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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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antisocialmunki's TvZ is a marine/raven combo. as previously mentioned due to the gas requirements, you're strapped for gas.
Just think of all the upgrades that make ravens the best they can be:
Recomended:
HSM (is it even called that anymore?) 150/150
Reactor (you'll want it if you're massing ravens) 150/150
Durable Materials 150/150
Optional but recommended:
Building Armor (+2 to turrets, pretty cheap for what it does) 150/150, that turns a turret into basically an immobile roach. Eng bay
Optional but slightly less recommended:
Hi-Sec Auto Tracking (+1 range turret/pdd) 100/100.
Of course there's also ship armor should you have anything left to build with.
Effectively that makes the raven one of the most expensive support units, with quite possible the biggest investment in skills to make them the best they can be.
Marine/Raven is sort of all you can do until you hit your critical mass of ravens assuming you've kept them alive. They're fun units and seeker missile can drive your opponents nuts by wearing their fingers off trying to out micro the missile. Against considerable lower ranked players you could probably get away with turtling and building mass ravens, but otherwise you'll be cracked before that.
And as the poster above me said, TLO did not do strictly ravens, a lot of other things happened in that game that eventually allowed TLO to do that. TLO can also get away with that because that's who he is!
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Only reason I can see using a raven en masse is when opponent goes muta heavy. Push and make him engage you, and drop 1-2 PDDs to make mutas worthless there, as you eat up the slings.
Then just push at your leisure and drop a turret to block their ramp on the way if you think it'll help.
I saw Lzgamer beat moonglade last night using only marine raven on scrap, actually went well for him..
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I dunno, the +2 building armor is one of the most crucial upgrades since I usually go for turret contain. It synergizes well with the mass of turrets you will be making against muta anyway. Your turrets become incredibly ling resistant with +2 since you're sapping 20-50% of the dps of a zergling depending on his upgrades. Not so good against heavy roach though.
Reactor is the most needed and Durable you can forget about since your turrets don't usually need to last that long unless you've already won. HSM is kinda a weird one and more psychological. You'll eventually need it and I get it after reactor.
The TLO White-Ra game was a weird game but it's TLO. It is interesting to note that Ravens are cheaper to produce constantly than ghosts though Might be good for mass PDD.
Edit: You got a link to a vod or a rep Jeff?
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On January 09 2011 03:17 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I dunno, the +2 building armor is one of the most crucial upgrades since I usually go for turret contain. It synergizes well with the mass of turrets you will be making against muta anyway. Your turrets become incredibly ling resistant with +2 since you're sapping 20-50% of the dps of a zergling depending on his upgrades. Not so good against heavy roach though.
Reactor is the most needed and Durable you can forget about since your turrets don't usually need to last that long unless you've already won. HSM is kinda a weird one and more psychological. You'll eventually need it and I get it after reactor.
The TLO White-Ra game was a weird game but it's TLO. It is interesting to note that Ravens are cheaper to produce constantly than ghosts though Might be good for mass PDD.
Edit: You got a link to a vod or a rep Jeff?
I wish. I was watching his stream last night taking bong hits and it amazed me really. It was all about his constant pressure more than the raven usage. He only threw out like 4 HSMs that I saw.
It was a constant drop on main, hit expo, take third, scoot to expo drop main and expo.
If anyone knows LZgamer, ask him, he saved the rep.
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On January 08 2011 18:46 pfods wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 05:47 Kimaker wrote: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.
Clearly it'd be a later transition, not something you B-lined for and then made nothing but.
Exactly.
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Mass raven can be super effective, I've seen somebody use it in a tournament and he won. Dunno who it was tho, maybe TLO? Can somebody give me a link?
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On January 09 2011 03:32 iAmJeffReY wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2011 03:17 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I dunno, the +2 building armor is one of the most crucial upgrades since I usually go for turret contain. It synergizes well with the mass of turrets you will be making against muta anyway. Your turrets become incredibly ling resistant with +2 since you're sapping 20-50% of the dps of a zergling depending on his upgrades. Not so good against heavy roach though.
Reactor is the most needed and Durable you can forget about since your turrets don't usually need to last that long unless you've already won. HSM is kinda a weird one and more psychological. You'll eventually need it and I get it after reactor.
The TLO White-Ra game was a weird game but it's TLO. It is interesting to note that Ravens are cheaper to produce constantly than ghosts though Might be good for mass PDD.
Edit: You got a link to a vod or a rep Jeff? I wish. I was watching his stream last night taking bong hits and it amazed me really. It was all about his constant pressure more than the raven usage. He only threw out like 4 HSMs that I saw. It was a constant drop on main, hit expo, take third, scoot to expo drop main and expo. If anyone knows LZgamer, ask him, he saved the rep.
Lol, well yeah, constant pressure is the name of the game with marine/raven. I never did mess with drops as much as I should have. It would have been pretty easy since you can't go 2 port Raven while building tanks. So you just build medivacs out of your 2nd port. So you go drop -> 1 raven + tanks + marines push. Don't forget to take your third (you WILL have the money lol). De-Creep the map and what not while dropping the main and attacking the third or setting up a contain.
Also medivac energy is good for this too because the Zerg's power units have silly burst damage so in-battle-healing isn't too effective but with the extra energy a small amount of medivacs is really nice for healing stim damage after a battle.
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On January 09 2011 06:15 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2011 03:32 iAmJeffReY wrote:On January 09 2011 03:17 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I dunno, the +2 building armor is one of the most crucial upgrades since I usually go for turret contain. It synergizes well with the mass of turrets you will be making against muta anyway. Your turrets become incredibly ling resistant with +2 since you're sapping 20-50% of the dps of a zergling depending on his upgrades. Not so good against heavy roach though.
Reactor is the most needed and Durable you can forget about since your turrets don't usually need to last that long unless you've already won. HSM is kinda a weird one and more psychological. You'll eventually need it and I get it after reactor.
The TLO White-Ra game was a weird game but it's TLO. It is interesting to note that Ravens are cheaper to produce constantly than ghosts though Might be good for mass PDD.
Edit: You got a link to a vod or a rep Jeff? I wish. I was watching his stream last night taking bong hits and it amazed me really. It was all about his constant pressure more than the raven usage. He only threw out like 4 HSMs that I saw. It was a constant drop on main, hit expo, take third, scoot to expo drop main and expo. If anyone knows LZgamer, ask him, he saved the rep. Lol, well yeah, constant pressure is the name of the game with marine/raven. I never did mess with drops as much as I should have. It would have been pretty easy since you can't go 2 port Raven while building tanks. So you just build medivacs out of your 2nd port. So you go drop -> 1 raven + tanks + marines push. Don't forget to take your third (you WILL have the money lol). De-Creep the map and what not while dropping the main and attacking the third or setting up a contain. Also medivac energy is good for this too because the Zerg's power units have silly burst damage so in-battle-healing isn't too effective but with the extra energy a small amount of medivacs is really nice for healing stim damage after a battle.
Yeah I caught a few of those moonglade/lz games, the last one on meta didn't go Lz's way but he still had some pretty good HSMs, moonglade ended up kiting a lot of them underneath the ravens to kill them (not sure if that was by design, but i imagine it was).
ASM, the +2 armor I also think is worth it when going your build, but in regards to the OP, it seemed just kind of "mass ravens and that's it". As you've said before though, your requires a lot of triggers to go off before you can get to PLAGUU raven status, you need to have your expansion, your timing pushes at the right times, and not lose needlessly to banelings, etc.
Ravens are fun in general, but damn do they have a ton of upgrading required in addition to the tech buildings to get to them. Given the energy cost of HSM I wouldn't mind their cast range being a little longer (the range wouldn't feel so short if there wasn't that 1-second cast time it feels like).
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Well I believe the Raven is still largely underused, especially the HSM vs Zergs.
On my level (2kish diamond) I see many terrans having gas banked, because they cant spend every gas.
1 Raven means very very weak creepspread
2 Raven can totally shift battle big time, if they are cast under the Magicboxing Mutas, also dropping turrets is nice here and there.
3+ Ravens need HSM. Wait until Mutas come in force em out again with HSM, while ure marines/thor may take free shots at them
I've got to admit, HSM needs to much energy, but it can also turn the game
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I don't get why people get Ravens for HSM.
They won't hit unless your opponent is bad and sit under range 3 of a Raven or units are flying or running at the ravens. The only thing HSM has for it is that each missile does AOE damage. So unlike storm and EMP, HSM damage can be stacked to evaporate a ton of units at once(see TLO vs White-Ra).
You get Ravens for detection, turrets, and mobility with bio. That and you get 3 ravens for the same supply as 2 tanks except it flies, detects, and spams a pretty good free unit... and invincibility in certain cases and the threat of HSM.
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I almost never use turrets if I raven. I almost never raven anymore. Vs zerg I've found a healthy unit mix is just the key. It's sad how wide spread you have to be to have a chance.
I only ever use ravens vs toss, for some reason. Even in TvT. I don't make vikings, so why make ravens to stop vikings.
I think HSM is maybe the only reason to get a raven vs zerg, but maybe thats me. When a zerg commits to battle, he isn't going to retreat because of a HSM shot off. They almost can't. The problem laying in that AoE damage hurts you as well =/
If you face a morrow like zerg, that has 5000 creep tumors, get a raven out asap. Take out the creep, take out the vision and mobility
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On January 09 2011 10:32 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I don't get why people get Ravens for HSM.
They won't hit unless your opponent is bad and sit under range 3 of a Raven or units are flying or running at the ravens. The only thing HSM has for it is that each missile does AOE damage. So unlike storm and EMP, HSM damage can be stacked to evaporate a ton of units at once(see TLO vs White-Ra).
Well the HSM doesnt need to hit to be effective in my eyes. As I said if u can force Mutas hovering over u flee and take additional popshots, its already paid of.
Also I saw som HSm use against attacking baneling.
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On January 09 2011 10:35 iAmJeffReY wrote:
I almost never use turrets if I raven. I almost never raven anymore. Vs zerg I've found a healthy unit mix is just the key. It's sad how wide spread you have to be to have a chance.
I only ever use ravens vs toss, for some reason. Even in TvT. I don't make vikings, so why make ravens to stop vikings.
I think HSM is maybe the only reason to get a raven vs zerg, but maybe thats me. When a zerg commits to battle, he isn't going to retreat because of a HSM shot off. They almost can't. The problem laying in that AoE damage hurts you as well =/
If you face a morrow like zerg, that has 5000 creep tumors, get a raven out asap. Take out the creep, take out the vision and mobility
The Raven is only really super great imba when you're being aggressive. This is because the Raven as a unit is really designed to prepare a defensive position. It is quite good at it. Thus may seem counter intuitive but it is the only way to economize Raven energy effectively. Judging by your previous statements you're not really convinced about Terran being able to economically contest map control due to the cost effectiveness of speedlings. I don't really have a feeling either way about that except to say that there is a window between speedlings and factory units where Terran cannot move out if he went for an expansion.
The effectiveness of the Raven depends highly on map position. In TvP for example the difference between a PDD in the field and PDD on top the the natural nexus. If you put it in the field, Protoss just backs off and the raven has just become 100% useless. If you put it on the enemy nexus, then you're marine/banshee push just won the game barring some sort of crazy base trade because Protoss has to engage or lose his nexus and the game anyway.
It is even more crucial in TvZ due to higher zerg mobility, you need the ravens to push up to somewhere that Zerg has to attack most often up to hatch creep. Otherwise, you'll end up like...
+ Show Spoiler +
...Hei in the Reddit Invitational where he had ravens in his base, trying to fight muta except the muta could just run to somewhere without auto turrets or just run around until the HSM expired. To be fair, if you go Ravens, you need Tanks and Ravens and not a reactor port of medivacs.
Thus you need to force the zerg into attacking you at a specific for Ravens to be useful... at all. A Raven mid-late gameplan should come down to constricting the Zerg's movement by eliminating creep and forcing them to attack a forward position that is guarded by Ravens... preferably with tank support.
That way you can use your Raven Shotgun and turret placement effectively.
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EPT
