first of all: blizzard mentioned that harrassment options like mutas, banshees, DTs, dropplay etc. will be buffed. the problem all these units have in HOTS is the widow mine shutting it down hard + the spore change/MsC detection change which were made because of the widow mine effects these units also in the other MUs.
so to sum up the widow mine hitting air and cloaked units affects a lot of harrassment options even in non-terran-MUs. thats a bad thing but pretty easy fixable. the problem is not that the mine does splash-damage to air and cloaked units but it does huge single target damage. so a 25 gas mine will always trade incredibly well even if it kills only 1 single DT/muta/banshee/drop. to fix this you could choose ONE of the TWO following options:
1. Option: Remove hitting Air and Cloaked/Burrowed Units from the Mine.
the obvious and easiest fix would be to remove mines hitting air and cloaked units and reduce their supply to 0,5 or 1. if blizzard doesnt want that there is another solution to the problem.
so: remove hitting air and cloaked. buff splash and supply.
2. Option: Remove the Sinlge Target Damage of the Mine.
right now the mine is costeffective vs all these harrassoptions and kills at least 1 muta/banshee/DT etc. thats a bad thing and needs to be removed which fixes a lot of issues the mine has right now.
this also fixes a huge design flaw the widow mine has: the single target damage of the mine is completely luckbased!! imagine ultra ling running in a mine field. the single target damage now either kills a single ling or does 160 damage to an ultralisk. thats a HUGE difference and 100% luckbased which is a very bad thing in a strategy game! removing single target damage would fix this.
so: remove single target damage. keep splash damage to air, cloak and ground. buff splash damage and supply.
Compensation Buffs:
after the removing of the single target damage you could buff the splash damage of the mine and/or reduce its supply cost. this would make the mine less luckbased, better in the lategame and it fixes a lot of trouble the above mentioned harrassment units/mechanics have in HOTS!
so removing the single target splash damage would solve the problem a lot of harrassment options have and would open up space for buffs to the splash damage or supply cost of the mine and makes it more viable in latergame stages.
whats even more important from a game design point of view: it removes the 100% luckbased singletarget damage from the game! we dont want the GSL to be decided by 9 mines luckily killing 3 ultras (3x160 + 3x35 = 1 dead ultra) with the single target damage because all hit the ultra instead of the lings or none ultra killed but 9 lings got single target fired. there will be situations where the 100% luckbased outcome of the mines single targed damage will decide fights and thats a very huge design flaw that could be fixed by just removing single target damage from the mine.
if that isnt enough or maybe in combination with a splash damage/supply buff:
- add range upgrade for +2 range (so it outranges stalker, marauder, hydras, immortal etc.) - cooldown reduction
TL, DR:
- WM shuts down muta/banshee/DT/dropplay etc. because of single target damage. - single target damage has a huge luck component in big fights - WM is bad in lategame because of high supply and low splash damage - can all be fixed by removing single target damage while lowering supply cost and increasing splash damage (if needed also: cooldown reduction and +2 range upgrade) - WM also is bad design since they completely overlap the turrets role as an antiair, anticloak
I pretty much agree with this post, although I think of it in slightly different terms. I think the widow mine really should have less front-loaded damage and just do a lot of splash. I would honestly be okay if the widow mine did like 80 damage with a larger splash radius and only had like a 20 second cooldown. I feel like that would better suit what it's SUPPOSED to do.
At the moment, the widow mine only feels like it's good at sniping early game units, harassment units, drops, and SOMETIMES getting a lucky shot on a pack of mutas or zerglings and dealing a bunch of damage. I want it to be better at dealing with runbys or being able to mine up a field so that zealots can't charge over it, etc. I honestly think that Blizzard should rethink the design of the widow mine a little and change some of the stats as well as allow it to target fire.
You can aim widow mines right? so i don't think the luck thing is a problem.
I do agree they are slightly too effective in killing cloaked units and the entire role of cloaked units in HotS is fucked now. Cloaked harass is pretty much useless against terran and protoss now considering they always have options to detect. Against zerg cloaked units are still quite strong early on though because forcing spores isn't bad and especially off creep zerg has no options before lair (1 widow mine can delay the third for a long time for example).
I don't think the single target damage should be changed though, without it the unit would suck way too much as you could easily, evena accidentally, set it off to hit only unit and ignore it onwards. If it wouldn't kill zealots/stalkers in one hit it would be pretty damn useless. Against other harass options there are lots of ways to deactivate the mine. For zerg overseers and changelings are great for example, the overseer can take a hit without dying and even help to detect the mine, changelings are even better for it. Protoss can just use hallucinations to set off the mines or use the detection of the MsC to spot any mines and kill them with the stalker range. Granted those things are pretty tricky to do and the risk of harassing becomes too big at the moment i think.
i am pretty sure you cant aim with the mines. they will set off by the first unit that gets in range i think (not 100% sure). you definetly cant turn auto-cast off. so if an ultra ling army moves into a minefield with terran army neither the z player will be able to set off all mines with lings first nor will the terran be able to tell the mines which units to attack --> luckbased play just started and will decide games and tournaments which is horrible. we want skill to be the deciding factor, not luck.
as for the singletarget thing: mines with less supply and more splash damage will be a lot better at killing zealots, stalker or whatever other unit you use to harrass. especially less supply will actually make them used in later game stages which they arent right now because of the 2 supply cost.
On December 02 2012 22:58 Markwerf wrote: You can aim widow mines right? so i don't think the luck thing is a problem.
I do agree they are slightly too effective in killing cloaked units and the entire role of cloaked units in HotS is fucked now. Cloaked harass is pretty much useless against terran and protoss now considering they always have options to detect. Against zerg cloaked units are still quite strong early on though because forcing spores isn't bad and especially off creep zerg has no options before lair (1 widow mine can delay the third for a long time for example).
I don't think the single target damage should be changed though, without it the unit would suck way too much as you could easily, evena accidentally, set it off to hit only unit and ignore it onwards. If it wouldn't kill zealots/stalkers in one hit it would be pretty damn useless. Against other harass options there are lots of ways to deactivate the mine. For zerg overseers and changelings are great for example, the overseer can take a hit without dying and even help to detect the mine, changelings are even better for it. Protoss can just use hallucinations to set off the mines or use the detection of the MsC to spot any mines and kill them with the stalker range. Granted those things are pretty tricky to do and the risk of harassing becomes too big at the moment i think.
1) You cannot target fire with the widow mine. It is completely based on whichever unit it sees first, which is fairly random. Even if you deactivate the missile, it doesn't actually let you target fire.
2) I see no reason for a single mine (75m25g) to trade evenly for a stalker (125m50g). In my opinion, if widow mines were given less front-loaded damage and instead got a larger splash, you could still control space effectively by using 2-3 widow mines to destroy GROUPS of units, which is far more effective zoning than the randomness that happens right now.
On December 02 2012 22:58 Markwerf wrote: You can aim widow mines right? so i don't think the luck thing is a problem.
I do agree they are slightly too effective in killing cloaked units and the entire role of cloaked units in HotS is fucked now. Cloaked harass is pretty much useless against terran and protoss now considering they always have options to detect. Against zerg cloaked units are still quite strong early on though because forcing spores isn't bad and especially off creep zerg has no options before lair (1 widow mine can delay the third for a long time for example).
I don't think the single target damage should be changed though, without it the unit would suck way too much as you could easily, evena accidentally, set it off to hit only unit and ignore it onwards. If it wouldn't kill zealots/stalkers in one hit it would be pretty damn useless. Against other harass options there are lots of ways to deactivate the mine. For zerg overseers and changelings are great for example, the overseer can take a hit without dying and even help to detect the mine, changelings are even better for it. Protoss can just use hallucinations to set off the mines or use the detection of the MsC to spot any mines and kill them with the stalker range. Granted those things are pretty tricky to do and the risk of harassing becomes too big at the moment i think.
1) You cannot target fire with the widow mine. It is completely based on whichever unit it sees first, which is fairly random. Even if you deactivate the missile, it doesn't actually let you target fire.
2) I see no reason for a single mine (75m25g) to trade evenly for a stalker (125m50g). In my opinion, if widow mines were given less front-loaded damage and instead got a larger splash, you could still control space effectively by using 2-3 widow mines to destroy GROUPS of units, which is far more effective zoning than the randomness that happens right now.
just interested why you want it to have less single target damage? you say yourself its completely random/luckbased so why not just remove it completely and buff mine by letting it have more splash damage and less supply cost (or even faster spawning rate)?.
With removing the single target damage i think you get a really big problem: Protoss. Protoss dont care about mines right now. And the Single target damage is the only reason why someone would use mines vs protoss after all. the splash doesnt do anything vs protoss but withg the 160 std you can at least kill 1 stalker so the mine isnt that useless (in the early game).
On December 02 2012 23:11 Tppz! wrote: With removing the single target damage i think you get a really big problem: Protoss. Protoss dont care about mines right now. And the Single target damage is the only reason why someone would use mines vs protoss after all. the splash doesnt do anything vs protoss but withg the 160 std you can at least kill 1 stalker so the mine isnt that useless (in the early game).
you compare 1 mine to 1 stalker. now if you have 10 mines to 10 stalker its a completely different thing.
say you make it 1 supply and 60 damage while removing single target damage:
suddenly 3 mines for 3 supply can kill 10 stalker. before that it would have been 5 mines (due to shield regeneration) = 10 supply to kill those 10 stalker. thats a 7 supply difference needed which is huge.
mines will actually become a lot more useful vs protoss with less supply in later game stages. 10 mines in an area? well protoss will need some time to kill that which gives time to reposition your army (if mines are still too bad at delaying pushes: increase the mine hp while increasing their burrow time so they dont become OP in early game aggressive play). space control including the denial/significant weaking of runbys and buying time for your army to reposition is exactly what the mine should do. and right now it doesnt do that because of low splash and high supply. what it does do is shut down a lot of harrass like DT/banshee/muta/drop play because of their high single target damage which also has a huge luck component in big fights.
If it doesn't single shot Protoss units, it has to outrange them. Something like 6 (or maybe 7) range should do. It should require a decision to clear out a "mine field," not a move with detection at 8 minutes. Reduce the damage to 40 and reduce the cooldown to 20s, and reduce the supply to 1.
Right now, the issue with using them is that Protoss can just clear a field with an obs+stalker, making them useless for controlling anything other than an expansion. Zerg have probably the most easily obtainable map vision and best options of clearing them out for "free" with their midgame and lategame units. Also, there are openings available to Z and P that will completely shut down widow mine rushes, with a tradeoff in reduced economic play, which seems reasonable.
its fine that they are outranged by stalker. they will prevent the harrass units (mineral dump units) from doing runbys: zerglings, zealots, helions, marines which all dont outrange the mine. i think this is also the reason they have range 5: so they can kill all mineral dumps in the game.
cooldown reduction might also be a nice compensation (although i think the high supply cost is the main problem).
On December 02 2012 23:38 aksfjh wrote: If it doesn't single shot Protoss units, it has to outrange them. Something like 6 (or maybe 7) range should do. It should require a decision to clear out a "mine field," not a move with detection at 8 minutes. Reduce the damage to 40 and reduce the cooldown to 20s, and reduce the supply to 1.
Right now, the issue with using them is that Protoss can just clear a field with an obs+stalker, making them useless for controlling anything other than an expansion. Zerg have probably the most easily obtainable map vision and best options of clearing them out for "free" with their midgame and lategame units. Also, there are openings available to Z and P that will completely shut down widow mine rushes, with a tradeoff in reduced economic play, which seems reasonable.
I'm also of the opinion that Widow Mines should shoot farther. The one caveat I would introduce is that might be too strong in the early game to take guaranteed damage or whatnot, but that's still debatable and even seeing it tested would be nice. If a 6 or 7 range mine WAS too strong, then you can move the range to an upgrade and push back the timing of a fully-powered widow mine.
That aside, I agree that the ridiculous single-target damage and the hit-or-miss splash coupled with the fact that you can a-move across the field with a stalker and following observer to clear out mines is limiting the mine's use. If the single-target damage wasn't so high you could probably engage mines with two or three units well spread out, which would be fine, I think.
On December 02 2012 23:11 Tppz! wrote: With removing the single target damage i think you get a really big problem: Protoss. Protoss dont care about mines right now. And the Single target damage is the only reason why someone would use mines vs protoss after all. the splash doesnt do anything vs protoss but withg the 160 std you can at least kill 1 stalker so the mine isnt that useless (in the early game).
you compare 1 mine to 1 stalker. now if you have 10 mines to 10 stalker its a completely different thing.
say you make it 1 supply and 60 damage while removing single target damage:
suddenly 3 mines for 3 supply can kill 10 stalker. before that it would have been 5 mines (due to shield regeneration) = 10 supply to kill those 10 stalker. thats a 7 supply difference needed which is huge.
mines will actually become a lot more useful vs protoss with less supply in later game stages. 10 mines in an area? well protoss will need some time to kill that which gives time to reposition your army (if mines are still too bad at delaying pushes: increase the mine hp while increasing their burrow time so they dont become OP in early game aggressive play). space control including the denial/significant weaking of runbys and buying time for your army to reposition is exactly what the mine should do. and right now it doesnt do that because of low splash and high supply. what it does do is shut down a lot of harrass like DT/banshee/muta/drop play because of their high single target damage which also has a huge luck component in big fights.
the trick for blizzard is to make the mine useful against both protoss and zerg though. Too much splash and it will destroy zerg way too much, that's why it has the high single target damage and 'ok' splash. The splash makes it good against zerg, the single target damage against toss. I don't think there is any way the mine can only do splash and be good against toss without being broken against zerg, zerg units simply have lower hp and clump up more.
the role of the mine just sucks now because it's not really a zoning out unit but more a suprise gimmick like baneling mines. Mines prevent drops and harass from expensive harass units like banshee/dt and possibly muta but they don't actually stop zealot, stalker, roach harass etc. Sure you kill a unit effectively but they can still march through and do good damage. I just miss something like the lurker that can actually stop entire squads of units if not properly dealt with while at the same time not completely removing the specific harass units from matchups. In other words I'd rather see the widow mine more effective against ground units and clumps of more hitpoints but actually remove it's ability against air and cloaked units without detection. More damage but easier to remove would also be great, for example having a bigger delay before it shoots that you can actually kill it with units with small range (muta's, roaches especially) but being more effective when you ignore it.
On December 02 2012 23:44 Decendos wrote: its fine that they are outranged by stalker. they will prevent the harrass units (mineral dump units) from doing runbys: zerglings, zealots, helions, marines which all dont outrange the mine. i think this is also the reason they have range 5: so they can kill all mineral dumps in the game.
cooldown reduction might also be a nice compensation (although i think the high supply cost is the main problem).
That's not the problem though. For the most part, you can protect your expansions from runbys with good simcity, planetaries, and/or a small group of units. I imagine the hellbat should help out with this a ton if it's really needed.
What would help mech is something that slows down the opponent a lot if they choose an alternate avenue of attack. If you have to bring along your siege units or are forced to take damage to clear a minefield, then it gives Terran the time to reposition if needed/possible.
Widow mine is a unit that will be really good up to the first months of play (after release) but as soon as people start getting better dealing with them they will become way way worse.
Removing their AA dmg and taking away their ability to hit cloaked unit could work, but then Terran would need a new AA mech unit..... I'm up for it.
1. Option: Remove hitting Air and Cloaked/Burrowed Units from the Mine.
I don't see your point ? WM is good because you don't need to build marine to be deffensif agains those harass and it's more easy to do a factory strategy.
2. Option: Remove the Sinlge Target Damage of the Mine.
Fist of all, the WM is not a single target damage, look the video. A zerg allin is stop with only 4 mines and the terran was not wallin!!!
In conclusion: this is a QQ thread
The WM is a good deffensif unit and help for the mech transition.
I don't see your point ? WM is good because you don't need to build marine to be deffensif agains those harass and it's more easy to do a factory strategy.
2. Option: Remove the Sinlge Target Damage of the Mine.
Fist of all, the WM is not a single target damage, look the video. A zerg allin is stop with only 4 mines and the terran was not wallin!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8t6UA6Wr0U
In conclusion: this is a QQ thread
The WM is a good deffensif unit and help for the mech transition.
lol did you even read the OP? seems like you dont understand a word that has been said in this thread...
On December 02 2012 22:23 Decendos wrote: first of all: blizzard mentioned that harrassment options like mutas, banshees, DTs, dropplay etc. will be buffed. the problem all these units have in HOTS is the widow mine shutting it down hard + the spore change/MsC detection change which were made because of the widow mine effects these units also in the other MUs.
so to sum up the widow mine hitting air and cloaked units affects a lot of harrassment options even in non-terran-MUs. thats a bad thing but pretty easy fixable. the problem is not that the mine does splash-damage to air and cloaked units but it does huge single target damage. so a 25 gas mine will always trade incredibly well even if it kills only 1 single DT/muta/banshee/drop. to fix this you could do 2 easy things:
1. Option: Remove hitting Air and Cloaked/Burrowed Units from the Mine.
the obvious and easiest fix would be to remove mines hitting air and cloaked units and reduce their supply to 0,5 or 1. if blizzard doesnt want that there is another solution to the problem.
2. Option: Remove the Sinlge Target Damage of the Mine.
right now the mine is costeffective vs all these harrassoptions and kills at least 1 muta/banshee/DT etc. thats a bad thing and needs to be removed which fixes a lot of issues the mine has right now.
this also fixes a huge design flaw the widow mine has: the single target damage of the mine is completely luckbased!! imagine ultra ling running in a mine field. the single target damage now either kills a single ling or does 160 damage to an ultralisk. thats a HUGE difference and 100% luckbased which is a very bad thing in a strategy game! removing single target damage would fix this.
Compensation Buffs:
after the removing of the single target damage you could buff the splash damage of the mine and/or reduce its supply cost. this would make the mine less luckbased, better in the lategame and it fixes a lot of trouble the above mentioned harrassment units/mechanics have in HOTS!
so removing the single target splash damage would solve the problem a lot of harrassment options have and would open up space for buffs to the splash damage or supply cost of the mine and makes it more viable in latergame stages.
whats even more important from a game design point of view: it removes the 100% luckbased singletarget damage from the game! we dont want the GSL to be decided by 9 mines luckily killing 3 ultras (3x160 + 3x35 = 1 dead ultra) with the single target damage because all hit the ultra instead of the lings or none ultra killed but 9 lings got single target fired. there will be situations where the 100% luckbased outcome of the mines single targed damage will decide fights and thats a very huge design flaw that could be fixed by just removing single target damage from the mine.
if that isnt enough or maybe in combination with a splash damage/supply buff:
- add range upgrade for +2 range (so it outranges stalker, marauder, hydras, immortal etc.) - cooldown reduction
TL, DR:
- WM shuts down muta/banshee/DT/dropplay etc. because of single target damage. - single target damage has a huge luck component in big fights - WM is bad in lategame because of high supply and low splash damage - can all be fixed by removing single target damage while lowering supply cost and increasing splash damage (if needed also: cooldown reduction and +2 range upgrade)
Threads like this are dangerous, since they can lead incompetent players into believing there is truth in what you are saying.
Widow mines don't shut down muta,banshee, dt nor drop play. They just make it harder to pull off and more exciting to watch.
Widow mines are a way for a terran to safely transition into eco mech play, just like toss's mothership core allows him to avoid having to go robo to deal with cloaked units, and queen range has been allowing zerg to do eco cheeses for many months. Is banshee play not viable against zerg? It is still viable and it gives map control and has many pluses. Is dark templar play not viable against zerg? Muta play is still viable vs terran, all you need is bring an overseer and avoid mine clusters, or snipe lone mines.
I can agree that late game mine is very weak: so I really like the +2 range upgrade you suggested.
Also, the target of the mine isn't luck based. It's based on how well the enemy player is, i.e. will he send lings in first or not. This encourages micro. Hurray!
EPT
