Ground Vikings - Page 8

On September 24 2012 14:32 Xapti wrote:
Vikings can attack ground — isn't that good enough? look at zerg — corruptor can't attack ground in any way; at least the phoenix has graviton beam.

Making ground mode vikings stronger offers a real problem where you'll have one unit that can counter anything, be it air units or ground units. vikings are the main anti-air unit for terran, so if they then are also good against ground it'd be pretty bland or even imbalanced.

Ground mode is just a gimmick that gives added-value to the viking; In my opinion it's added-value superior to phoenix's graviton beam or corruptor's corruption. Ground mode vikings don't need to be powerful enough for x, they just need to be able to do damage. In my opinion it's the same sort of deal as infested terrans — a stupid little gimmick that gives added value to the infestor via a terrible and slow ranged unit (personally I'd want it removed from the game though, while not the case with ground-mode viking).


In my opinion the first and/or only changes viking should get is a faster transformation time. I think a faster movement speed but lower range could also be appropriate, but that could possibly mess up the game a bit (would need lots of testing).

On September 24 2012 14:32 Xapti wrote:
Vikings can attack ground — isn't that good enough? look at zerg — corruptor can't attack ground in any way; at least the phoenix has graviton beam.

Making ground mode vikings stronger offers a real problem where you'll have one unit that can counter anything, be it air units or ground units. vikings are the main anti-air unit for terran, so if they then are also good against ground it'd be pretty bland or even imbalanced.

On September 24 2012 15:23 psiANIDe wrote:
Ground Vikings would be OP with thia change. They are already amazing anti-air, why do they have to be awesome at ground attack too?

On September 24 2012 14:45 one-one-one wrote:


Yes, but you and several others come to this thread with this standpoint without understanding of the core problem.

We are not necessarily talking about a big general buff vs ground units making mass viking strats possible. Just some tweaking so that they would fit a natural role in a terran mech composition.

Hellions deal with light units.
Tanks deal with armored and low-hp units.

What is left is units like archons and immortals and ultras. If ground vikings were buffed a bit they could actually be good
vs these units. Low damage and high rate of fire is perfect vs immortal shields and as long as protoss dont have shield upgrades they wont need any upgrades to do full damage to archons.
Maybe not ultras so much, but it would make zerg tech switches less lethal if they could be used to buffer in front of your tanks and thors in case of a BL -> Ultra tech switch.

Together with its anti-air it would be a good unit to have in a mech composition.

It also makes sense logically. There are obvious similarities with the goliath. The viking is the very same unit, except that it needs to lift of in order to hit air and land to hit ground units.

On September 24 2012 16:02 Kharnage wrote:


Umm, aren't thors good at doing lots of damage to single units? I thought that was their 'thang'.

Ahh, I think I see what you're after here.
It's a double pronged super buff!

you want and all in one to counter BL and ultra.
then you ALSO want an all in 1 counter for colossus and archons and immortals.

Good unit there.

Sorry, you need to actually build other units. I know, it's crazy, but there you go. Against protoss if you get 3 bases get ghosts. Stop arguing, stop looking for a way out of it, you MUST get ghosts. They counter immortals, HT, sentry, archon and also can do a lot of damage.
Get fricken ghosts.

Not gonna say what you should be doing in TvZ since i don't know, i play protoss. But it's pretty bloody obvious that if vikings were good vs ultra and BL then the game would be take 3 bases and start massing vikings. Done!

On September 24 2012 16:11 one-one-one wrote:


Yes, thors are good vs archons and immortals. But if you have archons you most likely have high templars which negate the thor's 250 mm strike cannon while also taking away a big chunk of their hp. Suddenly they are not so good anymore ....

Ghosts are very good with mech, but it is hard to get the number of ghosts that would be necessary until very late in the game. You need a lot of things other than ghosts. If protoss open with colossus you need to have the vikings.

I wont address your other points as you clearly were twisting my words.

On September 24 2012 18:19 Kharnage wrote:


How is it twisting your words when your exact words are What is left is units like archons and immortals and ultras. If ground vikings were buffed a bit they could actually be good vs these units. ?
It's the logical conclusion and outcome if vikings are good vs those units.

Yes, it's hard to get the 'right number' of ghosts till the late game. Just like it's hard for protoss to get HT with storm, archons, immortals, colossus, charge and blink with their respective upgrades.
It's also hard to get a high infestor count, lots of corruptors, spines and broods as well as all melee upgrades and ultra-armour + the bank + larvae so that zerg can do those big tech switches.

It's not meant to be easy to counter everything.

On September 24 2012 18:30 one-one-one wrote:


There is a difference between a unit that is good vs another unit and a unit that hardcounters a unit.

I didn't say that vikings on the ground should hardcounter immortals, archons and ultras. I merely said that it would be good if they could fill the roll of a decent damage unit with low damage but high rate of fire so that mech has a unit that doesn't suck balls vs immortals.

Neither did I mean that it should counter ultras. It would just be good if it could do a slightly better job of buffering in front of tanks in case of a quick BL -> ultra switch.

So what is the logical conclusion I should draw from your posts ?

On September 24 2012 20:02 Dephy wrote:

i think ppl are overestimating of how good vikings was. Infact even with 14ground damage instead of 12, they where total shit. In tvt we used to see like 5tanks and 30viking rainbow fights, it was like that not because vikings were good, it was because players were bad, you can put 20damage viking, and they would still get raped by bio ball/toss/zerg army, though they would actually be a threat on the ground, right now viking threat on the ground is about the same as sentry without energy.

If they dont want to change viking damage/armor values, they should change it switch animation, movespeed on the ground to be alot faster, so that fast viking raids would actually be a threat.
I remember when D.B first introduced them, he showed a clip of how land in base and harras it and shit. How often you see that in real games? never, because sending vikings to harras is suicide for them, because they are slow as shit, takes 200hours to switch form and then have movespeed of 2.25, what can you actually kill with them?
You only send them to suicide mission when they are totaly useles(aka no air units), so can maybe kill with them something, srsly 150-75 unit that is useless, basic marine has dps of viking on the ground and marine cost 4x less, have better movespeed and so on.
Even if they would buff vikings hardcore you would never see them on mass, since they are so bad on land that normal units like bio balls or tank/thor army are 3-4times better atm.

So my suggestion is actually buff they movespeed on the ground + transformation speed, this would make kinda ok harras unit for mech armies, which doesnt have marine/marauders balls, to take out bases(helions can only kill workers.)
To make it fair, maybe give it an upgrade for this improvement in Fussion core.

On September 24 2012 20:02 Dephy wrote:

i think ppl are overestimating of how good vikings was. Infact even with 14ground damage instead of 12, they where total shit. In tvt we used to see like 5tanks and 30viking rainbow fights, it was like that not because vikings were good, it was because players were bad, you can put 20damage viking, and they would still get raped by bio ball/toss/zerg army, though they would actually be a threat on the ground, right now viking threat on the ground is about the same as sentry without energy.

If they dont want to change viking damage/armor values, they should change it switch animation, movespeed on the ground to be alot faster, so that fast viking raids would actually be a threat.
I remember when D.B first introduced them, he showed a clip of how land in base and harras it and shit. How often you see that in real games? never, because sending vikings to harras is suicide for them, because they are slow as shit, takes 200hours to switch form and then have movespeed of 2.25, what can you actually kill with them?
You only send them to suicide mission when they are totaly useles(aka no air units), so can maybe kill with them something, srsly 150-75 unit that is useless, basic marine has dps of viking on the ground and marine cost 4x less, have better movespeed and so on.
Even if they would buff vikings hardcore you would never see them on mass, since they are so bad on land that normal units like bio balls or tank/thor army are 3-4times better atm.

So my suggestion is actually buff they movespeed on the ground + transformation speed, this would make kinda ok harras unit for mech armies, which doesnt have marine/marauders balls, to take out bases(helions can only kill workers.)
To make it fair, maybe give it an upgrade for this improvement in Fussion core.

On September 24 2012 20:47 Kharnage wrote:


You've hit the nail on the head and at the same time are completely wrong.

You are totally correct that if anything a 'buff' to vikings should be to their taking off and landing speed. They are too slow to be used as a harassing unit or even an emergency buffer unit. This makes any landing suicidal plus if the harassed player is paying attention at all the workers will just run before the vikings even get a shot off. I would buff their landing time so they 'crunch' into the ground and keep their taking off speed to same so it's a risky move, but one that might actually bag you some workers or slow down a bunch of ultras for a sec.

Where you are wrong. Viking ground dps is 12 (+1) with range 6. That makes them TWICE as powerful in pure dps as a stalker.
On top of that Vikings are the cheapest air unit for GAS in the game and are fantastic at their primary role of AA, especially with thor or marine support.
Their ground speed is the same as an immortal, they are mostly terrible because they get in each others way. It's not like they are 'Queen-off-creep' slow.