HotS Balance Update #3 [9/20/2012] - Page 37

On September 25 2012 03:54 Qikz wrote:
No bunker defense with battle hellions anytime soon. Community manager just posted this on US Battle.net forums.

On September 25 2012 03:35 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:

No one is "whining" -- people generally like things to make logical sens to some degree, and they are just calling it how they see it. It makes little to no sense that something that is classified as mechanical because, you know it's a vehicle, not just a suit of armor, and then transforms into what is essentially a robot with a driver (like a goliath, or warhound, or thor...) would then somehow magically bond the vehicle parts to the driver, when they don't even do that for their infantry...... yeah, it makes no sense from a lore perspective, no matter how you slice it. The only possible thing I would accept is if because the Terran engineers are idiots, they allow the body of the driver to be exposed while inside the battle hellion form, much like the utility suit from Aliens (which the SCV is already based on).

It would make much more sense for something to be able to shift it's shielding around and change from a large "light" armored unit to a small "armored" armored unit.

And mech *is* about using mechanical units -- the slow push is a result of this play style coming from mechanical units. Hence why it is called "mech" and not "slow, positional ghost push". Also, the micro of mech is not about casting spells at just the right time in the right way. Mech in generally uses very little spell casting.

On September 25 2012 04:07 Ramiz1989 wrote:

Yes, it is ok for SCVs to be able to repair Battle Cruisers from the ground, but Zealots can't attack them? But hey, when the Hellion is basically transforming into Marauder or SCV, a guy in a big suit, it doesn't make any sense, and suddenly everybody is going apeshit about the changes.

Please... people just dislike the design of it, they don't want to play the mech with half mech and half bio unit, if they are saying how they dislike it and how it doesn't make any sense, then they have double standards because there are a f**k ton of things in SC2(or SC universe for that matter) that doesn't make any sense.

Just as Hellions getting 50% HP when transforming in their battle mode, Marines destroying Carriers and Mothership, Reapers seeing above ground, Infestors spawning Infested Marines that they gathered from the battle even though you can use them as soon as Infestor spawn from the larva, Nydus that is traveling trough the space and other stuff.

And mech you are talking about is mech from Brood War. Guess what, Bio in SC2 contains Marines, Marauders, Ghosts with Medivac support, by your analogy, that isn't bio, because hey, it is using Medivacs!
In mech, Ghosts aren't majority of your population, it is not your core unit, and it is not the unit your army resolves around, you need like 10-20 population of Ghosts for support, which isn't much in the late game especially because majority of Terran players in the late game are sacrificing SCVs because they have a tons of Mules. What you are saying is that Mech playstyle isn't Mech because of the stupid tag unit has below its stats? As others have said, Mech is Style of play, that is why everyone were saying how Warhounds weren't Mech units, because they were as mobile as Bio... Some sort of Hybrid, something between the Marauder and Thor.

If you disagree with me, that is ok, respect your opinion, but that is just that, an opinion, it is not the fact, it is not by some guide on how Mech should be played in HOTS and what should be considered an Mech strategy and what is not.

On September 25 2012 04:44 Qikz wrote:
I'm not saying the goliath should return, I'm just trying to get them to make the widow mine the spidermine. That's the sort of mine NEEDS and not just what people want. When people are ignoring good ideas (like the return of the proper spidermine), just because it's from BW, it actually makes me sick to the stomach. With the widow mine, the development team are saying they want something like the spidermine. So why not just add it to Hellions and add it to the game?

On September 25 2012 05:01 Crawdad wrote:


Yep, let's turn a micro-intensive unit that raises the skill ceiling, into a unit that requires no micro and actually has less utility. Sounds great. Or we can just, y'know, buff the Widow mine in other ways so that it can actually guard flanks and prevent backstabs, without taking away everything that makes it great.

On September 25 2012 05:12 Qikz wrote:


At 2 supply you can't make enough mines to actually slow them down. That's the issue that mech has right now, backstabs. Anti air we have vikings and turrets for so the goliath would be redundant. EMP can deal with Archons and Immortals if they try and spam them (and ghosts are affordable with mech, I do it in WoL and so do many masters players over on in the strategy forum). Backstabs however, are really, really hard to deal with as you can never get back in time to defend your bases.

On September 25 2012 06:28 Fus wrote:
So i'm not up to the latest changes in the BETA but are terran getting another unit instead of the warhound?

On September 25 2012 04:07 Ramiz1989 wrote:

Yes, it is ok for SCVs to be able to repair Battle Cruisers from the ground, but Zealots can't attack them? But hey, when the Hellion is basically transforming into Marauder or SCV, a guy in a big suit, it doesn't make any sense, and suddenly everybody is going apeshit about the changes.

Please... people just dislike the design of it, they don't want to play the mech with half mech and half bio unit, if they are saying how they dislike it and how it doesn't make any sense, then they have double standards because there are a f**k ton of things in SC2(or SC universe for that matter) that doesn't make any sense.

Just as Hellions getting 50% HP when transforming in their battle mode, Marines destroying Carriers and Mothership, Reapers seeing above ground, Infestors spawning Infested Marines that they gathered from the battle even though you can use them as soon as Infestor spawn from the larva, Nydus that is traveling trough the space and other stuff.

And mech you are talking about is mech from Brood War. Guess what, Bio in SC2 contains Marines, Marauders, Ghosts with Medivac support, by your analogy, that isn't bio, because hey, it is using Medivacs!
In mech, Ghosts aren't majority of your population, it is not your core unit, and it is not the unit your army resolves around, you need like 10-20 population of Ghosts for support, which isn't much in the late game especially because majority of Terran players in the late game are sacrificing SCVs because they have a tons of Mules. What you are saying is that Mech playstyle isn't Mech because of the stupid tag unit has below its stats? As others have said, Mech is Style of play, that is why everyone were saying how Warhounds weren't Mech units, because they were as mobile as Bio... Some sort of Hybrid, something between the Marauder and Thor.

If you disagree with me, that is ok, respect your opinion, but that is just that, an opinion, it is not the fact, it is not by some guide on how Mech should be played in HOTS and what should be considered an Mech strategy and what is not.

On September 25 2012 13:49 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
Yes, some people don't like the design. Some of those people dislike it because it does not make sense, from a lore perspective. Some people don't like it from a gameplay perspective. Some people don't like it for both. Saying that people don't like the design doesn't validate your apparent opinion that it is a good design. And people have a right not to like it just like people had a right not to like any of the other things about the game regardless of whether or not their voice has caused any change. If you wish to be dismissive of other's opinions that is fine, but that does not put yours above theirs. Are you Browder's nephew or something because you seem quite angry that anyone would try to have things in the game they want to play make sense.

And sure there are some issues of suspended disbelief in other areas of the game, that doesn't mean that we have to accept every single new one, especially if it seems like it is reaching. I mean, I don't think the idea is quite as bad as the warhound, but it is up there.

No, bio with medivacs is technically not pure bio, but since the character of the play style did not change AND the primary part of the unit composition (that being the ground infantry) has not changed, it is still a bio force. Sure medivacs cann't heal each other and can fly and cannot cast spells and are produced from the starport. But the primary component of the bio army was the marines anyway.

Look, in Broodwar, ghosts were sometimes used in conjuntion with mech play, too. That doesn't make the primary composition -- machines -- not a mech army, in either game. It just means that mech is supplemented with ghosts. Ghosts are spell casters, not a primary composition kind of unit, so it really doesn't matter where you use them, that's not the point. The point is that it makes sense for the mech army to be what it was, and it makes sense for the bio army to be what it was. I don't think you really get why the warhound was bad or axed. It was just because it felt wrong, its because it WAS wrong. It was a unit that overlapped purposes and was all around too good. It would not have mattered whether it was a bio unit or not, it was just wrong.

Having the hellion turn into a firebat is both bad design and doesn't make sense. If they want a firebat in the game, they should just make a firebat as a separate biological unit. If they want the battle hellion in the game as a transforming machine that has a driver inside it, then it should be a machine, it should be mechanical as the stupid tag underneath it. It doesn't change the character of mechanical play in the slightest and it has absolutely nothing to do with nostolgia (In fact, YOUR line of argumentation looks much more like you want the good ol' firebat back in the game much more than my argument ). I'm perfectly fine with the battle hellion the way it is. Making it a biological unit because of its transformation is simply nonsensical both from a lore and gameplay standpoint. So, if we want it healed with a medivac, we have it transform, because we can't get an SCV out there to repair it or don't want to drop a mule all the way out there and waste its mining capability. But since we happened to drop it for harass, we will just transform, heal up, transform and go harass again. I'm sorry, no that's simply rediculous. I don't care if it "raises the skill cap" or is even theoretically cool, its a schizophrenic unit at that point and has no clarity of purpose which is contrary to what Blizzard has generally tried to produce.

EDIT: @ Harbinger631 -- your ad hominem attack brings neither a contribution to the argument nor is even remotely accurate.