hopefully we'll be seeing more of this. i've played against two diamond rank 1 terrans who got up there with attack-move marauder/marines (lost one, won one).
protoss can respond with feedback (have fun microing that), terran possibly with ghosts, and zerg -- i don't know.
people are going to start playing this really rock-paper-scissors-ish game where either the other player catches them doing the raven thing and responds appropriately, or gets outnumbered by autoturrets and pdd.
on the other hand, i'm also afraid that we'll see too much of this. no other unit in the game has a spell for every situation, much less are there any such units that can fly.
ravens very much just take detection, dark swarm, reaver scarabs and infested terrans all onto a single unit.
this may very well be the silver bullet unit that everyone's been hoping there wouldn't be any of, save for certain scenarios.
TvP HTs completely nullify this. Feedback is a oneshot, and costs the T 200 gas
TvT, Bio play can easily work in ghosts. I don't know why your opponent didn't, but EMP again costs you so much gas investment. What is the rest of the force, marines? Then it's marines vs MMM. Keep in mind rank 1 means nothing - it's all points.
TvZ this sure can work... but really this is because Z doesn't have a good counter to anything but marines (banelings/infestor). Mass BC, mass vikings, mass thor, etc - pretty much anything is viable because even if Z scouts it, at best he can beat it at about 1.2:1 cost, and cannot follow up with an attack. So yeah, mass raven is viable, but it's not like this redefines the new play. If he went BC instead of raven, things would have been no different that match except it wouldn't have taken so long.
i dont think this was any particular strategy to win because greenpine said he did this after getting annoyed by repetitive TvT in ladder games one after another.
Horrible build, vikings would completely buttrape this build, and you get vikings almost always anyway no matter what unit composition you go, because air dominance is king.
PDD aint worth shit if you harrass him with your vikings, he can't keep dropping PDD's all the time, plus a few missile will get through. Its just not feasible, and your marine force will be raped by tanks.
It works until someone figures out that they can EMP or feedback. I've been doing this in 4v4s for the lulz, and HT or ghosts completely shut ravens down.
On September 18 2010 06:35 fdsdfg wrote: TvP HTs completely nullify this. Feedback is a oneshot, and costs the T 200 gas
TvT, Bio play can easily work in ghosts. I don't know why your opponent didn't, but EMP again costs you so much gas investment. What is the rest of the force, marines? Then it's marines vs MMM. Keep in mind rank 1 means nothing - it's all points.
TvZ this sure can work... but really this is because Z doesn't have a good counter to anything but marines (banelings/infestor). Mass BC, mass vikings, mass thor, etc - pretty much anything is viable because even if Z scouts it, at best he can beat it at about 1.2:1 cost, and cannot follow up with an attack. So yeah, mass raven is viable, but it's not like this redefines the new play. If he went BC instead of raven, things would have been no different that match except it wouldn't have taken so long.
If someone goes mass ravens, all you do as Z is macro and get.. whatever you want. Be it hydra or (preferably) muta. Muta are faster than hunter seeker missiles. They also cost 125 energy and Ravens only have a max of 200 energy. Bait out a couple and you are set. Or just mass hydras.. or anything you want. Infestors even. Your macro can be so strong and Terran will have invested so much into these ravens that it'll be gg fairly easily.
On September 18 2010 07:07 [-]Ocelot[-] wrote:Muta are faster than hunter seeker missiles.
throw down some auto turrets around a critical location, like a hatchery. force the mutas to come defend. without micro or upgrades on either side, 10 turrets will take down 12 mutalisks.
hydras with decent micro should fare better, though i still think the raven build is at least viable if not perfect.
On September 18 2010 06:35 fdsdfg wrote: TvP HTs completely nullify this. Feedback is a oneshot, and costs the T 200 gas
TvT, Bio play can easily work in ghosts. I don't know why your opponent didn't, but EMP again costs you so much gas investment. What is the rest of the force, marines? Then it's marines vs MMM. Keep in mind rank 1 means nothing - it's all points.
TvZ this sure can work... but really this is because Z doesn't have a good counter to anything but marines (banelings/infestor). Mass BC, mass vikings, mass thor, etc - pretty much anything is viable because even if Z scouts it, at best he can beat it at about 1.2:1 cost, and cannot follow up with an attack. So yeah, mass raven is viable, but it's not like this redefines the new play. If he went BC instead of raven, things would have been no different that match except it wouldn't have taken so long.
I really don't agree with the idea that HT's can nullify this. I don't think that any of the Ravens in that game had high enough energy to be one shot'd. While feedback takes out the energy, I'm sure that a hunter seeker or a bunch of auto turrets would have probably been dropped by the time you can feedback all of the ravens.
Also, if your HT dies, thats 150 gas and 50 minerals, which in itself is rather gas intensive.
As for counters I think blink stalkers would work because they could blink right under the ravens and (potentially) kill the ravens via their own splash damage (from the Hunter Seeker) + their DPS.
That was a cool build, but I wouldn't overreact to much to it. Just brainstorming a little here, and I think some of these responses would cripple the play. Frankly, the #1 error the opposing terran did was to let all those expos get up. This strategy simply doesn't work without immense gas income.
Ghosts would definitely work well, a single EMP and the raven blob is so much floating junk. That said, you would need to make multiple ghosts and keep them around in various defensive positions, lest the ravens just fly into a base and cover it in little presents for your return. As the replay showed, thors work well against them as well, but their immobility makes it difficult to deal with flying harass. MMM/G would probably be the most straightforward option, just start counter harassing his gas expos, then EMP + stim the ravens when they bother to show up. Late game, terran can always just transition in to battlecruisers - they have tons of health vs HSM, a lot of armor vs. the turrets, and can yamato cannon ravens in addition to their high dps.
Protoss would also have a number of options - blink stalkers, high templar (those ravens were bunching so nicely storm would inflict serious damage), and perhaps most simply, a few phoenix. The phoenix do incredible damage to the light ravens, fire fast enough to burn through PDD, and engage at suicide-ranges for HSM (not to mention they can dodge it if fired at range). Phoenix would pretty easily shut this down, esp. when combined with graviton harass on the expos - no gas income, no ravens.
Infestors would be super scary for the ravens to fight. The ravens really just want to drop their tech and run, leaving a hapless army to take losses to energy abilities. With fungal growth, the ravens would be stuck in place and sniped by hydras, though the zerg would need to be careful of HSM responses.
But really, any strategy would work so long as you have some plan to deal with the ravens when they show up, and you put pressure on or deny the expansions. You don't even need to kill the PFs, just fight out of range and snipe the refineries. A few DTs/marines/stalkers/lings/whatever would absolutely cripple the ability for the terran to maintain the econ he needs to fuel this tech.
On September 18 2010 14:59 MalVortex wrote:MMM/G would probably be the most straightforward option
bleh, would rather see too much mass raven than too much mmm/g.
it'd be interesting to see how people compensate for mmm/g's lack of mobility in comparison to ravens though.
On September 18 2010 14:59 MalVortex wrote: But really, any strategy would work so long as you have some plan to deal with the ravens when they show up, and you put pressure on or deny the expansions. You don't even need to kill the PFs, just fight out of range and snipe the refineries. A few DTs/marines/stalkers/lings/whatever would absolutely cripple the ability for the terran to maintain the econ he needs to fuel this tech.
i think the guy was just playing experimentally here, but once this strategy's refined, people will no doubt begin to leave at least one raven at each fortress, so dt will be out of the question.
i think sniping refineries is a good idea, though again, as the strategy's refined, people will start complementing it with marines and such.
On September 18 2010 14:59 MalVortex wrote: Protoss would also have a number of options - blink stalkers, high templar (those ravens were bunching so nicely storm would inflict serious damage), and perhaps most simply, a few phoenix.
...
With fungal growth, the ravens would be stuck in place and sniped by hydras, though the zerg would need to be careful of HSM responses.
now that you put it that way, i'm sorta excited to see all the fancy footwork people will be doing against mass ravens, if people decide to emulate it :D
I tried this in a tvt today, it didn't work out. I'll probably try it again but Vikings made it tough. None of my ravens had enough energy for hsm, that probably would have made a diffetence. I noticed that auto turrets don't do great until they get some upgrades, they weren't very good at killing tanks. That's just my first experience though, i'm not giving up on it yet!
Maybe a safer opening with a good transition into ravens would be a good idea? I felt like "bob" didn't really take advantage of that early timing window or stop...any expos.
I like sneaking that expo by the way, it feels great having so much gas income. I even did it in a standard tvt today on LT, but high risk high reward...if it was scouted that would have been pretty bad.
The only reason this worked is because he got to a critical mass. its not cost effective at all, unless you have 7 base to 3 base. 7 base 3 base, almost anything can work.
One emp equals no way to hold an expansion. also 2-3 thors which is very viable can take out 6-7 ravens, which is already hard to get to. Its easier and fast to get to a crit mass of thors than it is to get that crit mass of ravens.
This is almost like watching a fastest map possible and trying to pull a strat from a Mass one units vs Mass one unit game.
you know, it's really frustrating that the threat of emp forces players to not rely on spellcaster-ish units. it practically disables micro-oriented play styles.
I HATE the raven turrets. I wish they were like infested terrans instead.
You can easily shoot infested terrans in a mineral line, but turrets, no, you need to find some free spot with 4 spaces -_- They take so much space, and are so annoying to place, especially when there are units around :/
I think the focus here should be on "Bob"'s lack of scouting and passive style rather than how good Ravens are. I don't think he did a single harassment attack the entire game. A simple drop with 8 marauders in the opponent's main would've dealt a lot of damage or drain energy from the Ravens. Meanwhile, he should expanded more himself, because that Raven army can only attack one place at the time. Throw a few vikings on them to force PDDs in otherwise useless positions and the Raven player is completely neutralized.
It's one of those "shit happens" moments that happen to you once, but next time you'll know how to deal with it.
i love creative builds like this ... i think it can actually work in TvT if mix in a lot of vikings... mass hunter seeker missile harass mineral lines and marines if he choses to counter with MMM,
vs Toss i think its impossible vs Z it could prolly also work with mass vikings
Feedback either kills a Raven outright, or badly damages it and renders it useless. It will also destroy a PDD Vikings can annihilate them from distance, and are far enough away that they can effectively avoid HSM EMP renders both them and PDD useless Carriers will punch through a PDD in like 2 seconds (8 interceptors, each making 2 attacks=16 attacks. PDD only eats 20) Pheonixes are fast enough that they can effortlessly avoid HSM, and their double attack lets them quickly eat through PDD, and they do bonus damage against Light, and they're like twice as fast as Ravens Blink Stalkers can blink to easily catch up with them/avoid HSM
Ravens are a terrific unit to supplement an army with, but they are not without weaknesses or counters. I don't see mass ravens ever becoming viable.
In fact, I can't think of a single spellcaster unit that is viable to mass. Mass HT's? No. Mass Ghosts? No. Mass Infestors? No. Mass Sentries? No. The very nature of a spellcaster is that they can do some really awesome stuff...a couple of times, after which they're useless for a long time. You need ordinary units to capitalize on the impact that their spells create.
On September 18 2010 22:35 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: I think the focus here should be on "Bob"'s lack of scouting and passive style rather than how good Ravens are.
i wouldn't be too quick to blame bob for that. the thought that a raven might pop some turrets behind your mineral line at any time is pretty scary. keep in mind he had dozens of ravens, and he'd only need to pull one or two from his fleet to pull off something like that -- while effectively fending off a harassment like that is more costly.
why does HD cast when he doesn't know what he's talking about? the fact that people watch that channel baffles me. greenpine played horribly, game was a fluke, obvious counters are obvious, why is this thread here, etc, etc, etc, etc.
i hate the sc2 masses for making this guy popular.
To be honest... How would mass ravens ever work?! There are so many obvious counters to this such as EMP , Feedback the only reason greenpine made that work was because he was able to secure all his expansions and "Bob" just got out macro-ed .. This replay isnt about Raven's being strong but just shows Greenpine was a better player than "Bob"
This would never work, the guy had no early vikings and just let his units die to HSMs. Anyone with a little insight would just open with two vikings and not let HSMs hit them. Oh yeah, don't forget attacking a planetary fortress with like 10 marauders. Just really bad play, anything would look good against that.
Literally all you'd have to do to beat this is make vikings and attack the ravens every time he tries to leave his base. He'd need a lot of turrets to kill the vikings, in which case you'd just back up, wasting all the ravens' energy.
this was a amazing game but a single ghost with emp could have taken this out. but since "bob" made a commitment to the mech units I feel like a sudden switch to ghost would be a total waste of resources.
i have been toying with using more ravens in my tvt. They especially transition nicely out of banshee play.
I will say they are nice and are very versitile. Having 1-2 for pdd's is absoutly huge in vikings battles, and can make your 5 vikings beat 20(exageration...maybe?)
point is, i would never try mass ravens since it can get countered so easily, but i am convinced that having 1-2 ravens going into the late game helps alot.
On September 18 2010 22:35 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: I think the focus here should be on "Bob"'s lack of scouting and passive style rather than how good Ravens are.
i wouldn't be too quick to blame bob for that. the thought that a raven might pop some turrets behind your mineral line at any time is pretty scary. keep in mind he had dozens of ravens, and he'd only need to pull one or two from his fleet to pull off something like that -- while effectively fending off a harassment like that is more costly.
The moment the guy had "dozens of ravens", Bob had already made several fatal mistakes and had lost already. It IS about his opponent's bad play. Vikings, combined with an active playstyle, some random turrets, and expanding because of the low threat level, would've easily neutralized the raven-play and make sure that it's 7 vs 2 exps the moment he even reaches a dozen ravens.
Although this game was great, this build worked mostly because of "Bob's" (Is that really going to be his name?) reactions to the build. Things that he could've done to counter the build: EarlyGame -Proxy reapers, or reapers in general. Taking out the gas quickly is crucial to this build, and for a while, GreenPine clearly had a blind spot to send in reapers -In fact, any early cheese could easily beat this (save photon rush, most pro's can beat that, but either way, I'm pretty sure it would offset the build) -Early tank/scan push w/ marine/marauder support to break the door/block the ramp/draw fire Midgame -THIS is the whole problem. Right here. He actually let this become a midgame. With so many expansions, he could've easily started harassing like crazy and taken out the gas. However, he didn't know this build was coming, so... -Marine/Dropship/Stim would've PROBABLY sniped out the ravens quickly, just run from the autoturrets. Again, dropship harass would've helped. Lategame -Too late. He had so many gas expos compared to Bob's 3 bases that he was able to overwhelm him with ravens. With all those minerals, he could've easily gathered a large marine force as well. After all, marines are key to gas heavy builds since they use up all your minerals, and you want to maximize your resource usage at all times (unless he was looking not to get supply blocked by marines?).
On September 19 2010 11:52 SUSUGAM wrote: why does HD cast when he doesn't know what he's talking about? the fact that people watch that channel baffles me. greenpine played horribly, game was a fluke, obvious counters are obvious, why is this thread here, etc, etc, etc, etc.
i hate the sc2 masses for making this guy popular.
i don't like hd either to be honest. he's, neither entertaining nor informative nor informed. on the other hand, his choice of replays is hard to disagree with.
i honestly would like to see something like this work more often, if not always. it sure beats mmm in entertainment value.
the "obvious" counter in this case, ghosts (and to some extent feedback), is somewhat disappointing. why should there be anything in the game that nullifies all spell caster builds?
greenpine didn't play very well, no, but that's exactly my point -- this strategy could be refined a lot more and possibly be made viable. i wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.
and really, i'm not so sure that's a bad thing. do we really want to be stuck doing the obvious every game?
Pretty interesting build, surprisingly effective. Am I wrong or didn't QXC do this in the TLA Season 3 - if so wouldn't that make him the originator of the mass raven build (or even someone else from mid Beta)? This isn't the first time I've seen mass Ravens, far from it, I've even massed them myself, but this is the only time I've seen such a refined and complete build.
Obviously mass anything has issues to it. I think what this game highlights is that Ravens are an extremely important and underused unit. A single PDD or HSM can turn a losing battle into a winning one and a few well placed turrets can wreck havoc on an economy without having to sacrifice any units.
I know that I am slowly incorporating more and more ravens into my builds because of these facts. Lately I've been messing around with air builds that have had quite a bit of success since the only anti-air units that aren't affected by PDD are marines and void rays (HSM cleans up marines and vikings clean up void rays.) A couple vikings, ravens and banshees is a very mobile and scary force (as long as you don't suicide it into his main army.)
I also like raven heavy armies because I personally have a bad habit of not expanding enough and getting a lot of ravens encourages you to expand because you have a ton of minerals and no gas.
Casting units have great timings. If you get them early enough they cause havoc in the enemies build, causing them to overreact, then you just sit and wait for the energy to rebuild.
Fun game to watch, though I feel like GreenPine could have done even better if he used PDDs more, he lost quite a lot of ravens to turrets/thors which he didn't have to.
Nevertheless it was kind of obscene how many minerals both of them had, Bob could have plopped down 3 bunkers filled with marines at each expansions and pretty much counter any autoturret harass and still have 5000 minerals left over. GreenPine could have probably done a quadruple planetary fortress rush if he wanted to
A guy tried to do it agaisnt me, in lost temple. Since i saw he had nothing i teched straight to ultralisks while making lings to kill autoturrets, when i had about 4 ultra's i just destroyed his main. He didn't get HSM, but since i was unsure i got a couple of infestors with mind control \/:
EPT
