Turrets over Goliaths

Watching pro replays makes me go but also raises questions. This occured to me today after watching 2 TvP replays with the generic turret+mine+tank contra zealot+dragoon+observer roster:

Why are turrets preferred over goliaths?

Turrets detect and attack observers but are static, not to mention that sight upgraded observers see past the detection radius and thus mines so turrets become useless. I'm thinking scanner sweep and one or two goliath would do the job much better because if there's no arbiter, you don't really need scans to the extent where you'd run out of energy when you'd need it. So why not scan and kill (or chase off at the very least) observers? That way mines wouldn't be wasted and would actually be a danger and not just something to slow the enemy down. And since you'd get an armoury for your vehicle upgrades anyway, you don't need a detour to get goliaths, and I think in the long run it would not only be a better solution, but also a cheaper one.

Anyone?

 

Your right in every way. But i believe some people are too lazy to micro the scan sweeper and goliaths, or sci vessel and goliath...like me, im very lazy, but i dont use terran.
Some people also likes to push people in with turrents and bunkers....and tanks, maybe thats another reason people turret instead.

Meh...

 

@AcE. Maybe you are, but progamers are not lazy.
I think the stats reveal a lot.

-------- Turret --- Goliath
Hp ------ 200 ------ 125
Minerals -- 75 ------ 100
Gas ------- 0 ------- 50
Supply ---- 0 -------- 2
Cooldown - 15 ------ 22 (they both do 20 damage per attack)
Build Time -30 ------ 40


Getting rid of Observers with Goliaths and a scan is of course an option, but not cheap. When the Observer count gets too high and the production of new ones is steady it's pretty pointless to actively counter them with costly Goliaths when you instead can focus on making more Siege Tanks to overpower the Zealots and Dragoons, which are more direct threats.
A Protoss player will mostly lay low when out of Observers and not enter a possible minefield. So focusing on Observers to make mines more dangerous will in fact just slow down the Protoss player some more, which the mines already do really cheap.

 

Those are stats for just one, and doesn't deal with mobility. My point is that you'd need at most a pair of goliaths +restock if they get picked off while you'd need more than 10 turrets +restock as you advance through a map, number of turrets increasing proportionately with map size. Mobility and very few numbers (and thus little cost) is where the goliath has the advantage. But I'm not good enough to try this strategy in practice.

 

Maybe they think those two Goliaths won't make as much a difference as a tank and 50 mins. When the Observer dies there might be another one to instantly take its spot, and all the Zealots and Dragoons are still there.
What will destroying the Observer do? Reduce scouting and slow the enemy army down somewhat before the next Observer comes and detects the mines. They probably prefer the difference an Arclite can do.

 

You wouldn't really be able to defend well using scanner sweeps and a few Goliaths. As you expand you would need more goliaths to defend with. I say this because the time it would take your goliaths to move from one base to another would be to great to be an effective stop to observers.

Secondly turrets give you the added bonus of being constant, one you set up your turret wall at your main the protoss can no longer use observers to scout you, and using drops is impractical. True you can get the drop protection by having a decent sized force of goliaths, but the cost of that force is substantially more then similar protection would cost if you were using turrets, and you still don't get the protection against scouting.

 

Also, Turrets can be used to make a tank push.. you gain some ground with tanks and vultures, then mine the ground and build turrets. Once that's done, you push a little more.. and so on and so on. It gives terran huuuuge map control.
Good thing there's no terran in the aries tourney xD

 

maybe because they dont want goliaths to charge at enemys to death, causing THEM to die, hold position would be a solution but some people want to save gas and minerals (25 minerals difference) for better things like BCs with yamato/SV/more tanks/etc., think about it ;]

 

I'd personally go with more turrets than gols in pushes.

Reason being, turrets are detectors, golis arent.

Turrets are less expensive than golis.

Gols wont shoot at the obs if theres a group of goons and zels coming in. Turrets will

Also, no real anti-air needed vs a toss in tvp, unless carriers come out.

Turrets seem to be easier to manage as well, with them being stationary and gols will constantly move to chase things down.

 

I always thought of Gols and Tanks to attack and to defence leap frog your tanks while the Gols destroy the air attackers (marines included) to slowly advance and destroy, and Gols and Turrets are a good defence, with tanks taking out ground units.

 

rule of thumb for me, no goliaths unless i spot carriers. and Marines, never use more than your beginning group of 4-6 marines.

 

Well if i was the protoss player and had to get past a wall of turrets i would just get about 6 shuttles(speed upgraded), and enough zealots to fill them and then scout near the turrets to make sure there is no wraiths/valkyries around then send them in and then hopefully some will get past the turrets and drop the zealots therefore wreaking havoc and destroying the mineral/gas production and maybe some tech as well. I would probably also get a distraction while i send them in . I would personally rather goliaths then turrets for mobility though and make sure a science vessel with them.

 

well turrets will counter the shuttles that fly into your tanks.
just a point there.

 

Depends on the situation, if it's for like a base defense sorta thing I would go with turrets even if their not mobile they can detect some random obs scouting your base + it's a early warning for me telling me to run my scv or bring my army in to attack them. If i'm warding off drops I'd go with Goliaths unless i haven't gotten an armory down yet and still doing tank/vulture :3

 

I still find the Goliath as a weak unit, I rarely ever use them. Most games I play end before carriers are ever brought out, so turrets seem to work fine.

 

If you use all your scan for observers and DT, you lose the ability to scan on other parts of the map to scout. You can run out of scan and a DT can mess you up. A turret costs less minerals that could be going to more vultures, and more importantly, no gas. A turret takes up no food. A turret works as a sentry to warn of back door attacks when you've pushed past them.

 

I prefer goliaths over missile turrets for the ability to attack ground, but really goliath's ground attack isn't that useful. Turrets are better for anything invisible simply because of their detection capability and much cheaper though, so I always get them first.

 

Turrets will kill shuttles and observers by default. And is less costly, but Goliaths are needed to counter air threats and they can help support an army. Large amounts of Goliaths can do almost as much damage as Siege Tanks, and do more than Vultures.

 

I hope when you're saying that large amounts of goliaths can do almost as much siege tanks, you're talking about against air units. As far as more than vultures, don't forget spider mines.

 

spider mines dont do much later when detectors start appearing. Thier main use is to just slow down your opponent's push by forcing them to clear the mines before moving forward.