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On February 21 2013 19:13 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
Heres an idea:
Stasis field: Creates a freezing field on the map lasting 10 seconds, slowing any units inside by 30-50%. Units that stay in the field for more than [HP of unit] * 0.02 seconds are frozen into unbreakable crystals that last for 15 seconds.
Basically making smaller faster units have less time to react, but bigger beefier units are frozen quicker. Added benefit of shortening the time for damaged units.
Alternatively make the field slow for for the first second, then for each second that passes, units with below 50x[passed seconds] HP are frozen.
Then again, I don't think Stasis in its current form is so bad. If we want to level the playing field on lower levels, we could probably just make the arbiter a bit more clunky to use so its as difficult to use right as it is to position defences for terran.
If it slows down all the units, how does it work to break a position? I might just misunderstand this. I do not mind changeing the stasis, but I do feel it sould be an ability that targets units and not and area. (Like plauge and not storm). Edit: Why do I always start a new page...?
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On February 22 2013 03:15 Xiphias wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2013 19:13 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
Heres an idea:
Stasis field: Creates a freezing field on the map lasting 10 seconds, slowing any units inside by 30-50%. Units that stay in the field for more than [HP of unit] * 0.02 seconds are frozen into unbreakable crystals that last for 15 seconds.
Basically making smaller faster units have less time to react, but bigger beefier units are frozen quicker. Added benefit of shortening the time for damaged units.
Alternatively make the field slow for for the first second, then for each second that passes, units with below 50x[passed seconds] HP are frozen.
Then again, I don't think Stasis in its current form is so bad. If we want to level the playing field on lower levels, we could probably just make the arbiter a bit more clunky to use so its as difficult to use right as it is to position defences for terran. If it slows down all the units, how does it work to break a position? I might just misunderstand this. I do not mind changeing the stasis, but I do feel it sould be an ability that targets units and not and area. (Like plauge and not storm). Edit: Why do I always start a new page...?
Well as I understand his suggestion (which is a modified version of mine);
1) Units that are slowed still can't attack or be attacked (similarly to how the original stasis works).
2) Units are completely freezed if they stay inside the area for 0.02 HP seconds.
So it forces the opponent to move his units a bit back which typically allows you to break a position too some extent. Due to lower energy cost (as I suggested, however other balance tweaks like larger AOE, or lower cost of arbiter can be made as well/instead), it will be a bit easier to cast 2-3 stasis which allows you to force the opponent further back.
I think this makes the arbiter a better designed unit as it allows you the protoss player to kill an expansion (by breaking position x) but doesn't kill half the terrans army at the same time.
Anyway I would appreciate a response from Kabel, and see if he agrees that stasis has a design flaw, or whether I am just wasting my time.
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I think I understand it now. Still want the stasis ability to be aoe that targets uunits (like plauge) and not aoe that targets area (like storm). Kabel said he had little time this week. All pumped for Saturday?
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On February 22 2013 04:17 Xiphias wrote:
I think I understand it now. Still want the stasis ability to be aoe that targets uunits (like plauge) and not aoe that targets area (like storm). Kabel said he had little time this week. All pumped for Saturday?
It targets units in the sense that all units inside the area when it is cased will be slowed. But new units that enters the area are not goanna to be slowed.
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Well if anyone has a better idea for the mechanic - go ahead.
My thought process was quite simply:
1- Stasis needs counterplay?
2- If it has counterplay it will be useless against fast units.
3- Vary the effect on unit size?
4- More HP usually means slower unit.
5- make it stronger versus low HP units
(6- if its current HP it will also reward targeting damaged units)
In other words my goal was to find a mechanic that didn't punish slower units disproportianally by making it delayed.
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On February 21 2013 03:40 Laertes wrote:
But that's the thing, they aren't decided in one second. In every game in the tournament you lost to the arbiters, you had chances to come back. It isn't "decided in one second", it really isn't. We have to think about how these units are utilized, and consider how unnecessary it is to change them. And danko is right, losing a battle in one second is not the same as losing a game in one second.
And even if it is, that's not good starbow playership, It really isn't. Starbow is about finding the balance between the effectiveness of forces and not putting everything in a deathball. I don't think that anyone is decided in one second in starbow.
Once again, Arbiters require other units to be effective, so if you've lost a battle to an Arbiter, by definition it was decided beforehand. You didn't bring enough to combat the army that came in and killed you.
TL;DR It's not decided in one second, and even if it is, the arbiter is designed in a way that it doesn't matter.
That's not true; Stasis can actually take a game from 50% vs 50% to 80% vs 20% if you lose the battle as a mech'ing terran.
For example you can watch the replay I uploaded and just imagine that we had had a roughly economy (which we didn't, but just imagine it for the sake of the case). The game wouuld still have been over due to a 1 second mistake of not hitting the emp's before stasis got off.
That game was probably one of the worst instances of stasis's absurdity, however, I have played several games, and often times you can still survive for another 10 minutes after a good stasis goes off, but the game is practicually over. When a terran loses an expansion and half of his army in a cost inefficient trade your doomed to a spoon death.
My feeling is that neither you nor Danko has played tvp at a decent level and thus are not aware of the strenght of the unit. Trust me when I say it can turn the game from 50%vs50% to 80% vs 20% within 1 second, and trust me when I say that hitting EMP's when your spread out over 2-4 positions is very very difficult.
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Try controlling air space with a hit squad of 3 golaiths and 4 vikings and1-2 sci vessel that sort of shields your army from where you think the arbiters are:
Arbiters ------- Anti-arbiter hitsquad ------- Army
I remember that game, you kept killing my arbiters, basically on average every engagement you would kill one arbiter.
You don't have to split all game. If you deny vision of me on your army, then I can't know your tanks are split until I go to statis.
If you are going to take the trouble to push late game, at least split all your tanks into groups of three. how long could that take, 5 seconds + seige up? You don't have do to this crazy business mid-game, just when arbiters come out. Float the vikings and try to get a volley. a volley from 4 hellfire vikings will kill like 1 arbiter, if you get a second, all of them will die. I agree with you that when you have a lot of spread of bases it's too much anticipate arbiters at every location. Normally there's a price to pay for not knowing where the enemy is, but with arbiters that price increases a lot. Try sprinking a few vultures purely for vision purposes. Oh, and sensor towers.
And there's a bug.
If there are fighting units nearby when you drop a reaver from a warp prism For the first shot it will always target the fighting units even if you manually target scvs. I thought it was just me, but it's been happening everytime for like half a dozen games.
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On February 22 2013 06:16 Chronopolis wrote:
Try controlling air space with a hit squad of 3 golaiths and 4 vikings and1-2 sci vessel that sort of shields your army from where you think the arbiters are:
Arbiters ------- Anti-arbiter hitsquad ------- Army
I remember that game, you kept killing my arbiters, basically on average every engagement you would kill one arbiter.
You don't have to split all game. If you deny vision of me on your army, then I can't know your tanks are split until I go to statis.
If you are going to take the trouble to push late game, at least split all your tanks into groups of three. how long could that take, 5 seconds + seige up? You don't have do to this crazy business mid-game, just when arbiters come out. Float the vikings and try to get a volley. a volley from 4 hellfire vikings will kill like 1 arbiter, if you get a second, all of them will die. I agree with you that when you have a lot of spread of bases it's too much anticipate arbiters at every location. Normally there's a price to pay for not knowing where the enemy is, but with arbiters that price increases a lot. Try sprinking a few vultures purely for vision purposes. Oh, and sensor towers.
And there's a bug.
If there are fighting units nearby when you drop a reaver from a warp prism For the first shot it will always target the fighting units even if you manually target scvs. I thought it was just me, but it's been happening everytime for like half a dozen games.
I agree, however, I wasn't trying to push really. Rather I wanted to take my 5th. However, this is just an extreme example of how sick arbiters can punishes mistakes and turn a potential 50%vs50% game into a complete loss within 1 second. If we want a game that is more back and fourth, arbiters should IMO be redesigned.
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I published "Starbow purple storm test". If the map gets positive ratings, I keep and may in the future be part of the official map pool starbow
http://imgur.com/OCi2Lf2
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On February 22 2013 07:49 JohnnyZerg wrote:I published "Starbow purple storm test". If the map gets positive ratings, I keep and may in the future be part of the official map pool starbow http://imgur.com/OCi2Lf2
Could you explain the changes and what is your thinking behind them? I have my own thoughts.
The high ground base:
I think it makes it easier in tvz for terran to secure and 3rd/4th.
In pvt it makes it easier for terran to hold a high ground position mid-late game with less units because they can effeciently PF right there.
ZvX might involve spine crawlers on the highground. I think in general zerg builds too little spine crawlers while having too much of a bank.
If a player takes a third at the high ground before outisde bases, I think the blink stalker/speedling maenevers around the empty space would be good
In general it's better for terran (and pvz) because it lets them expand towards the opponent, and terran's reinforce path passes through the third base, making it quicker to move from attack to defense. You can quickly bounce between the third and the highground fourth. I don't think drops will be good against that base. People usually rally their army there so.
However, if you look at the top-left or bottom-right expansion and the high ground expo, the distance between them is shorter for the attacker than the defender. You can bounce an army back and forth there quite well. Although again, terran can put siege tanks on the high ground and cover most (but not all) of the path to the top-left/bottom right corner expos.
The minerals opens a path large enough for all units I think. Make sure the ramp to the minerals isn't in siege tank range from the high ground fourth.
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Hider, if Arbiters are so broken in Starbow, why were they balanced in Brood War? What are the differences between the races in each game that makes Stasis so severe?
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I actually like the way the arbiters are right now, I think its ok to have one, late-game, movement denying spell for protoss, The use of it really helps Protoss go toe-to-toe with Terran in the lategame in my opinion. I also find them entertaing as they require prior splitting and good zoning by terran. If these two things are done properly by Terran, the game doesn't just end in a few seconds, as the Protoss will then try to take the groups out on at a time, over a long period of time. and example of this is the first vod in the thread between Chronopolis and a Terran whose name I don't remember. Even though Chronopolis uses stasis on large groups of tanks, this just leads to a 4 minute long battle as he tries to break the tank line, highly entertaining imo.
If they really are OP, i would suggest maybe a 20 HP nerf to Arbiters so it would be slightly more difficult for the toss player to use them and to make zoning slightly easier for the terran
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On February 22 2013 11:50 SmileZerg wrote:
Hider, if Arbiters are so broken in Starbow, why were they balanced in Brood War? What are the differences between the races in each game that makes Stasis so severe?
I think that argument is faulty. There are plenty of differences.
Starbow Report
Topic: Explaning the diffences between tvp BW and starbow, and in the process, as well as shedding some light on the state of the tvp matchup.
Point 1: Unit damage and movement differences
Vultures are 75 minerals.
Protoss has a shield type that doesn't take full damage from all damage types, so zealots do better against mines and tanks. I believe mine damage was reduced, correct me if I'm wrong.
The pathing is a lot smoother than in bw, so an army can get from a-b in a quicker, more reliable fashion. However, units clump more. In general, I still think gateway does a little better (dies slower) than in bw. In other words, the shield factor is outweighs the clumping (the smooth movement allows one to seperating the zealots a little easier.
Sidenote: the way stalkers auto auto-concave in starcraft 2 is actually kinda bad for toss. For one it blocks the zealots in the back. While you do want this to happen to some extent (zealots streaming in spaced out is best), the stalkers mantain that concave. As protoss you want to manually break that concave so that zealots can stream in, and blink you stalkers in 1-3 at a time in to different areas close to the tank line. If you select all your stalkers and blink them towards the tank line, they will bunch up and they will all evaporate. In brood war, you used scoot and shoot with your dragoons, focus firing the tanks (20 damage!). The concave in BW was not so perfect so zealots could easily stream in.
People would often build supply depots in bw, which combined with the pathing would significant slow down the protoss army and draw some fire. Supply depots were larger in bw (about the size of a barracks almost). I think terran should incorporate a lot more full walls in their mech play. Definitely the size of the supply depot has discouraged this sort of play, but barracks will do fine.
Point 2: Weaker harrass
The higher cost of vultures + stalkers having blink + possibly warp + rift mean that harrass against protoss is a lot weaker. Protoss has a shit ton of tools to shut it down, they just require varying amounts of skill. In no conceivable case would 2 tanks ever clean up an expo (a slightly rare but real occurence in bw, if there was a push in the middle and mines barring the path in to the expansion in question. Also nexus hp is 1000/1000, which was an change that was made to prevent stimmed MMM from sniping nexuses so quickly. That is no longer a threat. Vultures also only do their 7 damage against buildings, even building shields. This means cannons just don't die, even to large groups of vultures. In early game.
Sidenote:Speed vultures with mines seem to do just fine against groups of stalkers 8 or less. Anti mine micro is not explored: people aren't good at it yet.
Currently toss, barring well placed pushes from terran, can quickly expand relatively safely and hold 4-5 gas for a long time. Any player who builds a lot of workers knows that you MUST immediately make a gesyer and fill it when you expand (other wise what's the point of having so many workers). This leads to a 2-3k gas bank going into the later mid-game, which is usually when the arbiter transition starts hitting in full force (4 or so stargates). The alternative is heavy archon play, but at the moment players save archon heavy armies until the super late game where everyone is starving for cash.
Point 3: Caster Self-presevation/Stopping Power
Arbiters have a hard impact by being on the field. They can save units, stop. Contrast the science vessel. There was a game against tritoch where I held off infinite money zerg for nearly an hour with bio mech matrix (ridiculous situation, but still). Towards the end I had like 12 sci vessels, but they couldn't stop anything by themselves. Keep in mind, whenever a caster can a: protect it self b: disable units immediately or c: produce units ; using energy, it becomes easier and more powerful.
Based on this definition, general caster difficulty.
Easy: HT, arbiter (aoe which it can "get off" and have generally fufilled it's purpose)
Easy: Infestor*: (can lock down clumps of units and small amounts of expensive units, moderate self-defense)
Medium: Scout, Medic*, Ghost (has some degree of self-presevation, but ability is usually 1-1 and does not immedately have prescence on the battle field)
Difficult: Sci vessel, Swarm Guardian
*Becomes much easier in a combo:
(easy) infestor baneling or infestor lurker together basically comprises an aoe tackdown and self-protection
(easy-medium) medic matrix + tank can lockdown groups of units (by killing them, although it doesn't stop unit movement, no instant stopping power) while protecting itself to a very high degree.
Recap
Conclusion 1: Gateway units do slightly better against mech than in bw. In particular vultures and terran are a lot weaker in harrass. This is slightly because of the damage mechanics, and more so because protoss has so many new options to deal with harass.
Conclusion 2: It *is* hard to keep all arbiters alive while using them battle, but the expanding pace of the protoss gives enough gas for protoss to get more of them, and also have the money to replace them, (or get bunch of archons instead).
Conclusion 3: Arbiters have a lot of stopping power, and in emergency situations, can get their job done even when if they end up dying.
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Notes regarding pvt and tvz:
PvT
Sci vessels : Science vessels don't (have such stopping power). In brood war, they had defensive matrix, which was limited, but made a noticeable impact, keeping toss firing at the front tank for that 1.5 extra seconds. Terrans need to use emp way more. Just because it's on the vessel and not a ghost doesn't mean it's not any worse. Fire it off as the protoss is charging in. Perhaps try reducing the cost of emp and nerve jammer to 100 each A sci vessel just gets 1 nerve jammer off and does nothing for the rest of the battle. Protoss now has scouts, which are hard to use, but should be effective against protoss.
Remember, if terran keeps sci vessels at full energy, that energy discharge old-nullifier ability will aoe-1 shot them. This leads to terran trying to keep his sci vessels as far ahead while still being covered by golaiths, so he can emp and nerve jammer accurately when the protoss.
Arbiters: (see above)
Vultures: consider making them 75 minerals. That might make it cost effective for terran to mine the map, and then trade vultures in to cannons for probes. Right now, X vultures dying is x * 100 minerals, which is almost always too much. The problem with 75 mineral vultures sometimes, is you just get infinite vulture syndrome, but that is a risk I'm willing to take. TvP harass sucks.
Ghosts: people should use experiment with using ghosts more (gas dump and nukes for contesting bases and spreading toss + obs thin.
TvZ:
I think bio mech matrix +viking against air is OP in a straight up battle, but oddly enough there is plenty of room for counter play. Zergs who can react properly to terran's opener (or if terran doesn't have a solid one), will gain a huge eco lead if the terran cannot take his 4th and 5th in stride at around 15:00 and 18:30. (If terran can take these ecos and hold on, the zerg eco lead is only slight, and this becomes the absolute perfect place for big drop play. I have never reached this stage before (need to improve play to take 4th and 5th), but I think terran's need to improve to get there. Until then, tvz will just feel like bullshit.
Vikings:: I think their OP, but terran needs them to hold mass muta in tvz and mass gateway and air in pvt. This is because those strategies allow P and Z to more easily spend most of their income (ie. macro better) and use that money's worth of army in multiple places (terran needs anti-air in multiple locations, golaiths aren't good in small numbers against either. So ya, terran definitely needs them (Tritoch agrees with me on this point). If you think about it, the upgrade is like a straight up explosion in dps. There has been precedent though (siege tank siege mode, vulture mines), where the almost sole use is from the upgrade. I would like to see possibly a reduction in splash radius perhaps, if in the future terrans get better and can hold this sort of stuff.
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On February 22 2013 12:09 isaachukfan wrote:
I actually like the way the arbiters are right now, I think its ok to have one, late-game, movement denying spell for protoss, The use of it really helps Protoss go toe-to-toe with Terran in the lategame in my opinion. I also find them entertaing as they require prior splitting and good zoning by terran. If these two things are done properly by Terran, the game doesn't just end in a few seconds, as the Protoss will then try to take the groups out on at a time, over a long period of time. and example of this is the first vod in the thread between Chronopolis and a Terran whose name I don't remember. Even though Chronopolis uses stasis on large groups of tanks, this just leads to a 4 minute long battle as he tries to break the tank line, highly entertaining imo.
If they really are OP, i would suggest maybe a 20 HP nerf to Arbiters so it would be slightly more difficult for the toss player to use them and to make zoning slightly easier for the terran
1) Fungal required splitting as well, but due to it being so unforgiven it's not a very good way of promoting skill. On the other hand the baneling vs marine micro battles are much better as the terran has time after the zerg has began his attack to micro his unit.
2) My suggested change to the arbiter will reward the terran for splitting his units as well, however the punishment for not splitting will be less severe. It will still give protoss the chance to break a terrans position in the late game, but he will do less damage and thus give the terran a chance to come back (because he will just be behind 40%vs60% rather than 20% vs 80%).
3) I mentioned this briefly in my original post, but the long/close battles are deceiving. Often times the outcome of the game is simply decided by the first 1-2 stasis's, but due to the fact that arbiters needs to regain energy, terran can often delay his own death by 5-10 minuts. But when you lose alot of tanks and an expansion in an inefficient trade the game is practically over.
4) When that is said I do too some extent like the long battles arbiters create (even though they are deceiving), and I do think the suggested redesign will create a similar dynamic.
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On February 22 2013 11:50 SmileZerg wrote:
Hider, if Arbiters are so broken in Starbow, why were they balanced in Brood War? What are the differences between the races in each game that makes Stasis so severe?
Remember how difficult it was to use multiple good stasis in BW? Yeah...
Also, Starbow ≠ Brood War in terms of balance and units, so that argument doesn't work that well at all.
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Small bug report. Seems that constructing extractors are invisible. Kinda vital if you scout a zerg making an extractor and you don't stay around long enough to see it done.
Also. On the ranked map, one of the players often get a 50% handicap (I've seen it in three games now) and with the new interface patch, it cannot be adjusted when I select "ranked". Please fix that PunchTheBag.
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There is another "problem" I want to have a discussion, and that is the way the banelings functions in TvZ. It is my guess that Kabel got this unit into starbow because baneling vs marines were one of the most enjoyful things about sc2. However, the problem is that it creates a very uninteresting dynamic in Starbow.
Unlike in WOL, terrans don't have mules which means that they actually have a very difficult time affording a decent number of marines while on 2 bases/early 3 bases. It is my theory, that terrans can't attack a zerg player untill he gets a critical mass of tanks + matrix's (which typically won't happen untill 20+minute mark).
Pure bio forces will simply get owned easily by a zerg going muta/bling in the midgame as he can easily outproduce the terran. This creates a dynamic where the terran needs to turtle hardcore while the zerg muta harss's. Depending on the creativity of the zerg player, this can create somewhat interesting games (at times), however, it would be a lot more dynamic if terrans had a few viable midgame timings.
On the other hand, the baneling becomes usefull when the terran gets tanks + matrix's. Unlike in WOL where you maybe had 50 marines and like 5-6 tanks, you'll now have 30 marines(+medis) and 8-9 tanks which are matrixed' which means they take little damage from banelings.
While matrix + tanks is a very well designed unit composition as it rewards skill (in a great way) and is very immobile which means the opponent can outmultiask the terran player, I don't like the fact that it makes the baneling useless. In fact, I believe that the matchup would be a lot better if the baneling was simply removed, as terrans now would be pushing in the midgame once a while. However, there are probably better suggestions out there. Perhaps this one;
1) Reduce matrix absorg damage % from 75% to 65%.
2) Reduce marine mineral cost from 50 to 45.
The above suggestion may not work, but hopefully it makes tanks + matrix a little less of a hard counter to banelings which makes them more usefull. Cheaper marines will hopefully make midgame marine/medi pushes a bit stronger, and these pushes can be somewhat entertaining to watch as the counter will be banelings which rewards micro from both players.
Also this will buff bio in tvp and marine/tank in tvt, which probably isn't a bad thing (?).
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On February 23 2013 23:03 Hider wrote:
There is another "problem" I want to have a discussion, and that is the way the banelings functions in TvZ. It is my guess that Kabel got this unit into starbow because baneling vs marines were one of the most enjoyful things about sc2. However, the problem is that it creates a very uninteresting dynamic in Starbow.
Unlike in WOL, terrans don't have mules which means that they actually have a very difficult time affording a decent number of marines while on 2 bases/early 3 bases. It is my theory, that terrans can't attack a zerg player untill he gets a critical mass of tanks + matrix's (which typically won't happen untill 20+minute mark).
Pure bio forces will simply get owned easily by a zerg going muta/bling in the midgame as he can easily outproduce the terran. This creates a dynamic where the terran needs to turtle hardcore while the zerg muta harss's. Depending on the creativity of the zerg player, this can create somewhat interesting games (at times), however, it would be a lot more dynamic if terrans had a few viable midgame timings.
On the other hand, the baneling becomes usefull when the terran gets tanks + matrix's. Unlike in WOL where you maybe had 50 marines and like 5-6 tanks, you'll now have 30 marines(+medis) and 8-9 tanks which are matrixed' which means they take little damage from banelings.
While matrix + tanks is a very well designed unit composition as it rewards skill (in a great way) and is very immobile which means the opponent can outmultiask the terran player, I don't like the fact that it makes the baneling useless. In fact, I believe that the matchup would be a lot better if the baneling was simply removed, as terrans now would be pushing in the midgame once a while. However, there are probably better suggestions out there. Perhaps this one;
1) Reduce matrix absorg damage % from 75% to 65%.
2) Reduce marine mineral cost from 50 to 45.
The above suggestion may not work, but hopefully it makes tanks + matrix a little less of a hard counter to banelings which makes them more usefull. Cheaper marines will hopefully make midgame marine/medi pushes a bit stronger, and these pushes can be somewhat entertaining to watch as the counter will be banelings which rewards micro from both players.
Also this will buff bio in tvp and marine/tank in tvt, which probably isn't a bad thing (?).
Have you considered moving spread out against banelings (Starbow pathing does not reclump your units!)? Also a few firebats are quite good against them.
To be quite honest, I have had a really tough time countering bioplay with baneling play up to now and prefer lurkers much more when I play zerg.
About matrix... It is really strong, but you can run out of matrices somewhat fast due to charges. If a change is needed, I would rather play around with how long they last instead of changing their strength.
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On February 23 2013 23:30 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 23:03 Hider wrote:
There is another "problem" I want to have a discussion, and that is the way the banelings functions in TvZ. It is my guess that Kabel got this unit into starbow because baneling vs marines were one of the most enjoyful things about sc2. However, the problem is that it creates a very uninteresting dynamic in Starbow.
Unlike in WOL, terrans don't have mules which means that they actually have a very difficult time affording a decent number of marines while on 2 bases/early 3 bases. It is my theory, that terrans can't attack a zerg player untill he gets a critical mass of tanks + matrix's (which typically won't happen untill 20+minute mark).
Pure bio forces will simply get owned easily by a zerg going muta/bling in the midgame as he can easily outproduce the terran. This creates a dynamic where the terran needs to turtle hardcore while the zerg muta harss's. Depending on the creativity of the zerg player, this can create somewhat interesting games (at times), however, it would be a lot more dynamic if terrans had a few viable midgame timings.
On the other hand, the baneling becomes usefull when the terran gets tanks + matrix's. Unlike in WOL where you maybe had 50 marines and like 5-6 tanks, you'll now have 30 marines(+medis) and 8-9 tanks which are matrixed' which means they take little damage from banelings.
While matrix + tanks is a very well designed unit composition as it rewards skill (in a great way) and is very immobile which means the opponent can outmultiask the terran player, I don't like the fact that it makes the baneling useless. In fact, I believe that the matchup would be a lot better if the baneling was simply removed, as terrans now would be pushing in the midgame once a while. However, there are probably better suggestions out there. Perhaps this one;
1) Reduce matrix absorg damage % from 75% to 65%.
2) Reduce marine mineral cost from 50 to 45.
The above suggestion may not work, but hopefully it makes tanks + matrix a little less of a hard counter to banelings which makes them more usefull. Cheaper marines will hopefully make midgame marine/medi pushes a bit stronger, and these pushes can be somewhat entertaining to watch as the counter will be banelings which rewards micro from both players.
Also this will buff bio in tvp and marine/tank in tvt, which probably isn't a bad thing (?). Have you considered moving spread out against banelings (Starbow pathing does not reclump your units!)? Also a few firebats are quite good against them. To be quite honest, I have had a really tough time countering bioplay with baneling play up to now and prefer lurkers much more when I play zerg. About matrix... It is really strong, but you can run out of matrices somewhat fast due to charges. If a change is needed, I would rather play around with how long they last instead of changing their strength.
Vs matrix; Well if you decide to engage, he doesn't have to put up matrix's before last second. Now retreating there is inefficient as zerg, as you simply will lose too much due to the firepower of tanks. I definitely wanna keep the tank + matrix combo as a very cost effective but immobile way to play terran, but I just want to tone it slightly down, because banelings will remain completley useless in the later stages of midgame if nothing is done to "fix this issue". Im not sure a change of duration from like 12 to 10 seconds have any severe impact?
I don't think it even doesn't matter if you have (almost) perfect marine split. The thing is that the zerg can severely outproduce you early on (and with the inclusion of banelings your timing attacks will become further inefficient, even with decent splitting). In BW it seems that when terrans that bio + SV timing attack, the zerg didn't have any ground units. However, in starbow it seems that zergs can still afford drones + several blings + mutas at like the 8-12 minute mark.
You can't even afford more than at most 2-3 firebats, because then your marine count is simply too low. Remember that you need to use minerals on turrets, ebay, upgrades, etc. and it is difficult to afford anything when your mineral income is just 1000-1400.
I admit I haven't done excessive testing on this area, but I feel like I have 0 units in the midgame. Often times if you look at supply count your down by like 30+ supply, even with proper macro and expansion timing. In WOL the banelings was needed due to medivacs and hellions (drop micro could easily kill lings), however the baneling isn't neccesary in Starbow.
Obv. it will require more testing before changes are made, but I just wanted to start a discussion to see what other people's experience are here.
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EPT
