How to Mech in TvP [D][G] - Page 9

On March 14 2012 16:41 XDJuicebox wrote:
Here are my thoughts on mech. They are probably going to get ignored, but I'm going to post them anyways in hope that there's that one guy who actually reads it and understands what I'm writing.

Mech is sooooooooooo stupidly slow that unless you're good at base trading, you will die to any of a number of Toss's incredibly mobile harass.

The key, I feel, is in the Banshees.

On maps with an easy to take third, take it. On maps with a harder to take third...turtle on two base and go for heavy upgrade, high units before you take your third. On a safe to take third, do the opposite.

You should Turret ring your bases, and place like 1 Marine or 1 Hellion in those key chokes that Stalkers must run by in order to have access to your main. Or you could float a useless building (a BARRACKS for example) in places where Stalkers might runby to Blink in. We like the Turret rings because they kill Observers, they deter warp prisms, and by killing Observers, lessens the Immortal count, as well as the Colossus count, and these are the two things that Mech should truly fear.

If he sacs 2 Observers and manages a MASS blink into your base, a high number of Banshees is the key to dealing with this. Bring only a small chunk of your army to deal with it. But that I mean like half your Hellions, and like 3-5 tanks (assuming you have 20+ and they have like 30 Stalkers). You also need like 3 vikings. When dealing with the Stalkers, you have to accept that you're going to lose some things...just make sure that it's not armories, supply depots, or factories. Addons - doesn't really hurt mech. SCVs don't really hurt mech. In fact, we kind of want to get rid of them...

To deal with the Blink Stalkers, you scan and snipe the Observers, then cloak all of your Banshees. Good luck dealing with that. Warp prisms should theoretically be useless if your Turret rings are placed right. I might even add a sensor tower in addition to the turrets; though redundant, if there are any holes, you can preemptively send Vikings.

The way I currently play mech (should I choose to do so), is a very slow, careful, turtle-y style, which is based entirely off positioning. The key to holding off all of the gay things that Protoss can do?

Barracks.

I'm not even kidding...you build a bunch of Barracks...

If Protoss dumps a ton of money into Zealots, a Barracks wall (which is also a ton of Minerals, except 10 Barracks negates about 40 Zealots, so isn't that a good trade?) on key chokes of the map (sometimes I leave holes and stack my hellions at those holes) is great. Why not bunkers? Or supply depots?

Barracks are mobile (liftoff function), and have the most health-per-cost of any floating Terran building. Plus the game AI is derp, and all the Protoss units will TARGET the Barracks, rather htan your units for some reason. I honestly don't know why, they just love shooting at the Barracks which isn't doing anything. Also, Terran is going to be floating Minerals like crazy, no matter how many Orbital Commands/Hellions you build. Once you are maxed, your money can be used much more efficiency not only in the form of Barracks, but Turrets as well.

Adding in a few Ghosts, we now have a virtually unstoppable army. The key is getting here. In fact, I don't make a single push...until I've taken every single base on my side of the map. Rather, I simply take the best defensive positions (this is map dependent) to take bases, and use an excessive amount of static defense to hold things off.

We don't really care about harassment, because if we are positioned right, nothing the Protoss throws at us can defeat us.

Mass Immortals, I feel, as the largest detriment to mech; and they must be dealt with with a combination of Cloaked Banshees and Ghosts.

We do have a harass capability: Cloaked Banshees, but I recommend harassing in a manner that is used to GAIN GROUND, never send them to the edges of the map or stuff, because the Banshees are key not only for defense, but in the main engagement as well. In fact, I like sending my Vikings forward and just sniping off the Observers, and then having the 5-7 Cloaked Banshees just terran them up...it takes away from the Immortal count, which is really what we want.

Remember to SPAM those Barracks, keep the tank count high, keep a decent Banshee/Viking count, and make lots of Orbitals and sacrifice your SCVs to make more stuff...and most of all, remember to play extremely safe. The game will favor Terran the longer it goes, no need to end it.

I actually prefer to keep most of my tanks unsieged, and using the Banshees to poke and prod, and find out where he'll attack, then sieging up in the right position. Make sure your Barracks wall is ALWAYS down. Only move it when he's a good distance away...because if the chargelots get under it, it's useless.

That's just my thoughts on mech.

Now, it's extremely hard to hold off what Protoss does, you literally have to play perfect...and a bit of a misstep in terms of positioning and you just die. It's ridiculously hard to pull off, so I never even bother.

On March 14 2012 23:04 MaV_gGSC wrote:
People should start learning this! Mech looks very promising in HotS.

On March 14 2012 23:52 necrimanci wrote:
10/11 : sup
12/19 : rax
13/19 : ref (3 in gas asap)
15/19 : orbital + marine (stop @ 4 or 5 - if you scv scout you might be required to cut scv production for few seconds to squeeze the 5th marine)
16/19 : sup
18/27 : fact
50% of fac : ref (3 in gas asap)
23/27 : sup
100% of fac : armory, hellion
28/36 : sup
100% of hellion : techlab (finishes the same time as armory)
100% of armory : thor
50% of thor : CC
1st thor ready : starport
2nd thor ready : fac<techlab switch>star: raven prod
100% CC : 3x rax, techlab all 4 rax
at this point switch to 2 supply production
100% techlab : 2x ref
push out with 2 ravens and 8(?) marauders, rally everything to thors and use them to stomp FFs

hellion + techlab build time = armory build time
the moment armory and techlab are done you have 200 gas - enough to build a thor
enough marines to fill a bunker + hellion for map scout
try to wall with 2 sups at the ramp edges, so that you can bunker in the middle to close the wall

this is basicly a thor-bio push or something, stole this from a friend, he's still working on it. Tanks are bad, dont make them ;3 if you see P going for immortals squeeze ghost aca instead of 2nd raven OR grab strike cannons

edit: forgot to add - you MIGHT want to consider letting the protoss scout your fast tech - fear of banshees will make him drop a robo instead of star tech, as void rays might be problematic to deal with and get in the way of raven production, as you have to make vikings. This is also stomped by chargelot-archon with couple templars to feedback thors/ravens, but no one does this nowdays

On March 14 2012 23:18 sushichef wrote:
Have any of you TvP mech players had to deal with speed warp prisms dropping immortals on your tank line? I've never seen this mentioned as a weakness of TvP mech, and it would be scarier than marauder drops in TvT.

On March 14 2012 16:53 rauk wrote:


the main problem is that even if you do all that mass tank is still garbage against all protoss units..

On March 15 2012 04:03 darkcloud8282 wrote:
I think people underestimate the power of thors with some siege tank and air support. I was hoping more terrans would showcase mech in TvP in the GSL after Jinro showed that crazy game against MC.

Anyhow, late game chargelots are pretty bad against BFH.. The biggest problem is having to split up your upgrades between air and ground, you will probably need like 3 armories.

On March 15 2012 04:28 Norseman wrote:



Where was this crazy Jinro/MC game? I'd love to see it!

On March 15 2012 04:28 Norseman wrote:



Where was this crazy Jinro/MC game? I'd love to see it!