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Hey All
I'm watching GSL vs the world (TY/Serral) and i am wondering why terrans don't do pick up and drop macro with weak units like protoss players using the wrap prism? (this isn't a dig!)
In game 2 when he had a clump of mech at serrals ramp a lot of the units were injured for a while. how come terrans don't do the following
a) Have a bunch of SCVs repairing units in the back
b) use medivacs to pick up weak mech units and drop them back for repairs
I really do think it would add more longevity to a terran army in fights.
I also think when you have a few orbitals you don't need as many SCVs so some could be a part of your army. or even run on less SCVs and have a larger army!
has anybody explored this?
thanks  hope this leads to an interesting discussion
Note - i don't play terran and mostly just watch sc2 so i am theorycrafting at best!
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Because medivacs and overlords have much shorter pick up range than warp prisms, which makes such micro much, much harder, if not impossible vs queen and hydra AA
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On August 16 2019 22:06 Ej_ wrote:
Because medivacs and overlords have much shorter pick up range than warp prisms, which makes such micro much, much harder, if not impossible vs queen and hydra AA
What is the pickup range? it's not on liquepdia that makes sense, what about the whole SCV repair thing? or i would spam build bunkers to create walls as i push
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Hey All
I'm watching GSL vs the world (TY/Serral) and i am wondering why terrans don't do pick up and drop macro with weak units like protoss players using the wrap prism? (this isn't a dig!)
TvT you'll see this with tanks. Injured tanks under threat are unsieged and rescued by medivacs. In TvZ, it's usually only done to rescue tanks in a drop or push while the marines are dead or left to die. Marines are cheap to replace, and tanks aren't.
In game 2 when he had a clump of mech at serrals ramp a lot of the units were injured for a while. how come terrans don't do the following
a) Have a bunch of SCVs repairing units in the back
b) use medivacs to pick up weak mech units and drop them back for repairs
I really do think it would add more longevity to a terran army in fights.
I also think when you have a few orbitals you don't need as many SCVs so some could be a part of your army. or even run on less SCVs and have a larger army!
1. Serral has enough ravagers to volley one-shot tanks. You might save a tank with repairs occasionally, but even fully repaired tanks are staying almost as vulnerable to volleys. Injured tanks are more like lucky errors in ravager micro in this case.
2. Tanks take ages to unsiege for medivac pickup when compared with Protoss load-drop micro. Immortals and archons get their shot and you're safely away. Tanks have to surrender doing any damage to be open to drop micro. And when they've surrendered the damage ....
3. Unsieged tanks can't keep the queens and roach/ravager away. Their strength is their sieged attack radius. No pickup, except for when the push is dead and it's time to retreat as many as you can save.
Already mentioned:
Medivac pickup range is very short. It basically has to be directly overhead.
Queen anti-air range is incredible. Your medivacs are hardly able to make it in the front lines. Queens in numbers can heal a couple tank shots to get several hits on medivacs. Serral, as an example, has plenty of queens. TY has an incredibly hard time even finding vision for his tanks, much less microing a second group of air units.
You will see medivac micro on bio, for example picking up marines to drop behind tanky marauders, or saving injured marines one-by-one in a drop getting whittled down but dealing damage.
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On August 16 2019 22:26 La1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2019 22:06 Ej_ wrote:
Because medivacs and overlords have much shorter pick up range than warp prisms, which makes such micro much, much harder, if not impossible vs queen and hydra AA What is the pickup range? it's not on liquepdia that makes sense, what about the whole SCV repair thing? or i would spam build bunkers to create walls as i push
The pickup range is 1.
Compared to a warp prism, which is 7(Or is it 5?)
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Northern Ireland11218 Posts
You get way less value from pickup microing most Terran units, Immortals and Archons are both tanky, do a large amount of damage with a slow cooldown, and tend to be individually much more valuable than singular Terran units, so alongside with the pickup micro being easier anyway, Protoss have units more suited to it anyway. A marine or a marauder with stim their damage output is optimal if they’re just sitting and firing, especially the marine. Immortals and archons pack that bigger punch that’s slower, so if you pickup, drop, attack and rinse and repeat you don’t lose much of their damage output.
SC2 fights are also really, really fast paced, so it’s difficult to do elaborate pickups of SCVs and mech units while targeting well and keeping up on macro. You could maybe do some of this stuff but you’d basically need to almost set everything up beforehand and hope your opponent engages into you, would be extremely hard to do reactively.
I do think using medivacs more to save SCVs from melee runbys would be a decent move and not crazy difficult to pull off. With the boost they’ll get there before even stimmed bio if you’re slightly out of position.
I think it’s worth exploring anyway, it’s just another thing to do and the game is hard enough, but plenty of what is now standard play was once in that category.
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On August 17 2019 01:14 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2019 22:26 La1 wrote:On August 16 2019 22:06 Ej_ wrote:
Because medivacs and overlords have much shorter pick up range than warp prisms, which makes such micro much, much harder, if not impossible vs queen and hydra AA What is the pickup range? it's not on liquepdia that makes sense, what about the whole SCV repair thing? or i would spam build bunkers to create walls as i push The pickup range is 1. Compared to a warp prism, which is 7(Or is it 5?)
Six currently, but getting reduced to 5 in a balance change coming Soon™.
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Thanks all really great insight defiantly enhances my watching of the game 
I still feel terrans should use bunkers more! i'd bunker vs blink stalkers who always seem to snipe 1 or 2 scvs?
or even just wall in some tanks with a bunker or 2 so lings physically can't reach then, i guess with ravagers they basically crush seige tanks right?
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Terrans do pull SCVs for mass repair when playing mech or doing allin tech pushes, it's not that uncommon. the best micro terrans (usually Maru) will also do medivac micro on marauders to pretty decent effect, or cyclones, etc., but people have already pointed out why it's not particularly more common. it's just hard
some people do try to argue that bunkers are underused against runbys, i hear protoss GM+ players trying to say they're needed against zealots sometimes, but i don't know - top terrans must not think it's worth it. maybe because good players will micro around bunker range or focus fire SCVs? i don't play terran either. generally what pro players do is "right," but once in a while pros say something is bad and then it becomes meta later, so who knows.
as for walling siege tanks it's more common to simply make supply depot walls, which is seen in almost every game
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Bunkers are not bad per se, and I agree they're almost always useful in early game TvP, the reason you don't see bunkers after the early game is that it's the only static defense that cost supply. Spine crawlers, spore crawlers, cannons and batteries all cost 0 supply. A full bunker costs 4 supply, not to mention it costs 300 minerals compared to 75/150 for everything else. Terran's strength when playing bio relies a lot on mid game timing pushes. 4 marines at home could be the difference between a succesful or failed push in TvP for instance. Bunker's durability falls off rapidly as armies get bigger. A chargelot warp-in or a crackling runby will easily kill the bunker + the marines inside and won't buy much time. PFs are the better choice for late game static defense, they don't cost supply, have way more health and can be mass repaired.
Regarding sending SCVs to repair your army:
Repairing mech unit is a great idea, but sending scvs with your army to repair it during or after a fight is generally not worth it. The reason being that the scvs would add more value mining than they add repairing your army. If you're maxed or closed to max, those scv also cut on your army supply which is more important. On the other hand, repairing your units when you send them home is definitely worth it because the lost mining time is marginal.
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I wouldn't say medivac micro is harder per se, just much more dangerous because of the tiny pickup range. Add in the fact that if you're picking up/dropping, the medivac isn't healing your hellbats/bio and you usually end up negative EV
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On August 16 2019 22:26 La1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2019 22:06 Ej_ wrote:
Because medivacs and overlords have much shorter pick up range than warp prisms, which makes such micro much, much harder, if not impossible vs queen and hydra AA What is the pickup range? it's not on liquepdia that makes sense, what about the whole SCV repair thing? or i would spam build bunkers to create walls as i push
This isn't a bad thought -- a lot of the times in early/mid-game siege tank pushes you don't want to siege until you get right to your opponents base, your opponents want you to spend extra time in the middle of the map so they can shore up their defenses and set up flanks. But assuming you're able to push right to their base before you siege, it might actually be worth it. Of course, to actually build bunkers/turrets you'd have to sacrifice reinforcements/economy but I could think of situations where it'd be useful.
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terrans perform pick-up micro all the time vZ... mainly thors vs locusts
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Part of it is that even players of this level still have to budget their time and decide whats worth their apm, and more importantly their screen. with the 1 range pickup a medivac has its prity difficult micro to pull off. it takes alot of apm and in the end your only getting marginally higher value out of a 50 mineral unit. You do see this in some situations like when terrans used to go 2-1-1 you would see this kind of micto to squeeze more value out of the build but you have to consider all the things a player doing this is not doing and ask if its worth it? when you get to bigger more painful to lose units like the thor you see alot of pickup drop micro out of terrans because its justified to spend that much time on a 300/200 unit that builds from the factory.
Another thing to consider is how vulnerable doing this kind of micto makes your drop ship. For protoss their drop ship can be outside the range of the range units attacking the target your microing, for terran this is not the case especially in tvz, zergs have become very proficient at focusing medivacs with queens ever since the 2-1-1 era so putting your very critical 100/100 starport unit at risk to save a single 50 mineral rax unit is once again questionable.
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On August 16 2019 21:41 La1 wrote:Hey All I'm watching GSL vs the world (TY/Serral) and i am wondering why terrans don't do pick up and drop macro with weak units like protoss players using the wrap prism? (this isn't a dig!) In game 2 when he had a clump of mech at serrals ramp a lot of the units were injured for a while. how come terrans don't do the following a) Have a bunch of SCVs repairing units in the back b) use medivacs to pick up weak mech units and drop them back for repairs I really do think it would add more longevity to a terran army in fights. I also think when you have a few orbitals you don't need as many SCVs so some could be a part of your army. or even run on less SCVs and have a larger army! has anybody explored this? thanks hope this leads to an interesting discussion Note - i don't play terran and mostly just watch sc2 so i am theorycrafting at best!
1 vs 5 pick up range.
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Bot edit.
User was banned for this post.
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OP might be interested to note Heromarine repeatedly used bunkers in his mineral lines + as frontal base defense against Harstem today with varying degrees of success
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Terrans already have alot of hard micro, so extra repair in the back plus the pick up... You occasionally certainly see pull backs if the medivac have a cooldown.
Also don't forget repair does not only cost repair bills but also mining time and walking time despite the mentioned extra apm, I see it relatively rarely indeed.
Another thing to consider is how vulnerable doing this kind of micto makes your drop ship. For protoss their drop ship can be outside the range of the range units attacking the target your microing, for terran this is not the case especially in tvz, zergs have become very proficient at focusing medivacs with queens ever since the 2-1-1 era so putting your very critical 100/100 starport unit at risk to save a single 50 mineral rax unit is once again questionable.
And this, if you play terran.. you notice how quickly your medivacs can fall, they get one shot by pretty much any focus fire.
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