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I see both toss and zerg players complaining about terran tanks being imba. I hope that the admins don't close this thread because this is (in my opinion) an interesting discussion.
My questions for toss and zerg players:
1) Imagine 10 tanks protected with mines and vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine zerg units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
2) Imagine 10 tanks protected with vultures in starcraft 1. Imagine protoss units, all clumped together in 1 control group, attacking the tanks. Will the tanks win easily like they do in sc2? In my opinion: yes.
Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
3) How bad are basedrops (with overlords) as a zerg? Did you ever moved a whole mech army up your ramp as a terran? It takes a lot of time. By the terran is up, you could have killed a lot of stuff. Then you just load everything back in the overlords and you retreat. Expand and repeat.
4) How bad are armydrops as a zerg? I can imagine terrans having a very hard time if a zergs loads his overlords with zerglings and ultra's, and drops it on the siege tanks. Splash will destroy a lot of their own tanks and ultra's will just finnish everything off. Thors are weak vs overlords so those will not be sniped that fast.
5) I never saw a protoss player using hallucinations against me going mech. Let those take the first shots, spread your army, spread your HT's and storm him to dead. Is this viable?
6) Make more use of a mothership. A mothership costs 400/400. An arbiter costs 100/350. Mech is immobile so you can expand a lot as a protoss. Minerals will not be a problem. A mothership can vortex, it cloacks, it attacks. But: I understand it's a little bit weak. Is it not worth the money?
All these things are theory and I want to know if they work (and if they don't: why?) and if they are true/false. I want to ask people to post as much as replays as possible. It would be nice to see terrans posting replays where their mechplay gets destroyed by a zerg or a protoss player.
The main question is: are tanks IMBA, and why? What could be a sollution? Please make sure your post has evidence in it! Be objective.
Sorry for my bad English.
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From what I've read, the biggest difference is that tanks no longer overkill, so:
a) it's harder (impossible?) to exploit the slow seiged firing rate. Send in a zergling and only one tank will fire.
b) Spreading units out is less effective, because tanks will auto-target a broad spread of units instead of the closest.
I never played BW competitively, so if I'm wrong about this, I apologise.
EDIT: typo.
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Oh and as a terran player I really don't have a problem with a terran nerf. People should just play the game as blizzard offers it.
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United States22883 Posts
Drops are possible, but I think terran players are overstating how easy they are to accomplish. If the T player has a big ball army, then yeah, but if they're also being good about scouting and keeping units separate, then it's hard to find an opening that'll cause enough damage.
I think right now the number 1 problem are the maps people play on. Metalopolis and LT are the best maps for ZvT and even those have some features that are easily exploitable by T. Blizzard's maps suck, people need to start playing real maps in order to judge this kind of balance.
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United States22883 Posts
On June 02 2010 20:08 lew wrote:
Oh and as a terran player I really don't have a problem with a terran nerf. People should just play the game as blizzard offers it.
Yeah, one patch they make Stim a lot cheaper and the next patch they fix it by dropping Viking ground damage by 2. Your nerf really makes it hard to want to keep playing T. I'm glad you're sticking with it.
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I play Zerg and I think the biggest problem people call mech imba is because they just 1a it.
But like you said, that didn't work to well in SC:BW either, so you can't expect it to work in SC 2.
I think over time most players will find a solution for this and if they can't Blizzard will adjust.
Atleast that's my humble opinion about it, the fact that Terran doesn't dominate the current tourneys somewhat support this statement though.
I never saw players like Sen having much trouble with mech play.
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On June 02 2010 20:07 Umpteen wrote:
From what I've read, the biggest difference is that tanks no longer overkill, so:
a) it's harder (impossible?) to exploit slow the slow seiged firing rate. Send in a zergling and only one tank will fire.
b) Spreading units out is less effective, because tanks will auto-target a broad spread of units instead of the closest.
I never played BW competitively, so if I'm wrong about this, I apologise.
Actually you got it exactly right.
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On June 02 2010 20:17 Jibba wrote:
Drops are possible, but I think terran players are overstating how easy they are to accomplish. If the T player has a big ball army, then yeah, but if they're also being good about scouting and keeping units separate, then it's hard to find an opening that'll cause enough damage.
I think right now the number 1 problem are the maps people play on. Metalopolis and LT are the best maps for ZvT and even those have some features that are easily exploitable by T. Blizzard's maps suck, people need to start playing real maps in order to judge this kind of balance.
Unfortunately though blizzard maps are the ones we're going to be playing while laddering, so that isn't really a valid argument. Hopefully after the game comes out, and some more professionally made maps come out, in HotS they take lessons from the maps people make.
All in all though I think blizz's sc2 maps are quite good (some of them), if you look at the blizzard bw maps they tend to be weird, mechanic broke, and race favoring (expo with 4 mineral patches anyone?) Many maps lacked naturals, which they honestly should have thought would be anti zerg considering their hatcheries are cheaper than nexus/cc.
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The problem with mech terran is that their units are way more cost effective than that of the other two races because basicaly all their units are a (very) hard counter to something in particular and do just fine with the rest.
For exemple vs Zerg :
Tanks rape hydra very bad., and if well placed own every thing else that doesn't fly.
Hellion own hydra and zergling
Thors vs mutalisks is a joke
Vikings vs anything else that flies
a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
That being said, the only way to beat a terran mech as zerg is :
a) get an early timing push when he doesn't have his mech build in place
b) get all sorts of possible harass you can using mobility (6 mutas, nydus, drops etc...)
Droping in base is pointless, as you will still get killed by 3 tanks placed at three different corners of the base.
I beleive protoss have the same kind of problems with this build
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Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash).
No, that's not how Z and P players responded to bio AT ALL.
P responded with either colossi/speedlot or mass storm if they were smart, because their 1a just gets silly raped by emp + stimmed bio. I don't think you can completely circumvent bio in TvP, you need at least ghosts late game and a few marines/marauders early game.
Z has this wonderful spell called fungal growth, which is like storm + plague + lockdown combined, costs 75 mana, does not require research and is available at lair tech, which makes pretty much any attempt at going bio = roflskate, unless you already had a huge advantage.
Thus terran players responded by going mech. It's not really imba, since it's incredibly gas intensive.
Z just also got another buff for their ultras, which should weaken mech somewhat.
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I play zerg at a fairly high level, and despite tanks being very strong in the current form, I wouldn't call them imbalanced. I haven't had that much trouble beating tank heavy terran balls with speedling/roach, burrowed roaches, infestors, or broodlords.
You just have to be very careful not to engage too early, or in a bad position.
With speedling/roach, flanking and surrounding is key. Once your lings get to his units his tanks will start to be counter-productive. Usually terrans will keep them unsieged vs roaches, so the lings are there mostly to take maurader/tank fire.
Burrowed roaches... well I'm sure you can figure out how to use them.
With Infestors, grab any thors you can first then as many tanks as possible while whatever else you have takes the damage.
With broodlords just make sure they stay alive, and he won't be able to siege his tanks near them because broodlings will poop on his army.
Mech still has the same problems it did in broodwar, which is he can't stop me from taking the map. ^^
edit: oh and i heard mutas kill tanks pretty good if 2+thors aren't around;)
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Terran players are seriously overestimating how viable drops are. Yes you can do a lot of damage if, and only if terran isnt very good or arent expecting it at all. If he has turrets, vikings (like usually he does) and leaves a few tanks in the base, the drop harass quickly becomes a suicide mission.
The other point was that "drop lings and ultras" or units in general on to the tanks. Well thats a good idea if he has only tanks. Throw some thors and marines in there and your units are dead before they hit the ground.
Mech isnt impossible to beat, but now you just have to seriously outplay your opponent.
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The problem isn't tanks. The problems is tanks and thors and vikings and lack of swarm.
Before there was no fast air unit other than vessels, because wraith were trash and vessels had obvious drawbacks of not being able to attack. Now vikings are extremely fast, extremely fast to build and they do dominate air, and they aren't all that bad on the ground either. You can use them to hit with their ridiculous range and then pull back into the tank/turret line which makes them very powerful.
Then after that threat we have to deal with the thor. Goliaths didn't used to do splash. It used to be that you could take a reasonable amount of goliaths with mutas, and then if he over produced, they were somewhat vulnerable on the ground. Thors are pretty damned good both on the ground and in the air.
But the biggest problem is that you used to be able to swarm to get near the tanks and completely nullify every attack that terran had outside of splash, and that helped a lot. Zerglings with swarm were a decent counter to tanks in BW. In SC2 you'll be lucky to get a single zergling out of 50 up to the tanks alive.
Edit: Oh yeah and drops. They are so risky now with vikings and sensor towers. Have you ever had 5 overlords die enroute before? It's gg right there. There is no surprise anymore once the game gets to a certain point. And even if you land the drop, are there tanks nearby interweaved into the buildings? Because if there are your drop isn't going to do much.
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no its just that zerg players complain. just watch some of the gomtv protosses, they humiliate terran with a build that goes like this: 1.heavy stalker opening with quarter zealot mix +1-2 sentries.
2. as time passes by army becomes more zealot heavy. 3.tricks terran into overproducing factory units.
3. charge is upgraded and zealot + forcefields buy a lot of time. brute force with a ton of gateway.
inefficient but you can brute force it with stronger economy.
4.1-2 stargates you win > mass void ray.
zerg just attack move too much. they play too much simcity and allow terran to critical mass tanks that's all. all the zerg players are playing them the wrong way. zerg are meant to make great use of mind games by burrowing and fighting only when they can win. most zerg players just attempt to cancel out with brute force and watch the battles go to see if their army can win the fight. that's why against terran always burrow if you cannot win the fight.
zerg players need to have the mindset to force terran to get a goddamn useless raven to detect. hydras are only meant to comprise no more than 20% of your army, most of it should be a mix of roaches mutas and zerglings.
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On June 02 2010 20:27 Sadistx wrote:Show nested quote +Terran players used to go bio, almost always. Zerg and protoss were used to response to this with "1a", which was enough (most of the time). It didn't matter if their units were clumped. Then terran players found out how to do some decent mech-builds. Protoss and zerg players kept on doing their 1a style. They attack with 1 big clumped army, which is a party for terran their sieged tanks (splash). No, that's not how Z and P players responded to bio AT ALL. P responded with either colossi/speedlot or mass storm if they were smart, because their 1a just gets silly raped by emp + stimmed bio. I don't think you can completely circumvent bio in TvP, you need at least ghosts late game and a few marines/marauders early game. Z has this wonderful spell called fungal growth, which is like storm + plague + lockdown combined, costs 75 mana, does not require research and is available at lair tech, which makes pretty much any attempt at going bio = roflskate, unless you already had a huge advantage. Thus terran players responded by going mech. It's not really imba, since it's incredibly gas intensive. Z just also got another buff for their ultras, which should weaken mech somewhat.
The one problem is that fungal growth is like a shitty version of all of those spells. It stops movement, but doesn't stop attacking. It does damage, but barely any. Also it has a tiny ass radius compared to storm. It's only real major factor is that it can delay a terran from attacking you, or prevent retreat. It's damage is barely noticable, compared to the fact that it stops them from moving.
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[B]
a 100/200 terran mech army runs over a 200/200 zerg.
show me a replay of that happening outside of some ridiculously contrived circumstance that would never actually happen in a real game.
People need to be a little bit more realistic about the things they say... Really.
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really imho people really need to wait for this abit. since when is mech playble and often used? like 2 weeks?
most people just play wrong against it cause they are used to bio evrygame. when i see a P get mass stalkers and colloxen against my rine/tank/raven/banshee i just giggle, swap a port with a reactored rax and win 3 mins later. and still like evry 2nd toss does exactly that even at upper mid diamond (~500 rating atm). same goes for Zs massing hydraling and trying to aclick me death at the front.
so imho first we need the people to adapt before we can even see if something is imba. terran was thru the most "style changes" while Ps for example still very often do exactly the same that they did 3 months ago at the start of the beta.you just cant go 2/3 gate robo and aclick vs evry strat and then cry out when it doesnt work anymore.
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The problem with mech is that players dont use too much bio to defend tanks, they use vikings. Therefore the drops and mothership you suggested would be completely raped.
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My first impression of that post was that it comes down a lot to the maps.
I think you are totally right about the immobile mech army, the leak of drops and how powerful they are (see White-Ra vs Maka D9D #127 to get a glimbs on what drops are worth). I think Zerg just has to get used to more micro based play in case they face terran mech. The tables have turned, Protoss is now facing much more often a marauder based army while zerg has to face much more tanks. Remember in BW where Protoss faced exclusivly tanks and zerg almost always MM (and Tanks in case of lurker/hydra)? So what Zerg has to get used to is, what Protoss did a couple of years ago - the abuse of mobility - which means burrowed roaches (their regeneration rate is now more easy available), drops perhaps even infested terran, who knows. Like suggested in the OP even ultra might be your weapon of choice.
To my honest opinion this is the main issue and it's no longer like "swarming a-click", it is more and people begged for it: more caster/ability-heavy play (see overseer buff and infestor changes).
What i clearly see in general is the design of the current maps which is in most cases pretty tight and small which offers a lot of opportunities to create a choke for the tanks (Inceration Zone, Steppes of War for instance). I mean even Paranoid Android had that gigantic bridge which offers spreading your units. So I think with time there will be a lot of maps that give your more opportunites to surround your enemy. Tough we have to keep an eye on the fact that the pathfinding AI is much smarter now, which might causes clear balance issues on certain maps.
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I never go mech against a toss player since immortals will just eat tanks and thors alive. I sometimes try to use ghosts to emp them before they can take out my line of defense, but I just find bio play to be better against toss for me.
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EPT
