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I have played a limited amount of the beta (50-100 games), but so far I have played a few TvTs where I have tried to go for the WoL-style 1 rax expo on the lowground into 2 more rax making marines. However, I have just straight up died to players who are going for mass reaper openings. Given that reapers can see up ramps and through line-of-sight blockers, and regenerate their life out of combat, it seems very difficult to hold both bases (or even 1 base) against the incoming reapers.
So, is there a safe way to 1rax expo in TvT to the lowground (or in your main) against reapers in Heart of the Swarm on a map that allows easy access into your main base via cliff-jumping? It seems like if you lose a couple marines here or there, it can quickly spiral out of control similar to TvP against blink stalker all-ins, where none of the blink stalkers are actually dying while the Terran is whittled away to nothing.
Assuming that there is a safe way to do the 1rax expo, which way is best? Should one take a gas and get marauders out? Should one build a bunker at every entry point? Does one just need to keep all of their marines together at all times and only engage when you know you can at least kill one of the reapers?
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I'd guess:
CC in your main, make a bunker, sim-city your mineral line so that reapers can't hit your workers without coming into range of the bunker, and repair what you need to until you get widow mines out.
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On November 19 2012 16:16 kcdc wrote:
I'd guess:
CC in your main, make a bunker, sim-city your mineral line so that reapers can't hit your workers without coming into range of the bunker, and repair what you need to until you get widow mines out.
In that case isn't it better to reaper expand urself?
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I have had some success with 1 rax factory cc. Depending on the map, you can use a handful of widow mines to easily defend an early expo.
I really dont think it is possible to defend heavy reaper harass with marines from 1 rax. There is just too much ground to cover and the marines are just not mobile enough and the added rax will come in too late.
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I wouldnt 1 rax expo anymore. It could work but it would be really micro intensive. The nice thing about reaper expo is that you can build marauders too if he starts powering reapers.
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On November 19 2012 16:30 KaiserJohan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 16:16 kcdc wrote:
I'd guess:
CC in your main, make a bunker, sim-city your mineral line so that reapers can't hit your workers without coming into range of the bunker, and repair what you need to until you get widow mines out. In that case isn't it better to reaper expand urself?
Maybe? I haven't tested it, but the CC is certainly much faster if you get it before gas than if you get it after reaper. And afterwards, you have marines and widow mines instead of reapers. Not sure which is better--it probably depends on your intended follow-up.
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I've had the most luck with reaper expanding and factory expaning.
With reapers, you can match the scouting info your opponent gets, and getting out one or two marauders essentially shuts down any mass reaper opening from your opponent.
Factory expand is safe and gets you on path for mech play, which i think is a better playstyle in hots, since bio just gets shredded by hellbats
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On November 19 2012 15:53 JDub wrote:
I have played a limited amount of the beta (50-100 games), but so far I have played a few TvTs where I have tried to go for the WoL-style 1 rax expo on the lowground into 2 more rax making marines. However, I have just straight up died to players who are going for mass reaper openings. Given that reapers can see up ramps and through line-of-sight blockers, and regenerate their life out of combat, it seems very difficult to hold both bases (or even 1 base) against the incoming reapers.
That was very cute 
If you scout in time, off your 3 rax (one with techlab) keep making marauder+2marines. It is difficult to micro/macro at the same time but you CAN hold it off, then tech/add more rax if he stays 1 base, and overrun him
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On November 20 2012 06:03 Rowrin wrote:
I have had some success with 1 rax factory cc. Depending on the map, you can use a handful of widow mines to easily defend an early expo.
I really dont think it is possible to defend heavy reaper harass with marines from 1 rax. There is just too much ground to cover and the marines are just not mobile enough and the added rax will come in too late.
Rowrin and I tried this out last night. Hellions are surprisingly robust vs Reapers. I've been going Reactor Fact Expand into Starport. You have to be careful about Hellion production as it slows down your expo. However, two Hellions are good at shooing away 2-3 Reapers. Along with the 3-4 Marines you generally have when the Reapers show up, this is usually enough for defense.
Another variant I tried is Widow Mine/Hellion out of Reactor. Not sure how to transition this though.
I was thinking about a gasless variant, and I think you'd have to simcity around your CC and bunker up. Not worth it imo. Cedes too much map control.
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I like to go for reaper expand, because you get all the map control, the options to harras your opponents and so on, but if you really want to go for the standard one rax exe build without gas, I guess the best way is to go for some bunkers near your mineral line.
If you really want to play against reaper openings just get your CC in your main base, go for a fast gas before adding your extra barracks and rush for one or maybe two marauders.
I do not see that many games where my opponents in TvT try to go mass reaper, but if this is the case go for CS and more marauders, widow mines are also very effective against reapers.
Also it depends on what you want to go after your CC, do you want to play bio, bio/mech, mech?
Greetz
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I've switched from opening 1 rax expo into the good old reactor expand. 12 rax, 13 gas, mine 50 gas, pull your SCV's out of gas, CC, and SCV's back on gas. You have to build the cc and the reactor close to your main cc, and make sure to create a wall behind the mineral line and the 'end' of the map.
CC is faster than if you were to do a factory expand, and transitions into mech nicely by getting the fact with your next 100 gas, swap with reactor and start hellions (or mines if he's going crazy with the reapers). If you were to scout an all-in, don't go mech and instead hold it with reactor marines, and use your factory to go into siege mode + tanks followed by vikings.
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EPT
