This might sound like a troll title, but I am absolutely serious. My exploration into the TvP matchup has turned up some ugly truths for me that I am not sure how to deal with. I am beginning to think that there are no safe, go to builds vs protoss. My attempt to play the matchup and learn from players better than myself have all been rather fruitless; I never win macro games against toss... I never seen pro players win macro games against protoss either, and well over half the time a terran will cheese a protoss or go for a two base timing rather then play standard. I have heard the term "coinflip" used to describe the matchup before, but never understood it. I think I am beginning to understand now.
I have started numerous threads on Team liquid asking for help. Lately, I have been playing TvP exclusively with practice partners; in the last 3 days I think I have played 20 tvps and for the last two or three months I have been really focused on the matchup. I have been re watching vods from the gsl, trying to learn from pro terran players. I have sat with six streams, two on each of my three monitors, watching for a tvp matchup to come on so I can pause the rest and try and learn. And what i have learned is there is absolutely zero stability to the matchup for terran, and late game tvp seems literally impossible so long as the protoss doesn't royally fuck up. I am not trying to troll here. This is not meant to be flame bait. This is exactly what I have seen and exactly how I feel about the matchup right now.
To add some context, i am a newly promoted diamond league player on the NA server. And I think I need to clarify the above; terran does win sometimes late game vs protoss in pro matchups and on player streams.However, this seems to be an exceptionally rare thing lately. I have watched everyone from Kas, ganzi, gretorp, forGG, demuslim, and every noname high level masters player with all of 6 stream veiwers, trying to figure out exactly what it is I am doing wrong. Trying to understand the decisions I need to make to turn this matchup around for me. So far I have come up empty handed; I just have no idea how at terran should play tvp.
I know I don't like to cheese. I know any gas opening for terran can be beat if by a protoss handily even if they fast expand ( in fact, I would argue that many terran 1 base pressure builds and all ins are easier to hold if protoss fast expands). I have played around some with super greedy 3cc openings and determined that they are simply not safe. This leads me to believe the only stable way to play the matchup is to fast expand and go double gas.
However, if you 1 rax expand as terran in tvp the matchup goes down a very predictable road, a road that seems to have terran at a disadvantage at every turn. There simply are no good two base timing attacks for terran in TvP; there is some marine tank stuff but nothing that you can transition out very easily. There are a plethora of pressure builds, timing attacks, and all-ins for protoss off two base that are really good. I have heard some pros say that some two base immortal timings are simply impossible to stop. I don't know about that, but they certainly feel that way.
Most of the protoss I play tend to favor macro games, however. In macro games, I feel like protoss has some distinct advantages against bio that I just don't know how to overcome.I do the most standard possible, 1 rax fe into three rax, I go for fast stem and combat sheilds with two tech labs. I then get an e-bay, get +1 attack, get a factory, take a third gas, make three medivacs, and push consistently just after 10 minutes with three medivacs and mostly marines. If the protoss isn't playing greedy as hell, I won't attack the front. I will drop the main and the third base and try and keep protoss busy while I take my third base. Often times I am able to get my third up faster then protoss, sometimes significantly faster then protoss.
If I am macroing well, I will move up to 5 barracks, get a ghost academy, and then take my fourth base about two minutes after my third. I will continue to drop, get upgrades, move around the map, and try and macro like a champ. Many, many times I find myself with a supply lead, a base lead, sometimes even an upgrades lead. Sounds great right?
But its not. The protoss eventually becomes too big to contain to two base, so they take at third. Then eventually they max out, and take a fourth. And then from there its all down hill. I know ideally if you are ahead as terran, you want to force protoss to stay on two bases indefinitely. But with third bases on most maps being so easy to defend, and with the protoss army being generally more cost efficient anyway, how the hell do you do that? I have a practice partner that goes two base HT, and just turtles the entire game. If I try and attack the front, I get murdered by storms and forcefields. if I try and drop, I get maybe a pylon, sometimes more; when the protoss has so few bases to defend and can warp in units on top of a drop... I don't understand how its possible to do more then that. So inevitably, despite my best efforts, a protoss given time can take as many bases as they need and I have no idea how to stop it.
Que TvP late game. With all my extra economy and production, its seems like there should be a way to cash that in for the late game. Either in overwhelming production, superior tech, or some kind of advantage. I don't really know how to do that. A terran can build a million turrets and planetary fortress and whatever else and force it to be half map vs half map, but I don't feel like that at all favors terran; a protoss with half the map can make 27 gateways, mass up resources, and win any fight because of the warp in mechanic.
Endless waves of units doesn't work either. The toss army is so cost efficient when put in a defensive position. Its impossible to force and advantageous engagements as terran; if you lead with vikings they all get shot down, you try and be aggressive with ghosts and emps and they die to zealots. If a protoss does''t attack you they don't risk superior concaves, good emps and positioning, ect.
And late game tech for terran just doesn't exist for this matchup. Battle cruisers are no good, tanks never seem to work out; there is some cute theory crafting you can do with ravens but I don't have a clue how you make it work. Ghost are obviously good but you reach a certain point where more just simply is not better. having 6 ghosts feels great, having 12 ghosts feels the exact same. Have anymore then that and I feel like your army might actually get weaker.
Maybe the trick is to do insistent dropping late game? after all, a max toss army can't warp in right? But in practice it never seems to work that way. A protoss can harrass with zealot warp ins, dts, and warp prisms as effectively, if not more so effectively, then a terrran can with drops. Zealots become essentially free after a point, so losing 5 or 6 at at time actually helps protoss; if a protoss can stay at about 190 supply and keep terran busy putting out small fires they are in great shape. if a terran trys to drop late game its makes defending zealot warp ins that much more difficult, and because protoss is routinely sacrificing zealots they can still warp in units on top of the drop! Also, when both players are maxed with 2k+ in the bank, killing six probes and a gateway doesn't mean shit late game. Its literally not worth the APM. over commit to dropping by trying to do like six at a time in different places, and a protoss can just counter your main and win the game. Its so fragile late game. And toss armies are so cost effective; even with perfect micro (Which I don't have) storms, collossus, high templary, chargelots, ect are really good. Especially if protoss can warp in ten or more after a fight to clean up or provide fodder to save some of their more expensive units.
I know this is essentially a giant QQ thread, but understand I wouldn't be making it if I had any idea what I was supposed to do. I am at a complete loss. I want to play a macro focused style vs protoss. I understand that a terran army requires tons of micro and necessitates harass to stay even against a protoss or zerg; but with the current metagame and balance it feels impossible to ever meaningfully get ahead, or to position myself to win a game. If I play a zerg, at least with the current patch, I generally feel at a disadvantage in the late game against broodlord infestor, but I have some ideas about what I can do to stop it. In the early game, mid game, and late game there are techniques I can employ to harasser and get ahead, their are compositions that are powerful and potent and if the situation arises it is possible to push directly into a zerg and end the game. I don't feel like that against protoss. It feels like I follow a script that inevitably leads to me either dieing to a two base timing attack, or losing 25 minutes into the game despite all my best efforts.
Below is a DL link for a zip archive which contains all of the practice games I have played. They are my most recent, best executed games. There is some evolution in there, so keep that in mind if you watch one of the earlier ones. I can find mistakes I made in all of them, but what I can't find is a method I can use to turn my losses into victories. I can strive to execute perfectly but I can't figure how to capitalize in my advantages to win the game.
http://www.mediafire.com/?0xnzacf39wcyfmk (its about 20 games. In particular, I would like to know about what to do with antiga shipyard(63) and korhal compoundLE (13). )
I would really appreciate replays, vod links, or whatever else so I can watch them and learn from them. Thanks for any help or insight.
Let me first empathize with you and admit that TvP is my weakest TvX matchup.
That said, as well intentioned and honest as your viewpoints may be, it's the wrong way to ask for help on TL.net. It's like the childhood prank question: "Does your mom know that you are gay?" You are preconditioning responses and just asking for trouble.
Instead say:
I am having trouble with lategame TvP. Here's a specific replay where I did X and Protoss did Y and I'm not sure what the biggest keys were to me losing/winning.
Alternatively, if you have as many replays as you do there, you should group them like:
1rax gasless fe vs storms 1rax gasless fe vs colossi etc etc
I'm going to watch a couple of games real quick to see if I can see anything obvious.
From watching this replay, I'm getting a few ideas here that may coalesce into patterns.
Going through the motions vs Actually doing something You scout with your scv You scan his production line You scan his production line again You scan before you drop
Are you making decisions here or just following some playbook? You scout with your scv, see that he has only one gas, clumps his pylons, and is using all chronos on his nexus. Your reaction is to build a second bunker? You scan and can see that his second gas is very fresh and has a robo and know he has a stalker. But you still build a turret at the designated super fast DT timing? Are you actually thinking as you play or you checking items off a grocery list here?
He must not get a third~!!!!!!!! Or can he? Instead of thinking: I'm screwed if toss gets a third, think: from where he is right now, what will he have to give up to get a third right now? Or a third in 2 production rounds? In 10 production rounds? Oh gosh, he has 4 sentries and a robo bay and an immortal with 4 gas. Where is his other gas going? (Super fast 2/2 that game)
Oh joy. He's getting a very late third! Let's... drop him? Really? What's the point of a drop? What's it good against? If a guy is turtling.. why are you trying to counter by trying to breaking a rock with a scissor?
From watching purely from your perspective, what I really liked was having the marines at the top right cluster and bottom left cluster of bases. He was highly unlikely to get a third up w/o you knowing and definitely not getting a fourth. I would set them to patrol b/t the bases to be even more sure.
But as soon as you see that he is delaying his third for sooo so long, I would be scanning his army and seeing his chosen tech path + his upgrades. This will get you an idea of where his gas is going. PvT is extremely gas dependant, esp off 2 base.
One thing you can do is load up three medivacs, one by his third outside his nat and 2 by his main. Soon as he moves out, drop his main. Then scan his nat ramp. if he moves up that nat ramp, you can guesstimate when his army wil be in his main and you can drop his nat as they are en route. Then, hot pickup whichever he overcommits to defending. if he wants to base race, lift a cc or two and get ready to pull scvs.
When you drop, esp big drops, you MUST scan the obvious choke point where the opp will show his hand how he plans to defend. Will he send everything? poke his front. Will he send just enough? focus on microing your bio ball. Will he not react? Target forges/twilights/robo bays. Assimilators make poor targets. And there's no reason to throw 50 food away just because you might be able to snipe another gateway/pylon.
Oh, and for god sakes make more production facilities. 3k minerals means you can make another 10 rax.
I stopped this game at 9:58 You scanned his nat entrance around 9:50. Then you stimmed in and attacked.
Let's see. He has two cannons. That's 300 minerals. He has a forge to get those cannons. That's 150 minerals.
Oh look, he paid you to cut unit production for 10 seconds to get a free third. But you attacked? Really? Dude pays you to expand and you attack. His cannons are stationary. They will never be a threat to you. You have medivac tech not even 2 minutes away (medivac travel time) and you want to throw units away because your stim is done? Sometimes the enemy made a move that can counter yours. That's not an invitation to say: To hell with it.
I almost feel like I'm being trolled here. Exact same thing this game but you blew two scans.
I recommend that one scan in main if your opp groups his pylon like an idiot. Then if you see two forge or some other baddie strat, stim a marine in with the rest just a bit behind. If he has two cannons, expand immediately while prepping to drop. If he doesn't group his pylons, scan his nat to see what he might have immediately before you attack. Or save the 270 minerals and throw away a 50 mineral marine. Either way, you will know if dropping, attacking head on, or running like all hells is the best strat.
On February 19 2012 16:17 Emperor_Earth wrote: Let me first empathize with you and admit that TvP is my weakest TvX matchup.
That said, as well intentioned and honest as your viewpoints may be, it's the wrong way to ask for help on TL.net. It's like the childhood prank question: "Does your mom know that you are gay?" You are preconditioning responses and just asking for trouble.
Instead say:
I am having trouble with lategame TvP. Here's a specific replay where I did X and Protoss did Y and I'm not sure what the biggest keys were to me losing/winning.
Alternatively, if you have as many replays as you do there, you should group them like:
1rax gasless fe vs storms 1rax gasless fe vs colossi etc etc
I'm going to watch a couple of games real quick to see if I can see anything obvious.
High, respectively I agree. If you check my post history, you will see several examples of that. I have been given advice about my build, about harrassing more, about ways to execute and whatever else and implemented them the best I know how; the problem is I don't see the connection between the advice I have been given (and I have been given a LOT) and ways to actually win. My hope is that by pouring my frustrations out, I can reveal some weakness in my understanding and mindset that someone else can point out and explain. Thanks for taking the time to try. I really do want to find answers.
In general, yes you can macro on par with protoss. In my opinion the keys to winning are exploiting timings and good army control, with a keen eye for expansion timings. Always remember that bio balls work really well in smaller numbers and don't scale that well against protoss aoe entering the mid-late game, so even if you think a drop will be denied and you won't do damage, it's still a good idea. Pick small fights when you can, and trade armies in the early game if you can. (once tech lab ups are done)
If you're interested in picking up a style and general tvp knowledge(1 rax gas fe) that I've been using you can pm me and we can talk about it, I'd rather not plug it everywhere.
Protoss wants to get to the late game so they are going to try and stay in their base to reach their point of greatest power. If you take four bases vs their two they will have to move out. Once your army gets larger make extra ocs just so you can mule. Mules pull in tons of minerals without costing supply.
I think it comes down to unit composition. If you do not have great multitasking and micro the standard MMM+Ghost/Viking becomes weak in TvP late game. Thus, I do not think it is useful to copy pro players as Terran in TvP is you are a more normal skilled player.
So what I have started to use instead is: 1.Go 1 rax gasless expand every game (I vote down every map where this is not viable, like Meta). 2 . If he FE as well I tech up. If not I go for 4 rax defense plus 3 bunkers. 3. Marauder/Banshee as a midgame army. I use clocked banshees to snipe expansions, tech and probes. If he goes Templar I spam the cloak on/off so that my Banshees are always low on energy thus not vulnerable to feedback. 4. Late game I go Marauder/Banshee/ Battlecruisers. The Mauraders and Banshees are the real damage dealers, the Battlecruisers are there to soke up damage and yamato high prioritity targets. I complement the army with some Ghosts and Medivacs.
(Obviously you will need some marines or vikings if he goes heavy air, and build marines if you are floating minerals but are gas starved).
I have not idea if this is viable on higher levels but on lower levels it works great, banshees and mauraders have a really good synergy and does not require great micro to pull off, just some basic storm dodging. And you can defeat an equal pop lategame Protoss army even if you are low APM player.
I updated that post with the three most recent games I saw. Hopefully that'll give you something to chew on. The biggest issue I see is a lack of fundamentals, which should be the second thing you learn.
Mechanics (efficiently+quickly doing things) -> Fundamentals (understanding why things are done) -> Control/Positioning -> Game decision making -> Build orders-> Mind games
It's a tough MU right now. I appreciate your post, very well laid out and doesn't come off as QQ at all. I think terran needs to mix it up and start implementing some non-standard playstyles as the standard doesn't appear to be very effective.
Protoss players can sit back, defend, tech up, build that late game army at their pace and seemignly have all the advantages in the late game. It's Terrans responsibility to not let this take place. I think we might be reaching a phase where Protoss have crossed the line and are being too greedy early and the normal 1 RAX FE does nothing but allow Toss to stay safe and take advantage of that greed.
The last month or so I've seen a lot of older school banshee plays and deception where terran techs to Cloaked banshee but builds a bunker in front of the NAT giving the look of an expand build, and grabs easy wins. I understand this is risky and maybe a bit cheesy but it's necessary in the current Meta game.
I've also seen some very interesting 2 base tank play (See Gumiho from this weeks GSL vs Puzzel I believe) where Terran gets a few early tanks and siege to again punish early game greedy Toss. Terran can do a lot of damage, make all those centuries a liability, take a solid lead and delay all the Protoss teching and passive play.
Protoss have adapted to drop play and the traditional terran aggro plays so more unconventional means are required. And I do believe terran has the tools to make this happen. Most games I've watched that terran win are from early/early-mid game advantages. Focus on that. Try some non-standard playstyles. Marine/Tank/Banshee 2 base pushes with forward bunkers, some deception, hell throw in some reaper builds -- take the pressure off and have some fun.
You're a better player than I am, and clearly you've put a lot of time into this, but I don't think the answere lies in standard terran play as we've come to know. Every challenge brings with it the seed of a greater opportunity (Great Quote), take some time to relax, try some diffferent tactics and assume your going to lose some games while you figure this out. You'll find something and likely make big strides in your game in the process.
Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
Alternatively, get siege and start sieging up outside his nat/third.
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
Don't always do one thing. Understand what each strat requires and risks.
If a toss maxes out at 150 in army, he obv is allining and will not have any ability to sustain that attack. 1941 him.
E.g., make it a multifront war where the push into the heartland will meet multiple walls of your troops. The farther away he goes from his base, the more vulnerable his own base is and the longer his reinforcement line is. And his reproduction capability is very limited.
i think the way to go in tvp lategame if you're not gsl level is to use nukes; they require much lower apm than drops and you don't have to judge how much of your army to commit to a drop. i think it's the easiest way to put the burden of multitasking onto protoss; you can sit and wait for his army to attack into bio ghost viking and you can emp him much more easily since you are waiting and mostly focused on your army instead of trying to micro multiple drops at once. also it's important to realize that when you kill protoss army unless you are massively ahead in bases and came out massively ahead in the fight it's often the wrong decision to try and attack his expoes because it's very easy to get overrun by his reinforcements.
also when he's running around to try and save his expoes from a single unit it's easy for you to pick off colossi or HT if he isn't watching his army.
basically lategame tvp is very turtley and you need to be patient and wait for toss to screw up and lose his whole army for free unless you are really good at dropping.
-You don't necessarily need to wall of with your barracks, dealing with harrass is easier with your barracks near your CC
-Building the CC on the lower ground is good but be careful of 1 gate aggression of 2 stalkers (w/ Zealot) as at that point you will only have 5 marines. Maybe take the tower when scout escapes?
-@9:00 - You are up on supply and also ahead on harvesters with medivacs coming at a good time. The Toss isn't macroing as well.
-Your drop @10:30 was spotted immediately which meant you could pressure the Toss properly even though he is teching hard into double upgrades. Instead of doing a single drop. Either double drop OR Expand while poking the front. If you just stim, run in and kite the Zealots back, Sentries Tickling you isnt going to do much, while you might not be able to kill him, you now have an earlier third. The front is vunrable cos he has stalkers in his main defending drops. Why not go to his tower and then drop? once you kill his obs anyway.
-I liked the poke you made at the 12 minute mark but was a little late. You were also missing 8 marines and a medivac in the engagement. The Battle was very even and you are still ahead in supply with a 3rd going down. Also you didnt take his tower so he knew exactly where your army was.
-Macro did fail abit at this point as you took your third but so did his so not to worry. Maybe put a reactor on your 4th rax?
-Why did you go for cloaking instead of mobius? You know he is ony 2 bases atm so you need ghosts out earlier. Ghosts without energy are useless when you want to cloak them.
-Take your watch tower man, you need to know when he moves out and his composition!
-Have a marine or scv scout for a third at this time cos the Toss should have. Had you found it, you could have killed it and run away i think.
-17:00 he kills your third. You could have given chase seeing as you are about 60 supply up! He has no storms and such a tiny army compared to yours.
-The Toss only has 60 workers. His income is going to be so low. Why not drop his natural? While poking the front/killing his army. Never be afraid to scan for his army. You need more map presence. Take the towers. Scout for a third. I have no idea why he took that base instead of his natural 3rd.
-Nice battle at 19:00. had you know he had a 3rd. you could have killed his base and remaining army. Also. pause of a sec to heal up. All your units were in the red when you engaged the zealots at the natural. You must think. Where did his army just run to?
-lovely EMPs and push at 22:40. You kill his third and army very cost efficiently. You are maxed verses his 150 suppy. I cant see how you lost this.
-Also check your medivac count. Yours was downt o 1 at one point. You need around 5.
-You also needed to scout his composition or his main, cos he is know pumping out double collosi.
-You need to stop building SCVs, you were up to 90 and still building. 70 is fine.
-In the engagement at 24:00, you lost alot of ghosts. When you scout his collosus, you will need a 2nd starport. I like the air upgrades, good thinking if you can spare the gas.
-ONce he ghost collosus, the army size starts to go his way and you still don't have a proper answer to 4 collosus.
-@26:00 - because you dont have the tower, his army can just march up and kill your 4th and 3rd as you go to kill him?
-27:30 - the game is over, his has 6 collosi to your tiny hurt bio ball with no ghosts left. You should have 20 vikings by this point.
- you have so much money, you needed 10 more rax, plus you werent using them for 20 seconds at a time. Constant production would help alot.
Conclusion:
This games are only becoming long macro games because you made them do it. Terran is a race when you can do this pokes here and there ton see what his has. There were maybe 5 points in the game that with better scouting you could have killed his bases or his whole army. you were ahead till his had collosus. And because he stayed on so few workers, his economy was shit. So next time: Better scouting, more production late game, scan his base every 3 mins after 15 min mark so see tech change. You were the "better" player by far in that game.
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
Some thoughts based on watching game #20:
Your bunker feels late. I'm surprised you aren't losing lots of games to stalker pressure. High level players who go with a late bunker like that probably rely on micro to survive.
Hide your scv further away. Just because it doesn't get scouted most games by bad players doesn't mean you have found a good spot. You can't rely on just hoping throwing down 3 bunkers will stop whatever the P does when you have no idea what he's doing! With no info on him, you should have scanned.
At 8:20, you've let him bully you into staying on 3 raxes with 1 addon and your factory just barely started and no engineering bay. Your early economic lead is rendered impotent as he tears you apart; you were up workers, then a little later he has another 10 workers, is at 56 and and you haven't built any.
OH GOD. 7 vikings is not enough against 4 colossus. Try 12 or more. You need enough your vikings can kill colo without your bio getting butchered, and as you can clearly see that is not happening.
Watch the first game of IPL Fight Club ThorZaiN vs HerO on TDA.
Anyone saying Terran can't play macro games versus Protoss are just in denial or something. The fact is that with the combination of lots of OC, PF at bases you actually mine, lots of Vikings and Ghosts, there's no safe way for Protoss to engage a Terran army head on. So as long as you defend the guerrilla tactics, it's very possible to win.
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
Don't always do one thing. Understand what each strat requires and risks.
If a toss maxes out at 150 in army, he obv is allining and will not have any ability to sustain that attack. 1941 him.
E.g., make it a multifront war where the push into the heartland will meet multiple walls of your troops. The farther away he goes from his base, the more vulnerable his own base is and the longer his reinforcement line is. And his reproduction capability is very limited.
Not to be rude, but that didn't make any sense to me. I am ahead on bases. My drop harrass worked, they are turtling hardcore. Now what do I do? I don't understand how to make that eco lead count because my experience is that protoss just turtles and maxes out slower. We end up in the same place as if they got to expand whenver they wanted to, it just takes longer.
It's worth mentioning that you should check out lastshadow's TvP videos. Take it with a grain of salt though, while he does have a deep understanding of the game he is somewhat pandering to the crowd.
I think Day[9] described it perfectly in one of his dailies; that TvP is like compressing a spring. You can push the spring back as hard as you can, but unless you completely break the spring it will always have the opportunity to spring back to its full state given that you lift the pressure.
That's just generally how late game TvP is right now. Even if you kill the Protoss army, warp in mechanic allows them to pretty much get up another round of units that's sufficient enough to hold any counter aggression. So you really have to get out of the mindset of thinking you won the game after a major fight. You have to do something else to maintain pressure on the Protoss. Taking another expansion is a must, but if you have enough left over units from the fight you can also attempt to split up his new warp ins and try to snipe a fringe expansion. Also taking this time to set up a PF so you can split up the map also solidifies your lead. When its the late game and your spamming CC/OC you should try to at least have one CC on stand by so you can float it into a advance location and morph it into a PF after every major engagement.
This is assuming you win the end game fights though. Despite how hard it may seem, it is completely possible to win late game engagements. Lastshadow goes into depth in his vlogs but this is pretty much the rough checklist of what you should be doing before the fighting happens.
1. Have a balanced unit composition of Marine/Marauder/Medivac/Vikings/Ghosts. This is probably the hardest to nail down. You generally want 3 vikings per collosi, this also forces stalkers which aren't that good of a unit in late game TvP, the less zealots the better. Also your army needs to consist of mostly marines, you wan't enough marauders to act as a meat shield, keeping them in front of your marines to soak up zealot hits. Generally you wan't 5 medivacs and enough ghosts to keep his HT in check. Again the bulk of your army needs to be marines, not marauders.
2. Positioning is so important as terran. You need to pick where the fighting is going to go down. Again splitting the map with PF is great. Keep a PF near your rally point as a fallback position. This rally should be somewhere safe, as in not to far away from your natural. If we used shakuras as an example, this PF should be around the area between your natural and the other natural of the other spawn location. Once our location is picked, try to keep marauders out in front. Two hotkey groups are preferable but being active with your control clicking should more then suffice. Keep adding more PF in locations where you think you can plant them down, so that your actively splitting the map. These PF buy you time to remax if you botch an engagement.
3. Scan your army, scan his army , scan the area you wan't to fight. You need to snipe every observer that is near or around the battlefield. Use your vikings to accomplish this. This gives your cloaked ghosts free reign to fuck with his HT, and assist vikings taking down collosi.
4. Once the observers are dealt with you got a a window of opportunity to do some damage. Send in 1-2 cloaked ghosts and emp the fuck out of his HT. If those ghosts didn't instantly die then send the rest of your cloaked ghosts and blanket emp everything. Prioritize any left over HT and then to carpet his zealots. Be extremely careful of your ghosts getting spam stormed, splitting your ghosts as they move into engage will help immensely.
5. If you executed all this perfectly and he has no storms and no shields on his zealots he will generally retreat to a safer location. Take this time and pick off any straggling collosi. If he dosen't retreat you can crush his standing army. But you need to make sure his collosi are dealt with. Make sure your being active with your vikings and picking them off where you can. When the engagement happens try to get your vikings coming in from a nice angle and you will get most of the collosi before the vikings fall.
6. You don't really need to stutterstep when the fighting begins, however try to split your army a bit just in case if he happens to have 1-2 storms left. Marines melt zealots, and with marauders in front with medivac healing the zealots won't have a chance.
If you execute this correctly you should always win fights. It isn't easy and in a 1A scenerio the protoss will always win, but if you do this correctly you will force just as much unit control from the protoss to combat this.
7. So he either retreated or you traded armies fairly cost efficiently. Take this time to set up more forward PF and take expansions. Keep doing this and eventually you will choke the protoss out.
Now lets say the fight didn't go so well and you lost. You still have multiple PF to fall back and gather your reinforcements. You have to really, really , really fuck up an engagement for the protoss to ram through a PF defense fast enough that you can't muster a response. As in you ate a lot of storms and all your marines keeled over. This should never ever ever happen! The protoss needs to respect the fact that you have ghosts, and if your active about killing observers over your own army the protoss should never feel that confident. Adding 1 missle turret where your army is parked saves on a lot of scans that you can use elsewhere.
Remember that you get to choose the engagements, the protoss will never fight you near one of your own PF. Jock for position on the map and force confrontations when your comfortable to do so. Also make sure you focus on upgrades and get adequate sensor tower coverage to help deal with any backstab attempts, turret rings also help.
So yea I don't think I'm forgetting anything. This might seem a little daunting especially if your Diamond, I was diamond last season and I also have issues doing this sort of stuff. It also feels extremely unfair because if you don't do this the protoss will always roll you over. However if you do this even semi correctly its in the protoss players hands to muster a proper response and will almost always force quite a similar amount of unit control then the typical 1A melt your face with storm nonsense =)
Also this is kind of a cool alternative build avilo has been doing, and is worth a shout out. He goes over it in his own vlog. This idea is to work towards a BC/Ghost deathball which uses the same turtle style. It takes a while, but once you achieve it you can pretty much kill everything the protoss can possibly throw at you.
Also this is really general, and how you should approach those late game TvP fights. However like others have said, working on your macro and having more units then your opponent will win you most of your games.
Also im very tired, 5 am and I haven't slept yet, apologies in advance for any grammar mistakes x,x
I´m in the same boat as you and i found out, that going a fast 3rd with just 3 Raxes is really greedy and you can´t attack into Protoss if you do this, because he will have like 5 Gateways with Collossus tech and even more with HT tech. So your option is to stay passive in that point and with this you give the protoss time, time that you should not give to protoss. What i´m doing right know is going 5 Rax before my 3rd Base. With this i can pressure more and i can punish greedy or bad protoss, because my army will be larger. I also found out that killing the observers is really important. With those guys they can see everything and they can decide how greedy they want to be. If you kill a lot of them, theier collosuss army is weaker, because they had to rebuilt those observers all game long. Be active on the map and look for those observers to kill. It´s the same strategy as if you play aggainst Zerg. No vision = no information = safe play or bad decisions that you can punish. Aggainst the HT first style, you should wait until your ghost have cloak and allways try to kill the observers before the battle. Unless you have cloak and kill his observers he will kill your ghosts before you can get off your emps on those HTs.
Summary: - 5 Raxes before 3rd for more pressure - kill observer for less vision = indirect pressure - aggainst ht tech wait for cloak and kill the observers with scans (for this 2-3 vikings are great) - aggainst an collossi player you can hit a timing, when you spot it fast you can make a lot of vikings and produce with your 5 raxes, if he´s taking a third with collossus you can win the game right there - i usually don´t produce more than 60 SCVs, because i have mules and with that my army will be bigger than his
These are some points that helped me out in TvP, but i still have problems in microing big fights. If you paly a long macro game, don´t overcommit to force him to a fight. Pick up a fight, where you can trade a decent amount of his army and when you have an economy advantage and a lot of raxes, you will come out ahead after the fight. The most mistake i see terrans do they engange and loose all their army to kill 20% of the protoss ones so he can remax in a second and kill you even if you have 4k ressources banked. Trade slowly in the lategame and try to get in favourable positions to deny his expandtions and force fights where you want to fight. It´s hard, but you have to be really patiant.
I can only agree from watching a few games that you play with very little thought about what your actually doing.
Antiga shipyard 63
Things to improve on are
You can deduct more from seeing a 1 gate 1 gas build, you wont need a 2nd bunker this early and especially not a turret.
~6:00 you dont want to scan his main as theres a big chance hes hiding special tech or even gateways anyway. Seeing an expansion means theres not an imminent threat of an all in, and you can focus on getting more tech. Scout again later to see if its a 2 base timing.
2 tech lab 1 naked barracks is not the production you are looking for in a 2 base game especially not past 10 minutes. At least 4-5 barracks with addons. Again, at 15 minutes on 3 base, your on the production you should have had 6 minutes ago.
You lose some drops when you attack into his main, that obviously shouldnt happen.
Your huge drop at 16:40 is works in this game because your so far ahead on units. This protoss played pretty poorly macro wise, so it worked better than it should. Next time try dropping 2-3 medivacs in his main to force his main army out of position and kill his 3rd. You dont need to Kill him to win, keep him on 2 bases and its practically a free win.
at 20:40 your so far ahead, you could basically do anything to win. You have 4000 minerals and 4000 gas, and could tech to battlecruiser, add 10 barracks, and not attack him.
at 24:00 you decide to attack him at the worst possible location, cornering yourself onto a small space where he has vision. Naturally storms are going to rape you hard, and your EMPs are slow and terrible. Just watch that engagement in 1/2 speed, and cry a little. 24:55 JUST EMP HIS ARMY FFS!! Since you fail to do any EMPs or actually anything useful in that engagement you lose it terribly. it would have been better to stim and A move up his main ramp to be honest.
You keep taking expansions, but dont add production. In the end any advantage you get with your far superor economy you throw away by not beeing able to reeinforce.
25:00 Congratulations Youve got 5k / 5k in your bank as you lose the game and GG out.
The sad thing is, this game wasnt even over. You could have still come back from that point. Make vikings, and a lot of ghosts, and just fight at your planetary.
That game just made my eyes hurt. I want you to stop seeing pros lose games and tell yourself its imbalanced for terran. This game is 100% your fail - theres no balance fix short of removing storm that will make you win aweful engagements like that.
A thing that i found great to do is do gasless 1 rack expand, into 5 rax (3 tech lab 2 reactor) with a reactor starport, then i do a pressure timing (forgot the exact time mark but you want to push whenever you get around 2-4 medivacs). I like to do a double drop at his main and pressure with my main army at his front. Now granted this does take practice and good use of control groups but after a while it gets easy and you can take games off pretty good players. basically you want to go wherever his stalkers aren't are in his main hit it fluster him, and then stim your main army and rape his front. It work VERRRRY well with my past experience. Its also good at scouting his unit comp as this will tell you if he's going for a colossus or high temp tech route. Either way this attack will usually do some damage, I never over commit and once I did my damage i either win or get out and expand to a third and either get ghost or another reactor starport depending on if its colossus or temps, and then dont forget your 2 ebays and armory once you take a third. Remember your marines and marauders are very mobile and you never have to over commit you can always stim and run away if you need to.
Some general TvP help - macro game advice two thirds down
(My) 1 Rax Reaper Expo
Depot Rax (Scout after this) Marine Depot (Build it with the final SCV before OC, rally it to where you want Depot) OC (Make ONE SCV after this and send it to natural then temporarily halt SCVs) Tech Lab Reaper CC @ natural 2nd Rax Marauder + Conc. Shells (Resume SCV production at this point)
From there add a third rax, take your second gas and tech to reactored starport, grab stim on the way, don't put any add ons on the other two rax, just constant 'rines. You should be able to hit an AMAZING timing with the first two vacs that will hit before they get any splash damage against standard builds. I make a second reaper and generally try to get the first one killed after doing enough damage / scouting with it. Much like the spanish inquisition, no one expects the second reaper! (Send it to their main mineral line as you attack their natural - without being too offensive NA platinum multitasking shouldn't be too great and mine once got 17 kills as an EU at the time Diamond)
Main problems with this build :-
I don't wall off with it as I hate one base nonsense from Protoss where you basically donate them two depots and your only rax with a tech lab on it and as I scout after Rax if they do proxy double gate you're pretty fucked without perfect micro
Only one marine defending for a while can cause problems if they barrel the first zealot and chrono'd stalker up your ramp as it can get there before 'rauder on small maps. As they have both these units over here though your reaper should do good damage, if they only have a sentry at home then kill it, a reaper beats a sentry 1 on 1, and don't be afraid of pulling a few SCVs to get rid of their poke with these two units.
Expo in to DTs. As the build doesn't get detection then a non-obvious DT timing can cause havoc, my best tip is if you see double gas with your SCV and they still expand then make sure to keep your reaper alive and use it to scout more than harass as you really can't afford to always keep a scan saved with this build for the one time in twenty they go DTs as it's very tight on income/expenditure so you are behind the 19 times they don't go DTs.
Expo in to very early gateway pressure. This can be a nightmare, I scan the Protoss nat before attacking, if they haven't taken either gas just sit at home, do not attack, build a bunker or two. If they attack before you scan off something like halted probe 5 gate then just run to mineral line and fight with SCVs.
How to scout with this build:
With the first SCV you want to peek in, check gas and chrono and then leave before 4 mins and hide your SCV around their third or further away as more P players begin to check around third with a Stalker, can hang about to see if they chrono core/gateway after core finishes. As your Reaper goes in to their main have the SCV arrive at their natural shortly afterwards to check if they have an expo there, hide it behind their mineral line in they have no nexus or to make sure nexus completes if they do have one. Due to confusion of reaper the SCV can probably get in fine and at that level most P players won't re-check behind their minerals after dealing with Reaper. Below I will detail what you can scout with SCV (I don't include proxy 11/11 gate as there should be a more obvious way to note they're doing that in the form of zealots killing your shit)
Nexus first. Immediately build a bunker within range but hidden from site of the constructing nexus, if you haven't started the reaper then get a 'rauder instead. Get marine over there. You can choose to expo yourself and be a bit behind as you'll most likely not kill Nexus but can disrupt mining for a while / force a probe pull. Other option is to chuck down two more rax, bring a few SCVs along and make sure the Nexus dies. Obviously if it doesn't you've essentially lost.
Some early forge expo bullshit as he seems to think you're a zerg (I've played two EU Diamonds who did this recently they both said a pro P did this and won vs T). Forget about the expo, and yours, get your second gas, rush to reactored vacs, drop in their main, win the game, I honestly still don't know how this build is ever meant to win.
1 gas high chrono. 4 gate. If Reaper confirms this then float CC back to main after it's finished and get some bunkers up, can leave CC at natural if you'd rather defend there, but be prepped to pull all SCVs at nat to repair, get combat shields instead of stim. Cut SCVs if needed as you want constant rax production with this, along with getting the bunkers up. Get a few SCVs to repair, easy hold. From their just keep teching to medivacs as you've already won the game and you've basically got an a move in to win transition when they pop.
1 gas low chrono -> Probably fast expand. If reaper / scv scout combo confirms this then just keep playing standard and hit your timing as crisp as possible, if it's not an expo they're just doing a terrible variant of something else here.
2 gas. Here's where the P player can basically be doing anything, they can still expand relatively quickly, or an all in is coming, or any manner of crap proxied somewhere. If you scout two gas with SCV then use the reaper more for scouting than harass, don't just lose it for a probe kill. Coming up is a "what you scout with Reaper SCV after they went 2 gas"
-> Expo, phew, no awful all in - leave SCV to make sure it completes They should be getting at least three gates by this point along with some additional tech in either the form of a Robo, Council or something a bit off like Forge or Stargate. Can pretty much just go for the timing. If you aren't confident you know what they're doing try and keep Reaper alive and pop back in a bit from a different angle. Even seeing what kills it at the natural is useful info.
-> No Expo, 3 gate robo. Bunkers, combat shield not stim, I make 'rines instead of 'rauders from you tech labbed rax after you have enough marauders to fill bunkers but I still can't work out if this helps. Have SCVs on a hotkey ready to repair, get one marine / SCV at bottom of natural ramp so you'll have time to react. If they still haven't attacked for like a minute after their timing then could be they're going 1 base colossi so scan their main and make double viking once port finishes if they are. Timing is a bit tight but bunkers should buy you enough time. This is so all in so you just need to hold and win.
-> No Expo, 3 gates. This is either voids or DTs, the buildings may be built in the base or proxied somewhere, the fact there is only three gates and no robo is the clue. Float CC to main, get a turret at mineral line and at ramp, combat shields not stim, bunker at ramp. If the SCV finally sees them expo then you'll still be ahead of a DT expand economically so go back to trying to hit stim / 2 medivac timing as best you can, turret at natural choke, leave a few units when you attack / have them rallied there. Obvious save scans for when you do attack if it was DTs.
I'm not going to cover every possibility as anything else is sub-optimal. Just deal with it in the same way you would deal with the more optimal version of it or in the obvious way to dealing with it (build turrets for phoenix etc)
After the timing - bit most relevant
With the push at the front and the reaper you should know exactly what they're planning if you don't outright kill them, if you cripple them then get a decent army and push again. Check to make sure they haven't grabbed a third also.
Get yourself a third, combat shields, add two more rax, grab both natural gases, get the counter to their tech choice (vikings or ghosts). Get one engineering bay and add the second after third is taken (or faster if you scouted two forges). From this point engaging the Protoss army head on when it's prepared is difficult so only do it if you absolutely have to or know you should overwhelm them.
Instead go for drop play, get turrets to stop observers sitting over your army / dts walking in to your base. You'll want to be getting your fourth after you have a decent enough unit count of the thing that counters their initial splash damage tech choice. Always be adding rax and putting add ons on them, be looking to take the fifth / build extra OC's to sacrifice workers for supply.
If for whatever reason the P army is terribly out of position to protect one of their bases then kill it and get out, or kill it and then engage if the P player has managed their army terribly (1a'd it over to their fourth on Tal Darim for example)
Late game when you're both maxed you need to make sure you have at least two reactored ports, potentially a third one if they have three robos. Then you want a lot of rax, enough to remax ASAP but not so much that you waste your bank purely in making the barracks.
Maxed TvP engagements are all on army positioning and scouting their positioning. You need to know exactly where the P army is and especially the HTs. Try to ensure you have towers and scan the P army before engaging, never attack in to a P army if you can help it, try and drag them in to you. I really don't like sending cloaked ghosts in to EMP unless you 100% know they have no observer, and even then they can still storm the blurs. Anyway, when the engagement is 100% going to happen then scan, EMP the HTs and stim. Save one or two EMPs in case they bring HTs in that weren't part of the army. Land the vikings once the colossus die and stutter bio as best you can.
After landing the EMPs go to the rax and get the units bulding. I go for two thirds 'rauders, one third ghosts and then as many marines as you have reactored rax. What you build from starports depends on what dies in the battle so maybe just go with half Viking, half Medivac until battle ends. After that go back to army and keep stuttering.
If you win the fight and utterly crush them then go kill a mining base or whatever as you'll be able to beat the warp in reinforcements, then get your reinforcements together with main army and go kill another base / P army.
If you just about win the fight then I'd advise extreme caution before attacking in as a round of chargelots against hurt units and no medivac energy will be a massacre no matter how good your stutter step micro is. I'd advise waiting for one round of reinforcements and getting some MULEs / SCVs in to repair vacs and vikings before going and killing a mining base. Do not take in to account landed vikings as ground army, get them in the air straight after battle.
I don't like going in to the Protoss main / nat late game as to get in and get to the tech structures can end in utter disaster and inability to retreat as all your stuff dies. After a late game TvP big fight scan their robo(s). If you are caught short on Vikings and they made 3 more colossi you're in trouble. If they make Immortals then well, aren't they a complete shit.
About all I can come up with, zzzzzz
EDIT: Didn't mention dealing with an early blink / obs build. Maruaders good unit, bunkers good building, scan if you can guarantee an obs kill.
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
I've talked with a lot of frustrated Terran practice partners, they all complain about this issue. However, I think its entirely possible to win macro games TvP, Terrans are just doing it wrong at the moment. There are two major errors Terrans make most of the time they play against me:
1) Not sacking scvs for more army in the late game. Terrans need to play TvP like they play TvT. Sacking around 40 scvs late game frees up a ton of army supply and will help a lot against a more cost efficient deathball.
2) Not using their air properly. Terrans seem to have gotten good at using emps, but they seem to have forgotten how to use their air. Vikings have 9 range, thats a lot. In fact its as much as the colossi. The way this game works is that the fundamentally less cost efficient race needs to have an advantage in battle in order to beat a more cost efficient race. Thats just common sense. TvP is a lot like ZvT, or ZvP. Terran has to get the concave, and use its vikings smartly in order to pick off or damage colossi before the battle even begins. All emps have to land, and the battle has to be a relative landslide in the Terrans favor, which, if all goes well, is 100% possible as long as the first thing Terrans are doing wrong is rectified. Additionally, I have NO IDEA why Terrans don't use the raven. PDD is SO GOOD against stalkers, and can help keep those vikings alive much longer than without using it.
Anyway thats my advice/things I see Terrans doing wrong most of the time.
On February 20 2012 05:53 xlava wrote: I've talked with a lot of frustrated Terran practice partners, they all complain about this issue. However, I think its entirely possible to win macro games TvP, Terrans are just doing it wrong at the moment. There are two major errors Terrans make most of the time they play against me:
1) Not sacking scvs for more army in the late game. Terrans need to play TvP like they play TvT. Sacking around 40 scvs late game frees up a ton of army supply and will help a lot against a more cost efficient deathball.
2) Not using their air properly. Terrans seem to have gotten good at using emps, but they seem to have forgotten how to use their air. Vikings have 9 range, thats a lot. In fact its as much as the colossi. The way this game works is that the fundamentally less cost efficient race needs to have an advantage in battle in order to beat a more cost efficient race. Thats just common sense. TvP is a lot like ZvT, or ZvP. Terran has to get the concave, and use its vikings smartly in order to pick off or damage colossi before the battle even begins. All emps have to land, and the battle has to be a relative landslide in the Terrans favor, which, if all goes well, is 100% possible as long as the first thing Terrans are doing wrong is rectified. Additionally, I have NO IDEA why Terrans don't use the raven. PDD is SO GOOD against stalkers, and can help keep those vikings alive much longer than without using it.
Anyway thats my advice/things I see Terrans doing wrong most of the time.
PDD is good against stalkers. Stalkers however are often not a significant part of a maxed lategame P army.
Having the mentality of thinking that Protoss is impossible to beat lategame, especially at the low diamond level, is destructive. Because until you hit high masters, you're making big mistakes in your games. So this needs to be a little more introspective at Terran game play rather than QQ-spective (JOKING MODS) at Protoss lategame.
On February 20 2012 05:53 xlava wrote: I've talked with a lot of frustrated Terran practice partners, they all complain about this issue. However, I think its entirely possible to win macro games TvP, Terrans are just doing it wrong at the moment. There are two major errors Terrans make most of the time they play against me:
1) Not sacking scvs for more army in the late game. Terrans need to play TvP like they play TvT. Sacking around 40 scvs late game frees up a ton of army supply and will help a lot against a more cost efficient deathball.
2) Not using their air properly. Terrans seem to have gotten good at using emps, but they seem to have forgotten how to use their air. Vikings have 9 range, thats a lot. In fact its as much as the colossi. The way this game works is that the fundamentally less cost efficient race needs to have an advantage in battle in order to beat a more cost efficient race. Thats just common sense. TvP is a lot like ZvT, or ZvP. Terran has to get the concave, and use its vikings smartly in order to pick off or damage colossi before the battle even begins. All emps have to land, and the battle has to be a relative landslide in the Terrans favor, which, if all goes well, is 100% possible as long as the first thing Terrans are doing wrong is rectified. Additionally, I have NO IDEA why Terrans don't use the raven. PDD is SO GOOD against stalkers, and can help keep those vikings alive much longer than without using it.
Anyway thats my advice/things I see Terrans doing wrong most of the time.
PDD is good against stalkers. Stalkers however are often not a significant part of a maxed lategame P army.
Not just that but feedback (if not used to outright kill the raven) negates PDD.
Otherwise I do think there's some good advice there
On February 20 2012 05:53 xlava wrote: I've talked with a lot of frustrated Terran practice partners, they all complain about this issue. However, I think its entirely possible to win macro games TvP, Terrans are just doing it wrong at the moment. There are two major errors Terrans make most of the time they play against me:
1) Not sacking scvs for more army in the late game. Terrans need to play TvP like they play TvT. Sacking around 40 scvs late game frees up a ton of army supply and will help a lot against a more cost efficient deathball.
2) Not using their air properly. Terrans seem to have gotten good at using emps, but they seem to have forgotten how to use their air. Vikings have 9 range, thats a lot. In fact its as much as the colossi. The way this game works is that the fundamentally less cost efficient race needs to have an advantage in battle in order to beat a more cost efficient race. Thats just common sense. TvP is a lot like ZvT, or ZvP. Terran has to get the concave, and use its vikings smartly in order to pick off or damage colossi before the battle even begins. All emps have to land, and the battle has to be a relative landslide in the Terrans favor, which, if all goes well, is 100% possible as long as the first thing Terrans are doing wrong is rectified. Additionally, I have NO IDEA why Terrans don't use the raven. PDD is SO GOOD against stalkers, and can help keep those vikings alive much longer than without using it.
Anyway thats my advice/things I see Terrans doing wrong most of the time.
PDD is good against stalkers. Stalkers however are often not a significant part of a maxed lategame P army.
Not just that but feedback (if not used to outright kill the raven) negates PDD.
Otherwise I do think there's some good advice there
Well, storms also rip apart marines , you don't want your marines to get close to HT intill majority of storms and drained by EMP. This is just as applicable to the Raven and feedback. Not having to rebuild all your vikings after every major confrontation surely is worth the 100 energy that the PDD cost.
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
Don't always do one thing. Understand what each strat requires and risks.
If a toss maxes out at 150 in army, he obv is allining and will not have any ability to sustain that attack. 1941 him.
E.g., make it a multifront war where the push into the heartland will meet multiple walls of your troops. The farther away he goes from his base, the more vulnerable his own base is and the longer his reinforcement line is. And his reproduction capability is very limited.
No offense, but 1941'ing the futuristic race that can build units anywhere on the map is not a good idea. They can instant reinforce, and instant build defenses where they please.
At the same time, its very difficult to scout someone who does a reduced worker count build.
On February 20 2012 05:53 xlava wrote: I've talked with a lot of frustrated Terran practice partners, they all complain about this issue. However, I think its entirely possible to win macro games TvP, Terrans are just doing it wrong at the moment. There are two major errors Terrans make most of the time they play against me:
1) Not sacking scvs for more army in the late game. Terrans need to play TvP like they play TvT. Sacking around 40 scvs late game frees up a ton of army supply and will help a lot against a more cost efficient deathball.
2) Not using their air properly. Terrans seem to have gotten good at using emps, but they seem to have forgotten how to use their air. Vikings have 9 range, thats a lot. In fact its as much as the colossi. The way this game works is that the fundamentally less cost efficient race needs to have an advantage in battle in order to beat a more cost efficient race. Thats just common sense. TvP is a lot like ZvT, or ZvP. Terran has to get the concave, and use its vikings smartly in order to pick off or damage colossi before the battle even begins. All emps have to land, and the battle has to be a relative landslide in the Terrans favor, which, if all goes well, is 100% possible as long as the first thing Terrans are doing wrong is rectified. Additionally, I have NO IDEA why Terrans don't use the raven. PDD is SO GOOD against stalkers, and can help keep those vikings alive much longer than without using it.
Anyway thats my advice/things I see Terrans doing wrong most of the time.
The reasons these two errors are problems...
1) The second you sack your scvs you have gone all in, if he kills your army you lose, bottom line.
2) Your right about what Terran needs to do here, the problem is that the T has to do this very fast and very precise, one small mistake or if your a bit slow and this method just falls apart and the P rolls you. Getting a concave, focus firing collsi, emping, and stutter stepping is very hard to manage at high speeds.
Ive wanted either the Thor/BC/Raven to work into TvP as well. Some big tier 3 that helps reduce the insane amount of micro MMM takes. Despite that, through theorycraft and then practice, the same damn problem happens everytime..... feedbackk.......
On February 20 2012 05:53 xlava wrote: I've talked with a lot of frustrated Terran practice partners, they all complain about this issue. However, I think its entirely possible to win macro games TvP, Terrans are just doing it wrong at the moment. There are two major errors Terrans make most of the time they play against me:
1) Not sacking scvs for more army in the late game. Terrans need to play TvP like they play TvT. Sacking around 40 scvs late game frees up a ton of army supply and will help a lot against a more cost efficient deathball.
2) Not using their air properly. Terrans seem to have gotten good at using emps, but they seem to have forgotten how to use their air. Vikings have 9 range, thats a lot. In fact its as much as the colossi. The way this game works is that the fundamentally less cost efficient race needs to have an advantage in battle in order to beat a more cost efficient race. Thats just common sense. TvP is a lot like ZvT, or ZvP. Terran has to get the concave, and use its vikings smartly in order to pick off or damage colossi before the battle even begins. All emps have to land, and the battle has to be a relative landslide in the Terrans favor, which, if all goes well, is 100% possible as long as the first thing Terrans are doing wrong is rectified. Additionally, I have NO IDEA why Terrans don't use the raven. PDD is SO GOOD against stalkers, and can help keep those vikings alive much longer than without using it.
Anyway thats my advice/things I see Terrans doing wrong most of the time.
The reasons these two errors are problems...
1) The second you sack your scvs you have gone all in, if he kills your army you lose, bottom line.
2) Your right about what Terran needs to do here, the problem is that the T has to do this very fast and very precise, one small mistake or if your a bit slow and this method just falls apart and the P rolls you. Getting a concave, focus firing collsi, emping, and stutter stepping is very hard to manage at high speeds.
Ive wanted either the Thor/BC/Raven to work into TvP as well. Some big tier 3 that helps reduce the insane amount of micro MMM takes. Despite that, through theorycraft and then practice, the same damn problem happens everytime..... feedbackk.......
Late game terrans have been massing OC and spamming mules. You can pretty much strip an expansion of minerals when you have enough mules. You wan't to keep enough SCV to mine gas however. This dosne't really cut into production. You just stockpile minerals and use it when you need to. The benefit is that you get 30+ food in pretty much every end game fight. While the protoss has to keep atleast 50-60 probes, you can cut your scv count down to 20 and still be fine if you have enough OC.
IMO, Terran have become dogmatically committed to going bio in this matchup. When you look at it on paper, it seems kind of obvious that your mostly tier-1 army is not going to stand up to a Protoss deathball with like three different counters to bio in it. Why do we expect marines and marauders to put up a good fight against supply-dense, splash-heavy units like colossi, high templars and archons?
Very skilled players can make this work by utilizing bio's superior mobility, harassing and dropping all over the place. But if you don't have that level of multitasking, and are inevitably just going to run your army into theirs, bio is just going to lose almost all the time unless you get an insane flank or perfect EMPs. In the endgame bio vs. deathball engagement, the onus is on the Terran to not get rolled. This is just how bio works, the same as in TvT or TvZ; you don't have inevitability in the endgame because your opponent's composition just eventually gets stronger and more supply-dense than yours.
People have remained committed to bio as the core TvP comp because there isn't an obvious alternative just yet. Tank/Marine isn't as effective as it is in TvZ or TvT, and without tanks as the backbone of your army it's difficult to think of what to build your comp around. The upgrade situation is gross too; transitioning out of bio means your upgrades get reset. But going by my experience, the best advice I can give you is to just *stop going bio*. It's not that it's a bad comp for the matchup, it's just very skill-intensive and requires a level of multitasking that most of us don't have. Personally, I have had more success with the following comps:
* 2-base marine/thor/banshee push (this transitions reasonably well into the lategame in my experience, and doesn't need to be an all-in) * Mech (hellion/tank/thor/banshee, eventually getting ghosts). The tanks play a much more supporting role here though; you don't actually want too many)
If you do decide to stick with bio, the most important thing I realized is that marauders are not as good as you think they are. They feel attractive because they murder stalkers and are more resilient to the huge splash damage from colossi or high templar (whereas marines just get vaporized), but their damage output sucks unless you're shooting stalkers, and marine DPS is awesome. A heavy marine/ghost comp with just enough marauders to get in the way of zealots has served me best. If you can get a flank on colossi with a hit squad of marauders, though, you'll be a happy camper.
Man I really like this thread Half the time these kinds of threads that pose balance questions end up being whine parties, that then turn into heated arguments that go in circles until the thread is closed. But rather it's a bunch of helpful people giving solid advice. This makes me happy.
On February 20 2012 17:28 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote: Man I really like this thread Half the time these kinds of threads that pose balance questions end up being whine parties, that then turn into heated arguments that go in circles until the thread is closed. But rather it's a bunch of helpful people giving solid advice. This makes me happy.
Too bad the title is totally whinny, not tl worhty.
On February 20 2012 17:28 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote: Man I really like this thread Half the time these kinds of threads that pose balance questions end up being whine parties, that then turn into heated arguments that go in circles until the thread is closed. But rather it's a bunch of helpful people giving solid advice. This makes me happy.
Too bad the title is totally whinny, not tl worhty.
Yes but the thread is not and honestly that is what really counts
At your level, you can without taking any risk go for pressure builds or harass based builds which will force mistakes from your diamond leveled opponents. I go for 1 rax FE into 4 naked rax pressure. Very good build, allows for some pressure (during which you read his build), good defense capabilities, but slightly slower tech. Don't hesitate to drop, shift queue drops require much more APM from the Protoss to defend than from the Terran to execute in midgame (In lategame, he will just warp 10+ units so it's not really worth it).
You must understand that the matchup is not at all impossible at such a low level. There is just so much you can improve that it's not worth starting ranting on imbalances and whatnot. The matchup is indeed very hard at the top level, but at yours, just improve a bit and you'll beat your current opponents np ezpz.
I advice anyone having trouble in TvP to watch Lastshadow's vlog, starting from vlog n°12 to vlog n°15. These are very interesting and educationnal, as well as very high level in depth analysis of the match up. Support this guy! Link of the vlog n°12 in spoiler.
Anyway, Dia T, EU server, not that it matters but for what it's worth;
I feel that a better option than taking fast bases at this point is to try and kill the Toss a bit earlier in the midgame with a very very strong, almost an all-innish army like Grobyc's 1rax FE > 3rax (1 tech 2 react) with mass Marines and 2-4 Medivacs, maybe 1 or 2 Marauders. If you go for a that fast a 3rd the Toss can take one as well and then just proceed to the lategame where he rolls you easily.
I've also been experimenting with a "Sauron Terran" style lately, adjusted StimmedProbe's Million Man Marine to a Reaper FE -> mass Rax -> endless waves of progressively better upgraded Marines starting from like the 9:45 minute mark, it's been working great actually and the Toss rage when they lose to pure mass Marines is warming my heart :D
I don't like 1rax FE. Either take 1rax double CC for a really good economy or go for a pressure build like 2rax, all depending on map. Either way, force them behind early on, 2 bases for both isn't that good for you.
I also think that a ghostmech composition can demolish a Protoss army completely one-sidedly. EMP'd Immortals are quite funny as they die like flies to the colossal DPS of the mech army. The ideal way to get here would be using BF hellion drop harass, drive-by's, banshee harass and nuke attacks, maybe. Just getting the ideal composition seems to always be the problem what with Blink Stalkers and WP harass.
Ok, what I have found out about TvP, is that it is possible to win in a macro game (I'm a mid diamond NA player, but I beat high diamonds and I play exclusively against my masters practice partners tbh and I don't ladder much lol), but you have to take risks.
What I mean by this, is that you have to do some big plays. TvP, Terran won't win straight up 9/10 times. Try to find some way to get an advantage. Start +1 at 6 minutes, go 1 rax double FE (actually, do this if he opens 1 gate FE ---> 3 gate robo or just 1 gate FE), go early drops, or just go for some random thing like a hidden expansion (I don't really recommend this lol). You need to do something to get ahead. If you can macro well, and by macro well, I don't care if your money is "low" if you don't have good/perfect worker production for the first 12 minutes, you need to take advantage of a higher income than the protoss. Try to get maxed earlier.
Now when you engage, it can seem like a nightmare. You might not know how to engage properly, you might get chargelot'd and just die, but here's what I learn. Just take 1/3rd of your army and move it to one side. Take another third of your army, and do the same thing. Stim and amove forward. You have just created a concave my friend! Now, just move one group back until charge wears off (try to do this so that another one of the groups is still firing at the chargelots) and your stutter stepping is much easier now..
Also, if you ever want any help in game, feel free to add me:
try checking protoss vods instead of terrans, you will see that at times they are very vulnerable, they cant get tech and army at the same time early on, if they go many gates they cant get hts or collosus fast, try checking protosses replays/vods maybe it would help?
Have you ever tried maurader expand? Lately it increased my win rate a lot. Just drop 1 rax with techlab, get 2 mauraders and concusive shell, get 2-3 scvs and go to protoss expo (rally mauraders to his base) - if he goes nexus first hes dead and if he goes 1 gate expo try to drop bunker near his expo and kill it while getting your own.
I myself think that lategame tvp is really hard if you can't do damage from the start (like killing probes with drops, sniping tech or denying expos) it helped me when I understood that protoss army is not that scary at all, dont be afraid to run around the map poke at certain points just try to feel comfortable and not wait for certain death.
. I will drop the main and the third base and try and keep protoss busy while I take my third base. Often times I am able to get my third up faster then protoss, sometimes significantly faster then protoss
This makes no sense unless i suppose your actually able to snipe the 3rd? lol buttt as a protoss player i say freakin transition! I've seen terrans go for mmm with 3-4 vikings all game, if i see this (and i will with observer) i'm just gonna death ball 1a you know? Get ghosts and cloak hit and run with emp make my templar/sentries useless and i (think don't down me if this is wrong i don't play terran) that 3 viking per col is the correct number. Scout scout scout it's possible believe me more than a few terrans have destroyed me on ladder (high diamond player here)
The problem with TvP is that if you fight 200 vs 200 and come out even, you are actually behind. This is because as your units are killed off you then have to que more while he has the convenience of immediately warping in, making you one round of units behind. Once you get on to the three bases, never stop dropping and never ever miss replenishment of your units through barracks production. The key to Bio is exchanging before you are maxed, a lot of people just do not understand this.
The key idea is to keep the Toss on their toes, while you get more ahead. You cannot go in for the killing blow against a late game Protoss. You literally have to starve them. Which should happen after 3-4 rounds of trading that goes into your favor.
I disagree that 3CC isn't safe. It isn't safe ALL THE TIME, of course.
If your opponent is getting a quickish expand himself, it's safe (FFE or even 3G expand). If the map is huge, and / or he has not spawned close, it's safe (Tel Darim or cross positions Antiga). If your natural is really really defendable, it's safe (Shakuras, even Shattered).
Otherwise, cut the 3rd CC and put down bunkers and rax when you scout a contraindication. Really all you're scared of is 3G Immortal all-in (as it raeps bunkers), or 4G in close positions (as it just comes too fast to have enough). Nothing else you can't hold with ultra greed. Cute cheese like DTs and stuff gets shut down hard, since you have 3 scans for detection and scouting. Anything later than 8-9 mins is disadvantageous to the protoss since you out eco him.
I don't get why there are this many threads about this topic. TvP is my best mu and I know for a fact that a properly controlled terran max should never lose to a protoss max. I would go into more depth but I've posted in enough of these threads recently that I'm tired of repeating myself. Anyone having specific questions can pm me if they want to. Highmaster/gm player on Na, masters on korea.
I've just started playing around with EmpireKas early 3rd expo build showed in Day8 daily 399. It's having good success so far at least in Diamond. Depot Rax OC Depot CC at natural CC in base 2 Rax 1 Refinary Tech Lab with Stim 2 more Refinarys Factory - Reactor on Rax #2, Tech Lab on Rax #3 4th Refinary Reactor on Factory, research Combat Shield and CC when stim finishes EBay Eh might not be spot on but it's what I remember off the top of my head. Pressure at 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 upgrades
I don't know, the only way I can win against protoss is when they're terrible, even in the games I've won I've lost 1.5x-2x recourses as much as protoss.
I TRY to attack earlier but I can't do anything if they sit behind their ramp on entombed, cloud kingdom, antiga or tal'darim. I stay down the ramp/choke, nothing happens, go up, get forcefielded and die.
I know it's whining and bitching and my fault but I don't think I've won a TvP in wich the protoss wasn't terrible.
If anyone has some replays in wich the they went 3 base turtle 3/3 deathball style, I'd love to see them.
I dont have much to add, except the advice here is really good and other than that you could check out Ls's TvP 40min vLog. He talks about using mass cloaked ghosts to kill colossus. (He's a pro-gamer living in Korea.)
On February 21 2012 01:48 DaemonX wrote: I disagree that 3CC isn't safe. It isn't safe ALL THE TIME, of course.
If your opponent is getting a quickish expand himself, it's safe (FFE or even 3G expand). If the map is huge, and / or he has not spawned close, it's safe (Tel Darim or cross positions Antiga). If your natural is really really defendable, it's safe (Shakuras, even Shattered).
Otherwise, cut the 3rd CC and put down bunkers and rax when you scout a contraindication. Really all you're scared of is 3G Immortal all-in (as it raeps bunkers), or 4G in close positions (as it just comes too fast to have enough). Nothing else you can't hold with ultra greed. Cute cheese like DTs and stuff gets shut down hard, since you have 3 scans for detection and scouting. Anything later than 8-9 mins is disadvantageous to the protoss since you out eco him.
FFE PvT??
It's possible to hold 4gate with 3 CC, not 100% sure but I'm pretty sure you can hold 1 base immortal with 3 CC also. The 2 builds that definitely kill it is 4gate warp prism and blink stalker.
Anyway, the whole point of the deathball is to mass enough aoe damage to take down bio quickly while still being able to protect your colossi and high templars from vikings/ghosts. Assuming that you have gotten to the late "macro" stages, you have plenty of add-ons available, so take that one factory that you don't use and build thors. Yup, thors. 1 Thor is big enough to eat a whole storm, tank a ton of damage from colossi (it's big enough to take all of 1 collossus aoe shot), and still do decent damage. This decent damage can be great damage if upgraded, but I know that's tough. And if you get more than 1 thor, it pretty much forces P to use his robo-build time on immortals, which ultimately reduces the amount of colossi out, making your bio more effective. Thor too slow? Put it in one of your 8 empty medivacs you have with your army?
On February 21 2012 03:08 ampson wrote: Just a diamond protoss here.
Anyway, the whole point of the deathball is to mass enough aoe damage to take down bio quickly while still being able to protect your colossi and high templars from vikings/ghosts. Assuming that you have gotten to the late "macro" stages, you have plenty of add-ons available, so take that one factory that you don't use and build thors. Yup, thors. 1 Thor is big enough to eat a whole storm, tank a ton of damage from colossi (it's big enough to take all of 1 collossus aoe shot), and still do decent damage. This decent damage can be great damage if upgraded, but I know that's tough. And if you get more than 1 thor, it pretty much forces P to use his robo-build time on immortals, which ultimately reduces the amount of colossi out, making your bio more effective. Thor too slow? Put it in one of your 8 empty medivacs you have with your army?
Yea then the unupgraded Thor gets swarmed by zealots 3/3/3 zealots, o wait we should pick it up with one of our 8 medivacs you say? Terran already has to much to do in terms of preparing for the fight, keeping marauders in front, splitting the marines, getting the vikings a good angle, trying to find a invisible floating orb and making sure all there HT have no storms after EMP, all of which needs to be done in quick succession and now you want us to micro manage a useless thor?
Why do they need immortals, Zealots will easily rip apart Thors.
As a protoss, I fear drops when after I have taken my third base. Really good terrans keep one or two medi vacs in reserve and wait until they see me warp in or force a fight. A lot of time, Protoss are forced to rely on warp ins to midigate the damage from drops in the late game. Without this, you can run around for a while before they get forces up there. By that time, the nexus could be destroyed.
Also, remember to scale your drops. It only takes 5 gates to match the supply of a single, full medivac. Most protoss have that by 2 bases or earlier.
Also, defensive nukes are a bitch. Late game cloaked ghosts are amazing and nukes can take up a lot of the protoss's time, since there is the risk of losing their entire army if they are sloppy. It gives you some breathing room.
Lategame engagements are really fucking hard. If the HTs get 1 good storm off you're probably going to lose, and if they get more than one storm off you will lose. You need more marines if he has more zealots, and more marauders if he has more stalkers. In diamond what you can do it engage his army, have your ghosts selected, and emp his ball of 10+ HTs as they try to walk in and storm your army. You need to have your vikings killing the colossi 1 at a time, and you need to kite your MM ball backwards from his zealot archon ball too. Before the engagement starts, you need to EMP his whole army, but save some emps for the templar because they usually lag behind.
After the engagement happens, they will usually reinforce with 10-15 zealots, at which point you will either outright lose or need to fall back. If you aren't dead yet, take your whole army and drop at his main and 4th. Since hes trying to mass up chargelot archon, you can force stalkers, which will help you in the next engagement. Snipe his 4th base and his robo if possible. If not,keep him contained and see what hes making so you can counter it in the next fight.
I can't beat protoss unless they really suck either =( luckily, most diamond protoss do suck.
My only issue is that Terran are punished much more for mistakes in micro. If the Terran doesn't do well with the ghosts, Protoss can just shield up, spam storms, and just roll you with colossus and chargelots. Its unfortunate when it gets to the point where they are defended from drops due to cannon, ht or blink stalkers and your only option is really a direct engagement, hopefully in the open. But then again, I'm basically praying that he walks into my concave or let's me snipe his obs and walk cloaked ghost in for emp and snipes. I just get frustrated losing frequently to lesser players in this matchup. I know exactly what I do wrong, but if I botch my ghost micro, I'm basically screwed.
Lol at diamond player saying that a matchup is impossible for macro games, if the best terran in the world says its impossible, then i will accept that there is something wrong with the game, anyone else, i don't see fit to complain about anything.
On February 21 2012 03:56 13_Doomblaze_37 wrote: Lategame engagements are really fucking hard. If the HTs get 1 good storm off you're probably going to lose, and if they get more than one storm off you will lose. You need more marines if he has more zealots, and more marauders if he has more stalkers. In diamond what you can do it engage his army, have your ghosts selected, and emp his ball of 10+ HTs as they try to walk in and storm your army. You need to have your vikings killing the colossi 1 at a time, and you need to kite your MM ball backwards from his zealot archon ball too. Before the engagement starts, you need to EMP his whole army, but save some emps for the templar because they usually lag behind.
After the engagement happens, they will usually reinforce with 10-15 zealots, at which point you will either outright lose or need to fall back. If you aren't dead yet, take your whole army and drop at his main and 4th. Since hes trying to mass up chargelot archon, you can force stalkers, which will help you in the next engagement. Snipe his 4th base and his robo if possible. If not,keep him contained and see what hes making so you can counter it in the next fight.
I can't beat protoss unless they really suck either =( luckily, most diamond protoss do suck.
I would recommend having a fall back point with friendly buildings to buffer you, also. Nothing messes with charglots more than enemy builds. They love to hit them, dance around them and get shot while doing it. The same goes for archons and they cannot shoot over a rax effectively. Also, if the protoss has to micro to get around the building, it breaks the charge animation and the zealots are back to be slow as dirt. They really punish a player who is just a-moving them forward.
Its like when protoss set up their HTs to cover them when they fall back. A lot of TvP is set up before hand.
On February 21 2012 04:13 Josh_rakoons wrote: Lol at diamond player saying that a matchup is impossible for macro games, if the best terran in the world says its impossible, then i will accept that there is something wrong with the game, anyone else, i don't see fit to complain about anything.
MMA has said a few times that TvP is extremely hard for Terran in its current state.
Just accept that this game might not be meant to be played pure macro with maxed armies. I feel like each race has a point in the game where they have a distinct advantage, so recognize it and abuse it as much as possible. The way I play TvP is extremely aggressive all early and midgame. I prioritize denying protoss third base instead of taking my own third base. If I can't deny their third, then at least I will die trying rather than just accepting a late game TvP. Because that is idiotic.
Don't try to force the game into the little bubble of how you THINK it should be played. Play the game as it was designed, play the game the way terran pros play it, which is mostly aggressive two base timings against protoss.
Nothing I love as protoss more than seeing a terran turtle and try to take three or more bases against me. And I LOVE to see gasless expand! Easiest opening in the world to beat with protoss. Terran should always open with gas, just to keep the protoss in the dark and guessing. They don't know if it's reaper FE, 2rax FE, 3rax all in, 1-1-1 all in....
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
Some thoughts based on watching game #20:
Your bunker feels late. I'm surprised you aren't losing lots of games to stalker pressure. High level players who go with a late bunker like that probably rely on micro to survive.
Hide your scv further away. Just because it doesn't get scouted most games by bad players doesn't mean you have found a good spot. You can't rely on just hoping throwing down 3 bunkers will stop whatever the P does when you have no idea what he's doing! With no info on him, you should have scanned.
At 8:20, you've let him bully you into staying on 3 raxes with 1 addon and your factory just barely started and no engineering bay. Your early economic lead is rendered impotent as he tears you apart; you were up workers, then a little later he has another 10 workers, is at 56 and and you haven't built any.
OH GOD. 7 vikings is not enough against 4 colossus. Try 12 or more. You need enough your vikings can kill colo without your bio getting butchered, and as you can clearly see that is not happening.
You're at 42 workers against 72! LKDFJSLDKJFSLDF.
That's a bit irrelevant. His opponents aren't playing MVP, MMA or Gumiho. The way ladder works is you will almost consistently be playing players with roughly equal macro abilities to you. According to the OP, he's been watching a vast amount of top level (including GSL) and hasn't been able to find a reliable TvP build to carry him into the late game. A lot of the new protoss all ins will out right kill you before you get a chance to macro or they will be able to safely out macro you. I think terrans from all skill levels are experiencing the same problem. Whether you are diamond or GM or a GSL champion, your chances of winning TvP decreases dramatically as the game drags on. You can work on macro and mechanics all you want but you will simply struggle against better Protoss players. What this guy is looking for is a reliable build that will allow him to play macro games instead of trying to execute hit or miss timings or all-ins.
I'm not sure there exists a wholly safe TvP opener. Every opening is susceptible to a multitude of all ins or will leave you severely behind in macro. The only "macro" build I've had any success with is Kas's 1 Rax FE build. Day9 did a daily about Kas' TvP opener which is a standard gasless 1 rax expo but you throw down a 3rd CC asap (before you add any more rax) and get 2 blind bunkers. I've found that if the protoss doesn't get wind of what you're up to you can at least stay even (possibly be ahead) in macro going into the late game. However, the problem still stands that once you get to the lategame, even if you're even in workers/bases, you are still going to have extreme difficulty comming out ahead or even in fights.
On February 21 2012 04:27 liberal wrote: Just accept that this game might not be meant to be played pure macro with maxed armies. I feel like each race has a point in the game where they have a distinct advantage, so recognize it and abuse it as much as possible. The way I play TvP is extremely aggressive all early and midgame. I prioritize denying protoss third base instead of taking my own third base. If I can't deny their third, then at least I will die trying rather than just accepting a late game TvP. Because that is idiotic.
Don't try to force the game into the little bubble of how you THINK it should be played. Play the game as it was designed, play the game the way terran pros play it, which is mostly aggressive two base timings against protoss.
Nothing I love as protoss more than seeing a terran turtle and try to take three or more bases against me. And I LOVE to see gasless expand! Easiest opening in the world to beat with protoss. Terran should always open with gas, just to keep the protoss in the dark and guessing. They don't know if it's reaper FE, 2rax FE, 3rax all in, 1-1-1 all in....
I agree. I get pretty pumped when I see no gas and know exactly what is coming, 1 rax FE or some dumb 3 rax non-sense. No need to worry about banshees, 2 rax agression, hellons or anything else that requires gas. And any terran that turtles and keeps their army at home is great. It far easier to prepare for drops and take a third when there is no threat of the terran kicking down your door.
It's just very difficult (understatement) to ever kill a Protoss when they are doing a templar turtle style.
Honestly, bio+viking+ghost against a Protoss that has high apm+multi-task that uses warp prisms, turtles well, etc...I think we have to wait till Heart of the Swarm to get a cost effective army that we can get in lategame.
ghost mech/mech is theoretically stronger than bio viking ghost the problem is after the tank nerf accumulating tanks no longer became as effective as it was in brood war. And there is no easy way to simply transition into ghost mech after you have already maxed 200/200 on bio + viking + ghost.
Macro tvp games are tough, you have to use nukes, turtle well with planetary walls, and get enough ghosts/vikings with marines/marauder to not only kill 1 army of protoss, but kill their second and third army that they essentially get for free in lategame off of warp gates + a bankroll.
You definitely cannot ever attack if your ghosts do not have full energy, if you do not have the viking count, and if you already over stimmed. So you have to win a battle by a huge margin, and still have all of these things leftover in order to ever make any progress. And protoss will have templar back at home with lots of cannons allowing them another 2-3 deathballs anyways...so I would suggest transitioning into ghost + BC in the lategame after you trade away most of your bio. This requires you to turtle and build a bankroll the same way that protoss does though...and i know most Terrans are aggressive minded so most people are not even willing to try this transition !
As a protoss player, I feel pretty comfortable in the late game, but what hurts is hit squads of marauders going around the map picking off expansions - they crush buildings so fast, and if I am maxed out on supply I can't easily warp in to stop them. That means I have to split units off from my army, and get pulled around the map that way. Of course, it is difficult to to win in a straight up fight, particularly if the Protoss gets that really nice unit composition, but I would say good ghost use can help you trade more cost efficiently. Try not to engage in chokes and other areas susceptible to AoE damage.
Also, you can play a macro game while still putting on early pressure. Not all pressure needs to be intended to end the game, but simply causing the protoss to feel uncomfortable and build more (particularly gas heavy) units in the early and early-mid game really delays how easily they can get up all their tech and upgrades. So, you don't need to worry about only the late game itself, but how the game got to the late game.
On February 21 2012 04:46 SnuggleZhenya wrote: As a protoss player, I feel pretty comfortable in the late game, but what hurts is hit squads of marauders going around the map picking off expansions - they crush buildings so fast, and if I am maxed out on supply I can't easily warp in to stop them. That means I have to split units off from my army, and get pulled around the map that way. Of course, it is difficult to to win in a straight up fight, particularly if the Protoss gets that really nice unit composition, but I would say good ghost use can help you trade more cost efficiently. Try not to engage in chokes and other areas susceptible to AoE damage.
Also, you can play a macro game while still putting on early pressure. Not all pressure needs to be intended to end the game, but simply causing the protoss to feel uncomfortable and build more (particularly gas heavy) units in the early and early-mid game really delays how easily they can get up all their tech and upgrades. So, you don't need to worry about only the late game itself, but how the game got to the late game.
You should have about 10-15 supply open for warp-ins in the lategame. Otherwise you're not playing it as best as you could.
Also, the saying "never let it get to that point" no one should ever use on this forum or any other discussion because it's a terrible thought process. Because there are people that CAN consistently "get it to that point" because they all know that if they do then it's a free advantage for them.
"Don't let it get to that point" is like "don't let the sun come up in the morning." It's going to come up lol. And as people get better at the game, there should not be situations where "if it gets to that point" one race automatically has an advantage for no reason. THat's terrible game design, though that's a slightly different topic.
It just irks me when people say the "don't let it get there" as if they secretly know that if they just turtle and defend they always can get it there and that they feel they should be rewarded for simply getting to a certain stage in the game.
What you are experiencing is what most Terrans are experiencing in the TvP matchup. I know that some people disagree but alot of us feel that Protoss has a easier time in the late game against Terran. This shows itself most of all in the leagues Diamond-Master, and it is due to too how the matchup plays out.
1. A TvP game is often decided with one major fight and the Protoss has the edge because of their Warpgate technology. If the Terran loses the fight then he simply cannot hold the flood that is the rest of the Protoss army because his units will spawn in different locations at different times and will just be killed off one by one.
2. In TvP the Terran player needs to react to what the Protoss player is doing. Collosi = Vikings, HT = Ghosts.
One of the harder timings is when the Protoss has opened with one off the two and then tech switches to the other aswell. We all know how hard it is too fight a Protoss Deathball with HT's, Collosi, Archons and Chargelots.
The key is for the Terran to have good scouting and react accordingly.
3. In the later stages of the game the terran player needs to kite and spread and it takes more effort then what the Protoss player needs to do. This is assuming the P player has a good amount of Chargelots that he can A-move in while he storms and does the other important micro. But he should, Zealots are basicly free in the lategame
The Pro's can manage all this because they are Pro's and I'd say it looks balanced enough when i see them play, but people like us who are ''good'' at the game but no way near their level have a harder time. I guess you just need to hang in there and improve and you won't feel as lost.
I have too admit i kinda took the cowards road and stopped playing on my T account. I now play Random, less stressful and I have no need to rage about balance ^^.
Guess I should chip in some tips to.
Use cloaked ghosts, if the Protoss makes the mistake to not have a observer over his army you can end the game right there if your armies are similiar. You can scan over the army before you go in.
Use alot of Drops, try to focus down his forges. If you can have a upgrade advantage it is BIG!
Anyways I don't know if i really helped you much, but hang in there buddy. Your not alone
As an ex gm and currently top Masters, for the past year my TvP has been not letting Protoss get to the late game. Keep engagements often, and constantly attack, and either kill him off or prevent him from achieving a complete late game economy/army.
"if Protoss gets 3/3, you should just leave the game" - DDE, at a local lan
On February 21 2012 05:02 ZiegFeld wrote: As an ex gm and currently top Masters, for the past year my TvP has been not letting Protoss get to the late game. Keep engagements often, and constantly attack, and either kill him off or prevent him from achieving a complete late game economy/army.
"if Protoss gets 3/3, you should just leave the game" - DDE, at a local lan
I pretty much leave the game once I see a 3rd that I can't snipe/engage. For me, right now, TvP feels like TvZ did early last year. You do an early 1base timing as the opponent fast expands. Once the expansion stays you pressure some more as you get a late expansion and hope your constant aggression translates into you denying third bases. Then once a 3rd base lands and sticks you should have your strong timing push ready and you engage main army vs main army and hope your army wins.
I suck ass, I suck at army composition because I spend too little time building the correct units yet I just feel it's so much harder to control your late game army than as a protoss. I always get myself into decent situations then I do dumb shit and instantly lose. everygame (
TvP in macro games like last 20 games I probably have 10% win rate, only win if the protoss decides to do some cheese shit.
1. Cut SCVs at 55, only OC's after that, to 5+ OC.
****2. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT: Only engage in favorable positions. Don't EVER engage on open ground unless you are extremely ahead. Always be at a choke, wedge, or simcity such that zealot attack area is significantly reduced.
3. Here's the myth: proper spreading and stuttering wins fights. This is NOT true, this is WHY you are losing the 200 fights. While there are specific scenarios where you stutter+spread against HT/colo, you don't win 200 fights this way IN THE OPEN. No amount of spreading + stuttering solves the mathematical fact that 3/3 chargelot is way too efficient to kill in time in the open.
Engagements are 100% about reducing AOE damage (through your ranged counters, and appropriate micro if necessary) but MORE IMPORTANTLY reducing zeal efficiency.
4. And here's how you win: same as TvZ late game - starve them out. You have +20 food from MULES, so that means you have 20-30 food on the map constantly in dropships. He has warpins. Your goal is to displace his warpins and his army eventually. Either he attacks into your position, where you are simcitied. OR he is forced to pull his army out of position to deal with your drop AND you reposition in favorable location near him and force a fight there. Rinse and repeat until he can no longer hold the outer expos.
It's just very difficult (understatement) to ever kill a Protoss when they are doing a templar turtle style.
Honestly, bio+viking+ghost against a Protoss that has high apm+multi-task that uses warp prisms, turtles well, etc...I think we have to wait till Heart of the Swarm to get a cost effective army that we can get in lategame.
ghost mech/mech is theoretically stronger than bio viking ghost the problem is after the tank nerf accumulating tanks no longer became as effective as it was in brood war. And there is no easy way to simply transition into ghost mech after you have already maxed 200/200 on bio + viking + ghost.
Macro tvp games are tough, you have to use nukes, turtle well with planetary walls, and get enough ghosts/vikings with marines/marauder to not only kill 1 army of protoss, but kill their second and third army that they essentially get for free in lategame off of warp gates + a bankroll.
You definitely cannot ever attack if your ghosts do not have full energy, if you do not have the viking count, and if you already over stimmed. So you have to win a battle by a huge margin, and still have all of these things leftover in order to ever make any progress. And protoss will have templar back at home with lots of cannons allowing them another 2-3 deathballs anyways...so I would suggest transitioning into ghost + BC in the lategame after you trade away most of your bio. This requires you to turtle and build a bankroll the same way that protoss does though...and i know most Terrans are aggressive minded so most people are not even willing to try this transition !
What exactly is your method of doing the BC tech switch? Is it always a very late game transition after you already have 4-6 bases established? Like when do you start making the starport/techlabs and Fusion core? I guess it's probably not really a concrete timing but just when you have the money/stability?
I had a mammoth TvP training period from October 2011-December 2011. I only played TvP, trying countless builds.
What I found out, that worked for me:
You need to 1 rax expand, (with or without gas), and you need to keep the pressure non-stop. Don't ever let the Protoss alone. Keep trading armies, dropping, hit and run.
But yes, I share the same feeling with a lot of Terrans that once Protoss gets 4 bases, the chances of a win a hugely reduced.
this is not a particularly profound post ^_^ but as Protoss I have had trouble dealing with aggressive mech. I think that may just be due to having no prior experience with it and with me expecting that mech is a passive style. Just my two cents :D however what I think you should take from this is that interesting new strats may be able to get you some wins on ladder until some pros figure out macro TvP
On February 21 2012 04:13 Josh_rakoons wrote: Lol at diamond player saying that a matchup is impossible for macro games, if the best terran in the world says its impossible, then i will accept that there is something wrong with the game, anyone else, i don't see fit to complain about anything.
MMA has said a few times that TvP is extremely hard for Terran in its current state.
Yeah, it's his worst matchup. Some other terrans have an extraordinarily good record vs. Protoss. Everyone has a weak matchup. MMA's strength is his TvZ, his TvT is pretty decent too (although Alive made it look silly).
Each matchup requires a different thought process than the others, TvP is played quite differently from TvZ and TvT, and it's important to think differently. If you're having trouble beating Protoss in the late game, it's probably because you're letting Protoss play too greedy in the early-mid game without playing greedy yourself. Hint: If Protoss is 1 gate expanding (or nexus first) into powering tech with no units at all, you'd better be going ultra fast tech yourself or taking a really fast third, or else he'll be ahead in the mid-game, which takes away a lot of the potency of mid-game aggression that terran wants to do. I understand that heavy gateway timing attacks and immortal busts are scary to terran, so learn to scout for those specific things and react appropriately (there are key hints as to what is coming). If you get into the late-game and Protoss has a lead, well yeah, things are going to be tough on terrran, that's what it means to have a lead. The trick then, as Terran, is to react appropriately to how Protoss plays the early game: play slightly greedier than Protoss does, or be aggressive if toss gets very greedy. In the mid-game you want to be trading armies in split up engagements, bio is way more effective in small numbers vs. protoss in small numbers than it is in large numbers vs. large numbers: thus, mult-pronged aggression and drops. However, this is difficult when Protoss is already ahead because he got to power tech and economy at the same time, so you want to power those things yourself.
So many terrans are so used to dictating game flow that they've forgotten how to react to what they scout. I've lost track of the amount of times I've been going for a colossus midgame and terran is ghost rushing, without ever checking what I'm doing. Then he gets to my base and I laugh as he either runs or gets forcefielded in and killed.
Anyway, coming from someone only slightly above your level, the thing that really gets me when I'm playing vs Terran is constant dropping and observer sniping followed by cloaked ghost EMP's. As we've seen in many pro games (especially involving thorzain) he LOVES to snipe observers then just go to town with EMP's. That is really the hardest thing to deal with as Protoss in the late game, at our level anyway.
Good luck man, good to see such a well thought out post.
I played some games today: vZ: 100% Winrate, vT ~40% winrate, vP 0% Winrate. Its always the same: I have like the same/little more supply than the protoss, but I get CRUSHED in the battles. And its not even lategame. Its a ~15min battle with ~70-120supply maybe. TvP is soooo hard
On February 21 2012 08:11 Aela wrote: I played some games today: vZ: 100% Winrate, vT ~40% winrate, vP 0% Winrate. Its always the same: I have like the same/little more supply than the protoss, but I get CRUSHED in the battles. And its not even lategame. Its a ~15min battle with ~70-120supply maybe. TvP is soooo hard
Well if you want specific advice you're going to have to post a replay.
On February 21 2012 04:52 avilo wrote:It just irks me when people say the "don't let it get there" as if they secretly know that if they just turtle and defend they always can get it there and that they feel they should be rewarded for simply getting to a certain stage in the game.
On February 21 2012 04:46 SnuggleZhenya wrote: As a protoss player, I feel pretty comfortable in the late game, but what hurts is hit squads of marauders going around the map picking off expansions - they crush buildings so fast, and if I am maxed out on supply I can't easily warp in to stop them. That means I have to split units off from my army, and get pulled around the map that way. Of course, it is difficult to to win in a straight up fight, particularly if the Protoss gets that really nice unit composition, but I would say good ghost use can help you trade more cost efficiently. Try not to engage in chokes and other areas susceptible to AoE damage.
Also, you can play a macro game while still putting on early pressure. Not all pressure needs to be intended to end the game, but simply causing the protoss to feel uncomfortable and build more (particularly gas heavy) units in the early and early-mid game really delays how easily they can get up all their tech and upgrades. So, you don't need to worry about only the late game itself, but how the game got to the late game.
You should have about 10-15 supply open for warp-ins in the lategame. Otherwise you're not playing it as best as you could.
Also, the saying "never let it get to that point" no one should ever use on this forum or any other discussion because it's a terrible thought process. Because there are people that CAN consistently "get it to that point" because they all know that if they do then it's a free advantage for them.
"Don't let it get to that point" is like "don't let the sun come up in the morning." It's going to come up lol. And as people get better at the game, there should not be situations where "if it gets to that point" one race automatically has an advantage for no reason. THat's terrible game design, though that's a slightly different topic.
It just irks me when people say the "don't let it get there" as if they secretly know that if they just turtle and defend they always can get it there and that they feel they should be rewarded for simply getting to a certain stage in the game.
Avilo I fucking love you man. I watch your stream all the time. You're awesome.
I am getting mixed advice in some areas, but what I think is clear is that I have room to execute much better then I have in any of my games; as long as I can play "more perfect" I think I am going to just try and do that. Its my personal opinion, that anyone who tries to rely on cheese and timing attacks to keep their win ratio high in a matchup is just buying wins; eventually the metagame and the patch cycles will all evolve so that all ins I practice today become increasingly less effective tomorrow. Also, its so disheartening to go on a losing streak if you are a timing focused player... what do you do to improve in that case? Find a better timing? Its not the way I like to play starcraft. I am mulling over all of your guys advice carefully, and I welcome even more. The people who have reached out to help me thank you so much, I really appreciate it. I can use all the advice and help I can get in this matchup. If its imba or not doesn't matter... I do believe that at diamond league anyone with superior mechanics and decision making can force a victory... so that is what I am going to try and do.
On February 21 2012 04:13 Josh_rakoons wrote: Lol at diamond player saying that a matchup is impossible for macro games, if the best terran in the world says its impossible, then i will accept that there is something wrong with the game, anyone else, i don't see fit to complain about anything.
MMA has said a few times that TvP is extremely hard for Terran in its current state.
Yeah, it's his worst matchup. Some other terrans have an extraordinarily good record vs. Protoss. Everyone has a weak matchup. MMA's strength is his TvZ, his TvT is pretty decent too (although Alive made it look silly).
Each matchup requires a different thought process than the others, TvP is played quite differently from TvZ and TvT, and it's important to think differently. If you're having trouble beating Protoss in the late game, it's probably because you're letting Protoss play too greedy in the early-mid game without playing greedy yourself. Hint: If Protoss is 1 gate expanding (or nexus first) into powering tech with no units at all, you'd better be going ultra fast tech yourself or taking a really fast third, or else he'll be ahead in the mid-game, which takes away a lot of the potency of mid-game aggression that terran wants to do. I understand that heavy gateway timing attacks and immortal busts are scary to terran, so learn to scout for those specific things and react appropriately (there are key hints as to what is coming). If you get into the late-game and Protoss has a lead, well yeah, things are going to be tough on terrran, that's what it means to have a lead. The trick then, as Terran, is to react appropriately to how Protoss plays the early game: play slightly greedier than Protoss does, or be aggressive if toss gets very greedy. In the mid-game you want to be trading armies in split up engagements, bio is way more effective in small numbers vs. protoss in small numbers than it is in large numbers vs. large numbers: thus, mult-pronged aggression and drops. However, this is difficult when Protoss is already ahead because he got to power tech and economy at the same time, so you want to power those things yourself.
So many terrans are so used to dictating game flow that they've forgotten how to react to what they scout. I've lost track of the amount of times I've been going for a colossus midgame and terran is ghost rushing, without ever checking what I'm doing. Then he gets to my base and I laugh as he either runs or gets forcefielded in and killed.
Noone would complain, if all problems with TvP would result from some bad trades or disadvantages. The main problem is that even if you come in to the lategame vP even or slightly ahead, than there is still like 80% chance, that the protoss will win in the end. This imbalanced between perceived advantage and final result is what makes it so hard for many many Ts.
Last couple of games vP i had often something like +10 probes lead and often up to +30 army supply. It just doesn't matter.
On February 21 2012 04:13 Josh_rakoons wrote: Lol at diamond player saying that a matchup is impossible for macro games, if the best terran in the world says its impossible, then i will accept that there is something wrong with the game, anyone else, i don't see fit to complain about anything.
MMA has said a few times that TvP is extremely hard for Terran in its current state.
Yeah, it's his worst matchup. Some other terrans have an extraordinarily good record vs. Protoss. Everyone has a weak matchup. MMA's strength is his TvZ, his TvT is pretty decent too (although Alive made it look silly).
Each matchup requires a different thought process than the others, TvP is played quite differently from TvZ and TvT, and it's important to think differently. If you're having trouble beating Protoss in the late game, it's probably because you're letting Protoss play too greedy in the early-mid game without playing greedy yourself. Hint: If Protoss is 1 gate expanding (or nexus first) into powering tech with no units at all, you'd better be going ultra fast tech yourself or taking a really fast third, or else he'll be ahead in the mid-game, which takes away a lot of the potency of mid-game aggression that terran wants to do. I understand that heavy gateway timing attacks and immortal busts are scary to terran, so learn to scout for those specific things and react appropriately (there are key hints as to what is coming). If you get into the late-game and Protoss has a lead, well yeah, things are going to be tough on terrran, that's what it means to have a lead. The trick then, as Terran, is to react appropriately to how Protoss plays the early game: play slightly greedier than Protoss does, or be aggressive if toss gets very greedy. In the mid-game you want to be trading armies in split up engagements, bio is way more effective in small numbers vs. protoss in small numbers than it is in large numbers vs. large numbers: thus, mult-pronged aggression and drops. However, this is difficult when Protoss is already ahead because he got to power tech and economy at the same time, so you want to power those things yourself.
So many terrans are so used to dictating game flow that they've forgotten how to react to what they scout. I've lost track of the amount of times I've been going for a colossus midgame and terran is ghost rushing, without ever checking what I'm doing. Then he gets to my base and I laugh as he either runs or gets forcefielded in and killed.
Noone would complain, if all problems with TvP would result from some bad trades or disadvantages. The main problem is that even if you come in to the lategame vP even or slightly ahead, than there is still like 80% chance, that the protoss will win in the end. This imbalanced between perceived advantage and final result is what makes it so hard for many many Ts.
Last couple of games vP i had often something like +10 probes lead and often up to +30 army supply. It just doesn't matter.
Ever thought that you could be doing something terribly wrong in the lategame?
Noone would complain, if all problems with TvP would result from some bad trades or disadvantages. The main problem is that even if you come in to the lategame vP even or slightly ahead, than there is still like 80% chance, that the protoss will win in the end. This imbalanced between perceived advantage and final result is what makes it so hard for many many Ts.
Last couple of games vP i had often something like +10 probes lead and often up to +30 army supply. It just doesn't matter.
Well if your saying protoss wins 80% late game it means terran wins 80% early game. Just master some 1-1-1 variant or that nasty sky terran all in and you will win from every protoss below high masters. I am mid master toss and there is no way I can stop that kind of stuff if executed well however I beat nearly every terran that plays standard late game macro. Sometimes I even switch to terran to see how hard TvP is and I crush mid master tosses with these all ins.
On February 21 2012 04:46 SnuggleZhenya wrote: As a protoss player, I feel pretty comfortable in the late game, but what hurts is hit squads of marauders going around the map picking off expansions - they crush buildings so fast, and if I am maxed out on supply I can't easily warp in to stop them. That means I have to split units off from my army, and get pulled around the map that way. Of course, it is difficult to to win in a straight up fight, particularly if the Protoss gets that really nice unit composition, but I would say good ghost use can help you trade more cost efficiently. Try not to engage in chokes and other areas susceptible to AoE damage.
Also, you can play a macro game while still putting on early pressure. Not all pressure needs to be intended to end the game, but simply causing the protoss to feel uncomfortable and build more (particularly gas heavy) units in the early and early-mid game really delays how easily they can get up all their tech and upgrades. So, you don't need to worry about only the late game itself, but how the game got to the late game.
You should have about 10-15 supply open for warp-ins in the lategame. Otherwise you're not playing it as best as you could.
Also, the saying "never let it get to that point" no one should ever use on this forum or any other discussion because it's a terrible thought process. Because there are people that CAN consistently "get it to that point" because they all know that if they do then it's a free advantage for them.
"Don't let it get to that point" is like "don't let the sun come up in the morning." It's going to come up lol. And as people get better at the game, there should not be situations where "if it gets to that point" one race automatically has an advantage for no reason. THat's terrible game design, though that's a slightly different topic.
It just irks me when people say the "don't let it get there" as if they secretly know that if they just turtle and defend they always can get it there and that they feel they should be rewarded for simply getting to a certain stage in the game.
While of course you are correct at an ultimate level of abstraction Avilo, sorry to say the best advice I can offer terrans below high masters is simply 'don't let it get there'. It takes not merely superb, but *flawless* control to engage a max protoss deathball with any bio-heavy composition. It's still flaky and fragile at the absolute best of times.
If you delay protoss 3rd with constant harass and force trades to keep both players supply around 100, and take the game to a conclusive engagement before the 3rd gets fully saturated, or at least before the 4th gets up, you can avoid the final death ball fight - and I reccomend bio terrans do this.
Feel free to contradict me but I've never seen any decent advice about winning max vs max bio other than "have the control of a pro gamer".
This maybe because there is a game imbalance - I am not saying that, but it's a possibility. More likely, the metagame needs a radical shift. In my personal mind, the constant buffing protoss recieved, combined with the repeated terran nerfs have just taken their toll. Maybe TvP just isn't supposed to be played bio anymore? Mech is being worked out slowly and sky terran is starting to look like it could be a flavour of standard.
On February 21 2012 04:13 Josh_rakoons wrote: Lol at diamond player saying that a matchup is impossible for macro games, if the best terran in the world says its impossible, then i will accept that there is something wrong with the game, anyone else, i don't see fit to complain about anything.
MMA has said a few times that TvP is extremely hard for Terran in its current state.
Yeah, it's his worst matchup. Some other terrans have an extraordinarily good record vs. Protoss. Everyone has a weak matchup. MMA's strength is his TvZ, his TvT is pretty decent too (although Alive made it look silly).
Each matchup requires a different thought process than the others, TvP is played quite differently from TvZ and TvT, and it's important to think differently. If you're having trouble beating Protoss in the late game, it's probably because you're letting Protoss play too greedy in the early-mid game without playing greedy yourself. Hint: If Protoss is 1 gate expanding (or nexus first) into powering tech with no units at all, you'd better be going ultra fast tech yourself or taking a really fast third, or else he'll be ahead in the mid-game, which takes away a lot of the potency of mid-game aggression that terran wants to do. I understand that heavy gateway timing attacks and immortal busts are scary to terran, so learn to scout for those specific things and react appropriately (there are key hints as to what is coming). If you get into the late-game and Protoss has a lead, well yeah, things are going to be tough on terrran, that's what it means to have a lead. The trick then, as Terran, is to react appropriately to how Protoss plays the early game: play slightly greedier than Protoss does, or be aggressive if toss gets very greedy. In the mid-game you want to be trading armies in split up engagements, bio is way more effective in small numbers vs. protoss in small numbers than it is in large numbers vs. large numbers: thus, mult-pronged aggression and drops. However, this is difficult when Protoss is already ahead because he got to power tech and economy at the same time, so you want to power those things yourself.
So many terrans are so used to dictating game flow that they've forgotten how to react to what they scout. I've lost track of the amount of times I've been going for a colossus midgame and terran is ghost rushing, without ever checking what I'm doing. Then he gets to my base and I laugh as he either runs or gets forcefielded in and killed.
Noone would complain, if all problems with TvP would result from some bad trades or disadvantages. The main problem is that even if you come in to the lategame vP even or slightly ahead, than there is still like 80% chance, that the protoss will win in the end. This imbalanced between perceived advantage and final result is what makes it so hard for many many Ts.
Last couple of games vP i had often something like +10 probes lead and often up to +30 army supply. It just doesn't matter.
I don't think you understand what the word "ahead" means in this context. "ahead" means that you're doing better than you would be, relative to your opponent, compared to where the two players normally are in a standard game. If you're ahead in army and workers and still losing, you're either way behind in tech and upgrades, or your engagements are terrible or both. If you're ahead in workers and army supply but your enemy is at 3/3 and you're at 0/0 or 1/1, then believe it or not, you're actually behind, he'll roll you in a fight. Same goes for fighting a colossus/high templar army without ghosts and vikings and medivacs. So many players ignore tech.
Whitewing United States. February 22 2012 02:16. Posts 3889 PM Profile Report Quote #
I don't think you understand what the word "ahead" means in this context. "ahead" means that you're doing better than you would be, relative to your opponent, compared to where the two players normally are in a standard game. If you're ahead in army and workers and still losing, you're either way behind in tech and upgrades, or your engagements are terrible or both. If you're ahead in workers and army supply but your enemy is at 3/3 and you're at 0/0 or 1/1, then believe it or not, you're actually behind, he'll roll you in a fight. Same goes for fighting a colossus/high templar army without ghosts and vikings and medivacs. So many players ignore tech.
I disagree I have been in quite a few engagements where we've been even on upgrades, I've had more supply in both army and workers, near correct amounts of unit types, engaged reasonably well, didn't pull off awsome pro level EMPs on every High Templar and lost everything. I've even had that same fight ahead on upgrades and come out with nothing. Unless you've got amazing micro fighting a Protoss Death Ball head on even when you're ahead in every way is never a sure outcome, and not only that but in order to win the battle you must have great micro and not make any mistakes or Collossi and Storms will make you rue the day.
Just don't assume that everyone doesn't know what being ahead means.
Whitewing United States. February 22 2012 02:16. Posts 3889 PM Profile Report Quote #
I don't think you understand what the word "ahead" means in this context. "ahead" means that you're doing better than you would be, relative to your opponent, compared to where the two players normally are in a standard game. If you're ahead in army and workers and still losing, you're either way behind in tech and upgrades, or your engagements are terrible or both. If you're ahead in workers and army supply but your enemy is at 3/3 and you're at 0/0 or 1/1, then believe it or not, you're actually behind, he'll roll you in a fight. Same goes for fighting a colossus/high templar army without ghosts and vikings and medivacs. So many players ignore tech.
I disagree I have been in quite a few engagements where we've been even on upgrades, I've had more supply in both army and workers, near correct amounts of unit types, engaged reasonably well, didn't pull off awsome pro level EMPs on every High Templar and lost everything. I've even had that same fight ahead on upgrades and come out with nothing. Unless you've got amazing micro fighting a Protoss Death Ball head on even when you're ahead in every way is never a sure outcome, and not only that but in order to win the battle you must have great micro and not make any mistakes or Collossi and Storms will make you rue the day.
Just don't assume that everyone doesn't know what being ahead means.
Then your engagements are completely wrong, and I know because I've been in enough fights with my 'deathball' and gotten rolled by the terran army. The lategame is almost entirely based around positioning and control from both players.
And don't give me this 'ahead in every way'. If you have an actual replay to support your argument then we'll be happy to take a look at it, otherwise it's just hearsay.
I think a lot of us terran players do kind of silly things in TvP because we never feel confident engaging a protoss army. We don't feel confident engaging a protoss army, becuase its really hard to do; you have to stem, stutter step, land EMPS, and shift click collossus with your vikings all in about 1.5 seconds; and if you miss click, engage with a portion of your force out of position or lagging behind, or engage in chock of some kind you WILL lose the game. You have to have your eyes on the army, waiting for the protoss to come or going in yourself, know where the high templar are and the collosus are , have all your stuff hotkeyed correctly and then still be able to execute. Its phenomenally difficult to do in a game correctly at the correct time. I see this as my paramount problem in the matchup. Anybody who feels like a protoss death ball is unbeatable probably has the same problem. I think it effects nearly everyone, even high masters and perhaps even more skilled players.
The reason most protoss don't complain about TvP battles, is simply because its a lot easier for protoss. If terran has the perfect counter composition and controls well, and executes at the right moment in the right spot protoss will probably lose the fight. If terran makes even one mistake either in execution or in composition protoss will win in a land slide. And in certain late game scenarios, because of the warp in mechanic, protoss will always win at least the first engagement.
Based on observation watching player streams and pro level matches, it would seem that this is so difficult to do that even most pros consider their odds better if they do some kind of marine tank timing or one base all in. This might be do to some high level techniques employed by protoss at high masters/gm/pro level play... I think it is has to do primarily with how small the margin of error is for terran in macro TvP.
Yeah, lategame TvP is broken and 90% of games come down to 1 battle. Toss can remax too fast so usually you will get drilled up the gut b4 reinforcements are created once you have maxed. He just warps in 15 zealots warps his HT into archons and then a-moves FTW. No matter how many drops you do, if you can't kill toss before they get both templars and colosi, you are pretty screwed. I have found this to be absolute FACT. I dont care how many vikings you make (even with +1).
I find this to be the ONLY viable TvP strat: MKP's ghost build. It's designed to kill toss before colosi are out. I would give you approx BO, but it sounds like you are capable of seeing for yourself. Check out the PRIME vs NHS team game from the GSL last saturday OR MKP vs Genius from 2/9 (GSL code S).
Other than that, I 2 rax into drop pressure on a map like Antiga - this strat is the cats pajamas aka really good when executed properly...
btw just to clarify, the matchup is BROKEN because terran forced into BIO off of FE.
While a toss can FE off of 2 gas, terran cannot do the same and still be 'safe' in most cases. The reason for this is because there is no terran unit which takes more gas than minerals to create, except the raven but that is irrelevant as no one will ever fess to a raven expand as being viable.
Thus, the toss can utilize the gas early (sentries) and still manage the timing of the expansion. The best example of this is the reaper expand for terran... however this costs equal gas and minerals (50) and takes forver to build, which is why it works - but isn't OPTIMAL. The reason it isn't optimal is because the reaper provides no lategame usabilty unlike their counterparts, the sentries.
Perhaps if Blizzard gave terrans OPTIONS instead of forcing the current metagame down our throat, then mayyybe, just mayybe I would take back this argument. As of now though I am very pessimistic when NOT all-ining a toss, esp on anitga, entombed... you get the idea. Even if they don't take go with the 2gas fe, you won't know until after you have already chosen to FE, in which case you are in a world of hurt when they go for warp prism and/or blink.
Also the new map architecture seems to favor toss, at least in my experience. 3 base toss just can't be beat. I've been on 4 bases, 15 raxes, up 1-0 in upgrades - all of which doesn't matter when they storm you, and you can't snipe the HT's because colosi are leading the way all up in your grill (this is huge problem on Anitga when trying to hold the middle). Then when my supply goes from 200-90 and his goes down to 130 then immediately back up to 165 I know I'm dead no matter what I have, regardless of the 13 mauraders, 3 vikings, 1 medivac and 2 ghosts I have making...
Me and my friend have been having a discussion about balance lately, and as a protoss player I would have to agree that the end game isn't fair for terrans. That being said the end game of most matchups has never been fair.
Well mapped out and the most "fair" but you can still have hard times solidifying an advantage
The issue here is, most of the balance of the game has been made around the early and mid game. That being said the map pool has changed and the game has evolved. Now we are only starting to understand the balance of most of these matchups in the endgame. Before the EMP patch protoss players didn't even want to go into the endgame versus terrans of equal skill because they would emp carpet bombed and loose every engagement. After the patch the matchup swung in the other direction. Perhaps with the snipe change we will see zergs win more ZvT, but these unit interactions of 200/200 death ball are a relitively new phenomena and hopefully in time we will see that these late games will hopefully become "even".
As a casually player don't concern yourself with balance. You probobly should concern yourself with winning. Just like artosis says you need to acknolege the fact that your horrible at this game and as long as your making mistakes in your play balance doesn't even matter. Don't concern yourself with winning because any meaningful improvments to the way you play starcraft will always come with losses.By the next patch the advantage of the late game might shift again
Whitewing United States. February 22 2012 02:16. Posts 3889 PM Profile Report Quote #
I don't think you understand what the word "ahead" means in this context. "ahead" means that you're doing better than you would be, relative to your opponent, compared to where the two players normally are in a standard game. If you're ahead in army and workers and still losing, you're either way behind in tech and upgrades, or your engagements are terrible or both. If you're ahead in workers and army supply but your enemy is at 3/3 and you're at 0/0 or 1/1, then believe it or not, you're actually behind, he'll roll you in a fight. Same goes for fighting a colossus/high templar army without ghosts and vikings and medivacs. So many players ignore tech.
I disagree I have been in quite a few engagements where we've been even on upgrades, I've had more supply in both army and workers, near correct amounts of unit types, engaged reasonably well, didn't pull off awsome pro level EMPs on every High Templar and lost everything. I've even had that same fight ahead on upgrades and come out with nothing. Unless you've got amazing micro fighting a Protoss Death Ball head on even when you're ahead in every way is never a sure outcome, and not only that but in order to win the battle you must have great micro and not make any mistakes or Collossi and Storms will make you rue the day.
Just don't assume that everyone doesn't know what being ahead means.
Then your engagements are completely wrong, and I know because I've been in enough fights with my 'deathball' and gotten rolled by the terran army. The lategame is almost entirely based around positioning and control from both players.
And don't give me this 'ahead in every way'. If you have an actual replay to support your argument then we'll be happy to take a look at it, otherwise it's just hearsay.
I've seen some terrans get a marauder heavy composition and then split the marauders like they would marines against banelings when facing heavy chargelot compositions. Not only do the zealots not do as much damage as they would had the marauders stood there but the collossi are doing much less splash damage as well.
Their high health also helps them against the Storms. Im not sure how long this little trend will stick around for but its pretty good at making marauders trade better against zealots and collosi.
Whitewing United States. February 22 2012 02:16. Posts 3889 PM Profile Report Quote #
I don't think you understand what the word "ahead" means in this context. "ahead" means that you're doing better than you would be, relative to your opponent, compared to where the two players normally are in a standard game. If you're ahead in army and workers and still losing, you're either way behind in tech and upgrades, or your engagements are terrible or both. If you're ahead in workers and army supply but your enemy is at 3/3 and you're at 0/0 or 1/1, then believe it or not, you're actually behind, he'll roll you in a fight. Same goes for fighting a colossus/high templar army without ghosts and vikings and medivacs. So many players ignore tech.
I disagree I have been in quite a few engagements where we've been even on upgrades, I've had more supply in both army and workers, near correct amounts of unit types, engaged reasonably well, didn't pull off awsome pro level EMPs on every High Templar and lost everything. I've even had that same fight ahead on upgrades and come out with nothing. Unless you've got amazing micro fighting a Protoss Death Ball head on even when you're ahead in every way is never a sure outcome, and not only that but in order to win the battle you must have great micro and not make any mistakes or Collossi and Storms will make you rue the day.
Just don't assume that everyone doesn't know what being ahead means.
Then your engagements are completely wrong, and I know because I've been in enough fights with my 'deathball' and gotten rolled by the terran army. The lategame is almost entirely based around positioning and control from both players.
And don't give me this 'ahead in every way'. If you have an actual replay to support your argument then we'll be happy to take a look at it, otherwise it's just hearsay.
I've seen some terrans get a marauder heavy composition and then split the marauders like they would marines against banelings when facing heavy chargelot compositions. Not only do the zealots not do as much damage as they would had the marauders stood there but the collossi are doing much less splash damage as well.
Their high health also helps them against the Storms. Im not sure how long this little trend will stick around for but its pretty good at making marauders trade better against zealots and collosi.
Against zealots you want marines, not mauraders. Maurader DPS is just not high enough. With charge concussive shells become rather ineffective.
How can so many back to back posts claim terran is underpowered in TvP when the stats worldwide do not agree with that at all? I'm all for STRATEGY posts asking for help against X or how do I get a lead when Y, but balance whines don't serve anyone, especially not in this particular forum..
Edit: Also how bad is the troll title of this post?
On February 21 2012 06:49 Trowa127 wrote: Not suprised to see Avilo in here at all aha.
Anyway, coming from someone only slightly above your level, the thing that really gets me when I'm playing vs Terran is constant dropping and observer sniping followed by cloaked ghost EMP's. As we've seen in many pro games (especially involving thorzain) he LOVES to snipe observers then just go to town with EMP's. That is really the hardest thing to deal with as Protoss in the late game, at our level anyway.
Good luck man, good to see such a well thought out post.
just make 8 observers.
Snipping obs is more a product of toss players being bad than anything.
Its just like wraiths vs carriers in BW. It should work once, maybe, if that. Then it should be completely shut down.
What terrans doesn't do enough is drop when it's 200 vs 200. If protoss is maxed, he can't spawn in more units and has to divide his forces. That's when you attack.
Protoss has an edge in the midgame though for sure.
ok, just to start with, how about theres a huge build time increase for transforming into archons. Temps merge into archons so fucking fast in battle. Its just ridiculous.
EMP -> All energy gone -> merge to archon while other units are engaging. BOOM 3-4 more archons pop on the battle field.
On February 22 2012 10:04 Sadist wrote: ok, just to start with, how about theres a huge build time increase for transforming into archons. Temps merge into archons so fucking fast in battle. Its just ridiculous.
EMP -> All energy gone -> merge to archon while other units are engaging. BOOM 3-4 more archons pop on the battle field.
I'm sure every terran can relate to the blunder of landing perfect EMPs and watching as 4-5 archons morph and destroy the remains of your army because you have no EMP left -.- Gut wrenching feeling
lol ... why do people think protoss is made of money? you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility.... if he saves up 10k mineral and gas so he can instant max on his 40 gates i ahave to ask.. what were u doing this whole time.. fapping? plz learn to macro.. jokes aside in diamond you can jsut win from pure macro. you just max out at like 14 mins and a move to victory. this is coming from a master player who almost never lose to late game toss. also drop everywhere. you dont need to do damage, just keep him out of his comfort zone along with forcing his army at home or force cannons. if he gets like 4 cannons at every base then well done bro just a move the front and its gg
On February 22 2012 09:18 VoirDire wrote: What terrans doesn't do enough is drop when it's 200 vs 200. If protoss is maxed, he can't spawn in more units and has to divide his forces. That's when you attack.
Protoss has an edge in the midgame though for sure.
If you have one tiny part of your army out of position, protoss will just roll you.
Notice that the fifth best Terran is still favored against the very best Protoss.
Clearly, at the highest level, Protoss is not favored against Terran.
'Balance' statistics from the 'highest level' say nothing about the type of game or the stage of the game in which the game was won. Bringing up stats like Puma's ridiculous TvP record says nothing if he kills 80% of the protoss he plays against (just a (conservative) estimate) before the 15 minute mark. Obviously, this doesn't mean that Terran doesn't beat Protoss lategame at the highest level, but we cannot conclude how often this happens based on statistics that don't include the length of the game.
It isn't about whether it's balanced or imbalanced, that's just a silly way to look at it. It's about finding ways to go toe to toe as Terran using a bio-centric composition (right now, basically the only viable one at a high level of play) against a seemingly far more cost-efficient Protoss army composition with lots of splash options.
As always, seemingly, my personal response to this is less to do with the lategame composition (where Terran generally tends to have a disadvantage) but about expansions and aggression - i.e. how these compositions are achieved and maintained. If T can get to the lategame with a reasonable lead - through constantly being aggressive, or through a strong timing attack that transitions into macro play, etc - then the lategame is suddenly far more manageable because of momentum and the ability to force engagements and deny expansions when you're ahead. You effectively deny the protoss the leg room he needs to go for a strong late-game composition.
This is also a big part of why I think more terrans need to start doing Jjakji/Mvp-style 2 base timing attacks with Marine/Siege Tank as a composition. These are by no means all in and are a great way to get a lead. The way they do it, after a strong timing and getting significantly ahead, they pull back with the tank/marine and transition into a standard bio-focused macro game. These haven't even been fully figured out yet - most protoss responses are on-the-fly switches into pumping as many gateway units with immortal support as possible, or rushing to colossus. Both of these responses can be dealt with effectively by terran - and put the terran in a position to force the protoss's composition.
TL;DR TvP not imba, people need to start figuring out newer/more ways to get ahead in the early-midgame and leverage that lead over the lategame. Select vs ToD (I think this was played on SeleCT's stream once, great game) is the perfect example of this
another example (old, but illustrates the principle fairly well: http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors5/vod/65898) Mvp vs MC, Code S Ro32 from some time ago. Mvp allows his tank-bunker line to be broken, and MC does a damn good job of breaking it, but Mvp already has too much of a lead at this point.
Played more today. I am putting in at least 10 TvP practice games a day now... but it doesn't seem to be helping. I try to go in with the dogged attitude of "if I practice enough, it will get better". But it doesn't seem to be. Some guy who hasn't played more then a few games in the last year just beat me... twice. In a row. Neither game were all that close. It would be different if I won sometimes. I could learn from my success at that point. But its just a never ending procession of failure. If I had spent all this time perfecting a 1/1/1 build I could be taking games of high masters opponents without a doubt. I don't like to play that way, but I hate losing over and over again even more. Fuck I hate this game sometimes.
On February 22 2012 18:51 mothergoose729 wrote: Played more today. I am putting in at least 10 TvP practice games a day now... but it doesn't seem to be helping. I try to go in with the dogged attitude of "if I practice enough, it will get better". But it doesn't seem to be. Some guy who hasn't played more then a few games in the last year just beat me... twice. In a row. Neither game were all that close. It would be different if I won sometimes. I could learn from my success at that point. But its just a never ending procession of failure. If I had spent all this time perfecting a 1/1/1 build I could be taking games of high masters opponents without a doubt. I don't like to play that way, but I hate losing over and over again even more. Fuck I hate this game sometimes.
Chill man, relax, cheese some if it will make you feel more relaxed. Don't think the game is impossible as you won't help yourself if you do that.
If you want to see a stupidly long game of toss losing to terran recently check out thorzain vs hero game 1. Remember, sure, protoss has some advantages that terran doesn't, but the same is true the other way around, just find something that you can do in the late game THAT YOU FIND TO BE FUN, and do that until you get better at it. then check your replay and say, "maybe it didn't work because i wasn't doing it hard enough." and then kick it into a higher gear. Sometimes a strategy doesn't work because you haven't taken it to its extreme yet.
It's funny the arguments on both side remind me a lot of back when zergs couldn't win a ZvP when a protoss would take a 3rd and make the colossi/void ray deathball.
in late game get some additional OCs and often scan his army position when your armies are close to snipe hts or poke with vikings at collosus. Just have patience, even if you kill large portion of his army dont rush to kill him, just be patient as 1 wrong engagement can be the end of you. As I see in gsl/top level play mass army battles can go either way highly dependent on positioning
if your opponent is any good then the answer is no.
just as an exaple: I played a game yesterday that blew my mind. I killed his third two times, sniped his robotics bay, killed ~15 units with drops, lost 2 units in the process and maxed when he barely had 150 food. Sounds good?
Well he just turtles on two base and you can't kill him, if you just attack into him, you get owned by ForceFields. So you wait, he maxes out, has 2/0/2 against my 3/3 he a moves over me, warps in 10 zealots while i micro my ass off and wins. And don't tell me he was the better player or that he has better game sense, when he derped in his natural choke the entire game, can't defend his third and a moves and goes afk and wins while i did my best to limit him.
I've seen countles terran pros voice their opinion about it : If the game goes past 15 minutes leave the game. I've given up, i'll never be able to micro my shit like mma or mvp, bio is the only viable strat and it sucks.
Just 2 base allin with all scvs once the clock shows 12 minutes, you'll get atleast a 50 percent win ratio that way. And wait for blizzard to stop nerfing us to the ground instead of helping our lategame
if you know how to play TvP yeah you can win most of the times in a lategame situation. Alot of people at around masters level seem to be having problems with tvp, but they just need to accept the fact that its not the games or the matchups fault its the players fault for not playing correctly
Notice that the fifth best Terran is still favored against the very best Protoss.
Clearly, at the highest level, Protoss is not favored against Terran.
'Balance' statistics from the 'highest level' say nothing about the type of game or the stage of the game in which the game was won. Bringing up stats like Puma's ridiculous TvP record says nothing if he kills 80% of the protoss he plays against (just a (conservative) estimate) before the 15 minute mark. Obviously, this doesn't mean that Terran doesn't beat Protoss lategame at the highest level, but we cannot conclude how often this happens based on statistics that don't include the length of the game.
It isn't about whether it's balanced or imbalanced, that's just a silly way to look at it. It's about finding ways to go toe to toe as Terran using a bio-centric composition (right now, basically the only viable one at a high level of play) against a seemingly far more cost-efficient Protoss army composition with lots of splash options.
As always, seemingly, my personal response to this is less to do with the lategame composition (where Terran generally tends to have a disadvantage) but about expansions and aggression - i.e. how these compositions are achieved and maintained. If T can get to the lategame with a reasonable lead - through constantly being aggressive, or through a strong timing attack that transitions into macro play, etc - then the lategame is suddenly far more manageable because of momentum and the ability to force engagements and deny expansions when you're ahead. You effectively deny the protoss the leg room he needs to go for a strong late-game composition.
This is also a big part of why I think more terrans need to start doing Jjakji/Mvp-style 2 base timing attacks with Marine/Siege Tank as a composition. These are by no means all in and are a great way to get a lead. The way they do it, after a strong timing and getting significantly ahead, they pull back with the tank/marine and transition into a standard bio-focused macro game. These haven't even been fully figured out yet - most protoss responses are on-the-fly switches into pumping as many gateway units with immortal support as possible, or rushing to colossus. Both of these responses can be dealt with effectively by terran - and put the terran in a position to force the protoss's composition.
TL;DR TvP not imba, people need to start figuring out newer/more ways to get ahead in the early-midgame and leverage that lead over the lategame. Select vs ToD (I think this was played on SeleCT's stream once, great game) is the perfect example of this
another example (old, but illustrates the principle fairly well: http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors5/vod/65898) Mvp vs MC, Code S Ro32 from some time ago. Mvp allows his tank-bunker line to be broken, and MC does a damn good job of breaking it, but Mvp already has too much of a lead at this point.
these marine tank contains are map dependant and player dependant, it is not a standard strategy that you can just do every game and there is nothing wrong with TvP lategame and you should be able to beat the protoss atleast 50 % of the time when you get to the lategame in an even situation. You don´t have to be that aggressive in TvP dropping isnt necessary
I'm a toss player at mid/high master's level and I almost never win a late game PvT. So I'd love to see you post replays of you losing in end-game, because I always get owned by any Terran that's semi-competent at macroing.
On February 22 2012 08:47 Ashent wrote: How can so many back to back posts claim terran is underpowered in TvP when the stats worldwide do not agree with that at all? I'm all for STRATEGY posts asking for help against X or how do I get a lead when Y, but balance whines don't serve anyone, especially not in this particular forum..
Edit: Also how bad is the troll title of this post?
Because, statistically, it is. If you were to refer to game time vs respective winrate correlation charts you would see that Protoss winrates vs T will increase to ~70-80% as the game goes on; the only reason other stats don't agree with this is because most Terran have resorted to all-ining before 15 minutes.
This is something that irks you because I assume it hurts your ego to accept that Protoss does in fact have an significantly easier time mid-late game. OP made a well-thought out and long post that definitely isn't whining, so I really think you should pay him some more respect before having knee-jerk reactions when you (presumably) can't control your emotions.
On February 22 2012 19:03 NeonFox wrote: It's funny the arguments on both side remind me a lot of back when zergs couldn't win a ZvP when a protoss would take a 3rd and make the colossi/void ray deathball.
it's okay then, all terran needs to do is learn to use nydus and we'll be fine
On February 22 2012 08:47 Ashent wrote: How can so many back to back posts claim terran is underpowered in TvP when the stats worldwide do not agree with that at all? I'm all for STRATEGY posts asking for help against X or how do I get a lead when Y, but balance whines don't serve anyone, especially not in this particular forum..
Edit: Also how bad is the troll title of this post?
what stats? I dont needs stats taken from some random source, when I am both playing and watching games daily. Please don't argue with statistics, I studied mathematics in college and I can tell you that putting too much stock in stats is foolish - they simply can be manipulated to fit any arguement.
You are taking stats from the 'era' of PvT in which protoss couldnt stop 1-1-1's, sadly this time has passed. In any STANDARD, LATEGAME TvP match, terran is a disadvantage.
On February 22 2012 19:03 NeonFox wrote: It's funny the arguments on both side remind me a lot of back when zergs couldn't win a ZvP when a protoss would take a 3rd and make the colossi/void ray deathball.
Sorry to tell you, they still can't. Now its just 6-8 warp gate all-ins with robo/blink/immortals.
On February 19 2012 18:45 Feverus wrote: Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
im pretty sure he knows that. yet its frustrating to less against lesser skilled opponents.
On February 22 2012 10:53 CarelessPride wrote: lol ... why do people think protoss is made of money? you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility.... if he saves up 10k mineral and gas so he can instant max on his 40 gates i ahave to ask.. what were u doing this whole time.. fapping? plz learn to macro.. jokes aside in diamond you can jsut win from pure macro. you just max out at like 14 mins and a move to victory. this is coming from a master player who almost never lose to late game toss. also drop everywhere. you dont need to do damage, just keep him out of his comfort zone along with forcing his army at home or force cannons. if he gets like 4 cannons at every base then well done bro just a move the front and its gg
worthless comments fall on deaf ears...
"you can just win from macro" "you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility"
QED.
btw, if you're masters you should prob watch pro play before talking so much trash like you know what you are talking about... which you obviously don't. Fast 3 bases for toss has become more and more popular since terrans are not 1-1-1ing hardly anymore.
Also dude, its called chrono boost. Mules are nice, but chrono is more versitile. Chrono can mean more probes (equal to mules, except probes dont vanish after 30 sec) or faster tech.
I would love love love to see you max at 14 minutes and 'a-move' cause your under-upgraded army will be so good vs colosi and ht's on highground.
On February 22 2012 10:53 CarelessPride wrote: lol ... why do people think protoss is made of money? you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility.... if he saves up 10k mineral and gas so he can instant max on his 40 gates i ahave to ask.. what were u doing this whole time.. fapping? plz learn to macro.. jokes aside in diamond you can jsut win from pure macro. you just max out at like 14 mins and a move to victory. this is coming from a master player who almost never lose to late game toss. also drop everywhere. you dont need to do damage, just keep him out of his comfort zone along with forcing his army at home or force cannons. if he gets like 4 cannons at every base then well done bro just a move the front and its gg
worthless comments fall on deaf ears...
"you can just win from macro" "you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility"
QED.
btw, if you're masters you should prob watch pro play before talking so much trash like you know what you are talking about... which you obviously don't. Fast 3 bases for toss has become more and more popular since terrans are not 1-1-1ing hardly anymore.
Also dude, its called chrono boost. Mules are nice, but chrono is more versitile. Chrono can mean more probes (equal to mules, except probes dont vanish after 30 sec) or faster tech.
I would love love love to see you max at 14 minutes and 'a-move' cause your under-upgraded army will be so good vs colosi and ht's on highground.
You know whats also popular? really quick 3rd ccs from terran. JUST SAYING
I'm shocked at the answers and that it hasn't mentioned before but the reason why you can't macro and fight head-on against Protoss is the supply density of their army - this has been stated by several professionals; MKP the most prominent one. You need, and I repeat, you need to kill the Protoss before he has 6 gas or the game is lost if he doesn't a major mistake.
At a certain level, Diamond and above, SC2 is a three base race game. There was a theorycrafting article which explained this in detail and why SC2 is becoming more and more a Protoss favoured game. I've analyzed hundreds of replays and came to the conclusion that the most common error in TvP macro games is that for foreigners drops are not very effective. You won't find a TvP replay within the last 3 months with equal foreign competitors where drops did an acceptable amount of damage as opposed to Korean drops.
I fell completely opposite - PvT is hardest matchup for me - cause if i try to macro or tech i die to 2 base timings and if i don't I must lose in late game cause 0 0 P and 2 colosus vs 2 2 T bio is worthless. T can haras as much as he wants with drops and build 3-4 PF and be safe. Also late game macro CC fewer scv and T has bigger army. I just all in T cause macro seems hopeless for toss.
High diamond toss <--- so take it with some reserve.
Dunno why you guys think TvP is hard lategame. If you have no clue on how to play it, go watch IPL showmatch Thorzain vs Hero. The first map was a 35 min+ game on taldarim that Thorzain won. Lategame you want many orbitals/planeteries. Not too many scvs. 20 + ghost with cloack.
Have you considered trying mech with ghosts because it crushes my standard protoss ball? Also a big complaint I hear from terran on ladder is that toss have too much AOE damage, but they try and fight storm and colossus in straight up engagements. Maybe try something new because MMM ball has been the go to strat for terran since beta.
On February 23 2012 02:37 CptBeefheart wrote: Have you considered trying mech with ghosts because it crushes my standard protoss ball? Also a big complaint I hear from terran on ladder is that toss have too much AOE damage, but they try and fight storm and colossus in straight up engagements. Maybe try something new because MMM ball has been the go to strat for terran since beta.
Guess what, the hardcounter to mech comes out of gates and robo, just like your standard deathball. On top of that blink stalker harassment and warpprism play shits all over mech. It only works on shakuras and shattered temple and only if protoss sits on his ass for 20 minutes and amoves into 20+ siege tanks
On February 22 2012 10:53 CarelessPride wrote: lol ... why do people think protoss is made of money? you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility.... if he saves up 10k mineral and gas so he can instant max on his 40 gates i ahave to ask.. what were u doing this whole time.. fapping? plz learn to macro.. jokes aside in diamond you can jsut win from pure macro. you just max out at like 14 mins and a move to victory. this is coming from a master player who almost never lose to late game toss. also drop everywhere. you dont need to do damage, just keep him out of his comfort zone along with forcing his army at home or force cannons. if he gets like 4 cannons at every base then well done bro just a move the front and its gg
worthless comments fall on deaf ears...
"you can just win from macro" "you do know their making less than a terran ALWAYS because of mules and they have less bases because of mobility"
QED.
btw, if you're masters you should prob watch pro play before talking so much trash like you know what you are talking about... which you obviously don't. Fast 3 bases for toss has become more and more popular since terrans are not 1-1-1ing hardly anymore.
Also dude, its called chrono boost. Mules are nice, but chrono is more versitile. Chrono can mean more probes (equal to mules, except probes dont vanish after 30 sec) or faster tech.
I would love love love to see you max at 14 minutes and 'a-move' cause your under-upgraded army will be so good vs colosi and ht's on highground.
You know whats also popular? really quick 3rd ccs from terran. JUST SAYING
FTL? GO WATCH Alicia vs Sc from todays GSL (gm 1). It's not popular dude, its meta-gamey, and by no means will guarentee victory.
Alicia easily wins if he doesn't engage like a dumdum. I agree that terrans are doing this, but this is at GM level amongst players who play against each other a great deal. For you and me on ladder, how often are you really gonna double expand knowing that most people dont give a sh*t about macro games and you WILL lose to blink play, fast colosi, warp prisms, 4 gate, etc...
Alicia easily wins if he doesn't engage like a dumdum. I agree that terrans are doing this, but this is at GM level amongst players who play against each other a great deal. For you and me on ladder, how often are you really gonna double expand knowing that most people dont give a sh*t about macro games and you WILL lose to blink play, fast colosi, warp prisms, 4 gate, etc...
JUST SAYING.
Watch the game, sC checks that there is no double gas.
Builds 3rd CC with scouting scv. It's not luck, no metagame.
4gate is only one base play he could do with 1 gas. And nobody dies to 4 gates really.
On February 23 2012 02:37 CptBeefheart wrote: Have you considered trying mech with ghosts because it crushes my standard protoss ball? Also a big complaint I hear from terran on ladder is that toss have too much AOE damage, but they try and fight storm and colossus in straight up engagements. Maybe try something new because MMM ball has been the go to strat for terran since beta.
Everything about this statement is false. MMM ball isnt go-to strat, its THE ONLY STRAT that wins in lategame-games (which is the topic of this post). The reason is becasue you cannot FE into mech, its too slow (army is too immobile), risky (cant get enough units out), and you have no buffer units (hellions suck BAD) mid-lategame once he multiple colosi out.
Then there is feedback, blink stalkers or chargelots, upgraded, with immortals, once he realizes you are an idiot and going for mech.
And it is not... "too much AOE," You are directly stating that Terran CANNOT engage protoss in 'straight up fight' with Colosi and HT's, and yet somehow that means to you that they don't have a disadvantage? Yes, it does...
I mean, mech CAN work if you can kill like 20 probes in early/midgame like MKP - otherwise you fail.
You are explicitly ignoring the part where you MAKE IT to the lategame with mech (with ghosts no less).
Btw, where is all this gas coming from noobslice? Let me guess, the 3 bases I magically have after FE?
Go play as terran, then come back and tell me how that build went when you are 2-8 and got demoted into silver... you will realize how stupid you sound when you cant even kill zealots with blueflame and snipes/EMPs as his deathball collapses on you.
... and heaven forbid he proxy stargates you with your 4 hellions and two marines out.
On February 22 2012 20:16 Nyast wrote: I'm a toss player at mid/high master's level and I almost never win a late game PvT. So I'd love to see you post replays of you losing in end-game, because I always get owned by any Terran that's semi-competent at macroing.
Id love to see some of your replays to, if your not winning in late game with the race that is designed for late game domination somethings wierd...
Alicia easily wins if he doesn't engage like a dumdum. I agree that terrans are doing this, but this is at GM level amongst players who play against each other a great deal. For you and me on ladder, how often are you really gonna double expand knowing that most people dont give a sh*t about macro games and you WILL lose to blink play, fast colosi, warp prisms, 4 gate, etc...
JUST SAYING.
Watch the game, sC checks that there is no double gas.
Builds 3rd CC with scouting scv. It's not luck, no metagame.
4gate is only one base play he could do with 1 gas. And nobody dies to 4 gates really.
Good point, however,
1) LUCKILY Alicia didnt scout it.
2) Yes, it is metagame - he knows 4 gate isn't coming? He CAN'T KNOW that at 20-22 supply (no third pylon). And warp prism/robo play is still possible at that point. Usually toss will take 2nd gass at 22 unless he is trying to tech quickly.
3) The point is: even on one less base, Toss is TOTALLY FINE until he miscontrols army. And usually that one battle determines game (as the casters duely pointed out) so tell me how this proves anything other than a 3 base terran can (sometimes) beat a 2 base toss who doesn't scout for sh*t.
4) "4gate is only one base play he could do with 1 gas." - dont make assumptions like this, even Day9 would agree.
There is a large degree or risk/reward for Sc. The problem I find is that this 'great risk' doesn't even give him a clear advantage to the point where he can actually kill Alicia.
And, obviously you haven't seen an 6-8 gate followup from a toss lately, that would simply have killed SC (his tech was soooooo delayed).
But the point of this topic is lategame oriented, so all I will say is that regardless of the number of bases, a lategame battle between toss and terran seems to favor the toss (if ever so slightly) from my experience, all things being equal. Notice even after decisive battle win, Sc STILL COULDN'T KILL Alicia...
On February 23 2012 02:37 CptBeefheart wrote: Have you considered trying mech with ghosts because it crushes my standard protoss ball? Also a big complaint I hear from terran on ladder is that toss have too much AOE damage, but they try and fight storm and colossus in straight up engagements. Maybe try something new because MMM ball has been the go to strat for terran since beta.
Guess what, the hardcounter to mech comes out of gates and robo, just like your standard deathball. On top of that blink stalker harassment and warpprism play shits all over mech. It only works on shakuras and shattered temple and only if protoss sits on his ass for 20 minutes and amoves into 20+ siege tanks
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
Don't always do one thing. Understand what each strat requires and risks.
If a toss maxes out at 150 in army, he obv is allining and will not have any ability to sustain that attack. 1941 him.
E.g., make it a multifront war where the push into the heartland will meet multiple walls of your troops. The farther away he goes from his base, the more vulnerable his own base is and the longer his reinforcement line is. And his reproduction capability is very limited.
Not to be rude, but that didn't make any sense to me. I am ahead on bases. My drop harrass worked, they are turtling hardcore. Now what do I do? I don't understand how to make that eco lead count because my experience is that protoss just turtles and maxes out slower. We end up in the same place as if they got to expand whenver they wanted to, it just takes longer.
and that time gap is a resource that terran has, both in tvz and tvp. use it.
Alicia easily wins if he doesn't engage like a dumdum. I agree that terrans are doing this, but this is at GM level amongst players who play against each other a great deal. For you and me on ladder, how often are you really gonna double expand knowing that most people dont give a sh*t about macro games and you WILL lose to blink play, fast colosi, warp prisms, 4 gate, etc...
JUST SAYING.
Watch the game, sC checks that there is no double gas.
Builds 3rd CC with scouting scv. It's not luck, no metagame.
4gate is only one base play he could do with 1 gas. And nobody dies to 4 gates really.
You can do the warp prism bullshit with 1 gas,
you can also do a voidray 5 gate zealot all in off 1 gas.
EDIT:
Also blink stalker all in can come off 1 gas.
lol Gas timing pretty much means nothing for toss. You can eliminate some possibilties, but the problem is the reponse to the strategies still available is completely different so it doesnt help a whole lot.
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
Don't always do one thing. Understand what each strat requires and risks.
If a toss maxes out at 150 in army, he obv is allining and will not have any ability to sustain that attack. 1941 him.
E.g., make it a multifront war where the push into the heartland will meet multiple walls of your troops. The farther away he goes from his base, the more vulnerable his own base is and the longer his reinforcement line is. And his reproduction capability is very limited.
No offense, but 1941'ing the futuristic race that can build units anywhere on the map is not a good idea. They can instant reinforce, and instant build defenses where they please.
At the same time, its very difficult to scout someone who does a reduced worker count build.
My response was a specific response to a specific game scenario. e.g. 2 base allin, refusing to third where you setup your third but have slightly weaker army.
Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
On February 24 2012 01:15 moregamethanSEGA wrote: Just for the record, this single replay sums up everything in this thread (and my own posts) quite nicely:
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG?
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Goody was always playing mech before and now he totally gave up and switched to bio units..... Really its funny how u ppl really think that pros wont play mech even if it was good ... The fact is that it sux. Deal with it -_-"
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Amazed you can be so ignorant, Terran players have tried countless tactics since beta.
Ever heard of Goody? He played mech against P for over a year before he decided bio was better.
Ever read Warden's build, or the countless other skymech build that have been posted on the forums.
Eh, I think TvP is easier right now than TvZ. If you do the gasless 1 rax expo into 2 medivac timing around 10 minutes and set up your third while attacking, the matchup is quite simple. The only problem I have is when it gets to very late game, which doesn't happen as often since I learned some timings. TvZ on the other hand, I have no idea what to do. I never know when to attack, and when to sit back and defend. And if they trade with your army cost efficiently, it's almost gg right there since they can establish new bases and tech up right after a battle. At least Toss units are expensive and can't be replaced as quickly.
I believe there is still some room left for Terran to develop, especially in the realm of Reapers and Ravens. You know how Terrans will get a third Starport to pump out Vikings to deal with Colossi? That could be given a Tech Lab to squeeze out a Raven, which would in turn make it much easier for Vikings to survive Stalkers.
I'd like to give the game a little more time before pinning this lategame as "unwinnable". It was only very recently that lategame PvT became winnable, in part because of a Blizzard patch that reduced the incredible AOE on EMP.
On February 24 2012 04:55 Acritter wrote: I believe there is still some room left for Terran to develop, especially in the realm of Reapers and Ravens. You know how Terrans will get a third Starport to pump out Vikings to deal with Colossi? That could be given a Tech Lab to squeeze out a Raven, which would in turn make it much easier for Vikings to survive Stalkers.
I'd like to give the game a little more time before pinning this lategame as "unwinnable". It was only very recently that lategame PvT became winnable, in part because of a Blizzard patch that reduced the incredible AOE on EMP.
Raven IS USELESS VS FEEDBACK. Seriously how can u even say that raven could be of any use in late game when there are HTs ..... And ive nthg to say about your reapers "dreams" -_-.
Edit: Btw when you are saying that: " It was only very recently that lategame PvT became winnable" i really hope you are joking... Before when the match up was imbalance in favor of the T there wasnt late at all anyway.
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Amazed you can be so ignorant, Terran players have tried countless tactics since beta.
Ever heard of Goody? He played mech against P for over a year before he decided bio was better.
Ever read Warden's build, or the countless other skymech build that have been posted on the forums.
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
You use the word countless far too often. There are a FEW builds of actual significance, and I don't think you can really judge mech until it's in the hands of a top Terran (aka not Goody).
This is a metagame thing, of course you will figure something out and you'd be a dumbass to think otherwise. Of course David Kim will listen to whatever balance complains people have because they don't seem to understand what a meta game is.
Even now, a raven still isn't in common use, and Terran's complain that they lose all their vikings and can't deal with tech changes.
Why not add thors into the army? They can cause feedbacks instead of storms (still soak up storms pretty well), act as a sort of forcefield against chargelots etc. I dunno man that's just an example but the amount of experimental play by Terran is piss poor and you can't complain until you have explored a lot of the options (which you haven't).
I think to win macro games vs P you need this set of skills : Jaedong APM,Bisu's micro,Flash multitask and decision making and oov's macro. I don't like TvP nowdays it's either P dies to 1-2base timing or T dies to 1-2base timing. Who allins the other guy first thats TvP in bigger games I don't see any chances for T to be able to win late game i think you have to make incredible gambles like tech faster or 2 expos at once and be 4base vs 3base.I think late game just drop drop drop drop drop then more drop because in late game fights 200 vs 200 battles there is a huge defender advantage for P and you can't attack straight foward. Not to mention easy tech switches late game where you have to gamble to get vikings and how many because you see viking counters only colo's but if he abandoned that idea you have this garbage unit ( it says that the viking is armored and has 0 armor lol). It's sad because you need the perfect number of everything comp to even have a chance in late game fight while p rolls with 12 stalkers some hts archons 1-2 immortals zeals or some other n-number of gateway units + colo and hts.
P has so many units that do the same thing : Do AoE because of SC2 mechanics everything to bunch up their ball of aoe just melts your clumped units. So for late game it requires alot of pre-setup to even go into a fight like : Spread and make an arc make sure you rauders are infront of the marines, emp before fight and focus fire with vikings. That alone requires alot of apm if you try that mid fight and manage to come on top i think there 3 possabilities : You had more stuff. You manage to take the P off-guard You are the next chosen one.
I'm not saying p imba imba world. I'm saying P has ez time in late game and has jack of all blades unit comp and can transiton to alot of things while you have your Marine,Marauder,Medivac,Ghost,Viking comp from min 15 to min infinty. Nothing is viable at late game from the other units and because of T macro you have to make your transition 5-6min in advance if you ever gonna make one.
For me TvP is broken matchup not because something is imba because too many units are useless + some design fails. I hope some patches or metagme shifts make TvP more watchable and more playable.
I'm of the belief that if toss can effectively defend 3 mining bases, there is no way to win. Taking the map won't matter as no amount of reinforcements will kill a HT+Colossus army unless P makes a massive mistake. My main goal is to kill toss early or if not, than do everything I can to deny the 3rd. I feel I'd win more of my games if P had to match my micro, but that's not the case unfortunately.
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Every TvP strat that wasnt MMVG has been nerfed. Ghost pushes. 3 fac hellion tank marine pushes. Thor marine all in. Stim rush. Macro games (upgrade for toss reduced insane, charge always hit etc)
Anyone who tries to suggest unit comps that aren't MMMVG should actually attempt to play terran in tvp, even at just a plat level. You'll quickly understand why doing any other composition is an all-in that has no flexible transitions.
From a Protoss perspective, if we assume equal micro and macro from both players (so we just focus on the strategy aspect), Terran really needs to do a lot of drops to disrupt the economy while limiting the Protoss's expansions. Unless you come out decisively ahead Warpgate reinforcement is just going to turn the battle to the Protoss's favor. Zerg and Protoss just reinforce significantly faster than Terran. The only way to "fight" warp-ins is to prevent the Protoss from banking up.
Of course you can try to win the micro war and place the perfect EMP's, but that's not the emphasis here (strategy is)
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Amazed you can be so ignorant, Terran players have tried countless tactics since beta.
Ever heard of Goody? He played mech against P for over a year before he decided bio was better.
Ever read Warden's build, or the countless other skymech build that have been posted on the forums.
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
You use the word countless far too often. There are a FEW builds of actual significance, and I don't think you can really judge mech until it's in the hands of a top Terran (aka not Goody).
This is a metagame thing, of course you will figure something out and you'd be a dumbass to think otherwise. Of course David Kim will listen to whatever balance complains people have because they don't seem to understand what a meta game is.
Even now, a raven still isn't in common use, and Terran's complain that they lose all their vikings and can't deal with tech changes.
Why not add thors into the army? They can cause feedbacks instead of storms (still soak up storms pretty well), act as a sort of forcefield against chargelots etc. I dunno man that's just an example but the amount of experimental play by Terran is piss poor and you can't complain until you have explored a lot of the options (which you haven't).
glhf
This was already discussed in SotG and even a protoss player was trying to tell everyone how mech is just a stupid idea in TvP as bio can achieve what mech can and even more. Like do you seriously believe that NO top level terran has EVER tried anything but MMMGV? That's just ignorant. These guys play starcraft as a full-time job. MVP has some 2 base timing pushes where he incorporates tanks, but completely ditches them after. I wonder why?
Your theorycrafting of Thors is ridiculous. You think they can tank storms, feedback, AND chargelots? That's ridiculous and if Blizzard buffed the Thor to be able to do that than I'm all for it.
I hate when Protoss players tell Terran to innovate and the only innovating they've ever done is get buffs.
The biggest problems I have in TvP are the plethora of 1-2 base all ins that they have available to them. I know that I need to get some kind of advantage in the early game so I try to do quick expands and quick upgrades, but I often just die to the most ridiculous all ins. These, combined with how much easier it is for protoss to control lategame engagements and to remax, is what makes this match up soo hard.
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
Some thoughts based on watching game #20:
Your bunker feels late. I'm surprised you aren't losing lots of games to stalker pressure. High level players who go with a late bunker like that probably rely on micro to survive.
Hide your scv further away. Just because it doesn't get scouted most games by bad players doesn't mean you have found a good spot. You can't rely on just hoping throwing down 3 bunkers will stop whatever the P does when you have no idea what he's doing! With no info on him, you should have scanned.
At 8:20, you've let him bully you into staying on 3 raxes with 1 addon and your factory just barely started and no engineering bay. Your early economic lead is rendered impotent as he tears you apart; you were up workers, then a little later he has another 10 workers, is at 56 and and you haven't built any.
OH GOD. 7 vikings is not enough against 4 colossus. Try 12 or more. You need enough your vikings can kill colo without your bio getting butchered, and as you can clearly see that is not happening.
You're at 42 workers against 72! LKDFJSLDKJFSLDF.
I must echo this sentiment towards non-GM terrans. Everyone sees the difficult late game and immediately assumes it's the match-up when there are tens of thousands of Terrans who would beat the protoss they are fighting. Compare yourself to a Korean Terran, realize the monumental gap in skill and how much he'd smash the protoss you lose to, then realize just getting a little better in that direction would cause you to beat the protoss you currently fight, and move on to stronger opponents.
tl;dr don't focus on 'imbalance,' focus on getting better. Your mechanics/multi-tasking make a world of a difference and I assure you they're no where where they need to be.
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Amazed you can be so ignorant, Terran players have tried countless tactics since beta.
Ever heard of Goody? He played mech against P for over a year before he decided bio was better.
Ever read Warden's build, or the countless other skymech build that have been posted on the forums.
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
You use the word countless far too often. There are a FEW builds of actual significance, and I don't think you can really judge mech until it's in the hands of a top Terran (aka not Goody).
This is a metagame thing, of course you will figure something out and you'd be a dumbass to think otherwise. Of course David Kim will listen to whatever balance complains people have because they don't seem to understand what a meta game is.
Even now, a raven still isn't in common use, and Terran's complain that they lose all their vikings and can't deal with tech changes.
Why not add thors into the army? They can cause feedbacks instead of storms (still soak up storms pretty well), act as a sort of forcefield against chargelots etc. I dunno man that's just an example but the amount of experimental play by Terran is piss poor and you can't complain until you have explored a lot of the options (which you haven't).
glhf
This was already discussed in SotG and even a protoss player was trying to tell everyone how mech is just a stupid idea in TvP as bio can achieve what mech can and even more. Like do you seriously believe that NO top level terran has EVER tried anything but MMMGV? That's just ignorant. These guys play starcraft as a full-time job. MVP has some 2 base timing pushes where he incorporates tanks, but completely ditches them after. I wonder why?
Your theorycrafting of Thors is ridiculous. You think they can tank storms, feedback, AND chargelots? That's ridiculous and if Blizzard buffed the Thor to be able to do that than I'm all for it.
I hate when Protoss players tell Terran to innovate and the only innovating they've ever done is get buffs.
P has to be really stupid to storm on top of a thor to beging with, unless he has like 15 templars full of energy...Its like saying that protoss should use pheonix to soak up emp... I mean... WHAT!?!
EDIT: I agree with you is what I'm saying, other units need buffs if were going to use em in TvP, the tweaks we do now are so minor.
Currently I play 1-1-1 medivac hellion into expand into siege push with marines and loads of banshees. If that gets stopped im screwed or if it goes longer then two base without me doing dmg.
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
Some thoughts based on watching game #20:
Your bunker feels late. I'm surprised you aren't losing lots of games to stalker pressure. High level players who go with a late bunker like that probably rely on micro to survive.
Hide your scv further away. Just because it doesn't get scouted most games by bad players doesn't mean you have found a good spot. You can't rely on just hoping throwing down 3 bunkers will stop whatever the P does when you have no idea what he's doing! With no info on him, you should have scanned.
At 8:20, you've let him bully you into staying on 3 raxes with 1 addon and your factory just barely started and no engineering bay. Your early economic lead is rendered impotent as he tears you apart; you were up workers, then a little later he has another 10 workers, is at 56 and and you haven't built any.
OH GOD. 7 vikings is not enough against 4 colossus. Try 12 or more. You need enough your vikings can kill colo without your bio getting butchered, and as you can clearly see that is not happening.
You're at 42 workers against 72! LKDFJSLDKJFSLDF.
I must echo this sentiment towards non-GM terrans. Everyone sees the difficult late game and immediately assumes it's the match-up when there are tens of thousands of Terrans who would beat the protoss they are fighting. Compare yourself to a Korean Terran, realize the monumental gap in skill and how much he'd smash the protoss you lose to, then realize just getting a little better in that direction would cause you to beat the protoss you currently fight, and move on to stronger opponents.
tl;dr don't focus on 'imbalance,' focus on getting better. Your mechanics/multi-tasking make a world of a difference and I assure you they're no where where they need to be.
The problem is not that protoss is unbeatable, its just that as the game goes on the protoss race becomes easier and easier to play. And opposite for the terran. It just seems to require so much more from the terrans side to win. That is in my eyes not balanced. Wouldnt it be more right if two opponents of equal skill met, the outcome would be around 50/50?
Like others have said, you need to get it out of your mind that SC2 should be completely fair at every stage of the game. Even in Brood war, a game lauded for its balance, there were stages of a game where one race usually was more powerful than another. That's not to say that every single time one race was stronger, or that situations didn't exist where one race would be more powerful, but on average one race was stronger late game than another; one race was better in the midgame; etc.
IMO, Terrans have an advantage in the early to midgame on average, you should be using that advantage so that when/if the game goes to the point where the Protoss has an advantage, your advantages cancel eachother out. If I'm a boxer that's great early on, but I tire quickly, and I'm against a boxer who is less skilled, but has more stamina, then I'm not going to wade into the later rounds and hope to win - and if it does go to the later rounds, hopefully I've done some damage early on to equate for the disadvantage I have now that I'm tiring.
Protoss late game is very strong - sometimes. Terran late is weaker on average, but can be just as strong. Just play better in all stages of the game - it's not a balance problem.
I sound like a broken record at this point, but T army can easily contest P army late game, it all comes down to 1 thing.
That's positioning.
Stop taking fights in the open against chargelot Archon. IF all of P's units are DPSing, you will lose. Just do the math, everything is higher DPS. But if you fight in a position where half of P's units are milling around and stuck, then you win. You should only be fighting big fights in chokes + simcities.
You will never win straight up once P has 3-4 bases. Every base represents 1 200/200 army. You will have to burn 4-5 big fights before P runs out of steam.
To sum up: 1. Cut SCVs, make OCs, such that you can afford 20-30 food in drops with at most a -10 dent in your main army. 2. Main army movement + positioning only to chokes and simcities, never take a fight in the open 3. Drops to force movement and get advantageous engages, starve P until he can no longer hold outer expos.
On February 25 2012 03:53 architecture wrote: I sound like a broken record at this point, but T army can easily contest P army late game, it all comes down to 1 thing.
That's positioning.
Stop taking fights in the open against chargelot Archon. IF all of P's units are DPSing, you will lose. Just do the math, everything is higher DPS. But if you fight in a position where half of P's units are milling around and stuck, then you win. You should only be fighting big fights in chokes + simcities.
You will never win straight up once P has 3-4 bases. Every base represents 1 200/200 army. You will have to burn 4-5 big fights before P runs out of steam.
To sum up: 1. Cut SCVs, make OCs, such that you can afford 20-30 food in drops with at most a -10 dent in your main army. 2. Main army movement + positioning only to chokes and simcities, never take a fight in the open 3. Drops to force movement and get advantageous engages, starve P until he can no longer hold outer expos.
Good luck winning all 4 battles to burn all of the tosses steam. Warp gate tech is a very bad and imbalanced game mechanic. If toss just had to rely on chronoing gateways to get out units faster vs being able to instantaniously get units out on the field than late game would be much more balanced. Late game toss is too forgiving of lost battles and bad micro and this is the reason why tvp is considered to be imbalanced.
Being able to instantly warp in chargelots/HT's/and Archons allows the toss to get more free chances at coming back into the game. Maybe blizzard should give terran a tech upgrade that allows us to drop in any rax unit instantly but make it require 25 energy per unit from the OC. That way terran would be able to keep up with toss's late game warp in capabilitys.
Terrans macro mechanic doesnt scale like tosses mechanic because terran will never be able to keep up with toss's warp in production in the late game. What I suggest doing is going for 1/1/1 all in variations and getting your 1/1/1 all ins very, very tight. I'd also suggest working on some strong 2 base pushes/all ins that will either win you the game out right or put you in a position where you can expand and win with another timing push.
On February 25 2012 03:53 architecture wrote: I sound like a broken record at this point, but T army can easily contest P army late game, it all comes down to 1 thing.
That's positioning.
Stop taking fights in the open against chargelot Archon. IF all of P's units are DPSing, you will lose. Just do the math, everything is higher DPS. But if you fight in a position where half of P's units are milling around and stuck, then you win. You should only be fighting big fights in chokes + simcities.
You will never win straight up once P has 3-4 bases. Every base represents 1 200/200 army. You will have to burn 4-5 big fights before P runs out of steam.
To sum up: 1. Cut SCVs, make OCs, such that you can afford 20-30 food in drops with at most a -10 dent in your main army. 2. Main army movement + positioning only to chokes and simcities, never take a fight in the open 3. Drops to force movement and get advantageous engages, starve P until he can no longer hold outer expos.
God ur seriously saying to fight a P army in a choke?? I agree with the zealot part, but how about the colossi/storm part?? I heard these two like units in chokes....
Just go watch the bo9 IPL showmatch between LiquidHero and MouzThorzain. the first map was a 40+ min game on Taldarim Altar. Thorzain won. Terran lategam is perfectly playable vs toss. Just don't forget making 20 ghosts and not overproducing scvs.
On February 25 2012 03:53 architecture wrote: I sound like a broken record at this point, but T army can easily contest P army late game, it all comes down to 1 thing.
That's positioning.
Stop taking fights in the open against chargelot Archon. IF all of P's units are DPSing, you will lose. Just do the math, everything is higher DPS. But if you fight in a position where half of P's units are milling around and stuck, then you win. You should only be fighting big fights in chokes + simcities.
You will never win straight up once P has 3-4 bases. Every base represents 1 200/200 army. You will have to burn 4-5 big fights before P runs out of steam.
To sum up: 1. Cut SCVs, make OCs, such that you can afford 20-30 food in drops with at most a -10 dent in your main army. 2. Main army movement + positioning only to chokes and simcities, never take a fight in the open 3. Drops to force movement and get advantageous engages, starve P until he can no longer hold outer expos.
Good luck winning all 4 battles to burn all of the tosses steam. Warp gate tech is a very bad and imbalanced game mechanic. If toss just had to rely on chronoing gateways to get out units faster vs being able to instantaniously get units out on the field than late game would be much more balanced. Late game toss is too forgiving of lost battles and bad micro and this is the reason why tvp is considered to be imbalanced.
Being able to instantly warp in chargelots/HT's/and Archons allows the toss to get more free chances at coming back into the game. Maybe blizzard should give terran a tech upgrade that allows us to drop in any rax unit instantly but make it require 25 energy per unit from the OC. That way terran would be able to keep up with toss's late game warp in capabilitys.
Terrans macro mechanic doesnt scale like tosses mechanic because terran will never be able to keep up with toss's warp in production in the late game. What I suggest doing is going for 1/1/1 all in variations and getting your 1/1/1 all ins very, very tight. I'd also suggest working on some strong 2 base pushes/all ins that will either win you the game out right or put you in a position where you can expand and win with another timing push.
If you are positioned properly, it's not hard. You goal in the big fights isn't to directly win, it's to break even, and have your 20-30 food of drops do the damage instead.
The fact is: 1. Warpin means Toss never loses a straight up fight. 2. After a fight, your composition will be in tatters, and you will have lost crucial units (most likely most of your marines), so you will almost never be in a position to directly push. 3. If you fight in the open, his initial army will be too efficient + he will have warpin.
So what you do is always fight when you have an extreme positional advantage, where another 15 zeals doesn't matter because of the terrain.
You DO have the positional advantage. IF you are positioned correctly, such that there is ONLY ONE direction of approach, you should be able to reliably negate HT and colo. Here's an example of a position:
The idea is that P has to funnel his units, and maybe 1/3 of his units aren't DPSing. Your Vikings are also able to hover in an inaccessible position to potshot the colossus. The ghosts are of course in the front to EMP/snipe templar + archon. You backup + spread + concave as the fight progresses and the AOEs start landing.
If this is your base, you create these choke artificially with additional barracks. If this is like the area between your 3rd/4th, you might need PF as well. Without terrain, you lose, with terrain you win.
On February 25 2012 03:53 architecture wrote: I sound like a broken record at this point, but T army can easily contest P army late game, it all comes down to 1 thing.
That's positioning.
Stop taking fights in the open against chargelot Archon. IF all of P's units are DPSing, you will lose. Just do the math, everything is higher DPS. But if you fight in a position where half of P's units are milling around and stuck, then you win. You should only be fighting big fights in chokes + simcities.
You will never win straight up once P has 3-4 bases. Every base represents 1 200/200 army. You will have to burn 4-5 big fights before P runs out of steam.
To sum up: 1. Cut SCVs, make OCs, such that you can afford 20-30 food in drops with at most a -10 dent in your main army. 2. Main army movement + positioning only to chokes and simcities, never take a fight in the open 3. Drops to force movement and get advantageous engages, starve P until he can no longer hold outer expos.
God ur seriously saying to fight a P army in a choke?? I agree with the zealot part, but how about the colossi/storm part?? I heard these two like units in chokes....
Yea, I am. Go try it yourself. Use your goddamn brain, fighting next to a choke doesn't mean stand clumped and take AOEs.
Take any map where there's a choke between two open areas. You will have plenty of space to spread and back up, while he will have to run to you. It's not that hard to negate HT in a position like that. Colo you will either spread out, or you will stutter back as a group depending on how the battle is going. As long as his colo are only hitting the front edge of your units you are doing it right.
On February 24 2012 04:55 Acritter wrote: I believe there is still some room left for Terran to develop, especially in the realm of Reapers and Ravens. You know how Terrans will get a third Starport to pump out Vikings to deal with Colossi? That could be given a Tech Lab to squeeze out a Raven, which would in turn make it much easier for Vikings to survive Stalkers.
I'd like to give the game a little more time before pinning this lategame as "unwinnable". It was only very recently that lategame PvT became winnable, in part because of a Blizzard patch that reduced the incredible AOE on EMP.
Raven IS USELESS VS FEEDBACK. Seriously how can u even say that raven could be of any use in late game when there are HTs ..... And ive nthg to say about your reapers "dreams" -_-.
Edit: Btw when you are saying that: " It was only very recently that lategame PvT became winnable" i really hope you are joking... Before when the match up was imbalance in favor of the T there wasnt late at all anyway.
You can make a lot of comments about the raven, but feedback should not be one of them. Did that HT sneak up on you? Why don't you learn to micro against a substantially slower unit before you declare it useless?
i think terrran needs to try doing this against toss
stop at about 10 marines, and make EVERYTHING ELSE marauders. and in battle, DONT EVEN BRING YOUR MARINES. just keep them at your base defending whatever dropship harassment the toss is probably trying
think about it lol. if you got pure mass 3/3 marauders, thats probably your best hope at stopping the zealot gayness. i know its a old idea... but its probably the only thing that works
dont even get ghosts, just pure 3/3 marauder and you can kite while being more tanky against storms and pull back to planetary fortresses when you need to heal your army and be covered
im thinking something like 7 vikings, 10 marines, 8 medivacs, everything else marauders. if the enemy has 3 collossi, you want 10 vikings. 4 collossi, 13 vikings. 5 collossi, 16 vikings. 6 collossi or more, 18 vikings and thats the max stop at getting any more.
Do not let your vikings hover over archons because archon splash rapes vikings too hard
mass pure maraurders, nothing else. dont even get ghosts. thats your only hope against toss
i guess slowly, slowly, slowly, you can turn lategame gas into battlecruisers. thats an option of something to spend your gas on. other than that, pure marauders
On February 25 2012 05:33 roymarthyup wrote: i think terrran needs to try doing this against toss
stop at about 10 marines, and make EVERYTHING ELSE marauders. and in battle, DONT EVEN BRING YOUR MARINES. just keep them at your base defending whatever dropship harassment the toss is probably trying
think about it lol. if you got pure mass 3/3 marauders, thats probably your best hope at stopping the zealot gayness. i know its a old idea... but its probably the only thing that works
dont even get ghosts, just pure 3/3 marauder and you can kite while being more tanky against storms and pull back to planetary fortresses when you need to heal your army and be covered
im thinking something like 7 vikings, 10 marines, 8 medivacs, everything else marauders. if the enemy has 3 collossi, you want 10 vikings. 4 collossi, 13 vikings. 5 collossi, 16 vikings. 6 collossi or more, 18 vikings and thats the max stop at getting any more.
Do not let your vikings hover over archons because archon splash rapes vikings too hard
mass pure maraurders, nothing else. dont even get ghosts. thats your only hope against toss
i guess slowly, slowly, slowly, you can turn lategame gas into battlecruisers. thats an option of something to spend your gas on. other than that, pure marauders
can I get some of the stuff you're smoking? Appears to be really good.
Seriously, zealots assrape marauders so fuckin hard, it isn't even funny. Simple chargelot archon would kill your rauders in 2 seconds and don't even think about storms.
And no ghosts is suicide against templar. They could literally go mass immortals to kill that.
On February 25 2012 05:33 roymarthyup wrote: i think terrran needs to try doing this against toss
stop at about 10 marines, and make EVERYTHING ELSE marauders. and in battle, DONT EVEN BRING YOUR MARINES. just keep them at your base defending whatever dropship harassment the toss is probably trying
think about it lol. if you got pure mass 3/3 marauders, thats probably your best hope at stopping the zealot gayness. i know its a old idea... but its probably the only thing that works
dont even get ghosts, just pure 3/3 marauder and you can kite while being more tanky against storms and pull back to planetary fortresses when you need to heal your army and be covered
im thinking something like 7 vikings, 10 marines, 8 medivacs, everything else marauders. if the enemy has 3 collossi, you want 10 vikings. 4 collossi, 13 vikings. 5 collossi, 16 vikings. 6 collossi or more, 18 vikings and thats the max stop at getting any more.
Do not let your vikings hover over archons because archon splash rapes vikings too hard
mass pure maraurders, nothing else. dont even get ghosts. thats your only hope against toss
i guess slowly, slowly, slowly, you can turn lategame gas into battlecruisers. thats an option of something to spend your gas on. other than that, pure marauders
can I get some of the stuff you're smoking? Appears to be really good.
Seriously, zealots assrape marauders so fuckin hard, it isn't even funny. Simple chargelot archon would kill your rauders in 2 seconds and don't even think about storms.
And no ghosts is suicide against templar. They could literally go mass immortals to kill that.
good point about immortals and archons
i guess get a couple ghosts and keep um back and only use them for immortals and archons
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
Some thoughts based on watching game #20:
Your bunker feels late. I'm surprised you aren't losing lots of games to stalker pressure. High level players who go with a late bunker like that probably rely on micro to survive.
Hide your scv further away. Just because it doesn't get scouted most games by bad players doesn't mean you have found a good spot. You can't rely on just hoping throwing down 3 bunkers will stop whatever the P does when you have no idea what he's doing! With no info on him, you should have scanned.
At 8:20, you've let him bully you into staying on 3 raxes with 1 addon and your factory just barely started and no engineering bay. Your early economic lead is rendered impotent as he tears you apart; you were up workers, then a little later he has another 10 workers, is at 56 and and you haven't built any.
OH GOD. 7 vikings is not enough against 4 colossus. Try 12 or more. You need enough your vikings can kill colo without your bio getting butchered, and as you can clearly see that is not happening.
You're at 42 workers against 72! LKDFJSLDKJFSLDF.
I must echo this sentiment towards non-GM terrans. Everyone sees the difficult late game and immediately assumes it's the match-up when there are tens of thousands of Terrans who would beat the protoss they are fighting. Compare yourself to a Korean Terran, realize the monumental gap in skill and how much he'd smash the protoss you lose to, then realize just getting a little better in that direction would cause you to beat the protoss you currently fight, and move on to stronger opponents.
tl;dr don't focus on 'imbalance,' focus on getting better. Your mechanics/multi-tasking make a world of a difference and I assure you they're no where where they need to be.
The problem is not that protoss is unbeatable, its just that as the game goes on the protoss race becomes easier and easier to play. And opposite for the terran. It just seems to require so much more from the terrans side to win. That is in my eyes not balanced. Wouldnt it be more right if two opponents of equal skill met, the outcome would be around 50/50?
Ok, Protoss isn't unbeatable, and the win rates are pretty close to 50/50; what's your point? The meta game shifts every few months as does the winrates. TvP has swung in favor of the Protoss. Is that the reason diamond terran lose to diamond protoss? No.
On February 25 2012 06:29 Tyrant0 wrote: Ok, Protoss isn't unbeatable, and the win rates are pretty close to 50/50; what's your point? The meta game shifts every few months as does the winrates. TvP has swung in favor of the Protoss. Is that the reason diamond terran lose to diamond protoss? No.
Actually yes since Terran has been stripped of all "easymode" abilities while protoss still has all remaining.
win rates are pretty close but i am pretty sure most of the T wins are short games. i play protoss and terran at a close level and i feel much safer with protoss in lategame
You're not playing against Puzzle, Genius, Parting, or Brown.
Let me repeat that. You are not playing against good players with excellent macro, tactics, and defense who only make some mistakes. You are playing against relatively atrocious players who fail at every single aspect of the game - and this also applies to the top NA GMs, let alone the diamonds you're matched with. Even if the matchup is broken, you can still win.
Just get calm and comfortable and improve your own play; try to fix some of the innumerable mistakes you find in it (if you can't find them, that's your first big problem).
Some thoughts based on watching game #20:
Your bunker feels late. I'm surprised you aren't losing lots of games to stalker pressure. High level players who go with a late bunker like that probably rely on micro to survive.
Hide your scv further away. Just because it doesn't get scouted most games by bad players doesn't mean you have found a good spot. You can't rely on just hoping throwing down 3 bunkers will stop whatever the P does when you have no idea what he's doing! With no info on him, you should have scanned.
At 8:20, you've let him bully you into staying on 3 raxes with 1 addon and your factory just barely started and no engineering bay. Your early economic lead is rendered impotent as he tears you apart; you were up workers, then a little later he has another 10 workers, is at 56 and and you haven't built any.
OH GOD. 7 vikings is not enough against 4 colossus. Try 12 or more. You need enough your vikings can kill colo without your bio getting butchered, and as you can clearly see that is not happening.
You're at 42 workers against 72! LKDFJSLDKJFSLDF.
I must echo this sentiment towards non-GM terrans. Everyone sees the difficult late game and immediately assumes it's the match-up when there are tens of thousands of Terrans who would beat the protoss they are fighting. Compare yourself to a Korean Terran, realize the monumental gap in skill and how much he'd smash the protoss you lose to, then realize just getting a little better in that direction would cause you to beat the protoss you currently fight, and move on to stronger opponents.
tl;dr don't focus on 'imbalance,' focus on getting better. Your mechanics/multi-tasking make a world of a difference and I assure you they're no where where they need to be.
The problem is not that protoss is unbeatable, its just that as the game goes on the protoss race becomes easier and easier to play. And opposite for the terran. It just seems to require so much more from the terrans side to win. That is in my eyes not balanced. Wouldnt it be more right if two opponents of equal skill met, the outcome would be around 50/50?
Ok, Protoss isn't unbeatable, and the win rates are pretty close to 50/50; what's your point? The meta game shifts every few months as does the winrates. TvP has swung in favor of the Protoss. Is that the reason diamond terran lose to diamond protoss? No.
Most T players aren't saying protoss is unbeatable. They are simply saying that when it goes late game, the chances of beating a P becomes harder and harder, its downright a fact that a P of similiar skill against the T will win if the game goes on toward this point. The winrate maybe close to 50/50 but that takes into account everything (short games, all ins w/e).
If we were to see the late game winrates in TvP (past 15~20mins) it would further prove or debunk our point.
I do not understand the complaints about Protoss insta-remaxing their deathball. That really only works for one unit and it is their tier one unit.
Warp does not work for Stargate and Robo units or for Archons.
DT's are admittedly scary, but I do not believe this thread is focused towards those.
Toss could remax Stalkers, but they are so bad in the late game that there is no point.
Warping in low energy Sentries is pointless.
High Templars must wait to get enough energy for storm making them about 10 seconds slower than Ghosts.
The only advantage is that Zealots shows up 20 seconds before Marines, but in order to make use of those Zealots Protoss must engage near Terran's base where any sort of wall can hold off the melee units.
The Protoss is challenged by the fact that EMPs will show up after 40 seconds, while the counter, Colossus, can only reach Terran base after 105 seconds (assuming a 30 second walk which is quite short).
In practice if there was truly an even trade in the first battle, it is tough for Protoss to do damage with Zealots.
Where the Warp In of Zealots is strong is after Protoss won the first engagement. Basically from there a round of Zealots insta waprs in and Protoss can finish the game off more quickly than would have been otherwise possible.
This is a case of "win more" where the Zealots did not turn the tide of the game, but merely accelerated the already determined outcome.
If you as a Terran lose your army, but Protoss still has a few Colossus left and maybe a storm or 2, then it was the original engagement that lost you the game. It was not the reinforcing Zealots.
On February 25 2012 05:33 roymarthyup wrote: i think terrran needs to try doing this against toss
stop at about 10 marines, and make EVERYTHING ELSE marauders. and in battle, DONT EVEN BRING YOUR MARINES. just keep them at your base defending whatever dropship harassment the toss is probably trying
think about it lol. if you got pure mass 3/3 marauders, thats probably your best hope at stopping the zealot gayness. i know its a old idea... but its probably the only thing that works
dont even get ghosts, just pure 3/3 marauder and you can kite while being more tanky against storms and pull back to planetary fortresses when you need to heal your army and be covered
im thinking something like 7 vikings, 10 marines, 8 medivacs, everything else marauders. if the enemy has 3 collossi, you want 10 vikings. 4 collossi, 13 vikings. 5 collossi, 16 vikings. 6 collossi or more, 18 vikings and thats the max stop at getting any more.
Do not let your vikings hover over archons because archon splash rapes vikings too hard
mass pure maraurders, nothing else. dont even get ghosts. thats your only hope against toss
i guess slowly, slowly, slowly, you can turn lategame gas into battlecruisers. thats an option of something to spend your gas on. other than that, pure marauders
On February 25 2012 07:53 meadbert wrote: I do not understand the complaints about Protoss insta-remaxing their deathball.
It's the strength of the Protoss units themselves that makes it seem like that.
e.g.
1. Just one Colossus requires more than one viking 2. One zealot feels like a counter needs 4 marines
etc...
Another example is, Hellions would seem like a good idea against zealots and High Templars, but the time it takes to build factories and get those out feels almost impossible.
Toss dictates so firmly the required Terran composition, and this composition just takes a long time to get (it feels like a 4-to-1 ratio, in favor of Toss).
Also, ideally, a Terran also would need fewer SCV's to allow for more supply, but that's not possible either.
This makes me wonder what the SC2 architects actually intended when they imagined Toss vs. Terran in the late game. I'll bet they thought aboout lots of PDD's, and some Nukes.
Did they imagine Terran as "turtling" and weathering the attacks of Toss until a widely diverse composition was built?
Of course you need more than 1 viking per collosus, but that's fine, colossi are 6 supply each, vikings only 2. So you can have 3 per colossus, although personally I find that too many.
In open ground zealots need more than 2 marines, but in a choke where the zealots surface area is restricted they are doing much much less damage. Plus you should have EMPed them so they die faster.
A terran should have less worker supply as terran has MULEs, so you can have a larger army.
The standard composition works just fine late game, although possibly there will be better options in HotS.
aLive vs Genius g1 :aLive dominated genius micro and macro wise during the entire game, to the point where he had a 25 supply lead and genius had only zealots and an archon on the field, but still, aLive couldn't capitalize (same happened multiple times in multiple games @jjakji vs parting), genius on the other hand, barely won a battle, got a 15 supply lead, and the game was 100% over, regardless of alive's 21 barracks, the fact that you have to rally the units makes warpgates 10000³³³² times better in the late game.
I'm not gonna comment much further on his other games that involved, according to Tastosis (their protoss bias is getting way out of hand), perfect play, but let's just say that he won using a void ray allin by attacking with stalkers at the front, losing one before he even reached the bunker, then again he had some perfect micro, i.e pulled 2 huge units with huge hp/energy pool back, nerd chills all over ma body.
Point being, no it's not possible, try some form of allin.
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
I am getting a lot of advice about how to play the matchup from a macro standpoint, but frankly it doesn't make sense to me. I know this deep into a thread I am unlikely to get a good response but I will try anway: my goals early game it to get out fast medivacs and drop, so I can keep protoss in their base and deny the third for as long as possible. I need to do this while simultaneously taking my third base, keeping up on upgrades, and getting ghost tech out. In the mean time, I need to be altering my production to match whatever composition the protoss is going for. Eventually the protoss should be able to take their 3rd base, so I need to cash in on being ahead from my dropping by taking my fourth base, and maxing out soon. Once maxed, I should start making orbital commands and pull a bunch of scvs to attack protoss as they take their fourth base. This will allow me, if controlled correctly, to force protoss to remax and give me the opportunity to "super max". From there I need to set up fortified positions and try and win an engagement with protoss at least 1 more time, dropping with my extra units afforded from sacrificing scvs as a do so, until I can eventually whittle the protoss down to nothing. Did I get all that? The problem I have with this kind of mentality for TvP, is that it literally requires me to make essentially no mistakes, and it requires protoss to engage into a planetary fortress and a fortified position in order for me to win. Is their something I am missing here? This sounds like theorcrafting more then practical strategy. I can't think of any other matchup in starcraft II that requires these many prerequisites for one race to win over another. If this is what terran needs to do in order to win a macro TvP, then that I what I am going to try and practice, but I would like to believe there is an easier and more direct way. Preferably a way where I can dictate at least somewhat the pace of the game for protoss. Or put them in a position where they have to attack more or be at a disadvantage. I can do this in other matchups; leverage an advantage either with aggression or macro, but I don't see the opportunity to do that in tvp.
Have 55 SCVs, drop 30 food of units, either split 30/0, 10/20 or 10/10/10 across vulnerable locations.
Protoss either attacks into you, where you are camping with all your ghosts+vikings, or he splits and pulls his army back. Take his position. If he clears fast enough, then reset and redo. If he struggles, then move up into the next position close to an expo, and provoke the fight there.
Only fight in position where you can negate zeal damage (your tech units can negate his AOE).
It's a lot of work, and yes it is impossible to win a straight up fight. It all comes down to your drops doing actual damage, since your main army is only capable of trading evenly.
On February 25 2012 07:53 meadbert wrote: I do not understand the complaints about Protoss insta-remaxing their deathball. That really only works for one unit and it is their tier one unit.
Warp does not work for Stargate and Robo units or for Archons.
DT's are admittedly scary, but I do not believe this thread is focused towards those.
Toss could remax Stalkers, but they are so bad in the late game that there is no point.
Warping in low energy Sentries is pointless.
High Templars must wait to get enough energy for storm making them about 10 seconds slower than Ghosts.
The only advantage is that Zealots shows up 20 seconds before Marines, but in order to make use of those Zealots Protoss must engage near Terran's base where any sort of wall can hold off the melee units.
The Protoss is challenged by the fact that EMPs will show up after 40 seconds, while the counter, Colossus, can only reach Terran base after 105 seconds (assuming a 30 second walk which is quite short).
In practice if there was truly an even trade in the first battle, it is tough for Protoss to do damage with Zealots.
Where the Warp In of Zealots is strong is after Protoss won the first engagement. Basically from there a round of Zealots insta waprs in and Protoss can finish the game off more quickly than would have been otherwise possible.
This is a case of "win more" where the Zealots did not turn the tide of the game, but merely accelerated the already determined outcome.
If you as a Terran lose your army, but Protoss still has a few Colossus left and maybe a storm or 2, then it was the original engagement that lost you the game. It was not the reinforcing Zealots.
You can actually warp in archons, kind of.
Also if terran wins a lategame battle with a handful of units left over, terran can't attack. If protoss wins a battle with a handful of units left over, protoss can cause some severe damage. That's the main thing people dislike, I think. (at least, it's the main thing I dislike).
Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
If you want to beat your opponent the "Terran" way - always keep the pressure on until your opponent crumbles. I don't know how I am able to beat Master P's when I off race as Terran despite not knowing what the shortcut key for a viking is (I suck at P as it is, I suck 10x worse at T, but i understand a simple concept - throw everything at your opponent and see what sticks is way better than seeing who can get up to 3 base, 3/3, 200/200, and both tech routes faster).
On February 25 2012 11:40 R!! wrote: aLive vs Genius g1 :aLive dominated genius micro and macro wise during the entire game, to the point where he had a 25 supply lead and genius had only zealots and an archon on the field, but still, aLive couldn't capitalize (same happened multiple times in multiple games @jjakji vs parting), genius on the other hand, barely won a battle, got a 15 supply lead, and the game was 100% over, regardless of alive's 21 barracks, the fact that you have to rally the units makes warpgates 10000³³³² times better in the late game.
I'm not gonna comment much further on his other games that involved, according to Tastosis (their protoss bias is getting way out of hand), perfect play, but let's just say that he won using a void ray allin by attacking with stalkers at the front, losing one before he even reached the bunker, then again he had some perfect micro, i.e pulled 2 huge units with huge hp/energy pool back, nerd chills all over ma body.
Point being, no it's not possible, try some form of allin.
I think Gumiho's TvP is way better, and Alive's play in general was lackluster. There was nothing impressive about the understanding he showed us.
1. He took a stupid fight in the middle of the map, for no reason. This comes back down to T feeling like they should attack into P. Nothing could be more wrong. The aggressor is always at a disadvantage, especially when you rely on reactionary tactics with ghosts. 2. Vs a hypothetically perfectly executed VR, I don't think bio/up builds work. If they do work, 100% you will have to lift into your main base. Because if you try to hold 2 positions, the VR will simply split your forces, FF the ramp, and then kill your lower base. Personally I think T needs to skip TL ups, and get faster tech in general to deal with 1base and 2 base timings. Unfortunately, this struggles against 1base and 2 base blink, so I admit I'm at a loss at how to deal with early game.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
I am getting a lot of advice about how to play the matchup from a macro standpoint, but frankly it doesn't make sense to me. I know this deep into a thread I am unlikely to get a good response but I will try anway: my goals early game it to get out fast medivacs and drop, so I can keep protoss in their base and deny the third for as long as possible. I need to do this while simultaneously taking my third base, keeping up on upgrades, and getting ghost tech out. In the mean time, I need to be altering my production to match whatever composition the protoss is going for. Eventually the protoss should be able to take their 3rd base, so I need to cash in on being ahead from my dropping by taking my fourth base, and maxing out soon. Once maxed, I should start making orbital commands and pull a bunch of scvs to attack protoss as they take their fourth base. This will allow me, if controlled correctly, to force protoss to remax and give me the opportunity to "super max". From there I need to set up fortified positions and try and win an engagement with protoss at least 1 more time, dropping with my extra units afforded from sacrificing scvs as a do so, until I can eventually whittle the protoss down to nothing. Did I get all that? The problem I have with this kind of mentality for TvP, is that it literally requires me to make essentially no mistakes, and it requires protoss to engage into a planetary fortress and a fortified position in order for me to win. Is their something I am missing here? This sounds like theorcrafting more then practical strategy. I can't think of any other matchup in starcraft II that requires these many prerequisites for one race to win over another. If this is what terran needs to do in order to win a macro TvP, then that I what I am going to try and practice, but I would like to believe there is an easier and more direct way. Preferably a way where I can dictate at least somewhat the pace of the game for protoss. Or put them in a position where they have to attack more or be at a disadvantage. I can do this in other matchups; leverage an advantage either with aggression or macro, but I don't see the opportunity to do that in tvp.
Bolded part is wrong, if you are "ahead" in the TvP matchup to the point where you can deny a third, its extremely difficult for Protoss to beat you.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would.
On February 25 2012 15:08 willyallthewei wrote: Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
This mentality is broken.
People that spout this don't understand that builds+maps deeply affect what timings are possible. The reality is that there is no way to guarantee damage on a 3 base P. It all depends on T's build and P's build, and if there is asymmetry in which build is supposed to counter which.
T excels on low minerals. But to imagine getting there by somehow preventing 2 base P, from taking a 3rd base, and then a 4th base, that's not realistic. Especially when 3rds+4ths are very easy to take on many maps.
The way the low minerals applies is like this: you take the advantages that your build gives/doesn't give. And then you weather out the easy bases that the P can hold. Until the P has to start taking far bases that he can't defend efficiently. BAM now you're back down to 2 base.
You can't deny the first 3-4 bases on most maps. But you can certainly do so on the next few bases.
One significant advantage that TvP has over TvZ is that the P army doesn't get more dangerous with more bank. Warpins can be negated with terrain. More archons can be negated by ghost+energy accumulation. Colo can be hardcountered and are vulnerable. Unlike Z, P is unable to immediately convert it all into tech units. So time is on your side, the only thing you need is position.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
I am getting a lot of advice about how to play the matchup from a macro standpoint, but frankly it doesn't make sense to me. I know this deep into a thread I am unlikely to get a good response but I will try anway: my goals early game it to get out fast medivacs and drop, so I can keep protoss in their base and deny the third for as long as possible. I need to do this while simultaneously taking my third base, keeping up on upgrades, and getting ghost tech out. In the mean time, I need to be altering my production to match whatever composition the protoss is going for. Eventually the protoss should be able to take their 3rd base, so I need to cash in on being ahead from my dropping by taking my fourth base, and maxing out soon. Once maxed, I should start making orbital commands and pull a bunch of scvs to attack protoss as they take their fourth base. This will allow me, if controlled correctly, to force protoss to remax and give me the opportunity to "super max". From there I need to set up fortified positions and try and win an engagement with protoss at least 1 more time, dropping with my extra units afforded from sacrificing scvs as a do so, until I can eventually whittle the protoss down to nothing. Did I get all that? The problem I have with this kind of mentality for TvP, is that it literally requires me to make essentially no mistakes, and it requires protoss to engage into a planetary fortress and a fortified position in order for me to win. Is their something I am missing here? This sounds like theorcrafting more then practical strategy. I can't think of any other matchup in starcraft II that requires these many prerequisites for one race to win over another. If this is what terran needs to do in order to win a macro TvP, then that I what I am going to try and practice, but I would like to believe there is an easier and more direct way. Preferably a way where I can dictate at least somewhat the pace of the game for protoss. Or put them in a position where they have to attack more or be at a disadvantage. I can do this in other matchups; leverage an advantage either with aggression or macro, but I don't see the opportunity to do that in tvp.
Bolded part is wrong, if you are "ahead" in the TvP matchup to the point where you can deny a third, its extremely difficult for Protoss to beat you.
How do you deny a protoss third then? I haven't been able to do it. You have to be so far ahead that you an attack into a choke. You can try the drop in the main stem into the third trick. I have never been so far ahead in TvP, that I can put half my army in different places and come out ahead that way. I just have never been able to make that happen.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
On February 25 2012 07:53 meadbert wrote: I do not understand the complaints about Protoss insta-remaxing their deathball. That really only works for one unit and it is their tier one unit.
Warp does not work for Stargate and Robo units or for Archons.
DT's are admittedly scary, but I do not believe this thread is focused towards those.
Toss could remax Stalkers, but they are so bad in the late game that there is no point.
Warping in low energy Sentries is pointless.
High Templars must wait to get enough energy for storm making them about 10 seconds slower than Ghosts.
The only advantage is that Zealots shows up 20 seconds before Marines, but in order to make use of those Zealots Protoss must engage near Terran's base where any sort of wall can hold off the melee units.
The Protoss is challenged by the fact that EMPs will show up after 40 seconds, while the counter, Colossus, can only reach Terran base after 105 seconds (assuming a 30 second walk which is quite short).
In practice if there was truly an even trade in the first battle, it is tough for Protoss to do damage with Zealots.
Where the Warp In of Zealots is strong is after Protoss won the first engagement. Basically from there a round of Zealots insta waprs in and Protoss can finish the game off more quickly than would have been otherwise possible.
This is a case of "win more" where the Zealots did not turn the tide of the game, but merely accelerated the already determined outcome.
If you as a Terran lose your army, but Protoss still has a few Colossus left and maybe a storm or 2, then it was the original engagement that lost you the game. It was not the reinforcing Zealots.
Zealots and stalkers with charge and blink can easily chase down bio and medivac, even if toss loses their expensive units, they'll be able to instantly create 40+ supply of units right there, and chase down the medivacs, vikings, ghosts, and straggling bio units. Archons can be warped in pretty much instantly, and anywhere you have a power field. Ghosts take way more than 40 seconds to be any sort of threat to protoss, as they have to rally down, and ghost are pretty darn slow. Protoss can get a storm wherever they want in less time and for less cost than terran can with an EMP.
Chronoboost makes robos produce twice as fast as starports, etc... Basically terran won't be able to engage for a good bit after a battle happens, even if the trade was even, meaning protoss can expand, threaten terran's expansions, do pretty much whatever they want for a little bit.
tl dr: you ignored the fact that terran units need to rally, and robos/stargates build twice as fast as starports.
On February 25 2012 15:08 willyallthewei wrote: Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
This mentality is broken.
People that spout this don't understand that builds+maps deeply affect what timings are possible. The reality is that there is no way to guarantee damage on a 3 base P. It all depends on T's build and P's build, and if there is asymmetry in which build is supposed to counter which.
T excels on low minerals. But to imagine getting there by somehow preventing 2 base P, from taking a 3rd base, and then a 4th base, that's not realistic. Especially when 3rds+4ths are very easy to take on many maps.
The way the low minerals applies is like this: you take the advantages that your build gives/doesn't give. And then you weather out the easy bases that the P can hold. Until the P has to start taking far bases that he can't defend efficiently. BAM now you're back down to 2 base.
You can't deny the first 3-4 bases on most maps. But you can certainly do so on the next few bases.
One significant advantage that TvP has over TvZ is that the P army doesn't get more dangerous with more bank. Warpins can be negated with terrain. More archons can be negated by ghost+energy accumulation. Colo can be hardcountered and are vulnerable. Unlike Z, P is unable to immediately convert it all into tech units. So time is on your side, the only thing you need is position.
Right, IM_MVP's mentality is broken, good one there.
Time is on your side? Protoss doesn't get more dangerous with more bank? Get a freaking clue. All the top Protoss players in the world when sitting on all tech trees and 200/200 and a huge bank are literally unbeatable in PvT, forget it. If you have Jakji like control you might beat someone of lesser calibre, that's it. Otherwise if you have anywhere near an even army trade, toss will be maxed before you get back up to 100 supply.
Time is not on your side, and for you to say something idiotic like that proves you're the one who "doesn't understand" the game.
As for not being able to deny 3rd and 4th bases? Lmao, considering how many TvP builds are designed to do exactly that at the professional level, I think you ought to reevaluate your knowledge of anything starcraft related.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
2 Medivac timings are strong. If you snipe their third while getting your own up, you can almost certainly win the game from there unless you make a major mistake.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
Sorry, but your wrong. You can't attack the front at all, your army is never large enough. What you can do is drop and be annoying. Pick off some probes, kill some zealots who are out of position, that kind of thing. I have played games before where I macroed essentially perfectly for the first 11 minutes, and never was I in a position to stem and a move into the natural. It just doesn't happen.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
2 Medivac timings are strong. If you snipe their third while getting your own up, you can almost certainly win the game from there unless you make a major mistake.
Maybe all the protoss players I play against just play super safe, but I have never been able to do that. By the time I get to their base, they have at least a few sentries, zealots, sometimes maybe immortals. All of which are enough to make me turn around. The fastest timing I think you can do with medivacs is 10:30 ish, more like 11:00 when you get to their base. These seem consistent in my games.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
Sorry, but your wrong. You can't attack the front at all, your army is never large enough. What you can do is drop and be annoying. Pick off some probes, kill some zealots who are out of position, that kind of thing. I have played games before where I macroed essentially perfectly for the first 11 minutes, and never was I in a position to stem and a move into the natural. It just doesn't happen.
I got a lot of wins or big advantages just from doing that last season at high masters/gm. There must be something you're not doing right. I also don't think you can macro perfectly at a recently promoted to diamond level either.
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
Sorry, but your wrong. You can't attack the front at all, your army is never large enough. What you can do is drop and be annoying. Pick off some probes, kill some zealots who are out of position, that kind of thing. I have played games before where I macroed essentially perfectly for the first 11 minutes, and never was I in a position to stem and a move into the natural. It just doesn't happen.
I got a lot of wins or big advantages just from doing that last season at high masters/gm. There must be something you're not doing right. I also don't think you can macro perfectly at a recently promoted to diamond level either.
Can i see the replays? I am not sure how much there is to deviate from good macro in the first 10 or so minutes. I get three barracks, two tech labs, +1, and medivacs as soon as I can afford them. I don't macro perfectly every game but I have played games where I did all these things without getting supply blocked and made constant scvs.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
Sorry, but your wrong. You can't attack the front at all, your army is never large enough. What you can do is drop and be annoying. Pick off some probes, kill some zealots who are out of position, that kind of thing. I have played games before where I macroed essentially perfectly for the first 11 minutes, and never was I in a position to stem and a move into the natural. It just doesn't happen.
I got a lot of wins or big advantages just from doing that last season at high masters/gm. There must be something you're not doing right. I also don't think you can macro perfectly at a recently promoted to diamond level either.
Can i see the replays? I am not sure how much there is to deviate from good macro in the first 10 or so minutes. I get three barracks, two tech labs, +1, and medivacs as soon as I can afford them. I don't macro perfectly every game but I have played games where I did all these things without getting supply blocked and made constant scvs.
I don't think looking at my replays would help. There's plenty of top Terran TvPs out there to look at that can do it better than me and better opponents as well.
Generally though, just try to do whatever you can and not overcommit. If you picked off a few probes and a pylon or two and you can't do anything else, that's fine. Pick up and leave. If you keep doing that, you can generally force mistakes from them enough to build a noticeable advantage or a win.
I have discovered! If you make 16 Battlecruisers and have a metric fuckton of mules and a bank! absolutely nothing the protoss makes can kill you! I have found the answer!!!! Good luck getting to that point in a normal serious game though. -
I think the answer is just to engage perfectly. note that doesn't mean "zomgzors i have to out micro him in battle like x100 whatever he has to do". it means you have to set it up right. Mauraders in front, not too many, correct number of vikings, lots of marines and a ton of ghosts. ghosts in front cloaked. snipe observers with scan and vikings. viking harrass the colossi if you can safely. when he actually attacks you in position emp/snipe all the things. not more than 6 medivacs ever, unless you're going really drop heavy, then still not more than 8.
if his econ is ahead of yours and you cant drop effectively you need to drop better. if your econ is even stay even and keep position if he has position drop to force him to move if you can starve him starve him never be the one attacking with your main army. if you get maxed and sitting against one another nuke the piss out of him. - however. if you lose the big engagement i'm pretty sure at this point that unless he lets you remax you're just dead. warp-in mechanic is too strong in the late game in that situation. you can't actually catch up because you need position which you cant get with streaming in units while being attacked, and he makes units faster than you. blerg.
On February 25 2012 15:16 mothergoose729 wrote: [quote]
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
Sorry, but your wrong. You can't attack the front at all, your army is never large enough. What you can do is drop and be annoying. Pick off some probes, kill some zealots who are out of position, that kind of thing. I have played games before where I macroed essentially perfectly for the first 11 minutes, and never was I in a position to stem and a move into the natural. It just doesn't happen.
I got a lot of wins or big advantages just from doing that last season at high masters/gm. There must be something you're not doing right. I also don't think you can macro perfectly at a recently promoted to diamond level either.
Can i see the replays? I am not sure how much there is to deviate from good macro in the first 10 or so minutes. I get three barracks, two tech labs, +1, and medivacs as soon as I can afford them. I don't macro perfectly every game but I have played games where I did all these things without getting supply blocked and made constant scvs.
I don't think looking at my replays would help. There's plenty of top Terran TvPs out there to look at that can do it better than me and better opponents as well.
Generally though, just try to do whatever you can and not overcommit. If you picked off a few probes and a pylon or two and you can't do anything else, that's fine. Pick up and leave. If you keep doing that, you can generally force mistakes from them enough to build a noticeable advantage or a win.
It would help if there something off with my build though. Sounds like your timing is more effective, or hits sooner.
Recently I have stumbled upon something that was worked very well. It is similar to what others have been saying, and it relies on you having pretty aggressive macro and ok multitasking.
While they are turtling, you get your third. Once they take their third is when I start dropping, two drops on either side (big enough so they deal with it using entire army, not just warpins), and viking fleet outfront. Protoss will almost alllllways have their entire army on 1 hotkey, so they will be walking back and forth with their big deathball to deal with drops. As they walk by their main entrance you snipe their colossi little by little, since their army is in a stretched out formation from walking. The drops I usually try to snipe upgrades.
By then you have way more production, around 20 rax, I do an initial attack with MMM+viking, sac vikings to kill all colossii, then insta-remax on marauders and medivacs. Without colossi, 3/3 marauders + med dont care about blink, storm, archon, zealot w/e
On February 25 2012 15:08 willyallthewei wrote: Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
This mentality is broken.
People that spout this don't understand that builds+maps deeply affect what timings are possible. The reality is that there is no way to guarantee damage on a 3 base P. It all depends on T's build and P's build, and if there is asymmetry in which build is supposed to counter which.
T excels on low minerals. But to imagine getting there by somehow preventing 2 base P, from taking a 3rd base, and then a 4th base, that's not realistic. Especially when 3rds+4ths are very easy to take on many maps.
The way the low minerals applies is like this: you take the advantages that your build gives/doesn't give. And then you weather out the easy bases that the P can hold. Until the P has to start taking far bases that he can't defend efficiently. BAM now you're back down to 2 base.
You can't deny the first 3-4 bases on most maps. But you can certainly do so on the next few bases.
One significant advantage that TvP has over TvZ is that the P army doesn't get more dangerous with more bank. Warpins can be negated with terrain. More archons can be negated by ghost+energy accumulation. Colo can be hardcountered and are vulnerable. Unlike Z, P is unable to immediately convert it all into tech units. So time is on your side, the only thing you need is position.
Right, IM_MVP's mentality is broken, good one there.
Time is on your side? Protoss doesn't get more dangerous with more bank? Get a freaking clue. All the top Protoss players in the world when sitting on all tech trees and 200/200 and a huge bank are literally unbeatable in PvT, forget it. If you have Jakji like control you might beat someone of lesser calibre, that's it. Otherwise if you have anywhere near an even army trade, toss will be maxed before you get back up to 100 supply.
Time is not on your side, and for you to say something idiotic like that proves you're the one who "doesn't understand" the game.
As for not being able to deny 3rd and 4th bases? Lmao, considering how many TvP builds are designed to do exactly that at the professional level, I think you ought to reevaluate your knowledge of anything starcraft related.
Read and your your brain next time.
I said that MVP is exactly right, except most maps and many builds you will be unable to do damage on 2 base. So you need to starve the Protoss back down to two base to kill him.
Up to the first max, you will only do damage/cripple P if he did the wrong build against what you did. In the case that you guys landed on even builds, the game will easily push out to longer game. And many times, P can equalize a game with warpin. Point is that it's extremely unreliable to win early. It's not a realistic expectation. Sometimes you can, but flip of the coin is that sometimes it sets you back and kills you.
Now for the longer games, go look at any of the macro TvP's played in the last month. Every game that was lost, they got antsy on 200 food and took a fight in the open. You will never have an even army trade in the open. No amount of spread, kiting, or whatever bullshit will save you. You are right. If you are taking fights in the open, when P can warpin 30-40 food for army, then yes banking favor P.
But have you ever seen the fight done when the P is forced to pass through a closed space? Have you seen the same fight when T turtles like in TvZ? Hint: the fight doesn't favor P. Time and bank no longer helps when zeals have to pass through a closed space. Mass Archons from bank no longer help because they will eat overlapping EMPs and be trashed. Vikings will sit over inaccessible terrain from stalkers and pick off your colo.
T CAN win 200 fights. It's ALL positioning. But to win the game, you need to combine that with the 20-30 food in drops that proper infrastructure+MULEs gives you to allow you to split the P army and create/punish errors.
On February 25 2012 16:52 vorxaw wrote: Recently I have stumbled upon something that was worked very well. It is similar to what others have been saying, and it relies on you having pretty aggressive macro and ok multitasking.
While they are turtling, you get your third. Once they take their third is when I start dropping, two drops on either side (big enough so they deal with it using entire army, not just warpins), and viking fleet outfront. Protoss will almost alllllways have their entire army on 1 hotkey, so they will be walking back and forth with their big deathball to deal with drops. As they walk by their main entrance you snipe their colossi little by little, since their army is in a stretched out formation from walking. The drops I usually try to snipe upgrades.
By then you have way more production, around 20 rax, I do an initial attack with MMM+viking, sac vikings to kill all colossii, then insta-remax on marauders and medivacs. Without colossi, 3/3 marauders + med dont care about blink, storm, archon, zealot w/e
those sound like some pretty poor protoss players. I know I'm bad but that really annoys me when people send everything for one drop.
3/3 marauders + med do care about that stuff? Im sure any top terran will tell you that if they have 3/3 upgrades which they should when you have 3/3, marauders just don't deal enough damage to chargelots and you will get shredded by pure upgraded zealot archon if you don't have enough marines....let alone ghosts. and this is ignoring the infinite amount of storms he can land on your army if you have pure marauder no ghost.
On February 25 2012 15:08 willyallthewei wrote: Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
This mentality is broken.
People that spout this don't understand that builds+maps deeply affect what timings are possible. The reality is that there is no way to guarantee damage on a 3 base P. It all depends on T's build and P's build, and if there is asymmetry in which build is supposed to counter which.
T excels on low minerals. But to imagine getting there by somehow preventing 2 base P, from taking a 3rd base, and then a 4th base, that's not realistic. Especially when 3rds+4ths are very easy to take on many maps.
The way the low minerals applies is like this: you take the advantages that your build gives/doesn't give. And then you weather out the easy bases that the P can hold. Until the P has to start taking far bases that he can't defend efficiently. BAM now you're back down to 2 base.
You can't deny the first 3-4 bases on most maps. But you can certainly do so on the next few bases.
One significant advantage that TvP has over TvZ is that the P army doesn't get more dangerous with more bank. Warpins can be negated with terrain. More archons can be negated by ghost+energy accumulation. Colo can be hardcountered and are vulnerable. Unlike Z, P is unable to immediately convert it all into tech units. So time is on your side, the only thing you need is position.
Right, IM_MVP's mentality is broken, good one there.
Time is on your side? Protoss doesn't get more dangerous with more bank? Get a freaking clue. All the top Protoss players in the world when sitting on all tech trees and 200/200 and a huge bank are literally unbeatable in PvT, forget it. If you have Jakji like control you might beat someone of lesser calibre, that's it. Otherwise if you have anywhere near an even army trade, toss will be maxed before you get back up to 100 supply.
Time is not on your side, and for you to say something idiotic like that proves you're the one who "doesn't understand" the game.
As for not being able to deny 3rd and 4th bases? Lmao, considering how many TvP builds are designed to do exactly that at the professional level, I think you ought to reevaluate your knowledge of anything starcraft related.
Read and your your brain next time.
I said that MVP is exactly right, except most maps and many builds you will be unable to do damage on 2 base. So you need to starve the Protoss back down to two base to kill him.
Up to the first max, you will only do damage/cripple P if he did the wrong build against what you did. In the case that you guys landed on even builds, the game will easily push out to longer game. And many times, P can equalize a game with warpin. Point is that it's extremely unreliable to win early. It's not a realistic expectation. Sometimes you can, but flip of the coin is that sometimes it sets you back and kills you.
Now for the longer games, go look at any of the macro TvP's played in the last month. Every game that was lost, they got antsy on 200 food and took a fight in the open. You will never have an even army trade in the open. No amount of spread, kiting, or whatever bullshit will save you. You are right. If you are taking fights in the open, when P can warpin 30-40 food for army, then yes banking favor P.
But have you ever seen the fight done when the P is forced to pass through a closed space? Have you seen the same fight when T turtles like in TvZ? Hint: the fight doesn't favor P. Time and bank no longer helps when zeals have to pass through a closed space. Mass Archons from bank no longer help because they will eat overlapping EMPs and be trashed. Vikings will sit over inaccessible terrain from stalkers and pick off your colo.
T CAN win 200 fights. It's ALL positioning. But to win the game, you need to combine that with the 20-30 food in drops that proper infrastructure+MULEs gives you to allow you to split the P army and create/punish errors.
jinro versus elfi on daybreak? at assembly yesterday exemplified this perfectly. Only thing I don't like about this is that most maps the middle is the open part....therefore to not lose a 200/200 fight you have to let the protoss player control centre of the map making your outer expansions vulnerable at times....although I guess you can use nukes to force them back
again you could say it's the protoss players fault for engaging here and if a protoss player plays well he will never engage like this. I would like to see in future terran players sac scvs a bit more and when they sac them make some battlecruisers...as I don't think you can realistically remax on bc's as their build time is too long, so this is the only good point to be able to get some out (as well as losing supply to drops)
The whole game is about forcing errors. You have 55 SCVs, so can afford to throw 20-30 food around in dropships. If he has warpins, he can warpin. If he doesn't warpin enough, he loses tech or outlying expansion. If he can hold, then you are even, and traded units hopefully evenly.
Now here's where it's interesting. What if he can't hold because of a position error or no warpins? Now he has to pull units back to multiple locations OR engage you in a bad position. If he engages, you trade and reset the big army. If he pulls back, you reposition, and force engage in bad position for him. So your drops are forcing even trades AND positional errors.
What you don't do is take your 200 army and fight him in the fucking center like every T has been doing. This doesn't work, this is why this thread exists because people are wondering why they lose. It doesn't work for all the reasons that have been hammered to death.
Red circles is where you should be defensively positioned. Blue squares are where you should have simcity to reduce melee surface area.
You camp until your drops deposition him and he is forced to either attack OR split.
The other ramps are positions where you can possibly have fights if the P army is split, moved away etc. Don't ever take a bad fight because warpin will destroy you after.
The outer bases are practically impossible to hold, and they represent the low money scenario that MVP is talking about. By 30m, you will be back down to 2 base, and once P army no longer is able to hold its form with all tech support, you will be able to engage straight up again with MMM.
Here's another example with positioning. As you take more bases, you slowly expand where your simcity is.
One example of late game is that you have 150 army, he has 130 army.
1. You drop with 20 food into his main and start killing pylons tech. 2. He doesn't have warpin, or you kill all his warpin by camping between buildings, and then he pulls back his army. 3. Since he didn't attack you, you can now dump another 20 food into a drop at his outlying expo. He can choose to warpin there, or come to attack you, but the travel time means you will have replenished the lost drop food you had from 1.
Notice none of this involves you EVER fighting him in the open. That space in the middle? Don't go there.
It might sound retarded when you first read this, but meh;
Does it really makes sense that the race with the most cost effective units with such a strong late-game army actually has access to the warp-in mechanic?
I have never liked the warp in mechanic ever since SC2 release and I believe the game would be very much better without it.
IMO, pylons should only allowed to be placed within a set range from a nexus. That way if Toss wants to set up that proxy pylon, they need to set up a proxy nexus too.... at the least if they won't take it out of the game.
On February 25 2012 15:08 willyallthewei wrote: Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
This mentality is broken.
People that spout this don't understand that builds+maps deeply affect what timings are possible. The reality is that there is no way to guarantee damage on a 3 base P. It all depends on T's build and P's build, and if there is asymmetry in which build is supposed to counter which.
T excels on low minerals. But to imagine getting there by somehow preventing 2 base P, from taking a 3rd base, and then a 4th base, that's not realistic. Especially when 3rds+4ths are very easy to take on many maps.
The way the low minerals applies is like this: you take the advantages that your build gives/doesn't give. And then you weather out the easy bases that the P can hold. Until the P has to start taking far bases that he can't defend efficiently. BAM now you're back down to 2 base.
You can't deny the first 3-4 bases on most maps. But you can certainly do so on the next few bases.
One significant advantage that TvP has over TvZ is that the P army doesn't get more dangerous with more bank. Warpins can be negated with terrain. More archons can be negated by ghost+energy accumulation. Colo can be hardcountered and are vulnerable. Unlike Z, P is unable to immediately convert it all into tech units. So time is on your side, the only thing you need is position.
Right, IM_MVP's mentality is broken, good one there.
Time is on your side? Protoss doesn't get more dangerous with more bank? Get a freaking clue. All the top Protoss players in the world when sitting on all tech trees and 200/200 and a huge bank are literally unbeatable in PvT, forget it. If you have Jakji like control you might beat someone of lesser calibre, that's it. Otherwise if you have anywhere near an even army trade, toss will be maxed before you get back up to 100 supply.
Time is not on your side, and for you to say something idiotic like that proves you're the one who "doesn't understand" the game.
As for not being able to deny 3rd and 4th bases? Lmao, considering how many TvP builds are designed to do exactly that at the professional level, I think you ought to reevaluate your knowledge of anything starcraft related.
Read and your your brain next time.
I said that MVP is exactly right, except most maps and many builds you will be unable to do damage on 2 base. So you need to starve the Protoss back down to two base to kill him.
Up to the first max, you will only do damage/cripple P if he did the wrong build against what you did. In the case that you guys landed on even builds, the game will easily push out to longer game. And many times, P can equalize a game with warpin. Point is that it's extremely unreliable to win early. It's not a realistic expectation. Sometimes you can, but flip of the coin is that sometimes it sets you back and kills you.
Now for the longer games, go look at any of the macro TvP's played in the last month. Every game that was lost, they got antsy on 200 food and took a fight in the open. You will never have an even army trade in the open. No amount of spread, kiting, or whatever bullshit will save you. You are right. If you are taking fights in the open, when P can warpin 30-40 food for army, then yes banking favor P.
But have you ever seen the fight done when the P is forced to pass through a closed space? Have you seen the same fight when T turtles like in TvZ? Hint: the fight doesn't favor P. Time and bank no longer helps when zeals have to pass through a closed space. Mass Archons from bank no longer help because they will eat overlapping EMPs and be trashed. Vikings will sit over inaccessible terrain from stalkers and pick off your colo.
T CAN win 200 fights. It's ALL positioning. But to win the game, you need to combine that with the 20-30 food in drops that proper infrastructure+MULEs gives you to allow you to split the P army and create/punish errors.
NO. you're entire strategy revolves around Protoss attacking into your defensive position? Are you freaking crazy?
That's half the PF strategy that is being used right now and has not yet worked on any protoss smart enough to not attack head on.
If your strategy is then to force warp ins with drops, i have news for you - Cannons cost 0 supply. Yup. Think long and hard about why that makes your entire strategy worthless.
At best you will turn late game Protoss into playing the way that Mech Terran does vs. Bio Terran. Cannon + use siege units (Colossus) to break down your simcity and PF's. Artosis did an entire hour on the Todd vs. Nada game, there you can see what happens w/ this style.
Your theory that you cannot do damage on 2 base unless you have a BO advantage is rediculous, drop play allows you to out multitask and therefore out play your opponent to force errors in mid game.
You think those GSL terrans are needlessly antsy for having their armies out in the middle of the map in open space? No, they want to have constant control of the vision towers so they don't get stormed to death and the threat of drops is atleast somewhat viable. Once toss grabs teh towers and puts cannons under them, they win the vision and map control battle. Good luck getting a SINGE drop off against a good toss w/ map awareness and blink stalkers sharking around.
If you start giving up ground so your space is easier to defend, but toss as a result gets more vision, then you will almost never be able to out position him because he has your position pinned down, and for you to move out and take key positions after first giving them up would be a monumental task. This is simply because 4 or 5 cannons and 2 templar is a difficult positioin to break, even for a 200/200 bio ball. You have to meticulously break an position like that down, by the time you do, the main army has returned and you have gained no ground. meanwhile his blink stalkers do not need to be with the main army, heck he can have 20 supply in stalkers that never fight (dedicated drop ship hunters) once toss is in chargelot/archon/colossus mode.
Jakji - whose bio TvP is clearly the best in the world, has the right idea in the late game, he tries to use the mobility of the army overall to deal damage where the toss army is not. it's hard but doable. If you give up full map control to a maxed out protoss like Oz or MC, that's it, you have no chance in hell of getting anything by their stalkers.
Sometimes, when he is jokeying for position he is caught in the middle of the map. This is not his intention, but it is a risk he takes in trying to deal damage to the toss.
At diamond, probably not. You're just too bad and when both players are kinda horrible protoss should win the vast majority of the time. As it gets to higher levels and you can effectively execute multi-pronged drop harass, land EMPS, kill observers, and react to tech switches more effectively, it becomes more possible, though its still clearly protoss favored.
Protoss has a pretty similar situation against zerg though; you can't really win when it goes to split map 200/200 near infinite resources situations unless he clumps up his units and asks kindly to be vortexed. I think the best answer for terrans in tvp and protosses in pvz is to make some sort of 2 base timing/semi allin your standard play. Starcraft 2 is pretty much never ever going to force you into playing 200/200 situations if you don't want to, and most 2 base allins in this game aren't really that gimmicky and are still very usable even if you opponent knows its coming. Just man up and go allin on 2 bases.
On February 25 2012 16:06 mothergoose729 wrote: The fastest timing I think you can do with medivacs is 10:30 ish, more like 11:00 when you get to their base. These seem consistent in my games.
Nah you can get 4 full medivacs with stim and shield by 8:40, great fun vs a greedy protoss player.
On February 25 2012 15:16 mothergoose729 wrote: That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would.
OK, true, it's very hard to attack into a defended protoss base, but you don't have to. Let them have 3 base.
They may be maxed out with mixed tech and upgrades, but so should you be, you just have to be patient not waste your forces earlier in the game and pay attention to your macro.
On February 19 2012 17:18 mothergoose729 wrote: Hi emporer. In the two games were I attacked the front, I thought based on the fast robo and the upgrades I might have a time to do damage. In the third game, I didn't attack the front against the same build because I knew from the previous two it didn't work.
In the antiga game, I found myself significantly ahead but I didn't know what to do with that lead. My thought was that if I forced trades I could eventually wear him down. I don't have a very high win percentage against a protoss that gets to have and keep a third base. I think in the future I would play more passively with my lead, but I still wouldn't know what to do once I maxed out and had all the tech I wanted. How to I break them? Whats to stop the protoss from casually taking gold when they max out and turtling further?
As they spread, defending drops becomes much harder.
If you have a base or two up, the onus is on them to come out to you. Just stay outside his base pre spread out and ready to outconcave him with a drop or two daring him to meet you. He can't reliably tech switch with you having extra scans and more resources to race them that way so they have to come out for an allin.
If he's really a baddie, after you get like 30 rax/15 starpoints 3-5 with reactors rest tech labs + fusion core, then make extra OCs and start sacing scvs ten at a time.
So essentially try and contain him to three bases? This is my goal if I get ahead? I feel like even with a pre spread a max toss army, especially a max toss army that cut probes at like 50, is so strong. How do I make sure I win that fight or force a favorable trade?
Don't always do one thing. Understand what each strat requires and risks.
If a toss maxes out at 150 in army, he obv is allining and will not have any ability to sustain that attack. 1941 him.
E.g., make it a multifront war where the push into the heartland will meet multiple walls of your troops. The farther away he goes from his base, the more vulnerable his own base is and the longer his reinforcement line is. And his reproduction capability is very limited.
I'd like to point out that stretching their reinforcement line thin like 1941 or like napoleon into russia is fine and dandy for terran or zerg opps, but protoss proxy a pylon or warp prism and warp in directly in front of you, so thats not an issue to them.
if anything, wouldn;t you want to have as high tech and powery of an army possible meet his nearer to his base, and be reinforcing your units right outside your choke so that all his forces died once, and by the time he gets to your base, you have defenses again? Also, bio is immune to storms and much less vulnerable to the yellow tickle rays inside bunkers. maybe they should be used more liberally. I remember that from brood war.
If you fast expand. Hit with MM and 2 medivacs. This will punish teching and you can always snipe a collosus because it wont have range yet. Then retreat and take a 3rd. Alot of Terran's are too passive and give the protoss a 3rd base before a+moving their army into 3 collosi. Instead, attack frequently, flank and drop to thin collosus numbers and to stop the Toss macroing freely.
There are many posts already and I feel mine won't be considered but I'll still use the opportunity to speak my guts.
FU protoss. I totally agree with you, OP, and have the exact same feeling : no matter what I do, and no matter who I watch, Terran seems to be helpless and sort of doomed to lose to Protoss.
I don't know why everyone calmly consider it cool that you can't let a Protoss macro. I really don't like the fact that if both player just sit in their base, the game will favor Protoss. It puts a timer over Terran head from the beginning. It doesn't matter if I like it or not, though, it's just a fact : macro game favors Protoss so Terran HAS to control the game or will lose to late game. Protoss will not get punished for lazy/defensive/greedy play. It wasn't like in SC:BW. Late game armies were balanced between those 2 races.
So basically you get one deathball in the middle of the map that you can't engage, which threatens your expos, so you must be able to defend from it/mitigates its damage while you HAVE to constantly harass his expos to keep his econ on a manageable level.
I don't know. The fact that you can select all your army in one group, and the warp mechanic with instant positioning and such a low CD on units seems overwhelming. If the Terran could threaten the deathball a bit better, maybe it could be a bit better. At the moment I feel like both races will trade armies (in the best occasion), then Protoss will eat the Terran with waves 2, and 3, reinforcing in their face and at a much faster rate.
I'm a gold player and I die in TvP. I'm 32, I have a lot of RTS experience since warcraft 1, and I really feel there's a problem inherent to the matchup. Protoss are favored, period. Skills of players, decision making play a very little role. Going for a straight macro game is basically going for a loss. I win most of the TvT, an even number in TvZ and used to lose TvP no matter what. Seeing that, I gave up on any macro and just go for banshees. It's dirty, not satisfying and unstable, but at least I can win some TvP now.
This is the flawed gameplay you get when trying to balance the game around a few top Terran players. Most of the top 10 players in the world are Terran. In order to get more GSL wins for Zerg and Protoss Blizzard nerfs Terran into the ground even thought the top Terran players simply played better than the top Zerg/Protoss players. Terran is required to do so much more than Protoss and Zerg in order to win.
And for the more normal players, ie the 98% below Master, Terran is close to unplayable late game in a straight up macro game. Should average players be forced to cheese or switch races if they cannot afford the 100+ APM required to play Terran at even a basic level.
I have played every major RTS since Dune II and I love macro games. But Starcraft II in its current state is just depressing if you are an average APM player and happen to like Terran.
Here's another example with positioning. As you take more bases, you slowly expand where your simcity is.
One example of late game is that you have 150 army, he has 130 army.
1. You drop with 20 food into his main and start killing pylons tech. 2. He doesn't have warpin, or you kill all his warpin by camping between buildings, and then he pulls back his army. 3. Since he didn't attack you, you can now dump another 20 food into a drop at his outlying expo. He can choose to warpin there, or come to attack you, but the travel time means you will have replenished the lost drop food you had from 1.
Notice none of this involves you EVER fighting him in the open. That space in the middle? Don't go there.
Of course multi-pronged drops are good, but once you're down from 150 food to 130 food what's to stop the protoss from just attacking your main, via a safe route, and destroying your 130food, inferior tech, inferior damage army? And how can you assume they'll send the whole army to deal with 2 medivacs?
Or even just the opponent leaving a few high templars in the base to nullify the drops from the beginning... Which is a realistic problem - it feels risky dropping at any given time once I scout citadel because I know feedback and likely some form of defense (It's not as if any competent protoss player is going to leave their 3-4 bases undefended?). Drops have become pretty predictable, I have only played a few protoss that haven't left stalkers and/or zealots before citadel to preempt drops the whole game until HT tech or enough money to build cannons.
Nukes are probably the way to go about it, I think. It's a 2 supply + 100/100 investment. You can drop 3 ghost academies and make the protoss do some heavy multi-tasking with relatively little effort on your own end. Nuking any maxed engagements is good too. The preemptive response from P of course (if this becomes popular) will be to get many obs (3+) and spread them in places susceptible to nukes, and the proper response to that as T is to scan and snipe them as you go.
Sidenote: APM really doesn't mean everything. Having an APM of 180 (EAPM>110) I feel that I don't have any advantage over Terrans in TvP with APMs of 100. It's about knowing what you need to do rather than floundering faster than the others.
On TvP mentality I realize I am an extreme pessimist, I've been doing custom games with Ps of the same league (Yeah, only Diamond, I'm bad, don't play 5 games a day, etc.). However I feel that I know more timings where I can die, rather than timings where I can kill the Protoss. It could be similar for others as well, and seeing posts like "It's impossible to attack the protoss" from people who are better than I are A) of similar mentality, and B) cyclically disheartening.
Ofcourse you can win a macro game in tvp......IMHO there are two ways in which you can do that--- 1)Use your regular MMMVG and do multi-dropping to damage toss infra/eco so that after the big battle your army can remax better........If properly controlled with good control,MMMVG CAN beat toss deathball but I think the advantage here lies with the toss in a straight up fight 2)The other method is to use different playstyles like MMMVG transitioning into BC GHOST.......nukes+marauder drops are great........see this vod of avilo to see what i'm talking about Avilo's thoughts on future of late game TvP Game starts at 17:54 for those who like to skip the blah-blah like me
On February 25 2012 21:03 Ktk wrote: Of course multi-pronged drops are good, but once you're down from 150 food to 130 food what's to stop the protoss from just attacking your main, via a safe route, and destroying your 130food, inferior tech, inferior damage army? And how can you assume they'll send the whole army to deal with 2 medivacs?
Who says inferior tech, inferior damage, why would this be the case? A terran army with equal food and the defenders advantage should stomp a protoss army, and that's even if they send NOTHING to defend the drop at all, they'll have to send something or it's GG.
On February 25 2012 21:05 cleansingpak wrote: Ofcourse you can win a macro game in tvp......IMHO there are two ways in which you can do that--- 1)Use your regular MMMVG and do multi-dropping to damage toss infra/eco so that after the big battle your army can remax better........If properly controlled with good control,MMMVG CAN beat toss deathball but I think the advantage here lies with the toss in a straight up fight 2)The other method is to use different playstyles like MMMVG transitioning into BC GHOST.......nukes+marauder drops are great........see this vod of avilo to see what i'm talking about Avilo's thoughts on future of late game TvP Game starts at 17:54 for those who like to skip the blah-blah like me
He put a lot of thought in his build and that was a very interesting video in that regard.
However, it feels really map-based to me. Shakuras is so nice to split up with PFs. I'm really dubious/curious to know how will you "defend" and stay even on bases with PF on bigger map, like Taldarim for instance...
On February 24 2012 01:23 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Has TvP actually been developed AT ALL since the beta? Has the Terran been doing the same thing since the beta? Have Terran's been experimenting with mech? Have they been experimenting with any other units apart from MMMG? Do Terran players actually harass properly or have timing attacks to give them an advantage going into lategame?
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
Amazed you can be so ignorant, Terran players have tried countless tactics since beta.
Ever heard of Goody? He played mech against P for over a year before he decided bio was better.
Ever read Warden's build, or the countless other skymech build that have been posted on the forums.
The answer to the questions is all no, obviously.
You use the word countless far too often. There are a FEW builds of actual significance, and I don't think you can really judge mech until it's in the hands of a top Terran (aka not Goody).
This is a metagame thing, of course you will figure something out and you'd be a dumbass to think otherwise. Of course David Kim will listen to whatever balance complains people have because they don't seem to understand what a meta game is.
Even now, a raven still isn't in common use, and Terran's complain that they lose all their vikings and can't deal with tech changes.
Why not add thors into the army? They can cause feedbacks instead of storms (still soak up storms pretty well), act as a sort of forcefield against chargelots etc. I dunno man that's just an example but the amount of experimental play by Terran is piss poor and you can't complain until you have explored a lot of the options (which you haven't).
glhf
I would venture that you are viewing the "few builds of actual significance" differently than I do and that you might perhaps underestimate the creativity, passion, and effort of the Terran community as a whole. Rather than approaching the "few builds of actual significance" as proof of little actual effort inputted, perhaps consider it as an indicator of futility. Similarly, I could say that there are few examples of teams that have had much championship success in American football (any level) that started short quarterbacks and small linemen. That's not to say it's never been done but rather it's an indicator that it has been implied very, very strongly empirically that it's simply an inferior strategy. You want big brutes for linemen and then tall quarterbacks who can see over their shoulders.
Similarly, you want mobile units vs Protoss that can punish their tendency to clump in a ball, short enough build times to not be embarrassingly crushed by their 10-15 near-instant re-warpins, chemistry with other units in game, viability in most situations, etc.
On February 25 2012 20:53 MockHamill wrote: This is the flawed gameplay you get when trying to balance the game around a few top Terran players. Most of the top 10 players in the world are Terran. In order to get more GSL wins for Zerg and Protoss Blizzard nerfs Terran into the ground even thought the top Terran players simply played better than the top Zerg/Protoss players. Terran is required to do so much more than Protoss and Zerg in order to win.
And for the more normal players, ie the 98% below Master, Terran is close to unplayable late game in a straight up macro game. Should average players be forced to cheese or switch races if they cannot afford the 100+ APM required to play Terran at even a basic level.
I have played every major RTS since Dune II and I love macro games. But Starcraft II in its current state is just depressing if you are an average APM player and happen to like Terran.
Its actually the exact opposite, only the Top 10 or so Protoss in the world seem unbeatable in the late game.
You personally suck hard, and any Protoss you lose to could easily be beat if you were not horrible.
An entire hour based on your strategy, and on a perfect map - Shakuras - tons of dead air space for drops and extremely tight chokes for defensive positions.
On February 25 2012 15:08 willyallthewei wrote: Biggest weakness w/ Macro Terran players is they don't understand what it means to play "low mineral" - as IM_MVP puts it.
Your race is godly on low mineral count, weaker on high, so intuitively this means you need to be forcing trades constantly, if you want to sit back and macro up 200/200 go play zerg.
This mentality is broken.
People that spout this don't understand that builds+maps deeply affect what timings are possible. The reality is that there is no way to guarantee damage on a 3 base P. It all depends on T's build and P's build, and if there is asymmetry in which build is supposed to counter which.
T excels on low minerals. But to imagine getting there by somehow preventing 2 base P, from taking a 3rd base, and then a 4th base, that's not realistic. Especially when 3rds+4ths are very easy to take on many maps.
The way the low minerals applies is like this: you take the advantages that your build gives/doesn't give. And then you weather out the easy bases that the P can hold. Until the P has to start taking far bases that he can't defend efficiently. BAM now you're back down to 2 base.
You can't deny the first 3-4 bases on most maps. But you can certainly do so on the next few bases.
One significant advantage that TvP has over TvZ is that the P army doesn't get more dangerous with more bank. Warpins can be negated with terrain. More archons can be negated by ghost+energy accumulation. Colo can be hardcountered and are vulnerable. Unlike Z, P is unable to immediately convert it all into tech units. So time is on your side, the only thing you need is position.
Right, IM_MVP's mentality is broken, good one there.
Time is on your side? Protoss doesn't get more dangerous with more bank? Get a freaking clue. All the top Protoss players in the world when sitting on all tech trees and 200/200 and a huge bank are literally unbeatable in PvT, forget it. If you have Jakji like control you might beat someone of lesser calibre, that's it. Otherwise if you have anywhere near an even army trade, toss will be maxed before you get back up to 100 supply.
Time is not on your side, and for you to say something idiotic like that proves you're the one who "doesn't understand" the game.
As for not being able to deny 3rd and 4th bases? Lmao, considering how many TvP builds are designed to do exactly that at the professional level, I think you ought to reevaluate your knowledge of anything starcraft related.
Read and your your brain next time.
I said that MVP is exactly right, except most maps and many builds you will be unable to do damage on 2 base. So you need to starve the Protoss back down to two base to kill him.
Up to the first max, you will only do damage/cripple P if he did the wrong build against what you did. In the case that you guys landed on even builds, the game will easily push out to longer game. And many times, P can equalize a game with warpin. Point is that it's extremely unreliable to win early. It's not a realistic expectation. Sometimes you can, but flip of the coin is that sometimes it sets you back and kills you.
Now for the longer games, go look at any of the macro TvP's played in the last month. Every game that was lost, they got antsy on 200 food and took a fight in the open. You will never have an even army trade in the open. No amount of spread, kiting, or whatever bullshit will save you. You are right. If you are taking fights in the open, when P can warpin 30-40 food for army, then yes banking favor P.
But have you ever seen the fight done when the P is forced to pass through a closed space? Have you seen the same fight when T turtles like in TvZ? Hint: the fight doesn't favor P. Time and bank no longer helps when zeals have to pass through a closed space. Mass Archons from bank no longer help because they will eat overlapping EMPs and be trashed. Vikings will sit over inaccessible terrain from stalkers and pick off your colo.
T CAN win 200 fights. It's ALL positioning. But to win the game, you need to combine that with the 20-30 food in drops that proper infrastructure+MULEs gives you to allow you to split the P army and create/punish errors.
jinro versus elfi on daybreak? at assembly yesterday exemplified this perfectly. Only thing I don't like about this is that most maps the middle is the open part....therefore to not lose a 200/200 fight you have to let the protoss player control centre of the map making your outer expansions vulnerable at times....although I guess you can use nukes to force them back
again you could say it's the protoss players fault for engaging here and if a protoss player plays well he will never engage like this. I would like to see in future terran players sac scvs a bit more and when they sac them make some battlecruisers...as I don't think you can realistically remax on bc's as their build time is too long, so this is the only good point to be able to get some out (as well as losing supply to drops)
Responding to the notion that, "you have to let the protoss player control centre of the map making your outer expansions vulnerable at times"
Something that seems missing from a lot of the analysis in this thread is that the value of drops is not just in the material damage they do. Here, you write of the toss army taking the middle of the map. If I am playing against a T who is threatening drops (not necessarily succeeding--threatening) then I am not likely to camp the middle of the map with my army. Sure, as we close in on 200/200, I will be roaming around. But even then, if you have set a precedent, in the early-mid and mid-game, of dropping, I will be wary as I move around the map.
Terran can play a lot of mind games with toss. From the outside, it might seem as though toss is "just turtling." However, we are always trying to secure ourselves against threats. Make me feel insecure and I am more likely to make a mistake.
Btw, I prefer playing a more aggressive toss style. I never feel like 200/200 is auto-win for me. In fact, I, too, feel like a slave to the positioning game once I max. I'd rather win the game through the aggregation of small advantages.
IMO it's just a metagame thing. I firmly believe that the pendulum will swing back hard once Terrans realize just how awesome Ravens, Banshees and Ghosts are when used to their full potential. They're already starting, to an extent, with the 1/1/1 builds. It'll take some time to realize that those units can be devastating to Protoss in the lategame, too.
Directly attacking a hightech Protoss AoE composition with MMMGV is just asking to get owned. Don't do it.
On February 26 2012 04:46 RRjr wrote: IMO it's just a metagame thing. I firmly believe that the pendulum will swing back hard once Terrans realize just how awesome Ravens, Banshees and Ghosts are when used to their full potential. They're already starting, to an extent, with the 1/1/1 builds. It'll take some time to realize that those units can be devastating to Protoss in the lategame, too.
Directly attacking a hightech Protoss AoE composition with MMMGV is just asking to get owned. Don't do it.
Just how awesome those units get feedbacked? Its not like people haven't tried but everytime they do so, they get punished because the composition is less efficient compared to MMMGV..
How does anyone feel about moving towards more reactor hellions in the late game (cutting down on your marine numbers) as protoss are moving towards mass mass chargelots lately? Even if he warps in a bunch of stalkers, he shouldn't still have ENOUGH stalkers to really really terrify you from just one warp-in, and you'll still have an okay maurader count. thoughts?
On February 26 2012 07:13 Angel_ wrote: How does anyone feel about moving towards more reactor hellions in the late game (cutting down on your marine numbers) as protoss are moving towards mass mass chargelots lately? Even if he warps in a bunch of stalkers, he shouldn't still have ENOUGH stalkers to really really terrify you from just one warp-in, and you'll still have an okay maurader count. thoughts?
On February 26 2012 07:13 Angel_ wrote: How does anyone feel about moving towards more reactor hellions in the late game (cutting down on your marine numbers) as protoss are moving towards mass mass chargelots lately? Even if he warps in a bunch of stalkers, he shouldn't still have ENOUGH stalkers to really really terrify you from just one warp-in, and you'll still have an okay maurader count. thoughts?
Behind on upgrades..
Incorporate upgrades as you know you're going to be adding them later?
On February 26 2012 08:35 NrGmonk wrote: Pretty common misconception that bfh are that good vs chargelots.
i don't think they're that that good, but if you can get them behind your units and in range, i think they'd be an option worth at least looking at, or possible to deal with units streaming in? i don't know.
On February 26 2012 07:13 Angel_ wrote: How does anyone feel about moving towards more reactor hellions in the late game (cutting down on your marine numbers) as protoss are moving towards mass mass chargelots lately? Even if he warps in a bunch of stalkers, he shouldn't still have ENOUGH stalkers to really really terrify you from just one warp-in, and you'll still have an okay maurader count. thoughts?
Behind on upgrades..
Incorporate upgrades as you know you're going to be adding them later?
Yes. Let's compare Terran getting: Infantry, Air, AND Mech upgrades to Toss just getting infantry. This makes sense... oh wait.
On February 26 2012 08:35 NrGmonk wrote: Pretty common misconception that bfh are that good vs chargelots.
i don't think they're that that good, but if you can get them behind your units and in range, i think they'd be an option worth at least looking at, or possible to deal with units streaming in? i don't know.
Sadly, no. BFH blow TvP outside of probe kills which they lost 50% of their ability with that nerf.
On February 25 2012 20:53 MockHamill wrote: This is the flawed gameplay you get when trying to balance the game around a few top Terran players. Most of the top 10 players in the world are Terran. In order to get more GSL wins for Zerg and Protoss Blizzard nerfs Terran into the ground even thought the top Terran players simply played better than the top Zerg/Protoss players. Terran is required to do so much more than Protoss and Zerg in order to win.
And for the more normal players, ie the 98% below Master, Terran is close to unplayable late game in a straight up macro game. Should average players be forced to cheese or switch races if they cannot afford the 100+ APM required to play Terran at even a basic level.
I have played every major RTS since Dune II and I love macro games. But Starcraft II in its current state is just depressing if you are an average APM player and happen to like Terran.
Tvp was even more impossible in brood war in non pro levels
Everyone seems to have this misconception about "The game HAS to be balanced at the peak level of SC2." I find this so god damn frustrating;
- Does it really make sense to balance the game around 1 - 5 Terrans? How about the fact they are just simply better?
- Every realised those "top" Terrans are collecting the majority of their wins early - mid game against Protoss? That 50% win rate Terran has currently revolves around if the Terran all-in build is successful or not. Do you really think it's fair the Protoss should have such a large advantage late-game? You don't really see many late-game wins AT ALL! (I'm sure there will be some idiot here that will paste a link where a Terran wins late-game lol)
One thing people don't realise is that like 98% of other Terrans who aren't the top 5 in the world are getting HAMMERED against Protoss at THEIR OWN LEVEL. I couldn't give a shit if it's a Gold Terran vs a Gold Protoss, the fact is they should be around the same skill level. Go watch a T v P at gold level and you would think the Protoss is a freaking master just because of their late-game 1A OP AOE deathball (To add to that a fucking instant reinforcement of wrap-ins!). It's quite obvious many Terrans are just fed up with the bullshit, many are actually just switching off into other games. There are also those who are trying out other races but just cbf learning another race and eventually switch off into other games also! I can tell you right now, those players at the top peak of SC2 wouldn't mean jack shit if we didn't have such a large player base below them. So people also need to consider that player base whilst looking at those Professional players. Of course there will be more weight in decisions when looking at the Pro level..... but Pro players aren't the ONLY thing to consider when balancing the game.
However, if you think the above isn't enough to get those to realise WTF is going on in the T v P MU. Go watch 20 T v P matches on GSL in the past couple of months and record down just how many of those Terrans won in the lategame.
If you don't think that the onus is on Terran to not let Protoss get a 3rd and get a Deathball is a disadvantage....... Honestly, you're just a retard.
Whining seems to get people what they want. Protoss complains about EMP, Blizzard nerfs that by 50%..... Zerg complains about Snipe and Blizzard nerfs that into oblivion. NOW, there are some of those who are wanting nukes to cost supply! A Terran could be playing a relatively decent game against Protoss where he is clearly ahead and just because he momentarily gets into a bad position his whole bio force gets hit by storm followed by Toss 1 A syndrome into his base with instant reinforcement! So I couldn't give a shit if you think this is a whine, the fact is T v P late-game is just a joke.
People cried out loud for the BFH nerf. It's the exact same concept with a fucking storm drop on your mineral line lol..... but no, don't nerf that.
On February 25 2012 20:53 MockHamill wrote: This is the flawed gameplay you get when trying to balance the game around a few top Terran players. Most of the top 10 players in the world are Terran. In order to get more GSL wins for Zerg and Protoss Blizzard nerfs Terran into the ground even thought the top Terran players simply played better than the top Zerg/Protoss players. Terran is required to do so much more than Protoss and Zerg in order to win.
And for the more normal players, ie the 98% below Master, Terran is close to unplayable late game in a straight up macro game. Should average players be forced to cheese or switch races if they cannot afford the 100+ APM required to play Terran at even a basic level.
I have played every major RTS since Dune II and I love macro games. But Starcraft II in its current state is just depressing if you are an average APM player and happen to like Terran.
Yes, I always knew terran players were more talented, thanks for confirming that.
OT: I remember saying this about a year ago or so - one cannot simply make pure mmmg/v (all t1/t2) and expect to beat 200/200 of t3. It's just not how the game works.
On February 26 2012 10:54 fiveohfive wrote: Everyone seems to have this misconception about "The game HAS to be balanced at the peak level of SC2." I find this so god damn frustrating;
- Does it really make sense to balance the game around 1 - 5 Terrans? How about the fact they are just simply better?
- Every realised those "top" Terrans are collecting the majority of their wins early - mid game against Protoss? That 50% win rate Terran has currently revolves around if the Terran all-in build is successful or not. Do you really think it's fair the Protoss should have such a large advantage late-game? You don't really see many late-game wins AT ALL! (I'm sure there will be some idiot here that will paste a link where a Terran wins late-game lol)
One thing people don't realise is that like 98% of other Terrans who aren't the top 5 in the world are getting HAMMERED against Protoss at THEIR OWN LEVEL. I couldn't give a shit if it's a Gold Terran vs a Gold Protoss, the fact is they should be around the same skill level. Go watch a T v P at gold level and you would think the Protoss is a freaking master just because of their late-game 1A OP AOE deathball (To add to that a fucking instant reinforcement of wrap-ins!). It's quite obvious many Terrans are just fed up with the bullshit, many are actually just switching off into other games. There are also those who are trying out other races but just cbf learning another race and eventually switch off into other games also! I can tell you right now, those players at the top peak of SC2 wouldn't mean jack shit if we didn't have such a large player base below them. So people also need to consider that player base whilst looking at those Professional players. Of course there will be more weight in decisions when looking at the Pro level..... but Pro players aren't the ONLY thing to consider when balancing the game.
However, if you think the above isn't enough to get those to realise WTF is going on in the T v P MU. Go watch 20 T v P matches on GSL in the past couple of months and record down just how many of those Terrans won in the lategame.
If you don't think that the onus is on Terran to not let Protoss get a 3rd and get a Deathball is a disadvantage....... Honestly, you're just a retard.
Whining seems to get people what they want. Protoss complains about EMP, Blizzard nerfs that by 50%..... Zerg complains about Snipe and Blizzard nerfs that into oblivion. NOW, there are some of those who are wanting nukes to cost supply! A Terran could be playing a relatively decent game against Protoss where he is clearly ahead and just because he momentarily gets into a bad position his whole bio force gets hit by storm followed by Toss 1 A syndrome into his base with instant reinforcement! So I couldn't give a shit if you think this is a whine, the fact is T v P late-game is just a joke.
People cried out loud for the BFH nerf. It's the exact same concept with a fucking storm drop on your mineral line lol..... but no, don't nerf that.
@ halpimcat, why bullshit? Did you even play BW?
I remember Affix making the same argument in Blizzard's WoW. He said that if you balance around the top, then you can always tell everyone else to get better to play a balanced game, whereas if you balance for the mass, there's simply no recourse which will discourage development of gameplay.
If you haven't heard this pov before, what do you think?
On February 25 2012 14:53 mothergoose729 wrote: Lol R!!
The main problem I have with TvP, and maybe this is do to my lack of understanding or something, but I feel like there is no "kill sequence" in the matchup for terran. For instance, in marine tank TvT, if I deny my opponent their third, base then my "kill sequence" is to siege contain their natural and drop units in the back of their main over and over again. I have a clearly defined goal once I am ahead; contain and harrass. Similarily, in TvZ, if I deny zergs third base and don't lose a lot of units, my kill sequences is to return home, take a third faster then zerg, push out a few minutes later to kill the creep and probably go back home again, and then right about the time I am maxing out and securing my fourth base, push down zergs 4th base while droping their main and third. I get ahead by denying a base, this allows me to have map presence later to deny creap, which gives me the opportunity to push and win before teir 3. Kill sequence. In TvP, I don't know how to create a kill sequence without going at least somewhat all in first. I don't see the opportunity to outplay my opponent, I just annoy them and hope the get the much better end of an engagement late game.
Didn't read the other paragraph because the text is really clumped but I can tell you it's easier to kill a midgame Protoss in TvP as opposed to TvT and TvZ.
If you have a clear advantage in TvP in terms of army size in the midgame, there's no way they can come back. TvZ, they can get lucky bling hits if you don't micro well and in TvT, you can always mess up with tank positioning and stuff. TvP, if you have a 20-30 supply lead midgame, you can literally stim and kill them. Also, referring to your last sentence, there's plenty of ways to outplay a Protoss midgame. Terrans have been winning TvP mostly in the midgame with drops or multipronged attacks.
That's not true. You can't attack into protoss if they are camping in their base. They will just use their superior positioning, to get of the best money storms, force feilds, and or collossus hits possible. The best you can hope to do is attack protoss as they take anther base, because then they haven't set up fortifications. The problem is the third base on pretty much all the maps is really easy to defend, so that oppertunity doesn't really come up until protoss takes their 4th base. By then protoss can be maxed out, and have at least 7 or 8 gateways, if not 10+, with mixed tech and upgrades. I don't understand people who say "if you are ahead, just go kill them". Not meaning to be rude, but have any of these people ever actually played a TvP? If so I would LOVE to see those replays. No sarcasm, I genuinely would. Its also why I am fairly certain that terran's only opportunity to attack into protoss is to attack a protoss fourth base. Third bases on most maps are usually to difficult to attack into because of chokes.
You said denying 3rd in your earlier post. In your last post, you're describing Protoss late game. If you have an advantage vs Protoss midgame by denying their 3rd or a few units for free, it's almost impossible to defend a Terran ball that's 20-30 supply ahead of them. Also, there's no way they'll have storms and Colo in the midgame.
You don't deny a protoss third base using a drop focused strategy. If you do a straight push against protoss off two base, it is pretty much all in. I say that only because force feilds make any engagement at that stage extremely unforgiving. If their is an aggressive strategy for terran that can trade well with protoss on two base and isn't subject to being hardcountered, I would love to hear it. The only builds I know are Puma style marine ghost rushes and marine tank timings, both of which put you extremely far behind if they don't do serious damage or win outright. What you can do with a drop focused strategy, is delay the third base, or snipe it if your lucky. This gets you ahead but it doesn't kill many protoss units, so inevitably they get big enough to take the base. A protoss can easily afford upgades, collossus, and high templar, and a heathy gateway count off three bases. So they will get the opportunity to max out if they choose. When a protoss is maxed out a straight push into the main isn't an option with a terran army, the terran army just doesn't work very well attacking forward against a protoss army. Which is why the late game seems inevitable.
Terran aggression in the midgame is hard for Protoss to defend, especially if they're going for 3 bases before the Terran. May I ask what level you play at?
Diamond. Its in the OP.
I have a problem with saying "aggression" but not qualifying it. What kind of aggression? How do you engage? How do you transition? How do you account for various protoss openings? These are all really important with an aggressive strategy. There needs to be a way with aggressive strategies to get ahead even if they can't kill many units. IE reactor hellion expand into two base marine tank timing is so good because I can choose to expand rather then attack if I see zerg playing to defensively.
When you get Medivacs, you can put on a lot of aggression. While you're doing all this, you can take a 3rd. You transition into more MMM and Vikings if they get Colo and Ghosts if they get Storm.
Sorry, but your wrong. You can't attack the front at all, your army is never large enough. What you can do is drop and be annoying. Pick off some probes, kill some zealots who are out of position, that kind of thing. I have played games before where I macroed essentially perfectly for the first 11 minutes, and never was I in a position to stem and a move into the natural. It just doesn't happen.
I think you should show Parting how to play protoss, because he clearly has no idea after being owned by Marine kings medivac timing
I may sound harsh but you really are stupid. You are losing because of bad macro, engagements,and decision making. Quit blaming your loses on balance and start blaming them on your mistakes.
On February 26 2012 10:54 fiveohfive wrote: Everyone seems to have this misconception about "The game HAS to be balanced at the peak level of SC2." I find this so god damn frustrating;
- Does it really make sense to balance the game around 1 - 5 Terrans? How about the fact they are just simply better?
- Every realised those "top" Terrans are collecting the majority of their wins early - mid game against Protoss? That 50% win rate Terran has currently revolves around if the Terran all-in build is successful or not. Do you really think it's fair the Protoss should have such a large advantage late-game? You don't really see many late-game wins AT ALL! (I'm sure there will be some idiot here that will paste a link where a Terran wins late-game lol)
One thing people don't realise is that like 98% of other Terrans who aren't the top 5 in the world are getting HAMMERED against Protoss at THEIR OWN LEVEL. I couldn't give a shit if it's a Gold Terran vs a Gold Protoss, the fact is they should be around the same skill level. Go watch a T v P at gold level and you would think the Protoss is a freaking master just because of their late-game 1A OP AOE deathball (To add to that a fucking instant reinforcement of wrap-ins!). It's quite obvious many Terrans are just fed up with the bullshit, many are actually just switching off into other games. There are also those who are trying out other races but just cbf learning another race and eventually switch off into other games also! I can tell you right now, those players at the top peak of SC2 wouldn't mean jack shit if we didn't have such a large player base below them. So people also need to consider that player base whilst looking at those Professional players. Of course there will be more weight in decisions when looking at the Pro level..... but Pro players aren't the ONLY thing to consider when balancing the game.
However, if you think the above isn't enough to get those to realise WTF is going on in the T v P MU. Go watch 20 T v P matches on GSL in the past couple of months and record down just how many of those Terrans won in the lategame.
If you don't think that the onus is on Terran to not let Protoss get a 3rd and get a Deathball is a disadvantage....... Honestly, you're just a retard.
Whining seems to get people what they want. Protoss complains about EMP, Blizzard nerfs that by 50%..... Zerg complains about Snipe and Blizzard nerfs that into oblivion. NOW, there are some of those who are wanting nukes to cost supply! A Terran could be playing a relatively decent game against Protoss where he is clearly ahead and just because he momentarily gets into a bad position his whole bio force gets hit by storm followed by Toss 1 A syndrome into his base with instant reinforcement! So I couldn't give a shit if you think this is a whine, the fact is T v P late-game is just a joke.
People cried out loud for the BFH nerf. It's the exact same concept with a fucking storm drop on your mineral line lol..... but no, don't nerf that.
@ halpimcat, why bullshit? Did you even play BW?
I remember Affix making the same argument in Blizzard's WoW. He said that if you balance around the top, then you can always tell everyone else to get better to play a balanced game, whereas if you balance for the mass, there's simply no recourse which will discourage development of gameplay.
If you haven't heard this pov before, what do you think?
no YOU have the misconception. We're not saying everything has to be 50-50winrates at the top level, but it has to be balanced. There is a difference (some genius creates a new build no one knows how to counter yet). I agree Blizzard is fucking stupid in their nerfs but your way overeacting. You are also really ignorant. "Toss 1A syndrome" haha you fucking noobie every race requires micro, no one can 1A to win unless they just have way more units than the other. TvP lategame favors protoss right now, I agree with that. To say that it is unplayable is really ignorant.
"BFH to kill probes is the same as storm drop" do I really have to argue this? In a nutshell, storm drops require more investment and tech.
You complain about people whining yet your whining yourself. Noob.
On February 19 2012 16:40 phiinix wrote: In general, yes you can macro on par with protoss. In my opinion the keys to winning are exploiting timings and good army control, with a keen eye for expansion timings. Always remember that bio balls work really well in smaller numbers and don't scale that well against protoss aoe entering the mid-late game, so even if you think a drop will be denied and you won't do damage, it's still a good idea. Pick small fights when you can, and trade armies in the early game if you can. (once tech lab ups are done)
If you're interested in picking up a style and general tvp knowledge(1 rax gas fe) that I've been using you can pm me and we can talk about it, I'd rather not plug it everywhere.
This. Specifically "bio works well in smaller numbers" It amazes me how fast stimmed mauraders and a few marines can take out expansions or tech/production. Doing more drops is always good imo, and sooo annoying when terrans do that. Unfortunately hts have storm and feedback which make it really good vs mech and bio. And immortals just tear apart mech.
HOnestly thought threads like this kinda upset me because we all know the "metagame" is still evolving so.. I'm sure things will change, and dont' forget toss has gotten a lot of help from patches recently.
Ravens are reallly good for their supply late game. I'm wondering if terrans will start tech switching to mech will small groups of upgraded bio to keep the protoss spread out.
On February 26 2012 12:24 Lewan72 wrote: I may sound harsh but you really are stupid. You are losing because of bad macro, engagements,and decision making. Quit blaming your loses on balance and start blaming them on your mistakes.
It sounds arrogant and ignorant :-(
I realize it will be very hard for the winning side to admit there's a matchup problem, a flaw in the balance, because that diminishes their owned perceived skill level in favor of their race. It's not them being so good/smart, it's the matchup being rigged (sort of).
However the sucking argument is moot : that's what league are for. People of same level play against each other. I'm gold (got the game one month ago, played in beta though), and I'm not trying to beat Diamond Protoss, I'm just trying to have a somewhat even ratio versus Protoss in GOLD, or in SILVER league.
You speak about macro, engagements and decision making. I really wish those were a deciding factors in this matchup, at my level. I'd find it perfectly honest to lose to a good protoss, who had great decisions (only one colossus to bait vikings), cute moves (psi storm drops on scvs, spread DT harass to force scans, hell, even illusion void-rays), and overall good macro/micro. In other words, I'd find it perfectly honest to lose to a player that has been more active than I was, that went and took his advantage. Outplayed, gg wp.
I really feel, and regret, that these elements are not enough of a factor, though. I really feel that a P is not punished for passive play. In fact it looks like it's quite the opposite, I mean, even floating in mid-game doesn't look that bad with warp-in mechanics.
Then people come in and say Terran players are imprisoned in only one army composition, and that the food density of that army is so low compared to Protoss, it's only natural they lose to a direct encounter. This makes a lot of sense. However, do not think that even a Gold player as myself have not tried everything he can in terms of army composition (I had, untill recently, a near 0% win against P). I've tried mech, I've tried biomech, I've tried bio, I've tried sky. Sky Terran is now my go-to build because it works. But this is off-topic because it's designed to kill the P fast, and not reach late game.
Back to topic, the thing is, nothing else than bio have proven to last long enough to actually reach late-game with some sort of even base count. So, of course, we end up with an army which is way less dense than the P one, however this is not the problem but only the consequence of the main problem of bio-ball seemingly being the only reasonable build for T.
I read everywhere Terran is about positioning, while in fact it seems to me that's it currently more about avoiding any sort of confrontation while hiding into your base, and hope that your drops will do sufficient damage.
I really wish that there was no blink, and/or siege tanks were more potent versus P, so that first the Terran could hold his ground and make some crawl attack, and second the P would have to use the great warp-ins mechanics they got to actually flank the Terran entrenchment, instead of simply reinforcing from behind into more and more 1-a.
I personally hate the current TvP meta, where it feels more like a FPS than a RTS.
Sorry, this came out as a rant even though that wasn't my intention.
High diamond player here. My tvp is keeping me out of masters. In my opinion, in the below masters level protoss has the advantage for a couple reasons.
Firstly, they require less apm overall as they have all their units in 1 ball and just warp in to a pylon close to their army. Terran has to constantly be shift clicking new marines into their army and maneuvering 1-2 medivac hit squads arounds.
The second reason protoss has the advantage is a bit more controversial. Build selection. 6-8 Gate all ins can show up any time. Scanning the main is good, but no guarantee to scout everything. Then there's the twilight + gateway tech route, colossus, storm, etc. Each protoss style requires Terran to play a specific way (i.e. storm needs ghosts, colossus needs vikings, 6 gate needs 3 bunkers and early stim etc) whereas every one of these protoss styles counters marine/marauder.
Cloacked banshees can never guarantee a win more than 50% of the time so it's a pretty terrible build imo.
Look if you guys need advice about TvP just post some replays and ask for feedback. Whining about how it is "easier" to play protoss isn't going to help you improve.
On February 26 2012 18:54 Willzzz wrote: Look if you guys need advice about TvP just post some replays and ask for feedback. Whining about how it is "easier" to play protoss isn't going to help you improve.
I agree with you however this is not a topic about straight improving your TvP, this is more about "is it possible (and if yes, how) to win a late-game TvP".
Most of the posts sound like a rant, I do feel this is because the Terrans are a bit clueless as to how to achieve this goal - win a late-game TvP. You are certainly right in that improving won't hurt anyone, in the same time you can admit that it sounds a bit strange that only one side has to "improve", in order to not beat but at least compete equally with late game Protoss.
Because that's, at least my personal, issue : it's not like my games are close versus Protoss of my league. I would be perfectly fine with that, because by all means I have tons of room for improvement. Problem is the games are not close at all, it's more like roflstomp (if I don't kill them before 15, that is).
I guess what I'm looking after here is not to be told to improve in order to reach a ~50% win versus opponent of my level (which btw is admitting there's a problem in the matchup, if one side has to improve to be able to reach that stabilized ratio - but enough with me crying), but more if there is a build, that works, that will let a Terran be on equal foot with a Protoss, on the late game.
I don't have GSL Terran micro/macro/game sense/experience, so I wonder if the bio-ball is the correct answer for me. However I do not know of anything different that could lead me into a somewhat fair late-game position versus Protoss (of my level, again).
On February 26 2012 18:54 Willzzz wrote: Look if you guys need advice about TvP just post some replays and ask for feedback. Whining about how it is "easier" to play protoss isn't going to help you improve.
Maybe this was lost at one point, but I would still like some good advice on how to play and improve. Its difficult to hear "macro better, engage better, drop more" ect. "Don't make bad decisions, scout better, react to what you see" ect. That doesn't really help anybody unless that person is specific and provide examples. This thread turned into a big balance discussion, which I guess I invited, but when I started it I wanted an honest answer, can terran win late game tvp? If yes, then how? If not then what builds should I be doing instead?
On February 26 2012 18:54 Willzzz wrote: Look if you guys need advice about TvP just post some replays and ask for feedback. Whining about how it is "easier" to play protoss isn't going to help you improve.
Maybe this was lost at one point, but I would still like some good advice on how to play and improve. Its difficult to hear "macro better, engage better, drop more" ect. "Don't make bad decisions, scout better, react to what you see" ect. That doesn't really help anybody unless that person is specific and provide examples. This thread turned into a big balance discussion, which I guess I invited, but when I started it I wanted an honest answer, can terran win late game tvp? If yes, then how? If not then what builds should I be doing instead?
I think changing the question slightly might provide some clues to the answer. "What are the chances of terran winning a late gaming tvp, depending on the situation when going into late game?" As for example demonstrated by the recent thread about winrates vs. game length at MLGs, TvP seems terran-favored in the early and mid game - say pre 15ish minutes - and protoss-favoured in the late game. This seems to leave three options: 1. Try to end the game before the late game, 2. invent/find a new way of playing terran that overcomes the apparent late game weakness, or 3. try to use the apparent early and mid game strength to get yourself in an advantageous position when going into the late game to compensate for the apparent disadvantages. As an answer to your question, I think you should be aiming for 3. What exactly you want to do depends on your target ofc, i.e. whether you want to get ahead economically, technologically or in army size or ...
Edit: I realize that you already said in your original post that you were aiming for an advantageous position. What might be missing is a clear goal that you are aiming for and that will ultimately allow you to win the game. As a protoss for example in a macro game my goal would be go to 3-4 bases with 1-2 robos and 3-5 colossi, HT/storm tech, 2/2+ and a good number of gates -> massive push and hope to win the game with a good engagement/lots of aoe and fast reinforcements.
On February 26 2012 07:13 Angel_ wrote: How does anyone feel about moving towards more reactor hellions in the late game (cutting down on your marine numbers) as protoss are moving towards mass mass chargelots lately? Even if he warps in a bunch of stalkers, he shouldn't still have ENOUGH stalkers to really really terrify you from just one warp-in, and you'll still have an okay maurader count. thoughts?
This is actually pretty good in the mid game. For a while I expirimented with making helions out of a techlab factory while reserching blue flame to go along with my bio army. Helions really make zelots a LOT less of a problem; but once they become charge lots it gets much more difficult to use your helions effectively. For example, if you need to micro your bio vs chargelots you would have to have your helions on a different hotkey, or else your helions would not have enough time to fire while you are kiting; and non-upgraded helions by themselves fall pretty quickly to chargelots. Some protoss players tend to make nothing but zelots to reenforce when under pressure so BFH should be a viable choice for the lategame, as long as you make sure your helions aren't dying too quickly and are dealing their damage which is really difficult in most situations.
On February 26 2012 07:13 Angel_ wrote: How does anyone feel about moving towards more reactor hellions in the late game (cutting down on your marine numbers) as protoss are moving towards mass mass chargelots lately? Even if he warps in a bunch of stalkers, he shouldn't still have ENOUGH stalkers to really really terrify you from just one warp-in, and you'll still have an okay maurader count. thoughts?
This is actually pretty good in the mid game. For a while I expirimented with making helions out of a techlab factory while reserching blue flame to go along with my bio army. Helions really make zelots a LOT less of a problem; but once they become charge lots it gets much more difficult to use your helions effectively. For example, if you need to micro your bio vs chargelots you would have to have your helions on a different hotkey, or else your helions would not have enough time to fire while you are kiting; and non-upgraded helions by themselves fall pretty quickly to chargelots. Some protoss players tend to make nothing but zelots to reenforce when under pressure so BFH should be a viable choice for the lategame, as long as you make sure your helions aren't dying too quickly and are dealing their damage which is really difficult in most situations.
Midgame MMM ball should have no problem vs Chargelots. You just need to micro effectively. In my opinion, BFHs seems like a good idea on paper, but they're ridiculously fragile and kinda shoot slowly. Not to mention if the Protoss "remaxes" on Stalkers, you're kinda screwed. I feel like marines + ghosts are still a superior choice, but it's just hard for lower level players to have the micro for that.
So, another thought. This has only happened in one game, but, honestly it helped a lot I think.
I opened 1 1 1 expanded doing a little bit of banshee pressure (only killed like 9 probes), but I got three siege tanks (we're on entombed valley, cross-spawn). I wish I'd had five. Anyway. I followed to a normal late-game without much trading or incidence, and when he pushed into me in the middle, my tanks did a lot on his zealots. they weren't like, killing the zealots off for me, but as i kited backwards (the tanks were to the left a bit and firing straight right while i kited north) they softened everything up a lot.
Obviously that's not a win-loss kind of thing, but it's enough random splash that it makes a difference I think, and it's only 3-5 tanks. at worst, you're throwing away 3-5 tanks with siege. you aren't depending on it to win, and really, if they go out of thier way to attack the tanks, they have to split up their forces and let your marines wreck them, or detour off to the side, in which case again, your marines wreck them. On top of ghosts and emp it just adds some splash, which terran are sorely lacking in in a typical MMMVG army.
Since I can't find anything from Pro T v P matches other then godly micro that can grant you a late game win.
I have started to experiment with my own build. I'm actually sceptical about myself doing this as I feel I'm not at the level at which I should be doing this (diamond player). But nevertheless I'm doing it out of frustration anyway.
I have been experimenting with a particular build to go toe to toe with a Nexus first.
Basically all I have at the moment is a 1 rax Gasless fe into 4 rax and taking 3rd expo after this. At this point I decide to take all gases whilst adding raxes. Up until I take the 3rd I just want minerals to produce nothing but marine outs of the raxes and research combat shields + bunker up.
At this point is where we get the "magic number" of;
- 4 Ghosts - 3 Ravens (2 Ravens for 2 x Seeker Missles + 1 Raven for 1 X PDD if stalkers, rest of energy is dumped on turrets)
I find this is a hefty amount of investment just for 3 Ravens and 4 Ghosts. But let me tell you, it is honestly amazing how much damage EMP + Seeker Missile does to a Toss Deathball.
Atm, I'm just working on how this works against the deathball and how Ravens and Ghosts synergise with each other. To my suprise so far, they actually work quiet well together;
- Raven works well with the Ghost in order to snipe those pesky observers off before initial army engagement. - Follow this up with a blanket emp, High Templar are priority no.1 - Once shields are taken down, watch Seeker Missile do it's thing!
At this point is where your Marine/Medivac army can clean up the remains and/or multi drop while the Toss is looking at his beautiful deathball in disgust!
Ghosts EMP takes 100 off shields, couple this with the Seeker Missile of 100 damage... it's quiet lethal IF (A BIG IF) you can pull it off. With the tendancy of 99% of Protoss players clumping up their army, I think this could prove to be quiet effective.
This is just me theory crafting. But I am looking at it in game and trying to see if I can come up with some type of half decent build.
Feel free to crit my ideas, but meh.... I'm just desperate to find ANYTHING to help me out late-game v P.
The idea behind this is to utilise the Raven + Ghost to be the initiator of the main engament dealing heavy AOE damage with your main MMM army coming from behind to clean up.
I can see it failing so hard (blinking stalkers into insta 600 gas loss, toss spliting), but it sounds great at the same time.
Really love the idea of confronting the deathball in a direct manner, and really like to see more Raven play - boy I was trying to cast EMP from my Ravens like mad, yesterday.
Really like the idea of punishing the toss for 1 group clumping, too. And if you get the initiative, it can go really well.
I am not sure if anyone mentioned this yet - flanks!
Catch toss army in wide open space by keeping a good scout. When he moves out, hit from 2-3 direction. I usually split my MMM into two roughly equal portions, one engages from the front and kites zealots; the other stims and a-moves into collosi/stalkers remaining. Add another flank with vikings to kill collosi faster, or send vikings with your flank army (to keep things simple). As for ghosts, you want them in the flank group for emp since you won't be micro'ing that group a whole lot and HTs can ruin your flanking army.
This has helped me so many times. But I feel like I'm outplaying the Toss to not get obliterated.
Recap in steps:
1) Protoss death ball sighted, 2) Split army in two groups and position them accordingly - one vanguard, one flank;, 3) Poke with vanguard, engage chargelots and retreat a bit, 4) Attack and EMP with flanking army to disable HTs and soften their shields, stim, and leave it on a-move, 4) Re-engage with vanguard and stutter step as required (sometimes they try to pull zealots back to protect their flank, in which case your vanguard should trash through the front).
On February 26 2012 10:54 fiveohfive wrote: Everyone seems to have this misconception about "The game HAS to be balanced at the peak level of SC2." I find this so god damn frustrating;
- Does it really make sense to balance the game around 1 - 5 Terrans? How about the fact they are just simply better?
- Every realised those "top" Terrans are collecting the majority of their wins early - mid game against Protoss? That 50% win rate Terran has currently revolves around if the Terran all-in build is successful or not. Do you really think it's fair the Protoss should have such a large advantage late-game? You don't really see many late-game wins AT ALL! (I'm sure there will be some idiot here that will paste a link where a Terran wins late-game lol)
One thing people don't realise is that like 98% of other Terrans who aren't the top 5 in the world are getting HAMMERED against Protoss at THEIR OWN LEVEL. I couldn't give a shit if it's a Gold Terran vs a Gold Protoss, the fact is they should be around the same skill level. Go watch a T v P at gold level and you would think the Protoss is a freaking master just because of their late-game 1A OP AOE deathball (To add to that a fucking instant reinforcement of wrap-ins!). It's quite obvious many Terrans are just fed up with the bullshit, many are actually just switching off into other games. There are also those who are trying out other races but just cbf learning another race and eventually switch off into other games also! I can tell you right now, those players at the top peak of SC2 wouldn't mean jack shit if we didn't have such a large player base below them. So people also need to consider that player base whilst looking at those Professional players. Of course there will be more weight in decisions when looking at the Pro level..... but Pro players aren't the ONLY thing to consider when balancing the game.
However, if you think the above isn't enough to get those to realise WTF is going on in the T v P MU. Go watch 20 T v P matches on GSL in the past couple of months and record down just how many of those Terrans won in the lategame.
If you don't think that the onus is on Terran to not let Protoss get a 3rd and get a Deathball is a disadvantage....... Honestly, you're just a retard.
Whining seems to get people what they want. Protoss complains about EMP, Blizzard nerfs that by 50%..... Zerg complains about Snipe and Blizzard nerfs that into oblivion. NOW, there are some of those who are wanting nukes to cost supply! A Terran could be playing a relatively decent game against Protoss where he is clearly ahead and just because he momentarily gets into a bad position his whole bio force gets hit by storm followed by Toss 1 A syndrome into his base with instant reinforcement! So I couldn't give a shit if you think this is a whine, the fact is T v P late-game is just a joke.
People cried out loud for the BFH nerf. It's the exact same concept with a fucking storm drop on your mineral line lol..... but no, don't nerf that.
@ halpimcat, why bullshit? Did you even play BW?
No I'm not bullshitting. It seems easier because there is a clearer cut answer for tvp in a game that has been around for over a decade. But executing it is a lot harder than sc2. The game is still young. Strats and nerfs and buffs will still be made, but I don't think the tvP situation now Is as hopeless as you're making it seem. You just sound like a frustrated gold player who sees what he wants to see. If you're really not good enough to neat Protoss late game (it is hard) then beat them earlier; find exploits in the metagame. I don't think doing so is cheesy at all, and actually helps build on ones knowledge of other races' strengths and weaknesses. Try 2rax, it's a great strat that's coming back.
Sorry; I know this post is probably super rambling and near incoherent; haven't had stable Internet in a awhile and typing this on a Phone
On February 26 2012 17:38 Murlox wrote: However the sucking argument is moot : that's what league are for. People of same level play against each other. I'm gold (got the game one month ago, played in beta though), and I'm not trying to beat Diamond Protoss, I'm just trying to have a somewhat even ratio versus Protoss in GOLD, or in SILVER league.
No, it absolutely is not moot and these "oh woe is me" posts don't make it moot. You're making a fallacious assumption in thinking that you are as good as your opponents when you're losing to them. The reason anyone loses below high-masters/GM/Pro level is because they suck more, either in a specific aspect of their play or in multiple aspects of their play, than their opponent. Thats how it is for me and thats how it is for you. Major imbalances will ONLY become apparent at the very highest level and in mass high-level competitive play where people play with few to no mistakes in their basics mechanics and macro. Below that people screw up so badly that you can't actually make any judgement on it.
In fact I'd even go so far as to say that the concept of "outplaying your opponent" doesn't mean anything below masters level. You don't "outplay" your opponent so much as "not screw up quite as much" as your opponent.
Based on that I'd be very, very interested to see what a combination of nerfs and buffs based on game timing would do for Terran. Something to nerf mid-game MMM implemented alongside a lategame buff for, say, tanks or something could completely fix the matchup and eliminate complaining from both sides.
I've been defeated several times as protoss by a hard turtling terran who took a quick planetary third while going marine tank and later transitioning into marine tank ghost. nuking everything he could while dropping rines. believe me when I say that several nukes at once are hard to spot let allone stop. Neither was I able to stop his tanks with my chargelot ht archon blinkstalker immortal army. tanks when repaired and with the support of rines and ghosts are incredibly strong. he bled me out in a 5 base vs 4 base situation.
EPT
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