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So recently the Widow Mine has gotten an upgrade that reduces burrow time from 3 to 1 second.
Ignoring any balance issues, I'm of the opinion this is an extremely poor change, because it ignores the fundamental reason of existence for the Widow Mine: that it's a positional area control unit. That means that the interaction with them should be something along the lines of "set and forget": you get them into an area, set them up, and then forget about them until you want to move them. How does this upgrade help with that at all? If you're moving into an uncontested area, it could even take them 20 seconds to burrow without it being a problem (not that I recommend such a change). It's only within contested areas that burrow time matters. This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. I can't say I support such things, as Terran does not need Banelings. A more suitable upgrade would be damage, splash radius, or range, all of which would allow the Mine to have more impact in the late game without making it overpowered early.
Would anyone else care to give their input on this upgrade?
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I think it's an upgrade that we should leave it in for the game to develop and see what strategies will evolve from there.
I also feel widow mines has a lot of potential in them, and can help tanks covering zones on maps that siege tanks don't do well enough
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This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley.
That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it.
That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do.
edit: typo
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This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley.
This is exactly why I don't like the upgrade, and the direction blizzard is apparently going with the widow mine. An idea someone had early, a widow mine which slowly lays a minefield of actual mines around itself, or the current widow mine with multiple rockets which slowly replenish themselves, is what I expected the widow mine would be: A real positional unit you have to think about where to put it, and takes a while to reach its maximum effectiveness.
Not this using them as banelings: running into the enemy army and hope enough can burrow in time.
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On December 15 2012 22:57 Tritanis wrote:Show nested quote +This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it. That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do. edit: typo
Perhaps an upgrade at the fusion core where the Widow mine can load 5 mines to launch at once.
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On December 15 2012 23:17 Seiniyta wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 22:57 Tritanis wrote:This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it. That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do. edit: typo Perhaps an upgrade at the fusion core where the Widow mine can load 5 mines to launch at once.
Haha, good one. Low tech units get always bad lategame, not every unit can be a marine. Thats why the upgrades make sense,the time is reduced so u can use it aggressive and free up supply.
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On December 15 2012 22:57 Tritanis wrote:Show nested quote +This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it. That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do. edit: typo
I think you missed the point. This is a BADLY DESIGNED upgrade, because it goes against the primary design of the unit and turns it into what is essentially a Baneling. It's like giving the Immortal an upgrade to enable a splash-damage attack with a bonus against Light. Regardless of how strong it is, it's completely the opposite of what the unit is supposed to do.
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The upgrade is very good for the mine, it makes it so you can actually use it and get something out of it, where as before 90% of your mines would die b4 ever doing anything making them utter trash.
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Sure, the upgrade makes mines more effective in straight up engagements, but if that is the new direction for the widow mine then its design is a failure.
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On December 16 2012 09:37 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 22:57 Tritanis wrote:This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it. That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do. edit: typo I think you missed the point. This is a BADLY DESIGNED upgrade, because it goes against the primary design of the unit and turns it into what is essentially a Baneling. It's like giving the Immortal an upgrade to enable a splash-damage attack with a bonus against Light. Regardless of how strong it is, it's completely the opposite of what the unit is supposed to do.
The unit actually is great at being positional just like the siege tank. Yes you can include it in your core army however the only thing it does if the enemy responds properly is re position. I heavily like this upgrade and to be honest you need to be able to secure a position quick if there are enemy units present.
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On December 16 2012 09:37 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 22:57 Tritanis wrote:This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it. That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do. edit: typo I think you missed the point. This is a BADLY DESIGNED upgrade, because it goes against the primary design of the unit and turns it into what is essentially a Baneling. It's like giving the Immortal an upgrade to enable a splash-damage attack with a bonus against Light. Regardless of how strong it is, it's completely the opposite of what the unit is supposed to do.
What do you know of the primary design of the unit? David kim who actually designed the unit wants to be a core unit like the marine. both good in offense and defense.
The problem with the mine is it costs too much supply. if it was 1 supply or even 1.5 supply it would go along way of making mech armies viable vP along with the fast burrow upgrade.
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Agree with OP completely. It seems a counterproductive direction to take the widow mine.
How about a new functionality with its upgrade? Suppose it gains the ability to self-destruct, or kamikaze into a target like it used to, before being given an attack? Manual cast.
Or even as simple as giving it a second shot/reducing its reload time. If it needs an upgrade, burrow time is the wrong thing to improve.
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a 200/200 upgrade on the fusion core for +2 range would be a nice balanced way of making the widow mine better at controlling areas and being useful late game.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
If it's only role was to plant in positions that are under no immediate threat what a 1 dimensional unit it would be...
I do understand your point OP, that you feel like if the unit can just be brought with your army and planted right when the enemy engages it isn't really a positional unit as much as just some mobile splash, I just feel it's a bit ignorant of how games actually are played.
A couple examples: Sensor Tower + Widow Mine. A pretty effective combination right now. With good map awareness they can be in good position against attacks (Drops, or Runby's), the upgrade goes a long way in making this possible - especially against super fast units like Speed Prisms, Mutas, Oracles, Ling runby's, Hellion runby's, etc. Still positioning, just a more active form of it. Not like Chess.
Also, in the late game, as a Mech player, you just can't defend all of your expansions with stationary defenses. You can't just split your army into 3+ different groups to defend 3+ different sections of the map from your opponents entire army. You will have small amounts of units in good positions to defend from smaller attacks and keep some map control and slow down army movements, while you keep a large part of your army mobile to move back and forth to reinforce these positions as your opponent moves his entire army. This upgrade allows you to do that. It's still a positioning game, you need to be in position, you need to control space, but it's a more mobile and active form of positioning (side note: this is how Mech was played vs Protoss in BW).
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People here that are saying the upgrade is bad or bad direction, I don't think you've used the mine enough. It adds a pretty high skill cap, and in lategame you have to constantly move these things around.
It's terrible if you leave them in one place too long because that is very supply inefficient but if you constantly move them into better positions and with your army, they become pretty good because of the new burrow upgrade.
The design is a success I would say. It suffered the problem of being good early/mid-game, and being absolutely bad lategame, but the ability to burrow in one second means in lategame it's usable now.
edit: Though, will a 2 supply mine ever be anywhere near as good as a 0 supply mine that dies after use? Probably not. Spider mine > all.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 16 2012 12:49 avilo wrote:
People here that are saying the upgrade is bad or bad direction, I don't think you've used the mine enough. It adds a pretty high skill cap, and in lategame you have to constantly move these things around.
It's terrible if you leave them in one place too long because that is very supply inefficient but if you constantly move them into better positions and with your army, they become pretty good because of the new burrow upgrade.
The design is a success I would say. It suffered the problem of being good early/mid-game, and being absolutely bad lategame, but the ability to burrow in one second means in lategame it's usable now.
Hmm... you think even against Toss? (Zerg and Terran, non-mech terran at least, I agree).
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On December 15 2012 22:57 Tritanis wrote:Show nested quote +This means that the upgrade is only relevant for people who use the Widow Mine as a direct offensive unit, which is the antithesis of a positional area control unit. I can't see how this upgrade can ever contribute to the unit outside of allowing people to mass Widow Mines and run them into the enemy's face to try to do massive damage with a single volley. That's exactly why this upgrade exists. If you are not going to use the mines offensively along with the rest of your army, simply don't bother with researching it. That said, I don't think that WM is an ideal unit. Perhaps, it needs another late-game upgrade to be viable outside the early-mid game, but I don't really know what the upgrade should do. edit: typo
Armory upgrade that need Fusion Core. Mines now auto cast nukes with 40 seconds delay.
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On December 16 2012 12:53 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2012 12:49 avilo wrote:
People here that are saying the upgrade is bad or bad direction, I don't think you've used the mine enough. It adds a pretty high skill cap, and in lategame you have to constantly move these things around.
It's terrible if you leave them in one place too long because that is very supply inefficient but if you constantly move them into better positions and with your army, they become pretty good because of the new burrow upgrade.
The design is a success I would say. It suffered the problem of being good early/mid-game, and being absolutely bad lategame, but the ability to burrow in one second means in lategame it's usable now. Hmm... you think even against Toss? (Zerg and Terran, non-mech terran at least, I agree).
Mech in general sucks against protoss imo. The mine does too =/
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On December 16 2012 12:49 avilo wrote:
People here that are saying the upgrade is bad or bad direction, I don't think you've used the mine enough. It adds a pretty high skill cap, and in lategame you have to constantly move these things around.
It's terrible if you leave them in one place too long because that is very supply inefficient but if you constantly move them into better positions and with your army, they become pretty good because of the new burrow upgrade.
The design is a success I would say. It suffered the problem of being good early/mid-game, and being absolutely bad lategame, but the ability to burrow in one second means in lategame it's usable now.
edit: Though, will a 2 supply mine ever be anywhere near as good as a 0 supply mine that dies after use? Probably not. Spider mine > all.
I have used the mine enough to realize that it is actually a strong positional unit, and is essentially a lurker in functionality. I don't doubt that it is good, I just think that the 1 second burrow time actually detracts from its nature as a strong positional unit. A 3 second burrow mine means you have to predict where your opponent is going to go, as you cannot run mines into the enemy and burrow them. And I think it is good design that you cannot do this. There are already lots of assault type units, the widow mine does not need this functionality.
Allowing players to run mines close to enemy units and burrow them would undoubtedly raise its execution skill cap, but at the cost of the skill of predicting your opponent's movements beforehand.
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The upgrade they did great on, it adds alot of mid-late game usage with the unit.
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EPT
