EPTWith a very slow unmobile army which is mech it's to me personally harder to do.
Mech TvP Exploration - Page 6
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Bodzilla
Australia472 Posts
With a very slow unmobile army which is mech it's to me personally harder to do. | ||
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althaz
Australia1001 Posts
On April 04 2012 20:32 Bodzilla wrote: mech isn't that hard vs protoss. personally i reckon it's harder meching vs zerg. You are correct - if you are in diamond or lower it's not particularly hard to mech vs Protoss - except that there's no pro players to copy. However at higher levels it's absolutely the hardest thing to do in the game - it was arguably the hardest thing in broodwar too, and it was a lot easier there. It's no less powerful in SC2 (in fact it might actually be more powerful in some circumstances), but it's definitely harder to play. Proper mech play centres on tanks on the ground with usually hellions (but you can have marines instead, depending on a lot of other stuff) as support, harass and buffer units. Some Thors can be used (but are not actually required), but the essential support units that you CANNOT do without are the ghost and the viking. Vikings take the place of the Goliath (in fact they are the same unit, except that they fly) with the added bonus of being required to stop warp-prisms and observers from flanking your army/counter-attacking into your main. They also can extend your vision range immensely. The Ghost is primarily needed for EMP vs Archons and Immortals (especially immortals). Shieldless immortals are next to useless vs a large number of tanks (vs small numbers of tanks immortal-zealot is quite good though, even if it gets EMPed) Anybody who says mech isn't viable is ignorant or an imbecile - however by the same token it's SOOOOOOOOO hard that it's ridiculous. I'd love to see mech made better in the mid-game somehow (late-game it's fine/OP as hell, but getting there vs a good player is hard as buggery). My tips to mech players: Build tanks, they are amazing. Thors are OK units - but I'm not convinced they are good enough to be the backbone of your army in the late-game. 1 thor is better than 2 tanks, but 10 tanks are WAY better than 5 thors. Build turrets, LOTS of turrets. Turrets protect your base from observers and more importantly, warp-prisms. Be VERY active with your hellions and vikings, this is hard to do so I suggest focusing attention on your hellions and patrolling your vikings around your bases and army. It's ok to be a a couple of bases down if you play mech - so long as you move out perfectly with your army at max or close to it, this is also map dependent as some maps it seems impossible to stop counter-attacks. That said, you NEED 3-bases at a minimum before you move out to be assured of victory In conclusion I'll say this: Mech is SO powerful that sometimes I think it's OP, but then I play somebody who's active with their units and defence becomes an absolute nightmare. The end-game mech army is I think unbeatable on the ground (I've MAULED the mooted immortal-chargelot based armies in the late-game even vs players up 20 supply with and I've never lost in the late-game without being able to identify how I could have won). The trade off to this is that if Protoss plays perfectly leading up to this, I don't see Terran being able to win on a lot of maps unless they are a better player - although I'm not sure this is a bad thing. btw, I say mech is unbeatable on the ground, but the lack of marines in the ideal mech combo and the lack of infantry upgrades make carrier-phoenix based combinations IN CONJUNCTION with the afore mentioned chargelot-immortal theoretically as dangerous as fuck. | ||
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Garmer
1286 Posts
On April 04 2012 20:20 Lyyna wrote: So bio is only marine maraudeur and ghost,right? No medivac,viking.. And so marine/tank vZ is only marine and tank right? no maraudeur, no ghost, no hellion,no thors, no medivac,no viking if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know... on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time... | ||
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Bodzilla
Australia472 Posts
Thors are are a bit more mobile which make it easier to defend against toss on the ground on maps and because they're so large you can pull SCV's as neccessary to repair them really effectively. They're just not good to attack with or put pressure on, and late game they cant deal with toss's overwhelming units, which is where the seige tanks come in. i've posted it before but i'll say it again seeing as you seem to be reasonably interested. 1: Cloaked banshee opening, expand behind it, constant marine production and bunkers when needed for defense. 2: transition into BF hellions and thor/banshee to defend your nat and your third. Theres no need to be aggressive, you'll just make yourself very vulnerable to a backstab. 3: Replace your thor army with seige tanks to splash the protoss army 4: secure your 4th, split map with PF's sensor towers, transition into Hellion tank banshee BC. if you get to step 4, there's pretty much nothing they can do to you | ||
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amazingxkcd
GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
On April 04 2012 22:06 Garmer wrote: if u use all your arsenal, do not call it "bio or mech" cuz is wrong u know... on BW when you do mech, u don't use wraith vessel and bc all the time... Vs P, Vessel is normal tech route to be taken if P goes Arbiters, and even normal is P goes Carriers, Given that T can transition out of it towards mass Goliaths when the Tech route is scouted. | ||
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Garmer
1286 Posts
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Bodzilla
Australia472 Posts
the games are worlds apart | ||
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HeroMystic
United States1217 Posts
I know in TvZ, Marine/Tank into Mech is very viable which allows to perform early pressure and early pushes. However in TvP I'm wondering if something similar can be done. | ||
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Evenfl0w
United Kingdom16 Posts
One thing I don't like about mech playing mech styles that open 1-1-1 expand or similiar is that if you get a little behind in the early game it becomes very difficult to come back into the game. Protoss will accelerate away to a quicker max and take a favourable engagement on thier terms. There is not much you can do after the early game if they can afford to invest in a few cannons/stalkers to defend your banshee or hellion harass. With bio there is more oppertunity to use moblity and drops to slow them down. | ||
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ePLocust
United States587 Posts
In my opinion the key to meching in TvP is banshee and helion harass. You do this relentlessly and do a lot of damage to the economy of protoss you can win but if you aren't able to do this you're going to get rolled over. | ||
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Zyrnak
United States179 Posts
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TBone-
United States2309 Posts
On April 04 2012 18:06 Micket wrote: When Goody gives up mech for bio in TvP, you know mech is absolutely horrible. You know when MVP says 'mech will never work vs Protoss', mech is awful. I hate this line of thinking, with that way of approaching things, no one other than the best players will experiment, leaving us a very dry game. | ||
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spacebob42
United States78 Posts
At the start of the game (1), small gateway armies can outmicro small bio armies and win. Then, as the armies get larger, and upgrades like slow, stim, and shield kick in (2), Terran starts to win the fights. I would also consider medivacs as an upgrade to bio units, in their straight-up fight role. Protoss has to fall back on high tech in the form of colossi, storm, and archons. Once they have one or two of these (3), and twilight upgrades, the Protoss army is again stronger than Terran's bio, and warp-ins add an extra potency to the Protoss army. This is why dropping is so important, it moves the fight from stage 3 to stage 2. The reason Terrans complain about the matchup is a perceived weakness - you could relate this to the endgame state of PvZ, where Zerg moves from hatch/lair (ling/muta, roach/hydra, etc.) compositions to brolord/infestor. Fortunately, at this point, Protoss has a final composition of their own (mothership/archon) that can fight on somewhat even terms. I think mech play could shore up this endgame state in TvP, but it has several weaknesses, namely that: a) Tanks are not as scary as in Brood War b) No spider mines to limit Protoss mobility through Terran armies c) difficult to transition; you'll notice almost every suggested mech build with an expansion has a very vulnerable period before the first (thor, banshee, tank) is out. d) immobile (well-debated already) e) hard to replenish if the army is lost f) hard to use correctly or in small numbers. Of course d)-f) are common to any mech play, and the reason that bio will always see high-level play in every matchup (imo). You'll notice a) and b) compare mech to Brood War, I'd just like to state for the record that I do think mech styles have been given some buffs in SC2. a) Banshees have much better air-to-ground than wraiths did, and vikings beat wraiths at air-to-air by virtue of range b) Ravens are more of a utility unit than Science Vessels were for the TvP match-up c) Thors do a lot better against Protoss units than Goliaths did (feel free to correct me though, I didn't play that much BW) d) Hellions can butcher probes more efficiently than Vultures could e)add-on system can help transition from barracks to factories (or starports) In my opinion, once players figure out ways around disadvantages c) and b) , we'll see a 4th stage of TvP, where Terran slow pushes Protoss using Thors, Tanks, and a mineral dump buffer unit, while harassing with Hellions, Banshees, drops or both. I will admit that I'm using the term "mech" loosely. What I mean by "mech" is a composition in which almost no gas is spent on infantry. I don't think armies of pure factory units are very good in TvP. Edit: early post and cleaned myself up. | ||
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Quotidian
Norway1937 Posts
I do think mech as a defensive backbone for heavy air harass builds can be really, really good though. The composition protoss has to get to deal with mass banshee is not very good against siege tanks, thors and hellions. Even unupgraded factory units do well against stalkers and templars, especially if the tanks are firing from behind a few Planetary Fortresses. The constant pressure of the banshees also means that blink stalker backstabs are less likely, and you can deal with them with your banshees and hellions easily enough. AND the mineral surplus from going mainly for gas units means terran can mass expand as if he was a zerg player, especially if the banshee harass is very successful. | ||
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Blasterion
China10272 Posts
Instead we have a comp that is Marine Tank Medivac Thor with some banshees and ghosts and ravens and whatever else you may need. There is alot of stuff marines can do. That hellions can't basically. I am not saying go mass marines and tanks but basically what you have for mech except have marines to buffer over having hellions buffering. | ||
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Zyrnak
United States179 Posts
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MooseMasher
Sweden42 Posts
Too many posts about "the problem with mech is this [bla]" and too few about "this is how I make mech work", along with what your definition of "work" is. (different ppl have different aims with their play, and thus "works" has different meanings). If you've come to convince people to stop playing mech, you've come to the wrong thread! I for one would love to have more options than this bio bs :D | ||
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Opeasy
107 Posts
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Quotidian
Norway1937 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=293256 Planetary Fortresses are great! They basically let you have a massively larger army than what the supply cap suggests. After 200/200 you should never stop making fortresses. And before max, making just one PF in a strategical position means you can take more bases and defend them easier. I'm pretty convinced that the best way to play lategame tvp, even if you're going for bio, is dotting fortresses around the map. PFs are awesome at just keeping you alive. Avilo did a nice video where he talked about combining PFs with nuke harass while massing BCs. Fortresses eat away at the protoss warpgate resupply after big engagements, they allow terran to turtle and build their army back up (which is especially important for mech) and pressing forward with fortresses instead of just cutting the map in half with them puts a lot of psychological pressure on the protoss player - you're basically consuming the map with command centers. | ||
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paintfive
785 Posts
On April 05 2012 10:33 Quotidian wrote: I want to bring up a thread I made a while ago, just because I spent some time on the pictures in it ^^ I'm a horrible SC2 player, but I still think some of the ideas in the thread are worthwhile... http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=293256 Planetary Fortresses are great! They basically let you have a massively larger army than what the supply cap suggests. After 200/200 you should never stop making fortresses. And before max, making just one PF in a strategical position means you can take more bases and defend them easier. I'm pretty convinced that the best way to play lategame tvp, even if you're going for bio, is dotting fortresses around the map. PFs are awesome at just keeping you alive. Avilo did a nice video where he talked about combining PFs with nuke harass while massing BCs. Fortresses eat away at the protoss warpgate resupply after big engagements, they allow terran to turtle and build their army back up (which is especially important for mech) and pressing forward with fortresses instead of just cutting the map in half with them puts a lot of psychological pressure on the protoss player - you're basically consuming the map with command centers. PFs are really good.. when you've got 24 SCVs repairing it | ||
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