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On December 18 2012 01:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 01:26 Hider wrote:On December 18 2012 01:16 Novacute wrote:On December 18 2012 01:12 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Can someone make a nice comprehensive writeup on why the Siege Tank is bad and neglected, and doesn't serve it's role as well as it could? And why improving the Siege Tank would also improve the matchups of the game? At this point during the beta we really need one.
Aside from Protoss arguably needing some nerfs I believe some of the issues with TvP mech not being viable all fall back to the Siege Tank not being a threat. This is probably going to be a very long list of reasons as to why siege tanks are not as good as it should be. BUt i'd also like to see a comprehensive list of why tanks are weak, maybe that way, Blizzard will realise the plethora of weaknesses of tanks has against what protoss offers and come up with a fix. Edit: that statement about diversity and style just gave me goose bumps. I vividly remember Flash's brilliance in TvZ where he would transition from SK style to mech as the game progressed, putting his opponents off so easily and winning the game in pure dominance. I'd love to see that again. So the main reason is obviously hardened shield on immortals. Why the hell is that necessary? Why not just remove it and give something else to the immortal which makes it more interesting ? That's not the main reason the tank is bad. The tank is bad because the numbers are terrible because of Blizzard maps in 2010, however the number changes on the tank were never reverted. There is a lot of counter-play to nullify hardened shields.
10+ ghosts yeh but if you need that to get that army then you need to mass turtle. If there were no hardened shild pure mech would actually be viable (ignorining the potential of mass air switch by toss).
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i think the biggest problem is, that you have to win your one big battle really really decisive otherwise you will lose the rest of your middle'ish army by the ~20 stalker warpin. If you trade equal you will maybe just outright lose to a counter attack cause all you can build fast is hellbats and vikings.
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On December 18 2012 01:50 EuSpex wrote:
i think the biggest problem is, that you have to win your one big battle really really decisive otherwise you will lose the rest of your middle'ish army by the ~20 stalker warpin. If you trade equal you will maybe just outright lose to a counter attack cause all you can build fast is hellbats and vikings.
same thing with bio. That's just the desing of the warp in mechanism.
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every time i think of the intended roles for the units when beta was released and their subsequent patches i always get the feeling every change has been some sort of a fuck up.
1 supply/2 armor roach, stupid imba early all in.
2 supply/1 armor roach. woops, Z can't defend against reapers or sentries.
4 range roaches. woops, reapers can't kite roaches anymore. SO FUCKING BORING. roaches murder the entire pletora of early P armies. Immortal +1 range, woops, immortal's role against tanks (be able to take the hurt while walking up close where they in turn deal some serious hurt) got fucked. also causes sentry/immortal allin.
in my dreamland, all of this shit is reversed... it's all the roaches fault anyway. fuck you roach. go to lair and stop making every unit generic and identical. go be the meatshield which is your job, not the 200pop 12 min utility unit.
i fucking hate roaches
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On December 18 2012 02:19 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 01:50 EuSpex wrote:
i think the biggest problem is, that you have to win your one big battle really really decisive otherwise you will lose the rest of your middle'ish army by the ~20 stalker warpin. If you trade equal you will maybe just outright lose to a counter attack cause all you can build fast is hellbats and vikings. same thing with bio. That's just the desing of the warp in mechanism.
Well the real reason you hopefully wanted to point out is the production speed boosts which are different for the three races and dont apply to Siege Tanks but do apply to everything Zerg has and every massed infantry unit for Protoss. Boosting the production speed of the Siege Tank wont fix the problem, because it isnt supposed to be mass-(re)produced but rather hard to kill and hard to mass. So the only solution is getting rid of production speed boosts to stop the overwhelming masses of infantry being endlessly reproduced over and over again edlessly.
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You guys are missing the point here. The issue isn't with the other races being too inherently strong. Zerg and Protoss super-production capabilities are not going anywhere. The SC2 team will never cut those mechanics according to Browder.
The actual issue is with Terran being too weak. Specifically the mech backbone (the tank) not being a strong threat to any race that isn't Terran. This means that mech loses the powerful board control capabilities and direct engagement strength that it needs given that it's the most expensive, slowest to produce, and slowest to move army in the game.
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The root problem is that the dev team is prepared to include mechanics or units purely because they are "cool" even if the gameplay sucks. And they'll preserve these things at the expense of other things which create interesting gameplay, but which are not as "cool."
This includes warp-in, MULEs, Colossi, thors, marauders, roaches, infestors... every single new addition essentially has some superficial appeal but is bereft of gameplay depth or player skill. There's no substance, but they won't cut it because they're "cool."
Even older units had depth removed to make them "cooler" including making ultralisks huge, the terrible treatment the Dragoon got to become the Stalker...
And of course the siege tank, which is a paradigm example of a "boring" unit leading to fantastic gameplay, being systematically destroyed.
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From their visible actions it appears that a Siege Tank based composition vs Protoss is not something Blizzard intends to make possible 
The most direct fix (changing Immortal hardened shields) would have to ensure that PvZ still has a viable way of opening Robo vs Ling Roach.
I did like the suggestion of boosting main HP and lowering hardened shield HP though.
Immortal hardened shields deliver a damage reduction of 6 per 0 upgraded Roach attack (37.5% damage reduction) over 10 attacks at a cooldown of 2. Siege Tanks get reduced by 40 per attack (80% damage reduction) + splash over 5 attacks (considering 1 immortal gets hit with 1 direct fire + 1 splash) at a cooldown of 3 (50% slower then the roach), this buys Protoss an enormous amount of time to come in range of the tanks and annihilate them with a large number of Immortals remaining.
The ideal balance point would be to allow Protoss players to use Immortals to soak enough Siege fire to come in range of the Terran Mech army, but not enough that there are many (if any) Immortals remaining. A simple change such as 50 shield reduction but say 80 HP increase (50 + 30(6*5 for increased damage from roaches)) means the Immortal gets to still feel like a beefy unit including against Roaches, but reduces the number of direct Siege fire shots + 1 splash to 3, before beginning to eat the full 50 damage from Siege fire vs armored + splash damage. The increased HP would ensure the Immortals can still eat 2 extra direct shots, but the Splash should allow tanks to do more damage overall.
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Well, basically, immortal was supposed to be a unit, that can take tank fire so that other units can close the distance. But as it turns out, zealots with charge are more then capable of doing so. Also, next thing is, not only is immortal able to close the distance due to hardened shields, but it is also capable of destroying whole packs of Tanks due to it's crazy damage. That just makes no sense at all. There is not a single unit in the game, that is designed in such a hard-counter way. Something needs to be done to immortal in order to mech being playable TvP. I have been always stunned by the fact it takes 10 (!!!) tank shots to bring down the hardened sheild. That is just insanity right there. Go into unit tester and make 1 tank and 1 immortal and fucking kill the immortal with sieged tank, stay out of range with immortal. Then take immortal and kill the tank. WHAT THE FUCK??? As long as there is such accesible unit, that absolutely hard-counters main Factory unit, mech will not work. By "mech" I mean tank-based mech style, which is all about position and not 1a into 1a Tossball vs Factoryball and hurray, one side wins, gg, super wp..
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On December 18 2012 06:04 StratFive wrote:From their visible actions it appears that a Siege Tank based composition vs Protoss is not something Blizzard intends to make possible The most direct fix (changing Immortal hardened shields) would have to ensure that PvZ still has a viable way of opening Robo vs Ling Roach. I did like the suggestion of boosting main HP and lowering hardened shield HP though. Immortal hardened shields deliver a damage reduction of 6 per 0 upgraded Roach attack (37.5% damage reduction) over 10 attacks at a cooldown of 2. Siege Tanks get reduced by 40 per attack (80% damage reduction) + splash over 5 attacks (considering 1 immortal gets hit with 1 direct fire + 1 splash) at a cooldown of 3 (50% slower then the roach), this buys Protoss an enormous amount of time to come in range of the tanks and annihilate them with a large number of Immortals remaining. The ideal balance point would be to allow Protoss players to use Immortals to soak enough Siege fire to come in range of the Terran Mech army, but not enough that there are many (if any) Immortals remaining. A simple change such as 50 shield reduction but say 80 HP increase (50 + 30(6*5 for increased damage from roaches)) means the Immortal gets to still feel like a beefy unit including against Roaches, but reduces the number of direct Siege fire shots + 1 splash to 3, before beginning to eat the full 50 damage from Siege fire vs armored + splash damage. The increased HP would ensure the Immortals can still eat 2 extra direct shots, but the Splash should allow tanks to do more damage overall.
Fascinating idea. This one change is so simple but would help tvp mech a ton without effecting other matchups by much. Have you considered how this might effect immortals vs collosi, ultras? Those are the only two units I can think of that might be seriously effected by this change.
Also, I agree with the guy pointing out how roach range buff set off a chain reaction of making other units worse.
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Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5)
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On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5)
Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now.
Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss.
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On December 18 2012 11:50 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5) Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now. Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss.
That's the point, the present form is unable to achieve critical mass even at 16 count. In BW, that was an auto-win vs. any ground force.
Two rows of 8 meticulously arranged sieged tanks could do 1000+ dmg (70x16) in a single volley.
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On December 18 2012 12:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 11:50 DemigodcelpH wrote:On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5) Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now. Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss. That's the point, the present form is unable to achieve critical mass even at 16 count. In BW, that was an auto-win vs. any ground force. Two rows of 8 meticulously arranged sieged tanks could do 1000+ dmg (70x16) in a single volley.
You say 1000 damage like its a bad thing. in reality its the proper output for the hardest ground army in the game to attain and position. even then, half the time the tanks are doing an amazing zero damage to a single lurker under a swarm... Or killing themselves because the toss speed shuttle dropped or recalled on top of your forces.. Or obliterating ten zealots while more zealots stream in from behind to get into melee range. Other races had "imba" stuff as well, just as they do in sc2.
My point is, 16 tanks with support SHOULD be devastating and force excellent delaying tactics, running up to pick off tanks that siege too far ahead of the main force, flanking, and special tactics like storms and drop play to take out tanks. Sc2 currently has boiled this process down to: select robo build immortal. Congrats, your comp can now frontal assault a sieged tank line effectively.
Edit: mech also should require great micro to wield effectively, pushing forward gradually and repositioning tanks well, going through the narrow parts of the map, responding to enemy troop movement, and placing support, like mines, in the right place at the right time. That's the Kind of battles you see when tank heavy strategies are viable, such as in sc2 Tvt and in all matchups in brood war.
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On December 18 2012 12:51 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 12:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On December 18 2012 11:50 DemigodcelpH wrote:On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5) Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now. Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss. That's the point, the present form is unable to achieve critical mass even at 16 count. In BW, that was an auto-win vs. any ground force. Two rows of 8 meticulously arranged sieged tanks could do 1000+ dmg (70x16) in a single volley. You say 1000 damage like its a bad thing. in reality its the proper output for the hardest ground army in the game to attain and position. even then, half the time the tanks are doing an amazing zero damage to a single lurker under a swarm... Or killing themselves because the toss speed shuttle dropped or recalled on top of your forces.. Or obliterating ten zealots while more zealots stream in from behind to get into melee range. Other races had "imba" stuff as well, just as they do in sc2. My point is, 16 tanks with support SHOULD be devastating and force excellent delaying tactics, running up to pick off tanks that siege too far ahead of the main force, flanking, and special tactics like storms and drop play to take out tanks. Sc2 currently has boiled this process down to: select robo build immortal. Congrats, your comp can now frontal assault a sieged tank line effectively. Edit: mech also should require great micro to wield effectively, pushing forward gradually and repositioning tanks well, going through the narrow parts of the map, responding to enemy troop movement, and placing support, like mines, in the right place at the right time. That's the Kind of battles you see when tank heavy strategies are viable, such as in sc2 Tvt and in all matchups in brood war.
Let's not forget all the games that we've seen where Zerg does some decent micro to overrun a position that should be impenetrable with tanks. Where we have commentators yelling "THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE TO ENGAGE THESE TANKS!" and the player proceeds to roll right through. With all the direct counters P and Z have to tanks, you would think that all the other ground forces would melt without their support. That's not the case.
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On December 18 2012 13:23 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 12:51 Zahir wrote:On December 18 2012 12:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On December 18 2012 11:50 DemigodcelpH wrote:On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5) Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now. Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss. That's the point, the present form is unable to achieve critical mass even at 16 count. In BW, that was an auto-win vs. any ground force. Two rows of 8 meticulously arranged sieged tanks could do 1000+ dmg (70x16) in a single volley. You say 1000 damage like its a bad thing. in reality its the proper output for the hardest ground army in the game to attain and position. even then, half the time the tanks are doing an amazing zero damage to a single lurker under a swarm... Or killing themselves because the toss speed shuttle dropped or recalled on top of your forces.. Or obliterating ten zealots while more zealots stream in from behind to get into melee range. Other races had "imba" stuff as well, just as they do in sc2. My point is, 16 tanks with support SHOULD be devastating and force excellent delaying tactics, running up to pick off tanks that siege too far ahead of the main force, flanking, and special tactics like storms and drop play to take out tanks. Sc2 currently has boiled this process down to: select robo build immortal. Congrats, your comp can now frontal assault a sieged tank line effectively. Edit: mech also should require great micro to wield effectively, pushing forward gradually and repositioning tanks well, going through the narrow parts of the map, responding to enemy troop movement, and placing support, like mines, in the right place at the right time. That's the Kind of battles you see when tank heavy strategies are viable, such as in sc2 Tvt and in all matchups in brood war. Let's not forget all the games that we've seen where Zerg does some decent micro to overrun a position that should be impenetrable with tanks. Where we have commentators yelling "THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE TO ENGAGE THESE TANKS!" and the player proceeds to roll right through. With all the direct counters P and Z have to tanks, you would think that all the other ground forces would melt without their support. That's not the case.
Yeah, there are SO many ways for protoss to harass/engage in PvT that, but even without them, mech is too weak without deathballing up. Widow mines have potential, but i'm not sure I quite like them yet. They feel more like offensive bombs than mines. It's just weird having a unit that runs up, burrows, then shoots a missile? Why does it have to burrow? Maybe it plants itself into the ground to shoot I guess. Siege tanks with widow mines are pretty good at defending/holding positions in TvT and TvZ because a couple tanks will prevent him from just sending a few units to tank the widow mines, but in TvP he could just send three zealots spread out and tank them all and charge in to activate the mines
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On December 18 2012 03:31 DemigodcelpH wrote:
You guys are missing the point here. The issue isn't with the other races being too inherently strong. Zerg and Protoss super-production capabilities are not going anywhere. The SC2 team will never cut those mechanics according to Browder.
The actual issue is with Terran being too weak. Specifically the mech backbone (the tank) not being a strong threat to any race that isn't Terran. This means that mech loses the powerful board control capabilities and direct engagement strength that it needs given that it's the most expensive, slowest to produce, and slowest to move army in the game.
I think you are missing the point that STRONG and WEAK are RELATIVE terms and that you cant increase the strength of a unit in such a game to ever greater heights. If you want a balanced game it must stay at a certain power level or become unstable. If the Siege Tank deals too much damage it will become overpowered in the game, BUT it might become more powerful - relatively speaking - with the same stats if it isnt overrun by masses of easily reproduced infantry units all the time. A few games of BW would clearly demonstrate this.
A battle doesnt get more interesting with more units involved, because this will only result in lots of units dying fast at the beginning and the rate of dying will decrease with the number of units involved in it. Without such huge numbers the HotS buffs to medivac healing and Mutalisk regeneration would be totally unnecessary, but sadly Blizzard and their head honcho designer are apprently not smart enough to get it or too cowardly/arrogant to remove their stupid unit mass production from the game.
tl;dr
Buffing the Siege Tank isnt always the answer and certainly not the best. You must understand the game and what causes what to know what to do.
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On December 18 2012 14:44 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 03:31 DemigodcelpH wrote:
You guys are missing the point here. The issue isn't with the other races being too inherently strong. Zerg and Protoss super-production capabilities are not going anywhere. The SC2 team will never cut those mechanics according to Browder.
The actual issue is with Terran being too weak. Specifically the mech backbone (the tank) not being a strong threat to any race that isn't Terran. This means that mech loses the powerful board control capabilities and direct engagement strength that it needs given that it's the most expensive, slowest to produce, and slowest to move army in the game.
I think you are missing the point that STRONG and WEAK are RELATIVE terms and that you cant increase the strength of a unit in such a game to ever greater heights. If you want a balanced game it must stay at a certain power level or become unstable. If the Siege Tank deals too much damage it will become overpowered in the game, BUT it might become more powerful - relatively speaking - with the same stats if it isnt overrun by masses of easily reproduced infantry units all the time. A few games of BW would clearly demonstrate this. A battle doesnt get more interesting with more units involved, because this will only result in lots of units dying fast at the beginning and the rate of dying will decrease with the number of units involved in it. Without such huge numbers the HotS buffs to medivac healing and Mutalisk regeneration would be totally unnecessary, but sadly Blizzard and their head honcho designer are apprently not smart enough to get it or too cowardly/arrogant to remove their stupid unit mass production from the game. tl;dr Buffing the Siege Tank isnt always the answer and certainly not the best. You must understand the game and what causes what to know what to do.
I don't think faster production of infantry units has anything to do with what we're discussing. It doesn't matter how fast the enemy reproduces if he already runs over your mech army with the first wave - which is exactly what immortals in their present form allow.
While positional mech is more easily overrun by enemy remaxes than, for instance, MMM, this has been the case all along, even in broodwar. The difference in sc2 is that tank-heavy mech is simply weaker than other strategies in most cases. That's the critical point that you're failing to address.
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On December 18 2012 12:51 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 12:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On December 18 2012 11:50 DemigodcelpH wrote:On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5) Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now. Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss. That's the point, the present form is unable to achieve critical mass even at 16 count. In BW, that was an auto-win vs. any ground force. Two rows of 8 meticulously arranged sieged tanks could do 1000+ dmg (70x16) in a single volley. You say 1000 damage like its a bad thing. in reality its the proper output for the hardest ground army in the game to attain and position. even then, half the time the tanks are doing an amazing zero damage to a single lurker under a swarm... Or killing themselves because the toss speed shuttle dropped or recalled on top of your forces.. Or obliterating ten zealots while more zealots stream in from behind to get into melee range. Other races had "imba" stuff as well, just as they do in sc2. My point is, 16 tanks with support SHOULD be devastating and force excellent delaying tactics, running up to pick off tanks that siege too far ahead of the main force, flanking, and special tactics like storms and drop play to take out tanks. Sc2 currently has boiled this process down to: select robo build immortal. Congrats, your comp can now frontal assault a sieged tank line effectively. Edit: mech also should require great micro to wield effectively, pushing forward gradually and repositioning tanks well, going through the narrow parts of the map, responding to enemy troop movement, and placing support, like mines, in the right place at the right time. That's the Kind of battles you see when tank heavy strategies are viable, such as in sc2 Tvt and in all matchups in brood war.
Well Blizzard made sure that a "Siege line" cant be defended properly in SC2 anymore by nerfing the damage and increasing the supply of the tanks AND introducing such nifty things as Blink, Infested Terrans (which can be cast while burrowed), cliffwalking Colossi, burrowed movement Roaches AND generally increasing the damage potential of simply going around the siege line with a massive amount of "faster than you" units. Its not the Immortal alone, its also the whole game concept of "One control group to rule them all" principle and super tight movement which ruins the game for the Siege Tank. Dark Swarm alone didnt do anything and an Arbiter alone could maybe put a few tanks in a stasis field, but they generally needed other units to work in combination with them to fight a siege line. Blink, burrowed movement, Infested Terrans and so on need neither of those and only the Vipers dragging ability is somewhat similar to the balanced skills of BW. The whole stupid game concept of massive numbers of units must be removed from the game to make the Siege Tank (and other big units) worth it and threatening again without buffing them through the roof which would make the game even more unstable than it is now.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 18 2012 13:37 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2012 13:23 aksfjh wrote:On December 18 2012 12:51 Zahir wrote:On December 18 2012 12:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On December 18 2012 11:50 DemigodcelpH wrote:On December 18 2012 11:22 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys let it go, they specifically nerfed tanks so >16 won't be auto-win
That's why HOTS mech's burst damage has been spread out over three units:
1. Siege tank (50s/3s, 13 min AOE, rng 13)
2. Thor (30x2/1.28s, rng 7)
3. Widow mine. (160 dmg/40s, 40AOE, rng 5) Your logic is off here. First of all having a viable tank doesn't mean building >16 would be an auto-win. There are dozens of ways to outplay tanks. It just means that games would become more interesting with the return of proper board control, and Terran mech players would be adequately rewarded for how well they play which sadly isn't the case now. Second of all building 16 tanks in their current state is an auto-loss. That's the point, the present form is unable to achieve critical mass even at 16 count. In BW, that was an auto-win vs. any ground force. Two rows of 8 meticulously arranged sieged tanks could do 1000+ dmg (70x16) in a single volley. You say 1000 damage like its a bad thing. in reality its the proper output for the hardest ground army in the game to attain and position. even then, half the time the tanks are doing an amazing zero damage to a single lurker under a swarm... Or killing themselves because the toss speed shuttle dropped or recalled on top of your forces.. Or obliterating ten zealots while more zealots stream in from behind to get into melee range. Other races had "imba" stuff as well, just as they do in sc2. My point is, 16 tanks with support SHOULD be devastating and force excellent delaying tactics, running up to pick off tanks that siege too far ahead of the main force, flanking, and special tactics like storms and drop play to take out tanks. Sc2 currently has boiled this process down to: select robo build immortal. Congrats, your comp can now frontal assault a sieged tank line effectively. Edit: mech also should require great micro to wield effectively, pushing forward gradually and repositioning tanks well, going through the narrow parts of the map, responding to enemy troop movement, and placing support, like mines, in the right place at the right time. That's the Kind of battles you see when tank heavy strategies are viable, such as in sc2 Tvt and in all matchups in brood war. Let's not forget all the games that we've seen where Zerg does some decent micro to overrun a position that should be impenetrable with tanks. Where we have commentators yelling "THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE TO ENGAGE THESE TANKS!" and the player proceeds to roll right through. With all the direct counters P and Z have to tanks, you would think that all the other ground forces would melt without their support. That's not the case. Yeah, there are SO many ways for protoss to harass/engage in PvT that, but even without them, mech is too weak without deathballing up. Widow mines have potential, but i'm not sure I quite like them yet. They feel more like offensive bombs than mines. It's just weird having a unit that runs up, burrows, then shoots a missile? Why does it have to burrow? Maybe it plants itself into the ground to shoot I guess. Siege tanks with widow mines are pretty good at defending/holding positions in TvT and TvZ because a couple tanks will prevent him from just sending a few units to tank the widow mines, but in TvP he could just send three zealots spread out and tank them all and charge in to activate the mines
About Widow Mines, I have found a lot of success with them lately against Zerg and even Terran (Bio, or Bio tank to less of an extent), they really are a game changer (Shoutout to HTOMario's TvZ guide who showed me how to use the Widow Mine). But a big reason for this is because Zerg's and Bio Terran's have to split their army up and move around really quickly and catch you off guard or out of position to take advantage of Mech. Widow Mines are amazing at slowing a player down from doing this and giving you vision of their movements and covering your flanks and forcing them to watch all those drops/runby's instead of just queuing them up. The exceptions to this are when a Zerg goes for a mass SwarmHost or Broodlord army, or when a Terran is going Mech. Then Widow Mines aren't really as good as other units, because you are now the more mobile army, or equally mobile. So you just want to have the strongest army for the one big engagement - where Widow Mines aren't so hot.
vs Protoss, this whole dynamic is so messed up. If they drop you it's good, if they flank you it's good, if they split their army and hit multiple fronts it's good, if they catch you off guard or out of position it's really, really good. But they don't HAVE to do this. Unlike vs most Zerg armies or Bio armies, your army actually isn't really stronger straight up (okay, it might be a little bit if you have the perfect composition to counter theirs and are in perfect position, but that isn't realistic with their more mobile and faster tech switching army). So while there are all these threats that Mech faces from the mobile armies, they can't actually afford to put any significant amount of supply into Widow Mines to protect themselves from these threats - or they will just lose the straight up engagement. And unlike vs the T/Z armies where these threats aren't there and thus Widow Mines aren't as useful - Swarm Host/Brood Lord armies and Mech armies - you aren't actually more mobile than the Protoss army.
So this whole "taking supply out of your army" use of the Widow Mine I just don't see for Mech vs Protoss. I do think they are useful in your army in many situations. But it just doesn't make sense as a Meching Terran to have some supply away from your army when the Protoss doesn't have to harass/use mobility to beat you, because their army is stronger than yours, at least until the very very end-game (saccing SCVs, creating perfect army, full upgrades). But it's a shitty situation because the Protoss still has very strong options to beat you with harass/mobility, you just can't use your new tool to defend against it.
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EPT
