I agree with the general sentiment that the reaper is kind of an awkward unit. Its strength is in its mobility (speed and cliff jumping), but when the mid/late game comes, the effectiveness of the reaper drops significantly. Issues being that you cannot keep it with your army as it cuts down on its mobility and a marine is a cheaper alternate combat unit. And it can't really scout as well because the opposing army is bigger and covers more space.
However, when I do think the reaper will become a more important unit is when larger maps come out. I think most people can agree that the current SC2 ladder maps are, relatively speaking, very small when compared to the MSL/OSL broodwar maps.
I think that when players get 4/5 bases on a huge map, and their army cannot effective move from one base to another in 5 seconds, the reaper again becomes a pretty cheap harassment/scouting unit in the late-game.
However in the current meta-game environment, I do think that reapers detract from the game. It serves a single role in the very early game and I do not think that is a good unit in the current SC2 environment.
Nobody playing at a high level in 1v1 are worried about reapers anymore or using them often for worker harass, even before this the very recent nerf for its building damage and build time. Get with the times and leave speedlings/roaches/stalker behind by your worker line?
Well, I think we all are sort of getting the problem of the reaper so how could we fix the units without removing or remaking him too much?
My main issue with the unit, is that it takes long time making and requiring a tech lab. So it prevents me from making a the size that I really would like in a relativtly short period of time. So being able to make the reaper out of reactors could be a way. One way could be just buffing them with more hp and damage or attackspeed.
I still often come across 5 rax reaper in TvZ as I play Zerg. Reaper are incredible strong as it forces me to go roaches with speed. A good player doesnt lose its reapers and will be very carefull, so after 5 minutes, he will still have a group of reapers accompanied by maurauders. The reapers will be in the middle of the group so that zerglings/roaches cannot attack the reapers directly. Reapers/Maurauders are a direct counter to what any Zerg player at that moment has: zerglings,roaches,spinecrawlers. This is what makes 5 rax reaper incredible imbalanced and not fun to play against.
Reapers still have use after 5 minutes since they are incredible strong but very very fragile. Altough you dont see many players use them after 5 minutes. 5rr transitions into maurauder at that time.
On September 23 2010 18:13 loadme wrote: even on higher diamond level i saw some reaper builds yesterday.
those 5 seconds are NOT what would kill any reaper-strategy. at the moment you have a chance, that your spinecrawler maybe can finish or be close to get finishe, before they are there.
before 1.1 even if you 7 or 8scout reapers, it often can be too late. all depended only on the ability about how good they are controlled.
You think?..
Per Barracks.. 1 reaper, -5, 2 reapers -10.. It really keeps adding up and makes it difficult.
Yea 5 rax reapers are still very hard to deal with, I mean come on, 10 reapers from 5 rax come 10 seconds later compared to patch 1.0, how is this so different ? It is still hard, frustrating, requires perfect micro, building placement, and if you mismicro you lose a lot of drones, a queen, and early game that is just crippling. IMO only a range or damage or speed nerf for the reapers would be a viable solution as a balancing patch, but I would just remove them from the game, they're ridiculous.
On September 23 2010 18:28 NormandyBoy wrote: People QQing about marauders makes me sad, : marines deal more DPS than them.
You've obviously never had you natural hatch sniped by single medivac marauder drop during a battle. Most infuriating and overpowered shit ever.
People QQ about marauders more because: 1. They are extremely overpowered vs buildings, 2. they can kite ground units with absolutely no micro skill due to concussive shell opness, and 3. because they make zergs tank unit not able to tank anything.
On September 23 2010 20:13 Qikz wrote: I think Repears have an excellent place, it's just people haven't tried or worked out how to include them in later game armies yet.
It's most likely because they are fragile, take awhile to build and can't stim. If they had an ability like D8 charges in beta or lockdown i'd use them though.
On September 23 2010 18:13 loadme wrote: even on higher diamond level i saw some reaper builds yesterday.
those 5 seconds are NOT what would kill any reaper-strategy. at the moment you have a chance, that your spinecrawler maybe can finish or be close to get finishe, before they are there.
before 1.1 even if you 7 or 8scout reapers, it often can be too late. all depended only on the ability about how good they are controlled.
When you add a full minute to a 5ax reaper strat, thats alot, the initital 5 sec to get out teh first reaper isnt the point
On September 23 2010 18:13 loadme wrote: even on higher diamond level i saw some reaper builds yesterday.
those 5 seconds are NOT what would kill any reaper-strategy. at the moment you have a chance, that your spinecrawler maybe can finish or be close to get finishe, before they are there.
before 1.1 even if you 7 or 8scout reapers, it often can be too late. all depended only on the ability about how good they are controlled.
When you add a full minute to a 5ax reaper strat, thats alot, the initital 5 sec to get out teh first reaper isnt the point
What do you mean a full minute? 5 rax are producing parallel, its like 20 secs
I haven't really been reaper rushed that much as a protoss player, but I can certainly voice the frustration they cause, especially since it goes faster for terran player to get a decent amount of reapers compared to a protoss getting stalkers. First time it happened was on Kulas Ravine and there was nothing I could do, because when I finally understood there was a proxy barracks going on because I finally found the terran base, it was too late. 4 reapers kill off a stalker, and they kill off a sentry way too fast for it to be funny. Meh, it's just damn frustrating. Only terran really got any good way to counter a reaper rush since marines are ranged.
IMO they are the perfect sc2 unit. Quick, aggressive and absolutely OP vs a player who can't multitask properly. (I play random so yes I have gotten my fair share of buttkicking from them)
On September 23 2010 21:06 Qw4z1 wrote: IMO they are the perfect sc2 unit. Quick, aggressive and absolutely OP vs a player who can't multitask properly. (I play random so yes I have gotten my fair share of buttkicking from them)
Yeah OP vs players like idra. lul.
They were OP plain and simple, and they are boring to see in every tvz. simple strat to execute, extreme sustained early pressure, no economy loss, heavy damage to opponent. sounds fair lol. blizz knows they are OP vs zerg and patched it. I havent played new patch yet so i dont know how it was affected yet.
Reapers aren't and weren't too strong, they're just broken. If they actually required any tech then they could be made more useful in mid and late game. Their original unit design is far too strong for T1, and instead of changing the design they just nerfed it to the point where it was useless past T1. So we're left with a gimped unit that doesn't really belong.
EPT
