Terran is Too Flexible - Page 5

On August 12 2010 05:18 naonao wrote:
How is this any different from a terran with a vulture/tank composition being able to switch to goliaths once scouting carriers in scbw?

On August 13 2010 06:11 VorcePA wrote:
Jesus tapdancing Christ. You guys are seriously out of control with how much you're leaping down this guy's throat for his blog, and this is coming from a Terran player. I sort of agree with him, but perhaps not to the extent in which he would want a change in the next expansion.

Calm the fuck down, ladies and gents.

On August 13 2010 06:15 Hawk wrote:
Im a toss user and I find this blog dumb. go figure!

On August 13 2010 06:25 Ndugu wrote:
Edit: And I have explained again and again how GOLIATHS in BW were a perfectly well designed counter to carriers.

They were on the ground. They had shorter range, and had to get an upgraded to get decent range whatsoever against carriers.

Vikings require none of that. Carriers could also exploit high-ground/open-air etc against goliaths, whereas vikings are ata.

Also, different game is different.

On August 13 2010 07:52 TheYango wrote:

Most of these seem to just fall into the fact that Vikings are a better AtA unit than Goliaths, and seem to have little to do with the flexibility of production methods.

On August 13 2010 06:16 OneOther wrote:

It's dumb in the sense that he's a little extreme, but I do agree with some points to a certain extent. In my opinion at least.

On August 13 2010 09:54 Slayer91 wrote:
Yeah but vikings absurd range means that they can take down things from a safe distance, pheonix muta are not that effective against colossus or even carriers/void rays simply because they are more vulnerable to stalker and sentry fire. They are also dedicated anti massive whereas pheonix and muta are anti-anti-armour or anti light.

On August 12 2010 22:13 Ndugu wrote:


I will explain one last time, as I prepare to make this into a non-blog post again.

This game has hard counters. HARD counters. It is a fact of life and I am assuming it will continue to be one.

For example, the immortal. It does 50 damage to armored, but is balanced by its crap range of 5 and slow speed, which means that even stalkers can kite it. You have to micro it, and I think to a certain extent it is designed to be used alongside warp prisms.

It is also balanced by a very long build time, and the fact that you will have to throw down an additional robotics facility and wait for it to build before you can produce 2x immortals at a time.

For Hellions and Vikings, you will always have a factory or Starport, at least one, as a part of any reasonable build once you get past mid-game.

As a result, Terran can pump out Vikings to wtfpwn armored/massive air units without making any additional investment in terms of making additional buildings, procuring additional research, etc. It's just make Vikings off of the reactor starport you already have and win.

In the current game, THIS IS NOT OVERPOWERED. It's not overpowered because people won't go carriers. People won't go Collosi (for long) as they will switch to templar tech when you get vikings. ETC

I am simply saying it is bad design. The ability to MASS hard-counter units, without going out of your way as Terran makes Tech paths for Protoss and Zerg non-viable.

An example of good design is the Thor. It has a lot of trade-offs for its ability to counter mass air, such as its slow movement, long build time, and the requirement for an armory. It won't always just casually be ready to make when you see a spire-- you have to take time and make an investment to counter mutas. Once you make that investment, the Zerg player can either micro very very hard and keep using them, or must stop making mutas. That is how countering works. You make a time and money investment and when the time comes, it pays off in allowing you to have units that give you an advantage over your enemies units, not a result of physical skill, but of your ability to adapt and plan.

For Vikings, that is not the case. The design of the Hellion, where you have to get the research on a tech lab before being able to double-pump upgraded hellions, is a good one. You cant instantly wtfpwn light units and you can do quite well against lings with micro pre-upgrade. It introduces the trade-off of "How fast do I want my hellions? Do I want to grab the upgrade or double-pump them? Do I need to build a 2nd factory so I can do both".

I suggest that in the future Vikings return to 8+6, and an upgrade to increase their damage to armored appears on the tech lab (perhaps give Raven's seeker missile for free in exchange lol).

This way, if a Protoss player sneaks Carriers or Collosi, the Terran player can't instantly switch from reactored medivacs to reactored, hard-counter vikings. It takes a time investment. You shouldn't always just be able to hard-counter a unit as soon as you see it. As Protoss and Zerg you have to scout and pre-emptively adapt to your opponents army. As Terran, you are granted too much flexibility.

I played Terran for a while and I was amazed that I could build one of each production building (extremely fast teching) and have an army strong enough to expand. Can you imagine a Protoss player building a gateway, a robotics facility, and a stargate, and then having enough army to push out and expand? Obviously different races are different, and I think that down the line 1-1-1 won't be viable because players will adapt to have MUCH stronger early pressure Korean style.

But once it is late game, Terran can make any unit when the need arises. Without any investment, buildings, tech, or research.

On August 13 2010 10:05 Hawk wrote:


im sure it something that will be explored in future patches but the original thing was pure hyperbole. even elite players exaggerate the shit out of everything and complain. look at idra. I certainly do trust his opinion on balance a bit more than others, but when you have like a 7:1 win:loss in every matchup it's kind of hard to listen to him sit there and complain about it.

everything should be explored for balance reasons, but two weeks past release is hardly enough time to get a good sample size for anything. vikes seem to be pretty easily dealt with if you do proper scouting + unit composition.

it really should be around a month before any kind of balance patching comes out

On August 13 2010 16:01 Impervious wrote:
Not gonna lie, from a T perspective, Carriers seem pretty useless atm.....

On August 13 2010 16:18 Entropic wrote:


From a Z and P perspective theyre pretty useless too.