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TvP Mech still not viable? - Page 18
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Hetz
196 Posts
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Zahir
United States947 Posts
On December 10 2012 05:16 Aulisemia wrote: From what I have seen with the recent buff they are pretty strong in the current build...they get hard countered by Immortals (but what mech unit doesn't?). I think it's cool they've added the active AA switching, but mech is supposed to be built around the siege tank. There was a nice post outlining why Thors, Warhounds, etc are not mech units because they operate functionally the same as Bio except for a different skin and upgrade path. Having to go mass Thor/Hellbat with ghost support seems a pretty lame "mech" style, even if it's effective. I honestly agree, I would love for slow, methodical siege tank pushes to become the staple of tvp mech once more. The successful mech styles I've seen are much more about thors, hellions and air... Engagements are much more about who built the right compositions and hits the most spells, not the traditional war game of positioning, supply lines, entrenched defenses and lightning raids, carefully timed assaults etc that tank heavy games promote. | ||
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Novacute
Australia313 Posts
As such, necessary changes are needed such as making thors better against air units (reducing cool down in it's cannon form attack), boosting it's damage or improve viking survivalbility by giving it +20 more health. Also, reducing the gas cost of siege tanks by 25 or so can greatly assist a meching player by decreasing the gas investment and diverting it to Ravens, which in theory should be a really great defense against void rays, tempests or carriers with it's seeker missiles. Without one of these changes, TvP mech, although possible, can be a rough uphill battle when Protoss achieves sufficient air superiority, and 'pure meching' may not be possible in countering air without investment in bio. Against ground protoss units, siege tanks in early to mid phase are incredibly weak. Without achieving the critical mass of at least 12 tanks, the general effectiveness of mech is drastically reduced, since losses are more likely to occur or entire army disappears from marching immortals and chargelots. Again, mass immortals are powerful in a heavy siege tank composition and ghost tech is also a per-requisite to make this composition viable. Now i understand the simple solution is to build ghosts or marines to damage immortals, this requirement means that pure-mech itself cannot be readily achieved with the current state of hots, since no factory unit is effective against non-clumped pack of immortals, unless the terran manages to achieve tanks above the magic number of 12, with adequate buffer and air support. One last thing, some may suggest widow mines, but players have become competent in dealing with mines, which usually puts them as dead weight in prolonged fights and thus have a limited use in tvp. However, i do feel that the current state of terran mech is quite powerful, especially against protoss ground units. We can only pray for someone to show up and teach us a safe and effective build that let us achieve pure mech that lets us deal with anything Protoss uses and at the same time, maintain an economic parity without sacrificing too much. | ||
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SigmaoctanusIV
United States3313 Posts
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On December 10 2012 08:55 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Mech TvP is Thor viking cause if I see more then 1 factory with obs I just start going stargate and pushing tempest, Carrier and voidrays to defend tell I can get my airball and just roll over the Terran. Haven't played any games with people going seeker missile to nuke Carriers/Tempest out of the sky. The only problem and the strength of Terran Mech vs Protoss is killing them with Battle hellion Tank before they have full Sky toss. but how do you deal with vikings? vikings deal incredible damage to tempests. VR has to deal with thor splash. | ||
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exKid
United Kingdom118 Posts
Previously in the early/mid game you could use mines to target down immortal shields in 1 hit (spell damage negates hardened shields) and could turn a close battle into an easy one. Now they just hit zealots in engagements so there's no real reason to build them early on without any mid game utility  | ||
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pOriishan
45 Posts
On December 10 2012 09:22 a176 wrote: but how do you deal with vikings? vikings deal incredible damage to tempests. VR has to deal with thor splash. Vikings die to VR in second, thors are busy with tempests carriers and ground units. I mean thors can't cover and kill VR fast enough. Thus, tempest carriers micro is outrange thors. Kiting VR with vikings is fine, but u will let thors take serious damage from tempest carriers. tl;dr: Sky toss is overpowerful in late game currently, as well as toss and terran have equal number of bases and supply. | ||
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Zergrusher
United States562 Posts
On December 10 2012 09:25 exKid wrote: I know that you need ghosts for the late game once they realise it's time to REALLY start building immortals and archons. But just want to bring up something that wasn't in the patch notes. You can no longer select targets for mines! They can only be auto-fired now. Previously in the early/mid game you could use mines to target down immortal shields in 1 hit (spell damage negates hardened shields) and could turn a close battle into an easy one. Now they just hit zealots in engagements so there's no real reason to build them early on without any mid game utility proof that they can no longer be manually targeted? | ||
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Scila
Canada1849 Posts
Voidrays are also a big issue, the new Thor anti-air just doesn't cut it. Why am I paying 300 minerals and 200 gas for a unit that does about as much anti-air damage as a Goliath, which costs 100/50 in BW? It's just hilarious how much easier and safer it is to play bio right now. With bio if I have supply advatange and up on bases I know the only way I would lose is if I walk all my units into storms and don't have vikings for colossus. Anybody got any ideas? | ||
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Zergrusher
United States562 Posts
On December 10 2012 10:09 Scila wrote: Well I've been trying to play mech (no vikings, just pure factory units) with the new patch but so far it's horrendous. I've had so many games where I'm up like 5 bases against 3 and I have a considerably larger army (20-50 supply bigger) and I still lose fights to immortal/zealot/VR. I don't think mech is ever going to work against Protoss until something is done about Immortals. They are just such a retarded abusive unit. And to the people saying "get ghosts" to EMP them, you're always starved on gas when you go mech. It would only be possible in the absolute late late game when you're maxed already and have gas to spare. Voidrays are also a big issue, the new Thor anti-air just doesn't cut it. Why am I paying 300 minerals and 200 gas for a unit that does about as much anti-air damage as a Goliath, which costs 100/50 in BW? It's just hilarious how much easier and safer it is to play bio right now. With bio if I have supply advatange and up on bases I know the only way I would lose is if I walk all my units into storms and don't have vikings for colossus. Anybody got any ideas? Use starport units with your mech in HOTS. its a no-brainer now that mech and sky share attack and armor upgrades. | ||
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SigmaoctanusIV
United States3313 Posts
On December 10 2012 09:22 a176 wrote: but how do you deal with vikings? vikings deal incredible damage to tempests. VR has to deal with thor splash. you just keep pulling back with the tempest and it wrecks their Vikings line also The New VRs are good vs Thors and Vikings. If you have air upgrades Terran shouldn't be able to go mech right now. You are vulnerable in the beginning of the game but once you have the deathball of Air units Terran can't do to much. Like I stated I haven't played many Raven players seeker missle 2 shots Tempest and Carriers and 1 shots vrs so seeker missile is pretty good vs Big units | ||
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Aquila-
516 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9404 Posts
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Scila
Canada1849 Posts
On December 10 2012 11:23 Hider wrote: How does adding ravens to the mix help vs immortlas? (seeker missile) Although the new Seeker Missile is def better, there is still the same energy problem. HSM costs 125 energy so you have to not only wait a while to get the energy for one, but your raven can also only cast it once a fight. Realistically you will only be able to incorporate them in the late late game (20 mins+) because any time before that you won't be able to have the energy/raven numbers in time to stop attacks. | ||
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AndreiDaGiant
United States394 Posts
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ZjiublingZ
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
1) You cannot stop a player from sending forward a single unit (like a hallucination) to bait your Widow Mine attack. With nothing to reset the "attack charge" on you have no control. 2) During an engagement where you want to focus fire specific units (like an Immortal), you will have to be constantly switching targets on Widow Mines until the key units are in range, at which point you can right click it and you're set. Unless you're a pro-gamer (and even then I'm not sure) you probably won't be able to do any micro while you are constantly switching targets with your Widow Mines. 3) In the same situation as the last comment, if you have multiple Widow Mines and are trying to save them for Immortals, all the ones you selected will fire upon the Immortal - even if it's Overkill. So let's say you have 10 Widow Mines, and they come across with 10 Chargelots and 5 Immortals, if you use this tactic to save your Widow Mines for the Immortals, all 10 of your Widow Mines will detonate on 1 Immortal, which is unarguably not worth it at all. Kind of really disappointing really. Using them to target Immortals was, IMO, their greatest strength in TvP. | ||
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EleanorRIgby
Canada3923 Posts
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exKid
United Kingdom118 Posts
On December 10 2012 12:43 ZjiublingZ wrote: Okay so here is how Widow Mines work now, it's a bit of a nerf. You CAN focus fire with them, BUT, you cannot turn them off from targeting. You might want to test this to understand exactly how it works, but I will try to explain. Once a unit gets in range of the Mine, it starts its couple second "attack charge", you can reset this "attack charge" by right-clicking on a new unit, and you can keep doing this for as long as you like, until you decide upon a unit you which to target. As far as I can see there are 3 in-game implications of this. 1) You cannot stop a player from sending forward a single unit (like a hallucination) to bait your Widow Mine attack. With nothing to reset the "attack charge" on you have no control. 2) During an engagement where you want to focus fire specific units (like an Immortal), you will have to be constantly switching targets on Widow Mines until the key units are in range, at which point you can right click it and you're set. Unless you're a pro-gamer (and even then I'm not sure) you probably won't be able to do any micro while you are constantly switching targets with your Widow Mines. 3) In the same situation as the last comment, if you have multiple Widow Mines and are trying to save them for Immortals, all the ones you selected will fire upon the Immortal - even if it's Overkill. So let's say you have 10 Widow Mines, and they come across with 10 Chargelots and 5 Immortals, if you use this tactic to save your Widow Mines for the Immortals, all 10 of your Widow Mines will detonate on 1 Immortal, which is unarguably not worth it at all. Kind of really disappointing really. Using them to target Immortals was, IMO, their greatest strength in TvP. Ahhh, didn't realise you could do this. I just saw that the little icon for the auto-attack had gone and that there were no hotkeys active in the command card that let me pick a target. Still, not being able to turn off the auto-fire and having to target juggle then clone is ridiculous. Just did some testing, and even shift clicking causes everything to hit the one target :/ | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10357 Posts
On December 10 2012 12:43 ZjiublingZ wrote: Okay so here is how Widow Mines work now, it's a bit of a nerf. You CAN focus fire with them, BUT, you cannot turn them off from targeting. You might want to test this to understand exactly how it works, but I will try to explain. Once a unit gets in range of the Mine, it starts its couple second "attack charge", you can reset this "attack charge" by right-clicking on a new unit, and you can keep doing this for as long as you like, until you decide upon a unit you which to target. As far as I can see there are 3 in-game implications of this. 1) You cannot stop a player from sending forward a single unit (like a hallucination) to bait your Widow Mine attack. With nothing to reset the "attack charge" on you have no control. 2) During an engagement where you want to focus fire specific units (like an Immortal), you will have to be constantly switching targets on Widow Mines until the key units are in range, at which point you can right click it and you're set. Unless you're a pro-gamer (and even then I'm not sure) you probably won't be able to do any micro while you are constantly switching targets with your Widow Mines. 3) In the same situation as the last comment, if you have multiple Widow Mines and are trying to save them for Immortals, all the ones you selected will fire upon the Immortal - even if it's Overkill. So let's say you have 10 Widow Mines, and they come across with 10 Chargelots and 5 Immortals, if you use this tactic to save your Widow Mines for the Immortals, all 10 of your Widow Mines will detonate on 1 Immortal, which is unarguably not worth it at all. Kind of really disappointing really. Using them to target Immortals was, IMO, their greatest strength in TvP. Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like it is a good way to show off good micro though. If you have multiple widow mines and save them for the immortals, select them all, keep switching targets, target all on one immortal, then box click the rest (or deselect them from the UI below) click a new immortal, etc. The charge up isn't that short, so it can be done. | ||
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ZjiublingZ
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 10 2012 14:01 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like it is a good way to show off good micro though. If you have multiple widow mines and save them for the immortals, select them all, keep switching targets, target all on one immortal, then box click the rest (or deselect them from the UI below) click a new immortal, etc. The charge up isn't that short, so it can be done. Yeah this is a good point, but only an option in some situations. I suggest you try it out. The tactic you are talking about doesn't work all that well unless your Widow Mines are clumped up AND the Immortals are as well (or whatever you want to be targeting). If you target a unit that is out of range of any of the Mines then those ones will ignore that command and it won't reset their "attack charge". Perhaps I am underestimating what a pro player could do, but I have a hard time imagining them doing this "attack charge reset" micro on multiple groups of Widow Mines at once. | ||
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