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[G]How to Mech them cry : Lyyna's Mech in HotS

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-10-19 13:00:53
June 18 2014 16:42 GMT
#1
Hi guys !

I am Lyyna, a french terran, high master (some peaks in the top 10 master EU, usually ~~100-200ish master) on the EU server, playing mech in nearly every game. I am also a MVP on the Starcraft 2 french forums. Oh, and i am a male (i saw people wondering, so, better clear this for good, in case my voice on stream wasn't a clear enough clue).

My previous Hots thread was quite a failure (made too early, while i was basically lacked passion about the game, and HotS proved to be way less mech-friendly than i initially thought during the beta), which is why i make a new there (i think a big thread / a year isn’t too much, right ? :p) and without doing the mistake of “not enough content” this time ! Also, i do currently have a lot of time to write, so...
I also take this opportunity to (once again) apologize for my faulty english. Well, i’m french, enough explained there !

An important thing to say, compared to my other guides : i realized that i always try too hard to go “in depth”. This is not good, especially since a lot of my play (and mech play, by nature) is based on experience, reactions, instincts and game sense… In one word, personal thinking. it is not possible to describe everything that’s in my head. Also, a lot of things i do in every matchup tends to follow the same set of rules, meaning that writing 3 separated fully-in-depth guides would be quite useless since 75% of them would be quite identical. This time i’ll try to write a more general guide with my own “how to play” rules and some reactions to specific scenarios.

I’ll also heavily try to maintain a “questions/answers” section , because i feel it is better to see what is asked by the community rather than trying to tell everything that is going on in my head. So no hesitation guys ! Ask anything you want, i’ll try to answer, and if it is a good point, i’ll had it to the thread

And a last thing : this is about MY style. It isn't about standard mech play, or something like this. If you aren't interested in a mainly defensive, slow mech style, relying on macro and cost effectiveness with little harass, well . . .

Anyway, good luck, enjoy your read, and feel free to comment / ask questions ! I hope this can help people to play mech, and maybe create their own style !

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Logs :
+ Show Spoiler +
18/06/2014 : Even though the post isn’t 100% finished, i consider i do have enough content to now post it, especially in order to start to fill it with community content and i want to have some feedback since the "skeleton" of it is done (Also, i do know that if i wait to post a “perfect” guide , i won’t ever post it, since i would want to edit every single sentence again and again and won’t ever be satisfied.. especially considering its huge size). What remains currently to do is to add a “spells” section, and a positioning/micro section. The TvP lategame section miss also a couple of sections (but it should be obvious while reading it), that’ll be added tomorrow. I do currently have a lots of time to write so don’t worry, that’ll be done. Anyway, first version !
19/06/2014 : Additions to the "TvP lategame" section, added a small replay pack, question "TvP : Why using thors in the midgame instead of going for tanks asap ?" added
01/07/2014 : More additions to everything. Planned map section won't be done until next season
08/07/2014 : Wording
27/07/2014 : Some formatting stuff, new replay pack
29/07/2014 : Some Cattlebruiser stuff, and more harassey stuff. Also started the gameplay logs section
19/10/2014 : Addition of new content about lategame ghosts TvZ. New replay pack. Suppression of the gameplay logs section (basically the content is repeated in individual guides)


A few personal definitions / general things :

- What is mech ?
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A mainly factory based army/strategy, which still includes other (air, ghost) units (we can talk of specific subsets for this, like ghostmech or skymech, but the general “mech” concept still applies). This is here so i don’t get butchered by some people saying “YOU ARE NOT MAKING ONLY FACT UNITS THIS IS NO MECH”, like it happened on my WoL thread (funnily enough, it is perfectly fine for these people to say we’re playing “bio” versus protoss, like only marines/marauders/ghost, without any viking/medivac/mine/hellbat, right ?).


- What is my playstyle ?
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I do play a mainly defensive playstyle, focusing on staying alive as long as possible, and aiming at overpowering my opponent in the lategame with a superior positionning/army/control. But well, lately, i’ve also been working on more agressive playstyles (to be honest, more like “being less shy and trying to exploit weaknesses when i see them”).


- Why do i play this lame style ?
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Originally, because my apm were too low to play the since-long-standard bio/aggressive terran style popular in every matchups, and because i liked a lot the positioning-play created by the tank in BW. I wanted to play a tank-centric style, allowing me to use the fact my game sense, positionning, and theorycrafting were faaaaar beyond my mechanical skills (oh the irony). Nowadays… because i still hate bio play, and also because playing aggressive (besides harass) as mech became extremely hard in HotS : the threat of stuff like viper or mass muta or SH or overall stronger protoss midgame/lategame for example made it way more dangerous to leave my base in HotS, both because my army sometimes lacks some “punch power” compared to our opponent’s, and because of the threat of base races. Mech midgame haven’t changed much to balance these changes, and the biggest addition from HotS is in the lategame, the new raven, meaning it became way more reliable to play an overall defensive style instead of the old harass-into-timing based mech from WoL or the good old BW-like slow doom push. Mech starts to really become strong around 150+ supply, and considering the slow production for us / higher production and relatively easy access to anti-mech tech for every race, it means we now have to play defensive to reach your power peak


- Mech is easy to learn and play, and a noob strat, right ?
+ Show Spoiler +
A really common misconception, born from the fact mech players tends to be really slow mech..anically (laugh, please, otherwise i’ll feel terrible), and from sometimes-popular easy-to-do big 2 / 3 bases mech timing/allins (even if they tend to get figured out easily, they still looks scary and requires enough scouting/deviation so that most players find them infuriating), making it kinda frustrating to a “noob who just sit on 3 bases and kills me with half my APM in 1 A move”. The fact is that mech (outside of these allin-ish timings, of course) requires quite a lot of non-control/apm related skills, the ability to metagame/anticipate well, to know when to cut corners, to position extremly well (you cannot stim and run if you put yourself in a bad spot with your tanks and thors . . .), and still requires a decent amount of mechanical skills, the macro has to be extremly precise, and even if some situations can be kinda microless (like an early-midgame battle with pure tanks versus pure roaches), especially in the lategame the micro/multitask required can be quite overwhelming (raven TvT wars ; as a sidenote, it is always extremly satisfying to win these versus bioplayers who taunted me all game long about my “no micro noob style”, and ends up losing 60 supply of clumped air units to 4 missiles - yes, while watching the battle/having the units selected…)


Units
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Marine : a terrible unit, that has some usage early game for defense, but that’s all. I heard they have some kind of attack/movement speed increase with some upgrade, but never bothered to really look into this
Ghost : a high cost, fragile unit, vulnerable to feedback, air units, or just “too-many-stuff-to-EMP-all-of-it” that can take out 40% of the protoss army health instantly, and deals easily with threatening things like immorta/HT/archon. It can be used as well in lategame TvT (rare) to fight ravens / BCs, and in TvZ to fight vipers/infestors heavy composition. Nukes are a possibility in all MUs but aren't my thing.
Hellion/hellbat : obviously, our core mineral dump. With the ability to freely transform from one to another, we should use both and not hesitate to switch between them. Hellions are good for scouting (even in the lategame, i usually keep 1-2 hellions with my army for this, in order to secure my army’s path/flanks), harassing/raiding (and actually, with hellbat mode, a 6-8 hellion patrol can take out quite a lot of defense), defending from harass, and decent in fights (actually, their AOE attack can often do more damage than hellbats versus melee units). Hellbats on the other hand are good at taking out nearly everything that come too close, and at tanking a tons of damage (especiallt with medivacs). Usually, we’ll want to have a lot (10+) of them in the midgame, and even if they’re the first combat unit we’ll replace (after scvs), in some situations it can be quite good to have some in the lategame (in TvP the buffer is always useful, and in TvZ a couple helps a lot versus any surprise zerglings production)
TvZ : +3 attack Hellbats one shot zerglings. For 2 supply, if we have a good simcity, we can get an invincible anti zergling defense for a base. We can chose to keep 2 in our main base / production area in the lategame for easy defense against runbys
TvP : if we can get close to them, and get a surround, hellions are surprisingly good versus stalkers in high numbers
Widow mine : honestly, this unit isn’t that good for mech in most situations. It tends to be quite random, to kill a lot of our units versus things like zerglings/chargelots, and is only effective for some early game defense (to be honest, for this, they can be quite amazing), emergency anti air, or some trolly mass mines style (which works decently if there is no AOE). July 2014 : with the recent up, even though i won't use it as a core unit still, they're way better as an early defense unit, and awesome versus carriers ! There is finally a way to beat a carrier fleet without carriers, using mines to ANNIHILATE interceptors before vikings jump in
All : A mine has a 0 targeting priority for our opponent’s units, if unburrowed
TvP : An oracle is killed by a widow mine after having the time to kill 1 or 2 scvs.
TvT : A banshee isn’t killed by a single mine shot ! ! !
Tank : the unit that defines positionnal mech play. Even if we don’t mass them, once we have some, we have to adapt our playstyle to them, playing slower and with careful positioning. In low numbers, they’re a good support units, able to deal some AOE damage to clumped up units like roach, or to snipe banelings. In high numbers, tanks end up flattening everything on the ground
All : unsieged tanks have a really good dps, and can perfectly fight without sieging versus stalkers when both are in a small number, or versus an ultralisk army with some kiting
All : Starcraft 2 tanks have a smart targeting AI, meaning they won’t overkill anything, wasting potential tank shots, even when used with shift+attack
TvZ : Tanks with +1 attack will oneshot zerglings no matter their armor upgrade
Thor : a scary all-around mech unit. They do have a really strong ground to ground attack, two okay-ish ground to air attacks, and a lot of hp. They act as a buffer between both armies, taking a lot of damage/attention while delivering a high amount of damage to everything. They have weaknesses in their buggy AI (extremely slow to target/react, especially when facing both air and ground) and size (makes massing them extremely ineffective)
All : Some thors with a ton of scvs are nearly unkillable in low scale fights. Think about it the next time a zerg tries to roach-drop you (people may remember about the MvP roach drop defense in WoL when he has his 2/4 first thors, by simply pulling 2 bases worth of scv and enjoying the sight of helpless roaches unable to take out these titans)
TvZ : +2 attack makes thors able to two shot mutalisks
TvT : the secondary air attack (high impact payload) makes thors ignore point defense drone, at the loss of the AOE effect and +light damage
Banshee : a high dps, invisible flying unit. Banshees are EXTREMELY STRONG (people may remember that, actually, it was adding banshees to my ghostmech army that made it so strong in WoL)
TvT : when we control the sky, a single banshee won’t hurt (well, it’ll hurt but.. you see what i mean there)
TvP : chain cloak/decloak them to make them less vulnerable to feedback !
TvZ : a banshee beats a queen in a 1 vs 1 situation
Viking : well, i don’t like them.. but we don’t have the choice there. Our other anti air options aren’t reliable (mass thors is terrible due to their speed/size, mines are random/requires to be under his army), so massing vikings is needed to control the air
Raven : ah, the bread and butter of lategame mech, also a really controversial unit , basically the terran’ equivalent to WoL infestor. Lots of utility and usages available, and is usually used massively in the lategame
All : Auto-turrets benefit from building uppgrades
All : Seeker missiles does NOT require vision once the missile is casted !
Battlecruiser : avoid them in most situations, reallyBCs are extremely vulnerable to vipers, raven/viking, and tempest/VR, all of them being the backbone of each race’s lategame versus Mech. However, if we can get a tons of them with the right support units, our army become nearly invincible. October 2014 : i am starting to use these bad boys more & more vP & vZ ; there is just something to remember : NEVER overcommit to them (when the opponent is starting to get counter units, stop producing them !) and NEVER use them without adequate support. Your number of BCs is ALWAYS linked to how much support (usually, viking/raven) you have compared to his counter units.


Upgrades
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Ghost :
Energy : will edit after the next patch that’ll put the upgrade back in the game
Cloak : (TvP) we get it once we’re maxed with some ghosts and have some gas to spare ; (TvT) we get it asap when we go ghost lategame
Raven :
Energy : i don’t really use it anymore, it is “cool” to have, but since i tend to be much more conservative with my raven count/energy, it isn’t as useful as in WoL, when ravens wanted 125 energy for the missile ASAP
Spell duration : This is interesting. Even though it can be pretty useless in some situations (like in a really fast-paced game where each fight will take place at a different location), once things start to get a little slower and we can fight in similar locations each time, having them last longer (which also means more energy) is quite strong. A must-have versus Swarm hosts or tempests.
Hell(ion/bat) :
Blue Flame : get it early (between 10 and 15 minutes) in TvZ/TvP if he’s going to heavy zeal/lings or if you go for like 4 thors + hellbats, otherwise delay until max. I often skip it in TvT since marines/hellions are smashed by tanks already.
Hellion/hellbat transformation : don’t worry, the upgrade will be back soon.. with a bunker building time increase as well, of course.
Mine :
Fast burrow : If for some reasons you go mass mines , this is really good to get, obviously
Banshee :
Cloak : with the low cost of the upgrade, getting it if you get more than 2 banshees is extremely useful, increasing their survivability / ability to do damage a lot


THE RULES (or “How to play mech like me”)
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- More often that not, the safest option is the best in this style (and almost everything else is a deduction from this)
- Economy : walking on a thin line between greediness and safety is important. You won’t see me going triple CC before factory TvZ, but you won’t see me going for 1-1-1-getting-my-full-tech-tree-up-to-battlecruisers either. You need as much resources ASAP, but you cannot rely on the effectiveness of marines (and the general ability of bio play to kick in quickly once stim/medivacs are out) in the early game. Later in the game; remember that cost effectiveness can make up for a lesser income
- Positioning : When not pushing, your army must be positioned between your opponent, and your most important “macro location”. In the early/midgame it tends to be your 3 first bases, in the lategame, things become a bit more complicated since it’ll be both your production area, and your new mining bases, required you to go forward and take a more forward defensive position
It means that when you push or move, you have to choose between 1) pushing your opponent away from your base and your back, 2) have his army too weak (for whatever reason) to threaten you seriously, can be dealt with by your reproduction / hellions, 3) be in a situation where you can deal with the backstab (starting to pre-siege tanks, stop your whole army to prepare a trap, find a good location that forces him to make a move instead of waiting for you to get caught out of position, etc) / a tradebase (tanks / PF / walls at home, or main army superior in any situation, allowing you to win by lifting and going full tradebase mode.
Also, every single army move should have a goal. Anticipating your opponent’s move, protecting a new base, etc… Don’t move for the pleasure of moving, your army is too slow and requires too much set up for this
When your army arrives in a location it’ll hold for some time, ALWAYS take some actions to get a good formation, some tanks sieged, hellbats at the front, concave, couple of turrets, air army ready to intercept any threat . . . DO NOT LET IT JUST SIT THERE IN A BALL
- Scouting : it should be done often, especially once your opponent reaches 3 bases (allows for a slow air transition, while 4 allows him to go allin on it). Use hellions/banshees/scans, learn to check if what he has on the field (in terms of army, upgrades, infrastructure) is in check with what he should have, and if it isn’t, get worried. If you do not know at all, assuming the worst (air switch) is often the best option.
It is important, especially as the game goes on, to be able to learn to find clues rather than absolute proof of what he's doing. It is VERY important to learn to identify what is "normal" for an opponent to have at each timing in the game, the best placement for hidden technologies, to identify from his army moves if he's trying to hide something through agressivity or denying a specific area of the map...
- Army composition : The midgame is focused on your ground army, with some air support. The longer the game goes, the more “equivalent air + ground army” will become your objective. But since we, opposed to WoL, won’t go for mass BCs anymore, we need to still have some reliable (and seeker missile isn’t exactly reliable) ground power, so going for 80% of air isn’t an option.
Also, remember that playing a tank-based play doesn't mean getting 30 tanks every game. Tanks requires a lot of support.
- THINK : i cannot stress this enough. Mech do not lead the game, mech is all about anticipation or reactions. Your unit composition, your pushes, etc . . . You either chose it beforehand by assuming what is going to happen / try to predict, or do it as a reaction to something that happened in game. There is no inbetween with mech.
- Be Reactive : pushes, army moves, composition shift... they mostly depends of what your opponent is doing. Be ready. Especially about pushes : i don't talk about it much because, in HotS, there is barely any timing pushes for mech. It is all about realizing you have the opportunity and seizing it !
- Be Active : Even when turtling ! Have hellions on the map. Banshees. Keep scanning. Do stuff, but remember the previous rules : do useful stuff. Scout, prepare to intercept his army, try to find any opportunity to punish him, fry workers, etc !


Tips and tricks (“How to optimize my mech play”)
+ Show Spoiler +
- It is extremely important to study maps in order to learn where / how many turrets must be used : some areas can be covered by our idle air fleet, or by forward bases, etc, while some others can require a double layer of turrets in order to repel this doom drop or mass mutas force
- Once we gain access to triple mules + have our midgame production ready, we start to truly get our turret ring up. Before that, just make turrets at important locations like mineral lines IF NEEDED. After that, add turrets at every exposed areas of your bases, and keep adding them, especially in TvZ where mutas is a threat and a strong muta ball can roll over 8+ turrets
- Sensor towers are our best friends. They’re relatively cheap for what they do, and you should also learn how to place them for each map / position / matchup
- Once we’re maxed, we can start slowly sacrificing scvs if our opponent isn’t trading too much with us, replace them with CC (we won’t sacrifice too much scv if we cannot both replenish our army AND get more CCs - otherwise we’ll run out of minerals quickly)
- Again, 3 bases allows for a bumpy and risky air transition for any race. Learn to identify a standard midgame army size/upgrades/infrastructure, and if you realize there is “not enough stuff”, look for what is going on ! 4 bases means he’ll usually be maxed and is probably getting ready for it without crippling too much his other expenses, so be ready to find it and do the same in time !
- Better safe than sorry. Our army is EXTREMELY expensive and fragile, relies a lot on positioning and control, so always play safe, scout a lot what is going on, and don’t stay blind ! We have hellions, scans, banshees, USE THEM
- Our early marines are good and cheap scouts on big maps. Take these 6 marines, put 1 of them on each expansion site / important paths, enjoy. Even if they can’t tell us all our opponent do, we know that as long as they’re alive, he didn’t took this base or attacked there
- At home, it is better to stay in hellion mode to be ready to defense harass / scout / etc. Out on the map, we should keep most of them in hellbat mode, with a few in hellion mode to protect our flanks.
- When you get two armories, it is good to put one in the main , and one at the natural, so a drop / muta ball / etc won’t be able to snipe both !
- When using seeker missile, don’t put 10 of them on 1 unit. Spread 2-3 seeker missiles on several units, and if he’s really committing (using PDD, blinding cloud , stim . . .) drop a lot of them, but KEEP SPREADING THEM. You don’t want him to dodge 10 missiles by moving 1 unit away
- Obviously, do not do the opposite, do not drop too few missiles on each unit or section of his army to no kill anything and have him run away to heal
- When using seeker missiles, on fast units especially, remember that your opponent can rush towards you. Be ready to fall back !
- When you have enough ravens (8+) to have them becoming your main fighting unit, remember that it is often better to drop some missiles and run away rather than engaging : at some point, missiles will land and you’ll be able to take an easy fight. Even if he's good at dodging... create opportunities. Attack when he's idle / screen away macro'ing. Force him to commit to defend bases. Send a couple of suicide raven for point blank seekers
- Building range uppgrade is basically a +1 attack uppgrade for turrets


MATCHUP GUIDES

TvT :
The TvT Matchup takes from the TvZ in the fact that it is quite predictable and can be easy if understood, and from the TvP in the fact that it can be quite frustrating because of build interactions and a lot of punishing things going on everywhere (AOE damage, marauders backstab on a poor tank army, deadly air switches, etc)... Once you understand how it works, you’ll realize a lot of terran players are terrible at tactical play, relying a lot on timing pushes with mech and raw mechanics / drop play with bio, and are unable to deal with a game that doesn't fit their plan

Early Game
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There is a lot of builds leading to mech in TvT (gas first banshee or raven are very common, the forgg build is another strong option) but what we’ll mainly study is my own mech opening, my standard since early 2012 :
+ Show Spoiler +

(Optional : scout close proxy locations after depot)
12 rax
15/16 gas (around 2:30-35, with the first marine / OC)
(Optional : scout after rax. Won’t be able to see in his base if he’s going for marines, and makes mineral short at some points)
Optional : cut marine production at 2, for slightly faster CC / factory
CC
Factory (slightly after 4’)
(Optional : bunker, occasional marine cut to allow continual production of gas units / scv)
Starport + techlab on factory
Tank production (should be non-stop, but one hellion can be made for scouting and/for if you’re tight for the raven due to whatever reason)
Viking (1-2, depends of preference/scouting)
(Our rax should be making a reactor around this point, and can make a couple of marines afterwards)
Techlab on starport -> Raven -> Banshee
3rd CC / 2nd and 3rd factories (any order is ok for it) on rax’s reactor and starport’s techlab, get another reactor for the starport


If everything goes perfectly, our units should be :
- Marines (At least 6, but can go as high as needed)
- Tanks (constant production)
- 1 optional hellion
- 1/ 2 viking(s)
- 1 raven
- 1 banshee
We obviously have to adapt. If he’s 1 basing, keep making marines, skip the hellion, if he’s going for a fast marine tank viking push, get double viking production asap, etc...
Our army should be in our base for defense at this point, except maybe a marine / hellion (usually a poor scv, anyway) to scout his position

October 2014 : I do use more and more often variations of hellion/viking openings out of 15 gas, with 5:30-6 min e-bay these days. The converging point is the same anyway, having a 3rd CC & 3 factories + 1 port aroun the 10 minutes mark. Search for example for the ForGGeddon opening ,which is quite close !


Midgame
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We should have our 3rd CC on the way, and a 3 factory (2 techlab 1 reactor)/ 1 port (reactor) soon available. At this point, while starting a 2 tank / 2 hellion / 2 viking production, we do have quite a few options :
- More factories : it is standard for mech to have up to 5 factories on 2 - 3 bases. I don’t personally like it much, preferring adding more air and double upgrades to a 5 fact production. I’ll usually add 1, in order to be safe, but TvT being a matchup where i want to get to the air stage ASAP, i prefer to add a second starport instead of the fifth. (Even though you can and should go to 5 versus really aggressive bio players or if you want to be out of the map yourself with your main army)
Both 1 reactor and 2 reactor for factories can be used, but i do find the 1 reactor 4 Techlab option more versatile, losing one hellion on each production cycle don’t change things insanely, but losing one tank/thor can be kinda sad. Also, i do not rely that much on hellion harass/sacrifice, which might affect me on this decision quite a lot.
- More starports : Especially if we aren’t going to too much factories, another starport can be quite strong to start adding banshees / ravens to gain and abuse air superiority. This is insanely strong versus a mech opponent who is also going for tank/viking play, but didn’t make an early raven like us. However, since air units are quite fragile before we have enough tanks to protect them from the ground, and enough ravens later, adding more than 1 starport too early can be quite dangerous, if our opponent isn’t trying to get to air
- Armor(y/ies) : another choice we have. My own preference is to go for double armories, since it make our mech (and even more, our air) army MUCH stronger. All of our units deals a lot of damage, which are improved a lot by upgrades, and a lot of units we’ll meet will shoot fast/several shots at a time at us, making armor upgrades quite useful. 2 armories + 5 fact + 1 port can be quite hard to sustain (especially when starting 2/2), so it is mainly a matter of preference, depending of how much we want to favor upgrades for later, or a stronger army now, of how much vikings we do produce (personal preference : constant vikings production)
- Fast fourth : not a really common thing from me in HotS, but it is definitely an option, especially if our opponent is a bit too passive and/or tried some kind of stupid move that reset his army while barely scratching ours

At this point, if his tech choice isn’t known yet (look for upgrades on marines, hellion numbers . . . ), we need to burn a scan in his main, look for his production facilities, upgrades buildings, etc. We start to prepare for drop play (fast double marine drop can be quite annoying… and doom drops later) by starting turrets, grabbing our third with a sensor tower to secure the area while positioning our army forward

If he’s going for bio, he’ll drop. Go for a relatively early turret ring (on 3 bases) + sensor tower on our most exposed main’s edge, power on hellbat and tanks, add a 4th factory ASAP (a 5th can be useful if he’s trading a lot), a lot of CCs early (he’ll expand a LOT and we need to be able to at least get some minerals easily with getting as much army supply as possible.. and also to have a lot of scans) and start to slow down viking production at 6-8.Have a couple of hellions patrols taking out marines here and there and threatening him, and pick medivacs with your vikings whenever he’s too close. Once our tanks numbers start to get above 10+, we can start to move out more aggressively on the map, securing a fourth, preparing an air transition and threatening his own main bases cluster (opening us the possibility of sending a couple of units to deny / disturb some of his far bases)... but remember positioning rules ! ! ! Also remember that since he uses a lot amount of gases, he might himself go for an hard air transition early . . . be ready ! Keep your eyes open, follow his army movements, make sure to anticipate and deny any drop / run by attempt, and don’t let him bleed us slowly.

If he’s going for mech, our air superiority should prove worthy quickly. Be wary of some kind of 5 factories bust with thors added (we might need to retreat on 2 bases there, + land vikings), but outside of that, our early raven + banshee should give us air dominance, allowing us to pick up tanks easily. Versus this, going for double starport (ending up with a 3 fact 3 port production ) can be good, but may be dangerous on some open maps where our opponent can take us apart with a couple of big attack forces sieged in key position. It is safe however to go for a 4th factory + 2nd port relatively quickly for some ravens / banshees. We need less orbitals in the midgame, since he’s going to expand less than a bio player, and an air transition is easier to spot without scans (he’ll often retreat entirely to his bases, and his lack of gas units will be easily spotted).

If he’s going for a weird super fast air play, remember that thors RAPES banshees, and BCs without upgrades takes forever to kill turrets / thors. Stay cool, makes some thors / turrets, and transition to viking / raven yourself.

Regardless of his play, adding 1-2 thors for extra safety against banshees (and as a damage buffer for our tanks) is always good. Once the threat of big 2-3 bases busts is over (we have enough tanks) and our infrastructure is done, it is good to restart vikings production (tanks still have the priority of course)


Lategame
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Our fourth is ready, we start to stockpile command centers, to add starports, aiming for a 5 fact 5 port setup . . We have turrets rings + sensor tower on drop paths, and our scv count is starting to get lowered. Keep preparing command centers, and if it is safe, take new bases. We are now producing a lot of ravens, with some tanks / thors / vikings / hellions added depending of his own army

Versus bio armies : our tanks should flatten any bio army at this point… and our ravens, too. Well placed PF + 2-4 tanks can terribly damage a bio army, and as long as we don’t get caught out of position, weshould be able to deal with it easily. Keep an healthy tank numbers (16+) in our main army, get more ravens, cut vikings (10-12 should be enough). We can divide your ground army in two, using one half to rampage his expansions while the other stay between him and our bases, and being ready to reinforce wherever he’s with our air army. Use a lof of scans ! His goal is to catch our armies unprepared, our goal is to force him to charge into us while prepared or to lose economy / production.

Versus mech armies : Keep enough tanks (10+) to make him unable to attack effectively into us, and abuse ravens ! Pdd absorb EVERYTHING he can have, so just use banshees and seeker missiles to chase him away. At some point he has to choose between doing a suicide attack in your ground, getting destroyed by your air, or switching to air himself.

Versus air armies : Now, we dance. The fact is that it becomes all about control and strategy. A few tips :
- Have some “safe zones” with a lot of turrets where you can retreat your air force if things goes wrong. Honestly, 6-8 turrets can change everything
- “missiles and run” is often better than “stay and fight”, especially versus a maxed air army : at some point he’ll commit and you’ll be able to land some missiles. Aim especially at battlecruisers
- DON’T MAKE ANY FUCKING BATTLECRUISERS YOURSELF, except if you totally won air superiority (like, you have 15+ ravens 15+ vikings, and your opponent is going back to ground)
- If he’s committing too heavy to his air, remember : our air army is built to handle a superior air army, and can do so quite easily with good control. We still have tanks on the ground to deny bases
- The addition of 2-6 thors to our army (especially if he skips battlecruisers or if we weren’t able to get a lot of ravens early) is really good to exhaust PDD really fast
Dance with your air army, block his attack attempts, dodge missiles. Meanwhile , use your remaining ground units for counterattack, drive him crazy, and at some point you’ll be able to both destroy his air army and his economy/production.

Overall, winning can be tricky. Lategame TvT tends to be a bit... strange. It is often easy to fight runby and harass, but clashes between armies are extremely violent, scans are spammed, and compositions must be shifted carefully. Winning is a combination of :
- Getting his resources low (force trades / destroy expands with little tank/thor squads or BFH if he makes orbitals)
- Destroying his army (obvious)
- Lowering his production (through economic damage or direct attacks ; versus agressively positionned players, it can be good to send hellions into his bases, convert them into hellbats, and destroy depots / addons / etc.)


TvZ
TvZ is a funny matchup. Even though mass mutalisks / SH / viper, or the occasional money fungal will make you want to bang your head against the wall, the general flow of the matchup is quite easy to understand, making it less frustrating than TvT or TvP. If you die, it is usually a matter of careful execution, and not because your opponent was able to blind counter you or to get a couple of lucky AOEs.
One exception though : mass abduct play. I do seriously think abduct shouldn't be castable 5 times on the same unit in the same amount of seconds --'

Early game
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There is a lot of possibilities here. My personal favorite is the Flash 1 reaper expand but 12/12 2 reapers, 11/11 3 reapers, CC first, or 1 rax expand are all fine. All of them leads to hellions, followed by banshees.
I’ll assume the Flash opening is used, which is basically :

12 rax 12 gas
Reaper
CC (before second supply)
Reactor
Second supply
Factory
1-2 Marines (Flash goes for two most of the time)
Factory on reactor, Starport, techlab on rax
Hellions (4 before 3rd CC if CC before arm / fact, then 2 after ) / Banshees
3rd CC / 1-2 armory / +2 factories (in any order, with this being the standard one)

Use reaper / hellions / banshees for scout, creep denying, etc . . . nothing out of the standard there. TvZ haven’t changed much about the early game in a looong time.
Be really attentive about the timing / saturation of the third, evolution chambers, number / positioning of queens. Hellion/banshee can defend anything (as long as your hellions don’t get stupidly caught in the middle of the map, and banshees don’t get out runned by roaches because you weren’t in position), but you have to see it coming, and to be ready to get informations about his follow-up (especially if you don’t see anything suspicious before T2 actually) with a scan in the main.


Midgame
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At this point, third landed / landing, hellions / banshees normally chased away from his side of the map. factories 2 and 3 starting a thor. The first important step is to find what he’s doing with his T2 tech (remember the scouting rule !) :
- Mainly zerglings : high risk of mutalisks play, but might be fast SH and / or T3 too (look at zerglings upgrades around 10 minutes !)
- Roaches : Early (6-8 minutes) defensive roaches isn’t always a sign of roach-based mid game. We need to look at their upgrades as with zerglings. The fact is that, since they’ve a critical upgrade (speed), we should quickly (2-3 minutes after lair) know how much he’s dedicating to them. With roaches comes the threat of hydralisks. Get a shitload of tanks, be ready to retreat if you realize you’re outmuscled in open ground, but don’t forget than “low” (20-30) number of roaches can struggle versus 4 thors / 2 tanks / 8 hellbats + some pulled scvs
- Mutalisks : usually spotted by the zerglings-favoured ground, and a common “by default” option. Refer to the “how to deal with mutalisks” question. If, by 9-10 minutes, the zerg hasn't shown any kind of gas tech, it is safe for us to get at least a turret per base around 11 minutes.
- Swarm Hosts : hard to spot, most zergs will kind of “randomly” transition to them after something else. Dealing with them requires a massive amount of tanks (12+) and later in the game, ravens for PDD. We need to start dropping / sending hellions everywhere once we see this, making sure to draw his attention away, winning time for the air transition.
We can go up to 5 factories (still 1 reactor !) there, with your starport either on a techlab (more banshees, earlier ravens - MvP.Wol style, and it is by far my favourite option) or reactor (vikings, better air control versus vipers / mutalisks / broodlords, the favored option currently). Get 2-4 thors early, then power on tanks unless he goes MASS mutalisks. Use hellions to deny some creep, force his armies away (zergs tends to value their creep more than killing blows opportunities on you :D), and get some drones. I’ll in most situations 5 . Scan for his tier 3 every couple of minutes or so, starting at 14 minutes. Consider a relatively early fourth (around 14 minutes) compared to other matchups, and feel safe to cute units relatively early to prepare the lategame transition (orbitals + more starport) once you have enough experience to identify windows where he cannot do anything (for example, after a big roach push with few losses for us, and no T3 : there is few chances he’s going to try the same again without “something else”)

The midgame is pretty simple there in terms of execution, since besides mutalisks, which requires you to go in a specific setup with thors / mass turrets + earlier air transition, most things are answered quickly by “more tanks”. From there it is a race, we have to quickly secure a fourth + prepare the lategame before he’s able to get the whole map and flood us with units until death. Still be careful, don’t be a fool and use hellions / scans to scout our flanks, and be ready to quickly reposition our army versus the faster-moving zerg army.

There is some kind of “midgame T3” play that can be dangerous, the most common being roach(/hydra)/viper bust. Vikings helps a lot there, put them in the front of the army to snipe vipers before they can land clouds, while our tanks and thors MUST be splitted well (no more than 2 tanks / cloud !). Be ready, like with all non-baneling based bust in the midgame, to pull a lot of scv to repair

Have some hellions patrolling the map, getting watchtowers, ready to intercept some drones / lings here and there, and putting a bit of pressure on the zerg. Use one viking to clear expands on the map, so the zerg has to actively scout for them instead of knowing easily how much bases we have or haven’t.
Harassing is always a good thing, use your hellions and banshees to keep containing creep (it is a good way to keep mutalisks from your base.. and abuse them when they're in it !). Hellbats hit like trucks on hatch, destroy expands. Send 2 banshees / 1 raven squad to get tumors. Use vikings to kill any overlords on our side of the map. We can go full MvP, using dropships with tanks and lots of hellbats to attack everywhere, especially versus SH play.

Once we do start to get above 150 supply, with +2 upgrade(s) nearly ready, we can think about pushing. Especially if he isn’t going for many (10+) swarm hosts or some early viper busts (well, mass mutalisks can be a problem too… but less, especially since his ground is probably going to be weak and we can split our army when he dashes in and magic box above our thors, killing as much mutas as possible, while our tanks / hellbats destroy his bases), we want to take at the very least a more aggressive position on the map, securing our fourth position, and if possible, we can push it further. With scans and well positioned hellions, we can pretty safely go at least to the edge of the creep to push it a bit back, and if he isn’t going to things mentioned above (which requires good positioning of our tanks, which is kinda impossible to do well while attacking this on creep), we can think about going towards his bases.

When attacking, don’t forget, we do not want to get flanked / surrounded. Keep track of his army at all time, have hellions scouting your flanks, and be ready to fall back if you realize you cannot push and trade effectively. Better safe than sorry ! Especially at this timing ,where a bad engagement can destroy your whole army quickly ,and you won’t be able to replenish it at this stage of this game . . .

During the late-midgame, we need to add 2 ports with techlab, to get ready for the lategame. We'll get a couple of banshees or vikings first, getting ready to switch towards ravens once the 4th is secured.


Lategame
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The lategame is usually starting when the hive is morphing. Both players are 2-3 minutes away from any tech they want and have the income to get it. We need to start denying the zerg some bases, especially on our side of the map : we split our army accordingly, and start to take a position where we can defend most of our bases easily. This is EXTREMELY important especially since most zergs are going to get swarm hosts at some point, and versus these we NEED to have one solid position, we cannot move to fight every locust wave . . .

Our ideal lategame army will be a mix of tanks (15+), thors (4-6, more than in TvT since their stopping power is great versus ultras, and they help a lot versus mutalisks), vikings (don’t get too much, like above 15, unless he’s committing to mass corruptors play), and ravens (around 16 is a good number) and some hellions to support this. As usual, whenever there is a hole in our opponent play, we need to exploit this, however in TvZ it is easier to expand more and try to increase our raven count than trying to attack directly, unless we can just destroy one base or two and retreat, because a long offensive on creep can prove quite deadly for our army, and a failed attack can be punished easy by mutalisks / SH destroying everything we have at little cost for the zerg.

Abuse the strength of pdd and missiles, spread your units well, get a lot of walls / pfs up, and crawl towards him, one tank at a time !

October 2014 : A little addition i made recently is to use a lot more ghosts in lategame vZ. First of all : Why ?
Simply because ravens lack the "instant nuke" potential they used to have ; the zerg can easily dodge missiles. Also, it is too easy for him to dive in with vipers, losing only 1 or 2 to your focused viking fire, while pulling 6 units away . . .So ghost, using snipe, are a good solution to this.
Second : how many ?
6-8 seems to be a good number.
Third : How to use them ?
Keep track of his viper / infestor pack at all time. Our ghost squad should be positionning between his army and ours. Whenever he tries to approach with his vipers, we cloak a few, go forward (avoid locusts so our tanks don't splash them, and have a few pdd ready behind in case of shit !), and snipe the shit out of every caster in range. If an overseer is there, it is the priority ; after that, the zerg simply cannot kill our ghosts, who can in the meantime get 5+ vipers with good sniping speed.
What is also doable is, whenever a locust wave is dead, dive forward before the next one. TvZ lategame is often all about starvation, and each kill counts ! The point here is that, while his locusts aren't there, his only true defense is often infestor / viper to keep our units "locked" until the next wave.. but ghosts can punish these units easily !


TvP
This part is going to be the least accurate and reliable of all. Mech TvP is extremely hard to play, can deal to quite frustrating loss, and there is little you can do about it. Also, i’m still experimenting on some aspects (especially early game, and transitions to midgame) quite a lot (well, remember it took me nearly 2 years to create my WoL play. There, i’m basically working from scratch, since HotS affected early TvP a lot). You’re warned !

Early game
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In terms of openings, I do use a mix including :
- Gas first Marine/mine/hellion/medivac aggression : fun to play but sadly most protoss knows how to fight it nowadays
- Reaper expand into 1-1-1 : strong scouting, ability to adapt well, but dies stupidly to some things (fast oracle…) and has a hard time getting a lot of gas quickly to prepare the midgame infrastructure + be safe in the later phase of the early game
- 15 gas expand into 1-1-1 (the LG-IM build) : Less scouting compared to the reaper expand, but safer versus most things. I tend to prefer it with mech , especially since we do very little adaptation with the reaper scout regardless of what we scout. I usually uses a variation with a quick gas after fact, and a slightly delayed starport.
- 13 gas factory expand (often with a quick bunker) : a variation of my WoL opening, but it is not half as good in HotS. You’re forced to go for a mine first, and this + the low marines count + late expand can be quite awkward if your scv scout is denied. But if you’re used to it, and confident in your ability to scv scout, this opening is still a good way to expand earlier than a 1-1-1 opening while still having early gases and tech

The two last are my current favorites these days, with the reaper expand used here and there.

I also heard some people do have some success with fast reactor FE openings (1 marine -> reactor or reactor -> 2 reapers / marines), but i do not really like it

Our first goal there is to end up with a marine/tank defense (with the possibility of mine, especially versus oracle openings), with some starports units (banshee for harass / ground defense, raven for detection, viking for air defense, medivac for support ; which one we make here depends on scouting, and our build, especially gas allocation with the raven and banshee / cloak), an expand, and 4 gas mining.

The second step is to get an armory, and at least a second (possible third) factory, switching to thor/hellbat/banshee production with +1 armor. This army is extremely strong on 2 bases, able to compete with nearly anything the protoss can make on the ground at this stage of the game, allowing us to take our third. One raven, if possible, is also a really good thing to make there in order to get some energy for the midgame !

Use hellions to scout his army / third, while our banshees roam the map in order to pick off pylons, probes, misplaced buildings, etc… Nothing that different from my WoL play there !


Mid game
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At this point (around 12 minutes), our third should be on the way, while we start getting our thor count up and a better position on the map. At 4 thors, we do cut them for now, and want to switch to tank production (with a second techlab’d factory if it wasn’t made yet). If we haven’t, we should also get a raven.

Around the 12-14 minutes mark, a ghost academy should be made, and our barrack should make a techlab and ghosts. We stay on one rax production for long, AND it starts later than in WoL, so we need to be quite careful with these, and to make sure we won’t lose them stupidly ! ! ! ! We also have to possibility to switch the starport on its own reactor to start getting vikings / medivacs
Keep production Ghost/Hellbat/tank/Air while setting up turret rings, sensor towers, and macro CCs with our first spare minerals. At this point, scouting must be heavy, as protoss can extremely quickly get a 4th/5th + going air while holding us back with warp prisms / little armies. The only adaptation in terms of composition is if he tries to go for air, with basically, in the midgame :
- void rays : ravens and vikings. Seeker missiles destroy void rays. Also, if we do have a couple of medivacs, ghosts tanks surprisingly well void rays there. Turrets are also effective at distracting them
- Tempests / carriers : the answer for both is basically the same. Early in the game, these units are expensive, slow to produce, and not that effective in low numbers. As soon as we can identify this transition, what should be done is massing vikings (equal supply should be good, considering we should also have some thors and ghosts to help) and to hit him hard. We want our hellions to be looking for his templars, our mech / ghost army to be pushing him away, while our vikings chase his air and snipe it. Scan constantly to not get caught by storm, and abuse the fact he has a lot of supply in production in his stargates, with a low supply low efficiency air army, and a now inferior ground army
- Phoenix : laugh hard, get some turrets, and prepare for your air transition while carefully noting what he’s going for. His phoenix supply means that if he goes for air, he’ll have to cut either his ground support (enabling counter attacks with your ground, and leaving his templars vulnerable) or his air to ground units (then, just cut your air, go for a bunch of thors, and laugh - it is a same than a zerg panicking and making 50 corruptors to fight your raven/viking army.. forgetting your 80 supply of tanks and thors :p )

We need to be extremely careful with your ghosts : the production starts late, and we stay on 1 rax for a long time (if not all the game) ; This is a reason for which i tend to get cloak quickly after the academy is done.After EMPs, they should be sent back in the tankline (let them in range of the fight though, their dps is good !). Our early raven should mainly use pdd / turrets to help there, missile isn't that effective with only 1 raven, while turret / pdd helps a LOT to delay his ability to do damage on our army, and in the midgame our main goal is to keep these expensive units alive !
We need to be careful with your tanks number too, considering the amount of support units we get, it is important to not go to 15+ tanks like vT/vZ. Around 8 tanks is a good number, unless he's really committing to a ground composition and has no air incoming, while your resources are too tight to go for air ourselves besides our 2 starports addition (see below) ; then it is ok to go to 12-15 tanks, but remember ; we still need our thors/hellbats/ghosts to buffer there, and our air force for synergy !

Around the 15 minutes mark, we should be close to max, with our main protected from drops, and we should add when possible a 4th factory with techlab, and 2 more starports (end goal = 1 reactor 2 techlabs), and more CCs. Obviously, the earlier we do suspect an air switch (small army, lots of unused gas, cybernetic core doing stuff . . .), the earlier we should get these 2 ports in order to go for 4 vikings at a time (or some ravens, if needed)


Lategame
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So at this point, we do have your 4th going on. Our end goal with production is something like 2-3 rax / 5 fact / 5 port but in TvP, due to the need of ghosts in addition to our expensive army, we get what we need, and not what we want, until we do have a strong bank. We have a couple of choices depending of what the protoss is doing :
- Staying on pure ground, aiming towards a massive high tier immortal / archon / colossi / HT army : get more banshees, keep a healthy (12+) hellbats buff, and a second rax for ghosts. A 4th starport and a fusion core can be added, slowly getting an healthy (6+) count of BC (but banshees are also a good option). If we can get a really high (12+) count of BCs without him knowing, winning is extremely easy : just send the air army to destroy everything on his side of the map (beware of templars ! ! !) , while the ground army wait in a defensive position on our side. Dealing with so much BCs without air tech is impossible, and at this point we should have enough ghosts and tanks to literally flatten his ground in seconds
- A mix of ground and air (often tempests ) : versus this, the best thing is to use the "how to deal with tempests switch" question content. We can hit a strong timing, where he had to sacrifice something to get his tempests, while not having enough to really fight us effectively. If we cannot it this timing.. the idea staty the same. We get enough vikings, set up a sick concave, and run into hom
- Mass air : this is where things tend to be interesting. What we're going to see is usually Air + HT + a couple of archons immortals (if he doesn't get ground support for his HT, we need to send our hellions forward every fight, quickly )
Here, we need to get to a strong viking / raven army, with, if possibe (but extremely hard to get in this context, since the strength of protoss air requires us to get so many units) BCs in the end, but often it'll be raven/viking with some thors. We need to get up to 25/30+ vikings versus this, with 15-20+ ravens, and a couple of thors (damage buffer, AOE)/tanks (protection against HT) / ghosts (EMP) on the ground. If we can get our BCs out, things get even better, since we can go for a nearly invincible raven/viking/BC/tank/ghost army, using yamato to annihilate his capital ships while Seeker missile deals damage to everything, with our ghosts / tanks keeping his HT away, and vikings taking out tempests.
An important thing against carriers : DO NOT LET YOUR VIKINGS GO IN AUTOFIRE MODE. They'll often attack interceptors, and they're terrible at that. Target fire.

Here, our composition is going to be similar to the midgame, with thors/hellbats/tanks/ghosts on the ground, supported by banshees/ravens/vikings in the sky, with the possibility of BCs in some games. It is EXTREMELY important in TvP to keep balanced army, especially to keep a healthy buffer of hellbats/thors for these 20 zealots warpin. Compared to other matchups, we cannot really get a 20 tanks / 20 ravens / 20 vikings army that'll deal with everything. We also need to posture quite defensively in this matchup even late in the game, because pushing inside the protoss part of the map with storms / feedback, prisms / warp, and the range of their air army is extremely dangerous, especially since our army requires quite a lot of control / positionning (spread air + ground, siege, EMP, missiles, Pdd, focus fire with tanks and vikings and banshees...) in the first secondes of a fight, it is better to stay defensive on our side of the map, and wait for the protoss with our army ready



Questions
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All : Where can i found good mech informations ?
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The best references are always pros. The problem is that, there, defensive mech (or mech overall) isn’t that popular amongst them, and you need to something dig a bit to find useful content. In TvT, mech is fairly standard and references can be found easily (the recent Flash vs BByong series is an insane Mech TvT series :
). In TvZ, it is kinda rare, but there is some good occurrences to watch (Flash vs Life, especially the second game, the Sandisk tournament by Totalbiscuit
; the now older Flash vs Drg, King sejong Station ; some PL games here and there) and learn from. In TvP, however. . . besides the forgg’s attempt at Dreamhack, a couple of PL games and 1 year old attempts after HotS release,, it is pretty empty there (and sadly, for good reasons). (edit : we've seen some attempts at TvP mech by BByong. Even though it is interesting and nice to have pros trying this, i want to remind everyone that he used extremely greedy build (FE into 111 into hidden expand + third o_o), and that after the first game, he got in some troubles...
Outside of pro VODs / replays, there are some things easy to find (the mech thread here on TL, or the mech article on AllThingsTerran Reddit), including replays/vods of lower level players (including some lower lvl pro). However this becomes a bit trickier and riskier to use, since these players (and i include myself in there) have a really varying level / style / availability (in terms of contents that you can find). A few players that you can study are Goody ( Summer 2014 : there is especially quite a few VODs of him in various recent EPS streams), Lilekanin (watched a few times, liked him a lot, appears to use extremely diversified builds and compositions), HTOMario (he loves mines)..
In the end, the best way is to combine the small pro content with your own reflexions, and to try to create your own style !


All : Why such a different advice on battlecruiser ? [End of July 2014 ; not totally valid anymore since i use BCs more, but good to know]
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In WoL, i was a big fan of battlecruisers. Tank / raven / BC ( / ghost) was, with good control, impossible to beat. But in HotS, dropping the BC was needed. Why ?
- In TvT, the raven, the mine, the new thor, and later the upgrade merge means there is a lot more anti BC tools
- In TvZ, because games tended to become long turtlefest with lines of tanks vs lines of SH / spore, and zergs would be happy to grab BCs one at a time in his spore wall
- In TvP, because of the tempest and void ray.
Also, overall, the game became much faster, maps became harder, leading to a resource strain making a BC fleet hard to get. Getting a solid ground army + viking / raven means that anti BC tools (vipers and tempest) became less efficient, and was easier to get.
And for a while, i was ok with that. But slowly, they adapted. Versus protoss, i ended up realizing the old "BC switch if he's staying on a ground army, or carriers" could still be done. And versus zerg, i got inspired by MvP play in Redbull Qualifiers : if you play with enough punch, making sure to limit his ability to get static D, and abusing the fact maps are bigger (which is normally bad for mech.. but good versus SH/static D !) to force him to move, getting BCs ended up being a great idea !
A 20 BC fleet, core of our army, isn't possible anymore. Harder to get the resources, much counters, etc... but treating them like the tank is a good way : get them in numbers high enough to matter (and 4-6 BCs are terrifying), and low enough to have enough support.


TvZ : How to deal with mutalisks ?
+ Show Spoiler +
1) If we cannot identify his T2 tech (around 10 minutes) OR we can confirm mutalisks OR his first non-muta tech was spotted and is dealt with (12-14 minutes), we get a turret in each mineral line
2) When our income start to rise enough to have spare minerals, or we know it is mutalisks (and he isn’t stopping at 8-10 OR we can’t see what he’s doing with his gas), we get a second (and later third) turret in our mineral lines, and 2-3 turrets by our production. Get a couple of turrets in our main army position and near our sensor tower(s), and +1 range. We need to make sure, especially, that our armories are protected
3) When we see he’s committing to mutalisks, or we’re max / have spare minerals, we need to start getting A LOT (and by “a lot” , i mean “clusters of 10+ turrets”) of turrets in important locations (fresh mining bases, production…), and to get building upgrades if it wasn’t already done . . .
4) Confirmed committed mutalisks play (30+ mutalisks and he’s going for more) : we need to put a thor and/or a couple of mines in important locations. Sensor towers are required to correctly position our air force and our main army’s thors.

Overall, it is important to exploit our air army , regardless of the stage of the game. Lategame, we have to be careful with missiles, since mutalisks can run into our air ball and BOOM. Learn to split your air !

A little tip also, with thors versus mutas in high numbers : between your thors' shots, move them away from the magic boxed mutas ! It'll force him to move (hopefully stacking his mutas) and actively micro, and it can avoid quite a lof of damage on the thors !

A little addition after Redbull Global qualifiers : MvP used an interesting way to fight mutalisks, using less turrets (like 5 per base), his air fleet, and 2 medivacs ferrying thors around. Awesome, even versus 25+ mutalisks, especially since the zerg cannot snipe as much stuff when he knows 2 upgraded thors can be boosted and get 2 shots in the ball


TvZ : How to deal with mass Swarm Hosts lategame, with static defense, infestors, and vipers ?
+ Show Spoiler +
- Lots of tanks, enough so that locusts cannot do damage
- Get your raven / viking ball up
- At this point, it is all about being able to land missiles (or push them back with tanks leap frogging) on swarm hosts. Be careful about vipers / infestors : NEVER go in with your air blindly, put down a lot of PDD if he tries to grab your air units, and be ready to cast a couple of missiles to make him run away. Once in range of his swarm hosts, try to fire at 3-4 SH with 2 missiles each, retreat, and repeat.
A planetary fortress can help a lot at soaking up damage (better lose resources to repair than losing tanks)


TvP : How to deal with a sudden Tempest switch ? (Can apply to any air as well)
+ Show Spoiler +
Honestly, we have to do something before the tempest count is too high (10+). The thing is that otherwise, because of their size + range, they can rampage our vikings.ravens without much losses.
We need here to basically abuse the fact tempests in low numbers do not add a lof to an army : it is almost dead supply. The best way to do it is basically to outmuscle him on the ground with a stronger force, and killing the lone tempests afterwards. With enough vikings beforehand, it is relatively easy to do so, and then win the game by killing a lof of expansions / production before he can recover. This is the reason for which we go so hard on starports in the midgame : to be ready for this


TvP : Why using thors in the midgame instead of going for tanks asap ?
+ Show Spoiler +
There is a couple of reasons for this :
- I like to go for a very early armory, to fight the protoss upgrade superiority, meaning i unlock thors early (opportunity)
- Thors has a gas cost / minute lower than tanks, allowing to make up for the early gas expenditure for this early upgrade
- Thors with repair has a better synergy with your early hellbats/marines/banshees, stopping the opponent army while keeping alive these units (instead of them taking damage if we go for tanks)
- Due to this, it makes easier to survive on 2 bases / grab a third, and also open some early attacks, with thors holding the front while marines/hellions/banshees shred him from behind



(October 2014) TvT : Why are you shifting away from the marine/tank/viking(raven) opening to hellion/viking(/turret) opening ?
+ Show Spoiler +
The main reason is that nowadays, most bio players are doing some extremely agressive 10-12 minutes drops which are hard to fight using tanks on current maps - fall behind a little bit, and then the bio player will bully you and your low tank number, dropping your natural, rushing in your 3rd, etc.. with hellions, your mobility is wayyyy better and you can fry any dropped bio quickly before going back to the frontline


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Links :
Facebook
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Replays pack :
May 2014 : https://www.mediafire.com/?5mn2hdwoknq0bc4
A small replay pack, because i lost most replays from the last month with my "updated style" mysteriously during the cleaning / reinstallation of my computer.
July 2014 : Another little replay pack, not much games (had a hard time doing good games this season)
A big replay pack including most of my games from this summer + october
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
SC2Toastie
Profile Blog Joined October 2013
Netherlands5725 Posts
June 18 2014 16:45 GMT
#2
Yes! Sick! Another Lyyna guide!
Mura Ma Man, Dark Da Dude, Super Shot Sos!
The_Templar
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
your Country52797 Posts
June 18 2014 17:04 GMT
#3
This guide is meching you one of my favorite strategists in this forum.
Moderatorshe/her
TL+ Member
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
June 18 2014 17:36 GMT
#4
I used to open 11 rax 11 gas in TvP, get 3 reapers into fast widow mine and BF drop.
Had somewhat success with it in diamond leauge. Whats your thought on that?
And what's your thought about BF drops in general? I love to do them vs toss
Curious
oGoZenob
Profile Joined December 2011
France1503 Posts
June 18 2014 17:58 GMT
#5
this is so awesome !
You should stream more man !
I like starcraft
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
June 18 2014 18:07 GMT
#6
Actually i am streaming right now (well, more a test run, since i reinstalled everything recently and forgot to backup my obs settings --') for ~~2 hours at least !

On June 19 2014 02:36 KonanTenshi wrote:
I used to open 11 rax 11 gas in TvP, get 3 reapers into fast widow mine and BF drop.
Had somewhat success with it in diamond leauge. Whats your thought on that?
And what's your thought about BF drops in general? I love to do them vs toss

Hm, when do you expand ?
The problem of multiple reapers is that you're (imo) weak versus oracles, even though it might just be me being overly scared of them (had a TONS of frustrating loss --').
BF drop are good, if you play a mass factory style (HTOMario played a lot of this). In my personal style the don't work so well because i really on a low number of high effectiveness unit and i can't really afford to have much resources/supply out on the map, ending in my harass play being extremely reduced

Thanks guys anyway <3
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
mau5mat
Profile Blog Joined September 2012
Northern Ireland461 Posts
June 18 2014 19:59 GMT
#7
What would you feel about trying out Mine/Tank as core in TvP, adding on additional tech as needed?

I think it could be doable, but haven't really tested it outside of a unit tester of 200/200 mine/tank vs 200/200 Protoss
BurningRanger
Profile Joined January 2012
Germany303 Posts
June 18 2014 21:38 GMT
#8
Very nice. Looking forward to use your guide. Keep it coming.
My Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/burningranger | My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BurningR4nger
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
June 19 2014 11:39 GMT
#9
The build order looked something like this.
http://drop.sc/383031

(best I could find sadly ^^) Could you upload some replays from your playstyle so I could see it myself? I have easier time seeing than reading about it
Curious
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10332 Posts
June 19 2014 12:50 GMT
#10
YESS you have returned!

Thanks for making this guide, it looks much improved than your previous efforts! Of course one who learns fast at SC2 also learns fast in general including how to improve guides! XD

I love the disclaimer "What is mech", man it was so tiring of people ruining every mech thread back in WoL, hopefully it's different now.


Gonna go through the guide slowly tomorrow, but I noticed this in your TvP

The second step is to get an armory, and at least a second (possible third) factory, switching to thor/hellbat/banshee production with +1 armor.


Seems like you still like that thor/hellbat/banshee + armor composition from WoL. I was never a big fan of this (rather favoring massing tanks from the beginning) but I'll try it out sometime just to learn new things!
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
Aquila-
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
516 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-19 15:12:42
June 19 2014 15:12 GMT
#11
Nice, I play mech in all matchups too at high master but have had some trouble in TvP. I dont like the addition of ghosts since getting tank, ghost, raven is so expensive and hard to control and hit the right units with emp that it is not worth it, might as well play bio if I have to get ghosts. My counter to immortal is the banshee, keeping constant banshee production really helps a lot. Actually I played mass hellion banshee and vikings if needed for some weeks and beat some GM protosses with it, since it kinda beats any ground army he can make, but it is tricky to survive early aggression and also vs stalker phönix storm. What I also noticed is as long as he has no splash dmg, especially colosses, widow mines with burrow upgrade beat everything very cost efficiently!
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-19 22:50:19
June 19 2014 22:47 GMT
#12
Haven't been able to finish the guide today, terrible headache all day, couldn't really look at my computer --' Thx brain

On June 19 2014 04:59 mau5mat wrote:
What would you feel about trying out Mine/Tank as core in TvP, adding on additional tech as needed?

I think it could be doable, but haven't really tested it outside of a unit tester of 200/200 mine/tank vs 200/200 Protoss

As you can see in the unit section, mines really aren't my thing. They tend to get killed by tanks or to kill your own tanks / hellbats, they aren't a good damage buffer , they increase a lot the amount of setup you have to do to prepare fights, they eat some precious gas / factory prod time, and they basically add nothing to your army in TvP, compared to bio TvZ for example where they add a lot

They can be ok in some kind of strange thors / mines play, or overall mass mines + X play , which HTOmario used a lot back in his days (and which was used a lot in the beta / early HotS but well, they lack any kind of synergy with tanks
On June 19 2014 20:39 KonanTenshi wrote:
The build order looked something like this.
http://drop.sc/383031

(best I could find sadly ^^) Could you upload some replays from your playstyle so I could see it myself? I have easier time seeing than reading about it

Hmm, not quite sure, your opponent and the logic behind it is interesting (basically it makes me think about old school goody TvZ, when he had like 3 layers of harass play following each other, controlling a lot his ability to play an economy style), the problem is that it is extremely unsafe (nearly any agressive play can kill you kinda easily :/)
If you really like it, stick with it, but i heavily suggest to look forward to some more standard kind of agressive play (like the 1-1-1 marine/mine/hellion/medivac attack into an expand that is sometimes seen at pro level, or some normal 1 reaper or 15 gas FE, into putting your factory on your early reactor).
The idea behind this opening is good, but i feel it is too fragile to not lose to a lot of agressive protoss play :/
(<3 Metalopolis !)
On June 19 2014 21:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
YESS you have returned!

Thanks for making this guide, it looks much improved than your previous efforts! Of course one who learns fast at SC2 also learns fast in general including how to improve guides! XD

I love the disclaimer "What is mech", man it was so tiring of people ruining every mech thread back in WoL, hopefully it's different now.


Gonna go through the guide slowly tomorrow, but I noticed this in your TvP

Show nested quote +
The second step is to get an armory, and at least a second (possible third) factory, switching to thor/hellbat/banshee production with +1 armor.


Seems like you still like that thor/hellbat/banshee + armor composition from WoL. I was never a big fan of this (rather favoring massing tanks from the beginning) but I'll try it out sometime just to learn new things!

Sup man :D
Yeah, i definitely can't get away from the thor / banshe composition. I tried a lot of early tank , but honestly i never feel like i can get good enough results with them. Even though with hellbat, tanks can now hold a lot of early-midgame stuff, i still stick to my extremely early armory for early uppgrade, and from there, i just prefer to get thors (especially since their cost in gas / minute is lower than tanks, allowing to make up for the heavy investement for my mech upgrades early to get my infrastructure up asap)

On June 20 2014 00:12 Aquila- wrote:
Nice, I play mech in all matchups too at high master but have had some trouble in TvP. I dont like the addition of ghosts since getting tank, ghost, raven is so expensive and hard to control and hit the right units with emp that it is not worth it, might as well play bio if I have to get ghosts. My counter to immortal is the banshee, keeping constant banshee production really helps a lot. Actually I played mass hellion banshee and vikings if needed for some weeks and beat some GM protosses with it, since it kinda beats any ground army he can make, but it is tricky to survive early aggression and also vs stalker phönix storm. What I also noticed is as long as he has no splash dmg, especially colosses, widow mines with burrow upgrade beat everything very cost efficiently!

Actually, even in WoL, i've always been a fan of having both ghosts and banshees, and this is one of the thing that allowed me to have such a strong midgame, even against people knowing my style.
In HotS, yeah, like a lot of people, including you , i ended up really liking an heavier emphasis on banshees - but i couldn't really put the ghost totally away. This is way compared to WoL i'll go for a delayed ghost producting (starting around 13 - 15 minutes instead of 10-12), and instead of adding more rax later, i'll get 2 more port for a tons of banshees

of course if you play hellion / banshee / viking it is a bit different, since ghosts are too slow to be used there, and air / hellions can have so much synergy :p haven't got much advices on this style (i like my tanks too much) but yeah, the addition of mines seems a good idea, especially since this style tends to force the protoss towards a gateway approach to deal with the speed of your army, and gateway units get shredded by mines ; you also avoid the vulnerability of mines with normal mech ,since hellions can rush from the splash, and you don't have tanks that could kill your own mines
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-19 23:08:35
June 19 2014 23:07 GMT
#13
Yeah I really like that kind of opening but as you said, and I've noticed I almost insta die from anything that attacks before 15 min mark

I really liked the idea of doing the IM build with 15 gas into 1-1-1. I'll look into that more

May I ask why you prefer hellbat thor over hellbat tank? what is the pros/cons over said comp in your opinion?

EDIT:

I usually plays with one less factory than standard to be able to pump out double upgrades.

Ohh it feels awesome hitting 3-3 before those Bio playing terrans :3
Curious
XDEKSDEEXD
Profile Joined June 2013
622 Posts
June 20 2014 01:14 GMT
#14
Lynna....this reminds me so much of February 2012 when I forced you to make the TvP guide (I think) for WoL ...hahaha

Great guide man
eightym
Profile Joined May 2011
United States76 Posts
June 20 2014 02:48 GMT
#15
This guide has great content and a great style of writing. C'est tres formidable

Now I'm going on ladder to mech it happen.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
June 20 2014 13:06 GMT
#16
On June 20 2014 08:07 KonanTenshi wrote:
Yeah I really like that kind of opening but as you said, and I've noticed I almost insta die from anything that attacks before 15 min mark

I really liked the idea of doing the IM build with 15 gas into 1-1-1. I'll look into that more

May I ask why you prefer hellbat thor over hellbat tank? what is the pros/cons over said comp in your opinion?

EDIT:

I usually plays with one less factory than standard to be able to pump out double upgrades.

Ohh it feels awesome hitting 3-3 before those Bio playing terrans :3

For the hellbat/thor question, i answered to yoshi about that earlier, i'll actually add it to the question section !
But in short
- I get an early armory for early uppgrade
- Thors cost less gas / minutes than tanks, allowing me to get my midgame infrastructure relatively quickly even though i used a lot of gas to get my early armory
- Thors with repair are beefy enough to handle most early attacks and make up for my reduced army sizes
- Thors has a good synergy with my early marines/banshees (since they'll tank and hardly die while , with tanks, these units are going to die first, leaving me with tanks against immortals . . . x) )

About the factory thing : in TvT ? I tend to play with double armories too in TvT, it is really awesome, especially these days since a lot of bio players tends to play on ebay (and yeah, being 3-3 before them is kinda awesome :D)

On June 20 2014 10:14 Yes Im Otto wrote:
Lynna....this reminds me so much of February 2012 when I forced you to make the TvP guide (I think) for WoL ...hahaha

Great guide man

So long ago.. when i could just mass BCs in every matchup and incinerate the whole map at 45 minutes while playing the Imperial March :D

On June 20 2014 11:48 eightym wrote:
This guide has great content and a great style of writing. C'est tres formidable

Now I'm going on ladder to mech it happen.

Thanks :p but "C'est formidable" is better, "très formidable" is possible but sounds a bit awkward (for no reason besides "french is a strange language" :D)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
June 20 2014 14:36 GMT
#17
Great guide!

It is interesting that there are so many ways to play mech.

In TvZ I go mass Tanks/widow mines and just build 1-2 Thors. I find that widow mines are much more useful than hellbats since they kill both air and ground. Late game I transition into Tank/Viking/Raven/Thor/Widow mine though.

TvP is really problematic. Tanks are only useful when you have them in mass numbers, and by then Protoss have already transitioned into mass air.

Generally I have found that Ravens and Ghosts are the key to beating Protoss. Then need to be supported by either Tank/Hellbat/Viking or Thor/Hellbat/Vikings. Tanks seems only to be useful against mass Stalker/Colossus but typically good Protoss go mass immortal or air when they scout mech.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
June 22 2014 11:42 GMT
#18
Yeha, mech is really a strategy one can heavily adapt, with various degrees of agression, composition, etc... which is why it is good not only to follow guides about it, but also to try and think and mix some strategies to find the one best fitting your strength and abilities

I added a replay pack (really little one, > 10 games, as i said i lost 1 month worth of replays during my recent computer reinstall --' ), the thors question about tvp midgame, and a few additions to TvP lategame
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Mylaur
Profile Joined June 2014
France5 Posts
June 23 2014 09:26 GMT
#19
Have you checked HTO Mario's TvP guide ? What do you think about it ?

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/415933-back-to-aiur-a-tvp-mech-production
Nahmu
Profile Blog Joined June 2014
Korea (South)14 Posts
June 24 2014 10:29 GMT
#20
Very interesting and out of the norm I like it! Appreciate the guide!
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
June 24 2014 21:21 GMT
#21
On June 23 2014 18:26 Mylaur wrote:
Have you checked HTO Mario's TvP guide ? What do you think about it ?

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/415933-back-to-aiur-a-tvp-mech-production

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 !
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
June 26 2014 10:22 GMT
#22
Great guide :D
I 'm watching your replays hope there 'll be more in the future.

very interested in your mech TvP :D
chairmobile
Profile Joined July 2013
United States111 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-26 15:42:56
June 26 2014 15:41 GMT
#23
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
The game is balanced. We just suck.
CycoManiac
Profile Joined February 2011
8 Posts
June 26 2014 16:24 GMT
#24
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!
MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-26 20:50:16
June 26 2014 20:44 GMT
#25
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.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
June 27 2014 12:08 GMT
#26
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
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
BurningRanger
Profile Joined January 2012
Germany303 Posts
June 27 2014 18:51 GMT
#27
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).
My Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/burningranger | My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BurningR4nger
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
June 29 2014 22:43 GMT
#28
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
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10332 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-06-30 02:08:12
June 30 2014 02:06 GMT
#29
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.
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10332 Posts
June 30 2014 02:11 GMT
#30
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.
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
July 01 2014 05:01 GMT
#31
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/460692-new-ladder-maps-for-season-3
Your opinion on 1v1 new maps with mech strategy?
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
July 02 2014 18:06 GMT
#32
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 !
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
July 02 2014 22:12 GMT
#33
giving up on TvP mech. I'll just play TvZ mech from now TT__TT
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
July 03 2014 17:14 GMT
#34
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
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-03 19:28:12
July 03 2014 19:26 GMT
#35
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.
sparklyresidue
Profile Joined August 2011
United States5523 Posts
July 03 2014 22:42 GMT
#36
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.
Like Tinkerbelle, I leave behind a sparkly residue.
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-04 06:27:35
July 04 2014 03:17 GMT
#37
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
Keilkan
Profile Joined July 2012
Denmark67 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-04 17:09:08
July 04 2014 17:00 GMT
#38
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.
Blast 'em!
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
July 07 2014 08:58 GMT
#39
@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")
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
cmdspinner1
Profile Joined February 2014
140 Posts
July 07 2014 10:02 GMT
#40
New maps look to be quit good for mech. Not played alot on them yet though.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
July 08 2014 11:17 GMT
#41
Well, at least this season it looks like we do not need 5 vetos :D

My impressions so far :
Catallena : NOP. Way too much, too much attack paths. This kind of circular map with "around the clock" expand pattern is for me a no-go with mech (this is shared with merry go round), it exposes too much surface to drop, and force you to extend way too much to defend all your bases. You have to defend both sides of your "expand arc" while being able to respond to drops, and denying any attack from the center of the map, and at some points your expansion is going to "collide" with his, creating way too much fronts to defend.

Nimbus : Relatively easy to get 3 bases, but way harder after that, and the 3rd can be a bit tricky to defend in some situations. Require more testing

Deadwing : omfg. 5 bases for free. My first game on it was a 1 hour and 15 minutes long TvZ on 6 bases versus 9 or 10 . . . The layout is great for mech, but it is easy to become trapped in your too easy to defend position. Beware of backdoors too !

Foxtrot : haven't played it yet, but the layout is interesting and offers a lot of positions for defense and offense.

My vetos for now are Catallena, Merry go round, and Nimbus (i plan to get rid of this one later)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
BurningRanger
Profile Joined January 2012
Germany303 Posts
July 08 2014 14:36 GMT
#42
On July 08 2014 20:17 Lyyna wrote:
Catallena : NOP. Way too much, too much attack paths. This kind of circular map with "around the clock" expand pattern is for me a no-go with mech (this is shared with merry go round), it exposes too much surface to drop, and force you to extend way too much to defend all your bases. You have to defend both sides of your "expand arc" while being able to respond to drops, and denying any attack from the center of the map, and at some points your expansion is going to "collide" with his, creating way too much fronts to defend.

Just to add a small point to this, Catallena actually has a spawn position imbalance. The top and bottom main both have pretty big airspace to cover. The left main does not, because it so close to the map border. That's what you get, when you insist on putting maps with an odd number of spawn locations in.
I was just fiddling around with the map, trying to find out what expand pattern to use, when I realized that huge airspace -> insta Veto (I already hate to build 360° turretrings on King Sejong Station).
My Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/burningranger | My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BurningR4nger
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
July 27 2014 00:11 GMT
#43
https://www.mediafire.com/?ld23qocjl82tl98
A little replay pack. Doing good games on new maps was a bit hard , but well, i think there is enough games to allow some studies for people interested !
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
SC2Toastie
Profile Blog Joined October 2013
Netherlands5725 Posts
July 27 2014 07:08 GMT
#44
Don't the new Widow Mines oneshot interceptors now?
Mura Ma Man, Dark Da Dude, Super Shot Sos!
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
July 27 2014 09:46 GMT
#45
happier to see your replay pack than to see IEM replay pack =))
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-27 10:31:47
July 27 2014 09:46 GMT
#46
On July 27 2014 16:08 SC2Toastie wrote:
Don't the new Widow Mines oneshot interceptors now?


havn't they always done that?

how much health do interceptor have?

EDIT:

Lyyna I just saw one of your "classic TvZ" and was thinking don't you die to a 1/1 roach aggression skipping tanks? I havn't seen all your replays, just picking them out bit by bit so I might've missed ify ou have such a game
Curious
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
July 28 2014 09:02 GMT
#47
On July 27 2014 16:08 SC2Toastie wrote:
Don't the new Widow Mines oneshot interceptors now?

They do in the whole area now, and are sick vs carriers for this reason ! Enjoy killing 20 interceptors with each shot


On July 27 2014 18:46 MoonFan wrote:
happier to see your replay pack than to see IEM replay pack =))

Thanks <3 <3

On July 27 2014 18:46 KonanTenshi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 27 2014 16:08 SC2Toastie wrote:
Don't the new Widow Mines oneshot interceptors now?


havn't they always done that?

how much health do interceptor have?

EDIT:

Lyyna I just saw one of your "classic TvZ" and was thinking don't you die to a 1/1 roach aggression skipping tanks? I havn't seen all your replays, just picking them out bit by bit so I might've missed ify ou have such a game

They've 40/40, and mine now does 40 + 40 in the whole area instead of a tiny circle :p

Well, 1/1 roach attacks is this kind of thing you either see coming and defend easily, or don't see in time and die to no matter what. But when you know they're coming, going behind a wall or in a choke (retreat / lift 3rd if needed) with like 8 hellbats + 2 thors + 3-4 banshees + tons of scv repairing does the trick
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Helikptrfisk
Profile Joined February 2012
Sweden35 Posts
August 25 2014 13:48 GMT
#48
Wow nice tvt on foxtrot against biomech into air!

I love your chat hehehe.

Once when I tried this I died to a massive notscouted thor switch that just walked over me. Obviously I had to many vikings but what is the correct answer to mass thor?
The_Templar
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
your Country52797 Posts
August 25 2014 13:52 GMT
#49
On August 25 2014 22:48 Helikptrfisk wrote:
Wow nice tvt on foxtrot against biomech into air!

I love your chat hehehe.

Once when I tried this I died to a massive notscouted thor switch that just walked over me. Obviously I had to many vikings but what is the correct answer to mass thor?

Wondering this too, I have had problems with this sort of mech against a sudden explosion of thors.
Moderatorshe/her
TL+ Member
Meavis
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Netherlands1300 Posts
August 25 2014 13:56 GMT
#50
both tanks and yamato absolutely destroy thors.
"Not you."
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-08-25 14:09:51
August 25 2014 14:09 GMT
#51
Just to make it clear, you're talking about facing a mass thor mech player when going from biomech into skyterran, right ?
Or is is the other way around, a mech player going for his raven/viking(/bc) transition and facing a biomech player going for thors ?
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Helikptrfisk
Profile Joined February 2012
Sweden35 Posts
August 25 2014 15:43 GMT
#52
I go with your style. Going mech into viking/raven with tank and turret support.

Then the other terran suddenly walks on me with 200/200 thors
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
August 25 2014 18:02 GMT
#53
First, general stuff about the tank/viking/raven composition (which'll be added to the op) :
Especially nowadays, i tend to make way slower transition towards also. The thing is that, even before, i wouldn't transition to raven without it being the "right" move. Actually i don't even like to call it a transition, but more like an addition to my existing composition, since i believe that mech requires you to have balanced units numbers with high synergy which get added when needed

When is it the right move ?
First thing to ALWAYS take into account, I know my opponent actual composition (what he has on the field), and what is going to come afterwards (economy lvl, upgrades, infrastructure, general game flow) : It means that i would first actively make sure to know he's going for thor heavy play before any kind of transition, and aiming for a counter composition instead of doing the transition. It also means, for example, that if i see that his actual or soon-to-be composition requires me to get ravens, this condition before the switch becoming suddenly a reason to actively do it

The conditions :
- So, obvious from what i just said : your opponent goes for air. Then you need the ravens, more vikings, maybe some thors to help
- Otherwise, when the game is stabilizing. This one is pretty vague, usually vs mech it's because we're both securing tank lines and tons of gas, meaning i can cut ground units and get ravens to win more positions, or to prepare for his own air switch, and vs bio, it means i also got enough tanks, and can safely get a couple of ravens to help fight the increasing amount of marauders, to reduce my expensive tanks loss, and prepare the air fight.

So, when it comes to the mass thor thing
First of all, if you can, do whatever possible to reduce his concave. Thors are big and slow ; obvious thing. If they can get in a proper line and charge into you, it can get bad, EXTREMELY quickly. Try to force a fight into a choke ; try to pick off front or side thors when he's moving (tanks are actually an ok marauder-like unit there :p) ; and very important, make sure to kill low health thors asap. They're like ultralisks. A red health one become a friend for life, and we'll come back green for the next fight... Especially when losing a fight, this is a priority, it can make the difference between holding the line with your next round of units and losing the game.

When it comes to your composition, well, at this point you should have maybe a couple of ravens / banshees (at least, for me, the 1 of each i make early game), vikings, and a mix of hellbat/tank/thor.
Once again, thors are like ultras. With mech, you need two things : A big buffer, some meat to stop the charge, and behind this, something to actually deal damage. Getting a couple of thors of your own is always good, they do both, but not much ; when fighting thors with tank-based army, you want to have a superior firepower concentration and thors are terrible with that.
Your goal is to make sure your tanks have as much free time as possible to fire, and this is done in various ways :
- Banshees / vikings with PDD. To be honest, this is a pretty nice way to win time, especially if you have a couple of ravens already. Thors shoot air slowly, giving you a couple of free tanks volley.
- Flying your vikings above the thor ball before it engages your ground : again, thors, especially the ones at the back, will lock onto the vikings, losing some time. More tanks shots.
- Moving your hellbats / landed vikings (yes, there you want landed vikings ! They're relatively small, and have the ability to focus fire thors kinda well) forward to break his charge, then backwards. Yes, you can kite thors. Anyway your hellbats won't be able to really connect (2 lines of thors shooting at hellbats...), so instead what you want to do is to make sure only the first line of thors can shoot by staying far from them.

About your tanks, both sieged and unsieged can be ok. But usually, in big scales battles, sieged is better ; unsieged is more for low scale fight where your tanks can actually maneuver and focus fire.

Overall, the "right" way to counter it is to 1) have stuff that is not raven (=don't make the transition too early), 2) making sure to abuse the thor's size and AI to gain more time for your tanks to do their job. BCs can also be a solution depending of the game, actually.

Anyway, do not hesitate to show a replay so i can help more !
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
BurningRanger
Profile Joined January 2012
Germany303 Posts
August 25 2014 19:14 GMT
#54
On August 26 2014 03:02 Lyyna wrote:
Your goal is to make sure your tanks have as much free time as possible to fire, and this is done in various ways :
- Banshees / vikings with PDD. To be honest, this is a pretty nice way to win time, especially if you have a couple of ravens already. Thors shoot air slowly, giving you a couple of free tanks volley.
- Flying your vikings above the thor ball before it engages your ground : again, thors, especially the ones at the back, will lock onto the vikings, losing some time. More tanks shots.


This sounds a little gimmicky or at least a somewhat hard to pull off. What do you think about using the Raven energy for throwing Auto-Turrets in front of the Thors to stall them (instead of throwing PDDs and moving Banshees/Vikings in range)?
My Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/burningranger | My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BurningR4nger
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
August 26 2014 10:33 GMT
#55
On August 26 2014 04:14 BurningRanger wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2014 03:02 Lyyna wrote:
Your goal is to make sure your tanks have as much free time as possible to fire, and this is done in various ways :
- Banshees / vikings with PDD. To be honest, this is a pretty nice way to win time, especially if you have a couple of ravens already. Thors shoot air slowly, giving you a couple of free tanks volley.
- Flying your vikings above the thor ball before it engages your ground : again, thors, especially the ones at the back, will lock onto the vikings, losing some time. More tanks shots.


This sounds a little gimmicky or at least a somewhat hard to pull off. What do you think about using the Raven energy for throwing Auto-Turrets in front of the Thors to stall them (instead of throwing PDDs and moving Banshees/Vikings in range)?

Yes, it is hard to do. Actually, it might not even work that well nowadays with the new thor AI (since all of them are going to destroy everything that flies in seconds, instead of having only the ones in the back shooting air units while the front is getting demolished by your ground.)... but i haven't really had this case presents itself since the patch

For the pdd/turret thing, well, i prefer to throw PDD because otherwise i might lose way too much ravens / vikings to the thors volleys ; one bad clump and suddenly you lost those precious 10 vikings that could have cleaned the ground... turrets takes a while to dump, requires to expose your ravens, means your air units will be quickly blasted out of the sky, and can be quite hard to find room for in a thor vs hellbat/Tank/landed viking battle
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Helikptrfisk
Profile Joined February 2012
Sweden35 Posts
August 27 2014 00:40 GMT
#56
Thanks for the thorough answer.
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-08-27 10:53:31
August 27 2014 08:54 GMT
#57
I've had a lot of roach openers in TvZ kind of similar to this one.

http://drop.sc/385353

Is this a response to my reapers or is it some kind of meta right now to do a roach pressure similar to that.


Why is mech looked down so heavily on in the ladder? Right now I play 1-2 games then I quit because it sucks to get raged/BMed at during every game I play...
Curious
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-08-27 14:42:53
August 27 2014 14:40 GMT
#58
Not sure about the roach thing, zer always liked to throw in a couple of weird roaches stuff sooo..

Your opening is a bit weird however ; you shouldn't go for a that fast second factory, force you to cut stuff and doesn't bring much early

About the BM being looked down.. well, there is a couple of reasons for it (for people reading, don't take it badly, just some assumptions) :
- Mech has always be a strategy traditionally associated with low APM players (hi Panzer General, i love you <3), which is "bad" is this game where APM are considered some kind of skill measurement
- Mech isn't something you see often usually, and unusual play tends to be frustrating
- Mech draw the game away from the traditional mechanic-based games we see normally. It is not about macro'ing a parade push, not about microing a bunch of tanks and marines against muta/ling/bling, it is not even like a standard deathball, it is something quite apart from all of this....
- Mech tends to be associated with long, boring games (even when it does produce great games people will just remember THE bad one..).
- Also, a certain vaguely popular streamer makes sure mech gets permanently associated with BM, rage, and "i won't ever attack you lol noob"
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Meavis
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Netherlands1300 Posts
August 27 2014 14:45 GMT
#59
On August 27 2014 23:40 Lyyna wrote:

About the BM being looked down.. well, there is a couple of reasons for it (for people reading, don't take it badly, just some assumptions) :
- Mech has always be a strategy traditionally associated with low APM players (hi Panzer General, i love you <3), which is "bad" is this game where APM are considered some kind of skill measurement
- Mech isn't something you see often usually, and unusual play tends to be frustrating
- Mech draw the game away from the traditional mechanic-based games we see normally. It is not about macro'ing a parade push, not about microing a bunch of tanks and marines against muta/ling/bling, it is not even like a standard deathball, it is something quite apart from all of this....
- Mech tends to be associated with long, boring games (even when it does produce great games people will just remember THE bad one..).
- Also, a certain vaguely popular streamer makes sure mech gets permanently associated with BM, rage, and "i won't ever attack you lol noob"


yeah, fuck these noobs that use the last letter in RTS, APM all the way right? =/
"Not you."
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
August 27 2014 20:54 GMT
#60
Hmm what's so strange about my opener? I really like it because I like the early BF it gives me. What would you recommend to change/do different`?
Curious
quirinus
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Croatia2489 Posts
August 27 2014 23:00 GMT
#61
Thanks for this! I'm meching protosses cry all the time now! :D

So fun... the tears of unfathomable sadness. Yummm yummmmm

(hellions OP)
All candles lit within him, and there was purity. | First auto-promoted BW LP editor.
MoonFan
Profile Joined July 2013
Vietnam55 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-08-29 07:07:36
August 28 2014 18:28 GMT
#62
Any help on heavy Roach aggression into Roach Hydra Viper play?
Usually they attack at 10:00 (2 bases roach), I scout it when I see some roachs + the lack of 3rd base, but sometime still fail to defend. On game that I can defend usually they contain me on 2 bases with their map control from roach. I just dont know what to do against roach, so some help 're about decision making would be great :D

1/ Where do you put tank when defend against 2 bases roach at 10 min?
2/ When/how do you take 3rd against 2 bases roach timing?
3/ Any tips on army position? because I'm not used to play against the mobility of Roach/Hydra so they usually catch me out of position

Yah also, any tips against nydus worm?
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
August 30 2014 13:38 GMT
#63
On August 28 2014 05:54 KonanTenshi wrote:
Hmm what's so strange about my opener? I really like it because I like the early BF it gives me. What would you recommend to change/do different`?


Well, there is a reason hellion/banshee and 2/3 fact BFH are distinct openings :p
Your second factory (and BF) is way too late to be useful, it reduces a lot the ambiguity about your transition if the zerg can see it, and you delay a lot the 3rd CC / upgrades. Too much sacrifice for something that in the end kicks in too late

You should try to use a more standard hellion/banshee opening, or 2-3 fact BFH if you really want to play with a tons of hellions. Recent MVP games at RedBull Qualifiers 1 & 2 had nice examples of both builds

On August 29 2014 03:28 MoonFan wrote:
Any help on heavy Roach aggression into Roach Hydra Viper play?
Usually they attack at 10:00 (2 bases roach), I scout it when I see some roachs + the lack of 3rd base, but sometime still fail to defend. On game that I can defend usually they contain me on 2 bases with their map control from roach. I just dont know what to do against roach, so some help 're about decision making would be great :D

1/ Where do you put tank when defend against 2 bases roach at 10 min?
2/ When/how do you take 3rd against 2 bases roach timing?
3/ Any tips on army position? because I'm not used to play against the mobility of Roach/Hydra so they usually catch me out of position

Yah also, any tips against nydus worm?

1) Usually, i'll stay on 2 bases during the bust, so my tanks will be behind my walls, as spreaded as possible to make sure he cannot rush in and snipe all tanks in 3 attacks. But well at 10 minutes i probably will mainly have hellion / banshee anyway, with the latter behind the key at defending it. The problem of hellions/banshees is that your big factory stuff barely pop at 10 min, but the good thing is that in the long run, banshees means you'll regain at least some map control and force him to add something else to his army (because he really doesn't want to have to deal with 4,5,6 banshees with his roaches... oh no he doesn't)
2) Usually, whenever the big roach blob has been killed, or has been driven away and i'm able to track its position (banshees !) and know i have the time to take the 3rd and prepare my defenses
3) The hardest thing to explain. But honestly, sensor tower is already a big help to get in position. Against roach/hydra, you want to make sure you never extend too much your front line : it means that for example, you shouldn't let your hellbats charge in too early, otherwise the hydras at the back will murder them. Spread a bit your tanks so that he has to move a lot to kill them if he's able to reach them, try to keep your banshees alive if you have some until the end of the fight.

As i said, explaining positionning is extremely hard, since it is one of the thing which relies the most on experience and personal style. The best way to learn, in the end, is to watch a tons of First Person POV resources to try and understand how it's done. Look at how a player position himself, wonder why he did that, wonder why you would have done yourself, etc etc


About the nydus worm thing, it depends of the context.
Early 2-3 bases worms busts ? You need vision in your whole base, and quick reaction time. At this point it becomes a frontal bust, and you should hold it like most frontal busts, with walls, repair, etc etc
Late game nydus in your bases ? Haven't really seen it in HotS, but in WoL i used to keep a banshee or a tank in my exterior bases to be safe. And sensor towers everywhere to make sure he couldn't get vision on my side of the map outside of an overseer suicide run :D
Late game nydus on the map for mobility ? A bit trickier, but usually the best thing to do is to have a little hitsquad (couple of banshees or tanks, maybe a medivac with a thor or some vikings) that'll clear them every time he leaves a nydus alone near your base. If he does that on his side of the map, of course it's not really possible to control it, but it is less of a problem for the terran
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
August 30 2014 15:14 GMT
#64
On August 30 2014 22:38 Lyyna wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 28 2014 05:54 KonanTenshi wrote:
Hmm what's so strange about my opener? I really like it because I like the early BF it gives me. What would you recommend to change/do different`?


Well, there is a reason hellion/banshee and 2/3 fact BFH are distinct openings :p
Your second factory (and BF) is way too late to be useful, it reduces a lot the ambiguity about your transition if the zerg can see it, and you delay a lot the 3rd CC / upgrades. Too much sacrifice for something that in the end kicks in too late

You should try to use a more standard hellion/banshee opening, or 2-3 fact BFH if you really want to play with a tons of hellions. Recent MVP games at RedBull Qualifiers 1 & 2 had nice examples of both builds



So if I remove the second factory and just keeps on pumping Hellions/banshee? I'm going to look at the MVP games afterwards got no time now just want to ask so I understand correctly

Have you tried the MVP thing when he drops 2 tanks and 4 hellions around the map?
Curious
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
September 01 2014 13:39 GMT
#65
On August 31 2014 00:14 KonanTenshi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 30 2014 22:38 Lyyna wrote:
On August 28 2014 05:54 KonanTenshi wrote:
Hmm what's so strange about my opener? I really like it because I like the early BF it gives me. What would you recommend to change/do different`?


Well, there is a reason hellion/banshee and 2/3 fact BFH are distinct openings :p
Your second factory (and BF) is way too late to be useful, it reduces a lot the ambiguity about your transition if the zerg can see it, and you delay a lot the 3rd CC / upgrades. Too much sacrifice for something that in the end kicks in too late

You should try to use a more standard hellion/banshee opening, or 2-3 fact BFH if you really want to play with a tons of hellions. Recent MVP games at RedBull Qualifiers 1 & 2 had nice examples of both builds



So if I remove the second factory and just keeps on pumping Hellions/banshee? I'm going to look at the MVP games afterwards got no time now just want to ask so I understand correctly

Have you tried the MVP thing when he drops 2 tanks and 4 hellions around the map?

The general idea of the build is usually to stay on 1-1-1, getting a 3rd CC / 1-2 armo at some point, then 2 more fact. The exact implementation of it depends a lot of your own style, hellion/banshee can be modified in a loooooooooooot of way to suit your needs (for example in WoL, i was playing a style using a 16 gas FE into only 4 hellions / 2 banshees in order to get my first mech units up ASAP and secure my third quickly).

Alongside MvP games, most recent mech games in proleague (well, couple of months old) are good examples of hellion/banshee variations. Flash vs Life in Sandisk invitational also shows nice mech openings (hellbat/medivac push and hellion/banshee).

Yes, i try to be a bit more agressive with my mech, dropping a bunch of stuff everywhere, but i have to admit i am slow as hell, making this strategy a bit hard to implement :D
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Tresher
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany404 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-09 23:19:45
September 09 2014 23:16 GMT
#66
Hey Lyyna i am trying to get better at meching and your guide really helps. In fact I would say this is the only guide for mech right now. There were a lot more back in the days . I especially like the paragraph that says that mech is not a noob strat cause like you said, thats a common misconception (especially for zerg players i had to realise in the past days). But the "Units" Section seems a bit chaotic, maybe you can bold or underline the names of the units. Same with the upgrades section.
What i wanted to ask: Has your impression on this season maps changed?

Cause I had a really long annyoning game on Catallena against a Zerg that went SHs ( I won it but still) and immediately put in on veto after I saw your post about it being bad for Mech. Same with Merry go Round altough I have a good win ratio on it and kinda like it. And what about King Sejong? I heard a lot of Meching players saying its not that good either. Nimbus I kinda like. And what maps are really really good for Mech (Overgrowth i think?) ?
Extreme Force
HomeWorld
Profile Joined December 2011
Romania903 Posts
September 10 2014 10:47 GMT
#67
On August 27 2014 23:40 Lyyna wrote:
Not sure about the roach thing, zer always liked to throw in a couple of weird roaches stuff sooo..

Your opening is a bit weird however ; you shouldn't go for a that fast second factory, force you to cut stuff and doesn't bring much early

About the BM being looked down.. well, there is a couple of reasons for it (for people reading, don't take it badly, just some assumptions) :
- Mech has always be a strategy traditionally associated with low APM players (hi Panzer General, i love you <3), which is "bad" is this game where APM are considered some kind of skill measurement
- Mech isn't something you see often usually, and unusual play tends to be frustrating
- Mech draw the game away from the traditional mechanic-based games we see normally. It is not about macro'ing a parade push, not about microing a bunch of tanks and marines against muta/ling/bling, it is not even like a standard deathball, it is something quite apart from all of this....
- Mech tends to be associated with long, boring games (even when it does produce great games people will just remember THE bad one..).
- Also, a certain vaguely popular streamer makes sure mech gets permanently associated with BM, rage, and "i won't ever attack you lol noob"


Get over it man, don't be a lemon

Good read, found the major guidelines(and other important details) to be the same as the ones I've learned from watching a popular streamer that mech'it'happen.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
September 11 2014 19:01 GMT
#68
On September 10 2014 08:16 Tresher wrote:
Hey Lyyna i am trying to get better at meching and your guide really helps. In fact I would say this is the only guide for mech right now. There were a lot more back in the days . I especially like the paragraph that says that mech is not a noob strat cause like you said, thats a common misconception (especially for zerg players i had to realise in the past days). But the "Units" Section seems a bit chaotic, maybe you can bold or underline the names of the units. Same with the upgrades section.
What i wanted to ask: Has your impression on this season maps changed?

Cause I had a really long annyoning game on Catallena against a Zerg that went SHs ( I won it but still) and immediately put in on veto after I saw your post about it being bad for Mech. Same with Merry go Round altough I have a good win ratio on it and kinda like it. And what about King Sejong? I heard a lot of Meching players saying its not that good either. Nimbus I kinda like. And what maps are really really good for Mech (Overgrowth i think?) ?

Thanks a lot, glad that i can help
There is quite a lot of good mech guides actually (look for the allthingsmech subreddit :p), but most of them are sadly video guides ; there for sure is a huge lack of written guide for mech t_t
Thanks for the feedback about the units & upgrades, i do agree that it requires a bit of update. I'll try to get a big update going soon for these clarity things, + some additions about MechMine TvP (as soon as i get my work done and stop partying too much - sweden is a fun country for sure)

About the maps.. i don't really know. Catallena ended up being OK, depending a lot of the spawning positions (dear mother of god i hate TvT when the opponent spawn close to my natural) and it requires a slightly more agressive positionning, which can be deadly versus some things, but well..
Merry go round is weird, the layout doesn't seems good for mech, at least when it comes to the 3rd, but for some reason i do have a strong winrate on it. Mystery
King Sejong is a problematic map due to the fact it's easy for the opponent to abuse the sides to attack everywhere - it requires you to take the central base asap and strongly hold it to make sure your opponent cannot bully you left and right because of the threat of being attacked from behind.
This season at least there is no "omfggodawfulinstadead" map for mech imo, all of them are decent and can be played on depending of preferences, which is nice ! But most of them are still a bit frustrating to play on --'

On September 10 2014 19:47 HomeWorld wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 27 2014 23:40 Lyyna wrote:
Not sure about the roach thing, zer always liked to throw in a couple of weird roaches stuff sooo..

Your opening is a bit weird however ; you shouldn't go for a that fast second factory, force you to cut stuff and doesn't bring much early

About the BM being looked down.. well, there is a couple of reasons for it (for people reading, don't take it badly, just some assumptions) :
- Mech has always be a strategy traditionally associated with low APM players (hi Panzer General, i love you <3), which is "bad" is this game where APM are considered some kind of skill measurement
- Mech isn't something you see often usually, and unusual play tends to be frustrating
- Mech draw the game away from the traditional mechanic-based games we see normally. It is not about macro'ing a parade push, not about microing a bunch of tanks and marines against muta/ling/bling, it is not even like a standard deathball, it is something quite apart from all of this....
- Mech tends to be associated with long, boring games (even when it does produce great games people will just remember THE bad one..).
- Also, a certain vaguely popular streamer makes sure mech gets permanently associated with BM, rage, and "i won't ever attack you lol noob"


Get over it man, don't be a lemon

Good read, found the major guidelines(and other important details) to be the same as the ones I've learned from watching a popular streamer that mech'it'happen.

Sadly, i have way too strong principles, both as a person, and as a part of the mech community, to not get strongly pissed of by someone like this.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
September 12 2014 12:39 GMT
#69
Hey, some new replays would be really nice to see how the mech thing fares.

I'm quite liking your openings Lyyna, it works for me to some degree, but people play insanely greedy when they recognize I'm going mech. And I usually can't punish it, because I'm so used to play defensively. So I ended up playing a bit more greedy too to see what I can get away with.

Also, I wanted to ask (I hope it was not mentioned earlier, sorry if it was) - you seem to often throw away your SCVs very early and even though I know mech is not very demanding on minerals I find this to be a hinderance should the game go to ultra late-game. In this case I prefer to mass Orbitals before sacking my SCVs.

PoisonTV
Profile Joined July 2013
United Kingdom32 Posts
September 12 2014 13:02 GMT
#70
Ironically we are just in the process of adding more Lyyna replays today, we will upload them as soon as it becomes available. In the mean time id like to point you to /r/allthingsmech on reddit which is a great resource also moderated by Lyyna.
http://www.twitch.tv/poisontvde - Everything but German
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
September 12 2014 15:33 GMT
#71
https://www.mediafire.com/?5fhog8hcdkuf245 , not the highest quality in these games ,since my swedish connection is lagging a bit (oh the irony..), and i'm been way too much partying (and drunk :D) since i arrived there

@Everlong
I do agree this is a big problem these days ; in WoL it was easier to match up economy through tech and army, which was the goal of my openings, but in HotS it became way harder to manipulate the ETA equation as a mech player. Requires a lot of scouting and adaptation, since it is now a problem with most mech openings. Learning when to cut units for greed or, in some situations (mainly vT, sometimes vZ), going allin
About the scv thing, yes, it is a little flaw i do have ; for a while i went wayyyy too hard on this, having like 30 scv at 15 minutes on 3 bases -_- any terrible thing coming from WoL when i could make way more CCs way earlier. But since last month i've been going back on the right track and sacrificing them later (because yes, it was a mistake ><)

And sorry DoM but i'm not modding on allthingsmech :p don't have the time atm ! (barely have the time to play, damn you too fun country !)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
September 12 2014 19:03 GMT
#72
How to play mech seems to have changed a bit compared to earlier in HOTS.

In TvP the rule was that you should not move out until you had lots of tanks with ghost and hellbat support (except for certain timing attacks). Now it seems better to attack all the time since it is quite easy to trade cost efficiently with mass widow mine supported by tanks and vikings. The traditional counter to mech like immortals and air switches are simply not that effective since the synergy of mine/tank/viking works so great against those counters.

However if you try to turtle up in TvP the game becomes much harder due to the supply efficiency of Protoss and how powerful Protoss air becomes if you do not trade in time. So in my experience the best matchup for mech is actually TvP as long as you go mine/tank/viking and play aggressively.

Mech actually seems weaker in TvZ since you are vulnerable both to mass roach attacks before you have enough tanks out to secure your third and to the swarm host/muta combo which I find extremely hard to beat, at least against opponents with good muta control that snipe your ravens, suicide seeker missile targeted mutas into your raven cloud etc.
Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-12 19:24:52
September 12 2014 19:23 GMT
#73
On September 13 2014 04:03 MockHamill wrote:
How to play mech seems to have changed a bit compared to earlier in HOTS.

In TvP the rule was that you should not move out until you had lots of tanks with ghost and hellbat support (except for certain timing attacks). Now it seems better to attack all the time since it is quite easy to trade cost efficiently with mass widow mine supported by tanks and vikings. The traditional counter to mech like immortals and air switches are simply not that effective since the synergy of mine/tank/viking works so great against those counters.

However if you try to turtle up in TvP the game becomes much harder due to the supply efficiency of Protoss and how powerful Protoss air becomes if you do not trade in time. So in my experience the best matchup for mech is actually TvP as long as you go mine/tank/viking and play aggressively.

Mech actually seems weaker in TvZ since you are vulnerable both to mass roach attacks before you have enough tanks out to secure your third and to the swarm host/muta combo which I find extremely hard to beat, at least against opponents with good muta control that snipe your ravens, suicide seeker missile targeted mutas into your raven cloud etc.


Hmm, my experience is quite the opposite. I'd like to see some of this mine/tank/viking in action. Do you have some replays or can you point to some vods of this working out well? In my experience, mines are just not reliable enough to stop zealot/archon/immortal jumping on your tanks.

In my experience turtling in TvP is pretty safe as long as you won't sit there for like 30 minutes and let him max on Tempests/Templar forces. And even then you can win this fight. Hellions sniping HT's or just EMPs are surprisingly reliable and you should have around 20-30 Ravens by this point, so you should take basically 0 damage from Tempests. If he playes the kiting game, it's gonna take forever and then it depends on who makes the first big mistake or simply on micro/macro.

As for TvZ, you should never die to your own seekers. You only seeker mutas if he commits to it and flies over your units, in which case, you can either place PDDs and finisht them off with your Vikings/Thors or, in case you don't have enough support units to actually kill them, you can seeker like 5-6 mutas and when he tries to fly into your Ravens, you just split them. There is no way Zerg can in time follow your splitted Ravens with mutas targeted by seeker.
MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
September 12 2014 19:56 GMT
#74
On September 13 2014 04:23 Everlong wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2014 04:03 MockHamill wrote:
How to play mech seems to have changed a bit compared to earlier in HOTS.

In TvP the rule was that you should not move out until you had lots of tanks with ghost and hellbat support (except for certain timing attacks). Now it seems better to attack all the time since it is quite easy to trade cost efficiently with mass widow mine supported by tanks and vikings. The traditional counter to mech like immortals and air switches are simply not that effective since the synergy of mine/tank/viking works so great against those counters.

However if you try to turtle up in TvP the game becomes much harder due to the supply efficiency of Protoss and how powerful Protoss air becomes if you do not trade in time. So in my experience the best matchup for mech is actually TvP as long as you go mine/tank/viking and play aggressively.

Mech actually seems weaker in TvZ since you are vulnerable both to mass roach attacks before you have enough tanks out to secure your third and to the swarm host/muta combo which I find extremely hard to beat, at least against opponents with good muta control that snipe your ravens, suicide seeker missile targeted mutas into your raven cloud etc.


Hmm, my experience is quite the opposite. I'd like to see some of this mine/tank/viking in action. Do you have some replays or can you point to some vods of this working out well? In my experience, mines are just not reliable enough to stop zealot/archon/immortal jumping on your tanks.

In my experience turtling in TvP is pretty safe as long as you won't sit there for like 30 minutes and let him max on Tempests/Templar forces. And even then you can win this fight. Hellions sniping HT's or just EMPs are surprisingly reliable and you should have around 20-30 Ravens by this point, so you should take basically 0 damage from Tempests. If he playes the kiting game, it's gonna take forever and then it depends on who makes the first big mistake or simply on micro/macro.

As for TvZ, you should never die to your own seekers. You only seeker mutas if he commits to it and flies over your units, in which case, you can either place PDDs and finisht them off with your Vikings/Thors or, in case you don't have enough support units to actually kill them, you can seeker like 5-6 mutas and when he tries to fly into your Ravens, you just split them. There is no way Zerg can in time follow your splitted Ravens with mutas targeted by seeker.


I was talking about when you try to pick of his Swarmhosts, the mutas can snipe your ravens (or just snipe your bases). As for TvP I think the best example is Mario. He is not always using vikings though, but in my experience vikings make mine/tank work even better:




Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-12 20:34:42
September 12 2014 20:30 GMT
#75
On September 13 2014 04:56 MockHamill wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2014 04:23 Everlong wrote:
On September 13 2014 04:03 MockHamill wrote:
How to play mech seems to have changed a bit compared to earlier in HOTS.

In TvP the rule was that you should not move out until you had lots of tanks with ghost and hellbat support (except for certain timing attacks). Now it seems better to attack all the time since it is quite easy to trade cost efficiently with mass widow mine supported by tanks and vikings. The traditional counter to mech like immortals and air switches are simply not that effective since the synergy of mine/tank/viking works so great against those counters.

However if you try to turtle up in TvP the game becomes much harder due to the supply efficiency of Protoss and how powerful Protoss air becomes if you do not trade in time. So in my experience the best matchup for mech is actually TvP as long as you go mine/tank/viking and play aggressively.

Mech actually seems weaker in TvZ since you are vulnerable both to mass roach attacks before you have enough tanks out to secure your third and to the swarm host/muta combo which I find extremely hard to beat, at least against opponents with good muta control that snipe your ravens, suicide seeker missile targeted mutas into your raven cloud etc.


Hmm, my experience is quite the opposite. I'd like to see some of this mine/tank/viking in action. Do you have some replays or can you point to some vods of this working out well? In my experience, mines are just not reliable enough to stop zealot/archon/immortal jumping on your tanks.

In my experience turtling in TvP is pretty safe as long as you won't sit there for like 30 minutes and let him max on Tempests/Templar forces. And even then you can win this fight. Hellions sniping HT's or just EMPs are surprisingly reliable and you should have around 20-30 Ravens by this point, so you should take basically 0 damage from Tempests. If he playes the kiting game, it's gonna take forever and then it depends on who makes the first big mistake or simply on micro/macro.

As for TvZ, you should never die to your own seekers. You only seeker mutas if he commits to it and flies over your units, in which case, you can either place PDDs and finisht them off with your Vikings/Thors or, in case you don't have enough support units to actually kill them, you can seeker like 5-6 mutas and when he tries to fly into your Ravens, you just split them. There is no way Zerg can in time follow your splitted Ravens with mutas targeted by seeker.


I was talking about when you try to pick of his Swarmhosts, the mutas can snipe your ravens (or just snipe your bases). As for TvP I think the best example is Mario. He is not always using vikings though, but in my experience vikings make mine/tank work even better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe7y_mjOrvU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26efoA_HPYs


You can easily prevent Mutas from sniping your bases by having sufficient number of turrets (which you can afford since you are building up Ravens so you have loads of minerals). If he goes really heavy on Mutas, placing 1 Thor at each base + solid turret ring makes you mostly safe and even if he overwhelms you, he loses so much gas in the process it's not worth it for him.

As for killing SH, you shouldn't really go on creep with your Ravens and seeker his SH (there are exceptions where it's wise to do so, but generally you don't want to do this). This asks for being fungaled to death. The correct way I believe is to slow push against SH with your tanks and placing PDDs in a way you don't suffer any loses while trying to secure expansions slowly 1 by 1. This also prevents Zerg from pulling your stuff into SH and spine/spore with Vipers (something high level Zergs love to do - it's the counter cost effective style).

As for TvP, this looks interesting. I would imagine a really abusive Protoss players could beat this with Tempest/HT, maybe some Colossus play. But this is such a rare playstyle it's hard to comment on it. I'd like to see him play few GM Protoss where he would tell them his strat at the start of the game and see what they can do (lets say in exchange for not being allined ). But it's really nice to see something completely new. I remember SuperNova doing this in beta and he had some success with it.

Anyways, I've seen lots of successfull "standard" mech play work against Protoss (Hellbat/Tank/Ghost + Medivac/Viking support). Obviously this loses to Protoss air, but playing standard mech, you should never ever let Protoss trade their ground army and then remax on critical mass of air units comfortably. You should not even let them build a sufficient bank for this to happen. The worst case scenario is playing against aggresive Protoss players who abuse your immobility with dt's, warp prisms, blink stalkers, zealot warpins while taking whole map and building bank for air/ground switching. This usually gets you killed. But even this can be prevented, you just have to have exactly 0 holes in your defense and then you go kill him.
KonanTenshi
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden210 Posts
September 12 2014 22:23 GMT
#76
Latley I've been up vs Ling bling ultra when I mech has this happened to you ?

I've noticed the best way to counter this is just sit comfortably with mass tanks/hellbats and turrets to screw the AI up... I'm still diamond level is this something people do masters+ ?
Curious
Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-12 22:57:41
September 12 2014 22:49 GMT
#77
On September 13 2014 07:23 KonanTenshi wrote:
Latley I've been up vs Ling bling ultra when I mech has this happened to you ?

I've noticed the best way to counter this is just sit comfortably with mass tanks/hellbats and turrets to screw the AI up... I'm still diamond level is this something people do masters+ ?


This happens very rarely.

It could be that lower level Zergs scout mech play very late when they are already setup for bio play. To make something out of their useless Banelings, they just want to suicide them as effectively as possible.

Or they are just bad and want a free win if the Terran moves out too soon or is too careless about their army so that they can roll their Banes in with Ultras or any kind of support and kill as much of your clumped stuff as they can. Then they proceed to win with remax.

This, or they have actually no idea what to do vs mech.

Best way how to deal with this is of course sitting behind your stuff untill you have 200/200 with upgrades and then slowly move out, leapfrogging your tanks or scanning ahead to not get caught out of position. This way they can't do much and you either secure another base, or siege their rally point for the win.

You have to be aware though, because if they manage to kill lets say high number of your Thors, they can remax on Mutas and kill whole your army. Similary with tanks, they can remax on Roaches and just overrun you. So if you happen to lose important part of your army, you have to go back and scan them to see what they are going for. Emergency turrets should be going up already if it was Thors he managed to kill (they always try to do this to kill your ground stuff with Mutas, because Thors are really bad against Mutas unless there are like 4+ with some Viking support depending heavily on Mutas numbers of course).
Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-16 18:32:14
September 16 2014 15:27 GMT
#78
On September 13 2014 00:33 Lyyna wrote:
https://www.mediafire.com/?5fhog8hcdkuf245 , not the highest quality in these games ,since my swedish connection is lagging a bit (oh the irony..), and i'm been way too much partying (and drunk :D) since i arrived there


Nice replays man, I've been doing similar stuff lately, only thing I've changed is that I squeezed in an Ebay + 2 Turrets in TvT (on smaller maps), because gas 1st cloak Banshee is so popular lately. It weakens me a bit against the Tank push people do here and there, but it's just a corner I decided to cut here, because it seems like it's going out of fashion.

Another thing i do is that I make 1 safety Tank in TvZ before 2 Thors to deflect Mutas, I feel like the timing is still fine and for some reason people seem to allin a lot, especially if you happen to do some damage with Reaper/Hellion + claked Banshee squad (which happens pretty often).

Also, the replay where your friend charges in with Immortal/Zealot/Archon and gets completely obliterated is priceless. This is such a deadly timing, I've had problems with this to it a lot, but relatively fast Ghosts are really solid answer to this.
Gwavajuice
Profile Joined June 2014
France1810 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-24 15:15:19
September 24 2014 07:47 GMT
#79
I've seen a beautiful game yesterday, when watching Rain's stream.

He was on King Sejong's, the Terran opened with mine/helion drops, which rain took care of with not so many losses while going for the usual blink/colo opener, then upon seeing mech, Rain proceeded to take his third while adding a second robo for mass immos.

Then, as the terran started to turtle with viking/tanks/helions (a few runbyes of these killed quite a few probes) Rain used double warprism drop in the third and in the main while delaying the 4th of the Terran as much as possible (Rain took is 4th meanwhile).

Once both 4th were established (with big difficulties for the terran) Rain added HT and archons and kept harrasing with his warpprisms, but the terran's ghost managed to keep him from destroying the 4th completly.

Rain choosed to go for triple stargate mass tempest at this point, sacrificing his remaining colossi to free pop space, and used the tempest with oracle's revelation to siege the 4 th while taking his 5th and 6th base.

Terran really seemed in the ropes but ravens came barely in time to counter the tempest. He somehow managed to get his own 5th which rain kept harassing with 4 immortals (the 2 warpprisms were still active ont the main and third and being a pita). Rain's 6th base was totally uncontested at this point.

Then the game stabilized while rain added carriers to his mix and the terran started to sacrifice a lot of scv's.

And then, the final battle :

Rain : HT, archons, tempest, carriers (maybe a few immos I don't remember)

Terran : mass viking/ravens, 6-7 Battle cruisers and 5-6 tanks with ghosts.

Rain's army simply was obliterated as PDD's, yamamotos and the viking DPS cleared out the sky and the tanks/ghosts toasted the HT and archons.

Rain gg'ed out just after.

It was one of the best games I've seen this month.

The terran was 15th on Kr ladder, I would have loved to see the game from his point of view.

Anyway it was an impressive example of Mech usage vs Protoss.

TL;DR top protoss being toasted by a mech compo in a very late game scenario : inspiring




Edit : the vod is actually archived in twitch atm http://www.twitch.tv/sc2rain/b/571351170, game starts at 4h48, watch it!


Edit 2 : sigh not anymore
Dear INno and all the former STX boys.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
September 26 2014 07:55 GMT
#80
On September 13 2014 04:03 MockHamill wrote:
How to play mech seems to have changed a bit compared to earlier in HOTS.

In TvP the rule was that you should not move out until you had lots of tanks with ghost and hellbat support (except for certain timing attacks). Now it seems better to attack all the time since it is quite easy to trade cost efficiently with mass widow mine supported by tanks and vikings. The traditional counter to mech like immortals and air switches are simply not that effective since the synergy of mine/tank/viking works so great against those counters.

However if you try to turtle up in TvP the game becomes much harder due to the supply efficiency of Protoss and how powerful Protoss air becomes if you do not trade in time. So in my experience the best matchup for mech is actually TvP as long as you go mine/tank/viking and play aggressively.

Mech actually seems weaker in TvZ since you are vulnerable both to mass roach attacks before you have enough tanks out to secure your third and to the swarm host/muta combo which I find extremely hard to beat, at least against opponents with good muta control that snipe your ravens, suicide seeker missile targeted mutas into your raven cloud etc.

Overall, i do agree ; TvZ mech became way harder because of all the new thing zergs got, especially since some of them suppress a lot of terran's possibilities (SH/muta lock you in a defensive position and forces you into ravens ; vipers can get a lot of "free" kills and means you can't afford to get your ground caught out of positon, etc etc).

In TvP, yes, actually mine/tank/viking is a pretty fun and more aggressive composition ; however my personal favorite will always be my lategame based, ghost-supported army :p however, mine-based mech is really fun and a good way to play a different kind of mech (that feeling when 20 mines detonate at the same time, with the protoss army above it..). HTOMario is a great mine/tank player if you want to learn it ; he has a lot of replays automatically updated on i-don't-remember-which-site

On September 13 2014 07:23 KonanTenshi wrote:
Latley I've been up vs Ling bling ultra when I mech has this happened to you ?

I've noticed the best way to counter this is just sit comfortably with mass tanks/hellbats and turrets to screw the AI up... I'm still diamond level is this something people do masters+ ?

Everlong's answer is a good one. Just to give my own, short one : lot of tanks (15+). And a strong thor (4+)/hellbat buffer.
The key is to reach that amount of each unit that makes sure 1) the lings all die before your buffer is down 2) Every single tank/thor full salvo will kill 1-2 ultra .
Banshees can also be great ; i liked them vs ultra even in WoL, and now with uppgrades.. hehe !
It can also be useful, if you are caught with too much vikings, to land them behind the ultralisks, when they connect with your buffer : ultralisks will go backwards and fight them, which can give you a couple of seconds of free tank fire (also work with autoturrets)

On September 17 2014 00:27 Everlong wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2014 00:33 Lyyna wrote:
https://www.mediafire.com/?5fhog8hcdkuf245 , not the highest quality in these games ,since my swedish connection is lagging a bit (oh the irony..), and i'm been way too much partying (and drunk :D) since i arrived there


Nice replays man, I've been doing similar stuff lately, only thing I've changed is that I squeezed in an Ebay + 2 Turrets in TvT (on smaller maps), because gas 1st cloak Banshee is so popular lately. It weakens me a bit against the Tank push people do here and there, but it's just a corner I decided to cut here, because it seems like it's going out of fashion.

Another thing i do is that I make 1 safety Tank in TvZ before 2 Thors to deflect Mutas, I feel like the timing is still fine and for some reason people seem to allin a lot, especially if you happen to do some damage with Reaper/Hellion + claked Banshee squad (which happens pretty often).

Also, the replay where your friend charges in with Immortal/Zealot/Archon and gets completely obliterated is priceless. This is such a deadly timing, I've had problems with this to it a lot, but relatively fast Ghosts are really solid answer to this.

Glad you enjoyed it :p

On September 24 2014 16:47 Gwavajuice wrote:
I've seen a beautiful game yesterday, when watching Rain's stream.

He was on King Sejong's, the Terran opened with mine/helion drops, which rain took care of with not so many losses while going for the usual blink/colo opener, then upon seeing mech, Rain proceeded to take his third while adding a second robo for mass immos.

Then, as the terran started to turtle with viking/tanks/helions (a few runbyes of these killed quite a few probes) Rain used double warprism drop in the third and in the main while delaying the 4th of the Terran as much as possible (Rain took is 4th meanwhile).

Once both 4th were established (with big difficulties for the terran) Rain added HT and archons and kept harrasing with his warpprisms, but the terran's ghost managed to keep him from destroying the 4th completly.

Rain choosed to go for triple stargate mass tempest at this point, sacrificing his remaining colossi to free pop space, and used the tempest with oracle's revelation to siege the 4 th while taking his 5th and 6th base.

Terran really seemed in the ropes but ravens came barely in time to counter the tempest. He somehow managed to get his own 5th which rain kept harassing with 4 immortals (the 2 warpprisms were still active ont the main and third and being a pita). Rain's 6th base was totally uncontested at this point.

Then the game stabilized while rain added carriers to his mix and the terran started to sacrifice a lot of scv's.

And then, the final battle :

Rain : HT, archons, tempest, carriers (maybe a few immos I don't remember)

Terran : mass viking/ravens, 6-7 Battle cruisers and 5-6 tanks with ghosts.

Rain's army simply was obliterated as PDD's, yamamotos and the viking DPS cleared out the sky and the tanks/ghosts toasted the HT and archons.

Rain gg'ed out just after.

It was one of the best games I've seen this month.

The terran was 15th on Kr ladder, I would have loved to see the game from his point of view.

Anyway it was an impressive example of Mech usage vs Protoss.

TL;DR top protoss being toasted by a mech compo in a very late game scenario : inspiring




Edit : the vod is actually archived in twitch atm http://www.twitch.tv/sc2rain/b/571351170, game starts at 4h48, watch it!


Edit 2 : sigh not anymore

Note to self : never again say "i'll watch that later" T_T . I would have loved to see that. I guess the terran was a barcode ?

Nice write up anyway, thanks, nice to know there is people playing mech high on the KR ladder !

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
Gwavajuice
Profile Joined June 2014
France1810 Posts
September 29 2014 13:29 GMT
#81
Barcode yep
Dear INno and all the former STX boys.
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-10-19 13:01:09
October 19 2014 12:57 GMT
#82
Replays pack released : i haven't released a big replay pack in a while, only a few and in private, so here it is !

I also added some explanations in TvZ lategame about ghosts, since i've started using them again.

Planned : TvP Mine/Tank midgame
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
[PkF] Wire
Profile Joined March 2013
France24201 Posts
October 19 2014 20:21 GMT
#83
On September 24 2014 16:47 Gwavajuice wrote:
I've seen a beautiful game yesterday, when watching Rain's stream.

He was on King Sejong's, the Terran opened with mine/helion drops, which rain took care of with not so many losses while going for the usual blink/colo opener, then upon seeing mech, Rain proceeded to take his third while adding a second robo for mass immos.

Then, as the terran started to turtle with viking/tanks/helions (a few runbyes of these killed quite a few probes) Rain used double warprism drop in the third and in the main while delaying the 4th of the Terran as much as possible (Rain took is 4th meanwhile).

Once both 4th were established (with big difficulties for the terran) Rain added HT and archons and kept harrasing with his warpprisms, but the terran's ghost managed to keep him from destroying the 4th completly.

Rain choosed to go for triple stargate mass tempest at this point, sacrificing his remaining colossi to free pop space, and used the tempest with oracle's revelation to siege the 4 th while taking his 5th and 6th base.

Terran really seemed in the ropes but ravens came barely in time to counter the tempest. He somehow managed to get his own 5th which rain kept harassing with 4 immortals (the 2 warpprisms were still active ont the main and third and being a pita). Rain's 6th base was totally uncontested at this point.

Then the game stabilized while rain added carriers to his mix and the terran started to sacrifice a lot of scv's.

And then, the final battle :

Rain : HT, archons, tempest, carriers (maybe a few immos I don't remember)

Terran : mass viking/ravens, 6-7 Battle cruisers and 5-6 tanks with ghosts.

Rain's army simply was obliterated as PDD's, yamamotos and the viking DPS cleared out the sky and the tanks/ghosts toasted the HT and archons.

Rain gg'ed out just after.

It was one of the best games I've seen this month.

The terran was 15th on Kr ladder, I would have loved to see the game from his point of view.

Anyway it was an impressive example of Mech usage vs Protoss.

TL;DR top protoss being toasted by a mech compo in a very late game scenario : inspiring




Edit : the vod is actually archived in twitch atm http://www.twitch.tv/sc2rain/b/571351170, game starts at 4h48, watch it!


Edit 2 : sigh not anymore


Someone beating Rain in lategame with mech is really impressive.
micjmac
Profile Joined September 2010
42 Posts
October 27 2014 23:10 GMT
#84
Thanks for this guide! Do you stream by any chance?
KtJ
Profile Joined October 2014
United States3514 Posts
November 02 2014 22:32 GMT
#85
well i know what i'm practicing tommorow
"I thought I destroyed my CC but it seemed like the only thing I destroyed was Idra's mentality."
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
November 04 2014 13:55 GMT
#86
On November 03 2014 07:32 KtJ wrote:
well i know what i'm practicing tommorow

Enjoy :p

On October 28 2014 08:10 micjmac wrote:
Thanks for this guide! Do you stream by any chance?

I do, at http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna/ (right now actually). However i got to admit i'm terrible at streaming often / with good schedules ><

On October 20 2014 05:21 [PkF] Wire wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 24 2014 16:47 Gwavajuice wrote:
I've seen a beautiful game yesterday, when watching Rain's stream.

He was on King Sejong's, the Terran opened with mine/helion drops, which rain took care of with not so many losses while going for the usual blink/colo opener, then upon seeing mech, Rain proceeded to take his third while adding a second robo for mass immos.

Then, as the terran started to turtle with viking/tanks/helions (a few runbyes of these killed quite a few probes) Rain used double warprism drop in the third and in the main while delaying the 4th of the Terran as much as possible (Rain took is 4th meanwhile).

Once both 4th were established (with big difficulties for the terran) Rain added HT and archons and kept harrasing with his warpprisms, but the terran's ghost managed to keep him from destroying the 4th completly.

Rain choosed to go for triple stargate mass tempest at this point, sacrificing his remaining colossi to free pop space, and used the tempest with oracle's revelation to siege the 4 th while taking his 5th and 6th base.

Terran really seemed in the ropes but ravens came barely in time to counter the tempest. He somehow managed to get his own 5th which rain kept harassing with 4 immortals (the 2 warpprisms were still active ont the main and third and being a pita). Rain's 6th base was totally uncontested at this point.

Then the game stabilized while rain added carriers to his mix and the terran started to sacrifice a lot of scv's.

And then, the final battle :

Rain : HT, archons, tempest, carriers (maybe a few immos I don't remember)

Terran : mass viking/ravens, 6-7 Battle cruisers and 5-6 tanks with ghosts.

Rain's army simply was obliterated as PDD's, yamamotos and the viking DPS cleared out the sky and the tanks/ghosts toasted the HT and archons.

Rain gg'ed out just after.

It was one of the best games I've seen this month.

The terran was 15th on Kr ladder, I would have loved to see the game from his point of view.

Anyway it was an impressive example of Mech usage vs Protoss.

TL;DR top protoss being toasted by a mech compo in a very late game scenario : inspiring




Edit : the vod is actually archived in twitch atm http://www.twitch.tv/sc2rain/b/571351170, game starts at 4h48, watch it!


Edit 2 : sigh not anymore


Someone beating Rain in lategame with mech is really impressive.

At least we know someone is meching even at the highest lvl on the ladder !
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
micjmac
Profile Joined September 2010
42 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-11-10 01:19:00
November 10 2014 00:58 GMT
#87
Do you have more replays where the opponent aggressively tries to deny your third? I noticed you had a couple TvTs like this, where the game could have gone either way. For me it feels way too difficult defending third without exposing my natural and/or main. If I split my army at natural and third I am spread too thin. You are also really susceptible to drop play before your turret ring kicks in (which you kind of need a third for). I noticed in a lot of your replays the opponent did not exploit this weakness and chose to play more of a macro game with you. Mech macro feels so slow without 6 geysers too, so it really messes up my macro when I have to lift my third back into my main.
nyccine
Profile Joined March 2012
United States12 Posts
November 16 2014 22:46 GMT
#88
How do you deal with *huge* early aggression. I'm talking zergs who forgo early hatches for massive zergling pushes before your bunker can be up, 8/8/8 terrans, blink stalker aggression. I've watched the replays, and don't see the huge pushes I'm seeing literally every match on ladder. I'm just folding because I can't possibly have enough units to deal with the kind of all-ins/extreme aggression I see literally every match.
Gene(S)is
Profile Joined May 2010
Sweden419 Posts
November 18 2014 08:48 GMT
#89
Lynna have you moved to sweden?
For the swarm
Lyyna
Profile Joined June 2011
France776 Posts
November 18 2014 12:33 GMT
#90
On November 10 2014 09:58 micjmac wrote:
Do you have more replays where the opponent aggressively tries to deny your third? I noticed you had a couple TvTs like this, where the game could have gone either way. For me it feels way too difficult defending third without exposing my natural and/or main. If I split my army at natural and third I am spread too thin. You are also really susceptible to drop play before your turret ring kicks in (which you kind of need a third for). I noticed in a lot of your replays the opponent did not exploit this weakness and chose to play more of a macro game with you. Mech macro feels so slow without 6 geysers too, so it really messes up my macro when I have to lift my third back into my main.

Not something i see often these days for some reason ; most people either try to be agressive waaaayyy before the 3rd can be thinked about, turning the game into a long 2 bases vs 2 bases starving, and others don't attack until your 3rd is landed and defended.
A big key, especially in HotS, is to really use the fact you'll have a gas deficit to mass up a big hellbat force : they trade really well with almost everything, while providing an extremely hard to kill buffer to protect your few mech units. Pull SCVs whenever you have a doubt on the issue of the fight, and, on most maps, get a sensor tower to spot either at your third, or at the side of your base that is the most exposed to drop. Also, try to locate his army before landing your third, so your army can move from its 2 bases defensive position to your third

On November 17 2014 07:46 nyccine wrote:
How do you deal with *huge* early aggression. I'm talking zergs who forgo early hatches for massive zergling pushes before your bunker can be up, 8/8/8 terrans, blink stalker aggression. I've watched the replays, and don't see the huge pushes I'm seeing literally every match on ladder. I'm just folding because I can't possibly have enough units to deal with the kind of all-ins/extreme aggression I see literally every match.

That is mostly a matter of openings. For example, in TvZ, lift your natural, wait until 4 hellions + banshee, reconquer your natural : pure lings will never get past your main wall, and hellions will fry them quickly. 8/8/8 is mostly a battle of micro, saving your first marines, using scvs , and being able to get a hellion out to totally stop the rush. Blink.. well, get tanks, bunker, and pray :p

If you have mostly problems with the early game, i suggest to try to find a closely looking pro opening, and see how it deals with similar agressions in pro games. Best way imo !

On November 18 2014 17:48 Gene(S)is wrote:
Lynna have you moved to sweden?

For this school year, yeah !
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/459600-how-to-mech-them-cry-lyynas-mech-in-hots - The 2014 Mech guide ! http://www.twitch.tv/lyyna for stream and contact infos
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