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1200+ Masters Terran here and I was wondering what the TL community thinks of the effectiveness of the Bio Ball late game in TvZ/P.
In small groups I think that MMM is much more effective than other comparable units such as stalkers and zealots or roaches and lings but when the Bio ball begins to get near 200/200 the low range and low health make the ball worse and worse. And if I allow Protoss or Zerg player to get to 200/200 with his higher tier units it just get too powerful to handle unless I drop and keep pressure on mid game to keep whittling down the important units. Especially the famed Protoss Death Ball or the Zerg Death Ball of infestor BL.
So is it smart to keep trading armies mid game to keep the tech low and force the other player to engage you with smaller groups with drops? Or is it better to switch off from bio as the game goes on to more mech based and make move away from bio.
(Not sure if this belonged in General or Strategy sorry if it's in the wrong place  .)
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I'm not convinced that the current bio-ball strategy is really the right way to go in TvP, but as it is the dominant strategy with little known alternatives:
You need to constantly trade some of your bio units for the protoss colossi. If there are ever more than 5-6 colossi on the field, your bio units will just melt. It's like Zerg and Siege Tanks, if the opponent gets too many, you can't break it without higher tech.
As Day[9] says especially about marines (but it's also quite true about marauders), they are most effective in small numbers, so you have to keep his numbers low, too, or force him to split his units into smaller numbers so your units can use their strength. The best way for that would be drops or splitting some of your units away to destroy expansions.
A great example are the games of EmpireKas vs HasuObs from TSL3 - especially the Tal'Darim Altar Game - where Kas constantly has 1-2 small groups moving around the map while he avoids fighting the Protoss Army directly.
In TvZ it really depends, usually it's up to the Zerg to trade units to keep your numbers low because a 200/200 Terran Army with Tanks is very hard to beat without broodlords.
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Well I can't speak for Zerg since I'm a Protoss player, but I rarely ever see Terrans go for bio in tvz, more Marine/tank.
As for Protoss it definitely can, and it's the best lategame unit comp by far IMO, I think Mech is pretty terrible, since once Protoss get chargelots, they don't really do anything.
I suggest watching some Thorzain, if you want to go bio all game, then you must, MUST, get upgrades, double e-bay is best imo. TvP lategame is all about positioning/micro. You really have to engage the army without getting force fielded then kite back with Bio while your vikings kill the Collosi, Vikings aren't that important to Terran as long as you kill the Collosi, while Collosi is pretty much the core unit in the Protoss lategame army. And you want to get quite a few ghosts for those HTs. I don't think transitioning into Mech lategame is really a good idea, IMMvp did it in GSL but it didn't work (there were mistakes though), it just means your sacrificing upgrades for your bio, while mech isn't exactly that strong in the first place.
I'm not bashing mech, I think there a some semi mech plays that are quite powerful, but they seem more timing attack based than an actual solid lategame build.
And yes doing drops is never a bad idea against Protoss. With good multitasking, doing drops before Blink is pretty much risk free.
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In TvZ going pure bio (with medivacs) leaves you too vulnerable to banelings, and counter-attacks as well. You can still do plenty of drops (see Losira vs MMA) with tanks in your composition.
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I havn't experienced much true MMM in TvZ, probably because of the way tech works differently for protoss then zerg. Protoss have to build it up over a long period of time, because of standard RTS production facilities. Zerg build up the tech all game, and then burst out with 20 brood lords when they can. Because of this, I don't really see how near constaint harass will keep a zerg tech unit count low, so this is why marine tank is the favored.
I'm a zerg not a protoss, but from what I've spectated in major tournaments the protoss spend all game getting this anti-bio force, so I don't see the logic of sticking with bio on the terran end. Even though so much the protoss has is a 'counter' to siege tanks, siege tanks are pretty freaking good units and restrict territory. Regardless of how many immortals and chargelots you have, running head first into a siege line is a bad idea.
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On June 07 2011 16:35 Shooks wrote:
Well I can't speak for Zerg since I'm a Protoss player, but I rarely ever see Terrans go for bio in tvz, more Marine/tank.
As for Protoss it definitely can, and it's the best lategame unit comp by far IMO, I think Mech is pretty terrible, since once Protoss get chargelots, they don't really do anything.
lolwut?
hellions are so freaking strong against zealots even chargelots and when you mech you're are going to have a lot of them.
i mech against toss all the time (top diamond though i suppose) and it works great.
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On June 07 2011 17:44 FoFo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 16:35 Shooks wrote:
Well I can't speak for Zerg since I'm a Protoss player, but I rarely ever see Terrans go for bio in tvz, more Marine/tank.
As for Protoss it definitely can, and it's the best lategame unit comp by far IMO, I think Mech is pretty terrible, since once Protoss get chargelots, they don't really do anything.
lolwut? hellions are so freaking strong against zealots even chargelots and when you mech you're are going to have a lot of them. i mech against toss all the time ( top diamond though i suppose) and it works great.
Well..Yeah, I honestly didn't beat mech until I was masters and would always lose to it. then I just knew how to deal with it, and I haven't lost to it for a very long time
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I wouldn't ever go pure bio against Zerg as Terran. Especially with recent infestor buff.
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On June 07 2011 20:09 Shooks wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 17:44 FoFo wrote:On June 07 2011 16:35 Shooks wrote:
Well I can't speak for Zerg since I'm a Protoss player, but I rarely ever see Terrans go for bio in tvz, more Marine/tank.
As for Protoss it definitely can, and it's the best lategame unit comp by far IMO, I think Mech is pretty terrible, since once Protoss get chargelots, they don't really do anything.
lolwut? hellions are so freaking strong against zealots even chargelots and when you mech you're are going to have a lot of them. i mech against toss all the time ( top diamond though i suppose) and it works great. Well..Yeah, I honestly didn't beat mech until I was masters and would always lose to it. then I just knew how to deal with it, and I haven't lost to it for a very long time
fair enough but what makes it easy for you to beat? the only thing i have trouble with are ranged collosi but in that case it's about positioning and not units because i've smashed maxed protoss armies with minimum losses. i've also not run into any openings that are extremely hard to deal with, you pump rines at the start so no threat of voids and scouting in the mid game will leave you enough time to pump vikings (i get them almost by default cause every toss goes collosus anyway). i've lost to blink stalkers but i felt i could have hold that off with better micro.
i think what most people don't realize is just how good helions are
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On June 07 2011 21:14 FoFo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 20:09 Shooks wrote:On June 07 2011 17:44 FoFo wrote:On June 07 2011 16:35 Shooks wrote:
Well I can't speak for Zerg since I'm a Protoss player, but I rarely ever see Terrans go for bio in tvz, more Marine/tank.
As for Protoss it definitely can, and it's the best lategame unit comp by far IMO, I think Mech is pretty terrible, since once Protoss get chargelots, they don't really do anything.
lolwut? hellions are so freaking strong against zealots even chargelots and when you mech you're are going to have a lot of them. i mech against toss all the time ( top diamond though i suppose) and it works great. Well..Yeah, I honestly didn't beat mech until I was masters and would always lose to it. then I just knew how to deal with it, and I haven't lost to it for a very long time fair enough but what makes it easy for you to beat? the only thing i have trouble with are ranged collosi but in that case it's about positioning and not units because i've smashed maxed protoss armies with minimum losses. i've also not run into any openings that are extremely hard to deal with, you pump rines at the start so no threat of voids and scouting in the mid game will leave you enough time to pump vikings (i get them almost by default cause every toss goes collosus anyway). i've lost to blink stalkers but i felt i could have hold that off with better micro. i think what most people don't realize is just how good helions are
This exactly. Most People think that the weakness of Mech is Lots/Stalkers.excetera. THe real weakness is Ranged Collosi which melt your Hellions. No Hellions means that Protoss have free range on your tanks. And although in Mech you should have ravens and ghosts, and maybe a few banshees, you really simply can't hold for long once your hellions die. This and the Collosi Stalker backstab. The trick to mech is keeping his collosi count down with timing attacks. That way you don't need to sink tons of resources and supply in Vikings.
Bio TvP is still effective though, I just never win whn i go Bio TvP. As for Bio TvZ i personally think its very strong late game, if you have good micro. And add some blue hellions. I personally when i see infestors i stop tank production and go all out SK Marine Maruader Medic. The medic cloud prevents your Bio from dieing. And Micro prevents them from dieing to banlings. Ultras you can kite, and BL you simply drop everywhere since their so slow
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first post on tl I think. be nice.
I'm a high diamond terran and I think going pure bio mid to late game vs protoss and zerg is close to suicide.
both races have become very good at dealing with the bio ball. for protoss the colossus and ht are both devastating (and easy to use). for zerg, mass infestor is so easy to fungal armies into oblivion. banelings are good too but are easily hard countered by siege tanks.
I think ghosts are a good counter to these spellcasters but can be really difficult to use since in order to emp before you get stormed or fungaled you have to have the ghosts up front which is a big problem vs thermal lance.
oh and ff and chargelots destroys bioball but I imagine that could be hard to use.
I think bio mixed with mech is the way to go. a few thors and tanks go a long way. thors eat stalkers. helions eat zealots.
if someone has a different opinion then me I want to hear it. TvP is a really hard match up for me right now. ge tting tech to deal with colossus early enough while keeping enough bio to not get overrun by gateway units has been really hard for me to balance
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On June 07 2011 21:14 FoFo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 20:09 Shooks wrote:On June 07 2011 17:44 FoFo wrote:On June 07 2011 16:35 Shooks wrote:
Well I can't speak for Zerg since I'm a Protoss player, but I rarely ever see Terrans go for bio in tvz, more Marine/tank.
As for Protoss it definitely can, and it's the best lategame unit comp by far IMO, I think Mech is pretty terrible, since once Protoss get chargelots, they don't really do anything.
lolwut? hellions are so freaking strong against zealots even chargelots and when you mech you're are going to have a lot of them. i mech against toss all the time ( top diamond though i suppose) and it works great. Well..Yeah, I honestly didn't beat mech until I was masters and would always lose to it. then I just knew how to deal with it, and I haven't lost to it for a very long time fair enough but what makes it easy for you to beat? the only thing i have trouble with are ranged collosi but in that case it's about positioning and not units because i've smashed maxed protoss armies with minimum losses. i've also not run into any openings that are extremely hard to deal with, you pump rines at the start so no threat of voids and scouting in the mid game will leave you enough time to pump vikings (i get them almost by default cause every toss goes collosus anyway). i've lost to blink stalkers but i felt i could have hold that off with better micro. i think what most people don't realize is just how good helions are
Yeah, It certainly does become a micro battle, but I just think it's MUCH easier for Protoss to micro, pretty much I will just have my collosi target the Hellions since they always run a bit forward from the army, then the tank are easy picking for my chargelots. And Terran get caught out of position once and it's pretty much game, basically theirs so many ways Terran can just straight up die to a Protoss when going mech, you really have to leap frog perfectly and spread your units. It's why you barely see any high level Terrans going mech, Jinro self admitted mech is terrible in far positions.
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MMM functions well in small groups for a few reasons:
First: Small groups mean your opponent is less likely to be able to get a surround, so you can micro more effectively and abuse marauder slow that much more.
Second: Medivacs heal at a fixed rate, regardless of what the incoming damage rate is. Smaller engagements mean less incomming damage meaning the heals you get from medivacs is "stronger" so your units die less often. In larger engagements, your opponent simply one shots your units so there is no time for the medivac to heal properly.
Third: MMM is extremely mobile. With the ability to move around the map quickly, and avoid most terrain by lifting and dropping your units, MMM lets you abuse small openings in your opponents defenses, by getting in, doing damage, and getting out quickly. Smaller forces are naturally better suited to hit and run tactics such as this.
If the game goes into the late stages, it is much better to avoid a straight up confrontation with your opponent, as many people believe the Terran has the "weakest" late game army (your opinion may vary). Keeping your units all over the map lets you abuse the three points above, while forcing your opponent's "deathball" (which by definition, is a composition which in which the whole is greater then the sum of its parts, ergo, much stronger when clumped together then spread out) to split up in order to defend from all of the attacks on his many bases. If he refuses to split his forces then the units which he doesn't engage have that much longer to deal their damage and get out safely.
With these things in mind, trading with your opponent (evenly) during the midgame is basically required for MMM play, as the playstyle demands aggressiveness from the player and not passivity. You don't have to trade armies per se, but you do need to cause damage in some form or another. If you don't then experience tells me that your opponent will simply out macro you, as Terran has the longest "reinforcement cycle" of the three races, meaning you want rebuild periods to be constant (i.e. preventing either army from getting maxxed, so reinforcements are steady and not in huge waves "300 food push" style).
It is important to keep in mind that you don't need a huge number of medivacs for an aggressive style, in fact, I would suggest delaying the reactor on the starport in favor of a techlab to get medivac energy asap (then switch the techlab with a reactor'd rax or just make another reactor with your factory). The more energy your medivacs have, the longer you can keep aggression up (which pins your opponent back, and provides valuable scouting information). Often times lategame medivacs have almost no energy, so getting the upgrade early helps immensely. I know a lot of high up players don't do this yet but I will put money down that this is where the future of MMM builds leans towards as players get better at multitasking.
Note: This is from the view of a platinum level player, but I do believe it to be a correct analysis
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usually against toss late game, i go almost purely marader/ghost/medivac.. if colosi ill try to get some vikings in there.
and well tvz, i tried mmm a few times, never seemed to get it to work, if banelings dont run you over, fungal growth will .when i tried to add some ghost to fight off infestors what usually happens is that, ghosts lag behind stimed marines/marauders ( slow movespeed), so the very expensive ghosts end up getting picked off first..... Thats why ghosts/mmm in my honest opinion suck vs zerg, you just cant trade armies equally with zerg imo, you have to get value out of your units and tanks can do that.
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Basically, if you're going for a bioball late game, versus both zerg and protoss, you need to incorporate more higher tech support units like ghosts, banshees, or higher medivac count.
Also, if you sac scvs in exchange for orbitals, you can easily have a more powerful army of bio purely because you just have a bigger army..
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i think the possibly the way to keep zerg tech units down is to snipe the tech building.
so possibly dropping 2 medivacs of stimmed marauders to take out an infestation pit so they cannot produce infestors until it's remade and you have created a timing window.
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MMM is a no go vs Z
Unfortunetly its still standard vs P. Basically vs P the real strength of bio is mid game pressure, which gets you a major advantage when stim/drops hit. If Protoss defends mid game push then he has done major damage to you because now rather than attacking you, he will take more expansions and get stronger.
Dont get me wrong its not liek you shoudl just GG after your 9-11 min push fails you can win late game, but it is almost always an uphill fight if you do dont do any damage by mid game.
I hate playing TvP this way as Id rather play with tanks and fight a more positional/harass battle that is good for the entire game. But mech just does not cut it yet vs P. We either need some player(s) (Dont say Goody, still does not have significant and consistent results vs P and is a one off. No one else plays like him). Or some balance tweaks.
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MMM is really effective i find, but it will taper off in the late game. You simply cannot expect to beat high tier units with bio. Beating a zerg almost becomes impossible once he gets ultras you need to switch to thors for the strike cannon, and once a protoss can afford more robo's then there colossus count will grow too fast and you will have a lot of problems engaging it favorably.
You need to keep up your tech do it gradually, as you keep using bio you need to integrate a few factory's or starport's in so you can shift your army composition into a much stronger force that can take on a death ball. Without all your eggs in your bio basket.
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It can work against Z, but it relies on constant nonstop pressure, while at the same time securing more expansions. The point is that any one of your pushes can end the game if they are insufficiently prepared, and most Zergs want to drone up after fending off an attack, which is when your next attack should hit. However, you should also tech up to more drop play, and really just to fight multiple small battles everywhere after a certain point.
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bio in tvz is a peculiar thing. It is strong early game if you do a timing attack (i.e. reaper expo into 4 rax stim/shields push) wanes in the midgame as Z pumps banes in response, then becomes more effective again late late game once ultras etc come out.
I used to play a pure marine tvz to great effect, but high economy baneling aggression, creep spread in conjunction with bane pumps, and overlords spread make playing a bio w/ drop midgame extrememly difficult in tvz.
In TvP however, you want to stay on bio throughout the game. Unless you are playing a specific mech or timing attack build, head towards fully upgraded bio with ghost / viking support.
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This brings up something I was wondering in TvP. If you're using bio, what if the Toss just forces a direct fight, like with a big push?
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how would you EVER transition into tanks when you're so far behind in upgrades, it's impossible
not to mention that tanks really just aren't that good against colossus, blink stalker, chargelots when they can engage you while you're sieged and still come out of the battle in decent shape, just meaning that when you get caught out of position with siege tanks you'll just straight up lose the game right there
playing with bio can be difficult when they get all their tech/upgrades out, but basically it still comes down to how you engage and use your emps, and you can try to hold out into the super lategame where you have mass orbitals and get rid of some worker supply
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On June 08 2011 12:58 Enwrit wrote:
This brings up something I was wondering in TvP. If you're using bio, what if the Toss just forces a direct fight, like with a big push?
You have to go into late game with some sort of advantage otherwise you will get rolled by the deathball in a straight up fight. Thus, try to build up advantages with harass etc, so that when the push comes, you have a slight advantage.
From there, the direct fight is completely winnable. With bio lategame it is imperative that you
a. maintain a good concave vs. oncoming push
b. position your vikings creatively / micro them to try to snipe colossi
c. hit 2-3 solid emps
d. adjust your marine count according to his tech
Lategame TvP is all about building up an advantage and engaging correctly.
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I'm rank 1 diamond, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe that bio isn't the best way to play either TvP or TvZ in the late late game.
I feel that infestors/banelings are just way too effective for bio to be useful in TvZ without tank support. My problem with tank play though is if you get caught out of position, it's basically GG. (So maybe I should experiment with bio more..)
I know the standard TvP play in the late game is MMMVG, but I feel like mass air is more effective. If you can dodge storms well, banshees just rip through everything in the protoss army (except for carrier/phoenix/voids of course), and when this is combined with PDD and vikings, it becomes seemingly unstoppable (in my experience). I feel that eventually the metagame in TvP will shift away from the bio army late game. (My opinion may be very biased though as I am a huge fan of Synystyr's anti-colossus build. I do have a 90% win rate against toss though on ladder against top diamond/mid masters players.)
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Referring to the mech vs bio debate, any unit with splash, either line or burst, becomes more cost efficient the more you have. As stated in the OP, marines seem to work best in smaller numbers, and terran mostly needs more gas because of mules, so for late game, blue flame hellions seem like a more decent mineral dump than marines.
The upgrades scale with tanks, and they clean up marines easily. Hellions are also relatively durable to tank fire. They can even clean up maruaders in mass( watch the iechoic day9 daily). In TvP zealots are roasted by blue flame hellions and also work very well against zerglings and banelings in TvZ.
An issue is that terran anti air consists of Battlecrusers, which are expensive and do not have decent dps; vikings, only anti air and die easily on the ground; thors, which fail against capitol ships and magic boxed mutas; and Marines, which are perhaps the most cost efficient unit in the game. The reason pure mech worked in brood war was because all the niches were filled. Vulutres served for a hold position type of unit with spider mines as well as a harassing unit for only 75 minerals, tanks did soooooooooo much damage to ground, and goliaths did very well against most air units. so with proper positioning you could win games with pure mech. Its possible in SC2 to go pure mech, but if you lose your entire army you will generally lose, whereas bio/mech works far more efficiently because the harass potential of bio syncs with the immobility of mech. The issue of pure Bio late game is that bio is not cost efficient in large numbers, so you need to constantly harass, but ""the counter" to crazy harassment is to just go kill him" (Day9). whereas running archons into tank lines is usually not the best strategy.
For the record I am only in gold league so if I have gaping holes in my argument feel free to correct me
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I think it's clear for TvZ that pure MMM is not a good late game composition for Terran, so I'll only address TvP.
The benefits of going pure MMM in TvP are pretty clear, allows you a strong early and mid game but I'll specifically address late game MMM.
I assume you and your opponent have a similar food count and that upgrades are equal. There are a couple key things to remember that will help you win the game:
Always flank. You remember back in Brood Wars when people would use more than one hotkey for their army? Yeah do that. You can not allow the Protoss to forcefield you out and allow the DPS off colossi to take effect. Even with 5-6 colossi, if you flank properly, their DPS does not stack up enough and you will be able to pick them all off before they can really hurt you.
Drop, or better yet, threaten a drop. This will force part of the Protoss army to stay at home so they can not commit all their units to an attack. If at anytime Protoss decide to ball up all their units and leave their base unattended, you MUST drop them. One dropship of 4 marauders (espeically with upgrades) are extremely cost effective and can snipe important buildings, allowing almost an auto win.
Use a heavier Maruader army when going against Colossi and gateway mix. Mararuders tank better and when you guys trade most of your army, the winner is usually determined by whether or not the Protoss army DPS is > than your Medivac healing power and kiting.
Kill the obs. If the Protoss has eyes on your army, you will not win, it's that simple. You have to keep repositioning pulling the protoss out of position if you are to engage and if he sees it no good toss is going to walk into a trap.
Ghosts: So this is obvious, after you kill the ob, you can go in and snipe or EMP his sentries/temps.
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What do you do against a protoss/terran player who ,in the lategame, may have very few production facilities due to drops but then they decide to do one last push, is it possible to win by just throwing wave after wave of units, or will the collossi/tanks just kill them too quickly?
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I really do think people don't really appreciate the Planetary Fortressess that plop up on the map during alot of the MLG TvPs, these are what enables T to comfortably harass with drop on 3 bases while still having good ability to survive direct confrontations.
I usually play only macro games where I try to get my 3rd as soon as I'm comfortable with it, harassing P with drops really becomes much more effective when he has to defend 3 bases aswell, so he either tries to push on 2 bases upon seeing my 3rd, or he takes his own third and leaves himself open to drops. A well placed planetary or a bunch of bunkers make holding such a 2base push less scary.
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Pure bio composition is quite map dependent in both of the mu's you mentioned. It requires you to be incredibly active at forcing out low tech units so that you can keep on par with their compositions. Bio does exceedingly well in small numbers but in any frontal engage infestor play really nullifies pure bio late game in tvz, which is why bio-mech seems to be the current state of the matchup.
TvP bio is viable all game, depending on your agression you can be very successful in delaying or even nullifying colossus play with drops and tell timed nexus snipes. The new ghost/marauder play late game help keep templar tech from getting out of hand and keeps your gas low throughout the late game. As long as you don't need vikings, just keep spamming medivacs and picking your engagements wherever the death ball is not, eventually his army will be split up enough to pick off individual groups of units.
I think the one key factor in any bio play more than anything else is upgrades. If you engage higher tech with pure bio, and have weaker upgrades chances are you will not come out ahead.
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On June 08 2011 12:58 Enwrit wrote:
This brings up something I was wondering in TvP. If you're using bio, what if the Toss just forces a direct fight, like with a big push?
Marauders scale extremely well against P with upgrades so as long as you got some advantage midgame it is completely viable. You just need good positioning against Colossus/Sentry and take care of Templars with EMP. If he is pushing you with 2-3 Colos off 2 base while your drops are going on just mass repair your bunkers, leave your third CC in-base and hold out, your drops should crush him and as long as your sim city is tight he should lose most of his army if he forces an entry. Bio reinforcements should clear up what he has left and meanwhile your drops should've leveled his critical tech and eco. In theory at least hehe
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Blazinghand
United States25558 Posts
On June 08 2011 12:20 .Ulcer. wrote:
You simply cannot expect to beat high tier units with bio. Beating a zerg almost becomes impossible once he gets ultras you need to switch to thors for the strike cannon,
This is literally incorrect. If he has ultras, continue to use marauders and make sure you get your +3 attack as soon as possible against his high ultralisk armor. Do not strike cannon Ultralisks. Against zerg, short of weird rushes, and fast thor drop, thors should primarily be used in small numbers to prevent mutalisks from clumping up and attacking your tanks.
Again, do not use strike cannon against ultralisks.
On June 08 2011 12:20 .Ulcer. wrote:
and once a protoss can afford more robo's then there colossus count will grow too fast and you will have a lot of problems engaging it favorably.
You need to keep up your tech do it gradually, as you keep using bio you need to integrate a few factory's or starport's in so you can shift your army composition into a much stronger force that can take on a death ball. Without all your eggs in your bio basket.
Also incorrect, though there is truth to the statement that colossi are hard to engage and that you need to tech. Although you do need to tech up, it is for support units, not a tech switch, bio remains viable against protoss all game, and with higher tier supporting units, is the gold standard of TvP. As he gains templars and archons, ghosts are important, and as he gains colossi, vikings are important. These units, however, are not the mainstay of your army; they are responses to protoss tech and support your marauders. Use drops and medivacs to assert map control and prevent him from moving out to attack you with his entire force (or to force him to burn money on statics).
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if you don't have ghosts a perfect amount of vikings 14-16 and mass marauders you will lose a late game fight providing you have the same micro as the protoss if he has the death ball. I always try to avoid that scenario, getting fast 2/2 then trying to end the game asap.
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The trick in TvP is to go with a core army composition of MARAUDER VIKING MEDIVAC and at most one reactored rax producing MARINES, switching between vikings and medivacs given the circumstances.
Marines simply die too quickly and are so small that they take dps en mass from collosi.
There is a problem with excess gas with this build, and EXCESS GAS is always great to work with. With the core composition set, you can now use the enhancers, spellcasters, and support units. These include GHOSTS, which take off shields and will be easy to produce because of your number of tech lab rax, a RAVEN or two for PDD, a few SEIGETANKS from the one factory you made to get port tech, and BANCHEESE (haha) for gas dump and dps.
Crazy phoenix play will merely prompt you to add another reactor or two in your addon mixup. Voids can be dealt with by vikings and 1reactorrax marines. Both of these take away from the collosi count, allowing your vikings to target them as priority targets.
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On June 09 2011 08:14 MrInocence wrote:
The trick in TvP is to go with a core army composition of MARAUDER VIKING MEDIVAC and at most one reactored rax producing MARINES, switching between vikings and medivacs given the circumstances.
Marines simply die too quickly and are so small that they take dps en mass from collosi.
There is a problem with excess gas with this build, and EXCESS GAS is always great to work with. With the core composition set, you can now use the enhancers, spellcasters, and support units. These include GHOSTS, which take off shields and will be easy to produce because of your number of tech lab rax, a RAVEN or two for PDD, a few SEIGETANKS from the one factory you made to get port tech, and BANCHEESE (haha) for gas dump and dps.
Crazy phoenix play will merely prompt you to add another reactor or two in your addon mixup. Voids can be dealt with by vikings and 1reactorrax marines. Both of these take away from the collosi count, allowing your vikings to target them as priority targets.
This.... I dunno about this. They could just tech switch to immortal zealot and decimate your army. Also, terran isn't dictated by gas, but rather minerals. Also, a few siege tanks aren't enough. Since you are wasting money on unupgraded units, and you have such a low amount of them that they would just get sniped quickly.
I dunno, this just doesn't sound like a particularly good idea.
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MM/MMM is IMO the strongest army in the early to even mid stages of the game. However, in the late game without support they get raped by Colossus, HT, and a lot of other units. Tier 1/1.5 units aren't meant to be used exclusively against Tier 2/3. You are supposed to tech as the game progresses. Delaying your opponent from reaching higher tech is pointless, as it is impossible to keep him so occupied with creating lower tier units that he can't get that Twilight Council into Templar Archives, Robotics Facility into Robotics Bay, Lair into Infestors, etc. Therefore, it's absolutely necessary to tech yourself.
If having only MM/MMM in the late game was a standard strategy, this game would be broken.
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731 Posts
just wanna say WRT hellions/mech : it's true what one poster said, that hellions tend to run up ahead and all die horribly to colossus fire. So why not keep your hellions back a bit, so they can roast the zealots that charge in to kill the first tank, then run back behind the second tank, etc etc? Use them as DPS support vs zealots, not as meatshields. Of course this means creating long drawn-out siege lines, not big clumps of tanks.
Hellions could abandon the main battle and run around to the enemy probes once the zealots die?
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On June 09 2011 09:22 Keilah wrote:
just wanna say WRT hellions/mech : it's true what one poster said, that hellions tend to run up ahead and all die horribly to colossus fire. So why not keep your hellions back a bit, so they can roast the zealots that charge in to kill the first tank, then run back behind the second tank, etc etc? Use them as DPS support vs zealots, not as meatshields. Of course this means creating long drawn-out siege lines, not big clumps of tanks.
Hellions could abandon the main battle and run around to the enemy probes once the zealots die?
I used mech for a month straight vs toss at master league and I have to say that I dont know how people are saying that, with decent control your hellions never go up to far. you can always keep them right up there with the tanks.
This does not solve the problem with mech though. The problem is that tanks are to slow, and you do not have spider mines to control and buy time for a position once you leave it. Almost all of my mech games ended in me losing to immobilty issues. Rather than straight up ball vs ball.
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I dont really like using bio late game as it seems to be very fragile to deathballs if miscontrolled slightly.
MMM will however, be very strong if you use supports units such as ghost to destroy the protoss army shield, viking to snipe colloseus and ravens to ppd absorbing fire from stalkers and colloseus.
With the rise in usage of zealot/archon, I would say that helions might finally come to use as they burn zealots.
I feel that the composition of MMM should have more marauders than marines unless the protoss has some air units.
The main advantage of MMM is the mobility, try to abuse the mobility of the protoss army and drop all over the place such as MVP vs Creator Game3.
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With good control a MMMVG army can take on a late game protoss army head on. It's crucial to get off some good emps not only on templars but especially at the Zealots otherwise you will have to kite them too long while the stalkers can pick off all you air units uncontested which will result in you getting run over by his collosus because of the lack of vikings or by his warp ins because of the lack of medivacs.
The big problem about this composition is that it is so mineral heavy and you cant really afford to tech to anything else. This leaves you in a situation where you have to keep taking more bases just to get more minerals while you have no use for the gas while the protoss has usage for both. On a map like metalopolis you have approximately one hour to kill your protoss opponent because this is the time your half of the map will be mined out of minerals while you won't have even started mining gas from your fifth and sixth base. On bigger maps you can take more expansions but eventually you will run into the same problem after a very long game or in situations where protoss keeps trading expansions with you.
The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that the ghost cost change in the last patch is really problematic in the late game for terran. Right now I am thinking about getting a third starport with a techlab for banshees and ravens and the energy upgrade for the medivacs.
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bioball is fine all game long TvP. Just hit some good EMPs and you're fine. As long as you have decent vikings to deal with colossus. At 200 vs 200 it comes down to upgrades, micro and reinforcements.
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On June 09 2011 14:24 Baum wrote:
With good control a MMMVG army can take on a late game protoss army head on. It's crucial to get off some good emps not only on templars but especially at the Zealots otherwise you will have to kite them too long while the stalkers can pick off all you air units uncontested which will result in you getting run over by his collosus because of the lack of vikings or by his warp ins because of the lack of medivacs.
The big problem about this composition is that it is so mineral heavy and you cant really afford to tech to anything else. This leaves you in a situation where you have to keep taking more bases just to get more minerals while you have no use for the gas while the protoss has usage for both. On a map like metalopolis you have approximately one hour to kill your protoss opponent because this is the time your half of the map will be mined out of minerals while you won't have even started mining gas from your fifth and sixth base. On bigger maps you can take more expansions but eventually you will run into the same problem after a very long game or in situations where protoss keeps trading expansions with you.
The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that the ghost cost change in the last patch is really problematic in the late game for terran. Right now I am thinking about getting a third starport with a techlab for banshees and ravens and the energy upgrade for the medivacs.
I agree with you, of the three races Terran has the least benefit from excess gas (which is a veritable certainty in the late game in most cases) because most of our units are so mineral heavy, and the gas-intensive units that we do have also carry a large mineral cost so it's difficult to build them when gas is high and minerals are low anyways.
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On June 09 2011 08:34 shockaslim wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 08:14 MrInocence wrote:
The trick in TvP is to go with a core army composition of MARAUDER VIKING MEDIVAC and at most one reactored rax producing MARINES, switching between vikings and medivacs given the circumstances.
Marines simply die too quickly and are so small that they take dps en mass from collosi.
There is a problem with excess gas with this build, and EXCESS GAS is always great to work with. With the core composition set, you can now use the enhancers, spellcasters, and support units. These include GHOSTS, which take off shields and will be easy to produce because of your number of tech lab rax, a RAVEN or two for PDD, a few SEIGETANKS from the one factory you made to get port tech, and BANCHEESE (haha) for gas dump and dps.
Crazy phoenix play will merely prompt you to add another reactor or two in your addon mixup. Voids can be dealt with by vikings and 1reactorrax marines. Both of these take away from the collosi count, allowing your vikings to target them as priority targets. This.... I dunno about this. They could just tech switch to immortal zealot and decimate your army. Also, terran isn't dictated by gas, but rather minerals. Also, a few siege tanks aren't enough. Since you are wasting money on unupgraded units, and you have such a low amount of them that they would just get sniped quickly. I dunno, this just doesn't sound like a particularly good idea.
You need Blink Stalkers and/or Templars to deal effectively with drops. Your vikings can also fly around and land on mineral lines without stalkers, forcing the Protoss to fight on multiple fronts. Zealot/Immortal/Templar IMO is a strong unit comp but it isn't always necessarily better, unless you can barrel right through a Terran with it.
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On June 09 2011 22:34 STS17 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 14:24 Baum wrote:
With good control a MMMVG army can take on a late game protoss army head on. It's crucial to get off some good emps not only on templars but especially at the Zealots otherwise you will have to kite them too long while the stalkers can pick off all you air units uncontested which will result in you getting run over by his collosus because of the lack of vikings or by his warp ins because of the lack of medivacs.
The big problem about this composition is that it is so mineral heavy and you cant really afford to tech to anything else. This leaves you in a situation where you have to keep taking more bases just to get more minerals while you have no use for the gas while the protoss has usage for both. On a map like metalopolis you have approximately one hour to kill your protoss opponent because this is the time your half of the map will be mined out of minerals while you won't have even started mining gas from your fifth and sixth base. On bigger maps you can take more expansions but eventually you will run into the same problem after a very long game or in situations where protoss keeps trading expansions with you.
The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that the ghost cost change in the last patch is really problematic in the late game for terran. Right now I am thinking about getting a third starport with a techlab for banshees and ravens and the energy upgrade for the medivacs. I agree with you, of the three races Terran has the least benefit from excess gas (which is a veritable certainty in the late game in most cases) because most of our units are so mineral heavy, and the gas-intensive units that we do have also carry a large mineral cost so it's difficult to build them when gas is high and minerals are low anyways.
Our race also has the ability to drop mules from 4+ OC's late game, something other races don't have.
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On June 08 2011 13:42 MaFFGeeK wrote:
I'm rank 1 diamond, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe that bio isn't the best way to play either TvP or TvZ in the late late game.
I feel that infestors/banelings are just way too effective for bio to be useful in TvZ without tank support. My problem with tank play though is if you get caught out of position, it's basically GG. (So maybe I should experiment with bio more..)
I know the standard TvP play in the late game is MMMVG, but I feel like mass air is more effective. If you can dodge storms well, banshees just rip through everything in the protoss army (except for carrier/phoenix/voids of course), and when this is combined with PDD and vikings, it becomes seemingly unstoppable (in my experience). I feel that eventually the metagame in TvP will shift away from the bio army late game. (My opinion may be very biased though as I am a huge fan of Synystyr's anti-colossus build. I do have a 90% win rate against toss though on ladder against top diamond/mid masters players.)
I'm really waiting to see more heavy air play in Terran play in general. I think out of the three races terran has the best mix of air units to make it work, but for now Marauders just do so much dmg to everything in the toss army that I believe it still is the dominant comp, rauder, medivac, ghost, is I think still the strongest army you can get against toss, as long as marauders are as effective as they are against stalkers and collosi I don't see this changing.
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TvP
This "tier 1 vs deathball" statement gets thrown off way too much. MMM is more than fine vs P in lategame. You have the same gas allocation (little in marine/marauders vs stalker/zealots sum sentries), then the support stuff (collossus vs medi/vikings) and templars/ghosts.
As such, since Khaydarin was removed, a 200-200 fight comes down to control, positioning, execution, micro, etc (obviously upgrades)
I'm not saying you shouldn't drop/play skirmishes etc - but you deffo shouldn't play with the mindset that if you're 200-200 in TvP you're automatically behind.
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On June 10 2011 01:18 Shado. wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 22:34 STS17 wrote:On June 09 2011 14:24 Baum wrote:
With good control a MMMVG army can take on a late game protoss army head on. It's crucial to get off some good emps not only on templars but especially at the Zealots otherwise you will have to kite them too long while the stalkers can pick off all you air units uncontested which will result in you getting run over by his collosus because of the lack of vikings or by his warp ins because of the lack of medivacs.
The big problem about this composition is that it is so mineral heavy and you cant really afford to tech to anything else. This leaves you in a situation where you have to keep taking more bases just to get more minerals while you have no use for the gas while the protoss has usage for both. On a map like metalopolis you have approximately one hour to kill your protoss opponent because this is the time your half of the map will be mined out of minerals while you won't have even started mining gas from your fifth and sixth base. On bigger maps you can take more expansions but eventually you will run into the same problem after a very long game or in situations where protoss keeps trading expansions with you.
The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that the ghost cost change in the last patch is really problematic in the late game for terran. Right now I am thinking about getting a third starport with a techlab for banshees and ravens and the energy upgrade for the medivacs. I agree with you, of the three races Terran has the least benefit from excess gas (which is a veritable certainty in the late game in most cases) because most of our units are so mineral heavy, and the gas-intensive units that we do have also carry a large mineral cost so it's difficult to build them when gas is high and minerals are low anyways. Our race also has the ability to drop mules from 4+ OC's late game, something other races don't have.
That's all well and good but it doesn't mean our bases are any more secure then theirs. Hell, in TvZ you are generally so immobile that your expansions past your natural have to be PFs in order to defend them (so no MULES there) and in TvP unless you have some sort of huge lead most of your expansions are also PFs, I don't know about you but I don't exactly have the funds to just toss down extra OCs at 550 minerals a piece in the mid to late game hoping they last for the 4+ minutes it takes for them to recoup their cost. Not to mention that almost every MULE dies with some minerals in hand so each MULE called down actually depreciates the maximum amount of minerals you can harvest so once the game goes long enough to start mining out the map, (assuming you have mined out equal bases, generally indicative of a close game) you have actually mined less then your opponent has.
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