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On May 18 2011 17:18 Belial88 wrote:
^ I really don't understand what you are getting at. Mass siege tanks stop infestors pretty hard, IT is cute but it won't win games and they can scan and get a raven pretty simply to deal with IT bombs if I'm stubborn about it. You can't kill 20 siege tanks and 20 thors using an IT bomb every once in a while.
I do use infestors actively, quite a condescending post. Did you even watch the replay.
Yes I watched the replay at least 3 times, I mean during the major engagements such as the one in the 20minute mark where you only landed one or two fungal growth.
'they can scan and get a raven pretty simply to deal with IT bombs if I'm stubborn about it', i dont mean you burrow and launch bombs, you use a mix of all three skills together.
Mech has poor mobility so the IT wont be wasted for nothing such as compared to against bio where they can simply stim and run away.
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What i did the last game was like 10 infestors and neutral parasite. get the Thors and shoot down the tanks. Then kill the thors on each other and clean up with mass roach ling. Me #1 Master
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On May 18 2011 17:25 DarrotTheCarrot wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2011 17:18 Belial88 wrote:
^ I really don't understand what you are getting at. Mass siege tanks stop infestors pretty hard, IT is cute but it won't win games and they can scan and get a raven pretty simply to deal with IT bombs if I'm stubborn about it. You can't kill 20 siege tanks and 20 thors using an IT bomb every once in a while.
I do use infestors actively, quite a condescending post. Did you even watch the replay. Yes I watched the replay at least 3 times, I mean during the major engagements such as the one in the 20minute mark where you only landed one or two fungal growth. 'they can scan and get a raven pretty simply to deal with IT bombs if I'm stubborn about it', i dont mean you burrow and launch bombs, you use a mix of all three skills together. Mech has poor mobility so the IT wont be wasted for nothing such as compared to against bio where they can simply stim and run away.
Exactly this. Poor mobility is the key aspect of the terran mech that you are not exploiting. For 80% of the time (all the time after 10 mins) terran had his entire army camped out front. His 4th (in the top left) was undefended. His main production facilities were undefended. Abuse this by using for example Nydus Networks in said locations, and while he's drawn back, retreat and attack at the front gold base.
Another major point that I agree with Darrot about is your infestor usage. When you sent your infestors for the first time to drop tons of IT's on the PF at the gold base, it did ~0 damage. In various major engagements, your infestors died moving straight into the terran army with full energy. robbryjo gives a far superior way of using them. I believe if you practice your use of infestors, that would be enough to win against this particular guy.
You did not capitalize on the ability of the zerg to throw a "300 food army" at the terran. The terran at various points had ~120-140 supply while you remaxed at 200/200 after the engagement, and waited for him to get closer to your supply. Sheer mass could have won you the game after almost every key engagement, however only by attacking when he is unseiged.
Many battles were lost purely due to you not recognizing when he is unseiged. You were waiting for him to choose his battles or else attack when he is camping with his tanks seiged. The proper way to engage terran mech with broodlords especially is to force the unseiging (you did this) and then engage with everything (you don't do this).
TL;DR: Win against this Mass Thor/Tank by (a) abusing mobility, (b) using infestors well, (c) using zerg lategame well, (d) abusing seige/unseige mechanics. All of these or any of these will win. [ (c) alone might be squishy]
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i have been experimenting with this style of tvz for bit, and one thing zergs have to be careful with is, if u force terran to make vikings by going bl, you have to make sure you can then defend against the mass of vikings. i've had a game or two where i actually made too many, and just murdered overlords and supply locking him and forcing a gg, when he could have won it.
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Watched the replay and just one question for now. Can you please explain what was the reason you decided to make Ultras in that position? (after the first few BroodLords died) Terran had 6354tanks and 6345 Thors. I think you do not understand transitions my friend.
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As funny as it sounds, mass muta actually kills a terran going mech without a bit of marine support. In your replay you invested a lot into roaches and infestors so you wouldnt have enough gas to afford it, but whenever I see a terran investing so much of his factory time and ressources into siege tanks and thors without marines, I mass up as many mutas as possible and take greedy expansions.
The mutas will render all the siege tanks and hellions useless. Often times you will still need roaches to stop the hellions from just sprinting into your mineral lines.
Then tech to broodlords as you did. The problem with mech terrans is that your composition will vary greatly based on what mech unit he is most heavy on, obv mutas will suck against pure thor with BF hellions or any time marines are included.
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I primarily play mech and mech heavy bio with good success, and the main thing that is you need to do is abuse their mobility. Getting some mutalisks to harass and force either mass turrets or make thors stay at home when they attack is quite effective, as well as doing a lot of dropping and nydus play. When you see them move out, send speedlings around and kill reinforcements, harass expos, etc.
Now, based on the replay, you didn't do that until he was essentially in your base, where you realised that you couldn't kill his army straight on. That is what forced him to go all in. The all in wasn't pre planned like what I interpreted in the beginning of the OP.
A lot of people have already said that infestors are important in beating mech and I want to echo those statements. In the first engagement, you only landed 3 or so fungal growths from a decent number of infestors. Neural parasite is extremely powerful on thors as you are taking a 300/200 6 supply unit over with a 100/200 unit that costs a lot less supply. Taking the thors over help a lot in vs mech games, and in the first engagement you would have won the game right there if you had. Thors need to be infront of the tanks and hellions to soak damage from the zerg, but if you get them too far foward from the tanks (more than 4 range), then the tanks cannot kill the infestors and get the thors back.
At that point, I don't want to say you were ahead, but the terran was on low supply afterwards. However, you decided to max out on a lot of ultras without any attack upgrades (granted you did have full armor) and ran them into the sieged army to die for little gain. When you go broodlord into ultra, you do that because you forced him to make a lot of vikings. He made no vikings so the tech switch at that point was a poor decision in my opinion. Instead, you should have remaxed on broodlord infestor ling. 10 broodlords would have done a lot of damage to that army and you would have been able to hold off any push.
Another thing that I want to point out is that you didn't try and flank his army in the initial battle. If you swept around the side with 40 lings after the engagement started (use infested terrans to baid siege tank shots) then you would have killed a lot of the tanks, which was what was dealing a lot of the damage (especially when the get to 3/3).
On upgrades, you should have been getting melee attack probably after range 2, especially if you planned to switch into ultras or broodlords at any point, as ultras with 2 or 3 attack do a lot more damage, and broodlings will actually hurt the terran units (although their use is primarily to bait shots and screw up pathing, but extra damage never hurts).
You stopped on level 1 flyer carapace, which should have been higher. Broodlords are a staple unit in vs mech games. If they get a lot of vikings, you should be killing them off with fungal growth and corruptors. If they get a lot of vikings, then you do and ultra switch.
One last thing that I want to mention is that there are situations where certain armies are, and I feel should be, nearly invincible to beat if done right. 3/3 mech is one of them (infestor/corruptor/broodlord/muta is another); it will decimate anything on the ground that comes within range, and 3/3 mech has been like that since starcraft broodwar. In broodwar, if they went mech and you suddenly started making mutalisks, then they have to get goliaths to fight them. The same relationship applies with broodlords in starcraft 2, but the strength of the switch is more noticeable. One of the biggest banes I have when meching is missing a transition into a lot of armored air; be it broodlords/void rays/carriers/battlecruisers. If I don't see this and don't get vikings, then the chance of wining is extremely low. Plus you should only be engaging his army when you know for certain that you will trade armies well. Mech is the most efficient army in the game, and you can see that efficiency in the replay.
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Here's a 2nd game where someone does this, and I lose.
It's compete BS - he goes 1 base and prevents any scouting so I can't tell what he's doing, but I know it's 1 base so I take it slow and mass t1. He masses blue flame hellions and with hold position and transfuse I laugh it off. I counterattack with speed roaches, which are maybe late because I didn't even see a factory or 2nd gas until 10 blue flame hellions show up, but I throw a roach warren and immediately get speed (lair was already morphing, it was a late lair though because couldn't tell what he was doing, but this led to me getting speed roaches).
I prevent his natural, and do a ton of damage but just don't break him since he defends with siege tanks. He had all his SCV's attack my roaches and essentially wall in but I'm sure he loses lots of SCVs. I make him cancel his expo twice.
I'm unable to break him, my econ has suffered so I try to keep it in. Slag pits is a bit ridiculous to take a third on, and with close positions I can only hold to break him somehow. I continually come close to breaking him multiple times with roaches and speedlings. Finally, he has enough thors and siege tanks and does that dumbass 2 base push and wins.
I'm getting really frustrated with this. I understand the last game I should've went just as ridiculous as the Terran and massed broodlords and had better army control, but in this game I'm just not sure as there was no way to get hive tech or broodlords on this shitty map on shitty positions.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=209905
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On May 20 2011 00:14 Belial88 wrote:Here's a 2nd game where someone does this, and I lose. It's compete BS - he goes 1 base and prevents any scouting so I can't tell what he's doing, but I know it's 1 base so I take it slow and mass t1. He masses blue flame hellions and with hold position and transfuse I laugh it off. I counterattack with speed roaches, which are maybe late because I didn't even see a factory or 2nd gas until 10 blue flame hellions show up, but I throw a roach warren and immediately get speed (lair was already morphing, it was a late lair though because couldn't tell what he was doing, but this led to me getting speed roaches). I prevent his natural, and do a ton of damage but just don't break him since he defends with siege tanks. He had all his SCV's attack my roaches and essentially wall in but I'm sure he loses lots of SCVs. I make him cancel his expo twice. I'm unable to break him, my econ has suffered so I try to keep it in. Slag pits is a bit ridiculous to take a third on, and with close positions I can only hold to break him somehow. I continually come close to breaking him multiple times with roaches and speedlings. Finally, he has enough thors and siege tanks and does that dumbass 2 base push and wins. I'm getting really frustrated with this. I understand the last game I should've went just as ridiculous as the Terran and massed broodlords and had better army control, but in this game I'm just not sure as there was no way to get hive tech or broodlords on this shitty map on shitty positions. http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=209905
You should be able to get BL's if the terran you were facing was really holed up in his 2base. 
If slagpits really does if for you then just veto it. No need to play a map you hate so much, esp as zerg
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Just watched the replay, it was mostly a composition problem. You made 5 broodlords (0-0 broodlords as you had your greater spire very early but didn't made broodlords or upgrade until way later).
You should have 10-15 broodlords when the first fight occurs, and then you just roll him.
Infestors are useless against mech without neural parasite, you had a lot of infestors but they contributed nothing.
But basically that's it, just make more than 5 broodlords. The roaches under the broodlords was a good idea tho.
You took your third a little late too, and floated 400-500 minerals for a long time in the early games, which hint again toward a faster 3rd (minor detail in this particular game, as the first battle occurred 17 minutes into the game)
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I don't even have to watch the game to tell you that Broodlords > thors. Thats all there is too it, if you have roach and just a couple infestors to FG marine groups then they are screwed if they havent started viking production in advance. Thors suck against brood lords unless you completely outnumber them. Take it easy on the infestors as they are not very good against mech and just make alot of broods/corruptors and a couple infestors to stop marines from owning your BLs. If they manage to survive and get a huge ball of vikings, remax on ultra/roach/bling and win. Its also really to stick with ling/bling/muta in the early game against terran because melee upgrades apply to broodlings.
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On May 18 2011 16:08 Owarida wrote:
You cant let P or T ever get 200 Food. That is pretty much just it.
I know people say zerg is the reactive race and its cool to go mass expo and get into a macro war, but you just cant. SC2 you cant let them get that kind of numbers of thor tank or you will just straight lose. So when hes on two base, start trading armys. If you can kill 40 food for you 80 food, its worth it. If he hits critical mass, its over.
Sorry but your just flat out wrong.. it's very possible to win vs P and T even after letting them get 200/200...
A broodlord/ling/infestor army will DECIMATE a 200/200 thor/tank army.. you just need to use the proper counters to their compositions. Also the strenght of zerg is not in their army strength but their ability to remax so quickly. Your not SUPPOSED to win a 200/200 fight as zerg. The fight is expected to come out with T and P on top, but as long as you took out a good portion of the army as zerg you can re-max quicker than they can and kill them.
Zergs are better off in a long macro game if they know what they are doing, your advice is just plain bad..
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Just watched the replay, it was mostly a composition problem. You made 5 broodlords (0-0 broodlords as you had your greater spire very early but didn't made broodlords or upgrade until way later).
You should have 10-15 broodlords when the first fight occurs, and then you just roll him.
Infestors are useless against mech without neural parasite, you had a lot of infestors but they contributed nothing.
But basically that's it, just make more than 5 broodlords. The roaches under the broodlords was a good idea tho.
You took your third a little late too, and floated 400-500 minerals for a long time in the early games, which hint again toward a faster 3rd (minor detail in this particular game, as the first battle occurred 17 minutes into the game)
Thanks, I'll watch it again and see what happened there.
I don't even have to watch the game to tell you that Broodlords > thors. Thats all there is too it, if you have roach and just a couple infestors to FG marine groups then they are screwed if they havent started viking production in advance. Thors suck against brood lords unless you completely outnumber them. Take it easy on the infestors as they are not very good against mech and just make alot of broods/corruptors and a couple infestors to stop marines from owning your BLs. If they manage to survive and get a huge ball of vikings, remax on ultra/roach/bling and win. Its also really to stick with ling/bling/muta in the early game against terran because melee upgrades apply to broodlings.
Yea based on your response maybe you should watch the game and read the thread.
Sorry but your just flat out wrong.. it's very possible to win vs P and T even after letting them get 200/200...
A broodlord/ling/infestor army will DECIMATE a 200/200 thor/tank army.. you just need to use the proper counters to their compositions. Also the strenght of zerg is not in their army strength but their ability to remax so quickly. Your not SUPPOSED to win a 200/200 fight as zerg. The fight is expected to come out with T and P on top, but as long as you took out a good portion of the army as zerg you can re-max quicker than they can and kill them.
Zergs are better off in a long macro game if they know what they are doing, your advice is just plain bad..
I agree that 200 max armies are easy to take out with the right composition, I think Zerg has the most powerful 'death ball'. The problem is that mid game armies and end game armies are so different, whereas Protoss just gets more stalkers and colossi, or Terran just gets more tanks and marines or masses thors using the same tech buildings. In that aspect Zerg is very hard to play macro-wise, it's almost like your all-in or shot yourself in the foot if you planned for one or the other and are wrong (ie a timing attack comes and you were making your hive before third, or you have a bunch of lings and banelings and he just mass forcefields with his colossis/voidray.
I'm going to edit the first post to show this discussion is about my second game now, instead of making a new thread.
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On May 18 2011 16:38 DarrotTheCarrot wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2011 16:36 FabledIntegral wrote:On May 18 2011 16:34 WrathOfGlod wrote:
@CustomKal- It's a common misconception that magic-boxed mutas are cost-effective against thors let's look at the math of a 3 mutalisk vs 1 thor battle (where we have roughly equal supply's and costs). A mutalisk fires twice for every thor shot and deals 8 damage, and a thor 3 hits a mutalisk so the mutalisks fire a total of 6*(3+2+1)=36 times. This deals 36*8 damage to the thor which leaves it at about 25% health. So to deal with the army of ~10 thors you need >30 mutas to effectively deal with them which leaves your ground army virtually useless.
Doesn't scale like that, as you have to take into account things such as moving from target to target, what's in range, muta attack bounce, etc. The splash would be rather negligible if the thors had armour upgrades. What about the damage taken during the time the mutas take to magic-box??
You realize though, that cost efficiency means nothingunless its pure thor vs mutas, which it isn't. A lot of gas is invested in tanks making your mutas > thors + tanks since they can't shoot up.
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^ Watch the 2nd replay, hardly time to get spire even.
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Up?
I've been trying to watch a lot of Goody games where it's ZvT and he loses, like TSL G1 Shattered Temple v Nestea. It seems the answer is roach/bling if you cant get infestor/BL out in time. But he doesn't really lose a lot.
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Up - I veto'd that stupid slag pits map.
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It's super important he doesn't deny your third (which is hella easy on Xel'Naga for 2 rax into expand into Mech gameplan). But you did take a shit ton of bases, so that's not the problem xD
@DarrotTheCarrot
No, Tanks hard hard counter Infestors. Infested Terran don't force the Tanks to shoot, you can control the Tanks to target fire the Infestors...
With proper vision, Infestors can be shot at least two times before NP or being close enough to throw ITs. And Infestors happen to die in two shots, or even less unless you've split them all up.
Mech is indeed super super hard late game... if you think about it, it's 3 roaches per thor. Very hard indeed.
However as you probably know they're super weak early game. Generally throughout the game, yes mass muta isn't a "safe" option however if you notice your opponent's been skimping on Thors (half or less his army is Thors resource wise) and you happen to have a shit load banked, mass muta might end the game right there or let you take the whole map until he can remax.
Yeah mutas are definitely not efficient against Thors. However, against Mech, where the Thors are not 100% the army most of the time, it is a viable choice if you're going to have a big tech switch (permanent or just for 1 wave).
In a small fight, 5 mutas > 1 thor. But that's 500 min 500 gas vs 300 min 200 gas. The bigger the scale, the more in favor it is for the Thors, especially after upgrades (as long as Mutas don't have +2 attack more than your armor, you're fine).
About the game on Slag Pits. Relax, it's Slag Pits! Of course it will be hard as hell to win xD\
About the guy who suggested Nydus Worms. I agree, and 2 Nydus Worms is even better -- by a lot.
You can check out GSL up/down Boxer vs Zenio a few months back, on Terminus RE Set 1 (so it's free on gomtv.net). Boxer seems to be in a huge lead with an epic mech army, but then Zenio does a double Nydus Worm and it just takes too long to kill them even with SCVs (who would think there were 2 worms?!?!)
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vs Thor: NP (suggest: move+shift+E+spam click thors then press hold when the clump of infestors get close) and enough roaches to act as a meat shield
vs tanks:
if there is time, broodlords (risky if there is a lot of vikings)
otherwise, use gas on ultralisks (risky if the opponent has enough thors and strike cannon researched)
vs marines/hellions/scvs that accompany mech:
Fungal Growth and Baneling Drop
this is when above terran units appear in high numbers (>10)
EDIT: responding to this just gave me a efficient TvZ unit composition
Mass Thor (negates ultralisks), Mass Ghost (negates infestors and broodlords), with sacrificial rines (negates baneling bombs? to hopefully protect the scvs repairing the thors)
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As a terran who employs a similar build, I'd say the best way to counter this pre-hive tech is to go pure ling/baneling against Thors, and muta harass for a heavy tank build. My push is always before the 12-15 minute mark as the zerg moves out to take his third and fourth. I know as soon as the zerg puts that third expansion down he is behind in units. My push comes right after that, and many times zerg doesn't even have enough energy for neural parasite if he goes infestor. Pure lings/banelings have given me issues. Balance your roach/baneling ratio and trade armies as many times possible. That's zergs only chance against terran mech.
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EPT
