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Hi guys, making this thread to discuss the current snipe ability and how it is incredibly frustrating as a player and terrible game design.
So to highlight the ability first of all:
Snipe does 170 damage, ignores armor, and costs 50 energy. The problem? Snipe is cancelled if the ghost is hit during the snipe.
Why is this an issue, bad game design, and frustrating gameplay?
The 8 armor ultralisk hitting the map essentially invalidates over 50 army supply of bio units and even mech in some cases.
The main counter blizzard made for the new OP ultra is the ghost snipe ability - they admittedly put some of ghost snipe's previous power back into the ghost.
The problem is they added a horseshit handicap to the ability that is easily abused. Ghost snipe vs ultra is only effective if your ghosts are together, which makes them naturally clump.
One fungal, one baneling, one ultralisk cleave attack...and every snipe you just queued up now does not go off. You paid 200/100 for a unit and gained absolutely nothing in return.
The cost/effort ratio...it is incredibly low cost / low effort for a Zerg to simply make 8 armor ultras, box select them, and a move into your army.
The cost of ghosts and snipe... high cost / high effort to micro these, and then you get a 0% return when they are hit during snipe animation.
This just simply needs to go. It's a frustrating gameplay mechanic. In an RTS game, if you or i pay for a unit, that unit should serve a 100% function and not have some extreme handicap associated with the unit.
Especially when the unit is currently designed to literally counter the ultralisk, but the interaction between these scenarios is utterly lopsided - massing ultras and attacking is incredibly easy to do whereas mass sniping is incredibly difficult to do, apm intensive, and then doesn't work because of the handicap mechanic.
I understand the designer intent behind putting this handicap there - they wanted to try to safeguard against mass ghosts being viable. But mass ghosts was never viable, even during the MVP vs nestea era mass baneling and fungal already was a counter to it. It was pre-emptively nerfed after one series at blizzcon.
I think blizzard should remove the "if i snipe and get hit my snipe is now useless" mechanic because it's not good design, and it's frustrating as a player to use this ability.
If after that the ability is deemed too strong...then they could make it take 4 snipes to kill an ultra instead of 3 or something.
As a player, when i build a ghost, i want to know 100% that if i spend 50 energy to snipe i am getting a return on investment.
What do people think about this? Do you agree/disagree? Do you like the current handicapped ghost snipe or would you rather they make it so if you build a ghost, and snipe, the snipe goes off?
I mean, just for reference, imagine if you had a high templar, it casted psi storm, and a marine or marauder hit that high templar and suddenly the psi storm is cancelled and does nothing. Would that not be frustrating and infuriating gameplay? You paid 50/150 for the high templar and storm...it should be able to use it's ability effectively and not be hampered for no reason.
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It's pretty cool that Fungal is used I find. Reminds me of Ghost vs HT's.
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I do wish it would have been "run out of range" - like seeker missile instead.
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Since when was it low cost for Zerg to get to and make 8 armor Ultras??
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pls remove the stupid feedback mechanic on battlecruisers too pl0x.
Getting ready to yamoto and then getting feedbacked and invalidating the yamoto is pretty infurirating as well. Waste of 400/300 and 60 seconds waiting fot that lump of junk to come out in the first place
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the reason they introduced this mechanic is because they wanted to allow counterplay to it.
Better than buffing snipe they should just nerf ultras.
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if anything about the ability should be changed i would try a reduction in cast time before i made it fire and forget, it's incredibly easy to use
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ultra vs snipe - Ye its unfair. Zerg amoves while terran needs to babysit like crazy.
It should require micro from both sides, as close to either as possible. Now its a mile between the two.
I call that bad design.
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Snipe not being cancelled is a gigantic buff to ghosts and would make ghost armies counter basically every single high tech zerg unit, just like they did before mvp got them nerfed.
It's more 8 armor ultralisks that need to be nerfed so that they don't hard counter such a large proportion of terran units.
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as a hardcore zerg fanboy i'm obviously afraid that top level pro terran players just haven't found the right stat/composition against ultras yet. and once they adjust to ultras an eventual ghost buff could make terran op. but IF there is no other way i think removing the cancel mechanic and therefore reducing the damage sounds good.
another idea i had was giving the siege tank bonus damage against massive. this would also help against archon and colossi comps (maybe also make disruptors massive) since atm terran "seems to struggle" in tvp (to put it mildly).
in general i think ghosts are cool units and should come a bit more into play. that proxy ghost build against early adepts in some of the recent korean matches was a real treat.
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with how large and clumsy ultras are i can't imagine a way for them to be truly valuable and imposing without them having incredible EHP. this is mostly due to sc2's game design though, smart casting and improved pathing both make it incredibly easy for small units to be overly efficient.
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ultras being kited to death by bio back in hots was just about the stupidest thing. In person, watching scarlett's ultras get kited to death at battlegrounds just made me want to pull my hair out, expensive T3 army vs cheap T1 army. If the snipe delay gets removed, then similar to charge, the ultras should get at least one guaranteed hit. The kiting introduced in SC2 with no counter micro possible by melee units (think early WOL, heydays of MMM bs vs toss with no PO) is equally silly.
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On February 06 2016 04:04 EJK wrote:
pls remove the stupid feedback mechanic on battlecruisers too pl0x.
Getting ready to yamoto and then getting feedbacked and invalidating the yamoto is pretty infurirating as well. Waste of 400/300 and 60 seconds waiting fot that lump of junk to come out in the first place
Oh god that is the whorst thing ever, taking forever to build a expensive army only to have the Yamatos canceled and all the BCs at less than half health by a 50 energy spell.
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if you or i pay for a unit, that unit should serve a 100% function and not have some extreme handicap associated with the unit.
It's normal that counterplay is a part of a units kit. The 100% function makes engagements much less interesting and less dependant on execution which is what we should move away from. That said, I don't like Snipe either.
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Another avilo balance whine on a match up that's Terran favored.... Classic.
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On February 06 2016 04:20 90ti wrote:
ultras being kited to death by bio back in hots was just about the stupidest thing. In person, watching scarlett's ultras get kited to death at battlegrounds just made me want to pull my hair out, expensive T3 army vs cheap T1 army. If the snipe delay gets removed, then similar to charge, the ultras should get at least one guaranteed hit. The kiting introduced in SC2 with no counter micro possible by melee units (think early WOL, heydays of MMM bs vs toss with no PO) is equally silly.
ugh... tvz lategame in HotS was already slightly zerg favored. kiting could simply be prevented with fungal or just with ling bane surround.
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On February 06 2016 04:20 90ti wrote:
ultras being kited to death by bio back in hots was just about the stupidest thing. In person, watching scarlett's ultras get kited to death at battlegrounds just made me want to pull my hair out, expensive T3 army vs cheap T1 army. If the snipe delay gets removed, then similar to charge, the ultras should get at least one guaranteed hit. The kiting introduced in SC2 with no counter micro possible by melee units (think early WOL, heydays of MMM bs vs toss with no PO) is equally silly.
I don't think mm should be able to trade well against every unit, but current ultralisk rendering mm not being able to trade at all is not a good design I feel, much like how hots mm for every single unit was bad
If ultras pop, it should counter basic mm army, but not to point it absolutely denies mms ability to trade at all. Hardcounters like that is bad imo. But ultras shouldn't be soft counter. Finding moderate point would be the best
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But why buff a low hp, fragile unit such as ghosts? Make it like BW - buff tanks or tanks damage vs bio if you want so you can counter ultralisks better. Then zerg can't 1a without splitting ultralisks, and terran has to have good positioning. It's skill based for both races.
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no, if ultras are T3, should they not also require T3 from terran? Libs wreck them pretty easily (reactorable), also mines which ignore armor, the thor, I could keep going. In the old days, a small squad or marauders with medivacs could just kite for days and isnt even difficult for silver league or up.
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On February 06 2016 04:42 90ti wrote:
no, if ultras are T3, should they not also require T3 from terran? Libs wreck them pretty easily (reactorable), also mines which ignore armor, the thor, I could keep going. In the old days, a small squad or marauders with medivacs could just kite for days and isnt even difficult for silver league or up.
Why should T3 only be countered by T3? Explain your logic please. If you compare cost, 1 T1 unit doesn't kill 1 T3 unit.
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This topic just shows how bad smartcast is for starcraft. You can't really make a spell which just does its job 100% because at the end of the day it is ridiculously easy to use it.
Pretty much EVERY single spell problem we have/had in sc2 would have been dealt with through removing smart cast.
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I agree, just looking game 5 of Byun vs Curious in the GSL it is obvious that making Ghosts lost Byun that game. Notice how the moment Byun starts making Ghosts, his supply starts dropping 30,40,50 behind the zerg. In hindsight any other unit, siege tanks, liberators would have been better. They cost less and actually are able to deal some damage without relying on an unreliable gimmick.
Ghosts are extremely expensive (600/300) for six supply and are pretty much useless except for countering ultras. The problem is they do a terrible job at it. One baneling hit, one fungal, one cleave, and the Ghosts sudden become dead supply. Here is my suggest to improve Ghosts: replace snipe with an ability called "irradiate round". It uses 50 energy and does 200 damage to biological units over 20 seconds. The ability has a 1.5 AOE radius and like the science vessel ability from Broodwar, does not stack on single target, but the AOE from multiple irradiates can stack. This ability forces the Zerg to micro and split his units as well instead of just Terran doing the spliting while Zerg A-moves.
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On February 06 2016 04:44 The_Red_Viper wrote:
This topic just shows how bad smartcast is for starcraft. You can't really make a spell which just does its job 100% because at the end of the day it is ridiculously easy to use it.
Pretty much EVERY single spell problem we have/had in sc2 would have been dealt with through removing smart cast.
You're so right. I'm tired of fellow protoss players who have less than 100 APM (I don't care if you say APM doesn't matter) but are still in diamond/masters because mechanics are that easy.
On February 06 2016 04:45 Loccstana wrote:
I agree, just looking game 5 of Byun vs Curious in the GSL it is obvious that making Ghosts lost Byun that game. Notice how the moment Byun starts making Ghosts, his supply starts dropping 30,40,50 behind the zerg. In hindsight any other unit, siege tanks, liberators would have been better. They cost less and actually are able to deal some damage without relying on an unreliable gimmick.
Ghosts are extremely expensive (600/300) for six supply and are pretty much useless except for countering ultras. The problem is they do a terrible job at it. One baneling hit, one fungal, one cleave, and the Ghosts sudden become dead supply. Here is my suggest to improve Ghosts: replace snipe with an ability called "irradiate round". It uses 50 energy and does 200 damage to biological units over 20 seconds. The ability has a 1.5 AOE radius and like the science vessel ability from Broodwar, does not stack on single target, but the AOE from multiple irradiates can stack. This ability forces the Zerg to micro and split his units as well instead of just Terran doing the spliting while Zerg A-moves.
With smart casting, this will be OP for sure. Just look at parasitic bomb and why it got nerfed.
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France12911 Posts
On February 06 2016 04:42 90ti wrote:
no, if ultras are T3, should they not also require T3 from terran? Libs wreck them pretty easily (reactorable), also mines which ignore armor, the thor, I could keep going. In the old days, a small squad or marauders with medivacs could just kite for days and isnt even difficult for silver league or up.
I wonder if people talking about tiers are trolling or just don't understand the concept of "unit compositions". Lings are T1 and counter T3 Thor, what a shock o_o.
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Vancouver14381 Posts
Don't think we need a monthly avilo rant about the game.
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EPT
