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On August 15 2012 05:45 GumBa wrote:
Hey guys! I just watched the Hack Mech TvP replays again and have a question.
Why does Hack build so many Hellions and forsake a High tank count? Yeah perhaps to easily crushed by immos or something but I dont know =/ he just has so many Hellion.
Sorry for the Noob question
Forsake? Actually he is pumping as many tanks as he can while still getting enough factories/uprgades/starports up. Tanks take a long time to build and are gas expensive. You can barely build 4 tanks constantly if you're on 3 base, but that's only if you have all the factories and upgrades up already. So that's why it's so slow ^^
The hellions are his mineral sink, since there is not much else to spend it on in terms of army. Mass hellion count helps tank for the tanks, and chip away at Immortal shields. Hellions also synergize well with tanks because they both do splash damage, and tanks have smart firing. The hellions also allow you to have some mobility and harassment, and lots of map control. They are sort of dispensable, so if your opponent ever messes up he could lose 10-20 probes and that would be a big advantage.
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United Kingdom31935 Posts
On August 15 2012 06:05 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 05:45 GumBa wrote:
Hey guys! I just watched the Hack Mech TvP replays again and have a question.
Why does Hack build so many Hellions and forsake a High tank count? Yeah perhaps to easily crushed by immos or something but I dont know =/ he just has so many Hellion.
Sorry for the Noob question Forsake? Actually he is pumping as many tanks as he can while still getting enough factories/uprgades/starports up. Tanks take a long time to build and are gas expensive. You can barely build 4 tanks constantly if you're on 3 base, but that's only if you have all the factories and upgrades up already. So that's why it's so slow ^^ The hellions are his mineral sink, since there is not much else to spend it on in terms of army. Mass hellion count helps tank for the tanks, and chip away at Immortal shields. Hellions also synergize well with tanks because they both do splash damage, and tanks have smart firing. The hellions also allow you to have some mobility and harassment, and lots of map control. They are sort of dispensable, so if your opponent ever messes up he could lose 10-20 probes and that would be a big advantage.
Yeah but I mean he had like 2 techlab factorys on 3base
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so I have a question for any master league mech players who happen to stumble upon it-
when I play mech against zerg, im decent at getting my 3ccs up and going at a reasonable rate, also I have good enough positioning (most times) to be able to deal with any roach attacks off of 3 bases and mutalisk harrass before the lategame. The problem that I often have is how to get back on the offensive. I often feel that by the time I am moving out (towards the zerg 4th or 5th depending on how they have been expanding) the zerg has hive tech up and ready for me and I have to retreat/hope to not lose too much as I scramble to get my raven/vikings out. It often goes downhill from there as I pretty much have to let them have map control and hope that I can win one big engagement, but my comp is often too far behind the zergs and I get stomped.
I open up with no banshees, often in a totally defensive position and hope that my hellion harrass can do enough damage or at least force enough units to slow down his lategame tech. Am I making any fundamental mistakes with this strategy? Im pretty good at not making any of the classic mistakes with mech (moving unseiged onto creep, not being ready for muta tech switches, etc.) I think I can best summarize my problem by saying that Im good at not dying, but Im bad at being able to kill my opponent. Ile upload some reps as soon as I figure out how, but if anyone reads this and detects a big problem with my strat, any pointers would be welcome
http://drop.sc/238738
http://drop.sc/238737
http://drop.sc/238736
PS (for mods) I did make this same post in another guide but I feel that my chances of getting the response that Im looking for are better here, im not sure if the other guide is still active or not
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 15 2012 07:52 Aveng3r wrote:so I have a question for any master league mech players who happen to stumble upon it- when I play mech against zerg, im decent at getting my 3ccs up and going at a reasonable rate, also I have good enough positioning (most times) to be able to deal with any roach attacks off of 3 bases and mutalisk harrass before the lategame. The problem that I often have is how to get back on the offensive. I often feel that by the time I am moving out (towards the zerg 4th or 5th depending on how they have been expanding) the zerg has hive tech up and ready for me and I have to retreat/hope to not lose too much as I scramble to get my raven/vikings out. It often goes downhill from there as I pretty much have to let them have map control and hope that I can win one big engagement, but my comp is often too far behind the zergs and I get stomped. I open up with no banshees, often in a totally defensive position and hope that my hellion harrass can do enough damage or at least force enough units to slow down his lategame tech. Am I making any fundamental mistakes with this strategy? Im pretty good at not making any of the classic mistakes with mech (moving unseiged onto creep, not being ready for muta tech switches, etc.) I think I can best summarize my problem by saying that Im good at not dying, but Im bad at being able to kill my opponent. Ile upload some reps as soon as I figure out how, but if anyone reads this and detects a big problem with my strat, any pointers would be welcome http://drop.sc/238738http://drop.sc/238737http://drop.sc/238736PS (for mods) I did make this same post in another guide but I feel that my chances of getting the response that Im looking for are better here, im not sure if the other guide is still active or not
Why do you need to slow down his hive tech? Why do you need to "kill him"? Personally if I was you, I know I'm not masters but I've been playing mech for a good while now and I think the best thing you can do is if you say you're good at not dying. just keep doing that. Split the map and build a massive bank then let the map run out of minerals, keep defending until your opponent gives up. :p
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On August 15 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 07:52 Aveng3r wrote:so I have a question for any master league mech players who happen to stumble upon it- when I play mech against zerg, im decent at getting my 3ccs up and going at a reasonable rate, also I have good enough positioning (most times) to be able to deal with any roach attacks off of 3 bases and mutalisk harrass before the lategame. The problem that I often have is how to get back on the offensive. I often feel that by the time I am moving out (towards the zerg 4th or 5th depending on how they have been expanding) the zerg has hive tech up and ready for me and I have to retreat/hope to not lose too much as I scramble to get my raven/vikings out. It often goes downhill from there as I pretty much have to let them have map control and hope that I can win one big engagement, but my comp is often too far behind the zergs and I get stomped. I open up with no banshees, often in a totally defensive position and hope that my hellion harrass can do enough damage or at least force enough units to slow down his lategame tech. Am I making any fundamental mistakes with this strategy? Im pretty good at not making any of the classic mistakes with mech (moving unseiged onto creep, not being ready for muta tech switches, etc.) I think I can best summarize my problem by saying that Im good at not dying, but Im bad at being able to kill my opponent. Ile upload some reps as soon as I figure out how, but if anyone reads this and detects a big problem with my strat, any pointers would be welcome http://drop.sc/238738http://drop.sc/238737http://drop.sc/238736PS (for mods) I did make this same post in another guide but I feel that my chances of getting the response that Im looking for are better here, im not sure if the other guide is still active or not Why do you need to slow down his hive tech? Why do you need to "kill him"? Personally if I was you, I know I'm not masters but I've been playing mech for a good while now and I think the best thing you can do is if you say you're good at not dying. just keep doing that. Split the map and build a massive bank then let the map run out of minerals, keep defending until your opponent gives up. :p
well yeah I guess I could play that way, I think the thing I need to do is get to the super lategame terran army of battlecruisers, ravens, vikings, etc. Ive heard that its pretty good 
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On August 13 2012 03:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2012 17:23 Chaggi wrote:On August 12 2012 16:59 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Depends on your build. Can you specify? There are a lot of different times to build armories and sometimes you may want double armory. If you go hellion expand into cloak banshee, i start my armory at ~7:45 so that it's up in time for muta and upgrade defense first. I build the 2nd one whenever I feel like it, I guess you should try to time it to finish when either +1 defense or +1 attack is done (+1 defense then +1 attack with first armory). you do +1 defense first? why? I've been doing this 1 rax expand, w/ double gas + 3rd CC, and it's worked out pretty well but i'm not too sure how to defend aggression or unit comp that i should be going for i've been getting 3-4 thors out first, before even starting tanks, and i'm not sure that's the proper way? I don't think there is a flat out best option, attack or defense. It's up to you, but of course it would effect the way you play. I like defense because the way I open is I go hellion banshee, and get a max of 4 thors. If I see he's getting mutas I just get 4 thors and if he gets early, i automatically win by pushing. If he gets later mutas (and makes enough roaches for defense), then I can still max out at 200/200 quickly and push while taking my fourth, with optional tanks (not sure if better or not -- i guess it depends how roach heavy he is -- one style would be to go lower on the thor count but just build a few turrets with your push, i think that's really sexy). If during my hellion banshee harass I am not able to find out what he's doing, i get up to 4 thors anyways until I know what tech he is going (muta or infestor). If he goes infestor, I don't need thors, I can skip right to tanks. You can then upgrade attack instead of defense. If he goes mutas though, you will have thors. Attack does not help because hellion or thor do not really gain an advantage on roaches, thors still 2 shot roaches, thors still 1 shot zerglings, and hellions still 2 shot zerglings. Attack and defense both work about equally well for thors vs mutas. So I pick defense first. I have a stronger midgame. But yes, because of this, my attack upgrade will be lower later on when I do have tanks. This is a downside I guess.
There's a lot of critical upgrades tied to +1 Vehicle Attack in TvZ.
+1 Vehicle Attack lets Sieged Tanks 1-shot Zerglings with +1 armor instead 2-shot
+1 Vehicle Attack plus Blue Flame lets Hellions 2-shot Drones instead of 3-shot
+1 Vehicle Attack lets Thors 2-shot Mutalisk instead of 3-shot
And then you need +2 Vehicle Attack in order to compensate the Zerg going up to +1 Carapace on Drones and Mutas.
All mech units do splash damage, so they benefit from early attack upgrades even if there isn't a critical upgrade that changes the per shot. I've found that +Attack makes a big deal against Roaches, bigger than Armor. Roaches do big damage slow attacks too so armor doesn't help much when fighting them. Even though Thors and Tanks will still kill Roaches in the same number of direct shots, the extra damage on the Tank+Hellion AOE helps immensely. Another thing to consider is that because Roaches regenerate health so fast, critical upgrades are not very reliable when fighting against them anyway.
Personally when I go mech, I like to go +1 Attack, +2 Attack, +1 Armor, +2 Armor, +3 Armor, +3 Attack. The +3 Attack only really helps with Thors vs Broodlords and Ultras. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point.
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Should always get +3 attack as soon as possible or you'll struggle vs air.
And what are you talking about saying mech should not reach lategame? How do you propose ending the game in your favour before then?
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Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win.
Of course you can do a 2 or 4 thor push but if your opponent knows what he's doing he'll have enough roaches to easily block that, and then you creally can't have map presence until you have a good number of tanks, and then it'll be constant roach remax vs tank/thor, and then it just becomes turtley until you can get that Raven/BC/Thor composition, which is inevitable if your opponent actually has a clue of what to do.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win.
I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well.
the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors,
Have you tried? It's really, really good and if you get them in a nice pocket they can take out infinite structures and units.
I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point.
Why?
I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense.
That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win.
Defensive play is the exact definition of positional play. Tank lines? That's completely positional. It's all about knowing where to set up and where to split the map to give you a good amount of expansions and enough room to go and thor drop.
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On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. Show nested quote + I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense.
I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned.
It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss.
The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say.
I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition.
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On August 15 2012 12:33 RoboBob wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 03:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On August 12 2012 17:23 Chaggi wrote:On August 12 2012 16:59 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Depends on your build. Can you specify? There are a lot of different times to build armories and sometimes you may want double armory. If you go hellion expand into cloak banshee, i start my armory at ~7:45 so that it's up in time for muta and upgrade defense first. I build the 2nd one whenever I feel like it, I guess you should try to time it to finish when either +1 defense or +1 attack is done (+1 defense then +1 attack with first armory). you do +1 defense first? why? I've been doing this 1 rax expand, w/ double gas + 3rd CC, and it's worked out pretty well but i'm not too sure how to defend aggression or unit comp that i should be going for i've been getting 3-4 thors out first, before even starting tanks, and i'm not sure that's the proper way? I don't think there is a flat out best option, attack or defense. It's up to you, but of course it would effect the way you play. I like defense because the way I open is I go hellion banshee, and get a max of 4 thors. If I see he's getting mutas I just get 4 thors and if he gets early, i automatically win by pushing. If he gets later mutas (and makes enough roaches for defense), then I can still max out at 200/200 quickly and push while taking my fourth, with optional tanks (not sure if better or not -- i guess it depends how roach heavy he is -- one style would be to go lower on the thor count but just build a few turrets with your push, i think that's really sexy). If during my hellion banshee harass I am not able to find out what he's doing, i get up to 4 thors anyways until I know what tech he is going (muta or infestor). If he goes infestor, I don't need thors, I can skip right to tanks. You can then upgrade attack instead of defense. If he goes mutas though, you will have thors. Attack does not help because hellion or thor do not really gain an advantage on roaches, thors still 2 shot roaches, thors still 1 shot zerglings, and hellions still 2 shot zerglings. Attack and defense both work about equally well for thors vs mutas. So I pick defense first. I have a stronger midgame. But yes, because of this, my attack upgrade will be lower later on when I do have tanks. This is a downside I guess. There's a lot of critical upgrades tied to +1 Vehicle Attack in TvZ. +1 Vehicle Attack lets Sieged Tanks 1-shot Zerglings with +1 armor instead 2-shot +1 Vehicle Attack plus Blue Flame lets Hellions 2-shot Drones instead of 3-shot +1 Vehicle Attack lets Thors 2-shot Mutalisk instead of 3-shot And then you need +2 Vehicle Attack in order to compensate the Zerg going up to +1 Carapace on Drones and Mutas. All mech units do splash damage, so they benefit from early attack upgrades even if there isn't a critical upgrade that changes the per shot. I've found that +Attack makes a big deal against Roaches, bigger than Armor. Roaches do big damage slow attacks too so armor doesn't help much when fighting them. Even though Thors and Tanks will still kill Roaches in the same number of direct shots, the extra damage on the Tank+Hellion AOE helps immensely. Another thing to consider is that because Roaches regenerate health so fast, critical upgrades are not very reliable when fighting against them anyway. Personally when I go mech, I like to go +1 Attack, +2 Attack, +1 Armor, +2 Armor, +3 Armor, +3 Attack. The +3 Attack only really helps with Thors vs Broodlords and Ultras. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point.
Hm let me restate my position, I go attack when I don't see mutalisks (infestors) or when he doesn't get early mutas (10-11 mins) as it's autowin when I push (and armor helps more at that point). But most of the time, I see the latter, so I often get defense over attack.
Thors don't 3 shot mutas though, they 6 shot them, and with +1 attack it's 4 shot. Maybe for certain kinds of compositions attack will actually be better when I'm pushing when they get early mutas (and/or depending on how much damage i did to him during my harass), but mutas shouldn't be a problem because I can build turrets, while armor helps against both lings and roaches and allows my army to stay alive longer, thus making my banshees get more dmg in.
On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win.
Of course you can do a 2 or 4 thor push but if your opponent knows what he's doing he'll have enough roaches to easily block that, and then you creally can't have map presence until you have a good number of tanks, and then it'll be constant roach remax vs tank/thor, and then it just becomes turtley until you can get that Raven/BC/Thor composition, which is inevitable if your opponent actually has a clue of what to do.
I think this may be dependent on skill level and/or how good you are with multitasking and/or if you have high APM and/or if you decide to just multitask a lot and sacrifice macro/micro. A lot of my games (well the ones where I don't just autowin...), i will be splitting my mech army to different areas of the map, some to defend my base(s), some to siege a corner expansion, banshees harassing somewhere else, hellions killing drones somewhere, and a main army moving around trying to find an opening to kill more bases or gain some advantageous position like the high ground around the middle base on cloud kingdom. Since Cloud Kingdom and Daybreak have lots of expansion paths and counter attack paths, I find these to be the games where I am more active on the map. I guess I like to play a more aggressive style, but a defensive one is also possible (turtling for a deathball).
Edit: The way I'm describing my experiences may make it sound just like bio, where you are dropping and advancing your main marine tank army. But the difference is that the chunks of my army that I'm sending out to harass/kill stuff is not just a-moved but [when there are tanks] i siege them up strategically to get the most out of them. Unlike bio, where once the zerg sends stuff to deal with it and you have to micro against it or run away, with the mech comp you'll always do OK unless if he sends so much over (which may open him up somewhere else). So you put less focus/time/APM on the micro (as in stutter stepping and splitting units), but in return you focus more on the positional play. I send a couple thors, a few tanks to a base, I siege up a couple tanks in range of the hatch and siege the other tanks a bit spread out but also on/below a cliff, and I just leave it alone. The position is secured. Also, the main army that you are moving around is much stronger for sieges because you are upgrading your mech and because, unlike marine tank, you don't have to worry about leapfrogging your tanks so well or else lose 25 marines to 2 fungals. You can push harder, and secure your position more strongly. Hellion harass is like bio drops, but still different. With bio drops, you can be dropping an expansion expecting to kill the defense there and then the drones, maybe the hatch. You can usually drop regardless of where most of his army is, as long as you drop it between the minerals or such. But with hellions and/or banshees, they benefit more when you know the zerg won't have his army there in time to save his drones. You can chase the drones easier with hellions unlike marines, and you can get out easier because you don't have to worry about losing a medivac to a fungal or mutas. Again, there is more focus of where his army is. This doesn't directly relate to positioning but I feel it is very mech-y. With bio, you can win with great micro and constant aggression and pressure. But with mech, you need to focus more on both you and your opponent's composition and position.
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Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win.
Of course you can do a 2 or 4 thor push but if your opponent knows what he's doing he'll have enough roaches to easily block that, and then you creally can't have map presence until you have a good number of tanks, and then it'll be constant roach remax vs tank/thor, and then it just becomes turtley until you can get that Raven/BC/Thor composition, which is inevitable if your opponent actually has a clue of what to do. I think this may be dependent on skill level and/or how good you are with multitasking and/or if you have high APM and/or if you decide to just multitask a lot and sacrifice macro/micro. A lot of my games (well the ones where I don't just autowin...), i will be splitting my mech army to different areas of the map, some to defend my base(s), some to siege a corner expansion, banshees harassing somewhere else, hellions killing drones somewhere, and a main army moving around trying to find an opening to kill more bases or gain some advantageous position like the high ground around the middle base on cloud kingdom. Since Cloud Kingdom and Daybreak have lots of expansion paths and counter attack paths, I find these to be the games where I am more active on the map. I guess I like to play a more aggressive style, but a defensive one is also possible (turtling for a deathball).
That's all good, but it's all situational I suppose. Sure, if you do enough damage with banshee/hellion play you can win but that's not positional and you could've easily transitioned into bio. Microing tanks in two different locations is good as well - I'm not trying to say that mech is all 10APM mind over mechanics stuff, I'm just trying to say that it's a tradeoff vs bio.
It's much more difficult positionally when your only positional unit can't shoot at one of the Zerg's best unit iin the late game (as opposed to TvT, where tank play is always viable until the sky terran transition). You can stay active in the midgame and if you're able to deny bases with a good, well executed opening so he can't overwhelm your tank/thor composition with roach/ling/infestor then sometimes you'll win in the midgame but most of the time it'll end up with a highly aggressive opening that turns into really passive play because the mech player is forced to get thors due to the possibility of mutas but he cannot move out due to the fact that Thors vs roaches (which is the correct response) doesn't work until a high number of thors. This passive play allows for the Zerg to take a large amount of bases and overwhelm any moveouts with constant reinforcement of roach/ling/infestor while teching to broodlord (the Zerg can also lose in this phase of the game by dying to hellion/banshee, but again that's not positional play) and then it ends up in a turtlefest.
You can sometimes force this situation by executing an aggressive opening like hellion/banshee or 3rax pressure and doing well with it, but that's a small portion of the games and I think it's silly to play a playstyle that only surfaces in a small fraction of the total games played.
I feel Terran needed more positional units for mech to be used more often in HotS, and Blizz just flubbed it witht he mindset that mech is just factory units.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 15 2012 18:33 Tyrseng wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense. I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned. It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss. The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say. I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition.
My first paragraph was talking about TvZ. Mass air is dealt with with your vikings, your thors (not loads) and turrets. If you've split the map you have so many excess minerals and turrets (with hi-sec) and planetaries together are really, really good for any form of air switches.
If your medivac is getting sniped by corrupters, you can't really lift anything out. At the stage of the game where you want to thor drop the cost of one or two thors is very little compared to your bank anyways. If you've that worried about losing them, take vikings with you. You need vikings to deal with Broodlords anyway.
I'm completely serious with the never pushing against zerg. If you have enough tanks/vikings with a few thors a lot of turrets and planetaries then you're never going to be over-run. Ever. You get a lot of factories due to your bank and if you lose anything you replace it with what you need, either more tanks or vikings and harass with hellions.
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Note, just edited my post, regarding why I feel harassing with mech is not the same as harassing with bio, and does feel like what mech should be to me.
I don't agree with the aggressive opening turning into really passive play. You may be defensive, since roaches are good at this point of the game and you are saturating your third and teching and trying to max out to get into the lategame, but you should be able to defend it if you play well, and zerg will not be ahead [in bases and able to swarm you easily].
the mech player is forced to get thors due to the possibility of mutas but he cannot move out due to the fact that Thors vs roaches (which is the correct response) doesn't work until a high number of thors
I highly disagree with this, yes you need thors but you really only need 6-8 thors for most of the game to be very safe and avoid situations where you have no more AA and have to get chased down or sac your army trying to kill some stuff. You should be able to turret up your bases easily with your mineral sink. Also, thors are not the correct response vs roaches, a high number of thors is indeed strong vs roaches when maxed because roaches are food inefficient (3 roaches gets raped by 1 thor), but tanks work much much better as long as you siege up in time, and get stronger as the game goes on due to clumping and the design of the tanks getting shots off before the zerg engages.
This passive play allows for the Zerg to take a large amount of bases and overwhelm any moveouts with constant reinforcement of roach/ling/infestor while teching to broodlord (the Zerg can also lose in this phase of the game by dying to hellion/banshee, but again that's not positional play) and then it ends up in a turtlefest.
If this is coming from your experiences (or is it observations? or perhaps both), then this is just a case of not punishing the zerg. You can choose to deathball it up if you want and then push out and hopefully kill the zerg fast enough without letting him beat you by delaying you and fighting with 1-2 remaxes, but you can also play aggressively when you see he is expanding too fast or when he does not have enough defense. An example of just turtling up would be Gumiho vs Min, on atlantis spaceship in the recent GSTL finals. It is doable, but I don't prefer that style because I find it boring. Gumiho shows it can be done, so for those losing because they want to play defensively, I think they are not being greedy enough themselves (lots of OCs and expansions, and quickly get lots of seeker missiles ready).
The only time TvZ mech is positional is if the Zerg doesn't have enough bases/larva/resources to completely overwhelm the Terran army with roaches and the Terran can slowly push with tanks and section of parts of the map to contain the Zerg. At this point, the Terran is still vulnerable to counterattacks/drop play, much like in TvT.
Well, the same can be said for zerg. There are always openings to [beneficially] harass and hurt his econ. With good positioning of your army and rally point of your reinforcements, plus turrets and sensor towers, counterattacking as zerg can be hard unless he wants to do some kind of base trade.
You can sometimes force this situation by executing an aggressive opening like hellion/banshee or 3rax pressure and doing well with it, but that's a small portion of the games and I think it's silly to play a playstyle that only surfaces in a small fraction of the total games played.
Well hellion banshee is a really safe opening, it is a "low risk high reward", with the high reward being you getting a third base before he does. You can keep harassing him or at least get some map control with the hellion banshee throughout the game too. Even if it is just scouting around the map to check for his expansions and occasionally snipe a hatch with your banshees if he's trying to expand in a corner.
Edit: Again, I heavily disagree with not being able to use many tanks in TvZ... you don't need that many thors, you can make turrets all over, 2 layers of turrets + sensor tower guarding your main, 2 layers of turrets + sensor tower guarding your third, some for your fourth, and the position of your army should be covering the rest or forcing zerg to defend by sieging/attack him. 8 Thors is a good number, and that's only 48 food.
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On August 15 2012 18:56 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 18:33 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense. I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned. It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss. The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say. I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition. My first paragraph was talking about TvZ. Mass air is dealt with with your vikings, your thors (not loads) and turrets. If you've split the map you have so many excess minerals and turrets (with hi-sec) and planetaries together are really, really good for any form of air switches. If your medivac is getting sniped by corrupters, you can't really lift anything out. At the stage of the game where you want to thor drop the cost of one or two thors is very little compared to your bank anyways. If you've that worried about losing them, take vikings with you. You need vikings to deal with Broodlords anyway.
Ehhh, but they'll just go pure air and the tanks will just be empty supply, they might as well be bunkered marauders for all the damage they're going to deal to corruptor/bl. The Zerg will just keep you contained because if you move out your Vikings will get fungaled and then will get killed by Corruptors and then you'll get rolled over by a few Broodlords. Sure, it's defensive positional play but you're not allowed to push out at all (well, you can, but it's a very very very slow push). It's just as turtley as teching to BC/Raven/Thor, except it still resembles mech because you're playing positionally. Mech should be able to push out of its base without dying horribly.
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On August 15 2012 19:06 Tyrseng wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 18:56 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 18:33 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense. I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned. It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss. The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say. I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition. My first paragraph was talking about TvZ. Mass air is dealt with with your vikings, your thors (not loads) and turrets. If you've split the map you have so many excess minerals and turrets (with hi-sec) and planetaries together are really, really good for any form of air switches. If your medivac is getting sniped by corrupters, you can't really lift anything out. At the stage of the game where you want to thor drop the cost of one or two thors is very little compared to your bank anyways. If you've that worried about losing them, take vikings with you. You need vikings to deal with Broodlords anyway. Ehhh, but they'll just go pure air and the tanks will just be empty supply, they might as well be bunkered marauders for all the damage they're going to deal to corruptor/bl. The Zerg will just keep you contained because if you move out your Vikings will get fungaled and then will get killed by Corruptors and then you'll get rolled over by a few Broodlords. Sure, it's defensive positional play but you're not allowed to push out at all (well, you can, but it's a very very very slow push). It's just as turtley as teching to BC/Raven/Thor, except it still resembles mech because you're playing positionally. Mech should be able to push out of its base without dying horribly. A big problem I have with TvZ mech is that in the late game, you're only getting tanks to shoot Infestors, which I find ridiculous. There's no reason a unit should be so good that you need an entire tank battery to make sure that your air army can survive. Without Infestors, lategame TvZ tank-centric mech would turn into sky terran because you wouldn't really need tanks any longer.
They can't go pure air unless if you failed to punish them, especially because they also need infestors which are very gas heavy to prevent his army from being totally sniped by mass viking with some thor/raven. It's just so gas heavy. Mutas are 1:1 ratio and are not strong in direct engagements, corruptors can't shoot ground, and BLs are slow and can't be everywhere at once.
Tanks do really really well against roach/infestor. In the lategame, when it is BL infestor with some roaches, your tanks keep your position by preventing the zerg from just attacking into your thor/hellion with his roaches. You have to be careful with how fast you move your army via leapfrogging your tanks, or else you may get your army NP'd, or he can just run in with the roaches and kill your thors. The positioning of your units is much more critical than with marine tank, as you need to worry about more things and if you mess up and lose your army, it will probably be very hard to come back. But the longer the game goes, the stronger terran's composition becomes, especially once you start building PFs/turrets to split the map and start stockpiling ravens for seeker missile.
If he is already sitting at your base and sieging your fourth, that's simply the zerg being ahead of you and you failling the positional game (like if he's behind your 4th on the high ground on Cloud Kingdom). You let his deathball get into an advantageous position, instead of seeing his movement beforehand and responding correctly. And again, if your tanks/vikings are positioned well, he cannot fungal your vikings unless he wants to sacrifice some infestors.
About infestor-less zergs, infestors will always be useful, even if zerg wants to get a very air heavy army. He will need the infestors for the vikings and ravens, as I mentioned earlier. Thus, tanks will always be useful. However, you don't have to transition into air... you can add more to support you, but if you transition into air, that's not really mech, so you can't complain about it not being mech anymore. If you want to keep playing with a mech dominant army, that's totally viable, and still strong in its own ways. It'll be very difficult to get to 3/3 BCs WITH ravens, as you can just use all those resources for your already 3/3 mech army, which you already have enough factories for.
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On August 15 2012 19:05 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Note, just edited my post, regarding why I feel harassing with mech is not the same as harassing with bio, and does feel like what mech should be to me. I don't agree with the aggressive opening turning into really passive play. You may be defensive, since roaches are good at this point of the game and you are saturating your third and teching and trying to max out to get into the lategame, but you should be able to defend it if you play well, and zerg will not be ahead [in bases and able to swarm you easily]. Show nested quote +the mech player is forced to get thors due to the possibility of mutas but he cannot move out due to the fact that Thors vs roaches (which is the correct response) doesn't work until a high number of thors I highly disagree with this, yes you need thors but you really only need 6-8 thors for most of the game to be very safe and avoid situations where you have no more AA and have to get chased down or sac your army trying to kill some stuff. You should be able to turret up your bases easily with your mineral sink. Also, thors are not the correct response vs roaches, a high number of thors is indeed strong vs roaches when maxed because roaches are food inefficient (3 roaches gets raped by 1 thor), but tanks work much much better as long as you siege up in time, and get stronger as the game goes on due to clumping and the design of the tanks getting shots off before the zerg engages. Show nested quote +This passive play allows for the Zerg to take a large amount of bases and overwhelm any moveouts with constant reinforcement of roach/ling/infestor while teching to broodlord (the Zerg can also lose in this phase of the game by dying to hellion/banshee, but again that's not positional play) and then it ends up in a turtlefest. If this is coming from your experiences (or is it observations? or perhaps both), then this is just a case of not punishing the zerg. You can choose to deathball it up if you want and then push out and hopefully kill the zerg fast enough without letting him beat you by delaying you and fighting with 1-2 remaxes, but you can also play aggressively when you see he is expanding too fast or when he does not have enough defense. An example of just turtling up would be Gumiho vs Min, on atlantis spaceship in the recent GSTL finals. It is doable, but I don't prefer that style because I find it boring. Gumiho shows it can be done, so for those losing because they want to play defensively, I think they are not being greedy enough themselves (lots of OCs and expansions, and quickly get lots of seeker missiles ready). Show nested quote +The only time TvZ mech is positional is if the Zerg doesn't have enough bases/larva/resources to completely overwhelm the Terran army with roaches and the Terran can slowly push with tanks and section of parts of the map to contain the Zerg. At this point, the Terran is still vulnerable to counterattacks/drop play, much like in TvT. Well, the same can be said for zerg. There are always openings to [beneficially] harass and hurt his econ. With good positioning of your army and rally point of your reinforcements, plus turrets and sensor towers, counterattacking as zerg can be hard unless he wants to do some kind of base trade. Show nested quote +You can sometimes force this situation by executing an aggressive opening like hellion/banshee or 3rax pressure and doing well with it, but that's a small portion of the games and I think it's silly to play a playstyle that only surfaces in a small fraction of the total games played. Well hellion banshee is a really safe opening, it is a "low risk high reward", with the high reward being you getting a third base before he does. You can keep harassing him or at least get some map control with the hellion banshee throughout the game too. Even if it is just scouting around the map to check for his expansions and occasionally snipe a hatch with your banshees if he's trying to expand in a corner.
Pumping out 6-8 thors off of 2/4 factories takes a long time - long enough for the Zerg to really reach out and grab bases unless you continue to be aggressive with some sort of harass unit, which at some point hurts you more than it hurts the Zerg unless he is very clumsy because it delays your tech.
I didn't mean that thors were the response to roaches, I meant roaches were the response to thors.
I'm not saying multitasking is exclusive to bio, nor that multitasking makes your playstyle akin to bio, I'm just trying to say that bio doesn't have as much of a focus on positional playing and on the flip side, mech play doesn't have as much of a focus on unit control and speed.
Nor am I trying to say that positional play isn't viable in TvZ - all I am trying to say is that positional play only works up until the point where the Zerg can get into the lategame. If you can win all your games before the lategame, more power to you, but if they get to lategame then you're really forced into a situation where you can either rely heavily on Thors and try to end it earlier on in the lategame with a maxed Thor/hellion/tank army, or you can take it into the latelatelategame where you have Thor/Raven/BC. Neither of these options are positional, really - of course, there's a lot of emphasis on securing bases and there's always dances all across the map but that's also present in bio play and is really one of the core elements of sc2 in general - it's not the same thing as a mech vs marine/tank battle in TvT in the middle stages of the game.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 15 2012 19:06 Tyrseng wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 18:56 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 18:33 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense. I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned. It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss. The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say. I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition. My first paragraph was talking about TvZ. Mass air is dealt with with your vikings, your thors (not loads) and turrets. If you've split the map you have so many excess minerals and turrets (with hi-sec) and planetaries together are really, really good for any form of air switches. If your medivac is getting sniped by corrupters, you can't really lift anything out. At the stage of the game where you want to thor drop the cost of one or two thors is very little compared to your bank anyways. If you've that worried about losing them, take vikings with you. You need vikings to deal with Broodlords anyway. Ehhh, but they'll just go pure air and the tanks will just be empty supply, they might as well be bunkered marauders for all the damage they're going to deal to corruptor/bl. The Zerg will just keep you contained because if you move out your Vikings will get fungaled and then will get killed by Corruptors and then you'll get rolled over by a few Broodlords. Sure, it's defensive positional play but you're not allowed to push out at all (well, you can, but it's a very very very slow push). It's just as turtley as teching to BC/Raven/Thor, except it still resembles mech because you're playing positionally. Mech should be able to push out of its base without dying horribly. A big problem I have with TvZ mech is that in the late game, you're only getting tanks to shoot Infestors, which I find ridiculous. There's no reason a unit should be so good that you need an entire tank battery to make sure that your air army can survive. Without Infestors, lategame TvZ tank-centric mech would turn into sky terran because you wouldn't really need tanks any longer.
Right, going from my personal experience I really disagree. Your tanks are never useless. You defend with your vikings against corrupters (using the turrets and Thors to help) then kill the Broodlords. After that you'll have your vikings to control the skies and stop him ever going broodlords again and then it forces them into Ultras. Ultras MELT to well positioned/defended tanks. Turrets also stop any drop play and nydus play as you have vision everywhere with sensor towers and the like.
You never, ever get into a position where you get fungalled with your vikings. It's boring, but it works and you'll win the majority of the time. If his broods start killing your planetary wall, who cares? It costs like nothing with your bank. The only problem some people would have playing mech this way (I love it) is it looks and feels extremely slow, slowly leapfrogging to more bases and when they over extend you send about 5 tanks to go punish expansions. it's good because it works and there's not much they can do to punish them.
Let their broodlords damage you, you've got a split map and if all they have is air, they can't push the fact some of your tanks die before you remax with them.
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On August 15 2012 19:17 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 19:06 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:56 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 18:33 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense. I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned. It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss. The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say. I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition. My first paragraph was talking about TvZ. Mass air is dealt with with your vikings, your thors (not loads) and turrets. If you've split the map you have so many excess minerals and turrets (with hi-sec) and planetaries together are really, really good for any form of air switches. If your medivac is getting sniped by corrupters, you can't really lift anything out. At the stage of the game where you want to thor drop the cost of one or two thors is very little compared to your bank anyways. If you've that worried about losing them, take vikings with you. You need vikings to deal with Broodlords anyway. Ehhh, but they'll just go pure air and the tanks will just be empty supply, they might as well be bunkered marauders for all the damage they're going to deal to corruptor/bl. The Zerg will just keep you contained because if you move out your Vikings will get fungaled and then will get killed by Corruptors and then you'll get rolled over by a few Broodlords. Sure, it's defensive positional play but you're not allowed to push out at all (well, you can, but it's a very very very slow push). It's just as turtley as teching to BC/Raven/Thor, except it still resembles mech because you're playing positionally. Mech should be able to push out of its base without dying horribly. A big problem I have with TvZ mech is that in the late game, you're only getting tanks to shoot Infestors, which I find ridiculous. There's no reason a unit should be so good that you need an entire tank battery to make sure that your air army can survive. Without Infestors, lategame TvZ tank-centric mech would turn into sky terran because you wouldn't really need tanks any longer. They can't go pure air unless if you failed to punish them, especially because they also need infestors which are very gas heavy to prevent his army from being totally sniped by mass viking with some thor/raven. It's just so gas heavy. Mutas are 1:1 ratio and are not strong in direct engagements, corruptors can't shoot ground, and BLs are slow and can't be everywhere at once. Tanks do really really well against roach/infestor. In the lategame, when it is BL infestor with some roaches, your tanks keep your position by preventing the zerg from just attacking into your thor/hellion with his roaches. You have to be careful with how fast you move your army via leapfrogging your tanks, or else you may get your army NP'd, or he can just run in with the roaches and kill your thors. The positioning of your units is much more critical than with marine tank, as you need to worry about more things and if you mess up and lose your army, it will probably be very hard to come back. But the longer the game goes, the stronger terran's composition becomes, especially once you start building PFs/turrets to split the map and start stockpiling ravens for seeker missile. If he is already sitting at your base and sieging your fourth, that's simply the zerg being ahead of you and you failling the positional game (like if he's behind your 4th on the high ground on Cloud Kingdom). You let his deathball get into an advantageous position, instead of seeing his movement beforehand and responding correctly. And again, if your tanks/vikings are positioned well, he cannot fungal your vikings unless he wants to sacrifice some infestors.
If he's saying it's viable to Thor drop and lose the Thor in order to kill tech, it's gotten to a point in the game where the Zerg can fund air + infestor army (Scarlett is a great example of this kind of play - somehow, she can max on on 15+ Infestors, 25+ Corrupters, and a lot of Broods on 4/5 base).
Tanks are very good vs Infestor/Roach. If you have enough units in the midgame and he can't overwhelm you with waves of roaches and base denial/counterattacks/drops, then it turns into positional play where a) the Terran wins because he pushes all the way to the Zerg's bases, b) the Zerg wins because the Terran slips up in his positioning/map control as you said, or c) it comes to a stalemate at which point the Zerg gets to BL/Corruptor/Infestor at which point the Terran is forced to transition.
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On August 15 2012 19:21 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 19:06 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:56 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 18:33 Tyrseng wrote:On August 15 2012 18:27 Qikz wrote:On August 15 2012 17:58 Tyrseng wrote:
Doesn't anyone else here feel like TvZ mech isn't really mech? I mean sure, your units are 'mechanical', but the essence of mech is positional play and in-depth strategy over the more speed-centric bio. Thors don't have much value positionally, and the only real difference between bio and Thor-centric mech is the fact that it's not viable to drop Thors, and they're too slow to benefit from good unit control. We only have one positional unit in SC2 - the tank. The tank allows for very good positional play in TvT, but tanks are only good in decent numbers so mech in TvT suffers as you cannot defend all the space necessary to support mech - this is why players like Taeja and MMA rip mech apart with sheer power of unit control and multitasking.
I've kind of given up on mech because even though I win a lot of my games, it's just kind of tedious, constantly building up Raven/Thor/BC and then a-moving with some seeker missiles. That isn't positional play, it's just using the defensive power of the tank to turtle up and win. I play tank centric mech with lots of planeteries for blocking off areas. I find it exactly like mech in TvT if I'm against bio. It's all about defensive positioning and all the same good stuff. Also you don't have to play thor centric mech in TvZ, it only helps slightly against Broodlords and against Ultras tanks work just as well. I think if you play mech correctly then you should never let the game reach that point. Why? I think the whole point of mech is to force the late game. Your mech ball is super powerful in the late and late late game, against ALL compositions. Why wouldn't I just defend and force the late game? Why is there this sudden rule that you HAVE to push against your opponents? Zergs don't do it with broodlords in ZvP, why does Terran? Mech isn't bio, you don't need to timing push to end the game. You can end the game by playing much better at split map situations and defense. I'm assuming your first paragraph is referring to TvP mech, and I agree - I feel TvP mech is viable but it's a lot harder than bio TvP, although the Battle Hellion should help positional TvP (I refuse to think of the Warhound as a mech unit because it's just a-movey and doesn't have any value positionally, which is what mech is/should be). TvZ mech cannot be tank-centric, because then they'll just go pure air and there's not much you can do without mass Thor vs that, no matter how well you're positioned. It's not viable to drop Thors because you can't lift them out - the medivacs will get sniped by corruptors and that's a huge loss. The third paragraph quotes something I didn't say. I know defensive play is positional play, but you're using positional play as a crutch/stool to get to another a-move non-positional composition. My first paragraph was talking about TvZ. Mass air is dealt with with your vikings, your thors (not loads) and turrets. If you've split the map you have so many excess minerals and turrets (with hi-sec) and planetaries together are really, really good for any form of air switches. If your medivac is getting sniped by corrupters, you can't really lift anything out. At the stage of the game where you want to thor drop the cost of one or two thors is very little compared to your bank anyways. If you've that worried about losing them, take vikings with you. You need vikings to deal with Broodlords anyway. Ehhh, but they'll just go pure air and the tanks will just be empty supply, they might as well be bunkered marauders for all the damage they're going to deal to corruptor/bl. The Zerg will just keep you contained because if you move out your Vikings will get fungaled and then will get killed by Corruptors and then you'll get rolled over by a few Broodlords. Sure, it's defensive positional play but you're not allowed to push out at all (well, you can, but it's a very very very slow push). It's just as turtley as teching to BC/Raven/Thor, except it still resembles mech because you're playing positionally. Mech should be able to push out of its base without dying horribly. A big problem I have with TvZ mech is that in the late game, you're only getting tanks to shoot Infestors, which I find ridiculous. There's no reason a unit should be so good that you need an entire tank battery to make sure that your air army can survive. Without Infestors, lategame TvZ tank-centric mech would turn into sky terran because you wouldn't really need tanks any longer. Right, going from my personal experience I really disagree. Your tanks are never useless. You defend with your vikings against corrupters (using the turrets and Thors to help) then kill the Broodlords. After that you'll have your vikings to control the skies and stop him ever going broodlords again and then it forces them into Ultras. Ultras MELT to well positioned/defended tanks. Turrets also stop any drop play and nydus play as you have vision everywhere with sensor towers and the like. You never, ever get into a position where you get fungalled with your vikings. It's boring, but it works and you'll win the majority of the time. If his broods start killing your planetary wall, who cares? It costs like nothing with your bank. The only problem some people would have playing mech this way (I love it) is it looks and feels extremely slow, slowly leapfrogging to more bases and when they over extend you send about 5 tanks to go punish expansions. it's good because it works and there's not much they can do to punish them. Let their broodlords damage you, you've got a split map and if all they have is air, they can't push the fact some of your tanks die before you remax with them.
I'm agreeing with you - that is positional play, and I also did say it was very slow and it relies heavily on a viking dance where you're trying to bait his infestors into your tank line so you can kill his air with your vikings. What I'd prefer is a faster paced, non-stalemate mech vs zerg situation where you can push back the Zerg air/infestor army by sectioning off pieces of the map without it ending up in a turtle fest.
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EPT
