This is nothing new for Zerg players, but I haven't seen a thread dedicated to this issue in PvT.
The situation: I was playing a Terran player for the fourth time in the row who liked to go for a thor push w/ scvs to surround and repair the thor. I knew from the start of this game that he was going to go for it again. I had tried several compositions to deal with the push (more stalkers to better focus fire the thor, more sentries to block of the marines, etc), but nothing had worked. I simply couldn't kill the thor in time when it was surrounded by repairing scvs. In this game, I designed my composition to have extra zealots figuring that they would kill the marines and immortals to finish the thor.
As you'll see in the replay, I had a much larger army by the time the push hit. The attack priority AI caused my zealots to try to attack the thor, but since it had no surface area exposed, they wandered aimlessly. Even with an economic advantage and added time to prepare with the thor walking its slow ass across the map giving me a MUCH larger army, I did essentially no damage in the confrontation. The repairing workers standing in the way just crushed me.
The same problem happens with the battlecruiser rush that's going around. In both cases, focus firing 10 scvs as the start of the fight isn't a realistic option. It's just too slow and you will lose half your army before you can think about fighting theirs.
Here's the replay:
I'm sure there are ways that I could have won this game. The point of this thread isn't to analyze my play and see what I screwed up. The issue is that I had a much larger army and a reasonable composition, and I did virtually no damage to his composition.
Edit: I took the time to add up the units and costs. At the start of the fight, it was:
11 zealots, 7 stalkers, 1 immortal and 1 sentry (2275/550) against 25 marines and 1 thor (1550/300). There were 11 scvs on auto-repair boosting the Terran total to 2100/300. 3 probes were also sent into the fray, so if you want to count those, the P army was 2425/550. The P army also reinforced much more sending in ~20 probes, an extra immortal, and a few more warpgate units.
I'm not sure what the ideal way to micro the battle would have been from the Protoss side. (Let the AI have your stalkers and immortal shoot at the thor? Move-click your zealots near the marines and then A-click so that they might hit marines instead? Focus fire workers/marines with stalkers and immortals?) Tactical decisions aside, I think any sort of micro would have produced the same result: a lopsided victory for the significantly smaller Terran force due to this powerful exploit of the targeting priority of repairing workers.
It is a problem and I'm sure that blizzard will fix it.
However the workaround is using hold position on your zealots/lings. This will force them to attack the scvs. Provided everything is fully surrounded this will thin out the numbers of scvs enough to let you kill the thor. It won't be cost effective, but nothing ever is against terran death balls.
Hope there will be some changes for the target priority too.
For now i'll try to use more fungal against those SCV, didn't have time to try it for now. Maybe you can use one or two storm ( and feedback the thor as a bonus ).
When I clicked this thread I wondered if it would be SebestianCox. I played him a few times in a row and he did the same push against me.
I agree that its very annoying that the AI priority will cause your units to just do nothing if the thor is surrounded by SCVs.
I think its pretty obvious that something should be changed, but, that aside, what do you think the strongest protoss response is to this? Assuming you were able to actually attack the thor, would alot of chargezealots be good? I tried getting immortals one game, but by the time I saw the thors, I was only able to get 1-2 immortals out when his push came and they melted pretty fast to stimmed marines. (I admit I might just be bad, feel free to tell me if you think having any amount of immortals should counter this)
Edit: After watching the replay your game was pretty similar to mine. I guess even 1-2 immortals isn't enough when your zealots aren't doing anything.
On September 19 2010 00:55 Super_bricklayer wrote: Hope there will be some changes for the target priority too.
For now i'll try to use more fungal against those SCV, didn't have time to try it for now. Maybe you can use one or two storm ( and feedback the thor as a bonus ).
Don't think he could get that kind of tech in time for that push..
just so we are all clear. battlecruisers, thors, ultralisks, brood lords, carriers, colossi, and motherships are all massive units. corruptors only hit air. they can hit colossi because colossi are designed to be hit by air. just because a corruptor cannot hit it does not mean that it is not massive. it just means that it is not an air unit/colossus.
come on, guys. before we start trying to discuss the game in depth we should at least have a good understanding of it on the surface.
i don't think workers should be given priority targeting, but i think units should have backup priorities. "if i cannot attack my priority target, i will attack the next highest priority" which would be the scvs.
the reason i don't think workers should be the priority target is because that would lead to allin pushes in which the player sends his workers ahead of his army to occupy the enemy units while he deals damage. then the roles would just switch. people would whine about how they can only attack scvs and how manually focusing down the army is not a realistic option.
Worker priority is already high if the workers are attacking (try it some time), but the key is that despite the fact that Blizz was able to make repairing workers top priority on brutal mode in the campaign, they don't get this treatment online. I think it's pretty reasonable to set a repairing SCV to the same priority, or higher, of an attacking one.
I would adjust the robo timing a bit more. I dont see a reason to go immortal heavy when the gathered scouting knowledge is nothing more but "1rax-addon, lots of marines". At this point he could pretty much do anything.
My thought process would be: Robo before 3rd gate, 1 zealot at his door in case he's expanding, fast obs into collosus tec -> cancel as soon as i see the thor-tec, 1 round sentries and run up to his ramp -> forcefield before or after the thor. Even if he stomps it either the marines are in front or in the back. Even if you had won that somehow, if you only see it coming when it's already at your door, you've done something wrong.
At the very very least, if the unit physically cannot attack the Thor because the SCVs have a perfect surround, it should target the SCVs.
I saw a game recently where Select stopped a 4 gate push by bringing 4-5 SCVs to his ramp and hold positioning them there, which completely broke the Zealot AI.
If the Thor is behind a wall of supply depots, the Zealot will change target and attack the depots. So if he's behind a wall of hold positioned or repairing SCVs, why doesn't he change target to the SCVs?
[QUOTE]On September 19 2010 01:07 universalwill wrote: just so we are all clear. battlecruisers, thors, ultralisks, brood lords, carriers, colossi, and motherships are all massive units. corruptors only hit air. /QUOTE]
Brood lords don t seem like a MASIVE unit ... after all they're made from a corruptor - so kinda same size ... he s not getting MASSIVE amounts of proteins and vitamins to get as big as a floating city (mothership) ... or like a flying super-mega elephant ...... or as big a ship traveeling between stars ....
[QUOTE]On September 19 2010 01:21 Tomtaietot wrote: [QUOTE]On September 19 2010 01:07 universalwill wrote: just so we are all clear. battlecruisers, thors, ultralisks, brood lords, carriers, colossi, and motherships are all massive units. corruptors only hit air. /QUOTE]
Brood lords don t seem like a MASIVE unit ... after all they're made from a corruptor - so kinda same size ... he s not getting MASSIVE amounts of proteins and vitamins to get as big as a floating city (mothership) ... or like a flying super-mega elephant ...... or as big a ship traveeling between stars .... [/QUOTE]
As you'll see in the replay, I had a much larger army by the time the push hit
This is false, your armies were about even in minerals and gas. If we count the scvs he brought then he was ahead on minerals by 150 and you were ahead by 200 in gas, so, again very even. If he didn't have thors and brought all those scvs and had marauders instead, you'd still have lost with that FE in close positions (cept instead of your zealots running around a thor they'd be getting kited) with no obs checking his tech and nothing to counter his large marine numbers.
Yeah, it makes it easy on the terran, especially with auto-repair, but I don't think that replay is a great example of the issue.
I don't usually reply to these things, but I think I can provide some insight;
When I VS Terran, my midgame plan is having two bases and high templars+chargelots, virtually regardless of his build. I'm not sure on the timing of the thor, but if you can get storm in time you can easily crush his push. (Feedback on thor, storm scvs) However, if it doesnt come out in time there are a few things you can do: 1- FF in an arc behind the Thor(So he doesn't walk and crush them) To seperate SCVs, and FocusFire it down. 2- Just delay him until storm comes out, if it's close. He won't be able to march up the ramp because you can FF behind it, and the thor would be isolated. That, or he'd be forced to back up and crush the FF you put behind him. Either way, you're buying yourself time and free hits. 3-Go down the robo path. Collosis have nice splash damage, and you can manually target the scvs. You won't have to do every single one because it will kill 2-3 every time with its pewpew lazers.
As you'll see in the replay, I had a much larger army by the time the push hit
This is false, your armies were about even in minerals and gas. If we count the scvs he brought then he was ahead on minerals by 150 and you were ahead by 200 in gas, so, again very even. If he didn't have thors and brought all those scvs and had marauders instead, you'd still have lost with that FE in close positions (cept instead of your zealots running around a thor they'd be getting kited) with no obs checking his tech and nothing to counter his large marine numbers.
Yeah, it makes it easy on the terran, especially with auto-repair, but I don't think that replay is a great example of the issue.
I didn't count the units and add up the costs. I just looked at the graph in the game summary, and my line was way above his. I can try to sum up everything later.
Wouldn't a nice storm just blow those scvs to pieces? I mean, thors are pretty high up on tech chain aren't they compared to HTs?
Just sayin a thought. If not possible, what about immortals. You can have one out before I get to your base with 3 maurders and a marine. They do 50 a pop to thors. 3 of him doing 150 every what, 1.5seconds sure is a bit faster than repair rate, or isnt it? I dont know the rate
If you know this coming, you can go 1gate into robo and get 3-4 immortal. Should be able to get it, before terran has Thor, since you have Chrono Boost, and he has to build Armory. 1-2-3 zealot for marines and rest all stalkers to snipe off the scvs, sentry is really useless in that battle. Force fields dosen't help much, since Thor can destroy it.
On September 19 2010 01:50 iAmJeffReY wrote: Wouldn't a nice storm just blow those scvs to pieces? I mean, thors are pretty high up on tech chain aren't they compared to HTs?
Just sayin a thought. If not possible, what about immortals. You can have one out before I get to your base with 3 maurders and a marine. They do 50 a pop to thors. 3 of him doing 150 every what, 1.5seconds sure is a bit faster than repair rate, or isnt it? I dont know the rate
Storm tech takes longer than Thors. You need more buildings, and of course need storm to finish researching. Another problem is that rushing to storm puts you in a very vulnerable position to a number of timing pushes because of low army count. A Terran who plans a Thor push can spend his 2nd or 3rd 50 energy to scan instead of mule and decide whether to switch over to bio+tank. The only 'wasted' building in the short term is the armory.
For those suggesting storm/immortals, you can't get storm in time. If you go 1-gate into robo, you can probably get enough immortals to kill the thor. But you shouldn't have to go 1-gate into robo to stop this push. If this were any other push that hits at the same time (bio, bio + medivacs, marine-tank, marine-banshee), my army would have crushed it easily. If my units would have just attacked the marines or the scvs, my army would have crushed the push easily.
On September 19 2010 01:50 iAmJeffReY wrote: Wouldn't a nice storm just blow those scvs to pieces? I mean, thors are pretty high up on tech chain aren't they compared to HTs?
Just sayin a thought. If not possible, what about immortals. You can have one out before I get to your base with 3 maurders and a marine. They do 50 a pop to thors. 3 of him doing 150 every what, 1.5seconds sure is a bit faster than repair rate, or isnt it? I dont know the rate
you can compare storm to thors "250mm ability". the difference is p needs 110secs for researching, t does not. during that windows t is in a huge advantage!
immortals get shred by marines
also ff arent useless. if the thor has to move around to destroy them you buy some seconds to kill the scvs or the real damagedealer in that clash - the marines
Can't watch the rep, but wouldn't Colossi + skirmishing wreck thor-repair builds? Plus, if he's getting MMM to supplement it (he probably is) you'll want the colossi anyways.
Honestly, easiest way to fix this "problem" would be to just give SCVs that are REPAIRING really high priority, in the same vein that Medivacs have higher priority. I believe we had a topic about that a short while ago.
Totally agree. A massive amount of SCVs repairing Thor(s) or a Planetary Fortress can be extremely problematic and in some scenarios near impossible to kill with a much bigger army. Trying to micro your army to kill each SCVs one at a time is extremely inefficient and during that time your army is getting owned by the Mech unit(s) being repaired.
This needs to be adressed by Blizzard.
The best AI fix I can think of for this would be to - flag SCVs that are repairing a Unit that is attacking you, the same as if those SCVs were (A command) Attacking you. So your army would Damage both the repairing SCVs and the mech unit at once.
i keep saying this, but a way to change attack priorities on the fly would make sc2 so much easier. Just have your whole army either give priority to workers, army, or buildings, depending on the situation
On September 19 2010 01:07 universalwill wrote: just so we are all clear. battlecruisers, thors, ultralisks, brood lords, carriers, colossi, and motherships are all massive units. corruptors only hit air.
Brood lords don t seem like a MASIVE unit ... after all they're made from a corruptor - so kinda same size ... he s not getting MASSIVE amounts of proteins and vitamins to get as big as a floating city (mothership) ... or like a flying super-mega elephant ...... or as big a ship traveeling between stars ....
Then a hatchery must be very small, since it is morphed from a drone. Also, all zerg units must roughly be the size of a larva, according to this theory hehe
On subject, this is a tricky rush. Ideally, you would have some more immortals to deal with the thors, or some area of effect units, like colossi or storm to kill surrounding targets while hitting thor.
On September 19 2010 03:28 Bags wrote: I wish the game would build troops for me too, but unfortunately there's only so much the game should automate.
I think you grossly misunderstand the issue. If the game didn't automate attack priorities, this wouldn't be a problem. Zealots would attack whatever is closest (the repairing scvs), and you could target fire whatever you wanted. The problem is that the game does automate attack priorities. In most cases this is fine because the player can manually override. However, in some cases the burden the game puts one one player is so much greater than the other that it causes problems. This is most evident when you're fighting next to a planetary fortress.
the best response to a thor all in push is void rays. also try to get your zealots to target the scvs to stop repairing. charge the void on a pylon before the battle if possible
Your scv's already automatically repair shit for you bags, I realize your trying to be "clever" because you think that everyone should have 300 apm to kill an A-moving thor with scv's surrounding it , but you just sound like an ignorant hypocrite.
On September 19 2010 02:47 kcdc wrote: For those suggesting storm/immortals, you can't get storm in time. If you go 1-gate into robo, you can probably get enough immortals to kill the thor. But you shouldn't have to go 1-gate into robo to stop this push. If this were any other push that hits at the same time (bio, bio + medivacs, marine-tank, marine-banshee), my army would have crushed it easily. If my units would have just attacked the marines or the scvs, my army would have crushed the push easily.
Really though? Why shouldn't you have to tech change when they build to beat your units? That's just silly. If I'm massing marines, and the zerg goes banelings I shouldn't have to tech switch?
Not tryin to be an asshole, just saying. It's called a COUNTER for a reason? You counter what they're going with the natural hard hitting counter? And whats the chances of them having enough marines to eat your shields up on the immortals?
On September 19 2010 02:47 kcdc wrote: For those suggesting storm/immortals, you can't get storm in time. If you go 1-gate into robo, you can probably get enough immortals to kill the thor. But you shouldn't have to go 1-gate into robo to stop this push. If this were any other push that hits at the same time (bio, bio + medivacs, marine-tank, marine-banshee), my army would have crushed it easily. If my units would have just attacked the marines or the scvs, my army would have crushed the push easily.
Really though? Why shouldn't you have to tech change when they build to beat your units? That's just silly. If I'm massing marines, and the zerg goes banelings I shouldn't have to tech switch?
Not tryin to be an asshole, just saying. It's called a COUNTER for a reason? You counter what they're going with the natural hard hitting counter? And whats the chances of them having enough marines to eat your shields up on the immortals?
If I understand your position, you believe 1-gate robo is a "counter" to thor timing push. Okay, you're at 17 supply, what do you do? Do you throw down a second gateway? Expand? Robo?
Suppose you went 3 gate robo. You chrono your observer out and scout and learn he is going for a thor-push. Your logic is that "Well, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but you should tech switch to a 1 gate robo build so you could can retroactively have more immortals out to counter the thor."
Okay, suppose you went 1 gate robo. Observer comes out very fast, you see he has 4 rax, 3 with tech labs. Would your response be "Well, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but you can't expect 1 gate robo to beat bio timing pushes, you should have retroactively gone 1 gate FE or 3 gate robo to counter."
On September 19 2010 01:19 Ketara wrote: At the very very least, if the unit physically cannot attack the Thor because the SCVs have a perfect surround, it should target the SCVs.
I saw a game recently where Select stopped a 4 gate push by bringing 4-5 SCVs to his ramp and hold positioning them there, which completely broke the Zealot AI.
If the Thor is behind a wall of supply depots, the Zealot will change target and attack the depots. So if he's behind a wall of hold positioned or repairing SCVs, why doesn't he change target to the SCVs?
Such SCV 'walls' were back in BW too for ramp holding purposes. (actually, any worker could do that).
Back to the thread, I feel that repairing SCVs should have equal or higher priority than attacking units.
To whoever said that SCVs will absorb all the shots in all-ins. Just kill a few SCVs then back off then kill a few more then back off. Sounds like an easy crippling win.
On September 19 2010 03:39 KillerPlague wrote: the best response to a thor all in push is void rays. also try to get your zealots to target the scvs to stop repairing. charge the void on a pylon before the battle if possible
Did you watch the replay? The guy came with 1 thor, a bunch of scv's, and like 30 marines, good luck with a void ray.
On September 19 2010 03:24 Michaelj wrote: i keep saying this, but a way to change attack priorities on the fly would make sc2 so much easier. Just have your whole army either give priority to workers, army, or buildings, depending on the situation
I like this idea. It would greatly increase the depth of play(skill cap) in SC2.
So kcdc had 11 zealots 7 stalkers 1 immortal 1 sentry at start of the fight for a total of 42 supply (he also pulled probes after zealots dropped plus warp ins and a 2nd immortal which joined the fight late, although these were mostly inconsequential). SebastianCox has 25 marines (with combat sheild and stim) and 1 thor for a total of 31 supply, plus 11 scv's on auto repair. The zealots did indeed bug out when they tried to go for the thor but it looks like they eventually did get to the marines before dieing. I'm not sure what can be done about that, but it looks like a strong push to be sure.
On September 19 2010 02:47 kcdc wrote: For those suggesting storm/immortals, you can't get storm in time. If you go 1-gate into robo, you can probably get enough immortals to kill the thor. But you shouldn't have to go 1-gate into robo to stop this push. If this were any other push that hits at the same time (bio, bio + medivacs, marine-tank, marine-banshee), my army would have crushed it easily. If my units would have just attacked the marines or the scvs, my army would have crushed the push easily.
Really though? Why shouldn't you have to tech change when they build to beat your units? That's just silly. If I'm massing marines, and the zerg goes banelings I shouldn't have to tech switch?
Not tryin to be an asshole, just saying. It's called a COUNTER for a reason? You counter what they're going with the natural hard hitting counter? And whats the chances of them having enough marines to eat your shields up on the immortals?
To borrow a page from the Day[9] instructional manual, you're conflating forcing a composition and responding with a composition. You can't scout this push early enough to respond with a large number of immortals. Yes, you can survive this push if you go 1-gate robo and pump as many immortals as possible. But if that's the only way to survive the push (and I'm sure it's not), then the threat of this push forces you to open 1-gate robo and pump immortals every game until you scout that he's doing something else. Of course, the game would suck if the only stable opening were 1-gate robo....
I don't want to overstate this balance issue. I don't think that this push is unstoppable. In the game, I could have cut workers to get out a bunch more units, and with additional units, I probably could have focus fired the thor down with my immortals and stalkers. I just think this push is much stronger than it should be, and that its strength lies not in a clever combination of units, subtle timings, or great micro, but rather in a rather easily executed exploit of the target priority AI. If the defending units wouldn't just run in circles, the push would be stomped rather easily.
On September 19 2010 03:24 Michaelj wrote: i keep saying this, but a way to change attack priorities on the fly would make sc2 so much easier. Just have your whole army either give priority to workers, army, or buildings, depending on the situation
I like this idea. It would greatly increase the depth of play(skill cap) in SC2.
I like the idea just because it puts more human agency into decision making, however I don't think it will increase the depth of play much, if at all. You almost always want priority on army. Even against a terran, I can only imagine switching it to worker priority a few times each game. You would almost never use building priority because target firing buildings is extremely easy if you need something destroyed.
I would prefer a more BW-like system where units attack the closest thing they can attack.
On September 19 2010 01:19 Ketara wrote: At the very very least, if the unit physically cannot attack the Thor because the SCVs have a perfect surround, it should target the SCVs.
I saw a game recently where Select stopped a 4 gate push by bringing 4-5 SCVs to his ramp and hold positioning them there, which completely broke the Zealot AI.
If the Thor is behind a wall of supply depots, the Zealot will change target and attack the depots. So if he's behind a wall of hold positioned or repairing SCVs, why doesn't he change target to the SCVs?
Such SCV 'walls' were back in BW too for ramp holding purposes. (actually, any worker could do that).
Back to the thread, I feel that repairing SCVs should have equal or higher priority than attacking units.
To whoever said that SCVs will absorb all the shots in all-ins. Just kill a few SCVs then back off then kill a few more then back off. Sounds like an easy crippling win.
I assure you 2fact in BW would have been much more powerful if siege tanks were able to be healed like a thor can currently, with 9 scvs completely wrapping around it and making it immune. On top of that, the Thor having so much health means that the Thor can still take some dmg without worry before the SCVs actually start repairing.
On September 19 2010 03:50 Peekaboo wrote: A guy comes into you base with
a) a tanking unit surrounded with scvs b) a mass of fragile dps units.
You response was to try to kill the tanking unit.
The thor is not your problem--not killing the marines is your problem. He moved his marines back for a reason....
And if focussing down the marines doesn't work pull some workers to help, you're a head a base anyway and he's semi-allin.
I'm not saying the ai for targetting scvs isn't problematic and unfair, I'm just saying you responded exactly like he wanted you to.
I agree with this. Screw the thor, screw the SCVs... Run those zealots at the marines. They are doing WAY more damage than the thor. And thors dont do very good dps to zealots, who have huuuge HP.
If you had chargelots out, I see no possible way to win the fight as Terran. Just kill the marines as fast as possible, then you can turn off panic mode and just start picking off the scv's with micro.
One of the ways I've come up with dealing with repairing scvs is to select the lings(lots for you) circling around the thor trying to attack it and use hold position, they'll attack the closest scv. It's not the best solution but it works well enough.
On September 19 2010 03:55 Spaceball wrote: So kcdc had 11 zealots 7 stalkers 1 immortal 1 sentry at start of the fight for a total of 42 supply (he also pulled probes after zealots dropped plus warp ins and a 2nd immortal which joined the fight late, although these were mostly inconsequential). SebastianCox has 25 marines (with combat sheild and stim) and 1 thor for a total of 31 supply, plus 11 scv's on auto repair. The zealots did indeed bug out when they tried to go for the thor but it looks like they eventually did get to the marines before dieing. I'm not sure what can be done about that, but it looks like a strong push to be sure.
That unit count looks correct.
11 zealots, 7 stalkers, 1 immortal and 1 sentry at the start of the fight is 2275/550
25 marines and 1 thor is 1550/300.
If you want to count the additional scvs, the Terran army is 2100/300. Of course, 3 probes also joined the fight with the zealots, so you could boost the initial cost of the Protoss army too. Also, the Protoss army reinforced considerably more. Another immortal and 3 more gateway units joined the fight along with ~20 probes after the zealots died while only 3 more marines joined in during this time. The fight was largely resolved by the point that the immortal, gateway units and probes joined in, but had the initial battle dented the marine force AT ALL, the Protoss reinforcement advantage would have held the push.
IMO, 2275/550 needs to at least do a little damage to 1550/300, even with a tech advantage and workers thrown in.
On September 19 2010 03:50 Peekaboo wrote: A guy comes into you base with
a) a tanking unit surrounded with scvs b) a mass of fragile dps units.
You response was to try to kill the tanking unit.
The thor is not your problem--not killing the marines is your problem. He moved his marines back for a reason....
And if focussing down the marines doesn't work pull some workers to help, you're a head a base anyway and he's semi-allin.
I'm not saying the ai for targetting scvs isn't problematic and unfair, I'm just saying you responded exactly like he wanted you to.
I agree with this. Screw the thor, screw the SCVs... Run those zealots at the marines. They are doing WAY more damage than the thor. And thors dont do very good dps to zealots, who have huuuge HP.
If you had chargelots out, I see no possible way to win the fight as Terran. Just kill the marines as fast as possible, then you can turn off panic mode and just start picking off the scv's with micro.
Remember, I played against this 4 games in a row. I tried chasing the marines in the other games. The thor is freaking huge and the AI makes you try to hit it instead. You can individually focus fire the marines, but that makes you lose just like individually focus firing scvs does. Also, focus firing with melee units == loss.
a few ppl mentioned that if you were able to get storm in time for this specific push (or even for a similar push later in the game) to storm the scvs... i disagree- storm the marines and then send in zlots to clean up. worry about the thor/scv after the real dmg dealers are taken out. storming the scvs seems wasteful
On September 19 2010 03:28 Bags wrote: I wish the game would build troops for me too, but unfortunately there's only so much the game should automate.
I think you grossly misunderstand the issue. If the game didn't automate attack priorities, this wouldn't be a problem. Zealots would attack whatever is closest (the repairing scvs), and you could target fire whatever you wanted. The problem is that the game does automate attack priorities. In most cases this is fine because the player can manually override. However, in some cases the burden the game puts one one player is so much greater than the other that it causes problems. This is most evident when you're fighting next to a planetary fortress.
On September 19 2010 03:28 Bags wrote: I wish the game would build troops for me too, but unfortunately there's only so much the game should automate.
I think you grossly misunderstand the issue. If the game didn't automate attack priorities, this wouldn't be a problem. Zealots would attack whatever is closest (the repairing scvs), and you could target fire whatever you wanted. The problem is that the game does automate attack priorities. In most cases this is fine because the player can manually override. However, in some cases the burden the game puts one one player is so much greater than the other that it causes problems. This is most evident when you're fighting next to a planetary fortress.
Hold a and shift click all of the workers.
This sometimes works. However, when it's something like a Thor, it's quite often that a lot of SCVs will be in the shadow of the Thor, making it near impossible to click those during those do or die battles. Worse when it's a battlecruiser or two with a bunch of SCVs lurking under it, since you're going to have to suicide lots of zealots to chew through the ground forces + scvs, or whatever ground only unit you've got.
On September 19 2010 03:28 Bags wrote: I wish the game would build troops for me too, but unfortunately there's only so much the game should automate.
I think you grossly misunderstand the issue. If the game didn't automate attack priorities, this wouldn't be a problem. Zealots would attack whatever is closest (the repairing scvs), and you could target fire whatever you wanted. The problem is that the game does automate attack priorities. In most cases this is fine because the player can manually override. However, in some cases the burden the game puts one one player is so much greater than the other that it causes problems. This is most evident when you're fighting next to a planetary fortress.
Hold a and shift click all of the workers.
Shift targets with zerglings?
Only 2-3 will ever be attacking at a time. I hate terrans who say this line.
If you tried to kill workers 1 by 1 by manual shift click on a p-fortress, your entire army would be gone by the time the scvs dies.
On September 19 2010 03:28 Bags wrote: I wish the game would build troops for me too, but unfortunately there's only so much the game should automate.
I think you grossly misunderstand the issue. If the game didn't automate attack priorities, this wouldn't be a problem. Zealots would attack whatever is closest (the repairing scvs), and you could target fire whatever you wanted. The problem is that the game does automate attack priorities. In most cases this is fine because the player can manually override. However, in some cases the burden the game puts one one player is so much greater than the other that it causes problems. This is most evident when you're fighting next to a planetary fortress.
Hold a and shift click all of the workers.
This doenst solve anything, they all still try to focus on one SCV.
On September 19 2010 01:13 SharkSpider wrote: Worker priority is already high if the workers are attacking (try it some time), but the key is that despite the fact that Blizz was able to make repairing workers top priority on brutal mode in the campaign, they don't get this treatment online. I think it's pretty reasonable to set a repairing SCV to the same priority, or higher, of an attacking one.
If they set it at the same priority of an attacking unit they would attack the closer unit, this being the scv.
Repair is just broken. If you have high priority on repairng scvs, then your army will just die trying to kill workers. If repairing scv is not high priority, your army ends up attacking 1 thor for 5 seconds. I think one of the possible ways to deal with it might be to set the unit being repaired at lowest priorty along with the scvs so that your army just kills everything first then the repaired unit, but the flaw is that people will jus put like 2 thors in the front with 20 scvs covering them and your army will have to run around it if you don't focus fire. such a mess... Just take our priority AI and put in "attack whatever unit is closest - ignore none defensive buildings"
On September 19 2010 03:28 Bags wrote: I wish the game would build troops for me too, but unfortunately there's only so much the game should automate.
I think you grossly misunderstand the issue. If the game didn't automate attack priorities, this wouldn't be a problem. Zealots would attack whatever is closest (the repairing scvs), and you could target fire whatever you wanted. The problem is that the game does automate attack priorities. In most cases this is fine because the player can manually override. However, in some cases the burden the game puts one one player is so much greater than the other that it causes problems. This is most evident when you're fighting next to a planetary fortress.
Hold a and shift click all of the workers.
With zealots? Yes, if the protoss player clones the zealots onto the repairing scvs adequately, they can overcome this issue. The problem isn't that it's insurmountable, it's that one player has to manually fight the wonky priority system (zealots/zerglings prioritizing units they can't reach over units they can reach, wtf?) while the other player doesn't.
Imagine if Terran could build a psi-disrupter, which causes all zerg units in the game to lose the ability to attack-move or autoattack. You need to manually target fire everything. Bullshit or no?
You need to actually try your suggestions before offering them. Doing this with marines (or any terran unit) works great, but not with zealots or zergling.
You need to actually try your suggestions before offering them. Doing this with marines (or any terran unit) works great, but not with zealots or zergling.
Yep, clearly someone has no idea how zerg or protoss works in this situation.
EDIT: To all of you guys posting your great solutions...the point is, the player not on the receiving end of 10+ SCVs repairing their Thor/BC has to do literally 5 times the work of the other player no matter the circumstance. It's not fair.
On September 19 2010 05:40 mierin wrote: Yep, clearly someone has no idea how zerg works.
EDIT: To all of you guys posting your great solutions...the point is, the player not on the receiving end of 10+ SCVs repairing their Thor/BC has to do literally 5 times the work of the other player no matter the circumstance. It's not fair.
I've ran into an even worse version that used a medivac without a complete surround. Even when I target-fired the SCVs, the medivac healed too fast for my zerglings to kill the worker.
You need to actually try your suggestions before offering them. Doing this with marines (or any terran unit) works great, but not with zealots or zergling.
Yep, clearly someone has no idea how zerg or protoss works in this situation.
EDIT: To all of you guys posting your great solutions...the point is, the player not on the receiving end of 10+ SCVs repairing their Thor/BC has to do literally 5 times the work of the other player no matter the circumstance. It's not fair.
I'm actually fine with needing a larger army or having to micro really well in order to survive a good timing push. If scvs repairing a unit were just given the target priority of the unit they're repairing, the problem would be solved. Just make the AI smart enough that zealots/zerglings don't bug out and run around instead of attacking, and players can work out the rest.
I went up against this today on the ladder and beat it pretty handedly. But it was more due to the fact that i 1 gate expanded and his attack came late. I had 1 immortal about 6 stalkers 2 sentries and maybe 8 zealotswhen he came with 1 thor 15 scvs and 15 marines. What I did was first try to focus down a couple of his scvs with my ranged units while the zealots were tanking and hammering some on his marines, then I took all my units and focused the thor. The thor dropped almost instantly (alot because of the immortal) because his scvs on auto repair was repairing other scvs instead of the thor. Had he focus repaired his thor there it might have been another deal.
They should make it so that only one worker can repair one unit or building at a time. It'll be something like the medics, where only one medic can heal one unit at a time.
On September 19 2010 06:07 StarBrift wrote: I went up against this today on the ladder and beat it pretty handedly. But it was more due to the fact that i 1 gate expanded and his attack came late. I had 1 immortal about 6 stalkers 2 sentries and maybe 8 zealotswhen he came with 1 thor 15 scvs and 15 marines. What I did was first try to focus down a couple of his scvs with my ranged units while the zealots were tanking and hammering some on his marines, then I took all my units and focused the thor. The thor dropped almost instantly (alot because of the immortal) because his scvs on auto repair was repairing other scvs instead of the thor. Had he focus repaired his thor there it might have been another deal.
Watch the replay. I 1-gate expanded and had almost the exact same army. My opponent just had 10 more marines than yours did, so I'm guessing your opponent wasn't playing optimally. And yes, if he didn't repair his thor, well, that game probably isn't a great data point on the balance issue....
Maybe it's like fighting ravens and PDD, you have to hit and run him. Thors are so slow, marines faster and scvs about the same... try and force them to make a pathing mistake and pick off a worker or two with your retreating stalkers. Maybe you could set up a flank of some sort?
This is something I think will be fixed for sure. I can't possibly see anyone arguing that the game should work this way, or is better off working this way. It's not like these attacks won't still be strong if SCV priority is fixed either, they just won't work so stupidly.
I think the trouble with having too high a priority, is yes it would fix the thor surround problem, but also it'd make repairing any form of bunkers or walls against any collosus so hard as the SCVs would just melt trying to repair while holding off for a viking or so.
If you have SCVs take the target priority of the unit they're repairing, it wouldn't screw anything up. If they're repairing a thor, they would have a high priority. For buildings, you could either use the 'priority of the object they're repairing' rule (would be a huge nerf to planetary fortresses) or you could keep the current low priority when repairing a building.
I hope they change the priority system so my troops will shoot the units they counter when I a move!
Seriously, this is only a problem when you cannot physically click on the workers because they're behind the thor (which is 1 - 2 max), and those should have higher priority.
On September 20 2010 00:32 Bags wrote: I hope they change the priority system so my troops will shoot the units they counter when I a move!
Seriously, this is only a problem when you cannot physically click on the workers because they're behind the thor (which is 1 - 2 max), and those should have higher priority.
It's ok for terran to completely A move with his auto repairing SCVs (okay, he needs to toggle auto repair) but zerg and protoss need to do 10x the effort to shift click each SCV with an appropriate amount of units while making sure their melee units don't bug out and try to hit the thor when it is surrounded by scvs? Seriously? Did you even read the thread?
On September 20 2010 00:32 Bags wrote: I hope they change the priority system so my troops will shoot the units they counter when I a move!
Seriously, this is only a problem when you cannot physically click on the workers because they're behind the thor (which is 1 - 2 max), and those should have higher priority.
You can not be serious. The problem isn't that zealots/zerglings are attacking less desirable targets. The problem is that zealots/zerglings aren't attacking anything at all because they AI wants them to attack the Thor, the Thor is surrounded, so they run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Again, the best solution is remove AI targeting priority completely. Units attack whatever is closest. What's your complaint about that?
Edit: Going over your posts on this topic, you either: a) don't understand the issue at all, b) are trolling, c) are sociopathic.
On September 20 2010 00:32 Bags wrote: I hope they change the priority system so my troops will shoot the units they counter when I a move!
Seriously, this is only a problem when you cannot physically click on the workers because they're behind the thor (which is 1 - 2 max), and those should have higher priority.
Dude, individually focus firing each scv isn't a realistic option. First, with melee units, focus firing only compounds the problem. The two units who can reach the scv fire and the rest run in circles. Secondly, even with ranged units, it takes forever to click each scv, and when you've got 10+ stalkers in a control group, it's awful to tell them to focus fire a 45 hp scv. The ones that aren't in range will run around uselessly, and the ones that are in range will waste their shots overkilling the workers. It's not impossible to win, but the AI shouldn't bug out and cause your units to run in circles instead of being useful.
On September 20 2010 06:46 KhaosKreator wrote: So, what happens if you just press hold position? Don't your zealots automatically start attacking the SCV's?
Yeah, the ones that are next to something. The ones that aren't stand still.
I'm a Terran player who periodically abuses this sort of push because they're entertaining. Here's a build that's actually pretty successful against Diamond-level Zergs (and basically never loses against anyone lower).
1. Make a Thor as fast as possible (comes out at around 7 mins) 2. Grab like 10 SCVs and tell them to auto repair it. 3. A-click the Thor on the enemy base.
Usually, that one Thor and his cadre of healslaves is enough to win the game. I could make it even scarier by bringing Marines along (you can and should make them), but it's funnier to watch a Hero Thor reenact that one mission from the campaign.
The only micro that's usually necessary is making sure the SCVs keep repairing (auto-repair actually makes them fairly retarded) and getting the Thor to continue on with the rampage when it wants to spend 5 minutes popping an Overlord.
The only reason this kind of thing works is because auto-repair SCVs turn melee units retarded. The only practical way a Zerg player can get rid of the healtrain is to roll a bunch of Banelings into them, which requires them to already have a Baneling Nest to deal with a nigh-unscoutable push (the best info a Zerg might be able to get is that I'm making an early Factory, which isn't normally an indicator to make Banelings). Otherwise, you need like 13 Roaches to kill a repaired Thor, Zerglings do a useless dance around the base, and trying to target-fire individual SCVs with either of them will cause your army to be monstrously inefficient, to say nothing of the ridiculous APM demands placed on the Zerg (target fire every individual unit while they run around healing each other and hiding behind the Thor's model) compared to the Terran (make sure the Thor is Attack-Moving and the SCVs are on Auto-Repair before you start eating your popcorn).
I think Protoss is a little better off dealing with this because they have early units like the Immortal that actually do fantastic amounts of damage to the Thor and Zealots will do a better job vs the SCVs than Zerglings, but it still relies on an obnoxious abuse of shoddy AI programming to make an otherwise ridiculous push extremely dangerous.
In my opinion, the easiest solution would be to make the AI treat repairing SCVs as combat units, so units attack-moving near them would recognize them as viable targets instead of politely trying to find a way through to attack the Thor. I don't have as much of a problem with people using workers on Hold Position as blockers, since that's less abusive and can work in favor of every race rather than specifically allowing Terrans to win games with retarded pushes.
Anyone out there trying to defend this as a legitimate gameplay mechanic should feel ashamed of themselves.
On September 20 2010 15:33 Voyager I wrote: I'm a Terran player who periodically abuses this sort of push because they're entertaining. Here's a build that's actually pretty successful against Diamond-level Zergs (and basically never loses against anyone lower).
1. Make a Thor as fast as possible (comes out at around 7 mins) 2. Grab like 10 SCVs and tell them to auto repair it. 3. A-click the Thor on the enemy base.
Usually, that one Thor and his cadre of healslaves is enough to win the game. I could make it even scarier by bringing Marines along (you can and should make them), but it's funnier to watch a Hero Thor reenact that one mission from the campaign.
The only micro that's usually necessary is making sure the SCVs keep repairing (auto-repair actually makes them fairly retarded) and getting the Thor to continue on with the rampage when it wants to spend 5 minutes popping an Overlord.
The only reason this kind of thing works is because auto-repair SCVs turn melee units retarded. The only practical way a Zerg player can get rid of the healtrain is to roll a bunch of Banelings into them, which requires them to already have a Baneling Nest to deal with a nigh-unscoutable push (the best info a Zerg might be able to get is that I'm making an early Factory, which isn't normally an indicator to make Banelings). Otherwise, you need like 13 Roaches to kill a repaired Thor, Zerglings do a useless dance around the base, and trying to target-fire individual SCVs with either of them will cause your army to be monstrously inefficient, to say nothing of the ridiculous APM demands placed on the Zerg (target fire every individual unit while they run around healing each other and hiding behind the Thor's model) compared to the Terran (make sure the Thor is Attack-Moving and the SCVs are on Auto-Repair before you start eating your popcorn).
I think Protoss is a little better off dealing with this because they have early units like the Immortal that actually do fantastic amounts of damage to the Thor and Zealots will do a better job vs the SCVs than Zerglings, but it still relies on an obnoxious abuse of shoddy AI programming to make an otherwise ridiculous push extremely dangerous.
In my opinion, the easiest solution would be to make the AI treat repairing SCVs as combat units, so units attack-moving near them would recognize them as viable targets instead of politely trying to find a way through to attack the Thor. I don't have as much of a problem with people using workers on Hold Position as blockers, since that's less abusive and can work in favor of every race rather than specifically allowing Terrans to win games with retarded pushes.
Anyone out there trying to defend this as a legitimate gameplay mechanic should feel ashamed of themselves.
I laughed all the time while reading your post
On topic: What happens when you like someone said just ignore the thor, run all you units close to the marines and use a-move? Are marines and thors the same attacking priority? If so, your units should attack the closest one, in that case the marines? Do you lose too many units while running arround?
On September 19 2010 03:15 Juste wrote: Totally agree. A massive amount of SCVs repairing Thor(s) or a Planetary Fortress can be extremely problematic and in some scenarios near impossible to kill with a much bigger army. Trying to micro your army to kill each SCVs one at a time is extremely inefficient and during that time your army is getting owned by the Mech unit(s) being repaired.
This needs to be adressed by Blizzard.
The best AI fix I can think of for this would be to - flag SCVs that are repairing a Unit that is attacking you, the same as if those SCVs were (A command) Attacking you. So your army would Damage both the repairing SCVs and the mech unit at once.
Best fix I can think of is only 1 SCV can repair a unit. Even disregarding breaking the AI the speed at which multiple SCVs repair will always be a problem.
A good way of getting rid of auto-repairing scvs are AOE attacks like storm if you have them. If you see someone going mech, or you think they might try it, go for storm. A one two punch of a feedback and a storm usually is good enough to shut down a thor or two. If they don't micro out and the thor is at full energy it's 280 damage from the spells alone.
Even in a more realistic situation, getting early temps against mech is a good idea. A couple of storms on a tank clump can be very effective, and it makes the marine/tank combo a lot less effective.
For zerg, the same thing goes, really. Infestors are a good trick to have up your sleeve, as are banelings- you might not do a lot to the thor, but you'll push the rines off and kill all the SCVs, leaving speedlings free to finish it off.
Limiting the number of scvs that can repair I think is the best fix. Planetary fortresses are extremely powerful with 20 scvs repairing them. I haven't run into a thor push with scvs but I'm sure the problem is similar.
first of all let me say THANK YOU for starting this thread - I lost to exactly this shit a while ago against a "very" mediocre terran and felt terribad......didn't check the replay, I just thought I sucked really hard, although I did have superior gateway-unit-count
many have brought up the immortal as the natural way of dealing with this; of course I do theory-craft here, but still, what if he has researched the strange thor-cannon-upgrade nobody gets nowadays? this will kill an immortal instantly; if he starts the upgrade right away when starting to produce the thor I think this should finish when the thor arrives at your base? terrans, am I at least to some extent correct with the timings? a second immortal would also die extremely fast to marine focus fire...so only gateway-units would remain
while thinking about it, I suppose you could counter it hard with rushing to colossi with range upgrade; since the thor is so slow, maybe you could get one colossi befor the push arrives? I'm currently not able to test it, maybe someone wanna check?
ok, now you may think, what will a colossus do vs a thor? the "trick" is, the last time I checked, thors don't use their air-attack vs colossi (range 10) but their ground attack (range 7); a colossus with upgrade has range 9; now I know this is completeley counter-intuitive, but after you get the colossus you could "rush" towards your opponent and kite the SCVs; marines won't do anything, if he has marauders his push should be quite delayed timing-wise; while normally a protoss can't move around freely, this timing push - ironically - gives you all the mobility that normally the terran has; I think the key could be to really abuse this mobility to the maximum - spreading troups, maybe doing some hit and run with 2-3 stalkers near his base, etc.
of course this doesn't change the fact that the auto-repair together with the melee-AI is broken, but could be a way of at least not dieing against this....
yep limit the number of scv's repairing, I think 2-3 is a good number, this will also reduce the problem of PF's being nigh invulnerable while reducing your ground forces to ashes, I have seen a game where a terran pretty much walled off 1 half of the map with 2 well placed PF's in chokes with 20 scv's bouncing between them
This has been an annoying problem for a while, and should be fixed.
Attack priorities should be simple: 1. All normal units in sight, including buildings that are capable of attacking one of your units, workers that are repairing or attacking, should be put on a list. 2. Your units attack whoever on the list is closest. 3. If it fails to attack the closest, it should attack the next closest target on the list, etc.
http://db.tt/CZhZCSg this is my experience with repairing workers on thors, it is a much faster game since my opponent went to rax=>armory=>factory making just a couple of marines.
at first when i managed to get into his base i was like" lol this guy is joke he doesnt have anything, then the thor came up, and i was still thinking lol 1 thor vs 4stalker 4zealots he is done."
and THEN, i saw the @#$@#$@ rate of repairing and was steaming as hell, at this point i was absolutely clueless of what im supposed to do, made a lot of mistakes, if executed well i could probably have another wave of units 4 more zealots or 4 more stalkers, since 4gate is good vs early tech and he still managed to win. the first battle was very close, and i couldn't catch up later so...
i made a robo but was too panic to actually use it, maybe colossus is option, meh idk, give me ur opions guys.
On September 20 2010 23:53 ShLiM wrote: my point was colossi kills scv's ez with splash then its thor is vulnerable
more importantly - colossi with range can kite the thor! and the marines won't be able to do anything, they die like flies vs colossi; so unless he also adds marauders, colossi should work imo
That was Z getting outmacroed. The repair surround wasn't an issue at all. If Z is trying to engage sieged tanks head-on w/o a big econ lead, Z will lose.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-149935.jpg)
