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It is hard not to know about this guide :p
It is an extremely high quality guide, the main one i would recommend besides mine. Obviously it is TvP only (while mine is about all 3 matchups), but it is extremely in depth, and is using a different style, which can be quite interesting. However since i do not play the style, i do not know its current strength
On June 24 2014 19:29 Nahmu wrote:
Very interesting and out of the norm I like it! Appreciate the guide!
Thanks !
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Great guide :D
I 'm watching your replays hope there 'll be more in the future.
very interested in your mech TvP :D
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I never understood why people rabidly nod their heads at "oh da POSITIONINGS are SO HARD". When attacking, you make a slow push to your opponent's most recent base and kill it, then get into their reinforcement line and gg. When defending, put more tanks where the enemy shit (usually locusts) are coming through and spam some PDD. SHEET SO HARD.
Meanwhile, proper bio positioning is equally hard, requiring multi-pronged attacks which set up unit positions in advance to take advantage of opponent's army. See Polt: positioning for bio is very hard.
Also, I think positioning is a really easy skill to develop and takes much less practice / is less impressive than the mechanics required to properly split/drop/macro bio units. Macro is leagues harder for bio; mech macro is essentially protoss where you wait for a minute then make 6 huge units that each take 500 resources (I exaggerate, of course, but seriously, making 5 tanks and rallying them to a defensive position then sieging them while massing an unbeatable raven ball can hardly compare to making marines off of 10 rax while constantly attacking/clearing creep/dropping). For the first 75% of the game mech isn't "OMG DA POSITIONAL PLAY SO SICK", it's turtling, which literally anyone gold+ knows how to do.
Game sense = "Hmm I have a lot of tanks he might go muta, let's make turrets and thors or vikings", or the opposite, "Hmm I have a lot of thors and vikings, maybe he might try going SH or ultra hydra viper, maybe get some tanks and ravens". Or, since you have a huge mineral bank from making tanks, spam turrets+cc's to scan anyway.
Little of what I've said applies to mech vs mech but skillwise the same strat vs itself is hardly important to consider. Against Z or bio (nobody plays vs P on a really high level) it's not hard stuff. I've beaten plat players offracing as terran with mech.
User was warned for this post
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Lynna, you mentioned that "Mech TvP is extremely hard to play" - I think many people would feel that you can leave out the word "Mech" in that statement 
I've been getting wrecked using various bio styles, so I figure I might as well give mech a try. The problem is, there aren't very many good examples to follow. I've seen Mario's mech, Lagforce's mech, and your mech, and that's about it. Any time I see a pro go mech in TvP, they basically just make hellions into herp derp mass tanks and get destroyed.
Thanks so much for your contribution. Please continue to add to it. And please stream! I'm following you on twitch but there is only one VOD so far 
Thanks again!
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I think the only realistic way to play TvP mech is either
a) Doing a timing attack of 2 or 3 bases.
b) Play for the late game like Mario with Thor/Raven/Ghosts with Viking or Hellbat support depending on if you scout air or ground.
Tanks are not worth it in TvP beyond early game. They are better against stalkers but apart from that Thors are equal or better against most Protoss units. And you need to mass Tanks for them to work, you cannot miss a single siege up or you die, you cannot miss an air transition or you die.
Thors/Raven/Ghost with some Hellbat/Viking support is easier to use and cannot be hard countered in the same way as a tank based army.
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On June 27 2014 00:41 chairmobile wrote:
I never understood why people rabidly nod their heads at "oh da POSITIONINGS are SO HARD". When attacking, you make a slow push to your opponent's most recent base and kill it, then get into their reinforcement line and gg. When defending, put more tanks where the enemy shit (usually locusts) are coming through and spam some PDD. SHEET SO HARD.
Meanwhile, proper bio positioning is equally hard, requiring multi-pronged attacks which set up unit positions in advance to take advantage of opponent's army. See Polt: positioning for bio is very hard.
Also, I think positioning is a really easy skill to develop and takes much less practice / is less impressive than the mechanics required to properly split/drop/macro bio units. Macro is leagues harder for bio; mech macro is essentially protoss where you wait for a minute then make 6 huge units that each take 500 resources (I exaggerate, of course, but seriously, making 5 tanks and rallying them to a defensive position then sieging them while massing an unbeatable raven ball can hardly compare to making marines off of 10 rax while constantly attacking/clearing creep/dropping). For the first 75% of the game mech isn't "OMG DA POSITIONAL PLAY SO SICK", it's turtling, which literally anyone gold+ knows how to do.
Game sense = "Hmm I have a lot of tanks he might go muta, let's make turrets and thors or vikings", or the opposite, "Hmm I have a lot of thors and vikings, maybe he might try going SH or ultra hydra viper, maybe get some tanks and ravens". Or, since you have a huge mineral bank from making tanks, spam turrets+cc's to scan anyway.
Little of what I've said applies to mech vs mech but skillwise the same strat vs itself is hardly important to consider. Against Z or bio (nobody plays vs P on a really high level) it's not hard stuff. I've beaten plat players offracing as terran with mech.
I was waiting for you. No, really. I was waiting for this guy coming to try and bash at mech.
There is a couple of things i can do there.
1) trying to explain why i do think you're wrong. Problem ? First of all, it is all abstract concepts, without definitive proofs. Second, people like you (the "anti mech low level guy" deduced from what you say, and how you say it) tends to be quite impossible to have a constructive discussion with. You use arbitrary arguments and show an insane lack of knowledge of mech just in order to.. what ? your post doesn't even has any goal. You're just randomly bashing mech.
2) Just congratulate you for your ability to "beat plat players offracing as terran with mech", and move on.
Since i don't want this thread to be a trolling party full of people aiming at bashing mech play (or myself), i will take option 2, and not fight a losing battle by feeding the troll.
Congratulations for beating plat players with mech and thanks you for your useful contribution to the thread.
(i tried hard to find something clever to say with make/mech, but sadly being at my workplace seems to empty me of my ability to make puns)
On June 27 2014 01:24 CycoManiac wrote:Lynna, you mentioned that "Mech TvP is extremely hard to play" - I think many people would feel that you can leave out the word "Mech" in that statement I've been getting wrecked using various bio styles, so I figure I might as well give mech a try. The problem is, there aren't very many good examples to follow. I've seen Mario's mech, Lagforce's mech, and your mech, and that's about it. Any time I see a pro go mech in TvP, they basically just make hellions into herp derp mass tanks and get destroyed. Thanks so much for your contribution. Please continue to add to it. And please stream! I'm following you on twitch but there is only one VOD so far Thanks again!
Well, yes, TvP is notoriously hard to play from non-pro. Even though it got a bit better from the "hard" point recently, the "frustrating" part is still present and strong, but this is more a matter of protoss design rather than balance
Yeah, sadly, not a lot of good mech players. I heard of Legend, young NA Grandmaster, which is apparently meching vP (i think he posted a stream in the now deserted Hots mech thread here on TL), but besides that or what you said..
Yeah, when pro plays mech vP it is a but strange... but it is basically because they're using lessons from vZ (and vT in HotS), of the "harass is needed to win with mech, or at least helps a lot", especially since they play more timing push based mech... and they want to avoid the lategame stage of the MechvP which is.. well, what it is. But for example Maru showed recently in Proleague a decent mech play, ghost-tank based (he ultimately lost because of badly handled tempest switch sadly)
The VODs issue is strange. They're supposed to be saved and archived... Is twitch automatically deleting VODs? t_t
On June 27 2014 05:44 MockHamill wrote:
I think the only realistic way to play TvP mech is either
a) Doing a timing attack of 2 or 3 bases.
b) Play for the late game like Mario with Thor/Raven/Ghosts with Viking or Hellbat support depending on if you scout air or ground.
Tanks are not worth it in TvP beyond early game. They are better against stalkers but apart from that Thors are equal or better against most Protoss units. And you need to mass Tanks for them to work, you cannot miss a single siege up or you die, you cannot miss an air transition or you die.
Thors/Raven/Ghost with some Hellbat/Viking support is easier to use and cannot be hard countered in the same way as a tank based army.
I don't really know about this. Sadly this is a problem of TvP ech : things change A LOT from one game to another.
But tbh, i think there is two ways to play mech vP lategame :
- TvZ/vT like, with two separated air/ground army ,with tanks + support, but with more polyvalent armies (more thors / banshees for each forces, less tank/viking/raven emphasis)
- Deathball style, with the Thor/raven/ghost/XXX , especially if the opponent is going relatively early for full air and not stopping it at all
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On June 27 2014 21:08 Lyyna wrote:
The VODs issue is strange. They're supposed to be saved and archived... Is twitch automatically deleting VODs? t_t
Yes, twitch will delete your broadcasts, if you don't tell it to archive them (Channel & Videos setting).
The alternative is to edit all your broadcasts which will save them as Videos in the Highlights section. I'm not sure how long they're kept there (I have 1 there for pretty long yet).
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The strange thing is that they're actually enabled (activated it the day it was forced, to make sure i wouldn't forget)... weird, weird
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On June 27 2014 01:24 CycoManiac wrote:Lynna, you mentioned that "Mech TvP is extremely hard to play" - I think many people would feel that you can leave out the word "Mech" in that statement I've been getting wrecked using various bio styles, so I figure I might as well give mech a try. The problem is, there aren't very many good examples to follow. I've seen Mario's mech, Lagforce's mech, and your mech, and that's about it. Any time I see a pro go mech in TvP, they basically just make hellions into herp derp mass tanks and get destroyed. Thanks so much for your contribution. Please continue to add to it. And please stream! I'm following you on twitch but there is only one VOD so far Thanks again!
Just FYI, Supernova plays mech a lot on stream, if you want to watch an example of it working at really high levels. I know what you mean, many games of pros going mass hellions into die are usually because they have a short-term plan with the hellions and aren't actually good with mech so they fall apart really fast after that, and less so because mech is that terrible.
On June 30 2014 07:43 Lyyna wrote:
The strange thing is that they're actually enabled (activated it the day it was forced, to make sure i wouldn't forget)... weird, weird
Yes, they make it tricky on purpose to reduce the amount of VODs they have to save I guess. What you have to do is not only enable it to save broadcasts, but also manually go to each broadcast within a few days and Save Forever. If you only enable saving broadcasts, it will only allow you to -- but not actually do it for you -- Save Forever.
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On June 27 2014 21:08 Lyyna wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2014 00:41 chairmobile wrote:
I never understood why people rabidly nod their heads at "oh da POSITIONINGS are SO HARD". When attacking, you make a slow push to your opponent's most recent base and kill it, then get into their reinforcement line and gg. When defending, put more tanks where the enemy shit (usually locusts) are coming through and spam some PDD. SHEET SO HARD.
Meanwhile, proper bio positioning is equally hard, requiring multi-pronged attacks which set up unit positions in advance to take advantage of opponent's army. See Polt: positioning for bio is very hard.
Also, I think positioning is a really easy skill to develop and takes much less practice / is less impressive than the mechanics required to properly split/drop/macro bio units. Macro is leagues harder for bio; mech macro is essentially protoss where you wait for a minute then make 6 huge units that each take 500 resources (I exaggerate, of course, but seriously, making 5 tanks and rallying them to a defensive position then sieging them while massing an unbeatable raven ball can hardly compare to making marines off of 10 rax while constantly attacking/clearing creep/dropping). For the first 75% of the game mech isn't "OMG DA POSITIONAL PLAY SO SICK", it's turtling, which literally anyone gold+ knows how to do.
Game sense = "Hmm I have a lot of tanks he might go muta, let's make turrets and thors or vikings", or the opposite, "Hmm I have a lot of thors and vikings, maybe he might try going SH or ultra hydra viper, maybe get some tanks and ravens". Or, since you have a huge mineral bank from making tanks, spam turrets+cc's to scan anyway.
Little of what I've said applies to mech vs mech but skillwise the same strat vs itself is hardly important to consider. Against Z or bio (nobody plays vs P on a really high level) it's not hard stuff. I've beaten plat players offracing as terran with mech. I was waiting for you. No, really. I was waiting for this guy coming to try and bash at mech. There is a couple of things i can do there. 1) trying to explain why i do think you're wrong. Problem ? First of all, it is all abstract concepts, without definitive proofs. Second, people like you (the "anti mech low level guy" deduced from what you say, and how you say it) tends to be quite impossible to have a constructive discussion with. You use arbitrary arguments and show an insane lack of knowledge of mech just in order to.. what ? your post doesn't even has any goal. You're just randomly bashing mech. 2) Just congratulate you for your ability to "beat plat players offracing as terran with mech", and move on. Since i don't want this thread to be a trolling party full of people aiming at bashing mech play (or myself), i will take option 2, and not fight a losing battle by feeding the troll. Congratulations for beating plat players with mech and thanks you for your useful contribution to the thread. (i tried hard to find something clever to say with make/mech, but sadly being at my workplace seems to empty me of my ability to make puns)
Well said. chairmobile what you say is ridiculous. You say that you've beaten plat players offarcing as terran with mech... good job...? Seems like you're not a very good player; otherwise you would know that not anyone gold+ knows how to position/turtle. Perhaps you are only gold or plat yourself, and not experienced higher level play.
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Foxtrot labs : Hard to judge, there is a lot of paths and exploitable areas, but also a lot of good defensive points, with both safe and agressive expand patterns available. Will be good imo but really hard to tell without tests
Deadwing : Looks really cool imo. Possible to play defensive on it, yet once again a lot of attack paths. Makes me think of Shakuras, first version, with the ability to go on the sides and avoid the open middle. The large open area might be a problem in some scenarios (TvZ mainly ?) but not too afraid
Catallena : less thrilled with this one, harder to take defensive positions, not so intuitive expand pattern with mech and the multiple ramps to go from your third to 4th for example can become quite annoying... probably going to veto this one
Nimbus : probably another veto. Easy to take 3 bases, but after that... like Catallena, here is no intuitive expand pattern for mech, and you have to quite expose yourself to get a 4th. Might be doable but well..
Overall, the map pool seems decent, at least 2 good maps in it imo. But they seems quite original and will require some real tests on it !
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giving up on TvP mech. I'll just play TvZ mech from now TT__TT
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What happened ? :o
Maybe i can look a bit at a couple of replays to see if there is any 'obvious' problem. To be honest, i'm myself amazed when i see the difference made by simply using another opener and trading a rax/ghost for more ports in the midgame :p
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I have trouble improving with mech, I dont know what to do to improve honestly, as I cant tell how suck my macro is due to the fact that I always float resource as mech player.
To be honest it gets confusing sometime, I dont know why I lose games, nor why I win games, thus dont know what I can improve.
I'm platinum on NA.
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The issue with mech isn't that it's easy or hard or positional or not, but that's it's mind numbingly stupid and boring to play vs.
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preference I guess, just like how stephano like to play swarmhost.
Maybe boring to watch, but to some, not really boring to play vs.
@lyyna: do you have any new replay :D
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Mech in itself is okay to play against. Its the SkyMech thats stupidly boring.
For Zerg:
"PDD denies all incoming fire. Turret+Tank lines makes engaging impossible"
For Terran:
"Moving into Swarmhosts isn't easy. There's a ton of static D and overextending means I get abducted, fungalled or worse."
Practically it resolves into whoever dedicates the most to an attack loses. Its mindnumbling boring. I've played vs Lyyna, and won. I've played vs Lyyna and lost. On some maps mech into SkyTerran is stupidly broken. (Overgrowth vs turtle mech is probably the most frustrating experience a Zerg can have.) On other maps its just easy to run around a Terran and deny the fourth/fifth. (Frost says hello.)
** I don't think Mech requires the same amount of skill as Bio does. The decision making and map control is really what it comes down to, much more than positioning. Probably because you cannot get a good positioning without making good decisions or knowing where your army needs to be.
Lategame, there's nothing hard about placing PDD and moving forward to siege up. Really. What I want to see, preferably to pure mech, is mech being supportive in all matchups. Make the Thor a faster Anti-air support unit, designed to deal with Voidrays, Mutas and the like. Give the tank a bit further range, possibly +1 armor in siegemode.
And for the love of god nerf the Raven and redesign the Swarmhost.
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@Moonfan : i'll end until the end of the week in order to post some replays, so it includes some of the new maps as well !
@sparklyresidue : and i would love it to be different. But the lack of rough power of mech before max with raven support, and the amount of counter play availables (and its efficiency) means it has to be like this for now.
@Keilkan : May or may not agree with some things you said, but i agree with what you say in the end and the general message : the current state of this is quite boring, and it would require some redesign. But sadly i don't think this is going to happen anytime soon (let's wait for LotV and some new bio support units from the factor... eh, sorry, a "mech buff")
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New maps look to be quit good for mech. Not played alot on them yet though.
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EPT
