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First of all, if you're here to whine and bitch about it, this is not a balance thread, I'm going to give you a minute to do us all a favor and Alt+F4 at this time....
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Thank you and welcome to the positive discussion regarding the hellbat timing attack. This is obviously hypothetical, thus, nothing may actually come from it. However, I have considered some rather obvious alternative approaches to end the whining.
They include:
1.) Increasing the cost of the armory both minerals and gas solely as a means to delay.
2.) Increasing the cost of the armory in accordance with construction time (the difference being the cost is increased, just not as much as significantly increasing it alone as a means to delay hellbat tech/timing attack)
3.) Making Battle Hellion mode a researchable tech unit within the armory or perhaps the techlab of the factory.
While these ideas are clearly just that, ideas, I feel that there are many ways to approach the hellbat and its current status. I feel that most people agree that the hellbat is not only NOT overpowered, it is actually appropriately powered. However, I feel that most players feel that the hellbat tech is too available and can be reached at a time that other races or players are pigeonholed into forcing too much static defense, pulling of the workers, or hard countering, or perhaps in the TvT building hellbats to compete.
My solutions offers the best of both worlds in my opinion. The hellbats functionality remains intact, but it forces those who want to use it so aggressively to invest more time and more resources into making it work. This is the kind of game where a few minutes or a few seconds (seconds more so for professional or highly skilled combatants.) make a hell of a difference.
So, consider these ideas and chime in if you have any constructive ideas of your own. I would ask that you dont say things like "no healing, damage reduction, remove from the game." we're discussing the fact its already here and how you currently work to defend it, execute it, and if you could change it, how you would in a constructive and concrete (detailed) manner. Lord knows it doesnt work every time so i'm definitely encouraging hearing some brave tales of those who scouted it and worked to defend it and how they achieved that. With a positive discussion, a lot of people can learn how to properly execute this timing attack, defend this timing attack, and suggest ways it can be improved for the official release. So lets put our efforts to work for us and not against us. Whining does not get us far.
Mods, if you feel this too closely resembles a balance thread, please let me know so I can alter the content to conform to the rules and regulations of the board.
Thanks!
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Maybe I'm wrong but I think that the majority of the issue is hellbat drops in combination with new speed medivacs? Maybe if a medivac could only hold two hellbats instead of four, drops wouldn't be so game changing and hellbats could still be used in army compositions.
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On February 10 2013 06:14 Riverdragon0 wrote:
Maybe I'm wrong but I think that the majority of the issue is hellbat drops in combination with new speed medivacs? Maybe if a medivac could only hold two hellbats instead of four, drops wouldn't be so game changing and hellbats could still be used in army compositions.
Yup. It's been proposed a few times on the official forums. Seems like the obvious solution.
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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.
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I think people describe the speedas a problem, but in reality its the fact that they are so hard to kill as they are healed by the medivac. If you can eliminate the medivac they are much easier to clean up. However, around the timing attack there isnt many options other than static defense, by delaying that slightly I think more options would be available to players and the smoothness of the game would be rectified. I do not think medivac speed is at all an issue, and it does exactly what its intended to do.
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people would just load up medvacs with hellions and transform in a hidden area of the base. As a terran I will admit that the hellbat is really hard to deal with TvT, but I think this is because people haven't quite figured out how to defend. WM and marauders seem to work pretty decently. As for changing the cost/build time that would change the 2/2 timings for terran and make the upgrades harder to get and make thors harder to get to making mech TvZ less viable since mutas have more opportunity to strike before thors can defend. Making it researchable is not a good idea either since it would cost quite a bit to make hellions cost too much or take too much time to make them fully useful. BFH plus a Hellbat upgrade take too long when this upgrade would have to be in a tech lab. Overall changes to structural tech (buildings/upgrades) affects way more than you think.
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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.
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On February 10 2013 06:24 Sircoolguy wrote:
people would just load up medvacs with hellions and transform in a hidden area of the base. As a terran I will admit that the hellbat is really hard to deal with TvT, but I think this is because people haven't quite figured out how to defend. WM and marauders seem to work pretty decently. As for changing the cost/build time that would change the 2/2 timings for terran and make the upgrades harder to get and make thors harder to get to making mech TvZ less viable since mutas have more opportunity to strike before thors can defend. Making it researchable is not a good idea either since it would cost quite a bit to make hellions cost too much or take too much time to make them fully useful. BFH plus a Hellbat upgrade take too long when this upgrade would have to be in a tech lab. Overall changes to structural tech (buildings/upgrades) affects way more than you think.
I think overall changes to building cost or build time is the best solution if we wanted to keep the timing attack qualities the same. My reasoning for this is that by costing the armory more, or making construction time longer, that will effectively delay the tech but shouldnt delay everything else. Afterall, the people who are executing it as quickly as they can are using it as a timing attack. A player should have consequences of choosing an attack that is not fruitful; A player should be conscious of what techniques to employ on the field. I think making construction time longer or costing more resources places a little more pressure on the executor. As it stands right now, there are no real consequences to a bad execution. This is of course dubious and the sample pool is somewhat low in beta stages. I have seen circumstances where players have not executed properly and did hardly to no damage at all and the game continued fine, I have seen instances where players failed, and then got steamrolled, basically, I have seen it work every kind of way possible.
That being said, it just makes a person wonder. If it can fail, and it does, and it can succeed and does, does it succeed too often, or fail too often? Is the success of the attack dependent on scouting? It seems to me it can be executed fairly blindly at the moment. However, some people do scout or expect this build and prepare accordingly and defend it. These are some of the stories I want to hear from players.
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I would change the Hellbat to be mechanical and then nerf the damage.
Reasoning:
a) drops are worse with no healing and less damage
b) still powerful in TvP since they don't get countered by Archons
c) it'll nerf them in TvZ where mech seems to be superior to bio.
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On February 10 2013 06:27 TheSwagger wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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United Kingdom12023 Posts
On February 10 2013 08:07 ChillPhiju wrote:
I would change the Hellbat to be mechanical and then nerf the damage.
Reasoning:
a) drops are worse with no healing and less damage
b) still powerful in TvP since they don't get countered by Archons
c) it'll nerf them in TvZ where mech seems to be superior to bio.
Well mech should be superior to bio, it's weaknesses are mobility which on a lot of maps (minus like Daybreak) a good zerg will completely abuse. Lategame mech should certainly be the stronger option.
I'd say changing them to mechanical would be good, but nerfing the damage would make them bad at what they need to do, which is deal with zealots and lings and protect the tanks. It'd be better to just change how they synergise with drops as currently they're good in drops, but still managable outside of them.
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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.
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What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me.
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United Kingdom12023 Posts
On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me.
The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p
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I feel like Hellbats shouldn't be healed by medivacs. They just seem to be invincible in that combination early game. Also the Medivac Boost basically negates the sole disadvantage of Hellbats: being slow. Even if I pull all my drones in time, they can still re-activated Medivac Boost, reload all Hellbats and just drop them on top of the pulled drones. There's no way to do anything against that. Even if you split the drones well you're still losing way too much.
Reintroducing a required upgrade might also be a solution since the problem seem to be mostly early game. Overall there are many ways to approach this issue and I'm pretty sure Blizzard will soon come to the same conclusion that Hellbats+Medivac are too strong early game.
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Changing cost or build time on armory is so far out I can't even begin to imagin how it would change the entire game. Terran is already the race that has the hardest time upgrading in the midgame, making it even harder to prevent harass thats semi-easily stopped by good awereness and good unit placement is not at all the way to go. Battlehellions are incredibly strong right now and that should be adressed, but not by nerfing other units and strategies.
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Ill be honest i don't see this thread surviving long under the Beta sections rules but regardless ill give it a shot at what i think would have been better for it.
I think the biggest problem in their current design is ironically their tie-in to Hellions. This means that they are bound to be very cheap gasless units. Despite the fact that the hellion and the hellbat at this point shares nothing but their mech upgrades. They aren't even same unit type.
If the hellbats had been firebats then their cost could be adjusted for their power. Even marauders costs gas so why not fire/hellbats. They counter other mineral-only units in a ratio that is almost crazy.
David kim has been proposing a solution that could work. Make the hellion transformation perfect. Making them Hellbats would be a commitment. Could also cost reassources to do so.It is not like hellbats need the speed they are best used with medivacs.
I think that would be the way to go, but i wonder if it will happen in time.
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i think if you needed to reasearch Hellbat mode it would be a good first step.
Sure you j´could just nerf it because hellbat drops early game are way to strong and dominant but if you´d delay it by say 80 seconds by making it a upgrade, and making the Terran spend extra ressources on it would show wheather its really that op or if it is just the timing that is.
With the extra time that the research would need and the extra ress to spend for it the Terrans would have to really commit to hellbats and the oponent would get time to prepare.
Also i think Hellions/Hellbats should absolutly not be Mineral only (even just speaking of lore it makes no sense  )
a cost of 100/25 or even 100/50 // 75/50 to make hellbat drops or general early hellbat play impact your tech and economy more would only make sense to me.
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They don't need a nerf. What needs to happen is people need to learn how to defend them.
It's not hard. They have a range of 2.
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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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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.
I agree, the problem with Battle Hellions is a combination of the Medivac thrusters, Bio tag and unit cost to damage efficiency. I think if Blizzard made the Medivac thrusters an upgrade and removed the Bio tag then the Battle Hellions wouldn't be able to chase down the drone line as they run and they wouldn't be able to hold their ground vs Queens and Roaches by microing the Medivac so easily as opposed to loading up and flying off. Furthermore, removing the Bio tag is a buff for Battle Hellions vs Protoss because they can deny Archons their damage bonus vs Bio in a match up where Factory units are still failing to gain traction.
The other balance issue for Terrans right now is the Armory, because it gives Terrans access to a free unit upgrade, another unit produced at the Factory, Vehicle upgrades and +2/2 Infantry upgrades in a single tech structure while Infernal Pre-Igniter is no longer a relevant upgrade because the Armory automatically gives all of your existing Hellions an even better DPS upgrade by turning them into Battle Hellions. And if the Battle Hellion form is not going to be compatible with the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade (and I'm not saying it should be as things are) then why should we have the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade at all if Battle Hellions are clearly better than Blue Flame Hellions and don't require a Tech Lab and upgrade compared to naturally advancing your tech towards upgrades and Thors and increasing your production with a Reactor?
I think if they want to leave the Hellbat as the cost efficient, melee DPS unit that it is, then they need to eliminate its synergy with the Medivac by delaying the thrusters and removing the Bio tag and then replace the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade with a Battle Hellion transformation upgrade and return the Siege Tank transformation upgrade to the tech lab so that Terrans have to actually make thoughtful decisions regarding how they want to advance their tech, i.e. do I upgrade my Hellions, my Siege Tanks or my Widow Mines instead of just building a Factory for a free Hellion upgrade, Vehicle upgrades, +2/2, access to Thors and then getting to shut down almost all of Zerg's early timing attacks with either the new Widow Mines or free Siege tech on top of it.
I mean right now as a Terran player, the only upgrade I get at my Factory tech lab is Drilling Claws late into the mid-game, and there is something extremely wrong with that from a basic design perspective because the Drilling Claws are hardly even necessary to make Widow Mines function.
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On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p
I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors?
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On February 10 2013 06:20 FreeTossCZComentary wrote:
I have different way to solve it - way Hellbat is, as units, its way too flexible.
I've been arguing this since the moment the idea of the Hellbat was released. The Hellion is already a very strong harass unit, giving it big utility in battles was the wrong idea, especially since it is a mineral only unit. It can do everything the Zealot or 4 Zerglings can do, it just does it so much better.
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I just realized that this is the intention of Blizzard to use hellbats for harass.
Why?
A) marine drop timings are too well known
B) widow mine drops take forever to burrow and frustrating to diamond and below
C) reapers are too easy to shut down (4 queens/ling surround)
Which leaves the hellbat drop. A unit that benefits from being surrounded AND can be healed
Why else would they remove the research requirement in armory?
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On February 11 2013 00:59 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors?
Immortals are soft countered by marines and marauders, now hellbats. They hard counter tanks, thors, and bunkers. When not in a vacuum situation (ie with sentries, zealots, and stalkers), they're still useful against bio (especially marauders). Even with Terran support, they still wreck thors, bunkers, and tanks.
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On February 10 2013 11:21 Evangelist wrote:
They don't need a nerf. What needs to happen is people need to learn how to defend them.
It's not hard. They have a range of 2.
Agreed man. I'd be mad for a day if they did.
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On February 11 2013 04:37 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 00:59 TokO wrote:On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors? Immortals are soft countered by marines and marauders, now hellbats. They hard counter tanks, thors, and bunkers. When not in a vacuum situation (ie with sentries, zealots, and stalkers), they're still useful against bio (especially marauders). Even with Terran support, they still wreck thors, bunkers, and tanks.
I agree with everything except the bolded. Yes, they are not horrible against bio, but they're also not cost-efficient in terms of opportunity cost. Which explains why modern PvT has moved away from building immortals, and rather going straight to additional gateways\observers\tech. Immortals fills a gap where you need the extra dps to be safe against all-ins, but don't have the production facilities to provide this (which is why you are willing to sacrifice the resources), Planetary Nexus should be an adequate replacement for this. And yes, they wreck tanks, thors and bunkers, but that's really irrelevant in terms of bio-hellbat timing attacks before tier 3.
I'm not arguing that immortals are shit, they aren't. However, it doesn't make sense that a 100 mineral unit (with medivac support) is outperforming a 250/100 unit so severely, especially when the other units in the bio arsenal is already very potent against the immortal.
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On February 11 2013 05:51 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 04:37 aksfjh wrote:On February 11 2013 00:59 TokO wrote:On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors? Immortals are soft countered by marines and marauders, now hellbats. They hard counter tanks, thors, and bunkers. When not in a vacuum situation (ie with sentries, zealots, and stalkers), they're still useful against bio (especially marauders). Even with Terran support, they still wreck thors, bunkers, and tanks. I agree with everything except the bolded. Yes, they are not horrible against bio, but they're also not cost-efficient in terms of opportunity cost. Which explains why modern PvT has moved away from building immortals, and rather going straight to additional gateways\observers\tech. Immortals fills a gap where you need the extra dps to be safe against all-ins, but don't have the production facilities to provide this (which is why you are willing to sacrifice the resources), Planetary Nexus should be an adequate replacement for this. And yes, they wreck tanks, thors and bunkers, but that's really irrelevant in terms of bio-hellbat timing attacks before tier 3. I'm not arguing that immortals are shit, they aren't. However, it doesn't make sense that a 100 mineral unit (with medivac support) is outperforming a 250/100 unit so severely, especially when the other units in the bio arsenal is already very potent against the immortal.
This 100 mineral unit with medivac is actually 2 units. The medivac costs 100/100 and both units take 2 supply, so thats 200/100 4 supply, 2 units working in synergy.
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On February 11 2013 05:51 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 04:37 aksfjh wrote:On February 11 2013 00:59 TokO wrote:On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors? Immortals are soft countered by marines and marauders, now hellbats. They hard counter tanks, thors, and bunkers. When not in a vacuum situation (ie with sentries, zealots, and stalkers), they're still useful against bio (especially marauders). Even with Terran support, they still wreck thors, bunkers, and tanks. I agree with everything except the bolded. Yes, they are not horrible against bio, but they're also not cost-efficient in terms of opportunity cost. Which explains why modern PvT has moved away from building immortals, and rather going straight to additional gateways\observers\tech. Immortals fills a gap where you need the extra dps to be safe against all-ins, but don't have the production facilities to provide this (which is why you are willing to sacrifice the resources), Planetary Nexus should be an adequate replacement for this. And yes, they wreck tanks, thors and bunkers, but that's really irrelevant in terms of bio-hellbat timing attacks before tier 3. I'm not arguing that immortals are shit, they aren't. However, it doesn't make sense that a 100 mineral unit (with medivac support) is outperforming a 250/100 unit so severely, especially when the other units in the bio arsenal is already very potent against the immortal.
Armored hellbats would make banelings obsolete. Zerg would have a ridiculously tough time dealing with bio/hellbat armies.
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The balance is done, no major changes will happen before may 12th. Hellbats are fine, l2p!
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I think they just plainly need to nerf Hellbat dps and remove the medivac speed boost. Right now 1 medivac and 4 hellbats has way too much harrass potential imo.
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Its not worse than the oracle harras. You need to have defence for it. Is that so bad?
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United States7483 Posts
On February 11 2013 08:04 OyvN wrote:
Its not worse than the oracle harras. You need to have defence for it. Is that so bad?
Oracle harass is trivial to defend in comparison, and is substantially less catastrophic.
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On February 11 2013 06:31 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 05:51 TokO wrote:On February 11 2013 04:37 aksfjh wrote:On February 11 2013 00:59 TokO wrote:On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors? Immortals are soft countered by marines and marauders, now hellbats. They hard counter tanks, thors, and bunkers. When not in a vacuum situation (ie with sentries, zealots, and stalkers), they're still useful against bio (especially marauders). Even with Terran support, they still wreck thors, bunkers, and tanks. I agree with everything except the bolded. Yes, they are not horrible against bio, but they're also not cost-efficient in terms of opportunity cost. Which explains why modern PvT has moved away from building immortals, and rather going straight to additional gateways\observers\tech. Immortals fills a gap where you need the extra dps to be safe against all-ins, but don't have the production facilities to provide this (which is why you are willing to sacrifice the resources), Planetary Nexus should be an adequate replacement for this. And yes, they wreck tanks, thors and bunkers, but that's really irrelevant in terms of bio-hellbat timing attacks before tier 3. I'm not arguing that immortals are shit, they aren't. However, it doesn't make sense that a 100 mineral unit (with medivac support) is outperforming a 250/100 unit so severely, especially when the other units in the bio arsenal is already very potent against the immortal. Armored hellbats would make banelings obsolete. Zerg would have a ridiculously tough time dealing with bio/hellbat armies.
Do you really use banelings against hellbats regardless? Wouldn't mind having them be Light-Armored though xD
@The comment about Medivacs: Yes, it's 2 units working in synergy, which costs the same as an immortal, but immortals themselves can't really fly into a mineral-line and splash all over workers xD
I don't mind hellbats being a very strong unit too much, but the way that the game is moving, robo is becoming more and more obsolete as the staple defensive build of protoss.
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On February 11 2013 08:04 OyvN wrote:
Its not worse than the oracle harras. You need to have defence for it. Is that so bad?
Except oracles are easily killed. And cannot be healed in combat. One missile turret counters an oracle. One missile turret does not counter a hellbat drop. Hell even a planetary doesn't counter it. You'll still lose your entire mineral line because of medivac speed boost.
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On February 11 2013 05:51 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 04:37 aksfjh wrote:On February 11 2013 00:59 TokO wrote:On February 10 2013 09:44 Qikz wrote:On February 10 2013 09:43 TokO wrote:
What really confused me was why the hellbat wasn't armored. Immortals spent ages killing a hellbat healed by medivacs, something that doesn't really make sense to me. The reasons why hellbat isn't armored is because it's supposed to the unit that can actually help with immortals and zealots without insta dying like everything else in the mech arsenal if you don't get perfect EMPs :p I can understand the fact that it's supposed to help against zealots, which is fair enough (being armored wouldn't change anything in the case of zealots). But being good against immortals basically mean that protoss don't have a cost-effective answer to hellbats until archons and colossus. Why do they have to be strong against immortals when Immortals are already being countered by almost all other terran units, except siege tanks and thors? Immortals are soft countered by marines and marauders, now hellbats. They hard counter tanks, thors, and bunkers. When not in a vacuum situation (ie with sentries, zealots, and stalkers), they're still useful against bio (especially marauders). Even with Terran support, they still wreck thors, bunkers, and tanks. I agree with everything except the bolded. Yes, they are not horrible against bio, but they're also not cost-efficient in terms of opportunity cost. Which explains why modern PvT has moved away from building immortals, and rather going straight to additional gateways\observers\tech. Immortals fills a gap where you need the extra dps to be safe against all-ins, but don't have the production facilities to provide this (which is why you are willing to sacrifice the resources), Planetary Nexus should be an adequate replacement for this. And yes, they wreck tanks, thors and bunkers, but that's really irrelevant in terms of bio-hellbat timing attacks before tier 3. I'm not arguing that immortals are shit, they aren't. However, it doesn't make sense that a 100 mineral unit (with medivac support) is outperforming a 250/100 unit so severely, especially when the other units in the bio arsenal is already very potent against the immortal.
That's what I meant by "soft counter." You shouldn't be pumping out immortals to counter bio, but you're not going to feel like an idiot if you have some in your army against bio.
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United Kingdom12023 Posts
I understand what people are saying about the immortal should be good against the hellbat, but the hellbat is pretty much the only thing keeping mech from dying to just mass immortal.
I played mech in WoL and other than hoping you could get air out in time you would literally just die to immortal zealot, even with EMPs (it was always hard to get enough). Hellions couldn't tank well against immortals as the splash damage from the zealots being shot at left them dead and your tanks just got rolled the hell over by immortals.
Now with the hellbat I feel I finally have a decent buffer infront of immortals so the immortals have to engage them while being shot by tanks, even if there's no zealots. I think the hellbat personally is the one thing that's made mech in TvP so much more viable and on ladder I've been doing Tank/Hellbat/Thor into viking raven if they do an air switch and it's been great since I finally feel like I can actually leave my base and do any form of push since I can get an advantage even while in an aggressive position without needing building walls everywhere.
The immortal as a unit completely decemates all things mech minus the hellbat. If the hellbat loses it's power, then mech is just going to go back to dying to mass robo again like back in WoL I feel.
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On February 11 2013 08:13 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 08:04 OyvN wrote:
Its not worse than the oracle harras. You need to have defence for it. Is that so bad? Except oracles are easily killed. And cannot be healed in combat. One missile turret counters an oracle. One missile turret does not counter a hellbat drop. Hell even a planetary doesn't counter it. You'll still lose your entire mineral line because of medivac speed boost.
You scout it. So you place units near mineral lines and you can lay a mine or place a turret in or near the line. When the drop comes you run the workers away, focus the medivac so he cant pick up and chase workers. You should have a viking by now.
edit: now you kite the shit out for the hellbats with normal hellions
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On February 11 2013 08:34 Qikz wrote:
I understand what people are saying about the immortal should be good against the hellbat, but the hellbat is pretty much the only thing keeping mech from dying to just mass immortal.
I played mech in WoL and other than hoping you could get air out in time you would literally just die to immortal zealot, even with EMPs (it was always hard to get enough). Hellions couldn't tank well against immortals as the splash damage from the zealots being shot at left them dead and your tanks just got rolled the hell over by immortals.
Now with the hellbat I feel I finally have a decent buffer infront of immortals so the immortals have to engage them while being shot by tanks, even if there's no zealots. I think the hellbat personally is the one thing that's made mech in TvP so much more viable and on ladder I've been doing Tank/Hellbat/Thor into viking raven if they do an air switch and it's been great since I finally feel like I can actually leave my base and do any form of push since I can get an advantage even while in an aggressive position without needing building walls everywhere.
The immortal as a unit completely decemates all things mech minus the hellbat. If the hellbat loses it's power, then mech is just going to go back to dying to mass robo again like back in WoL I feel.
You're absolutely right, and that's the whole issue. I just don't see why marines couldn't fill that role. The reason for Terran tank-based pushes or 1-1-1's vs. Protoss being so potent, was the fact that there was a huge(decent) marine ball tanking the tanks for any zealots or immortals.
I think that mech has always been quite powerful in a lot of scenarios where the build was actually thought out and tested. Bio didn't really enter this state that it is in before a group of players laid out the timings in which you could play in.
The problem I have is that currently mech is really viable when just "winging" a build, including a few hellbats, tanks and thors. Think of the potential when people start churning out some really abusive timings.
@aksfjh: 1. You're not going to feel like an idiot, if having a few immortals saved you from dying to an all-in. 2. You're missing my point. In most other cases, I would feel like an idiot, because if I spent those 250/100 on other things, I most likely would have been better off against anything bio.
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United Kingdom12023 Posts
On February 11 2013 09:11 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 08:34 Qikz wrote:
I understand what people are saying about the immortal should be good against the hellbat, but the hellbat is pretty much the only thing keeping mech from dying to just mass immortal.
I played mech in WoL and other than hoping you could get air out in time you would literally just die to immortal zealot, even with EMPs (it was always hard to get enough). Hellions couldn't tank well against immortals as the splash damage from the zealots being shot at left them dead and your tanks just got rolled the hell over by immortals.
Now with the hellbat I feel I finally have a decent buffer infront of immortals so the immortals have to engage them while being shot by tanks, even if there's no zealots. I think the hellbat personally is the one thing that's made mech in TvP so much more viable and on ladder I've been doing Tank/Hellbat/Thor into viking raven if they do an air switch and it's been great since I finally feel like I can actually leave my base and do any form of push since I can get an advantage even while in an aggressive position without needing building walls everywhere.
The immortal as a unit completely decemates all things mech minus the hellbat. If the hellbat loses it's power, then mech is just going to go back to dying to mass robo again like back in WoL I feel. You're absolutely right, and that's the whole issue. I just don't see why marines couldn't fill that role. The reason for Terran tank-based pushes or 1-1-1's vs. Protoss being so potent, was the fact that there was a huge(decent) marine ball tanking the tanks for any zealots or immortals. I think that mech has always been quite powerful in a lot of scenarios where the build was actually thought out and tested. Bio didn't really enter this state that it is in before a group of players laid out the timings in which you could play in. The problem I have is that currently mech is really viable when just "winging" a build, including a few hellbats, tanks and thors. Think of the potential when people start churning out some really abusive timings.
That's pretty much the same with any build at any level in the game minus say pro level, grandmasters and high masters. Anyone can build units and go kill the enemy, if anything bio is the worst for that. Mech is still really hard to pull off and I've been finding myself that you can do a 6 fact timing from 2 base to punish a fast double expanding toss pretty nicely if he doesn't go stargate, although if he does you need to add a starport instead of the 2 extra facts and get vikings/turrets for your push.
I've been having success with it, but outside specific timings I've found for myself at my own level, I pretty much die late game to anything stargate (although everyones suffering that currently).
I'd much rather have mech possible at any level like bio if you just wing it, because at the pro level that's never going to happen. If mech even gets picked up by pros vs toss (Kespa terrans I'm looking at you please, I need inspiration) then those timings will start to come to foot, but if they're timings to be abused, that's a good thing otherwise it means the game is stale and nobody can ever attack each other (see WoL PvZ).
EDIT: Also with your point about getting some tanks, thors and hellbats. Where's the issue there? That's a pretty diverse composition much like zealot/stalker/sentry for example.
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Those are some valid points guys, but remember, we're focusing on how we are working with and against this attack at its current state. We can all describe how the utopian metagame would be, but the reality is that if it were to stay the way it is (absolutely not saying it will) that efforts are best directed on how to work with it right now.
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Widow mine one shots the medivac. If you place it correctly you can shut down the drop completely.
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On February 10 2013 23:13 MoonCricket wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I agree, the problem with Battle Hellions is a combination of the Medivac thrusters, Bio tag and unit cost to damage efficiency. I think if Blizzard made the Medivac thrusters an upgrade and removed the Bio tag then the Battle Hellions wouldn't be able to chase down the drone line as they run and they wouldn't be able to hold their ground vs Queens and Roaches by microing the Medivac so easily as opposed to loading up and flying off. Furthermore, removing the Bio tag is a buff for Battle Hellions vs Protoss because they can deny Archons their damage bonus vs Bio in a match up where Factory units are still failing to gain traction. The other balance issue for Terrans right now is the Armory, because it gives Terrans access to a free unit upgrade, another unit produced at the Factory, Vehicle upgrades and +2/2 Infantry upgrades in a single tech structure while Infernal Pre-Igniter is no longer a relevant upgrade because the Armory automatically gives all of your existing Hellions an even better DPS upgrade by turning them into Battle Hellions. And if the Battle Hellion form is not going to be compatible with the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade (and I'm not saying it should be as things are) then why should we have the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade at all if Battle Hellions are clearly better than Blue Flame Hellions and don't require a Tech Lab and upgrade compared to naturally advancing your tech towards upgrades and Thors and increasing your production with a Reactor? I think if they want to leave the Hellbat as the cost efficient, melee DPS unit that it is, then they need to eliminate its synergy with the Medivac by delaying the thrusters and removing the Bio tag and then replace the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade with a Battle Hellion transformation upgrade and return the Siege Tank transformation upgrade to the tech lab so that Terrans have to actually make thoughtful decisions regarding how they want to advance their tech, i.e. do I upgrade my Hellions, my Siege Tanks or my Widow Mines instead of just building a Factory for a free Hellion upgrade, Vehicle upgrades, +2/2, access to Thors and then getting to shut down almost all of Zerg's early timing attacks with either the new Widow Mines or free Siege tech on top of it. I mean right now as a Terran player, the only upgrade I get at my Factory tech lab is Drilling Claws late into the mid-game, and there is something extremely wrong with that from a basic design perspective because the Drilling Claws are hardly even necessary to make Widow Mines function.
Blue Flame Hellions are still completely worth using, they have a very static role in the gameplay (hence the new transformation, completely different from its predecessor) The BFH does a great job of being mobile and inflicting damage fast. Some people might argue that the medivac makes the hellbat more mobile, I will argue back - no shit - it makes every unit more mobile. That is its point. If we get down the the nitty gritty, BFH into hellbat mode, in my opinion, were WAY stronger last patch with the wide-arc AOE, who the hell needed a heal? Mech was disgustingly strong. I like the synergy now, it makes it the battle hellion more versatile, sacrificing some damage surface area. I feel like the hellbat is an interesting unit because if you go full mech you dont need the medivacs becaause the tanks have great coverage, but if you go bio they would be a nuisance and you would have to CONSTANTLY rebuild them because theyre in the front and will take all the big hits/major damage. But the fact remains that bio pushes with the hellbat make later-game engagements with bio more viable for Terran players. I think that is the fundamental purpose of it being a bio unit.
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@Qikz: 1st point. I don't see your point. I'm really not concerned with the balance below high masters, as most of the issues can be overcome with improved mechanics\ability. In other words, I'm not worried about the "average" state of the strategy, but more worried about the potential of the strategy at "optimal" state.
I don't think mech is hard to pull off if you account for and expect the weaknesses of mech. Mech is definately strategically more demanding than bio, because of the amplitude of the weaknesses and advantages are much greater than with bio. Bio is a very versatile force, and therefore might seem stronger due to the less severe implications on various situations. You might feel that it is hard to pull off because you're lacking knowledge in what's the optimal allocation of resources, while a protoss who is more familiar with the dynamics of his units from WoL can much more comfortably make a well balanced response in terms of where he puts his resources. This will definately change as people become more accustomed to mech.
Mech has already been temporarily picked up by some pros in WoL and will definately be explored in HotS.
For the last point. The issue with dishing together a couple of tanks, thors and hellbats being very effective is that the composition does not have any glaring hard-counters. Less mobility means more power to the composition, because of the smaller potential for micro. So you have a really strong army without any strong counter. Bio in contrast had hard counters in storm and colossus, which could be countered while getting your own counters away from bio. Mech isn't really that weak against colossus. Well, it's pretty darn weak, but usually only in conjunction with immortals and chargelots, and in later timings. Anyway, the dynamics might work out, but tbh, I was arguing about the early-midgame potential of the hellbats and the lack of counters from protoss in that time period, not the overall unit and its dynamic in mech.
Stargate seems pretty strong, but the infrastructural investment and time spent to get to that critical point is very large, and I 'm pretty sure that if you do a 3-base all-in'ish kind of thing against protoss, similar to what Protoss did against zerg pre-broodlord timings, I think you should be pretty alright.
There are a few parallels that can be drawn. Hellbats smooth out the transition to lategame mech a lot, in the same way, the empowered void rays and nexus cannon smooth out the transition to lategame skytoss. If you're uncomfortable with how accessible Skytoss is atm, you should feel my concern about hellbats ^^
EDIT: To defend this as toss, given that you suspect a hellbat or widowmine opening:
1. Probe pull as soon as you see it coming.
2. Photon Overcharge on Nexus.
3. Stalker based opening, zealots are useless against anything mech based, and stalkers do alright against marines anyway.
4. With a stargate opening, I usually go Oracle -> Phoenix, to be safe incase of a widowmine drop, but I think you might be able to go Phoenix -> Oracle and have them both finish by the time the drop hits. Not sure if I would risk it though as a widow mine drop should hit before a hellbat drop? Anyway, you can have your air units scout around for the hellions, medivacs or mines etc.
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On February 11 2013 09:37 llIH wrote:
Widow mine one shots the medivac. If you place it correctly you can shut down the drop completely.
No it doesn't...
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On February 11 2013 09:41 TheSwagger wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2013 23:13 MoonCricket wrote: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.
I agree, the problem with Battle Hellions is a combination of the Medivac thrusters, Bio tag and unit cost to damage efficiency. I think if Blizzard made the Medivac thrusters an upgrade and removed the Bio tag then the Battle Hellions wouldn't be able to chase down the drone line as they run and they wouldn't be able to hold their ground vs Queens and Roaches by microing the Medivac so easily as opposed to loading up and flying off. Furthermore, removing the Bio tag is a buff for Battle Hellions vs Protoss because they can deny Archons their damage bonus vs Bio in a match up where Factory units are still failing to gain traction. The other balance issue for Terrans right now is the Armory, because it gives Terrans access to a free unit upgrade, another unit produced at the Factory, Vehicle upgrades and +2/2 Infantry upgrades in a single tech structure while Infernal Pre-Igniter is no longer a relevant upgrade because the Armory automatically gives all of your existing Hellions an even better DPS upgrade by turning them into Battle Hellions. And if the Battle Hellion form is not going to be compatible with the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade (and I'm not saying it should be as things are) then why should we have the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade at all if Battle Hellions are clearly better than Blue Flame Hellions and don't require a Tech Lab and upgrade compared to naturally advancing your tech towards upgrades and Thors and increasing your production with a Reactor? I think if they want to leave the Hellbat as the cost efficient, melee DPS unit that it is, then they need to eliminate its synergy with the Medivac by delaying the thrusters and removing the Bio tag and then replace the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade with a Battle Hellion transformation upgrade and return the Siege Tank transformation upgrade to the tech lab so that Terrans have to actually make thoughtful decisions regarding how they want to advance their tech, i.e. do I upgrade my Hellions, my Siege Tanks or my Widow Mines instead of just building a Factory for a free Hellion upgrade, Vehicle upgrades, +2/2, access to Thors and then getting to shut down almost all of Zerg's early timing attacks with either the new Widow Mines or free Siege tech on top of it. I mean right now as a Terran player, the only upgrade I get at my Factory tech lab is Drilling Claws late into the mid-game, and there is something extremely wrong with that from a basic design perspective because the Drilling Claws are hardly even necessary to make Widow Mines function. Blue Flame Hellions are still completely worth using, they have a very static role in the gameplay (hence the new transformation, completely different from its predecessor) The BFH does a great job of being mobile and inflicting damage fast. Some people might argue that the medivac makes the hellbat more mobile, I will argue back - no shit - it makes every unit more mobile. That is its point. If we get down the the nitty gritty, BFH into hellbat mode, in my opinion, were WAY stronger last patch with the wide-arc AOE, who the hell needed a heal? Mech was disgustingly strong. I like the synergy now, it makes it the battle hellion more versatile, sacrificing some damage surface area. I feel like the hellbat is an interesting unit because if you go full mech you dont need the medivacs becaause the tanks have great coverage, but if you go bio they would be a nuisance and you would have to CONSTANTLY rebuild them because theyre in the front and will take all the big hits/major damage. But the fact remains that bio pushes with the hellbat make later-game engagements with bio more viable for Terran players. I think that is the fundamental purpose of it being a bio unit.
I'm not saying Hellions and Infernal Pre-Igniter are worthless, but honestly ask yourself when was the last time you skipped your Reactor, Armory and Battle Hellions in exchange for a Tech Lab, Infernal Pre-Igniter and Blue Flame Hellions within the first ten minutes of the game? The point is the Armory has become the premier tech structure for Terran, because why build a Tech Lab and research Infernal Pre-Igniters when you could build an Armory, start 2/2 infantry upgrades, start 1/0 vehicle upgrades, transform your Hellions, build Thors and get Siege tech as icing on top of the cake?
The Armory is the most cost effective tech structure in SC2 and Battle Hellions significantly reduce the utility of Infernal Pre-Igniter to the point where I think it's better to remove the Battle Hellions from the Armory and replace Infernal Pre-Igniter with Transformation Servos at the Tech Lab for like 100/100 80sec just so Terrans have to make meaningful decisions between a Reactor or a Tech Lab or Transformation Servos or Siege Tech instead of just building a Reactor on the Barracks, exchanging the Reactor with the Factory, building a Starport, building a Medivac, building an Armory and then having access to the most powerful drop in the game at like 7 minutes and then being able to go straight into upgrades, Siege Tanks and Thors without missing a beat all while having mass Widow Mines to pretty much hold off any early Zerg push.
There's just no convincing reason to build a Tech Lab and research Infernal Pre-Igniters compared to building an Armory in any build order right now.
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The same can be said for the infestation pit and Starport now in HotS.
It's a New Game. Multiplayer experience WILL BE DIFFERENT.
Edit: IMHO, the key difference between an expansion and a new game is that Paradigms and unit interactions are redefined, see SC:BW and SC2, medics are no longer in the multiplayer, replaced with the more versatile medivac.
Unlike SC and SCBW, where new units added options such as the addition and interaction between medic and other infantry units but did not transform the traditional synergies of bio-play.
The example of the hellbat-medivac drop, TRANSFORMS the state of the game, no more will out-numbering the drop and a good surround defend against such drop, it is the opposite!
The same goes for the oracle/tempest, Protoss no longer need to rely on Robo to destroy masses of light units, long range needs and for detection, the Stargate offers the same and more!
If anything, Blizzard needs to do MORE not less to transform SC2: HotS into full new game as claimed rather than an expansion. HotS dynamics and synergies must DESTROY WoL timings and BOs.
E.g. A 1base mass marine timing all-in gets absolutely demolished by a few well placed widow mines charging up the ramp.
A 2 base ling/bling timing all-in gets crushed by running into oracles and sentries.
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Canada13389 Posts
I think the biggest problem is that with speed medivacs, there is no trade off for lack of mobility in the hellbat.
Its very slow so you should be able to pull probes. But, in reality you find that the speed medivac lets you catch up to the probes and drop ahead behind and around them with good micro. It's the inevitability of the damage that becomes a problem.
They also do a LOT of damage in the early phases of the game when their opponents don't have a lot of units out.
Sure, you can say "protoss, zerg, why not just expand later to your nat/third?" "tech earlier to roaches"
But the problem is that preparing for the hellbat drop or widow mine drop (both exacerbated by speed medivacs) for the "proper" tech when you see terran gas opening puts you behind a terran gas expand.
If you show one gas, then take an orbital (especially as protoss with limited scouting options early game) you end up economically behind in an attempt to be safe vs hellbats and/or widow mines.
The fact a medivac can speed boost from the starport and cross the map quickly, then wait for the cooldown then speed boost past AA defenses makes it crazy hard to deal with.
But this is just my experience which could be completely wrong.
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Hellbat + Medivac is like HT drops, Baneling drops, Burrowed infestors, only much cheaper , faster, less risky, with less tech commitment, and doesn't rely on surprise because even if talented players know it's coming they still more than pay for themselves.
Not to mention the unit is great at actual combat.
It's going to get nerfed hard, some times you have to wonder about blizzard they can be geniuses and do some really dumb shit like designing that unit.
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On February 11 2013 23:57 sibs wrote:
Hellbat + Medivac is like HT drops, Baneling drops, Burrowed infestors, only much cheaper , faster, less risky, with less tech commitment, and doesn't rely on surprise because even if talented players know it's coming they still more than pay for themselves.
Not to mention the unit is great at actual combat.
It's going to get nerfed hard, some times you have to wonder about blizzard they can be geniuses and do some really dumb shit like designing that unit.
You are comparing apples with oranges, grapes and an elephant
Well played hellbat drops require an opponent to attempt to SURROUND the hellbats and the T to perfectly execute pick-and-drop reaver-style micro while activating afterburners at key moments or get the medivac sniped and lose the mineral equivalent of an expansion.
Translation: You got outplayed son.
Edit: damned auto-correct
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On February 11 2013 23:16 ZeromuS wrote:Its very slow so you should be able to pull probes. But, in reality you find that the speed medivac lets you catch up to the probes and drop ahead behind and around them with good micro. It's the inevitability of the damage that becomes a problem.
I'm not sure how much hands-on experience you have with this to cite reality. If the medivac isn't the first thing you focus down when you spot it, then you're going to have a bad day. Pulling probes is possible, especially once the medivac has dropped the hellbats. It is very difficult for the terran player to pick up the hellbats again (doing this would definately make the remaining ranged units focus the medivac) to relocate to another place where you've pulled the probes. Usually the medivac will use speedboost to get into your mineral line, if not I can sort of see the scenario where the medivac can chase the probes. Protoss players should be careful against all kinds of drops if they scout anything but a gas-less fast expand.
EDIT: I definately think it's manageable to hold it and come out even or ahead as protoss. Usually, the reason you fall behind is that you lose your cool and go into panic mode, stop making probes etc. Terran's expand is very delayed.
Zerg struggles a little bit more, but their macro mechanics are pretty strong, so I don't mind Terran having options to contain it slightly more, maybe forcing a spore\spine or an extra queen.
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It doesn't have to be well played, it's an AOE unit that does 30 damage per shot, it also has 130hp, you can drop that shit on top of roaches/spinecrawlers, unless dude has his whole army there(and that army has roaches) it'll be cost efficient.
I can't even fathom how one could be so incompetent to lose a loaded medivac to Zerg before Lair, you need to be trying to be that bad.
I'll be really really surprised if that unit isn't nerfed hard.
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If hellbat are too strong early and not all game long the logical way to fix is :
- nerf their base damage
- Blue flame upgrade boost them to the point they are now
IMO the stongest part of the hellbat rush is that with the medivac they are able to catch up drone and that they can be pick up micro to escape more than the healing part
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On February 12 2013 00:26 sibs wrote:
It doesn't have to be well played, it's an AOE unit that does 30 damage per shot, it also has 130hp, you can drop that shit on top of roaches/spinecrawlers, unless dude has his whole army there(and that army has roaches) it'll be cost efficient.
I can't even fathom how one could be so incompetent to lose a loaded medivac to Zerg before Lair, you need to be trying to be that bad.
I'll be really really surprised if that unit isn't nerfed hard.
/whine
Anyways at first I had a lot of problems dealing with this, but now I want terran players to do it because its such a heavy investment and I get really far ahead. Basically you deal with it like you are dealing with cloaked banshees. Overlord scout ~6:30 mark, spore crawler in each mineral line, extra queens. When the medivac flies focus it with queens, (it should be about half health due to the spore crawler), then u bring it down easily. Pull drones, micro queens a bit and continue macroing.
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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.
Well, the whole point of hell bats were to counter lings. Pro zergs got so good with their ling control that they could trade evenly vs marine/tank. Given their mobility and better production of the Zerg, it basically let the Zerg control the entire game.
Not sure why hellbats shouldn't make lings obsolete. You realize roaches also make hellions obsolete in a straight up fight, right?
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On February 12 2013 01:00 BigAsia wrote:
Anyways at first I had a lot of problems dealing with this, but now I want terran players to do it because its such a heavy investment and I get really far ahead. Basically you deal with it like you are dealing with cloaked banshees. Overlord scout ~6:30 mark, spore crawler in each mineral line, extra queens. When the medivac flies focus it with queens, (it should be about half health due to the spore crawler), then u bring it down easily. Pull drones, micro queens a bit and continue macroing.
On a small map, the hellbat drop can HIT around 6:30, right? Most of the time it's in the 7:00/7:30 range, but scouting at 6:30 still seems a little late.
I'd want to scout far earlier so that I can get spores and an early roach warren down. No roaches means he can just drop straight on whatever you have and kill it - forget the mineral line. 4 hellbats and a medivac will beat 2-3 queens and pretty much any number of lings and drones in a straight-up fight.
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As a masters terran, I don't see this build as a problem. People are getting pretty good at dealing with it. At first it worked like crazy, but now that it's so popular, it fails more often than it succeeds. Or at least doesn't deal the damage it used to for sure.
Terran can outmicro hellbats with any unit even without stim. This means that the only thing they have to worry about is the medivac. A single turret in the mineral line means that he can't drop on the mineral line without his medivac dying or coming close to dying. This being the case, since hellbats are so slow, you can micro the SCVs away from the hellbats with minimal loss. With only ONE TURRET to defend, you make it so the medivac can't afford to make more than one pass at the mineral line, so you're okay. Doesn't take any special scouting either. Reapers extremely easily outmicro hellbats. Marines/Marauders also can, even without concussive shells. Hellions outmicro them. A banshee can kill them after the medivac is out. Any build with a starport that gets a viking should deal with it no problem. Any build with a factory can get a widow mine or two.
Zerg can defend this very well with only a few roaches and queens as well, as long as they are vigilant in targetting the medivac with queens. Good positioning makes it hard to get the drop off without taking huge damage on the medivac. With the queens targetting the medivac, you only get a pass or two before it's done and the hellbats are left on their own. Once the hellbats are without the medivac, nothing more should be lost to them.
Protoss and their mothership core + photon overcharge seem to have the easiest time dealing with hellbat drops. With a couple stalkers and the mothership core focusing the medivac right away, they can then use stalkers and the mothership core to micro against the hellbats. They can also use photon overcharge if they need a little extra help killing either the hellbats or the medivac.
Also want to add if you're doing a fast expand build... it's okay to lose some workers. You really shouldn't lose all of them. Think of the hellbats as a reaver drop.
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Also want to add if you're doing a fast expand build... it's okay to lose some workers. You really shouldn't lose all of them. Think of the hellbats as a reaver drop.
A 'reaver' drop that only costs 400 minerals. It's a mineral dump that requires positioning, planning, reflexes, micromanagement and the right build to defend against. On the attacking player's side it requires absolutely nothing.
Every terran player should keep doing Hellbat drops throughout every macro game to enemy 2nd, 3rd and 4th mineral lines while the real combat is fought elsewhere. This will guarantee a victory. The Hellbat drops do much more damage than any bio drop used to, with much less room for error. The only reason this is being defended against on occasion is because not only are many Terran players still new to the builds themselves or just outright bad. If the patch goes live HotS in its current form the only thing we'll see is the first ladder season ruined and possibly the first Code A and Code S seasons dominated by professional terrans abusing ultra fast reaper harasses, Widow Mine rushes and Hellbats in all their uses. This will ultimately result in most of everything Terran has being nerfed, but atleast they'll have one hurrah during season 1.
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As I mentioned before, the speed at which they start shooting once dropped is an issue. If dropped there was a slight delay before they started spraying it would make a huge difference and still punish players that don't react but help those that do.
I've played against some players that are just really good at boosting in and dropping while the medivac is moving and covering your entire mineral line. If done right no matter which direction you split workers they are melting.
Perhaps another option would be to not allow the medivac to unload while being boosted. Make boost more about retreating and get rid of the zoom in and drop while moving that allows you to spread units way better than without boost.
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On February 11 2013 09:37 llIH wrote:
Widow mine one shots the medivac. If you place it correctly you can shut down the drop completely.
*two shots
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On February 12 2013 11:30 xyzz wrote:Show nested quote +Also want to add if you're doing a fast expand build... it's okay to lose some workers. You really shouldn't lose all of them. Think of the hellbats as a reaver drop. A 'reaver' drop that only costs 400 minerals. It's a mineral dump that requires positioning, planning, reflexes, micromanagement and the right build to defend against. On the attacking player's side it requires absolutely nothing. Every terran player should keep doing Hellbat drops throughout every macro game to enemy 2nd, 3rd and 4th mineral lines while the real combat is fought elsewhere. This will guarantee a victory. The Hellbat drops do much more damage than any bio drop used to, with much less room for error. The only reason this is being defended against on occasion is because not only are many Terran players still new to the builds themselves or just outright bad. If the patch goes live HotS in its current form the only thing we'll see is the first ladder season ruined and possibly the first Code A and Code S seasons dominated by professional terrans abusing ultra fast reaper harasses, Widow Mine rushes and Hellbats in all their uses. This will ultimately result in most of everything Terran has being nerfed, but atleast they'll have one hurrah during season 1.
medivacs cost only minerals now?
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I would actually argue that the later in the game the less effective the hellbat drop actually is, mainly because the issues people have are lack of awareness (minimap/scout/alert), underpreparedness(scouting/effective composition), and unit prioritization (medivac 1st, then hellbats). I wont argue that its strong, it clearly is, otherwise no one would do it. However, I think it has some very clear weaknesses that have been described thoroughly and will eventually list them in the OP:
Protoss: Planetary Nexus, Stalkers in position (or with blink), kiting (stalker, immortal, etc)
Terran: Missile turret, unit kiting (almost every, if not every, Terran unit can kite a hellbat), widow mine placement (2 recommended.)
Zerg: one spore per min line, extra queens (can anyone quantify this?), roaches (NOT clumped, spread the damage over the available surface area, kite)
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medivacs cost only minerals now?
You don't lose the Medivac unless you're really, really bad, and you're building Medivacs no matter if you're dropping or not so it's essentially free to do the job unless it's fighting elsewhere already. The 400 minerals total Hellbats are the 'sacrificial lambs' that always kill more than their money's worth.
Even if Hellbats were never nerfed in any way, just sit to think about that price for a minute. How can the unit cost 100 minerals each for what it can do? Is it as good as 1 zealot or 2 Marines or 1 Hellion or 4 Zerglings? No, it's twice as good as any of those, or better. It groups up to a 400 mineral dump drop that has a potential to take out an entire mineral line in a couple seconds.
Insult to injury, they still have a chance to escape with the Medivac too if the attacking player so wishes so it's not like we're talking about Banelings here that trade gas for kills. For comparison, a single slow-like-a-turtle Void Ray costs 250 minerals and 150 gas and gets one shot by a Widow Mine and outgunned by a single Viking with 1 scv repairing, 2 stalkers, 1 Nexus Cannon, or a couple Marines on stim, before it can kill anything at all. An Oracle, the 'imba' Protoss mineral line sweeper, costs 150 minerals 150 gas which is again a higher price to come by than 400 minerals. Oracle dies to a single WM Shot, gets hard countered by a single turret, or a bunker in the mineral line with 2 Marines. It has no role in the game at all except in proxy stargate cheeses or when using as a backup detector against Terran cheeses. It's never built after early game at all.
Hellbats. 100 minerals each. Healable. Transportable. Transformable. Multi-purpose. ~3x stronger than any unit in the game for its price. Trades exceptionally well. Brings build order wins occasionally. Works great and is in fact required in macro games both in the main army and as a droppers. Hard-counters many enemy units or even builds. Doesn't get hard countered by anything because it always has a role in the game that no other unit in the game can perform better.
Great design. Hilarious they thought the Warhound was a failed concept but think that this abomination is allright.
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Make Hellbats unable to load into Medivacs without transforming into Hellions.
This makes Hellbat drops still scary and viable, but will only damage players who don't pay attention.
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Ive written this before, but here are the list of problems for hellbats at their current status.
-Far too effective early game due to the flat 18 AOE damage/large HP.
-Hellbat drops are too hard to deal with due to the above
-Only armory is required to gain access to hellbats.
-Armory is preferred over BF upgrade (or the fact that theres a lack of incentive to get BF early with hellions nowadays)
-Medivacs speed boost further complicates the problem by eliminating the immobility of the hellbat somehwat.
On a side note..
-Hellbat drops are quite effective like MMM drops compared to hellion drops as they can snipe buildings too.
So for me, i tend to think that by giving the BF upgrade +5 to light in hellion mode and +5 to base damage in hellbat mode while nerfing its base damage down to 13 + (6 to light?) i.e. not 2 shot-ing workers would be the ideal choice. It gives a chance for players to flee their workers as hellbat drops are like the old BF drops which 2 shot workers. Also zealots and lings dont completely die to hellbats either due to the nerf in the bonus light damage..
Essentially this adds alot of incentive to get the BF upgrade (makes hellbats good vs non light foes instead of being good straight off the bat), effectively lowers the hellbat drops effectiveness like the old BF hellion drops, lowers its effectiveness vs light units but maintains their relationship with non light units .. while maintaing that option of hellbat drops still available and still effective somewhat.
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Perhaps make it so that medivacs can't unload units while they're under the effects of their speed boost? Hell, it would even be easy to explain lorewise 'too dangerous unloading units at this speed' or something. Means if they want to boost and drop, they have to time it well. Or just use the boost to get away more quickly/use it while travelling.
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Blizzard stated the reason for the medivac speed boost is for them to be effective in the late games...if this is the case, it makes more sense for the speedboost to be an upgrade in late game timings. Medivac with speedboost in early games is way too effective.
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I feel that a lot of hellbat's problems will be eliminated by shifting the light bonus (let's say 10 or so), to the blue flame upgrade so it actually requires more than 2 hellbats worth of focus fire to kill workers, and also creates incentive to obtain BFH outside hellion harass.
Also from what i've seen from pro replays and vods, a lot of players are usually unprepared or aren't utilising micro at all to take advantage of hellbats 2 range, and instead, opt to get slaughtered in a head on fight. In a 1 on 1 fight, zealots murded roaches without micro, which is a similar comparison. I guess DK is right in waiting.
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The obvious, most simple solution is to remove the +light damage and only add it again after blue flame was researched.
There is no real downside to this, it would delay the drop or at least make it viable to defend with marine/zergling/zealot.
The other very obvious Solution, which has been proposed countless times, is a slight balancing of the medivac boost by adding an energy cost.
Again - why not? the enery cost may be adjusted until it reaches a good amount. I'd guess that something between 10 -25 energy would make sense. Even just 10 energy would make a huge difference.
I really don't understand how blizzard just randomly adds stuff without giving it a drawback. Medivac drop were already devastating before, they just took more skill but they require less skill than defending at 3 places at once.
Now the boost needs to be a tactical option, not a free ability with no research required and no drawback.
Also I personally would love to see a buff to the transformation speed of hellbats and vikings - that would make for much more interesting micro options.
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The only difficult part is killing them with a small amount of units. The dmg they do is similar to any other drop. Though 3 widow mines will kill all 4, and a lot of other units can kite. Run your workers away and its not tooooo bad. Its like any other harass
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I like the ideas of the thread maker. I also like the idea that hellbats should cost some gas.
What I don't understand is why is hellion and hellbat basically the same unit? I mean... the hellbat is like 4 times stronger than the hellion. It doesn't fit to the concept. If hellion banshee opening was so good at WoL, how good can hellbat opening be with the same cost and 4 times stronger unit?
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On February 14 2013 04:52 SpeedyBozar wrote:I like the ideas of the thread maker. I also like the idea that hellbats should cost some gas. What I don't understand is why is hellion and hellbat basically the same unit? I mean... the hellbat is like 4 times stronger than the hellion. It doesn't fit to the concept. If hellion banshee opening was so good at WoL, how good can hellbat opening be with the same cost and 4 times stronger unit?
Because Armory investment that's why.
Same as infestation pit or Templar Archive.
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This One Reactor Hellbat Drop build hits almost just as fast as before, and with an extra Medivac.
Build Reactor on Rax while building Factory
Switch Reactor onto Factory to build 4 Hellions while building Starport
Switch Reactor onto Starport to build 2 Medivacs while building Armory
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A bit interesting, comparing the Firebat to the hellbat:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Firebat
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Hellbat
Firebat vs Hellbat
Cost 50/25 vs 100/0
Build time 24 vs 30
HP 50 vs 135
Supply 1 vs 2
Damage 16 vs 18(+12 vs light)
Attack speed (22/11stim) vs 2 (not comparable numbers, I believe 22 is about the same as 1.2 seconds in SC2)
Both are healable
The firebat wasn't used too much in BW as I remember it (might be wrong), so probably a bit on the weak side.
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On February 14 2013 11:24 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2013 04:52 SpeedyBozar wrote:I like the ideas of the thread maker. I also like the idea that hellbats should cost some gas. What I don't understand is why is hellion and hellbat basically the same unit? I mean... the hellbat is like 4 times stronger than the hellion. It doesn't fit to the concept. If hellion banshee opening was so good at WoL, how good can hellbat opening be with the same cost and 4 times stronger unit? Because Armory investment that's why. Same as infestation pit or Templar Archive.
Ye right. Like any cheap building that can even be made while hellions are being built is gonna make a HUUGE difference. Come on...
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On February 14 2013 21:50 SpeedyBozar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2013 11:24 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On February 14 2013 04:52 SpeedyBozar wrote:I like the ideas of the thread maker. I also like the idea that hellbats should cost some gas. What I don't understand is why is hellion and hellbat basically the same unit? I mean... the hellbat is like 4 times stronger than the hellion. It doesn't fit to the concept. If hellion banshee opening was so good at WoL, how good can hellbat opening be with the same cost and 4 times stronger unit? Because Armory investment that's why. Same as infestation pit or Templar Archive. Ye right. Like any cheap building that can even be made while hellions are being built is gonna make a HUUGE difference. Come on...
The same can be said for Anyone not leaving units to patrol for possible drops.
They are cheap units, Zerg can make 4x for the price of 100 minerals.
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EPT
