[L][D]HotS Terran Mech Resources/Q&A - Page 20

On October 23 2013 16:35 llIH wrote:
I think it is way more interesting to discuss how to mech vs Protoss! :D

Mech versus Protoss is, compared to vs Z/T, really light in the Tanks, in my opinion. You start building tanks slowly but steadilly early on but spend most of your time getting something that slaughters Archons/Immortals.

On October 23 2013 16:35 llIH wrote:
I think it is way more interesting to discuss how to mech vs Protoss! :D

On October 23 2013 18:01 AlaxWayLaxed wrote:


Your right about the tank count. You don't want to over commit building tanks through out the game. having 7-10 end game is ideal (imo) as it gives your army the ability to do real strong contains giving you the ability to pick where the engagement happens which is a huge advantage for mech. Then having ghosts/vikings/ravens/thors and hellbats in the right amounts to counter the protoss army with good upgrades and you will be able to take favourable trades against toss quite easily allowing you to draw out the match and out trade the toss.

I remember reading a tip from one of the pro's threads about mech in tvp. Never go over 170 without identifying what the enemy army is made up of. You want to spend the last spare supply you have on key units to counter the toss army. Also knowing when you can sacrifice workers is good. Being able to drop your worker count to around 30-40 and rely on mules for the rest of your inc (want to have about 5+ orbitals before sacrificeing workers).

On October 23 2013 18:15 Sissors wrote:

I prefer discussing mech vs Zerg, much more of a problem for me .

Also if I look at where Happy beat Nerchio. He made the ideal counter to ling/muta, and still his pushed got quite well hold off, and that was with Nerchio not having great economy from what I saw. But that was also pure thor/hellbat. Pretty much everytime I try that the moment my enemy scouts it he doesn't continue making mutas, but goes either for mass roaches or swarmhosts. However Nerchio only very late went for roaches, and completely ignored swarmhosts while Happy was really low on tank count.
And easy with observer view, but the fourth of Happy could have taken out so many times. Only defense was that it was a PF. Then add Nerchio way overproducing corruptors, and really I wonder how Happy would have done against an opponent who would have played against the weaknesses of mech.
I think Nerchio didn't identfy the Mech in time and was kinda dead before he knew it.

Regarding toss I strongly prefer ghosts over ravens. Ghosts do at least reasonable against HTs, instead of being hardcountered by them. And they can just fire on max range, while if you do it with ravens the toss will just walk back a bit. Then HSM is delayed (especially because you can't fire immediatly), and doesn't work against archons (yeah it does damage of course, but only little).
I do take generally two or so ravens with me, for detection and PDDs. And of course if you go ravens over ghosts you are better against tempests. Although worse against the accompanying HTs.

On October 23 2013 23:14 SC2Toastie wrote:
The difference is EMP being instant and not lethal, so you can really gauge what happens.
HSM can kill stuff, quite fast, and because it is not instant, Protoss has some really quick decisions to make.

Regardless, both units fulfill the same purpose, the raven is more expensive but has more utility, IMO, the Ghost on the other hand is easier to get but limited to EMP only.

On October 25 2013 17:14 Sissors wrote:
Okay, question from me related to TvZ.

Currently I am trying blue flame hellion openings, and doing quite reasonable with the openings themselves. I feel I need to keep my macro more up at the same time, but thats for myself to practise on. My first issue is that I feel I am throwing a dice, if he opens roaches I guess I will immediatly lose. Although I lose anyway to roach openers since with them I cant do early damage, and then I always lose vs zerg. What do others do who mech then? A timing push? But if he doesn't just opens roaches, but actually goes blindly for a shitload of roaches, he will go straight through any timing push you can do. Hellbat drops and hoping he doesn't transition too soon to mutas?

Next phase, after my BFHs roasted some zerg, I got to transition to regular mech. First I will need some thors to deal with mutas. But then the question that I have most problems with in TvZ: how to determine if you need to focus on tanks or thors. For me it is almost impossible to scout. Tanks obviously outright lose to any kinda of muta play, and a few thors aren't going to change it. Meanwhile thors are bad against heavy roaches, and beyond horrible against swarmhosts.

Example, my last loss vs zerg he did a bit of muta raiding, I made missile turrets, he had something like 15 mutas, I had 5 thors + quite a bit of siege tanks and hellbats. I scan his main, see researching infestation thingie and he is teching to hive. So I consider it a good chance he went swarmhosts and meanwhile wanted 3/3. I attack, he apparantly was just massing mutas and something like 25-30 mutas walked over my thors and killed my entire army. I actually wonder on even resources how effective thors are vs magic boxed mutas, I don't think all that impressive.

I could have gone purely thor hellbat, but then as said roaches are an issue, not to mention if he had a bit of a bank, made infestation pit, and then start producing swarmhosts. How am I supposed to scout that in time to then switch in time to siege tanks? Thor/hellbat is horribad vs swarmhosts unless you got them directly cornered: You can probably fight through one wave of locusts, but if they just unburrow walk back, and send a second wave that doesn't really help you. You can try to buy time by attacking where the swarmhosts aren't, but if you try to abuse someones immobility with thors I have bad news...

On October 25 2013 18:35 Sissors wrote:
I guess widow mines help, and indeed was planning to do more hellion runbys also. But vikings are pretty terrible vs mutas. If you just focus on tanks the issue I have is that you can't move out as long as there is a sizable number of mutas on the field, you need to stay under your missile turret umbrella.

Which gives the zerg the option to mass expand and negate the BFH damage.

On October 25 2013 21:00 Sissors wrote:
But then we are back to vikings just beind bad against mutas, why not invest that into more thors? What is the advantage of vikings compared to thors? (Until broodlords come).

And ling/bling/muta does give me problems, since he just happily makes 25-30 mutas and mass expands. If I don't attack he can freely expand and win, if I do attack either I don't have enough thors and he magix boxes them, or apparantly he made a bunch of swarmhosts and autowins. And that isn't just me, if you see Happy vs Nerchio, in the end Happy won due to Nerchios awfull play, but he quite easily hold off Happys pure hellbat/thor push with ling/bling/muta: It is only a matter of killing the thors, which aren't great against mutas, and there is no anti-air remaining.

But my main issue is that if I go heavy on thors, he suddenly can poop out 10+ swarmhosts or a load of roaches. If I go heavy on siege tank, he can quickly make a bunch of mutas and kill me.

On October 25 2013 21:28 Sissors wrote:
Yes but the problem is how should I scout it. If I scan his main and I see an infestation pit researching stuff, I assume he is doing a swarmhost tech switch. Then I lose because apparantly he wasn't and just had a shitload of mutas.

Ravens can be nice, but are at best mediocre against mutas, and bad against ultralisks.

Vikings against vipers is just like vipers vs broodlords, nice later on, but not the mid-game where I don't see their advantage compared to more thors (besides just sweeping a few overlords).

On October 25 2013 21:35 Everlong wrote:


You need to scout for Spire, that is like the priority #1 (besides allins like no drones @3d, or bane busts, fast roaches etc...). Then you need to confirm Hive timing. For those purposes, scans are pretty reliable..

Other then that, drops will basically always tell you what units he is making. And by scouting that you can confirm what units he is NOT making.

Vikings are actually good choice early on, because the best way to play against mech is to go for Vipers as fast as possible. For those, you need Vikings. There are exeptions here and there, but you will end up with them anyways.

Also, you should not be spamming certain unit with mech. Due to how Zerg production works, by doing that, you are just asking to get tech switched to death. So unless you absolutely know the game won't last another 3 minutes for him to make Mutas, you should not go for like pure Hellbat/Tank army. It is relatively easy for Zerg to counter certain mech units. But if you have decent well rounded army with upgrades, he can't counter you so easily.

edit: You can also play like hellion/banshee -> mutas -> thors -> sh/roach -> tank/raven -> win.. Basic tech switches in my games and there is really no room for anything else.. Also, you should end up with relatively high Raven count anyways, because HSM let's you deal with both Ultras/Broodlords + SH. HSM is actually really good vs Ultras. You can fight them heads on with you Thors even in open field, just HSM everything, move back a little bit and watch em explode.. :-)