Once you get to a higher level, cheesy things like mass Void Ray and Banshee rushing become far less common. But every game loss to cheese is a big reminder: scout, scout, scout.
If anyone wants to play/practice, add me:
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Neither of those strats are traditional sense of "cheese". Macroing up and massing an air unit isn't some kind of all-in, outside the box strategy.
Basically if the game is already 6 or 7 or so minutes in, nothing you do can be "cheese".
Agree that corrupters need a better ability to make them more interesting. Also, they pretty much suck hard compared to vikings and pheonixes. In my experience it's usually not even worth getting them over mutas since you lose the ability to hit ground for only marginal damage. I only get them if they have cruisers / carriers or if i want to go brood lords soon.
I got from Gold rank 2 to Platinum rank 20 in solo. My friend jumped some 120 ranks in 4v4's, to Platinum from Gold, too.
When it comes to hotkeying, once you have hotkeyed everything, just practice going through the key-combinations fast. For example, as Zerg I pretty much spam 5sd all the time I have nothing better to do early game. (5 = Hatchery, s = Select Larva, d = Drone.) The faster you can do these, the better, since you'll be using these a lot. At least 30 times each game, probably more, and then 5sz's (Zergs.), 5sh's (Hydras.), 5st's (Mutas.)... You get the point.
@Coramoor: Thordrop is still cheese, no matter what part of the game you do it in. You are going to lose if it fails and you lose those Thors. And those 5 Medivacs. (SRSLY 2000 MINERALS 1500 GAS WTF) It's bad cheese, but cheese nonetheless.
EDIT: [THIS] is one of the most epic replays ever. Really shows the potential of the Zerg when played by someone really good. It's like, 50 minutes or so. And it's full of action.
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS]@Coramoor: Thordrop is still cheese, no matter what part of the game you do it in. You are going to lose if it fails and you lose those Thors. And those 5 Medivacs. (SRSLY 2000 MINERALS 1500 GAS WTF) It's bad cheese, but cheese nonetheless.
Teching to tier 3 is cheese now? Not to mention if your drop fails you still have the cability to transitioning into anything you want since you did the 1-1-1 opener (destiny cloudfist if you prefer). If fast teching to a unit and attacking with it is "cheese, then" im not sure if there is any strategy that isn't.
Teching to tier 3 is cheese now? Not to mention if your drop fails you still have the cability to transitioning into anything you want since you did the 1-1-1 opener (destiny cloudfist if you prefer). If fast teching to a unit and attacking with it is "cheese, then" im not sure if there is any strategy that isn't.
Cheese is a pejorative expression which refers to a strategy that is highly unconventional and designed to take one's opponent by surprise.
I think a Thor drop would be considered "highly unconventional and designed to take one's opponent by surprise".
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The usage of the term "cheese" has expanded to include most "all-in" strategies which involve a great sacrifice of economy, though some StarCraft communities use the term even more loosely to include mid-game strategies.
It also does seem like an "all-in strategy which involves a great sacrifice of economy".
I think a Thor drop would be considered "highly unconventional and designed to take one's opponent by surprise".
Any kind of drop takes your opponent by surprise. I suppose this definition makes building a nydus worm at any point in the game "cheese" since few people build them and they are a surprise tactic.
It also does seem like an "all-in strategy which involves a great sacrifice of economy".
How is building the buildings you want to have anyway sacrificing your economy?
Also, please note in your quoting that only "some" communities extend the term to "mid game strategies" (which thor drop would fall under), implying that the normal meaning of the term is only for early game.
How is building the buildings you want to have anyway sacrificing your economy?
Because those Thors cost so much that if they are dealt with without them either destroying a huge amount of units or nuking enemy lair/hive/nexus/command/whatever, in most cases he can just retaliate and win the game right there. Or then he can just secure like 5 expansions. At once. And just overwhelm you and win a bit slower.
It is not necessarily forfeiting economy. It is forfeiting map control and sacrificing a lot of expensive units on a suicide mission just to hope to achieve one specific goal.
Drop of 8 Marines to opposing base costs 500 minerals and 100 gas. It is fairly reasonable to assume that even if these units get completely wiped out, you can still recover in a time frame short enough. Drop of 5 Thors to opposing base costs 2000 minerals and 1500 gas. And aeons of building time. And the whole strategy relies on getting these out quickly, so you would not have much of a backup army, either.
It's an all-in. It's definitely an all-in. I have never seen a Terran player pull this off without getting rid of the main building and win.
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Because those Thors cost so much that if they are dealt with without them either destroying a huge amount of units or nuking enemy lair/hive/nexus/command/whatever, in most cases he can just retaliate and win the game right there. Or then he can just secure like 5 expansions. At once. And just overwhelm you and win a bit slower.
It is not necessarily forfeiting economy. It is forfeiting map control and sacrificing a lot of expensive units on a suicide mission just to hope to achieve one specific goal.
Drop of 8 Marines to opposing base costs 500 minerals and 100 gas. It is fairly reasonable to assume that even if these units get completely wiped out, you can still recover in a time frame short enough. Drop of 5 Thors to opposing base costs 2000 minerals and 1500 gas. And aeons of building time. And the whole strategy relies on getting these out quickly, so you would not have much of a backup army, either.
It's an all-in. It's definitely an all-in. I have never seen a Terran player pull this off without getting rid of the main building and win.
Always thought of Thor drop as more of 1 thor dropping in quick as possible, not building 5. Even later in the game to get 5...
So your saying that if you fight their army with yours head on head and they win, they can retaliate and be in good position? Yeah it's true.... and applies to any fight between any units at any point in the game.
Why is it an all-in strategy? You still have your base(s) mining with SCVS even after deploying your thors, you have a healthy economy with good saturation (would have to have lots of mining to get that kind of money), good defense set up (would have to to avoid dying to early rush)? So what if all your units die? It's the same as if you spend money on that many infantry and sent them into their base.
"Sacrificing"? Why exactly can't you pull your Thor(s) out when they are getting low? Hell it's easier to retreat with the Thor drop than most other kinds of attacks. Not all-in in the slightest.
Forfeiting map control? Any time someone techs to something quick they will forfeit map control.
Do you think walling off and quick teching to Void Rays is cheese as Protoss? Do you think a quick banshee to harass minerals is cheese? Based on your Thor stance you would have to agree on both counts here. Frankly your logic is absurd.
So your saying that if you fight their army with yours head on head and they win, they can retaliate and be in good position? Yeah it's true.... and applies to any fight between any units at any point in the game.
Except to counter Thordrop, you do not even fight the Thors. You destroy the Medivacs carrying them. Fungal Growth them or come out of nowhere with Phoenixes, or whatever. When you fight army vs army, both sides get casualties. If your Thordrop gets countered, only you do. Once the Thors get to land in your base, it is already too late to stop them, unless you have Feedback/EMP.
Why is it an all-in strategy? You still have your base(s) mining with SCVS even after deploying your thors, you have a healthy economy with good saturation (would have to have lots of mining to get that kind of money), good defense set up (would have to to avoid dying to early rush)?
Perhaps I am too used to Zerg, but I really doubt an army with 35 supply disadvantage would do well even on their home turf. That's like 16 Mutas or Roaches. Or 70 Banelings.
"Sacrificing"? Why exactly can't you pull your Thor(s) out when they are getting low? Hell it's easier to retreat with the Thor drop than most other kinds of attacks. Not all-in in the slightest.
Because the Medivac is dead after being sniped with Vikings from the verge of it's vision. And the Thor with it, or then the Thor just had to land in a very uncomfortable position.
Forfeiting map control? Any time someone techs to something quick they will forfeit map control.
Perhaps I am too used to playing Zerg and having only one reasonable one-base tech option. (And even that one is one where you still need to have some control of the map.)
Do you think walling off and quick teching to Void Rays is cheese as Protoss? Do you think a quick banshee to harass minerals is cheese? Based on your Thor stance you would have to agree on both counts here. Frankly your logic is absurd.
Those Banshees are not going to die all of a sudden unless you leave them without micro. They can very easily retreat. And they cost less. Part of these points also stand with Void Rays: They cost less. You would get 8 or 9 Void rays for the cost, depending on how you value gas and minerals. (8= 2000/1200, 9=2250/1350) NO ONE gets 9 Void Rays in midgame, more less harasses with them without joining in with their other units.
And even if they did, those Void Rays would be dealing more damage to the enemy forces, even if they were ready to counter them. Five Thors forced to land out of position aren't going to do much on their own. They really need either a choke to defend or heavy fire support from Tanks. The fact that 500/500 of your resources are tied up in those Medivacs that can't even heal your Thors doesn't help, either.
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Protoss: 4 on Nexi, 5 on gateway (then to robotics facility), 6 on stargate. Warpgates have their own have a hotkey so you don't need that. Army for 1, 2, 3. In general I do 1 for bread/butter forces, 2 for spellcasters, 3 for air army. Also I'm trying to remember to hotkey 0 for observer. Memorize bread and butter units: zealot, stalker, sentry, observer. After that, memorize the less bread/butter: void ray, colossus, immortal, HT. Then the rare stuff: phoenix, carrier, mothership, DT.
Terran: 4 on Orbital command, 5 on barracks, 6 on factory, 7 on starport. 1-3 army support (usually it would be 1 for breat/butter, 2 for medivacs, 3 for special units). I memorize all of the bread and butter on my barracks, factories, and starports. So I've memorized marine, marauder, reaper, seige tank, viking, and medivac.
Zerg: I've been doing 4 for hatcheries and 5 for queens, but it's not working out. I think what I'll end up doing is do 4 for 1st hatch, 5 for 2nd hatch, and so on. I know the pros tend to do this, where they would go 44(click queen)v(click hatch)4sdddddddd. Memorize bread and butter as usual to start, meaning zergling, roach, hydra, and muta.
Thordrop: I've seen people do like 1-2 thor drops, but never something like a 5-drop all-in. So...I dunno? Overall, I prefer drops with marauders, since they're fast, mobile, stim, etc.
2 Dropships full of Marauders is ridiculous, consider that they can take down a Hatch/Nexus in a blink of an eye after stim, and you can even shift-queue drop with Medivacs, so you don't even need like 300 APM to do multi-pronged harassments like a pro.
I've won a few games that looked totally unwinnable because I went crazy with Marauder drops at the end, and then MULEd my way back to victory while my opponent was stuck remaking his expansions.
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Every instance I have heard Thordrop used in, it was multiple thors to enemy base and 250-mm Strike Cannons to nuke the main down.
Can't say I see people ever get this ability much. Does seem like a decent idea to get it and snipe the main base. Usually I see thor drops go for the workers and try to be out of there before the main army arrives. Or when their army does come, sometimes the thors can win the fight (they'll be ok against mass units like marines lings or zeals, generally, since their splash is so great). I guess you have this idea that the thor doesn't even fight back against the enemy army, just trying to burn the main base, I've never seen it done like that (seems foolish).
Except to counter Thordrop, you do not even fight the Thors. You destroy the Medivacs carrying them. Fungal Growth them or come out of nowhere with Phoenixes, or whatever. When you fight army vs army, both sides get casualties. If your Thordrop gets countered, only you do. Once the Thors get to land in your base, it is already too late to stop them, unless you have Feedback/EMP.
You generally pull the vacs back from the range of things like marines or hydras long before the army gets there. If they have air units, all the better for you since not many air units are good against thors. Your mention of only the thor side getting casualties makes me think again that you have an idea that the thors are incapable or have decided not to fight back, which once again would be foolish.
Perhaps I am too used to Zerg, but I really doubt an army with 35 supply disadvantage would do well even on their home turf. That's like 16 Mutas or Roaches. Or 70 Banelings.
Again assuming that you lose 5 thors and 5 medivacs and gain absolutely nothing, would require quite a control blunder for that to occur.
Again, those Infantry would kill stuff. Those Thors necessarily won't.
Why not? Thors are pretty good against buildings, and if you get like 2 thors with cannons, you could burn down a base very quickly, probably before their army could get there (assuming they are out at an expansion or in the field. Not as good as Infantry with Stim, prob.
Because the Medivac is dead after being sniped with Vikings from the verge of it's vision. And the Thor with it, or then the Thor just had to land in a very uncomfortable position.
Assuming they have Vikings (takes as long to get vikings as thors and vacs, so they teched as well), then it's good for you since Thors beat vikings easily. As long as your medis can get in without being intercepted by the vikings it makes it more likely you can win the fight.
Perhaps I am too used to playing Zerg and having only one reasonable one-base tech option. (And even that one is one where you still need to have some control of the map.)
Yes zerg are not very techy. Which option are you thinking of by the way? Muta, infest?
Those Banshees are not going to die all of a sudden unless you leave them without micro. They can very easily retreat. And they cost less. Part of these points also stand with Void Rays: They cost less. You would get 8 or 9 Void rays for the cost, depending on how you value gas and minerals. (8= 2000/1200, 9=2250/1350) NO ONE gets 9 Void Rays in midgame, more less harasses with them without joining in with their other units.
Implying that Banshees are more beefy than Thors...? They are more beefy than medivacs, but the vacs can fly away from the base until they are needed for evac so they don't come under much fire. No one gets Void Rays in the midgmae? I'm confused... tons of people do.
And even if they did, those Void Rays would be dealing more damage to the enemy forces, even if they were ready to counter them. Five Thors forced to land out of position aren't going to do much on their own. They really need either a choke to defend or heavy fire support from Tanks. The fact that 500/500 of your resources are tied up in those Medivacs that can't even heal your Thors doesn't help, either.
Void rays would deal more than Thors, because they would have time to charge up before the army got there.
Out of position? Your thors are in the enemies base, there is no better position than that... You force their army to come to you. And the medivacs are worthless resources as to healing, but you can make up that cost disadvantage by being able to rescue the thor.
Anyway it seems like the argument has shifted from "is thor drop cheese" to "is thor drop good". The answer in my case, is no for both... so we're on the same page to how good it is.
First of all, I think I might've been wrong in terminology, since I saw Thordrop uses for a single-Thor-drop yesterday on a stream. I will still keep discussing this 5-thor-dropping as "thordrop", because I have no better name for it.
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The issue here is that if five thors make it to the base and take the opponent by surprise, the strategy is already succesful. More often than not, if it is scouted, a few burrowed Infestors at the correct point can completely take out the Thors. Most of the time to avoid detection you have to fly on the edges of map, over nothing.
A well-placed Fungal Growth immobilizes your Medivacs there, then all it takes is a few hydras to down the 'vac. It takes 13 Stalkers to one-shot Medivac, two control groups of 13 can therefore one-shot two down in less than a fraction of a second from a large distance with surprise blink-hit, probably getting another two down before you can even react. (1.44 seconds.) Likewise, six Vikings can probably get two to three of them down before they Medivacs get to a landing position. Unburrowing Hydras at the edge of base can also screw you up really hard.
Even on maps where there are possible landing spots all around enemy base, just instantly dropping the Thors right where you have to usually does screw you up. Zerglings, when they have no threat of Hellions or Siege Tanks around really do shred Thors due to their large size and surprisingly ineffective attack. I mean, sure, thors might 2-shot a zergling, but you get 24 zerglings for the minerals cost of a Thor alone, and add to that the 200 gas? Yeap. This is why Mech builds usually have Hellions vs Zerg players. To shoot Zerglings. Thors get surrounded and die before they can get their money's worth of Zerglings down.
Can't say I see people ever get this ability much. Does seem like a decent idea to get it and snipe the main base. Usually I see thor drops go for the workers and try to be out of there before the main army arrives. Or when their army does come, sometimes the thors can win the fight (they'll be ok against mass units like marines lings or zeals, generally, since their splash is so great). I guess you have this idea that the thor doesn't even fight back against the enemy army, just trying to burn the main base, I've never seen it done like that (seems foolish).
The issue is that unless the strategy takes the opponent by surprise, I.E: Succeeds, the Medivacs won't even get to land those Thors, let alone pick them back up.
You generally pull the vacs back from the range of things like marines or hydras long before the army gets there. If they have air units, all the better for you since not many air units are good against thors. Your mention of only the thor side getting casualties makes me think again that you have an idea that the thors are incapable or have decided not to fight back, which once again would be foolish.
Thors are not very good on their own, and a lot of tricks can be used to catch the Terran player unaware. Such as Blink Stalkers, Vikings or burrowed units. Or then the Thors can just be swarmed. 5 Thors would need to kill 200 Zerglings, and that is assuming gas is worth as much as minerals, when it's actually worth more. They do not really pay their bills when they are not supporting Tanks and Hellions. They do allright splash damage and have a lot of health, but these do not really make them that great against mass units, especially considering that both Stalkers and Roaches can just burrow/blink micro for minimal losses. Thors can just stand there looking stupid.
Why not? Thors are pretty good against buildings, and if you get like 2 thors with cannons, you could burn down a base very quickly, probably before their army could get there (assuming they are out at an expansion or in the field. Not as good as Infantry with Stim, prob.
I.E: If my cheesy strategy succeeds at taking the opponent unprepared, it works. I agree with you wholeheartedly. That is the case with just about all strategies infact. The issue is that when scouted, you will not take the opponent by surprise. He will be very very cautious.
Assuming they have Vikings (takes as long to get vikings as thors and vacs, so they teched as well), then it's good for you since Thors beat vikings easily. As long as your medis can get in without being intercepted by the vikings it makes it more likely you can win the fight.
Actually, it does take one building more, Armory, but yeah. If you avoid getting intercepted you will probably win, although 5 Vikings are worth about as much as those 5 Medivacs, so he could make five without really putting himself at an disadvantage.
Yes zerg are not very techy. Which option are you thinking of by the way? Muta, infest?
Mutas. Infestors do not really work. All it takes is a detector to stop them from getting to your mineral line to screw it up, and beyond that they are not very strong in masses, since once they run out of energy they are useless, and they do not have much health or anything. And if you are going one-base infestors you do not get the map control back fast after your tech finishes, like you do with Mutas. So you're pretty much stuck with that base, probably against and expansion or even two, and will lose to attrition.
Implying that Banshees are more beefy than Thors...? They are more beefy than medivacs, but the vacs can fly away from the base until they are needed for evac so they don't come under much fire.
The Medvacs can be basically one-shot once they try to evac the Thors, or before. Banshees have cloak, allowing them to escape, and they have long range allowing them to shoot for example stalkers on the edge of cliff without them being able to attack back. And Banshees are relatively fast, too.
No one gets Void Rays in the midgmae? I'm confused... tons of people do.
Not NINE. At least not in solo. I do not have experience from 3n3 or 4n4, but you cannot really do all-ins there, since you got allies to cover your back. You can only all-in there if your whole team does it. I figure mass VR might work in 4's, though.
In solo, you only really get up to four Void Rays to get map control and use the threat to force opponent to tech switch or make AA-turrets. Or both.
Void rays would deal more than Thors, because they would have time to charge up before the army got there.
And because they are not useless if caught over impassable ground, and have more health to save them from surprises like unburrowing hydras. And because they can only be attacked by ranged units.
Out of position? Your thors are in the enemies base, there is no better position than that... You force their army to come to you. And the medivacs are worthless resources as to healing, but you can make up that cost disadvantage by being able to rescue the thor.
This is, again, assuming that you get to surprise your opponent. That is really bold assumption, and if you are having the surprise element you probably would win with about a dozen strategies. Non-scouted Banshees can probably down two commands before the opponent even has a detector up.
Anyway it seems like the argument has shifted from "is thor drop cheese" to "is thor drop good". The answer in my case, is no for both... so we're on the same page to how good it is.
What I am trying to prove here is that if the Thor Drop fails, you basically lose, making it at the very least an all-in strategy if not cheese. It is also very powerful if not scouted (What isn't?), but when scouted it usually is dealt with unerring accuracy and extreme efficiency. Like intercepting. Or surprise. Or just swamping the thors and shooting down the rescuing 'Vacs.
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First of all, I think I might've been wrong in terminology, since I saw Thordrop uses for a single-Thor-drop yesterday on a stream. I will still keep discussing this 5-thor-dropping as "thordrop", because I have no better name for it.
You could call it a mass thor drop.
To be honest, I've never seen a mass thor drop, except when qxc did Teamliquid Attack where they get pros to do silly strategies against people on battle.net
The thor drop is an ok harassment tool but it leaves you open to attack if you quick tech to it because you might cut army strength as it's really gas intensive. It also means you have to deal a lot of damage with the thor as it does take a lot of resources to build, but this has always been the case with harassment since BW (see Reaver drops).
So i guess the crux of your argument is that the medivacs couldn't successfully drop the thors, which I don't quite understand because drops work all the time, generally with marine marauder or tanks, but a drop is a drop. Theres always space to sneak the medivacs around behind somewhere, and even if your opponent has scouted your medivacs they would need a significant air force to stop it.
Think about a map like metalopolis, where you can send your vacs to the edge of the map and work them around til your opponents base. The only way they would be able to have any advance warning at all is if they have flying units just chilling out there (since you main zerg maybe you don't think about the fact that air paths aren't as easily scouted with the other 2 races). The other option would be to keep your units back in your mineral lines, which leaves your other bases open to attack.
And then of course, if you get air to air to kill medivacs, then no matter which race you are your option is going to be countered by thors pretty handily, so they can just send the thors on the ground (I really like thors if you couldn't tell).
As much as I love Thors, I have to agree with Amadi. They are too expensive to be an adequate game winner. They're building killers, not unit killers. Unless they're supported, they're going to lose most of their major battles because of simple numbers. Their splash simply isn't big, or powerful, enough to save them.
I seriously am not sure because starcraft.wikia refers to 1-thor-drops as "Thorship", rather than "Thordrop".
All I can tell you is that most people, once they have scouted 5 Thors and Medivacs, probably keep scouts around the opponent's base. Thors are really slow and immobile by themselves, and Phoenixes/Overseers/Zerglings/Mutalisks/StalkersWUpgrade can really just fly/blink around not caring about them much. (I do not know why Protoss players do not do this more when they get the Blink upgrade, actually. Chasing that single stalker in midgame really isn't worth it when it can basically outrun anything. And I'd rather lose one stalker than get taken by surprise by any attack.) Oberservers are just basically made for this: If they are in the base, you'll know when he has lifted off with 5-Thor-in-a-vacs.
Terran main can probably just lift off. 250mm cannon only hits ground units, and with Thors' 4 6-damage attacks with 3-second cooldown, the 1-armor Command Center will tank for quite a while (300 attacks. 15 rounds from all the 5 Thors. 75 seconds.). And it could be repaired in the meanwhile. They would probably do some other damage in the meanwhile, though.
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Anybody knows when the patch will hit? I might have a LAN to go to, and there will definitely be SC2, but I don't want to practice strategies that are for sure going to be nerfed when the patch hit (5 Rax Reapers for example).
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The most I have seen Thor drop used is just one Thor thrown down fairly early to harrass and cause problems in the enemies base.
Multiple Thor drop is kind of a joke obviously the cost is very high for very little benefit.
But putting one down I think fairly early game while a bit cheesy is a decent strat on occasion especially if your goal is not always win with 100% efficiency thing.
Neither of those strats are traditional sense of "cheese". Macroing up and massing an air unit isn't some kind of all-in, outside the box strategy.
Basically if the game is already 6 or 7 or so minutes in, nothing you do can be "cheese".
Agree that corrupters need a better ability to make them more interesting. Also, they pretty much suck hard compared to vikings and pheonixes. In my experience it's usually not even worth getting them over mutas since you lose the ability to hit ground for only marginal damage. I only get them if they have cruisers / carriers or if i want to go brood lords soon.
Probably both.
Also, <3 4gate.
And lol at ranking system, our team was just promoted from Bronze rank 4 to Silver rank 6. We might actually place into gold at this rate!
ゆっくりしていってね!!!
When it comes to hotkeying, once you have hotkeyed everything, just practice going through the key-combinations fast. For example, as Zerg I pretty much spam 5sd all the time I have nothing better to do early game. (5 = Hatchery, s = Select Larva, d = Drone.) The faster you can do these, the better, since you'll be using these a lot. At least 30 times each game, probably more, and then 5sz's (Zergs.), 5sh's (Hydras.), 5st's (Mutas.)... You get the point.
@Coramoor: Thordrop is still cheese, no matter what part of the game you do it in. You are going to lose if it fails and you lose those Thors. And those 5 Medivacs. (SRSLY 2000 MINERALS 1500 GAS WTF) It's bad cheese, but cheese nonetheless.
EDIT: [THIS] is one of the most epic replays ever. Really shows the potential of the Zerg when played by someone really good. It's like, 50 minutes or so. And it's full of action.
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Teching to tier 3 is cheese now? Not to mention if your drop fails you still have the cability to transitioning into anything you want since you did the 1-1-1 opener (destiny cloudfist if you prefer). If fast teching to a unit and attacking with it is "cheese, then" im not sure if there is any strategy that isn't.
I think a Thor drop would be considered "highly unconventional and designed to take one's opponent by surprise".
It also does seem like an "all-in strategy which involves a great sacrifice of economy".
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Any kind of drop takes your opponent by surprise. I suppose this definition makes building a nydus worm at any point in the game "cheese" since few people build them and they are a surprise tactic.
How is building the buildings you want to have anyway sacrificing your economy?
Also, please note in your quoting that only "some" communities extend the term to "mid game strategies" (which thor drop would fall under), implying that the normal meaning of the term is only for early game.
Because those Thors cost so much that if they are dealt with without them either destroying a huge amount of units or nuking enemy lair/hive/nexus/command/whatever, in most cases he can just retaliate and win the game right there. Or then he can just secure like 5 expansions. At once. And just overwhelm you and win a bit slower.
It is not necessarily forfeiting economy. It is forfeiting map control and sacrificing a lot of expensive units on a suicide mission just to hope to achieve one specific goal.
Drop of 8 Marines to opposing base costs 500 minerals and 100 gas. It is fairly reasonable to assume that even if these units get completely wiped out, you can still recover in a time frame short enough. Drop of 5 Thors to opposing base costs 2000 minerals and 1500 gas. And aeons of building time. And the whole strategy relies on getting these out quickly, so you would not have much of a backup army, either.
It's an all-in. It's definitely an all-in. I have never seen a Terran player pull this off without getting rid of the main building and win.
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Always thought of Thor drop as more of 1 thor dropping in quick as possible, not building 5. Even later in the game to get 5...
So your saying that if you fight their army with yours head on head and they win, they can retaliate and be in good position? Yeah it's true.... and applies to any fight between any units at any point in the game.
Why is it an all-in strategy? You still have your base(s) mining with SCVS even after deploying your thors, you have a healthy economy with good saturation (would have to have lots of mining to get that kind of money), good defense set up (would have to to avoid dying to early rush)? So what if all your units die? It's the same as if you spend money on that many infantry and sent them into their base.
"Sacrificing"? Why exactly can't you pull your Thor(s) out when they are getting low? Hell it's easier to retreat with the Thor drop than most other kinds of attacks. Not all-in in the slightest.
Forfeiting map control? Any time someone techs to something quick they will forfeit map control.
Do you think walling off and quick teching to Void Rays is cheese as Protoss? Do you think a quick banshee to harass minerals is cheese? Based on your Thor stance you would have to agree on both counts here. Frankly your logic is absurd.
Every instance I have heard Thordrop used in, it was multiple thors to enemy base and 250-mm Strike Cannons to nuke the main down.
Except to counter Thordrop, you do not even fight the Thors. You destroy the Medivacs carrying them. Fungal Growth them or come out of nowhere with Phoenixes, or whatever. When you fight army vs army, both sides get casualties. If your Thordrop gets countered, only you do. Once the Thors get to land in your base, it is already too late to stop them, unless you have Feedback/EMP.
Perhaps I am too used to Zerg, but I really doubt an army with 35 supply disadvantage would do well even on their home turf. That's like 16 Mutas or Roaches. Or 70 Banelings.
Again, those Infantry would kill stuff. Those Thors necessarily won't.
Because the Medivac is dead after being sniped with Vikings from the verge of it's vision. And the Thor with it, or then the Thor just had to land in a very uncomfortable position.
Perhaps I am too used to playing Zerg and having only one reasonable one-base tech option. (And even that one is one where you still need to have some control of the map.)
Those Banshees are not going to die all of a sudden unless you leave them without micro. They can very easily retreat. And they cost less. Part of these points also stand with Void Rays: They cost less. You would get 8 or 9 Void rays for the cost, depending on how you value gas and minerals. (8= 2000/1200, 9=2250/1350) NO ONE gets 9 Void Rays in midgame, more less harasses with them without joining in with their other units.
And even if they did, those Void Rays would be dealing more damage to the enemy forces, even if they were ready to counter them. Five Thors forced to land out of position aren't going to do much on their own. They really need either a choke to defend or heavy fire support from Tanks. The fact that 500/500 of your resources are tied up in those Medivacs that can't even heal your Thors doesn't help, either.
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Protoss: 4 on Nexi, 5 on gateway (then to robotics facility), 6 on stargate. Warpgates have their own have a hotkey so you don't need that. Army for 1, 2, 3. In general I do 1 for bread/butter forces, 2 for spellcasters, 3 for air army. Also I'm trying to remember to hotkey 0 for observer. Memorize bread and butter units: zealot, stalker, sentry, observer. After that, memorize the less bread/butter: void ray, colossus, immortal, HT. Then the rare stuff: phoenix, carrier, mothership, DT.
Terran: 4 on Orbital command, 5 on barracks, 6 on factory, 7 on starport. 1-3 army support (usually it would be 1 for breat/butter, 2 for medivacs, 3 for special units). I memorize all of the bread and butter on my barracks, factories, and starports. So I've memorized marine, marauder, reaper, seige tank, viking, and medivac.
Zerg: I've been doing 4 for hatcheries and 5 for queens, but it's not working out. I think what I'll end up doing is do 4 for 1st hatch, 5 for 2nd hatch, and so on. I know the pros tend to do this, where they would go 44(click queen)v(click hatch)4sdddddddd. Memorize bread and butter as usual to start, meaning zergling, roach, hydra, and muta.
Thordrop: I've seen people do like 1-2 thor drops, but never something like a 5-drop all-in. So...I dunno? Overall, I prefer drops with marauders, since they're fast, mobile, stim, etc.
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I've won a few games that looked totally unwinnable because I went crazy with Marauder drops at the end, and then MULEd my way back to victory while my opponent was stuck remaking his expansions.
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Can't say I see people ever get this ability much. Does seem like a decent idea to get it and snipe the main base. Usually I see thor drops go for the workers and try to be out of there before the main army arrives. Or when their army does come, sometimes the thors can win the fight (they'll be ok against mass units like marines lings or zeals, generally, since their splash is so great). I guess you have this idea that the thor doesn't even fight back against the enemy army, just trying to burn the main base, I've never seen it done like that (seems foolish).
You generally pull the vacs back from the range of things like marines or hydras long before the army gets there. If they have air units, all the better for you since not many air units are good against thors. Your mention of only the thor side getting casualties makes me think again that you have an idea that the thors are incapable or have decided not to fight back, which once again would be foolish.
Again assuming that you lose 5 thors and 5 medivacs and gain absolutely nothing, would require quite a control blunder for that to occur.
Why not? Thors are pretty good against buildings, and if you get like 2 thors with cannons, you could burn down a base very quickly, probably before their army could get there (assuming they are out at an expansion or in the field. Not as good as Infantry with Stim, prob.
Assuming they have Vikings (takes as long to get vikings as thors and vacs, so they teched as well), then it's good for you since Thors beat vikings easily. As long as your medis can get in without being intercepted by the vikings it makes it more likely you can win the fight.
Yes zerg are not very techy. Which option are you thinking of by the way? Muta, infest?
Implying that Banshees are more beefy than Thors...? They are more beefy than medivacs, but the vacs can fly away from the base until they are needed for evac so they don't come under much fire. No one gets Void Rays in the midgmae? I'm confused... tons of people do.
Void rays would deal more than Thors, because they would have time to charge up before the army got there.
Out of position? Your thors are in the enemies base, there is no better position than that... You force their army to come to you. And the medivacs are worthless resources as to healing, but you can make up that cost disadvantage by being able to rescue the thor.
Anyway it seems like the argument has shifted from "is thor drop cheese" to "is thor drop good". The answer in my case, is no for both... so we're on the same page to how good it is.
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The issue here is that if five thors make it to the base and take the opponent by surprise, the strategy is already succesful. More often than not, if it is scouted, a few burrowed Infestors at the correct point can completely take out the Thors. Most of the time to avoid detection you have to fly on the edges of map, over nothing.
A well-placed Fungal Growth immobilizes your Medivacs there, then all it takes is a few hydras to down the 'vac. It takes 13 Stalkers to one-shot Medivac, two control groups of 13 can therefore one-shot two down in less than a fraction of a second from a large distance with surprise blink-hit, probably getting another two down before you can even react. (1.44 seconds.) Likewise, six Vikings can probably get two to three of them down before they Medivacs get to a landing position. Unburrowing Hydras at the edge of base can also screw you up really hard.
Even on maps where there are possible landing spots all around enemy base, just instantly dropping the Thors right where you have to usually does screw you up. Zerglings, when they have no threat of Hellions or Siege Tanks around really do shred Thors due to their large size and surprisingly ineffective attack. I mean, sure, thors might 2-shot a zergling, but you get 24 zerglings for the minerals cost of a Thor alone, and add to that the 200 gas? Yeap. This is why Mech builds usually have Hellions vs Zerg players. To shoot Zerglings. Thors get surrounded and die before they can get their money's worth of Zerglings down.
The issue is that unless the strategy takes the opponent by surprise, I.E: Succeeds, the Medivacs won't even get to land those Thors, let alone pick them back up.
Thors are not very good on their own, and a lot of tricks can be used to catch the Terran player unaware. Such as Blink Stalkers, Vikings or burrowed units. Or then the Thors can just be swarmed. 5 Thors would need to kill 200 Zerglings, and that is assuming gas is worth as much as minerals, when it's actually worth more. They do not really pay their bills when they are not supporting Tanks and Hellions. They do allright splash damage and have a lot of health, but these do not really make them that great against mass units, especially considering that both Stalkers and Roaches can just burrow/blink micro for minimal losses. Thors can just stand there looking stupid.
I.E: If my cheesy strategy succeeds at taking the opponent unprepared, it works. I agree with you wholeheartedly. That is the case with just about all strategies infact. The issue is that when scouted, you will not take the opponent by surprise. He will be very very cautious.
Actually, it does take one building more, Armory, but yeah. If you avoid getting intercepted you will probably win, although 5 Vikings are worth about as much as those 5 Medivacs, so he could make five without really putting himself at an disadvantage.
Mutas. Infestors do not really work. All it takes is a detector to stop them from getting to your mineral line to screw it up, and beyond that they are not very strong in masses, since once they run out of energy they are useless, and they do not have much health or anything. And if you are going one-base infestors you do not get the map control back fast after your tech finishes, like you do with Mutas. So you're pretty much stuck with that base, probably against and expansion or even two, and will lose to attrition.
The Medvacs can be basically one-shot once they try to evac the Thors, or before. Banshees have cloak, allowing them to escape, and they have long range allowing them to shoot for example stalkers on the edge of cliff without them being able to attack back. And Banshees are relatively fast, too.
Not NINE. At least not in solo. I do not have experience from 3n3 or 4n4, but you cannot really do all-ins there, since you got allies to cover your back. You can only all-in there if your whole team does it. I figure mass VR might work in 4's, though.
In solo, you only really get up to four Void Rays to get map control and use the threat to force opponent to tech switch or make AA-turrets. Or both.
And because they are not useless if caught over impassable ground, and have more health to save them from surprises like unburrowing hydras. And because they can only be attacked by ranged units.
This is, again, assuming that you get to surprise your opponent. That is really bold assumption, and if you are having the surprise element you probably would win with about a dozen strategies. Non-scouted Banshees can probably down two commands before the opponent even has a detector up.
What I am trying to prove here is that if the Thor Drop fails, you basically lose, making it at the very least an all-in strategy if not cheese. It is also very powerful if not scouted (What isn't?), but when scouted it usually is dealt with unerring accuracy and extreme efficiency. Like intercepting. Or surprise. Or just swamping the thors and shooting down the rescuing 'Vacs.
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You could call it a mass thor drop.
To be honest, I've never seen a mass thor drop, except when qxc did Teamliquid Attack where they get pros to do silly strategies against people on battle.net
The thor drop is an ok harassment tool but it leaves you open to attack if you quick tech to it because you might cut army strength as it's really gas intensive. It also means you have to deal a lot of damage with the thor as it does take a lot of resources to build, but this has always been the case with harassment since BW (see Reaver drops).
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So i guess the crux of your argument is that the medivacs couldn't successfully drop the thors, which I don't quite understand because drops work all the time, generally with marine marauder or tanks, but a drop is a drop. Theres always space to sneak the medivacs around behind somewhere, and even if your opponent has scouted your medivacs they would need a significant air force to stop it.
Think about a map like metalopolis, where you can send your vacs to the edge of the map and work them around til your opponents base. The only way they would be able to have any advance warning at all is if they have flying units just chilling out there (since you main zerg maybe you don't think about the fact that air paths aren't as easily scouted with the other 2 races). The other option would be to keep your units back in your mineral lines, which leaves your other bases open to attack.
And then of course, if you get air to air to kill medivacs, then no matter which race you are your option is going to be countered by thors pretty handily, so they can just send the thors on the ground (I really like thors if you couldn't tell).
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All I can tell you is that most people, once they have scouted 5 Thors and Medivacs, probably keep scouts around the opponent's base. Thors are really slow and immobile by themselves, and Phoenixes/Overseers/Zerglings/Mutalisks/StalkersWUpgrade can really just fly/blink around not caring about them much. (I do not know why Protoss players do not do this more when they get the Blink upgrade, actually. Chasing that single stalker in midgame really isn't worth it when it can basically outrun anything. And I'd rather lose one stalker than get taken by surprise by any attack.) Oberservers are just basically made for this: If they are in the base, you'll know when he has lifted off with 5-Thor-in-a-vacs.
Terran main can probably just lift off. 250mm cannon only hits ground units, and with Thors' 4 6-damage attacks with 3-second cooldown, the 1-armor Command Center will tank for quite a while (300 attacks. 15 rounds from all the 5 Thors. 75 seconds.). And it could be repaired in the meanwhile. They would probably do some other damage in the meanwhile, though.
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Multiple Thor drop is kind of a joke obviously the cost is very high for very little benefit.
But putting one down I think fairly early game while a bit cheesy is a decent strat on occasion especially if your goal is not always win with 100% efficiency thing.
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