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I've always played TvT using Marine/Tank/Viking/Medivac and up until recently, I've been having at a loss on how to beat Mech. There was a time whenI could just spread my marines with some marauders in the mix to stim and attack a tank line was sufficient but when I got to Platinum that's when it got really difficult.
Problems:
1. As the game goes on, I feel that the smaller a chance I have at winning, which is true when against mech. I'm having a hard time breaking through as a feel that I'm forced to end the game early. My personal time limit is 15:00 unless I feel I have done enough damage and can trade my bio with his tanks efficiently, or else I lose.
2. I almost open 1-rax expand into 3 rax then add fact and port, but since mech tends to open banshees then I would have to go 1/1/1 after the expo and then get bio and their techs. I feel that when I open 1/1/1 then it just plays into my meching opponent's advantage.
3. Being aggressive with drops is good until he gets vikings/turrets up. Even tanks sieged in-base are problem. I feel I don't have good enough micro and multitasking to switch between drops and my base.
4. Late game is out of the question. Once he gets a sizeable tank number then I feel its game over coz I can't touch his army with ground units. I've tried mass air but he could give up air control and cover his tanks with thors and still be able to slow push.
5. I feel that my opponent has less room for error since he has less mobile units and more firepower against my more fragile units. As long as his base is covered with turrets then I feel I do not have any way to stop him from pushing.
I have not played recently so I don't have any replays to share. But I would like some suggestions on how to handle mech. A general mindset would help and maybe some weaknesses and timings to abuse or focus on.
Thanks!
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One of the keys against mech is simply scouting it in time. 90% of the time there's going to be a hellion drop, or (cloaked) banshee opening. When you see that he doesnt have an expo and scan to see a 1/1/1, watch to see what is being upgraded, or what add-ons are being used. if I see mech coming, I leave one bunker in the front, and pull 4-5 marines into the back of my base to patrol against drops/banshee's and save orbital energy, and grab a quick third.
Mech is extremely immobile, and on many maps you can go up to 4 bases easily before mech really gets a decent tank count. If mech is slow pushing, simply take a defensive point, and hold it with your own tanks. He might have more tanks, but walking into a siege line is still nearly impossible, and unsieging the number of tanks he needs to defeat yours and moving them up makes him susceptible to the mass marines. Slow his advance through the map, and keep trading units when you can since you have more bases.
Lastly, I try to make my opponent max out on tanks, and then go for the air switch. When the mech push comes I've probably been maxed for a while and am still trading units. I usually take a large group of marines and get extremely aggressive attacking his expansions, and get up 4-5 starports. Your meching opponent wont have the economy to stay on par with your viking count, and you should both have ravens, while you have BC's and a few banshee's as well.
This is just my personal preference in TvT when I see mech, since I favor getting out an early economic lead, and then becoming as aggressive as I can, and punish an abundance of tanks with air units. Battlecruisers can easily deal with thors, and a good viking count with PDD handles the rest. Otherwise lategame TvT is stupid against mech. Allowing them to max out, have 3/X upgrades, and good positioning usually means game over, and a lot of 'cute' play helps keep the opponent from getting into that position. Otherwise, I dont believe that there's any composition that can hold back lategame mech.
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Thanks!
For the late mass air play. Does that I mean I have to cut medivacs in favor of vikings to keep my air control from the start? Or just rush for multiple starports later and eventually outproduce him?
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Personally I just throw down the starports later and just keep an eye out on my opponents viking count and air upgrades. With a better economy you should be fine simply making air units as you use the marines more aggressively and lose some of them. double reactor starport should quickly outproduce anything he has, though I dont make vikings against mech so I can make this transition more easily, and in return, use my map control to hold Xel Naga towers.
And note that I'm only Diamond Terran, so its likely I can be corrected on some points, but atleast up to diamond what I've been doing works.
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I much prefer being the marine/tank player than the mech player in the matchup. The mech army has to play defensively for a long time, which you can use by taking more bases faster. From there, you have a gas advantage, which you should use to take air control.
Once you have air control, it is quite hard for any factory unit to do well against sky terran. If they don't have thors, you make a banshee and it stops their push cold. If they do have thors, you make a lategame BC transition and at that point all those tanks are not efficient units in the matchup anymore.
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But if I manage to out-expand my meching opponent? wouldn't I be more vulnerable to BF hellions?
Maybe bunkers on each base would help?
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It's perfectly viable to play bio, but you can't attack into a massed tankline. Maybe doom drop on it, but I have never seen that done and don't know what would happen. Other than that obvious thing, that is your bio army melts to siege tanks in a direct confrontation as it should, there's a few rules I have for playing TvT bio. The first is that you still need some siege tanks no matter what, and why not as you have a factory anyway. The second is to abuse your relative mobility constantly, never sit idle with your stuff. And the last is, spend your gas on starport production late game. Your air army should be superior late game, if it isn't then something has gone wrong.
Oh and nukes should be fun, what's he going to defend a nuke harass with exactly?
Anyway, it's not easy but what is in TvT.
Against BF Hellions, I have always wanted to research neosteel frame, have a few bunkers at my PF and when the Hellions come, load everything into the PF (that has capacity of 10 with neosteel) and the bunkers. Who does that? I will.
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On February 23 2012 19:02 Marcus Arcadia wrote:
But if I manage to out-expand my meching opponent? wouldn't I be more vulnerable to BF hellions?
Maybe bunkers on each base would help?
yes if u try to just super out expand a GOOD meching player he will kill all of the scv's u try to send to your really fast 3rd, 4th etc. if u can get up planetary at those bases that will kinda help but being able to run hellions behind mineral lines where pf's cant shoot will mean u will need units at your bases or at least in positition to clean up hellions. staying up 1 base sounds reasonable but dont go crazy with the extra bases cause u think the mech player is "too immobile" to do anything. mech doesnt NEED to be maxed with 3-3 to kill u, just keep that in mind when trying to expand all the things.
as far as composition goes iv seen a lot of mass murader constantly running around the map denying bases and picking off weak points of tank lines and transitioning into sky terran on some streams, i think iv seen jinro lose to that a few times while meching on entombed valley because that map in particular has so much space to abuse immobility in the ways u actually should be doing.
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When playing against a mech just abuse his immobility and drop everywhere. Mech moves so slow and you can take down a lot of key buildings before he even would reach your drop. If he should be at the base, just expand, expand and expand. Make some stationary defense at your bases and that would keep the enemies from leapfrogging for a little while anyway. Have fun ruining mechs game!
// UnoS
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Thanks for the ideas! I just hope I can multitask fast enough to take advantage of mechs immobility.
Follow-up: Should I still open 1 rax FE into 3 rax like I normally do? Or consider getting tanks/a few vikings a bit earlier like a 1 rax FE into 1/1/1?
I've never been good on one-base plays... 
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You can beat mech with a superior economy, sound drop defence and then taking air control away from the meching player.
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Some bad advice in this thread. (I play mech TvT)
You cannot attempt to take air control until much later in the game (once you're way ahead in expansions) for two reasons: (1) making vikings means fewer or no medivacs, which means your marines will get pwned by BF hellions and that your drop capabilities are severely hindered (2) I can make a thor to support my inferior viking count
PFs are almost useless vs mech - even unsieged tanks can hit PFs w/o getting hit back + hellions can run behind mineral lines and stop mining.
The way to win vs mech is to spread the meching player too thin via drops and counter attacks, making lots of marauders, and getting the mech army into a bad engagement (attack when tanks are on the move, flank). Late game BC switches can work too.
Basically there is no easy way, you just have to play better.
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Im a Platinum Tank /Marine Player.
When i face a Full out Meching Player i have different goals that i try to achieve.
in the earlygame going into the midgame it should be easy to fend of each 3 tank timing with my superior marine count (with medivacsupport) and the one tank with siegemode i have by that time.
after that push i will try to get a realy fast third widely spread out on the map (on 4 player maps a far away natural or something like that)
my general plan after getting the third up is to try to spread hin out realy wide and deny expansions as a number 1 priority.
to achieve that goal i will try to deny him good siegpositions with my own siegetanks (Watchtowers most of the time) so that he can't pressure me with a slowpush. and always try to be active with my units (marine "runbys" on expansions if they have planetary park marines behind mineralline or drop a tank or two)
this all will buy me time to expand even more (Planetarys and buildingplacement at expansions to deny helion runbys)
on the other hand if i can't drop what else can i do to push him back?
i like to use ghosts with nukes to force an unsiege and get me better positions or nuke defensivly to deny him any footstep that he wants to take into my teritory) or even reaper harras (if this forces him to place tanks in his bases to deny that its still a win for me because he won't have a high tank count at the frontline)
that leads to following list of To Do's against mech:
1. spread out expansions
2. deny enemy key positions on the map (be aktive with you mobile parts of the army)
3. Buy time for more expansions. (pressure him and force army movement each step back to defend a drop or something ist a step to my victory)
4. Always try to keep mapcontroll check minimap very often to be aware of positional changes or runbys
5. deny him additional bases as long as possible ! (check for expansions!!)
6. expand a lot if you have 7 CCs when you gain minerals throug muling instead of scvs a runby is not that painfull at all.
generaly speaking i don't think Helions can be that effektive against a Propperly controlled marine medivac army.
in the very late game i will finaly add a thor or two as meatshield for my marines or to kill planetarys.
please take all that with a grain of salt but i think marine / Tank can beat any other Composition in the mirror matchup or stay on even footing with the other compositions.
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On February 23 2012 19:16 Demnogonis wrote:
Against BF Hellions, I have always wanted to research neosteel frame, have a few bunkers at my PF and when the Hellions come, load everything into the PF (that has capacity of 10 with neosteel) and the bunkers. Who does that? I will.
I think you can only load scv into a Command Center, not Orbital or Planetary.
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Just a thought: can't you use some supply depots to prevent hellions from running behind the minerals where the planetary can't hit, and a turret behind the minerals to prevent them from being dropped?
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No you do not! I am able to go marine/tank all the time.
The key is to drop as SOON as he leaves his base to take advantage of his immobility, and to do this, you will need to have constant map presence. (marine at watch tower, scan his army, drop his expos, etc.)
Late game, vs mech, if you see a lack of vikings, go for a BC switch. Battlecruisers will shred his army, and thors are epically terrible vs BCs.
Lastly, just know that because you will be able to get bases faster than him, you can afford to put up turrets to stop banshees, and wall off with supply depots to help stop hellion runbys. You can also leave 1 or 2 marauders at each of your bases if you are scared of BF hellion drops.
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Minimize the banshee/hellion drop damage, don't overmarine, expo faster than you can defend, and try to be aware of his viking position. You mention drop harassing his base, and yes as you mentioned turret/viking/tank in base eventually shuts this down as a possibility, but dropping (maurauder) his army is always a possibility if his vikings are even slightly out of position. Later in game as you get more money, and have your own harass defense (turrets, sensor tower, whatever's necessary) you can start to match his tank count and air power. If you stick to marine/maurauder the entire game, you really need to outplay him with good multi-tasking and scouting to win. Since that's not desireable (or possible potentially), invest your money into tech as well. So perhaps the answer to your question is yes in the long-run, for most (depending on the game's length) of the game you don't need to be mech to win, but if he has enough army you will need a proper tank or thor and viking/banshee/raven count to hold your own against his mech/air army. If he's careless with his vikings at any time and you can gain air superiority, just crush him with good drops.
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Drops are good, but what should you do once the mech player has a few vikings on patrol/mass turrets/sieged tanks inbase ? All these countermeasures are fairly common and effectively deny you from dealing damage.
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Marine/tank > bio > mech > marine tank
Realize it. Why? You have to play safe and slow and stagnant, just like mech. Except as you run around, hellions are faster and way more disposable as the real threat is the tank line. You will be playing an incredibly uphill battle going marine tank vs mech.
If you are already upgrading bio, and they go mech, cut the tanks and get a LOT more marauders.
Drops are good, but what should you do once the mech player has a few vikings on patrol/mass turrets/sieged tanks inbase ? All these countermeasures are fairly common and effectively deny you from dealing damage.
Hard to do, but expo expo expo. Make more barracks, be able to macro hard. Just make his push to your base like a ZvT game. Fight on his half of the map and keep falling back every time he sieges. Do what damage you can. Flanks, arcs, concaves are all your friend vs mech using bio.
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On February 24 2012 07:26 iAmJeffReY wrote:
Marine/tank > bio > mech > marine tank
Thats map specific. Bio works fantastic on maps like tal'darim vs mech, but mech destroys bio on shakuras. It's really not one always beats the other. In a very basic way, if the expansions are tighter and there are not that many paths on the map, mech will be better, and the opposite for bio.
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No you don't.
I always 1 barracks FE then get an early engineering bay at 5:30 - 6:00 getting +1 weapons while getting combat shields and starting tank production a little later. Once you scout that hes playing a mech based style I take an early third base and add on a second engineering bay and armory for faster upgrades, add on a starport then start to drop as much as I can.
To transition into the late game I normally like to have 3 or 4 ghost academy's and make 10 or so ghosts for defensive and offensive nukes to nuke mineral lines and his army to force him to unseige then stim in with marines and marauders.
Grammar edit.
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when carefully played, bio actually is extremely strong vs mech. Typically when I scout that my opponent is going mech, I immediately aim to go bio with fast upgrades and get drops out asap. Most likely he will be turtling with his only harassment in hellions, so what I do is I expand all over the map freely with a small handful of units at each expansion (these expansions will be planetaries with sim city to prevent hellion runbys. All the while as the bio player, you HAVE to have map control and be active on the map with your mobile army, both to avoid the mech player from getting into position as well as having the chance to catch him as he is moving unsieged. At around 140-150 supply I prepare for a transition to sky, pumping vikings and upgrading ship attack. The key is to be active with your army, know where his army is, and get control of the skies.
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Nukes are the answer, if you don't like going Mech vs Mech.
Multi-Nukes and Mass upgraded Bio wins fights. Try to trade efficiently since you can remake MMM much quicker than Mech and Nukes don't cost supply, plus with your added economy from mass expo-ing, you can afford to drop 3-4 Ghost Academies for mass Nukeage!
Basically, stay by their tower and wait for them to push out. Never, ever, attack into sieged up tank lines. When you see them moving out, stim forward and pick off what you can. Force a siege and run back as it goes through it's animation. Call down two nukes, side by side if possible, wait for unsiege then stim forward and pick off what you can again.
REMEMBER to cancel the nukes if your opponent unsieges and you stim in. Let the nukes land if he chooses not to unsiege, and make him pay for his stupidity.
A very good tactic to do while going for Bio Nuke play vs Mech is to pick off turrets in the outskirts of his base and enter through the open high ground if possible, then call your nukes down. This has two effects:
- You make your opponent force unsiege or he loses his tanks; and
- You tax his multitasking when he sees there's a drop in his base and hears a nuclear launch, he'll realize that it's possible that the nuke is targeted at his mineral line, this forces him to pull scvs from mining and splits his attention.
It's small things like this that really fucks up with the mind of a meching player and helps keep them honest. Basically, if you want to play Bio vs Mech, you army needs to move like swarming bees. Always buzzing in and out of fights they know they can win.
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On February 24 2012 07:26 iAmJeffReY wrote:Marine/tank > bio > mech > marine tank Realize it. Why? You have to play safe and slow and stagnant, just like mech. Except as you run around, hellions are faster and way more disposable as the real threat is the tank line. You will be playing an incredibly uphill battle going marine tank vs mech. If you are already upgrading bio, and they go mech, cut the tanks and get a LOT more marauders. Show nested quote +Drops are good, but what should you do once the mech player has a few vikings on patrol/mass turrets/sieged tanks inbase ? All these countermeasures are fairly common and effectively deny you from dealing damage.
Hard to do, but expo expo expo. Make more barracks, be able to macro hard. Just make his push to your base like a ZvT game. Fight on his half of the map and keep falling back every time he sieges. Do what damage you can. Flanks, arcs, concaves are all your friend vs mech using bio.
+1
Thats why you will see most of the pros going for the marine tank.. thats the most easy transitionable composition
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On February 24 2012 07:34 TBone- wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 07:26 iAmJeffReY wrote:
Marine/tank > bio > mech > marine tank
Thats map specific. Bio works fantastic on maps like tal'darim vs mech, but mech destroys bio on shakuras. It's really not one always beats the other. In a very basic way, if the expansions are tighter and there are not that many paths on the map, mech will be better, and the opposite for bio.
Bio has the best chance to beat mech. Mech has the best chance to beat marine tank. Marine tank has the best chance to beat bio.
If you won't play mech vs mech, then bio is your best option. Yes, mech > bio on MANY maps. Shakuras, XNC(thank god gone), CKingdom so far for me, shattered, etc.
Doesn't mean bio can't beat mech on those maps. It's just bio has the best chance of beating mech, etc etc.
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On February 24 2012 07:34 TBone- wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 07:26 iAmJeffReY wrote:
Marine/tank > bio > mech > marine tank
Thats map specific. Bio works fantastic on maps like tal'darim vs mech, but mech destroys bio on shakuras. It's really not one always beats the other. In a very basic way, if the expansions are tighter and there are not that many paths on the map, mech will be better, and the opposite for bio.
i think one aspect of sc2 in general that people below masters league do not generally think about is exactly this. the map somewhat determines the flow of the battle and which areas can provide favorable engagements for your playstyle. and while certain maps favor certain styles, if you understood how to take advantage of certain maps, you could generally take any unit composition on any map to favorably engage against another one (even the same composition). albeit, it requires more effort if the map doesn't provide too many favorable engagement points, but i thought it was still worth noting
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A replay would help...
Short answer is if your skills are up to it, bionic / biomech > mech.
mech beats tank marine which itself beats biomech, but the mobility, potent drops and ability to out-expand lends biomech a huge edge against pure mech. I guarantee you if you upload your recent replays, you will not be expanding or dropping aggressively enough.
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I play marine/tank and mech pretty regularly so I have a lot of experience on both sides. I'm currently ~350 diamond for what it's worth but I've played vs a lot of master level terrans with both builds. This is my advice for bio:
1. Ban Shakuras. If you don't want to mech, I'd avoid this map. Splitting the middle is incredly easy and once sensor towers are up drops are simple to deny.
2. Open 3 rax vs cloak. Crank out a fast ebay and turret up. 2 turrets at the main geysers and 1 turret in the middle of the natural mineral line is my preference. Bunker at the front to deter hellion runbys. Combat vs stim is really a preference, but definitely research one quickly.
3. Don't get vikings unless you're in a solid eco lead. Get used to playing with medivacs. A skilled mech player will crank out more vikings than you and getting air control should be too costly.
4. Flank and carpet bomb marines. Learning how to engage mech is the hardest part. Split your units fast and attack multiple directions. Dropping some units on the tanks is an unbelievable difference, but you have to be careful that the vikings aren't in position to snipe them. The mech player should be leap frogging tanks, this is usually the best time to engage when you can hopefully get him at least partially unsieged.
5. Depot walls. Hellions can devastate mineral lines really quickly. Planteary's are not enough, the mech player floats enough minerals that the hellions are expendable.
6. Expand often. Try to stay 1 base ahead in an equal game. Grabbing a 3rd at around 9 minutes (after cloak/drop pressure is off).
7. Upgrade fast. If you're not 3/3 quickly, you will fall behind too far in the mid game.
8. Hold the xen'naga towers. This is espcially important if you're behind. Essentially this ensures that he can't use his vikings to leap frog tanks at you. You'll also want to build some proxy turrets so you don't get into a '1 banshee to rule them all' situation, or waste lots of scans on cloak. Raven is an alright option, PDD can save medivacs and he you engage, but it's pretty expensive. 1-2 Thors on hold position near the tank line isn't a terrible idea either.
Ultimately what will make or break your play is essentially multi-task and dropping. You have to learn to put on some pressure while macroing, which might mean a lot of losses with botched drops while you improve but it's key not only to this style but for terran in general. Try to get easy advantages and escape with them, don't want want to trade. Easy targets are addons, scvs, turrets, sensor towers, orbitals (w/ 2-3+ medivacs) I hope some of this helps.
edit: watching basically any korean terran player ensures you get to see how to mechanically play marine/tank or bio. They are all really good at it. Just try to somewhat replicate the timings and pace they use, even if it's sloppy it will be enough to overwhelm players at your level.
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Thanks for your help guys!
Played a couple of games and still no vT yet. I'll get back to this topic when I've played 1 or 2.
Thanks again!
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I feel like sky terran with a slight mix of tanks and mostly marines is the answer. Yes, Thors can kill a large number of air units in a short time, but the only time this will happen is when you aren't watching your army and letting it stack. Thor AI is retarded, and if you can get and MAINTAIN air control through the game you will make the game so much easier. Protip, 2 banshees with +1 attack will trade perfectly even with Thors. Couple this with the fact that Thor AI is absolutely retarded when mixed with ground units, you can make pure sky terran work against a terran who refuses to build marines.
Here's a replay where I identify what strategy the terran is doing, keep map control and make the proper production facilities to kill the terran. My opponent in this replay could have built thors, but probably would have never contested the air unless I made an extremely large mistake. This is huge for a terran who is trying to mech because he cannot elevator or lowground seige your main.
http://drop.sc/119111
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Do you have to? No.
Should you? Probably not if you're behind, since you'll just have less of what they have, but if you're thinking it's about even or you're ahead, sure, go mech. You can get more scans off when meching, and therefore spot more openings for tech switches.
eg: You're churning out tank viking for the most part, you drop a scan and realize you have significant viking count lead, and the opp. has no thors... Make a banshee, and see if you can snap some tank necks. Going mech doesn't just mean go mech all game and never switch techs.
Mech is widely regarded as the best unit comp. and TvT is so positional and at times slow, that having a mobile, squishy army can suddenly fuck you over completely. Sure, bio can be good, but it's considered good against people who make positional errors in judgement or are unprepared and considered to eventually need the addition of tanks to prevent the massive "siege up in your face and camp your production" move.
I'd also rather have a bunch of vikings in the event of a bacerace than a bunch of medivacs, although I don't recommend baceracing vs bio with mech unless you have some sort of advantage like air control after killing their starport.
EDIT: I consider sky-terran to be a branch of mech, since there is no mech without a semblance of air control. Also, they are mechanical units & the endgame, stalemate solution to shit tons of mech is sky-terran tech switch.
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EPT
