I just wanted to discuss the changes with nukes from good old Broodwar to SC2, and the implications of those changes. This is focused on whether using nukes is a viable strategy, and how they can be used.
THIS IS NOT A DISCUSSION ABOUT BALANCE. If you think nukes are OP, go make your own thread!
Axillary Attachment Mechanic: Remember, nuclear missiles had to be built in a nuclear silo attached to a command center. This added extra build time, and temporarily halted SCV production. Making more than one silo can get very awkward: Mass command centers with silos is very expensive and takes forever.
--Starcraft Wings of Liberty-- Nuclear Missile Cost: 100 , 100 , zero supply
Building Mechanic: One nuke per ghost academy. Since nukes no longer have to be attached to command centers, they can easily be hidden around the map and are much faster to build.
What Does This Mean? Blizzard obviously wants it to be easier to get nukes in SC2. They don't take nearly as long anymore,and don't take up supply. Since they do not take up any supply, a Terran player can get a 200/200army and then add a few nukes without weakening his army.
Making nukes is now a viable strategy. We saw TLO effectively use nukes against BratOK:
skip to 10:55
We saw that nukes can be used in TvT to break an entrenched position: BratOK was forced to unsiege and fall back
Because TLO's ghost was protected by tanks, and his ghost was out of range of BratOK's tanks, there was nothing that BratOK could do. Due to their low cost and smaller tech path, nukes are now a viable way to break siege lines (or any entrenched positions!) Discuss: What other strategies or tactics can utilize nukes?
I find this really interesting. The most important aspect of this is that you can get a 200/200 army, than just mass up nukes. That's really interesting to me. I mean, its like the old "OVerseer mass infested terran thing" but might be actually viable.
I really love nukes, and try to find ways to integrate them into my play. It always feels like an afterthought tho, never something I use in the "heat of the moment", like TLO can.
One thing I do enjoy doing is nuking a cluster of supply depots if my opponent is foolish enough to make a bunch of them too close to each other.
An idea I've had is doing a relatively early nuke in TvT by emping the enemy CC, then nuking the depots or addons.
I've used a Nuke in a TvT to prevent reinforcements. Had a ghost call down a nuke on a ramp to stop him from entering back into his own base. Not sure if the guy saw the nuke or simply didn;t try and come back but it was a cheap cost all things considered for what may have happened
The best time to use nukes is in a big macro game, small games they aren't really needed, unless breaking a siege line obv.. but the best way to make the most of nukes is to drop them in pairs, so you will need double ghost academies. A drop at 2 points at once will be very hard to deal with, and also drop on into the middle of nowhere, this will screw with your enemies head as he scrambles around to find it.
Stalife is a player who makes extensive use of nukes in semi important games and practice games etc. I do feel though that offensive nukes are very situational, and there are many times ive seen stalife's nukes not kill anything at all. I definetely saw the power of Nukes in TvT on steppes of war though due to the game between TLO and Nada, and the games posted above.
On September 03 2010 13:00 Phayze wrote: Stalife is a player who makes extensive use of nukes in semi important games and practice games etc. I do feel though that offensive nukes are very situational, and there are many times ive seen stalife's nukes not kill anything at all. I definetely saw the power of Nukes in TvT on steppes of war though due to the game between TLO and Nada, and the games posted above.
do you have links to any VODs? That would be sweet
Never thought about emping a CC. I will try that next time to prevent scans :D I normally go nuke in 4v4. It works well to prevent the opponents expanding since on aot of 4v4 maps the expansions are in all directions. I normally get 2 ghost academies in 4v4 for double nukes. They also never think that its "their" army that is being nuked since its 4 players on the team so they dont move them very often. I havnt tried much in 1v1 to nuke, I find that if I do tech ghosts/nuke then I am behind in the army, except when its against protoss then its always a good idea to go ghosts.
On September 03 2010 12:56 Supersrsbnz wrote: The best time to use nukes is in a big macro game, small games they aren't really needed, unless breaking a siege line obv.. but the best way to make the most of nukes is to drop them in pairs, so you will need double ghost academies. A drop at 2 points at once will be very hard to deal with, and also drop on into the middle of nowhere, this will screw with your enemies head as he scrambles around to find it.
The main thing is that in SC2 ghosts are viable in about every match-up. So if you build ghosts you might as well get nukes late game to harass expansions and/or break up fortified positions.
I got the "Unbreakable" Achievement with a ghost nuking 1 expansion than wandering of to another and killing all workers there. 42 kills :D
I find nuke so sexy , I love to use them in 4v4 (with proxyed academy) , and nuking all 4 bases at the same time. It's funny to see ppl spamming scans all over the place to find them.
I just landed a nuke offensively with success today. I got my first nuke on four pylons and damaged some voidray passing by. Then my second nuke earn me the achievement. My nuke was aimed slightly outside their mineral line so no damage to his workers but at several key pylons. His observer saw the ghost at the last moment and around 20 stalkers came and when they started to shoot my ghost. Nuke landed. It is lol. But nuke will be good to use in pairs or more and immediate start re arm to call in the second wave asap
Just another cool thing that Terran has and noone else has.
Not at all overpowered in itself, it just bugs me that T has all these cool toys and the swarm has jack shit. Infested terran or contaminate doesnt really compare in coolness factor.
The biggest differences between BW nukes and SC2 nukes are the speed at which you can get nukes in SC2, the lack of supply requirement, and that ghosts are actually useful units now.
100/100 is relatively cheap considering the amount of effort required and the possible damage caused. You can cloak a ghost and select your target. Thats the extent of the APM required to use a nuke. After that, you can focus completely on your main army's micro. The opponent, on the other hand, has to worry about his front door/main army (if you decide to attack) while having to look for where the nuke is. The psychological effect is well worth the 100/100 imo, even if you dont manage to do the damage you intended. If you do manage to land the nuke on 25 probes or 6 pylons or whatever you were targeting, thats even better.
Nukes can definately have their uses, in TvT they break tank lines though it's pretty rare for them to be really worth it I think. The ghost and nuke cost you a fair bit of gas (150 ghost, 50 ghost aca. 100 nuke = 300) which could also be 4 more vikings. Sometimes it's really critical to push up a tank line though and there are also several situations where it's quite difficult for the tanks to really run in time, take for example the tanks that are often positioned at the watchtowers in maps like blistering sands and metalopolis. A nuke at the top or mid of the ramp is very hard to avoid for tanks on top then because they will have to run through the nuke zone to get out of the way.
In PvT nukes can have their uses as well actually. You have ghosts anyway so getting a single tactical nuke isn't too bad. In MMM vs zealot/stalker/temp the terran usually gets to decide where the battle's are happening because he can run easily while the protoss has more difficulty doing so. Putting a nuke under a protoss army at the same time you engage can be pretty good, he can't really run into in time and if he runs he loses a lot of units to concussive shell shenanigans, worth more then the nuke basically and you can just cancel afterwards.
On September 03 2010 18:00 Ghad wrote: Just another cool thing that Terran has and noone else has.
Not at all overpowered in itself, it just bugs me that T has all these cool toys and the swarm has jack shit. Infested terran or contaminate doesnt really compare in coolness factor.
WTF, seriously.
I love trying to find ways for underused things to work and every race has some pretty nifty shit you can experiment with that are far from used enough:
Especially Hallucination has soooo much potential, it deserves an own discussion threat really. And Nydus Network is nearly the equivalent for a zerg nuke if used correctly. Even has the same costs.
On September 03 2010 18:00 Ghad wrote: Just another cool thing that Terran has and noone else has.
Not at all overpowered in itself, it just bugs me that T has all these cool toys and the swarm has jack shit. Infested terran or contaminate doesnt really compare in coolness factor.
WTF, seriously.
I love trying to find ways for underused things to work and every race has some pretty nifty shit you can experiment with that are far from used enough:
Those are all useful tools, but they are marginal for a reason. Suggesting that balance issues would be solved if only people were more willing to use unorthodox tools is usually done by annoying trolls who haven't done any thinking on game balance.
On September 03 2010 18:00 Ghad wrote: Just another cool thing that Terran has and noone else has.
Not at all overpowered in itself, it just bugs me that T has all these cool toys and the swarm has jack shit. Infested terran or contaminate doesnt really compare in coolness factor.
WTF, seriously.
I love trying to find ways for underused things to work and every race has some pretty nifty shit you can experiment with that are far from used enough:
Those are all useful tools, but they are marginal for a reason. Suggesting that balance issues would be solved if only people were more willing to use unorthodox tools is usually done by annoying trolls who haven't done any thinking on game balance.
Oh, I seemed to have missed the part where I was commenting on game balance. Not that this is even a discussion about balance to begin with, since it's a threat about usefullness of nukes and shows its power in a mirror match. My post was solely refering to "Terran getting all the cool stuff".
I often use nuke in 2v2 with I get Terran when the game isn't who have the best cheese.
I normally always go ghost and often get some some medipad with my bio army, so why not spend 100/100 on a nuke ?
I remember one game, not to long ago that both team had kinda big army and when we clashed, I just put a nuke into the mayhen of the battle and nuked all the other team army, after that, GG. (Diamond league btw..)
In terms of the Hallucination, i was hit by a cool tactic. Early game rush i was attached by 15 Zealots, i was like wtf hack. After watching the replay he used Hallucination to double his zealot force. Worked wonders because i focused down the wrong units with what i had at the time. Simply trick really when you think of it.
I love using nukes in combination with drops. In one game I dropped 1 medivac worth of rines in the back of my opponents natural in LT and at the same time I had a cloaked ghost nuke the ramp of my opponent. It was epic.
On September 03 2010 12:56 Supersrsbnz wrote: The best time to use nukes is in a big macro game, small games they aren't really needed, unless breaking a siege line obv.. but the best way to make the most of nukes is to drop them in pairs, so you will need double ghost academies. A drop at 2 points at once will be very hard to deal with, and also drop on into the middle of nowhere, this will screw with your enemies head as he scrambles around to find it.
did you get this from the prima guide?
Nah I don't think so, it might have been though. I did quote it from somewhere but I can't remember where I heard it, that's going to screw with my head now as I try to remember lol. Still nukes have to be utilized more because they are extremely good. I'm really trying to find ways to incorporate them more.
Nukes are not a strategy, they are either a weapon or nuking is a tactic. A "strategy" for dealing with sieged tank lines is to tactically nuke the line forcing an unsiege.
On September 04 2010 02:34 MoreFasho wrote: Nukes are not a strategy, they are either a weapon or nuking is a tactic. A "strategy" for dealing with sieged tank lines is to tactically nuke the line forcing an unsiege.
The problem with nuking siege lines is if they scan you, your normally in range for a siege tank to shoot you, although most people don't think of this.
On September 03 2010 21:48 BadStigma wrote: In terms of the Hallucination, i was hit by a cool tactic. Early game rush i was attached by 15 Zealots, i was like wtf hack. After watching the replay he used Hallucination to double his zealot force. Worked wonders because i focused down the wrong units with what i had at the time. Simply trick really when you think of it.
Happened to me in the last US CraftCup... I thought the same thing- "wf, hacker!". Alas, no.
On September 04 2010 02:34 MoreFasho wrote: Nukes are not a strategy, they are either a weapon or nuking is a tactic. A "strategy" for dealing with sieged tank lines is to tactically nuke the line forcing an unsiege.
The problem with nuking siege lines is if they scan you, your normally in range for a siege tank to shoot you, although most people don't think of this.
Did you read the OP? TLO actually has used this quite a few times to nuke, force an unsiege,run in with marauders and snipe tanks and then get out.
Nukes are definitely viable in sc2. I believe it will be really useful for force repositioning of enemy tanks and even if all it did was stop mining for 10 seconds + stop enemy from doing anything else for 5 sec, it is a pretty good use of 100/100.
Nukes are really good in 3v3 4v4. With all the action on the map it's easy to land a nuke in a mineral line. What's fun to do is to launch off 3 or 4 at a time and watch the frantic scans :D
On September 04 2010 02:34 MoreFasho wrote: Nukes are not a strategy, they are either a weapon or nuking is a tactic. A "strategy" for dealing with sieged tank lines is to tactically nuke the line forcing an unsiege.
The problem with nuking siege lines is if they scan you, your normally in range for a siege tank to shoot you, although most people don't think of this.
Did you read the OP? TLO actually has used this quite a few times to nuke, force an unsiege,run in with marauders and snipe tanks and then get out.
Yes I know, my point was the idea is only good while people don't know how to deal with it.
I was in a ZvT on Kulas against a 2 base Terran. He nuked me 3 times. I gave up trying to find the ghost and rather moved out all my drones from my 4 plus bases just to save them. It certainly is annoying and can be used quite effectively.
The problem with nuking siege lines is if they scan you, your normally in range for a siege tank to shoot you, although most people don't think of this.
Did you read the OP? TLO actually has used this quite a few times to nuke, force an unsiege,run in with marauders and snipe tanks and then get out.
Yes I know, my point was the idea is only good while people don't know how to deal with it.
If you look at the pictures in the OP, you can see that the range of the nuke plus the area of the spell grant a nuke an effective range greater than that of a sieged tank. If you center the nuke in the tank line, scan+tanks=dead ghost. Instead, if you aim the nuke slightly ahead of the tanks, the ghost will be out of range, but the large splash on the nuke will still severely damage or destroy tanks.
In other words, the effective range of the nuclear missile isn't the range at which the spell can be cast; it's the range of the spell PLUS the blast radius.
for the amount nukes do, i find them too cheap, accessable, and since this is what the threads about, versatile at least with the old bw nukes it was somewhat of a commitment, now theyr so readily available, so much so that if your already using 1+ ghosts that itd be mad not to use at least one, theres just so many great reasons to
I'm going to start to incorporate ghosts/nukes into my "go to" build now.
I've found they can be very effective.
So far some uses for nukes I've found, which should work in any matchup (only tried against Zerg before):
1) Siege up outside his natural and nuke it. Can get some vikings to snipe any Overseers who come to close (also your ground army should be able to protect the ghost as well)
2) Use 2 ghosts and nuke 2 places at once, pretty much guaranteed that one hits. Also forces him to spend more gas on multiple overseers.
3) Use a nuke to force him to move his army around trying to kill the ghost. (I find that some players will bring their whole army group because they need to act quick)
4) Drop a ghost in his mineral line and just snipe drones.
5) Getting an early nuke off can be devastating. (Under 10 mins)
6) Hide a ghost somewhere and then nuke his base when the army moves out.
7) Have a group of 2-4 ghosts. Use one to nuke, the other to snipe any detectors.
There are definitely more uses. I also find that once an opponent knows you have nukes and are willing to use them they tend to be way more cautious and it slows them down.
EPT
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