On August 06 2012 01:38 Qikz wrote: This is purely a question and I'm not even sure it would work, but could a siege expand hold off most of the early protoss openings? I was seriously thinking about trying to force mech to work for me in TvP as either I have to end the TvP fast or I lose late game due to bad micro. I play mech in both TvT and TvZ so I'm pretty good with the positional game and I think if you use buildings (like rax) you might be able to hold the zealots off long enough for your mech army to do some decent damage.
In TvZ when I push anywhere with my siege/thor/hellion army I always float some barracks with me to create either choke points or wall off behind me to stop them coming directly behind me with lings and I'm not ready, I really wonder if that sort of thing would work well in TvP too since Bio is a bit too micro intensive at my level.
There are a lot of mech openings that involve tanks. The best in my opinion is the Thorzain opening.
12 Rax , produce marines until 4 , then reactor on rax (usually just after CC) 13 Gas Factory Bunker Techlab on fact 1 Tank CC Good opening getting a CC around 5:30 and can defend most cheeses,but its CRITICAL to keep your scouting scv alive, as its your only scouting thing
On August 06 2012 00:17 dynwar7 wrote: I am still unsure whether to make vikings early (starport reactor) or double armory. I think producing vikings so early is kinda pointless? Maybe when I am on 3rd base, then I start viking, sounds good? What is the point of having really early vikings anyway? I may have 1 or 2 sure, but I wont start reactor vikings until 3rd base, does it sound ok?
If you do not have sky superiority as mech, especially against another mech player, then that is bad. Generally it's good to start reactor Viking production off 2 base then get your armories when you take a 3rd.
But what do you do with the air superiority that early? If you choose to reactor starports and your opponent chooses armories, the only advantages you gain is that you out range his tanks and/or you can add a second starport and make banchees, further delaying your upgrades and both advantages get shut down by any number of thors with your opponents army. Even if you wanted to get a raven or 2 to negate the thor would all of that gas spent not on upgrades be worth it? I suppose with you wanted to very quickly transition to sky Terran it could be worth it to reactor vikings that early, but what are some other reason to delay upgrades for more vikings?
On August 06 2012 00:17 dynwar7 wrote: I am still unsure whether to make vikings early (starport reactor) or double armory. I think producing vikings so early is kinda pointless? Maybe when I am on 3rd base, then I start viking, sounds good? What is the point of having really early vikings anyway? I may have 1 or 2 sure, but I wont start reactor vikings until 3rd base, does it sound ok?
If you do not have sky superiority as mech, especially against another mech player, then that is bad. Generally it's good to start reactor Viking production off 2 base then get your armories when you take a 3rd.
But what do you do with the air superiority that early? If you choose to reactor starports and your opponent chooses armories, the only advantages you gain is that you out range his tanks and/or you can add a second starport and make banchees, further delaying your upgrades and both advantages get shut down by any number of thors with your opponents army. Even if you wanted to get a raven or 2 to negate the thor would all of that gas spent not on upgrades be worth it? I suppose with you wanted to very quickly transition to sky Terran it could be worth it to reactor vikings that early, but what are some other reason to delay upgrades for more vikings?
Because as mech unless your doing a lot of hellion vs hellion battles upgrades do not make a huge difference. Obviouly you want them, but 1/1 tanks are gonna rip through bio or unsieged tanks nearly as quickly as 2/2 tanks. The reason you want air superiority is yes, it's easier to transition to sky terran, but also positioning. Mech is all about positioning and if your opponent has air superiority he has a big advantage in being able to position his tanks where he likes.
On August 06 2012 00:17 dynwar7 wrote: I am still unsure whether to make vikings early (starport reactor) or double armory. I think producing vikings so early is kinda pointless? Maybe when I am on 3rd base, then I start viking, sounds good? What is the point of having really early vikings anyway? I may have 1 or 2 sure, but I wont start reactor vikings until 3rd base, does it sound ok?
Did you not read the tvt guide I linked? It answers a lot of the questions you've been asking. You don't need to produce reactor vikings constantly, constant 1port production is fine at first. I already said you probably shouldn't be getting fast double armory. Point of early vikings (vs a FE) is to have enough to stop drops when they come. Drops can show up as early as 9:30 (fact before stim/addons) and onwards (stim fact, stim reactor reactor fact, stim reactor reactor +1 fact, stim +1 fact, etc).
On August 06 2012 01:38 Qikz wrote: This is purely a question and I'm not even sure it would work, but could a siege expand hold off most of the early protoss openings? I was seriously thinking about trying to force mech to work for me in TvP as either I have to end the TvP fast or I lose late game due to bad micro. I play mech in both TvT and TvZ so I'm pretty good with the positional game and I think if you use buildings (like rax) you might be able to hold the zealots off long enough for your mech army to do some decent damage.
In TvZ when I push anywhere with my siege/thor/hellion army I always float some barracks with me to create either choke points or wall off behind me to stop them coming directly behind me with lings and I'm not ready, I really wonder if that sort of thing would work well in TvP too since Bio is a bit too micro intensive at my level.
I know the thread hasn't yet been reorganized, but just a few pages back are a bunch of tvp mech reps. It is viable. Personally I'm not a fan of tank/hellion focused builds, but even if you were gonna use them you almost never actually need siege before cc. You have to scout well and adapt. Siege + reactor marine production will definitely keep you safe from absolutely everything, but you'll fall behind really quickly delaying your cc that much vs economic play by protoss.
On August 06 2012 00:17 dynwar7 wrote: I am still unsure whether to make vikings early (starport reactor) or double armory. I think producing vikings so early is kinda pointless? Maybe when I am on 3rd base, then I start viking, sounds good? What is the point of having really early vikings anyway? I may have 1 or 2 sure, but I wont start reactor vikings until 3rd base, does it sound ok?
If you do not have sky superiority as mech, especially against another mech player, then that is bad. Generally it's good to start reactor Viking production off 2 base then get your armories when you take a 3rd.
But what do you do with the air superiority that early? If you choose to reactor starports and your opponent chooses armories, the only advantages you gain is that you out range his tanks and/or you can add a second starport and make banchees, further delaying your upgrades and both advantages get shut down by any number of thors with your opponents army. Even if you wanted to get a raven or 2 to negate the thor would all of that gas spent not on upgrades be worth it? I suppose with you wanted to very quickly transition to sky Terran it could be worth it to reactor vikings that early, but what are some other reason to delay upgrades for more vikings?
rofl if you outrange his tanks you win. Just slow push carefully, burning out his scans with minimal losses, and keep pushing until he has a concave you can't circumvent. At which point you bring in a banshee to continue pushing. As you push you open up paths to harass or attack his expos by. Your push limits counter attacks and counter harass. Now air control is actually less initially important in mech vs mech than mech vs bio. Thors can make up for an air control deficiency as a temporary solution to stall to get vikings out. If you don't have air control vs bio they drop on your expos, production facilities, and/or army and you lose the game instantly.
If the toss does a 1 gate robo expand, (aka expands at about 5:30), would it be better to expand with reactor marines into siege or siege tank then expand (thorzain)? I would think the first option would be better since bunkers should be good enough to defend and it's more economical, but maybe there could be some kind of timing with fast siege mode + higher siege tank number since toss's expansion is at 5:30 instead of 4:30 and hence will have less stuff later.
Also, same with if protoss does a 2 gate expand. Or one of those weird 2 gate phoenix expands.
On August 06 2012 04:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Just thought of something --
If the toss does a 1 gate robo expand, (aka expands at about 5:30), would it be better to expand with reactor marines into siege or siege tank then expand (thorzain)? I would think the first option would be better since bunkers should be good enough to defend and it's more economical, but maybe there could be some kind of timing with fast siege mode + higher siege tank number since toss's expansion is at 5:30 instead of 4:30 and hence will have less stuff later.
Also, same with if protoss does a 2 gate expand. Or one of those weird 2 gate phoenix expands.
When I see Protoss go for 1 gate expand or 1 gate robo expand I go reactor expand personally, so I'm not too behind on eco. However I have also found that against a 15 nexus or 1 gate expand, you can put on some pressure with the initial tank and marines. Hell if he 15 nexuses you can straight up win with the pressure.
How do you scout a 1gate robo expand before deciding what to do? Shouldn't 2gas robo look like an immortal all-in or colos drop opening too, with stalkers denying further scouting?
Making tanks vs phoenix seems a little daft. Should thor imo.
On August 06 2012 04:47 Nightmarjoo wrote: How do you scout a 1gate robo expand before deciding what to do? Shouldn't 2gas robo look like an immortal all-in or colos drop opening too, with stalkers denying further scouting?
Making tanks vs phoenix seems a little daft. Should thor imo.
With the thorzain opening you only make a single tank, then you can switch over to thor hellion banshee or w/e. Even if you don't have a thor out in time against phoenix you still have marines which will be able to push the phoenixes back until the thor does pop out.
On August 06 2012 04:47 Nightmarjoo wrote: How do you scout a 1gate robo expand before deciding what to do? Shouldn't 2gas robo look like an immortal all-in or colos drop opening too, with stalkers denying further scouting?
Making tanks vs phoenix seems a little daft. Should thor imo.
Oh yeah, good point, with either reactor expand and siege tank expand protoss' expand would come after you already chose one X)
I'm curious as to how Lastshadow is able to win games on KR high masters with mech (thor hellion banshee mostly). He beat MC once with it on antiga. Did the protoss just make a bunch of mistakes and lastshadow included the replays for those to show that they can work, or maybe there is something unique about lastshadow's builds that the protosses were confused about? LS says mech doesn't work and he only does it for fun, but from his replays it definitely seems that it works, whatever "works" means to you.
On August 06 2012 04:47 Nightmarjoo wrote: How do you scout a 1gate robo expand before deciding what to do? Shouldn't 2gas robo look like an immortal all-in or colos drop opening too, with stalkers denying further scouting?
Making tanks vs phoenix seems a little daft. Should thor imo.
Oh yeah, good point, with either reactor expand and siege tank expand protoss' expand would come after you already chose one X)
I'm curious as to how Lastshadow is able to win games on KR high masters with mech (thor hellion banshee mostly). He beat MC once with it on antiga. Did the protoss just make a bunch of mistakes and lastshadow included the replays for those to show that they can work, or maybe there is something unique about lastshadow's builds that the protosses were confused about? LS says mech doesn't work and he only does it for fun, but from his replays it definitely seems that it works, whatever "works" means to you.
I remember watching the replay of that MC game a few times, and I have to say I think MC didn't deal with it well. The immortal void ray was in theory a good idea, but with 250mm strike cannon as well as the scv's repairing it just wasn't enough.
EDIT: Also can I ask people to keep contributing! This database could be expanded a lot, especially with mech making a resurgence in TvT and TvZ. If you have any VOD's/replays of pros doing mech put post them here or PM me!
There's a few things I think could have made things go a lot better for MC.
1) MC's third was earlier than Lastshadow's, and he might have had a lot more probes too, could have been more zealots. 2) He teched too much. Immortals, voids, and colossi with thermal lance? Maybe just immortal + void rays would have been enough. 3) His voids were clumped up quite a lot, and got shot at by 1 thor while stacked before the battle even started. 4) Lastshadow brought lots of SCVs, so MC could have pulled his SCVs off his line to help tank (it seems that MC didn't think that lastshadow's push would be that strong, else he would have pulled probes, or maybe MC already felt that he lost once he saw the army at his third) 5) Maybe he just didn't choose the best tech. Going both colossi and void ray seems to be not that good because what if lastshadow just got some vikings? Vikings do well against both void rays and colossi. We've seen Thorzain beat MC in TSL4 with thor hellion viking. Maybe just colossi + Feedback HT would have been better? Or Storm HT + immortals.
And for those saying that people HAVE tried mech enough though and you don't see it because it doesn't work (incontrol, etc. etc.), that doesn't seem to be true at all because even great players like MC don't know how to deal with mech that well. You could say MC was trying something new out but... would he really need to try out something new if people really actually tried out mech so much, as anti-mech people argue? After the game's been out for almost 2 years? And if mech was really so easily beat, why would MC need to try out something new anyways? And why are people saying mech is unviable instead of "hard" or "difficult" when it doesn't seem mech has any glaring holes in its play? There's a big difference between "unviable" and "hard" to me. The former means there is a gaping hole in the play, for example if ghosts were missing in TvP then terran would just get screwed over by templar tech. Hard just means that it is, subjectively, hard for whoever is using it. It could be unforgiving, etc. etc.
Just watched the Day9 Mech TvP daily. That's pretty damned useful for anyone else who haven't seen it.
I definately want to throw myself at it on the ladder until I can refine it for my own play. One thing I noticed was turret rings are going to be really important to stop warp prisms. Sort of like Turret Rings against arbiters due to the way late game protoss can warp in like 30 units at a time.
Is it possible to be aggressive with mech? It is common stereotype to wait until 200/200 to attack with mech, but surely you can be aggressive with mech early on?
Is there any pro player who is aggressive using mech?
In tvt there are 4fact 2base builds which hit at about 150 supply. In tvp tank/hellion oriented builds are VERY aggressive. Constant constant hellion harass all over the place, using hellions instead of marines. I'm not familiar with the attack timings beyond the hellions though. Tvz tends to be more army-passive (still plenty of hellion/banshee aggression) because of the strength and threat of zerg counters and general mobility.
On August 06 2012 12:37 dynwar7 wrote: Thanks night
In the other thread, no, I really appreciate your input. Just looking for more input, that is all.
May I ask what this 4 fact 2 base bulid is ? I want to be aggressive in mech, I guess incorporatae my aggressive style using bio, to mech.
Maybe it's not the one he's talking about but Gumiho used an aggressive 2 base push and destroyed Ryung in GSTL season 2 finals.
And yes of course, mech can be aggressive. It's not the same as attacking though. Tank/hellion styles are good for being aggressive in TvP like night said.
For example: thestc vs jjakji gsl code s 2012 season 2 ro32 dual sight TheStc goes gas first blueflame cc (1 hellion, no pressure), 2nd gas, port (then resumed hellion production), reactor, viking (jjakji opened gas, substitute with medic vs FE imo), moved fact to reactor and port to techlab for reactor hellion production and 1 banshee, reactor, moved port to 2nd reactor for 2viking production, took 3rd gas as soon as he landed oc in nat, 2/3 fact during 2/3viking production, 4th gas at about 75% 2/3 fact production, 4th fact when can afford while constantly producing tank/viking (stopped at 7 viking), siege. Attacked on approximately 150 supply (attack delayed by jjakji's aggression though). He had harassed main with banshee with 3viking support, and at another time probed with hellion/viking to look for harass/attack opportunities (and found none).
Alright Yoshi ,and Night, you are both very knowledgable regarding mech. Let me ask, what then, do you think is the main weakness of mech? Is it what everyone seems to say - immobility? Or the slow reproduction of mech army? IOr perhaps the vulnerability to drops even with turret rings? What do you think?
On August 06 2012 14:07 dynwar7 wrote: Alright Yoshi ,and Night, you are both very knowledgable regarding mech. Let me ask, what then, do you think is the main weakness of mech? Is it what everyone seems to say - immobility? Or the slow reproduction of mech army? IOr perhaps the vulnerability to drops even with turret rings? What do you think?
Getting to the midgame. Since you're spending more on teching compared to the safe 1 rax expand into bio (in which even players like Polt or ForGG occasionally have big trouble against Protoss all-ins on stream), it's harder to defend until you get your mech going. Unlike bio, where you have lots of marines which are flexible and can defend many things with good micro, you don't have your full mech composition going yet and if you don't respond properly to the all-in or attack protoss is doing, you can easily lose.
Either that, or its unforgiving nature. I've gotten a lot better at watching the minimap and making sure I siege and position my army correctly and on time, but if you slip up once and let him walk around your army to your base(s) then it's really hard to win. Even if you siege up half a second too late, the difference could be 1000-2000 resources worth of units. Things like that happen occasionally. I guess its a bit the same with bio, but with bio you're more often pressuring the protoss but with mech usually it's the other way.
Thanks yoshi. By the way I am only curious in TvT VS p and z I just go bio. Also, what is your advice for a bio player who wants to drop and sees 120 turrets? lol. Basically, if there are many turrets, is it just impossible for bio to drop? Other than usind raven PDD that is.
EPT
VS p and z I just go bio. Also, what is your advice for a bio player who wants to drop and sees 120 turrets? lol. Basically, if there are many turrets, is it just impossible for bio to drop? Other than usind raven PDD that is.
