Are Ravens underused?

I almost never see ravens used as terrans even though they seem pretty good. I mean unlimited turret drops and seekers missles....idk. People usually go for medivacs and banshees, and as the late game starts battle cruisers.

 

Thing with ravens is that they are gas-expensive and easy to snipe. Yet they are quite awsome units and they could use some more use...

Personally I've lost a FFA match by some guy that made ravens and nothing more, lol They have many uses, but take a little finesse to use, and losing them can get you a little behind due to their cost...

 

they are clearly underused due to terrans not interested in having to micro/macro them, the same can be with high templars, who really cares to manually have to use a units attacks?

 

They are a underrated Terran unit, when I'm in a game I dont really think about them . I really only get them if my opponent keeps using cloaked units.

 

Thankfully, they are underused.

 

I'm glad they're not used very much.. as a Protoss.

They're only good in very specific circumstances tho. Seeker missiles are expensive, slow, and take lots of energy. So the main use is going to be the Point Defense Drone, which shuts down mainly stalkers and hydras. Stalkers pretty much suck vs Terran anyway so ravens just make an already terrible unit even worse. Kind of unnecessary.

 

They are expensive units, but they do a good job of harrassing expansions. Build up 5 of them, let them generate their energy... find an expansion... drop about 10 auto turrets right behind their mineral line. Not an exactly a full scale attack, but they will take out the refineries and a lot of workers. They do an awesome job at detection and harrasing.

 

If a Terran actually built 5 ravens in a normal 1v1, they would likely be behind in army that they will get steamrolled. Unless if they're already far ahead in which case they could win either way.

If I saw a Terran mass ravens I would attack FAST

 

What zaner said... if you could somehow have 5 ravens out of thin air it would be great to do that kind of attack, but getting them is a great investment of time+money and will take up 1-2 techlabed starports dedicated to that end. And like zaner said above stalkers aren't good on pvt(you need them to beat vikings when going colossi, and to counter early mm pushes with zealots tanking marauder damage and stalkers dealing it, but once you reach the mid-game they greatly lose their worth) so yeah, pdds and seeker missiles are like the only things you'll use many ravens on.

Still, if you manage to get them and have enough energy, when your opponent pushes those turrets can really help tons with defending, but it leaves you vulnerable for too long.

 

I play terran and ravens are incredibly expensive but brilliant if you are playing protoss and your opponent masses stalkers, even with blink they cant do much damage to anything with the point defense drones out. The cloak detection is great but only if its outside your base. If i see any sign of dark templars/cloaked banshees i pop some missle turrets up because its much more efficient in my opinion.

 

Playin toss. lol.
Once terran cheesed mass ravens vs me and i lost =\

 

ravens ftw.. they are just to expensive

it would be awesome if autoturrets could move like infested terrans
then you could build an entire army of autoturrets and go kill your opponent ^^

i dont think autoturrets are good for defending cause the enemy can just move away and wait till they're gone and then attack again ._.

 

Yea ravens are expensive when it comes to gas just like ghosts but after i get my first expansion i usually have at least one.

There heat seeker missile is probably one of the most underused abilities in the game. I always get it when facing mass mutalisks even though they can fly away it does so much damage. But be sure to keep it from exploding on your units.

Also if you are facing protoss that is getting stalkers with blink then using the point defense drone works so good especially if they blink right into your army and then use it right away.

Turrets are good for harassing workers i think.

 

The only way for mass Ravens to be made viable would be to get a Planetary Fortress early in the game. This is to help you defend early in the game while you amass Ravens with all the required upgrades. If your opponent is caught off guard you pretty much won the game =D

 

Honestly, because of scans and missile turrets the detection aspect of a raven makes it not worth it. Also, seeker missile is both expensive to research and energywise to use, and can be outmicroed. I once ran the chargelot that had the seeker missile attacked to it INTO the Terran's marine line, it was quite hilarious.. The turrets are pretty retarded given how long they last, but they are weak to the point where they are only good for harassment. So point defense drone is the power of the raven. Drop a few of those during an engagement and you will force your opponent to fall back, or they may engage and have a disadvantage.

For a funny cheese build I once made mass ravens and Kamakazied them, meaning I flew the ravens into the main army and used seeker missile right next to them, making it impossible to outmicro.

 

No it doesn't... You can't actively hunt creep tumors, or observers with a scan, and turrets are static and can't cover for everything. Mobile detection is needed by every race and has good uses against stuff any race can throw at you.

You can deal with banshee or DT harassment in your main base with turrets and scans, but it costs everytime... While with a raven you can deal with any cloaked unit harass at any place and while mobilizing your troops...

 

Mass +2 armor autoturret ravens actually works pretty well in TvZ; the only tier 1/2 counters to them are roaches and infestors with mind control.

There used to be a PF expand into mass ravens build floating around in beta; was very effective on maps like Desert Oasis until neural parasite was changed to affect air. Harass with your first few ravens, build up energy, and then cover their base in autoturrets; they kill tech buildings and hatcheries surprisingly quickly.

HSM is basically garbage though; wtb irridate.

 

Talking about raven, I was thinking of a variance in the bancheese build:
- Research for Corvid Reactor instead of Cloak while the first banshee is building.
- Right after the banshee, raven.
- Harass with the banshee until the raven it's out with 75 energy. On the road to the enemy's base it should get up to 100 for the PDD.
- Drop the PDD above the mineral line of one base and deny mining with the banshee. That bird is safe while in range of the PDD = 8 which cover most of the main base if placed properly.
- Push at the natural with marines to make the enemy's macro harder.

What you think?

 

PDDs only block shots every x time units. You'd need two or three running to make your Banshees immune.

But as a strategy, once you have enough Ravens (and energy amongst them) you could really lock down an opponent.

 

I was checking with wikia, but I couldn't find a cooldown for PDD shot-blockers:
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Point_defense_drone

Shot-blockers are energy based, so it will only block 20 shots (or 10 for double attacks) but that should give some time to the banshee to cripple the mining, then retreat.