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Hello readers,
Recently I've noticed an increasing amount of Siege Tanks used in Terran verse Zerg. Not specifically in broadcasted tournament games, since there haven't been any, but the Tank seems to be coming back! Going up to 2 or 3 techlabbed Factories for Siege Tanks and Thors to help with mass baneling zergling and the mutalisk flock whereas the Widow Mine seems to not really have the reliability it once had.
We've seen a couple of players go Mech vs Zerg (Maru, Bomber, off the top of my head) and now I've seen Jjakji and Bomber stream Marine Tank as well as mech quite regularly.
A preferred map for this seems to be Yeonsu, whilst there's also small tank counts seen on Starstation and Polar Night to help defend the third from the main base.
So, I'd like to put this up for discussion:
~Have you been using Tanks increasingly in TvZ?
~Do you think it is map specific, or are the proposed maps just the easiest to practice Tanks on?
~Is this a little metagaming thing and will the Mutalisk of HOTS require slighlty alternated control Zerg isn't fully used to anymore?
~Are they just trolling because it's on EU/NA server and not at KR?
Also, do you open with Siege Tanks nowadays, like, get 2/3 defensive tanks early? Do you have specific reason to do so, like continued gas mining by Zerg, or do you always get them? At what timing in the build (after Hellions #3/4)?
Share the wisdom!
Toastie
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Honestly I find them much more reliable then Widow Mines. Occasionally you get the amazing "terrible terrible" damage connections, but most of the time for me it's "meh." Tanks are just way more consistent AoE dealers.
My Terran is not super high level so I wouldn't call this "wisdom" but I've been going marine tank sometimes adding 1-2 Thors for Muta. It works ok. And it's great for holding early all-ins like Roach/Baneling.
I think Bomber went old school Marine tank in his WCS Season 2 run and it worked out well for him.
And yes, Tanks are great on Yeonsu because you can siege up that middle base from the low ground and it's hard for Zerg to engage if they didn't already have units down there.
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+ Show Spoiler + just lost to + Show Spoiler + roach hydra in EnerJ. He did build tanks but + Show Spoiler + timings were perfect.
This was a pretty big upset and if Roach Hydra makes a resurgence in TvZ Terran will need to rely on Tanks again. Too early to tell.
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On December 19 2013 05:32 SC2Toastie wrote:
Why do you spoilertag streamed games?
In case someone hasn't seen it yet and was planning to watch it later.
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Jjakji doesn't safe broadcasts, does he? Oh well, I'll spoiler it 
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Hmm, maybe I'll give them another look. Widowmines are somewhat less forgiving than they used to be. My main concern would be that Terran will need to put much more effort in restricting creep spread because tanks absolutely can not be caught on creep.
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Tanks are worse in the fact that they are heavy on gas, require a mass before reaching offensive potential and are way less mobile.
They're better in supplying sustained AoE and holding positions.
What are opinions or a hybrid of BioTankMine? I think Mines and Tanks conflict for the role of AoE support, and can't work together well (the biggest strenght of the mine is mitigated by the tanks siege time, whilst mines are becoming less and less effective).
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I may be oversimplifying things slightly but I belive the mindset for using the Widow Mine was roughly "A cheaper tank that shots air". Both of those units fill a pretty similar niche, so it's possible that after the Widow Mine nerf people are going back to the oldies to see how they compare now.
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On December 19 2013 05:51 SC2Toastie wrote:
Tanks are worse in the fact that they are heavy on gas, require a mass before reaching offensive potential and are way less mobile.
They're better in supplying sustained AoE and holding positions.
What are opinions or a hybrid of BioTankMine? I think Mines and Tanks conflict for the role of AoE support, and can't work together well (the biggest strenght of the mine is mitigated by the tanks siege time, whilst mines are becoming less and less effective).
I think it comes down to the maps as to which is better. On bigger maps that are more open with more counterattack routes I think you want the flexibility of mine positioning. On maps where you can siege up a couple of "lanes" to your opponent's base (kind of like Belshir Vestige) and move forward I think Tanks are viable.
And tanks on creep = sad sad Terran army 
One of the advantages that tanks have that widow mines don't is you can much more easily tell the Tanks what to fire at. Versus Ultra/Ling/Bane I find all my widow mines detonating on the Ultras and then my army gets annihilated But with tanks you can target fire.
The problem with Tanks is the slow setup time. The problem with widow mines is that it's not as reliable.
Maybe a bit of both would be good? A few widow mines to dish out some AoE for that front line of Zerg army until Tanks are sieged in position?
This is purely theorycraft at this point. I've won with it a few times on ladder but I don't think my Terran is a high enough level to make any conclusions.
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I'd actually say Mine Tank is worse than having only one of each, because both are pretty sensitive to critical masses.
Mines need a high marine count to be with them (which means at the front) whilt Tanks need to be surrounded preferably. Mines are fast Hit and Run style units, while Tanks are not. Going for both, in my opinion, handicaps you with the drawbacks of both and the advantages of neither.
Going both in good numbers makes you too low on marines probably.
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On December 19 2013 06:27 SC2Toastie wrote:
I'd actually say Mine Tank is worse than having only one of each, because both are pretty sensitive to critical masses.
Mines need a high marine count to be with them (which means at the front) whilt Tanks need to be surrounded preferably. Mines are fast Hit and Run style units, while Tanks are not. Going for both, in my opinion, handicaps you with the drawbacks of both and the advantages of neither.
Going both in good numbers makes you too low on marines probably.
Actually you may be right. Now that I think of it, whenever a Terran gets those really really juicy widow mine hits they immediately unborrow and move everything up towards the Zerg base while clearly creep and try to attack before Zerg has another wave of units. With Tanks you have to move more slowly, wait for reinforcements (because Zerg WILL have more units ready) and keep trading efficiently as you creep your way up.
So having Tanks slows you down.
But maybe both can be useful. For example if you go mostly tanks and you're sieged up in a nice area but you want to go hit a side base.. you can use a few widow mines to cover for your 8-10 marine group without having to unsiege a tank line and expose yourself.... ?? maybe?
I think people need to just try it honestly.
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I'd say when you go both, you go both without rines. I've actually toyed with an idea to make a composition based around tanks with mine, hellion and anti-air support. 40 minute no rush turtle plox xd
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On December 19 2013 06:40 McRatyn wrote:
I'd say when you go both, you go both without rines. I've actually toyed with an idea to make a composition based around tanks with mine, hellion and anti-air support. 40 minute no rush turtle plox xd
Don't we call this 'mech' nowadays?
Seeing as Ghost is the only unit I don't consider Mech that shoots up excluding Marines?
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Well, you know... Blizzard nerfed one of our 2 mech ground AoE unit and buffed the other, so I would imagine people try to build more of the second unit :D
Edit: I agree that the Tank does seem significantly (p < 0.05) more powerful, but it's still very easy to just get A-moved if the opponent's army comes from a bit too much of a wide angle.
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On December 19 2013 07:56 ZenithM wrote:
Well, you know... Blizzard nerfed one of our 2 mech ground AoE unit and buffed the other, so I would imagine people try to build more of the second unit :D
Edit: I agree that the Tank does seem significantly (p < 0.05) more powerful, but it's still very easy to just get A-moved if the opponent's army comes from a bit too much of a wide angle.
Tanks seem to be really map dependant IMO. Yeonsu is great, Polar Night/Derelict, not so much
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Something I just thought off, if Tanks become staple TvZ again, HotS has been quite the embarrassing 'expansion' for terran, giving terran nothing new but Turbovacs whilst Zerg and Protoss got the big toys and buffs :O
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On December 19 2013 08:26 SC2Toastie wrote:
Something I just thought off, if Tanks become staple TvZ again, HotS has been quite the embarrassing 'expansion' for terran, giving terran nothing new but Turbovacs whilst Zerg and Protoss got the big toys and buffs :O
You got mines. But Zvt is played with pure wol units. Not like you see sh or vipers much in tvz cause their only good against mech.
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There might be something to say about the Mutalisk being a lot more viable... But I guess pre-queen WoL is pritty similar to BioTank HOTS 
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Ive used tanks in a few ZvT and its really hard to play against mass muta. But its kind of a meta thing that it works sometimes I think because zergs have started to produce mutas later and just mass lings and banelings because they are aware of how weak the WM is now. So hard to move out on the map against that mass ling/bling style because you really cant do much untill 170+ supply. They just run over the mines and dont give a shit.
And yes, I think tanks are very very dependant on the map for obvious reasons. Against gasless opening with lots of queens it can be almost impossible to play tanks because the creep is covering so much of the map.
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EPT
