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#Post#: 1398--------------------------------------------------
Comparing t1 and t2 non-marine Terran units
By: deorai037 Date: December 18, 2020, 11:23 pm
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Regarding the non-marine Terran units, I think that there could
be a clearer sense of how they play into the broader design
philosophy of the game.
I'll begin by looking at the units that work and feel the
best...
Tier 1 Alternatives: Reapers and Shock Troopers
We don't talk about reapers and shock troopers very much, but I
think it's because overall, they're in a really great place.
When it comes to early game Terran options, are there any really
serious complaints about them? Let's look into why that is.
Availability
Both reapers and shock troopers are available at the start of
the game, although the sniping functionality of shock troopers
is locked behind a 150 gas cost (100 for armory, 50 for
upgrade). This encourages players to try out both immediately.
Early Objectives
In the early game, the primary objective for Terran players is
to secure as much eco as they can so they can go into mid/late
game with a really powerful force. As a result, even if reapers
and shock troopers don't scale into the mid/late game, because
they enable so much economic expansion (whether it's taking
extra gases, taking inside gas quickly, or just holding on to
outside gases under pressure), the potential payoff of these
units is huge.
Micro
A huge part of why reapers and shocks feel so good to use is
because both units are generally fun and rewarding to micro.
Reapers are fast and their jetpack spell lets you escape early
threats to live another day. They're like teeny tiny little
blink stalkers you get to mess with right off the bat. Shock
troopers give Terran players legitimate ways to respond to Zerg
micro threats, with the AOE clear for packed early units and a
nuke to snipe key targets like infestors or spines.
Clear Strengths/Weaknesses
Compared to marines, both reapers and shocks represent immediate
and viable strategic choices with distinct strengths and
weaknesses.
T1 marines start off as really weak units, with their main
advantage over reapers or shock troopers being their single
target DPS, long range, and their ability to scale into mid
game. By the end of the early game, upgraded T1 marines become a
powerful and the mainstay of any proper defense, largely
rendering reapers and shock troopers irrelevant.
Reapers excel in enabling early greed from Terrans, by breaking
rocks, opening up new geysers, defending faraway geysers (and
claiming larger territory before walls), and providing a bit of
energy-free DPS. They're also ideal for reinforcing allies who
are under heavy pressure, which further enables your own greed
(i.e., if an ally is able to hold two gases with help from your
reapers, that means less pressure coming to your own base). As a
trade off, they're weak against massed units, early sustained
pressure, and don't scale at all into the mid game, instead
turning into an outright liability.
Shock troopers perform a similar role in a vastly different
manner. Namely, while they don't enable explosive economic
growth like reapers do, they instead enable players to hold
existing gas geysers and territory while under pressure. They
provide Terrans with a very strong response to early Zerg
threats like infestor spam or medium/heavy unit-based pressure
before marines are able to come online, allowing them to hold on
to at least the initial two gases. As a trade off, they carry a
high cost: one shock trooper costs as much vespene as a fruit
farm, and often needs at least one generator upgrade to maintain
their energy costs. So, building them when under low pressure is
generally a poor investment. They also don't scale too well into
the mid/late game, although they don't fall off quite as hard as
you can still snipe targets or thin out dense roach waves with
their spells.
Synergies and Alternatives
Both reapers and shocks are flexible enough to both synergize
with or even replace an early game t1 marine army, and in doing
so, they add a ton of variety to the earliest stages of play. If
you want to just build a handful of reapers to expand and one or
two shock troopers just in case an f2 wave heads your way while
you wait for your t1 marines to come online, then that's fine.
If you want to snipe spines with shock troopers while pushing
down spawners with your reapers at the 8 minute mark, that's
another viable way to play that might snag you some extra gas
and slow down Zerg eco. Or you have some reapers push down
spawners while your marines hold back the units; there's just a
lot of ways to mix and match all of the t1 units early on.
Summary of t1 units
Between being fun to micro, immediately useful and rewarding,
having clear strengths/weaknesses, and both complementing and
yet providing alternatives to t1 marines, reapers and shock
troopers are a really clear winner as far as design goes.
However, things stop looking so nice when we move to t2 terran
units...
Tier 2 Alternatives: Firebats and Italis?
This is where opinions begin to clash, especially with the
recent nerf to firebats (and the overall dislike of Italises
when it comes to aggressive playstyles; why Italis when you
could just ion the big spines and enable hive push hmm? hmmm?)
Availability
Firebats used to be locked behind chem plants, but are now
available immediately with t2 tech. Italises are also available
after t2 tech, but realistically are locked behind their massive
initial energy cost.
Midgame Objectives
By the midgame, Terran players should have a fairly clear
picture of what's going on with the Zerg economy, and where they
are relative to each other. If the Zerg players are overspent
and the Terrans have been forced to turtle, then ion is likely
the best way forward (as Terrans should definitely be able to
ion Zerg to death faster than the Zerg can grab turtle-breaking
units on low eco). If the Zerg players have robust eco and the
Terrans are also on strong eco, then the Terrans should plan to
push down large spines and force Zerg to high ground (and
effectively winning the game for Terran). In other words, if
Terrans are building units at this point, they are likely
looking to end the game, or are otherwise going to focus on
transitioning to a late game army.
Micro
Firebats have little to no micro beyond "are they in front of
your marines?" Likewise, Italises lack micro beyond clicking on
the target that you want them to focus. Neither have spells that
are useful in combat, although the ability for Italises to
teleport to buildings and reinforce locations is useful.
Strengths/Weaknesses
It's really hard to get a sense of the strengths and weaknesses
of both firebats and Italises. Both blur the lines between
tiers, and so they occupy a really strange place in relation to
t2 marines.
Firebats, ostensibly, should be strong against early masses of
units, and should, with the proposed buffs, be tanky enough to
take a few hits. However, they blur the line between tier 2 and
tier 1.5, and frankly don't offer significant advantages over
buying an upgraded vet. Their damage is really low and they
carry a significant mineral and energy cost. They come a bit too
late to meaningfully support t1 marine pushes and I just can't
see them being too useful in t2 marine pushes. For base defense,
it might even be better to grab a few much-derided sentries over
buying firebats, given the already high energy cost per shot.
Italises are essentially t3 units, and excel at their role of
sniping down infestor units from a long range. Although their
primary use is defensive, bold players will use Italises,
guarded by a ball of t2 marines, to slowly wear down big spines
from a distance, forcing the Zerg player to spend transfuses or
attempt to engage the t2 marines outside of the spine's range.
Italises are core to any ultra-late game defence, as their
energy-free shots allow players to save energy in the long run.
For drawbacks, Italises are largely limited by their incredibly
high opportunity cost and low numbers; building an italis when
there are no infestor units in play and no units capable of
breaking a turtle (if the Terran player is engaging in high
ground defense) only buys the Zerg player time in an ion-based
strat.
Synergies and Alternatives
Neither firebats nor Italises serve as outright alternatives to
t2 marines when it comes to aggressive strategies. You are not
going to be able to do a mass Italis pushdown in the midgame,
unless the Zerg is literally brand new or AFK. Firebats can tank
and can stave off waves of weaker units, but they otherwise are
completely useless now against buildings.
When it comes to defensive strategies, both units might serve as
viable alternatives to t2 marines. We've all seen the "one
Italis defends while someone turtles for ion" strat, no
explanation needed for that. A handful of firebats could be
helpful for defending long stretches of walls, but honestly,
investing the cost of a few firebats' worth of gas into
fortifications and energy upgrades is probably more useful.
Both firebats and Italises have weaker synergies in an
out-of-base army composition. As mentioned before, firebats
might synergize okay with t1 marines who are extremely fragile
and could use their tankiness, but by the time t2 marines roll
around, firebats represent a lot of lost DPS without too much to
make up for it (iirc, 200 hp firebat will die in two hits, the
same as a t2 marine). Italises can help snipe useful targets,
but losing an Italis is a devastating waste of energy.
Discussion of t2 unit issues
There are a lot of problems with firebats and Italises, compared
to the design of t1 units. They don't require that much micro,
and so they limit opportunities to express player skill and
aren't that enjoyable to use. They also fit very awkwardly into
the Terran tech tree; firebats aren't really strong enough to
meaningfully buy time for t2 to come out, but don't come early
enough to support t1 units, while Italises are severely limited
in supply.
Moreover, both firebats and Italises carry substantially higher
opportunity costs compared to reapers and shock troopers. While
the costs and lack of scaling for reapers and shock troopers
could be justified by the potential economic and territorial
gains they could provide (which also aligns with the objectives
of the early game), firebats and Italises largely represent
fewer t2 marines or fewer ions, which slows down the achievement
of mid and late game objectives.
I don't have any concrete suggestions as to what can be done for
t2 units, but I believe that thinking about the strengths of t1
unit design might help spark some ideas regarding what to do
about t2 units.
#Post#: 1399--------------------------------------------------
Re: Comparing t1 and t2 non-marine Terran units
By: Hecari Date: December 19, 2020, 4:35 am
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I agree with this analysis of units, and I would love to see
more interesting alternative strategies for T2 units. One
personal rumination I've had recently is it might be fun for
Terran to have some sort of skirmish unit, one capable of
harassing Zerg from multiple angles to draw attention, without
committing to an all out serious push. Currently, pushes are
full commitments with high risk and high reward, and such
skirmishes would ideally be low risk low reward but a consistent
drain on Zerg's APM resources. Small balls of marines are likely
to be caught out and killed, but large balls of marines can more
or less only attack from the front unless massive damage has
been dealt already. Such a skirmish unit need to have high
mobility and survivability, able to deal impactful damage to
buildings, and able to hold its own against small numbers of
Zerg, but it cannot also have better straightforward pushing
power than regular marines. The Italis can somewhat fill this
niche with its long range, which is capable of sniping large
spine crawlers, and its teleport ability, which is capable of
(sometimes) saving it from incoming enemies. However, the Italis
has too high a cost, is also very strong on the defense, has a
long teleport cooldown, and largely generally just fills a
different role. Reapers can also somewhat fill this role as it
has building demolishing power and survivability, but any amount
of roaches shuts them down immediately, and they simply do not
scale past early game. My personal mental image of such a unit
would be maybe a mobile melee unit of some sort, perhaps with
some spellcasting ability, but who knows.
On a completely different note, I would like to play devil's
advocate here: why do we need alternatives for T2 marines at
all? Strategic diversity may not be a plus from some points of
view, and there is a certain appeal to straightforwardness.
#Post#: 1400--------------------------------------------------
Re: Comparing t1 and t2 non-marine Terran units
By: Speed Date: December 19, 2020, 4:36 am
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Finally a quality post again, been a while since I read one.
Thanky you.
I think firebats might be fine once they get the proposed buff
to have 400 / 500 HP after upgrade, they will be distinctively
more tanky than marines and because they are bigger, they will
be less prone to splash damage. So I think they'll be a useful
tool for players who don't want to rely on microing marines
forward, while zerg can still kinda counter it by re-targeting
spine.
Regarding italis, if Wmaster listened to heXnab exclusively (I
know I bring this up a lot, but I took a lot of blame for 4.0,
so now I'm retaliating a bit) it wouldn't have been added to the
game and if it did it would have been removed in 4.0, Spectre's
suggestion was to change it into an offensive / harrass unit, so
pushed back players get something they can be annoying with.
About shock and reaper, those units are fine, they serve a clear
purpose and they do so without over / underperforming.
#Post#: 1402--------------------------------------------------
Re: Comparing t1 and t2 non-marine Terran units
By: deorai037 Date: December 19, 2020, 5:49 am
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Regarding the Italis, I actually kind of like the Italis as is
but I think it's kind of in the wrong place in the tech tree,
kind of like how the old firebats were just straight up t2.5
units (feel good to use, but are too powerful for their tier)
I'm kind of curious about the idea of swapping the Italis and
siege tanks in the tech tree (Italis only unlocking with t3
tech, and siege tanks unlocking with t2 tech), since both of
them serve similar functions throughout the game. It's a little
odd to have Italis available during the midgame when that same
energy should probably be going towards stasis cannons, power
fields, and remotely powering your marines for pushes (or just
straight up ioning high ground big spines), and it makes more
sense if Italis is like a fall back option for Terrans who've
been forced onto high ground late game. Meanwhile, having siege
tanks right off the bat with t2 (obviously with adjustments)
seems like a more immediately available option for both sieging
and defense, compared to having to save up 25 charges for
Italis.
And, just spitballing ideas here, but I think it might be
interesting if firebats had an actual ability to go with them. I
was thinking like a small spider mine or napalm mine (visible,
obviously, since Zerg doesn't have detection) that could be
placed strategically to cover a retreat. Obviously there'd need
to be some Zerg buffs before adding more toys for Terran to play
with, but, just a random idea to add more than just "facetank
hits" to firebat gameplay.
#Post#: 1403--------------------------------------------------
Re: Comparing t1 and t2 non-marine Terran units
By: Speed Date: December 19, 2020, 6:15 am
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I like the current tank, it's just very expensive to get there
x)
I definetely considered using siege tank offensively to break
zergs that try to spam transfuse on big spines, but I'm just too
confident in my marine macro and micro, so I feel like I can
"brute force" against such zergs, instead of sniping their
infestors with a tank^^ Can be nice to break fortified high
ground, but ion can do the same and the game is decided anyways,
so it's very niche in a way.
I don't really like italis; it really just fits into bunker
defense, when defending low ground 25k energy is usually not
something you have / if you have it, it's not really something
you want spent on a unit that will ultimately only make infestor
& ravator defense easy, and be very mediocre DPS support when
there is no special threat to deal with...
In the end I feel like I can't have a lot of influence anyways^^
x)
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