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On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote: Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo. E!
Yeah, the straight transitions into thors is not that good, but if you start out with siege tanks you may enough stuff to survive (assuming you are 3 bases, which means that you can produce about 4-5 thors at once (if that`s all you are doing).
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On January 21 2011 18:34 vnlegend wrote: I'm 2800 Terran in the Master league and lately I've been losing to Protoss a lot in macro games. I've tried mech, or transitioning out of MMM but it's hard as chargelots + colo/templars own me. Then I started using Poltprime's build and now I'm winning a good amount. After beating this P with the same build he says "fucking Terran and their endless 1-base allins."
I normally play Terran but I've switched to Protoss a few times. The last time I did it, all my PvT's, about 15 games, were Terran mostly 1-basing with marine/tank/raven/banshee +/- scvs. Unable to beat these builds, I said screw this and went back to Terran. So I kinda agree with the P earlier.
Is this how it is on the ladder? As Terran am I forced to play aggressively or be doomed to lose? My Terran brethren all seem to prefer 1-base timing attacks as opposed to stuff like 1rax expo. It was very eye-opening playing as Protoss because while I'm trying to do standard MMM and expanding, they're doing pretty sick builds. POLTPRIME!
How are most TvPs won?
Stim a-move?!
EDIT: THIS IS A JOKE
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try going for iEchoic 1/1/2. it forces the toss to tech in an unstandard way and lets you choose the gamepace
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On January 23 2011 01:23 Autunno wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote: Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo. E! Yeah, the straight transitions into thors is not that good, but if you start out with siege tanks you may enough stuff to survive (assuming you are 3 bases, which means that you can produce about 4-5 thors at once (if that`s all you are doing).
Why would you want transition into thors in the first place ? There is really little in the protoss arsenal that the thor is actually useful against. That, and the fact that thors are really immobile and thus don't work well in combination with bio. Also, the presence of one voidray on the battlefield can shut down thor dps due to stupid attack priorities (unless you manually target fire all your thors which would require like 500 apm).
Thors work well with other mech such as tanks, hellions and vikings. In this combination, they are not slowing down your mobility (since you are immobile anyways) and provide a good cover for your tanks.
I don't see any reason why i would ever get thors to add to my bio. Bio is basically a dead end, once you commit to it, you are stuck with it. Sure, you can add medivacs/vikings/ghosts but transitioning into something else will prove extremely difficult.
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On January 23 2011 01:39 Lurk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 01:23 Autunno wrote:On January 22 2011 04:21 vnlegend wrote: Anyway I've always lost while adding extra facts for Thors. This is because the transition from MMM to thors is too slow. I can get 2-3 thors out and P is already attacking me with colo+templars. I use the Thors as a meatshield but they fall fast and then I'm still dead. Ghosts are better gas investment imo. E! Yeah, the straight transitions into thors is not that good, but if you start out with siege tanks you may enough stuff to survive (assuming you are 3 bases, which means that you can produce about 4-5 thors at once (if that`s all you are doing). Why would you want transition into thors in the first place ? There is really little in the protoss arsenal that the thor is actually useful against. That, and the fact that thors are really immobile and thus don't work well in combination with bio. Also, the presence of one voidray on the battlefield can shut down thor dps due to stupid attack priorities (unless you manually target fire all your thors which would require like 500 apm). Thors work well with other mech such as tanks, hellions and vikings. In this combination, they are not slowing down your mobility (since you are immobile anyways) and provide a good cover for your tanks. I don't see any reason why i would ever get thors to add to my bio. Bio is basically a dead end, once you commit to it, you are stuck with it. Sure, you can add medivacs/vikings/ghosts but transitioning into something else will prove extremely difficult.
I`m playing mecha bio (more mecha heavy then bio) against protoss. Thors are good because they can take a lot of damage, they are not the damage dealers here (and also shutdown immortals, which are the biggest threat against a tank heavy army). But if you are going bio heavy I agree with you, there`s no place for thor in this composition.
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I agree that it seems that the stronger Terran one base all ins are the way to go at the moment - I am having basically no luck with fast expand mech play, as it seems to be quite easy for Toss to crush you before you reach a critical mass. I have lost a lot of games trying to macro hard as T recently vs Z and P (I accept that I'm not a good player), and I think I'm going to have to start making use of Raven timing attacks in TvP. As someone mentioned on the first page, a Zerg I recently played started calling me out as a 'noob' for trying to play Macro vs zerg.
I'm not saying any of that is bad, I just need to learn some of these 1 base stats and start using them to their full potential.
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[QUOTE]On January 23 2011 02:00 Trowa127 wrote: As someone mentioned on the first page, a Zerg I recently played started calling me out as a 'noob' for trying to play Macro vs zerg. /QUOTE]
I pratically only play macro game against zergs (Jinro inspired), and it has been work quite effectively against diamond level players. It`s actually easier to play macro games against Z than P, as Z isn`t that agressive usually (mutas are not that hard to counter as T).
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I've been having success drawing games out against toss- in general, I try to make it as much of a macro game as possible, and keep throwing stuff at them until they collapse.
Thinking about it, I think that I've ended up burning through their gas faster than I burn through my minerals, leaving them with no gas to keep making their units. Simply speculation on why it works.
I've had success transitioning into banshees when it gets really late, and I'm religious about my upgrades, moreso than my opponent, meaning that a longer game is better for me.
I'm also a cheesy bastard, and I try to stay one base ahead of toss, usually with my first or second expansion being sneaky. (islands on island maps, hidden spots on shakuras, extra mains on meta, etc.)
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Last month I try to do something else then only bio against toss, results: 90% loses of my 200 games agains toss. Im trying hard to optimize builds etc, but as times goes on, Im losing hope
After losing like 20 games in a row, i just decide to 3-rax my next opponent, and suprisingly, i ALWAYS win that game!
StarCraft II WoL is a quite broken game atm, you cannot "counter" protoss properly, because the unit compositions with gateway + higher tier is just impossible to break, except when toss screwes up when controlling or sometinh!
I trow all my hopes into SCII HotS, i hope terran will get some robust, rofl-stomping aoe units (like collosae or HTs), but stronger
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Depending on map and position i do 3 radically different builds. If it is a reasonably choked map and the positions are Far i go for a 1 rax into siege expand. Meaning i expand off 1 rax without any addon (just pumping straight marines). Usually if a fast 4g hits it arrives before i have the siege tech finished, so i need to build at least 2 bunkers to hold my ramp. Once siege is done i move out and secure my natural. From there on i play heavy mech, but this style has been somewhat hit and miss, mostly because i am not used to tank positioning anymore. If i make a mistake in my tank line the toss rolls me. If i do not make a mistake and keep my scouting up (scouting for a possible air switch of the protoss is VERY important. If he shows up with 5 void rays while you only have a few marines and thors as AA you are dead) i usually win.
The maps i play this build on most are Scrap station and LT (if cross positioned). On LT i focus on getting a contain up by the far Xel'Naga tower. If i achieve that position properly and reinforce no toss on 2 base can break out on the ground.
On Shakuras or Xel'Naga i play 2 rax bio into expand. The first rax gets a techlab after 3 marines, and starts stim immediatly. The rax without addon pumps marines all the time, the other pumps marauders full time (if i get my timing right i usually only have 100 gas for stim when the addon finishes so the first Mara gets "cut down" to a marine). As soon as stim is close to being done i move out and try to pressure. The timing is usually right when he is moving out to attack if he goes for 4g, in 4 of 5 games i have caught the toss in the middle of the map without a proxy pylon in sight (sometimes i am really lucky and he has his army "split up" because he didn't micro well, meaning stalkers in front of the zealots and sentries even more behind). in such a small micro fight on open ground my bio almost always wins. Sometimes they manage a perfect retreat with forcefields but most of the time i kill off his initial push and can expand safely. From this position i usually go for a 2 base raven, banshee bio push at around 13 minutes in the game. If the protoss has teched well he can have a colossus out, but mostly only 1 without range. If he went for templar storm research usually hasn't been finished.
The biggest weakness of the second build is the 3g1robo build so far. If he does that well (keeping his army together while moving out) i have to retreat up my ramp and fight there. If he attacks along a weird route i might miss his army on the way and end up completly out of position as well, both things hurt badly :/
Anyway, tl;dr from my (admittedly only diamond) perspective i need to focus on damaging the protoss in the early game before the true high tech arrives, or i need to go pretty straight for mech to be on an equal tech basis. Pure bio against templar tech or a huge colossi ball simply doesn't work (frankly it shouldn't work). So if he reaches that stage of the game i better have included some later game tech as well to compensate (usually either ghosts and vikings or ghosts and tanks).
Personally i feel that most terran ignore the absurd power of a raven in the early/mid game. A fast raven coupled with a 2/1/1 build which produces units of one base makes a beastly push and a 100% solid defence to expand behind.
Edit: Forgot the 3rd build. If i get a Protoss on steps of war (a map i absolutly detest and which i have turned down now) i usually go for a 3 rax all in, simply because i want to end the game. Hasn't really worked out that well lately, mostly because i have finally reached the level where people know how to forcefield a ramp :p
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On January 23 2011 11:02 Pestilence wrote:Last month I try to do something else then only bio against toss, results: 90% loses of my 200 games agains toss. Im trying hard to optimize builds etc, but as times goes on, Im losing hope After losing like 20 games in a row, i just decide to 3-rax my next opponent, and suprisingly, i ALWAYS win that game! StarCraft II WoL is a quite broken game atm, you cannot "counter" protoss properly, because the unit compositions with gateway + higher tier is just impossible to break, except when toss screwes up when controlling or sometinh! I trow all my hopes into SCII HotS, i hope terran will get some robust, rofl-stomping aoe units (like collosae or HTs), but stronger We have those. They are called Ghosts and Tanks. In combination they have the most absurd front loaded dps you can unleash on a Protoss ball i have ever seen. (Have a replay somewhere where a protoss practice partner tried to break out through a 15 siege tank line on LT. 2 Emps into the choke to help as well and he went from 200 supply to 45 (drones) in 20s.
Yes the protoss have nice toys, but learn to appreciate our own toys and it isn't that bad.
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1. Using ghosts in any and every situation. 2. Doing drops.
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I may be lucky, or I may have found something, but I have 80% win rate vs Toss as a Terran player. I am 2480 Diamond beating 2200-2800 Toss players. I have only one build I use because the TvP matchup is solid. It is typically a 2-Rax Fast Expand build. That may sound very plain, but I have found a very comfortable way of using the build. Sometimes depending on how the first 6 minutes go I may make it a 3-Rax expand. It's very flexible. I'd like to share it.
* Standard Terran opening. Get your Rax, then Gas, then OC. * Make one marine to threaten the scout and also patrol around inside and outside your base for Proxy. * Right after the marine, make a Tech Lab and train a Marauder while researching Conc. Shell. * Around this time you'll begin building a second Rax. Keep it naked for now, train marines from it. * Using the first marine, check Xel'naga towers. * When you have 2-3 Marauders (2 for close position, 3 for cross position) push out with your units + 1 or 2 scv. It'll be around 4:00-4:30. Conc. Shell will be finished, and as you approach the Toss base, be wary of the ramp. You'll be behind if it gets FF, splitting your army. * As you push, place your CC. Build 2 bunker (in case you must retreat)
3 things may happen: 1) You'll get FF'd out, in that case keep your army there for a minute, trying to bait more FF. 2) Stalker/Zealot. Kill the stalker then kite the Zealot. You'll have ~2 marauder, 2 marine in his base while his units are warping in. When possible, shoot warping in units because they take more damage. If he resorts to sending his probes at you, kite the probes in the direction of the ramp. Probes can kill your army if they get the surround. What you should do is keep luring them toward you because that's less mining time, while more units rally. Many times it is GG right there. (always target lone pylons powering buildings) 3) All Zealots. He's going for a Chargelot build. It is so easy to kite 3,4,5 Zealots with 1 or 2 marauders. Play it well, it's an easy GG.
Let's assume 1). You get FF'd out. You have an expansion, he does not. Retreat, build up a heavier army. I prefer 4-rax, 1 fac, 1 port. Start getting that MMM. Constantly scout to see what he's doing. From there you have momentum. Trade armies as good as you can in your favor, as you have greater income at this point and can replenish your forces faster, and Terrans in small groups are very efficient.
This whole build leads up to drops and timing pushes and mass expanding. It's the only build I use vs Toss of all ratings, and it works well.
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Once p has coll and Templar you will need to have good scouting to see his balance of units... More coll u get vikes, more temps get ghosts.. But I will say bio against coll and temp is hard. Crush him early before he gets both. Coll and temps are so much gas!
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TvP is a lot like P/TvZ where if you just let the P macro up you will lose. A lot of people seem to confuse well timed pushes and all-ins quite a bit. A marine/tank/banshee/raven push isn't an all-in even with 2-3 scv's thrown in. It's when you start send 10+ scv's with the push that it becomes an all-in. It's like most other timing pushes, if the push fails to do damage you will be behind.
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A Push can be all in even if you don't send a single SCV as well. If you mine out your main and natural completly while bunkering down to build a 200 supply army that push that comes out better win you the game or make a truly massive dent in your opponent because your most likely almost completly dry and won't have any chance to macro back up (never mind stockpiling extra production buildings or ressources).
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DISCLAIMER: I might not have taken off my "EMP-is-so-strong-dare-I-say-IMBA" glasses during the time that I wrote this post, and therefore might be basing the way a terran can play alittle too poorly. Also, sorry for the essay.
I'm having a problem seeing how so many terrans fear lategame protoss armies seeing as you have ghosts and their emps outrange a HTs storm/feedback AND it gets the sentries energy as well, so no FFs.
Basically this means EVEN if he has good spread of his hts, you only need 3-4 emps to cover his ENTIRE army. I mean protoss can do gimmicky stuff such as building pylons and warp in right at his army, but it's gimmicky. You can just not fight there or go in and emp his warping in HTs. He can also run 1 ht out at a time but this doesn't seem that effective at all cus you can just well, kill it(lol). Only thing I see HTs are good for vs T is storm drops, cus in armies vs T any player with good reaction time just emps it before it gets in range to storm. This is what I always face when I meet competent Terrans. Note that I'm not basing this paragraph off of PERFECT or REALLY GOOD micro skill. With decent enough micro and reaction time, this should easily be a feasible way to deal with HTs.
It feels like the thought process/gameplan of a Terran can almost always be this vs Protoss going into late earlygame-midgame: "Ok what units can he transition into, I can timing push him if he tries to get HT's because of how much time it takes him to get them. He can't really get phoenixes or voidrays due to marines + turrets being an easy and cheap way to defend myself against it. So that leaves me with colossus first, so I'll get vikings. Now I just need to keep track of when he gets his HTs out or go a couple of ghosts pre-emptively because that is his only other high tech unit he can use AND they're great against sentries + (possible) immortals." I feel this is what terrans are not doing enough, you can just do this forceful kind of style of narrowing down what choices he has unit composition wisely. Again, not basing this off of PERFECT or REALLY good macro/micro/gamesense to achieve, just being decent at these things should suffice.
And no this actually doesn't work the same way for protoss BECAUSE of the aforementioned large timing window for early HT tech or cheap defense to counter air.
This also means you are forcing him into colossus as his only viable t3 unit, or dare I ridiculously say coloss + carriers(LOL), but since you already went vikings you'll be countering his carriers quite nicely as well. If he even does this which I doubt he will, just scout it in time and don't let him get a critical mass of carriers and you're set.
Basically what I can see working is to just go excessive on the colossus (2robos) so that they live long enough to do their necessary dmg to the groundforce. For you terrans this means you can in a pretty practical way counter this through having a high viking count to ghost count ratio(this being due to not as many emps needed due to AOE). Or try some sort of colossus phoenix/voidray(to counter vikings) mix.
I'm obviously not a tip-top pro player who knows exactly what I'm talking about. Came up with this through just (maybe not so much?:D)common sense and alittle not so useful experience(look me up lol). This is the way I mostly THEORETICALLY feel terrans can think about and deal with protosses in a not so far-fetched realistic way that doesn't require INSANE skill to pull off.
TLDR; EMP nullifies sentries, immortals and HTs(cast range issues) so you can blindly go Vikings -> Ghosts/EMP and control his unit composition quite easily. If HT tech first = large timing window for a timing attack. Balancing your own unit compo.is not that much of an issue due to the lower costs of Vikings+Ghosts vs Coloss/HT(misbalancing unit compo not as dangerous as T vs P). Key word is control, if you are CONTROLLING the game, you are at an advantage to take the win.
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One thing, yes emp has higher range but your ghost isn't always in the perfect position (and actually if he is in the front line of your army you might loose him to a good feedback or fast colossus snipe). Usually in an endgame battle against a full Toss ball i hit most of his Hts and sentries with an emp, but 1 or 2 always escape me. Either because they lag behind where i expect them to be, or because they are at a weird position in the army (in the middle of the zealots, stuck behind an immortal completly in the back etc.).
Also i think you are disregarding just how expensive Ghosts are compared to how little damage they directly do. A Storm can kill an army (granted one storm alone can't, but the point remains it deals damage), an EMP can only cut down their shields. 4 Ghosts and 10 marauders cannot destroy a protoss army no matter how well they emp and micro simply because they don't deal direct damage fast enough. 4 Templars properly microed with enough energy saved up can lay down a storm field which only your marauders survive and those will be half dead by the time they get out. You'd be surprised how fast a single colossus can mop that mob of 5hp units up. If you build enough ghosts to completly nullify every single HT/sentry/immortal you won't have the Gas to stock up vikings to deal with the colossi. If you spend all your ressources on gimmicky stuff (vikings, ghosts) a simple zealot mob will be able to kill you (if he has researched charge, which trust me every protoss who lays down a twilight council has done sooner or later).
To some extent i agree with you. Even if i haven't seen a single HT in his army i will still have at least 1 ghost with me. I also have a single raven with my army and usually at least 2 vikings (even if he has absolutly no colossi in sight) just to be prepared, scout ledges, shoot observers etc. But those units cannot make up the bulk of my army, because they don't actually kill the normal warpgate stuff he has in any case. When i started to play i loved ghosts and built at least 4-5 every single game, but sooner or later i noticed that maybe i should have invested that Gas into something usefull like updates or medivacs
tl;dr: Everything in moderation, especielly "special forces" units which don't actually kill stuff.
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Yeah I don't think I considered many of the "human" and smaller factors of the game when posting, such as the ones that you mentioned.
I pretty much agree, and I like your EMP vs Storm comparison. I just feel that the difficulty of getting a storm off vs emps can sometimes be so hard that it almost feels too risky to even get them. (Which is why I try to just go for a slightly safer way of just overcompensating for his viking count with mass colossus.) If he hits a couple of good emps, I basically have to run and that will be costly because of stim MMM (concussive shell) killing off a good chunk of my army. Or fight a loosing battle just trying to take out as many units as possible to maybe save myself with templar + zealot warp ins after the fight. Very scrappy way of playing.
I might be underestimating the power of storms here though, because just getting even 1 or 2 good ones off can be quite devastating. Thinking back on it you will be able to have storms available more often than ghosts can have emp available making it possible to maybe "run" him over with storms(referencing to the previous paragraph). Certainly not cost-efficient though but definitely possible considering the type of economy you will have at the time that you get them(3rd on it's way/up and running, maybe even 4th).
This even shows in the pro's play as they never don't get HTs in lategame. Saw it today even in TLOpen. Some toss(on xelnaga caverns) just kind of wittled down the terran with constant storm drops and always kept a bigger army so he could expo safely. Just drain him out economically while still being able to defend. (Unsure if he actually won or not but still a very strong use of storms in making his gameplan become a reality)
I think all things considered, the gameplan/way of thinking still might be a viable way to see it as, just not as easy as I perhaps might be making it out to be in my first post. Actually kind of stating the obvious as it seems that this is pretty much what happens in any TvP, you go viking->ghosts except I was perhaps mistakenly thinking you could capitalize on it as much as I thought.
But yeah you terrans are kind of controlling the unit compo we get though. Because of what you said with the pre-emptive viking and ghost acquirement existing in your play and many others, and proving to be effective! Thanks for your input, given me some new ways to think of this matchup in. :D
tl;dr: I partially admit I overestimated EMP and underestimated storms, also thinking out loud about possible answers to EMPs. Emp-op glasses slightly coming off...
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I've actually kind of stopped playing because pvz is the only fun matchup. PvP and PvT are all about 1 base all-ins =[
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