Frankly, Reaper is for its cost just pathetic. Most of the time, you just look at Protoss Wall and say, yup, those are buildings. If lucky, you can confirm natural. To even try and do dmg, you need to proxy it. In TvZ? You force 4 lings. Maybe confirm no 1:50 lair is up, but not much more as reaper can not go in once queens are out.
So, hows Protoss scouting? For 50 more gas, Protoss gets safe scouting using sentry, or for 25 less minerals and 25 more gas, safe scouting using ovserver. Both usins can provide multiple scouts of full build and continue being useful way into late game.
Zerg has it nowadays easiest. 25 more minerals and gas gives them free scouting of everything Terran or Protoss does until viking or Phoenix is out and continues being relevant way into late game where observers can just yolo trough turret rings like nothing.
Of course, Terran can, for a cost of mule risk scanning enemy base. But is it by no means reliable scout and is most expansive way to try glean any information about enemy build.
What I would like would be a way to reliably scout using something but reaper or to give reaper way to be useful in later stages of the game. Both Zerg and Protoss recieved buffs to their scouting with cheaper hallucinations and speed upgrades for both observer and ovi recently, leaving Terran somewhat behind in this regard.
Any all-in between first queen/Protoss unit gets out and you attack enemy base is unscoutable. Also, you can not harras enemy main all the time. Which is where all the info often is.
Terran doesn’t have to use Reapers at all times. There are scans if ya gotta and unless you’re at the very top you should be fine sparing a few so long as your economy is going well.
I don’t know man, personally I scout all ins with 17 scv and reaper. I agree reaper scouting is more difficult respect to illusions or overlords, but this is the payoff for having orbitals I guess. After the reaper you should have some kind of presence in their base with banshee, lib, drops, bc, whatever.
It is putting yourself 5 probes behind for a minute. It is significant, especially early on.
Yes. I do not ask for scout as fast as reaper. Just reliable way to do so. Scanning is not reliable at all and early on too expansive to use.
Making orbital for scouting cost 550 minerals and honestly? Controlable air unit, even with 1/2 HP is much better than looking once. Scan doesnt even reveal whole base so its easy to miss something.
If T didnt need mules to keep up until 3 bases are filled up, I would agree. But if you scan before that, you are pulling behind…
Also, yeah, you can harras, but that costs disproportionate resources and in higher leagues, if you drop into main repeatedly, there will be units or turrets waiting for you there.
thats when protoss invest several hundreds of vespene into support units, and every hallucination make ur army weaker. thats when u could build 2 additional cc for constant scans without any vespene cost
LOL! Scan just like Relevation is just a Time/Energy weapon. To attach a bogus hypothetical 550 mineral value (minerals are still there but our uneducated (in SC2 and logical matters) terran friends refuse to see.
This sense of entitlement reminds me of that guy that tried to charge people for smelling his roasted chicken!
A smart Judge dropped a golden coin on the table and responded that the ring of the coin was a proper way to refund the MF (terranwhiners in our case)…
Patients at Goba Facility at the first stage learn about delayed-gratification. You can have that 550 mineral in a span of time OR the information that Scan would give.
First the whineterrans cry and moan that they want them both, but the Staff of Goba Corp under the wise and compassionate Chairmanship of Dr. BatZ and Proff. Dr. Beserk with inovative tools (cold showers, elctrostimulation and other tools) shows to the Whineterran patients the wrong of their way.
Unconfirmed rumors tells us that Dr. Goba (no less) is in the middle of bargaining with Twitch in order to have the famous clown and entertainer Winter renditioned to the Goba Facility where he will entertain the whineterran population with his melodramatic gigs and tricks.
I’d still like to make the reaper useful late game. Perhaps giving it a late upgrade that gives it a short cloak ability like the adepts shade. If the reaper attacks then it comes out of cloak. Otherwise it’s on a cool down like the medivac booster.
I still think reapers should be given spider mines like in the Nova campaign. Let them turn into zone control units. Charge them minerals to replenish the mines, and then turn widow mines into a dedicated AA unit instead.
You should be able to force protoss to go cyber before expand unless they force your SCV to stop building the barracks for too long with their scouting probe. If they go cyber-nexus, you should still have time to either get a thorough scout of the main or kill a probe at the natural, if there is one. If protoss went nexus-cyber, you should get a full scout of the main, deny mining time, and usually kill a probe or even 2.
As for TvZ, 4 lings is generally speaking at least equal investment to your reaper. You can also see the drone count at the natural, and usually an early quick main scout, since queens are very slow. Not much, but enough to see if it’s a bane bust or ling flood (usually banes). More importantly, you can see the third timing.
most of terrans below gm use their reaper not for scout, but for kill 1 probe at natural and lose their reaper to adept/stalker, if you just straight run into the main your reaper will easlily scout everything
I took that mainly from all the pro SC2 games lately.
I do not use reapers. They cost way too much and Zergs build lings anyway. SCV scout into proxy is much better but has same issues: You confirm no super all in is happening, but have no info after that. At least by making proxy, you give some value to SCV being on other side.
Also, I defend reapers with marines all the time and time lost mining is insignificant even while microing hurt SCVs away from reaper. Its dmg is so pathetic, losing SCVs is kinda shameful even if I dont have any units when it arrives.
Well, Im asking for a way to scout, not kill one SCV… Also, other races have superior ways to scout for simmilar cost. With both Z and P scouting buffed, T could get same treatment.
2 scans means 10 less suply of marines for whatever push arrives. Zergs complained about 100 gas being too expansive, now with it costing 75, they build it every game. See? 25 gas matters. So do 500 minerals 2 lost mules cost Terran 1 min from scanning. Also, unlike multiple full scouts Zerg gets by overlord speed, Terran scan is brief and doesnt reveal whole base, meaning its very easy to miss something. (And you need 2 even very early to get whole scout on Z, on P its not possible.)
Dude, I think the problem here is just that: you’re not familiar with the reaper scout. I assure you if you learn it (just scouting, not poking around), you’ll feel no more this need of other scouting options. A further help can be to veto those maps where the access to the main is more tricky, if you need it.