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On February 10 2013 08:21 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2013 06:27 TheSwagger wrote:On February 10 2013 06:20 FreeTossCZComentary wrote:
I have different way to solve it - way Hellbat is, as units, its way too flexible. It needs massive increase of changing time(After all, hellbats are basicaly Area Attacking Zealots) to around 12~15 seconds(yeah, its hell lot of time, maybe 10 sec, after little thinking, but think about templar -> archon morphing) and make it so unlike Hellion, medv. can carry only 2 hellbats, not 4. While Hellbat itself is not nerfed, helldrop and change-mode play is.
Edit: Just Noticed River Dragon mentioned it. Well, I would still like to see longer changetime as well. I just physically cant get over it, I mean the hellion has finite components, by changing the order of those components around it doesn't become twice the size so taking up twice the space in the medivac (their size is reflective of food cost typically as well) just doesn't make sense to me to make the hellion the only exception to the rule. I strongly argue that by delaying the timing of the attack the efficacy of the 4 hellion drop timing would be drastically less effective but still effective enough where if a player was not watching their map they could be punished with some nice harass. I believe oracle's do a great job of this as well, arguably in less time. I physically can't get over it. I mean the hellion has finite components, by changing the order of those components around it doesn't make it into a biological unit that can be healed. See what I did there? I used blizzard logic too. If somehow it changing where it's mechanical parts are makes it biological then it can damn sure become 2x as big. Which actually it taking up twice as much supply in the medivac makes plenty of sense. If you cut a triangle in three and move the pieces around you can make it take up twice the area of a normal triangle.
Point taken, however, the precedent stands that the size in a dropship/medivac/overlord/transport unit is dictated not by physical size but by food count, an ultralisk is like 8 times the size of a seige tank according to the new cinematic so I dont think physical size should be the the appropriate way to determine its transport size. That's more or less what I was trying to describe.
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Have you tried putting a spine in your minerals? Or focusing the medivac (not the helbats) with your queen? Terrans have to put up missile towers to deal with mutas, so Zerg should expect to have to put up spines to deal with helbats if they refuse to make roaches.
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Something should probably be done, but it's hard to say what. Most of the suggested nerfs don't mitigate the effectiveness of hellbats in the early game with medivacs. You can still pump out hellions and wait for an upgrade to finish. You can shove 4 hellions into a medivac and morph them when you drop if the loaded storage changes size. Any nerf to damage just puts them back where they were before (borderline awful), while a removal of healing or reduction of health just compounds to the issues Terran has already with fragile units.
My own 2c on the subject would be to maybe lower their movement speed (to at least 2.0). That way you can run or kite them easier, at least until enough units come out to overpower the healing. Idk though, that doesn't seem like a great idea either...
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On February 10 2013 12:43 Lactomar wrote:
Have you tried putting a spine in your minerals? Or focusing the medivac (not the helbats) with your queen? Terrans have to put up missile towers to deal with mutas, so Zerg should expect to have to put up spines to deal with helbats if they refuse to make roaches.
from the instances I've tried it and my opponent successfully defended it, they did have static defense in place, and they were also anticipating the attack. I also agree, that the medivac is huge priority in defending this attack; without the medivac healing the hellbats they are considerably easier to kill. Reacting time is probably the single largest mitigator of damage in this scenario... I used to play Dark Souls PvP online and it was "dishonorable" to heal yourself mid-fight, so people coined the phrase that "The best form of mitigation is evasion." in other words, the best way to lessen damage is to completely evade or dodge it. Obvious, I know, but a pretty key concept.
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On February 10 2013 08:21 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2013 06:27 TheSwagger wrote:On February 10 2013 06:20 FreeTossCZComentary wrote:
I have different way to solve it - way Hellbat is, as units, its way too flexible. It needs massive increase of changing time(After all, hellbats are basicaly Area Attacking Zealots) to around 12~15 seconds(yeah, its hell lot of time, maybe 10 sec, after little thinking, but think about templar -> archon morphing) and make it so unlike Hellion, medv. can carry only 2 hellbats, not 4. While Hellbat itself is not nerfed, helldrop and change-mode play is.
Edit: Just Noticed River Dragon mentioned it. Well, I would still like to see longer changetime as well. I just physically cant get over it, I mean the hellion has finite components, by changing the order of those components around it doesn't become twice the size so taking up twice the space in the medivac (their size is reflective of food cost typically as well) just doesn't make sense to me to make the hellion the only exception to the rule. I strongly argue that by delaying the timing of the attack the efficacy of the 4 hellion drop timing would be drastically less effective but still effective enough where if a player was not watching their map they could be punished with some nice harass. I believe oracle's do a great job of this as well, arguably in less time. I physically can't get over it. I mean the hellion has finite components, by changing the order of those components around it doesn't make it into a biological unit that can be healed. See what I did there? I used blizzard logic too. If somehow it changing where it's mechanical parts are makes it biological then it can damn sure become 2x as big. Which actually it taking up twice as much supply in the medivac makes plenty of sense. If you cut a triangle in three and move the pieces around you can make it take up twice the area of a normal triangle.
Point taken, however, the precedent stands that the size in a dropship/medivac/overlord/transport unit is dictated not by physical size but by food count, an ultralisk is like 8 times the size of a seige tank according to the new cinematic so I dont think physical size should be the the appropriate way to determine its transport size. That's more or less what I was trying to describe.
On February 10 2013 09:01 Pookie Monster wrote:
i have no idea why hell bats are biological, why not making vikings in ground mode biological makes just as much sense.
That said, Hellbat drops are getting predictable and are getting easier to defend, it requires you to upgrade to star port tech AND get an armory its super all innish if they rush for it. Its no different than one base muta, or one base DT, or one base cloakshee, all of these can give you an insta loss if not scouted and prepared for. This is why i doubt blizzard is going to nerf it.
That is also a legitimate point that the viking is not biological. I dont really like to get into the "its a different unit with a different role" thing (the hellbat was designed to have a specific purpose, and if it needed a modification to make that come to fruition that is more or less what Blizzard is going to do.) And I agree, there are similar all-in's from every race. Is what you're saying is that most people need to scout it as-is and that it's defendable? I would agree that its definitely scoutable and defendable, I've noticed is that in the stage the game is at right now it has very discernable qualities of its type of gameplay and thats good for an opponent, nice and transparent, and what I mean by that, is that its a a very clear choice and the executor's options are fairly limited while they are performing it. It requires micro, sure you could drop-and-forget but you likely wont get much damage done except in rare instances in lower league play - largely due to lack of map awareness or ear penetrating dub-step bass lines playing over in-game alerts. It is a resource heavy build. I know a lot of people say that it only costs 100 minerals, but you get 8 of those guys (two building at a time, as well as building SCV's and supply depots you'll quickly realize you cant do much other than what you're already doing) and you have two expansions worth of units in a flying container that could potentially go down the tubes from a mistake. So theyre expensive, they cost a Terran player expansions, they have no other tech going for it (stim/combat shield/Conc) Above all of that, if all of their minerals are going into hellbats and the execution of this type of game play, they do not have the other production facilities to do a hard tech-switch into something else (no extra barracks, likely not enough sim city to block a large natural ramp. (it all really is dependent on how greedy the executor is.)
I like the potential the gameplay has. For example, you send in a hellbat drop to a natural expansion, and a dropship or two full of marines to the main or third. The difference is that the hellbats are great at killing workers, the marines would be better at clearing up structures, with the goal of executing two kinds of efficient damage. Thats the route I see it ending up at. The question to ask, though, is this the kind of metagame change that Blizzard was anticipating? From what they originally said, they wanted the meta to stay relatively the same and that the new units would be in addition to existing meta. Now, I'll look for the source on that quote but if anyone else read that, feel free to back me up on that one.
One thing I'd like to point out is that in this game you are required to gain intel on your opponent to win, if you rely on build order wins they likely won't solely carry you far. I used to play a ton of 1v1 obs and I always remember seeing bronze/silver Terran players doing the ever popular 1 rax FE build. If you watched the FilterSC guide you learned some great mechanics, some macro, and really started preparing yourself for a different style of gameplay a lot of people were not accustomed to. What I always saw, were people executing the build, but making a shit load of marines. A seasoned Protoss player could easily recognize this build and would tech into colossus and slaughter the marine army push it aside like it was just a piss in the ocean. Terran players would get frustrated and lose several times, and realize maybe a couple of marauders would help balance things out when they went for that timing push. Some decided that if they kept a closer eye on their opponent they might have a better idea of how to prepare for it. Maybe add a few viking into the mix to help. The point is, When we're making evaluations we need to take an objective stance on the matter.
Thats why I'm really calling on anyone who has been up against this type of gameplay and overcome it. I encourage you to post your replays and discuss your logic. It is for the benefit of the community. So if you read this, and you play against the hellion timing during your ladder session, take a note, save the replay and give some feedback here, please.
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There's very little change in the meta both marine drops and hellbat drops cost 400 min except the marines cost more gas due to research and can only hit one target at a time.
I've noticed that Terran players tend to be opportunistic and quick to copy a successful strategy.
They are also the least likely to complain about adjustments. Looking back at the Beta Patch thread where WMs damage was reduced to 125dmg, not only was there little resistance among the main Terran, they adapted.
Compare that to the Zerg player, in the Beta Patch #13, not only do Zerg now have overlord speed upgrade AND Overseer upgrade at Lair, which allows for early detection of the armory AND reactor'd factory, they STILL complained!
Seriously guys seriously.
In fact, Zerg players are the ONLY players among the four TPZR groups to not use the new units!
Husky has casted ZvX where the Zerg has yet to build a single Viper 15min in and on four bases when the Terran player has clearly gone for MMM. Why?
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Nice "This is not a balance thread." into "proceed to enumerate a number of potential nerfs" build.
I thought it would be about strategy and tactics to actually deal with hellbats in-game, I'm disappointed.
Regardless, I think that hellbats are too strong, but I'm Terran so you know what, I'm going to keep enjoying the unit ;D
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On February 10 2013 13:34 ZenithM wrote:
Nice "This is not a balance thread." into "proceed to enumerate a number of potential nerfs" build.
I thought it would be about strategy and tactics to actually deal with hellbats in-game, I'm disappointed.
Regardless, I think that hellbats are too strong, but I'm Terran so you know what, I'm going to keep enjoying the unit ;D
that is its intention, some points were brought up for issues on continuity, and they were fair questions, however, not for this thread. I still dont think its a mandatory build and I dont think that T players are pigeonholed into using it. For the rest of the night I'll try to execute it as an opener in various ways but I just tried a very aggressive variant and it was stuffed by some map awareness, and some sniping of the Medivac. What are the requirements for Planetary Nexus? just a MSC? that seems to me to be a very effective way of dealing with it.
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I have been running all helbat drops versus Z all night, and I can say for sure:
PULL UR DRONES
If you leave them there I will kill them all, queens be damned. I bound "Q" as an alternate for hold position so I stutter step my helbats. Hold position forces them to ignore the queen and shoot for the closest thing they see, the drones hopefully.
Another cool helbat tip: if you see their spire, KILL IT. The helbats can kill it easy, then go kill his eggs. I did that to this guy. Killed all his mutas in their eggs and he had no spire left to make more. Lulz.
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the main problem with helbats at least from a zerg pov is that you cant tell if the terran is going for helbat drops or just standard hellion expand. if zerg has to blindly prepare for helbat drop that early their economy becomes shitty. even if you pull drones they load up and speed boast to ur other mineral line forcing you to pull again and you have no way to catch them or punish the terran. the only way ive actualy been able to counter helbat drops is ultra fast muta (lair before speed) which loses to anything kinda standard.
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I was watching Idra's HOTS stream, and he ran into Maru Prime (sick). The game evolved into widow-mine heavy mech vs hydra/swarm host/muta, with Idra eventually adding broodlords. I missed who actually won, but I can say that while Idra was being slightly outplayed the whole time, a single hellbat drop in the late midgame put him vastly behind... and it was basically impossible to mitigate the damage without other units there, he lost every drone. I could feel his pain at that moment.
I'm going to revise an earlier opinion, I think hellbat drops may actually be overpowered considering their price, the sheer speed at which they annihilate workers and the awesome synergy with boosted medivacs. I don't think any amount of 'delaying' hellbat tech is going to fix that problem, although it's the early hellbat drops/threat of such which are the most devastating.
However... there are a lot of things that are overpowered in HOTS at the moment. Hopefully, blizzard will look at the entire balance picture before nerfing yet another cool terran unit into a very niche role. I will say that as a mech Terran, I would be very comfortable with eliminating the 'biological' tag on hellbats, which never made sense to me to begin with.
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Hellbats simply need to not do damage in a huge aoe around themselves, they should have a similar attack as hellions except maybe even less range than hellions. Maybe zerglings wouldn't be obsolete vs Terran then.
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I was watching Idra's HOTS stream, and he ran into Maru Prime (sick). The game evolved into widow-mine heavy mech vs hydra/swarm host/muta, with Idra eventually adding broodlords. I missed who actually won, but I can say that while Idra was being slightly outplayed the whole time, a single hellbat drop in the late midgame put him vastly behind... and it was basically impossible to mitigate the damage without other units there, he lost every drone. I could feel his pain at that moment.
That sounds like what happens when BFH catch drones lined up, or when burrowed infestors manage to sneak into a mineral line or two oracles entering the mineral line while I'm trying to micro the main army?
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On February 10 2013 16:45 PaperPrinter wrote:
Hellbats simply need to not do damage in a huge aoe around themselves, they should have a similar attack as hellions except maybe even less range than hellions. Maybe zerglings wouldn't be obsolete vs Terran then.
Their aoe was already vastly reduced iirc.
I dont think hellbat performance against drones is really much of an issue. They might be a bit too good general purpose, but I dont think they should be significantly nerfed vs light. A more realistic nerf to hellbat drops would be moving speed boost to the medivac upgrade (then that upgrade is at least useful again). That gives the defender a bit more reaction time.
But it shouldnt be heavily nerfed before people have a chance to figure out how to deal with it. Look at reaper in TvT in the beginning of the beta. It started with whoever could make more reapers, but after a while tactics were designed to deal with reapers. Of course it stayed quite reaper centric game, and I wasnt too big a fan of it, but it definately wasnt just whoever makes more reapers anymore. And at that point blizzard decided to nerf reapers anyway to a really gimmick unit.
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I feel like the big problem is that they are getting healed, making them next to impossible to kill during a drop. In TvZ particularly, some zergs pull their drones immediately, but then the hellbats just kills the roaches due to being healed anyway which eventually leaves the drones exposed.
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On February 10 2013 18:36 Tailss wrote:
I feel like the big problem is that they are getting healed, making them next to impossible to kill during a drop. In TvZ particularly, some zergs pull their drones immediately, but then the hellbats just kills the roaches due to being healed anyway which eventually leaves the drones exposed.
Let's establish you NEED enough queens to out-heal the medivac
Zerg can no longer macro their way out a surgical strike in HotS.
Z's Fast mutas is resolved with early spore crawler,
T's Hellbat drop will kill unmacroed roaches and queens.
P's oracles will kill unmacroed queens.
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They should remove the bio tag from hellbats and add an upgrade at starport techlab for medis to heal mech at a decreased rate from bio. This solves the problem of hellbat drops being too effective, but they will get better lategame with the research. This also improves the survivability of all mech in general, which is a big weakness of it, maintaining a sizable army. Medivacs that repair seems like one of the only solutions left to mech because of the way the game works with the other races remaxing capabilities.
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I have no problems with the Hellbat. What most of the people will tell you it's overpowered in the beta is the Medivac boost. I can already imagine a thousand ways that them crazy Koreans will be able to abuse them. The idea behind the skill is fine, the no drawback short cooldown is not. You can change it so many ways while still keeping it useful that it isn't that hard to think of few of the top of my head: increase cooldown, slower acceleration into same final speed as now, energy cost... I can go on forever, but one of these is enough.
People have been complaining about Hellbats only since they started seeing the boost used with them, and the easiest way is to nerf the bat itself. Although they could just remove the bio tag from them, future problems that will come up with the Medivac won't be solved. And remember, we still want to use Hellbats in direct engagements.
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To all those saying "get static defense blah blah" "we need turrets aswell to defend mutas herp derp"
1. Static defense does nothing because you´d need enough of it to kill all hellbats before all the drones die.
If you then proceed to run your drones they just load in and drop them at your drone congo line. congratz you just wasted minerals on static defense that does absolutly nothing yey
2. Mutas are a HUGE mineral and Gas comitment aswell as a HUGE tech and time comintent. Hellbats are neither of those.
They cost no gas, they build fast and you´d get a factory and a armory anyway when you go mech. Maby you get the armory slightly quicker then normally but thats not at all a comitment equal to the utility you get out of the hellbat drops.
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Yeah the idea isnt that you get enough static defenses so you single shot every hellbat once it is unloaded. You move away your drones (yes you cannot keep them mining with a bunch of hellbats between them), then your units + static defenses kill the hellbats/medivac.
He wont have another speed boost directly available, so the plan is you dont sit around with your drones waiting for him to load his hellbats (which should be spread out now, so he cant just load them all at once) and drop them right on top of your drones. Meanwhile your queens can keep attacking the medivac.
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EPT
