I just watched Solar vs Maru and Artosis said something that was very true… Terran almsot always has more gas than they can spend in every match up. Especially against Zerg, and especially when going Bio.
Now with that said… I have my own ideas why they dont build ravens but I dont play Terran so I wanted to hear form high level (Masters+) Terrans on why building ravens is not good.
My logic:
Going to have big gas bank
Ravens helps your mineral income by saving scans
Ravens not as much of a liability due to speed increase
If you use Thors, greatly increses surviviabiliy of raven and ability to zone out Mutas and Corrupters
Auto Turret will always be useful. Could easily turn a fight or at the very least help you take out a few more banelings
anti armor missile could be HUGE. It can immediately turn a fight. Its difficiult to use and perhaps inconsistent but if you cheeto dust ling/bane/mutas they are going to get shredded.
Small point: Ravens could be useful for baiting mutas into mines.
-It is ONLY 2 supply. Even if you just pop down a couple auto turrets, it has to be worth 2 supply.
Cons:
Production: requires starport with tech lab. Somewhat annoying but not so much of an issue late game.
Micro: Will require quite a bit of babysitting and best used if microing in fights. But that is when Terrans micro is most taxed.
Speed: No boost so if you need to run against Ling/Muta/Bane for example… they are going to be easy pickings. Not as much of an issue late game though because mutas are gone by then. Still, a little slower than Corrupters so still an issue.
because other units that benefit more from a reactor are more important.
I think if you play Mech the balance of mineral to gas as terran is much more even, but all bio units are mineral heavy so it’s logical that terrans float a lot of gas if they go that route, and if you go Bio you would prefer to be making Medivacs from your Starports.
Because last time they did Zerg players whined so much on the forum about Ravens that they have been nerfed into nearly complete uselessness in TvZ. Right now this is overpriced and highly vulnerable observer.
Speaking of gas bank, it appears during mid game and if game transitions into late game Terran transitions into Marauder-Ghost-Liberator army that is very gas heavy and eats your gas bank almost instantly.
Its always better to make a Ghost and 2 Marauders than a Raven.
LOL LUL LOL.
Terrans have the super hard Ghost to manage and the OP wants them to micro …the Raven.
When a Protoss hears about how much harder is terran army than protoss (Blink, FF, Disruptor, HT) he usually has a hart-attack at the right side (Protoss have two harts at left and right like kidneys).
70% of terran units are managed by AI and when Berserk debunked the Terran-Myth of their micro, they had a massive melt-down and published a “Wanted” notice for Beserk.
Well when you’re going bio, your mid/late game gas is better spent on ghosts than a raven. Ravens are actually not that useful unless you land a dorito cannon that doesn’t splash your troops. In terms of dealing with other spellcasters, ghosts are superior in every way. They have EMP to remove all energy, and snipe to basically instakill. Ravens just don’t really have a place in TvZ for what they’re worth.
They’re used in TvP and TvT though, so they’re not completely useless.
What are they really going to do late game? Ghosts are better at dealing with late game threats than dorito canon is, interference doesn’t have much application because zerg has no mech units and again Ghosts emp are better vs their spell casters. Auto-turret is the only thing that is going to get value, but liberators or a banshee or drops are still going to be better at harassment. The only thing it has going for it is detection. But the problem is running away. It may only be 2 supply, but it’s kind of wasted supply. Terran usually gets enough orbitals that the detection part isn’t needed.
Bottom lime, Ghosts do the raven’s job better in tvz.
Oh and by the way people usually DO make a Raven when they spot Infestors, but this is more of a mech thing because infestors can absolutely wreck mech army with their proboscis.
That’s probably the only case when adding Raven to Terran army is beneficial in TvZ.
Reason why people don’t build ravens:
TvP is all about Ghost/lib, or you get vikings…
In TvZ what would you do with ravens? They have 0 dmg and autoturrets are useless vs Zerg late game… And you also need reactors usually. You make one for creep late game and for anti-armor missile and that’s about it…
Ok… why is dorito cannon not useful and why is autoturret useless? It is a free super marine. It does 18 dmg every .57 seconds. Thats 31.58DPS. Yes, it doesnt benefit from upgrades but it benefits from neosteel armor and hi-sec auto tracking. For only 50 energy.
What i said literally, you make one for aa… Learn to read. Also only matchup when you can mass them a little is tvt, but even in TvT you want mass viking mainly… Who has more of vikings, than is able to siege 2 liberators and win usually…
What is 1 range autoturret gonna do to ultras, or broods… In TvP you would rather use interference matrix on carriers, or disruptors… And game doesn’t even get to many ravens. Usually it will be lib/ghost, or vikings/ghost and than game just ends… Because it is better to just make more lib/ghost, than getting third starport with techlab…
Not useless per se. It has its uses, but it’s too much control required too little benefit as it’s jus straight up the least useful caster in the game. AAM only helps with your marines or BCs and Ghost liberator is already difficult enough to control.
Yes, yes, Zerg is SO much harder than Terran that they get an entire higher league just for playing it…
LUL, they have a 300% more powerful inverse-GS and …
Right after bragging that they are masters of micro. When a protoss that does FF, GS, Storm, Blink, Disruptor hears such attrocities, he remains speechless by the abyss between terran-bragging and terran-actual micro-abilities…
They are so funny to spell it for you:
