EPT[G]TvZ Marine/Raven - Page 39
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
I've tried a few marine/hellion openings but they feel vulnerable to banelings since your whole composition is light. Hellion->Port would probably work quite well but its somewhat weak on smaller maps where Zerg can just decide to bulldoze your and kill you off 2 base aggression. But I suppose you would in turn be able to 2 rax bunker on those maps. Post some reps. :} There's another opening that I saw used by Predy which is Marine/Tank/Raven where you build and keep 2-4 and switch to medivacs. So its basically a standard opening that diverges at your port. You use your Ravens to throw down PDDs so your tanks can't be picked off immediately. The PDD holds off the mutas (2-3 volleys) long enough for your marines to get into position. You could probably throw down another port for double medivac production and then lab it when you get 6 gas. Also Corvid is much better than durable materials. I just make a round of medivacs while researching it. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10363 Posts
On October 06 2011 12:59 Antisocialmunky wrote: You can do ridiculous funnels. The most powerful of which is using medivacs with turrets to auto turret the top of the ramp so your marines can kill zerg's main undisturbed. I've tried a few marine/hellion openings but they feel vulnerable to banelings since your whole composition is light. Hellion->Port would probably work quite well but its somewhat weak on smaller maps where Zerg can just decide to bulldoze your and kill you off 2 base aggression. But I suppose you would in turn be able to 2 rax bunker on those maps. Post some reps. :} There's another opening that I saw used by Predy which is Marine/Tank/Raven where you build and keep 2-4 and switch to medivacs. So its basically a standard opening that diverges at your port. You use your Ravens to throw down PDDs so your tanks can't be picked off immediately. The PDD holds off the mutas (2-3 volleys) long enough for your marines to get into position. You could probably throw down another port for double medivac production and then lab it when you get 6 gas. Also Corvid is much better than durable materials. I just make a round of medivacs while researching it. I used to do that, build 2 starports + tech lab on factory, then change into 1 tech-starport and 1 starport, make 2 medivacs and research corvid while factory makes 2nd tech lab. But if you do some general calculations you'll see that in the long long run, making those 2 medivacs instead of 1 raven is like 300 energy difference in 10 minutes (20 minute ish game), 600 energy difference in in a 30 minute ish game, etc. Each raven cut causes you to lose a lot of potential energy. Then again, that's like 1800 HP healed from 2 medivacs after 10 minutes but still that's like 2 seeker missiles which can kill like 25 banelings vs 38 marines, and also enough for 1 turret. Cost wise, it seems it would actually be more worth it to get the Raven. It does seem like it can't hurt though to go with Marine Tank and then transition instead of finding a way to spit out ravens asap. | ||
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SwitchAUS
Australia106 Posts
Also you say that this is the direct counter to fast 3rd muta/ling/baneling, but I feel like if you don't hit the timings spot on, you're going to end up being ripped to shreds. Also, be prepared to die to agressive zergs. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10363 Posts
On October 06 2011 14:10 SwitchAUS wrote: This seems like a really fragile mix of units, especially as soon as zerg has anti-air + AOE. Also you say that this is the direct counter to fast 3rd muta/ling/baneling, but I feel like if you don't hit the timings spot on, you're going to end up being ripped to shreds. Also, be prepared to die to agressive zergs. Turrets are very expendable, ignore fungals, can't be targeted by Corruptors, do well against Mutas, and are not fragile at all  . Hydralisks are weak to seeker missile / marines. | ||
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OlDan
Austria36 Posts
This seems like a really fragile mix of units, especially as soon as zerg has anti-air + AOE. Also you say that this is the direct counter to fast 3rd muta/ling/baneling, but I feel like if you don't hit the timings spot on, you're going to end up being ripped to shreds. Also, be prepared to die to agressive zergs. I open with a 2 medivac drop with 16 upgraded marines, and have a bunker or bunkers at the natural. The drop will punish greedy zergs, and leave u even with the others (at least that's what the guy said whom I got this build from, its somewhere here in the forum). Then I start making ravens and try to harass. Taking a third is sometimes difficult...I havent found it so fragile actually, but some have suggested that this drop build will only work up to a certain level. | ||
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EmilA
Denmark4618 Posts
On October 06 2011 14:10 SwitchAUS wrote: This seems like a really fragile mix of units, especially as soon as zerg has anti-air + AOE. Also you say that this is the direct counter to fast 3rd muta/ling/baneling, but I feel like if you don't hit the timings spot on, you're going to end up being ripped to shreds. Also, be prepared to die to agressive zergs. It's more than a year old lol. Back then nobody knew what the infestor did (and it didn't do much.) | ||
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aklambda
Austria48 Posts
Will try some builds that were suggested here and see with what I am most comforable with. If nothing helps, I'll go back to 2v2 or 3v3 where my Raven play seems to have some effect... :p | ||
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HellsArchangel
Canada7 Posts
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
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Senorcuidado
United States700 Posts
I suppose the timing windows you open yourself up to should be considered too, but I have reasonable faith in constant marine pressure to survive with proper micro and bunker usage in case of all-ins. I'm not arguing against ravens, i love ravens. But pure marine/medivac is lean and relentless with little tension between upgrades and tech in terms of gas allocation. I guess what I want to quantify is exactly what ravens bring to the table for a cost-benefit analysis. Auto-turrets, seeker missile, pdd, detection, mobility. These complement marines in some ways but do they shore up weaknesses or complement strengths better than the opportunity costs? I'm really not sure one way or the other. | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
This is because its not necessarily a stable mid-game. A quick transition really isn't that viable at the top unless you face someone who is completely unprepared against it. That being said, if you can accumulate a raven ball of about 8-10 of them then auto turret and supporting abilities make it snow ball out of control vs zerg. But to get there takes being clever or much better than your opponent. Doesn't stop it from being ridiculously fun to execute. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10363 Posts
We had some epic games (evan). They weren't great and i wasn't able to figure out a nice build order before I even played, but some of the things we did can be looked at and learned from. Micro, management, priorities, etc. Also Senorcuidado. When I approach this style, I put my emphasis on the Ravens. Rather, the marines are the support unit. Whether this is good or not is the question I guess. However in my games -- either evan was trying this style out or it's just the way he plays -- putting priority in my ravens seemed like a good idea. He kept busting me and i kept trading my Marines. I guess you could say this follows the idea that marines can trade efficiently, but keep in mind my wall would die all the time too xD. But in one game I had so many Ravens i moved out and killed him (he had quite a lot of bases and more econ than me, it's not like he was all-in busting). Then again, banelings are efficient at killing buildings, so I guess if we were fighting in the middle of the map rather than bust vs defense, I would have more advantage. If this is true then it does seem more worth it to focus on bigger army battles unlike small army battles if you were going pure marine. About the midgame antisocialmunky. Idk if you've seen it but have you seen WCG Nestea vs Gumiho game 3? I suggest it. He uses that hellion/banshee build I was talking about that gets you up on 3 bases before the zerg's and therefore lets you to tech up and do whatever transition build you want ( you don't get cloak or blue flame and your ad ons can be used elsewhere, so you're not investing anything other than to get your econ up by gaining map control and harassing/containing with your hellion/banshee ). With this build your 3rd finishes at about 9:10. So early, and you're safe (at least you won't straight out die) to busts. During this time you can easily transition ( completely switch ) to mass Ravens, since the hellions/banshee allow you time for this. I think this has a lot of potential. I know I mentioned this idea earlier but now I have a new idea. Instead of engaging in small battles to trade marines, I think it might be better to get a huge fucking force. Idk the timing, I think maybe a push at 11 would be good, right before infestors come out while you still get good mining from your third. I think this should be enough time to get out 8ish Ravens out, as well as Corvid Reactor, Durable Materials (can be skipped if it will not fit into the build), Seeker Missile, as well as Building Armor, Hi-Sec Auto Track, and +1/+1, Combat Shield, and Stim for about 50 marines out. This is about 60 supply army, 120 ish supply total. To hit with this kind of army before Infestors I think would be stupidly strong. And by stupidly I mean it would work, or hopefully, it would be insanely fun and strong. It looks like a SHIT FUCK ton of stuff to get, but doing rough calculations now, it seems you will definitely have enough. Finding an efficient build order is the problem (maybe i should try those build order programs, but can't find a good one for terran). Note: If it is not enough time, you can instead move out at 11 to make turrets etc, while timing some of your upgrades/ravens to finish about 1 minute later when infestors pop instead (like the ones for turrets), so that you will still be ready if he tries to break a contain/push. But if that were to work, then I would think that either the hellion/banshee opening is OP, pros haven't found out how to deal with it better yet, or Ravens are OP and will be nerfed (unlikely). Reason for why I think a bigger army is better than smaller; because of this opening, you have a shit ton of econ and don't have to worry about weakpoints in your build such as while you're teching up. Also, since my goal is to focus on the Ravens, I think it is stronger to focus on the stronger late-game power of the Ravens, as well as their strength the larger the number of them you have (spellcasters are all stupidly strong the more you have), rather than the strength of the marines. When you think about it, if you trade over and over with marines, and go with the approach to try to mass up Ravens in the meantime, your marines should just get stomped; it's 2 lings per marine, and in small numbers zerg should be able to win very easily with a good (not lazy) surround. If not, he can just go mass roach and not worry about the surface area being too small and losing crazy numbers of lings. Now the idea is that in 200/200, your army will be much stronger since spellcasters are all so food efficient, and the weakness of your marines (which is that they're generally weaker the bigger the battle due to AOE etc. and it being hard to micro them) is significantly reduced thanks to turret fields, turret walls, HSM getting rid of AOE (banelings), turrets keeping you save vs Ravens, and Ravens' ability to fly around to just fuck up the zerg's economy really quickly. It is so late now but I will upload those replays vs evan tomorrow (in about 11 hours from now), where I think they show some strengths of this strategy that, if all these strengths are utilized correctly like in the hands of a better player, it can be a really strong, legit strategy. Edit: I like blocks of text that may be confusing stupid or not make sense  sorry. | ||
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
Here are some of my comments, most of it is from a zerg's point of view: The time I lost to Yoshi was when I failed to deny his 3rd. As you can imagine raven needs gas, so denying 3rd is crucial. The transition is still rather difficult for terran. As a zerg you should be watching for terran's transitions. Any time a transition has "kinks" in it, i.e. where he is weak for 2 minutes during the transition, you MUST attack and badly hurt him. For Raven the weak point is when you start to produce Ravens. At that point you have no energy nor enough Raven for it to be substantial, and it's very very dangerous period. I would not suggest taking a 3rd at this time, because your 3rd will get denied if zerg knows of this weakness. Then, it feels like logical to stay on 2 base, get a decent number of raven out, and then take a 3rd. However, the dillema is how can you get a decent number of ravens w/o a 3rd. I feel raven harass is still good, even at small numbers. There is a fear of getting sniped but just like dropships, you must still use the early Ravens. Of the game I won I NEVER let him use his raven energy on MY base until the very end. Most of his raven's energy are spent spamming turrets just to stay alive from 40 banelings rolling in with 100 zerglings following. So general advise for zerg fighting Raven: 1) Get good econ up and wait for the Raven transition, you'll see a raven or sac overlord 2) Once you notice the transition, focus on denying 3rd and bust his nat whenever possible. Your ground army WILL be more powerful, hurt the terran and make him throw turret to defend HIS base. 3) Expand expand expand. Get used to evacuate expansion when Raven come out. When they throw turrets down at ur expansion it's pretty much not cost efficient to clean them up. Make hatches, don't need to saturate but if one of ur base gets pooped on by turrets relocate your drones. | ||
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
I've theory NP and use his raven to blow himself up might be good, try to fungal a group of raven, quickly NP, and throw down as many missils as you can. | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
If you can get that sort of hellion banshee marine raven to work out, that would be good. I think you really need 3 base to do a solid transition. You need 3 ports. You know there is a more standard thing that I never got around to exploring and that's the 200 food busting nature of the auto turret (especially when they last 4 minutes). Basically the idea would be to play standard marine/tank and start switching to raven at ~180 food and 3/4 bases with all your standard infantry upgrades done. You don't actually have to do something crazy as casters aren't in the need for fast upgrades. So you put down 3/4 ports and crank ravens and marines and ~2 fact tanks only. This may be especially useful timing as zerg thirds to fifths usually are protected more by threat than spines and spores. An auto turret is ~2 food and you can horde a fair amount of them and durable materials make them last forever. So you can have a 200/200 army that can control 250+ food of space. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10363 Posts
Map is Antiga Shipyard. Games are about 30 minutes in game.These are replays of the hellion/banshee/fast3rd opener. I did not figure out the general timings of the upgrades and etc. though so this is sort of just improvisation. How the games went: Though my 3rd is never stable and I keep getting busted. However in both of these I prioritize Ravens, and you can see how strong they can be even though I have not much econ. If only I micro'd better, for example make turret walls instead of turret fields at my nat, or made barracks at the ramp instead of depots to wall vs the busts, if I walled off my third with turrets, etc. And I could have definitely moved out small packs of Ravens to kill hatches and etc. If he gets mutas then 3 packs of ~5 ravens would still be really strong, can seeker missile or turret or PDD and mutas would be no problem to deal with; mutas are pretty expensive after all, even if you lose a couple Ravens. The high DPS of seeker missile/Turret and the buffer of PDD would be really inefficient for any zerg to engage Ravens with Mutalisks especially in small numbers. ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-236117.jpg) Spoiler result: + Show Spoiler + Win ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-236118.jpg) Spoiler result: + Show Spoiler + Lose Also evan, that is pretty good advice/idea. So I guess the higher the base:map-size ratio is, the weaker this is (more hatches to have to kill/deny). But about #2: I wonder if, generally, base trading would be a good option once you have enough Ravens. If a Zerg cannot get enough AA or anti-raven out and the map isn't too big, and you move out with like 30 ravens, perhaps you could win. I wonder if it would be crucial for a Zerg to keep an eye on the Ravens' energy to make sure he is not planning something like that. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10363 Posts
I lost a few SCVs unfortunately due to sloppiness, so I didn't hit at 12 but I wonder if it is really even that important to hit so early. Plus you can always just scan to see his infestor timing. Perhaps I can hit at 14 (like in the replay, move out at 13 something) and simply keep my Ravens a bit ahead of my marines, split up. If I see infestors I'll slop down some turrets. This way he can't run in and fungal my marines while I'm going to his base. If mutas/ling/bling rush in while I put up my turrets, I can retreat the ravens to the marines and the turrets/seeker missile will deal with the ling/bling. Look at how strong 3 bases is. Holy shit. I was pumping marines like a fucker. No fourth. So many Ravens. So many turrets. Holy fuck I think this push is strong! :D He was completely raped. I even lost almost all my first marine force (5 marines red HP left) to his banelings due to bad micro (idk if my seeker missile even hit) but I was able to pump so many marines. I kept making new turret walls really quickly (so much energy!) and that really helped vs his lings. The lings would target the turrets first (only if they're in front?) and I could easily seal off his ramp and go around and harass (didn't split up ravens much to harass but could have). I made so many barracks, perhaps I should have built them in the middle of the map, to create a sort of choke point, which would help me if I were to take a fourth (take the gold). Obviously I dont want reactors because I need gas for ravens. I could even float them around if i clear some creep and push closer. I know it says he's in Diamond league but he's about 500-1000 masters. His strength is macro; he has a high APM. ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-236162.jpg) I hope there isn't any glaring flaw in his play. | ||
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RaE21
United States260 Posts
1200 pt mid-high masters terran here and I watched the replays you posted... seems very strong! I actually love the hellion/banshee opening and transition, as long as you maintain map control and continuously harass it allows you to safely expand. Also, I love the corvid reactor upgrade early on, that way ravens have fairly high energy early on (enough for several turrets and pdd each). However, I do believe there is a window that the zerg can attack via baneling bust or roach that might put the terran significantly behind if it is successful, as hellion and banshee do take up the space of marines and bunkers, so in order for the transition to be successful I made a note that it is ESSENTIAL to keep the banshees and at least 2 hellions alive, or else any zerg all in will be extremely hard to hold. On to the transition if you can make it to the mid/late game for the marine/raven composition. With careful turret placement, continuous harass and constant army trading with the zerg (mineral vs. gas units), I think the strategy is still extremely strong especially with the speed buff to hunter seeker missile. Standard ling/bane/muta should be shut down as the OP said with pdd, turret walls, and hunter seeker. However, if the zerg does tech to infestor or ultra, there is a significant problem, as ravens tend to clump and while its easy to say its needed to split/spread the ravens, its so hard when your both microing your marines and dropping turrets/pdd/HSM. In addition, I've found it fairly easy for the zerg to safely take lots of bases due to the lack of medivac drops (gas investment in ravens). Since mutas will be more or less shut down and zerg will most definitely tech to infestor, I'm thinking that drops via a few medivacs is absolutely needed in order to keep harass up. Its way to risky to fly some ravens to autoturret harass, as losing ravens to fungal will almost give you the autolose. So my questions are: is there a way to work in 3 starports, with 2 pumping ravens and 1 naked starport pumping medivacs for pure harass purposes? And to counter hive tech, how many bases should we have to be able to pump ravens AND ghosts, as ghosts are almost critical to getting rid of mass ultras if harass fails? Sorry for long post, I really want this strategy to work since I'm bored of marine tank  | ||
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aklambda
Austria48 Posts
Have been watching some of your replays. I am mid Platinum atm. What I noticed is that you build your additional barracks pretty late. Especially in the last game you posted. You lost 2 Ravens to the Muta harass and quite a lot of energy for defense. What if you build your barracks earlier and use the marines to defend against mutas? You probabley can't support 3 port Raven and upgrades if you take the barracks earlier but you would be a bit more safe. I am going to the ladder right now trying your build though myself and see how I do. Maybe I somehow manage to win one too :p | ||
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