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REPLAYS:
+ Show Spoiler +
Hi there!
With the imminent nerf to Ghost that kills Terrans lategame Ghost usage with 20 Ghost to snipe Zerg T3 (which they apparently should just autowin with, but that's another discussion), the Raven pops up as the next saving grace for Terran, or so it seems. Another discussion goes about grabbing Air control and go Battlecruiser, but that seems very hard.
However, to practice this transition to the skies, I would like to have a new playstyle that works well with it. I feel like MarineTank transitions pretty badly into Skymech. I feel like mech into air is going to be the way to go after 1.4.3.
So, what I want to discuss;
- Openings,
- Pushes,
- Upgrades,
- Transitioning,
- Raven/BC usage
Openings:
A. Reactor Hellion Expand, after your CC get a 2nd factory for Tanks and a 3rd factory with a tech lab afterwards, to be safe against banelings/roaches.
B. Banshee Expand, getting banshees and keeping a techlabbed starport to force mutalisk, getting a Hellion Thor Banshee composition.
Pushes:
I don't know about this, I suppose you need to get in with your Mech army at about 12 minutes and expand, and another time when your opponent is transitioning. At the attack into the Broodlord transition, get a 4rth and 3/4/5 Starports?
Upgrades:
I feel like Mech Armor is very important to weaken Mutalisk and Zerglings, but I suppose 2 armories works well, since you'll need double upgrades for Air too. maybe +1 armor first, after that double Armory?
Transitioning:
I feel like the starport transitioning should be at about 17-18 minutes once the Zerg transitions. Get 2 Reactorports and 3/4 Techports. This has you ending up with 2 Reactorfactories, 5 Techfactories, 2 Reactorports and 4 Techports on 4/5 bases eventually. I feel like this is a very nice amount.
Raven/BC Usage:
I honestly don't know; Seeker Missile seems a bit bad as it makes the entire Raven useless for a very long time, I feel like PDD + Vikings/BC is more usefull.
QUESTIONS:
is this the way to go? It seems like Terran has to get an entirely new playstyle. I find it weird that such a thing is never asked of Zerg, but well, shit happens.
Skymech is the way to go vs Zerg now? Discuss!!
Kind regards!
It'd be awesome if every Terran would give this style a few tries and sends their best replays to me! I'll put them in this thread. Let's combine our strenght and make this work so that Blizzard can nerf us again so that we have a good lategame eventually!
Posts to make things clearer:
+ Show Spoiler [Assuming Raven/BC is bad:] +Hello everybody!
Thanks for all the nice responses in this thread! I really appreciate it!
I would like to make one more note;
Don't let the assumption that the Raven sucks lead you. Just assume the Raven -in the right composition- is awesome.
-PDD nullifies 20 corruptor attacks, so having 3 Ravens with 6 PDD gives you 120 non- shots, enough to let your vikings fire 4 times at idle corruptors if there's 40 corruptors. Air control!
-HSM forces a disengagement in which Terrans (with superior range) get A LOT of free hits off. If you HSM some clumped corruptors, they either have to run or die. Just make sure they don't run into your army, but that shouldn't be to hard.
-Battlecruisers have amazing air to ground attacks when upgraded, especcially on buildings (8 damage per .16 seconds, hell yea!) Battlecruisers are the tanky units as well as the basekillers.
I'm not sure if this is true, this is all theory, but I want to try, and I want to learn how to get into a lategame position to do this with! So please, instead of all crossing this out like it is bullshit and terrible, give it a look, try a few builds, transition into SkyMech lategame, try the Raven, use some Battlecruisers, hell, go 50 Viking 20 Banshee 10 Ghost for all I care, just try it!!
Kind Regards!
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I won't be surprised we will see more ravens used in high level.
MVP said that nuke is a huge reason why he goes ghosts heavy, if ghost is nerf'd to a point that we need so much ghost that isn't cost efficient anymore, raven could be used as an substitute with all the energy based turrets and PDDs
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This patch is an excellent example of how Blizzard is going about balancing the game completely wrong. Ghost snipe tactics are awesome, micro intensive, and difficult (except for maybe top players) as a method for dealing with the ridiculously cost effective Zerg T3 + infestor armies. How about instead of forcing Terran to go lame boring low micro mech, give Zerg a microable ability to even it out. Blizzard seems to be focused solely on dumbing the engagements down.
User was temp banned for this post.
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But that's a discussion for another time, let's just get this slow and slightly boring style to be effective and fun and transition into a strong Skymech army!
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On February 15 2012 03:47 ToastieNL wrote:
It doesn't even require micro for Zerg; just a techswitch out of pure T3 and into Lings + drop, that is all it takes. Terran gets Tank+Ghost; Drop lings everywhere. Terren gets MMM + Ghost; select lings, 1, a, profit.
Instead of letting Zerg try stuff out, they get safed by patches; AGAIN.
But that's a discussion for another time, let's just get this slow and slightly boring style to be effective and fun and transition into a strong Skymech army!
This is the second post I've seen this guy whining and complaining about balance.
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well seeker missile is 125 energy, so a raven has a pdd ready pretty swiftly on max energy. But the seeker missile only works when ravens are massed really. But if you managed that without being gas starved the raven cloud is pretty nasty for a zerg to deal with.
Bcs are really good to keep air dominance, the yamato soft conters ultras as well. (you can't just snipe an bc as zerg, you will have terrible losses while trying, especially when ravens are around).
Anyway the other air units make vikings really powerful, while alone they aren't to fancy. The important part is to start your air upgrades way before you start your transition.
Air armor isn't really needed unless you plan on landing vikings. Corrupters do a nice damage regardless of armor to air and as long as you don't encounter hydras. Infested terrans also aren't that viable against air, as infestors will take heavy losses if they get that close to terran. And infested terrans die really fast themself.
Blue flames are also nice vs light instead of ghosts, but ghosts are damn good tanks (not light not armored 100 hp, super good against light).
Armor upgrades are really important for mech though, as they will have to deal with many weak attacks against them. (and besides hellions there isn't much splash that helps, marines work though.)
So marine tank works ... but for the transition to mech/air you need ground armor and air attack upgrades, starting ahead of time. (and never forget to take workers for repair, those will help you not getting gas starved). Also +2 armor on building and range upgrade for them is nice to get. (you have the ebay anyway)
But why new playstyles ... thats is a terrible old playstyle. Just make sure to scout their hive in time and get a second reactor starport and start your +1 air weapons, so you are on +2 once their broodlords are there. the 2 reactored starports will make sure you won't run dry on medivacs while replacing vikings. And you will be able to react to ultra into broodlord asap.
I would still get some techlab raks though, as marauders do good against ultras. So with the techlab raks and the reactor starports you will be fine to react to both t3 units, while you can start to drop the zerg with marauders or harass them with landed vikings.
Also marines work really well against broodlord infestor, just need alot of multitasking, but they can't stop your drops, if they have to clean your drops (small marine groups) with their army you can simply run under their broodlords and kill them all if they are out of position. Just a bit of magic boxing magic hehe. But this playstyle while effective takes alot of multitasking.
Never saw ghosts as really effective against broodlords or ultras anyway, as their dps is limited by the energy they have, and the zerg has a perfect conter spell to single damage spells.
Anyway while reactors and techlabs are a nice idea to switch around ... lategame against zerg they are more of a nuisance, as they are only really nice for marines medivac and vikings. (you need so many techlab factories, that you don't really need reactors for hellion production). So at one point if you went marines before, you have to abandon your reactors. (they are nice to switch back though if you want to switch back to marines, which can be helpful lategame, when the casters are gone)
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Just want to say that I have been playing mech into air-support for about a year and a half and I have had massive success with it. By far my strongest matchup and have beaten GMs with it, (master terran). One of the key moments is to take your 3rd as soon as possible.
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Holy crap people, let's not pretend sniping broodlords is high level micro. You hold 'r' and click on one until it dies.
I may be a biased zerg, but ghosts not countering hive tech seems only fair to me... even if that means other solutions need a bit of help. I feel like no one unit should counter broodlords, infestors, AND ultralisks, work fine against muta, and also have both cloak and a range 10 skill that removes overseers immediately.
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On February 15 2012 04:16 Psychobabas wrote:
Just want to say that I have been playing mech into air-support for about a year and a half and I have had massive success with it. By far my strongest matchup and have beaten GMs with it, (master terran). One of the key moments is to take your 3rd as soon as possible.
Would you be so kind to share some replays of you vs Master/Grandmaster players  ?
On February 15 2012 04:18 jumai wrote:
Holy crap people, let's not pretend sniping broodlords is high level micro. You hold 'r' and click on one until it dies.
I may be a biased zerg, but ghosts not countering hive tech seems only fair to me... even if that means other solutions need a bit of help. I feel like no one unit should counter broodlords, infestors, AND ultralisks, work fine against muta, and also have both cloak and a range 10 skill that removes overseers immediately.
Let's not pretend snipe is all instant, unless you shift queue with Ghost which is risky and forces a lot of Ghost out in the open?
In my opinion, the nerf is pre-emptive, but that is not the point of discussion. Once again, a post that adds NOTHING to what we discuss. Please refrain from doing so ^^!
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On February 15 2012 04:32 ToastieNL wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:16 Psychobabas wrote:
Just want to say that I have been playing mech into air-support for about a year and a half and I have had massive success with it. By far my strongest matchup and have beaten GMs with it, (master terran). One of the key moments is to take your 3rd as soon as possible. Would you be so kind to share some replays of you vs Master/Grandmaster players ? Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:18 jumai wrote:
Holy crap people, let's not pretend sniping broodlords is high level micro. You hold 'r' and click on one until it dies.
I may be a biased zerg, but ghosts not countering hive tech seems only fair to me... even if that means other solutions need a bit of help. I feel like no one unit should counter broodlords, infestors, AND ultralisks, work fine against muta, and also have both cloak and a range 10 skill that removes overseers immediately. Let's not pretend snipe is all instant, unless you shift queue with Ghost which is risky and forces a lot of Ghost out in the open? In my opinion, the nerf is pre-emptive, but that is not the point of discussion. Once again, a post that adds NOTHING to what we discuss. Please refrain from doing so ^^!
lol, your op begins "With the imminent nerf to Ghost that kills Terrans lategame Ghost usage with 20 Ghost to snipe Zerg T3 (which they apparently should just autowin with, but that's another discussion)..." and concludes with "It seems like Terran has to get an entirely new playstyle. I find it weird that such a thing is never asked of Zerg, but well, shit happens." It's a bit late to get holier than thou, don't you think?.
But ok. Useful content.
Zerg perspective:
Upgrades:
+1 vehicle weapons >>> +1 vehicle armour. Whether you should swap over after that I don't know, but tanks need +1 weapons (and only +1) to ensure zerglings aren't surviving tank hits due to carapace upgrades. It's a HUGE deal when charging lings aren't getting 1shot, even if they only live by 1hp. When the first tank's targets are *dead*, the second tank always hits all fresh targets... when the first tank's targets live with 1hp, the second tank tends to shoot at mostly the same zerglings as the first tank. This causes shots to "overlap" and you hit a lot less zerglings overall. In my experience (both comparison tests and real use), it's a game changer.
I don't know if it winds up being as significant a result in practice, but +2 vehicle does let thors 2-shot muta clumps if the mutas don't have carapace. Might be worth taking into consideration.
Ravens:
I dunno, it seems like it might be nice to just always see burrowed banelings. That's one thing anyhoo.
PDD is good for stimming forward into broodlords when fungal isn't an issue. An extra 5 seconds before broodlings kick in ends up translating into a the broods themselves catching a LOT more damage. Putting one over top of some marines is also really good at making a safe zone for vikings which can then push mutas away with range 9.
BCs:
Corruptors with carapace smash BCs. Then they morph into broodlords. I don't think that;s teh way to go.
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You know to be honest, as a Zerg player I hope something this becomes more common. (in a hypothetical world where this was as strong as marine/tank)
Not because it's a weaker build necessarily, but because I find mech builds more fun to play against, and to spectate, especially if a Raven or late game banshee's involved.
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I like how you disguise your balance whine behind strategy discussions. Well at least you're trying new stuff, props for that.
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imo with an air heavy army they will suicide their army, then spam corruptors, clean out your air, run behind mass spines and morph brood/spawn infestors. what do you do.
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It's an effective unit comp and transition, but it's worth noting that ghosts are really a must if a zerg reacts to multiple SP play with infestors. Ghosts are being nerfed but it's no reason not to utilize EMP, late game, the more thors you have the better, and neural on thors/fungal on vik/ravens is a pain in the ass, and can lose you a 45min game in 5seconds.
Regarding upgrades it is incredibly important to be constantly researching DOUBLE upgrades on mech and DOUBLE upgrades on air if you're going viking heavy (if just banshee/raven +att is OK). When Korean's mech, they go +attack and forgo armor upgrades, this is useful for many reasons but all generally result in winning or delivering a crippling blow before the game actually enters the late game-best unit comp fest. You max out ~1min faster without the extra armory and upgrade, but it is a NECESSITY if you plan to take a game beyond 3 base.
+armor is effective against sling, broods, and mutas (and hydras lol?) while it is useless against pure roach, infestors, and ultras because of their rate of attack. +attack is useful all around, but especially good b/c +1 on tanks 1 shot lings and +2 on thors decrease the number of volleys necessary to kill mutas (great for midgame).
Also it's good to note that you should be less clingy to specific timings to signal your transitions and just go with the flow of the game, if you are maxed and are currently banking, get additional infrastructure up to remax on, and air ups when your ground 3/3 is done and you are floating gas.
During the transition to air, unless you have a massive gas bank, it is crucial to have some defensive PF's in choke points, or advantageous position to account for your decreased ground force, as a well timed break after the zerg scouts the starports can kill you if you're caught unawares.
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Battlecruisers are actually quite good against Mutalisks because Mutas deal lots of fast low damage attacks (and so do BCs). However, the high armour of Battlecruisers and comparatively lower armour of Mutas means BCs take very little damage and Mutas take loads. If you have early enough sky upgrades, BCs would definitely be viable against them. Corruptors are what is more worrying, but provided you have decent viking numbers, you should be able to beat both.
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I play skymech tvz but I use BCs. Corruptors are not a problem with a few thors thrown in and decent positioning. Zergs have no answer for yamato unlike protoss, and unlike ravens BCs are still scary with 0 energy.
I open with either a reactor hellion expand into banshee harass (sometimes with and sometimes w/o cloak) or with a reactor rax and early siege push (as seen in Goody's games).
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I think the OP is taking a great position by focusing on solutions, commendable young man. As an avid Sky Bio TvPer I too would enjoy playing a sky based TvZ.
Currently, I prefer mech over bio in TvZ, however, I've been using a more push-based strategy rather than a defensive posture. To this end I generally go thor-hellion (with some tanks if /when roaches), however, I generally add a port early on (once 2nd base is saturated). Instead of a 4th factory, I go raven then pump BC's one at a time. I then push in waves whenever I have 1-2 BC's (while expanding). I feel this is strong as most anti-mech armies neglect anti-air or they overcompensate and the ground army rolls through. Additionally, many times I am able to take out an extra expo as once the battle is done, my mech is wiped out but I have 1 or 2 bc's floating above the hatchery while the left over lings/roaches watch.
I agree that a mech to sky transition makes the most sense and mass raven can do a ton of free [energy based] damage. Should you wish to go mass sky I would recommend continuing constant bf hellion production (off of 2-4 at a time) as the opponent will either be making mass lings (if counters with corruptors) or mass hydras.
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I've been thinking about this alot myself. And maybe going with my usual TVT strat in tvz now, hellion tank viking (Prolly swap out vikings for marine/medi early game or faster thors.) Into a heavey thor-bc comp late game. Gonna take some tinkering around, I'll post some reps if any are good.
On February 15 2012 10:33 jrdn wrote:
I think the OP is taking a great position by focusing on solutions, commendable young man. As an avid Sky Bio TvPer I too would enjoy playing a sky based TvZ.
Currently, I prefer mech over bio in TvZ, however, I've been using a more push-based strategy rather than a defensive posture. To this end I generally go thor-hellion (with some tanks if /when roaches), however, I generally add a port early on (once 2nd base is saturated). Instead of a 4th factory, I go raven then pump BC's one at a time. I then push in waves whenever I have 1-2 BC's (while expanding). I feel this is strong as most anti-mech armies neglect anti-air or they overcompensate and the ground army rolls through. Additionally, many times I am able to take out an extra expo as once the battle is done, my mech is wiped out but I have 1 or 2 bc's floating above the hatchery while the left over lings/roaches watch.
I agree that a mech to sky transition makes the most sense and mass raven can do a ton of free [energy based] damage. Should you wish to go mass sky I would recommend continuing constant bf hellion production (off of 2-4 at a time) as the opponent will either be making mass lings (if counters with corruptors) or mass hydras.
I agree, this isn't even a full page yet and people are coming in and popping off there random QQ's. When this is clearly, an up for debate-let's put our brains together-and figure some shit out thread. It really irks me when someone who just plays p/z just comes in and says "Ghost snipe is easy" etc etc. When clearly, we only really had one option and are now trying to collectively come up with another. Yes ghosts somewhat countered all 3 ultra/bl/infestor, assuming they have enough energy. But it's also not like we had ANY other options at the time. I hope together we can all get a good strat down to deal with problem, that is obviously a problem.
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You plan on using Ravens yet there are so many problems with it.
HSM will never hit unless you're playing a horrible opponent. It's better to use it as a zoning tool, making the opponents air units/units run away so that they fight with lesser forces. Also I don't understand why the HSM does friendly damage. It's so retarded. It's hard to land a missile in the first place.
EDIT: Ravens are fragile and slow.
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On February 15 2012 04:18 jumai wrote:
Holy crap people, let's not pretend sniping broodlords is high level micro. You hold 'r' and click on one until it dies.
I may be a biased zerg, but ghosts not countering hive tech seems only fair to me... even if that means other solutions need a bit of help. I feel like no one unit should counter broodlords, infestors, AND ultralisks, work fine against muta, and also have both cloak and a range 10 skill that removes overseers immediately.
Science Vessels had a similar ability that did 250 damage for 75 energy, did splash, could erase a base of drones within seconds, and could instagib clumps of mutas and every hive unit Zerg had. :D
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Dunno, to me it seems like TvZ is about hitting him in the face until he can't see straight anymore. Constant aggression, abusing drops, not some magic T3 combination that doesn't exist. Ravens are slow to produce, expensive and come out of expensive buildings that have better things to do. In addition to that they are slow, fragile, easy to target and have pretty crap spells. Just recently I saw a game where Seeker Missile was used, and I only saw that it can't catch burrowed Infestors. That's pretty lame for a 125 energy spell out of a 200 gas caster.
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Hello everybody!
Thanks for all the nice responses in this thread! I really appreciate it!
I would like to make one more note;
Don't let the assumption that the Raven sucks lead you. Just assume the Raven -in the right composition- is awesome.
-PDD nullifies 20 corruptor attacks, so having 3 Ravens with 6 PDD gives you 120 non- shots, enough to let your vikings fire 4 times at idle corruptors if there's 40 corruptors. Air control!
-HSM forces a disengagement in which Terrans (with superior range) get A LOT of free hits off. If you HSM some clumped corruptors, they either have to run or die. Just make sure they don't run into your army, but that shouldn't be to hard.
-Battlecruisers have amazing air to ground attacks when upgraded, especcially on buildings (8 damage per .16 seconds, hell yea!) Battlecruisers are the tanky units as well as the basekillers.
I'm not sure if this is true, this is all theory, but I want to try, and I want to learn how to get into a lategame position to do this with! So please, instead of all crossing this out like it is bullshit and terrible, give it a look, try a few builds, transition into SkyMech lategame, try the Raven, use some Battlecruisers, hell, go 50 Viking 20 Banshee 10 Ghost for all I care, just try it!!
Kind Regards!
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On February 15 2012 11:40 Demnogonis wrote:
Dunno, to me it seems like TvZ is about hitting him in the face until he can't see straight anymore. Constant aggression, abusing drops, not some magic T3 combination that doesn't exist. Ravens are slow to produce, expensive and come out of expensive buildings that have better things to do. In addition to that they are slow, fragile, easy to target and have pretty crap spells. Just recently I saw a game where Seeker Missile was used, and I only saw that it can't catch burrowed Infestors. That's pretty lame for a 125 energy spell out of a 200 gas caster.
i once killed a zerg as terran by staying on two base and just trading armies while denying his third constantly. i would attack with a force while macroing at home, then attack with the next force, and repeat.
he raged when i told him i was only on 2 base all game.
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I also have problems with this, it seems to me when Zergs get into a good economic situation they just attack kill haft of your army and then re max and kill you.. playing terran its hard when you don't know what the other player its making it also happens against toss if they get collosi you need to have vikings and ghosts if they get zealot archon templar you need to have a decent amount of medivac ghosts and marine maruder if you make vikings and they go Zealot archon you lose if you go marine maruder medivac you lose against zealot archon... this is only late game situation though
early on you can make a lot of pressure with drops and banshees...
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I believe you should leave one factory for making hellions to maintain scouting and harassment (maybe make like 2 medivac for this?) during the course of the match to give you an easier time to transition into skymech eventually.
You could also try to making marines for harassing, but I don't know how good they would be without upgrades (mainly stim) and the time required to make 8 marines for a medivac (you could make reactor, but I don't know if you would want to spend even 50 gas on it since skymech would be quite gas heavy). Maybe reapers would be a good harassment tool too with speed upgrade, but again it cost gas and are slow to rebuild so losing them would be quite annoying. On the plus side, you most likely wouldn't need to make medivacs for them to do harassment and they can also snipe buildings pretty fast(!) and thus could slow zerg teching and transitioning into BL/infestor army, thus making it even easier to transition into skymech.
All in all, you would need to be a lot more aggressive to buy the time and to make sure you don't die while doing the transition, because of the slow build time most starport units (raven, battlecruiser. perhaps even banshee?) have.
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I really appreciate the comments everybody gives, but most of it is just theorycrafting; please try it out a couple of time so you speak out of experience and not assumptions!
Kind Regards!
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EPT
