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Hello ladies and gentlemen
First off I would like to say, this build idea actually comes from a student of mine's idea. While his build needed much altering to get it (effective) the core idea behind it was all him. So thank you student 
Ok so lets talk about the build for a minute.
Early game it focuses alot on a stable opening where you can get a fast second base up and running while still not dying to any all-in's. There is probably quite a few of these opening that can achieve such desired results. I'm a fan of 1 rax expand into 2 rax or even 2 rax pressure into expand. (nothing new under the sun with this stuff)
Mid game! Here's where the build becomes unique while we have our 2 rax pumping marines nonstop we teched really fast to Ravens not from 1 starport but 2 starports! We also get 2 fast ebay's, this is very important not for just getting bio weapon upgrade+1 but to also get the structure building armor upgrade which not only gives us beefy turrets PF's bunkers etc. but also gives our Ravens auto turrets +2 armor, which the A-turret starts off with +1 armor already.. So this means that a non melee upgraded zergling would do 2 damage a attack vs. a Auto-turret!! Thats a pretty big deal. Plus throw in some seeker missile's and point defence when the time calls for it!!
While ravens are not really used for support (helping your main army attack) they are infact used to harass with in the early stages of the game. While these gas heavy units are harassing what is our army composition going to be?? You guessed it Marines and Medivacs!!
Also I would like to **note** I do not think this build will replace the Marine Tank Medivac style of TvZ. Maybe this will shine some light out there for some terrans who feel there is just not enough creative ways to play our amazing, /dancing, heroic race.
Here are some replays from the 3200+ ladder / friendly games this week while I have been messing around with this build.
http://replayfu.com/download/41ZWGh
( TvZ vs. Moonglade @Scrap )
http://replayfu.com/download/Pp7SWj
( TvZ vs. MoonGlade @Xelnaga )
http://replayfu.com/download/QB2Hrd
( TvZ vs. Zelniq @LT )
http://replayfu.com/download/sQ0nSd
( TvZ vs. JEcho @ Scrap )
Tell me what you guys think about the build. Here's to an amazing 2011 **cheers** 
- LzGaMeR
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pretty sure antisocial munky has a 20 page thread on this exact same build, probably best to merge threads and contribute the replays there?
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On January 09 2011 16:32 Griffith` wrote:
pretty sure antisocial munky has a 20 page thread on this exact same build, probably best to merge threads and contribute the replays there?
Well if he did.. then my mistake haha.. its rare for me to read the strat section on tl.net :p
atlest you get some high level replays out of the thread haha
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Maka did this build recently on Gisado's KOTH against a TSL zerg. Same opener with Raven + engi upgrades for imba turret harass and seeker muta fending. And then transition into mass BC with Raven protection. The only Z counter is mass infestor.
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yep - be extremely careful against infestors, esp if you're getting SM. NP'ed Raven + HSM = epic fail.
The counter to marine raven is essentially roach infestor mixed with some hydras at the back. PDD gets burnt out by hydras so quickly. Of course the counter to the counter would be add in tanks, which is again, countered by blords .... zzz starcraft 2 is like a never ending string of counters .....
I use Ravens throughout mid-game and late-game, mid-game for clearing out creeps, late-game for support vikings, (PDDs are EPIC against mutas and corruptors since they fire so slowly) when zerg inevitably goes blords.
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gonna check em out, thx for experiementing ;-)
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I saw that game vs moonglade, ASM, that's the game. I felt he over expoed, but your harass was golden dude.
I don't know if I could handle the units as well, but I saw you workin it and it was quite funny those muta balls flying into HSMs lol
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It seems like with so much gas going to ravens and medivacs, you'd have nothing for tanks or marauders - and an autoturret dies to two banelings. Yeah spending mins+gas to destroy just energy sucks, but it seems like ravens +marines couldn't do much about banelings+infestors.
What is nuts though is seeing the starports with tech labs and any zerg will start responding to the threat of banshees - which is certainly not banelings.
I've never fought against this, it seems rough
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Yes, antisocialmunky has a very similar strategy guide in the forums already:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605
He was basically inspired by the old SK Terran style of play and wanted to create an equivalent for SC2.
It looks like he hasn't updated the OP in about a month, so maybe you could collaborate with him to revitalize the ideas and the guide. If anything, you could work with him to provide high level replays to seriously test the strategy in the best possible environment: high-level ladder or even maybe tournament play.
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On January 09 2011 17:00 fdsdfg wrote:
It seems like with so much gas going to ravens and medivacs, you'd have nothing for tanks or marauders - and an autoturret dies to two banelings. Yeah spending mins+gas to destroy just energy sucks, but it seems like ravens +marines couldn't do much about banelings+infestors.
What is nuts though is seeing the starports with tech labs and any zerg will start responding to the threat of banshees - which is certainly not banelings.
I've never fought against this, it seems rough
It's actually good vs. blings becasue they waste there army (Blings) on turrets that are harassing them while my actual army marine/medivac can take map control (or so it seems..)
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On January 09 2011 17:03 Mr. Wiggles wrote:Yes, antisocialmunky has a very similar strategy guide in the forums already: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605He was basically inspired by the old SK Terran style of play and wanted to create an equivalent for SC2. It looks like he hasn't updated the OP in about a month, so maybe you could collaborate with him to revitalize the ideas and the guide. If anything, you could work with him to provide high level replays to seriously test the strategy in the best possible environment: high-level ladder or even maybe tournament play.
ahh i see~ well I have been doing the high level ladder/customs testing~ work's alot better on some maps then others. I found out haha
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On January 09 2011 17:00 fdsdfg wrote:
It seems like with so much gas going to ravens and medivacs, you'd have nothing for tanks or marauders - and an autoturret dies to two banelings. Yeah spending mins+gas to destroy just energy sucks, but it seems like ravens +marines couldn't do much about banelings+infestors.
What is nuts though is seeing the starports with tech labs and any zerg will start responding to the threat of banshees - which is certainly not banelings.
I've never fought against this, it seems rough
From my understanding though, this build has a few key features that actually aid against infestors and/or banelings.
Firstly, with the ravens, you can easily limit creep spread, which will help magnitudes against banelings if you micro.
Then you have to keep in mind that this build allows for the hunter seeker missile. The HSM one-shots infestors, so it can be used to easily snipe them. As well, I believe it is very effective against bunched banelings, which is how they normally seem to come. A well placed HSM can seriously thin the baneling numbers.
In addition, marines here are a mineral dump. You will be limited by gas with your ravens, and all other minerals go into marines for the most part. This means you are trading minerals for gas, when fighting most zerg units, so long as you can keep your ravens alive. You can afford to lose marines to zerg gas units, so long as you trade them for those units. This works well with the MULE macro mechanic, allowing you to support many raxes pumping marines.
Against infestors though, it also comes down to your control. You'll probably just have to control your marines well to keep them from all getting hit with one FG. Infestors are very gas heavy units though, so if you can trade a group of marines to take out some infestors, it will still probably be well worth it as far as the trade-off goes. I think a major point of this build is to be very resource effective when trading units with zerg, to limit the amount of scary gas units he can field.
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Yeah, I guess since gas goes to ravens, then the raven number can just continue to grow. It could be really really hard to bring down those numbers.
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On January 09 2011 17:14 Mr. Wiggles wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2011 17:00 fdsdfg wrote:
It seems like with so much gas going to ravens and medivacs, you'd have nothing for tanks or marauders - and an autoturret dies to two banelings. Yeah spending mins+gas to destroy just energy sucks, but it seems like ravens +marines couldn't do much about banelings+infestors.
What is nuts though is seeing the starports with tech labs and any zerg will start responding to the threat of banshees - which is certainly not banelings.
I've never fought against this, it seems rough From my understanding though, this build has a few key features that actually aid against infestors and/or banelings. Firstly, with the ravens, you can easily limit creep spread, which will help magnitudes against banelings if you micro. Then you have to keep in mind that this build allows for the hunter seeker missile. The HSM one-shots infestors, so it can be used to easily snipe them. As well, I believe it is very effective against bunched banelings, which is how they normally seem to come. A well placed HSM can seriously thin the baneling numbers. In addition, marines here are a mineral dump. You will be limited by gas with your ravens, and all other minerals go into marines for the most part. This means you are trading minerals for gas, when fighting most zerg units, so long as you can keep your ravens alive. You can afford to lose marines to zerg gas units, so long as you trade them for those units. This works well with the MULE macro mechanic, allowing you to support many raxes pumping marines. Against infestors though, it also comes down to your control. You'll probably just have to control your marines well to keep them from all getting hit with one FG. Infestors are very gas heavy units though, so if you can trade a group of marines to take out some infestors, it will still probably be well worth it as far as the trade-off goes. I think a major point of this build is to be very resource effective when trading units with zerg, to limit the amount of scary gas units he can field.
You really gotta think... FG has range 9, HSM has range 6, NP also has range 9, a raven thats NPed will use HSM on other ravens, infestors are a "hard counter" to ravens in every way imaginable. Getting HSM on ravens in TvZ is extremely dangerous because NP will wreck you. A good zerg will always be able to snag the raven (by FG/NP) before it can use HSM.
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getting a small number of ravens and then pure banshee seems like being just pure better in every way...
HSM and mass raven will be good for a few weeks, but when zergs practice against it and figure it out it will turn out to be a very weak build. HSM is easy to dodge, costs a tonne of energy and can easily backfire on your marines.
turrets and PDD are good, but not really effective en masse. banshee pure dps, cloak and scaling with upgrades seem like a much better option.
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fungal groath decloacks banshees so this might only work against not too good zergs
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On January 09 2011 17:07 Lz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2011 17:03 Mr. Wiggles wrote:Yes, antisocialmunky has a very similar strategy guide in the forums already: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605He was basically inspired by the old SK Terran style of play and wanted to create an equivalent for SC2. It looks like he hasn't updated the OP in about a month, so maybe you could collaborate with him to revitalize the ideas and the guide. If anything, you could work with him to provide high level replays to seriously test the strategy in the best possible environment: high-level ladder or even maybe tournament play. ahh i see~ well I have been doing the high level ladder/customs testing~ work's alot better on some maps then others. I found out haha
Hey man, glad you've discovered the utilities of ravens on your own. I've been waiting for a while until someone good did this in TvZ. I think BratOK did this a few times as well.
My style is somewhat different from this because its marine-tank-raven with a somewhat limited production of tanks and a few medivacs put in when you do build tanks. I find that medivacs while good for healing up after a stim and dropping are dead weight vs the high burst damage of zerg. Its also less harass and more contain and map control contesting based. HSM to deal with banelings and ward off mutas. Tanks will take care of roaches and allow you better control at edge of creep and they will nail infestors quite well. That or banshee, you can quite feasibly go 3 port Raven-Med-Banshee but that requires a huge amount of map awareness and APM.
At anyrate, I'm totally excited to watch some high level reps of this *GLEEEEEEEE*.
Oh yeah, you should try Reactor Rax expand from my thread that KME created. It feels much faster on the tech and makes you slightly less helpless vs speedlings. Just watched the Zelniq game. You should check out KME's reps anyway as they show what you can get away with.
@Wiggles
I haven't updated my guide because I haven't laddered in 2.5 months and I didn't think people at a high level were still interested. I think almost everything that needed to be said has been said about the main strategy EXCEPT for the marine/tank/raven positioning and the working in of marauders, hellions(hellions actually like hard counter banelings if you have 6 or so and zone better at edge of siege range better than stim marines). I dunno, if there is enough demand, I'll update it.
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Hahahaha. I couldn't stop laughing that game. Like when you called down about 20 mules on one patch, and had 18 barracks just built all around the map. Hilarious :D.
This build though, yea, been around for a bit, but it is a good one.
EDIT: talking about the last game linked.
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EPT
