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Hello everyone! I'm a high master terran player in the EU server.
I bought the expansion in the beginning of march and I have played about 230 games now.
I got into the game by using the old WoL strategies and after dozens of games I started to understand the new units better. What really saddens me is the current state of the TvT matchup.
I really enjoy the thrill of the TvT matchup. Macro games are really fun to play, but unfortunately those games have been very infrequent to me due to the fact that people are really aggressive in the earlier stages of the game.
In TvT I prefer economical openers like a 1 rax FE or a 15 cc, which are pretty common as they have always been.
As per usual, defending a 15 cc or a 1 rax expansion from early pressure is demanding. In order to stay in the game you have to be aware of your opponents intentions and be prepared for the conceivable pushes; Yes, scouting provides you vital information, but sometimes it's not enough.
I have encountered hellbat drops more and more often. I lost many TvT's just trying to deal with those pesky drops when I opted for a fast expansion.
Hellbats deal tons of damage to light units and a few of them can wipe your mineral line in a matter of seconds. Medivacs compensate the inferior range of hellbats with their mobility; You can use the Ignite Afterburner to get above of a small group of marines and unload for barbecue. On top of that those widgets can also be healed. To be honest, hellbats and medivacs are just too good together in the early game.
Eventually, I started to do drops of my own and ended up with a pretty good build for fast hellbat drops. I crushed terrans on ladder by doing it and I was roughly at the same MMR all the time, so I didn't just get exceedingly bad players against me.
It feels like we are on the same kind of situation as we were with the unnerfed blue flame hellions back in WoL. From my point of view, it isn't fun to play when we have units in the game, which can do such ludicrous economical damage so early on, whether it was a hellbat or a blue flame hellion.
If this is a real problem and not just an exaggeration from me, what would be the proper adjustment? I have a couple of suggestions: First, the medivac shouldn't be able to load in any hellbats, which sounds quite reasonable or second, the hellbat would require more teching just to prevent your workers from being demolished too early, which in my opinion would make the unit more boring.
I want to know what are your thoughts on this and how does this occur on the higher levels of play.
Cheers,
Giilo
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hmm i don't have much trouble defending early game hellbat dorps personally, but i almost always open mech. 1 rax expo into 2fac 1star with non stop marine production. Get techlab first and start pumping tanks and then reactor on other fac and open with 2 widow mines then hellions, once starport is done you get a viking and then medivac/banshee for harass.
You should have 2 tanks when he drops and keep 1 tank sieged with the 1 widow mine around the tank and the other near mineral line. Gotta be quick to pull scvs as well and if you start losing too many scvs just pull your natural scvs to your main for a bit until you stabilized.
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If you want some inspiration, watch LucifroN vs Happy in WCS Europe. Sometimes u just gotta fight fire with fire son!
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I think it's too early to determine what's a problem and what isn't. The early hellbat drops seem difficult to deal with - but then back in the beta, iEchoic was saying there was a way to defend it well with stutter stepping marines - and this was back when four hellbats could load into one medivac. Come back to the pro scene in a few months. Someone will have come up with something to deal with this by then. For instance, mines seem to be very good against most types of prolonged aggression (since it allows them more mine shots). I wouldn't be surprised to see someone figure out a defense using those. Or - medivac/hellbat leaves nothing to shoot up - perhaps a single banshee microed properly will prove enough to put off this type of aggression.
We'll have to see. It's too new to tell.
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I 1rax FE on certain maps where it's easy to defend reapers, my standard build is then to add 2rax into 1/1 marine, stim + double medivac at 10 min.
I haven't had much problem with hellbat drops. I always put 1 turret in the mineral line if I know it's coming (already have ebay for upgrades), because hellbats are most effective if dropped straight into the worker line, and the medivac will get destroyed by the turret if it stays there to heal or to do pick up micro. If he doesn't drop straight in the mineral line it does almost no damage, if he does, his medivac will lose a lot of health. Second CC isn't floated to the natural until the guy's about done dropping.
Since I add 2 rax after the CC instead of immediate double gas I also tend to have a bunch of marines when the first attack comes, and with some micro you can deal with the hellbats by kiting them if he tries to go for your marines... and don't clump them otherwise he'll boost and drop on top of your marines and you will be sad (1600pt master)
It's not even cheese since even if you scout it, you can still easily lose the game... though I do see hellbat damage getting nerfed eventually like BFH.
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Well the longer HotS is out the less I think that there is a real "problem" to any of the terran units regardless of which match up you are talking. In TvT they are very strong and the backbone of a mech army and a curse to tank / bio users but whith good kiting and splits I think you even have a shot without going mech.
I saw several times that hellbats got kited to death by marauders, but its very micro intensive and if there are tanks in range you need good splits WHILE kiting. Its very very hard.
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I always play marine/tank with some marauders in mix, depending if the oppenent is going mech or not. I have to say...hellbats are fucking me up. I think it's too powerful right now, but i don't like mech, i played mech on WOL with great success but i'm sick of it, for me is a little boring and i like the micro of bio style.
TvT actually has been too much coin flip on early game, i have seen ppl all in with any crap without any scout all the time, wtf.
On April 26 2013 04:37 Genome852 wrote:
I 1rax FE on certain maps where it's easy to defend reapers, my standard build is then to add 2rax into 1/1 marine + double medivac at 10 min.
I haven't had much problem with hellbat drops. I always put 1 turret in the mineral line if I know it's coming (already have ebay for upgrades), because hellbats are most effective if dropped straight into the worker line, and the medivac will get destroyed by the turret if it stays there to heal or to do pick up micro. Since I add 2 rax after the CC instead of double gas I also tend to have a bunch of marines when the first attack comes, and with some micro you can deal with the hellbats easily if they go for your marines.
Genome, could you post some replay of this example if possible? :D
Do you got stim/shields? Do you pressure with 1/1 at 10min or just use the marines for some defense with another transition in mind?
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hellbat drops are too strong for the cost, esp in early game tvt.. if you think about it it's only 100/100 for the dropship and 200 minerals worth of units. but in my experience you need to spend a LOT more to defend them without losing workers in a huge amount.
its frustrating to me because the hellbat build order everyone is using has a ton of holes in it that are exploitable pretty much almost only by gas first banshee or coinflip multiple rax reaper builds. (the 4 hellbat 2 medivac timing from gsl) Rax FE'ing as T on ladder now is more scary than any other matchup, even tvp with oracles, dts and MSC just because if you face a really refined hellbat build its way harder to defend that cheese than others. . i am about 1.2-1.3k pts in masters and now that i am matching only mid masters + i am seeing almost exclusively: 1. 2 medivac 4 hellbat drop timing 2. gas first banshees 3. 2 rax reapers. but by far, hellbats are the most common..
even if you are pretty sure your opponent is not going hellbats, you have to take some precautions at least. if you have your hellions out on the map you are playing with fire. Once i see a hellbat drop, i fee llike i can't leave my base until i have a turret ring up, because the mobility of medivacs lets them continuously threaten the drop and force me to keep units there. you can lose a game instantly if you get tired of defending countless, 300 mineral 100 gas drops and push out as he queues up some more. as i watch replays of TvT (in the middle of writing this post) i'm noticing virtually every terran goign blind marauders, early siege tanks or mines for their mineral line. just like the old TvT blue flame era, i feel like this build is influencing build order choices/unit production too much in tvt.
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I've found that the double medivac hellbat drop can be easily stopped with many FE builds. If I know it's coming I keep all my scvs in my main so I only have one location to defend and then get a turret and move to my natural after I know I'm secure or the drop has happened. If you do a gas FE getting a tank and keeping it near your mineral line unsieged helps a ton at defending as well. I think unscouted hellbat drops lategame are far scarier than the double drop rush is in the early game, it's a bigger investment than you may realize. The expansion is delayed by a lot, you have spent money on an armory far earlier than you would normally need it and your entire army supply is made up of medivacs and hellbats, which are no good for a straight up fight in the next few minutes. It's all about focusing ALL your energy on the defense until you are certain that the hellbat pressure is over.
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Hi there.
Platinum (league is locked atm, my mmr is master... well at least i only play against master players, but enough of that)
I strongly disagree with the conclusion's you reach. I often open on several maps are 14 cc in a TvT matchup, and in general dont have a problem holding off any sort of early pressure. Sometimes a tank push becomes a problem, with my oppenent having aircontrol.
I actually find TvT to have a complete opposite problem. In middle and endgame i find drops to strong, when I move out. I have started to take a more defensive approach, with good defensive tank positioning and playing offensively with drops only. This works really effective if your opponent moves out, since you cripple his production and economy while trading better. This style is very frustrating to play against. Prime example is some of the games between Demuslim vs. byun from demuslims stream from the last 4-5 days. Sorry I cannot find a link  Maybe you watch his stream to from time to time 
The obvious problem is when neither me or my opponent wants to dedicate to attacking, because of fear of being dropped, which basically leads to some pretty lame games.
In short I don't find hellbats a problem in the early game, even with a 14 or 15 cc oppening, but I am struggling a lot with playing offensively against dropplay.
my 2 cents, but who knows. Maybe I am wrong, maybe in a month I will know more and share your point of view
glhf - Frankenberry
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Not sure if this is a question for HotS openings or a cloaked imbalance cry, but this is what I think.
15 CC is not remotely viable in TvT. You are dead vs:
1 base hellbat
cloaked banshee
2rax reaper
proxy reaper
tank/marine push
which are basically 75% of games. The only thing you won't die against is another 15 CC or a 1 rax FE, but I don't think that is viable either without gas.
There are just too many good aggressive openings that will simply kill you if you use either of these builds. The earliest you can get a CC I think is after either 2 barracks (reaper opening) or the after factory (any other opening).
As for hellbat drops, yes they are very strong, but not impossible to deal with. The 1-base variant is not only weak to reapers, but if your opponent fails to do big damage you're in a great spot because his CC is much later. I don't think its impossible to defend with bio or mines or viking, it won't be easy, but it shouldn't be since its 2 CC vs 1 CC.
Later in the game the hellbat drops remain very strong, but not impossible to defend. I agree like almost everything that their potential payoff is simply too good for the cost, but it's not impossible to deal with.
TLDR 15 CC and no-gas 1 barracks FE are just not viable, get a factory or 2 barracks (reapers).
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I have had great success with doing quick reaper expands. This allows me to get that fast expansion and be able to scout what my opponent it doing. If I spot the armory, I know hellbats are coming and deal with it by putiing two turrets in each mineral line. I know like this seems like a huge resource dump, but this takes medivacs out of the equation, and as long as you dont lose all your marines, you are still very far ahead. I have had success with this up to mid masters level, but if the reaper scout is denied or if they hide the armory, it is very hard to deal with. Hope this helps.
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Yeah and Lucifron may have break this TvT meta with his allin ! Thanks to him it will maybe lower the hellbat drop thing !
Most of the time people go 1/1/1 to hellbat so don't be afraid to put some turrets with a fast expo opening you will be still ahead if you take no dmg
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I will try some blind scout turrets with sensor tower and economic greediest possible behind this...
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Hellbat needs to have the healing removed, hellbats are too powerful right now with the healing in drops.
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The problem is just the medivac not the hellbat imo.
It's inevitable if David Kim has any brains that medivac eventually get's a small nerf. If the afterburners become +50% instead of +70%, the cooldown get's longer or anything like that it will be much easier to defend these drops. Afterall the hellbats are only that super effective because they can get dropped into marines/workers too easily.
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Well my point of view is that hellbat drops are, well frequent but if you're not doing one yourself, you really need to see it coming (reaper expansion or other build orders with several reapers are just fine for this).
The Thor drop has proven it's efficiency in this match-up (watch Lucifron vs Happy in WCS EU Premier ligue if you need convincing or example). It is true that hellbats are very common in TvT and that mech play has changed a lot since WoL (Meching players tend to do a few medivacs to keep the opponent under pressure with hellbat drops). Personally I tend to make a few vikings or turrets (and playing a mech style), map control is also very important, I also recommend keeping the mech player under pressure in the mid-game. To fight it as an opening when going for a FE I'd say just spred your units and focus the medivac as that puts a clock on the drop.
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Why people refer build that they saw in a 1 game as a viable counter/effective build against a hellbat drops? It could have been just one time wonder. And I'm thinking that Hellbats + medivacs arent just problem in TvT, They are still strong in TvP and TvZ with boost you can outmaneuver mutalisks, infestors, blink stalkers. + Hellbats are strong against zealots which is buffering unit in protoss deathballs.
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well you try to open 1 rax expo into fast 2 gas (around 17-18) and get a factory and starport for vikings and mines. Another option is going 1rax 15 gas expo which isn't much worse and will help with a 1/1/1 set up faster where you can defend against most all ins if you scout well
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On April 27 2013 19:33 Markwerf wrote:
The problem is just the medivac not the hellbat imo.
It's inevitable if David Kim has any brains that medivac eventually get's a small nerf. If the afterburners become +50% instead of +70%, the cooldown get's longer or anything like that it will be much easier to defend these drops. Afterall the hellbats are only that super effective because they can get dropped into marines/workers too easily.
They are too effective for cost right now because they are being healed while in mineral lines.
Imagine or liken the current hellbat drop to pre-nerf blue flame hellions being dropped into a mineral line, and then let's imagine those blue flame hellions have 10 SCVS around them repairing them while they are killing your workers (in any match-up).
That's essentially what the bio flag does on the hellbat right now. The hellbat is surviving in mineral lines for probably an average of 3-4 more seconds than it should be, and those 3-4 more seconds is equivalent to another 10-15 worker kills or being able to pick it back up and boost back onto workers.
Bio flag needs to be removed, this way hellbats don't take some ridiculous WOL-style "make the unit useless nerf" and at the same time it helps mech TvP as well as fixes the core issue.
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Um no... They are NOT imba.
The dps of two hellbat drop is as effective as an early 7:30min ish 4gate zealot/sentry warp-in/drop, why do I make that comparison?
Simple, fail to prepare for the drop and to take down the speed-prism, and you can pretty much GG right there.
He'll FF the ramp and can eventually clean up the entire mineral line/ tech structure/ etc, see Day[9] #578 Part 1 of LiquidHero's PvT.
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Every popular game in the world has set pieces, where success is virtually guaranteed if you catch your opponent unawares, and specific defenses designed to counter said set-piece. Both soccer/football and chess have it.
One of the excitements of watching English football is spotting a set-piece being set up and watching if the opponent can defend against it and predicting a set-piece about to be played.
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As I have played more TvTs recently, I've seen some people defending my drops surprisingly well. I used to win nearly every single game, merely by doing the same drop build, but not anymore. It seems like people are getting wind of how to deal with these drops properly.
As I read the replies, I realized that people got various opinions about the hellbat.
So far, my conclusion:
Hellbats aren't unstoppable, but I can't deny the fact how they excel at killing workers and how cost effective they are.
Removing the bio flag would probably change the unit's role too much in the other match ups.
There are ways to shut down the harassment, but incautious player will be punished too hard.
I could try some other openers. The 1 rax expand with fast double gas sounds good.
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On April 27 2013 00:53 SSVnormandy wrote:
Yeah and Lucifron may have break this TvT meta with his allin !
Can you elaborate? What all-in are you speaking of?
Thanks.
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On April 29 2013 03:52 geoIOPS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2013 00:53 SSVnormandy wrote:
Yeah and Lucifron may have break this TvT meta with his allin ! Can you elaborate? What all-in are you speaking of? Thanks.
Thor drop, watch his games vs Happy in the group stages of WCS EU.
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I do not believe hellbatdrops are to strong.
1. Hotkey your scv's from your main and expo early. If u spot the drop on minimap, u can get them away before drop is comming
2. Build something with armour to defend. I like vikings/mines/tank against hellbatdrops.
3. U can still macro in tvt. Just build the right units in the start of the game, this is hots and not wol. macro still wins u matches.
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Personally, I don't think hellbat drops are imba. With good reaction and prep, you can fend it off with little to no losses. At lower levels, this may be a problem understandably, and even pros can lose games from it occasionally, but its not something that's impossible to deal with.
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I agree Hellbats are an issue. avilo is pretty right that the Bio status shouldn't go with the Hellbats. I don't agree that aggressive concepts like the Blue Flame Hellion were bad. They were bad for Zerg, but for Terran it was fine. I like the fact that the person who can defend and attack better wins. This is also why I don't want the current ZvZ matchup to change (I hate turtling, I feel like it shouldn't belong in the game unless it's difficult to do or played at the lower levels). I also feel like CC first and 1 Rax gasless expand is very dangerous in HotS (sad for me as a person who used them all the time, but also happy for the more aggressive styles coming out). I am completely fine with the idea of mech TvT being standard. What I am not fine with is a single unit being able to decimate the entire mineral line in seconds (Hellbats and Oracles). Hellions at least required a greater commitment and more micro to line up the workers for maximum damage (only problem was effective defensive micro was far too difficult compared to defensive micro against Hellbats).
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Hellbats being biological is the biggest mistake they made in HotS in my opinion. Makes absolutely no sense and is hurting every TvX matchup.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On April 28 2013 03:04 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2013 19:33 Markwerf wrote:
The problem is just the medivac not the hellbat imo.
It's inevitable if David Kim has any brains that medivac eventually get's a small nerf. If the afterburners become +50% instead of +70%, the cooldown get's longer or anything like that it will be much easier to defend these drops. Afterall the hellbats are only that super effective because they can get dropped into marines/workers too easily. They are too effective for cost right now because they are being healed while in mineral lines. Imagine or liken the current hellbat drop to pre-nerf blue flame hellions being dropped into a mineral line, and then let's imagine those blue flame hellions have 10 SCVS around them repairing them while they are killing your workers (in any match-up). That's essentially what the bio flag does on the hellbat right now. The hellbat is surviving in mineral lines for probably an average of 3-4 more seconds than it should be, and those 3-4 more seconds is equivalent to another 10-15 worker kills or being able to pick it back up and boost back onto workers. Bio flag needs to be removed, this way hellbats don't take some ridiculous WOL-style "make the unit useless nerf" and at the same time it helps mech TvP as well as fixes the core issue.
The issue with removing the bio tag now is it then makes mech worse in pretty much every single situation and nobody will want to play it again.
Hellbat drops are not hard to deal with, if you're not a pro the guy isn't going to be executing them like a pro so you should have very little issue with just running away your workers. All you need to worry about is killing the medivac and you're fine.
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I'm mid masters and I've been opening with Thor drop in TvT. Just now I played 4 TvTs in a row, 3 of my opponents opened with Hellbat drop...easy win for me. Hellbats are easy to kite, so this isn't the only opening that can effectively deal with Hellbat drops.
Also, I don't consider the Thor drop an all-in (as mentioned above), you can either keep dropping Thors or start your CC as your Medivac crosses the map. What I do is build a Siege Tank and a Viking after the Thor/Medivac. The Viking snipes the Medivac so Hellbats can't be healed and Siege Tank+Bunker will help defend the drop (and even defend vs other garbage in case they are not Hellbat dropping).
I don't see why people bitch so much about Hellbats, they are just fine and they are not hard to stop at all in TvT, hell, even in the beta when you could load 4 in a medivac I didn't have much trouble stopping them if I saw it coming, Hellbats can be kited by pretty much any unit and they move slower than workers.
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I've just been promoted to random as masters, and man these hellbats are the bane of my existence.
Marine+Hellion: Cost only mins, can be built from reactor
Marine+Marauder: Can be healed by medivac
Hellion: Has splash
Marauder: Is pretty tough to kill
Hellbat: All of the above
Nerf plz.
Either that or you may as well just give them DT cloak, flying and anti-air attack too cos it's not like they're already the only thing you need to build.
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On May 09 2013 19:44 NDDseer wrote:
I've just been promoted to random as masters, and man these hellbats are the bane of my existence.
Marine+Hellion: Cost only mins, can be built from reactor
Marine+Marauder: Can be healed by medivac
Hellion: Has splash
Marauder: Is pretty tough to kill
Hellbat: All of the above
Nerf plz.
Either that or you may as well just give them DT cloak, flying and anti-air attack too cos it's not like they're already the only thing you need to build.
Looking at this whine post and then reading your signature....it's pretty funny.
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On May 09 2013 19:47 BhostGuster wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2013 19:44 NDDseer wrote:
I've just been promoted to random as masters, and man these hellbats are the bane of my existence.
Marine+Hellion: Cost only mins, can be built from reactor
Marine+Marauder: Can be healed by medivac
Hellion: Has splash
Marauder: Is pretty tough to kill
Hellbat: All of the above
Nerf plz.
Either that or you may as well just give them DT cloak, flying and anti-air attack too cos it's not like they're already the only thing you need to build. Looking at this whine post and then reading your signature....it's pretty funny.
I'm happy to win by dropping hellbats all day, but you get bored of there only be one viable strategy (only countered by a better executed version of the same strategy).
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On May 09 2013 19:57 NDDseer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2013 19:47 BhostGuster wrote:On May 09 2013 19:44 NDDseer wrote:
I've just been promoted to random as masters, and man these hellbats are the bane of my existence.
Marine+Hellion: Cost only mins, can be built from reactor
Marine+Marauder: Can be healed by medivac
Hellion: Has splash
Marauder: Is pretty tough to kill
Hellbat: All of the above
Nerf plz.
Either that or you may as well just give them DT cloak, flying and anti-air attack too cos it's not like they're already the only thing you need to build. Looking at this whine post and then reading your signature....it's pretty funny. I'm happy to win by dropping hellbats all day, but you get bored of there only be one viable strategy (only countered by a better executed version of the same strategy).
Learn to play, seriously. I'm countering every single hellbat drop with 15 gas CC fact port, hellion + 2 widowmines + marines.
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10 depo 12 rax 14 depo -> cc with constant marines will fend off all reaper play as long as you don't mess up.
And you will have 3 rax production up before the hellbat drop arrives.
The counter with bio is bunker behind the mineral line and early marauders.
If he commits heavily enough you can make 8-9 min 3th before factory.
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On May 09 2013 20:10 Snowbear wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2013 19:57 NDDseer wrote:On May 09 2013 19:47 BhostGuster wrote:On May 09 2013 19:44 NDDseer wrote:
I've just been promoted to random as masters, and man these hellbats are the bane of my existence.
Marine+Hellion: Cost only mins, can be built from reactor
Marine+Marauder: Can be healed by medivac
Hellion: Has splash
Marauder: Is pretty tough to kill
Hellbat: All of the above
Nerf plz.
Either that or you may as well just give them DT cloak, flying and anti-air attack too cos it's not like they're already the only thing you need to build. Looking at this whine post and then reading your signature....it's pretty funny. I'm happy to win by dropping hellbats all day, but you get bored of there only be one viable strategy (only countered by a better executed version of the same strategy). Learn to play, seriously. I'm countering every single hellbat drop with 15 gas CC fact port, hellion + 2 widowmines + marines.
I agree with him, learn to play.
Start doing hellbat drops and see how quickly the system will pair you with people who can and will counter your hellbat drops.
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EPT
