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Before I begin, I'm in 2v2 platinum, usually between 20th and 11th place, and silver/gold solo depending on how much cheese I can get away with 
So lately I've been wondering why I see players make a few reapers in the early game and never make a large amount of them in the mid game to compliment there M&M armies when the obvious situation arises. Of course they are trash against stalkers and roaches, but against Zealots (even with charge) or more importantly Hydralisks! which we all know Zerg players love to mass, the reapers destroy, rape, and pillage those units with there crazy +damage vs light. Also against Banelings, a large group of Reapers with + speed can get rid of them while taking very minimal damage, especially if microd near a high ridge the reapers can use to shoot and move on (much better than hellions IMO). Lately I see Terrans answer to the Banelings being putting the high armored units in front and letting them eat the Baneling explosions when a big battle occurs. Even if you still do this, having a healthy amount of reapers in the group will lesson the damage taken by the marauders, because a large enough group of reapers mixed in with the marauders will kill many more Banelings before they reach the M&M ball much faster than marines.
Here is another situation, I was playing a 2v2, TTvPP. So my partner went with 4 rax marine spam, and I went 2-3 rax with marauders and we tried to time a very early push. Both toss players were producing a nice mix of zealots and stalkers while teching to zealot speed. My partners marines got obliterated at there ramp, and left my marauders to get destroyed with the zealots making the difference. So my partner techs to marauders quickly and we barely pumped out enough of them to save us from there immediate counter push, we then pushed right back at them with our marauders, but the zealots had charge, and again made the difference in them holding us off, if they were just making stalkers we would have easily won already at this point. So we continued to rally towards there bases, but you could feel that we were gonna lose if this kept up. No one was expanding because if anyone stopped pumping out as many of these units as possible they would be overrun, Also the 100 mineral cost of the marauders was draining my minerals too fast, but my gas was going up. Right there I started pumping reapers, the 50 less mineral cost allowed me to expand, and at the same time there damage against the zealots made amazingly short work of them, allowing the marauders to push through the stalkers, while the now 20 or so reapers were able to jump into bases 3 shotting gateways, 1 shotting the new zealots getting warped in, and GG mid game, and equal amount of reapers with my marauders easily won the game.
Alot of Zerg players are making a few Banelings and a few muta's to keep the Terran stuck in there base pumping marines, and using marauders as there seemingly obvious backup. Even if the terran uses the marines to defend well from the hit and run attacks of the mutas, the Zerg has map control, expands and starts to amass the hydra army that will surely crush you. If the terran push out at all the Banelings destroy the slow marauders and the Terran take a huge econ hit, or the hydras easily outmass the marauders, the Zerg push in and GG. The answer has to be mixing in a large amount of reapers with the marines instead of the marauders, thats right 20 marines + 15 reapers is much much better here than 20 marines + 15 marauders. It gives you the ability to push out with the reapers, hit and run on the Banelings without wasting time and money on hellions that cant use high ground and arent as effective against mass hydra, and very quickly taking any mutas that appear to the marines much faster with less loss than marauders who would be all but wiped out by the time they make it back to the marines, and thats if any marauders are left after the Banelings had there way with them. So it very much gives the Terran the ability to not get stuck in there base, push back! Eventually when the mass hydras run into the mass marine/reaper army reapers make such short work of the hydras its not even funny. 50 reapers vs 50 hydras = all hydras dead and about 20 reapers still alive, mix in marines which do about 50/50 vs hydra mineral cost vs mineral cost, and you have the answer to this Zerg build as a Terran.
I'm sure once the game is in the hands of more pro players, and more time has passed, you will see more players using large numbers of reapers with there marauders instead of marines, and reapers with marines instead of marauders, depending on what there opponent is doing. So make more reapers!
Id like to upload the replay of the TTvPP I described, ill come back later today and add it if anyone is interested.
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50 gas, 50HP, 0 armor, no Stim.
That's why you don't see them alot. They are weak & costly as a combat unit, and they aren't paticulary good either. Yes they destroy lings and zealots that aren't supported, but theres a very small window in the game where those units aren't paired with other units that reapers are near worthless against [and don't have their speed upgrade]. Maybe if they had stim they'd be used more, but they don't.
The situations you described were against people doing the wrong things, sorry. Zealot/Stalker without sentry? Mass hydra/baneling without roach?
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It might be better in 2v2 because you can gang up on a player with a lot of reapers, but in 1v1 I don't think that mass reaper is a good choice. Reapers are a nice compliment to an army but they are too expensive. Reaper+marine will be easily destroyed by a group of roaches, and reaper+ marauder can't do anything about mutalisks. If you are 100% positive that your opponent is not going to make 1 or the other then sure, it would work, but a smart opponent will take advantage of the weakness in your army composition. As for hydra v reaper, If you can get good positioning then reapers can destroy hydras but the problem is that hydras have a bigger attack range. Also in 1v1 it's not really cost effective to fight reaper v hydra when the Zerg is 1 base ahead of you.
The worst part about reapers is that they take a really long time to build.
Reapers are just not very good in a straight up fight when you consider the cost.
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And a Hydra costs 100m 50g so 1 marine and 1 reaper cost the same and will eat the hydra alive. Multiply that any way you want, 20 marines + 10 reapers vs 30 hydras, or 20 reapers + 10 marines vs 30 hydras, and the Terran will win. There are obvious reason when not to make a large reaper force to supliment your marines or marauders, for instance if the toss start pumping out collosus, immortal, and stalker than the reaper is garbage. What I was talking about is people using more reapers in situations where they are effective, like the 2 examples I gave in my wall of text.
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But caldo wouldnt reaper + marauder do better vs an even cost amount of roaches than marine marauder? And isnt reaper + marines much much better vs muta+ hydra? Of course if the enemy starts to pump armored units, you need banshees or tanks with marauders to kill the armored ground army, but even then if you were caught making too many reapers, they still do more damage flat out to anything while the marauders tank enemy armored than marines, so there almost never a waste, if you atleast prepared for enemy air.
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they aren't as effective though because they don't have stim
a stimmed marauder has 1 more armor, does somewhat comparable DPS even without it's damage bonus and has over double the health for 50 min more and 25 less gas - arguably less as gas is more valuable than minerals alot of the time.. There's really no reason to mass reapers over marauders, even in the situations you described. Maybe if you don't want to use stim ever and your opponent is making nothing but one type of unit, sure, but no, that doesn't mean we're gonna see "more pros using reapers" and no one has figured it out yet. It means you fought some people in 2v2 who were stupid.
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LOL <3 faction123
Im still gonna keep my eyes open in the next few days for any excuse from the opponents build (light units) to mass up some reapers with my marines or marauders. Ive only tried it a few times with great success so far. I really hope im right, I love controlling reapers, and I love there damage.
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hummm... i dont want to shoot down this idea, but...
i find hellions a bit more interesting... they are getting produced faster, they have more speed than an upgraded reaper and i'm more worried about gas than minerals tbh - although i can understand the expansion argument.
*scratch non-existent beard*
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I was just watching the HDH invitational, and in game 3 of Day9 vs Tastless, if Day9 would have had 2 rax with tech labs instead of the rax and factory with reactors on both (he was going for some hellion harrass and ran into roaches) and used reapers for his harrass, he could have easily had a few marauders ready for the roaches pushing on his base in the immediate counterattack. Of course Day9 is a much better player than myself, but I just dont see anyone valuing reapers enough. If he wanted to go thors he could have done a lift swap with a barracks that had a tech lab on it, then built a few more barracks with tech labs. Then he would have the flexibility of pumping reapers if he saw hydras, or more marauders if he continued to see more roaches, and of course with a healthy amount of tech lab barracks, he can still get enough marines to, along with the thors air attack kill whatever amount of mutas get made. Just another reason to be ready to pump out reapers for your main suplemental force depending on the enemy.
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On May 02 2010 21:11 Chrion wrote:
I was just watching the HDH invitational, and in game 3 of Day9 vs Tastless, if Day9 would have had 2 rax with tech labs instead of the rax and factory with reactors on both (he was going for some hellion harrass and ran into roaches) and used reapers for his harrass, he could have easily had a few marauders ready for the roaches pushing on his base in the immediate counterattack. Of course Day9 is a much better player than myself, but I just dont see anyone valuing reapers enough. If he wanted to go thors he could have done a lift swap with a barracks that had a tech lab on it, then built a few more barracks with tech labs. Then he would have the flexibility of pumping reapers if he saw hydras, or more marauders if he continued to see more roaches, and of course with a healthy amount of tech lab barracks, he can still get enough marines to, along with the thors air attack kill whatever amount of mutas get made. Just another reason to be ready to pump out reapers for your main suplemental force depending on the enemy.
You need to listen to the interview after the game :p He wanted to make a tech lab and made the reactor by mistake.
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Yea I just saw that, although it would have been late anyway, too many roaches too fast, Im watching the recap of the RO16, HD and husky are doing an amazing job with this tournament! isnt G4 tv supposed to be about video games? If so then why is there better video game entertainment being brought to us by these 2 guys from there house? lol
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Reapers take just way too long to make. They also cannot be stimmed and have the worst upgrade that doesn't help in actual blob vs blob combat.
If you have some leftover reapers from early game, use them to harrass his worker line while the main fight happens away from the base, otherwise, i'd just make more marauder/marine.
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Do youreself a test and pit 50 reapers vs 50 hydras and watch as the reapers destroy the hydras, and there are about 20 reapers left!! So this means the zerg lost the battle and there units were 50 minerals apiece more! So how come no one warns the zerg to not mass hydra by saying its a waste of gas in the midgame? Also if you have 6 or 7 rax, you can pump out a crazy amount of reapers quickly enough, although they do build more slowly than marines, you would need like 85 or 90 marines to survive 50 hydras, let alone have enough marines left that have the flexibility to hop in the enemies base and 2 shot any building of there choice in seconds while the zerg player scrambles to rebuild. The 20 reapers you have left can get into the zergs base and kill 5 or 6 buildings or an entire worker line before the marines made it across the map to the zerg bases entrance. Of course like ive said you would never have just reapers, but there amazing in alot more situations than just rushing 1 or 2 of them at the start of the fight. Id love it if some players who are much better than me actually tried my ideas, ill be very excited if people start using them in these manners to much winning effect.
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This is why I'd love to see reapers be changed so they aren't such a cheesy unit that's only used in the first 3-4 minutes of the game...
Make them require the Ghost academy or something (but not a tech lab), make them build faster, increase their cost and fighting stats, make them stimmable etc... They'd be much more interesting than they are now.
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Give them 3 spider mines, buff their armor slightly and remove their normal building attack(throwable grenades).
Require them to be built out of the factory with mines having to be researched from the tech lab.
Bam, you have a very viable mid-lategame unit, can even be used in semi-early game like the hellions.
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Nothing wrong with making them if the game is desperate and you need a solutino to expand - meaning you need to use up more gas and use less minerals in your unit production, plus the fact that the zealots were really hard countering the marines and marauders - remove them from the equation with reapers and you win that battle. Granted with more support (colossus etc) the reapers would melt and be useless, but for this situation it was a good use IMO, and kudos to you for using them for more than just harass. I think blizzards intention was for them to be a harass unit, but also something that is viable in certain situations.
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Woot, I figured out how to upload replays without having to ask and annoy anyone, heres the TTvPP matchup in my example 
As you can see for like the 9th time in a row, the zealots were going to push back the marauders, and maybe again have a go at our bases, but the insane damage from the reapers made this one of the many small battles go very quickly in our favor.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=122712
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I've always wondered about making ~10 reapers late game when that isn't really a lot of money, and using them to snipe nexus or tech buildings. They deal a lot of damage to buildlings.
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Didn't reapers used to have stim btw?
I rememeber a David Kim Battlereport were reapers had stim if im not mistaken.
Why did they remove that?
It won't really effect early games, but it might make reapers more mid-game effective...
Generally they ought to rebalance the reaper, so it can be early game and mid-game effective...
hell even late, if used right with upgrades.
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I just thought of another great matchup where the reaper gets overlooked in the mid-game. Protoss players that go with large amounts of high templars (as there so gas heavy) will have a solid amount of zealots in there group, and obviously a few stalkers, but less stalkers and more zealots than probably any other toss army comp. Here with the speed upgrade mixed in with your marauders (to counter the stalkers, for the marauder health pools, and no immediate need for anti air from marines) a large group of reapers can dodge storms with no limit, and dish out insane damage to the HT's and zealots. A large group of reapers would wipeout the entire toss force in 2 or 3 shots while the marauders tank damage.
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found the reason for your mineral problem: 17 SCVs - total - in that TTvPP replay.
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Yea my partner called me out for that one too 
I got so into trying to micro and worrying about expanding I never went back and got 25+ scv's going.
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EPT
