I've been experimenting with different marine builds recently, inspired by watching Sasin and discussing marine epics with Darkness. So, I ran some tests - spreadsheet below:
(Link to image:
https://i.imgur.com/9X75VN0.png)
All tests were run using 100 marines + 1 vulture loaded inside 1 medivac for each side. Blink micro was used when the test started to form a concave.The results are pretty interesting:
-It seems that rapidfire is just straight-up better than both untouchable and blink when it comes to marine vs marine, whether you rush to it or get it lategame. If melee is involved, it would lean even more heavily in favor of rapidfire.
-A blink rush beats a rush to untouchable, but untouchable outscales blink as HP and damage increase. This is expected, since the blink rush gets +1 armor early, and armor is great vs the fast weapon speed of marines. And of course, more HP = more chances to dodge.
-There isn't much variance regarding the randomness of the 40% dodge mechanic of untouchable. Untouchable probably has a greater effect in very small groups of marines, and when facing slow weapon speed/splash damage. (I once had a marine standing at a tower who killed 3 snipers by himself and took 0 damage
)
-Weirdly enough, untouchable and blink are by far the most used upgrades, in both pubs and scrims. I guess people prefer blink to snipe high value targets/dodge spells, and untouchable to keep their marines alive for a bit longer vs splash damage. Personally, I use all three upgrades (depending on the situation: rapidfire with melee, untouchable vs splash, blink vs heroes).
What do you guys think about marine epic/minor upgrades, and what do you tend to use more in your games?