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After playing a few casual games with some friends the other day, I saw an idea that could be VERY powerful. Mass Raven.
This isn't a new idea in and of itself, but how its played IS a new idea.
Here's some math which forms the foundation of the strategy. I took some of the numbers from liquipedia, the rest are from my own calculations.
With the Durable Materials upgrade, an auto-turret lasts 240 seconds. A raven refills its energy fast enough to cast one auto-turret every ~29 seconds. This means a single raven can maintain 8 auto-turrets indefinitely.
Instead of (or maybe in addition to) flying the ravens around in a big mass, and harassing with them, I propose using them as both Terran queens, scattering "creep tumor" auto-turrets all around the map, and as Terran sentries, maintaining auto-turret "forcefields"
Think of the map control auto-turret creep tumors would provide. Think of how awesome siege tanks behind an auto-turret forcefield would be. Think of how much your opponent will rage when he gets killed by mass ravens.
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by the time you had "mass ravens" you'd be rolfstomped
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On January 08 2011 05:45 boblzer0 wrote:
by the time you had "mass ravens" you'd be rolfstomped
Don't be so quick to discount it...TLO pulled off a pretty high Raven count vs White-Ra in recent Day[9] daily. It's doable.
Clearly it'd be a later transition, not something you B-lined for and then made nothing but.
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Hm, Sort of like pushing out slowly like Mech right?
Interesting, didn't realize that you could maintain 8. You could use Ravens in substitute for SCVs building Turrets (could).
The way you described it won't work well in my mind though. Turrets are great but their downside is slow dps. That's what keeps them from being OP. They can come and snipe your Raven army down.
Anyways point is, Ravens are very powerful yes, but that's why they cost so much gas. If your opponent lets you mass ravens or just get that rich, then you "deserve" to win.
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On January 08 2011 05:45 boblzer0 wrote:
by the time you had "mass ravens" you'd be rolfstomped
Its not about the build to get to mass ravens, its about the composition itself. Besides, "mass" doesn't have to be dozens. A mere 5 ravens can maintain 40(!!!) auto-turrets for an arbitrary length of time. You can't tell me that 40 autoturrets all over the map, blocking expo's, walling off chokes, and just being a major thorn in your opponent's side, is not possibly viable at all.
On January 08 2011 05:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Hm, Sort of like pushing out slowly like Mech right?
Interesting, didn't realize that you could maintain 8. You could use Ravens in substitute for SCVs building Turrets (could).
The way you described it won't work well in my mind though. Turrets are great but their downside is slow dps. That's what keeps them from being OP. They can come and snipe your Raven army down.
Anyways point is, Ravens are very powerful yes, but that's why they cost so much gas. If your opponent lets you mass ravens or just get that rich, then you "deserve" to win.
5 ravens is 1000 gas, not sure what durable materials is, but I can see that the rest of your army can't use much gas. Meaning you need to keep on top of your auto-turret walls and use marines/marauders/hellions for most of your army. The turrets aren't there to deal the damage, just to keep your opponent off your army, much like how Toss uses forcefields to keep Zerg or Terran armies away from their collosi.
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A nice idea, but the math's materially off. A raven regenerates 0.5625 energy per game second. An auto turret requires 50 energy, meaning that it takes 89 game seconds to generate enough energy for a turret, not 29 game seconds.
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gotcha, i do like my ravens.
On January 08 2011 05:51 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 05:45 boblzer0 wrote:
by the time you had "mass ravens" you'd be rolfstomped Its not about the build to get to mass ravens, its about the composition itself. Besides, "mass" doesn't have to be dozens. A mere 5 ravens can maintain 40(!!!) auto-turrets for an arbitrary length of time. You can't tell me that 40 autoturrets all over the map, blocking expo's, walling off chokes, and just being a major thorn in your opponent's side, is not possibly viable at all. Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 05:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Hm, Sort of like pushing out slowly like Mech right?
Interesting, didn't realize that you could maintain 8. You could use Ravens in substitute for SCVs building Turrets (could).
The way you described it won't work well in my mind though. Turrets are great but their downside is slow dps. That's what keeps them from being OP. They can come and snipe your Raven army down.
Anyways point is, Ravens are very powerful yes, but that's why they cost so much gas. If your opponent lets you mass ravens or just get that rich, then you "deserve" to win. 5 ravens is 1000 gas, not sure what durable materials is, but I can see that the rest of your army can't use much gas. Meaning you need to keep on top of your auto-turret walls and use marines/marauders/hellions for most of your army. The turrets aren't there to deal the damage, just to keep your opponent off your army, much like how Toss uses forcefields to keep Zerg or Terran armies away from their collosi.
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On January 08 2011 05:51 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 05:45 boblzer0 wrote:
by the time you had "mass ravens" you'd be rolfstomped Its not about the build to get to mass ravens, its about the composition itself. Besides, "mass" doesn't have to be dozens. A mere 5 ravens can maintain 40(!!!) auto-turrets for an arbitrary length of time. You can't tell me that 40 autoturrets all over the map, blocking expo's, walling off chokes, and just being a major thorn in your opponent's side, is not possibly viable at all. Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 05:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Hm, Sort of like pushing out slowly like Mech right?
Interesting, didn't realize that you could maintain 8. You could use Ravens in substitute for SCVs building Turrets (could).
The way you described it won't work well in my mind though. Turrets are great but their downside is slow dps. That's what keeps them from being OP. They can come and snipe your Raven army down.
Anyways point is, Ravens are very powerful yes, but that's why they cost so much gas. If your opponent lets you mass ravens or just get that rich, then you "deserve" to win. 5 ravens is 1000 gas, not sure what durable materials is, but I can see that the rest of your army can't use much gas. Meaning you need to keep on top of your auto-turret walls and use marines/marauders/hellions for most of your army. The turrets aren't there to deal the damage, just to keep your opponent off your army, much like how Toss uses forcefields to keep Zerg or Terran armies away from their collosi.
Not sure about THAT. Turret viability in battles, especially later on is minimal. I do however find myself intrigued by the concept of using them for passive map control. On larger maps, this'd be a cool way to annoy and slow their expanding.
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the biggest benefit of turrets is not so much their damage but that they have a 150 hp, which is quite absurd considering it has more HP than malolder
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Ravens are more of a support unit more than anything. The turret is nice because of the decent damage it does and the high hit points and duration it has. The inherent problem with any raven strategy is the gross amount of gas needed to produce ravens. You would need to be on 3 base, 6 geyser to really work any raven strat.
I would use ravens as more of a compliment to an octo drop where you can choke and trap units using the turrets.
Passive map control is a very good idea. It would give you a fair bit of info and can reveal their unit comp especially with the hitpoints on the turret.
I actually discovered the usefulness of turrets in marine arena... I would drop it on tanks when my CC is being seiged, quite useful when they splash each other.
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Raven turrets are great against a zerg because they own their map control. Also, with 4/5 ravens you can create a wall of turrets while you are seigeing an expo for an initial wall as well as a fall back position. Ravens have HUGE potential late-game when you can start replacing ravens and use them similar to Science Vessels, basically getting free kills using only energy.
Mass raven sucks ass against toss and terran late game though if they know how to counter (feeback/emp, turrets suck against immortals/maurders).
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Ravens are quite potent in large numbers versus zerg. However you need a bucketload of time to get enough out. The reason they work is because zerg lacks an energy draining unit like the ghost or the high templar.
Auto turrets strategically placed between the mineral patches are HELL to deal with with earlygame units such as the zergling or queen. Because the turret only costs energy and can kill off loads of lings if they are thunneled into a tiny choke point.
The only downsides of mass ravens is the fact that it relies on energy and getting enough of them out requires a maaaaaajor amount of time. In all other aspects ( HSM , auto turret, PDD vs muta/hydra ) they are pretty sweet.
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A auto turret is basically a spammable 2/2 stimmed marine that takes everything but banelings more hits to kill.. so think of it as a medivaced 2/2 stimmed marine.
Mass raven is quite feasible against a lot of zergs that just aren't up to par. However, in the case you run into someone who knows how to balance drones and units, you can quite feasibly go marine->tank->raven late game if you so choose.
The threat of HSM basically makes the thing a muta deterrent like a Thor. HSMs themselves are one shot siege tank shot for taking out baneling and zergling balls at 3-5 range. PDD is more anti-toss and anti-hydra. Turrets are good for contains and denying the mineral lines on zerg expos. Also makes it hard to A-move zerg units into Terran which they shouldn't anyway. Lastly, those things take like 8 shots from an ultra and screw up their pathing.
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This isnt very practical out in the open but ive used it to block the side of a planetary fortress before blocking a bunch of zealots with a couple turrets.
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It's feasible using it against players not near your caliber. BratOK plays around when laddering and he will stomp people using mass ravens in late game. Works surprisingly well once you get a high number in TvT, people seem to forget about ghosts. It usually works for him because people don't expect it or aren't sure what to do as a counter.
Anyone getting units to spam off a few waves of emp, feedback or fungal screws mass raven.
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Just played a guy who went mass raven, around 6. I went mass muta/ling/roach.
Caught me off guard with the missles and roasted around 15 in one shot. I still won though because he kept building ravens and depleting his gas while I kept him on 2 base
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Mass Raven is pretty damn effective. TLO did it in the TL ffa game. He managed to win against mass carrier.
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Ravens are pretty bad ass at leading the way on a big drop or air assault. If there is an area of your opponents base defended by cannons / turrets / spores he feels safe. Use 1 or 2 PDD to come in with either mass banshees to shut his AA down or to prevent your Medivac's from taking dmg as you land 2-3 full of units into their protected area.
Late game when you have more units you can actually do a really nice breach with several ravens and a tank / inf drop + a couple banshees. Come in with a PDD & some turrets to create a buffer for the drop and setup shop with 8-12 turrets forming an arc around your drop spot.
Another great use of ravens is vs Toss when sieging them. Perfect example. Lost Temple. I will often times move up to the grassed off area by thier base and set up 3-5 seige tanks hugging the wall into their base. As I'm doing that I use 2-3 ravens to zone off with a few PDD both to the left near the xel naga and on high ground where they might come over to crush my tanks & auto-turret spotters. Mean while I get my M&M army to the left under those pre-zoned PDD. SCV's start making aa turrets, bunkers & radar. If Done right you can zone off a nice area for elevator dropping.
I also use the auto turret PDD combo to safely cover a new expo going up after the enemy has mutas.
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I played a tvt a few days ago, the guy went 1-1-1 and massed ravens, he only had about 6 hellions and about 15marines + 1 medivac. I fast expo'd and had a few tanks/rines but didn't put much pressure on him early game i was just taken by suprise seeing 6-7 ravens with upgraded sentry turrets, i should of pumped out vikings faster to take care of them but didn't expect him to carry on massing ravens after the first 4 of them died
was a really depressing game as the guy was really bad
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On January 08 2011 05:47 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 05:45 boblzer0 wrote:
by the time you had "mass ravens" you'd be rolfstomped Don't be so quick to discount it...TLO pulled off a pretty high Raven count vs White-Ra in recent Day[9] daily. It's doable. Clearly it'd be a later transition, not something you B-lined for and then made nothing but.
that game was also like 40 minutes long and they were fighting the entire time with standard strategies.
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EPT
