|
On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be.
Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT  i hope they think of something
|
United States7483 Posts
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit.
|
On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something
The goals are different for controlling protoss.
Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units.
Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz)
We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match.
|
On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something The goals are different for controlling protoss. Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz) We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match.
That didn't really answer my question, i asked what was wrong with allowing to blow up when you want, but your answer is they must work differently than vs Z and T. Sure, I agree, but allowing them to blow up when you want won't affect the other 2 that much. At least in regards to holding areas: in TvT and TvZ, you can get a few tanks and put widow mines + turrets in front. This way, they can't just send a few lings or marines to activate the widow mines and then kill the tanks, because the tanks will shoot the lings/marines down. This doesn't work in TvP though, because he can get a few zealots, split them up, tank all the widow mines, and possibly still get to the naked tanks. So, choosing when to detonate would help vs P by detonating them against more than just 1 unit per widow mine (and you could keep a couple hellbats to help), but that wouldn't help too much in TvT or TvZ anyways because you'll have tanks to protect the WM. One of the things I can think of though is that by removing the ability to choose when to detonate, you can't have naked WM around the map, as it would be too strong to run scouts around the map and still not know if there are WMs there or not. But I wasn't in the beta back then, so that's why i'm asking if it was really too strong or not.
Looking back, maybe you got confused when I said "as they do in TvT and TvZ", i didn't mean for them to work in the same ways, I just meant if they work or not.
|
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit.
This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit.
I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt.
Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...).
EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack.
|
United States7483 Posts
On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack.
Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 200 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? It does matter for TvP though.
The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see.
The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break".
It would also synergize really well with the mine upgrade they added, giving you a little bit of an easier time moving your entire entrenched army.
Mech's major issue is that it's not strong enough in a direct engagement against protoss to be worth the mobility trade-off. There are two ways to fix this from a design standpoint: improve mech's mobility (which would be adding the warhound back in, buffing the thor and hellion), or improving mech's immobile units (the widow mine and the siege tank). The latter is preferable because the former is just playing bio with factory units. This change to the mine design would make it very hard for Protoss to engage directly against a mech army that's fully sieged up, and that's what mech really needs: Strength tied with its position.
|
On December 20 2012 10:56 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack. Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 400 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see. The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break".
I've never supported this "2 supply with huge damage" model that Blizzard is going with the Widow Mine.
Aside from being outrageously hard to balance (what should be one shot and what shouldn't be) it also makes the Widow Mine a terrible unit for actually controlling space because it takes up so much supply and fires only a single shot with minimal splash damage.
It's both way too powerful and yet completely useless at the same time. Reducing it to one supply while also cutting its damage output makes it a better spacing unit, allows for more flexible use and is more forgiving to the opponent because he doesnt lose valuable units instantly.
As is the Widow Mine is just a unit that no one really likes. Terrans don't like it because its usefulness is so limited and Zergs hate it because it one shots their units, the only people who don't really care about it are Protoss players now that it can't one shot anything they have other than Probes.
|
I've said it before but it bears repeating. The fundamental problem here is Blizzard's choice to inflate supply for Zerg and Terran.
Zerg would not be complaining about 160 single target damage Widow Mines if Roaches were 1 supply and had 80 HP. It doesn't matter to them. They lose a Roach- so what? The Zerg now has twice as many as they did before.
But a Roach is now a 2 supply unit, meaning they are comparable in numbers to a Stalker army. So a 125 damage mine gibs Roaches, but not Stalkers.
Blizzard needs to take a step back and re-evaluate their supply costs for half the units in the game. Especially Zerg units. Roaches and Hydras must be 1 supply units. Ultralisks should be 4 supply. For Terran also, infantry units have no business being 2 supply, and tanks are useless at 3 supply; they should be 2. And so on.
The only effect of this inflation is there is less stuff on the board, and players max out way faster, with smaller armies that must stay together to be useful. An army of 100 Roaches can afford to be in two places at once.
|
United States7483 Posts
On December 20 2012 11:17 ledarsi wrote:
I've said it before but it bears repeating. The fundamental problem here is Blizzard's choice to inflate supply for Zerg and Terran.
Zerg would not be complaining about 160 single target damage Widow Mines if Roaches were 1 supply and had 80 HP. It doesn't matter to them. They lose a Roach- so what? The Zerg now has twice as many as they did before.
But a Roach is now a 2 supply unit, meaning they are comparable in numbers to a Stalker army. So a 125 damage mine gibs Roaches, but not Stalkers.
Blizzard needs to take a step back and re-evaluate their supply costs for half the units in the game. Especially Zerg units. Roaches and Hydras must be 1 supply units. Ultralisks should be 4 supply. For Terran also, infantry units have no business being 2 supply, and tanks are useless at 3 supply; they should be 2. And so on.
Protoss would be completely boned if you dropped the supply of zerg and terran units like that. The protoss end game army is strong, but it's not so much stronger that it can actually handle double the amount of zerg or terran units.
Remember that gateway units are actually somewhat weak compared to where they were in BW, where those units had lower supply costs.
|
You are absolutely right, Whitewing, this would require a wholesale restructuring of the game. For starters, Protoss gateway units would need to be much stronger, and less dependent on high tech splash damage like Colossi or HTs.
Still, it is worth pointing out that splash damage actually becomes much stronger against an army that is twice as large and half as durable individually. However splash damage behaves differently. It inflicts more casualties instead of just weakening many units.
|
United States7483 Posts
On December 20 2012 11:20 ledarsi wrote:
You are absolutely right, Whitewing, this would require a wholesale restructuring of the game. For starters, Protoss gateway units would need to be much stronger, and less dependent on high tech splash damage like Colossi or HTs.
I'm not sure it's necessary though, there are other things you can do to improve the game that doesn't require a complete restructuring.
Looking at the widow mine design for example, it's current design is intentionally a unit that is meant to be a standalone unit. It does splash to your own units, it does lousy splash and only gets one attack. If you have 20 supply of the mines (10 of them), you'll usually trade for 20 supply of the enemy in a straight engagement. Given that the unit isn't supply efficient in an actual fight, terran won't want to use them for a fight. On the other hand, they're quite good at shutting down harass of any kind early on.
The unit is designed right now as a compensation for the immobility of mech. In other words, it's a design attempt to make mech more like bio in terms overall themes. That's not what mech actually needs. If you design the mine instead to be decent in clumps at handling runbys and harass, lower their supply cost so you can afford clumps of them, and then allow them to be powerful in direct engagements and supply efficient, you give mech exactly what it needs. Mech's weakness SHOULD be immobility, because it makes for interesting gameplay and rewards excellent defensive positioning and control, as well as excellent scouting from terran. The current mine design's only purpose to limit that weakness, without providing the strength the mech army needs.
I'm just picturing at how protoss would have to engage that army and it's magnificent (with a change to the mine to have it be useful in engagements). I'm actually picturing blanket storms at max range from just outside siege tank range to clear minefields before engaging, doing colossi pokes with zealots to tank a couple tank shots from outside the mine range to clear some mines out before the fight, and having to pick at the mech army from many angles to take it out.
That would be a drastic improvement from the usual "Protoss army walks over mech army".
|
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 20 2012 10:56 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack. Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 400 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see. The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break".
Yes, it does matter. It really, really does matter. 60 damage instead of 40 is 1 shotting Marines now (stim or not). That's a huge impact on TvT. 60 damage is 2 shotting Marauders after a stim, or really any kind of attack on the marauder, like Hellion splash. Another big impact on TvT. It's also 1 less shot on Medivacs or Vikings, although not a huge factor like vs Bio, it's something to consider at least. In TvZ, as you pointed out, it doesn't effect Zerglings or Banelings, so that's good. You have your numbers wrong for Roaches, it was 4 40 splash damage shots to kill Roaches. Now it's 3 60 splash damage shots (it's the same for Hydra's BTW). As you pointed out it's less shots to take down Mutalisks as well. So we can see, it very clearly impacts TvZ and especially TvT, just looking at the Widow Mine in a vacuum. Of course looking at the splash in this way isn't nearly a complete analysis of the effectiveness of it. Other units will, in most situations, be attacking alongside the Mines. And especially in the scenario of Mech, where every other unit does some Splash either to ground or air, increasing the splash damage of Widow Mines does a HELL of a lot more for Mech than simply increase how many Widow Mines you need to have the same effect as before.
Anyways, I don't want to really debate specific stat #'s *supply cost and splash damage) of your potential change. Once you start talking about specific stats, IMHO, you have to just start testing the unit in the actual game to see if they are right or wrong, too high or too low. Rather I'm just addressing the idea.
Is it possible to increase the splash damage for Mech to the point where it's good enough against Protoss to control areas and have a stronger straight up army, without making it too strong vs Zerg, or too strong vs Bio Terran? I don't know that it is. Maybe you're right, increasing the splash capabilities of Mech would be fine. Because of the Viper vs Mech mitigating Tanks (it doesn't mitigate Widow Mines though keep in mind). Bio might just have to eat it (people already agreed in WoL Mech>Bio anyways), it is after all a mirror match-up, though maybe Medivacs would change that.
Also, I would like to know what you're talking about with Tanks beating Immortals in large enough numbers. Roughly what supply:supply scenario are you talking about? I mean, what's important for them is for them to beat them in smaller numbers, or else you're just making a big Mech deathball and can't hold multiple areas/bases. Not to mention if it's something like 120+ supply, it is irrelevant because the Toss will always make an air transition in the late game.
I know like 30 Siege Tanks, 22 Immortals still win easily with just a bit of a spread on them, so it must be some huge, huge supply number Tanks start beating Immortals.
|
United States7483 Posts
On December 20 2012 11:50 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 10:56 Whitewing wrote:On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack. Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 400 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see. The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break". Yes, it does matter. It really, really does matter. 60 damage instead of 40 is 1 shotting Marines now (stim or not). That's a huge impact on TvT. 60 damage is 2 shotting Marauders after a stim, or really any kind of attack on the marauder, like Hellion splash. Another big impact on TvT. It's also 1 less shot on Medivacs or Vikings, although not a huge factor like vs Bio, it's something to consider at least. In TvZ, as you pointed out, it doesn't effect Zerglings or Banelings, so that's good. You have your numbers wrong for Roaches, it was 4 40 splash damage shots to kill Roaches. Now it's 3 60 splash damage shots (it's the same for Hydra's BTW). As you pointed out it's less shots to take down Mutalisks as well. So we can see, it very clearly impacts TvZ and especially TvT, just looking at the Widow Mine in a vacuum. Of course looking at the splash in this way isn't nearly a complete analysis of the effectiveness of it. Other units will, in most situations, be attacking alongside the Mines. And especially in the scenario of Mech, where every other unit does some Splash either to ground or air, increasing the splash damage of Widow Mines does a HELL of a lot more for Mech than simply increase how many Widow Mines you need to have the same effect as before. Anyways, I don't want to really debate specific stat #'s *supply cost and splash damage) of your potential change. Once you start talking about specific stats, IMHO, you have to just start testing the unit in the actual game to see if they are right or wrong, too high or too low. Rather I'm just addressing the idea. Is it possible to increase the splash damage for Mech to the point where it's good enough against Protoss to control areas and have a stronger straight up army, without making it too strong vs Zerg, or too strong vs Bio Terran? I don't know that it is. Maybe you're right, increasing the splash capabilities of Mech would be fine. Because of the Viper vs Mech mitigating Tanks (it doesn't mitigate Widow Mines though keep in mind). Bio might just have to eat it (people already agreed in WoL Mech>Bio anyways), it is after all a mirror match-up, though maybe Medivacs would change that. Also, I would like to know what you're talking about with Tanks beating Immortals in large enough numbers. Roughly what supply:supply scenario are you talking about? I mean, what's important for them is for them to beat them in smaller numbers, or else you're just making a big Mech deathball and can't hold multiple areas/bases. Not to mention if it's something like 120+ supply, it is irrelevant because the Toss will always make an air transition in the late game. I know like 30 Siege Tanks, 22 Immortals still win easily with just a bit of a spread on them, so it must be some huge, huge supply number Tanks start beating Immortals.
Nobody goes pure immortal vs. pure siege tank, there are always other units mixed in. Remember that immortals are more expensive than tanks are and have a larger supply cost, and there are usually hellions mixed in with tanks no matter what. In a typical game where the protoss player goes double robo and pumps immortals, you can often wind up with 10-12 immortals in his army vs. the mech. 20 tanks with hellions eats that alive if you can disregard the zealots. A splash damage buff to the widow mine helps with that pretty dramatically.
Obviously pure tanks vs pure immortals is going to favor immortals if you split (although if you don't split tanks win), but it should, the immortal is a unit designed to kill tanks. Give the tanks a hellion buffer and they win handily. You can even make the cost in money the same to be fair: 25 immortals vs. 20 tanks and 32 hellions (terran army is 50 minerals cheaper than the protoss army). If you prefer to make it more even on supply rather than cost of units, we can do something different: 20 tanks + 5 ghosts vs. 20 immortals. Get off your emps and then see which army wins and how close it is. The protoss army here is more supply heavy. The point is that in an actual game, if you have an immortal based army without sufficient buffering, the mech army annihilates it. You need archons and a lot of zealots in there too. Giving widow mines more splash and putting them in the army will help the mech army deal with the zealots and archons. You might splash your own battle hellions with the mines, but they're just tanking trash anyway and they'll melt to archons. The mech army's strength has always been it's cohesiveness. If the mech army beats the protoss army in any supply vs. supply count, protoss just plain can't win, terran will spread his army and be invincible. The way it's always worked is that protoss tries to pick terran apart in his weak points, terran tries to adjust constantly and always present his strong face to the protoss so the protoss can't find a weak point. If siege tanks beat everything protoss has on the ground in small numbers efficiently, protoss is always going to lose every time. That's unreasonable. It's not unreasonable to have the mech army win in a straight on engagement ceteris paribus.
|
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 20 2012 12:05 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 11:50 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:56 Whitewing wrote:On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack. Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 400 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see. The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break". Yes, it does matter. It really, really does matter. 60 damage instead of 40 is 1 shotting Marines now (stim or not). That's a huge impact on TvT. 60 damage is 2 shotting Marauders after a stim, or really any kind of attack on the marauder, like Hellion splash. Another big impact on TvT. It's also 1 less shot on Medivacs or Vikings, although not a huge factor like vs Bio, it's something to consider at least. In TvZ, as you pointed out, it doesn't effect Zerglings or Banelings, so that's good. You have your numbers wrong for Roaches, it was 4 40 splash damage shots to kill Roaches. Now it's 3 60 splash damage shots (it's the same for Hydra's BTW). As you pointed out it's less shots to take down Mutalisks as well. So we can see, it very clearly impacts TvZ and especially TvT, just looking at the Widow Mine in a vacuum. Of course looking at the splash in this way isn't nearly a complete analysis of the effectiveness of it. Other units will, in most situations, be attacking alongside the Mines. And especially in the scenario of Mech, where every other unit does some Splash either to ground or air, increasing the splash damage of Widow Mines does a HELL of a lot more for Mech than simply increase how many Widow Mines you need to have the same effect as before. Anyways, I don't want to really debate specific stat #'s *supply cost and splash damage) of your potential change. Once you start talking about specific stats, IMHO, you have to just start testing the unit in the actual game to see if they are right or wrong, too high or too low. Rather I'm just addressing the idea. Is it possible to increase the splash damage for Mech to the point where it's good enough against Protoss to control areas and have a stronger straight up army, without making it too strong vs Zerg, or too strong vs Bio Terran? I don't know that it is. Maybe you're right, increasing the splash capabilities of Mech would be fine. Because of the Viper vs Mech mitigating Tanks (it doesn't mitigate Widow Mines though keep in mind). Bio might just have to eat it (people already agreed in WoL Mech>Bio anyways), it is after all a mirror match-up, though maybe Medivacs would change that. Also, I would like to know what you're talking about with Tanks beating Immortals in large enough numbers. Roughly what supply:supply scenario are you talking about? I mean, what's important for them is for them to beat them in smaller numbers, or else you're just making a big Mech deathball and can't hold multiple areas/bases. Not to mention if it's something like 120+ supply, it is irrelevant because the Toss will always make an air transition in the late game. I know like 30 Siege Tanks, 22 Immortals still win easily with just a bit of a spread on them, so it must be some huge, huge supply number Tanks start beating Immortals. Nobody goes pure immortal vs. pure siege tank, there are always other units mixed in. Remember that immortals are more expensive than tanks are and have a larger supply cost, and there are usually hellions mixed in with tanks no matter what. In a typical game where the protoss player goes double robo and pumps immortals, you can often wind up with 10-12 immortals in his army vs. the mech. 20 tanks with hellions eats that alive if you can disregard the zealots. A splash damage buff to the widow mine helps with that pretty dramatically. Obviously pure tanks vs pure immortals is going to favor immortals if you split (although if you don't split tanks win), but it should, the immortal is a unit designed to kill tanks. Give the tanks a hellion buffer and they win handily. You can even make the cost in money the same to be fair: 25 immortals vs. 20 tanks and 32 hellions (terran army is 50 minerals cheaper than the protoss army). If you prefer to make it more even on supply rather than cost of units, we can do something different: 20 tanks + 5 ghosts vs. 20 immortals. Get off your emps and then see which army wins and how close it is. The protoss army here is more supply heavy.
Yeah that wasn't really the major or important part of my post, definitely not worth addressing that much. I've played Mech for over 6 months now vs Protoss. I understand the interactions between Immortals and Tanks... I'm not sure what your point is. I was simply asking what supply:supply ratio you are talking about with Immortals vs Tanks the Tanks are favored, because I really don't believe the problem is that the Immortals have a buffer, but that the issue is indeed that Tanks aren't effective enough in small enough supply counts.
I really don't want to change the subject here though. I just wanted to talk about your Widow Mine idea, not about Tanks.
|
United States7483 Posts
On December 20 2012 12:10 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 12:05 Whitewing wrote:On December 20 2012 11:50 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:56 Whitewing wrote:On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack. Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 400 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see. The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break". Yes, it does matter. It really, really does matter. 60 damage instead of 40 is 1 shotting Marines now (stim or not). That's a huge impact on TvT. 60 damage is 2 shotting Marauders after a stim, or really any kind of attack on the marauder, like Hellion splash. Another big impact on TvT. It's also 1 less shot on Medivacs or Vikings, although not a huge factor like vs Bio, it's something to consider at least. In TvZ, as you pointed out, it doesn't effect Zerglings or Banelings, so that's good. You have your numbers wrong for Roaches, it was 4 40 splash damage shots to kill Roaches. Now it's 3 60 splash damage shots (it's the same for Hydra's BTW). As you pointed out it's less shots to take down Mutalisks as well. So we can see, it very clearly impacts TvZ and especially TvT, just looking at the Widow Mine in a vacuum. Of course looking at the splash in this way isn't nearly a complete analysis of the effectiveness of it. Other units will, in most situations, be attacking alongside the Mines. And especially in the scenario of Mech, where every other unit does some Splash either to ground or air, increasing the splash damage of Widow Mines does a HELL of a lot more for Mech than simply increase how many Widow Mines you need to have the same effect as before. Anyways, I don't want to really debate specific stat #'s *supply cost and splash damage) of your potential change. Once you start talking about specific stats, IMHO, you have to just start testing the unit in the actual game to see if they are right or wrong, too high or too low. Rather I'm just addressing the idea. Is it possible to increase the splash damage for Mech to the point where it's good enough against Protoss to control areas and have a stronger straight up army, without making it too strong vs Zerg, or too strong vs Bio Terran? I don't know that it is. Maybe you're right, increasing the splash capabilities of Mech would be fine. Because of the Viper vs Mech mitigating Tanks (it doesn't mitigate Widow Mines though keep in mind). Bio might just have to eat it (people already agreed in WoL Mech>Bio anyways), it is after all a mirror match-up, though maybe Medivacs would change that. Also, I would like to know what you're talking about with Tanks beating Immortals in large enough numbers. Roughly what supply:supply scenario are you talking about? I mean, what's important for them is for them to beat them in smaller numbers, or else you're just making a big Mech deathball and can't hold multiple areas/bases. Not to mention if it's something like 120+ supply, it is irrelevant because the Toss will always make an air transition in the late game. I know like 30 Siege Tanks, 22 Immortals still win easily with just a bit of a spread on them, so it must be some huge, huge supply number Tanks start beating Immortals. Nobody goes pure immortal vs. pure siege tank, there are always other units mixed in. Remember that immortals are more expensive than tanks are and have a larger supply cost, and there are usually hellions mixed in with tanks no matter what. In a typical game where the protoss player goes double robo and pumps immortals, you can often wind up with 10-12 immortals in his army vs. the mech. 20 tanks with hellions eats that alive if you can disregard the zealots. A splash damage buff to the widow mine helps with that pretty dramatically. Obviously pure tanks vs pure immortals is going to favor immortals if you split (although if you don't split tanks win), but it should, the immortal is a unit designed to kill tanks. Give the tanks a hellion buffer and they win handily. You can even make the cost in money the same to be fair: 25 immortals vs. 20 tanks and 32 hellions (terran army is 50 minerals cheaper than the protoss army). If you prefer to make it more even on supply rather than cost of units, we can do something different: 20 tanks + 5 ghosts vs. 20 immortals. Get off your emps and then see which army wins and how close it is. The protoss army here is more supply heavy. Yeah that wasn't really the major or important part of my post, definitely not worth addressing that much. I've played Mech for over 6 months now vs Protoss. I understand the interactions between Immortals and Tanks... I'm not sure what your point is. I was simply asking what supply:supply ratio you are talking about with Immortals vs Tanks the Tanks are favored, because I really don't believe the problem is that the Immortals have a buffer, but that the issue is indeed that Tanks aren't effective enough in small enough supply counts.
Tanks can be very effective in small supply counts, that's a big part of why the 1/1/1 was killing protoss players left and right for ages.
If your complaint is that leaving 3 tanks on a cliff can't hold off a concentrated assault of a decent chunk of protoss stuff that is more expensive than it, then I don't know what to tell you.
The widow mine as a general design concept needs to be able to help in the major engagements or it's a worthless unit. It needs to do decent damage, but it shouldn't one shot units either. Btw, while you are right about the one less attack for roaches, since the change would have them not one shotting the roach in the first place, the splash would be more concentrated and likely wouldn't kill more.
The important thing here is that as long as widow mines do strong single target damage, they have to be 2 supply, because they trade well with 2 supply units on their own. Making them lower than that is ridiculous. If you take away the single target damage, you can justify lowering their supply cost because you need more of them to achieve the same effect.
As for the mirror match, right now bio looks pretty weak in TvT anyway against mech, so the fact that they would one shot marines is pretty irrelevant to me. You could always just micro so that outside of fights they only hit one (or scan and kill it with marauders), and inside fights it's not hard to throw a scan up and melt them down or spread your marines. It also probably doesn't take less shots to kill mutas unless they hit almost simultaneously, since muta regen with the buff has them regaining that 1 hp they need to survive the consecutive hits pretty damn quickly. The elimination of single target instant death makes leading with one muta to spot for mines a much more valid and viable micro tactic to get in there.
I wouldn't mind giving marines the old +1 range upgrade from BW either so they'd outrange widow mines. It wouldn't be up early enough to make a difference in the early game where the marine range is really relevant. Most zerg armies against bio are melee based anyway so the range doesn't make a huge difference. I guess it would make muta micro a little harder.
As for what supply count do tanks do well against immortals? Pure tanks never do well vs. pure immortal. Tanks with support can do very well against pure immortal. Tanks don't start to be favored until larger numbers, where their sheer fire can bring down immortals before they get into range. Add in a few ghosts for emp and the immortals don't stand a chance.
|
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 20 2012 12:12 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 12:10 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 12:05 Whitewing wrote:On December 20 2012 11:50 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:56 Whitewing wrote:On December 20 2012 10:31 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 10:04 Whitewing wrote:
Hrm....
As a protoss player, I think the most appropriate widow mine changes would be a reduction to 1 supply, a complete elimination of the single target damage, and an increase of the splash damage to 60 damage from 40 (all targets in the area including the target take 60). This would allow for micro to get you past them, but allow a few mines if spread properly to really do some damage to clumped up units. Since they don't one shot 2 supply units, a reduction to 1 supply is fair, and allows for the mech army to sink more minerals (less supply depots needed early on) into hellions for harass or orbital commands, and a larger max in the endgame. Further, reduce the cooldown on shots to 20 seconds to make the micro against them still quite possible but a little harder, and to force the enemy to actually be decisive and commit. This design would really deviate from a large part of their initial design (not that that makes it bad or wrong). They would no longer be an effective anti-drop, anti-banshee/dt/stargate harass unit. Hell, they wouldn't even be particularly effective against Blink Harass/Zealot runby's, players would just start spreading them a bit. I would not mind this change in role though, really at all. I don't feel Mech needs extra defense against these things, I don't think that's what makes it so hard in TvP specifically. This would still allow it to control space effectively, no doubt. Though honestly, I don't see them overcoming the same problem that currently faces the Siege Tank in TvP: How do you make Splash good enough against Protoss to be worth it, while not making it blatantly overpowered against Zerg and Bio Terran? I mean, certainly the trait of the Mine being Light and bypassing Immortals Shields does make it a stronger form of splash than the Siege Tank vs Protoss, while not necessarily making it any better against Z or T. Is that enough though? Does that really solve that huge problem? I don't believe it does (someone convince me that it does...). EDIT: short of Mines being a mini-ghost with an EMP, i.e. a vs protoss exclusive splash attack. Well, here's the question of splash in TvT/TvZ: does it make a difference if a splash damage attack does 400 damage or 10,000,000,000 damage? The answer is not usually (it matters a little bit for super large units, but you don't usually use splash damage on them anyway as terran). Increasing the splash damage of mines to 60 will allow them to be relevant in TvP since 3-4 mines (which at the 1 supply cost would be the same supply as 2 mines previously) will take out a group of units. This means they are very powerful in fights while also allowing for use as a space controlling unit. 60 damage still takes 3 attacks to kill a roach and only 1 to kill a zergling or baneling, the increase in splash won't make a noticeable difference in TvZ. Yes it makes them better at killing mutalisk clumps, but with no single target damage they'd be worse at killing mutas if you lead with just one muta to activate the cooldown and then the others fly in. Having a 20 second cooldown like I suggested would mean the mutas actually have to leave after they've gotten in shortly, so they can do damage but can't just kill everything. This wouldn't actually change TvZ or TvT much as far as I can see. The important thing is that siege tanks do actually beat immortals once you get them to large enough numbers and they are sieged, but you have to deal with the zealot barrier and the archons behind them as well. Having the mines do better splash with a shorter cooldown (but still reasonably long) will allow them to help drastically in the direct engagement and help quite a bit with the concept of "being fully sieged and entrenched makes you super hard to break". Yes, it does matter. It really, really does matter. 60 damage instead of 40 is 1 shotting Marines now (stim or not). That's a huge impact on TvT. 60 damage is 2 shotting Marauders after a stim, or really any kind of attack on the marauder, like Hellion splash. Another big impact on TvT. It's also 1 less shot on Medivacs or Vikings, although not a huge factor like vs Bio, it's something to consider at least. In TvZ, as you pointed out, it doesn't effect Zerglings or Banelings, so that's good. You have your numbers wrong for Roaches, it was 4 40 splash damage shots to kill Roaches. Now it's 3 60 splash damage shots (it's the same for Hydra's BTW). As you pointed out it's less shots to take down Mutalisks as well. So we can see, it very clearly impacts TvZ and especially TvT, just looking at the Widow Mine in a vacuum. Of course looking at the splash in this way isn't nearly a complete analysis of the effectiveness of it. Other units will, in most situations, be attacking alongside the Mines. And especially in the scenario of Mech, where every other unit does some Splash either to ground or air, increasing the splash damage of Widow Mines does a HELL of a lot more for Mech than simply increase how many Widow Mines you need to have the same effect as before. Anyways, I don't want to really debate specific stat #'s *supply cost and splash damage) of your potential change. Once you start talking about specific stats, IMHO, you have to just start testing the unit in the actual game to see if they are right or wrong, too high or too low. Rather I'm just addressing the idea. Is it possible to increase the splash damage for Mech to the point where it's good enough against Protoss to control areas and have a stronger straight up army, without making it too strong vs Zerg, or too strong vs Bio Terran? I don't know that it is. Maybe you're right, increasing the splash capabilities of Mech would be fine. Because of the Viper vs Mech mitigating Tanks (it doesn't mitigate Widow Mines though keep in mind). Bio might just have to eat it (people already agreed in WoL Mech>Bio anyways), it is after all a mirror match-up, though maybe Medivacs would change that. Also, I would like to know what you're talking about with Tanks beating Immortals in large enough numbers. Roughly what supply:supply scenario are you talking about? I mean, what's important for them is for them to beat them in smaller numbers, or else you're just making a big Mech deathball and can't hold multiple areas/bases. Not to mention if it's something like 120+ supply, it is irrelevant because the Toss will always make an air transition in the late game. I know like 30 Siege Tanks, 22 Immortals still win easily with just a bit of a spread on them, so it must be some huge, huge supply number Tanks start beating Immortals. Nobody goes pure immortal vs. pure siege tank, there are always other units mixed in. Remember that immortals are more expensive than tanks are and have a larger supply cost, and there are usually hellions mixed in with tanks no matter what. In a typical game where the protoss player goes double robo and pumps immortals, you can often wind up with 10-12 immortals in his army vs. the mech. 20 tanks with hellions eats that alive if you can disregard the zealots. A splash damage buff to the widow mine helps with that pretty dramatically. Obviously pure tanks vs pure immortals is going to favor immortals if you split (although if you don't split tanks win), but it should, the immortal is a unit designed to kill tanks. Give the tanks a hellion buffer and they win handily. You can even make the cost in money the same to be fair: 25 immortals vs. 20 tanks and 32 hellions (terran army is 50 minerals cheaper than the protoss army). If you prefer to make it more even on supply rather than cost of units, we can do something different: 20 tanks + 5 ghosts vs. 20 immortals. Get off your emps and then see which army wins and how close it is. The protoss army here is more supply heavy. Yeah that wasn't really the major or important part of my post, definitely not worth addressing that much. I've played Mech for over 6 months now vs Protoss. I understand the interactions between Immortals and Tanks... I'm not sure what your point is. I was simply asking what supply:supply ratio you are talking about with Immortals vs Tanks the Tanks are favored, because I really don't believe the problem is that the Immortals have a buffer, but that the issue is indeed that Tanks aren't effective enough in small enough supply counts. Tanks can be very effective in small supply counts, that's a big part of why the 1/1/1 was killing protoss players left and right for ages. If your complaint is that leaving 3 tanks on a cliff can't hold off a concentrated assault of a decent chunk of protoss stuff that is more expensive than it, then I don't know what to tell you. The widow mine as a general design concept needs to be able to help in the major engagements or it's a worthless unit. It needs to do decent damage, but it shouldn't one shot units either. Btw, while you are right about the one less attack for roaches, since the change would have them not one shotting the roach in the first place, the splash would be more concentrated and likely wouldn't kill more. The important thing here is that as long as widow mines do strong single target damage, they have to be 2 supply, because they trade well with 2 supply units on their own. Making them lower than that is ridiculous. If you take away the single target damage, you can justify lowering their supply cost because you need more of them to achieve the same effect.
Ugh, it was just a simple question. What supply:supply or cost:cost ratio were you referring to when you said Tanks start to be favored against Immortals? That's the only question I have asked in 3 comments now, I just wanted an answer to that question.
And as I said before, the main part of my post was your Widow Mine idea, not about Tanks. I was hoping you'd be willing to discuss that...
EDIT: Just saw your edit. The point of my post wasn't about the single target damage, it was about how do you balance giving Mech even more explosive splash damage to make it the significantly stronger straight up army vs Protoss (when in good position ofc), while not making it too strong vs Z and Bio T.
|
On December 20 2012 11:20 ledarsi wrote:
You are absolutely right, Whitewing, this would require a wholesale restructuring of the game. For starters, Protoss gateway units would need to be much stronger, and less dependent on high tech splash damage like Colossi or HTs.
Still, it is worth pointing out that splash damage actually becomes much stronger against an army that is twice as large and half as durable individually. However splash damage behaves differently. It inflicts more casualties instead of just weakening many units.
That kind of change would require a fundamental re-tooling of both Warpgates and Forcefield. Sadly, there's no way that this will happen.
|
On December 20 2012 10:05 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 09:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On December 20 2012 08:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 20 2012 08:27 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 20 2012 08:16 Qikz wrote:EDIT: Specifically--I think there is too much friction between people who only want positional play (which does not necessarily have to be from Factory units) and people who want factory units (with or without positional play) I think a lot of people just want a buff to positional play, because arguably the only positional play unit in the game is the siege tank as it literally cannot move when it wants to attack with real damage and is one of the slowest units in the game elsewhat. Siege tank usage rewards really clever play, slow pushes and good decision making. Getting caught unsieged in Broodwar meant you lost to every single army in the game. The issue people have is that sure we have the mine now, but everything "positional" about mech including the widowmine and the tank completely sucks against protoss. Yeah the Widow Mine is positional, there's no doubt about that. It's positional against Terran and Zerg in different uses and in different ways. Against Protoss though, with the removing of it's ability to hit cloak, the removing of turning off auto-cast, and now the single target nerf, it's really quite a bad unit to have positioned out on the map to slow down protoss army movements, or to deal with small gateway unit runby's. It's not even particularly good for buffering your siege line, because unless the Zealots are REALLY clumped up, between the overkill and the fact that it takes 2 widow mines to kill 1 Zealot, it's not a supply efficient trade at all. The best use I have found vs Protoss for the Mine is 1) as a slightly different form of probe harass than the Hellion or 2) to flank the Protoss army as they attack you, getting the Widow Mines underneath their Immortals/Colossus/Void Rays/Archons etc. Yeah, you the meching player are flanking the enemy... The widow mine was actually getting to a good place where mech really should be heading. High initial damage but immobile and has glaring "easy" to take advantage of weaknesses where the dance between the two armies hinge on. Kills efficiently on the first volley, weak for 40 seconds. Reinforcements are rebuilt in 20-30 seconds--or 5 seconds if toss. It's actually beautiful and almost perfect. And is also where the Siege tank should be. Hm what was wrong with allowing them to blow up when you wanted? Too similar to banelings? I can't think of anything else that would make them work TvP as they do in TvZ and TvT i hope they think of something The goals are different for controlling protoss. Zerg and Terran have low HP. So AOE affects them harder even at low damage points. 35 damage from tanks and Banes is MORE than enough to push away Terran and Zerg units. But that only tickles Protoss units. Ask yourself this. If Fungals couldn't be chained and was simply a 30+ damage spell--how how would Zerg stop a massive gateway push in the lategame? but since you can chain fungals, over time fungals *will* kill a clump of protoss units. You don't need to chain fungals as much versus Terran or Zerg since 1-2 casts is all you really need. (Notice heavy IT play in zvz) We can't attempt to mimic how things work versus Terran/Zerg with protoss. The numbers just don't match.
So the solution would be to introduce a lot of overkill into the game as it was in BW with Siege Tanks dealing 70 damage? Since Zerg and Terrans are "scared" of tanks already their relationship doesnt change, but Protoss should become scared with that amount of damage.
Sadly there is a new "bonus damage system" in SC2, which doesnt have the sensible splash damage system of BW where you have a small radius with 100% damage and then two other radii with 50% and 25% damage. Making the radius in SC2 small for Siege Tanks would be terrible due to hitting too few units with it, but not having overkill damage is equally bad ... so BW had the better system IMO.
|
On December 20 2012 11:20 ledarsi wrote:
You are absolutely right, Whitewing, this would require a wholesale restructuring of the game. For starters, Protoss gateway units would need to be much stronger, and less dependent on high tech splash damage like Colossi or HTs.
Still, it is worth pointing out that splash damage actually becomes much stronger against an army that is twice as large and half as durable individually. However splash damage behaves differently. It inflicts more casualties instead of just weakening many units.
Protoss units wouldnt need to be "much stronger" IF the total numbers of units that are engaged on the battlefield are reduced to "BW levels" ... i.e. pretty low. If there are only 3 Marines facing a Stalker you can micro that Stalker and kite the Marines, but once there are 20 of them you NEED Forcefield and/or Blink to survive. This is a problem which I have complained about for some time, but too few people understand this shift in balance between units at different numbers. Without the high numbers of units engaged in one battle at a specific spot you have more freedom and the individual stats - which are better for Protoss units than most infantry from Zerg/Terran - are worth it again. If Blizzard started buffing Stalkers to be stronger they would become too strong in small numbers compared to Marines and Zerglings and so on ...
Consequently Blizzard would need to change the movement system to add in force-spreading while moving AND have only 12 unit selection limit, plus getting rid of all the production speed and economic boosts which fill the battlefield with too many units.
On December 20 2012 12:21 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 11:20 ledarsi wrote:
You are absolutely right, Whitewing, this would require a wholesale restructuring of the game. For starters, Protoss gateway units would need to be much stronger, and less dependent on high tech splash damage like Colossi or HTs.
Still, it is worth pointing out that splash damage actually becomes much stronger against an army that is twice as large and half as durable individually. However splash damage behaves differently. It inflicts more casualties instead of just weakening many units. That kind of change would require a fundamental re-tooling of both Warpgates and Forcefield. Sadly, there's no way that this will happen.
If Blizzard makes more and more ridiculous units for the game and it becomes unstable maybe Browder will be sacked and replaced with someone sensible. Either that OR Blizzard making a change to allow for "mods" to the general gameplay accompanied by a separate ladder. So the prospect is pretty grim, but at least we have a few ridiculous months ahead of us when HotS is released and all the random shit strats win tournaments. Should be entertaining to watch if you dont take it serious anymore.
|
I'd still recommed watching some of Supernova's games from his stream (he streams now).. He really shows how powerful mech can be. Even offensive builds like 2 base 1armory 4fact push, etc.. He is figuring things out. Of course he is level above players he playes, but it is really good inspiration watching him play.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
