Energy Enabling "Mech" Play

On January 06 2014 18:05 cptjibberjabber wrote:
for those of us who haven't played BW, how was it stronger? how was it countered?

On January 06 2014 18:09 Hider wrote:


The main difference wasn't actually related to Tanks, but more that Vultures were insanely good. 75 minerals, better vs non-light units and 3 spider Mines - that's super superior to Hellions.

On January 06 2014 18:09 Hider wrote:


The main difference wasn't actually related to Tanks, but more that Vultures were insanely good. 75 minerals, better vs non-light units and 3 spider Mines - that's super superior to Hellions.

On January 06 2014 18:26 Incognoto wrote:
That's a pretty interesting perspective I hadn't thought of before; would be curious to hear more thoughts on this. Caster units play too great a role in SC2.

On January 06 2014 18:44 BigFan wrote:
Interesting OP. Mech play in BW never relied on energy units though unless you want to count the science vessel (if it emps against arbiters). I guess you can say that energy "enables" mech play but I don't think positioning is as vital though.


To counter mech play, usually the protoss would throw units at it and try to engage whenever the terran tries to move forward or if he notices a weak spot/gap in the terran's defense etc... Recalling into the terran's main base to abuse the immobility of mech play using arbiters (terrans would lay mines in their main+turrets to counter this late game) was also pretty common.

For zerg, I believe it was considered more difficult to deal with late game mech especially if you go in with an on par or bad eco however, a zergling+ultra+defiler combo was used. If you are able to make enough air units(mutas or guardians) and can take out the goliaths and split against the science vessel's irradiate, then you can generally push back and win the engagement with the meching player retreating and losing tanks and such. Once the meching player loses his army, the protoss/zerg player takes a big lead and in some cases(likely a lot), it's hard to come back once you've lost a decent chunk of your mech army.


I thought this was known back when Infestors were getting spammed like mad in each ZvX game lol. I agree though, casters play a big role in SCII instead of being more of support. Not sure of the reason, maybe costs and efficiency (in terms of infestors at least).

On January 06 2014 19:00 TeeTS wrote:


caster units play a big role in SC2, because they are easy to use. Was a completely different story in BW, where you had to have enormous apm to make use of a lot of casters.

On January 06 2014 19:18 Sapphire.lux wrote:
I dislike this turtle to max energy Raven stuff. It takes way to long and it is not very fun to spectate IMO. Many people that say they hate mech are thinking of this mech to air turtle.

Air and energy units are something SC2 does not do to good IMO. There is no huge skill required to use casters like in BW so the "wow" factor is not there, particularly when the casters are massed (GREAT FUNGAL!!) and air units tend to be countered by other air units and this air vs air battle looks super underwhelming IMO. Again, BW was an example where a lot of the time, the main counter to an air army came from the ground, creating a more interesting "dance" between the two.

The natural "flow" should be expand and defend to build a mech army (Hellion Tank mines and some anti air..depending on scouting). Once near or on 200/200 you should have enough power to move out and start the "strangling" process.

So give me buffs to mech and nerfs to the Raven please!

On January 06 2014 20:15 Hider wrote:


But BW wasn't like that actually. Terran mech could do 1base, 2base or 3 base timing attacks. This made mech a lot more aggressive.

The reason they could do this in BW and not in Sc2 comes down to the following differences;

- Sc2 Zerg has way too much larva which makes them "OP" in midgame

- Protoss has hard-counters in the mid-game to mech.

- Hellions suck balls unlike Vultures. This meant that BW mech reinforced better and was better in smaller numbers than Sc2-mech.

- Alot has been said about assymetrical economies in BW, but it is worth nothing that it didn't really have a signifcant impact in the midgame. It was first post-16 minute mark that both zerg and protoss obtained an eco-lead against a meching terran player. So the terran player was;
A) incentivized to pressure before protoss and zergs got their huge eco lead
B) they actually had the power to pressure (unlike in SC2 for reasons described above).

You can't redo the economy system of SC2, but you can control it in game through harass and "pushes". This is what kept Zerg in check during WOL 2010/2011 only for the Queen patch to ruin everything.

On January 06 2014 20:57 goody153 wrote:
BW mech:

*Positional Play was the emphasis due to siege tanks are powerful even in small numbers it doesnt require critical mass to be effective but that doesnt mean its unbeatable.
* vultures are the main support unit for BW and vultures are like marines of sc2 it is not impossible to counter but is also very skill rewarding means. The better micro and decision making the more powerful the vulture becomes. But if you just amove them .Protoss and zerg just wipe mass numbers of it so easily.
* vultures mines prevented tank lines from getting a-moved
* vultures can be used as harrassment like hellions


Summary of what i know of mech BW:
Support unit is cheap, versatile and skill rewarding.
Siege Tanks Dont suck. That doesnt mean you won't get massacred easily if you get caught unsieged unlike how powerful toss deathball is in sc2.
Mech is fun to play. Also to face in BW.


sc2 mech:
tanks suck too many hard counters that would be fine if sc2 wasn't deathball like if you don't do that you get easily snowballed and when you normally don't turtle you are practically all-inning
A well established tankline during BW wouldnt be easily be broken. In the case of sc2 tanklines getting amoved is a common thing.
Since mech requires a "critical" mass to be powerful which leads to deathballing.
Sc2 mech relies on ravens too much. And from what i see ravens are worthless if they you can't stall time as a meching player for them to get enough energy and amassed amount of ravens. And if you do they can get very overpowered at times.
Too gas heavy for it to be effective. And its not even worth the cost for its effectiveness in the game.

Not necessarily right but this is what i know about sc2 mech and BW mech.

On January 06 2014 17:19 architecture wrote:
In SC2, most of the core mech units are NOT directly more efficient, since it would make bio too strong.

On January 06 2014 21:21 Lyyna wrote:

You can also add that in BW, Mech had the goliath, which was a really good anti-air unit also doing ok on the ground, and could be massed relatively easily. In Sc2, we have the thor, who his now okay-ish anti-air attack, but terrible mobility/production

On January 06 2014 21:46 Paragleiber wrote:


Huh? Why would it make bio stronger if mech units were more efficient?

On January 06 2014 22:15 Destructicon wrote:


This is the reason why I have been and always will be against a mech buff in SC2 until the units get a redesign of some sort. I know full well that a viable mech will be the polar opposite of BW mech. It won't be positional, tactical and strategic, it will be turtle until deathball then roll out, exactly like BL Infestor.

If you want mech to be viable then tanks need to be stronger on their own. They should deal more flat out damage but have overkill, that way you can't just a-move them across the map and then siege up, you'd need to constantly be positioning and repositioning them to maximize firepower and minimize vulnerability. That way, even when they reach critical mass they still need to be microed, and they are actually stronger early game when you need them to be strong to hold some positions.

On January 06 2014 17:19 architecture wrote:
The absence of asymmetric army power and different economies in SC2 has led some to believe that true "mech" play cannot exist. However, the game between Reality and Hydra reveals that not only can army power CAN vastly differ, but also that economies can differ in banking power. This sort of turtling mech/air game is old news, but I want to frame it in the context of how this is SC2 "mech".

BW mech had two properties: higher power/food and lower mining rate. The lower mining rate compensated for the power of the army, and led to a slow but steady accumulation of a stronger army. In SC2, most of the core mech units are NOT directly more efficient, since it would make bio too strong. So in SC2, accumulating them does not directly lead to a superior army.

But there is something that can be accumulated: and that's energy. Energy units, especially BC/Raven, make it so that an army that has accumulated a lot of energy is far stronger than an energyless army. The weakness of this army is of course time, position, and economy. Without proper positioning, this army cannot accumulate enough energy, and without enough energy, this army does not trade efficiently enough to overcome the larger bank of the opponent.

On Star Station, this style is viable because Terran can sprawl across 4-5 bases while only defending 2 points of attack. With such strong positions, Terran can buy the time to accumulate enough energy to overcome multiple banks worth of armies. There is potential for this style to be engaging, but as of right now, there are some huge pitfalls:

1. 3 bases is not enough for terran mech. Many maps are designed so only 3 bases can easily be protected. But core mech units are not versatile enough to defend more than a few points. It can be OK though if mech is not viable on all maps.

2. Since it's not always viable, the gameflow is not very well designed. Half the game is spent turtling with inefficient units trying to control 4-5 bases. The next 20 minutes is spent accumulating energy on efficient units and drying up the rest of the resources on the map. Unfortunately these 45m games would probably hurt the viewership.

---
Mech in this general sense already exists. Certainly the constraints of the game restrict the fluidity and viability of the gameplay. But looking forward into LotV, it is hard to imagine that there is much more to add to the basic 3 base gameplay we have seen for the last 4 years. But, there may be more room to streamline and improve on mech.

On January 06 2014 20:41 Hider wrote:


Im not sure there is any "simple" way too buff harass without breaking the game in some other way. Further, harass buffs only "works" temporarily untill the opponent adjusts. The reason for that its just a matter of strategy/tactics to position your units correctly in order to minimize the damage taken from harass if there is no real army threat from the mech'ing opponent.

On January 06 2014 20:41 Hider wrote:For instance in BW, the protoss always had to fear that the terran would attack you. Against an attack it was a neccesity that you had your main army out on the map as you needed to delay the Siege Tank pressure untill Carriers/Arbiters were up.
But this actually meant that the protoss also were exposed to Vulture harass/dropships if the terran didn't decide to make a timing attack.
So just the threat of an actual timing-attack opened up the opporunty for harass-based play.

On January 06 2014 20:41 Hider wrote:If we look at mech-harass in TvZ and TvP in Sc2, it is so easily prevented by static defense/warp-tech that it really isn't viable.
In TvP BW, Vultures dealt full damage to shileds which meant they could take down cannons by them selves and there were no warp-tech. That's a gigantic difference relative to Sc2 (which also has blink stalkers).

I spent countless hours thinking about how to fix these issues in the next expansion pack (cus you can't make simple patches to fix it), and alot alot of changes are needed.

On January 06 2014 19:22 BigFan wrote:

well that but on their own, they can only be used for x tasks as well. I usually go templars in BW PvZ and if I don't have as much as a single unit with them, I usually can't save any of them. In SCII, if I have infestors for ex, I can usually FG then lay down ITs for defense to escape. I guess my point is that SCII casters have several useful spells so massing a casters is better than it was in BW(much much easier to cast as well).

On January 06 2014 22:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:

The threat of harass in TvP i think is still there, with Hellion runbys and Hellion drops. What is lacking is the threat of attack and that makes defending harass easy. Why don't Protoss fear attack? Because Siege Tanks are worthless units that need to be supported by half the tech tree just to function.

Let's take Banshee harass. With good control and a bit of luck you can do some dmg. It doesn't have to be huge. In the latest patch, we got combined upgrades. This means that now the Banshees you use to harass can be used for a fallowing push and be that much stronger then they were before. It's not the typical harass unit that is judged by how much dmg it did and that's it, but it's a reliable combat unit that can, before the attack, also do some harass. I can see more buffs to the unit giving how easy detection has become in HOTS.

It's not the typical harass unit that is judged by how much dmg it did and that's it, but it's a reliable combat unit that can, before the attack, also do some harass.

The threat of harass in TvP i think is still there, with Hellion runbys and Hellion drops. What is lacking is the threat of attack and that makes defending harass easy. Why don't Protoss fear attack? Because Siege Tanks are worthless units that need to be supported by half the tech tree just to function.

Blizzard will never replicate BW in such detail, so looking at just how things worked back then won't solve anything. We have to look at WHY it worked and come up with solutions based on the tools already present in SC2. For example, something like an upgrade that gives tanks "mini EMPs" might solve the total dependency on Ghosts that is present right now and unlock the turtle fest necessary to play mech.

Overgeneralization, Swarmhosts/mass spores/corruptors/few vipers would destroy an infinite amount of ravens/BC.

On January 06 2014 23:41 Usernameffs wrote:
The simple and biggest reason why mech dosent exist in tvp is that immortals a moves mech.

BW mech would also have been super lame (regardless of superior econ) if Vultures costed 100 minerals (instead of 75 mins).

If i recall speedvultures are the fastest unit in the game ?

On January 06 2014 23:57 JustPassingBy wrote:


I don't know, if immortal / charge zealots walk into a fortified position of tank / blue flame hellbat I still think they will be obliterated easily even without the use of EMP. The problem is that unlike vultures and their mines, hellbats cannot cover a large amount of space. They are also slower to come to support should you be attacked out of position.

On January 06 2014 23:27 FFW_Rude wrote:
To add to this. Vultures were also FAST AS FUCK with the upgrade, making the runbys for a kind of unmobile army so powerfull. That's another big difference. If i recall speedvultures are the fastest unit in the game ?

On January 06 2014 22:48 Hider wrote:


I don't think I made myself clear. My point is that its not really relevant whether the harass-unit itself can be used in a follow-up push or not in an assesment of whether mech-aggression has long-term viability.

The problem is that in the midgame, mech cannot attack. Neither vs zerg nor protoss. This means that both races can focus on setting up static defense, splitting up their armies to defend vulnerable locations.
That means mech mid-game harass is simply a gimmick that will eventually be figured out. It can never be a long-term viable thing, because the opponent can commit to defend the harass without any signifcant opportunity cost. BW was very different in that regard.



Well all harass units in BW were also usefull in battles. So it is typical in that regard. Blizzard just hasn't really understood (yet) that specialized harass-units such as Reapers, Oracles and Hellions are flawed from a design-perspective.



Eh.. if you ever played/watched BW you will absolutely laugh at the "threat" of hellion runby's in the midgame. Vultures are far far superior in that regard and the tools protoss had back then were much much worse to defend against harass.
If mech ever just became semi-standard in Sc2, no decent protoss would ever take damage from Hellion-harss play. It can work (as a gimmick) on the ladder because protosses doesn't have practice vs that. But it has no long-term vialibty.


It wouldn't surprise me if I had spent more time testing and analyzing this issue in detail than everyone else over the last year, and I made a list of suggestions in my head that I believe will make mech viable and fun in LOTV. It will not replicate BW (don't know where you get that from), but will replicate some of the concepts that made it awesome. But a lot of changes needed, which means it can't come in a patch - thus i won't discuss them in this forum.

Making mech viability in it self is actually extremely easy (just buff tanks/buff damage vs shields), however that will lead to extremely lame games, and Blizzard are cautious against that approach (understandable).
Giving Tanks-emp is a solution w/ a ton of unintended conseuqences. E.g. it makes Ghosts redudant (even when you go bio) and it will be very hard to balance. Further, EMP also scales very well, which means your still always better off keeping your mech-army (consisting mainly of tanks) in a defensive deathball, rather than attacking. Hrass-play is sitll too easy to fend off.

If there is one thing that needs a change with mech its the hellion. Buff it vs non-light units and make it possible for it to kill static defense. Then players will go hellion/Tank rather than just pure tanks when going mech and it will reward more aggressive play. BW mech would also have been super lame (regardless of superior econ) if Vultures costed 100 minerals (instead of 75 mins).

You have to remember we have a precedent of a decent enough version of mech in TvT. In spite of it being a thing for years at pro level, mech can still do hellion runbys (this goes for both mech vs bio and mech vs mech), hellbat drops with blue flame are very strong to. It's not all doom and gloom even if the Vulture was a vastly superior unit.

On January 07 2014 00:25 deacon.frost wrote:
From what I heard of my teammate(zerg) - he was talking about small vision for abductions. That yes, he can abduct, but the vision is better for Terran and that he has to sacrifice a lot to abduct a raven from raven/viking clump. I was thinking about adding the parasite spell back. Or some kind of revelation for Zerg. Could it help to fight turtle raven style?

On January 07 2014 00:13 DinoMight wrote:
It seems to me that people who want to "Mech" in SC2 basically ONLY want to make tanks. I think this is pretty silly, honestly.

Mech in Brood War was Tank based, but it also involved Goliaths, Vultures, Spider Mines, Science Vessels...

in SC2, an army that is Tank, Thor, Hellbat, Viking, Raven is very strong with the Tanks as the primary damage dealers and the rest of the units there to support them.

I think the difference in SC2 is that bases are more difficult to defend than in BW (warpins, turbovacs, etc.) and therefore it's hard to get to the 4 bases you need to make this composition. But the composition itself is strong.

On January 07 2014 01:22 deacon.frost wrote:
As a SC BW noob - was a bio viable choice in SC BW PvT? Because if not why is the "no mech in PvT" so wrong now? Why do we have to have mech viable in every MU now? If it was viable and pros do that, then ignore my ignorance. But Terran Strategy on Liquipedia is mentioning mainly Factory... Bio play is there mentioned as "a catch-with-pants-down Bionic play"

Excuse poor grammar and English in general, after 8 hours in work after 4 weeks at home my brain is empty

On January 07 2014 01:22 deacon.frost wrote:
As a SC BW noob - was a bio viable choice in SC BW PvT? Because if not why is the "no mech in PvT" so wrong now? Why do we have to have mech viable in every MU now? If it was viable and pros do that, then ignore my ignorance. But Terran Strategy on Liquipedia is mentioning mainly Factory... Bio play is there mentioned as "a catch-with-pants-down Bionic play"

Excuse poor grammar and English in general, after 8 hours in work after 4 weeks at home my brain is empty

On January 07 2014 01:27 SC2Toastie wrote:

SC2 tank requires SO much support (Viking Ghost Thor Hellbat Raven Banshee) you only have like 5 Tanks in the end.

The problem with MEch in SC2 is the weakness of the tank and the fact there's no positional control except for the HT and MSC.

Only the Templar and MSC can defend a location with low supply, while in any other fight, the deathball ALWAYS wins against a spread army.

Just to show it, I tested in the unit tester.
40 3/3 Siege Tanks, Presieged
25 Zealots, 9 Immortals, 12 Archons, 3/3 slightly spread.
120 Supply for Terran in 2 chokes vs 130 Supply for Protoss.
In a decent RTS situation, an immobile long range splash unit would SHREDDER a low range attacking army.

In SC2? 7 Immortals and 2 Archons survive.

Mech and interesting games in general hardly exist because there is NO defensive advantage. More shit usually beats less shit, even if said shit is slightly weaker.

This is mostly because of Steppes of War balance and poor maps. It's starting to show that SC2 games are often not intersting because nothing really happens because it can't happen (Protoss being the exception in being able to decently defend without commiting a lot of supply thanks to Cannons, HT, Warp in and MSC). The other races have no such things (Spines suck, the rest of units are low range and inefficient for Zerg, or for Terran, defense being the Planetary OR leaving supply behind in large bunkers that cover a small area).

IT SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE TO RUSH INTO A LIGHTLY DEFENDED BASE UNCAREFULLY - BUT IT IS.
If I move my army around and take a Siege Tank shell, am I frightened or do I think... meh..?
I think meh. What did it do, take 12 medivac energy, 2 zerglings or scratch some shields?

Siege Tanks (and Hosts/Lurkers) should be FEARED! You should be afraid to run into a base like you are against HT Cannon!

Bigger open maps, worse economy, better defensive units, no warp in and go from there.
There's your interesting game.

On January 06 2014 18:09 Hider wrote:


The main difference wasn't actually related to Tanks, but more that Vultures were insanely good. 75 minerals, better vs non-light units and 3 spider Mines - that's super superior to Hellions.

On January 06 2014 18:09 Hider wrote:


The main difference wasn't actually related to Tanks, but more that Vultures were insanely good. 75 minerals, better vs non-light units and 3 spider Mines - that's super superior to Hellions.

On January 07 2014 01:37 MadJack wrote:


That is a fairly wrong statement. Vultures were not the reason mech was strong, even tho vultures are indeed better than helions, but no for that much. Vultures costed 75m, but terran having mules in SC2 and having its gas bottlenecking its mech units production, minerals are not an issue in SC2. However vultures took at least 1 of the 2 upgrades to be efficient out of the map as speedless and mineless vultures wouldnt do anything to any decent player. They didnt do better against non-light units as suggested, they just did full dmg to shields, but for example dragoons wouldnt take full dmg after the shields were down. The only difference was the mines, which were supply less and basically free. On themselves the mines are not reason enough to make vultures better, but the sinergy between the vulture harrass and how mine zone-ing complements it well, make it better since, prolly vultures and hellion have the same or close worker killing rates.

[...]

On January 07 2014 01:54 FFW_Rude wrote:


Really your innocent question is good. Because Bio PvT was a no no in BW (unless reaaallly special timings) but people want to play TvP as it was in BW in SC2. You can't play mech vs P in SC2, you can't play Bio in BW. Period.

It's like people complaining about destructible rocks on maps where there was destructible temple/eggs/hatchery in BW.

But it's for the love of comparing. Don't get me wrong i love BW. Put people complained in BW too. It wasn't as vocal as today.

On January 07 2014 02:09 DinoMight wrote:


Seriously.. whenever anyone gives the "mech MUST be viable" argument "BECAUSE BW!" I get a bit annoyed because obviously there are strategies now that are viable that weren't in BW.

That's like if every Protoss demanded the Bisu build be viable in PvZ again. It's a different game. Mech can work but it needs to be played a certain way. The turtle to 4 base Raven style may not be the most fast-paced fun to watch thing ever, but it is viable on certain maps.

Once Terran gets enough Ravens it's really hard to stop...

On January 07 2014 02:45 Genie1 wrote:
Well this game also shows the flaw of the broodlord and swarmhost in its entirety because these units are effectively not doing any damage if they are killed off while the Guardian and Lurker can be used to chip away at strong points and blockades like the PF north wall that was there. Even 2 guardians chipping away at it is better then what 2 broodlords could do.

On January 07 2014 02:22 fried_rice wrote:


Has it crossed your mind that people might not want "MECH BECAUSE BW, GIMME NOSTALGIA" but because as the game is right now HALF of the Terran tech tree is USELESS, whereas for other races every unit has its uses and is seen in pro-play.

On January 07 2014 01:30 RampancyTW wrote:
In a word, no. Outside of early-game timing pushes, bio wasn't a viable strategy because it was shut down so hard by P splash (Reavers and Templar). PvBio in BW was probably a more significantly "hard" hard counter than any interaction in SC2, outside of maybe Immortals vs. Siege Tanks.

That is a fairly wrong statement. Vultures were not the reason mech was strong, even tho vultures are indeed better than helions, but no for that much. Vultures costed 75m, but terran having mules in SC2 and having its gas bottlenecking its mech units production, minerals are not an issue in SC2. However vultures took at least 1 of the 2 upgrades to be efficient out of the map as speedless and mineless vultures wouldnt do anything to any decent player. They didnt do better against non-light units as suggested, they just did full dmg to shields, but for example dragoons wouldnt take full dmg after the shields were down. The only difference was the mines, which were supply less and basically free. On themselves the mines are not reason enough to make vultures better, but the sinergy between the vulture harrass and how mine zone-ing complements it well, make it better since, prolly vultures and hellion have the same or close worker killing rates.

Tanks were the main reason why mech was strong, the 75 sieged dmg which had spalsh dmg, made them the best ground to ground unit, specially when u had enough of them. It was so strong that Protoss'es, normally known for having the strongest units than the other races, had to find work arounds, to avoid fighting straight up against tanks, be it arbiters, or just completly avoiding them with carriers. SC2 had the 75dmg tanks, but as soon as ppl started to QQ instead of finding these workarounds, finding new strats to bet it by themselves, it "forced" blizzard to nerf them for over 50% their dmg, making them 35dmg (note also that the pom pom mode dmg was also reduced from 30 to 15dmg).

Thors are really bad units, they are expensive not only resourcewise but in time too, they take a lot of space, anti-air attack looks good on paper, but its very reduced aoe range and its reload speed makes it very cost inneficient anti-air unit, 7 mutas can take out a thor when magic boxed, they die really fast when not repaired.

On January 07 2014 00:09 FFW_Rude wrote:


Wasn't sure if they were fastest as a speedling. Good to see i remember well



Well you can't really compare hellions and vultures are they are very different units. I was just adding a fact to the huge ass post that talked about BW mech differences

On January 07 2014 01:33 DinoMight wrote:


That's exactly my point. You are testing pure siege Tank vs. an army well constructed to fight pure siege tank.

Now try the same thing again, but add blue flame Hellbats and 2 ghosts for EMP.

Taking into account that the BW-tank costs 25 less gas and being 2 supply rather than 3
+ thor not being really good as anti air = insta lose vs magic box

these 2 things are the core of mech not being viable imo

On January 07 2014 03:56 Hider wrote:


Pretty sure Thor is better than Goliaths vs Mutalisks (esp when repaired), however given the larva buff that zerg received in SC2, the Thor should indeed be even better.

And I still have no clue how you also could ignore Vultures? They are 1) 33% cheaper than Hellions and 2) Allround a better unit vs non-light (especially when you take into account Spider Mines).

Siege Tanks in BW are only marginally less expensive which probably is offset by its marginal worse effective DPS.
So the only net difference here between Siege Tanks in BW and Sc2 is the 3 vs 2 supply. That, however cannot explain at all why Mech is worse in the midgame in SC2 than in BW (as supply should almost be irrelevant at that phase in the midgame).

So no - the Siege tank explantion is a big myth. Instead, the real explanation is that toss has midgame-hardcounters in Sc2 and zerg has much more larva (+ Hellion at 100 mineral).

On January 07 2014 04:05 r1flEx wrote:

ok, the vultures were really great, but i think they would now be a bit too powerful with those mines cause of the deathball movement. it would do too much damage right now

and the mech army is too small to split up now. it has to all stay together or you can't do any real damage. every bits would help + only 1 gas geyser per base would also help already (3 supply per base less)

On January 07 2014 04:10 nottapro wrote:
mech is pretty viable since the armoury buff, i dont think drastic changes are needed, a small change to make ghosts more affordable would be a step in the right direction as it has a positive infuluence in bio late game vs protoss and sc2 style mech

On January 07 2014 03:00 DinoMight wrote:


Against a Terran going bio, options as Protoss are limited. Sure there are Oracles/DTs/Blink Stalkers for harass or early game all-in. But when it comes down to fighting a bio army with Stim and Medivacs, you need splash damage. All the other units are to support the splash damage dealing units. Carriers, Void Rays, Tempests are pretty useless against Bio. Phoenixes can be viable as part of a gimmicky Colossus/Phoenix allin but eventually their usefullness wears out as the bio ball gets larger and the Viking count rises.

And we have the mother of all useless units, the Mothership! 400/400 for a slower MsCore that can't overcharge.

So yeah, Terrans can't build Tanks/Thors vs. Protoss, but Protoss also has units that aren't viable against bio.

I also think being more creative will help. Bomber showed some really good games w/ Blue Flame Hellbats vs Protoss going Templar first. More innovation will help.

On January 07 2014 04:55 Ctone23 wrote:


It definitely goes both ways. I personally would like to do something other than the MMM+ghost+viking. I'm getting old man my control sucks

On January 07 2014 05:08 SC2Toastie wrote:

PvT units we don't see: Voidray, Carrier, Mothership (3/17), Tempest are endgame. There is a case to be made to include Phoenix. Of the used units, 8 units that are used often.
TvP units we don't see: Siege Tank, Hellion, Widow Mine, Banshee, Raven, Battlecruiser, Thor (7/14), assuming Hellbats are used. 3 core units, 2 support, 1 vs mass zealot, 1 that gets made once per game.
You're not that limited.

On January 07 2014 05:08 SC2Toastie wrote:

PvT units we don't see: Voidray, Carrier, Mothership (3/17), Tempest are endgame. There is a case to be made to include Phoenix. Of the used units, 8 units that are used often.
TvP units we don't see: Siege Tank, Hellion, Widow Mine, Banshee, Raven, Battlecruiser, Thor (7/14), assuming Hellbats are used. 3 core units, 2 support, 1 vs mass zealot, 1 that gets made once per game.
You're not that limited.

On January 07 2014 05:28 Ctone23 wrote:


I was speaking to the viability of other unit compositions in the matchup. I have been adding blue flame hellbats with decent results, though.

On January 07 2014 05:35 Dragonm_sc2 wrote:
FYI sky terran is not mech... I want tanks to actually be usefull without having to get 30 of them..

On January 07 2014 06:12 DinoMight wrote:
So basically everyone is saying they want "Tank Hellion" to be a viable composition that can fight anything.

I think this is kind of stupid.

OP makes a few great points about how some of the unused units in the Terran arsenal can be useful and everyone complains that Tanks should have EMP and fly and warpgate should be removed. Sigh.

I think one of the hardest parts of meching is getting up to the 4 bases that you need to make a mech army viable vs. protoss. The composition itself is very strong once you get there. There is nothing that can just 1A into a full, siged, Terran mech army. So a defensive turtley style using Ravens and what not is smart I think.

When Terran does get their late game army (Tanks, Thors, Vikings, Ravens, Hellbat) then Protoss needs Immortals, Templar, Tempests, and some Blink Stalker/Archon to fight that. So both races are going down quite a few of their tech paths and the game comes down to who controls and engages better.

I think map design can help make mech viable. But I don't think everything should be viable on any map.. variety is nice.

On January 07 2014 06:22 SC2Toastie wrote:

You don't get the stronger army, that is the problem. Mech is weak, that is why it is nog viable.
And nobody talks about hellion tank - thor was discussed, airtech, various possible changes.

I'd like you to stop posting random critisism about out posting and ignore all replies.

On January 07 2014 06:25 SoFrOsTy wrote:
I find it funny that all these SC2 players thought using spell casters in BW was difficult. Did any of you play BW? It wasn't that difficult. Not even a little bit....

On January 07 2014 06:34 DinoMight wrote:


This is a forum. Forums are for discussing things. If everyone you disagreed with stopped talking, it wouldn't be a forum, it would be a bunch of people like you sitting at their computer talking about how much they agree.

Mech is not weak. It's just not. If you can get a late game mech composition (which requires about 4 bases to maintain) it can go toe to toe with anything Protoss can make.

There's an easy way to see this and it's called a unit tester. Tanks, Thors, HELLBATS, Raven/Viking is not something you can jsut 1-A into with any composition, as much as you would like to think. The Tempests fly into Viking range and get hosed, the immortals start shooting at Hellbats and get hosed, Raven/Viking take away all of Protoss's detection and PDD single handedly rapes Tempests. In order to engage this effectively, Protoss needs to micro back Tempests to make sure they are not just chasing random units, needs to have High Templar to feedback the PDD and storm the Vikings if they get too close, needsto blink Stalkers away from Tank fire to cover his Tempests, and needs to use Oracles' Revelation to spot for his army since his observers will all die.

The better player wins in this scenario.


What I will say is that it is difficult to get up to the 4 base economy that you need for mech because of harass capabilities of the other races and lack of mobility. But mech units are quite strong if your composition is correct, and orbital commands allow you to sack SCVs late game to the point where Terran has 30 more army supply than P or Z can have.

TLDR; Mech UNITS are not weak. The mech playstyle may be weak because of how hard it is to secure 4 bases. But to keep repeating that a late game Terran Mech army "just dies to zealot archon immortal" is wrong.

OP's post talks about a style that tries to work with that. Which I like.

On January 07 2014 06:55 sluggaslamoo wrote:A late game mech army is not strong at all.

A maxed out protoss/zerg army designed to beat mech will trade extremely well against a mech army.



Compare this to a BW mech composition of goliath, tank, vulture, valkyrie. You would be hard pressed to lose more than a few units against a 200 pop army of any composition.

Even with mass queens mutalisks hydralisks and dark swarm, Zerg still gets destroyed. You have to be a much better Zerg/Protoss player than the Terran to beat that kind of army. 90% of the time at that point the other race is dead.

Yes it was overpowered, it still took 11 or so years for late-mech to become standard in TvZ even with all that.

On January 07 2014 07:10 pure.Wasted wrote:
What if Banshees cost 250 minerals instead of 150/100?

They're strong against armored units, Hellions/Hellbats are strong against light. Individually neither has the micro or damage potential of the Vulture, but if the Banshee becomes a mineral dump unit and the Vulture's role is split between the two of them, something magical might happen?

I'm not saying that this alone would fix everything, but I haven't seen the idea brought up before and wanted to throw it out there for consideration.



Can you please link to a pro-level game where this composition shows up? I'm interested in seeing just how positional this kind of mech army is. Not just any Factory-heavy army fits the bill for what people want, as I'm sure you know. There's a reason the Warhound was so hated. (OK, many reasons.)



Did you play WC3? If you did, you would know that TFT did "so much change/redesign" of the way WC3 functioned that it completely changed the way the game worked... for the better! And it didn't cost 300€, either. There is precedent for Blizzard making their RTSes better.

On January 07 2014 07:22 pure.Wasted wrote:


OK well let's say that you're right. That still doesn't tell me if this composition is based around positional play or not, so unless I can have positive confirmation of that, we can only really say that we're 1/4 on the way to solving 1/2 of the problem.

On January 07 2014 07:16 DinoMight wrote:


Mech is not being played much at the pro scene, so there aren't many examples. I'm not trying to say mech is super viable and everyone including pros is dead wrong. I'm trying to say that the reason its not viable is not what people think it is.

I think it's not viable because its too hard to get 4 bases safely AT THE PRO LEVEL vs a good opponent. If you're able to do so however, I think the mech composition itself is strong.

It's like saying 200/200 pop of Carriers is not viable. It's not viable because you die trying to get to it, not because once you have it it's bad.

Infestor Brood Lord worked because Infestors were actually useful as you got to the Brood Lords. But as you build your mech composition its just not effective until it reaches critical mass and it's hard to get to critical mass without lots of bases (which are hard to defend).

That's my point

On January 07 2014 07:31 DinoMight wrote:



Oh sorry I didn't see your comment about positional play.

I rarely cheese or allin etc. So I end up playing a lot of big macro games vs. Mech. This obviously allows me to experience a late game terran mech army because I think mech's weakness is in the early-mid game.

Let's see. I have a few friends who like to mech so I play against this style a lot. I also run into it on the ladder occasionally. It works kind of the same way you'd do it TvT I guess. Usually they will show up witha big army of Tank/Blue flame Hellbat/Vikings and then siege up my 4th if I have it, or prevent me from taking a 4th. Positioning is important because they have to prevent my army from walking across the map and going to kill their base but at the same time they have to be in a position that they can deny expansions. When they're well positioned it's quite hard to fight because if you attack into it you die almost 100% of the time.


To attack directly into a Terran army like this you need Tempests and High Templar with some immortal/Blink Stalker support. So it gets expensive. And if he is parked outside your base denying your 4th, you have to engage really well because jsut trading armies puts you at a disadvantage.

So yes, I'd say it rewards positional play.

I think if Blizzard can give Terrans something to help them get to that late game army that helps in the early game but doesn't change late game too much, then it might be viable to mech at the pro level. But even then I think you can do it all the way up to Masters on ladder and win.

I play Terran as my offrace and I've taken a few ladder games just dicking around with mech.. it's fun. You have to be prepared to turtle for a while though. Vs. Zerg I end up massing BattleCruisers, Thors and Ravens after turtling on Tanks and Hellbats for a long time. Vs. Protoss I get a whole bunch of Tanks, Blue Flame Hellbats, Vikings, and Ravens. If I need I add a couple of ghosts (iftney're templar/immortal heavy) Widow mines are great with this compisition too because Raven/Viking denies them detection.

On January 07 2014 07:47 SC2Toastie wrote:
based on the beginning of this post I'd state that you are overestimating the strenght of mech because you go for macrogames (probably you mean passive turtle games) and don't abuse me h - giving yourself a big disadvantage and not hindering the mech player in getting his composition.

If you engage it af it's strongest without abusing your own advantages, guess what, it gets hard.


What people mean with 'positional play' is not sieging at a good location - it is spreading your tank line so you can handle attacks from all angles, which is impossible because you just lose stuff for free if you spread out.

On January 07 2014 07:46 wptlzkwjd wrote:
Back in BW, it was so awe inspiring to watch Nada target with the Yamato cannon at lightning speed because it had to be done individually. Or when Jangbi mass storms on a terran mech army that stretches across the map. Or Boxer's mass lockdown on carriers. Now it's like, so what? My grandma can mass storm and EMP as well as anyone.

On January 07 2014 08:03 DinoMight wrote:



Well, one could say you are underestimating the strength of mech because you get cheesed a lot.

I've never said "mech is viable at a pro level." I'm just arguing for why I think it isn't viable. It's not viable because it's hard to get 4 bases. The units themselves are strong I think.

On January 07 2014 07:16 DinoMight wrote:


Mech is not being played much at the pro scene, so there aren't many examples. I'm not trying to say mech is super viable and everyone including pros is dead wrong. I'm trying to say that the reason its not viable is not what people think it is.

I think it's not viable because its too hard to get 4 bases safely AT THE PRO LEVEL vs a good opponent. If you're able to do so however, I think the mech composition itself is strong.

It's like saying 200/200 pop of Carriers is not viable. It's not viable because you die trying to get to it, not because once you have it it's bad.

Infestor Brood Lord worked because Infestors were actually useful as you got to the Brood Lords. But as you build your mech composition its just not effective until it reaches critical mass and it's hard to get to critical mass without lots of bases (which are hard to defend).

That's my point

On January 07 2014 07:12 DinoMight wrote:


What is a Protoss army designed to beat mech? Late game, it's some Tempests, Templar, and then some Immortals and observers/oracle to spot. Zealot/Archon melt to a big tank line/Hellbats. So you end up with an army that still takes skill to use.

What I'm trying to say is that there is no Protoss composition that you can 1A at a meching Terran. You still need to control it well. It can trade cost efficiently, but you need to have skill. So both players need to have skill. AKA it's balanced and viable because the better player wins.

Also, do we WANT to have an army that is unkillable by anything? Sure late game Terran Mech was unbeatable in BW. Infestor Brood Lord was also unbeatable in Wings, and I for one think that was extremely lame. I think late game Terran mech in SC2 can trade cost efficiently, but it will still take some losses. Besides, it's not like Tempests and archons are cheap units that are easy to remake..

IMO it's different than BW for sure, but if you can secure 4 bases the better player wins. I don't think there should ever be an army that can't die to anything else in the game... games would just turn into turtling up to 4 bases which isn't fun for me at all.

On January 07 2014 06:35 DinoMight wrote:


I played BW. Not at a very high level, but I played it. It was a bit harder because you couldn't group spellcasters together like you can now, so you were limited to the number of hotkeys you could free up.

But I remember hotkeying my ghosts to 5-0 and just going 5L click 6L click 7L click etc. for lockdown. Worked just fine.