Surgical Strikes vs Massing: Raids are Pointless

[Hammy]

I'm sorry, but Demaga could have nullified TLO's 10:00 siege tank, blown up that wall at 8:30 with 24 banelings and 12 lings with another 12 on the way.

TLO loses the supply depot, the fac, rax. Leaving only the Thor at 60% HP, the Hellion, the Dropship.

What Demaga's base would have looked like after this is:
1. Ready for Lair Tech
2. One base, one queen.
3. Expo at 20%.

TLO could have attacked with the Hellion + 4 rines early right? You'll have 24 lings at that time. The key is to not engage the hellions off-creep.

TLO's task would have to find the banelings as they morph. Attack while they're in transit, or lift-off as the banelings come in. That would lead to:
a. Intact Wall, but no CC, only the under construction.
b. Lose Thors, rines, and hellion, with base and wall intact.

That drop attack was at 9:00, a lot of units could have been out by that time.

This is why I frown at hiding the replay progress bar.

My point is if Demaga massed, he would have won. So, that video just proved my point all the more.

And, I just had a ZvZ, we both went for one basing. He went for the fastest muta possible (8:00), and I went the massed bane/ling. His Lair kaputs, I had one expo, hes got 4 mutas. And mutas are the only, and I must emphasize, only harass unit for the Zerg.

Lings? No, they're attack forces. Sure, you can make them suicide for 3-4 workers by focus attacking, but it won't work.

I've seen one Ling early harass that worked. But it only worked since the toss foolishly FE's on LT. His cannon was barely up, and a huge hole was there. The Zerg went 10pool lings first.

edit:

But I hear you guys. I'm not saying one cannot use the mobility in sc2, but it's a secondary option. Against a passive player, it will work, but when? at around 10:00. That's the safest way to strike at econ. And the best way is to fake an attack, to lure them forces out. But by that time, again, there's waaay too many units you can make that you can just clash then do the harass after.

So, if this is the way SC2 works, then it's almost impossible to harass without having so many units in your raiding party. Which is no longer a raiding party, but an attack party.

Wanna drop 6 rines? Your dropship will go kaput to the standing army even before they can arrive.

DTs? Works if the opponent doesn't have detection which is so much easy to get than the DTs.

You say harass at 12:00? Nevermind, just attack his forces with superior composition.

Wait so now you're reenacting the game? You're assuming TLO plays the same way even if Dimaga were massing? What kind of reasoning is that? "oh yeah look, in this game the Z went for roaches and the T made marauders. Dude if the Z had made mutas instead of roaches he would have owned the marauders!!". This is kind of what you're saying.

Harassing isn't always a good option, but in this case it was a damn good one. Nobody is saying you should always harass. You're trying to say that it's always better to mass than to harass, and a bunch of people are trying to show you that it's not always the case.

Other example: following your reasoning: if you fall behind in army count: you lose. Well that's obviously not the case since you can go for the opponents expansions without engaging his army and gain another type of advantage. You won't be able to out-tech him or out-expand him once you've lost a battle if he's any good.

[GnaReffotsirk]

I don't get you. He won that game because of his strat. So if Demaga had used a different strat, it would have been a completely different game all together.

Honestly, how much do you harass? When? And how has it proven to be?

And it's not just army count, it's always a given that one is able to make the right composition of units out of one's production capacity and economy.

Nicol posted that to show SC2's harassment potentials. And I respond by saying his TLO's base is quite empty and could not handle a massed attack, because he decided to go dedicate to harassment first, and so my point stands.

If demaga massed, would you think TLO would continue his harass or made units first then harass?

Oh, and reenacting to find the counter to a strat is not evil or moronic. It's how you learn to counter a strat thrown at you, wouldn't you agree? It's clear going for an econ build, against TLO's strat is terrible. So Demaga will reenact, watch the replay, or have TLO throw the exact same thing at him again, and both of them finds the solution.

Next games, when someone copy's TLO's? They'll know what to do and what not to do. Then the variations stream in. He starts with this, opponent does this, I transition to this, he should do this. If he doesn't, I do this, then that, etc, etc.

[Operatoring]

Nerfing peons would do nothing to alleviate the problem. Raiding is pointless because your time is CLEARLY better spent elsewhere. With the pace the game is currently at, and how good the pathing is, it is virtually impossible to make a raid worthwhile. High level replays are boring. I would take an SC1 replay any day of the week.

[Sigel]

High level replays are boring. I would take an SC1 replay any day of the week.

Like I said earlier..."high level" SC2 replays are no more than people who didn't have 4 months to practice (also beeing beta and all changes every week it doesn't help) while SC1 actual players had years and years to research the best ways to play the game...how can you even begin to think they are the same level of play. Because someone practiced ping-pong for 10 years at competitive level and trys tenis he should be of the same level within 4 months? (or the other way around)...you need to get perspective.

[GnaReffotsirk]

Yeah, and I'm really tired of defending my position.

I accept that raids and surgical strikes are worthwhile, and are not as intimidating, unless by some technique one can catch the opponent off-guard. Which is beautiful, I must say.

So, thanks guys for your insights. I've learned from your points that surgical strikes can strengthen one's position, but is rarely something so dramatic that it makes massing units useless. That surgical strikes are not the go to strat always, but are as well part of the equation.

They're not as popular now, as you guys mention, and I'm hoping to see some awesome multitasking a few months or years from now.

edit:
I hope deckard's not reading this. And hammy that you don't surgical strike me in the party tourney. You've been awesome, btw. We should do practice matches like me and Deckard, and I could watch you and deckard have at it.

[Wankey]

What exactly are raids and surgical strikes if I may ask? I have to say SC2 raids and surgical strikes are nearly debilitating. I dunno what kind of raids you're talking about.

[GnaReffotsirk]

Small forces you make while there's not much units out yet, which with proper deployment, positioning, or moving about can cause so much damage. Much like how reapers perform when rushing them, but they rarely are that effective unless it's a cheese reaper rush.

Basically, you insert small forces into undefended areas to destroy key elements of your opponent.

I call it surgical strikes based on the idea that no defense or army can respond to it quickly enough, and as hammy said, because they're out of position. But since, it's quite easy to move from main to nat, excluding 3rd expo since it's very late, and since one basing can provide mass number of units, it's quite difficult to pull-off a surgical strike against someone massing and chilling in their base.

To add, units that can do surgical strikes do not come early, and counters are easily accessible before these units can be reached.

So, yeah, they're secondary in nature, and rushing to get them can get one owned by someone who masses for a push. Therefore, I learn that to do these stunts, one has to develop his army first, then use what he has to hit the enemy here and there without committing to an army trade.

Maybe the spawn distances and map sizes also factor into this effect. You can compare sc1 maps to the current sc2 pool, and what we have right now are really quite small.

[Nicol Bolas]

I'm sorry, but Demaga could have nullified TLO's 10:00 siege tank, blown up that wall at 8:30 with 24 banelings and 12 lings with another 12 on the way.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but he didn't, did he? Dimaga is about 100x better than the both of us put together and he was being harassed to death.

And that's just one game. There have been many, many other high-skill games where a player is substantially damaged if not killed by harassment. So your premise is simply not supported by the evidence.

But it shouldn't be so hard.

Yes, it should. Harassment should always have a downside. Technically, everything should always have a downside. You should not be able to, risk free, do X damage to an opponent's economy. And if you can, it had damn well better require oodles of skill, and failing to macro properly while doing it should cost you the game.

[Wankey]

Small forces you make while there's not much units out yet, which with proper deployment, positioning, or moving about can cause so much damage. Much like how reapers perform when rushing them, but they rarely are that effective unless it's a cheese reaper rush.

Basically, you insert small forces into undefended areas to destroy key elements of your opponent.

I call it surgical strikes based on the idea that no defense or army can respond to it quickly enough, and as hammy said, because they're out of position. But since, it's quite easy to move from main to nat, excluding 3rd expo since it's very late, and since one basing can provide mass number of units, it's quite difficult to pull-off a surgical strike against someone massing and chilling in their base.

To add, units that can do surgical strikes do not come early, and counters are easily accessible before these units can be reached.

So, yeah, they're secondary in nature, and rushing to get them can get one owned by someone who masses for a push. Therefore, I learn that to do these stunts, one has to develop his army first, then use what he has to hit the enemy here and there without committing to an army trade.

Maybe the spawn distances and map sizes also factor into this effect. You can compare sc1 maps to the current sc2 pool, and what we have right now are really quite small.

Ah yes, in that case very much so. Raids are so completely useless in SC2 and are pretty much cheese tactics. Even siege tank drops are incredibly hard to do since units just dash back to base so quickly (unless you can find a spot to get high ground advantage quickly.