StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 12

Flying Firebats could work... The upgrade would be available around the time the Firebat would become useless otherwise. Hm... but then they would come later than the Reapers would I think and with Harrasment: the earlier the better.

 

Then you just end up coming back to my suggestion of giving reapers the flamethrower upgrade at early tier 2.

 

It is a small but important difference. Firebats with jetpacks would be anti infantry first and harrasment secondary. Your suggestion would turn the Harrasment units into suicide jumpers, imho. There are some differences with availability, build mechanic, health, armor, abilities and purpose. I think that Firebats with Jetpacks would work better than Reapers with Flamethrowers, even though I hope none of these two solutions become necessary.

 

Hmmm...i see i'll change that to close range unit then ^_^

 

i do not agree that earlier is better for harassment, too early would throw off the balance of early game, which is very important. killing even 2 workers inside the first 3 minutes will have a huge impact.

apart from the need to research blink, stalkers will also cost more making it harder to get sufficient numbers early to be effective at harassment. another point is that a stalker can only blink to a location within its (or the player's) line of sight, so they wouldn't be able to blink up cliffs without a spotter. all these things suggests the reaper would be able to harass earlier than the stalker.

 

I think that haveing both would be an overload on the units so I say give the repear an ability to use a flame thrower for a short amount of time that way you can counter a oncoming zerg rush and then go make a bas raid. I don't realy like the charges they don't really fit IMO but without them being Anti-building then the banshee takes its place with its spread and IMO worker killer.

 

Since you wanna get Unentschieden, yes there is a difference, which is why I say reaper first and flamethrower later. You just said that you think it's the earlier the better with harassment, I don't know why you changed your mind on that.

But anyway, I think harassment should come first. Keeping reapers as reapers, instead of starting off as firebats, serves to keep the units unique and refreshingly different from before. But also, it would change the way SC is played by having cross-terrain harassment units available very early in the game, which I believe is what Blizzard is pushing.

Frankly, I don't see a dire need for anti-infantry early on. The volume of infantry you can face in early-game is limited. I only suggested the need for Terran to have anti-infantry is because of timing rushes in the first place. Earlier on, you can just use M&Ms according what you scout. If the opponent is betting all on basic tier 1 infantry, you can just play accordingly based on recon. From what I can see, Terran just have too many tools at tier 1 to be unable to defend against infantry. Mass infantry only gets insane at later timings.

Now consider the difference between raiding a base with reapers at tier 1 and tier 2. Reapers would undoubtedly make better use of their cliff jumping at tier 1 to early tier 2, before bases start to get heavily defended and more populated with combat units. Flamethrower coming later would balance things out better in this case as well. You can better utilize the reaper by taking advantage of the jetpack mobility earlier on without having the flames to melt workers too quickly. If it was the other way around, it would either be just too hard to successfully raid bases, or when you actually get reapers into the enemy mineral lines they would do too much damage.

Jetpack first, flamethrower later, IMO is the best scenario where you can maximize the usefulness if the reaper at bother stages in the game. More importantly, these tools are made available at the exact timing in the game when they are most needed and useful.

After giving more thought to the time charge ability, I've concluded that I don't like it at all. Unless it actually works very differently than what I think, I don't think the reaper should have the ability. I think reapers not suffering any damage penalties/reduction against certain unit types or buildings is more than good enough. Mutalisks and vultures of SC1 weren't exactly great at taking down buildings, I don't see why the reaper should. The mobility of the reaper, giving it the ability to raid bases and pull off quick hit-&run tactics is more than enough IMO, I think attacking buildings normally like all the other combat units is more than fine for the reaper.

 

i think each reaper only get a fixed number of D8 charges, like vulture mines, so it wouldn't be too bad. personally i think one D8 per reaper is enough.

 

Maybe I wasn´t clear enough. If I had to choose between Firebats with jumppacks and Reapers with Flamethrowers I would prefer the Firebats. Even better would be imho though the Reapers as they are.

Also I´m convinced that the Charges are the late upgrade. It´s suggested by their backstory. And it makes sense to keep the Charges for later as destroying Buildings during early harrasess woud be too strong. If the Reapers get the Flamethrower the Charges have to go.

You make good points and I don´t contest your logic - but It is also a "style" question for me, to make it short I want the Flamethrower either on the Firebat or not at all. Also maybe I made too many compromises, making me seem to contradict myself... I don´t want the Reapers as proper combat units, and hope that another unit will serve as anti infantry. The Viking seems to fit that role nicely.

I´d be interested what exactly you think about the charges, you did not elaborate on that point. Care to explain please?

 

As I've stated before, if viking ground form took up the anti-infantry role in a clear cut manner, I really wouldn't mind at all. The most important thing isn't "flamethrower," but Terran having a specific anti-infantry unit at least by early tier 2. I posted about this whole issue in the hyperion, but I have been much less active and less involved in discussions lately, so I only brought it up in this thread because of mention of firebats.

I wasn't really trying to point out your contradiction btw Unentschieden, I was just wondering why you went back on your opinion regarding the timing of harassment.

About the time charge, I don't know too much about it, or at least have a good idea how it might work in real games, so I really can't say too much about it. But it just seem like it's not needed for the reaper. Perhaps a different unit, but not our cliff jumping, base raiding, worker raping, yeehaw two-step reapers.

I disagree. High cost per unit has always been the way it was with Protoss. You can't say that the zealot is less effective because it is met with 4 times the number of zerglings at equal cost, that's part of the intentional design. You can't really accurately guage the usefulness of Protoss units compared to other races simpy basing it on cost alone, each Protoss unit is often equivalent to several units of another race.

But that's not the only reason why I disagree with you. The reaper is a specialty tech unit, where as the stalker is an all around ranged support unit that just also happens to have blink. Terran can't afford to just keep pumping reapers as much as they can afford it, but the Protoss can afford to invest heavily into the production of stalkers. Facing a Zerg opponent who teched hard to mutas for instance, if the Terran put a bit too much money into reapers they would get spanked, but the Protoss with a high investment in stalkers wouldn't really have to worry too much about it.

IMO, the stalker would probably be one of the most balanced, versatile, and just down right all-around useful unit in all of SC2. Again just my opinion, but overall the stalker is better than the reaper. At least I think most would agree that at least we're not looking at a 1:1 ratio of stalkers to reapers in terms of worth. So having less stalkers, at least at first availability, doesn't necessarily mean stalkers will be less effective. Since it would require less stalkers to obtain equal effectiveness in the first place.

I'm not sure if what you say about needing a spotter to blink up a cliff is true, I've never heard of this before. Is that what they say in the BlizzCon reports? But even if that was the case, it still doesn't outright tell you that reapers would be better base raiders. Apart from getting inside the enemy base quickly, a very important aspect is how long you can hang around to wreak havoc.

The late vulture never had any terrain crossing capabilities, but it was still one of the best hit-&-run harassment units. All you really need is some form of superior mobility option, be it terrain crossing, blink, crazy speed, or otherwise. The stalker simply would be able to hang in there and stay on the job longer, especially with blink, constantly blinking behind mineral patches or other forms of blockade such as buildings. Even when engaged by enemy combat units, the stalker would fare better. I believe at equal level of micro(high), the stalker with blink would have a much better payoff than the reaper.

One other thing to consider, are the tech paths themselves. The merc haven is a tech option for Terran, but the cybernetics core is natural tech that puts the Protoss at tier 2. Although this doesn't automatically mean disadvantage for the Terran, the merc haven is still a step taken off to the side, while cybernetics core is a part of the natural progression up the Protoss tech tree.

Blink tech is undoubtedly a bit later than the reaper's cliff jumping, which I've already pointed out earlier myself. Reapers automatically come ready with jetpacks after all. However, I do not think that stalkers would fall terribly far behind even with the need to research blink separately. But in any case, it's certainly hard to just simply conclude that reapers will be the more effective base raiders.

 

All I know about the blink mechanic is that it's supposed to be range of sight. I don't know if that means it's line of sight, etc. and I don't think they've made that clear yet.

I agree with you on this one, Remy (big suprise), but this one you probably could have produced a bit smaller of a text wall, lol. Much lube.

Anyway, what you're saying is that even if the Blink tech takes longer, the Stalker will be more effective at raiding simply because of its micro abilities. That and it's a more all-around unit, bulkier, and has a more powerful attack. It's also in the natural lineup for the Protoss. They're going to build stalkers ANYWAY.

Meanwhile the Reaper is a highly specialized unit for the task. Unless, of course, it gets the Flamethrower we're suggesting. Then it's a little more all-around but it's still intended for this purpose. It also costs a lot less and it comes earlier. So technically the Terran are going to have the first chance to put in a punch. We also might want to wait to see if the Reaper has the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

 

@Remy

i wasn't comparing on the overall effectiveness between reapers and stalkers, or even the overall effectiveness in harassment between the two, i was simply saying that if a player choose to, he can get reapers into the enemy base earlier than the stalker, and too early imo. imagine 4 reapers got in your base through the back door within the first 3 minutes, that will be hard to deal with. and might affect the game too much.

 

@ bnechbreaker

Yeah that's true I've got quite a few RTS game's and I set a game of me and a computer (rusher) i had a nice base starting on to the defence's with a few tower's and then this huge ass army just infantry slaughted my defence's then starting going to my base then I brang my little army I was building to it and they just eated my army in 5 second's then they started on my harvester's (they get money) and then I couldn't build anything so I finished a tower then they had some rocket troop's and they killed the tower in 3 second's so I started building some APC's (they have machinegun's) and load a couple of troop's into them and the rocket troop's just devoured the apc's so I tryed everything in my power to do anything and they just kept on flooding and flooding my base so I just gave up because I knew and didn't want to waste more time on that because I will just eventuley loose , so there ya go rushing doe's make alot of the differnce as bnechbreaker said!

 

@ BnechbReaker, first of all, I just noticed that your name is "breaker," I thought it was "reaker" until now.

I don't really see it as a huge problem personally. It's just like any other rush, you scout it out and prepare for it accordingly. I think 4 reapers would hardly be something that will be impossible to deal with. I also think hard teching to reapers would leave the Terran vulnerable early on, so the reward of a successful reaper rush is justified. I think a fast zergling rush, or teching to mutas after fending off the reapers, would leave the Zerg player at an advantage.

Although Blizzard doesn't always make the best choices regarding game design, and there are often unforeseen results, I don't think they placed reaper tech at tier 1 without realizing that it's much lower on the tech tree than what we had in SC1. Like I've said before, since reaper and stalker are both relatively early tech, I think it's part of Blizzard's intentional design for SC2.

 

what worries me is that you might be able to get 4 reapers straight away, now we don't know exactly how it'll work but if you can get them as soon as merc haven is finished, then it might cause a problem. ranged attackers inside your base very early in the game will cause more problems than melee attackers, as workers can't fight back as effectively. the zerglings are going into the enemy knowing they'll die, where as reapers can retreat, reinforce/regroup and carry on haressing, similar to mutas

 

I'm not exactly excited about the Reaper being an "instant" build unit.

It gives me the feeling of the Mercenary buildings from WC3. If they ARE instant build, they'd better be DARNED expensive!

 

@ Breaker(I like calling you Reaker better...), I undertand your concern completely. But I'm still basically giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this one, as it's hard to imagine that they made reapers available that early without thoroughly considering the impact and consequences.

I don't know for sure, but I imagine the merc haven and the reapers themselves would have an associated gas cost, which means first building a refinery and harvesting gas. So I don't think it would be quite as simple as build rax, build haven, GG. Even with a hard tech to reapers, I think you would still be able to get at least one or two well placed sunkens and some zerglings.

 

Exactly: while reapers are fast, cheap and agile, they still require a lot of gas, and have very little health to show for it. Any basic defense will be able to keep Reapers at bay until you get some medium strength ranged units.
Also, to produce any frightening number of Reapers you'll need 2-3 Merc Havens, so it isn't as easy as it seems.

 

And this is from the man who's been there done that just for the record. He went, he saw, he conquered. BlizzCon that is.

 

So what team colours will we have?^^