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As many people are now aware, TvP has changed drastically from what it used to be. Because marauders no longer give instant map control, terran has to play defense for a while. Many terrans these days are opting for a mech style build, often some sort of mech fast expand to secure that much needed 3rd/4th gas.
In my experience, I've had mixed results, which I believe are more do to the skill of my opponents rather more than anything. After watching a lot of the triple strike tournament and seeing the absolute domination Huk was in PvT, I'm growing increasingly concerned about the current state of the matchup.
I did not see any terrans using my build (though some may have; I didn't get to see all the games). Therefore I figured I'd test out my build vs Huk's build.
Another vT gaming team member, mesmerize, wanted to see how the builds worked out, so we did a series of test games. The replays of those games are here:
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
As you can see, I tried a number of variations (and raged at his early probe a lot) but was unable to actually pull off the build as intended. The final game I was able to not die, but I couldn't even get my expansion up, because if I moved any tanks down my ramp he'd just push in and dominate them. I could have gotten ghosts much earlier, and perhaps that might have been the only viable solution (1 rax 1 fact then add ghost + 2nd rax THEN take natural), but I still feel like I would've been behind at that point.
Now many people are probably wondering why I don't do something like 1 rax FE or even 2-3 rax play, or go banshees. From what I've seen, barracks based play is a losing game. Because you no longer have the ability to pressure early, protoss can tech much more safely without running the risk of dying to a pressure build. Therefore, the collosi are out way faster than you can amass a reasonable number of vikings. If you don't kill him before there's a couple range collosi out, you lose.
As seen by huk vs qxc today, banshee play just leaves you too vulnerable, and even if you manage to get the banshees out, you're fighting an uphill battle, especially because stalkers now take on banshees pretty effectively, and that robo will be out so toss can chrono an obs if needed.
I've tried fast ghost/siege expand builds, but they too have timing windows where I'm vulnerable, especially to stalkers with blink.
I'm not going to call imbalance just yet, but it seems to me like there's not really a way for T to do anything other than not die. On maps like LT, it might be possible to abuse the cliffs and actually get the natural secured, but on most maps you're not going to be able to.
My current line of thinking is that the immortal comes too quickly. Stalkers do fine to hold off 1 hatch roach aggression, so it's not really needed PvZ (and it'd mitigate a lot of the ZvP issues people are having).
So my questions are:
-Does anyone have a viable safe build that works against protoss immortal push?
-Do immortals need to either be moved up the tech tree or take longer to make (some sort of delay to keep them from being massed so early)?
-Are immortals simply too massable in general?
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I tried to use a kind of 2 rax FE build with fast EMP similarly to Gretorp's build, but it didn't work out. Even after I survived the first immortal push, I needed to use my natrual SCVs to defend and once I started producing more marines, he just went collosi and raped my army completely. Gretorp, in his 3rd game against a Protoss, interestingly tried going a 1 Rax Reaper Expand and he kept his expansion alive by constantly harassing with his mass reapers (and I MEAN MASS Reapers). He managed to win the game. Maybe a Reaper expand could work? Other than that, I don't see any other builds. I'm having trouble against the 1 base Robo Immortal push as well. I already lost twice to it. (Platinum Division).
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I have been thinking about making this same exact post.
Post patch I have gone 3-17 vs Protoss. Pretty staggering difference. Im in plat and had a 63% win rate b4 patch. I don't think its just cause of the patch, but also because toss users have gotten the immortal push finely tuned. The problem with TvP is not about scouting, its not about what unit you have to get to counter or when to attack or anything like that. It's hoping that the Toss makes a mistake and you can exploit it, that's the only way I've been able to win lately.
Lately ive been doing 2 rax marines + ghost/3rd rax+techlab and doing ghost+marine with shield push. the only real problem with this is sentries FF. marines are cheaper and allow u to expo. i then tech to a starport+reactor. with timing it seems to have worked vs immortal push toss.
fast expanding is near suicide, you can hold off with fast tank but then u are on the defensive and toss can easily out expand+saturate its expansions well b4 terran. as you said i also dont want to call imbalance, but it is pretty tough currently.
ive been hoping to see/find a new build. i think the main problem is that, between its early tech + chronoboost, you can build immortals faster than you can marines.
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I dont' play Terran, but as a Protoss user I think what's most effective is to simply not expand until you get ghosts out. Protoss generally doesn't expand until quite late anyways so you won't be behind in the early game. If they do FE, then you can punish them really easily by bunker rushing or FE yourself.
What I've found that works well is to simply just wall off and harass harass harass with drops. It forces him to keep his army at home and lets you build up your units.
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I saw a game on Chill's stream, in which he went mech knowing full well the opponent would go Immortal, and he almost held the attack off. What I don't understand though, is why he would siege, if all attacks against an Immortal do 10 damage. If he did not siege, his tanks would have had a faster rate of fire, and would have been doing a lot more damage than they were. I didn't see the final hitpoints on the P player's last two immortals, but the fight appeared ridiculously close. Splash damage did not appear to be helping him.
If a player like Chill is siegeing in the face of an ability like that, I can't help but assume that all players are doing so. I could understand him siegeing some of his tanks, to pick off the Sentries faster, but to siege the entire army, didn't make sense to me, unless I really don't understand how the ability works.
I'm not trying to say that there isn't a problem, I'm just trying to say that perhaps not immediately investing in Siege Tech might help to counter the initial immortal push, if siege tech does nothing against them. Keeping your tanks sieged as often as possible has become of a bit of an instinct, but when facing an enemy who takes damage purely on based on the cooldown of the attack, perhaps it is not wise.
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why would u go tanks and not use siege? immortal can 3 shot a tank.
how many shots does a tank need to kill an immortal? i dont know but its ALOT! lol. its not even comparable.
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siege isnt good against immortals since your attack rate is slower but your damage is still capped at 10 for shields. on the other hand, u can use a mix, using those in siege to hit stalkers/zealots/sentries and those not in siege mode to hit immortals (as well as marauders, etc)
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On April 12 2010 12:12 PhiliBiRD wrote:
why would u go tanks and not use siege? immortal can 3 shot a tank.
Hilariously, tanks do more dmg/second against armoured units in tank mode rather than siege mode.
But yeah, every PvT i open with 1 gate robo, and i havent lost to mech in the last 200 games or so i've played, infact the only games ive lost PvT are ones where the terran does something to put my army out of position/cause me to do something dumb in which i've lost, even from a protoss perspective i think this match is broken as hell tbh.
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they need to nerf immortals, it is pretty obvious.
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Against Protoss teams I've started to do a early 2 reaper harrass and then quick switch to banshee.
By the time I send the 3rd reaper he should have a stalker out if he's not bad which is why I choose not to build more than 2 reapers. I send once the reaper is built.
Seeing as Protoss has a pretty weak anti-air (stalkers+blink & phoenix) it is easy to exploit this by getting a big air army. If they went immortals and which 90% of the time they do I can capitalize and harrass mercilessly. Air has way more mobility than the stalker which helps a bunch.
Usually if a game lasts late game I switch to marauders and medivacs (ghost included and the occasional tank) because the only way he's going to counter a good air army is mass stalkers wtih blink.
As for the expansion part. If I feel that if I've done enough damage to his economy I will expand and get the extra gas asap.
Pre-building the techlab addon with factory and barracks helps alot here for teching. I also do a fact/rax block on my choke to prevent any early push or counter push if he knows im getting air. Usually by the time he has his immortals by my choke I have banshees to counter it.
I'm a mid plat player. Not top but I haven't really run into any people thats giving me trouble with this strat. I do lose sometimes because I wasnt scouting properly or bad macro/micro (I find it hilarious that this usually happens to my first game of the day in the morning usually) . As long as you can get that reaper out ASAP and I mean as soon as possible to damage his economy.
On April 12 2010 12:22 Ftrunkz wrote:
Hilariously, tanks do more dmg/second against armoured units in tank mode rather than siege mode.
You're forgetting the splash siege mode.
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i havent tried mech much but i know protoss is weak vs air hard core
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I have started to see terrans moving to an earlier ghost and it seems pretty effective against the immortal push.
Ghosts are very effective against zealot/sentry, help to take down early immortals, and when shields are stripped do okay damage against stalkers (who also do reduced damage against ghosts). I would never suggests ghosts beat stalkers in a straight up fight (especially for cost), but combined with other units they fair alright.
So where is the early ghost failing? Is it that terrans cannot transition to beat the 2nd wave with collossus, or are you finding that even early ghosts can't stop immortal pushes?
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Early ghosts mean you just die to stalkers. If he goes early blink or even just mass stalker you won't have enough units and you'll be in the same crappy position. I played 90% of my TvP with fast ghost builds and I can verify that they give up so much map control and still die to blink stalkers. Also, if he's smart he'll just run in and draw emps only to run away til you have none left and THEN kill you =/
Even EMP'd immortals are ridiculously strong. 200 hp 50 dmg to armored. It's ridiculous.
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Man, so this is what I've been missing out... no wonder I keep losing to terran...
but I still think marauders en masse are the answer, just don't expo until you have stim.
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On April 12 2010 12:25 Warnipple wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2010 12:22 Ftrunkz wrote:
Hilariously, tanks do more dmg/second against armoured units in tank mode rather than siege mode. You're forgetting the splash siege mode.
You're forgetting the 13 range too. Siege Mode is a lot better than unsieged even against armoured units especially if you have the positioning.
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Like a few people posted, I to have had very little success against toss unless I'm doing some kind of reaper/banshee build. The match up is pretty fucked atm.
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On April 12 2010 12:23 avilo wrote:
they need to nerf immortals, it is pretty obvious.
no its not ^_^
immortals are an expensive, tier 2 unit that can only attack ground. balance seems fine to me as opposed to roach/mara which was a problem before.
I've tried fast ghost/siege expand builds, but they too have timing windows where I'm vulnerable, especially to stalkers with blink.
confuses me. first we're talking about an immortal push. now we're talking about a toss who is massing immortals AND getting a council AND massing stalkers AND getting blink? sounds like you have a macro problem sir.
Because you no longer have the ability to pressure early, protoss can tech much more safely without running the risk of dying to a pressure build.
uh, not true. whats changed is that zealots and stalker dont get roflstomped by a single marauder. if you go 3 or even 2 rax with proper micro against a toss who 1 gate robo techs you will win. same rules apply as in sc1.
immortal is fine. Terrans need to scout more, respond appropriately, or set the pace of the game. pick one.
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On April 12 2010 13:07 Floophead_III wrote:
Early ghosts mean you just die to stalkers. If he goes early blink or even just mass stalker you won't have enough units and you'll be in the same crappy position. I played 90% of my TvP with fast ghost builds and I can verify that they give up so much map control and still die to blink stalkers. Also, if he's smart he'll just run in and draw emps only to run away til you have none left and THEN kill you =/
Even EMP'd immortals are ridiculously strong. 200 hp 50 dmg to armored. It's ridiculous.
If he goes early blink and immortals he's gunna be much, much slower than a standard immo push. You'd have more than enough m&m + ghosts by that time to deal with it if you just went standard 3rax.
How's he running away from marauaders? You should research concussive shells asap, this is a no-brainer vs. protoss.
An early timing immo push is a scary thing, but if you are aware of what's going on, it's not impossible to stop. Just don't leave a bunch of free-kill depo's at your choke and get supply-blocked when he invades and you'll be able to re-enforce plenty fast enough. Immortals can't be warped in, and if you properly focus fire his (very few - due to the gas needed to fast tech robo and build immos) sentries at the start of the battle, then toss emp at the immortal, it's pretty much gg.
Don't forget, marauders reach critical mass not too long after immos become avalible (ie. the point where immos will just melt faster than they can kill the marauders due to sheer numbers and stim), so use any delaying tactics you can to prolong the game that extra few mins, and you'll have him regretting his mis-timed push.
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On April 12 2010 13:07 Floophead_III wrote:
Early ghosts mean you just die to stalkers. If he goes early blink or even just mass stalker you won't have enough units and you'll be in the same crappy position. I played 90% of my TvP with fast ghost builds and I can verify that they give up so much map control and still die to blink stalkers. Also, if he's smart he'll just run in and draw emps only to run away til you have none left and THEN kill you =/
Even EMP'd immortals are ridiculously strong. 200 hp 50 dmg to armored. It's ridiculous.
Well obviously if the Protoss is going mass blink stalkers you don't get early ghost.
This thread is about Immortal pushes, not stalker masses. Terrans need to realize that using a scan now and then is much more valuable than getting 250 minerals.
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On April 12 2010 13:23 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2010 13:07 Floophead_III wrote:
Early ghosts mean you just die to stalkers. If he goes early blink or even just mass stalker you won't have enough units and you'll be in the same crappy position. I played 90% of my TvP with fast ghost builds and I can verify that they give up so much map control and still die to blink stalkers. Also, if he's smart he'll just run in and draw emps only to run away til you have none left and THEN kill you =/
Even EMP'd immortals are ridiculously strong. 200 hp 50 dmg to armored. It's ridiculous. Well obviously if the Protoss is going mass blink stalkers you don't get early ghost. This thread is about Immortal pushes, not stalker masses. Terrans need to realize that using a scan now and then is much more valuable than getting 250 minerals.
Couldn't have said it better.
Immos and stalkers are nice, but that's a tall order, and you certainly aren't going to see blink stalkers and immos rolling in like a fast immo push. Marauders eat stalkers for breakfast, even if they are well micro'd stalkers. Don't know what you think changed about this MU. The only diffirence is the conc shell research, which only changed the cheesy strat of completely containing a protoss player from your very first marauder onward.
Floop, I really hope you don't think the tiny little research nerf went and broke TvP. If you're consistantly loosing to toss (who got no buffs aside from the void ray, which you haven't mentioned) this patch, you might want to consider how you were doing so well last patch. Perhaps you were a little too reliant on the marauder rush in TvP?
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EPT
