|
I was discussing with my friends about the state of TvP currently, he being a Terran player and myself being a Protoss player, I of course as a Protoss calling Ghosts OP and him calling Chargelots OP as Protoss and Terran friends do to each other.
But as we got pass all that and began to discuss it more seriously along side the observation of late game TvP where some Terran players cannot seem to manage with mass Chargelots and it got me wondering, why is it that Terran players do not simply tech switch once they scout either through a scan or an early game battle, that the Protoss is going Chargelot HT Archon.
From what I have seen in my games versus Terran and games I have watched of top level players, when the Protoss goes for this Chargelot based build that they continue to build units which are inherently bad versus Chargelots (Marauders) especially once the Protoss is on 3-3-3. But it seems to me that Terran players could in this situation cease production of Marauders and begin to pump out Reactor Hellions which in fact cost less than Marauders due to costing no gas and can be built 2 at a time, and will in my view be must more useful in a direct fight due to the large amounts of splash damage, before engaging can push forward get some volleys off and retreat to main army getting some initial damage off before the fight begins and be used in drops to devastate mineral lines abusing the immobility of Chargelots.
The way I see it a Terran player could drop off 4 Marauders, fly home with the Medivac, stim in and pick off a tech structure (Robo, Forges, Templar Archive) to free up supply for units which will be more cost effective versus Zealots and delay them moving out while you transition and potentially stop them from tech switching.
This is of course my theory crafting as I am not a Terran player of any stretch, so I thought I'd pitch it and ask here on TL, why is it Terran players either don't do this, or simply cannot do this, as I personally cannot think of a good reason why it doesn't happen.
|
1 easy thing that you overlooked is that hellion require blue flame to be "somewhat" effective, and you need mech attack and armour ugprades to keep them alive long enough. The hellions strenght is speed/mobility which just gets denied in a battle due to the slow marauders.
What terrans need to do is add in more marines when they see a zealot archons tech switch, not try to go for hellions.
There are also two different types of techswitches in the protoss army, from colossi into chargelot stalker storm with 1 forge, or double forge late colossi into zealot archon. For the latter you need more marines and in the first case you don't need to switch up anything, you just need to keep on top of your stutter step micro.
Also 15+ ghosts rip any amount of zealot archons apart with marauders and stutter step micro
|
The problem with tech-switching for Ts is that since they invested so much into the rax for the bioball, they do not have the resources or the time to build factories to pump out hellions.
Also, 3/3/3 zealots against (most likely) 0/0 red flame hellions isn't great!
|
key to chargelot army against bio is in your engagements. generally you want marauders to tank the damage and let your marines deal the damage, ideally at a choke where you can make a concave around the toss's army.
On January 27 2012 07:28 RieuK wrote:
The problem with tech-switching for Ts is that since they invested so much into the rax for the bioball, they do not have the resources or the time to build factories to pump out hellions.
Also, 3/3/3 zealots against (most likely) 0/0 red flame hellions isn't great!
+1... it would take too long to set up the infrastructure for output and upgrades to make it worthwhile, and it's pretty much GG if this transition cuts into your marine production on your rax. basically the only time one might even consider this transition is if you have a lot of minerals stacked up while your army is maxed out
|
The only thing that migh be worth tech switching to is air since it doesn't make sense to go for hellions which are pretty useless without upgrades against upgraded gateway units. Also they cost only minerals and this is a very big problem since most of the hassle late game TvP is about stems from most of Terrans units costing mostly minerals making it so you don't even use your geysirs on your fourth and fifth base while Protoss will immediately take those geysirs and put them in use by warping templars for storms and archons. It would really make sense to add another gas heavy unit to the composition but so far I haven't really found a conclusive way of going for ghost raven viking marine in this match up.
|
0/0 hellions can't touch 3/3/3 zealots, it's simple as that. Just have to go marine heavy and hope for the best.
|
At this moment and this current state of the game. really transitioning to anything after your bio is almost impossible.One of the reasons is even if we consider you are both maxed and you start spending rescources to establish a solid infrastracture for your transititon the protoss player is banking way more than you at this moment and maybe adds a reasonable number of gates.Considering that you get an even fight with your 200/200 balls the protoss will then instantly remax while you struggle and wait for those long time BCs and whatever the hell you wanna build,The only way to win TvP at this moment if you decide to go on a macro game(not talking about pro gamers) is to get an advantage in the midgame by sniping stuff and or denying expos via drops or multi prong aggression and work your ass off on getting good positions for the inevitable engagement..Hit your emps shutter step your ass off and hope that your economy is better and the next battle will begin with you at already a big advantage.There are some ppl out there who can succesfuly pull some thor banshee builds or even pure mech but i think its only suited on some maps and if you dont have the skills to micro your bio dont even think for a second that having the awereness to keep mech alive until its in the position it should be is a lesser job.Just my 2 cents!
|
On January 27 2012 07:28 RieuK wrote:
The problem with tech-switching for Ts is that since they invested so much into the rax for the bioball, they do not have the resources or the time to build factories to pump out hellions.
Also, 3/3/3 zealots against (most likely) 0/0 red flame hellions isn't great!
Completely true. It costs far less for the Protoss to tech switch to Chargelots because they should already have lots of Gateways. In addition to the cost, there's a significant delay; you need 60 seconds to build Factories, and 110 seconds to research Preigniter. This gives the Protoss a minimum of 110 seconds, assuming you switch the factories onto existing addons, before you can have Blueflame Hellions are on the field, and as much as 170 if the Terran lost their Factory scouting. The biggest problem, of course, is that while the Hellions will solve your Zeal/Archon Problem, the Protoss can immediately transition out, and produce Stalkers. While Hellions are great units to have in all matchups, mass hellion is not what you want to be stuck with against Stalker/Colossus.
Marines are a better answer, so long as you are 3/3; they do not excel vs. Chargelots, due to Zealot's base 1 armor, and because of their reliance on a high rate of fire, you're fairly screwed if behind on upgrades. They start to trade well, however, when their range kicks in in larger engagements. You need to have your Marauders in front, abusing their base armor against the zealots, and never, ever let the Zealots wrap around you. Kite back, get into an enclosed area, and let them do their work.
Really, the main issue many Terrans lategame vs. Chargelots is when you have massive engagements between your deathball armies. Oftentimes, the two destroy each other; EMPs rain down, Colossus burn off huge quantities of infantry, Storms kill everything, you know the drill. Unless Terran dominates their opponent, they're going to a very small army, or possibly no army. When a Protoss gets into the endgame, they should start spending lots of their excess minerals on Gateways. So, when the dust settles, they can immediately Warp-in 20 or so Chargelots from a forward pylon, Chronoboost as many gateways as they can, and use the swell of units and rapid reinforcement to overwhelm the Terran before they can get a critical mass of Bio together to defend.
|
Also, an upgrade disadvantage hurts marines very badly when fighting against zealots. Sure upgrades are always important, but against chargelots even more so. And I suppose kiting them out of the sentries' guardian shield is useful too. Trying to engage at a good spot can help a lot - In GSL you'll often see both T and P sitting on 200/200 just out of range of eachother poking back and forth, not engaging because neither wants to step in and fight at a bad position.
|
I dont get why terrans say chargelots are op. Im myself gm with protoss(main) and high master with terran(offrace). I find pvt lategame super easy for terran. For example i was playing against my high master protoss friend and watched replay and gave him some tips. In 200 vs 200 fight both had 3-3 upgrades and he had 35 chargelots. 10 seconds after the fight started he was down to 130 supply while i was down to 183. All of his chargelots died superfast to 10 ghosts, emps, marines etc.. and 3 colos died to 12 vikings before they could even shoot. I think if you have problems then its propably your bad positioning. And i think its much easier to position terran army than protoss army.
|
200/200 and only 3 colo? Where are the templar?
Sounds like he attacked into you, in an awful position. I don't know how you are GM if you can't immediately recognize that.
|
a stimmed marauder does more damage vs light than a blue flame hellion marauder also have more health more armor can be healed and it's upgrades stack with ghosts and marines.
|
The upgrades make this not good. Also, Hellions aren't nearly as good against Zealots as you might expect. They still take a long time to actually kill them and when Zealots are supported by either Storms or Colossi the Hellions will die super quickly.
|
On January 27 2012 10:01 architecture wrote:
200/200 and only 3 colo? Where are the templar?
Sounds like he attacked into you, in an awful position. I don't know how you are GM if you can't immediately recognize that.
He never said he only had 3 collosi, he only stated that 3 of x collosi went down before firing a shot. Never said anything about templars either so he might have had a few in his army. I don't know how why you BM him if you don't read properly.
OT: As a terran player myself I think as well that the hellion switch would be ineffective. This is due to reasons other people already mentioned (upgrades, building more factories etc). Also the problem with switching to mass marine (in my experience this is), is that storms just rip them apart. I know I can kite or EMP etc but somehow with the EMP radius reduction I feel like P has the upper hand with storm/feedback vs. EMP.
|
More marines, fewer marauders, more ghosts. Ghosts do more dps to light than hellions do. Ghosts can EMP, snipe, cloak and nuke. Ghosts come from the barracks, which will have tech labs if you go bio.
In summary, marines and ghosts.
|
Everytime I download a TvP replay, when I see the Terran win in the 200/200 battles, they EMP everything and are very Marine heavy. I dunno why most Terrans have so much Marauders late game. It seems incredibly useless vs mass Chargelots/Archons and they will never be able to touch the Colo.
|
On January 27 2012 10:11 Paulio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 10:01 architecture wrote:
200/200 and only 3 colo? Where are the templar?
Sounds like he attacked into you, in an awful position. I don't know how you are GM if you can't immediately recognize that. He never said he only had 3 collosi, he only stated that 3 of x collosi went down before firing a shot. Never said anything about templars either so he might have had a few in his army. I don't know how why you BM him if you don't read properly. OT: As a terran player myself I think as well that the hellion switch would be ineffective. This is due to reasons other people already mentioned (upgrades, building more factories etc). Also the problem with switchin to mass marine (in my experience this is), is that storms just rip them apart. I know I can kite or EMP etc but somehow with the EMP radius reduction I feel like P has the upper hand with storm/feedback vs. EMP.
What sort of awful positioning do you have to have to lose 3 Colo to 12 vikings.
First of all, 12 vikings does not even 1 shot a colo, so you would need to 2 shot colo. At firing rate of 2s, you are expecting upwards of 10-12s to do this.
What is this positioning that lets this happen?
If a "GM" player can't recognize this as a tremendous blunder, I don't know what else to say.
And the point about positioning. Both races are dependent on positioning. T will NOT win a straight up fight in the open. It has to abuse position to minimize surface area against zeals + minimize # of AOE. Similarly, P throwing units at a T wedged in somewhere is going to get shit on as zeals die without doing anything.
The fact is that chargelots are amazing. They, like cracklings, make it such that it's suicide to engage P/Z as T out in the open. The T army is simply not efficient enough to do that. Just like the P army is unable to engage Z without FF. But T wins by using proper positioning to reduce the straightup efficiency of the other armies by punishing melee heavy armies and picking off crucial support.
|
On January 27 2012 10:23 architecture wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 10:11 Paulio wrote:On January 27 2012 10:01 architecture wrote:
200/200 and only 3 colo? Where are the templar?
Sounds like he attacked into you, in an awful position. I don't know how you are GM if you can't immediately recognize that. He never said he only had 3 collosi, he only stated that 3 of x collosi went down before firing a shot. Never said anything about templars either so he might have had a few in his army. I don't know how why you BM him if you don't read properly. OT: As a terran player myself I think as well that the hellion switch would be ineffective. This is due to reasons other people already mentioned (upgrades, building more factories etc). Also the problem with switchin to mass marine (in my experience this is), is that storms just rip them apart. I know I can kite or EMP etc but somehow with the EMP radius reduction I feel like P has the upper hand with storm/feedback vs. EMP. What sort of awful positioning do you have to have to lose 3 Colo to 12 vikings. First of all, 12 vikings does not even 1 shot a colo, so you would need to 2 shot colo. At firing rate of 2s, you are expecting upwards of 10-12s to do this. What is this positioning that lets this happen? If a "GM" player can't recognize this as a tremendous blunder, I don't know what else to say. And the point about positioning. Both races are dependent on positioning. T will NOT win a straight up fight in the open. It has to abuse position to minimize surface area against zeals + minimize # of AOE. Similarly, P throwing units at a T wedged in somewhere is going to get shit on as zeals die without doing anything. The fact is that chargelots are amazing. They, like cracklings, make it such that it's suicide to engage P/Z as T out in the open. The T army is simply not efficient enough to do that. Just like the P army is unable to engage Z without FF. But T wins by using proper positioning to reduce the straightup efficiency of the other armies by punishing melee heavy armies and picking off crucial support.
Someone losing 3 collosi before firing a shot could be due to bad positioning, it might as well have been due to the vikings being in a great spot(like over a crevasse or something where the stalkers/archons can't hit them properly). I honestly dont know how many vikings it takes to 1shot a collosus, but i think 12 is just short of it (if the collosus has 3 armor and the vikings don't have attack upgrades).
Also, you are right about the positioning and that T will lose on open ground. But then again, the guy didn't say anything about the positioning of the armies in the fight he described. The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't just BM anyone without knowing many details. And this thread is about TvP late game and the suggested hellion transition to counter chargelots, which has been deemed as ineffective, and not about the comparison between chargelots and cracklings.
|
You just cannot switch into hellions if your initial infrastructure is for bio. The time for making all the factories + being way behind in upgrades just doesn't work. And hellion vs chargelot does not work the same as hellion vs speedlings. Hellions actually can't kill chargelots fast enough before the hellions die to anything else the toss might have (like colossi). Hell, BFH doesn't even hard counter chargelots (you do lose a bunch of your hellions) unless the toss derps into a choke.
The reason why chargelots are a problem in pvt is just like salehonasi said. While chargelots CAN be countered with mass marines, it's very easy for toss to tech switch between zealots/stalkers/Hts/archons, all which require different counters from terran that requires different addons and production facilities and upgrades (for example, going from marauders to hellions when you see chargelots means your mech upgrades are significantly behind), which means when a toss does a sudden tech switch lategame, terran cannot respond fast enough, especially when toss can warp them in immediately.
pvt in general is an awful mu, my vote for the most imbalanced in the game. earlygame terran is way too unpredictable, and unlike tvz where zergs can usually handle most early attacks with lings/blings/queens/spines before they can get their muta or infestors out (throw in roaches if he's heavy on hellions if you really want to, which is easy enough to spot), unupgraded zealots and stalkers are awful and sentries can only do so much, which means the tech route toss chooses has to blind counter whatever the terran did, because toss can't even scout what the terran is doing until observers (or hallucinated phoenix/real phoenix). And then if toss survives that shitfest, he just roflstomps terran to victory. I don't recall seing a pro level game where if the toss went into the lategame at even footing with the terran, he ended up losing. This is not good game design at all.
|
I'm just drawing analogies to illustrate how to think about the matchup. I think most people can recognize that you cant beat 150 lings on open ground. So why do people expect to beat chargelots on open ground.
12 is short without a single upgrade, since colo have 1 armor.
It's obvious that hellions don't work. Positioning is the solution.
|
I'm fairly certain that blue flame hellions aren't practically as good as marines in TvP vs chargelots (Perhaps battle mode version will  ).
What I do is get a lot of marines as well as ghost/medivac, and it comes down to EMP, as does late game TvP. But the problem is in super late game when the protoss gets Collosi in their composition which completely obliterate marines (alongside storm/archon damage).
Because of that I think that late game TvP requires Terran to have much more control of his army than the protoss to come out even remotely ahead (And even then he can't just attack move to end it in most cases because a warpin cycle should be enough to defend vs low health terran units ^_^). Basically the problem is that lower league players don't have that great bio control as top tier terran players which makes it very hard for them to come out ahead in 3/3 head on engagements (They actually get obliterated if they don't micro at all, obviously).
I think that it's possible to deal with chargelots with marine/ghost/medivac and a few vikings and marauders to tank but you have to know how to micro properly which most people don't. ^_^
|
Yeah I few people here have it right. I think a lot of terrans tend to get carried away in marauder making. The marines have insane dps, cost half supply so you can have double as many as marauders, and also that will allow for bigger arcs and ultimately less zealot surface area. Only downside is how vulnerable marines are too splash. But still a high marine count is needed vs tons of zealots
|
My thoughts on tvp late game.. (as in maxed both sides 3-3)
The problem with super late game tvp isnt just chargelots, its that terran has no good gas dump in tvp whereas protoss has ht/archon and collosus. That and mass chrono boosted WGs reinforcing way faster than terran can, and a near non existent defenders advantage compared to TvT and TvZ for T.
All of the terran units are already super mineral heavy so hellions don't really help. If protoss is only making chargelots obviously just mmm should beat that.
Maybe terrans should actually start taking scvs off gas after 3-3 is done or something, haven't really seen this at pro level yet but I don't see why not.
Even korean pro terran float tons of gas in late game tvp because ravens will just get feedbacked and have short range, siege tanks suck in tvp, thors are slow compared to hydras off creep and bcs without upgrades suck, they will also all have terrible upgrades compared to protoss if you were going bio. Mass Medivacs become more useless as the game goes on as Protoss attack damage actually scales throughout the game via archons and collosus gaining +2 / +3 damage per attack upgrade when they already do splash damage.
This creates a situation where terran will often be spending all his minerals but cannot seem to trade cost effectively / keep up with protoss after engagements because protoss can spend all his gas on ht/archon and collosus which are both great high dps splash gas dumps. The counter to HT/archon and collosus are Ghosts and vikings so terran builds them but unfortunately their mineral to gas ratios are 2:1, so back to the same problem not enough mins or not enough uses for gas.
A stock pile of gas for protoss can be used to instantly warp in mass ht into archon after a major battle(if you were going mass collosus before this is pretty much the most ridiculous instant tech switch in the game considering you only need a single templar archives to do this and terran has to have been building viking to counter, which will be relatively useless vs the archons). A stock pile of gas for terran is pretty much useless. Nukes have been attempted to be used in pro games but often just simply don't do enough damage to justify the cost considering how often the ghost dies and the nuke won't even go off making it a 300 mineral 200 gas loss.
I'm not saying the MU is imbalanced as a whole but rather explaining why terran should not typically win in lategame 200/200 situations where both sides are stock piling money because it's like terran can only effectively spend one resource compared to protoss having two available to him. The way to avoid this situation is playing well during your timings when bio is still really strong and protoss is still teching up / expanding and has not built up a bank. Using stim timing/ medivac timing / upgrade timings to do as much damage as you can before protoss has 3+ base up and running . Basically making the most of the period where your gas income is actually incredibly useful.
Unfortunately this creates a situation where games are likely determined long before they are over to any keen observer who notices the terran has not done significant damage during his timings due to either making a mistake or protoss just playing well. This often leads to a slow death for the terran where the protoss just turtles and the terran finds it impossible to engage but knows he has to as every second of gas and chrono boost/WG stock piling means less chance for him to win as the chronoboosted reinforcing warp ins will be too strong. It also makes the MU very boring imo.
It also makes the MU reliant on map balance.
If the third is hard to defend and drops are easily done (shakuras) then the macro game will favor T. If the third is easy to defend and the map has long rush distance and/or is hard to drop (cloud kingdom,entombed valley)the macro game favors P..
I also don't know why people have to insist that super lategame tvp is winnable even if protoss doesn't make a huge error. It's like insisting there's a way terran can win vs a zerg in late game that he let drone to 80 drones max hive army and full larvae stock before putting any pressure on if he just plays right. The difference between pressure in TvZ and TvP is tvp pressure almost completely revolves around protoss missing a forcefield which is map based and frustrating for both sides. Hopefully the MU improves in HOTS.
|
I feel people get marauders out of psychology. If you think about it, marauders are bigger and are basically mortars. If you asked me whether I would want a guy with a bazooka or three guys with rifles, I would actually pause and think about it.
Maurauders just need to be in the front of the army to absorb damage, so you only might need ten. They ar pretty resilient against zealots, but their actual attack does not counter them. Hellions have less hp than marauders, and actually do not do that much more damage. A good bio army will have row of marauders in the front and tons of marines. I have actually seen pros mix in five or six reapers which do plus damage to zealots (Reapers have 9 DPS, but marine with stim still better at 10DPS). They definitely are a viable option if you are creating mostly marines and they have the plus of not needing a stim to do a lot of damage (vs light)
|
I think one thing that should be considered is that most of us terran players have this mindset of having to be aggressive all game long to prevent Protoss from being able to get the perfect army composition they are aiming for. While I think this is a good way to approach the mid game trying to delay the third and fourth of Protoss or keeping the army count low while expanding. However when the game goes into late game and you don't have accumulated a big advantage that allows you to kill them maybe it's actually best to just play really passively and throw down PFs, turrets and sensor towers so that Protoss has to attack into you. This helps you to mitigate the problem of having a slower rate of reinforcement and waisting your mineral bank in army trades and maybe in such positions it's even possible to make ravens work as a defensive unit so that you can actually make use of the gas on your side of the map.
|
It's not practical to tech switch into hellions because your upgrades are already focused on bio. I like to include colossi in my first max, using archons/templar and zealots to defend initially while getting upgrades. 3/3 colossus archon zealot army would absolutely destroy 0/0 hellions and 3/3 marauders in basically every situation I can think of, especially considering how incredibly fast hellions die to colossi.
|
Nibbler brings up a good point, and I think terrans will eventually need to incorporate BCs to use up their gas. While it's true that unupgraded BCs vs 3/3 stalkers is going to suck, I think terrans should be upgrading air attack throughout the game since that does help vikings vs colossi, and even air armor helps a little with protecting your vikings and medivacs. Certainly you'll be short on minerals, but saving a few hundred minerals to get a head start on air ups should be easy and also uses up some stockpiled gas. So when you finally decide to get BCs, you might be at, say, 2/1 or so, which helps with catching up in upgrades. Another good thing about going BCs is that this forces more stalkers from the toss and less chargelots (also ideally you will want to scout if the toss happens to add void rays), and in a best case scenario you will get off your yamatos on colossi and archons. Also assuming you make scvs constantly, you will eventually get a surplus of scvs to bring for repair.
|
Well my thought was, you can tell if a Protoss is going for a heavy Chargelot based build around the time 1-1 is about to finish or just finished and can begin to transition from there and then begin to upgrade mech units.
I said late game TvP as the title as I hear a lot of Terrans complain about it but they're still going Marauder heavy, my point of this thread was to discuss the possibility of tech switching before that late game where 3-3 Zealots are on the field and you're still on MMMG
|
Depending on how light the toss is on stalkers, it becomes eerily similar to a mech-v-bio tvt, where your best option becomes a basetrade using medivac mobility. Works better if you're light on vikings because vikings can't hold 8 supply of MM and fly around.
Also worth noting is how easy it is to exploit the tendency to have a ball of chargelot/archon/colossus with a mass-drop style. Especially on maps where there are bases that you can bounce between with one on high ground and one on low ground (shakuras and TDA come to mind).
I know personally i'm going to rewatch friendsday wednesday with qxc because he likes drops and he's a pro-yay learning!:D
|
On January 27 2012 13:55 IMPrime wrote:
Nibbler brings up a good point, and I think terrans will eventually need to incorporate BCs to use up their gas. While it's true that unupgraded BCs vs 3/3 stalkers is going to suck, I think terrans should be upgrading air attack throughout the game since that does help vikings vs colossi, and even air armor helps a little with protecting your vikings and medivacs. Certainly you'll be short on minerals, but saving a few hundred minerals to get a head start on air ups should be easy and also uses up some stockpiled gas. So when you finally decide to get BCs, you might be at, say, 2/1 or so, which helps with catching up in upgrades. Another good thing about going BCs is that this forces more stalkers from the toss and less chargelots (also ideally you will want to scout if the toss happens to add void rays), and in a best case scenario you will get off your yamatos on colossi and archons. Also assuming you make scvs constantly, you will eventually get a surplus of scvs to bring for repair.
You're gonna need to keep track of bc energy or you might lose a bunch of life from feedback
|
It should be pretty blindly obvious why a terran can't just tech switch. They're so much infrastructure and buildings you will need to rebuild and rearrange. Terran while having many options is very limited when they choose one.
Nibbler brings up a good point, and I think terrans will eventually need to incorporate BCs to use up their gas. While it's true that unupgraded BCs vs 3/3 stalkers is going to suck, I think terrans should be upgrading air attack throughout the game since that does help vikings vs colossi, and even air armor helps a little with protecting your vikings and medivacs. Certainly you'll be short on minerals, but saving a few hundred minerals to get a head start on air ups should be easy and also uses up some stockpiled gas. So when you finally decide to get BCs, you might be at, say, 2/1 or so, which helps with catching up in upgrades. Another good thing about going BCs is that this forces more stalkers from the toss and less chargelots (also ideally you will want to scout if the toss happens to add void rays), and in a best case scenario you will get off your yamatos on colossi and archons. Also assuming you make scvs constantly, you will eventually get a surplus of scvs to bring for repair.
There is so many ways to lose because of a BC transition. Voidrays, Feedback, 3/3 blink stalkers will flat out shut that down. Not to mention your pooling necessary money into upgrades for a group of units that you are may or may not be using, which will be pretty detrimental to your production in the mid game. The mid game is pretty important for TvP, you need to set your self up in a good position so you wont get rolled over by late game Protoss.
I don't know, maybe in the future there will be some cute timing for a sudden BC transition, but unless you already have the starport+techlab ready to go it will be clumsy at best. I saw Jinro do a delayed 1/1/1 kind of push of 2 bases, it wasn't all in by any means, but it had your typical tank/raven/marine that you would expect from the all in. Perhaps something like that then push towards BC when your on 3 bases?
It just seems really odd, and gives Protoss a huge window of opportunity to take advantage from.
|
Not sure why we don't see more late-game reapers. They cost more than marines but:
- Their damage scales quite well with attack upgrades.
- They don't require stim to be fast moving so they drain less medivac energy.
- They are small so they have high DPS density.
- Frikking cliff jumping.
|
On January 27 2012 14:04 Kracen wrote:
Well my thought was, you can tell if a Protoss is going for a heavy Chargelot based build around the time 1-1 is about to finish or just finished and can begin to transition from there and then begin to upgrade mech units.
I said late game TvP as the title as I hear a lot of Terrans complain about it but they're still going Marauder heavy, my point of this thread was to discuss the possibility of tech switching before that late game where 3-3 Zealots are on the field and you're still on MMMG
There is no transitioning off of bio, just as there is transition off of gateway. How does that even make sense?
Even the most basic math would show you how ineffective mech is against P. Mech is only good against things that it can 1-2 shot (Z units and marines).
|
On January 27 2012 11:58 BroodKingEXE wrote:
I have actually seen pros mix in five or six reapers which do plus damage to zealots (Reapers have 9 DPS, but marine with stim still better at 10DPS). They definitely are a viable option if you are creating mostly marines and they have the plus of not needing a stim to do a lot of damage (vs light)
Just want to clarify the reaper dps thing
Reaper dps: 7.3 standard dps, vs light unit it gets +9.1 = 16.4 dps vs light unit
Marine dps without stim 7 with stim 10.5
So reapers kill "light" units (zealots) faster then marines with or without stim.
|
Marine dps is subtracted by default 1 armor on zeals.
Reaper dps is doubly subtracted by each point of armor on zeals.
Reapers are still good DPS for 1 food, but they take 45s to make. To put that into perspective, you can make only 2 reapers in 1:30s, but you can make 6 marines.
|
BC's are trash, unless you can get max of them (130/6 = 20+ BC) in one go. Having 2-4 BC floating around doesn't do anything, since they can't kill zeal for shit.
BC is a unit that, like the carrier, heavily needs to be changed. It is worthless in all 3 matchups:
1. TvZ, corruptors shit on it
2. TvT, raven is better use of gas, 1 PDD absorbs as much fire as a BC for only 2 food
3. TvP, all protoss units have base armor, doesn't kill anything.
|
When im 180/200 i have lots of techlab rax so i just make a buncha reapers and 33 reapers are sexy vs chargelots xD
|
I think as most people have already pointed out -- the investment into a big tech switch like this is huge both resources wise as well as time.
Great in theory, needs to be expanded on, and perhaps a little more depth on the practical side.
Im not sure myself either - but is their a way of viably and gently transitioning to more mech based against P?
|
What Nibbler89 said is the head of the problem.
Terran late game has nothing to spend their gas on that is useful against Protoss.
The resource change for Ghosts from 150/150 to 200/100 was a huge nerf and should be reverted,in fact I think they should change it back to 100/200 or 100/175 until HoTs.
The only possible counter I see against chargelots with Archons,is to go mass marines with very few maurauders for the slow effect,some medivacs and a crap ton of ghosts.And if the opponent is going heavy collosus then switch the gas spending to more vikings.You spam EMP on everything,thus making Archons die in 2shots and micro like a god to prevent storms,then marines kill everything with ease.
But even if you win the fight you can't push the protoss back because he is always 1cycle of units(2cycles when defending) ahead of a terran player due to the warp tech mechanism and the instant replenishment of the army.
It's an uphill battle for Terran,that has to win over and over battles meanwhile it only takes protoss to win or come even in one battle to win the entire game.
I find it poor design when a race autolosses if the game goes on beyong the 15min mark.
|
I used to regularly include hellions against zealot archon pre BFH nerf. Since then, they're pretty useless (even with equal upgrades) against even mass zealot.
|
I'd like to see replays of people naysaying the hellions vs zealots. Is suspect they aren't controlling them at all, and are simply allowing them to engage at the front and eat the zealot's damage.
There's two decent ways to control them with bio against a large number of zealots.
1. Keep the hellions behind a relatively small marine/marauder (Mostly marauder as long as you have enough hellions). Let the marauders eat the damage and slow the zealots while the hellions roast from the back.
2. Keep your units in a decent line and flank the zealot wall as it charges into your line. If you line up your hellion's properly, even orange hellions can roast packs of 4-5 zealots pretty quickly. This is something I don't see people do. Let the zealots engage, move your hellions up around your bio, to either side of the zealot wave and hit them across your line as they attack.
Obviously if colossi are involved, don't do it. Colossi just roast hellions too quickly.
|
On January 28 2012 02:38 Felnarion wrote:
I'd like to see replays of people naysaying the hellions vs zealots. Is suspect they aren't controlling them at all, and are simply allowing them to engage at the front and eat the zealot's damage.
There's two decent ways to control them with bio against a large number of zealots.
1. Keep the hellions behind a relatively small marine/marauder (Mostly marauder as long as you have enough hellions). Let the marauders eat the damage and slow the zealots while the hellions roast from the back.
2. Keep your units in a decent line and flank the zealot wall as it charges into your line. If you line up your hellion's properly, even orange hellions can roast packs of 4-5 zealots pretty quickly. This is something I don't see people do. Let the zealots engage, move your hellions up around your bio, to either side of the zealot wave and hit them across your line as they attack.
Obviously if colossi are involved, don't do it. Colossi just roast hellions too quickly.
if you could flank their army and create a nice concave with rauders tanking damage, you could win just as easily with mass marines due to positioning. this will be more cost effective as well since you won't have to build extra factories, add-ons and get upgrades to make hellions somewhat relevant in the battle.
furthermore, hellions require more micro to squeeze out the level of efficiency you need in the battle. if you get too focused on hellion micro, you may end up losing 1 or 2 cycles of army production while you trade off with the toss army.
you should post up a replay of your own if this strat is really that much more effective than mass marine, and maybe it will also show how to deal with a unit switch when toss decides to warp in stalkers instead
|
This thread, anyone?
It shows how Noblesse engaged a chargelot army, where he pulled his marines behind his marauders so they would stay alive instead of just a-moving and stutter stepping.
Let's just say that thread helped me a ton.
|
On January 28 2012 04:42 unix04 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 02:38 Felnarion wrote:
I'd like to see replays of people naysaying the hellions vs zealots. Is suspect they aren't controlling them at all, and are simply allowing them to engage at the front and eat the zealot's damage.
There's two decent ways to control them with bio against a large number of zealots.
1. Keep the hellions behind a relatively small marine/marauder (Mostly marauder as long as you have enough hellions). Let the marauders eat the damage and slow the zealots while the hellions roast from the back.
2. Keep your units in a decent line and flank the zealot wall as it charges into your line. If you line up your hellion's properly, even orange hellions can roast packs of 4-5 zealots pretty quickly. This is something I don't see people do. Let the zealots engage, move your hellions up around your bio, to either side of the zealot wave and hit them across your line as they attack.
Obviously if colossi are involved, don't do it. Colossi just roast hellions too quickly. if you could flank their army and create a nice concave with rauders tanking damage, you could win just as easily with mass marines due to positioning. this will be more cost effective as well since you won't have to build extra factories, add-ons and get upgrades to make hellions somewhat relevant in the battle. furthermore, hellions require more micro to squeeze out the level of efficiency you need in the battle. if you get too focused on hellion micro, you may end up losing 1 or 2 cycles of army production while you trade off with the toss army. you should post up a replay of your own if this strat is really that much more effective than mass marine, and maybe it will also show how to deal with a unit switch when toss decides to warp in stalkers instead
I play Protoss and Zerg, not Terran.
To your points: Yeah, the infrastructure required isn't good, but then, 99% of the time you already have a factory. A reactor on it, constantly producing hellions, can get a lot out, quickly. Multiple factories aren't necessary, I'm not suggesting a full Hellion/Marauder build, you still need your marines.
As to the required flank, the hellions are quicker than marines, have more health, and require fewer numbers to do what we're trying to do. I think a flank with 5-10 hellions is easily doable.
And to the APM requirement, we're trying to work out strategies, not playing to the lowest common denominator. If you don't have the APM or skill required to try something out, that doesn't make the strategy invalid.
|
Hellions aren't as good vs chargelots as the average player thinks.
|
This is the main problem for TvP as a whole and why you see so many Terran All-ins. More marines is the correct response unfortunately for all of us Protoss late game units shit on marines (HT's/Colossi/Archons). I recently have either being doing a two base stim timing or playing a marine-thor-tank-ghost style of play which feels really strong in the little time I've been playing it.
|
On January 28 2012 05:52 deathtrance wrote:This thread, anyone?It shows how Noblesse engaged a chargelot army, where he pulled his marines behind his marauders so they would stay alive instead of just a-moving and stutter stepping. Let's just say that thread helped me a ton.
That game is far from standard and over all a bad example of how to "TvP". Make marauders take damage instead of marine that great. Drop harassing a Protoss in 5 different spots for 5 minutes straight while up 50 supply when you can just walk in the front door and kill him is unnecessary and far from standard and is how you lose games that you're way ahead in.
|
Erm, he was up 50 supply because of the multiple drops. He started at maybe +20 supply which isn't exactly a crushing advantage.
|
On January 28 2012 06:09 Felnarion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 04:42 unix04 wrote:On January 28 2012 02:38 Felnarion wrote:
I'd like to see replays of people naysaying the hellions vs zealots. Is suspect they aren't controlling them at all, and are simply allowing them to engage at the front and eat the zealot's damage.
There's two decent ways to control them with bio against a large number of zealots.
1. Keep the hellions behind a relatively small marine/marauder (Mostly marauder as long as you have enough hellions). Let the marauders eat the damage and slow the zealots while the hellions roast from the back.
2. Keep your units in a decent line and flank the zealot wall as it charges into your line. If you line up your hellion's properly, even orange hellions can roast packs of 4-5 zealots pretty quickly. This is something I don't see people do. Let the zealots engage, move your hellions up around your bio, to either side of the zealot wave and hit them across your line as they attack.
Obviously if colossi are involved, don't do it. Colossi just roast hellions too quickly. if you could flank their army and create a nice concave with rauders tanking damage, you could win just as easily with mass marines due to positioning. this will be more cost effective as well since you won't have to build extra factories, add-ons and get upgrades to make hellions somewhat relevant in the battle. furthermore, hellions require more micro to squeeze out the level of efficiency you need in the battle. if you get too focused on hellion micro, you may end up losing 1 or 2 cycles of army production while you trade off with the toss army. you should post up a replay of your own if this strat is really that much more effective than mass marine, and maybe it will also show how to deal with a unit switch when toss decides to warp in stalkers instead I play Protoss and Zerg, not Terran. To your points: Yeah, the infrastructure required isn't good, but then, 99% of the time you already have a factory. A reactor on it, constantly producing hellions, can get a lot out, quickly. Multiple factories aren't necessary, I'm not suggesting a full Hellion/Marauder build, you still need your marines. As to the required flank, the hellions are quicker than marines, have more health, and require fewer numbers to do what we're trying to do. I think a flank with 5-10 hellions is easily doable. And to the APM requirement, we're trying to work out strategies, not playing to the lowest common denominator. If you don't have the APM or skill required to try something out, that doesn't make the strategy invalid.
i think if you try to flank when the engagement starts, the chargelots will just end up surrounding the hellions on the move unless you go really wide with your flank. generally the best option is to try to pick your engagements so your units are spread out just before the engagement in a good location. this is not to say hellions are not viable (or invalid as you point out), but this is to say that marines are probably the better choice if we're going to flank the protoss army and pick a favorable engagement. at that point, it's not so much the hellions but the formation that will win you the battle.
as for the APM requirement, i think it come's down to what is practical. a lot of strats are viable against chargelot armies, including hellions, but giving a strat that requires say, diamond level, micro/macro skill will probably be invalid to those in gold and below until they get better. it's not a knock on the strat itself, but what the available options are and what makes them better for the player.
|
Charglots will always have the advantage out in the open field, however you can use simcity and natural map chokes to enchance ur cost effectiveness alot. Think zerglings vs bio, same idea use chokes walls etc and the zealots will be pretty worthless.
Also against smaller numbers of zealots you can easily stutterstep, its just down to ur micro, think mass marine vs protoss sure u can kite them with stalkers but most player dont have that good micro, its the same idea here, tosses are just throwing zealots at you and hoping you are bad and can't micro, don't worry these player are killing there longterm improvement so just laugh it off and enjoy the micro practice.
|
Spreading out should not be done against heavy chargelot armies, you won't have the concentrated DPS to melt them. Spreading out is only against poorly composed armies with not enough cover for the colossi.
The decision is between clumping and kiting vs spreading out. Depends on the situation.
|
i dont get why terrans dont just double expo after they get first 2 medivacs, you keep protoss in their base while harassing/etc and haveing double their economy with mules, and if they go for 2 base timeing just put everything u have in medivacs and base race terran need to innovate imo and stop trying to be even with protoss cuz they will always lose
|
My 14 tanks and 20 hellions laugh in the face of any amount of zealots. MECH PRIDE.
|
late game tvp is so hard, you have to play literally 2x as good as them once they get a super economy 2 robos and like 15+ warpgates. Its barely possible but it can be done, hopefully blizzard does something about terran late game units soon
|
On January 28 2012 08:41 LeGendzErg wrote:
i dont get why terrans dont just double expo after they get first 2 medivacs, you keep protoss in their base while harassing/etc and haveing double their economy with mules, and if they go for 2 base timeing just put everything u have in medivacs and base race terran need to innovate imo and stop trying to be even with protoss cuz they will always lose
they scout your doing that and do a colossus timing and you die
|
Why don't protoss just tech switch to void rays when they see a lot of mech?
|
You have to engage in a choke point, but thats not always readily avaliable. You just have to stim and kite as best you can with an army that is bigger and hopefully better upgrades.
If we are talking late late late game where the terran can sacrafice scv and both players are at 3-3 I don't really think that there is a problem. however if its like 130 supply protoss army against 130 supply terran army terran needs to have good emp good kiting and can't engage as a ball, needs to be an arch.
|
On February 03 2012 04:17 cydial wrote:
Why don't protoss just tech switch to void rays when they see a lot of mech?
because voidrays take a long time to build and you need alot of money for the infrastructure to produce them 
mech doesn't work, toss air doesn't work vice versa.
people are just to lazy, to transition timely
|
I have a question, in super late game when your OC count gets high (infinite mules), why not pull 10-20 SCVs every engagement to tank for your units (e.g. 1/1/1 or marine all-ins)? They soak up damage quite well and additionally free up supply. Plus the marine DPS will just eat up zealots in the 5seconds you get
|
Protoss is imbalanced, like for real. Their upgrades works for all ground units = they can tech switch without problems. They have cheaper and faster upgrades + most units come from 2 production facilities (gateway and robo). A ball with colossus, chargelots, archons HTs and just any unit is impossible to break. Protoss is superior to terran in EVERY part late game, they just need to turtle and wait and the a-move. This needs a fix, now. PvT is a shitty matchup atm since this imbalance forces many terrans to 1-base...
|
On January 27 2012 10:05 tainted muffin wrote:
a stimmed marauder does more damage vs light than a blue flame hellion marauder also have more health more armor can be healed and it's upgrades stack with ghosts and marines.
But they don't have AOE. You don't fight 1 on 1 with units, so don't do math for 1 on 1 fights when talking about compositions.
When i meet a terran that adds BF hellions to his 200/200 composition i pray noone else will do this to me in the future, because of how silly chargelots are vs that. Melting in seconds and exposing rest of the army. Hellions are also cost efficient vs stalkers (talking about compositions).
|
On February 03 2012 05:55 Teoodorh wrote:
Protoss is imbalanced, like for real. Their upgrades works for all ground units = they can tech switch without problems. They have cheaper and faster upgrades + most units come from 2 production facilities (gateway and robo). A ball with colossus, chargelots, archons HTs and just any unit is impossible to break. Protoss is superior to terran in EVERY part late game, they just need to turtle and wait and the a-move. This needs a fix, now. PvT is a shitty matchup atm since this imbalance forces many terrans to 1-base...
You haven't been keeping up with the times? Fighting a protoss in a deathball is VERY difficult but also doable with some good positioning.
1) Drop like a madman! Snipe pylons, tech, probes, ANYTHING and then get out for free! Great way to at least force warpins or an army move into a less advantageous position. Comboed with a poke n prod at the front you could snipe some important tech or thin the gateway units without losing much. Drop enough and then they split their stalkers off to kill the drops pre-emptively and you can abuse so much supply not being a part of the main army.
2) Have three bio-balls running around and a detachment of ghosts. Once toss moves out get a 360 degree concave, snipe off the tech in back (collosus, I'm looking at you) and use your ghosts to emp the cluster of slow HTs not ready to be hit (hell use the snipe spell if you have the energy to EMP the gateway units too!)
3) Deny the third as long as possible, it is very easy to do in the midgame with mauraders, marines, and medivacs.
|
On February 03 2012 06:45 TG Manny wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 05:55 Teoodorh wrote:
Protoss is imbalanced, like for real. Their upgrades works for all ground units = they can tech switch without problems. They have cheaper and faster upgrades + most units come from 2 production facilities (gateway and robo). A ball with colossus, chargelots, archons HTs and just any unit is impossible to break. Protoss is superior to terran in EVERY part late game, they just need to turtle and wait and the a-move. This needs a fix, now. PvT is a shitty matchup atm since this imbalance forces many terrans to 1-base... You haven't been keeping up with the times? Fighting a protoss in a deathball is VERY difficult but also doable with some good positioning. 1) Drop like a madman! Snipe pylons, tech, probes, ANYTHING and then get out for free! Great way to at least force warpins or an army move into a less advantageous position. Comboed with a poke n prod at the front you could snipe some important tech or thin the gateway units without losing much. Drop enough and then they split their stalkers off to kill the drops pre-emptively and you can abuse so much supply not being a part of the main army. 2) Have three bio-balls running around and a detachment of ghosts. Once toss moves out get a 360 degree concave, snipe off the tech in back (collosus, I'm looking at you) and use your ghosts to emp the cluster of slow HTs not ready to be hit (hell use the snipe spell if you have the energy to EMP the gateway units too!) 3) Deny the third as long as possible, it is very easy to do in the midgame with mauraders, marines, and medivacs.
I agree with all this. As Protoss, when Terran lets me sit back and macro up to 3-4 bases, losing is pretty difficult. Some of the better Terran's I've played do stuff like drop in my main w/ a medevac or 2 and when I pull my army to deal with that, stim in with the rest of their army and then it forces me to micro on 2 fronts. Honestly, Terrans who don't drop baffle me as they are forgoing one of the biggest advantages that they get.
|
The biggest blatant question to me is: Tech switch to what exactly? With mauraders and open ground you can at least kite them if you have room, which also keeps you somewhat safe from storms.
Siege tanks? Then you can't kite, your tanks won't do enough damage to flat kill the chargelots unless you have a bunch of them, and then they get stormed on and when the protoss warps in a bunch of blink stalkers, you lose all your tanks (which is a lot worse than losing a bunch of bio)
Hellions? If you have enough of them, you're still either kiting them like they're marines and mauraders because they're squishy, or they're attacking something else while your hellions are trying to get an ideal angle to shoot from. If they get targeted they just evaporate.
Banshees? Maybe. If you can ghost snipe the templar in time to not get all your banshees stormed/feedback and/or get his observer, you can get all the zealots and if you have enough other stuff still the stalkers shouldn't be too scary. I think this is why we're seeing more heavy marine banshee thor mixes lately.
moar ghosts!(?) Super expensive. If you can afford that many ghosts you can just snipe and lol your way through chargelots, and if you mix in mauraders theoretically you should be fine against most gateway forces, and templar shouldn't scare you. However....that's a ton of money in ghosts.
-
To me the matchup is just kind of in a wonky development stage where it all looks bad. You either have to go with the theory that the game is badly designed, or the game that's only starting it's second year isn't that that developed for either race, and that matchup really really isnt yet, as it's only NOW really starting to come up fairly often at a high level as the protoss have started to really catch up.
|
On February 03 2012 07:03 mahi29 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 06:45 TG Manny wrote:On February 03 2012 05:55 Teoodorh wrote:
Protoss is imbalanced, like for real. Their upgrades works for all ground units = they can tech switch without problems. They have cheaper and faster upgrades + most units come from 2 production facilities (gateway and robo). A ball with colossus, chargelots, archons HTs and just any unit is impossible to break. Protoss is superior to terran in EVERY part late game, they just need to turtle and wait and the a-move. This needs a fix, now. PvT is a shitty matchup atm since this imbalance forces many terrans to 1-base... You haven't been keeping up with the times? Fighting a protoss in a deathball is VERY difficult but also doable with some good positioning. 1) Drop like a madman! Snipe pylons, tech, probes, ANYTHING and then get out for free! Great way to at least force warpins or an army move into a less advantageous position. Comboed with a poke n prod at the front you could snipe some important tech or thin the gateway units without losing much. Drop enough and then they split their stalkers off to kill the drops pre-emptively and you can abuse so much supply not being a part of the main army. 2) Have three bio-balls running around and a detachment of ghosts. Once toss moves out get a 360 degree concave, snipe off the tech in back (collosus, I'm looking at you) and use your ghosts to emp the cluster of slow HTs not ready to be hit (hell use the snipe spell if you have the energy to EMP the gateway units too!) 3) Deny the third as long as possible, it is very easy to do in the midgame with mauraders, marines, and medivacs. I agree with all this. As Protoss, when Terran lets me sit back and macro up to 3-4 bases, losing is pretty difficult. Some of the better Terran's I've played do stuff like drop in my main w/ a medevac or 2 and when I pull my army to deal with that, stim in with the rest of their army and then it forces me to micro on 2 fronts. Honestly, Terrans who don't drop baffle me as they are forgoing one of the biggest advantages that they get.
Why does it baffle you? It requires very good multitask for T to pull that off, since T has to micro on 2 fronts aswell obviously. Plus most Tosses keep stalkers near their base to prevent drops, atleast in diamond level where I play.
|
On February 03 2012 07:47 cellblock wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 07:03 mahi29 wrote:On February 03 2012 06:45 TG Manny wrote:On February 03 2012 05:55 Teoodorh wrote:
Protoss is imbalanced, like for real. Their upgrades works for all ground units = they can tech switch without problems. They have cheaper and faster upgrades + most units come from 2 production facilities (gateway and robo). A ball with colossus, chargelots, archons HTs and just any unit is impossible to break. Protoss is superior to terran in EVERY part late game, they just need to turtle and wait and the a-move. This needs a fix, now. PvT is a shitty matchup atm since this imbalance forces many terrans to 1-base... You haven't been keeping up with the times? Fighting a protoss in a deathball is VERY difficult but also doable with some good positioning. 1) Drop like a madman! Snipe pylons, tech, probes, ANYTHING and then get out for free! Great way to at least force warpins or an army move into a less advantageous position. Comboed with a poke n prod at the front you could snipe some important tech or thin the gateway units without losing much. Drop enough and then they split their stalkers off to kill the drops pre-emptively and you can abuse so much supply not being a part of the main army. 2) Have three bio-balls running around and a detachment of ghosts. Once toss moves out get a 360 degree concave, snipe off the tech in back (collosus, I'm looking at you) and use your ghosts to emp the cluster of slow HTs not ready to be hit (hell use the snipe spell if you have the energy to EMP the gateway units too!) 3) Deny the third as long as possible, it is very easy to do in the midgame with mauraders, marines, and medivacs. I agree with all this. As Protoss, when Terran lets me sit back and macro up to 3-4 bases, losing is pretty difficult. Some of the better Terran's I've played do stuff like drop in my main w/ a medevac or 2 and when I pull my army to deal with that, stim in with the rest of their army and then it forces me to micro on 2 fronts. Honestly, Terrans who don't drop baffle me as they are forgoing one of the biggest advantages that they get. Why does it baffle you? It requires very good multitask for T to pull that off, since T has to micro on 2 fronts aswell obviously. Plus most Tosses keep stalkers near their base to prevent drops, atleast in diamond level where I play.
Good Protosses won't allow for insane damage-dealing drops w/ good vision and stalkers. And I understand that dropping is APM-taxing. But sometimes I play Terrans who don't even attempt to drop at all. I can't see a reason as to not do that. If your drop is repelled by you seeing a few stalkers at the edge waiting, no loss right, but still Terran has to try it right?
|
On January 27 2012 08:36 salehonasi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 07:28 RieuK wrote:
The problem with tech-switching for Ts is that since they invested so much into the rax for the bioball, they do not have the resources or the time to build factories to pump out hellions.
Also, 3/3/3 zealots against (most likely) 0/0 red flame hellions isn't great! Completely true. It costs far less for the Protoss to tech switch to Chargelots because they should already have lots of Gateways. In addition to the cost, there's a significant delay; you need 60 seconds to build Factories, and 110 seconds to research Preigniter. This gives the Protoss a minimum of 110 seconds, assuming you switch the factories onto existing addons, before you can have Blueflame Hellions are on the field, and as much as 170 if the Terran lost their Factory scouting. The biggest problem, of course, is that while the Hellions will solve your Zeal/Archon Problem, the Protoss can immediately transition out, and produce Stalkers. While Hellions are great units to have in all matchups, mass hellion is not what you want to be stuck with against Stalker/Colossus. Marines are a better answer, so long as you are 3/3; they do not excel vs. Chargelots, due to Zealot's base 1 armor, and because of their reliance on a high rate of fire, you're fairly screwed if behind on upgrades. They start to trade well, however, when their range kicks in in larger engagements. You need to have your Marauders in front, abusing their base armor against the zealots, and never, ever let the Zealots wrap around you. Kite back, get into an enclosed area, and let them do their work. Really, the main issue many Terrans lategame vs. Chargelots is when you have massive engagements between your deathball armies. Oftentimes, the two destroy each other; EMPs rain down, Colossus burn off huge quantities of infantry, Storms kill everything, you know the drill. Unless Terran dominates their opponent, they're going to a very small army, or possibly no army. When a Protoss gets into the endgame, they should start spending lots of their excess minerals on Gateways. So, when the dust settles, they can immediately Warp-in 20 or so Chargelots from a forward pylon, Chronoboost as many gateways as they can, and use the swell of units and rapid reinforcement to overwhelm the Terran before they can get a critical mass of Bio together to defend.
Definately agree.
Terrans best choice is going marine-heavy to be honest, with enough ghosts to emp everything, and most crucially the HT's. Which is quite hard though since one well-placed storm ends everything and you gotta also split due to collosus and micro and kite chargelots.
|
OP, tech switching to bfh requires 2 additional factories, blue flame upgrade, and vehicle upgrades to be effective. It takes too long. Switching to mass chargelots, on the other hand, is pretty simple. Research charge and you can start warping in zealots. I mean, sure it may be effective if terran did it in advance, but then again, if protoss scouts that they wouldnt make the chargelots, and you cannot really hide 2 more factories from the observers. I think there are definitely compositions that would work better than the status quo we are seeing in TvP, but they are difficult to switch to for terran and hence T has to stick with and enhance the core unit composition they have in the midgane - MMM.
|
On February 03 2012 07:03 mahi29 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 06:45 TG Manny wrote:On February 03 2012 05:55 Teoodorh wrote:
Protoss is imbalanced, like for real. Their upgrades works for all ground units = they can tech switch without problems. They have cheaper and faster upgrades + most units come from 2 production facilities (gateway and robo). A ball with colossus, chargelots, archons HTs and just any unit is impossible to break. Protoss is superior to terran in EVERY part late game, they just need to turtle and wait and the a-move. This needs a fix, now. PvT is a shitty matchup atm since this imbalance forces many terrans to 1-base... You haven't been keeping up with the times? Fighting a protoss in a deathball is VERY difficult but also doable with some good positioning. 1) Drop like a madman! Snipe pylons, tech, probes, ANYTHING and then get out for free! Great way to at least force warpins or an army move into a less advantageous position. Comboed with a poke n prod at the front you could snipe some important tech or thin the gateway units without losing much. Drop enough and then they split their stalkers off to kill the drops pre-emptively and you can abuse so much supply not being a part of the main army. 2) Have three bio-balls running around and a detachment of ghosts. Once toss moves out get a 360 degree concave, snipe off the tech in back (collosus, I'm looking at you) and use your ghosts to emp the cluster of slow HTs not ready to be hit (hell use the snipe spell if you have the energy to EMP the gateway units too!) 3) Deny the third as long as possible, it is very easy to do in the midgame with mauraders, marines, and medivacs. I agree with all this. As Protoss, when Terran lets me sit back and macro up to 3-4 bases, losing is pretty difficult. Some of the better Terran's I've played do stuff like drop in my main w/ a medevac or 2 and when I pull my army to deal with that, stim in with the rest of their army and then it forces me to micro on 2 fronts. Honestly, Terrans who don't drop baffle me as they are forgoing one of the biggest advantages that they get.
Sometimes if Terran goes for a 4 rax instead of a 3 rax, they lose the timing window were drops can do a lot of damage in return for a strong midgame timing attack. They will not drop you before the 11 minute mark, and later drops are situational only. It all depends on the style terran has chosen; a stronger timing with a 4 rax, or a harass based 3 rax play. Drops can be good in TvP, but they can also set you behind if you are not careful or unlucky; but they are not essential in anyway if you go for different builds.
|
OMG if you just watched EmpireHappy v CreatorPrime on IPL TAC 2, mass ghosts completely shatters late game chargelots. He has more ghosts than marine/marauder (with vikings for colossi) and they are just so so strong. OMG ANOTHER ENGAGEMENT LOL GHOSTS SO STRONG.
He even tried switching into stalkers and colossi and as long as you have vikings for colossi, ghosts dominate.
|
I am starting to dislike vikings. Sure they have great range and do good damage, but they suck so bad after the collosus are dead. If toss has lots of collosus you need so much supply worth of vikings that your bio army gets owned by zealots anyway. I also hate how my vikings die super fast whenever I fight because I'm too busy trying to kite the zealots with my marauders. It seems like you need such a huge number of vikings so they can just power down the collosus before they all die. Vikings also die really fast against +3 stalkers. Maybe I would like vikings more if I could kite them against the collosus while kiting the zealots with marauders, but I just don't have the apm to do that.
I am trying to use banshees and BCs now. I get enough vikings to stay safe from early collosus then once I have 3 bases I throw down 2 more starports and switch into marauder/banshee/ghost/medivac. If I can afford it I go for 3 starport BCs, but it's hard to do in any but the most passive games. I like getting ship weapon upgrades for vikings so banshees will come out with good upgrades. +2 or +3 banshees do an absurd amount of damage to ground.
I like banshees a lot more than vikings because banshees clear out the zealots pretty quickly so the marauders can wipe the floor with everything else. Sniping the observer and cloaking is cool.
Banshees give the toss the following options
1) Make stalkers which get owned by marauders
2) Make phoenixes. I don't know how this would work out as I have yet to face it.
3) Mass HT for storm/feedback. It's easy to EMP your own banshees to nullify feedback. This forces the toss to have nice HT control against your ghosts or the banshees will destroy everything.
4) Lots of archons. Only useful if the banshees are stacked.
5) Voidrays. Not great against banshees and get owned by marines
6) Carriers. Lol...
The one thing the toss can't do against banshees is remax on pure chargelot/HT/archon as is very common these days.
I used to spend all my excess gas on ghosts, but having 15 ghosts wasn't working too well (maybe sniping zealots could work? 4 snipes to kill a zealot isn't bad). I think spending extra gas on banshees has potential. I'm going to keep trying to use them late game TvP and see what happens.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
