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[D] Widow Mine Mechanics - Page 4

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 07:15:31
March 18 2013 07:15 GMT
#61
It may look random if you don't look how it works carefully. The longer you play you will learn how to manipulate them from both sides. Life manipulated mines really fucking well against Last and Flash. This is better for the game.
Chocobo
Profile Joined November 2006
United States1108 Posts
March 18 2013 07:16 GMT
#62
On March 18 2013 16:03 Reki wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 15:44 Chocobo wrote:
Widow mines definitely seem really random to me. I had game earlier where some lings ran right past my widow mines, I was certain it was a bug.

At a glance it seems consistent with morrow's description. Every single ling that passed through didn't stay long enough for it's "channeling" complete.

Yes I agree, now that I know that's how it works I realize it's not a bug. It just looks funny to see all the lings running past the mines.
IMO it's working as intended. Otherwise you would get results like multiple wms overkilling a single ling or accidentally losing your entire bio army because a roach tunneled under you.

It's working as intended, but imho I don't think it should be intended to work that way. I don't see anything wrong with the situations you described, or with having the widow mines fire their shot off instantly when a target is in range.

Consistency is good in a competitive game.
`dunedain
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
655 Posts
March 18 2013 07:18 GMT
#63
On March 18 2013 12:35 deth wrote:
Its your own fault for not expressing yourself clearly at all, making broad untrue statements and then continuing to try and take some sort of high ground when called out for being wrong

i honestly can't comprehend why you continue to express yourself in such a bias, whining, anti blizz and self important fashion every time you're playing horribly or cannot figure out how to use units correctly. its been annoying me for years.


The funny thing is, no one really cares what you think.

Haven't you ever learned that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. Because all you're doing now is not adding anything constructive to this conversation other than your over-inflated ego and and some deep seated hate.

Instead of continually replying with taunts and coming off as a jerk, it would make more sense to take it to PMs, so you won't look like such an arrogant fool.

Either that, or participate in the thread like a decent human being.

It's your choice, but ask yourself honestly, are you acting like a douche right now? And there's no way to hide from the answer that rings true from within you.

Just my two cents.
"In order to be created, a work of art must first make use of the dark forces of the soul." ~Albert Camus
Reki
Profile Joined August 2010
Philippines89 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 07:43:13
March 18 2013 07:34 GMT
#64
On March 18 2013 16:16 Chocobo wrote:
It's working as intended, but imho I don't think it should be intended to work that way. I don't see anything wrong with the situations you described, or with having the widow mines fire their shot off instantly when a target is in range.

Consistency is good in a competitive game.

I find it more consistent than a wm having no delay, actually. You are given a leeway of ~2 secs for the wm to shoot a more valuable target instead of a minesweeper ling that the clump of bio nearby was supposed prevent. They'll become close to useless as burrowed banes IMO.

On March 18 2013 16:18 `dunedain wrote:
The funny thing is, no one really cares what you think.

Actually I appreciated what he did. Someone had to say it. His posts are usually too painful to read. Makes me wish that I can filter his name like in 4chan so that I can never read his posts.
J.E.G.
Profile Joined May 2010
United States389 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 08:06:17
March 18 2013 08:05 GMT
#65
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.
Do or do not; there is no try.
bakemono
Profile Joined March 2013
11 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 08:14:55
March 18 2013 08:13 GMT
#66
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.


Does this not just come down to positioning your mines better? If lings run past the very outside radius, it probably shouldn't go off and kill half of them, if they run right over the top, it almost certainly will go off. They already have a fairly generous range, and cost almost nothing. Just make 2 or 3 and spread them out so that your opponent is guaranteed to pretty much step on one.

As I said before I think you Terran expect far too much for such a cheap/extremely efficient unit. You don't see zerg complaining that marines split when a baneling shows up and that it gets shot down before it can get into melee range.
Rainling
Profile Joined June 2011
United States456 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 08:35:41
March 18 2013 08:34 GMT
#67
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.

Widow mines are very strong in the late game. I don't understand why you think they aren't feasible past a certain point. For example, the only zerg units mines aren't strong against in the late game is brood lords.

I don't agree that use of the widow mine is a dice roll. People don't call friendly fire on tanks, spider mines, and reavers coin flippy. If you think widow mines are too coin flippy to be viable in the late game, maybe they should be buffed in other ways. I completely agree with morrow, units that can be turned against you but are very effective if used correctly are great units. I would rather have units that are difficult to use but highly potent when used correctly than consistent units with a lower skill ceiling.
govie
Profile Blog Joined November 2012
9334 Posts
March 18 2013 08:41 GMT
#68
On March 18 2013 17:13 bakemono wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.


Does this not just come down to positioning your mines better? If lings run past the very outside radius, it probably shouldn't go off and kill half of them, if they run right over the top, it almost certainly will go off. They already have a fairly generous range, and cost almost nothing. Just make 2 or 3 and spread them out so that your opponent is guaranteed to pretty much step on one.

As I said before I think you Terran expect far too much for such a cheap/extremely efficient unit. You don't see zerg complaining that marines split when a baneling shows up and that it gets shot down before it can get into melee range.


Agreed. In contrary to banelings the widowmines are way better and cheap early in game.

1. There invisible
2. They can connect more then once
3. Can target air
4. Have a larger range
5. Dont need speedupgrade
6. Cant be blinding clouded
7. Forces opponent to invest in detection early
8. Can be combined with speedmedi's

It's a nice unit for the cost and gives terran more options. Certainly that blinding cloud doesnt affect the mines is a big bonus .
The two NBA teams in states with legal weed are called the Nuggets and the Blazers...
J.E.G.
Profile Joined May 2010
United States389 Posts
March 18 2013 08:48 GMT
#69
+ Show Spoiler +
On March 18 2013 17:13 bakemono wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.


Does this not just come down to positioning your mines better? If lings run past the very outside radius, it probably shouldn't go off and kill half of them, if they run right over the top, it almost certainly will go off. They already have a fairly generous range, and cost almost nothing. Just make 2 or 3 and spread them out so that your opponent is guaranteed to pretty much step on one.

As I said before I think you Terran expect far too much for such a cheap/extremely efficient unit. You don't see zerg complaining that marines split when a baneling shows up and that it gets shot down before it can get into melee range.

I don't play terran. Widow mines are fun to watch, and i don't want players to stop using them if they are faulty in late-game situations.

The problem i think of in regards to better positioning is that moment when day9 was about to have a heart attack as a large group of mutas and lings went straight over three mines (i forget which game...) and nothing happened. This behavior was consistently inconsistent throughout the series.

As for the baneling analogy, it is less like a terran preforming good splits to avert baneling damage and more like connecting a perfect baneling hit on a pack of marines only to see a couple of them die. If WMs are only killing a couple lings after ~14 minutes into a game, they are not efficient at all, and there is not much the terran player can do about it. This would lead to more stable and possibly more boring play and unit compostions, which I am against.

+ Show Spoiler +
On March 18 2013 17:34 Rainling wrote:

Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.

Widow mines are very strong in the late game. I don't understand why you think they aren't feasible past a certain point. For example, the only zerg units mines aren't strong against in the late game is brood lords.

I don't agree that use of the widow mine is a dice roll. People don't call friendly fire on tanks, spider mines, and reavers coin flippy. If you think widow mines are too coin flippy to be viable in the late game, maybe they should be buffed in other ways. I completely agree with morrow, units that can be turned against you but are very effective if used correctly are great units. I would rather have units that are difficult to use but highly potent when used correctly than consistent units with a lower skill ceiling.


Reavers were very coin-flippy with glitchy scarabs, but that is a bit besides the point.

The risk of friendly fire with tanks and spider mines is great for adding depth to the game. Zealot bombs were one of my favorite things to see in BW. The difference here is that those things were more readily identified as strategies by the players and spectators, where as the widow mine detonations are more likely to be identified as a glitch instead of respecting an awesome play during a large late game battle, which is rather anti-climactic.
Do or do not; there is no try.
MateShade
Profile Joined July 2011
Australia736 Posts
March 18 2013 08:58 GMT
#70
It's impossible for it to be truly random of course, so the question is: is it possible to use mines reliably and consistently. i guess we just wait and see over the next few months.
Rainling
Profile Joined June 2011
United States456 Posts
March 18 2013 09:08 GMT
#71
On March 18 2013 17:48 J.E.G. wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
On March 18 2013 17:13 bakemono wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.


Does this not just come down to positioning your mines better? If lings run past the very outside radius, it probably shouldn't go off and kill half of them, if they run right over the top, it almost certainly will go off. They already have a fairly generous range, and cost almost nothing. Just make 2 or 3 and spread them out so that your opponent is guaranteed to pretty much step on one.

As I said before I think you Terran expect far too much for such a cheap/extremely efficient unit. You don't see zerg complaining that marines split when a baneling shows up and that it gets shot down before it can get into melee range.

I don't play terran. Widow mines are fun to watch, and i don't want players to stop using them if they are faulty in late-game situations.

The problem i think of in regards to better positioning is that moment when day9 was about to have a heart attack as a large group of mutas and lings went straight over three mines (i forget which game...) and nothing happened. This behavior was consistently inconsistent throughout the series.

As for the baneling analogy, it is less like a terran preforming good splits to avert baneling damage and more like connecting a perfect baneling hit on a pack of marines only to see a couple of them die. If WMs are only killing a couple lings after ~14 minutes into a game, they are not efficient at all, and there is not much the terran player can do about it. This would lead to more stable and possibly more boring play and unit compostions, which I am against.

+ Show Spoiler +
On March 18 2013 17:34 Rainling wrote:

Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.

Widow mines are very strong in the late game. I don't understand why you think they aren't feasible past a certain point. For example, the only zerg units mines aren't strong against in the late game is brood lords.

I don't agree that use of the widow mine is a dice roll. People don't call friendly fire on tanks, spider mines, and reavers coin flippy. If you think widow mines are too coin flippy to be viable in the late game, maybe they should be buffed in other ways. I completely agree with morrow, units that can be turned against you but are very effective if used correctly are great units. I would rather have units that are difficult to use but highly potent when used correctly than consistent units with a lower skill ceiling.


Reavers were very coin-flippy with glitchy scarabs, but that is a bit besides the point.

The risk of friendly fire with tanks and spider mines is great for adding depth to the game. Zealot bombs were one of my favorite things to see in BW. The difference here is that those things were more readily identified as strategies by the players and spectators, where as the widow mine detonations are more likely to be identified as a glitch instead of respecting an awesome play during a large late game battle, which is rather anti-climactic.

I think it's identifiable by spectators if zergs move-command small groups of zerglings into clumps of units to deal splash damage to the terran. If spectators are unable to easily identify when terrans target fire widow mines onto banelings, that's not a huge issue in my opinion.

You said that a group of units went straight over a group of widow mines and didn't detonate them. If this is true, that should be fixed because widow mines should automatically deal damage to units that run directly above them. If they ran to the side of the attack radius, then that's fine and simply means that the effective radius of the widow mine is different dependent on the movement speed of units.

I'm guessing casters, particularly analytical casters, will understand the widow mine AI soon enough and the apparent randomness of the mine won't be much of an issue for spectators.
avilo
Profile Blog Joined November 2007
United States4100 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 09:17:43
March 18 2013 09:13 GMT
#72
On March 18 2013 15:44 IdrA wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 12:29 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 12:13 deth wrote:
FROM THIS:
On March 18 2013 11:49 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 11:20 Zelniq wrote:
further testing indicates a couple of things:

if an enemy unit wanders in range but exits the range (range of 5) within less than ~2 ingame seconds, the mine doesn't fire, same thing goes for multiple units..if 10 lings enter but leave the radius before the ~2 seconds, it doesn't fire. If it's there for ~2+ seconds it does. So for an idea of what that's like, the magic ~2 second time that it won't set the mine off is a speedling off creep that's moving across the edge of the circle's range of a mine, as if you were slicing the end of an orange.

The target unit's speed is irrelevant, a queen off creep can wander in, spot the mine and leave without getting hit if it leaves the radius fast enough. (btw even without detection, the mine reveals itself when I think you wander in its range. reveals its location, but doesn't allow you to attack it, similar to units you can't see that's on higher ground, that shoot you)

@Swagger: search "hots unit tester online" in arcade. it uses whatever the current state of the game is, as in say the unlisted change that occured within last few days where mothership core's recall is canceled if the mothership core dies during the recall

no you cannot manually target mines. And yes it is more or less random.


TO THIS:
On March 18 2013 12:01 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 11:55 Zelniq wrote:
argh why are you still saying you can't manually target them...you obviously didn't just test it cus you would have found out you can..and your first post doesn't really explain the mechanics..it's basically what DeCoup posted at the top of this page. test it right now, you can see not only can you target with them but his post about how you can keep changing targets to reset the aim timer to indefinitely prevent them from attacking..just play vs AI and try it..


I'm talking about manually targetting to have them blow up immediately on the target you want like they were in a previous patch version of beta. You can no longer do that.



It's no wonder people don't take you seriously when you argue, its just an exercise in eye-rolling and face-palming frustration.


Nice ad hominem, lots of people specialize more in ad hominems lately than they do in analysis because it's easier for them.

Point i was making that flew over your head was that in the beta you previously could use the attack command to manually target widow mines onto units, whereas in the current release version that is no longer possible.

What zelniq is saying is entirely different. He is saying you can target the widow mines with a right click command onto units which is completely unintuitive for any player that played the beta version with the previous attack command that was on the command card and the current incarnation of the mine that has no option available in the command card.

How is a player supposed to know that they can re-target the widow mine manually by constantly changing attack targets with the mine over and over within a 2 second time-span? No one knew this before, and there also is no tool-tip for it.

So deth if you want to go argue about arguments and improve your ad hominem take it to reddit, they take that quite seriously over there.

There's a differentiation between the ability for a player to use the attack-move command and for something that does not show that in the command card yet it's still possible with a weird rule on it that no one knows about.

you wanna know why everyone ends up making ad hominem attacks on you? its because you're legitly, genuinely, dumb. im not saying that as an insult or anything. you just don't think well. so you keep saying things that are untrue and missing points that are very clearly made. so people get frustrated and tell you to fuck off. its been a pattern since the start of sc2. you're slow but even you should get it by now.


lmao you're one to talk idra. Everything you just said applies to yourself more than it ever has me
edit: anyways, we got a few sour apples de-railing the thread...

Just refer to morrow's last post about how the widow mine works, or a previous post i made in the thread describing the exact same thing.

How the mine works:

1) acquires first target and closest to come within the 5 range
2) if the unit leaves the range it acquires new target within the 5 range
3) if you manually right click your opponent's units, you reset the widow mine's targetting

The question is, let's say a Zergling runs past the mine and then out of the activation range.

Then let's say 20 more Zerglings run into activation range as the first slips out of it...which one is auto-targeted and how can a player tell? It's impossible to tell visually right?
Sup
J.E.G.
Profile Joined May 2010
United States389 Posts
March 18 2013 09:45 GMT
#73
On March 18 2013 18:08 Rainling wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:48 J.E.G. wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
On March 18 2013 17:13 bakemono wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.


Does this not just come down to positioning your mines better? If lings run past the very outside radius, it probably shouldn't go off and kill half of them, if they run right over the top, it almost certainly will go off. They already have a fairly generous range, and cost almost nothing. Just make 2 or 3 and spread them out so that your opponent is guaranteed to pretty much step on one.

As I said before I think you Terran expect far too much for such a cheap/extremely efficient unit. You don't see zerg complaining that marines split when a baneling shows up and that it gets shot down before it can get into melee range.

I don't play terran. Widow mines are fun to watch, and i don't want players to stop using them if they are faulty in late-game situations.


The problem i think of in regards to better positioning is that moment when day9 was about to have a heart attack as a large group of mutas and lings went straight over three mines (i forget which game...) and nothing happened. This behavior was consistently inconsistent throughout the series.

As for the baneling analogy, it is less like a terran preforming good splits to avert baneling damage and more like connecting a perfect baneling hit on a pack of marines only to see a couple of them die. If WMs are only killing a couple lings after ~14 minutes into a game, they are not efficient at all, and there is not much the terran player can do about it. This would lead to more stable and possibly more boring play and unit compostions, which I am against.

+ Show Spoiler +
On March 18 2013 17:34 Rainling wrote:

Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 17:05 J.E.G. wrote:
There should just be an upgrade that lowers the cool-down or maybe lowers the targeting time to make it less coin-flippy in larger, late game engagements. While the hold-micro tricks are definitely sexy, it is not feasible for any player to make use of it past a certain point in the game. Thus, the randomness of the widow mine comes back, and the risk of having it sit there with its thumb up its ass waiting for cool down is too great to justify the dice roll of an effective detonation.

The main goal is to balance a unit with depth with being usable. If it proves to be to random in late game situations, it will be abandoned for something more stable, and possibly more boring.

EDIT: Please stop with the flames. This thread is important.

Widow mines are very strong in the late game. I don't understand why you think they aren't feasible past a certain point. For example, the only zerg units mines aren't strong against in the late game is brood lords.

I don't agree that use of the widow mine is a dice roll. People don't call friendly fire on tanks, spider mines, and reavers coin flippy. If you think widow mines are too coin flippy to be viable in the late game, maybe they should be buffed in other ways. I completely agree with morrow, units that can be turned against you but are very effective if used correctly are great units. I would rather have units that are difficult to use but highly potent when used correctly than consistent units with a lower skill ceiling.


Reavers were very coin-flippy with glitchy scarabs, but that is a bit besides the point.

The risk of friendly fire with tanks and spider mines is great for adding depth to the game. Zealot bombs were one of my favorite things to see in BW. The difference here is that those things were more readily identified as strategies by the players and spectators, where as the widow mine detonations are more likely to be identified as a glitch instead of respecting an awesome play during a large late game battle, which is rather anti-climactic.

I think it's identifiable by spectators if zergs move-command small groups of zerglings into clumps of units to deal splash damage to the terran. If spectators are unable to easily identify when terrans target fire widow mines onto banelings, that's not a huge issue in my opinion.

You said that a group of units went straight over a group of widow mines and didn't detonate them. If this is true, that should be fixed because widow mines should automatically deal damage to units that run directly above them. If they ran to the side of the attack radius, then that's fine and simply means that the effective radius of the widow mine is different dependent on the movement speed of units.

I'm guessing casters, particularly analytical casters, will understand the widow mine AI soon enough and the apparent randomness of the mine won't be much of an issue for spectators.


I agree.

It happens at 13:15 of this video (17:45 ingame time of game 6).

I was wrong in my original statement. Four active and perfectly spread mines do detonate, but it seems like they kill hardly any lings and the mutas come out untouched. Is this because WMs really don't do splash to air units if they target ground? All of these details about what works and what doesn't just makes WM's seem.... weird.

I am guessing they will need some work in the end, but more time to understand it does seem like the best remedy, as you mentioned.
Do or do not; there is no try.
MateShade
Profile Joined July 2011
Australia736 Posts
March 18 2013 09:49 GMT
#74
On March 18 2013 18:13 avilo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 15:44 IdrA wrote:
On March 18 2013 12:29 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 12:13 deth wrote:
FROM THIS:
On March 18 2013 11:49 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 11:20 Zelniq wrote:
further testing indicates a couple of things:

if an enemy unit wanders in range but exits the range (range of 5) within less than ~2 ingame seconds, the mine doesn't fire, same thing goes for multiple units..if 10 lings enter but leave the radius before the ~2 seconds, it doesn't fire. If it's there for ~2+ seconds it does. So for an idea of what that's like, the magic ~2 second time that it won't set the mine off is a speedling off creep that's moving across the edge of the circle's range of a mine, as if you were slicing the end of an orange.

The target unit's speed is irrelevant, a queen off creep can wander in, spot the mine and leave without getting hit if it leaves the radius fast enough. (btw even without detection, the mine reveals itself when I think you wander in its range. reveals its location, but doesn't allow you to attack it, similar to units you can't see that's on higher ground, that shoot you)

@Swagger: search "hots unit tester online" in arcade. it uses whatever the current state of the game is, as in say the unlisted change that occured within last few days where mothership core's recall is canceled if the mothership core dies during the recall

no you cannot manually target mines. And yes it is more or less random.


TO THIS:
On March 18 2013 12:01 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 11:55 Zelniq wrote:
argh why are you still saying you can't manually target them...you obviously didn't just test it cus you would have found out you can..and your first post doesn't really explain the mechanics..it's basically what DeCoup posted at the top of this page. test it right now, you can see not only can you target with them but his post about how you can keep changing targets to reset the aim timer to indefinitely prevent them from attacking..just play vs AI and try it..


I'm talking about manually targetting to have them blow up immediately on the target you want like they were in a previous patch version of beta. You can no longer do that.



It's no wonder people don't take you seriously when you argue, its just an exercise in eye-rolling and face-palming frustration.


Nice ad hominem, lots of people specialize more in ad hominems lately than they do in analysis because it's easier for them.

Point i was making that flew over your head was that in the beta you previously could use the attack command to manually target widow mines onto units, whereas in the current release version that is no longer possible.

What zelniq is saying is entirely different. He is saying you can target the widow mines with a right click command onto units which is completely unintuitive for any player that played the beta version with the previous attack command that was on the command card and the current incarnation of the mine that has no option available in the command card.

How is a player supposed to know that they can re-target the widow mine manually by constantly changing attack targets with the mine over and over within a 2 second time-span? No one knew this before, and there also is no tool-tip for it.

So deth if you want to go argue about arguments and improve your ad hominem take it to reddit, they take that quite seriously over there.

There's a differentiation between the ability for a player to use the attack-move command and for something that does not show that in the command card yet it's still possible with a weird rule on it that no one knows about.

you wanna know why everyone ends up making ad hominem attacks on you? its because you're legitly, genuinely, dumb. im not saying that as an insult or anything. you just don't think well. so you keep saying things that are untrue and missing points that are very clearly made. so people get frustrated and tell you to fuck off. its been a pattern since the start of sc2. you're slow but even you should get it by now.


lmao you're one to talk idra. Everything you just said applies to yourself more than it ever has me
edit: anyways, we got a few sour apples de-railing the thread...

Just refer to morrow's last post about how the widow mine works, or a previous post i made in the thread describing the exact same thing.

How the mine works:

1) acquires first target and closest to come within the 5 range
2) if the unit leaves the range it acquires new target within the 5 range
3) if you manually right click your opponent's units, you reset the widow mine's targetting

The question is, let's say a Zergling runs past the mine and then out of the activation range.

Then let's say 20 more Zerglings run into activation range as the first slips out of it...which one is auto-targeted and how can a player tell? It's impossible to tell visually right?


So after thinking youre right, and actually blatantly wrong, you tried to backtrack to make it look like you weren't because you obviously have some kind of self pride issue, which derailed the thread. Now you're telling everyone how the mine works lol. You act like a 6 year old
-NegativeZero-
Profile Joined August 2011
United States2141 Posts
March 18 2013 09:54 GMT
#75
On March 18 2013 13:35 MstrJinbo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 13:34 bakemono wrote:
Guys - A widow mine costs the same as ONE baneling, 50 for a pair of lings, and 25/25 for the baneling, it does a lot more damage, has a lot more HP, can attack air and ground, and can be used repeatedly.

I think you are expecting too much for such a cheap unit. Life just played very well, you can't expect him to lose all his lings to 1 widow mine.


for the record, it costs 4 times the supply of a baneling.

they also don't die after attacking 1 time
vibeo gane,
Rainling
Profile Joined June 2011
United States456 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 10:54:23
March 18 2013 10:05 GMT
#76
On March 18 2013 18:45 J.E.G. wrote:
I agree.

It happens at 13:15 of this video (17:45 ingame time of game 6).

I was wrong in my original statement. Four active and perfectly spread mines do detonate, but it seems like they kill hardly any lings and the mutas come out untouched. Is this because WMs really don't do splash to air units if they target ground? All of these details about what works and what doesn't just makes WM's seem.... weird.

I am guessing they will need some work in the end, but more time to understand it does seem like the best remedy, as you mentioned.

That game is a perfect example of what Morrow was talking about. The widow mines all triggered on the frontmost zerglings, doing minimal damage. If Flash had instead target fired the central group of zerglings and mutas he would have done more damage.

Even though the widow mines did minimal damage, Life's supply went from 194 to 179 after the first two two widow mines went off, so two widow mines killed 30 lings before the marines began attacking. That's very cost efficient, although Day[9] didn't realize it at the time.

The reason only two widow mines of the four triggered initially is the first widow mine was still burrowing when the lings ran over it, and a second widow mine was unable to fire on a target because the zergling it was locked on was killed by another widow mine. They then triggered on units further back in Life's army.
p14c
Profile Joined May 2010
Vatican City State431 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 10:22:19
March 18 2013 10:18 GMT
#77
Gimmicky unit is gimmick..Banelings>>>Widow mines. Brood War mines were the best. The old dragoons from BW had better AI then the Widow Mines.
Game Over, Man! Game Over!
MorroW
Profile Joined August 2008
Sweden3522 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-18 10:29:08
March 18 2013 10:22 GMT
#78
On March 18 2013 18:13 avilo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 15:44 IdrA wrote:
On March 18 2013 12:29 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 12:13 deth wrote:
FROM THIS:
On March 18 2013 11:49 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 11:20 Zelniq wrote:
further testing indicates a couple of things:

if an enemy unit wanders in range but exits the range (range of 5) within less than ~2 ingame seconds, the mine doesn't fire, same thing goes for multiple units..if 10 lings enter but leave the radius before the ~2 seconds, it doesn't fire. If it's there for ~2+ seconds it does. So for an idea of what that's like, the magic ~2 second time that it won't set the mine off is a speedling off creep that's moving across the edge of the circle's range of a mine, as if you were slicing the end of an orange.

The target unit's speed is irrelevant, a queen off creep can wander in, spot the mine and leave without getting hit if it leaves the radius fast enough. (btw even without detection, the mine reveals itself when I think you wander in its range. reveals its location, but doesn't allow you to attack it, similar to units you can't see that's on higher ground, that shoot you)

@Swagger: search "hots unit tester online" in arcade. it uses whatever the current state of the game is, as in say the unlisted change that occured within last few days where mothership core's recall is canceled if the mothership core dies during the recall

no you cannot manually target mines. And yes it is more or less random.


TO THIS:
On March 18 2013 12:01 avilo wrote:
On March 18 2013 11:55 Zelniq wrote:
argh why are you still saying you can't manually target them...you obviously didn't just test it cus you would have found out you can..and your first post doesn't really explain the mechanics..it's basically what DeCoup posted at the top of this page. test it right now, you can see not only can you target with them but his post about how you can keep changing targets to reset the aim timer to indefinitely prevent them from attacking..just play vs AI and try it..


I'm talking about manually targetting to have them blow up immediately on the target you want like they were in a previous patch version of beta. You can no longer do that.



It's no wonder people don't take you seriously when you argue, its just an exercise in eye-rolling and face-palming frustration.


Nice ad hominem, lots of people specialize more in ad hominems lately than they do in analysis because it's easier for them.

Point i was making that flew over your head was that in the beta you previously could use the attack command to manually target widow mines onto units, whereas in the current release version that is no longer possible.

What zelniq is saying is entirely different. He is saying you can target the widow mines with a right click command onto units which is completely unintuitive for any player that played the beta version with the previous attack command that was on the command card and the current incarnation of the mine that has no option available in the command card.

How is a player supposed to know that they can re-target the widow mine manually by constantly changing attack targets with the mine over and over within a 2 second time-span? No one knew this before, and there also is no tool-tip for it.

So deth if you want to go argue about arguments and improve your ad hominem take it to reddit, they take that quite seriously over there.

There's a differentiation between the ability for a player to use the attack-move command and for something that does not show that in the command card yet it's still possible with a weird rule on it that no one knows about.

you wanna know why everyone ends up making ad hominem attacks on you? its because you're legitly, genuinely, dumb. im not saying that as an insult or anything. you just don't think well. so you keep saying things that are untrue and missing points that are very clearly made. so people get frustrated and tell you to fuck off. its been a pattern since the start of sc2. you're slow but even you should get it by now.


lmao you're one to talk idra. Everything you just said applies to yourself more than it ever has me
edit: anyways, we got a few sour apples de-railing the thread...

Just refer to morrow's last post about how the widow mine works, or a previous post i made in the thread describing the exact same thing.

How the mine works:

1) acquires first target and closest to come within the 5 range
2) if the unit leaves the range it acquires new target within the 5 range
3) if you manually right click your opponent's units, you reset the widow mine's targetting

The question is, let's say a Zergling runs past the mine and then out of the activation range.

Then let's say 20 more Zerglings run into activation range as the first slips out of it...which one is auto-targeted and how can a player tell? It's impossible to tell visually right?

i wrote it in my post it targets "best unit" which is easiest put the closest target to the mine
so once the single ling exits 5 range and the blob of lings is right on top of the mine, it targets the center ling in the blob. theres no way to tell visually what unit it has targeted at any point. but knowing the range of 5 and that it targets closest unit should give you a good idea if you pay attention closely

On March 18 2013 19:05 Rainling wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 18:45 J.E.G. wrote:
I agree.

It happens at 13:15 of this video (17:45 ingame time of game 6).

I was wrong in my original statement. Four active and perfectly spread mines do detonate, but it seems like they kill hardly any lings and the mutas come out untouched. Is this because WMs really don't do splash to air units if they target ground? All of these details about what works and what doesn't just makes WM's seem.... weird.

I am guessing they will need some work in the end, but more time to understand it does seem like the best remedy, as you mentioned.

That game is a perfect example of what Morrow was talking about. The widow mines all triggered on the frontmost zerglings, doing minimal damage. If Flash had instead target fired the central group of zerglings and mutas he would have done more damage.

pretty much yea. life micro control and understanding of the widow mine was beyond any other zerg i have seen so far, while flash positioning of the widow mines was amazing it often felt like the mines helped life more than flash
Progamerpls no copy pasterino
Manch1ld
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada27 Posts
March 18 2013 10:35 GMT
#79
On March 18 2013 16:18 `dunedain wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 18 2013 12:35 deth wrote:
Its your own fault for not expressing yourself clearly at all, making broad untrue statements and then continuing to try and take some sort of high ground when called out for being wrong

i honestly can't comprehend why you continue to express yourself in such a bias, whining, anti blizz and self important fashion every time you're playing horribly or cannot figure out how to use units correctly. its been annoying me for years.


The funny thing is, no one really cares what you think.

Haven't you ever learned that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. Because all you're doing now is not adding anything constructive to this conversation other than your over-inflated ego and and some deep seated hate.

Instead of continually replying with taunts and coming off as a jerk, it would make more sense to take it to PMs, so you won't look like such an arrogant fool.

Either that, or participate in the thread like a decent human being.

It's your choice, but ask yourself honestly, are you acting like a douche right now? And there's no way to hide from the answer that rings true from within you.

Just my two cents.



So...wait.....shouldn't your post have been a PM? :D
crow_mw
Profile Joined March 2012
Poland115 Posts
March 18 2013 10:51 GMT
#80
This insight into widow mine targeting should help a lot with handling widow mine drops. In one of the games Taeja (as far as I remember at least) had widow mines burrowed in his mineral line, but just kept marines standing on it, to prevent volleys at workers. I thought it was 'luck' that it worked, but apparently not.
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