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Russian Federation473 Posts
Hey guys,
I think absolute majority of us fellow Terrans from Bronze to GM have to go MMMVG in 99.99 % of the games we play against Protoss. And in most of the games that last long enough we have nothing to spend gas on - we build primarily marines and marauders, and if we don't lose too many medivacs, we have no real gas sink mechanics - ghosts and vikings are not really gas heavy (their m/g ratio is 2/1).
Are there any ideas what to spend all this gas on?
The only good idea are banshees imo. They are fast, have insane dps, and will be properly upgraded (+3 attack for sure).
Other possible option is just... mass Ghost! But you have to have 1000 APM to snipe all the zealots.
Then maybe tanks (behind Planetaries and/or bunkers) to protect expansions... but against all the bursting firepower of protoss and with low upgrades (tech switch can happen in the very late game) probably not a good idea.
Thors, Battlecruisers and Ravens are hard-countered by feedback, so not a good idea at all.
Do you have any examples of how Terrans found a way to spend overgas lategame? Or are we the race that just has to pull workers from geysers to minerals and press a-d-a-d-a-d-a-d-a-d-a-d-a-d-a-d-a-d-a freneticly?
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Thors actually eat quite a bit of damage, just remember to EMP them before fighting. But then again, immortal buff...
I think cruisers would be good as a LATE LATE LATE game switch with 3-3 and infantry support. Same thing, EMP them before fighting. And make sure there are still EMPs left for offense.
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Hmm. I would advise to upgrade your Vikings and build mainly marrauder/ghost/medivac. Marines get worse and worse the longer the game goes in my opinion. Many people say, that you need the DPS of your Marines, but they melt to everything Protoss have instantly. Marrauders have a lot more health and should be favored in the lategame in my opinion(Only Diamond Terran here). Marrauders/ghosts/vikings/medivacs + upgrades for your air and a lot of starports, should hold your gas down in the lategame depending on how agressive the match goes. If you both are turteling at 3 base, even if you are ar 200 food it´s normal to have a lot of ressources in the bank. You could also add thors and upgrades for them if you still have to many gas. They are good tanks (if you emp them) and deal a lot of damage.
I image a BC/Thor ghost/marrauder lategame composition. This should be awesome ^^
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On November 07 2011 04:41 leecx wrote:
Thors actually eat quite a bit of damage, just remember to EMP them before fighting. But then again, immortal buff...
I think cruisers would be good as a LATE LATE LATE game switch with 3-3 and infantry support. Same thing, EMP them before fighting. And make sure there are still EMPs left for offense.
It's the same as Brood War: Battlecruisers just aren't viable in TvP. Basic Protoss GtA tear them apart.
Beyond Ghosts for a gas dump, I'd probably say Ravens. EMPs with a couple PDDs thrown around to block Stalker fire at least seems ridiculous on paper. It takes a lot of micro though.
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nukes are awesome late game as well for a gas/min dump. Gives you back some harassment options too and makes the multitask more. Also small reaper packs can be great late game and they are great gas dumps. Also like tatari said possible ravens? get seeker missile? if it gets really really late game mass ravens is really good- obviously gotta watch out for feedback. Mass ghost marauder + support is amazing too cause ghosts are actually really good vs zealots, you just need a TON of them.
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Mech in TvP is very popular as helions, thors, raven, banshee and ghost compositions rip through protoss. I would say banshee harass and constant drops are the way to keep the protoss defending and confused. Although high templars do feedback everything, that's why you need to efficiently use your EMPs :/
A few BCs would help, but I haven't seen Terrans really use them against Protoss as of late so I'm not quite sure how well they would fare against a Protoss composition. You should really try to get all of the upgrades for all types of units overtime so that when you have to transition to hard counter a Protoss, you'll already have the upgrades. Getting a decent amount of OCs mid-late game is also helpful as you can quickly saturate a new base with mules.
Usually if a Terran goes MMMVG against a Protoss, the Protoss will eventually transition into archons. Therefore viking production can be cut and it can just be MMMG. If you're using PFs and etc to defend your bases, you should do the same by dropping/harassing your opponent's bases as well.
If you really want to spend your gas, thors, ravens and banshees wouldn't be a bad idea imo ^^
Nukes are great when used to limit Protoss movement, harass and defense. Defensive nukes can stop a Protoss from attacking, and if the Protoss is defending, you can just constantly nuke him to further drive him into a corner.
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Don't get it in the first place no ones forcing you to get the refineries. Minerals are much better.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
People what are you talking about? Seeker missile? Range of 6 on feedback's range of 9? What?
PDDs? Against Zealot/Archon/Colossus? 1-2 Ravens may be good to nullify the Stalkers, but Stalkers are usually not the problem by themselves.
BCs? No thank you. 35.5 dps for 400/300/6/90 and with 1.88 speed. Bad idea. Just remember the Boxer vs. HasuObs Game 1 in NASL Season 1, BCs were killed by pure storms (!)
Thors? No, not with feedback. You have to emp them, and to have enough EMPs for all the Protoss stuff. Too much effort and investment, and it's not worth it in the end.
Reapers? Could be good, but with 45 s build time not really (actually it looks like Blizzard initially planned that Reapers would be gas damp for Terran bio, and they had 30 s build time in beta, but then Blizzard decided to screw them...) Reapers don't even inflict much more dps on light targets than marines (16.36 compared to 10.5, and comparison with not-light targets is too heavily in Marines' favor).
The only good idea is to get nukes, it's gas heavy and can be very annoying. Compared to drops, nukes require much less supply and minerals, but take a lot of gas.
And banshees are good for late game raiding out of my experience as well, but we don't see them much in the best players' games.
Other than that, looks like the sarcastic Zergie is correct, we just have to rely on minerals and forget about that silly things called "Terran high tech".in TvP.
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Vikings if they are Collosus Heavy are pretty good.
User was warned for this post
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The two gas sinks I turn to the most are Thors and Reapers. Thors are just so good against every Protoss unit, even without upgrades. The only thing that dominates them is Immortals, which you should already have an answer for in the lategame. Templars only trade even with them, even if you let them fire off a full energy feedback.
I've been liking Reapers alot because they make sense from an economic flow standpoint. When you spike gas, you're short on minerals, which means you have idle Rax production ripe for the using. Reapers have a super low [mineral cost] / [build time] ratio, which makes them perfect for balancing your resources. They're also great lategame units in general because although they are expensive on resources they are very cheap on supply.
The only good answer Protoss has to them is Stalkers, which they can't warp in at the harass site if they're already at 200 supply. An 8 pack of Reapers shreds any number of Zealots, Cannons, and Templars. And if the P commits Robo/Stargate units to defend against the harass, the Reapers have already done their damage by depowering the deathball.
I've tried to make Ravens work really hard in TvP because I like the idea of keeping around a Starport with a tech lab in TvP just to force more Observers from the Protoss. But whenever I get more than 1 Raven the P sheds Stalkers and builds just a few Phoenix, making PDD useless. And autoturret harass is not as good in TvP as in TvZ due to P units+buildings having higher HP+shield regen.
Banshees are good in TvP, don't get me wrong, but they're not that great of a gas sink. They take a long time to build, so you need to build extra starports beforehand, and even then their mineral:gas cost ratio isn't the best.
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Depending on the map, I don't know if you're talking about Tal'darim Altar but BCs latelate game aren't that much of a bad idea considering the map is relatively tightly packed anyways. Ravens for harassment (turrets) and PDDs even against archons are great, in unison with EMPs of coourse.
Nukes are a great way to keep the Protoss at bay and in control. Thors are great damage sponges so with EMP, it'll be great against heavy collossus.
I think he's just asking what we can spend gas on as Terran, not necessarily on efficiency. But Thors can potentially assist against Zealots, archons/immortals/collossus (with strike cannon but who uses that nowadays). It's just basically enemy unit comp, your upgrades, map, and army placement/mobility.
Just get medivacs, vikings and upgrades. The mobility of MM and vikings are way too good, that's why it's the ideal choice.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
On November 07 2011 16:23 RoboBob wrote:
The two gas sinks I turn to the most are Thors and Reapers. Thors are just so good against every Protoss unit, even without upgrades. The only thing that dominates them is Immortals, which you should already have an answer for in the lategame.
I've been liking Reapers alot because they make sense from an economic flow standpoint. When you spike gas, you're short on minerals, which means you have idle Rax production ripe for the using. Reapers have a super low [mineral cost] / [build time] ratio, which makes them perfect for balancing your resources. They're also great lategame units in general because although they are expensive on resources they are very cheap on supply.
The only good answer Protoss has to them is Stalkers, which they can't warp in at the harass site if they're already at 200 supply. An 8 pack of Reapers shreds any number of Zealots, Cannons, and Templars. And if the P commits Robo/Stargate units to defend against the harass, the Reapers have already done their damage by depowering the deathball.
I've tried to make Ravens work really hard in TvP because I like the idea of keeping around a Starport with a tech lab in TvP just to force more Observers from the Protoss. But whenever I get more than 1 Raven the P sheds Stalkers and builds just a few Phoenix, making PDD useless. And autoturret harass is not as good in TvP as in TvZ due to P units+buildings having higher HP+shield regen.
Banshees are good in TvP, don't get me wrong, but they're not that great of a gas sink. They take a long time to build, so you need to build extra starports beforehand, and even then their mineral:gas cost ratio isn't the best.
can you please state you league and/or provide replays?
because your points don't sound credible to me.
thors? without armor upgrades, zealots kill them in just 20 hits, and all the other damage scales respectively. thors eat a ton of supply and minerals as well. Why would you build a 0-0 thor and not 3 3-3 marauders (or 6 marines)? Evne without medivacs, upgraded rauders will take more damage than unupgraded thors, not to speak of feedback, DPS and mobility.
reapers? no I don't have idle racks (unless I'm maxed out). Of course reapers are cheap in terms of supply, and they can pull some supply from the protoss army, but they are very fragile, and die to everything short of sentries and templars (and storm or forcefields can be devastating). even zealots and cannons will damage them and win enough time for warp-ins or reinforcements to come. Again, reapers could be good, but not with 45s build time imo. You can't afford to build 2 reapers instead of 3 marauders or 2 ghosts.
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I definitely think that you should just manage your gas income appropriately and not grab both geysers at every base by default. Especially be careful about gas timings early on (first 3 bases) too much gas hurts you a lot.
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Just mass upgrades and ghosts, the other options are very rarely worth the investment imo
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Russian Federation473 Posts
On November 07 2011 16:44 Atreides wrote:
I definitely think that you should just manage your gas income appropriately and not grab both geysers at every base by default. Especially be careful about gas timings early on (first 3 bases) too much gas hurts you a lot.
i had 50-min tvp yesterday where i didn't mine gas at all on my 5th and 6th bases, and effectively stopped mining gas on my 4th as i had to reposition it (geysers were at ~ 50 % mined out). i still struggled to get enough minerals and had a 4-digit gas surplus.
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well ravens would be a better choice imo.
turrets act as artificial forcefield, do well against zealots.
pdd can kill stalker shots.
seeker missile can just bomb the zealot mob home.
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Actually banshees work well vs colossi instead of vikings too, the problem is that banshees build slower and use more gas ratio than vikings. Banshees kill colossi faster but have smaller range. But they can attack ground and harass, too.
So perhaps with this extra gas, you could make up for having to get extra starports and for the banshee's 3:2 mineral gas ratio instead of the viking's 2:1. Or at least, if you decide to make banshees, there will be more reason to.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
@ElusoryX
problem with auto turrets is that they don't scale with upgrades, so they will deal silly 4-5 damage late game (and with guardian shield on, even 2-3 damage). Raven also has to get close to the location to drop turrets, and is very vulnerable to feedback. and you can't place turrets like forcefields, there have to be no enemy units where you place the turrets. PDD is super strong against stalkers, but stalkers are not a problem, zealots, colossi, templars and archons are. (if somebody doesn't know, archons ignore pdd). and seeker missiles are a very bad idea, first because of feedback, second because zealots with charge will close with your bio anyways, and explosions will hurt you more than they will hurt protoss (again, it's very unlikely that you will launch the missiles at all).
@Yoshi Kirishima
well banshees are strong, but they are vulnerable to storms and archons, so you have to be very careful.
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United States1169 Posts
Nukes. Lots and lots of nukes.
If you're still floating a lot, that means you're mining too much gas - -
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how is this a problem? you say you need more minerals, try using mules.
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EPT
