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This is brief.
Late game Terran can make any unit they want with the production facilities they will have made. Armory will be thrown down for upgrades eventually, so that really just leaves BCs that they need to make a building for. I think this is meant to be balanced out by how much research they have to get, but really, the fact that all the research is on tech labs makes it laughably easy.
They can reactor some of the most hard-counterish units in existence (viking and hellion) to very quickly adapt to your unit composition. Thought you'd surprise them with mass zerglings when they didn't have a single hellion built? They won't be useful for long. Thought you could take advantage of their 1+A MMM ball that only has marines for AA by making void rays or *gasp* carriers? Vikings will be on the way.
I think in future expansions Terran needs to be made less flexible. Perhaps add more buildings they must build to unlock a particular unit beyond tech labs, for example.
For example, make it so that a building is required for them to make vikings so that they cant instantly counter Collosi/carriers/battlecruisers/brood lords.
Actually, now that I think about it, adding a specific building for Viking/Hellion would balance this out quite nicely. Hellions could come with factory, but require a specific building to get infernal pre-igniter (and maybe put whatever upgrade they intend to make reapers a real unit in future expansions).
Vikings could start off with no bonus damage to armored and require an upgrade from the building to get it  That way, with micro they could still roflstomp Void Rays, but they could not instantly wtfpwn Corrupter/brood lord or void ray/carrier.
Just lost a game versus a Terran where I killed off his early dropship attempt, expanded forever before him, had a larger army... and decided hey, he's mostly marauders, I'll go carriers.
He scanned. Pushed out a few minutes later with a million vikings and marauders. Able to hard-counter my (I thought) relatively safe stalker/carrier combination. Obviously I could have done more/better to win, but the instantaneous ability to counter my units made me rage. ZERG is supposed to be able to do that, not Terran.
Edit: Before someone else feels smart pointing out that I went a horrible build, that's the point. Carriers will never be viable because of how quickly Terran can hard-counter them with reactored vikings. They wont have to throw down a new building, or grab some new research, or anything. Just spam vikings instead of medivacs into a victory they dont deserve. In a game where I was at such an advantage where I figured "What the hell? I could win if I massed probes" I managed to lose because of how flexible Terran is without making the trade-off of having less specialized units that Zerg has to make.
  
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As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. Going by your profile icon, yes it is true that us protoss players are the most inflexible D: At least we have Warp Gate.
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On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg.
I saw that game too and I loved it. Flexibility is a racial trait of Zerg-- not of Terran. Or, I should say, it IS a racial trait for Terran, and I feel it should not be.
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I always thought the reactor/research lab swapping ability is way too gimmicky. Whats wrong with specialized add-on for every building in the first place.
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"I just lost a game where I used carrier / stalker, a composition that sucks and no1 ever uses...and I lost with it....TERRAN IMBA"
Why would you go carriers against terran? They're so bad vs vikings
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On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. Going by your profile icon, yes it is true that us protoss players are the most inflexible D: At least we have Warp Gate.
the point is that Terran has access to all their units (outside battlecruiser) in one tech path. Barracks->Factory->Starport. How is that less flexible than Zerg? if a zerg wants hydras, he needs to build a hydralisk den. if he wants air, he needs a spire. If he wants ultralisks, he needs an ultralisk cavern. Now if Zerg had every tech building made then I can see why Zerg can easily switch between units.
It was the same situation in SC1, but it wasn't much of a problem since only certain types of units were viable in each matchup. But in SC2, it seems like EVERY unit type is viable for Terran.
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On August 12 2010 04:59 SubtleArt wrote:
"I just lost a game where I used carrier / stalker, a composition that sucks and no1 ever uses...and I lost with it....TERRAN IMBA"
Why would you go carriers against terran? They're so bad vs vikings
EXACTLY. That is the point of this thread. I had blink researching so I could use my stalkers to smite the vikings. It would be a cool strategy if vikings werent so hard-counterish and massable.
Carriers are completely non-viable because Vikings hard-counter them and are able to be instaneously mass-produced. Why should Terran be able to do that? What trade-off do they make? Zerg give up specialized units with bonus damage in favor of more generic units. Think of how bad and useless corrupters are compared to vikings, who get massive bonus damage against all but 2 air to air units and can then morph to ground units...
If they scout it and start preparing vikings before hand, they should be able to stop it, but he scouted it once I had a bunch and was able to have a ton when he pushed out.
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Wait, according to your theory Zerg should be OP not terran. Zerg can do a tech switch instantly with all their unit producing structures.
Also about your game, if people see your army structure, they will get units to counter it, no matter what race they are.
This seems like a thread not good enough for the SC2 forums and being passed off as blog. ><
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On August 12 2010 05:04 Shatter wrote:
Wait, according to your theory Zerg should be OP not terran. Zerg can do a tech switch instantly with all their unit producing structures.
Also about your game, if people see your army structure, they will get units to counter it, no matter what race they are.
This seems like a thread not good enough for the SC2 forums and being passed off as blog. ><
Yeah it is. I wanted to rage really quickly.
The different is, Zerg units dont do MASSIVE bonus damage. Zerg units don't have "hard counters" except for a few specific examples. That is the BALANCE and trade-off for being able to massively tech-switch. Terran has the ability to slightly less well tech-switch, with zero trade-off. Units are very strong counters to what they counter, very strong for cost, etc.
The example, once again, is comparing the corrupter to the viking.
Mutas and roaches are countered by the same unit in PvZ. Mutas and Hydras are taken care of pretty well by Thors in TvZ.
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On August 12 2010 05:01 blabber wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. Going by your profile icon, yes it is true that us protoss players are the most inflexible D: At least we have Warp Gate. the point is that Terran has access to all their units (outside battlecruiser) in one tech path. Barracks->Factory->Starport. How is that less flexible than Zerg? if a zerg wants hydras, he needs to build a hydralisk den. if he wants air, he needs a spire. If he wants ultralisks, he needs an ultralisk cavern. Now if Zerg had every tech building made then I can see why Zerg can easily switch between units. It was the same situation in SC1, but it wasn't much of a problem since only certain types of units were viable in each matchup. But in SC2, it seems like EVERY unit type is viable for Terran.
You can't make Thors, Ghosts, BCs, or further infantry upgrades with those 3 buildings?
Add-ons also takes time to build even if the resource cost is negligible... I don't understand what the point of this thread is, if you are trying to argue late game flexibility shouldn't all races have the capacity to build most units they want anyway? How is throwing down a spire different than throwing down an armory?
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Why is there never a non biased terran in these kinds of threads? I completely agree with the OP about the tech switch can be done way too quick with so many upgrades per tech lab. On top of this I want to move the emp from ghost to raven, I think that should help things out as well :D
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What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time.
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On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time.
This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X.
My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment.
How many times have you seen a Terran go MMM, so a Toss player goes Collosi, so the Terran player has vikings up and ready as soon as they see the Collosi without having to make any type of investment or preparation. Carriers are completely useless in PvT as a result of this as well, where, if Vikings required a bit more investment to reach before they could be massed, taking a Terran by surprise with Carriers could be viable.
And we all know what Hellions do to Zerglings. X_x
Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment.
For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay?
Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example.
Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty.
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And you need tech labs to make marauders, reapers, tanks, banshees, and ravens..... And, to get some of the simpler units out two at a time, you need to build a reactor (which takes a long fucking time to build).
Yea, who really thinks that building a starport would actually require another tech building before you could actually make air combat units? Seriously OP?
Nawe, it's just cause you don't like vikings..... Don't be mad cause you left yourself open to being hard-countered.....
And, honestly, Z can still pump units out quicker when they make a tech switch. Much faster. By far.
And having every unit being viable in every matchup is an awesome thing..... I don't see how that's bad, at all..... It makes it a much more diverse game, strategically.
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How is this any different from a terran with a vulture/tank composition being able to switch to goliaths once scouting carriers in scbw?
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On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time.
The same thing can be said to Zerg as well... I think sc2 still has too many hard counters, which makes scouting much more important than macro/micro mechanics.
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On August 12 2010 05:17 Impervious wrote:
And you need tech labs to make marauders, reapers, tanks, banshees, and ravens..... And, to get some of the simpler units out two at a time, you need to build a reactor (which takes a long fucking time to build).
Yea, who really thinks that building a starport would actually require another tech building before you could actually make air combat units? Seriously OP?
Nawe, it's just cause you don't like vikings..... Don't be mad cause you left yourself open to being hard-countered.....
And, honestly, Z can still pump units out quicker when they make a tech switch. Much faster. By far.
And having every unit being viable in every matchup is an awesome thing..... I don't see how that's bad, at all..... It makes it a much more diverse game, strategically.
I agree with the bolded, and it was one of the goals of this thread.
I also haven't said Terran is OP, at least, not because of their flexibility. Its just poor design in my opinion that should be fixed in the future
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?
The fact that Goliaths couldn't be reactored and weren't air units, so Carriers could make use of high-ground ledges, etc. They weren't as strong of a hard-counter. And they didn't ever out-range Carriers... and required an upgrade to get decent range at all...
I can keep going.
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On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty.
Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly.
And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is.....
Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though 
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You cant jus make some units and then 1a into him n expect to win. Most sc2 complain threads have been where people make some units 1a and lose, then the next game, they do the same thing, and lose, then do the same thing, and lose. Then they go, OMFG THIS GAME IS IMBA.
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On August 12 2010 04:58 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. I saw that game too and I loved it. Flexibility is a racial trait of Zerg-- not of Terran. Or, I should say, it IS a racial trait for Terran, and I feel it should not be.
Congratulations on being aware of your feelings. When games should be balanced on them, we'll let you know.
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reactor is there to compensate for the chronoboost and inject larva mechanics... You will obviously fall behind without those since terran production facilities cost so much
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On August 12 2010 05:22 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty. Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly. And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is..... Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though
Once again, I didn't say "MAKE THIS BALANCE CHANGE TO FIX GAME KK GO". I said in the future, when the game as a whole receives a substantial rebalance as a result of expansions. The ability to rapidly mass units that instantly hard-counter something is bad design.
What Zerg units actually hard-counter something?
Protoss units that can be warped-in are not very strong counters to anything as well. P and Z both trade strength (in terms of hard-countering) for flexibility. Terran doesn't.
You do make a good point about hellions tech lab/reactor. Maybe the same exact thing could be done for Vikings... put an upgrade for it on tech lab.
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On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:22 Impervious wrote:On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty. Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly. And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is..... Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though Once again, I didn't say "MAKE THIS BALANCE CHANGE TO FIX GAME KK GO". I said in the future, when the game as a whole receives a substantial rebalance as a result of expansions. The ability to rapidly mass units that instantly hard-counter something is bad design.
So if your problem is not flexibility but the hard counters in sc2 (which has been discussed since early beta, and blizzard has removed many of these bonus dmg), then I would agree
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On August 12 2010 05:25 Glacierz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:22 Impervious wrote:On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty. Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly. And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is..... Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though Once again, I didn't say "MAKE THIS BALANCE CHANGE TO FIX GAME KK GO". I said in the future, when the game as a whole receives a substantial rebalance as a result of expansions. The ability to rapidly mass units that instantly hard-counter something is bad design. So if your problem is not flexibility but the hard counters in sc2 (which has been discussed since early beta, and blizzard has removed many of these bonus dmg), then I would agree
Hard counters exist for a reason. Good examples of hard-counters would be say, immortals. You can't mass them easily. They are not in your standard unit mix most of the time, they take forever to build, etc. If you scout a Terran going heavy mech, and throw down an extra robo... you'll have a bunch of immortals after making a huge investment and taking a lot of time.
Where-as, when a Terran scouts Collosi, Carriers, etc, they stop making medivacs and make vikings, 2 at a time. No extra building needed. No serious time investment needed.
One more time, making units that are hard-counters but also extremely massable and cost-effective is bad design.
That being said, combining cybernetics core and robotics facility into one building would make me smile. :D
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On August 12 2010 05:19 Glacierz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. The same thing can be said to Zerg as well... I think sc2 still has too many hard counters, which makes scouting much more important than macro/micro mechanics.
Negative. If a Terran is to be prepared for "anything," he will need to have a couple of every tech building, hence the 1/1/1. But this implies he will be unable to make much of any particular unit. If you get Void Ray'd as Zerg, you get a couple extra queens while you wait for Den and then spam 12 Hydras. If I get Void Ray'd as T, I hope my Reactor is on my Port so I can make 2 Vikings, or else I'm in trouble.
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On August 12 2010 05:30 MangoTango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:19 Glacierz wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. The same thing can be said to Zerg as well... I think sc2 still has too many hard counters, which makes scouting much more important than macro/micro mechanics. Negative. If a Terran is to be prepared for "anything," he will need to have a couple of every tech building, hence the 1/1/1. But this implies he will be unable to make much of any particular unit. If you get Void Ray'd as Zerg, you get a couple extra queens while you wait for Den and then spam 12 Hydras. If I get Void Ray'd as T, I hope my Reactor is on my Port so I can make 2 Vikings, or else I'm in trouble.
Marine/ghost does fine versus Void Rays. Mass marine does fine versus Void Rays.
If Void Rays could pwn you unless you countered them with vikings specifically, I could understand the immense strength, range, bonus damage, and massability of vikings.
And, I am mostly talking about fairly late game. Once you reach two-bases and Terran has every unit producing structure. Mid-game is cool and balanced, as Terran may not have starport fast enough, etc.
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On August 12 2010 05:28 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:25 Glacierz wrote:On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:22 Impervious wrote:On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty. Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly. And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is..... Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though Once again, I didn't say "MAKE THIS BALANCE CHANGE TO FIX GAME KK GO". I said in the future, when the game as a whole receives a substantial rebalance as a result of expansions. The ability to rapidly mass units that instantly hard-counter something is bad design. So if your problem is not flexibility but the hard counters in sc2 (which has been discussed since early beta, and blizzard has removed many of these bonus dmg), then I would agree Hard counters exist for a reason. Good examples of hard-counters would be say, immortals. You can't mass them easily. They are not in your standard unit mix most of the time, they take forever to build, etc. If you scout a Terran going heavy mech, and throw down an extra robo... you'll have a bunch of immortals after making a huge investment and taking a lot of time. Where-as, when a Terran scouts Collosi, Carriers, etc, they stop making medivacs and make vikings, 2 at a time. No extra building needed. No serious time investment needed. One more time, making units that are hard-counters but also extremely massable and cost-effective is bad design. That being said, combining cybernetics core and robotics facility into one building would make me smile. :D
I can say the same about Thor hard countering mutas? Takes long to build, requires armory, etc, etc... Wouldn't you solve the problem in a less game changing way by removing hard counters on the massable units then?
I personally think all zerg units are massable late game with the right tech and good injection mechanics... Still don't see why it's an issue
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On August 12 2010 05:35 Glacierz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:28 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:25 Glacierz wrote:On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:22 Impervious wrote:On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty. Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly. And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is..... Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though Once again, I didn't say "MAKE THIS BALANCE CHANGE TO FIX GAME KK GO". I said in the future, when the game as a whole receives a substantial rebalance as a result of expansions. The ability to rapidly mass units that instantly hard-counter something is bad design. So if your problem is not flexibility but the hard counters in sc2 (which has been discussed since early beta, and blizzard has removed many of these bonus dmg), then I would agree Hard counters exist for a reason. Good examples of hard-counters would be say, immortals. You can't mass them easily. They are not in your standard unit mix most of the time, they take forever to build, etc. If you scout a Terran going heavy mech, and throw down an extra robo... you'll have a bunch of immortals after making a huge investment and taking a lot of time. Where-as, when a Terran scouts Collosi, Carriers, etc, they stop making medivacs and make vikings, 2 at a time. No extra building needed. No serious time investment needed. One more time, making units that are hard-counters but also extremely massable and cost-effective is bad design. That being said, combining cybernetics core and robotics facility into one building would make me smile. :D I can say the same about Thor hard countering mutas? Takes long to build, requires armory, etc, etc... Wouldn't you solve the problem in a less game changing way by removing hard counters on the massable units then?
Thor's are the good kind of hard-counter.
Thors require a specific building, etc. They are also very slow whereas mutas are fast, etc. They aren't THAT hard of a counter, and they are a well designed.
Wouldn't you solve the problem in a less game changing way by removing hard counters on the massable units then?
I'm confused because that's sorta what I'm saying. Making Hellions weaker versus light and vikings weaker versus... almost every air unit in the game... would certainly accomplish the same thing I'm saying.
I'm just trying to stick within the SCII design by saying that perhaps vikings should require an upgrade, hellion style, before they do bonus damage to armored. Or something. I don't have an exact solution, but I'm pointing out the problem and what I can think to do.
On August 12 2010 05:23 Glacierz wrote:
reactor is there to compensate for the chronoboost and inject larva mechanics... You will obviously fall behind without those since terran production facilities cost so much
And I never said to remove reactors.
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On August 12 2010 05:12 dbizzle wrote:
Why is there never a non biased terran in these kinds of threads? I completely agree with the OP about the tech switch can be done way too quick with so many upgrades per tech lab. On top of this I want to move the emp from ghost to raven, I think that should help things out as well :D
Nobody ever wants their race to get nerfed. Since Blizzard are known to read these forums, unopposed issues are more likely to get fast-tracked than those that are hotly opposed.
There are some unbiased Terran, however.
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I've been shitting on Terran's with my fast phoenix build. It is flexible enough to deal with anything from Terran. You can harass scvs, lift tanks during battles, shoot down their first medevac/raven, get a nice scout in 2 minutes after they wall, hard counters banshee builds. It makes Terran turtle or delays pushes. If you see them going all in with marines you pump stalkers, if its maruaders you pump zealots and pick some up during battle. Phoenix is so nice vs Terran. Vikings arn't that good against it either. If they survive that long they always try it and fail.
The best thing a Terran has is sensor towers.Terrans haven't figured out how imba those are yet. It's got a bigger view than a xelnaga tower. Proxying them is super sweet, I mess around as Terran somtimes and hide them behind scenery like trees or just in weird corners.(You can cut most maps in half with 3 well placed sensor towers and have view of 2/3 of the map) and it makes Terran's mobility so much stronger when you have that much view. I sure hope there arn't Terrans reading this
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No, sorry. You're just terrible. Don't even need a rep to confirm it. You game summary more or less sums that up.
Scouting a tad helps. It's not that simple to completely change from mauraders to mass vikings quickly. It's certainly not quick if you were able to get carriers out by the time you realize it...
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On August 12 2010 05:42 Hawk wrote:
No, sorry. You're just terrible. Don't even need a rep to confirm it. You game summary more or less sums that up.
Scouting a tad helps. It's not that simple to completely change from mauraders to mass vikings quickly. It's certainly not quick if you were able to get carriers out by the time you realize it...
Obviously I was messing around with a terrible build, you angry defensive Terran.
Switching from MMM to vikings is the easiest thing in the world. You have a reactored starport for medivacs...
I had enough of an advantage that it should have won, but the Terran was able to very quickly switch his build to counter what I was doing, and I don't like the design behind that.
Carriers are a totally non-viable unit in PvT as a result.
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United States4126 Posts
I probably don't even need to ask what league you're in from your game summary. This just sounds like a "my strategy didn't work so it must be OP qq" blog.
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On August 12 2010 05:44 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:42 Hawk wrote:
No, sorry. You're just terrible. Don't even need a rep to confirm it. You game summary more or less sums that up.
Scouting a tad helps. It's not that simple to completely change from mauraders to mass vikings quickly. It's certainly not quick if you were able to get carriers out by the time you realize it...
Obviously I was messing around with a terrible build, you angry defensive Terran. Switching from MMM to vikings is the easiest thing in the world. You have a reactored starport for medivacs... I had enough of an advantage that it should have won, but the Terran was able to very quickly switch his build to counter what I was doing, and I don't like the design behind that. Carriers are a totally non-viable unit in PvT as a result.
Post a rep of this game and a few others, and a link to your profile then? If you can be surprised by viks like that, you did not scout at all. If you have enough $$ for carriers, you have enough for several obs. If you are incapable of scouting to make sure there isn't a counter to your tech switch, you are not good, and you should not be discussing ANY balance issues, let alone making a thread proposing a ridiculous 'solution' with absolutely no hard evidence backing your claims.
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You can't really nerf the vikings too much as they are already getting owned by phoenixes
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LOL if he scanned you and saw a zealot army and he went to hellions to counter who's to say Protoss isn't too flexible because on your next warp cycle you will warp in stalkers.
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Lol I came on this blog to rage so thats why I'm posting.
I'm Diamond. I like to play around with unorthodox builds, hence why I tried Carriers. He didn't scout them until a little bit before he pushed, but was able to have a bunch of vikings because had a reactor starport already for medivacs.
Being able to hard-counters like that should have an investment.
Obviously my specific game was a lost cause, as I was trying something unorthodox in Starcraft II versus Terran... not an option. Ever.
I was proposing a solution that would allow something like surprise Carriers to actually accomplish something.
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On August 12 2010 05:49 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:44 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:42 Hawk wrote:
No, sorry. You're just terrible. Don't even need a rep to confirm it. You game summary more or less sums that up.
Scouting a tad helps. It's not that simple to completely change from mauraders to mass vikings quickly. It's certainly not quick if you were able to get carriers out by the time you realize it...
Obviously I was messing around with a terrible build, you angry defensive Terran. Switching from MMM to vikings is the easiest thing in the world. You have a reactored starport for medivacs... I had enough of an advantage that it should have won, but the Terran was able to very quickly switch his build to counter what I was doing, and I don't like the design behind that. Carriers are a totally non-viable unit in PvT as a result. Post a rep of this game and a few others, and a link to your profile then? If you can be surprised by viks like that, you did not scout at all. If you have enough $$ for carriers, you have enough for several obs. If you are incapable of scouting to make sure there isn't a counter to your tech switch, you are not good, and you should not be discussing ANY balance issues, let alone making a thread proposing a ridiculous 'solution' with absolutely no hard evidence backing your claims.
Why were you getting carriers if the terran is going bio prodcutions? You should only do that vs. a tank/thor heavy build... You probably made the wrong tech choice to begin with, then you see yourself getting countered easily late game.
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On August 12 2010 05:52 aeoliant wrote:
LOL if he scanned you and saw a zealot army and he went to hellions to counter who's to say Protoss isn't too flexible because on your next warp cycle you will warp in stalkers.
This. Protoss warp makes all gateway units massable with 0 production delay, and stalkers hard counters hellions, I think we can put this debate to rest.
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On August 12 2010 05:44 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:42 Hawk wrote:
No, sorry. You're just terrible. Don't even need a rep to confirm it. You game summary more or less sums that up.
Scouting a tad helps. It's not that simple to completely change from mauraders to mass vikings quickly. It's certainly not quick if you were able to get carriers out by the time you realize it...
Obviously I was messing around with a terrible build, you angry defensive Terran. Switching from MMM to vikings is the easiest thing in the world. You have a reactored starport for medivacs... I had enough of an advantage that it should have won, but the Terran was able to very quickly switch his build to counter what I was doing, and I don't like the design behind that. Carriers are a totally non-viable unit in PvT as a result.
There you go, you where messing around with a terrible build. Do you want terran to be nerfed so that your terrible build is a good build?
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On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:
What Zerg units actually hard-counter something?
BLings counter marines
Roaches counter Hellions & Reapers
Hydras counter vikings
Corrupters counter Vikings, BCs
Mutas counter Marauders
Infestors Counter Thors & Bio
Ultras counter mech in open field
On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:
Protoss units that can be warped-in are not very strong counters to anything as well.
High Templars are strong counters to an awful lot of things, actually.
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On August 12 2010 05:52 Ndugu wrote:
Lol I came on this blog to rage so thats why I'm posting.
I'm Diamond. I like to play around with unorthodox builds, hence why I tried Carriers. He didn't scout them until a little bit before he pushed, but was able to have a bunch of vikings because had a reactor starport already for medivacs.
Being able to hard-counters like that should have an investment.
Obviously my specific game was a lost cause, as I was trying something unorthodox in Starcraft II versus Terran... not an option. Ever.
I was proposing a solution that would allow something like surprise Carriers to actually accomplish something.
A solution already exists: Don't gamble when you suck.
Please post some reps Mr. Diamond gosu.
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The #1 defense used on these forums. "I am in Diamond league."
Post replays or continue to get people to disagree with and flame you.
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On August 12 2010 06:00 Kralic wrote:
The #1 defense used on these forums. "I am in Diamond league."
Post replays or continue to get people to disagree with and flame you.
Heh, anyone with some competitive bw background can easily get into diamond without spamming games day and night. It really isn't a defense for anything.
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Ghosts + Tanks + Vikings + Marauders + Marines + Hellions + Banshees + Ravens.
Every one of those units is very powerful. They are flexible because of this.
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On August 12 2010 06:05 Glacierz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 06:00 Kralic wrote:
The #1 defense used on these forums. "I am in Diamond league."
Post replays or continue to get people to disagree with and flame you. Heh, anyone with some competitive bw background can easily get into diamond without spamming games day and night. It really isn't a defense for anything.
hence replays
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The flexibility of terran openings is hard to deal with overall because protoss and zerg are less flexible in the openings that they can do.
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It's a little strange that the most popular opener involves building one of every production facility and still having enough units to make game ending attacks in the first 10 minutes. Not to mention it's also the safest opening. Compared to say, zerg, where even getting a lair off one base is asking a lot.
Protoss I think is the finest balance between the two. They have one base builds but they don't have some absurd collosus voidray stalker zealot sentry opening, it's not a veritable 1 base tech buffet like Terran is
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On August 12 2010 06:32 floor exercise wrote:
It's a little strange that the most popular opener involves building one of every production facility and still having enough units to make game ending attacks in the first 10 minutes. Not to mention it's also the safest opening. Compared to say, zerg, where even getting a lair off one base is asking a lot.
Protoss I think is the finest balance between the two. They have one base builds but they don't have some absurd collosus voidray stalker zealot sentry opening, it's not a veritable 1 base tech buffet like Terran is
yeah seriously I remember a game where qxc did some nonsense marine/marauder/medivac/viking/raven 1-base strategy vs me and rolled me
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On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:22 Impervious wrote:On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty. Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly. And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is..... Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though Once again, I didn't say "MAKE THIS BALANCE CHANGE TO FIX GAME KK GO". I said in the future, when the game as a whole receives a substantial rebalance as a result of expansions. The ability to rapidly mass units that instantly hard-counter something is bad design.
What? If I go for a mass marauder/hellion build, and a Z switches to Muta production and makes 10+ mutas in the next production cycle, the whole Z mechanic needs to be revamped? How about P being able to warp in the right gateway units necessary at that point with zero delay?
Nawe, you left yourself open to vikings (which are essentially the Wraith of SCBW). If I had 2-3 starports in SCBW, and you tried to switch to Carriers, and I made some Wraiths (which pretty much own Carriers), would you be screaming imbalance about the Terran ability to counter Carriers? Fuck no, cause Wraiths suck in 99% of situations.
Vikings are a good ata unit, and a decent gtg unit, with good maneuverability. Getting upgrades for them is good, because they use the same upgrades as Battlecruisers, which helps if the game lasts that long. They are a solid unit. But they are pretty fragile, even though they don't have any hard counters. It's why they can see use in all 3 matchups. But they're far from imbalanced.....
What Zerg units actually hard-counter something?
Banelings counter marines pretty hard.
Protoss units that can be warped-in are not very strong counters to anything as well. P and Z both trade strength (in terms of hard-countering) for flexibility. Terran doesn't.
What? Stalkers are a pretty good unit, especially against Hellions. Sentries (damn forcefields) can be used to cut my army in half, so you only have to face half of it, and can crush it with relative ease. Or you can use the guardian shield to seriously cut back on the damage my marines do. Zealots are pretty tough buggers. And High Templar own bio hard.....
You do make a good point about hellions tech lab/reactor. Maybe the same exact thing could be done for Vikings... put an upgrade for it on tech lab.
Like what kind of upgrade? I don't see what you could put there that wouldn't affect something major..... Terran needs vikings.....
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United States47024 Posts
On August 12 2010 05:33 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:30 MangoTango wrote:On August 12 2010 05:19 Glacierz wrote:On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. The same thing can be said to Zerg as well... I think sc2 still has too many hard counters, which makes scouting much more important than macro/micro mechanics. Negative. If a Terran is to be prepared for "anything," he will need to have a couple of every tech building, hence the 1/1/1. But this implies he will be unable to make much of any particular unit. If you get Void Ray'd as Zerg, you get a couple extra queens while you wait for Den and then spam 12 Hydras. If I get Void Ray'd as T, I hope my Reactor is on my Port so I can make 2 Vikings, or else I'm in trouble. Marine/ghost does fine versus Void Rays. Mass marine does fine versus Void Rays. If Void Rays could pwn you unless you countered them with vikings specifically, I could understand the immense strength, range, bonus damage, and massability of vikings. And, I am mostly talking about fairly late game. Once you reach two-bases and Terran has every unit producing structure. Mid-game is cool and balanced, as Terran may not have starport fast enough, etc.
Since when does 1/1/1 get a Ghost Academy early enough for void rays?
On August 12 2010 05:44 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:42 Hawk wrote:
No, sorry. You're just terrible. Don't even need a rep to confirm it. You game summary more or less sums that up.
Scouting a tad helps. It's not that simple to completely change from mauraders to mass vikings quickly. It's certainly not quick if you were able to get carriers out by the time you realize it...
Obviously I was messing around with a terrible build, you angry defensive Terran. Switching from MMM to vikings is the easiest thing in the world. You have a reactored starport for medivacs... I had enough of an advantage that it should have won, but the Terran was able to very quickly switch his build to counter what I was doing, and I don't like the design behind that. Carriers are a totally non-viable unit in PvT as a result.
Terran will always have an armory and a shit-ton of factories in SC1 TvP.
They can always churn out a bunch of Goliaths, so Carriers are a totally non-viable unit in TvP.
Oh, wait...
Honestly, Terran has always had the hardest counter units by design: Siege Tanks vs heavy units, Vultures and Firebats vs. light units, Goliaths vs air, Valkyries vs. mutas, etc. This hasn't changed. As far as flexibility? Again, they're fine--Protoss and Terran both gained a lot of flexibility going into SC2. The only thing regrettable is that Zerg isn't as flexible as it should be, which can honestly be fixed by 1 or 2 early-game changes that make hatch before pool viable again.
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Difference between races imo is that terran can never make a bad decision when making buildings. Terran doesn't have to commit so much to the early decisions as the other races have to. Everything has a good follow up.
And there has to be some kind of problem with that fact that terran has the best units and abilities for everything.
Longest range for air and land.
Most ways to detect cloaked units.
Most ways to harass.
Sensor towers to see drops from miles away.
Fastest unit in early game.
Most ways to scout.
Ability to get great economy with half of the workers and less expos with mules vs other races.
Ability to completely wall off your base and still be able to go in and out yourself.
Ability to make OC safely inside the main to increase economy and move out when its safe.
Just PF and the mining scvs defend far away expos really good vs quite large group of any ground units.
SC2 is a new game and the strategies are developing all the time but im pretty sure that after a year terran won't look like the way it looks like now.
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Where-as, when a Terran scouts Collosi, Carriers, etc, they stop making medivacs and make vikings, 2 at a time. No extra building needed. No serious time investment needed.
One more time, making units that are hard-counters but also extremely massable and cost-effective is bad design.
THEY AREN'T MASSABLE.
You need to understand this.
Terrans take by far the longest to create any type of army. If someone attacks you with a ground army and it gets wrecked by your Carriers, it's highly, highly unlikely that he'll be able to produce enough Vikings to hold it off by the time the Carriers get to his base, whereas the Zerg can easily make enough Corruptors and the Protoss can easily warp in enough Stalkers.
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Lol at terran players ignoring the point or resorting to ad hominems.
I'm sure you're really great at this game and that's why you picked Terran.
I admit and have already admitted the build I used was bad... I was pointing out the reason it is completely 100% non-viable against Terran and how that is bad design.
I'm also not suggesting any changes be implemented in Wings of Liberty, as that would obviously break the game.
I am suggesting that in future expansions with different balance considerations UNITS THAT ARE POWERFUL, HARD-COUNTERS, should not be so easily massed without some more investment or time investment.
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Jeez the Terrans are impossible to talk to.
Pity the carrier is such a worthless unit. Both Terran Zerg have a nice heavy powered lategame air unit to run to. I guess the fair compensation for this is just how ridiculously awesome 9range collosi really are.
Vikings have 9 range and absurd dps annnd the fact that the reactor starpport will always exist means that carriers will never be used in this game. To be fair... havn't quite figured out how to effectively micro carriers, but it seems like they're going to need a good healthy buff.
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What, exactly, is your point?
I didn't pick terran cause I felt it was the strongest race..... I still feel that Zerg probably takes that one, not by sheer power, but by speed and maneuverability. I picked it because it felt like it was the most versatile. Regardless of the situation, there are usually several different, good responses, while Z and P felt lacking to me. Not underpowered, just less options available.
I don't see how reactors doubling the production rate of vikings or hellions are a bad thing, they take nearly as long to build as a new facility, they are relatively expensive, and prevent you from using a tech lab to get the more specialized units, as well as the upgrades.....
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United States10774 Posts
On August 12 2010 12:23 Impervious wrote:
What, exactly, is your point?
I didn't pick terran cause I felt it was the strongest race..... I still feel that Zerg probably takes that one, not by sheer power, but by speed and maneuverability. I picked it because it felt like it was the most versatile. Regardless of the situation, there are usually several different, good responses, while Z and P felt lacking to me. Not underpowered, just less options available.
I don't see how reactors doubling the production rate of vikings or hellions are a bad thing, they take nearly as long to build as a new facility, they are relatively expensive, and prevent you from using a tech lab to get the more specialized units, as well as the upgrades.....
I find PvT to be difficult for that exact reason. Terran is too versatile and has so many options/playstyles they can execute. Some are harder than others, which makes good Terran players so hard to beat.
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anyone else think it's kind of ridiculous that starports with a reactor can pump out two medivacs OR two vikings at the same time? Why can't it be only one of them like the barracks and factory? I think it'd be cool to see either the viking or medivac require a tech lab.
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The problem with 1/1/1 is that a terran player can get almost every unit with just one tech lab. Therefore, Terran's have an incredible variety of harrass possibillities (reapers into hellions into banshees for instance). These builds require almost no extra (cut in economy) investment as compared to other builds but still open up all the unit possibillities for mid-game.
An easy solution would be to to pay minerals/gas for a building to lift of. It doesn't have to be much, but 25/25 might be sufficient.
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A solution already exists: Don't gamble when you suck.
Please post some reps Mr. Diamond gosu.
I'm not sure I've encountered a player as needlessly obnoxious as you on this website.
This is not about my skill level. Yes, I am a Diamond player, as is anyone with a reasonable amount of skill. I've played Random, I can easily beat Diamond level Zerg and Protoss players of similar skill when I play as Terran thanks to 1-1-1.
No need to post a replay of the game I mention because it was a silly game where I had such a huge advantage that I thought I could go blink stalkers + carriers. The terran player hard-countered both my units, and that is totally balanced within the current game. No one should ever make Carriers and while that is not fun, it is balanced just fine.
My only qualification that I claim is as someone interested in the design process behind my favorite RTS, particularly its system of hard-counters and my opinion that Terran's immense flexibility in making hard-counter units.
The best example is BW Goliath ---> viking. Goliaths were great, but limited by the fact that they were on the ground, required a range upgrade that, even after having it, was still outranged by carriers. Carriers could still survive and accomplish SOMETHING when Goliaths existed. You needed to build an extra factory to mass them, etc.
It was like the immortal vs stalker--- immortals wtfpwn stalkers, but they can't be made quickly without more investment. They can be microed against by a good player using Stalkers, etc.
Not reactor +A + move = carriers are not a viable unit in 1v1.
On August 12 2010 12:23 Impervious wrote:
What, exactly, is your point?
I didn't pick terran cause I felt it was the strongest race..... I still feel that Zerg probably takes that one, not by sheer power, but by speed and maneuverability. I picked it because it felt like it was the most versatile. Regardless of the situation, there are usually several different, good responses, while Z and P felt lacking to me. Not underpowered, just less options available.
I don't see how reactors doubling the production rate of vikings or hellions are a bad thing, they take nearly as long to build as a new facility, they are relatively expensive, and prevent you from using a tech lab to get the more specialized units, as well as the upgrades.....
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 12 2010 05:58 EccoEcco wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:
What Zerg units actually hard-counter something?
BLings counter marines Roaches counter Hellions & Reapers Hydras counter vikings Corrupters counter Vikings, BCs Mutas counter Marauders Infestors Counter Thors & Bio Ultras counter mech in open field Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:24 Ndugu wrote:
Protoss units that can be warped-in are not very strong counters to anything as well. High Templars are strong counters to an awful lot of things, actually.
High templars are another example of a GOOD and REASONABLE hard-counter. Requires a building and two researches before it can wtfpwn your MMM ball. I don't switch my gateway's addon and double-pump high templar as soon as my void rays force you to go marines...
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On August 12 2010 11:26 Ndugu wrote:
I admit and have already admitted the build I used was bad... I was pointing out the reason it is completely 100% non-viable against Terran and how that is bad design.
How does the inability of a bad player to execute a crap build make it bad design??
Carriers are viable... you just have no clue what you're doing. You tried to shoehorn them into a makeshift build after getting a minor advantage from stopping a drop.
AW MAN WHY WAS I NOT ABLE TO MASS AN ARMY OF EXPENSIVE UNITS THAT TAKE FOREVER TO BUILD OFF OF ONE BASE??
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On August 12 2010 22:50 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 11:26 Ndugu wrote:
I admit and have already admitted the build I used was bad... I was pointing out the reason it is completely 100% non-viable against Terran and how that is bad design.
How does the inability of a bad player to execute a crap build make it bad design?? Carriers are viable... you just have no clue what you're doing. You tried to shoehorn them into a makeshift build after getting a minor advantage from stopping a drop. AW MAN WHY WAS I NOT ABLE TO MASS AN ARMY OF EXPENSIVE UNITS THAT TAKE FOREVER TO BUILD OFF OF ONE BASE??
You are missing the point.
Yes, the Terran PERFECTLY countered my entire unit composition. He deserved the win. It is balanced.
You're missing the point.
My problem is that, as Terran, he did absolutely NOTHING in order to flawlessly counter my carriers. He didn't build a new building. He didn't even have to build a new add-on. He simply scanned, and started pumping vikings instead of medivacs.
Once it passes mid-game, Terran has access to any unit they want. Zerg usually can't even do this and it is what their race is known for. Regardless, I have a lot more trouble with Zerg than Terran. I do well versus Terran and don't think they're significantly OP versus Protoss. I just think the ease with which they can counter certain things without any kind of investment is poor design. It is why Carriers will almost never be a viable unit except in very specific situations where the Protoss player is already at advantage.
Compare that to if a Protoss player gets an obs into a Terran base, and realizes the Terran already has 4 battlecruisers.
Would the Protoss player always have two stargates built to start double-pumping Void Rays? No. Sure, they could throw down some stargates, wait, and start pumping Void Rays. If the Terran pushes at this point, they could lose-- if the Terran waits too long, they will be countered and lose their advantage. This is how countering works in all parts of the game EXCEPT FOR TERRAN AND VIKINGS.
Also, in the above example the Terran player could just build some vikings to help defend their battlecruisers from Void Rays.
How do I defend my Carriers from Vikings? (well, my idea that I have a lot of fun with, is blink stalkers )
As Protoss, all your air units die for cost to Vikings. Phoenixes, last I checked, are not cost-effective against them if you consider that gas is more valuable than minerals.
Thats why I've been experimenting with blink stalkers as a counter to vikings so that I may go air versus Terran. I like to have fun and be creative.
Obviously Marauder/viking FLAWLESSLY countered this.
It would probably work against marine/ghost into Vikings ,and in the future I'll give that a shot
I'm getting tempted to post the replay, but I did almost win 
I should have build two-stargates, as the incredibly slow build time on carriers meant that I got them much slower than I had wanted. If I had done that, I would have been blowing through gas faster, meaning more zealots on the ground to deal (better) with his marauders than the stalkers (obviously did). Since I experimented with carriers in that game, I could use them more effectively in the future. I was at +2 air and he never upgraded armor when he pushed, so I know that my timings on upgrades was good as my carriers had +32 damage.
Now it almost sounds like I'm saying Carriers are viable. But note that the Terran player literally did not know I was making carriers until I already had several, and still had time make enough Vikings to win. I imagine a good Terran player would ALWAYS scout either the fleet beacon or the first carrier and then start pumping vikings. The Stargate even shows you exactly what is being built. Against a clearly poor Terran it failed. Against a good Terran it wouldn't even get off the ground in any non-dream scenario.
In fact, if I had grabbed charge instead of blink and merely focused the vikings with my stalkers, rather than blinked to them, it might have worked. He would have stim-kited my zealots and maybe all the vikings would have died to my stalkers/carrier/void ray. Sure I would have lost my ground army, but that was the plan all along and I could have made it work
I also go carriers and blink stalkers standard if I can trick a Terran into staying marine/tank into the late game. Have won a lot of very fun games that way I exploit high ground to lure the vikings away from the ground army and kill them/force them to retreat with blink stalkers.
Also, regardless of losing, I had a ton of fun with that build. This game is a ton of fun. Carriers being viable is a ton of fun. So please relax and try and understand what I'm saying. This is TeamLiquid, not 4chan. No need to be so immature.
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I think the replay would be worth seeing. 1) 2 base carriers. 2) 1 stargate 3) early game advantage from the sounds of it.
I think you screwed the pooch my friend and just missed your window because of a failure of aggression on the Terran player. Seriously you just wasted too much time waiting for carriers. The amount of time he would have had to set up his counter to you was probably huge that is why I think the replay would be good to see.
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Once it passes the mid-game terran has access to any unit he wants, as long as that unit is a marine, hellion or viking...
Its not like terran can reactor tanks, thors, marauders, battlecruisers, banshees, ghosts, reapers, or ravens.
Once it gets to the midgame, Toss can easily mass Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, High Templar and Dark Templar. If they have 2 stargates they can chornoboost poenixes. If the have 2 robos they can chrono boost immortals.
I'm so sick of the "You can't talk to terrans" schtick. You can't talk to anyone you can't listen to and empathize with. You have to listen to what other people are saying to be able to make intelligent points yourself. If you just ignore anything a terran player says because you've already assumed you know everything, you have no one to blame but yourself for your frustration.
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On August 12 2010 23:35 OmniEulogy wrote:
I think the replay would be worth seeing. 1) 2 base carriers. 2) 1 stargate 3) early game advantage from the sounds of it.
I think you screwed the pooch my friend and just missed your window because of a failure of aggression on the Terran player. Seriously you just wasted too much time waiting for carriers. The amount of time he would have had to set up his counter to you was probably huge that is why I think the replay would be good to see.
You're absolutely right. I would be much more highly ranked on the ladder if I didn't try obscure strategies when I see the opportunity, but eventually they'll get ironed out and be fine.
If he didn't attack when he did, I would have had a few +3 carriers and mass blink stalkers to suicide on his vikings.
I would have done better not to include the specific game in the post as an example, because it was a clearly more skilled player dicking around with a worse player-- who perfectly countered and came back.
In equal skill matches however, those Vikings are going to be up in time to deal with carriers every time. They are a non-viable unit because they can be instantly countered in late-game due to Terran's immense flexibility-- my main point of this post.
While I Might be able to use it in ladder and win, a good Protoss versus a Good Terran in a tournament isn't going to let carriers accomplish anything unless its a ridiculous cheese (Why not make mothership then?) or a kind of insult after obtaining so much of an advantage.
And, ignoring vikings for a second, assuming your opponent doesnt make a single viking. a couple thors AOE destroy all of the interceptors so instantly that carriers actually become massively expensive and cant kill anything, not even counting the massive -16 damage for every armor a unit has.
But I don't mean for this to be about carrier viability on its own merits. Its about Carrier viability in a paradigm where you can, without any investment of time or tech, have access to a very, very hard-counter to carriers that cant be microed against and has no weakness of any kind. Void Rays, for example, only have 6 range, making them vulnerable to ground forces as they snipe your battlecruisers/carriers/brood lords. Vikings have NO weaknesses. They are the most flawless hard-counter in the game.
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On August 13 2010 00:46 EccoEcco wrote:
Once it passes the mid-game terran has access to any unit he wants, as long as that unit is a marine, hellion or viking...
Its not like terran can reactor tanks, thors, marauders, battlecruisers, banshees, ghosts, reapers, or ravens.
Once it gets to the midgame, Toss can easily mass Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, High Templar and Dark Templar. If they have 2 stargates they can chornoboost poenixes. If the have 2 robos they can chrono boost immortals.
I'm so sick of the "You can't talk to terrans" schtick. You can't talk to anyone you can't listen to and empathize with. You have to listen to what other people are saying to be able to make intelligent points yourself. If you just ignore anything a terran player says because you've already assumed you know everything, you have no one to blame but yourself for your frustration.
I'm not talking about reactors. Reactors are obviously there so that Terran can match the flexibility of Warp-in and Spawn larva. K, we agree. Stop saying the same things over and over again you cute lil Terrans. <3
The problem is all you Terran players are kinda ignoring my point.
Once late game hits you have unparalleled flexibility. Because of reactor/tech lab synergy. and the fact that your tech path is so simple. That's fine. Wings of Liberty is balanced around that, so this is not a QQ nerf Terran Nao! post.
I'm saying in the future, that allowing hard-counter units to be readily available without tech or research is bad design. Hellions are an example of pretty decent design-- you have to get a research on a tech lab, or forgo the research to double-pump them fast. To get mass Hellions to pwn light you need to take a time, decision, and building investment. DO I throw down 2 factories so I can double pump and get the research?
With Vikings, there is no decision. "Oh okay time to make Vikings Gogo victory!". If Vikings were nerfed to 6 damage + 8 to armor like in beta, with the +8 damage being an upgrade on a tech lab, it would be the kind of thing I mean. It would take a bit more time before you could hard-counter your enemy. In the game I played, he probably still would have pulled it off.
Obviously that would create problems with Void Rays in this expansion (in that it would take longer to kill them early in the game. It wouldn't affect high level play whatsoever thanks to micro, but it would mess with lower skill levels). thats why I suggest a change of this spirit, not this EXACT idea, in future expansions when the game receives a balance overhaul. (That's also why I Don't sugest a range nerf that would allow carriers to kite them, as vikings need to beat void rays)
Terran should have to scout and then adapt. If you scout something you aren't prepared for, you lay down a new building, grab a new research, or SOMETHING. Not
Terran: oh lol I'll make vikings instead of medivacs lololol STFU COLLOSI, STFU Carrier. U DEAD. I am a really skilled Terran player who is adept at countering my foes! No one less skilled than me would have had a Starport after mid-game! No one would have known how to lift off and put a reactor on it and make vikings! I am so GOSU! Since I went MMM I had so much spare gas to burn anyway!
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Adding more tech buildings is not the way to go. The problem is that vikings themselves are too versatile and need a nerf. They're the best anti-air unit in the game and they can transfer into goliaths too?
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Oh yes, totally unparalleled late game!
Oh? What's that? Zerg can drop a million larve and have 30 units out in one shot? Toss can warp in a billion stalkers as a very simple way to deal with Vikings?? INSTANTLY??
Is the game broken because hellions are more or less worthless against toss??
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. It is amazing.
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I really feel zerg needs more units with bonus damages. The only 2 units that terran players seem to QQ about(banelings and ultra) are the ones with bonus damages.
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On August 13 2010 01:08 Xyik wrote:
Adding more tech buildings is not the way to go. The problem is that vikings themselves are too versatile and need a nerf. They're the best anti-air unit in the game and they can transfer into goliaths too?
It's possible that is the way to go.
That being said, Terran DOES need a hard-counter to massive/armored air. It just shouldn't always be available. It can't be "so good" and "so fast" to get. It needs to be one or the other.
I'm usually in favor of making something more interesting and more based on player skill than just straight up nerfing a unit. Forcing Terran to start getting their Viking army upgraded and built via anticipation and good scouting rather than, hm, i just saw his army. Let me start countering it now. Other races don't have that luxury.
You're not really worth communicating with on this subject Hawk.
You admit that Carriers are totally non-viable and are a "retarded build" that only a "bad player" would use, yet you refuse to participate in a discussion on why that is the case and how to fix it.
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The problem with the viking is that it counters EVERY air unit and can still transform to fight ground units. Compare that to the corruptor or phoenix. Would you still complain about the viking if it was only very effective vs. carriers, bcs, brood lords? The way the viking is now, even if it required extra tech everyone would still get it. It's a great TvT unit due to harass / shutting down drops, banshee and its almost necessary to have it in TvP to counter void ray / collosus. Adding extra tech buildings adds 0 depth to the game imo. If you want to add 'skill' then give the unit itself some interesting features.
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On August 13 2010 01:38 Xyik wrote:
The problem with the viking is that it counters EVERY air unit and can still transform to fight ground units. Compare that to the corruptor or phoenix. Would you still complain about the viking if it was only very effective vs. carriers, bcs, brood lords? The way the viking is now, even if it required extra tech everyone would still get it. It's a great TvT unit due to harass / shutting down drops, banshee and its almost necessary to have it in TvP to counter void ray / collosus. Adding extra tech buildings adds 0 depth to the game imo. If you want to add 'skill' then give the unit itself some interesting features.
Get back to work.
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On August 13 2010 00:51 Ndugu wrote:
Vikings have NO weaknesses. They are the most flawless hard-counter in the game.
holy crap. Would you listen to yourself for a second.
Vikings get chewed up by hydras and stalkers, and frankly aren't too hot against corruptors or phoenixes. Vikings are an anti-air unit. I'm sorry that its shocking they'd be good against other air units that have different roles, balance out against other air to air focused units and get ripped apart by ground to air.
3 units with similar function, cost and built time
Vikings
Edge - can transform into a marine that can't shoot air
Flaw - most fragile of air-to-air specialists
Corruptor
Edge - Armored with most hit points
Flaw - slow movement
Phoenix
Edge - OMG speed, shoots on move and can lift
flaw - bonus damage to light units instead of armored or massive like the other 2.
All three can be produced at similar speeds re-actively IF a reactor/Chrono Boost/Larva is already available.
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On August 13 2010 02:21 EccoEcco wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2010 00:51 Ndugu wrote:
Vikings have NO weaknesses. They are the most flawless hard-counter in the game. holy crap. Would you listen to yourself for a second. Vikings get chewed up by hydras and stalkers, and frankly aren't too hot against corruptors or phoenixes. Vikings are an anti-air unit. I'm sorry that its shocking they'd be good against other air units that have different roles, balance out against other air to air focused units and get ripped apart by ground to air. 3 units with similar function, cost and built time Vikings Edge - can transform into a marine that can't shoot air Flaw - most fragile of air-to-air specialists Corruptor Edge - Armored with most hit points Flaw - slow movement Phoenix Edge - OMG speed, shoots on move and can lift flaw - bonus damage to light units instead of armored or massive like the other 2. All three can be produced at similar speeds re-actively IF a reactor/Chrono Boost/Larva is already available.
VIkings are indeed weak at ground to air units... thankfully, they should never, ever be in range of them.
Its like saying immortals are a bad counter to Thors because banshees can shoot them.
What I mean is, in most cases, units have SOME recourse against that which counters them. Thors can use 250mm cannon on immortals. Marauders can stim-kite ultralisks.
Stalkers can kite immortals. Lings can beat hellions if they can get a surround...
Mutalisks can spread out against thors.
Carriers could abuse high-ground/range against Goliaths in Starcraft I. It goes on and on.
Vikings, on the other hand, wtfpwn the things they counter.
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One thing I can see changing about viking is for the gas cost to be brought up slightly. Right now they are 75 gas compared to 100 for the corrupter and phoenix. Of course thats offset by the fact that they are so damn easy to kill at 120 HP as opposes to 120 HP, 60 shields & 200 HP and 2 armor.
if you look at the inverse match-ups. You're talking about the counter available to terrans to carriers, you need to look at the counter available to battlecruisers. Thats really voidrays which rip BCs apart and scale incredibly in numbers.
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How exactly is that any different from the other 2 anti-air units? You ever try fighting corruptors with BCs?
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On August 13 2010 01:27 Ndugu wrote:
You're not really worth communicating with on this subject Hawk.
You admit that Carriers are totally non-viable and are a "retarded build" that only a "bad player" would use, yet you refuse to participate in a discussion on why that is the case and how to fix it.
Hellions have no use in PvT, why aren't we fixing that?? Ghosts aren't so hot in TvZ. STOP EVERYTHING AND FIX THAT!
The fact that you are so adamant that every unit must have a purpose in each mu shows you have no clue how this game works. The fact that you think carriers are totally useless against terran shows it too.
They can work—not once did I anything about carriers not working ever. I simply said they dont' work if you can't wrap your head around the fact that 1basing carriers vs a terran with scan is a bad idea. Stopping a drop is hardly the advantage you think it is. You lost because you tried something stupid and lack the skills to do it. You did not think to check if he saw your build. You did not think to toss a few phoenix in to counter vikes.
It has nothing to do with the structure of terran tech, or vikings themselves. Vikes are hardly the army halting units you think they are.
On August 13 2010 02:36 EccoEcco wrote:
How exactly is that any different from the other 2 anti-air units? You ever try fighting corruptors with BCs?
On August 13 2010 02:29 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2010 02:21 EccoEcco wrote:On August 13 2010 00:51 Ndugu wrote:
Vikings have NO weaknesses. They are the most flawless hard-counter in the game. holy crap. Would you listen to yourself for a second. Vikings get chewed up by hydras and stalkers, and frankly aren't too hot against corruptors or phoenixes. Vikings are an anti-air unit. I'm sorry that its shocking they'd be good against other air units that have different roles, balance out against other air to air focused units and get ripped apart by ground to air. 3 units with similar function, cost and built time Vikings Edge - can transform into a marine that can't shoot air Flaw - most fragile of air-to-air specialists Corruptor Edge - Armored with most hit points Flaw - slow movement Phoenix Edge - OMG speed, shoots on move and can lift flaw - bonus damage to light units instead of armored or massive like the other 2. All three can be produced at similar speeds re-actively IF a reactor/Chrono Boost/Larva is already available. VIkings are indeed weak at ground to air units... thankfully, they should never, ever be in range of them. Its like saying immortals are a bad counter to Thors because banshees can shoot them. What I mean is, in most cases, units have SOME recourse against that which counters them. Thors can use 250mm cannon on immortals. Marauders can stim-kite ultralisks. Stalkers can kite immortals. Lings can beat hellions if they can get a surround... Mutalisks can spread out against thors. Carriers could abuse high-ground/range against Goliaths in Starcraft I. It goes on and on. Vikings, on the other hand, wtfpwn the things they counter.
I didn't realize SC suddenly became a 1:1 unit counter fest.
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Corruptor vs. BC before upgrades.
BC has 550 HP, 3 armor and is massive
1 Corruptor does 17 damage to a BC at a rate of 9 DPS (8.94), killing it in 62 seconds, and takes over 11 seconds to kill.
1 viking does 11 DPS to a BC, killing it in 50 seconds, and dies in 4 seconds from the BC
Carrier has 350 life, 150 shield each with 2 armor and is massive.
1 Corruptor does 10.5 DPS to a carrier, and dies to the carrier in about 2 seconds (2.08)
1 Viking does 12 DPS to a carrier, killing it in 41 seconds, BUT dies in one second to a maxed carrier.
The viking does more damage, and has more range, but is vastly more fragile than the corrupter, and corrupters can be massed much faster than the viking.
Phonixes are really apples and oranges since they aren't meant to counter capital ships.
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I'm not too sure if this has been mentioned, but to make tech less accessible to terrans why not just have the tech labs more expensive or take more time to build? Sure, it would make the early game a bit strange and this would be a giant departure in the over arching strategy and tactics of terran play; however, it could slightly curb the effectiveness of tech switches by the terran.
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This is a completely retarded topic, did you ever think about what would happen in bw? Typical tvp you terran will have 6 facs or so producing tank/vulture early on and then add some goliaths to kill obs and arbs. If they scan a toss making carriers they can immediately pump goliaths, that could be called hard counters, off of their existing factories. OHNOES TOO FLEXIBLE. Guess what? By the time you get to a point in late game where you're massing shit every race can mass shit that counters it. Being bad and crying on TL is no way to get better.
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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?
because most terrans couldn't control goliaths like flash could but you make a vaild point.
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YOUR MOM is too flexible lolololololol.
Seriously though, if terran is flexible what about zerg? He can switch units if your weak to them yeah. But so can anyone else. Protoss has got chrono boost, and warpgates which are really flexible.
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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.
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United States10774 Posts
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.
Haha yeah, seriously. So many Terran users are damn sensitive. Sorry that a lot of people find ZvT and PvT relatively hard :o
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Im a toss user and I find this blog dumb. go figure!
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United States10774 Posts
On August 13 2010 06:15 Hawk wrote:
Im a toss user and I find this blog dumb. go figure!
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.
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Keep in mind that I was repeatedly saying that this is the type of change that should be made for future expansions when balance is significantly overhauled. Moreover, that I made this a blog post because it was a quick thought and not a well-formed argument worthy of the SC2 forums-- the arguments mad here will help me make that eventual post good :D Thanks Hawk! You've been a bro.
Obviously the type of things I've been saying would be too much if implemented into the game exactly as it is now. I shouldn't have started off the blog with a specific example of a game and while still annoyed-- as it put everyone on the defensive from the start-- inhibiting useful discussion.
That being said, it was my blog and I figured the TL community could understand the fact that I was looking at what i perceive to be a problem and proposing possible solutions-- not necessarily perfect ones or ones that I balance tested and think are great.
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.
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United States47024 Posts
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.
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.
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I can only observe how it works in SCBW, but I think the real issue here is that Terrans can switch units with considerably less impact on their economy than Zergs or Protosses. Switching between Bio and Mech is cheap in unit cost. Switching between mass producing Tanks + Vultures (anti-ground) and Gols (anti-air) is cheap in unit cost and tech. That's basically it for Terrans (not a lot of Ghost / Wraith / BC strategies used).
Protoss has Carrier switch, which is expensive (unit cost and tech). If it fails, it's GG.
Zergs can go Mutas / Lurkers / Ultras. All are expensive. Once you go for one, you won't have gas to switch to the other.
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On August 13 2010 07:52 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
vikings are probably the weakest anti-air amongst the tier 1 air units actually. i think phoenix/muta are far more flexible and go even, or better, with vikings per cost.
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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.
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On August 13 2010 06:16 OneOther wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2010 06:15 Hawk wrote:
Im a toss user and I find this blog dumb. go figure! 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.
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
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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.
other races have different ways of dealing with colossi and carriers. all terran has is the viking.
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On August 12 2010 22:13 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 12:23 Impervious wrote:
What, exactly, is your point?
I didn't pick terran cause I felt it was the strongest race..... I still feel that Zerg probably takes that one, not by sheer power, but by speed and maneuverability. I picked it because it felt like it was the most versatile. Regardless of the situation, there are usually several different, good responses, while Z and P felt lacking to me. Not underpowered, just less options available.
I don't see how reactors doubling the production rate of vikings or hellions are a bad thing, they take nearly as long to build as a new facility, they are relatively expensive, and prevent you from using a tech lab to get the more specialized units, as well as the upgrades..... 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.
And can't you use this type of knowledge to your advantage? Make 1 Colossus, make sure I know its there, and then switch to obs production out of your robo facility, to scare me into making 6-10 (or more) vikings. Meanwhile, you're saving gas for more HT for storms (thanks to your awesome ability to hide tech buildings anywhere, and the ability to warp-in anywhere as well, with enough energy for a storm once the upgrade finishes), and I no longer have as many Ghosts for EMP..... GG.....
This game revolves around strategy, believe it or not. Start using some? Strategy revolves around more than just hard countering someone..... And, yes, Vikings hard-counter Carriers.....
My very first few games of the Beta revolved around a rush to 2 port banshees, expanding while harassing, because I saw the potential of the 1/1/1 playstyle, before it was even created..... I would be able to make whatever the fuck I needed with those buildings/addons that I had, and I had 2 bases with a pretty damn good economy, and my nat is pretty safe thanks to the cheap, salvageable bunkers. But there are a lot of things about this style of play that you can exploit.....
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I don't know about you, but I like my Terrans flexible.
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On August 13 2010 10:05 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2010 06:16 OneOther wrote:On August 13 2010 06:15 Hawk wrote:
Im a toss user and I find this blog dumb. go figure! 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. 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
How would you use Carriers against a player that can, by the time you get carriers, reactor vikings? I am genuinely curious.
I mean, perhaps I can hide both the stargate, which shows what it is building, the fleet beacon and the carriers themselves long enough to build up a surprise army and push out.
Perhaps you just think carriers should be buffed to make this argument null? The 120 second build time is completely obscene and unparalleled by any unit in the game (except for the mothership oh god 160) even accounting for crono-boost. Particularly since they aren't very strong, it seems entirely arbitrary. Collosi only take 75 without crono-boost. Battlecruisers take 90, so perhaps a Carrier that is fully crono-boosted takes around 90.
Maybe spawning with a full set of interceptors would help.
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Not gonna lie, from a T perspective, Carriers seem pretty useless atm.....
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On August 13 2010 16:01 Impervious wrote:
Not gonna lie, from a T perspective, Carriers seem pretty useless atm.....
From a Z and P perspective theyre pretty useless too.
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I've used carriers a-plenty of times and have gotten wins out of them in diamond 1v1's. Useless nope, necessary? I might believe there might be a reason out there other then being AWESOME.
I still get pretty bummed how vikings are so tiny compared to carriers and they own them... But critical mass carriers will just floor vikings if mixed with templars. Can't always mass 1 unit and expect to turn the entire game around.
Ever seen that game of HasuObs vs TLO, that game was one of my favorite games.
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On August 13 2010 16:18 Entropic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2010 16:01 Impervious wrote:
Not gonna lie, from a T perspective, Carriers seem pretty useless atm..... From a Z and P perspective theyre pretty useless too.
In PvP almost every unit seems useless atm...
And in ZvP they aren't nearly as bad, as Void Rays do pretty well versus corrupters, particularly if they choose to focus fire the carriers first. Once a few Void Rays get charged and start wtfpwning the corrupters, your Carriers will end up pretty safe. Kinda like how a Terran could micro some Vikings to try and protect his battlecruisers vs corrupters.
Moreover, blink stalkers would be a great way to protect your carriers from corrupters, since, unlike Terran, Zerg don't have marauders. No unit except Ultralisks is going to MASSIVELY annihilate your stalkers for cost.
Sure, they still aren't good enough, it seems, due to sheer weakness. But with some slight, obvious buffs (shorter build time to 90 like battlecruiser (Yes, crono-boost exists, that doesnt mean that all our units should build slower to make up for it), spawn with full interceptors, etc. Carriers would be fine in PvZ.
Carriers would have to be VERY strong before they could be viable against vikings in PvT.
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Nah Terran's not as flexible as you think. Maybe in 1v1 when you spot things early but if the other guy already has a decent amount of VRs, your vikings will be too late and too low in numbers to beat them. Protoss can also just transition back into ground.
Frankly Vikings aren't that good either. Viking has the same range as Colossi but stalkers are already in front. Any damage vikings do will be met with damage from stalkers. Colos can also just walk back and still have range to attack MM. Carriers also do pretty well vs vikings, or maybe it was the carrier+mothership that I've faced.
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EPT
