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Hey guys. This is my first time posting in TL. Last season I made it to masters but my TvP was too poor and I got frustrated and was sent back down to diamond (hence the topic title).
Anyway, I would appreciate general pointers in TvP. I've included a replay that shows a longerish game I played that I think represents what my TvP games typically look like.
I open 1rax gasless expand and tech towards dropships to keep the toss in his base while securing my third. I think I do a good job with my harass (trying to hit 2 points at once) but the late game comes I have trouble controlling my army and I lose the final engagement quite convincingly despite the fact we were both maxed with 3/3 upgrades.
I think my mechanics are pretty good, but I'm just not skilled at controlling a big bio ball with vikings and ghosts, which I think is what lost the game for me.
My specific questions (in addition to any general advice) for this replay is:
1) How can I improve my mid-game pressure?
2) What should I should I focus on during my drops? Tech structures? Probes? Pylons?
3) How can I get into a good position to engage the protoss ball? Should I camp outside his natural with my army prespread?
4) What is the general order of how I should mirco once the engagement happens? Should I shift-queue the colossi with my vikings, then EMP, then stim? What's the right order generally?
5) Macro. How many raxes should I have late in the game? Is there anything I should be teching to late game to help me gain an edge? I was in the process of getting multiple nukes, but I was killed off before I could utilize them.
Again, TvP is definitely my Achilles' in SC2. I feel very comfortable in my other matchups and did fairly well in masters league, but was crushed every game against protoss.
Thanks guys!
REPLAY: http://www.mediafire.com/?18ed9hv5e8418qv
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1) I think your mid-game pressure was pretty good actually, it was your follow-up that needs work. You managed to snipe his third by distracting him multiple times, and that should have won you the game. HOWEVER, you only had 50 workers, and took your third rather late, so he was actually still about even economically. I will say that I think you should continue doing drops into the late game -- his 4th and 5th were completely undefended, and a dual- or triple-pronged drop there and the main would do a LOT of damage.
2) It really depends on what you see in his base and your read on what he's doing. If you see a large group of buildings powered by just 1 or 2 pylons, by all means kill the pylons. If there's an exposed tech structure that's producing something (you don't really want to go for his Twilight council right after he finishes charge, for example), feel free to go for that. If you don't see any great opportunities to go for either of those, kill the probes.
3) Do NOT try to camp outside HIS natural. First of all, you should never be able to actually get there (if he lets you take THAT much map control, you're already so far ahead it doesn't matter what you do), and secondly, it leaves you VERY open to counterattacks (with Warp Prisms or just pylons scattered around the map). I'd find a nice position somewhere in the middle of the map, which doesn't leave you too far away from your base if something comes up, and prepare a concave there. You'll probably have to reposition, since he'll probably try to move around your army, but then, just move around and try to trick him into committing in an open area.
4) It's kind of a matter of personal preference, but I think EMP, Stim, Vikings works best. Be sure to use all your EMPs too -- in that replay, you had energy for 8 EMPs, but only used one. Just hold "E" and spam-click all over the Protoss army (especially when he has that many archons). You should have been able to destroy that army with more EMPs.
5) I think you had a few too few raxes -- maybe around 12? (you had 9). As for other units, unless you want to try a switch into mass air, there isn't really anything else that would help with that composition.
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On November 09 2011 14:12 deliciouspork wrote:
Is there anything I should be teching to late game to help me gain an edge?
Thors with armour upgrades.
User was warned for this post
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On November 09 2011 15:02 Techno wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2011 14:12 deliciouspork wrote:
Is there anything I should be teching to late game to help me gain an edge? Thors with armour upgrades.
if this is serious i cant see how this would be effective? I dont think the Investment, even in lategame and even if it aint that much of one is worth it...In 200/200 Battles Thors will just evaporate, so why not invest all that Gas into more Ghosts(espacially postpatch u cant really have too much of them).
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On November 09 2011 23:57 KamehameHoe wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2011 15:02 Techno wrote:On November 09 2011 14:12 deliciouspork wrote:
Is there anything I should be teching to late game to help me gain an edge? Thors with armour upgrades. if this is serious i cant see how this would be effective? I dont think the Investment, even in lategame and even if it aint that much of one is worth it...In 200/200 Battles Thors will just evaporate, so why not invest all that Gas into more Ghosts(espacially postpatch u cant really have too much of them).
Imo, if you have the extra APM to spare, having a couple of Thors with the Strike Cannon upgrade to serve as stunners seem quite useful against stuff like Immortals and Colossi. Feedback however remains a concern, in which case you could skip Strike Cannon, EMP your own Thor pre-engage and use it as a meatshield tank.
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S_sienz, how can anyone use the strike cannons when thors have to wait until they accumulate 150 energy? Thats a LOT of time to wait PER THOR. Do you max out on thors only?
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On November 09 2011 14:12 deliciouspork wrote:
Is there anything I should be teching to late game to help me gain an edge?
There doesn't seem to be a consensus on what if anything you should tech to after MMMVG (get relevant upgrades of course). If you're looking for some ideas check out [D] What to spend your gas on late game in TvP?.
One late game trick that is quite effective is to build extra Orbitals for the MULEs and then sac some of your SCVs to free up army supply.
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Hi I'm a master terran and TvP is my best matchup by far.
1) How can I improve my mid-game pressure?
It's pretty good as is. You are behind from the early attack that you over committed to (this is why you lost) so there's not that much you can do.
2) What should I should I focus on during my drops? Tech structures? Probes? Pylons?
If you can hit a tech structure that is of course the best. Templar archives and robo/support bay are the most damaging buildings to kill, potentially even better than a nexus. Great job spotting the weak pylon network and killing the pylon to shut down the four gates however, that was certainly your best move.
3) How can I get into a good position to engage the protoss ball? Should I camp outside his natural with my army prespread?
That is a very viable strategy. On this map he will come around from his third, however. To force a fight you need to attack something which he needs to defend obviously so don't expect him to come charging out of his natural right when you get there. He won't let you use his own chokepoint against him if he is smart.
4) What is the general order of how I should mirco once the engagement happens? Should I shift-queue the colossi with my vikings, then EMP, then stim? What's the right order generally?
I think I usually que the vikings with my scan then stim and emp. Depends on the situation if you can emp earlier.
5) Macro. How many raxes should I have late in the game? Is there anything I should be teching to late game to help me gain an edge? I was in the process of getting multiple nukes, but I was killed off before I could utilize them.
No, there is nothing you can tech to unfortunately. Thors are certainly not viable, I don't know how this digression happened. You must play infantry the entire game. There are obviously a few very specific builds that violate this but a standard macro game should (must) be played entirely with infantry units and air support.
The matchup starts out Terran favored with Protoss only getting stronger as the game goes on. So when you enter the mid game on even footing, you are actually behind of where you should be. You should be ahead already at this point. I almost never do barracks command center anymore and you don't see it in tournaments very often either. This may be one of few maps to do it on. I still like the reactor first double barracks as it is very safe, creates a lot of pressure (enough to potentially win the game very quickly vs a greedy player), and still allows a reasonably timed expansion.
You didn't take a third fast enough, especially for this map. Perhaps you didn't feel safe after the blundered attack but you could have done it. He never attacked you until the very end and this is typical for a Protoss player. Try to be more greedy with orbitals vs planetaries. I think you expanded down because it was farther away from you opponent but I would really still go to the normal third, I think it is easier to defend especially since you have to defend that route anyway to protect your natural. The way you built you have 3 enemy angles of attack vs two. I guess the two up top do eventually funnel into a single point but still, he is really not going to attack you early on. Protoss players generally will not attack unless they feel really far ahead, they are afraid of concussive shells. It is not at all unusual for a Protoss player to attack once or twice very early and then never again until they are certain they have won already. You can punish this style with a lot of orbitals and expansions in general.
As far as being behind on SCVs I think you were down a few of where you should be but I would rarely build more than 60, especially in this mathchup. One of the advantages of mules is you don't have to build as many SCVs and thus get a larger max army.
Eventually you do max, and really have a larger max because of your lower scv count yet still lose the battle. I don't have much to tell you here, unfortunately. As I said earlier I think the situation gets worse and worse for Terran as the game goes on. To win a 200 vs 200 battle like this I think you need to kill either the observer or most/all of the colossus so you can engage with your ghosts up front.
Stop doing 1 rax CC it is bad. Protoss is so weak early, marines beat all of their units until templars or colossus for example. They really cannot do anything until either templars or colossus so be aggressive. A Protoss should never ever expand before you without dying. Try to get a 1-2 medivac drop of stimmed marauders off a little earlier so you can snipe their archives or support bay. You have a great idea with the multi pronged attacks but I would actually do them the other way, with the frontal attack first, and then the drop while the army is diverted.
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TvP is my best matchup. Without a doubt 2 rax pressure with reactor on 1st and ASAP combat shields is the go. Get eBay at 6:00 and stim right after combat shields. At 9:30 u hav +1 weapons & stim!!!! 2nd CC at around 8:00. Reactor on star port for double medivacs or vikes. My win % v P in high diamond is 75% at least!!! Oh and don't get 2nd gas till 8:00 either. Protoss steal gas v me all the time, it has no effect. I often don't bother to kill it until 8:00 just to confuse and show cockiness to the P.
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The first post sums up the beginnings of your problems with TvP, and as most players will tell you, analyze the game until the first mistake is located, and then look at the rest of the game under a different light in slices.
Basically your mechanics are the biggest problem I see here, you're harassing, killing probes, doing damage here and there, and you end up sniping his third, it should be gg right then, but when you go back and look at how poor your mechanics really are, you'll realize that you actually aren't at the huge advantage you should be after killing toss's third.
Your army control is quite shitty, as you've realized. Priority for micro should be as follows: scan and see if there are HTs with storm, if not, shift-queue the colo with the vikings attacking from the opposite side of the stalkers, then the fight starts, EMP is #1 focus, you can't let a single storm land or you're pretty much screwed, and nothing should have sheilds, this is where knowing how many HT there are, and what directions they're coming from is so valuable. From there, spread the marines and marauders out a bit, kite back the units being hit, target fire archons, after the EMP's land and the colo die, there's not much micro that you should have to do, just try to keep the bio out of range of colo fire until the vikings do their job, and then just focus on macro and saving your ghosts, toss tend to have low stalker counts in the late game, especially at the end of an engage, so loading the ghosts into a medivac or two after they do their work can be an effective retreat plan.
As soon as the emps are done, start building more units.
Ignore the guy who's talking about the funky 1 base all-in, it's not very effective and definitely not the way to play if you're trying to improve your standard TvP game and overall mechanics.
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When you have the gas for it, try to get ship plating lvl 3, this helps your dropship harass and you can switch to battlecruisers.
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From what i saw your scv production early game is actually quite poor. You open 1 rax FE and only get 5 scvs by 14 min. You could have that by 10 if your on form.
You have 38 at 10 minutes and got SB a couple times early. The in the next 4 minutes made about 8.
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On November 10 2011 13:36 yomi wrote:
The matchup starts out Terran favored with Protoss only getting stronger as the game goes on. So when you enter the mid game on even footing, you are actually behind of where you should be. You should be ahead already at this point. I almost never do barracks command center anymore and you don't see it in tournaments very often either. This may be one of few maps to do it on. I still like the reactor first double barracks as it is very safe, creates a lot of pressure (enough to potentially win the game very quickly vs a greedy player), and still allows a reasonably timed expansion.. Can you post the 2 rax build that you use?
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Thanks everyone for your responses! They are most helpful.
Interesting perspective that Terran is favored early game but gradually disfavored in the mid and late games. I'll definitely start doing the 2rax opener. I had always thought gasless expo was the way to go in TvP but I guess I was never executing the 2rax properly.
Question about the 2rax opening. Do I hit with stim + shields + +1 weapons? Also, I feel like I must do damage with this opening because it seems like I stay on 1 base for quite a while to get these bio upgrades. How big of a threat are sentries with this push?
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I enjoyed your replay a lot, it helped me iron out my own problems but I think we both have a glaring problem in our play... our SCV count is low. I'm really going to aim for 50 scvs and then cut production. Loving the replies to this thread, its helping me out also.
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On November 11 2011 13:19 deliciouspork wrote:
Thanks everyone for your responses! They are most helpful.
Interesting perspective that Terran is favored early game but gradually disfavored in the mid and late games. I'll definitely start doing the 2rax opener. I had always thought gasless expo was the way to go in TvP but I guess I was never executing the 2rax properly.
Question about the 2rax opening. Do I hit with stim + shields + +1 weapons? Also, I feel like I must do damage with this opening because it seems like I stay on 1 base for quite a while to get these bio upgrades. How big of a threat are sentries with this push?
i have 2 replays for TvP with my style on here. aggressive 2 rax. Not only will you do damage, sometimes u will kill him on first push or hobble him. 2nd push at 9:30 ish shud kill him. If not then transition to 1-1 bio with reactor on a starport. Off 2 bases u shud have at least 4 rax, 1 fact, reactored StarPort.
2 TvP replays are in this list
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EPT
