After the IEM tournament last week that had Morrow completely dominate some supposedly superior Zerg players with mass reapers early, it seems there's been a lot of talk about reapers being imbalanced early on versus Zerg. The theory is that 8+ reapers can defeat any amount of lings or roach if you control them well, and if you can do some harass, kill some queens or an expansion and transition well into the mid-game you end up with a huge advantage.
 
Though I don't know if I've seen it work well in practice.  You need careful use of the reapers and it's easy to lose them without doing damage or be defended by some fast lings or roaches on creep if you misclick.  And balancing with macro and expanding with that careful control usually doesn't work, so if you don't do a ton of damage, you end up well behind if Zerg makes it to mutas.
 
So has anyone else seen a ton of reapers the last few days?  I've seen people trying them out, but none working out that well.

Reapers are never a real problem if you scout. When I see a tech lab and a couple refineries, I immediately start building photon cannons around my economy. Buy the time they get there I have a proper defense built and he is fucked because he has built so many shit units.

" Reapers are never a real problem if you scout. When I see a tech lab and a couple refineries, I immediately start building photon cannons around my economy. Buy the time they get there I have a proper defense built and he is fucked because he has built so many shit units. "

The problem is that early game ZvT and late game ZvP is very hard for zerg at the moment, so what are they going to buff? 
 
But as a terran I would be ok with just removing the reaper. Don't really see any fix for it coming, as they would have to give it some late game upgrade if they nerf it. 
 
Edit: This is what all top Korean terrans do apparently also.

The problem here isn't so much with Zerg, but more with Idra as far as the reaper domination goes.  If people are familiar with his play style, you know that Idra's worst enemy is his inability to deal with really good micro.  He loves macro, and is a stubborn player that tries to stick with a strategy for as long as possible even if it's a failing one.

The muta hold micro is kinda insane too, if used well I have heard only stimed marines counter them. Idra used it against Tarson in that tournament.

You're both right, kinda. 
 
It's true, a lot of players tend to favor proxy and all ins toward Idra, because he does have some trouble with it.  It's not that he can't defend it (Because he can.  He wouldn't be in so many finals if he was not) but if you manage to shake him in one game, he sometimes throws the entire set.  You can see it happen a bunch of times.   He defiently wants to play a big macro game, not an 8 min all in defense. 
 
Anyway, that all said, Reapers are a hard unit to balance.  They're useless in late game, but great in the early.  Honestly, even though I think they're AWESOME, I kind of wish blizz had never put them in.  I think the Terran game is fine without them.

" You're both right, kinda.  It's true, a lot of players tend to favor proxy and all ins toward Idra, because he does have some trouble with it.  It's not that he can't defend it (Because he can.  He wouldn't be in so many finals if he was not) but if you manage to shake him in one game, he sometimes throws the entire set.  You can see it happen a bunch of times.   He defiently wants to play a big macro game, not an 8 min all in defense. "

@SamDrugbringer

"Anyway, that all said, Reapers are a hard unit to balance.  They're useless in late game, but great in the early.  Honestly, even though I think they're AWESOME, I kind of wish blizz had never put them in.  I think the Terran game is fine without them. "

I only watched the match where he went for Hellions and pulled half his SCVs to help.  But yeah, I see what you mean. 
 
Terrans to have an insane amount of options.  It's...  I hesitate to start throwing around things like OP, because people use them WAY too often, but it just... feels... like their game is much stronger right now. 

8 reapers can do pretty well agienst almost ANY ammount of cannons.  At the very least, agienst any number of cannons you would have at that point.   They do a lot of damage against buildings.

IMO the best response to this is to just use your first 25 energy for a creep tumor and really start spreading the creep around your main and nat. If you do that with a normal 14gas 14pool speedling expand you shouldn't be in such horrible shape. Just remember, not every Terran player is going to micro like Morrow, I've already played tons of diamond Terrans doing this build, and the majority of them can't micro it well enough to be that big of a threat. Just remember the key to beating this build is spreading and fighting on the creep. Lings and roaches both are great against reapers on creep, and are pretty bad off creep.  

After you hold off the harassment just do your normal bio counters such as muta/ling/bling, lings/bling/hydra/infestor etc.

I played about 5 games vs Terran today. 4 of them were failed mass reaper attempts. 
 
Its not a problem, considering by the time they get 6 of them I have some marauders with concussive shells. But when playing as zerg, its fucking impossible to stop (well for me).

" @Cataphract1014:  However, if your opponent can actually have eight reapers while you only have one cannon, you deserve to lose because they vastly outmacroed you.  On the other hand, with equal levels of macro and intelligent unit production (stalkers, basically) I strongly doubt the reapers could hold up. As for IdrA in the video above, I don't feel his loss was so much balance related as him just getting outplayed. He didn't appear to micro much, made some poor choices when sending his units out to attack, and rarely tried to save them from the fights that he was obviously going to use. On the other hand, the terran payer was very active in his micro, while still matching IdrA's macro.  Still, if zerg absolutely needs some sort of early game buff, I'd suggest cutting the cost of zergling speed to 50/50, to help zerg fight off reaper rushes, and to an extent marauder rushes. "

" Roaches, queens, and Roaches can be kited by the superior range and speed of Reapers.  So, can you stop a Reaper push as Zerg?  Probably.  But it is VERY hard."

That's why I listed it TWICE! 
 
(No it's not, it's because I edited Banelings into another Roaches for some reason.)

 Zerg though, has 4 early game units.  The only one that is as fast as the reaper is the Zergling, however it can be kited at cliffs because it cannot keep attacking once they jump, AND the reapers get BONUS damage against them to boot..  Roaches, queens, and Roaches can be kited by the superior range and speed of Reapers.  So, can you stop a Reaper push as Zerg?  Probably.  But it is VERY hard. "

The difference is that Terrans have by far the greatest range on their units, which allows them to simply hold them in position.  Zerg and to a less extent Toss NEED to be chasing down Terran units, or they are simply fired on. 
 
You cannot stop a Seige Tank by tutleing, ever.

Reapers are easy to squash with early defensive structures.

"Now this is only my opinion, but I get the sense that it's really not that hard for zerg to fend off reaper rushes, it's just that most zerg players get too greedy and aggressive, chasing the Reapers around and letting themselves get kited. If zerg players would simply repress their hubris and concentrate on defending their mineral lines instead of doggedly trying to kill the reapers, I really don't think they would have these problems. I know holding units back and defending isn't glorious, but it works and it's not difficult. Turtling terrans know this, maybe the other races should try it as well. "

Spine crawlers yo. Spine crawlers.

Spine crawlers are nice, but...  When you've got 8 reapers harassing both your main AND your Natural (And they can leap into either) you need 3-4 Spine crawlers at EACH Base to defend, that's....  what 900 resources at least?  Just to stop that harass?

" Spine crawlers yo. Spine crawlers. "

@StarvingGamer:

Roaches with speed researched are faster than Reapers on creep.  Just so everyone knows.   Reapers still have superior range, but the speed increase and large HP pool makes them decent tanks if you can circle lings for a surround.
 
If you can hold the reapers off long enough to get a spire, you can completely negate reapers with one mutalisk.  It would force the terran player to switch to marines or ghosts to react to the mutas.

 @StarvingGamer: If you want to talk about pro-level play, then first off 99% of what is said in this thread is invalidated. All I can justifiedly say is that watching that replay from the first page, IdrA made several large blunders controlling his units against those Reapers, while Morrow did not. Imbalance or no, IdrA got outplayed.

I'm not going to keep replying here, because I play neither Zerg nor Terran, so I don't really have a horse in this race, or any real experience to draw from. 
 
That said, I do think you're vastly oversimpling the issue, Donos.  It's the superior range and speed of early Terran units which gives them HUGE advantages in the early game against either race.

"  @StarvingGamer: If you want to talk about pro-level play, then first off 99% of what is said in this thread is invalidated. All I can justifiedly say is that watching that replay from the first page, IdrA made several large blunders controlling his units against those Reapers, while Morrow did not. Imbalance or no, IdrA got outplayed. "

I feel the biggest problem is the lack of options Zerg have early game and the only good one they had (roaches) have been nerfed way too much. A small buff to them could go a long way for Zerg early game, keep the 2 food but give them more range or something, anything.

I actually kinda enjoy the fact that morrow won with this as it is actually very easy to beat if the terran player has no idea what he is doing and just thinks "herp derp barracks barracks barracks REAPERSREAPERSREAPERS herp derp". Two different games I played out of 3 last night were against terrans that tried it and just failed horribly, they were way too slow and didn't wall of their base. So I just got like 10 zerglings and managed to surround his 2-3 reapers. It's funny how people think they just easily copy a strategy from high level play and expect it to the be the easy button.

" I actually kinda enjoy the fact that morrow won with this as it is actually very easy to beat if the terran player has no idea what he is doing and just thinks "herp derp barracks barracks barracks REAPERSREAPERSREAPERS herp derp". Two different games I played out of 3 last night were against terrans that tried it and just failed horribly, they were way too slow and didn't wall of their base. So I just got like 10 zerglings and managed to surround his 2-3 reapers. It's funny how people think they just easily copy a strategy from high level play and expect it to the be the easy button. "

Mass anything will always be a problem at the very least. Once the other guy starts getting static defenses and other countermeasures, it's a good idea to get some bunkers in your base to house them. The reapers do have a mighty fine range when firing from it.

It just so happens that the latest Day[9] Daily is on this particular match.   http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4049854/
 
It goes into exactly how Morrow was making Idra lose his cool and make mistakes.  Also shows what exactly won Morrow the game (and it wasn't just the reapers), and ends with some options on how to handle a mass reaper push in the final minutes of the video.
 
(Again, thanks SamDrugbringer for bringing Day[9] to my attention.  The dailies have been so helpful.)

People, stop saying mass reaper isn't an issue because you're protoss or terran. It's a PvZ strategy.

In my opinion Reapers are completely worthless, and once the new patch comes out they will be even more worthless. Replace any Reaper with a Marauder and I will be happy. Reapers will require you to sacrifice too much to get a lot of more gas early when instead you could just get a decent amount of gas, upgrade to orbital command, and then minerals shouldnt be a problem. Then you get marauders out super fast. Unless your playing zerg, and unless you are super good with them, I tihnk Reapers are pretty stupid. 
 
I have seen pretty many people trying Reapers lately, even though I play Terran. I just crush them every time though cause they waste too much trying to get reapers while I just mass a huge marine marauder ball.