Re-Designing the Warhound.. ala "Mech" play in SC2

it's simply a re-skinned marauder without stim but buffed by having more HP, a fast movement speed of 2.81 and being range 7 including a range 10 haywire missiles attack. It is simply too effective against every unit in this game other than flying units. Adding insult to injury, its only 2 supply, no armoury requirement and cheap. A pure numbers issue.

Because of its stats, theres simply no reason one would NOT get the warhound. It does well against non-mechanical units as well as mechanical ones which it was designed to counter. Its disadvantage is simply not being able to hit air, which also highlights the everlasting problem of not having that "middle GtA" unit between the marine (easily accessible and works for bio-mech styles for a short period of time) and the thor (hard to access, costly and inefficient vs armoured air units). As it stands, the viking is this unit but it's an AtA unit that doesn't share the same upgrades as factory units and requires starport tech. Both the factory and starport anti air options should be flexible with its drawbacks not in terms of +light/+armoured making them counter specific but rather in terms of mobility for example.

Starcraft needs more setup time based units not less of them. These units create positional based battles, dictate enemy unit by zoning out areas and don't result in 5 sec "deathball" battles. Unlike other RTS games, these type of units really separated SC with the rest of the bunch. However it is very saddening to see the siege tanks, a trademark SC unit, become one of the last of its species nearing extinction thanks to another unit that counters it.

From what I think, it has been intentional in WoL for these units to be weakened (that control space) while emphasising more on units that bypass these immobile defences all together. For whatever reason (make games faster, easier etc), I think this is the wrong way to go in the long run and it would be great if BOTH were emphasised.

Blizzard needs to be reminded that breaking siege lines is an art as with everything else. It's what makes SC so interesting when players figure out a way of stopping things. Not only that but steppes of war is a long forgotten history. Players now do not need another unit that counters the tank but worse make it redundant all together. TvT is probably the most positional matchup out of all matchups and feels alot closer to what BW produced (a highly entertaining positional battles all around the map). It also happens to be the best mirror matchup easily highlighted as to why it is recently by the game between MMA vs MVP in GSL Code S (group E set 1). Simply put, we need more emphasis on these units badly.

If the concept of the current warhound goes live, tanks will definately become redundant and its easily imaginable to see a composition of hellion/warhound/thor deathballs roaming around the map. The first two units can handle almost any composition fine while being very mobile other than not being able to bypass cliffs (medivacs). This is not what "mech" is all about.

When we look at Bio, we think mobility and all around firepower. Due to their cost, the units are more expendable but are also squashy. The core of this composition is the marine. When we think "Mech", it's all about firepower over mobility. Positioning is of utter importance as it is its strength and weakness. The core of this composition is the tank.

But as already mentiond, if the warhound becomes the core of the "mech" composition, it becomes nothing but a re-skinned Bio deathball that comes out of the factory. This is not what the community wants.

First and foremost, the unit and the design concept of mines synergises very well. Hellions can roam around the map very quickly, allowing for the T player to setup mine fields easily and quickly instead of having a single separate unit that has to walk across the map to its desired location. However because it's an upgrade, you cannot just start laying mine fields on the map but are rather left with the choice of:

[quote]Do I want to get mines first? or battle mode first? or forgo those upgrades and prepare for siege mode? get a single rect/tech lab? or 2 tech labs? or make 4 hellions specifically for short term map control?[quote]

So it allows players to either commit to hellions for the long term (much more useful than just pre-igniter upgraded hellions), or use them for a short term specific uses. With the two upgrade options it makes the hellions much more dynamic than what they are as of now.

With regards to widow mines, I think it fits perfectly in SC2 because of the unit relationships between ground/air units. In BW, the ground units were normally separated from air units (air units dealt either weak damage to ground or had no ability to attack ground units) meaning that the interaction between the two type of units were very rare outside of a few exceptions. Only in the lategame we would see late game air units actually influence ground units in the form of BCs/Carriers etc. However this has changed with SC2 where units such as the banshee/voidrays/oracle/viper have more effect on the ground units than its predecessors (which for the early part of the game made the game much more volatile). So having mines being able to hit air compensates for the sudden rise of AtG units prevalent in SC2 atleast for the Terran race.

Siege tanks are the joke of SC2 universe these days. A unit that once defined the Terran race has all but fallen to becoming a unit close to extinction (too many predators for the poor ol tank). In the WoL:Beta, it was actually quite fearsome since it dealt 60 damage to everything. But it was heavily nerfed due to mainly how crude the maps were designed back in those days e.g. steppes of war. Lost temple's ledge next to the natural expansion did not help the unit either as it got further nerfed (dealing less damage to light and bonus to armored). Only in TvT does it get to show a glimpse of its former glory yet most of the time it gets stood down by the next big thing in SC2, the marauders.

But the days of being able to walk to your opponents natural in 5 seconds, or hitting their natural from a ledge/or your expansion are long gone. The nerfs that were imposed due to the maps should be lifted thanks to great map designs nowadays and the tanks should regain its awesome firepower given all of its set-backs.

Tanks enable "mech" play and further promotes positional play NOT deathballs. So the above are a few suggestions to buff the tank. Either allow T to have more of them (hence being able to spread them around the map) or buff its damage so that its firepower is actually scarier than say a stimmed MMM ball.

Unlike the previous warhound (a GtG unit with no air attack) which was far too good all round that effectively overshadowed the tank and generally made things on the ground look stupid, the new warhound is designed with two things in mind. Firstly, being the general GtA unit from the factory and secondly allowing the tank to be the main GtG damage dealing unit from the factory. What this does is shift the emphasis on the tanks as the core composition of a "mech" force while becoming a sidekick to protect the tanks from the air (excelling at this) and somewhat from enemy ground units (average at this).

However the warhound will not supercede the viking because going with vikings for anti air means going with the starport tech which then result in the player having access to medivacs/banshees and ravens. The player who chooses to go with warhounds via armory means no air tech til late game. Both units have their pros and cons but the main difference is mobility where one is stuck on the ground with slightly better anti air capability vs the other which can roam around the map ignoring/abusing any terrain features (also specific advantages such as being not affected by Viper's binding cloud).

Although this has no relevance to "mech" play, I'd like to bring attention to a spell that is faily difficult to balance as Blizzard has never seemed to find the sweetspot for. The thought occurred to me when writing up this post is that the Ravens a spiritual successor to the science vessels should be looked at to make it a flying support unit that oversees its ground troops. As with the current metagame, it is still regarded as a one trick pony (125 energy requirement) where most Ravens would die after casting its hunter seeker missile at its enemy (range 6! and FF splash). On top of that, it requires a ton of upgrades and gas. Also there is no way for the enemy to react and hope that the ravens die before getting their bombs off (100 damage splash? or a high single damage with low splash damage).

Then we look at the Science vessel which earned its worth depending on how carefully it was used from mid to late game, especially in TvZ. It would become that core unit which could aid different positions/battle fronts by flying around and casting spells that did not outright kill units (Irridate) which the hunter seeker missiles do. However it was never an offensive unit that could outright win you the game by massing. It also didn't require a load of upgrades either other than being higher up in the tech three via Science Facility.
So clearly Ravens could if tweaked fulfil that role the Science vessels had. As of the current metagame, it is merely fulfilling niche roles such as PDD for 1-1-1 against TvP, late late late game TvT air battles, used as a detector etc.

The main problem with the Raven is the hunter seeker missile. It's like turning the raven into a big flying baneling i.e. an one trick pony. The proposal above changes this to having the raven always having 100% chance of hitting their target. Although the idea of separating the unit targeted by the old SM sounded cool on paper, in reality it would rarely hit anything (e.g a muta flock). So instead it always hits but the catch is the 10sec timer. Just like Irradiate, the unit targeted will die eventually (unless its a high hitpoint unit like the ultralisk) but it gives enough time for the enemy to react and mitigate the damage (by splitting or killing its own unit) or cast its crucial spells before dying. It also allows some opportunities for the affected unit e.g. say a corrupter with the seeker missile attached can fly into the ravens/other units to deal splash damage.
By changing the seeker missile, ravens can be alot more viable than what see are used to seeing still to this day. If cared with the right micro (and accumulated with time in number), they can be the back bone of the lategame T in matchups like TvZ where ghosts with their pre-nerfed snipe damage use to fulfil. The new seeker missiles can take out essential Z targets like blood lords, vipers etc.

Funnily enough the idea was inspired by the first widow mine concept from blizzard.