|
I do not believe this subject has been discussed much so I would like to bring it up for everyone to see. At the beginning of the beta there were several hate threads regarding high ground advantage and ramp mechanics. People stated it would take away an important defenders advantage that existed in brood war making all-ins very difficult to stop. This has become less and less true as players have figured out how to optimize strategies but I feel Terran has an inherent advantage over the two races in this aspect. This coupled with ridiculously cost efficient units makes Terran's defense almost impenetrable. These four important aspects are repair, salvageable bunkers, walls and mass ranged units. Now wait. aren't many of these in scbw? Yes you are right but several important features in the game have been changed making these components comparatively stronger.
To give some perspective on other races defensive capabilities let us look at the zerg race. Zerg has creep for a speed boost, queen defense, and spine/spore crawlers. Now when you see a decently sized marauder hellion army around your opponents natural and you need some quick defense what do you do? Spread creep? Speed boost helps with flanking and melee attack but if your opponent has a large force the speed will not be game changing. Spine crawlers? They take 50 games seconds to make and are not very durable in the face of marauders. Queens? They also take a long time to build and have minimal damage output. So what is the main defensive advantage zerg has? Increased mobility
The terran defensive capabilities start in the early game with their wall off. They will almost always wall off with some combination of barracks/depot/factory. Alright cool some nice defensive capabilities no real complaints here. Let us say Terran opted for a reactor hellion opening and his zerg opponent went 14pool 15hatch. Both very standard openers and opens up some interesting early game scenarios. The first pair of hellions come knocking at your door and you have a queen, some zerglings, and maybe a spine crawlers on the way. Hellions get to be aggressive even when you have zerglings due to kiting. Terran can run into your mineral line and torch drones because of how slow queens and spine crawlers do damage. On a map like metalopolis, you need many zerglings to defend just a few hellions because 3 hellions will 1 shot your zerglings and he can run behind your mineral line for almost no cost. The creep speed boost has virtually no affect on the ability of hellions to do damage at this stage. So in summary zerg went economical and terran went for a harass opening. The amount of damage terran does is almost solely dependent on how aggressive he wants to be.
Now on the flip side, zerg 10 pools and terran goes 1 rax tech lab. The wall off hold back your zerglings and that is that. There is the possibility of a baneling bust but that is an all in compared to a very safe harass opening like reactor hellions. Another possibility is roach rush against some economical terran build. Hellions actually can kite roaches and a salvageable bunker behind a wall off makes you perfectly capable of defending. The bunker has a build time of 30 and cost 100 minerals as opposed to the 50 build time of a spine crawlers and cost 150 (drone cost added). Now I direct you to the link belowRush distances on blizzard maps
This shows the time it takes for an scv to go from 1 starting location to the next. For the sake of discussion lets say it takes 5 seconds to get to the front of the natural and 2.5 seconds to get to the ramp from both locations. Below is the movement speeds for units I am currently discussing
Lower number is slower movement speed
scv 2.8125
hellion 4.25
roach 2.25
marauder 2.25
On the fastest rush distance map, close positions metalopolis and incineration, the main to main time is 40 seconds for an scv and since I set 5 second to the front of the natural, 37.5 seconds between the ramp of terran (bunker + wall) and the main of zerg. Let us not forget bunkers are almost free in the grand scope of the game. Marauder build time is 30 seconds. So even if terran has no idea roaches are coming until they hatch, they can put down a bunker and make a maruder within time of the roach reaching the ramp. You also have to account for the fact that roaches are slower then scvs and terran can delay with hellions for even more time. If the roaches start attacking up the ramp, you have your third and fourth defenders advantage available. You have all your scvs able to repair if the roaches try to break through. If he does break, you have the range advantage so scv blocking comes into play.
Again let's look at the flip side for a reactor hellion build. Zerg doesn't see it early and only places a spine crawler at the natural while the hellions are moving down their ramp. Spine takes 50 seconds to build and hellion is ~50% faster than a scv so about 25 seconds from ramp to natural. What are the hellions able to do in that time? Kite the queen, kill zerglings and drones. What defenders advantage do you have available? My zerglings can move slightly faster but still die quickly to hellions. Zerg is forced to preemptively build defense because they do not have some significant advantage on their home turf. How do zergs delay hellions? Sacrifice units for 25 seconds while a terran in a pressured situation can keep his hellions alive while delaying roaches.
Yesterday I played a zvt on delta quadrant against an early marauder hellion thor attack off of 1 base. I was well prepared with roach zergling so when he engaged, he lost everything while I had 15 roaches left over. Thinking it was alright to go on the aggressive; I moved out to his base and was met by a single thor on his ramp with some scvs ready to repair. I started hammering away and the thor was taken to red life but all the while my roaches were dying. My dps dwindled to the point where his scvs were repairing faster than the thor was being damaged so I had to back off. Resource wise
1thor = 300 minerals 200 gas
15 roaches = 1125 minerals 375 gas
Terran is capable of fending this off with his 1 reinforcing thor and repair. Now picture this in reverse. Terran is in your base will an army worth 1100 minerals and you have 4 roaches or 12 zerglings or 3 hydras. What defenders advantage can you use to beat this army off? The answer is there isn’t one. Why? The zerg defenders advantage does not compare to the terran. If you want to keep the terran versatile defense, then you must be able to match that strength in the other races.
I don’t know how to fix this completely but I think a good start would be an all around buff to the spine crawler. Currently 2 marauders will kill 1 head on. I propose making the spine crawler not armored so marauder damage is halved. Decrease the build time so you can actually put up an emergency defense in reaction to your opponents army movement. Decrease the root time so you can actually use them against thor drops on LT and not have them die before they can even start attacking. Decrease cooldown slightly between attacks or increase damage. This probably seems excessive but it needs to be if you want to keep all those terran mechanics.
|
From the little I know, this is very similar to the way it was in BW. Sure he can one base forever, but if you take the entire map, there's not much he can do. Also, repairing isn't free either, and, more importantly, focusing down the repairers is an important aspect of micro. Sure terran can defend, but that's an aspect of the race that is super important. You can't compare races like that. As the recent article said, this isn't Warcraft in space; all the races are unique.
This isn't broken, this is an aspect of the game.
|
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win.
|
Very nice post. Good read and couldnt agree more.
On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win.
He is not talking about the racial advantages like MULE instead of larva etc.
And this topic should stay about base defense and defenders advantage else this will totally go out of control into a overall balance topic imo.
|
On July 31 2010 11:11 TheDna wrote:
He is not talking about the racial advantages like MULE instead of larva etc.
Then what is he talking about? It's a racial difference.
|
It's a feature of the race. Terran has always had the inherent flaw of being less mobile with said strong defending units. Honestly, I would be depressed if this was changed - defining features of the races is what seems to be lacking a bit compared to sc1.
|
That wasn't an especially fair comparison for the Thor v Roach battle. You should also count the cost of the SCVs (probably a few hundred minerals), and repairs are far from free. Powering a Thor like that can drain resources impressively fast, and you also need to factor in the opportunity cost of all those SCVs not gathering. All told, the engagement probably wasn't as stacked as you tried to make it look, and the deciding factor was most likely a terrain advantage you neglected to mention because even a full-surround of SCVs can't out-repair focus fire from 15 Roaches.
|
The entire OP sounds like a whine from start to finish.
The three races are entirely different by design. As such, tactics that would work with one race might not necessarily work with other races.
Being Zerg, your advantage is that you have the potential to macro harder than any other race and your units are more mobile. The fact that your units are more mobile comes at a price - the Zerg players can't use just a few units to defend attacks. On top of that, due to the way larvae works, you actually have to prepare in advance for any pushes on yourself.
Is it a difficult concept to grasp? Sure
Will you lose a ton of games to people you think are worse than you? Yeah
Is it fair? Who the heck cares? Different race, different concepts, different playstyle. Don't like it? Switch to a different race.
|
I don't see why people always bring up how 'mobile' the zerg army is. Roaches and hydras are terrible in movement off creep, and zerglings no longer constitute the majority of the zerg army. Terran bio with medvacs or hellions grant just as much map control as a bunch of roaches, if not more.
|
You could write an pretty identical situation for sc:bw by changing a few units names.
|
On July 31 2010 11:37 CynanMachae wrote:
You could write an pretty identical situation for sc:bw by changing a few units names.
bw's zerg was way more mobile than sc2 zerg, also bw zerg had darkswarm, which is like ridiculous defence
|
In the exemple hes talking about it's quite early game and Dark swarm would be out of question
|
On July 31 2010 11:27 FC.Strike wrote:
The entire OP sounds like a whine from start to finish.
The three races are entirely different by design. As such, tactics that would work with one race might not necessarily work with other races.
Being Zerg, your advantage is that you have the potential to macro harder than any other race and your units are more mobile. The fact that your units are more mobile comes at a price - the Zerg players can't use just a few units to defend attacks. On top of that, due to the way larvae works, you actually have to prepare in advance for any pushes on yourself.
Is it a difficult concept to grasp? Sure
Will you lose a ton of games to people you think are worse than you? Yeah
Is it fair? Who the heck cares? Different race, different concepts, different playstyle. Don't like it? Switch to a different race.
criticize the OP all you want, dismissing fairness makes your post absolutely worthless. that's what's great about starcraft: the balance. i personally find this to be balanced, different races inherently have different strengths and weaknesses
|
On July 31 2010 11:35 AssuredVacancy wrote:
I don't see why people always bring up how 'mobile' the zerg army is. Roaches and hydras are terrible in movement off creep, and zerglings no longer constitute the majority of the zerg army. Terran bio with medvacs or hellions grant just as much map control as a bunch of roaches, if not more.
At this stage in the metagame, for professional players, not spreading creep is a noob mistake. For this argument, we're talking about defending, which, as you might imagine, is done on creep.
|
On July 31 2010 11:27 FC.Strike wrote:
The entire OP sounds like a whine from start to finish.
The three races are entirely different by design. As such, tactics that would work with one race might not necessarily work with other races.
Being Zerg, your advantage is that you have the potential to macro harder than any other race and your units are more mobile. The fact that your units are more mobile comes at a price - the Zerg players can't use just a few units to defend attacks. On top of that, due to the way larvae works, you actually have to prepare in advance for any pushes on yourself.
Is it a difficult concept to grasp? Sure
Will you lose a ton of games to people you think are worse than you? Yeah
Is it fair? Who the heck cares? Different race, different concepts, different playstyle. Don't like it? Switch to a different race.
Whine or not whine the OP raises some could points on defense. In Sc1 Zerg players could easily defend against other races standard play with a couple Zerglings and a Spine Colony or two until he transitioned. As mentioned before me a lot of new units and mechanics give both the Terran and Protoss more mobility.
Now a days with new units in the fray (Namely Marauder) and the overall increase of DPS, the fact that the Spine Crawler's damage is much lower then it's Sc1 counterpart is more glaring.
I do think the Spine Crawler should receive a buff to improve Z's static defense early and late game.
|
Zerg are still the most mobile. Terran are still the least. Sure it's a different game, but defending as terran is the same, and it's similar for zerg. Spine crawlers are still pretty good AND you have the queen now AND you can produce more zerglings at a time thanks to that queen.
|
On July 31 2010 12:01 MythicalMage wrote:
Sure it's a different game, but defending as terran is the same, and it's similar for zerg. Spine crawlers are still pretty good AND you have the queen now AND you can produce more zerglings at a time thanks to that queen.
I have thought of this for quite some time, and you are focusing on the wrong issue, as is the OP. This isn't a "defenders advantage" problem. The offending unit here is the hellion, and it is only noticable in TvZ due to the lack of zerg defense, but lack of defense from zerg is fine for every other unit out there.
Compare the hellion to the vulture. What is the most notable difference between your first hellion and your first vulture?
Is it the AoE line damage? No, while this is a very nice feature of the hellion, it is hardly noticable when the zerg player has a whole 6 zerglings out.
Is it the lack of spider mines? No, spider mines could never be researched, you gotta get the speed upgrade first... oh wait... speed upgrade...
Hellions come out as fast as speed lings, and you get them faster than zerg can feasibly get speed for his lings...
Think what a 50/50 50 sec speed upgrade from the tech lab would do to early game hellion harass in TvZ.
You either have to pick between 2 mildly quick units or 1 super quick OP early harasser...
Hellion harass in its current state is essentially free damage to the Zerg players economy. Yes it takes good micro, yes you have to practice it, no I can't do anything nearly as effective as walling off in comparison, and that sucks...
Nerf free hellion speed, problem solved.
Compare this to BW vulture harass for 2 seconds and you can easily see how much the free speed breaks everything in this MU. As far as I'm concerned, all the mech complaints would cease to be reasonable if I didn't have to spend 1k minerals defending against 400 min worth of hellions just to get crushed by marauders/thor 4 min later.
|
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't vultures do more damage? Vultures were useful against ALL protoss units, not just zealots, sentries, and templar. There was a game I saw where a player talked about fighting off hellion harass. He said it wasn't about stopping it, it was about absorbing it.
Zerg also didn't have queens in Brood war, and speedlings on creep didn't move at the speed of light in Broodwar. Zerg didn't even have roaches back then, which pretty much end hellions.
I don't like the idea of nerfing their speed. This is, as people have mentioned, a different game. I think perhaps slowing their speed slightly and giving them an ability that increased their speed with an energy bar that started pretty high and regened pretty quickly. Might be nice.
EDIT: To elaborate a bit, once Zerg gets those things, hellions become almost useless. Vultures stayed integral throughout the game.
|
|
|
Vultures did 20 plasma damage to 1 target per shot.
This comes out to 20 dmg to light (zealots) 10 damage to medium (hydralisks) and 5 damage to heavy (dragoons).
The reason vultures were so generally helpful in TvP was because of spider mines and the fact that protoss shields took full damage from all weapon types (meaning vultures did 20 damage if the dragoon still had shields)
And yes, roaches end hellion harass. But that is no different from a wall-off ending zerlings or a 2rax wall ending banelings, funny how the terran solutions are available before the problem they solve is huh?
|
On July 31 2010 13:03 Jermstuddog wrote:
Vultures did 20 explosive damage to 1 target per shot.
This comes out to 20 dmg to light (zealots) 10 damage to medium (hydralisks) and 5 damage to heavy (dragoons).
The reason vultures were so generally helpful in TvP was because of spider mines and the fact that protoss shields took full damage from all weapon types (meaning vultures did 20 damage if the dragoon still had shields)
And yes, roaches end hellion harass. But that is no different from a wall-off ending zerlings or a 2rax wall ending banelings, funny how the terran solutions are available before the problem they solve is huh?
Two rax doesn't necessarily end banelings. You could make 13 banelings, and blow up BOTH raxes, which likely means he has no production buildings and you pretty much instawin.
But that's ENTIRELY BESIDES THE POINT. So Terran is more defensive. They're also less mobile. It's an aspect of their race that defines them, just like Zerg have creep and protoss have shields.
|
On July 31 2010 13:19 MythicalMage wrote:
Two rax doesn't necessarily end banelings. You could make 13 banelings, and blow up BOTH raxes, which likely means he has no production buildings and you pretty much instawin.
But that's ENTIRELY BESIDES THE POINT. So Terran is more defensive. They're also less mobile. It's an aspect of their race that defines them, just like Zerg have creep and protoss have shields.
Have you never seen a flank of 5 or 6 hellions completely obliterate a hydralisk line?
How about the fact that infernal pre-ignighters make hellions 2 shot zerglings (mind you it takes collosi +2 or +3 weapon upgrades to kill lings this fast) and they burn through workers all game long. (Medivac w/ 4 pre-ignighter hellions = 12+ dead workers, and this is off 2 volleys)
Hellions are like super fast, super cheap collosi when it comes to any light armored units, just because terran obliterates both other races so badly they don't even have to use their mediocre hellion (lol at hellions being reffered to as mediocre) does not make it a bad unit.
But like you said, this is besides the point, stop trying to talk about terran being immobile when they have 2 of the fastest units in the game. Oddly enough, one of those needs an upgrade to achieve that title. Funny that every TvZ game involves the other one in the first 5 minutes of the game.
Any way you cut it, a Terran nerf is coming down the line, I'm fairly certain. If I were a terran player, I would be hoping and praying its something as insignificant as making hellions have to research their insane speed for such a cheap price.
EDIT: I totally forgot to address the quote.
Baneling busts are an all-in cheese, and if I can blow 650 minerals and 325 gas on your barracks, then still manage to take out your fighting units with whatever I have behind that, you deserve to lose.... I can beat your standard wall with a 6 pool too. Neither one guarantees a game out-right, and as time goes by we are seeing less and less baneling busts because terrans are learning how to defend them.
Hellion harass on the other hand continues to be economically insignificant and risk-free while sitting right in the middle of your regularly scheduled tech path. Something seems significantly out-of-whack with that...
|
On July 31 2010 13:35 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 13:19 MythicalMage wrote:
Two rax doesn't necessarily end banelings. You could make 13 banelings, and blow up BOTH raxes, which likely means he has no production buildings and you pretty much instawin.
But that's ENTIRELY BESIDES THE POINT. So Terran is more defensive. They're also less mobile. It's an aspect of their race that defines them, just like Zerg have creep and protoss have shields. Have you never seen a flank of 5 or 6 hellions completely obliterate a hydralisk line? I've also seen vulture flanks.
How about the fact that infernal pre-ignighters make hellions 2 shot zerglings (mind you it takes collosi +2 or +3 weapon upgrades to achieve this feat) and they burn through workers all game long. (Medivac w/ 4 pre-ignighter hellions = 12+ dead workers, and this is off 2 volleys) It also requires an addon that you won't get for a while if you're rushing for hellions.
Hellions are like super fast, super cheap collosi when it comes to any light armored units, just because terran obliterates both other races so badly they don't even have to use their mediocre hellion (lol at hellions being reffered to as mediocre) does not make it a bad unit. As mentioned above, to really be an army unit, they have to get the upgrade from the tech lab which is not optimal for hellion production. And that sounds like a balance discussion.
But like you said, this is besides the point, stop trying to talk about terran being immobile when they have 2 of the fastest units in the game. Oddly enough, one of those needs an upgrade to achieve that title. Funny that every TvZ game involves the other one in the first 5 minutes of the game. Are we talking casual or pro? I've seen TvZ without either, and it's not the end of the world. Someone already mentioned that Zerg can make drones faster than terran can make SCVs. And as for the immobility thing, Lurkers are pretty immobile too, but that doesn't mean Zerg in BW was immobile.
Any way you cut it, a Terran nerf is coming down the line, I'm fairly certain. If I were a terran player, I would be hoping and praying its something as insignificant as making hellions have to research their insane speed for such a cheap price. Ha! I love it when people say things that have no backing. Blizzard has shown no intention of giving any balancing patches after beta. They want to add features, sure, but not really balance anything that they've said. Look at a recent tournament, for example. Take the Day9 KotB. Terrans didn't even get into the finals. (Given QXC played terribly.) Regardless, all you guys bitching that mech kills my hydras should go look at the bloody "Counter guide" or whatever it's called ingame. EVERY factory unit makes hydras. That's a hint not to use them against mech.
Not that ANY of this matters, mind you. You're just venting about what you see as an imbalance, and I can't really blame you for that. So yes, Terran has a defensive advantage. And no, it doesn't really matter.
|
On July 31 2010 13:47 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 13:35 Jermstuddog wrote:On July 31 2010 13:19 MythicalMage wrote:
Two rax doesn't necessarily end banelings. You could make 13 banelings, and blow up BOTH raxes, which likely means he has no production buildings and you pretty much instawin.
But that's ENTIRELY BESIDES THE POINT. So Terran is more defensive. They're also less mobile. It's an aspect of their race that defines them, just like Zerg have creep and protoss have shields. Have you never seen a flank of 5 or 6 hellions completely obliterate a hydralisk line? I've also seen vulture flanks. Show nested quote +How about the fact that infernal pre-ignighters make hellions 2 shot zerglings (mind you it takes collosi +2 or +3 weapon upgrades to achieve this feat) and they burn through workers all game long. (Medivac w/ 4 pre-ignighter hellions = 12+ dead workers, and this is off 2 volleys) It also requires an addon that you won't get for a while if you're rushing for hellions. Show nested quote +Hellions are like super fast, super cheap collosi when it comes to any light armored units, just because terran obliterates both other races so badly they don't even have to use their mediocre hellion (lol at hellions being reffered to as mediocre) does not make it a bad unit. As mentioned above, to really be an army unit, they have to get the upgrade from the tech lab which is not optimal for hellion production. And that sounds like a balance discussion. Show nested quote +But like you said, this is besides the point, stop trying to talk about terran being immobile when they have 2 of the fastest units in the game. Oddly enough, one of those needs an upgrade to achieve that title. Funny that every TvZ game involves the other one in the first 5 minutes of the game. Are we talking casual or pro? I've seen TvZ without either, and it's not the end of the world. Someone already mentioned that Zerg can make drones faster than terran can make SCVs. And as for the immobility thing, Lurkers are pretty immobile too, but that doesn't mean Zerg in BW was immobile. Show nested quote +Any way you cut it, a Terran nerf is coming down the line, I'm fairly certain. If I were a terran player, I would be hoping and praying its something as insignificant as making hellions have to research their insane speed for such a cheap price. Ha! I love it when people say things that have no backing. Blizzard has shown no intention of giving any balancing patches after beta. They want to add features, sure, but not really balance anything that they've said. Look at a recent tournament, for example. Take the Day9 KotB. Terrans didn't even get into the finals. (Given QXC played terribly.) Regardless, all you guys bitching that mech kills my hydras should go look at the bloody "Counter guide" or whatever it's called ingame. EVERY factory unit makes hydras. That's a hint not to use them against mech. Not that ANY of this matters, mind you. You're just venting about what you see as an imbalance, and I can't really blame you for that. So yes, Terran has a defensive advantage. And no, it doesn't really matter.
EDIT: Not all baneling busts are all in. You can recover from them, just like you can recover from flying your mutas into a thor.
EDIT EDIT: Hit quote instead of edit. Whoops.
|
On July 31 2010 13:47 MythicalMage wrote:
So yes, Terran has a defensive advantage. And no, it doesn't really matter.
This is what I'm venting about, I haven't mentioned the terran defense advantage other than to say its a non-issue. I guess logical arguments have no place on the internet though... what was I thinking?
|
On July 31 2010 13:53 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 13:47 MythicalMage wrote:
So yes, Terran has a defensive advantage. And no, it doesn't really matter.
This is what I'm venting about, I haven't mentioned the terran defense advantage other than to say its a non-issue. I guess logical arguments have no place on the internet though... what was I thinking?
That's what this thread is about, last time I checked. XP
|
13 banelings on a barracks is not an all in now? I'm done.
|
On July 31 2010 13:55 Jermstuddog wrote:
13 banelings on a barracks is not an all in now? I'm done.
No, that situation was an all in. XD. It seemed like you were implying that ALL baneling usage was an all in.
|
On July 31 2010 10:40 MythicalMage wrote:
From the little I know, this is very similar to the way it was in BW. Sure he can one base forever, but if you take the entire map, there's not much he can do. Also, repairing isn't free either, and, more importantly, focusing down the repairers is an important aspect of micro. Sure terran can defend, but that's an aspect of the race that is super important. You can't compare races like that. As the recent article said, this isn't Warcraft in space; all the races are unique.
This isn't broken, this is an aspect of the game.
Yes terran was a defensive race in scbw but zerg also had pretty strong defensive capabilities to match that of terran. Sunken colonies were very resilient and could be morphed very quickly when necessary. Zerg also had the lurker and as a channeling unit, it could really shine in defensive postures. So zerg had a defensive advantage when dealing with bionic balls.
On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win.
What I am trying to say is either you are able to defend or are not. There is no in between possibilities like the terran has.Engaging terran in the center and defending right at your natural provides basically no advantage.
Using the thor roach example I stated in the OP roach and thor fight in the center of the map. Lets say 10 roaches versus a thor away from creep and repair, 5 roaches remain after the battle (I don't know how many exactly but it sounds reasonable). If this were to occur on creep maybe 6 roaches will remain since your roaches got up to the thor slightly faster. Now put this at the terrans base with repair and the 10 roaches all die without killing the thor. Now lets say 3 thors are attacking a zerg with 10 roaches. 1 thor dies and all the roaches die on and off creep. You don't really benefit much from being the defender so you don't actually have a defenders
advantage.
On July 31 2010 11:18 Pokebunny wrote:
It's a feature of the race. Terran has always had the inherent flaw of being less mobile with said strong defending units. Honestly, I would be depressed if this was changed - defining features of the races is what seems to be lacking a bit compared to sc1.
They can keep all there defensive capabilities. Actually I would prefer it but they need to give zerg and I guess protoss (I'm not too sure about the state of pvt) a slightly better way of defending. In scbw picture a 2hatch lurker build trying to ram into a terran natural. 2 bunkers with 6 marines in them + maybe 6 more marines behind that. Zerg tries to attack with 3 lurkers and 20 zerglings and terran is able to use the defenders advantage of bunkers and repair.
Now think of another situation where terran tries a 5 barracks all-in sunken break with 30 marines 2 firebats and 5 medics. Zerg suspected this and went fast lurkers + 4 sunkens. He is able to defend with 3 lurkers behind this because he has a defenders advantage using a tactically placed unit along with a strong tank(sunken). Now in this situation imagine the sunken instantly melts to the marines and the lurker doesn't exist as a tactical crowd control unit. You mass hydra mutaling. Does it matter whether you engage in the center or at your natural? No because you get no added benefit from being in a defensive position.
On July 31 2010 11:37 CynanMachae wrote:
You could write an pretty identical situation for sc:bw by changing a few units names.
What situation would that be? It'd be nice to make a comparison. Nothing I can think of can overcome zerg static defense in the way a marauder does. 2 marauders kill a spine crawler.
On July 31 2010 12:01 MythicalMage wrote:
Zerg are still the most mobile. Terran are still the least. Sure it's a different game, but defending as terran is the same, and it's similar for zerg. Spine crawlers are still pretty good AND you have the queen now AND you can produce more zerglings at a time thanks to that queen.
Terran the least mobile? The zergling and mutalisk are the only two units I can think of that are more mobile then a stimmed bio ball with medivacs or a group of hellions. Spine crawlers are terrible against marauders and queens don't put out enough dps to be a significant part of a defensive advantage.
On July 31 2010 13:03 Jermstuddog wrote:
And yes, roaches end hellion harass. But that is no different from a wall-off ending zerlings or a 2rax wall ending banelings, funny how the terran solutions are available before the problem they solve is huh?
From my experience roaches do not end hellion harass.
So I guess for a very simplified explanation I don't like how Terran can get away with more then the other races. In brood war zerg was able to get away with tons of drones and 11 mutalisks because of the strength of sunkens and the quickness of the morph. Zerg could get away with a third off of 2 lurkers because of the ramp and lurkers. Zerg could get away with 5hatch hydras using simcity sunkens. Protoss was able to get away with FE because cannons were strong and they could walloff. Terran was able to get away with 1rax FE because of repair and ranged advantage. Terran kept these advantages, zerg did not.
|
I'm not quoting you, but, I'll speak in order.
1) I assume you mean sunkens. I think that having the queen, which can move, makes up for the weakening of the Spine Crawler. As for the lurker, you could theoretically burrow banelings or something. Dunno. But again, zerglings weren't as fast.
2)Repair isn't free. On something like a thor, it's pretty expensive. Repair also takes gas, just to let you know.
3) As Day9 keeps telling us, the agressor has the advantage in this game. You get the freedom to expand and the Xel'Naga Watchtowers among other things.
4)I dunno enough about BW to make a comparison.
5)A STIMMED bio ball. That's 10 less health for the marines, and 20 for the marauders. So yes, stimming makes them mobile. But Zerg has that effectively everywhere there's creep with speedlings and roaches and even ultras. I'd rather not discuss hellions anymore, but as an army unit they're normally used with mech, or in very situational timing pushes. (Like Marauder Hellion thor and the like.) And Protoss top terran with warp gates and quick air and, hell, even mass recall. Most importantly, Terran is still a race that builds tanks, and tanks have to siege to even do any damage and so on.
5) Wall off your choke to your natural with roaches, and support with queen/spine cralwers as needed. You shouldn't have a problem on creep. Certain maps like Kulas will bite you, but Kulas is heavily biased against Zerg.
|
Weighing in on Terran defensive advantage in TvP, I do think that in this matchup as well, Terran can defend really well on a panic reaction, especially compared to the pathetic (read: nonexistent) advantages Protoss have as defender when they don't have a ramp to forcefield. Cannons are weaker than spine crawlers, and require a forge. Blizzard, when you buff spine crawlers, please buff photon cannons, too. I'd like to be able to scare away mutalisks with cannons again.
Anyway, Terran can do basically any FE they like in TvP (1-rax, no gas), and have a chance to hold anything Protoss can do. All they need to do is add more bunkers. Protoss, by contrast, can't hold any one-base play by Terran unless they are playing on one base as well. Protoss doesn't even get the mobility advantage Zerg has... Maybe if Protoss had something like a shield battery, or could move photon cannons, or something... Also, please don't consider warp in a defensive advantage. If all of a Protoss player's warp gates are ready to warp in units when you attack, it's most likely because they have bad macro. If they had near perfect macro, you'd have to be very unlucky to attack right as they're about to start warping in units.
On Terran mobility:
MMM is really, really mobile, especially compared to Protoss who chose Templar tech. High Templar have the same move speed as a Thor, and with decent micro, MMM can load up and cliff hop pretty easily. Also, Terran has very strong, very deadly, very, very mobile harass in marauder drops and hellions.
|
The queen does not make up for that at all. If someone finds a way to reliably integrate burrowed banelings into a standard game then I will be happy. Burrowed banelings are more like really expensive spider mines then lurkers. They can buy you time but using them in a defensive posture may prove difficult.
Ya repair isn't free which is why it isn't overpowered. It just contributes to the strength of terran which I think is too great.
In a game where the aggressor has the advantage, things turn into mass all-in. Also I don't think the aggressor will always have the advantage versus terran because of the things I listed in the op. So zerg is on equal footing when in the center or defending and terran is at an advantage when defending. That doesn't sound fair
Mobility isn't just about how fast your units move. Medivacs make your army extremely mobile because you are able to drop in multiple locations and easily move your entire army into different spots. For zerg to mimic this they must either invest in drop or nydus warms. Terran's mode of transport are already integral parts of their army (healers) and mobility is secondary.
Lastly that works on a very limited number of maps. LT is one of my favorite maps because it is so easy to wall off with some roaches, spine, and queen.
Delta quadrant, xelnaga cavers, DO, kulas and metalopolis have huge open naturals that hellions can abuse. Steps, blistering, and scrap have a weird layout so you can't really wall you ramp and natural so hellions can still harass. That leaves LT which I mentioned above.
|
So it's not overpowere or it's too great? I'm really confused what you're wanting here. Do you want Terran defense to be nerfed or Zerg/'Toss defense to be buffed?Medivacs are effectively overlords which are effectively warp prisms. They all move stuff around. It's just that only one of them is frequently used. So, all of those maps, to my knowledge (Dunno about Xel'Naga caverns) except Metalopolis are heavily biased against zerg. That's a map imbalance, not a racial one. Blistering wall ins are cake, there's just the back door. The natural in Scrap station is pretty readily defended. But, there's something important here.
You talk about tanks. And then you talk about infantry in medivacs. Do you mean Bio Mech, Pure mech( as the hellion discussion hinted), or pure Bio?
|
On July 31 2010 11:40 AssuredVacancy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 11:37 CynanMachae wrote:
You could write an pretty identical situation for sc:bw by changing a few units names. bw's zerg was way more mobile than sc2 zerg, also bw zerg had darkswarm, which is like ridiculous defence
But that was late game... i dought you have Dark Swarm at the time 3/4 vultures come knocking.
|
On July 31 2010 15:40 MythicalMage wrote:
So it's not overpowere or it's too great? I'm really confused what you're wanting here. Do you want Terran defense to be nerfed or Zerg/'Toss defense to be buffed?Medivacs are effectively overlords which are effectively warp prisms. They all move stuff around. It's just that only one of them is frequently used. So, all of those maps, to my knowledge (Dunno about Xel'Naga caverns) except Metalopolis are heavily biased against zerg. That's a map imbalance, not a racial one. Blistering wall ins are cake, there's just the back door. The natural in Scrap station is pretty readily defended. But, there's something important here.
You talk about tanks. And then you talk about infantry in medivacs. Do you mean Bio Mech, Pure mech( as the hellion discussion hinted), or pure Bio?
Terran is too strong. Repair contributes to that but is not overpowered alone.
I want zerg buffed as stated in the OP.
I'd like to see the blistering sands wall and I did not even mention siege tanks. When something tanks it means it takes the damage. In brood war ultraling, ultralisks tanked (took the bulk of the damage) while zerglings did the damage.
Overlord drop means you went out of the way to get drop. Medivacs are healers required to use your bio ball effectively and the dropship ability is almost extra. So by getting a required unit for one purpose you basically get a free mobility boost that bolsters your army as a whole.
|
Blistering sands has a really small choke. Like maybe three or four roaches could do it. I'd have to test it.
Yeah, sure. So like, bunkers then? Walls? What exactly do you have a problem with? Buildings? If it's not repair, then it has to be the strength of terran buildings, which, as mentioned, is critical to the race's identity.
|
I've gone through the posts over the first 2 pages so far and my mind hasn't really been changed from disagreeing with the OP. I'm primarily thinking about 3 main points. First off it's that Terran players walling off is nothing new. They did it in BW, they still do it in SC2. It's an advantage of being Terran.
What did Zerg have in ZvT (since this is the main focus of the OP)? It began with really early map control, using as few as 6 speedlings to keep Terran in their base. I did some searching, and I'll admit that SC2 Zergling speed takes far too long (110 seconds compared to 80 in BW). Even so, a queen can hold off any reaper shenanigans until the upgrade finishes. This sort of map control/presence continues as creep spreads around the place, giving the Zerg mobility and vision of huge parts of the map.At this point, Zerg now has to worry about reactor hellions. Well, a Zerg that has his second base can note that a queen blocks the ramp against hellions beautifully, and a few well placed spine crawlers will make early hellion aggression impossible. (OP, you argue about sunken being so much better than spine crawlers, and I simply don't believe this is true. Spine crawlers cost 25 less total minerals including the drone, can move around, but take 10 more seconds to complete.) If you're on the ball with scouting and see any evidence of hellions, you'll have ample time to prepare.
Which brings me to my third point, spine crawlers are not shit. The marauder-counters-spinecrawler argument makes no sense. Can a well timed marine push bust a sunken line in BW? Yes. Can they do it with said 11 mutalisks bearing down on them? No. Similarly the spine crawler is not an end all defensive structure. It is a deterrent, and in the case of holding a push it becomes a defender's advantage. Use units to soak damage while they go to down on those tiny infantry units. Hell, make a good number of ling/baneling and tear up any early aggression. As a Terran I have nightmares of pushing out knowing banelings are on the field, possibly burrowed right under me as I attack.
If whoever reads my post takes anything from it, it's that to win Starcraft you have to know your opponent. In this particular situation, Zerg has to understand the massive concern Terran has with a hardcore macro Zerg (i.e. Idra and his death army). Realizing this makes it clear that Terran will try anything to stop that powerhouse from coming into fruition. The tools to defend yourself ARE there, so make the most of them. Zerg doesn't have problems defending, it's only when they skimp on units or crawlers to power drone do they find themselves being massacred by timing pushes and the like.
|
Sorry to ask but do you play zerg?
4 roaches delays lair so much and walling with them only does not work. It's also pretty difficult to get them out fast enough to defend the initial hellions. 1 or 2 roaches ya but when you run off of 1 gas it is pretty difficult to keep producing when you need lair. Hellions can also kite roaches so walling with them equals death.
Second part of the post I'm not sure what you are asking.
|
Well said dude man. Well said.
|
On July 31 2010 16:04 kNyTTyM wrote:
Sorry to ask but do you play zerg?
4 roaches delays lair so much and walling with them only does not work. It's also pretty difficult to get them out fast enough to defend the initial hellions. 1 or 2 roaches ya but when you run off of 1 gas it is pretty difficult to keep producing when you need lair. Hellions can also kite roaches so walling with them equals death.
Second part of the post I'm not sure what you are asking.
I have played zerg. Not focusing on it at the moment. Why not roaches after lair? I dunno all the timings by heart of when hellions arrive, but it's something you have to tinker with to find what works for you. Also hellions kiting roaches isn't easy. Very few PRO players do it, they mostly try to avoid roaches when possible.
EDIT: The second part was asking about what particular bit of turtling terran you had a problem with.
|
As a Terran player, I have to admit that the only reason I don't use Hellion harassment every game is because I'm working on a fast Thor build that precludes them. 4 Hellions can take map control back from Speedlings and are basically guaranteed scouting/drone kills unless he goes absolutely bonkers with Spine Crawlers.
|
On July 31 2010 16:02 dudeman001 wrote:
I've gone through the posts over the first 2 pages so far and my mind hasn't really been changed from disagreeing with the OP. I'm primarily thinking about 3 main points. First off it's that Terran players walling off is nothing new. They did it in BW, they still do it in SC2. It's an advantage of being Terran.
What did Zerg have in ZvT (since this is the main focus of the OP)? It began with really early map control, using as few as 6 speedlings to keep Terran in their base. I did some searching, and I'll admit that SC2 Zergling speed takes far too long (110 seconds compared to 80 in BW). Even so, a queen can hold off any reaper shenanigans until the upgrade finishes. This sort of map control/presence continues as creep spreads around the place, giving the Zerg mobility and vision of huge parts of the map.At this point, Zerg now has to worry about reactor hellions. Well, a Zerg that has his second base can note that a queen blocks the ramp against hellions beautifully, and a few well placed spine crawlers will make early hellion aggression impossible. (OP, you argue about sunken being so much better than spine crawlers, and I simply don't believe this is true. Spine crawlers cost 25 less total minerals including the drone, can move around, but take 10 more seconds to complete.) If you're on the ball with scouting and see any evidence of hellions, you'll have ample time to prepare.
Which brings me to my third point, spine crawlers are not shit. The marauder-counters-spinecrawler argument makes no sense. Can a well timed marine push bust a sunken line in BW? Yes. Can they do it with said 11 mutalisks bearing down on them? No. Similarly the spine crawler is not an end all defensive structure. It is a deterrent, and in the case of holding a push it becomes a defender's advantage. Use units to soak damage while they go to down on those tiny infantry units. Hell, make a good number of ling/baneling and tear up any early aggression. As a Terran I have nightmares of pushing out knowing banelings are on the field, possibly burrowed right under me as I attack.
If whoever reads my post takes anything from it, it's that to win Starcraft you have to know your opponent. In this particular situation, Zerg has to understand the massive concern Terran has with a hardcore macro Zerg (i.e. Idra and his death army). Realizing this makes it clear that Terran will try anything to stop that powerhouse from coming into fruition. The tools to defend yourself ARE there, so make the most of them. Zerg doesn't have problems defending, it's only when they skimp on units or crawlers to power drone do they find themselves being massacred by timing pushes and the like.
Queens actually can't hold off all reaper harass but that isn't that important.
Defending the first few hellions has been very annoying in most of my zvt games. Queen on ramp means he can run into the natural drone line and in certain cases just shoot the queen from the low ground. I've been constantly using metalopolis as my example but I think it is the best known map with an open natural. I'm not sure why I keep coming back to hellions but defending hellions wasn't really the point of this thread.
Spines are really bad versus hellions. I have yet to watch/play a game that has changed my mind about this. Let me try to find some VODs to show you what I mean. Spines deter very little. 3 sunkens in brood war will deter 12marines 2 firebats and 2 medics. 3 spines will be busted easily by 6 marauders. Spines may be equal in strength to sunkens but comparated to the overall damage output increase of sc2 units, they are now weaker.
I haven't actually found a ling/ baneling opener that can be used as a standard but if there is a vod you've seen it in, please recommend it. Strong baneling play is always fun to watch but as I stated before I am skeptical that it can become a standard opener.
|
Give me ONE pro game where the reaper gets anywhere near a queen on creep. Reapers avoid queens on creep like the plague.
Exactly. It's supposed to be annoying. Being annoying doesn't mean it's bad. Void Rays are annoying. Baneling are annoying. Mutas are annoying.
What the hell? First you start talking about "they're bad vs hellions," then you say "spines will be bused by six marauders." There's a real zerg tech switch for you. XP. Spinecrawlers are SUPPOSED to be weak to marauders, otherwise you'd walk in with a pure marine army twice as big.
And yes, banelings aren't "standard" but if you have the gas and see the potential for damage, take advantage of it.
You can't say, "Well in Brood War this was blah" without looking at every single other change that has happened in the game.
|
On July 31 2010 16:07 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 16:04 kNyTTyM wrote:
Sorry to ask but do you play zerg?
4 roaches delays lair so much and walling with them only does not work. It's also pretty difficult to get them out fast enough to defend the initial hellions. 1 or 2 roaches ya but when you run off of 1 gas it is pretty difficult to keep producing when you need lair. Hellions can also kite roaches so walling with them equals death.
Second part of the post I'm not sure what you are asking. I have played zerg. Not focusing on it at the moment. Why not roaches after lair? I dunno all the timings by heart of when hellions arrive, but it's something you have to tinker with to find what works for you. Also hellions kiting roaches isn't easy. Very few PRO players do it, they mostly try to avoid roaches when possible. EDIT: The second part was asking about what particular bit of turtling terran you had a problem with.
Roaches after lair are too late. Idra has actually adopted a quick roach build for anti hellion that I have been using. It still feels fragile but I'm still feeling it out. Kiting roaches actually isn't hard. I've had it done to me several times so I know it isn't so difficult only top top players can do it.
So it's not really a problem with turtling. It is that the minimum amount of units Terran is able to defend with is way more cost efficient then what the zerg is able to do. With zerg defense you must match his supply resource for resource because you don't have an extra defensive advantage. Terran does have an extra advantage and thus can get away with more. When you can get away with more, you have more optimal builds. Optimal builds lead to an advantage so I said Terran has an extra advantage.
On July 31 2010 16:43 MythicalMage wrote:
Give me ONE pro game where the reaper gets anywhere near a queen on creep. Reapers avoid queens on creep like the plague.
Exactly. It's supposed to be annoying. Being annoying doesn't mean it's bad. Void Rays are annoying. Baneling are annoying. Mutas are annoying.
What the hell? First you start talking about "they're bad vs hellions," then you say "spines will be bused by six marauders." There's a real zerg tech switch for you. XP. Spinecrawlers are SUPPOSED to be weak to marauders, otherwise you'd walk in with a pure marine army twice as big.
And yes, banelings aren't "standard" but if you have the gas and see the potential for damage, take advantage of it.
You can't say, "Well in Brood War this was blah" without looking at every single other change that has happened in the game.
LZgamer vs machine on lost temple in Day[9]s beta countdown cast. LZ vs strifecro(I don't remember exactly who it was) on metalopolis. Both will be uploaded soon and you will see what microed reapers are capable of.
Spines are bad at killing hellions and die too fast to marauders. Since spine crawlers are bad versus both of these units, what exactly does a zerg have for his defensive advantage when faced against them?
Actually going to sleep now but I'll be sure to check out your responses tomorrow.
|
On July 31 2010 16:37 kNyTTyM wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 16:02 dudeman001 wrote:
I've gone through the posts over the first 2 pages so far and my mind hasn't really been changed from disagreeing with the OP. I'm primarily thinking about 3 main points. First off it's that Terran players walling off is nothing new. They did it in BW, they still do it in SC2. It's an advantage of being Terran.
What did Zerg have in ZvT (since this is the main focus of the OP)? It began with really early map control, using as few as 6 speedlings to keep Terran in their base. I did some searching, and I'll admit that SC2 Zergling speed takes far too long (110 seconds compared to 80 in BW). Even so, a queen can hold off any reaper shenanigans until the upgrade finishes. This sort of map control/presence continues as creep spreads around the place, giving the Zerg mobility and vision of huge parts of the map.At this point, Zerg now has to worry about reactor hellions. Well, a Zerg that has his second base can note that a queen blocks the ramp against hellions beautifully, and a few well placed spine crawlers will make early hellion aggression impossible. (OP, you argue about sunken being so much better than spine crawlers, and I simply don't believe this is true. Spine crawlers cost 25 less total minerals including the drone, can move around, but take 10 more seconds to complete.) If you're on the ball with scouting and see any evidence of hellions, you'll have ample time to prepare.
Which brings me to my third point, spine crawlers are not shit. The marauder-counters-spinecrawler argument makes no sense. Can a well timed marine push bust a sunken line in BW? Yes. Can they do it with said 11 mutalisks bearing down on them? No. Similarly the spine crawler is not an end all defensive structure. It is a deterrent, and in the case of holding a push it becomes a defender's advantage. Use units to soak damage while they go to down on those tiny infantry units. Hell, make a good number of ling/baneling and tear up any early aggression. As a Terran I have nightmares of pushing out knowing banelings are on the field, possibly burrowed right under me as I attack.
If whoever reads my post takes anything from it, it's that to win Starcraft you have to know your opponent. In this particular situation, Zerg has to understand the massive concern Terran has with a hardcore macro Zerg (i.e. Idra and his death army). Realizing this makes it clear that Terran will try anything to stop that powerhouse from coming into fruition. The tools to defend yourself ARE there, so make the most of them. Zerg doesn't have problems defending, it's only when they skimp on units or crawlers to power drone do they find themselves being massacred by timing pushes and the like. Queens actually can't hold off all reaper harass but that isn't that important. Defending the first few hellions has been very annoying in most of my zvt games. Queen on ramp means he can run into the natural drone line and in certain cases just shoot the queen from the low ground. I've been constantly using metalopolis as my example but I think it is the best known map with an open natural. I'm not sure why I keep coming back to hellions but defending hellions wasn't really the point of this thread. Spines are really bad versus hellions. I have yet to watch/play a game that has changed my mind about this. Let me try to find some VODs to show you what I mean. Spines deter very little. 3 sunkens in brood war will deter 12marines 2 firebats and 2 medics. 3 spines will be busted easily by 6 marauders. Spines may be equal in strength to sunkens but comparated to the overall damage output increase of sc2 units, they are now weaker. I haven't actually found a ling/ baneling opener that can be used as a standard but if there is a vod you've seen it in, please recommend it. Strong baneling play is always fun to watch but as I stated before I am skeptical that it can become a standard opener.
But queens do stop reaper harass =/ Either way, once the pool is up and a queen is out, Zerg can also have lings and those combined with the queen will stop a reaper.
Fast hellions can be a really powerful play. (Also a risk play, as by the time Terran has at least 4 hellions, Zergs that went straight to roach will have 5+ roaches out). But that's why spine crawlers are all the defense zerg needs. I guess they don't do obscene amounts of damage to hellions, but hellions cannot kill them and so where you place spine crawlers dictates where Terran can effectively harass. One close to the ramp so they can't kite-kill your queen, and one by the natural mineral line is all you really need in terms of spine crawlers. But relying on spine crawlers without units to back them up will never work. This applies to 6marauder vs 3 spine crawlers. Like I said before, sunken lines can only stop so much, they're obscenely more powerful with unit support from the Zerg. This is only easier for Zerg now that larva injection has removed the intense stress for larva Zerg players faced in BW.
Spine damage doesn't feel strong (25, 30 vs armored) but it's still a hefty amount. Again, relying on the structure alone doesn't work. Protoss players have learned making cannons with nothing else can be a very risk play nowadays. Because Zerg can make more units than ever before, balancing units, workers and defense is very manageable in SC2.
I honestly don't know baneling openings very well. I just know, from the Terran perspective, moving out becomes the scariest thing in the world. Sometimes I'll delay my push until I get a raven, just because instantly losing all of my marines means instant loss. Compare the baneling to the hellion, it serves multiple purposes. Both units can be added to the army composition, and while the hellion forces the enemy to watch out for harass, the baneling forces the enemy to watch out when being aggressive.
|
On July 31 2010 17:26 dudeman001 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 16:37 kNyTTyM wrote:On July 31 2010 16:02 dudeman001 wrote:
I've gone through the posts over the first 2 pages so far and my mind hasn't really been changed from disagreeing with the OP. I'm primarily thinking about 3 main points. First off it's that Terran players walling off is nothing new. They did it in BW, they still do it in SC2. It's an advantage of being Terran.
What did Zerg have in ZvT (since this is the main focus of the OP)? It began with really early map control, using as few as 6 speedlings to keep Terran in their base. I did some searching, and I'll admit that SC2 Zergling speed takes far too long (110 seconds compared to 80 in BW). Even so, a queen can hold off any reaper shenanigans until the upgrade finishes. This sort of map control/presence continues as creep spreads around the place, giving the Zerg mobility and vision of huge parts of the map.At this point, Zerg now has to worry about reactor hellions. Well, a Zerg that has his second base can note that a queen blocks the ramp against hellions beautifully, and a few well placed spine crawlers will make early hellion aggression impossible. (OP, you argue about sunken being so much better than spine crawlers, and I simply don't believe this is true. Spine crawlers cost 25 less total minerals including the drone, can move around, but take 10 more seconds to complete.) If you're on the ball with scouting and see any evidence of hellions, you'll have ample time to prepare.
Which brings me to my third point, spine crawlers are not shit. The marauder-counters-spinecrawler argument makes no sense. Can a well timed marine push bust a sunken line in BW? Yes. Can they do it with said 11 mutalisks bearing down on them? No. Similarly the spine crawler is not an end all defensive structure. It is a deterrent, and in the case of holding a push it becomes a defender's advantage. Use units to soak damage while they go to down on those tiny infantry units. Hell, make a good number of ling/baneling and tear up any early aggression. As a Terran I have nightmares of pushing out knowing banelings are on the field, possibly burrowed right under me as I attack.
If whoever reads my post takes anything from it, it's that to win Starcraft you have to know your opponent. In this particular situation, Zerg has to understand the massive concern Terran has with a hardcore macro Zerg (i.e. Idra and his death army). Realizing this makes it clear that Terran will try anything to stop that powerhouse from coming into fruition. The tools to defend yourself ARE there, so make the most of them. Zerg doesn't have problems defending, it's only when they skimp on units or crawlers to power drone do they find themselves being massacred by timing pushes and the like. Queens actually can't hold off all reaper harass but that isn't that important. Defending the first few hellions has been very annoying in most of my zvt games. Queen on ramp means he can run into the natural drone line and in certain cases just shoot the queen from the low ground. I've been constantly using metalopolis as my example but I think it is the best known map with an open natural. I'm not sure why I keep coming back to hellions but defending hellions wasn't really the point of this thread. Spines are really bad versus hellions. I have yet to watch/play a game that has changed my mind about this. Let me try to find some VODs to show you what I mean. Spines deter very little. 3 sunkens in brood war will deter 12marines 2 firebats and 2 medics. 3 spines will be busted easily by 6 marauders. Spines may be equal in strength to sunkens but comparated to the overall damage output increase of sc2 units, they are now weaker. I haven't actually found a ling/ baneling opener that can be used as a standard but if there is a vod you've seen it in, please recommend it. Strong baneling play is always fun to watch but as I stated before I am skeptical that it can become a standard opener. But queens do stop reaper harass =/ Either way, once the pool is up and a queen is out, Zerg can also have lings and those combined with the queen will stop a reaper. Fast hellions can be a really powerful play. (Also a risk play, as by the time Terran has at least 4 hellions, Zergs that went straight to roach will have 5+ roaches out). But that's why spine crawlers are all the defense zerg needs. I guess they don't do obscene amounts of damage to hellions, but hellions cannot kill them and so where you place spine crawlers dictates where Terran can effectively harass. One close to the ramp so they can't kite-kill your queen, and one by the natural mineral line is all you really need in terms of spine crawlers. But relying on spine crawlers without units to back them up will never work. This applies to 6marauder vs 3 spine crawlers. Like I said before, sunken lines can only stop so much, they're obscenely more powerful with unit support from the Zerg. This is only easier for Zerg now that larva injection has removed the intense stress for larva Zerg players faced in BW. Spine damage doesn't feel strong (25, 30 vs armored) but it's still a hefty amount. Again, relying on the structure alone doesn't work. Protoss players have learned making cannons with nothing else can be a very risk play nowadays. Because Zerg can make more units than ever before, balancing units, workers and defense is very manageable in SC2. I honestly don't know baneling openings very well. I just know, from the Terran perspective, moving out becomes the scariest thing in the world. Sometimes I'll delay my push until I get a raven, just because instantly losing all of my marines means instant loss. Compare the baneling to the hellion, it serves multiple purposes. Both units can be added to the army composition, and while the hellion forces the enemy to watch out for harass, the baneling forces the enemy to watch out when being aggressive.
The point is that fast hellions / nearly any tactic Terran have is not a very risky play. Why? Wall off, then build 1 marauder (for example against your roaches). You will have time to prepare by the time the wall is broken. You can also build bunker at no cost.
The problem with hellions is that they are always cost effective. The Z player must use alot of his economy to just defend. If you go for roaches you lose 200 minerals + 1 larva (drone) just to build the building. Then you need 2-3 roaches == at least 150 minerals and 50 gas. Now Zerg player got a lot less drones at the mineral/gas line even not considering that the hellions will kill something unless the T player suck or Z player is at 1 base. Remember that larva is a resource , each time Z player must use them to make an defending unit the advantage of the larva system is lost.
But the biggest problem isnt hellions.. Consider the time Zerg has to prepare against an attack? Answer: The distance to walk to zerg base.
For example look at ZvZ. It is just stupid match up, you MUST match the opponents army or it is instant lose. The only advantage the defender got is queen, which barely makes a difference because you just ignore it and kill drones.
The matchup I actually like is ZvP, because the P units are so slow and P cant wall off as effective as T. The result: I can use mobility!
|
Bunkers have a cost. They cost mining time, travel time, and 100 minerals. If you salvage it, you get that back. Thing is, if hellions weren't as good as they were, mech would die completely. There's no way to make mech viable without hellions.
Anyhow, ZvP is looking pretty cool right now. Seems like there's a lot of cool things from both sides. ZvT is pretty fun to watch, IMO, especially if the Terran is going mech, whether it succeeds or fails. ZvZ is comlete and utter bullshit.
|
On July 31 2010 17:55 MythicalMage wrote:
Bunkers have a cost. They cost mining time, travel time, and 100 minerals. If you salvage it, you get that back. Thing is, if hellions weren't as good as they were, mech would die completely. There's no way to make mech viable without hellions.
Anyhow, ZvP is looking pretty cool right now. Seems like there's a lot of cool things from both sides. ZvT is pretty fun to watch, IMO, especially if the Terran is going mech, whether it succeeds or fails. ZvZ is comlete and utter bullshit.
I agree that mech need hellions, but hellions mobility is far too good. They should have a speed decrease and speed upgrade in reactor/tech lab. This would give Z time to prepare.
|
Yeah, but it would kill mech. Mech needs early pressure to macro up and expand. If they did that, they'd have to make reapers viable or something, but that's really bad too.
|
It also bears noting that you won't move out with one Vulture. But when you make a hellion, you make them two at time, from a reactor. So having a speed upgrade makes a lot less sense with a massable unit. And did I mention that that would require a tech lab which would totally destroy numerous timing pushes, and mech.
|
On July 31 2010 18:03 MythicalMage wrote:
It also bears noting that you won't move out with one Vulture. But when you make a hellion, you make them two at time, from a reactor. So having a speed upgrade makes a lot less sense with a massable unit. And did I mention that that would require a tech lab which would totally destroy numerous timing pushes, and mech.
because having inherently different ways to approach a MU is an inherent racial trait that only terran has AMIRITE? no really, this thread has some potential for discussion but overall i cant help but agree that the terran vs Zerg situation is pretty much solved and most of the issues zerg has with hellions and whatnot are actually provoked by map layouts rather than racial imbalance or fairness.
Delta quadrant for example as mentioned in the op is a terran based map, in that terran can easily sneak in hellions to roast probes regardless of how well you try to defend.
As for hellions, scrap station esque or close air positions LT THor drops are even worse.
|
Yeah, the maps being garbage doesn't help the issue. And what do you mean by MU? Sorry, really tired.
|
United States47024 Posts
On July 31 2010 15:35 kNyTTyM wrote:
The queen does not make up for that at all. If someone finds a way to reliably integrate burrowed banelings into a standard game then I will be happy. Burrowed banelings are more like really expensive spider mines then lurkers. They can buy you time but using them in a defensive posture may prove difficult.
I disagree with the spider mine comparison for two reasons:
1) The detonation of banelings is controllable. You can move them if they get detected, and the opponent can't force you to use them in disadvantageous positions (e.g. he can't drag them with a single unit for a harmless explosion like you could in SC1).
2) The way Terran macro works forces you to be much more conservative with scans than you were in SC1. If Terran is on the offensive, you can expect him to have maybe 1-2 scans to work with. Any more, and that means he has to have saved a scan, meaning that his push had to have been about 5-6 marines weaker than it could have been per scan.
These 2 things together combine to one effect: once Terran has wasted his scan, if he doesn't push in, it is impossible for him to engage in a cost-effective manner. He can't progress forward without either waiting for a scan, or deliberately walking over the burrowed banelings (or unintentionally, if his scan didn't catch the banelings in the first place--in which case you get an extremely cost-effective unit trade).
|
I'm done arguing with mythicals "just do everything and you can beat terrans" logic, but I see people mentioning ZvZ and I would like to point out, Z has a much better "defenders advantage" in this MU.
Defending against lings?
1 baneling can kill 5-7 zerglings easy, especially in a defensive position like a ramp.
Defending against roaches?
They're so slow you can see them coming from across the map with plenty of time to set up whatever chosen defense you have. roach/queen, roach/hydra, spine colonies, and zerglings are all very acceptable and powerful defenses.
Defending against mutalisk?
This is ZvZ... you did make a couple extra queens right? Problem solved...
Defending against hydralisks?
You've got to be at least 20 min into the game if hydras made it to your base in any decent number, we're no longer talking about early game where defenders advantage matters.
I really don't get why people complain about ZvZ... it's the only MU that I feel like I have options in and aren't struggling to live from the moment the game starts.
EDIT: fixed it for you mythic. You're right, mech was too narrow of a perspective, any terran can employ hellions, free of charge. Not just 1 build style.
|
When did I say anything about beating mech? I just think that you'll kill it if you nerf hellions. That's literally all I've said about mech.
|
On July 31 2010 16:43 MythicalMage wrote:
Give me ONE pro game where the reaper gets anywhere near a queen on creep. Reapers avoid queens on creep like the plague.
ensnare vs gerrard and check in ogs vs prime takes on and kills queens with his speed reapers in the early game.
|
On July 31 2010 18:28 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 16:43 MythicalMage wrote:
Give me ONE pro game where the reaper gets anywhere near a queen on creep. Reapers avoid queens on creep like the plague.
ensnare vs gerrard and check in ogs vs prime takes on and kills queens with his speed reapers in the early game.
Damnit all, mentioning a korean game. But that's speed reapers in a completely different style. That's more similar to LzGamer's style these days with continuous reaper production to secure an expo, if it's anything like what I'm thinking of. Anyhow, that comes a bit later and you have speed and you have a lot of reapers. So, the zerg would have speed and a queen, but yeah that can be rather effective. At that point, it almost stops being harass, and becomes early pressure.
|
On July 31 2010 18:22 Jermstuddog wrote:
I'm done arguing with mythicals "just do everything and you can beat mech" logic, but I see people mentioning ZvZ and I would like to point out, Z has a much better "defenders advantage" in this MU.
Defending against lings?
1 baneling can kill 5-7 zerglings easy, especially in a defensive position like a ramp.
Defending against roaches?
They're so slow you can see them coming from across the map with plenty of time to set up whatever chosen defense you have. roach/queen, roach/hydra, spine colonies, and zerglings are all very acceptable and powerful defenses.
You must have made baneling nest before you see it coming. The counter: Send 2 lings instead of all. If both goes banelings then it is just stupid, a small mistake makes you instant lose.
Roaches are not THAT slow. If you havent built roach warren before you see them coming then you wont have time to set one up. Maybe you only play the biggest maps..
I still see no defenders advantage. You can place your baneling anywhere and it is still as effective.
I'd just ignore any spine crawler and walk to other side of base. And if you build too many you waste alot of resources if he doesnt attack.
The point is: I feel that it is very random who wins.
|
On July 31 2010 18:30 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 18:28 rauk wrote:On July 31 2010 16:43 MythicalMage wrote:
Give me ONE pro game where the reaper gets anywhere near a queen on creep. Reapers avoid queens on creep like the plague.
ensnare vs gerrard and check in ogs vs prime takes on and kills queens with his speed reapers in the early game. Damnit all, mentioning a korean game. But that's speed reapers in a completely different style. That's more similar to LzGamer's style these days with continuous reaper production to secure an expo, if it's anything like what I'm thinking of. Anyhow, that comes a bit later and you have speed and you have a lot of reapers. So, the zerg would have speed and a queen, but yeah that can be rather effective. At that point, it almost stops being harass, and becomes early pressure.
yeah but the point is speed reapers in general can't be held off by queens or speedlings alone.
|
ZvZ is horribly broken, at least at the pro level. It's just banelings vs banelings. Occasionally you'll see roaches, but the roach player usually loses.
|
On July 31 2010 18:38 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 18:30 MythicalMage wrote:On July 31 2010 18:28 rauk wrote:On July 31 2010 16:43 MythicalMage wrote:
Give me ONE pro game where the reaper gets anywhere near a queen on creep. Reapers avoid queens on creep like the plague.
ensnare vs gerrard and check in ogs vs prime takes on and kills queens with his speed reapers in the early game. Damnit all, mentioning a korean game. But that's speed reapers in a completely different style. That's more similar to LzGamer's style these days with continuous reaper production to secure an expo, if it's anything like what I'm thinking of. Anyhow, that comes a bit later and you have speed and you have a lot of reapers. So, the zerg would have speed and a queen, but yeah that can be rather effective. At that point, it almost stops being harass, and becomes early pressure. yeah but the point is speed reapers for 1 rax CC can't be held off by queens or speedlings alone.
Sure, and in that case you could make roaches. If you needed to. Hell you could do some tricky baneling play or something. You could fast tech to mutas or whatever. I'm not convinced you couldn't at least push it back with well controlled speedling, but it's tricky. So yes, in that situation roaches would be necessitated.
|
I personally have accepted a baneling nest as a necessary evil in ZvZ, even if you're not planning on going banelings hard, they're just THAT useful. I get the nest either immediately before or after ling speed, depending on how things flow. You CANNOT skip banelings alltogether in a safe manner, I will give you that.
As far as the roaches, zerglings are a perfectly fine counter to them until you hit critical mass levels, and you can tech to lair before your opponent can make that amount of roaches if you so desire. I also happen to like them in this MU as well, were you planning on going mutaling?
|
On July 31 2010 18:25 MythicalMage wrote:
When did I say anything about beating mech? I just think that you'll kill it if you nerf hellions. That's literally all I've said about mech.
|
On July 31 2010 12:36 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 12:01 MythicalMage wrote:
Sure it's a different game, but defending as terran is the same, and it's similar for zerg. Spine crawlers are still pretty good AND you have the queen now AND you can produce more zerglings at a time thanks to that queen. I have thought of this for quite some time, and you are focusing on the wrong issue, as is the OP. This isn't a "defenders advantage" problem. The offending unit here is the hellion, and it is only noticable in TvZ due to the lack of zerg defense, but lack of defense from zerg is fine for every other unit out there. Compare the hellion to the vulture. What is the most notable difference between your first hellion and your first vulture? Is it the AoE line damage? No, while this is a very nice feature of the hellion, it is hardly noticable when the zerg player has a whole 6 zerglings out. Is it the lack of spider mines? No, spider mines could never be researched, you gotta get the speed upgrade first... oh wait... speed upgrade... Hellions come out as fast as speed lings, and you get them faster than zerg can feasibly get speed for his lings... Think what a 50/50 50 sec speed upgrade from the tech lab would do to early game hellion harass in TvZ. You either have to pick between 2 mildly quick units or 1 super quick OP early harasser... Hellion harass in its current state is essentially free damage to the Zerg players economy. Yes it takes good micro, yes you have to practice it, no I can't do anything nearly as effective as walling off in comparison, and that sucks... Nerf free hellion speed, problem solved. Compare this to BW vulture harass for 2 seconds and you can easily see how much the free speed breaks everything in this MU. As far as I'm concerned, all the mech complaints would cease to be reasonable if I didn't have to spend 1k minerals defending against 400 min worth of hellions just to get crushed by marauders/thor 4 min later.
this kid is right
|
Have you read the rest of the thread?
|
Once again the problem seems to boil down to Terran being seemingly OP. People make great arguments like good turtling capabilities and map control being equally good but honestly, it's something we can argue about all day since it's not the same thing. An apple tastes solid and fresh while a pear tastes soft and sweet; they are equal. But even so, does it need to be equal?
The fact of the matter is, if we assume Terran is indeed OP, that you can't boil it down to one thing like "good turtling capabilities". Terran is a package that contains lots of parts. Not every part of the package needs to be equal to other races, only the entire package needs to be. Turtling alone does not win a Terran player games. So if you want to fix the entire package, where do you start?
I hate pointing out what's wrong without even attempting to suggest a solution. I don't have a full answer, but I can imagine starting by making it a little bit easier for other races to defend against tactics that are potentially game-ending (perhaps banshee, or thor+SCV, or blue-flame hellion drop?). Should you lose when a pair of banshees fly into your insufficiently defended base? Substantial damage, but not enough to make you gg would make for more interesting games and might help out balance at the same time.
|
Thing is you're arguing about hellions in a thread about the obvious defensive advantage of Terran. That's like saying Force Field is OP because Void Rays are strong, or creep is OP because Mutas are strong. Doesn't really make sense.
|
If you have 2 queens on any single hatchery, you will have a lot of transfusions, which is really really brilliant on sunkens getting focus fired, much better than repair at stopping an all in.
|
I was just watching a game: qxc Vs Sheth. Sheth had three roaches and a queen at an outlying expansion. qxc, who is well known for being able to snipe roaches with his hellion control got a whopping three kills from his four pre ignitered hellions. So a lot of it is control and focus too.
|
On July 31 2010 19:18 MythicalMage wrote:
Thing is you're arguing about hellions in a thread about the obvious defensive advantage of Terran. That's like saying Force Field is OP because Void Rays are strong, or creep is OP because Mutas are strong. Doesn't really make sense.
why? hellions are strong because terran does not need much to defend their own ramp.
|
On July 31 2010 19:31 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 19:18 MythicalMage wrote:
Thing is you're arguing about hellions in a thread about the obvious defensive advantage of Terran. That's like saying Force Field is OP because Void Rays are strong, or creep is OP because Mutas are strong. Doesn't really make sense. why? hellions are strong because terran does not need much to defend their own ramp.
So hellions would be weak without that? Every race has harass units and they can all be effective. Void Rays, Phoenixes, Dark Templar, banelings, speedlings, mutalisks, and those are just the obvious ones.
|
The thing is you're nay-saying mythical, this doesn't make for good discussion. Your response to my argument is "that would break terran mech as a whole". And that is just so laughable, its not even worth continuing.
I'm not even coming with the typical "mech is completely OP and there's no solution" argument. I am asking you to think about a tiny change that leaves the rest of the game exactly as it is now. Act as if a speed upgrade were required today, what would happen? People would make 2 factories instead of 1 and they would pop out 3 hellions at a time instead of 2. They wouldn't wait to send the hellions out, because they would be researching the speed while they travel, but they would get to Zs base about 20 seconds later. Now this seems more reasonable, you have dedicated a significant portion of your econ to an early harass that is likely to pay off unless your opponent has gone for 1 specific unit (roaches). You are still set up for solid mech play (unless I'm wrong and mech goes 1 fact these days), but if you were going to follow up with bio, you might not want to use hellions with such zeal anymore, either go to reapers or maybe just a tech lab and single pops.
There are advantages and costs to doing early harass in my theoretical situation.
Now come back to the game as it is now. You make a factory, swap with your rax for the reactor and go to town. There are no other BOs because this is solidly the best option at this point in the game. Sure there are some strange individuals playing around with reapers, but we think those guys are funny, why would you use anything but hellions?
Doesn't something seem wrong about that?
You're trying to bring this back to a "terran defense is OP" argument and the thing is I agree with you, terran defense is perfectly fine, zerg lack of defense is perfectly fine. Hellions are what's broke.
|
On July 31 2010 19:45 Jermstuddog wrote:
The thing is you're nay-saying mythical, this doesn't make for good discussion. Your response to my argument is "that would break terran mech as a whole". And that is just so laughable, its not even worth continuing. Hellions are the ONLY agression in most mech builds until late late game. So yes, it would hurt mech rather seriously. AND you forgot about all the timing pushes that center on hellions like Marauder Hellion and so on. You seem to really focus on the mech.
I'm not even coming with the typical "mech is completely OP and there's no solution" argument. Thank you for that. I am asking you to think about a tiny change that leaves the rest of the game exactly as it is now. Act as if a speed upgrade were required today, what would happen? People would make 2 factories instead of 1 and they would pop out 3 hellions at a time instead of 2. They wouldn't wait to send the hellions out, because they would be researching the speed while they travel, but they would get to Zs base about 20 seconds later. Now this seems more reasonable, you have dedicated a significant portion of your econ to an early harass that is likely to pay off unless your opponent has gone for 1 specific unit (roaches) You are still set up for solid mech play (unless I'm wrong and mech goes 1 fact these days), but if you were going to follow up with bio, you might not want to use hellions with such zeal anymore, either go to reapers or maybe just a tech lab and single pops. To get hellions out fast enough to do the damage they really need to do, you can't wait for a second factory. That's why you don't see that already for fast pre igniter. You do an early all hellion and then you add on factories with tech labs. If this wasn't from the tech lab, I'd agree with you.
There are advantages and costs to doing early harass in my theoretical situation.
Now come back to the game as it is now. You make a factory, swap with your rax for the reactor and go to town. There are no other BOs because this is solidly the best option at this point in the game. Sure there are some strange individuals playing around with reapers, but we think those guys are funny, why would you use anything but hellions?
Doesn't something seem wrong about that? Sure. Good thing it isn't true. LzGamer's current style is to mass reapers early on vs Zerg. Banshees are equally common, and that covers all the dedicated terran harass units.
You're trying to bring this back to a "terran defense is OP argument" and the thing is I agree with you, terran defense is perfectly fine, zerg lack of defense is perfectly fine. Hellions are what's broke.
Alright, well that's neither here nor there, but I'll continue the argument regardless. Hellions are literally the only units on the field other than tanks before thors. Tanks without units in front of them die almost instantly to even speedlings. That's why Mech takes so long; it's all about positioning. So if you want to argue that the only thing keeping Terran mech alive, and hell even a ton of timing pushes alive is overpowered, be my guest. The forums will change from "Mech is OP" to "Zerg is OP" or the way it was at the start of the beta, "Mech is UP."
|
I still think high-ground-advantage is sth Blizz should implement, I also don't think Terran-defense is that much better, but it's better in a different way:
- Whilst P and Z can defend better on different locations thanks to creep-speed-buff or warp-in's, Terran can defend certain positions better, thanks to Tanks, wall-in's etc.
But that's just sth ppl have to work with. It's not like there aren't enough ways to penetrate a Terran-defense, especially when the Terran is pushing with an often slower Army, thinks like Drops, Warp-In's, Speedling-runbys etc. can be extremely powerful.
Besides - T is supposed to be a more defensive race, right?
|
''Open thread insert whine here'' Hellion harass = having to park your queen on a ramp and have 1 spine crawler up at your expo to stop this harass.. QQ now get roaches and mass 120381239082 of them like zerg do. then go go burrowed movement. incoming Terran GG
User was warned for this post
|
On July 31 2010 20:16 Meldrath wrote:
''Open thread insert whine here'' Hellion harass = having to park your queen on a ramp and have 1 spine crawler up at your expo to stop this harass.. QQ now get roaches and mass 120381239082 of them like zerg do. then go go burrowed movement. incoming Terran GG
No comment. 
|
imo I think it was stupid to make supply depots able to lower, makes walls have a super fast on off switch, where as in bw you had to lift and move the barracks, and if zerg suddenly storms up your ramp it takes far to long to place, and is easily stoppable.
imo, supply depots shouldnt rocket out of the ground, they should have a 1 second delay before raising or lowering.
I find most games I play I just sit in T's natural waiting for them to gg cause they have no money left. That or I get broodlords, whichever comes first.
|
On July 31 2010 21:00 slowmanrunning wrote:
imo I think it was stupid to make supply depots able to lower, makes walls have a super fast on off switch, where as in bw you had to lift and move the barracks, and if zerg suddenly storms up your ramp it takes far to long to place, and is easily stoppable.
imo, supply depots shouldnt rocket out of the ground, they should have a 1 second delay before raising or lowering.
I find most games I play I just sit in T's natural waiting for them to gg cause they have no money left. That or I get broodlords, whichever comes first.
They have a delay and it is noticeable as a player, if not as a spectator/enemy.
Edit: But I wouldn't mind increasing it.
|
On July 31 2010 19:33 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 19:31 Madkipz wrote:On July 31 2010 19:18 MythicalMage wrote:
Thing is you're arguing about hellions in a thread about the obvious defensive advantage of Terran. That's like saying Force Field is OP because Void Rays are strong, or creep is OP because Mutas are strong. Doesn't really make sense. why? hellions are strong because terran does not need much to defend their own ramp. So hellions would be weak without that? Every race has harass units and they can all be effective. Void Rays, Phoenixes, Dark Templar, banelings, speedlings, mutalisks, and those are just the obvious ones.
problem is because zerg early game revolves around mostly defending a greedy opening they have to spend minerals and gas so their harassment is delayed significantly enough for both races to easily counteract.
If terran did not have a significantly strong defence, then hellions would probably be in a more defensive posture knowing that zerg is coming to exploit said hypothetical weak defence. Onebase baneling bust against depo walloff etc.
You are comparing apples with oranges, apples being much easier to eat.
Terran harassment units have a reasonably large chance of being effective regardless of what the opponent has done to protect themselves, wether its reaper, hellion, banshee or thor drop. Terran is the only race that can rely on scouting to do everything for them.
Protoss and Zerg both can not rely on effective harassment because by the time any of their harassment units are out terran have had much time to produce a viable defence or worse gone on the offense while relying on their wall to do everything for them. The other races can not say the same.
On July 31 2010 20:16 Meldrath wrote:
''Open thread insert whine here'' Hellion harass = having to park your queen on a ramp and have 1 spine crawler up at your expo to stop this harass.. QQ now get roaches and mass 120381239082 of them like zerg do. then go go burrowed movement. incoming Terran GG
LOL TROLL ;D
|
I'M comparing apples with oranges? I was comparing harass tactics. YOU'RE comparing actual macro mechanics. Reapers have a low chance of being effective in small numbers, and the same with hellions. If they have anti air and/or detection, banshees are quick;y shut down. And the last bit made me laugh. Sure, theoretically a terran COULD have detection every game, or anti air EVERYWHERE every game, or always have a baneling proof wall, but it's not very likely. But none of this is at all relevant to the conversation. I just said that all the races had harass, and now it sounds like a lot of whining about Terran having the strongest harass, which is highly subjective.
But this is the important bit. Every bit of control of these harass units takes focus and control that's not spent on macroing or using other units. It's a distraction. As I said earlier, even the great qxc lost focus and lost a pack of hellions to, as some people in this thread would say, a mere three roaches and a queen. So it takes focus.
EDIT: And who said we were just talking early game? If so, then zerg is obviously at a disadvantage to Protoss and Terran, but that's part of that racial identity everyone was so stalwartly defending a page or two ago.
|
Terran harassment == Nearly no extra gas cost, no apparent drawback. Forces Zerg to respond. Can followup with anything.
Zerg harassment == No real harassment untill lair. Zerg only chance early game is proffitting on Terran mistakes which mostly involves placing buildings wrong.
I believe the game would be more fun if Terran actually had to fear Zerg early aggression. For example if banelings could climb cliffs slowly then Terran would have to constantly watch out, but it would be possible to defend if he scouted due to the time banelings were climbing. Then Zerg could use roaches at the main door to draw attention away from scouting.
Not saying that this is a good idea.. but anything to make the Terran fear Zerg..
|
On July 31 2010 21:18 MythicalMage wrote:
I'M comparing apples with oranges? I was comparing harass tactics. YOU'RE comparing actual macro mechanics. Reapers have a low chance of being effective in small numbers, and the same with hellions. If they have anti air and/or detection, banshees are quick;y shut down. And the last bit made me laugh. Sure, theoretically a terran COULD have detection every game, or anti air EVERYWHERE every game, or always have a baneling proof wall, but it's not very likely. But none of this is at all relevant to the conversation. I just said that all the races had harass, and now it sounds like a lot of whining about Terran having the strongest harass, which is highly subjective.
But this is the important bit. Every bit of control of these harass units takes focus and control that's not spent on macroing or using other units. It's a distraction. As I said earlier, even the great qxc lost focus and lost a pack of hellions to, as some people in this thread would say, a mere three roaches and a queen. So it takes focus.
Yes, you are comparing harass tactics for 3 different races (apples and oranges). harass is indeed alot different from the viewpoint of all 3 races.
As for focus and control, you should not measure races by how people play them wrong. You should measure races by how they ideally function when played by a superhuman that does everything right 
|
I ca't believe the amount of whining going on here about racial imbalances:
Why don't you try to come up with new ways to play a race and new strategies instead of just sitting there and whining?
Zerg is a more Macro-oriented race and that's where they clearly excel - if this does not fit your playstyle, choose another race...
Besides, Zerg harrassment is extremely strong early on, because of their very fast Speedlings. In addition, they can defend against harrassment very well. On Tier2, Zerg-harrassment just get's stellar, with Mutas, Burrowed Units, Drops, Nydus Worm etc. backed up by a good Eco, which Zerg should have at this point, you can really abuse those harrassment-tactics and further expand your macro-advantage at the same time.
|
I humbly apologize to the OP for the sidetrack of this conversation. I'm going to go to sleep now, because the strength of hellion harass doesn't really matter compared to the "Defender's Advantage"
|
If terran didn't have an effective harrassment unit, we would be on 1 base while zerg would be on 2 base's pumping drones with spawn larva. The reason why the spine crawler isn't stronger is because if it was, zerg would be on 40 drones with a few spines while terran is on 20 scvs and no way to attack.
Zerg has 2 damn bases, of course it's hard to defend harass. If terran went 12 barracks 14 command center, do you think its viable for them to complain about losing scvs at their natural to speedlings?
|
On July 31 2010 22:13 TheFinalWord wrote:
If terran didn't have an effective harrassment unit, we would be on 1 base while zerg would be on 2 base's pumping drones with spawn larva. The reason why the spine crawler isn't stronger is because if it was, zerg would be on 40 drones with a few spines while terran is on 20 scvs and no way to attack.
Zerg has 2 damn bases, of course it's hard to defend harass. If terran went 12 barracks 14 command center, do you think its viable for them to complain about losing scvs at their natural to speedlings?
Thats just so wrong.. Alot of protoss play Nexus first and its working very very well vs top zergs. We will see fes of terrans as well soon its just that they dont have to play that kind of style to be viable.
2 base is not a racial advantage.. Every race can play it.
|
OP brings up a very good point with a lot of implications. One of the implications is that it really hurts play such as overlord doom drops and spamming nydus worms (for all you Terran players who like to whine that Zerg players aren't innovative at all and just 1a a big roach/hydra ball).
The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.
SO yeah, while Terran is nicely sitting back behind an impenetrable line of tanks and turrets and PFs and is happily dropping his MM ball willy nilly, Zerg is given what, burrowed banelings as replacement lurkers that aren't even relevant past the early game? And they don't even have a chance of seeing defilers or lurkers for another one and a half years? Really?
In order to do cutesy drop play, you need some sort of defense mechanism so if he decides to counter you, you don't just fall over and die. All of the races had this in Brood War. So why is Zerg lacking this in SC2, when the drop capabilities the race has are even greater?
|
Why people always speak about SC1?
|
On July 31 2010 23:21 Anomandaris wrote:
Why people always speak about SC1?
because its balanced
|
On July 31 2010 23:21 Anomandaris wrote:
Why people always speak about SC1?
This is an attitude I absolutely hate to see in the SC2 forums. There are many things we should learn from SC1 that has helped make it so successful for the past decade. Insisting they are two different games and that we shouldn't look at it for that reason is just ignorant, and will hurt SC2 immensely in the long run.
|
...wow this is just sad.
i can very easily talk/whine about how zerg is imba too.
tvz: speedlings...yea alright that already is annoying as fuck. zerg has mobility. we terrans cannot compete with that at all. do you have any idea how fucking annoying it is to be setting up base, rallying troops and preparing to push out farther to only hear "your base is under attack" only to head there and either a) find everything destroyed and wasted time heading there cause speedlings rape like that or b) head there with losing half my shit and only see zerg running away then proceeding to harass another expo or even splitting it and attacking two expos?? zerg also has larvae injection which again they can use to power units. do you know what its like to fucking stop 12 mutalisks destroying your main and having to painfully wait for your vikings or marines to get there and stop them... only to realize you dont have enough and have to wait for more...i mean yea sure we can go bio which is much more mobile but then again who would wanna go bio now days when you can just baneling the shit out of it . mech is strong but immobile (must stress that point out). we have to either finish the game very soon vs zerg else zerg will win. everyone knows if zerg grabs just enough expos and is left alone long enough (as in little harass) then the longer the game goes the higher the chance the zerg has to win because again he just has to mass and literally a-move.
see how easy it was for me to rant for the terrans?? of course i see the problem yet i deal with it because every race has its PROS and CONS. zerg also is a hard race and i dont think there are many people who have played zerg to the fullest extension. zerg has the potential to be the number one race IF IF IF someone plays it right.
|
On July 31 2010 23:46 heroyi wrote:...wow this is just sad. i can very easily talk/whine about how zerg is imba too. tvz: speedlings...yea alright that already is annoying as fuck. zerg has mobility. we terrans cannot compete with that at all. do you have any idea how fucking annoying it is to be setting up base, rallying troops and preparing to push out farther to only hear "your base is under attack" only to head there and either a) find everything destroyed and wasted time heading there cause speedlings rape like that or b) head there with losing half my shit and only see zerg running away then proceeding to harass another expo or even splitting it and attacking two expos?? zerg also has larvae injection which again they can use to power units. do you know what its like to fucking stop 12 mutalisks destroying your main and having to painfully wait for your vikings or marines to get there and stop them... only to realize you dont have enough and have to wait for more...i mean yea sure we can go bio which is much more mobile but then again who would wanna go bio now days when you can just baneling the shit out of it . mech is strong but immobile (must stress that point out). we have to either finish the game very soon vs zerg else zerg will win. everyone knows if zerg grabs just enough expos and is left alone long enough (as in little harass) then the longer the game goes the higher the chance the zerg has to win because again he just has to mass and literally a-move. see how easy it was for me to rant for the terrans?? of course i see the problem yet i deal with it because every race has its PROS and CONS. zerg also is a hard race and i dont think there are many people who have played zerg to the fullest extension. zerg has the potential to be the number one race IF IF IF someone plays it right.
fail attempt 
User was warned for this post
|
On August 01 2010 00:21 tacrats wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 23:46 heroyi wrote:...wow this is just sad. i can very easily talk/whine about how zerg is imba too. tvz: speedlings...yea alright that already is annoying as fuck. zerg has mobility. we terrans cannot compete with that at all. do you have any idea how fucking annoying it is to be setting up base, rallying troops and preparing to push out farther to only hear "your base is under attack" only to head there and either a) find everything destroyed and wasted time heading there cause speedlings rape like that or b) head there with losing half my shit and only see zerg running away then proceeding to harass another expo or even splitting it and attacking two expos?? zerg also has larvae injection which again they can use to power units. do you know what its like to fucking stop 12 mutalisks destroying your main and having to painfully wait for your vikings or marines to get there and stop them... only to realize you dont have enough and have to wait for more...i mean yea sure we can go bio which is much more mobile but then again who would wanna go bio now days when you can just baneling the shit out of it . mech is strong but immobile (must stress that point out). we have to either finish the game very soon vs zerg else zerg will win. everyone knows if zerg grabs just enough expos and is left alone long enough (as in little harass) then the longer the game goes the higher the chance the zerg has to win because again he just has to mass and literally a-move. see how easy it was for me to rant for the terrans?? of course i see the problem yet i deal with it because every race has its PROS and CONS. zerg also is a hard race and i dont think there are many people who have played zerg to the fullest extension. zerg has the potential to be the number one race IF IF IF someone plays it right. fail attempt
No, sir, this is a fail quote. Your post means nothing if you don't even explain your opinion.
He has a point though, Terrans can also rant about how strong Zerg is as well. For example, why is it that when I can make 1 siege tank, zergs can make 4+ roaches/hydras/ultralisk/mutalisks/ etc. in the same time if they have a queen? (40 secs for inject larva, 45 secs for siege tanks) Why is that spine crawlers can move to block a ramp and then move to protect an expo? Why is it Terran doesn't have anything that is a static ground defense like the spine crawler?
Although i'm not saying that I feel these issues are OPed, but they are RACE ADVANTAGES of zergs, much like how Terrans have salvageable bunkers, reactors, mules, scans etc.
On topic, Terrans may have the defensive advantage, zergs have the map control advantage, and protoss has the greatest potential in terms of offense advantage. Zergs can easily control the xel naga watchtowers with a single zerglings which is cheap and moves quickly to the towers. Mutalisks grant zerg good map control with their speed and ability to harass every building the enemy doesn't have covered with turrets or AA. Creep also gives them a huge advantage in terms of speed, and ability to see everywhere their creep is spread.
As for hellions harass, you can block your ramp with some roaches with a spine crawlers for support or go for that third queen to spread creep tumors. You can use that third queen with your queen at the expo to block the ramp, using transfusion to heal. Mutas fare pretty well against hellions and if they can't kill all the hellions then harass. Don't say that "Oh there's gonna be turrets up and a bunch of marines will kill them" cause hellions cost a bit of minerals and finding enough money to pay for a decent hellion force, a decent marine force, and a decent number of turrets to cover every building in the Terran base is gonna be hard. Of course this comes at the price of having mutalisks mid game.
Protoss has the offensive advantage because of warping in the front lines, chronoboosting zealots and upgrades, ability to make a bunch of gateways quickly (with one probe), sentries can block off reinforcements on the ramp and can block the rear for a retreat.
|
On July 31 2010 21:00 slowmanrunning wrote:
imo I think it was stupid to make supply depots able to lower, makes walls have a super fast on off switch, where as in bw you had to lift and move the barracks, and if zerg suddenly storms up your ramp it takes far to long to place, and is easily stoppable.
imo, supply depots shouldnt rocket out of the ground, they should have a 1 second delay before raising or lowering.
Or make it so that they wait until there's no unit on top of them. But I agree completely with this general idea as being at least part of the solution.
Another thing that I feel is problem here is that Zerg really can't create any sort of Sim City. In Brood War, a Zerg's 3rd Hatchery and an Evolution Chamber or the Hydra Den, along with the Sunken that the Zerg would be making anyways, could be used to block off one side of a Zerg's natural from Vulture harass. Other than Evolution Chambers and the Crawlers, there's just nothing that Zerg can use to create chokes or block now. Most tech buildings are way too important and are super fragile (maybe the Hydra Den or Roach Warren, could be risked for something like this, but my instincts say that wouldn't go well because something like a Reaper could sit back and tear it down.. in Brood War, a Mech Terran couldn't pick off the buildings in a wall well until Tanks got to your front). Because of the Queen, Zerg only generally builds 1 hatchery per base, so they can't block with their 3rd Hatch anymore, either. The workers in mineral lines also impeded movement in Brood War, and don't any longer, so they can't be used to try and prevent run-bys into the main, not that that's a large problem because it's usually the natural mineral line that's the target.
Possible solutions to this would be a health buff to one of the tech buildings, making one of the Zerg buildings bigger (although that would have a weird aesthetic), or giving the Zerg some way of creating creep walls or something similar (maybe live tumors could transform into them, or Queens could vomit them as another ability, or something).
|
He has a point though, Terrans can also rant about how strong Zerg is as well.
except that its precieved as either trolling or player fault. Terrans have nothing to whine about. Terran vs X games are all in the hands of the terran to loose and not the other way and anyone arguing otherwise are just that. Bad players.
Minerals Yea, there is something called mule and calldown supply that limits and boosts your mineral harvesting or spending capability.
they also allow you to cut scvs and still remain economically sound.
|
On August 01 2010 01:54 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +He has a point though, Terrans can also rant about how strong Zerg is as well. except that its precieved as either trolling or player fault. Terrans have nothing to whine about. Terran vs X games are all in the hands of the terran to loose and not the other way and anyone arguing otherwise are just that. Bad players.
I am a Protoss player, and disagree with this 31565465163%. PvT (and PvZ) are fine, it's just TvZ that needs work.
|
OP brings up many good points. I think this one is the most important:
On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
On the fastest rush distance map, close positions metalopolis and incineration, the main to main time is 40 seconds for an scv and since I set 5 second to the front of the natural, 37.5 seconds between the ramp of terran (bunker + wall) and the main of zerg. Let us not forget bunkers are almost free in the grand scope of the game. Marauder build time is 30 seconds. So even if terran has no idea roaches are coming until they hatch, they can put down a bunker and make a maruder within time of the roach reaching the ramp. You also have to account for the fact that roaches are slower then scvs and terran can delay with hellions for even more time. If the roaches start attacking up the ramp, you have your third and fourth defenders advantage available. You have all your scvs able to repair if the roaches try to break through. If he does break, you have the range advantage so scv blocking comes into play.
Again let's look at the flip side for a reactor hellion build. Zerg doesn't see it early and only places a spine crawler at the natural while the hellions are moving down their ramp. Spine takes 50 seconds to build and hellion is ~50% faster than a scv so about 25 seconds from ramp to natural. What are the hellions able to do in that time? Kite the queen, kill zerglings and drones. What defenders advantage do you have available? My zerglings can move slightly faster but still die quickly to hellions. Zerg is forced to preemptively build defense because they do not have some significant advantage on their home turf. How do zergs delay hellions? Sacrifice units for 25 seconds while a terran in a pressured situation can keep his hellions alive while delaying roaches.
It highlights a key difference between zerg & terran.
Terran can react to zerg leaving their base by putting up turret/bunker, but zerg can't do the same against terran (spine crawlers won't finish in time). This forces zerg to pre-emptively build spine crawlers to defend harass. This is a major difference from brood war, where on almost every competitive map zerg is able to put a zergling outside of terran nat, and when M&M move out zerg can react by putting up quick sunkens.
I'm not sure if that points out imba, but it is certainly worth thinking about.
|
I wonder if the OP would have really gone through and made this thread for brood war.
|
On August 01 2010 01:54 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +He has a point though, Terrans can also rant about how strong Zerg is as well. except that its precieved as either trolling or player fault. Terrans have nothing to whine about. Terran vs X games are all in the hands of the terran to loose and not the other way and anyone arguing otherwise are just that. Bad players. Yea, there is something called mule and calldown supply that limits and boosts your mineral harvesting or spending capability. they also allow you to cut scvs and still remain economically sound.
For your first point, it's just your way of viewing the outcome of games. If I Terran beats me, i'll admit he's better than me (unless it's some 6 pool or cheese). Even then, I should have seen that coming. If a Terran beat you, you might think and react differently. Everyone's views are different and not everyone is the same as me or as you.
For your second point, mutalisks forces your opponent to waste those minerals mined from mules on statics defenses instead of more hellions or more marines. If he goes to get marines instead of turrets, you've forced him to go marines which can be killed by banelings. If he goes thors, he won't attack or push for a long time so you can expand.
|
I play terran all the time and I have a feeling that terran is a little overpowered. I win games where my opponent was definitely stronger than me, it is very clear from replays. I am like 19th in Platinum but I feel I don't deserve it, I actually don't have any build orders. Turtling and doing whatever I want. Tech switch is very easy. Maybe I am wrong.
|
I'm sorry I brought up SC1 situations as comparison, this is a different game and those situations shouldn't be referenced.
Back on topic: the races in SC2 each defend differently. Terran walls off, Protoss forcefields/warps in reinforcements, and Zerg uses spine crawlers and units. Really, the only way zerg CANNOT be prepared well enough for hellions is if he doesn't scout for them, and therefore doesn't account for them. Look at Idra's play, if he needs to he'll happily sacrifice an overlord so he knows exactly what Terran is doing. (And before we get into "sacrificing an overlord to scout," remember that Terran either sacrifices a scan, a reaper, a hellion or a combination of those to know what's up).
Well placed spine crawlers make hellion harassing not cost effective because you won't kill anything, and 200-400 minerals down is the last place Terran wants to end up against Zerg. Yes marauders are incredibly effective against spine crawlers. But take a lesson from Day[9], your opponent can't get marauders, and hellions, and banshees, and expo, and... etc. Terran can go hellion-marauder, but that doesn't mean Zerg can't go spinecrawler+zerglings, or spinecrawler+roaches. Zerg can adequately defend against any early Terran unit composition if they remain aware of their opponent.
In response to drop play, this is where creep really excels as a defender's advantage. Overlords are useful as early spotters, and creep highways connecting Zerg's bases allow for speedy reinforcements wherever the harass is heading. I feel people underestimate creep too much. It provides map presence as well as sight to the Zerg, so Zerg can sit there army wherever they want and see any ground pushes by the enemy.
Lastly, the point of getting a fast expo up is to get an economic edge on your opponent. For Zerg this has always been more important than for the other races. If you're going to get a fast expo, understand that your opponent has more opportunities for early harass than you. Accept that fact and plan accordingly. If Zerg wants to try 1-base aggression they can, and in some cases it can prove very effective. If it doesn't then Zerg's in pretty bad shape, but if Terran or Protoss 1-base they can still continue fighting normally. But do we really want every race to fight the exact same style? You might, but I want to see variety in the playstyles of Zerg, Terran and Protoss players. What we have now offers that very well.
|
On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win.
No race can power drones like zerg? lmao that's such BS.
Go ahead and watch some replays of good players. The gatherer count for each side is usually even if the players are evenly matched. This is because zerg actually has to use their larva to make units as well, and every time they make a building, the drone is permanently lost.
do you know how expensive a spine crawler actually is in terms of total economic cost? the face value (100 min.) plus the drone (50 min.) 1 larva (hard to place a number on, but trust me, larva are valuable) and the total minerals not collected during the time it takes to hatch the replacement drone. (the cost of the replacement drone is not counted, because that would be double-counting... fyi for all the not economically inclined out there).
that considered, i'd say the true cost is at least 200 min. and one can't even take down 2 marauders. hence, spine crawlers generally aren't worth it unless combined with units that'll tank for it or if you're using them to hold off hellions while you tech (thus saving money by not needing to invest in extra queens/roaches).
compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke.
/but just b/c defense isn't balanced doesn't mean the meta game isn't balanced.
//to continue on my tangent, there were so many skills in brood war that were straight up imbalanced... but because all races had imbalances it was fair. for example, psi storm was ridiculously OP... but so was plague. Blizzard decided to make all the units in SC2 even by nerfing them to death until they all suck equally.
|
On July 31 2010 21:11 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 20:16 Meldrath wrote:
''Open thread insert whine here'' Hellion harass = having to park your queen on a ramp and have 1 spine crawler up at your expo to stop this harass.. QQ now get roaches and mass 120381239082 of them like zerg do. then go go burrowed movement. incoming Terran GG LOL TROLL ;D
I dont know, strategy seems pretty legit, it's the way steve bonnel plays, he's top diamond.
I only wish I could be as pro with roaches as him.
|
On August 01 2010 04:36 dudeman001 wrote:
Well placed spine crawlers make hellion harassing not cost effective because you won't kill anything, and 200-400 minerals down is the last place Terran wants to end up against Zerg.
Seriously?
With 2-4 hellions you kill drones with 1-2 shot drones and you cant kill anything when there is 1-2 spine crawler which uses at least 3 shots to kill a hellion (dont know exact amount)?
Not to mention that throwing down 1 spine crawler costs 200 minerals + 1 larva and lost mining time. And you need a queen blocking the ramp, or T will just run to main. The T player can just retreat seeing spine crawlers and barely lost anything, but gaining map control.
The Z player must face the worst T player ever if hellions are not cost effective.
|
What i find is:
Z expands as normal. due to hellion harass, has to spend minerals on spine crawlers which use drones and also may lose drones to the harass, potentially extra larva and minerals on lings to help.
Ever check out the graphs for resources? Terran with mules and constant scv production (which is normal) is pretty much even with the Z with an expo that has a half decent number of drones on it. Pretty lame.
T has extra minerals to spend on hellions on harass. Whereas a zerg cant harass cheaply at all due to the T wall in (what are lings going to do?). So the terran has almost no worries while sitting in his base, all the while harassing constantly, and doesnt really need to expand until hes running out of minerals.
Also just makes me mad when i see overlord speed and drop upgrades cost 300/300 whereas terran can fly around the map with their medivacs and harass while their base is impregnable.
|
Ok I guess I talked to much about hellions and that really deterred my actual point. I included them because defending versus them was a common early game scenario.
I'm really trying to find an example to explain but I guess scbw ones don't get my point across. Crap I really wish autosave replay still existed.
Let me play some games today and I'll post the ones with some of the problems I am experiencing.
|
I have just been promoted to diamond league as terran. Its so easy. I expect some nerf patch
|
Imo, the real issue is mostly the amount of choices races have.
As far as balance goes, its perfectly fine that a player who is investing money in harrassment units is able to force an early expanding player to waste money.
In fact, Id go as far as to say that if terran wasnt able to force zerg to spend minerals and larva on defenses when zerg early expands, then it would really be imbalanced.
As far as balance goes, its fine.
However, as far as gameplay, and fun goes, thats a whole different story.
Zerg, in the early game, litteraly has only 2 choices. 1 base all-in, or early expand and macro. aggression and/or harrassment isnt really possible for a 1 base zerg vs a terran, without investing a huge amount of money and larva into it. Once it gets to T2, creep is spread, drops, burrow, nydus worms, and so on all become possibilities, and it really evens out a lot across the races, all of them have a ton of choices.
But as said, right now, zerg has 2 choices vs terran. terran, on the other side, can harrass with reapers, hellions, do bio pushes, stay on one base and tech to banshees, or to vikings, and probably even early expand safely with a couple of bunkers. lots of choices really.
Now most of these choices do come from the fact that terran doesnt need that much to be able to defend in the early game. If zerg was able to actually attack terran early enough, then terran players would have to be a lot more carefulk about what they do, and zergs would have a lot more options.
But as said, I dont think that balance is really an issue, and watching pro replays doesnt seem to show a huge imbalance anywhere.
Even if the zerg is forced to make premptive spine crawlers in each and every game, simply because the terran started building a factory, and COULD be making hellions, that doesnt mean its imbalanced. Just that the choices for zerg are limited. In the same way, protoss has to make a stalker against any terran player making an early tech lab barrack. That doesnt mean its completely imbalanced, just that it limits the protosse's choices quite a lot.
|
Excuse the BW comparison, but wouldn't deterring hellions be somewhat similar to deterring vultures? You know..make a sunken or two and wall off with other buildings.
And wouldn't defending a sunken break be akin to defending a spine break? Get some zerglings and/or other stuff along with 4+ spine crawlers?
Scouting has always been a big part of zerg play, and it's usually the thing that most players absolutely refuse to do or really suck at nowadays. Scouting is a huge part of the defender's advantage, which is one reason why terran is so good at defending. If zerg messes up at scouting, they get killed. If a terran messes up at scouting, we also die. It just so happens terrans have the ultimate scouting tool, so this doesn't happen as often as it does to zerg.
I haven't seen anyone mention scouting at all, thus I don't believe any of the dramatic balance accusations of spine crawlers being too weak, terran being too strong, zerg being to weak, etc. If properly scouted, anything can be beat.
|
On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
Yesterday I played a zvt on delta quadrant
That's where you went wrong, Delta Quadrant is unplayable against Terran, I recommend thumbing it down in the map preferences.
|
On August 01 2010 05:19 tacrats wrote:
Also just makes me mad when i see overlord speed and drop upgrades cost 300/300 whereas terran can fly around the map with their medivacs and harass while their base is impregnable.
Medics are indeed free of charge and require no tech buildings to get.
Spending 300/300 also nets us as many medivacs as we have supply depots.
In all seriousness though, if you have a good overlord spread, and creep spread between your bases (more bases than the T), you should be able to spot drops well in advance. Zerg has plenty of offensive options to contain the terran or punish him for moving out.
Also no one is forcing you to fast expand, I've seen 1base muta into contain into mass expand be very effective in high level play.
This thread all in all is a good example of why apples aren't eggs, but they're still both edible.
Have a nice day!
|
failquote instead of edit
|
On August 01 2010 06:43 imBLIND wrote:
Excuse the BW comparison, but wouldn't deterring hellions be somewhat similar to deterring vultures? You know..make a sunken or two and wall off with other buildings.
And wouldn't defending a sunken break be akin to defending a spine break? Get some zerglings and/or other stuff along with 4+ spine crawlers?
Scouting has always been a big part of zerg play, and it's usually the thing that most players absolutely refuse to do or really suck at nowadays. Scouting is a huge part of the defender's advantage, which is one reason why terran is so good at defending. If zerg messes up at scouting, they get killed. If a terran messes up at scouting, we also die. It just so happens terrans have the ultimate scouting tool, so this doesn't happen as often as it does to zerg.
I haven't seen anyone mention scouting at all, thus I don't believe any of the dramatic balance accusations of spine crawlers being too weak, terran being too strong, zerg being to weak, etc. If properly scouted, anything can be beat.
Ya it's like defending versus a vulture with splash on rush hour 3. I keep coming back to hellions but that wasn't really what I wanted to discuss. As for the sunken break, I said previously I couldn't think of anything that breaks like marauders so did a short test.
Stimmed marauders kill spine crawlers slightly more efficiently then unsieged tanks did to sunkens. 7 marauders kills 4 spines. To my knowledge, the only 1 base builds that could break 4 sunkens for terran in brood war was 3 rax and fast tank. So imagine terran sunken breaking you with a handful of fast moving siege tanks and firebats to kill lings. A vulture running on the outskirts of the 3'o clock natural of Lost temple will be hit 3 times by a sunken and die. A hellion running by a spine on the edge of any LT natural will be hit once and 4 is needed to kill it.
So I thought of something else that may help people understand what I am getting at. The queen is a significant defender's advantage in anti-air situations. I didn't even think about this before.
Why is it a defender's advantage? Queens are extremely slow so off creep so you can quickly defend with them at YOUR base but not in the center of the map. They have the same cost and build time of a spine crawler and are already an integral part of your game (spawn larva).
Now thanks to piousflea who did some testing a while back
Link
MYTH #7: "Mass Queens are insanely cost-effective anti-air":CONFIRMED
Without any micro or Transfusion, 4 queens (600/0/8) can beat:
- 6 Mutas (600/600/12)
- 3 Banshees (450/300/9)
- 3 Voidrays (750/450/9)
Queens can beat several air units cost for cost even without transfuse and even take up less supply. Now let us say a terran has 6 banshees roaming the map and you decide to engage in the center with 6 hydralisks. Zerg might lose all the hydras and terran gets away with 2 banshees. Now terran later goes into zergs natural with 6 more banshees and sees 3 queens and 3 hydras. With the defensive advantage zerg has, he is able to win the battle cost effectively utilizing an already integral part of his game. This defensive advantage incorporates 2 of the zerg advantages I wrote off as basically useless against ground (queen and creep). However when we talk about anti- air, zerg gets a significant advantage from just being at his base and properly using using a staple part of his race (terran gets repair zergs get queen).
Now if that helped anyone understand my point, I want something like that but for ground defense.
|
Queens can attack ground too silly :p
Your problem is still with hellions though. You really want a speed upgrade required for them, just admit it
|
Yeah people seem to forget about creep. Creep is EVERYTHING. People like TLO talk about it as a replacement for scourge in terms of map control.
|
So about the hellion/spine crawler issue, I will quote IdrA himself.
Can you share your opinion about Spine Crawlers? I think they are often wasted and medium skilled players often build too many. What’s the purpose in your opinion of these defensive structures?
I think they’re quite good actually. They’re absolutely necessary for defending one base protoss play. Often you’ll need to get one or two to hold off hellion harass vs terran, and a sunken can allow you to survive ling/bane allins with a fast expand zvz. I think the root time may be a bit too long, but overall I’m quite happy with them .
|
On August 01 2010 04:38 MforWW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win. No race can power drones like zerg? lmao that's such BS.
compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke.
I shall quote WhiteRa, (I'm on a roll reading these interviews.)Let’s take a closer look to the matchups for Protoss, can you tell us something about PvZ? What’s your general game plan and how should a standard PvZ go along from the perspective of a Protoss?
I have two standard strategies, with a fast expansion and without one . From the Protoss point of view, you need to force Zerg to play your game, to avoid giving him the few minutes he needs to build twice the amount of your workers (but you must be careful here, do not let yourself get surrounded or you can lose all your troops).
And then there's this:
compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke.
Of course! That's part of being Terran! Like Zerg is about massing units quickly and covering the map, and protoss is about small amounts of high tech units.
|
On August 01 2010 13:12 kNyTTyM wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2010 06:43 imBLIND wrote:
Excuse the BW comparison, but wouldn't deterring hellions be somewhat similar to deterring vultures? You know..make a sunken or two and wall off with other buildings.
And wouldn't defending a sunken break be akin to defending a spine break? Get some zerglings and/or other stuff along with 4+ spine crawlers?
Scouting has always been a big part of zerg play, and it's usually the thing that most players absolutely refuse to do or really suck at nowadays. Scouting is a huge part of the defender's advantage, which is one reason why terran is so good at defending. If zerg messes up at scouting, they get killed. If a terran messes up at scouting, we also die. It just so happens terrans have the ultimate scouting tool, so this doesn't happen as often as it does to zerg.
I haven't seen anyone mention scouting at all, thus I don't believe any of the dramatic balance accusations of spine crawlers being too weak, terran being too strong, zerg being to weak, etc. If properly scouted, anything can be beat. Ya it's like defending versus a vulture with splash on rush hour 3. I keep coming back to hellions but that wasn't really what I wanted to discuss. As for the sunken break, I said previously I couldn't think of anything that breaks like marauders so did a short test. Stimmed marauders kill spine crawlers slightly more efficiently then unsieged tanks did to sunkens. 7 marauders kills 4 spines. To my knowledge, the only 1 base builds that could break 4 sunkens for terran in brood war was 3 rax and fast tank. So imagine terran sunken breaking you with a handful of fast moving siege tanks and firebats to kill lings. A vulture running on the outskirts of the 3'o clock natural of Lost temple will be hit 3 times by a sunken and die. A hellion running by a spine on the edge of any LT natural will be hit once and 4 is needed to kill it. So I thought of something else that may help people understand what I am getting at. The queen is a significant defender's advantage in anti-air situations. I didn't even think about this before. Why is it a defender's advantage? Queens are extremely slow so off creep so you can quickly defend with them at YOUR base but not in the center of the map. They have the same cost and build time of a spine crawler and are already an integral part of your game (spawn larva). Now thanks to piousflea who did some testing a while back LinkShow nested quote +MYTH #7: "Mass Queens are insanely cost-effective anti-air":CONFIRMED
Without any micro or Transfusion, 4 queens (600/0/8) can beat:
- 6 Mutas (600/600/12)
- 3 Banshees (450/300/9)
- 3 Voidrays (750/450/9)
Queens can beat several air units cost for cost even without transfuse and even take up less supply. Now let us say a terran has 6 banshees roaming the map and you decide to engage in the center with 6 hydralisks. Zerg might lose all the hydras and terran gets away with 2 banshees. Now terran later goes into zergs natural with 6 more banshees and sees 3 queens and 3 hydras. With the defensive advantage zerg has, he is able to win the battle cost effectively utilizing an already integral part of his game. This defensive advantage incorporates 2 of the zerg advantages I wrote off as basically useless against ground (queen and creep). However when we talk about anti- air, zerg gets a significant advantage from just being at his base and properly using using a staple part of his race (terran gets repair zergs get queen). Now if that helped anyone understand my point, I want something like that but for ground defense.
You're too focused on unit/structure stats and not focused enough about the actual gameplay.
We know about transfusion and we know that 3 queens and a couple of hydras will kill banshees fairly easily. We also know that queens are a defensive unit meant to stay on the creep. You insist that we buff zerg and/or nerf terran abilities.
Since zerg has the most powerful macro capacity among the three races, why dont you invest some of that macro into zerglings? Scouting his unit composition will give you a huge advantage because now you know what to make to counter the Terran army. With spawn larvae, the amount of time needed to pump drones has gone down. You can start pumping units earlier with less of an economic setback, which was a huge obstacle with BW zerg.
Scouting, reacting, and timing is what Zerg thrives on. First you said zerg had no defensive advantage. Now you claim zerg needs more defensive advantage vs ground. Drones are not the only thing zergs can build. Scout and build units to help defend and stop complaining about how underpowered the structures are. We know what the defender's advantage is. What you're proposing has nothing to do with it. Just because zerg didn't have to build any combat units to defend early game ZvT does not give you an excuse to not scout and build units. With spawn larvae, you have nothing to be complaining about.
|
|
|
That's MASS reapers vs 1 queen at a time...
|
On August 01 2010 04:38 MforWW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win. No race can power drones like zerg? lmao that's such BS. Go ahead and watch some replays of good players. The gatherer count for each side is usually even if the players are evenly matched. This is because zerg actually has to use their larva to make units as well, and every time they make a building, the drone is permanently lost. do you know how expensive a spine crawler actually is in terms of total economic cost? the face value (100 min.) plus the drone (50 min.) 1 larva (hard to place a number on, but trust me, larva are valuable) and the total minerals not collected during the time it takes to hatch the replacement drone. (the cost of the replacement drone is not counted, because that would be double-counting... fyi for all the not economically inclined out there). that considered, i'd say the true cost is at least 200 min. and one can't even take down 2 marauders. hence, spine crawlers generally aren't worth it unless combined with units that'll tank for it or if you're using them to hold off hellions while you tech (thus saving money by not needing to invest in extra queens/roaches). compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke. /but just b/c defense isn't balanced doesn't mean the meta game isn't balanced. //to continue on my tangent, there were so many skills in brood war that were straight up imbalanced... but because all races had imbalances it was fair. for example, psi storm was ridiculously OP... but so was plague. Blizzard decided to make all the units in SC2 even by nerfing them to death until they all suck equally.
You have quite clearly missed the point. Given no pressure, Zerg can power drones unlike any other race. Thats why the mechanic for defense has to include a reasonable amount of larva and/or minerals or else there is an unbalance. You can argue this should be tweaked but to argue it is a flaw is wrong in my opinion.
|
Read the OP and about half the posts, but from what I can tell as of late, it seems that the key point that's being missed is the purpose of each race. Terran is known for being the defender. They always have and most likely always will. Their units are pretty much designed for that, but not in such a way that makes every game a "turtle and starve out your enemy" sort of thing.
The bio ball, however is probably the biggest exception to the rule because of mobility, quick dps, and stim. But keep in mind that stim does have a cost every time you use it and is limited by time. To use it often, T has to get medivacs. Take advantage of this whenever possible by feinting to force a stim and then back off. That's what all the pros did for bw, and the concept should be the same (granted it is a harder due to concussive shells).
As for hellions, yeah they're great for harass and they're used so so much because it's easy in the early game. But when it comes down to metagame, that's how it should be IMO. Early game zerg should just focus on surviving by a thread and making as few units as possible to power drones. That's why T even bothers to harass; they have to abuse the larvae system (choose units or drones, but not both) as much as possible to stay competitive. Kiting effectively IS hard no matter what you say. If they get some sort of critical number, it does become much easier, but remember that you shouldn't be chasing them down with roaches like you're the attacker, just keep them away until you can effectively dispose of them.
For spine crawlers, like any other static defense, you want to avoid making them. Whoever called it a deterrent earlier was completely correct. Otherwise we'd just see TLO style spinecrawler contains being much more commonplace. As a static defense, the purpose of a spine crawler should be for either 1. preventing attack long enough to get some units or 2. defending an area that would be too inconvenient to draw forces over in time. That, along with Starcraft's counter system allows marauders, or a decent sized army to roflstomp all over spine crawlers.
I agree that bunkers are kind of cheap with the salvage ability, but the fact of the matter is, if they're investing in that, their army will be slightly smaller. It won't be much, but it delays them at least. Recognizing that should allow for the smallest bit more powering of drones, and hopefully a stronger army.
I'm sure I missed a lot so please reply with rebuttals and bring up other points (just don't dodge my answers) so that we can go about this intelligently.
As a whole, the point of playing zerg is getting to that economic "overrun your enemy" stage. Like sauron zerg Julyzerg style to a lesser extent. Getting there is a hell of a trip, but that's what leaves zerg with so much potential. I'll go ahead and say that T and P are a lot more straightforward. They don't have to choose workers or units because the buildings are separate. But this isn't to say that zerg is disadvantaged. They have much at their disposal given the right circumstances, and it's just a matter of getting there. Sure creative, strong players can abuse that and force you to make a choice, but later on zerg can do that just as well. Ultimately it comes down to the zerg player creating a swarmy feel. A lot is left to be done in terms of balancing, but it is in no way 1 sided "mass buff for z pl0x." I think a lot of this is because of the gameplay that we see. With micro-oriented play being the name of the game, zergs just don't excel at that. They excel at macroing it up and being able to take over the whole map. As we transition into that style of play with BOs being invented and players feeling out mechanics, we'll be able to see a lot more power in all three races.
EDIT (will keep adding on as I finish reading through the thread): also, a lot of things are being looked at in a vacuum. hellion harass/kiting is great, but if the opposing player over-commits to doing too much, they'll be behind on macro and the such. I'm sure someone's going to try to (or at least want to) argue "but they have a wall so it doesn't matter" which is wrong. Remember that for it to be effective, you're committing time and effort. This is an unmeasurable resource, but it surely plays one of the biggest factors when it comes to relatively well balanced games.
Also, there seems to be the notion that making any units as zerg early game is like an instant gg. People shouldn't have the mindset that "I have to be able to hold with a queen and some spinecrawlers or it's insta-gg". Remember that they're investing in hellions too. Yeah, they can just use the hellions later, but you can use units later too. If you can successfully deter a Terran harass attempt, I feel that the zerg macro mechanics can allow zergs to bounce back a lot faster. The biggest problem with this argument is whether we view it from the point of view of a struggling player, or if we view it from the pro player. If it's as a pro, then the game either needs to develop more or it's simply something that needs to be taken under balance considerations. If however, it is a struggling player, then it should be a help thread rather than an angry IMBA thread.
The point about response time for zerg is dead on. Making spine crawlers as a reactionary defense is much too hard at this point. I disagree that this should be changed though. Blizzard's maps while decent are much less balanced than player made map pools for the most part. All maps will have imbalances toward certain races, but if we give it some time, surely the map pool will expand to a much more competitive level. It definitely sucks to have to wait, but if we think long term, surely it will be beneficial. Beyond even this, keep in mind that changing one thing in a TvZ matchup will ultimately affect other matchups because you're changing a race and not just a matchup.
|
I'll believe that Terran is immobile when their medic units can't transport them across chasms, or over cliffs and a single Medivac of stimmed troops can't kill a Nexus in under 8 seconds and then high-tail it out of there before reinforcements show up.
I mean, please. Before you had to make Dropships that had no purpose but for drops. Now you get easily protectable medics (army is too busy shooting your army to focus-fire medics in the sky - the only thing you really have to worry about is Feedback - but then you've got a billion other things to use HT energy on) and the ability to drop, basically for free.
|
Dont forget that autorepair on bunkers/buildings etc that wall-off sacrifices SCV's = economy...
|
On August 04 2010 07:17 Bibdy wrote:
I'll believe that Terran is immobile when their medic units can't transport them across chasms, or over cliffs and a single Medivac of stimmed troops can't kill a Nexus in under 8 seconds and then high-tail it out of there before reinforcements show up.
I mean, please. Before you had to make Dropships that had no purpose but for drops. Now you get easily protectable medics (army is too busy shooting your army to focus-fire medics in the sky - the only thing you really have to worry about is Feedback - but then you've got a billion other things to use HT energy on) and the ability to drop, basically for free.
Well, medivacs aren't the only dropships with additional functions
Overlords are early scouts, dropships, and supply. For the cost of 3 medivacs, a zergs gets many no-gas dropships that he built for supplies already.
And warp prisms are also mobile warp sites that gives a lot of harass potential.
And HTs either storm or feedback. A defensve HT can one shot a medivac full of units with quick reaction time.
Terrans are immobile when it comes to their powerhouse units such as tanks, thors, and battlecruiser.
Tanks have to siege/unsiege. Thors are less mobile than colo and ultra, and battlecruiser is very slow. (I know ultra is higher on the tech tree but I'm just using that for comparison b/c of the similar cost). In general compare this to the mutalisk, colossus, ultralisks.
Hellions, reaper, viking/banshee are mobile but they're support units not staple units. Bio is mobile but it's not as mobile as chargetlot and stalkers or speedlings. there's stim, but it's not until medivacs that stim can be used repeatedly. But I don't think anyone was arguing that terran bio is immobile in the first place. The problem though, is that a T can't just fight with bioball, it needs to use its firepower units as well, which significantly reduces the mobility of the whole army.
|
Terran simply don't have an immobility disadvantage like they did in SC.
Reapers, Hellions, Medivacs, Vikings, Ravens and Banshees all scream mobile firepower, and 1-1-1 or some fast tech build can unlock all of them before midgame. It's as if they took the Terran from SC and gave them dragoons, cloakable guardians, flying goliaths and splash damage vultures. When you give one race the best defense, the best harass, the most cost-effective ground unit and the macro mechanic best suited for 1 or 2 base play, you're gonna have balance issues.
|
On August 04 2010 08:51 SharkSpider wrote:
Terran simply don't have an immobility disadvantage like they did in SC.
Reapers, Hellions, Medivacs, Vikings, Ravens and Banshees all scream mobile firepower, and 1-1-1 or some fast tech build can unlock all of them before midgame. It's as if they took the Terran from SC and gave them dragoons, cloakable guardians, flying goliaths and splash damage vultures. When you give one race the best defense, the best harass, the most cost-effective ground unit and the macro mechanic best suited for 1 or 2 base play, you're gonna have balance issues.
We kind of need that stuff since one race can churn out units like crazy and the other can run over us with the right army. You could make a similar arguement for protoss or zerg..
|
um... so back to the ops point... or so I think, I'm not actually sure what his point is anymore, terran is the only race with a defender's advantage. zerg and protoss both profit by being aggressive and taking map control. this makes sense to me. in bw, I was zerg, and if I didn't have map control at basically every point in the game, I lost. I was only D+, but still, if I had map control I had a good chance, and if I didn't have map control, I had no chance. so, here, zerg needs to be highly aggressive, and so do protoss. force terran to use it's defender's advantage, and then he can't do any sort of harass until later in the game. if you've done it right, you should have 2-3 bases to 1 base, and the terran needs to harass or they will get steamrolled by a ton of units pouring in.
and this is why koreans are better. they are just constantly attacking. and unless you can survive by getting only the bare minimum defense, ie, you happen to be idra, you need to take a more aggressive stance, have map control, and attack whenever their army is weak, and not rely on any kind of defenders advantage.
if zerg has map control they should have overlords and creep everywhere, allowing them to see the map, and know when attacks are coming.
if protoss has map control, they should have pylons everywhere and be able to warp in units to defend any drops.
if terran has map control... then the opponent doesn't have map control.
|
On August 04 2010 08:51 SharkSpider wrote:
Terran simply don't have an immobility disadvantage like they did in SC.
Reapers, Hellions, Medivacs, Vikings, Ravens and Banshees all scream mobile firepower, and 1-1-1 or some fast tech build can unlock all of them before midgame. It's as if they took the Terran from SC and gave them dragoons, cloakable guardians, flying goliaths and splash damage vultures. When you give one race the best defense, the best harass, the most cost-effective ground unit and the macro mechanic best suited for 1 or 2 base play, you're gonna have balance issues.
BW terran had vultures, dropships, wraiths, and were still very immobile, its the exact same now with a mech army but you add hellions and reapers (cant call ravens very mobile). Every race has new units...
Terran qq is getting pretty old, multiple pro gamers already stated fixing the tanks overkill would solve pretty much everything, and as long as there is no new patch people continue calling other stuffs OP. In the other thread even supply depots were overpowered....
|
On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win.
This. Good solid post. :D
|
Lol,
SharkSpider pretty much hit the nail on the head.
And you want a similar argument? Let's compare major race changes from SC:BW to SC2
Terran
-Vultures are gone, replaced with Hellions, no more spider mines, but they get a free speed upgrade and splash damage on their main attack, this can be upgraded for an additional 10 dmg vs light.
- Marines gain more HP and faster base firing rate
- Marauders are effectively Dragoons that can't shoot up, but can stim and their shots slow movement
- Medics are now rolled into dropships, cost per medic effectively doubled
- Siege tanks do 20 less damage to armored, but 15 more damage to light, they are also effective when non-sieged now
- Wraiths are gone, have been replaced with Guardians with stealth
- Goliaths are gone, have been replaced with Vikings, which come with a free missle range upgrade, but must transform to change what they are shooting at
- Firebats are gone, have been replaced with Reaper (lol)
- Valkyries are gone
- Thor added, very long range, high damage ground attack, mediocre air attack unless vs mutas (lol)
- Science Vessels are gone, replaced with Raven and a whole new set of abilities, most notably, no defensive matrix but now have a point defense drone.
- Ghosts lost Lockdown, but gained EMP and Snipe
Zerg
- Zerglings are smaller and can moved in a more tightly packed group(this has advantages as well as disadvantages), their attack speed has been slowed
- Hydralisk is now tier 2 and has gained +1 range, they do about 2x the dps and cost 25 min / 25 gas / 1 more supply more than brood war, no speed upgrade available, but they gain a larger creep speed boost than all other units save the queen
- New tier 1.5 unit is the Roach, costs the same as the hydra from BW except for 1 more supply, has 3 range, down from 5 and can't shoot air, can move while burrowed with research.
- Lurkers are gone, replaced with Baneling (lol).
- Mutalisks have actually stayed largely the same as BW, this is a disadvantage in every way as all other air units are stronger in comparison
- Overlords no longer can detect stealth, but can be converted into an overseer which has detection and several scouting-oriented abilities
- Queens from BW are gone, no replacement
- Queens in SC2 are a new unit with many macro oriented abilities. They fight like a Roach that can shoot air like a Hydralisk, moves so slow off creep it is inneffective to use this unit without creep in the immediate area.
- Scourge are gone, no replacement.
- Devourers are gone, replaced with Corruptors, these do better damage by themselves, without the stacking bonus, and therefore are not meant to stack with mutalisks in the same fashion that devourers did. They can cast corruption on any target, increasing damage received by 20%
- Guardians are gone, replaced with Broodlords, these do less dps, but spawn 2 broodlings per attack, if broodlings are taken into consideration, dps is comparable
- Defilers are gone, replaced with Infestors, which have a whole new range of abilities, most notable, no Dark Swarm, but now have a 12 second mind control.
- Ultralisks are significantly larger and now deal splash damage.
Protoss
- All gateway units can warp in at any pylon once warpgates are researched
- Zealots can now charge when their speed upgrade is researched
- Dragoons are gone, replaced with Stalkers which do slightly less damage but can blink
- Sentry added, a T1 caster with many support abilities, most notably Force Field
- Reaver gone, replaced with Colossus which can ignore cliffs and grants vision as an air unit, also attackable as an air unit.
- Immortal added, these take a maximum of 10 damage per hit until shields are gone and do massive damage to armored targets
- High Templar lost illusion, but gained feedback
- Dark Templar now require an extra building which serves no purpose than to allow for the creation of Dark Templar
- Corsairs are gone, replaced with Phoenix which only damages a single target and cannot cast disruption web, but can cast graviton beam and is cost effective vs virtually all other air units
- Scouts are gone, replaced with Void Rays which have a gimmicky charging beam that deals weak damage initially, but good (huge vs armored) damage if allowed to charge.
- Arbiter gone, replaced with Mothership, you can only have one.
- Carriers no longer require research to have 8 interceptors, but research now allows for significantly faster interceptor deployment.
I know I missed tons of stuff, I avoided all building comparisons as much as possible and tried to keep it light. And of course, its a new game so comparisons don't really matter, but there they are.
Comparing the 3 races, Terran is mostly good changes, Zerg is mostly meh, and Protoss is pretty much good changes with a little meh, funny how that's where the complaints line up, no?
|
There is no point in comparing. T is innately strong when it comes to defend. They got the only building armor upgrade (except Protoss Shield Upgrade) and upgrades for defensive structures i.e. Building Armor Plating Upgrade, Neosteel Frame and Hi-sec Auto Tracking. As a result, their offensive capability is limited by a small movement speed of their high-tier units. T also has the best wall-in option with flying buildings and depots that can sink into the ground.
By comparison, Z is weaker in early game base defense, featuring only creep( which may not important, depending on the enemy raiding units), queens (which may not come out fast enough) and possibly bigger drone count and fast zerglings. Z's weakness also comes with the inability to wall-in early game since creep usually does not extend that far. However, Z has the earliest anti-wall-in unit - BANELINGS, which is super effective against wall-in T.
Hence, it is inappropriate to see T's defensive advantage as imba or something. Remember, SC series' success is not from having 3 races mirroring one another, but 3 races that have their distinct strength and weakness. SC is not like other games like C&C series or Warcraft 2 (not 3) that has factions (nearly) mirroring one another.
|
Eh I find zerg in SC2 very lacking, not balance wise but there is just that niggling feeling that something is missing in their gameplay. It's just very wierd playing as Z in SC2. I'm a fairly bad zerg because my BW main is terran, but as terran I have lots of experience against good zergs.
There is this tension that zerg places on you to move out and a shit your pants moment when you realise that it is essential to push out before they get too many sunks down or lurker tech is up. Muta harass just wasn't what it was. And important things seem to have jumped up the tech tier. Overall I'm completely lost when T comes knocking on your door at tier 2 with bio-thors. I'm probably terrible, but whatever. In BW I knew enough to plop down sunks, get a spire + lurker tech up later, 11 mutas and save the day.
|
I believe most of us do not want terran nerfed (overly) but people would like to see zerg buffed to be somewhat easier to defend with early game. xD
Its funny that they stated that lurker was removed because More does not equal better yet terran has both siege, thor and marauder as anti armored.. Would lurker morph from roach deter marine marauder or reapers or early pushes.
|
so many ppl talking out of their asses. Banelings being cost effective in killing walls? Rofl. No. Just no. theres a reason why its called an allin. it wrecks ur economy and is definately not cheap.
Anyways i stopped playing zerg. It is a incomplete race. It desperately needs a siege unit, or a siege breaker unit that isnt tier 4. Roaches used to fill this role cos of how imba they were but now you cant break a wallin without half the map and 6 supply units. Like wtf i need hive tech to get an antiarmoured unit thats fucking melee? Collossus have range 9, tanks have stupid far range, immortals have shields and marauders are walking bunkers with stim. now theres a cost effective unit for breaking walls. Too bad its terran.
Need lurker.
|
i enjoy the highly diversity of the three races... and the OP basically just described it between Terran and Zerg. Zerg armies are meant to be expendable, strength in numbers, fast, and able to expand quicker... while on the other hand the terran is more of a lock down race, slow to expand but able to do so defensively and strongly. if you take away terrans ability to lock down their base... you may as well just take just take away the diversity of the whole game. that's how they are meant to be, the three races are so diverse in SC and SC2 and it's something i really feel that they did a great job doing.
|
On August 01 2010 01:54 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +He has a point though, Terrans can also rant about how strong Zerg is as well. except that its precieved as either trolling or player fault. Terrans have nothing to whine about. Terran vs X games are all in the hands of the terran to loose and not the other way and anyone arguing otherwise are just that. Bad players. Yea, there is something called mule and calldown supply that limits and boosts your mineral harvesting or spending capability. they also allow you to cut scvs and still remain economically sound.
that is definitely not true. as has been shown in many replays and by many casters (makh), mules keep a terran player even in economy, they do not push him ahead
|
Cost of 3 siege tanks: 450/375
Cost of +1 attack upgrade: 100/100
Ability to kill 1200 minerals worth of zealots in 1 shot: Priceless
A lot of issues I think would be resolved with ZvT or PvT if the minimum range was increased - currently you can have a ball of 5 siege tanks clustered together and even if you close the gap on one siege tank, the other 4 can still hit your units with minimal friendly fire damage - essentially eliminating the minimum range balance factor.
I would say increase the minimum range to 3 or maybe 4, just enough that if you're on top of a ball of siege tanks, they're helpless alone.
|
On August 04 2010 17:40 Lancette wrote:
There is no point in comparing. T is innately strong when it comes to defend. They got the only building armor upgrade (except Protoss Shield Upgrade) and upgrades for defensive structures i.e. Building Armor Plating Upgrade, Neosteel Frame and Hi-sec Auto Tracking. As a result, their offensive capability is limited by a small movement speed of their high-tier units. T also has the best wall-in option with flying buildings and depots that can sink into the ground.
By comparison, Z is weaker in early game base defense, featuring only creep( which may not important, depending on the enemy raiding units), queens (which may not come out fast enough) and possibly bigger drone count and fast zerglings. Z's weakness also comes with the inability to wall-in early game since creep usually does not extend that far. However, Z has the earliest anti-wall-in unit - BANELINGS, which is super effective against wall-in T.
Hence, it is inappropriate to see T's defensive advantage as imba or something. Remember, SC series' success is not from having 3 races mirroring one another, but 3 races that have their distinct strength and weakness. SC is not like other games like C&C series or Warcraft 2 (not 3) that has factions (nearly) mirroring one another.
The problem is Terran are now incredibly mobile compared to their previous incarnation and have a ton of strong harassment possibilities. Having double the bases of a Terran in BW and still losing was entirely possible.
In SC2, you basically can't expand unless the Terran LETS you. PvT is a literal nightmare if you want to plan for the mid-game. Finding the right moment to expand is painful. I want to suckerpunch every damn Terran that says you just have to expand when you see 1/1/1. That build alone can construct absolutely deadly timing pushes. Fact is, you cannot safely expand until you know exactly what the Terran is doing, and that takes time to get a Hallucination, Void Ray or Observer out there. If he's making a Command Center, great! Expand! Until then, don't even consider it. If you expand without that knowledge, 90% of the time some puny little MM blob will wipe the floor with you.
So, they have this massive defensive advantage, while at the same time, are incredibly mobile, capable of very strong harass and you can't do better than keep an equal number of expansions with them at best. If you want to expand earlier, you take a HUUUUUUUGE gamble.
The one and only disadvantage I see Terrans have now is reinforcements. You lose your army? You probably lose the game, because you can't build reinforcements as quickly as Zerg or Protoss can. But then, those reinforcements are still very strong. Even a single Siege Tank will probably hold off whatever he's got left after the big battle. And when you're talking about a really high level where both players are always at a very low stockpile of cash, the quick reinforcements advantage gets diluted (can't pump 10 Zealots simultaneously when you've only got 100 minerals in the bank).
|
On August 04 2010 05:24 Doormat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2010 04:38 MforWW wrote:On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win. No race can power drones like zerg? lmao that's such BS. Go ahead and watch some replays of good players. The gatherer count for each side is usually even if the players are evenly matched. This is because zerg actually has to use their larva to make units as well, and every time they make a building, the drone is permanently lost. do you know how expensive a spine crawler actually is in terms of total economic cost? the face value (100 min.) plus the drone (50 min.) 1 larva (hard to place a number on, but trust me, larva are valuable) and the total minerals not collected during the time it takes to hatch the replacement drone. (the cost of the replacement drone is not counted, because that would be double-counting... fyi for all the not economically inclined out there). that considered, i'd say the true cost is at least 200 min. and one can't even take down 2 marauders. hence, spine crawlers generally aren't worth it unless combined with units that'll tank for it or if you're using them to hold off hellions while you tech (thus saving money by not needing to invest in extra queens/roaches). compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke. /but just b/c defense isn't balanced doesn't mean the meta game isn't balanced. //to continue on my tangent, there were so many skills in brood war that were straight up imbalanced... but because all races had imbalances it was fair. for example, psi storm was ridiculously OP... but so was plague. Blizzard decided to make all the units in SC2 even by nerfing them to death until they all suck equally. You have quite clearly missed the point. Given no pressure, Zerg can power drones unlike any other race. Thats why the mechanic for defense has to include a reasonable amount of larva and/or minerals or else there is an unbalance. You can argue this should be tweaked but to argue it is a flaw is wrong in my opinion.
Yea but the fact is that Zerg "Defense" at the moment is too weak even really early on. Two marauders can easily take down a Spine Crawler, and how hard is it to make Two marauders? But making Marauders is not the point.
Yes the Zerg can power drones if left unchecked, but who's going to leave them unchecked? Any other race CAN power workers too (Chrono Boost; Don't act like the Mule doesn't exist) and yet put up a very strong defense compared to the Zerg ( Force Field, Walling Off, Repair, Siege Tanks, Immortals.)
I'm not crying for changes to Terran or Protoss but Zerg.
|
On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
I feel Terran has an inherent advantage over the two races in this aspect.
........So in summary zerg went economical and terran went for a harass opening. The amount of damage terran does is almost solely dependent on how aggressive he wants to be.
Terran is supposed to have an inherent defensive advantage, have you ever seen what 12 lings do to marines not behind a bunker?
For the second issue, if you go for a fast expand, and the terran player punishes you with a timed harrass, that is what is supposed to happen, if there was no way to punish the fast expand, zerg would win every conflict.
If you are having trouble with a terran player, build a sizeable force to keep him contained with your force in the middle of the map and lings near his base waiting to backstab if he leaves, take enough expansions to out produce him, and then either wait for him to move out or force a way into his back door with a nydus worm or an overlord drop, you can also harrass them with mutas.
|
On August 04 2010 17:40 Lancette wrote:
There is no point in comparing. T is innately strong when it comes to defend. They got the only building armor upgrade (except Protoss Shield Upgrade) and upgrades for defensive structures i.e. Building Armor Plating Upgrade, Neosteel Frame and Hi-sec Auto Tracking. As a result, their offensive capability is limited by a small movement speed of their high-tier units. T also has the best wall-in option with flying buildings and depots that can sink into the ground.
By comparison, Z is weaker in early game base defense, featuring only creep( which may not important, depending on the enemy raiding units), queens (which may not come out fast enough) and possibly bigger drone count and fast zerglings. Z's weakness also comes with the inability to wall-in early game since creep usually does not extend that far. However, Z has the earliest anti-wall-in unit - BANELINGS, which is super effective against wall-in T.
Hence, it is inappropriate to see T's defensive advantage as imba or something. Remember, SC series' success is not from having 3 races mirroring one another, but 3 races that have their distinct strength and weakness. SC is not like other games like C&C series or Warcraft 2 (not 3) that has factions (nearly) mirroring one another.
Basically Zerg got no way of harassing before lair tech + spire or OL speed + drop research. Consider that Zerg must expand to keep up aswell, the tech to harass gets out too late to really affect the game.
Make the lair research time a bit lower and lower research cost on alot of zerg stuff like OL speed and OL drop. Roaches should move after burrorw is researched. Maybe move OL speed so that it can be researched earlier
If this makes Zerg too good, then nerf the units, but keep the options!
|
On August 05 2010 04:28 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
I feel Terran has an inherent advantage over the two races in this aspect.
........So in summary zerg went economical and terran went for a harass opening. The amount of damage terran does is almost solely dependent on how aggressive he wants to be.
Terran is supposed to have an inherent defensive advantage, have you ever seen what 12 lings do to marines not behind a bunker? For the second issue, if you go for a fast expand, and the terran player punishes you with a timed harrass, that is what is supposed to happen, if there was no way to punish the fast expand, zerg would win every conflict. If you are having trouble with a terran player, build a sizeable force to keep him contained with your force in the middle of the map and lings near his base waiting to backstab if he leaves, take enough expansions to out produce him, and then either wait for him to move out or force a way into his back door with a nydus worm or an overlord drop, you can also harrass them with mutas.
But why do Terran have the aggressive advantage aswell? Early hellion harass gives map control and does very good economy damage. You CANT contain a Terran player effectively, except if he forgot to build towers/marines/thor after waiting a couple minutes on a lair+spire+mutas to pop.
ZvP is a complete different story. Z can have map control and attack when P army leaves because P cant block the ramp and doesnt roast your units for lunch.
A T ramp is completely blocked, making it nearly impossible to punish T with speedlings/etc. 1 damn tank and a few scvs and it is nearly impossible to break in without committing the whole army.
Why do people keep mentioning Nydus worm/network? Do you believe most Zerg players stopped using it because it is so damn good? Or that the Zerg players are just so stupid?
|
ok ive read enough to know this is just about angry zergs who macro too many drones in the beginning and have them get fried because they cant position an ovie around the Ts base and see them roll on out down the ramp. speedlings will get out FIRST before critical mass of hellions (2-3) if u go one gas and tech it when u get 100 gas...hellions cant kite speedlings, wtf are any of u talking about. that said, thats that. when u get lair u have mutas + creep which makes the zerg army extremely mobile against the overwhelmingly favored mech army..Ts army takes 5345345435 to go anywhere, even if its bio..if u have ovies around the map (like u should) u can negate the drops aspect of the mobility with a few mutas..i know im not loading up 10k worth of minerals in 2 medvacs only to have them raped by a few mutas on the way..zerg have this inherent advantage many of u forgot called free scouts, and use them like big brother. yes, terran can repair and wall off..however in doing so, the terran limits himself to one base and requires one large strong push that zerg have ample time to prepare for since they should be on 3 bases when it comes rolling out..all of this is common sense. terrans already got nerfed for TvZ, and now even in day 9s last tourney, no terran in top slots made it. zerg race in sc2 have ridiculous potential..most are just too bad to utilize it. so i suggest u get off TL and go practice.
|
On August 05 2010 05:41 CrY. wrote:
ok ive read enough to know this is just about angry zergs who macro too many drones in the beginning and have them get fried because they cant position an ovie around the Ts base and see them roll on out down the ramp. speedlings will get out FIRST before critical mass of hellions (2-3) if u go one gas and tech it when u get 100 gas...hellions cant kite speedlings, wtf are any of u talking about. that said, thats that. when u get lair u have mutas + creep which makes the zerg army extremely mobile against the overwhelmingly favored mech army..Ts army takes 5345345435 to go anywhere, even if its bio..if u have ovies around the map (like u should) u can negate the drops aspect of the mobility with a few mutas..i know im not loading up 10k worth of minerals in 2 medvacs only to have them raped by a few mutas on the way..zerg have this inherent advantage many of u forgot called free scouts, and use them like big brother. yes, terran can repair and wall off..however in doing so, the terran limits himself to one base and requires one large strong push that zerg have ample time to prepare for since they should be on 3 bases when it comes rolling out..all of this is common sense. terrans already got nerfed for TvZ, and now even in day 9s last tourney, no terran in top slots made it. zerg race in sc2 have ridiculous potential..most are just too bad to utilize it. so i suggest u get off TL and go practice.
This reads like you're playing against many AI zergs. All the things you suggest have a huge cost.
Ts army takes 5345345435 to go anywhere, even if its bio..if u have ovies around the map (like u should) u can negate the drops aspect of the mobility with a few mutas..
T's Bio army is plenty more mobile than any Z army. If I have ovies around the map I lose them when you get your first viking - which is why I *shouldn't*. 'A few mutas' is like 600 gas that the T can negate for a few hundred minerals and no gas. It's not surprising why Z hates to go muta against T - it's an enormous investment that doesn't force the T to change his gameplan.
zerg have this inherent advantage many of u forgot called free scouts, and use them like big brother.
Really? I must have missed that unit, all I have is the 100 mineral unit that takes a larvae and a 100/100 upgrade.
yes, terran can repair and wall off..however in doing so, the terran limits himself to one base and requires one large strong push that zerg have ample time to prepare for since they should be on 3 bases when it comes rolling out
Unless T decided to do any harassment (which he can without committing any significant resources), or it's on a map that lets him take his second and just move his wall (blistering sands, LT, etc).
..all of this is common sense. terrans already got nerfed for TvZ
Hold on, I've been playing since beta began...
Marines got a build time decrease, stim made cheaper, weapon/armor upgrades build time decrease
Marauders got a tech lab cost decrease, stim made cheaper, conc shells made to upgrade then made cheaper
Tanks got a huge buff with a change in the nature of splash, then a meaningless damage nerf (only changed how many hits it takes to kill ultras)
Thor got a big buff with AOE AA
Missile turrets got a damage buff
Hellions got preigniter buff
Vikings cost decrease
Raven HSM research buff
Banshee cloak research buff
BC build time buff
Ghost's EMP radius nerfed (only unit to not get buffed o/t medivac)
And Zerg?
Roach armor, supply, regen, upgrade nerf
Hydra HP, DPS nerf
Baneling damage buff (15+20 -> 20+15, whee)
Infestor NP nerf, nerf, buff, buff revert and nerf, FS buff,
Creep tumor nerf =\
Broodlord HP nerf
Corruptor corruption nerf
Ultralisk hp nerf, dmg nerf, splash dmg nerf, dmg vs armored buff, hp buff, speed buff. Overall probably a buff.
Queen speed nerf
That everything I think? T also had a few building costs nerfed (ghost academy, factory)..
so how did the TvZ get worse?
zerg race in sc2 have ridiculous potential..most are just too bad to utilize it. so i suggest u get off TL and go practice
Ah, yeah, you're right. ALL zerg players are bad and all T/P players are just plain better. That must be it, it couldn't possibly be a trend indicative of the game state.
|
On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
\These four important aspects are repair, salvageable bunkers, walls and mass ranged units.
Transfusion? Zerg and Toss can't wall? And you mean mass ranged unit.
|
On August 05 2010 06:53 Competent wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
\These four important aspects are repair, salvageable bunkers, walls and mass ranged units. Transfusion? Zerg and Toss can't wall? And you mean mass ranged unit.
Lolwut?
Every terran unit is ranged.
|
On August 04 2010 17:21 Jermstuddog wrote:
Protoss
- All gateway units can warp in at any pylon once warpgates are researched
- Zealots can now charge when their speed upgrade is researched
- Dragoons are gone, replaced with Stalkers which do slightly less damage but can blink
- Sentry added, a T1 caster with many support abilities, most notably Force Field
- Reaver gone, replaced with Colossus which can ignore cliffs and grants vision as an air unit, also attackable as an air unit.
- Immortal added, these take a maximum of 10 damage per hit until shields are gone and do massive damage to armored targets
- High Templar lost illusion, but gained feedback
- Dark Templar now require an extra building which serves no purpose than to allow for the creation of Dark Templar
- Corsairs are gone, replaced with Phoenix which only damages a single target and cannot cast disruption web, but can cast graviton beam and is cost effective vs virtually all other air units
- Scouts are gone, replaced with Void Rays which have a gimmicky charging beam that deals weak damage initially, but good (huge vs armored) damage if allowed to charge.
- Arbiter gone, replaced with Mothership, you can only have one.
- Carriers no longer require research to have 8 interceptors, but research now allows for significantly faster interceptor deployment.
A few of the things you missed:
-Stalkers lost 20 HP on the Dragoons. Also, 6 less damage to armored targets (large units) is pretty substantial. They also move faster than Dragoons, but all things considered, I'd rather have the 20 more HP and 6 more damage than the move speed and blink.
-Zealot charge upgrade increases base Zealot move speed by noticeably less than the BW upgrade.
-Colossus requires a 200/200 upgrade to generally be useful against Zerg and Terran, because otherwise it has the same range as the units it's meant to counter and gets focus fired easily.
-Phoenix will lose to both Corruptors and Vikings with the same gas cost invested (yes, they beat a viking 1:1, but Vikings cost 3/4 the gas, let's not even get into the marines that can support the Viking's superior range)
-Carrier lost 2 armor. Interceptor damage went up, but is spread over two hits. This is both a pro and a con, depending on the target's armor.
|
On August 05 2010 08:05 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 17:21 Jermstuddog wrote:
Protoss
- All gateway units can warp in at any pylon once warpgates are researched
- Zealots can now charge when their speed upgrade is researched
- Dragoons are gone, replaced with Stalkers which do slightly less damage but can blink
- Sentry added, a T1 caster with many support abilities, most notably Force Field
- Reaver gone, replaced with Colossus which can ignore cliffs and grants vision as an air unit, also attackable as an air unit.
- Immortal added, these take a maximum of 10 damage per hit until shields are gone and do massive damage to armored targets
- High Templar lost illusion, but gained feedback
- Dark Templar now require an extra building which serves no purpose than to allow for the creation of Dark Templar
- Corsairs are gone, replaced with Phoenix which only damages a single target and cannot cast disruption web, but can cast graviton beam and is cost effective vs virtually all other air units
- Scouts are gone, replaced with Void Rays which have a gimmicky charging beam that deals weak damage initially, but good (huge vs armored) damage if allowed to charge.
- Arbiter gone, replaced with Mothership, you can only have one.
- Carriers no longer require research to have 8 interceptors, but research now allows for significantly faster interceptor deployment.
A few of the things you missed: -Stalkers lost 20 HP on the Dragoons. Also, 6 less damage to armored targets (large units) is pretty substantial. They also move faster than Dragoons, but all things considered, I'd rather have the 20 more HP and 6 more damage than the move speed and blink. -Zealot charge upgrade increases base Zealot move speed by noticeably less than the BW upgrade. -Colossus requires a 200/200 upgrade to generally be useful against Zerg and Terran, because otherwise it has the same range as the units it's meant to counter and gets focus fired easily. -Phoenix will lose to both Corruptors and Vikings with the same gas cost invested (yes, they beat a viking 1:1, but Vikings cost 3/4 the gas, let's not even get into the marines that can support the Viking's superior range) -Carrier lost 2 armor. Interceptor damage went up, but is spread over two hits. This is both a pro and a con, depending on the target's armor.
All valid points and still supports the +1/-1 feel of protoss when comparing the two games. If my list really mattered, I would totally update it
I also never mentioned archons and their complete lack of awesome in SC2.
|
So, Bio is NEVER more mobile than Zerg. Doesn't matter if they use stim. Perhaps if they loaded all their units into medivacs, but that's just asking to be shot down. Super risky. Regardless, Bio is super super weak and easy for zerg to kill. Muta baneling zergling anyone? Hell, Roach Hydra isn't bad against bio. Doesn't really matter. And has nothing to do with a defender's advantage. Like all this talk of harass could easily be negated by good maps.
|
On August 05 2010 17:28 MythicalMage wrote:
So, Bio is NEVER more mobile than Zerg. Doesn't matter if they use stim. Perhaps if they loaded all their units into medivacs, but that's just asking to be shot down. Super risky. Regardless, Bio is super super weak and easy for zerg to kill. Muta baneling zergling anyone? Hell, Roach Hydra isn't bad against bio. Doesn't really matter. And has nothing to do with a defender's advantage. Like all this talk of harass could easily be negated by good maps.
Good points, made here (just a couple minor disagreements). Bio as a whole is less mobile than zerg and to have comparable speed you need to sacrifice health/resources through stim, at which point, they're quite similar. However, they are not as limited in the fact that it can be used anywhere. The cost is probably greater overall however until you get a decent number of medivacs, but it is more flexible IMO. With zerg, you get similar results with spread creep, but that usually takes a while. That's why professionals and day[9] (among other good commentators) agree that "creep spreading is the hallmark of a good zerg player." Medivacs are risky, but the rewards are so worth it if the zerg doesn't place ovies around their base. Earlier someone argued that ovies get shot down too easily by vikings. Very true, but then again at that point, overlords should mostly just be placed in strategic places, used for quick sacrificial scouting, or just around your base. Bio can be extremely fragile early game, but once you hit that critical mass, things drop like flies. At that point, zerg has to get up banelings to counter it. Zerglings aren't quite as effective due to improved AI (balling vs. lining up) and tanking units just don't come as easily. Mutas don't have the same feel and aren't as easily microable compared to their predecessors. Ultimately, I would say that T is a bit stronger than I'd like, but not enough to warrant mass IMBA/QQ threads. Let the map pool build and chances our we'll shift towards more macro oriented play → zergs having an easier time. Right now, the difference between surviving and raping is very thin. I haven't seen many games where the zerg won by a hair; whenever they win, usually they managed to get an economic advantage and ride that too the end. Getting to that point is like walking the gauntlet, especially on maps like metalopolis, but what it all boils down to is we need a better map pool.
|
Bring back the Lurker!
Don't know if it will actually help with breaking terran turtles, but I felt it needed to be said regardless.
|
On August 05 2010 17:20 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 08:05 Kyadytim wrote:On August 04 2010 17:21 Jermstuddog wrote:
Protoss
- All gateway units can warp in at any pylon once warpgates are researched
- Zealots can now charge when their speed upgrade is researched
- Dragoons are gone, replaced with Stalkers which do slightly less damage but can blink
- Sentry added, a T1 caster with many support abilities, most notably Force Field
- Reaver gone, replaced with Colossus which can ignore cliffs and grants vision as an air unit, also attackable as an air unit.
- Immortal added, these take a maximum of 10 damage per hit until shields are gone and do massive damage to armored targets
- High Templar lost illusion, but gained feedback
- Dark Templar now require an extra building which serves no purpose than to allow for the creation of Dark Templar
- Corsairs are gone, replaced with Phoenix which only damages a single target and cannot cast disruption web, but can cast graviton beam and is cost effective vs virtually all other air units
- Scouts are gone, replaced with Void Rays which have a gimmicky charging beam that deals weak damage initially, but good (huge vs armored) damage if allowed to charge.
- Arbiter gone, replaced with Mothership, you can only have one.
- Carriers no longer require research to have 8 interceptors, but research now allows for significantly faster interceptor deployment.
A few of the things you missed: -Stalkers lost 20 HP on the Dragoons. Also, 6 less damage to armored targets (large units) is pretty substantial. They also move faster than Dragoons, but all things considered, I'd rather have the 20 more HP and 6 more damage than the move speed and blink. -Zealot charge upgrade increases base Zealot move speed by noticeably less than the BW upgrade. -Colossus requires a 200/200 upgrade to generally be useful against Zerg and Terran, because otherwise it has the same range as the units it's meant to counter and gets focus fired easily. -Phoenix will lose to both Corruptors and Vikings with the same gas cost invested (yes, they beat a viking 1:1, but Vikings cost 3/4 the gas, let's not even get into the marines that can support the Viking's superior range) -Carrier lost 2 armor. Interceptor damage went up, but is spread over two hits. This is both a pro and a con, depending on the target's armor. All valid points and still supports the +1/-1 feel of protoss when comparing the two games. If my list really mattered, I would totally update it I also never mentioned archons and their complete lack of awesome in SC2.
Hey! Archons are useful! ... wait EMP ... shit.
|
On August 06 2010 13:28 MrBarryObama wrote:
Bring back the Lurker!
This. Give Zerg a way to defend so they can get offensive much easier. The current Zerg is simply dumb, and with the passing of time, T and P players will just learn how to abuse zerg's early weaknesses even more.
Keep in mind that at the start of the Beta, 14 pool 15 hatch was considered a safe build, but as of late it is considered more and more risky to fast expand...
|
ehh, dont really get why this is debatable, isnt always the case even since sc1 that terran defense>all others... i mean unless people think that the 200/200 power of terran is now not the most powerful, i think the games balance regarding terran defense is in check. usually my games end b4 reaching the maxed population, but has anyone here come across a scenario when a terran maxed army fails to win? i think the whole mu of tvz revolves around reaching a maxed army while winning battles of cost efficiency and using that advantage to push into the main of the zerg base regardless of how fast they can rebuild , because when left alone its suicide to let a zerg drone up where u will clearly lose
|
On July 31 2010 12:36 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 12:01 MythicalMage wrote:
Sure it's a different game, but defending as terran is the same, and it's similar for zerg. Spine crawlers are still pretty good AND you have the queen now AND you can produce more zerglings at a time thanks to that queen. I have thought of this for quite some time, and you are focusing on the wrong issue, as is the OP. This isn't a "defenders advantage" problem. The offending unit here is the hellion, and it is only noticable in TvZ due to the lack of zerg defense, but lack of defense from zerg is fine for every other unit out there. Compare the hellion to the vulture. What is the most notable difference between your first hellion and your first vulture? Is it the AoE line damage? No, while this is a very nice feature of the hellion, it is hardly noticable when the zerg player has a whole 6 zerglings out. Is it the lack of spider mines? No, spider mines could never be researched, you gotta get the speed upgrade first... oh wait... speed upgrade... Hellions come out as fast as speed lings, and you get them faster than zerg can feasibly get speed for his lings...
Think what a 50/50 50 sec speed upgrade from the tech lab would do to early game hellion harass in TvZ. You either have to pick between 2 mildly quick units or 1 super quick OP early harasser... Hellion harass in its current state is essentially free damage to the Zerg players economy. Yes it takes good micro, yes you have to practice it, no I can't do anything nearly as effective as walling off in comparison, and that sucks... Nerf free hellion speed, problem solved. Compare this to BW vulture harass for 2 seconds and you can easily see how much the free speed breaks everything in this MU. As far as I'm concerned, all the mech complaints would cease to be reasonable if I didn't have to spend 1k minerals defending against 400 min worth of hellions just to get crushed by marauders/thor 4 min later.
It seems that lately zergs have been getting gas before spawning pool to research zergling speed the second the spawning pool finishes.. Just saying it's not IMPOSSIBLE and seems to be common for super fast ling speed.
(At least the zergs I have played)
|
On August 08 2010 08:26 Eben wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 12:36 Jermstuddog wrote:On July 31 2010 12:01 MythicalMage wrote:
Sure it's a different game, but defending as terran is the same, and it's similar for zerg. Spine crawlers are still pretty good AND you have the queen now AND you can produce more zerglings at a time thanks to that queen. I have thought of this for quite some time, and you are focusing on the wrong issue, as is the OP. This isn't a "defenders advantage" problem. The offending unit here is the hellion, and it is only noticable in TvZ due to the lack of zerg defense, but lack of defense from zerg is fine for every other unit out there. Compare the hellion to the vulture. What is the most notable difference between your first hellion and your first vulture? Is it the AoE line damage? No, while this is a very nice feature of the hellion, it is hardly noticable when the zerg player has a whole 6 zerglings out. Is it the lack of spider mines? No, spider mines could never be researched, you gotta get the speed upgrade first... oh wait... speed upgrade... Hellions come out as fast as speed lings, and you get them faster than zerg can feasibly get speed for his lings...
Think what a 50/50 50 sec speed upgrade from the tech lab would do to early game hellion harass in TvZ. You either have to pick between 2 mildly quick units or 1 super quick OP early harasser... Hellion harass in its current state is essentially free damage to the Zerg players economy. Yes it takes good micro, yes you have to practice it, no I can't do anything nearly as effective as walling off in comparison, and that sucks... Nerf free hellion speed, problem solved. Compare this to BW vulture harass for 2 seconds and you can easily see how much the free speed breaks everything in this MU. As far as I'm concerned, all the mech complaints would cease to be reasonable if I didn't have to spend 1k minerals defending against 400 min worth of hellions just to get crushed by marauders/thor 4 min later. It seems that lately zergs have been getting gas before spawning pool to research zergling speed the second the spawning pool finishes.. Just saying it's not IMPOSSIBLE and seems to be common for super fast ling speed. (At least the zergs I have played)
If the terran player gets gas before barracks, which is also quite common, he can get his factory immediately and pop out 2 hellions ~15 seconds before speed is finished for zerglings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
