On September 06 2012 09:00 Godwrath wrote: Best unit ever.
Supreme commander-esque ftw.
That is perhaps the least complementary comparison you could make to my mind. SupCom2 is everything that is wrong with modern RTS's. Sluggish a-move units with no rapid micro potential.
But dont most modern-day RTSs fall victim to that category? and unfortunately.. SC2 is slowly falling victim to it given the current state of the expansion.
Cheap huge damage huge hp portion great speed who need siege tank if u can get this ....... warhound is just bullshit at this stage of him i see on beta streams. TvT warhound vs warhound is like pvp in wol colosi vs colosi who have more wins.......
On September 06 2012 09:54 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: C&P from the other thread.
I realised why the War Hound is such a shit unit now. If you look at how slow and cumbersome the thor is, it feels kind of realistic, in regards to the physics of a giant mech suit. The thing movies like you would expect.
The Warhound looks like a kid designed it and straight out of a video game. It's not cool, it's - well lame. It moves and animates far far too freely and quickly. Same with the colossus, the immortal the stalker. Think about it - for the most part, most of the units in the game move in a somewhat realistic manner for their estimated size and weight. The warhound COMPLETELY breaks that and just goes full, kiddy, Supreme Commander video game look and feel.
Despite the nature of the attack, if it's op or not, regardless - feedback needs to be made to Blizzard regarding the poor art of this unit.
I'm sorry to bump my own post but I really need to re-state this, it's a C&C or Supreme Commander idiot unit, the physics of it are broken in look / design / animation / realism - it's "just not Starcraft" for lack of a better term. Let alone the shitty attack types / strength of the unit.
On September 06 2012 16:17 kaokentake wrote: heres a little write up i did about the warhound in this thread.
I honestly think the warhound has no purpose anymore. Terran does not need a anti-mech "unit" to slaughter the protoss race (which is all mech). All it needed was battle hellions to make mech viable, and now terran has battle hellions AND nice reactored mines? mech should be totally viable now without warhounds. Warhounds should really just be removed.
Looking at this thread the scenario I suggest seems pretty nice. Each race gets 2 new units, terran gets 1 unit as a extension of the hellion but the trade-off is their second unit is mines which are pretty good early game at defending ground combined with a couple tanks
Warhound? Warhounds "fix" a problem (tank stalemate TvT) that does not exist.
Warhounds werent needed in TvP because the problem with TvP mech was there was no real viable tanking unit for the tanks (like mines in bw) to contest zealots. And the battle hellions solve that. With the introduction of battle hellions (which is essentially a entirely new unit, a mineral-only high-hp unit to soak damage for your tanks) mech should be fixed in TvP and warhounds are not needed.
Not only that, blizzard even added mines? i was against the mines at first thinking it didnt really need to exist and was just giving some free AoE dps on top of tanks for no reason. But now that their damage is alot weaker I think im slightly starting to like them. Make mines no longer target air units IMO, and I think they are a nice addition.
Warhounds are nothing more than a glorified roach/marauder with no reason to exist. Mech doesnt need something like warhound anymore in TvP, and in TvT its pointless. Its just a super buff marauder. It overlaps in role of the marauder, and its anti-mech missiles are a game-design void of purpose. It doesnt need to exist, terran doesnt need a anti-mech "unit" to slaughter the protoss race which is all mech. It forces protoss to get archon/chargelot with 100% of their minerals/gas in order to "avoid" the anti-mech missiles.
The warhound as a unit cannot be balanced to have combat stats allowing it to be use-able against zerg, while at the same time having free anti-mech missiles. This means the unit would be balanced to have strong stats, and then free missiles on top of it? making it overpowered against protoss. Or on the flip side, if the warhounds were balanced to be not overpowered against protoss with the missiles, then they would be underpowered against zerg with reduced stats and no missiles.
Either way the warhound cannot exist with its current design. One option could be to make the warhound missiles a transformation like the hellion where the user clicks the missiles to arm them, and then once armed with the missiles the warhound will have reduced strength in combat, but improved strength against mech with its missiles activated, making the unit balanced against protoss. And then the terran could de-activate his missiles against zerg since the missiles are useless against zerg.
Or the second option is to just remove the warhound and replace it with a better designed unit actually fitting a role that seems "terran-ish" or at least a role that seems "exciting to watch as an esport". Sure I guess the marauder is exciting in my eyes and i guess the role of the warhound which overlaps the marauder "can" in some ways be exciting. But it does a really bad job of it. In my opinion the marauder already fills the role of the warhound in a more exciting way, so sorry, but the warhound needs to be axed (or completely redesigned).
Yes I completly agree. Battle hellions + mines are absolutely enough to enable mech positional play in all matchups, mostly TvP. I don't see a single reason to add something as dumb as Warhound in its current state. I mean, only chargelots are problem in mech TvP in WoL - so you have Battle Hellions to fight that. Nothing else is problem, why include Warhound? To break beautiful Mech vs Bio TvT? To not use it TvZ? Or to absolutely break TvP?
The Warhound is actually a really good unit(A bit similar to roaches/stalkers since its really good at focusing down units like roaches and fast like stalkers) and can be used to slowly phase out Marauders as the game progresses for cost efficiency. The main problem with it is that it is a powerful unit that hits the field too early. Warhounds essentially come out as fast as the first siege tanks but have that insane 2.81 movespeed allowing them to immediately rush to the opponents base to dish their damage out. I love the concept of the Warhound(especially those badass melee skills) but I think it is simply to easy to tech to.
In terms of maybe balancing it, I would suggest nerfing how fast it can come out. The unit serves its role well enough so stat wise its pretty fine and doesn't need nerfing. The only problem like I mentioned before is it coming out on to the field too easy and fast. An armory requirement will help fix this. Maybe Haywire missiles would have to be researched from the tech lab?
My biggest annoyance about the unit is the fact that its almost a purely TvT, TvP unit having little use in TvZ similar to how the Viper's Dark Swarm ability is completely useless vs Protoss since they have no biological ranged units. IMO all units should be somewhat viable in every matchup to increase variety.
Other than that, I love everything about it and I will incorporate it into my play when I get my hands on HotS.
Remove Thor and WH, add Goliath. Solved. I despise both Thor and WH from an esport spectator POW. Blizzard painted themselves into a corner by trying to circumvent bringing BW units back.
On September 06 2012 20:32 HowardRoark wrote: Remove Thor and WH, add Goliath. Solved. I despise both Thor and WH from an esport spectator POW.
Kinda agree, but they definitely would need to add something to deal with Immortals to make mech viable in TvP.
But the WH really has to me removed since it doesn't fit mech at all. Usually mech should be a lot about positioning because the units are slow, but deal a lot of damage when positioned properly. Now terran has a VERY mobile force with hellion/WH that deals a fuckton of damage regardless of position which makes it feel like bioplay. Bad thing I think.
On September 06 2012 09:00 Godwrath wrote: Best unit ever.
Supreme commander-esque ftw.
That is perhaps the least complementary comparison you could make to my mind. SupCom2 is everything that is wrong with modern RTS's. Sluggish a-move units with no rapid micro potential.
To be honest, I agree and I don't agree. I agree that the Warhound DOES need a nerf in some way shape or form, it costs too little supply and comes out too early for it's strength. I don't agree that it should automatically be placed into the old style category of mech being a chess match style of play. Some people do enjoy being able to be mobile without having to dedicate themselves to bio, I like the fact that the warhound gives more versatility to mech and more of a guerilla tactic with it, I just think it needs to be nerfed a little to make it so using the old style of mech isn't redundant.
Just my 2 cents, make it so the Warhound costs 3 supply and make an armory requirement, maybe make the haywire researchable and I think the Warhound would be good. that way players can have a choice to play the standard positional, chess match style play of mech, or they can go for the rough and tumble guerilla warfare mech. Either way, I think mech needs some mobility, no sense in sticking to the same old fashioned style for the sake of tradition.
I respect the thought that Avilo put into this post, but I think he has things backwards.
IMO, the Warhound is NOT a deathball unit. The Siege tank is a deathball unit. Why? Because SC2 is not, and cannot be, BW.
Siege tanks in BW could be spread out across a map to control space because bad unit pathing and limited group selection made it harder to attack into an entrenched position. Both of those issues made it harder to pick off a group of isolated siege tanks cost-effectively. But in SC2, anyone can, with a couple of APM, grab a group of zealots or zerglings and a-move them into a spread-out area of tanks, picking them off easily. Or you can snipe spread-out tanks with Colossi, which have nearly as much range and much more mobility. The result? Mech in SC2 revolves around keeping your army together and making a big timing push before your opponent's tier 3 units overwhelm you.
In the beta games that I've seen, top players are not using the Warhound as a "deathball" unit. Thorzain and QXC, from what I saw of their games, were using warhounds to get early map control against stalkers and queens/roaches. Thorzain in particular did several small early pushes with hellions and Warhounds to deny a third base, push back creep tumors, and to contain Zerg players. Mech making an early, aggressive push with a limited number of units to obtain limited objectives? That's not what I would expect from a "deathball" unit.
While the Warhound may have balance problems or TvT issues, that stems from the units stats and from the relative weakness of siege tanks in SC2 as compared to BW. On the whole, I think the Warhound is a great addition to SC2 - it's a relatively fast, strong, mobile mech unit that makes mech play much more dynamic than simply poking with hellions and turtling on 3 bases until you do a pre-tier 3 timing push, which is how pretty much every game plays out with mech right now.
On September 06 2012 21:24 FortMonty wrote: To be honest, I agree and I don't agree. I agree that the Warhound DOES need a nerf in some way shape or form, it costs too little supply and comes out too early for it's strength. I don't agree that it should automatically be placed into the old style category of mech being a chess match style of play. Some people do enjoy being able to be mobile without having to dedicate themselves to bio, I like the fact that the warhound gives more versatility to mech and more of a guerilla tactic with it, I just think it needs to be nerfed a little to make it so using the old style of mech isn't redundant.
Just my 2 cents, make it so the Warhound costs 3 supply and make an armory requirement, maybe make the haywire researchable and I think the Warhound would be good. that way players can have a choice to play the standard positional, chess match style play of mech, or they can go for the rough and tumble guerilla warfare mech. Either way, I think mech needs some mobility, no sense in sticking to the same old fashioned style for the sake of tradition.
im sure some people would enjoy protoss to have a central production building to build all units or have terran have the ability to chronoboost, but thats not the point
the point is diversity. what do you gain by making mech viable but mech being just bio-playstyle with bigger units?
On September 06 2012 21:24 FortMonty wrote: To be honest, I agree and I don't agree. I agree that the Warhound DOES need a nerf in some way shape or form, it costs too little supply and comes out too early for it's strength. I don't agree that it should automatically be placed into the old style category of mech being a chess match style of play. Some people do enjoy being able to be mobile without having to dedicate themselves to bio, I like the fact that the warhound gives more versatility to mech and more of a guerilla tactic with it, I just think it needs to be nerfed a little to make it so using the old style of mech isn't redundant.
Just my 2 cents, make it so the Warhound costs 3 supply and make an armory requirement, maybe make the haywire researchable and I think the Warhound would be good. that way players can have a choice to play the standard positional, chess match style play of mech, or they can go for the rough and tumble guerilla warfare mech. Either way, I think mech needs some mobility, no sense in sticking to the same old fashioned style for the sake of tradition.
im sure some people would enjoy protoss to have a central production building to build all units or have terran have the ability to chronoboost, but thats not the point
the point is diversity. what do you gain by making mech viable but mech being just bio-playstyle with bigger units?
But what you have right now is a mech playstyle that has zero diversity. You just grab a few bases and turtle until your one big timing push. You can't exercise any early aggression. You can't poke out and try to deny a third base unless you invest really heavily into banshees, which become less effective as the game goes on. You just sit and macro and try to kill drones then push when you near max. The Warhound gives you the option of turtling OR exercising early aggression. It promotes a more dynamic, more fluid playstyle.
Also, it's a bit facile to say that Warhounds and battle hellions are "bio with bigger units." Bio is about drops and multitasking and throwing away cheap units to slow down your opponent's economy. You're not going to be dropping Warhounds in the main while you move more Warhounds up the ramp into the natural. You're not going to be dropping Warhounds to deny expansions in lategame TvZ. You're not going to sacrifice a small group of warhounds to snipe HTs or Sentries or other valuable targets. The fact that you can make a decent unit that can move and attack at the same time doesn't suddenly make mech into bio.
I'm playing HoTS vs the AI and holy shit 2 Warhounds just did things to a stalker and zealot that I just shouldn't repeat - I think I like 3 HP off one warhound and that was IT... ridiculous for the price.
On September 06 2012 20:32 HowardRoark wrote: Remove Thor and WH, add Goliath. Solved. I despise both Thor and WH from an esport spectator POW.
Kinda agree, but they definitely would need to add something to deal with Immortals to make mech viable in TvP.
But the WH really has to me removed since it doesn't fit mech at all. Usually mech should be a lot about positioning because the units are slow, but deal a lot of damage when positioned properly. Now terran has a VERY mobile force with hellion/WH that deals a fuckton of damage regardless of position which makes it feel like bioplay. Bad thing I think.
Just change how much damage harden shields can take per each hit, it's a dumb ability that just makes immortals too good vs mech and absorbing tank volleys. Change it so that the maximum damage per hit is increased to 17 - 20 so that it only absorbs half the number of tank volleys.
On September 06 2012 21:24 FortMonty wrote: To be honest, I agree and I don't agree. I agree that the Warhound DOES need a nerf in some way shape or form, it costs too little supply and comes out too early for it's strength. I don't agree that it should automatically be placed into the old style category of mech being a chess match style of play. Some people do enjoy being able to be mobile without having to dedicate themselves to bio, I like the fact that the warhound gives more versatility to mech and more of a guerilla tactic with it, I just think it needs to be nerfed a little to make it so using the old style of mech isn't redundant.
Just my 2 cents, make it so the Warhound costs 3 supply and make an armory requirement, maybe make the haywire researchable and I think the Warhound would be good. that way players can have a choice to play the standard positional, chess match style play of mech, or they can go for the rough and tumble guerilla warfare mech. Either way, I think mech needs some mobility, no sense in sticking to the same old fashioned style for the sake of tradition.
im sure some people would enjoy protoss to have a central production building to build all units or have terran have the ability to chronoboost, but thats not the point
the point is diversity. what do you gain by making mech viable but mech being just bio-playstyle with bigger units?
Indeed.
TvP "mech" in Hots seems to play out like MMM. Protoss massing colossus -> terran make vikings Protoss making templars and/or immortals -> terran make ghost
I could eventually accept the marauder as a unit in SC2. I told myself that it was needed and besides it makes sense to have anti-armor units in infantry armies. Also, in the BW intro video the lost marine is saved by a black dude with a rocket launcher - a marauder perhaps ?
However, this is no excuse for making a mechanical marauder overlapping the marauder. For 50 more gas you get a 2 supply unit with 95 more (repairable) hitpoints, longer range and higher dps. Kind of a good deal. It is nice that mech viability is a priority but this doesn't mean that mech should completely replace MMM. Large open maps might be more suitable for MMM. Maps with a lot of chokes and positional opportunites should be more suitable for mech.
We don't want herpedederp a-move mech without any need whatsoever to make tanks - which should be the core unit in a mech army by definition.
What is even more annoying is that Blizzard worked on this for 2 years, and this was the best they could come up with for terran. Allow me to say LOL.
On the positive side there seems to be at least some understanding at Blizzard why mech was awful in WoL since they introduced the mechanical firebat - battle hellion. This alone could have been enough to fix the actual problem. The addition of mines would have made mech even more attractive.
Sadly, I have to say that the negatives overshadow the positives. Blizzard needs to get rid of DK and DB. Track down whoever made BW and SC1 and pay them whatever they want to come back and fix this shit.
EPT
