|
The OP makes a very good point. Marines are an absolute must unit in the terran army and without this one unit, any terran army composition has a huge glaring and easily exploitable weakness. I realized this sometime back when I tried experimenting with non-bio play in TvP. Against good players (2000+diamond) one of the two things would always happen -
1) I make some unit composition without marines and it would get owned because of bad anti-air, anti-t1 horde etc.
2) I lose marines to AOE units like psi-storm or colossus and then the rest of the army gets rolled over.
MMM works, because medivacs buff marine life and marauders are the best tank as they prevent super tight only marine balls. Air+marine is the worst and dies in 0.2 seconds to high templars. Mech+marine is kind of viable but zealot heavy colossus+air/archon/immortal compositions can easily overwhelm tank lines.
I think the importance of the marine along with their fragility in the late game is something that limits and hurts terran late game quite a bit.
To the OP: I also feel tanks cost too much supply for their strength. I feel marine mech might still be viable if the supply costs allowed for getting a good amount of tanks along with sufficient support. Right now you kind of to choose and weaken one to strengthen the other. Because of mech's inertial production, it is also not easy to adjust tank and support ratios on the fly. The sum total of all this makes makes terran late game armies quite fragile to strong AOE tech balls that can remove marines from terran's army.
|
At the moment the marine has to be the way it is, because particularly for anti air the terran simply has no other effective option.
I agree the dominance of the marine is somewhat boring, but a direct nerf to the marine would DEMOLISH terran in every matchup.
Although you are incorrect about TvT being mass marine. Simply not the case, however both sides have access to the unit and to the siege tank, which is part of the reason why the marine is less important and vikings are chosen instead. Because vikings fight vikings on even footing, whereas vikings lose to mutalisks for example. More importantly vikings are impervious to tanks and can provide vision for your tanks to outrange theirs.
|
I think a lot of people are missing the point of the OP. If I'm reading this thread correctly I think the OP is saying that Marines are:
Beginning of Game: Extremely good, even borderline overpowered. (Overpowered with SCVs as meat-shields)
Mid-Game: Balanced, have good DPS, but can still be demolished by Banelings or good Force Field placement coupled with Zealots. If you use Marines well you can win almost any battle, if you don't control them well, they're torn up.
End-Game: By this time, most Zerg and Protoss armies passively counter Marines (Collosi with range or Banelings with speed and Fungal) but you still need to build them because they're really the only sustained Air/Ground DPS Terran has. However, this situation becomes a slippery slope because as the game progresses it takes many more Marines to win a battle that fewer could have won earlier in the game due to the fact that they die so much faster to higher tech. This results in wasted minerals because Marines become less cost-effective as ~10 Marines can die to 1 Collosi and ~4 Marines can die to 1 Baneling (Just examples) and is probably a hidden reason to the "Terran Late-Game Unable Macro Problem" (Who knows if this is True or False).
I think what the OP is suggesting is that the Marine's effectiveness should be evenly distributed throughout the entire game or something should be changed (Goliaths?) so Terran isn't so reliant on the Marine.
Another interesting idea is the play of Jinro in the GSL3.
Analysis of Jinro Play [GSL 3 Spoiler]
+ Show Spoiler +v. Zerg: He creates his main army and takes a favorable position. He then uses a small Marine forces to take out expansions. This actually creates a Mid-Game situation because the Zerg can't move they're entire army out of position. So, the Zerg usually uses a smaller force which results in a smaller battle that Marines excel at and Jinro usually came out on top.
v. Protoss: More of a Deathball vs. Deathball but sadly that's the state of any Protoss match right now (PvP, PvT, PvZ). He basically threw vikings away to kill Collosi and eliminate the "Marine-Killing Threat"
Jinro's brilliant play kind of makes me think that people are just using Marines incorrectly. Maybe Marines need to be thought of as 3rd resource as the game goes on. Only using them when you can maximize the damage they do and minimize the damage they take.
|
buff marines late game??? really?? how is this thread still alive?
Stimmed marines microed well can easily snipe broodlords/carrier/BCs. Massed roaches vs massed marines of the same cost, marines win.
mass banelings vs marines late game? micro those stim marines well and have enough marines and you'll be fine.
mass ultralisks? ultras are getting their AOE nerfed even more, so they wont be a threat to marines controlled well, really.
Hydra/roach? build a couple siege tanks with your marines
Stalkers/colossi? marines and some vikings with your spare gas should do fine
Zealot/stalker? just build a shit ton of marines
I mean really. I agree with the part about them being too powerful early game but buffing them for late game is F'ing ridiculous. They're already getting a sideways buff with the "further ultralisk nerf"
|
On December 07 2010 17:23 Fa1nT wrote:
I wouldn't mind if they made marines weaker, but made stim much better to compensate for it.
I agree stim isn't good enough.......
2rax isn't very hard to stop anymore, and people need to get more speedlings (3rd hatch in-base) to make have an effective surround long enough for banelings to crush marines
If they run away you get a bunch of free shots off, and if they studder-step micro you'll catch up to them with banes if you spread your creep well
If he spreads out you get free shots + better surround.
Mass baneling isn't good against mass marines...but a if you have a good ratio of banelings and other units they work really well, assuming you didn't get outmacroed.
|
I do not mean to belittle your well structured post but I there is merit to rethinking the main idea. Instead of suggesting that Terran's all in it is perhaps more useful to think of it as players who like to all in play Terran.
Terran is the strongest race in the early game by far, players who recognize this choose the race for this reason. Both Protoss and Zerg play defensively in their opens with noteable exceptions, but solid builds require defensive opens. Solid Terran builds often revolve around a good timing and a key unit mixture or number. We saw Idra dismantled by something like this in the GSL 3.
My reaction to this, Zerg and Protoss players simply need to structure concrete opens that stop these specific timings and unit mixtures and the all in players will either stop their all ins or stop playing.
If this point is never reached, than I think we have an issue of balance.
Jinro has shown us that a late game minded Terran player can use a good mix of rax units as well as higher tech units. The only thing that makes marines week in the late game is the late game is a rare occurrence for this player type and players are unaware of how to best utilize marines. What Jinro in the GSL 3 has demonstrated the proper utilization of Terran unit mixes when you are not dedicated to winning the game in the first 12-15 minutes.
|
I play toss but. Only nerf I'd really like to see is the unit size would need to be increased and other than that I think the other units needs to be buffed mech especially so you can go straight up mech. ah well hope it develops to a state where terran is less marine centric.
|
Most of the players who are currently all inning with Terran didn't switch to Terran when the current all ins were discovered and many of them didn't all in using old methods. Couldn't you equally say that you'd expect all in players to play Protoss because of 4gate?
|
What does terran lack? The goliath/mech effectiveness in general. Terran really can't go mech because of how important the rine is, and that is the critical difference between rines in BW and SC2. In BW, you could mostly forgo rines and do a mech build, especially against Terran and Protoss. Against zerg, you could as well. Now, you can't really go mech in any matchup except TvT, simply because you end up lacking something.
|
I play Terran, and you need to have bio no matter what. Hellions are too weak vs. anything except workers or zerglings. Tanks are too expensive and aren't mobile enough since the siege mode is the only use for them. Banshees are air to ground only so once voids or mutas come out that rules them out. Ravens are useful somewhat, but not amazing at anything. Vikings get owned by other air units unless you have a lot of them. Thors actually don't do that much damage, and their air attacks are extremely weak. BC's don't have enough DPS to be useful. Bio does good damage vs anything when massed enough, with marauders tanking and softening up heavy units. Marines are a constant stream of lower dps, and that's good when massed too. I just don't think mech is good enough to warrant extreme use of it.
EDIT: So basically what the poster above me said -.- lol.
|
I'd say what is imba with dealing with marines is that we need to achieve some tech or get a units that cost about 100 mineral+25-50gas to deal with the 50 mineral invested in a marine. Idk what if my zergling would need battlecruiser to get countered?
|
Ok I vote for a Marine attack rate decrease!
nobody needs those super powerful marines... marauder massacre armored, hellions fry light units, thors splash kill mass air, vikings kill collossi and armored air...
terran has so many specialized units that IMO the marine needs to be so weak that use of the other units is encouraged.
|
great post, very interesting
|
Its weird because any kind of higher tech splash will own marines, but then again, those higher tech units cost a lot of money and takes long time to get. TvZ has always been marine centric even in sc1, and in sc2, tvp has taken a similar route, albeit with more marauders than in TvZ.
In short, its a super OP unit with a well defined counter. Hard to nerf it because then its a mediocre unit with a well defined counter, and can't buff for obvious reasons.
|
Add a second combat shield upgrade (requires Factory): call it the An Album Cover.
Seriously, though, this OP is eloquently worded and dead on the mark. As a random player who used to main T, I agree completely that Terrans' early-game/late-game balance hassle is due almost entirely to the marine (i.e. it's 'requisite' status and scalability issues). The most intriguing argument, and the one I'd like to see tried first (gogo PTR?), is to slightly increase marine unit size. In any case, it's a change more worth testing than the ridiculous obscenities with which the PTR launched.
|
I don't find any problems with marines, its because the terran late game is broken and not everyone wants to admit that it is broken. If terrans were confident they can have map control and security in the late game then they would feel no need to do risky all ins. The late game counters for zerg and protoss in the late game against terran is very devastating compared to terran late game counters. You can tech switch very easily as we have seen in the GSL from brood lords to ultralisks. PVT is pretty balanced but one problem terrans have against this match up is they can never engage the protoss army head on. Terran is pretty much guerilla fighting in the late game dodging storms and trying to pick off collosi when stalkers/phoenixes aren't around.
What I want to blame really is terran mech is too weak and easily countered leaving terrans to rely on their tier 1 units the most.
But as Day9 said every race has core units that are useful throughout the game and yelling at terran players for producing and utilizing their core unit is stupid.. If you want to see less marines maybe we can bring back reaper speed or something because when reapers existed marine all ins didn't.
|
A lot of very strong arguments in this thread. Terran is forced to do marines because it is simply the best unit overall in the early midish game, mid game usually supported by either tanks or more bio(vP), but the late game prowess of zerg (massive tech switching, 300 food army, etc.) and protoss(collossus + ht / carrier ) just make them waaay less useful, meaning terran late game sucks. Terran is built around the marine too much. While I don't agree with nerfing the marine, ( it creates interesting dynamics), I would certainly buff mech so that that is a viable option as well.
The only thing terran can do right now is mmm or marine mech, and marine mech gets rolled by P pretty hard and is the only thing we can really do vs Z(we need tanks against everything z can do to us)
|
Terran has enough tools early and late game, especially considering the upgrades (stim shield) and the reactor for a 50 mineral unit. I'm sorry, marine is fine throughout the game whereas the other races tier 1 basically falls off in effectiveness as armies get bigger, considering zealot and zergling are melee and do worse vs tiny marines clumped in a ball.
|
On December 09 2010 05:26 Pewt wrote:
Most of the players who are currently all inning with Terran didn't switch to Terran when the current all ins were discovered and many of them didn't all in using old methods. Couldn't you equally say that you'd expect all in players to play Protoss because of 4gate?
No, you could say that players who like all in's pick toss because they can four gate. My point is, people play the race the both feel comfortable with and win with. Since the average Starcraft player is impatient, all ins at this skill level are less cheese and more so what your do at the given "average" skill level. At high skill levels, the players who want to stick to all ins are more likely to pick Terran because the Terran all ins are the strongest as well as numerous, Banshee all in, Marine all in, marauder all in, thor all in and so on.
I was avoiding explaining this because I thought it was implicit given the type of conversation, I apologize for this.
|
Marines are good in the early and mid-game, and get worse in the later game, when the aoe gas units are out. That doesnt mean that terran lategame sucks though. What it means is that a terran that goes into the lategame without transitioning to depend less on marines will suck when faced with the dedicated counters. Terran is built around the marine too much. That is plain wrong, the correct way to say it would be "terrans build around the marine too much".
You CAN use vikings and ghosts to defend against air perfectly fine. And often, building marauders or hellions instead of marines is much better against ground. Marines are a good unit to have, because of how versatile they are, if you have marines, its hard to get caught off guard by a techswitch.
But really, if you go something like marine tank, and your opponent is going for zealot-templar, for example, then yeah, that is going to be pretty good against you. It doesnt mean that you cant fight in the lategame though, it just means that you have to adapt. Scout it early enough, and then switch your buildings around to go hellion ghost instead of marine tank, and with the exact same buildings, you will have much better results.
The marine is not a requisite unit. Terran can fight off any composition without using marines. But that usually requires knowing what your opponent is building through good scouting. marines spend most of the early and mid game being good against everything. That makes them really useful early on. later in the game, your opponent will have specialized, and chosen a techpath that he cant easily or smoothly transition out of. At that exact moment, marines start to be less useful (because your opponent's techpath contains something that can help deal with them). Luckily, terran has lots of specialized counter units to counter any techpath your opponent has chosen. Instead of doing an all-in, and trying t kill him before his tech arrives, you could also just scout, and transition instead of doing the all-in.
Thats a lot more complicated though. Its not amazing that players often choose the all-in.
On the one hand, you can scout at a precise timing for something specific that you know through a lot of practice, and then transition into a different unit mix that will likely require more specialized units, and you will also have needed to practice that transition.
And on the other hand, you can box all of your units, and tell them to attack move.
most players will take the all-in when they can, just because its the easy way out. Most players will take the 90% win right now instead of the 80% win later that could eventually get to 100% win later if they practiced their lategame and transitions enough.
Protoss can 4 gate all in, and does it all the time. zerg cant really all-in in the early or mid-game much, so thats why we dont see it much.
Terran happens to have the easiest all-ins due to the fact that they have no melee combat units, mixing SCVs with marines is just more effective than mixing drones with lings. The all-ins are not here because terrans lack a viable endgame. Instead, terran has a slightly weaker endgame, because due to the much stronger all-ins, it isnt needed for a lot of players to think about the lategame, or practice it.
This thread is a good start. It has the basic components of thinking about the lategame. Players thinking "I rely a lot on the marine in the early and midgame, but they become a lot weaker in the lategame" are halfway there already. Now if instead of thinking "That means marines need to be buffed in the lategame!" or other such nonsense, their train of reflection continued to "How can I keep marines useful in the lategame, or transition smoothly and effectively away from them against specific builds?", then they would be much closer to finding an actual solution.
+ Show Spoiler +Analysis of Jinro Play [GSL 3 Spoiler]
v. Zerg: He creates his main army and takes a favorable position. He then uses a small Marine forces to take out expansions. This actually creates a Mid-Game situation because the Zerg can't move they're entire army out of position. So, the Zerg usually uses a smaller force which results in a smaller battle that Marines excel at and Jinro usually came out on top.
That would be an example of thinking "How can I keep marines useful in the lategame" put into action in a brilliant way, which leads to cool and interesting games, and great results. But if instead the train of thought had been "That means marines need to be buffed in the lategame!" and he had come to post here, then we would never have seen that cool gameplay, and he would have lost, or done an all-in 
Terrans rely too much on marines in the lategame --- You found a weakness in your play. Now come up with a solution to it that involves forcing your opponent to do something, positional play, micro, clever transitioning, getting a macro advantage, or something else that will actually help you improve.
It will be better for everyone, compared to doing an all-in because you dont want to rethink your endgame, and then posting on the forums so the game is adapted to your way of playing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
