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Diamond 1 TvZ 1 base allin: Reaper Hellion

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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1 2 Next All
BabelFish1
Profile Joined September 2015
186 Posts
November 06 2019 23:47 GMT
#1
Been experimenting with a build over the last 2 days, it's 2 rax reaper and 2 reactor factories on 1 base. 4-5 scvs on gas, it fluctuates based on need.

2 rax Reaper does it's 2 rax thing. The goal is to try to score damage but try not to throw away the Reapers...you need them.

Rally the rax and factories to your 1st made Reaper, don;t get supply blocked and cut SCVs at 22 since this is an allin.

Once your have 6 Hellions, ball up and do a frontal assault with your Reapers. Never stop making Reapers or Hellions.

I've encountered Roach Ravager, Roach heavy Queen, Pool 1st, Fast Speedlings, Fast banelings, Mass speedlings and even a super fast spire.

None of it has held.

Now I think this is because of a few variables, because Hellions and Reapers shouldn't be able to handle Roach Queen.

1. Roaches, while tanky, are slow to attack.
2. When you pump out 4 Hellions and 2 Reapers at a time that reinforce extremely fast, you will almost always massively out number the Zerg player's army that early.
3. Reaper Grenades "stun" and can somewhat stack when cast fast enough. They can also knock Roaches into Hellion AoE.
4. Reaper Grenades and Hellions are AoE, making balled up Roaches take a lot of extra damage, even if you shift click attack command the Roaches down.

When all of these variables line up, I've found that Zerg have an extremely difficult time holding Reaper Hellion at Dia 1 because their counters are so out numbered that it's near impossible to take a good trade, let alone protect your drones, larva and queens.

Not claiming this works in masters or higher. I haven't had the chance to try this at that level just yet.

Anyone else seen this done before, have any tips or have any thoughts they'd like to share?

I have a few replays but with a build this weird, I don't think I've seen a proper counter yet. To that end I had a plat 2 player last longer than dia 1 players vs this build.
brickrd
Profile Blog Joined March 2014
United States4894 Posts
November 07 2019 04:54 GMT
#2
theorycrafting, if i knew this was coming i would go queen ravager. i think kiting ravagers back as they outrange reapers and landing transfusions should work assuming the initial 2rax damage isn't high. but with builds like this in diamond you can probably win as long as your micro is better people do weird shit all the way up to GM
TL+ Member
BabelFish1
Profile Joined September 2015
186 Posts
November 07 2019 19:40 GMT
#3
On November 07 2019 13:54 brickrd wrote:
theorycrafting, if i knew this was coming i would go queen ravager. i think kiting ravagers back as they outrange reapers and landing transfusions should work assuming the initial 2rax damage isn't high. but with builds like this in diamond you can probably win as long as your micro is better people do weird shit all the way up to GM


I've seen that happen, it doesn't hold as long as you're controlling your Reaper Hellion. The proper counter seems to be to have 2 spines completed on your nat ramp with queens and then get Roaches. But this is at dia level, I doubt this would be a good GM build or something unless the GM went for a 2 base Nydus Roach allin or something.
Sweetfrost
Profile Joined October 2010
Sweden211 Posts
November 08 2019 02:20 GMT
#4
Could you post some replays? Would love to watch them! Thanks!
Before practice, we ate Kimchi soup made my MMA. His cooking has made me so depressed that I think we may lose GSTL." -Miya
WaesumNinja
Profile Joined February 2012
210 Posts
November 09 2019 20:37 GMT
#5
Roach queen doesn't feel like the best counter. If the zerg scouts he should be able to beat it with speedlings+banes before it can do any eco damage, and just expand behind it.
dHsn
Profile Joined June 2014
Brazil26 Posts
November 09 2019 21:50 GMT
#6
Do you get Blue Flame?
Don't go with the flow!
brickrd
Profile Blog Joined March 2014
United States4894 Posts
November 09 2019 23:59 GMT
#7
On November 10 2019 05:37 WaesumNinja wrote:
Roach queen doesn't feel like the best counter. If the zerg scouts he should be able to beat it with speedlings+banes before it can do any eco damage, and just expand behind it.

slow banes should never touch reapers or hellions though
TL+ Member
Highrock1
Profile Joined March 2019
50 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-11-10 11:32:47
November 10 2019 11:32 GMT
#8
Like you said, Roach queen should definitely hold this.

Considering you're diamond (not being dismissive, so am I), it sounds you just found a solid all-in you can execute at above our usual macro level and are crushing other diamond players with it, which, yeah, makes sense.

There was a point I was frustrated with zvp and decided to just go for the 19 drone roachravagerling all-in every game against protoss. I had something like 95% win rate across dozens of games with it. Because after some practice it was simple enough to execute at a much higher level than the rest of my play.

dragoon
Profile Joined December 2010
United States695 Posts
November 11 2019 00:05 GMT
#9
this is why you see cheesy players sit at the top of GM but never win championships. the only guys that really win championships know the game well enough to play consistently well in positions most people have practiced sparingly. that's why even serral, despite playing standard macro, still can mix it up better than say JonSnow.
i love you
Jonas :)
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States511 Posts
November 11 2019 03:40 GMT
#10
...just making like 3 spine crawlers in zerg's natural doesn't take care of this build?? zerg should know you're on 1 base pretty quickly.
WaesumNinja
Profile Joined February 2012
210 Posts
November 11 2019 20:36 GMT
#11
On November 10 2019 08:59 brickrd wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 10 2019 05:37 WaesumNinja wrote:
Roach queen doesn't feel like the best counter. If the zerg scouts he should be able to beat it with speedlings+banes before it can do any eco damage, and just expand behind it.

slow banes should never touch reapers or hellions though


they will if you catch them with speedlings.
yubo56
Profile Joined May 2014
690 Posts
November 11 2019 22:32 GMT
#12
On November 12 2019 05:36 WaesumNinja wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 10 2019 08:59 brickrd wrote:
On November 10 2019 05:37 WaesumNinja wrote:
Roach queen doesn't feel like the best counter. If the zerg scouts he should be able to beat it with speedlings+banes before it can do any eco damage, and just expand behind it.

slow banes should never touch reapers or hellions though


they will if you catch them with speedlings.

This sounds like a big gamble. If they're watching, it will be super hard to get a good surround against 6 hellions + 4 at a time with just speedlings, and that's not accounting for reaper grenades that screw up your surround. And if you don't get a surround, slow banes will never connect; speed banes are obviously out of the question given the timing of this push.

I think maybe a few lings to screw pathing up is a good idea, but I agree with roach/queen as being the backbone of the counter, ranged units seem pretty important here. If the opponent sees you massing lings, he doesn't have to push as aggressively into you, since hellions scale well against lings, he can just keep growing his hellion count 4 at a time.
Jung Yoon Jong fighting, even after retirement! Feel better soon.
WaesumNinja
Profile Joined February 2012
210 Posts
November 13 2019 13:39 GMT
#13
On November 12 2019 07:32 yubo56 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 12 2019 05:36 WaesumNinja wrote:
On November 10 2019 08:59 brickrd wrote:
On November 10 2019 05:37 WaesumNinja wrote:
Roach queen doesn't feel like the best counter. If the zerg scouts he should be able to beat it with speedlings+banes before it can do any eco damage, and just expand behind it.

slow banes should never touch reapers or hellions though


they will if you catch them with speedlings.

This sounds like a big gamble. If they're watching, it will be super hard to get a good surround against 6 hellions + 4 at a time with just speedlings, and that's not accounting for reaper grenades that screw up your surround. And if you don't get a surround, slow banes will never connect; speed banes are obviously out of the question given the timing of this push.

I think maybe a few lings to screw pathing up is a good idea, but I agree with roach/queen as being the backbone of the counter, ranged units seem pretty important here. If the opponent sees you massing lings, he doesn't have to push as aggressively into you, since hellions scale well against lings, he can just keep growing his hellion count 4 at a time.


Mh, and no amount of roaches you've managed to spawn by then would be able to stop 6+ hellions from suiciding into your mineral lines when they got reapers grenading them. After that, you have no drones, a few slowroaches and queens against his 22 scvs and tanks on the way to protect his expo. Im not convinced roaches are the way, theyre too slow and easily outmaneuvred. If you don't have speedlings you won't catch them
Clazziquai10
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
Singapore1949 Posts
November 13 2019 15:45 GMT
#14
1. I really doubt you can support such production off 1 base
2. An overlord will most certainly scout what you're making plus the fact that you're going 1 base. If I were zerg I would mass queens, throw down 6 spines off low/no gas and that'll probably be it
BabelFish1
Profile Joined September 2015
186 Posts
November 16 2019 23:17 GMT
#15
On November 14 2019 00:45 Clazziquai10 wrote:
1. I really doubt you can support such production off 1 base
2. An overlord will most certainly scout what you're making plus the fact that you're going 1 base. If I were zerg I would mass queens, throw down 6 spines off low/no gas and that'll probably be it


I revised it into a 2 base build and it goes from 2 rax reaper to reaper hellion into reaper hellbat. It's much, much better now.

You can do all that production on 1 base though...I wouldn't recommend it...but you can.
dHsn
Profile Joined June 2014
Brazil26 Posts
November 19 2019 00:50 GMT
#16
Please, post a replay.
That looks very entertaining to watch and something interesting to try out.
Don't go with the flow!
BabelFish1
Profile Joined September 2015
186 Posts
November 24 2019 23:55 GMT
#17
On November 19 2019 09:50 dHsn wrote:
Please, post a replay.
That looks very entertaining to watch and something interesting to try out.


My trash panda laptop has a 128gb SSD and it's always almost completely full so old replays get deleted. I also mostly play Protoss now days and never play Terran without random! I don't wanna get your hopes up!
dHsn
Profile Joined June 2014
Brazil26 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-12-06 14:06:01
November 25 2019 05:25 GMT
#18
I just wanted to have an idea how this could work.
Don't go with the flow!
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5219 Posts
December 06 2019 01:17 GMT
#19
On November 11 2019 09:05 joon wrote:
this is why you see cheesy players sit at the top of GM but never win championships. the only guys that really win championships know the game well enough to play consistently well in positions most people have practiced sparingly. that's why even serral, despite playing standard macro, still can mix it up better than say JonSnow.


Never win? MC would like to have a word with you.
GoSuNamhciR
Profile Joined May 2010
125 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-12-06 18:46:45
December 06 2019 18:45 GMT
#20
On November 07 2019 13:54 brickrd wrote:
theorycrafting, if i knew this was coming i would go queen ravager. i think kiting ravagers back as they outrange reapers and landing transfusions should work assuming the initial 2rax damage isn't high. but with builds like this in diamond you can probably win as long as your micro is better people do weird shit all the way up to GM


Tbh people do weird shit even in GM, especially in NA, I was able to get rank ~100 GM proxy raxing all 3 races a couple seasons ago.
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