[G] TvP Pure Air - Page 22

On March 23 2012 10:53 LeGeNDz wrote:
Okay people say BC's suck but everyone needs to remember BC's are a tier3 unit and like other tier3 units such as colossus and ultras they need certain support units to survive. Collosus alone are completely weak and vulnerable to say a group of roach's running up and sniping them so protoss would needs their stalker/sentry army to force field the roachs back; everything has a synergistic effect in this game and ultras need zerglings for cannon fodder and fungal so units can't kite the ultras I hope this makes the picture more clear how BC's need the other units such as ravens and banshees to function properly in an army composition. So BC's alone need certain support units such as Ravens with their PDD's and banshees. I think PDD is VITAL for Sky Terran to work. PDD are the way terrans can set up a positional advantage similar in the way siege tanks set up positional advantages you don't want to engage a line of siege tanks just like protoss doesn't want to engage with their stalkers into a banshee/raven/viking ball when the terran can throw down 5-6 PDD's making stalkers/phoenix completely useless. Usually that will be the first engagement before Protoss begins to go toward HT tech. From there its about Terran spreading their units out to avoid storms and maybe getting ghosts like QXC did. Anyways I think Sky Terran is very STRONG but terrans need to figure out safe effective ways to transition into this style.

On March 23 2012 11:08 IntoTheBush wrote:

Why use storm when they could use feedback and do a lot more damage? Also Terran's air units are VERY gas heavy compared to Z/P. On top of that BCs are slow as hell so that leaves them vulnerable often. I could see a Terran switching the tech path in the late game to mass air if they are on the right amount of bases. There are just too many things that Z/P can produce that will give a pure Air Army a lot of trouble. PDD is good, but chances are by this time youre in the late game and your opponent will be able to just pull back when you put up your PDD. You can't just keep pushing and putting down PDDs unless u have a lot of Ravens, and then you have to worry about not letting them Feedback your Ravens. Also what is going to stop them from just abusing the speed of BCs? They could easily warp in units at a base and then u have to wait for ur clunky slow BCs to get there to save the day and most likely by the time they get there the damage has already been enough. Pure air just doesn't sound viable as an early-mid game strategy. I could see it maybe working in the late game when you have the bases to support it, but then again theyre already gonna have all the tech they need to stop it... my 2 cents

On March 02 2012 02:01 Quotidian wrote:
Yeah, I found that phoenixes wrecks pretty much all mass air tvp builds. Anybody been trying air vs protoss post phoenix buff?

On March 23 2012 14:23 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I agree with nyccine and LeGeNDz

You need to think more about the strategic use of the units rather than just putting them into an imaginary sandbox of high templar vs ravens

You'll have ghosts to deal with the High Templar (I think i'm gonna request a name change of this thread to just "Air" since previously I thought with good splitting you could deal with HT but I think getting ghosts is definitely worth it, and it makes getting BCs more viable)

@IntoTheBush

You forget that you can stack all your air units, EMP once or twice, and you're good to go. Then suddenly all his HTs are quite useless, especially if you EMP his HTs. All that gas is wasted instead of being spent on stalker.

@nyccine

I've been trying something else now; the PF is unnecessary. What I do now is just get an OC and keep the protoss at bay and send out 1 SCV into a remote area where I can build another base. If I see he tries to counterattack on 2 base like 6 gate or such, I won't have a PF at home to defend, BUT with the third CC elsewhere (thanks to extra mules from OC at natural), in which I don't upgrade until the midgame, I can turn that into a PF. If he stays home and defends and doesn't do anything, then once I get 3 base running and such then I can turn that third into an OC as well. This way you have 3 base vs 2 base and will win a base trade, while not dying to a 2 base all-in from protoss.

With an OC at the natural, it looks less weird as well, and can look like a 2-2-2 push or such. Choosing an OC instead of a PF on maps with good nat chokes like Shakuras (probably the best map for air TvP) works really really well.

On March 23 2012 17:20 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I was also thinking about Hellions -- they are less food efficient by a small bit, but they don't do well when there are mass cannons defending probes. Marauders are good at taking out canons but aren't very good at killing probes. However, Hellions are very good vs Zealots and HTs and also, in large numbers, good vs Stalkers, unless if he blinks them apart to avoid splash. However, doing so would mean that you can abuse your air fleet's ability to stack up, making the stalkers unable to attack at once. Maybe with Hellions forcing many cannons, it would be worth it to make more Ravens for PDD just to take out the cannons and keep forcing protoss to remake them. Not sure.

On March 23 2012 17:56 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I think it can definitely work, but will require lots of APM xD (or at least, has higher potential with higher APM)

Nukes sound really fun. I hope the next 2 days are over quickly for me. Then I can start experimenting more. I still haven't tried ghosts much at all yet, let alone nukes ;_;.

Actually I think with just ghosts + medivac + nukes, hellions and marauders may be unnecessary. Not useless, but unnecessary (and probably not the best way to spend apm).

Also Nada stressed that Protoss relies on upgrades a lot. I will try to get double armory up much faster and focus on sniping forges early on with 1-2 PDD. I'll try to find some timings or general things to look for. In the guide I think I was saying it might be better sometimes to go for other tech, but I think sniping Forges is best cus it's the most guaranteed damage, and it doesn't take too long to kill. Good thing forges got nerfed way back then in beta If you can keep denying upgrades, even if you sac a lot of units, you can eventually be 3-3 vs 0-0-0. Since Banshees do so much DPS, I think it's quite possible, especially on Shakuras. Pretty much all angles leading into their bases are open to air paths.

Edit: Oops, I mean if they put the cannons around the nexus, probably don't need Hellions. And they would have to put them around their nexus or else you could kill the probes :D. So nuke would stop mining + kill cannons, possibly kill some pylons/probes too.

It's fine if you're on a lower level. Not everyone is masters so it is still helpful to get feedback from lower leagues to know what parts work well and what parts don't

On March 23 2012 14:43 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Hm I'm really busy for a couple more days, but I might update it soon with new build orders and such I've found that 1 rax gasless FE into double gas 1-1-1 (expand into cloak banshee, just like mech opener) works well.

On maps where the natural is wider or if you want to be more safe, you could get reactor barracks + CC in base while getting 1-1-1. That will hold off any kind of rush or 1 base all-in. Perhaps for this gas-heavy air build, in which you don't really need a reactor later, a 2 rax expand might work better. They can help make tech labs later on and wall off the nat. I think a 2 rax is better actually. You can get marines out faster and punish Protoss immediately if he goes Nexus first and if he goes 1 Gate Expand and is too greedy, you can still pressure him and possibly cancel his Nexus (Thanks Nada for his recent TvP tutorial video). You can also float the 2nd rax (proxied) to scout him out since SCV scouts aren't 100% reliable and scans can miss tech.

Anyway, with reactor barracks expand or 2 rax expand or even 1-1-1 cloak banshee opening, you can transition very well into all three terran styles; bio, mech, air.

On March 23 2012 14:43 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Hm I'm really busy for a couple more days, but I might update it soon with new build orders and such I've found that 1 rax gasless FE into double gas 1-1-1 (expand into cloak banshee, just like mech opener) works well.

On maps where the natural is wider or if you want to be more safe, you could get reactor barracks + CC in base while getting 1-1-1. That will hold off any kind of rush or 1 base all-in. Perhaps for this gas-heavy air build, in which you don't really need a reactor later, a 2 rax expand might work better. They can help make tech labs later on and wall off the nat. I think a 2 rax is better actually. You can get marines out faster and punish Protoss immediately if he goes Nexus first and if he goes 1 Gate Expand and is too greedy, you can still pressure him and possibly cancel his Nexus (Thanks Nada for his recent TvP tutorial video). You can also float the 2nd rax (proxied) to scout him out since SCV scouts aren't 100% reliable and scans can miss tech.

Anyway, with reactor barracks expand or 2 rax expand or even 1-1-1 cloak banshee opening, you can transition very well into all three terran styles; bio, mech, air.