TABLE OF CONTENTS _____________________ UNDERSTANDING MECH MINDSET HOW TO HARASS ARMY COMP ENGAGEMENTS BUILD ORDER BENCHMARKS OPENERS CLOSING TIPS AND TRICKS + TANK PLACEMENT DIAGRAM REPLAYS BATTLE REPORTS AND MORE REPLAYS
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Abstract Playing with Mechanical units in TVP is both fun and invigorating. It combines all the multitasking drop skills learned from playing Bio as well as constant high speed decision making similar to late game TvT, where attention is usually a much more valuable resource than minerals. It incorporates these following units (listed in importance)
As you can see there are tons of support units, you must know when and how to use each and every one of these in order to win.
Unfortunately for Mech, there is no specific timing to end the game, and it is very hard to say when to push. When you do push it is to deal a lot of damage and possibly win the game. When you play mech you should be able to tell yourself, if I push now, and don't fuck this up, I will either win, or be so far ahead with 4-5 bases that I will eventually just push again and win.
Maps to do mech on: Entombed Valley, Shakuras Plateau, Antiga Shipyard, Shattered Temple.
Throughout the game, tell yourself these things 1. My army is always stronger than his army assuming equal supply. 2. My bases are secure(will define secure later) and I will have responses for ANY protoss harassments. 3. My harassment are effective and diligent, in the long run he will be worn down and I will eventually have the economic lead. 4. If he cannot harass effectively, and cannot fight my army efficiently, if I push he will have no other option but lose.
Part 1: Understanding the Mech mindset Mech is different to playing Bio in the following ways. Instead of your giant bioball dancing around his side of the map doing drops forcing him out of position, mech is more, each player stays on their own side of the map and does their harass, while the core of each person's army is on their side of the map protecting their bases.
The goal of harass is to find out what tech he is doing, set his economy back as much as possible, and mentally drain his will to fight. The key with helion drops and banshee pokes is to always be out there. Never stop harassing. While playing Bio it may be wise to stop harassing once blink stalkers are on the field, no such case for mech.
Usually half your army will be tanks and they will already be posed in a defensive position so your opponent can only deal with your harass, and harass himself.
Part 2: How to harass HELIONS 1. Fly medivac in corner of base. Run helions in. Run helions after 3-5 probe kills and get out with as little casualties as possible. 2. Fly medivac in corner of base, move medivac to an alternate pickup location, pick up at that spot and drop on the low ground into their natural. Their army must walk around 3. Potshots at zealots/sentries. Later on in the game you will have swarms of 6-12 helions with blue flame. If they are not paying attention to their front for any reason, you will get 3-4 zealot kills, a few sentries, at most you lose is 4 helions. So always poke up, and make him scared.
Summary: trade helions for probes effeciently, suicide helions into units only if you come up favorably. Try not to suicide helions into probes unless you know you can get 8 for 4, or 6 for 3. Also, constant helion drops will tell you the order he builds his -robo support bay -twilight -stargate
you must know his order of tech or else it will be impossible to win
BANSHEES Always keep a couple behind his base. Kill probes when they aren't guarded. This lets you know a few things. -When his phoenixes pop (150/100 is a small price to pay to know exactly when he has stargate up) -If he gets cannons to protect his minerals. You should stop helion dropping after this point, and start expanding.
Part 3: Army Composition Their are 3 common compositions toss will use to fight mech. 1. Robo twilight double forge:Charge Zealot Blink Stalker collosus(or immortal), Archons and/or DT/HTss. 2. Double robo Immortal Collosus 3. Stargate + Immortal Zealot. (charge later, HT's later)
There are 3 common counters. Listed respectively 1. HelionTank banshee, 1 raven, double armory, viking(late game only) 2. Helion Tank banshee, 1 or 2 observer sniper vikings and thors 3. Marine(very few ups, no stim, get attack from Ebay and shields if you can afford) Thor(+2 armor asap) Banhsee(only if he goes phoenix) Viking(for voids) ghost(late game only)
Part 4: Engagements In all engagements, unless he is close to a pylon, do NOT leap frog. Just let your helions die and siege everything right in his face. He will pull back and your banshee/helions will get free kills, maybe enough to even the score. Pull scvs to buffer if you feel that u lost too many helion.
If it is close and your position on his territory is very important: For example right outside his Nat on Shakuras Plateau, you should leap frog tanks and place tanks in staggered position so they do not splash themselves much at all.
1. Launch PDD, focus immortals with banshees, switch targets after shields drained, once all immortal shields drained focus on stalkers or collosus, whatevers doing more damage to you, Shift attack with tanks the collosus first, then stalkers then immortals. Place helions infront of tanks to absorb zealots and tank splash
2. Same as above, have 2 control groups for banshees (5 banshees in each control group) to take down immortal shields BEFORE your tanks shoot the immortals. You need good timing. Shoot stalkers over archons over zealots. If only zealots remain, unsiege, run tanks back, and your next round of helions should finish by now.
3. EMP the HT first, then the Voidrays then the Immortals. Focus thors on voids if they are clumped. Make sure as many helions are in the way of the immortals.
IMPORTANT: Once all voidrays are downed use vikings to harass immediately, he will most likely be doing a tech switch to anything. (Scan to find out) IMPORTANT: Marines may be in front, anticipate storms, stutter step marines behind thors, allow thors to tank the chargelots. IMPORTANT: If he has a lot of HT's and you dont' have enough ghosts, magic box banshees and fly over temps, making them storm themselves (good), feedback banshees (very good). This lets your Thors use their 250 MM cannons on any immortal that is shooting at you (very very good) because his HT are too busy feedbacking banshees.
Part 5: Build order benchmarks Always build an armory after your second factory. No exceptions.
1. You are on 3 base vs Robo twilight double forge. You should have 2 Techlab starports, 2 techlab factories, 1 reactor factory, and 1 factory with either a tech or reactor, depending on his zealot quantity.
2. You are on 3 base vs Double robo. 3 Techlab starports, and a lot of reactor factories nearby to switch into vikings if he switches into stargate.
3. You are on 2 base vs Fast Blink stalkers: Get more maurauders, keep banshees and a few helions at home. Get a raven. Place tanks so that they are about 3-4 range apart from each other inside your base and can cover your eventual third, the entry way into your natural, production, and any other weak spots.
4. You scout double stargate. Double reactor starport immediately. Start getting another armory and get double air upgrades. This toss clearly wants carriers, and a influx of voidrays can spell disaster. Keep scouting for mothership/fleet beacon.
5. You are on 3 base vs 3 base. You start having a large influx of minerals you can't spend. Start spending it on extra orbital commands and planetary 4th and 5ths. Bring 20-25 scvs in your next big push so you can get about an 180 food army (vs their 130 food army).
Part 6 OPENERS Reactor Expand. 10 depot 12 rax (1marine) 13 gas 14-15reactor -Pulling SCV's off gas is optional... not recommended) -Command Center after second depot, bunker before or after CC depending if they are chrono'ing out their units and choosing not to kill your scout scv but instead go straight towards you cause they saw reactor Either get 3(they expand) or 5,7,9 marines.(if they dont expand, or if they go phoenix) Bunker on the "open" side to wall against void rays. (This protects both supply depots in case you get void ray rushed) -Factory first 150 after CC -Tech lab on rax after 3, 5, 7 etc get a few marauders but don't over due it if you don't need them. -Bunker or 2 infront of natural
Reaper Expand 10 depot 12 rax (no marine) 13 gas Techlab - Reaper - send to probe line 17 depot 20-21 CC Check if they are expanding, that will tell you how many maurauders youw ill need 22 Fact (asap) Get a few marauders if no expand 1 helion then swap with barracks for techlab siege tank
Part 7 closing tips and tricks 1. Any warpprism = get 2 vikings. Lift barracks to possible drop paths and intercept ahead of times. 2. Constant Immortal drops must be countered by more vikings 3. A turret ring is very effective. No warp prisms, Vikings can quit patrolling and join your army, and any attempt to blink up they will probably lose their obs, and if they blink out they can't come back without their obs. 4. Cloakbanshees own any attempt at a "blink stalker base trade" becaues they will lose their obs attempting to blink up. 5. If protoss for any reason gets to 4 or 5 base. Get air upgrades. Get vikigns. Get a few thors. Snipe obs, pull army back. Send helions into unprotected areas and laugh as they fail to control anything properly. 6. 2 turrets are a must for base 4 and 5 because they WILL harass you with dts. Have vikings if you are ever on 5 vs 5 base to intercept warp prisms. 7. 1 Proxy PF is all you need. Do not build more than 1 8. If you bring scvs in a push you should make Engibays directly infront of your tanks and behind your helions. 9. In a 5 vs 5 base 200 army clash, flank their top and bottom rear with vikings(9) and thor(8) range will destroy any amount (usually they will have 3 obs) with their massive range. Also have 3 seperate control groups for viking pair observer snipers. 1(click ob1) 2(click ob2) 3(click ob3). 10. Once you have 2 or 3 extra OC's, you should add ghosts and more ravens (get anywhere from 4 to 5) in your late game comp. Think about it. A raven and a ghost both cost 2 supply. A raven can block up to 40 stalker shots, and a ghost can deal a triple siege tank blast worth in AOE 2 times being 2/3rds the supply! Cloakbanshees devastate protoss bases late game esp if you snipe their obs before hand. They will fly their obs all the way down to their 5th when you can drop their 4th with helions while distracted.
Some nice tank positioning for securing your third. Arrows represent tanks that need to move depending on what you are trying to defend.
Replays:
http://drop.sc/78507 This replays shows me doing a suggested Reaper expand into siege tank to fight off his 2 base immortal gateway timing. (This will probably be the timing that wrecks most of you in masters, but the trick is to just prepare for it with sim city and bunkers. Usually the protoss will see the bunkers and not even try, which is why I can get away with some of the stuff I do.
The protoss then transitions into 3 base stargate into carriers. I scouted the stargate and immediately added 6 barracks, got +1 infantry weapons, and did a 180 food timing attack where I brought about 70% of my SCVs. (i had a lot of money in the bank at that point due to poor macro but you get the idea..)
http://drop.sc/78510 This replay shows me holding off a 4 gate Warpprism rush using maurauders, helions, scvs and eventually a viking to ward his warp prism off. I then transition into exactly what my build describes getting banshees and helions. I constantly send groups of banshees from the top of his base, drop helions from the side of his base, and run helions into his natural. He eventually slip up and I get 20 probe kills in the main. He then tries to all in me but I had just the right amount of units to hold him off. I expand to the gold and proceed to win the game.
http://drop.sc/79510 (top 8 masters, another epic 5 base vs 5 base on shakuras, this time he massed temps so I will show you ghost mech. During lategame, replace all helions with raven/ghost because a raven can give you 150*4 worth of tanking HP for zealots, while a helion only gives you 90. (assuming you don't get feedbacked)
Here is a replay against a guy who went standard collosus timing from a 1gX. Hel dr was succesful, and shown banshees on purpose to make him defensive, I then took a 3rd. He is about to attack me but my helions dove right in, and killed his single zealot wall in natural. This pulls him back and I get the extra 20 seconds to win the game fending off his attack. Yes, I tried mech on metal, not recommended for the inexperienced.
-------battle reports, let me know if you want these here or on the following pages------- Note double gas saw him expand 1 gate FE timing
---I CAN NOW PREPARE FOR THE WORST AN IMMORTAL TIMING-------- Robo before 2nd and 3rd gateway. Either fast collosus or immortal bust (he knows i mech) So this should set off arlarms
Helion delays push by 5 seconds (every second counts), gives me time to prepare with scvs, and forces him to warp in 2 stalkers in his nat instead of at his proxy pylon
Its now or never
Fended it off with minimal casualties
Forgot to include these facts. 1. That was a stargate 2. He sent 3 voids to harass immediately after, meaning he had more stargates than just the one i scanned. 3. I started to make 6 barracks and got +1 weapon because I knew i was ahead economically and army wise. He will lose if I pull my scvs.
How to not place your barracks
How to handle immortal drops
He was at 90 probes, suicides a few.
Won easily. No worries about basetrade or anything, cause it wouldn't have done shit.
ANOTHER GAME ON ARID Little things like this make a big difference
So he can find this!
However I'm not that guilliable
Well its either blink stalkers or DTs. I fucked up my build and went tank before raven (tank raven counters both blink an DT's so that is my goto build when i see fast twilight).
I went tank first because i paniced thought it was going to be a blink all in cause i did not scout his nat until this scan.
And I pay dearly, I lose a crap load of scvs, depot and mining time. (warpprism dt)
He slips up and doesnt have his stalkers in position for whateve reason(he was taking a third) I send helions to his third after this group dies
Then I send more helions into his nat, since his nats probes are almost dead i run half my group into the main as well
And get a tour of his entire base
Sharking my helions. His zealots and archons chase me all the way to my base and I got 7 zealots of every 6 helion(hey it counts man). Looks like he was planning to attack anyways I guess.? Tanks were in position to defend third.
This battle actually came out quite even. He got a nice storm on my helions. Try to focus the archons after the stalkers are dead.
The moment the battle ends I send helions to harass, get a few more probe kills. He attacks me again after my helions are dead.
Bunkers finish but marines die before they enter >.> still warded this one off easily thank to perfectly placed high ground tanks.
Sharking my helions again. This time I see voidrays for the first time. Knowing how far ahead I am. I do anything within my power to make sure I don't get overwhelmed by voids. This includes keeping helions close to his nat so he can't attack, since his stalkers wont be with his army they will be defending. By the time he attacks I will have turrets in place.
Unfortunately, he had 3 stargates and my first round of vikings die. Things are looking bad.
THOR IS HERE!!
The problem with desperation voidrays (as opposed to using voidrays to secure 4th), is that these are as good as dead. Vikings can't really run from voids but voids definitely can't run from vikings.
Things aren't looking good says the Obs
Vikings can be good vs archons. They also look like goliaths! (but not as cool) He GG"s after this.
I forgot to mention. I reactor expand every game. My opening can vary, which is why you should study my replays to know what to do vs a. 1g X b. 1g X 2 gas c. 3gX
On December 23 2011 05:36 THEPPLsELBOW wrote: Throughout the game, tell yourself these things 1. My army is always stronger than his army assuming equal supply.
This is just not really true per se for mechanical play in PvT. Since the hellion nerf it is just not possible to fight chargelots effectively without bio imo. Against a style like this P can just go some phoenix to counter air + mass chargelot + some immortals. Not much a bioless army can do against that imo.
On December 23 2011 05:36 THEPPLsELBOW wrote: Throughout the game, tell yourself these things 1. My army is always stronger than his army assuming equal supply.
This is just not really true per se for mechanical play in PvT. Since the hellion nerf it is just not possible to fight chargelots effectively without bio imo. Against a style like this P can just go some phoenix to counter air + mass chargelot + some immortals. Not much a bioless army can do against that imo.
Please watch replays and see that I give no opportunities for Toss to do all these "wonderful" things without them suffering the consequences. Also If you read my guide you see that my stargate adaptation involves no tanks so I dont see why phoenix will be a problem at all..
On December 23 2011 05:54 Cycle wrote: This is a sweet guide. I look forward to watching the replays.
What are some openings that you recommend for this playstyle?
I reactor expand every game. Followed by bunkers, factory swap into reactor helions + fast medivac. Bunker + maurauders with the barracks after swap to defend nat.
Updated the post with some pictures for tank placement. Arrows are hard to see, but they should be where tanks may have to reolcated to:
On PF placement.
1. Entombed: Between ramps of your nat and main. 2. Shak: Above your third splitting the map in half. 3. Antiga: At the intersection of the paths around the crevice. 4. Shattered: Path leading into your main and natural. If you expand to the corner expo that should be a PF, if you expand to gold that should be a OC.
I wish there was something like this to explore as protoss, as it stands my biggest reason for considering the terran switch is having more than 2 viable openers that are not completely all in.
Hopefully HoTS will make things more interesting, for all 3 races
I just want to point out that you really shouldn't be relying on turrets to defend against blink stalker harrass/base trades. Observers have longer range of sight than turrets have range of fire. He can either spot with observer and keep it back. And blink up and completly ignor the turrets. Or he can use it to spot the turrets and just kill them with the stalkers before he blinks up. If he looses the observer he is just playing bad. You have to deal with fast blink stalkers with good army positioning, if you can find the gas to squeeze out a sensor tower that helps alot. Late game if you leave a thor or some vikings by your turrets, they should have enough range to pick off the observer.
Edit*
I'm a master terran usually around rank 30 in my division. I used to play mech alot but i ran into problems. Anyone trying to go this rout should be aware of them and try to think of a way to counter them.
First, because you need to have very specific unit compositions to deal with the protoss army it pretty much denies any early game/ early mid game agression. You only have harass options up to this point because there is just no way for you to have all the elements you need to have an effective army composition. A protoss who is being active with a mobile army composition and good harass defense can play very greedy with upgrades an expanding, and can take a large supply lead.
Second, Protoss has the option to become very very mobile in comparison. with collosus cliffwalk being able to spot highground in addition to blink stalkers, they are able to completly circemvent strong points of deffence. I found against this style sensor towers were a must, but this strains the gas heavy composition you are trying to go for.
Third, the idea that a maxed out terran mech army is the most cost effiecent army in the game, does not seem to be as true in tvp as tvz. Late late protoss is freakiing scary as well, charglot, storm, archon, colossus, maybe some air mixed in. Is terrifying. I found thata properly controlled protoss lategame army is just as strong as anything the terran can field. And with them having a more mobile army it seems easier for them to dictate the engagements.
In the end I decided that the games i was winning seemed to be more because most protoss just didn't know how to react to the unusual style, because every now and then i would run into someone who would just roll me, start to finish. I would look back at the replay and be at a loss for what i could have don differently. I decided to switch back to bio because i didn't want to rely on my enemy just not knowing how to react.
Anyways deffinatly a fun style and i hope you guys have more success with it than i did. Those were my issues, glhf trying to solve them!
On December 23 2011 06:32 Micromancer wrote: I just want to point out that you really shouldn't be relying on turrets to defend against blink stalker harrass/base trades. Observers have longer range of sight than turrets have range of fire. He can either spot with observer and keep it back. And blink up and completly ignor the turrets. Or he can use it to spot the turrets and just kill them with the stalkers before he blinks up. If he looses the observer he is just playing bad. For fast blink stalker timings you have to deal with blink stalkers with good army positioning. If you can find the gas to squeeze out a sensor tower that helps alot. Late game if you leave a thor or some vikings by your turrets, they should have enough range to pick off the observer.
Thank you for the clarification I always have vikings patrolling the area so I simply forgot to mention that fact. And yes a sensor tower is amazing vs blink stalkers. It helps to leave the "variable tanks" unsieged so they can be put into place quickly.
ALSO i forgot to mention. The 3 to 4 maurauders u make early game, try to keep them alive all game. Helions + marauders + banshees + eventually the tnaks will come. Should be enough to help deal with blink stalkers. Also have an idea where their next "blink spot" will be. As it will probably be the place you just left with your tanks.
That's why if you can, leave your tanks where they are as indicated on my diagram because those tanks cover a shit load of area, as well as covering each other tank's butts.
Also @ Micromancer
Take a look at the replays. You can see I go for a fast third so even though the protoss may get a scarrier late game army than me, I dont allow it because of my constant harass and aggressive expanding. The things you described with your edit is true only if you let their macro get out of control. I have never seen a protoss comfortably taking a fast 3rd or 4th against me simply BECAUSE they feel uneasy with my every day every second harass. If they ever go for some completely greed bull crap. (fast fleet beacon fast 3rd and 4th) I will probably pull all my scvs and do the all in. It sucks but its the only aggressive option that mech allows off of 2 base.
In the end I decided that the games i was winning seemed to be more because most protoss just didn't know how to react to the unusual style, because every now and then i would run into someone who would just roll me, start to finish. I would look back at the replay and be at a loss for what i could have don differently. I decided to switch back to bio because i didn't want to rely on my enemy just not knowing how to react.
Anyways deffinatly a fun style and i hope you guys have more success with it than i did. Those were my issues, glhf trying to solve them!
Do you want me to take a look at your replays? I will get more replays up but yours would make excellent analysis to see mech from a different side.
Also I quoted that part of your paragraph because I feel that you harassments aren't doing their damage. If they deny my first medivac drop. I dont panic. I keep the medivac floating around nearby, I do INDIRECT damage because they are wary. There thoughts immediately go on the defensive and are less likely to sneak a third with a medivac floating around. This is when I can expand more aggresively, and if he chooses to attack my medivac is already in position.
I will very very rarely be behind economically. I can find any excuse to match each protoss base with one of mine. I get by with the bare minimum and the game becomes a harass + harass defense war that really tests what your skill level is at. Also if I ever feel that it might be too risky to expand, I build in base because I need to spend minerals on something. Extra OC's really pay off if you watch my game vs Caseeker. It was a 50 minute 5 vs 5 base fest where I used all my support units and he went every tech route. He is also around GM level or top 8 masters.
yeah i watched the replays, but it seemed to me that the protoss were just dealing with the harass poorly. I did play a very similar style to you about a season ago, and found that like you have expirianced that most of the time your harass will do well and keep them scared and turtled up. But every once in awhile i would run into a guy who was like, Im going to take a fast third, put a cannon in each mineral line and leave a few stalkers in each base. And with good controll he would just swat the harass away. Harass play with mech is alot different than with bio in that you are not droping high damage units like marauders and marines that require alot of units to defend against them. Banshees and hellions can be delt with with just a small number of well used units. They strain multitasking more than perfect army splitting. That is what allows the protoss player to take extra expansions or other shortcuts as long as his multitasking is up to the task. Also i felt that though a fast third is nessacary for the mech play that it gets very hard to defend it against a properly used blink stalker colossus player, that can bounce between your main and third. Not saying its impossible but i think you have to be better than your opponent to pull it off.
Is this secrety Artosis talking about mech again here? I feel like this is going to be one of the paths terran has against protoss where they are going to figure out that they can back up that sky terran crap where they go mass viking banshee with some tanks/turrets at home. Viking/Banshee is pretty nasty (also gimmicky) because terran scans observer and then usually loses a bunch of stuff. The main way to fight it is counter attacks and early attacks (in my experience at least), but both of those are held by walls/tanks/turrets. I don't play terran much though so what do i know?
On December 23 2011 07:25 Micromancer wrote: yeah i watched the replays, but it seemed to me that the protoss were just dealing with the harass poorly. I did play a very similar style to you about a season ago, and found that like you have expirianced that most of the time your harass will do well and keep them scared and turtled up. But every once in awhile i would run into a guy who was like, Im going to take a fast third, put a cannon in each mineral line and leave a few stalkers in each base. And with good controll he would just swat the harass away. Harass play with mech is alot different than with bio in that you are not droping high damage units like marauders and marines that require alot of units to defend against them. Banshees and hellions can be delt with with just a small number of well used units. They strain multitasking more than perfect army splitting. That is what allows the protoss player to take extra expansions or other shortcuts as long as his multitasking is up to the task. Also i felt that though a fast third is nessacary for the mech play that it gets very hard to defend it against a properly used blink stalker colossus player, that can bounce between your main and third. Not saying its impossible but i think you have to be better than your opponent to pull it off.
-If I ever see a protoss try that I will pull a few scvs and take out the third. Go back, and resume as normal. Perhaps I will run into someone like that on ladder.
-2 cannons in main + Nexus = 700 minerals. If they do this before MY third, I guess the only option is all in. Take note that when playing my style I have spent 0 on static defense at this point in the game.
-You say just a couple of stalkers stops helion harass? That is simply not true. If there are 2 stalkers 4 helions can go by and kill everything. If there are 4 stalkers I can come out even in a helion vs probe trade. The toss will always invest more resources in defending against helions unless you let your medivac die (which should never happen unless you want to get as many probe kills as possible)
Also if you watch my game vs Caseeker -He tries to take out my 4th. My army surrounds his already sieged and he loses a crap load. -His constant DT/Zealot/Blink stalker harass is answered by me sending helions and banshees to his other bases. He had no money to keep up that harass (because defender trades more cost effeiciently), and him losing probes earlier to be able to afford cannons until much later. As you can see his late army suffered.
-Every action the protoss takes must be met with the proper reaction. I will probably make a list of FAQ's (what if toss does this bla blah blah) and try to calm all the nay sayers down.
Little question: Why use air units? I understand the fear of immortals that creeps in every time someone mentions mech tvp, and that few try to make tank-based mech work simply because of the 1a deathball syndrome(yeah there is emp and kiting but seriously, tvp has not changed since the beta).But I think everyone is dissmissing hellions too much, a deep look at the unit shows that it tanks 5!!! immortal shots Or 9 stalker shots.And in battles with more than 50 army supply it takes care of the zlots.Hellions as meatshields rock, and i believe the only way to mech is tank hellion ghost viking. Please before spamming that toss can a-move through a sieged army: go unit tester:They cant. This comp gets vastly better at 3/3 vs 3/3/3 than at no upgrades, and late-game with the addition of ghosts it gets mobile( emp and chase the toss till his shields start to regen or pylon range is reached). Generally a few solutions present themselves to the protoss: 1. Get Collosus,Immortal,zlot with about even numbers of collossi and immos to get through the hellions to the tanks. Solution: it has 2 problems despite being the worst comp mech can face: it is immobile and relies heavily on robo units which cannot reinforce instantly.The toss tries to outmuscle the T here. Get a third, Double Armory flash style, harass as well as you can. Any harass from the toss can be dealt with hellions and turrets. Doom push(2/1 or 3/2) while taking a 4th once you got 4 or so ghosts.Always roam the map with hellions. ALWAYS keep half your tanks unsieged while you turtle,4 s are crucial in sc2.
2.Stalker collosus deathball with blink cliff harass.Here either control the center or keep all your tanks unsieged with a couple sensor towers nearby.Fewer hellions than normal=aka 2 for each tank. Go tank-heavy, mass expand and DO NOT DEFEND your 4th and fifth apart from planetary and a turret.You will be mining gas only at these expos and muleing here. If you lose them well you just lost 6 scv, a cc and a turret=800 minerals,compared to the gas mined there its heaven. You wont be needing those minerals as hellions and harass have limited utility. If the protoss moves toward those far away expos- BE GLAD, you can push towards the middle now.As usual hellions and a planetary can beat zealot warp-ins.Push timings-Here you can actually 4 fact off 2 base as twilight, blink, forge,robobay and a 3rd from the protoss is greedy, exact timings are still unknown but if you see robobay twilight and scout a third go push when the 3rd is about half done.2 t-labs and take a third. Also, please don't talk about mixing in bio. Bio doesnt share the same upgrades, cost additional gas to get healing,stim,combat shield etc, dies to storm and collosus,can t fix zealot problem, and you end up maxing with less tanks than you'd want. Hellions are the way, especially when you see how fast they wipe probe lines and that there is ONE unit that counters them=collossi. Mass hellions with your tanks, harass if you can, force collosi which are immobile and have build time, make immortals useless(tank well, burn shields,stop your tanks from being reached).
On December 23 2011 08:44 rgTheSchworz wrote: Little question: Why use air units? I understand the fear of immortals that creeps in every time someone mentions mech tvp, and that few try to make tank-based mech work simply because of the 1a deathball syndrome(yeah there is emp and kiting but seriously, tvp has not changed since the beta).But I think everyone is dissmissing hellions too much, a deep look at the unit shows that it tanks 5!!! immortal shots Or 9 stalker shots.And in battles with more than 50 army supply it takes care of the zlots.Hellions as meatshields rock, and i believe the only way to mech is tank hellion ghost viking. Please before spamming that toss can a-move through a sieged army: go unit tester:They cant. This comp gets vastly better at 3/3 vs 3/3/3 than at no upgrades, and late-game with the addition of ghosts it gets mobile( emp and chase the toss till his shields start to regen or pylon range is reached). Generally a few solutions present themselves to the protoss: 1. Get Collosus,Immortal,zlot with about even numbers of collossi and immos to get through the hellions to the tanks. Solution: it has 2 problems despite being the worst comp mech can face: it is immobile and relies heavily on robo units which cannot reinforce instantly.The toss tries to outmuscle the T here. Get a third, Double Armory flash style, harass as well as you can. Any harass from the toss can be dealt with hellions and turrets. Doom push(2/1 or 3/2) while taking a 4th once you got 4 or so ghosts.Always roam the map with hellions. ALWAYS keep half your tanks unsieged while you turtle,4 s are crucial in sc2.
2.Stalker collosus deathball with blink cliff harass.Here either control the center or keep all your tanks unsieged with a couple sensor towers nearby.Fewer hellions than normal=aka 2 for each tank. Go tank-heavy, mass expand and DO NOT DEFEND your 4th and fifth apart from planetary and a turret.You will be mining gas only at these expos and muleing here. If you lose them well you just lost 6 scv, a cc and a turret=800 minerals,compared to the gas mined there its heaven. You wont be needing those minerals as hellions and harass have limited utility. If the protoss moves toward those far away expos- BE GLAD, you can push towards the middle now.As usual hellions and a planetary can beat zealot warp-ins.Push timings-Here you can actually 4 fact off 2 base as twilight, blink, forge,robobay and a 3rd from the protoss is greedy, exact timings are still unknown but if you see robobay twilight and scout a third go push when the 3rd is about half done.2 t-labs and take a third. Also, please don't talk about mixing in bio. Bio doesnt share the same upgrades, cost additional gas to get healing,stim,combat shield etc, dies to storm and collosus,can t fix zealot problem, and you end up maxing with less tanks than you'd want. Hellions are the way, especially when you see how fast they wipe probe lines and that there is ONE unit that counters them=collossi. Mass hellions with your tanks, harass if you can, force collosi which are immobile and have build time, make immortals useless(tank well, burn shields,stop your tanks from being reached).
Just wondering what rank are you? No hate I havent tried incorporating vikings in my composition because I feel that it would be weak to pure twilight immortal sentry. That combination will shut down your first paragraph but I be disproven by replays.
To your question about banshees. Its because banshees synergizes so well with tanks. Banshees force stalkers. Stalkers in an army vs army battle is terrible.
Banshees are excellent Immortal shield drainers. 5 banshee shots take out an immortals shields perfectly. Banshees can be used against stalker harass. Vikings can't.
Banshees force more OBs, thus cutting into collosus or immortal production. Now if you add vikings once cloak is finished (get cloak after 3 base) you can make protoss look like a chicken with its head cut off. Once you play around with bansshees you will start noticing patterns of where there obs usually go, and especially where there obs Wont be at allowing u to do some crazy cloakshee harass.
This looks like fun, i think im gonna try it sometime :D
I used to be a mech player but ive stopped since it has become so hard to beat grandmaster protoss players with it (still win from time to time though) but ive switched over to more mainstream strats. Think i might give this a go sometime
On December 23 2011 10:04 Pulimuli wrote: This looks like fun, i think im gonna try it sometime :D
I used to be a mech player but ive stopped since it has become so hard to beat grandmaster protoss players with it (still win from time to time though) but ive switched over to more mainstream strats. Think i might give this a go sometime
Care to tell me the differences in your build and mine? And what were your main issues? tech switches, immobility, etc?
I was just theory crafting something like this, looks like you beat me to it.
I feel like this will only work on smaller maps or maps that you can split the map in half, at least the mech part of it. Terran really has no map presence without bio on the larger maps. Banshees are just as devastating if not more than drops and they cost less supply so on larger maps it might be a good idea to transition into Thor Hellion Banshee.
On December 23 2011 10:28 Zombo Joe wrote: I was just theory crafting something like this, looks like you beat me to it.
I feel like this will only work on smaller maps or maps that you can split the map in half, at least the mech part of it. Terran really has no map presence without bio on the larger maps. Banshees are just as devastating if not more than drops and they cost less supply so on larger maps it might be a good idea to transition into Thor Hellion Banshee.
Well that's why the air units are so great, they let you defend and harass and give you map control! :D Cloak = defend against blink stalkers, and you have vikings and ravens to snipe all Obs and put down PDD to protect yourself.
The problem I have with all tvp mech is the awful 'core'. Once the core breaks down, the entire composition goes from really powerful to incredibly awful.
In any big engagement, it is safe to assume nearly all hellions will die and tank numbers will be slightly reduced. This is fine vs Zerg and Terran, who have to take a lot of time to remake tech which can touch tanks. A Zerg remixing on lings will have a bunch of dead lings if he tries to clean up the remaining mech. Likewise, a Terran can't just suddenly make a ton Of marines to clean up a weakened mech any. Protoss on the other hand, can make 40 zealots off 20 gates in 2 cycles and crrrrruush the remaining tank force.
Bring 20-25 scvs in your next big push so you can get about an 180 food army (vs their 130 food army).
Are you talking about when you lose your army and therefore have more food to remake a bigger army with the 25 scvs dead?
Also you mentioned vikings(9) and thors(8) are you saying these are the control groups?
1. Yes, with 3 extra OC's thats more than enough to supply your minerals. You should have a nice mineral bank saved up anyways. 2. Sorry I was trying to tell you about their anti air range. I was going to draw a diagram but got lazy. Basically you have to be in bronze to not be able to kill at least 3 obs with units like those. If you have time, its a good idea to have some "observer sniping" control groups.
On December 23 2011 10:28 Zombo Joe wrote: I was just theory crafting something like this, looks like you beat me to it.
I feel like this will only work on smaller maps or maps that you can split the map in half, at least the mech part of it. Terran really has no map presence without bio on the larger maps. Banshees are just as devastating if not more than drops and they cost less supply so on larger maps it might be a good idea to transition into Thor Hellion Banshee.
No this will work on any map. They key reasons I chose those 4 maps is because I can get a fast third with a relatively low number of tanks (4-5), and when I float over I can set up the diagram outlined in the original guide. So I will be ahead on scvs considering moderate harass damage. However, Shakuras plateau is my most comfortable map going mech on.
On December 23 2011 10:41 Micket wrote: The problem I have with all tvp mech is the awful 'core'. Once the core breaks down, the entire composition goes from really powerful to incredibly awful.
In any big engagement, it is safe to assume nearly all hellions will die and tank numbers will be slightly reduced. This is fine vs Zerg and Terran, who have to take a lot of time to remake tech which can touch tanks. A Zerg remixing on lings will have a bunch of dead lings if he tries to clean up the remaining mech. Likewise, a Terran can't just suddenly make a ton Of marines to clean up a weakened mech any. Protoss on the other hand, can make 40 zealots off 20 gates in 2 cycles and crrrrruush the remaining tank force.
A. If you let protoss stockpile 4000 minerals, or even 2000. You are playing mech wrong. B. In late late game situations. Its a much better idea to contain the protoss and deny expos, trade favorably, and maintain a base advantage rather than risk losing your army. If you are that far behind protoss in terms of bank/upgrades whatever, you would have lost the game anyways no matter what style you play (think bio).
Do not confuse my mech style with turtle mech. You are even on workers, then u got mules for the first 200 food (or 15 minutes of the game). You dont let protoss do whatever they want without punishing them.
edit C: also, if the battles for you are very close, lets say toss had bad macro, you had bad macro, and what you described is what might happen to you in game. Why dont you pull back, wait for 2 production cycles of your own (lets say you ran out of helions, 2 reactor factories and 3 techlab factories u 2*2 + 3 = 7 BFH per cycle. Oh and your banshees are going to down on his last mining base. Oh he got stalkers, well your tanks are still alive right? Oh and plop down another base while you are at it. Guess who has a better army in the next 4 minutes?
On December 23 2011 10:21 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Yay, a mech guide from an actually decent player.
Could you include a BO though please?
Also, are you saying this only works on those maps, or are those the maps where this composition is favored, or are they neutral/favored?
Bring 20-25 scvs in your next big push so you can get about an 180 food army (vs their 130 food army).
Are you talking about when you lose your army and therefore have more food to remake a bigger army with the 25 scvs dead?
Also you mentioned vikings(9) and thors(8) are you saying these are the control groups?
1. Yes, with 3 extra OC's thats more than enough to supply your minerals. You should have a nice mineral bank saved up anyways. 2. Sorry I was trying to tell you about their anti air range. I was going to draw a diagram but got lazy. Basically you have to be in bronze to not be able to kill at least 3 obs with units like those. If you have time, its a good idea to have some "observer sniping" control groups.
On December 23 2011 10:28 Zombo Joe wrote: I was just theory crafting something like this, looks like you beat me to it.
I feel like this will only work on smaller maps or maps that you can split the map in half, at least the mech part of it. Terran really has no map presence without bio on the larger maps. Banshees are just as devastating if not more than drops and they cost less supply so on larger maps it might be a good idea to transition into Thor Hellion Banshee.
No this will work on any map. They key reasons I chose those 4 maps is because I can get a fast third with a relatively low number of tanks (4-5), and when I float over I can set up the diagram outlined in the original guide. So I will be ahead on scvs considering moderate harass damage. However, Shakuras plateau is my most comfortable map going mech on.
Oh well did you know thors actually have 10 range? o.o
How does this deal vs 2base allins or N-gate timing attacks and double forge builds because my TvP is so fuckin bad since the hellion nerf but this made me thinking to try hard mech again.
EDIT: well... i saw the replays you played vs guys who never upgrade and i don't see how this is gonna survive any agressive play even a stalker poke at the beginning of the game. Even those guys manage to contain you but lost their lead top player will never give you that option to crawl back in the game. Someone already said toss with mobile army will crush you and the thing is in BW you could outupgrade the toss while he spends money on expos and after your upgrades are done you start to fight back by holding ground and wining big fights. Now in SC2 you can't have map control because the toss has better mobility+ he can outupgrade you and make your army less effective in the fight+all the spells+zealots in your tanks and i don't even wanna mention something like drops on your army. From what i saw you kinda do 1/1/1 but with expo which can work if you attack from 2 base and hit a timing but i can't see it working in the long game and still you have alot of holes in your strat early game.
I just watched a replay and you have 30 scvs at 10 min. With a 1 rax expo (gasless) you have 45. This seems like a serious cut......is it really necessary?
Is it just that there are a lot of times wher eyou forget scvs, o is it part of the builds?
EDIT: This same game you hit 88 scvs. No terran should ever get this many. Its just wrong. Is this for a reason?
The lack of upgrades also perturbs me. Ill watch more than 1 replay before i comment again, maybe just an off game. 35 min in your ground is 1-0 and 8k 5k banked. You surely need to at least triple armory at this point
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On December 23 2011 08:44 rgTheSchworz wrote: Little question: Why use air units? I understand the fear of immortals that creeps in every time someone mentions mech tvp, and that few try to make tank-based mech work simply because of the 1a deathball syndrome(yeah there is emp and kiting but seriously, tvp has not changed since the beta).But I think everyone is dissmissing hellions too much, a deep look at the unit shows that it tanks 5!!! immortal shots Or 9 stalker shots.And in battles with more than 50 army supply it takes care of the zlots.Hellions as meatshields rock, and i believe the only way to mech is tank hellion ghost viking. Please before spamming that toss can a-move through a sieged army: go unit tester:They cant. This comp gets vastly better at 3/3 vs 3/3/3 than at no upgrades, and late-game with the addition of ghosts it gets mobile( emp and chase the toss till his shields start to regen or pylon range is reached). Generally a few solutions present themselves to the protoss: 1. Get Collosus,Immortal,zlot with about even numbers of collossi and immos to get through the hellions to the tanks. Solution: it has 2 problems despite being the worst comp mech can face: it is immobile and relies heavily on robo units which cannot reinforce instantly.The toss tries to outmuscle the T here. Get a third, Double Armory flash style, harass as well as you can. Any harass from the toss can be dealt with hellions and turrets. Doom push(2/1 or 3/2) while taking a 4th once you got 4 or so ghosts.Always roam the map with hellions. ALWAYS keep half your tanks unsieged while you turtle,4 s are crucial in sc2.
2.Stalker collosus deathball with blink cliff harass.Here either control the center or keep all your tanks unsieged with a couple sensor towers nearby.Fewer hellions than normal=aka 2 for each tank. Go tank-heavy, mass expand and DO NOT DEFEND your 4th and fifth apart from planetary and a turret.You will be mining gas only at these expos and muleing here. If you lose them well you just lost 6 scv, a cc and a turret=800 minerals,compared to the gas mined there its heaven. You wont be needing those minerals as hellions and harass have limited utility. If the protoss moves toward those far away expos- BE GLAD, you can push towards the middle now.As usual hellions and a planetary can beat zealot warp-ins.Push timings-Here you can actually 4 fact off 2 base as twilight, blink, forge,robobay and a 3rd from the protoss is greedy, exact timings are still unknown but if you see robobay twilight and scout a third go push when the 3rd is about half done.2 t-labs and take a third. Also, please don't talk about mixing in bio. Bio doesnt share the same upgrades, cost additional gas to get healing,stim,combat shield etc, dies to storm and collosus,can t fix zealot problem, and you end up maxing with less tanks than you'd want. Hellions are the way, especially when you see how fast they wipe probe lines and that there is ONE unit that counters them=collossi. Mass hellions with your tanks, harass if you can, force collosi which are immobile and have build time, make immortals useless(tank well, burn shields,stop your tanks from being reached).
Just wondering what rank are you? No hate I havent tried incorporating vikings in my composition because I feel that it would be weak to pure twilight immortal sentry. That combination will shut down your first paragraph but I be disproven by replays.
To your question about banshees. Its because banshees synergizes so well with tanks. Banshees force stalkers. Stalkers in an army vs army battle is terrible.
Banshees are excellent Immortal shield drainers. 5 banshee shots take out an immortals shields perfectly. Banshees can be used against stalker harass. Vikings can't.
Banshees force more OBs, thus cutting into collosus or immortal production. Now if you add vikings once cloak is finished (get cloak after 3 base) you can make protoss look like a chicken with its head cut off. Once you play around with bansshees you will start noticing patterns of where there obs usually go, and especially where there obs Wont be at allowing u to do some crazy cloakshee harass. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I am diamond level and just now into D+ broodwar. Yeah, i'm a noob, i'll give it to you.But i'm aware that you should have between 45 and 55 scvs at 10 min depending on whether you 1 rax expo'ed or not. You say banshees synergize with tanks,you're right. BUT, i know a unit which synergises better with tanks than banshees, and that is ...MORE TANKS. And as protoss will be putting cannons at expoes to defend vs hellions, banshees as harass are limited in my opinion. Yeah banshees do well vs stalkers,immortals, but seriously, are they worth an extra port or two?(you won't be getting your amount of banshees off 1 port especially since you need ).Cloak also is an investment. That is a LOT of gas you're talking about just to force stalkers. Now, onto vikings. Let's clear it up, i am not gonna mass produce vikings just to take down collossi.That's bio's bullshit to do. No, I am gonna make a starport, time my medivac with +1 mech attack(hellions now 2 shot), 2 vikings before or after, then tech lab that port so i can get detection when i need it. 2-3 uncloaked banshees would be GREAT if the opponent is sloppy,even if he isnt that forces a ton of obs and obs speed even if you skip cloak.That after i made my 2 vikings for scouting and for being safe against stargate play. With mech you generally lose to: air switches because of bad scouting, get caught unsieged, harass strains your apm till you lose key structures and become a macro fail, or bad composition. Many vikings is bad, you start getting them when you scout air, 3 vikings should generally be enough to scout, take out obs, eating robo time. Gateway immortals?. If nearly all my gas goes into tanks,gateway units MELT. If protoss gets stubborn and makes more immortals than can be handled by hellions, feel free to get ghosts and pwn. Tank hellion (ghost)vs collosusless army= free win.I have all my army who deals splash, and generally counters your army.Also, gateway units have gotten way weaker since bw. Now to beat a cost-equal gateway army with tank hellion you can fight unsieged( just double kite with tanks and hellions, pull back harmed tanks, repair and siege them.With blink it gets dirty, but still winnable).And so i think that protoss is forced to get robo units before 3rd, else you timing push with 15 scvs and just...win. Some have asked what can you do vs 6 gate. Well 6 gate is all-in vs mech,defend and sneak couple hellions in.Be sure you have 12 or so hellions to tank though.Now double forge is a build that skips immortals and so its veeery vulnerable to a timing push with 4 facts if he also gets a 3rd.If not go fast 3rd or 5 factory all-in if you like BitByBit style.As a general opening i recommend reaper siege expand with a bunker and 1-2 marauders( I hate to build them but its necessary). Reaper gives you scouting info and is that is priceless. From here add 2nd factory, pump some rines off your 1 rax. Then it branches out: either get armory and starport after 2 facts, add a third fact and expand to a third/harass with BF hellions once +1 is done OR go double armory 2 fact, 1 reactor rax( you need it here) fast 3rd Flash style OR just go 4 fact to punish a 3rd.2 tlabs always on 2 base.Rest depends on how early the 3rd is, how many hellions you need.Your rax can build the addons. On 3 base 7 fact( 4 tlab, 3 reactor) and definitively double armory.If protoss takes a 4th harass like hell, and keep in mind that 4 base economy is slightly superior to 3 base economy in sc2, except for the extra gas. If he gets cute and gets a 5th timing push, he will die or you havent done it right.Siege as few times as you can get away with, tanks are definitively decent in tank mode, exploit that. You will win if your mechanics are better than those of the protoss.
Day[9] wanted to do a daily on mech vs toss. You should try to contact him and maybe get on a friendsday wednesday. I'd love to see this style being analyzed by Day[9].
On December 23 2011 11:16 Severus_ wrote: How does this deal vs 2base allins or N-gate timing attacks and double forge builds because my TvP is so fuckin bad since the hellion nerf but this made me thinking to try hard mech again.
EDIT: well... i saw the replays you played vs guys who never upgrade and i don't see how this is gonna survive any agressive play even a stalker poke at the beginning of the game. Even those guys manage to contain you but lost their lead top player will never give you that option to crawl back in the game. Someone already said toss with mobile army will crush you and the thing is in BW you could outupgrade the toss while he spends money on expos and after your upgrades are done you start to fight back by holding ground and wining big fights. Now in SC2 you can't have map control because the toss has better mobility+ he can outupgrade you and make your army less effective in the fight+all the spells+zealots in your tanks and i don't even wanna mention something like drops on your army. From what i saw you kinda do 1/1/1 but with expo which can work if you attack from 2 base and hit a timing but i can't see it working in the long game and still you have alot of holes in your strat early game.
Alright here are some variations I've fine tuned versus aggressive play styles.
http://drop.sc/78507 This replays shows me doing a suggested Reaper expand into siege tank to fight off his 2 base immortal gateway timing. (This will probably be the timing that wrecks most of you in masters, but the trick is to just prepare for it with sim city and bunkers. Usually the protoss will see the bunkers and not even try, which is why I can get away with some of the stuff I do.
The protoss then transitions into 3 base stargate into carriers. I scouted the stargate and immediately added 6 barracks, got +1 infantry weapons, and did a 180 food timing attack where I brought about 70% of my SCVs. (i had a lot of money in the bank at that point due to poor macro but you get the idea..)
http://drop.sc/78510 This replay shows me holding off a 4 gate Warpprism rush using maurauders, helions, scvs and eventually a viking to ward his warp prism off. I then transition into exactly what my build describes getting banshees and helions. I constantly send groups of banshees from the top of his base, drop helions from the side of his base, and run helions into his natural. He eventually slip up and I get 20 probe kills in the main. He then tries to all in me but I had just the right amount of units to hold him off. I expand to the gold and proceed to win the game.
PS. I will try to put pictures of the replays and do a step by step analysis. Giving you key ideas and tricks.
PSS. Trick of the day. If the protoss is sitting around in his natural. Move out and bring 20 scvs to look like you are about to go all in. He will proceed to warp in zealots and chrono his gates at the front. He will try to intercept your army to buy time so his army will move towards you away from his natural. You then pull back right after you drop 4 BFH into his main, and have 3 banshees demolish his probes at the natural from a ground terrain blocked angle.
On December 23 2011 19:52 rgTheSchworz wrote: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I am diamond level and just now into D+ broodwar. Yeah, i'm a noob, i'll give it to you.But i'm aware that you should have between 45 and 55 scvs at 10 min depending on whether you 1 rax expo'ed or not. You say banshees synergize with tanks,you're right. BUT, i know a unit which synergises better with tanks than banshees, and that is ...MORE TANKS. And as protoss will be putting cannons at expoes to defend vs hellions, banshees as harass are limited in my opinion. Yeah banshees do well vs stalkers,immortals, but seriously, are they worth an extra port or two?(you won't be getting your amount of banshees off 1 port especially since you need ).Cloak also is an investment. That is a LOT of gas you're talking about just to force stalkers. Now, onto vikings. Let's clear it up, i am not gonna mass produce vikings just to take down collossi.That's bio's bullshit to do. No, I am gonna make a starport, time my medivac with +1 mech attack(hellions now 2 shot), 2 vikings before or after, then tech lab that port so i can get detection when i need it. 2-3 uncloaked banshees would be GREAT if the opponent is sloppy,even if he isnt that forces a ton of obs and obs speed even if you skip cloak.That after i made my 2 vikings for scouting and for being safe against stargate play. With mech you generally lose to: air switches because of bad scouting, get caught unsieged, harass strains your apm till you lose key structures and become a macro fail, or bad composition. Many vikings is bad, you start getting them when you scout air, 3 vikings should generally be enough to scout, take out obs, eating robo time. Gateway immortals?. If nearly all my gas goes into tanks,gateway units MELT. If protoss gets stubborn and makes more immortals than can be handled by hellions, feel free to get ghosts and pwn. Tank hellion (ghost)vs collosusless army= free win.I have all my army who deals splash, and generally counters your army.Also, gateway units have gotten way weaker since bw. Now to beat a cost-equal gateway army with tank hellion you can fight unsieged( just double kite with tanks and hellions, pull back harmed tanks, repair and siege them.With blink it gets dirty, but still winnable).And so i think that protoss is forced to get robo units before 3rd, else you timing push with 15 scvs and just...win. Some have asked what can you do vs 6 gate. Well 6 gate is all-in vs mech,defend and sneak couple hellions in.Be sure you have 12 or so hellions to tank though.Now double forge is a build that skips immortals and so its veeery vulnerable to a timing push with 4 facts if he also gets a 3rd.If not go fast 3rd or 5 factory all-in if you like BitByBit style.As a general opening i recommend reaper siege expand with a bunker and 1-2 marauders( I hate to build them but its necessary). Reaper gives you scouting info and is that is priceless. From here add 2nd factory, pump some rines off your 1 rax. Then it branches out: either get armory and starport after 2 facts, add a third fact and expand to a third/harass with BF hellions once +1 is done OR go double armory 2 fact, 1 reactor rax( you need it here) fast 3rd Flash style OR just go 4 fact to punish a 3rd.2 tlabs always on 2 base.Rest depends on how early the 3rd is, how many hellions you need.Your rax can build the addons. On 3 base 7 fact( 4 tlab, 3 reactor) and definitively double armory.If protoss takes a 4th harass like hell, and keep in mind that 4 base economy is slightly superior to 3 base economy in sc2, except for the extra gas. If he gets cute and gets a 5th timing push, he will die or you havent done it right.Siege as few times as you can get away with, tanks are definitively decent in tank mode, exploit that. You will win if your mechanics are better than those of the protoss.
1. ...MORE TANKS. And as protoss will be putting cannons at expoes to defend vs hellions, banshees as harass are limited in my opinion. Yeah banshees do well vs stalkers,immortals, but seriously, are they worth an extra port or two? If toss over cannons, start over expanding and massing orbitals. They are worth the extra port because you will be ready for Stargate tech swithes (which will be very common in master league once you get up there)
2. 2-3 uncloaked banshees would be GREAT if the opponent is sloppy,even if he isnt that forces a ton of obs and obs speed even if you skip cloak. You are underestimating the power of forcing obs. This greatly diminishes his immortal production, which in my opinion completely shits on your core army. Not to mentions banshees are the best counter to immortals bar none ghost or marine.
3. Some have asked what can you do vs 6 gate. Well 6 gate is all-in vs mech,defend and sneak couple hellions in.Okay lets be honest. A protoss scouts your reactor and gas. The LAST thing he will be thinking of is you are going to be doing this exact build outlined by The People's Elbow that he glanced about on team liquid. No he will be getting that Obs up ASAP because he does not want to lose to 1/1/1 for the 50th time. And If you are playing a boX, and he is metagaming you THIS HARD by going SIX GATE when he scouts reactor and gas...? Then you have the ability to metagame him back by going bio, defending the 6 gate, and just win.
4. As a general opening i recommend reaper siege expand with a bunker and 1-2 marauders( I hate to build them but its necessary). Excellent suggestion. I have included a reaper expand replay just for you.
Yeah I kinda see your logic,force either stalkers, air or templar tech along with obs.Though you underestimate tank hellion vs immortal-chargelot, without collosus i am not sure that you need emp to beat that cost effectively.Just target fire zeal clumps and shield depleted immortals, take potshots at badly positioned zeals, and vs this you have complete map control,toss cant leave his base because if all his immortals leave,bye probies.And overcannoning doesnt solve his problem as you said. Well, if you reactor expo,you need a bunker vs 1 zeal 1 stalker poke(trust me you need it). If that bunker is at your nat, gives away the fact that you are expanding. No 1/1/1 thoughts cross the protoss mind.
Then you have the ability to metagame him back by going bio, defending the 6 gate, and just win.
Actually 6 gate is an anti bio-build, if you payed attention to recent tourneys. It would be, i assume, better to tank up,upgrade +1, defend and then go 5 fact 3 reactor hellions. I, for one think hellions trade close to even with stalkers and immos once they reach 15 or so especially with +1 mech. And that massive numbers of hellions force collossi, because hts can be sniped, cost A LOT of gas, and force a zealot heavy army, which hellions and tanks demolish.
mech is viable on quite some maps, where expanding with siege tanks is possible (obviously xel naga isn't one of them), Almost every map that always for high ground advantage always for mech play.
the only thing the terran has to keep in check is the economic growth of the protoss, but Banshees and BFH can deal with that easily.
and a 200/200 mech army is quite strong in PvT
it just such a different play style that needs different decision making.
On December 24 2011 05:28 rgTheSchworz wrote: Yeah I kinda see your logic,force either stalkers, air or templar tech along with obs.Though you underestimate tank hellion vs immortal-chargelot, without collosus i am not sure that you need emp to beat that cost effectively.Just target fire zeal clumps and shield depleted immortals, take potshots at badly positioned zeals, and vs this you have complete map control,toss cant leave his base because if all his immortals leave,bye probies.And overcannoning doesnt solve his problem as you said. Well, if you reactor expo,you need a bunker vs 1 zeal 1 stalker poke(trust me you need it). If that bunker is at your nat, gives away the fact that you are expanding. No 1/1/1 thoughts cross the protoss mind.
Then you have the ability to metagame him back by going bio, defending the 6 gate, and just win.
Actually 6 gate is an anti bio-build, if you payed attention to recent tourneys. It would be, i assume, better to tank up,upgrade +1, defend and then go 5 fact 3 reactor hellions. I, for one think hellions trade close to even with stalkers and immos once they reach 15 or so especially with +1 mech. And that massive numbers of hellions force collossi, because hts can be sniped, cost A LOT of gas, and force a zealot heavy army, which hellions and tanks demolish.
-Leave the SCV in the far far corner of his base. He will have to kill it with a stalker or you get massive scouting intel. This delays the poke by 5-6 seconds which gives you ample time to make a bunker after you plop the CC down in base. If they chrono out 2 zealots before stalker, you can make a bunker (supply depots were already in place to wall) before you CC.
Sorry, I meant the ghost opening to counter a 6gate. (which will transition into standard bio usually
On December 24 2011 05:31 freetgy wrote: mech is viable on quite some maps, where expanding with siege tanks is possible (obviously xel naga isn't one of them), Almost every map that always for high ground advantage always for mech play.
the only thing the terran has to keep in check is the economic growth of the protoss, but Banshees and BFH can deal with that easily.
and a 200/200 mech army is quite strong in PvT
it just such a different play style that needs different decision making.
Yep, people don't realize mech in SC2 is just an extension of mech from BW. Ofc there were no air units in BW mech but now that we have very good air units, we should utilize them for harass and combat. (viking is also like a flying goliath too).
So basically my style is constant harass, getting the bare minimum to expand, and utilizing excellent siege tank positioning and sim city to make sure you don't get overrun. Keep your builds free flowing and easy to transition into whatever the protoss is attempting to do.
Tal dar'im should also be considered as you can defend 3 base with a handful of tanks between the 2 ramps to nat and third. Sensor tower the nat mineral line. Question:When and how do you timing push?. You can play a multi-base syle, it's true, but sometimes the toss pulls a trigger and you have to go. Before 200/200. As an example, if toss goes 3 stargate carrier, it's a huge investment: 450 for the stargates,200 for the beacon, and 750 gas for the first production round, and 100 for +1 air weaps(which they should get as 3/3 thors vs 0/0 air get the job done) Instead of adding 6 rax???, timing push right when he starts his first 3 carriers.Either he spends cboost on gates trying to hold it off, or spends it on carriers(which is dumb and will get him killed). You can do serious damage and end the game right there.
---I CAN NOW PREPARE FOR THE WORST AN IMMORTAL TIMING-------- Robo before 2nd and 3rd gateway. Either fast collosus or immortal bust (he knows i mech) So this should set off arlarms
Helion delays push by 5 seconds (every second counts), gives me time to prepare with scvs, and forces him to warp in 2 stalkers in his nat instead of at his proxy pylon
Its now or never
Fended it off with minimal casualties
Forgot to include these facts. 1. That was a stargate 2. He sent 3 voids to harass immediately after, meaning he had more stargates than just the one i scanned. 3. I started to make 6 barracks and got +1 weapon because I knew i was ahead economically and army wise. He will lose if I pull my scvs.
How to not place your barracks
How to handle immortal drops
He was at 90 probes, suicides a few.
Won easily. No worries about basetrade or anything, cause it wouldn't have done shit.
On December 24 2011 05:31 freetgy wrote: mech is viable on quite some maps, where expanding with siege tanks is possible (obviously xel naga isn't one of them), Almost every map that always for high ground advantage always for mech play.
the only thing the terran has to keep in check is the economic growth of the protoss, but Banshees and BFH can deal with that easily.
and a 200/200 mech army is quite strong in PvT
it just such a different play style that needs different decision making.
I will have to disagree with xel'naga. There's this Korean GM player who uploaded some replays of going mech. He opened with some kind of a reactor barracks CC siege tank opening. If it was a bad idea to do so I don't think he would have done that (he uploaded 2 or 3 replays on xel'naga out of 5 ish total).
On December 24 2011 05:31 freetgy wrote: mech is viable on quite some maps, where expanding with siege tanks is possible (obviously xel naga isn't one of them), Almost every map that always for high ground advantage always for mech play.
the only thing the terran has to keep in check is the economic growth of the protoss, but Banshees and BFH can deal with that easily.
and a 200/200 mech army is quite strong in PvT
it just such a different play style that needs different decision making.
I will have to disagree with xel'naga. There's this Korean GM player who uploaded some replays of going mech. He opened with some kind of a reactor barracks CC siege tank opening. If it was a bad idea to do so I don't think he would have done that (he uploaded 2 or 3 replays on xel'naga out of 5 ish total).
Bio is so good on xel naga I don't see why one would try to make mech work on that map. That chasm in the middle is a safe haven for your vikings. So many alternate attack paths to cut corners, and if toss attacks - base trade.
On December 24 2011 05:31 freetgy wrote: mech is viable on quite some maps, where expanding with siege tanks is possible (obviously xel naga isn't one of them), Almost every map that always for high ground advantage always for mech play.
the only thing the terran has to keep in check is the economic growth of the protoss, but Banshees and BFH can deal with that easily.
and a 200/200 mech army is quite strong in PvT
it just such a different play style that needs different decision making.
I will have to disagree with xel'naga. There's this Korean GM player who uploaded some replays of going mech. He opened with some kind of a reactor barracks CC siege tank opening. If it was a bad idea to do so I don't think he would have done that (he uploaded 2 or 3 replays on xel'naga out of 5 ish total).
Bio is so good on xel naga I don't see why one would try to make mech work on that map. That chasm in the middle is a safe haven for your vikings. So many alternate attack paths to cut corners, and if toss attacks - base trade.
Well for people like me, who want to ideally stick with 1 style per match-up instead of, for example, doing mech in TvZ and bio in TvP, it would save time and be more efficient.
Also even if bio is really good on that map, mech is pretty easy as well. It's easy to cover all angles of counter attacks because the map is small, because of the hole in the center at the gold base where you can use a sensor tower. You can just keep unsieged and move left and right if he tries to attack you. The hole in the middle can be abused by mech too as you can use vikings vs Colossi. (The Korean GM's particular style, at least).
Edit:
Btw I really like the "battle reports". It saves a lot of time to download and watch the replay ourselves ^^ and people can look at it during work kekek
On December 24 2011 07:42 YyapSsap wrote: Hey just a casual masters player atm (was GM for the past 3 seasons at SEA), Ive been meching, in TvP for a very long time now.
Im thinking maybe I will spend time coming up with an EXTENSIVE guide to everything about meching including map analysis, positioning etc
Looking forward to it
Also OP I'll be watching your other replays as well but for now, to me this composition really doesn't look to be a mech/air one. You have so many marines and even opt to upgrade them it really is just a bio/mech/air composition or 1/1/1
On December 24 2011 07:42 YyapSsap wrote: Hey just a casual masters player atm (was GM for the past 3 seasons at SEA), Ive been meching, in TvP for a very long time now.
Im thinking maybe I will spend time coming up with an EXTENSIVE guide to everything about meching including map analysis, positioning etc
Looking forward to it
Also OP I'll be watching your other replays as well but for now, to me this composition really doesn't look to be a mech/air one. You have so many marines and even opt to upgrade them it really is just a bio/mech/air composition or 1/1/1
Its this was a special case that I went marines. It looks like a lot of marines but i had 10 saved from the early game, ceased production, and decided to mass marines after i scout stargate and a big influx of voids. Protoss decide to get an inappropriate 4th AND get carriers AND after all his harass was completely denied? That warrants a big serving of Bit BY bit with a side of 6 rax.
On December 24 2011 07:42 YyapSsap wrote: Hey just a casual masters player atm (was GM for the past 3 seasons at SEA), Ive been meching, in TvP for a very long time now.
Im thinking maybe I will spend time coming up with an EXTENSIVE guide to everything about meching including map analysis, positioning etc
Looking forward to it
Also OP I'll be watching your other replays as well but for now, to me this composition really doesn't look to be a mech/air one. You have so many marines and even opt to upgrade them it really is just a bio/mech/air composition or 1/1/1
Its this was a special case that I went marines. It looks like a lot of marines but i had 10 saved from the early game, ceased production, and decided to mass marines after i scout stargate and a big influx of voids. Protoss decide to get an inappropriate 4th AND get carriers AND after all his harass was completely denied? That warrants a big serving of Bit BY bit with a side of 6 rax.
Oops yeah I realized that after re-reading xD. Thanks for clarifying
I just saw your game on Shakuras, the 55 minute one. That was epic xD you must have been really happy to win that. I can't believe you did so much damage with hellions. So I guess hellion harass does still work really well, you just have to find the right times and places.
On December 23 2011 10:04 Pulimuli wrote: This looks like fun, i think im gonna try it sometime :D
I used to be a mech player but ive stopped since it has become so hard to beat grandmaster protoss players with it (still win from time to time though) but ive switched over to more mainstream strats. Think i might give this a go sometime
Care to tell me the differences in your build and mine? And what were your main issues? tech switches, immobility, etc?
I pretty much use GoOdy's builds when i mech, sometimes i throw in my own variations depending on what the protoss is doing though.
On December 24 2011 07:42 YyapSsap wrote: Hey just a casual masters player atm (was GM for the past 3 seasons at SEA), Ive been meching, in TvP for a very long time now.
Im thinking maybe I will spend time coming up with an EXTENSIVE guide to everything about meching including map analysis, positioning etc
Looking forward to it
Also OP I'll be watching your other replays as well but for now, to me this composition really doesn't look to be a mech/air one. You have so many marines and even opt to upgrade them it really is just a bio/mech/air composition or 1/1/1
Its this was a special case that I went marines. It looks like a lot of marines but i had 10 saved from the early game, ceased production, and decided to mass marines after i scout stargate and a big influx of voids. Protoss decide to get an inappropriate 4th AND get carriers AND after all his harass was completely denied? That warrants a big serving of Bit BY bit with a side of 6 rax.
Oops yeah I realized that after re-reading xD. Thanks for clarifying
I just saw your game on Shakuras, the 55 minute one. That was epic xD you must have been really happy to win that. I can't believe you did so much damage with hellions. So I guess hellion harass does still work really well, you just have to find the right times and places.
NP
Yes it was really close. Mech takes a lot of APM when you are defending blink stalker, zealot killing your turrets, and then DT harass. That's why its so important to keep turrets up ahead of time and getting extra OC's with your bank.
It literally came down to 2 voids and 2 vikings at the end when everything was mined out. Ravens are so nice when no one has any income either...
This is sickening. Those protoss looked like platinum players.
18(!!) minutes into the game and they are 0/0??? And so are your tanks? If they had chronoed double forge activel they would have atleast 2/2 by then and utterly crush you. Also...the 4gate replay, why do you make blind/marauder helion? What if he comes with air at that point?
And the replay at Antiga, not much to say...He played pretty terrible tbh, no offense. Why are your minerals so often over 1000? And why does your geysers at your natural have 1 scv and sometimes 2 in them? And why dont you take the geysers directly when you expand as you already float WAY to many minerals?
I think it can work though not like OP posted. Macro was terrible, also. Given the current state of mech units, mass hellions and be aggro,cut corners, dont get useless turrets, etc can be the only way.You cannot give mapcontrol and eco advantage to the protoss. You have to be aggresive, exploit all timings you get, and burn those mid-map pylons with hellions. Like avilo states, protoss can do a looot of gay stuff. I agree, you have to be better to win with mech untill you got perfect scouting.This strategy works best when you have ''maphack'' due to hellions and vikings or banshees. It's a bit too much effort for a little bit more-cost effectiveness.At 200/200 you win by 30, maybe more supply whereas with bio you trade evenly.
Okay ive tried this a few times now and have had some success. Im bored of playing bio and winning before 4 bases or just auto losing so this build excites me.
This game though made me realise i dont have a clue what im doing. Like, at all.
I open up reactor expo and go into tank banshee. Do some harass and take quite a quick 3rd. Ipretty much spend the game harassing little bits, killing 10 probes here, 8 probes there etc. and hard core turtling.
Upgrades were beyond embarrassing but luckily there were no major engagements before i caught up. (Maybe I need to engage at somepoint sooner and cant just turtle?)
For some reason i start to make thors late game not tanks. I have no idea if this is what killed me or what possessed my to do it. I think it was most likely the, omfg this game is so long, mindset. Bad i know.
Can someone, (OP would be great) give this a watch and comment. Its LONG. Sorry, but you know, that mech.
Notes: Im diamond so can macro okay, but have no experience with mech, so please feel free to point out the retarded stuff i do, no offence will be taken.
Also i massed factories at the end, i probably needed more SPs too. Maybe sacked a ton of scvs to get a 170 food army?
Thanks for any help!
EDIT: Ive also noticed that you minerals often pile up in the replays, so I keep pumping marines until i get a factory on that reactor, and take a quicker 3rd than you. It seems to keep the min down.
i think you should really show this to day9 and make your case for this to be really good if good players actually tried this because how you play mech in tvp with all your harassing with hellions and banshees, and how you position your tank is really well i have watched all but 3 replays and it seems like you need to have alot of game sense or else you will lose to things like 3 gate star allin blink staker base trades and getting caught out of position. I have a few questions, do you think a lower level player like me(high plat) or even some high diamonds or low masters players can pull this style off? Can you go without thors in-game? And do you think the protoss's you faced are just bad? Because some of them didn't get passed 1 1 and thinking about it a 3 3 1 toss at the 17 minute mark would be kinda scary to deal with don't you agree?
On December 25 2011 08:46 Zanazuah wrote: This is sickening. Those protoss looked like platinum players.
18(!!) minutes into the game and they are 0/0??? And so are your tanks? If they had chronoed double forge activel they would have atleast 2/2 by then and utterly crush you. Also...the 4gate replay, why do you make blind/marauder helion? What if he comes with air at that point?
And the replay at Antiga, not much to say...He played pretty terrible tbh, no offense. Why are your minerals so often over 1000? And why does your geysers at your natural have 1 scv and sometimes 2 in them? And why dont you take the geysers directly when you expand as you already float WAY to many minerals?
..How can this work vs a really good protoss?
Lol. Please tell me your league so I can tailor my answer to what you might understand...
Okay ive tried this a few times now and have had some success. Im bored of playing bio and winning before 4 bases or just auto losing so this build excites me.
This game though made me realise i dont have a clue what im doing. Like, at all.
I open up reactor expo and go into tank banshee. Do some harass and take quite a quick 3rd. Ipretty much spend the game harassing little bits, killing 10 probes here, 8 probes there etc. and hard core turtling.
Upgrades were beyond embarrassing but luckily there were no major engagements before i caught up. (Maybe I need to engage at somepoint sooner and cant just turtle?)
For some reason i start to make thors late game not tanks. I have no idea if this is what killed me or what possessed my to do it. I think it was most likely the, omfg this game is so long, mindset. Bad i know.
Can someone, (OP would be great) give this a watch and comment. Its LONG. Sorry, but you know, that mech.
Notes: Im diamond so can macro okay, but have no experience with mech, so please feel free to point out the retarded stuff i do, no offence will be taken.
Also i massed factories at the end, i probably needed more SPs too. Maybe sacked a ton of scvs to get a 170 food army?
Thanks for any help!
EDIT: Ive also noticed that you minerals often pile up in the replays, so I keep pumping marines until i get a factory on that reactor, and take a quicker 3rd than you. It seems to keep the min down.
5:30: You expand on low ground without scouting. Okay fast bunker and SHak so you are fine. However, if your SCV scout got denied, and the protoss is smart like any masters player, he will voidray all in you (instead of 3 gate). Or even worse he will warp prism 4 gate you. And its basically impossible to hold one of those with your build order unless you stay in main.
Also, you did not harass enough or scan enough (dont worry about mules that much) and did not find his stargate. You want to get thors out before you are too vulnerable to a mass chargelot phoenix immortal attack.
Around the 19 minute mark when you are maxed, use your 3k in the bank to build 3 more orbitals and a lot of facts, a lot of ports, and get all ur upgrades if you haven't already. Once you have about 6 or 7 Orbs and maybe a proxy PF get ready to attack. A good idea is to drop 2 dropships worth of helions at his 4th. (try to attack the moment you are maxed and your extra OC's are done.)
Before you attack build like 4 more facts and 4 more ports. and get a proxy PF in place (why did u lose that one for no reason, u couldve kept ur tanks and army close to it)
Also you should stop him from getting a 4th. Keep a rax, helion, anything over there. Delay that as long as possible. Once he starts building anexus bring all but your gas scvs and keep making them. Get PF's at your 4th and 5th and turrets too.
This is all done while you are moving aross the screen. If he does not send any army to help out vs the 8 helions killing his probes at this 3rd, just stay put, and get more ahead. If he pulls part of his army back, bring your army forward because he can't intercept you without taking heavy losses. Try to force an engagement, but if he runs set up camp right between is 2nd and 3rd. Delay his 5th base by occupying that position. He will probably fight you, you will lose all your scvs, but you should be making units in combat After the battle is over you should have won considering you brought all your scvs. If you did, good job, you can make bunkers, ebays, PF's with the scvs you brought to further fortify your position... If not... fall back to your PF and keep harassing his 4th with helion drops.
Basically you lost from 19 minutes and onwards because you did not attack within that 2 minute timing window after u are maxed and orbs are done.
Generally, go thors the moment he gets phoenix. For example watch this game.
At 4:30: I scouted double gas, important to know.
Something is up. No expo and very little units. 30 seconds later 2 phoenix arrive in my base. It is now safe to lift into natural. I immediately put down an armory and go Thor banshee. (I expanded earlier, and the only counter to thor banhsee is mass blink stalker sentry immortal), which he does not get because the phoenix number is getting pretty high. I lose a bunch of scvs but 4 or 5 marines in each mineral patch and bunker+tank at entrance completely secures my base.
Checked no third. I do not expand yet either when going pure thor marine banshee (2 rax 2 port 2 fact mech armor upgrades)
A later scan reveals his entire army, his ups. Based on my knowledge I know my army is stronger than his at that point. He is also getting a 3rd so I do not need to worry about any attack soon.
Sim city vs his chargelots. My plan is to completely mine out the gold, build 6 orbitals, launch an atack at 200 food with all my scvs, remax with extra production, and finish him off with a 180 food of pure army. However he has other things in mind.
He tried to walk around but I knew there was no proxy pylon in place. I did not pull scvs, later as i watched the replay showed him banking several thousand and getting a 4th and 5th base. Had I lost all my scvs, and had he built 30 warpgates(which most top 8 masters should do..) I would have been in trouble. However since my army is better than his, i just have to micro well to save as many units as possible.
Who knew 250 MM cannons would be useful? He ggs after this battle.
On December 25 2011 14:42 jprid396 wrote: i think you should really show this to day9 and make your case for this to be really good if good players actually tried this because how you play mech in tvp with all your harassing with hellions and banshees, and how you position your tank is really well i have watched all but 3 replays and it seems like you need to have alot of game sense or else you will lose to things like 3 gate star allin blink staker base trades and getting caught out of position. I have a few questions, do you think a lower level player like me(high plat) or even some high diamonds or low masters players can pull this style off? Can you go without thors in-game? And do you think the protoss's you faced are just bad? Because some of them didn't get passed 1 1 and thinking about it a 3 3 1 toss at the 17 minute mark would be kinda scary to deal with don't you agree?
Haha yeah that would be awesome. I would love to talk about mech with artosis as well.
As people keep bringing up. Yes I supply block myself. Yes I play risky and unsafe. Yes I have enough game sense to know that based on the stuff he has, and based on what he sees, he won't be attacking any time soon and I reap all the benefits of delaying my army for a much bigger one later.
Anyone under diamond and plat surely can play mech. The key though is to be able to anticipate attacks before they happen. Anticipate every single kind of cheese (you must know solid reactions against 3 gate void, 4g Warpprism, as well as general macro game. Most diamonds and under have no idea about the advanced tactic of spending all your minerals at 180 supply for OC's, and then extra facts after u max. This way you secure youself for the late game by covering your weakness (the inability to remax quickly). However proxy PF's, banhsee harass, and 7 factories can turn the tide into your favor after a thwarted attack.
Tips to anyone attempting mech diamond and under. You need at least 75 APM, and 150 in battles. You need to ALWAYS be multitasking. Can you win by not doing this? Sure but the stuff you gain is much more valuable as you face better and better opponents. 90% of the time, you will lose in the lower leagues by harassing but not macro'ing hard enough. Or macro'ing and not harassing at all, and letting the protoss economy overrun yours (because he can if no one does anythign)
Facing a double forge protoss is hard. Basically you have to harass but understand you are on a timer. And if you lose all your banshees or helions doing minor damage it will be bad news. a 17 minute timing can be thwarted by sim city'ing supply depots and having a proxy PF. If you scout double forge or have any suspicion of the fast 3/3. By all means get double armory, because once you max on 200, your t2-t3 mech army will roll over his 200 gateway army.
Ok, so I see why your in masters now. You know how to deal with cheese(which i have not yet encountered on a regular basis). But protoss at your level seem to be extremely greedy(93 probes???).
You were far behind after the dt harass (56vs 88). As a general guideline, if i lose no units and macro perfectly, i have 102-105 supply by the 11 min mark-about 6-7 tanks, 10 rines for AA headstart and i begin to produce hellions, preparing for the push as my 2 reactor 2 tlab factories begin to kick in.This is when i begin to cut 4 scvs or so in order to support blue flame upgrade, a starport, +1 mech, constant 4 hellion and 2 tank production, and as i push, a third of my own.I push when his third is half done,which i can scout with my hellions.Pre-11 minutes thirds you push with 5 tanks and your marines and some scvs with the push. It's not about the composition facing me but rather the timing itself and that it forces blink, charge or collossi before a third and that double forge builds that try to take the third at 1/1 will have a hard time as they rely on gateway units which can be pushed even with unsieged tanks and hellions.
Commentary is not in english, please excuse this. But the commentator seems not to miss any major points and you have the production tab open.And yeah i was bad, but i've improved since getting on iccup.
This is a replay from when i was platinum. I have changed the following since then: I scv cut before I push, get the starport up at 11 mins or so, get the bunker at the start WAY quicker(when i have 100 mins), actually scout for his third instead of attacking blindly at 12 mins like I did. Even though I had 30 supply more than the BAD protoss, 10 was in scvs and 13 in units that were in prduction at the time of the battle. Even supply?- I'd say so. He attacked badly but I had a severe lack of hellions due to incontinous production and the fact that 2 of my facts were on tanks, whereas nowadays i reinforce with 5hellions and 1 tank.
I realised the push should happen as he sinks 400 minerals into at third and possibly a pylon wall at the third. I am not good and beat most of my opponents due to macro and them not reacting well, but IF he takes a normally timed third like at 13 minutes, my push comes with +1 done, blue flame done, and 10 tanks or so while taking my third. If you want more all-in-ish style of 4 fact, pull 6 scv s off gas and 6 off minerals, lift your rax, push towards his nat, and once you get there turret push with rax vision. 100 percent safe, but if you fail to grab his nat or third just gg, its not worth it. If you succed, you are moderately ahead.
I have not accounted for warpprism harass, but as in bw vs reaver harass(which in my opinion is 3 times more deadly), get 1-2 turrets and keep your army mobile. You can defend 2 bases this way. Vs DTs a raven will solve the problem, and dt tech is expensive and gets you nowhere in terms of the unit you want to counter mech. Scout, Scout , Scout, if you already know all his future moves you win.That extra rax that you have should be t-labbed and produce ghosts once you have the tech and a reaper from time to time if you're slightly unsure of what he is doing.
I would like some open-minded people who preferably have played bw mech to give me advice as i have a lot to improve but the general mindset i have with the 4 fact push is never let the toss get an advantage, play on even supply by aggroing, because you are cost effective, but not crushingly so.
Do you have any rep vs blink stalker colossus with attack usp only ? Thats what i use vs mech/bio mech ( copied it from white ra ) and i can't see mech defeat that, toss army is about 2/3 as strong but you can't be safe in all spots and be able to engage with more then 50% of ur army as mech ( unless u turtle on 3 base ) vs something as mobile as clossus blink ( which is, i would say, the most mobile shit in game with the exception of muta/phoenix when it comes to fighting vs slower units )
Well, currently i am focusing on sc bw to improve my mechanics but i'll take up sc2 soon. Vs Stalker Collosus, mech is definitively stronger because 1. You dont need mass hellions as much. As such, you'll be heavy on tanks if you got the gas.But the protoss army is also gas intensive so on even bases you'll have even supply. Basically what makes you stand a chance against this comp is emp. Stalkers with no shields die ultra fast even to unsieged tanks and 2 stalkers marginally beat 1 unsieged tank at 0/0 but at 3/3 it is equal.
So, when defending you actually can afford to have unsieged tanks as long as protoss isnt a base ahead. Also 1 thor is less gas heavy than 2 tanks by 50 gas and is actually decent against stalker collosus deathball. I understand you can't mineral dump into hellions that much vs this. Just enough to force a couple of cannons at home or for them to give up some map control.Basically between 8-10 hellions(also useful if toss mass zealot warp-ins). Actually i dont know what a good thor/tank ratio would be but you keep the tank as the main part of your army, thors are there to tank, reduce splash from the collosus cos they are big,and if he blinks into your tank line take the stalkers out.
As for harass purposes, it's like recall in bw, either you split the map by taking the middle and being aggresive with your contain, putting 2-3 sensor towers where it's crucial, or fast 3 base Flash style and push at 2\1 timing with 4 or so ghosts.You can't take a normal 13 min 3rd because he will have that 3-4 collosi to negate your hellions and your 10 marines that you build at the start and he will massing off 2 base for quite a while.
Assuming he is smart and you scout, 2 collosi plus robobay take 3-4 minutes when you build minimal gateway units and that after Warp gate research which kicks in at 6:10 when FE-ing. If he takes a third while doing this and getting twilight council+Blink, well GOOD LUCK HOLDING 4 FACTORY!! Sentries do not help either because before colossus range i can just siege the tanks in the back while marines \ tanks in the front attack unsieged.That 100 gas drained by a sentry are best spent elsewhere.So you take a third at the same time as the terran takes it, if you're intent on going stalker\collossus
Biomech sucks ass. 2 different upgrade paths,and bio is more gas intensive than hellions, upgraded chargelots with either collosus or ht will rape you.
And stalkers sure are mobile, 2,95 speed + blink is impressive. But collosus sure aren't. 2.25 speed with cliff ability and they can't fight on their own vs unsieged tanks. So while you can do something with your stalkers, this is somewhat limited by how far my 3rd is. Tal'dar'im, Shattered where my 3rd( gold on shattered) is so close, you can't do shit. Antiga,Xel naga you can try this with a bit of succes, depends on how i handle it and my information on your army.
There was a game on crevasse GSL , Hannibal vs MC where MCs army was rolled but he countered and won.Sure you can try to do this but as you dont have many zealots tanks are good even if i am caught out of position and unsieged.Upgrades are badass when you mech, it doesnt matter if you upgrade attack to 3 if i am 3/0 mech attack will always be better than protoss ground weapons.The more zealots you add, the more I dump money into hellions. It's not a 80%-win strategy, as many claim such winrates on strategy forum, and it won't improve your ranking fast as it is heavily based on mechanics and scouting, constant army movement and harass when you can get hellions in, but i believe if it was developped enough it could reach at least 40-50% winrate tvp vs similarly skilled opponents, which i would call viable.
On December 25 2011 08:46 Zanazuah wrote: This is sickening. Those protoss looked like platinum players.
18(!!) minutes into the game and they are 0/0??? And so are your tanks? If they had chronoed double forge activel they would have atleast 2/2 by then and utterly crush you. Also...the 4gate replay, why do you make blind/marauder helion? What if he comes with air at that point?
And the replay at Antiga, not much to say...He played pretty terrible tbh, no offense. Why are your minerals so often over 1000? And why does your geysers at your natural have 1 scv and sometimes 2 in them? And why dont you take the geysers directly when you expand as you already float WAY to many minerals?
..How can this work vs a really good protoss?
Which replay was that? I don't know why he didn't upgrade but a possible reason: killed probes just as a bunch of production finished. He then felt behind all game due to continued harass and just never got a chance to.
I saw the pylon location And based on my experience, that is not how you place a stargate. You place a stargate by my gold expansion and charge on the rocks. If its phoenix, okay I'll lose a few SCVs but I'll still be ahead. Yes I know I would've lost vs Voids. However based on my experience, those pylon placements usually lead to warpprism or robo, or he might just be faking me out and will 1gX.
-Can it handle a voidray rush? No -Can it handle a 4g/3g warpprism? Yes both rauders and helions are anti ground -Can it handle a 1gX? Yes I will need maurauders to defend against a possible 2 base blink burst, Yes I will need helions for my fast dropship -Are there any other builds he can do off of 2 gas? Yes DTs. I have a walled natural, and if nothing appears in my base I will scout out to figure out whether or not he is still cheesing me. I can also save a scan at about 7:30, or get an ebay, or get a raven. Yes 3gate expand. I will already have anti ground units out + bunker.
The Antiga game: I presume you are better than him? Well guess what, my opponent on Antiga is better than the opponents of 90% of our thread readers. I get a little caught up in the harass and don't forgot to put SCVs where they are. With mech, as long as you have about 5 facts and 2 ports worth of infrastructure, you can max out and have a bunch of bank left over. More facts before you max out is BARELY going to help you out, I would much rather save the gas and mins for a SCV pull.
For BIO, I'm all for keeping money at zero and muling ASAP. I will usually have 12 Barracks off of 2 base, 20 off of 3. But for Mech, make good battle micro, and keep all the gas heavy units to give your deathball a bigger mass (gas cost per supply) than volume (mineral cost per supply, usually mineral units don't obtain critical mass)
Okay ive tried this a few times now and have had some success. Im bored of playing bio and winning before 4 bases or just auto losing so this build excites me.
This game though made me realise i dont have a clue what im doing. Like, at all.
I open up reactor expo and go into tank banshee. Do some harass and take quite a quick 3rd. Ipretty much spend the game harassing little bits, killing 10 probes here, 8 probes there etc. and hard core turtling.
Upgrades were beyond embarrassing but luckily there were no major engagements before i caught up. (Maybe I need to engage at somepoint sooner and cant just turtle?)
For some reason i start to make thors late game not tanks. I have no idea if this is what killed me or what possessed my to do it. I think it was most likely the, omfg this game is so long, mindset. Bad i know.
Can someone, (OP would be great) give this a watch and comment. Its LONG. Sorry, but you know, that mech.
Notes: Im diamond so can macro okay, but have no experience with mech, so please feel free to point out the retarded stuff i do, no offence will be taken.
Also i massed factories at the end, i probably needed more SPs too. Maybe sacked a ton of scvs to get a 170 food army?
Thanks for any help!
EDIT: Ive also noticed that you minerals often pile up in the replays, so I keep pumping marines until i get a factory on that reactor, and take a quicker 3rd than you. It seems to keep the min down.
5:30: You expand on low ground without scouting. Okay fast bunker and SHak so you are fine. However, if your SCV scout got denied, and the protoss is smart like any masters player, he will voidray all in you (instead of 3 gate). Or even worse he will warp prism 4 gate you. And its basically impossible to hold one of those with your build order unless you stay in main.
Also, you did not harass enough or scan enough (dont worry about mules that much) and did not find his stargate. You want to get thors out before you are too vulnerable to a mass chargelot phoenix immortal attack.
Around the 19 minute mark when you are maxed, use your 3k in the bank to build 3 more orbitals and a lot of facts, a lot of ports, and get all ur upgrades if you haven't already. Once you have about 6 or 7 Orbs and maybe a proxy PF get ready to attack. A good idea is to drop 2 dropships worth of helions at his 4th. (try to attack the moment you are maxed and your extra OC's are done.)
Before you attack build like 4 more facts and 4 more ports. and get a proxy PF in place (why did u lose that one for no reason, u couldve kept ur tanks and army close to it)
Also you should stop him from getting a 4th. Keep a rax, helion, anything over there. Delay that as long as possible. Once he starts building anexus bring all but your gas scvs and keep making them. Get PF's at your 4th and 5th and turrets too.
This is all done while you are moving aross the screen. If he does not send any army to help out vs the 8 helions killing his probes at this 3rd, just stay put, and get more ahead. If he pulls part of his army back, bring your army forward because he can't intercept you without taking heavy losses. Try to force an engagement, but if he runs set up camp right between is 2nd and 3rd. Delay his 5th base by occupying that position. He will probably fight you, you will lose all your scvs, but you should be making units in combat After the battle is over you should have won considering you brought all your scvs. If you did, good job, you can make bunkers, ebays, PF's with the scvs you brought to further fortify your position... If not... fall back to your PF and keep harassing his 4th with helion drops.
Basically you lost from 19 minutes and onwards because you did not attack within that 2 minute timing window after u are maxed and orbs are done.
Generally, go thors the moment he gets phoenix. For example watch this game.
At 4:30: I scouted double gas, important to know.
Something is up. No expo and very little units. 30 seconds later 2 phoenix arrive in my base. It is now safe to lift into natural. I immediately put down an armory and go Thor banshee. (I expanded earlier, and the only counter to thor banhsee is mass blink stalker sentry immortal), which he does not get because the phoenix number is getting pretty high. I lose a bunch of scvs but 4 or 5 marines in each mineral patch and bunker+tank at entrance completely secures my base.
Checked no third. I do not expand yet either when going pure thor marine banshee (2 rax 2 port 2 fact mech armor upgrades)
A later scan reveals his entire army, his ups. Based on my knowledge I know my army is stronger than his at that point. He is also getting a 3rd so I do not need to worry about any attack soon.
Sim city vs his chargelots. My plan is to completely mine out the gold, build 6 orbitals, launch an atack at 200 food with all my scvs, remax with extra production, and finish him off with a 180 food of pure army. However he has other things in mind.
He tried to walk around but I knew there was no proxy pylon in place. I did not pull scvs, later as i watched the replay showed him banking several thousand and getting a 4th and 5th base. Had I lost all my scvs, and had he built 30 warpgates(which most top 8 masters should do..) I would have been in trouble. However since my army is better than his, i just have to micro well to save as many units as possible.
Who knew 250 MM cannons would be useful? He ggs after this battle.
Cheers for your answer. Btw that guy was actually Master
I always epxo on low ground on shak with a bunker. Thats just a style preference and a reactor expo will crush a zealot stlkaer poke. And I will scan if i see no expo by like 615. Reactor expo is actually one of the best builds to deny a 3 gate void with, even with a factory follow-up. 4 gate WP, thats a diff story.
I think the main issue was that I was maxed, then went, hmm what now. My decision was to stave out the P like in TvZ Mech. Poor decision. Now i know. Generally when I get maxed my plan should be:
1) Build a few OCs 2) Build a ton of SP and Facs (reactor and tech lab) 3) Place that Proxy PF (I let mine die purely because i stopped caring about resources at that time) 4) Drop some harass that cant really be ignored (This part i dont get. Cannons just deny all harass except like thor drops as long as the P isnt retarded) 5) Move out as he denies harass as hes maxed and cant warp in. (This i love, welcome to not having instant drop denial Protoss!) 6) Siege up in a position he cant really let you keep. It will however give him the best flank possible, but deal with it.
On December 25 2011 22:35 Aterons_toss wrote: Do you have any rep vs blink stalker colossus with attack usp only ? Thats what i use vs mech/bio mech ( copied it from white ra ) and i can't see mech defeat that, toss army is about 2/3 as strong but you can't be safe in all spots and be able to engage with more then 50% of ur army as mech ( unless u turtle on 3 base ) vs something as mobile as clossus blink ( which is, i would say, the most mobile shit in game with the exception of muta/phoenix when it comes to fighting vs slower units )
The only way stalker collosus would be any good vs mech is if he was very very active around the map. Which leads to him having unprotected expansions...
Things I will do 1. Fake pushes. Grab a couple scvs, he panicks, warp a round of stalkers at the front, and sharks his army toward the middle to greet me. I can run helions around him, drop him, or anything. Kill a lot of probes. Go back and resume mining.
2. It's going to be stalkers that are more of an issue than the collosus. Ravens will help out immensely with their PDD. As you leave a couple tanks back at home.
3. SCV splits. Every second counts when it takes 2 more collosus swipes than normal to kill off the scvs.
Okay ive tried this a few times now and have had some success. Im bored of playing bio and winning before 4 bases or just auto losing so this build excites me.
This game though made me realise i dont have a clue what im doing. Like, at all.
I open up reactor expo and go into tank banshee. Do some harass and take quite a quick 3rd. Ipretty much spend the game harassing little bits, killing 10 probes here, 8 probes there etc. and hard core turtling.
Upgrades were beyond embarrassing but luckily there were no major engagements before i caught up. (Maybe I need to engage at somepoint sooner and cant just turtle?)
For some reason i start to make thors late game not tanks. I have no idea if this is what killed me or what possessed my to do it. I think it was most likely the, omfg this game is so long, mindset. Bad i know.
Can someone, (OP would be great) give this a watch and comment. Its LONG. Sorry, but you know, that mech.
Notes: Im diamond so can macro okay, but have no experience with mech, so please feel free to point out the retarded stuff i do, no offence will be taken.
Also i massed factories at the end, i probably needed more SPs too. Maybe sacked a ton of scvs to get a 170 food army?
Thanks for any help!
EDIT: Ive also noticed that you minerals often pile up in the replays, so I keep pumping marines until i get a factory on that reactor, and take a quicker 3rd than you. It seems to keep the min down.
5:30: You expand on low ground without scouting. Okay fast bunker and SHak so you are fine. However, if your SCV scout got denied, and the protoss is smart like any masters player, he will voidray all in you (instead of 3 gate). Or even worse he will warp prism 4 gate you. And its basically impossible to hold one of those with your build order unless you stay in main.
Also, you did not harass enough or scan enough (dont worry about mules that much) and did not find his stargate. You want to get thors out before you are too vulnerable to a mass chargelot phoenix immortal attack.
Around the 19 minute mark when you are maxed, use your 3k in the bank to build 3 more orbitals and a lot of facts, a lot of ports, and get all ur upgrades if you haven't already. Once you have about 6 or 7 Orbs and maybe a proxy PF get ready to attack. A good idea is to drop 2 dropships worth of helions at his 4th. (try to attack the moment you are maxed and your extra OC's are done.)
Before you attack build like 4 more facts and 4 more ports. and get a proxy PF in place (why did u lose that one for no reason, u couldve kept ur tanks and army close to it)
Also you should stop him from getting a 4th. Keep a rax, helion, anything over there. Delay that as long as possible. Once he starts building anexus bring all but your gas scvs and keep making them. Get PF's at your 4th and 5th and turrets too.
This is all done while you are moving aross the screen. If he does not send any army to help out vs the 8 helions killing his probes at this 3rd, just stay put, and get more ahead. If he pulls part of his army back, bring your army forward because he can't intercept you without taking heavy losses. Try to force an engagement, but if he runs set up camp right between is 2nd and 3rd. Delay his 5th base by occupying that position. He will probably fight you, you will lose all your scvs, but you should be making units in combat After the battle is over you should have won considering you brought all your scvs. If you did, good job, you can make bunkers, ebays, PF's with the scvs you brought to further fortify your position... If not... fall back to your PF and keep harassing his 4th with helion drops.
Basically you lost from 19 minutes and onwards because you did not attack within that 2 minute timing window after u are maxed and orbs are done.
Generally, go thors the moment he gets phoenix. For example watch this game.
At 4:30: I scouted double gas, important to know.
Something is up. No expo and very little units. 30 seconds later 2 phoenix arrive in my base. It is now safe to lift into natural. I immediately put down an armory and go Thor banshee. (I expanded earlier, and the only counter to thor banhsee is mass blink stalker sentry immortal), which he does not get because the phoenix number is getting pretty high. I lose a bunch of scvs but 4 or 5 marines in each mineral patch and bunker+tank at entrance completely secures my base.
Checked no third. I do not expand yet either when going pure thor marine banshee (2 rax 2 port 2 fact mech armor upgrades)
A later scan reveals his entire army, his ups. Based on my knowledge I know my army is stronger than his at that point. He is also getting a 3rd so I do not need to worry about any attack soon.
Sim city vs his chargelots. My plan is to completely mine out the gold, build 6 orbitals, launch an atack at 200 food with all my scvs, remax with extra production, and finish him off with a 180 food of pure army. However he has other things in mind.
He tried to walk around but I knew there was no proxy pylon in place. I did not pull scvs, later as i watched the replay showed him banking several thousand and getting a 4th and 5th base. Had I lost all my scvs, and had he built 30 warpgates(which most top 8 masters should do..) I would have been in trouble. However since my army is better than his, i just have to micro well to save as many units as possible.
Who knew 250 MM cannons would be useful? He ggs after this battle.
Cheers for your answer. Btw that guy was actually Master
I always epxo on low ground on shak with a bunker. Thats just a style preference and a reactor expo will crush a zealot stlkaer poke. And I will scan if i see no expo by like 615. Reactor expo is actually one of the best builds to deny a 3 gate void with, even with a factory follow-up. 4 gate WP, thats a diff story.
I think the main issue was that I was maxed, then went, hmm what now. My decision was to stave out the P like in TvZ Mech. Poor decision. Now i know. Generally when I get maxed my plan should be:
1) Build a few OCs 2) Build a ton of SP and Facs (reactor and tech lab) 3) Place that Proxy PF (I let mine die purely because i stopped caring about resources at that time) 4) Drop some harass that cant really be ignored (This part i dont get. Cannons just deny all harass except like thor drops as long as the P isnt retarded) 5) Move out as he denies harass as hes maxed and cant warp in. (This i love, welcome to not having instant drop denial Protoss!) 6) Siege up in a position he cant really let you keep. It will however give him the best flank possible, but deal with it.
Is this correct?
1. Yes 2. Yes 3. Yes, every mineral and gas counts 4. It takes ages for 3 cannons (450) to kill 8 helions (800). And with blueflame, you are very likely to get 7+ probe kills (350+). If he has more cannons, drop your helions behind minerals, or come up from the 4th to where cannons are focused least. 5. Correct 6. Yes but on shak they either engage, or pull behind those tiny chokes. Since they are maxed, they will probably keep their entire army together. Camp your tanks so the moment they walk down they get greeted by 13 siege tank shots. If they keep waiting, build ANYTHING to block the chargelots (ebay bunkers w/e)
One amendment: Ghosts are critical versus Immortals/Archons/High Templar. But not Sentries cause they do f'all against Tanks and Thors. Don't see the point when you are doing the same thing as Bio but using Hellions that are less effective at harass than Marine/Marauder; so whats the point when you are doing the same as Bio but a bit better at direct battles.
Okay ive tried this a few times now and have had some success. Im bored of playing bio and winning before 4 bases or just auto losing so this build excites me.
This game though made me realise i dont have a clue what im doing. Like, at all.
I open up reactor expo and go into tank banshee. Do some harass and take quite a quick 3rd. Ipretty much spend the game harassing little bits, killing 10 probes here, 8 probes there etc. and hard core turtling.
Upgrades were beyond embarrassing but luckily there were no major engagements before i caught up. (Maybe I need to engage at somepoint sooner and cant just turtle?)
For some reason i start to make thors late game not tanks. I have no idea if this is what killed me or what possessed my to do it. I think it was most likely the, omfg this game is so long, mindset. Bad i know.
Can someone, (OP would be great) give this a watch and comment. Its LONG. Sorry, but you know, that mech.
Notes: Im diamond so can macro okay, but have no experience with mech, so please feel free to point out the retarded stuff i do, no offence will be taken.
Also i massed factories at the end, i probably needed more SPs too. Maybe sacked a ton of scvs to get a 170 food army?
Thanks for any help!
EDIT: Ive also noticed that you minerals often pile up in the replays, so I keep pumping marines until i get a factory on that reactor, and take a quicker 3rd than you. It seems to keep the min down.
5:30: You expand on low ground without scouting. Okay fast bunker and SHak so you are fine. However, if your SCV scout got denied, and the protoss is smart like any masters player, he will voidray all in you (instead of 3 gate). Or even worse he will warp prism 4 gate you. And its basically impossible to hold one of those with your build order unless you stay in main.
Also, you did not harass enough or scan enough (dont worry about mules that much) and did not find his stargate. You want to get thors out before you are too vulnerable to a mass chargelot phoenix immortal attack.
Around the 19 minute mark when you are maxed, use your 3k in the bank to build 3 more orbitals and a lot of facts, a lot of ports, and get all ur upgrades if you haven't already. Once you have about 6 or 7 Orbs and maybe a proxy PF get ready to attack. A good idea is to drop 2 dropships worth of helions at his 4th. (try to attack the moment you are maxed and your extra OC's are done.)
Before you attack build like 4 more facts and 4 more ports. and get a proxy PF in place (why did u lose that one for no reason, u couldve kept ur tanks and army close to it)
Also you should stop him from getting a 4th. Keep a rax, helion, anything over there. Delay that as long as possible. Once he starts building anexus bring all but your gas scvs and keep making them. Get PF's at your 4th and 5th and turrets too.
This is all done while you are moving aross the screen. If he does not send any army to help out vs the 8 helions killing his probes at this 3rd, just stay put, and get more ahead. If he pulls part of his army back, bring your army forward because he can't intercept you without taking heavy losses. Try to force an engagement, but if he runs set up camp right between is 2nd and 3rd. Delay his 5th base by occupying that position. He will probably fight you, you will lose all your scvs, but you should be making units in combat After the battle is over you should have won considering you brought all your scvs. If you did, good job, you can make bunkers, ebays, PF's with the scvs you brought to further fortify your position... If not... fall back to your PF and keep harassing his 4th with helion drops.
Basically you lost from 19 minutes and onwards because you did not attack within that 2 minute timing window after u are maxed and orbs are done.
Generally, go thors the moment he gets phoenix. For example watch this game.
At 4:30: I scouted double gas, important to know.
Something is up. No expo and very little units. 30 seconds later 2 phoenix arrive in my base. It is now safe to lift into natural. I immediately put down an armory and go Thor banshee. (I expanded earlier, and the only counter to thor banhsee is mass blink stalker sentry immortal), which he does not get because the phoenix number is getting pretty high. I lose a bunch of scvs but 4 or 5 marines in each mineral patch and bunker+tank at entrance completely secures my base.
Checked no third. I do not expand yet either when going pure thor marine banshee (2 rax 2 port 2 fact mech armor upgrades)
A later scan reveals his entire army, his ups. Based on my knowledge I know my army is stronger than his at that point. He is also getting a 3rd so I do not need to worry about any attack soon.
Sim city vs his chargelots. My plan is to completely mine out the gold, build 6 orbitals, launch an atack at 200 food with all my scvs, remax with extra production, and finish him off with a 180 food of pure army. However he has other things in mind.
He tried to walk around but I knew there was no proxy pylon in place. I did not pull scvs, later as i watched the replay showed him banking several thousand and getting a 4th and 5th base. Had I lost all my scvs, and had he built 30 warpgates(which most top 8 masters should do..) I would have been in trouble. However since my army is better than his, i just have to micro well to save as many units as possible.
Who knew 250 MM cannons would be useful? He ggs after this battle.
Cheers for your answer. Btw that guy was actually Master
I always epxo on low ground on shak with a bunker. Thats just a style preference and a reactor expo will crush a zealot stlkaer poke. And I will scan if i see no expo by like 615. Reactor expo is actually one of the best builds to deny a 3 gate void with, even with a factory follow-up. 4 gate WP, thats a diff story.
I think the main issue was that I was maxed, then went, hmm what now. My decision was to stave out the P like in TvZ Mech. Poor decision. Now i know. Generally when I get maxed my plan should be:
1) Build a few OCs 2) Build a ton of SP and Facs (reactor and tech lab) 3) Place that Proxy PF (I let mine die purely because i stopped caring about resources at that time) 4) Drop some harass that cant really be ignored (This part i dont get. Cannons just deny all harass except like thor drops as long as the P isnt retarded) 5) Move out as he denies harass as hes maxed and cant warp in. (This i love, welcome to not having instant drop denial Protoss!) 6) Siege up in a position he cant really let you keep. It will however give him the best flank possible, but deal with it.
Is this correct?
1. Yes 2. Yes 3. Yes, every mineral and gas counts 4. It takes ages for 3 cannons (450) to kill 8 helions (800). And with blueflame, you are very likely to get 7+ probe kills (350+). If he has more cannons, drop your helions behind minerals, or come up from the 4th to wear cannons are focsed least. 5. Correct 6. Yes but on shak they either engage, or pull behind those tiny chokes. Since they are maxed, they will probably keep their entire army together. Camp your tanks so the moment they walk down they get greeted by 13 siege tank shots. If they keep waiting, build ANYTHING to block the chargelots (ebay bunkers w/e)
Thanks a lot for the quick reply. The building stuff to protect tanks I really need to learn to do to play mech. Expecting to beat Master/Diamond players on my 3rd try with no prior experience may have been a tad optimistic.
On December 26 2011 00:16 aaycumi wrote: One amendment: Ghosts are critical versus Immortals/Archons/High Templar. But not Sentries cause they do f'all against Tanks and Thors. Don't see the point when you are doing the same thing as Bio but using Hellions that are less effective at harass than Marine/Marauder; so whats the point when you are doing the same as Bio but a bit better at direct battles.
Ghosts are very good, but I don't necessarily need them unless he is very templar/archon happy, and I'm very Thor happy. Most toss players will see my great wall of tanks and just not get templars because scan + right click is even more effective than EMP . Usually once I cut SCV's, I start getting ghosts and ravens because of their supply efficiency. Archons with minimal HT support (3 or less bases) can be dealt by getting thors to hard counter archons, and letting helion tank counter zealots and stalkers respectively, along with any support units you may need.
Tanks are better at securing your bases: Fast 3rd, 4th and 5th.
And then the late game army, I think a bit better is an understatement. The fact that you can above even terms means that the extra economy given to you by mules will be that much more compounding.
On December 26 2011 00:19 Squigly wrote: Thanks a lot for the quick reply. The building stuff to protect tanks I really need to learn to do to play mech. Expecting to beat Master/Diamond players on my 3rd try with no prior experience may have been a tad optimistic.
no problem sir.
Mech is not easier than bio by any means, but your mech skills gained will be just as useful in TvT and TvZ. Its just a simple question of do I want to stutter step for 20 seconds, or do I want to see shrapnel shards, big explosions, and blue goo at the end of my games.
Here's a suggestion. Play a easy computer and with 20 tanks, see how fast you can leapfrog from your base to their base. 2 range between each tank, have no more than 3 unsieged at a time. Once you can do that timely, have a pack of helions always on the front line as you leapfrog.
It really helps you get in the motions and calms yourself down right before a big battle because the micro during the engagement (as well as the macro) is what makes all the difference.
Mech is 10x harder than bio in every way possible, one mistake and the game is over (vs competent protoss' anyway) and the way you're describing mech I've never seen work through any replays or anything I've ever seen from Kor or Foreigner terrans doing it, here's a game with mech TvP at GM level on korea:
Lastshadow, well look at your replay, hwangSin is what i can call a competent protoss and you won using THORS and upgrading 0\2 instead of 2\0 or 2\1. Pretty convincing battle i would say. More tanks less thors more hellions and it's even better. You also had 3 tanks unsieged, 2 sieged right in front of your army and some marines in the back. Mass hellions are pretty good against immortal/ stalker as they absorb a ton of shots and deal splash damage which tear through the shields of immortals.Picture what would have happened if you had say 14 sieged tanks instead of just 6 and no thors just 25-30 hellions.+1 helps a ton while harassing and with tanks instead of thors it's worth getting it over armor. GREAT REPLAY BTW, thanks!!!.
It's great to see some1 trying to innovate the current metagame. I don't think this style is really for me, but I think this method could be much more effective when we get warhounds instead of thors. Please keep up the stylistic experiments and sharing your knowledge with the community :D
On December 26 Lastshadow wrote: Mech is 10x harder than bio in every way possible, one mistake and the game is over (vs competent protoss' anyway) and the way you're describing mech I've never seen work through any replays or anything I've ever seen from Kor or Foreigner terrans doing it, here's a game with mech TvP at GM level on korea:
Hi lastshadow, big fan of your terran vids! I just played this game today probably the best mech game mechanically (pardon the pun). Here were the results....
My opponent:
World: #808 465 points. Won 202, lost 53 (79.22% wins) Rank 2 of Division Colossus Juliet Region: #327 iMpShowtime
Summary: -He went 1g robo expand, an opener that matches mine toe to toe (hopefully the new standard) -I got early tanks because I was wary of an immortal bust. Never happenned. -Did not get a good chance to harass until he started getting his 3rd up. It's okay because a reactor expand is slightly more economical than a 1g robo expand anyways, so I have the edge without harassing. -He attacks through choke points a lot, so there is a lot of dead protoss clumps every battle -I use ebay fields twice this game, to my advantage -Even though I only got 1 proxy PF the whole game, it saved my ass once, and thats all I needed. -I slip up a bunch late game, lost a bunch of orbitals for no reasons, but so does he. I get cloak and EMP all his temps. If my ghosts are successful, I will gear up for an attack. -Each attack I win, but only with a few units left (storms hurt). I regroup and remax with gas heavy units, while he remaxes with quick mineral heavy WG units. -So I attack again, and each time my army is superior, has higher supply, and I have those OP engibay fields -After 3 base, there is constant BFH/banshee harass. Watch this if you want to know what constant harass means.
Also, chat: (mods if you feel like this is inappropriate just tell me and I will remove it) I think its really funny but it highlights the darker side of mech. Every battle I won i knew he had 30 wg's worth of reinforcements, so I just sat still at my PF until I can remax again with heavy 3/3 mech, while he remaxes quickly with 30 wg, but its all his t1 crap.
00:06 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: i just lost a game 00:08 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: cuz he did 00:11 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: a double overlord sac 00:18 [All] iMpShowtime: your fault for cheesing 00:20 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: and scouted my 2 drops perfectly 00:27 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: not cheese 00:29 [All] iMpShowtime: if he scouts ur drops 00:29 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: just fast drops 00:32 [All] iMpShowtime: u send them back 00:37 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: no mutas 00:44 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: so dorp anyways 00:45 [All] iMpShowtime: thenw aht killed them 00:46 [All] iMpShowtime: lol 00:48 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: nothing 00:51 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: i was supposed to do more damage 00:53 [All] iMpShowtime: ah 00:56 [All] iMpShowtime: u saced some eco 00:57 [All] iMpShowtime: for it right 01:00 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: no 01:02 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: i went 15 cc 01:05 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: he went 3rd 01:08 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: so i wentt drops to punihs 01:17 [All] iMpShowtime: lol that sucks but, 01:20 [All] iMpShowtime: tvz is retardedly 01:22 [All] iMpShowtime: good for T 01:24 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: yeah 01:25 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: thats true 01:31 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: im playing above my league now 01:34 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: last few games 01:34 [All] iMpShowtime: it's like 57% in GSL level 01:36 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: is like -4 01:36 [All] iMpShowtime: for T 01:37 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: -5 01:38 [All] iMpShowtime: ah 01:40 [All] iMpShowtime: nicenice 06:52 [All] iMpShowtime: of course 06:53 [All] iMpShowtime: uc heese 06:54 [All] iMpShowtime: rofl 06:58 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: ? 07:01 [All] iMpShowtime: 2 base 07:01 [All] iMpShowtime: 1-1-1 08:23 [All] iMpShowtime: mech lol 08:49 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: lol 18:45 [All] iMpShowtime: i hope u win 18:47 [All] iMpShowtime: ur on so many more base 18:48 [All] iMpShowtime: lawl 20:55 [All] iMpShowtime: cant play a nromal 20:56 [All] iMpShowtime: game 20:56 [All] iMpShowtime: rofl 22:33 [All] iMpShowtime: shit ur bad lawl 25:28 [All] iMpShowtime: lmao ur so awful 25:31 [All] iMpShowtime: no wonder i raped u on trixy 25:32 [All] iMpShowtime: like 5x 25:33 [All] iMpShowtime: in tvz 25:34 [All] iMpShowtime: lolololol 36:45 [All] iMpShowtime: wow u bad 36:48 [All] iMpShowtime: lul 37:25 [All] iMpShowtime: yo 37:27 [All] iMpShowtime: get out of the channel 37:29 [All] iMpShowtime: after the game also 37:32 [All] iMpShowtime: ur not good enough to be in there rofl 37:38 [All] iMpShowtime: duno why we let scrubs likje u in 37:40 [All] iMpShowtime: lmao 37:42 [All] iMpShowtime: cant beat me straight up 37:42 [All] iMpShowtime: np 37:50 [All] iMpShowtime: im like 5-0 tvz vs u also, pretty convincingly 37:50 [All] iMpShowtime: also 39:12 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: gg 39:12 [All] iMpShowtime: sio abd T_T
He's trying to use words to make me attack him, which I did not fall for. Just a few things you should watch out for when playing mech.
On December 26 Lastshadow wrote:Mech is 10x harder than bio in every way possible, one mistake and the game is over (vs competent protoss' anyway) and the way you're describing mech I've never seen work through any replays or anything I've ever seen from Kor or Foreigner terrans doing it, here's a game with mech TvP at GM level on korea:
My opponent:
World: #808 465 points. Won 202, lost 53 (79.22% wins) Rank 2 of Division Colossus Juliet Region: #327 iMpShowtime
Also, chat: (mods if you feel like this is inappropriate just tell me and I will remove it) I think its really funny but it highlights the darker side of mech. Every battle I won i knew he had 30 wg's worth of reinforcements, so I just sat still at my PF until I can remax again with heavy 3/3 mech, while he remaxes quickly with 30 wg, but its all his t1 crap.
00:06 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: i just lost a game 00:08 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: cuz he did 00:11 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: a double overlord sac 00:18 [All] iMpShowtime: your fault for cheesing 00:20 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: and scouted my 2 drops perfectly 00:27 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: not cheese 00:29 [All] iMpShowtime: if he scouts ur drops 00:29 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: just fast drops 00:32 [All] iMpShowtime: u send them back 00:37 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: no mutas 00:44 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: so dorp anyways 00:45 [All] iMpShowtime: thenw aht killed them 00:46 [All] iMpShowtime: lol 00:48 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: nothing 00:51 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: i was supposed to do more damage 00:53 [All] iMpShowtime: ah 00:56 [All] iMpShowtime: u saced some eco 00:57 [All] iMpShowtime: for it right 01:00 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: no 01:02 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: i went 15 cc 01:05 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: he went 3rd 01:08 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: so i wentt drops to punihs 01:17 [All] iMpShowtime: lol that sucks but, 01:20 [All] iMpShowtime: tvz is retardedly 01:22 [All] iMpShowtime: good for T 01:24 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: yeah 01:25 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: thats true 01:31 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: im playing above my league now 01:34 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: last few games 01:34 [All] iMpShowtime: it's like 57% in GSL level 01:36 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: is like -4 01:36 [All] iMpShowtime: for T 01:37 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: -5 01:38 [All] iMpShowtime: ah 01:40 [All] iMpShowtime: nicenice 06:52 [All] iMpShowtime: of course 06:53 [All] iMpShowtime: uc heese 06:54 [All] iMpShowtime: rofl 06:58 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: ? 07:01 [All] iMpShowtime: 2 base 07:01 [All] iMpShowtime: 1-1-1 08:23 [All] iMpShowtime: mech lol 08:49 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: lol 18:45 [All] iMpShowtime: i hope u win 18:47 [All] iMpShowtime: ur on so many more base 18:48 [All] iMpShowtime: lawl 20:55 [All] iMpShowtime: cant play a nromal 20:56 [All] iMpShowtime: game 20:56 [All] iMpShowtime: rofl 22:33 [All] iMpShowtime: shit ur bad lawl 25:28 [All] iMpShowtime: lmao ur so awful 25:31 [All] iMpShowtime: no wonder i raped u on trixy 25:32 [All] iMpShowtime: like 5x 25:33 [All] iMpShowtime: in tvz 25:34 [All] iMpShowtime: lolololol 36:45 [All] iMpShowtime: wow u bad 36:48 [All] iMpShowtime: lul 37:25 [All] iMpShowtime: yo 37:27 [All] iMpShowtime: get out of the channel 37:29 [All] iMpShowtime: after the game also 37:32 [All] iMpShowtime: ur not good enough to be in there rofl 37:38 [All] iMpShowtime: duno why we let scrubs likje u in 37:40 [All] iMpShowtime: lmao 37:42 [All] iMpShowtime: cant beat me straight up 37:42 [All] iMpShowtime: np 37:50 [All] iMpShowtime: im like 5-0 tvz vs u also, pretty convincingly 37:50 [All] iMpShowtime: also 39:12 [All] THEPPLsELBOW: gg 39:12 [All] iMpShowtime: sio abd T_T
He's trying to use words to make me attack him, which I did not fall for. Just a few things you should watch out for when playing mech.
The one good thing about mech TvP is it makes P players rage, i'll give you that :p I've heard a lot of "jeez, i lost to the worst Terran ever..." comments :D
TBH I really don't like how you posted that one replay. Not because I lose or anything, but because the way you present it is highly misleading.
* I had done the immortal push a few times against him already at that point, and he knew exactly what I was doing. I was doing a few variations to the same build, but nothing major changed. For example, in these replays, if I went for a prism instead of a second immortal, pulling all those scvs and putting 3 siege tanks in the front doesn't stop me at all. * My immortal push wasn't just 5 seconds late, it was over 30 seconds late because I messed up the build order. There's at least one replay I linked where I did it closer to the right timing. * He posted a screenshot of how to deal with immortal drops, but the moment in that game is after I killed the tech lab researching blue flame and a tank * It's also the one game he won against me out of a bunch using this mech build * The reason he won the game he screened was because I was focusing far too much on harass and not enough on getting an actual army up. I harassed with DTs, immorts, and voids. If I kept it down to immortal harass and got high temps instead of DTs, the marines would not have been a problem at all for my carriers.
Here's some other replays of him doing the same build. Sorry that I don't have descriptions for any of these for what I do. Note my lack of BM, unlike my opponent in the above replay.
Mech builds usually aren't that great because the opener is super weak - it's usually vulnerable to immort pushes or even some kind of voidray harass. The earlier variations that elbow did, where he would harass with hellion drops, is incredibly weak because toss can a-move even without immortals. Also, a lot of tosses don't know what to do later in the game. Standard comps that you would use against bio are normally really weak against mech, so the toss ends up playing with a style they're usually not used to.
Ok, but can you beat solid openers like banshee harass that has the starport up to defend voids, or even reaper siege expand that pumps 2 rauders and maybe has 2 bunkers and 2 tanks on high ground before you arrive?Where the terran makes 2 rauders, and then switches fact to tlab for siege mode and tanks ASAP? And then makes marines non-stop?
Immortals counter marauders and tanks... the entire reason you're getting immortals is so that you can blast through any armored comp, including bunkers, marauds, and tanks. You also have the option to be really mobile if you get a prism instead, so instead of pushing the front, where there could be a bunch of tanks and bunkers, you just elevator your army into the main and wreck him there.
Yes immortals counter marauders and tanks, bravo a silver player could figure that out. My point is, If the tank is on the high ground in the main, unreacheable and there are 2 bunkers, for which you need sentries which are bad vs tanks, can you break it? Watch my video, can you break what i had with your timing?.
I made an edit after your post, but tl;dr robo gives you options to change what you're doing to counter heavy defenses. Also notice that in all my replays, I have an observer, so high ground doesn't matter as much.
These poorly describe the way mech should be played. I made glaring mistakes in all of them.
Game 1: Did not scout for stargate much, and I did not open up the dropship helion opener. Game 2: Opened up with drop ship and helion, but I was making a 3rd when you attacked. If those were 3 bunkers it wouldve been a different story. Game 3: You probably just had me beat. Standard game, some mistakes here and there, lost quickly. Game 4: Okay I was supposed to win this one. 3/3 air and 5 StarPorts and you win with 1/0 voids.
Sorry for the BM I thought it was just friendly trashtalk :\
I dont mean that you cant see it. I mean that siege tanks have 13 FRIGGING range and if nicely placed, you cant snipe it without getting up the ramp. I also send a scout out at 8:30 or so to check for immos or a third and deduce if you are teching, massing or expanding. Warp prism , i go like hmm. It eats robo time for immortals and can be sniped. Either way i keep my tanks unsieged till you attack. You can try it though.
On December 26 2011 03:47 rgTheSchworz wrote: I dont mean that you cant see it. I mean that siege tanks have 13 FRIGGING range and if nicely placed, you cant snipe it without betting up the ramp
I hate just talking about this without an actual example, and it's really hard to find games where a terran actually went tanks against me ;_;
Keep in mind that if you have your immorts in front, tanks don't do too much damage. 10 per shot and they don't fire too often. Also, with the warp prism option, like I mentioned several times and you seemed to ignore, you can completely bypass the bunkers and tanks and go straight into the main.
There are marines which wreck your shields though. Do you mind posting a build order for your push with and without warp- prism to see what you get at what timing? 8- 8:30 when i scout you and when you actually attack.
Ok, I'll look into the replay and meanwhile perfect my own timings.But to me, attacking me at home, where I have defender's advantage(you can warp-in, but not immortals) and siege tanks, is suicide.
Here is a replay against a guy who went standard collosus timing from a 1gX. Hel dr was succesful, and shown banshees on purpose to make him defensive, I then took a 3rd. He is about to attack me but my helions dove right in, and killed his single zealot wall in natural. This pulls him back and I get the extra 20 seconds to win the game fending off his attack.
Yes, I tried mech on metal, not recommended for the inexperienced.
On December 26 2011 04:01 esiex3 wrote: http://drop.sc/79522 - Not mech, but here's me doing basically the same build against a bio player.
I don't see a lot of people do that build when they only single gas reactor rax, because it could be a 111, or a helion marine drop into delayed 111(one of my builds haha) do you think 1g robo should be the proper response? Or only after you see expo to punish meching players.
1gate robo is my current safe build. If there's a 1/1/1 coming, you have a bunch of good responses like fast collo. 2rax just dies to this build while barely doing any damage, although it does depend on control. A 1rax reactor rax expand should just die to this build since you can immort and/or prism push. The nicest part of it is that you get an obs out super fast so you should be able to respond to whatever your opponent is doing.
This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I am diamond level on EU with tvp being my best mu and lastshadow actually put a rep where mech worked. The builds need tweaking but i feel it can work given time and good players doing it.
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
Top masters US will rape low masters EU. Its not that much a difference. EU is better but tbh you can ignore that cuz its so small
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
Top masters US will rape low masters EU. Its not that much a difference. EU is better but tbh you can ignore that cuz its so small
I agree with Squigly's analysis of the skill gradients on EU and NA. I think it's also worth noting that when evaluating nonstandard play like this, instead of looking at a guy's league or points, it's best just to look at his games and the level his opponents play at. It's fairly clear that this build is viable at the low-mid level-- I guess the real question is whether it's viable in the GM range. That being said, if you, like me, are not GM, this is fun to use/play :D
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
Top masters US will rape low masters EU. Its not that much a difference. EU is better but tbh you can ignore that cuz its so small
I agree with Squigly's analysis of the skill gradients on EU and NA. I think it's also worth noting that when evaluating nonstandard play like this, instead of looking at a guy's league or points, it's best just to look at his games and the level his opponents play at. It's fairly clear that this build is viable at the low-mid level-- I guess the real question is whether it's viable in the GM range. That being said, if you, like me, are not GM, this is fun to use/play :D
Quite true, however, there is no "NA" server. AM is significantly worse than NA was, from what I've heard.
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
Top masters US will rape low masters EU. Its not that much a difference. EU is better but tbh you can ignore that cuz its so small
I agree with Squigly's analysis of the skill gradients on EU and NA. I think it's also worth noting that when evaluating nonstandard play like this, instead of looking at a guy's league or points, it's best just to look at his games and the level his opponents play at. It's fairly clear that this build is viable at the low-mid level-- I guess the real question is whether it's viable in the GM range. That being said, if you, like me, are not GM, this is fun to use/play :D
Quite true, however, there is no "NA" server. AM is significantly worse than NA was, from what I've heard.
Although that's entirely possible at say, gold league, or wherever most of the less skilled players from LA fed in, NA was a much larger server than LA-- the new AM server's size is larger than NA's, but not enough to increase the size of Master's in a significant fashion.
Also, EU (new) is weaker than EU (old) due to the merger with RU, right?
The main thing is that REGARDLESS, the best way to evaluate this style and the player's skill is to watch the replays rather than theorycraft about the nature of the leagues on different ladders. If his adversary's floating 3k minerals and 2k gas, it doesn't matter if he's GM on KR, even-- it means his opponent wasn't good enough to demonstrate the strategy.
Relying on some inter-server Master League classification to determine whether this build is viable is lazy thinking. Watching the replays and testing it yourself or speaking from your own experience is the only viable thing.
I really like your mech style. IMO you should change the core units to hellion+tank+banshee. The banshees really gives tank+hellion a much needed dps boost and they do solid damage to all types of units. Also scan+snipe obs with cloak units is pretty good. I feel if you can hold of early game and void ray switches it is a good style to play. I am going to try it out since I hate bio and I feel winning/losing a macro game relies way too much on getting really good emps. With this mech style atleast a reasonable macro advantage can be pushed into a win.
Pretty good mech guide man! I was planning on writing something like this, but its only giving me a 50-60% w/l against high master through mid gm... So it's not really that effective so far... But I'm working on it!
Also, I advise you to get an early ghost tvp rather than a raven if you see robo because a good Protoss (cough kiwi cough) will insta- transition into fast air atk+ carriers and immortals... I think that this build can be better, but I'm not really sure if it's better than mine. If I could see the actual build in action in a custom game or something, I'd be delighted.
Also, you should put some numbers up: for example, 4 tank shots to kill a stalker and 3 to kill an immortal if you emp.
Some counters to mech: nexus first (unless going vs my build) into immortal bust with charelots. Fast +3 armor upgrades and charge lot immortal blink stalker. (hellions are no good with only +1/ +2 against 4-6 armored zealots ) Hidden carriers while double expanding after you have 2 immortal blink stalkers to jump around the map. Double mass harass with prism+immortal stalker
Thnks for sharing such a good guide... i tried out this playstyle with a friend and it worked out pretty well... A thing to note though is i think ghost are pretty damn good in the composition so getting them after getting a 3rd is pretty good... i got mine a little late but well it worked well.
On December 26 2011 14:20 ChaoxTech wrote: Pretty good mech guide man! I was planning on writing something like this, but its only giving me a 50-60% w/l against high master through mid gm... So it's not really that effective so far... But I'm working on it!
Also, I advise you to get an early ghost tvp rather than a raven if you see robo because a good Protoss (cough kiwi cough) will insta- transition into fast air atk+ carriers and immortals... I think that this build can be better, but I'm not really sure if it's better than mine. If I could see the actual build in action in a custom game or something, I'd be delighted.
Also, you should put some numbers up: for example, 4 tank shots to kill a stalker and 3 to kill an immortal if you emp.
Some counters to mech: nexus first (unless going vs my build) into immortal bust with charelots. Fast +3 armor upgrades and charge lot immortal blink stalker. (hellions are no good with only +1/ +2 against 4-6 armored zealots ) Hidden carriers while double expanding after you have 2 immortal blink stalkers to jump around the map. Double mass harass with prism+immortal stalker
Gl!
Nexus first you can just scout and re-actively all in before you have a factory up. Unless its like taldrim, but playing mech on Taldrim seems iffy anyway.
Double mass harass with prisms? You will have min spare for turrets. And if they are mass harassing, a few turrets and a few vikings patrolling to kill obs and WP deal with this (In theory)
Hidden carriers while double expanding? First off how do you hide carriers. Secondly, any decent player will scout a double expo and tbh just go kill you. (If im wrong please say so)
But yes, fuck 3-3 or tbh even 0-3 charglets. That unit is broken and we all know it.
On December 26 2011 14:20 ChaoxTech wrote: Pretty good mech guide man! I was planning on writing something like this, but its only giving me a 50-60% w/l against high master through mid gm... So it's not really that effective so far... But I'm working on it!
Also, I advise you to get an early ghost tvp rather than a raven if you see robo because a good Protoss (cough kiwi cough) will insta- transition into fast air atk+ carriers and immortals... I think that this build can be better, but I'm not really sure if it's better than mine. If I could see the actual build in action in a custom game or something, I'd be delighted.
Also, you should put some numbers up: for example, 4 tank shots to kill a stalker and 3 to kill an immortal if you emp.
Some counters to mech: nexus first (unless going vs my build) into immortal bust with charelots. Fast +3 armor upgrades and charge lot immortal blink stalker. (hellions are no good with only +1/ +2 against 4-6 armored zealots ) Hidden carriers while double expanding after you have 2 immortal blink stalkers to jump around the map. Double mass harass with prism+immortal stalker
Gl!
Nexus first you can just scout and re-actively all in before you have a factory up. Unless its like taldrim, but playing mech on Taldrim seems iffy anyway.
Double mass harass with prisms? You will have min spare for turrets. And if they are mass harassing, a few turrets and a few vikings patrolling to kill obs and WP deal with this (In theory)
Hidden carriers while double expanding? First off how do you hide carriers. Secondly, any decent player will scout a double expo and tbh just go kill you. (If im wrong please say so)
But yes, fuck 3-3 or tbh even 0-3 charglets. That unit is broken and we all know it.
I know it sounds wierd but thors deal with chargelots pretty well especially on similar upgrades.... thors just soak up so much dmg from chargelots while tanks and bfh will juz clear them within seconds... but well after trying out several games with this mech play style i find turtling really important. Mech terran is really strong with 3/3 and i wouldnt hesitate to just turtle till i have 3/3 on both my ground and air army. But well it wouldnt work on all maps (such as altar).
http://drop.sc/78507 This replays shows me doing a suggested Reaper expand into siege tank to fight off his 2 base immortal gateway timing. (This will probably be the timing that wrecks most of you in masters, but the trick is to just prepare for it with sim city and bunkers. Usually the protoss will see the bunkers and not even try, which is why I can get away with some of the stuff I do.
The protoss then transitions into 3 base stargate into carriers. I scouted the stargate and immediately added 6 barracks, got +1 infantry weapons, and did a 180 food timing attack where I brought about 70% of my SCVs. (i had a lot of money in the bank at that point due to poor macro but you get the idea..)
OK, this guy made a big mistake: He kept tech switching and didn't really get anything. Also, that 90 probe amount is just stupid. Off 3 running bases (That fourth did not count. No probes were there) don't you want 72 or around? The main mistake this guy made was just making probes. By the time you hit you met an army worth almost half the same as yours (And you pulled SCVS, adding an extra 20 food to that push). He also only had 5 gateways and 3 stargates. That's not enough to produce off 3 base, he should have like 10 gateways, especially once he gets maxed (Which he didn't because he only made probes). You also had the best counter to his army: Lots of marines vs lots of immortals, and vikings versus carriers in pretty one sided. A bunch of zealots tanking for archons may have completely changed the scenario.
In summary, that protoss knew what was coming, and essentially completely did everything wrong.
http://drop.sc/78510 This replay shows me holding off a 4 gate Warpprism rush using maurauders, helions, scvs and eventually a viking to ward his warp prism off. I then transition into exactly what my build describes getting banshees and helions. I constantly send groups of banshees from the top of his base, drop helions from the side of his base, and run helions into his natural. He eventually slip up and I get 20 probe kills in the main. He then tries to all in me but I had just the right amount of units to hold him off. I expand to the gold and proceed to win the game.
That guy wasn't all-inning. He did a 4 gate and then expanded behind it. He knew that he would play the rest of the game behind you. And even more than that first game, you pushed out with a 190 supply army against a peasly 130 supply army. The reason is you completely destroyed his economy (At one point he was at 36 probes compared to the over 50 of yours, plus MULES). He was playing the entire game economically behind you, and you could've pretty much killed him by producing almost anything.
I'll look at the other replays at some point, I just wanted to jot down my opinions on those two. Even though it might sound like I'm heavily criticising your build, I'm not. I've been thinking of ways to make mech work as well, and watching your stuff, I liked a lot of it.
You have a good early build order You know how many production facilities You show how to use mech to harass and pressure, and how to hold off pressure yourself
But because your still experimenting, a lot of cinches have to be ironed out. Show games where you lose,and explain your own opinion on why you think you lost. Maybe add another section, weaknesses of the build, because there has to be some major problems somewhere, or someone would have fully researched it already.
Quite true, however, there is no "NA" server. AM is significantly worse than NA was, from what I've heard.
Are you suggesting that the South American users suck? Also, they can't have seriously changed the system, there were only about 20,000 or so to start with, compared to the 280,000 on NA.
Top masters US will rape low masters EU. Its not that much a difference. EU is better but tbh you can ignore that cuz its so small
There are about 310,000 users on NA compared to about 270,000 users on EU (Active accounts from this season). Is the difference that big really? Playing on EU means that there is a smaller player pool, and you'll be playing people more often in the higher leagues. So naturally the only way you can beat that person is by becoming better than them: refining builds, better macro, better everything. That is why the general skill of top EU players is slightly above the NA one. On the other hand, that becomes unimportant once you hit the area around Grandmasters: 200 players, plus the people who almost but didn't quite make the list stays almost exactly the same in number.
Ok have been trying this all night. I must admit this is the best version of mech (or non bio) I have seen. I think terran needs to play like zerg in TvZ i.e. the early to mid game you have to be on the point with your scouting and game sense. You need to make good reads and respond very well. However once you get enough bases and static defense, then you have a crazy strong deathball that will always trade cost effectively if you position well and force engagements (a style I love playing).
Of course terran being terran, you still have to be careful about army movement and stuff but people who like and use a lot of siege tank play should be at home with this style.
Also Nexus first is really easy to stop with this build. If I socut a nexus first, I drop the fe and go into marine bunker pressure into hellion harass into cloak banshee and then expo or 111 all in. I really don't see a nexus first holding that much pressure unless you somehow manage to lose all marines and scvs to hs one zealot+probes in the beginning.
On December 26 2011 23:53 Squigly wrote: Nexus first you can just scout and re-actively all in before you have a factory up. Unless its like taldrim, but playing mech on Taldrim seems iffy anyway.
Double mass harass with prisms? You will have min spare for turrets. And if they are mass harassing, a few turrets and a few vikings patrolling to kill obs and WP deal with this (In theory)
Hidden carriers while double expanding? First off how do you hide carriers. Secondly, any decent player will scout a double expo and tbh just go kill you. (If im wrong please say so)
But yes, fuck 3-3 or tbh even 0-3 charglets. That unit is broken and we all know it.
I find throwing in about 15 repair scvs (you can easily affords it with the amount of orbitals you can have) along with the hellion ball, in front of tanks, is a lot better against chargelots. Engaging in chokes almost always tears through 3/3 chargelots provided you have decent numbers of +3 tanks.
I also feel banshees are a very important part of this build and should always be made unless you are absolutely forced off them. The map control, obs snipe+cloak and the dps is way too good. Unlike the hellion I feel banshees play a role more similar to vultures. They give you vision and map control for your immobile mech, are a mobile force to respond to harass, force obs with groups of units, force gas units/cannons at home because of their harass potential etc. Also banshee+tank dps gets out of and in the late game, they melt through immos and archons (remember to magic box them against archons!).
3/3 chargelots?? 0/3 is BAD, HORRIBLE against mech. Double forge can be punished,and attack is better than armor vs mech. Why? because 0/3 chargelots have 4 armor, and 2 mech attack negates 4 armor for hellions, for siege tanks +1 is enough. At +2 mech attack you get 4 shotted by siege tanks anyways. And failing to get attack ups when the mech player has say +1 armor means your chargelots do 12 dmg to tanks and 14 to hellions, your stalkers now utterly suck as a half of their life is made of shields anyway, collosus dont 3 shot hellion, immortals 4 shot tanks. The advantage of mech is that ff is useless against it and thus you can punish double forge either by denying them a 3rd before 2/2, when your 3rd is up and running already, or timing pushing if protoss gets greedy with his ups and expos. 3/3 protoss upgrades are about equal to 2/2 mech i would say because of the disparity in damage added by the ups. Double forge is not viable unless you get a 3rd up at relatively the same time as T, which you won't cause he sees double forge and then proceeds to contain you on your 2 bases. Take a 3rd, get timing pushed.
Mass harass can be problematic, it's such a shame to spend 500 minerals on turrets and let the toss expand cause you'll be behind in supply.For all terran ground units, 1 supply=50 minerals. With mech, you'll be spending all the gas you can get anyway. Banshees are good early-mid but tend to suck late game, because of the upgrades. It's like biomech, terran can not go 2 tech-trees simultaneously because of split ups, plus they are more expensive than their zerg or toss counterparts. Bio tends to afford viking attack ups because of the spare gas, mech needs all of its gas into ghosts, upgrades(especially attack, and armor to match toss attack), and more tanks.Let's say you have +2 attack tanks that 4 shot zealots.Protoss at this point has at least 1 armor and 1 attack, maybe even 2 attack 1 armor. Do you build a banshee which now 8 shots stalkers and zealots, and gets 12 shotted by stalkers or a tank that has the same durability but 3 shots stalkers and 4 shots zealots?Banshee dps gets at tank level, you wont be able to harass as much as early game, is vastly inferior to the tank in direct combat, because I did not even count first shot damage and splash, as well as 13 range. Any banshees that you make, make them before +2 mech. Obs snipe is gimmicky, as you need marines or vikings to pull it off,which become useless fast enough. And toss can keep an obs close and send it in after he cleans your tanks, which by the way were what made your composition work, and he warps in a round of stalkers to deter your banshees.
Banshee's usefulness is determined by probe kills,how many cannons you force, and the map control that you gain.Cloak is not needed unless you rush for it, Toss will build a ton of obs anyway as the possibility of cloak will eat at him.Unless you know that a banshee can mess up your opponent in the ways mentioned, just build a tank, and watch how your 3/3 200/200 tank hellion ghost demolishes his army once you doom push.
I met a player doing this a long time ago so I can't provide any replay. From what I recalled I 1gate FE and went for a lot robo unit (immortals & colossi), and also took my third really early since people say macroing hard is the best way to deal with mech play (i.e. abusing the low mobility). But still, as the tank count grows, I can't see a way to properly engage a fight against this. Even immortals would die fast once a critical mass of tanks is reached + banshees focusing them, colossi won't be super useful because of the range difference of 6 with siege tanks.
Maybe air play ? But phoenixes are barely useful, and voidrays can get outmicroed by vikings convincingly. And I'm not going to mention carriers.
Also, harassment gets shut down once there are enough tanks and turrets out (warp prisms becoming risky + eating away robo production time, blink stalkers rendered useless as well as DTs). Sure it may help at the very beginning but it will just merely delay the mech doompush since it's so hard to engage it in a cost efficient way - let alone kill it before it reaches that stage. As games draw out it will get impossible to kill that army imo.
So, have you guys faced any convincing way to fight this build ? I'd like some hints not involving randomly blind countering it (like with nexus first) or all-inning it (seems like an immortal timings are fearsome, but can it be done effectively and quickly enough on 2 bases ?). At the moment I kinda feel like you have to hit an early timing with something quite gimmicky to shut this down before it gets out of control.
On December 27 2011 05:16 rgTheSchworz wrote: Banshee's usefulness is determined by probe kills,how many cannons you force, and the map control that you gain.Cloak is not needed unless you rush for it, Toss will build a ton of obs anyway as the possibility of cloak will eat at him.Unless you know that a banshee can mess up your opponent in the ways mentioned, just build a tank, and watch how your 3/3 200/200 tank hellion ghost demolishes his army once you doom push.
I think the thing you're forgetting is the nature of Terran production capacity.
If we could magically switch production between tech lines, then yes, its better to build a +2 Attack Tank than a +0 Attack Banshee. But we can't. We need some Starports on the field to guard against the possibility of Stargate tech switch. The two biggest weaknesses of mech are: 1. Its immobility 2. Its difficulty to remax. Stargate exploits both of those weaknesses to the fullest, which is why it is so important for the Terran to have enough air control to prevent that from happening. We need the Starports beforehand to guard against the *possibility*, so we might as well use its production instead of building an extra factory for that extra tank.
The most successful pro I know of who favors the Tank/Ghost/Hellion mix you mentioned is Goody. And if you watch his games, in the mid-lategame he almost always keeps a fleet of ~6 Vikings around ONLY to discourage Stargate/Collosi/WarpPrism. He keeps them around even whike facing Zealot/Archon and Blink-heavy army compositions because the threat of such a tech switch is so great (and 3/3 mech is so powerful) that he can afford to tie up 10+ supply into flying paperweights.
The only difference between what Goody and the OP does, is that the OP is replacing the preemptive Vikings with Banshees. And then hoping that his scouting is good enough to react to a Stargate/Collosi/WarpPrism switch in time. So yeah, its a bit more risky, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. As long as said tech switch doesn't happen, the Banshees are much more useful than Vikings vs most other compositions.
Its risk vs reward. The Vikings are better at preventing WP/Stargate (which hard counters mech, but is rare) but the Banshees make your core army better vs ground army compositions (which soft counters mech, but is common).
Yeah man you re somewhat right, but i feel that putting up starport and making more than 3 vikings is really a waste and makes mech non.viable.Instead,have 1 starport, go up to 3 if you see 2 stargates +, have 8-10 rines from the early game, and GOSU scout. I mean with the scouting capabilities of mech(those 2-3 vikings, hellions, more leftover scans than bio, dropping his main give you scouting info also.) being FAR superior to anything else in the game, why not use them to the fullest?
As avilo whines, vikings are useless vs non colossus/air. Solution: Dont get them unless you see stargates popping. 2-3 is largely enough with any rines left and possible turrets.I mean, c'mon he can't do anything with 2-3 voids, you'll just kite them to death. And for more you need stargates +at least 2 production cycles right? That's 3 minutes, 3 minutes in which you should have scouted.
On 3 base assuming you have not seen stargates, you should have 7 facts, 3 reactor 4 tlab, 2 port 1 react 1 tlab. On the other hand, remaxing with mech after losing your whole army is troublesome, yes, and if you lose it, gg unless you have slightly better economy than the toss. But remaxing after winning is the easiest thing in the world. Assuming 3 base, because you won't attack on 2 base except for timings, where if you lose you gg. Let's say you won that battle, and you have 6 tanks,3 hellions left, I hope i am not exaggerating things. Off 3 base you can produce 4 tanks 6 hellions at a time, in 1:30 game time you have 14 tanks, 21 hellions, provided you pull back or deal with the chargelot warp-in. Enough to re-push I would say, if you have 3-4 ghosts.
Air switches dont just happen all of a sudden, you need stargates, to upgrade air weapons, and a fleet beacon because since void speed has gone, you can kite them with vikings without barely any losses. Also 2 vikings rape a void while 3 vikings at equal ups are equal in every way to a carrier.Without air ups, you lose to 2/2 or 3/3 thors who rape your interceptors while they barely take any damage.Without carriers, the right amount of vikings decimates you.It's not as simple as that.
You can't have air control and ground control at the same time without a better eco than him,except through constant hellion drops. Keep to factories as the toss keeps to gates and robos.Don't waste resources on starports and vikings or banshees when you don't need them.Also, to be able to push lategame with mech, you gotta have 3 things: 1. 3/2 or better upgrades. Without 3 mech attack your maxed army is ... mediocre. 2. Army supply larger than his.By 20 or so i would say since probe count should be around 70-80 while scvs at 50-60.I'm not talking abouy super late game when you can afford to keep only 30 scvs for gas. I'm talking about your first max 3. Adequate numbers of emp. You see, mech late game suddenly becomes mobile.With 3/3 or 3/2 you can afford to walk unsieged and siege as he comes toward you. Emp lets you speed that up.Assuming all of his army is emp-ed, you're looking at a 33 to 50 percent decrease in the health of his units.Will he walk into you, even unsieged, In that state???? I seriously don't think it's a good idea. Assuming you siege your front tanks as soon as your hellions spot aggresion coming,it's not even close.Don't siege the tanks in the back unless he is attacking, if you lose some hellions it's no biggie as they are free and produced instantly,that way you get really mobile late game.
A properly done late game-push is what you aim for when meching, I don't see Goody doing that. In my opinion, someone who queues that much and has bad macro isnt an example.The fact that 3/3 mech is powerful shouldnt be interpreted as if you are allowed to throw 10+ supply out the window for safety.No, you maximize on your opportunity to have a 15-20% bigger army that is mobile once upgrades are done and enough emps are ready.
When someone posts a replay of ''THE PUSH'' , eventually stating why it would not work, then you can say that mech does or does not work.So far i have seen turtling,waiting for protoss to get impatient and attack,splitting the map, all-ins,thor-based comps, and other stuff from our fellow SC2 strategy posters at TL.Feel free to point me towards a rep where T fast pushes P at 200/200 with mech.
So far, I have not seen a 200/200 Tank hellion ghost with 3-4 thors rolling across the map with the protoss backing,stalling for extra warpgates, baiting it onto his side of the map, because in the middle, with no pylons, and T's reinforcing path being shorter, It is unfightable. When we will see this kind of push succeed or fail, then we have the answer to the question'' Is SC2 mech viable in TvP?''
The best way to deal with this build is solid play. Try to shoot for a phoenix blink timing while getting a greedy 3rd and 4th. Because Thor + helion beats gateway + phoenix, but tank + helion gets absolutely ravished. So I can't attack and I must sit still and expand. At that point, with an extra base, a lot of things open up. Transition into double robo attack upgrades and your collosus count can get out of control and exploit my immobility. Cannons(which you can now afford) and sim city can defend against harassment No problem esp combined with fast blink stalkers.
If protoss can deny your 4th and 5th while teching to late game carriers mothership, it can be very problematic. The only counter I can imagine to this build would be to start getting thors and prepare for a midgame push, but I am not sure. I will need to refine my build to see what it has to offer vs this comp.
I've tried this build for a few practice games, and I'm astonished at how much getting a few early banshees as opposed to early vikings helps in holding off early pushes. While my control of this playstyle is still weak, I think this build has great potential! Thanks for the guide, man!
[B]On December 27 2011 11:10 rgTheSchworz wrote: When someone posts a replay of ''THE PUSH'' , eventually stating why it would not work, then you can say that mech does or does not work.So far i have seen turtling,waiting for protoss to get impatient and attack,splitting the map, all-ins,thor-based comps, and other stuff from our fellow SC2 strategy posters at TL.Feel free to point me towards a rep where T fast pushes P at 200/200 with mech.
So far, I have not seen a 200/200 Tank hellion ghost with 3-4 thors rolling across the map with the protoss backing,stalling for extra warpgates, baiting it onto his side of the map, because in the middle, with no pylons, and T's reinforcing path being shorter, It is unfightable. When we will see this kind of push succeed or fail, then we have the answer to the question'' Is SC2 mech viable in TvP?''
Actually I saw of rep of Goody doing just that and lost a few months ago in some online tournament. Can't remember the Protoss player, but it was on Shattered Temple.
Anyway, the Protoss went for a base trade with double forge Stalker-Colossus and won big time. The Colossi spotted up the cliff into the main, the Stalkers blinked inside to gun everything down before it could float out, and the Zealots charged into the natural to maul the SCVs running their dear lives.
Goody's 3 bases (he did make it to 3/3 mech) were totally destroyed by the time his mech army (heavily slowed by Thors) reached the Protoss' natural. His Hellions and Ghosts were worthless vs Protoss buildings so he had to rely on pure tank to kill everyhing. He did eventually destroy the Protoss' base, but the P had more than enough time to evacuate his probes beforehand and chew down the Hellion count. Then Goody's weakened army was contained inside the Protoss' mined out main+natural, which is never a happy spot to be in with mech.
With no detection and no Vikings/Banshees to prevent Collosi picks, an Obs spotted exactly when an unsiege happened and, well, gg. The P was reloading on warpgates at a hidden expo. So even if Goody held that big push the P still had economy and infastructure while Goody didn't. 1 Probe can throw up 10 warpgates no problem, but you can't do the same thing with SCVs, Factories, and addons.
The games that Goody *did* win with Hellion/Ghost/Tank all featured a sizable amounts of Vikings (even if they were never used). I also never saw a P try to tech switch to Stargate on him, probably because he usually had those Vikings. (well, one P did try, but the game was already way over beforehand)
The Starport units aren't there to just stop Immortal/Stargate, its to stop Blink-ups and WPs into the main as well. The three most common methods for sighting up are Obs, Colossi, and Hallucinated Phoenx. Vikings can kill all the sighters and Banshees can kill Collosi and the Stalkers themselves, but wide-spread Tank+Turret won't repel any of those things.
I kinda see the point, but base trading on even bases is generally a bad idea for toss.Provided you scout all hidden expos and keep track of his army with hellions, and of course fry his probes trying to rebuild. One building in the corner of the map is all that you need. Colossus stalker do terrible dps to buildings per supply, with 18.5 /6 supply per colossus and 9.6 per 2 supply with stalkers.Tank dps is 24 per 3 supply(vs armored)!! and hellions sure can tear through those probes .Enough said? I think base trading isnt bad if you have the base advantage vs mech, but then you can stall, engage, trade all your army for half of his, then remax.
Base trading is gimmicky at best, as you lose your warpgates(ability to remax instantly) while T can save some of his facts and scvs(Either you go for the 4th or the main, you kill the scvs at the 4th, facts float to the corner, and vice versa. You cannot just go through the middle cause thats where the push is happening, so you cannot attacks the 4th and the main at the same time i think. Plus, you actually need some troops to take out a planetary at the 4th, so be careful how you split!!!).Hellions are super mobile and will hunt for probes instead of taking out buildings.
Plus, as I said, you have an army which is 20 supply smaller,who does puny dps to buildings, whose only advantage would be mobility. Goody is bad, I recently watched a game of his vs Adel, where he dealt with blink, phoenix gimmicks early game but then let Adel double expand with a stalker heavy army, and that is horrible. Timing pushing and good scouting would have ended it right there. 1/1/1 showed the power of timing pushes, at one point it had 80% winrate and still is strong.Timing pushes off 2 base need to be refined to the 10 sec window, they're the soul of mech.
When you see WP, you get 2-3 vikings-perfectly normal.When you sight a stalker heavy comp, ball up and unsiege more than half your tanks,your vikings/hellions will give you sight of attempts to blink and then you can siege some or all of their tanks.It's not easy, but it's doable, if you are looking for an easy tvp, play bio, If you wanna be manly and stop the protoss from A-moving FF, as well as testing his multitask with hellion harass, play mech.
On December 27 2011 11:45 THEPPLsELBOW wrote: Try to shoot for a phoenix blink timing while getting a greedy 3rd and 4th. Because Thor + helion beats gateway + phoenix, but tank + helion gets absolutely ravished.
So you suggest I try and push with blink stalkers and phoenixes before thors are out, lifting tanks and killing everything with stalkers since only tanks are opposing a decent threat to them at that point in the game, and then use that time to get greedy expos. Sounds like a nice game plan overall, I have yet to meet someone trying this style again though, it's quite rare to find terran players who're not going for standard bio play or 1-1-1 all-in.
On December 27 2011 22:54 rgTheSchworz wrote: I kinda see the point, but base trading on even bases is generally a bad idea for toss.Provided you scout all hidden expos and keep track of his army with hellions, and of course fry his probes trying to rebuild. One building in the corner of the map is all that you need. Colossus stalker do terrible dps to buildings per supply, with 18.5 /6 supply per colossus and 9.6 per 2 supply with stalkers.Tank dps is 24 per 3 supply(vs armored)!! and hellions sure can tear through those probes .Enough said? I think base trading isnt bad if you have the base advantage vs mech, but then you can stall, engage, trade all your army for half of his, then remax.
Base trading is gimmicky at best, as you lose your warpgates(ability to remax instantly) while T can save some of his facts and scvs(Either you go for the 4th or the main, you kill the scvs at the 4th, facts float to the corner, and vice versa. You cannot just go through the middle cause thats where the push is happening, so you cannot attacks the 4th and the main at the same time i think. Plus, you actually need some troops to take out a planetary at the 4th, so be careful how you split!!!).Hellions are super mobile and will hunt for probes instead of taking out buildings.
Plus, as I said, you have an army which is 20 supply smaller,who does puny dps to buildings, whose only advantage would be mobility. Goody is bad, I recently watched a game of his vs Adel, where he dealt with blink, phoenix gimmicks early game but then let Adel double expand with a stalker heavy army, and that is horrible. Timing pushing and good scouting would have ended it right there. 1/1/1 showed the power of timing pushes, at one point it had 80% winrate and still is strong.Timing pushes off 2 base need to be refined to the 10 sec window, they're the soul of mech.
When you see WP, you get 2-3 vikings-perfectly normal.When you sight a stalker heavy comp, ball up and unsiege more than half your tanks,your vikings/hellions will give you sight of attempts to blink and then you can siege some or all of their tanks.It's not easy, but it's doable, if you are looking for an easy tvp, play bio, If you wanna be manly and stop the protoss from A-moving FF, as well as testing his multitask with hellion harass, play mech.
Lol bio is easy. I think most people are trying mech purely because they are sick of auto losing if the P sets up a 4th and you hvaent done and crippling damage. TvP bio is a lot like non=mech-TvZ where you will never win a pure macro game.
Bio is 4 times easier to control. If you auto-lost in late-game bomber, puma, etc would not win tourneys. With mech you have to know what protoss is doing at all times, as if you had maphacks. Else you get busted from time to time by protoss who abuse either your comp or your supposed immobility, and whine on TL that 7 tanks dont 1 shot 10 stalkers and 1 colossus( which is about equal cost, a bit in favor of toss actually) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=296950¤tpage=7 http://i.imgur.com/btCW4.jpg 10 Stalkers 1 Colossus at 3/3/3 after one 3 attack tank volley. All i see is 1250+ damage done. Colossus+3 stalkers dead=350+480=830 Shields off on 4 stalkers and half on a 5th=360 Hp on 3 stalkers=140-150 Total damage done=1330 or 190 / tank. Counting armor deduction that means about 3 times the 62 damage actually inflicted BEFORE ANY UNITS GOT A SHOT OFF.A second volley would have killed the rest of the protoss army. 21 supply vs 26 supply when in lategame terran has the supply advantage. Judge for yourself if you want to play mech after that. ''Apparently'' I heard that Emp-ed Immortals melt to tanks and that chargelots clump up, a LOT,and there's that unit called the hellion too.
Suggestion for Blizzard that would not interfer with TvZ if they want to buff tanks:HP to 175 or 170.
YEAAH. Also, hellions= lets you creates artificial chokes.Thors too but I'd rather get more tanks with that gas. But yeah,that's just ghostmech,even caught completely unsieged at 200/200 3/3 with 5 ghosts you stand a good chance. On a serious note, you got too many ghosts and not nearly enough hellions. Any sane protoss will not attacks into a wall.Make the wall and the army mobile=totally another thing. Oh, and emp the archons if you have spare emp's because you lost your first volley on units that don't die to tanks. Thankfully they do trash damage, and you can ignore them after the first volley/emps.
The pride of my tvp mech career. Too bad it only took move commanding towards my army round a corner giving like 3 free volleys (last remnants of the toss army evaporated somewhere between the scvs and tanks).
OP i just have a general suggestion (i am sorry my protoss brethren), but in the rep i watched at least i saw you had many banshees but no cloak. get cloak!!!!! it's annoying as hell to deal with, trust me its well worth it.
edit: actually now that i finish the replay you did get cloak. i still think you should get it earlier though!
After playing against this style a few times, I think that there's a bunch of vulnerabilities in the opener that most tosses won't recognize.
* Because the terran is supposed to take a super fast third with this build, a toss can respond with his own fast third. * This build is super greedy. It takes a fairly fast third and techs up incredibly fast. This is why this build wins in late game. If a toss does not respond at all and does standard play like against bio, where you sit back and just defend timings, then you just lose because of the huge advantage the terran has. * Since the terran is going for fairly high tech units, unit trading isn't so bad. Zealots and immortals for siege tanks earlier on is good so you don't get evaporated in a single volley later on.
In this game, my immortal push killed 2 tanks. I was certain at that point that he couldn't push me at all because his army had no firepower, so I took a very fast third after my timing attack. I constantly harassed, abusing the immobility of most of his army, and fended off his harassment. I went for blink stalkers into mass immortals, which is pretty good against mech. http://drop.sc/80248
In this game, my immortal push do enough damage because of a bad elevator. Unlike the previous game, he actually had a sizeable army to push with. He could've done a 2 base 1/1/1 push, which is very scary to deal with after losing a good portion of your army. However, instead, he prepares for sentry drops (and ends up losing a bunch regardless) while I take another fast third and gain a large advantage. When he finally does a sort of push on my main, I flank with mass immortals and clean up his third. http://drop.sc/80249
Now because the OP has been posting screenshots demonstrating superior play, I'll do the same :D
Bad posititioning by terran
Watch where your tanks are
Bad angle?
Doesn't matter, my unit comp is stronger.
These tanks are no spartans
Last few things about this: * His build (before the incredibly greedy part) looks a bit like a 2 base 1/1/1 that I've seen in the gsl a few times. Maybe with a few modifications (more aggression, less harass, less greediness), this could actually become a very standard mech build. * We don't see mech at all because we don't have any proper openers going to it. Hopefully we find something that doesn't have to be insanely greedy.
Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Three words. Try 4 factory. Expand when you timing push his 3rd. Get armory after 2nd or after 3rd fact. Starport for raven if you get it early,else armory after 2nd or 3rd fact. After 2nd fact +1 will finish in time for your push. .Cut scvs before you push and go with 6-10 of them while you are pushing. Any 1 base fact or fact port expand will do it. +1 Hellion unsieged tanks 6-10 scvs to tank and repair and 10 marines vs your Blinkers while you takin that 3rd. Expect feedback.
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
I have tried mech so many times that I have concluded that is simply not viable versus Protoss. However, while Tanks are weak against everything but sentries and non-blink stalkers, and hellions are just ok verus zealots and weak vs everything else, Thors are actually ok/good versus most Protoss units.
I find that Thor/MMM/Ghost/Viking to be a well rounded late game army versus Protoss that is more forgiving when it comes to micro slips compared to pure MMM. Plus it gets rid of the excess gas you often have when going MMM. It also solves the upgrades problem Terran has when going two tech lines, you do not need the attack upgrade for Thors since they take the same number of shots to kill most Protoss units anyway so you just have to upgrade their armor.
On December 29 2011 01:42 rgTheSchworz wrote: Three words. Try 4 factory. Expand when you timing push his 3rd. Get armory after 2nd or after 3rd fact. Starport for raven if you get it early,else armory after 2nd or 3rd fact. After 2nd fact +1 will finish in time for your push. .Cut scvs before you push and go with 6-10 of them while you are pushing. Any 1 base fact or fact port expand will do it. +1 Hellion unsieged tanks 6-10 scvs to tank and repair and 10 marines vs your Blinkers while you takin that 3rd. Expect feedback.
How does this solve the blink stalker problem? A decent blink stalker attack can hit before your 4 factories are up.
I'm actually talking 2 base vs 2 base you know. Because blink openings on 1 base HAVE to do damage to get even, and once siege is up, well let's say i can break even with the blinking player. Ok, so you 1 gate expoed, I reaper siege expanded with my fact at 23, 3 rauders out of the rax after reaper( Tlab first on the rax, no initial marine), a bunker and orbital done on my expo when my fact finishes.I can switch the fact to the Tlab.Time: 5:40-5:45.
I also have gotten at least my 3rd gas, 4th if you early expoed as it is safe.Naturally siege +2 tanks out of the factory first.I scouted with my reaper,if he is alive i scout you again between 7 and 8:30. If not I scout your front. If I have NO IDEA blink stalkers are coming, yeah sure you can do damage.If i see a lot of stalkers,Or the twilight, well you just lost the element of surprise.I'll get constant rines out of my rax till 10.
Already I know that your third will not be made before 11:30 or so. Why? You need a robo, decent numbers of stalkers which cost a ton,twilight and i would say 5 gates.Then i have to scout at 12:00 to see if your third is going up, so my first 2-4 hellions need to be timed so they can scout that. Scanning would be a waste considering I have 3-4 gases very early and I need those minerals for 3 turrets(twilight can mean DT's) and 3 Factories as well as my marines. Before my 2nd factory finishes I will use the rax as an add-on whore for my 2nd fact(tlab). I can delay the marine, as your immortal timing push will be late because of many stalkers.In fact, I may as well delay marines, because you will snipe them and while their dps is large, you will snipe them.2nd fact comes when i have the gas for it while prodding tanks from the first.Then, I do a little assesement, which is basically: armory or starport? If you are Really stalker heavy, and your stalker count shows me that you haven't teched, or expoed, i'll get the port for a raven and delay my other 2 facts.I will reactor the rax as i wont have as many hellions.Else i get the armory for +1, it's better for late game purposes and helps my push tremendously.I'll skip BF as I really don't need a +5 damage increase when you have 0-4 zealots.
If your stalker count is low-ish after getting blink, that means DT's, chargelots, or collosi are coming. Turrets will keep me relatively safe from DT's so I proceed getting 2 reacts and blue flame before I push as I can expect zealots anyway( If you are teching to collosus/ stalker you won't hold 4 fact once +1 or a raven pdd finishes UNLESS you are getting a later third than mine.I can stop scvs the moment you throw that 3rd and roll you). I am not advanced enough to discuss stargate tech and how do you push against it. I have not encountered it as frequently as ground based protoss, and protoss air vs terran is underexplored.
Ok, now for the answer to your question(How do you defend blink stalker harass?). I exposed the build first as an anticipation of ,, you can't get that many tanks'' or ,, how did you get 3 rauders''.
You can't outrange Rauder/Tank as you can Rines. Here you are outranged. Since I scouted with a reaper, i know there is no stargate, and that you're probably going blink. I can skip rines, or get really few of them short-term, and get 2 factories with tlab ASAP.
Basically, I abuse my superior range with my tanks, pull them back if you hit them,repair. If you blink in to snipe a tank I focus fire a single stalker while repairing my tank. With 1 tank, 3rauders that takes 2 shots to FF one stalker.So you have to be VERY QUICK with blinks, it's not like vs roaches where they do low damage slowly and at short range.You have, at GM level, a real micro battle.Plus, you really can't abuse shield regen cause i have repair and the longer you wait, the more tanks I have and I really don't care as much about the Rauders.Once I get 3 tanks I siege one on my cliff as you may be doing an immortal push, and I put that tank to be within range of as much of the 2 mineral lines and buildings as much as I can. I understand I can't cover all of those, but my goal is to bring the other 2 tanks in range of the stalkers, and If you want to hit them I pull back 2or 3 distance and THEN my sieged tank is able to hit the clump of stalkers.
Once i have 4-5 tanks your blink gimmicks are over as I can have 2 sieged tanks which cover both mineral lines and buildings and 3 unsieged as well as some marines which you can't kite due to the sieged tanks.
Then it's time for you to tech to something else and me to push.
The replay isn't even that old. This guy is ranked number 4 grandmaster on the NA server (Because the Grandmaster feature is broken on NA, Grandmasters has already started) and he plays Mech. OMG, that's like exactly what we were looking for: A really good player who uses Mech. Watching his replays, I came to the conclusion that:
This guy makes Mech by abusing everything he can (not in this replay, but in all hisgames on Shattered Temple TvP) Grandmaster Protoss players can beat a straight out battle with a Mech army (this replay is the proof. Watch the last few minutes, and how the whole macro game falls apart)
I would reccomend watching the game, maybe find a few other games where he plays TvP mech (Don't watch any of his games on Shattered Temple. They all end up the same, and I'm surprised none of the protoss raged more), and then looking if his style is similar/different to your game.
Just tried this on ladder and it worked exceptionally well! I'm only in platinum so don't take that too seriously =P
I think the main reason this works is that protoss tend to neglect base defense, the reason I succeeded and how this build succeeds is due to the massive econ damage the helions can provide, giving the terran time to mass up that huge mech army needed. As soon as protoss's throw a few cannons down to stop the helion run-bys or sim-city a bit better this build will be hard to pull off.
But until this build is a lot of fun, and nice change from the usual MMMGV -> die in the late game ^_^
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
There is no solution. The only units that can deal with Blink Stalkers properly are Thors and Tanks, both which are slow as shit. You also need Tanks in LARGE numbers to deal with Blink Stalkers, and you need them to be positioned properly in siege mode.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion. There's just no possible way you can defend against it because it'll hit before you have significant amount of Tanks out. You'll outright die most of the time, or be so crippled from the harass/contain that he's on 5 bases and you just took a 3rd.
Not to mention that Mech outright blows in a straight up fight anyways. 200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors. It's not like it hasn't been tried; lots of good players have already tried to run Mech, but simply could not make it work no matter what they tried. There is no space control with the current incarnation of Mech.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion.
I disagree for certain maps. The main ones are Xelnaga and Metalopolis, as the mains have relatively small open edges. You can defend the entire Metalopolis main base from Blink Stalkers with two tanks. I do have to agree on some maps though: There is just no way you could place your tanks perfectly on Shattered Temple, and Shakuras Plateau has a relatively vulnerable main as well.
200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors.
You don't have to go pure Mech. As a rule, you should always be implementing Ghosts in your composition (Although I haven't seen this thread mention the topic yet). After all, you get Ghosts in late game TvZ Mech as well, you can just as well make them in TvP.
Did anyone see my post above? It's another guy who uses mech in TvP as well.
How are there Protoss that engage like that in Masters league while I'm still stuck in Diamond?
I feel like you'd have been in trouble in these screenshots if he had some multi-pronged harass going, as the ebays would slow down your ability to counter drastically (Not to mention they bottleneck your units as you try to counter). How does your build deal with the warp prism speed upgrade? How heavily do you need to invest in turrets? Can you deal with two speed prisms on opposite sides of your base?
Also did you post screencaps in the OP of you BMing and pre-GGing some guy? That's a little out of place for a guide thread, imo.
All that being said, I really like the guide, and will be trying this on my offrace T account in my TvPs!
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion.
I disagree for certain maps. The main ones are Xelnaga and Metalopolis, as the mains have relatively small open edges. You can defend the entire Metalopolis main base from Blink Stalkers with two tanks. I do have to agree on some maps though: There is just no way you could place your tanks perfectly on Shattered Temple, and Shakuras Plateau has a relatively vulnerable main as well.
200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors.
You don't have to go pure Mech. As a rule, you should always be implementing Ghosts in your composition (Although I haven't seen this thread mention the topic yet). After all, you get Ghosts in late game TvZ Mech as well, you can just as well make them in TvP.
Did anyone see my post above? It's another guy who uses mech in TvP as well.
You need more than 2 Tanks to secure Metal; you will get sniped big time by Blink Stalkers. By the time your reinforcements make it up there he's taken out 2 Tanks for maybe a stalker or two, while taking out some tech labs or whatever else he could find. The problem is that unlike Mauraders, Tanks have to siege to actually do damage to large clumps of units.
Ghost/Mech is too gas costly, and is simply too cost inefficient. You need to secure a 3rd, and a Robo/Blink opening or any kind of Warp Prism play will prevent that 3rd from going up for a very long time.
I don't even know what to........ First the guy collosus drops when he knows there is a starport out. Like what the fuck? Then he proceeds to take a 3rd at minute fucking 18?
At minute 18 protoss at my level are on 4 bases fully maxed on 3/3 but you were both barely on 150 food without any aggression. You should've been maxed and he should've been maxed with 20 gateways. This is just a typical example of a protoss who doesn't have a clue what to do against mech. Why does he atack anyway? He just needs to mass gateways =.= and blink stalker harass/warp prism harass. Also just looked at sc2ranks, you aren't high master. More like mid-master.
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
No protoss players have a special sense for Mech counters on any server, we rarely see it. I think I have played against it twice since launch and both times I was confused as hell. The play style is the exact opposite of bio and really throws protoss for a loop. Upgrades are not as powerful and seige tanks are rude beasts if used well(but really funny if used poorly). Also, the opening looks so much like the 1/1/1, which has to be respected or the protoss risks flat up losing to it.
The best tip I have seen is using buildings to block the zealot pathing. Zealots are totally AI dependant and no one has discovered an effective way to micro them and take advantage of charge.
Considering the amount of banshee harass that is going on, is it worth while to drop a seperate robo with the sole purpose of build obs? I feel that you need to be make immortals and lots of them and a lot of the power of the banshee is that the protoss has to choose between them or the obs.
Also, how do you deal with HTs once they hit the field. Do you just spam cloak to drain the mana from the banshees and send them with low mana assuming they will get hit with FB?
How are there Protoss that engage like that in Masters league while I'm still stuck in Diamond?
I feel like you'd have been in trouble in these screenshots if he had some multi-pronged harass going, as the ebays would slow down your ability to counter drastically (Not to mention they bottleneck your units as you try to counter). How does your build deal with the warp prism speed upgrade? How heavily do you need to invest in turrets? Can you deal with two speed prisms on opposite sides of your base?
Also did you post screencaps in the OP of you BMing and pre-GGing some guy? That's a little out of place for a guide thread, imo.
All that being said, I really like the guide, and will be trying this on my offrace T account in my TvPs!
late game, banshees and helions are MORE than enough to stop laughable 4-5 gateway units in your base
haha i thought those moments were quite funny, and hes my friend (and hes been posting in this thread too) and we've played a lot of practice games for me to really get this down.
I have NEVER seen double warp prism harass, and 2 vikings are more than enough to 100% deter warp prism harass. Just deal with the first 2 immortals with your initial marine count, some tanks (Micro them back) and a banshee if its in town. Then the vikings come out and you patrol vikings + your barracks in the air space around your base and the protoss will simply stop prism harassing.
I spend no money on turrets unless i am a. very ahead b. late game to slow down blink stalker base trades by killing wayward obs. c. at each PF d. late game and i feel i will be vulnerable to hidden voids/carriers. I will have tons of mins anyways so i put them up everywhere.
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
No protoss players have a special sense for Mech counters on any server, we rarely see it. I think I have played against it twice since launch and both times I was confused as hell. The play style is the exact opposite of bio and really throws protoss for a loop. Upgrades are not as powerful and seige tanks are rude beasts if used well(but really funny if used poorly). Also, the opening looks so much like the 1/1/1, which has to be respected or the protoss risks flat up losing to it.
The best tip I have seen is using buildings to block the zealot pathing. Zealots are totally AI dependant and no one has discovered an effective way to micro them and take advantage of charge.
Considering the amount of banshee harass that is going on, is it worth while to drop a seperate robo with the sole purpose of build obs? I feel that you need to be make immortals and lots of them and a lot of the power of the banshee is that the protoss has to choose between them or the obs.
Also, how do you deal with HTs once they hit the field. Do you just spam cloak to drain the mana from the banshees and send them with low mana assuming they will get hit with FB?
lol, there is no such thing as a mech hard counter. Its called solid play vs solid play. If protoss metagames you and does stuff so out of the way just to counter a mech build, you know he will be vulnerable to a 1 or 2 base 1/1/1. Constant scouting and denying scouting, and since you have scans it should be very easy. Scans->kill obs is soooo much better than mules with mech, I should emphasize this in the OP soon.
Cannons are a much better investment IMO. Cannons + blink stalkers really really shut down harass. The only downfall is once I am maxed on 3/0 you have a bunch of t1 units that can blink, but are terrible in a straightup fight (think mutas that dont even fly)
I get double armory to get 3/0 and 3/0. And 3/3 air if I see a lot of stargates and I will make a full transition to sky terran, with a few thors and helions for mineral dump.
A really important thing to note, is if a protoss player metagames you by going pure stalker immortal and fast 3rd greedily, you can add 4-5 barracks, cut scv, and end the game. Please always be wary of his third timing. If he is stalker/immortal heavy but not as greedy, use bunkers to help hold off aggression at your third (great minearl dump)
HT's are scary if you don't have ghosts on the field. They are extremely effective against your maxed army with their massive AOE and tanks will clump up soon late game too. You must maintain at least 4 ghosts out on the field if he is on 3 base templar tech (cloak will help).
In a push, if you can do an observer snipe, I keep my banshee energy at 50-75. At that point, its a waste of money for them to feedback, plus its like an APM sink for protoss (think using snipes vs ultras) so I actually prefer them to spam feedback (just not on thors, you might want to pre emptively emp your thors)
On December 26 2011 05:09 Zyphen wrote: This will only work on the NA server. If our European friends are disappointed by our "masters" level play, sorry. You can get away with this kind of shit here. I've seen comparably poor macro all the way up to GM. There's 2 possibilities:
1. The OP should actually be ranked higher but is held back by his inferior build. 2. Else, he should be ranked lower but most masters protoss don't even bother to prep/practice for mech so the OP gets away with it.
I can't decide which.
I didn't know european people had a special sense for mech counters. Silly me.
In all seriousness, if European players are better than American players as a whole by a whole league (exaggeration) and a half (more exaggeration), which makes sense because Europe is like 10 more countries, then they should have the refined mechanics and game sense themselves to be able to figure out how to fine tune this build to make mech work for their opponents in Sweden, Germany, etc...
No protoss players have a special sense for Mech counters on any server, we rarely see it. I think I have played against it twice since launch and both times I was confused as hell. The play style is the exact opposite of bio and really throws protoss for a loop. Upgrades are not as powerful and seige tanks are rude beasts if used well(but really funny if used poorly). Also, the opening looks so much like the 1/1/1, which has to be respected or the protoss risks flat up losing to it.
The best tip I have seen is using buildings to block the zealot pathing. Zealots are totally AI dependant and no one has discovered an effective way to micro them and take advantage of charge.
Considering the amount of banshee harass that is going on, is it worth while to drop a seperate robo with the sole purpose of build obs? I feel that you need to be make immortals and lots of them and a lot of the power of the banshee is that the protoss has to choose between them or the obs.
Also, how do you deal with HTs once they hit the field. Do you just spam cloak to drain the mana from the banshees and send them with low mana assuming they will get hit with FB?
lol, there is no such thing as a mech hard counter. Its called solid play vs solid play. If protoss metagames you and does stuff so out of the way just to counter a mech build, you know he will be vulnerable to a 1 or 2 base 1/1/1. Constant scouting and denying scouting, and since you have scans it should be very easy. Scans->kill obs is soooo much better than mules with mech, I should emphasize this in the OP soon.
Cannons are a much better investment IMO. Cannons + blink stalkers really really shut down harass. The only downfall is once I am maxed on 3/0 you have a bunch of t1 units that can blink, but are terrible in a straightup fight (think mutas that dont even fly)
I get double armory to get 3/0 and 3/0. And 3/3 air if I see a lot of stargates and I will make a full transition to sky terran, with a few thors and helions for mineral dump.
A really important thing to note, is if a protoss player metagames you by going pure stalker immortal and fast 3rd greedily, you can add 4-5 barracks, cut scv, and end the game. Please always be wary of his third timing. If he is stalker/immortal heavy but not as greedy, use bunkers to help hold off aggression at your third (great minearl dump)
HT's are scary if you don't have ghosts on the field. They are extremely effective against your maxed army with their massive AOE and tanks will clump up soon late game too. You must maintain at least 4 ghosts out on the field if he is on 3 base templar tech (cloak will help).
In a push, if you can do an observer snipe, I keep my banshee energy at 50-75. At that point, its a waste of money for them to feedback, plus its like an APM sink for protoss (think using snipes vs ultras) so I actually prefer them to spam feedback (just not on thors, you might want to pre emptively emp your thors)
There is no metagaming involved, a normal 1 gate expo = > Robo can reactively counter any Mech play with Blink/Obs play which will cripple you so badly you'll be too far behind to do anything.
By the time you have your Factories up and running, he has Blink Stalkers/Obs harassing you already containing you and preventing you from taking a fast 3rd. If you try to all-in him he simply slows you down long enough to get his tech units out in time to deal with your Mech play. You don't even need Immortals against Mech; Colossus do just fine with their insane mobility for a unit that does so much damage.
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
There is no solution. The only units that can deal with Blink Stalkers properly are Thors and Tanks, both which are slow as shit. You also need Tanks in LARGE numbers to deal with Blink Stalkers, and you need them to be positioned properly in siege mode.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion. There's just no possible way you can defend against it because it'll hit before you have significant amount of Tanks out. You'll outright die most of the time, or be so crippled from the harass/contain that he's on 5 bases and you just took a 3rd.
Not to mention that Mech outright blows in a straight up fight anyways. 200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors. It's not like it hasn't been tried; lots of good players have already tried to run Mech, but simply could not make it work no matter what they tried. There is no space control with the current incarnation of Mech.
I disagree on your last paragraph. You can strike cannon archons and immortals, use yamato cannons on colossi, emp, and use pdd. Also I'm getting really fucking sick of people trying to make points without bringing in replays or examples. I've heard this "everyone's tried it" bs but yet no one who says that brings in replays when I ask.
How are there Protoss that engage like that in Masters league while I'm still stuck in Diamond?
I feel like you'd have been in trouble in these screenshots if he had some multi-pronged harass going, as the ebays would slow down your ability to counter drastically (Not to mention they bottleneck your units as you try to counter). How does your build deal with the warp prism speed upgrade? How heavily do you need to invest in turrets? Can you deal with two speed prisms on opposite sides of your base?
Also did you post screencaps in the OP of you BMing and pre-GGing some guy? That's a little out of place for a guide thread, imo.
All that being said, I really like the guide, and will be trying this on my offrace T account in my TvPs!
Ive actually taken to building bunker not ebays for this reason. You can salvage and push very quickly.
Squigly you build bunkers by your minline? Well how do you deal with DT's without turrets?Plus you need marines which are bad when they pass the dozen.
As a reply to some which say blink is unmanageable, well I just plain don't believe that in 2base vs 2base when T gets unsieged tanks and actually lets them unsieged, with a few marines and marauders off 1 rax, he can't deal with your blink with the aid of scvs and repair. Once the first hellions are out,you can't deny scouting coz they're faster than stalkers and can take 9 hits.
Once T finds that you expand greedily off pure stalker, guess what??There's a BIG timing push that comes that you can't possibly hold since stalkers cost for cost DO NO BEAT UNSIEGED TANKS, especially if +1 or a raven is on the field. You'll have pitiful numbers of collosi/immortals and most of the times you'll get A-move rolled. 1 tank 1 marine beat 2 stalkers, blink won't help once tanks can 1 shot, you can't stall cause you'll get contained and your third busted and the zeals you'll warp will be bout even with the 5-6 hellions a T can produce off 2 base.And scvs, btw.
Blink stalkers off 2 base vs mech is semi-all-in. You have to do damage or you're behind in tech. And a fast third will only hinder you.
I played this guy early in the season and his Hellion drop dominated me. He kept my army size small with additional harassment and by the time the engagement came he just had a much bigger army than I did.
People actually severely underestimate how hard it is to deal with Hellion drops on some maps in PvT (I played him on Entombed, and some of the spawn positions allow for the most insane drop points). I think the war of attrition really is underrated right now, but if a player goes for that and even their first harassment is successful, the rest of the game gets easier and easier. Limiting army sizes, limiting income, etc is viable with Hellions.. Terran players just must not want to sink the APM into doing that.
On December 31 2011 03:36 rgTheSchworz wrote: Squigly you build bunkers by your minline? Well how do you deal with DT's without turrets?Plus you need marines which are bad when they pass the dozen.
As a reply to some which say blink is unmanageable, well I just plain don't believe that in 2base vs 2base when T gets unsieged tanks and actually lets them unsieged, with a few marines and marauders off 1 rax, he can't deal with your blink with the aid of scvs and repair. Once the first hellions are out,you can't deny scouting coz they're faster than stalkers and can take 9 hits.
Once T finds that you expand greedily off pure stalker, guess what??There's a BIG timing push that comes that you can't possibly hold since stalkers cost for cost DO NO BEAT UNSIEGED TANKS, especially if +1 or a raven is on the field. You'll have pitiful numbers of collosi/immortals and most of the times you'll get A-move rolled. 1 tank 1 marine beat 2 stalkers, blink won't help once tanks can 1 shot, you can't stall cause you'll get contained and your third busted and the zeals you'll warp will be bout even with the 5-6 hellions a T can produce off 2 base.And scvs, btw.
Blink stalkers off 2 base vs mech is semi-all-in. You have to do damage or you're behind in tech. And a fast third will only hinder you.
Rofl.
12+ Stalkers picking off random Tanks/Buildings/Etc. and then running away. You make it sound like you can just instantly move units in and around your base like no problem.
You can't stall? Are you serious? You just sit outside of his natural and if he even comes out you just pick off random units, blink away, repeat, and continue. By the time he reaches your base he has enough tech to deal with whatever the hell you have. You make it sound like Mech can just straight up 2 base all-in if he sees any Blink Stalker play. You can't. People have tried this shit, it doesn't work. Mech is just simply bad against any competent Protoss player. The only reason why it works half the time is because Protoss players react badly. Any Blink play RAPES Mech. Period. You have 0 mobility to deal with it. He will contain your ass and you won't be able to do anything at all.
You will be getting harassed non-stop hardcore. You will not be able to afford +1/Raven/Thor/Tank/whatever in order to deal with significant amount of Blink/Colossus play, because you're too busy trying to make sure you simply don't die to a Blink into your base. There have been very good Terran players who have tried to make it work, and to a degree they got it to work, but there are simply too many holes in Mech play right now for you to be able to win. You have no ability to react to harass, no ability to control space on the map (lack of Spider Mines really hurt Mech), and Protoss has the ability to instantly close gaps with Charge/Blink and has heavy hitting with Immortals/Storm/Colossus/etc. that can totally roll Mech play.
This style of play forces you to take a faster 3rd, which is indeed good against Double Forge styles of play. The problem is that it starts to leave you wide open to 2 base timings or harass heavy play. You are just crippling yourself even further by choosing to run Mech, which is notoriously bad at dealing with Prism/Blink/Immortal drop play.
great writeup i really learned alot and its great to hear another terran meching vs protoss because i think it is quite good but i dont ever get to see people do it so its hard to know what is the best... i personally dont think vikings are really that necessary because if you have banshees and a ton of tanks it accomplishes pretty much the same thing but i could be wrong.
As a Protoss despite what most people think about PvM (Pv Mech, since its a different MU than PvT), I actually have no real idea how to counter this kind of style. I think air Protoss is the only real way to go, since chargelots get melted by blue flame hellions, and colossi get eaten by vikings and siege tanks.
Anyway nice guide, even if I hate playing against mech.
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
There is no solution. The only units that can deal with Blink Stalkers properly are Thors and Tanks, both which are slow as shit. You also need Tanks in LARGE numbers to deal with Blink Stalkers, and you need them to be positioned properly in siege mode.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion. There's just no possible way you can defend against it because it'll hit before you have significant amount of Tanks out. You'll outright die most of the time, or be so crippled from the harass/contain that he's on 5 bases and you just took a 3rd.
Not to mention that Mech outright blows in a straight up fight anyways. 200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors. It's not like it hasn't been tried; lots of good players have already tried to run Mech, but simply could not make it work no matter what they tried. There is no space control with the current incarnation of Mech.
Thats not exactly true, theres tons of stuff that deal with Blink Stalkers. Marauders, Banshees, Ghosts, Thors. Just because you're going mech doesn't mean that you CAN'T build Rax/Starport units if its appropiate.
Its been my experience that 1 Rax worth of Marauders are the best response to blink stalker. You are correct that we can't get enough Factory/Starport units out in time to defend against early heavy blink, but that's why we have the Marauder. They're great vs Stalkers even with no upgrades. I don't get Stim because with Blink the Stalkers almost always get away anyways. I do get concussive shells though, for anti-warp prism stuff, and its nice if the P gets sloppy with their positioning.
Thor defense is a good response too. With mass repair, they can defend with minimal supply. And with their long range antiair, they can snipe the obs that let the Stalkers Blink up.
Also keep in mind that this is a Skymech thread, and Banshees are pretty damn good against Stalkers. Especially with sieged tanks zoning out your base so the Banshees can kite the Stalkers into siege fire.
I like to push with a ton of Tank/Hellion/Banshee/Ghost, and then reinforce with Thor/Hellion/Viking/Marauder. That way, if theres a counterattack I have the perfect units there to defend against it.
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
There is no solution. The only units that can deal with Blink Stalkers properly are Thors and Tanks, both which are slow as shit. You also need Tanks in LARGE numbers to deal with Blink Stalkers, and you need them to be positioned properly in siege mode.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion. There's just no possible way you can defend against it because it'll hit before you have significant amount of Tanks out. You'll outright die most of the time, or be so crippled from the harass/contain that he's on 5 bases and you just took a 3rd.
Not to mention that Mech outright blows in a straight up fight anyways. 200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors. It's not like it hasn't been tried; lots of good players have already tried to run Mech, but simply could not make it work no matter what they tried. There is no space control with the current incarnation of Mech.
Thats not exactly true, theres tons of stuff that deal with Blink Stalkers. Marauders, Banshees, Ghosts, Thors. Just because you're going mech doesn't mean that you CAN'T build Rax/Starport units if its appropiate.
Its been my experience that 1 Rax worth of Marauders are the best response to blink stalker. You are correct that we can't get enough Factory/Starport units out in time to defend against early heavy blink, but that's why we have the Marauder. They're great vs Stalkers even with no upgrades. I don't get Stim because with Blink the Stalkers almost always get away anyways. I do get concussive shells though, for anti-warp prism stuff, and its nice if the P gets sloppy with their positioning.
Thor defense is a good response too. With mass repair, they can defend with minimal supply. And with their long range antiair, they can snipe the obs that let the Stalkers Blink up.
Also keep in mind that this is a Skymech thread, and Banshees are pretty damn good against Stalkers. Especially with sieged tanks zoning out your base so the Banshees can kite the Stalkers into siege fire.
I like to push with a ton of Tank/Hellion/Banshee/Ghost, and then reinforce with Thor/Hellion/Viking/Marauder. That way, if theres a counterattack I have the perfect units there to defend against it.
Mind being blown by the responses here.
Heavy Blink play early can even crush decent Bio play. Hero showed that it's perfectly possible in some of the games he's played as long as you push early enough. If you are going pure Marines early with no upgrades as your early defense, you will get raped big time by heavy blink harassment. In all of the replays of the OP, he barely has anything to defend against 2 base robo/blink play.
Also, you HAVE to go early heavy Marines early if you are going to do an early expand, otherwise you insta die to any 3 Gate VR all-in. This leaves you heavily vulnerable to shit like Robo/Blink, especially if you refuse to go heavy Mauraders early on. Predy who used to run mech extensively as Terran will tell you opening straight into Mech from just Marines is just asking to die period. He ALWAYS ran Bio = > Mech, never did he just go from handful of Marines into Mech.
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
There is no solution. The only units that can deal with Blink Stalkers properly are Thors and Tanks, both which are slow as shit. You also need Tanks in LARGE numbers to deal with Blink Stalkers, and you need them to be positioned properly in siege mode.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion. There's just no possible way you can defend against it because it'll hit before you have significant amount of Tanks out. You'll outright die most of the time, or be so crippled from the harass/contain that he's on 5 bases and you just took a 3rd.
Not to mention that Mech outright blows in a straight up fight anyways. 200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors. It's not like it hasn't been tried; lots of good players have already tried to run Mech, but simply could not make it work no matter what they tried. There is no space control with the current incarnation of Mech.
Thats not exactly true, theres tons of stuff that deal with Blink Stalkers. Marauders, Banshees, Ghosts, Thors. Just because you're going mech doesn't mean that you CAN'T build Rax/Starport units if its appropiate.
Its been my experience that 1 Rax worth of Marauders are the best response to blink stalker. You are correct that we can't get enough Factory/Starport units out in time to defend against early heavy blink, but that's why we have the Marauder. They're great vs Stalkers even with no upgrades. I don't get Stim because with Blink the Stalkers almost always get away anyways. I do get concussive shells though, for anti-warp prism stuff, and its nice if the P gets sloppy with their positioning.
Thor defense is a good response too. With mass repair, they can defend with minimal supply. And with their long range antiair, they can snipe the obs that let the Stalkers Blink up.
Also keep in mind that this is a Skymech thread, and Banshees are pretty damn good against Stalkers. Especially with sieged tanks zoning out your base so the Banshees can kite the Stalkers into siege fire.
I like to push with a ton of Tank/Hellion/Banshee/Ghost, and then reinforce with Thor/Hellion/Viking/Marauder. That way, if theres a counterattack I have the perfect units there to defend against it.
Mind being blown by the responses here.
Heavy Blink play early can even crush decent Bio play. Hero showed that it's perfectly possible in some of the games he's played as long as you push early enough. If you are going pure Marines early with no upgrades as your early defense, you will get raped big time by heavy blink harassment. In all of the replays of the OP, he barely has anything to defend against 2 base robo/blink play.
Also, you HAVE to go early heavy Marines early if you are going to do an early expand, otherwise you insta die to any 3 Gate VR all-in. This leaves you heavily vulnerable to shit like Robo/Blink, especially if you refuse to go heavy Mauraders early on. Predy who used to run mech extensively as Terran will tell you opening straight into Mech from just Marines is just asking to die period. He ALWAYS ran Bio = > Mech, never did he just go from handful of Marines into Mech.
Please think through some of these responses.
Probe scouts reactor on rax -> could be 2 rax, reactor expand into bio, or 1/1/1. Voidrays are very bad choices in this case.
Robo-blink must be scouted by the initial 4 helion drop. Then the build can be changed to best defend against blink stalkers.
A protoss will not plan to do a 2 base robo-blink aggression after only seeing rines, a bunker, a reactor, and gas. He has no idea if you are going to expand or not.
You need more than 2 Tanks to secure Metal; you will get sniped big time by Blink Stalkers. By the time your reinforcements make it up there he's taken out 2 Tanks for maybe a stalker or two, while taking out some tech labs or whatever else he could find. The problem is that unlike Mauraders, Tanks have to siege to actually do damage to large clumps of units.
I think you misunderstood me: You can hold metal from one base with 2 tanks, with an inbase CC. Once you start setting up your natural, you will have problems, so I guess you turtle a bit.
Ghost/Mech is too gas costly, and is simply too cost inefficient. You need to secure a 3rd, and a Robo/Blink opening or any kind of Warp Prism play will prevent that 3rd from going up for a very long time.
I did mean ghosts for the late game /3rd base and past it). You go Mech for almost the entire game, and only supplement the army with Ghosts once you probably hit 180 supply.
I have NEVER seen double warp prism harass
Probably because people haven't been using prisms as long as Medivacs. And you don't see people double/triple dropping too often either, very micro intensive and APM taxing.
Once T finds that you expand greedily off pure stalker, guess what??There's a BIG timing push that comes that you can't possibly hold since stalkers cost for cost DO NO BEAT UNSIEGED TANKS, especially if +1 or a raven is on the field.
You'll have pitiful numbers of collosi/immortals and most of the times you'll get A-move rolled. 1 tank 1 marine beat 2 stalkers, blink won't help once tanks can 1 shot, you can't stall cause you'll get contained and your third busted and the zeals you'll warp will be bout even with the 5-6 hellions a T can produce off 2 base.And scvs, btw.
Blink stalkers off 2 base vs mech is semi-all-in. You have to do damage or you're behind in tech. And a fast third will only hinder you.
You can't stall? Are you serious? You just sit outside of his natural and if he even comes out you just pick off random units, blink away, repeat, and continue. By the time he reaches your base he has enough tech to deal with whatever the hell you have. You make it sound like Mech can just straight up 2 base all-in if he sees any Blink Stalker play. You can't. People have tried this shit, it doesn't work. Mech is just simply bad against any competent Protoss player. The only reason why it works half the time is because Protoss players react badly. Any Blink play RAPES Mech. Period. You have 0 mobility to deal with it. He will contain your ass and you won't be able to do anything at all.
I agree/disagree. It is true Blink Stalkers can contain you pretty well. On the other hand, all-ining of 2 base will crush Blink Stalkers with brute force. If I was going Mech, and saw someone trying 2 base Blink contain, I would go some sort of 1/1/1 style with marines, Tanks and banshees (You still have a reactor barracks, remember?). Blink Stalkers are very fragile, and Marine Tank Banshee completely kills them. Pulling SCVs, the amount of blink Stalkers you have will not be able to kill his entire army before it hits your base. And you're bound to lose a few through mismicro, so you'll be at an even more disadvantage.
On December 29 2011 01:08 superstartran wrote: Your build is extremely vulnerable to Blink timings. None of your units are going to be cost effective against Blink Stalkers at all. I've tried running Mech over and over and over again in Masters, and it just flat out doesn't work unless the Protoss plays it really badly. There's too many ways for a Protoss to flat out slow you down so long that he gets a huge economic advantage. The problem is that mech is extremely cost inefficient against Blink Stalkers. If he plays it right, all he has to do is constantly pick off Helions/Tanks when he can, while blinking into your base when you're not looking and just outright smash you. He can do this reactively off a 1 gate FE once he sees you are going Mech also.
You also have to play a little too greedy with mech, which is kind of hard since your unit composition just flat out sucks at defending harass most of the time. Taking a fast 3rd is important, and that's the reason why everyone has flat out abandoned it. There is no way to properly defend against Blink Stalkers early on with Mech while being cost efficient. He will just contain and overwhelm you eventually and you can't do shit about it.
Can you post the replay of blink stalkers rolling you? Perhaps we can find a solution.
There is no solution. The only units that can deal with Blink Stalkers properly are Thors and Tanks, both which are slow as shit. You also need Tanks in LARGE numbers to deal with Blink Stalkers, and you need them to be positioned properly in siege mode.
A 2 base Robo/Blink timing attack like Hero utilizes would utterly smash a Mech build into oblivion. There's just no possible way you can defend against it because it'll hit before you have significant amount of Tanks out. You'll outright die most of the time, or be so crippled from the harass/contain that he's on 5 bases and you just took a 3rd.
Not to mention that Mech outright blows in a straight up fight anyways. 200/200 Mech ball can't even fight a 200/200 HT/Archon ball without losing. Charge/Blink/Storm is just too much for Mech to deal with half the time, not to mention any feedbacks on Thors. It's not like it hasn't been tried; lots of good players have already tried to run Mech, but simply could not make it work no matter what they tried. There is no space control with the current incarnation of Mech.
Thats not exactly true, theres tons of stuff that deal with Blink Stalkers. Marauders, Banshees, Ghosts, Thors. Just because you're going mech doesn't mean that you CAN'T build Rax/Starport units if its appropiate.
Its been my experience that 1 Rax worth of Marauders are the best response to blink stalker. You are correct that we can't get enough Factory/Starport units out in time to defend against early heavy blink, but that's why we have the Marauder. They're great vs Stalkers even with no upgrades. I don't get Stim because with Blink the Stalkers almost always get away anyways. I do get concussive shells though, for anti-warp prism stuff, and its nice if the P gets sloppy with their positioning.
Thor defense is a good response too. With mass repair, they can defend with minimal supply. And with their long range antiair, they can snipe the obs that let the Stalkers Blink up.
Also keep in mind that this is a Skymech thread, and Banshees are pretty damn good against Stalkers. Especially with sieged tanks zoning out your base so the Banshees can kite the Stalkers into siege fire.
I like to push with a ton of Tank/Hellion/Banshee/Ghost, and then reinforce with Thor/Hellion/Viking/Marauder. That way, if theres a counterattack I have the perfect units there to defend against it.
Mind being blown by the responses here.
Heavy Blink play early can even crush decent Bio play. Hero showed that it's perfectly possible in some of the games he's played as long as you push early enough. If you are going pure Marines early with no upgrades as your early defense, you will get raped big time by heavy blink harassment. In all of the replays of the OP, he barely has anything to defend against 2 base robo/blink play.
Also, you HAVE to go early heavy Marines early if you are going to do an early expand, otherwise you insta die to any 3 Gate VR all-in. This leaves you heavily vulnerable to shit like Robo/Blink, especially if you refuse to go heavy Mauraders early on. Predy who used to run mech extensively as Terran will tell you opening straight into Mech from just Marines is just asking to die period. He ALWAYS ran Bio = > Mech, never did he just go from handful of Marines into Mech.
You obviously don't want to build Marauders vs VR allins. Marauders are a response to Blink Stalker, which you should be able to scout beforehand. Its pretty easy to check the Stalker count with Scan+SCV, and Robo+Twilight Council+Blink take a long time to kick in, you should see it far in advance. So you'll know to make either Marines or Marauders. Anyway, not everybody has Blink Stalker control like Hero
Thats why I like to open 2 Rax FE when going mech TvP. That way I have the tools I need to defend against all one base allins. 2 Rax worth of bio is enough to let you stall until your mech units come out. I'll get cshells if I make Marauders, but I never get Stim+Shields with mech, I need that gas to get up factories quickly and sometimes need to addon swap. You don't need infantry upgrades to hold off blink/vr as long as you have proper factory/starport support.
Its a good idea to have two Rax around anyway. Even after switching mineral dump to Hellion+Turret, because you will be eventually getting Ghosts.
Which is why you should open reaper siege expo, some kind of reactor hellion that can hold 4 gate(dunno if it is possible), or plain simply a push off 1 base, be it 2 rax, marine tank push off reactor rax +fact, 2 factory maybe(2 fact=doubtable, not sure if safe vs DT. Maybe a build to throw in a boX, haven't tested it extensively yet), or cloakshee harass,hellion marine drop.
In less words , something AGRRO or HARASSIVE, to be able to scout stargate, dt, blink etc. Otherwise, you're vulnerable to protoss abuse.I seriously don't recommend 1 rax FE, or defensive 1/1/1 with a raven,or 1 fact straight expo.You can't prepare for 5 things at a time.
In SC2 a fast third does take a longer time to pay off than in BW.If some of you find a way to safely take a fast third with mech, please post it.That extra set of gasses helps T more than it does P, as T can skimp on hellions and power tanks and upgrades that much faster. Untill then, 2 base pushing(to read NOT ALL-IN) is your pre-game plan.I doubt you could hold a 10-11 min third vs good zealot immortal timing.DO take a fast third if protoss goes for a third himself, techs off 2 base to templar/colossus or if you have eco advantage or map control, depending on how harass goes.
Blink stalkers are probably the trashiest units in direct combat against mech.You absolutely do not have to be sieged to take them out,provided you have 5,6 rines or rauders around.Even pure tank + repair does the job.+1 or a raven are bonuses to have, not necessities. Heavy blink play can beat bio, you know why? Because stalkers auto-regen and till medvacs, MM don't.This on top of having the range advantage vs marines. Vs mech the situation is reversed. You need 13 stalker shots to snipe a tank,Tanks can be repaired from the start, tanks have that extra range meaning they'll always have the better concave,Finally tanks do large damage meaning you can't profit from shield regen once you get 1 or even 2 shotted. Sniping a repaired tank is not easy, if you lose 2 stalkers for it I'm quite happy.Quite sure that blink stalkers can be dealt off 2 bases.And no, I don't need a 3rd I can't defend here because you haven't got robo tech in significant numbers and I can timing push your 3rd.If you do get robo tech before expanding, I'm also happy, you just let me take a 3rd.
After you get any 2 upgrades from the following: Stim, Shields,+1 infantry, just go Bio. Mech transitions sucks then as you need a ton of facts, you wasted gas on bio, and you're 2 steps away from having all you need playing bio anyway. Same can be said for psuedo-biomech. If you got 2 mech upgrades,just make hellions, MM won't get you anywhere.
Against blink stalker harassing a meching player left and right, it can catch/tilt the T player to a point everything is in disarray. However there are ways of dealing with these kind of P players who "think" they are abusing your immobility. The best way to shut this kind of harass is just spreading tanks (1~2 in a given position) and turrets/sensor tower around, creating dead zones and possible "escape" routes that lead to another firing range for siege tanks. Think of playing TvT mech vs bio, except its not stimmed MM/drops but blinking stalkers (and maybe colossus).
If they do one of those suicidal attacks by bringing their colossus and blink stalker army into your main, just trap his army by splitting your main army by positioning tanks to possible escape routes and the rest to fight force the P army into such escape routes. Vikings will take care of colossus, and tanks will demolish the rest. Tbh, as a Meching T, if they mass stalkers as opposed to a immortal/archon/zealot combo or something along those lines, I will be happy!
day9 did a a daily(396) which really helped me get a kickstart my mech, Because for the longest time I just didn't understand it. I recommend adding it to the OP
day9 did a a daily(396) which really helped me get a kickstart my mech, Because for the longest time I just didn't understand it. I recommend adding it to the OP
I would prefer a new thread being made, as this is about someone's personal Mech point of view/build order. It's best if someone makes a bigger, more comprehensive guide to Mech. I watched the dailies as well, and I rather liked them (Especially the fact there was some Korean replays). I found the build order of the players to be very similar:
Rax Factory Starport Cloaked banshee play Reactor on rax
Decide from scouting/your game play from there.
The fact that you can switch add-ons makes so many different compositions, different production, and makes scouting viable to counter what your opponent is doing.
Things i did like about that daily: Willingness to try out mech. Illusion coming up with an interesting strategy Great pushes from illusion Things I am a little bit amazed about: Banked minerals are bad. Make hellions they're good,you can trade them for probes/zealots/ht/sentries if they don't seem useful in the main army. Trimaster played pretty bad, he had a huge lead, and he threw it because he doesnt know how to play. 120 to 80 ish supply, T is on 3 bases, P has 37 probes to 68 scvs.Just turtle till max(which comes fast assuming hellion/tank/ghost is made) then go push.I think it doesnt matter if toss has a million bases, he barely had time to rebuild probes, is behind in upgrades and army size and won't be able to stall the doom push for a long time.Instead he goes for the engagements to trade armies. Bad decision.Use Pf's when you go for a 4th. No wrap around the protoss army with hellions. Maximize that splash, they're totally worth it.
In short, I think that 3 things are really confirmed: Mech armies at even upgrades are way stronger than bio, once you pass 110 supply. You have to be super map-aware with mech, it's the only way it's worth it. Else, bio is more forgiving. Early banshees are great.But more than 4 is really a waste,as they'll be remaining after engagements, and you seriously want leftover tanks.
i dont want to kritizise but u played atleast on 3 maps vs a toss wich had like no probe counts or sended 50 probes to mine minerals sure that were masters? you could have built anything vs them since u outmacred them so hard that u nearly got 1k mins more ~~ shakuras shattered temple arid plateu
On February 05 2012 15:59 TBone- wrote: Anyone have any openings besides a banshee opening? To make this viable every time in a boX series I feel like we need more than one opener.
Off the top of my head in TvZ i think opening a single Viking (or even a double viking) with marines into a Raven with 2 or three more vikings then adding banshees might be an interesting idea, if you can be really active and useful with the vikings.
I think the reason most people open banshee first however is that they're immediately useful.
Sure with a Viking you CAN scout, and you CAN snipe overlords, but if you get attacked by say early roaches...a viking isn't actually going to help you not be dead. Similarly, the Raven will at best have the energy to drop a turret maybe, but probably not an actual PDD yet. A banshee however, comes out, and even without cloak is ready to do extreme pain to anything at your wall.
On February 05 2012 15:59 TBone- wrote: Anyone have any openings besides a banshee opening? To make this viable every time in a boX series I feel like we need more than one opener.
Off the top of my head in TvZ i think opening a single Viking (or even a double viking) with marines into a Raven with 2 or three more vikings then adding banshees might be an interesting idea, if you can be really active and useful with the vikings.
I think the reason most people open banshee first however is that they're immediately useful.
Sure with a Viking you CAN scout, and you CAN snipe overlords, but if you get attacked by say early roaches...a viking isn't actually going to help you not be dead. Similarly, the Raven will at best have the energy to drop a turret maybe, but probably not an actual PDD yet. A banshee however, comes out, and even without cloak is ready to do extreme pain to anything at your wall.
um... except this is a TvP topic not a TvZ one? oO
On February 05 2012 15:59 TBone- wrote: Anyone have any openings besides a banshee opening? To make this viable every time in a boX series I feel like we need more than one opener.
the op has reactor hellion and reaper openings, not banshee though oO
On February 05 2012 15:59 TBone- wrote: Anyone have any openings besides a banshee opening? To make this viable every time in a boX series I feel like we need more than one opener.
Off the top of my head in TvZ i think opening a single Viking (or even a double viking) with marines into a Raven with 2 or three more vikings then adding banshees might be an interesting idea, if you can be really active and useful with the vikings.
I think the reason most people open banshee first however is that they're immediately useful.
Sure with a Viking you CAN scout, and you CAN snipe overlords, but if you get attacked by say early roaches...a viking isn't actually going to help you not be dead. Similarly, the Raven will at best have the energy to drop a turret maybe, but probably not an actual PDD yet. A banshee however, comes out, and even without cloak is ready to do extreme pain to anything at your wall.
um... except this is a TvP topic not a TvZ one? oO
On February 05 2012 15:59 TBone- wrote: Anyone have any openings besides a banshee opening? To make this viable every time in a boX series I feel like we need more than one opener.
the op has reactor hellion and reaper openings, not banshee though oO
Yeah so...
I ready BoX as...TVX. And somehow converted that to him asking for other match-ups. Just. Pretend I'm not retarded. No matter how hard you have to pretend. T_T
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gWSNX.jpg)
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I feel like this is going to be one of the paths terran has against protoss where they are going to figure out that they can back up that sky terran crap where they go mass viking banshee with some tanks/turrets at home. Viking/Banshee is pretty nasty (also gimmicky) because terran scans observer and then usually loses a bunch of stuff. The main way to fight it is counter attacks and early attacks (in my experience at least), but both of those are held by walls/tanks/turrets. I don't play terran much though so what do i know?
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