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Hi there,
with Mech gaining popularity lately (cheers mvp), I'd like to discuss several scenarios that are likely to happen in a late-game situation (you will often get there with mech) and a proper response from Terran point of view.
I think that 150-200 supply 3/3 mech with Viknig support is superior to nearly anything Zerg can throw at you and so at some point, you will face one of these situations:
1. Mass Mutas to magic box and overwhelm your Thors.
I think this is a big gamble, because it can work only if you really don't know, what is happening until it's too late. You should have turrets everywhere as you need to spend minerals with mech somehow and you should always have several Thors, as those are harder to deal with after NP nerf. Also, it's good to take several SCVs with your main army and build turrets along your push as even 1-2 turrets can do insane amount of damage while Zerg tries to magic box your Thors. Don't forget to set auto-repair on so your SCVs can repair Thors and turrets - this can often buy you enough time to swing the battle in your favor.
2. Broodlord/Corruptor + several Infestors to fungal Vikings.
This is the ultimate anti-mech late-game composition. I think this comes down to micro. You need to siege/unsiege correctly to avoid unnecessary splash and you can mix in several ghosts to emp/snipe Infestors or snipe Broodlords. The Zerg's goal here is to hit single good fungal on your Vikings, than chain it and eventually overwhelm you with Broodlords where you can't get Viking's count back fast enough. Mass NP is way too risky now I think.
3. Zerg will go for this crazy Ultra/Ling (Roach?) random runby style to ruin your economy.
This is probably hardest to deal with. This strategy abuses the immobility of mech the most I think as Drops and Nydus can be prevented, unlike this, with proper turret and ST placement. You really should build those in a late-game situation. There is no reason not to build them as it will certainly pay off in a long run. Key locations should be locked down or walled off completly with Planetary Fortresses, few Siege Tanks and turrets. I think Terrans need to start doing this a lot more, this way you can make the terrain friendly even on the worst maps. Just look at mvp vs Nestea set 4 on Dual Sight this week. See how Protoss secure 3rd on Metalopolis for reference also.
I'm aware some Zergs might try to mass Roaches + upgrades, but I think Roaches won't cut it anymore later where your mech's upgrades start to kick in.
I will leave here some room for your opinions. I'd like to hear how you handle all or some of these situations and to share your experience. I think some good ideas can be developed here. Just don't flame or whine about balance too much. :-)
edit: I will add replay to each scenario for better understeanding as soon as I get to my PC.
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United Kingdom10823 Posts
Its a good write-up, but i think you've missed a slight addition that makes things a bit simpler (in theory)
Ghosts
All three of your situations can also be solved with a few ghosts mixed in. They're good against mutas since they do extra damage vs light, and snipe helps a lot. They can snipe BLs and EMP Infestors, and they can snipe Ultras, with your mech army taking out the rest
They are super expensive, but you should have a decent amount of minerals going mech. May not have the upgrades, but getting cloak should be enough. Plus you can use that pesky barracks that was just being there
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"Rise of the valkyries" TLO mech aka Sky Terran. :D
Banshee Viking with Thors helions ...
Use cloak banshee to harass and kill expandsion. Terran use a lot of Units that is hard for zerg to counter ...
Check out TLO Stream, his TvZ mech is really good ^^~
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Watch BeastyQT's mech, he relies heavily on ghosts late game and it gets insanely hard for the zerg to handle the mech. It's even more effective than TLO's style imo.
Edit : To give more thought into the discussion instead of just telling you to watch a streamer, I really think ghost is the answer since they nullify the infestor, they are very good against broodlords as long as you don't let the zerg get too much of them at which point you'll need to add vikings, which you will protect from infestors with the ghosts (you only need a few ghosts to render a lot of infestors useless).
They also destroy ultralisks, they are bad against roach zergling baneling comps, where the zerg will try to crash his banelings into the hellions and overwhelm the thors. But at that point it's up to you to scout effectively and make more tanks than thors.
I feel that unlike bio which gets weaker then the zerg composition lategame, mech only gets stronger up to the point where you can handle several maxed zerg armies. The point you made with turrets was smart.
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On October 13 2011 19:15 ShaSKiRa wrote:
"Rise of the valkyries" TLO mech aka Sky Terran. :D
Banshee Viking with Thors helions ...
Use cloak banshee to harass and kill expandsion. Terran use a lot of Units that is hard for zerg to counter ...
Check out TLO Stream, his TvZ mech is really good ^^~
Yes, I'm aware of TLO's air play. It looks awesome. :-) Only problem is I often see him running into some really good Zergs that can read his play and react acordingly and there he loses control of the game and gets overrun.
Those scenarios I mentioned are "safe" even if Zerg completly knows what you are doing.. I think SC2 will eventually end up like this, where you most likely know, what is happening and so safe macro play will be the way to go.
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I watch a lot of Avilo's, TLO's, Beastyqt's streams.. Those guys play mech very often, so my inspiration goes from there. Avilo for example uses ghosts as well to their limits with nuking everything, which is actually very good response to slow Broodlord/Corruptor/Infestor combo..
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the importance of ghosts for late game tvz cant be stressed enough, so ill do it again : D
ghosts are vital to prevent infestors from going berserk with fungal growth, aswell as help kill the broodlords with snipe...i guess you can go without them as long as your opponent foregoes infestors.
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TLO has some amazing mech play against Zerg. He uses thors, hellions, banshees and vikings. It is critical that your thors do not get wiped out by the mutas, as everything else can we wiped out with ease. This play style is also very micro intensive. In the end it just comes down to who has the better micro or macro. TLO also generally pulls a few scvs to keep the thors alive and repair.
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On October 13 2011 19:21 NeonFox wrote:
Watch BeastyQT's mech, he relies heavily on ghosts late game and it gets insanely hard for the zerg t
yesterday he said on his stream he still finds it worse than bio-centric builds
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thanks for this, I've been hurting hard in my TvZ and have been debating going mech a lot since my bio play gets utterly shut down way too easy at high levels but didn't have the motivation to do so.
can someone perhaps link to a good mech build and strat?
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On October 13 2011 20:25 humbre wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 19:21 NeonFox wrote:
Watch BeastyQT's mech, he relies heavily on ghosts late game and it gets insanely hard for the zerg t yesterday he said on his stream he finds it still worse than bio-centric builds
And he doesnt rely on ghosts.. he gets them to spam 10 nukes on the Z and he also completely outclasses most people he plays on his stream.
IMO you should watch some tournament games where people play for money and probably use whatever they think is the best instead of watching a favored player kill nerds in a funny way on his stream. From what I remember from MVP vs NesTea ro8 + Show Spoiler +MVP didn't build a single ghost while meching even when NesTea rushed for infestors, had 6+ all game long and had 10 broodlords in the end
I'm not a big fan of ghosts and when I play mech I just try to scout as much as possible and have the right thor:tank ratio in the fights.
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In my experience (noob experience :p) I think that vikings and ghosts are a bad idea. The thing is how well corrupters kill vikings. Either you should overwhelm with vikings or not have any, because any few vikings will be worthless I feel. I like just making ghosts in response to Zerg T3, and keeping everything else the same.
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As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly.
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On October 13 2011 21:31 Everlong wrote:
As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly.
Ghosts are really good vs Broodlords and Infestors. Snipe just owns both and EMP nails infestors too. If you're good with micro ghosts > tier 3 zerg
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On October 13 2011 22:04 babo213 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 21:31 Everlong wrote:
As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly. Ghosts are really good vs Broodlords and Infestors. Snipe just owns both and EMP nails infestors too. If you're good with micro ghosts > tier 3 zerg
Yes, I definitely agree. Only thing I find it pretty difficult to micro them correctly. Often I find myself in a situation, where terrain or just the possition of Zerg army is such that its really hard for Ghosts to snipe effectively. I'm trying to say you can also go the hard way, having just more metal stuff upgraded. This way you are less fragile and you just don't lose when Zerg decide to remax on ground. But overall yes, I agree, with some good control, you can use Ghosts and be very cost efficient.
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On October 13 2011 21:31 Everlong wrote:
As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly.
With mech you have the choice in investing in 1 fragile unit that costs gas to counter T3 tech. Vikings can't really attack ground too well, and die if fungaled before or after they killed some broods. If ultras come they are empty supply. And imo the gas spent on air upgrades unless you're looking for some weird air trans could be better spent on...well, ghosts.
Ghosts are good vs broods, the micro is not ridiculously intensive as your mech can do pretty well on it's own. Ghosts are good vs infestors, emp clumps and snipe of loners and they just lost all of their infestors. Ghosts are good vs ultras, and roaches with some decent micro (letting thor/tank take the damage while you snipe the shit out of everything). Ghosts have an amazing late game harass potential with nuke, if you doubt this try getting 10 GAs late game on a med/large map and go to town.
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On October 13 2011 22:12 Badfatpanda wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 21:31 Everlong wrote:
As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly. With mech you have the choice in investing in 1 fragile unit that costs gas to counter T3 tech. Vikings can't really attack ground too well, and die if fungaled before or after they killed some broods. If ultras come they are empty supply. And imo the gas spent on air upgrades unless you're looking for some weird air trans could be better spent on...well, ghosts. Ghosts are good vs broods, the micro is not ridiculously intensive as your mech can do pretty well on it's own. Ghosts are good vs infestors, emp clumps and snipe of loners and they just lost all of their infestors. Ghosts are good vs ultras, and roaches with some decent micro (letting thor/tank take the damage while you snipe the shit out of everything). Ghosts have an amazing late game harass potential with nuke, if you doubt this try getting 10 GAs late game on a med/large map and go to town.
Definitely. I don't doubt that you can do crazy stuff with ghosts. What I'm curious about is why I do see very skilled players (Beastyqt, Avilo, etc..) loseing to some funky ground transitions from Zergs after they get this Ghostmech going.. You clear Zerg's T3 and then you lose to just swarm of units, I don't like that. Once I dominate ground by having 3/3 mech, I don't want ever to give my ground dominance away.. I see this happening with ghosts.
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On October 13 2011 22:21 Everlong wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 22:12 Badfatpanda wrote:On October 13 2011 21:31 Everlong wrote:
As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly. With mech you have the choice in investing in 1 fragile unit that costs gas to counter T3 tech. Vikings can't really attack ground too well, and die if fungaled before or after they killed some broods. If ultras come they are empty supply. And imo the gas spent on air upgrades unless you're looking for some weird air trans could be better spent on...well, ghosts. Ghosts are good vs broods, the micro is not ridiculously intensive as your mech can do pretty well on it's own. Ghosts are good vs infestors, emp clumps and snipe of loners and they just lost all of their infestors. Ghosts are good vs ultras, and roaches with some decent micro (letting thor/tank take the damage while you snipe the shit out of everything). Ghosts have an amazing late game harass potential with nuke, if you doubt this try getting 10 GAs late game on a med/large map and go to town. Definitely. I don't doubt that you can do crazy stuff with ghosts. What I'm curious about is why I do see very skilled players (Beastyqt, Avilo, etc..) loseing to some funky ground transitions from Zergs after they get this Ghostmech going.. You clear Zerg's T3 and then you lose to just swarm of units, I don't like that. Once I dominate ground by having 3/3 mech, I don't want ever to give my ground dominance away.. I see this happening with ghosts.
This is where scouting is really REALLY important late game, ghost supply in a mech army is a really fine balance and is very map dependent. Generally ghosts allow you to be in the clear when your opponent remaxes on T3 tech like ultra/ling or bl, but if you see a bazillion roaches spawning just get in a defensive position and harass with hellion/ghost to free up supply for more tanks while buying time to get situated.
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On October 13 2011 22:24 Badfatpanda wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 22:21 Everlong wrote:On October 13 2011 22:12 Badfatpanda wrote:On October 13 2011 21:31 Everlong wrote:
As for the Ghost - I'm not completly sold on how good it actually is late-game. I mean, you invest a lot of gas into a very fragile unit, which is very micro intensive and dependant. Sniping Broodlords is very hard against a good Zerg. Your ghosts will die to your own Tank's splash and if you unsiege them, you will be swarmed and overrun.. Just count how many Vikings/Thors you could get if you surpass ghosts. Also, your investment will by multiplied by your 3/3 upgrades.. I think its at least for a debate.
The thing is, if you use ghosts to kill Zerg's air, you will be weaker against ground and you can't just make this happen. Once you clear the sky and Zerg remass on ground, you risk losing all your ghost and you are left with significantly weakened mech army. I think it's just better to be superior on ground all game long and have the tech switch figured out.
One more think I'd like to add, its crucial to continue on air upgrades after you ground upgrades are done. This way, you can make it significantly harder for Zerg to fungal your Vikings. Not because of how many fungals Viking can survive, but because of Broodlords dying way faster and therefor you can keep your Tanks sieged most of the time. This results into many dead infestors and your Vikings will be free to clear the sky.
edit: Im mostly reffering to how counter Broodlord/Corruptor. Against Ultralisks, Ghosts are good enough. But still, I think you can beat any ground with enough supply of fully upgraded mech without loosing much as long, as you don't get caught out of position terribly. With mech you have the choice in investing in 1 fragile unit that costs gas to counter T3 tech. Vikings can't really attack ground too well, and die if fungaled before or after they killed some broods. If ultras come they are empty supply. And imo the gas spent on air upgrades unless you're looking for some weird air trans could be better spent on...well, ghosts. Ghosts are good vs broods, the micro is not ridiculously intensive as your mech can do pretty well on it's own. Ghosts are good vs infestors, emp clumps and snipe of loners and they just lost all of their infestors. Ghosts are good vs ultras, and roaches with some decent micro (letting thor/tank take the damage while you snipe the shit out of everything). Ghosts have an amazing late game harass potential with nuke, if you doubt this try getting 10 GAs late game on a med/large map and go to town. Definitely. I don't doubt that you can do crazy stuff with ghosts. What I'm curious about is why I do see very skilled players (Beastyqt, Avilo, etc..) loseing to some funky ground transitions from Zergs after they get this Ghostmech going.. You clear Zerg's T3 and then you lose to just swarm of units, I don't like that. Once I dominate ground by having 3/3 mech, I don't want ever to give my ground dominance away.. I see this happening with ghosts. This is where scouting is really REALLY important late game, ghost supply in a mech army is a really fine balance and is very map dependent. Generally ghosts allow you to be in the clear when your opponent remaxes on T3 tech like ultra/ling or bl, but if you see a bazillion roaches spawning just get in a defensive position and harass with hellion/ghost to free up supply for more tanks while buying time to get situated.
Fair enough, I guess you need to figure out what works better for you and go from there.
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When i play mech i usually don t siege my tank cause they end up doing more damage to my own tropps than to the ennemy and unsiege tanks have a pretty good dps as well.
This is especially true vs broolords.
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If I see infestors out I usually like to throw down three barracks and a ghost academy. When it comes to the late game, ghosts are really effective with both their cost and food. They help especially when trying to deal with mass broodlord (cloak and snipe).
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Heavy infestor play with good control combined with well timed and placed roach drops can lead to some pretty messy games with mech, as far as army comp goes, I think you pretty much need at least a few ghosts to deal with infestors, get a few EMPs off and then viking/thor/tank/hellions will clean up pretty much anything zerg can throw at you. If zerg can get a few good fungals and maybe a neural or two off, then you're usually dead with a mech army. I much prefer to avoid engaging a brood lord based army directly, instead I just load up my army into 3+ groups and drop it all over the map, the two furthest expo's from the main and the main, and then I split my hellions and harass every base. This usually buys enough time for my ghost/viking count to grow to the point where I can engage directly.
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I think ghosts are very expensive and take forever to build and get decent energy for just 2 supply, making them good in max vs max battles. Other than that they are always a good idea against 5+ infestors or Broodlords.
Personally I dont think they are that good against anything else. I really doubt they can be cost effective against lings,blings,roaches for instance, the reason that ultras are somewhat ineffective against them is because rarely do you see someone attacking from 2-3 sides with 12 ultras+ lings, if he can actually get an engagement like that ghosts wont save you and in a chokepoint ultras will suck against anything else too.
However vikings will be useless after the Broodlords are dead if he doesnt make more so not that good is still better than useless.
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Ghosts are very helpful to your late game success with mech ESPECIALLY if zerg is able to reach T3.
Broodlord/corrutuptor/infestor (usually heavy lings or roaches included) crushes your mech unless you have vikings. Having to scout in time and invest into vikings is not guaranteed nor cheap. Then when you have a ton of vikings, here comes the ultra switch and you lose, or a huge group gets fungaled and you lose. Meanwhile with ghosts, you CAN snipe BLs when you unseige your tanks, or if you have cloak which you should always try to get as its amazing. You can also emp infestors and snipe any mutas that try any magic box. Ghosts are also better against mutas then vikings, when you have thors.
Ghosts also allow for your army to be more tank heavy without the weakness to ultras from vikings! You typically need to keep up a very balanced thor/tank count because of a fear of giant muta/roach switches, but with ghosts you don't have to worry about the muta switch as much because of how awesome they are vs mutas so you can let your count swing toward more tanks a bit. That protects you from the two weaknesses of mass banelings (Like 100+ can actually kill all your thors no problem if they are not spread) and mass roach with some broodlords which is also very strong against mech. Having more tanks makes your life MUCH easier in both these situations and they are also helpful vs infestors and ultra/ling.
So basically ghost helps counter many units itself, and unlocks the potential of more tanks which counters most of the rest.
ps. also if your awesome nuke harassment
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My own observations studying mech play from folks like MVP, Beastyqt and DeMusliM.
Mech has a basic shell of about 8 thors and 12 tanks and some hellions and upgrades. This is the standard thick core that you then add some other stuff to. With this core you basically shit all over the Zerg ground army, particularly if they try and engage you around a vicious terrain or building setup.
From here we can branch out into 2 ways. You cannot really go for both strongly enough as it's not particularly feasible but you can use elements of both. They are Sky Mech and Ghost mech (the third option is pure Mech which would be something like a 2 or 3 base upgrade tank/thor timing attack. It's fairly all in but it's viable enough, particularly if some early hellion play did too much drone damage, but it's boring and it's been done and we won't mention it anymore!).
Sky Terran has this mech core supplemented by vikings, shees, drops and ravens and this is what MVP showcased vs Nestea recently. I believe GumiHo was doing the same thing against nestea but I have not seen those vods and cannot comment. This style is stronger with drop and viking harass picking away at drones and overlords and frustrating the zerg, hopefully keeping him from just racing to hive tech. Vikings can battle corrupters in good numbers and if you have PDD it gets pretty gross.
Ghost Terran has the mech core supplemented by a ton of ghosts! Demuslim will, at about the 13 minute mark or so, slap down his 2-5th raxes and a ghost academy and churn the bastards out (Demuslims mech is characterised, I think, by a complete lack of a starport. All this saved gas makes the ghost transition crisp and powerful). This is strong because ghosts fucking murder everything with cloak + snipe. Once you hit a critical mass of ghosts with high energy amounts you can casually walk towards the zerg and just pew pew everything he has. If something gets in the way you move your mech units up a bit and siege and handle it. My own experience with this style gets stymied by my terrible control and large amounts of banelings (wtf banelings vs mech!) just rolling up and killing all my ghosts. But with snipe and emp and cloak and thousands of energy, ghosts can just make an awful mess of pretty much all zerg units.
Plus you have nukes!
I think mech play has a few characteristics:
1) Retention. You have to keep almost every Thor and Tank alive until major engagements. The amount of gas required to pull off this strategy is really huge and you cannot afford to throw units away or lose them carelessly.
2) Momentum. Hellions give you a lot of action in the early and midgame and can result in a lot of drone and creep spread kills. This is good. If you get lucky and simply kill enough drones that he spends too much time trying to build his economy so once you have a modest deathball up you can just rape-roll him.
3) Greed. Get greedy! Command Centres everywhere! Keep him off balance with your hellions and take tons of bases.
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On October 13 2011 19:23 Everlong wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 19:15 ShaSKiRa wrote:
"Rise of the valkyries" TLO mech aka Sky Terran. :D
Banshee Viking with Thors helions ...
Use cloak banshee to harass and kill expandsion. Terran use a lot of Units that is hard for zerg to counter ...
Check out TLO Stream, his TvZ mech is really good ^^~ Yes, I'm aware of TLO's air play. It looks awesome. :-) Only problem is I often see him running into some really good Zergs that can read his play and react acordingly and there he loses control of the game and gets overrun. Those scenarios I mentioned are "safe" even if Zerg completly knows what you are doing.. I think SC2 will eventually end up like this, where you most likely know, what is happening and so safe macro play will be the way to go.
Is there a reason why he doesn't go Ghost/Thor/Hellion? It takes less tech and seems more flexible. Air play in TvZ always sounds good but its extremely tough to pull off.
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I've been liking mech with Raven/Seeker missile support after the buff, although it takes a while to get rolling and I have lost games simply from not having enough turrets up when the mutas come. But 2-2 or better upgraded mech with 4 or so ravens beats pretty much anything on the ground, as well as mutas, and you should have enough starports by 200/200 to not outright die to broodlords
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Recently I've started playing mech in all my TvZs. Obviously not a pro, I mostly play against low masters Zergs. Some thoughts:
1. I'm not a fan of adding Vikings. The Zerg always has the option of tech switching out of air completely, which makes the Vikings worthless. I've seen TLO use Vikings to seize air control and then use Banshees to wreck face. But whenever I try it the Z simply makes a gazillion Roaches Mondragon style and the Banshees can't kill fast enough. Maybe if I had TLO's micro I could make it work, but I don't.
2. I'm not a fan of early Ghosts, but they can be okay in the really really late game. Ghosts are super micro intensive, and I can't micro them properly like the pros. Of course they are great vs Infestors and Broodlords, but everything else beats the crap out of them. Snipe isn't all its cracked up to be. There is a big cooldown after each Snipe action so you cannot unload all your energy quickly unless you want to be super risky with your action queuing. If the Zerg turtles for a few minutes and then just a-moves a 200/200 army at you with the proper flank, your Ghosts will all die with over 3/4 of their energy left. The more gas you have in ghosts, the less gas there is in your mech backbone. And you can't repair them like everything else, you won't have Medivacs.
3. Bringing SCVs with your push is super important. Because it takes so long to remax with a non-Rax army, unit retention is obviously important. You gotta keep both Tanks and Thors in your army at all times so you can handle the Zerg tech switching between full air and full ground. The thing is that if half your gas is tied up in Tanks and the Zerg goes 100% gas into Mutas, the mass magic box Muta will overwhelm the Thors. Thats the main reason you gotta bring the SCVs, repair is the only way to deal with that. Its also important to build turrets as you push, because burrow antics are a huge pain to deal with. Ravens don't have enough sight range to spot it ahead of time unless you send it ahead of your army, which is just begging for the Raven to get sniped.
4. Hellion harass isn't all its made out to be. When most Zergs see I'm going mech, they get super paranoid and build a ton of spines and queens everywhere so its a waste of time to even try a runby. I've seen pro Zergs try to skimp on Hellion defense, but not the low master Zergs I play. So for the most part I'm content with the knowledge my Hellions are causing indirect economic damage, and I save them for counterattack defense.
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Just as a thought, and i've seen it done and had relative success with it...
what do people think of viking/raven/thor to deal with broodlords, idea being you slap down the PDDs to negate alot of damage muta/corruptors can do, and then you focus fire the broodlords with your vikings (if you have enough you will kill most if not all broodlords before the PDDs have worn off and all your vikings are killed) you also have thors to micro back too.
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On October 14 2011 00:33 cunningstunt wrote:
Just as a thought, and i've seen it done and had relative success with it...
what do people think of viking/raven/thor to deal with broodlords, idea being you slap down the PDDs to negate alot of damage muta/corruptors can do, and then you focus fire the broodlords with your vikings (if you have enough you will kill most if not all broodlords before the PDDs have worn off and all your vikings are killed) you also have thors to micro back too.
Yes, that certainly kills the Zerg air.
But then the Zerg remaxes cheaply on speedling/roach, and they simply overwhelm you because you have a ton of gas tied up in flying paperweights and not a high enough tank count.
You can't have a ton of tanks and vikings and thors and ravens all at the same time. If the Zerg is passive enough to let you make that composition then you probably won the game 5-10 minutes ago, its just that neither of you has realized it yet.
Personally I've found the best way to deal with BLs is with heavy Thor. Yes they take forever to kill the BLs, but they're also useful vs a full ground tech switch, unlike Vikings and Ghosts. You only need a couple BFH to instantly roast broodlings as they spawn, and if you surround the lead Thor with autorepairing SCVs its even easier.
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On October 13 2011 23:18 iaguz wrote:
My own observations studying mech play from folks like MVP, Beastyqt and DeMusliM.
Mech has a basic shell of about 8 thors and 12 tanks and some hellions and upgrades. This is the standard thick core that you then add some other stuff to. With this core you basically shit all over the Zerg ground army, particularly if they try and engage you around a vicious terrain or building setup.
From here we can branch out into 2 ways. You cannot really go for both strongly enough as it's not particularly feasible but you can use elements of both. They are Sky Mech and Ghost mech (the third option is pure Mech which would be something like a 2 or 3 base upgrade tank/thor timing attack. It's fairly all in but it's viable enough, particularly if some early hellion play did too much drone damage, but it's boring and it's been done and we won't mention it anymore!).
Sky Terran has this mech core supplemented by vikings, shees, drops and ravens and this is what MVP showcased vs Nestea recently. I believe GumiHo was doing the same thing against nestea but I have not seen those vods and cannot comment. This style is stronger with drop and viking harass picking away at drones and overlords and frustrating the zerg, hopefully keeping him from just racing to hive tech. Vikings can battle corrupters in good numbers and if you have PDD it gets pretty gross.
Ghost Terran has the mech core supplemented by a ton of ghosts! Demuslim will, at about the 13 minute mark or so, slap down his 2-5th raxes and a ghost academy and churn the bastards out (Demuslims mech is characterised, I think, by a complete lack of a starport. All this saved gas makes the ghost transition crisp and powerful). This is strong because ghosts fucking murder everything with cloak + snipe. Once you hit a critical mass of ghosts with high energy amounts you can casually walk towards the zerg and just pew pew everything he has. If something gets in the way you move your mech units up a bit and siege and handle it. My own experience with this style gets stymied by my terrible control and large amounts of banelings (wtf banelings vs mech!) just rolling up and killing all my ghosts. But with snipe and emp and cloak and thousands of energy, ghosts can just make an awful mess of pretty much all zerg units.
Plus you have nukes!
I think mech play has a few characteristics:
1) Retention. You have to keep almost every Thor and Tank alive until major engagements. The amount of gas required to pull off this strategy is really huge and you cannot afford to throw units away or lose them carelessly.
2) Momentum. Hellions give you a lot of action in the early and midgame and can result in a lot of drone and creep spread kills. This is good. If you get lucky and simply kill enough drones that he spends too much time trying to build his economy so once you have a modest deathball up you can just rape-roll him.
3) Greed. Get greedy! Command Centres everywhere! Keep him off balance with your hellions and take tons of bases.
Yup what this dude said 100% haha
I love the mech air style, though for MVP and Gumiho I really think you should refer to that as mech air, not sky terran nor even sky mech or air mech. Just to be picky, cus if you say "sky" or "air" before "mech" I think that should only be reserved for when the air units have a larger role than the mech units, but for Gumiho and MVP, usually their mech armies are still the bulk of it (especially since their air units aren't 3/3 yet).
Also for those who didn't see, bratok vs Nestea game 2 shakuras temple at blizzcon, he went mech but then went air mech (replacing most of his mech army with ravens, leaving just a few tanks) lategame and won. It was pretty cool.
I really wonder how Zergs should respond to mech or air or a combination late game, especially if it's a split map. It just seems so so so strong, and Terran's resources are much more efficient. Maybe though, this is intentional, just like TvZ or PvZ in BW; Zerg can take an economic lead and play reactively, but at the same time, he will be using resources less efficiently. Or maybe I'm just completely wrong and there are many ways for zerg to deal with mech/air or combinations?
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On November 13 2011 08:17 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 23:18 iaguz wrote:
My own observations studying mech play from folks like MVP, Beastyqt and DeMusliM.
Mech has a basic shell of about 8 thors and 12 tanks and some hellions and upgrades. This is the standard thick core that you then add some other stuff to. With this core you basically shit all over the Zerg ground army, particularly if they try and engage you around a vicious terrain or building setup.
From here we can branch out into 2 ways. You cannot really go for both strongly enough as it's not particularly feasible but you can use elements of both. They are Sky Mech and Ghost mech (the third option is pure Mech which would be something like a 2 or 3 base upgrade tank/thor timing attack. It's fairly all in but it's viable enough, particularly if some early hellion play did too much drone damage, but it's boring and it's been done and we won't mention it anymore!).
Sky Terran has this mech core supplemented by vikings, shees, drops and ravens and this is what MVP showcased vs Nestea recently. I believe GumiHo was doing the same thing against nestea but I have not seen those vods and cannot comment. This style is stronger with drop and viking harass picking away at drones and overlords and frustrating the zerg, hopefully keeping him from just racing to hive tech. Vikings can battle corrupters in good numbers and if you have PDD it gets pretty gross.
Ghost Terran has the mech core supplemented by a ton of ghosts! Demuslim will, at about the 13 minute mark or so, slap down his 2-5th raxes and a ghost academy and churn the bastards out (Demuslims mech is characterised, I think, by a complete lack of a starport. All this saved gas makes the ghost transition crisp and powerful). This is strong because ghosts fucking murder everything with cloak + snipe. Once you hit a critical mass of ghosts with high energy amounts you can casually walk towards the zerg and just pew pew everything he has. If something gets in the way you move your mech units up a bit and siege and handle it. My own experience with this style gets stymied by my terrible control and large amounts of banelings (wtf banelings vs mech!) just rolling up and killing all my ghosts. But with snipe and emp and cloak and thousands of energy, ghosts can just make an awful mess of pretty much all zerg units.
Plus you have nukes!
I think mech play has a few characteristics:
1) Retention. You have to keep almost every Thor and Tank alive until major engagements. The amount of gas required to pull off this strategy is really huge and you cannot afford to throw units away or lose them carelessly.
2) Momentum. Hellions give you a lot of action in the early and midgame and can result in a lot of drone and creep spread kills. This is good. If you get lucky and simply kill enough drones that he spends too much time trying to build his economy so once you have a modest deathball up you can just rape-roll him.
3) Greed. Get greedy! Command Centres everywhere! Keep him off balance with your hellions and take tons of bases. Yup what this dude said 100% haha I love the mech air style, though for MVP and Gumiho I really think you should refer to that as mech air, not sky terran nor even sky mech or air mech. Just to be picky, cus if you say "sky" or "air" before "mech" I think that should only be reserved for when the air units have a larger role than the mech units, but for Gumiho and MVP, usually their mech armies are still the bulk of it (especially since their air units aren't 3/3 yet). Also for those who didn't see, bratok vs Nestea game 2 shakuras temple at blizzcon, he went mech but then went air mech (replacing most of his mech army with ravens, leaving just a few tanks) lategame and won. It was pretty cool. I really wonder how Zergs should respond to mech or air or a combination late game, especially if it's a split map. It just seems so so so strong, and Terran's resources are much more efficient. Maybe though, this is intentional, just like TvZ or PvZ in BW; Zerg can take an economic lead and play reactively, but at the same time, he will be using resources less efficiently. Or maybe I'm just completely wrong and there are many ways for zerg to deal with mech/air or combinations?
I saw that game. The flock of ravens with all upgrades was epic.
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It's too bad I suck with ghosts. Apparently they're the only good unit terrans have these days.
(obvious hyperbole is obvious. Except for the sucking with ghosts part. I really do.)
as for my 2 cents, I've been a meching tvz player since beta (I have a rushed 3/3 thor/hellion timing push that hits just before hive tech and usually crushes my opponent, though it's fragile in the midgame and if my micro fails, infestors can ruin me)
I have to say this: you gotta go full-on flash with this strategy. Ravens are useful against the brood lord problem, as they aren't fast enough to escape HSM and are always bunched up. Turrets everywhere. EVERYWHERE. not just strategic turrets, you need walls of them. And upgrades. building armor, turret range. All of your expos need to be planetaries (your natural, even.) but you're so mineral efficient, you can just mass orbital for minerals and remax on hellions or marines to wreck his economy when you lose units.
upgrades are crucial.
Lane control is important (on metal, I literally block off one lane with two planetaries and a fistful of turrets. Forcing him to engage me on my terms is key.)
And being cost-effective is the most important thing of all. Do not lose units needlessly. Hellions are a possible exception, as harass runs give lots of map control, and their speed lets them have a presence, even with mutas out. They're very mineral efficient, as you don't need a million billion marines with the mass thor/turret
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If you have ghosts AND vikings, what do you prioritise your snipe on, corrupters or BLs?
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It depends on what the zerg makes but Ghosts are usually a safe bet for late game strats with viking support but youll need a 3rd base to support the gas cost of ghosts. Most of the mech builds out there right now seem to be 2 base Doom Pushes or 3OC into a faster Doom Push lol. With ghosts your going to need a 3rd base for the gas cost and i havent really found a good way to mech and expand much but hopefully when i find the mech MVP games he'll show me ^^
1- Against magic box mutas thor/viking/ghost will be more than enough.
2- If your vikings get raped then youll have to click your hellions to your thors so when the BLs attack they roast the tiny attackers b4 they do damage while your thors tank. If you have ghosts out at this point you can cloak and snipe the BLs.
3- Ultra/ling dies to standard thor/hellion trust me. Just get your upgrades and Thor Cannon.
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I do think towards the end of WoL that mech will be superior to pure bio or even bio mech, i think the balance of how many ghosts to get vs how much mech with ups to get is what needs solved.
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I wish you Terrans would stop realising how good this mech playstyle is. One Avilo is more then enough.... >.<
Great point about walling off btw, often if I manage to break the Terran (I'm zerg) it's because he failed to wall off certain areas of the map.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
i'd recommend ravens over ghosts or vikings as support units for two main reasons.
-they don't need weapon or armor upgrades.
-they don't need over 9000 apm to control (hello sniper round).
auto-turrets can be good to slow down enemy's advance (although they deal virtually no damage to upgraded units), pdds are great to deter mutas, and seeker missiles should be banned by geneva convention as wmd.
people tend to underestimate the power of the seeker missile in tvz/tvt. it's probably due to enormous cost that people expect even a single missile to deal major damage. it won't. but two missiles are much better. and once you launch 3 or more, it's starting to be terrible, terrible damage.
i wouldn't recommend to build many tanks lategame - just a few to deal with roaches and neural parasite. just mass mass thors, some ravens (the more the better!), some tanks, planetaries and turrets for mineral dump, and scvs and hellions.
come on zergie try to kill it :D
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EPT
