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Everyone knows Reapers are rarely if ever seen even into the mid game and i've been trying to think of something that could tip the balance in utility.
I thought of a few things but its hard not to make them insane early on.
The best idea i had which doesnt affect the early game aspect is a late game upgrade(tier 3 maybe?) to give the reaper a personal cloak.
Any thoughts?
Late game usually has plenty of detection for various reasons.
Also, reapers gone wild
Ya i know but still it would at least give the possibility of utility. Its the same position for Ghosts after all and they work fine
I'd rather they gave the Reapers their original mines back. With this ability they still become viable as a mobile and silent raider, allowing players to run in and snipe a few key buildings without tripping an alert.
Ghosts with jump packs that is.Quote:
Originally Posted by tyrel68
Anyway I woad love to see the reaper in a more active end game position.
How much damage did the old mines do to units? for if they got those back, that could might be use also as a staler or breaker of the enemy army, in a way kind of like the sentry's force field...
How about giving them flash grenades (or sight disruptor grenades, affecting all kinds units)?
Remember the medic blind ability? How about giving it to the reaper as an AOE and timed duration spell (As opposed to the single target permanent effect in BW)?
A flash grenade would be an interesting ability on the Ghost.
— 25 energy
— 6 square AoE radius
— reduces unit vision to 1 square radius
— blinds detectors
— effect lasts for 10 seconds
— affects enemies and allies
If it were on the Reaper, it would need either a hefty cooldown or an energy bank.
I like this breakdown, though I would say the third and fourth points are redundant, as a detector with 1 radius isn't very useful, except for detecting DTs, which wouldn't be a problem in a TvT, especially considering all terran cloaked units are ranged beyond one square. Now, in a team game where one opponent is Toss, the detector with one square sight will spot DTs, but much too late and too briefly. Thus, blinding detectors is completely redundant. Otherwise, EXCELLENT!Quote:
Originally Posted by n00bonicPlague
To the opening poster and all others: nice discussion. As a Terran player, I would much like to see the Reaper get more use all around. I think the original D8 charge was nerfed/removed because 2-3 reapers one-shotted supply depots, meaning dmg was greater than the current grenades' damage. I believe this was shown in the original Terran gameplay reveal video. I could be wrong, as I can't find the video to properly quote it. Anyone who wants to help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Frag Grenade:
Deals +10 damage on its initial attack against a unit. Would animate as throwing an explosive. Would be a passive ability with say a 10 sec cooldown. A bit like the Zealot charge but dealing extra damage when engaging instead of closing distance. This would add some Oomph to the unit and it would still favor hit and run tactics. This would be a nice fitting late game utility when the numbers are tweaked right.
Yeah, that is kinda redundant. I originally had the ability reduce unit vision by 1/2 of its range (a unit with 13 sight would get reduced to 6), but then I changed it to 1 square radius and apparently missed the blind detail.Quote:
Originally Posted by flak4321
You just need to use them more. They are devastating against Light enemys, so they can prove useful. Also masses of them can harass expos and snipe tech-buildings.
Just use them.
I dunno... I always thought the ideal solution for the old D8 Charges' damage output would be to simply not allow them to stack (a la Psionic Storm). Hence, throwing more charges at a particular spot simply meant it had a higher chance of one detonating before the enemy can destroy them all. This would actually promote players to use Reapers in small packs as they would be the ideal number of charges (not too few that they all got destroyed or too many that they're wasting resources). Moreover, there would be even more potential for Reaper micro by ordering individual Reapers to drop charges at different locations and forcing the enemy's forces to divide themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by flak4321
As for creating a late game role for the current Reaper, I always thought they were the kind of soldiers who would employ 'scorched earth' strategies. Might sound too off the wall but what if Reapers could attack minerals as well? Each shot reduces the resources remaining in each patch. This would be particularly useful during late game where expansion sites have become more entrenched under specific players' ownership and resources are becoming more and more scarce.
Just put a damage upgrade on the explosives.
The scorched earth idea above is very radical indeed. It's very terran-like, though the KMC wouldn't like to lose the future income :P Would probably be too effective to work though.
1. Build Reapers
2. Move them into enemy mineral line
3. ?????
4. Profit
I would love this! Would definitely make reapers useful in late game.Quote:
Originally Posted by don
Reapers are great mid-late game as harassing units, they should never be included in your army! They take wayyy to long to build to use them in combat (its much better to use them for harrasing a enemy's base or newly taken expo.
Besides of a reaper bunker rush (which is so freaking annoying) I dont see practical uses for reapers in combat really, a marauder builds faster and deals with things better than a reaper in combat (even lings and zealots)
If you take 10 reapers into someone bases you can seriously wreck everything unless they pull there army back, its great to have that threat - hell just showing them that you have 10 repears would prby be effective enough to hold them back as well.
I really don't think every units needs to have a role in main combat, to be a "good" unit. But one could agrue that terran has 2 of these units lol but even WITH 2 harrassing units(hellion can be used in combat but honestly there not that great WITH other units because of how they have to fight.) They seem to have decent unit variety
I do agree with this point but idk just my feeling that they need something to make them shine in some role late game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Islandsnake
Maybe its as simple as people are scared to divert money to make them at that point but im not in the beta so i might just be crazy hah
They're way, way, way too easy to counter in mid/late game. A single Thor/Colossus/sieged Tank defending a base will destroy them in 2 hits max... a Banshee/Muta pack that can easily outmaneuver Reapers will hunt them down and they won't even be able to put up a fight. All of these make them essentially obsolete. The interesting thing is they can actually work in combat, but you have to position them JUST right (same as Hellions, really).Quote:
Originally Posted by tyrel68
In fact that's the biggest problem. If you're gonna use them for straight-up combat, Hellions are cheaper and better.
So the issue then is making the difference between Reapers and Hellions even bigger.
Oh joy.
How about giving Reapers a detection upgrade? Haha, you can think of many different cool little tier 3 additions to add on reapers but most of it would probably be unbalanced.
Before the Medic was scrapped I suggested giving it a Tricorder upgrade. Like Star Trek.
I'm just wondering where would this potentialy new upgrade be researched? I don't think that it could be in the techlab, since it would be far to early.
How about giving Reapers a late-game boost so they can go anywhere, over buildings, over water (2-3 squares at least), over doodads, etc.?
Here's an off-the-wall idea (in two versions)
Call Down Bunker - Planetary Fortress, 100 (out of 200 total) energy cost.
Call Down Bunker - OC, 50 energy cost.
100/100/80
Researched at Engineer Bay
That's in case we're still against giving the PF added utility. ;)
Reapers in Bunkers is proving to be massively effective, because the Bunker increases their survivability. Naturally building one in an enemy's base is out of the question even IF your SCV was as mobile as your Reapers... but if you could just... call down a Bunker from the sky, ready in 5 seconds... that would certainly open up a crapton of options.
That wouldnt really give them that much of a boost.Quote:
Originally Posted by MattII
There already is very little they cant get over.
this is the reason i thought lategame cloaking would give them back that raider harassment title
thats very interesting...but i dont see it happening sadly but i do like itQuote:
Originally Posted by pure.Wasted
I say late-game allow Reapers to be built via Reactor. Their gas cost prevents them being overly massed/abused, but with Reactor at least you can continue decent Marauder production without sacrificing production viability on harassing units.
Hellions are pretty much late-game worker harass units and are double pumpable, why not Reapers?
Upgrade that allow nukes to be strapped to a reaper. Backdoor BOOOOM.
I'll just repeat an idea I had over a year ago...I still think they could benefit from :
Smoke Grenade:
is x hex radius or perhaps is y hex wide and creates a wide line perpendicular to the throw direction.
acts as an LoS blocker, and
reduces all sight of enemy units standing within it to 0/1 (themselves), and
prevents enemy air units from seeing friendly ground units inside it
Make it a non-energy, timed use ability. No more 'can be killed by feedback in 1 hit' units please.
Ugh, this doesn't need to be complicated.
Remove the D8. Relegate it to a later tier upgrade. Increase its power.
Reaper Tier One: obliterates workers.
Reaper Tier Two: obliterates buildings.
Think of it as the Terran Void Ray.
So if you don't get the upgrade, Reapers and Hellions are essentially identical?Quote:
Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid
That's pretty bad unit design.
I dont think its complicated at all. It's simply an LoS blocker with some rules attached to better describe it. There's not much complex about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid
It would also give Terran (not only the reaper) an entirely new late game all round.
There's nothing wrong with a little overlap. If anything, its essential. If you prefer, we can make the Reaper purely anti-building and relegate all light-unit killing duties to the Hellion.Quote:
Originally Posted by pure.Wasted
Also note I've said on many occasions that if we scrapped the Reaper altogether it wouldn't make a single balance difference. Blizzard is the one who designed badly, not me.
I was responding in general, not to your post specifically. Sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iceman_jkh
Reapers are crucial to my TvP opening. I can't tell you how many games I've won off their harass alone (not right then and there, but gaining a significant economic advantage). It's basically a way for me (micro player) to equalize with a macro player who will otherwise go on to have that econ/army size advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid
Hellions don't even come close in utility and destructive power. If one of the two should go due to shoddy unit design, I'm 300% in favor of the Reaper staying.
Apology accepted :p. And I agree, some of these ideas are "this is your brain on drugs".
Completely agree on all points. Helion is better at killing light unit masses. The reaper is nearly as good, but much more versatile. Even considering they arent RaxTor buildable and later in tech.Quote:
Originally Posted by pure.Wasted
Ah, so you admit there are important differences between the Reaper and Hellion. Like Tier placement.Quote:
Originally Posted by pure.Wasted
Somehow I'm not surprised.
Tier placement is not an "important difference." Are a Marine built from Rax and a Marine built from Starport different units? No. Not in any way that matters.Quote:
Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid
Of course it is. If tiers didn't matter we wouldn't have them. Tell me SC wouldn't play differently if Marines were Starport tech. I dare you.Quote:
Originally Posted by pure.Wasted
Quote:
Originally Posted by tyrel68
You mean, make it overlap even more with the Banshee and Viking? No thanks... I really hate these ideas.Quote:
Originally Posted by MattII
Well it can be upgraded at tech lab but require fusion core or starport. That's not a problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfecttear
Tactical and situational. Not bad, but isn't the goal to make reapers more useful with your army? With this spell, you wouldn't ever be able to blind your WHOLE opponent's army, and even if you want to use this spell for harassing it's still useless since the buildings will be able to spot for your units.Quote:
Originally Posted by don