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Hey all,
I need some help with regaining map control after mutas come out in TvZ. In this game, I open reactor hellion and my opponent starts ling/bling/roach cross positions on TDA. He simcities nicely so I can't get any mineral harass in, but manage to keep him holed up in his base while I harass a bit, secure my natural, and start to prepare to take a third.
However, once mutas come out, I get stuck in my base and am never quite sure when it's safe to move out. Creep spread gets pretty insane so it takes quite a long time to get to a position where I can actually take down a base. I get a little sloppy with my macro during the muta harass/taking my third and a little sloppy with my control during the first push.
After a while, the usual story on TDA of Terran getting stuck on 3 bases while zerg has about 5 or 6 happens, and after we trade armies a few times I lose.
Any advice on how to leverage the early game into a better position without totally losing map control? Thanks for all of your help.
Replay: http://drop.sc/41789
EDIT: second replay, same thing: http://drop.sc/41791
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I only watched the first replay:
Just out of the beginning I would say refine your build order so that you're not sitting at 19/35 supply. Also, orbital before factory will get your reactor hellions at the same time (and your command center up earlier) because gas is your limiting factor.
I would say at some earlier points, like 2 or 6 hellions, you should stop producing them and get your production/tech faster. You're going to have map control with these for much of the earlier game, but if you've already decided to go full mech, you need a couple things to hold off any aggression. 1) an early tank helps so much if on the off chance he tries to roach bust you 2) you need an early armory in order to get Thors out, especially on Tal Darim where mutalisks are a real problem. The earliest mutas can get to your base at 10:00, so please try to have some anti air if that is a possibility.
Apart from these unit-making decisions, I would suggest using your barracks to help make add-ons early on in your build order, then soon after fly it out to scout his lair timing/tech decisions. Obviously this will tell you whether you need to build tanks or Thors or if you should take a quick third in response to his quick third.
Managing your resources; for much of the game, you float an unnecessary amount of resources -- early on it's gas, later on it's minerals. When you are floating extra gas, cut hellions, you want to make your army as gas heavy as possible as tanks and Thors are so efficient. When your minerals start to rocket in the mid to late games, throw down more command centers and more turrets as you take more bases. It's very simple to macro a Terran mech army; think of it as a strength.
One thing you have to realize about mech though is that it is essentially a timing push, if you don't do a ridiculous amount of damage with whatever push you do, you're going to lose the game. It's basically impossible to remax a mech army because of how gas intensive it is. Because of this fact, I heartedly disapprove of your idea to double upgrade on two bases, the extra armory and +1 cuts your army by a Thor, which is a pretty large portion of your army when you're probably going to be pushing out somewhere between 120 and 150 food. Something else you want to do in these pushes is pull 6-10 scvs and set them on auto repair, it makes your push so much stronger; you can also set up turrets to hold a position, but you can essentially slow push your way into his base this way.
On your map control note, simply you cannot regain map control with a mech army. You are playing in deathball style though, so map control is something you simply do not need. In order to have won this game though, all you really needed to do is stop spreading apart your army and win with one huge ball.
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I can't look at your replays, so I will have to rely on the information you have given here.
The thing about mech openings is that hellions control the map for so long. On big maps, your hellions can even run around with mutas around if you control towers and have a watchful eye.
Can You please give us your opening build? I also play TvZ mech style, I'm in high platinum now and my win ratio is 95% against Zerg (and I'm still refining my build/transitioning), so I'd like to compare what you do with how I play.
The thing about Mech is that when you push out with your army, those mutas can't stop you. 5 Thors crunch through Mutas, and I'm always making single marines off my one rax for additional fire power. All Zerg players below high platinum have problems against Mech, I've had soooo many players rage at me, because I've even beaten mass broodlords with Thor marine hellion tanks (I'm learning to remember adding ghosts, starports and more rax early on), or bypassed their spines went to the main and roasted 20 drones at the cost of 6 hellions.
The things to remember about Mech are:
Hellions prevent early third base
Always do damage when you can early game! Hellions are fast
A fast armory and tanks are a must. I get my armory up while I'm still on one base
Upgrades are a MUST. Get the attack upgrades first, they will help to one shot lings with tanks, and roast them with hellions.
It's a bad idea to wait for a maxed out mech army, because he will probably have a lot of broodlords by then.
I usually get a late third with Mech. I do a 120+ push and expand behind it. DON'T let the derby get on 5 bases, that's stupidly hard to beat and is basically auto-lose for equal players.
If this thread seems promising, I will give you my build order, look at your replays and give you some of mine (if you are in a low league than me)
User was warned for this post
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I'm sorry for barging in on someone elses thread here, but had a question directed at Sandwhales reply. Why not double upgrades? An extra thor yes, but if I choose attack upgrades over armor (+1 for lings vs tanks obviously, +2 for thors vs muta, allowing me to go less thor heavy) then I find mass upgraded lings ala Stephanos style very difficult to deal with, since they can rip through an uparmored group of mech very quickly...
Since I've given up map control for this push style, how can I avoid being flanked from all sides by 2/2 or 3/3 mass lings?
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Watched the second rep. It was nice that you managed to get in and kill a bunch of drones but you should really have been thinking of what to do next after that and floated minerals. You could of built another command centre to make more scvs + mule but you chose to make extra factories and spent alot of gas on those instead of on having units. You also left your hellions out front of the zerg which was a good decision but you scanned to kill tumour instead of scanning the main to check for spire, which you did a bit later... as the mutas came in. Then you went double armory and upgraded both at once, even after losing alot of scvs which cost you alot of gas again. I think if you scanned the mutas, didnt build so many factories and slowed down on the upgrades a bit you could of had thors and turrets out for defense by the time mutas arrived and a 3rd cc ready to float down. You then would have had the infrastructure to absolutely obliterate the zerg who was only on 50 or so drones and committed so much to mutas. But the mutas kind of did their job and you didnt have turrets + thors ready in time and it became a slippery slope. There were some opportunities to do damage with hellions at his expansions but im doubtful you could come back from that. Also you got neosteel for buildings which is awesome but i think gas is better spent elsewhere if you already built 2 armorys and are only on 2 bases.
What happened was that the mutas came in and wrecked your scv line and the zerg took the 3rd and 4th without your hellions trying to come. I dont think its a matter of regaining map control, you just lost the game after you couldnt defend the mutas and didnt do any damage to his expos with hellions. It makes your army that much weaker when it does push out.
Greatest examples are recent mvp games where hes dropping hellions against nestea. He doesnt do much damage cos nestea has gosu drone micro but against most players its going to work fine.
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EPT
