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On June 27 2010 06:56 Hider wrote:
All those 3 changes would be too much.
I would only want 1 change: An upgrade. IMO its totally fine early game, however it is not a good idea to get 1 early game because you have no reason to keep it alive to mid/late game as it is useless. If it had some kind of upgrade if would be fine to get 2-5 early reapers, and then instead of suiciding them after the initial harass for some scouting, you could keep them alive, get the upgrade and use them in mid/late game.
I think giving them mines as an upgrade would be fine. Another possibility would be a range upgrade, so they could stand behind the marines/mauruders in the battles and be usefull there.
I completely agree that an upgrade is the most important thing. However, it only addresses part of the problem with Reapers. Reapers are SUPER gas intensive for what you get. Terrans are starved for gas, especially in mid/late game, and the whole goal is to make Reapers more viable in mid/late game. Reducing the gas cost but upping the mineral cost keeps things relatively balanced and addresses this issue. Additionally, reapers also take WAY too long to build. You can build 4 Marauders in the same time that you can build 3 Reapers and the ratio is even more lopsided with Marines. That's huge over time. There is virtually no incentive to get Reapers over Marauders or Marines once you have access to Medivacs.
On June 27 2010 06:56 vT.sOel wrote:
ah i see. in wc3 ensnare immobilizes units but does not prevent them from attacking, although more units in wc3 are melee than there are in sc2.
i think 5 second 50 energy sounds kind of strong. if the reaper died and it persisted than it could be pretty crazy . could be wrong though
Yeah, its really tough to say what would be balanced. Granted, the Phoenix's Graviton Beam does last 10 seconds and the Sentry's Forcefield lasts 15 seconds so 5 seconds is rather short by comparison for the same amount of energy. This, of course, is all speculation though.
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On June 27 2010 07:31 NinjaDrone wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2010 06:56 Hider wrote:
All those 3 changes would be too much.
I would only want 1 change: An upgrade. IMO its totally fine early game, however it is not a good idea to get 1 early game because you have no reason to keep it alive to mid/late game as it is useless. If it had some kind of upgrade if would be fine to get 2-5 early reapers, and then instead of suiciding them after the initial harass for some scouting, you could keep them alive, get the upgrade and use them in mid/late game.
I think giving them mines as an upgrade would be fine. Another possibility would be a range upgrade, so they could stand behind the marines/mauruders in the battles and be usefull there. I completely agree that an upgrade is the most important thing. However, it only addresses part of the problem with Reapers. Reapers are SUPER gas intensive for what you get. Terrans are starved for gas, especially in mid/late game, and the whole goal is to make Reapers more viable in mid/late game. Reducing the gas cost but upping the mineral cost keeps things relatively balanced and addresses this issue. Additionally, reapers also take WAY too long to build. You can build 4 Marauders in the same time that you can build 3 Reapers and the ratio is even more lopsided with Marines. That's huge over time. There is virtually no incentive to get Reapers over Marauders or Marines once you have access to Medivacs.
Regarding the gas cost, I agree that if you go mech, the use of the reaper is pretty limited, and you would rather spent the gas on somewhere else. On the other hand if the upgrade was a "mine-upgrade" it would work very well with mech, and terran will therefore be willing to sacrifice 1-2 to tanks to get 2 reapers out with the mineupgrade.
Also I dont agree with bio being very gasheavy. Sure you cant get pure mauruders + lots of medivacs + reapers. But instead you might have to get a 50-50 relationsship between marines and mauruders making you being able to add a few reapers in. If the reaper got the range upgrade it would be extremely strong together with the bio army + it would be able to make a lot of succesful harass and get away quickly. It would be able to hit and run units such as sentries, roaches, queens + of course buildings and workers very efficiently.
This gives it some uses that the mauruder right now does not have.
Right now both the marines + the maurder gets countered by zealots with speed upgrade. However the reaper does an insane amount of DPS against the zealot. It does 21 DPS against a stimmed maurduers 13!.
So if the protoss players get mostly stalkers you just get mauruders, however if he gets zealots, you will be better of getting a few reapers with range upgrade.
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Why would you want to hit and run roaches or queens with reapers? Neither unit is light. I don't see Blizzard radically changing the reaper from it's current place. It's always going to be:
1. More expensive than a marine
2. Higher DPS than a marine
3. Specialized against light ground units and buildings
4. Short range
5. High mobility (speed + cliff jump)
These things very much define the reaper as distinct from a marine. They're expensive specialized units, why not use them as such?
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I see everyone ignored my post. Seriously, try to build 3 racks, get reaper speed upgrade and build 9-10 reapers. Then go and rape Zergs base. Keep only one reaper by your wall so the zerg does not know that you have a huge bunch. If you arrive after mutas then you fucked up your timing. Be sure to scan the Zerg tech before comiting to this, if Zerg went early roach then you are fucked.
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On June 27 2010 08:11 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2010 07:31 NinjaDrone wrote:On June 27 2010 06:56 Hider wrote:
All those 3 changes would be too much.
I would only want 1 change: An upgrade. IMO its totally fine early game, however it is not a good idea to get 1 early game because you have no reason to keep it alive to mid/late game as it is useless. If it had some kind of upgrade if would be fine to get 2-5 early reapers, and then instead of suiciding them after the initial harass for some scouting, you could keep them alive, get the upgrade and use them in mid/late game.
I think giving them mines as an upgrade would be fine. Another possibility would be a range upgrade, so they could stand behind the marines/mauruders in the battles and be usefull there. I completely agree that an upgrade is the most important thing. However, it only addresses part of the problem with Reapers. Reapers are SUPER gas intensive for what you get. Terrans are starved for gas, especially in mid/late game, and the whole goal is to make Reapers more viable in mid/late game. Reducing the gas cost but upping the mineral cost keeps things relatively balanced and addresses this issue. Additionally, reapers also take WAY too long to build. You can build 4 Marauders in the same time that you can build 3 Reapers and the ratio is even more lopsided with Marines. That's huge over time. There is virtually no incentive to get Reapers over Marauders or Marines once you have access to Medivacs. Regarding the gas cost, I agree that if you go mech, the use of the reaper is pretty limited, and you would rather spent the gas on somewhere else. On the other hand if the upgrade was a "mine-upgrade" it would work very well with mech, and terran will therefore be willing to sacrifice 1-2 to tanks to get 2 reapers out with the mineupgrade. Also I dont agree with bio being very gasheavy. Sure you cant get pure mauruders + lots of medivacs + reapers. But instead you might have to get a 50-50 relationsship between marines and mauruders making you being able to add a few reapers in. If the reaper got the range upgrade it would be extremely strong together with the bio army + it would be able to make a lot of succesful harass and get away quickly. It would be able to hit and run units such as sentries, roaches, queens + of course buildings and workers very efficiently. This gives it some uses that the mauruder right now does not have. Right now both the marines + the maurder gets countered by zealots with speed upgrade. However the reaper does an insane amount of DPS against the zealot. It does 21 DPS against a stimmed maurduers 13!. So if the protoss players get mostly stalkers you just get mauruders, however if he gets zealots, you will be better of getting a few reapers with range upgrade.
Very good points. I think the mineral cost change is the least important of the things that need to be changed, build time is second most important and new ability is the most important. If I was Blizzard I would implement one and see how it affected balance and if things were still unbalanced then move on to the next buff etc.
I really like the mine upgrade but I personally like the Lockdown ability I described more (though I would be immensely happy if Blizzard implemented either.) I am hesitant about giving Reapers a range upgrade because I think it would sway the low tech ground battle way too much in favor of the Terrans. Protoss needs more than just Colossi as an answer to Terran Infantry. Plus, giving Terran a solid counter to the Zealot would give players little reason to get Zealots (besides being a cheap-ish meat shield that gives your other units time to get off some attacks.) After all, the whole reason why Reapers aren't effective is they are easily countered by Stalkers, Queens, etc. I don't want to see the Zealot go the same way and be easily countered as well. Plus, a range upgrade would make the Reaper extremely powerful against Zerglings and Hydralisks, thereby reducing their usefulness as well (ahhh! more roaches and banelings!)
The Reaper has so much potential, its all a question of what role they should have. I really like the fact that the Reaper is a high risk, high reward, balls out unit. I feel like the mines and the lockdown special abilities embrace that ethos while the range upgrade does not. The range upgrade makes the reaper a more "safe" unit in my mind.
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The problem with Reapers is that they don't make a particularly useful unit in army compositions. This is why they are only used early game--before you HAVE an army.
I really want to experiment with some mid-late game Reaper building harass. Essentially, this would be the point in the game when the enemy has moved their army out of their main--whether it be before or after a big push.
Move into the back of their main with 7 or 8 Reapers, and slam away at their Nexus. While they are moving their army in to respond (which they will at least move a portion to deal with 8 Reapers), launch an attack on an expo...or I think it would be especially cool to try this out with a Reaper/Ghost Nuke harass..
Scout the enemy's army...Attack a base w/ Reapers, wait 10 seconds, call down a nuke on the other base. I'd like to try this stuff out, cuz I feel that Reapers and Nukes are underused mid-endgame.
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I also believe that mid-late game reaper play, if at all viable, is map-specific.
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In TvT, let's say you are going mech (I think you should in TvT anyway).
since you are not using your barracks as a main unit producing structure, you can throw down a tech lab and make a few reapers (whenever, this can be mid/late game) and use them for harassment separate from your main tank-viking army (also , fyi, marauder-thor beats tank-viking).
If you are going marauder-thor, u need ur barracks for marauders - building reapers can be dangerous.
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If it's TvZ, and you are going mech (hellion thor tank) reapers can be your harassing unit. Not only do they pwn workers but also snipe buildings. When making a push, you can just send them into Z's main, and when his army moves back, make a push into his natural with your real army. The only price impact in this build might be the fact that you will wind up having more hellions that tanks and thors cause of the reaper's gas price. I'm also not talking a lot of reapers - maybe just 1 to 2 rax producing them. But mass a group of them before attacking in mid/late game.
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In TvP, you shouldn't get reapers at all. Way too much of a risk IMO
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In this thread I see a lot of heavy handed or "forced" approaches to "fix" the Reaper's lack of mid-late game play.
As Jinro suggested in this thread (and I have suggested in many other threads) moving them to the Reactor might be a decent way to increase their usage later in the game (while simultaneously delaying reaper rushes, at the trade off of having to deal with two instead of one - but without the marauder follow-up).
I personally think this would be the "best" solution without breaking the unit or requiring significant amounts of additional balancing.
It might be easiest, and most reasonable, to simply adjust their damage, making them do more base damage and less bonus damage to light, while keeping the total damage to light the same. This will only be a minor buff to the unit which will not change its overall early game effectiveness. It will allow the Reaper to be marginally more effective once regrouped with the main bio ball however which might just make them reasonably viable to mass a control group or so in the later stages of the game.
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On July 01 2010 04:10 STS17 wrote:
In this thread I see a lot of heavy handed or "forced" approaches to "fix" the Reaper's lack of mid-late game play.
As Jinro suggested in this thread (and I have suggested in many other threads) moving them to the Reactor might be a decent way to increase their usage later in the game (while simultaneously delaying reaper rushes, at the trade off of having to deal with two instead of one - but without the marauder follow-up).
I personally think this would be the "best" solution without breaking the unit or requiring significant amounts of additional balancing.
It might be easiest, and most reasonable, to simply adjust their damage, making them do more base damage and less bonus damage to light, while keeping the total damage to light the same. This will only be a minor buff to the unit which will not change its overall early game effectiveness. It will allow the Reaper to be marginally more effective once regrouped with the main bio ball however which might just make them reasonably viable to mass a control group or so in the later stages of the game.
Im totally with you on this but they could instead or also give them some kind of smoke grenade ability that would limit the vision of the ennemies caugh in it (or any other cool effect). It would make them a great addition for tvt main fights where tanks and vikings are nearly the only options right now. I also think of this ability because imo terran and the whole sc2 game lack of skill and timing involved abilites.
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EPT
