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United States4883 Posts
Hi, I'm a diamond-level protoss player in WoL (and HotS too, but I don't think that matters). I've been just playing random in HotS, particularly playing around with terran mech. Probably one of my favourite units that I find most interesting so far are widow mines. I've had success ranging from total failure to huge success with these, but I just can't seem to find the perfect roles for them yet.
The main use I've found for them is fast expanding, then littering the area around my base with widow mines while getting another 1-2 CCs and starting double ups.
Another use I've discovered is placing them in places you expect drops or flying harassment. They also work well on cliff edges to stop things like reapers or sieging up a cliff wall.
They SEEM to work pretty well if just placed in groups of 2-3 on the map in common traffic spots, but I can't really confirm if I'm actually having success with this.
They also work really well to block expansions (like a burrowed zergling). It generally forces a tentative sacrificial unit plus a scan or observer/overseer to be near.
My main questions are: How have these things been working for you? I haven't used them offensively, they seem kind of clunky for aggression; are there additional uses that work well for you? Do the mines work better clumped or spread out? Certain sim cities that help with widow mine defense? Should they be placed like tanks or more concentrated in chokes? etc etc
I'd love to hear what everyone's experience with this unit is!
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
Sensor Tower + Widow Mine is great if you know someone is going to be drop heavy
Widow Mines are great for taking your third early in TvZ. You can even do the 2 fact BFH build, get it scouted, and not be completely fucked by Roaches.
IMO, you don't have to make 4 Thors right away just to be safe from Mutas now.
In PvZ, they are basically a must in order to be safe with only 1/2 rax marine production. I think, unless you want to do 2 base Ghosts, you pretty much have to have 6+ with your army when you take your third. They help a lot with Immortals, but it's tricky to get them to hit them. I've been trying to keep them deactivated, and then I activate them once their front line of Zealots is killed. Sometimes it works perfectly and sometimes their units will automatically target them down on a-move, or they will have a lot of Zealots so that I can't really afford to wait until they are all dead, and the Widow Mines hit them instead.
Does anyone know, can you target fire with Widow Mines?
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United Kingdom12054 Posts
For me personally it's depended entirely on the map.
TvT I use them also depending what style I'm playing against, but on a map like daybreak I usually make about 10 mines lategame (yes, I'm not lying, I understand the supply cost) and keep about 3 infront of my tank lines (you can use tank lines more against bio now thanks to the mine), close enough that tanks fire at anything trying to kill them, but far enough away to deter them running straight in at my tanks. Against mech I usually do a similar sort of thing, but if I can't have a really good position I'll put a big group of mines far away from my tanks defending the back route in to my bases to stop hellion runbys.
Early game I'll keep one at each mineral line to deter banshees, but later on I rely entirely on turrets still for anti air as they're more reliable and are not dead supply in your base.
TvZ I get a ton of mines. Well I say a ton, but I like getting around 15-20 late game as I've found them incredibly useful for using large amounts of mines and one or two tanks for sectioning off entire pathways through the map against a mass roach/infestor style with ultras later on. Against Broodlords they can be very useful at getting cheeky kills on corrupters if you use your vikings to fly back over your mines, kind of like mutas and baneling bombs and they're great to have up to 5 in the early game just to defend against any form of ling pressure. If mutas are coming early game I'll do the same as TvT but with about 2-3 mines at each base with turret support until late game I move them and use turrets.
The main thing to do with your minefields is you HAVE to keep a viking ot turret with range nearby to snipe overseers. If they get hydras (more zergs are doing this to me now) you will lose them if you don't snipe the overseer.
TvP - I've been trying to use them in TvP, but to be honest I've still not worked out how the hell to use them. They seem to barely do anything to protoss units, I usually forgo them all together and just try and deal with it with just tank/hellbat/hellion/viking/ghost late game, early game I've found them useful for helping against early all ins/blink attacks at least.
I was Diamond in WoL and so far I've been sticking to unranked games, but I've been matched up with mainly diamond players.
EDIT:
One major thing I'd like to add about the mine, is since they can move around, it's very, very useful to move them after they've killed some units. Say you defend against a ling runby with them, pick them up and move them elsewhere since anyone with a brain won't run over that spot again.
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On November 25 2012 23:35 SC2John wrote:I've had success ranging from total failure to huge success with these,
Nailed it right here.
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United Kingdom1381 Posts
In the TvP match up, you could have an unburrowed widow mine with your bio ball and then burrow it whenever you spot an observer to save wasting scans.
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I've been trying to deny creep with them. Widow mine + hellion. Queens come to kill hellions --> boom. I doesn't really work that well and I'm not sure if it's even worth it. But it's a thought.
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Zerg cannot roach pressure as a response to hellion fast expand anymore. One widow mind and wall shuts it down completely.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 26 2012 01:05 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Sensor Tower + Widow Mine is great if you know someone is going to be drop heavy
Widow Mines are great for taking your third early in TvZ. You can even do the 2 fact BFH build, get it scouted, and not be completely fucked by Roaches.
IMO, you don't have to make 4 Thors right away just to be safe from Mutas now.
In PvZ, they are basically a must in order to be safe with only 1/2 rax marine production. I think, unless you want to do 2 base Ghosts, you pretty much have to have 6+ with your army when you take your third. They help a lot with Immortals, but it's tricky to get them to hit them. I've been trying to keep them deactivated, and then I activate them once their front line of Zealots is killed. Sometimes it works perfectly and sometimes their units will automatically target them down on a-move, or they will have a lot of Zealots so that I can't really afford to wait until they are all dead, and the Widow Mines hit them instead.
Does anyone know, can you target fire with Widow Mines?
No, you cannot target; this was discussed in the other widow mine thread. It's a little frustrating because it presents a bit of a random factor if units run over it or you activate it under a big army. The other thing that's been bothering me is the delay on the rockets. While I understand that this is for the purpose of allowing counter-micro against the mines, it again gives a sense of randomness because certain units like stimmed marines/nitro pack reapers/speedlings/charglots can actually just run over the mine without taking damage in a lot of cases.
I agree with your post: I think in a lot of ways, widow mines just open terran to play way greedier. I've had a ton of success with 3- or 4-CC builds, using widow mines to survive any kind of early pressure.
On November 26 2012 02:00 Qikz wrote:
For me personally it's depended entirely on the map.
TvT I use them also depending what style I'm playing against, but on a map like daybreak I usually make about 10 mines lategame (yes, I'm not lying, I understand the supply cost) and keep about 3 infront of my tank lines (you can use tank lines more against bio now thanks to the mine), close enough that tanks fire at anything trying to kill them, but far enough away to deter them running straight in at my tanks. Against mech I usually do a similar sort of thing, but if I can't have a really good position I'll put a big group of mines far away from my tanks defending the back route in to my bases to stop hellion runbys.
Early game I'll keep one at each mineral line to deter banshees, but later on I rely entirely on turrets still for anti air as they're more reliable and are not dead supply in your base.
TvZ I get a ton of mines. Well I say a ton, but I like getting around 15-20 late game as I've found them incredibly useful for using large amounts of mines and one or two tanks for sectioning off entire pathways through the map against a mass roach/infestor style with ultras later on. Against Broodlords they can be very useful at getting cheeky kills on corrupters if you use your vikings to fly back over your mines, kind of like mutas and baneling bombs and they're great to have up to 5 in the early game just to defend against any form of ling pressure. If mutas are coming early game I'll do the same as TvT but with about 2-3 mines at each base with turret support until late game I move them and use turrets.
The main thing to do with your minefields is you HAVE to keep a viking ot turret with range nearby to snipe overseers. If they get hydras (more zergs are doing this to me now) you will lose them if you don't snipe the overseer.
TvP - I've been trying to use them in TvP, but to be honest I've still not worked out how the hell to use them. They seem to barely do anything to protoss units, I usually forgo them all together and just try and deal with it with just tank/hellbat/hellion/viking/ghost late game, early game I've found them useful for helping against early all ins/blink attacks at least.
TvT: I've been thinking this is a good way to pair the widow mine, creating little groups of tanks and widow mines that control space better. I haven't played around with it a lot, but I think a 4-5 tank/2-3 mine defense will cover an area from anything but a really dedicated attack.
TvZ: This is interesting. I stopped making mines in lategame TvZ, thinking that my supply would be better spent into thors and flooding with battlehellions. However, I was still having problems with mass zergling runbys and roach drop shenanigans, etc. I have been playing around with baiting corruptors into widow mines/thor fire, and it's incredible at how quickly they fall...it's like using a seeker missile. I think there's still a lot of innovation I could do in this matchup, but for a long time, I've been thinking that my supply would be better spent in the lategame.
TvP: This...is a really weird matchup for mines. I think they work really well if you can do some kind of pre-colossus attack timing (maybe the marine/hellion/medivac 10:00 attack with 2-4 mines for support). Otherwise, they only really work for denying early pressure and staying fairly safe while you get your tank count up. Lategame, they seem almost useless, as they die to a-move colossus armies, aren't really droppable against cannons, and don't kill hardly anything except zealots. I haven't really tried using them in the lategame too much, but I'm fairly certain there are better ways to spend supply in this matchup.
On November 26 2012 03:50 iHirO wrote:
In the TvP match up, you could have an unburrowed widow mine with your bio ball and then burrow it whenever you spot an observer to save wasting scans.
Cool idea. You just have to make sure your marines don't take splash from the widow mine, though.
On November 26 2012 04:04 d00p wrote:
I've been trying to deny creep with them. Widow mine + hellion. Queens come to kill hellions --> boom. I doesn't really work that well and I'm not sure if it's even worth it. But it's a thought.
I haven't had a lot of success with this...zergs are getting out early roaches again, and the early roaches completely shut down hellion harass, even with a mine or two. However, I think this is perfectly viable as long as you have the APM and you're expanding aggressively behind it.
On November 26 2012 03:22 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2012 23:35 SC2John wrote:I've had success ranging from total failure to huge success with these, Nailed it right here.
Thank you, lol.
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United States4883 Posts
Any other thoughts or ideas?
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Verg good post. Glad to see that not everyone in these strategy forums are idiots. Yes I have found that you can do triple CC builds and can be safe against most all ins just placing widow mines in key attack paths.
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On November 27 2012 07:40 SC2John wrote:
Any other thoughts or ideas?
You didn't mention this in your post but widow mine drops are VERY effective. If a zerg isn't paying attention, widow mine drops can clear out entire mineral lines in seconds.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On November 27 2012 08:17 Mrvoodoochild1 wrote:You didn't mention this in your post but widow mine drops are VERY effective. If a zerg isn't paying attention, widow mine drops can clear out entire mineral lines in seconds.
You gotta be careful doing this though as a Mech player. Once you start trying to trade Gas for Drones, you really need to do damage to make it worth it. Especially when you start comparing how much damage you could have done with the same drop, but with Hellions.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 27 2012 08:17 Mrvoodoochild1 wrote:You didn't mention this in your post but widow mine drops are VERY effective. If a zerg isn't paying attention, widow mine drops can clear out entire mineral lines in seconds.
I've tried this with fairly limited success; most players spot the dropship coming in way too early and pull workers in time. I suppose I can try pairing this with a frontal assault or a drop somewhere else to distract my opponent, but it seems so much more APM and time consuming to drop 2 mines and burrow them than to do something like a baneling drop. I'll try it though.
I've been thinking of Liquid_Sea's super aggro mech TvP with hellion/banshee, and perhaps I could add something like this to keep the protoss all the way back defending while I get my upgrades and infrastructure up. The biggest problem I'm finding with mech in TvP is that protoss can just reach an immortal/colossus/archon/chargelot ball of doom much faster than I can achieve a solid mech army. Maybe using widow mines, not as positional tools, but rather as really aggressive space control tools might work to make mech TvP possible.
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Mines defensive unit? Such a waste  I am using mines very offensively with timing pushes on 1 base, very fun :DD.
vsZ: with fast gaz, 2 factory (one reactor) and 4 hellions with 2 mines push (with reenforcement if no roach). Mines one shot queens and rape zerglings, very effective if there is no more than 1 spine.
vsP: 1 rax lab +1 factory (better with proxy one) and 2marines+marauder with concusive shield and mines push. Mine one shot zelot/stalker. Vulnerable to mothership core runby :D
2rax (one reactor one tech lab)+factory is fine too
vsT: Most funny one, reaper+mines push, with gaz befor rax. Micro intensif but u can mess a lot with your opponent mind, thx to the vison of reaper.
Most of the time, i dont commit to much a take an expo. For my part, mines are pretty useless late game, expect for taking drops, but with the small radius, i think turret is better. Excuse my poor english, i am french.
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It's a shame I've yet to see this, but you can use widow mines to extend vision of siege tanks.
The trick is to place TWO widow mines between the most likely line of attack.
See example below:
_________WM
ST
ST _______________Roaches
_________WM
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They work perfectly to stop warp prisms, drop play shenanigans which is critical for players that like to mech or against those players that like to be aggressive. Maybe placing a widow mine in between two turrets could bait them into thinking that theres a blind spot in the turret ring.. Done this several times and works like a charm.
Also I find using widow mines planted near the mineral line of the 3rd/4th better than blocking the expansion outright. This way you can potentially get a ton of kills when they transfer their workers.
One more usage I find rather good is, placing them around the map, not near xel naga towers but near the line of sight blockers, areas where you wouldn't expect these. They get so many kills sometimes because the opponent dont expect them planted down, often losing handful of units just from being careless.
Some other neat tricks are baiting them into your mines with your units. E.g when going for hellions drops you take a few mines with you so they can roam around the enemy main and bait them into mines (sort of a safe zone?).
But as usual, mines lose effectiveness real quick mid/late game. However when things get out of hand in the late game and games that are very hectic (players forget to scout ahead sometimes, or rebuild their detectors), rebuilding mines can take advantage of this e.g. zerg forgetting to build overseers after a few engagements so they fly over a mine field etc.
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Widow mines are terrible units actually, They are being built in most streams and games just like reapers are: never built or a couple early game then thats it.
They need another serious round of buffs and Dustin browder has hinted at that in his recent interview.
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On November 26 2012 03:22 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2012 23:35 SC2John wrote:I've had success ranging from total failure to huge success with these, Nailed it right here.
I agree. The mine is sucks against a player with a brain who knows how to deal with it. And against Late Game runby´s it´s pretty useless too because 15-25 supply of marines/tanks would do the same job even better.
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Vs protoss
1: When you play bio and the protoss ends upp with chargelots arcon and templars. Get a reactor on your factory and burrow and kite into them with bio.
2: Drop 1 6 marines and 1 widow mines instead of 8 marines. He will probably not notice it and run back the probes to killed by it.
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Currently I build one in my TvP whilst going Cloakshee expand so I don't die to a Mothership Core.
Haven't tried it yet in TvZ or TvT.
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EPT
