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I like this idea for a mine laying unit instead of the mine itself being a unit. Here's the unit I'm picturing, correct me if I misunderstand the concept: (Values with question marks pulled from top of head, don't pay them much attention.
Terran Shredder:
2 Supply, 150? Minerals, 75? Gas
90 HP, 0 Armor.
Attack: None.
Shredder may build and store up to 6? mines while mobile. Shredders must burrow into the ground to begin placing mines. Shredder and Widow Mines require detection to target, but may be seen as a patch of disturbed ground by attentive players (like burrowed Zerg units). The Shredder may have up to 6 mines active at once, but will rebuild up to an additional 6 mines to carry.
Widow Mines not within 6? range of a shredder will detonate. Each Shredder may support up to 6? mines in this fashion. Excess mines will self-destruct.
Abilities:
Build Widow Mine
Cost: 25? Minerals, may be set to Autocast.
Shredder builds 1 Widow Mine and stores it. Shredder may store up to 6? mines.
Plant Widow Mine:
Range: 6?
Cooldown: 2 seconds
Shredder plants a widow mine at location selected by player.
Mine Area:
Player selects an area for the Shredder to automatically place mines. Shredder will place mines in or as near as possible to the selected area (circular, radius 4?), and replaces them as they are destroyed. Ability remains on until cancelled (like Cloak, but no energy cost).
I'm not sure what mine damage & attack radius would be.
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How about a very cheap per widow mine upgrade to give them the ability to fly? Have floating mine fields too :D I imagine the cost could be something similar to a baneling's cost.
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On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible).
Well reasoned. Mech Terrans always have an abunadnce of minerals at their disposal anyway, makes more sense to make dozens of turrets. Mech armies are small enough as it is, untill you start ditching supply.
I would like to say that after watching your stream I feel like the widow mine does have role to play in TvP. They really allow the Mech terran to be aggressive before 200/200. I loved wathcing the game where you slow pushed your way into the 4th base of the Protoss with widow mines, shame about the unbeatable archon counter attack.
The concept proposed here seems to be more defensive focused, while I feel like the widow mine in it's current form can fill some of the holes in mech play, an allow the Terran to have more map presence earlier in the game. And I'll never forget how much damage I saw them doing to an immortal death ball.
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On October 03 2012 08:44 GoStu wrote:
I like this idea for a mine laying unit instead of the mine itself being a unit. Here's the unit I'm picturing, correct me if I misunderstand the concept: (Values with question marks pulled from top of head, don't pay them much attention.
Terran Shredder:
2 Supply, 150? Minerals, 75? Gas
90 HP, 0 Armor.
Attack: None.
Shredder may build and store up to 6? mines while mobile. Shredders must burrow into the ground to begin placing mines. Shredder and Widow Mines require detection to target, but may be seen as a patch of disturbed ground by attentive players (like burrowed Zerg units). The Shredder may have up to 6 mines active at once, but will rebuild up to an additional 6 mines to carry.
Widow Mines not within 6? range of a shredder will detonate. Each Shredder may support up to 6? mines in this fashion. Excess mines will self-destruct.
Abilities:
Build Widow Mine
Cost: 25? Minerals, may be set to Autocast.
Shredder builds 1 Widow Mine and stores it. Shredder may store up to 6? mines.
Plant Widow Mine:
Range: 6?
Cooldown: 2 seconds
Shredder plants a widow mine at location selected by player.
Mine Area:
Player selects an area for the Shredder to automatically place mines. Shredder will place mines in or as near as possible to the selected area (circular, radius 4?), and replaces them as they are destroyed. Ability remains on until cancelled (like Cloak, but no energy cost).
I'm not sure what mine damage & attack radius would be.
I like it, but it would be nice to have an upgrade for the shredder so it can carry more mines, maybe start at 3 stored mines. Upgradable to 5. Also start with low damage mines and upgrade them to the damage that is shown now, balancing out early and mid game.
My idea is make the shredder put mines in locations, move away and the mines dont detonate. he can pick up mines also, and move them to another location.
also make the shredder construct mines but for a cost that doesnt really is cost efficient, so it balances the unit down a bit making better to make another shreder that can support in game.
Now we face a problem, what happens when shredders run out of mines, we have a unit with supply that doesnt do anything?
Maybe a Little attack should be added, something like sentrys atack (doesnt do much but helps), and a spell that contributes to mech play, imagine, burrowing and making a fog barrier, like a fog grenade, where your units can see through it because of the shredder and enemys dont, same as fog in maps, only a bit bigger. This could be put at the top of the ramps, near minerals favoring more tactical play, or in front ot the tanks while they move up in TvT play. (When Shredder dies, fog still lasts for a bit, make it 4 seg aprox, till it disipates)
Something like this:
Terran Shredder:
2 Supply, 150 Minerals, 75 Gas
100 HP, 1 Armor.
Attack (Air and ground): little machinegun, 5 dmg every 0.85 seg.
Shredder comes to game and can carry 3 mines.
Upgradable to 5 mines.
Abilities:
Build Widow Mine
Cost: 60 Minerals
Shredder builds 1 Widow Mine and stores it.
Plant Widow Mine:
Range: 3
Cooldown: 1 seconds
Shredder plants a widow mine at location selected by player.
Pick up Widow Mine:
Range: 3
Cooldown: 1 seconds
Shredder picks up widow mine selected by player and stores it.
Fog Wall:
Range: 0
Shredder Burrows and start emiting a smoke screen in the location where its burrowed. HP 200%. (Cant atack or move while doing this)
WidowMine Damage:
Only Ground
90dmg, 40 Splash.
Upgradable to:
160Dmg 65 Splash.
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On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible).
Are you even reading what I wrote?
I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead.
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On October 03 2012 10:32 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible). Are you even reading what I wrote? I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead.
They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play?
Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map.
And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks?
So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong.
Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players.
Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker.
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On October 03 2012 15:30 avilo wrote:
They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play?
Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map.
And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks?
So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong.
Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players.
Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker.
I'm not sure vitriol is helping your point. Speaking of the metagame is all well and good for people that want to be ladder heroes, but the metagame shifts - and for pros, exploiting variations in the metagame are subtle ways to get an advantage. Nestea put mutalisks to great use against Sparta this week, and though he lost, it was in spite of his decision to go muta, not because of it.
Furthermore, the threat of a widow mine benefits a player with a factory even if they're not constructed - as people will be figuring out as HotS is better understood. MorroW put them to great use in his stream yesterday, and while the threat of a missile turret - the obvious deterrent - failed to ward off a banshee, the widow mine parked next to it rammed the point home: there's room for effective use of the mine.
If you don't want to be the person that finds that use, arguing that there is none, that's your prerogative - but it doesn't make you right, or particularly wise.
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The only problem that i see with the widow mine is proxy/inbase(your opponent's) factory. Early on it is clearly imbalanced. The way to solve this is make it so workers do not activate the widow mines, only other units. In brood war it was the same way with spider mines, workers did not activate them. I believe if this change were to be implemented the widow mine would be in a good place.
As far as usefulness of the widow mine. Its extremely useful. You can use them offensively/defensively early game. You can use them defensively late game. With a mech army you can cut off areas with them to prevent hardflanks from coming in as you push/siege up. I think the widow mine really adds a nice dynamic to the terran race. It gives that extra strength early game defence vs lots of all ins as well. 2 Supply isn't really all that much. 1 supply would definitely be better of course, but I think its fine at 2 supply. A lot of people think its too strong because it attacks air. I disagree. Its a one time use. And your opponent has to fly within the activation area.
So yeah, the only thing i would change about the widow mine is make it so workers do not activate it, however they should still suffer the aoe splash if a nearby unit does activate it.
Here is a nice example how i like to use the mine. I've been going gas first vs T/Z. 3 marine, 1 scv, 1 hellion with a widow mine rallied. I do a little poke and build a bunker at the nat of my opponent. Of course this strategy may change depending on what my scouting scv sees, I can also use this defensively to expand and scout with the hellion. I think its a pretty cute opening that has a few diverse follow ups such as banshees/medivacs. Sometimes I like to drop a techlab on the rax after the 3rd mariine and swap it onto my factory after the widow mine is done and build a tank/siege and solidify the contain vs terran.
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On October 03 2012 15:30 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2012 10:32 kcdc wrote:On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible). Are you even reading what I wrote? I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead. They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play? Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map. And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks? So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong. Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players. Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker.
Teching straight to infestors is the more popular route, but mutas still happen plenty in ZvT. You see players get 6 to 12 in the early mid-game to force turrets, do some light harass and deny drops, and then they switch over to infestor production while retaining their muta count. The presence of WM's will shift the balance further toward skipping mutas entirely for more infestors.
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On October 03 2012 15:30 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2012 10:32 kcdc wrote:On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible). Are you even reading what I wrote? I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead. They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play? Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map. And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks? So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong. Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players. Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker.
Well, most lowtech/mineralheavy units have that weakness of supply inefficiency in the lategame, I don't know why the widow mine shouldn't have it.
That't doesn't mean that we don't see any marines, marauders, zerglings, roaches, banelings, zealots, stalkers or hellions at that time, as long as they have other strengths.
The widow mine has a lot of those other strenghts:
-) fast production
-) cheap/costefficient
-) good in low number "battles"
-) unique role (in the WMs case, good antiair damage against nonlight units)
-) allows 'gimmicky' combat tactics (kill the detection)
In fact, what is one of the biggest problems of mech? Losing the expensive ball in an even trade (so you're not really behind), but not being able to reproduce enough army before the next lowtier unit wave arives (yet you still lose). With the widow mine, you can probably reproduce an 'army' very fast that is good at holding exactly that.
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On October 04 2012 00:30 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2012 15:30 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 10:32 kcdc wrote:On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible). Are you even reading what I wrote? I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead. They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play? Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map. And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks? So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong. Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players. Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker. Well, most lowtech/mineralheavy units have that weakness of supply inefficiency in the lategame, I don't know why the widow mine shouldn't have it. That't doesn't mean that we don't see any marines, marauders, zerglings, roaches, banelings, zealots, stalkers or hellions at that time, as long as they have other strengths. The widow mine has a lot of those other strenghts: -) fast production -) cheap/costefficient -) good in low number "battles" -) unique role (in the WMs case, good antiair damage against nonlight units) -) allows 'gimmicky' combat tactics (kill the detection) In fact, what is one of the biggest problems of mech? Losing the expensive ball in an even trade (so you're not really behind), but not being able to reproduce enough army before the next lowtier unit wave arives (yet you still lose). With the widow mine, you can probably reproduce an 'army' very fast that is good at holding exactly that.
I think avilo is looking for a little too much out of a unit. One unit is not going to be or I dare say SHOULD NOT be the end all be all in an RTS game.
As far as avilo's comments about in-base defence(turrets, thors, widow mines). I would definitely favor a few widow mines with some turrets as opposed to a thor and some turrets. Widow mines/turrets helps against drops so much better than a single thor/turrets. If you are meching vs zerg, the zerg will frequently try to drop your base with roaches. Turrets/widow mines could make serious work of clumped overlords rather quickly with proper mine placement. The widow mine is in a good place right now. The only tweak that needs to happen is make it so worker do not trigger the widow mine.
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On October 04 2012 03:23 ReachTheSky wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 00:30 Big J wrote:On October 03 2012 15:30 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 10:32 kcdc wrote:On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible). Are you even reading what I wrote? I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead. They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play? Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map. And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks? So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong. Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players. Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker. Well, most lowtech/mineralheavy units have that weakness of supply inefficiency in the lategame, I don't know why the widow mine shouldn't have it. That't doesn't mean that we don't see any marines, marauders, zerglings, roaches, banelings, zealots, stalkers or hellions at that time, as long as they have other strengths. The widow mine has a lot of those other strenghts: -) fast production -) cheap/costefficient -) good in low number "battles" -) unique role (in the WMs case, good antiair damage against nonlight units) -) allows 'gimmicky' combat tactics (kill the detection) In fact, what is one of the biggest problems of mech? Losing the expensive ball in an even trade (so you're not really behind), but not being able to reproduce enough army before the next lowtier unit wave arives (yet you still lose). With the widow mine, you can probably reproduce an 'army' very fast that is good at holding exactly that. I think avilo is looking for a little too much out of a unit. One unit is not going to be or I dare say SHOULD NOT be the end all be all in an RTS game. As far as avilo's comments about in-base defence(turrets, thors, widow mines). I would definitely favor a few widow mines with some turrets as opposed to a thor and some turrets. Widow mines/turrets helps against drops so much better than a single thor/turrets. If you are meching vs zerg, the zerg will frequently try to drop your base with roaches. Turrets/widow mines could make serious work of clumped overlords rather quickly with proper mine placement. The widow mine is in a good place right now. The only tweak that needs to happen is make it so worker do not trigger the widow mine.
I think he isn't too wrong with what he says to be honest. If a unit is too supplyinefficient, it will have a hard time finding a place in the lategame (f.e. roaches are only used as an reinforcement unit in lategame situations, but they are not being built for as long as you stay in the high supply - which in SC2 is a cornerrole).
However his point always is that he wants minefields added to the game. Yet unlike Broodwar which had minefields from the get-go, SC2 Mech was designed without it and it is very good without it in 2/3 matchups. Adding cheap/supplyefficient minefields on top of what Mech has in SC2 is simply not the same as having them in the game from the start. The mine has to collide a little bit with other mech play, but for as long as it has some good, gameplayrelevant uses (and it can definatly get balanced in a way that single/double/triple 2supply mines are enough of a threat to overtake big parts of the minefields roles), it is going to be a strong addition to Terrans arsenal.
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On September 28 2012 11:14 Crawdad wrote:DB's reply is even more interesting: Show nested quote +This would allow the mine layer to effectively do unlimited damage, so long as the mine layer survives. As opposed to now where the Widow Mine sacrifices itself and will only ever do so much damage before it must be replaced. Obviously a buff, but we could balance for this ability.
Interesting idea. Thanks for the post. He seems receptive.
Professional courtesy, i doubt he's allowed to really speak out offensively against a bad idea.
At least it is imo, i think the ability is a bit over complicated and powerful. I would rather stay with simple mines, or if things need changing perhaps a new mech unit that deploys mines.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
I would agree with Avilo in saying that right now being 2 supply is massively hurting the widow mine's late game use. imo a 1 supply widow mine would be superior, and it wouldn't have to be changed at all from its current form, cause the supply change will do almost nothing in the early game (where the widow mine is most powerful) and help it massively in the late game (where its right now very limited).
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this sounds like a good idea, however it seems very similair to the shredder that was scrapped, sort of like a shredder that takes more time to set up. hoping they figure out the mine tho
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On October 03 2012 08:11 KevoVargas wrote:
I Really like the idea but something came to mind.
Shredder can have only control of 3 widow mines at a time, u can place them where u want and leave them there.(buildable like scarabs) Also you can pick them up with shredder to move their position. (Can carry up to 3 mines) So basicly its a mine layer moving mines and making mine fields.
Widow mines dont attack air units.
And there is an upgrade for shredder, upgrading its humber of mines carried to 5 and boositing its movement speed.
Also mines can start with a normal damage output imagine. 100 dmg and 50 dmg splash.
Upgradable to 180 Dmg and 80 dmg splash.
Mines stack on targets, so 1 zealot or 1 zergling can make 2 o 3 mines suicide.
Just imagining using these guys to harass with a medivac, and it came out to be a very 'yo dawg' moment, unloading the medivacs so the Shredders can unload their mines..
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I think the mines should be unmoveable to promote smart placement of them. Hopefully something'll eventuate next update
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On October 04 2012 03:42 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 03:23 ReachTheSky wrote:On October 04 2012 00:30 Big J wrote:On October 03 2012 15:30 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 10:32 kcdc wrote:On October 03 2012 07:54 avilo wrote:On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:On September 30 2012 07:56 kcdc wrote:
They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game. No. They aren't. Past the 10 minute mark or so you will virtually never want mines in your army again, let alone in your base. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, 0 gas. So no, they are not good at discouraging drop and air harrass at all stages of the game. They are good at it in the first 6-10 minutes of the game or so. Past that and if you build them, you build them at your own peril and are only hurting yourself as Terran. Just don't comment on Terran if you are not willing to research or understand the units. They 1-shot drops and a couple of them take out flocks of mutas. You don't want to commit a bunch of them to base defense against air, but the threat of WM's changes the calculus of whether it's worth it to try the harass. If there's a 30% chance that at some point you'll have your muta flock randomly blown up while you flash back to your base to inject, you just don't build mutas. Infestors don't get owned by randomly placed WM's, so you dump your gas into infestors instead. Missile turrets with the range upgrade cost 0 supply are virtually always more cost effective than widow mines. People need to really get this through their head and understand it. If you're wasting 6 supply on cute "widow mine defense" that is supply that could have been an entire thor + missile turrets. So no, i'm basically being blunt here and telling you a lot of you have no clue what you're talking about. I'm not disagreeing with any of you that having 2 widow mines burrowed with 3 missile turrets is theoretically stronger burst damage vs let's say 10-20 mutalisks vs just 4-5 missile turrets. I completely agree with you on that. The problem is at a high level of play, you are literally sticking a knife into your leg by using mines in that manner. The supply can be in an effective army unit rather than a 2 supply mine. Missile turrets cost 0 supply, so past the 10 minute mark you'll virtually always be building missile turrets that cost no supply, and no gas, with thors to increase your effective army supply (just to clarify if people are misunderstanding why I'm saying widow mines on defense are terrible). Are you even reading what I wrote? I said they're good at discouraging drop and air harass play. You don't even have to build the mines in mid to late-game--just having the threat of widow mines shifts the cost-benefit toward making infestors rather than mutas. Players won't want to risk expensive drops or air harass forces because they could randomly die without warning. Better to dump those resources into core army strength instead. They're not as good as you think at discouraging that type of play. Guess what else is better at discouraging drop and air harrass play? Missile turrets because they are a permanent structure that stays on the map. And people already make infestors over mutalisks in the first place...perhaps you're over a year or so behind in the metagame to think people are making hoardes of mutalisks? So no, mines don't discourage things even more than a permanent missile turret does. You are basically just flat out wrong. Unless you meant in that first 6-10ish minutes of the game, then yes, mines are great at discouraging things at that stage in the game because supply numbers are very low for both players. Any time beyond that, if your opponent is using mines against you you can smile and know your army is getting stronger as his is getting weaker. Well, most lowtech/mineralheavy units have that weakness of supply inefficiency in the lategame, I don't know why the widow mine shouldn't have it. That't doesn't mean that we don't see any marines, marauders, zerglings, roaches, banelings, zealots, stalkers or hellions at that time, as long as they have other strengths. The widow mine has a lot of those other strenghts: -) fast production -) cheap/costefficient -) good in low number "battles" -) unique role (in the WMs case, good antiair damage against nonlight units) -) allows 'gimmicky' combat tactics (kill the detection) In fact, what is one of the biggest problems of mech? Losing the expensive ball in an even trade (so you're not really behind), but not being able to reproduce enough army before the next lowtier unit wave arives (yet you still lose). With the widow mine, you can probably reproduce an 'army' very fast that is good at holding exactly that. I think avilo is looking for a little too much out of a unit. One unit is not going to be or I dare say SHOULD NOT be the end all be all in an RTS game. As far as avilo's comments about in-base defence(turrets, thors, widow mines). I would definitely favor a few widow mines with some turrets as opposed to a thor and some turrets. Widow mines/turrets helps against drops so much better than a single thor/turrets. If you are meching vs zerg, the zerg will frequently try to drop your base with roaches. Turrets/widow mines could make serious work of clumped overlords rather quickly with proper mine placement. The widow mine is in a good place right now. The only tweak that needs to happen is make it so worker do not trigger the widow mine. I think he isn't too wrong with what he says to be honest. If a unit is too supplyinefficient, it will have a hard time finding a place in the lategame (f.e. roaches are only used as an reinforcement unit in lategame situations, but they are not being built for as long as you stay in the high supply - which in SC2 is a cornerrole). However his point always is that he wants minefields added to the game. Yet unlike Broodwar which had minefields from the get-go, SC2 Mech was designed without it and it is very good without it in 2/3 matchups. Adding cheap/supplyefficient minefields on top of what Mech has in SC2 is simply not the same as having them in the game from the start. The mine has to collide a little bit with other mech play, but for as long as it has some good, gameplayrelevant uses (and it can definatly get balanced in a way that single/double/triple 2supply mines are enough of a threat to overtake big parts of the minefields roles), it is going to be a strong addition to Terrans arsenal.
It's not that he is wrong or right in the situation, its his opinion and he can voice it. I just think he is expecting a little too much from a unit.
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On October 04 2012 04:12 MCDayC wrote:
I would agree with Avilo in saying that right now being 2 supply is massively hurting the widow mine's late game use. imo a 1 supply widow mine would be superior, and it wouldn't have to be changed at all from its current form, cause the supply change will do almost nothing in the early game (where the widow mine is most powerful) and help it massively in the late game (where its right now very limited).
Terran has the ability to mass orbital and sacrifice 40ish scvs to increase their army supply. I don't think 2 supply really makes a huge difference.
On a side note: I mentioned previously that the widow mine needs to be tweak to where workers do not activate it. I expand upon this and add that there should also be a hotkey to deactivateactivate the mine as opposed to having to right click on the unit UI to achieve this.
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I like the idea. Requires forethought on where to place the initial mine. Requires more APM to continually go back and spread the field. Solves a lot of the supply issues. Would increase early game aggression as the opponent would want to kill the field before it gets to big, creating more engagements that are not All-In or death ball interactions. It sounds like it would be really cool and fun to use, which it isn't now.
Might be tough to balance as Terrans might just make 4 mines at the beginning of the game and mine the entire map, like creep. But I like the idea.
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What if they just make it 1.5 supply rounded up? So 1 widow mine will take 2 supply still, but 2 will only take 3. If one is too little and 2 is too much, then just split it. (And it's not like this is unprecedented. A zergling costs .5 supply.)
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EPT
