Thors just seem useless.

When should I try to use them?

I was in some 2v2 games vs Terran and Protoss recently, and they never seemed to do anything to justify building them.

I was using them with Marines and Medivacs, but it didn't work really.

Against mass Stalkers, they failed big time, and a single Siege Tank for each Thor would have done a ton more damage there than them.

Against Void Rays and Carrier spam they also failed: not doing near enough AA damage to be half worth it.

I got to use their secondary twice, and it may be the only redeeming thing about them- but its still pretty much a Siege Mode wannabe ability since there is almost nothing it does better than it.


Any tips on using Thors? Do they have some hidden awesome niche they fill against Zerg that they don't do much worse than some other unit?

 

Against zerg they are great. They smash mutalisks as well as all of their ground units when they have a bit of cover. You should also send out scvs with that.

Stalkers counter them as do carriers and void rays as they aren't light air and therefore take hardly any damage.

Siege tanks and thors mean you can have a tiny amount of bio and its bloody hard for me to throw anything at you.

 

Why not just get siege tanks against anything that isn't mutas?

 

Siege tanks are vulnerable to zerglings or just generally flanking. Thors keep up massive dps and if you have a few scvs on it also absorb a whole lots of damage. Like half my army dies if i bother to focus fire at the start.

Also zerg will always get mutas to stop your siege tanks with thors on the scene your siege tanks are much safer and will get alot more shots off.

 

The usual Marine spam keeps the Siege Tanks from getting killed by that, and Siege Tank dps seems much higher.

Aren't Marines better against mutalisks than thors?

 

Well... let me tell you this. Late game if I am zerg against terran and have a mass of 25 or so mutas I laugh at marines as they try to catch me, I focus down towers out the wazoo, and I catch and kill vikings. The ONLY thing that makes me cry is accidentally happening on 2-3 thors and before I can get away going from 25+ thors to.... 6

 

Massed marines is a death wish for terran even with siege tank support, baneling drop or just general banelings destroy your marines.

As reldric said thors are a wonderful safeguard for your army. Doesn't appear us down trodden zerg players can convince you anyway.

 

I might try them some against Zerg then, but they still seem ineffective- especially if the Zerg player gets Broodlings.

It seems like spamming Battlecruisers backed up with Medivacs and Marines would be better.

 

Thors are specifically designed to annihilate Mutalisk, Vikings, Banshees, and Phoenixes.

It has anti-air splash so it will absolutely annihilate those units. But it fires slowly and doesn't have any GTA bonus against armor (only light) so it's absolutely useless against anything else in the air (Carriers, Battlecruisers, Void Rays, etc.)

You can't blame a unit's deficiencies against other units that it's not meant to counter. VRs are specifically designed to take down high HP units like the Thor.

Now since the Thor is good against Mutas and Vikings, this makes it an ideal unit to use on the ground as a support role. The Thor deals 30x2 ground damage, meaning 60 damage per shot (with somewhat of a bonus against Light units I believe?) so it's great against most units on the ground while supporting you against air units. It's highly effective against Roaches since it can two-shot them with a +1 attack upgrade (against Zerglings +1 armor is ridiculous) and it's also fairly good against Zerglings since it can kill a large mass of them by itself and it's even more dangerous when support by Marines/Marauders. It also does a good job against Hydras, but Hydras can bite back as well.

Essentially, if you turn out two or three thors with Marine/Marauder support and a few Hellions tossed on the "follow" command on your Thor, you're pretty much invincible unless your Zerg opponent massively overwhelms you or has significant tech (Brood Lords). His goal is to keep you from getting that army in the first place.

So don't knock the Thor. It's a great versatile unit, but it's not a replacement for the Siege Tank. It just has to be used correctly. In fact, units that I wouldn't attack with the Thor would be:

Immortals (Do 50 damage to armored, their shield reduces Thor's attack to 10)
Siege Tanks (outrange the Thors and punish them badly)
Void Rays
Zealots (unsupported)
Brood Lords (keep the Thor from advancing, too high HP to be eaten by its splash)

Thor also does decent work against Stalkers but not ridiculous. You're better off pumping Marauders/Tanks against mass Stalkers.

Also, a quick tip for anyone reading this: Sentries get absolutely demolished by Reapers so you should try to take those out when you're hitting an enemy base.

 

Well, heres the thing. Thors move, sieged tanks dont. Also, contrary to popular belief thors are effective against ANY massed air. Granted their missiles are fairly weak. However, splash damage is infinitely more effective vs air then ground because air stacks up. So, 20 void rays attacking your 5 thors are going to take one HELL of alot more damage from each of those 9 damage missiles then you would think.

if 1 missle hits 15 things thats a whopping 135! per shot, back that up with a few vikings and gg.

Anyways, back to my first point, a thor does 30 damage per shot, and it fires 2 shots at once. It also fires one HELL of alot faster then a siege tank. As such you have a monster with far more hp then a tank, that fires faster, and has a higher single target dps, as well as a special that will lay waste to just about any single target.

Thors without backup are fairly weak (I say fairly because they are still deadly if not handled correctly) However, as the meat of a push they are completely op unless you know what your doing.

 

Thors are extremely useful units.

1. Thor's greatest ability is that it has as much DPS at 1 HP as it does at 400, and it has a LOT of DPS. This resistance to attrition allows them to beat forces that would seem better than them on paper.

2. One SCV can repair 5 Thor hp/sec, there is no limit to this, and doing so is far cheaper than building another Thor. Doing so allows them to take apart tough units that deal minimal DPS, like Roaches(7.5 vs. Thors) and Stalkers(9.0 vs. Thors). Doing so is also of great use when defending against Muta/Banshee raids, which allows your workers to essentially help protect themselves, though in the former case, you are going to lose some workers.

3. Thors take 9 hits from an unupgraded Siege Tank to kill, and because of their huge size, the Siege Tank deals only moderate AOE damage to any adjacent Thors. This allows Thors to be second only to Immortals in siege-breaking capacity.

4. Medivacs can vastly increase the mobility of Thors by essentially giving them 2.75 movespeed and flight. They can also pick seriously damaged Thors and retreat them to your base for repairs.

5. One thing to be careful about is that Thors have a larger GtA range than GtG range, and as such, if both are present in an enemy force, Thors will stop to shoot at the air rather than continue to advance upon the enemies, which can be inefficent at best(shooting an Overlord when they could be hitting a Hatchery) and disastrous at worst(shooting a Viking that takes it 18 seconds to kill while Siege Tanks bombard it.) March them within GtG range to stop this.

Overall, the best use for Thors is against Zerg, as with Hellion and SCV support they can beat every Zerg unit except two. Broodlords, which are too tough for them to kill, and Banelings, which can be used to ambush and destroy their support units and make them easy targets for Zerglings.

They are also good at breaking Siege Tank lines, but you have to watch out for Stimmed Marauders, which will take Thors down very quickly, and whose best counter, Marines, gets melted by Siege and won't be able to help.

 

Please don't quote the post above your own, or more than you type.

All true, but you forgot to mention their worst enemy; Immortals. These little babies eat Thors for breakfast, and are way cheaper.

 

you can also rush to get factory and produce thors with their special abitlity, with a dropship you put it in range of the mineral lines and you blast with the special ability all of their probes/drones/scvs

ive done it a couple of times and it is very effective

 

Please don't quote the post above your own. Read the forum rules before posting!

Oh, you mean those guys that they can permastun/1-shot with 250mm? Or that get pulped by the Marines you will inevitably have working with Thors?

That said, I never use Thors in TvP simply because Bio with limited air support is a better option. Hellions and Siege aren't very useful vs. Protoss, severely limiting the usefulness of Factory spam.

 

Siege are incredibly useful against protoss. Bio is useful until psistorm, collossi, guardian shielded chargelots, or simply a combination of all of the above.

I agree hellions may not be the best use against protoss line units but they will still utterly decimate probes. Also a thor backed push will destroy an unprepared protoss every bit as well as an unprepared zerg, or terran for that matter.

 

High Templar: EMP reduces to 40 HP and 0 Energy, whereupon they are an expensive paperweight

Sentry: EMP reduces to 40 HP and 0 Energy, wheruepon they are an expensive peashooter that is no longer able to assist Zealots.

Colossi: Stimmed Marauders will crack easily unless there are multiples, or are upgraded.

Even then, a paltry number of Vikings can kill Colossi with ease, and if you are going MMM, you should already be able to produce them rapidly.

So no, Protoss does NOT have a realistic counter to Terran Bio.

As of the update, Siege initially takes 15 shots to kill an Immortal, 8 shots to kill a Colossus, 4 shots to kill a Zealot/Stalker, and 3 shots to kill a Sentry/High Templar. Compare that to say, 1-shoting Zergling stacks, 2-shoting Marine stacks, and 3-shoting Marauder/Roach/Hydra stacks. Siege simply isn't very useful vs. Protoss, as their units are too few to get proper splash from the AOE, and too tough to be killed before they close.

 

You apparently play in a vacuum where units don't move, and damage doesn't matter, only deaths. First off a "couple vikings" can of course kill collossi. Hell, ONE lost viking... hehe, can kill 300 collossi, if the toss has no stalkers, phoenix, void ray, carriers, sentries, templar, archons, or photon cannons. A dozen vikings cant kill that many collossi that are well protected, not to mention moved.

Stimmed marauders will of course kill Collossi, however its very difficult for them to move THROUGH a wall of chargelots who are raping their faces, not to mention the Collossi can move backwards. a simple equation would be, 10 Marauders vs 1 Colossus=dead Colossus. 100 Marauders vs 50 Chargelots and 10 Colossus = dead Marauders, throw in a few templar and REALLY gg, or even a few sentries with guardian shield.

Ghost costs 100 min and 150 vespene. templar costs 50, and 150. Yes, emp sucks vs toss, feedback kills ghost instantly, solution? hold your templar back, assasinate the ghost, or split your troops.

Despite all of that you have contradicted yourself within your post. Yes it takes forever to kill toss units with tanks, but emp DRASTICALLY reduces that. ONE ghost mixed with terran mech who doesent get killed makes those immortals go from 13 hits to kill down to.... 3, Colossus goes down in 4 hits, zeals 2. So yes, Toss DOES have a realistic counter vs terran bioballs, and yes tanks are effective against ANY race. Especially when you have 6 tanks and laugh at paltry immortals, stalkers, and everything on the ground.

 

Vikings have 9 range. They can take Colossi down while staying well within range of allied units that can give them cover. The units you mention do not have this luxury to nearly the same degree.

And you accuse me of operating in a vacuum. Your situation occurs only if the Terrans sit on their *** and let their opponent somehow afford to mass Colossi, mass Zealots, and get the upgrades for both of them as well, all while Terran Bio is busy denying you any expos and crushing you if you make the slightest slowdown in military production. That will NEVER happen.

Ghosts cost 150, actually.

Problem. Ghosts can:
A. EMP all your Templar in 1-shot, which is far easier.
B. Cloak, preventing Templar from seeing what's happening until too late.
C. Can Snipe to mulch Templar.
D. Feedback doesn't kill them if they've recently been built or been using cloak, whereupon they can STILL own Templar with their regular attack.

Every single one of those figures is WRONG.

After EMP:
Immortals take 5 shots, 4 with the upgrade.
Colossi take 5 shots, 4 with the upgrade.
Zealots take 5 shots, still 5 even with upgrade CORRECTION: 3 hits

No, they don't. Realistic would imply getting it out before being bulldozed or losing map control utterly.

Which is immensely expensive and pretty easy to counter. Like say a single Phase Prism barfing Zealots on them. Or behind them in your mineral lines.

 

Look, im not going to debate how many shots it takes to kill toss units with no shields, though I do find it interesting that you say a zealot takes 5 shots when they only have 100 hp. Regardless I am sure we can agree that unshielded toss die easier then shielded ones yes?

Vikings have 9 range, yes, so do colossi with the upgrade. and since colossi are generally operating BEHIND friendly lines....

My situation was an EXAMPLE hence unrealistic, the fact is hard counters are only relevant if their "counter" is the only unit they are facing.

If ghosts cost 150 that is simply a heavier weight in favor of my point.

On the point of how you view ghosts, yes if you hold all your templars together one emp will wipe em out. if you have all ghosts together.... one PSI storm wipes them out, cast first, and cast better there you go. Protoss have a cloaked detector if you don't bring it along on an attack or have one on defense then thats a problem.

Anything can OWN templar with their regular attack, up to and including drones. So what?

6 tanks is a minimal investment for the carnage they can wreck. 150 mins and 125 gas vs an immortal which costs 250 and 100. A marauder costs 100 and 25, or 50? Anyway its about half the price. One does 2 and a half the damage, has more hp, and the longest range in the game.... ill take the tank.

the only thing that the terran with large numbers of tanks backed by marines need fear on the ground is.... oh right, theres not much.... mabye burrowed infestors, roaches, or dt's.

 

Yes, and I put the death rate of shielded Zealots for some reason.

True. However, targeting Vikings isn't that easy when ground units are tearing you apart, to say nothing of Vikings that attack from side angles.

So teamwork between an upgraded T3.0 unit and a T2.0 unit on a different tech path lets them beat a T1.5 unit, assuming that it doesn't kill them in like 3 different ways first, sounds fair.

Snipe has like 8-9 range, Drones don't. The regular attack is 6 and both can be delivered while cloaked.

Have you played the game? Because not being able to keep track of how much gas a Marauder costs makes me wonder.

Also, let me review your nifty comparison:
Sieged Tank has 12+5 vs. Armored DPS (with 1.25 radius splash that diminishes over distance)
Immortal has 14+21 vs. Armored DPS

Sieged Tank has 160 HP and can take 9 shots from a Marauder before dying
Immortal has 100 Shields, 200 HP, and can take 21 shots from a Marauder before dying. It can also regenerate and take the first 10 hits over and over.

Sieged Tank can't move unless it spends 3 seconds switching to its mobile mode.
Immortal can move.

I'm gonna stick with the unit that doesn't need to be baby-sat or resort to fancy tactics and just KILLS STUFF.

The problem is that their immobile, they're expensive, they're sitting ducks to air, ground units can tear them apart rapidly if they close, and things like Immortals/Thors/Ultras are tough enough to bust an equal cost Siege line.

Siege Tanks are hardly the be all end all of Terrans. I only use them against other Terrans because of their marine-be-gone properties.