This is my first post here. I have to say in advance that I am not a very skilled player, playing just in silver league, but I may have come up with a potentially new way to use Ravens.
I've found it interesting how people, with time, figured out to use units in Starcraft2 differently than they were intended to originally. For example spine crawlers for offensive pushes, workers to „block“ the mining of a mineral patch in the opponents base etc. So, playing terran I asked myself: How could one use terran units differently and ended up thinking about the raven and his seeker missile in the process.
I have rarely seen Raven in pro replays. I suppose it’s because they are so gas intensive, yet fragile. And the seeker missile is so slow, that a lot of units can simply outrun it. In addition the raven has to get rather close to fire the missile, which often results in losing the plane in the process, which makes a seeker missile even more costly. Not to mention that the damage has been nerfed several times (it now lies by 100dmg till 0.5 range; 50 dmg at 1.0 range; 25dmg till 2.0) AND the missile costs a lot of energy (125).
Now enough of the introduction. Out of all those things speaking against the seeker missile, I figured that at least the slowness of the missile doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Seeing for example mutalisks evade the missile to infinity, I had the idea that one could turn this into an advantage.
What if you would seeker missile one of your own fast units and then lead it to the enemy? Like that you could fire the missile from a far distance and a safe place, without the risk of loosing your costly ravens and if the targeted unit is fast, the enemy can‘t evade it so easily and after all won’t expect this kind of attack. First of all: in principle it works. You can target a lot of your own terran units: marines, marauders, reapers, vikings, medivacs, hellions, banshees. This way the missile can be launched from quite far away, as it can travel 15 (to 20, with the durable materials upgrade) in game seconds. It will explode at the last spot, the targeted unit has been seen alive on (if it reaches that spot). So it doesn‘t matter if your missile guiding unit gets killed, once it reaches the enemy.
What can this be used for? 1. Drone line attack. + Show Spoiler +
Seeker missiles are normally not suited to kill drones because their damage radius isn’t that large and the drones are constantly moving. So if the missile happens to hit the drone when it reaches the nexus/hatchery/command centre, the bomb does very little damage considering the energy and gas costs. BUT: You can for example get 3 ravens and send in 2 „suicide“ units into the opponents drone line from outside his base, with 3 seeker missiles on their back. Remember, you just have to reach the drone line. Reapers will often do the job, jumping up cliffs and being that fast. If your two units have reached the drone line spread them out a bit and just press hold position. The rockets will hit shortly afterward and this will pretty much destroy his probe line. Plus, he won’t see it coming and won’t be fast enough to pull the workers away. Even some base defences or units won’t be able to deny the attack, if the units manage to stay alive just the seconds they need to get into the drone line. Now you can retreat with your ravens to your base or leave them somewhere safe until they regained their energy and start another „long range bombing“.
I have uploaded a replay showing two such attacks on my opponents probe line- both killing a considerable amount of workers. The attacks begin at 12 min and 23 min at his main and his third respectively. If you want to check it out. (Yes, I know the game is terrible apart from that, but I was so focused on trying this and getting the ravens out).
If you have enough map awareness, I was thinking that this would be a way to hit the enemy by surprise. For example (some ideas):
-You see a pack of mutalisks hanging around? Launch two or three seeker missiles on a marauder of yours, stim and run him under the mutas. The time he is death he will probably have reached the spot underneath them and boom go the mutas. -The sensor tower shows a lot of void ray heading to your base and you lack anti air? If you happen to have cloaked banshees you could seeker missile it, cloak it and move command it towards the leader of the void ray fleet. I’m pretty sure the opponents wouldn’t see that coming. - if there is lack of detection you can run in a cloaked ghost with seeker missiles following him once you reach the army let him quickly lay down an emp as a last effort. With shields down the seeker missiles can do a lot of damage to the protoss ground army and they won’t have the time to retreat.
3. Point 1) and 2) in 2vs2 or in games with even more allies. + Show Spoiler +
Here I think the potential could be (even) bigger, considering all the fast or cloacked units zerg and protoss have that you could use to guide the missiles in (or are the games to short, to get ravens in the first place?) Liquipedia mentions the possibility to target hallucinations. Actually I haven’t tought of that first, but it seems a very good suicide unit. Or: Observers with speed (if they have so much firepower that you may not reach their army with your suicide unit. Or Dts, or Phoenix, or a single muta, or a cheap zergling etc. I haven’t tried this out because I had no partner to give it a try.
In general: I have tried out 1) and 2) to a certain extent. 2) with some exceptions mainly in self made maps however (I ran two cloaked ghosts into his protoss ball with seeker missiles following but kind of messed up with the emps). And I can’t say whether this way of worker harass or pre-emptive strike is really worth it. As I said, I am not that of a skilful player and above all 2) needs a lot of map awareness and quick reaction time. Not to mention the amount of gas you need to afford Ravens. Actually I just wanted to get this idea out and ask you what you think of it and whether you think that could be effective ways to use the raven. I surely would find it a lot of fun, if a good player picks this up und I end up seeing ravens used like this in a pro match but... well, I have no idea if it could be effective. So what do you guys think? (After trying out this „raven idea“, I noticed that liquipedia mentions the possibility of targeting your own missile turrets or own units but I haven’t seen or read of the idea to use the raven as proposed above, yet. I haven’t searched the whole net, neither, so if that’s already „common ground“, sorry…I wasn’t aware of that).
-If you send in suicide units like depicted in 1) to kill workers, make sure you keep them moving. If you’ve happened to click on a drone and they stop and attack before reaching the drone line, there remains a little bit of time to get them to move again. Just watch your units that are guiding the missiles. Same is true if you want to attack the army of an opponent with a unit that can attack them. Best is to right click a point behind the enemy army and press H when your unit(s) reaches its destination (or M for move command if that lets your unit follow also an enemy unit. I actually don’t know if that works).
- The most effective way to deal damage is to send in a flying unit for a ground army and vice versa because it doesn’t matter whether the missile explodes in the air or at ground level and like this your own unit doesn’t use some of the tight space where the damage of the explosion is max. (You actually can land vikings into the drone line and the missile will follow them downwards, which looks kind of cool but will potentially reduce the damage done. If you use vikings you could land them afterwards, if they survived the explosion to quickly pick up remaining weakened workers).
- To make sure your long range bombing attempt doesn’t end up disasterous right at the beginning, put your suicide units on a hotkey. Then select the ravens, hold shift and move them slightly away to one point, then quickly press R on the suicide units and as many times as you want missiles following them. This way the ravens will launch their projectiles more or less simultaneously. With your hotkey you then can quickly switch to your suicide units and lead them to their destination.
-To 1): I haven’t really tested if leading 2 units with 3 seeker missiles in is the optimal choice. I just noticed that like this a lot of workers can be killed because you have a decent spread of damage and only two missiles often don’t kill a lot because probes can end up just being in the range of 25 dmg and survive. On the other hand: the more units you send in, the more expensive it will get and maybe the bigger the chance that the player immediately pulls away all drones if he sees the units (which is a very bad thing because then mostly use the missiles as well as the suicide units). Leading in just 1 units would be great if the opponent would then decide to attack you with the probes, because that would just draw them all into the missile.
-To 1): Reaper speed. The upside is that your reapers will be more likely to reach the worker line, even if there are some cannons or units. The downside is, that if you are too far ahead of the missile and your enemy happens to react fast, he may pull the drones away and they are fast enough to outrun the missile. You could let the missiles approach a bit, before heading into the drone line but if you let them too close (range 2) the missile can no longer be evaded and boom go your reapers.
I was using seeker missile today in games. It was soo bad first off that 125 mana is huge even with the mana upgrade and the range is so short this is what usually happens:
-See big clump of banelings/zerglings/mutalisks -Fire off a couple shots into the sprawling mess -Slow acceleration ravens head off towards zerg -Ravens basically ontop of zerg army -Delay for the seeker missile -1 missile goes into mutalisks and damages 3 of them -1 missile follows zergling into my marines, kills them all and damages ravens
It's doable, but this kind of tactic is a huge gamble. You are taking an expensive unit (the raven) and asserting that it will be useless for the next couple of minutes should this tactic fail, while also sacrificing at least one other unit in order to get the seeker missile in place. This leaves your army considerably weaker in the coming engagements in exchange for a gimmick which is only marginally effective at best.
Well, Yes. But that's what my point was. By using your own units as missile targets you can get rid of those problems. Sure a raven still will be costly and a seeker missily energy intensive.
Its a cool idea. I really hope this happens one day in a game i watch. But i dont think im going to incorperat it into my play, seeker missle still costs allot of cash, and its a big risk. If you put it on a unit and move into an army wont the uni die before the missles meet thier target? and if you move a unit into the drone line wont they just run workers away from the unit with out even seeing the missles?
I have started to use ravens to great affect in TvT. Not for Seeker missles or stopping viking fire. They are a great harassment unit, you can auto turret min lines and pull back before missle turrets hit you, place them at missle turrets (just to piss them off), put them on high ground locations to scout. they can be used to block dropps, eg; delter quadrent onn ur back side high ground.
But the best use I make of them is PDDing a line of turrets and flying in a massive drop. People assume that if they have a bunch of turrets in thier main, they can not be dropped so it is rare that they will have units in position to deal with the drop that you do.
I know none of this is new, just my thoughts on a good way to use ravens. (yes PDD rapes stalker bass and such to)
I've known about this for quite some time, but it is imo at best a big gimmick, with high risk high reward.
I think atm the main issue with the raven is exactly that, it's a risky unit to mass/upgrade. I feel the terran race is all about certainty, "if I micro this unit well, it will be cost effective" but the raven is more imo "if my opponent fucks up, it will be devastating for them".
Edit: Also as I see it, the best casters are the ones that force the opponent to micro. Ghost/ht/sentry(atleast GS)/science vessel/defiler atleast all do that. Raven... HSM really just forces him to run back or cross his fingers, either of which are decent enough options.
What if you would seeker missile one of your own fast units and then lead it to the enemy? Like that you could fire the missile from a far distance and a safe place, without the risk of loosing your costly ravens and if the targeted unit is fast, the enemy can‘t evade it so easily and after all won’t expect this kind of attack.
That requires a lot of attention, all of it for a moment. Have you tried this? I can't remember if you can seeker missile your own units...
As a zerg I would laugh versus this strategy. Why?
Ravens are slow... With right overlord placement i can spot this easier than a drop.
Your number 2 point is only useful if your opponent is not good enough to have his mutalisks always moving. Good zerg players always move around the map with mutas, its the basic idea of mutaling.
Point 3: Dude, 2vs2 is incredibly aggressive and fast paced in the higher leagues. You should never get enough Ravens out to be a threat unless they decide to turtle, and go for tier 3 units. Missiles are pretty useless against BC and Carrriers if they do not super clump.
Also, if I see a Raven coming to me, instead of sending all my mutas and risk a missile overkill, just send 2 mutas. And run with you drones.
For example spine crawlers for offensive pushes, workers to „block“ the mining of a mineral patch in the opponents base etc.
I love seeing spine crawler pushes, but they are pretty cheesy, and someone who scouts it will easily counter it. And the worker block thing only does minimum damage to the opponents eco if they don't see it.
And I can’t say whether this way of worker harass or pre-emptive strike is really worth it.
Not really unless you kill a BUNCH of drones or probes, because Ravens are friggin expensive for such a trade off. Might as well just build a Ghost Academy, a ghost and get cloak, because you can do stuff with it later.
@STS17 Right. I wrote, that this was in no way refined or that I woulnd't know whether it could pay off at all. But to your point: - The ravens actually keep me in the game in this replay (even if they have set me behind at first. And expanding first would have been better I think). If you pull them back they will soon have enough energy for a PDD and often will have at least for some turrets. I know in the replay I added it is a gimmick. I just wondered if it could be more than that. But I'm no way a good enough player to answer that question.
I have to say I respect the attempt, it certainly looks like you put a lot of effort into this. I also seriously wish that the seeker missile was used more, or used at all. Unfortunately, Terran just have a few of these upgrades that are pretty close to pointless. (Neo-steel, medivac energy, raven's other upgrades)
Calling Seeker Missile inefficient is an understatement. It has a chance to be efficient for the other player. You have just invested 125/125 and the majority of a Raven's energy to give them the chance to kill a bunch of your units by running them back to you. If they're not watching, you might get lucky and kill a group of marines or hydras (who will have just killed the raven right after the strike) or a group of lings/banes (not cost efficient). If you ever have that much energy on a raven you should be using it on a PDD or even harassing mineral lines with turrets.
Let us just hope that one day this spell will be useful, but until then do not underestimate PDD as a use of energy!
If there is any unit that is broken in SC2.. its the Raven. Its slow as shit, does 0 damage, and the seeker missile is a joke. The only thing its good for is PDD.
That requires a lot of attention, all of it for a moment. Have you tried this? I can't remember if you can seeker missile your own units...
Yes, you definitely can. Yes I have tried it.
As a zerg I would laugh versus this strategy. Why?
Ravens are slow... With right overlord placement i can spot this easier than a drop.
Yes, maybe but if a viking or so is out and you don't have mutas you won't have them all spread out. Or...a lot of players won't expect the ravens to attack from such a distance.
Your number 2 point is only useful if your opponent is not good enough to have his mutalisks always moving. Good zerg players always move around the map with mutas, its the basic idea of mutaling.
I thought about this in combination with sensor towers. Or if the mutas are alread at or near base. I mean if you expect it...sure you could dogde that, but I think most players wouldn't.
Also, if I see a Raven coming to me, instead of sending all my mutas and risk a missile overkill, just send 2 mutas. And run with you drones.
That's my point. You wouldn't / shouldn't see the raven. You can fly in on the outskirts of the base. I know zerg will probably have overlords there but still I mean reapers can get into the drone line, I saw this a lot of times... that's all there woulb be needed. But as trying this out I realized, that it's difficult with mutas as your ravens are pretty unprotected if they retreat.
And I can’t say whether this way of worker harass or pre-emptive strike is really worth it.
Not really unless you kill a BUNCH of drones or probes, because Ravens are friggin expensive for such a trade off. Might as well just build a Ghost Academy, a ghost and get cloak, because you can do stuff with it later.
I actually killed a bunch of drones I think. Ravens can be very usefull later, if you keep them alive, with their PDD, I think.
On July 27 2011 22:15 Zarahtra wrote: I've known about this for quite some time, but it is imo at best a big gimmick, with high risk high reward.
I think atm the main issue with the raven is exactly that, it's a risky unit to mass/upgrade.
Has someone already tried SKT style yet. Hunter seeker is no where near as effective as irradiate but that negative is offset by point defense being vastly better than dmatrix for the situations you want to use either.
I've seen a game from Destiny on Korean ladder: the Korean player got 4 or 5 Raven and used them as Herass squad -> it worked greate. drop auto guns and seeker missile were used to herass mineral lines.
Anyway, I guess you need an awesome unit control to make that work.
Gimmicky and fun. Impossible to rely on in a real game. You invest in ravens and hope to do small drone damage with an insane suicide Drop 3 BF hellions instead and you'll do much more damage while not investing in a unit that sucks ass.
PDD is fine against mutas, sure. But who engages with their mutalisks unless they absolutely decimate w/e they're against? And PDD for base defense is not gonna happen. One for spotting bling bombs is fine.
On July 27 2011 22:22 NASAmoose wrote: Calling Seeker Missile inefficient is an understatement. It has a chance to be efficient for the other player. You have just invested 125/125 and the majority of a Raven's energy to give them the chance to kill a bunch of your units by running them back to you. If they're not watching, you might get lucky and kill a group of marines or hydras (who will have just killed the raven right after the strike) or a group of lings/banes (not cost efficient). If you ever have that much energy on a raven you should be using it on a PDD or even harassing mineral lines with turrets.
Let us just hope that one day this spell will be useful, but until then do not underestimate PDD as a use of energy!
Thanks . Just to make it clear: I don't say it IS efficient. I wonder if it could. But on the other hand some of your arguments for me seem to be not valid in this case.
- The opponent can't run the unit back to you, as you target your own unit. - With fast units you are so quickly near the enemys army that the reaction time he has is really short. - the probability to loose the raven is significantly lowered, because he stays way behind the unit you target. He can be behind 15 to 20 seconds travel distance from the seeker missile.
The way I used it in the replay, I'm sure it wasn't efficient but... could it be?
It's an interesting idea and i could see players like TLO pull it off, but i don't think we will see a practical use of this in the next few month.
Ravens have a huge potential, it's just that most people are not comfortable enough with their play to make use of it's abilities, there are so many other things that can still be improved (in terms of player skill, not balance).
It's like the science vessel where early in SC1 people claimed it's useless, now it's a must-have unit.
- PDD is insanely strong and can by itself shift the outcome of battles: The Damage of Missile Turrets, Photon Cannons, Spore Crawlers, Stalkers, Roaches, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Phoenixes, Corruptors, Marauders, Vikings, BCs, Carriers and Broodlords gets negated for a short time, allowing you to kill a few units before receiving damage.
- Auto-Turret is great for Zoning, Defense and Harass: I think it was one of QXCs games in GSTL where a player used an auto-turret to prevent QXCs hellions from moving in. A single Auto-Turret shifted the game. Also, it works as quick defense against cloaked banshees.
- HSM allows you to kill huge groups of banelings far away from your army without the danger of them getting close to your marines. It can also be used to drive mutalisk harass away until marines arrive or turrets finish: The Zerg has to move his mutalisks away for 15 seconds or all his mutalisks will be in the red. Can only be countered by perfect micro - picking the targetted mutalisk and sending it away on it's own. PDD can also be used to allow Ravens to get closer to the target to place their HSM.
ha ha, this is a nice idea still wondering about if its actually possible in reality wont your single unit at wich you aim the missle instandly die due to ennemy fire as soon as it comes close,after wich the missle will default?
On July 27 2011 22:44 Rassy wrote: ha ha, this is a nice idea still wondering about if its actually possible in reality wont your single unit at wich you aim the missle instandly die due to ennemy fire as soon as it comes close,after wich the missle will default?
The missile will land on the spot where the unit died, so if you manage to get into a group of units (easiest for banelings or zerglings which will move towards your unit), it will still cause damage in that area and probably take a few units with it.
On July 27 2011 22:39 EmilA wrote: Gimmicky and fun. Impossible to rely on in a real game. You invest in ravens and hope to do small drone damage with an insane suicide Drop 3 BF hellions instead and you'll do much more damage while not investing in a unit that sucks ass.
PDD is fine against mutas, sure. But who engages with their mutalisks unless they absolutely decimate w/e they're against? And PDD for base defense is not gonna happen. One for spotting bling bombs is fine.
I can't say that that's not true. I just want to point out an advantage of such a raven drone line attack compared with a hellion drop. A hellion drop doesn't necessarily deal damage at all. The medivac can easily be intercepted, destroyed by defense while unloading, the workers pulled away or the hellions can be quickly destroyed. In this case you invest a lot of money too, don't you? One thing that I would consider an advantage is that with this kind of attack its very hard to deny it. It's hard to protect a drone line from that.
Not saying that this makes is worth it but...it's a difference to a drop
On July 27 2011 22:15 Pigzyf5 wrote: Its a cool idea. I really hope this happens one day in a game i watch. But i dont think im going to incorperat it into my play, seeker missle still costs allot of cash, and its a big risk. If you put it on a unit and move into an army wont the uni die before the missles meet thier target? and if you move a unit into the drone line wont they just run workers away from the unit with out even seeing the missles?
I think it sure would be fun to watch but... yeah..it was just an idea I had and played around with.
Adressing your points: I depends how big the army is and which unit you use. For example: if you use a medivac over roaches or banelings they surely won't be able to kill it. also if you run in hellions or a marauder (maybe with another one in front). They can reach the army. And if you have a cloaked ghost and they lack detection, they wont see you.
If you move your unit into the drone line, they often won't just "pull out". Even in pro replays that rarely happens. You would have to be very quick. Remember, that the unit isn't attacking the probes. He doesn't get warned if it reaches the dronelines it takes only seconds until the missile hits. After all I think you won't expect this.
well seaker missiles are quiet nice, the problem is the range. Against toss or zerg you won't get them off if hts or infestors are out, atleast not from the raven. Another problem is the self detonate if the target dies. Last but not least is the energy investment, often 2 autoturrets do better then the seeker itself. I simply think they overnerfed the damage, when the seeker was to strong, they should have reduced the energy usage as well. Now its like a easy to dodge storm, that almost costs the double amount of energy and you need to move the unit into anti air range before fireing.
though its always a good idea to get a raven along with vikings. Well main theme is seeker Missile, banshees are actually perfectly at delivering seeker Missiles, since they survive the blow and are cloaked and can fly. It is fun to splatter a zerg baneling blob that way or lings and then go for some infestor sniping. Or fly directly on top of gathered infestors and kill alot of them off.
Its diamond platin playing around though, so my opponents are more busy macroing and not checking their army alot. And cloakd banshees are really evil against a zerg that stopped muta production anyway. So the seeker is just a bonus if you have your raven anyway.
On July 27 2011 23:02 FeyFey wrote: well seaker missiles are quiet nice, the problem is the range. Against toss or zerg you won't get them off if hts or infestors are out, atleast not from the raven. Another problem is the self detonate if the target dies. Last but not least is the energy investment, often 2 autoturrets do better then the seeker itself.
Actually I wouldn't dare to proclaim that the proposed Idea would be efficient. And I very much like to her pros as well as cons. But I wonder a bit about these responses like: Well... the missiles are quite nice, but the range is the problem. Or..they can run their unit back into yours. I mean did you read the post at all? It's about extending the range.
On July 27 2011 22:24 Souljah wrote: If there is any unit that is broken in SC2.. its the Raven. Its slow as shit, does 0 damage, and the seeker missile is a joke. The only thing its good for is PDD.
And even that can be sniped in seconds if the units focus fire it (have to be in range). I mess around with Terran sometimes, and when my mineral line is getting harassed constantly, I use AT to defend while I push out. Not sure how cute that is, might help some people out.
PS: I went back and counted. The two attacks on the drone line with this kind of seeker missile play killed 29 drones of him (while the respective 2 suicide units could have been spread out much better)
baas... everyone seems to be completely against the idea. everyone knows some reasons why it seems to be bad...
in broodwar vultures were considered bad too. i'm sure people had similar "great arguments" for why vultures sucked. until boxer revolutionized the whole terran race...
people always think they know it all... quite annoying tbh.
i like the idea of getting a raven: -for killing creep -detecting burrowed banelings -PDD -maybe harass
how many units are THAT useful? considering the raven does so many good things already, it's not a big strech to go for HSM too. it's not that expensive. and it does indeed do huge damage. and zerg armys indeed are clumped most of the time.
idra was convinced that raven would become standard.
i dont know about the long range bombing. might work better than people are suspecting.
i think the raven has a lot of potential. we might see it much more often in the future, including HSM.
Idk, Zerg here, so take my comments with a grain of salt, but I think this could be an interesting gimmick, especially in a multi-pronged attack, though I have to question the cost efficiency, and I think every terran should ask, what would be better here, turrets or a seeker missle? Personally, as Zerg, I can handle a few seeker missles and just run away across the map. But when 10 or so turrets are dropped in my mineral lines (or worse, multiple bases, simultaneously), I seriously shit my pants. Perhaps the seeker missle is better vs army than workers, but again, I'm no Terran expert, and maybe in other matchups (TvT and TvP) the seeker can be better, I'm not sure, but I really think a melee heavy army has a much harder time dealing with turrets as well.
This seems kind of like the fungal growth versus infested terran argument for worker harrass, where infested terrans can do structural damage and prevent mining for longer, en masse, but the instant effect of a couple of FG's can kill all workers, though if the opponent saw the infestors coming, IT's may be a better choice, other than of course, calling it all off, should you choose to do so.
I just think the slow moving seeker missle, whether manually guided or AI guided, is still just a slow moving seeker missle. The only real advantage is perhaps getting to have your raven a little farther from the action, but I bet you're better off with turrets.
However, one thing is certain about the seeker missle: If your units are targetted, run in the opposite direction, or face big losses.Personally, I think the best use would be to set up a tank perimeter concave, and use 3 or more missles from behind the opponents (coming at them from different angles) line to force them to run forward into your seigetank line. Regardless though, interesting use, and maybe it has its place, who knows... Though I'd compare this to longdistance mining via nydus canal, where you have to manually load and unload drones for each mineral trip, which is rarely seen in competitive play...
Although, Multiple seeker missles versus the mineral line from different directions, that may be interesting, as you run away from one, you're running towards another... Regardless, vs muta ling bling, there is the possibility of burrowed blings, and a raven detector is worth the cost for that reason alone, I bet it's much more cost-efficient than leap-frog scanning.
Though if Blizz felt like a balance patch, as Zerg, I'd be happy for a nerfed turret in exchange for faster seeker missles.
nice ideas duncanldaho.. i never followed broodwar, but i heard boxer's ideas were pretty daring and genius at the same time. sounds like your idea ...
but all the nay-sayers are way too lazy to integrate HSM into a solid fight plan like that...
they are even too lazy to consider the idea... or the possibility... damn that's so annoying. most people i try to discuss strategy with are like that...
btw, another thing.. how often do people scan just to kill creep? 2 times? more? 2 times is the cost of a raven ALREADY. plus it has so many more uses...
if the zerg tries to engage the terran army and you fire a HSM... what is he gonna do? run away and eat extra tank shots? engage and take the HSM damage? sounds kinda strong to me.
I personally think ravens should just have like heat seeking mines...that float. So you could use a raven to lay them around your base kinda like spidermines. It would help out Ts a bunch against heavy muta play instead of relying on turrets that just get 1 shotted by 25+ +2 mutas.
On July 27 2011 23:25 beg wrote: nice ideas duncanldaho.. i never followed broodwar, but i heard boxer's ideas were pretty daring and genius at the same time. sounds like your idea ...
but all the nay-sayers are way too lazy to integrate HSM into a solid fight plan like that...
they are even to lazy to consider the idea... or the possibility... damn that's so annoying. most people i try to discuss strategy with are like that...
Hehe, ty. Yeah, there's always the mob of "lol that's a crap idea, and I'm not going to back up my opinion with anything more than laughing at you and saying it's stupid" crowd of assholes. But yeah, it is a risky idea, but I don't think that means seeker missles are useless. I mean, If I were to make a thread about using mass banelings to counter mass mauraders, people would likely laugh at me, and proceed to claim that banelings are useless. People just don't know how to think creatively/out-of-the-box.
This has been discussed before, where the ideal unit is a speed reaper that jumps up the cliff into your opponents mineral line. Even if the reaper dies, the HSM will still detonate where the unit died.
HSM imo is just not worth the energy of the Raven. Throwing down turrets or PDD is soooo much more annoying to your opponent than a slow projectile that can easily be dodged (or they can just split their units). The only time I remember HSM being very viable was in beta when Thor's didn't have splash and there was a bug where HSM did 175% of the listed damage and had longer cast range.
I'm not saying HSM is useless, there's just better options.
On July 27 2011 23:25 beg wrote: nice ideas duncanldaho.. i never followed broodwar, but i heard boxer's ideas were pretty daring and genius at the same time. sounds like your idea ...
but all the nay-sayers are way too lazy to integrate HSM into a solid fight plan like that...
they are even to lazy to consider the idea... or the possibility... damn that's so annoying. most people i try to discuss strategy with are like that...
Hehe, ty. Yeah, there's always the mob of "lol that's a crap idea, and I'm not going to back up my opinion with anything more than laughing at you and saying it's stupid" crowd of assholes. But yeah, it is a risky idea, but I don't think that means seeker missles are useless. I mean, If I were to make a thread about using mass banelings to counter mass mauraders, people would likely laugh at me, and proceed to claim that banelings are useless. People just don't know how to think creatively/out-of-the-box.
Oh yeah, remember when everyone said banelings are useless against Protoss as Stalkers and Colossi are armored units and there won't be a lot of Zealots? Now banelings are common in ZvP and can crush a whole army.
On July 27 2011 23:17 beg wrote: baas... everyone seems to be completely against the idea. everyone knows some reasons why it seems to be bad...
Yes, it seems most do so. But I'm also not "insisting" it is a viable strategy. I just defend it against arguments that acutally have nothing do do with the point I made. Like "the range is too short". Or I like to argue that there are also pros to some cons like the heavy costs.
Basically, Blizz needs to do something to make HSM useable. Ravens are awesome as it is, but not always cost efficient. I think there are ways to increase the utility of the Raven w/o unbalancing the game (more than it already is depending on your pov).
On July 27 2011 23:40 CryMore wrote: This has been discussed before, where the ideal unit is a speed reaper that jumps up the cliff into your opponents mineral line. Even if the reaper dies, the HSM will still detonate where the unit died.
HSM imo is just not worth the energy of the Raven. Throwing down turrets or PDD is soooo much more annoying to your opponent than a slow projectile that can easily be dodged (or they can just split their units). The only time I remember HSM being very viable was in beta when Thor's didn't have splash and there was a bug where HSM did 175% of the listed damage and had longer cast range.
I'm not saying HSM is useless, there's just better options.
Oh ok, I didn't know that :-). I think there are pros and cos to the speed reaper use, because with speed...if you don't stop and wait for the missile beforehand there is more time for the opponent to react and pull of drones.
Yes maybe turrets would do the better job but I think that the argument of dodging there is much more viable. To dogde such a HSM attack is in my eyes much harder than to pull workers away once turrets get layed down. And then the turrets can be killed rather quickly without doing real damage...and you will have spent a lot of energy too. So... is it really better? I think the counter arguments against a use of seeker missiles on drones should apply to the auto turret use as well. Or am I missing something completely?
On July 27 2011 22:15 Zarahtra wrote: I've known about this for quite some time, but it is imo at best a big gimmick, with high risk high reward.
I think atm the main issue with the raven is exactly that, it's a risky unit to mass/upgrade.
Has someone already tried SKT style yet. Hunter seeker is no where near as effective as irradiate but that negative is offset by point defense being vastly better than dmatrix for the situations you want to use either.
Aye, there have been a lot of attempts to force the raven to work. The SKT style was probably the most successful, but it didn't rely so much on HSM as it did on auto turret and hitting before hydras/big number of roaches.
I actually saw something like this used last week, in Craftcup I think. It was Satini vs Syz (TvZ), I was trying to find a replay but can't seem to find it. It wasn't directed at the mineral lines, but used directly in battles. From what I can remember Satini used at least twice, once with the HSM following a stimmed marine and another one with the HSM following a cloacked banshee straight into Syz army. In both situations the damage dealt was quite considerable. I don't really see a strategy revolving around this, but it can definitely be useful in some situations.
P.S.: If someone could find the replay of the game I mentioned, I think some people could see how this can be doable and useful.
On July 28 2011 00:31 Calad0 wrote: I actually saw something like this used last week, in Craftcup I think. It was Satini vs Syz (TvZ), I was trying to find a replay but can't seem to find it. It wasn't directed at the mineral lines, but used directly in battles. From what I can remember Satini used at least twice, once with the HSM following a stimmed marine and another one with the HSM following a cloacked banshee straight into Syz army. In both situations the damage dealt was quite considerable. I don't really see a strategy revolving around this, but it can definitely be useful in some situations.
P.S.: If someone could find the replay of the game I mentioned, I think some people could see how this can be doable and useful.
I would love to see that replay too!!!! I just tought it wasn't been used yet because I newer saw it before :-).
i'm no trolling u but it's already used and published idea raven with hellion o.o when hellion was considered the worst unit they decided to use it as suicide bomb :D but good on ya thinking that out
On July 28 2011 00:37 TApeak wrote: i'm no trolling u but it's already used and published idea raven with hellion o.o when hellion was considered the worst unit they decided to use it as suicide bomb :D but good on ya thinking that out
Ok. I didn't know that. Actually it would have surprised me if it would have been really "new", considering there are a lot of people thinking a looooot more about starcraft than I do. I mean it's not really hard to get the idea. I just never saw it and a short search in the forum did not reveal anything like this neither...so I thought I make the post.
Did you know if it..hm worked out in certain situations?
On July 27 2011 22:36 YesAnotherSC2Player wrote: I've seen a game from Destiny on Korean ladder: the Korean player got 4 or 5 Raven and used them as Herass squad -> it worked greate. drop auto guns and seeker missile were used to herass mineral lines.
Anyway, I guess you need an awesome unit control to make that work.
The Terran player was SlayerS_Dragon and he executed that strategy very well. Raven's torrets work very well against tech structure in TvZ and against prone line in TvP.
This thread made me start thinking about possible uses of the Raven. I think throwing down a few turrets behind the mineral line while the enemy is moving out can be very useful since Auto-turrets have very high dps (10 dps) and last for 3 minutes without any upgrades ( = 1800 damage for each turret!).
They might also be very useful against a ling/infestor (desinty style), since they'd need to spend 5 fungals to kill 1 raven and HSM on-shots them.
Ravens aren't too bad against a Zerg going zergling/muta. 4 well place turrets and a ppd can shut down a mineral line. The thing that bugs me the most is the Raven's insanely short range on every spell.
Now, as for the HSM, the whole thing boils down to being required to magic box EVERY single time I want to use it... or any other ability on the Raven when I have more than one and might need to take a few losses to get something off. It's not like muta magic box which is infinitely easier, you have to move spell click and wait for the spell to go off and then move spell click... god, it's annoying just typing it in.
The use of HSM by targetting your own units has been done since BETA. It's just not that good. The AOE of the HSM is crap, and the damage is also crap, so you really can't get big kills or do significant AOE dps.
On July 28 2011 05:30 murkk wrote: The use of HSM by targetting your own units has been done since BETA. It's just not that good. The AOE of the HSM is crap, and the damage is also crap, so you really can't get big kills or do significant AOE dps.
I didn't know that, but thanks for the info. Concerning the targeting of own units, I think it does not decrease the damage dealt with the HSM to a big amount because the range of max damage 100 is very small anyways, so instead of dealing presumably at best to 2 targets 100 dmg you end up dealing it to 1 at best. Against units with a low amount of health the HSM seems not bad to me, if you have several of it. Void rays that stack up for example go down very quickly if you are able to hit them.
If you use an air unit against ground targets and vice versa, you even wont loose any AEO damage at all
On July 28 2011 06:11 whoopingchow wrote: What happens if the unit you're targeting dies?
The missile hits the last spot where it was alive on. So as long as the unit reaches its target, e.g the drone line / army, it doesn't matter if it gets picked out. I would argue that this is an advantage of this tactic, because it allows you to even get in protected drone lines and do a considerable amount of damage.
On July 28 2011 06:11 CoughHarder wrote: so the solution to incorporating a technique that was originally avoided due to high costs is to indirectly raise those costs?
It would be still high costs, sure. But I disagree with your suggestion that the costs would rise because one of the big imminent costs of using a HSM is to loose the raven by doing so. Therefore I would say it will in contrary decrease the costs or risks of seeker missile play.
On July 28 2011 05:30 murkk wrote: The use of HSM by targetting your own units has been done since BETA. It's just not that good. The AOE of the HSM is crap, and the damage is also crap, so you really can't get big kills or do significant AOE dps.
I didn't know that, but thanks for the info. Concerning the targeting of own units, I think it does not decrease the damage dealt with the HSM to a big amount because the range of max damage 100 is very small anyways, so instead of dealing presumably at best to 2 targets 100 dmg you end up dealing it to 1 at best. Against units with a low amount of health the HSM seems not bad to me, if you have several of it. Void rays that stack up for example go down very quickly if you are able to hit them.
If you use an air unit against ground targets and vice versa, you even wont loose any AEO damage at all
Against protoss, raven's are pretty much useless except PD. They have shields, so they can regen if they back away. Their units have a LOT of hitpoints. HT can one shot ravens from long range for super cheap. Warpgate and cannons negates any turret harass. It also takes away from medivac, ghost and viking production, which is far more effective in the long run.
The biggest use that most people see with HSM who haven't tried using it, is the AOE damage. However, it's a tiny radius, so the effects are rather uninspiring. I've had games where I find 8 stalkers wandering around and I land 3 HSMs when they aren't looking. They still have 5 stalkers left and can blink/kill your ravens in seconds.
Others have said it before me but one use TvZ is to use the seeker missile on larva. So you deny zerg the use of larva and they cant run. Also you might get some drone kills.
On July 28 2011 07:16 murkk wrote: Against protoss, raven's are pretty much useless except PD. They have shields, so they can regen if they back away. Their units have a LOT of hitpoints. HT can one shot ravens from long range for super cheap. Warpgate and cannons negates any turret harass. It also takes away from medivac, ghost and viking production, which is far more effective in the long run.
The biggest use that most people see with HSM who haven't tried using it, is the AOE damage. However, it's a tiny radius, so the effects are rather uninspiring. I've had games where I find 8 stalkers wandering around and I land 3 HSMs when they aren't looking. They still have 5 stalkers left and can blink/kill your ravens in seconds.
As I was arguing, with targetting your own units you reduce the risk of loosing your ravens because you can fire from far away. So HT and Blinkstalkers are not the counter there.
If the protoss goes void rays the HSM can be very devastating.
But I agree, that especially against Stalkers (and Colossi) the HSM is weak because of their shields and the lot of space they occupy. Unless...you are able to emp the stalkers. With no shields, their 80 health would let a lot of them them die quickly to two or three HSM, I mentioned the possibility to target ghosts and get of emps at the last moment. But I see that this is a very micro intensiv gamble and requires you to know where the enemys units are (thats why I thought that one may could build sensor towers to get this intel.
On the other hand I think PDD is very strong against stalker colossus because you dont risk loosing your vikings quickly to some stalkers and then end up dead because you cant deal with the colossus. Also you don't have to build as much vikings as you would have otherwise. So if you try to worker harass with HSM you can later use the ravens for PDD
On July 28 2011 08:05 Keilah wrote: hey if you target a friendly unit with HSM, then lift the unit into a medivac, what happens to the HSM?
The HSM just hits the spot where you loaded in the unit. As if a stalker blinks away etc.
Are you suggesting that one could pick the "suicide" units back up? Hm. Could be done I think but then you would have to time this insanely right, wouldn't you? Send suicide units towards drone line, meanwhile send medivac in to pick them up and retreat immediately...
maybe you could pull it off. I think loosing the targetted units wouldn't be that much of a big deal if they are ground units anyway.
do sm's die when the targed unit die? If yes its fail cause your one suicide unit will run into the enemy army and die instantly. To high risk for such a gasintesiv unit with gas- and timeintensive upgrades + much energy.
Similar idea: target your own reaper or raven with HSM and run it into the enemy.
Thanks. I did search in advance but didn't hit upon it. I see, the discussion is pretty similar in the reaper topic. There are some creative ideas that aren't mentioned here. Like the thought of using a suv with hsm at its back while you attack the army with our units and that it wouldnt be attacked because of the priority. Or the 2v2 possibility of HSM a changeling *g. Sounds fun.
I just want to add that by using more than 1 suicide unit you can spread the AOE damage significantly because some of the damage of the missiles will be overlapping.but not all of it. Maybe that's the new aspect in this thread.
On July 28 2011 08:27 Crytch wrote: do sm's die when the targed unit die? If yes its fail cause your one suicide unit will run into the enemy army and die instantly. To high risk for such a gasintesiv unit with gas- and timeintensive upgrades + much energy.
No. It has been answered several times (even in the orignal post). The missile hits the spot where the unit was killed.
Old "trick". Liquipedia: "Top tier Terran players will often use Seeker Missiles on their own units, or use Point Defense Drones as targets to provide the best possible aim for their Seeker Missiles."
how bout the use of the seeker as a semi-defensive nuke? it has the same purpose- to push back their army while its bides more time for yours to clean up an expo/units or just get away. It might even be more useful because it follows the units (albeit for a short period of time) may force the units to back up even further. Con might be the gas price, where the tech lab, the upgrade and the raven roughly equals a tech lab ghost, 2 nukes, and a ghost academy (in terms of gas) so maybe its worth it if you plan to use the missile more than once?
I mentioned this idea in the BL thread too, it is a very neat idea.
It's as if Irradiate is back in the game, in the way that back in SC1 you would irradiate 2 vessels and run them in to a drone line. Only they didn't die, lol.
Anyway, the possibility of killing 20 ish workers with just 2 HSM is really cool. If you can get it off without losing both Ravens, it will help you so much. 2 Hellions would probably be best, since they're fast and don't use gas.
Perhaps this synergy with the fast hellions will help Air/Hellion styles out there, or just Air styles and u make a couple hellions out of your inactive factory, lol.
I'll probably be trying this now, since I always go air vs protoss. I'll try to get some replays too if i get it to work well xD
On July 28 2011 09:04 Dyme wrote: Old "trick". Liquipedia: "Top tier Terran players will often use Seeker Missiles on their own units, or use Point Defense Drones as targets to provide the best possible aim for their Seeker Missiles."
Wow really, did any top tier terrans acutally do this before? if so please share any information about it so i can see haha.
Was going to ask if PDD can be used as targets, and wow they can. How about turrets? That's amazing, being able to use PDD. Holy shit, this will work very well with air style lol. But the PDD does die doesn't it... so that's a bit weird.
I think it's still definitely not too hard to just time it properly, so that a HSM hits a probe when it is midway where it will splash all probes. Just need to practice the timing a bit.
You see.... THe thing is, if your opponent knows you're going for ravens..... He'd attack. Ravens are extremely expensive and do very little damage. It can only be use as a harassment unit. But considering the cost, Banshees or Blue flames hellions may be cheaper and may deal more damage.
On July 28 2011 13:47 Unsinkable wrote: You see.... THe thing is, if your opponent knows you're going for ravens..... He'd attack. Ravens are extremely expensive and do very little damage. It can only be use as a harassment unit. But considering the cost, Banshees or Blue flames hellions may be cheaper and may deal more damage.
Not true... putting down turrets as a means of counter attack / harassment is very useful, and they are also good defense as they are detectors and PDD just helps so much.
When you're going air style terran, you will have enough gas for Ravens, that they will even be able to HSM enemy units (stacked voids when they are in high numbers, or even against Stalkers if you have enough PDD to last for your Banshees to kill the stalkers).
Extremely high risk, very little reward. The damage done by the missile hardly gives viability for such a tactic. Just messing around in a custom game yea it's a cool HAHA I GOT YOU kinda move, but the amount of drones that die is very small.
I found best success (for least amount lost) by using a medivac to drop a marine, shoot the marine with the missile while stimming into the drone line. In theory since the missile won't kill too many, but will hurt quite a few also having a reaper in the medivac could maybe lead to a large amount of worker kills.
But again, that's stretching things to force them to work, and for the amount of gas needed to get there, it makes it very hard to implement into a serious game. I just... can't get behind it fully. Though I'll be honest I do want to try putting it into a real game scenario.
Curious what would happen if the suicide unit gets killed before the missile kills it. I love the idea of the move and i hope we can gets some replays of people trying this out soon. The hit rate in theory would be way more accurate then shooting it at the enemy unit. Cool idea ^_^
I think it's still definitely not too hard to just time it properly, so that a HSM hits a probe when it is midway where it will splash all probes. Just need to practice the timing a bit.
If you run in units in the drone line that have been seeker missiled, the good thing is that you can position them easily in the middle between the minerals and the headquarter, so that the splash will hit most probes
On July 28 2011 13:55 Ameba-AZ wrote: Extremely high risk, very little reward. The damage done by the missile hardly gives viability for such a tactic. Just messing around in a custom game yea it's a cool HAHA I GOT YOU kinda move, but the amount of drones that die is very small.
I found best success (for least amount lost) by using a medivac to drop a marine, shoot the marine with the missile while stimming into the drone line. In theory since the missile won't kill too many, but will hurt quite a few also having a reaper in the medivac could maybe lead to a large amount of worker kills.
But again, that's stretching things to force them to work, and for the amount of gas needed to get there, it makes it very hard to implement into a serious game. I just... can't get behind it fully. Though I'll be honest I do want to try putting it into a real game scenario.
Yes, it's maybe too risky. But I disagree with what you say about not beeing able to kill a lot of drones. With 1 Raven and 1 suicide unit I would agree. But if you already reasearch HSM it wouldn't make very much sense to just get 1 raven, right? With 3 Ravens and 2 suicide units you can kill a lot of drones at once. I killed 19 in an attempt that could even have gone better.
On July 28 2011 14:00 Danners933 wrote: Curious what would happen if the suicide unit gets killed before the missile kills it. I love the idea of the move and i hope we can gets some replays of people trying this out soon. The hit rate in theory would be way more accurate then shooting it at the enemy unit. Cool idea ^_^
(Again). If the unit gets killed, the missile just hits the spot were that happened. I posted a replay of drone harassing with 2 reapers.
On July 27 2011 22:36 YesAnotherSC2Player wrote: I've seen a game from Destiny on Korean ladder: the Korean player got 4 or 5 Raven and used them as Herass squad -> it worked greate. drop auto guns and seeker missile were used to herass mineral lines.
Anyway, I guess you need an awesome unit control to make that work.
The Terran player was SlayerS_Dragon and he executed that strategy very well. Raven's torrets work very well against tech structure in TvZ and against prone line in TvP.
Hey, thanks for the info, I did not know it was actually SlayerS_Dragon. AS that game proofed, Raven CAN be used very valid.
Btw, as I'm Zerg mainly I could never try: does PDD work against static defense Systems? If yes, that would make Raven herass even more valid: Block the defense, Bomb the shit out of Mineral line and fly away. Also: usage of mass torerts to destroy Key buildings would be also nice.
I believe it could be used effectively with siege tanks.
That is to say, when their army rushes in to close the gap, launch a seeker missile. Either it hits or they pull back (taking more siege hits) so either way you win.
The only problem with this is I find the other raven abilities are usually more useful in this situation. PDD against protoss can stop stalkers from doing damage, or simply using autoturrets to build a wall (they really do get in the way)
That aside, every time you see a zerg doing their bum-rush against a marine siege tank like, just think how 1 well-shot seeker missile could mess it all up by killing either charging lings, banelings, or even mutas.
On July 27 2011 22:36 YesAnotherSC2Player wrote: I've seen a game from Destiny on Korean ladder: the Korean player got 4 or 5 Raven and used them as Herass squad -> it worked greate. drop auto guns and seeker missile were used to herass mineral lines.
Anyway, I guess you need an awesome unit control to make that work.
The Terran player was SlayerS_Dragon and he executed that strategy very well. Raven's torrets work very well against tech structure in TvZ and against prone line in TvP.
Hey, thanks for the info, I did not know it was actually SlayerS_Dragon. AS that game proofed, Raven CAN be used very valid.
Btw, as I'm Zerg mainly I could never try: does PDD work against static defense Systems? If yes, that would make Raven herass even more valid: Block the defense, Bomb the shit out of Mineral line and fly away. Also: usage of mass torerts to destroy Key buildings would be also nice.
Not really sure you can use Dragon's games as definitive proof of anything. He likes to use unorthodox strategies that would otherwise never work on opponents he deems inferior.
For the same cost, drops end up doing far more damage with much less risk.
Its sad to see everyone bashing this guy when he is actually trying to forward the game with new ideas. Everyone just responds, no pros do this so i do this. gg no re
Its an interesting idea, HSM a stimmed marine and have him stop in a drone line. Could be pretty entertaining to say the least
On July 27 2011 22:39 EmilA wrote: Gimmicky and fun. Impossible to rely on in a real game. You invest in ravens and hope to do small drone damage with an insane suicide Drop 3 BF hellions instead and you'll do much more damage while not investing in a unit that sucks ass.
So, losing 3 BF hellions is somehow more cost efficient than losing a reaper? Then you had to buy the BF upgrade for a unit you probably are not going to be using in your main army unless you are doing like hellion thor.
Then you make the ridiculous statement that ravens suck ass? There is absolutely nothing wrong with the raven. HSM may suck, sure, but that doesn't make the whole unit suck. PDD is freeking amazing in itself.
I'm not saying this strat is a valid one. Then again, who knows? you hafta remember that the missile gets moving at a pretty decent speed once it's accelerated. So if this thing comes flying out of the fog of war suddenly chasing a cloaked unit it might be a lot harder to react in time than you think. Unlike storm, there is no chance to move after it connects to avoid most of the damage. If it connects, it's way too late.
Seems gimmicky and tough to pull off consistently though.
On July 27 2011 22:39 EmilA wrote: Gimmicky and fun. Impossible to rely on in a real game. You invest in ravens and hope to do small drone damage with an insane suicide Drop 3 BF hellions instead and you'll do much more damage while not investing in a unit that sucks ass.
So, losing 3 BF hellions is somehow more cost efficient than losing a reaper? Then you had to buy the BF upgrade for a unit you probably are not going to be using in your main army unless you are doing like hellion thor.
Then you make the ridiculous statement that ravens suck ass? There is absolutely nothing wrong with the raven. HSM may suck, sure, but that doesn't make the whole unit suck. PDD is freeking amazing in itself.
I'm not saying this strat is a valid one. Then again, who knows? you hafta remember that the missile gets moving at a pretty decent speed once it's accelerated. So if this thing comes flying out of the fog of war suddenly chasing a cloaked unit it might be a lot harder to react in time than you think. Unlike storm, there is no chance to move after it connects to avoid most of the damage. If it connects, it's way too late.
Seems gimmicky and tough to pull off consistently though.
I had similar thoughts too. I'm not saying it's a valid strategy but I often had the feeling that the costs were only considered when arguing against an idea... but for the way that oneself likes to go for suddenly it's surely "worth it".
I saw replays where players went cloaked banshees that get picked of after just some kills and there they have invested a lot of money and gas too and later on in the game they didn't even use them at all.
Some say, turrent harrassment with ravens is way better than HSM suicide units into the drone line but I ask myself.... if you lay 8 turrets but the opponent quickliy reacts and pulls drones and then kills the turrets...you have used 400 energy too. [Similar to this point, I have made a thread where I suggested that you can do turret harassment more effective, by walling to probes in into the mineral line and preventing them from escaping. It got closed out of reasons I don't understand, but then there the people said, well just dropping and loosing the drop force is more worth it or that they just turret harass to stop mining time and let the player dedicate some units to his base or expansion. Suddenly the raven energy is not that costly any more??
I mean...why is it so clear that in all those "vialble strategys...it is really worth it". It's hard to say that that easily and often something is just stated as "worth it" because it worked.
And I completely agree, this HSM attacks sure would be hard to pull off. But what really is true is, that its hard to dodge. You are right, the missile gets pretty fast (and is hard to see) and when the unit stops at its destination it will take only one or two seconds untill it has locked on and then covers the remaining distance in a split second. Costly, gimmicky, high risk...yes. But that it would be easy to dogdge...that is not true I think. It really hits by surprise and fast.
- a pro is always aware of his army and reacts in seconds - ravens are way too gas intensive and easy to lose - HSM and 2 suicide units would never be worth killing drones (even if you can kill like 20 in one attempt)
You may take a look at this recent replay from HDs channel. Tgun vs Major.
There are no Ravens in it but: - Both players lose their armies (first major his tanks, then tgun his infestors) rather carelessly. - The terran risks his tanks for some early contain and loses them all. I mean if you always say how gas intensive Ravens are...what about just loosing 7 tanks for nothing? (and still be in the game). - look at the amount of medivacs and marines he looses, harrassing expos. Sometimes with success but sometimes he just looses a full medivac without doing anything. - look at the huge amount of gas he has stockpiled most of the game.
Seeing that game I just asked myself...wouldn't ravens have been great there? Obviously they are not mineral heavy, it's after all the gas. I know pro players are very good, but to say that they are always aware of anything thats going on the map is not true. Seeing such a game I really wonder if cooperation ravens into such a terran build wouldn't be a good idea and if HSM-Drone line attacks really aren't worth it.
On July 29 2011 11:25 FabledIntegral wrote: Question - say you do it on a hellion, but if the enemy kills the hellion, doesn't it insta defuse?
No, it doesn't. This question is answered in the OP as well as several other times. if the unit gets killed, the missile hits the spot where that happened.
While reading this thread I though of what to me would be the ultimate (-ly entertaining?) way to pull this off. Picture this: Raven, Viking, Medivac. Viking gets targeted, and flies into the drone line and lands. Medivac swoops in, picks up the viking and leaves. BOOM!
Then I tested it. Well, it IS possible, but the set up is a little tenuous. Basically, the ideal way to do this is to have a medivac near the mineral line you want to destroy; it needs to be close enough to beat the missle to the spot. Ideally you want it to come from a different direction from the viking because it will almost need to beat the viking there since the viking is just slightly faster than the missle (and the medivac is the same speed as far as I can tell). Anyway, you right click your viking to the spot you want to blow up and Shift-D to have it land (so the medivac can pick it up). You will want to line up your Raven so it is between the viking and the bomb site near the maximum distance to the missle range. As the viking gets to the edge of the spell range, send out the missle. The reason you want to send the viking first is to maximize the distance between the missle and the viking so that neither the viking or medivac get killed by the blast (assuming a nearby queen).
Anywho, it is quite attention intensive even if only requiring a little bit of micro, most of it is in getting used to the timing. Not very feasible for a real game, but if Boxer could work this in... :D
Baas, i agree with everything you have been saying in this thread, but 8 auto-turrets would still devastate infrastructure and tech.
The way i look at it,this trick is another thing that you can do with the Raven, so IF you have Ravens out in play or the tech up for it, i don't think adding in some Ravens for AT/HSR harass could possible do you harm in a macro game. I dont understand why everyone is turning this into a "build" or a "strategy" that isnt viable, when really it is a harassment option late game.Once on 3 bases in a macro game a starport is up, so about 600-800 gas would be a few ravens with some upgrades, which i think you would gain in 1.5 game time minutes.So to say that the "heavy investment" of doing this can cost you a game i think is utter non-sense, you should not be 1basing rushing to do this.Just my .02$ though.
A thought for team play :: can you use a seeker missle on a cloaked unit like dark templar? I don't play T and have no idea, but that could solve a few problems
On July 27 2011 22:09 RedTerror wrote: I was using seeker missile today in games. It was soo bad first off that 125 mana is huge even with the mana upgrade and the range is so short this is what usually happens:
-See big clump of banelings/zerglings/mutalisks -Fire off a couple shots into the sprawling mess -Slow acceleration ravens head off towards zerg -Ravens basically ontop of zerg army -Delay for the seeker missile -1 missile goes into mutalisks and damages 3 of them -1 missile follows zergling into my marines, kills them all and damages ravens
Then it follows logically to not use it against the fastest race in the game The problem with that of course being PDD is useful vs T and P
On July 30 2011 14:23 RealDeal wrote: Baas, i agree with everything you have been saying in this thread, but 8 auto-turrets would still devastate infrastructure and tech.
The way i look at it,this trick is another thing that you can do with the Raven, so IF you have Ravens out in play or the tech up for it, i don't think adding in some Ravens for AT/HSR harass could possible do you harm in a macro game. I dont understand why everyone is turning this into a "build" or a "strategy" that isnt viable, when really it is a harassment option late game.Once on 3 bases in a macro game a starport is up, so about 600-800 gas would be a few ravens with some upgrades, which i think you would gain in 1.5 game time minutes.So to say that the "heavy investment" of doing this can cost you a game i think is utter non-sense, you should not be 1basing rushing to do this.Just my .02$ though.
Besides that nice find!
Edit: This post was an edit.
I agree with what you have said . I never wanted to say "rush to ravens" and do this. But that you could do it and that I don't think it's THAT clearly NOT worth it. I did it in the replay because I wanted to try it out as fast as possible. Turrets would surely be better to demolish infrastructure but may kill only a few workers. But maybe thats better than going for the worker kill.
On July 30 2011 14:58 blacktar wrote: A thought for team play :: can you use a seeker missle on a cloaked unit like dark templar? I don't play T and have no idea, but that could solve a few problems
I'd say the best unit to put it on is an scv, if u send a single scv into an opponents mineral line at one of his expos hes not gonna pull drones, hes gonna think its a scout and probably ignore it or maybe send some lings/stalkers/marines after it. if u try do so it with a marine or hellion or reaper a good player will run his drones away so you will probably miss the kill.
On July 30 2011 21:09 Disquiet wrote: I'd say the best unit to put it on is an scv, if u send a single scv into an opponents mineral line at one of his expos hes not gonna pull drones, hes gonna think its a scout and probably ignore it or maybe send some lings/stalkers/marines after it. if u try do so it with a marine or hellion or reaper a good player will run his drones away so you will probably miss the kill.
That's a good idea. I haven't thought about using an scv. You're right. If you can get into the natural with an scv that would be the best option. Using a reaper or a flying unit like medivacs or vikings has the advantage that it makes it hard to protect the drone line from it.
Because the missiles cost a lot of energy it is indeed very misfortunate if he runs his probes away. But he really has to do it very fast. The units you lead in, you don't send to attack probes. They may attack (if they can at all) once the are in the drone line, but then, the missile hits almost immediately afterwards. So the time the player has to react is not to be compared with a drop, where you can still pull suvs after the attack has started.
I can see this working. Set 3 or 4 vikings, marines or whatever to a control group. Grab your ravens, use HSM on them all in rapid succesion, then run them at your opponent's base, 2 in the natural and 2 in the main. He probably won't be able to micro his workers out on both bases. You could also just suicide a few marauders into the front line with HSM, dealing a few hundred all around, then charge in.
I think this would work best on the mineral line with a faux hellion harrass. Run in with a hellion, let it die, and just as the enemy thinks he is safe, the HSM clashes. Would take great micro though, and is very situational.
On July 30 2011 21:39 HavokTheorem wrote: I can see this working. Set 3 or 4 vikings, marines or whatever to a control group. Grab your ravens, use HSM on them all in rapid succesion, then run them at your opponent's base, 2 in the natural and 2 in the main. He probably won't be able to micro his workers out on both bases. You could also just suicide a few marauders into the front line with HSM, dealing a few hundred all around, then charge in.
I think this would work best on the mineral line with a faux hellion harrass. Run in with a hellion, let it die, and just as the enemy thinks he is safe, the HSM clashes. Would take great micro though, and is very situational.
attacking two mineral lines at once could deal a lot of damage because if they are well saturated you can kill like 40 workers in one instant. And this definitely would set the player way behind. The thing is... it's hard to spam HSM because every Raven can only shoot 1. I'm not sure if you could already kill a lot of drones with 2 seeker missiles per drone line (I used to try it out with 3).
Hm now thinking about it: -With 2 HSM on the same place you have a death zone circle for drones with the radius of 2 (2x25dm will kill workers). -If you use 2 HSM on two targets the area where it would be deadly for probes would be smaller, as the 25 dmg area of one seeker missile takes the biggest part of its whole AOE and only if they overlap, they can kill workers. -If you use 3 HSM on 2 targets again you loose a lot of efficiency on the 3rd missile because it can kill workers only within a range of 1.
So it ineed would be best to only send in units with 2 missiles on their back. and if you have for example 3 ravens...to wait unitl you have another one / wait until one of the other ravens regained his energy / use this raven for sth different.
A hellion would be usefull too. especially if they are base defences like cannons, that take the hellion out, once it's in the mineral line. 1 problem of very fast units is, that they can be ahead of the missile for quite a bit and then the danger that probes are pulled of is higher.
I am normally irritated with threads from lower-leagues in this forum.
That said, the people who thoughtlessly post negatively without thinking about what is being said or, worse, even reading the OP properly at all are far, far more irritating - ie most of the entire thread.
What baas is suggesting is a very interesting trick that certainly has potential as a high-skill gimmick like stalife drops etc.
Can you imagine the damage potential of a stimmed marauder with 2 HS missiles locked onto it, running into the front of the zerg's army or a mineral line? I mean it's no irradiate-trick, but damn, that's some cute shit.
My only question is, if you lock the HS onto an air unit like a viking, will it splash ground units correctly when it connects?
On July 31 2011 00:35 DaemonX wrote: I am normally irritated with threads from lower-leagues in this forum.
That said, the people who thoughtlessly post negatively without thinking about what is being said or, worse, even reading the OP properly at all are far, far more irritating - ie most of the entire thread.
What baas is suggesting is a very interesting trick that certainly has potential as a high-skill gimmick like stalife drops etc.
Can you imagine the damage potential of a stimmed marauder with 2 HS missiles locked onto it, running into the front of the zerg's army or a mineral line? I mean it's no irradiate-trick, but damn, that's some cute shit.
My only question is, if you lock the HS onto an air unit like a viking, will it splash ground units correctly when it connects?
Thanks. I understand that threads from low league players can't say something really reliably about a strategy or tactic or even the benefit of a gimmicky trick. But executing something and thinking about something are imho two very different things. For example iechoics hellion banshee build; even a unskilled player can have the idea that this could work. But only a high level player can show that it's really working on high levels of play (although if you think about a whole game plan, surely you should have a good understanding of the game itself). As you said, I just wanted to introduce the idea and ask whether it could work. I'm also not insisting that this would be a great gimmick but I just argue against rejecting it completely out of too simple or even false reasons.
Answering your question: Yes, I tried this out. The splash damage makes no difference between air and ground. Therefore..if you use a viking against a ground target it is better not to land it because the he won't occupy space in the high damage range on ground. (If you place a viking right above a marauder and HSM the viking, the marauder will take 100dmg. If you land the viking and place it directly next to the marauder, it will only take 50 dmg).
Targeting the ravenchased enemy unit would quickly become an easy task for the multitasking high game sense players. But it would be good in stressful situations for your opponent or as economic harass when a turret is in your way.
I'd like to try this in a 2v2, when your'e in a PT team. If the opponent is without detection, u could mass bomb your toss ally's dark templar which sneaks in to the enemy group.
I would only use Ravens on Banelings (since they are usually on one hotkey), and most of the time they are selecting the Mutalisks/Magic Boxed, so Banelings are usually the better target for missiles.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-223304.jpg)
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