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I was reading the HOTS BNet forums which are mostly garbage, but the idea here seemed completely sweet:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6712862598
Basically, instead of burrowing mines, you'd burrow a unit that once burrowed, would begin building a small directional mine field, deploying one mine at a time at a cost of 25 minerals or so per mine up to a maximum of 4 or 5 mines. If the unit dies or unburrows, his mine field self-destructs.
The mines would obviously have to be much weaker than the current widow mine stats, and they wouldn't hit air, but this just seems a million times cooler than the current widow mine.
The use is more interesting than the current widow mine because you have to burrow it well ahead of time to allow it time to set up the field, and you have to control both its position and direction to ensure the mine field is built in the right spot. Maybe you'd direct the mine field sideways to cover a wide choke, or maybe you'd direct it vertically to lengthen the damage path through a narrow choke and better protect the mine maker.
It would also be supply efficient enough to use to control space and slow counter-attacks in late-game. You can't afford to cut 30 supply out of your main army for 15 widow mines to block 3 chokes, but if you plan ahead and burrow these guys with enough time to set up their fields, you might be able to get effective space control for only 10 supply.
And the time it would take to establish the mine fields would prevent the mines from sneaking into battles and trying join your main force to score big splash damage. You'd actually have to use these positionally rather than as a combat unit.
Does anyone else think this unit would be infinitely more interesting than the current widow mine? If you agree and have beta access, bump that dude's BNet post and let the devs know how much of an improvement it would be.
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DB's reply is even more interesting:
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.
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So basically, a mine which is a mine layer, acts like a creep tumor?
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Burrowed mine layer, nice idea. But without any other relevant information, it could be either be OP or UP.
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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.
As well be. It would fix so much of what's wrong with the widow mine. Reasons people don't like the widow mine:
-doesn't feel like a full-fledged unit
-is bad at space control (10 supply per choke is unreasonable)
-is way too good at shutting down air and drop harass (Whoops, your 12 mutas flew over the wrong corner of my base! Guess you instantly lose!)
-conceptually overlaps in with baneling
A mine layer would instantly correct all of those. It would feel like a true unit, would have some real separation from a baneling, would be good for space control, and wouldn't prevent air and drop harass.
From a design and fun perspective, this unit would be miles and miles better than the current widow mine.
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Sounds like it resembles a defensive swarm host more than anything else in the game, although obviously it's not quite like that either. Seems to be an interesting idea, I wouldn't mind seeing how it worked out in-game.
The upgrades issue (which he also mentions in his post), is an old point of contention with Terran, but worth considering. My impression had always been that the larger division of upgrades for Terran compared to the other two races was intended to counter Terran having a relatively short and linear tech path. The design doesn't seem to quite balance out that way though.
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On September 28 2012 11:26 kcdc wrote:
From a design and fun perspective, this unit would be miles and miles better than the current widow mine.
As long as it still looks like a robot and not a Transformer, LOL.
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Dude, humans have had used traps since cavemen.
Zerg do not have a monopoly of mine technology.
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Hope the DB post is sincere and not pr.
Would definitely be a cool idea, I like the idea as it frees up supply while remaining balanced. I'm afraid of the idea because it kinda sorta feels like the swarm host.
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Nah, its gameplay would be the exact opposite of how the swarm host plays. The swarm host plays as a siege unit and needs army support to protect its position. The mine layer plays as positional defense and stays away from your main army protecting against flanks and couter-attacks.
In BW terms, the swarm host is a siege tank and the mine layer would be some spider mines.
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Such a tremendous improvement over the kamikaze factory unit we have now. Kamikaze units are just really boring generally.
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On September 28 2012 14:06 ledarsi wrote:
Such a tremendous improvement over the kamikaze factory unit we have now. Kamikaze units are just really boring generally.
I don't know what you're smoking. But what...
Excuse me but a single medivac drop of 8 marines at the 11min mark in a TvZ game is kamikaze.
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On September 28 2012 14:16 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2012 14:06 ledarsi wrote:
Such a tremendous improvement over the kamikaze factory unit we have now. Kamikaze units are just really boring generally. I don't know what you're smoking. But what... Excuse me but a single medivac drop of 8 marines at the 11min mark in a TvZ game is kamikaze.
Except that it is a strategic choice, not the defining aspect of the entire unit...
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I love this idea, suicide units are always hard to balance (and that usualy means they end up being underpowered). There are lots of questions. How much dmg should each mine do, I am thinking about 20-30ish splash? How much should this unit cost? (prob around 150/100 with 2 supply each) How long does it take to deploy the mines? (prob about 1 sec per mine starting 3 sec after it starts to get setup), How many mines can it deploy at max? (I am thinking around 5) And I wouldnt have the mines cost minerals.
One idea to think about, would have the mines/mine layer underground (so you cant target them without detection when setup), but have some kind of visible effect on the ground so you can easily see the ground is mined. Provide the deterant and let them get a detector to clear it out, but less "omg there was a mine there?"
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On September 28 2012 14:22 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2012 14:16 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On September 28 2012 14:06 ledarsi wrote:
Such a tremendous improvement over the kamikaze factory unit we have now. Kamikaze units are just really boring generally. I don't know what you're smoking. But what... Excuse me but a single medivac drop of 8 marines at the 11min mark in a TvZ game is kamikaze. Except that it is a strategic choice, not the defining aspect of the entire unit...
So placing two mines either closely to maximise damage to spread out to maximise attack path possibility.
Again strategy is needed.
You lack depth of understanding that with 2 supply, building 60 mines leaves one no room for any army and is a really bad idea. But to you, it's DERP AUTOWIN.
If it were that easy, America could just mine all the countries it was at war with and win.
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On September 28 2012 14:59 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
So placing two mines either closely to maximise damage to spread out to maximise attack path possibility.
Again strategy is needed.
You lack depth of understanding that with 2 supply, building 60 mines leaves one no room for any army and is a really bad idea. But to you, it's DERP AUTOWIN.
If it were that easy, America could just mine all the countries it was at war with and win.
... Are we still talking about the Widow mine? Because the Widow mine is FAAAR from an autowin unit.
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I like the current widow mine, wouldn't mind seeing a drop to 1 supply (with a damage nerf). I think a mine layer is kind of silly considering the vulture was a goddamn hover bike, moved fast as shit and could lay mines, but still have an attack. How or why would a dedicated mine layer be better then putting mines on the hellions?
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I really love this idea ! Hope blizz will read this ! 
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Sounds cool on paper but wont work during engagements which is essential unless its more of a setup first before engagement kind of thing unlike spider mines which were used as both.
But this leads us to the same old conclusion. Mines as units just DONT work. They need a unit that lays them as a limited ability or money costing ability.
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On September 28 2012 15:17 YyapSsap wrote:
Sounds cool on paper but wont work during engagements which is essential unless its more of a setup first before engagement kind of thing unlike spider mines which were used as both.
But this leads us to the same old conclusion. Mines as units just DONT work. They need a unit that lays them as a limited ability or money costing ability.
Widow mines are not the broodwar remake. Placing mines during engagements just ... suck ? It feels weird.
Mech is an immobile army, not one who can move on an place mines everywhere.
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I like the idea too. The original op suggested also theat existing mines self destruct if the Shredder is repositioned. I was thinking if you actually did it properly make it so that the mines time out slowly and the shredder reproduces them at the same rate with some minor adjustments. That way the shredder keeps the mine field filled up. If you move it it still last for a little while for when you reposition.
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Huh, i kinda like this. Wouldn't mind it if they tinkered around with it a little.
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On September 28 2012 15:09 captainwaffles wrote:
I like the current widow mine, wouldn't mind seeing a drop to 1 supply (with a damage nerf). I think a mine layer is kind of silly considering the vulture was a goddamn hover bike, moved fast as shit and could lay mines, but still have an attack. How or why would a dedicated mine layer be better then putting mines on the hellions?
Because a Vulture could only lay three spider mines, and then it was done. Presumably, this dedicated minelayer would have no such limit. Plus, it's burrowed.
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On September 28 2012 15:23 Insoleet wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2012 15:17 YyapSsap wrote:
Sounds cool on paper but wont work during engagements which is essential unless its more of a setup first before engagement kind of thing unlike spider mines which were used as both.
But this leads us to the same old conclusion. Mines as units just DONT work. They need a unit that lays them as a limited ability or money costing ability. Widow mines are not the broodwar remake. Placing mines during engagements just ... suck ? It feels weird. Mech is an immobile army, not one who can move on an place mines everywhere.
Mech is an immobile army with a speedy sidekick ala hellions (or vultures from BW). Maybe you've never seen mines being used offensively e.g. a squadron of vultures vs a pack of dragoons. Such a micro intensive fight. Its exciting to watch as a spectator, seeing dragoons picking off mines and minimizing damage while the vultures are doing everything they can do take a chunk of them out. If your really good, rewards can be high as the cost efficiency would be insane which is a good thing for a game like SC2.
And how do they suck? what if you didn't have time to plant them down before the engagement? why do you think they got rid of the 10s timer before detonation?
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I am definitely in favor of this idea on paper and would like to see it tested in beta. Widow mines simply do not control space where it sounds like this unit could definitely control space.
I also like hobbidude's idea to make the mines slowly defuse after the unit unborrows and repositions. This way the unit can't just be targeted down and can run away and use its mine field as a temp shield for retreat.
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On September 28 2012 11:47 benzcity07 wrote:
Hope the DB post is sincere and not pr.
Would definitely be a cool idea, I like the idea as it frees up supply while remaining balanced. I'm afraid of the idea because it kinda sorta feels like the swarm host.
Considering how few posts with legit criticism he responds to, I think it is.
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This seems like a really cool idea. Don't get why people on the Bnet forums seem to think it's a terran reaver though, lol.
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This Idea is from the WoL Alpha, they've never showed that unit, but they were talking about it for a little bit, and then scrapped it. It could be interesting, we will see what will they do.
On September 28 2012 19:31 [KGS]Slacker wrote:
This seems like a really cool idea. Don't get why people on the Bnet forums seem to think it's a terran reaver though, lol.
Because they are retarded, it has nothing to do with the Reaver, except that you are "buying" mines, which are used for Area control and not as Siege Units. They are also comparing it to the Swarm Hosts, which is again very different, Swarm Host is also an Siege unit like Reaver, but you are not doing AoE damage with it, and can be used both for offense and defense, unlike Shredder that would be used only for defense.
It would be great unit though, you won't need to mass them, but make like 3-5 of them, and you are improving area control a lot.
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really nice idea. make it drop the mines relatively slowly so drops with it dont become OP and it will sure be a whole lot better than the actual widow mine with all its disadvantages you all mentioned in your OP.
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LOL Browder likes it cause he can bring back his beloved shredder. Or at least the name. He must have come up with that name too, he was always crazy about that unit.
I like this idea. Suicide units are not as interesting.
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As well be. It would fix so much of what's wrong with the widow mine. Reasons people don't like the widow mine:
-doesn't feel like a full-fledged unit
-is bad at space control (10 supply per choke is unreasonable)
-is way too good at shutting down air and drop harass (Whoops, your 12 mutas flew over the wrong corner of my base! Guess you instantly lose!)
-conceptually overlaps in with baneling
A mine layer would instantly correct all of those. It would feel like a true unit, would have some real separation from a baneling, would be good for space control, and wouldn't prevent air and drop harass.
From a design and fun perspective, this unit would be miles and miles better than the current widow mine.
I completely agree, though being a mine-laying unit only, does not seem to me to be full-fledged as well.
Would love to see a Factory Spell caster, where one of it's abilities is the ability to lay mines.
The Raven has always seemed boring to me, compared to the Science Vessel and it's very positional, which makes it more of a support unit for Mech kinds of plays. So the best idea maybe, would be to:
Make a new Factory Spell caster which can lay mines, along with having PDD and Seeker Missile(Maybe Defensive Matrix instead.)
And then instead of the Raven add Science Vessel, with Irradiate and some other spells as well, which supports Bio and Air play.
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Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all.
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On September 29 2012 16:25 avilo wrote:
Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all.
Or instead of pretending they are not working, we could acknowledge that pepole do have some success with them as they are now.
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ROFL, this thing was already in the game, that's hilarious.
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On September 29 2012 16:36 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 16:25 avilo wrote:
Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all. Or instead of pretending they are not working, we could acknowledge that pepole do have some success with them as they are now.
Yeah. But not boyond the early stages of the game. They are pretty much useless for their intended role otherwise.
There are a few cases where mines are very good. Holding early all ins for example. Also , putting mines close to turrets will pretty much shut down any muta harass. All in all you have a unit that makes terran survive any early all in that leaves out detection and which makes mutalisks a big NO in ZvT.
This is a stark contrast to the spider mine which allowed terran to control space and cover flanks.
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On September 29 2012 17:29 one-one-one wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 16:36 Big J wrote:On September 29 2012 16:25 avilo wrote:
Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all. Or instead of pretending they are not working, we could acknowledge that pepole do have some success with them as they are now. Yeah. But not boyond the early stages of the game. They are pretty much useless for their intended role otherwise. There are a few cases where mines are very good. Holding early all ins for example. Also , putting mines close to turrets will pretty much shut down any muta harass. All in all you have a unit that makes terran survive any early all in that leaves out detection and which makes mutalisks a big NO in ZvT. This is a stark contrast to the spider mine which allowed terran to control space and cover flanks.
A unit that kill muta flocks, shut down run-bys is NOT controlling space covering flanks.
Lolwut?
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On September 29 2012 17:32 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 17:29 one-one-one wrote:On September 29 2012 16:36 Big J wrote:On September 29 2012 16:25 avilo wrote:
Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all. Or instead of pretending they are not working, we could acknowledge that pepole do have some success with them as they are now. Yeah. But not boyond the early stages of the game. They are pretty much useless for their intended role otherwise. There are a few cases where mines are very good. Holding early all ins for example. Also , putting mines close to turrets will pretty much shut down any muta harass. All in all you have a unit that makes terran survive any early all in that leaves out detection and which makes mutalisks a big NO in ZvT. This is a stark contrast to the spider mine which allowed terran to control space and cover flanks. A unit that kill muta flocks, shut down run-bys is NOT controlling space covering flanks. Lolwut?
As I said there are a few cases where they are good. Stopping ling runbys is not one of them as they are too much hit or miss in that case. Base Sim City and bunkers with marines or PFs does a much better job stopping lings.
Dealing with mutas is indeed space control. The problem is that they are way too fucking good at it making muta harass almost obsolete in conjunction with turrets.
Ideally they would do a better job with space control in general and worse at it in the case of mutas.
I say bring back supply to 1, decrease main target damage while increasing splash damage and radius.
Alternatively make them 0 supply and make them not target air.
They will still take up factory time so if you spam too many mines in the early stages of the game the opponent will just go and kill you once detection and long range units are out.
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Basically turn widow mines into absurdly expensive spider mines. As they consume 2 food instead of 0.33 food, and more mins and gas than one vulture.
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No. Just no.
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On September 29 2012 19:18 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Basically turn widow mines into absurdly expensive spider mines. As they consume 2 food instead of 0.33 food, and more mins and gas than one vulture.
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No. Just no.
What are you talking about now?
The current state of the widow mine is exactly what you describe: an expensive spider mine that consumes 2 supply.
The vulture was 75 minerals if I recall correctly though.
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I like this new idea a lot. Fingers crossed.
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On September 29 2012 19:26 one-one-one wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 19:18 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Basically turn widow mines into absurdly expensive spider mines. As they consume 2 food instead of 0.33 food, and more mins and gas than one vulture.
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No. Just no. What are you talking about now? The current state of the widow mine is exactly what you describe: an expensive spider mine that consumes 2 supply. The vulture was 75 minerals if I recall correctly though.
Spider mines cannot hit air.
Spider mines can be destroyed before detonation.
Spider mines cannot be redeployed.
Spider mines had terrible AI and an entire field of spider mines could be theoretically cleared by sacing a mobile low cost unit.
Spider mines do less damage (120 vs. 160) but have a more powerful splash damage (120 vs 60).
Spider mines ≠ widow mines.
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On September 29 2012 16:25 avilo wrote:
Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all.
But the supply cost isn't the only (or even the worst) problem with the widow mine. What I hate most about the spider mine is how it feels. It feels like a baneling that only works when burrowed. It overlaps conceptually with the baneling, and even then, it doesn't feel like a full-fledged unit. Nobody would like the baneling if you could ONLY burrow it and cross your fingers that someone would run over it. And then there's the hitting air issue with the widow mine and how it discourages air and drop harass, but does so in a luck-based, binary way.
Sometimes you have to recognize that the unit's design is the problem and come back with a better idea before you worry about balance. It's worked for the mothership core (and the warhound if you count "nothing" as a better idea).
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widow mine feels like that unit from broodwar u wanted to play around with and control... but could not do!
like a metalic spider dog to the marines. but in BW they only borrowed ran a bit and exploded. no control no play...
so now for the first time we get to play with 2 fooded mech spider mine. that we dreamed of in all these years!
would be great if they gave it more - whatever that made them more interesting than the banelings!..
-my image of banelings: banelings runs toward spreading marines... teran scans over ground to move over
-my image of spidermines: alone in the dark desert someone poops a mine, someone else walks there maybe someday
if the mines could be used active in micro. maybe do some tanking
speed/acceleration... just so good terrans can micro there marines and then run in there mines to make stuff intressting
health so they can "tank up" unfocused splash damage and burrow under that (battlecruiser to BOOM)
self resurection after explode, heal from 1 hp? needs to reburrow and cooldown to attack again
what if the widowmine crawls around and then jumps in to do the attack goes BOOM and sits on cooldown and 1 hp? without burrow...
ability to individualy upgrade widow mine to carry effects
-PSI minie..
-mine controll mine
-stun mine...
-mini trackers that jumps on units and let u know thoose units location for some time
-give each mine ability to build a new mine for the same cost as from the factory :D
-mini shredding
widowmine that idea.....its currently a luker who create burrowed banelings, like the original idea in this post, i think that sounds cool for the singleplayer. not the best for HOTS MP...!
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On September 29 2012 16:36 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 16:25 avilo wrote:
Or instead of throwing out all these crazy insane ideas and concepts they could simply make the widow mine 0-1 supply. And then you know, test it in this thing called the beta.
Widow mines are cool, they just will never work with a supply cost, that's all. Or instead of pretending they are not working, we could acknowledge that pepole do have some success with them as they are now.
No one is arguing that they aren't decent in the 6-10 minute mark. Beyond though they are worthless due to their supply cost.
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They're good for discouraging drop and air harass play at all stages of the game.
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That sounds really boring, with widow mines you can atleast target what units you wan't to kill and there is atleast some micro involved, for this it is only burrow and forget.
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On September 30 2012 08:58 Tedde93 wrote:
That sounds really boring, with widow mines you can atleast target what units you wan't to kill and there is atleast some micro involved, for this it is only burrow and forget.
The unit would build multiple widow mines. You could do everything you can do with a widow mine, except you'd have more of them, and you'd have a unit to protect.
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Initial impressions:
It has to be semi expensive and 2 supply. I cant imagine how it being cheap and spammable would be balanced at all.
I'm glad it does not target air. Mech i think should have some vulnerability to air units.
So the shredder sets up a cone area where mines deploy into... are the mines deployed in the area randomly or do we individaully tell it where to set the mines? Do we control the mines afterwards, or are they on an autocast attack? Is there any bonus dmg attributes? Will the AI function the same?
Theory Crafting:
Howling Peaks -- TvP -- 13-16 minutes in. 3v3 Base (Howling peaks was the one with the XelNaga Caverns style natural right?)
90ish supply of Tank Hellion pushing up through middle to ATK protoss 3rd. /// 100ish supply Protoss Zealot Archon swings left for a counter attack, hoping to recall back to natural after damage dealt. /// Terran scans Protoss comes down from top left. /// 4 shredders guard the 3rd from the top. /// They were pre set up about 10 (ingame) seconds before, allowing all 5 widow mines to deploy. //// Zlot Archon has no observer with it, so it runs headlong into minefield.
"ITS A TRAP!"
Mines auto cast detonate -> priority target on the big clumps of units (AI rework). /// 20ish supply is killed almost instantly by 10/20 mines. Protoss backs off a bit... hesitates... then decides to go for it anyways. 4 mines get replenished (1 by each shredder) during hesitation. /// Loses another 15ish supply (about 5 zlots and an archon or so...) ///
Mean while Terran Mech has had just enough time to siege: kill third: unsiege: and is on way back home. He loses his third, but protoss has been so stilted by the mines/ the planetary (lol), the just built reinforcements, and the returning army that he loses 70/100ish supply of his zlot archon. /// Protoss proceeds to die to counter attack.
(Also, shredders repositioned and replenished mines, denying the protoss last desperate counter).
I am liking the way this is playing out in my head 
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On September 28 2012 11:17 PiPoGevy wrote:
So basically, a mine which is a mine layer, acts like a creep tumor?
Thats what I got out of it haha.. Cool concept but its already in the game with crepe tumors (the spreading at least). I'd like a timer back (2 seconds on detonation) and a crazy amount of damage. The time damage ratio NEEDS to reward the better player who is paying more attention to their army movement.
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On September 30 2012 13:50 Kal_rA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2012 11:17 PiPoGevy wrote:
So basically, a mine which is a mine layer, acts like a creep tumor? Thats what I got out of it haha.. Cool concept but its already in the game with crepe tumors (the spreading at least). I'd like a timer back (2 seconds on detonation) and a crazy amount of damage. The time damage ratio NEEDS to reward the better player who is paying more attention to their army movement.
I just don't understand how do you guys even come up with such ideas that unit that is burrowed and that doesn't do anything except producing Mines in a short range cone is a Creep Tumor.
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I could live with a widow mine being a mine factory that let me lay/maintain minefields. Not sure how it'd work though.
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On September 30 2012 13:37 Doominator10 wrote:
Initial impressions:
It has to be semi expensive and 2 supply. I cant imagine how it being cheap and spammable would be balanced at all.
I'm glad it does not target air. Mech i think should have some vulnerability to air units.
Why should mech be vulnerable to all air units? A huge reason why we go bio is because it is somewhat effective vs both ground and air via the Marine in all 3 matchups.
Remove that strategic flexibility and mech would need to absolutely *dominate* on the ground in order to be at least somewhat competitive with bio. I'm afraid that's where they're going with the widow mine+battle hellion right now, and I don't think that would be healthy for the game at all. Those types of hard counters are really boring to watch, and pro players will avoid them like the plague. That's why we don't see Carriers in PvT or Ghosts in TvZ.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 01 2012 01:25 RoboBob wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 13:37 Doominator10 wrote:
Initial impressions:
It has to be semi expensive and 2 supply. I cant imagine how it being cheap and spammable would be balanced at all.
I'm glad it does not target air. Mech i think should have some vulnerability to air units. Why should mech be vulnerable to all air units? A huge reason why we go bio is because it is somewhat effective vs both ground and air via the Marine in all 3 matchups. Remove that strategic flexibility and mech would need to absolutely *dominate* on the ground in order to be at least somewhat competitive with bio. I'm afraid that's where they're going with the widow mine+battle hellion right now, and I don't think that would be healthy for the game at all. Those types of hard counters are really boring to watch, and pro players will avoid them like the plague. That's why we don't see Carriers in PvT or Ghosts in TvZ.
I think I could live with Mech not being very good against air if it was the best option against ground, it'd make it more like Broodwar (which for me as an all matchup mech player it would be perfect). TvT for example would be much less dependant on deathballs and more dependant on map control with tanks/mines if mech was better against ground. The reason why mech vs bio TvT is so damned hard is that if you seperate your tanks badly or not with the perfect amount, you get instantly run over and it leads to deathballing.
Also mech being stronger against ground would mean you could spread out more over the map against both zerg and protoss leading to much more dynamic mech engagements than we have right now (as a meching player you basically have to ball ALL your tanks quite close as if you're spread out even a little you get run over by every other ground army).
Mech being bad against air also gives Skyterran and Airtoss a place in the game, which IMO would be a lot better as it adds more options to the other races as well as Terran late game.
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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.
LOL DB's bnet username is Rock and his avatar is collapsing rocks.
Interesting idea, by the way.
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On September 29 2012 21:44 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 19:26 one-one-one wrote:On September 29 2012 19:18 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Basically turn widow mines into absurdly expensive spider mines. As they consume 2 food instead of 0.33 food, and more mins and gas than one vulture.
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No. Just no. What are you talking about now? The current state of the widow mine is exactly what you describe: an expensive spider mine that consumes 2 supply. The vulture was 75 minerals if I recall correctly though. Spider mines cannot hit air. Spider mines can be destroyed before detonation. Spider mines cannot be redeployed. Spider mines had terrible AI and an entire field of spider mines could be theoretically cleared by sacing a mobile low cost unit. Spider mines do less damage (120 vs. 160) but have a more powerful splash damage (120 vs 60). Spider mines ≠ widow mines.
125 damage, 0.66 supply(the most important thing for a mines imho) and 125 splash, still better than widow mines
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Just give us a firebat and the vulture...
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This would be very interested to see how it plays out, and definitely something new that would breath some life into the game.
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Wow this is an amazing idea. I'm glad d browder saw the post. I hope this gets impelmented for Terran. Would add so many dimensions to gameplay.
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I think this idea is pretty bad. So terran basically gets some sort of swarm host which spawns mines? Get the spider mine already ..
And yes you could use this mine layer just like you use swarm hosts.
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Yeah, a unit that burrows and then a minute later, lays a mine at 4 range will be used just like a siege unit that attacks bases from 20 range. It'd be silly to even give the units different names.
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So it lays mines in a direction but if it unburrows the mines die? I'm a little confused as once an enemy runs over a mine don't they know they mine-layer is close? Is that the disadvantage of the unit? Do they stop laying mines when the unit hits a wall?Just checking the concept.
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On October 02 2012 05:40 Prime Directive wrote:
So it lays mines in a direction but if it unburrows the mines die? I'm a little confused as once an enemy runs over a mine don't they know they mine-layer is close? Is that the disadvantage of the unit? Do they stop laying mines when the unit hits a wall?Just checking the concept.
Just make the mines deactivate when too far away from the layer, and reactivate if the layer (or a new one) returns to the area.
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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.
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On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +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 are good at it but it is a sacrifice. No need to discourage ideas.
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I disagree with the useful until 10 min.
The Viet cong used mines to great effect similar to how artillery fire was used by the US forces.
Basically mines were used as a virtual shield or line in the sand that mobile units could dart in and out to goad the enemy into diving into.
A late game example would be mass banshee/Viking + leapfrogging WM, as WMs allows the banshees to dart in and out of enemy bases, picking off key targets and goad the enemy to rush onto the mine field.
Whereas the same setup in WoL would require tons of siege tanks, marines, PFs and some ravens before it even becomes viable.
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On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Yes, because 4 Turrets can achieve the same results vs. 25 Mutas as what 3 Mines can, right? Yeah, it is completely cost-inefficient.
You are so entertaining with your comments.
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On October 02 2012 19:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +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. Yes, because 4 Turrets can achieve the same results vs. 25 Mutas as what 3 Mines can, right? Yeah, it is completely cost-inefficient. You are so entertaining with your comments.
Yes! WM makes it so much easier for diamond and below to deal with early 3-hatch into mass muta ling composition.
Especially for mech players.
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On October 02 2012 19:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +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. Yes, because 4 Turrets can achieve the same results vs. 25 Mutas as what 3 Mines can, right? Yeah, it is completely cost-inefficient. You are so entertaining with your comments.
Widow Mines are not going to kill entire packs of mutas if the zerg player isn't awful. Mineral only 0-supply missile turrets + some units left behind to defend will be preferable any day over widow mines.
You should know this already, and if you don't you shouldn't make comments like that ...
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On September 28 2012 11:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Burrowed mine layer, nice idea. But without any other relevant information, it could be either be OP or UP.
Why are you talking about balance in a unit concept thread? Seriously, there is absolutely zero reason to even consider statistical balance (which wouldn't apply to 98% of the players here) compared to actual enjoyment/fun.
As for the OP; its a decent idea that would make the mines supply efficient. However my concern is the range these mines have - would they have their own separate range like they do now, or would all mines have the range of this layer?
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On October 02 2012 20:06 one-one-one wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2012 19:40 Ramiz1989 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. Yes, because 4 Turrets can achieve the same results vs. 25 Mutas as what 3 Mines can, right? Yeah, it is completely cost-inefficient. You are so entertaining with your comments. Widow Mines are not going to kill entire packs of mutas if the zerg player isn't awful. Mineral only 0-supply missile turrets + some units left behind to defend will be preferable any day over widow mines. You should know this already, and if you don't you shouldn't make comments like that ...
7 Turrets can't do jack shit vs. mass Mutas, but 3 Turrets and 3 Widow Mines can actually destroy whole Muta stack if the Zerg isn't careful for few seconds.
You won't be spreading Mutas because of the Turrets, and you will die to Widow Mines. Widow Mines aren't going to kill Mutas because Zerg will completely stop making Mutas when he sees Widow Mines, spreading doesn't help, you don't want to trade 100/100 Muta for 75/25 Widow Mine while damaging the others, and that is in the best case scenario, in worse, you can keep macroing and don't watch your Mutas for 2 second and get your 20 Mutas killed.It can happen to anyone, and even a lot of Pros lose some units that way, problem is, Mines explode and do a lot of AoE damage instantly, so you won't lose "some" but majority of your units that way.
I just had enough of this "Mines are bad" bullshit when they completely shut down the Muta harassment and Drop play. You can take a risk and go against the Mines, but you won't trade efficiently.
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What about allowing the widow mine to attach to friendly units, so us Terran could Stim our suicidal marines into mineral lines
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On October 03 2012 00:15 BuRRziLLa727 wrote:
What about allowing the widow mine to attach to friendly units, so us Terran could Stim our suicidal marines into mineral lines
Pretty sure that's going to cause some drama.
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dont like this idea, the current widow mine is a little more exciting. Imagin somebody casting a game, and you see 7 widow mines run up to a fight that is taking place. You know in seconds those little things gonna blast off soon and wreck shit if successful, it will be a huge moment of suspense (kinda like how the reaver did its damage) Will it flop? will it be a huge kill?.
I just rather see more stuff added to the mine. For e.g 1 supply. Let it keep its current damage/hit air/and splash.
At 1 supply it will be perfect. Maybe to good , but that can be nerfed if found to be imba. We will never truely get to see mass mine usage until it becomes 1 supply.
About why i dont like the idea of this thread for the widow mine, Because it basically turns it into a never use in a real battle sort of unit. That to me is not particularly entertaining.
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On October 02 2012 10:04 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +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.
that why it would be a good decision to make vipers spire tech ,and have the blinding cloud affect widow mine so muta harass is possible
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United States7483 Posts
On October 03 2012 05:40 johnny123 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. that why it would be a good decision to make vipers spire tech ,and have the blinding cloud affect widow mine so muta harass is possible
Muta harass will still be possible, just send an overseer with the mutas: upgrade ovie speed if you have to.
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On October 03 2012 04:15 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +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).
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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.
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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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On October 04 2012 07:54 mlspmatt wrote:
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.
Creating units that spawn free units is bad for rts imo. sc2 is partially based around economic management and units like those step out of that boundary.
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On September 28 2012 10:51 kcdc wrote:
Basically, instead of burrowing mines, you'd burrow a unit that once burrowed, would begin building a small directional mine field, deploying one mine at a time at a cost of 25 minerals or so per mine up to a maximum of 4 or 5 mines. If the unit dies or unburrows, his mine field self-destructs.
1. The idea of having mines which cost resources but not supply is good, because free units are bad and a mine is more or less incapable of attacking on its own (unlike the Baneling which can woll into enemy formations to deal damage).
2. The idea of having a "unit" which has to be burrowed to deploy the mines is terrible, because it is STATIC and too easily destroyed and if it detonates the whole mine field if it unburrows or gets killed the whole thing has too much of an achilles heel. You cant unburrow your unit or you will lose too many resources ...
3. To limit the numbers of mines deployed they need to be linked to another unit - in this case the Vulture - and you may not have more mines than 3 times the number of Vultures, BUT your mines dont detonate when your number of Vultures decreaeses below. Just like your supply you just need X Vultures to deploy new mines up to a maximum of X*3.
Personally I would think the deployment of mines should be done by the Vulture. The mines should NOT be able to attack flyers and they should be instant detonation (anything else makes no sense for a mine). The mines could be "Napalm mines" and linked thematically to the Hellion, but that unit already has its own special goody this expansion and it would simply be too much for one unit.
This brings me again to my suggestion of having "alternate units" in the arsenal and having to choose between them before the match. Thus you would have to choose between Hellion and Vulture in this case. There arent enough BW units for all slots, but for most it is possible to add them.
+ Show Spoiler +
Marauder or Firebat?
Reaper or Medic?
Colossus or Reaver?
Swarm Host or Lurker?
... the list goes on and on.
Sadly there needs to be some adjustment to the gameplay as well [removal of production boosts, tight unit movement and limited number of units per control group] to make the powerful BW AoE units "fair" and an adjustment of any comparable SC2 abilities.
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This idea is good, as in it would make the widow mine feel like a 'core unit'.
It's similar to the swarm host but blizzard can easily cover this up due to their marketing. This really brings back the BW protoss 'moving factory theme' such as with the carrier and the reaver, but now terran gets it. I dont really mind since its a great idea.
This change will heavily promote positional play and potentially bring back the BW mech style of play. How i see it is that this is like a short range siege tank, where the siege tank has high burst damage good for long range but this unit will have high burst damage for short range. However i still don't think this change will help much with the whole immortals destroy mech problem.
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On October 04 2012 15:38 MasterCynical wrote:
It's similar to the swarm host ...
This alone makes it already a bad idea IMO, but since it doesnt deploy "free mines" AND they are supposed to explode when you unburrow it becomes rather stupid to use. Burrowed units are ZERG and thats it, just like permanently cloaked ones are Protoss.
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I don't mind the idea of having non-supply mines which are deployed by another unit as long as they are not controllable in any way. This means they are always on autocast and you can not prioritise targets or choose not to kill lings etc. It is a very big tradeoff to make tho, because they will be killing less core units more often.
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On October 04 2012 12:11 ReachTheSky wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 07:54 mlspmatt wrote:
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. Creating units that spawn free units is bad for rts imo. sc2 is partially based around economic management and units like those step out of that boundary.
but if you have to buy it, as with scarabs or spider mines? I think it's a good implementation of some old BW mechanism, one of the rather few.
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On October 04 2012 15:56 DeCoup wrote:
I don't mind the idea of having non-supply mines which are deployed by another unit as long as they are not controllable in any way. This means they are always on autocast and you can not prioritise targets or choose not to kill lings etc. It is a very big tradeoff to make tho, because they will be killing less core units more often.
When is "not killing lings" a good thing?
The main point is that a mine isnt really an "attacking unit" and thus doesnt merit costing supply. Blizzard tries to make up for that by the Widow mine being able to attack flyers and being resettable, but at least the first one doesnt really make sense ... even less sense than a Marine being able to shoot a Battlecruiser with his tiny pew-pew gun. Morrow even tries to block scouting Overlords/drops with Widow mines and that is silly and a bit too much.
Not costing supply needs a tradeoff and that is the uncontrollability of it. They can be easily neutralized with just a detector and thus are far from being OP. Balancing will also be easy since there are so many factors you can fiddle around with:
- damage
- area
- trigger time/delivery method (the funny spider mines running around)
- cost
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Z5yIo.jpg)
