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Haven't seen a thread for this yet, aside from the one I made that has a basic overview of terran. I'm not sure what tag to use, so I'll leave it as 'idea'.
Costing 100 minerals and 200 gas, this baby is expensive, especially in the early stages of the game when gas is such a precious resource for terrans. Requiring starport + tech lab, that makes it cost even more. Is it worth the cost? In some cases it won't be, especially if your build revolves around heavy gas already, but squeezing out one or two of these puppies can make or break the composition of your army.
Onto their abilities. First off you have the Auto-Turret, costing 50 energy and being available once your Raven pops out. This little thing will be a very nice harassing tool and pushing tool, as it attacks quite fast doing 8 damage and 6 range, and it attacks both air and ground. My experience so far is once you use the other two Raven spells, spending the rest of your energy on a turret is definitely worthwhile. I would say it's the weaker of the three spells, but considering they are all really good that isn't a bad thing.
Next is the Point Defense Drone, costing 100 energy. When you cast it, a floating drone appears with 200 energy and when a unit it counters fires a projectile, it will shoot that projectile for 10 energy, thus negating the attack all together. My memory is slightly fuzzy but I know it works vs. Marauders, Thors, Vikings, Battlecruisers, Turrets, Stalkers, Phoenixes, Photon Cannons, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Corrupters and Spores. There might be a few I'm missing, but that's most of them. It's very, very handy, and would easily be the best spell for terran if it wasn't for the last ability, the Seeker Missile.
Seeker Missiles are a bit harder to justify getting, because you need a fusion core (150gas) and have to research it (150 gas). So if you can get up your expansion and grab the double gas early, get this ability ASAP. It costs 125 energy, so you can only shoot one per Raven, but that's okay. The missile will seek the target, moving rather slow but once it gets within range (A few unit spaces, I'm not sure exactly how close) it will go faster and zoom into the target, doing 100 aoe damage. Doesn't sound like a lot? Well, it is. 100 AOE damage is HUGE, especially when you cast three or four of them, you can absolutely demolish any unit, ground or air, that comes at you in bulk. If a unit is fast enough it can dodge it by running, but in the heat of battle that's hard to do. It's easily the best spell available for terran, the only problem is researching it, because it is so gas heavy.
I've used Ravens in all three match-ups, not as much in TvT but definitely in TvP and TvZ. TvZ, the missile is so amazing. I'll paint a picture with a game I had. Going for a fast expansion into 3 port viking/banshee/raven, the zerg responded by going mass mutalisks. I'll say he wasn't very good, but that's not the point. Point being, about 10 vikings and 4 ravens were able to take down a group of 20-25 mutalisks in a few seconds. Two missiles hitting into a grouped mutalisks absolutely destroys them. The person I was playing just said WTF while I cleaned up his base with the banshees.
Missile is also good in TvP coupled with an EMP from a ghost. Emp -> missile and watch the protoss units explode. It's really effective for sniping high templar if you can get close enough to target them, because they die so fast. But the missile isn't as good as the point defense drone in the match up, because negating the damage from stalkers can be a huge, huge, huge way to turn the fight into your favor easily. Laying down six or seven of those puppies will make the stalkers blink away in shame.
Onto the purpose of this thread. What uses have you found the Raven in each matchup? Has it turned the game around for you from the jaws of defeat? Do zerg users feel the missile is a bit too strong? Make this an open discussion about Ravens and any use you can find with them. If you want me to test out a build with them, I will gladly do so, because I love Ravens, very, very much.
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you are my favorite sc2 poster. keep up the good work. ill be happy to comment once my blizzcon 08 key yields a download email from blizz
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I have used them in TvT a couple times to get rid of tanks and in general for mobile detection when DT, burrow units and such are out and I need to push. Specifically, mostly Seeker missles but after casting one I've used a bunch of turrets to try to friendly fire enemy tanks, and of course do damage if they don't get instantly destroyed.
Like the ghost, I'm sure even though it will take getting used to, both will become staple units.
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so wat ur saying is that Ravens have airborne reaver shots + a mobile defiler dark swarm spell + a cheap automated sentry guns? considering its teching gas requirement and heavy gas cost, its well worth it, but how would u fit it into ur main army with the limited gas u have is the real question.
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On February 22 2010 21:52 Shizuru~ wrote: so wat ur saying is that Ravens have airborne reaver shots + a mobile defiler dark swarm spell + a cheap automated sentry guns? considering its teching gas requirement and heavy gas cost, its well worth it, but how would u fit it into ur main army with the limited gas u have is the real question. early game, making the decision between a raven and another gas unit is a hard choice. once you get expansions going and have more gas to play with, i'd get a raven over say a siege tank, they have more potential effectiveness.
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I was going to create a post requesting a replay with heavy raven use, but decided not to. Since you bring the point up i would like to request any replays you have where you may have significantly used them. I am fairly interested in the unit but ive seen almost nobody use it other than just 1 for sensor.
-thanks
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Have a quick qestion. Can you tell which unit is being targeted by the seeker missile? Like is there some marker or something? Or is there really no way to tell except by the direction the missile's traveling in?
Because if there's no marker or anything then the seeker missile could be extraordinarily useful in large clashes where it's hard to pick out individual units to have them run away.
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Think the staple for T v Z might become M/M/M/R. (Marine/Marauder/Medivac/Raven) Getting Raven early game, like SK-Terraneque type early game is near impossible with the gas required for an ample amount of Marauder and Medivacs. I'd say having 2 up by the time your second expansion is saturated is a must.
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I usually end up making 1 raven for detection and then throw down turrets in all cases. The Turrets have I believe 150 HP and cost 1/2 that of the PD Drone, so if two soak up 300 dmg, thats better than the PD Drone in addition to dealing some minor damage.
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great writeup they are pretty gas heavy but seem to be the answer to TvZ late-game when zerg got so much bunched units.
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There have been so many Terran players complaining about how mutalisks are overpowered, how Terran doesn't have any counters, etc...
It's about time someone posted something on the seeker missile! It seems like the missile, just like irradiate, can instantly shut down mutalisk harass.
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I've always loved the sound of the Raven, but somehow I'd completely overlooked the point defence drone ability when reading up. Holy shit that sounds so awesome. Can't wait to play this game. Nice post btw, keep em coming. For someone without beta and no hope in hell of playing before I get a new computer these types of threads are like crack, if I can't play it yet, I'll just read all the threads about it.
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I have recently been experimenting with a TVZ raven rush. I can have 2 ravens in the game at 7:12 and 3 at 7:57. I have found that with an early wall off on many maps it's actually quite viable. The premise is that ravens are low minerals high gas. While marines are only minerals. So the build starts out with a wall off, fast tech to ravens, then marine spam for 4-5 rax. Ravens auto turrets are surprisingly strong, and if you tech after approx 3 or 4 ravens to Heat Seeking missle you can decimate armies with just marines + a few missles. I love flying behind a mineral line and dropping literally 10 turrets from only 3 ravens. It keeps their armies low because these FREE turrets weak havoc. They can have their armor upgraded with building armor so they have 3 armor, 150 hp and attack as fast as marines but at 8 damage each. The point defense drones make it so every time you harass with ravens you're guaranteed to leave alive, these things keep your ravens alive from just about anything. Meanwhile, you can expand and spam marines and just move out with 50+ marines pretty early because you have no mineral drain outside of them and all your gas goes into ravens.
I am by no means pro however, so maybe it's just a gimmic that works against people who aren't pros. But I am consistently in the top of gold league soon hoping to move up to platinum and it has become a pretty standard build for me against zerg at that level.
I think auto turrets are exceptionally good and people do not understand how insanely good they are. By Mid game you can have 10-15 ravens and nothing on zerg can stop them. Corruptors can't hit the, mutas can't hit them, hydras can't hit them b/c of point defense, while your heat seeking missles eat them alive combined with marines which are ALSO protected by point defense.
I wrote an article on this build last July when I played an alpha version of the game in Cologne saying they were incredible, and once again they still are. Try it for yourself.
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Now that I think of it I think I could actually improve the speed of my build. I will try again when I get back from class and post the results here. Keep in mind. You can have ravens out before or around the same time mutas hit your base. So point defense drone + missle turret = no muta harass.
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You'll need to find a viable strategy to achieve this, though.
I think the best builds to transition into heavy Raven use would be either a "Biking" build (Banshee + Viking, get it? :D) or an M&M build (Marine + Medivac; NOT Marauder), due to them already making use of the Starport. The Biking build would be too gas intensive to effectively use Ravens, I would think (And there's also the part where only Hydras can hard counter the build). The M&M w/ Marines, however, would work nicely; you shouldn't be using too much gas. The reason you wouldn't use Marauders is just to save Gas XD
Grabbing a Rax w/ Core ASAP to mass Marines in the beginning, while saving up to get a Fac (Building a Tech Lab onto the Fac). Once the Starport is done, you can simply move the Starport so it claims the Lab (Building the Lab while you don't have the Starport means earlier Lab).
Of course, any type of rush will murder you. :/
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I only wish the missil upgrade was a little cheaper on the gas. As it is so far, it looks as if you get this one missile by the time you spend all this gas.
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The Seeker Missile actually saved me today. Blew up a bunch of hydra/lings/banelings when he committed and I walked away with the win. Expensive but awesome.
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On February 23 2010 07:01 Zeke50100 wrote: You'll need to find a viable strategy to achieve this, though.
I think the best builds to transition into heavy Raven use would be either a "Biking" build (Banshee + Viking, get it? :D) or an M&M build (Marine + Medivac; NOT Marauder), due to them already making use of the Starport. The Biking build would be too gas intensive to effectively use Ravens, I would think (And there's also the part where only Hydras can hard counter the build). The M&M w/ Marines, however, would work nicely; you shouldn't be using too much gas. The reason you wouldn't use Marauders is just to save Gas XD
Grabbing a Rax w/ Core ASAP to mass Marines in the beginning, while saving up to get a Fac (Building a Tech Lab onto the Fac). Once the Starport is done, you can simply move the Starport so it claims the Lab (Building the Lab while you don't have the Starport means earlier Lab).
Of course, any type of rush will murder you. :/
Marines, especially with the amount a reactor will give you, can stop an early rush with a wall.
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The raven Vs muta idea is priceless. Terrans have been having a very difficult time with vikings as anti muta...cause well alone they dont work.
But if one can get off a missle or two (just like how irradiate flat ended muta harass in sc1) muta harass would end quickly.
People are learning.
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Yes! I've been waiting for someone to unleash this high tier terran caster. Can you upload a replay or a vod so we can see it in action?
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