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Hello teamliquid.net forums,
I have been an increasingly active poster here for the past couple of weeks and I feel like I have enough claim to back up this concept I have. As we all have been seeing, the new Warhound in Terran Mech is considerably imbalanced and a generally uninteresting unit for many. From the start, I thought it was a bad idea. Not the concept of a unit being able to best the Immortal, because Terran Mech needs that, nor the aesthetics of it (I was actually intrigued by it at first). My gripe was/still is that the concept of a unit is that it is designed to nullify the Immortal's vital role in giving Protoss viability versus Terran Mech just to make Terran Mech work in PvT. Sure, Chargelots are good, but realistically they are just a mineral sink as a result of combined Mech forces, especially now with the Battle Hellion. The Warhound really feels like a half-assed, plug-in concept to fix a larger problem with a cheap solution. In its current state, it does the exact same as a Marauder offensively as it is strong against Armore-Mechanical, except that it's a stronger manifestation given that it has more health and a different set of counters. It's only 50/100 more too. Frankly, since the Warhound is making the unit that allows Protoss to have an edge against Terran completely null/void, gameplay is just shitty and becomes about Quantitative enjoyment rather than Qualitative.
As a result of all of this, I have been thinking of possible solutions. Of course there are balance suggestions, ones that include making the Warhound more balanced in terms of Damage/Cooldown/Delay etc. But the one I keep finding the best until proven elsewise is the switching of the Warhound with the Goliath.
Now I know some of you are already thinking to call me a "Brood War Fanboy" and that all I want is to make SCII a sequel-adaptation of Brood War, but I'll go ahead and say that I only played Single-Player in Brood War as a result of technical limitations at the time. That said, my theory that the Goliath is better for altogether balance is based on analyzing the features of the Goliath found in SCII versus the weaknesses of the Protoss/Zerg and how the Goliath is balanced based on the counters Protoss/Zerg have to offer.
In SCII, the Goliath is a high DPS Tier 1.5 Terran Mech unit with a decent speed, fair cost (150/50/3 Supply) and a decent moderate DPS Anti-Air attack. It would require the same tech to produce as the Warhound does. With its decent speed, that of which is faster than a Zealot, it can kite in the early game and requires a great bit of micro to utilize in larger engagements with more unit compositions, satisfying the Terran-demand that it not be a deathball unit. Of course, the campaign Goliath would need tweaking to achieve relative balance, but it seems to be a better, more acceptable unit.
Against Protoss ground forces, its high DPS would not be deterred by the Immortal's Hardened Shield like most other Mech units' attacks would, plus the Immortal is designed to be susceptible to high DPS, higher numbered units, but it would still be countered by the Immortal upon being hit. It would need to be adjusted to be better versus Stalkers (since Stalkers have the bonus against Armored units) and Zealots would still force the player to micro. Protoss Air would be a questionable balancing point, however, so the Goliath in multiple would need to be heared more towards Ground affairs.
Against Zerg, Goliaths can be effective against a number of Zerg units (Zerglings, Roaches, scouting Overlords, Mutalisks, Corruptors), while being vulnerable to a variety of Zerg units (Hydras, Brood Lords, Swarm Hosts, Vipers, Ultralisks). The Goliath also offers Anti-Air at an early stage of the match for Mech, allowing Terran Mech to feasibly fight off Mutalisk and other air harass or allow an ease into a transition without having to stretch too badly to crank out the resources for enough Thors, by which time it could be too late.
The Goliath simply seems to be a better unit for fixing balance than the Warhound in a good many ways that it shouldn't be ignored. Even if the Goliath changes a good bit, one could qualify its entrance by giving it a new name like Titan to symbolize more ground-focused operations, while also symbolizing its considerably well-rounded capacity against both ground and air. I realize this is a very long post, but I do believe it's necessary for me to even lightly explain my theory on a better unit to replace the controversial Warhound, which I honestly see as a skin-switched, oversized, A-Move Marauder you can produce out of the Factory. I will refer to this Goliath concept as the "Titan."
If the thread becomes popular enough, I will create an FAQ in the original post.
Team Liquipedia Info on the Goliath:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Campaign/Goliath
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the thor essentially replaces the goliath in sc2. the goliath required the armory, just as the thor does, and just as the warhound does. to 'come out faster than a thor' you are asking to minus the armory requirement, so you are allowing terrans to pump goliaths faster than they could even pump warhounds now, and give them extremely competent mobile antiair abilities at this stage in the game.
so in the end you are asking to introduce a faster produced warhound that has the originally planned antiair. im not sure how this is a solution?
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The original design of the warhound was a new skin for the goliath. Literally it was the same unit but ugly. To make room for it they were going to remove the thor. For whatever reason they changed their mind and decided to keep the thor, which meant that the warhound needed to fulfil a different role.
Blizz had already been playing with the idea of long range missile units to break tank lines, so they changed the warhound AA to do that. The warhound is balanced around the tank.
However it seems to have been designed in a bubble where no one knew that protoss actually exist.
For all the reasons that the warhound has become what it has become, there is no room for the goliath in SC2.
On September 10 2012 10:10 a176 wrote:
the thor essentially replaces the goliath in sc2. the goliath required the armory, just as the thor does, and just as the warhound does. to 'come out faster than a thor' you are asking to minus the armory requirement, so you are allowing terrans to pump goliaths faster than they could even pump warhounds now, and give them extremely competent mobile antiair abilities at this stage in the game.
so in the end you are asking to introduce a faster produced warhound that has the originally planned antiair. im not sure how this is a solution?
Warhound does not require armory.
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I'm saying to switch the Warhound with this Goliath concept, one I will continue to refer to as the "Titan."
On September 10 2012 10:10 a176 wrote:
the thor essentially replaces the goliath in sc2. the goliath required the armory, just as the thor does, and just as the warhound does. to 'come out faster than a thor' you are asking to minus the armory requirement, so you are allowing terrans to pump goliaths faster than they could even pump warhounds now, and give them extremely competent antiair abilities.
so in the end you are asking to introduce a faster produced warhound that can rape enemy air very early in the game. im not sure how this is a solution?
No. I don't believe you read my post the entire way through. The new Goliath would have changes and balances to make it more ground-efficient and simply a Mech unit that can deter, but not right-out counter, Air units. It would require the exact same structures responsible for bringing out the Warhound.
I also want to add that the Warhound currently does not require an Armory to produce, unless this happened within the past Beta Balance Patch.
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What if you gave the Warhound/Goliath a casting ability to change any MECH unit into a MERC version of that unit?
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They should focus the 3rd factory unit as an anti-air type unit with an ok ground attack. Currently, the warhound appears to be more anti-ground than anti-air which essentially becomes a re-skinned marauder coming out of the factory instead.
To me, it would be a complete design flaw if a warhound can out-dps a non-sieged tank.
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On September 10 2012 10:20 Zariel wrote:
They should focus the 3rd factory unit as an anti-air type unit with an ok ground attack. Currently, the warhound appears to be more anti-ground than anti-air which essentially becomes a re-skinned marauder coming out of the factory instead.
To me, it would be a complete design flaw if a warhound can out-dps a non-sieged tank.
Thanks for reminding me. I thought that the Warhound reminded me of an oversized Marauder too, which just points out how half-assed the Warhound's concept really is now.
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I think they could give Warhound and Battle Hellion a combine ability that would give it long-range flamethrowers and antiair gatling gun, thoughts? Name it Warhellionimus Prime
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What if you gave the Warhound/Goliath a casting ability to change any MECH unit into a MERC version of that unit?
http://imgur.com/qB9hY - Image I put together in 5 min. to convey the general idea.
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The warhound is supposed to fix the so-called "mech hole." As far as I can tell the "mech hole" is usually referring to the absence of some unit to take damage while the siege tanks fire, as well as a unit to defend counter attack paths long enough for the tanks to reposition.
I'd argue that the battle hellion fills the first part of that hole, and the widow mine is supposed to fill the second part. The other mech weaknesses that may need fixing are weaknesses to zealots, immortals, and air (thors do splash damage, but pretty bad damage if its not splashing all over the place). So my thoughts:
The warhound's ground attack is thought to be too strong. I'd say weaken it, but still give it some bonus damage to mechanical, and make it hit in two chunks instead of one so it can still kill immortals pretty well (i.e. unaffected by Hardened Shield).
The warhound is awfully fast, which is pretty inconsistent with the nature of mech play. Slow it down, there's no reason it needs to be that fast.
The warhound originally had an air attack with small splash, back when they were thinking of removing the thor. I'd say remove the haywire missiles, put back the air attack, but make it single target damage instead of splash. People often get thors to deal with clumped air units, and marines to deal with unclumped air units; now you can do the same with thors and warhounds.
The warhound would look pretty similar to the goliath, but not exactly identical (bonus damage to mechanical, for instance). It would definitely fill a support role, rather than a main one, and it would still make warhound + marine a good response to tanks in small numbers, but a bad response in big numbers. Warhounds would still be useful in TvZ for their anti-air and tanking capabilities, even if the bonus damage to mechanical wouldn't get used.
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On September 10 2012 10:13 Kharnage wrote:The original design of the warhound was a new skin for the goliath. Literally it was the same unit but ugly. To make room for it they were going to remove the thor. For whatever reason they changed their mind and decided to keep the thor, which meant that the warhound needed to fulfil a different role. Blizz had already been playing with the idea of long range missile units to break tank lines, so they changed the warhound AA to do that. The warhound is balanced around the tank. However it seems to have been designed in a bubble where no one knew that protoss actually exist. For all the reasons that the warhound has become what it has become, there is no room for the goliath in SC2. Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 10:10 a176 wrote:
the thor essentially replaces the goliath in sc2. the goliath required the armory, just as the thor does, and just as the warhound does. to 'come out faster than a thor' you are asking to minus the armory requirement, so you are allowing terrans to pump goliaths faster than they could even pump warhounds now, and give them extremely competent mobile antiair abilities at this stage in the game.
so in the end you are asking to introduce a faster produced warhound that has the originally planned antiair. im not sure how this is a solution? Warhound does not require armory.
the goliath skin in sc2 was ugly as all hell too so your point there is moot.
and yes, warhounds dont, but goliaths did. thats his point.
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For some reason I get the impression that whatever Blizzard will do in the future patches (ie become goliaths), Warhound model will stay the same... People were giving negative criticism of the model since the beginning and it's still the same :S
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The Thor most likely will never be cut due to the collector edition special skin, there will be alot of people that will feel cheated if the Thor is cut for Hots, and blizzard probably doesn't want that situation to happen.
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On September 10 2012 12:34 MasterCynical wrote:
The Thor most likely will never be cut due to the collector edition special skin, there will be alot of people that will feel cheated if the Thor is cut for Hots, and blizzard probably doesn't want that situation to happen.
I think this is the least likely reason to keep the thor, and not a factor at all in their decision making.
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I've always thought that the Goliath or something similar would definitely be the way to go. Before I heard about the Battle Hellion, my idea was to have more or less a goliath, but make its ground attack very high dps but short range (like 3 or less) so that way it can both deal with zealots and air units, but you create an interesting dynamic where you need your Goliaths in the front to deal with zealots, but also need to keep the alive to deal with air (Carriers hopefully...).
But yeah idk, almost anything would be better than the Warhound
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The Thor was never intended to be a goliath replacement, but it ended up as one because the megaunit concept failed for Blizzard. Right now, it costs more gas, is slower, and has a much heavier emphasis on anti-ground than anti-air.
Vikings are about as close to a true goliath replacement as you can get, but Assault Mode was pummeled into the dirt with the nerf bat (perhaps with good reason, although I never got to see the betaviking in action) and the unit obviously wouldn't sync very well, as it requires a different building / different upgrades.
This whole thing is a mess, really.
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On September 10 2012 12:21 DougJDempsey wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 10:13 Kharnage wrote:The original design of the warhound was a new skin for the goliath. Literally it was the same unit but ugly. To make room for it they were going to remove the thor. For whatever reason they changed their mind and decided to keep the thor, which meant that the warhound needed to fulfil a different role. Blizz had already been playing with the idea of long range missile units to break tank lines, so they changed the warhound AA to do that. The warhound is balanced around the tank. However it seems to have been designed in a bubble where no one knew that protoss actually exist. For all the reasons that the warhound has become what it has become, there is no room for the goliath in SC2. On September 10 2012 10:10 a176 wrote:
the thor essentially replaces the goliath in sc2. the goliath required the armory, just as the thor does, and just as the warhound does. to 'come out faster than a thor' you are asking to minus the armory requirement, so you are allowing terrans to pump goliaths faster than they could even pump warhounds now, and give them extremely competent mobile antiair abilities at this stage in the game.
so in the end you are asking to introduce a faster produced warhound that has the originally planned antiair. im not sure how this is a solution? Warhound does not require armory. the goliath skin in sc2 was ugly as all hell too so your point there is moot. and yes, warhounds dont, but goliaths did. thats his point.
It still looks 100x better than Warhound....
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![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100817141557/starcraft/images/d/d3/Goliath_SC2_Rend1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Starcraft-2-Heart-of-the-Swarm-Units-Warhound-01-600x337.jpg)
the warhound model only looks slightly better than the sc2 goliath, the sc2 goliath needs to be more domey like in BW
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On September 10 2012 10:13 Kharnage wrote:
The original design of the warhound was a new skin for the goliath. Literally it was the same unit but ugly. To make room for it they were going to remove the thor. For whatever reason they changed their mind and decided to keep the thor, which meant that the warhound needed to fulfil a different role.
Blizz had already been playing with the idea of long range missile units to break tank lines, so they changed the warhound AA to do that. The warhound is balanced around the tank.
Blizzard doesn't understand that there are so many ways to break tank lines.
1) MMM - I don't know how many times I've seen MMM just attack into Tanks and win. Also drops are killer against Tank heavy players.
2) Nukes - The only reason we don't see more Nukes is because Tanks line stalemates haven't happened since Beta. People learned how to deal with it.
3) Banshees. A solid Banshee player will easil pick of tons of Tanks, especially as they reinforce the front.
4) HSM may also be helpful if you game Raven some more love.
5) BCs may also work if you kill the Viking and bring back Goliaths, as the Goliath gets crapped on by tanks, thus allowing the BC to come in.
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I feel like taking out the warhound and increasing the damage of tanks would be awesome. Along with battle hellions and tweaked version of the widow mine, mech in sc2 could actually be fun to play.
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Just replace the skin, it doesn't make sense for a mechanical walking unit to move that fast.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I really do think they should revert the warhound to what it was (the AA) and keep the thor as well.
Thor is awful at AA other than attacking mutalisks...
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As pretty much everybody has said since the warhound was first introduced (at Blizzcon?), it's crap, replace it with the Goliath.
The Goliath + battle hellion + widow mine makes mech truly viable in TvP. Right now Mech (with ghosts) can be strong, but it's open to way too many timings because tanks are weaker and there's no spider mines (also warp-ins, immortals and blink, oh my).
If there's a range upgrade to give 9-10 AA range on the goliath, it also makes fighting broodlords semi-possibly, without having to resort to vikings.
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On September 10 2012 21:03 althaz wrote:
As pretty much everybody has said since the warhound was first introduced (at Blizzcon?), it's crap, replace it with the Goliath.
The Goliath + battle hellion + widow mine makes mech truly viable in TvP. Right now Mech (with ghosts) can be strong, but it's open to way too many timings because tanks are weaker and there's no spider mines (also warp-ins, immortals and blink, oh my).
If there's a range upgrade to give 9-10 AA range on the goliath, it also makes fighting broodlords semi-possibly, without having to resort to vikings.
And this is the problem I saw with it. It just seems to me that Blizz was trying to make itself look creative and thus created a pretty boring, clashing, and shitty unit altogether.
As far as the Viking is concerned, that's another reason why I want the "Titan" to be more ground-orientated and more of an air deterrent than a direct counter, so that Vikings still have purpose as an Anti-Air/Mech unit. I feel Mech needs that unit earlier on that it can at least deter aerial units (while not outright beating them, so Muta harassment can be fended off if your Micro/Scouting is good, but not straight up beat) before Thor.
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On September 10 2012 12:34 MasterCynical wrote:
The Thor most likely will never be cut due to the collector edition special skin, there will be alot of people that will feel cheated if the Thor is cut for Hots, and blizzard probably doesn't want that situation to happen.
I play mostly random, but honestly I think I never noticed the skin ever when I play.
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My solution here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6521293507 on the blizz forums. Initially made an account to spread the thought but 3 day trial prevents me from posting.
Swap role of Thor & Warhound instead
Current state
Thors:
Anti air for terran mech primarily vs muta and also a front line unit to soak up damage
Warhounds:
Designed to be a siegebreaker - anti mech but ends up being a major anti protoss
However, currently it is also being used very effectively as a reaver and effective base D due to speed
Suggestion
Thor:
In WoL, thors arent used against protoss because theyre too slow, expensive and countered by immortals & chargelot. They are used vs zerg and sometimes in TvT for anti viking or to soak up damage against tank lines. If blizz wanted an anti siegeline unit, this should be it. It takes a lot of tank fire and isnt splashed much due to its' size, so a small group of would be capable of breaking siege lines if they were given haywire that HOTS warhounds have now. It would again be limited by cost, size and slow movement, which would make it not seen vs Protoss and would be difficult to mass unlike the warhound.
Take away its' anti air ability and it will be used for purely anti ground mech vs terran. It would still do ok against zerg with the normal auto attack, be used vs T against other mech (also effective vs warhounds) but too slow and expensive to make a large number of to be the primary army. An ability such as haywire SHOULD NOT be able to be massed
Warhound:
Give the warhound the ability to shoot air but due to the lower cost than thors either take away the splash or reduce the anti air damage significantly thus making the warhound the AA for mech play. Given their current speed, it is better suited to fend off fast moving mutas or drops for which mech is vulnerable. It would also still do sufficient damage against ground units and is easily massable.
With the proposed changes, the matchups would be affected as follows
Against T: Warhounds to act as the anti air and the main fodder in a mech army. Thors could be moved in or medivac dropped to haywire tanks if an opening is left or to flank effectively thus requiring positioning and careful use of the haywire ability to break siege lines rather than a simple A move warhounds. It would also make players have to balance between expensive, high dps units like tanks & thors with fodder units like marine, hellion and warhound rather than just massing warhounds.
A hard counter to a unit should not be more of that unit (see warhound vs warhound…). As such, if a lot of thors are made marine, marauder should be able to shred it so a balance has to be made in mech with tanks and hellions vs MM. Warhounds would just be the mech AA and fast response to drops.
Against Z: AA against muta would be still achieved using warhounds. Thors would likely not be made, therefore matchup stays similar to how it is currently. Furthermore, siegeline breakers would remain to be broodlords as it is currently, in addition to burrow charge ultra or swarmhost.
Also due to the viper cloud, it would be easy to blind the thors and have mutas mop up ALL of the mech if thors were left as the primarly mech AA. However, with more warhounds out on the field it would be harder to just hard counter mech with 1 spell on and a muta flock. This would also be augmented by the fact that thors are SLOW, which would make it difficult to move out of an AOE spell that prevents them from shooting air. Mutas should remain as harass units, not the hard counter to mech along w the viper. Z has a lot of options to break siege lines already.
Against P: No more massable haywire and makes thors slightly more viable due to their heavy anti mech ability so well placed thors would do significant damage to a deathball (which blizz wants to go away from). Mech will be extremely viable due to battle hellions vs zealot; tanks vs armored; haywire vs immortals and would take micro to make sure each units is attacking the right thing to pick apart a deathball, while a deathball would still do heavy damage, thus making this matchup a huge slugfest rather then deathball "A" moving over mech in WoL or warhounds+hellion "A" moving over deathball in HOTS. Taking away haywire from wahounds would prevent mech as anti everything protoss as it is right now. New protoss units have no effect
Also to note that terran ground AA is limited to marines. While probably the best AA in the game, late game marines have too low of HP which very die fast thus causing the problem of T having a weak end game. They need marines, but marines don't fare as well late game as the end game units of other races. For a stronger late game T, they can eventually replace marines with warhounds.
Also for ground AA
Protoss: stalker, archon, sentry
Zerg: queen, hydra, infested terran
Terran: marine, autoturret, thor
Turrets are so rarely seen and marines end up being the main AA for terran, yet are an inflated food supply much like a zerg army maxed on roaches seem like a high food count army, but do much less than you would expect. Swap out the thor in that list and put warhound in and you have a better late game ground AA that doesnt die in 1 hit and isnt dreadfully slow
EDIT: Reader solutions from the change added here so more people will see it
DeadWombat
The Thor was originally billed to be a "tip of the spear" unit anyway, which is ironically what the Warhound is doing now. Giving the Thor the Haywire would really let it fulfill the intended function that it originally had. I am rather certain no one would miss the Thor's 250mm cannons, either. Fun idea but it was never really able to be utilized that well.
So if the Thor loses the cannons (and its energy), that would leave High Templar with one less thing to counter as well, making Thors even MORE viable against protoss.
Laowai
Protoss and Terran players with the skill to outposition the thor user and target-fire it down before it can do much damage will force thor users in higher leagues to turn off autocast and spend their haywire missiles on high-priority units, like siege tanks or colossi. This micro would not be required at a lower level, but would add depth to the game... for better players than me, anyway.
Another issue it would fix is one that was actually brought up in the early design stages of HotS, and the reason the warhound was conceptualized in the first place: Thors are pretty bad against mutalisks. Two warhounds are less magic-boxable than one thor, on top of being smaller and more mobile. Their speed would also make them very useful against the new-and-improved air harass from Protoss, leading to small-army map control battles away from the deathball.
Tl;dr: Give thors haywire, warhounds anti air
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I pretty much support the guy above me saying warhounds should be anti air and thor the mech spearhead vs ground.
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This is what mech needs:
1: Thor Removed
2. Warhound Removed
3. Add in Goliath OR if warhound is not removed, remove haywire, replace haywire with Hellfire missles (or something similar), lower ground dps to 10 and lower armor to 1
4. Buff Siege Tank siege damage and Increase cost of siege mode to 150/150
5. Lower Widow Mine Supply Cost and buff the damage
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Just giving the Viking an (expensive) upgrade that improves his viability in gtg combat. This would solve tons of things (not unlike the Gholiat needed one to become truely good against air)...
It could also share ground Upgrades for it's air form (but start with less base ata dmg).
The Viking is allready in game.. It's just a shame that 50%+ of it's potential is not used because blizzrad seems not be willing to balance it.... There are many ways to do this aside from pure statalterations... Just increase the landingtime and suddenly flying into an enemy base is a risk even when it actually does decent on the ground.
I just don't see the need for another Mech/Walker when there is allready one in game...
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On September 11 2012 13:30 Astynax wrote:+ Show Spoiler +My solution here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6521293507 on the blizz forums. Initially made an account to spread the thought but 3 day trial prevents me from posting. Swap role of Thor & Warhound instead Current stateThors:Anti air for terran mech primarily vs muta and also a front line unit to soak up damage Warhounds: Designed to be a siegebreaker - anti mech but ends up being a major anti protoss However, currently it is also being used very effectively as a reaver and effective base D due to speed SuggestionThor: In WoL, thors arent used against protoss because theyre too slow, expensive and countered by immortals & chargelot. They are used vs zerg and sometimes in TvT for anti viking or to soak up damage against tank lines. If blizz wanted an anti siegeline unit, this should be it. It takes a lot of tank fire and isnt splashed much due to its' size, so a small group of would be capable of breaking siege lines if they were given haywire that HOTS warhounds have now. It would again be limited by cost, size and slow movement, which would make it not seen vs Protoss and would be difficult to mass unlike the warhound. Take away its' anti air ability and it will be used for purely anti ground mech vs terran. It would still do ok against zerg with the normal auto attack, be used vs T against other mech (also effective vs warhounds) but too slow and expensive to make a large number of to be the primary army. An ability such as haywire SHOULD NOT be able to be massed Warhound:Give the warhound the ability to shoot air but due to the lower cost than thors either take away the splash or reduce the anti air damage significantly thus making the warhound the AA for mech play. Given their current speed, it is better suited to fend off fast moving mutas or drops for which mech is vulnerable. It would also still do sufficient damage against ground units and is easily massable. With the proposed changes, the matchups would be affected as followsAgainst T: Warhounds to act as the anti air and the main fodder in a mech army. Thors could be moved in or medivac dropped to haywire tanks if an opening is left or to flank effectively thus requiring positioning and careful use of the haywire ability to break siege lines rather than a simple A move warhounds. It would also make players have to balance between expensive, high dps units like tanks & thors with fodder units like marine, hellion and warhound rather than just massing warhounds. A hard counter to a unit should not be more of that unit (see warhound vs warhound…). As such, if a lot of thors are made marine, marauder should be able to shred it so a balance has to be made in mech with tanks and hellions vs MM. Warhounds would just be the mech AA and fast response to drops. Against Z: AA against muta would be still achieved using warhounds. Thors would likely not be made, therefore matchup stays similar to how it is currently. Furthermore, siegeline breakers would remain to be broodlords as it is currently, in addition to burrow charge ultra or swarmhost. Also due to the viper cloud, it would be easy to blind the thors and have mutas mop up ALL of the mech if thors were left as the primarly mech AA. However, with more warhounds out on the field it would be harder to just hard counter mech with 1 spell on and a muta flock. This would also be augmented by the fact that thors are SLOW, which would make it difficult to move out of an AOE spell that prevents them from shooting air. Mutas should remain as harass units, not the hard counter to mech along w the viper. Z has a lot of options to break siege lines already. Against P: No more massable haywire and makes thors slightly more viable due to their heavy anti mech ability so well placed thors would do significant damage to a deathball (which blizz wants to go away from). Mech will be extremely viable due to battle hellions vs zealot; tanks vs armored; haywire vs immortals and would take micro to make sure each units is attacking the right thing to pick apart a deathball, while a deathball would still do heavy damage, thus making this matchup a huge slugfest rather then deathball "A" moving over mech in WoL or warhounds+hellion "A" moving over deathball in HOTS. Taking away haywire from wahounds would prevent mech as anti everything protoss as it is right now. New protoss units have no effect Also to note that terran ground AA is limited to marines. While probably the best AA in the game, late game marines have too low of HP which very die fast thus causing the problem of T having a weak end game. They need marines, but marines don't fare as well late game as the end game units of other races. For a stronger late game T, they can eventually replace marines with warhounds. Also for ground AA Protoss: stalker, archon, sentry Zerg: queen, hydra, infested terran Terran: marine, autoturret, thor Turrets are so rarely seen and marines end up being the main AA for terran, yet are an inflated food supply much like a zerg army maxed on roaches seem like a high food count army, but do much less than you would expect. Swap out the thor in that list and put warhound in and you have a better late game ground AA that doesnt die in 1 hit and isnt dreadfully slow EDIT: Reader solutions from the change added here so more people will see itDeadWombat
The Thor was originally billed to be a "tip of the spear" unit anyway, which is ironically what the Warhound is doing now. Giving the Thor the Haywire would really let it fulfill the intended function that it originally had. I am rather certain no one would miss the Thor's 250mm cannons, either. Fun idea but it was never really able to be utilized that well.
So if the Thor loses the cannons (and its energy), that would leave High Templar with one less thing to counter as well, making Thors even MORE viable against protoss.
Laowai Protoss and Terran players with the skill to outposition the thor user and target-fire it down before it can do much damage will force thor users in higher leagues to turn off autocast and spend their haywire missiles on high-priority units, like siege tanks or colossi. This micro would not be required at a lower level, but would add depth to the game... for better players than me, anyway.
Another issue it would fix is one that was actually brought up in the early design stages of HotS, and the reason the warhound was conceptualized in the first place: Thors are pretty bad against mutalisks. Two warhounds are less magic-boxable than one thor, on top of being smaller and more mobile. Their speed would also make them very useful against the new-and-improved air harass from Protoss, leading to small-army map control battles away from the deathball. Tl;dr: Give thors haywire, warhounds anti air
I actually really like this idea. The on'y issue is that it still does not address the Terran Siege Tank issue. Why build a Tank when I can build a WH. Not to mention that there are so many options that each race has that specifically are made to counter Tanks
Personally I think Tanks should have a 150/150 upgrade.
Maelstrom Rounds
Siege Tank's Crucio Shock Cannon deals +40 damage to primary target. Splash damage remains the same.
OR
Be moved from 3 to 2 food. This may sound a little OP. But the immobility of tanks lends it self that a Terran player cannot simply walk across the map and kill the enemy if the enemy aggressively attempts to circumvent the main Mech army. Not to mention the many tools that each race has to deal with Tanks.
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I think one of the main problems of the whole mech play is that blizzard designed too many anti mech tank units. The Stalker with Blink, the chargelot, the immortal etc.
So they need to think of a "mech" unit that counters all the anti mech P has.
Also you should emphasize in your OP what the Goliath should be a solution for. So what is in your opinion the problem?
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I agree. A goliath is what would mech be balanced and fun at the same time. The fact that it's mobile makes it more fun to use and since it has a not so trong anti ground attack it will be pretty balanced from scratch.
I also think they should keep the thor, and just, like in BW make the Goliath long range single target anti air. That would make for a lot of positional fun games, where goliaths want to snipe brood lords, but can't get too close because of Infestors, but at the same time, these Infestors can't come close too due to the Siege tanks.
Further, it would remove the necessity to ALWAYS go for Vikings, which is quite boring actually.
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On September 12 2012 23:09 Grendel wrote:
I agree. A goliath is what would mech be balanced and fun at the same time. The fact that it's mobile makes it more fun to use and since it has a not so trong anti ground attack it will be pretty balanced from scratch.
I also think they should keep the thor, and just, like in BW make the Goliath long range single target anti air. That would make for a lot of positional fun games, where goliaths want to snipe brood lords, but can't get too close because of Infestors, but at the same time, these Infestors can't come close too due to the Siege tanks.
Further, it would remove the necessity to ALWAYS go for Vikings, which is quite boring actually.
That sounds exactly like the Viking/Tank/Thor+Hellion or Marine vs Broodlord/Infestor dynamic we have atm?
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Personally, I think most of the mech problems could be solved simply by altering the viking instead of adding warhound or goliath. I think the largest problem with the viking is their high cost (150,75...225 total). I wouldn't mind seeing what the game would look like if their cost was dropped down to goliath levels (100,50....150 total) and their range reduced (maybe 5 ground, 5 air....with a fusion core upgrade for +4 air range). With this setup many more people, myself included, would definitely give the ground mode some use in standard mech deployment. I do like their ground attack (decent single target dps, high rate of fire, chaingun), however, their low hp (125) and high cost make other units better substitutes in many general situations.
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On September 11 2012 13:30 Astynax wrote:
Tl;dr: Give thors haywire, warhounds anti air
I proposed this same solution in another thread. It would make a lot of sense conceptually and in terms of gameplay.
It would allow the Warhound/Goliath to be a meaningfull part of a mech composition. It would also make it more useful in all matchups.
The Thor would become the siege breaker unit that it was supposed to be and also strong and durable versus mech.
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small thing, but the Goliath is a 2 supply unit.
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On September 11 2012 12:08 Sufinsil wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 12:34 MasterCynical wrote:
The Thor most likely will never be cut due to the collector edition special skin, there will be alot of people that will feel cheated if the Thor is cut for Hots, and blizzard probably doesn't want that situation to happen. I play mostly random, but honestly I think I never noticed the skin ever when I play.
Also thats the WoL thor, you can still play WoL as far as i know. so this is a moot point really.
in fact...it wouldnt surprise me if in HoTs your thor will look normal again.
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On September 12 2012 23:07 Hryul wrote:
I think one of the main problems of the whole mech play is that blizzard designed too many anti mech tank units. The Stalker with Blink, the chargelot, the immortal etc.
So they need to think of a "mech" unit that counters all the anti mech P has.
Also you should emphasize in your OP what the Goliath should be a solution for. So what is in your opinion the problem?
I thought I emphasized my opinion clearly, but I'll state it again I guess. My problem is that the Warhound is a bland, quick-fix type unit that offers little for qualitative gameplay. In fact, you could simply state it's an over-sized, beafier Marauder that is Mechanical. Watching numerous games, in TvZ it just makes SCII more of a battle of attrition than a battle of wit and in TvP it's a very bad design choice for dealing with units intentionally designed well to counter Mech play.
I also posted what it's supposed to counter and how it counter anti-mech itself.
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