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On December 12 2010 22:06 Apolo wrote:
I don't agree on a buff for the marine. When you see a lategame PvT you a lot of times can see the protoss with about 5-6 different units while the terran has the usual MMM. And now you want to buff one of them "because our other units are only good for specifif situations"? That's ridiculous. If the problem is that terran has a lot of units for specific situations, broaden their situations of action. What's the logic behind "we have a unit that's good aggainst almost everything, the others aren't, so instead of changing the others let's buff this one, so we just need to mass them more.
Get grips, if other races have to mix units, so should you. If you are complaining about the importance of the role of the marine and that it needs to be buffed, perhaps you should think that other units should be buffed so they take over the marine. No one needs to play aggainst terrans having always only MMM in their army composition. Boring to watch and play.
@morimacil why do you even bother replying to someone that is arguing that he can't mass a unit because he will be countered? That's the kind of players we have posting here, seriously. No wonder so many ppl voted for a pro strategy only subforum.
Remind me of a similiar thread I made on B net forums but they said I should post it on TL .
They said that people on TL are a bunch of elitist xD .
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I don't agree that marines aren't that strong late game
It's true that marines are easily countered late game BUT
with mules and reactor marines are so cost effective and easily replenish
I mean you can use it for drops or harass since you can afford to lose them
if you trade off army, you can go marines to kill expansions or counter some tier 3 units like ultras/carriers/bc/bl
marines are pretty much the foundation of the terran army
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On December 12 2010 22:06 Apolo wrote:
I don't agree on a buff for the marine. When you see a lategame PvT you a lot of times can see the protoss with about 5-6 different units while the terran has the usual MMM. And now you want to buff one of them "because our other units are only good for specifif situations"? That's ridiculous. If the problem is that terran has a lot of units for specific situations, broaden their situations of action. What's the logic behind "we have a unit that's good aggainst almost everything, the others aren't, so instead of changing the others let's buff this one, so we just need to mass them more.
Get grips, if other races have to mix units, so should you. If you are complaining about the importance of the role of the marine and that it needs to be buffed, perhaps you should think that other units should be buffed so they take over the marine. No one needs to play aggainst terrans having always only MMM in their army composition. Boring to watch and play.
@morimacil why do you even bother replying to someone that is arguing that he can't mass a unit because he will be countered? That's the kind of players we have posting here, seriously. No wonder so many ppl voted for a pro strategy only subforum.
I don't think the OP said straight up that marines sucked lategame and needed a huge buff so they could be massed and a-moved into victory.
He did propose changes to the marine itself, but also hinted at the fact that other units could have their design/roles in a lategame T army changed which would lead into more unit diversity.
This could
1. Should these units surpass the marine in certain roles, give the terran the possibility (and to a certain extent, force him) into having more unit diversity.
2. Should they be designed towards assisting marines, the very fact that those redesigned units would make your lategame army better forces you to get a better unit mix (and, inherently, less marines).
By the way, I play Terran, and I don't like playing MMM against protoss every game from minute 1 all the way to the end.
PS: Thanks a lot to the OP for keeping the OP updated.
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OP, I read your post, and it brings up an interesting point.
You say the marine fills too many roles too efficiently (compared to other Terran options). But, what I thought is, maybe the problem is there are too many roles to be filled.
What I mean is, in SC2 there are so many different units/compositions for each race that you have to be prepared for, and it wasn't that way in BW.
The biggest example is air units. Air units are inherently mobile, excepting extremely open maps with barely any terrain. In BW, there were 2 types of air units: capital ships (BC, Carrier) which were very powerful, but required a significant investment in time and money, and smaller air units that weren't nearly as powerful. They had a significant drawback that kept them from being too formidable as an army, because they are already inherently mobile. The only way they were viable were in large numbers.
ex. If I'm playing a standard ZvT in BW, and suddenly a few wraiths fly into my main and start shooting drones, I make a few scourge and continue playing normally. No big deal. Even a few wraiths with cloak, I just get an overlord over there with my scourge. Again no big deal.
Corsairs are pretty good units; very mobile and fast attack with splash, but they can only hit other air units. Corsairs are good, but unless they're in large numbers, only for scouting and as a deterrant to a muta ball.
Mutas are the strongest of these three, but still weak. In general, mutas were very mobile, and had the best ground attack but worst air attack, but most importantly, they didn't fare well per cost against basically anything that could fight back. In fact, the only reason mutas became a viable standard unit is that Zerg could make 9 of them at once.
The general trend of these 3 units is that they are mobile because they fly, but not very strong against ground units. So there are 2 ways to combat them: either have a stronger air force, or get a reasonable ground force (which is much cheaper, but less mobile, so you may have to deal with harass). A large number of wraiths/mutas/corsairs can be a threat, but that requires a large investment.
The point is, small numbers of "surprise" air units weren't a big deal. This ineffectiveness with "surprise!" units rewarded strong, standard play with basic yet functional unit compositions. This is what people want to see in spectator games, not "oh, player A is making unit X and player B is making unit Y, so player A wins, we just have to wait for the gg."
But now let's look at SC2: If 2 banshees fly into your base and you're not ready for them, "surprise!" you lose, or at least take quite significant damage. Similarly with Void Rays. These units have air mobility, but also have power in small numbers. The two options I mentioned before, for dealing with surprise air units, don't work very well here. In BW, the common response was to get cheap ground units that can shoot up, since they were both (1) easily available, and (2) very efficient cost for cost against air units in BW.
But the banshee and void ray are pretty damn strong against ground units. Sure, they can be killed for less cost, but not nearly as efficiently. And, to use the example again, if 3 wraiths fly into my base in BW, I lose a couple drones and then kill the wraiths with scourge. OTOH, if 3 banshees fly into my base in SC2, even if I have mutas or hydras, I'm losing a lot of shit really fast. And if I have ground units to defend, I better have enough of them, because banshees aren't even that bad against ground units.
The exception, surprisingly, is mutas. 3 mutas flying into your base isn't gonna do much. Only mutas in large numbers actually pose a threat. And at that point, the Zerg player has made a significant investment into that army, which allows a skilled player to try to deal with it more cheaply to gain an advantage.
This turned out pretty long, so I'll summarize:
The overall point I'm trying to make is: what if you didn't have to have anti-air ready at all times to deal with these potential "surprise!" units that are so much stronger now? You could go marine/tank, marine/marauder, or you could go marauder/hellion or tank/hellion. Protoss could make armies that don't have to be based on stalkers, because they don't have to worry about 2 banshees destroying their entire base. It would allow players to come up with solid macro openings without having to worry about every kind of surprise attack there is. (I mean, they still would have to do that, but there would be less to worry about, allowing for more solid standard builds).
Currently, if you have an army composition that doesn't have ample air defense, your opponent needs only to get a few banshees/voidrays, and he can deal significant enough damage to win an engagement or force a rout and gain an advantage. If he continues making more, you'll have a hard time dealing with them, because they are much more mobile than, but not much weaker than the anti-air ground units that are meant to deal with them.
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In BW, marines were only used in TvZ, this is because zerg didn't have too much in the way of AoE attacks except for the lurker, and terran was better off having a unit that could both be mobile to keep up with the zerg army/expansion path, as well as a unit that could defend from mutalisks.
In the other broodwar matchups, marines were easily killed using AoE units like tanks or high templar, and since terrans and protoss had no air units that were effective vs terran early (don't say wraiths, that was very rare), thus mech was used because it was very strong against protoss AoE and was better than marines versus other terran mech.
In SC2, marines are needed to defend against air, and since they are very cost effective, they are used widely between all of the matchups. The problem I guess really is that air is way too effective as an autowin in SC2, that marines are needed.
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Marines are good and needed against air, but at some point during the midgame, it should start to become pretty clear if your opponent is going for mass air or not. By the time you get to the lategame, Most players tend to notice if their opponents are going mass colossus, or mass carrier.
I have yet to see someone going for a mass colossus-carrier army.
Making marines in the early game in case your opponent goes for void rays is a pretty good idea.
30 minutes late, still making marines to fight a colossus army, and claiming that it is needed because your opponent could switch to mass air at any point in time, is just bad.
The problem isnt that marines are needed against air. The problem is that people dont seem to be able to recognize when air is a threat or not. If you are making your lategame army to fight all of the possible army compositions that a lategame protoss could potentially have if left alone for 20 minutes, instead of making your lategame army based on what your opponent is actually making, then that is a problem, but one that has everything to do with you and your playstyle and scouting, and nothing to do with the marine, or any other units.
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no. marines are fine as they are. the foxer rush is easy beaten shure cause everyone except for foxer can't micro em that well..
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The other point is that mech will never be as effective against P as it was in SC1 without mines.
P has way too many things that destroy mech (chargelots, blink stalker, phoenix, immortal) that to supplement your army with ghost would just cripple your mech anyways.
The real reason bio works, and will prove to work is that you have spare gas to spam ghosts and blanket the entire P army in EMP. EMP and stim are basically the only 2 things that T brings to a headon confrontation.
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On December 12 2010 22:38 Krallin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2010 22:06 Apolo wrote:
I don't agree on a buff for the marine. When you see a lategame PvT you a lot of times can see the protoss with about 5-6 different units while the terran has the usual MMM. And now you want to buff one of them "because our other units are only good for specifif situations"? That's ridiculous. If the problem is that terran has a lot of units for specific situations, broaden their situations of action. What's the logic behind "we have a unit that's good aggainst almost everything, the others aren't, so instead of changing the others let's buff this one, so we just need to mass them more.
Get grips, if other races have to mix units, so should you. If you are complaining about the importance of the role of the marine and that it needs to be buffed, perhaps you should think that other units should be buffed so they take over the marine. No one needs to play aggainst terrans having always only MMM in their army composition. Boring to watch and play.
@morimacil why do you even bother replying to someone that is arguing that he can't mass a unit because he will be countered? That's the kind of players we have posting here, seriously. No wonder so many ppl voted for a pro strategy only subforum. I don't think the OP said straight up that marines sucked lategame and needed a huge buff so they could be massed and a-moved into victory. He did propose changes to the marine itself, but also hinted at the fact that other units could have their design/roles in a lategame T army changed which would lead into more unit diversity. This could 1. Should these units surpass the marine in certain roles, give the terran the possibility (and to a certain extent, force him) into having more unit diversity. 2. Should they be designed towards assisting marines, the very fact that those redesigned units would make your lategame army better forces you to get a better unit mix (and, inherently, less marines). By the way, I play Terran, and I don't like playing MMM against protoss every game from minute 1 all the way to the end. PS: Thanks a lot to the OP for keeping the OP updated.
Thank you for taking your time to read the OP =)
On December 12 2010 23:57 Dromar wrote:
OP, I read your post, and it brings up an interesting point.
You say the marine fills too many roles too efficiently (compared to other Terran options). But, what I thought is, maybe the problem is there are too many roles to be filled.
What I mean is, in SC2 there are so many different units/compositions for each race that you have to be prepared for, and it wasn't that way in BW.
The biggest example is air units. Air units are inherently mobile, excepting extremely open maps with barely any terrain. In BW, there were 2 types of air units: capital ships (BC, Carrier) which were very powerful, but required a significant investment in time and money, and smaller air units that weren't nearly as powerful. They had a significant drawback that kept them from being too formidable as an army, because they are already inherently mobile. The only way they were viable were in large numbers.
ex. If I'm playing a standard ZvT in BW, and suddenly a few wraiths fly into my main and start shooting drones, I make a few scourge and continue playing normally. No big deal. Even a few wraiths with cloak, I just get an overlord over there with my scourge. Again no big deal.
Corsairs are pretty good units; very mobile and fast attack with splash, but they can only hit other air units. Corsairs are good, but unless they're in large numbers, only for scouting and as a deterrant to a muta ball.
Mutas are the strongest of these three, but still weak. In general, mutas were very mobile, and had the best ground attack but worst air attack, but most importantly, they didn't fare well per cost against basically anything that could fight back. In fact, the only reason mutas became a viable standard unit is that Zerg could make 9 of them at once.
The general trend of these 3 units is that they are mobile because they fly, but not very strong against ground units. So there are 2 ways to combat them: either have a stronger air force, or get a reasonable ground force (which is much cheaper, but less mobile, so you may have to deal with harass). A large number of wraiths/mutas/corsairs can be a threat, but that requires a large investment.
The point is, small numbers of "surprise" air units weren't a big deal. This ineffectiveness with "surprise!" units rewarded strong, standard play with basic yet functional unit compositions. This is what people want to see in spectator games, not "oh, player A is making unit X and player B is making unit Y, so player A wins, we just have to wait for the gg."
But now let's look at SC2: If 2 banshees fly into your base and you're not ready for them, "surprise!" you lose, or at least take quite significant damage. Similarly with Void Rays. These units have air mobility, but also have power in small numbers. The two options I mentioned before, for dealing with surprise air units, don't work very well here. In BW, the common response was to get cheap ground units that can shoot up, since they were both (1) easily available, and (2) very efficient cost for cost against air units in BW.
But the banshee and void ray are pretty damn strong against ground units. Sure, they can be killed for less cost, but not nearly as efficiently. And, to use the example again, if 3 wraiths fly into my base in BW, I lose a couple drones and then kill the wraiths with scourge. OTOH, if 3 banshees fly into my base in SC2, even if I have mutas or hydras, I'm losing a lot of shit really fast. And if I have ground units to defend, I better have enough of them, because banshees aren't even that bad against ground units.
The exception, surprisingly, is mutas. 3 mutas flying into your base isn't gonna do much. Only mutas in large numbers actually pose a threat. And at that point, the Zerg player has made a significant investment into that army, which allows a skilled player to try to deal with it more cheaply to gain an advantage.
This turned out pretty long, so I'll summarize:
The overall point I'm trying to make is: what if you didn't have to have anti-air ready at all times to deal with these potential "surprise!" units that are so much stronger now? You could go marine/tank, marine/marauder, or you could go marauder/hellion or tank/hellion. Protoss could make armies that don't have to be based on stalkers, because they don't have to worry about 2 banshees destroying their entire base. It would allow players to come up with solid macro openings without having to worry about every kind of surprise attack there is. (I mean, they still would have to do that, but there would be less to worry about, allowing for more solid standard builds).
Currently, if you have an army composition that doesn't have ample air defense, your opponent needs only to get a few banshees/voidrays, and he can deal significant enough damage to win an engagement or force a rout and gain an advantage. If he continues making more, you'll have a hard time dealing with them, because they are much more mobile than, but not much weaker than the anti-air ground units that are meant to deal with them.
That's an interesting point -- SC2 has too many viable army compositions, making it difficult to be prepared for all of the possible scenarios. That is definitely something that affects gameplay in all 6 matchups, not just the Terran ones.
The marine is the best response in the early game to these possibilities while Toss and Zerg have average responses. However, can a T1 response be the only viable response to a threat? Currently, it is the only one Terrans have against these variations. We are, in a sense, forced to use marines throughout the game, no matter what the other side builds. This, in my eyes, is a handicap.
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Imagine toss without stalkers, zerg without lings. Am I correct in thinking the purpose of this thread in saying that the marine is the only unit that is required to make a race work in SC2? You could go maurader hellion viking and be fine, marines are just easier, like how I as protoss could go zealot immortal phoenix, but stalkers are easier.
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Honestly guys I had a ZvT today and it started pretty good my opponent pushed with marines and I just had so many lings ready for this seemingly unevitable thing crushed them and went back to droning.
My opponent just kept coming with marine marauder medivac and I basically only build banes and lings besides like 6 mutas or so. I upgraded and still there were just more and more marine marauder coming and at a certain number it just crushed me....
I am not even saying that MMM is OP but really I am getting so tired of this boring bullshit matchup.
Even if I know what my opponent is doing and I respond fairly well to it by spreading creep getting bane speed and upgrades I just at some point fail to stop the ball because the more there are the less effective the banes get and I at some point just dont have enough anymore.
Attacking the terran is basically completely impossible because of creep the banes beecome even less effective and even if I tech to tier 3 I feel like nothing can really put pressure onto the terran before you dont have creep basically at his base.
I know this is pretty whiney but seriously atm I am so fed up with this match up that I considered just forfeiting whenever I meet a terran. I havent seen anything else from terran besides some kind of banshee cheese which I ussually easily deflect and then the terran just goes back to MMM and attacks me so consitendly that at some point I just break.
Just no fun involved.
Sorry terrans but I hate you^^
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Excellent OP. I wish there were more posts like this one on TL.
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That's an interesting point -- SC2 has too many viable army compositions, making it difficult to be prepared for all of the possible scenarios.
Past the first few minutes of the game, you do NOT have to be prepared for all the possible army compositions that your opponent can make, you just have to scout, and be prepared for the one he is actually making.
Do you really not see that if it was possible to make a terran army that beats every single possible army composition from toss or zerg, that would be incredibly imbalanced? Open your eyes.
No matter what type of army you make, your opponent can beat it, and no matter what type of army he makes, you can beat it. There is no single army composition that beats everything your opponent can throw at you, from templar to collossus to void rays to DTs to carriers. If there was, that would be imbalance at its highest point, and when you are asking for an army that can deal with anything without having to scan, you are dreaming, and being utterly retarded.
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On December 12 2010 23:57 Dromar wrote:
OP, I read your post, and it brings up an interesting point.
You say the marine fills too many roles too efficiently (compared to other Terran options). But, what I thought is, maybe the problem is there are too many roles to be filled.
What I mean is, in SC2 there are so many different units/compositions for each race that you have to be prepared for, and it wasn't that way in BW.
The biggest example is air units. Air units are inherently mobile, excepting extremely open maps with barely any terrain. In BW, there were 2 types of air units: capital ships (BC, Carrier) which were very powerful, but required a significant investment in time and money, and smaller air units that weren't nearly as powerful. They had a significant drawback that kept them from being too formidable as an army, because they are already inherently mobile. The only way they were viable were in large numbers.
ex. If I'm playing a standard ZvT in BW, and suddenly a few wraiths fly into my main and start shooting drones, I make a few scourge and continue playing normally. No big deal. Even a few wraiths with cloak, I just get an overlord over there with my scourge. Again no big deal.
Corsairs are pretty good units; very mobile and fast attack with splash, but they can only hit other air units. Corsairs are good, but unless they're in large numbers, only for scouting and as a deterrant to a muta ball.
Mutas are the strongest of these three, but still weak. In general, mutas were very mobile, and had the best ground attack but worst air attack, but most importantly, they didn't fare well per cost against basically anything that could fight back. In fact, the only reason mutas became a viable standard unit is that Zerg could make 9 of them at once.
The general trend of these 3 units is that they are mobile because they fly, but not very strong against ground units. So there are 2 ways to combat them: either have a stronger air force, or get a reasonable ground force (which is much cheaper, but less mobile, so you may have to deal with harass). A large number of wraiths/mutas/corsairs can be a threat, but that requires a large investment.
The point is, small numbers of "surprise" air units weren't a big deal. This ineffectiveness with "surprise!" units rewarded strong, standard play with basic yet functional unit compositions. This is what people want to see in spectator games, not "oh, player A is making unit X and player B is making unit Y, so player A wins, we just have to wait for the gg."
But now let's look at SC2: If 2 banshees fly into your base and you're not ready for them, "surprise!" you lose, or at least take quite significant damage. Similarly with Void Rays. These units have air mobility, but also have power in small numbers. The two options I mentioned before, for dealing with surprise air units, don't work very well here. In BW, the common response was to get cheap ground units that can shoot up, since they were both (1) easily available, and (2) very efficient cost for cost against air units in BW.
But the banshee and void ray are pretty damn strong against ground units. Sure, they can be killed for less cost, but not nearly as efficiently. And, to use the example again, if 3 wraiths fly into my base in BW, I lose a couple drones and then kill the wraiths with scourge. OTOH, if 3 banshees fly into my base in SC2, even if I have mutas or hydras, I'm losing a lot of shit really fast. And if I have ground units to defend, I better have enough of them, because banshees aren't even that bad against ground units.
The exception, surprisingly, is mutas. 3 mutas flying into your base isn't gonna do much. Only mutas in large numbers actually pose a threat. And at that point, the Zerg player has made a significant investment into that army, which allows a skilled player to try to deal with it more cheaply to gain an advantage.
This turned out pretty long, so I'll summarize:
The overall point I'm trying to make is: what if you didn't have to have anti-air ready at all times to deal with these potential "surprise!" units that are so much stronger now? You could go marine/tank, marine/marauder, or you could go marauder/hellion or tank/hellion. Protoss could make armies that don't have to be based on stalkers, because they don't have to worry about 2 banshees destroying their entire base. It would allow players to come up with solid macro openings without having to worry about every kind of surprise attack there is. (I mean, they still would have to do that, but there would be less to worry about, allowing for more solid standard builds).
Currently, if you have an army composition that doesn't have ample air defense, your opponent needs only to get a few banshees/voidrays, and he can deal significant enough damage to win an engagement or force a rout and gain an advantage. If he continues making more, you'll have a hard time dealing with them, because they are much more mobile than, but not much weaker than the anti-air ground units that are meant to deal with them.
Right on the spot. For example in TvP BW you could go Vulture Tank and if a scout popped out of no where it wouldn't be a big deal. In SC2 Air to Ground is so potent that ill preperation is punished by a lose while in BW it was just a set back.
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Stalkers are the main anti-air, ranged, and tanks for Protoss. They also help stop zealots from getting kited. They are ok early game but as the game progresses they lose to Stim, fast roaches/hydras, Ultras, Colossi, Banshees, Immortals, Speedlings, EMP. FG etc. Since Protoss doesn't have another AA unit and zealots are weaker lategame Protoss is forced to make stalkers for AA and protecting other units. Stalkers scale poorly getting +1 damage on a 1.5s attack. To compare marines get +2-3 dps per upgrade depending on stim. Stalkers are very expensive and require gas while losing to most other units per cost.
If all my stalkers die I lose to any type of units since they protect my colossi or templar. I am extremely dependent on stalkers to protect colossi or other weak slow units. I feel like as the game goes on stalkers become less and less effective and are easily countered by higher tier units. To replace the stalker I would need void rays, phoenix, chargelots, immortals, and archons. The stalker plays the role of tank, harass, AA, and light dps.
Oh and its not good early game nor can it heal. I think the stalker should be buffed overall or nerf the marine, marauder, EMP, roach, hydra, or whatever it takes. I wont make balance suggestions because thats blizzards job
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I agree with the OP, but Protoss are stuck into a similar predicament at this point:
We NEED stalkers, or we lose to air units and/or kiting, as well outlined by the poster above.
On top of that, we also need Robotics Facility for observers (or we lose to cloak). As of this moment, it seems both T and P are forced into particular tech paths that's difficult to stray from.
I'll edit more into this post, going to watch an OSL match.
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On December 13 2010 03:49 confusedcrib wrote:
Imagine toss without stalkers, zerg without lings. Am I correct in thinking the purpose of this thread in saying that the marine is the only unit that is required to make a race work in SC2? You could go maurader hellion viking and be fine, marines are just easier, like how I as protoss could go zealot immortal phoenix, but stalkers are easier.
you could not go marauder hellion viking and be just fine. That build in TvZ is incredibly vulnerable to Mutalisks, mutas win against vikings 1v1, once the vikings are gone they start raining death upon the rest of your army.
Against toss, this would be vulnerable to phonixes for starters, plus something as simple as a Collosus stalker HT build would work well.
Here's the problem, hellions are a good unit, but they have to be microd to be effective, since they have an incredibly low DPS. Vikings are a good unit, but they have low health, and they're only good against aremored units, like carriers and BCs. Marauders are a good unit, but they are vulnerable to the air, and to things like chargelots and speedlings.
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my personal opinion is that marines are fine the way they are, but terrans need to learn how to safely transition into higher techs.
I believe all of this stuff is a result of MMM being 10 billion times more powerful than intended in the beta (note: IN THE BETA!) terrans then found that, "hey, if I go MMM to start off with, and continue with MMM, then the transition from MMM -> more MMM is really really smooth, seamless and safe."
and then they stuck to that way of thinking, eventually leading to the situation where the metagame had accepted terrans to do exactly that, not transition out of MMM (I think I saw a thread a few months back about this very problem) thus leading to a massive amounts of t1-1.5 units that were decimated by t3, but somehow was extremely costefficient vs t2.
an ordinary long game as a result of this (seen from terran):
early: I go MM to apply lots of early pressure to my opponent.
early-mid: he seems to be defending pretty well, which unit can I add to increase the effectiveness of my current army? medivacs!
mid: he is t2, no biggy, if I keep making my MMM I might just win immedietly because he have spent resources teching.
mid-late: uh-oh, he is getting some dangerous t3 units, action all over map! if I stop making my MMM then he will overrun me! there's no way I can tech right now.
late: I'm being pushed back! oh no, panic mode! my bases are mined out! aaaaaaarrrrggghhhhh!
notice something with this timeline, all attention is on what is happening right now, as in RIGHT NOW, it seems like the terran is (almost) going all-in, all game long, no matter which matchup you look at, that is NOT a valid strategy option, I think the meta game will evolve to look something like this instead:
an ordinary long game (seen from terran):
early: I go MM to apply lots of early pressure to my opponent.
early-mid: he seems to be defending pretty well, which unit can I add to increase the effectiveness of my current army? medivacs! also, what will I need later? thors!/tanks/banshees!
mid: he is t2, good thing I prepared for this, what will his next step be? lets get tech to counter accordingly.
mid-late: his first few big t3 units are out, haha, they got killed within 10 seconds, pity I had to sacrifice a little army for my tech, that made my army just about small enough to make the fight vs t1-2 units really even.
late: t3 vs t3, action all over the map! expand! harrass! uh-oh, the final army showdown is coming up this fight will decide the game, Yes! I won! / NOOOO, I lost!
and now I'll discuss how what I have said is relevant to this thread, the OP claims the marine is to all-purpose for its own good, I agree to at least a limited extent, but I honestly believe that when terran metagame is figured out further, when the safe transition timings are found, then t3 units will come into play and fill one or two of the marines roles, thus reducing the need of marines, thus reducing the vulnerability towards AoE, I'm not saying marines will not be needed, but in comparison, zerglings are a lot of dps in a lategame zerg army, given that they are not instantly killed by X unit, is this X unit a unit that specifically counters zerglings? not necessarily, its just a unit that can kill ground units, there are plenty of those, in a lategame situation where this zerg have ultras, broodlords, corruptors and zerglings for support (this zergling support is btw extremely vital), does the opponent get units to counter zerglings? probably not, he has other problems to take care of (namely, ultras and broodlords).
for the same reason, if you get an army mix of banshees, battlecruisers, thors and some MM to support, do you really think he will go for anti-MM units? really? I think not, and as such, the "my marines that I depend on for filling three roles is getting hardcountered" problem instead turns into a "my t3 unit that I depend on for a role is getting hardcountered" (note the difference between three roles and a role, thus making the hardcountering much less severe) which, for the record, is exactly what all other races need to deal with as well.
sorry for the wall of text, but I saw other people having made walls too, so I figured it would be allright as long as I had an honest and (hopefully contributing) opinion.
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To the OP, I hope terrans will really go on to do something else but MMM cant say how much ZvT at it's current state bores me.
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All three races depend on their main base units: MM, zealot/stalker, zergling/roach. All other units are supporting units. This is how Blizz designed it and we just have to live with it.
But with two expansions, I believe we will see units that will take off the burden from the main T1 units, and give more variable play.
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EPT
