On June 05 2013 23:37 Qikz wrote: Much like before Mario, the only thing I don't understand is why you use thors and not tanks. Tanks really do do everything you said thors can do and I'd argue they work better with EMP than the thors do. Still an awesome guide and hopefully this'll end up getting more people into mech. ^^
Tanks take longer to get into position then thors, it's easier to find a dent in your armor using tanks in the late game. Another worry is several stargates hidden producing mass air. Tanks can't shoot up and thors can also shoot down. It's a little less splash for a lot more power. You can have 1-5 tanks with your army, it doesn't really hurt. Your core should be the thor raven ghost though.
Thot/Raven/Ghost is Mech??? Presonally dont think so. 2 casters+massing Thors will never be called "Mech". Here in Europe we got Bunny and STRELOK going Mech in TvP using Hellbat/Tank/Ghostless into Viking/Thor/Raven if the P goes AIR and IT WORKS PERFECT. You should go and check the Day9 daily about the Streloks Mech and maybe will understand why it work. The BO is pretty simple and more in only one direction of tech and not including so many casters difficult to control in a battle.
Cant see your composition work against Tempers/Voidray/HT/CArrier.Hts can Feedback both ghosts and ravens(PDD as well) and Thors will never ever reach to shoot any tempest Chargelots+blink stalkers as reinforcement will just crush you,something that wont happen with hellbats buffering your tanks while killing HTs with the siege mode. Your style is another "Deatball" moving across the map.
Thanks for this well written guide and keeping up Mech in TvP. I used to think that Tank Hellbat is the way to go too, but also made the experience that it has a lot of problems. So I gave up on Mech in TvP a little bit, which makes me especially eager to try your style.
One question though, why do you get your Armory that fast and dont use it? I assume you want to start fast upgrades or have access to Hellbats? Wouldnt it be better to delay the Armory for a bit, until you confirmed that no all-in is coming if you dont plan to get Hellbats early? Maybe till you start your second Factory (the one which is supposed to be reactored)?
On upgrades, do you upgrade weapons or armor first normally? If going for Tanks, it is a nobrainer to get weapons, but with Thor / Hellbat amor could be good too (it affects the early Ravens too). Also do you ever get a second armory or just use a single early one to gradually upgrade? With Tank Hellbat I usually got a second Armory on 75% of +1 weapon to build up to a nice +2 +1 timing push, but I dont know how much you can get with this build in the given time frame and thus if such a timing makes any sense.
On June 05 2013 23:00 TheDwf wrote: How come there is no mention of Carriers?
I guess I forgot about that unit, I never have a problem against them with PDD affecting interceptors, thors splashing them, ghosts hitting them and vikings / mines supporting, carriers aren't really a problem unless he gets a shit ton of them.
I thought PDDs didnt affect interceptors. However if they do the situation is even worse: It really gives tempests a free reign, since a single carrier will pretty much insta-dry every PDD.
Personally I wonder why not every toss does zealot/stalker/MsC poke. I use the same opening, and it is difficult to hold it off, with enough chance to outright lose to it, while very little investment from the toss.
On June 05 2013 23:44 Dvriel wrote: Thot/Raven/Ghost is Mech??? Presonally dont think so. 2 casters+massing Thors will never be called "Mech". Here in Europe we got Bunny and STRELOK going Mech in TvP using Hellbat/Tank/Ghostless into Viking/Thor/Raven if the P goes AIR and IT WORKS PERFECT. You should go and check the Day9 daily about the Streloks Mech and maybe will understand why it work. The BO is pretty simple and more in only one direction of tech and not including so many casters difficult to control in a battle.
Cant see your composition work against Tempers/Voidray/HT/CArrier.Hts can Feedback both ghosts and ravens(PDD as well) and Thors will never ever reach to shoot any tempest Chargelots+blink stalkers as reinforcement will just crush you,something that wont happen with hellbats buffering your tanks while killing HTs with the siege mode. Your style is another "Deatball" moving across the map.
I also use siege tank hellbat ghost, yes it looks great however it's far superior. And yes this is mech... Brood war in fact also used ghosts and science vessels for their mech. That's just like raven ghost... They even went mass goliath =/= thor? And it was still called mech.
ghosts and templar are each others counter, it requires micro. Saying he has templar so ghosts don't work simply well is silly. Yes it is a death ball. In fact all of mech is a death ball. There is a reason why mech is feared is because it's harass constantly and while you're doing damage you create a large death ball...
Also stalkers are terrible against thors and both they and tempest are shut down by PPD, chargelots aren't an issue because not only do you have a shit ton of armor but thors do ok, ghosts do ok and you can mix in hellbats to really handle them.
On June 05 2013 23:44 Dvriel wrote: Thot/Raven/Ghost is Mech??? Presonally dont think so. 2 casters+massing Thors will never be called "Mech". Here in Europe we got Bunny and STRELOK going Mech in TvP using Hellbat/Tank/Ghostless into Viking/Thor/Raven if the P goes AIR and IT WORKS PERFECT. You should go and check the Day9 daily about the Streloks Mech and maybe will understand why it work. The BO is pretty simple and more in only one direction of tech and not including so many casters difficult to control in a battle.
Cant see your composition work against Tempers/Voidray/HT/CArrier.Hts can Feedback both ghosts and ravens(PDD as well) and Thors will never ever reach to shoot any tempest Chargelots+blink stalkers as reinforcement will just crush you,something that wont happen with hellbats buffering your tanks while killing HTs with the siege mode. Your style is another "Deatball" moving across the map.
I also use siege tank hellbat ghost, yes it looks great however it's far superior. And yes this is mech... Brood war in fact also used ghosts and science vessels for their mech. That's just like raven ghost... They even went mass goliath =/= thor? And it was still called mech.
ghosts and templar are each others counter, it requires micro. Saying he has templar so ghosts don't work simply well is silly. Yes it is a death ball. In fact all of mech is a death ball. There is a reason why mech is feared is because it's harass constantly and while you're doing damage you create a large death ball...
Also stalkers are terrible against thors and both they and tempest are shut down by PPD, chargelots aren't an issue because not only do you have a shit ton of armor but thors do ok, ghosts do ok and you can mix in hellbats to really handle them.
I will wait to see you EMP the Protoss army when there are Tempest and Carriers. Your Ghosts will never reach the HTs because of the Tempest range and will be sniped before even engage.Thors are slow shooting in the AA mode, but the "Antimuta" is ok vs interceptors because of splash but usually they are turning themselves in 360º trying to shoot so many small flying units.The immortals and archons will also kill Thors so easy and quick that you wont even see it coming. In BW the SV was for the EMPs,here moved to the ghosts and Ravens+Ghosts are very gas heavy and difficult to remax.You need lot of gas and not lose a single engagement. How are you harassing constatnly as mech? I dont understand it. I use Hellbat drops.The Protoss usually got 5-6 cannons in each base and HTs to snipe the medivac,but hellbats still kill lot of workers or even BFH runbies, but what are you using??? How many PDDs re you casting to stop 20+ stalkers and 10+ Tempest+Carriers? Dont see this working at all.Will check your replays anyway, but in the Streloks build you make the Protoss fear to go out or even expand while maxin in about 15 min allowing you even to remax on Starports if needed while killing his 3rd and natural..
I will wait to see you EMP the Protoss army when there are Tempest and Carriers. Your Ghosts will never reach the HTs because of the Tempest range and will be sniped before even engage.Thors are slow shooting in the AA mode, but the "Antimuta" is ok vs interceptors because of splash but usually they are turning themselves in 360º trying to shoot so many small flying units.The immortals and archons will also kill Thors so easy and quick that you wont even see it coming. In BW the SV was for the EMPs,here moved to the ghosts and Ravens+Ghosts are very gas heavy and difficult to remax.You need lot of gas and not lose a single engagement. How are you harassing constatnly as mech? I dont understand it. I use Hellbat drops.The Protoss usually got 5-6 cannons in each base and HTs to snipe the medivac,but hellbats still kill lot of workers or even BFH runbies, but what are you using??? How many PDDs re you casting to stop 20+ stalkers and 10+ Tempest+Carriers? Dont see this working at all.Will check your replays anyway, but in the Streloks build you make the Protoss fear to go out or even expand while maxin in about 15 min allowing you even to remax on Starports if needed while killing his 3rd and natural..
Now I'm not a huge fan or very knowledgable of this thor style and I haven't been, but it feels like you're jumping to conclusions without even watching the game.
Little to almost ever will you be going in to EMP and then moving in after, it's not bio and it simply doesn't work that way. With Tank/Hellbat/Ghost/Raven/Viking mech (all depends on what they have) it's all about getting a good position and forcing them to either engage into you or be contained. I'm pretty sure the same could be said here and the time you go to EMP is when they move in and clump up. Same goes for the use of PDD and HSM.
The ravens are used primarily so you can throw vikings into a meat grinder with tempests as you want to be able to trade as efficiently as possible while remaxing on air very quickly. Carriers are dealt with in this instance by thors, turrets and HSM and I'd say HTOMario's style is even better as it's more built around anti air (the thors) than tank/hellbat mech.
In the end, it all leads up to Sky terran, or atleast vikings/ravens if they go air as they're essential no matter what the circumstance, but Terran also has turrets and what not to help push.
On June 05 2013 23:00 TheDwf wrote: How come there is no mention of Carriers?
I guess I forgot about that unit, I never have a problem against them with PDD affecting interceptors, thors splashing them, ghosts hitting them and vikings / mines supporting, carriers aren't really a problem unless he gets a shit ton of them.
in fact once you see a carrier transition you can just make a turret / army push. Interceptors actually take a while to build and the moment his carriers lose momentum it's a full on re treat for him. Since you end up getting building armor and range anyway turrets are pretty handy at killing interceptors. Minerals are very rarely a problem in mech.
So basically my question is what do you do against the lategame composition of mostly carrier, just a few voidray/tempest and some immortals and possibly templar. I feel it's pretty easy to transition into this as protoss and I don't think carriers have a good answer for T. Vikings and thors do 'ok' but I feel it's pretty easy for P to force a nearly even trade with this and then just win with the remax. Especially since T is forced into lot's of starports which are useless if P goes for a ground remax. Classic mistakes P seem to make agianst mech is going for a timing to try and kill them (this rarely works), focussing too much on zealot/archon (sucks because of the high zealot count being dominated by hellbats) and going too tempest focussed imo (easily countered by PDD).
I don't need to deviate my composition at all for this army, in fact I spend the whole game building the units that crush this. voidray intercepts and high templar are very weak to thor / ghost, not to mention PDD for the interceptors and tempests. Immortals are nice but you can just fill in some mines or hellbats as a buffer, since they usually stack under voidrays and carriers the emps almost always hit his whole army, voidrays and carriers have a slow acceleration. On top of this you can always force a retreat with a nuke.
As carriers if you are forced to retreat your interceptors still take damage. If you drop a nuke everytime you engage you will whittle down his interceptors relatively fast. Don't forget hunter seeker as well. You can use emp / hunter seeker on immortals and you will have plenty since you build them really early on. Hell you will usually have 4-5 tanks as well from your mid game to only hit the immortals who are emp'd. They will drop fast.
Like already said, PDD doesn't affect interceptors. In fact I fail to see the use of ravens at all against the airtoss composition if it doesn't include tempests (which is really the more scary one). I still don't get how your composition does well against carrier/immortal with just a splash of void maybe ht. Interceptors spread out so much that the thor splash doesn't affect it that much, besides I don't think you should be attacking interceptors at all with the thors but rather just use the high impact on the carrier itself.
Carriers can pretty much nullify PDD and make ravens pretty bad by simply focussing the PDD which doesn't protect itself. The lash range target switching makes this fairly easy, I don't really get in general why you would want ravens so much. I feel ghosts are pretty much better in every way except against the massive tempest composition which is a silly bad one anyways.
Do any of the replays include going up against almost pure carrier/immortal? It's nice to give a short summary of the replays anyway because watching them all is just so time consuming, I have no doubt you can trash protoss that try to beat you with the classic chargelot compositions.
Mark, never underestimate the power of HSM against pretty much everything but Tempests. Carriers stack up and void rays both stack super hard and unless they maticulously split every single one individually which they won't do, it's a lot of either free damage or extra time to hit them with everything else while they pull back
When I try mech TvP, my biggest problem is that the Protoss is more mobile than me. Once it gets to more than 4 bases, there is no way for me to prevent him from taking the entire map, while he can snipe an expo from me and then just run away or recall. Planetaries dont do anything against a maxed Protoss army, while he can make a ton of cannons at his expos and be safe. The only way to kill them is by moving my entire army out of position and die to a counterattack. Because of this and because of the fact that Protoss upgrades are much quicker, it sadly feels like mech TvP is just good for timings and allins, as much as I want to play a long game, I get picked apart slowly. Maybe anyone has a tip for me :/
On June 06 2013 01:17 Aquila- wrote: When I try mech TvP, my biggest problem is that the Protoss is more mobile than me. Once it gets to more than 4 bases, there is no way for me to prevent him from taking the entire map, while he can snipe an expo from me and then just run away or recall. Planetaries dont do anything against a maxed Protoss army, while he can make a ton of cannons at his expos and be safe. The only way to kill them is by moving my entire army out of position and die to a counterattack. Because of this and because of the fact that Protoss upgrades are much quicker, it sadly feels like mech TvP is just good for timings and allins, as much as I want to play a long game, I get picked apart slowly. Maybe anyone has a tip for me :/
You may think that because the protoss army is more mobile late game than you, that you never have a chance to do any damage, but you'd be thinking incorrectly. What you need to do is establish a good place on the map to allow you to cover the majority of your bases, or atleast 3 by ground and then slowly but surely edge towards one side of the map. This forces his units to go there and you can split up a few hellbats/tanks or in this case a few thors most likely and go snipe nexus. If that's not possible, you want to be using nukes on his further bases. He can't be everywhere at once much like you can't, so it's entirely possible to prevent them mass expanding.
Whirlwind for example in vertical or horizontal positions you can move outside of the forward third and set up a position in the middle while expanding behind yourself.
On June 06 2013 01:17 Aquila- wrote: When I try mech TvP, my biggest problem is that the Protoss is more mobile than me. Once it gets to more than 4 bases, there is no way for me to prevent him from taking the entire map, while he can snipe an expo from me and then just run away or recall. Planetaries dont do anything against a maxed Protoss army, while he can make a ton of cannons at his expos and be safe. The only way to kill them is by moving my entire army out of position and die to a counterattack. Because of this and because of the fact that Protoss upgrades are much quicker, it sadly feels like mech TvP is just good for timings and allins, as much as I want to play a long game, I get picked apart slowly. Maybe anyone has a tip for me :/
You don't need to kill every base, make sure you can confront his army and when you win he has to re max. Just push for his main and take out all his production. rally your own inside in case he tries to do a counter attack. It can't be too big because you're heading for his base and just killed his army and it can't really be at your expo's because you have PFS.
Also nukes are an excellent way to harass his expo's. So are thor drops.
Mario can you please answer my question about the early Armory a couple of posts back, I am really curious as it is not explained in your build why you get it that early.
On June 06 2013 02:59 puissance wrote: Mario can you please answer my question about the early Armory a couple of posts back, I am really curious as it is not explained in your build why you get it that early.
I did, I stated that you need it for early drilling claws. It also allows to get earlier thor production if they go for stargate play.
On June 06 2013 01:10 Qikz wrote: Mark, never underestimate the power of HSM against pretty much everything but Tempests. Carriers stack up and void rays both stack super hard and unless they maticulously split every single one individually which they won't do, it's a lot of either free damage or extra time to hit them with everything else while they pull back
carriers don't stack much at all actually. And yes voidrays do but that's why you only make like 2 of them. It's a fine unit to make while you transition to airtoss but after that just carriers all the way. hsm, pdd and autoturret are all pretty lousy against carriers. I fail to see how some spell that does only soso damage after a huge delay is really any useful, against immortals you only hit after the shields are pretty much gone already and against carrier/void the damage is really lousy unless you hit multiple units which is actually not all that likely if protoss get's a decent mix. Carrier/immortal with a few immortal/templar hardly stacks as it has mostly different range and the units are really big, voidrays only stack above the immortals if you approach from exactly the same angle which is super easy to avoid being air..
It feels to me like this strat has lots of ravens just for the tempest + storm lategame strat which is ok but imo just inferior to carriers.
From facing it I think the most troublesome is just hellbat/thor with a splash of tanks and ghosts with lots of vikings in case of air. I don't see why you would want to spend tons of gas on ravens, it's hard enough as it is getting hellbat/thor/tank/ghost/viking, why add the ravens. It's a cute answer to immortals that is fairly allround but hsm just does the damage too late for it to matter in battles most of the time, it tends to overkill or whiff a lot just because the unit you're targeting is already dying for other reasons by the time the 5 seconds are over. Not even mentioning how expensive and difficult it is to have tech lab starport in addition to the other expensive infrastructure mech needs.
EPT
