The PiG Daily - Thinking critically about SC - Page 13

Cyclone - 6 range
Lack of micro-ability
6 range - quite powerful a boost - definitely something lower players will struggle with a lot at first - but my feeling is they should be able to get on top of it
Damage - Nate says in his response to “double the cyclones damage so it actually does something”
I think the problem is mainly the drastic difference between damage to light and armoured.
I think the cyclone in its effort to not overlap with the hellbat ends up being this incredibly gas intensive unit which sucks at shooting any light units up front in a composition - it just doesn’t do enough damage to non-armoured units.
Armour points and armour upgrades drastically reduce its effectiveness - especially to non-armoured units
It can suddenly perform really well if it gets in range of:
Marauders/tanks in tvt.
Roaches in ZvT
Stalkers in TvP
But even with the range upgrade its hard for those situations to be forced. - zergs avoid roaches mostly, protoss have adepts/chargelots up front and marines mixed into bio make them less effective there also
The loss of cyclone as the earlygame anti-air/destroyer of all bullshit unit is probably the hardest thing to adjust to. Before you could open blind cyclone vs P/T and it would shut down so much early harass/attacks - pylon rushes, oracles, banshees, etc.
This has made oracle openings far more powerful as Terran is forced to sit back even more in the earlygame of TvP - we might see Toss players running away with games through greedy play behind oracle openings due to the lack of range of builds from Terran because of this.
Keep in mind the Cyclone wasn’t really the ideal fix to this necessarily, but it at least did get that job done


Hydra
Range is pretty extreme
On the positive this extends their usefulness in the midgame - and as a result allows hydra-based styles to not be as all-in where a single 2-2- roach-hydra timing or a single hydra-lurker-ling attack needs to win the game
I love anything that extends the midgame and slows down players rushing up to tier 3 units.
However when you have a unit which already dealt massive damage and was a “glass cannon” that was very hit or miss - it makes things awkward. Keep in mind already many players used hydra-lurker-ling to great effect in early lotv, and Nerchio and Elazer were still winning games vs top opponents very recently with this style.
Already if you weren’t prepared the fights would often be very one-sided where the hydra-lurker would either shred your army before you could properly close with it - or you would crush it and it would look terrible.
Now the extra range makes the damage even more extreme.
Because the upgrades are split the hydras will take longer to get mobility off-creep.
I fear this won’t stop people hitting hydra timings though and it’ll just be even more one-sided who wins the fights.
Either the Protoss rolls over them with enough chargelot/immortal, or the zerg gets set up and spirals out of control super fast.
I really like Nates idea of a health buff here - +20hp to make them more viable rather than


Outranging planetaries, all the core protoss units etc.
Even storm and disruptors are much harder to land on hydras now without having your HT/Disruptors sniped down
Personally I’m convinced ling-bane-hydra will also absolutely destroy any bio army that doesn’t have tanks in it.




Carrier
Snute sums this up perfectly. I literally have no unique thoughts on this:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/516917-community-feedback-update-december-2?page=3#43


I would also bring Interceptor cost up to 10 (at least). It trades too well at max and killing interceptors isn't even an option now. Only to win by the no-interceptors-left-push-forward condition. Carrier should spawn with 8 interceptors too because they are too weak initially. You already spent a century building the thing so it should spawn with 8. Gravaton catapult upgrade should be removed and launch fire rate should be put somewhere betwen before and after upgrades. For defensive purposes, carriers should be able to build interceptors faster, especially if you reduce the launch fire rate I think this would help battles become more fair. Carrier strength is too binary.




Tanks
Shred armoured units.
Still not really amazing at shredding light units in some scenarios - but when they’re clumped it’s still brutal so I’m ok with where it’s at right now. Hard to tell if we’ll decide it’s too strong or weak in certain situations.


Swarm-Host
Way too cheap right now. However it’s such a specialty unit we might not see it a lot in pro games for a little while. At a certain point though the way the SH works will make it insanely powerful on certain maps - simply gettng a few of these will force an opponent to get on the map and defend rather than letting you harass constantly. - This will pair very well with big mid-tier swarmy zerg armies that want the enemy to come into the open for a nice surround. This is a change which will be quite overpowered but people won’t use it a lot for a while so it won’t get nerfed for a very long time.


Baneling Buff
Not too drastic just yet - but definitely a big boost to zerg mid-tier armies. I love the extended midgame - but combined with the hydra and other buffs I fear this as a core change might be too much of a boost for zerg. Testing


Infestor


Casting whilst burrowed for fungal and neural is ridiculous. Terran is still very lacking in mobile detection so I think this is just too extreme.
https://www.twitch.tv/x5_pig/v/103135372?t=2h10m45s
https://www.twitch.tv/x5_pig/v/102934006?t=4h51m19s


^This can only be allowed if ravens are an accessible standard unit for Terran to use every game - they aren’t. The tech lab on port isn’t needed for anything else so it’s uncomfortable to make. Right now there are some fun turret harass builds and if this sticks around - that might become a necessary opening for Terran. The issue there is that severely limits Terrans options and allows opposing races to take liberties with their own play.


Zealot legs
Awesome - love the boost


Mech/vipers/protoss

Sejong Station vs Dear


2 adept +msc into expand then 1 stalker then +1 adept.
Somewhat fast nexus - anything this dies to?
5:00 - sick shade onto sentry + hot pickup
This really destroys their ability to scout - do you ever consider doing an all-in after denying vision with this move? This + obs hunting seems like a nice way to head for a big adept timing without the opponent realising. Maybe even a 2g, 35probe 8-gate adept attack?
5:40 - too deep
Robo a little greedy
Twilight off 2g
Up to disruptors
2nd robo as 3rd gets saturated?
Charge
Cheaper counters that can shred cannons/stalkers and don’t need as much micro as disruptors
Also decent in engages when everything gets messy or if you get a nice flank




Macro blink disruptor battles


Control groups


Vision
Obs
Halluc
Oracle


11:00-12:00 - talk us through what you’re doing - tell me to pause if you want to freeze on a certain point


Counterattacks


15:00 abandoning 4th


Comeback potential - as long as you have up a decent blink disruptor army - even if only half their army you can still come back with disruptor shots - so the engagements become everything and it’s MORE ok to give up a base since a bad fight defending a base will def lose you your disruptors and the game - but keeping an army alive and avoiding a bad fight can allow you to prolong and potentially come back








PvP Frozen Temple vs Dear




Questions:


4-adept opening
How would this have looked if he went 4-stalker?
Blink over glaives? Would you always use that?
In my eyes the strength of this opening is if you do get to set up outside their base you get to see EVERYTHING and be quite greedy with your followup
Prism first - no obs/immortal
Twilight and robo off 2g
Great warning of the followup attack so you’re ready just in time to defend that
6:00 defence -
8:00 - abandoning the 3rd base
If you didn’t have vision of the 3rd do you think you might have tried to defend this?
10:30 - stalkers or adepts in this situation?
Stalkers last longer, but deal less damage.
Adepts deal more damage but also die really fast.
I would always struggle to choose the right unit


Bonus


How as PvP changed with the new patch?

Map Control and Army Positioning


Have a game vs Eonblu (rehearse his play beforehand to make sure its what i want)


Earlygame map control + scouting
Key areas are always the same no matter your race you can always put an adept, marine, probe/scv ling or overlord watching for:
Outside their base - to see them moving out
Outside your base - to see an attack coming in
Through the middle of the map on the direct path between your bases
To see where armies move and rotate to and be prepared for which angle they’re coming from


Get him to do a big 2-base push


I drone to “60 drones” or if I’m T or P I don’t add 2nd factory/2nd starport/extra upgrades unless I have extra money
Just pull back
Mass units
Try to delay the fight until I catch up in units
However the more time before he engages, the more my army catches up to his in size because I have more economy, production and eventually upgrades and tech kicking in ahead of him


Use defensive positioning to survive


After a certain amount of time - I should have more stuff than him
This is because of that bigger economy having time to kick in
Now you can push back out and re-establish map control, hopefully before he has time to sneak any attacks in from angles you weren’t expecting
Your opponent might have some perfect engagement angle setup prepared - so still take regular precautions which you should almost always take in any game before moving out
Send a cheap or free/invisible unit like changeling/observer ahead to scout his army location/size/setup
If he’s still just massing units and you’re unsure if you can engage - you can always wait a little longer adding a bit more tech/upgrades/army size to ensure you can crush a frontal battle before getting back out there
Just remember not to wait too long - the more time you give them the more chance of them being very greedy back at home and catching up that way OR of sliding sneaky counter-attacks in


Now Eonblu swaps into just nonstop counterattack/drop/sneaky attack mode
I explain all the different angles I need to block - how to make sure my economy is 100% protected


vision everywhere etc
Constant fight for it so you can't be surprised + can surprise opponent




You can't always have map control
When to give it up - But always reclaim it at some point - if you have to stay at home it's because you're behind in army - so you should be ahead in economy or tech - after that kicks in - you should be able to have a stronger army and push back on the map.
If you're simply too far behind you will need to simply try to counterattack, clean up his spotter units and keep trying to find the right angle to hit his economy away from his arm


What I'm mainly hearing is you're interested in info about map control. This is something quite fundamental but very important. For zergs it's very simple because you have very cheap expendable units (lings) that should always be watching everything. For Protoss and Terran it's a little more complex - however for the most part its the same idea of - try to see everything so you aren't surprised by stuff. If you give up map control don't accept this as a permanent situation but try and fight for it back.