[L][D] Terran Mech: Resources - Page 19

On August 25 2012 07:43 Nightmarjoo wrote:
Should I do similar writeups for tvt and tvz? Not sure if the lack of feedback following it implies a lack of interest or just the post's length.

On August 25 2012 18:04 avilo wrote:
I've been playing a lot of ghostmech tvp recently, i'll get some replays together and upload em.

On August 25 2012 13:42 Nightmarjoo wrote:
I see. I figured being specific would be the most helpful. Being general would just be doing a low-level cast-job of the game, which you can see for yourself just by watching it. I will be writing up guides for both the style and my specific build in the future, but for now I'll stick with simple game recaps and analyses. When I wrote that recap I kept in mind my experiences from other games to point out how it was similar or different from the model. That wouldn't really change just by looking at a few different games.

If I wrote it any shorter it would be missing content though.

As long as at least a single person finds this stuff interesting I'll keep writing them. Sounds like a tvz post is in order. The tvps are more fun though~

On August 25 2012 22:33 Qikz wrote:
I have a relatively random question regarding TvT. I should know this, but it's something I've never looked into.

When you're going into either battlecruisers or vikings after mech in TvT is it better to start with the armor upgrades first like BW or go for the attack first? I guess at that stage of the game it shouldn't really matter as you can get both, but is there one that's more beneficial?

On August 26 2012 23:42 Nightmarjoo wrote:
What? What's wrong with my economy?

You get to bcs by staying alive and mining. If your opponent doesn't have a very strong army (they have a heavily gateway-diluted army instead, but aren't using blink to attack multiple locations), you can start bc production on 8tank 6thor. If they have a very heavy robo army consider delaying bc for more tanks and making banshees instead of bcs for a bit. If they're making carriers make bcs asap and then make more thors (and turrets). If they're using heavy blink harass while also pressuring with a separate colos-based army make tank/banshee/pf before bc.

Yes qikz the mains of every single map are all horrible.

On August 27 2012 01:01 Nightmarjoo wrote:
I already explained the process that lead to choosing this as my standard build. I don't find that my economy is weak, and I'm not sure why you perceive it as such. I'm not sure what you want me to be able to do that I'm not with my opening, as when I play I can do everything I need.

You can't 1rax cc into mech unless you absolutely know your opponent is going 1gate nex or nex first because there are all-ins you can't scout in time to adapt to stop.
You can't 1rax cc into 3 or 4rax then into mech (to be safe vs those all-ins) because you don't have enough gas/time to get an adequate force to stop a 12 minute immortal all-in. If you mass marines/bunkers to hold it you've effectively nullified whatever advantage you garnered from fast expanding instead of doing a tech build.
Thus you need to open with gas.
Reactor expand is ok, but has no great means to scout, and is still sensitive to aggression.
Cloaked banshee expand is good because you can get a hellion out to scout well, and the banshee allows you to clean up their aggression attempts and/or harass them, forcing them to make stalkers and extra obs, and/or cannons. The problem is that your cc is very late with this build, and it's still not super great vs aggression. Double expanding is not always possible, and just making a fast 3rd oc in-base heavily delays your gas.
Thor expand gets the fact up early, and thus gets a fast hellion out to scout everything. If Protoss is being aggressive the thor holds everything except a fast 4gate, which is easy to scout, and you just get a tank before hellion vs saved chronos instead. If protoss expands you make cc before thor, and your thor lets you defend any fast aggression after nexus. This build is the best general build for tvp mech imo. It's the safest build, and allows a faster cc than most tech openings. It lacks aggression-potential, but that's irrelevant since your goal with tvp mech is to stay alive.

Why would you mass tanks and get armour upgrades? If you open 1rax cc and don't die you can hold anything later in game. Your only problem is if you try tank/hellion and he goes carrier. But you need attack upgrades, not armour. Armour doesn't do shit, especially for tanks.

Thor/tank/banshee/ghost is viable, but as you can see from my recent reps I've been shying away from port units until later in game. Templar shouldn't be a threat if you have tank/banshee/ghost, as all 3 units can easily snipe ht. Even if you don't make tanks you should be fine. If you're losing to big attacks by omitting tanks and ghost (why you would do that is beyond me) then you're not using your hellion/banshee well. I believe that composition is viable, but I don't recommend it.

You can support the constant production of 2tank (or 2thor), 1banshee, 1ghost on 3base. If you want 2port production you can afford this by cutting 1 thor or 1 tank from your production cycle. On 3fact that means you could have 1 techlab 2 reactors, and be very aggressive with your hellion/banshee while slowly building up your thor or tank and ghost count.

Obviously though I recommend my composition, which is tank/thor/ghost with light hellion into air.

I really haven't experimented much with making only thors (no tanks). I suspect it's viable though. I think that if you want to try it you should do the heavy banshee/hellion composition I just mentioned to keep protoss busy. If they sit and mass archon/immortal you could be in trouble without tanks. Strike cannons can only do so much. Obviously you need ghosts though, you can't skip them.

Your inability to hold attacks when relying on tanks suggests greater problems with your play than just composition though.