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PVT: Hero’s Storm defense versus Bio-Tank
Introduction:
+ Show Spoiler + During a recent pro match, a certain relatively well-known Korean terran (MVP) exhibited a build that raised speculation about the usage of tanks in TvP. Previously a very common part of the terran vs protoss mid game army, siege tanks have, for a while, only been seen rarely as part of anything besides various 1/1/1 pushes. This has gotten terran players thinking about the viability of tanks in the matchup. As such, a resurgence of Bio-tank play has emerged. I have personally seen tanks in my games, and here, I hope we can revisit the protoss perspective on dealing with this composition. I also want to give my humble analysis of Hero’s response to this tactic. In his recent replay pack, http://www.teamliquidpro.com/news/2012/06/13/razer-replaypack-of-the-week-37-hero , two of his PvT’s involve dealing with Bio-tank compositions. I found his response to be really intelligent and effective at evening the playing field versus Tank play. To read more about this shift, check out a recent discussion on this very forum. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=334311
Bio-tank as seen in Hero’s games:
+ Show Spoiler + In both games, the Terran player goes for a 1rax gasless FE and than drops double gas, proceeding to get up tanks and siege-mode. Although I’m sure variations exist that emphasize different units in the composition, these particular players seem to be executing Bio-tank as EXACTLY that. I.e., they get Marines, Marauders and medivacs…and siege tanks. Wicked.
Synergies/compositions:
+ Show Spoiler +
To summarize the synergy between bio forces and tanks: the bio forces lead the assault, with siege tanks providing heavy fire support at long ranges. Siege tank hits splash, and do bonus to armored. When tanks are in siege mode, they can’t move, and as such, a huge part of “pushing “ the front is establishing areas of control, whereby the terran player can than “leapfrog” parts of his tank force forward. This is usually done by pushing forward with Bio units and baiting out the enemy into siege tank range. The enemy army is often forced to retreat, as depending on composition (will be discussed later), the Bio units cannot be engaged without taking fire from the siege tanks. Due to their huge damage output, fighting Bio with siege tank support is often a losing fight. That’s the point of siege tank, big damage over an AOE, and big range to allow for huge territory control. The end result is that the enemy army has to retreat out of the range of the bio units, at which point a number of the tanks can start moving forward, and sieging up closer to the ultimate target area (opponents natural/third etc.) and the “sweet spot” where the bio units can attack with tank support is extended.
The Protoss response to this changed a lot during the early stages of Starcraft 2’s release. Ultimately, colossi with range, immortals, archons, chargelots, blink, and the phoenix’s lift ability were all composition solutions that had consistent success in practice. I won’t go into specifically what each of these does. The important concept is that when fighting a terran army that includes tanks, if you can eliminate the tanks and/or remove them from the fight, you significantly reduce the damage output of the army (lifting the tanks, blinking forward and focusing, flanking with charge etc.). To accomplish this, the above units became favored. Additionally, positional solutions such as warp prisms/proxies to set up flanks, waiting for tanks to unsiege before attacking, or in some other way catching the terran off guard and out of position were explored and utilized to great effect.
Regardless of how its approached, as all the above mentioned solutions remain viable today, tank play requires a lot of patience and precision from both sides.[*I personally find games with tanks involved much more intense and interesting because of the precision involved. But that’s just me]. What I want to discuss is that while sifting through Hero’s replay pack, I was blown away by his response to Bio-tank play. In both instances when he encounters this style, he goes for charge, weapons upgrades, immortals, and storm! When the terran goes to push, he uses storm to deflect the Bio forces out of their sweet spot, in effect, using storm as a battlefield controller similarly to how tanks are used. When the bio moves forward, Hero will engage it briefly until the Bio army attempts to kite the zealots back into the siege range. Hero will than back his main army off and storm the bio. At this point, to avoid just dying to the storms, the Bio army either needs to move, either commiting forward, where they won’t have siege tank support, or running backward buying Hero more time to build up his forces. The bio army can dodge to the side to avoid the storm, but this is limited by the terrain the bio occupies, and if a choke or ramp is involved, the bio may not have room to get ALL the way out of the storm radius. All the while, every time Hero lands even an “ok” storm on the bio, he’s weakening it (if nothing else, he’s wearing out the energy on the medivacs).
This is important because the Bio forces serve to protect and bolster the effectiveness of the Siege tanks. If the Bio army goes down, Hero’s army can just go straight for the tanks. Furthermore, tanks are strongest, not by themselves (especially versus chargelots that can get right up onto the tanks), but with a damage dealing force in front that can draw the enemy out of their safe zone, and into the tank fire, engaging them while allowing the tanks to safely obliterate everything from a distance. Take out the forces in front of the tanks, and you can just bulldoze the siege line down.
Additionally, the Bio army is responsible for initiating engagements, from the terran’s point of view, and their high maneuverability allows them to bounce in and out of the Siege range quickly. Storm is used by Hero to limit their ability to maneuver, as if they over step their bounds, they risk taking big damage.
Not to rant/rave, but once I saw how Hero used storm, I was embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of it. Maybe it’s just me, but I think its genius.
Hero’s Response [in a little more detail and with linked replays]:
+ Show Spoiler +Onto the examples of this technique in action. Game 1: Hero vs. Major http://drop.sc/210242Game summary: *this is a summary, not a second by second build order* + Show Spoiler +
The game begins with a 1 Rax gasless FE from Major and a 1gate FE from Hero. Major takes double gas shortly after and begins an early factory with the goal of getting tanks out.
Hero chronos warp tech out (done @~6) and makes a cool little pressure push off 2 gates with zealots and sentries at ~7, behind which he is able to continue probe production and get a robo. Minor damage is inflicted including a few scvs, the bunker and some marines. Hero backs off at about ~8 minutes, but he’s able to see the tanks firing from the high ground. Hero adds a robo bay, starts immortal production, adds 2 gateways and takes his 3rd gas at the natural.
Major makes a few attempts to drop, all of which Hero deflects with minimum damage taken. A pattern appears here that continues for much of the game, where Hero will move out after being dropped. The logic here could be that Hero knows the importance of the Bio to the defense of the Siege line, and as such I moving out to see if the siege tanks are sitting vulnerable outside his base.
Hero eventually gets +1 weapons, charge and continues immortal production. Storm research is begun. He starts his third at 13:10. Major scouts this, and attacks in response. The one colossus Hero has made gets zoned out by Vikings (no range upgrade, see (*)), and dies during the initial engagement. During this engagement, Hero seizes upon some exposed siege tanks. What I would consider a mis-control by major (leaving the tanks undefended at the front) results in a lucky break for Hero, as he is able to take out 5 of the tanks. Whether this was the reason his was able to hold the push is debatable, but it certainly helped. A meticulous dance ensues with both sides trying to juke each other out and trigger a favorable engagement. Here is where Hero exhibits his usage of storm to control territory. He makes it much harder for Major to move forward with his Bio, and as such, much harder to push forward his siege line. Ultimately, the Bio gets whittled down to the red or eliminated and Hero demolishes the remaining tanks, deflecting the push.
Hero is unable to end the game here with a counter play because of good defense and tank placement by Major. As such the game goes late, with Hero ultimately winning.
(*)Hero doesn’t get range for his colossi until the late game, although he could afford it shortly after starting his first colossus. From his vision, it appears that he clicked on the robo bay around this time. I’m not sure what to make of this. Was he thinking about it? Did he misclick? Did he decide against it? It doesn’t prove consequential in the end. It’s intriguing though.
Game 2: Hero vs Korean name I can’t read (sorry!) + Show Spoiler +http://drop.sc/210244Game summary: + Show Spoiler +
Hero goes nexus first and his opponent goes CC first. Double gas added for terran at a similar time relative to the expansion (~4 minutes) and rolls into Tanks in a similar fashion as Major. A 3rd CC is started in the main for the terran player while Hero sets up for a five gate push that hits Around 8:10. Behind this push, where Hero focuses on killing scvs (kills 17 total), Hero takes his third base. Again, Hero is able to scout the usage of tanks with this push (The push stops at about 10:20, but hero sticks around for a little longer until he is deflected from the front at ~11. As he retreats he sees a tank killing his proxy though). Hero’s third base finishes at ~11:20, Hero follows up the push with a twilight and forge that start at about 10:30.
Hero gets up to 9 gates total, gets charge, +1 a robo for immortals and storm in that order (in this game). Starts blink immediately after charge finishes, gets a warp prism, and moves into a far off position to prepare for potential later game counter attacks and flanking potential.
At 15 minutes the Terran attempts to break the Protoss third base. Less of a dance ensues with the Bio vs storm, but there is still some example of it here. Hero breaks this push with a calculated flanking maneuver.
Again, Hero is unable to end the game right here, and a similar late game to game 1 ensues. Hero switches to Double robo colossi and starts incorporating archons while utilizing the warp prism and proxy pylons to counter attack heavily. Hero ultimately wins.
What to take away/ analysis:
+ Show Spoiler +Hero’s response to tanks is reactionary (not a specific, meticulously timed, build order). However, once he’s scouted the transition into tanks, he appears to make a point of prioritizing charge>storm>immortals>colossi>colossi with range and throws in unit upgrades where he can (Important *** this is only what I can gleam from the 2 games I was able to analyze) as his compositional response to Bio-tank compositions. This is obviously incredibly subjective, as different economic or game flow situations will change what each player can afford or has time for. I.e. getting storm to defend a 1/1/1 style tank push may not be wise, as you may not have the time necessary. Hero’s usage of storm is to shake up the synergy between the highly maneuverable Bio force and the high damage dealing long-range siege tanks. A specific example of this is in game one, at 15:20. Hero storms the Bio force as it moves forward, than moves forward with his main army, preparing to engage if the Bio army moves forward out of siege tank range, or retreats so far that the tanks are closer to Hero’s army than the Bio force (I.e. the Bio retreats behind the tank line, forfeiting its ability to protect the Tanks/intercept the chargelots before they connect with the tank-line). Major retreats to the protection of his tanks, exposes one forward tank, which is promptly eliminated by Hero, and turns to engage, whereupon Hero backs up out of siege tank range. Both players take some damage during this small exchange, but ultimately, Major was unable to set up a siege position that would force Hero off his third base. The use of storm here is similar to that of tanks: to control battleground space and positioning, and to weaken/punish any forces that overstep their bounds. While taking this approach, Hero is limited by how many storms he has, while the Terran player is imited by Bio army health (amount of damage taken/ energy on the medivacs). These seem to be the deciding variables as far as “who has the ball at what time” is concerned. At least until one side as a significant army value lead that allows them to break the other. The lack of colossi range in game 1 (initially) is somewhat confusing. Considering hero stopped colossus production in favor of immortals, and that he made no attempt to get colossi until the late game in game 2, I believe he meant to cut it in favor of more storms. However, traditionally, Colossus Range has been a go to upgrade for dealing with Tanks. Indeed, well micro’d colossi with range are really really good at dealing with tanks as exhibited below. → Huk being a boss. [fight starts at ~7 min.s] So its debatable what Hero’s true motive was, or whether he just forgot to get it (though I doubt this was the case)
Conclusion:
+ Show Spoiler +
As with anything, pick your poison. But, as we see tanks re-emerge as part of Terran mid-game play, I think it’s worth it to take a serious look at Hero’s response in the above games. So please, discuss. Ready set go!
As always, thanks for reading! ☺
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If a solid way to counter bio - tanks already emerged I doubt the style will even have the chance to grow and become somewhat standard.
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Do you really have to change something as protoss to counter non-cheesy/early tanks pushes? Tanks are overall not great against protoss units unless you mass them, simply because protoss units have too much HP to get one shoted by a reasonable numbers of tanks, and then your tanks will splash on your units because of chargelots, and you have to re target them on colossi or stalkers, but then they are not more cost efficient than viking or marauders.
I remember one GSL game, Hero vs Supernova I think, where Supernova contained him on entombed valley with tanks, bunkers and bio, and hero just charged down his ramp with chargelots/archons and throwed some storms, which would have been impossible for a zerg or terran to do, but totally fine as protoss, because of what I said before.
The only really good thing I can think of about tanks pushes is that 3 tanks one shot a sentry, which was the reason why MVP made 3 tanks early pushes and then stopped making tanks in some GSL games, the purpose being targetting the sentry and then pressuring thanks to the lack of forcefields with marines.
Basically what you suggest is just going standard protoss play, just storm first to use defensively (which is anyways becoming common, and stupidly good in defensive position) instead of colossus?
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On July 02 2012 00:58 moskonia wrote:
If a solid way to counter bio - tanks already emerged I doubt the style will even have the chance to grow and become somewhat standard.
This is what interests me the most honestly. Why did tanks fall out of favor in the first place? And with that in mind, why are they re-emerging. Has there been an increased understanding of how to utilize them, or are players just trying to introduce some variety? It will be interesting to see what becomes of it, or if its shoved back into obscurity as quick as it popped back out.
The MVP vs Naniwa game was a GSL match. You'll need a pass to watch it. Sorry  , haven't been able to find it anywhere else.
Best I can find at the moment
http://www.d-esports.com/6072/gsl-ro8-day-one-recap/
-->gives a brief summary. Essentially, MVP won the game, but Naniwa made an effort and it was close. His tech of choice was zealots and colossi. Some blame the fumbled forcefields for the loss.
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On July 02 2012 01:14 Nimix wrote:
Basically what you suggest is just going standard protoss play, just storm first to use defensively (which is anyways becoming common, and stupidly good in defensive position) instead of colossus?
I though it was wicked cool, and worth thinking about vs. colossi as a gut defense vs. tanks. Hero exhibits here that its effective, and as you said, is another viable use of an earlier storm.
As far as tank effectiveness, I would argue it depends heavily on the skill of both the players involved. This is part of the reason I'm interested in seeing what happens with the metagame. Its safe to say ALL players of ALL races have gotten better and have a more thorough understanding of the game. This development is what triggers metagame shifts, so maybe MVP's reasons for going tanks are something we don't understand yet. It'll be interesting to see what the re-emergence of this style inspires.
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Actually, based on HerO's games against Terran on a whole, his reaction to bio is typically storm. He rarely goes for Colossi with range unless it's for a timing before he gets HTs, storm, and charge. That's just kind of the way he plays.
I would say that storm is actually one of the worst reactions to tanks (if they go heavily into tank play). By the time HTs get in range of the Terran force, they are already long in range of the tanks. HTs drop like flies against tanks. Storm is really only a viable response to the tank-bio pushes we have been seeing lately where the tanks are not the main damage dealers but rather an engagement controller. Then, HTs are very useful because they do not die as quickly and storm can kill the bio (which does the real damage).
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I don't think you linked properly to the discussion thread about bio-tank shift. You just gave the link for the replay pack again 
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On July 02 2012 01:38 Nuclease wrote:
Actually, based on HerO's games against Terran on a whole, his reaction to bio is typically storm. He rarely goes for Colossi with range unless it's for a timing before he gets HTs, storm, and charge. That's just kind of the way he plays.
I would say that storm is actually one of the worst reactions to tanks (if they go heavily into tank play). By the time HTs get in range of the Terran force, they are already long in range of the tanks. HTs drop like flies against tanks. Storm is really only a viable response to the tank-bio pushes we have been seeing lately where the tanks are not the main damage dealers but rather an engagement controller. Then, HTs are very useful because they do not die as quickly and storm can kill the bio (which does the real damage).
That's more or less what I said…
And wow, sorry about the mis-link. Fixing it! Thanks! 
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Funny how people always made fun of me weeks ago, when I said Tanks are good in TvP, if you keep a few rules in mind, just because pro gamers didn't use them. Now they do and it's suddenly considered as an option.
b2t: I think storming the bio isn't that much of a threat, because the medivacs will heal it up quite fast. Getting some HTs behind the Tanks while they fire on something else and then storming them, while they can't move out of the storm is a good way to counter them. If there are repair SCVs, they will die in the storms aswell. Only counter to that again is spreading the Tanks. But that may mean that not all Tanks will fire in a big engagement.
However, I like the shift to Bio-Tanks in TvP.
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We'll see what comes of this, it's still to early to tell. I think it would be very interesting if Terran found solid macro way to play bio-mech.
Thanks for the thread and the links, interesting stuff
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Lately I have seen many people try to go back and try things that used to be obsolete, like gate expands in PvZ, and here tanks in PvT, and its no surprise, since after patches and the overall improvement of the players things that might not work back in the day, now might have a chance to be viable. If not cause of being better, but because people are not used to dealing with them, and so the builds are stronger then what they should be.
I think it will be interesting to watch if pro's can make bio - tanks to work, I think it has potential even if it has its counters, just cause it is not standard and it can shake people off.
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Something worth pointing out:
Just because the counter to something, especially all around strong play styles, is well known, doesn't mean players (especially top tier players) won't use those styles. To extend that idea, we see styles get "countered" but still win games all the time. Stephano maxed roaches still wins some games, MVP is winning games with tanks, and Squirtle is still using colossus timing attacks against Terran.
Like Moskonia just pointed out, even if the counters are well known, tanks still have potential. A balanced game means there will be counters to every style, its the execution and skill of the players that often makes the difference. That's what makes the game so great. The elegance involved in developing the strategy.
Before anyone goes off, read the rules, no balance debates .
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On July 02 2012 00:02 Tombomb wrote:
What to take away/ analysis:
Hero’s response to tanks is reactionary (not a specific, meticulously timed, build order). However, once he’s scouted the transition into tanks, he appears to make a point of prioritizing charge>storm>immortals>colossi>colossi with range and throws in unit upgrades where he can (Important *** this is only what I can gleam from the 2 games I was able to analyze) as his compositional response to Bio-tank compositions.
So, actually, Tombomb, what you said is not more or less what I said in my earlier post. Because I was saying that his HT "response" to tanks is not a "response," and it is actually a meticulously timed build order. Why? Because HerO goes for HTs with storm before Colossi almost EVERY GAME unless he is going for a timing. And he goes for them before immortals almost EVERY GAME. Colossi and Immortals are the accepted response to tanks, and HerO's ability to use his build order with HTs even if he is up against tank build is what is impressive here. HTs are not a planned response to tanks. They just aren't, especially when you see that the tanks do NOT change HerO's game plan overall.
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On July 02 2012 06:26 Nuclease wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 00:02 Tombomb wrote:
What to take away/ analysis:
Hero’s response to tanks is reactionary (not a specific, meticulously timed, build order). However, once he’s scouted the transition into tanks, he appears to make a point of prioritizing charge>storm>immortals>colossi>colossi with range and throws in unit upgrades where he can (Important *** this is only what I can gleam from the 2 games I was able to analyze) as his compositional response to Bio-tank compositions.
So, actually, Tombomb, what you said is not more or less what I said in my earlier post. Because I was saying that his HT "response" to tanks is not a "response," and it is actually a meticulously timed build order. Why? Because HerO goes for HTs with storm before Colossi almost EVERY GAME unless he is going for a timing. And he goes for them before immortals almost EVERY GAME. Colossi and Immortals are the accepted response to tanks, and HerO's ability to use his build order with HTs even if he is up against tank build is what is impressive here. HTs are not a planned response to tanks. They just aren't, especially when you see that the tanks do NOT change HerO's game plan overall.
Uh….ok, you're making a point of trying to wrap me up in my own points just for the sake of appearing to be right about a minor observation.
The fact that Hero goes HT in a lot of games isn't a good counter argument. It still remains that he went HT against tanks, and whether this is a response to the tanks or just autopilot/ what he always does, whats important is how he uses the Templar during the engagements (like you said above, its impressive). HOwever, the fact that he scouted tanks and still went HT means that he felt they would be useful against the bio-tank composition. A player of Hero's caliber doesn't just go "Herp derp I always go HT at this time no matter what so imma do dat", he wanted HT in his composition after seeing the tanks, and had plenty of time to get up a different composition after the scout. Lastly, watch the fight at 14 minutes in game 1. Whether or not Hero meant to use storm in the way I described in the above, and from watching the fight I'm 95% convinced he did, storm effectively prevents the Bio from clearing a path for the tanks to leap frog their siege position forward. How effectively he uses storm to accomplish this, and the amount of resources he invested in templar and storm research, tells us that he REACTIVELY made a point of getting storm in RESPONSE to tanks.
More simply, he scouted the tanks at 8 minutes, he had plenty of time to get up immortals and colossi ("the accepted response to tanks") but he didn't, he got storm. The fact that he always does this only implies that he has some good timings outlined for a build order that involves having storm and charge and immortals etc. It does not imply that these games exhibited a planned build order against tanks, but it is two examples of storm being extremely effective against Bio-tank. I'm trying to point out how Hero goes about using storm in the engagement more than anything, and while i'm fine with leaving the analysis open to interpretation, I'm saying that Hero isn't hitting a "money timing" with storm against tanks. You're saying its impressive he was able to utilize storm against tanks (I agree, it was cool as hell) and that immortals and colossi are the accepted response implies that you believe Hero's "build order" is meant to work against pure Bio ("standard play"). The above linked games show him deliberately, as a RESPONSE to tanks, using the same "build order" against Bio-tank.
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In the interest of knowledge, I'm going to try and shed my personal insight onto the choice for HT and why Hero made one colossus before he tech switched to charge-lots and storm, but more importantly storm (in the case of this thread).
I think the high templar are a brilliant defensive manouvre, and they allow Hero to cut corners (which, funnily enough, TomBomb brings up in another thread "TOSS PLAYERS WANT TO CUT CORNERS" when referring to the PvT matchup and the use of DT); I think this reflects on the general idea of taking risks aimed at getting an advantage
So my effective thesis, and please, this is my opinion, take it with a grain of salt (I play zerg): Hero wanted to ultimately have charge-lot/storm, but he wanted to get around to his tech, with the Terran player building to counter something else (i.e. not making ghosts). In order to accomplish this, Hero *tricks* Major (in reference to the first replay).
Hero accomplishes such a goal by making one (single) colossus. He doesn't invest in extended thermal lances, even though he has all the resources and opporunities to do so (at 9:00, when the Robo bay finishes, he has enough minerals and gas to invest in extended thermal lances).
At 9:20 Hero starts making his first colossus
Around 9:40, Major scans Hero's front, and sees 2 immortals, 2 stalkers, 4 zealots, and a sentry (no colossus). Major then proceeds to do exactly what he's been doing the whole time: make tanks, marines, and medivacs
At 10:00, Hero begins his tech switch, dropping 2 gates and a twilight council, which I think might have been his ultimate goal all along, and here's why:
At 10:40, Hero pushes out, with his one colossus, to the xel'naga. Major isn't there, so Hero backs off after pinging the tower for sight, and leaves one stalker there.
At 11:00, the stalker sees Major's medivac moving across the xel'naga field of vision, and moves his army (with his one colossus, I'd go so far as to say it was intentional) into the sightlines of Major's medivac. Side-note, Hero has started Charge (it was actually around 10:47ish I think).
Major has now seen the colossus, and in the midst of his general crazy-awesome APM-ing (holy crap these players are awesome, but that's not releveant) switches the Starport with a reactored barracks so that he can double-pump vikings (he lifts both buildings at 11:25, the 25 seconds beforehand were him managing dropships and some rallys, so it's entirely reasonable to think he might have just found the time to switch the buildings then, even after having seen it for 25 seconds)
Boom: Hero now has a templar archives on his way, and Major is building to counter colossi, not high templar, much less storm.
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Thank you for the guide, I love Hero's style of play.
relatively well-known Korean terran (MVP)
I thought the relatively well-known part was kind of funny as he could be considered the best Starcraft 2 player overall as he has won the most GSL's.
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On July 02 2012 14:01 BLTurntable wrote:Thank you for the guide, I love Hero's style of play. relatively well-known Korean terran (MVP) I thought the relatively well-known part was kind of funny as he could be considered the best Starcraft 2 player overall as he has won the most GSL's.
I think that may have been sarcasm.
I agree with what you're saying, Tombomb, I'm not just trying to wrap you up. I just think it's important to distinguish between auto pilot and a specific response from HerO. Not only does it make it more impressive to think that he just sees tanks and shrugs it off, but it also changes the way I think about this. It makes me think that tanks, with bio, unless there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of tanks, should just be treated mostly as a bio force. Don't think I'm just trying to be nitpicky, I just think it's important.
On July 02 2012 09:13 Tombomb wrote:
Uh….ok, you're making a point of trying to wrap me up in my own points just for the sake of appearing to be right about a minor observation.
The fact that Hero goes HT in a lot of games isn't a good counter argument. It still remains that he went HT against tanks, and whether this is a response to the tanks or just autopilot/ what he always does, whats important is how he uses the Templar during the engagements (like you said above, its impressive). HOwever, the fact that he scouted tanks and still went HT means that he felt they would be useful against the bio-tank composition. A player of Hero's caliber doesn't just go "Herp derp I always go HT at this time no matter what so imma do dat", he wanted HT in his composition after seeing the tanks, and had plenty of time to get up a different composition after the scout. Lastly, watch the fight at 14 minutes in game 1. Whether or not Hero meant to use storm in the way I described in the above, and from watching the fight I'm 95% convinced he did, storm effectively prevents the Bio from clearing a path for the tanks to leap frog their siege position forward. How effectively he uses storm to accomplish this, and the amount of resources he invested in templar and storm research, tells us that he REACTIVELY made a point of getting storm in RESPONSE to tanks.
More simply, he scouted the tanks at 8 minutes, he had plenty of time to get up immortals and colossi ("the accepted response to tanks") but he didn't, he got storm. The fact that he always does this only implies that he has some good timings outlined for a build order that involves having storm and charge and immortals etc. It does not imply that these games exhibited a planned build order against tanks, but it is two examples of storm being extremely effective against Bio-tank. I'm trying to point out how Hero goes about using storm in the engagement more than anything, and while i'm fine with leaving the analysis open to interpretation, I'm saying that Hero isn't hitting a "money timing" with storm against tanks. You're saying its impressive he was able to utilize storm against tanks (I agree, it was cool as hell) and that immortals and colossi are the accepted response implies that you believe Hero's "build order" is meant to work against pure Bio ("standard play"). The above linked games show him deliberately, as a RESPONSE to tanks, using the same "build order" against Bio-tank.
And I thinkthe fact that HerO goes HT against bio about 90% of the games I can remember is a pretty damn good counterargument. Because you are using the fact that he scouted and didn't change as evidence that he uses HT as his response to tanks isn't cutting it for me. While I agree that he isn't going "herp derp I always go HT," I do think that he might see the tanks, and know that he is probably facing a push, so he might have to rush to HT and charge more quickly, but, ultimately, it doesn't change his mind. Might HT and charge be his response to tanks? Maybe. But it's no different from his pure-bio response. That's all I'm saying. He isn't changing his gameplan, and his ability to phase out tanks with a gameplan that he had probably already determined is important here. I think it stands as a testament that tanks are maybe still not effective in the matchup, but at the very least it's a testament to HerO's ability.
tl;dr: I'm not trying to be nitpicky, I think the distinction is important, and I think that HerO very well might use HT and Charge as a "response" (using the OP's language) to tank pushes, but it doesn't require him to change his usual PvT gameplan. The fact that he doesn't change once he sees the tanks at 8 minutes only supports the fact that he doesn't feel the need to change him game.
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The Terran player played really brilliantly in both those games and he still lost because of storms..
On topic, of course storm is super strong vs sieged tanks, because they are forced to eat full 80 damage.
And I think he didnt get storm just to defend against tanks. All protoss players get storm anyway since it is strong vs all and its a fairly easy spell to use and very damaging.
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"I think the distinction is important, and I think that HerO very well might use HT and Charge as a "response" (using the OP's language) to tank pushes, but it doesn't require him to change his usual PvT gameplan. The fact that he doesn't change once he sees the tanks at 8 minutes only supports the fact that he doesn't feel the need to change him game."
If this was your original point than I was getting lost/mis-interpreted you, which is my fault. Sorry about that, because I agree with this (the above), and this (the below).
" Might HT and charge be his response to tanks? Maybe. But it's no different from his pure-bio response. That's all I'm saying. He isn't changing his gameplan, and his ability to phase out tanks with a gameplan that he had probably already determined is important here. I think it stands as a testament that tanks are maybe still not effective in the matchup, but at the very least it's a testament to HerO's ability"
Apparently we agree? My main purpose for this thread was to discuss how effective storm was at beating bio-tank, but moe specifically the use/plan Hero appeared to have for the spell during the engagements. My responses to your response (Nuclease) were based on the idea that you were arguing he just went Storm and it worked out, while I'm trying to argue that he made a deliberate and elegant use of storm against the bio-tank army in a way that neutralizes one of the effects of tank usage: battlefield area control. My claim that his high % use of this build in his games is irrelevant was based on the idea that he made such a deliberate use of storm, hence I believe it was a response.
The difference between our arguments (I think….) is that you are emphasizing that he didn't have to change his game plan while I'm still hung up on how deliberate his usage of storm seemed to be during the 14 minute fight, and as such am overlooking that he didn't change what his game-plan likely was (all games considered). Essentially, I'm looking at his lack of game plan change as his effective "response", and therefore calling it a response. We may just be disagreeing on semantics/rhetoric.
-->A new debate could ensue here: do readers think Hero would have switched to storm if he had already been going robo heavy and than seen tanks? Is storm a more effective play against tanks? Not considering situational factors that would make one choice more viable, I'd be interested to here what people think is a better response.
All this aside, sorry if you felt I called you out. From what I can gleam here I think we agree/don't disagree pointedly.
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EPT
