The Hellion Tank Ghost build is a powerful LATE GAME transition (3-4 bases) thought of by me in attempt to change the metagame of TvZ from marine tank medivac. It was significantly much easier to deal with zergs back in season one when most zergs never even thought of going infestors. However once explored, it has proven to be extremely powerful as a unit that can practically counter the entire terran arsenal on its own. As a result, the hellion tank ghost mix was designed and has been shown to counter practically any zerg unit mix as well. Please watch the demonstration video as provided
The units
These units are amazing at taking out huge amounts of zerglings and also acts as a front line defense for soaking up a bit of damage before they can finally reach the tanks and ghosts. Hellions are also used to constantly harass your opponents 3rd and 4th.
These units are the core damage dealers that once in critical mass can practically wipe out zerglings, banelings, roach, hydras as well as softening ultras quite a bit on their own.
The ghosts act as specialist unit that counter the extremely expensive zerg units that can ruin any terran push. EMP is used for neutralizing infestors while snipe is used to take out overseers that provide detection as well as broodlords. Note in most cases, if you take out the overseer, there is no other way for zergs to be able to attack your ghosts. Think of them as a supermarine that have no counters...with a sniper rifle.
Typically thors are the supposed counter to mutalisks. Unfortunately, with the discovery of the magic box, their role in AA has been severly limited. Simply put, if your thors are taken out, any AtG units will stop your push even though you won the ground war. If you are also massing on thors, then smart zergs will react accordingly and either go broodlords, mass roaches, or infestors to counter.
The obvious counter to broodlords would be vikings, however, with infestors, their role becomes diminished as fungal growth will absolutely destroy them. Not to mention that once zergs see you building way too many vikings. They may tech switch to a group dominant force to completely nullify your viking investment.
Ghosts are a great substitute for dealing with mutalisks when doing your push. Snipe practically gives the equivalent range of thor's GtA yet at the same time grants a much larger burst damage since it is spammable. However unlike thors, they are able to kill both broodlords AND nullify infestors-both of which units counter thors.
Now looking at the viking, they cost 150/75 while the ghost costs 200/100. The viking is only slightly cheaper yet fulfills only the role as an anti-armored air unit. Ghosts are versatile units capable of anti-air, anti-light, anti-caster....WITH INVIS. I believe the argument is very clear here
Well overseer has 11 detection range, snipe has only 10 range. Also pro tip, you can self detonate banelings to kill cloaked units like ghost or dark templar. Ghost might be awsome, but if you get attacked while not focused, the few snipes you miss can easily loose you the game. Also @ 3:09 you would have lost if it was not the zergs first time he ever attemped to do a magic box.
It works sorta, and i find it interesting that both bio and mech can transition into this (add lots of ghosts and some hellions for bio, cut down thors and add ghosts on mech), though of course the ghosts would be 3/3 for bio but mech would have tanks and hellions at 3/3
Anyways, I think you really should still have at least a couple Thors around, simply to force him to split his mutas or risk losing all of them and to control space and to tank a bit because if he has a lot of Broodlords (which is common, and by a lot i mean like 15-20 unlike in the video), you'll lose more ghosts than necessary, unless if you started with bio and already have up'd Ghosts and medivacs and maybe even some marines.
However, the problem is when the Broodlords attack, there will be massive splash on your army... if you unsiege though, the Roaches (if he massed them) will rape your army. So really from my experience you still need Thors (if you were meching).
Unless if the opponent is going for Ultralisks, I would say Thor Hellion Ghost is much better. Thors are less gas heavy than Tanks too, and do well against Roaches when in max'd numbers and keep you safer vs mass Muta surprises, and if he catches you with Broodlords off guard you won't lose your entire army and usually the game (as in, before you have enough ghosts if at all for the BLs).
I definitely agree though, that it's better just to get Ghosts only rather than Vikings or both Ghosts and Vikings (talking about mech at least)
On August 20 2011 06:40 Sea_Food wrote: Well overseer has 11 detection range, snipe has only 10 range. Also pro tip, you can self detonate banelings to kill cloaked units like ghost or dark templar. Ghost might be awsome, but if you get attacked while not focused, the few snipes you miss can easily loose you the game. Also @ 3:09 you would have lost if it was not the zergs first time he ever attemped to do a magic box.
Yes, while the overseer does have a higher range, arguably I can say that there is no way overseers constantly going to stay 1 range away from your ghosts. Never have I seen zergs attempt to micro their overseer to try to avoid death.
The self detonate baneling, yes I believe thats the main problem with this composition. It is really important to micro your ghosts so that they should avoid the banelings. In the video, I should have kept my ghosts behind my tanks as I almost lost all of them. Positioning is extremely important here
And as for the mutalisks, yes he did clump up his mutas, however I didn't have cloak researched. Arguably I could say that If i had cloak, I would've held that off regardless
On August 20 2011 07:00 Nightsz wrote: Yes, while the overseer does have a higher range, arguably I can say that there is no way overseers constantly going to stay 1 range away from your ghosts. Never have I seen zergs attempt to micro their overseer to try to avoid death.
The self detonate baneling, yes I believe thats the main problem with this composition. It is really important to micro your ghosts so that they should avoid the banelings. In the video, I should have kept my ghosts behind my tanks as I almost lost all of them. Positioning is extremely important here
And as for the mutalisks, yes he did clump up his mutas, however I didn't have cloak researched. Arguably I could say that If i had cloak, I would've held that off regardless
Definitely agree, the overseer is not going to be paid attention to and 1 range is not much at all. Plus Overseers have pretty slow acceleration don't they?
Honestly I cannot fully understand why it works in your replays. It seems like Master players can get away with things that that would be punished immediately in lower leagues.
Without Marauders if the Zerg player just goes mass roach he can run over an equal investment of gas into tanks. Without MMM drops how do you take out expansions before the Zerg can drone up?
And how you manage to take out Ultras without even having upgrades for your military - I see it working in your replay but it does not make sense. It take 12 snipes to kill an Ultra so Ghosts hardly seem cost efficient vs Ultras.
And what would happen if your opponent went mass Mutas instead of just 5-10? I honestly do to not think it possible to fight 20+ mutas with just Ghosts, no one can snipe that fast.
On August 20 2011 07:47 MockHamill wrote: Honestly I cannot fully understand why it works in your replays. It seems like Master players can get away with things that that would be punished immediately in lower leagues.
Without Marauders if the Zerg player just goes mass roach he can run over an equal investment of gas into tanks. Without MMM drops how do you take out expansions before the Zerg can drone up?
And how you manage to take out Ultras without even having upgrades for your military - I see it working in your replay but it does not make sense. It take 12 snipes to kill an Ultra so Ghosts hardly seem cost efficient vs Ultras.
And what would happen if your opponent went mass Mutas instead of just 5-10? I honestly do to not think it possible to fight 20+ mutas with just Ghosts, no one can snipe that fast.
Im not gonna lie, Im a REALLY terrible player. So I wrote this guide as a general strategy after you've managed to secure 3-4 bases. This isn't somehow you should transition to straight off 1-2 base. Basically this is just something you should do after you somehow managed to push towards the late game phase where you are constantly able to replenish your units
TAKING OUT FULLY UPGRADED ULTRALISKS ONLY SHOW HOW POTENTIALLY POWERFUL THIS CAN BE RIGHT? LOL
As for mutalisks, you have to note that ghosts are extremely cost efficient vs mutalisks even with their auto attack. And remember, as long as you can snipe the overseer, you're ghosts are literally invulnerable cept to banelings and fungal growth
while im not quite sure that you were the one who thought this up, unless your listed in Canada but actually live in korea, but i suppose why beat a dead horse
Either way, id have to agree with you that Ghost Mech is probably the best composition late game. Bio-Mech is good as well, but once you get a critical mass of ghosts and tanks, there isnt really too much that zerg can do except throw units at you, lose them, then roll over and die.
But as stated above, i do believe that you should throw in just 2-3 thors if there are ANY mutos AT ALL or B-Lords, jsut becuase if his/her mutos are clumped, he instantly loses all of him, which forces him use APM on splitting his mutos instead of microing the rest of his army
Nicely done, i realize that it can be kinda hard to write a guide for a composition that really only works in the late game. Thanks for your work! <3
On August 20 2011 07:47 MockHamill wrote: Honestly I cannot fully understand why it works in your replays. It seems like Master players can get away with things that that would be punished immediately in lower leagues.
Without Marauders if the Zerg player just goes mass roach he can run over an equal investment of gas into tanks. Without MMM drops how do you take out expansions before the Zerg can drone up?
And how you manage to take out Ultras without even having upgrades for your military - I see it working in your replay but it does not make sense. It take 12 snipes to kill an Ultra so Ghosts hardly seem cost efficient vs Ultras.
And what would happen if your opponent went mass Mutas instead of just 5-10? I honestly do to not think it possible to fight 20+ mutas with just Ghosts, no one can snipe that fast.
You can never get enough roaches to have equal gas amount to a Terran using tanks. Tanks cost 125 gas, roaches cost 25. Tanks are 3 supply roaches are 2. Therefore, a maxed army of tanks is worth 8250 gas whilst the roaches is worth 2500, so your argument of roaches>tanks is completely invalid.
You don't need to stop the Zerg from droning up, you just have to split the map and fortify, knowing your cost effectiveness will win the game.
With a critical mass of tanks, no zerg ground army in the game can touch it. Not even ultras especially with ghost support. Also, mass ghosts > mass muta. Ghosts are way better vs mutas than marines are. They have a ton of hp, and not even including snipe, destroy mutas in a fight. Add medivac support and they are untouchable vs mutas. Did you know they 2 shot workers?
On August 20 2011 07:47 MockHamill wrote: Honestly I cannot fully understand why it works in your replays. It seems like Master players can get away with things that that would be punished immediately in lower leagues.
Without Marauders if the Zerg player just goes mass roach he can run over an equal investment of gas into tanks. Without MMM drops how do you take out expansions before the Zerg can drone up?
And how you manage to take out Ultras without even having upgrades for your military - I see it working in your replay but it does not make sense. It take 12 snipes to kill an Ultra so Ghosts hardly seem cost efficient vs Ultras.
And what would happen if your opponent went mass Mutas instead of just 5-10? I honestly do to not think it possible to fight 20+ mutas with just Ghosts, no one can snipe that fast.
You can never get enough roaches to have equal gas amount to a Terran using tanks. Tanks cost 125 gas, roaches cost 25. Tanks are 3 supply roaches are 2. Therefore, a maxed army of tanks is worth 8250 gas whilst the roaches is worth 2500, so your argument of roaches>tanks is completely invalid.
You don't need to stop the Zerg from droning up, you just have to split the map and fortify, knowing your cost effectiveness will win the game.
With a critical mass of tanks, no zerg ground army in the game can touch it. Not even ultras especially with ghost support. Also, mass ghosts > mass muta. Ghosts are way better vs mutas than marines are. They have a ton of hp, and not even including snipe, destroy mutas in a fight. Add medivac support and they are untouchable vs mutas. Did you know they 2 shot workers?
Or that they do 20 damage with their normal attack, and 1 more range than Marines? ^_^ Or how time efficient they are for their value? 2 supply for a very strong combat-spellcaster unit in only 40 seconds. I just hope that Ghosts' production time won't need to be produced in the future if Zergs start complaining about a potential new trend of using Ghosts (likely), I love using ghosts (and nukes).
And yes when you play mech it is very different than bio, it's not just a simple change of units. It's a completely different style. You have to turtle and be super defensive, and try to split the map like he said. With bio, you do drops and all that because you're utilizing bio's strengths: mobility in drops and strength in small numbers. With Mech, you use its strength in raw power to take half the map, trying to stop the zerg from breaking you. Unless you're going for a thor hellion force, which also works, but is quite different; usually you take a fast third and rush to a 200/200 or 140 ish army and attack him around 15 minutes and hope he hasn't prepared enough.
A strictly Ghost/Tank/Hellion composition would be incredibly vulnerable to mass mutas, which Zerg should already have in play at this point in the game. I'm not really sure what your plan to force Zerg off Mutas would be. You need either Marines or Thors (or preferably a mix of both) to nullify the high Muta count that your opponent should have or your Ghosts can never take off in power.
Not saying that these units aren't good in late-game TvZ, but I think sticking strictly to this composition without having several Thors and/or Marines involved is ignoring the obvious.
so basically i think at least 3 of those fights were lost for you if there weren't some cloaked ghosts left and no overseer. But then again, 4 vikings and 20 cloaked banshees would have won the same engagements even more convincingly. (well except for the one with the mutas where you might have needed 2 thors and a few scvs...) Some engagements were really sad to watch from a zergs perspective, sending in those so-called fully upgraded ultras one by one was sad (and after the fight he still had ultras/infestors left, so he didn't even send in all his army?!?) Another example would be the first engagement; guess what happens if you send in 100 lings on move command next to a dozent blue flame hellions. Yeah right, they get toasted (especially with so many tanks sieged up around). No manual detonation of banelings on your ghosts too. Morphing Broodlords for 10 seconds above a terran army, marines would have done an equal/better/more cost effective job (since roaches retreated from siege tanks anyway) Ghosts sure are a great unit in TvZ, however i feel like there is a limit on how useful they can be based on your opponents unit composition and your opponents control one fungal growth in the last engagement instead of 20 infested terrans and the zerg would have won. The only time a zerg uses fungal growth in those videos is against 3 siege tanks (to burrow his infestors into a scan shortly thereafter) So yeah, if you have enough ghosts, fungals/banelings can destroy them pretty cost-effective. A muta flock (magic box vs few thors) + few overseer makes short work of you too. Also i would love to play against a terran who neglects marines/thors/vikings, baneling drops are already pretty effective against marines (if you send in a few dummy overlords ahead). But you seem to have no anti-air except for ghosts, so dropping about any zerg unit (and banlings on your ghosts) would crush your whole position.
also at the engagement where the infestors get burrowed you had luckily the ressources lost tab open. Guess what - even after the zerg sacrificing 5-7 infestors by burrowing them into your scan he still lost only 50 ressources more than you total. So much about being cost effective.
oh and before i forget it, as a zerg player neural parasite one ghost (which you can see with your overseer before said overseer gets in snipe range, if you control good enough / terran bad enough he will not snipe/emp all your infestors before they get one neural off) and emp all those beautifully clumped up ghosts, terran will smack himself for having a bunch of marines that cost 100 gas each at your front and no stimpack to retreat
all i'm saying is, sorry, but this strategy (as awesome as it is) does have its weaknesses, the zergs in your video just played to your strategy's strenghts. Do not expect this to be a solid strategy, rather like a gimmicky build that can win you the game outright if your opponent has insufficient control/tactics/strategy
The Problem with this composition is, you will die to pure Roach. Theres a reason people do Mech + Ghost builds TvZ and even then Pure Roach does very well against it. Obviously it does good against Roach, But if they engage you multiple times before you try to push their main, eventually they will just overun you.
@ GM level i've been having a hard time using Mech when they bust out infestor roach.
On August 20 2011 09:19 Cirqueenflex wrote: so basically i think at least 3 of those fights were lost for you if there weren't some cloaked ghosts left and no overseer. But then again, 4 vikings and 20 cloaked banshees would have won the same engagements even more convincingly. (well except for the one with the mutas where you might have needed 2 thors and a few scvs...) Some engagements were really sad to watch from a zergs perspective, sending in those so-called fully upgraded ultras one by one was sad (and after the fight he still had ultras/infestors left, so he didn't even send in all his army?!?) Another example would be the first engagement; guess what happens if you send in 100 lings on move command next to a dozent blue flame hellions. Yeah right, they get toasted (especially with so many tanks sieged up around). No manual detonation of banelings on your ghosts too. Morphing Broodlords for 10 seconds above a terran army, marines would have done an equal/better/more cost effective job (since roaches retreated from siege tanks anyway) Ghosts sure are a great unit in TvZ, however i feel like there is a limit on how useful they can be based on your opponents unit composition and your opponents control one fungal growth in the last engagement instead of 20 infested terrans and the zerg would have won. The only time a zerg uses fungal growth in those videos is against 3 siege tanks (to burrow his infestors into a scan shortly thereafter) So yeah, if you have enough ghosts, fungals/banelings can destroy them pretty cost-effective. A muta flock (magic box vs few thors) + few overseer makes short work of you too. Also i would love to play against a terran who neglects marines/thors/vikings, baneling drops are already pretty effective against marines (if you send in a few dummy overlords ahead). But you seem to have no anti-air except for ghosts, so dropping about any zerg unit (and banlings on your ghosts) would crush your whole position.
also at the engagement where the infestors get burrowed you had luckily the ressources lost tab open. Guess what - even after the zerg sacrificing 5-7 infestors by burrowing them into your scan he still lost only 50 ressources more than you total. So much about being cost effective.
oh and before i forget it, as a zerg player neural parasite one ghost (which you can see with your overseer before said overseer gets in snipe range, if you control good enough / terran bad enough he will not snipe/emp all your infestors before they get one neural off) and emp all those beautifully clumped up ghosts, terran will smack himself for having a bunch of marines that cost 100 gas each at your front and no stimpack to retreat
all i'm saying is, sorry, but this strategy (as awesome as it is) does have its weaknesses, the zergs in your video just played to your strategy's strenghts. Do not expect this to be a solid strategy, rather like a gimmicky build that can win you the game outright if your opponent has insufficient control/tactics/strategy
p.s.: i love ghosts too, they are a great unit!
tl, dr: this strategy wins if your opponent is not prefectly countering you /sarcasm off
I think you should rethink your opening a little bit and ur upgrades are pretty late, but this has great potential.
But really those zerg players are terribad, I can't believe they are masters. Is NA really that much worse than other servers?
On August 20 2011 09:19 Cirqueenflex wrote: so basically i think at least 3 of those fights were lost for you if there weren't some cloaked ghosts left and no overseer. But then again, 4 vikings and 20 cloaked banshees would have won the same engagements even more convincingly. (well except for the one with the mutas where you might have needed 2 thors and a few scvs...) Some engagements were really sad to watch from a zergs perspective, sending in those so-called fully upgraded ultras one by one was sad (and after the fight he still had ultras/infestors left, so he didn't even send in all his army?!?) Another example would be the first engagement; guess what happens if you send in 100 lings on move command next to a dozent blue flame hellions. Yeah right, they get toasted (especially with so many tanks sieged up around). No manual detonation of banelings on your ghosts too. Morphing Broodlords for 10 seconds above a terran army, marines would have done an equal/better/more cost effective job (since roaches retreated from siege tanks anyway) Ghosts sure are a great unit in TvZ, however i feel like there is a limit on how useful they can be based on your opponents unit composition and your opponents control one fungal growth in the last engagement instead of 20 infested terrans and the zerg would have won. The only time a zerg uses fungal growth in those videos is against 3 siege tanks (to burrow his infestors into a scan shortly thereafter) So yeah, if you have enough ghosts, fungals/banelings can destroy them pretty cost-effective. A muta flock (magic box vs few thors) + few overseer makes short work of you too. Also i would love to play against a terran who neglects marines/thors/vikings, baneling drops are already pretty effective against marines (if you send in a few dummy overlords ahead). But you seem to have no anti-air except for ghosts, so dropping about any zerg unit (and banlings on your ghosts) would crush your whole position.
also at the engagement where the infestors get burrowed you had luckily the ressources lost tab open. Guess what - even after the zerg sacrificing 5-7 infestors by burrowing them into your scan he still lost only 50 ressources more than you total. So much about being cost effective.
oh and before i forget it, as a zerg player neural parasite one ghost (which you can see with your overseer before said overseer gets in snipe range, if you control good enough / terran bad enough he will not snipe/emp all your infestors before they get one neural off) and emp all those beautifully clumped up ghosts, terran will smack himself for having a bunch of marines that cost 100 gas each at your front and no stimpack to retreat
all i'm saying is, sorry, but this strategy (as awesome as it is) does have its weaknesses, the zergs in your video just played to your strategy's strenghts. Do not expect this to be a solid strategy, rather like a gimmicky build that can win you the game outright if your opponent has insufficient control/tactics/strategy
p.s.: i love ghosts too, they are a great unit!
erm, i believe at that point where he just sent in his ultras was where he already given up and began to rage at how imba ghosts are. I just wanted to add that in for fun.
Saying that 4 vikings and 20 cloak banshees would've won the same fight is illogical because you have to take infestors into account. Fungal + infested terrans will tear them apart. At least with ghosts you are able to EMP to limit the amount of possible damage taken.
But yes definetly every build is beatable by any means. Not saying this is invincible. In fact, I think the situation you described with the overlord baneling drop to abuse the lack of anti-armor air would work pretty decent against this. I never even thought of it.
But then again, the decision of the battle is going to be heavily influenced by micro from both sides.
tl, dr: this strategy wins if your opponent is not prefectly countering you /sarcasm off
I think you should rethink your opening a little bit and ur upgrades are pretty late, but this has great potential.
But really those zerg players are terribad, I can't believe they are masters. Is NA really that much worse than other servers?
Lol like i said before, I am by means no where close to amazing in my TvZ matchup. My opening is mediocre in my replays and I dont have a solid understanding of how the matchup works in the early game. But I would definetly like to see more high leveled players attempt to try this and give feedback
I think a pf wall in the middle of the map would be unbreakable with this build. Terran can do the slowest push ever with inching pfs forward and tanks. With a split map, I don't see how a zerg can break it, because Ghosts deal with ALL Zerg air better than every unit in the game.
He's low masters so he will be playing against people that are probably going to be pretty close to diamond level to the people puzzled by quality of his opponents. Tbh I think this comp works better with thors added in. Go mech with some ghost and even with magic box if you have 4+ thors with ghosts and a few marines mutas wont be able to kill them cost effectively especially if you go for armor upgrades. I feel without thors, ling infestor with roaches could just bowl over this as it is a very fragile unit comp. In pretty much all the clips the zerg never fungals your ghosts and clump their infestors.
I'm sure some jackass will say "lol cant ever get fungal off emp has longer range!" but it just doesn't work like that unless you completely clump your infestors and move them into cloaked ghosts without pressing fungal until after the terran has cast all his emps. As people said earlier overseer has longer detection range then ghost snipe doesn't mean overseers will never get sniped.
Honestly the biggest weakness of going mech or any of these slower less mobile unit comps is that zergs can just get a unbeatable macro lead if they respond appropriately. However on NA half the zergs I play at mid-high masters are hyper aggressive or try to do some sort of bust. This makes these type of slower mech pushes effective against them since they aren't going for a heavy macro game and will often throw lots of units away and be unprepared macro and army wise for the eventual push.
While it's a viable comp I think it's pretty questionable whether it's actually worth using. This unit comp isn't just slow it's very fragile and control heavy to the point where you might as well be playing marine tank medivac ghost.
I have a question: is mech really that good? Lately on TL, I have been seeing TONS of mech guides in both tvz and tvt, and even in tvp (lol). Personally, I think marine/tank is better vs zerg, but I'd like to hear others opinions. It just seems that in high masters, zergs just constantly conterattack me, and its really hard to deal with that with marine/tank. I cant imagine how devestating counterattacks must be vs mech.
I'm playing mech since a while You don't have to fear lings/muta runby with your helions-thors, although muta can be annoying If your opponents goes broodlords/ultra, it's easier than infestors/roaches comp' Upgrades are better I have the feeling that ghosts mix better in the comp than marine tanks That said, I can't say if mech or marine tank is better, I just know that I can deal with way more experienced player than me with a mech comp' Here's a replay, may be not the most usual game I play, but there's runbys \o/ http://replayfu.com/r/QgN90p
On August 20 2011 10:26 kofman wrote: I have a question: is mech really that good? Lately on TL, I have been seeing TONS of mech guides in both tvz and tvt, and even in tvp (lol). Personally, I think marine/tank is better vs zerg, but I'd like to hear others opinions. It just seems that in high masters, zergs just constantly conterattack me, and its really hard to deal with that with marine/tank. I cant imagine how devestating counterattacks must be vs mech.
Ghost/mech is a fairly powerful late-game composition. Especially if you transitioned FROM a Marine/Tank/Medivac midgame.
The only reason Marines really lose their effectiveness in the late-game is the abundance of infestors and broodlords that Zerg should have available to him. But replacing marines with ghosts and Thors, so long as you can afford the gas to do so, will allow you to hold off Broodlords and EMP infestors.
This isn't to say that you should stop marine production completely. Continuing with your octo-drops and having 3/3 infantry upgrades is ridiculously strong vs the plentiful number of zerg bases.
I wouldn't say it's an end-all-be-all, but it's a lot stronger than just adding vikings to your marine/tank/medivac composition.
On August 20 2011 09:31 GoKu` wrote: The Problem with this composition is, you will die to pure Roach. Theres a reason people do Mech + Ghost builds TvZ and even then Pure Roach does very well against it. Obviously it does good against Roach, But if they engage you multiple times before you try to push their main, eventually they will just overun you.
@ GM level i've been having a hard time using Mech when they bust out infestor roach.
What are you talking about O_O. Roach vs Mech is pretty even. Its much like the Hydra vs. Mech in BW. Its and even match.
@OP Yeah I've been going mass ghost Mech in TvZ.
Mutas 100/100 and do 9 damage. 3 Food
Ghosts 200/100 and do 20 against light(more?) and EMPs infestors, and snipe ultras/BLs. 2 food
If you have 1 ghost for every muta and then a thor. I think your set against Mutas.
On August 20 2011 09:31 GoKu` wrote: The Problem with this composition is, you will die to pure Roach. Theres a reason people do Mech + Ghost builds TvZ and even then Pure Roach does very well against it. Obviously it does good against Roach, But if they engage you multiple times before you try to push their main, eventually they will just overun you.
@ GM level i've been having a hard time using Mech when they bust out infestor roach.
What are you talking about O_O. Roach vs Mech is pretty even. Its much like the Hydra vs. Mech in BW. Its and even match.
@OP Yeah I've been going mass ghost Mech in TvZ.
Mutas 100/100 and do 9 damage. 3 Food
Ghosts 200/100 and do 20 against light(more?) and EMPs infestors, and snipe ultras/BLs. 2 food
If you have 1 ghost for every muta and then a thor. I think your set against Mutas.
On August 20 2011 09:31 GoKu` wrote: The Problem with this composition is, you will die to pure Roach. Theres a reason people do Mech + Ghost builds TvZ and even then Pure Roach does very well against it. Obviously it does good against Roach, But if they engage you multiple times before you try to push their main, eventually they will just overun you.
@ GM level i've been having a hard time using Mech when they bust out infestor roach.
What are you talking about O_O. Roach vs Mech is pretty even. Its much like the Hydra vs. Mech in BW. Its and even match.
@OP Yeah I've been going mass ghost Mech in TvZ.
Mutas 100/100 and do 9 damage. 3 Food
Ghosts 200/100 and do 20 against light(more?) and EMPs infestors, and snipe ultras/BLs. 2 food
If you have 1 ghost for every muta and then a thor. I think your set against Mutas.
I dont even think you'll need 1:1, i think 1 ghost for every 2 mutas should be more than enough, maybe even 2 for every 5
On August 20 2011 14:31 SkysLa wrote: I also think adding in a few thors in late game would be helpful. When do you do the transition? And what do you normally use before?
I usually get my 3rd base with Marine/Tank/Medivac from 3Rax, 1Factory, 1Starport and 1-2 Engineering bays so you don't have too many Raxes at this point.
I would say that lift 2 of the Raxes and get Tech Labs on those. Build 2 Factories on the Reactors so you have:
3 Tech Lab Raxes for Ghosts 3 Factories, 2 Reactor, one Tech Lab 1 Reactor Starport 2 Engineering bays and an Armory Ghost Academy
And then if possible, a 4th Factory so that you produce 2fact Hellion/2fact Tank/Thor and 3rax Ghost as well as Dropships/Vikings from one Reactor Starport. You might want to add a 2nd Starport for utility purposes(Ravens, Banshee harass or just more production).
This is assuming you don't want to waste any of your production facilities for scouting and such. Add more if you start floating, mainly Tech Lab Factories, Tech Lab Raxes or Starports.
I don't have a clue if this works, but I'll test this out once I get back to playing Zergs and see how it works.
On August 20 2011 14:31 SkysLa wrote: I also think adding in a few thors in late game would be helpful. When do you do the transition? And what do you normally use before?
I usually get my 3rd base with Marine/Tank/Medivac from 3Rax, 1Factory, 1Starport and 1-2 Engineering bays so you don't have too many Raxes at this point.
I would say that lift 2 of the Raxes and get Tech Labs on those. Build 2 Factories on the Reactors so you have:
3 Tech Lab Raxes for Ghosts 3 Factories, 2 Reactor, one Tech Lab 1 Reactor Starport 2 Engineering bays and an Armory Ghost Academy
And then if possible, a 4th Factory so that you produce 2fact Hellion/2fact Tank/Thor and 3rax Ghost as well as Dropships/Vikings from one Reactor Starport. You might want to add a 2nd Starport for utility purposes(Ravens, Banshee harass or just more production).
This is assuming you don't want to waste any of your production facilities for scouting and such. Add more if you start floating, mainly Tech Lab Factories, Tech Lab Raxes or Starports.
I don't have a clue if this works, but I'll test this out once I get back to playing Zergs and see how it works.
I think 2 techlab fac 1 reactor fac is better. Otherwise you'll be stuck with a maxed comp with like 40 hellions.
On August 20 2011 21:10 Klyberess wrote: I think 2 techlab fac 1 reactor fac is better. Otherwise you'll be stuck with a maxed comp with like 40 hellions.
I went with assuming that you would use 2 Reactors and one Tech lab raxes for Marines and I wanted to use every addon and every production building.
1Reactor 2 Tech Lab raxes would be interesting tho. A bit weaker army, but a faster 3rd and a possibility to get more upgrades faster.
What openers would you suggest and how should I play with that?
-I would think about a Marine/Medivac push with both Stim and shields as well as 2 Medivacs and as many Marines as possible. BW TvZ kind of MM poke/attack/pressure/whateveryouwanttocallit. Get a Tech Lab for your Factory meanwhile and get Tanks to get a bit on the defensive while you build your 3rd CC and get your Mech going while you retreat as Mutalisks come(or if you cannot be attacked by ground, just force the Mutas to be in his base because you would drop him or kill his Mutalisks if he engages).
I don't know how would I open the game, when to get my 2nd gas, raxes etc. but well... Need to figure those out.
I know for sure that it's going to be after a FE because on one base it will suck.
How would this work on Tal'Darim altar as it's the only ladder map where you effectively cannot split the map?
This is just a bit of theorycrafting by a Diamond level Terran, but if any Zergs want to test it, feel free to PM and stuff. I probably won't be any good at it, but well... I'll improve.
I have taldarim vetoed actually so I have no clue, but If you're able to maintain the xelnaga towers with hellions. Then the slow push should be a bit easier.
What I typically try to do so, start the transition to mech on 2 bases with 3 factories (2 tech 1 reactor) And get extra barracks, get a thor or 2 to deter muta harass. And then try to secure my 3rd and follow up with ghosts. My reactor tech lab ratio for later game becomes 2 reactors: 3 techlabs
As for openings I'm not even that great myself. I just attempt to do 1 reaper FE into blue flame hellion drops --> cloaked banshees --> and then finally the fullswitch
you don't need ghosts to be compared to mutalisks, your thors are your main anti air, so a 1:2 ratio or such is pointless
now of course, you could just mass mass ghost to deal with mutas, BLs, and infestors, but you need thors to deal with the roaches unless you are really good at sniping (snipe like 50 times in 1 second lol), and since you are going mech you probably didn't get infantry weapons, or at least not double infantry weapons
you just need to make sure you have at least 10 ghosts or so in the mid-lategame, so that you can easily take down or severely weaken a BL/infestor composition -- i'd say 20 is really safe and good for late gamme, as long as they don't just die every battle, cus u need the energy to snipe/EMP
BLs and infestors in small numbers are quite weak to mech. It's just the first time they attack you with their army, where it is huge, and is very hard to stop. Snipe snipe snipe, and it's instantly much smaller.
the video was horrible demonstration, the zerg goes mass ground vs ur mech + ghost. in which the ghosts worked against you in terms of cost effectiveness. you'd have been better off making more mech..
not to say ghosts arent great but at least demonstrate it a bit better, cuz in that scenario they were totally useless
I am of the mind that marine tank is still very good and I am more comfortable with it, deals with counters and roaches much better. Easy to keep pressure on zerg constantly dropping, sniping hatcheries (can't do that with hellions really...) and lends itself easily to throwing down like 8 more racks and a ghost academy and pumping ghosts which will have the 3-3 I got for marines. I have even sometimes been pretty effectively transitioning into 3-4 starport battlecruiser which I cannot imagine doing with ghost mech.
Marine ghost tank just seems a lot stronger than hellion ghost tank to me.
Cool to see diversity, but I don't really want to be turtling for 20 minutes.
if you're including tanks, just use them sparingly. With ghosts out to neutralize infestors, thor do more for the cost than tanks late game. Esp with 3/3 =D
On August 26 2011 01:46 OzkanTheFlip wrote: Do you know what a muta is?
do you realize ghosts do 20 damage a shot, and each one can kill at least one mutalisk before it can even attack? and they are much less gas heavy than mutalisks?
On August 26 2011 01:46 OzkanTheFlip wrote: Do you know what a muta is?
do you realize ghosts do 20 damage a shot, and each one can kill at least one mutalisk before it can even attack? and they are much less gas heavy than mutalisks?
Also, turrets.
About this, I had some fun in Unit Tester:
-At 0/0, 24 Ghosts beat 30 (0/0) Mutas in a straight up fight, no snipes used. -At 1/1 and 2/2, 21 Ghosts beats 30 (1/1 and 2/2) mutas, no snipes used. -At 3/3, 20 Ghosts beats (3/3) 30 mutas, no snipes used.
Ghosts are clumped as much as possible in these tests. The results were pretty consistent. Basically, Ghosts are decent against mass muta even without using snipes.
If we include Snipes. I let each Ghost accumulate to 100 energy. This I think is a fair assumption given the Mobius Reactor upgrade and some time walking around. Again, Ghosts were clumped as tightly as possible to maximize Muta splash. I then Spammed snipe as quickly as I possibly could.
I couldn't manage better than that since at 14 or less Ghosts I ended up running out of energy. Suffice to say that with Snipes Ghosts are Super effective against Mutas. They even provide the same tactical advantage as Thors since if Mutas even get on the same screen then a flurry of snipe spams and he'll lose a few Mutas almost instantly. With Thors the Zerg could fly away and heal up and Marines lack the range to cover more than a relatively small area which makes Tank snipes possible. Ghosts can cover a huge area with Snipes, and because of instant hit and huge range, tank snipes are completely out of the question. I'd wager the Zerg would lose 3-4 Mutas minimum to kill 1 tank, and if it was some pro Korean Terran with 500 APM the Zerg would probably lose half his flock.
It's also worth noting that generally Terran Infantry upgrades will be ahead of Zerg air upgrades so actual in-game mileage may actually be better than what I managed in the unit tester.
P.S: An interesting note is that if you have Mobius Reactor researched and a single freshly rallied Ghost is caught by a flock of mutas, you have enough energy for 3 Snipes which can instantly kill a Mutalisk regardless of how big his flock is. This means that if you have good enough map awareness and quick enough reactions, you will never trade worse than 1 Ghost for 1 Muta, even if it's 1 Ghost vs. 50 Mutas!! NEVER SAY DIE!
On August 26 2011 01:46 OzkanTheFlip wrote: Do you know what a muta is?
do you realize ghosts do 20 damage a shot, and each one can kill at least one mutalisk before it can even attack? and they are much less gas heavy than mutalisks?
Also, turrets.
About this, I had some fun in Unit Tester:
-At 0/0, 24 Ghosts beat 30 (0/0) Mutas in a straight up fight, no snipes used. -At 1/1 and 2/2, 21 Ghosts beats 30 (1/1 and 2/2) mutas, no snipes used. -At 3/3, 20 Ghosts beats (3/3) 30 mutas, no snipes used.
Ghosts are clumped as much as possible in these tests. The results were pretty consistent. Basically, Ghosts are decent against mass muta even without using snipes.
If we include Snipes. I let each Ghost accumulate to 100 energy. This I think is a fair assumption given the Mobius Reactor upgrade and some time walking around. Again, Ghosts were clumped as tightly as possible to maximize Muta splash. I then Spammed snipe as quickly as I possibly could.
I couldn't manage better than that since at 14 or less Ghosts I ended up running out of energy. Suffice to say that with Snipes Ghosts are Super effective against Mutas. They even provide the same tactical advantage as Thors since if Mutas even get on the same screen then a flurry of snipe spams and he'll lose a few Mutas almost instantly. With Thors the Zerg could fly away and heal up and Marines lack the range to cover more than a relatively small area which makes Tank snipes possible. Ghosts can cover a huge area with Snipes, and because of instant hit and huge range, tank snipes are completely out of the question. I'd wager the Zerg would lose 3-4 Mutas minimum to kill 1 tank, and if it was some pro Korean Terran with 500 APM the Zerg would probably lose half his flock.
It's also worth noting that generally Terran Infantry upgrades will be ahead of Zerg air upgrades so actual in-game mileage may actually be better than what I managed in the unit tester.
P.S: An interesting note is that if you have Mobius Reactor researched and a single freshly rallied Ghost is caught by a flock of mutas, you have enough energy for 3 Snipes which can instantly kill a Mutalisk regardless of how big his flock is. This means that if you have good enough map awareness and quick enough reactions, you will never trade worse than 1 Ghost for 1 Muta, even if it's 1 Ghost vs. 50 Mutas!! NEVER SAY DIE!
i have found that keeping your army mainly bio + medivac with good decent upgrades and then using about 4 tanks + 4 thors as a metal shield is almost unbreakable until you have maxed out if you see broods add some vikings since you shud alllready have a reactor starport ^^ using dorps for herras etc it works for me and im hesitant using ghosts since i have like minus 10 apm ^^
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IYJ24.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9NhY5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Wp7oH.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227250.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227245.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227249.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227248.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227251.jpg)
