[D] Terran, TvP and game-design - Page 34

On October 09 2011 13:01 zmansman17 wrote:
Top 8 master Terran here and playing mech against Toss is like quitting the game before it starts.

Granted, SCWarden uses a Bio/mech mix, I don't know any other pros that play this way. Perhaps you could win a few games because Toss may not know how to respond. But grinding away with mech, you will quickly realize mech is inferior in TvP

CoLTrimaster experimented with mech versus one of his Toss friends with 200 army to 200 army. The seige spread was great, bunkers and turrets were in place, upgrades were the same, and the Toss lost 40 army.

The Terran lost everything.

The reason Koreans use Bio is because Koreans have superior mechanics and adroit micro. The reason Americans or Europeans do not have the same success with Terran is because Terran bio requires a very high level of micro and skill.

If a player has this degree of skill, they can reap small advantages and make their units many times more cost efficient.

For noobs like myself who are only Top 6 Master, I do not have the micro to make my units super cost efficient versus Storms, Collosi and many other Toss units that don't require the same micro. (I also practice micro tournament like every day).

The reality is that Terran is a race that mandates high degree of micro. Mech not only cannot be microed well against Toss, but on their own, they are just not strong units v Toss. If any Toss is bashing Terran, I suggest you attempt to play Terran at my level, watch pro streams of many terrans complaining about Toss, before commenting on why Terran do or do not do certain builds.

On October 09 2011 16:16 MLG_Wiggin wrote:
I've been trying and trying mech and man, it's depressing. It's sad to say but absolutely true; mech is utterly inferior in TvP.

You trade away mobility but don't really gain anything from it. You're forced to build Vikings because you have no other mobile anti-air option. You can lose to almost any Protoss unit combination/strategy late game. Ever see an immortal drop on a siege line? It's disgusting. Me and a friend got something like 8 Immortals dropped out of a prism with no micro killing 18+ spread siege tanks while losing 1 or 2 Immortals.

With no ability to zone out areas of the map to force engagement (like spider mines) and no ability to have built in anti-air (goliaths) I just can't see pure mech (or ghost mech) being viable. I've won some games with it, but it's if something silly happens like I kill every probe they have with BFH or they all-in me.

If you actually play against someone who knows how to deal with mech, it's actually just kind of a joke.

Marine/hellion/tank style may have some potential but it's conceptually difficult to imagine needing 2 tech trees of upgrades to stay even with a chrono'd forge being a good idea. And with any mech play you still need to build Vikings and Ghosts, so what's the point? You trade all the advantages of MMM bio play away and gain literally nothing.

On October 09 2011 16:57 Itrees wrote:
I'm just sad I can't play pure robo in PvT!

I mean, c'mon, I can't build a SINGLE unit out of my robo bay that can shoot up! It's disgusting. With no ability to fire at the sky, thinking inside my box is useless!

On October 09 2011 18:47 Liquid`Jinro wrote:

You never played brood war did you....?

On October 08 2011 18:53 Thezzy wrote:
Your modified not-air-targettable Colossi, even with some reduced mobility would still be nothing more than tanks with slightly less range that don't need to siege up to do their splash damage. If you go for Colossi, you already sacrifice some mobility as the Colossi don't make for a good defense against being dropped and the like, that wouldn't change. But the deathball would be a lot stronger, even it was a little slower.
The only unit Terran would have that could effectively target a Colossus that cannot be targetted by air are Siege Tanks, and those are rather crap against Protoss for several reasons.
Zerg would have no ranged unit at all, Infestors with Neural Parasite at range 7 would not be able to help out either.

Amulet was removed because warp-in storms were overpowered.
Storms themselves were fine, Amulet itself was fine and HT themselves were fine, it was the combination of the three that was overpowered.
You could instantly drop any Storm on the map in the lategame, whereever and whenever.
Imagine Terran being able to call in a Ghost from the air (like a MULE) to insta EMP anywhere.
I actually partially disagreed with the complete removal of Amulet, I would've found it better if Amulet would have remained in effect for any High Templar produced out of a Gateway instead of a Warpgate. (and then the upgrade cost could be reduced as well).

Ghosts are something Protoss seem to think is nearly free when Ghosts are actually very expensive and the only reason Terran really gets them, is for EMP.
Just two Ghosts, with the Academy and the Moebius Reactor cost a grand total of 650 minerals and 350 gas. That is a large amount of marines and/or marauders Terran won't have.
The Ghosts themselves, outside of EMP aren't that great, early to mid game Snipe is mostly wasted as you need energy for EMP and just two Ghosts mean just two EMPs and that's it.

Ghosts suck against Colossi, the 100 shields you can take off is meaningless compared to its 9 range, 150 shields and the fact that EMP is far better spent on the Protoss main army.
Going Colossi against a Terran who is Ghost heavy is highly effective because Colossi straight up kill them, EMP or not.

Ultralisks still have nearly 3 speed off creep, equal to a Stalker and they cannot be slowed.
I have seen plenty of Ultralisk hordes rampaging through the map and dealing a huge amount of damage. Yeah if Zerg throws them into a Mech deathball with Sieged up tanks they die horribly, the same goes for many things. As for clumsy, they are melee and thus have trouble surrounding a target but that applies to all melee units, not just the UItralisk.
Have you ever seen mass Thor trying to kill something? Is it painful to look at given their slow mobility and how their size makes for a terrible concave.
Ultralisk mobility (lets not forget Nydus and Overlord drops) is not an issue I've seen Zergs struggle with at all.

Zerg can somewhat get garantueed information when saccing an Overlord, why else are so many Zergs purposefully saccing Overlords. It's not that there are better alternatives but how early Overlords can scout. Even with their current speed, especially in ZvZ or on close positions that first Overlord can see everything until you kill it.
When a Zerg decides to send an early Overlord to scout the enemy base and is willing to sac it, the Zerg will run the risk of losing the Overlord without seeing anything, this applies to all scouting.
I could send in a Reaper instead of a costly scan, only for it to jump straight into a bunch of Stalkers and Protoss could end up sending an Observer straight into a Spore Crawler.

As far as I know this is a TvP discussion, why bring up something from PvZ like this?
Taking a 3rd is just as risky for Terran until that Planetary goes up (and a Planetary is only useful when attacked) and if you snipe the SCV the whole CC stops building until you get another one over there.
Zerg may have it a little easier for a 3rd but Zerg revolves around getting more expansions than their opponent as Zerg units are not as cost effective.
Ofcourse a Protoss taking a 3rd is taking a risk, this applies to all races, however, compared to the other two races, you can warp in instant reinforcements (if the harassing force is not too large) to defend it with a Pylon.
If the harassing force is too large, you would lose the 3rd, same as Terran or Zerg would.
Now I don't play PvZ (obviously) so there may or may not be an issue with Protoss taking a third against Zerg, but such a discussion has little relevance in a TvP discussion.

On October 09 2011 13:01 zmansman17 wrote:
Top 8 master Terran here and playing mech against Toss is like quitting the game before it starts.

Granted, SCWarden uses a Bio/mech mix, I don't know any other pros that play this way. Perhaps you could win a few games because Toss may not know how to respond. But grinding away with mech, you will quickly realize mech is inferior in TvP

CoLTrimaster experimented with mech versus one of his Toss friends with 200 army to 200 army. The seige spread was great, bunkers and turrets were in place, upgrades were the same, and the Toss lost 40 army.

The Terran lost everything.

The reason Koreans use Bio is because Koreans have superior mechanics and adroit micro. The reason Americans or Europeans do not have the same success with Terran is because Terran bio requires a very high level of micro and skill.

If a player has this degree of skill, they can reap small advantages and make their units many times more cost efficient.

For noobs like myself who are only Top 6 Master, I do not have the micro to make my units super cost efficient versus Storms, Collosi and many other Toss units that don't require the same micro. (I also practice micro tournament like every day).

The reality is that Terran is a race that mandates high degree of micro. Mech not only cannot be microed well against Toss, but on their own, they are just not strong units v Toss. If any Toss is bashing Terran, I suggest you attempt to play Terran at my level, watch pro streams of many terrans complaining about Toss, before commenting on why Terran do or do not do certain builds.

On October 09 2011 20:42 tokicheese wrote:
What if you open with a tank or two to secure your FFE? I do this on occasion when I practice with a friend of mine it seems to hold gateway based armies with only a few immortals. It is a shame you can't keep making them but the niche of early defense is better than nothing I guess.

On October 09 2011 20:23 msjakofsky wrote:


yeah instant storm like that was maybe a bit too much, but terran was behind in the metagame at that point, and protoss is like 3x as much behind now with worse rates.
that argument that ghost is expensive/etc is not valid because it's a spellcaster that counters basically every protoss unit, it's also more resilient than other spellcasters and is faster, can cloak, and has an attack.

ofc they suck vs colossi 1vs1. they're however invaluable in a terran composition (which to your surprise might have vikings vs coloxen;)- 1 emp can be worth more than 10 marauders, blanket emping any kind of protoss army makes them like 30-40% weaker in a second

On October 09 2011 23:57 msjakofsky wrote:


emp vs storm has been discussed countless of times here- emp pros: has longer range, larger area of effect, deals damage instantly, and is useful vs every single p unit, also longer range than feedback

storm pros: can kill

there is a reason you don't see games where a bunch of templars run in front of the toss army and storm all the terran army and then the terran loses. the opposite happens in every 2nd tvp game

if you dodge a storm with 1 sec reaction time, your army took 20 damage, that's 1000 damage for 50 units in 1 second (a bit less in reality)

the emp removes at least 2-3 times, at most 7,5 times of that damage in an instant, makes immortals useless and archons plain dead

so is that 1 seconds of running away worth more, or 3 times as much damage in a milisecond?

snipe is also ridiculous sometimes, not really in tvp, but i remember that game when MVP got like 20 ghosts vs july and sniped a huge number of ultras, so its definitely good if you get a good mass of ghosts

and even while spells vs spells is arguable the unit itself is like 10 times better than ht cuz it can attack and moves faster. the attack is also very good against certain units- i remember Thorzain used like 12 ghosts in a game to clear out like 40 zerglings in 3 seconds, theyre also great vs banshee/muta/phoenix

so the cost is very justified. not a good argument since every fucking tech unit requires money... ht with storm requires 2 tech buildings and 200/200 research which together is like 3 times the ghost academys cost.

i don't say it needs to be nerfed but it's strange design to me that 10 supply of the terrans 200 is able to wipe out effectively 30-40% of the toss army in a second with one instant cast aoe spell. so if i could adjust things i would tweak the ghost a little.

On October 10 2011 02:10 zdragon wrote:
There are so many shit arguments being thrown about from people that have 0 critical thinking ability.

Before you make your point, take a step back and think about the whole picture of the matchup.

Great ghost is OK vs broodlord/infestor, but think about how you get to that point. You have to put down 4-5 TL rax of infrastructure, spend 3 production cycles in ADVANCE of the broodlord switch, and then still positioning impeccably while setting up drops (since ghosts are only viable in a defensive position). AND, if your ghosts are lost while Z still has gas, good luck dealing with the next wave of BL because of larva mechanics.

The races _are_ asymmetric, they have different strengths. T has two options vs endgame Z: keep him starved and in lockstep, OR get tons of caster units that build strength over time. Z has mobility options to force T mistakes and escape lockstep, and a stronger direct army+production. If there were no superstrong casters for T, there would only be the first option, and the moment Z threw off T's game control, the game would be over. You'd see one timing attack, and the success and failure of that would be it.

AND, the templar vs ghost arguments are equivalently a joke. The T army's HP IS the EMPed P army's HP. Stim marauder: 105hp, stim marines: 90HP. The difference is that, if you don't have AOE, then you won't outdps stim. BUT, in survivability, we're on an even play field IF every EMP is hit. Also, EMP is poor against the mineral sink + tank of the P army, while storm destroys stimmed marines. When EMP kills your mineral sink in 2 ticks, then maybe the comparison will be more apt.

Again, the races are different, and the requirements for combat success are very different. EMP is mandatory, Storm is bonus.