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[D] when should you build marauders?

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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klup
Profile Joined May 2013
France612 Posts
January 17 2016 11:17 GMT
#1
Hi all,

Here is a question for terrans players. I used to produce in both TvZ and TvP a balanced mix of marauders and marines at the end of Hots.

IN HOTS


In TvZ


Marauders were there to tank banelings and very good vs any roach based comp.

In TvP

Marauders were good because of their better ability to tank AOE damage while being still strong dps vs stalkers/armored.


In LOTV

While playing Lotv I noticed I build near to no Marauders in every single matchup. Reasons I see are

In TvZ

Marauders are basically useless when you have flying tanks and marines. I lost countless games because I was trying to produce marauders vs Roach/Ravager composition but now I realize they are simply trash compared to a good mass marines.

Vs ling bling mutas I still produce them the same way I did with hots as they are still very good at tanking blings

In late games they are phased out by the ghosts basically.

In TvP

I did the same mistake than in TvZ I believed marauders will be better vs adepts compared to marines (especially due to adepts being an anti marine unit). But the more I play TvP the more it seems to me that marauders are again trash compared to mass marines even vs adepts.

Do you guys feels the same way?

Are you still using Marauders in your games?

If you guys could share your thought about when marauders should be built I would be very interested to have others point of vue on the subject.

Disclaimer : this is not balance complain thread. It is just to discuss basically what is better in bio comp between pure marines and marines/marauders.
Gullis
Profile Joined April 2012
Sweden740 Posts
January 17 2016 11:58 GMT
#2
I watched Avilos evolution chamber video and he talked about it.
With all the changes and new units, the gas you spent on marauders in hots is better spent on tanks or liberators in lotv.
I would rather eat than see my children starve.
nanaoei
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
3358 Posts
January 17 2016 13:33 GMT
#3
i haven't been playing terran on KR, but on NA i get away with early marauder defenses in masters or higher.
if you open reaper, it seems less likely that a pensive zerg player will go semi-all in with packs of lings from early injects unless they discount your skill.

i think marauders are fine and necessary in a TvP at equal skill, they're bad en-masse compared to how they used to be because of guardian shield and chargelots archon spam, however, they do allow you to effectively seal an engagement by finishing off expensive and important units like templar and disruptors. previously they were required to deal with collosus balls that constantly add blink stalkers.

there's no other unit aside from the expensive cyclone (in low unit engagements) that allow you to punish an opponent who wrongly pokes. in that sense, liberators and cyclones or even reapers are much better early game units to use for pressure.

widow mines and cyclones effectively shut down early game harassment from protoss and can be used all game long to that degree. they're independent units, whereas i'd say marauders are much more combination units.

if you're playing an imperfect game, there are many times at which you replace bare-barracks with addons when you are supply blocked and can't produce anyway. what do you do then? well in each lategame scenario you are making ghosts, there's a point for making the fast-building tech lab during that downtime unless you plan on outplaying your opponent with sheer amounts of marines in the midgame.

marauders are still necessary when using a bio-mine style against a muta bling style. as always, marauders are soaking, marines, tanks, and mines are dealing with the brunt of the attack, and hopefully enough medivac marines are leftover to continue the push.

i'd say overall however, tanks and liberators are much more important in each matchup, save for a regular TvP.
if you've seen polt play, he relies heavily on a large amount of tanks and liberators against zerg, while other terrans prefer to abuse the fact that zerg has to rely on roaches if they plan on teching faster.
*@boesthius' FF7 nostalgia stream bomb* "we should work on a 'Final Progamer' fangame»whitera can be a protagonist---lastlie: "we save world and then defense it"
Grizvok
Profile Joined August 2014
United States711 Posts
January 22 2016 22:41 GMT
#4
I've only played like 100 games in LoTV (diamond level) and getting much better recently as I've been playing more often and still like Marauders in TvP and TvZ but definitely at a reduced level. In TvZ they are good'ish against all styles, but unfortunately I've ran into the glaringly obvious problem that Ultras are just really really strong. It used to be that when you suspected a switch of the sort you just started churning out Marauders but now they are just completely ineffective against them.

I hate the Liberator. I think it's mostly because I haven't used it that much except to harass which is where I think it shines. Even when playing against it in TvT if it is a bigger part of his army composition and our macro is on par I'm semi-happy to see them unless he's shredding my mineral line. It's probably the level I'm playing at since pure marine and tank micro is just leaps and bounds easier to do at the same time than tanks, rines, and libs.
Dangermousecatdog
Profile Joined December 2010
United Kingdom7084 Posts
January 22 2016 23:19 GMT
#5
From what I have seen plenty of mauraders being built in TvZ. That mauraders are a lot worse against ultras doesn't matter till upgraded ultras are out.
Superbanana
Profile Joined May 2014
2369 Posts
January 23 2016 00:10 GMT
#6
I think its more about the gas cost, as mentioned above.

Compared to HotS the optimal number of marauders is deffinetly lower in PvT, but they are still good vs any composition.
Vs roach ravager, marauders do very well in my games but you can play with more tanks and liberators and then you won't have the gas. I play bio heavy vs roach ravager so maybe thats why.
In PvZ the zerg can make the situation spire out of control but protoss can adept to the situation.
Grizvok
Profile Joined August 2014
United States711 Posts
January 23 2016 00:47 GMT
#7
On January 23 2016 08:19 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
From what I have seen plenty of mauraders being built in TvZ. That mauraders are a lot worse against ultras doesn't matter till upgraded ultras are out.


That's the point. Once the upgraded ultras are out your army is shit unless you've been building more Liberators and pre-emptive ghosts and even then I don't "love" any Terran options of dealing with them. And adding significant Marauder numbers is usually done a little bit later against both bane/ling/muta and Roach/Ravager comps as your gas is better spent elsewhere earlier on. Liberators as I said before are just annoying as hell to use and not really a fun unit though I love the harass potential. How bad Marauders are right now versus Ultras is absurd. If you have this giant bio ball in a nice concave faced with a couple of Ultras they shouldn't be capable of just stampeding through your army.

EngrishTeacher
Profile Blog Joined March 2012
Canada1109 Posts
January 23 2016 09:41 GMT
#8
Concussive shells are still useful, so it's always good to mix in even just 2-3 marauders for the slow early on, and 5-6 later on.
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