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On February 15 2012 07:34 CarbonTwelve wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I suppose you've never actually used ghosts. They're so slow that they get caught by slowlings, their auto attack, albeit powerful is really slow. They can't be microed properly. Ghosts cost a lot, they can't be massed only for their auto-attacks. With the proposed changes I rather take 1½ siege tanks than a ghost.
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Blizzard should hire Qxc for David Kim's job. Watch out David! :D
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Good points, good writeup. Hopefully Blizz listens
On an offnote, all the other changes of the patch are awesome (except we'll have to see what happens with the phoenix buff) and I love the use of user made maps in the ladder pool =)
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On February 15 2012 07:37 Mantraz wrote:
+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?
a range increase would break the tvp templar - ghost dynamic (speaking as terran  )
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They might as well just keep snipe as it is now, but make it unable to target massive. That eliminates broodlords and ultras while making intuitive sense.
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4713 Posts
@ Alvin853
Snipe's energy cost isn't so low for the damage it does. I'll refer you to the other abilities that do damage and cost energy.
Storm, costs 75 energy and does 80 damage in an area over 4 seconds. While the damage looks almost like a 1-1 ratio, its actually way, way more because it deals damage in an aoe.
Fungal Growth, costs 75 energy and deals 30 damage (40 to armored) in an area over 4 seconds, and also roots units in place. While as you can see FG does almost 50% lower damage than storm, it compensates by having another effect, the root in particular is incredible for combos that involve banelings and ultras, so the lower damage is understandable.
EMP, costs 75 energy and does 100 shield and energy damage to units in an area, instant. While this theoretically does the most damage and is instant, in practice it only kills shields and energy, so its understandable to have more bang for the buck vs those.
Now, lets look at snipe.
It deals 45 damage, single target and costs 25 energy. It does seem to have higher damage per energy, but at the same time it is single target, every ability mentioned above is aoe, the potential damage is much higher, and they are balanced around that potential damage.
Thus I can conclude that snipe is actually fine in terms of energy per damage ratio.
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tbh the ghost vs tier3 relationship does not need to be "fixed" in the first place. Brood/corruptor/infestor has already started to show it destroys mass ghost relatively easily in late game. It will become worse after the patch.
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It also makes sense that a massive unit takes less damage from being sniped. It does NOT make sense that psionic units take more damage from being sniped. lol.
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On February 15 2012 07:51 KevinIX wrote:
It also makes sense that a massive unit takes less damage from being sniped. It does NOT make sense that psionic units take more damage from being sniped. lol.
I think it makes sense. Bigger brains? 
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people (myself included) have been suggesting this nerf to snipe for months
now that qxc says it people actually listen
THE FAME BABY
On February 15 2012 07:51 KevinIX wrote:
It also makes sense that a massive unit takes less damage from being sniped. It does NOT make sense that psionic units take more damage from being sniped. lol. what makes sense should never factor into these decisions. balance is the only thing that matters.
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I used to do Ghost rushes in TvT a lot... they were even pretty good for defending certain rushes. It'll be a shame that the early game utility will be completely gone now.
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i have to agree, this nerf would hurt more than help,
in what i have seen in the past for both games, i feel that Starcraft 2 is getting more and more changes than what used to be in BW. maybe its just me but i feel as thought Blizzard is not allowing us to find counters to units. of course some changes should be made due to just plain old imbalance but if they nerf the ghosts there is no reason for me in any matchup to tech to ghost academy anymore.
hopefully blizzard can see this and understand the problem this has.
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@ Destructicon
you're comparing Snipe to Storm, Fungal Growth and EMP... wait a second... EMP is a Ghost ability, that compares to the other two, so why exactly do Ghosts need another strong ability? Is this because of the fact that Ghosts cost 50 gas less than HTs and Infestors? Or because you don't need to research anything like Storm or Pathogen Glands to make decent use of Ghosts? (Ok you could argue about Cloak, but then you'd also have to take Burrow into account, and maybe Warp Prism for HTs.)
Ghosts are definetely less advanced along the tech tree compared to Infestors and HTs, so they really shouldn't keep up with HTs and Infestors when comparing them on a unit against unit basis.
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On February 15 2012 07:50 avilo wrote:
tbh the ghost vs tier3 relationship does not need to be "fixed" in the first place. Brood/corruptor/infestor has already started to show it destroys mass ghost relatively easily in late game. It will become worse after the patch.
Zerg late game has no efficient way to deal with ghosts though. The only way Terran loses ghosts easily is if the T is bad and has them all clumped to get fungaled or surrounded. Otherwise mass ghost counters all Z t3 too hard in my opinion and this is what blizzard noticed and is why they are making the change.
qxc makes a ton of great points in here though, the changes that are going to come from this nerf (because of TvZ late/end game) will reduce the room for innovation and make the ghost into quite a 1 dimensional unit. Ghosts will become strictly a unit for TvP countering HT's and still probably used in TvZ for infestors/broods it just wont be as effective.
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Glad to see that from a pro player, making it sort of official.
This proposed change (reduce against massive instead of 25+25) is what I've thought, and read about, every where since the patch announcement. This is simpy common sense. But this is almost too simple of a solution, Blizzard couldn't have not think about it. Which leads me to believe TvZ late game was not the only reason for the proposed 25+25.
1°) If TvZ late game was, then the Blizzard change makes little sense in my eyes, completely changing a Terran unit (thus affecting all matchups and removing cute/effective moves like banelings marines snipe) seems totaly unreasonable.
2°) Yet some part of me can't help but think that Blizzard knows better, and had the tools to fix only declared issue of massing ghosts vs T3 Zerg (just disallow snipe vs massive, done), without affecting Ghosts as a whole.
Maybe they're trying to enforce some Raven play (could use a little buff, then, imo), or some BC play?...
---
So, I do regret the perspective of not being able to efficiently snipe banelings / marines / bio-workers, this was very occasional, not game-breaking, made the game fun and I believe was granted given the Ghosts price.
On the other hand, I do enjoy the perspective of seeing more Raven or BC/Yamato (one can dream) plays from pro-players and amateurs alike. And I still think, if the Ghosts change had to be enforced, that the Ravens could use small tweaks in the buffing direction, things like acceleration or spell costs (you name it).
In the end, assuming there was something more than just the TvZ late game behind that decision, I still believe this could have been done better, fixing the issue at hand with Z T3 while keeping the fun/cute potential of Ghosts on other situations.
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all i hear is terren whining. just because u had a one hit wonder gstl all kill doesnt mean you know more than blizzard
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qxc Very well written, I completely agree with what you said, and that was the same way I was feeling when I first read the patchnotes. Reducing the damage of snipe on everything but increasing on psionic is basically rendering the skill useless.
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On February 15 2012 08:09 LuckyFool wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:50 avilo wrote:
tbh the ghost vs tier3 relationship does not need to be "fixed" in the first place. Brood/corruptor/infestor has already started to show it destroys mass ghost relatively easily in late game. It will become worse after the patch. Zerg late game has no efficient way to deal with ghosts though. The only way Terran loses ghosts easily is if the T is bad and has them all clumped to get fungaled or surrounded. Otherwise mass ghost counters all Z t3 too hard in my opinion and this is what blizzard noticed and is why they are making the change. qxc makes a ton of great points in here though, the changes that are going to come from this nerf (because of TvZ late/end game) will reduce the room for innovation and make the ghost into quite a 1 dimensional unit. Ghosts will become strictly a unit for TvP countering HT's and still probably used in TvZ for infestors/broods it just wont be as effective.
Zerg can easily deal with it with 1Aing broodlords in comparison to the Terran who has to have 200 apm to get every snipe off. 1 fungal on the clump of ghosts and they are all lost to broods. And to expend 100% of the ghosts energy, you have to have them all relatively in the same area otherwise you won't snipe with all ghosts at the same time and queens simply transfuse the deathball.
So yes, the brood/corruptor/infestor deathball easily counters mass ghost nowadays, which is why most Terrans have almost given up doing it in the first place. A mass ling/bane/ultra tech with infestors still alive tech switch also can destroy mass ghosts, same deal there - 1 fungal and the ghost ball is dead.
If they really are going to nerf the ghost then they should look at helping Terran late game in some way or another, whether it's reducing costs of raven/raven upgrades, adding a medivac speed upgrade...anything really at this point because it's not looking good if they keep nerfing Terran's "lategame" innovations and leave them with nothing else.
QXC's points about the ghost in the other match-ups I agree with and 99% of people will obviously agree with as well. It's disturbing to me though (and should be to everyone else) that QXC's thoughts on the ghost nerf and it's implications are more well thought out than one of the SC2 lead balance designers thoughts were...
Not everyone agrees ghosts needed to be "fixed" though, as it's a huge nerf to Terran in lategame, and Terrans are already having enough problems there as it is.
We'll just have to wait and see how they actually patch.
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On February 15 2012 08:11 ParkwayDrive wrote:
all i hear is terren whining. just because u had a one hit wonder gstl all kill doesnt mean you know more than blizzard
qxc, merz, dde, ThorZaiN and even MorroW to a certain extent has voiced their opinions about this change. When that many Terrans (of which are dwindling in numbers and will continue to do so if this change goes thru) say it isn't right, you have a problem.
And if we heard more from the Koreans I'm pretty sure MMA and Mvp aren't too psyched about this either.
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Ghost was too strong unit(before emp reduction and this nerf), those balance nerfs are welcome to every unit in game that is too strong. This game shouldn't allow free wins. And I am happy with it. More skill needed, like in BW.
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EPT
