EPT[G] Playing Mech in TvZ - No more banelings. - Page 4
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phzbox
Cape Verde38 Posts
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EndOfLineTv
United States741 Posts
However, dont try to take away my banelings!!! MINE! | ||
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awakenx
United States341 Posts
Trying this build out later, thanks for the nice guide :D. Time to watch replays like an addict. | ||
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NewbieOne
Poland560 Posts
On February 05 2012 18:26 Angel_ wrote: When I stick on Thor/Hellion for too long with ZERO siege tanks, eventually the zerg makes a bunch of infestors and lings and just kills me. Maybe I'm just doing something horribly wrong though. It's doable in terms of unit composition but may need you to lose a couple of games before you get a comfortable sense of micromanagement required at your level. I find that hellion thor is not necessarily the best when fully maxed, it's great around 150 supply or so and viable even earlier, depending on what your opponent has. In my experience pushing from time to time to fry some zerglings and generally keep zerg occupied near his base is a good idea, just being careful not to lose things. But there's no reason not to be attacking or at least operating near his base if the zerg isn't either clearly in the lead or clearly unaware of what composition you're planning to stick with. BTW, infestors are a pain in the side for armies that have too many thors relative to hellions. The biggest problem here is messing your unit AI etc., I think. I find that if I have generally more units, even weaker ones, it's easier to hold off infestors than if I have a big supply army of only thors (this was true when infestors had range 9 for parasite anyway). | ||
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LemonyTang
United Kingdom428 Posts
For me, pure Thor/Hellion is risky. It's all right to remax on that after the zerg has thrown away a lot of resources and has no bank left, but you're in too much danger of being overran by mass roaches, zerglings or even ultras so I like to keep a healthy mix constantly. Without tanks as well, infested terrans are massively stronger because you don't have any splash damage. Phzbox, your build would do well against mine for sure, however the way I play out my games is so passive and long winded that even if zerg gets a massive economy lead, I feel just fine waiting the game out until I can even it up and establish my defences perfectly. At the end of the day, you're going to mine out quicker than I if you do that, so I'm going to have a healthy economy for longer. That's how I see it anyway, though I do not disagree that that's the one of the best ways of tackling a purely defensive terran. If you can shut down the harass, you're in a great position. Mutas are troublesome to deal with, but with proper turret spread and if you take the game slower, making sure you don't over extend, they aren't that bad a problem. | ||
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kill619
United States212 Posts
On February 05 2012 08:54 phzbox wrote: As a zerg, here's my way to counter the mech build. 1. I 10 drone scout a T so I can get in before both supply are built. 2. And if I see reactor hellion opening, I get *really* fast 3-4 roaches. The point here is to help spreading creep, kill early hellions and most importantly, force the T to stay on 1 base OR force him to build marauder and bunker (while I get my third). I also upgrade +1 attacks really fast. 3. Once I've got my third roughly saturated, I build a good amount of speed roach +1/+1 to control the middle of the map, but also to force the T to play extremely defensive. Following the guide, this is somewhat where the T's got 4 thors and start to get tanks as they see I'm going mass roaches. 4. At this point, I like to make my fourth (even fifth) as it's only for the gaz, but most importantly, to attack the T. Obviously, it's not an efficient attack. BUT, you will kill a couple of thors and tanks. In that scenario, a T can't go out and attack you as they know you can instant remax in roaches/lings and dominate you in the center of the map. Plus, if the T correctly spreaded his tanks, it's risky to unsiege all of them for an attack as they the z can start to drop, etc. 5. For these reasons, while I attack/suicide the roaches, I get infestors, spire and mass sunken in the middle of the map. At this point, I need to see how the T handle the situation. If he chose to go all-in because I've attacked with roaches, I just get 200/200 of roaches (which are 2/2)/infestors/lings and sunken and crush him. If he switches to lots of tanks, I delay t3/infestors and opt for a big muta switch, but not too much. The goal here is to make him get thors again and mass turret. Sometime versus weaker players you'll win right there. Lastly, if after your roach attack he continued to mass thors, I like to get a mid-size roach army with infestors and fast tech to broodlord. Also, this would be the only time I'd consider to drop as siege tank really demolished roach drop. But if he's only massing hellion/thors, you want to drop roaches and suicide a bit everywhere to delay their "big push". 6. So, while delaying the big push, I tech to roaches/infestors/broodlord/sunken. It's important to keep the T on three bases. At this point, it's really about waiting and playing safe. I really get a lot of sunken (as I have too much $ and drones anyway). As pointed earlier, you want to keep roach in your army. Those are useful to fungal ghosts and kill them, or tank while broodlord kills everything. Vs a high count of thors/vicking, I like to switch back to mass roaches / infestors. TL;DR: My way of dealing with mech: early roach, drone like a madman and delay his big push by attacking/suiciding roaches. If they decide to hit sooner, mass roaches/infestors. If they get mass tank, switch to muta is great (but not too much muta, just enough to force them to remake thors/turrets). And if mass thors, mid roaches army / drops while teching to brood and getting lots of sunken. Lastly, I'd say that borrow is incredibly useful vs hellions harass as *spore*.. A couple of spores near expansion often kill hellion drop or force them to take a longer route which give you time to bring 1-2 infestor and roaches. I'd love to know the weakness of this build. Here's what I mostly lost to: Getting early roaches to counter the mech, but somewhat losing to a marauder/hellion/scv all-in. (Bad scout from me). Really fast banshee. Fast hellion drop in main while other hellion get in expansion. And.. stupid mistakes letting mass hellion killing drones. i would say some of this seems to rely on your opponent not meching properly. things like drops (which should almost never do any amount of damage to the main of a good meching player past 2 bases into the game), or your opponent not having a good balance of thors to tanks are stuff that will work against people who make mistakes in their meching(tho ill admit iv been beatin by lots of zergs cause over produce tanks over thors, not enough hellion harras etc.) everything else sounds pretty good tho with all the roach attacks in as many places at once to buy time for t3 and burrowed roaches should defiantly be used more vs mech, at least until terrans start to realize that ravens are useful. | ||
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U_G_L_Y
United States516 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On February 05 2012 23:22 phzbox wrote: Yoshi Kirishima: I understand what you mean. This is my counter to the OP mech strategy. Versus banshee or marauder/hellion all-in, I obviously need to adjust accordingly. The cool thing about being aggressive with roaches is you see really fast if your opponent is commit-ed to really fast banshee. Ah, ok, you meant this particular one. Well then, I don't think you accounted for the possibility of him building his CC in base, and bunkering at the ramp to stop your 3-4 roaches, and get cloak banshees and delay moving out so you can surprise zerg. Terran's CC won't be in his nat yet, sure, but he doesn't need his gas that fast (if he's taking his third fast instead of getting 3 fact fast) and he'll still be able to MULE his main, meanwhile he can deny your third unless you got lots of queens already to spread creep fast (depends on map ofc, some maps are harder to spread creep to). If not, then he can still use the banshees and hellions to control the map. If a player doesn't follow the guide and sticks with Thors and banshees and Hellions, he'll be safe against both mutas and roaches. I know you said following the guide, but I don't agree with the guide, and this is a weak point. If a player responds properly, you won't be able to throw zerg units at the terran, while taking your fourth and fifth, while getting spire. He'll sit behind a wall and keep repairing his units. After a couple upgrades he can move out with 20 or so SCVs and kill you once he sees you're getting either spire or taking your fourth/fifth. Again, behind a wall your zerg aggression won't do much. And for #4, I don't believe that you will be able to re-max (a big army you mean, not 200/200 right?). At that point in the game he should be able to move out with 4 thors, hellions, banshees, and just kill you. Again I know now you are addressing the guide in general, but just wanted to point out the OP's guide has holes in it. On February 06 2012 04:43 U_G_L_Y wrote: Why don't people (who are better than me) go gas first when doing a hellion opener? Your expansion is delayed because of the delayed rax and therefore, slower OC. | ||
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Fealthas
607 Posts
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Easytouch1500
United States66 Posts
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DustinQQ
United States69 Posts
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/507/67881180.png/ With the hellion pushes, I killed around ~15 of his drones. I scouted roach warren and a lot of roaches so I was prepared for a roach bust, preparing for burrow play + more. What I didn't account for was 29 roaches dropping into my main. ;/ I don't think there was anyway for me to deal with it. I'd just like to know what you would do in that situation. I don't have the replay anymore as it was at a LAN and I was too stupid to bring a external harddrive. ;/ | ||
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dschneid
United States101 Posts
1. Immobility This was stated above. Mech is extremely immobile and can be exploited with drop, burrow, and/or nydus play. While it is not impossible to handle drops, I feel these are a huge pain in the ass and make it really difficult to push out. Moreover, drop play is very difficult if not impossible to stop, it can only be handled, and that is not something to be taken lightly. Thors and turrets do not take down overlords very fast at all. Sure, you can put up a few and a sensor tower and hope that that deters them, but it is no guarantee. It is difficult to seige and unseige all the tanks, move them through ur narrow ramp choke, and get them into position, without being vulnerable somewhere else. 2. Dependence on counters While marines are basically good against everything, Mech is strongly dependent on counters. Hellions fight zerglings, Tanks roaches and infestors, thors mutas. If you're lacking in any of the above areas you can get rolled. How many times have you had two thors get cleaned up by a few zerglings because you were low on hellions? Or lost 9 tanks because you didn't have the anti air to defend mutas? This makes the mech army inherently fragile despite it's power, because such a balance is required. 3. Lack of anti air Mech just has crappy anti air. For the majority of the game Thors are your only recourse, and then vikings come into play. Again, as I stated above, this makes it difficult to deny overlords, or deal with mutas IF you don't have adequate Thors, esp with magic box. Above all Thors don't do much against BLs. To reiterate the above, this makes it hard to deny scouting, drop play, or simply those overlords that are pooping creep on all ur bases. 4. Need for gas and crappy mineral sink Mech + upgrades, which are very necessary, both air and ground, is very very gas intensive. Even on three base I struggle to get all the gas I want to build my army and upgrades, and because taking too many bases too early spreads you particularly thin with Mech, it can be difficult to get all of the gas you need. Furthermore, I feel hellions are generally a crappy mineral sink (unlike marines), as they are effective early game and OK mid game, but are generally poor against most of zerg's late game compositions, so they have declining effectiveness. 5. Tough to remax and only good in large numbers. Mech is difficult to remax with because it is so gas intensive and there are very long build times. Likewise, it is only good in large numbers. I find that if I don't do damage with my large push, even if I clean up his army, the remaining that I am left with will often get cleaned up by the counter. I.E, if I do a push and "win" with a few thors left over, I usually can't do anything with them, as they will get cleaned up by reinforcements, and are too slow to retreat, unlike, again, marines, which even in small numbers can take down a base or retreat if need be. 6. Difficulty in late game compositions. I feel there are so many great late game compositions vs. Mech, but mainly BL, corruptor, infestor. I just don't feel that vikings are an efficient counter. One fungal and they're dead. The zerg can also mass corruptors to clean you up and then only needs a few BLs to do the rest because everything else is so terrible against them. I really feel that ghosts and/or ravens are necessary but frankly Mech doesn't have the infrastructure to make this transition easily. 7. Hard to transition See everything above, the need for counters, late game problems, etc, and then factor in that it is very hard to transition with mech. If you over produce vikings to deal with BLs, then he goes ultras, that can screw you up. If he all of the sudden moves from roach to heavy muta, or vice versa, that can screw you up. It's tough, again, with marine tank, you're much less likely to be caught off guard, as all the infrastructure is generally in place and the build times are quicker. 8. Minimal Micro On the one hand it is great that Mech is a bit more of an A move than marine tank and that's what makes it great at lower levels. On the other hand, there is much less micro that you can do with your mech army, and this really robs it of high level play, because frankly, terran is the micro race, imo, and it's rly proper micro that can increase the efficiency of the army. Again, I like the guide, and frankly have been meching and continue to mech vs zerg. That said, I am learning to marine tank, because while I think mech is very powerful, I attribute it's effectiveness to two things above all. a) For a long time zergs didn't really know how to handle it and didn't see it very often b) the skill of my opponents was not top notch (below masters level) You can't count on A and B to last forever, not if you're planning on getting better, and not with more and more people meching nowadays. | ||
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Lunden
Denmark79 Posts
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sleigh bells
United States358 Posts
On February 05 2012 05:25 LemonyTang wrote: This is simply a variant, and I think I mentioned in my guide that my build or my style isn't catch all. If you feel comfortable getting an early starport then that's fantastic, I agree that the raven clearing creep is good. I think I mention in the build MMA's variant where he uses banshees to deny the third of zerg - definitely worth trying. In many of my replays there is evidence of the zerg, maybe not dying, but regularly I kill over 25 drones with the hellion timing attack. It's quite amusing. I'm going to explore a late game air transition over the next week and hopefully I can come up with a section for the guide that I'm happy with and I can agree with. I definitely feel that ravens, and hunter seeker specifically, are going to be used more in the future, you can just look at some recent games by players like MorroW to see their effectiveness. i've had some strange games where i transition into air almost completely. when zergs see mech, they sometimes rush to broodlords or ultras. air is great against that unless they have way more corrupters than you. or when zerg responds by only getting roaches. basically the only real problem i see with going mass air is infestors. for people with better micro than me, maybe it's ok, but air units tend to stack up like crazy. if they somehow don't get infestors, viking/banshee/raven is a pretty damn good late game comp against brood lords and ultras. | ||
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sleigh bells
United States358 Posts
yeah i used to get away with thor/hellion because people kept making any unit comp that still involves lings. thor/hellion is pretty great against ling/bane/muta. then i would lose games because zerg literally did nothing but make roaches. not to mention i would lose games immediately to roaches after initial hellion harass. siege tanks are pretty crucial against any zerg who realizes what is going on. if you want a simple 2 unit comp, zerg will kill you with 1. and losing to someone who makes 1 unit is pretty much the worst feeling ever. | ||
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-Aura-
United States209 Posts
The biggest problem I'm having is that I can't seem to deny the zerg map control with 4 hellions. When he runs out a bunch of lings, I often am a second late because I'm busy macroing, and I feel like even if I had a split second reaction and top micro, hellions cant beat infinite speedlings. Or is this just my lack of skill?  Basically how do I beat loads of lings with only 4 hellions. Especially on maps like Metalopolis, where I have to deny creep spread in two different directions. | ||
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awakenx
United States341 Posts
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Ceved
Sweden1 Post
I have some question to you tho. I see you just do the standard kinda hellion-expand opening, why not put out one banshee? I feel you very weak agianst roachpressure openings, especially when you are starting produce tanks kinda late. And with a starport down with tech-lab you can do some Ravens later which are imo really good, vision for creeptumors, turrets and point defense drone agianst mutaslisk especially when Thors isnt a counter to Zergs to know how to use Mutalisks. And the other thing is why dont you place planetary fortress on your expansions? With armorupgrade and +1 upgrade with turrets your totally safe agianst counter attacks and small harassments on your expos, which i feel is one of mechs weaknesses... Just some thoughts.. Take care | ||
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dotDash
Sweden142 Posts
A 1base blingbust arrives at around 5:30.. this is right around when your first hellion(s) comes out I believe. I noticed that you show an example where you are up against a 2base blingbust... how would you cope with 1base blingbust? In your example with early roaches you went up against a 2baser again.. how would you cope with roaches of one base? As in 7RR. And lastly I would give you loads of credits for making a bigger guide about tank positioning, building placement and such. This isn't really only for mech, this is for biomech aswell. Even bio players can use building placement! Also loved the little trick with dropping hellions with vacs for small shortcuts.  Peace Dan | ||
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Chaves
Brazil315 Posts
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