No Nerf in Sight for Marauders

Since the launch of the game one unit has seemed particularly imbalanced… the marauder.  Combined with stim packs and concussive shells marauders made it so that your enemy could never run away, melee units could get kited and buildings were sure to die fast.  Marauder drops were so potently deadly that blizzard doubled the health on key buildings and slowed down the speed on medivacs.  Marauders were a unit that operated extremely well in small packs but also had no real downside to massing them.  They did bonus damage vs. armored units and were armored themselves (with tones of health).  Things like psi storm, tank blasts and the such just do little to no damage to these bad boys.

And all things considered, blizzard will not be nerfing them.  I think blizzard realized what a lot of people realized, the marauder is all terrans have left.  The standard build order for a PvT is for a protoss to get out one stalker and a terran to get out a marine and a marauder.  The two armies push each other, are even strength and the stalker runs away.  However in a scenario where the terran doesn’t get  marauder out and instead opts for marines… he just gets steamrolled by a single stalker.  Maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War are notorious for this.  Protoss units however having shields can micro away and regenerate those shields then come back in full strength.

For now marauders that are able to quickly snipe out tanks and colossus are ‘balanced.’

Masters League

Blizzard has announced the creation of a new league which will be called the “Masters League.”  They also suggested the possibility of transforming the top 200 list into a “Grand Master’s League.”

The Master’s League would feature the top 2% of the game, that is roughly the top 20,000 players.  Being as I’m in the top 4% of the game I can safely say I’d enter this masters league pretty fast considering that I’m roughly 300 points from this new merit.

The demand comes from a new concern in the game, that everyone is a diamond now.  Diamond league itself has split off into it’s own system where you have your 200-600 level diamonds who are basically new to the game and may have just gotten lucky.  You have your 600-1000 level diamonds who advanced from bronze to diamond and are now new to diamond.  You have your 1000-1400 who are doing moderately well but around 50:50 win/loss.  And then you have your 1400 plus who are just dominating the game.

Of course some of these people who dominate only use one tactic.  sKsYen is a 1900 level diamond who only ever makes MMM and wins entirely on micro.  Forum troll Venom wins by gateway proxying terrans and DT rushing protoss.

The new league should offer a new level of competition in play.  While the standard for diamond is simply having good macro the standard for the new master’s league will be to have strong macro and be very good with controlling your units.  If there was ever a good time to focus on just one of your queues (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4) this would be the time.

Another important aspect to this is expose.  With so many people being diamond right now it’s hard to tell who th great players are.  However with this new league flushing cheesers back into diamond it’d open more opportunities for great players to move up into professional gaming.

Barracks Balancing and Protoss

Although I do like doing Raven build on short distance maps I know that on larger maps it’s success is less likely.  This means that I largely have to rely on barracks units to win a match.  The barracks contains three units that are used in PvT, marines, marauders and ghosts.  Each of them counters a protoss gateway unit and each needs to be produced regardless.

Barracks balancing is an important part of early and late game PvT.  The goal of barracks balancing is to produce units that will do the most damage.

The standard barracks balance for terrans is to have 2 tech labbed barracks to 1 reactored barracks.  This means you early unit composition will look like 50:50 split between marauders and marines.  The goal of this build is to do very well against the standard protoss opener, heavy stalker gateway.

Barracks balancing is something you do throughout the game.  The objective as I said is to make barracks units that will do the most damage.  I won’t be looking at when to get a raven out (if they have heavy stalker) or how many medivacs per unit (8 medivacs total) or when you want to get vikings out (PST colossus).  Instead this will focus around laying down new rax and what addon you should get.

I should note that your standard opener is, open to change.  If you see the protoss player building a lot of zealots that means he’s saving his gas for something.  This means he is either getting colossus, sentries or high templar.  Heavy zealot forces you into the pattern of going heavy reactor.  When I see extra zealots I actually open with double reactor so that I have 4 marines and 1 marauder as my opener.

Most protoss being so predictable get 2-3 sentries to force field so that they can safely expand.  Marines deal with sentries pretty easily.  An always important note is that you’re constantly making SCVs and as you are seeing surplus minerals you are laying down new rax.  Your new rax are going to need a tech lab or a reactor.  Keep in mind you want to make these addons with your factory (unless you’ve decided to get siege tanks and are playing more defensively).

So where was I?

So you’ve seen the protoss player getting heavy zealot and has 2-3 sentries.  He’s expanding and you’ve laid down a new rax with more marines.  There are two potential tech patterns the protoss can/will use against you.  Your rax distribution will matter heavily for these.

The first, and most common, is the dreaded colossus.  Colossus absolutely MELT marines.  This means in a purely micro battle you need marines behind your marauders to deal with zealots.  So you need to redistribute your barracks to be heavier on REACTORS.  This is sort of non-standard thinking.  A person sees colossus and the first thing they’re going to do is race to get more marauders because marauders do so much damage to colossus… but unfortunately you’re not seeing the big picture.

While he may be building colossus he really doesn’t have the gas for sentries and stalkers.  This mean his army composition is going to be INSANELY high on zealots.  Zealots (especially with the charge upgrade) absolutely chew through marauders like there’s no tomorrow.  What you need is more marines who will be able to quickly wipe out the zealots so that your marauders can freely do their job, that is picking off the colossus and melting the stalkers.

The other possible unit a protoss player can bring out is the high templar.  High templar are as expensive as colossus in gas meaning similarly to the colossus the protoss player will be forced to make very heavy zealot.  However unlike before, you don’t want marines.  The advantage to the marines before was that they’d pick apart the zealots so your marauders could get at the stalkers and colossus.  But without colossus around you’ll want more units with higher health and higher range.

To this end you want more tech labbed barracks simply because you will be able to zerg him down with a very pure marauder force.  As well this will open you up to the ghost option.  If you can get a money EMP, that is one that encompasses the majority of his army or all of his high templar…. his storms will be meaningless.

So what do you do when he has both?  Perfectly split, equal marauder to marine count.  The reason for this is simple, biological units are not going to effectively deal with so much tech.  You’re eventually going to have to get out a raven, some vikings or some tanks.

However keep laying down barracks and keep giving them appropriate addons.  Proper bio mix is going to win you so many games against protoss.