I don't expect there to be 1 unit that counters all of these, but what is Zerg's best counter for a force of Thors, Hellions and siege tanks?
Thank you.
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I don't expect there to be 1 unit that counters all of these, but what is Zerg's best counter for a force of Thors, Hellions and siege tanks?
Thank you.
My strategy is to curl into a corner and die.
Actually, no, its not :p. But that unit composition IS a nightmare to deal with.
Look, even at 2 supply, Roaches are still going to be your go-to unit to deal with all that Terran firepower. They're not a hard counter, they're not even a soft counter, but you need their hardiness for your frailer units to do any damage.
The real key to defeating the mech army is to catch it on the move. If you can hit the Terran army while all, or most of its tanks are unsieged, you can put up a fight.
If, on the other hand, you are trying to attack INTO a fully-sieged up mech ball, or have such a mech ball fully sieged up on your doorstep, then your odds of winning will rapidly diminish!
Try and make sure that you prepare for such a Terran composition in advance. Fly your Overseer over the Terran's base - how many Barracks do you see? How many Factories?
If the Terran does go mech-heavy, try and tech to Brood Lords. This is a LOT harder than it sounds because you need to be constantly producing to deal with the threat of the Terran pushing out at any given time, but you always keep the tech to Brood Lords in mind. You need those guys as soon as possible.
In the midgame, you can try using Overlord drops, too! A Mech army isn't very mobile, so a good drop could be potentially game-ending. This is something I ought to do more often, myself. :)
He had harassed me a little with hellions, and I was still macroing up with an expansion by the time I saw a thor. I pumped roaches and lings to defend, along with upgrades, which was rather effective. After destroying his force, I ran to his base to do some damage with my roaches. They took out a thor and some hellions before the tanks sieged, who then proceeded to half my force with 1 shot XD. So I burrowed, and managed to ninja some of his SCVs with tunnel burrow.
My knee-jerk reaction to his tanks was mutas, forgetting for a while that he had thors. I tried some muta harass, but he had a thor in his base, and an army already outside my expansion. I tried to charge him before his tanks sieged, but I really didn't have much. I even popped some roaches up by his tanks, causing their splash to kill some of them, but I was really reeling by that point.
So, The best thing to take mech head on is Brood Lords? Yeah, I considered them, but it was kinda too late. The other guy told me perhaps I should just throw a ton of mutas at it; apparently it works well enough that he hadn't had it countered yet XD (although that might be because 2/3 of people play toss). And I'm sure my macro and micro were lacking, I was just hoping there would be something I could do to break it, should I ever see it again.
BLs and Mutas.
Focus on the thors, then trash the others.
Your strategy is to die, and die well. Seriously though, Brood Lords are just about the only thing that can stop that kind of force. Any ground force, even Ultralisks, is pretty damn doomed. Roaches can outlast Hellions, especially once they get their Hive regeneration upgrade. Siege Tanks murder just about anything though. Really, airforce is the way to go.
-Dread_Reaper
Dread_Reaper, you are almost correct.
If you can get a large enough roach force to move/burrow underneath the units, you should be able to do a lot of damage.
Hellions arent that good against roaches, but thors and seige tanks are.
Seiged tanks cant do anything against up close units.
I actually feel that the advice is lacking in one area: Why are you allowing the Terran to mass/ball-up anyways?
I think that strong Z will be pressuring T the entire time so that the T cannot secure enough expansions to become such a large threat.
If the T decides to turtle in-base and try to 'tornado terran' (amass a significant force, then swarm out), then you should secure another expo then tech fast to broodlords while massing roaches and lings. Lings still counter tanks and thors, while roaches will deal with hellions. The fact of the matter is, hellions are comparable to vultures 'with' mines (AOE flamethrower...), but a large enough mass of lings will still handle it. I think that moving roaches in first to absorb damage, then sending in swarms of lings, will definitely deal with a T force.
Of course, you must assess the situation with some overseers - don't ever charge into a T mass of siegetanks with anything. Wait for it to unsiege and move!
Optimally, however, this doesn't occur: you continuously pressure him if he is being aggressive so no huge T-ball is made. If he sits in base, tech high while massing. That's about all you can do.
Hm, no one mentioned infesters. Against terran, I think infesters are an important defense. having one or two infesters in that situation would help a lot. Send in lings/roaches with infesters behind for parasite on the Thor.
Hopefully, since your opponent has teched so much, you have mutalisks to take out the tanks, once the thors have been put out of commission.
=D
The problem with Infestors are that they are armored... they get 2 shotted by thors, and against siege tanks they are dead...
Mutas are a good answer, they are not hard countered by thors, and nothing else hits the airs, you can harass and use your mobility against the T.
You cant really stop a T if he has built his base well and holds 2 bases, he will mass up quicky, your best bet is to get another base ASAP as well and mass mutas. When you can attack try to spread out your mutas and the damage isnt too bad and they can rip apart thors in the right number.
I don't understand what you mean, neither Thors nor seige mode tanks do any extra damage to armored.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoywolf
If they were light, they'd get picked off by hellions. You should be happy. (picking off high templars with hellions is fun for the few times it happened.)
Tanks out of Siege do 15 +10 vs. Armored. Remember his shooting speed and you will understand which four letters do his presence claims for any Infestor - DOOM.
Thor - they just beat crap out of anything. =)
All the infestor abilities out range tanks out of siege.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kknewkles
No they don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kknewkles
...So?Quote:
Originally Posted by VVheat
Sometimes you won't stop terran from passing those two squares.
Oh, they do. Let Infestor stand a second next to Thor. You'll see what happens.Quote:
Originally Posted by VVheat
the zerg players who want to counter the metal armies of terran must have experience..
if you can micro like a pro there is no problem with thors,hellions tanks or vikings
use all the stuff that can help you
burrow is great for roaches and infestors
you can sneak roaches in the middle of the terran ball,unburrow them and then the splash damage from tanks will work in your advantage
sneak infestors on a safe ground and mind control thors..
get ling speed upgrade,use the high ground..
Your right thors and tanks dont do extra damage to the infestors, but either way Thors still 2 shot Infestors, Siege tanks range 13 beats your NP range 9. If your start a fight with T unsiege then grats to you, you have a very strong advantage over T now.Quote:
Originally Posted by VVheat
Other units like mara, stalkers, and immo do the extra damage to the infestors, i believe that was what i was thinking of.
I was gonna say what DutuCat said. But instead of just telling you the link and letting you watch Im gonna add some stuff here about that video as well. Realize that just because TLO used ultras, zerglings, and infestors does not mean that will always win. He himself suggested that he was not sure if this build would work on different maps because of what his primary focus was. The Terran mech force is VERY immobile. By using his unit composition TLO was able to spread creep all over the map and harass all game long.
I think the big thing that any zerg should take from the video is not the unit composition, (which is pretty good) but the fact that you need to harass constantly at many different points at once. You have to abuse the Terrans immobility; be it with burrowed roaches, burrowed infestors, speedlings, baneling drops, or drops of any kind. And never ever attack an entrenched Terran mech with the thoughts of pulling out the win, it will probably be a decimation of your forces. You dont always have to win a war by beating the other with superior forces, sometimes you just have to outlast them.
agreedQuote:
Originally Posted by silencbank
and always use the high ground,for me is the best weapon in starcraft 2
edit:and you must gather some experience,play some practice games with your friends as zerv vs terran mech
train your skills
Do you consider this balanced those? That as a Zerg player you need to be more skillful than a Terran? It seems like you need to put so much effect into playing Zerg just to have an even match, not even an advantage. I guess its hard to balance the Zerg without making it too easy to play as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by DutuCatalin
but who said that terran mech is easy to play,their immobility must be exploited by the zerg
you don't need to have awesome skills to use mind control or to do a drop in 2 places..
just practice..
Gain controll of the air, harras economy like crazy (so he can't move out of his base easily)
Do expansions like a madman. If you are in trouble of harrasing with mutas duo to tower or something try to sneak in some fast zerglings (16 zerglings cost 400 minerals so they are very cheap)
Idk what to do really when he comes in, it's really depending on how good you were at harrasing the gas since tanks cost alot of gas. I would actually suggest to just spam with MASS zerglings and mutalisk and maybe some hydras. You should try the tier 3 units if he got a really big army. They eat everything that has to do with mech. And since you hopefully already conquered the air nothing can counter the broodbrothers.
(new ultras slaughter mech if you got your ecenomy high enough, just attackmove with your whole army of zerglings + ultras then you micro mutas. Your army is problary going to die, but then you should have used spawn larva on your 2-5 expos and have a new 8 fresh ultras. There is NO way he can build up his army as fast as zerg can that is the key to victory)
In a straight head to head fight most zerg armies will just fall to terran mech. There is not much to do about it to be honest, except be a little zergy. You gotta do some harassment, do some poking around. It does not mean you have to be more skillful, just that you have to use yours skills in some other way then 1a2a3a. A very helpful thing if you go the way of the overlord drop learn how to do the moving drop. Here is a video of how to do it here if you do not know how to:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWjRvzrFpFo. Personally I agree with what TLO says "there is no such thing as imbalance, I just have to keep trying to find a different way to beat it". So keep practicing, find a person who does the mech thing very well at your skill level and keep playing against them...so in other words, practice.
In a slight tweak to what Twilice said what you could do with your big ultra/ling army is not just do a control a with all..but seperate the two and send in the ultras first. That way they will be the ones to get the tank fire first and your zerglings can come in and decimate. Unless the other player micros the tanks to kill the lings they will just fire at your ultra meat shields and your lings will do great.
Dark swarm, spawn broodlings, ensnare, maybe some parasite for map contro- oh wait no.
But seriously, do you think there is a creative way the Infestor and the Overseer can support a ground Z army vs a mech ball? I would like some suggestion in that sense. I mean, a mech ball is tier-2, 2.5. It only make sense to counter it with tier 2 means, not hive tech.
Personaly, I try to outmaneuver a terran and gain map control with either upgraded overlords or a nydus network. But this style of macro counter was easier in BW than in SCII, precisely because I relied so much on queens and defilers to harass and intimidate.
Micro, Micro, and Micro is important in Vs. mech, especially the early/mid game. In most ZvT's, you have to prepare for early harass (helions/reapers/rines), but thats just half the battle once you fend off early harass from a Terran player. Early harassment with mutas is very important if you see him going for a mech build. Force your opponent to stick close to his base because containing him will help you expand/upgrade. Also force him to build turrets, thors, and some rines. Exploit his base by finding "holes" of where you can poke a few buildings/tech. While you are harassing him, keep tabs of his army composition so you can create yours accordingly. However, do not over-produce mutas, because thors own mass mutas. Its important to exploit a mech build for their mobility. Drops, more harassment, and nydus worms can easily come into play. Its important to know what your opponents army is at all times. In due time, there should be creep everywhere, you should have +1-2 bases over him, and a good army composition(Roaches/Lings/infestors w/ parasite/mutas) to "widdle" down his main army. Its important to have to economy to quickly rebuild/tech up. In the late game, think about transitioning into Ultralisk (Ultralisk? YES! Ultralisk!). They are very very good against amored units. Brood Lords are good too, just make sure you have enough mutas or hydras to protect them if the terran player transitions to Vikings.
Personally, I despise going against a mech build. So many things can go wrong on your part, which I hate. I thinks its important to fend off any early harass from a terran player because this will lead to your early advantage in economy.
I think Day 9 did a daily with TLO vs Jinro, where he did a great job against mech. Look it up.
As a diamond league zerg player or at least I was till the beta closed I would like to throw in my 2 cents. Terran mech looses the ability to move quickly. Thors and tanks are very slow compared to a lot of zerg units and you really have to exploit this weakness.
Most terran will not tech straight into tanks and they will start of with an early harass with helions. If you look at my 12 pool double extractor strategy you will see that you can get early lings out and quick speedlings with early queens to spread creep as you approach the mid game with a stable economy. You can start spreading the creep and keep helions at bay with the speedlings on creep helions as they can easily be surrounded. To do an effective surround make 2 control groups and then flank the helions a surround on a helion only allows them to attack a couple of lings at a time and thus you get the upper hand in the exchange.
You can then pretty much expand at will while you tech up. Use your speedlings to get map control and keep tabs on what terran player is doing. You will want to tech to infestors and perhaps Ultralisks (like TLO did against Jinro) and keep that creep spread around the map to give you vision. Note that infestors can move while burrowed you have to exploit this to your full advantage a lot of terrans will not turret their naturals since they have thors out so you can effectively get your infestors inside their base without them knowing. Mix in some roach play with the speed on the creep and hydralisks if they go air. Hydras are just worthless off the creep they are purely a defensive unit imo at higher levels anyway.
So with your infestors in position exploit the mechs weakness and drop in the back door with roaches and speedlings. The mech will have to move to you by which time you can do a speedling run by at the front door (a 2 pronged attack) and as the mech army pushes up the ramp into their base you can neural parisite the thors and tanks and get the army to destroy itself. You can then pick your drop up and leave with minimal casualties. Note that fake drops are also really useful if you want to grab a free speedling harass as overlords can take a lot of hits from thors. Also overlord drops on tanks with speedlings is suprisingly effective. So you want overlord speed and the container slots and speedlings and creep to exploit the mech weaknesses.
If you decide to tech to ultra put them in the front as giant meat sheilds then run your lings in. Ultras own thors. If you find your terran goes for overlord sniping to delay your drops you can just get some hydras with range to deal with that. In the end you force the mech army to stay inside its base and you control the map. Of course good terran can always just outplay you but this should get your foot in the door... Literally. See: http://blip.tv/file/3732380