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I have begun to realize just how important harassment is in TvP. The reasons being:
- The Protoss army functions well in a ball. Harassment forces the Protoss player to spread his units out in order to deal with multiple engagements, reducing the overall efficiency of the units.
- Sniping tech structures, especially Forges to prevent the Protoss player from out upgrading you with chronoboost.
- Scouting.
Yes, late-game scouting. The main reason I lose TvP is because the Protoss player will execute a tech switch. For example, they will change from Colossus production to Zealot/Archon production and I will be left with 20 supply of practically useless Vikings. Through harassment I can see what tech structures the player has and force them to show their hand as they react to the drop.
Another thing I have noticed in my recent endeavours to improve my TvP is that in the late-game I seem to always have a lot of surplus gas. This isn't really that surprising considering the Terran units used in the current TvP metagame: Marine, Marauder, Medivac, Ghost, Viking. None of these units are particularly gas-intensive, the Ghost use to be the only unit that really chewed into my gas but ever since the patch that changed Ghosts to 200/100 even they don't act as a great gas dump.
Well, I think I have found a way of addressing both of these problems simultaneously:
The Reaper.
Advantages
- 50/50 - cheap on minerals, expensive on gas
- Highly mobile, faster than Medivacs, no unload time like there is when using a drop, can outrun every Protoss unit except for the Phoenix.
- Only 1 food as opposed to the 2 food of a Marauder.
- Can abuse cliffs.
Disadvantages
- 50HP.
- Ridiculously long build time at 45seconds.
- Terrible in a head-on engagement.
- Can't abuse dead space on the edge of the map.
In lategame TvP I have a large number of tech-labbed Raxes so it's reasonably easy to pump out a dangerously large number of Reapers very quickly. Ideally I want 12 Reapers in a hit squad as this is the number required to two shot any Protoss tech structure assuming they have +3. Because Reapers don't require Medivacs in order to harass, using Reapers allows me to continue harassment if the Protoss has just executed a tech-swap into Collosus - and I can't afford a pause in my Viking production to make a Medivac in order to perform a traditional drop.
Sniping that ever important +3!
The reason that the Reaper looks so appealing to me is that I think it will be a good way of forcing the Protoss player's hand. For example the Protoss player only has 1 or 2 Pylons at their 3rd I can snipe these Pylons with the Reapers before any units finish warping in due to the Reapers' high dps against structures. This means that unlike a drop, which unloads slowly and gives the Protoss plenty of time to warp in, Reapers negate a Protoss players ability to defend an expansion with a round of warpins. This means that the Protoss player is going to have to either split their army up or move out of position. Either way it's a win for me. If they split up I can engage, and crush a portion of their army with the bulk of my force. On the other hand If they move out of position I can charge into their natural guns blazing while they are out of position dealing with the Reapers.
Because Reapers are so bad in a straight up fight I'm going to think of them as punishing units. Sure, the Protoss player can chose to engage me head on, but if they do they are going to lose a lot of Probes, tech structures and Pylons while they are away from home. I will however have to be careful exactly how I enter the Protoss base with the Reapers as they can only abuse cliffs, they can't just pick up and fly off to the edge of the map like a Medivac can. I'm not opposed to bringing a Medivac with them however, as Blizzard originally came up with the Medivac concept because Medics couldn't follow Reapers up cliffs (source). I do think that Reapers are better equipped to escape from Blink Stalkers than Medivacs are because of their speed. If I see the Blink Stalkers coming I can split the Reapers off into two directions guaranteeing the safety of half of them at the expense of the others, unlike a Medivac which just gets immediately sniped.
Ideally I would like to have some replays to share with you all showing all of these thoughts in action. Unfortunately, I haven't had a TvP reach the lategame in a long while. Instead I offer you some vods of FXO.qxc and mouz.ThorZaIN using late-game Reapers.
TSL3 Ro32 Match 10FXO.qxc vs MVP_Genius
In this game FXO.qxc uses Reapers to deny expansions and snipes a Forge to prevent the Protoss from researching +3;
GSTL FXOpen vs. Incredible Miracle (You will need a season ticket to view).
In the second game of this series qxc plays BBi and uses Reapers to take out an expansion, pulling the Protoss players army out of position as he reacts to the harassment. He then continues the harassment by sending the Reapers up the main, where he takes out a number of Pylons.
Evil Geniuses Master\'s Cup Series League - EG.HuK vs mouz.ThorZaIN
In this game ThorZaIN tries to use Reapers to harass HuK while distracting him with a main engagement. The first wave of Reapers achieve very little going down to a Cannon wall but the second wave tears apart a mineral line.
I'm going to have to play around with this quite a bit, but I think that Reapers have great potential in this role, and perhaps I might be able to spend my massive amounts of gas for a change.
Source
Crankenstein from SCV Rush
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Great post, I heard about reapers making an appearance in the late game and I think it's a great way to put on some pressure. Drop the natural, reaper the main ^^
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I have actually been thinking about this too. Although i think where you said they cost 50 gas, that should be a disadvantage. You also talk about how vikings end up being useless once they stop making collosi but then you say reapers are basically worthless at fighting everything. I still agree though, once you get 5 reapers or so you can totally take down pylons and other buildings. Might even be easier for low level players to send reapers to different Protoss bases than try to do double drops too.
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Vikings don't become useless after all the col die, they are basically deterrent against small numbers of col. I think there's quite a bit of possibility with TvP reapers but reapers are so map dependent compared to drops since you only have certain attack/retreat lanes. Drops can just fly off in any useful direction but reapers tend to get trapped.
Of course you could have both worlds and do a 8 reaper drop or something crazy that costs 1000 gas.
I have had A LOT of success actually in the mid game timing attack against a defensive Protoss that is turtling and building up. You can send 1/2 reapers into the back of their base (depends on map) and it can really mess up the positioning of his army when you come barreling down into the natural. This is because a reaper's ridiculous speed makes it so protoss has to deal with it with 1 or more stalkers. So that's 1 or more stalkers that could be at the front but are instead being dragged into the back of the base with potential over reaction of moving more stalkers into the back. Then there's the distraction factor. So all in all good.
But once again, you need base entrances to be a way away from the vulnerable area but easily accessible to reapers. Metal is a good example.
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I play with reapers occasionally in TvP, but I really don't find them useful until your opponent is well spread out on the map (4+ bases) and you are maxed/near max and have the extra production time to spare on reapers. They're a better late-game harassment option than Hellions since you're likely 3/3 bio and haven't invested at all in mech upgrades. They're particularly well-suited to a map like Tal'Darim Altar where you can swing in onto an unprotected 4th that's far away, or if they took their tucked-in base as their 4th, you can just cliff-hop right into their main when they come after you.
I've tried them in the mid-game, but giving up 1.5 marauders per reaper in build time seems to be just way too much of a firepower loss. In the mid-game, you're more concerned with blasting out as many units as quickly as possible, and to get out 8 reapers to harass, you have to give up 12 marauders out of your main army from build time -- which is tough. Compare that to the late game, where you're more concerned about the supply cap rather than build time, and those same 8 reapers really only mean 4 fewer marauders in supply, which is a lot easier to handle.
It's doable, and I love the reaper and wish it was more useful, but it's so hard to find a good way to deploy them in TvP. TvT, on the other hand.....
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I've played a few Terrans who will do harassment with Reapers later on in the game, it works pretty nicely, but I never felt like it was a huge thing, cannons can prevent them.
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4 marauders with stim still outdps reapers vs buildings, not to mention the time you're keeping barracks occupied with reaper production
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On October 23 2011 03:57 Manimal_pro wrote:
4 marauders with stim still outdps reapers vs buildings, not to mention the time you're keeping barracks occupied with reaper production
In a way you are right. 4 reapers are 4 food. 4 marauders are 8 food. You have to take that into consideration. Also reapers begin doing damage as soon as they jump the cliff, the marauders have to slowly deploy from the medivac giving the Protoss player more time to react.
Both have their pro's and cons, deffinately.
On October 23 2011 03:52 CodeMajik wrote:
I've played a few Terrans who will do harassment with Reapers later on in the game, it works pretty nicely, but I never felt like it was a huge thing, cannons can prevent them.
Yeah that's how Thorzain lost his in the game I linked to. It takes quite a few cannons to keep a base safe against reapers though because of their high damage against structures.
ANYWAY. I wrote this guide the day before they announced the reaper change, so ultimately IT'S USELESS T_T
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WoL reapers still will have their D8 charges. (unconfirmed)
HotS reapers will be flying Wolverines.
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I don't see them as good late game harassment. Mainly because drops serve the role better and more effectively. A few reapers unattended to can do a lot of damage, but they're incredibly weak to even a single stalker or zealot warped in later on.
Although the guy a few posts above pointed out that marauders are twice the food, marauders aren't reapers, and it'd be more fair to compare them to marines which can do a ton of damage too. Also, marauders and marines can later be used in your main army, while reapers use up food only to harass.
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Reapers are awsome in lategame, especially on big maps like taldarim. Many tosses leave only a templar to feedback dropship and maby a few zealots but reapers cant bee fedback and can deal with zealots, connons better very well.
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The problem with late game reapers is that they eat into your supply, cost gas, and are pretty luck based. If say you caught the tosses 4th without cannons and got the pylon down before warp ins you could do damage. But like the poster above said I would much rather just be able to maneuver my drops around the cannons instead. Also drops allow you to use those units for your army composition later.
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DT warp in defends vs most stuff ? :s
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On October 23 2011 19:09 YehOfCourseImOP wrote:
DT warp in defends vs most stuff ? :s
Wow, my mind is blown, this should be spotlighted for this comment alone. Someone give this guy a bone. I'm gonna hit him with a stone, like a primitive Al Capone. Yeah sorry, realized I rhymed with the first sentence. Anyway, yeah DTs could probably fend off reapers. Sweet.
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I like the idea, but I feel the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Reapers take SOOOO long to make, and can only be used to harass. Marauders in two medivacs are far better I feel, as they also have the ability to kill defending units.
On the other hand, a pack of reapers are GREAT late game for punishing a Protoss who moves out with his army on big maps. Think about it: the Protoss army camps at his gold on Xelnaga, you can either go for his third, natural or maybe even his main. Some maps are bad thou for this (I think On TA this wouldn't work, although you could harass from third to main, and back.)
Oh, we can't forget that reapers will be changed in HoT! That's important. Reapers seem to instead become an actual anti-light unit to be used in early game battles. This might be good against zerglings, zealots and marines, seeing as they will also regenerate health. But they lose the building attack thing, which is bad for this thread
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QXC pulled them out in his face-rape of IM, and they worked insanely well at just obliterating a worker line. Upgrades are seriously strong.
But the problem is that they can't seem to balance them properly. They just aren't cost effective when held against their build time, and if the build time is lowered, they're suddenly an insanely powerful, hyper-aggressive unit.
We'll see how the HP regen changes them. They may suddenly become awesome hit and run worker line snipers.
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I have toyed with the idea of incorporating reapers into the late game. The real concern I have with them is their long build time (as you mentioned). They tie up the barracks' so long and can result in falling behind on macro. I think it's pretty situational when you're able to get these out without dying. If I had to guess, you would want to add on a bunch of extra barracks when you're already maxed and start replacing supply with some reapers.
Also, I feel by the time these become more viable (in the late game), the protoss player will have a lot of warp gates (and available chrono for warp gates) to warp stalkers in relatively quickly when you're attempting to snipe structures.
I suppose it would have to be played out more. I remember QXC doing is really well in TSL3 I think it was.
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On October 23 2011 22:19 Honeybadger wrote:
QXC pulled them out in his face-rape of IM, and they worked insanely well at just obliterating a worker line. Upgrades are seriously strong.
But the problem is that they can't seem to balance them properly. They just aren't cost effective when held against their build time, and if the build time is lowered, they're suddenly an insanely powerful, hyper-aggressive unit.
We'll see how the HP regen changes them. They may suddenly become awesome hit and run worker line snipers.
There is one quite effective way to build reapers. Typically Terrans add on barracks after they get their Expo up. Instead if you are producing reapers and marines, you can build way more barracks than you can support marine marauder out of (due to mineral limits) and therefore get your production structures out earlier so your expo kicks in faster and you can resume marauders instead of reapers production.
IIRC, you can support 4 rax reaper and 2 rax of reactor marines with minerals left over to expand faster vs only 3 rax of marauder 1 reactor marines off 1 base since a marauder is 200/50 a minute and marines are 200 a minute. A reaper is 66/66.
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The thing is, reaper are hilarious against sentries and zealots. Adding 10 3/3 reapers to your bio ball late game, does truly hilarious stuff to the zealot "meatshield" of a typical lategame protoss.
I've used reapers for a while to use up lategame gas and to increase my army value, so far i haven't regretted them. As long as my viking/ghost count keeps protoss AoE under control they work out very nicely.
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I agree with QQ - time lost building them usually is the problem. Also you can just do drops with 8 marines / 4 marauders on what ever you want to snip and they would still work plus they are already available in your army. Also does not hurt your build. Toss could just warp 3-4 stalkers and your reapers need to back out(dependes on numbers but still not effective). I think they can have a build time upgrade for reapers to make them viable - like the thing they did with pheonix - cant make them OP units outright - might as well add an upgrade.
User was warned for this post
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EPT
