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Title: Viking Assault mode buff suggestion to 8x2 damage

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Posted on the battle.net HotS beta forum: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/post/79081891824
I figured that I'd post this here as well to see what the TL community thinks.

Currently, Vikings are awful units on the ground. Their DPS is mediocre, and their HP is just awful. Assault mode Vikings are just a formality that keeps Terran players from losing while way ahead if most of their army is Vikings.

In TvP, after killing the enemy Colossus, if you somehow lose barely any Vikings, you have nothing to do with them. All you can do is fly them to a corner and hope that the Protoss gets some Colossus sooner or later so that your Vikings can be useful. Otherwise they die in seconds to Zealots and Stalkers, barely doing any damage.

Against Zerg, the story is very much the same. You finally beat their Broodlord/Infestor army with Vikings, then suddenly they have a huge army of Ultralisk/Infestor + X, and your Vikings become paperweights since their damage, HP, and move speed are all so awful on the ground. Once again you must fly them to a corner and hope your ground army is strong enough to deal with the Ultralisks and Infestors while you wait for the Zerg to go back to Broodlords.

Buff the damage to 8x2 instead of 12.

TL;DR of what this change is: This change is a buff to ground mode DPS making the Viking a usable backup unit for extra DPS against Chargelots, Zerglings, and the like after taking out the enemy air units- though it is still vulnerable if you mis-micro or otherwise screw up.

TL;DR of what this change is not: This does not make the Viking an effective ground meat-shield for Siege Tanks, a good 'core' unit, and it doesn't let it land right on top of enemy armies after killing the enemy air units without taking major losses.

This will greatly increase the Viking's effectiveness while at the same time rewarding the use of Air attack upgrades. You will have to be two attack upgrades below the opponent's armor upgrade level in order to even go back to the old damage value of 12- though against Zealots or other units with a base armor of 1, it does do two less damage.

The potential drawback is that the Viking ground mode will become too strong. I do not believe that this will be the case because of the Viking's low speed and HP, along with the fact that a single Marine rivals the Viking's DPS vs ground units considering how Terran players always get upgrades for their MMM before the Vikings, and in many cases not at all.

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This change helps most against Marines, Zerglings, Zealots, Roaches, Immortals, and Archons; all of the typical front-line units.

Against Marines, it will always four-shot them instead of taking five shots to kill one if you are behind by even one upgrade.
Against Zerglings, it will always three-shot them instead of taking four shots to kill one if you are behind by even one upgrade.
Against Zealots, it does more damage; at even upgrades, it takes 10 shots to kill it instead of 13.
Against Roaches, it again does more damage; at even upgrades, it takes 11 shots to kill it instead of 14.
Against Immortals, the attack is almost a direct counter to the hardened shield. Of course, landed Vikings still die in three hits to the Immortal, so it's not a huge buff.
Against Archons, the Protoss always gets shield upgrades last; Mech will have a slightly more reasonable damage-dealer against Archons than Widow Mines + Hellbats.

It does not help nearly as much against Ultralisks, Swarm Hosts Stalkers, Marauders, Thors, and Siege Tanks.

Ultralisks have six armor when fully upgraded; even after the Terran fully upgrades his Vikings, he will still be doing less damage than if he had the Viking which does 12 damage by default.
Swarm Hosts simply kill the landed Vikings with a Locust wave. Vikings still have awful HP.
Stalkers, Marauders, and Thors are tanky units which also do a lot of damage against armored units with about as much HP as a Viking while having a mid-range attack. They countered ground mode Vikings before, hard, and it's not changing any time soon.
Siege Tanks simply blow the landed Vikings to bits if the Vikings attack directly. Not much changes if the Vikings land on top of the Siege Tanks, though.

I also think that it's silly that a huge Gatling gun (yes the cap is grammatically correct) does as much/little damage as a tiny C-14 Gauss rifle, even accounting for recoil and accuracy.

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Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

Q: Wouldn't this make Vikings too versatile?

A: No. They still have very little HP, low move speed, and either lower damage values or a lack of splash damage compared to other Terran units. They would become more versatile, but certainly not overpowered. Their main use is still AtA, the GtG is a bonus.

Q: Vikings can kill Stalkers in 1v1 really easily now! Isn't this overpowered?

A: No. This is because different races are different. Terran and Protoss production mechanics and economy really aren't comparable without looking at real-game situations and observing unit interactions based on what actually happens in the game. This is a mistake that many people make when comparing for example, the Marine and either Zergling or Zealot.

People said that Marines were overpowered because they costed only minerals, but in truth the reason that they're so strong is because Terran gas heavy units like the Siege Tank, Banshee, etc are very weak in comparison to the Marine, and the Marine needs much of that gas for upgrades: +3/+3, Stim/Shields, and any number of reactors, as well as the very important Medivacs.

The situation with the Viking is much the same; it's actually still far worse than the Banshee against ground because of it's transformation time, lower damage value for higher speed, (Terran air upgrades are rarely if ever seen before the late-game, so higher damage value over rate of fire is preferred) armor class, (Vikings are armored which is weaker against Protoss ground, as there are no Protoss ground units which do bonus damage against light while Stalkers do bonus damage vs armored) move speed, (2.25 vs 2.75) and the fact that Banshees fly while doing AtG and Vikings must go GtG, making them vulnerable to any number of things while being unable to focus fire some of the farther back targets very easily such as the Immortal.

Not to say that this isn't a substantial buff, but it in no way makes the Viking nearly as good as any ground unit.

Q: Corruptors are worse vs ground! They don't have any ground mode, we have to make an entirely separate unit against ground! How is it okay that Terran gets a buffed ground mode for free while Zerg must build another unit to deal with ground?

A: Oddly enough this is one of the most frequently asked questions.

First, I do not see how this relates to the ground mode Viking in any way other than a similarity which doesn't have a lot if anything to do with unit interactions between races, and it was not complained about before. If it is a problem in any way, I think that it deserves a separate thread. However I do not believe it is a problem after watching a large number of professional games.

The Corruptor and Broodlord are not exactly the same unit, but the Broodlord morphs from the Corruptor and the Corruptor is the Zerg's primary AtA unit that has a moderately long range, making it the only unit which can really help deal with Vikings trying to kill the Broodlords.

I've debated this with one poster quite a bit. You can see the start of the debate here if you want more details: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7864606703?page=10#185