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Atleast on the first few pages, there was a lot of mentioning of immortals and how they really hinder tanks at what they're supposed to do. I feel Thors are one of the biggest problems with mech, and their inability to be a 'good' unit plays a much more significant role in how bad the tank is. When you compare the Thor with the tank, you essentially have the same unit.
-When a protoss sees the opponent fielding Thors he can respond with immortals, same can be said for the Siege Tank.
-Thor and Tank costs are very similar, rather high on both supply, gas and time(much moreso the thor, requiring 60 seconds of build time) and mineral wise fairly low. Both are built at the Factory+techlab.
-Both are armoured
-Both do large chunks of damage
I blame mech's problem mostly on the thor. Not only do i think its bad but i hate using it. What id like to see, a current fix i see entirely implementable is to buff viking ground mode. With the recent synergy between medivacs and hellbats given to mech, Reactor starport can find quite a bit of use, except vs heavy immortal robo. Once you have 4-6 medivacs anymore is a complete waste, after 4 i try to drop with hellbats with the extra. But after 4 medivacs, and 4 vikings (unless he has stargate tech), the reactor starport isnt used.
I dont see why vikings on the ground are as terrible as they are, being armoured and armorless ( -_-' ) they are perhaps the softest unit, particularly against immortals. Imagine it was an actual choice to land my vikings not an option, not a "o shit im out of everything else..." 'option'. For the purposes of balance I can see why they are what they are in the sky: armoured, soft, long range. But i think it would be a good fit; to tweak the stats of ground vikings.
EDIT: left out part pertaining to OP.
I do agree the tanks cost does not feel reflected in its combat abilities. And i feel the largest hindrance to its potential is its food cost, being 150% of BW's. I was a toss player when siege tank damage was nerfed from 60 to 35/50, and i felt that was overkill, "5 tanks shots before a zealot dies?" (TO DIRECT FIRE). I am now a mech only player and now find tanks are only good for outranging things and not even really for superior firepower, you have to support them with just too much.
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hots is lookin pretty bad out the gate lol
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 01 2013 12:07 Unsane wrote:
Atleast on the first few pages, there was a lot of mentioning of immortals and how they really hinder tanks at what they're supposed to do. I feel Thors are one of the biggest problems with mech, and their inability to be a 'good' unit plays a much more significant role in how bad the tank is. When you compare the Thor with the tank, you essentially have the same unit.
-When a protoss sees the opponent fielding Thors he can respond with immortals, same can be said for the Siege Tank.
-Thor and Tank costs are very similar, rather high on both supply, gas and time(much moreso the thor, requiring 60 seconds of build time) and mineral wise fairly low. Both are built at the Factory+techlab.
-Both are armoured
-Both do large chunks of damage
I blame mech's problem mostly on the thor. Not only do i think its bad but i hate using it. What id like to see, a current fix i see entirely implementable is to buff viking ground mode. With the recent synergy between medivacs and hellbats given to mech, Reactor starport can find quite a bit of use, except vs heavy immortal robo. Once you have 4-6 medivacs anymore is a complete waste, after 4 i try to drop with hellbats with the extra. But after 4 medivacs, and 4 vikings (unless he has stargate tech), the reactor starport isnt used.
I dont see why vikings on the ground are as terrible as they are, being armoured and armorless ( -_-' ) they are perhaps the softest unit, particularly against immortals. Imagine it was an actual choice to land my vikings not an option, not a "o shit im out of everything else..." 'option'. For the purposes of balance I can see why they are what they are in the sky: armoured, soft, long range. But i think it would be a good fit; to tweak the stats of ground vikings.
EDIT: left out part pertaining to OP.
I do agree the tanks cost does not feel reflected in its combat abilities. And i feel the largest hindrance to its potential is its food cost, being 150% of BW's. I was a toss player when siege tank damage was nerfed from 60 to 35/50, and i felt that was overkill, "5 tanks shots before a zealot dies?" (TO DIRECT FIRE). I am now a mech only player and now find tanks are only good for outranging things and not even really for superior firepower, you have to support them with just too much.
I agree with a portion of this, specifically, buffing ground attack on viking. It would be interesting to have some optimization of this mode. Terran as my main race, I've always thought viking ground mode was really a last resort/gimmicky. I think that would be a great way to settle some differences by adjusting viking ground mode. Possibly even through an upgrade on the starport tech lab.
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On December 21 2012 16:37 YoungNV wrote:
Banelings must be detonated manually, requiring skill.
Mines detonate automatically requiring zero skill.
Not to pick apart the whole comparison. But you can tell Banes to auto detonate. Also the Baneling detonates where you want. The Mine chooses a target randomly and the attack is most of all delayed. The baneling also is supply efficient and it attacks buildings.
So yeah the mine may be better then a burrowed baneling, but thats because a baneling is just 0.5 supply and has other uses as well. Also more precise when using. I don't think that something is better if it trades of precision for more damage. If it hits yes it hurts, but thats the question will it hit jackpot or just a cherry. You don't have this question with the burrowed baneling.
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United States4883 Posts
On February 01 2013 12:07 Unsane wrote:
I do agree the tanks cost does not feel reflected in its combat abilities. And i feel the largest hindrance to its potential is its food cost, being 150% of BW's. I was a toss player when siege tank damage was nerfed from 60 to 35/50, and i felt that was overkill, "5 tanks shots before a zealot dies?" (TO DIRECT FIRE). I am now a mech only player and now find tanks are only good for outranging things and not even really for superior firepower, you have to support them with just too much.
I totally agree. I remember after the 9:30 marine/tank push in TvZ got phased out, terrans started realizing they should just do big pushes around 11:00 with like 40 marines and 3 tanks, and now Bomber plays a style that hits at like 13:00 with ~70 marines/8 tanks; the marine count just got higher and higher, and the tanks were really just a support unit. I think it's interesting how small of a role tanks play in terran play, especially when they were like the lifeforce of terran in BW. Quite honestly, terran feels like it revolves entirely around marines in SC2, which is why mech really doesn't work.
As far as the thor goes, yeah, it's bad lol. I've never really liked thors, and I really think that in order for SC2 to continue to grow, we need to cut the thor in half and make smaller units.
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I never liked the buff to siege tanks not needing siege mode. It felt not only irrelevant, but also could potentially make way for aggressive/cheesy early game timings, which is not something we want to see often (think 1-1-1).
I think the problem with tanks has always been damage and their survivability. Even in SC2, if it's not supported by enough and marines/hellions and you don't have a critical mass, EVERYTHING will kill it. Now imagine HotS where you have Tempests, speed Hydras and Vipers around. It suddenly feels like tanks become less and less relevant.
I honestly think that for a start, just giving a slight HP buff will probably help tanks hold long enough to get a) more shots of or b) survive long enough for support units to cover them if they're out of position.
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On December 22 2012 19:14 {ToT}ColmA wrote:
i really dont think buffing tank in any way is the solution, tvz mech in its current form is doable / fine, viper is kinda hard with its cloud also being able to be used against mech but dmg wise its okay, its just tvp that is a problem and the tank dmg buff would solve it but would cause problems in other matchups, like tvt u will never see anything else then mech, i dont think a game where u ve to go xyz or else its bad is good game design
Actually better players would almost never go for mech in TvT. They mix marauders/marines with several tanks for support. The main strength of this comes from the mobility of bio and abuses the fact that mech if not clumped together is very weak. This enables the mainly bio player to control the map, thin the meching player or force engagements and back down to buy time. Going predominantly Bio also allows a much faster and easier tech transition into BCs since gas for Bio is not a large requirement. Players like Taeja, Bomber and Polt have performed many successful TvTs with this strat alone. Therefore, stronger tanks would actually help TvT, especially at higher skill levels.
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I think it's safe to say that the relative weakness of the siege tank is a design decision, a bias from the dev. team. There are a ton of counters to the unit in WOL with new ones in HOTS, yet a direct buff looks like out of the question. Instead, blizzard looks at other units, bio in general for WOL, and transforming Helbats in to Roaches and Thors as a better all round unit (not to mention the Warhound that was supposed to be the new "core" mech unit).
So the more i think about it, i see it's down to one thing: death balls and space control. Blizzard WANTS death ball not only to be the easiest way to play but also one of the BEST ways. If you have strong Tanks/ Lurkers/etc then you heavily punish death balls.
If this is true, it's a shame that such fantastically designed units like siege tanks and lurkers have no mojo in SC2 just to accommodate one of the most hated things about SC2, the fucking death ball.
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On February 01 2013 14:23 Sapphire.lux wrote:
So the more i think about it, i see it's down to one thing: death balls and space control. Blizzard WANTS death ball not only to be the easiest way to play but also one of the BEST ways. If you have strong Tanks/ Lurkers/etc then you heavily punish death balls.
If this is true, it's a shame that such fantastically designed units like siege tanks and lurkers have no mojo in SC2 just to accommodate one of the most hated things about SC2, the fucking death ball.
I'm not too familiar with TvP since I'm a Zerg player, but at least in TvZ siege tanks timed well are still a key mech unit and for sure establishes ground dominance for a large portion of the game. Ling/bling/muta or unexpected amounts of Roaches used to be a bit too strong against tanks in WoL, but with better timings due to the removal of siege research, and Widow Mines making the lives of Muta/Lings harder, tanks can be very strong.
The counters to Siege Tanks in ZvT come at around the same time they did in BW (later game), and with Swarm Hosts coming out later than Lurkers did, hydras being more useful in ZvT due to new synergy with Widow Mines, tanks may even be a bit stronger than before. Ravens are also super powerful against deathball play too.
Considering this, I don't think your statement is too valid in TvZ. As I said I'm unsure of your other matchups though.
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On February 01 2013 15:08 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 14:23 Sapphire.lux wrote:
So the more i think about it, i see it's down to one thing: death balls and space control. Blizzard WANTS death ball not only to be the easiest way to play but also one of the BEST ways. If you have strong Tanks/ Lurkers/etc then you heavily punish death balls.
If this is true, it's a shame that such fantastically designed units like siege tanks and lurkers have no mojo in SC2 just to accommodate one of the most hated things about SC2, the fucking death ball.
I'm not too familiar with TvP since I'm a Zerg player, but at least in TvZ siege tanks timed well are still a key mech unit and for sure establishes ground dominance for a large portion of the game. Ling/bling/muta or unexpected amounts of Roaches used to be a bit too strong against tanks in WoL, but with better timings due to the removal of siege research, and Widow Mines making the lives of Muta/Lings harder, tanks can be very strong. The counters to Siege Tanks in ZvT come at around the same time they did in BW (later game), and with Swarm Hosts coming out later than Lurkers did, hydras being more useful in ZvT due to new synergy with Widow Mines, tanks may even be a bit stronger than before. Ravens are also super powerful against deathball play too. Considering this, I don't think your statement is too valid in TvZ. As I said I'm unsure of your other matchups though.
I agree with some of that, but i think the Viper, free units like Locusts and the strong Ultra more then make up for that. All in all, i see Tanks weaker then in WOL.
In TvP playing with tanks feels like playing with a handicap. Not sure about TvT, that might be the only MU where Tanks are not hard countered at every turn.
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On February 01 2013 14:23 Sapphire.lux wrote:
I think it's safe to say that the relative weakness of the siege tank is a design decision, a bias from the dev. team. There are a ton of counters to the unit in WOL with new ones in HOTS, yet a direct buff looks like out of the question. Instead, blizzard looks at other units, bio in general for WOL, and transforming Helbats in to Roaches and Thors as a better all round unit (not to mention the Warhound that was supposed to be the new "core" mech unit).
So the more i think about it, i see it's down to one thing: death balls and space control. Blizzard WANTS death ball not only to be the easiest way to play but also one of the BEST ways. If you have strong Tanks/ Lurkers/etc then you heavily punish death balls.
If this is true, it's a shame that such fantastically designed units like siege tanks and lurkers have no mojo in SC2 just to accommodate one of the most hated things about SC2, the fucking death ball.
Perfectly summed up.
The sad part is that the community hates deathballs and that Blizzard designs it specifically for that kind of play. Your comments about the Siege Tank show how they really WANT TO get rid of every connection to Brood War by making the last remnants of that brilliant game rather useless.
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On February 01 2013 04:39 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 03:53 Kvassten wrote:On January 09 2013 00:23 Markwerf wrote:
Widow mine does need some serious changes, I have absolutely no clue why blizzard has taken the route on that unit like they have now. It absolutely makes no sense.. It's a pretty good early unit against zerg now and absolutely crap against protoss. Terran doesn't need zoning abilities against lots of small units because they have hellions for that! They don't really need zoning ability against light air either because they have the superb turret and marines or thors already.. Terran needs a zoning unit against beefy protoss units like stalkers and maybe voidray/oracles but that's exactly what the widow mine sucks for now..
I still don't get why the widow mine is not just an actual mine.. Detonates itself, costs only 1 supply and is cheaper but actually kills protoss units!
Terran changes in HotS are an absolute joke, the only really good thing they basically get is the hellbat upgrade which is about as boring as it get's, transforming your fast unit into a slow boring unit for slightly better stats.. I agree with this, because of the WM it's really really hard to play bio in TvT :S Marauders outrange widowmines don't they? You're a bio player against mech so you should have a lot of money for more CCs and lots of bases, so you could have plenty of scans.
Yes even marines can kill the widow mine before detonation but If my opponent has a line of sieged tanks and a line of widow mines in front of those tanks it seems really hard to break it :S
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Some test I have been doing with mech play:
- Landed vikings wont work with hellbats against P. Pretty ovious, but I tested it anyways. Everything counters this composition xD.
- Widow-mines makes you lol once, the first hit when you catch your enemy by suprise (love wm xDD), when detrection comes into play, mines become almost useless supply, you are forced to burrow them in the frontline, not very effective.
- Hellbats are OK right now, but they dont solve Mech problems.
- The tanks when you group them make a ton of damage once, against P deathball sometimes work, when there is no inmortals. Against Z if they use swarm host the tank balll is almost useless, eventually you have to retreat, if you spread then, vypers have a lot of fun with your tanks.
- Thors are big, expensive and not as threatening as they should.
Nothing new in this post, just my casual experience. From my point of view, right now, if you spread your mech army for map control, the enemy deathball will crush you.
Maybe someone more skilled than me have more luck.
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On February 01 2013 12:47 FeyFey wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 16:37 YoungNV wrote:
Banelings must be detonated manually, requiring skill.
Mines detonate automatically requiring zero skill.
Not to pick apart the whole comparison. But you can tell Banes to auto detonate. Also the Baneling detonates where you want. The Mine chooses a target randomly and the attack is most of all delayed. The baneling also is supply efficient and it attacks buildings. So yeah the mine may be better then a burrowed baneling, but thats because a baneling is just 0.5 supply and has other uses as well. Also more precise when using. I don't think that something is better if it trades of precision for more damage. If it hits yes it hurts, but thats the question will it hit jackpot or just a cherry. You don't have this question with the burrowed baneling.
You can pick a mines target and even perform hold micro with enough apm and vision of an enemy unit. During the time after a target is picked and before it fires clicking on any enemy unit targets it and resets the time till firing. if you change targets every second it will never fire. Then when an immortal or enough units are in range you can pick your final target and let it shoot. You can even use this technique to force multiple mines to fire at a single high health unit simultaneously (instead of the standard one at a time of auto attack).
Don't say im wrong till you've tried it. Cuz it works.
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On February 01 2013 18:19 DeCoup wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 12:47 FeyFey wrote:On December 21 2012 16:37 YoungNV wrote:
Banelings must be detonated manually, requiring skill.
Mines detonate automatically requiring zero skill.
Not to pick apart the whole comparison. But you can tell Banes to auto detonate. Also the Baneling detonates where you want. The Mine chooses a target randomly and the attack is most of all delayed. The baneling also is supply efficient and it attacks buildings. So yeah the mine may be better then a burrowed baneling, but thats because a baneling is just 0.5 supply and has other uses as well. Also more precise when using. I don't think that something is better if it trades of precision for more damage. If it hits yes it hurts, but thats the question will it hit jackpot or just a cherry. You don't have this question with the burrowed baneling. You can pick a mines target and even perform hold micro with enough apm and vision of an enemy unit. During the time after a target is picked and before it fires clicking on any enemy unit targets it and resets the time till firing. if you change targets every second it will never fire. Then when an immortal or enough units are in range you can pick your final target and let it shoot. You can even use this technique to force multiple mines to fire at a single high health unit simultaneously (instead of the standard one at a time of auto attack). Don't say im wrong till you've tried it. Cuz it works.
lol nice find ...actually seems doable =)
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On February 01 2013 16:50 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 14:23 Sapphire.lux wrote:
I think it's safe to say that the relative weakness of the siege tank is a design decision, a bias from the dev. team. There are a ton of counters to the unit in WOL with new ones in HOTS, yet a direct buff looks like out of the question. Instead, blizzard looks at other units, bio in general for WOL, and transforming Helbats in to Roaches and Thors as a better all round unit (not to mention the Warhound that was supposed to be the new "core" mech unit).
So the more i think about it, i see it's down to one thing: death balls and space control. Blizzard WANTS death ball not only to be the easiest way to play but also one of the BEST ways. If you have strong Tanks/ Lurkers/etc then you heavily punish death balls.
If this is true, it's a shame that such fantastically designed units like siege tanks and lurkers have no mojo in SC2 just to accommodate one of the most hated things about SC2, the fucking death ball.
Perfectly summed up. The sad part is that the community hates deathballs and that Blizzard designs it specifically for that kind of play. Your comments about the Siege Tank show how they really WANT TO get rid of every connection to Brood War by making the last remnants of that brilliant game rather useless.
The bias that Dustin and the team has for keeping the colossus is likely the same reason that they refuse to give the tank a much needed real buff (as opposed to an irrelevant early game change) which seems to be that "death balls are cool" and positional play isn't worth it.
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On February 01 2013 22:31 AcidKing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 18:19 DeCoup wrote:On February 01 2013 12:47 FeyFey wrote:On December 21 2012 16:37 YoungNV wrote:
Banelings must be detonated manually, requiring skill.
Mines detonate automatically requiring zero skill.
Not to pick apart the whole comparison. But you can tell Banes to auto detonate. Also the Baneling detonates where you want. The Mine chooses a target randomly and the attack is most of all delayed. The baneling also is supply efficient and it attacks buildings. So yeah the mine may be better then a burrowed baneling, but thats because a baneling is just 0.5 supply and has other uses as well. Also more precise when using. I don't think that something is better if it trades of precision for more damage. If it hits yes it hurts, but thats the question will it hit jackpot or just a cherry. You don't have this question with the burrowed baneling. You can pick a mines target and even perform hold micro with enough apm and vision of an enemy unit. During the time after a target is picked and before it fires clicking on any enemy unit targets it and resets the time till firing. if you change targets every second it will never fire. Then when an immortal or enough units are in range you can pick your final target and let it shoot. You can even use this technique to force multiple mines to fire at a single high health unit simultaneously (instead of the standard one at a time of auto attack). Don't say im wrong till you've tried it. Cuz it works. lol nice find ...actually seems doable =)
 Yeah it is quite doable. One thing to note tho is that the whole time you are using this hold micro while their target is in range the mines will be visible to the opponent (but not attackable without detection). And also that if your targets of choice are 1 shottable by mined (eg sentrys) and you are hold firing multiple mines, you will need to set individual targets for them within a second when you are ready to stop holding. This is a little tricky but doable, especially if you are only holding 2-4 mines.
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On February 01 2013 15:56 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 15:08 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 14:23 Sapphire.lux wrote:
So the more i think about it, i see it's down to one thing: death balls and space control. Blizzard WANTS death ball not only to be the easiest way to play but also one of the BEST ways. If you have strong Tanks/ Lurkers/etc then you heavily punish death balls.
If this is true, it's a shame that such fantastically designed units like siege tanks and lurkers have no mojo in SC2 just to accommodate one of the most hated things about SC2, the fucking death ball.
I'm not too familiar with TvP since I'm a Zerg player, but at least in TvZ siege tanks timed well are still a key mech unit and for sure establishes ground dominance for a large portion of the game. Ling/bling/muta or unexpected amounts of Roaches used to be a bit too strong against tanks in WoL, but with better timings due to the removal of siege research, and Widow Mines making the lives of Muta/Lings harder, tanks can be very strong. The counters to Siege Tanks in ZvT come at around the same time they did in BW (later game), and with Swarm Hosts coming out later than Lurkers did, hydras being more useful in ZvT due to new synergy with Widow Mines, tanks may even be a bit stronger than before. Ravens are also super powerful against deathball play too. Considering this, I don't think your statement is too valid in TvZ. As I said I'm unsure of your other matchups though. I agree with some of that, but i think the Viper, free units like Locusts and the strong Ultra more then make up for that. All in all, i see Tanks weaker then in WOL. In TvP playing with tanks feels like playing with a handicap. Not sure about TvT, that might be the only MU where Tanks are not hard countered at every turn.
I was mainly referencing what you said about the deathball, not really a stand-alone statement. The higher amounts of Terran AoE discourage deathballs rather than encourage them, in TvZ at least.
For example you mentioned Locusts, if you try to deathball with them Tanks tear them up. You need to spread them to get around the Terran AoE if you want to win, which in a way is discouraging deathball play. If you look on the thread on here that teaches people how to use swarm hosts, they have some vids that show just how inefficient balled up swarm hosts are against Terran.
You mentioned Vipers and Vipers discourage deathballs too, the more spread you are the less chance of being caught in the cloud, or at least the more energy has to be spent on the clouds. Just because Vipers can regen energy on buildings doesn't mean it's not effective to get them to waste mana as much as you can.
Ultras, too, are AoE units, which discourage deathballs.
There's actually a lot of new mechanics to combat deathballs with the HotS additions (again, at least in ZvT). The biggest deathball counter is AoE... Both new Terran units are AoE, Ravens have stronger AoE (especially if you block your opponents path, either by flanking with hellions or dropping hellbats behind enemy army, you can make then inescapable) and Tanks were no slouch on AoE to begin with. For Zergs new units Swarm Hosts don't work ideally in deathballs, and Vipers discourage deathballs from the opponent. Plus Ultras are AoE, and the "free units" are a form of AoE, on top of deathballs making you vulnerable to Infestors and Banelings.
With all those mechanics in place, and videos as evidence demonstrating how these units are more efficient when spread rather than in a deathball, the question we should probably be asking ourselves is why aren't people trying to take advantage of these mechanics yet?
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Eureka moment folks.
Hanzo's Utsusemi
WM/ghost/nuke
The ghost launches a nuke, "forces" the unsuspecting army to engage.
Into a widow mine field
PROFIT
Timings:
Early/mid-game :
1) drop into the main base while hellions are harassing the front.
2) Burrow 3 WMsnear the ramp.
3) Launch nuke, either army climbs ramp to clear the ghost or probes transfer to the natural = lots of dead probes or dead army
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United States4883 Posts
On February 02 2013 14:19 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Eureka moment folks.
Hanzo's Utsusemi
WM/ghost/nuke
The ghost launches a nuke, "forces" the unsuspecting army to engage.
Into a widow mine field
PROFIT
Timings:
Early/mid-game :
1) drop into the main base while hellions are harassing the front.
2) Burrow 3 WMsnear the ramp.
3) Launch nuke, either army climbs ramp to clear the ghost or probes transfer to the natural = lots of dead probes or dead army
1) Are we talking like 7:00 in the game?? Because that's what this scenario sounds like.
2) Assuming your opponent has good map vision, shouldn't he see the widow mines burrowing at the ramp, or even just have units at least CLOSE to the general area to stop the drop?
3) Assuming this scenario was actually set up according to plan, couldn't said player just pull workers to kill off the ghost themselves? If anything, just pulling the probes into the area where the ghost is standing is fairly safe spot.
When I think of nukes used in the mid- to late-stages of the game, I think of defensive nukes to force the opponent back. Maybe you could do the nuke and juke stuff that was common in TvT 2 years ago where you set down the nuke, run a bunch of widow mines forward to burrow, then cancel the nuke; this forces your opponent to back off without really dealing with the widow mines and allows you to slowly step forward as mech.
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EPT
