|
Greetings, valued reader! As I have a few things to say on the subject of HotS and absolutely no reason to expect anyone to care, I'm keeping my oar out of the foaming waters of the HotS forum in favour of the tranquil pool of my personal blog. Thanks for joining me!
America's Least Wanted![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BgQSj.jpg)
The Warhound has been a kind of black hole for hate on these forums, and for completely understandble reasons. At first blush this big-ass Marauder seems to undermine everything people love about mech-style play, and it has inspired a great deal of facepalming about how Blizzard don't understand mech.
But...
What if the Warhound ends up balanced such that it offers an alternative, rather than replacement, playstyle from the factory?
Let's think about that for a moment. As many people have pointed out, the battle-hellion by itself goes a long way towards fixing tank-based mech in TvP by coping better with chargelots. Assuming for the moment they're right, the kind of mech many people want to play... is now viable? Huh.
But of course nobody will play that way, because A-move Warhounds, right?
Well, again I don't know. Blizzard's record of balancing unit usage isn't all that terrible. There are a handful of notable tragedies (WoL Hydra, anyone?) but on the whole, not terrible. So we shouldn't assume Warhounds will make all other mech redundant in a matchup and Blizzard will just shrug and let it happen.
Best case scenario?
1. Tank-based mech is viable in TvP, maybe with Warhounds sprinkled in to help with Immortals (Drop micro synced with haywire cooldown?)
2. Warhounds, being less powerful in TvZ, disrupt normal mech play less while offering the option of earlier aggression from just factory, keeping the Zerg on his toes.
3. Warhound-centric play is viable in TvT, but not the strongest thing you can do at all points in the game. For instance, Raven PDDs stop Haywire missiles but can't stop tank fire (which has recently been buffed; an encouraging sign in itself), and makes SkyTerran endgame a more natural progression from tank play than Warhounds.
If this is what comes to pass, well, personally I think it's no bad thing to have multiple viable playstyles emerging from the factory. I certainly don't think Blizzard want to destroy traditional mech, I think they just want to expand the possibilities so that a meching Terran is less predictable.
What do you think?
 
|
United Kingdom14464 Posts
If they don't remove it, then yeah, hopefully this does happen. I don't buy the mass doom and gloom saying one bad unit in a host of pretty damn good updates is gonna ruin the game.
|
For mech to be used, mech as in lots of tanks, it would have to be vastly superior to "alternative" mech of Warhound compositions, because it's much more dificult to do. If this is not the case, then true mech will not be played at the highst level, no body would be stupid to use a style that's harder to do but just as strong or even weaker.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On September 11 2012 22:31 MCDayC wrote:
If they don't remove it, then yeah, hopefully this does happen. I don't buy the mass doom and gloom saying one bad unit in a host of pretty damn good updates is gonna ruin the game.
Sure, but it certainly would be a wasted opportunity.
|
United Kingdom14464 Posts
On September 11 2012 22:58 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 22:31 MCDayC wrote:
If they don't remove it, then yeah, hopefully this does happen. I don't buy the mass doom and gloom saying one bad unit in a host of pretty damn good updates is gonna ruin the game. Sure, but it certainly would be a wasted opportunity.
Oh most definitely. People should continue talking about the problems with the warhound, at least while in beta. But some of the talk about HotS has been rather insane, mostly illogical, and very frustrating to read, especially as people are using it as an excuse to play game designer, or to outright balance whine. Mostly HotS seems pretty positive, at least to me.
|
On September 11 2012 22:32 Sapphire.lux wrote:
For mech to be used, mech as in lots of tanks, it would have to be vastly superior to "alternative" mech of Warhound compositions, because it's much more dificult to do. If this is not the case, then true mech will not be played at the highst level, no body would be stupid to use a style that's harder to do but just as strong or even weaker.
That's too simplistic a statement. It would be sufficient if tank-mech were stronger at some points in the game and/or transitioned better into other late-game compositions. You also need to think about the potential for different timings of a transition into tank-mech from a warhound-y early-midgame. It's hardly ever a case of 'X is flat out better than Y throughout the game so always do X'; it's usually a case of 'I need to figure out the edge I need to get to X against Y at the point in the game where X starts to dominate'.
Blizzard probably aren't going to remove or redesign the Warhound substantially - but I don't think they need to. If literally nobody at a high level is playing tank-mech, they'll fix it. What they won't do (and rightly so) is listen to people saying 'Nobody will use tank-mech any more', because that's pure speculation. That's not something you can fix with a patch.
|
On September 12 2012 01:16 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 22:32 Sapphire.lux wrote:
For mech to be used, mech as in lots of tanks, it would have to be vastly superior to "alternative" mech of Warhound compositions, because it's much more dificult to do. If this is not the case, then true mech will not be played at the highst level, no body would be stupid to use a style that's harder to do but just as strong or even weaker. That's too simplistic a statement. It would be sufficient if tank-mech were stronger at some points in the game and/or transitioned better into other late-game compositions. You also need to think about the potential for different timings of a transition into tank-mech from a warhound-y early-midgame. It's hardly ever a case of 'X is flat out better than Y throughout the game so always do X'; it's usually a case of 'I need to figure out the edge I need to get to X against Y at the point in the game where X starts to dominate'. Blizzard probably aren't going to remove or redesign the Warhound substantially - but I don't think they need to. If literally nobody at a high level is playing tank-mech, they'll fix it. What they won't do (and rightly so) is listen to people saying 'Nobody will use tank-mech any more', because that's pure speculation. That's not something you can fix with a patch.
IMO you are over complicating the situation. If a mobile army, be it bio or bio V2 (warhounds) is as strong as a positioning based tank/ hellion one, they will allways be used.
It gives you the ability to end games faster, react and adapt insted of plan, gives you the initiative, etc.
In TvT, bio is easier IMO, but mech is stronger. MVP made a name for himself with mech in TvT using his BW skills yet most players will still go bio. Now imagine if bio was just as strong as mech...you would never ever see mech.
I don't know what Blizzard is thinking, but i see a mobile easy to use factory unit that's designed to kill tanks (traditional mech); i see posts by Blizzard telling us how the Warhound is a "core" unit; i don't see any improvement on Tanks for TvP where every single unit looks designed to kill Tanks...face it, mass Warhounds with support is what Blizz has in mind as mech TvP.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
