EPTPinging Dustin! .. pinging Dustin!! .. pinging Dustin!!! .. oh where art thou?
In Defence of Mech - Page 9
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Spinoza
667 Posts
Pinging Dustin! .. pinging Dustin!! .. pinging Dustin!!! .. oh where art thou? | ||
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EchOne
United States2906 Posts
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JeanLuc
Canada377 Posts
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Surgical_Strike
United States72 Posts
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OPdave
United States30 Posts
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NGrNecris
New Zealand855 Posts
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Itsmedudeman
United States19229 Posts
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Kazeyonoma
United States2912 Posts
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Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
Not much has changed. You can get sucked into SC2 for a while and enjoy the teams/drama and all that but then you happen to catch a BroodWar game and are just blown away by how awesome BroodWar is in comparison. | ||
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MinimalistSC2
United States121 Posts
However, Terran armies are without a doubt centered around the marine. Also, I play at top masters NA ladder as zerg and often face terrans who completely forgo getting siege tanks in favor of bio upgrades and more medivacs. Whether this is because the siege tank is too weak or banelings are too expensive/mutas too weak is unclear, all i know is that i find Muta Baneling Zergling builds vs Tank Marine Medivac builds much much more fun to watch and to play. Remember Leenock vs Jjakji GSL Finals? burrowed banelings, muta control, tank positioning, flanks and counter attacks, drops intended to dictate (muta)unit movement, spread out tank lines... | ||
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deo1
United States199 Posts
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hayata2.0
Canada655 Posts
On August 15 2012 08:39 MinimalistSC2 wrote: reminds me of Protoss in sc2, where the colossus is the core damage unit. Obv colossus is much more mobile, but i think the dynamic between stalkers as cannon fodder and anti air, and colossi as damage dealers with a key weakness (can be targeted as air unit) resembles something akin to "mech play." Similar things can be said regarding Zerg, with late game Broodlord centered armies. However, Terran armies are without a doubt centered around the marine. Also, I play at top masters NA ladder as zerg and often face terrans who completely forgo getting siege tanks in favor of bio upgrades and more medivacs. Whether this is because the siege tank is too weak or banelings are too expensive/mutas too weak is unclear, all i know is that i find Muta Baneling Zergling builds vs Tank Marine Medivac builds much much more fun to watch and to play. Remember Leenock vs Jjakji GSL Finals? burrowed banelings, muta control, tank positioning, flanks and counter attacks, drops intended to dictate (muta)unit movement, spread out tank lines... Broodlords much more so than Colossi, IMO. They actually need to be babysat because they move slow as hell, lag behind your army, and die in seconds to AA if exposed and instantly lose you the game even if you're leagues ahead. You actually need to care about where your broods are (preferably over impassable terrain), or they're actually pretty bad. Colossi are 1a units... They walk with the army just fine, and aren't even particularly vulnerable alone even if there are cliffs nearby. In an army engagement : Oh they're being targeted? click them back a bit because they walk over anything and up and down cliffs. So much positioning! Oh wait. The colossus just has to be with your army and its generally fine unless your army is too small (or its PvP, then you want to spread them out a bit but that's about it) Mobility is the issue. The colossus is far too mobile. If it couldn't cliffwalk and collided with other ground units, then you'd have a case about it being "mech-ish" due to its key weakness of being air-targetable. You can tell I'm not really a fan of the colossus design...herp derp laser show... The Reaver is a far better-designed unit, which retains its weakness by being air-transport reliant, and adds a bunch of cool factors by being very slow, and have a spectator element in scarabs. | ||
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dvorakftw
681 Posts
On August 15 2012 05:49 Falling wrote: Now you're just being contrary  I have a lot of caveats in my OP and nothing is for sure. But pure Mech Play doesn't currently exist. So I'm not sure it was ever alive (else why in the world is Artosis always talking about mech is the way of the future?). Bio-mech is, but not pure Mech style. But when you look at the HotS design, where is the momentum, towards or away from mech play? Warhounds are definitely away. Widow mines might be towards. And the hellion fix is to give it more hit points and make it slower. Another beefy, walking unit with all the other ones. They are not making it more maneuverable. It's technically more versatile, but not in a very interesting way. It just lasts longer than before. But let's work through the hellion change a bit more here. You need cannon fodder and you need raiders? It seems to me this is addressed in part with the new battle-mode hellion. You say it is more versatile in a non-interesting way. I'll reserve judgement there but it seems to me this can mean adding factories instead of adding rax would be a more viable option. Why do hellions need to be "more" maneuverable? They aren't "less" maneuverable because they still have the normal mode. In addition the Warhounds anti-mech bonus could mean tanks might have a better role in TvP - though there is an open question of why not just mass Warhounds (a possible answer could come from well constructed maps which we can't expect from Blizzard) or remove/fix Strike cannons to give tanks thor-support. | ||
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dvorakftw
681 Posts
On August 15 2012 06:16 avilo wrote: And because blizzard has purposely made it so widow mines and siege tanks do not work well together, positional play is completely 100% gone from mech because since you can't have siege tanks with mines to be effective...(the tanks kill whatever mines would attach to) this means you simply do not build tanks but you build warhounds, or if you do for some reason build tanks you don't build the mines with your army...which defeats the point of positional mech play in a lot of ways... They need to drastically overhaul and re-design the mine and the warhound. You also run into the distinct WOL problem still when your opponent goes void rays...you have nothing that can shoot up. The mine only helps mech vs void rays in pure opening build orders on defense a bit. In terms of when you're out on the map, you're extremely still vulnerable to void rays because protoss has to be naive enough to walk void rays or air units into mines. Bring back the goliath *cough* is the short answer, and bring back the spider mine *cough* if something is not broken...do not try to fix it. I'm certainly not one to say Blizzard has made the right design choices but I feel like it's way too early to say something like mines and tanks don't work well together. The cost and supply and detonation time for the widow mines certainly make them less attractive than spider mines but it's still possible that at the right time on the right map a few good strats could develop. For example imagine the mines placed in drop paths or at a backramp. Think everytime you play WoL and have to unsiege to reposition your tanks if you had a few mines in place to delay them. If you are killing mined units perhaps the answer is the mines can be even further up. Or maybe they would be good planted with your army so that if your position is overrun they can work akin to defensive nukes/storms. | ||
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Vento7
Brazil45 Posts
I'm not against the classical mech style you praise. I just think you're overlooking reasonable decisions made so far. I'll be glad if development guys at Blizzard read your post. TY for the time spent on this. | ||
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GinDo
3327 Posts
Maelstrom Rounds Crucio Shock Cannon deals +40 damage to primary target. Splash damage remains the same. | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
On August 15 2012 10:32 GinDo wrote: This is what Terran Mech needs. It's an upgrade from campaign. I think it creates the perfect balalnce between buffing it in TvP yet having a minimal effect in TvZ(Except against Ultralisk, but Zerg have tons on Tank Counters that aren't Ultra). I also think that this would be enough to crap on WH if they try A-moving into tank lines. Wouldn't it be better to give tanks the upgrade that reduced their friendly fire damage by 75%? | ||
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GinDo
3327 Posts
On August 15 2012 10:47 Shady Sands wrote: Wouldn't it be better to give tanks the upgrade that reduced their friendly fire damage by 75%? Personally I think not. Mealstrom Rounds are a more dynamic upgrade. Not only does it cause the tank to do more damage on the Primary Target, but it also benefits the high APM player who focus fires his tanks. It also makes it so Terran doesn't have to waste Supply building Vikings, since the Tank can do more DMG against Collosi if focus fired. With Mealstrom Rounds a Tank does 100 dmg against a Collosi, killing it in 4 volleys, compared to an original 8 shots with no Mealstrom Rounds. Reduction of friendly splash fixes an issue that can easily be resolved simply by spreading out your Tanks. | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
On August 15 2012 12:33 GinDo wrote: Personally I think not. Mealstrom Rounds are a more dynamic upgrade. Not only does it cause the tank to do more damage on the Primary Target, but it also benefits the high APM player who focus fires his tanks. It also makes it so Terran doesn't have to waste Supply building Vikings, since the Tank can do more DMG against Collosi if focus fired. With Mealstrom Rounds a Tank does 100 dmg against a Collosi, killing it in 4 volleys, compared to an original 8 shots with no Mealstrom Rounds. Reduction of friendly splash fixes an issue that can easily be resolved simply by spreading out your Tanks. Fair enough. This could work as a mid-lategame upgrade, say something that required siege tech to be upgraded and an armory to be built. | ||
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ThaZenith
Canada3116 Posts
That being said, I do think hellions fulfill their role better than you make them out to, there are both upsides and downsides to their attack difference from vultures. | ||
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