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On January 31 2013 14:29 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2013 14:13 Rabiator wrote:On January 31 2013 10:58 NeoValkyrion wrote:On January 29 2013 13:37 GinDo wrote:I wish they would miniaturize the Thor. Yeah, its's "cool" and "badass". But, It's highly impractical. Were better off with more mobile Mini Thors. Or give us a viable ground-mode Viking. Like the one in the HOTS preview  , that takes on Ultras. I cant think of any change I would love more than for ground mode Viking to become viable and a part of Terran mech play. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think this is a good idea? Or have any ideas for how it could work? There is nothing which can make the ground mode viable AND fair. The transformation process takes far too long and creates a vulnerability during that time, which basically means you cant run away in a close fight (unless your opponent cant shoot air obviously) ... only if you are the "last one standing" could you use it to escape from reinfocements. The whole concept is terrible and only used as an excuse to not give us the Wraith back. I would pick that one with a lower ground damage than Vikings over the sluggish transformers any time. The whole SC2 concept is based around too many special abilities. This doesnt make the game "more interesting", only "more complicated" and since these abilities are not equally hard or easy to use it also makes some races easier to play compared with others. This is a bad idea for a competitive game and Viking transformation is just such a perfect example of a useless clicky. A few more examples: - Thor Strike cannon, which is replaced by another "meaningless clicky" (due to the terribly low damage of that alternate attack); - Blink is an example for Protoss, because you HAVE TO USE IT to make your Stalkers last in a straight up fight; - Roach-burrow-healing-micro was probably intended to be used in a similar fashion to blink, but Roaches have been kept strong enough to do without it so it never gets used and this leaves the Protoss at a disadvantage in a Roach vs. Stalker fight; - Creep tumor is yet another easy example, because Zerg units are good enough to fight off creep, but if you are able to spread this "spying stuff" well you get a "free maphack" and "anti-bunker-building-ward". They even give Hydralisks more speed in HotS, so what is the point of creep spreading tumors again? It has been negated and still Zerg can keep their "bonus terrain feature". The game and its units should be kept nice and simple instead ... removing excessive stuff would be a good idea IMO and Viking transformation is one of these things. Honestly I agree 100% with this. Every unit having it's own ability is beyond dumb. Whether passive or active almost every unit in this game is being given some sort of ability. It's too much of a game about hardcounters and not enough about skill. Things in BW traded much closer than here. He builds stalkers I build marauders he builds immortals i build marines he builds cols i build vikings and now it's back to stalkers. It's a terrible system. It's like rock paper scissors.
In fairness this happened in BW too (try fighting Dragoons with Wraiths for example)
But the UI was limiting enough that when you gained an advantage you couldn't just pour in 200 supply into their throats. There was always a chance to retreat (assuming equal skill)
It takes so many actions to manage a big army that your macro suffers. If it doesn't, then your army suffers. One or the other *will* suffer unless you're Bisu or JD. So it didn't matter that you brought stalkers to a marauder fight--the bad ai made it difficult to give chase and so your faster units would be able to get away. They bumped into each other, started stringing along instead of maintaining formation.
What you're complaining about is not a design issue, it's a UI issue.
The designs are sub-par, for sure, but your qualm has nothing to do with unit design.
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On February 01 2013 02:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2013 14:29 Infernal_dream wrote:On January 31 2013 14:13 Rabiator wrote:On January 31 2013 10:58 NeoValkyrion wrote:On January 29 2013 13:37 GinDo wrote:I wish they would miniaturize the Thor. Yeah, its's "cool" and "badass". But, It's highly impractical. Were better off with more mobile Mini Thors. Or give us a viable ground-mode Viking. Like the one in the HOTS preview , that takes on Ultras. I cant think of any change I would love more than for ground mode Viking to become viable and a part of Terran mech play. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think this is a good idea? Or have any ideas for how it could work? There is nothing which can make the ground mode viable AND fair. The transformation process takes far too long and creates a vulnerability during that time, which basically means you cant run away in a close fight (unless your opponent cant shoot air obviously) ... only if you are the "last one standing" could you use it to escape from reinfocements. The whole concept is terrible and only used as an excuse to not give us the Wraith back. I would pick that one with a lower ground damage than Vikings over the sluggish transformers any time. The whole SC2 concept is based around too many special abilities. This doesnt make the game "more interesting", only "more complicated" and since these abilities are not equally hard or easy to use it also makes some races easier to play compared with others. This is a bad idea for a competitive game and Viking transformation is just such a perfect example of a useless clicky. A few more examples: - Thor Strike cannon, which is replaced by another "meaningless clicky" (due to the terribly low damage of that alternate attack); - Blink is an example for Protoss, because you HAVE TO USE IT to make your Stalkers last in a straight up fight; - Roach-burrow-healing-micro was probably intended to be used in a similar fashion to blink, but Roaches have been kept strong enough to do without it so it never gets used and this leaves the Protoss at a disadvantage in a Roach vs. Stalker fight; - Creep tumor is yet another easy example, because Zerg units are good enough to fight off creep, but if you are able to spread this "spying stuff" well you get a "free maphack" and "anti-bunker-building-ward". They even give Hydralisks more speed in HotS, so what is the point of creep spreading tumors again? It has been negated and still Zerg can keep their "bonus terrain feature". The game and its units should be kept nice and simple instead ... removing excessive stuff would be a good idea IMO and Viking transformation is one of these things. Honestly I agree 100% with this. Every unit having it's own ability is beyond dumb. Whether passive or active almost every unit in this game is being given some sort of ability. It's too much of a game about hardcounters and not enough about skill. Things in BW traded much closer than here. He builds stalkers I build marauders he builds immortals i build marines he builds cols i build vikings and now it's back to stalkers. It's a terrible system. It's like rock paper scissors. In fairness this happened in BW too (try fighting Dragoons with Wraiths for example) But the UI was limiting enough that when you gained an advantage you couldn't just pour in 200 supply into their throats. There was always a chance to retreat (assuming equal skill)It takes so many actions to manage a big army that your macro suffers. If it doesn't, then your army suffers. One or the other *will* suffer unless you're Bisu or JD. So it didn't matter that you brought stalkers to a marauder fight--the bad ai made it difficult to give chase and so your faster units would be able to get away. They bumped into each other, started stringing along instead of maintaining formation. What you're complaining about is not a design issue, it's a UI issue. The designs are sub-par, for sure, but your qualm has nothing to do with unit design.
This hits the nail on the head perfectly and it is something I have said for some time. The problem of many SC2 designs is that the balance between two unit types shifts with the number of units involved and since that number can be "ridiculously high" it can shift far too much which makes the balance unstable in the end. Easy examples are Infestors in general or even my classic "Stalker vs Marines" example.
Warhounds probably only got "too good" because you could have too many in a tight clump, which added up to a lot of dps. This kinda reminds me of Thors, which were - once upon a time - great to be used against Protoss ... but had to be nerfed afterwards. The big problem of SC2 is really the stupid "massive numbers of units with perfect movement UI", but since Blizzard is unlikely to ever change that we will have to make do with whining about unit design ... which Blizzard will change (albeit pretty randomly as can be seen with their HotS units).
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On February 01 2013 03:04 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 02:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 31 2013 14:29 Infernal_dream wrote:On January 31 2013 14:13 Rabiator wrote:On January 31 2013 10:58 NeoValkyrion wrote:On January 29 2013 13:37 GinDo wrote:I wish they would miniaturize the Thor. Yeah, its's "cool" and "badass". But, It's highly impractical. Were better off with more mobile Mini Thors. Or give us a viable ground-mode Viking. Like the one in the HOTS preview , that takes on Ultras. I cant think of any change I would love more than for ground mode Viking to become viable and a part of Terran mech play. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think this is a good idea? Or have any ideas for how it could work? There is nothing which can make the ground mode viable AND fair. The transformation process takes far too long and creates a vulnerability during that time, which basically means you cant run away in a close fight (unless your opponent cant shoot air obviously) ... only if you are the "last one standing" could you use it to escape from reinfocements. The whole concept is terrible and only used as an excuse to not give us the Wraith back. I would pick that one with a lower ground damage than Vikings over the sluggish transformers any time. The whole SC2 concept is based around too many special abilities. This doesnt make the game "more interesting", only "more complicated" and since these abilities are not equally hard or easy to use it also makes some races easier to play compared with others. This is a bad idea for a competitive game and Viking transformation is just such a perfect example of a useless clicky. A few more examples: - Thor Strike cannon, which is replaced by another "meaningless clicky" (due to the terribly low damage of that alternate attack); - Blink is an example for Protoss, because you HAVE TO USE IT to make your Stalkers last in a straight up fight; - Roach-burrow-healing-micro was probably intended to be used in a similar fashion to blink, but Roaches have been kept strong enough to do without it so it never gets used and this leaves the Protoss at a disadvantage in a Roach vs. Stalker fight; - Creep tumor is yet another easy example, because Zerg units are good enough to fight off creep, but if you are able to spread this "spying stuff" well you get a "free maphack" and "anti-bunker-building-ward". They even give Hydralisks more speed in HotS, so what is the point of creep spreading tumors again? It has been negated and still Zerg can keep their "bonus terrain feature". The game and its units should be kept nice and simple instead ... removing excessive stuff would be a good idea IMO and Viking transformation is one of these things. Honestly I agree 100% with this. Every unit having it's own ability is beyond dumb. Whether passive or active almost every unit in this game is being given some sort of ability. It's too much of a game about hardcounters and not enough about skill. Things in BW traded much closer than here. He builds stalkers I build marauders he builds immortals i build marines he builds cols i build vikings and now it's back to stalkers. It's a terrible system. It's like rock paper scissors. In fairness this happened in BW too (try fighting Dragoons with Wraiths for example) But the UI was limiting enough that when you gained an advantage you couldn't just pour in 200 supply into their throats. There was always a chance to retreat (assuming equal skill)It takes so many actions to manage a big army that your macro suffers. If it doesn't, then your army suffers. One or the other *will* suffer unless you're Bisu or JD. So it didn't matter that you brought stalkers to a marauder fight--the bad ai made it difficult to give chase and so your faster units would be able to get away. They bumped into each other, started stringing along instead of maintaining formation. What you're complaining about is not a design issue, it's a UI issue. The designs are sub-par, for sure, but your qualm has nothing to do with unit design. This hits the nail on the head perfectly and it is something I have said for some time. The problem of many SC2 designs is that the balance between two unit types shifts with the number of units involved and since that number can be "ridiculously high" it can shift far too much which makes the balance unstable in the end. Easy examples are Infestors in general or even my classic "Stalker vs Marines" example. Warhounds probably only got "too good" because you could have too many in a tight clump, which added up to a lot of dps. This kinda reminds me of Thors, which were - once upon a time - great to be used against Protoss ... but had to be nerfed afterwards. The big problem of SC2 is really the stupid "massive numbers of units with perfect movement UI", but since Blizzard is unlikely to ever change that we will have to make do with whining about unit design ... which Blizzard will change (albeit pretty randomly as can be seen with their HotS units).
HotS is in beta, do not take this as reference that Blizz will change units randomly.
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On February 01 2013 02:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2013 14:29 Infernal_dream wrote:On January 31 2013 14:13 Rabiator wrote:On January 31 2013 10:58 NeoValkyrion wrote:On January 29 2013 13:37 GinDo wrote:I wish they would miniaturize the Thor. Yeah, its's "cool" and "badass". But, It's highly impractical. Were better off with more mobile Mini Thors. Or give us a viable ground-mode Viking. Like the one in the HOTS preview , that takes on Ultras. I cant think of any change I would love more than for ground mode Viking to become viable and a part of Terran mech play. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think this is a good idea? Or have any ideas for how it could work? There is nothing which can make the ground mode viable AND fair. The transformation process takes far too long and creates a vulnerability during that time, which basically means you cant run away in a close fight (unless your opponent cant shoot air obviously) ... only if you are the "last one standing" could you use it to escape from reinfocements. The whole concept is terrible and only used as an excuse to not give us the Wraith back. I would pick that one with a lower ground damage than Vikings over the sluggish transformers any time. The whole SC2 concept is based around too many special abilities. This doesnt make the game "more interesting", only "more complicated" and since these abilities are not equally hard or easy to use it also makes some races easier to play compared with others. This is a bad idea for a competitive game and Viking transformation is just such a perfect example of a useless clicky. A few more examples: - Thor Strike cannon, which is replaced by another "meaningless clicky" (due to the terribly low damage of that alternate attack); - Blink is an example for Protoss, because you HAVE TO USE IT to make your Stalkers last in a straight up fight; - Roach-burrow-healing-micro was probably intended to be used in a similar fashion to blink, but Roaches have been kept strong enough to do without it so it never gets used and this leaves the Protoss at a disadvantage in a Roach vs. Stalker fight; - Creep tumor is yet another easy example, because Zerg units are good enough to fight off creep, but if you are able to spread this "spying stuff" well you get a "free maphack" and "anti-bunker-building-ward". They even give Hydralisks more speed in HotS, so what is the point of creep spreading tumors again? It has been negated and still Zerg can keep their "bonus terrain feature". The game and its units should be kept nice and simple instead ... removing excessive stuff would be a good idea IMO and Viking transformation is one of these things. Honestly I agree 100% with this. Every unit having it's own ability is beyond dumb. Whether passive or active almost every unit in this game is being given some sort of ability. It's too much of a game about hardcounters and not enough about skill. Things in BW traded much closer than here. He builds stalkers I build marauders he builds immortals i build marines he builds cols i build vikings and now it's back to stalkers. It's a terrible system. It's like rock paper scissors. In fairness this happened in BW too (try fighting Dragoons with Wraiths for example) But the UI was limiting enough that when you gained an advantage you couldn't just pour in 200 supply into their throats. There was always a chance to retreat (assuming equal skill) It takes so many actions to manage a big army that your macro suffers. If it doesn't, then your army suffers. One or the other *will* suffer unless you're Bisu or JD. So it didn't matter that you brought stalkers to a marauder fight--the bad ai made it difficult to give chase and so your faster units would be able to get away. They bumped into each other, started stringing along instead of maintaining formation. What you're complaining about is not a design issue, it's a UI issue. The designs are sub-par, for sure, but your qualm has nothing to do with unit design.
Well in all honesty, ground viking arent that bad. They are actually pretty good but the fact that when you dont get air upgrade, they just become paper planes. 3-3 viking actually hold themselves quiet well on the ground against other 3-3 protoss infantry. Maybe not against zealot since they are suppose to counter them, similar to goliath vs zealots, in BW. Overall, viking do fairly decent even for their cost but no upgrade really hurts them considering when the meta atm revolve around getting really really fast upgrades in TvP. So by the time you get viking out, their already atleast 2-2 ground protoss.
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I do believe that the warhound was a great unit to introduce to terran, and it certainly did fill up the gaps that terran needed. However, I feel as though if Blizzard were to try a nerfed version of the unit, then there would be more complaints of it still being OP. Yet, Blizzard should have given it a try. I feel very indifferent about this topic, but Blizzard definitely needed another try.
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I like 2 ideas:
1)
warhound feels like a mech marauder: sure, why not? then i do not need to build baracks and upgrade infantry when i feel the need for marauders!
2)
warhound with ground weapon (maybe haywire as an upgrade) and splash air attack for midgame/vs muta
thor with ground weapon and single target damage for lategame (maybe require fusion core)/vs carrier/cattlebruiser/gglords
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On February 02 2013 00:24 SheaR619 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 02:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 31 2013 14:29 Infernal_dream wrote:On January 31 2013 14:13 Rabiator wrote:On January 31 2013 10:58 NeoValkyrion wrote:On January 29 2013 13:37 GinDo wrote:I wish they would miniaturize the Thor. Yeah, its's "cool" and "badass". But, It's highly impractical. Were better off with more mobile Mini Thors. Or give us a viable ground-mode Viking. Like the one in the HOTS preview , that takes on Ultras. I cant think of any change I would love more than for ground mode Viking to become viable and a part of Terran mech play. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think this is a good idea? Or have any ideas for how it could work? There is nothing which can make the ground mode viable AND fair. The transformation process takes far too long and creates a vulnerability during that time, which basically means you cant run away in a close fight (unless your opponent cant shoot air obviously) ... only if you are the "last one standing" could you use it to escape from reinfocements. The whole concept is terrible and only used as an excuse to not give us the Wraith back. I would pick that one with a lower ground damage than Vikings over the sluggish transformers any time. The whole SC2 concept is based around too many special abilities. This doesnt make the game "more interesting", only "more complicated" and since these abilities are not equally hard or easy to use it also makes some races easier to play compared with others. This is a bad idea for a competitive game and Viking transformation is just such a perfect example of a useless clicky. A few more examples: - Thor Strike cannon, which is replaced by another "meaningless clicky" (due to the terribly low damage of that alternate attack); - Blink is an example for Protoss, because you HAVE TO USE IT to make your Stalkers last in a straight up fight; - Roach-burrow-healing-micro was probably intended to be used in a similar fashion to blink, but Roaches have been kept strong enough to do without it so it never gets used and this leaves the Protoss at a disadvantage in a Roach vs. Stalker fight; - Creep tumor is yet another easy example, because Zerg units are good enough to fight off creep, but if you are able to spread this "spying stuff" well you get a "free maphack" and "anti-bunker-building-ward". They even give Hydralisks more speed in HotS, so what is the point of creep spreading tumors again? It has been negated and still Zerg can keep their "bonus terrain feature". The game and its units should be kept nice and simple instead ... removing excessive stuff would be a good idea IMO and Viking transformation is one of these things. Honestly I agree 100% with this. Every unit having it's own ability is beyond dumb. Whether passive or active almost every unit in this game is being given some sort of ability. It's too much of a game about hardcounters and not enough about skill. Things in BW traded much closer than here. He builds stalkers I build marauders he builds immortals i build marines he builds cols i build vikings and now it's back to stalkers. It's a terrible system. It's like rock paper scissors. In fairness this happened in BW too (try fighting Dragoons with Wraiths for example) But the UI was limiting enough that when you gained an advantage you couldn't just pour in 200 supply into their throats. There was always a chance to retreat (assuming equal skill) It takes so many actions to manage a big army that your macro suffers. If it doesn't, then your army suffers. One or the other *will* suffer unless you're Bisu or JD. So it didn't matter that you brought stalkers to a marauder fight--the bad ai made it difficult to give chase and so your faster units would be able to get away. They bumped into each other, started stringing along instead of maintaining formation. What you're complaining about is not a design issue, it's a UI issue. The designs are sub-par, for sure, but your qualm has nothing to do with unit design. Well in all honesty, ground viking arent that bad. They are actually pretty good but the fact that when you dont get air upgrade, they just become paper planes. 3-3 viking actually hold themselves quiet well on the ground against other 3-3 protoss infantry. Maybe not against zealot since they are suppose to counter them, similar to goliath vs zealots, in BW. Overall, viking do fairly decent even for their cost but no upgrade really hurts them considering when the meta atm revolve around getting really really fast upgrades in TvP. So by the time you get viking out, their already atleast 2-2 ground protoss.
I was doing the math and I realized that a very easy fix to Vikings is to give them +2 ground attack per upgrade instead of +1
You see, if you look at supply as the main restriction to unit efficiency in the late game--ie I only have 200 supply worth of dudes is this unit actually worth the supply he's taking up? What I realized is this nice tidbit.
Two marines (2 supply) deals 12 damage per .86 seconds.
One Assault Mode Viking (2 supply) deals 12 damage per 1 seconds.
Supply wise there isn't much difference between the two. However, 2 marines get +2 attack per upgrade (+1 for each marine) greatly outpaces the +1 per attack upgrade that Vikings get.
Lets assume an even game, both players max out.
Terran has half his army supply in Marines or Assault Mode Vikings (a realistic scenario when the other half of the army supply is taken up by Medivac/Marauders/Flight Mode Vikings/Ghosts/etc...)
So that should be about 70 supply of marines/Assault Mode Vikings.
70 Marines deal 6 damage x 70 marines x 1.2 attack speed = 504 damage per second
35 Vikings deal 12 damage x 35 Vikings x 1 attack speed = 420 damage per second
The vikings deal 20% less damage but have 125 health each (as opposed to the 120 combined health of 2 marines)
70 marines have 3850 total hitpoints between them
35 vikings have 4375 total hitpoints between them
Vikings are also less prone to being instantly killed by storms and are much more viable versus Archons.
However... Stim + upgrades makes the math lopsided in favor of marines...
The 504 damage of 70 marines gets +70 increased damage per upgrade (+210 damage for +3)
The 420 damage of 35 vikings get s +35 increased damage per upgrade (+105 damage for +3)
Fully upgraded marines deal 714 damage and 1071 with Stim (Stim does cut the 3850 health pool down to 3150 hitpoints)
Fully upgraded Vikings deal 525 damage total.
Dealing half as much damage per supply it doesn't matter that Vikings have 30% more hitpoints than stimmed marines, they deal 50% less damage!
With +2 attack per upgrade the numbers become more even.
Without stim, Marines only deal 12% more damage but are %12 more fragile (and even more fragile when you add in damage break points and archon damage to bio)
With stim, Marines only deal 40% more damage while being 30% more fragile.
This is of course assuming that we only have supply be the limiting factor (Vikings still cost 50minerals 75gas more than 2 marines)
But that is a testament to how good vikings are as a ground unit. *IF* you really want to make ground Vikings viable for lategame play then you give the ground mode +3 attack per upgrade.
Going back to our 70 marines vs 35 vikings scenario, +3 attacks on both becomes almost dead even at +3 ground attack for Vikings.
Fully upgraded marines still deal 714 damage (1071 with Stim)
Fully upgraded vikings would deal 840 damage
The vikings would still be doing less damage than stimmed marines, but their increased cost will be for more hitpoints and relatively close damage output. (More damage if marines don't stim, less damage when marines do stim)
The limiting factor they have will be that they cost gas and would *need* to be fully upgraded before they become even with marines.
Anyway, sorry for pulling this topic away from Warhounds, just wanted to point out that Vikings don't actually need too much of a buff to become worth it to be ground mode.
TLDR: If we buff the upgrade coefficients of Assault Vikings we can make them viable during the late game without making them OP during the early/midgame because until they get +3/+3 they are weaker than simply having more marines.
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Perhaps they should make it so you can morph 2 WarHounds into a Thor. Similar to how High Templars / Dark Templars morph into Archons, but with some Transformer flair.
Make the Transform ability researchable at the Armory, and increase the WHs gas cost to 100 (putting it on par with Thor cost), and last like 15 seconds or so.
We could make the WH an AA oriented unit, and make the Thor more ground DPS focused. Perhaps give the HayWire Missile to the Thor, and put the 2 different AA cannons on the WarHound.
Since the new way to build a Thor would be to make 2 WHs and transform them (60 secs), this would take up 2 Factories at a time to produce 1 Thor thus reducing the overall production rate of them. If this was the case we could argue to make the Thor a beefier T3 unit.
This late in the beta it is impossible to hope for such a drastic change, but we can dream can’t we.
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On February 02 2013 04:22 Lunarvirus wrote:
Perhaps they should make it so you can morph 2 WarHounds into a Thor. Similar to how High Templars / Dark Templars morph into Archons, but with some Transformer flair.
Make the Transform ability researchable at the Armory, and increase the WHs gas cost to 100 (putting it on par with Thor cost), and last like 15 seconds or so.
We could make the WH an AA oriented unit, and make the Thor more ground DPS focused. Perhaps give the HayWire Missile to the Thor, and put the 2 different AA cannons on the WarHound.
Since the new way to build a Thor would be to make 2 WHs and transform them (60 secs), this would take up 2 Factories at a time to produce 1 Thor thus reducing the overall production rate of them. If this was the case we could argue to make the Thor a beefier T3 unit.
This late in the beta it is impossible to hope for such a drastic change, but we can dream can’t we.
An even better idea would be to allow 5 hellions to transform into one Helltron who uses his fire sword to slay the Ultralisk.
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I remember seeing a youtube video where the Terran buildings could combine to form an Ultra Zord that was unbeatable.
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On February 02 2013 07:38 Harbinger631 wrote:
I remember seeing a youtube video where the Terran buildings could combine to form an Ultra Zord that was unbeatable.
That was a unit called "Terra-tron" and it was an april fools joke (from the time when Blizzard still did good ones).
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 02 2013 02:13 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2013 00:24 SheaR619 wrote:On February 01 2013 02:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 31 2013 14:29 Infernal_dream wrote:On January 31 2013 14:13 Rabiator wrote:On January 31 2013 10:58 NeoValkyrion wrote:On January 29 2013 13:37 GinDo wrote:I wish they would miniaturize the Thor. Yeah, its's "cool" and "badass". But, It's highly impractical. Were better off with more mobile Mini Thors. Or give us a viable ground-mode Viking. Like the one in the HOTS preview , that takes on Ultras. I cant think of any change I would love more than for ground mode Viking to become viable and a part of Terran mech play. Seriously, doesn't anyone else think this is a good idea? Or have any ideas for how it could work? There is nothing which can make the ground mode viable AND fair. The transformation process takes far too long and creates a vulnerability during that time, which basically means you cant run away in a close fight (unless your opponent cant shoot air obviously) ... only if you are the "last one standing" could you use it to escape from reinfocements. The whole concept is terrible and only used as an excuse to not give us the Wraith back. I would pick that one with a lower ground damage than Vikings over the sluggish transformers any time. The whole SC2 concept is based around too many special abilities. This doesnt make the game "more interesting", only "more complicated" and since these abilities are not equally hard or easy to use it also makes some races easier to play compared with others. This is a bad idea for a competitive game and Viking transformation is just such a perfect example of a useless clicky. A few more examples: - Thor Strike cannon, which is replaced by another "meaningless clicky" (due to the terribly low damage of that alternate attack); - Blink is an example for Protoss, because you HAVE TO USE IT to make your Stalkers last in a straight up fight; - Roach-burrow-healing-micro was probably intended to be used in a similar fashion to blink, but Roaches have been kept strong enough to do without it so it never gets used and this leaves the Protoss at a disadvantage in a Roach vs. Stalker fight; - Creep tumor is yet another easy example, because Zerg units are good enough to fight off creep, but if you are able to spread this "spying stuff" well you get a "free maphack" and "anti-bunker-building-ward". They even give Hydralisks more speed in HotS, so what is the point of creep spreading tumors again? It has been negated and still Zerg can keep their "bonus terrain feature". The game and its units should be kept nice and simple instead ... removing excessive stuff would be a good idea IMO and Viking transformation is one of these things. Honestly I agree 100% with this. Every unit having it's own ability is beyond dumb. Whether passive or active almost every unit in this game is being given some sort of ability. It's too much of a game about hardcounters and not enough about skill. Things in BW traded much closer than here. He builds stalkers I build marauders he builds immortals i build marines he builds cols i build vikings and now it's back to stalkers. It's a terrible system. It's like rock paper scissors. In fairness this happened in BW too (try fighting Dragoons with Wraiths for example) But the UI was limiting enough that when you gained an advantage you couldn't just pour in 200 supply into their throats. There was always a chance to retreat (assuming equal skill) It takes so many actions to manage a big army that your macro suffers. If it doesn't, then your army suffers. One or the other *will* suffer unless you're Bisu or JD. So it didn't matter that you brought stalkers to a marauder fight--the bad ai made it difficult to give chase and so your faster units would be able to get away. They bumped into each other, started stringing along instead of maintaining formation. What you're complaining about is not a design issue, it's a UI issue. The designs are sub-par, for sure, but your qualm has nothing to do with unit design. Well in all honesty, ground viking arent that bad. They are actually pretty good but the fact that when you dont get air upgrade, they just become paper planes. 3-3 viking actually hold themselves quiet well on the ground against other 3-3 protoss infantry. Maybe not against zealot since they are suppose to counter them, similar to goliath vs zealots, in BW. Overall, viking do fairly decent even for their cost but no upgrade really hurts them considering when the meta atm revolve around getting really really fast upgrades in TvP. So by the time you get viking out, their already atleast 2-2 ground protoss. I was doing the math and I realized that a very easy fix to Vikings is to give them +2 ground attack per upgrade instead of +1 You see, if you look at supply as the main restriction to unit efficiency in the late game--ie I only have 200 supply worth of dudes is this unit actually worth the supply he's taking up? What I realized is this nice tidbit. Two marines (2 supply) deals 12 damage per .86 seconds. One Assault Mode Viking (2 supply) deals 12 damage per 1 seconds. Supply wise there isn't much difference between the two. However, 2 marines get +2 attack per upgrade (+1 for each marine) greatly outpaces the +1 per attack upgrade that Vikings get. Lets assume an even game, both players max out. Terran has half his army supply in Marines or Assault Mode Vikings (a realistic scenario when the other half of the army supply is taken up by Medivac/Marauders/Flight Mode Vikings/Ghosts/etc...) So that should be about 70 supply of marines/Assault Mode Vikings. 70 Marines deal 6 damage x 70 marines x 1.2 attack speed = 504 damage per second 35 Vikings deal 12 damage x 35 Vikings x 1 attack speed = 420 damage per second The vikings deal 20% less damage but have 125 health each (as opposed to the 120 combined health of 2 marines) 70 marines have 3850 total hitpoints between them 35 vikings have 4375 total hitpoints between them Vikings are also less prone to being instantly killed by storms and are much more viable versus Archons. However... Stim + upgrades makes the math lopsided in favor of marines... The 504 damage of 70 marines gets +70 increased damage per upgrade (+210 damage for +3) The 420 damage of 35 vikings get s +35 increased damage per upgrade (+105 damage for +3) Fully upgraded marines deal 714 damage and 1071 with Stim (Stim does cut the 3850 health pool down to 3150 hitpoints) Fully upgraded Vikings deal 525 damage total. Dealing half as much damage per supply it doesn't matter that Vikings have 30% more hitpoints than stimmed marines, they deal 50% less damage! With +2 attack per upgrade the numbers become more even. Without stim, Marines only deal 12% more damage but are %12 more fragile (and even more fragile when you add in damage break points and archon damage to bio) With stim, Marines only deal 40% more damage while being 30% more fragile. This is of course assuming that we only have supply be the limiting factor (Vikings still cost 50minerals 75gas more than 2 marines) But that is a testament to how good vikings are as a ground unit. *IF* you really want to make ground Vikings viable for lategame play then you give the ground mode +3 attack per upgrade. Going back to our 70 marines vs 35 vikings scenario, +3 attacks on both becomes almost dead even at +3 ground attack for Vikings. Fully upgraded marines still deal 714 damage (1071 with Stim) Fully upgraded vikings would deal 840 damage The vikings would still be doing less damage than stimmed marines, but their increased cost will be for more hitpoints and relatively close damage output. (More damage if marines don't stim, less damage when marines do stim) The limiting factor they have will be that they cost gas and would *need* to be fully upgraded before they become even with marines. Anyway, sorry for pulling this topic away from Warhounds, just wanted to point out that Vikings don't actually need too much of a buff to become worth it to be ground mode. TLDR: If we buff the upgrade coefficients of Assault Vikings we can make them viable during the late game without making them OP during the early/midgame because until they get +3/+3 they are weaker than simply having more marines.
Good maths, but at the end marines will deal more damage because they can combine with medibacks, the combination of stim + medibacks is what makes marines sooo good. If you use your starports to build 30 vikings you lose your capacity to build essential support units like raven or mediback (to help hellbats for example).
Dont get me wrong, I like your idea of +2 upgrade for landed vikings. The upgrade, with faster transformation, would be awesome.
But I think that factory needs a unit similiar a landed viking to have a decent movile mech army with hellbats as a frontline and a range unit as support (here comes the warhound) and vikings/ravens as air support.
Inmortals? -> raven HSM
Colosus/void rays/tempest? -> Vikings
With this Mech army combined with another tech against P is plausible and we could have a new unit.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XuX9Unw.jpg)
