|
On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote: my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units. like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it. marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit. zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also
|
On June 16 2012 20:48 SarcasmMonster wrote:Poll: Should the roach stay?Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40) 35% Keep as is (38) 34% Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19) 17% Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16) 14% 113 total votes Your vote: Should the roach stay? (Vote): Keep as is (Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit
For those who missed it.
|
|
On June 16 2012 21:40 Garmer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote: my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units. like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it. marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit. zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also
Roach can burrow move too.
|
Swap with Hydras and rebalance.
|
On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote: Swap with Hydras and rebalance. Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous.
|
On June 16 2012 21:31 Psyclon wrote: I wonder - what makes a unit "boring" or "fun"?
His subjective opinion.
|
On June 16 2012 21:46 Wildmoon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:40 Garmer wrote:On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote: my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units. like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it. marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit. zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also Roach can burrow move too. the burrow move would be more interesting, if was more useful... they should give burrowered roach more speed
On June 16 2012 21:50 From Afar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote: Swap with Hydras and rebalance. Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous. Hydra are less boring to watch, cuz they are more fragile, therefore they require more attention and consequently more micro
|
|
4713 Posts
Here is my take on the problem with my personal opinion and ideas how to fix it.
The roach is indeed a very boring unit. It has medium HP, giving you limited incentives to try and micro them to be more effective, it has high damage with slow rate of fire, so it doesn't benefit a lot from micro and their signature ability, burrow heal, is crap in comparison to blink in terms of micro potential. Lastly, the unit is so cheep that you can mass tons and tons of them, and the more you have the less incentive you have to micro them.
However, when I look at the roach, I don't think of only a boring 1-a move unit, I think of a unit with tons of lost potential.
How I'd fix it, well, I'd start off by slashing away 15 HP from it and 4 damage, secondly I'd tweak its burrow mechanics. Boost its base burrow regen and upgraded regen, also modify one of its upgrades, maybe tunneling claws so that the roach gains 10 armor and 25% more movement speed for 3 seconds after the it burrows, it loses this armor if it unburrows and the armor buff has a 9 second internal cool down.
What this does is it allows you to move back injured roaches and save them, the same way you do with Blink. Blink now has a huge advantage in that it not only negates missile attacks that are flying towards the stalker, but it also puts the stalker into a position where it can survive and fight for even longer.
You don't get that with roach, they still move very slowly while burrowed and the regen isn't enough to save them while you try and micro them back.
Of course a lot of the numbers can be tweaked, like the regen rate both upgraded and un upgraded, the armor, movement speed, attack speed etc. But the purpose, the core of the idea, is to shift the focus of the roach away from a mass-able 1-a friendly unit, to a very micro friendly unit, that performs better if you micro it diligently.
Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold.
|
On June 16 2012 21:52 Garmer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:46 Wildmoon wrote:On June 16 2012 21:40 Garmer wrote:On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote: my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units. like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it. marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit. zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also Roach can burrow move too. the burrow move would be more interesting, if was more useful... they should give burrowered roach more speed Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:50 From Afar wrote:On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote: Swap with Hydras and rebalance. Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous. Hydra are less boring to watch, cuz they are more fragile, therefore they require more attention and consequently more micro
Not really. One can even argue than Roach is more fun to watch because they can ambush opponent with burrow move.
|
On June 16 2012 21:57 Destructicon wrote: Here is my take on the problem with my personal opinion and ideas how to fix it.
The roach is indeed a very boring unit. It has medium HP, giving you limited incentives to try and micro them to be more effective, it has high damage with slow rate of fire, so it doesn't benefit a lot from micro and their signature ability, burrow heal, is crap in comparison to blink in terms of micro potential. Lastly, the unit is so cheep that you can mass tons and tons of them, and the more you have the less incentive you have to micro them.
However, when I look at the roach, I don't think of only a boring 1-a move unit, I think of a unit with tons of lost potential.
How I'd fix it, well, I'd start off by slashing away 15 HP from it and 4 damage, secondly I'd tweak its burrow mechanics. Boost its base burrow regen and upgraded regen, also modify one of its upgrades, maybe tunneling claws so that the roach gains 10 armor and 25% more movement speed for 3 seconds after the it burrows, it loses this armor if it unburrows and the armor buff has a 9 second internal cool down.
What this does is it allows you to move back injured roaches and save them, the same way you do with Blink. Blink now has a huge advantage in that it not only negates missile attacks that are flying towards the stalker, but it also puts the stalker into a position where it can survive and fight for even longer.
You don't get that with roach, they still move very slowly while burrowed and the regen isn't enough to save them while you try and micro them back.
Of course a lot of the numbers can be tweaked, like the regen rate both upgraded and un upgraded, the armor, movement speed, attack speed etc. But the purpose, the core of the idea, is to shift the focus of the roach away from a mass-able 1-a friendly unit, to a very micro friendly unit, that performs better if you micro it diligently.
Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold.
I like where you are going with the new roach but at the same time, you mentioned that zerg sends masses of units but should also be responsible for more micro? I think it would be better for zerg in general to be more swarmy rather than micro intensive, thats what terran/toss is for. Am I wrong on this? I think the current roach supports the zerg swarm theme pretty well. But I wouldn't mind a more swarmy unit if that's what I could get like maybe a swapped hydra
On June 16 2012 21:50 From Afar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote: Swap with Hydras and rebalance. Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous.
I'm not so sure, terran has marines and banshee builds are still effective in TvT and I imagine they will still be good in ZvT if hydras were swapped because zerg would still need detection. In ZvP phoenix decimate hydras of equal numbers, and void builds have been obsolete since the queen buff, so I'm not so sure how hydras being T1 would really change that. I don't think it would be a total nightmare to rebalance when they could just make it like BW.
|
People are missing the big point of this whole issue.
Interesting != effective.
Roaches are fine, the big problem is burrow-move/regen are not effective, so they don't get used.
No reason to scrap the whole unit because a couple people think it's imba.
If we're using that logic, we should start by scrapping the marine.
Terran really needs that right now...
|
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition
|
As a zerg and still a fairly new player to the Sc2 scene, my view is :
Lower the damage a bit but give them a slight higher attack rate. Fix the burrow regen/move burrow so its more effective. If they fix that, they can slightly lower the HP.
Beside that, I think it's fine. I wouldnt mind to switch the tier tech with Hydra now that they'll get the speed upgrade.
Edit : They just can't remove it. Zergs are so used to play with this units that it wouldnt be fair to remove it, it's like removing stalkers or marines....
|
4713 Posts
On June 16 2012 22:02 emc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 21:57 Destructicon wrote: Here is my take on the problem with my personal opinion and ideas how to fix it.
The roach is indeed a very boring unit. It has medium HP, giving you limited incentives to try and micro them to be more effective, it has high damage with slow rate of fire, so it doesn't benefit a lot from micro and their signature ability, burrow heal, is crap in comparison to blink in terms of micro potential. Lastly, the unit is so cheep that you can mass tons and tons of them, and the more you have the less incentive you have to micro them.
However, when I look at the roach, I don't think of only a boring 1-a move unit, I think of a unit with tons of lost potential.
How I'd fix it, well, I'd start off by slashing away 15 HP from it and 4 damage, secondly I'd tweak its burrow mechanics. Boost its base burrow regen and upgraded regen, also modify one of its upgrades, maybe tunneling claws so that the roach gains 10 armor and 25% more movement speed for 3 seconds after the it burrows, it loses this armor if it unburrows and the armor buff has a 9 second internal cool down.
What this does is it allows you to move back injured roaches and save them, the same way you do with Blink. Blink now has a huge advantage in that it not only negates missile attacks that are flying towards the stalker, but it also puts the stalker into a position where it can survive and fight for even longer.
You don't get that with roach, they still move very slowly while burrowed and the regen isn't enough to save them while you try and micro them back.
Of course a lot of the numbers can be tweaked, like the regen rate both upgraded and un upgraded, the armor, movement speed, attack speed etc. But the purpose, the core of the idea, is to shift the focus of the roach away from a mass-able 1-a friendly unit, to a very micro friendly unit, that performs better if you micro it diligently.
Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold. I like where you are going with the new roach but at the same time, you mentioned that zerg sends masses of units but should also be responsible for more micro? I think it would be better for zerg in general to be more swarmy rather than micro intensive, thats what terran/toss is for. Am I wrong on this? I think the current roach supports the zerg swarm theme pretty well.
I agree that, the current roach does fit into the swarm zerg theme that Blizzard has tried to create, and they do fill the role they are supposed to fill effectively. But at the same time I believe Blizzard has taken the themes of some of the races to the extreme. In short I believe Blizzard is wrong to keep insisting on these flavors for races at the detriment to game play.
I believe each race should have its own abilities to micro regardless of theme and I believe this would make the game much, much more exciting, much better to view, and it would feel fairer. At least when you lose a blink stalker war you come out of it thinking, well I just got outplayed the other guy had better micro, you don't always get that feeling in TvP, TvZ, or PvZ, there are some things that just feel cheep and unfair, despite them being balanced, or certain things that require some strategies/builds that are harder to execute then the corresponding counter-strategy/build.
|
The roach is still needed unless hydra speed is a tier 2 upgrade. It is not.
|
On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote: I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition
Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be.
I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so hydras will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview.
ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on both sides get wiped out.
They will never be effective in ZvT due to the fact that literally every Terran unit cost-effectively counters them.
They will remain exactly where they're at in ZvZ, which is behind a wall of roaches.
The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose.
The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.
god i hate auto-correct
|
On June 16 2012 22:19 bubblegumbo wrote: The roach is still needed unless hydra speed is a tier 2 upgrade. It is not.
Even if speed is T2, the roach is STILL needed since tanking hydras are hugely cost inefficient.
|
On June 16 2012 22:40 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote: I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be. I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so guffaw will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview. ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on high sides get wiped out. The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose. The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.
Yeah agreed with this. That ZvP battle report was horrendous to be used as a example.
|
|
|
|