[G] Playing Mech in TvZ - No more banelings. - Page 2

On February 05 2012 01:00 Mobius_1 wrote:
Wow really useful guide. Thank you so much. I've recently started meching TvT because I felt like it but always felt unsure about TvZ mech because Mutalisks

A feature I'd like to see is a quick breakdown of the map pool and which ones are most suitable for this build and which ones are not good for it? Alternatively what caveats one should be aware of on which maps when playing this style?

Oh and that Zerg crazy wall on Metalopolis has to be one of the greatest pictures in SC2 Strategy.

On February 05 2012 01:15 Jarree wrote:
Awesome guide. However I'm a bit concerned about the lategame without ghosts. I think zerg can outnumber and overpower vikings with corruptors even without infestors (yes, thors help but let's say for the sake of argument that infestors and thors balance each other out). Is the lack of ghosts because you don't have the infrastructure to build them or 0-0 upgrades or just simply you think they are not needed because vikings do the job?

edit: and if someone could specify which replay, if any, has that late game situation i'd be grateful

On February 05 2012 01:48 Huggerz wrote:
Hmm I really much prefer starport after 2 factories, having a raven to clear creep constantly with a banshee or hellions is imba and makes burrow a non-issue. Banshees are great in general unless he goes balls out on mutas. I have seen virtually no Zergs (who bother to scout) just die to hellions at 9 minutes but I suppose it can work if they don't wall off much at all. I would nearly always prefer an elevator play or just drop 4 though.

Perhaps you could discuss big late game air transition (still maintaining tanks to kill infestors) - viking, raven, battlecruiser? I don't think there's a stronger way to end the game with mech against Zerg

On February 05 2012 01:50 Noocta wrote:
Since you seems like a solid meching player, what do you think of the idea of adding Ravens latter into the game to help Mech vs BLs ?
It's not something we saw a lot, but DemusliM did it against Ret during some practice games, and MorroW did it too. Hunter seeker is actually a very good spell againsts Broodlords, and they offer a nice harassement possibility later into the game where you don't make hellions anymore.

I'm just unsure of how to transition to them. But unlike Ghost, you don't need to have a lot of structure nor a lot of upgrades to make them work.

On February 05 2012 01:57 EndOfLine wrote:
Love the guide.

As a zerg player, why did you add to your title: No more banelings?

You mean no more in the mid game, or because you are very good vs the baneling bust?

On February 05 2012 02:34 EndOfLine wrote:


I would not do it with thors. Perhaps helions or kill mass drones.

Why not thors?
Because a few gaggle of roaches will kill your thors without any thor support.
Plus, you want to keep your max deathball push as strong as possible.

On February 05 2012 04:59 DoctorFunk wrote:
Although it deviates a bit from the principles of mech, I believe that it is never a bad idea to have your initial rax reactored at some point while securing your natural. I've lost so many thors and tanks before to straight muta, just because they magic boxed the thors, then went to town on the tanks. Mutas can be a huge pain in the midgame. It can never hurt to have a few extra marines. You can stick them in bunkers, bring them with your army, whatever. They're free anyways.

On February 05 2012 05:03 AvengerAzrael wrote:
I was going to point out what DoctorFunk said. The only thing which discourged me from using Mech is that in very high Muta counts and magic boxed, they absolutely wreck Thors. One of the modifications I've been working on is to use Marine/Tank/Thor and a few hellions with attack upgrades only. How effective is this compared to Mech keeping in mind the mass muta count?

On February 05 2012 05:16 Umpteen wrote:
The only thing I'm going to complain about is calling zerg aggression at 8:45 'cheese'. From a terran, that's just taking the piss. Other than that, it's a well presented guide

On February 05 2012 06:20 Jarree wrote:
Thanks for the answer! I personally have A) as my problem, I just thought it was because i'm not good enough . It's so much easier just adding starports and pumping vikings.

I watched your late game replay but it didn't quite answer my questions. Your opponent had zero corruptors supporting his broodlords, only a couple of infestors. Instead he just kept massing 2-1 roaches against your 2-2 tanks and it was a massacre. I have lost with mech against total air switch pure bl/corruptor, with couple of infestors as backup. It just feels really hard to beat without ghosts.

Great guide anyway, well done.

On February 05 2012 05:33 MockHamill wrote:
Good guide but I find that mass roaches makes mech play impossible. Roaches cost so little gas that it is impossible to get enough tanks to counter the roaches mid-game. Try counter 1500 gas worth of roaches with 1500 gas worth of mech. It simply does not work.

Mech works great though against player that do not know that they should go pure roaches or if the Zerg is passive and let you mass up to 150-200 pop.

On February 05 2012 05:37 Aristotle7 wrote:
Regarding Mutas:

Just rush +2 thor attack, and mutas are no longer a problem. Also as you move out, start adding turrets around yourself - it adds detection, gets roaches stuck attacking turrets instead of tanks, and helps a ton versus muta switches, and gives you SCVs to repair your mech at the same time.

Don't forget SCVs are the mech, too!

On February 05 2012 05:41 hyptonic wrote:
What do you do vs doom drops?

On February 05 2012 06:16 Otarku wrote:
As a former Terran player who made it to Masters on nothing but builds like these, I just want to note a few things that I feel weren't discussed enough in this guide.

First of all, I have no serious quarrel with this build in general. It's not a bad build, but I do believe it's inferior to a lot of other Mech builds. With that said, as someone who has been playing nothing but Mech TvZ for the past year and a half I also believe that Mech in general is extremely inferior to the standard Marine/Tank. Here's why:

Mech builds, especially ones like this, rely heavily on killing a large number of drones during the early-mid game. The fact of the matter is, if you don't kill at least a few drones you're almost guaranteed to lose the game. In order to ensure that you do in fact damage their economy you have to deny any and all scouting. If you deny the scouts, you probably win. But this creates a serious problem when all the Zerg player has to do to figure your build out in its entirety is suicide an overlord into your base. If the overlord sees two or more factories, he knows what's coming, and your hellion attack is not likely to do very much damage, thus losing you the game. The writer of this guide did mention to position marines around your base to deny this. This will kill the overlord, but rarely before it sees everything it wants to know.

I mentioned before that I thought this build was inferior to other Mech builds. I only feel this way because of the massive amount of hellions that are made compared to the 4-6 that I feel are necessary. More hellions makes you more vulnerable. Aside from that the mid-late game for this build and most other Mech builds are identical.

I also mentioned that I feel Mech in general is inferior to more standard Terran play. I would definitely recommend this build to anyone below Masters, but after a certain skill level all Zergs know how to exploit the weaknesses in Mech builds and the success rate for such builds drops significantly. Standard TvZ builds don't have this problem because they have fewer weaknesses to exploit. In other words, while Mech has a hard counter: fast roaches/black box mutas/ect. Standard is generally decent against all build orders. This applies to all races and matchups.

My final point isn't really about how to play Mech, but about Starcraft 2 in general. If you care about winning, Mech is the build for you. But if you care about improving, Mech will not help you at all. Mech is as close to an a-move and win scenario as is possible in SC2. Obviously it's not just a-move and win, but my point is it requires drastically less skill to execute and enforces bad habits that you could be improving on were you to play standard.

That's all I have to say really. All in all, great job on the guide LemonyTang.

tl;dr: Mech is a good build, but it has some very serious weaknesses that make it work less and less as you move up the ladder. Mech makes you win, but it doesn't make you a better player.