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!
well shut down means nobody will do it anymore vs mines because its horribly ineffective to trade 100 or 125 gas for 25 gas. that is the problem. you say: bring an overseer and snipe the mine with a muta. first of all: all mutas now move 40% slower because they always have to wait for the overseer. 2nd: you lose 1 muta because of the single target damage. always. even if you play perfect, bring overseer and avoid splash you still lose 1 muta. and thats with PERFECT play. so the mine has paid for 4 new mines if it kills 1 muta or 1 banshee or 1 DT or 1 dropship.
so by shut down i mean no one will even start to go mutas/banshees/DTs/drops vs mines anymore because it is just ineffective since 1 mine always kills at least 1 muta/banshee/DT/drop. thats no problem balancewise since instead of mutas you can go infestors, instead of banshee or DTs you can go for non-harrass play and instead of bio with mass drop play you can go marine tank or mech. but it removes a lot of strategies from the game and the worst thing: it removes the most fun and skillful strategies from the game or at least is a very huge nerf to those. which blizzard btw realized and stated they will buff mutas/banshees/DTs and dropplay some days ago!
On December 03 2012 00:51 blarkh wrote: 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!
nope. thats why i wrote it is luckbased in big fights. you are right for small fights or alone mines that arent protected by other units. thats where the mine increases micro.
but imagine a marine tank army that has some mines spread out in between units. now the zerg attacks this army with an ultra ling army. you cant send in single lings because lings are killed before they activate the mine. so zerg now moves in with his army and what happens is that the single target damage either hits lings or ultras which is completely luck based but has a huge effect on the fight. sometimes terran will be lucky, hit ultras with the single target damage and win the fight, sometimes terran will be unlucky, hit lings with the single target damage and lose the fight. i dont want a big tournament win be based on being lucky or unlucky but on skill!
I wrote the following up for a different thread but it seems applicable here so heres what I want done to the widow mine
widow mine
-can no longer attack cloaked and burrowed units without detection (reasoning: window mine being able to hit cloaked units is unneeded and make things too difficult for the opponent for no meaningful reason.)
-Attack range increased from 5 to 6. Activate mine delay reduced from 3 seconds to 2 Delay from when mine is triggered to when the pay load hits increased by 1 second. (reasoning: Window mine are not that effective vs protoss and one of the reasons is stalker/immortal with their 6 range can safely take them out. So the changes to the attack range and burrow time of the mine help alleviate this problem where as the increased time form mine being trigger to mine hitting helps balance this out and promote micro at the same time)
-Delay from when mine is triggered to when the pay load hits increased by 1 second on top of what I already suggested when targeting air units. (reasoning: It is unreasonable for air units to always have slow detectors lagging behind them just because of the threat that they could fly over a mine field at any time. For example even if you always paired a flock of mutalisks with an overseer the overseer is much slower then the mutalisks even if it has the speed upgrade, meaning the threat of widow mines possibly being anywhere slows down the mutalisk flock to only move at the speed of an overseer, therefore negating the point of the mutalisk's high speed. So making the delay between trigger and hit being much slower for air units allows your more speedy air units to safely fly around assuming you have the awareness and micro skills needed to pull back or focus fire the second you trigger the mine.)
This won't completely solve the problem, but it might help:
Banshee moves into range of WM. WM fires. If the player reacts fast enough, and moves the banshee backwards right before the WM hits, the fire will either miss (and the banshee takes no damage) or it will hit but deal reduced damage.
Making a 2 supply mine that hits air units was a mistake from the beginning. Mines should be cheap board control against ground units. They should not hard-counter everything flying, much less be most effective against flying units (which cost gas and stack up).
Ideally the mine would be free (or very cheap) on supply, and not hit air units. Its damage can be adjusted, but that part really is irrelevant.
I don't think the OP realizes one of the main goals of the mine is to make mech TvP and mech in general more viable. How does it do this?
It covers a lot of the bases that wings of liberty mech could not cover. Void rays, banshees, lots of early all-ins - the mine allows you to pour your vespene gas resources into factories now instead of needing a starport, a thor, missile turrets, marines, etc.
This is basically the one and only thing the mine does very well. Starport + viking = 225 vespene gas solely to be safe against void ray all-ins if you were "opening mech" in wings of liberty. Or you'd need an armory and a thor which is 300 vespene gas, and 6 more supply, as well as not having units.
Same deal with TvT and TvZ. A single banshee often times in wings of liberty forces you to make a starport, it forces a viking/raven, now that 300 vespene gas or more can go towards 2-3 factories, which is a good step to make mech more viable.
None of your suggestions are good because you don't understand the above concept. If the mine were not able to deal with banshee or void rays appropriately, mech would basically be the same as wings of liberty and you would need the starport, viking, ebay, missile turret, etc. etc. the list goes on.
I agree with you and i'm sure 99% of Terrans that have played beta extensively at masters and above will agree the mine is absolutely trash lategame, and overall is very inefficient.
I also agree that the single target damage is very, very bad and it should actually deal more splash but that will not happen because the community is too vocal on the mine being OP at this very moment even though a lot of people have no clue what they're talking about, or play at too low of a level to understand how often the mine becomes "useless."
But yeah, your suggestion is very bad for allowing more mech viability in HOTS, it would be a step backwards towards wings of liberty where you get punished for even attempting multiple factories.
Avilo, I agree that the factory is missing certain things that it needs to have, such as being able to defend against void ray all-ins, etc. etc. However it is weird to have a mine serve this purpose. It would be simpler, more effective, and a more elegant solution to have an anti-air unit in addition to the mine. The mine has stepped into the role of being factory anti-air, which it performs only because there is nothing better.
Even if the mine did not attack air, it would still be useful for holding all-ins using ground units. And if it cost less supply you could have other units without your board control assets eating into your actual mech army.
It is a strongly good idea for WM to hit air, until such a fast-moving pain like muta exists. Teran has no good AA in its arsenal except holy-slow Thor, neither has protos (that's another story). Now, with WM, it's way more complicated for Z fly between bases (3-4) and shut down the economy expanding behind that. I insist that WM should hit air, unless some good answer to muta will be presented.
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 ....
In conclusion: this is a QQ thread
The WM is a good deffensif unit and help for the mech transition.
"defensif"
tryhard obvious troll is tryhard. Seriously, I wish mods would start punishing people like this. He is blatantly just trying to bait angry replies.
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 ....
In conclusion: this is a QQ thread
The WM is a good deffensif unit and help for the mech transition.
"defensif"
tryhard obvious troll is obvious. Seriously, I wish mods would start punishing people like this. He is blatantly just trying to bait angry replies.
On December 03 2012 07:20 avilo wrote: I don't think the OP realizes one of the main goals of the mine is to make mech TvP and mech in general more viable. How does it do this?
It covers a lot of the bases that wings of liberty mech could not cover. Void rays, banshees, lots of early all-ins - the mine allows you to pour your vespene gas resources into factories now instead of needing a starport, a thor, missile turrets, marines, etc.
This is basically the one and only thing the mine does very well. Starport + viking = 225 vespene gas solely to be safe against void ray all-ins if you were "opening mech" in wings of liberty. Or you'd need an armory and a thor which is 300 vespene gas, and 6 more supply, as well as not having units.
Same deal with TvT and TvZ. A single banshee often times in wings of liberty forces you to make a starport, it forces a viking/raven, now that 300 vespene gas or more can go towards 2-3 factories, which is a good step to make mech more viable.
None of your suggestions are good because you don't understand the above concept. If the mine were not able to deal with banshee or void rays appropriately, mech would basically be the same as wings of liberty and you would need the starport, viking, ebay, missile turret, etc. etc. the list goes on.
I agree with you and i'm sure 99% of Terrans that have played beta extensively at masters and above will agree the mine is absolutely trash lategame, and overall is very inefficient.
I also agree that the single target damage is very, very bad and it should actually deal more splash but that will not happen because the community is too vocal on the mine being OP at this very moment even though a lot of people have no clue what they're talking about, or play at too low of a level to understand how often the mine becomes "useless."
But yeah, your suggestion is very bad for allowing more mech viability in HOTS, it would be a step backwards towards wings of liberty where you get punished for even attempting multiple factories.
It being designed to help open mech smoother is nice but even that role isn't filled in an elegant way..
In TvZ you could already open mech easily and there were nice interesting moves from both sides early on as zerg could occasionally do roach pressure etc. Widow mines make roach aggression just laughable, even more so they make muta's too bad.. Result widow mine strenghtens an early game that needed no boost in this matchup making it more stale by taking away interesting zerg options
In TvP you still don't want to open mech. Mines are too unreliable to hold off any attack because stalkers/voids/immortals outrange them and the MsC is easy mobile detection early on. Even against stuff like a 4 gate or 6 gate I doubt the usefulness of a widow mine because they tend to kill just 1 zealot which is often the one being targeted already.. Result that widow mine does basically nothing here except being a gimmick, you can't rely on it for defenses at all.
In TvT the whole starport becomes less of a neccesity and much less useful as well. This along with the other mech buffs definately forces the matchup more towards mech, probably making it a must like it was for some time in the WoL era before the hellion nerf. I don't think this is good for the fun of the matchup though, i always liked to see the opening variety of TvT with banshee's, drops, FE's etc. With widow mine I feel the early plays become too passive or even worse, too gimmicky. Widow mine defense against drops or units like banshee is so harsh, either the banshee get's instantly killed or it avoids the mine and can rack up a lot of kills if you skipped a good marine count.
All in all it's a trash unit imo; way too good against zerg, removing action in TvT and practically useless against protoss.
It just doesn't work well what it was intended for, it's not a unit that can zone out area's, buy time or create cool positional play because it takes so much supply. Instead it's gimmick which power lies mostly in the earlygame and then quickly fades off.
There too many flaws with the mine but I find it being a fun unit to mess around with. I personally given up on the possibility of mech. I dont forsee it ever being viable as much as it saddens me. It is just something I have to accept and believe everyone should accept atm because there are just too many thing in this game that counters it
On December 03 2012 07:20 avilo wrote: I don't think the OP realizes one of the main goals of the mine is to make mech TvP and mech in general more viable. How does it do this?
It covers a lot of the bases that wings of liberty mech could not cover. Void rays, banshees, lots of early all-ins - the mine allows you to pour your vespene gas resources into factories now instead of needing a starport, a thor, missile turrets, marines, etc.
This is basically the one and only thing the mine does very well. Starport + viking = 225 vespene gas solely to be safe against void ray all-ins if you were "opening mech" in wings of liberty. Or you'd need an armory and a thor which is 300 vespene gas, and 6 more supply, as well as not having units.
Same deal with TvT and TvZ. A single banshee often times in wings of liberty forces you to make a starport, it forces a viking/raven, now that 300 vespene gas or more can go towards 2-3 factories, which is a good step to make mech more viable.
None of your suggestions are good because you don't understand the above concept. If the mine were not able to deal with banshee or void rays appropriately, mech would basically be the same as wings of liberty and you would need the starport, viking, ebay, missile turret, etc. etc. the list goes on.
I agree with you and i'm sure 99% of Terrans that have played beta extensively at masters and above will agree the mine is absolutely trash lategame, and overall is very inefficient.
I also agree that the single target damage is very, very bad and it should actually deal more splash but that will not happen because the community is too vocal on the mine being OP at this very moment even though a lot of people have no clue what they're talking about, or play at too low of a level to understand how often the mine becomes "useless."
But yeah, your suggestion is very bad for allowing more mech viability in HOTS, it would be a step backwards towards wings of liberty where you get punished for even attempting multiple factories.
i think you misunderstood the OP. its option 1 and option 2. so EITHER option1: remove air/cloak while making it less supply/higher splash OR option 2: remove single target damage while less supply/higher splash. you actually say it shouldnt single target damage but more splash damage and less supply. exactly what i am suggesting in the OP. i never said it should hit ground only. option 2 (which is the more realistic one anyway) suggests to remove single target damage and increase splash damage while lowering supply.
so yeah you wouldnt be able to oneshot a banshee but thats stupid anyway. the opponent who goes banshee invests 300 gas if he goes vor starport and 2 banshees. with cloak its 500 gas. its retarded that the opponent is able to counter that with 2x25 gas mines. like really retarded. its not like you cant go mech if you have to make say 8 mines = 200 gas to counter his 300 or 500 gas banshees.
so if the mine would only do say 60 splash and 1 supply but no single target damage you would need 3 mines = 75 gas to counter the banshee. in reality 2 mines + 1 turret will be more than enough per base so you will still be able to trade superefficiently if your opponent goes banshee. mech would still be incredibly viable vs air oppenings since you would still trade a lot better with a mine + turret combination than your opponent who invest a lot in his tech but it would at least keep banshee, muta and dropplay in the game.
On December 03 2012 17:27 GoldenH wrote: Any removal of single target damage just means you've brought back the shredder. Which gives even worse domination of mineral lines. So no.
You can absolutely have mech in SC2. It just is something the game has to be built around, instead of trying to duct tape it on later.
a shredder that still hits air and cloaked units and shoots only every 40 seconds...so no its completely different.
On December 03 2012 07:27 ledarsi wrote: Avilo, I agree that the factory is missing certain things that it needs to have, such as being able to defend against void ray all-ins, etc. etc. However it is weird to have a mine serve this purpose. It would be simpler, more effective, and a more elegant solution to have an anti-air unit in addition to the mine. The mine has stepped into the role of being factory anti-air, which it performs only because there is nothing better.
Even if the mine did not attack air, it would still be useful for holding all-ins using ground units. And if it cost less supply you could have other units without your board control assets eating into your actual mech army.
Yeh, Terran does need another unit, and they do need a solid anti-air mech unit. But blizzard thinks it's fine as is. The mine and battle hellion are not enough, but they are not going to admit it. At this point Terran is so f$@%ed they should just add in the warhound aka marauder#2.
When HOTS beta started, everyone, including myself, that made posts about how the warhound was bad and was a mech marauder were absolutely correct. We made these posts and feedback to blizzard under the assumption that they would be competent enough to replace it with something that added more depth to the game for Terran. We thought that this design team would live up to it's predecessor that designed brood war.
Unfortunately, our assumptions were terribly wrong. Terran ends up with nothing.
very well thought out op! i pretty mutch agree and i really love your idea of removing single target. I am not sure if removing AA from the WM would be a good or bad idea because it would sevearly limit its uses for Terran (Blizz wants the WM to be usefull)
another idea i had was to give it like a 2 second delay before it shoots the missle in wich you can snipe the WM (if you have enough firepower) or maby make the missle dodgable (going together with removing single target)
Anyway i feel that Blizzard knows the issue of the WM as it is right now so i´m excited for their ideas!
it is EITHER option 1 (remove air and cloak, buff splash and supply) OR option 2 (remove single target, buff splash and supply). so option 2 STILL hits air and cloak but with splash only, so no more oneshotting!
since single target damage is completely luckbased in big fights (it hits expensive or cheap units completely luckbased) i think option 2 is way better and keeps the mine more viable and interesting.
very good thread. The widow mine does overcomplicate the game...and so far buffing everything to compensate for how strong one unit is, is just poor design. I wasn't able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with the widow mine( blizzard hasn't either apparently) but I think you hit the nail right on the head. great write up!
On December 03 2012 19:22 gCgCrypto wrote: very well thought out op! i pretty mutch agree and i really love your idea of removing single target. I am not sure if removing AA from the WM would be a good or bad idea because it would sevearly limit its uses for Terran (Blizz wants the WM to be usefull)
another idea i had was to give it like a 2 second delay before it shoots the missle in wich you can snipe the WM (if you have enough firepower) or maby make the missle dodgable (going together with removing single target)
Anyway i feel that Blizzard knows the issue of the WM as it is right now so i´m excited for their ideas!
I 100% agree with the concept but I think it misses the core problem, the widow mine being powerful in early game (or simply frustrating to deal with) and not so useful the longer the game goes on - since a bigger army can just kill the WM in those 2 seconds.
They can probably tweak the upgrades a bit, to make it one-shot some units at 0/0 and more units with weapon upgrades 1/2/3, or just strenghten the splash damage.
On December 03 2012 19:22 gCgCrypto wrote: very well thought out op! i pretty mutch agree and i really love your idea of removing single target. I am not sure if removing AA from the WM would be a good or bad idea because it would sevearly limit its uses for Terran (Blizz wants the WM to be usefull)
another idea i had was to give it like a 2 second delay before it shoots the missle in wich you can snipe the WM (if you have enough firepower) or maby make the missle dodgable (going together with removing single target)
Anyway i feel that Blizzard knows the issue of the WM as it is right now so i´m excited for their ideas!
I 100% agree with the concept but I think it misses the core problem, the widow mine being powerful in early game (or simply frustrating to deal with) and not so useful the longer the game goes on - since a bigger army can just kill the WM in those 2 seconds.
They can probably tweak the upgrades a bit, to make it one-shot some units at 0/0 and more units with weapon upgrades 1/2/3, or just strenghten the splash damage.
You are right. i didnt really think about the lategame. however for me the most important role of the WM is to defend outer bases. The biggest problem of WoL is that its a 3 base turtlefeast because of lack of stand alone defenses (Planetary fortresses do a good job but protoss is entierly lacking good base defense) and this cuts into the map making a lot. I have high hopes for the WM but i still see nothing to fix this for protoss ... Only way would be to change the colossus (at least only way i see) but i´m getting way off topic here ^^
On December 03 2012 19:22 gCgCrypto wrote: very well thought out op! i pretty mutch agree and i really love your idea of removing single target. I am not sure if removing AA from the WM would be a good or bad idea because it would sevearly limit its uses for Terran (Blizz wants the WM to be usefull)
another idea i had was to give it like a 2 second delay before it shoots the missle in wich you can snipe the WM (if you have enough firepower) or maby make the missle dodgable (going together with removing single target)
Anyway i feel that Blizzard knows the issue of the WM as it is right now so i´m excited for their ideas!
I 100% agree with the concept but I think it misses the core problem, the widow mine being powerful in early game (or simply frustrating to deal with) and not so useful the longer the game goes on - since a bigger army can just kill the WM in those 2 seconds.
They can probably tweak the upgrades a bit, to make it one-shot some units at 0/0 and more units with weapon upgrades 1/2/3, or just strenghten the splash damage.
yeah thats why i suggested to make them less supply so there would be 10-20 mines and even a big army needs some time to kill that which allows your own army to reposition. especially with a range upgrade it would take a big army very long to take the minefield out since only tempest, colossus, tanks, SHs, BLs would be able to kill the mines without getting damaged.
I think the stats for the widow mine are more then fine (especially because you can't tell the mine what to attack directly). But it would nice if you could dodge them. For example if you fly in with mutas you see the small red dot on the ground and have a second to turn around and fly out of the range, before the Mine fires its load. When Vultures were out on the map in BW, you knew that you can't a move over the whole map, because your army would never get there. It needed alot of awareness and that made playing against vultures really difficult. So I like the widow mine and playing against them is really fun, but it would be really nice to have the ability to play more risky against the widow mine, by making it dodgeable like the 250mm of the thors.
On December 03 2012 22:23 DaveVAH wrote: Here is what I suggested in Bnet Forums:
Remove 160 top damage. 80 splash in current radius. Supply reduced to 1 range increased to 6 via hi sec tracking upgrade No longer FF's
as long as double the resource for widowmines cuz Terran would like to build one more mine for 160 damage :/ I like the idea bout widowmine range upgrade
On December 03 2012 23:12 BlueKatz wrote: The solution is quite obvious: Remove Single target damage from WM. Buff Tank Single target damage
Meching is not Widow Mining
<3 i really feel buffing the Siege tank would fix so meny problems in the game! Try running into a mech army with buffed siegetanks with a deathball :D
On December 03 2012 23:12 BlueKatz wrote: The solution is quite obvious: Remove Single target damage from WM. Buff Tank Single target damage
Meching is not Widow Mining
<3 i really feel buffing the Siege tank would fix so meny problems in the game! Try running into a mech army with buffed siegetanks with a deathball :D
Straight up buffing the Siege Tank damage is maybe not the best idea, a lot of early game ZvT dynamic is shaped around +1 carapace for zerglings, because it gives a window in which tanks don't one shot zerglings until +1 mech range upgrade.
You could maybe make range upgrades give more damage per upgrade.
edit : mech range upgrades* for the sake of clarity.
On December 03 2012 23:12 BlueKatz wrote: The solution is quite obvious: Remove Single target damage from WM. Buff Tank Single target damage
Meching is not Widow Mining
<3 i really feel buffing the Siege tank would fix so meny problems in the game! Try running into a mech army with buffed siegetanks with a deathball :D
Straight up buffing the Siege Tank damage is maybe not the best idea, a lot of early game ZvT dynamic is shaped around +1 carapace for zerglings, because it gives a window in which tanks don't one shot zerglings until +1 mech range upgrade.
You could maybe make range upgrades give more damage per upgrade.
you can just work around with siege up time, i was simply thinking about a buff to the damage of the tank. maby simply introduce a upgrade that gives tanks +X damage and is researchable at the armory or maby fusion core (depending on how mutch damage it adds)
On December 03 2012 22:23 DaveVAH wrote: Here is what I suggested in Bnet Forums:
Remove 160 top damage. 80 splash in current radius. Supply reduced to 1 range increased to 6 via hi sec tracking upgrade No longer FF's
Blizzard doesn't want widow mines to one-shot workers, and neither does anyone who plays against mines.
What are you talking about, Widow Mines already one-shot 2/3 workers, only Terran workers survive with 5 HP.
I like that suggestion, but I think that with 6 range, attacking both air and ground, friendly fire is really needed, since it would make Siege Tank + Widow Mine timings pretty invincible.
Straight up buffing the Siege Tank damage is maybe not the best idea, a lot of early game ZvT dynamic is shaped around +1 carapace for zerglings, because it gives a window in which tanks don't one shot zerglings until +1 mech range upgrade.
If you only buff the direct damage of the Tank, not the Splash then it's just 1 more dead Zergling, not a huge difference
I disagree with your statement that widow mines are "luck based". Vulture mines in BW had similar affect to either blowing up many units or single units. Whoever is going against mines (P/T/Z) should scout first. This mechanic is similar in TvZ when Terran looks away and gets chain fungled for the few moments that he does not pay attention to his army. Thus, any huge damage can be averted the more vigilant you are with your unit(s), which is how it should be. The more practice you do >> more control/awareness for your units. I assure you the better the player is, the less likely he is to walk his whole army into a few mines, or, replace the scenario with bio vs (burrowed) infestor(s).
Widow mines have the opportunity to be strong in the early game; yes. However, once the mid game comes, Protoss and Zerg hotkey observers / overseers with their masses and can clear mines (Terran has scan). This prevents mines from doing massive damage on their entire mass 99% of the time. It would just be silly to let your mass wander onto the map without detection, especially if it is known the Terran is meching. In turn, this means that most of the time if you are moving units around without detection, it should just be a couple units. When was the last time you saw an Ultralisk roaming the map by itself? -- To clear mines? I think not. Zerglings can be great to scout map especially if you constantly send them out --> those that die, show where mines are.
The way to reduce the chances of getting your harassment shut down is to scout first. May it be to scan the main in tvt, run a couple Zerglings first into the Terran before engaging with all your expensive units, or use an observer to show the way.
And.... I kinda lost track of where this was intended to go, but overall I don't think it is 100% necessary to change the widow mine drastically. OP basically gave alternatives to the idea Blizzard has presented.
On a side note: those videos in the first page of this thread of Dragon going over his tvt play.... heh. The other Terran did not bother to scan the same spot to kill the 2 mines that killed 2 of his banshees and a medivac at three separate times... And the Zerg with the ling/baneling all-in sent all his units in 1 hotkey, 1a'ed in a blob. That is the incorrect way to attack in HotS. Now Zergs must be wary of mines, and send a couple lings first to clear the first wave of explosions.
Board control units need to be small, more so than any other type of unit in the game. Spending 2 supply for each widow mine is very bad design simply because it so strictly limits how many mines you can actually build.
The primary limit for how many units you should be able to acquire should be your resource economy. The 200 supply limit should be limiting for edge cases only. Hard maxes are far more common in SC2 than they ever were in BW due to every unit costing more supply. And it is no accident that the highly supply efficient units are incredibly popular and powerful.
The Widow Mine needs to be a small unit to be interesting, or even to do its job by spreading them around the map. Having twice as many units where each one is half as effective is vastly superior to having a big unit that is twice as powerful. The Widow Mine's 2 supply version is ultimately useless- not enough guns. Early on when supply cost is irrelevant and the unit count is low on both sides, they can keep you alive. But that's all they are good for. You can't use them to control regions of the map, as you will almost always want actual units in your army instead.
EPT
