Hey, I'm not quite sure if im not get spammed into the ground by "everyone knows that!"-posts but I'm gonna try anyways :D When I looked at this "Upgrades Terran never uses"-Thread I thought like "oh my god, raven skills can be boosted so niceley" so I just made it a massing raven tactic. So far I mainly used it for Island expansion maps such as Desert Oasis, Scrap Station and LT (best: air close posi) with short air ways to base. BO is pretty much standard - 10 Depot, 12 Rax, 13 Gas, around 16 CC and Fac when 100 gas is there, then second gas. Then adding a starport as soon as possible with a techlab to build a first raven imidiatly. Depending on how aggressive the enemy seems I add more or less Marines (with a second rax build in the meantime as Ravens are cheap in minerals) and a hellion for scouting purposes. I stay with these buildings pretty much and add an early ebay. Asap adding +25 Energy for Raven so it finishes short before second Raven pops out. Around that time I also build an expansion for Island. When there are 2-3 Ravens I get building armor upgrade. The moment the second raven pops out, the first one has almost 100 Energy so I fly to zerg eco and drop 3 turrets in. When Building Armor finishes, the turrets become extremely strong as they are almost invincible to Zerglings and Queens so he need to moves in a lot of Hydras so I go in a second time when it's finished. One Turret defeats a hydra easily so with range upgrade the become really annoying even with hydras. When second raven go comes, it's easy to have enough minerals and an almost running island expansion so one can pump lots of marine from several rax and add one or two starports for more ravens. The Zerg's army count and economy suffers all the time, it often happens that when the marines move out when there are approx 5-6 Ravens he just dies to them when he did not scout properly and responded with banelings. As far as I experienced this strategy, the main problem seemed mutalisks but then he becomes very vulnerable to the Marines as he looses alot of Gas and it's easy to protect all of your bases with missile turrets. However, the tactic relies heavily on not loosing many Ravens so you can have like 15-20 later with all available techs. Other than Banshees its much easier to protect them and harass effectively since the Turrets they drop don't require Ravens to be at the enemy base for more than a very few seconds. Plus they can use occasional Defense drone drops to escape although it's annoying to loose 100-200 energy. Later one ofc always has the choice of teching for HSM. With duration upgrade both drone and turret last 4 minutes so its easy to get map controll when you have at least more then ten ravens. Big plus is that you can play it extremely cost efficiently because you often don't loose more than the turrets which don't cost you any ressources. Bad thing is that turrets really get countered by defense upgrades over time as they cannot upgrade damage as far as I know (didn't try ship weapons yet? Though I think it won't get the bonus as it is upgraded individually and as a building in regards of armor)
Compared to banshees I think that they are much more effective as most Zerg already know how to prepare against early banshee harass and it often does not have alot of success anymore plus they become so bad in open combat in later game stages. Ravens however are really versatile plus kinda surprising for most zergs. They guess like "oh he's gonna fast air" so he goes for eary hydras and has trouble with killing towers all the time. Replays: Here is one replay against 1300 Platinum Zerg (yes I know its not high enough to proof it working against really good players but it really works kinda easy) [url blocked]
This one is against some other platinum zerg, don't remember his rating also it was one of my first attempt trying this so I kinda sucked :D [url blocked]
Final note: Do not play it against early spire, just switch for Thor build as you should scout it before building starport in best case (hellion for scouting). If he plays alot of early roaches, banshees might be the unit of choice.
banshees are good because you can usually snipe a queen or 2 and several drones. Even if you get really lucky w/ turret and they let you kill a bunch of drones, it's not going to be as much as banshee damage. Also if they baneling bust you, you're going to have problems so you're gonig to need a big wall.
On April 21 2010 04:09 starcraft911 wrote: banshees are good because you can usually snipe a queen or 2 and several drones. Even if you get really lucky w/ turret and they let you kill a bunch of drones, it's not going to be as much as banshee damage. Also if they baneling bust you, you're going to have problems so you're gonig to need a big wall.
I pretty much assumed that any terran will go for rax/fax wall as soon as he does not play mech. The good thing about turrets - they last 3 minutes. He HAS to engage them or give up all the eco line. They don't have to run when 3 hydras and a queen come (apart from their obvious inability ;D). In the second wave of harass they actually can absolutely ignore the queen's presence because it will only do two damage per attack (2x1) If you loose your turrets, all of Zergs success was to draw you energy on these units what usually costs him several units. Actually I watched several Zergs evacuating their main bases already when there were like 20 towers in later stages of the match.
On April 21 2010 04:13 lolreaper wrote: watched maka's vods and he used hellion>banshee>expo>MMM + ravens transition quiet often, requires alot of multitasking and very good micro tho ;/
As I wrote, I'm not looking for adding some support ravens. I completely replace Banshees and make ravens the absolute main part for all stages of the game, with other units just making the clean up in the end.
I'm too lazy to read that wall of text but, as a former terran player that switched to zerg after too much frustration with blizzard nerfing terran every patch, I can chip in on Ravens. I tried a few mass raven strategies before I called it quits with terran, but what I, and most assuredly everyone else noticed about them is that they're good if you can be aggressive with them, and poor if you're playing defensively. Reason being that seeker missles can't chase units for shit, but if you can force them into a corner or otherwise keep them still, they're absolutely fucking amazing. The other sorta nice thing is you can hold off a muta harrass even if the muta count is too big for turrets to handle. Of course, I was playing terran before the thor AA AOE patch, so I guess thors serve that purpose even better since they don't have to waste energy to repel mutas. Really though, I think seeker missles are in fact underused in general, I can tell you as a plat level zerg player that I've scarcely ever seen them used in games against me, despite my making tons of hydras(Hydras get blown the fuck up by SM).
I think Ravens probably will become a facet of the match-up as time goes on, and people discover builds that fully take advantage of the unique push timings they can present.
how does the early game harass go against roaches? seems like the turrets would just get raped by like 2 roaches and then you're fucked because you've done no damage. In fact, in general this just sounds like it'd lose to roaches.
On April 21 2010 04:20 jdr_ wrote: I'm too lazy to read that wall of text but, as a former terran player that switched to zerg after too much frustration with blizzard nerfing terran every patch, I can chip in on Ravens. I tried a few mass raven strategies before I called it quits with terran, but what I, and most assuredly everyone else noticed about them is that they're good if you can be aggressive with them, and poor if you're playing defensively. Reason being that seeker missles can't chase units for shit, but if you can force them into a corner or otherwise keep them still, they're absolutely fucking amazing. The other sorta nice thing is you can hold off a muta harrass even if the muta count is too big for turrets to handle. Of course, I was playing terran before the thor AA AOE patch, so I guess thors serve that purpose even better since they don't have to waste energy to repel mutas. Really though, I think seeker missles are in fact underused in general, I can tell you as a plat level zerg player that I've scarcely ever seen them used in games against me, despite my making tons of hydras(Hydras get blown the fuck up by SM).
I think Ravens probably will become a facet of the match-up as time goes on, and people discover builds that fully take advantage of the unique push timings they can present.
Allright, short conclusion for you: -> Ravens as harassing units using upgraded Automatic Turrets, kinda banshee replacement -> Few focus on HSM although its a possibility later.
Agree on Ravens beeing useful and will be important in many strategies later.
On April 21 2010 04:23 Tropics wrote: how does the early game harass go against roaches? seems like the turrets would just get raped by like 2 roaches and then you're fucked because you've done no damage. In fact, in general this just sounds like it'd lose to roaches.
Yes, Roaches are strong against it. Ofc there is the possiblity of just going for Banshees instead when you see him going for early roaches. Zergs won't respond with roaches very often when they guess you to build a starport. Roaches only have one armor anymore, they perform stronger than hydras but still will suffer as they only have 3 ranged compared to 6/7 of turrets.
This seems like a very interesting strat, however how well does it stand up to early aggression? With the time upgrade and a few spare ravens you should theoretically be able to defend your base with a few turrets and a couple point defense drones around the mineral patches.
I like the idea of the "free" army since as long as the ravens survive your army doesn't wind up costing you anything. However, since the turrets occupy a 2x2 matrix on the playing field, have you had trouble getting to place the defenses on the ground when under attack if they weren't already in place?
On April 21 2010 04:26 STS17 wrote: This seems like a very interesting strat, however how well does it stand up to early aggression? With the time upgrade and a few spare ravens you should theoretically be able to defend your base with a few turrets and a couple point defense drones around the mineral patches.
I like the idea of the "free" army since as long as the ravens survive your army doesn't wind up costing you anything. However, since the turrets occupy a 2x2 matrix on the playing field, have you had trouble getting to place the defenses on the ground when under attack if they weren't already in place?
Yes, it sometimes is troubling to find enough space for them. At least you can place them on creep. Range 7 solves alot of it and even if not all can reach eco line, they still can be dropped close to important tech buildings so he will have to fight them. Early agression with hydra is the biggest issue as you won't be able to defend it from behind your wall with range 5 marines. If he doesn't add banelings however, it is possible to hold with a quick response with marines and ravens combined. Banelings/Zerglings allone is not hard to counter with normal Fax/Rax-block. It's also really cool that you can block space with them.
Are you winning in plat/high plat with this ? I ask because the first thing that comes to my mind, is that by doing this strategy the enemy could just steamroll into my base and kill me off. There won't be too much defense and automated turrets are static.
First of all: amazingly inventive strategy. Even if it doesn't end up being the most effective in actual play-- I am blown away by the creativity of upgrades.
I also think your idea could be a solid way to counter late game broodlords. As the AutoTurret armor seems to hold up really well against broodlings.
Banelings would have ruined your day. Maybe you could go Hellion\Raven for the mineral dump and to better counter blings and hydras.
Seriously though I am just loving this strategy. Ravens were my favorite unit before this. Now I need to pick my jaw up off the floor.
EDIT: Also wanted to add that Day[9]s most recent dailies are about stragegy and BO creation. He calls it the "story" of your build. Which has some merit. So a beginning middle and end are necessary.
Ex:
Beginning: I build marines to hold off agression while I tech to Ravens. Middle: I use heavy harassment with my AutoTurrets against the enemy. End: ? -- So far it seems your ending is to push in hard with the marine ball.
I think if you take your awesome build into this context and work on it, and flesh it out against various match ups you will really only get stronger.
For more info check out Day9 daily #103 and tonights #104.
@ Ganondorf Yes, it does win games against strong Zergs. Just dont ever ever ever play it when he goes fast spire, then just switch to mech/thors what is quite easy when you scout before starport. Defending is not such a bad problem actually. First Hydras get cought in base because they have to clean up those turrets, he will loose several and not feel ready for attack. For second raven (moment of attack) you have to calculate 60s after first banshee would pop out and actually most players going fast banshee wait for a second or even third before they go. So you can delay him and keep him in some kind of "defense loop", every time he thinks im strong enough to own you now, he has new turrets in base or will actually loose to the marines.
@roark
First of all, thank you very much Cool thing is that the marines have to be used very rarely, as I said just to steamroll him when zerg is weak or defend when he manages to pull out a counterattack.
If he does good and has enough ressources for having both a decent amount of hydras AND banelings he ofc has quite an advantage. However, those turrets can be very annoying to him as you will most likely have 7 range allready so they have 1 more than hydra. In general, you better don't allow him massing up so strongly.
Right now I'm looking for good EU Zergs to crush this build with a respond out of any build besides fast Spire or mass early roach so I can test it (Those two builds not included because it would mean changing the tactic, what does not allow to try it :D -Changing tactic when having a clue whats going on based on scouting allowed ofc, wouldnt make much sense to test it else ^^)
On April 21 2010 06:03 roark wrote:
EDIT: Also wanted to add that Day[9]s most recent dailies are about stragegy and BO creation. He calls it the "story" of your build. Which has some merit. So a beginning middle and end are necessary.
Ex:
Beginning: I build marines to hold off agression while I tech to Ravens. Middle: I use heavy harassment with my AutoTurrets against the enemy. End: ? -- So far it seems your ending is to push in hard with the marine ball.
I think if you take your awesome build into this context and work on it, and flesh it out against various match ups you will really only get stronger.
For more info check out Day9 daily #103 and tonights #104.
Early: Go for normal save build just like banshees, so have a massive Wall In with Fac/Rax and a few marines to hold off Baneling, Speedling, Roach. Middle: Raising autoturret-harassment, its important not to loose ravens so you can make the harass stronger and stronger with every go to keep zerg small. Adding expansions with bunker/marines is relatively easy due to the huge amounts of minerals you usually have. End: Best case scenario is that you can depopulate his entire mainbase during the harassment or that he is just weak enough to be overrun by a massive marine push. If it is not that good, you should have an economic advantage that allows you to respond to his army composition.
It's getting a bit late here so gonna watch the reps in the morning but from your description I am really looking forward to it. very inventive and shows that semi early ravens are viable(hopefully). Also liking the fact that you are researching the not so frequently used upgrades that are available to Terran.
On April 21 2010 04:09 starcraft911 wrote: banshees are good because you can usually snipe a queen or 2 and several drones. Even if you get really lucky w/ turret and they let you kill a bunch of drones, it's not going to be as much as banshee damage. Also if they baneling bust you, you're going to have problems so you're gonig to need a big wall.
I pretty much assumed that any terran will go for rax/fax wall as soon as he does not play mech. The good thing about turrets - they last 3 minutes. He HAS to engage them or give up all the eco line. They don't have to run when 3 hydras and a queen come (apart from their obvious inability ;D). In the second wave of harass they actually can absolutely ignore the queen's presence because it will only do two damage per attack (2x1) If you loose your turrets, all of Zergs success was to draw you energy on these units what usually costs him several units. Actually I watched several Zergs evacuating their main bases already when there were like 20 towers in later stages of the match.
I don't know if it will work this way, but on desert oasis you can kind drop below the mineral line on the ridge (the turrets) and have your ravens give vision so it will be unreachable but your turrets can still shoot. I think I'm going to test this out :D
Got a try against Styggen. I told him its to test a certain BO and to play normal, unfortunatelly I didn't think he would go for Mutalisks without knowing what comes or having crucial scouting infomation ^^ Since he only wanted one try to get as much out of current ladder season as possible I tryed somewhat of a head-through-the-wall attempt in the knowledge that it would be hard to impossible, showed me once more how important it is not to loose your first two ravens. Also, he did nice to prevent expanding by using overlord creep. Then he went for roaches but as he sad only because he likes doing this against terra not as a specific counter. Don't expect anything interesting as it was a certain kamikaze attempt the moment I decided to continue although there was a spire [url blocked]
Really clever idea - I'll check out the replays later. How does this fare on non-island expansion maps? Have you tried it vs zerg staying when you stay on 1 base?
On April 21 2010 06:43 chausara wrote: Really clever idea - I'll check out the replays later. How does this fare on non-island expansion maps? Have you tried it vs zerg staying when you stay on 1 base?
Yet I didnt even try exept for a few 2on2s on metalopolis (opponents too bad to rate this version of the tactic). It is way more risky in either case, non island expansions makes you so much more vulnerable. However it should be possible with alot of bunkers as you have the money anyways and building armor. I did not try one base either although it might be possible. Yet I kinda used the expansion as a mineral dump and to get more ravens. It's so important to keep a high raven count later on so it would be vulnerable with only 1 base/2 gas.
I have been working on various builds based around mid-game raven use and then crushing them late game with a massive number of ravens. This works great if you can make it to late game with all the nice upgrades raven turrets receive. HSM is usually the last upgrade I get but I think that I should try to squeeze it in earlier, as it really reminds me of a plague/sc1-storm type of ability which is game breaking and allows your smaller/inferior army to come out on top with good play and timing of the ability. I have been doing an early marine/hellion with a wall and obviously with continuous scouting until I feel secure enough to get ravens. If they go early mass-muta obviously I have the engi bay at some point before that in order to get raven upgrades and to add on to my wall, so I build turrets and the marines should be enough to hold that. If you see roach, a tech switch is needed, or at least a different transition before you go into ravens is very necessary, especially with large numbers of roaches. Possibly get 2 rax's with tech labs and have 2-3 bunkers with marauder/marine/hellion support in order to secure your natural and then transition into raven's, that is if they go roach. If not get your CC pretty early only watching out for baneling bust, I feel it is quite necessary to put a few buildings in front of nat covering 2-3 bunkers depending on what you scout, 2 base with 4 gas is very much needed for a late game raven strat. It will allow amazing map control, and once you start getting 6+ Ravens you become amazingly powerful. I am going to post some replays soon but I have figured out some pretty useful strats for using the Auto-Turrets.
Raven Strategy/Tricks
5+ Raven's with 50%+ energy can be very very deadly and game changing, especially if you execute the use of auto turrets perfectly. What I do is before I move in for the harass to their base I scan their main with said raven group decently close and shift queue a ton of turrets in a tight area in a critical position by their base, if you can manage to block a ramp in their base and catch their army outside of it, this could easily win the game for you as long as you have building armor upgrade/range upgrade for the turrets. I like to make a tight wall/ball of turrets and shift-queue them and all the sudden 12+ turrets pop out of nowhere and they don't have time to move in range to block areas where you could set turrets down.
If I have HSM I like to create a semi-wall (especially vs zerg) that forces zerg units to funnel into a certain area and try to bait them in to clump up and 1-2 HSM's + 8-12+ turrets clean up the rest without question.
Using HSM defensively even if it does not go off can buy you a TON of time. IE: 10+ Mutas roll up in your base and you are short on turret/marine count. HSM + throw some turrets down, the mutas will run for 15+ seconds because they have to outrun the hsm or die to 1-4 turrets after the hsm explodes on top of them. This is assuming they don't know which muta the HSM is targeting so that they cannot micro the 1 out, but I haven't seen really any players do that with mutas since it is very hard to tell. This buy's you much time, even if the HSM does not go off to throw up turrets and replenish marine count. (Obviously this applies to mass muta as well, but with 2-3 hsm's basically HSM's + Turret is such a cost effective defense vs any clump of muta)
Point defense drones are so critical late game in huge fights, throw down 2-3 of them and stim your army and watch them roll any group of hydra roach muta infestor or whatever they may have.
Turrets are amazing vs ultras as they block the living hell out of them, if I see ultras and am unable to harass their base with turrets, before engagement I set up 1 space holes between turrets which completely fuck up the ultra pathing and they get caught in the holes blocking the rest of the army while marines/hellions/marauders etc clean up without a problem.
Turrets soak up banelings and waste their minerals like no tomorrow, 2-3 spread out turrets against an a-moved army with banelings will create fatal consequences as they just wasted about 6-10 banelings on 50 energy turrets.
Hope you guys enjoyed this semi-addon about the discussion of raven use! BTW I am High Platinum (Constantly between rank 1-5....damn resets)
I just watched the rep vs. StyGGen. I think your first barracks should have made a tech lab. This would allow you to swap it with the starport. You moved the barracks anyway and for the low rax/fax/rax wall.
Getting that tech lab early would save you 25seconds of research time and build time on your first ravens.
I was also thinking you could use the early ATs against the expo, Mutas make it hard either way. On that map it is almost a given he will go for air quickly also.
You have the advantage of having a new strategy\BO that isn't played often. However you have to find a way to counter whatever build is typically going to counter the popular Terran builds.
So your new BO needs to possess some ability to counter Zergs current BO to the typical Terran BO.
I think when you start to see a bunch of roaches you might consider Seeker Missle. 2 missles will kill a group of roaches, and you had 5+ ravens at that point.
Still eager to watch this develop. Post more reps of wins and losses!
Interresting, but that terran should repair the Ravens way more back in the base. He is also saving up to little energy for Point defense drones vs mutas favoring a couple of more cannons. Result is expensive Ravens dying in vain. I like the +2 armor and range upgrade, and I will try to incorporate more Ravens in all matchups.
Honestly vs zerg now i am going mass banshee, timing push with enough energy for 4 PD drones then I roll him if he has invested heavily in roach/hydra.
It was a lzgamer replay iirc that introduced me to the ridiculousness of them
It's been a bit more developed in terms of buildorder etc, also felt much easier already. Game came up when he said "no way that tactic can work, I'm gonna bash you" ;P I think I slacked a few times like placing gas too late, not sure right now, however it worked kinda smoothly.
(Chat in the beginning is about the game before where my hellion came out at the wrong side, I lifted the fac and didn't notice that he had a ling seeing it, so he ran in and owned me. However we played a second match as this executional fail doesn't say anything about the viability of the tactic. I was kinda angry that I made this stupid mistake)
I've been using Ravens in a similar manner recently also.
Once you start building ravens, with the upgrades, that is your gas. The only other unit you can produce is marines, but i'll tell you, you can produce a hell of a lot of them.
Ravens are good for harass, but I don't always go for it.
I tend to use Ravens to create a hard contain, backed up by marines. Once your turrets are fully upgraded, and you have about 4/5+ Ravens, stick the turrets down outside his natural at the choke. Because of how long they last, it feels like the amount of turrets just keeps on increasing (which is does, because you keep producing more ravens).
Then will then push my marines forward, and slowely build every new turret infront of the previous ones. If they have static defences up, keep the turrets out of range and start darting your ravens in, laying the turrets inside the base. If you have enough marines by this point, you can probably just walk in.
Wall off your base, slap down 300000 missile turrets. Minerals are really not an issue with this build. You can start throwing up command centers over the shop.
It isn't just a build to play against Zerg though. It's pretty effective against protoss, providing you can live through the very early game. It's also worked against Terran but i'll be honest, my opponent was a bit... sPeShaL.
The strat is basically like, investing your gas to get future returns. Initially, the gas consumption is huge, but as long as you keep that unit alive, you technically have a whole new economy system
I would jsut mass roach with some hydra vs this and walk over you because you can't expand without it dying:| seriously nothing you build counters roaches...
On April 21 2010 08:58 AcidReniX wrote: I've been using Ravens in a similar manner recently also.
Once you start building ravens, with the upgrades, that is your gas. The only other unit you can produce is marines, but i'll tell you, you can produce a hell of a lot of them.
Ravens are good for harass, but I don't always go for it.
I tend to use Ravens to create a hard contain, backed up by marines. Once your turrets are fully upgraded, and you have about 4/5+ Ravens, stick the turrets down outside his natural at the choke. Because of how long they last, it feels like the amount of turrets just keeps on increasing (which is does, because you keep producing more ravens).
Then will then push my marines forward, and slowely build every new turret infront of the previous ones. If they have static defences up, keep the turrets out of range and start darting your ravens in, laying the turrets inside the base. If you have enough marines by this point, you can probably just walk in.
Wall off your base, slap down 300000 missile turrets. Minerals are really not an issue with this build. You can start throwing up command centers over the shop.
It isn't just a build to play against Zerg though. It's pretty effective against protoss, providing you can live through the very early game. It's also worked against Terran but i'll be honest, my opponent was a bit... sPeShaL.
Yeah thats a nice idea. As I said mine mainly was replacing Banshees, this is a whole new thing to use many ravens for.
On April 21 2010 09:04 Butigroove wrote: I would jsut mass roach with some hydra vs this and walk over you because you can't expand without it dying:| seriously nothing you build counters roaches...
Yeah surely the first thing YOU will do when seeing a starport is going mass roach
Ah that reminds me of the reason why I did not use techlab switch yet. First I only started harassing having 2 Ravens which made the timing depend alot on when I have enough gas anyways. Second I thought "I can't put the starport in first line so he can see it easily", but possibly it is not such a bad idea to present it to him because it might make many zergs going for hydras because they think of Banshees.
I guess that single waves of harassment should be timed for Energy and ofc Tech Status, so maybe it's more wise to start with 200 overall energy or possibly even with armor tech rather than the way I did it before (starting with 150 Energy without armor tech) Gotta keep an eye on zergs' timings.
well, i´m honest^^ I´d build just one Banshee to harass and make him think there´ll come some more
I´d love to see some more replays.
The Mainproblem of your strategy is that you lose Mapcontrol big time! Any Zerg will go for Mass expansion and simply steamroll you with Roaches, Hydras Mutas whatever since Until you got a little mass of Ravens, they are kind of weak.
On April 21 2010 09:16 Tyrannon wrote: well, i´m honest^^ I´d build just one Banshee to harass and make him think there´ll come some more
The Mainproblem of your strategy is that you lose Mapcontrol big time!
Any Zerg will go for Mass expansion and simply steamroll you with Roaches, Hydras Mutas whatever since Until you got a little mass of Ravens, they are kind of weak.
So far I had a kinda good feeling about scouting and then also map control when I used the tactic. Adding expansions will spread him over the map. Now I have an expansion anyways so if he has 1-2 it's manageable. He instead splits his forces, looses more drones, looses more units or mining time, as he chooses, if he either kills turrets with smaller groups (actually, often this will lead to the turrets winning ^^) or waits for reinforcement. Later, with around 10 Ravens, it really takes him alot of scouting when you just drop single turrets at certain spots such as cliffs with xel'naga towers underneath them so he needs at least 2 hydras to maintain vision there. Keeping the harass going makes it hard for him to get an actual mass of units that can steamroll over your marines. It is so different to banshees. It's not like 5 Hydras or a few defensive spore crawler solve the problem of harassing for you, rather it will mean you will loose 5 hydras or some spore crawlers if you don't give them more assistance.
There are some things i didn´t like in the Last Replay besides some Mikro mistakes.
The First Drop is a no go like that. IF the Zerg actually wanted to play a Wallbreakstrategy you need that 2 Turrets for defense. That doesn´t even hurt since they can´t do any dmg anyway. If theres no attack you can save that energy for the upgrades to complete. Or even build ONE Banshee before, just to show him that Roaches are a really bad Idea. Another Mistake was, since you got no mineralproblems here, to not Scan before dropping the Hornets into the basket.
If there are some Hydras around the Base, pls place one Pointdefensedrone(this little thing gets boosted with the turretupgrades as well) where you intend to drop Turrets. You simply can´t afford to lose any Ravens to that Hydras.
Next Thing, build more Hellions. They can cruise around the Map and scout new expansions. Ready to get some Ravens in their face.
And last, i think you should one Viking as well. He´ll constantly scout the map and snipe some Overlords.
Also i think you should never ever Build a Reactor on a Rax in this strategy since you need every Gas you can save. Instead build just more Baracks.
Talking about Sporecrawlers.... How do you end up vs any Zerg building SPINEcrawlers? Huge Range, +Dmg vs Armored and pretty much Standard on any Expansion of a well Zerg.
In Addition to that, the Zerg shouldn´t Suicide his Hydras into your Turrets. There was simply no Mikro from that Zerg.
Actually I think I already did most of those things in more recent games such as adding 1 viking, more hellion scouting and using PDD before moving in when there are some units. (I guess the game you watched was that one on desert oasis, was one of the very first attempts of playing this) Spinecrawlers indeed are quite useful against those turrets, however the usual amount of crawlers is not enough especially when they ahve to be relocated. Good thing is that they take a long time to root so if one just drops the turrets out of range of most of them it is not too hard to avoid them.
I'm not quite happy with the very start as well, those 3 turrets without upgrade don't do as much damage as the energy they cost might cause later. However I guess i'm gonna wait for armor upgrade so I can drop like 5 turrets with upgrade and give him a hard time getting rid of them. Just have to check for timings, like when does he have too many hydras to be dropped successfully to get a good timing on it.
Right now i'm actually playing mainly against Zerg because I want to know about those issues and how to counter or avoid them. Gonna try to find some really good Zergplayers to see how they respond out of an ordinary build order and find good timings to switch army composition to something else. Need them to crush this build when they start in a situation that allows it originally to check for further details and timings.
I watched the one on Desert Oasis and the ScrapStation replay. I think SpineCrawler will be a the Way to kill that Strategy. the first Drop will get results and then Zerg responds in Crawler. At hte same time going for a little Army and Expansions.
Of course i assume its a normal game, but Zerg knows that this Strategy does exist, since it won´t be "secret" forever. Let me observe your games^^
If you're going to turn this into a real tactic, the thing you have to do is ensure secrecy. The Zerg cannot be allowed to see your Raven until you're about to make your first harass. Otherwise, just a few Spine Crawlers or Roaches will be used to defend against it.
Fortunately, a Zerg can't tell the difference between what you're doing and a Banshee build until the Raven actually comes out. The best way to ensure secrecy: Sensor Tower. Throw one down and keep any Overseers/Changelings away.
If they do catch you doing this, expect to be Roach-dropped in your main to counter.
The beauty of this still lies in the fact that ravens themselves are the ultimate "juke" or pump-fake. They see starport, hell they even see a raven. Their first thought is not gonna be: "OH SNAP!11!! I need to counter turrets with super high armor!"
That just isn't how it will play out. They see the starport and air, and they start to couter air. All of a sudden they are up against a few PDD and mass turrets.
THIS IS HUGE! Even when they scout it, they have no idea. Especially if you harass early. I almost think a bit of early marauder, like just a few would be good too. That would prevent roaches possibly, letting you then switch into marines or hellions and ravens.
seems like a pretty cool idea, gonna give it a shot tonight. Do you favor the building armor upgrade or +1 range upgrade? i know get both but which 1 first.
When do you build the Ebay? my build going fast banshee is usually something like this, where would you throw in an Ebay? (im not at home atm so i cant view replay) 10 supply 11 refinery 12 racks factory/orbital right after (i lose track of scv count) refinery #2 during factory Starport/supply
also might not fit exactly into this thread, but another idea may be to start off with banshees, then when the opponent responds with hydras or static def bring in a couple ravens /w point defense drone.
Please don't let this Raven play catch on. I can't stand Raven's, they are easily the strongest unit in the game. If a Terran player has Ravens and HSMs I can't win, flat out. Everything dies. I could have a 200 supply army and he has like a 50 supply one, and as long as three Ravens can launch HSMs in there, I lose my entire army. It's incredibly frustrating, especially on 2v2s on that stupid Twilight level, where it's nigh impossible to stop a Terran from getting them without cheesing. HSM is just so insanely strong and too easy to cast, if you ask me. Make it like storm, where atleast they have to click a spot on the ground and it'll harm his own units. I think I've lost ever single match where HSM's have come in to play. And before you say "just dodge them", that's not the answer every time. Sometimes you're forced to engage a force, and I shouldn't have to run to the other side of the map because the Terran player hit a single button. Nor is sending the targeted unit out of the group the answer most of the time either; the Terran players simple march the Ravens too close to the group to react and launch there.
On April 21 2010 12:02 w_Ender_w wrote: Please don't let this Raven play catch on. I can't stand Raven's, they are easily the strongest unit in the game. If a Terran player has Ravens and HSMs I can't win, flat out. Everything dies. I could have a 200 supply army and he has like a 50 supply one, and as long as three Ravens can launch HSMs in there, I lose my entire army. It's incredibly frustrating, especially on 2v2s on that stupid Twilight level, where it's nigh impossible to stop a Terran from getting them without cheesing. HSM is just so insanely strong and too easy to cast, if you ask me. Make it like storm, where atleast they have to click a spot on the ground and it'll harm his own units. I think I've lost ever single match where HSM's have come in to play. And before you say "just dodge them", that's not the answer every time. Sometimes you're forced to engage a force, and I shouldn't have to run to the other side of the map because the Terran player hit a single button. Nor is sending the targeted unit out of the group the answer most of the time either; the Terran players simple march the Ravens too close to the group to react and launch there.
If you fly\run the unit being targeted into his units, everyone dies. Sort of like sacrificing units to kill your super strong banelings early game.
That said, I hope this doesn't catch on either. I want it to be a secret.
Yeah, it will. I'm just venting about how insanely strong it is, particularly in 2v2's on Twilight, since you can't really harass/kill the Terran before he can get it out unless you do some hardcore cheese.
This strategy seems like it could be best used as a transition out of a planetary fortress fast expand into quadruple gas or something ridiculous like that. Engineering bay as part of your wall off, increased attack range and armor benefitting the fortress, a large number of marines with a few key turrets to hold off mutas and a couple of bunkered marauders if you see a roach push. Use the starports to build a couple of medivacs to escort your ravens (16 marines/2 medivacs does a good number against mutalisks. Easy to build banshees instead of ravens if you see mass roach play. Problems seem to be: you gotta be careful against nydus drops and you'll be lacking aggression early on. Worth testing.
One base raven harass just isn't going to do much as you'll just get out econned early game or run over with mass roaches or you'll lose your ravens to 3 mutas because you're too slow to run. And to top it all off you'll have zero map control.
Try not to focus on using the raven as a one unit gimmick and focus more on creating a versatile strategy that sets yourself up to utilize and maximize the ravens late game strength. You suggest an awful lot of set-up just so you can do auto-turret harass and because you theory crafted turrets being cost effective versus lings/hydralisks with the armor upgrade (ignoring that even a few roaches will ruin your day completely).
How close do you have to be to the target to fire the Seeker missile?
If you can simply shoot it at anything you can see regardless of range you might do a "scan the enemy worker line and then fire from outside his base" attack. No one watches their workers constantly and the missile might go unnoticed for zero risk and if you upgrade the duration to 20 seconds the range should be somewhat huge.
I really hope something like this is viable, the raven is my favorite unit in SC2. One thing I can think of- if he tries to kill the auto turrets with hydras, then a PDD could help a lot. I wonder what the ideal ratio is of PDD/turret? would 2 turrets and a PDD be better than 4 turrets? I dunno, but it would be worth a shot. PDDs also block mutas and corruptors, and there's a good chance he might build those if he thinks you're going banshees.
oh and i agree with the guy above who suggested combining this with a PF fast expand.
if you're looking for an end-game strategy for this- how about a transition to banshees or battlecruisers? The zerg has 4 anti-air options, hydra muta corruptor and spore crawler, and ALL of them get countered by the PDD. It even blocks the queen's attack lol. With mass ravens your air units could be completely invincible.
On April 21 2010 11:44 roark wrote: The beauty of this still lies in the fact that ravens themselves are the ultimate "juke" or pump-fake. They see starport, hell they even see a raven. Their first thought is not gonna be: "OH SNAP!11!! I need to counter turrets with super high armor!"
That just isn't how it will play out. They see the starport and air, and they start to couter air. All of a sudden they are up against a few PDD and mass turrets.
THIS IS HUGE! Even when they scout it, they have no idea. Especially if you harass early. I almost think a bit of early marauder, like just a few would be good too. That would prevent roaches possibly, letting you then switch into marines or hellions and ravens.
Relying solely on your opponent not having seen something coming, especially when that something is an inevitable outgrowth of what units and abilities do.
It's like saying, "You can just send 10 Overlords to their base! And they'll never think that there's a drop about to happen!" Yes, some people have forgotten that you can drop from Overlords. And yes, some people don't realize what Ravens can actually do, thinking of them only as Seeker Missile launchers.
But you can't rely on that. It'll last maybe 1 week. Because then people will be wise to your game, and you'll get owned.
It's much better if you make a solid build around this tactic. Something that relies on you keeping it a secret in-game until the last minute.
And switch it up every now and then. Turtle up and go for Banshees instead of Ravens all the time. They require different counters, so you'll confuse the Zerg if he's expecting one instead of the other.
On April 21 2010 13:31 Rabiator wrote: How close do you have to be to the target to fire the Seeker missile?
If you can simply shoot it at anything you can see regardless of range you might do a "scan the enemy worker line and then fire from outside his base" attack. No one watches their workers constantly and the missile might go unnoticed for zero risk and if you upgrade the duration to 20 seconds the range should be somewhat huge.
using HSM on workers seems like kind of a waste. It'll work, sure, but it's such an expensive spell, and it'll probably only kill about 6 workers. If you throw down a bunch of autoturrets instead you can not only kill all the workers(maybe) but also take down the hatchery.
On April 21 2010 13:31 Rabiator wrote: How close do you have to be to the target to fire the Seeker missile?
If you can simply shoot it at anything you can see regardless of range you might do a "scan the enemy worker line and then fire from outside his base" attack. No one watches their workers constantly and the missile might go unnoticed for zero risk and if you upgrade the duration to 20 seconds the range should be somewhat huge.
using HSM on workers seems like kind of a waste. It'll work, sure, but it's such an expensive spell, and it'll probably only kill about 6 workers. If you throw down a bunch of autoturrets instead you can not only kill all the workers(maybe) but also take down the hatchery.
The autoturrets will work, but you a) have to move in close with the Raven and endanger the unit itself, b) are warning the enemy that his workers are in danger because the turrets dont insta-kill. So I do think that using the missile on the workers is the better choice IF IT CAN BE FIRED FROM FAR AWAY, since two turrets cost almost the same AND you are endangering the vessel ... err Raven. If the saturation isnt really at its peak you can also decide not to shoot. One of the awesome advantages of the missile is the fact that it cant be shot down like the turrets; you have to avoid it and if you dont notice it you get hit.
Using a cloaked Ghost to scout might keep this trick from being noticed even more, since they dont make sounds as a scan does.
If you find out where the enemy is gathering his troops (or maybe where he prefers to morph in Banelings) you can assault these places from a safe distance as well then.
So to ask again: How close do you have to be to the target to fire the Seeker missile?
So to ask again: How close do you have to be to the target to fire the Seeker missile?
Pretty close, as in you need to have the Raven almost in shooting range of corruptors and range-upgraded hydras. At least that's what I have experienced.
PDD is overrated. It's basically a slightly better defensive matrix (+200hp) from SC1. It has enough energy for maybe 22 shots. Ideally, the PDD is shooting down high damage/bullet projectiles. On average, you'll get about +250 hp from it. It's decent, but nothing special.
On April 21 2010 18:37 link0 wrote: PDD is overrated. It's basically a slightly better defensive matrix (+200hp) from SC1. It has enough energy for maybe 22 shots. Ideally, the PDD is shooting down high damage/bullet projectiles. On average, you'll get about +250 hp from it. It's decent, but nothing special.
how is 250 hp not special? That basically means that 2 banshees which would have died, instead take no damage at all. or 2 PDD could completely protect a battlecruiser.
Well the main thing is that Terran is always starved for gas. 200 gas would mean 2 extra banshees that would have died but actually have caused damage in return. I just rarely see the need for ravens if used only for PDD. Ofc, if you are also using them for detection and for HSM, it's entirely justified.
true, 200 gas is a lot. But 1 raven could cast 2 PDD in a battle, which protects 4 banshees. You could also use it for an endless series of hit and run attacks- run in, cast a few PDD, and your banshees will have time to snipe the workers or hatchery without taking any losses. Rinse and repeat, and you'll get your money's worth.
The raven isn't worth it if the game is going to be decided in one big climactic battle, but it's great in long, protracted games.
Its 200 Energy with 10Energy per Shot. Regenerating Energy may result in one or 2 Aditional Lasers in a long battle. The Range is very small so every Antiairunit can Attack you.
BUT that Lasers save you one Raven, and thats why its not overrated since every single Raven you have make that Strategy better.
Dmg-Reduce(without Upgrades): Don´t know if PTD does work on all 4 AA Units. Raven=140HP Spore Crawler: 15x20=300HP = Two Ravens Hydra:12x20=240HP=One Raven Mutax20=180HP=One Raven Corruptor 12x20=240HP=One Raven
On April 21 2010 11:54 lim1017 wrote: seems like a pretty cool idea, gonna give it a shot tonight. Do you favor the building armor upgrade or +1 range upgrade? i know get both but which 1 first.
When do you build the Ebay? my build going fast banshee is usually something like this, where would you throw in an Ebay? (im not at home atm so i cant view replay) 10 supply 11 refinery 12 racks factory/orbital right after (i lose track of scv count) refinery #2 during factory Starport/supply
also might not fit exactly into this thread, but another idea may be to start off with banshees, then when the opponent responds with hydras or static def bring in a couple ravens /w point defense drone.
I usually add an ebay around the time while first raven is beeing built. This banshee idea that has been posted a few times already really isn't that bad I guess since many will respond with hydras. if they respond with mutas however it's not that nice.
On April 21 2010 19:26 link0 wrote: Well the main thing is that Terran is always starved for gas. 200 gas would mean 2 extra banshees that would have died but actually have caused damage in return. I just rarely see the need for ravens if used only for PDD. Ofc, if you are also using them for detection and for HSM, it's entirely justified.
As a banshee replacement their harassing strength growths with time and they are much harder to counter, it's not like build 3-4 sporecrawlers and ignore the banshees. Those 200 gas can place 2 really strong turrets every time they move in and you don't have to worry about loosing them as long as they deal damage as well.
On April 21 2010 13:31 Rabiator wrote: How close do you have to be to the target to fire the Seeker missile?
If you can simply shoot it at anything you can see regardless of range you might do a "scan the enemy worker line and then fire from outside his base" attack. No one watches their workers constantly and the missile might go unnoticed for zero risk and if you upgrade the duration to 20 seconds the range should be somewhat huge.
using HSM on workers seems like kind of a waste. It'll work, sure, but it's such an expensive spell, and it'll probably only kill about 6 workers. If you throw down a bunch of autoturrets instead you can not only kill all the workers(maybe) but also take down the hatchery.
The autoturrets will work, but you a) have to move in close with the Raven and endanger the unit itself, b) are warning the enemy that his workers are in danger because the turrets dont insta-kill. So I do think that using the missile on the workers is the better choice IF IT CAN BE FIRED FROM FAR AWAY, since two turrets cost almost the same AND you are endangering the vessel ... err Raven
Yes, it might cause a bit of trouble to his eco. But look at the costs, you could place 2-3 turrets instead. If the tactic goes well, you can force him to give up his main at this stage of the game by placing turrets everywhere in it. Ofc the HSM tech is worth to be used for later big battles.
On April 21 2010 20:54 Tyrannon wrote: I think HSM is the only way to stand a chance vs Mutas. They won´t get hurt, but they´ll keep running and running.
well Thors are the ultimate counter to mass mutas. the HSM can buy you time for the slow Thors to get there, though. Also, if you're going mass Ravens, you should have lots of extra minerals to spam missile turrets everywhere (or marines and bunkers).
On April 21 2010 20:54 Tyrannon wrote: I think HSM is the only way to stand a chance vs Mutas. They won´t get hurt, but they´ll keep running and running.
well Thors are the ultimate counter to mass mutas. the HSM can buy you time for the slow Thors to get there, though. Also, if you're going mass Ravens, you should have lots of extra minerals to spam missile turrets everywhere (or marines and bunkers).
due to those incredibly huge spare amounts of minerals it's relatively easy to defend the own base against mutalisks. The only problem is that it makes it so hard for ravens to harass because they're so slow. On the other side, when he puts too many ressources in mutalisks he is quite an easy target for the marines. Marine+Raven really hurts them.
in the replay all the zerg player had to do was either: expand after his initial muta harass and mass up drones (very easy to do when he sees you have just ravens) or nydus worm your island expansion instead he tried to attack your main, backed off, then didn't do much for a while. your turret harass was actually very weak; this was compounded by the fact you didn't p lace the turrets in the mineral line, but you placed them above the gas. (not to mention you spent exactly 1700 minerals on missile turrets) But since you're giving the zerg total map control (ravens give you none at all) all zerg has to do is mass expand and hold off your antics until he overwhelms you.
On April 21 2010 12:37 Tor wrote: This strategy seems like it could be best used as a transition out of a planetary fortress fast expand into quadruple gas or something ridiculous like that. Engineering bay as part of your wall off, increased attack range and armor benefitting the fortress, a large number of marines with a few key turrets to hold off mutas and a couple of bunkered marauders if you see a roach push. Use the starports to build a couple of medivacs to escort your ravens (16 marines/2 medivacs does a good number against mutalisks. Easy to build banshees instead of ravens if you see mass roach play. Problems seem to be: you gotta be careful against nydus drops and you'll be lacking aggression early on. Worth testing.
One base raven harass just isn't going to do much as you'll just get out econned early game or run over with mass roaches or you'll lose your ravens to 3 mutas because you're too slow to run. And to top it all off you'll have zero map control.
Try not to focus on using the raven as a one unit gimmick and focus more on creating a versatile strategy that sets yourself up to utilize and maximize the ravens late game strength. You suggest an awful lot of set-up just so you can do auto-turret harass and because you theory crafted turrets being cost effective versus lings/hydralisks with the armor upgrade (ignoring that even a few roaches will ruin your day completely).
This is the line of thinking that would make this a real viable strategy. Quadruple gas taking it from gimmick to solid play becauase it lets you pump out some ravens very fast. I could even see the build working well by starting out with early double gas but only really getting a little marine / hellion harrass going while you FE. Maybe use this early stage of the game to get your 2 medivacs or early viking to keep zergs supply in check. Vikings kicking his OL ass will make him want to skip roaches and go straight to hydras or mutas. I could even see it being viable to add on an early reactor to pop a couple vikings and drop ships asap then as your 2nd base goes online with the extra gas and the static defenses are up drop a few extra starports and pump 3 ports at once. With your late game being a BC push.
. Don't forget the hellions for hit and runs. Its another mineral sink and could probably be used very well in combo with the turrets & pdd. I'm thinking something like push in with 4-5 hellions (around the time you'd normally be making use of your first 2-3 ravens) and lure his units to chase you only to run into a pdd / turret field.
Hellions also help a lot in map control. If his response is to take a bunch of extra bases at least you'll be well aware of it and able to pick off drones.
On April 21 2010 21:24 cartoon]x wrote: in the replay all the zerg player had to do was either: expand after his initial muta harass and mass up drones (very easy to do when he sees you have just ravens) or nydus worm your island expansion instead he tried to attack your main, backed off, then didn't do much for a while. your turret harass was actually very weak; this was compounded by the fact you didn't p lace the turrets in the mineral line, but you placed them above the gas. (not to mention you spent exactly 1700 minerals on missile turrets) But since you're giving the zerg total map control (ravens give you none at all) all zerg has to do is mass expand and hold off your antics until he overwhelms you.
How do ravens give you no map control? The way I see it, map control is the ability to attack a large number of places on the map. It allows you to punish his base any time his army leaves his base. This is EXACTLY what ravens do. They can do mobile harass much better than mech, much better than anything really except for pure MMM. If he's building lots of drones and expansions, your ravens can have a field day just flying from one to the next, dropping off turrets.
No. Having map control is being able to expand and prevent the opponent from expanding. The player can spread weak attacks all over the map, but if the player can't move out of their own base to take their natural, they don't have map control. If the player can't prevent the opponent from expanding, they don't have map control. The auto turrets are not strong enough of an attack to prevent the zerg player from expanding. He can leave a few forces in his main and have plenty of forces to protect his natural, a third, and eventually a fourth expansion. Not to mention the zerg player can see the attack coming because he has overlords positioned around his base. Infact, the auto turrets barely killed anything. In the replay the only way the Terran player expands is by getting lucky. I put my overlord at the Terrans island, so I would of seen it coming and flown my mutas there. I would of killed that expansion and won the game, guaranteed. The ravens will not be having a field day, they will be lucky if they escape from the mutalisks alive after harassing one base. I have an idea, though. How about instead of talking about it, we test it out. We can have someone try the build against me in a custom game on the US server and see how it does. Just PM me and we will set up a game. Mech actually is far better at mobile harass with thor drops and hellion drops.
On April 21 2010 22:04 cartoon]x wrote: No. Having map control is being able to expand and prevent the opponent from expanding. You can spread weak attacks all over the map, but if you can't move out of your own base to take your natural, you don't have map control. Does a dropship filled with 8 marines give a terran player map control? No, that's not map control. If you can't prevent your opponent from expanding, you don't have map control. The auto turrets are not strong enough of an attack to prevent the zerg player from expanding. He can leave a few forces in his main and have plenty of forces to protect his natural, a third, and eventually a fourth expansion. Not to mention the zerg player can see the attack coming because he has overlords positioned around his base. Infact, the auto turrets barely killed anything. In the replay the only way the Terran player expands is by getting lucky. I put my overlord at the Terrans island, so I would of seen it coming and flown my mutas there. I would of killed that expansion and won the game, guaranteed. The ravens will not be having a field day, they will be lucky if they escape from the mutalisks alive after harassing one base. I have an idea, though. How about instead of talking about it, we test it out. We can have someone try the build against me in a custom game on the US server and see how it does. Mech actually is far better at mobile harass with thor drops and hellion drops.
That's the million dollar question, isn't it? I really doubt that the zerg player can divide his army in 4 and still have enough to shutdown the auto turrets from massed ravents. But I agree, the only way to be sure is to try it out a lot and see what happens.
Get a game set up and I will show you myself on 4, maybe even 5 bases and the opponent on 1 base. That's if he's not already dead. Just PM me if you want a game.
I like this idea of playing mass raven out of FE/Fortress with 4x gas, especially since one really doesn't have to rely on those additional mules with this style of playing. Seems like there are so many variations in which mass ravens might be playable, gonna have to try alot of them :D Last thing I tryed was old BO but with a banshee instead of first raven and gas before rax so I had pretty early techs and 5 turrets when I went for his base first time plus he went for Hydras. Sadly it's not really proving anything as the opponent was too bad.
Apart from all the theory crafting going on I think this might be a bo that at least won't get totally busted such as streloks mass-banshee-attempt on protoss ^^
Thanks for posting this, I have been giving it a try and it really is a fun way to play. Heads up and please: keep working on this and let us know about the developments. Once again, great stuff
Seems like a good idea. Upgraded auto turrets stay around for a TON of time. He really needs to kill them to make them go away since they will kill the hatch otherwise. Also stopping raven production later for a more massable army and getting hunter seeker gives you a perfect composition against anything he can have unless he stops your expo. I tried this build briefly and it worked well even though I improvised quite badly..
On April 21 2010 18:37 link0 wrote: PDD is overrated. It's basically a slightly better defensive matrix (+200hp) from SC1. It has enough energy for maybe 22 shots. Ideally, the PDD is shooting down high damage/bullet projectiles. On average, you'll get about +250 hp from it. It's decent, but nothing special.
...Except defensive matrix protected one unit, while PDD protects your entire fucking army.
Yes PDD doesn't seem quite effective to me once the fights get huge. So far I use those ravens to keep the opponent small however, so when the marine comes the opponent should have quite a few units which suffer alot from 2-5 PDDs. On the other hand its quite clear that few PDDs won't have this huge effect anymore, if you have like 10-15 however it might be really hard ^^ (10 PDDs against hydras will be 200x12 (assuming he has as many attack upgrades as terran defense) dmg so 2400 health you don't loose. That's equal to almost 45 upgraded marines. Too bad they don't work on roaches, this would be really sick with 16 dmg per shot and their slow attack speed.
Tors revisions to the strategy are actually very good, but should be tested
On April 22 2010 01:50 Lythis wrote: But defensive matrix didn't cost any energy, PDD is out of juice after 0,5 s in big fights.
defensive matrix wore out as it took damage. PDD wears out as it takes damage. Energy measures the time it takes for PDD to wear out. raw damage absorbed is the measure for defensive matrix. The only difference this implies is that PDD is even more effective vs. high damage attacks and not as effective vs. low damage attacks; though it's still effective. (Assuming it takes an equal amount of energy to shoot down any missile attack)
Just heard of the idea of opening with 1 Viking so he doesn't see first ravens coming, stops sliming expos and might even be supply blocked when autoturrets arrive. Plus some zerg loose their desire of teching mutas when they didn't already and ofc it comes very quick so he will most likely not have ovi speed already.
Why you should get ravens^^. Sure the zerg can run away from them with his mutalisks but not without taking damage from a thor. When the missile dies and he comes back, fire another missile at him when he focuses your thors. He is forced to run away again and most of his mutas sit at 30-40 hp from the thor shots. Raven (to kill/block corrupters) + viking also very good at killing broodlords if he switches to those.
I am not that good but I usually build 1-2 sensor towers/control the watch towers and when I see the zerg army starting to mass, i shoot the seeker missiles since He is probably macroing/not paying attention and I can usually kill many units for free. The zerg doesn't have enough time to constantly watch his army and 3 seconds can mean the difference between 150 food and 130 food.
Bumping this thread because I am intrigued by the strategy. Have you guys had any more success with it? I won a game with the basic build in a placement match on Desert Oasis, but have not had the balls to use it on any other map (and have not had a TvZ on Desert Oasis since).
At this point, after having my mech build rocked by infestors multiple times, I am ready to revisit this strat. I may try the PF FE tonight.
EPT
x20=180HP=One Raven
