This season of code s has seen a lot of mech play, about 1000% more mech play than usual (MVP excluded over course). Terran don't seem to be winning with mech though. I looked over the round of 32 and round of 16 groups A and B and compiled the result, thus far code s terrans have tried mech 16 times, 17 times if you count game 1 of life vs 8thTeamBaby. Of those fifteen or sixteen games terrans have won with mech exactly three times, giving the strategy about a 25% winrate. Ouch.
Guimho beat hyun with mech in game 1 of their series Hack beat roro with mech twice in games 1 and 3 in their series. MKP beat Hyun with a mech timing in game 3 of their series.
Of those victories, hyun committed a lot to roach ling aggression against guimho. Guimho weathered the storm, maxed out, and then crushed hyun because he never reached hive tech.
Hack was able to beat roro twice with mech hitting the ~16 minute mech pushing timing. Roro's tech tree wasn't quite complete, and he pushed for victory.
Everyone else who tried mech was not so successful. No one so far has played mech perfectly, but a few people have come really close. They all seem to be going for a 16 minute timing push, and time and time again zerg is always able to reach hive tech and get broodlords, and then mech doesn't have enough vikings, and mech dies. Ryung played some great games against curious where, although he didn't go mech, he transitioned late game into something very close. On Entombed valley he crushed curious's broodlord army, only to sacrifice all his viking rather needlessly and die to the ultra switch.
There seems to be a theme in terran vs zerg emerging, and its hardly a new one. If zerg gets broodlord infestor and a healthy economy zerg has won literally every time. The one exception this season is Ryung played a game against curious on whilwind where he was able to cripple curious early. Curious managed to get a very nice Broodlord infestor army out anyway, and it went to a very scrappy base trade that Ryung was able to pull out because of his vastly superior economy.
Now before the zerg advocates call me out for making a balance complaints, that is not my aim here. I don't have an opinion as to whether or not TvZ is balanced, although I do think broodlord infestor, coupled with the ultra switch, is one hell of a one two punch. Terrans in code S this season or in any other season have not performed inspiring at all against the late game composition. I haven't seen a terran commit to winning the air battle yet and pull it off, the ryung game being the most recent exception to that, and I can't recall a game where terran was able to win the air battle and then follow up correctly to win the game. Its hard to say if it is really possible because you can't say that terran by and large have been playing that well against the composition.
The reason the recent mech trend is so interesting to me, is mech seems like the most viable option for terran if they want to beat zerg late game. Ryung has played really well with marine tank, even making wonderful transitions late game, but it seems to me that mech is still as superior strategy for making it to late game vs zerg and building up a proper transition to conquer the BL infestor + ultra tech switch. The problem seems to be right now that everyone is playing mech exactly like MVP played mech vs life. The 16 minute mech push didn't work even one time for MVP in the finals and with rare exception it hasn't worked in code s for anyone else either. Personally, I think it's just a shity strategy that hopefully will die very soon, or be delegated to a timing alternate to keep zergs honest in an evolving metagame. What interests me is the possibility of terrans turtling longer, and trying to win a heavy viking/raven mech push that hits several minutes later, and then transition back into tanks or possibly BCs for the super late game. No one is doing that right now, maybe its a bad strategy hell I am far from an expert, but clearly the way mech is being played at this time in korea is very much not working.
Ah, haven't seen those games yet. I will add it to the OP. Brings Mech victory percentage to a staggering 25% then, assuming there were no other mech games in the group.
The MKP game is interesting because he was expanding very aggressively, leaving HyuN with choice of delaying tech for aggression, or let MKP gets free 4 base econ. He chose former but didn't do enough damage to transit into late game, but even if he chose latter MKP would be able to max out and push before hive with insane econ
This strat obviously is very map dependent since it requires 4 bases that's relatively safe to defend with an immobile army.
Ganzi was able to win with mech against a zerg in an IPTL match going for air, unfortunately I do not remember who he was playing. He had the tech ready so when the ultra switch came he could produce banshees immediately. He ended up winning that game when he looked dead and gone.
On November 15 2012 12:54 Ricoic wrote: Ganzi was able to win with mech against a zerg in an IPTL match going for air, unfortunately I do not remember who he was playing. He had the tech ready so when the ultra switch came he could produce banshees immediately. He ended up winning that game when he looked dead and gone.
I don't want to be mean but this is why they are in code s and you are theorycrafting. They are doing it for a reason, so maybe try to figure out why instead of proposing fairy-tale ideas like purposely trying to fight broodlord/infestor. 9 times out of 10 you can't, which is why people don't try it on stage.
They are playing a strategy which relies on them performing close to perfectly to win, though it works pretty well when they do. In practice, when they can play perfectly, the build works out well. In the nerve-wracking gom booth, when both guys aren't playing perfectly, it does a lot worse because Terran mistakes count for far far more than Zerg ones. But that is something that is extremely hard to understand as a player, so it's natural they keep doing it. And frankly, even with that, it's still one of their best hopes of winning. Maybe they'll be able to overcome nerves and play flawlessly that day. Players have to think that way: it's almost absurd to plan ahead for getting nervous, because that vastly increases the likelihood of it occurring.
For example, when Flash does a similar strategy he is able to truly hit before 15 minutes, not 16 (assuming no Zerg aggression) as he doesn't make those errors. That's how he beat Soo on Metropolis in MvP: he attacked while Soo was hive rushing (off of a muta opening) because Soo didn't think it could that fast, so he was stuck with no lair and no hive army. Earliest broods are going to come at 1530-16 mins, probably 1630-17 if they make enough roaches to appear threatening. In the finals Mvp kept getting delayed due to bad decisions/life playing well. In Ryung vs Curious on Entombed Ryung loses 10 hellions and a banshee to random fungals when marauding around. That in itself almost loses him the game, even though it may not be obvious, because now his push comes later, and Curious makes broodlords in time. Mech has zero margin for error.
They all seem to be going for a 16 minute timing push, and time and time again zerg is always able to reach hive tech and get broodlords, and then mech doesn't have enough vikings, and mech dies.
You seem to be under some kind of illusion that making vikings actually lets you beat broodlords: it doesn't, beyond an extremely narrow timing window against a hive rusher who will have no corruptors for a minute (which, amusingly enough given your post, is what Mvp kept trying to hit in the finals and almost won on entombed had he not clumped his vikings and auto lost to 1 fungal; he also did win on Abyssal with it). Mvp's strat is really quite clever: you ram his support casters away with your excess of tanks; he can't broodling wall because he hasn't reached a critical mass of broods yet, and he has no/few corruptors to morph into broods because he needs broods to kill your ground army, so he loses them all to vikings and you win the game. It's extremely tough to hit but it works.
Outside of that timing, if you're making vikings you've basically already resigned to lose the game unless the Zerg has a seizure and clumps his brood/corruptor against seeker missile (like Soo vs Major on Daybreak from MvP); something which you cannot engineer. And even then, it's still dubious. The Ryung/Curious game where Curious made a horrific error and lost his entire broodlord army and still won 2 minutes later despite Ryung playing incredibly well is the kind of game that happens all the time in practice (except the Zergs are less likely to blunder in that way during practice and thus win even easier).
Calling Mvp's strategy a "shitty strategy" is beyond comprehension. Mvp is the most innovative player by far in the history of the game. Any build he does has very good reasons behind it. Instead of insulting him, learn from him.
Hey I don't claim to be an expert. If flash can hit the same timing one minute ealier then maybe there is hope for the strategy. I am a pretty intelligent guy who has watched these mech strategies a lot, and it just doesn't look like its working. As a matter of fact, it isn't working. I don't think it unreasonable to call the strategy bad if nobody is winning with it, and its premise that it is built upon is fundamentally flawed; a timing push meant to hit before broodlords that consistently doesn't hit before broodlords has some problems with it. If you are joe shomo on the latter or MVP in the finals it doesn't matter really, your strategy is bunk, or in the very least your execution isn't working.
But I didn't write the thread to shit on MVP or any of the other best terran in the world! If you can provide some replays of the strategy being perfectly executed I would love to see what it looks like. I am just an esports fan, and I have no problem admitting I don't know very much compared to a progamer.
I def agree with Ver, especially on the point of vikings. When you make lot's of vikings, you are attempting to play zerg at their own game, and you won't win.
When vikings are made they are designed to counter broods, they do nothing else for you, and there is no way for you to transform them into something useful when they are countered by a swell of corruptors that can be made at will. However when zerg makes corruptors and doesn't need them anymore, he can turn them into broods, to serve an entirely different purpose.
I don't see a way to beat zerg with mech without vikings. Unless every one who has played mech in the last code s have all been executing the build wrong, the 16 minute mech timing doesn't work. If terran can't play late game at all with mech vs zerg that it is tempting to say mech doesn't work, or mech as it is being played doesn't work.
On November 15 2012 14:02 mothergoose729 wrote: I don't see a way to beat zerg with mech without vikings. Unless every one who has played mech in the last code s have all been executing the build wrong, the 16 minute mech timing doesn't work. If terran can't play late game at all with mech vs zerg that it is tempting to say mech doesn't work, or mech as it is being played doesn't work.
You're wrong, and you are misunderstanding the point of the mech builds. Re-read Ver's post until you understand.
I feel like a common theme (or, misconception) when observing TvZ games is to look at individual blunders, and then use those blunders to explain away Terran losses. A deeper analysis would show that these mistakes are not always unavoidable pitfalls, but instead, they're artifacts of builds and mindsets that are meant to overcome disadvantages they are already aware of.
To give you an example, we saw Bomber lose to ____ recently (forgot who it was, someone help me - it ended up being 2-3 loss for Bomber, Day9 was commentating) on Antiga shipyard because he repeatedly pushed forward too far past the center watchtower while unsieged, and ended up in unfavorable engagements. The commentators explained it away as the reason for the loss of the game. Was this just Bomber not paying attention? Is Bomber unaware that moving past the middle of the map unsieged is risky? No.
We see players hitting mech timings prior to broodlord without vikings, and oftentimes losing because their timings got delayed and they run into broodlords. Are these players completely unaware of the possibility of losing to broodlords? No.
Terran mistakes in TvZ typically result in outright losses, whereas the margin for mistakes as the Zerg player is higher. My opinion is that the builds and tactics that seem boneheaded to you (i.e. not building vikings, moving past the middle of the map unsieged, etc.) are calculated decisions. The chance of gaining an advantage by your opponent failing to punish your mistake has a higher reward:cost ratio than trying to prolong the game into an unfavorable situation where the odds of you being caught unsieged, getting caught by good fungals, getting caught too high on vikings, getting caught too low on vikings, result in an insta-loss.
Even at pro levels, I'd take the chance that my opponent doesn't have broodlords in time or lets me move up too far before engaging over the chance of avoiding every single insta-loss opportunity that results from extending the game another 15 minutes.
Looking at these individual situations without more context is missing the forest for the trees.
On November 15 2012 14:02 mothergoose729 wrote: I don't see a way to beat zerg with mech without vikings. Unless every one who has played mech in the last code s have all been executing the build wrong, the 16 minute mech timing doesn't work. If terran can't play late game at all with mech vs zerg that it is tempting to say mech doesn't work, or mech as it is being played doesn't work.
You're wrong, and you are misunderstanding the point of the mech builds. Re-read Ver's post until you understand.
Lets aviod attacking the person here (namely me :p). Belittling me is fun but its not very productive.
I read ver posts. I respect his opinion. Maybe mech perfectly played looks very different. If so, for my own sake, I would very much like to see an example of mech perfectly played. Mech as it is currently being played in code s isn't working. Maybe the discussion can shift towards what these players could have done better in their games to make their mech play work?
On November 15 2012 14:14 iEchoic wrote: I feel like a common theme (or, misconception) when observing TvZ games is to look at individual blunders, and then use those blunders to explain away Terran losses. A deeper analysis would show that these mistakes are not always unavoidable pitfalls, but instead, they're artifacts of builds and mindsets that are meant to overcome disadvantages they are already aware of.
To give you an example, we saw Bomber lose to ____ recently (forgot who it was, someone help me - it ended up being 2-3 loss for Bomber, Day9 was commentating) on Antiga shipyard because he repeatedly pushed forward too far past the center watchtower while unsieged, and ended up in unfavorable engagements. The commentators explained it away as the reason for the loss of the game. Was this just Bomber not paying attention? Is Bomber unaware that moving past the middle of the map unsieged is risky? No.
We see players hitting mech timings prior to broodlord without vikings, and oftentimes losing because their timings got delayed and they run into broodlords. Are these players completely unaware of the possibility of losing to broodlords? No.
Terran mistakes in TvZ typically result in outright losses, whereas the margin for mistakes as the Zerg player is higher. My opinion is that the builds and tactics that seem boneheaded to you (i.e. not building vikings, moving past the middle of the map unsieged, etc.) are calculated decisions. The chance of gaining an advantage by your opponent failing to punish your mistake has a higher reward:cost ratio than trying to prolong the game into an unfavorable situation where the odds of you being caught unsieged, getting caught by good fungals, getting caught too high on vikings, getting caught too low on vikings, result in an insta-loss.
Even at pro levels, I'd take the chance that my opponent doesn't have broodlords in time or lets me move up too far before engaging over the chance of avoiding every single insta-loss opportunity that results from extending the game another 15 minutes.
Looking at these individual situations without more context is missing the forest for the trees.
Hey I agree 100% with you. That is exactly what I think is happening with mech right now. The question is, is their strategy off or their execution off? There have been a lot of builds that have gone the way of the dodo, but before they did players lost using them many, many times. Is this mech timing one of those builds?
On November 15 2012 14:02 mothergoose729 wrote: I don't see a way to beat zerg with mech without vikings. Unless every one who has played mech in the last code s have all been executing the build wrong, the 16 minute mech timing doesn't work. If terran can't play late game at all with mech vs zerg that it is tempting to say mech doesn't work, or mech as it is being played doesn't work.
You're wrong, and you are misunderstanding the point of the mech builds. Re-read Ver's post until you understand.
Lets aviod attacking the person here (namely me :p). Belittling me is fun but its not very productive.
I read ver posts. I respect his opinion. Maybe mech perfectly played looks very different. If so, for my own sake, I would very much like to see an example of mech perfectly played. Mech as it is currently being played in code s isn't working. Maybe the discussion can shift towards what these players could have done better in their games to make their mech play work?
This mindset is what makes this topic hard to analyze. Certainly, if "perfect play" was happening on both sides, Terran players wouldn't be caught by broodlords and lose. That's because if "perfect play" was possible, we'd be playing a completely different videogame, one where the most optimal composition in every single matchup is marine/medivac with perfectly-split marines fighting blink stalkers that blink away the second their shields deplete, leaving them invincible.
That's a hyperbolic example, but it illustrates the point that players have millions of inefficiencies per game, ranging from insignificant to game-losing. When you attempt to blame losses on micro mistakes (getting caught by fungal, for example), you end up missing the real lesson.
Pure marine isn't viable because players make mistakes, and creating a composition where bunching up for one second results in a loss isn't sustainable over a 25 minute game, let alone a series of 25 minute games. Marine/tank is a more sustainable version, and mech is a furthermore more sustainable version. Take this logic to its conclusion and you can understand why we see people doing things like 16 minute mech pushes instead of slow-pushing on creep with maxed marine/tank.
I hear way to many commentators saying "oh he caught caught unseiged thats why he lost" but in reality a code s terran isnt stupid and he wasn't "caught". Have you every seen anyone actually leapfrog tanks before or have you done it yourself? It takes at least twice as long and with maps as big as they are these days it takes just too damn long.
On November 15 2012 14:14 iEchoic wrote: I feel like a common theme (or, misconception) when observing TvZ games is to look at individual blunders, and then use those blunders to explain away Terran losses. A deeper analysis would show that these mistakes are not always unavoidable pitfalls, but instead, they're artifacts of builds and mindsets that are meant to overcome disadvantages they are already aware of.
To give you an example, we saw Bomber lose to ____ recently (forgot who it was, someone help me - it ended up being 2-3 loss for Bomber, Day9 was commentating) on Antiga shipyard because he repeatedly pushed forward too far past the center watchtower while unsieged, and ended up in unfavorable engagements. The commentators explained it away as the reason for the loss of the game. Was this just Bomber not paying attention? Is Bomber unaware that moving past the middle of the map unsieged is risky? No.
We see players hitting mech timings prior to broodlord without vikings, and oftentimes losing because their timings got delayed and they run into broodlords. Are these players completely unaware of the possibility of losing to broodlords? No.
Terran mistakes in TvZ typically result in outright losses, whereas the margin for mistakes as the Zerg player is higher. My opinion is that the builds and tactics that seem boneheaded to you (i.e. not building vikings, moving past the middle of the map unsieged, etc.) are calculated decisions. The chance of gaining an advantage by your opponent failing to punish your mistake has a higher reward:cost ratio than trying to prolong the game into an unfavorable situation where the odds of you being caught unsieged, getting caught by good fungals, getting caught too high on vikings, getting caught too low on vikings, result in an insta-loss.
Even at pro levels, I'd take the chance that my opponent doesn't have broodlords in time or lets me move up too far before engaging over the chance of avoiding every single insta-loss opportunity that results from extending the game another 15 minutes.
Looking at these individual situations without more context is missing the forest for the trees.
Hey I agree 100% with you. That is exactly what I think is happening with mech right now. The question is, is their strategy off or their execution off? There have been a lot of builds that have gone the way of the dodo, but before they did players lost using them many, many times. Is this mech timing one of those builds?
I wish I had an answer, but I only have an opinion. I don't believe (and never have believed since the beginning of this game), that a Terran player can do the same build, same timings against an equally-skilled Zerg player every game. The matchup revolves around the ability of the Zerg player to drone/produce army according to what they expect their opponent to be doing. For this reason, I'm not a fan of trying to find "standard" TvZ builds. I actually think the mechanics of the game fundamentally don't support it.
The most successful TvZ strats are the ones that either:
1) Exploit the metagame.and are used in an unpredictable fashion (i.e. MKP's refinery-first hellion/medivac play recently) 2) Are unscoutable (i.e. MVP's GSL finals play where he used the same opening all 7 games, but compositions varied - although that needs more development still, as there are only a couple variations)
My prediction is that, with time, people will realize that "standard" TvZ builds that you can execute exactly the same many times in a series don't work.
I don't think mech will go away, but I think this specific timing will see less and less success as time goes on, for this reason.
You bring up a good point about perfect execution. Perhaps better questions to ask then would be, how come terrans are having such poor success with this build in this match up at this time? This is the discussion I originally wanted to have. Perhaps that point was side tracked or lost at some point by something else I said.
if instead of 3 ocs, what if terran make the 3rd a pf instead. Yes that is bad in the typical sense, but for mech where gas is much more of an issue then minerals when massing those tanks/thors, It would be then MUCH easier and faster to secure the third and gather the gas necessary for the mech timing.
and your mining would not be disrupted by some ling/roach pushes before you get a solid tank defense up that forces you to lift for quite a while
Yeah I don't think mech deathball can straight up win against zerg deathball. I kind of wonder what happens if just a few ghosts get mixed into it though? Although ghosts are resource inefficient, they are only 2 supply.
Secondly, from what I've seen, it looks like mech builds usually win when they do sufficient damage with blue-flame hellions + banshee, OR zerg failed an early pressure attack.
I think that the air transition must be executed at the same time the terran knows zerg is building the greater spire.
The terrans i see building 5 starports when the zerg is morphing his greatspire doesnt seems to have so much problems.
They also expand very aggressively with PF. Their CC are all in their bases.
I dont have any link to show you, but recently Kas did it against golden and it worked nice.
5 starport laboratory can build vikings very fast, and then go for banshees very fast too. And when the terran thinks he can do it, he can build his ravens.
If the terran knows his army will be catch offguard by BL, he should go back, and save time for his vikings by attacking everywhere except where the broodlords are. 3 tanks with 5-10 hellions can do a lot of damages to the bases far from the zerg army. He should also have a ground army to tank the broodlings and the ultra transition with his vikings.
But well, the only problem is fungle, rooting vikings into GG is a big problem. Because the terran can be ready and still loose. He needs to have perfect control, whereas the zerg has to... fungle and transfuse :D Hopefully this will be fixed in some times.
On November 15 2012 12:43 ragz_gt wrote: MKP beat HyuN in game 3 in Ro16 B with a viking anchored aggressively defensive mech timing designed to hit before BL
Hyun did a series of failed overaggressive harasses (muta harass) and attacks (all out roach busts) - despite that, he even managed to break MKP's line eventually. He lost because he just kept making units and recklessly suicided them instead of teching to the "powerful" infestor/BL/corrupter combo.
On November 15 2012 13:35 Ver wrote: I don't want to be mean but this is why they are in code s and you are theorycrafting. They are doing it for a reason, so maybe try to figure out why instead of proposing fairy-tale ideas like purposely trying to fight broodlord/infestor. 9 times out of 10 you can't, which is why people don't try it on stage.
They are playing a strategy which relies on them performing close to perfectly to win, though it works pretty well when they do. In practice, when they can play perfectly, the build works out well. In the nerve-wracking gom booth, when both guys aren't playing perfectly, it does a lot worse because Terran mistakes count for far far more than Zerg ones. But that is something that is extremely hard to understand as a player, so it's natural they keep doing it. And frankly, even with that, it's still one of their best hopes of winning. Maybe they'll be able to overcome nerves and play flawlessly that day. Players have to think that way: it's almost absurd to plan ahead for getting nervous, because that vastly increases the likelihood of it occurring.
For example, when Flash does a similar strategy he is able to truly hit before 15 minutes, not 16 (assuming no Zerg aggression) as he doesn't make those errors. That's how he beat Soo on Metropolis in MvP: he attacked while Soo was hive rushing (off of a muta opening) because Soo didn't think it could that fast, so he was stuck with no lair and no hive army. Earliest broods are going to come at 1530-16 mins, probably 1630-17 if they make enough roaches to appear threatening. In the finals Mvp kept getting delayed due to bad decisions/life playing well. In Ryung vs Curious on Entombed Ryung loses 10 hellions and a banshee to random fungals when marauding around. That in itself almost loses him the game, even though it may not be obvious, because now his push comes later, and Curious makes broodlords in time. Mech has zero margin for error.
They all seem to be going for a 16 minute timing push, and time and time again zerg is always able to reach hive tech and get broodlords, and then mech doesn't have enough vikings, and mech dies.
You seem to be under some kind of illusion that making vikings actually lets you beat broodlords: it doesn't, beyond an extremely narrow timing window against a hive rusher who will have no corruptors for a minute (which, amusingly enough given your post, is what Mvp kept trying to hit in the finals and almost won on entombed had he not clumped his vikings and auto lost to 1 fungal; he also did win on Abyssal with it). Mvp's strat is really quite clever: you ram his support casters away with your excess of tanks; he can't broodling wall because he hasn't reached a critical mass of broods yet, and he has no/few corruptors to morph into broods because he needs broods to kill your ground army, so he loses them all to vikings and you win the game. It's extremely tough to hit but it works.
Outside of that timing, if you're making vikings you've basically already resigned to lose the game unless the Zerg has a seizure and clumps his brood/corruptor against seeker missile (like Soo vs Major on Daybreak from MvP); something which you cannot engineer. And even then, it's still dubious. The Ryung/Curious game where Curious made a horrific error and lost his entire broodlord army and still won 2 minutes later despite Ryung playing incredibly well is the kind of game that happens all the time in practice (except the Zergs are less likely to blunder in that way during practice and thus win even easier).
Calling Mvp's strategy a "shitty strategy" is beyond comprehension. Mvp is the most innovative player by far in the history of the game. Any build he does has very good reasons behind it. Instead of insulting him, learn from him.
This post made me appreciate MVP's innovative ability even more. He's a genius and really would've deserved to win 5 GSLs.
In an LR, I responded to posts of "Yoda makes no vikings" with "MVP telling him not to because vikings will lose to infestor/corrupter/BL anyways". Of course, I got the usual chorus of disapproval because many refuse to face the fact that infestor/corrupter/BL is practically invincible. Now, I've got a strategic authority to link to from now on.
On November 15 2012 15:24 Insoleet wrote: I think that the air transition must be executed at the same time the terran knows zerg is building the greater spire.
The terrans i see building 5 starports when the zerg is morphing his greatspire doesnt seems to have so much problems.
They also expand very aggressively with PF. Their CC are all in their bases.
I dont have any link to show you, but recently Kas did it against golden and it worked nice.
5 starport laboratory can build vikings very fast, and then go for banshees very fast too. And when the terran thinks he can do it, he can build his ravens.
If the terran knows his army will be catch offguard by BL, he should go back, and save time for his vikings by attacking everywhere except where the broodlords are. 3 tanks with 5-10 hellions can do a lot of damages to the bases far from the zerg army. He should also have a ground army to tank the broodlings and the ultra transition with his vikings.
But well, the only problem is fungle, rooting vikings into GG is a big problem. Because the terran can be ready and still loose. He needs to have perfect control, whereas the zerg has to... fungle and transfuse :D Hopefully this will be fixed in some times.
the whole point is that you will lose 100% with vikings vs infestor corruptor... so they have to kill zerg before that happens
On November 15 2012 15:24 Insoleet wrote: I think that the air transition must be executed at the same time the terran knows zerg is building the greater spire.
The terrans i see building 5 starports when the zerg is morphing his greatspire doesnt seems to have so much problems.
They also expand very aggressively with PF. Their CC are all in their bases.
I dont have any link to show you, but recently Kas did it against golden and it worked nice.
5 starport laboratory can build vikings very fast, and then go for banshees very fast too. And when the terran thinks he can do it, he can build his ravens.
If the terran knows his army will be catch offguard by BL, he should go back, and save time for his vikings by attacking everywhere except where the broodlords are. 3 tanks with 5-10 hellions can do a lot of damages to the bases far from the zerg army. He should also have a ground army to tank the broodlings and the ultra transition with his vikings.
But well, the only problem is fungle, rooting vikings into GG is a big problem. Because the terran can be ready and still loose. He needs to have perfect control, whereas the zerg has to... fungle and transfuse :D Hopefully this will be fixed in some times.
ok say you turtle and get a bunch of vikings.. (that are probably behind in upgrades in the first place?) what are you going to do with your air to air army once he remaxes on ultra bane infestor
On November 15 2012 15:24 Insoleet wrote: I think that the air transition must be executed at the same time the terran knows zerg is building the greater spire.
The terrans i see building 5 starports when the zerg is morphing his greatspire doesnt seems to have so much problems.
They also expand very aggressively with PF. Their CC are all in their bases.
I dont have any link to show you, but recently Kas did it against golden and it worked nice.
5 starport laboratory can build vikings very fast, and then go for banshees very fast too. And when the terran thinks he can do it, he can build his ravens.
If the terran knows his army will be catch offguard by BL, he should go back, and save time for his vikings by attacking everywhere except where the broodlords are. 3 tanks with 5-10 hellions can do a lot of damages to the bases far from the zerg army. He should also have a ground army to tank the broodlings and the ultra transition with his vikings.
But well, the only problem is fungle, rooting vikings into GG is a big problem. Because the terran can be ready and still loose. He needs to have perfect control, whereas the zerg has to... fungle and transfuse :D Hopefully this will be fixed in some times.
ok say you turtle and get a bunch of vikings.. (that are probably behind in upgrades in the first place?) what are you going to do with your air to air army once he remaxes on ultra bane infestor
this discussion is as ancient as it goes...
at this point usually someone jokes:"lift and land, lift and land, lift..."
Brood/festor/corrupters isn't an invincible composition, but to beat it you have to abandon the 3 base mech push that most people go for and start transitioning into ravens at like... 12-14 mins with the thinnest possible amount of tanks and thors and so on. This is what MVP did on ohana in IEM Koln and it was actually kind of neat (he did something kind of similar on metropolis a few times too, except with huge continuous harassment with marines in medivacs). But I feel it's very difficult to do on most maps, because Zerg have an awful lot of ways to nibble away at terran. Ohana is very cramped, Zerg will only get 5 base and so will terran. So it's extremely limited how a late late game will play out which is what this strategy is aiming for and for how much nibbling he can do.
Compare to a map like Whirlwind which is extremely huge and there's far too much ground to defend, Terran can only cover so much. And what they don't secure the Zerg will mine, and cover in crawlers and other fun stuff.
OP has a fair point that it does appear that Zergs have adapted to the current mech trend and that Terrans are going to have to mix it up a little. It's just that the criticisms for what they have to do are, well, wrong.
On November 15 2012 16:21 iaguz wrote: Brood/festor/corrupters isn't an invincible composition, but to beat it you have to abandon the 3 base mech push that most people go for and start transitioning into ravens at like... 12-14 mins with the thinnest possible amount of tanks and thors and so on. This is what MVP did on ohana in IEM Koln and it was actually kind of neat (he did something kind of similar on metropolis a few times too, except with huge continuous harassment with marines in medivacs). But I feel it's very difficult to do on most maps, because Zerg have an awful lot of ways to nibble away at terran. Ohana is very cramped, Zerg will only get 5 base and so will terran. So it's extremely limited how a late late game will play out which is what this strategy is aiming for and for how much nibbling he can do.
Compare to a map like Whirlwind which is extremely huge and there's far too much ground to defend, Terran can only cover so much. And what they don't secure the Zerg will mine, and cover in crawlers and other fun stuff.
OP has a fair point that it does appear that Zergs have adapted to the current mech trend and that Terrans are going to have to mix it up a little. It's just that the criticisms for what they have to do are, well, wrong.
Problem with the early raven transition is that if the zergs see it. They can either punish you with a max roach/infestor/drop bust or double expand and take the map. Ravens just take so long to build up (starport + tech lab + raven build time + energy build up). Once they have 5 bases, they can just trade and remax.
So basically you are hoping the zerg does not know about your transition and will play passive.
Like said above me, the reason zergs have been getting broodlords out and winning is because the terran is essentially all inning to hit before they come out (and I understand why pros do this). That's what the build is based around, and if the broodlords come out the terran has little to fall back on.
I'm not convinced terran is as hopeless super late game as so many people like to suggest. Thor/viking/raven with a few tanks (please don't overmake them when broodlords are on the field...) and hellions does fairly well against it as long as you didn't clump everything up- as said the tough part is getting there in good shape and the tech switch. However, if the zerg is able to max out on bl/corr/infestor and loses that, they can remax with an ultra based composition maybe once, and while difficult, I think it can be held (at which point the terran starts growing stronger relative to zerg because ultras are garbage if the terran maxes out).
I'm not saying this is the absolute answer, maybe terran should just have 0% winrate while we wait for david kim to solve this, but I rarely see terrans play this way as they typically open bio or go for the pre-bl mech push and I'd like to see it explored further.
The blue post on page one pretty much nailed it. When you don't allow the Zerg to delay you with run bys and little attacks, the timing works out pretty flawlessly. It hits you right when your broods are morphing, your 5th base gas has probably been delayed by hellions/banshees (assuming you don't lose them derping around the map), and so you can only morph maybe 5-6 broods and have 1-3 corruptors remaining.
Your Infestor count is also lowered since you pretty much had to make a bunch of roaches to appear like you can put on aggression if the Terran is being super greedy, so your fungals aren't that many. With a proper Viking split, on Entombed, MVP probably wins his 5th GSL. He's not doing that push because he's in auto pilot mech 15 min push mode, he does it because it really works.
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Can they buff Ravens, again? I think a decrease in build time is in order... and something to make them useful against Ultras would be nice too. BL --> Ultra --> BL is just too ridiculous against mech, and I'm a Zerg player, lol.
i think one fundamental mech problem appears once the game hits the "zerg tech-switch" stage. I don't remember which game of the ro16 it was, but it was a mech tvz on entombed, where the terran player played really well, and even managed to kill a brood/infestor army very efficiently , but then lost to a (18) ultralisk switch.
I think if zerg techswitches that hard , even theoretically it isn't really possible for mech to answer it, because the necessary thor production you need to fight ultralisks is just to slow. One important thing for the zerg for that tech switching to work is a really strong economy throughout the game, though.
Which also is the second problem mech runs into, because i think the game, if none of the players makes a really huge error, comes down to how many drones you can kill. If the terran player is not able to kill a huge amount of drones, you don't really have a timing window for your push to work, and the zergs bank is way too high which will enable him to tech-switch as he wants, which i don't think mech has an answer to.
I really feel like most mech tvz's get decided purely by how many drones you kill, because you that gives you the needed timing window for your big push to do dmg and/or prevents ultra/brood switches. Which in the end means that it's on the zerg's early/mid game defense if you win or lose the game, which i don't like at all.
And nothing against MvP's mech build, it was innovative and great, but i feel like the better the zergs deal with the drone harass the more the build will fade out. With Marine/tank, like Bomber did at LSC, i feel like it's really up to you if you win or lose. It comes down how you execute your pushes after you max out on three bases, and you always have the option to kind of avoid the zerg deathball and pull him out of position. The extremely slowness of zerg lategame armies is something mech doesn't abuse at all, and that combined with the things mentioned above is why i think marine/tank in the end is superior to mech.
On November 16 2012 00:04 Nyxisto wrote: i think one fundamental mech problem appears once the game hits the "zerg tech-switch" stage. I don't remember which game of the ro16 it was, but it was a mech tvz on entombed, where the terran player played really well, and even managed to kill a brood/infestor army very efficiently , but then lost to a (18) ultralisk switch.
I think if zerg techswitches that hard , even theoretically it isn't really possible for mech to answer it, because the necessary thor production you need to fight ultralisks is just to slow. One important thing for the zerg for that tech switching to work is a really strong economy throughout the game, though.
Which also is the second problem mech runs into, because i think the game, if none of the players makes a really huge error, comes down to how many drones you can kill. If the terran player is not able to kill a huge amount of drones, you don't really have a timing window for your push to work, and the zergs bank is way too high which will enable him to tech-switch as he wants, which i don't think mech has an answer to.
I really feel like most mech tvz's get decided purely by how many drones you kill, because you that gives you the needed timing window for your big push to do dmg and/or prevents ultra/brood switches. Which in the end means that it's on the zerg's early/mid game defense if you win or lose the game, which i don't like at all.
And nothing against MvP's mech build, it was innovative and great, but i feel like the better the zergs deal with the drone harass the more the build will fade out. With Marine/tank, like Bomber did at LSC, i feel like it's really up to you if you win or lose. It comes down how you execute your pushes after you max out on three bases, and you always have the option to kind of avoid the zerg deathball and pull him out of position. The extremely slowness of zerg lategame armies is something mech doesn't abuse at all, and that combined with the things mentioned above is why i think marine/tank in the end is superior to mech.
u meant the ryung curious game 3 recently. yeah mech kinda sucks since zerg have the stronger "mech" (gglord+winfestor), which if it fails can still tech switch easily to ultras and back at will
I'm reluctant to play mech vZ until there is an infestor nerf. Air dominance is an integral part of mech in BW and SC2 vT, but broodlord/infestor/queen is so powerful. It's good to see players like Gumiho and Yoda trying to push for this with the mass viking style, tank drops, multi-pronged attacks, etc. I also love what Bomber is trying to do: ghosts as an alternative to ravens.
in my mind mech will eventually get to the point in WoL that it is in TvP where people just realize that MMM is better and you sacrifice a lot of built in timings you can pressure the zerg during by going mech to where its just really not worth it. you sacrifice a stim + medivacs and hellion push at 9 min with min with reactor hellion openings and the 2/2 bio tank timing. if zerg sees mech pretty early they can beat your prehive timing every time with a huge swell of units and infested terran eggs, or by counter attacking while they wait for broods. the post on the first page by "ver" is very accurate too, there is not really space in modern mech builds to start committing to raven/viking production until you have 5 bases up, 4 at the very minimum. even then, you're rolling the dice by not slamming out as many tanks as you possibly can. Its pretty much gotten to the point to where, you can hit a great critical mass of tanks at around 13-14 ish minutes and you have to start moving out around then and push. if youre too delayed (muta, something like that, runby) you can lose your whole timing and it's better to just sit back, harass with hellions and add in vikings/ravens slowly. if they manage to get 15 min broodlords out though, and you are forced into playing defensively i pretty much consider that an unwinnable situation. if the hive is not done at 13ish minutes in a modern mech zvt they are making mistakes anyways and deserve to lose. its just a matter of when everything lines up and how much of an advantage you can gain in the early-midgame
I saw a game recently where Thorzain beat Slivko with Marine-Tank into an Air transition with Ghost support. He EMP'd Slivko's Infesters and rolled over Slivko's air army. It got me thinking, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe that PDD stops all Zerg AA except the Infested Terran. Why haven't more pros been using Ghosts against Infesters? Or am I just not watching the correct games?
edit: Here's a vod of that game from IPL caster search submissions. Game starts at 0:16.
On November 19 2012 13:38 Cydearrm wrote: I saw a game recently where Thorzain beat Slivko with Marine-Tank into an Air transition with Ghost support. He EMP'd Slivko's Infesters and rolled over Slivko's air army. It got me thinking, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe that PDD stops all Zerg AA except the Infested Terran. Why haven't more pros been using Ghosts against Infesters? Or am I just not watching the correct games?
You're not really reading the above then...pros are trying to hit a timing before broodlords come out or become too powerful WITH MECH. For the same cost early on, why not just get a tank?
With marine tank however, ghosts actually benefit from the upgrades and you already have the infrastructure to build a lot
Extremely perfect post Ver. I realize you must be a tourny player at some level reading that post because the problems with mech that you bring up are mainly tournament play problems and I can see them as a player that enters tournys alot and I 100% appreciate the clarity you bring with your statements in that light.
On November 19 2012 13:38 Cydearrm wrote: I saw a game recently where Thorzain beat Slivko with Marine-Tank into an Air transition with Ghost support. He EMP'd Slivko's Infesters and rolled over Slivko's air army. It got me thinking, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe that PDD stops all Zerg AA except the Infested Terran. Why haven't more pros been using Ghosts against Infesters? Or am I just not watching the correct games?
balance aside, mech has to be used as a timing attack is just so wrong and show how broken the game is. Mech is supposed to be able to go toe to toe with Z or P's late game army since its so hard to build the army.
Terran has a pretty hard time against everything at the moment. WCS just confirmed that. 4 Terrans made it into the tournament, none passed past RO16. Well I just lose interest in SC2 in general. Blizzard seems unable to balance that game. In the beginning Zerg was a joke and T just crushed them early on. Thanks to some balancing, now the games last +20 Minutes and T has no answer to any late game in TvP or TvZ. Well, thanks god there are other games out there to be played. Blizzard already ruined WoW and Diablo, so why shouldn't they be able to do the same to Sc2?
I'm personally in the boat with LastShadow on this one: "Mech is more viable in TvP than TvZ". I've played a little terran mech here and there, and the biggest problem mech faces is that zerg has so many options that are almost instantly available that it's hard to just REACH the lategame. While the zerg player is doing these tech switches between mutas/roach drops/ling runbys, they're able to slowly pull ahead and get BLs up in time for any big push, which means that unless mech manages to hit the perfect timing, it's very difficult to win.
And then, zerg has options in the lategame that are available almost instantly. The BL -> ultra switch is by far the most brutal tech switch. Once your mech army has lost all of it's big, expensive units like tanks and thors, zerg can just remax on ultra/ling and run over your composition. All that being said, mech is fragile composition that requires just the right components in order to deal with certain compositions, and with zerg being able to switch through tech constantly, mech just can't keep up. I might argue that to some degree in TvP as well, although protoss can't tech switch QUITE as easily.
Best solution to this problem: Terran needs better space control through tanks. I'm all for increasing the siege time for damage or giving tank a lategame upgrade. I think tanks really need to be able to decimate ground armies better with smaller numbers. This allows terrans to spend less into tanks and more into the more variant components of their compositions (mostly BFH/vikings), as well as allowing terran to better control space in lategame situations on big maps. I know Widow Mines in HotS are supposed to be helping with these things, but I honestly think that the best thing that could happen to terran is just a straight up tank buff in some capacity.
Another big problem mech has versus zergs is dealing with air units... vP, carriers are directly countered by Ghosts + BC (Yamato + EMP is really powerful), VR are killed by thors/Seeker Missile/Turrets/Yamato, and storm/archons are easily dodged (and stalkers get denied by PDD or tanks). vZ, you need a lot of vAir dps in order to kill BL before they kill your whole ground army, and you have to do so while also dealing with corruptors (which, in direct fights, are superior to vikings and makes BCs useless without 20 ravens behind them) and fungal (which forces direct fights... and weakens your vikings).
(vZ only) Buffing tanks would of course help a lot versus the ground, but actually a good mech army can handle everything on the ground (well..at least one wave. the 2nd can easily kill you if you dont dont adapt well enough to what he's going to produce) but air is really the problem... Corruptors > vikings, Broodlords > anything on the ground, and infestors makes everything worse.
Vikings are really good against corrupters, but you need raven and thors to support (raven for PDD) and Thors for the splash when they clump. I really don't know why most pros are trying to use hunterseeker (I personally find it way too coinflippy and it's generally decided by how bad your opponent is, not how good you are). I guess it comes from going into air from bio, but when playing mech I keep both my air and ground attack upgrades for mech going from the beginning of the game. Armor in all seriousness isn't that useful with mech until you head past the initial "can I survive his broodlords" attack and if you get enough tanks and place them well enough, an ultra switch shouldn't ever be able to kill you.
I'm not a grandmasters level player, but I honestlly think the reason why terran mech against zerg works so badly at a pro level is that they're trying to be too efficient with mech and skimping out on the things that makes it powerful. MVP for example usually opens with hellions to hurass, but oftentimes just dies to mass roaches as he tries to build more thors than tanks and tries to push out. Although it seems silly I think pushing out against zerg before hive as mech is a really silly thing to do. It's much better to "whether the storm" while hurassing his sattelite bases with hellions than it is to run straight into a massive roach wall.
With the maps we currently have in the map pool it's really, really easy to secure 4 bases with mech most of the time if you spread and position carefully and no matter how you actually push the zerg, you're never going to kill them before broodlords if they're anywhere above Platinum (if you're using mech which doesn't revolve around a massive thor timing push) as zerg really can outmaneuver and force bad engagements with a mech army thanks to ITs.
I'm honestly not sure why people see the thor better than the tank in most situations in WOL, It just simply isn't the case. Even against broodlords it's a lot better to have a lot of tanks than it is to have thors as although the thor can shoot up, it barely does any damage and although the tank does splash damage to your other tanks/hellions, your high tank count still completely stops his infestors running straight at you and dumping ITs or fungal onto your air units.
On November 15 2012 13:46 mothergoose729 wrote: Hey I don't claim to be an expert. If flash can hit the same timing one minute ealier then maybe there is hope for the strategy. I am a pretty intelligent guy who has watched these mech strategies a lot, and it just doesn't look like its working. As a matter of fact, it isn't working. I don't think it unreasonable to call the strategy bad if nobody is winning with it, and its premise that it is built upon is fundamentally flawed; a timing push meant to hit before broodlords that consistently doesn't hit before broodlords has some problems with it. If you are joe shomo on the latter or MVP in the finals it doesn't matter really, your strategy is bunk, or in the very least your execution isn't working.
But I didn't write the thread to shit on MVP or any of the other best terran in the world! If you can provide some replays of the strategy being perfectly executed I would love to see what it looks like. I am just an esports fan, and I have no problem admitting I don't know very much compared to a progamer.
Mothergoose, thanks for the post. I read all the responses in this forum, even Lynna, who has been a huge mech advocate and has many good guides on the TL forums. For the most part I take a middle ground between your opinion and Ver's. You both have many good points: You are able to back up the problem with clear (undeniable) statistics, while Ver has more experience and knowledge about these tactics first hand.
I'm a high masters player that only plays mech against all races (yes, even Toss). Do I think TvZ bio can ensure a higher win rate for me? Yes. But I choose not to play it for two reasons. 1) My APM is not has high as some at my level so I think mech is a better alternative for me. 2) Even though mech (arguably) requires less APM, it requires more cerebral and tactical thinking. Constant scanning to view the Zerg army position, composition and tech level is critical or you will probably die. Most bio TvZ is successfull because the Terran generally finds success by constant drop harass: They are keeping Zerg on the defense, whereas the opposite is true with Mech. There is a reason why GoOdy can win against a Zerg with 250 APM versus his 90 APM with mech: He uses a more tactical and positional approach and his game sense is one of the best out there (in my opinion) regarding tech switches. It is sad to see many GM Terrans go on autopilot most of the time with bio TvZ. My analogy: If whitera were a Terran I think he would play mech.
Conclusion: With all this being said. Which is better? Mech or Bio? I would say mech is superior to Bio TvZ; however, like Ver mentioned you have to play mech "perfectly." So this is an alternative a lot less forgiving than Bio. If you are a player who gets easily nervous, distracted or have trouble with Zerg timings and general game sense then mech probably is not for you. Many player compensate for some of these shortcomings with APM, which is great! Each player needs to decide for themselves their strengths and weaknesses and not simply go mech or bio because everyone else is doing it.
On November 15 2012 14:27 FinalForm wrote: I hear way to many commentators saying "oh he caught caught unseiged thats why he lost" but in reality a code s terran isnt stupid and he wasn't "caught". Have you every seen anyone actually leapfrog tanks before or have you done it yourself? It takes at least twice as long and with maps as big as they are these days it takes just too damn long.
Yes, perhaps. The thing we aren't all realizing is that Code S players play at such a high level, one mistake can cost you the game. Sure, if you leave a Zerg alone and let him get Brood/Infestor, you will lose with Mech. This is why Terrans must leapfrog across the map and be at the zerg's front door by the time his greater spire just started.
Constant scans are also nice, it's important to keep tabs on the Zerg to see when his Greater Spire will start. As anyone can tell you, a timing push when the zerg has corruptors building is almost 100% winrate for the terran (or protoss!). This is where I get confused. Terran builds up a lot of minerals in the late game. Naturally, this is because Mech is gas-focused. The only way to dump that is into hellions (they start become worse and worse as the game goes on, though they are good damage-sponges if ultralisks come into play) or you can dump it into Orbital Commands, which we see a lot of Terrans do.
When you invest into a lot of Orbital Commands, you have two choices: 1. MULES 2. Scans
With MULES, you probably won't need minerals since mech is so gas-focused, but Scans provide, essentially, a maphack for the terran. If terran gets to a point where they have 8 orbital commands, they can constantly scan and see when the Greater Spire starts.
I also want to point out that yes, Terran can get caught unsieged and lose. The same can be said for Zerg. The Zerg can be caught clumped up and seeker missiles can destroy him. We see Terrans DESTROY Zerg armies with Seeker Missiles, but then we see Stephano split and crush the terran with 100 supply over his opponent.
I suppose it all depends on micro, but it can be argued that the Zerg lategame favors Terran. This is because Zerg has the remax effect. So, the entire time you're getting ready to kill Brood Lords, the Zerg can instantly remax on Ultralisks. Ultralisks are actually pretty good vs Thors, and the Ravens suddenly become useless.
On December 02 2012 00:46 Qikz wrote: Vikings are really good against corrupters, but you need raven and thors to support (raven for PDD) and Thors for the splash when they clump. I really don't know why most pros are trying to use hunterseeker (I personally find it way too coinflippy and it's generally decided by how bad your opponent is, not how good you are). I guess it comes from going into air from bio, but when playing mech I keep both my air and ground attack upgrades for mech going from the beginning of the game. Armor in all seriousness isn't that useful with mech until you head past the initial "can I survive his broodlords" attack and if you get enough tanks and place them well enough, an ultra switch shouldn't ever be able to kill you.
Actually vikings are awful against corruptors, thors and ravens are awful against corruptors unless they clump as well.
I'm not a grandmasters level player, but I honestlly think the reason why terran mech against zerg works so badly at a pro level is that they're trying to be too efficient with mech and skimping out on the things that makes it powerful. MVP for example usually opens with hellions to hurass, but oftentimes just dies to mass roaches as he tries to build more thors than tanks and tries to push out. Although it seems silly I think pushing out against zerg before hive as mech is a really silly thing to do. It's much better to "whether the storm" while hurassing his sattelite bases with hellions than it is to run straight into a massive roach wall.
mech works badly at pro level because zerg hive units are infinitely better than mech and mech revolves around hitting a pre-hive timing, not because the terrans are stupid and playing bad. when harass is successful or zerg doesn't hive rush (roach max old school style) then tanks work out okay. did you watch MVP vs Life? He had like 17+ tanks dying to bls with enough vikings to count on one hand. what is this playing against zerg is a really silly thing to do.
With the maps we currently have in the map pool it's really, really easy to secure 4 bases with mech most of the time if you spread and position carefully and no matter how you actually push the zerg, you're never going to kill them before broodlords if they're anywhere above Platinum (if you're using mech which doesn't revolve around a massive thor timing push) as zerg really can outmaneuver and force bad engagements with a mech army thanks to ITs.
It's also really easy to secure 4 bases with zerg and bls are good.
I'm honestly not sure why people see the thor better than the tank in most situations in WOL, It just simply isn't the case. Even against broodlords it's a lot better to have a lot of tanks than it is to have thors as although the thor can shoot up, it barely does any damage and although the tank does splash damage to your other tanks/hellions, your high tank count still completely stops his infestors running straight at you and dumping ITs or fungal onto your air units.
thats not how it works at all, a fleet of bls will just spawn a wall of broodlings and completely wipe out your tank line. Infestors will do whatever they want. Only an idiot zerg with awful micro will lose infestors to tanks like this when bls are out(sadly this happens a lot).
Calling Mvp's strategy a "shitty strategy" is beyond comprehension. Mvp is the most innovative player by far in the history of the game. Any build he does has very good reasons behind it. Instead of insulting him, learn from him.
This. It wasn't like MVP's strat were stupid. More like Life made him so uncomfortable with constant waves of aggression or harassment that it was hard for him to tell how much Life committed on these attacks, making it very hard to judge when broodlords were coming. I will agree though that he could've made a couple more Thors in his composition XD
Vikings definitely are not good against corruptors, and lose in a direct fight. Corruptors are faster than vikings, and are supported by much stronger splash that is harder to micro against (fungal) than vikings have. Trying to go vikings against infestor/BL/corruptor is an uphill battle.
Look, to all the people who are disagreeing with Ver, basically a mech timing relies on hitting before the impenetrable zerg superball starts rolling. Corruptors are simply better than vikings, Seeker missiles are eminently dodgable, and fungal growth coupled with broodlings (lots of them) preventing easy marine run-forwards and forcing tank unsieges make for a truly terrifying combination. It's not impossible to win if Terran has a big advantage going in, but this is not a situation Terran can deal with.
IM-Mvp is one of those pros who in addition to having all the expertise and skills of a progamer, is unbelievably intelligent. His mech is righteous and it doesn't have obvious holes or problems in it that someone like you or I would be able to see. In the same way that as a gold league player I understood I couldn't theorycraft or understand what a master league player is doing, I have the respect and humility not to go and say that all the Code S Terrans, the best players in the world, are overlooking something. They're so many levels above me that it's not reasonable to say that.
This is a good discussion though. There's not too much I can actually add because Ver is just so right.
The problem is that terran mistakes are punished by first locking the units in question down completely and then sieging them from range. A terran has no such mechanism for punishing a zerg because infestors are that damn strong. When you've got a caster unit which only gets stronger the more you have of it (ghosts and high templar do not have this property, ghosts are only strong against a very specific protoss army which is chargelot/HT heavy) and can literally hold bases by itself, you've got an issue.
Simply put, massing infestors needs to be far more of a risk than it is right now. There are a number of subtle ways to do this but I'm going to leave that to other people.
On December 02 2012 14:44 KawaiiRice wrote: Actually vikings are awful against corruptors, thors and ravens are awful against corruptors unless they clump as well.
Well when I started watching your youtube channel ages ago I never thought I'd get a response from you anywhere, but I see what you're saying in all aspects and agree mostly, However I do honestly believe if you can use enough PDDs (say from about 4 ravens each throwing one down), the fight between corrupters and vikings isn't all that favoured towards the corrupters. Without PDD though I'd say that vikings get owned by corrupters as you can never really "retreat" with your air units, same goes for void rays. carriers and battlecruisers. Corrupters if anything are probably the best AtA in the game.
I think the biggest issue in viking/corrupter battles I've seen happen in pro games (especially when the pro goes for Ravens as well like Bomber? I think it was this IPL on metropolis) is the fact they always go for Hunter Seeker and rarely for PDD. PDD I would personally say is certainly a necessity against zerg air due to the power of corrupters. It may not last super long, but it still gives your vikings a chance to kill a few extra of them before they start damaging you and atleast unlike Hunter Seeker which relies on the zerg being an idiot, PDD guarentees some extra damage.
People use seeker because it can end a battle quickly, with pdd it takes rather long in which free units and fungals will just own you. You might win the air battle but all your ground army is gone and your air army is heavily damaged in which you will just die to 10 ultra and 2000k ling tech switch.
On December 02 2012 14:44 KawaiiRice wrote: Actually vikings are awful against corruptors, thors and ravens are awful against corruptors unless they clump as well.
Well when I started watching your youtube channel ages ago I never thought I'd get a response from you anywhere, but I see what you're saying in all aspects and agree mostly, However I do honestly believe if you can use enough PDDs (say from about 4 ravens each throwing one down), the fight between corrupters and vikings isn't all that favoured towards the corrupters. Without PDD though I'd say that vikings get owned by corrupters as you can never really "retreat" with your air units, same goes for void rays. carriers and battlecruisers. Corrupters if anything are probably the best AtA in the game.
I think the biggest issue in viking/corrupter battles I've seen happen in pro games (especially when the pro goes for Ravens as well like Bomber? I think it was this IPL on metropolis) is the fact they always go for Hunter Seeker and rarely for PDD. PDD I would personally say is certainly a necessity against zerg air due to the power of corrupters. It may not last super long, but it still gives your vikings a chance to kill a few extra of them before they start damaging you and atleast unlike Hunter Seeker which relies on the zerg being an idiot, PDD guarentees some extra damage.
Corrupters beat vikings not because they do too much damage, but because they live forever. Placing down PDDs doesn't help you kill corruptors or (more importantly) brood lords. Corruptors just piggy back on the damage of fungals to finish off vikings, and serve as a constant "air shield" for BLs.
Also, you can always run away from PDDs. Since you're trying to delay a death push, the Zerg has PLENTY of room to back up.
Yeah, PDD aren't a good answer. Of course they allows your vikings to survive versus corruptors, but the problem is that they'll still be taking damage from fungal and infested terrans, and broodlords will continue to destroy your ground force. So basically, PDD doesnt even make sure you can win the air battle (because of fungal/IT damage, and corruptors being super tank), but also, it means your ground army will take even more damage This is basically why HSM is used more than PDD : because you want to end the fight quickly, before BL killed all your ground force, and before fungal/IT destroyed all your air
On November 15 2012 12:24 mothergoose729 wrote: I looked over the round of 32 and round of 16 groups A and B and compiled the result, thus far code s terrans have tried mech 16 times, 17 times if you count game 1 of life vs 8thTeamBaby. Of those fifteen or sixteen games terrans have won with mech exactly three times, giving the strategy about a 25% winrate.
3 out of 12 is 25%. ( 1/4 ) 3 out of 15 is 20%. ( 1/5 ) 3 out of 16 and 3 out out 17 are not the same thing.
I'm a statistics student,and my blood froze when i read that 25%,nothing personal.Just get the math straight before publishing,this is not even statistics.
And feel free to temp bann me,but this thread will not ever been resolved acting like it's not a balance issue.
Sorry,I'm tired of pretending,like everybody else,that ZvP and ZvT are balanced matches.They are not unbalanced up until VERY HIGH level;discussing it as a plat/dia/even mid master player is pointless.So in this case,where we see the best of the best play,it becomes an issue.And sorry,but whoever doesn't have the balls to open this can of worms,is just a hypocrith.
-Nearly 50% of the GM's are zergs,EU and NA servers. -IPL/GSL/MLG finals = ZvZ -WCS had top 3 protosses,true.The event had a qualification which took place 8 months ago,and the actually ''good'' zergs were not present.And yet,some zergs which were not even top 10 in the world,knocked out top tier players of other races. -Currently Terran has an average of 31% winrate on pro level against zerg.(IPL5 Source,feel free to check the math by yourselves)
Reading that MVP used a ''shitty'' strategy actually makes me extremely sad.Don't you think that he knows exactly what the best strategy will be?The one with the highest win %,if executed properly?You are suggesting that the matchup is getting stagnant,which may be.If it wasn't for the months of theorycrafting P and T made to actually find a consistent way to counter zerg.And pros know it.Zergs know it,protosses know it,terrans know it.
Rather then this,the blue posts pretty much nailed your point.
And I'm sorry if this may sound a whining reply,a flaming reply,or any of that kind.I am simply stating that the answer to why mech 'fails' and why all pros keep on relying on it is as logical as it can get : mech is the best way to deal with the current state of the ZvP matchup.This speaks volumes.
Now feel free to ban me,only because I'm stating something that we all know,and that is supported by data,facts,and is apropo to the thread.
EPT
