EPTThe warhound - a deathball unit, not a "mech" unit - Page 11
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Alaiz
France118 Posts
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734pot
Australia294 Posts
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HeavenResign
United States702 Posts
On September 06 2012 23:56 734pot wrote: I never really got why people said that TvT is boring because of siege tank lines (not stale mates, as that would be a draw). I'm a zerg player myself, but I have dabbled with playing mech occasionally and though it is indeed somewhat slow I find it quite interesting to play and watch. I guess some people only want to see things being melted by lasers. There was like a TINY time of like maybe a month where there were a few high profile games where siege lines were pretty hard to break and went on for awhile, but after that the metagame changed and I haven't seen anything David Kim describes as a "stale mate siege line" since MLG Anaheim 2011, probably. | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom12023 Posts
On September 07 2012 00:14 DrowSwordsman wrote: There was like a TINY time of like maybe a month where there were a few high profile games where siege lines were pretty hard to break and went on for awhile, but after that the metagame changed and I haven't seen anything David Kim describes as a "stale mate siege line" since MLG Anaheim 2011, probably. Wasn't that also due to the maps as in Metalopolis it was so damned easy to section off your half of the map? | ||
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Brosy
United States254 Posts
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TzeenSC2
Canada7 Posts
since i for 1 can say that after 2 years of Bio im really looking forward to a REAL mech army. and to break open siege lines in TvT! is it strong? Yes no doubt about that but on the same note i havent seen any protoss really using their oracles fully yet. its early Beta..still LOTS of room for adjustment. Were going to have to just play/watch and enjoy what we have right now! | ||
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Garmer
1286 Posts
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Miscellany
Wales125 Posts
On September 06 2012 23:56 734pot wrote: I never really got why people said that TvT is boring because of siege tank lines (not stale mates, as that would be a draw). I'm a zerg player myself, but I have dabbled with playing mech occasionally and though it is indeed somewhat slow I find it quite interesting to play and watch. I guess some people only want to see things being melted by lasers. I totally agree, TvT is great fun. Especially when you have bio vs Mech or tank Marine vs tank Marine. It's unforgiving (often the better player wins) and yet there are far more opportunities to come back or play safe without getting too far behind - unlike most other matchups. Personally (perhaps ZvP and ZvT are also good) TvT may be my favourite WoL matchup. The fact that they are actively trying to remove mech from TvT makes me sad. Without Mech, TvT essentially becomes bio vs bio - which really isn't essentially much different to most other matchups. Mech is also a defining feature of Starcraft (both I and II) - it's sad to see a purposeful nerf. (Btw, as implied, the Warhound is not a Mech unit... it's just a bigger marauder. In fact the marauder is a better unit because it has more micro options and is less A-movey.) Neither is the thor a mech unit - but at least the thor is slow and powerful, so it is closer to mech than the Warhound is.... | ||
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ymir233
United States8275 Posts
On September 06 2012 09:10 Staboteur wrote: What? Immobile anti-air? Turrets and thors already are immobile anti-air... that's not adding a useful function to the warhound, that's giving it hydralisk status. I've watched a bit of HOTS (qxc!) and I'm actually excited seeing warhounds running at a zerg's base and engaging a pack of queens. It is a unit that has the potential to force Zerg away from the safe 3hatch many queen builds and back toward earlier speedling / less econ-focused openings. BUT ECON AND MANY BASES IS INDICATIVE OF GOOD PLAY! ...Sure, if you're comparing different leagues. At higher levels, it's fairly safe to add -safely- into that statement, showing that getting econ and many bases SAFELY is indicative of good play... but in the current metagame, ZvP and ZvT seem to be largely based around it currently being "safe" to focus econ until either one or both players have upwards of 3 bases. If Terran get a unit that starts forcing Zerg to get ling speed earlier to stay safe, Zerg now is in a situation where they don't have a competitive economy, but do have tech (ling speed) they wouldn't normally have which allows them to return pressure etc etc etc. Sure, there's nothing -wrong- with passive play and people getting many bases, but if Terran gets a unit that is allowed to pressure early and in small numbers -safely-, I don't think you'll find me objecting to the role of the unit too quickly. More active play is more fun to watch, and I don't think anyone can say for sure that TvZ warhound rush is 100% win. Let it develop, it should be fun to watch the new timings arise! (No idea how Warhound functions vP or whether or not it is actually balanced. If it kept the same role but became balanced I wouldn't object. It reminds me of a really hefty mech reaper.) So you want a unit that forces Zergs to always do this one thing to put themselves behind because they're scared shitless of a unit. Seems legit. | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
what do we end up with hots? the original warhound was exactly a minature thor, but smaller, cheaper, faster. off to a good start browder. so they removed the antiair for beta. the unit is still ranged 7, but doesnt do as much damage as the thor, but is a bit less than half the price and a third of the supply. its not anti-muta but can basically hold its own against roaches nevertheless, succeeding the role of the thor, or even marauder, against a roaching zerg. looking at the tempest now, a protoss 'siege unit'. isnt this exactly what the colossus is? 10 range, 30 damage, versus 9 range, 30 damage. yea, great, you can now have +1 range from vikings, minus the splash. also note the health/hp is exactly that from the carrier. anyone trying to defend this in any way as competent design is fooling themselves. blizzard honest to god could not come up with anything better aside from these units which do nothing but pew pew, or rather in the case of the tempest, pew. | ||
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XerrolAvengerII
United States510 Posts
Because of their health, size, and damage; warhounds should be 3 supply instead of 2 supply, but then something might have to be done to make siege tanks more efficient (like 60 vs armored instead of 50 or something smallish) simply because both those units would be more supply demanding. The missile upgrade is also very strong, and redundant in some situations, I could see it being turned into a 50/50 or 100/100 upgrade in order to improve timing situations against mechanical armies (also the missile is unnecessary against zerg so this upgrade wouldn't change that match up) However, while strong I feel like the current 2.81 speed and 200 hp are absolutely necessary to the design of the unit, relative to protoss units which have notoriously higher speed and health than terran units (i.e. zealot, stalker, archon, phoenix, warp prism, oracle etc etc) even though some excepts like the sentry or immortal exist. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16950 Posts
Then, the "hay wire missile" is a tech upgrade that is 200//200 with a research time of 180. So the Warhound is viable mid to late game in T v. T and T v. P. The HP, Supply, and Damage should be in proportion to its cost and only this beta test will verify its proper stats. | ||
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Cuce
Turkey1127 Posts
On September 07 2012 00:54 ymir233 wrote: So you want a unit that forces Zergs to always do this one thing to put themselves behind because they're scared shitless of a unit. Seems legit. he wants a unit that forces zerg to take risks to get ahead or stay same on eve instead of always doing the same booming/powering every single game | ||
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Elitios
France164 Posts
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creamyturtle
United States487 Posts
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Qikz
United Kingdom12023 Posts
You know what, I honestly think the hayfire missiles could work if they didn't have autocast and a longer cooldown. The cooldown is only 6 seconds, but with a 20 second cooldown+ without an autocast it could be pretty cool. | ||
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7mk
Germany10157 Posts
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Qikz
United Kingdom12023 Posts
it'd mean it wouldn't be massable and with a decent cooldown on hayfire (it's only 6 seconds right now) it could have a really interesting place in the mech army | ||
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Ramiz1989
12124 Posts
On September 07 2012 01:48 Qikz wrote: I honestly think if they upped the supply and removed autocast from the warhound it could be a really cool support unit it'd mean it wouldn't be massable and with a decent cooldown on hayfire (it's only 6 seconds right now) it could have a really interesting place in the mech army If you remove Auto-cast, then it is better to stay 6 seconds and just nerf the Warhound. It will result in more APM and more micro overall. | ||
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MasterOfPuppets
Romania6942 Posts
On September 07 2012 01:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I'd like to see teh Warhound be a viable early-mid game unit that can be used against all 3 races. Then, the "hay wire missile" is a tech upgrade that is 200//200 with a research time of 180. So the Warhound is viable mid to late game in T v. T and T v. P. The HP, Supply, and Damage should be in proportion to its cost and only this beta test will verify its proper stats. Having watched ThorZaIN, DeMusliM, SjoW and fOrGG play these past few days, I can tell you that the Warhound is already a viable early-mid game unit that can be used against all 3 races. Not just early-mid game, but for the whole game. One of it's problems is that it's simply too good. But that's fine, we're in a beta, things aren't going to be as well balanced as WoL. Or maybe people just aren't using the right strategies/tactics/compositions. Either way, that is not the issue here. The issue is that regardless of balance the Warhound is a very badly designed unit. It is essentially a better Marauder. Seeing how Blizzard has increased the options and viability of "mech", or rather what they perceive to be mech, we'll be seeing a lot more factories. And those factories can produce this better version of a Marauder. It's boring. It's a boring unit with almost no room for micromanagement to allow it to perform better. Some argue that the Marauder has the same issues and while I'd respectfully disagree (they start out slow but you can upgrade stim and concussive shells; you can use them in drops; there are marauder-centric openings, as we've seen in the GSL earlier today; etc) the problem at hand is that the Warhound is even worse from this standpoint. You get a unit that has even less potential than the Marauder in terms of micromanagement because it's too bloody efficient against almost anything on its own, and then you add to it a very powerful auto-cast ability. It's not really the Warhound that's redundant, it's the Marauder in the current HotS build. Which has a great potential to make bio close to obsolete. And you can say "well mech isn't popular right now either, why should bio be always the one that people need to go in order to win?". Well, I'm not saying that, but what Blizzard has in the current HotS build that they call "mech" is really boring and nothing like the positional-based chess-like game that we had in Brood War with mech. TL;DR: The issue at hand is not balance, but the fact that the Warhound is very poorly designed, unimaginative, not fun to watch or play. Sorry if I'm rambling; I'm pretty sure most if not all of what I said has been posted already but I felt like adding my 2 cents. ^^ | ||
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