Application

Handle - Lipski
league + points - ~3100 Masters league on EU server
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one half page analysis of some aspect of the game you find interesting.

okay, so i've been trying mech in tvp. reason is: bio gets smashed lategame by any decent toss unless you've secured your lead in midgame. factory units are beefier, so i wanted to check out if they are viable. as of now i think pure mech (without any marines/marauders) is shit against protoss. and the reason is simple: tank!
tanks are great in tvz and tvt. in tvp not so much because protoss is able to capitalize on every single tank weakness easier than T or Z. weaknesses of tank in tvp are:
- mobility (they move at a standard 2.25 movespeed, like bio, but take time sieging and unsieging + they got bigger collision radius)
- they must be sieged when you engage protoss army (exeption being early game against immortals and small numbers of stalkers)
- are very gas heavy (125 gas)
- are not easily replenishable (require factory with techlab to be build)

now take a look at protoss. protoss can abuse tank immobility by getting blink + charge to hit terran where he does not have tanks AND these upgrades are also very good in straight up fight involving siege tanks too. going tanks means you can't be aggresive with drop play early (not enough gas), so protoss can't be harrased. protoss natural reaction to seeing tank heavy composition is getting immortals from a robotic facility which protoss will have 90% of the time. immortals are great against tanks (and any armored ground unit). terran can combat immortals by getting ghosts (which are great against any toss unit), but, again, ghosts are super gas heavy. tanks are okayish agaist collosi, but collosi are still able to trade with tanks cost-effective unless terran got better positioning (and then, again, protoss can simply combat this by deciding to not engage). stargate units all do good against tanks - phoenix able to lift it, voidray obviously (and does good against other mech too, thors etc). the only protoss tech route whioch seems useless against tank heavy composition is templar tech, the bane of bio.

all protoss responses to tanks (chargelots, immortals, phoenix, collosi, voidray) can be dealt with by terran, but require diffrent and often costly responses. getting templar tech is not really great for protoss as dts and ht are kinda useless against tanks, BUT can morph into archon that takes tank damage good (and reduces spash significantly due to size). it feels like regardless of which tech route protoss chooses - it can be decent against tanks. i've seen some tries by terrans (griffith and avilo come to mind) that use mech against p with success
, but it feels fragile. some interesting ideas include dumping minerals to mass turrets to combat air, and planetary fortresses (to close unfavorable attack paths) etc.
i think there is a LOT to explore in mech tvp.

i think mech tvp can be figured out if we can somehow learn how to exactly react to what protoss is doing, or move away from tank heavy composition in favor of thors (thors got their own set of weaknesses though), or mix mech with bio. or move towards mass air versus toss.


attach two recent replays of your play.
1)
2)

seems like forum does not allow links to be posted, so again:

link to profile:eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1127161/1/Lipski

replays:
sc2replayed.com/replays/147564-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
sc2replayed.com/replays/147559-1v1-terran-metalopolis

Can you go back and format your post a bit more? If you look at some of the other applications you'll see kind of what I'm talking about. Use more paragraphs. Title your sections. Put space in your post so it's a bit easier to read.

I don't really agree with your assessment that tanks are useless - I've found that tanks are one of the only ways to actually hold a position against protoss and push them once the amulet + colossus + charge is done.

ok, so my first post formatted a bit:

mech tvp
okay, so i've been trying mech in tvp. reason is: bio gets smashed lategame by any decent toss unless you've secured your lead in midgame. factory units are beefier, so i wanted to check out if they are viable. as of now i think pure mech (without any marines/marauders) is shit against protoss. and the reason is simple: tank!
tanks are great in tvz and tvt. in tvp not so much because protoss is able to capitalize on every single tank weakness easier than T or Z.

weaknesses of tank in tvp are:
- mobility (they move at a standard 2.25 movespeed, like bio, but take time sieging and unsieging + they got bigger collision radius)
- they must be sieged when you engage protoss army (exeption being early game against immortals and small numbers of stalkers)
- are very gas heavy (125 gas)
- are not easily replenishable (require factory with techlab to be build)

protoss responses
now take a look at protoss.
protoss can abuse tank immobility by getting blink + charge to hit terran where he does not have tanks AND these upgrades are also very good in straight up fight involving siege tanks too. going tanks means you can't be aggresive with drop play early (not enough gas), so protoss can't be harrased.

protoss natural reaction to seeing tank heavy composition is getting immortals from a robotic facility which protoss will have 90% of the time. immortals are great against tanks (and any armored ground unit). terran can combat immortals by getting ghosts (which are great against any toss unit), but, again, ghosts are super gas heavy.

tanks are okayish agaist collosi, but collosi are still able to trade with tanks cost-effective unless terran got better positioning (and then, again, protoss can simply combat this by deciding to not engage). stargate units all do good against tanks - phoenix able to lift it, voidray obviously (and does good against other mech too, thors etc).
the only protoss tech route whioch seems useless against tank heavy composition is templar tech, the bane of bio.

all protoss responses to tanks (chargelots, immortals, phoenix, collosi, voidray) can be dealt with by terran, but require diffrent and often costly responses. getting templar tech is not really great for protoss as dts and ht are kinda useless against tanks, BUT can morph into archon that takes tank damage good (and reduces spash significantly due to size). it feels like regardless of which tech route protoss chooses - it can be decent against tanks.

i've seen some tries by terrans (griffith and avilo come to mind) that use mech against p with success, but it feels fragile. some interesting ideas include dumping minerals to mass turrets to combat air, and planetary fortresses (to close unfavorable attack paths) etc.
i think there is a LOT to explore in mech tvp.

summary
i think mech tvp can be figured out if we can somehow learn how to exactly react to what protoss is doing, or move away from tank heavy composition in favor of thors (thors got their own set of weaknesses though), or mix mech with bio. or move towards mass air versus toss.



and response to qxc's post:
to clarify - i never said tanks are useless. what i mean that going tank centric composition poses a number of problems against any race, and i've found protoss had by far the most tools to capitalize on such composition AND terran responses to that are costly and often require tech switch.

I've found that tanks are one of the only ways to actually hold a position against protoss and push them once the amulet + colossus + charge is done.

tanks + what?
i'll agree that mostly bio + mixed tanks (something that naama did in dreamhack winter 2010 vs mana) is great for HOLDING position against protoss attack, but what then?
amulet is still in the game, so warpin storm, even after you crush protoss army, greets your bioball whenever you try to advance on any pylon-powered protoss position, whittling your bio down. doing tank leapfroggin slows your push so much, that it allows protoss to rebuild army, and adjust his composition.

not to mention that due to tank mobility protoss could've attacked where you didnt have tanks and your army. how did you prevent that? this is another problem - you either need to threaten with fast counterattack, or cut off/slow down other paths of attack. this can be done with MMM + tanks, it's harder/impossible with pure mech. and it was pure mech i've been talking about and trying out recently.

i've got nice game that showcases what i'm talking about:sc2replayed.com/replays/147591-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns

jump straight to 17.30. disregard earlier battles and his harrasment - this is just me being bad and reacting slowly. at 17.30 he's got slight food lead, but army value wise we're even. i've got tanks + blueflame hellion + ghosts on the way, he has standard protoss ball - collosi, chargelots, ht, some immortals. as i try to push he immediately counters, and crushes my pf at my third. i can't possibly defend it. i try to reposition my army and manage to siege in time, but he still rolls me over with collosi + zealots. i try to retake my third, and get rolled again in process.

i want to say that this only showcases weaknesses of tank-centric unit composition i've been trying to work on. i have no definitive answers, i even won some of my games like that and feel tank-centric mech can be viable, but there are things that have to be figured out first. as of now - tanks sucks tvp, unless they are addition to mainly MMM-centric army.

Like many builds, builds which include tanks in TvP are rather map dependent. Xel'Naga Caverns has some good choke points for tanks but lots of open space and lots of flanking routes that allow you to exploit the map with a more mobile force. I think tank-centric mech play is certainly viable on maps like Scrap Station, which is basically one big hallway.

I actually have a friend that regularly fucks me up in TvP with tank marine. Next time he does it I can post a replay, it's a pretty solid timing where protoss doesn't have blink/charge (unless they rushed for it) and robo units are low unless protoss cuts observers. If I had to take a stab at the build I would say 2 rax MM --> expand with 2 factory siege and 3 rax stimmed marine.

EDIT: This is pretty map dependent, if you have ever played GSL Crossfire SE (love that map) it works ideally on that kind of terrain. Fairly narrow, lots of high ground.

Like many builds, builds which include tanks in TvP are rather map dependent. Xel'Naga Caverns has some good choke points for tanks but lots of open space and lots of flanking routes that allow you to exploit the map with a more mobile force. I think tank-centric mech play is certainly viable on maps like Scrap Station, which is basically one big hallway.

yes, tanks are great on scrap, and map obviously plays a role here. but apart of scrap station all the maps have 2+ main attack routes (and scrap station do have middle route blocked by rocks anyways). shakuras plateau had one main attack route too, and got removed for this reason. blizzard don't want that kind of maps, they stated it when they changed ladder map pool recently.

my main problem is forcing protoss to engage when i'm tank heavy. in the replay i posted, our armies were similar in size and value, and i'm pretty sure i would win or we would have an even trade if i managed to battle before my 3rd got sniped. i tried building planetary fortresses to cut off or slow down advancement of protoss army, but in mid and lategame is takes like 3 sec for protoss to snipe pf when it's not repaired.