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I don't think vikings being independantly strong on ground would be a good design. It makes them way too versatile if they can fight on par with stalkers while having such air superiority.
I think what mech needs is mobile damage sinks. Battle hellions might be a compensation, but how about no hellions and go tank-thor-viking?
I think it would be nice if viking's land form has 2 armor, a specialty armor that reduces all damage from splash attacks (including friendly splash like tank fire) by 50%. Range of 5, 6x2 damage.
The attacks are terrible, but it's great at landing down in front of deathballs or skirmishes and just soaking damage while heavy hitters wail away. Generally, any design that avoids hydra/roach/stalker/marauder like design where you just make a butt load of them and attack move with some focus fire / pull-back micro.
I am not sure about movement. I've even thought about something as crazy as a heavy viking that's so slow it might as well be stationary. And large movements are done by transforming to air and relocating. Or a offensively-impotent viking with armor and fast movement.
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People are saying some awfully weird stuff in this thread.
"+6 Viking is insane damage" 1+x2 damage is mitigated by 1 armor. Either way it's +0 on equal upgrades. Why should a player have +3 to air while the opponent has less than +3 to ground carapace, ground armor, etc? All this change would do is buff Vikings against Immortal shields. This is good because Immortals make mech stupid.
"Vikings are already better than x unit" So? Marines are better than Hydras, Colossi are better than Tanks, Infestors are better than everything. You have to judge it in the context of each race's abilities.
"Any kind of Viking buff makes them too easy" Blizzard just tried to add the Warhound, meant to be an OP a move death machine that beats immortals, instead it beat everything because it was a stupid unit. Ground Vikings are probably going to be way, way weaker than the Warhound ever was. The game NEEDS something a little powerful in that role.
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On September 26 2012 01:45 LavaLava wrote:
People are saying some awfully weird stuff in this thread.
"+6 Viking is insane damage" 1+x2 damage is mitigated by 1 armor. Either way it's +0 on equal upgrades. Why should a player have +3 to air while the opponent has less than +3 to ground carapace, ground armor, etc? All this change would do is buff Vikings against Immortal shields. This is good because Immortals make mech stupid.
"Vikings are already better than x unit" So? Marines are better than Hydras, Colossi are better than Tanks, Infestors are better than everything. You have to judge it in the context of each race's abilities.
"Any kind of Viking buff makes them too easy" Blizzard just tried to add the Warhound, meant to be an OP a move death machine that beats immortals, instead it beat everything because it was a stupid unit. Ground Vikings are probably going to be way, way weaker than the Warhound ever was. The game NEEDS something a little powerful in that role.
It's not good design to have the game's premier air superiority fighter be an excellent ground combatant as well. Viking ground mode is a BONUS, not a unit that should be balanced in and of itself. It's a way to give Terrans a little more leeway in overproducing Vikings against Colossi: it's suboptimal to have to land your Vikings to fight, but it won't lose you the fight if you have a few too many.
This is like saying Thors need to have an anti-air attack that has bonus damage against armored as well.
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On September 26 2012 01:45 LavaLava wrote:
People are saying some awfully weird stuff in this thread.
"+6 Viking is insane damage" 1+x2 damage is mitigated by 1 armor. Either way it's +0 on equal upgrades. Why should a player have +3 to air while the opponent has less than +3 to ground carapace, ground armor, etc? All this change would do is buff Vikings against Immortal shields. This is good because Immortals make mech stupid.
"Vikings are already better than x unit" So? Marines are better than Hydras, Colossi are better than Tanks, Infestors are better than everything. You have to judge it in the context of each race's abilities.
"Any kind of Viking buff makes them too easy" Blizzard just tried to add the Warhound, meant to be an OP a move death machine that beats immortals, instead it beat everything because it was a stupid unit. Ground Vikings are probably going to be way, way weaker than the Warhound ever was. The game NEEDS something a little powerful in that role.
This is not wierd, this is sound logic, I completely agree we need something a little more powerful in that role
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On September 26 2012 01:45 LavaLava wrote:
People are saying some awfully weird stuff in this thread.
"+6 Viking is insane damage" 1+x2 damage is mitigated by 1 armor. Either way it's +0 on equal upgrades. Why should a player have +3 to air while the opponent has less than +3 to ground carapace, ground armor, etc? All this change would do is buff Vikings against Immortal shields. This is good because Immortals make mech stupid.
yeah it's +0 on equal upgrades, but you can't be even upgrades with +6/+6 vikings...
Just designwise, this would be quite some weird stuff, and hardly help at all in the usual 15-25min timezone of a game, as you stimply won't go airmech with 4armories upgrading 4upgrades.
Yet afterwards...15dps/125HP/6armor for two supply... that's like two marines merged together, just stronger.
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On September 25 2012 20:39 Fairwell wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2012 14:31 Kharnage wrote:On September 25 2012 14:01 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
This is just me thinking out loud based on some of the other comments in this thread, but what if, instead of tweaking the base unit they simply allow the viking to be upgraded by BOTH ground mech and air upgrades? And I don't mean, ground attack upgraded by ground and air attack by air -- I mean, with a 3/3 mech upgrade and a 3/3 air upgrade you would have a 6/6 viking. It seems like it could be decent on the ground, but might be OP in the air. Although with the tempest and hydra buff, maybe it wouldn't be too bad. Thoughts? 6 ar would be stupidly imba. Do you even play the game at a reasonable level? It seems like everyone is just tossing things out of his head. There have been so many dumb suggestions already in this thread it's unbelieveable (making vikings light etc). Radical changes like these affect the whole gameplay a ton. Vikings are already the "best" anti air unit from all three races (corruptors can't land and unless a greater spire is up already they fly around useless apart from being terrible against units that are not massive; phoenix can harass but are very specialised in that you need more of them to have the energy and they only serve vs light units while vikings can be used vs any other air unit as well as all capital ships/colossi). Apart from that they can land as a bonus to help out. A zerg can't do this with his corruptors and phoenix are also quite limited in this role (having 3-4 phoenix and won't help you too much getting overrun by mass ling-roach or stimmed bio, since you can't "hide" them behind other units or simply don't do dps in that case). Lets be honest, the real issue for all the people posting in this thread seems to be that they want mech to be viable so badly that they are willing to change anything to make that happen. First of all this is not a necessary step to balance win rates over races, it's only there to diversify terran play even more. So all those threads with possible terran unit buffs have to be considered carefully, because most suggestions don't only buff mech but straight up normal terran bio play. Most people also seem to forget that just diversifying gameplay of a race is not the same as "this race is overall too weak so we need to buff it some way". Hence with any significant buff to a unit there needs to be a nerf to another aspect of this race assuming the goal is again only to diversify and not just straight up buffing this race. So any possible buffs that also strengthen not mech-centric terran gameplay need to be well-thought-out to not end in a disaster since the regular gameplay in WOL overall (not saying no tweaks can be done) is in a quite good state currently. Secondly everyone who really wants to play mech that can really be called mech (the warhound did not feel like mech at all ...) should happen to reasonable changes to current mech units or a well designed new mech unit. And last but not least don't forget that not only terrans want to use all their units in every matchup. Every race has units that they simply can't use in certain matchups or only in specific circumstances but not as a standard everygame-go-to-unit. Current bio-centric play requires skill in a lot of different areas not only in micro/macro but also quick decision making etc. Did you ever think about the consequences to the gameplay a viking buff (which is perfectly fine imho, there are other terran units that could be tweaked) would create? Apart from possible balance issues in a lot of other areas in the game you would end up like someone described a few posts above "just going tanks+vikings and be fine". This is not interesting gameplay and far more boring than any current terran play is. SC2 will only remain a well acknowledged and widely appreciated interesting game to play if encourage more diversify gameplay instead of narrowing it down. Change mech in the long run? Sure, nothing wrong with that. Destroying balance and/or creating a stupid version of mech along the way? Hell no. I hope this motivates people to actually think through their suggestions at least 1minute before hitting the "post" button with the very first thought that strikes their mind.
I wrote that with three things on my mind:
1) The pieces of that idea were already together with things other people have said in this thread. Giving the unit more armor, having the upgrades to ground apply to the viking in some way, etc. I just wanted to be the first one to put the ideas together in THAT way. You know other people were thinking it.
2) Initially and to a large degree, I was just trolling with that to see what kind of reaction it got. This short paper does not fail to deliver. I mean, it causes a number of problems like, the 4/4 upgrades only costing 100/150 or whatever depending on the order in which you get the upgrades.
3) In some ways though, it makes sense given the fact of the warhound and what they are doing with the battle hellion. Also, if you think about it, that's a lot of time and cash you would be investing into your vikings just to get them to 6/6. It's not like you can just build four armories at the same time and upgrade all the mech and air upgrades at the same time and expect to get away with no repercussions of having that many fewer units cash-wise. It would give the viking the ability to be more beefy without having to change to much. And it would help vikings to scale with a mech army when primarily focusing on ground mech upgrades.
So yeah, go ahead and take it seriously if you want to and find a way to make it work .... or not. The design of the viking like the design of other units, though cool in theory leaves a lot of difficult questions to be answered, that probably aren't going to be solved in a completely acceptable or coherent way. The way it is now, is probably the best it is going to be, but it could probably use some sort of buff. I think what I'd like to see which might be difficult from a coding and/or mechanics perspective, is a moving land/takeoff upgrade to mitigate damage taken in the transformation process. As it is the viking takes so many shots when moving into position and landing that often I think players hesitate to land them because of all the free damage they take. Although, I doubt this does enough to make them more viable as ground units, but I think it would help.
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I think there can be a point to making vikings more viable to Immortals with the 2 attack change. We want mech possible in TvP and better ground vikings can be an ok "emergency solution" against them. But I don't think a "general buff" to ground vikings is a good idea. Especially not fiddling with their armor, which is going to make vikings better against everything except immortals.
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Wait wait.
Why must we assume to give terrans stronger ground Viking for free, and immediatly?
Not a buff: a researchable upgrade.
Like Ustralisks extra armor, but on damage instead.
Make it cost quite a bit (150/150? 200/200?), and maybe make Armory a requirement.
So they can be the ranged grunts of a max Terran mech army, and late game harassers.
I quite like this.
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On September 23 2012 01:52 one-one-one wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2012 01:47 Fig wrote:
This is not a good idea. The viking is already the best air superiority unit in the game. It takes out anything armored with ease, as well as anything that is massive, since those air units are all armored too. And it does this from 9 range, at a low unit cost. As a protoss, I would kill for this unit even if it didn't even have a ground mode.
Now you want to buff the ground damage, so that is deals damage pretty well to everything. Vikings already do this, though it may not seem like it, because people hardly ever use them on the ground (since it's air uses are so amazing). It has 12 ground DPS against everything already, which is a bit less than twice that of a stalker (6.9).
The viking is certainly not a unit that needs any more help. Instead you should be focusing on other units that are actually underused. No. Ground mode vikings are bad. And also, their ground weapons cant be upgraded. <<<----- this is wrong, sorry. but it would be better if mech weapons affected their ground attack. edit: ground mode vikings was one of the things that was hit by Blizzard's blanket nerfs at the time when terrans were only doing abusive shit instead of developing solid play styles. The actual argument was that it was too good vs queens I think. This should not apply anymore because Zergs has learned to make many queens and transfuse them when their hp gets in the red.
The problem I have is that ground mode vikings are considerably better than ground attack corrupters/pheonixes.
Vikings are a unit that does exactly what it's supposed to do really well, and that is to kill air. It's not perfect, far from a hard counter to all but 1 unit compositions, but when combined in an efficient composition they're pretty good.
Ground mode vikings as a harass unit are pretty good, they don't kill everything like hellions do for instance, but they can deter a lot of attention from a main army and still do significant ground damage. They're also a lot easier to get into a base than hellions (flying vs the need to drop or get a lucky run by through a wall). They are not meant to be a stalker/marauder/roach type unit, dealing and taking decent damage as part of a composition. They're meant to deal damage to air units and harass/tank if necessary (all the broods dead? lets land them and see if they can soak up some ling hits, or take a roach hit that our tanks don't have to).
I don't personally see how a powerful ground mode viking would add anything to a mech composition. Hellions are mobile, destroy light, tank hits. Tanks do immense damage but don't attack air. Thors are fantastic tanks, do great damage, and are large enough to really benefit from repair. Right there you're doing enough damage to all ground units that adding anything to it doesn't really make sense. The only thing that mech requires really is the ability to handle air, which is given by vikings and to a lesser extent thors (though lets not kid ourselves, thors do a ton of damage to grouped units). Even ravens can handle the majority of zerg air, and can deal damage to bio, or protoss death balls if used correctly as well.
Ground vikings are a niche ability/unit, similar to the corruptor's ability and the pheonix's. They're all useful, just useful at different points and in different situations. They might be bad, but they're no worse than those other 2 skills.
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I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please?
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On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please?
they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol.
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The viking can't be balanced to be a good mech unit on the ground since it's already a good air unit.
Give the Thor Haywire Missile, make it cost 15 mana per volley. Remove it's AA attack. And give Terran a good ground mechanical AA unit.
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On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol.
Thank you for not reading my post. in response to your post after reading it, your comparison of a viking vs hydra might not be the best if you're against the viking ground mode receiving a buff. the reason is because everyone complains about how weak the hydra is and blizzard is actually changing the hydralisk. also in a real game you don't see hydra vs viking ground mode. hydra's are utilized behind a strong unit because of their low survivability and high (14.5) dps, vikings are too clunky to be utilized efficiently behind a buffer unit, (you can't fit as many in a space as you can hydras) and in a real game scenario do SUBSTANTIALLY less dps because of this. let alone doing less dps alone, 12dps vs 14.5...
vikings have a ground mode, why do they have a ground mode? what was blizzard trying to achieve by giving them this? the air to air units of other races have abilities that clearly show what their role is and they are used much more often to fulfil that role than the viking is used to fulfill their unknown role
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On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please?
It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines.
And this is the wrong thread for discussing Strike Cannons, but I already discussed it here.
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On September 26 2012 04:36 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol. Thank you for not reading my post. in response to your post after reading it, your comparison of a viking vs hydra might not be the best if you're against the viking ground mode receiving a buff. the reason is because everyone complains about how weak the hydra is and blizzard is actually changing the hydralisk. also in a real game you don't see hydra vs viking ground mode. hydra's are utilized behind a strong unit because of their low survivability and high (14.5) dps, vikings are too clunky to be utilized efficiently behind a buffer unit, (you can't fit as many in a space as you can hydras) and in a real game scenario do SUBSTANTIALLY less dps because of this. let alone doing less dps alone, 12dps vs 14.5... vikings have a ground mode, why do they have a ground mode? what was blizzard trying to achieve by giving them this? the air to air units of other races have abilities that clearly show what their role is and they are used much more often to fulfil that role than the viking is used to fulfill their unknown role
12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! they get speed at hivetech that makes them faster offcreep but still slower as they are now oncreep so the hydra itself will still be the sucky unit and will hopefully get a buff but thats not the topic here.
the topic is that vikings are REALLY good antiair and have a ground damage as a bonus if you have killed colossi/BLs etc. you get to have a 12 dps ground attack that is a great buffer with 125 hp (almost as tanky as a roach) for free as a bonus. so dont complain about a unit that is superfine. you terrans should rather discuss widow mines etc. and not one of your best units.
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On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol.
yeah, because they are even stronger than the mighty, scary hydralisk supply for supply 
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On September 26 2012 04:48 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines. And this is the wrong thread for discussing Strike Cannons, but I already discussed it here.
You're kidding right? 90% of the time you overproduce Vikings you're screwed... Vikings are laughable on the ground against Protoss
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On September 26 2012 05:07 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 04:48 Acritter wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines. And this is the wrong thread for discussing Strike Cannons, but I already discussed it here. You're kidding right? 90% of the time you overproduce Vikings you're screwed... Vikings are laughable on the ground against Protoss
welcome to the world of non-barracks singlefire units in SC2
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On September 26 2012 05:11 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 05:07 SupLilSon wrote:On September 26 2012 04:48 Acritter wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines. And this is the wrong thread for discussing Strike Cannons, but I already discussed it here. You're kidding right? 90% of the time you overproduce Vikings you're screwed... Vikings are laughable on the ground against Protoss welcome to the world of non-barracks singlefire units in SC2
Huh?
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On September 26 2012 05:01 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol. yeah, because they are even stronger than the mighty, scary hydralisk supply for supply
well they are doing decent vs every other unit in supply. they kill supply to supply 50-80% of the hp of ultras, stalker, zealot, immortal, colossus, DTs and win vs roaches, hydras and sentries. so yeah they ARE already very decent and what else then 50-120% of hp removal VS GROUND UNITS (!!!) do you want?! some people just want an easy game with alround units that can do everything. buff thor and T can build thor only lol. no vikings needed :-P seems like some people want that kind of easy game...
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EPT
