EPTFirst of all, normally the Cloakshee Expand pins Protoss to his base and forces a Robo/Observer or Protoss ends up way behind (or just dies).
With the Cloakshees out, I normally get my expansion up and start going into Mech with Banshee support.
In HotS however, just the Mothership Core and 2 Stalkers / 1 Zealot at the front in the early game can already cause a ton of damage and force my Banshee back to help defend. If I am not very careful with my Marines I can straight up lose then and there. At best, the second Banshee forces Protoss to return home so the Mothership Core can detect.
All this can be done while Protoss gets up an expansion.
Even if Protoss does not attack with the Mothership Core, Banshees with Cloak no longer do much of anything, as there will generally always be a Mothership Core out.
Even if it isn't there, Protoss can Chrono it out very quickly and it spawns with enough energy for detection. (and you don't need a Robo for it)
As Mech needs time to get going, I normally rely on my Banshees to buy me that time but now I feel that is no longer possible.
The other difficulty I encountered was that the Mothership Core makes harassment against Mech very powerful because of Recall allowing every Protoss unit to return home.
As soon as I move out, Protoss harasses and Recalls the army when I return to defend or when I hit his base.
I could deal with Warp Prism harass using Banshees and Hellions but the Mothership Core allows a far larger army to do the harassment.
As I still want to go Mech against Protoss I'm at a loss at how to deal with the Mothership Core in the early game and still go for Mech.
1Rax FE seems extremely vulnerable to the Mothership Core + Blink Stalker play I've been seeing on various replays (haven't come across it myself yet...) but I don't want to go mass marine early game as I still prefer Mech.
I've seen some suggestions going for 1/1/1 with Widow Mines and drops and I will be trying that but can I still go Cloakshee Expand into Mech?
I've uploaded a replay, although I should add that my play was rather sloppy in it having only played the beta for a day or two and being thrown off by the MSC, I'm not sure what league/level my opponent was at, as HotS has thrown a GM at me even though I'm only Plat myself and the match results never showed up (endless loading icon).
As for the replay, the early MSC harass really threw me off which showed in my macro for a bit afterward and I think I went to Thor heavy, lacking tanks. The Banshee harass, due to the MSC was pretty much non-existent.
In any case, the replay:
Replay
Any help/advice regarding dealing with the MSC whilst still going/opening Mech would be great.
