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TvZ Mech Play
Introduction:
Hi, I'm Pam/Jicks, high random master on the european server This thread is about TvZ Mech Play, especially about a deadly timing push This is a build which took me time to refine/optimize, each step are important and thoughtful I have huge result with it, taking several wins against better player than me. it's not a cheese and it's really hard for the zerg to deal with it, there is no hardcounter to this push. It works on each maps, even the biggest, some adjustements are needed such as a flying rax for shakuras plateau for instance. About Mech Play, I'll developp it in its paragraph, but it doesn't require much apm to execute.
Overview: + Show Spoiler +
The build starts with factory/reactor expand, something common, bringing its flaws/advantages already known. The idea is to show to the zerg standard play, and surprise him with tight timing and BFH Map control is quite easy to take with the helions, with active scouting you can take your expand quickly and safe This push really punishes greedy zerg/teching zerg, hitting before muta/infestors, and with proper control you can save enough units to deal with them in the zerg base You don't have to deal with speedbanes neither, and 2 bases bling allin are easy to handle with the helions At home, it targets the late game, with double armory/third expand quite early, and you have the time to react to the zerg's tech choice (except drop, but if he has search it before the push you kill him before it finishes) Great against ling/bling Needs adjustement against roaches
The build order: + Show Spoiler +
Constant Svc/Supply production as needed 10 supply 12 rax 13 extractor 15 orbital command 16 supply 2 - 3 marines 18 factory (@100gaz) 19 reactor (@50gaz) 20 command center (@400 minerals) 22 second extractor 22 supply 2 helions 27 second factory 29 tech lab on the barrack Switch with the factory as soon as the third helion is out, begin harass Constant marine production Produce in this order: 2 tanks, Blue flames upgrades, constant helion production, siege mode upgrade Push towards the zerg base at the 8 minutes mark with 2 tanks, 5 - 8 helions (if the first three are alive) ~~ 10 marines and 2 svc on auto repair Rally the helion production on the tanks, Keep a scout near the zerg base to stop creep spread Variation: If you scout/feel that the zerg is going roaches, skip blue flames upgrades, produce 3 tanks before siege mode, do a fourth after and go push at 40/80 siege mode tech You'll need more svc to be efficient, siege wisely Drop play: At this stage of the game (only 2 gaz), it's really penalizing to seek another tech, so it's possible to do elevator drop play with helions and marine while taking a third, but it doesn't blend that much with mech play from my point of view Still possible, so i'll add replay picturing it
What if the zerg is aggressiv: + Show Spoiler +
Early pressure:
Going with 2 - 3 marine, faking a bunker rush ಠ_ಠ
Early pressure from the zerg: There's some option that the z has, most of them are bad and easy to deal with If you don't see an expo/delayed one, put a bunker one bloc away of your supply, keep your units at home, 1 - 2 svc near the supply-bunker in auto repair Baneling bust: Easy to deal with, proper macro with helions is needed, the bunker keep the marine alive Roach Rush (+ sling): Definitely the most threatening one, but with enough svc to keep the bunker and supply alive (so the roaches can't hit the bunker), you're ahead as long as you took these precautions I won several games being roach busted (without scouting it), with svc loss
Pressure after hatch first: As you have map control with the helions, you can see it coming, it's key to keep these helions alive Roaches bust: Not viable, the tanks will be out in time, really easy to micro when they're out of their creep. Keep the build order, it's standard to transition into mass sling right after that Mass sling: A wall of supply with one bunker is needed, and good helions control 2 base banelings bust: looks ok to deal with before blue flames, easy once they're done Similar push timing: While moving, put your helions in a different group and clean the towers, if the zerg tries to be aggressiv, you should see it Off creep, as long as you're keeping your units together, you'll be ahead
While Pushing: + Show Spoiler + Constant svc production, constant helion production, constant supply production At home you need to Put an ebay Double extrator at the expand Double armory produce a second reactor on the rax Add a third factory on the vacant reactor If you see spire, add 2 - 3 turrets per expand to be totally safe, produce thors If you see roaches, stop helion production, do a wall of supply with one bunker, keep in mind to place your tanks out of their range, turret at the entrance of your base If you see infestor pit, you should have already won the game :o). turret at the entrance of your base Launch third CC inbase
About Mech Play - Late game: + Show Spoiler + You'll hear and read a lot of things about Mech play, the main thing is its supposed slowness I RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE WITH THAT What are the cores of your army ? Thors and tanks Tank is the core army of marine tank, Medivacs and marines allow some shenanigans (but the same can be applied for Mech play, you'll just need to add medivac to your composition which can be more helpful than expected) Thors is 1.88 speed, Tanks is 2.25, it's 17%slower BUT Mutas can't be boxed, and Thors have greater range. With proper home defense you don't fear muta If he has high muta count, so do you with thors, go kill him Thors with 2 attack upgrade 2 shot mutas You don't have to leapfrog, you can a-move behing the minerals of your opponent's main base, it's that APM-dependant Helions helps you deal with slings runby It's really difficult for the zerg to do roaches runby, and this kind of move is more of a suicide than the sling/muta is Plus, there's banshee to prevent this kind of thing A choice I make is not to do planetary fortress, you don't have to fear sling runby and PF is not so good against roaches) One bunker with marine + turret help against infestors-muta Map control - with helions, regular scan are needed to adapt your production to the zerg's Keeping the upgrades running is the KEY point of this build, because thor is imba, but 3/3 thors are insane Infestors - Regular comp with roaches: dealable with high tank count, but you really need to do good scouting to prevent bad positioning Heavy infestors play - with sling, eventually broods/ultra: Ghosts: Emp the infestors, snipe the broods/ultra, ???, profit Broodlords: Useless against 3/3 thors, they can't be upgraded as much as your army is
Replay/video support + Show Spoiler +Here are some replays Against top 16 gm Against Roach play Infestors play Infestors/Ultra play Masse speedlings + Show Spoiler +French:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoZqS9q4c50 Engrish:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dstYF2IyQe0
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Nice! As a new player every guide I come across is useful, and this one is not an exception. Thanks a lot for putting your time into this
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This gets a thumbs up just because of your accent
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YAY
thanks for sharing and vids and all that and just cus its mech and i play T!
thank you!
o yea u forgot, since u leave at 8:30 it hits right before early mutas too eh?
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This is a good build. I like to go double factory with reactor and tech lab and do early pressure on the Zerg so this will be a good slight altercation.
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Nice. I saw lastshadow do something like this on his stream a while ago. I like doing this on Shak as you can get a real beast contain on it. Good stuff bro.
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Hmm, it sounds like my actual build on the ladder, in much better since you put in it a good quick expand. I definitely try to update my build reducing the reactor hellions from 6 to 4 and putting down this CC.
Thanks for the build.
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Hmm this build is very good however as someone who's played a lot of Zerg I can tell you that if the zerg starts pumping out roaches as well as drones at about the 6:30 min mark zvz style they'll crush this timing. I'm just completely into having roaches early on in the game vs T rather than the nomal ling heavy style... But from my Terran perspective, and also from the metagame perspective I predict that if people start using this build more often more and more zergs will open roach ling rather then ling bling.
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About Roaches The third replay I've put (against xaM) shows what happens if the z goes roaches along with some drones (he had 39 when I pushed) he maybe doesn't have the best build order, but the game was particular because neither of us focus fired and I didn't siege, but in the same time, out of creep and without speed, I don't think it's easy to catch tanks if the t reacts, and has some svc repairing But yeah, ling bling is the easier to deal with (I do damages in a map where it's hard to push and without efficient micro) and roaches*sling can be hard to deal with (especially if I skip blues flames and he goes full sling after 5 - 6 roaches But the goal of this push is to keep the zerg at the same econ as the t As a zerg, my build is designed to punish timing push (a little like moon did to bomber during the dreamhack), so yeah I know the flaws of this That's a point I forgot to made in the op, the way this build can be adapted to the z behavior
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i have been doing something similar but your version is way way more refined. Very nice video and thanks for your contribution
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You should include the factory reactor expand build order too because I don't really know it.
Also, you should mention how many units you should have when you push at 8:30 mark so it makes it easier for the guide to be understood.
But yeah, I watched the english video, loved how you actually were able to express your points well enough that they'd be understood even though you're not too good at english. I've found myself too that mech play vs zerg is really good and I probably will try this build soon too.
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On July 27 2011 15:43 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: o yea u forgot, since u leave at 8:30 it hits right before early mutas too eh?
8.30 is way before early mutas. Early mutas will pop up at 10-11, but if you harras with hellions the zerg must defend and wont be able to tech that greedy to mutas.
I also play mech in my TvZs and i win most of em. I never tried this build, but i have to say that you need to add ghosts if your pushs fail more or less early, cause zerg will answer with ifnestors or broodlords to your mechcomposition, and ghosts roflstomp both of em.
GL/HF with mech against zerg, its pure ♥ to see 200 supply zergarmys go down while the mechplayer just loose 10 bf-hellions, 20 supply....cuuuute.
/edit: watched the english youtube video and think you easily won it with your first push if you microd your marines instead of let banelings run into them :D nice guide, will try it.
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This isnt pure mech, its more bio mech, cuz of you know, all the marines. Still not bad.
User was warned for this post
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Since I'm in one of those videos I feel like contributing :D
I have to say that this mech style is the strongest I played against so far. The first push is hard to fend off and it's even harder to catch him transitioning into mech. If you don't know this style as Zerg you will most likely make mutas which pretty much loses you the game.
Definitely worth a try.
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It looks great, but I feel that your number of units is very low. Mass speedling would own this, no? I also wonder how you hold a 2base baneling bust. This comes with some banelings and a ton of lings. Good work
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@Snowbear With BFH supporting this push. Nah! If Terran sees mass lings and blings he'll just pump more hellions, and after they are gone basically the zerg is going to be pumping out roaches.
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On July 28 2011 04:08 Squigly wrote: This isnt pure mech, its more bio mech, cuz of you know, all the marines. Still not bad.
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Ha i got warned for this. Must be some power drunk mod XD
Ive tried this build out and it actually works wonders. Thumbs up.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Very nice. Just watched the replays and will try it out on ladder later. Been struggling TvZ finding a good opener that transitions into mech midgame. This one seems great as you got the expo + tech but still allow to be agressive.
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I feel like there is a weak spot in this build and its what if the attack doesn't work and the zerg is able to push it off? I didn't watch the replays but from the YouTube videos i saw that none of them really didn't see you go to attack and therefore with out the scouting didn't make zerglings to defend. Zerglings very strong if you can contain the blue flame helions and better positioned banelings would have made it no problem to hold off. In the second video if he saw you push out he could've maybe set some baneling land mines which could've crushed some of the helions and marines and let the zerglings which shouldve been already made had he scouted you attacking clean up the rest. Also i dont like how in the end of the video the guys switched to roaches, i find that good muta control can easilt kill thors and lings to deal with the helions/marines. With more scouting I think the Zerg could have had more of a chance to win.
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On July 29 2011 01:39 Squigly wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2011 04:08 Squigly wrote: This isnt pure mech, its more bio mech, cuz of you know, all the marines. Still not bad.
User was warned for this post Ha i got warned for this. Must be some power drunk mod XD Ive tried this build out and it actually works wonders. Thumbs up. Dude you're doing nothing but trolling, and adding in the last line of bs 'still great' 'thumbs up it works'
c'mon dude.
Oddly enough, I was watching a TvZ stream the day before you released this of a 1 base marine tank hellion timing push that was almost like this BO to the DOT, sans the FE.
The level of players you used it against aren't slack at all either, which makes it even better. I'm always a fan of marine hellion timing pushes against any race...but to throw in an FE, and 2 fac for tanks as well? As decaf said.. I think any zerg that goes muta just auto losses once those 2 thors pop out and he can't deal with that push.
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