[Q] Is Mech weaker then bio in TvP? - Page 7

On May 26 2013 04:30 TheDwf wrote:

Why was Noblesse still playing 2-bases timings into third at the end of WoL? Why is GuMiho still playing 2-bases gimmicks in TvZ? You ask them. They have their reasons. They believe in their builds. This is what they have prepared. They think their opponent won't have the answers, or that they will prevail anyway due to the experience asymmetry. Etc.

I am not pro, but I went mech in the last game of my bo3 against dignitasDreAm at the WCS Challenger League qualifier despite thinking mech is bad in TvP. Why? Honestly, I barely know myself. I used a build that I fully knew was a complete gimmick into another gimmick and it ended up working (because of luck). Just like GuMiho's 2-bases gimmicks worked in some games at Code S level against HyuN and LosirA.

Another little anecdote to illustrate my point. At the beginning of the last season, I was playing mech quite frequently against Protoss. I ran into a barcode Protoss that I won convincingly. After the game, I checked his rank and saw he was #1 Master P in Europe (i. e. of all the Protoss Masters in Europe, he was the first; not just his division). Yet his reactions to my mech play had been abysmal. The day after, I was watching ForGG's stream. He was playing standard bio against some Protoss and ended up being stomped. I checked who his opponent was, and lo, it was the very barcode who had lost against me the day before. He had totally crumbled when facing something unusual, yet obviously knew his affair when it came to standard play. Moral of the story: iffy, unorthodox stuff sometimes wins while standard play wouldn't. Doesn't mean that gimmicks are better; most likely that opponents were simply thrown off balance, reacted poorly and thus got rolled.

I know very well that some EU pros use mech in TvP. I'm top50 GM this season and I myself used mech several times against P, including vs pros such as Bling or Feast. And all my wins, without exception, obeyed to one or several of the following laws:

1. Massive econ advantage through build orders or harass (or both);
2. Protoss having poor reactions, e. g. sticking to horrible stuff like Stalkers/Colossi (e. g. Strelok vs finale, Daybreak);
3. Particular case of the above point, Protoss not scouting a 2-bases timing/all-in and a) taking third + teching 5 different things at once, then not having enough when a mech army with twice the size arrives or b) suiciding their own 2-bases timing/all-in into you, such as my game against dDreAm.

I really don't know how you can say that mech armies trade well against Protoss ground. The last game I saw mech winning against P at high level was Bunny vs Jogginghose on Whirlwind for the WCS Challenger League RO40. Bunny had decimated Jogginghose's economy with Hellbat drops (see the first law), was like max against 135 supply and still struggled to win the first main engagement. Actually he was technically defeated despite probably having +20-30 supply in the fight. In my experience this is what always happens. There's also a ByuN vs puCK (?) ladder game on Newkirk Precinct that illustrates the same thing. ByuN is convincingly ahead the whole game yet still fails to trade properly against mass Immortals and ends up losing while he would probably win 25-0 effortlessly with bio against the same opponent. There are countless examples of this. Strelok vs finale (unsure) on Newkirk Precinct was the same story. Tanks are fine/good against the following Protoss ground units: Sentries, Stalkers, Colossi and Templars. What do Protoss play? Mostly Zealots/Archons/Immortals, i. e. the units against which the Tank is complete garbage. Want to know why Tanks are bad against Protoss? Look no further:



Shots required for a x/3 Tank to kill ground units, rounded down or up (i. e. if it technically takes 1.02 shots to kill the unit, such as a x/3 Tank against a stimmed Marine with CS, I noted 1, because realistically the splash damage from the other Tanks will finish the unit anyway).

Conclusion:


Mech is viable in TvT and TvZ because Tanks, past a certain point, completely dominate other ground units in those match-ups. Even Ultralisks, even Swarmhosts lose to critical mass of Tanks. As such, there is that accumulation dynamics which forces your Terran opponent into either "as many Tanks" or an air transition, and your Zerg opponent into Vipers or broods. So both in TvT and TvZ, Tanks → Tanks + Vikings/Ravens (and Battlecruisers in the end) is valid against whichever lategame transition your opponent is playing to deal with your Tank army.

But there is no such thing in TvP, not only because the first phase of the plan – get mass Tanks* and threaten to roll everything – doesn't work, but because the last phase i. e. (ghost)mech + air is still completely stomped by air/Templars. Again I have no idea how you can say that Vikings/Ravens beats air/Templars: Vikings are horribly frail for their expensive cost and have severe overkill issues when shift focusing individual units. Tempests massively outrange them (+6!) so dropping pdds wouldn't help since they would simply move away, or fire until all pdds run out of energy.

*Naturally you can replace Tanks with Thors in TvP, or mix both, or use more varied compositions, including whatever you want, add Ghosts, etc., it will come down the same.

Tanks + Vikings/Ravens could compete to some extent against broods/infests at the end of WoL, particularly post-IT nerfs, because you had the upper hand in the range war: Tanks outranged infestors (13 vs 9 + radius) while Vikings' range was roughly similar to broodlords (9 vs 9.5). In HotS, the 15 range nonsense bashes everything, especially as Terran doesn't have free units generators to initiate a cold war or Vipers to draw Tempests in the range of your units. Tanks are outranged, Vikings are outranged, Ravens are outranged, Battlecruisers (Yamato) are outranged, Ghosts (EMP) are outranged. You're bound to slowly crumble against his continuous siege.

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At the end of WoL, I was watching Taeja's stream and he was playing Sickness (a Protoss korean pro) on Ohana. Taeja went 3-bases Battlecruisers out of a few Marines and Tanks. And when I say 3-bases Battlecruisers, I mean he only built Battlecruisers after the few defensive early game units. Sickness kept playing according to his anti-bio autopilot and found himself very surprised when his zeals/archons/stalks/colossi attack on the fourth met 10 upgraded Battlecruisers. Taeja won easily.

Still, no one would claim that "only Battlecruisers" is a viable strategy in TvP. You can win lots of game, even at high levels, with iffy plans and builds, because your opponents don't scout and thus don't react, or react badly, or simply make severe mistakes that make them lose even if they were adapting correctly in the first place. To determine the viability of something, you have to examine what happens when your opponent knows the correct answers and execute them at least decently.

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Except robo tech was always conceived as a support tech for gate units, while fact tech is supposed to be relatively autonomous (and is even more so in HotS compared to WoL, though Starport support is still needed in most cases).

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About the kOp vs Oz game.

First, the very fact you all use this single example for top Korean play should make you feel uneasy: when you have only one example to back up your claims on hundreds of TvPs, you should ask yourself questions.

Second, this game is no exception to the aforementioned laws; it completely falls under the 3b one, i. e. Protoss going agressive play against a 2-bases timing, subsequently failing because—assuming no huge disparity in army size—there is no way to break a defensive mech position without bypassing terrain through Prism(s), and thus giving the Terran a massive advantage to comfortably prevail with his original plan. To add insult to injury, Oz wasted even more gas in a useless dark shrine (since kOp had a Raven, and then a Turret at the front) and DTs. Oz had his first Immortal out at 11'45, when kOp had already 7 Tanks and was 25 supply ahead. kOp was 35 supply ahead when he reached Oz's natural, who had only 3 Immortals and no Archon at 14'. Sounds like a standard MechvP game to you?

Whenever you intend to play a 2-bases mech timing or all-in in TvP, you virtually auto-win against all 2-bases frontal attacks which commit because there is no way that Immortal busts, Zealots/Archons/Templars or Colossi all-in will break through (or simply trade efficiently against) a fortified mech position with Mines and sieged Tanks. Again, I know this from first-hand experience since numerous Protoss have suicided their timings/all-ins into my defensive position while I was preparing my own attack. In this game, kOp perfectly scouted and prepared for the Blink Stalker attack, so even if Oz didn't lose his army he still spent a lot of gas on suboptimal units (Stalkers) while lacking an extra anti-mech tech such as Archons, a second robo (which came in effect too late in the game since he started it at 12'30) or a Stargate; thus it is only natural he got stomped afterwards. Hence the game proves absolutely nothing about the viability of mech: it proves that throwing the dice sometimes turns out badly.

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Yeah, this is the problem with the emotional approach. One has to stay rational. When I am saying that mech isn't viable in TvP I am not saying this light-heartedly. I am not happy with that. I do love mech too and I came in HotS thinking I would play mech 100% of the time thanks to the new tools. I was playing mech 100% of the time in TvT and TvZ at the end of WoL, so you see, I am not a mech hater.


Thing is, no one is saying that. Saying mech isn't viable doesn't mean you can never win with it.


This is where you're deluded. Sorry if I sound harsh in the following but any Terran GM will instinctively have better mech TvP than you with better builds, better micro, better macro, better positioning, better everything basically. The fact you play mech since 3 years doesn't make you "more qualified" at all to talk about mech than someone with higher skill but less games. You certainly played more TvP mech than me, yet I'm ready to bet you would have nothing to teach me at all.

Isn't there always this guy, from time to time, who arises from the shadows to teach us the ways of "sky Terran" with his revolutionary PF on natural into 4-port banshees? What would you answer him if he tells you "I play sky Terran since 3 years, I know I'm only Diamond but I'm more qualified than you to discuss this!" after you criticize his gimmicks and label them as such? Obviously mech in TvP is not as bad as this, but you see my point.

You say we are not in the minds of Korean pros. Admittedly, telepathy is still to be invented. But what? Again the conspiracy, again the secret no one ever found? Where's the sanctuary? You think KeSPA Terrans wouldn't even try mech after coming from BW? You think they wouldn't try their best to make it work? You think people are happy playing bio 24/7 in TvP? No. People try mech, with various builds and compositions, see that they often struggle horribly to win even with an economic advantage, get regularly bashed by inferior players doing simplistic 1a and must acknowledge that the mythical "hidden potential" of the thing just doesn't exist.

You have an easy time saying the thing "isn't fully explored". It's true that the island isn't fully explored, but for good reasons: people accosted, saw the searing crater at the center of the island and quickly understood they couldn't live here, so only hardcore islanders remain, fascinated by the beauty of the landscape. "Exploring" mech vs P is like "exploring" a desert always hoping for an oasis, yet all you find after months and months is sand, sand and more sand.

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Your statement makes as little sense as saying FFs "hardcounter" Roaches.