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I've been coming against this a lot in ZvT and it's really fucking annoying. It's almost every game where Terran just turtles on 2 or 3 bases, mass thors and tanks, and a-moves. I can't kill his army, and then they lift everything off and just follow their army.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=209732
Yes, I'm pretty raged about this, and I bm at the end with a "your a fag" but this is really irritating. It's like every ZvT is now an all-in tank/thor. I don't know what unit composition to use and it's really annoying.
Normally I use Infestors and NP to deal with mass thor, but with siege tanks infestors are pretty useless. Really can't make any ground units, and broodlords just suck.
Edit: Get it. Make ridiculous number of broodlords to deal with ridiculous army. Here's a 2nd replay where it happened again, but I couldn't get hive tech.
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
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Speaking as a Terran who goes mass thors, tanks and hellions, broodlords do not suck at all, if you get a few out you force Terran to unseige and then your roaches/infestors have nothing to defend against them on the ground. The important thing is to make sure that you have enough corrupters once he gets out vikings though, or to move into ultralisks once he overmakes the vikings.
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well for starter that army composition from terran is insanely powerful as well as insanely immobile. you keep fronting him and losing everything to splash. Why don't you try to swing around and attack his expansions? if terran turns around and tries to counterattack, you can try to catch the army unsieged. I think you army comp and macro is ok, but if you are a little more tactful, it would do a world of good.
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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.
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On May 18 2011 15:48 Belial88 wrote:
Normally I use Infestors and NP to deal with mass thor, but with siege tanks infestors are pretty useless. Really can't make any ground units, and broodlords just suck.
You could have won the battle if you had NP the thors in one of the major engagements where the tanks were not in seige mode as you can see about the 21 minute mark.
In addition,you wasted a couple of infestors for nothing by moving them up. Linking back to 'NP the thor', the infestors could have played at least a minor role or wasting a few rounds of seige tanks fire if the tanks were there. However, it was wasted for nothing.
Fungal Growth using those infestors could have been useful at all.
Harass:
During your harass, you used up a lot of infested terrans, i felt that it was a waste considering how many blue flame helion there were, Fungal growth would have done better in that occassion.
You should have attacked earlier or preventing them from getting a good economy such as infestor drops which would be devastating.
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Just watched the replay.
Don't have time to go through and point out the timings of it all, but the problem I saw in that wasn't his comp, it was your engagements. You got out broodlords, which are definitely a real hassle to deal with as terran, whatever your comp. In the first main engagement (where he was up on food to you by around 10, he was maxed you were slightly undermaxed), sent your roaches in first, then your infestors and broodlords (which is how it should have went). Then you pulled out your roaches and infestors, letting the thors take most of the health off the broodlords for almost no return. Then you went back in with roaches, and almost won. If you had just committed at first, you could have had the battle. Same thing second large engagement, just he came out further ahead. Then you sent a ton of ultras in to be killed by the thors. Against mech, you need to engage where you are comfortable and abuse the immobility of it.
Roach drop his base when his units are at his front, then engage while he's got half his army away. If you want to engage straight into his line, max sure you are maxed, and have enough larve to instantly remax. Get your positioning right, with roaches in to tank damage and shift click up his thors. Then come the broodlords to deal a lot of damage, while and the same time neural parasite thors. Don't commit then pull out then finally commit again once your broodlords and almost dead. I won't commentate on the composition, since i only go marine/tank in TvZ so I'm not sure of the best counter.
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The only thing that shoots up in this army is thors, Why not just mass muta and magic box the hell out of the entire army.
Its the same thing as using Broodlords to do it, the only solution the terran has is vikings and marines, and if he over making either one, an ultralisk + baneling army will decimate his entire army and base.
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Ok, having just watched the replay I'll say that you lost because you twice threw away brood lords by sending them alone into open areas, letting the thors move around to hit them, you need to either buffer the brood lords with a ground army or engage over a choke, also ultralisks can't just run into a massive seige line (15+) tanks and expect to do any damage, it was that second battle which cost you the game, the first battle you came out ahead by quite a bit.
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I did take out his expansions. I took out his whole base so he just lifted it all and had it follow his army.
Maybe throwing my army into his line wasn't the best idea, but it's not like I wasn't remaxed 3, 4,5 times afterwards. I had plenty of money.
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.
I don't agree with this. For one, not hard for them to get 200 food on 3 bases. Secondly, I do believe any deathball can be beat with Zerg. Not always easy, but possible for sure.
During your harass, you used up a lot of infested terrans, i felt that it was a waste considering how many blue flame helion there were, Fungal growth would have done better in that occassion.
yea that sucked. If I had FF'd maybe it would've done better, I didn't think his army would get there in time.
Then you pulled out your roaches and infestors, letting the thors take most of the health off the broodlords for almost no return. Then you went back in with roaches, and almost won. If you had just committed at first, you could have had the battle. Same thing second large engagement, just he came out further ahead. Then you sent a ton of ultras in to be killed by the thors. Against mech, you need to engage where you are comfortable and abuse the immobility of it.
There were so many god damned siege tanks. My roaches were getting destroyed, and my BL's couldn't reach the siege tanks.
Roach drop his base when his units are at his front, then engage while he's got half his army away. If you want to engage straight into his line, max sure you are maxed, and have enough larve to instantly remax. Get your positioning right, with roaches in to tank damage and shift click up his thors. Then come the broodlords to deal a lot of damage, while and the same time neural parasite thors. Don't commit then pull out then finally commit again once your broodlords and almost dead. I won't commentate on the composition, since i only go marine/tank in TvZ so I'm not sure of the best counter
Yea I was dropping a nydus right when his doom push came. Maybe I shouldn't have macro'd as hard. he had so many siege tanks though, I don't think I could've used roaches like that. Maybe mass broodlord would've been better.
Maybe magic box would've been better, it was pretty ridiculous what his army was. So many thors and tanks, that's all he had.
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Baneling bombs and Roach bombs from overlords, with mass Roach, transitioning eventually into Broodlords. Can't believe you said BL's suck, they are probably one of the hardest counters in the game to mech T.
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Fungal growths are quite op against mech, the thors would have died from 48 seconds of non-stop fungal growths
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@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.
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infestor NP with baneling drops and large (replenishable roach meatshield)
BLs are for aggression (they are Z's aerial siege weapons)
if this doesn't work...not sure what else would
let me check the replay and get back 
EDIT: A neat trick would be to morph the corruptors into broodlords right over the thors...and cancel the ones going into red...it would be a nice way to distract the thor's deadly ground fire as well.
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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.
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On May 18 2011 16:36 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +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??
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In my calculations I tried to error in simplification on the side of the mutalisks, having them take absolutely no splash damage and giving them a slight buff to their cooldown (their cooldown is slightly more than half the thors). The big thing which makes thors even better is that a late game meching player is going to have sick upgrades on the thors, a thor which can 2-shot a muta can takeout ~5 mutas before being killed if it has +1 armor.
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If you see mass thors, expand furiously, get a few muta to shutdown the hellion harass and get a fast hive. Roach infestor can beat Heavy mech too but broodlords are the best counter for mech.
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^ i did expand furiously, I even took every base on his side of the map. I guess mass broodlords should've been better instead of just getting only 5 and trying to play a normal game.
Yea mass muta doesn't sound like the best idea.
People keep saying infestors but with heavy siege tanks you can't do infestors.
I think the only solution is like insanely mass broodlord with armor upgrades. Pretty ridiculous since you can't do that on 4 base against some turtling 3 base.
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On May 18 2011 17:04 Belial88 wrote:
^ i did expand furiously, I even took every base on his side of the map. I guess mass broodlords should've been better instead of just getting only 5 and trying to play a normal game.
Yea mass muta doesn't sound like the best idea.
People keep saying infestors but with heavy siege tanks you can't do infestors.
I think the only solution is like insanely mass broodlord with armor upgrades. Pretty ridiculous since you can't do that on 4 base against some turtling 3 base.
Infestors is a must against mech,everything that they have counter mech,even infested terrans as they draw the tanks fire potentially causing splash damage from the tank to land on the thor.
The next time you go laddering you try using infestors ACTIVELY and see the difference it does against mech.
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^ 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.
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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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On May 25 2011 22:19 Blamajama wrote:
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.
i've often been theorycrafting whether or not PFs and tons of missile turrets in the mineral line can defeat muta/ling/baneling
assume all the minerals are dumped into extra OCs, and turrets...(using the engineering bay to upgrade only the armor and range of the buildings)
then get like 2 factories per base pumping out thors, tanks, and ghosts with scvs to back (upgrading the vehicle armor)
basically just emp consistently and run scvs away when banelings come...lings and mutas are no problem when the armor is so high.
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I played a large scale zvt yesterday. I had brood lords and he actually backed up his siege with ghosts. EMP + tank made my infestors entirely useless, vikings in the sky sniped broods 1 by 1. I'm just saying the things you guys mention do have counters if the terran are privy to it.
Also for those talking about expoiting mobility and use nydus. First of all it is not too likely that he won't see it since you need to send over an ovie. Killing a nydus is insanely easy, a few viking can prevent it from ever popping up. Second, even if you do get into his base, his army can decimate yours much faster than the other way around, and you lose the ability to reinforce which is more important for zerg than terran. To top it all if, if you use pure roaches, he will just float his buildings out. I've learned not to try base trades with terran because of this.
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I agree. I also need help with ZvHeavy mech terran with lotsa tanks thors and mmm....
Just wondering, since infestors get sieged tanked so bad, maybe use then mostly for infested terrans? If they can unburrow safely then sure, FG....
What about drops? Would they work well? Just send LOTS of Overlords and drop?
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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.
As a meching terran (i love me my tanks in tvz lol), id definately have to disagree with this, if i see a pack of mutos that even approaches 30 or so, i basically reduce my tank count and increase my thor count, along with hellion count, becuase i know you dont have enough gas for mutos AND infestors(unless you get on like 5 base, but then you can just contiously trade with me and i'll lose eventually =P), and use the hellions for harass and for the brolords that i know are coming (thor+hellion is acually not terrible, but you will still definately need vikings). Once you get more than 10 thors, mutos just melt. Along with turrets like a boss, you cant even punish me when i move out.
To the OP though, as a TON of people above me have stated, you definately need to be active with your units. and try to pull the terran in every direction. if you want to, you can treat it like a protoss who is turtling on 2 base to get to their deathball.
How do you respond to that? nydus, drop, run bys, constant army trading, and quick bases. Now granted, run bys arnt quite as useful against mech, but can still be good in certain siutations.
All in all, just try to be a little more active and constantly trade and you'll eventually learn the subtle timings and game sense to start crushing mech ♥
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Also for those talking about expoiting mobility and use nydus. First of all it is not too likely that he won't see it since you need to send over an ovie. Killing a nydus is insanely easy, a few viking can prevent it from ever popping up. Second, even if you do get into his base, his army can decimate yours much faster than the other way around, and you lose the ability to reinforce which is more important for zerg than terran. To top it all if, if you use pure roaches, he will just float his buildings out. I've learned not to try base trades with terran because of this.
True, but we're saying (or at least I am saying) that only if you can, since even in the pro levels players are sometimes able to get Nydus Worms out.
Also, the point is not to fight his army in his base. He's not going to decimate your army because you're there to destroy buildings and harass and then retreat once his army gets back home. Floating buildings out is good for you.
The goal of that is not to trade bases, but make him go back home so you can secure more bases and/or drone and/or mass and basically give you another 1-22 minutes of time. If he decides not to defend, then it's an all-in for him -- quickly do some damage, and then return home in time to defend his mech push.
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EPT
