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Greetings,
Now I know what your thinking, there are no mid-late Reaper plays. I actually think this is a real shame. See, I have to admit, I am a big Reaper fan. I was kind of bored of the old starcraft units having played that game to death and back again years ago. Thats why Reapers appeal to me so much, they are radically different to all the units that came before them.
I am just not happy with them being useful for a single cheese early on and then falling by the wayside as the coolest unused unit ever™
Anyway, being me I decided that I really wanted to brainstorm with you guys as to possible additions to the Reaper that'd add some use to it mid and late game. Especially in TvT which can become very dull viking-tank or viking-MMM fests. Obviously, it's a harassment unit. How can we get it to fill this role better?
My first idea was simply to allow the reaper to treat sieged tanks like they were buildings (det packing them to death). Unsieged tanks would be spared. Meaning there is a harassment play of getting into the tank line and detpacking the tanks. Or forcing them to unsiege (which is when you roll in and attack?). Reapers are quite fragile though, so I'm not sure this would work, though it would fit their role and lore beautifully.
Another idea was an upgrade (armoury unlocked?) that extended detpack range to 8. Allowing for highly annoying building harassment from long range. Their pistol range would remain untouched, so any normal unit could abuse them happily as now. This also fits their harassment theme very well.
I love the idea of a fast, annoying, harassment unit that is very fragile. I just think the Reaper doesn't fit this role very well outside of the first 3 minutes of the game. Unlike say zerglings which scale through the game and is very useful or the protosses stalker (with blink) who can quickly get in, do a ton of damage and get out.
It seems to me that the Reaper is the games only "early" unit that just surrenders to becoming useless later. It's also sad that it's only limelight is as an early (and usually all-in) cheese. I'd love to see some changes to resolve this.
What do you guys think?
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Reapers do not see much mid-late game play because their harass is easily out classed by other terran units that fit the role better AND can be useful in an acutal army battle (i.e. hellions/banshees/vikings).
I have seen a game with Orb where his opponent got like 10 reapers and hid them to back stab his base when he moved out (cute), but Orb scouted it and demolished the whole force in 3 secs.
The only thing that would make reapers useful mid-late game is to give it those mines (or w.e. dustin "my catch phrase makes me look cool but I'm not" brower called them) back.
About your suggestions:
Tanks Vs Reapers: ...13 range tanks? Definitely would not work at all
Increased range: I guess this would be cool for 2v2 but I don't think this would make a difference because banshees/dropped stimmed maurders kill builds alot better than reapers with better mobility.
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An upgrade that gives them a spider mine style ability or an upgrade that greatly increases their health but is high tech would be the only thing that could work I think
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I was watching lz's stream last night and he had to transition from mech to MMM playing against a toss. When he built the rax he needed, he pumped 2 or so cycles of reapers and then used them to tear down a nexus really quickly. It was a cool way of distracting the protoss player during the transition when he had fewer units.
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I think on certain maps, Incineration Zone being the one that comes to mind first, there's definitely a place for midgame reapers, and I think we'll see that as players get better at the game. I believe that, as we go forward, we'll see every single trick in the book dragged up for use in harrassment. They're potentially not as damaging as hellions in mineral line, and they're much easier to repel than banshees or vikings, but with cliff jumping and their low cost, I think they've got a niche.
Case in point: Incineration zone just has the most ludicrous number of cliffs to leap up and down. It also has ridiculous chokes that are difficult to slip a bunch of hellions through. Cheap reapers with cheap nitro packs could happily zip around expansions, being a royal pain in the ass. Here, I can see them being more cost effective than most of the other terran harassment options. But then again, Incineration zone sucks, and is a very extreme example of a reaper playground.
EDIT: Oh, and, yeah, I wanted to mention that I really don't see them having much use in a straight up fight. Potentially, MAYBE, I can see them flanking and sniping HTs and ghosts, if the terrain is favourable, but thats probably rather difficult to do, in practice.
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Reapers can be used alot like VoidRays to snipe CCs from the back door. Other than that, yes any role they could fill is better filled by another T unit.
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On June 05 2010 02:24 BlueSorc wrote:
I think on certain maps, there's definitely a place for midgame reapers,
This is the meat of that post: and its true. Kulas ravine is a perfect example of a map where players can take advantage of midgame reapers. Same with Desert Oasis (albeit mostly for early game on DO).
Midgame reaper tactics can be highly effective, and very disruptive. Recently (on KR) i have been using small packs (2-4) reapers to harass expansions, which has been very effective. Also, there is nothing better for getting somone to move their army than a group of reapers in their base. This allows you to go in the front door and set up your siege tanks / whatever you have without confrontation.
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On kulas and Lost Temple when i was still playing terran i'd get about 20 reapers vs zerg and vs terran. VS zerg the reapers would sit on cliffs and wait for me to engage the roach/hydra force. marauders picking away at the roaches and then circle behind the hydras and wipe them extremely fast. reapers 4 shot hydras with fast attack speed.then the same 20 reapers can actually threaten the large number of expos zerg tries to get.
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I'd use reaper has a mid-game harrassment, just like the darktemplar.
get 5-6 reapers and attack when your opponent is in a bad position. Aim for new expansions, kill workers and run away. When you see your opponent attack you, you hit his mineral line. 6-7 reapers is enough to kill little defenses opponents have (or if its his expansion you are attacking, often he didnt havetime to def up his mineral line).
reapers in midgame can be very annoying for others when used properly, and I do believe they play the same role as darktemplars.
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On KR a reaper can hit the top right postion's gas from the cliff.
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Anything that makes the Reaper better is OK in my book. I'd love to get Spider Mines back, but I think Blizzard made a point of taking them out and giving Banelings to Zerg.
(and even if Blizzard never buffs Reapers I'll still find excuses to use them  )
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I think currently think Reapers cannot harass effectively at all once even a single queen, spine crawler, cannon, etc is up. I have yet to see a single high level replay where they are used outside of the early cheese rush.
Yet the replies here seem to say they have a mid game purpose currently. Can someone drop some replays of this in action for my viewing pleasure?  .
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Actually, their stats are great. They're one of the most, if not THE most, cost effective way to destroy buildings. They can enter bases extremely easily and they make good scouts.
Their only downside is the fact that they cost 50 gas. That's their biggest weakness right there. However, they remain a viable option against someone who is going heavy on econ. If you mount any sort of attack, you can sneak reapers into a mineral line and wreak havoc. If your enemy is heavy on light units, they can also augment your force nicely.
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On June 05 2010 02:05 xixecal wrote:
The only thing that would make reapers useful mid-late game is to give it those mines (or w.e. dustin "my catch phrase makes me look cool but I'm not" brower called them) back.
Ooooh, snap. Burned him like a burnin thing, aww yeah. Nice work on that burn, bro.
Anyway, I think it was IdrA who said that once players are good enough at SC2 to macro really really well, then they'll play the whole map and we'll see more harassment. I think three or four reapers could be a cool option for this kind of thing, simply because ("on some maps") repears have better access to stuff than hellions, cost less than banshees, and can annihilate buildings.
So, especially as anti-building "harass" or strike teams, I think reapers have a lot of potential.
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i think people forget that upgraded reapers run almost as fast as speedlings - and they can jump up cliffs too.
when people are comfortable enough to multitask i'm sure reapers will be used late game.
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On June 05 2010 02:44 Spidermonkey wrote:
On KR a reaper can hit the top right postion's gas from the cliff.
they fixed this in patch 13.
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I agree that reapers are pretty useful on maps with abuseable cliffs like kulas and LT. However, vikings/drops fit that role much better. It's not that they are useless, but that there are better alternatives.
Reapers are good because they can cliff jump. Vikings can fly. So can drop ships. So can Banshees. I guess they can be fun if you've got the game in the bag.
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Are you guys forgetting that it takes something like 4 reapers to beat even a stalker (and I assume a roach)?
If hellions ran past the ramp into a main (say his 3rd or 4th expansion), they could easily last long enough to incinerate every probe and trade themselves. Banshees are probably going to be part of any late game terran comp (since T tends to get multiple starports after more gasses), and are going to be supported by vikings and maybe ravens.
So where exactly does the reaper fit? Do you use them to block expansions? Until they send a single stalker? They're not going to be able to clear cannons before they get killed.
Are you going to use them mid game? In which builds can you afford to spend unit cycles on reaper and delay your push out?
As long as the reaper cannot combat basic units in some way (like the vulture could with mines), it will be useless.
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But reapers can basically fly, on some maps. And they're so much cheaper than banshees and do so much more damage to buildings than vikings.
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Another thing you can do is siege your tanks near a cliff and then use a reaper to give vision of buildings or probe lines. This is useful because you can get a reaper and tank faster than viking/raven/tank.
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EPT
