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Many people currently discuss if the Widow Mine is a good 'unit'. The main arguement is that you get a unit which deals 160 damage + now 60 splash for 75/25/2 in 20 sek buildtime. In fact David Kim says this more or less directly:
Widow mine is a 160 damage unit that instantly 2-4 shots the strongest, latest tier units in the game. Not to mention you can build them two at a time with a 20 sec build time on each. We don't think it'll be a good idea to have these guys be 1 pop especially for the 200/200 supply cases.
First of it is not guaranteed damage, in the 200/200 case every opponent has options to spot them, which makes them either less relevant in a maxed battle or harder to use (you might have to focus on sniping obs units, which cannot be guaranteed to work). With the current design one is pressed to make every single Widow Mine count, because otherwise you wasted a lot of resources (mainly supply cost) on a unit which does nothing and which takes away from your main army.
This is important to note, but it also displays a wrong perception of the Widow Mine in my opinion. At this point I want to highlight the usages of Spider Mines, which may offend some people, because it is a different game, but you can get a pretty good idea of how the Widow Mine is supposed to work in my and others opinion.
- Gain map control early, by mining up attack paths and expansions.
- Use them to protect against harassment in your own base.
- Mine up your front against counter attacks, once you move out with your army.
- And very importantly heavily mine up paths along you push, such that your army cannot be flanked easily.
These are just a few usages of the top of my head, there more of course. Having these options is currently missing from SC2 Terran mech play and it wont get much better with the Widow Mine, because it is simply too precious to use it like this.
One might argue that the current design follows another intention than the design of the BW Spider Mine and I cant say anything against that, but please note the potential in terms of gameplay of a Spider Mine'esque Widow Mine.
Personally I would give a new unit (Warhound or whatever) the ability to lay mines, but at least rework the Widow Mine too become less precious and therefore also less deadly (to keep the people happy who just look at the numbers).
As a finaly sidenote, Spider Mines also gave a huge entertaiment factor for the viewers, because they dealt friendly fire/ splash, so that badly placed mines / dragged mines could hurt the Terran player himself.
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On September 21 2012 19:13 puissance wrote:Many people currently discuss if the Widow Mine is a good 'unit'. The main arguement is that you get a unit which deals 160 damage + now 60 splash for 75/25/2 in 20 sek buildtime. In fact David Kim says this more or less directly: Show nested quote +Widow mine is a 160 damage unit that instantly 2-4 shots the strongest, latest tier units in the game. Not to mention you can build them two at a time with a 20 sec build time on each. We don't think it'll be a good idea to have these guys be 1 pop especially for the 200/200 supply cases. First of it is not guaranteed damage, in the 200/200 case every opponent has options to spot them, which makes them either less relevant in a maxed battle or harder to use (you might have to focus on sniping obs units, which cannot be guaranteed to work). With the current design one is pressed to make every single Widow Mine count, because otherwise you wasted a lot of resources (mainly supply cost) on a unit which does nothing and which takes away from your main army.
Widow mines can unburrow, therefore it is possible to make every mine count unlike with the spider mine.
On September 21 2012 19:13 puissance wrote:
This is important to note, but it also displays a wrong perception of the Widow Mine in my opinion. At this point I want to highlight the usages of Spider Mines, which may offend some people, because it is a different game, but you can get a pretty good idea of how the Widow Mine is supposed to work in my and others opinion.
- Gain map control early, by mining up attack paths and expansions.
- Use them to protect against harassment in your own base.
- Mine up your front against counter attacks, once you move out with your army.
- And very importantly heavily mine up paths along you push, such that your army cannot be flanked easily.
These are just a few usages of the top of my head, there more of course. Having these options is currently missing from SC2 Terran mech play and it wont get much better with the Widow Mine, because it is simply too precious to use it like this.
One might argue that the current design follows another intention than the design of the BW Spider Mine and I cant say anything against that, but please note the potential in terms of gameplay of a Spider Mine'esque Widow Mine.
That is a question of balancing. If the widow mine would be lower supply, this might be possible, if very few widow mines are very powerful (the way blizzard approaches it right now with the huge splash buff) you will also just need very few of them to - at least - strongly weaken any flanks. Also you don't need a lot of (spider) mines to gain that mapcontrol. "Vision doesn't stack".
Furthermore widow mines are extremly strong for base protection in terms of design, because you can reposition them and they attack flyers. It's just a question of balancing them properly so that this works out.
Personally I would give a new unit (Warhound or whatever) the ability to lay mines, but at least rework the Widow Mine too become less precious and therefore also less deadly (to keep the people happy who just look at the numbers).
Well, how precious a unit is, is a question of how much it does. Make it cheap on the supply and cost is one way, the other one is to make it really powerful. Blizzard goes the second route right now and hopefully will continue to do so until the mine works. (or do the first route, but it doesn't look like they will try to)
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I am starting to hate blizzard more and more as they update and patch HOTS. I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp. there's no point in even having them
once toss gets a single observer out. at which point stalkers outrange them and start picking them off and you cant even take out the freaking observers cuz their line of sight outranges the mines attack range. WIDOW MINES ARE THE MOST USELESS ATTEMPTS AT TVP MECH EVER. I can understand zerg and tvt where mines have somewhat more viability but honestly tanks and scans will dispose of mines QUICKLY. Honestly I see zerg as the only race that will have problems dealing with mines. anyways mines need MUCH more balance/buffs than what they offer currently. honestly removing mines and replacing it with another unit would be more reasonable than the current metatrash blizzard has created thus far.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Don't forget about manual targeting for mines. With that they can't be unmixed by lings or roaches, meaning that terrans will always them target only to a big groups of units.
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The best idea I've heard until now was to give the ability to lay spider mines to the Reaper. One Reaper, one mine, no supply requierement. It would fit the role of the reaper, it's kind of a "half-supply-requirement" because the Reaper needs supply, but you can throw them away and build new ones.
Consider this, Blizzard!
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On September 21 2012 19:47 pampelmus wrote:
The best idea I've heard until now was to give the ability to lay spider mines to the Reaper. One Reaper, one mine, no supply requierement. It would fit the role of the reaper, it's kind of a "half-supply-requirement" because the Reaper needs supply, but you can throw them away and build new ones.
Consider this, Blizzard!
that is 25 gas more. noone will build reapers for that :D
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On September 21 2012 19:45 hiimjimmeh wrote:
I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp.
drop defense.
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The main advantage of the widow mine is wierdly enough, its cost efficiency. At 2 supply it will almost always trade cost efficiently with every other unit in the game. If it hits 2 marines (and it'll hit more than that) it has already traded supply for supply.
A widow mine at the back of an expansion can quite easily take out a medivac with no difficulty at all. Or it can take out 3/4s of the entire drop in the process of killing the medivac. Or it can snipe a banshee instantly. Two of them and a turret can take out most of a flock of mutas.
I'm seriously looking forward to using it with the additional splash it has. Sparing 20 supply for ten widow mines is basically trading 20 supply for several thousand damage. Yeah, a really careful deathball can snipe them, in which case the priority becomes removing their detection and keeping the widow mines in path where it is hugely cost inefficient to put down detection. For example, if I force an additional detector out of protoss just to clear a path, I've already cost them 1 supply that is in completely useless units.
With the addition of splash, the only units that can safely and cost effectively clear widow mines are siege range units. Sure, you can send zerglings in to clear them, but put them on hold position and keep a single hellion or two flitting around and they can't hope to clear them. And if they send a swarm in, detonate the widow mines and remove 50 supply's worth of units for 10.
There has been almost no exploration of positional play in Starcraft 2. Siege tanks move in big clumps and do huge volumes of damage and I frequently see pros die to run bys where their tanks get off one volley at most. A widow mine restricts the distance that a zerg in particular can get in front of their detection. Do they really want to lead with their banelings over a widow minefield? Do they want to take the risk of early expanding without first checking for widow mines? One of the more popular busts is to go and sit on a terran's third and morph all your banelings there. That's not going to work if the first thing that happens in a TvZ is for the terran to shove 2 widow mines on their third the moment they realize you're going to bust them.
There are so many possible uses for them, I can't wait to see what happens.
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Russian Federation216 Posts
On September 21 2012 20:18 Yoduh wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 19:45 hiimjimmeh wrote:
I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp. drop defense.
bio terran is enough mobile to carry about drops in tvp
and dont say bout mech in tvp, it doesnt exist right now
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I tend to agree that 1pop sounds kind of expensive, they could change the cost structure (a bit less than double maybe) and have them be 0.5 food each and give you 2 at a time (so 1pop/2 produced - similar to zerglings)
I think not having a population cost is probably too strong though, given how much better than a burrowed baneling they are. Perhaps such a compromise could be an option?
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why was the timer on the widow miens removed? if 10secs to detonation was too long couldnt they change it to 2 secs?
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Mech in TvP revolves around the tank, you need a near 150 army supply to really move out safely against a maxed out Protoss with all tech available (except perhaps carriers). Having widow mines cost 2 supply means you either have to skip these mines late game, so you still end up in the same spot as in WOL where counter attacks and base trades will lose you the game.
And no you can't move out earlier just because there are battlehellions now, Archons and Immortals are still going to crush small (100 army supply and under) mech armies, which can't move out early because you also need to bring ghosts to deal with these 2 threats.
I hope mech gets buffed just enough to allow for smaller engagements which aren't terrible for mech players, where widow mines finally do help in slowing down counter attacks. I just don't see that happening right now.
Against Zerg mech has already been viable and with battlehellions this has gotten even better. Mines don't play a big part later in the game due to again the supply issue. Early game is where these mines have to do their work, fend off early attacks from both zerg and protoss and do so cost effectively at times. Maybe even do suicide missions with hellion/mine combo's to deny mining and/or kill workers.
Mines can stop warp prism/overlord drops I suppose, so thats another good thing!
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On September 21 2012 22:06 Fen1kz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 20:18 Yoduh wrote:On September 21 2012 19:45 hiimjimmeh wrote:
I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp. drop defense. bio terran is enough mobile to carry about drops in tvp and dont say bout mech in tvp, it doesnt exist right now
also warpprisms and overlords have 200 hp, i would suicide those if there was hope that someone uses 2 mines on them xD
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What I perceive from the discussion is that most of you agree that 2 supply is too much and limits their usage in the lategame. Also dont get me wrong, I dont think that there is no scenario where WM can be good, but these are very few and certainly not like Spider Mines. Catching a drop looks like the ideal scenario and one of their few applications, but that even that can be doubtful. Imagine 3 mines per base on 3 base, thats 18 supply or 6 Tanks less you can get. 0.5 - 1 seems more appropriate.
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On September 21 2012 20:29 Evangelist wrote:
The main advantage of the widow mine is wierdly enough, its cost efficiency. At 2 supply it will almost always trade cost efficiently with every other unit in the game. If it hits 2 marines (and it'll hit more than that) it has already traded supply for supply.
A widow mine at the back of an expansion can quite easily take out a medivac with no difficulty at all. Or it can take out 3/4s of the entire drop in the process of killing the medivac. Or it can snipe a banshee instantly. Two of them and a turret can take out most of a flock of mutas.
I'm seriously looking forward to using it with the additional splash it has. Sparing 20 supply for ten widow mines is basically trading 20 supply for several thousand damage. Yeah, a really careful deathball can snipe them, in which case the priority becomes removing their detection and keeping the widow mines in path where it is hugely cost inefficient to put down detection. For example, if I force an additional detector out of protoss just to clear a path, I've already cost them 1 supply that is in completely useless units.
With the addition of splash, the only units that can safely and cost effectively clear widow mines are siege range units. Sure, you can send zerglings in to clear them, but put them on hold position and keep a single hellion or two flitting around and they can't hope to clear them. And if they send a swarm in, detonate the widow mines and remove 50 supply's worth of units for 10.
There has been almost no exploration of positional play in Starcraft 2. Siege tanks move in big clumps and do huge volumes of damage and I frequently see pros die to run bys where their tanks get off one volley at most. A widow mine restricts the distance that a zerg in particular can get in front of their detection. Do they really want to lead with their banelings over a widow minefield? Do they want to take the risk of early expanding without first checking for widow mines? One of the more popular busts is to go and sit on a terran's third and morph all your banelings there. That's not going to work if the first thing that happens in a TvZ is for the terran to shove 2 widow mines on their third the moment they realize you're going to bust them.
There are so many possible uses for them, I can't wait to see what happens.
The thing with the widow mine is it has it's strong points but are definitely not going to be as effective in positional play than spider mines though. Just with the sheer number of spider mines that can be placed in BW because of the vulture's cost, it slows down other lanes of avenue and, for until they get taken out, keeps the terran player aware of areas where the opponent is and isn't.
With that said, I still think there is a place for them in the game, especially if people just turn off the auto-attack (though that might be more useful if the mine is placed at the back of the base for drops.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On September 21 2012 22:06 Fen1kz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 20:18 Yoduh wrote:On September 21 2012 19:45 hiimjimmeh wrote:
I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp. drop defense. bio terran is enough mobile to carry about drops in tvp and dont say bout mech in tvp, it doesnt exist right now
Watch Morrow. How many times am I going to have to repeat myself?
Not only is it viable, it WORKS. It's completely possible to play mech at a pro-level in HoTS right now and morrow is doing it every game.
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Basically its a gimped spider mine that costs supply and minerals.
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How can you guys even argue that the mine is bad.
It does 60 splash damage! holy cow thats allot i can almost 2-3 shot everything! ( with splash ).
And whats up with all thoose BW "Elitists" i want some unit to lay them down? Why?
I think the current mine is strong and will be used allot.
And why is everyone comparing them to spider mines? Why not compare them to Petards (from age of empires) makes just as much sense
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If you just have the mines under you army/ beside tanks they won't be free to snipe so that gives them garranteed damage, but even if they don't have garranted damage so don't most units, for example a storm could kill marines before they do any damage, same with collosus, the only units that have pretty much garanted damage are the ones with very long range, reducing the supply on the spider mines would be lunacy, for example in pvp if controlled properly each spider mine can oneshot a stalker plus they do splash damage, a spider mine is 75/25 and a stalker is 125/50 eve though they share the amount of supplies if controlled properly both die which leads to you having a 50 mineral 25 gas lead for every spider mine that killed a stalker.
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The Widow mine is perfect, don't even dare touching it. If you have to change it at all, tweak something negligible, but for the love of all that is holy, don't turn it into a damn spider mine.
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All I gathered from this thread is that "It's bad because it's hard to use and it isn't a spider mine."
Essentially what it looks like you are asking for is another 1-a unit. You are upset that the mine does not have guaranteed damage, and there are situations in which it may not trade evenly... I am afraid the ONLY thing this means is that it needs some thought, preparation, skill and timing to use properly. But nope, that's not what you want, you want another 1-a unit that goes in a deathball right?
You complain about the supply that the mine takes up, and yet you want to put it on the REAPER to place? Why? So it's more like BW? I don't see what this would solve except your anxiety against change... Now you want to clog up supply with a unit that every other terran is bitching about being useless after the 7 minute mark?
The widow mine is perfect for the game right now, and while it may need tweaking (and maybe not) it is unbelievably powerful when used right. I am sorry you have no imagination.
And I am not sure how your quote from davie proves that blizz doesn't know how mines are supposed to be used... All he says is that widow mines have a brutal capability of doing a ton of damage and he doesn't feel it is right to make them 1 supply... Seems valid for me. While damage isn't guaranteed, it is up to you to use them in the most efficient way possible. This is what makes them great.
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On September 21 2012 19:45 hiimjimmeh wrote:
I am starting to hate blizzard more and more as they update and patch HOTS. I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp. there's no point in even having them
once toss gets a single observer out. at which point stalkers outrange them and start picking them off and you cant even take out the freaking observers cuz their line of sight outranges the mines attack range. WIDOW MINES ARE THE MOST USELESS ATTEMPTS AT TVP MECH EVER. I can understand zerg and tvt where mines have somewhat more viability but honestly tanks and scans will dispose of mines QUICKLY. Honestly I see zerg as the only race that will have problems dealing with mines. anyways mines need MUCH more balance/buffs than what they offer currently. honestly removing mines and replacing it with another unit would be more reasonable than the current metatrash blizzard has created thus far.
Are you kidding? It sounds like you just want widow mines to be uncounterable.
If they killed observers before obs could detect them, they would be unbeatable. If stalkers couldn't snipe them, they would be unbeatable.
Stop using widow mines out on their own? Use them to fortify tanks
Christ, terran players are ridiculous.
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On September 22 2012 01:31 Protein wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 19:45 hiimjimmeh wrote:
I am starting to hate blizzard more and more as they update and patch HOTS. I have seen current stream from gold to grandmasters HOTS beta players. I HAVE to say mine are completely USELESS in tvp. there's no point in even having them
once toss gets a single observer out. at which point stalkers outrange them and start picking them off and you cant even take out the freaking observers cuz their line of sight outranges the mines attack range. WIDOW MINES ARE THE MOST USELESS ATTEMPTS AT TVP MECH EVER. I can understand zerg and tvt where mines have somewhat more viability but honestly tanks and scans will dispose of mines QUICKLY. Honestly I see zerg as the only race that will have problems dealing with mines. anyways mines need MUCH more balance/buffs than what they offer currently. honestly removing mines and replacing it with another unit would be more reasonable than the current metatrash blizzard has created thus far. Are you kidding? It sounds like you just want widow mines to be uncounterable. If they killed observers before obs could detect them, they would be unbeatable. If stalkers couldn't snipe them, they would be unbeatable. Stop using widow mines out on their own? Use them to fortify tanks Christ, terran players are ridiculous.
Indeed they are... I've actually never seen such a narrow-minded point of view, in every thread I read, I see something that is completely idiotic, that doesn't include all the facts but just part of them, and people that completely ignore the advantages of every new unit out there and just write down the flaws that sometimes aren't even correct.
And yes, there is always their own idea what Blizzard should do and how mech should be played, cursing David Kim and telling Blizzard to fire him, and they think that their point of view is completely legit and good, and that it has no flaws, while also saying how they will save 40 or 60$ because this expansion Terran got 1 unit less than Protoss and Zerg players.
I love this community.
EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot "Bring back Vultures and Spider Mines! Buff Tanks! Remove the Thor and bring back the Goliath!"
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Just because the unit may not get a kill off there is a value in knowing the position of the army that took it out. That's worth more to me than the cost of the mine and covers my flank. Add in the possibility of it hitting and you have a great unit. I can't wait to start attacking an outlying base and laying mines on the path to get to me. Either they play smart and they are delayed enough for me to get away or they run into the mine and die.
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They gave up figuring out how to make a positional, supply efficient Terran late game army.
So they are going to continue putting their eggs in the basket of making Terran extremely cost efficient. With BH and mines, T will be even more cost efficient than marines were, but still be complete trash with no recourse if/when the opponent shakes them off and gets ahead with a supply efficient army.
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"Blizz, Carriers are not micro-intensive enough, change them back to how they were in BW!"
"Blizz, Widow mines are too micro-intensive, change them back to how they were in BW!"
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On September 21 2012 19:13 puissance wrote:Many people currently discuss if the Widow Mine is a good 'unit'. The main arguement is that you get a unit which deals 160 damage + now 60 splash for 75/25/2 in 20 sek buildtime. In fact David Kim says this more or less directly: Show nested quote +Widow mine is a 160 damage unit that instantly 2-4 shots the strongest, latest tier units in the game. Not to mention you can build them two at a time with a 20 sec build time on each. We don't think it'll be a good idea to have these guys be 1 pop especially for the 200/200 supply cases. First of it is not guaranteed damage, in the 200/200 case every opponent has options to spot them, which makes them either less relevant in a maxed battle or harder to use (you might have to focus on sniping obs units, which cannot be guaranteed to work). With the current design one is pressed to make every single Widow Mine count, because otherwise you wasted a lot of resources (mainly supply cost) on a unit which does nothing and which takes away from your main army. This is important to note, but it also displays a wrong perception of the Widow Mine in my opinion. At this point I want to highlight the usages of Spider Mines, which may offend some people, because it is a different game, but you can get a pretty good idea of how the Widow Mine is supposed to work in my and others opinion. - Gain map control early, by mining up attack paths and expansions. - Use them to protect against harassment in your own base. - Mine up your front against counter attacks, once you move out with your army. - And very importantly heavily mine up paths along you push, such that your army cannot be flanked easily. These are just a few usages of the top of my head, there more of course. Having these options is currently missing from SC2 Terran mech play and it wont get much better with the Widow Mine, because it is simply too precious to use it like this. One might argue that the current design follows another intention than the design of the BW Spider Mine and I cant say anything against that, but please note the potential in terms of gameplay of a Spider Mine'esque Widow Mine. Personally I would give a new unit (Warhound or whatever) the ability to lay mines, but at least rework the Widow Mine too become less precious and therefore also less deadly (to keep the people happy who just look at the numbers). As a finaly sidenote, Spider Mines also gave a huge entertaiment factor for the viewers, because they dealt friendly fire/ splash, so that badly placed mines / dragged mines could hurt the Terran player himself.
I posted all this and more in the official forums/blizzard ones but they refuse to listen about the supply cost.
I guarantee you 2-3 months from now the widow mine is going to cost supply because blizzard seems to be very stubborn on the issue.
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This was my post in the official forums:
LgNavilo
Edited by LgNavilo on 9/15/12 10:18 AM (PDT)
I saw this post and wanted to post more thoughts about why mech tvp still is not working...and why it can work if the widow mine is made into a powerful unit like the viper/swarmhost/protoss air units...and the hellion were left alone...
Post from D. Browder:
"Let's see what happens. The Battle Hellion obvioulsy changes Mech against Protoss. Can I go Battle Hellion + Siege Tank + Thor against Protoss? Sprinkle in some Widow Mines?
We can theorize on this or we can try it. We have a beta. We decided trying it was worth the time. I'm doubtful. When I play the game in my head it won't work and bio is still the way to go. But it might work. The community has done the unexpected many times in the past.
I would put the challenge out to our Terran players. With the units in their current state, can you go mech or partially mech against Protoss? In this beta does it have to be bio? If it still has to be bio, what modifications to the current units should we make to make it more viable? Or is it really impossible without Warhound or something like Warhound?
Don't answer until you have played.=)"
The widow mine is fundamentally flawed right now for a lot of reasons, and I'd like to highlight them, and explain why this unit needs the supply cost removed for it to become useful and powerful for Terran mech (and bio) play:
Flaws of the widow mine:
a) it takes up supply
b) it takes up factory build time
c) the damage / splash damage is way too nerfed right now to make it matter positionally
I'll start with the splash damage/main damage of the widow mine. Right now, I believe you guys have the numbers tweaked so that the widow mine is more of a single target DPS killer, rather than a fiercesome splash damage unit. I don't know why this was changed, but it was for the worse.
You'll notice a similarity here with the marauder, roach, marine, or basically any unit that you can mass in SC1, SC2, or any RTS game. They are all single target DPS units, meaning you use them in an army with lots of them as your base army. The widow mine right now is acting like a marauder or any single target DPS unit, but it suicides itself, and on top of that the splash is so low that the rest of the units that were around it take barely any damage, not justifying building the mine in the first place.
The opponent is not as scared of these as they should be with their "deathballs" because it's mostly single units being taken out, and on top of that Terran has less units because of the mine. Which leads to the next flaw right now...
The mine uses up crucial factory build time that could be towards building an army. Since the mine is a suicidal single target DPS unit, it means it can never be cost effective like this, and then you have less units that you normally would due to building the mines. A catch-22.
Finally, the biggest flaw, that goes along with the last point, is the supply cost. This is a catch-22 unit. If you build it, you're eating up supply that could be used for an army, and good players can easily destroy these and you are left with a weaker army than them. In lategame, when z/p or even another t get their army going, whoever has the widow mines...loses.
Especially when siege units get into the game, the siege tank/broodlord/tempest/collosus, even basic stalkers, marauders, marines...can make the mine very trivial the longer the game goes on. So if you're maxed 200/200 with 10-20 mines...your opponent has a 20-40 army supply lead to simply kill you with.
I understand there could be a concern that widow mines would be too powerful at 200/200 with no supply cost...but perhaps you can take a leap of faith here...and look to the spider mine which has been beta tested for the past 12 years essentially - because the spider mine is way more powerful than the current widow mine, and costs no resources, and no supply to be on the map...aside from the 75 minerals invested into a vulture.
If you can imagine brood war TvP mech without the spider mine...you have what we have now exactly with SC2 tvp mech...it would not be functional if the spider mine sucked.
The widow mine is unique from the spider mine because you can replace it around the map, but it has to be strong and viable with no supply cost otherwise i do not think it will work with SC2 mech.
This is the positional unit people want in Starcraft 2 for Terran mech and it's in your game already and has the potential to add that positional aspect to mech play...and even bio play! More depth!
But you have to not be afraid that it will be "too powerful!" I noticed that the mine was quintuple nerfed prior to the HOTS beta being released (damage/splash/supply/armory prereq/no more detection)...you guys sorta killed it before letting it go into testing imo!
What I would propose for the widow mine if you're worrying about it being too powerful...is to look to the spider mine for guidance on balancing it.
Look at the spider mine's low health, zero supply cost, high damage, high splash radius, and scale the widow mine to be similar for SC2 and go from there.
The low health of the spider mine was one of it's balancing aspects - it was easy to kill when detected for protoss and zergs.
The zero supply cost was justified because the sight radius/splash radius were actually quite tiny in comparison to the current widow mine. This meant that placing mines on the map was an art, and the opponent didn't always run into them too because they had to be relatively close to the mine for it to pop up and explode. This is important, because while mines were important to brood war mech TvP, you'll notice that building mines did not hinder Terran like the widow mine's supply cost currently does for SC2 terran.
You were rewarded for having good multi-tasking for setting mines up, and you weren't punished even if the mines did literally nothing for you. That is the most important part.
The spider mine did 125 damage, and very good splash. What this meant was mech could protect against backstabs or buy time with mine fields. One of the holes in wings of liberty mech tvp is the insane backstab potential protoss has. You'll often see Terrans try to jury rig mech tvp with planetary walls and such lategame...because of those backstabs. This is effective somewhat because planetaries do not cost supply.
But it's not really efficient to do that, which is why the widow mine can do that...if it costs no supply. Like I mentioned above, it has to be a unit that can be good for Terran but does not punish Terran for making them with a supply cost.
The other balancing aspect of the spider mine is that it's tied to a unit built from the factory. What this means is you are not losing factory build time because you're getting an army value unit along with the mines. It also means that there actually is a hidden supply cost to the spider mine, but it is tied to a unit that can be useful to your army/for harrassment! Once again, you can place the mines, and they may literally do or kill nothing of the opponent's and even in that scenario you are not punished for using the mines like the current widow mine.
I am mentioning all of this is because I believe you can implement a widow mine with no supply cost, and have it be successful if you borrow from some of the above formula that made the spider mine a powerful unit yet still balanced. And you will still at the end of the day have a very unique unit worthy of starcraft 2 in the form of the widow mine.
In my opinion, there is an obvious suggestion I can make that I have read elsewhere on the battle.net forums as well, which you may or may not have already considered. You can tie the widow mine to the warhound in someway, whether the warhound lets you purchase the widow mine like a scarab from a reaver, or have it be similar to the spider mine upgrade where you would have widow mines to place....
This kills two birds with one stone. It allows the widow mine to not have a supply cost, similar to the vulture it would be tied to a unit you make that can then contribute to your army strength, meaning you are not punished even if the mines achieve nothing on the map other than dying or being killed.
It also let's the warhound not just be a 1A mech unit that has a distinct role with mech. It solves the issue of the mine taking up factory build time, because just like the vulture, you are getting a useful unit out of it.
If you did something like this, you could get rid of the haywire missile from the warhound and leave it similar to how it currently is with it's generic "all-purpose" type of attack. You can then give the haywire to the thor and remove the strike cannon...which to be honest is almost useless right now.
Hell, you can even re-design the haywire for the thor and make it cooler in some way too.
The other concern you have is that the mine is a cloaked/burrowed unit and it could come into play too early on into the game. Once again, you have many options to make it come into the game slightly later, through a tech lab upgrade or a different pre-requisite...
Which brings me to the battle hellion. You guys are really shooting yourselves in the foot...! The new changes (nerfs) to the battle hellion I felt were unnecessary at this point, and just another cost/tax on players that want to use mech.
The battle hellion upgrade requires an armory...and it has to be upgraded now. The extra gas cost investment just to get battle hellions out that players want to be able to use seems like a bit too much.
Armory prerequisite feels like too much too.
It felt unintuitive to me: "so i can build a hellion from the factory...but wait, where is the battle mode? Oh i need an armory for that. Hey i built the armory...so i can now build them in battle mode! Wait a second...why won't it let me switch modes? Oh, I have to upgrade that too. Ah now i can switch modes."
For players that want to use this unit, casuals especially, it will be confusing. For pros...they are most of the time going to want their hellions to come out in vehicle mode for the speed. The only time coming out in battle mode for a pro would be worthwhile is when someone has managed to attack your production rally point with mass lings or chargelots and you really want them to come out in battle mode already.
So to reiterate...forcing players to have to upgrade this + the armory prerequisite is just another cost you guys are putting on players that want to utilize mech play. I thought the inherent immobility of a hellion in battle mode was a drawback in itself a lot of times versus banelings/roaches/marine/marauder - surprisingly it's better to have them in vehicle mode a lot of times vs these ranged units that can kite a battle mode hellion.
So to end this wall of text...the widow mine/battle hellion are essentially the only two new units Terran is getting at the moment. The battle hellion you just have nerfed to smithereens, and the widow mine is non-functional as explained above.
The widow mine needs to have some design that doesn't incur a supply cost to the user, but still allows the mine to not be overly powerful in 200/200 situations. It needs to be powerful - it needs to say "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" so yes, an opponent is punished for 1A deathballing their army over 5 mines without detection.
The warhound and widow mine could be meshed together in some way or another, there's a lot of things that could be done there I think starcraft fans would find interesting and fun to use.
edit: If you want mech to be viable, you have to stop shooting mech players in the foot for utilizing mech. The hellion battle mode nerf was bad...mech can definitely be viable with tank/hellion/ghost/viking/some thors right now without the warhound. Now imagine a good widow mine in there along with a battle hellion you don't have to do all this weird research to get.
edit2: I do have to add that I think it's great you guys are allowing the viability of current mech + the battle hellion + widow mine to be fully put into testing right now. The widow mine and battle hellion definitely have the potential to change a lot with mech.
So yes, it was definitely worth it to remove the warhound and beta test mech + the new mech units vs protoss (really have to emphasize how great it is that you guys at blizzard are testing this), but it's bad if you want mech tvp to be more viable and keep tacking on costs to it.
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That was my post, I pretty much laid out to them why the mine will never work with a supply cost (mark my words, by the end of beta the unit will still suck, regardless of how "powerful" they make it due to it's 2 supply cost, because you will never want these past the 10 minute mark.
It does nothing mid-late game to help protect you against those backstabs/basetrades/1A deathballs that are so common in wings of liberty - because it costs supply.
*note* Above I had quoted/addressed what D.Browder had commented in a blue post on the b.net forums *end note*
*note 2* as of this post they have indeed buffed the widow mine splash, but they are still being stubborn about testing the widow mine with no supply cost. Beta is for testing...right?
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On September 21 2012 22:44 tsango wrote:
I tend to agree that 1pop sounds kind of expensive, they could change the cost structure (a bit less than double maybe) and have them be 0.5 food each and give you 2 at a time (so 1pop/2 produced - similar to zerglings)
I think not having a population cost is probably too strong though, given how much better than a burrowed baneling they are. Perhaps such a compromise could be an option?
He's not saying 1 supply is too expensive. He's saying 1 supply is too low. Which it is. Why the hell would you get two mines for the price of one when they already trade cost efficiently with almost everything in the game. Can I get two zealots for one as well?
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On September 22 2012 03:31 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 22:44 tsango wrote:
I tend to agree that 1pop sounds kind of expensive, they could change the cost structure (a bit less than double maybe) and have them be 0.5 food each and give you 2 at a time (so 1pop/2 produced - similar to zerglings)
I think not having a population cost is probably too strong though, given how much better than a burrowed baneling they are. Perhaps such a compromise could be an option? He's not saying 1 supply is too expensive. He's saying 1 supply is too low. Which it is. Why the hell would you get two mines for the price of one when they already trade cost efficiently with almost everything in the game. Can I get two zealots for one as well?
If you 1A'd your SC2 deathball over 5-10 spider mines in brood war, you would lose your entire army. Do that in SC2 and you'll probably lose 5-10 units. It's a huge difference.
We all know when they went from brood war to SC2 they made a lot of things "easy mode" which is why I think they're so reluctant to make the mine not have a supply cost. It would punish terrible players/casuals just like it did in brood war.
Imagine 10 dragoons walking over 3-5 spider mines in brood war with no detection. Bye bye dragoons.
Imagine the same dragoons having an observer. Bye bye mines.
The difference is in this case, in SC2, when you do that with an observer and your deathball, the terran player will always be 100% punished for eating up supply in useless mines.
Unless this is changed by the end of beta, the mine will continue to be a hindrance. You may not agree with me now, but please keep this in mind.
No one is playing HOTS at optimal level right now. The mine may have niche uses right now, or may be "cool" and you might think "wow awesome" when it kills that one single banshee at the 8 minute mark, " but once HOTS is "figured out" you'll see that a widow mine with a supply cost no longer has a place in this game.
This is because once people get better at the game, games tend to go longer between players, and a widow mine with a supply cost becomes terrible the longer the game goes for Terran. At that point, the unit basically no longer exists for the Terran player.
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On September 22 2012 03:40 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 03:31 Infernal_dream wrote:On September 21 2012 22:44 tsango wrote:
I tend to agree that 1pop sounds kind of expensive, they could change the cost structure (a bit less than double maybe) and have them be 0.5 food each and give you 2 at a time (so 1pop/2 produced - similar to zerglings)
I think not having a population cost is probably too strong though, given how much better than a burrowed baneling they are. Perhaps such a compromise could be an option? He's not saying 1 supply is too expensive. He's saying 1 supply is too low. Which it is. Why the hell would you get two mines for the price of one when they already trade cost efficiently with almost everything in the game. Can I get two zealots for one as well? If you 1A'd your SC2 deathball over 5-10 spider mines in brood war, you would lose your entire army. Do that in SC2 and you'll probably lose 5-10 units. It's a huge difference. We all know when they went from brood war to SC2 they made a lot of things "easy mode" which is why I think they're so reluctant to make the mine not have a supply cost. It would punish terrible players/casuals just like it did in brood war. Imagine 10 dragoons walking over 3-5 spider mines in brood war with no detection. Bye bye dragoons. Imagine the same dragoons having an observer. Bye bye mines. The difference is in this case, in SC2, when you do that with an observer and your deathball, the terran player will always be 100% punished for eating up supply in useless mines. Unless this is changed by the end of beta, the mine will continue to be a hindrance. You may not agree with me now, but please keep this in mind. No one is playing HOTS at optimal level right now. The mine may have niche uses right now, or may be "cool" and you might think "wow awesome" when it kills that one single banshee at the 8 minute mark, " but once HOTS is "figured out" you'll see that a widow mine with a supply cost no longer has a place in this game. This is because once people get better at the game, games tend to go longer between players, and a widow mine with a supply cost becomes terrible the longer the game goes for Terran. At that point, the unit basically no longer exists for the Terran player.
But can't you just unburrow the mine and burrow it again where you need it? I mean, this is not a spidermine. You can unburrow it and choose what to target.
Sure you will never build up a 50 widow mine field as long as widow mines cost 2supply, but for as long as they trade well they have a place, even if you need to protect them with hellions and tanks and vikings.
I mean, baneling landmines have a place, but they are way less costefficient, higher tech and are harder to play (no range, less sightrange). I'd say that there definatly can be some tweaks to make the mine really good/useful, while having 2supply cost.
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On September 22 2012 03:40 avilo wrote:
If you 1A'd your SC2 deathball over 5-10 spider mines in brood war, you would lose your entire army. Do that in SC2 and you'll probably lose 5-10 units. It's a huge difference.
... Are you trolling?
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All units, as long as they do something, potentially can exist in some crazy timing.
But the late game is incredibly borked in all cross race matchups, when it should honestly be the easiest thing to design around.
What does a 200 army look like? What kind of resource cost goes into it, how does it get positioned, how well does it trade, especially with consideration of production capabilities?
This should be a primary point of game design. Instead, it seems like they spent all their time figuring out gimmicks, like sentries, that become useless at 200. That's not good game design.
Are there ANY units in SC1 that are ONLY used in early game, but useless at 200? Yet, 1/4 of the Terran army is exactly that.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
In response to Avilo:
A straight up 0 supply offensive unit will never happen in SC2, Blizzard has already said that, they were even dubious to give that good powers to the overseer.
So suggesting that is just silly, it will never happen.
The alternative you give, putting it on another unit, suffers the same problem. I really don't think Blizzard would completely remove another terran unit and put it on somewhere else as an ability. And to me its really not superior at all, due to the fact that any form of the widow mine that is free/not supply based/spawns for another unit will be severely neutered compared to its current form. Almost any tension in the unit would be lost, as you would have to build up lots of them to be effective, because there's no way that a widow mine even close to its current form would be allowed to be supplyless. And I definitely think its far better and more interesting to have an individual widow mine to be actually powerful.
As for your statement that Widow Mines will NEVER see use past 10 minutes once optimal play is figured out if it costs supply, well thats patently just nonsense. Blizzard want the widow mine to be powerful, they've already stated that. It's also pretty clear that they're not gonna let it not cost supply. So with that being said, can't you at least conceive of a build where they make widow mines suuuper powerful (while costing supply) and thus they will be used?
Or is that just not possible?
That's even making the assumption that the current widow mine won't see use past 10 minutes, which I think I highly disagree with (though of course its early days, so who the fuck knows?). It does insanely good single target damage, with the new buff it does great splash damage, to me it seems like it would be able to shut down areas really well.
You'd have to move everywhere with detection as any race, cause widow mines will do huge amounts of damage to your army.
We've already seen this with banelings, except they do not have a 5 range radius and comparatively suck vs armoured. You'd trade more supply, but far far more damage potential, and instil far more detection fear in the enemy.
You'd only need a few in a location to completely shred an unprepared army, yes it would be supply out of your main army, but it would leave you safe to take far better positions on the map without undue risk, to be more greedy with expansions, and even in combination with drop play (and maybe some cheeky biological battle hellions) be pretty good at harass as well.
I think the most important bit is that Blizzard really really really really wont have a 0 supply unit that does damage. They would have it with the weakass lair tech overseer, so they definitely wont do it with an explosive factory tech bomb.
So the conversation really should be about what supply it will be (I think I'd tend to say 1 supply, that just makes intuitive sense to me, 1/2 supply would be silly, and right now 2 supply does feel a bit constricting lategame), about what type of detonation is has (should it be equal and high to all units, suuper high to main target and small to everything around it, or somewhere inbetween?), what tech level it should be at, whether it should hit air (most definitely yes for me), whether it should be fast burrowing (for occasional use in battle) or slow, tough or weak, fast or slow, etc.
The 0 supply rout just seems to be a dead end, I don't think its particularly vital, and more importantly I don't think it will happen.
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The problem with mines is that they don't trade cost effective at all. It literally doesn't matter if each mine is a nuke explosion, once detection is out mines are cleared for free. Look at how spider mines work. These mines are really powerful and can destroy all sorts of units that happen to walk too close to them. Yet even if someone lays 200 mines on the map someone with patience and control will not lose any units to them once they have detection. Spider mines CAN do crazy damage but the main they they do is force the enemy to slow down and have to clear this mines to move through spaces.
Widow mines will work the same way. They will be more powerful in the early game and in the late game you will need a lot of them to control space. The enemy with detection can clear them with not 1 dead unit if they do it right whether there is 5 widow mines or 100 on the field. The difference? spider mines don't cost supply and therefore it isn't a big deal to lose 100 mines in an opponents clearing effort. Widow mines on the other hand take up supply. If you have invested in 5(10 supply)-50(100 supply) all it means is a large portion of your standing army is utterly useless, will likely die without doing a point of damage, and you lose the game.
If they want any version of mines to control space they cannot take supply. Whether they link it to a unit or set up some arbitrary mine cap or whatever the answer happens to be mines cannot take up supply, or at the very least cannot take up more than 0.5 supply for mines to be anything but a early game unit and maybe a drop defender.
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X mine per reaper! Reapers are fast and fragile as vultures. Reapers serve mainly a harrassing function, the same way as vultures. They are more fragile (less health) and cost gas though, but it's a different game anyway.
The mine upgrade could be at the tech lab of the factory or at the armory.
This way you could make use of your barracks throughout the entire game, get 3 mines or something per reaper perhaps and start placing them and then go harrassing, it sounds pretty awesome.
But please reduce the activation range and stop making it target air. Mutalisk play is dead right now. Also make it targetable/killable during flight so it creates an interesting dynamic of reaction time and adds skill !
But I agree that they shouldn't cost supply.
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It seems widow mine is more an early game aggressive unit than a mid-late game control unit. Supply is definitely a problem, I suggest it should be 1.5 supply.
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On September 22 2012 05:38 Adonminus wrote:
It seems widow mine is more an early game aggressive unit than a mid-late game control unit. Supply is definitely a problem, I suggest it should be 1.5 supply.
Exactly. Blizzard wants us to use it as an offensive pre dectection unit, not as a base/flank defense. Makes no sense if you ask me as you can't move out early with mech but whatever.
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Canada11349 Posts
@Protein
The problem with advising that widow mines should only be used with the main army is Blizzard was hoping to pull supply out of the main army. That's going in the opposite direction.
I definitely agree with avilo that for mech to be viable on anything but the smallest maps, they need some sort of flank protection and widow mines can never be that given their current cost/ supply
You need a great number of them, more like this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/R9vqY.png)
7 Vultures. 525 Minerals. 14 Supply
14 Mines, but there's another round of 7 that could be mined.
But the 14 supply goes back into the army- but it does allow for small engagements through out the map between mine layers and mine sweepers.
To do the same thing with the Widow Mine
14 Widow Mines. 1050 Minerals 350 Gas. 28 Supply
I had originally thought supply was 1, but a deficit of 28 supply is huge.
And they need to be in the right place at the right time to cost effectively trade or your main army will just die while the mines sit around being useless. And with detection they can be cleared for free. So while they may fulfill a role in SC2, they will not fill the gap of flank protection for mech.
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Widow mines as an actualy unit is just a terrible idea.
That reaper idea is actually really good.
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As a Zerg player I'm really puzzled sometimes by how Terrans are trying (and failing) to use the Widow Mine. Just because it looks like a Spider Mine does not make it a spider mine.
Compared to 2 Banelings (100/50/1), a Widow mine (75/25/2):
Deals 90 more damage vs Light (160 vs 70)
Deals 120 more damage vs Armor (160 vs 40)
Deals 25 more splash damage (60 vs 35)
Can jump up to 5 range when burrowed.
Can attack air.
Cannot attack while unburrowed.
If you think of Widows as being a super Baneling Bomb, it's a strong unit. However, I see Terrans on streams using it like Spider Mines. The cost is way too high to scatter all over land like a static defense, and that is what terran players frequently try to do. On the other hand, using the widow to move around your army, cover its flanks, and cover retreats and repositions, could be interesting.
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I will settle for 1 supply, anything less and it will be nerfed into the ground.
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On September 22 2012 07:31 Crawdad wrote:
I will settle for 1 supply, anything less and it will be nerfed into the ground.
But mines by their nature can be destroyed even 50 at a time with a simple scan and an A move. They have to be high in number and low/no supply or they are nothing more than a bane bomb that can hit air.
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Canada13389 Posts
If people are really worried about the food, I don't see why you cant double the cost and make them worth 3 food when created but you get 2 mines for each "creation"
Kind of how Lings are 2 for 1 food, make 2 for 3 food. IDK might be worth playing with if the food cost is too high. But then you need 3 available supply to make them at all.
I need to play with beta to really have opinion on this unit.
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On September 22 2012 07:33 Maghetti wrote:
But mines by their nature can be destroyed even 50 at a time with a simple scan and an A move. They have to be high in number and low/no supply or they are nothing more than a bane bomb that can hit air.
Question, would these mines still be allowed to reposition themselves and manually target units?
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On September 22 2012 07:39 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 07:33 Maghetti wrote:
But mines by their nature can be destroyed even 50 at a time with a simple scan and an A move. They have to be high in number and low/no supply or they are nothing more than a bane bomb that can hit air. Question, would these mines still be allowed to reposition themselves and manually target units?
I don't know, depends on balance I guess. You could make it so it is hard to relocate some how or rework there attack vs air. They can do many things to make it work, but having it be 2 supply isn't one of those things.
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On September 22 2012 00:13 Crawdad wrote:
The Widow mine is perfect, don't even dare touching it. If you have to change it at all, tweak something negligible, but for the love of all that is holy, don't turn it into a damn spider mine.
Why not?
They're adding firebats in apparently, just calling them battle hellions and making them build from the factory.
I'd be OK with the widow mine essentially being spider mines that cost supply
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wtf. widow mine is WAY too strong now. remove the fucking "hits air ability" and make it 1 supply. its so stupid that 1 widow mine + 1 turret in mineral lines COMPLETELY shuts down mutaplay which is already weak in macro games. Z has to go in with lots of mutas to even kill the turret...but well...widow mine protects turret so no harrass possible with 200/25. thats just dumb as fuck.
make it NOT hit air and 1 supply so it is for zoning and not completely denying harrass with a single mine per base!!!
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On September 22 2012 08:02 Maghetti wrote:
I don't know, depends on balance I guess. You could make it so it is hard to relocate some how or rework there attack vs air. They can do many things to make it work, but having it be 2 supply isn't one of those things.
Well, right now it is a unit that lends itself to a lot of micro, a lot of tense moments, and a lot of wow factor. I'm just afraid of it becoming boring. Another thing is that, the current Widow mine does a shitload of damage where it's at, but can't give you as good map coverage as spider mines could. Which is looked down upon, because a lot of Terrans have trouble with backstabs, but if it had better map coverage at the cost of being nerfed, I'm not sure how it could prevent backstabs, at least in TvP. Its purpose is not to deal some damage, its purpose is to kill units, and that would go doubly true if your mech army were out of position.
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On September 22 2012 08:22 Decendos wrote:
wtf. widow mine is WAY too strong now. remove the fucking "hits air ability" and make it 1 supply. its so stupid that 1 widow mine + 1 turret in mineral lines COMPLETELY shuts down mutaplay which is already weak in macro games. Z has to go in with lots of mutas to even kill the turret...but well...widow mine protects turret so no harrass possible with 200/25. thats just dumb as fuck.
make it NOT hit air and 1 supply so it is for zoning and not completely denying harrass with a single mine per base!!!
can mutas range widow mines if they can see them?
because if they can't, that's likely the real thing that needs fixing
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On September 22 2012 08:37 Zanno wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 08:22 Decendos wrote:
wtf. widow mine is WAY too strong now. remove the fucking "hits air ability" and make it 1 supply. its so stupid that 1 widow mine + 1 turret in mineral lines COMPLETELY shuts down mutaplay which is already weak in macro games. Z has to go in with lots of mutas to even kill the turret...but well...widow mine protects turret so no harrass possible with 200/25. thats just dumb as fuck.
make it NOT hit air and 1 supply so it is for zoning and not completely denying harrass with a single mine per base!!! can mutas range widow mines if they can see them? because if they can't, that's likely the real thing that needs fixing
they cant. so 1 turret and 1 widow completly deny muta harrass. thats such a super super small investment once you saw zerg go muta that its actually retarded and will make the muta 100% useless in zvt which is REALLY REALLY sad since mutas are one of the only microintensive harrassing options zerg has.
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Canada13389 Posts
On September 22 2012 08:42 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 08:37 Zanno wrote:On September 22 2012 08:22 Decendos wrote:
wtf. widow mine is WAY too strong now. remove the fucking "hits air ability" and make it 1 supply. its so stupid that 1 widow mine + 1 turret in mineral lines COMPLETELY shuts down mutaplay which is already weak in macro games. Z has to go in with lots of mutas to even kill the turret...but well...widow mine protects turret so no harrass possible with 200/25. thats just dumb as fuck.
make it NOT hit air and 1 supply so it is for zoning and not completely denying harrass with a single mine per base!!! can mutas range widow mines if they can see them? because if they can't, that's likely the real thing that needs fixing they cant. so 1 turret and 1 widow completly deny muta harrass. thats such a super super small investment once you saw zerg go muta that its actually retarded and will make the muta 100% useless in zvt which is REALLY REALLY sad since mutas are one of the only microintensive harrassing options zerg has.
That seems absolutely crazy to me. Have you tested any amount of this in the beta? I wonder if you could use an overlord to take the mine hit then come in with mutas.
It might just cause more action on the Zerg part for the harass to be effective and not completely shut it down.
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On September 22 2012 03:55 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 03:40 avilo wrote:
If you 1A'd your SC2 deathball over 5-10 spider mines in brood war, you would lose your entire army. Do that in SC2 and you'll probably lose 5-10 units. It's a huge difference. ... Are you trolling?
No, he isn't. That is his point of view, biased and useless as always.
On September 22 2012 08:51 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 08:42 Decendos wrote:On September 22 2012 08:37 Zanno wrote:On September 22 2012 08:22 Decendos wrote:
wtf. widow mine is WAY too strong now. remove the fucking "hits air ability" and make it 1 supply. its so stupid that 1 widow mine + 1 turret in mineral lines COMPLETELY shuts down mutaplay which is already weak in macro games. Z has to go in with lots of mutas to even kill the turret...but well...widow mine protects turret so no harrass possible with 200/25. thats just dumb as fuck.
make it NOT hit air and 1 supply so it is for zoning and not completely denying harrass with a single mine per base!!! can mutas range widow mines if they can see them? because if they can't, that's likely the real thing that needs fixing they cant. so 1 turret and 1 widow completly deny muta harrass. thats such a super super small investment once you saw zerg go muta that its actually retarded and will make the muta 100% useless in zvt which is REALLY REALLY sad since mutas are one of the only microintensive harrassing options zerg has. That seems absolutely crazy to me. Have you tested any amount of this in the beta? I wonder if you could use an overlord to take the mine hit then come in with mutas. It might just cause more action on the Zerg part for the harass to be effective and not completely shut it down.
You can take them with the Overlords if Terran doesn't know that Mine can turn the auto-attack off, so he can just target fire your Mutas without targeting the Overlords... I was talking about issue since the Alpha, but people were just saying "no, you can go with Mutas 1 by 1, you can spread them, you can do many things...", while with these Mines, Muta harass is non-existent, as I was saying from the start. Not a single Zerg would trage a 100/100 unit for 75/25 unit, just to be able to kill few workers. And no even that, but that was before, now, 2 Mines can kill like 20 Mutas. Yeah, Turrets, Marines and Thors seem to not be enough.
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Many people here have pointed out how strong the mine is and how it trades efficiently, but what problem does this address? Mech is immobile and is easily circumvented on larger maps. Mech cannot effectively lock areas down and is slow to respond to flank attacks. The two supply widow mine does not address this problem.
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Widow mines are actually ONLY useful for anti-air in base defense right now. They are too easy to waste on a hellion, roach, or some other bad trade when it comes to protecting against ground units.
They just don't synergize with a mech army the way spider mines do.
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On September 22 2012 09:09 Noahnao wrote:
Many people here have pointed out how strong the mine is and how it trades efficiently, but what problem does this address? Mech is immobile and is easily circumvented on larger maps. Mech cannot effectively lock areas down and is slow to respond to flank attacks. The two supply widow mine does not address this problem.
This exactly. I make an assumption when i talk about the widow mine, and that assumption is that the purpose of the widow mine is to address the weakness in mech that is speed and map control. The unit is supposed to help mech handle drops, counter attacks, protect expansions, and protect flanks when out on the map. 2 supply widow mines, even really really strong and cost efficient widow mines do nothing for mech it needs done.
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On September 22 2012 09:24 link0 wrote:
Widow mines are actually ONLY useful for anti-air in base defense right now. They are too easy to waste on a hellion, roach, or some other bad trade when it comes to protecting against ground units.
Why would you attack a single Hellion or Roach with a Widow mine?
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I really don't know why it needs to hit air. I feel like making it ground only and reducing its supply cost to compensate would pretty much do the trick.
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On September 22 2012 11:12 Belisarius wrote:
I really don't know why it needs to hit air. I feel like making it ground only and reducing its supply cost to compensate would pretty much do the trick.
i believe the reason that Blizzard has given the WM this ability is to allow Terrans to open with factory based play yet still be relativly safe against Protoss air openings. In WoL when I meched I felt like I had to tech straight to starport to ensure I was safe from Voidrays.
Now it is possible with good micro and positioning to fend off an air opening without being forced into an early starport.
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They can unborrow and relocate unlike spider mines. They can also be manually targeted unlike spider mines. These attributes make them more akin to banelings, and banelings are units that cost supply.
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3 things blizzard needs to do:
1. make it NOT hit air OR make it hit air with the single unit damage and no splash OR (if they remove single targeting completely) make it do a lot less splash than to ground.
2. make it a good zoning unit! it is NOT supposed to be used offensively. thats why they need to make root time 8-12 seconds so they can be sniped if you want to just burrow them in the opponents face.
3. after fixing these 2 points make it 1 supply.
--> after that: balance splash and single target damage accordingly.
i like their high HP since it is supposed to take time to clear out a mine field and stall for the slow T mech army to reposition. i also would like them to remove splash vs air and keep single target so you cant clear out whole minefields with some mutas and an overseer but still be able to mutaharrass (otherwise no player will build a muta again). in combination with fast root time it is way too strong offensively especially ZvT where zerg has no mobile detection and no unit to kill it on hatch tech so higher root time. 1 supply is needed since it takes out too many supply of the army.
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I just think mines dont jive well with being a supply costing unit.
They essentially become a modified Terran baneling of a sort..
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On September 22 2012 18:44 YyapSsap wrote:
They essentially become a modified Terran baneling of a sort..
Why not?
Stronger, but less mobile terran baneling sounds cool to me 
It's lesser mobility also feels really mech-style 
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On September 22 2012 18:50 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 18:44 YyapSsap wrote:
They essentially become a modified Terran baneling of a sort.. Why not? Stronger, but less mobile terran baneling sounds cool to me It's lesser mobility also feels really mech-style
Well I guess that means the P will be getting one in LOTV :p
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Window mine can't be used like spider mines.
Terran want spider mines. =(
Having super strong baneling have less impact on playing mech than mines field. We need them to prevent counter attack.
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The widow mine is fine, but it is being used wrong, a lot of players are trying to exploit it to make early pushes work better, since hellions were so abuseable. So obviously it has to be weak to prevent this from happening. What it should be good for, is being put places where people would try and flank or get around defenses, for instance, if you leave your base surrounded by turret, except for one place, the oracle will want to go through there but it can't, cuz there might be a widow mine there. The same for flanking attacks. The best will be for pincher movements, the spider mine field might be the 'anvil' and you use a force of M&M to make the other army kite backwards into the spider mines. This would work best on large maps, like the d3 tileset one. Finally, you could also use them instead of battle hellions to protect your tank line from chargelots.
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I agree with Avilo's post, it is not biased, it simply states what Terran mech needs.
Some people still highlight in which scenarios WM can be good, but guess what, you can add any random unit to the game and find useful scenarios for it. This thread is about making clear what is missing from mech play currently, which is something similiar to the BW Spider MINE.
Which leads me to my next point, it is a MINE not a UNIT. Dont mix these up and dont compare it to burrowed Banelings. Burrowing Banelings and use them as mines is a nice additional usage to this unit, but not there main purpose. No Zerg player puts down huge amounts of burrowed Banelings on the map to cover his flanks for his slow Broodlord army. If used at all there a couple of them on the map, which is how the current Widow Mine will be used if at all due to its supply cost.
If Blizzard keeps up with their stubbornness then they have to design the Widow Mine as a suicide UNIT similar to the Baneling, a unit which deals splash damage and which is not needed for mech play.
So please perceive the Widow Mine as something different than a unit, which naturally leads to 0 supply cost and to give them to a unit as an ability. This adds a hidden supply cost to them as said and isn't as strange as producing something else than a unit from the factory.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
What if they made the widowmine a minelayer in itself? It could move around the map at 3-4 supply and create mines for a mineral cost or something. They're fast like vultures were, move around like spiders and could easily plop mines down from their inside. The mines would be nerfed at single target damage and splash, but you'd be able to have more of them to mean minefields were possible.
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I think the unit should way more powerful to warrant the 2 supply cost, in TvP atleast.
You can't attack stuff with a mine, it takes collaboration from your enemy to make them more valuable than an actual unit in any situation really. Maybe it's good at stopping zealot run by's but then again so is the PF and it costs no moneyz.
In TvZ it has a bit more usage as zergs tend not to have an overseer along with every clump of mutas, for example.
TvT I guess it's helpful against mass marine play.
On September 22 2012 19:59 Qikz wrote:
What if they made the widowmine a minelayer in itself? It could move around the map at 3-4 supply and create mines for a mineral cost or something. They're fast like vultures were, move around like spiders and could easily plop mines down from their inside. The mines would be nerfed at single target damage and splash, but you'd be able to have more of them to mean minefields were possible.
I like that, make it a bit slowish unit and not too strong so you'll have to secure your potential minefields with army movements, aswell as protect the minelayer from sniping.
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On September 22 2012 19:59 Qikz wrote:
What if they made the widowmine a minelayer in itself? It could move around the map at 3-4 supply and create mines for a mineral cost or something. They're fast like vultures were, move around like spiders and could easily plop mines down from their inside. The mines would be nerfed at single target damage and splash, but you'd be able to have more of them to mean minefields were possible.
Would be one possibility, as said it is important to highlight the difference between the problem of mines being produced directly from the factory or being an ability of whatever unit. Actually I posted a unit idea which combines the mine ability with an anti-air Siege Tank concept on the Blizzard forum a while ago: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/5349035119
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On September 22 2012 18:51 YyapSsap wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2012 18:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On September 22 2012 18:44 YyapSsap wrote:
They essentially become a modified Terran baneling of a sort.. Why not? Stronger, but less mobile terran baneling sounds cool to me It's lesser mobility also feels really mech-style Well I guess that means the P will be getting one in LOTV :p
warp in baneling with a prism to harass
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EPT
