On April 09 2012 20:38 BobTheSCV wrote: How do you attack an army when you have a seige tank heavy composition? Defending is easy enough, you just sit there, let the hellions, if available, absorb damage, and the tanks turn the rochies to a fine red paste. But in the opposite scenario.
I find nothing more terrifying than when the zerg army just holds position in the middle of the map, or inches back if you get too close.
Lategame my general plan is 2 hellion drops at his main and his 3rd/4th. This scoutes his tech and moves his army out of position. Then move up and siege, clear creep, but a couple turrets and you have yourself a new siege line. If its a big map with a lot of creep spread, you may need to do this a couple times.
I tend to paly fast and loos with hellions once midgame hits as they are almost free
I've printed out this as I've always had problems with Zerg, mech seems like a good way to go. But I always feel like I'm losing when I leave the Zerg alone for too long.
What are people's thoughts on going for banshee's either off a reactor hellion expand or 1 rax FE into double gas? How do you think it will hold up against the different all ins? I have tried it a few times and the ability to keep the zerg contained and harass with cloak and even follow up with a hellion drop and a viking to pick off overlords.
Hey guys, I updated the guide with some info on the new ladder maps and more recent replays. Thanks for all your support and interest, I've tried to respond to PMs I sent and apologies for questions in the thread I missed. I'm sorry too that I forgot to make a map post for Korhal Compound or Cloud Kingdom, hopefully I can get those done soon!
On April 09 2012 20:38 BobTheSCV wrote: How do you attack an army when you have a seige tank heavy composition? Defending is easy enough, you just sit there, let the hellions, if available, absorb damage, and the tanks turn the rochies to a fine red paste. But in the opposite scenario.
I find nothing more terrifying than when the zerg army just holds position in the middle of the map, or inches back if you get too close.
If you're siege tank heavy you have to leapfrog tanks forward, being patient. Make sure to use scans to keep constant tabs on his roaches, and jump forward your back three tanks or so at a time. Even if a few tanks are unsieged when the zerg engages, even eight sieged tanks will shred roach armies like nothing else.
On April 08 2012 04:15 RaE21 wrote: Just as a general comment, I've been meching TvZ in high masters with pretty decent success. As mentioned, the hardest possible scenarios I find is broodlord infestor roach compositions. This build that the OP outlined is actually pretty effective early-mid game, but it largely relies on denying scouting the mech composition plan as long as possible.
With the current metagame, zergs will almost always blind tech from ling infestor into hive tech, with fast double upgrades Stephano style. While the OP's mech style is largely a surprise attack using BF hellions as an opening to blind counter the zerg or take them by surprise, if the mech path is scouted you HAVE to adapt. Playing a mech style requires a more reactive playstyle than when playing traditional marine/tank, and it does require a lot of understanding of the game. Oftentimes you have to think both in the zerg mindset and then react as the terran. If the zerg sees mass bf hellion, roach is most probable counter, so make tanks. When zerg sees the tank switch, they will tech to broodlords, so prepare vikings. If zerg sees vikings tanks and thors, they will try for a ling or roach switch. Point is, zerg tech switches are alot harder to deal with as a mech terran and it requires a lot more stress on decision making and game sense.
I agree with this post a lot pretty much. There was a period between Boxer revealing hellions to Idra at MLG and Stephano winning IPL3 where zergs would open roaches most games because that was the meta, now they go double evo and try to play greedy to get infestors out. If you hide your mech and only show a few hellions you can toast them very simply.
Tech switches in the late game are one of the hardest things to deal with, but it's also the main strength of zerg so you can't begrudge them it. The most important thing in my opinion is to always keep a decent hellion count, as without those then your precious expensive mech army will get destroyed by 3/3 lings. Thanks for all your posts in the thread Squigly!
On April 11 2012 09:09 MetalGear wrote: What are people's thoughts on going for banshee's either off a reactor hellion expand or 1 rax FE into double gas? How do you think it will hold up against the different all ins? I have tried it a few times and the ability to keep the zerg contained and harass with cloak and even follow up with a hellion drop and a viking to pick off overlords.
Banshees are definitely a useful unit. It's all up to your style how you want to play, you can use them if you want to. Banshees are pretty good at clearing up an all in but not so great at defending on their own - so they're risky in that respect, but because of how good hellions are at scouting a zerg you can be prepared for an all in so it isn't actually that big a danger in my opinion.
Thanks a lot for your detailed guide. I always used to play mech in TvZ but recently I found that it gets harder and harder for me to win this way (I'm currently mid diamond). My problem is that I basically let the zerg get away with most things in the beginning of the game since I go for a 1rax expand, which renders me unable to apply any pressure. In the last couple of weeks I tried to do 2 base timings with a lot of marines, siege tanks and banshees to to kill the zergs third while taking a third of my own but that is not always successful. And after that it's an uphill battle most of the time. I remembered I bookmarked your guide somtime in the past but never found time to really read it. But now, in search for a better opening to mech in TvZ I remembered your guide and read it. Now from what I can tell it's a very solid buil but I haven't tried it yet. I'm still hesitant because of the new patch. In order for your stategy to work your Hellion pressure has to be effective and you should deny scouting as long as possible. Since the queens are stronger now and overloards are faster, do you think your strategy will be less viable? If zergs build more queens it might be harder to deny creepspread or do economical damage. And overlord scouting also became a lot easier. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that very much.
Question: In your game on Ohana vs ChaboJ in the most recent replay pack (the same game you used for the map analysis), you start siege tech and start building tanks at around the 9:10 minute mark. Why did you do this instead of making thors? Was there something you saw that triggered this?
On May 16 2012 17:45 PaleRider09 wrote: Question: In your game on Ohana vs ChaboJ in the most recent replay pack (the same game you used for the map analysis), you start siege tech and start building tanks at around the 9:10 minute mark. Why did you do this instead of making thors? Was there something you saw that triggered this?
Thanks!
Hey. I just rewatched the replay and the reason I went for tanks instead of thors is down to two main things. First, I've killed 22 drones by now, so any muta switch he does will a) be later (plus he spent gas on roaches and an evo), and b) weaker as his economy is nowhere near optimal. Secondly, he's making roaches, and I've already tipped my hand with blue flame hellions so he knows I'm most likely going mech - this means he's pretty likely to keep making roaches. It's important to make sure you do keep scouting and try and sniff out a muta switch incase one does happen, but in this case I was more concerned with not dying to roaches so I built tanks.
On May 15 2012 05:03 CosmoK wrote: Thanks a lot for your detailed guide. I always used to play mech in TvZ but recently I found that it gets harder and harder for me to win this way (I'm currently mid diamond). My problem is that I basically let the zerg get away with most things in the beginning of the game since I go for a 1rax expand, which renders me unable to apply any pressure. In the last couple of weeks I tried to do 2 base timings with a lot of marines, siege tanks and banshees to to kill the zergs third while taking a third of my own but that is not always successful. And after that it's an uphill battle most of the time. I remembered I bookmarked your guide somtime in the past but never found time to really read it. But now, in search for a better opening to mech in TvZ I remembered your guide and read it. Now from what I can tell it's a very solid buil but I haven't tried it yet. I'm still hesitant because of the new patch. In order for your stategy to work your Hellion pressure has to be effective and you should deny scouting as long as possible. Since the queens are stronger now and overloards are faster, do you think your strategy will be less viable? If zergs build more queens it might be harder to deny creepspread or do economical damage. And overlord scouting also became a lot easier. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that very much.
Kind regards
Thanks for your feedback!
In response to your question about the new patch, I definitely feel that the opening in my OP is weaker now than it was a month ago. There has also been a metagame shift imho, similar to post-Anaheim, many zergs are more comfortable going roaches in the early game. Maybe there's been an increase in mech users, or it's simply the popularity of the roach baneling ling all in at the moment, but I've moved away from a pure BFH opening.
The build I do now is 1rax FE into double gas, then reactored hellions and cloak banshees. I get my third CC before any additional buildings, using my map control to hide it. I go up to 4 gas, and then add two more fact and an armory - but I keep building banshees, going up to five or six. I'm going to update the OP today because I've developed my play a lot more in the past fortnight and the guide no longer reflects what I feel is the optimal way to play. Hopefully by the time you read this you'll be able to see the changes I've made. Specifically, I think sky terran, with ravens and BCs, is now the ultimate way to win a Mech style vs Zerg.
Interesting. I only watched three of your new replays so far, in two of which you won pretty convincingly in the midgame (the ling, bling, muta game on antiga and the game on daybreak in which you were able to delay the opponents third for quite a while) and the one game that lasted 63 minutes. Now in the end your win in the latter game was pretty easy because you fought him without his ultralisks. Do you think you would've won the engagement with them being still there? I feel that your ground army would've been destroyed much more easily and that your air army wouldn't have been able to destroy the rest of his army.
Besides, what do you think are the major weaknesses of your new build? Can you hold an early roach pressure, maybe evene a roach/bling/ling all-in? What if the zerg takes an very early third?
Still I think sky mech is an interesting approach to late game TvZ. And your build order leading up to this seems solid. I'll definitely try it out.
Kind regards
edit: I played a few games with this style now and my problem is that it's too passive midgame. You need to wait until you have a reasonable number of ravens in order to win the fight against the broodlord/infestor/corruptor army. Now when the big fight eventually happens I do win this fight but since the zerg had some time to mine he just builds a lot of ultralisks and rolls over the rest of my army and my base. I might still have a large air army but it's basically useless against a fast ground army. And I won't have enough thors in time to fight against all the broodlords. Any tips?
Thanks for the addition of this new build giving more entertainement and stability to this strategy. I watched recently the day9 daily on mass queen+ broodlord in the lategame, day9 said that the solution might be mass raven. I am can of doubtfull with this idea because you need more time to get all the ravens upgrade althoug for the zerg massing queens can be done really quickly. I saw the replays on full air in the late game : this games are 1 hour long ! in the day9 replay the mass queen /brood is on 3 bases at around 16mn.
here is the link :
did you already encouter a situation with mass queen + brood/infestor army ? Can you post a replay on it ?
How do you guys react if you notice that the zerg is going really roach heavy in the midgame?
I see 3 possible and more or less effectiv options:
(1) continue to produce thor+hellion and just make a few tanks (2) going tank heavy maybe 10-12 tanks with just 1-2 thors for muta defense (3) increase the factory number in a total of 4 and build 2 starports with banshees
Yesterday I played a game with almost no tanks. I had about 3 the whole game and it eventually went to Vikings/Ravens/BCs/Hellions vs. BL/Corrupter/Infestor
I was neural parasited and fungaled to death! I think tanks in this situation are absolutely crucial to sniping those pesky Infestors. Without neural I would have steam-rolled I think but when Thors start to shoot at your own Vikings bad things happen.
On June 02 2012 20:43 saaaa wrote: How do i defend a roach/bling attack in the early game if i play a 2 Fac Blue Flame Hellion opening?
i always get crushed by this timing attack
i feel that this is the problem with that build, i suggest you go 1 rax fe into reactor hellions off 2 gases, and then get a starport and go cloaked banshees, they will help you out alot, but make sure you scout well and get tanks fast if you're sure that this is what he is doing
EPT
