In Starcraft 1, SK Terran is a strategy that's mainly anti-zerg in which a terran player focuses almost exclusively on building up a marine/medic ball and supporting it with lots of science vessels to spam irradiate, and some dropships. Usually with three or so tanks because they can damage units under dark swarm and can lay siege to lurkers/sunken colonies. The marine ball, using stim packs in conjunction with medics can really pump out a lot of cost effective damage and it is easy to replace marine losses. You can also fully upgrade your marines very quickly and can get an early upgrade advantage on your opponent. In Starcraft 2 I think one could perform a similar strategy with a marine ball backed up by medivacs and nighthawks. I think it will be more useful against other races because hunter seeker missiles could be used to break tank lines or target colossi, and due to the nerfing of psionic storm. One could also mix in some marauders to beef up the ball and be more effective against armored targets such as roaches or hellions. The marines should still be strong enough to defend the terran air units against scourge and such.
I think i'm speaking on behalf of everyone when i say... "What am i supposed to say to this?" And i agree btw... But there's no scourge in SC2..
I dunno what you're supposed to say to it, it's just a strategy speculation. Comment what you feel like saying!
Marines still get owned by siege tanks and psi storms despite the nerfs, so I doubt you'd see a highly marine based army against Protoss and Terran (especially Terran). Marines will probably become the #1 support unit, though, since vultures have been nerfed and goliaths are harder and more costly to produce (and yes, I realise they're called hellions and vikings). My guess is that TvT will remain a tank fest, and TvP will become a mix and match of almost all units.
actually, i think marines will be used alot more often now with maruaders. Since they can be upgraded with more hp.
Ya and with the anti air and cost the strategy will be a bit different but I still think the marauder should get its range hit down to 4 or 5 because they are replacing a unit that is close combat.
But the Marauder and the Firebat have completely different roles, the Firebats role was combined with that of the vulture (minus mine laying) and moved to the Hellion.
I think we will see this, but with hellions as a support unit, as I think the splash will work under dark swarm (which is probably gonna get implented again ), instead of tanks. The missiles will work greatly against ultralisks, just as the SV did. But what about air, muta-stacking sounds great against it now that irridiate is out of the game!?
I don't think the hellion and vulture have much in common. Also I'd say the Thor is the new supergoliath, the viking doesn't really fit that role now that it cant hit air in ground mode. Yeah, I think with dark swarm gone the zerg are going to have a tough time against terran. esp. with all the new terran units.
Marines with shields, stims, u shells and medivacs are now one of the deadliest combinations, especially against Zerg, and you don´t need to waste space on drops for medics, with their upgrades in numbers they will be able to take on tanks and colossi, as long as the medivac is there to heal them
in Starcraft 2, they dont have this upgrade anymore. in every build that people can play the game, the marines couldnt up their range, so basically, they lost a slight increase in range upgrade, for more health upgrade.
About marine range... In Starcraft 1, they had a range of 4 which could be upgraded to 5 at an academy by researching U-238 Shells. In Starcraft 2, they have consistently had a starting range of 5 and no option to upgrade range. There is some chance this will change before release. So unless they make a decision to change it, it looks like they're pretty much getting the range upgrade for free.
hmm, I thought Marines in Starcraft 1 started with the range of 5 and with the upgrade have an range of 6, guess i was slightly off on that, oh well. hmm having the range as if they were already upgrade could slightly change the first few battles between Marines and Zerglings/Zealots in Starcraft 2.
