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Hmm.. I just fought a couple Terrans in a row. I fought Fenix twice and another Terran named Slurgi (in the replays included below) where they all opened with a super fast reaper. They would continue with a few more Reapers, denying my expo or just harassing my drones.
I'm trying to figure out.. what can a Zerg do against this? It seems I have to get ling speed or roaches to deal with it, which delays my ability to fend off whatever they come with next (in Fenix's case, quick Banshees. In Slurgi's case, simply a strong MMM attack) Since they had the reapers in the beginning, they can essentially always see what the Zerg is going to do in response, and simply counter accordingly.
I was Rank 1 in my Division (platinum division 6) for ever since the reset. After these 3 losses, I got bumped down to 3rd, and I'm afraid to play until I've figured out how to stop it.
It seems that the Reaper opening doesn't really cost the Terran anything, as a Terran is always gonna want to have a rax with a tech lab attached. In the case of other types of harass oriented openings, the Terran usually has to sacrifice something. For example, early Vikings means virtually no ground army. Early Hellions usually means not too many Barracks. This is true for other races as well. Early DTs means low gateway count. Early Phoenix means no ground army. But the reaper comes so early, and with such low opportunity cost, that it seems very very difficult to exploit any weakness.
I've tried a few things.. extra queen, early ling speed, early roaches. Even if I fend off the reaper harass without too many losses, I feel really behind for the rest of the game (especially in Slurgi's game, where he just A-moved in later with a Nuke to boot)
Have any of you zergs had any success against these new Reaper Terrans?
Replays posted below:
http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/620 - Reaper opening with banshee follow up
http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/621 - Reaper opening with Hellion follow up
http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/622 - Reaper opening with expo-MMM follow up
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I remember that Terrans are getting smarter by figuring out that Roaches > Reapers. So they open up Reapers to deal with it, and then Terran fast techs to Banshees/Marauders and then surprises you.
I think that proper response is to figure out the mind of the Terran before approaching this problem further. There's really no "specified" way to fight against Reapers because I feel like Terran has a lot of ways to change out of it. For me, I just open up one reaper, check to see if Zerg goes Roaches, then opt for banshee or Vikings to throw the Zerg off.
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well. I quit zerg in 1v1 this patch, theres just not much you can do vs Terran.. least in PvT, you have some option and some units that actually do damage to marauders.
Im glad I havent had to face this yet, the whole hellion harass to MMM/thor was a pain in the ass already.
My theorycrafting guess would be going 3-4 roachs to hold off any harassment (much like you would vs hellions), then do your normal thing.. in this case, maybe some counter baneling ovie drops to return some dmg, into standard play.
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I'm nowhere near #1 in platinum but I'm surprised you have so much trouble with it. In all the high platinum games/streams I've seen, and in my personal experience, reapers are fairly ineffective against zerg. The queen can easily protect your main, and reapers move slower than lings on creep.
Getting the expo harassed is alittle less nice but just open with ling speed before expanding then? Or make a second queen at your main and move the other one to your nat. Reapers are really made of paper. Even 5 of those won't kill a queen
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Thanks for the feedback, but did u guys watch the replays? The reaper can deny my expo, and comes much earlier than i can get roaches. And if i were to get roaches THAT early, i'd need to have map hack or something because there's no way to know if the Terran is for sure gonna do that or not.
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I believe reapers have no armor so the new spines should 2 shot them. Correct me if I'm wrong there. You should really be drone scouting on 4 player maps. You should notice his faster rax timing and be able to defend with minimal losses.
From there I suggest 3-4 roach tops for holding off reapers if you feel scared. That's what works well vs me.
Honestly I don't find reaper openings exceptionally strong, I prefer hellions cause they're sturdier and scale much better with numbers. If deflected well, reaper openings do put you behind in economy substantially, and forcecount, cause you weren't making other things with that barracks.
This is from the perspective of a primarily terran player, so take it with a grain of salt if you want.
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handle them like you would a fast hellion is my first reaction.
i'll watch the replays and give a second opinion.
edit1: thank you for using that sc2rc. whoever's site it is, i love them for it. it's much cooler and nicer than megaupload, etc. i hate those sites.
edit2: watched the first game. nothing u could've done about that bunker/reaper at your expansion. when that happens, give up on the expo. you don't have to early expo to beat a terran. on that map specifically, use those first few roaches to get those rocks down and expand on the high ground instead.
it's hard to say what you "should have done" because in reality, he was scouting you and would've changed his strat as well. with that in mind, if you don't tech to lair when terran is trying to pull those antics you severely limit yourself in options. i believe that was your biggest failure.
edit3: the 3rd game just made me think he's a much better player than you are. your crisis management was scary bad(sorry  ) i don't think this start is anything to worry about, it looks very weak. his eco is shot. next time just put your queens next to the ridge/works and not on the opposite side of the only possible place his reapers would be headed.
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On April 02 2010 13:34 Floophead_III wrote:
I believe reapers have no armor so the new spines should 2 shot them. Correct me if I'm wrong there. You should really be drone scouting on 4 player maps. You should notice his faster rax timing and be able to defend with minimal losses.
From there I suggest 3-4 roach tops for holding off reapers if you feel scared. That's what works well vs me.
Honestly I don't find reaper openings exceptionally strong, I prefer hellions cause they're sturdier and scale much better with numbers. If deflected well, reaper openings do put you behind in economy substantially, and forcecount, cause you weren't making other things with that barracks.
This is from the perspective of a primarily terran player, so take it with a grain of salt if you want.
yes , but putting up a spine that early definitely hurt me more than getting a reaper that early for a terran (gets to scout, has a rax with tech lab, can still deny expos). Also, reapers have a range of 5 and the spine has a range of 7.. theres no way your spine can cover your entire mineral field.
I just mostly have a problem with the reaper's lack of opportunity cost (as opposed to something like vultures from scbw.. takes a lot more opportunity cost... less rax, less army strength).
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On April 02 2010 13:35 danl9rm wrote:
handle them like you would a fast hellion is my first reaction.
i'll watch the replays and give a second opinion.
edit1: thank you for using that sc2rc. whoever's site it is, i love them for it. it's much cooler and nicer than megaupload, etc. i hate those sites.
it comes WAY faster than the hellions though..
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As a T, I can tell you that fast reapers require fast rax and fast refinery. This means that a specialized build comes in the order of
Rax-refinery-depot or
refinery-rax-depot
So, there's a LOT of SCV cutting time. When I compare it to a protoss for example, even if I take down 4~5 probes, it's normal for the T to be either even or a bit lower in worker count (of course P has chrono boost which naturally makes it higher)
Fighting Reapers off is actually not that difficult. You can fight off reapers easily it with either speedlings or roaches. If there's only a few, you can have couple lings and workers chase the reapers individually so that the T can't skimp on micro. Also, another important thing to do is to make sure you patrol/stand guard the likely areas for the reaper to jump onto your base with lings. Reapers have a delay in which they are vulnerable during cliff jumping.
Of course, I'm talking so far about early 1~2 reapers. If the T masses reapers, that's a different story.
I was just watching Garimto play against mass reapers. As a Z, he was fighting a T on Kulas Ravine. He made about 14 zerglings and played very defensively with the queen. Even though the T had ~6 speeded reapers, garimto had good micro. It was much like SCBW MM vs Muta micro, where the reapers were like muta and zergling were reacting like MM. The important point was for the Z to never lose lings. Just threaten to surround, but when he runs away to a strategic position (cliff etc) run back. And he teched to roaches while he was microing against it.
Another thing he did was after he had a decent amount of roaches, he rushed the T with the force he massed. He lost, but only because the T opted to turn his FEing natural into a planetary fortress.
short summary: Reapers can be prevented from doing a lot of damage by occupying them with ling threat. Once roaches come out, reaper threat significantly decreases. You don't have to get super early roaches if you can threaten the reapers into not being able to get free hits on drones. The terrain plays a big role, so watch out for cliffs. Remember that reapers are very gas intensive and the more reapers a T gets, the less gas he has to tech. Scout whether he is FEing, MMing, or teching, and act appropriately (if MM, stay defensive; if FE/tech, show aggro)
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Queen doesn't answer reapers look at the goddamn posts.
I've had the same done to me and I don't know how to answer it either, with the exception of simply delaying your expo, which puts you behind if you are playing vs a standard build. Only a few reapers are built and they are incredibly fast off a rax before depot, and basically they start hitting your expo hatch before even lings could deal with them, and when they finally come to deal with teh reapers they can be microed well enough to fend them off. Since it's at the expo queen doesn't do shit, especially on a map like desert oasis. Every game it's happened I've ended up canceling my hatch before the expo was done, teching to roaches asap and simply being behind. They don't even need a bunker but they can bring an scv along if you do decide to build a lot of lings to try to kill the reapers anyways, which happened to me once...
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Watched the first replay. Gotta watch for that bunker rush, lol. Keep track of his scv, it should never disappear like that. In any case, you shouldn't have stopped the hatch I feel. I think if you brought your queen and made a crawler or two you could've been fine. Honestly, I didn't even know reapers could go in bunkers. I thought they couldn't. When you placed it again you still weren't that bad off, but you cancelled it again when I think you might've been able to hold it. It definitely was close though, and if you were smart with your roach placement it would've gone up fine. Spread them out, don't clump them.
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lol@ people comp0laing about reapers
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On April 02 2010 13:53 Floophead_III wrote:
Watched the first replay. Gotta watch for that bunker rush, lol. Keep track of his scv, it should never disappear like that. In any case, you shouldn't have stopped the hatch I feel. I think if you brought your queen and made a crawler or two you could've been fine. Honestly, I didn't even know reapers could go in bunkers. I thought they couldn't. When you placed it again you still weren't that bad off, but you cancelled it again when I think you might've been able to hold it. It definitely was close though, and if you were smart with your roach placement it would've gone up fine. Spread them out, don't clump them.
c'mon man, not to attack, but what league are you in?
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scout the barracks..? i mean seriously even if he builds a marine instead of a reaper, the overlord will be able to out"run" it. If u see he did build a reaper set up a crawler. That always worked for me.
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Platinum, almost 70% win ratio.
edit: actually that last game brought me to exactly 70% =P
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Your queen can easily solo 1-2 reapers, get speed zerglings or a couple roaches...
If hes rushing reapers he will have pretty much zero units... so you can get early zergling speed and banelings break for GG. If hes lucky he will have 2 hellions out, which you should be able to beat with speedling micro. At that point its pretty much gg.
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On April 02 2010 13:21 Skyze wrote:
well. I quit zerg in 1v1 this patch, theres just not much you can do vs Terran.. least in PvT, you have some option and some units that actually do damage to marauders.
Im glad I havent had to face this yet, the whole hellion harass to MMM/thor was a pain in the ass already.
My theorycrafting guess would be going 3-4 roachs to hold off any harassment (much like you would vs hellions), then do your normal thing.. in this case, maybe some counter baneling ovie drops to return some dmg, into standard play.
As I recall the popular opinion is that its impossible for Terran to win Zerg unless Z messes up.
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On April 02 2010 14:04 SoFFacet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2010 13:21 Skyze wrote:
well. I quit zerg in 1v1 this patch, theres just not much you can do vs Terran.. least in PvT, you have some option and some units that actually do damage to marauders.
Im glad I havent had to face this yet, the whole hellion harass to MMM/thor was a pain in the ass already.
My theorycrafting guess would be going 3-4 roachs to hold off any harassment (much like you would vs hellions), then do your normal thing.. in this case, maybe some counter baneling ovie drops to return some dmg, into standard play. As I recall the popular opinion is that its impossible for Terran to win Zerg unless Z messes up.
just ignore him, hes complaining like this in every thread.
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EPT
