...is that each race has so many things that feel "overpowered". PsiStorm, definitely overpowered. Dark Swarm? Totally broken. Vultures (3 Mines)? Holy shit so broken.
Yet its a super balanced game. Each race has these abilities that feel so "overpowered" yet it all balances out. I just realized thats why Starcraft is so interesting for me to watch.
I'm trying to think of similar analogues in SC2 with the same "overpowered" feel but Storm is lackluster. Fungal growth is ok I guess but it doesn't feel "OP", I haven't seen anything for Terran that fits this category too well, maybe Marauders with stim (kiting)? Tanks are still pretty beastly but with 3 supply and built-in counters it really isn't as scary as 20 Brood War seige tanks pushing across the map.
Agree/Disagree?
p.s. This isn't a balance discussion, more about how the game feels as a spectator.
I don't think there's anything more tense than watching a scarab get launched a cluster of units or workers. You just don't know until it hits if it's gonna be a dud or if it's going to change the game entirely.It's pretty much a product of horrible pathfinding, how do you possibly replicate that?
Yepp, SC2 has no real powerful and amazing abilities, SC:BW does, that is what makes it so unique and great.
1 Psi storm barely kills anything anymore in SC2 HSM does little damage and is definantly no reaver scarab. Force field micro look the same from Copper to Diamond. Collusus does alot of damage - so? where is the tention? Nukes does laughable damage in SC2. Siege Tank AI is so smart and splashes so little you can't even zealot drop on them anymore. Mines are gone
Fungal growth freezes enemies and deals damage over time, ok thats pretty cool. But the actual graphic effect looks far from amazing imo.
I agree that bw is awesome b/c of the balance, but I wouldn't really say Z has any "overpowered" or "broken" units/spells, though. Dark swarm is pretty much a necessity for Z's to survive in the late game. Unlike, psi storm for instance where no matter what, the Z will always take more damage than the P (assuming the P isn't bad and storms his own units). And what I mean by that is, casting storm is clicking single units, while the Z (if they choose to) need to maneuver groups of units and may need to predict where the storm is going to go off to take less damage. I'm not taking a shot at toss players, just describing why I feel storm is so devastating against Z. Anyway, not to mention, I'd say vults being the fastest unit in the game and doing full damage to workers is a bigger contributor to making it "broken" as you say.
Then again, Z has its own factors that may seem overpowered, like being able to build up larger armies in less time or their shorter and lesser build times and unit costs.
So I guess while I agree with you that bw is awesome because it's balanced, that balance isn't a result of each race having an "overpowered" unit. More like each race has its own unique and abstract elements that the others don't have.
Yeah ive thought of this aswell, its defenitly true. The awesome thing about starcraft is how they just keep throwing overpowered stuff at each other. Some unit combos are insane in theory, like sairreaver, but you need so much skill to pull it off.
Another thing that is great thing about BW is that every unit can potentially counter another unit. Speedlings can hold of vultures and hydras can deal with tanks. Everything in SC2 just seems to counter things way too hard due to how easy they are to use. Even reavers could be taken out with lings in BW with good control. Something like that wouldnt happen in SC2.
I think Valve has said that was their intention with TF2- every class is overpowered in its own right. And really, the game is super enjoyable and pretty balanced in spite of that. I say pretty, because it's a team based game, so some classes will never really excel at certain things, obviously.
On June 12 2010 06:54 Ideas wrote: bw is literally so imbalanced that it's balanced
Fuck yeah. Every race has options that kick so much ass, it takes a surprising amount of skill to assure yourself the win even from a heavy advantage.
This seems less true in SC2 because a lot of options were diminished in potential power but enhanced in ease of use (Colossus replacing Reaver + the Psi Storm nerf are particularly obvious examples), and that makes me a sad panda. But it's quite possible we'll find and standardize difficult mechanical plays that are similarly powerful.
Yeah, I was thinking about this before. Everything looks so completely unfair. If you look at one unit without looking at others, it seems imbalanced. You look at the science vessel and you're like "For 75 energy you can pick a zerg unit and its instantly dead? Imba." But then you go "This unit can make a cloud that makes units literally invincible? And it can eat free units to replenish energy instantly? Imba."
It's the complete unfairness of like every unit that makes BW so great.
On June 12 2010 06:16 djcube wrote: I agree that bw is awesome b/c of the balance, but I wouldn't really say Z has any "overpowered" or "broken" units/spells, though. Dark swarm is pretty much a necessity for Z's to survive in the late game. Unlike, psi storm for instance where no matter what, the Z will always take more damage than the P (assuming the P isn't bad and storms his own units). And what I mean by that is, casting storm is clicking single units, while the Z (if they choose to) need to maneuver groups of units and may need to predict where the storm is going to go off to take less damage. I'm not taking a shot at toss players, just describing why I feel storm is so devastating against Z. Anyway, not to mention, I'd say vults being the fastest unit in the game and doing full damage to workers is a bigger contributor to making it "broken" as you say.
Then again, Z has its own factors that may seem overpowered, like being able to build up larger armies in less time or their shorter and lesser build times and unit costs.
So I guess while I agree with you that bw is awesome because it's balanced, that balance isn't a result of each race having an "overpowered" unit. More like each race has its own unique and abstract elements that the others don't have.
Well if a race surivives based on one ability, I'd say that ability is overpowered.
Starcraft 2 has more nuke options for terran..recently in a game I went ghost, he went DT so I decided to get cloak+nuke as he had no detection, dropped it on 32 probes.. force fields can get pretty nice..i guess..Psi storms are ok fungal growth is cool but it's not red and doesn't leave stuff at 1 hp which is totally less interesting. In all I think Starcraft 2 is looking pretty damn good.
yelling fungal growth isn't as much fun as yelling PLAGGUUU because its a 2 word spell
Whenever there is no starcraft 2 to be played, people start criticizing it, this holds true before and after beta. It's like we're talking behind it's back or something. Speaking of which, I heard cataclysm gained 10 pounds last month.
On June 12 2010 07:35 Lexpar wrote: Whenever there is no starcraft 2 to be played, people start criticizing it, this holds true before and after beta. It's like we're talking behind it's back or something. Speaking of which, I heard cataclysm gained 10 pounds last month.
I realized this a long time ago too. Nothing in SC2 is horribly imbalanced. Lots of cool shit in bw:
T: unlimited comsat late game, irradiate kills almost any zerg unit for only 75 energy, emp removes ALL shields, lockdown lasts like a million seconds, 3 mines per vulture that only costs 75 minerals and is fast as hell. P: storm is sooooooo good, it stacks, has way bigger radius and does way more damage, reavers having 20+ kills in pro games is normal. Z: plague = wherever i click all your units have 1 hp kk?, overlords have detection(i miss this so much), spawn broodling=insta kill, swarm+ling/lurker/ultra = invincible, cracklings are insane
while i agree with storm and reaver drops, I think banelings are really fun to watch, neural parasite too is fun. For protoss, forcefields are awesome to watch, and blink micro is cool too. For terran, ghost nukes are so much more awesome with the giant crosshair on the terran screen vs the tiny dot on the opponent screen, so you can compare and be like ITS RIGHT THERE DUDE OH SHIT MOVEEEE. HMS USED to be fun to watch, but now lack a punch, but PDD is still quite unexpectedly impressive.
bw has some awesome stuff, but sc2 i think has potential to catch up.
Blizzard is not taking enough risks with units in SC2, they're playing it safe and achieving balance in the most boring way. The game feels so lukewarm and simply not exciting enough for me. The Beta is off and I don't miss it the slightest.
On June 12 2010 08:08 ohN wrote: I realized this a long time ago too. Nothing in SC2 is horribly imbalanced. Lots of cool shit in bw:
T: unlimited comsat late game, irradiate kills almost any zerg unit for only 75 energy, emp removes ALL shields, lockdown lasts like a million seconds, 3 mines per vulture that only costs 75 minerals and is fast as hell. P: storm is sooooooo good, it stacks, has way bigger radius and does way more damage, reavers having 20+ kills in pro games is normal. Z: plague = wherever i click all your units have 1 hp kk?, overlords have detection(i miss this so much), spawn broodling=insta kill, swarm+ling/lurker/ultra = invincible, cracklings are insane
SC2 is damn good and no one is bashing it. It's just it is different in ways that make it feel much more tame then Brood War.
It's like Street Fighter 4. Same great fundamentals, a shiny new coat of paint, new characters to master, new match ups to learn, and new mechanics to figure out -- but boy is it a lot less "intense" then previous iterations, they really kept it basic Street Fighter.
And everyone moved on to SF4 because it's the next big thing for the franchise and it's making way for a whole other competitive scene to play in. SC2 is the same, except it's actually gonna have a bitching campaign mode to boot (hopefully).
On June 12 2010 06:16 djcube wrote: I agree that bw is awesome b/c of the balance, but I wouldn't really say Z has any "overpowered" or "broken" units/spells, though. Dark swarm is pretty much a necessity for Z's to survive in the late game. Unlike, psi storm for instance where no matter what, the Z will always take more damage than the P (assuming the P isn't bad and storms his own units). And what I mean by that is, casting storm is clicking single units, while the Z (if they choose to) need to maneuver groups of units and may need to predict where the storm is going to go off to take less damage. I'm not taking a shot at toss players, just describing why I feel storm is so devastating against Z. Anyway, not to mention, I'd say vults being the fastest unit in the game and doing full damage to workers is a bigger contributor to making it "broken" as you say.
Then again, Z has its own factors that may seem overpowered, like being able to build up larger armies in less time or their shorter and lesser build times and unit costs.
So I guess while I agree with you that bw is awesome because it's balanced, that balance isn't a result of each race having an "overpowered" unit. More like each race has its own unique and abstract elements that the others don't have.
Well if a race surivives based on one ability, I'd say that ability is overpowered.
That still doesn't make the race in general overpowered though.
As someone somewhere already said, BW has so many seemingly "imbalanced" units and bugs, that all together it compiles into a wonderful "mistake", the best RTS game of all times. =].
P.s. Also want to add, that when SC:BW was developing, blizzard focused on making every unit as strong as logically possible, which made them basically always useful, through out the whole game in their usage possible, like: zerglings are good in the beginning of the game, when unit count is low and speed is a huge factor, then in the mid game, zerglings can deny/harass expansions, threaten with counterattacks, and in lategame, hive tech spells (plague/swarm) and their gland upgrade makes them very useful again. Now in SC2 development, if blizzard developers see some unit being "strong", they're like: oh ok, lets just weaken it, instead of creating stategic choises for other races to able to deal with it. Why? Because it's much easier.
Defilers make your army invincible and make enemy units die in one hit and have infinite mana and yet ZvT is historically the matchup with the lowest winrate.
On June 12 2010 10:13 Sfydjklm wrote: banelings mudafaka
banelings arent nearly as exciting as anything in bw because they are pretty fucking predictable. You don't have those o shit moments like with a reaver scarab or a mine.
Def agree with the OP. I'd like to add that the fundamental reason isn't that each spell is super overpowered. It's that each spell has so much POTENTIAL to be taken beyond what is believed to be humanly possible in the hands of truly excellent GAMERS. This is what has kept BW exciting for years.
10 years ago, no one could've DREAMED of using defilers in the way you see now. Could any Blizzard designer have dreamed of orange clouds, controlled by inhumanly fast hands, bursting into existence at the last possible SECOND to deny Terran M&M groups expansions and shatter the Terran defensive shell?
Or what about dropship/shuttle micro? Pioneered by Boxer, insta dropping/loading tanks into dropships to slaughter overwhelming dragoon numbers by sheer genius and handspeed and precise control?
SK Terran style? WTF?!?!?! Lurkers are supposed to be a HARD COUNTER to Terran infantry, but through the sick micro of these diligent prodigies you see those little fuckers spreading and convalescing in all kinds of geometric webs to dodge spines and rape.
Protoss storm drops... omfg. Watch this from 2:22...
I really hope SC2 provides the epicness in the years to come =)
Its exactly this reason that I am doubting that SC2 will ever be as entertaining as a spectator sport (and as big of an esport as a result). No scarabs, mines, scourge chasing you down, plagues, even less used abilities like broodlings.
I hope I'll be proven wrong eventually. Until then, BW > SC2 for spectating all the way.
Well the way BW works is miraculous. Each race has a few things that feel OP but they balance out. Like you said, tanks in siege mode feel impossible to kill and yet... Marines feel very undrepowered but just how good they do is crazy. SC2 is like nothing is too strong but nothing is too weak either.
To make SC2 like SC1 is impossible, if they want to get even close theid have to trash everything they have right now. Not to say it wont be balanced but it wont feel the same. It will never have that micro aspect that BW had because all the abilities in SC2 are "balanced"... There wont be any wtf/wow momemts. Right now what we're seeing from SC2 is the best we will see because right now all of us are newbies at the game, even people like IdrA... Once we learn the game like we did BW, SC2 will be a thing you watch to fall asleep.
[EDIT] I would like to say that how exactly will SC2 take off in Korea when the game itself will be so much with the Pay-to-play content etc, sadly I don't see it happening.
On June 12 2010 11:29 ilj.psa wrote: spectator bw obviously wins but
is sc2 even as good as bw as a player?
Well its a lot easier, so for the general gaming population (i.e. casuals) it will be more rewarding. We'll have to wait for the dust to settle once 2 is released for a while to see how it retains attention on a pro level. Either way, watching progamers master bw (like perfectly timed/spaced storms for example) is a work of art. In 2 I just can't find myself getting excited about it due to smartcasting.
bliz obviously knows how to make sc2 better, but they aim it to younger adiences, not older ones or pros, so they make the game easier, which is why theres no units that take skill to use, and easier mechanics
On June 12 2010 06:04 Abenson wrote: Theoretically, dark swarm is probably the most logically imba skill ever.
This comment really shows the beauty of BW. Theoretically sure but in practice it's actually pretty fucking difficult to utilize to it's fullest. It takes a lot of skill to use well and it takes a lot of skill to fight against. I havn't really played SC2 cause my computer is shit but the facts alone show a constant player improvement over 10 fucking years in Starcraft: Brood Wars and that in itself is mindblowing. We've all seen Mario speedruns done in like 7 minutes when people have figured out and beaten the game. It's done and conquered simple. Fallout, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden whatever it doesn't matter. I can't think of a game that has stood the test of time as well as SC:BW. There seems to be a new shooter every year to play. Sports games reinvent themselves every year to keep things fresh, When you think of the dedicated fan base of BW it's just beyond amazing and truly speaks to the depth of the game. I know it's cliche by this point but I truly see Starcraft as a timeless game like Chess that could be played as long as the Earth has electricity/power and that means a lot. The game is perfect for what it is and who can ask for more than perfection? Because a person can get so incredible at BW means that as long as people play the game for what it is -- an old ass strategy game with shitty graphics and a limited selection of 12 units with 10 hotkeys -- it won't die.
viva le bw. It's been around since grade 7 and I'm 23 now. I'll never love a game like I've loved BW and I hope to always be able to log in and play some games for fun cause that's all it's been to me these last few years -- fun. SC exploded and popularized the word "e-sports" and a lot of young go-getters are dreaming to be progamers but games are meant to be fun and I can't imagine BW ever being not fun. Sure when I took it too seriously before the fun was drained out of it but again in the last few years everytime I came back to it there was instant gratifcation and my mind remembered exactly why I loved the game so much. Gl to everyone in a hurry to make a name for themselves in this new scene but the days of BW will always be the epitome of gaming for me.
Well each patch note there's rage all over TL about the last cool stuff considered overpowered and people asking for nerf. When it's nerfed now people complain everything is dull and boring... I wish sometimes Blizz wouldn't listen to feedback, most of the time people don't know what they want.
That infestor control ability could be used so that it becomes totally overpowered, in the Day[9] daily with TLO against Jinro's mech when his infestors controlled like 4 thors at once and they began whaling at his base along with like 5 ultras it was pretty awesome. Besides that I can't see any other 'overpowered' abilities, but come on guys, with two more expansions, there is still hope for some of them .
On June 12 2010 14:00 Newguy wrote: That infestor control ability could be used so that it becomes totally overpowered, in the Day[9] daily with TLO against Jinro's mech when his infestors controlled like 4 thors at once and they began whaling at his base along with like 5 ultras it was pretty awesome. Besides that I can't see any other 'overpowered' abilities, but come on guys, with two more expansions, there is still hope for some of them .
The game had a 10-year-old predecessor to learn from, you cant say "Lets wait for the expansions". The game shouldn't be compared to SC without BW, it is supposed to be the next big thing, if fanboys even say that we should compare it to StarCraft Original or wait for expansions it means even they don't feel like the game is good now
On June 12 2010 06:00 flamewheel wrote: SCBW4LYFE SO MUCH BETTER. PLAGUUUUUUU
^ something about watching BW gives me such excitement, that i sometimes start yelling at the screen "AHHH NOOO" i find myself screaming just like the commentators. BEST GAME EVER CREATED HANDS DOWN, I LOVE TEAMLIQUID.NET
scbw before e-sports in korea isn't balanced, yet Korean progamers always succeeds in finding ways to counter anything. I think same logic applies to SC2. If something seems imbalanced in SC2, foreigners yell "IMBA!!!!"(Just look at SC2 strategy) while koreans think(their mind is somehow very different from the rest). So saying SC1 > SC2 imo is wrong. If a strategy is considered imba, everyone is going to use it but eventually something would counter it. That counter would now be the imba strat and people will start to use it and the same thing will happen again just like the 4 seasons. Every strat/unit has a counter(micro counts too). As a spectator, there is nothing i can do but wait for progaming to switch to SC2 then after that everything would seem normal.
I agree with this. It just feels they played super safe designing SC2. If you look at terran spells, for example, its so dull.
Yamato - high damage single spell Thor cannon- high damage single spell over time snipe - high biological damage single spell
Just seems like a lot of boring designs all around.
Not to say sc2 isnt fun,or cant be a great competitive game but it definitely doesnt have a lot of flare comparatively. Still gonna get it, still gonna probably be great but its discouraging to see that. I guess its not the same team, but you'd think theyd recognize/appreciation strong points of bw. Then again, given the bnet 2.0 fiasco, it's hard to say that they're perceptive on these kind of things.
On a brighter note: Suggestions on (realistic) fixes? I think they should build on a lot of the cooler units like reapers, ravens mothership etc(?!). Rebalance damage/cost etc as needed and really make it a goal to add that character to the game.
I think the two things that really prevent sc2 from being as good as BW right now are things that will not change no matter how many expansions it gets 1) the units bunch up too much and micro themselves. The AI just doesnt take too well to you microing it, and the micro you can do is normally not as flashy/jaw dropping as it was in BW. (refer to marine vs lurker splits, lurkerling flanks, PvT battle micro, hell, theres a million things going on. goons shooting and stepping forward after each shot until their shot is recharged to take damage from less tanks, zealots being split and sent with move commands to different tanks so that they dont get caught on mines and drag them instead, zealots and DTs being dropped into tanks from shuttles, storms going off everywhere, arbiters stasising the back tanks just seeing that kinda battle is like *___* There is nothing comparitive in sc2 because, in a large way, the AI renders most melee units useless. Since ranged units autosurround so fast, zerglings and zealots are so much less useful then they used to be. but returning to the main point of the article, one of the main reasons that sc2 cant be as good is because of smartcasting. Dont get me wrong, i love being able to do it, but because of smartcasting in addition with units bunching together much harder and closer, AoE spells have to be MUCH weaker as a result. Thus its just not as exciting to watch, and lets face it, if even a copper player can cast 8 storms over an army, or a perfect double fungal growth to cut into the terran MMM tank force, then whats so special about it? After the novelty of casting a lot of spells at a time wears off, you'll be left with the feeling that this simply doesnt give you a feeling of accomplishment in sc1 - templars drop from shuttles, 5 storms cover the terran army perfectly you KNOW you're gonna go wild seeing that, hell, I think it gave some koreans heart attacks when jangbi did his fuckin thunderstorm move
in sc2 - templars drop from warp prisms, suddenly 10 storms all over army noone cares because it did barely any damage, most of the army got out of it before it even took half their life, and its no feat to do.
The reason things are not imba is because of how hard they are to pull off. Good AI and user friendly control changes the dynamic completely. Its not hard as hell anymore so it has to be toned down or it actually will be imba.
I think you have to enjoy different things about sc than the awesome spells to like it maybe.
On June 12 2010 06:16 djcube wrote: I agree that bw is awesome b/c of the balance, but I wouldn't really say Z has any "overpowered" or "broken" units/spells, though. Dark swarm is pretty much a necessity for Z's to survive in the late game. Unlike, psi storm for instance where no matter what, the Z will always take more damage than the P (assuming the P isn't bad and storms his own units). And what I mean by that is, casting storm is clicking single units, while the Z (if they choose to) need to maneuver groups of units and may need to predict where the storm is going to go off to take less damage. I'm not taking a shot at toss players, just describing why I feel storm is so devastating against Z. Anyway, not to mention, I'd say vults being the fastest unit in the game and doing full damage to workers is a bigger contributor to making it "broken" as you say.
Then again, Z has its own factors that may seem overpowered, like being able to build up larger armies in less time or their shorter and lesser build times and unit costs.
So I guess while I agree with you that bw is awesome because it's balanced, that balance isn't a result of each race having an "overpowered" unit. More like each race has its own unique and abstract elements that the others don't have.
You obviously didn't play protoss much since storm is the only way to survive against an hydra army.
Totally agree with op and most of the people here, in bw races are balanced but with amazingly good units, in sc2 units are balanced = boring. ( or less entertaining at least)
I agree 100% with the OP. In my opinion, one of the main things that makes a game fun is making the player feel overpowered but still challenged. In SC2, everything was nerfed for the sake of balance, while I feel like the game would be more fun if everything had been buffed instead.
I do agree on this, had the same impression myself a while ago. But i think i read somewhere that Blizz is keeping an eye on the e-sports scene and wants the game to be exciting to watch, it probably was in an interview with an important blizzard interview - i doubt i'll find that source again. So even when there are less things making you go "ZOMH" in the game right now, they might be to come in the expansions. we dont know if Blizzard is not possibly holding new and exciting content (such as the lurker? ) back to make the purchase of the addons even more appealing (probably obligatory anyways...). and i must admit that there are a lot of high level sc2 games that are very suspenseful and have their exciting moments and abilities.
Banelings can really rip into an army - might be kind of tedious for players, dont play ZvZ much, but watching anti-baneling micro is extremely impressive, exciting, hard and rewarding - at least in my opinion. HTs die in a couple baneling-hits, too, so you gotta be aware of your surroundings. 1 flank or maybe burrowed banelings can take out all your HTs. watching a massive mechpush being countered by burrowed roaches is also exciting, as the Terran might PERHAPS notice the roaches moving underneath (afaik there is something akin to the DT-blur). And if he does 1 scan will totally f_ck the zerg-army and that might just be game right there, while if he does not the roaches can unburrow and have a huge surround on all the units and possibly snipe some key units, pop up next to sieged tanks and all that good stuff.
Another thing that is spontaneously coming to my mind is that nydus network that was displayed in a recent "plays of the week" or something... Basically a ton of nydus worms were put up everywhere around the protoss main and natural (map was DO, so there was a lot of room). Then the zerg sent some roaches into the main and harassed a little, retreating when the toss' force appeared. He popped right out of the worm at the natural and so on and so forth - there was not a lot the protoss could have done in that situation. Nydus worms (just like warp-in and healing, flying troop-transporters) are very powerful and might appear to be imba when out of context.
i think there is a lot of tension in SC2 if the right things happen. and if they don't you might agree that there are pretty boring games of broodwar, too. even if it is hard to play, incredibly hard that is, there is not much suspense in watching flash build up a huge army and roflstomp a random protoss.
sure, the game is great - but sometimes i think people are a little too idealistic with broodwar. not taking away anything from its epicness, but not every game was a highlight to watch. matches between top level players usually resulted in epic games and a lot of tension, but the same goes with SC2 imo.
TL;DR: too little jaw-dropping moments imaginable, but it's not like there are none at all. the game has a lot of potential in my opinion and as further content will follow we will surely see more exciting stuff. Banelings for example offer a lot of great micro opportunities and suspense "will they blow up? can he save his 25+ probes?" and the new mobility makes for the possibility of intense multitasking and the killing of 50 bases at once.
There are plenty of spells with game-changing potential in SC2. Force field. Mind control. EMP. It's really specific to each game you play, and the skill of the players. I could easily create 'exciting' moments full of amazing micro in a game with another really bad player. Just because you have tense moments doesn't mean it's a good game. Look at how many proleague matches get rated 'so bad it's good', and how many top-level matches are straight-up macroing better than the other guy and rolling. It all depends on each individual game. You wouldn't call soccer a bad sport just because there aren't any BOOM YOU DEAD tactics lol.
You wouldn't call soccer a bad sport just because there aren't any BOOM YOU DEAD tactics lol.
Dunno, soccer is pretty boring and tedious most of the time, while it still has its (short) highlights. kinda like WC3 now that i think about it =)
i mean if there was such a tactic it sure would make for a more interesting viewing experience, at least in my book...
And i think one of the main arguments is that SC2 sacrifices power for applicability. Both EMP and MC are less powerful than in Broodwar but easier to use (and to get).
Things like Vortex on the other hand are cool to watch and can easily turn the tide in your favor, even when fighting a very uphill battle. Then again you dont see a mothership very often.
All i ask for are abilities or spells so powerful, they shift the balance of the game a lot - like when dark swarm was ready in a TvZ.
i really wanna give SC2 a chance and i sincerely hope that good players will develop such play in the future. but i wouldnt mind if blizzard offered some more potential with the following content.