.
If you are going mass gateway against Terran you need an upgrade advantage or else pure gateway is simply terrible against MMM. I'm not sure if colossus would have been the correct answer since Thorzain was blindly preparing for them anyways. I think that this was just Thorzain playing the standard TvP style and just out macroing Tyler (which I thought was damn near impossible).
I also think that Tyler may have been on tilt in this game due to how badly he just kind of died to very standard player (something that he is normally very good against). I also think that ThorzaIN's build this match would have destroyed AdelScott, we'll see if QXC employed any of these special tactics tomorrow!
Prior Analysis:
Sucker Punch! Some Basic Advice Given in the Context of the Movie
MarineKingPrime.WE vs. oGsMC
EG.Idra vs. TLAF Liquid'Huk
TLAF Liquid'Tyler vs. TLAF Liquid'TLO
MLG Dallas Group B Analysis and Predictions
EG.Idra vs. coL.Cruncher
GSTL 2 Finals
IMLosira's Ability to hold all ins as Zerg
GSL Finals oGsMC vs. ST_July
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Very good write-up. I felt extremely disappointed with Tyler's last game of the series. All of his gas timings, expansion timings, and upgrade timings were way off. It seemed like he just tried to do a build that he had no experience with and he ended up getting crushed. This was not the Tyler I was used to watching. Sad performance, lets hope he can improve his play in the near future.
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On April 10 2011 12:34 Hybris wrote:
Very good write-up. I felt extremely disappointed with Tyler's last game of the series. All of his gas timings, expansion timings, and upgrade timings were way off. It seemed like he just tried to do a build that he had no experience with and he ended up getting crushed. This was not the Tyler I was used to watching. Sad performance, lets hope he can improve his play in the near future.
Absolutely, this is why I mention that I have to assume that he was on tilt. I've seen him go double forge with impeccable colossus transitions and timing pushes with untouchable macro. The last game just didn't live up to that. I mean no one expected Thorzain to out macro Tyler going into this.
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The last game Thorzain got a good lead with a greedier opening which just snowballed from that point.
IMO.
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The Mechplay in game 1 was amazing,never thought it could work against protoss.
But if Tyler went heavy immo thats another story.but on the second big encounter it showed a possibility of Mech or call it Biomech vs Deathball.
The Armor be4 weapons upgrade should be explained from a "pros - Theorycrafter" pov.
Completly or almost skipping Tank/siege was amazing.
Perhaps someone figured out a way 2 beat the Deathball.but perhaps i´m only dreaming
This game is studyworthy!
Hope GoOdy watched this,and prepares 4 Naniwa.
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I really think it's enough to say that Tyler played super-conservative and reacted poorly to the unit comps he scouted. The three gate robo into expand on Metalopolis was really inexcusable.
I will say that one thing that really impressed me by Thorzain was his attention to upgrades. He was equal to or ahead of Tyler in both games 1 and 3. Matching a protoss with chrono on upgrades is damn near impossible.
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No offense, but I feel some of what you say is somewhat abusrd
A blue flame hellion does 9.6 dps v light while a single marine with stim does 10.5 (using liquipedia's numbers). This means that if you spread your zealots to minimize splash damage the Zealots with charge should do okay against blue flame hellions.
How would you even go about doing this? How many Zealots are you talking about? 5? Then sure, but when you have 12-20 Zealots, how is it reasonable to spread out Zealots such that they do decently against 7-10+ Blue flame Hellions? on Xel'Naga?
- The immediate armor upgrade allows to hold any 6 gate all in or something that is extremely zealot heavy.
6 Gate all-ins are rarely ever Zealot heavy, they are Stalker/Sentry and take advantage of the range + force field to cut off units and deal with them in manageable chunks, which can't really be done against a Thor. The Thor already does amazing DPS, it just makes more sense to get the armor upgrade, keeping it alive longer gives significantly more bang for your back than having it deal more damage, unlike Colossus where you want them to kill the enemy army very quickly. Getting the armor for Thors is to most likely draw out the battle for as long as possible
You didn't even try to justify Tylers unit composition, yet went off in a tangent about what he should have done. I'm fairly sure Tylers goal was to get enough Colossus to burst down Thors from range, Immortals are very clunky, especially on Xel'Naga where there isn't a lot of room to move around, which the same applies for Thors, I think the general idea he was trying to get at was being able to burst down thors with superior range and position
Then you fail to mention ThorZains options if Tyler didn't go Colossus, he would have been open to mass Banshees,more Thors or even Tanks, which would deal with a gateway/Immortal composition much better.
I think overall your analysis is very poor, but I noticed in your last thread much smarter/better players did their own analysis of the situation, I'm not sure what I would have done, but I'll wait with bated breath to hear what players like Anihc think, because I'm curious to know what a more appropriate response would be
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On April 10 2011 13:19 Dommk wrote:
How would you even go about doing this? How many Zealots are you talking about? 5? Then sure, but when you have 12-20 Zealots, how is it reasonable to spread out Zealots such that they do decently against 7-10+ Blue flame Hellions? on Xel'Naga?
He's not talking about microing them individually, and yes, they're going to clump up on Thors and shit. But you can make a concave with them around a choke and such, and when attack in, they won't go in as a big conga lone but rather in smaller groups. I think this is what the OP is referring to, and he's right. It does help.
ETA: Thors and tanks don't synergize so well together against zealots because the splash from seige tanks just wrecks thors. Tyler's biggest fault in that game was not having enough zealots to keep the Thors out of range of the colossi, and the reason he didn't have enough charglots is because he took super-late expansions. His play was just too conservative against an opponent willing to expand quickly and forcefully like Thorzain.
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On April 10 2011 13:28 GeorgeForeman wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 13:19 Dommk wrote:
How would you even go about doing this? How many Zealots are you talking about? 5? Then sure, but when you have 12-20 Zealots, how is it reasonable to spread out Zealots such that they do decently against 7-10+ Blue flame Hellions? on Xel'Naga? He's not talking about microing them individually, and yes, they're going to clump up on Thors and shit. But you can make a concave with them around a choke and such, and when attack in, they won't go in as a big conga lone but rather in smaller groups. I think this is what the OP is referring to, and he's right. It does help.
But how does that even make them work decently? Blue flames in this type of build rarely ever extend themselves, how you engage isn't quite as important, it is like PainUsers Thor/Banshee/Blue Flame build from awhile ago, the blue flames sit at the feet of the Thors and roast away the Zealots.
ETA: Thors and tanks don't synergize so well together against zealots because the splash from seige tanks just wrecks thors. Tyler's biggest fault in that game was not having enough zealots to keep the Thors out of range of the colossi, and the reason he didn't have enough charglots is because he took super-late expansions. His play was just too conservative against an opponent willing to expand quickly and forcefully like Thorzain.
But if you were going for a Stalker/Immortal composition, then Seige tanks target firing Stalkers/Immortals would be much better, not saying it was his only option though, but he certainly would have had a MUCH bigger ground presence as he wouldn't have needed those 12+ Viking
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On April 10 2011 13:00 Riskr wrote:The Mechplay in game 1 was amazing,never thought it could work against protoss. But if Tyler went heavy immo thats another story.but on the second big encounter it showed a possibility of Mech or call it Biomech vs Deathball. The Armor be4 weapons upgrade should be explained from a "pros - Theorycrafter" pov. Completly or almost skipping Tank/siege was amazing. Perhaps someone figured out a way 2 beat the Deathball.but perhaps i´m only dreaming This game is studyworthy! Hope GoOdy watched this,and prepares 4 Naniwa.
Its a very similair style to the style jinro used against MC when he won, although MC was using a different army composition, the army composition of thorzain and jinro was quite similair, also 250mm cannons on immortals is OP 
the only thing tyle really could have done against that is gotten out voidrays to take down the thors since immortals dont really do shit when the thor has 250mm cannons. thats the only thing i can think of, i cant remember how many vikings thorzain had , if any, but if he was light on the vikings going void rays would have for sure been the best option, ive held off many a thor push with void rays.
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On April 10 2011 13:05 GeorgeForeman wrote:
I really think it's enough to say that Tyler played super-conservative and reacted poorly to the unit comps he scouted. The three gate robo into expand on Metalopolis was really inexcusable.
I will say that one thing that really impressed me by Thorzain was his attention to upgrades. He was equal to or ahead of Tyler in both games 1 and 3. Matching a protoss with chrono on upgrades is damn near impossible.
yea 2 gate robo into quick expand i understand to be super safe, but adding on that third gate after thorzains fast expo, he had to be on tilt it didnt even make sense.
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On April 10 2011 13:19 Dommk wrote:
No offense, but I feel some of what you say is down right absurd and quite frankly stupid.
No offense, but if I had a dime for every post that had some great content but felt the need to open with a useless flame I would be so rich that I would hire a legion of moderators to edit out the first sentence of every post.
To begin this reply I'm going to state that I sit and write this all at once, so there is a flow in my head of analysis, which is why I need to clarify some things that don't immediately make sense because I thought that it was clear what I meant, even though it isn't always.
I was talking about spreading out zealots into a concave to help deal with blue flame hellions, I was responding to how most protoss' would see blue flame hellions and just cut zealots all together, the purpose was not to be like "OMG LOL ZEALOTS RAPE BLUE FLAME HELLIONS" but rather to put things in context, that Zealots with charge in a concave can do alright against them, and you shouldn't cut zealots completely out. I even mention this in reference to "zealot stalker immortal" as a composition, again the purpose is just to say that zealots aren't useless, not that they are good.
Next I say this "6 gate all in or something that is extremely zealot heavy" which you read as "6 gate all in which is something that is extremely zealot heavy." The point was that the +1 armor as well as bunker count allows for the reduction of losses to gateway all ins moreso than the unit composition of them.
I understand what Tyler was trying, I didn't realize it was necessary to bring up "oh colossus didn't work" when "oh colossus didn't work" I even mention that the vikings made it so the colossus couldn't kite the thors, almost like understood what he was doing :O
But thank you for treating me with no respect, I really appreciate that.
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No offense, but if I had a dime for every post that had some great content but felt the need to open with a useless flame I would be so rich that I would hire a legion of moderators to edit out the first sentence of every post.
I edited that out, because I felt it was too much, you are right, it wasn't warranted and it didn't really sit well with me after posting.
To begin this reply I'm going to state that I sit and write this all at once, so there is a flow in my head of analysis, which is why I need to clarify some things that don't immediately make sense because I thought that it was clear what I meant, even though it isn't always.
I was talking about spreading out zealots into a concave to help deal with blue flame hellions, I was responding to how most protoss' would see blue flame hellions and just cut zealots all together, the purpose was not to be like "OMG LOL ZEALOTS RAPE BLUE FLAME HELLIONS" but rather to put things in context, that Zealots with charge in a concave can do alright against them, and you shouldn't cut zealots completely out. I even mention this in reference to "zealot stalker immortal" as a composition, again the purpose is just to say that zealots aren't useless, not that they are good.
But how does that make them decent? Arching your Zealots is something you always do against blue flames, but again, ThorZain never intended do use his blue flames as if he would vs's Lings or Templars, much like painusers Thor/Banshee/Hellion/Viking, the Hellions sit at the feet/just behind the thors, how you engage with your zealots has no effect on the battle, when they engage the damage dealt will be all the same and you can't avoid it.
Next I say this "6 gate all in or something that is extremely zealot heavy" which you read as "6 gate all in which is something that is extremely zealot heavy." The point was that the +1 armor as well as bunker count allows for the reduction of losses to gateway all ins moreso than the unit composition of them.
The armor upgrade isn't eve halfway done before a 6gate would ever hit, he was just rushing armor upgrades as fast as he could (safely), he got +2 immediately after +1 finished, yes it deals with some zealot heavy composition but the gameplan was just to have thors survive as long as possible.
I understand what Tyler was trying, I didn't realize it was necessary to bring up "oh colossus didn't work" when "oh colossus didn't work" I even mention that the vikings made it so the colossus couldn't kite the thors, almost like understood what he was doing :O
But you make no effort to even try watch the game from his point of view. You didn't note how Tyler built triple observers and cannons in his mineral line, you didn't make an effort to note how Tyler was reacting to what he was seeing, you didn't note how Tyler manages to get his third up a full 1.5mins faster than ThorZane despite being behind early.
You didn't note how ThorZane had a massive early game timing open when he was just sitting with 8 marines, a raven and a siege tank 8mins in.
You didn't note how ThorZane didn't even get siege mode
You didn't note how ThorZane was sitting on 3 production facilities 9mins into the game, a single barracks factory and Starport, how most likely any sort of early/mid game army trade would favor Tyler.
You didn't note how from Tylers point of view, the ENTIRE thing resembled PainUsers Banshee/Thor/Raven/Hellion/Viking build (or a 2base Banshee/Raven/Tank/SCV push), with the raven out to deny scouting and seeing a thor, he could only assume that Banshees were a threat, it wasn't "easy" to see what ThorZane was doing at all.
You didn't analyze this game at all, you just noted down some things that happen through out the build, (the reactor-ed Starport wasn't essential, it was a reaction to the double robotics bay, he got the reactor for it like 14mins in to the game) and came to a conclusion on what Tyler should have done.
There is a lot more to this game and frankly I'm waiting for a good Protoss/Terran to really have a look at this and give their opinion, but I'm very interested to see a decent way to combat this, utilizing what information you gain through out the game.
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Actually colossi would have worked nicely if he had way way way more zealots. Thorzain was banking of diminished chargelot numbers due to blue flame hellions. It's a mechanic that I try to exploit in my TvP game plan, too (though I do it because marauders suck hard vs chargelots).
It's true that blue flame hellions are great vs chargelots, BUT not so much in an open battle, because their DPS isn't that great and they have a gigantic attack cooldown. With those colossi numbers, hellion lifespan is really short and that means you can have many zealots wrapping around the thors locking them in place and removing the chance to use their 250mm cannon on the colossi. That few vikings take forever to but down the colossi (they killed 2 in total in that fight) so the zealots and colossi should win vs the thors. Even if it's just an relatively even trade, tyler would have won that because as long as he has 1 colossi and stalkers he can shut down mining at the gold.
Also I have to rewatch the main battle of set 3, as I have no idea why thorzain won there. Even without charge, the protoss should have won that confrontation especially after the fail stim in the beginning.
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Although there were a lot of different strategies going on in the games I feel it all came down to Tyler going 3 gate robo vs a FE from Thorzain. In every game Tyler could've went 1 gate FE and been totally safe. If you're not going to FE and get that much tech/production off of 1 base you basicly have to do damage/all-in or you're behind. Now he was playing catch-up the entire game because Thorzain had his 2nd base mining so much sooner.
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I feel like you completely missed Tyler's scouting in g1, he had cannon or observer and 1-2 stalkers in every mineral line and the raven effectively denied any scouting, I'm not even sure he saw the thor number until Thorzain moved out or if he checked the armory more than once. His push in g2 was well timed, but I feel like he could squeeze out the expo sooner, you could see him float around 600 minerals for a solid minute, or add an extra gateway which would possibly break thorzain.
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Concerning game 1 armor over attack upgrade. My guess is that there is no reduction of the number of hits you need for a Gateway unit with a Thor. You always need three hits for a Zealot / Stalker. Though you have to put the Hellions in the picture, but they are mainly a mineral sink / meatshield.
I am aware that a Thor can two-shit a Zealot with +3, but this asumes that the Zealot has no upgrades by himself, which is not practical. Also +3 is nothing to bank on.
The point where he scans realizes that Tyler was going for mass Colossus is very important as you have pointed out. Ghosts would have been the other route, but you cannot get both (Reactor Vikings + Ghosts) and expect to have a decent core force of Thors. Gas allocation is key when going Mech.
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While by no means I'm saying ThorZain played poorly, I kind of think Tyler played every one of the three matches completely wrong.
In the first game, he could have expanded much faster than he did, he also had a terrible unit composition for the Mech build ThorZain went for. The game with Blink Stalker push, simply warping in 3 Zealots instead of 3 Stalkers would have, without a doubt, won him the game; instead he got bogged down with the SCVs and pure Stalker is terrible in such a situation. The last game, again a single bad decision turned a somewhat even game into a loss - had he researched Charge instead of Blink, he would most likely take the last big fight as he was so Zealot heavy but they're so useless without Charge, and Blink wasn't used at all. On top of that there were a lot of really questionable decisions, it felt like Tyler was being really indecisive, afraid to take any kind of risks be it defensively or offensively, and ultimately losing because he's not committing to anything and letting ThorZain play exactly the way he wants unhindered.
I like Tyler's play a lot in general, however can't help but feel he's been very out of shape in MLG & now this set.
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Please put a spoiler in the thread title.
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I would like to echo the sentiment that your analysis is not really a helpful one. If you were to call it a summary we would be having a totally different discussion.
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Watching Tyler in these games it looked like he was playing in his own magical little world, he didn't show any signs of adapting to what his opponent was doing - I wouldn't call Tyler a creative player to begin with but this was just another level of bad.
If you let your opponent dictate the pace of the game then you need to play reactively.
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Tyler played absolutely terribly. There's nothing else to say about the series lol.
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Game 1 was impressive just because Thors will rocket knuckle every single warp gate unit in less than 3 volleys since Thors do typeless damage. I'm not sure if zlots would have helped that much.
Afterall 30*2*3 = 180 which is more HP than all gateway units as long as you get some basic weapon upgrades.
However, there's a reason why you can't go that sort of Thor-mech straight off and that's because its quite hard to defend early immortal pushes and void rays. Predy has a mech thread which he experiments with different comps and transitions:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=194401
Tyler played kinda disappointingly - almost seems like he expected Thorzain to be a cookie cutter Terran - and Thorzain played very well.
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On April 10 2011 21:53 Spekulatius wrote:
Please put a spoiler in the thread title.
Are you kidding? Why do you open such threads like
[D] Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF Liquid'Tyler (Analysis)
?
Just to bother the OP?
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On April 10 2011 22:26 baeric wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 21:53 Spekulatius wrote:
Please put a spoiler in the thread title. Are you kidding? Why do you open such threads like ? Just to bother the OP?
I am not kidding. Why so angry?
And I don't know how big your side bar is, but all it said for me was "[D] Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF...". Not having seen the TSL matches this weekend, not knowing who's playing except for MC and not seeing a spoiler in the title, I clicked it, curious at to what expected me. Could have been Jinro, TLO, Haypro or, yeah, Tyler. And I guess I'm not the only one who hasn't seen the matches yet, so a careful spoiler is never out of place, is it?
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Just a small micro thing I noticed when watching the game and which I confirmed later after rewatching the VODs: I think Tyler lost the battle in game 3 due to his (from my pov at least) completely unreasonable pullback mid-battle.
The battle started like normal with Thorzain stim-kiting until FFs were thrown. Since Thorzain couldnt kite the zealots his army became static and just kept shooting, and the zealots were starting to get a good amount of surface area to hit Thorzains MM/Vikings on. And just when things started to look good..... Tyler pulled back (!!!). Stopping the VOD the exact second of the zealots turning around shows a 174-171 food advantage in Thorzains favor. Eventually the zealots run back, but some stalkers actually run in front and continue to shoot, which further fucks up Tylers positioning where you want zealots if front, sentries in the middle and stalkers in the back. Then the zealots turn around again, but as they turn around they're not very well lined up and theres a lot of stalkers in the way so the zealots kinda get funneled in a small line towards the MM army. I paused the VOD again as the first zealot reaches the first MM unit. Food count? 180-151.
So in that pullback, Tyler lost 20 worth of food while possibly killing nothing (Thorzain gaining 6food obviously from newly started units in his base which didnt contribute to the battle) and furthermore it fucked up his unit positioning where you want zealots/sentries/stalkers in that order. So the pullback was probably worth more than 20 food.
Wouldve liked to see the result of that battle without the pulling back. I think it would at least become an army trade, possibly even a victory for Tyler.
Pics:
As he starts to pull back, you can see all zealots turned the wrong way (why???)
http://i52.tinypic.com/142zn5w.jpg
After zealots reaching the army again. Look at the terrible zealot positioning and how even a few zealots are stuck in the back.
http://i56.tinypic.com/29c3orm.jpg
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Tyler's composition never had a chance against Thorzain's in G1. He had some ridiculous number of Colossi (close to 10) and almost no gateway support. Thorzain had as many Vikings as Tyler had Stalkers, enough energy for 2 PDDs and Thors with Strike Cannon simply annihilate Colossi. I think he would've needed a lot of Void Rays and Immortals to deal with the Thors.
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You pull them back so they can live, when you force field like that and engage with all your zealots, it kind of defeats the purpose of forcefielding to cut his army in half, everything that would be unable to attack normally would be attacking all the Zealots, so you pull your Zealots back and let your Stalkers do the DPS whilst they tank damage.
The amount of Stalkers he had in that concave were sufficient to take out the Viking, you don't need to needlessly throw away zealots there.
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Immortals are ok vs Thors when the numbers are low. In g1 immortals would have been a terrible choice, with range 5, no colossi support and strike cannons ? I doubt any immortal could have shot a Thor.
Colossi were a good choice, however once the zealots went down Thorzain could moved his Thors and use strike canons (range 7) versus these 9 range colossi. Zealots, colossi, void rays is a good composition against the mech army of Thorzain, you can try use the higher mobility of this composition to fight in a better position (the position in which Tyler fought was one of the worst, all of the Thors could shot from the beginning of the fight).
However this strategy on Xel Naga is quite smart because of the gold expansion position, you can't exploit the low mobility of Thors easily. I guess you have to take one of the side expansions (preferably the right one in this game, to abuse mobility) and wait for the gold to run down while counter attacking every time the terran moves. Ultimately this should wear him down or you should be able to pick some fights in an advantageous position (when all thors all lined up) to slowly reduce the Thors number.
I suspect the armor upgrades for Thors were more to protect him from reactionary void rays than to counter gateway units damage (though it was useful).
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On April 10 2011 23:37 Dommk wrote:You pull them back so they can live, when you force field like that and engage with all your zealots, it kind of defeats the purpose of forcefielding to cut his army in half, everything that would be unable to attack normally would be attacking all the Zealots, so you pull your Zealots back and let your Stalkers do the DPS whilst they tank damage. The amount of Stalkers he had in that concave were sufficient to take out the Viking, you don't need to needlessly throw away zealots there.
Did you read what I said?
Are you actually trying to argue that a pullback which cost him 20food + a good zealot/sentry/stalker lineup (look at how they were lined up in the 1st screenshot comapred to 2nd) actually was a good thing? The stalkers pulleed back too and were barely attacking (hence thorzain going up in food and not down). How can you argue it was enough dps if the other player doesnt lose anything?
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On April 10 2011 22:33 Kreb wrote:
Wouldve liked to see the result of that battle without the pulling back. I think it would at least become an army trade, possibly even a victory for Tyler.
You must be joking... the only thing that the zealots would have killed if not pulled back were a few landed vikings and they would have taken additional fire from a clump of marines behind the FF not to mention the marauders on the right.
It didn't change the outcome at all, if he had attacked the vikings the only difference in the end result would be zealots dieing quicker and a few vikings dead.
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Why not a heavy Stargate play against the Mech on G1? Instead of throwing down Robotics Bay and extra Robo Facilities, why not two or three Stargates and Chrono Out mostly VRs with a few Phoenix to handle Vikings? VRs do extremely well against Thors if controlled properly, and you'd have the opportunity to transition into Carriers later on as well.
I'm not sure how viable it would be at a pro level since we haven't seen many Mech plays, but mass Robotics plays don't seem very strong against Viking + Thor w/Strike Cannon and Gateway + Immortal is vulnerable to Hellion + Thor + Raven for PDD.
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On April 10 2011 23:48 Kreb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 23:37 Dommk wrote:You pull them back so they can live, when you force field like that and engage with all your zealots, it kind of defeats the purpose of forcefielding to cut his army in half, everything that would be unable to attack normally would be attacking all the Zealots, so you pull your Zealots back and let your Stalkers do the DPS whilst they tank damage. The amount of Stalkers he had in that concave were sufficient to take out the Viking, you don't need to needlessly throw away zealots there. Did you read what I said? Are you actually trying to argue that a pullback which cost him 20food + a good zealot/sentry/stalker lineup (look at how they were lined up in the 1st screenshot comapred to 2nd) actually was a good thing? God...
I'm not saying his execution was perfect, but that was most likely what he was trying to do, he was probably frustrated with himself because of it, like how JP mentioned in STOG, how you are not doing what you want to do and you realize it but you can't do anything about it.
If you look at the forcefields in your Picture, Thorzaines MMM army got pushed back,his sentries still have a lot of energy left on them, and everything outside the forcefields cannot attack the Sentry/Stalker, but the Stalker/Sentry that is left un-attackable by the majority of the MMM army has more than enough DPS to quickly take out what is separated by the forcefields before they run out.
In that situation, you want your Zealots to get a few hits in, but just before the MMM army starts to run around the sides of the forcefields you want to pull them back ASAP, before they get a chance to hit the Zealots, even without the Zealots you have the DPS to get a good trade on whatever is in the forcefields. Sure if he left them he would have gotten all the viking and marines, but that isn't a good trade.
It was just a poor engagement overall--his execution wasn't the best, but what he did was perfectly fine, his Zealots didn't have charge and if you left them to keep attacking then as soon as the forcefields wore off, he would have been a sitting duck in such open space.
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I watched the games pretty late last night so hopefully I can still remember correctly and not look stupid.
First game I feel like Tyler just completely lacked scouting. I don't remember him scouting after expanding and it's like he never knew he was going against Thors. If he did know then going mass colossus vs mass thors with 250 mm cannon(which you have to expect vs mass thors) is just a terrible decision.
I don't really remember the second game.
Third game, not much to say about it, he expanded really late, his build wasn't as top notch as I expect from Tyler and he just never was into that game.
Overall expo timings cost Tyler the most, in every games Thorzain expanded faster and Tyler never really contained him so he could get his expo up faster. 3 gate robo isn't a build to FE at all. If the Terran FE you have to either contain him so he can't get his CC to the expo or just punish him for being greedy and in game 1 and 3 Tyler did neither.
Tyler is one of my 3 favorite players so it sucks to say it straight up, but he just played terrible the whole series... Hopefully we get to see the real Tyler soon and I can't wait to hear what he has to say in SOTG.
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Sweden164 Posts
I can explain the armor upgrades in the first game:
It's mostly to be able to fight heavy gateway units compositions, as they deal relatively low damage but shoot fast (zealots have 2 attacks for example). This lets me worry more about the actual "power units" so to say, the units that aren't gateway units. And as long as i can counter them properly (colossus/air = vikings, mass immortals = more Thor heavy) I feel comfortable in the big fight.
Another important factor to point out is that I tried in the unit test map, and attack upgrades doesn't change how many hits a Thor kills either a stalker or a zealot, nor how many hits a Hellion needs to kill a zealot. So even though it will affect somewhat, since I didn't test all the various X Thor hits X hellion hits on unit X with and without attack upgrades, it's fairly useless. Armor however, lets Hellions take 1 more zealot and stalker hits, and lets Thors take many more zealot/stalker hits.
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On April 11 2011 00:19 Thorzain wrote:
I can explain the armor upgrades in the first game:
It's mostly to be able to fight heavy gateway units compositions, as they deal relatively low damage but shoot fast (zealots have 2 attacks for example). This lets me worry more about the actual "power units" so to say, the units that aren't gateway units. And as long as i can counter them properly (colossus/air = vikings, mass immortals = more Thor heavy) I feel comfortable in the big fight.
Another important factor to point out is that I tried in the unit test map, and attack upgrades doesn't change how many hits a Thor kills either a stalker or a zealot, nor how many hits a Hellion needs to kill a zealot. So even though it will affect somewhat, since I didn't test all the various X Thor hits X hellion hits on unit X with and without attack upgrades, it's fairly useless. Armor however, lets Hellions take 1 more zealot and stalker hits, and lets Thors take many more zealot/stalker hits.
Hi Thorzain,
Did you have a plan for a mass Stargate play like the one I mentioned a few posts up? Mech in TvP intrigues me, and I'll like to know if Stargate is a viable counter to it in the eyes of someone who employs it at a pro level.
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On April 11 2011 00:23 azarat wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 00:19 Thorzain wrote:
I can explain the armor upgrades in the first game:
It's mostly to be able to fight heavy gateway units compositions, as they deal relatively low damage but shoot fast (zealots have 2 attacks for example). This lets me worry more about the actual "power units" so to say, the units that aren't gateway units. And as long as i can counter them properly (colossus/air = vikings, mass immortals = more Thor heavy) I feel comfortable in the big fight.
Another important factor to point out is that I tried in the unit test map, and attack upgrades doesn't change how many hits a Thor kills either a stalker or a zealot, nor how many hits a Hellion needs to kill a zealot. So even though it will affect somewhat, since I didn't test all the various X Thor hits X hellion hits on unit X with and without attack upgrades, it's fairly useless. Armor however, lets Hellions take 1 more zealot and stalker hits, and lets Thors take many more zealot/stalker hits. Hi Thorzain, Did you have a plan for a mass Stargate play like the one I mentioned a few posts up? Mech in TvP intrigues me, and I'll like to know if Stargate is a viable counter to it in the eyes of someone who employs it at a pro level.
He says in his post that if he saw colossus/air = vikings. I'm more interested if we can get a replay pack especially of mech play. Go Thorzain! Rooting for you to take out MC.
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On April 11 2011 00:26 peeeky wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 00:23 azarat wrote:On April 11 2011 00:19 Thorzain wrote:
I can explain the armor upgrades in the first game:
It's mostly to be able to fight heavy gateway units compositions, as they deal relatively low damage but shoot fast (zealots have 2 attacks for example). This lets me worry more about the actual "power units" so to say, the units that aren't gateway units. And as long as i can counter them properly (colossus/air = vikings, mass immortals = more Thor heavy) I feel comfortable in the big fight.
Another important factor to point out is that I tried in the unit test map, and attack upgrades doesn't change how many hits a Thor kills either a stalker or a zealot, nor how many hits a Hellion needs to kill a zealot. So even though it will affect somewhat, since I didn't test all the various X Thor hits X hellion hits on unit X with and without attack upgrades, it's fairly useless. Armor however, lets Hellions take 1 more zealot and stalker hits, and lets Thors take many more zealot/stalker hits. Hi Thorzain, Did you have a plan for a mass Stargate play like the one I mentioned a few posts up? Mech in TvP intrigues me, and I'll like to know if Stargate is a viable counter to it in the eyes of someone who employs it at a pro level. He says in his post that if he saw colossus/air = vikings. I'm more interested if we can get a replay pack especially of mech play. Go Thorzain! Rooting for you to take out MC.
Oh, I see that now. Still, seems like a dedicated air play maybe with an upgrade or two would be pretty difficult to stop with just Vikings and the Thor AA. Phoenix do well against Vikings and VRs massacre Thors. Obviously it would need good micro to not splash the Thor AA, especially on the Phoenix, but still...
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On April 11 2011 00:34 azarat wrote:
Oh, I see that now. Still, seems like a dedicated air play maybe with an upgrade or two would be pretty difficult to stop with just Vikings and the Thor AA. Phoenix do well against Vikings and VRs massacre Thors. Obviously it would need good micro to not splash the Thor AA, especially on the Phoenix, but still...
Well VR are good against Thor no doubt but Thor AA + Viking is a little too much for VR to handle.
Besides, getting a critical mass of Thors vs MC is a bit different than against a passive player like Tyler - MC will be knocking down your door with Immortals before you've even researched strike cannon.
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I think the build was right, but I also believe Tyler's response doesn't answer the question of whether it can kill a protoss lategame or not. Even Jinro has stopped believing in mech TvP.
The thing is, Tyler didn't play it right, I'd like to see this build perform against an immortal/chargelot/blink stalker build, I've seen this crush mech so many times it's ridiculous. Why this happens:
-Mech has a hard time denying protoss expansions
-With said expansions, protoss can make an absurd amount of gateways.
-With those gateways, and cosidering zealots are "free", protoss can make overwhelming numbers of zealots much faster than hellions. Eventually, enough zealots won't care about hellions, you just target thors.
-Once zealots charge, you blink in with stalkers, and A-move.
-You target fire thors with immortals
Using this method, with appropriate upgrades, thors cant even start shooting immortals, they'll die before that. You need as many immortals as the enemy has thors. If you want to transition into something, you go HTs, then hellions and supporting marines just die. Also, if you go VRs, you can make your opponent overcommit to vikings, and die to a superior ground force with too many warpgates reinforcing.
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I really enjoy reading these, thanks.
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On April 10 2011 13:00 Riskr wrote:
The Armor be4 weapons upgrade should be explained from a "pros - Theorycrafter" pov.
The reason why this is good should be very obvious IMO.
If you use very expensive and big units you lose a huge chunk every time one of them dies. Thus keeping them alive is very important and since Thors are so huge the opponent will have trouble focus firing them with a whole lot of his units. As long as you keep a few of your big units alive while the army of your opponent dies you will come out ahead. Defensive upgrades let the fight continue longer, but since
In this case the Protoss army wasnt really ideal to battle the masses of Thors, because "a few Colossi" are expensive but suck at killing Thors and get annihilated easily with the 250 mm strike cannons. The same is true for Immortals and the only chance would be a LOT of Stalkers and a few Zealots (units for which it doesn't make sense to use the strike cannon). Phoenix and Void Rays are a waste of resources as well because they dont work well with "magic box".
Thor damage: 30*2 = 60 damage per double attack
Stalker hp + shields = 160 -> three hits from a Thor (damage potential of 180, so Protoss armor wont help against Thors) kill a Stalker no matter which offensive / defensive upgrades both have
Zealot hp + shields = 150 -> three shots again
Thor hp / armor: 400 / 1
Stalker damage: 14 damage against armored Thor ->
31 hits from a Stalker to kill a Thor without any upgrade difference
34 hits with 1 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Stalker upgrades
37 hits with 2 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Stalker upgrades
40 hits with 3 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Stalker upgrades
Zealot damage: 8*2 = 16 damage ->
27 hits from a Zealot to kill a Thor without any upgrade difference
29 hits with 1 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
31 hits with 2 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
34 hits with 3 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
The key is the difference in upgrades which results in a major increase of Thor survivability and if you can mix in some repairs it could be even better. If the Protoss enemy doesnt have enough Stalkers you can even save some injured Thors with Medivac micro like White-Ra used to outmaneuver Forcefields ... just pull an injured Thor back to some repair SCVs who are waiting safely behind the firing line.
tl;dr: Weapon upgrades dont do anything against Stalkers and Zealots, but an upgrade advantage in armor does help a lot. Armor upgrades for Protoss only help the gateway units against bio (Marines).
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Sweden164 Posts
On April 11 2011 01:30 Rabiator wrote:
Zealot damage: 8*2 = 16 damage ->
27 hits from a Zealot to kill a Thor without any upgrade difference
29 hits with 1 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
31 hits with 2 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
34 hits with 3 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
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.
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Mass blik stalkers with fast double forge actualy completly rapes the thor build flat, mb you can get away with it on xel naga cause its easy to push/defend the gold and defend the main. But on bigger maps or with a different layout its completly not viable. You can also just get 1-2 carrires to divert damage from the thors since they take ages to kill and thor priotise air over ground.
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On April 11 2011 01:41 Thorzain wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 01:30 Rabiator wrote:
Zealot damage: 8*2 = 16 damage ->
27 hits from a Zealot to kill a Thor without any upgrade difference
29 hits with 1 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
31 hits with 2 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
34 hits with 3 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
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.
I know the odds are low you'll answer this but I had three big questions hat I can't figure out the answer to:
1. Were the styles/builds/unit compositions pre determined for you by the map or were they reactive to what Tyler was doing? (the reactive element in game one is obvious due to seeing the viking scout and the immediate reaction of a reactor on the starport but in the other two games it was very difficult to tell without a replay to see your vision)
2. Does your style in game one lose very often to warpgate attacks (despite the high bunker count you get)?
3. How is protoss supposed to deal with the banshee tech switch later one/what do you find that it loses to?
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Great write-up as always confusedcrib. Don't listen to the haters. Even if it was a subpar write-up (which it isn't) if all you managed to do was get Thorzain involved in the discussion it's a good thread.
As for the games themselves, Tyler's play seems to have lacked heart lately. I don't know if he's on tilt or what's going on, but the Chilltoss just hasn't been the same. Here's hoping he can bounce back in the NASL. Not much to say about his performance except that G1 it seemed obvious Thorzain had his style pegged, G2 was a well-meaning attack that just didn't cut it, and G3 seemed to be a poorly executed build.
Thorzain on the other hand, continues to impress me. Really methodical biomech play that destroys Fruitdealer, and now three separate builds that dismantle Tyler in a different way every time. Few people (read: Goody) can make Mech look so good in TvP. I think I've found my new favorite Terran player! If anybody can take down MC in this tournament, it's Thorzain.
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On April 11 2011 01:41 Thorzain wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 01:30 Rabiator wrote:
Zealot damage: 8*2 = 16 damage ->
27 hits from a Zealot to kill a Thor without any upgrade difference
29 hits with 1 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
31 hits with 2 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
34 hits with 3 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
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.
Thanks for posting here, its always great to see pro analysis here in the strategy section. =)
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@ThorZaIN
how does your build on Xelnaga fare vs Mass voidrays? I imagine you have to make some adjustments when you see voidrays being pumped, to my knowledge voidrays were the counter to mech in PvT even before the voidray vs massive buff (totally rapes thors, and mech has quite poor antiair in sc2 as is). If so, what changes do you make?
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On April 11 2011 02:58 Nomadic wrote:
@ThorZaIN
how does your build on Xelnaga fare vs Mass voidrays? I imagine you have to make some adjustments when you see voidrays being pumped, to my knowledge voidrays were the counter to mech in PvT even before the voidray vs massive buff (totally rapes thors, and mech has quite poor antiair in sc2 as is). If so, what changes do you make?
He said that reactored starport Vikings were his plan to kill "Colossus/air", so I think that answers your question. Phoenix/Voidray seems mediocre vs Mech/Vikings, as although blob vs blob you might win (depending on a lot of things), but the BFHellions running about you will have a really tough time defending mineral lines.
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On April 11 2011 03:36 SeaSwift wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 02:58 Nomadic wrote:
@ThorZaIN
how does your build on Xelnaga fare vs Mass voidrays? I imagine you have to make some adjustments when you see voidrays being pumped, to my knowledge voidrays were the counter to mech in PvT even before the voidray vs massive buff (totally rapes thors, and mech has quite poor antiair in sc2 as is). If so, what changes do you make? He said that reactored starport Vikings were his plan to kill "Colossus/air", so I think that answers your question. Phoenix/Voidray seems mediocre vs Mech/Vikings, as although blob vs blob you might win (depending on a lot of things), but the BFHellions running about you will have a really tough time defending mineral lines.
Yes he mentioned in his first post that the high Viking count was to deal with Colossi + any air transitions. Also remember that Tyler's upgrade-heavy PvT style is Gateway based...Thorzain probably knew that if Tyler tried a tech switch to air that they would be poorly upgraded/not in enough numbers.
If he had gone VR/Phoenix with air upgrades plus Stalkers on the ground...who knows. It's all theorycrafting at this point. Regardless, it's obvious some brainstorming is required to stop this style from Thorzain, it would be interested if he posted what gives him trouble with it.
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Will these replays be released? Where will they be posted? Really liked ThorZaINs builds, want to look into them more (hard to get exact details from VODs).
Thank you!
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I'm not sure there is a counter to 10 Thor backed by vikings and hellions other than you deserve to lose letting them get that far. Sorta like Zerg deserve to lose letting toss get to col/VR death ball. You guys know how much that stuff costs? How long it takes to build? How screwed they are if you eliminate halfway their attempts to build it?
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On April 11 2011 05:03 gavinashun wrote:
Will these replays be released? Where will they be posted? Really liked ThorZaINs builds, want to look into them more (hard to get exact details from VODs).
Thank you!
I know that the players are not allowed to release the replays but I'm really hoping that TL will release them eventually. I also would really like them to discover more of Thorzain's decision making and how much of what he did was reactive to Tyler's play.
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Has anyone figured out how to stop this armor based mass thor strat? As in, what do you do when hes got them already or when you cant punish him early for whatever reason and you know before long he will have 6-7 +. I keep running into this and im even losing to lower league players in customs (im mid masters) turtling up and coming out with a critical mass of thor. I think they kill all the gateway units in 3 attacks if im not mistaken and armor upgrades dont help you survive longer vs. this. Immortals and colossus haven't worked because of strike cannons. My last go I used double forge with all chargelots and blink but the thors just demolish everything.
Anyone have any luck vs. this build? VRs are great against thor but only in small numbers once theres enough thor the splash damage seems to cut through VRs and its near impossible to get them to spread early enough.
I'll work on getting a replay of me getting destroyed by it next time I do.
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I think 2 base carrier would be a pretty effective response. I saw Huk go 2base carrier against a similar build on Xelnaga maybe a month or so ago on ladder. You just have to defend blue flame hellion harass without losing too many probes, which Huk did.
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Carriers would get raped by vikings. I am trying to get my buddy to do a custom with me let him build up and I'm going to try mass VR with 10-15 hallucinated ones to tank damage. I might try the mass blink too. But wth mass blink he never would have gotten to 10 thors;) Helps if you know before hand what they are doing tho...
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Game one is still stuck in my head today.. The Thors strike-cannoning the immortals just made my day...
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On April 11 2011 11:39 tdt wrote:
Carriers would get raped by vikings. I am trying to get my buddy to do a custom with me let him build up and I'm going to try mass VR with 10-15 hallucinated ones to tank damage. I might try the mass blink too. But wth mass blink he never would have gotten to 10 thors;) Helps if you know before hand what they are doing tho...
Carriers are not truly countered by vikings if you can pump a decent number of carriers (though marines crush them easily.). They also screw over the targetting AI of the thors completely, but I don't know if the number of thors actually makes them decent against interceptors.
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I ran about 2 hours of tests with my friend in a unit test map and the trick to it is to cut back on the sentries in favor of high dps units. If you have sentries hallucinating chargelots is effective. Basically you just need alot of units so tylers going colossus was a mistake as it was the least amount of units he could have made. Floating 6 void rays over top the army was good... basically you just need to either have the thors hit your VRs or have them using strike cannons on your immorals so your zealots and stalkers can do damage. Out of all the tests we ran the best results were, many hallucinates zealots + gateways, All chargelot/blinksalker-no sentry, zealot, immortal (like 6 immortals), zealot/stalker/voidray (6+ VRs). THe worst results were a balanced gateway mix with no hallucinates or just using your sentries for guardian shield had almost no effect on yuor survivability... its just wasted dps.
TLDR if theyre going thors either abuse hallucinate to screw up thor targetting or cut back the sentry in favor of powerhouse units. Strike cannons can nullify immortals but they are getting pounded by zealots when they do.
Also, re: carriers... interceptors get killed so fast by thor splash its not even funny. On top of that, the thor build focuses on getting them a ton of army. Its really tough to get any sort of upgrade edge as such.
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For Game 3, Tyler completely messed up his upgrade timings by not getting the gas at his expansion for so long, and not getting his 3rd base when he had map control. Ultimately, it delayed his charge and forge upgrades by at least a minute; if he had those upgrades I think the battle would have gone the other way.
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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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.
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Most of this is just what I was thinking as I was watching the games live - I haven't rewatched them or anything, so I could've missed something.
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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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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On April 11 2011 01:41 Thorzain wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 01:30 Rabiator wrote:
Zealot damage: 8*2 = 16 damage ->
27 hits from a Zealot to kill a Thor without any upgrade difference
29 hits with 1 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
31 hits with 2 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
34 hits with 3 more armor for the Thor compared to the offensive Zealot upgrades
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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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!
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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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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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@OP - Although there's nothing really wrong or incorrect with your "analysis," it's still mostly just game summary and you miss out on a lot of opportunities to do actual analysis. For example, your so called subtleties of game 1, such as hellion/viking scouting, and then vikings to counter colossus, are not subtle at all... it's just standard scouting and reacting to opponent's army composition. Meanwhile, I don't understand why you said you don't know why Thorzain chose his builds on the maps he did, when it's pretty clear how well xel naga is suited for mech play, especially considering the other maps in the map pool (ex. small, lots of chokes and few wide open spots, position of 3rd base).
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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I still have no idea as to how Protoss should react to his sky Terran transition, the thor + viking count almost requires that you surrender the air (or at least it would be 90% of players reaction) so it seems pretty unbeatable. I have no idea what the best response is in the lategame.
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I don't understand how you can have enough gas to support 2fact thors and a reactor starport. Can anyone explain this?
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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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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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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.
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+ Show Spoiler +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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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!
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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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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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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.
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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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On April 12 2011 12:24 Jayrod wrote:Show nested quote +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.
If you're saying carriers are not viable against Thorzain's composition, that's not true at all. In fact carrier is the only unit that can win a head on 200/200 battle with terran mech. Yes getting to carriers and not dying is difficult but I think it can be worked out and isn't impossible. Start with gateway/immortal, and get a relatively fast 3rd. Once you can confirm that the Terran is not doing some sort of 2 base attack (like if you see him setting up his 3rd), immediately throw up stargates and switch all out to carriers. The gateway/immortal beginning helps also because the Terran will not have made a lot of vikings yet. If the Terran attacks before your carrier fleet is ready, do everything you can to stall including countering into his expos or main with your ground army (which is pretty much disposable at this point). Note that this isn't pure theorycraft, I have done this in real games with some success. I would love more practice against this though (avilo and sadist, where are you guys :p)
Also about void rays - yes they work well against thors and are much more accessible than carriers, but I find that they're much weaker against marines and vikings than carriers are, which can be easily incorporated into the Terran army. Void rays are great early-mid game, but not so great mid-late game, which is what the real problem is when facing terran mech.
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When I look at a game like this, to me it seems like the only/one of the only solutions is to somehow get enough air (carriers, or even voidrays,) but void rays get trashed by vikings and Carriers are really bad against armor upgrades on the thors...
I feel like Zealot/templar/voidray would be the absolutely perfect composition to use in this case given how relatively early in the game it is for carriers and the amount of bases that it's reasonable to have at that point in the game. But templars are really hard to use get to/use nowadays I feel since you can't warpin-storm. Maybe some kind of super fast forge into mass gateway play, like Adelscott does wouldn't be terrible either.
edit:
as for game 3, it looked to me like Tyler's timings were mostly messed up because he kept getting his obs sniped which cut deep into his gas.
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On April 12 2011 12:24 Jayrod wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Lmao, your post is so hypocritical, you say my post is a poor contribution then you go on a rant about why its wrong followed up by some obvious and very general "test" results, proving yourself to be a total nub without a grasp on the matchup.
I wasn't suggesting that the game would of gone differently if he just went carriers, simply that if he had somehow effectively added a couple of carriers it would have been an excellent counter to thorzains composition.
Even one carrier can absorb a significant amount of thor fire with its interceptors, adding one or two carriers to your force will allow you to avoid signifcant damage from thors without the carriers suffering much from splash, carriers don't deal that much damage against upgraded mech to begin with so thats not really their purpose in such a composition. Its really not that expensive to add a fleet becon and a carrier or two when you are going to need starport units to fight this composition anyway. Microing thors when carriers are in the mix is a nightmare and they would also help shield your collosus from vikings while they kite back the ground forces.
Basically every composition that you come up with against thors would benefit from adding carriers, much like every TvP composition can benefit from adding ghosts, its just a question of if your particular choice of build has good synergy with them. If, as I suspect the standard counter to thors beomes to add void rays, then adding in a carrier or two would be easy and make your army considerably better. BC's are starting to be seen in all matchups except perhaps TvZ rather effectively, I don't see why carriers couldn't be just as easily employed where it makes sense.
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Thor is arguably the strongest unit in the game. Letting your opponent sit back and make 10 of them might not be the best thing to do, and is something that really doesn't have a counter. Just like 10 Carriers will usually sweep anything but pure viking/corruptor. Just like 10 Ultras will counter anything but mass air.
User was warned for this post
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Thor pretty much rapes Robo, and Tyler was relying on Robo armies. Stargate armies or even mass gateway with upgrades and blink/charge could have won it.
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Thor did mass thor again today and just rolled over best Protoss like he was not there. I've been doing more testing and nothing even comes close to beating this build.
One game I had 20 VR (thinking how weak thor are vs armored air), 15 Zealots, 12 stalkers and 6 immortals which total cost is a ton more compared to his 8 thor, 10 SCVs, 20 rines, 6 maraders, 8 vikings, 8 BF hellions, and Raven and he rolled me without losing but 3 thor and some support units.
Anyone found anything yet?
Edit: Just played another custom vs my friend (i'm not sure how realistic it is since we both know the game plan) and it seem carriers does the trick. I basically threw down 4 star gates on three base and had about 10 phoenix and stalkers targeting his vikings and 8 carriers doing whatever it is they do and took down 10 thors, 8 vikings about 20 marines etc. I never thought carriers are worth anything since they are taken down so quick by anti air units but their mass preventing splash and thors low damage to armored air seemed to work a heck of a lot better than the unit Blizz says is counter (the immortal) who just gets wrecked by the 250mm cannons.
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I just finished watching MC vs Thorzain so...
+ Show Spoiler +MC totally reacted wrongly in game 5. I believe he was reacting to the most common marine tank composition on that map, little did he expect thor play. He spent so much gas on phoenixes, sentries, ht tech which did nothing much in the last engagement.
I offraced toss and played marine thor once. I believe this is one of the correct ways to react. All your gas on double forge upgrades with double robo, getting chargelot upgrade. You would want more immortals than thors. Continously chrono out those upgrades, only chrono out immortals if they are showing signs to attack. You will be so gas starved that you will only warp in zealots for gateways. Use minimal stalkers or cannons to defend against banshee. Use your remaining gas for some stalkers for anti-air just before engagements. You will only need around 2 sentries just for the guardian shields. Upgraded zealots shred un-upgraded marines so easily, while any remaining immortals that are not being 250mm cannoned focus fire on thors. If possible split up your zealot army with 1 sentry each to flank the opponent. If flanked well, not even blue flame hellions can do much.
Edit: Part of the reason why this was so effective in my game was because i went for zealots stalkers pressure in the early game, then scouted he was going for mech play. I did not waste any gas in building sentries.
Side Note: I was playing this with my zerg mentality up til the point i was using chargelots like zerglings To those passive macro zergs out there, if you like defensive reactive play, try out protoss instead. Using observers like invisible overlords to scout and negate drop plays. Protoss units are also much more cost effective. Tech switches are better due to chronoboosts and upgrades being shared across so many units. Zerg is so much more than just defending and macroing to a 300/200 push.
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On April 24 2011 17:23 babysimba wrote:I just finished watching MC vs Thorzain so... + Show Spoiler +MC totally reacted wrongly in game 5. I believe he was reacting to the most common marine tank composition on that map, little did he expect thor play. He spent so much gas on phoenixes, sentries, ht tech which did nothing much in the last engagement. I offraced toss and played marine thor once. I believe this is one of the correct ways to react. All your gas on double forge upgrades with double robo, getting chargelot upgrade. You would want more immortals than thors. Continously chrono out those upgrades, only chrono out immortals if they are showing signs to attack. You will be so gas starved that you will only warp in zealots for gateways. Use minimal stalkers or cannons to defend against banshee. Use your remaining gas for some stalkers for anti-air just before engagements. You will only need around 2 sentries just for the guardian shields. Upgraded zealots shred un-upgraded marines so easily, while any remaining immortals that are not being 250mm cannoned focus fire on thors. If possible split up your zealot army with 1 sentry each to flank the opponent. If flanked well, not even blue flame hellions can do much. Edit: Part of the reason why this was so effective in my game was because i went for zealots stalkers pressure in the early game, then scouted he was going for mech play. I did not waste any gas in building sentries. Side Note: I was playing this with my zerg mentality up til the point i was using chargelots like zerglings To those passive macro zergs out there, if you like defensive reactive play, try out protoss instead. Using observers like invisible overlords to scout and negate drop plays. Protoss units are also much more cost effective. Tech switches are better due to chronoboosts and upgrades being shared across so many units. Zerg is so much more than just defending and macroing to a 300/200 push.
When Thorzain did it he did not have that many Marines. The only thing Sentries would be good for would be against the Marines and maybe to protect the Immortals from standard fire. Another possible problem is if there are really a ton of Immortals and Zealots then if I was the Terran player I would put my +2 armor Hellions in the front forcing you to micro with the Immortals to target the Thor while Thor can much more easily target Immortals with 250mm as they have 7 range compared to Immortal's 5.
I think part of the strength of the build is having a limited time frame to get what you need to counter it and not much of anything else. Mass producing Immortals kinda locks you into that tech path as they are slow to make and hard to replace.
I can just imagine the stuff I would go with after taking my third. Taking a third could open up bio + mech play by getting attack ups on bio to get some Marine or Marauder support in there. Since the mech units only need armor ups the bio could focus on attack ups. The transition to bio could punish the lack of early Sentries as any new Sentries will be low on energy.
The other danger is that if you have mostly Immortal and Zealot then BF Hellions can hit and run to kill off large parts of your army before the main engagement even occurs. A stack of a dozen BF Hellions can wipe out large numbers of Zealots in a single strike and then retreat to some SCV near the Thor for repairs.
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Hop off of Thorzain's dick.
User was temp banned for this post.
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I know it's fairly ridiculous, but would a mothership vortex be useful? Nobody ever mentions it, but as long as we're talking carriers anyways, a mothership is on the table.
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Hey guys, I've been using this build quite a bit lately. Personally I think Protoss can win the first battle (when +2 armour for thor finishes) with standard 2/3 gate robo mixes by forcing the Terran to throw down the PDD and then running away and engaging elsewhere. Also, don't make very many sentries, and get attack upgrades. After that, get Carriers, seriously. Not even joking. Get Carriers and I'll get Battlecruisers and we both will win.
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can u put video links of the matches as well? It be easier to understand
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EPT
