Reaver

The reaver is a protoss mobile artillery unit.

Overview
The reaver evolved from a civilian mobile manufacturing unit that was militarized to become a mobile artillery piece, ensuring that fewer lives would be lost when assaulting enemy bases. Somewhat fittingly, reavers have renowned for leveling entire colonies in moments.

The reaver itself does not mount any weaponry, but instead houses a micro-manufacturing plant similar to the carrier, producing tiny robotic drones known as scarabs.

Scarabs
Scarabs are small, highly explosive drones constructed and launched by reavers. They are launched at enemy targets and installations in groups, able to level enemy structures in moments. Unlike interceptors however, Scarabs do not return to the reaver. Instead, they explode on impact, generating devastating electromagnetic fields that cause heavy damage to their targets.

StarCraft
The reaver has an extremely powerful attack, suited for destroying clusters of units with less than 100 hit points, such as hydralisks. It is an extremely important unit to the protoss army because the scarab has enough range to strike photon cannons and sunken colonies without exposing the reaver to danger. Only tanks and air units out range it. The reaver only slightly outranges defensive structures, so they should be carefully watched lest the reaver over-approach.

Scarabs have a unique attack in Starcraft. Scarabs are built from the reaver itself, for a cost of 15 minerals each. The reaver can store up to 5 at one time. Often players will queue up all 5 as soon as the reaver is produced. The time to create a scarab is longer then a reaver's firing cooldown, so it is important to create new scarabs as soon as the reaver is no longer full. While they do radial splash damage, they do not harm your units the same way tanks do. Scarabs are the only attack that paths around the map and can get stuck on untargeted units or buildings. If the scarabs travel far enough, about a screen's width, they will explode and do no damage. Scarabs do not travel all that quickly, either. Workers can escape a reaver drop by moving away before the scarab is launched, ideally using worker harvest collision to a second base.

While the reaver is extremely powerful, the reaver is also the slowest ground unit, has a long cooldown, and is quite costly. Shuttles are frequently used to move reavers to the front lines and to protect them from ground fire (see Strategies). Remember that a fully-loaded reaver costs 75 minerals above and beyond its base cost. Losing the shuttle as well is equivalent to losing almost 3 zealots and 2 dragoons.

Strategy
One of the most popular mid-game protoss strategies is to use shuttles to drop reavers near enemy worker lines, where a single scarab can take out 10 or more workers at a time. Protoss players will frequently plan this from the beginning of the game, particularly against Terran, building their robotics facility, a shuttle and a robotics bay, and then a reaver as soon as the cybernetics core is finished. For serious harassment, shuttle speed is fantastic. However, the reaver/shuttle is a very big investment, so the harassment is a huge risk - losing them cedes a big advantage to the enemy.

During the reaver's long cooldown it can then be picked up and hidden inside the shuttle. This effectively nearly doubles the reaver's durability, splitting attacks between the reaver and the shuttle, forcing the defender to bring air defense, and gives you time to reposition the reaver. You can also easily flee, leaving the defender to worry where you'll show up next. Expert players will use the reaver's attack to draw forces, and then use the shuttle flee to another worker line where they can continue the harassment.

Because a shuttle can hold 4 other slots of units, a zealot, dragoon, or a second reaver is frequently brought along as well. Against terran, a zealot is dropped first to draw the siege tank fire and any spider mines laid as a trap. A dragoon provides additional low risk harass, and is more flexible then a zealot. A second reaver provides the potential for significantly more damage, usually with the scarab damage upgrade, both to help take out buildings and to absorb more hits.

Mass reavers are even more deadly. Reavers are deadly backing up zealots and goons. Shuttles can be used to keep reavers with the main army, and to get reavers in perfect flanking positions.

Mass reavers and shuttles (3+) are also commonly defended by mass corsairs (5+), particularly against zerg. This is one of the most mobile armies in the game; the corsairs protect the shuttles and use disruption webs to protect the reavers from ranged attacks, while the (6+) reavers can wreck a base in seconds, and then hop over to the next one. While a common strategy, particularly on large, macro-oriented maps, it's also one of the gutsiest strategies, and is very vulnerable to a surprise counterattack while traveling. Losing some or all of the force can also end the game in seconds.

Against reavers, spreading out one's own units to minimize the splash damage of Scarabs, and try and surround them from all sides. If they are escorted by a shuttle, preemptively getting air defense can frequently deter or eliminate a reaver drop before it happens. Reavers are very expensive, and if you can focus fire one, particularly with ranged units, it usually will swing the battle and give you an opportunity to counterattack.

Matchups
Against Terran
 * Counters Hard: firebat, marine, medic, missile turret, SCV
 * Counters Soft: goliath, siege tank(tank mode), vulture
 * Hard Countered by: battlecruiser, spider mine(2), wraith
 * Soft Countered by: EMP, lockdown, siege tank(siege mode)

Against Protoss
 * Counters Hard: photon cannon, probe
 * Counters Soft: dark templar, dragoon, zealot
 * Hard Countered by: carrier, scout
 * Soft Countered by: disruption web, psionic storm

Against Zerg
 * Counters Hard: drone, hydralisk, sunken colony
 * Counters Soft: lurker, ultralisk, zergling
 * Hard Countered by: guardian, mutalisk
 * Soft Countered by:

Development
The reaver was called the trilobyte in early StarCraft alpha testing.

The reaver and shuttle strategy were not expected by Blizzard. Subsequently, Blizzard patched the reaver so that it had to cooldown when dropped from the shuttle before it could fire.

In the Pro Leagues
Great reaver control is widely admired in the pro leagues, seen as evidence of grace and skill and mastery of the psychology of the game. Good reaver players are particularly popular with female fans, identified with the softer, more creative side of the game.


 * IntoTheRainbow is known for his exquisite use of reavers and shuttles.

StarCraft II
The reaver has made a brief appearance in StarCraft II promotional material. However, it has since been removed from the most recent build of the game as of Blizzcon 2007.

It was meant to be produced from the robotics facility and required a null circuit before it could be warped in. A replacement for the reaver was being sought in July 2007.

Known Reavers

 * Ragnarok VII
 * Warbringer

Reaver Variants

 * Tycho Reaver
 * War Reaver

Trivia

 * The reaver resembles the Ohmu from the anime Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.