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On December 22 2012 02:01 Sissors wrote:
I disagree, I dont think you can really fix siege tanks agains toss without making them OP against other races, unless you manage to change something which only affects toss: doing full damage on shields would be a good first step.
TvT isnt "another race", so only Zerg is another race in question.
- Does Zerg really have problems against mech now?
- Isnt the Vipers "abduct" spell specifically aimed at eliminating mech?
Answering those two questions should clearly show that TvZ wouldnt be imbalanced by making mech stronger ... especially with the new stuff that Zerg gets in HotS. Sure, you might not be able to win against a "HotS-free mech army" with your own "HotS-free Zerg army using the old strategies", but thats kinda the point of an expansion: to change things around and force people to exercise their brains again.
The Siege Tank does a whoppping 35 damage against light units ... which kills Zerglings (unless they have 1 armor upgrade and the tank zero attack upgrade), BUT due to the splash damage effect of the Siege Tank it only affects a core radius of 0.4687 "matrices" (which I believe to be "1 matric = 1 building square") which would be less than a 1*1 square ... i.e. about 3 Zerglings at most. The rest of the Zerglings get half or quarter damage. In BW the "core damage" was 70 and thus Zerglings got killed up to the secondary radius and thats not too much.
One of the problematic Protoss units for a tank is the Zealot, because it is light and - most likely - has charge, so it only takes at most 1 shot per Siege Tank ... not enough to really damage any of them, not even the ones at the center of a blast. Since the Zealot has only 50 shield and 100 hit points you wont get far with an EMP grenade.
Another problematic Protoss unit is the Blink Stalker, because you can basically do the same as a Zealot: get into the "no attack zone" of the Siege tank with maybe 1 hit taken and the EMP ammunition wont really change much here either.
Liquipedia: Siege Tank splash damage
In siege mode, Siege Tanks do 35 (+15 against armored) splash damage. This damage has three different levels: units (whether hostile or friendly) within .4687 matrices of the target are dealt full damage, units between .4687 and .7812 matrices of the target receive 50% of full damage, and units between .7812 and 1.25 matrices from the target suffer just 25% of the full damage.
The change to TEST would be going for a BW setting of 70 damage (no bonus damage) again. Since we dont have Steppes of War anymore in the map pool this would enable mech players to leave some tanks at home to defend alternative routes of access and prevent runbys while the main force goes to attack the enemy. This *might work* AND it is a simple change, BUT sadly Blizzard doesnt do any testing of the sort.
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On December 22 2012 02:57 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 02:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers
Thors are (just now) good support
Hellbats are good buffers
Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor. Shoudn't be that. If terran needs a couple of planetaries to move out it incentivizes upper turtling too much (boring games). Rather, terran should be able to defend locations with a couple of mines and well positioned tanks. I think removing mules and planateries + buffing tanks + nerfing immortals will make tvp so much more interesting. Sackings scvs and massing orbituals + planataries is just boring game play. Maybe its fun the fist 1-2 times you watch it, but over the long haul its stupidly boring. Also, it makes no sense that we shouldn't be allowed to say what we want, just because Blizzard is incompetent and doesn't understand proper game design.
Building up 6 bases while harassing with hellion/vulture drops while your immobile tanks turtle is exactly what happened in BW. There is no difference between defending your base with 1-2 tanks and mines versus defending your base with a 1-2 planateries and some support. Whether you defend your sixth with a Planetary or whether you defend it with a Siege Tank makes no tactical difference other than nostalgia.
Hellions harassing while the main force defends is what BW did. The main force in BW was tanks and mines and turrets. That does not mean that the main force in SC2 has to be Tanks and Mines and Turrets. When air play came to stop tanks (and by air play it was pretty much just Carriers for the TvP matchup) Terran got Goliaths since they they already had mech upgrades and factories. Air play in SC2 is MORE than just carriers. Phoenix harassing mineral lines, Voids/Tempests/Carriers hitting from short and long range. What's needed is not an A-Move unit that simply has "I kill Protoss air units" stamped on the box it shipped in, what's needed is a way to answer the pressure being applied by Long range tempests, the burst damage being applied by Voidrays, and the strong assault that Carriers threaten. If that means air play--then so be it. If that means heavy hellion drop play being defended by Vikings--so be it as well.
For example, does the Goliath answer the Broodlord problem? Actually no, because Broodlords don't kill Terran as much as Infestors do. Without Infestors Broodlords die to stimmed marines. Goliaths would add NOTHING to TvZ. What about TvT? Lategame TvT is already a fun spectacle incorporating all units except the Reaper. It doesn't really *need* fixing.
The Goliath doesn't add anything to 66% of the matchups and its role is already taken up by the Viking in the TvP matchup. And yet people keep asking for it pretending like what is stopping mech is sudden Carrier transitions when in truth the zealot warp ins kill Mech more often. Why suggest the Goliath then? Nostalgia. Much like asking, no, REQUIRING the siege tank to be the main force in TvP while pretending that what they're asking for is positional play.
If what is wanted is positional play--lets see what other tools we have for positional play. Simply asking for the Siege tank to be buffed to the point that all protoss units melt to it is just nostalgia talking. There are other options--no one seems to want to talk about those other options.
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On December 22 2012 02:45 Hider wrote:
Dustin Browder (on whether they still plan to make mech viable vs toss): "That would certainly make TvP more diverse. It does not HAVE to include Siege Tanks but that would be cool. "
Time to cancel preorder I guess.
That was my twitter question and I believe it's only fair to include the whole question just for contextual purposes.
I asked him "Is making Mech viable still a plan you guys have for HoTS? Does your definition of viable Mech include the Siege Tank?"
Meaning if they somehow make Mech viable and Siege Tanks aren't part of the mix they feel they'll have fulfilled their goal. I'm curious about what their ACTUAL definition of Mech play is though, as far as I'm concerned the only way you can have a mech playstyle that doesn't involve Siege Tanks is by massing thors, and that's boring as hell.
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On December 22 2012 03:08 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 02:01 Sissors wrote:
I disagree, I dont think you can really fix siege tanks agains toss without making them OP against other races, unless you manage to change something which only affects toss: doing full damage on shields would be a good first step. TvT isnt "another race", so only Zerg is another race in question. - Does Zerg really have problems against mech now? - Isnt the Vipers "abduct" spell specifically aimed at eliminating mech? Answering those two questions should clearly show that TvZ wouldnt be imbalanced by making mech stronger ... especially with the new stuff that Zerg gets in HotS. Sure, you might not be able to win against a "HotS-free mech army" with your own "HotS-free Zerg army using the old strategies", but thats kinda the point of an expansion: to change things around and force people to exercise their brains again. The Siege Tank does a whoppping 35 damage against light units ... which kills Zerglings (unless they have 1 armor upgrade and the tank zero attack upgrade), BUT due to the splash damage effect of the Siege Tank it only affects a core radius of 0.4687 "matrices" (which I believe to be "1 matric = 1 building square") which would be less than a 1*1 square ... i.e. about 3 Zerglings at most. The rest of the Zerglings get half or quarter damage. In BW the "core damage" was 70 and thus Zerglings got killed up to the secondary radius and thats not too much. One of the problematic Protoss units for a tank is the Zealot, because it is light and - most likely - has charge, so it only takes at most 1 shot per Siege Tank ... not enough to really damage any of them, not even the ones at the center of a blast. Since the Zealot has only 50 shield and 100 hit points you wont get far with an EMP grenade. Another problematic Protoss unit is the Blink Stalker, because you can basically do the same as a Zealot: get into the "no attack zone" of the Siege tank with maybe 1 hit taken and the EMP ammunition wont really change much here either. Show nested quote +Liquipedia: Siege Tank splash damage
In siege mode, Siege Tanks do 35 (+15 against armored) splash damage. This damage has three different levels: units (whether hostile or friendly) within .4687 matrices of the target are dealt full damage, units between .4687 and .7812 matrices of the target receive 50% of full damage, and units between .7812 and 1.25 matrices from the target suffer just 25% of the full damage. The change to TEST would be going for a BW setting of 70 damage (no bonus damage) again. Since we dont have Steppes of War anymore in the map pool this would enable mech players to leave some tanks at home to defend alternative routes of access and prevent runbys while the main force goes to attack the enemy. This *might work* AND it is a simple change, BUT sadly Blizzard doesnt do any testing of the sort.
What do you think is easier to balance, increased splash radius or increased base damage? This is an honest question. I do believe that Tanks need a damage buff (although I don't think they need a DPS buff) and so I'm curious on which is a worse thing happening for non-Protoss matchups, increased radius or increased base damage.
Like, is it possible that a wider splash radius paired with a slight damage buff (40? 45?) is better than the same radius with a massive damage buff (35 => 70)
Also, would increasing the damage too much make it bad for the PvT side of things? As much as blink stalkers seem strong against tanks, Stalkers actually melt immediately the moment the zealots stop tanking fire. Would buffing tank damage to actually kill of the wave of zealots break the matchup since once the zealots are gone the entire Protoss comps disappears with them?
All of this assuming of course that Marine/Tank play doesn't absolutely break the Zerg matchup once Tanks deal 70 damage. (Assuming, of course, that Infestors are nerfed enough to fix the metagame as a whole--specifically ZvP)
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On December 22 2012 03:16 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 02:45 Hider wrote:
Dustin Browder (on whether they still plan to make mech viable vs toss): "That would certainly make TvP more diverse. It does not HAVE to include Siege Tanks but that would be cool. "
Time to cancel preorder I guess. That was my twitter question and I believe it's only fair to include the whole question just for contextual purposes. I asked him "Is making Mech viable still a plan you guys have for HoTS? Does your definition of viable Mech include the Siege Tank?" Meaning if they somehow make Mech viable and Siege Tanks aren't part of the mix they feel they'll have fulfilled their goal. I'm curious about what their ACTUAL definition of Mech play is though, as far as I'm concerned the only way you can have a mech playstyle that doesn't involve Siege Tanks is by massing thors, and that's boring as hell.
Depends on how those Thors are used. If it's just A-Moved, then yes it is boring. But if they changed the Thor to actually need micro then it's not so boring. Realistically, whether you mass units with the graphic of a tank or the graphic of a thor is irrelevant. We know Thors as they are right now don't work A-Move wise, if that's the case, then maybe they'll be given something that needs more than just A-Move, in which case it would be fun to watch Thor based mech play. Or at least as fun to watch as tank based mech play.
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On December 22 2012 03:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 03:16 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 22 2012 02:45 Hider wrote:
Dustin Browder (on whether they still plan to make mech viable vs toss): "That would certainly make TvP more diverse. It does not HAVE to include Siege Tanks but that would be cool. "
Time to cancel preorder I guess. That was my twitter question and I believe it's only fair to include the whole question just for contextual purposes. I asked him "Is making Mech viable still a plan you guys have for HoTS? Does your definition of viable Mech include the Siege Tank?" Meaning if they somehow make Mech viable and Siege Tanks aren't part of the mix they feel they'll have fulfilled their goal. I'm curious about what their ACTUAL definition of Mech play is though, as far as I'm concerned the only way you can have a mech playstyle that doesn't involve Siege Tanks is by massing thors, and that's boring as hell. Depends on how those Thors are used. If it's just A-Moved, then yes it is boring. But if they changed the Thor to actually need micro then it's not so boring. Realistically, whether you mass units with the graphic of a tank or the graphic of a thor is irrelevant. We know Thors as they are right now don't work A-Move wise, if that's the case, then maybe they'll be given something that needs more than just A-Move, in which case it would be fun to watch Thor based mech play. Or at least as fun to watch as tank based mech play.
I don't see how thors can be anything but a support unit. It would require too large a redesign. Unfortunately it just seems that DB doesn't get the coolness of the tanks. I think he views them as a boring turtling unit, which they of course can be. But if everything else is designed perfectly (as BW almost was) then we actually get extremelye interesting action-packed games.
Also I assume it is tougher for lower level players (he is plat) to appreciate the awesomeness of the tank. At his skill level it is probably a bit too difficult to abuse it by doing multipronged harass, and he probably isn't highly skilled enough to think about positioning tank as an art.
I think the current BLizzard design team likes multitasking (which is good) but they just miss the larger picture, and their design philosphy is extremely simplfiied. They should deinitely have spend a lot of time studying BW and or play the game at at least master level play them selves before they began designing the game.
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On December 22 2012 04:43 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 03:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 22 2012 03:16 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 22 2012 02:45 Hider wrote:
Dustin Browder (on whether they still plan to make mech viable vs toss): "That would certainly make TvP more diverse. It does not HAVE to include Siege Tanks but that would be cool. "
Time to cancel preorder I guess. That was my twitter question and I believe it's only fair to include the whole question just for contextual purposes. I asked him "Is making Mech viable still a plan you guys have for HoTS? Does your definition of viable Mech include the Siege Tank?" Meaning if they somehow make Mech viable and Siege Tanks aren't part of the mix they feel they'll have fulfilled their goal. I'm curious about what their ACTUAL definition of Mech play is though, as far as I'm concerned the only way you can have a mech playstyle that doesn't involve Siege Tanks is by massing thors, and that's boring as hell. Depends on how those Thors are used. If it's just A-Moved, then yes it is boring. But if they changed the Thor to actually need micro then it's not so boring. Realistically, whether you mass units with the graphic of a tank or the graphic of a thor is irrelevant. We know Thors as they are right now don't work A-Move wise, if that's the case, then maybe they'll be given something that needs more than just A-Move, in which case it would be fun to watch Thor based mech play. Or at least as fun to watch as tank based mech play. I don't see how thors can be anything but a support unit. It would require too large a redesign. Unfortunately it just seems that DB doesn't get the coolness of the tanks. I think he views them as a boring turtling unit, which they of course can be. But if everything else is designed perfectly (as BW almost was) then we actually get extremelye interesting action-packed games. Also I assume it is tougher for lower level players (he is plat) to appreciate the awesomeness of the tank. At his skill level it is probably a bit too difficult to abuse it by doing multipronged harass, and he probably isn't highly skilled enough to think about positioning tank as an art. I think the current BLizzard design team likes multitasking (which is good) but they just miss the larger picture, and their design philosphy is extremely simplfiied. They should deinitely have spend a lot of time studying BW and or play the game at at least master level play them selves before they began designing the game.
Being that the Thor was initially designed as a long range siege unit no different from the tank that could be built by SCVs, I wouldn't say that they don't understand the beauty of tank play. Strike Cannons was supposed to be something used to siege bases from long range. The reduction in range was due to role overlap, they could easily go back to the old design where Strike Cannons was literally a ground targeting effect that hit from long range dealing a large amount of damage over a wide area and to balance that as a way to keep protoss units honest (rapid small damage packets spread over time so as to circumvent immortal shields)
They could give the thor a threat priority of base 25 instead of base 20 and give it 4 starting armor allowing it to easily tank zealot hits. decrease its damage to 10 per cannon but increase attack speed so it maintains the current DPS it does right now but in packets of 10x2 damage instead of packets of 30x2. Suddenly the Thor can tank Zealot shots, can fight toe to toe with immortals, and they can protect siege tanks from harm.
Lots of ways to make Thor based play interesting and useful--the goal should not be to mimic old units, the goal should be to diversify strategy.
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On December 22 2012 04:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 04:43 Hider wrote:On December 22 2012 03:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 22 2012 03:16 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 22 2012 02:45 Hider wrote:
Dustin Browder (on whether they still plan to make mech viable vs toss): "That would certainly make TvP more diverse. It does not HAVE to include Siege Tanks but that would be cool. "
Time to cancel preorder I guess. That was my twitter question and I believe it's only fair to include the whole question just for contextual purposes. I asked him "Is making Mech viable still a plan you guys have for HoTS? Does your definition of viable Mech include the Siege Tank?" Meaning if they somehow make Mech viable and Siege Tanks aren't part of the mix they feel they'll have fulfilled their goal. I'm curious about what their ACTUAL definition of Mech play is though, as far as I'm concerned the only way you can have a mech playstyle that doesn't involve Siege Tanks is by massing thors, and that's boring as hell. Depends on how those Thors are used. If it's just A-Moved, then yes it is boring. But if they changed the Thor to actually need micro then it's not so boring. Realistically, whether you mass units with the graphic of a tank or the graphic of a thor is irrelevant. We know Thors as they are right now don't work A-Move wise, if that's the case, then maybe they'll be given something that needs more than just A-Move, in which case it would be fun to watch Thor based mech play. Or at least as fun to watch as tank based mech play. I don't see how thors can be anything but a support unit. It would require too large a redesign. Unfortunately it just seems that DB doesn't get the coolness of the tanks. I think he views them as a boring turtling unit, which they of course can be. But if everything else is designed perfectly (as BW almost was) then we actually get extremelye interesting action-packed games. Also I assume it is tougher for lower level players (he is plat) to appreciate the awesomeness of the tank. At his skill level it is probably a bit too difficult to abuse it by doing multipronged harass, and he probably isn't highly skilled enough to think about positioning tank as an art. I think the current BLizzard design team likes multitasking (which is good) but they just miss the larger picture, and their design philosphy is extremely simplfiied. They should deinitely have spend a lot of time studying BW and or play the game at at least master level play them selves before they began designing the game. Being that the Thor was initially designed as a long range siege unit no different from the tank that could be built by SCVs, I wouldn't say that they don't understand the beauty of tank play. Strike Cannons was supposed to be something used to siege bases from long range. The reduction in range was due to role overlap, they could easily go back to the old design where Strike Cannons was literally a ground targeting effect that hit from long range dealing a large amount of damage over a wide area and to balance that as a way to keep protoss units honest (rapid small damage packets spread over time so as to circumvent immortal shields) They could give the thor a threat priority of base 25 instead of base 20 and give it 4 starting armor allowing it to easily tank zealot hits. decrease its damage to 10 per cannon but increase attack speed so it maintains the current DPS it does right now but in packets of 10x2 damage instead of packets of 30x2. Suddenly the Thor can tank Zealot shots, can fight toe to toe with immortals, and they can protect siege tanks from harm. Lots of ways to make Thor based play interesting and useful--the goal should not be to mimic old units, the goal should be to diversify strategy.
Your suggestion will make thor a support unit, which is fine. The best fix for the unit is probably to give it an ability to hard counter units with a lot of (effective) life such as the immortal. Give it some kind of strategical ability (like make it build a cloud where units which enter the field will have an effectlive life of 200 or less (effective less = hp + shield). This will add an interesting element to the thor and give it great syngergies with the tanks. I think a change like this should be made if they are unwilling to rework the immortals hardened shield.
Btw the beuty of the siege tanks isn't its long range. Its beuty is that it is capable of defending key locations extremelye efficiently, but you can't defend all places at the same time. YOu have to think strategically as a meching terran where you want to place every singe siege terran optimize your winning chances. I am pretty convinced that some part of Blizzards team doesn't get it. Like why the hell would they even think about the warhound which (in theory) should be capable of 1a-ing through siege line. This isn't how it should work.
But I didn't get it always either. I used to be someone who was quite annoyed with positioning siege tanks for the first year of my sc2 life (even though i was always in the best leagues, except for GM). I just wanted to 1a around with my bio army. But i was quite bad at a lot of stuff and would lose tvt's due to my bad marine/tank unit control. Eventually I tried mech as controlling marines and tanks at the same time wasn't my strongest side (back then, however, my macro was insane, most likely 100+ SQ, and I was pretty good at doing drops and stuff like that). So I tried that, and then slowly I began to get the beuty of it. I watched replays I lost and tried to figure out what I could have done differently. Like, maybe if I placed that tank 5 meters more to the left, and then had a turret there, and then.... etc.
After about 1-2 months tvt went from my worst matchup to my best as I began "mastering" the art of tank positioning. Today, I honestly think defending against drops is too easy in WOL (HOTS tries to fix this by speed medis which I think is great design), but in a lot of cases you just can't move out of the base unless you have plantaries defending entrances. I think this is bad design as it means I have to turtle a long time and positioning tanks optimally isn't that difficult (the skill ceiling in the early/ midgame with mech is relatively low). But I wouldn't mind seeing tanks getting buffed slightly as well along with a widow mine ½/1 supply. Combine this with fewer minerals on each base/no mules and this will force the terran meching army to spread his army out more which makes it a lot easier for the bio player to abuse immobility which increases multitask based play and the skill ceiling.
Also we will have less boring planetary turtling games where the mech guy turtles for 30 min untill he has a 150+ suply army with a couple of planteries to defend against counter attacks along with a lot of turrets. This was obviously an example of tvt mech play, but I think the same thing applies to TvP mech (given that immortals gets nerfed/thor gets an anti-immortal ability).
But the thing is, I would never understand the problems and the beuty of mech unless I played it at a decent level. If I was a low level player there would be so many things I never considered. I think DB thinks of mech the same as I did prior to my experience "mastering" mech tvt, that i was just some boring turtling stuff which made it too difficult to attack.
EDIT: The main difference design wise between mines and plantaries is that it takes ages to get up planateries. With mines, however, you can secure positions much quicker, which speeds up the game.
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How many of you guys would accept this trade
Removal of Planetary
Tanks dmg buffed to 70.
????
I feel that if Blizz buffs tanks to that damage right now, the problem is that tank+PF turtling would get to an all time extreme. And at that point, if every Terran turtles for 40 minutes your not going to see an exciting game even if we get to finally use our "Mech" units. Part of mech is being able to be aggressive. In BW a lot of the common builds involved a 5 minute push with rines tanks and vultures right off the bat, then defend a bit to get your third and then it was balls to the walls again taking the whole map and attacking.
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On December 22 2012 07:07 XXXSmOke wrote:
How many of you guys would accept this trade
Removal of Planetary
Tanks dmg buffed to 70.
????
I feel that if Blizz buffs tanks to that damage right now, the problem is that tank+PF turtling would get to an all time extreme. And at that point, if every Terran turtles for 40 minutes your not going to see an exciting game even if we get to finally use our "Mech" units. Part of mech is being able to be aggressive. In BW a lot of the common builds involved a 5 minute push with rines tanks and vultures right off the bat, then defend a bit to get your third and then it was balls to the walls again taking the whole map and attacking.
That doesn't change anything except the amount of damage that hardened shields absorbs.
That's honestly the biggest problem right now. Protoss doesn't need air play at all to kill Terran mech as long as the Immortal is all but immune to tank fire.
As I mentioned already, due to the various counters Protoss has available to them, Ghosts are all but required to deal with Immortals if you're going for a factory based ground force be it either Thors or Siege Tanks, and Vikings are required too to deal with air units.
That's two REQUIRED units that must be built to even stand a chance yet offer no benefit to the army outside of the units they are specifically meant to counter (Ghosts are all but useless vs Protoss air, Vikings are useless vs Protoss ground), you could add Helbats to that mix also and the number grows to 3, 2 supply units that are all required to be in the army yet offer no combat viability outside of the units they are specifically meant to counter.
What needs to happen is that some of these hard counters that Protoss has vs Mech needs to be softened to soft counter status either by nerfing the Protoss units or by improving the Terran counter-measures so that they can serve multiple roles more effectively.
I've suggested so far that the viking should have its "Armored" classification removed from its ground mode so that it can be an effective meatshield vs Immortals on the ground because Immortals would no longer have their bonus damage vs Vikings. Vikings would in turn become a soft counter to Immortals in the ground form while remaining a viable unit vs Protoss air.
There's also the option to nerf Hardened Shields vs Mech either by adding a cooldown to it or by increasing the maximum damage allowed. This promotes more air play, and removes a lot of the "A-Move into Siege Lines and win" dynamic that happens currently.
There's the option to Improve the Raven by changing Hunter Seeker missle back into a splash damage spell to better deal with packs of Void Rays.
Thor's AA damage vs Armored could be increased to improve their viability vs Void Rays and carriers but not against Tempests who still have their range advantage.
Etc.
The problem with Siege Tanks vs Protoss isn't really the Siege Tank itself, the Siege Tank is a great unit which is why it's so good already in TvT and TvZ. The problem is the abundance of "Hard Counters" that Protoss has access to against it. One Hard Counter unit is enough, Protoss has 4. That's what needs adjusting.
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I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks.
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On December 22 2012 09:28 submarine wrote:
I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks.
1) would be okay'ish.
2) seems fine - i assume though that this shuld ignore hardened shield.
3) not sure what you mean here.
4) You can't really have more than 2-3 ravens going mech due to gas limitations, unless you go for ultra turtle boring style, which we should not want. So ravens shouldn't a necessity to do mech (unless they changed the gas cost of ravens).
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On December 22 2012 09:28 submarine wrote:
I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks.
From what I've experienced on beta, if my opponent doesn't make Immortals, Siege Tanks are actually really good vs every other Protoss ground unit provided Helbats are utilized to tank Zealots with.
I'm absolutely confident that a buff to the Siege Tank is not needed if the Immortal was nerfed so that it was no longer such a hard counter.
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On December 22 2012 11:01 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 09:28 submarine wrote:
I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks. From what I've experienced on beta, if my opponent doesn't make Immortals, Siege Tanks are actually really good vs every other Protoss ground unit provided Helbats are utilized to tank Zealots with. I'm absolutely confident that a buff to the Siege Tank is not needed if the Immortal was nerfed so that it was no longer such a hard counter.
I agree - tanks are okay'ish against most other stuff. However, still not as good as they should be. I would like to see 6-7 well positioned tanks + 3-4 mines be extremely cost effective against a large toss army (so terran can defend multitple positions at once). Mech should be extremely cost effective against toss ground so that it is necccesary for toss to abuse its immobility.
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On December 22 2012 03:22 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 03:08 Rabiator wrote:On December 22 2012 02:01 Sissors wrote:
I disagree, I dont think you can really fix siege tanks agains toss without making them OP against other races, unless you manage to change something which only affects toss: doing full damage on shields would be a good first step. TvT isnt "another race", so only Zerg is another race in question. - Does Zerg really have problems against mech now? - Isnt the Vipers "abduct" spell specifically aimed at eliminating mech? Answering those two questions should clearly show that TvZ wouldnt be imbalanced by making mech stronger ... especially with the new stuff that Zerg gets in HotS. Sure, you might not be able to win against a "HotS-free mech army" with your own "HotS-free Zerg army using the old strategies", but thats kinda the point of an expansion: to change things around and force people to exercise their brains again. The Siege Tank does a whoppping 35 damage against light units ... which kills Zerglings (unless they have 1 armor upgrade and the tank zero attack upgrade), BUT due to the splash damage effect of the Siege Tank it only affects a core radius of 0.4687 "matrices" (which I believe to be "1 matric = 1 building square") which would be less than a 1*1 square ... i.e. about 3 Zerglings at most. The rest of the Zerglings get half or quarter damage. In BW the "core damage" was 70 and thus Zerglings got killed up to the secondary radius and thats not too much. One of the problematic Protoss units for a tank is the Zealot, because it is light and - most likely - has charge, so it only takes at most 1 shot per Siege Tank ... not enough to really damage any of them, not even the ones at the center of a blast. Since the Zealot has only 50 shield and 100 hit points you wont get far with an EMP grenade. Another problematic Protoss unit is the Blink Stalker, because you can basically do the same as a Zealot: get into the "no attack zone" of the Siege tank with maybe 1 hit taken and the EMP ammunition wont really change much here either. Liquipedia: Siege Tank splash damage
In siege mode, Siege Tanks do 35 (+15 against armored) splash damage. This damage has three different levels: units (whether hostile or friendly) within .4687 matrices of the target are dealt full damage, units between .4687 and .7812 matrices of the target receive 50% of full damage, and units between .7812 and 1.25 matrices from the target suffer just 25% of the full damage. The change to TEST would be going for a BW setting of 70 damage (no bonus damage) again. Since we dont have Steppes of War anymore in the map pool this would enable mech players to leave some tanks at home to defend alternative routes of access and prevent runbys while the main force goes to attack the enemy. This *might work* AND it is a simple change, BUT sadly Blizzard doesnt do any testing of the sort. What do you think is easier to balance, increased splash radius or increased base damage? This is an honest question. I do believe that Tanks need a damage buff (although I don't think they need a DPS buff) and so I'm curious on which is a worse thing happening for non-Protoss matchups, increased radius or increased base damage. Like, is it possible that a wider splash radius paired with a slight damage buff (40? 45?) is better than the same radius with a massive damage buff (35 => 70) Also, would increasing the damage too much make it bad for the PvT side of things? As much as blink stalkers seem strong against tanks, Stalkers actually melt immediately the moment the zealots stop tanking fire. Would buffing tank damage to actually kill of the wave of zealots break the matchup since once the zealots are gone the entire Protoss comps disappears with them? All of this assuming of course that Marine/Tank play doesn't absolutely break the Zerg matchup once Tanks deal 70 damage. (Assuming, of course, that Infestors are nerfed enough to fix the metagame as a whole--specifically ZvP)
Damage should clearly be the better choice, because with an increased radius you only deal the same low damage to every unit hit, so you still need LOTS of Siege Tanks to deal with Protoss units. If you increase the damage beyond a certain point it wont matter anymore for T/Z, because Zerglings/Marines die in one shot anyways. There are obviously certain "benchmark points" where Zerglings/Marines are killed in the 50%/25% radius as well ...
70 damage = Zerglings get 1-shotted in the secondary radius
75 damage = Zealots get 2-shotted in the core radius (more or less 1-3 Zealots I'd say) while Sentries arent 1-shotted (until the Siege Tank gets to full damage upgrades)
90 damage = Marines without Combat Shield OR with Stim get killed in the secondary radius (which obviously affects you as well ...)
So I would say the damage they should aim for is 70-75 damage WITHOUT ANY BONUS DAMAGE. The Siege Tank needs to be good against all units (just like the Ultralisk) and not just armored targets (+ Show Spoiler +which makes no sense in real life physics anyways, because shrapnel from an explosive blast doesnt really pierce armor well while it cuts through lightly armored things well enough
The adjustment should come through damage alone, because the area is ok-ish and the "added area" from Zerglings being 1-shotted in another radius is a bigger additional area than the first area already and the bigger your total radius the bigger this increase gets and this makes it more difficult to adjust the damage.
To make it more viable to do the usual bunker-turret support for a siege line Blizzard could also slightly improve the "Building armor" upgrade to reduce the "splash effect" (of any splash damage) by 1 category, so it would take 50% damage if the buildings are in the primary radius and 25% damage in the secondary and none in the tertiary radius.
On December 22 2012 07:07 XXXSmOke wrote:
How many of you guys would accept this trade
Removal of Planetary
Tanks dmg buffed to 70.
????
I feel that if Blizz buffs tanks to that damage right now, the problem is that tank+PF turtling would get to an all time extreme. And at that point, if every Terran turtles for 40 minutes your not going to see an exciting game even if we get to finally use our "Mech" units. Part of mech is being able to be aggressive. In BW a lot of the common builds involved a 5 minute push with rines tanks and vultures right off the bat, then defend a bit to get your third and then it was balls to the walls again taking the whole map and attacking.
Why should Terrans have to "pay for a buff"? Zerg are getting buffed in HotS by A LOT; Protoss are getting buffed in HotS by A LOT and Terrans should pay for it by losing something that isnt used anyways?
On December 22 2012 11:18 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 11:01 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 22 2012 09:28 submarine wrote:
I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks. From what I've experienced on beta, if my opponent doesn't make Immortals, Siege Tanks are actually really good vs every other Protoss ground unit provided Helbats are utilized to tank Zealots with. I'm absolutely confident that a buff to the Siege Tank is not needed if the Immortal was nerfed so that it was no longer such a hard counter. I agree - tanks are okay'ish against most other stuff. However, still not as good as they should be. I would like to see 6-7 well positioned tanks + 3-4 mines be extremely cost effective against a large toss army (so terran can defend multitple positions at once). Mech should be extremely cost effective against toss ground so that it is necccesary for toss to abuse its immobility.
Tanks are only OK-ish if you bring ALL OF THEM and this leaves you open at all of your bases and completely vulnerable to runbys. That is stupid and not OK.
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On December 22 2012 09:28 submarine wrote:
I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks.
1. Nope ... too complicated and Terrans already have the "siege/unsiege" to use skillfully with the tank already.
2. Nope ... smells too much of "we are bad at game design so we have to add specific things to correct one bad thing". Abilities which are designed against one race specifically are terrible!
3. Thats more or less done by simply increasing the damage already and since the central splash area is so tiny already you are hitting 1-3 units there only anyways. The Siege Tank is SUPPOSED TO deal AREA damage and not single target damage and Zealots / Stalkers come in huge numbers anyways.
4. Nope ... Terrans already have the most work to do and we know how terrible of a concept of a "required spell/ability" to make a unit work is ... Forcefield and Fungal Growth ... please dont add another one of those.
So altogether pretty bad suggestions that wont work IMO.
On December 22 2012 03:12 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 02:57 Hider wrote:On December 22 2012 02:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers
Thors are (just now) good support
Hellbats are good buffers
Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor. Shoudn't be that. If terran needs a couple of planetaries to move out it incentivizes upper turtling too much (boring games). Rather, terran should be able to defend locations with a couple of mines and well positioned tanks. I think removing mules and planateries + buffing tanks + nerfing immortals will make tvp so much more interesting. Sackings scvs and massing orbituals + planataries is just boring game play. Maybe its fun the fist 1-2 times you watch it, but over the long haul its stupidly boring. Also, it makes no sense that we shouldn't be allowed to say what we want, just because Blizzard is incompetent and doesn't understand proper game design. Building up 6 bases while harassing with hellion/vulture drops while your immobile tanks turtle is exactly what happened in BW. There is no difference between defending your base with 1-2 tanks and mines versus defending your base with a 1-2 planateries and some support. Whether you defend your sixth with a Planetary or whether you defend it with a Siege Tank makes no tactical difference other than nostalgia.
You CANT defend most bases with 1-2 Planetaries due to the size requirement of the buildings and the need of Terrans to have A LOT OF SPACE for production buildings ... lots more than any of the other races.
On December 22 2012 03:12 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 02:57 Hider wrote:On December 22 2012 02:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers
Thors are (just now) good support
Hellbats are good buffers
Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor. Shoudn't be that. If terran needs a couple of planetaries to move out it incentivizes upper turtling too much (boring games). Rather, terran should be able to defend locations with a couple of mines and well positioned tanks. I think removing mules and planateries + buffing tanks + nerfing immortals will make tvp so much more interesting. Sackings scvs and massing orbituals + planataries is just boring game play. Maybe its fun the fist 1-2 times you watch it, but over the long haul its stupidly boring. Also, it makes no sense that we shouldn't be allowed to say what we want, just because Blizzard is incompetent and doesn't understand proper game design. For example, does the Goliath answer the Broodlord problem? Actually no, because Broodlords don't kill Terran as much as Infestors do. Without Infestors Broodlords die to stimmed marines. Goliaths would add NOTHING to TvZ. What about TvT? Lategame TvT is already a fun spectacle incorporating all units except the Reaper. It doesn't really *need* fixing. The Goliath doesn't add anything to 66% of the matchups and its role is already taken up by the Viking in the TvP matchup. And yet people keep asking for it pretending like what is stopping mech is sudden Carrier transitions when in truth the zealot warp ins kill Mech more often. Why suggest the Goliath then? Nostalgia. Much like asking, no, REQUIRING the siege tank to be the main force in TvP while pretending that what they're asking for is positional play. If what is wanted is positional play--lets see what other tools we have for positional play. Simply asking for the Siege tank to be buffed to the point that all protoss units melt to it is just nostalgia talking. There are other options--no one seems to want to talk about those other options.
Broodlords can do the killing and Infestors are "multipliers" which synergize with that, but Zerg DONT NEED them because of the ridiculously low Siege Tank damage which kills Zerglings and Banelings only in the relatively tiny central radius. If you play mech you dont have / arent supposed to have stimmed Marines in large enough numbers and should have a "mech unit" capable of doing the same job. The Thor doesnt do that. Before you say anything like "but stimmed Marines are good" ... its all about the buildings required to build the units and as a mech player you basically want to have only 1 Barracks and not 3 with Reactors to spam Marines.
Mech needs a useful mineral dump unit (which the Hellion isnt due to its terribly restricted damage) and a good and flexible anti-air/anti-infantry unit (which the Thor isnt). So ... the Goliath is NEEDED (and the Vulture).
So which other option are there? You say "lets talk" but refrain from giving any ... and I see none.
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Repost from widow mines and space control:
On December 22 2012 15:24 SolidHaze wrote:
This thread should really be under hots TvP mech thread. anyways of all the mech units widow mines have the least versatility and the least transitional value early to mid to late game. Mech lacks a core army and now with the war hound gone his hasn't addressed this with anything but battle hellion mode. I'm a huge supporter for trying to keep hellions as the core army unit and the main mineral dump but come late game they're only used as harassment units. (I'll be it very effective ones) the biggest hole in mech at this point is the core unit late game. It needs to be replenishable versatile and not immobile. The only late game unit that's versatile is the Thor in that UT has aa. What it lacks is well everything else. It's not a Cote unit it's a long range high supply gas heavy splash damage armored unit. Sound familiar? From into late game it has little value for aa anyways. the Thor is a shitty tank. I know they operate completely differently but lets face it, it's not as effective as the tank and it's out of the mid game. Btw I love mech to death. I believe the fact that every unit had two "modes"proves it has capability and promise to be well rounded and versatile. Anything to fill the role of a core unit whether it be adjustments to the hellion, landed Vikings, the war hound again, Thors and their strike cannons, or any combination of those can put it in it's rightful place. the last thing mech fails at is it's shockingly stark transition from hellions into Vikings. This goes for TvZ as well. The Vikings are not versatile however effective. And the timing fit the transition is not a choice or tactic. Is determined by the opposing player. Any alteration to Thors it my dream the alteration of ravens into science vessels cutoffs help smooth the transition. Is not impossible. The war hound did exist once and the seeker missile has changed enough to change the strike cannon. Not to mention tank damage has been Nerf ed for the past four and a half years. The viable versatile vivacious mechanical composition is out there. You just have to dream it.
P.S. Can anyone pm me with replays involving mech, battle mode hellions, and medivacs? I have yet to see it used. If we don't have a science vessel why not heal the damn unit? :-P
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well, mech is possible if you incorporate starport heavily. but thats not true mech... alright, the thing is that you have to think about so much stuff if you play mech vs protoss. toss dictates your army comp, you always have to know what army comp toss has, so you can respond properly. you have to block paths with PFs so stalkers/chargelots cant harass you. in a lategame army have around 7 units to manage, of which 2 are very fragile (tank/raven). there is so much what can go wrong, and the advantages of TvP mech do not outweight it. bio is simply safer, easier, stronger in 80% of the situations.
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On December 22 2012 03:08 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 02:01 Sissors wrote:
I disagree, I dont think you can really fix siege tanks agains toss without making them OP against other races, unless you manage to change something which only affects toss: doing full damage on shields would be a good first step. TvT isnt "another race", so only Zerg is another race in question. - Does Zerg really have problems against mech now? - Isnt the Vipers "abduct" spell specifically aimed at eliminating mech? Answering those two questions should clearly show that TvZ wouldnt be imbalanced by making mech stronger ... especially with the new stuff that Zerg gets in HotS. Sure, you might not be able to win against a "HotS-free mech army" with your own "HotS-free Zerg army using the old strategies", but thats kinda the point of an expansion: to change things around and force people to exercise their brains again. The Siege Tank does a whoppping 35 damage against light units ... which kills Zerglings (unless they have 1 armor upgrade and the tank zero attack upgrade), BUT due to the splash damage effect of the Siege Tank it only affects a core radius of 0.4687 "matrices" (which I believe to be "1 matric = 1 building square") which would be less than a 1*1 square ... i.e. about 3 Zerglings at most. The rest of the Zerglings get half or quarter damage. In BW the "core damage" was 70 and thus Zerglings got killed up to the secondary radius and thats not too much. One of the problematic Protoss units for a tank is the Zealot, because it is light and - most likely - has charge, so it only takes at most 1 shot per Siege Tank ... not enough to really damage any of them, not even the ones at the center of a blast. Since the Zealot has only 50 shield and 100 hit points you wont get far with an EMP grenade. Another problematic Protoss unit is the Blink Stalker, because you can basically do the same as a Zealot: get into the "no attack zone" of the Siege tank with maybe 1 hit taken and the EMP ammunition wont really change much here either.
Neither one of them is really the issue anymore. Blink stalkers not since in a direct fight stalkers are pretty much only toss units countered by tanks (the problem is them running around killing your base without being able to catch up with them besides with hellions, which dont do anything against them), and zealot is countered by hellbats. It is true EMP shells would have limitted effect against them, but it helps, just like it helps against stalkers. I rather see small changes than huge changes.
Lets just stop comparing it to BW, it is a different game. Anyway regarding TvZ, I think viper can be largely countered by good positioning, it is true it might be enough of a reason to boost mech a bit, but you dont want to overdo it. And I dont want TvT to completely invalidate bio play (even though I dont do it myself).
One other option I see is not increasing splash radius as what some want, but increasing single target damage. The problem is that splash is fundamentally less effective against toss, I dont see siege tanks becoming useful vs toss due to larger splash, without it becoming at the very least the only option in TvT/TvZ.
Cant play hots a bit for now, so cant try out further the strategy I have been using, but what I am trying now is going bio mech. For now tried hellbat/thor + marine, but planning when I can play again to try hellbat/tank + marines. Hellbats play the meatshield role against zealots and also tank the siege tanks friendly damage. Marines are nice against immortals. Against toss air switches I am now of the opinion massing marines is simply alot better idea than trying to counter it with mech. Sure it isnt impossible, but also not my favourite idea.
Finally raiding with hellions is fun in the beginning, but later it is impossible without medivacs (due to ease of simcity for toss), and they chronoboost bunch of new probes out anyway in no time. Meanwhile a bunch of stimmed marines simply take out the complete expansion if the toss army isnt near enough. And I have for example had that my army and toss army were at the side of the map in front of each other, bit out of range of each other, and I just stimmed in 20 marines into his main. You can also do that with hellions, but they wont do any damage.
My last game was a TvT, where due to some luck I managed to catch most of my enemies army between two of my armies (main army on one side, reinforcements of mine blocked his army at the other side). That was a really bad situation for him, the frontal assault was only way to get out, and even though his army was way larger than my second blocking force, he couldnt attack it without enormous losses. Then I thought what would happen in a TvP, he would a-move over my much smaller blocking force
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On December 22 2012 13:44 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 09:28 submarine wrote:
I do not agree that the immortal is the only or the biggest problem of the tank right now. It would be OK if the immortal would rape tanks if the tanks had other strenghs. But honestly right now, the only ground units the tank really dominates in TvP are the sentry and the HT. Tanks are effective in TvT and to a certain extend in TvZ because they really kill stuff while that stuff moves from range 13 to range 6. Toss Units in general have a lot of HP, are big and on top of that zealots with charge "autosplit".
To make the siegetank a good unit in TvP it needs to do more damage.
The steps i would like to try are:
1. Give tanks a "hold fire" or "target fire only" command. This will give the Terran the ability to time his shots and aim at certain targets with the first shot. It will also make tanks more useful in late game TvZ against Broodlord infestor.
2. Add a damage buff against shields. Maybe as an upgrade in the fusion core. Maybe even earlier.
3. If thats not enough maybe try to increase the damage dealt to the one unit the tank targets. With that tanks would be better against big units while they would not be a lot better against a lot of small units.
4. Create a good synergy: Maybe add a unit or ability that works well together with the tank. Something that increases the time the enemy has to spent in the dead space between range 6 and range 13. Some ideas: Make the auto turret useful as tank! (More HP more Armor less damage); maybe add a slow effect to another mech unit(mines), maybe even EOF; another idea would be to make hellbats immune or take less friendly fire from tanks. 1. Nope ... too complicated and Terrans already have the "siege/unsiege" to use skillfully with the tank already. 2. Nope ... smells too much of "we are bad at game design so we have to add specific things to correct one bad thing". Abilities which are designed against one race specifically are terrible! 3. Thats more or less done by simply increasing the damage already and since the central splash area is so tiny already you are hitting 1-3 units there only anyways. The Siege Tank is SUPPOSED TO deal AREA damage and not single target damage and Zealots / Stalkers come in huge numbers anyways. 4. Nope ... Terrans already have the most work to do and we know how terrible of a concept of a "required spell/ability" to make a unit work is ... Forcefield and Fungal Growth ... please dont add another one of those. So altogether pretty bad suggestions that wont work IMO. Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 03:12 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 22 2012 02:57 Hider wrote:On December 22 2012 02:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers
Thors are (just now) good support
Hellbats are good buffers
Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor. Shoudn't be that. If terran needs a couple of planetaries to move out it incentivizes upper turtling too much (boring games). Rather, terran should be able to defend locations with a couple of mines and well positioned tanks. I think removing mules and planateries + buffing tanks + nerfing immortals will make tvp so much more interesting. Sackings scvs and massing orbituals + planataries is just boring game play. Maybe its fun the fist 1-2 times you watch it, but over the long haul its stupidly boring. Also, it makes no sense that we shouldn't be allowed to say what we want, just because Blizzard is incompetent and doesn't understand proper game design. Building up 6 bases while harassing with hellion/vulture drops while your immobile tanks turtle is exactly what happened in BW. There is no difference between defending your base with 1-2 tanks and mines versus defending your base with a 1-2 planateries and some support. Whether you defend your sixth with a Planetary or whether you defend it with a Siege Tank makes no tactical difference other than nostalgia. You CANT defend most bases with 1-2 Planetaries due to the size requirement of the buildings and the need of Terrans to have A LOT OF SPACE for production buildings ... lots more than any of the other races. Show nested quote +On December 22 2012 03:12 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 22 2012 02:57 Hider wrote:On December 22 2012 02:40 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle?
Tanks in TvT and TvZ are actually pretty fun and awesome. Should we ruin two matchups simply because we miss a style of play that was in BW?
Even the Widow Mine is now just an awkward version of the Lurker. A short ranged burrowed unit that attacks. Although cheaper, has a crappier attack.
How about scrap the widow mine as a unit and bring back the Warhound. But instead of trying to make it Thor light/anti-mechanical--actually use it to fill gaps in mech play. And by gaps in mech play, I'm not talking about "bring back BW TvP" but I'm actually asking about gaps that Factory compositions, as they are right now, needs.
Tanks are good versus stalkers
Thors are (just now) good support
Hellbats are good buffers
Hellions are good at harass
What is missing? If there isn't enough DPS, then Warhound should be that. If there isn't enough "tanking" then the Warhound could be that (high priority, high armor combat unit, or maybe casts Defensive Matrix, or whatever...), etc...
Let the Terran have a scary deathball--then make it gas heavy enough that in order to get it you'll realistically need 4-6 bases. Games then devolve into Planetaries and turtling as Terran builds up his war machine.
Are these good ideas? Probably not. But you guys are just circle jerking over nostalgia if the only thing you want to talk about is how to make sc2 tanks mimic BW tanks instead of actually trying to deal with the problem at hand--how can we improve the factory unit composition so that it can survive a fight versus protoss, after which we can then "nerf it" by giving it the types of drawbacks that would require "mech play" to circumvent those drawbacks.
For example, people keep talking about mines being this thing that have to be as close to zero supply as possible despite Blizzard saying that they don't want zero supply units--so why not just make them buildings SCVs build quickly on the ground like an actual mine layer would set up. Just because it is a mine doesn't mean it has to come out of the factory.
Or, instead of whining about why we can't have Goliaths we could simply say "I guess Vikings have taken over that role and maybe we shouldn't be doubling up on long range anti-air units"
Let's stop being so distracted guys. If all you guys can do is try to mimic already attempted ideas then you're no worse than the supposedly uncreative Blizzard team you enjoy mocking so viciously. The difference being that they at least make a product while you're simply yelling at a computer monitor. Shoudn't be that. If terran needs a couple of planetaries to move out it incentivizes upper turtling too much (boring games). Rather, terran should be able to defend locations with a couple of mines and well positioned tanks. I think removing mules and planateries + buffing tanks + nerfing immortals will make tvp so much more interesting. Sackings scvs and massing orbituals + planataries is just boring game play. Maybe its fun the fist 1-2 times you watch it, but over the long haul its stupidly boring. Also, it makes no sense that we shouldn't be allowed to say what we want, just because Blizzard is incompetent and doesn't understand proper game design. For example, does the Goliath answer the Broodlord problem? Actually no, because Broodlords don't kill Terran as much as Infestors do. Without Infestors Broodlords die to stimmed marines. Goliaths would add NOTHING to TvZ. What about TvT? Lategame TvT is already a fun spectacle incorporating all units except the Reaper. It doesn't really *need* fixing. The Goliath doesn't add anything to 66% of the matchups and its role is already taken up by the Viking in the TvP matchup. And yet people keep asking for it pretending like what is stopping mech is sudden Carrier transitions when in truth the zealot warp ins kill Mech more often. Why suggest the Goliath then? Nostalgia. Much like asking, no, REQUIRING the siege tank to be the main force in TvP while pretending that what they're asking for is positional play. If what is wanted is positional play--lets see what other tools we have for positional play. Simply asking for the Siege tank to be buffed to the point that all protoss units melt to it is just nostalgia talking. There are other options--no one seems to want to talk about those other options. Broodlords can do the killing and Infestors are "multipliers" which synergize with that, but Zerg DONT NEED them because of the ridiculously low Siege Tank damage which kills Zerglings and Banelings only in the relatively tiny central radius. If you play mech you dont have / arent supposed to have stimmed Marines in large enough numbers and should have a "mech unit" capable of doing the same job. The Thor doesnt do that. Before you say anything like "but stimmed Marines are good" ... its all about the buildings required to build the units and as a mech player you basically want to have only 1 Barracks and not 3 with Reactors to spam Marines. Mech needs a useful mineral dump unit (which the Hellion isnt due to its terribly restricted damage) and a good and flexible anti-air/anti-infantry unit (which the Thor isnt). So ... the Goliath is NEEDED (and the Vulture). So which other option are there? You say "lets talk" but refrain from giving any ... and I see none.
What you say is:
Small changes that address the specific problems tanks have in TvP, won't work. Try to redesign the game from the start by removing race specific designs like wg, mule and injects instead. Sorry, but thats just nonsense. You don't need to buy a new car when your tire is flat. There are some things that will never realistically be changed in SC2. The core race mechanics are one of those.
1. Target fire:
It is a small design change that would really benefit those terrans that put in the effort. You already have to focus fire your tanks if you want them to have a positive influence on the fight.
2. More shield damage:
While i agree that it is sloppy design, i think it is a rather good way of making tanks better against toss without effects on the other MUs. Toss units in general have more hp and are bigger and autosplit. On top of that: Toss can build units anywhere on the map and is able to attack from multiple directions. It is not like they have to because tanks are pretty bad :D. To make AOE damage powerful against them you need a little bit more damage. Just think of storm in PvP.
3. More single fire damage:
That is something that would make tanks better against bigger units with minimal effect on their effectiveness against a lot of small low HP units. The current splash design is not something set in stone. Tanks will not be totally different if they do more damage to that one targeted unit. This would also help tanks a little bit against ultras in late game TvZ. Ultras are stronger now as you might know. + There is a new Zerg caster unit that is very good against tanks.
4. Synergy:
I think it would be pretty sweet if terran had something that would work together with tanks very well. The optimal unit would be a fast unit with rather strong anti air, a lot of hp and weak ground damage and maybe an ability that is somewhat of a counter to immortals. Tanks need a buffer unit that forces the enemy to stay in the siege tank fire. I am not yet convinced that the hellbat is there yet. All the other unit additions and changes do not really aim at that specific weakness of tank based mech.
It would be a very nice dynamic if he toss had to remove this protective screen somehow to trade effective with tanks.
A few guys said that the tank would be OK against toss ground apart from the immortal.
Well, OK is not enough. Tanks are expensive, build slow in an expensive building, they are immobile, have no anti air, have a minimal range and pretty low hp and armor. They better dominate ground units at similar cost. It is not surprising that most of the guys that make mech work in TvP build no tanks. Tanks just do not do their job against toss.
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