EPT[G]TvZ Marine/Raven - Page 26
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Hail Eris
United States20 Posts
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FortuneSyn
1826 Posts
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Shamaya
Japan65 Posts
It's quite strong; I've never had such a large success rate. The marine -> tank -> medivac opening seems to adequately deal with anything zerg can throw at you, and allows you to either expand or push safely. When I think about the marine/raven build and foxer's one though, I'm starting to feel like the ravens are a natural optional followup tot he foxer style. You've got options for harassment, the ability to detect burrowed banelings and kill creep tumors, and also use HSM to push forward or perhaps deal with mutas in the back. Looking forward to trying it in my play but most of my TvZ's haven't lasted into the late game lately. | ||
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BAPE
United States8 Posts
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Falcon-sw
United States324 Posts
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Shamaya
Japan65 Posts
But I do agree the glory of the foxer style micro is that, with proper micro and no mistakes, you are operating cost-effectively vs banelings so long as you don't get fungaled. | ||
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Senorcuidado
United States700 Posts
I really don't think I've played a game in a while where the zerg's worker production can keep up with mine, and I know because I watch all the replays :D. They have to keep pumping units or die with little room to drone up, as long as you don't do something crazy like lose all your marines to a few banelings. Oh, and hug walls so the lings don't get a surround - especially if you have some medivacs, the cost effectiveness of those marines will sky rocket. I even let a zerg get to five bases today, i thought i was boned, but I had more income from my three bases because I had so many more workers. I absolutely recommend getting a pair of medivacs first thing when your starports finish, and don't forget banshees if he is sticking to lings, blings, roaches, etc. And don't get too eager with those first five marines, the best I've gotten is an overlord but usually I just lose them and I wish I didn't. | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
On November 12 2010 18:22 Senorcuidado wrote: I lost tonight to one of those two-base-stop-at-20-drones-go-all-in-zerglings. I have to say it sucked, I had double his workers, but lost before my tech could kick in. I never lose to that, it's not too hard to hold them off in a choke, but it was on blistering sands so whatcha gonna do...definitely a time when some hellions would have won the game single-handedly. Other than that I'm pwnin noobs and takin names. I love how you feel like you're losing for like 30 minutes and then you realize - wait a minute, he's broke as hell! I really don't think I've played a game in a while where the zerg's worker production can keep up with mine, and I know because I watch all the replays :D. They have to keep pumping units or die with little room to drone up, as long as you don't do something crazy like lose all your marines to a few banelings. Oh, and hug walls so the lings don't get a surround - especially if you have some medivacs, the cost effectiveness of those marines will sky rocket. I even let a zerg get to five bases today, i thought i was boned, but I had more income from my three bases because I had so many more workers. I absolutely recommend getting a pair of medivacs first thing when your starports finish, and don't forget banshees if he is sticking to lings, blings, roaches, etc. And don't get too eager with those first five marines, the best I've gotten is an overlord but usually I just lose them and I wish I didn't. 1/2 Base all-in is the most overused style I've seen against this in mid-diamond. Sands is the main offender but you can prolly do the same thing on Jungle Basin. Someone actually did this to me on Steppes but Steppes has semi-islands and I had 2 CCs so I ended up coming out ahead -_-'. Zergs are getting the 5 marine poke timing down too so you're likely only going to get 1 Ovie so do that and go back home. As for positioning, the best positioning that you can do is shove your marines by a ramp so you can make a little triangle of marines. | ||
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Kaz.
United States69 Posts
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Opalcard
22 Posts
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MrCon
France29748 Posts
On November 11 2010 12:50 Antisocialmunky wrote: I'm watching Day[9] #214 right now. All those marines dying instantly is why Medivacs are not useful late game. The 6 Rax + Reactor was pretty glorious late game marine spam :D Want to see more RAVENS though. MUST GET MORE RAVENS. Oh well, at least late game Mass Marine is getting exposure. Edit: LOL at 2000 Gas. Edit: Publishing build Tonight/Tomorrow. The day9 game showed how important upgrades are for zerg. Those 3/3 marines didn't insta melt everything because of this, that was sad  :D | ||
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Senorcuidado
United States700 Posts
On November 12 2010 22:02 Antisocialmunky wrote: 1/2 Base all-in is the most overused style I've seen against this in mid-diamond. Sands is the main offender but you can prolly do the same thing on Jungle Basin. Someone actually did this to me on Steppes but Steppes has semi-islands and I had 2 CCs so I ended up coming out ahead -_-'. Zergs are getting the 5 marine poke timing down too so you're likely only going to get 1 Ovie so do that and go back home. As for positioning, the best positioning that you can do is shove your marines by a ramp so you can make a little triangle of marines. yeah the ramp positioning is pretty sick. I did that to some ultralisks in a long game last night, they had to wrap around the ramp to get to the marines and they melted. On Blistering Sands I really should have just walled off the regular choke with rax and let him break the rocks, as soon as I knew he was committing so much to it. Really, you have FORTY workers to his twenty, all you need to do is survive. Also, a pair of banshees will be pretty uncontested in that situation too. Hindsight is 20/20 though. It's kind of annoying how hard it is to scout this kind of play, I didn't realize until I saw he had no saturation on his mineral lines. | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
On November 13 2010 00:28 MrCon wrote: The day9 game showed how important upgrades are for zerg. Those 3/3 marines didn't insta melt everything because of this, that was sad :DThat is a good observation, I missed that. This was one of the reasons why Foxer's marines could melt through all those zerg units. I think there was at one point during the Shakuras game where 3 marines got surrounded by like 10 lings and none of them died due to medivac heal + 3/3 vs 1/1. | ||
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scrub96
United States76 Posts
1. My army on the first 2 pushes is out of position when the roaches hit my expo. 2. My micro sucks and I let all my marines die to baneling/speedling pressure 3. I never reach critical mass of ravens The games I have one have been very satisfying. Watching a stream of ling/banelings explode before reaching my marines is AWESOME. I will keep this in my build rotation for sure. It has really helped me concentrate on my marine micro. | ||
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Senorcuidado
United States700 Posts
3 armor cuts zergling dps in half if zerg is only at 1/1. Throw in medivacs and your survivability against lings in the mid to late game is astounding. Roaches and hydras do better against armor upgrades but they're bad against bio in general, especially with a few tanks thrown in, and they can't defend spread out expos very well. So lings and banelings and infestors remain the best option but if you can spread out well you can mitigate the effectiveness of banelings and infestors. That leaves the lings that don't do well at these upgrade levels. I think zergs will fare better when they prioritize upgrades more. Attack upgrades aren't amazing for every unit but armor is essential against marines. In the meantime, I always get +1 armor right after attack, especially because I delay ravens a little more these days. It helps a lot against the mass ling response I usually see. Then I throw down another eng bay and an armory, the sooner I get to 3/3 the better. I usually squeeze building armor in there too but if i had perfect execution I don't know where I could fit it in. Probably a third eng bay for that and hi-sec auto tracking. | ||
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out4blood
United States313 Posts
I love how you feel like you're losing for like 30 minutes and then you realize - wait a minute, he's broke as hell! I developed my own all-marine strategy awhile ago, independently of this specific build, and the first game I tried it out was on Shakuras, and I was on the defensive the whole game. I never even got close to the Zerg's natural or main. But eventually, he just quit, much to my surprise. Watching the replay it was because he had absolutely zero gas by the end of the game. LOL. That's when I knew this was the way to play. Very satisfying. | ||
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skatbone
United States1005 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-165322.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-165323.jpg) I've included two replays: one of me losing to 2 base roach/bling pressure and one of me winning against 2 base roach/ling pressure. Both replays demonstrate a 1 rax FE build. In the 2nd, on Shakuras, I immediately wall off the natural and expand without a CC-float. I'm going to start doing this regularly on Shakuras and LT because of the natural choke at the natural expansion. Antisocialmonkey asked for strong macro play in replays of failures. I can't guarantee strong macro in these games; but its not utterly awful macro either. As AntisocialMonkey suggests, the 1-2 base heavy pressure build is the most common response I see to this. My preference would be to go pure rine/raven. I love that combo. But the heavy roach pressure necessitates tanks early on (I suppose marauders would work as well). In the first game, I fail to make 1-2 tanks (which, sieged on the ledge, would have done wonders to deter his roach pressure). I also screw up my wall, leaving too much distance between my rax and bunkers, allowing his roaches to harass the rax outside the range of the bunker. I think this is a good example of my misreading of my opponents intent. I really thought (without evidence) he was going to take a third; I was paranoid that he was taking one of the other starting positions on LT. Consequently, I didn't get tanks and siege up to withstand the storm of roaches. In the second replay, my opponent is floating 1k minerals mid-game when I finally start to take the upper hand. Had he spent all his resources, his push into my natural might have been more successful. However, I did use a siege tank this time around and by the time he makes his late game push with roaches, blings, and mutas, I have solid rine upgrades, and a tight, tight choke. Once I have 6 or so ravens, I start harassing his expo. When I get 10-12, I make the game-ending push into his desperate third and fourth expos. By that point, he needs the expos as his main and natural are mined-out. I've had a similar experience to Senorcuidado playing this style, I love being on edge, feeling like I am losing for much of the game. As my Ravens slowly pile up I'm frantically gritting my teeth. Once I hit 8-10 I start thinking, "This just might work." Sure enough, if I'm at full rine production on 3-4 bases when I hit that magic number of Ravens, the Z is hard pressed to fight me off. Also, as Seniorcuidado has noted, if they 2-base, watch the worker count. I was amazed, in watching the replay of the win on Shakuras: he never manages more than 40 drones. When I have 70 SCVs, he has 35. Even in the loss, my economy is beefy--almost double his worker count. I am always leading in workers. Similarly, watch the army tab and note how consistent his gas investment is in the Shakuras game. Up until mid-game, I am running almost purely on minerals (I've spent gas on technology rather than army). Then that starts to shift. By end game, not only am I spending gas and minerals, but I also have much more invested in economy and in technology than he does. Again, neither he nor I played this as well as we could have, but that's the state of the game around 1500 diamond. When the Zerg two bases, I think the balance between aggression and defense is hard to gauge. In the Shakuras game, I continue to throw marines toward him. These attacks are not successful in any traditional sense: I don't gain any ground and I don't kill a lot of units. In the future, I might just keep the rinee at home. However, for the time being, I'm advocating pressuring him by sending out the waves of rines, baiting him into continued army production. Ultimately, against a 2-base Zerg, I think we have to provoke them to attack our defenses, and have faith that our wall will hold. | ||
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Moody
United States750 Posts
I've recently been having a TON of trouble against Zerg. (10% win ratio?... Lose to gold/plat practice partners...) The reason I have a hard time with them is I like bio play over mech play... and then banelings WRECK me. I haven't tested this build against it yet, but without FoxeR style micro, can these marines survive vs speedy banelings? I like the idea of ravens to constantly be getting rid of creep spread, so that might help. Butif they go roach/bling/sling, it seems like I would just get rolled by a 2 base aggressive build. P.S. +1 internets to you. VERY good guide, very in depth analysis and supplemental guides to go with it. Good work sir. | ||
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Smackzilla
United States539 Posts
On November 13 2010 07:25 skatbone wrote: As AntisocialMonkey suggests, the 1-2 base heavy pressure build is the most common response I see to this. My preference would be to go pure rine/raven. I love that combo. But the heavy roach pressure necessitates tanks early on (I suppose marauders would work as well). In the first game, I fail to make 1-2 tanks (which, sieged on the ledge, would have done wonders to deter his roach pressure). I also screw up my wall, leaving too much distance between my rax and bunkers, allowing his roaches to harass the rax outside the range of the bunker. I think this is a good example of my misreading of my opponents intent. I really thought (without evidence) he was going to take a third; I was paranoid that he was taking one of the other starting positions on LT. Consequently, I didn't get tanks and siege up to withstand the storm of roaches. I haven't watched the replays yet (I will tonight), but what about building some banshees if he wants to pump roaches? If you want to do marine/raven, you're going to have the two starports with tech labs. Or is the roach pressure coming too early and hard? | ||
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
1) Regarding priority of upgrades, i have started to do without armor in the beginning, I would rather get building armor - heres why: a) Attack upgrades function for all your marines, armor only for the outer layer b) banelings which kill most of my marines, dont really care if I have the armor upgrade c) If I go for armor upgrades I cant really fit building armor upgrade in, which I usually get after +1atk which is really key later on for turrets harasing mineral lines by themselves because that way 3-4 AT can kill many lings, turrets are MUCH better against mutas, and PFs are nearly undefeatable. I have found that taking a gold as your 3rd early on and PFing can really lock the game down for you if you survive that long. I usually only have one eng bay at the start of the game as I go for 2 gas only for a while until my starports are up. 2) Regarding the first 5 marine push, I don't actually make this push all the way to their base anymore, I just push out with the 5 marines, try to kill zerglings at the scout towers or stray OL and then I retreat, this forces them to build lings instead of drones anyway because they think you are coming, but you don't lose your 5 marines to the 10-15lings that are about to pop and your next push will be that much stronger. 3) Make sure you are looking for the 3rd, don't push towards the 2nd, occasionally you can do some damage there but not usually if they are good. If they get on 3 bases early enough your screwed 4)I'm not sure about early medivacs....maybe I might get one for a drop or somthing but I dont find them to be terribly useful for the same reason as early armor. 5) when you really get your economy going on your 3rd base and the game is getting busy, pump out a few hellions and send them somewhere different then your marines, this can be a REALLY effective use of 3-400minerals, you can obviously also do a drop but that costs gas and drop ships are actually slower, but maybe it would be more effective against the queen, not sure how many hellions beat a queen....sometimes I do this with a few ravens rather then keeping them with my marines, as they arent terribly useful support unless there is an opportunity for an hsm, or against mutas. 6) I'm liking stim before combat shields, if you have stim on your first big push and they dont have baneling speed you can do ALOT more damage with good kiting. Also consider this 1 stim marine has 35hp and +50% dps One combat shield marine has +57%hp If even 20% of your marines are in the middle of a ball or against a wall, you come out ahead with stim (assuming all your marines die in either case, not an unlikely scenario for your first push). This is not even considering kiting, which vs banelings is the main reason I wanted stim in teh first place. Also Stim is more similar in upgrade time to +1 and I find that I am liking waiting for these upgrades before my first big push unless I KNOW the enemy is getting a late baneling nest. | ||
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