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Some mention the tempest countering terran mech but the carrier is much stronger really. Protoss only needs to safely transition into carrier with maybe 1 or 2 tempests and they can easily beat mech. Vikings can cost effectively counter protoss air combinations (morrow is wrong about this) but that doesn't matter. You have to spend so much on air that you can't win the ground fight at the same time as you need a critical mass there. Besides it's evne hard to stay on even economical footing with mech.
Almost any solution that fixes mech TvP breaks mech even more in the other matchups.
TvZ and TvT are must play mech matchups already now, mech just completely outshines bio there with the hellbat now. Why should TvP be 'mechable', mech is fun for now because it was never possible before but if all terran games become mech it's gonna be one sneezefest, especially as mech is still not as interesting as the BW equivalent (mines are less interesting, less cool plays against mech).
Only things that hurt specific protoss things but don't hurt zerg can work to keep this manageable if mech must be playable, haywire missiles and warhounds did that, only something in that direction will work really. Adding in +mechanical bonus damage is just ugly imo though and probably makes TvT completely revolved around such a unit.
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Mech:
![[image loading]](http://aeryssports.com/fishy-situation/files/2012/07/ohNO.jpg)
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 28 2012 03:19 teamhozac wrote:Mech:
You really need to bring avilo into this?
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Throwin this out there, id like to see siege tanks given a nice damage buff but then make the viper come at spire instead of hive so zergs can deal with it.
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Mech is actually really good against toss but it's not like Mech is in TvT or TvZ. You actually need the absolute best army, tonnes of siege tanks, sieged at the right time and a decent engagement to survive against Protoss.You basically need to survive until the late game and that won't happen.
Rather, I think we'll see more biomech comps in TvP. At least with the Hellbat being classed as a biological unit and thus being healable, we can finally put the Factory required to build a Starport to good use.
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If you are sieged up with all your siege tanks in one place and preferably buildings in front of your tanks, and the toss isnt bothered to bring air army but only ground, you can beat his army with a mech army.
However he can remax alot more efficient, but even far more importantly, he has no reason whatsoever to engage that mech army, he has an enormous mobility advantage, especially with time warps that can be placed in the mech army's path, and can just attack everywhere else. (And thats not even including the mothership).
It has a tremendous mobility advantage without actually being weaker in a straight up battle.
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2 extremely simple changes would make Mech 100% viable in TvP:
1.) Siege Tanks deal +25% damage vs shields.
2.) Ground Viking attack changed from 1 attack at 12 damage, to 2 attacks at 7 damage each. In additional, Landed Vikings benefit from mech upgrades rather than air upgrades (in the air they'd still count as air units, similar to how Hellions shift between bio and mech).
The first change substantially increases overall Tank viability vs. Protoss without altering in any way their performance in TvT and TvZ. Now directly engaging a clump of sieged tanks becomes a very bad idea for Protoss ground, which is how it should be. Also, Tanks are no longer super hard-countered by Archons.
The second change makes Landed Vikings an effective counter to Immortal Hardened shields--since 7 damage is below the hardened shield threshold, both attacks will hit at full value, similar to how Zealots work against Immortals. By partially scaling with mech upgrades, Vikings can be more easily incorporated into mech compositions. And unlike marines, landed vikings have equal range to Immortals.
These two straightforward fixes would solve the biggest issues with TvP mech currently--namely that Terran mech doesn't do enough damage vs Toss in a straight fight to justify the huge mobility tradeoff, and that Toss has easy access to extremely hard counters on the ground in Immortals and Archons. Yet they would have minimal effect on other matchups. Combined with Hellbats to kill Chargelots, Mech would be fully capable of beating a Protoss deathball in a straight-up fight, forcing Protoss to rely more on mobility advantages, which is really how it should be.
With Timewarp now in the game, mass bio is not going to be that great in lategame, because bio dies instantly if you can't kite effectively (on the other hand, Timewarp does literally nothing vs sieged tanks and well-positioned hellbats and mines, since they aren't really moving much during fights anyway). Personally, as someone who fucking hates giant bioballs and would much prefer to see Mech as the go-to lategame comp in TvP, I think this is a good thing. But the flip side is if you're improving Toss vs. bio, you HAVE to make mech viable, or Terran will simply lose constantly in TvP.
I think basically everyone, both Terran and Protoss, would rather Terran play a more mech-oriented style in TvP. Bio is cool in early game and even in the midgame, but immense clumps of units endlessly kiting just does not make for fun gameplay or spectating in lategame. Timewarp partially "fixes" this by nerfing giant bioballs vs Toss pretty hard...but in exchange, Mech needs a substantial buff. As a playstyle based around positioning rather than kiting and micro, it is much less vulnerable to Timewarp. If Blizzard wants to jump through hoops making a new unit that fixes Mech in TVP, that isn't total shit like the Warhound was, they're welcome to. But personally I think they have everything they need to fix mech already in the game, they just need to tweak the numbers a bit.
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On October 28 2012 06:05 awesomoecalypse wrote:
1.) Siege Tanks deal +25% damage vs shields.
Now youre talking
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Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it.
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I really like those shield and viking changes. Honestly curious how viking ground mode changes could be nudged to also help mech TvZ, which isn't terrible but it'd mean making vikings to complement thors against muta numbers wouldn't be so terrible, as you could ground them after with some semblance of efficacy.
Really this plays into terran's style of versatility. Zerg can build multiple tech paths and morph as needed and tech switch easily. Protoss can do so somewhat similarly with deciding what to warp in, how to use templar (storm / feedback, or archons?), so giving terran a couple units that can literally change form to suit different needs gives them a similar ability without messing with the core mechanic of their production.
Tank damage doing some bonus to shields (or piercing shields by the same %) is really interesting and an elegant way to alter only one matchup.
Also, Jesus, thor energy bars. It's seeming like a dead horse but the horse is still alive so I guess we just keep swinging.
I don't get people who just think that mech should be bad in one / two matchups. I honestly wasn't around for Brood War and don't know what the metagame was like, but it seems best for everyone (viewer interest and entertainment, player skill showing through, etc.) that as many build paths be as viable as reasonably possible in every matchup. Is it really fun just seeing how executes the same builds over and over? I mean, it -can- be, but I'd love for scouting to become even more important, and for unit compositions to become more diverse and hard to do correctly -- scouting not just for x and y, but how much of x and y?
What if in an engagement I not only had to have the right number of x and y, but let's say the correct number of x in one form while keeping some in another (vikings, for instance) to deal with the engagement properly? Sounds awesome to me. I also love the crossover happening a bit with terran and the hellbat, with them benefiting from medivacs. In beta TvP right now I'm sort of blindly building 1 viking / 1 medivac out of a reactored starport at a time, which feels really interesting.
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It's a game designer's trap to believe that every ability has to be equally useful all the time. An SC scout is far less damage to a game balance than a HotS warhound is. The real goal is to make every match up, interesting and fun. Variety certainly helps in doing that, but it's not the be all end all.
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On October 28 2012 07:07 Resistentialism wrote:
Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it.
the 1/1/1 is so 6 months ago... and these HotS maps are bigger than ever, making the 1/1/1 even less effective than in WoL
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I think tanks doing bonus to +massive might be another option given the archon buff vs hellions and ultra buff against anything on the ground. I guess thors would die faster but they still eat up a number of tank volleys.
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I would never advocate for every ability / unit comp. being always equally useful. But, yes, variety. in SC2 if we talk about variety in a player what do we mean? We mean they can cheese as well as macro. Well, big freaking deal. I dream of hearing a caster say, 'Well he handled that guy's bio timing pretty well, but can he defend against his mech as well?' It's mostly 'Well, he lost that map but maybe this next map favors his race a bit, so...'
Scouting right now in SC2 only seems really important early to sniff out any cheese or early all-ins. Past that, you know what they're doing because you know the metagame. TvZ is the only Terran matchup where this feels like it's in (almost) a good place; out of standard reactored hellions they can go into mech or tank / marine, though the lack of solid mech AA still makes it very iffy-feeling. But that's just one example, I think everyone gets the idea...
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 27 2012 03:31 avilo wrote:
A huge problem right now is mech anti-air...does not exist. I've played a ton of mech lategames now vs protoss, as well as verifying some theories in the unit tester...
A protoss that is able to get up to 16-17 tempests in the lategame...you need a minimum of 26-27 vikings to beat that. There is no other anti-air option for a mech Terran that can fight back to this lategame tempest ball, and with templars underneath it's even more impossible.
This is plain and simply bad and shows that mech does need an anti-air unit that is capable of roaming around much like blizzard's original concept of the warhound. Keep in mind 27 vikings is around the minimum you need to deal with the 16 or so tempests, and with psi storm involved, it's even worse of a scenario. Ghosts will not be able to get in range to EMP because of observers/15 range.
The problem is that right now the only solution is to "make a bajillion vikings." Then, if you trade with the tempests, protoss simply warps in blink stalkers/chargelots/archons and has 3/0/3 ground units vs 0/0 vikings, making any further trade non-existent.
Ironically, tempests+templar vs mech is the same thing as broodlord/infestor vs Terran because the only real answer is "ravens" and we all know how that is a gamble on whether or not you have the time for the energy, bla bla, etc.
27 vikings with 4 point defense drones, vs 17 tempests...27 vikings remain alive after the fight. So point defense drone is technically the counter to tempests in lategame mech vs protoss, but once again, the fact that you're forced to make 8000 vikings that are useless vs everything else is just terrible design and a repeat of wings of liberty.
If people are curious how thors do against Tempests...they are essentially non-existent. 5-6 tempests will 1 shot a thor without the thor ever getting close enough to fire back, and adding in any other DPS from protoss ground, feedback, or storm...thors suck as anti-air.
I hate to be a pain but really don't see what you are talking about by a zealot armor buff you have posted this Over and Over and Over in various threads. And I just don't know what you are talking about.
These are the zealot buffs/nerfs that are listed on liquipedia (if liquipedia is wrong than I apoligize)
Nerf- Zealot build time increased from 33 to 38.
Zealot warp in time increased from 23 to 28. (These two changes were undone in a later patch and then redone in a patch after that)
Nerf- The maximum shield capacity of this unit has been decreased from 60 to 50.
Buff- Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once. (and this doesnt affect siege tanks because they dont move during engagements but did affect the units supporting the tanks as they did move.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Zealot
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Siege_Tank
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On October 28 2012 07:21 teamhozac wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2012 07:07 Resistentialism wrote:
Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it. the 1/1/1 is so 6 months ago... and these HotS maps are bigger than ever, making the 1/1/1 even less effective than in WoL
That's not selling it, thanks. Also why don't you back up your claim about the maps. I don't really know if that's true, myself.
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On October 28 2012 07:07 Resistentialism wrote:
Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it.
111 generally was a few tanks just to force engagements but primaraly infantry based and ravens and banshees were better starport units to build so the viking change that was suggested would do next to nothing for the 111 and as far as the increase in damage is concerned for tanks the solution to that is always just better maps. Plus the core helps out with that a 13 range nexus cannot be picked off by a few 13 range tanks.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 28 2012 07:07 Resistentialism wrote:
Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it.
Make the +25% to shields thing an upgrade on armory and make it take a while to research.
Sorted. Doesn't affect early game and only helps as the game goes on against toss.
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On October 28 2012 08:21 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2012 07:07 Resistentialism wrote:
Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it. Make the +25% to shields thing an upgrade on armory and make it take a while to research. Sorted. Doesn't affect early game and only helps as the game goes on against toss.
win!
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On October 28 2012 08:21 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2012 07:07 Resistentialism wrote:
Just tell me how to do deal with variations on the 1/1/1 and I'd be sold. I can't see the oracle helping versus it. Tempest would be a better idea, but whereas colossus slows down a 1/1/1 and lives or dies slowly against tank creep, a tempest would provoke the terran to rush in, maybe with medivac drops. Colossus and tempest together would shut it down, but that's unrealistic.
Paint me the start of a good picture on how to hold it. Make the +25% to shields thing an upgrade on armory and make it take a while to research. Sorted. Doesn't affect early game and only helps as the game goes on against toss.
It's awful design. An upgrade that literally only affects one matchup?
I'd rather the upgrade buff Tanks dmg straight up.
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EPT
