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On February 15 2012 06:59 turdburgler wrote:
i love pro players to weigh in on subjects. but every other topic like this gets closed with the reasoning "stick to 1 thread" not "your bad and wrong and dont know what your talking about" WHAT MAKES QXC SO SPECIAL HU?!
I believe it's because he posted it in blogs, and not in the strategy/general forum to be discussed. 
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On February 15 2012 06:58 Swede wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 06:02 bkrow wrote:This was great to hear during State of the Game and now that you've fleshed it out and added some great examples, it makes even more sense. Blizzard constantly cites "pro player feedback" as a source of their balance decisions - i want to meet the pro players who sat down, thought it through and said .. "yep nerfing ghosts into the ground is good for the game overall." I don't understand why a unit has to go from overpowered to completely useless in one swoop. Great write up But it's not completely useless. It's probably one of the most versatile units in the game even with the proposed changes by Blizzard. Are people forgetting EMP, nuke and cloak? Its really good base damage to light units? I actually agree with QXC's changes, but I disagree with all of the people suddenly calling the unit 'useless' because of Blizzard's changes. That's just dishonest. Personally I never liked snipe in the first place. I don't think Ghosts need an extra way of dealing with casters (they have EMP), and I don't think Terran need an extra way of disposing of banelings etc. Oh well.
I agree with this also. Even with the proposed nerf it is still a good unit. At least it has a basic attack that does a good amount of damage so once it's completely out of energy it's still useful vs say an infester that without energy does nothing!
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I hereby endorse this proposal.
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Is there any way we could help to make Blizzard notice and take this post in account?
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Great writeup, great point, I'm with you on this one
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4713 Posts
I agree 100% with qxc and I'm glad a lot of pro players are stepping up and saying how wrong the change is.
While I agree that before ghosts might have been able to deal with T3 units of zerg too efficiently, I also know that, to a certain extent ghosts are required, due to the ease of tech switching the zerg has, and terran did need a relative all round unit that could deal with the tech switches.
But I don't agree with the way Blizz wants to handle it. 25 damage + 25 to psionic makes the snipe nearly useless vs certain other units, removes a good chunk of strategies, both existing and potentially untapped, and also causes massive redundancy, since ghosts already counter casters with EMP.
Qxc's change is much, much better, instead of nerfing the damage flat out, nerf the damage vs massive, as was intended in the first place, but not 25, maybe 30, that would still be a substantial 33% damage nerf but still could allow ghosts to be useful along side vikings and marauders. It reduces redundancy since snipe no longer overlaps with EMP in anti-caster role, it also improves chances of killing infestors, it doesn't remove any strategies.
The change sounds like a win-win situation.
And, I also don't understand where the major misconception of Ghost being auto-win vs T3 zerg, stems from in the first place. Mass ghost with snipe is one of the hardest and most micro intensive strategies, it rewards players for being able precisely control their ghosts, their positioning and their ability to precisely and quickly focus down the same target, without messing up the position.
Remember, just because MVP can do it consistently, and make it look easy doesn't mean it is easy. If you don't believe me, I urge you to try it out for yourself in any custom map against a buddy.
If anything more abilities should be like snipe, micro intensive, but rewarding. And I'm not mad just because the nerf is too severe, I'm also disgusted that Blizz decided to nerf one of the most micro intensive and rewarding abilities.
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dont wanna pull this card, but if qxc is saying, it's probally true.
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Pretty much.
At this point I think Blizzard is trying to run the game into the ground so everyone buys HotS because its *fixed*.
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I'd love if they added something like stimpack for ghosts to compensate or made them cheaper.
As it stands, right now, you just can't produce enough ghosts to snipe the amount of HP the tier 3 zerg units have. There's no reason you'd make a ghost now rather than a marauder against ultras, and a ghost over marine against broodlords.
I'm guessing we'll start to see a lot more raven/marine compositions late game (before ravens get nerfed after more whining).
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I was with you until you cited one-shotting banelings -- can't say I'm a fan of that :}
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I thought Khaydarin Amulet and Flux Vanes opened up new avenues for tactics.
Blizzard thought otherwise.
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This whole post sounds great, but its not taking into consideration anything else that comes out of a ghost, most importantly EMP which is OP anyway. Now factor that in, now see how the balance changes are decent
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Progamers play this game for a living. We practice everyday perfecting and refining strategies - strategies which rely on the current balance. Every unnecessary change makes it harder for us to perfect the strategies we practice so frequently.
Just wait until HOTS. reset.
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So what's the problem?
Snipe is currently good at killing things besides tier 3 zerg but if this change goes through they wouldn't be any longer. This would take a generally versatile unit vs. bio and make it an extremely specialized anti caster unit. So let's talk about what is even snipable.
Things you can snipe
Marine
Marauder
Ghost
Reaper
Zealot
High Templar
Dark Templar
Zergling
Baneling
Roach
Hydralisk
Mutalisk
Queen
Infestor
Corruptor
Broodlord
Ultralisk
Workers
What units would you reasonably want to snipe (Where 3-4 snipes makes the ghost roughly pay for itself or where snipe is a good response as in the case of broodlord/viking)
Snipe isn't a ghost's only ability, or only damage output. Between EMP, cloak, nukes, and their normal (high) dps, there's plenty of benefit to ghosts already. With all of this, plus snipe, as you say, the ghost is an extremely versatile unit. What other unit in the game has anywhere near this much versatility? What justification is there that Terrans need a unit that is this versatile? As far as I can tell, pre 1.4.3 there isn't any situation, at any time in the game, where ghosts aren't useful. There may be times where you don't want to put in the investment required to get them, but once you've got them they'll always be useful. There is no other unit I can think of where this is the case.
Yes, 1.4.3 will reduce the number of things that a ghost is useful for, but IMO no more so than any other unit in the game.
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leave snipe as it is, nerf emp, because its still imba
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I don't think this deserves it's own thread, seeing as how it was brought up in SotG a post should be made in that thread. qxc...
+ Show Spoiler +
User was temp banned for this post.
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Casting units in SC2 are supposed to be about energy-management, quite often you see HTs waiting for energy to storm an incoming army, or infestors that only drop infested terrans when they would rather fungal, but don't have enough energy. But you almost never see ghosts auto-attacking because they don't have enough energy for snipe (and unlike other casters they actually can attack without using energy). And that's even with them using cloak, that, unlike burrow, doesn't prevent ghosts from using their abilities.
In all of the images in the first post the ghosts had plenty of energy left, so reducing the snipe damage would maybe double the required micro, but barely change the outcome since the delay between snipes is very short. Putting a longer delay in with the current damage would be a far worse nerf than the reduced damage.
Yes, terran may need a universal unit for late TvZ to counter zerg tech switches, but it shouldn't be more effective than the hard counters, that is vikings against brood lords and marauders against ultralisks. And right now snipe energy cost feels too low for the damage it deals, making it basically infinitely available in the late game.
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+3 ghosts deal 26 damage to light, with the purposed change, that means +3 ghosts deal less damage while sniping, than auto attacking.
I'm really in for the reduced damage vs massive tweak, sounds a lot more refined. Increase the range aswell perhaps?
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I dont even get how it is a reasonable nerf against zerg tier 3. The biggest reason ghost play seems so good vs Zerg when you watch MvP etc do it, is because of the maps. The only maps where I have seen it is metalopolis, shakuras plateau and shattered temple. All those maps is just split map in half and camp in the middle, which makes ghosts really good. Not to mention that good zergs have actually been able to destroy mass ghost play, they just needed time to get used to it and learn how to defeat it. The only answer to Brood Lord/Infestor/Corruptor as terran after this patch is Ravens with seeker missile. Seeker missiles are bad. Zerg is going to win every lategame situation if played properly from this point on. Its not something I think, it is a fact.
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EPT
