[G] Roaches vs Marines in 1.1.2

Before the range of roaches was increased I made this test to see if roaches were a good counter to marines: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=147849

In most cases they weren't. The conclusion still stands, early-mid game zerg is a lot better off with banelings against giant marine balls. Here's the new data:

You'll notice this time around that unupgraded marines are infact bad against roaches. Once the terran has combat shield there's a clear break even point at 4 roaches. Once the terran has stim and shields it's at 2 roaches (an almost irrelevant statistic, it'll always be more marines and roaches by this time). So in the very early game roaches work ok, but once the mules finish a few cycles, you better have banelings or infestors. Another thing to note is that speed roaches don't fair much better at all.

Things I didn't test were burrow roaches and armor/damage upgrades so theory craft follows. Perfect burrow micro can completely break this graph in favor of roaches by hiding hurt roaches and avoiding the walk in to range which favors marines. 3/3 upgrades would also favor roaches because marines go from 5 damage per hit to 5 damage per hit (marine damage upgrade is perfectly negated by roach armor upgrade) while roaches go from 16 to 19 damage per hit against a 3/3 marine.

The replay with the testing: http://replayfu.com/r/GFVxVf

ChickenLips October 31 2010 01:13. Posts 2913

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I dont think it makes a lot of sense to compare anything non-splash to stim marines, because there simply isn't anything that is cost-effective vs them. Once Terrans learn how to spread their marines P and Z are gonna be in for a lot of trouble.

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Perscienter Germany. October 31 2010 01:19. Posts 890

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I would have liked to see a chart concerning marines just with stim. Probably the roaches will already lose that.

On October 31 2010 01:13 ChickenLips wrote:
I dont think it makes a lot of sense to compare anything non-splash to stim marines, because there simply isn't anything that is cost-effective vs them. Once Terrans learn how to spread their marines P and Z are gonna be in for a lot of trouble.

Nothing is cost-effective against them? What about zealots and psionic storm? What about fungal growth and banelings?

orotoss United States. October 31 2010 01:23. Posts 298

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Thanks for the info, always love me some theorycrafting.

Since you rarely see marines without at least a few marauders, roaches are probably even worse than this table shows.

This.

Ever since colossi, banelings, infestors, and tanks became standard units, I have been wondering why pros aren't finding ways to exploit the splash damage by spreading out their units. We have already figured out the magic box for mutas. Once someone finds an efficient way to scatter ground units without needing 500 apm, marines are going to rape everything.

BLARRGHGHH

orotoss United States. October 31 2010 01:24. Posts 298

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On October 31 2010 01:19 Perscienter wrote:
I would have liked to see a chart concerning marines just with stim. Probably the roaches will already lose that.

Show nested quote +

Nothing is cost-effective against them? What about zealots and psionic storm? What about fungal growth and banelings?

Well in his post he clearly said there is no "non-splash" cost-effective counter. And he also was talking about spreading units, which would nullify the usefulness of storm/fungal/banelings.

BLARRGHGHH

sikyon Canada. October 31 2010 01:25. Posts 1045

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On October 31 2010 01:19 Perscienter wrote:
I would have liked to see a chart concerning marines just with stim. Probably the roaches will already lose that.

Show nested quote +

Nothing is cost-effective against them? What about zealots and psionic storm? What about fungal growth and banelings?

He means anything in a straight up fight without using splash. And zealots do die to marines with stim if you get enough marines, they will mow the zealots down before they can do substantial damage (and kite chargealots)

Jeffbelittle United States. October 31 2010 01:30. Posts 468

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So wait, let me get this straight:

Zerglings will die to marines in large numbers due to lack of surrounding and concavity
Banelings will die to marines once they reach critical mass
Roaches will die to marines if their upgraded with standard, non-EBay upgrades
Hydralisks will die to marines in decent numbers
Mutalisks will die to marines going face to face

Seems like marines really put a beating on Zerg as a whole. Maybe I missed something though. Like I didn't account for baneling wrecking marines with proper infestor combination.

Tef Sweden. October 31 2010 01:36. Posts 443

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You seem to forget that both mutas, speedlings and roaches counter spread out marines.

Dont fuck up, dont fuck yourself

Perscienter Germany. October 31 2010 01:37. Posts 890

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Marines are weak. Try to spread them when you engage the second or third at steppes of war. Open, wide fields are not that common in sc2.

LeibSaiLeib October 31 2010 01:42. Posts 173

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pros do spread, but it takes quiet a bit of apm to do that, so they use it to macro more marines instead, and they do spread occasionally, NaDa did, seemingly enought benelings to kill all his marines killed very little because of good spread and he won

ChickenLips October 31 2010 01:42. Posts 2913

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On October 31 2010 01:36 Tef wrote:

Show nested quote +

You seem to forget that both mutas, speedlings and roaches counter spread out marines.

No. If you account for the gas cost of roaches and mutas, pure marines rapes the heck out of that mix. Test it yourself. Nothing beats stim marines in a straight-up fight because they have no overkill and stim makes them fire TWICE as fast.

Zealots do not counter marines at all if you only mix in 4 marauders for their concussive and micro your marines in big chunks + play in a positionally smart manner. (i.e. dont micro until a zealot touches a part of your army, then micro the third that is closest to zealots back, while maximizing the time the stim-marines auto-fire with 0 overkill) I've killed many a Protoss that tried to go Zealot Sentry against my 8 minute heavy marine MMM push.

On October 31 2010 01:42 LeibSaiLeib wrote:
pros do spread, but it takes quiet a bit of apm to do that, so they use it to macro more marines instead, and they do spread occasionally, NaDa did, seemingly enought benelings to kill all his marines killed very little because of good spread and he won

Leenock threw that game away so hardcore. NaDa put his marines in front of his thors and then went on the tiny ramp to Leenocks natural. Any good Zerg would have butt-raped that move since the marines cant run away. However Leenocks fed his banelings to his stim-ball bit by bit until not enough banelings were remaining. The 5 that attacked the ball on the ramp quickly got taken out by stim auto-fire.

Last edit: 2010-10-31 01:44:28

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Panoptic United Kingdom. October 31 2010 01:42. Posts 515

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On October 31 2010 01:30 Jeffbelittle wrote:
So wait, let me get this straight:

Zerglings will die to marines in large numbers due to lack of surrounding and concavity
Banelings will die to marines once they reach critical mass
Roaches will die to marines if their upgraded with standard, non-EBay upgrades
Hydralisks will die to marines in decent numbers
Mutalisks will die to marines going face to face

Seems like marines really put a beating on Zerg as a whole. Maybe I missed something though. Like I didn't account for baneling wrecking marines with proper infestor combination.

Most certainly not.

"Crom laughs at your four winds!"

LeibSaiLeib October 31 2010 01:47. Posts 173

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On October 31 2010 01:42 Panoptic wrote:

Show nested quote +

Most certainly not.

benelings offcreep will die to microed marines, dosent matter the number...

and on creep you can kill alot of benes before your marines die, stim and studder steping for the win

Panoptic United Kingdom. October 31 2010 01:51. Posts 515

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On October 31 2010 01:47 LeibSaiLeib wrote:

Show nested quote +

benelings offcreep will die to microed marines, dosent matter the number...

and on creep you can kill alot of benes before your marines die, stim and studder steping for the win

But realistically...if you go and watch tons of high level games, banes rape marines plenty of times. I don't buy it.

"Crom laughs at your four winds!"

LeibSaiLeib October 31 2010 01:54. Posts 173

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On October 31 2010 01:51 Panoptic wrote:

Show nested quote +

But realistically...if you go and watch tons of high level games, banes rape marines plenty of times. I don't buy it.

true, i was talking ideally, ive seen very few microed studder stepping marines vs benes(it works, but seen it rarely), its just not worth the micro/time, since if your doing that, it probably means rest of your army is allready dead.

Endorsed Netherlands. October 31 2010 01:55. Posts 1221

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On October 31 2010 01:47 LeibSaiLeib wrote:

Show nested quote +

benelings offcreep will die to microed marines, dosent matter the number...

and on creep you can kill alot of benes before your marines die, stim and studder steping for the win

Do you just forgot to upgrade speed for the banelings? You can't micro marines vs banelings on creep without marauder support. Or you need to have like 500 APM to micro every single marine away from eachother lol. Also banelings are only half a supply

Last edit: 2010-10-31 01:56:05

Ganondorf Italy. October 31 2010 01:55. Posts 593

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Given the unit's size, it depends on the formation.You can pack more marines in the first line than roaches, so it comes down to micro and positioning.

I don't know if any human being has the apm to micro a critical mass of marines vs banelings perfectly. Also any obstacles on the map make this even more difficult. Ah yeah edit: moving marines means the critical mass to oneshot banelings is lost, because they run and can't focus fire effectively: they run in different directions spreading out, so only a few banelings stay in range.

Last edit: 2010-10-31 02:07:51

xZiGGY United Kingdom. October 31 2010 01:57. Posts 780

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not testing cara 1? ;/

Meh.

Panoptic United Kingdom. October 31 2010 02:00. Posts 515

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On October 31 2010 01:57 xZiGGY wrote:
not testing cara 1? ;/

I'd bet it makes a huge difference.

"Crom laughs at your four winds!"

superstartran United States. October 31 2010 02:12. Posts 1307

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On October 31 2010 01:19 Perscienter wrote:
I would have liked to see a chart concerning marines just with stim. Probably the roaches will already lose that.

Show nested quote +

Nothing is cost-effective against them? What about zealots and psionic storm? What about fungal growth and banelings?

Z has no cost effective counter to Marines. This has always been the case even in BW. If the T player constantly attacks you with well timed infantry attacks and doesn't let you hit critical mass, you will have a tough time dealing with Marines simply because you are spending larave/gas on troops on a limited 2 bases, since there's no way you can saturate the 3rd without dying.

Why do you think every T all of a sudden went to Marine/Tank now?

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