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Almost all of SC2s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the roach.
The problem of massed maraunders bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" and obviously, of ZvZ, all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit.
Roaches are a unit that costs 75 minerals, 25 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T1. They have 145 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 3, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 1 supply. And if they wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with two armor. And to make things even more absurd, they have upgrades to allow them to move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed.
And they can move while burrowed with the upgrade.
If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd.
This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
...
That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The roach SHOULD be overpowered.
That a unit as absurd as a roach should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the Roach is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved marauders and immortals.
Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage.
They ensure that the Roach is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Marauder, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the roach, for a relatively costly price of 100 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps with stim packs. To put this in perspective, a unstimmed marauder in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser).
While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Marauder does not.
Once again, in a vacuum, the marauder is overpowered, like the roach. But because of the roach. Specifically, they are overpowered against roaches, and as a result, against armor in general.
This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413
Finally, the protoss have the immortal. The immortal singe handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing marauders. The immortal, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing +30 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS.
That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1 or SC2.
What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the roach. While SC2 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Marauder has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the Immortal does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things.
The roaches role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in 08. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 15 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence.
Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T2 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state
The answer to almost all of SC2s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the roach. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in SC2 will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. Templars will be able to be balanced correctly (As health among T1 units will be more normalized against terran, rather then the enormous discrepancy we have now).
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roaches dont need to be nerfed and they dont need to be buffed. i think theyre just fine now. people just dont know how to use them. ive seen many players just mass roaches thinking theyre gonna win easily, then comes in mass rauders. a lot of players fail at mixing up their armies. its really not that hard to mix in a few hydras and ligns with roaches.
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On April 05 2010 10:48 Grim(Reaper) wrote:
roaches dont need to be nerfed and they dont need to be buffed. i think theyre just fine now. people just dont know how to use them. ive seen many players just mass roaches thinking theyre gonna win easily, then comes in mass rauders. a lot of players fail at mixing up their armies. its really not that hard to mix in a few hydras and ligns with roaches.
This is not a thread about roaches being imbalanced. Please read 
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On April 05 2010 10:48 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:48 Grim(Reaper) wrote:
roaches dont need to be nerfed and they dont need to be buffed. i think theyre just fine now. people just dont know how to use them. ive seen many players just mass roaches thinking theyre gonna win easily, then comes in mass rauders. a lot of players fail at mixing up their armies. its really not that hard to mix in a few hydras and ligns with roaches. This is not a thread about roaches being imbalanced. Please read
actually it is lol, what else are you trying to say? you say roach is supposed to be OP but that this isnt a thread for balance. then you say that T and P have counters to the roach so that its NOT op.
OriginalPost is scatter brained imo, a lot of ranting and you dont really have a point.
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Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users...
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what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again?
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I actually posted this exact observation in the marauder thread. I think the overpowered roach is a result of the +armoured of the other two, but in reality it doesn't matter. The +armoured is the root of all problems in the game. It needs to be toned DOWN. Big time, and then the roach needs be nerfed to fall in line with its cost to help compensate.
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On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again?
TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that.
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I do agree that something has to be done about the unholy trinity of boring-units, Roach-Marauder-Immortal.
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On April 05 2010 10:51 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:48 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 10:48 Grim(Reaper) wrote:
roaches dont need to be nerfed and they dont need to be buffed. i think theyre just fine now. people just dont know how to use them. ive seen many players just mass roaches thinking theyre gonna win easily, then comes in mass rauders. a lot of players fail at mixing up their armies. its really not that hard to mix in a few hydras and ligns with roaches. This is not a thread about roaches being imbalanced. Please read actually it is lol, what else are you trying to say? you say roach is supposed to be OP but that this isnt a thread for balance. then you say that T and P have counters to the roach so that its NOT op. OriginalPost is scatter brained imo, a lot of ranting and you dont really have a point.
Overpowered is when a unit confers an unfair advantage over other races.
So obviously, no. The zerg are not a OP race, and the roach is not overpowered.
I'm saying that the roach is broken.
On April 05 2010 10:53 onmach wrote:
I actually posted this exact observation in the marauder thread. I think the overpowered roach is a result of the +armoured of the other two, but in reality it doesn't matter. The +armoured is the root of all problems in the game. It needs to be toned DOWN. Big time, and then the roach needs be nerfed to fall in line with its cost to help compensate.
How does that work o.o. If that was true, the roach would be light. The +armored units are a result of roachs, and to a lesser extent, each other.
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On April 05 2010 10:54 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again? TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that.
no i understood that, i just don't understand why it's a "problem"
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i think what OP is saying(or should be saying anyway) is that roach is shitty, boring, unimaginative, unmicroable unit that is simply too good not to use.
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On April 05 2010 10:54 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again? TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that.
Come on dude stop (intentionally?) dumbing down the discourse. The OP raises an interesting and valid point. The roach is literally the least exciting unit in existence.
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On April 05 2010 10:55 Jyvblamo wrote:
I do agree that something has to be done about the unholy trinity of boring-units, Roach-Marauder-Immortal.
yeh this sums up what OP was trying to say a little more concisely.
you cant just blame the roach.
although saying immortal is boring is a bit much. you dont spam them the way mara/roach are spammed. your main army composition is much more free, whether you want more blink, more charge, or more forcefield.
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I completely agree, but I would add the Marauder as well. Both those units just turn sc2 into ball vs ball.
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On April 05 2010 10:56 Sfydjklm wrote:
i think what OP is saying(or should be saying anyway) is that roach is shitty, boring, unimaginative, unmicroable unit that is simply too good not to use.
seems more like you're describing an ultralisk to me
edit: at least the shitty part
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On April 05 2010 10:56 wrags wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:54 mOnion wrote:On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again? TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that. no i understood that, i just don't understand why it's a "problem"
Because you get absurdly powerful t1.5 units. Its pretty obvious why putting the most powerful units in t1.5 is problematic. Its also why the protoss have a more diverse play then the other 2 races atm. Because the immortal, while powerful, is not at t1.5, but t2, and on the path to a equally as powerful collosus (and its ok to be that powerful when its t3).
On April 05 2010 10:57 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:55 Jyvblamo wrote:
I do agree that something has to be done about the unholy trinity of boring-units, Roach-Marauder-Immortal. yeh this sums up what OP was trying to say a little more concisely. you cant just blame the roach. although saying immortal is boring is a bit much. you dont spam them the way mara/roach are spammed. your main army composition is much more free, whether you want more blink, more charge, or more forcefield.
You can blame the roach. The roach is the main reason why they exist as they do.
Terran really could stand a fighting chance against toss without a marauder, and toss could stand a fighting chance without the immortal with a tech to HT. They could not however, stand a fighting chance against the zerg without those anti armored units (which really only attack one unit in the entirety of the zerg arsenal, save the never used ultralisk)
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I was about to write something about these 3 units (roach/marauder/immortal) lol
I like this thread a lot. I feel like the roach/immortal/marauder are all extremely boring units that are all almost only there to counter each other. They ARE the hard counter system that no one likes. I think they should be reworked or removed from the game to make it better. I seriously wouldnt miss them (in their current state) at all.
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I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch.
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i think i get what OP is saying. Roaches SHOULD be OP by looking at their stats. However, they are not because Protoss and Terran have direct counters to it. But due to designing counter units around a unit that SHOULD be OP we get these other problems of those units being too effective such as Immortal not allowing terran to go mech and marauders just owning.
Very interesting read
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On April 05 2010 10:59 Ideas wrote:I feel like the roach/immortal/marauder are all extremely boring units that are all almost only there to counter each other. They ARE the hard counter system that no one likes.
Exactlyyyy
EDIT: fuck double post ;c meant to edit my first one with this haha. sorry.
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On April 05 2010 11:00 pzea469 wrote:
i think i get what OP is saying. Roaches SHOULD be OP by looking at their stats. However, they are not because Protoss and Terran have direct counters to it. But due to designing counter units around a unit that SHOULD be OP we get these other problems of those units being too effective such as Immortal not allowing terran to go mech and marauders just owning.
Very interesting read
Yup.
/cookie ^_^
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marauder is a really good unit, its slow effect gives it enormous potential for microing. It's live-ability tho does need to get nerfed. And i dont see any problem with immortals, apart from damage to buildings perhaps.
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On April 05 2010 10:57 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:55 Jyvblamo wrote:
I do agree that something has to be done about the unholy trinity of boring-units, Roach-Marauder-Immortal. yeh this sums up what OP was trying to say a little more concisely. you cant just blame the roach. although saying immortal is boring is a bit much. you dont spam them the way mara/roach are spammed. your main army composition is much more free, whether you want more blink, more charge, or more forcefield.
Yeah, immortals are definitely the less 'boring' of the three, since its cost forces it into a less dominant role in the Protoss army, compared to the other 2 which will often form the backbone of their respective armies. I think SC2 would be a more enjoyable game to watch and play if somehow Blizzard could move roaches and marauders into more of a supporting role for T1 or T2 units.
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yea i mean immortal is super expensive and easily counterable. Really dont see an issue with that particular unit.
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so i still dont get Op,,,roaches are good but they have counters,, so just make counters so they dont build roaches?.
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The thing with the immortal is that it's there simply to counter roaches and marauders in a way. And because of the stupid light/armored system, it makes it ridiculously powerful against other things like mech also. It's a unit that has its sole purpose being to "counter" other units, even if you can't mass it.. it's pretty silly.
On April 05 2010 11:04 frankcrest wrote:
so i still dont get Op,,,roaches are good but they have counters,, so just make counters so they dont build roaches?.
That's exactly what makes the game boring though. Having a system of hard counters in rock-paper-scissors fashion makes it really bland and dull to play and watch.
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Can someone please summarize what the fuck op is trying to say? he is all over the place... Roach is not overpowered but immortals and marauders are...so take out the roach??? wtf
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On April 05 2010 10:57 See.Blue wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:54 mOnion wrote:On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again? TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that. Come on dude stop (intentionally?) dumbing down the discourse. The OP raises an interesting and valid point. The roach is literally the least exciting unit in existence.
hey >_< dont be mean
i was trying to get to the point of the OP. not dumbing down the discourse.
also what you have there is blatant opinion. i think marines are the most boring unit. sup?
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On April 05 2010 11:04 frankcrest wrote:
so i still dont get Op,,,roaches are good but they have counters,, so just make counters so they dont build roaches?.
Except no unit truly counters mass roaches. Even against an army heavily comprised of immortals/marauders, often the best answer is MORE roaches.
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I am in agreement to tone down the damage and HP of the 'holy-trinity'. Immortal, Marauder, and Roach are broken units in that they are a lot more efficient cost for cost than any other unit in their respective arsenals. I would say the Roach out of the three is the most powerful, since without using their hard-counter you are literally screwed five ways, whereas at least with Marauders and Immortals there are more counters than just one.
As in, the only way to Counter Roach as Terran is literally Marauder, and as for Protoss it is only Immortal, because the sheer macro-ability and cheap cost and 1 supply of the Roach just dominates everything else. At least you can counter mass Marauders with Tanks/Marines, Zealots w/ Charge, HT, Immortal, Collo, etc. You can counter mass Immortal with Zerglings, Hydra, & Marine, Ghost, etc.
The Roach is just ridiculous. It destroys Tanks due to not only burrow, but because of cheap cost and spammability + 145 HP, and 5! Armor when 3/3. Roaches also with speed upgrade move very fast.
If Zerg didn't have the Queen, or the Queen was toned down, Roaches wouldn't be as much a problem as they currently are, even though they would still be the most powerful out of the bunch.
Try beating mass Roach as Terran by making something other than Marauders....
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On April 05 2010 11:05 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:57 See.Blue wrote:On April 05 2010 10:54 mOnion wrote:On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again? TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that. Come on dude stop (intentionally?) dumbing down the discourse. The OP raises an interesting and valid point. The roach is literally the least exciting unit in existence. hey >_< dont be mean i was trying to get to the point of the OP. not dumbing down the discourse. also what you have there is blatant opinion. i think marines are the most boring unit. sup?
at least marines have stim
roaches are basically hydras from SC1 but you dont have to micro them vs storm (too slow and it's not as big a deal) or reaver shots.
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On April 05 2010 11:05 Jyvblamo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:04 frankcrest wrote:
so i still dont get Op,,,roaches are good but they have counters,, so just make counters so they dont build roaches?. Except no unit truly counters mass roaches. Even against an army heavily comprised of immortals/marauders, often the best answer is MORE roaches.
This in many ways. I watched the HayPro v HasuObs match the other day where he did nothing, but mass Roaches and it completely obliterated the Protoss who went heavy Immortal.
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On April 05 2010 11:04 frankcrest wrote:
so i still dont get Op,,,roaches are good but they have counters,, so just make counters so they dont build roaches?.
The idea is that Roaches base stats are completely inordinate with what you'd expect for their cost and tech tree position. In order to balance that, it gets counters which are equally inordinate, like immortal DPS and Marauder survivability.
The result is a sort of "arms race" among these units, immortals and marauders both making the game drastically more stale. This is because each unit is individually way too strong. (thought not OP)
The reason why their so strong IS the roach. The roach needs to be reworked/removed, only then will the game be balanced. As it stands, for instance, a maraunder nerf would break the ability of terran to fight zerg as an example, the same applying to the immortal.
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On April 05 2010 11:07 Ideas wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:05 mOnion wrote:On April 05 2010 10:57 See.Blue wrote:On April 05 2010 10:54 mOnion wrote:On April 05 2010 10:53 wrags wrote:
what exactly are the "problems" that roaches cause again? TLDR the fact that roaches exist mean that immortals and marauders have to exist, and THOSE units are overpowered. or something like that. Come on dude stop (intentionally?) dumbing down the discourse. The OP raises an interesting and valid point. The roach is literally the least exciting unit in existence. hey >_< dont be mean i was trying to get to the point of the OP. not dumbing down the discourse. also what you have there is blatant opinion. i think marines are the most boring unit. sup? at least marines have stim
yeh but theyre human. ew.
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I wouldn't mind at all if I loaded up sc2 to find all 3 units gone
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On April 05 2010 11:10 floor exercise wrote:
I wouldn't mind at all if I loaded up sc2 to find all 3 units gone
Protoss would kind of rape everyone. =P
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On April 05 2010 11:12 Jyvblamo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:10 floor exercise wrote:
I wouldn't mind at all if I loaded up sc2 to find all 3 units gone Protoss would kind of rape everyone. =P
Yeah. And its interesting because Protoss have the most diverse armies atm. The immortals powerful, it breaks terran mech play, but it isn't nearly as bad as the other two.
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im just going to throw it out there,
but why dont a few of you get together and play all the different MU's WITHOUT BUILDING roach/mara/immo
??
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On April 05 2010 10:59 Ideas wrote:
I was about to write something about these 3 units (roach/marauder/immortal) lol
I like this thread a lot. I feel like the roach/immortal/marauder are all extremely boring units that are all almost only there to counter each other. They ARE the hard counter system that no one likes. I think they should be reworked or removed from the game to make it better. I seriously wouldnt miss them (in their current state) at all.
I agree completely with this. SC2 would be much more fun if roach/immortal/marauder were switched to be late game units or were just removed from the game.
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Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect.
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On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect.
Well, the op puts forth the proposition that marauders are a direct consequence of roaches.
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10387 Posts
On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect.
He's saying because of the Roach, they had to make the Marauder, which also is another unit he says that is screwing up the game
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Yeah I really agree with the op is saying. Not to mention the fact that roaches aren't exactly exciting to watch -.-
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On April 05 2010 11:14 fulmetljaket wrote:
im just going to throw it out there,
but why dont a few of you get together and play all the different MU's WITHOUT BUILDING roach/mara/immo
??
tried it. kinda hard.
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On April 05 2010 11:14 fulmetljaket wrote:
im just going to throw it out there,
but why dont a few of you get together and play all the different MU's WITHOUT BUILDING roach/mara/immo
??
The game is currently balanced around the existence of those three units, so trying to play around them is kind of futile.
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The reason mech isn't viable is because Tank is nerfed to death, no spidermines, hellions suck, thors are shitty at anti-air. In SC1 Mech was the shit because you had 3 units that perfectly complemented each other out of the factory, in SC2 all the factory units suck. The increased mobility nerfed mech, the new hard counters to mech nerfed mech, and the shittyness of the replacement factory units nerfed mech, and on top of all of that mech is more expensive. Pure mech will never be standard play in Starcraft 2.
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neat thread
i was #1 in my platinum division as terran (2000 rating), and i almost never made marauders against zerg.
i switched to toss after the reset, and last time i logged on (wednesday) i was #4 in my platinum division, and i've found roaches one of the easiest units to counter. I've also never made a single immortal vs zerg. PvZ is my strongest matchup, at about 80% winnage.
Am i the only person who finds Stalkers a ridiculously awesome counter to roaches?
needless to say, i don't agree with the OP. Roaches/Marauders/Immortals could use some tuning, for sure, but 'broken' is missing the mark.
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On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect.
Roach is a far better unit than Marauder and Immortal, hence they needed both P and T to have strong anti-armored units, and they had to compensate for the Roach hence their high damage, HP, etc. It just so happens that the Marauder is a bit more powerful than the Immortal, but not by much. Also, I'm curious why I don't see more Protoss go heavy Zealot into Colossus with range...Colossus in numbers greater than 1-2 decimate Marauder heavy builds especially using their cliff ability + 9 range.
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United States17042 Posts
On April 05 2010 11:14 fulmetljaket wrote:
im just going to throw it out there,
but why dont a few of you get together and play all the different MU's WITHOUT BUILDING roach/mara/immo
??
It's not just about us - it's about sc2 as an ESPORT
Seriously though, it is.
The way that I read the OP, it's that roaches are causing all of the other units in sc2 to be really kind of hard countery, and then he gives reasons why that's true. Roaches do cause a lot of the sc2 stuff to be kind of weird, but i'm not sure that they absolutely need to be taken out, nerfed, or buffed. It's possible that the metagame, and the maps are causing roaches to be massively overused. They will always be a staple of the zerg army it looks like, and builds are being modified and adjusted to deal with roaches, but as the game develops it might turn out so that the earlygame roach timing that exists right now...just won't exist (as much) in the later stages of the game.
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On April 05 2010 11:19 Jyvblamo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:14 fulmetljaket wrote:
im just going to throw it out there,
but why dont a few of you get together and play all the different MU's WITHOUT BUILDING roach/mara/immo
?? The game is currently balanced around the existence of those three units, so trying to play around them is kind of futile.
i rarely pop roaches except for zvz.
Muta is strong!
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sigh roaches, the root of all evil. it seriously has no place in sc :/ i agreee
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On April 05 2010 11:20 GHOSTCLAW wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:14 fulmetljaket wrote:
im just going to throw it out there,
but why dont a few of you get together and play all the different MU's WITHOUT BUILDING roach/mara/immo
?? It's not just about us - it's about sc2 as an ESPORT Seriously though, it is. The way that I read the OP, it's that roaches are causing all of the other units in sc2 to be really kind of hard countery, and then he gives reasons why that's true. Roaches do cause a lot of the sc2 stuff to be kind of weird, but i'm not sure that they absolutely need to be taken out, nerfed, or buffed. It's possible that the metagame, and the maps are causing roaches to be massively overused. They will always be a staple of the zerg army it looks like, and builds are being modified and adjusted to deal with roaches, but as the game develops it might turn out so that the earlygame roach timing that exists right now...just won't exist (as much) in the later stages of the game.
i think somehow nerfing roaches but making burrow a hatchery research would make the game a lot more exciting and skill based.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users...
This is a pretty good thread... I don't think it deserves such out of hand dismissal.
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yep, but there's no way that they could rebalance everything / maybe add a new unit in a reasonable time if you got rid of the roach.
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They seem to be making the damage scheme too complex.
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On April 05 2010 10:59 Ideas wrote:
I was about to write something about these 3 units (roach/marauder/immortal) lol
I like this thread a lot. I feel like the roach/immortal/marauder are all extremely boring units that are all almost only there to counter each other. They ARE the hard counter system that no one likes. I think they should be reworked or removed from the game to make it better. I seriously wouldnt miss them (in their current state) at all.
QFT!
Roach/Marauder/Immortal really do feel like they only exist to counter each other
Edit: Anyone else notice that these units are all hard countered by air, but often they make a push before air units come out.
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On April 05 2010 11:27 WaveMotion wrote:
yep, but there's no way that they could rebalance everything / maybe add a new unit in a reasonable time if you got rid of the roach.
blizzard SAID they would do whatever it takes to make the game as good as possible for it's release.
whether or not they'll actually do it though..... (or if they even will admit that there's a problem)
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On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect.
Uh yeah...
I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran.
I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines.
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Honestly, their inherent abilities should be expensive and time consuming upgrades.
Make roaches 100 hp and no armor and have an upgrade giving them +45 hp and +2 armor (maybe nerf their damage too)
Make marauders have to research slow and +10 bonus against armor
Make immortals have to research harden shields or +30 against armor (making them a tank or a glass cannon, not both)
This allows for masses of tier 1units > tier 1.5 until the upgrades come out
This also allows tier 2 units > tier 1.5 units until the upgrades come out
By the time the upgrades do come out, tier 1 masses will be nullified or the players will have enough of the tier 2 units to fend off tier 1.5 masses (i.e siege tanks w/ siege mode).
This makes fast teching, rushing, and tier 1.5 massing unique strategies that have their pros and cons.
Blizz should end up doing this eventually..
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I would like to see following changes:
roaches -10% slower movement
marauders armor type become bio and armored
Immortal armor rediced from 1 to 0
Tried to make units more unique.
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This thread puts a lot of perspective on the roles of these new units, and after some thought I think a great solution would be to change them ALL to tier 2. Simply put hydras back at tier one and hellions at tier one, while slightly tweaking them to justify them being at tier one. This way massing them early would require early teching which is susceptible to early aggression. If the roach and marauder were at tier two the choice to actually make them would require knowledge of the opponent's build order. As it stands there is just no reason not to make marauders or roaches because they are so good, and only at tier 1 (well, 1.5).
Hard counters to both of those units also exist at tier two (air units). This means if your opponent techs to air quickly, getting the OP hard-counter-to-armor units will likely lose you the game.
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On April 05 2010 11:27 WaveMotion wrote:
yep, but there's no way that they could rebalance everything / maybe add a new unit in a reasonable time if you got rid of the roach.
Well, I think its a bit unreasonable at this point to expect a entirely new unit, but a heavy roach rebalance could do the trick. Armor drastically lowered, given a lowish health regen (4?), health reduced drastically. Marauder health reduced drastically, stims removed. Immortals slightly less health (not armor), 30 flat damage.
Either way if they don't fix this by release their going to have to get around it. I can't forsee the game developing into 2 expansions with ~4 new units with this current imbalanced dynamic existing. Its too broken.
On April 05 2010 11:33 Meta wrote:
This thread puts a lot of perspective on the roles of these new units, and after some thought I think a great solution would be to change them ALL to tier 2. Simply put hydras back at tier one and hellions at tier one, while slightly tweaking them to justify them being at tier one. This way massing them early would require early teching which is susceptible to early aggression. If the roach and marauder were at tier two the choice to actually make them would require knowledge of the opponent's build order. As it stands there is just no reason not to make marauders or roaches because they are so good, and only at tier 1 (well, 1.5).
Hard counters to both of those units also exist at tier two (air units). This means if your opponent techs to air quickly, getting the OP hard-counter-to-armor units will likely lose you the game.
This would also be an ok fix. Remember, the toss who have the ridiculous immortal at t2, while it still impacts the metagame negatively, doesn't do so nearly as much as the t1 marauder.
I really don't like the idea of a t1 flamethrower dude though. Buff reapers and just keep terran a 2 unit t1, its ok, not every race needs 3 t1 units, just like not every race needed 2 t1 units in SC1.
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On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines.
can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines?
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Excellent thread, and good discussion. I think many of the points brought up here are reasons why if the current Beta becomes the game, SC2 will be a very good but not SC BW 1.07+ quality game.
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Half, what is your SC2 Rating?
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On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines?
Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder.
The Roach is a joke of a unit.
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On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines?
...what else is their? Hellions and Reapers are no good (rightfully ofc), that leaves thor and siege tanks. Viking groundmode sucks against them too. Thors aren't cost efficient.
gl winning against zerg only siegetanks and air
I can say 100% positive that TvZ would be almost impossible without raunders. You simply could not EVER apply pressure if they massed roaches.
Explain to me how you'd go about applying pressure against 10 roaches. Everything you have until tanks is hardcountered, and tanks, while great for turtling, have limited uses. Banshees have to be matched by like a single sporerawler.
The zerg simply can expand over the entire map with like 4 spore crawlers, 10 roaches and like 5 hydras. What on earth could you possible expect terran to do?
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On April 05 2010 11:39 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? ...what else is their? Hellions and Reapers are no good (rightfully ofc), that leaves thor and siege tanks. Viking groundmode sucks against them too. gl winning against zerg only making thor and siegetanks :/ And of course air, which is t2.5 and countered by hydras.
Actually Roaches dominate Tanks and Thors. Thor attack is so slow, and the Roach can be so easily mass produced, let's not even talk about burrow+move either.
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everything in terran isnt good against roach, marauder is the only "counter" and it's barely a counter considering it's not as cost effective, 1 marauder vs 1 roach, who wins?
Oh yes, Banshees are good vs roaches_lol
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On April 05 2010 11:38 Mora wrote:
Half, what is your SC2 Rating?
I'm not sure I like where this is going. Shouldn't we attack the argument, and not the poster? Are you gonna dismiss his arguments because your rank is so high and his so low? You are clearly experienced, so tell us your experiences. But don't attack him.
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On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit.
in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper.
So... roaches counter... marines and scvs?
holy fucking broken batman!
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I think Roaches should be 2 supply and have 1 armor to begin with, not 2
Marauders should need to research "slow"
Immortal should need to research their shield defense
I don't know if it would really affect the overall balance toward other units, but seems somewhat fine to me
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I don't think the argument is that roaches are broken, it's that they're really fucking boring.
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On April 05 2010 11:26 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users... This is a pretty good thread... I don't think it deserves such out of hand dismissal.
I agree I was really surprised with the thought put behind it. I too think the roaches are ridiculous for their cost.
I'm surprised that people are confused by this. He is saying that yes you need to remove the roach but to not break the game the Maruaders and Immortals would have to go too. Which I would not lose a bit of sleep over.
All 3 units make no sense form a logistic or race prescriptive IMO.
Roach: Not used what they were meant for and end up being T1.5 1 supply tanks.
Immortal: Feels like a one trick pony too much...
Maruader: Yeah ranged t1.5 with slow. No problems there.
I agree but I also think the map pool has a lot to do with this issue. let's be honest Blizz sucks at map making....
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On April 05 2010 11:44 ZergZergling wrote:
I don't think the argument is that roaches are broken, it's that they're really fucking boring.
dude 1 supply for roaches is ridiculous
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On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman!
Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period.
As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches?
Here I'll spell it out:
Roaches annihilate:
Marine, Hellion, Reaper, Ghost, Tank, Thor, Viking (Ground mode). In other words, the Roach single handedly destroys every Terran ground unit, except for Marauders.
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On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman!
wat...
Marine/tank would be your only option and it would be insufficient to contain zerg. Defensively, they couldn't break that, but you couldn't stop them from expanding. Marines don't do enough damage versus roaches, who can prevent your tanks from setting up. Then its just mop-up time.
They can expand with half your food army in food to defend.
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like as an aspiring game designer I really feel bad for Blizzard regarding the roach/marauder/immortal. 2 of them are brand new units filling brand new roles that werent in BW. There's got to be a lot of pride going into them. Unfortunately (at least I feel) they are impacting the game negatively. It's gotta suck to be given such a perfect thing as BW and then try to change it around/add units and somehow improve it. It's got to be damn near impossible really.
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On April 05 2010 11:42 Crisium wrote:I'm not sure I like where this is going. Shouldn't we attack the argument, and not the poster? Are you gonna dismiss his arguments because your rank is so high and his so low? You are clearly experienced, so tell us your experiences. But don't attack him.
you misinterpreted my intentions behind that question.
If he is a mediocre player (2000 or lower) i will try to better formulate my thoughts on this matter. If he is a 2400 rating Terran player, i'm obviously missing something that would be better discovered from playing the game than engaging in this debate, and would go and do so.
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On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman!
The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units.
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lol 7 roaches for every tank that can be produced is way overboard.... It's prob more like 3-4 roaches for 1 tank
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines?
They aren't all "hard countered", but you won't win games trying to counter roaches with:
- Hellions (once roaches get speed you can't even really kite them)
- Siege tanks (tanks are ok but I don't think going mass tanks is that great vs roaches, especially when they can burrow and cause you to splash kill yourself by popping up next to you).
- Thors (they do fine in small numbers, but once you start getting up to late game with good upgrades and huge numbers, Thors need marauders or they can't keep up)
- Ghosts
- Reapers
If you get a critical mass of tanks they might do OK vs roaches, but they cost a shitload of gas so meh - I'd rather go Thor/Marauder.
I think that's it for ground units? Obviously vikings are not good vs roaches.
There's also the question of WHY I should try to counter roaches with tanks when marauders do a much better job at it, and will let me use my factories for something else (hellions or thors).
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On April 05 2010 11:46 Ideas wrote:
like as an aspiring game designer I really feel bad for Blizzard regarding the roach/marauder/immortal. 2 of them are brand new units filling brand new roles that werent in BW. There's got to be a lot of pride going into them. Unfortunately (at least I feel) they are impacting the game negatively. It's gotta suck to be given such a perfect thing as BW and then try to change it around/add units and somehow improve it. It's got to be damn near impossible really.
Yeah, I kinda empathize for them as well, I know dustin has like a softspot in his heart for roaches lol. He really wants to keep them in, if anything, the best we can hope for is a redux.
And personally I <3 immortals, they're badass  Nowai should they put back in goons.
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On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches?
you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no".
what?
how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play?
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maybe they could just nerf the 3 units altogether a lot without removing them, might make the games much more interesting
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On April 05 2010 11:47 FrozenArbiter wrote:
EDIT: Wth, this thread is moving super fast, someone already answered this while I was writing o_O
Hey, don't get rid of your post, it had some good points =P
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On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units.
i entirely agree with you.
which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport".
come on.
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On April 05 2010 11:46 Fayth wrote:
lol 7 roaches for every tank that can be produced is way overboard.... It's prob more like 3-4 roaches for 1 tank
I have some replays I can throw your way once I get home to illustrate this point if you want. Once it hits mid-game you can mass Roaches so easily.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on.
Maybe I need to re-read the OP, but I don't remember him saying that o_O Didn't he just say roaches are what's causing all the complaints about marauders and immortals (and there are LOTS of complaints about marauders, not so much immortals anymore), because their very existance neccesitates these two units being inordinately strong.
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On April 05 2010 11:46 Fayth wrote:
lol 7 roaches for every tank that can be produced is way overboard.... It's prob more like 3-4 roaches for 1 tank
Hell if I know the ratio, but 7:1 would not surprise me. Tank needs a Factory with Machine Shop. It's 125gas, 3 supply, and 50 build time (irc). Roach, once you get the Den, only needs Larva and is 27 build time. Larva in SC2 are significantly more abundant, thanks to Queens giving you 8 larva for only 50 energy at each Hatchery.
And just compare it to SC1. You will have less Tanks in SC2 due to higher costs. You will have more Roaches than SC1 Hydras thanks to Queens. 7:1 is not seeming unreasonable to me. Perhaps it is even too conservative of an estimate.
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On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play?
Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out.
How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won.
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On April 05 2010 11:52 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on. Maybe I need to re-read the OP, but I don't remember him saying that o_O Didn't he just say roaches are what's causing all the complaints about marauders and immortals (and there are LOTS of complaints about marauders, not so much immortals anymore), because their very existance neccesitates these two units being inordinately strong.
Spot on
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A brilliant observation in the OP, I'd never thought of it that way before.
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On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won.
mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches?
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The OP is right on. Roach/Immortal/Marauder all need to be drastically changed or removed. They do not belong at all.
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On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? marauders? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches?
Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate
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I lost a game at 140-160 supply where the zerg went 16 hatch at natural, which I think gave him more of an economic advantage even though I also FE'd. I did some hellion harass and killed about 15 drones. After that, he pushed out with probably 50+ roaches with baneling/mutalisk support and steamrolled my mainly tank/MMM army. the banelings softened up the front so much that his roach horde easily cleaned up. I watched the replay and he was only about 10 food ahead of me at the time.
So mass roaches means 50+, which is easily attainable in under 15-20 minutes.
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I completely agree, wow i just thought it was the lack of defensive/ positioning units but now i see its just the roach/immortal/marauder, they completely screw up the balance of starcraft.
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On April 05 2010 11:46 Ideas wrote:
like as an aspiring game designer I really feel bad for Blizzard regarding the roach/marauder/immortal. 2 of them are brand new units filling brand new roles that werent in BW. There's got to be a lot of pride going into them. Unfortunately (at least I feel) they are impacting the game negatively. It's gotta suck to be given such a perfect thing as BW and then try to change it around/add units and somehow improve it. It's got to be damn near impossible really.
i really find it hard to believe a lot of thought have been put in a unit titled roach.
feels like an afterthought tbh.
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On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on.
The point is valid, even through your exaggerations. The idea is not 'Roaches need some tweaking'; it's that Roaches force Marauders and Immortals to exist in their current form, meaning that all three need 'some tweaking'.
As for TvRoaches, Marauders really are the best answer. It's not that Tanks or Thors are bad against Roaches specifically (though the rest of the Terran ground units definitely are), it's that Marauders are actually able to be produced in sufficient levels to counter them. It doesn't hurt that Marauders are also not terrible against other zerg ground units, and have decent mobility post-stim/medivac.
Your previous post still boggles me. You dance around to try to say Roaches don't counter Reapers/Hellions because they're not as mobile, and you also say Vikings with micro do well against Roaches. What does that even mean? Are you talking about Vikings doing hit and runs on mineral lines and lifting to the air when the Roaches arrive? Are we arbitrarily limiting the zerg into only building Roaches or something?
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Sadly, I have to agree. Those three units have made SC a much more boring game.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
Guh, why do people make these monster claims with over the top language? I can't take a thesis like this seriously when it is so absolute.
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On April 05 2010 11:19 Mora wrote:
neat thread
i was #1 in my platinum division as terran (2000 rating), and i almost never made marauders against zerg.
i switched to toss after the reset, and last time i logged on (wednesday) i was #4 in my platinum division, and i've found roaches one of the easiest units to counter. I've also never made a single immortal vs zerg. PvZ is my strongest matchup, at about 80% winnage.
Am i the only person who finds Stalkers a ridiculously awesome counter to roaches?
needless to say, i don't agree with the OP. Roaches/Marauders/Immortals could use some tuning, for sure, but 'broken' is missing the mark.
On April 05 2010 11:46 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:42 Crisium wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Mora wrote:
Half, what is your SC2 Rating? I'm not sure I like where this is going. Shouldn't we attack the argument, and not the poster? Are you gonna dismiss his arguments because your rank is so high and his so low? You are clearly experienced, so tell us your experiences. But don't attack him. you misinterpreted my intentions behind that question. If he is a mediocre player (2000 or lower) i will try to better formulate my thoughts on this matter. If he is a 2400 rating Terran player, i'm obviously missing something that would be better discovered from playing the game than engaging in this debate, and would go and do so.
solid.
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On April 05 2010 12:06 Sfydjklm wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:46 Ideas wrote:
like as an aspiring game designer I really feel bad for Blizzard regarding the roach/marauder/immortal. 2 of them are brand new units filling brand new roles that werent in BW. There's got to be a lot of pride going into them. Unfortunately (at least I feel) they are impacting the game negatively. It's gotta suck to be given such a perfect thing as BW and then try to change it around/add units and somehow improve it. It's got to be damn near impossible really. i really find it hard to believe a lot of thought have been put in a unit titled roach. feels like an afterthought tbh.
have you EVER heard browder talk about the roach? he fucking loves that shit death lol
and immediately after hearing it was called the roach I thought it was just a placeholder name and would be given a real zerg name without a month or 2. 2 years later...
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On April 05 2010 12:08 Kennigit wrote:
Guh, why do people make these monster claims ~_~?
because we're playing the game, you got a key?
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On April 05 2010 11:52 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:
The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on. Maybe I need to re-read the OP, but I don't remember him saying that o_O Didn't he just say roaches are what's causing all the complaints about marauders and immortals (and there are LOTS of complaints about marauders, not so much immortals anymore), because their very existance neccesitates these two units being inordinately strong.
i'll save you the trouble of re-reading the OP and will highlight the hyperbolic bits.
...almost all of SC2s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the roach...
...completely misguided unit...
...incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered...
... terran would literally lose every game against the zerg...
...the roaches role is screwed up...
...Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas...
...answer to 90% of SC2s current gameplay...
...Remove it, or drastically rework it...
...rebalance the game...
yes. i believe these statements are a little much for a unit that should have its armor reduced by 1 and hp reduced by 10~20. (or other equally minor alternative)
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OP, I've been thinking the same thing since I started playing the beta, basically. I didn't know how to put it into words, so thank you.
I agree completely. Roaches are an incredibly powerful unit. That does not mean that it imbalances matchups. However, it does mean that Blizzard had to create other units for the two races that were designed specifically to make the Roach not OP. I believe this was a mistake on Blizzard's part. If the Roach was turned down, then the Marauder and Immortal could in turn be turned down, and the rest of the game could get balanced from there.
In the end, you wouldn't be so locked into one strategy (PvZ == Protoss has to fast tech to Immortals, no if's and's or but's) and multiple other things that would make the game more exciting and less predictable.
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they should make immortals more interesting by bringing back the whole weak units dont activate their shield thing. So if a marine attacks an immortal, the damage would subtract from its health, completely skipping the shield. Shield would still be at full.
For marauders, i really like the idea of slow being an upgrade that you have to research. I also think that they shouldn't be allowed to stim. like reapers.
As for roaches. Make them have a lot less health but bring back their fast regeneration so you have to focus fire but they go down pretty quickly.
thoughts?
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On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? marauders? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate
it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them).
I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On April 05 2010 12:11 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:52 FrozenArbiter wrote:On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:
The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on. Maybe I need to re-read the OP, but I don't remember him saying that o_O Didn't he just say roaches are what's causing all the complaints about marauders and immortals (and there are LOTS of complaints about marauders, not so much immortals anymore), because their very existance neccesitates these two units being inordinately strong. i'll save you the trouble of re-reading the OP and will highlight the hyperbolic bits. Show nested quote +Almost all of SC2s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the roach...
...completely misguided unit...
...incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered...
... terran would literally lose every game against the zerg...
...the roaches role is screwed up...
...Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas...
...answer to 90% of SC2s current gameplay...
...Remove it, or drastically rework it...
...rebalance the game... yes. i believe these statements are a little much for a unit that should have its armor reduced by 1 and hp reduced by 10~20. (or other equally minor alternative)
Ok, the language is a bit strong but the main message is fine.
On April 05 2010 12:12 pzea469 wrote:
they should make immortals more interesting by bringing back the whole weak units dont activate their shield thing. So if a marine attacks an immortal, the damage would subtract from its health, completely skipping the shield. Shield would still be at full.
For marauders, i really like the idea of slow being an upgrade that you have to research. I also think that they shouldn't be allowed to stim. like reapers.
As for roaches. Make them have a lot less health but bring back their fast regeneration so you have to focus fire but they go down pretty quickly.
thoughts?
Cool idea, tho I don't know if it's really needed in terms of balance (i.e the immortal isn't really imbalanced right now).
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On April 05 2010 10:59 Angra wrote:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch.
maybe its the best option. are really boring units.
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You really need roaches to fight an early game zealot attack. Hydras come too late and lings for some reason suck vs lots.
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On April 05 2010 12:11 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:52 FrozenArbiter wrote:On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:
The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on. Maybe I need to re-read the OP, but I don't remember him saying that o_O Didn't he just say roaches are what's causing all the complaints about marauders and immortals (and there are LOTS of complaints about marauders, not so much immortals anymore), because their very existance neccesitates these two units being inordinately strong. i'll save you the trouble of re-reading the OP and will highlight the hyperbolic bits. Show nested quote +
...almost all of SC2s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the roach...
...completely misguided unit...
...incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered...
... terran would literally lose every game against the zerg...
...the roaches role is screwed up...
...Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas...
...answer to 90% of SC2s current gameplay...
...Remove it, or drastically rework it...
...rebalance the game...
yes. i believe these statements are a little much for a unit that should have its armor reduced by 1 and hp reduced by 10~20. (or other equally minor alternative)
As bias as he made his post sound, the point he makes is still very valid. The match-up that he's really talking about here is TvP. The roach forces the marauder and immortal to be in the game. Everybody has been hearing about how broken the marauder seems to be in TvP, and everybody who's tried to go mech (the alternative ground army to marauders) in TvP knows immortals steamroll it. "Standard" TvP is stale because the units that each race needs to hard-counter roaches also hard-counter a large portion of what the other race could make. Marauders force the protoss to tech early to HT's or colossus, and the threat of an immediate switch to immortals renders mech completely unviable.
And it's all because of the roach.
In my opinion I still think moving the marauder and roach to tier two is a great option. I don't really mind mech being useless in TvP, as bio was useless in SC1 and nobody seemed to mind. Plus, starport units really pack a punch in the matchup as well so mid-late game TvP would still be diverse.
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On April 05 2010 12:13 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:11 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:52 FrozenArbiter wrote:On April 05 2010 11:50 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:46 Jyvblamo wrote:
The problem isn't that roaches counter at lot of units, it's that they are inordinately good vs almost all units. i entirely agree with you. which is why we should say "roaches could use some tweaking" instead of "roaches break sc2 so absolutely that the game can't possibly grow into esport". come on. Maybe I need to re-read the OP, but I don't remember him saying that o_O Didn't he just say roaches are what's causing all the complaints about marauders and immortals (and there are LOTS of complaints about marauders, not so much immortals anymore), because their very existance neccesitates these two units being inordinately strong. i'll save you the trouble of re-reading the OP and will highlight the hyperbolic bits. Almost all of SC2s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the roach...
...completely misguided unit...
...incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered...
... terran would literally lose every game against the zerg...
...the roaches role is screwed up...
...Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas...
...answer to 90% of SC2s current gameplay...
...Remove it, or drastically rework it...
...rebalance the game... yes. i believe these statements are a little much for a unit that should have its armor reduced by 1 and hp reduced by 10~20. (or other equally minor alternative) Ok, the language is a bit strong but the main message is fine.
the main message banks on the unit being 'completely out of place'. It's no more out of place than cannons without their hp buff, voidrays and reapers sucking balls, etc.
it's just one of many minor balance concerns with sc2.
the immortal and marauder do not exist solely to counter the roach, since these units counter other things that they counter (and to be honest, i've a hunch that immortals were designed to hard-counter tanks, not roaches. Infact, if anyone would like to bet what was created first - the roach or the immortal, i''ll take the bet on the immortal being created first!)
i don't even understand why the immortal is being thrown into this analysis.
Roaches counter backbone units.
Mauraders counter backbone units (and everything else, for that matter).
Immortals counter... roaches, mauraders (not really), and tanks?
Nope, sorry. As my first response noted, i found the original post very neat. There was effort and thought put into his post, but i'm not certain i agree!
The problems with the roach are relatively easy to fix. And are minor compared to the problems with marauders!
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what's worse is Marauder isn't even a "Hard-counter" to roaches, it's only that it's the only viable unit to use so that you don't consistently die to roaches, it's not a hard counter like immortal is to tank
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hmm, i'd have to think about this more, but i'm inclined to agree right now with every point made in the OP.
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I'm heavy on board with this. I'm not good enough to say with authority that these units are wrong, but they aren't fun for me. I guess that's all I'm qualified to say
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On April 05 2010 12:13 FrozenArbiter wrote:On April 05 2010 12:12 pzea469 wrote:Show nested quote +they should make immortals more interesting by bringing back the whole weak units dont activate their shield thing. So if a marine attacks an immortal, the damage would subtract from its health, completely skipping the shield. Shield would still be at full.
For marauders, i really like the idea of slow being an upgrade that you have to research. I also think that they shouldn't be allowed to stim. like reapers.
As for roaches. Make them have a lot less health but bring back their fast regeneration so you have to focus fire but they go down pretty quickly.
thoughts?
Cool idea, tho I don't know if it's really needed in terms of balance (i.e the immortal isn't really imbalanced right now).
Well i think the problem with immortal is that it directly counters mech, which is fine, but they are also not bad to have in your army when fighting infantry, which leads to toss players getting immortals no matter what. If Immortals were really weak vs infantry then it would cause toss users to think twice about investing soo much into immortals and have to scout better. If terran goes mech, he counters with immortals, terran sees immortals, he counters with marines, protoss see marines, he counters with collossus or storm, and so on.
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I agree with the OP.
I definitely agree that if roaches and marauders were removed from SC2 and it was rebalanced, it would be a way better game. Roaches and marauders are like the huntresses of SC2. Ranged Gtg only units that have to be overpowered because of their lack of versatility.
Zerg should not have a high HP t1 tank unit. It is completely the opposite of their racial identity.
I think if anyone envisions what SC2 would be like without the roach and marauder, they will be able to envision something much more exciting, dynamic, and variable.
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On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:
[quote]
Uh yeah...
I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran.
I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? marauders? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this.
Well, the reason why they don't make more then 20 supply worth is because they acknowledge they would get screwed hard if you switched marauder.
Yeah, the language is a bit strong, a tad bit sensationalist, but imho the underlying message is 100% true and authentic.
"Remake" may not be necessary. "Major rebalancing?" Probably.
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On April 05 2010 12:18 Meta wrote:
As bias as he made his post sound, the point he makes is still very valid. The match-up that he's really talking about here is TvP. The roach forces the marauder and immortal to be in the game. Everybody has been hearing about how broken the marauder seems to be in TvP, and everybody who's tried to go mech (the alternative ground army to marauders) in TvP knows immortals steamroll it. "Standard" TvP is stale because the units that each race needs to hard-counter roaches also hard-counter a large portion of what the other race could make. Marauders force the protoss to tech early to HT's or colossus, and the threat of an immediate switch to immortals renders mech completely unviable.
And it's all because of the roach.
i don't agree. Immortals are not the only counter to the roach. Therefore their existence in TvP is not caused by the roach.
Which means the fault of TvP mech lies on the immortal, not the roach.
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On April 05 2010 12:24 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:
[quote]
can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? marauders? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this. Well, the reason why they don't make more then 20 supply worth is because they acknowledge they would get screwed hard if you switched marauder. Yeah, the language is a bit strong, a tad bit sensationalist, but imho the underlying message is 100% true and authentic. "Remake" may not be necessary. "Major rebalancing?" Probably.
i don't consider -1 armour, -15hp 'major rebalancing'.
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On April 05 2010 12:24 pzea469 wrote:On April 05 2010 12:13 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:12 pzea469 wrote:
they should make immortals more interesting by bringing back the whole weak units dont activate their shield thing. So if a marine attacks an immortal, the damage would subtract from its health, completely skipping the shield. Shield would still be at full.
For marauders, i really like the idea of slow being an upgrade that you have to research. I also think that they shouldn't be allowed to stim. like reapers.
As for roaches. Make them have a lot less health but bring back their fast regeneration so you have to focus fire but they go down pretty quickly.
thoughts? Cool idea, tho I don't know if it's really needed in terms of balance (i.e the immortal isn't really imbalanced right now).
Well i think the problem with immortal is that it directly counters mech, which is fine, but they are also not bad to have in your army when fighting infantry, which leads to toss players getting immortals no matter what. If Immortals were really weak vs infantry then it would cause toss users to think twice about investing soo much into immortals and have to scout better. If terran goes mech, he counters with immortals, terran sees immortals, he counters with marines, protoss see marines, he counters with collossus or storm, and so on.
I don't like this at all. Without blathering about the nonexistent concept of "hardcounters" (well, they do exist, I even mention it in my post, but they don't exist in the same level some people think they do), the central idea to that is your changing immortals from a general utility unit to a niche unit.
Do you want that? Moreover, its a niche unit to specifically counter heavy mech,
That really doesn't solve anything lol.
I think a 25-30 damage flat would really be your best bet. A unit doesn't need both absurd dps and hardened shields. Shave off a large chunk of roach HP and armor (2->1?), decrease damage a bit to encourage lings for dps, buff ling dps by a tad. Give ~4 regen. Shave off a large chunk of marauder HP OR remove stims.
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On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:
[quote]
Uh yeah...
I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran.
I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? marauders? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this.
A win in this case ends up meaning less than the battles themselves do. For all we know you could have killed a ton of drones with Hellion harass and then steamrolled with a much larger (albeit less efficient) army. You're so quick to mention all of these ratings and win statistics, but what does it really even mean?
You say you never built Marauders against Zerg (which I guess means you don't mass them, but you don't need mass Marauders if the Zerg isn't massing Roaches... I digress) and yet you still had a high win%. What were you doing that is so special that seems to defy nearly everything I've ever experienced or read about TvZ?
You also say you never build an Immortal in PvZ and still have a high win%. Doing what? Are you going proxy 2gate every other game? Hiding a few Void Rays?
I'm sorry, but win% and rating simply do not imply you have a solid strategy to face these specific units in a straight up battle, especially in a macro game (nor does it mean you actually don't use Marauders/Immortals, we have to take your word for that). It would make this thread a lot more civil if you actually mentioned what strategies you use instead.
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On April 05 2010 11:19 Mora wrote:
neat thread
i was #1 in my platinum division as terran (2000 rating), and i almost never made marauders against zerg.
i switched to toss after the reset, and last time i logged on (wednesday) i was #4 in my platinum division, and i've found roaches one of the easiest units to counter. I've also never made a single immortal vs zerg. PvZ is my strongest matchup, at about 80% winnage.
Am i the only person who finds Stalkers a ridiculously awesome counter to roaches?
needless to say, i don't agree with the OP. Roaches/Marauders/Immortals could use some tuning, for sure, but 'broken' is missing the mark.
I've been sayin' it for I don't know how long, but eventually you just let the noobs whine. People complain marauders are too good cuz they can kill a zealot "without getting hit." Well guess what? You know those units that suck? Stalkers? And you know those units that are OP? Roaches? Well, stalkers can kill those without getting hit!
And you know that other unit that zerg has that is OP and toss can do nothing to counter? Mutas? With a lot of stalkers on the field, you're already countering them!
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What is with these MASSIVE whine threads...I think there have been a ton of threads on roaches already..you didnt need to make a new thread...just post in an existing one FFS.
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On April 05 2010 12:29 danl9rm wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:19 Mora wrote:
neat thread
i was #1 in my platinum division as terran (2000 rating), and i almost never made marauders against zerg.
i switched to toss after the reset, and last time i logged on (wednesday) i was #4 in my platinum division, and i've found roaches one of the easiest units to counter. I've also never made a single immortal vs zerg. PvZ is my strongest matchup, at about 80% winnage.
Am i the only person who finds Stalkers a ridiculously awesome counter to roaches?
needless to say, i don't agree with the OP. Roaches/Marauders/Immortals could use some tuning, for sure, but 'broken' is missing the mark. I've been sayin' it for I don't know how long, but eventually you just let the noobs whine. People complain marauders are too good cuz they can kill a zealot "without getting hit." Well guess what? You know those units that suck? Stalkers? And you know those units that are OP? Roaches? Well, stalkers can kill those without getting hit! And you know that other unit that zerg has that is OP and toss can do nothing to counter? Mutas? With a lot of stalkers on the field, you're already countering them!
Stalkers move slower then roaches with speed. Also, you won't be able to mount an offensive against mass roaches with only stalkers. You may be able to stop an attack, but they can contain+expand.
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Stalkers are alright vs roaches but you can't kite them all day, a unit that counter a unit based on kiting is a bit too situational and won't always work imo.
Great post OP, I really like what you said and it makes a lot of sense. I hope blizzard reads your post and buts it in front of dustin brodwer's nose on monday morning
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I agree with OP. Also, roaches are such a BORING unit to use - only a few short tweaks away from a hydra. Every unit for a given race in BW is so different! comparatively, look at roach/hydra, marine/marauder, and maybe even stalker/immortal. each pair has a different function, air/ground attack, but they feel way too alike...
My focus is on fun and interesting unit comps, not winrate balance - making all the races 50% against each other is a lot easier. the way the early game kinda revolves around roaches and their counters is pretty meh
as for particular changes, I really like some of these suggestions, like giving roach 1 armor, less health, and fast regen to start.
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The Roach seems to have missed their target in terms of their role.
Instead of being a miniature damage-sponge unit for the Zerg army, they are an all around GvG unit.
I know it's unlikely, but I feel like it would be great if the Roach was redone to more properly fit it's role. It's HP is fine, but what if it's attack was lowered but had a damage-stacking or armor-reducing mechanic so players would actually have a reason to kill the damage sponge before killing higher damage-dealing units.
TLDR: Roaches need lower damage, but replaced with a mechanic that somehow makes the opponent still want to kill it first, retaining it's damage-sponge role.
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On April 05 2010 12:27 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:24 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:
[quote]
marauders?
Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder.
The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this. Well, the reason why they don't make more then 20 supply worth is because they acknowledge they would get screwed hard if you switched marauder. Yeah, the language is a bit strong, a tad bit sensationalist, but imho the underlying message is 100% true and authentic. "Remake" may not be necessary. "Major rebalancing?" Probably. i don't consider -1 armour, -15hp 'major rebalancing'.
-50 HP more like it, +4 constant regen so its still a roach, slight dps change, -1 armor, slightly slower.
I consider that a major rebalancing.
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lol this is such an awesome thread i love the op they should be imba but they arent thats a funny statement not stating my opionion, just saying you know how much money it would cost blizzard, probably, to change this?
anyway i think pvz is good tvp and zvt idk about those two and zvz is just dumb
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I agree with OP.
I think they should buff stalkers and nerf immortals. Currently I get immortals every game PvT or PvP no matter what, just because they do fine against infantry and rape armored units. There's no disadvantage to getting them. Terran are always going to get marauders and toss are always going to get stalkers and other armored units. Z will often get roaches so I make some in that matchup too (but not as many, because collosi are better usually).
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On April 05 2010 12:28 QibingZero wrote:
A win in this case ends up meaning less than the battles themselves do. For all we know you could have killed a ton of drones with Hellion harass and then steamrolled with a much larger (albeit less efficient) army. You're so quick to mention all of these ratings and win statistics, but what does it really even mean?
You say you never built Marauders against Zerg (which I guess means you don't mass them, but you don't need mass Marauders if the Zerg isn't massing Roaches... I digress) and yet you still had a high win%. What were you doing that is so special that seems to defy nearly everything I've ever experienced or read about TvZ?
You also say you never build an Immortal in PvZ and still have a high win%. Doing what? Are you going proxy 2gate every other game? Hiding a few Void Rays?
I'm sorry, but win% and rating simply do not imply you have a solid strategy to face these specific units in a straight up battle, especially in a macro game (nor does it mean you actually don't use Marauders/Immortals, we have to take your word for that). It would make this thread a lot more civil if you actually mentioned what strategies you use instead.
i only mentioned my win% and rating because when i say 'i disagree that these units are necessary', and people tell me i'm wrong, a paradox ensues where i have reached that rating doing exactly as i said i did.
i mentioned stalkers being a good counter to roaches more times than i've mentioned my pvz win percentage. I've never proxy gated (though i certainly have nothing against doing so). I've busted out a fast voidray in a few games, it's true.
I switch up what i do quite frequently, but i've found Terran air units particular fun. 2 viking opening into upgraded marines/tanks has worked fairly solidly for me. Most of the replays i would show would be exactly that. Upgraded marines/tanks do just fine vs roaches.
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On April 05 2010 10:45 Half wrote:
Roaches are a unit that costs 75 minerals, 25 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T1. They have 145 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss.
Errr Iono if this counts but autoturrets cost 50 energy and they have 150 hp I think. aand they do more damage ;P
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I think extra research to make all the "Trinity" to be their current form would change the game drastically, for the better imo. For instance,(I'm a terran player so it's easiest to come up with terran examples) as terran, you wouldn't have to fear staying marines when the zerg just rolls you over with roaches. This would also set up a small timing window where each party can set up proper tech. Going marauders against zerg without the concussion missles research would just completely get steam rolled by lings. Of course zerg can still go roach plus their armor upgrade or whatever, but they don't have to.
For PvT, this is also true for immortals where I feel protoss is too attached to going robo, if shield upgrade requires a research then, for example, a mech by a terran is viable. But from protoss' perspective, zealots will become more powerful early game and a twilight tech would make them even better.
Just quickly thinking through it, it seems like a pretty good idea. Of course, we won't know until blizzard tries it. Of course if they do this, balance with other units will also be offset too.. :x
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On April 05 2010 12:33 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:27 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:24 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:
[quote]
in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper.
So... roaches counter... marines and scvs?
holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this. Well, the reason why they don't make more then 20 supply worth is because they acknowledge they would get screwed hard if you switched marauder. Yeah, the language is a bit strong, a tad bit sensationalist, but imho the underlying message is 100% true and authentic. "Remake" may not be necessary. "Major rebalancing?" Probably. i don't consider -1 armour, -15hp 'major rebalancing'. -50 HP more like it, +4 constant regen so its still a roach, slight dps change, -1 armor, slightly slower. I consider that a major rebalancing.
they would be completely useless with those stats.
you honestly think they're that overpowered? Thank god the closest you'll ever get to game design is this forum.
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If roaches were removed I would be so happy.
Zvz is so borked right now because of it
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 05 2010 12:28 QibingZero wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:
[quote]
can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? marauders? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman! Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period. As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches? you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this. A win in this case ends up meaning less than the battles themselves do. For all we know you could have killed a ton of drones with Hellion harass and then steamrolled with a much larger (albeit less efficient) army. You're so quick to mention all of these ratings and win statistics, but what does it really even mean? You say you never built Marauders against Zerg (which I guess means you don't mass them, but you don't need mass Marauders if the Zerg isn't massing Roaches... I digress) and yet you still had a high win%. What were you doing that is so special that seems to defy nearly everything I've ever experienced or read about TvZ? You also say you never build an Immortal in PvZ and still have a high win%. Doing what? Are you going proxy 2gate every other game? Hiding a few Void Rays? I'm sorry, but win% and rating simply do not imply you have a solid strategy to face these specific units in a straight up battle, especially in a macro game (nor does it mean you actually don't use Marauders/Immortals, we have to take your word for that). It would make this thread a lot more civil if you actually mentioned what strategies you use instead.
I almost never see orb build immortals VS roaches >.> like rarely if ever and he usually comes out on top.
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i completly agree. i think roaches, immortals, and marauders should be taken out and replaced with different tier 1.5 units that arent complete hard counters to eachother
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i personally think when they choose the head hauncho of c&c to help them .. blizzard made a mistake.. u see alot of elaments of c&c tossed in kinda flimsy.
with that said ..
imortals counter marauders and roaches very true1.. but they counnter.. tanks.,. thors.., stalkers, colossus , ultras i think buildings to.
imortals are the only one of the units that really works well
marauders work alittle effectivly.. colo have a better chance because of the health and shield/ difference of immortal to the marauder. it also makes the imortal also better at bunker busting and tank busting then a marauder prolly ultras to.
roaches are the least effective of the 3 in th games i played.
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On April 05 2010 12:37 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:33 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 12:27 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:24 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 12:13 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:02 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:59 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:53 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:49 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:45 Rothbardian wrote:
[quote]
Marines absolutely blow vs Roach. As do Tanks. It's all about unit interaction. You can have 7 roaches easily for every Tank that can be produced. Not only that, but by the time Terran gets a few tanks, you can get burrow + move, and pin the Terran in his base for a very long time while you take the whole map and get 100+ Roaches. The only counter to Roach is Marauder, period.
As for Vikings.....Vikings suck on Ground mode because of cost and speed. Also, good luck getting to Tier 2.5 and surviving without using Marauders, and since you are there, why would you use a unit that gets completely demolished in fights against Roaches?
you responded to my saying "i counter roaches just fine without marauders" with "no". what? how do i even respond to that? Like, what alternative do i have other than to say you needed to stop sucking so much shit in sc2 and go learn to play? Yep, I suck. I was only ~2000 (Plat) before reset, and ~1300 atm trying new things out. How about you give me some replays where the Zerg mass roached and you went something other than Marauders and won. mass roaches as in ~20 roaches? or mass roaches as in ~60 roaches? Why does it matter? If you can't beat either of them without marauders doesn't that necessitate it matters because i have several replays of beating 1800~2000 rated zergs who make 20 or so roaches, without using mass marauders (it's not uncommon for me to make 1-2 of them). I've never played a zerg who has massed much more than 20 though: ergo cannot show replays of this. Well, the reason why they don't make more then 20 supply worth is because they acknowledge they would get screwed hard if you switched marauder. Yeah, the language is a bit strong, a tad bit sensationalist, but imho the underlying message is 100% true and authentic. "Remake" may not be necessary. "Major rebalancing?" Probably. i don't consider -1 armour, -15hp 'major rebalancing'. -50 HP more like it, +4 constant regen so its still a roach, slight dps change, -1 armor, slightly slower. I consider that a major rebalancing. they would be completely useless with those stats. you honestly think they're that overpowered? Thank god the closest you'll ever get to game design is this forum.
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them.
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I agree that something has to be done about roaches, I would like to see them become weaker units but have an even faster burrow regeneration. This would make them less boring, they would be micro units, and they wouldn't need a direct counter in both other races. You wouldn't have to have mass marauders to deal with them. With this change I could see the marauder becoming higher tech, costing more, and doing even more damage to heavy armored units, making it a more specialized unit instead of being the core of a terran bioball.
This still leaves the problem of immortals vs terran mech. No terran is going mech with immortals being as accessible as they are now. I think a more interesting change than making immortals hard to get would be adding a new terran mech unit that can deal with them and perhaps also making hellions a little stronger against them. Terran mech is really lacking as it is. I would love to see terran having a choice between going all mech, all bio, or a mix of each as could be done in brood war. Tanks, hellions, and thors are all so specialized that you can't use mech alone for anything. It's really a choice between a bioball or banshee cheese. Mech has no place in this game.
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On April 05 2010 12:35 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:28 QibingZero wrote:
A win in this case ends up meaning less than the battles themselves do. For all we know you could have killed a ton of drones with Hellion harass and then steamrolled with a much larger (albeit less efficient) army. You're so quick to mention all of these ratings and win statistics, but what does it really even mean?
You say you never built Marauders against Zerg (which I guess means you don't mass them, but you don't need mass Marauders if the Zerg isn't massing Roaches... I digress) and yet you still had a high win%. What were you doing that is so special that seems to defy nearly everything I've ever experienced or read about TvZ?
You also say you never build an Immortal in PvZ and still have a high win%. Doing what? Are you going proxy 2gate every other game? Hiding a few Void Rays?
I'm sorry, but win% and rating simply do not imply you have a solid strategy to face these specific units in a straight up battle, especially in a macro game (nor does it mean you actually don't use Marauders/Immortals, we have to take your word for that). It would make this thread a lot more civil if you actually mentioned what strategies you use instead. i only mentioned my win% and rating because when i say 'i disagree that these units are necessary', and people tell me i'm wrong, a paradox ensues where i have reached that rating doing exactly as i said i did. i mentioned stalkers being a good counter to roaches more times than i've mentioned my pvz win percentage. I've never proxy gated (though i certainly have nothing against doing so). I've busted out a fast voidray in a few games, it's true. I switch up what i do quite frequently, but i've found Terran air units particular fun. 2 viking opening into upgraded marines/tanks has worked fairly solidly for me. Most of the replays i would show would be exactly that. Upgraded marines/tanks do just fine vs roaches.
Would you agree or disagree that using Immortals would be more effective vs Roach heavy armies than just Stalkers, though? I can't imagine you have all that much success with pure Stalker, especially given the number advantage the Roaches will have.
It's the same with Terran - wouldn't you say adding more Marauders into your army would give you a better chance? Pure Marine/Tank is just asking for Banelings rolling in a couple seconds into a battle and ruining you completely. Mixing Marauders in not only makes you a lot more effective against the Roaches, but limits the amount of damage the Banelings will do to your army as well.
On April 05 2010 12:43 Dacendoran wrote:
I almost never see orb build immortals VS roaches >.> like rarely if ever and he usually comes out on top.
Maybe this is why he's so upset all the time. =P
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very interesting read, and i agree with angra:On April 05 2010 10:59 Angra wrote:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch.
i hate roach, marauder, imortal battles. for peat sakes. if one guy pulls any of those three, another has to follow or some masive air to ground forces. i have seen more games. with people who have gone immortal and phinix then i care to say or count. a few zerg players have followed suit and gone roach and muta. in short, players see that the best way to win is use the over powered ground unit and an air to air capable unit to slauter. the build is not diverse as some people say. you reach teir 1.5 and it's one build and one build only you see in every replay. what maters is your macro, no more.
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On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them.
i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun?
Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them.
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On April 05 2010 12:50 QibingZero wrote:
Would you agree or disagree that using Immortals would be more effective vs Roach heavy armies than just Stalkers, though? I can't imagine you have all that much success with pure Stalker, especially given the number advantage the Roaches will have.
to be honest, my pvz games have almost all boiled down to stalker vs roach, and stalker rapes roach so hard that the game doesn't get past the 8 minute mark. in the few games that gotten past this point (some people are smart enough to make lings), then i usually have a nice army composition, though i prefer collosus over immortals.
So yes, if we're talking about mid game, i do agree that mixed army compositions are better than 1-unit-mass armies.
It's the same with Terran - wouldn't you say adding more Marauders into your army would give you a better chance? Pure Marine/Tank is just asking for Banelings rolling in a couple seconds into a battle and ruining you completely. Mixing Marauders in not only makes you a lot more effective against the Roaches, but limits the amount of damage the Banelings will do to your army as well.
marauders are a different story! I think marauders need a close looking at. they're much more broken than roaches.
in my tvz games where i was not making them it was because i was too stupid to realize how good they were. i've had plenty of problems with banelings - you are correct. never had a problem with roaches though!
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Op is really well written, I tip my hat to you good sir. I also agree that the Roach is a shitty unit in general, and its not very nice to watch
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OP's makes a subtle and well considered point I think...
And consider, even if he's wrong, doesn't the fact that all the roach's interesting abilities have been removed cause you some concern? What is left of the unit exactly? It broadcasts a certain amount of dps in a certain radius and has X health.
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wow...
this has been the fist post toexplain why sc2 is on the whole more boring and less thought- heavy than sc1
very good read
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On April 05 2010 12:57 USn wrote:
OP's makes a subtle and well considered point I think...
And consider, even if he's wrong, doesn't the fact that all the roach's interesting abilities have been removed cause you some concern? What is left of the unit exactly? It broadcasts a certain amount of dps in a certain radius and has X health.
sort of like... 75% of the units in sc1? lol
ie:
zealot
dragoon
hydralisk
zergling
marine (unless stim disqualifies it)
scouts
mutas
etc.
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On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them.
I would say fun units are ones that have to be microed to be effective, like reavers, high templars, marine/medic, vultures, mutas, and defilers from sc1.
Hydras have to be microed to dodge storms while you can just attackmove roaches and they never die.
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On April 05 2010 13:02 ZergZergling wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them. I would say fun units are ones that have to be microed to be effective, like reavers, high templars, marine/medic, vultures, mutas, and defilers from sc1. Hydras have to be microed to dodge storms while you can just attackmove roaches and they never die.
so wouldn't tuning them in a way that they would die more easily make them more fun? *blink*
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How would I stop a zealot rush without roaches? Or hellion rush? Can't block my ramp with buildings like T or P, certainly not with zerglings. I could make two queens right away, or get spine crawlers, but thats just kind of silly. The roach is an entirely necessary unit. I feel like the roach has been made into this scapegoat for no reason. This game has lots of balance tweaks to go, and lots of strategy to be discovered. Removing units is only going to make the game LESS balanced.
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Very interesting OP. I think you're right both that the roach has strayed far from its original concept and become very uninteresting, and that it's the root cause of a lot of the other problems with the game.
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On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them.
let's compare roaches to hydras from SC1
90% of the time you will make hydras en masse vs protoss.
Hydras are fast are a safe unit that are useful in just about every situation ZvP. VS a evenly skilled Protoss player you will need to outmicro his ground army to win. You must dodge storms, and snipe reavers. You can turn weakened hydras into lurkers. Controlling 50+ hydras correctly was HARD (with limited control), and extremely rewarding when done properly. They arent the FUNNEST unit in the game (a title reserved for mutalisks) but they are fun, at least in my opinion.
Roaches are slow. They have a lot of health. Reavers no longer exist and thus cannot kill roaches in 1 hit. Storm does not kill roaches in 1 hit either. Coupled with how slow roaches are and how short storm lasts, it's not NEARLY as pressing an issue to dodge storms in SC2 with roaches as it was in SC1 with hydras. Basically controlling roaches in SC2 is like controlling a big hydra ball in SC1 after you successfully sniped all the templar on the map (which was the fun part).
They tried to spice them up with burrow and healing mechanics but it's just really not that interesting or useful in battle (especially when you have like 40 roaches lol).
A lot of the things that make roaches boring also make Hydras much more boring in SC2 than they were in SC1 (namely they are slower and dont really need to be micro'd at all, especially when you can control your entire army at once).
If you look at the main meat of each of the races' typical basic armies: MMM vs roach/hydra vs zeal/sentry/stalker, Zerg requires the absolute least micro. MMM you have medivac control which opens up cute micro option, you have stim and since at least marines are pretty fast you have options for dodging spells and sniping units much better. Protoss has the most micro with stalkers having blink and being fast with good range and ofc sentries being THE micro unit of the race. Zerg is basically just a-moving a giant ball which is in 1 control group.
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On April 05 2010 13:11 Ideas wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them. let's compare roaches to hydras from SC1 90% of the time you will make hydras en masse vs protoss. Hydras are fast are a safe unit that are useful in just about every situation ZvP. VS a evenly skilled Protoss player you will need to outmicro his ground army to win. You must dodge storms, and snipe reavers. You can turn weakened hydras into lurkers. Controlling 50+ hydras correctly was HARD (with limited control), and extremely rewarding when done properly. They arent the FUNNEST unit in the game (a title reserved for mutalisks) but they are fun, at least in my opinion. Roaches are slow. They have a lot of health. Reavers no longer exist and thus cannot kill roaches in 1 hit. Storm does not kill roaches in 1 hit either. Coupled with how slow roaches are and how short storm lasts, it's not NEARLY as pressing an issue to dodge storms in SC2 with roaches as it was in SC1 with hydras. Basically controlling roaches in SC2 is like controlling a big hydra ball in SC1 after you successfully sniped all the templar on the map (which was the fun part). They tried to spice them up with burrow and healing mechanics but it's just really not that interesting or useful in battle (especially when you have like 40 roaches lol). A lot of the things that make roaches boring also make Hydras much more boring in SC2 than they were in SC1 (namely they are slower and dont really need to be micro'd at all, especially when you can control your entire army at once). If you look at the main meat of each of the races' typical basic armies: MMM vs roach/hydra vs zeal/sentry/stalker, Zerg requires the absolute least micro. MMM you have medivac control which opens up cute micro option, you have stim and since at least marines are pretty fast you have options for dodging spells and sniping units much better. Protoss has the most micro with stalkers having blink and being fast with good range and ofc sentries being THE micro unit of the race. Zerg is basically just a-moving a giant ball which is in 1 control group.
ah! excellent!
thanks
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On April 05 2010 13:14 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:11 Ideas wrote:On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them. let's compare roaches to hydras from SC1 90% of the time you will make hydras en masse vs protoss. Hydras are fast are a safe unit that are useful in just about every situation ZvP. VS a evenly skilled Protoss player you will need to outmicro his ground army to win. You must dodge storms, and snipe reavers. You can turn weakened hydras into lurkers. Controlling 50+ hydras correctly was HARD (with limited control), and extremely rewarding when done properly. They arent the FUNNEST unit in the game (a title reserved for mutalisks) but they are fun, at least in my opinion. Roaches are slow. They have a lot of health. Reavers no longer exist and thus cannot kill roaches in 1 hit. Storm does not kill roaches in 1 hit either. Coupled with how slow roaches are and how short storm lasts, it's not NEARLY as pressing an issue to dodge storms in SC2 with roaches as it was in SC1 with hydras. Basically controlling roaches in SC2 is like controlling a big hydra ball in SC1 after you successfully sniped all the templar on the map (which was the fun part). They tried to spice them up with burrow and healing mechanics but it's just really not that interesting or useful in battle (especially when you have like 40 roaches lol). A lot of the things that make roaches boring also make Hydras much more boring in SC2 than they were in SC1 (namely they are slower and dont really need to be micro'd at all, especially when you can control your entire army at once). If you look at the main meat of each of the races' typical basic armies: MMM vs roach/hydra vs zeal/sentry/stalker, Zerg requires the absolute least micro. MMM you have medivac control which opens up cute micro option, you have stim and since at least marines are pretty fast you have options for dodging spells and sniping units much better. Protoss has the most micro with stalkers having blink and being fast with good range and ofc sentries being THE micro unit of the race. Zerg is basically just a-moving a giant ball which is in 1 control group. ah! excellent! thanks
and as BW Zerg player, it fucking kills me that I have to play protoss to have any fun in SC2
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in retrospect, the units of BW and SC2 are compeltely different
Each SC1 unit had a distinctive role. From marines to firebats to tanks to battlecruisers. Zerglings to hydras to ultras to defilers. Zealots to dragoons to templars to arbiters. there was no redundancy in BW.
In SC2 it feels like the maurader are a stronger marine, and roaches are a weaker hydralisk, and immortals are a stronger stalker.
Their costs and efficiency makes them strong backbone units, and many people think this is a bad thing. Nobody can argue that these units do not deserve a place in each matchup (i'm looking at you Mora) because they do, and they greatly increase your chance of winning despite the enemies race or even strategy.
In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters" in regular play. (yes I know bio isnt 'viable' TvP, but regular player consisted of mech, not bio) Sure a lurker counters marines, but with micro, marines could make a lurkers life hell. However, this begs the question whether or not SC2 has "hard-counters" or that it seems so because we just do not know how to deal with them yet.
The question is, can SC2 bring us back to that level of comfort where a unit which is supposedly "hard-countered" by another can still make an appearance in the matchup? Allow me to rephrase, do certain units suggest certain counters and openings, or do they force counters and openings. There is a huge difference. Lurkers suggested tanks, and people did get them, but their power was such that marines could still make an appearance. Mauraders force collosi, and their power is so great such that zealots are still completely useless.
Suppose in SC2 we can arbitrarily define the combat as rock-paper-scissors, where one type of unit guarantees the appearance of another unit, and guarantees the disappearance of another. Then, in relation, BW is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There are many different outcomes despite one type of unit having a relationship with other types.
Allow me to sum up my thesis as sequentially described in the paragraphs above: my fundamental theorem of RTS balance
1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack.
2) No one unit should take the spotlight in every single matchup. Mauraders, Roaches surely do. Immortals to a lesser extent.
3) "overpowered" units should exist, however their power should take advantage of player's skill, not in raw statistics. The defiler, on paper, looks extremely overpowered vs terran. Lurkers look extremely overpowered versus marine/medic. But player's skill allow for a balance, and even fun, exciting games
4) Units should suggest the enemy to use and not use other units, but nothing more. A skilled player should be able to possess both units in their army, and perhaps form a quadrilateral-relationship with other units. For example, in general BW, vultures > zealots > tanks > goons > vultures. Although vultures suggest that zealots would be a bad choice, they can still have the mine-clearing capacity and ability to waste tank fire because vultures do not negate zealots like immortals do roaches.
4b) (corollary to axiom 4) Axiom 4 implies that each unit should have some sort of influence and skill required from the gamer in order for it to be used to their potential. IE. Marine micro vs. lurker takes skill and time to perfect. Maurader micro is extremely easy, as there is no other unit which allows for the same level of skill needed as marine vs lurker. Maurader vs Collosi? Not the same.
5) Unit strength should be situational. In general BW, Tanks > Goons. However, in low numbers, Goons > Tanks. This is so evident, that you cannot just tech to tank and straight up contain a protoss very early in BW, because goons do very well vs tanks in this stage of the game. You do not see this sort of depth to SC2.
note: i do not endorse the idea that the roach is the bane of SC2's problems, but that SC2 has problems (when compared to BW) based on their units as a collective whole. Further, I do not rule out the likely possibility that we just do not have the scope required to analyze SC2 yet, and with time, these issues will degenerate
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On April 05 2010 13:05 wayreth wrote:
How would I stop a zealot rush without roaches? Or hellion rush? Can't block my ramp with buildings like T or P, certainly not with zerglings. I could make two queens right away, or get spine crawlers, but thats just kind of silly. The roach is an entirely necessary unit. I feel like the roach has been made into this scapegoat for no reason. This game has lots of balance tweaks to go, and lots of strategy to be discovered. Removing units is only going to make the game LESS balanced.
In a similar way to how you would have in SC1, I would imagine.
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On April 05 2010 13:11 Ideas wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:53 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 12:48 ZergZergling wrote:
I think you're missing the point a lot of people have made that whether or not roaches are overpowered they are a boring unit and sc2 is less fun to play/watch because of them. i've seen this said a lot - that roaches are not fun. what makes them not fun? Why are hydras more fun than roaches? Or marines more than marauders? Aside from these units being too good i don't understand what is 'not fun' about them. let's compare roaches to hydras from SC1 90% of the time you will make hydras en masse vs protoss. Hydras are fast are a safe unit that are useful in just about every situation ZvP. VS a evenly skilled Protoss player you will need to outmicro his ground army to win. You must dodge storms, and snipe reavers. You can turn weakened hydras into lurkers. Controlling 50+ hydras correctly was HARD (with limited control), and extremely rewarding when done properly. They arent the FUNNEST unit in the game (a title reserved for mutalisks) but they are fun, at least in my opinion. Roaches are slow. They have a lot of health. Reavers no longer exist and thus cannot kill roaches in 1 hit. Storm does not kill roaches in 1 hit either. Coupled with how slow roaches are and how short storm lasts, it's not NEARLY as pressing an issue to dodge storms in SC2 with roaches as it was in SC1 with hydras. Basically controlling roaches in SC2 is like controlling a big hydra ball in SC1 after you successfully sniped all the templar on the map (which was the fun part). They tried to spice them up with burrow and healing mechanics but it's just really not that interesting or useful in battle (especially when you have like 40 roaches lol). A lot of the things that make roaches boring also make Hydras much more boring in SC2 than they were in SC1 (namely they are slower and dont really need to be micro'd at all, especially when you can control your entire army at once). If you look at the main meat of each of the races' typical basic armies: MMM vs roach/hydra vs zeal/sentry/stalker, Zerg requires the absolute least micro. MMM you have medivac control which opens up cute micro option, you have stim and since at least marines are pretty fast you have options for dodging spells and sniping units much better. Protoss has the most micro with stalkers having blink and being fast with good range and ofc sentries being THE micro unit of the race. Zerg is basically just a-moving a giant ball which is in 1 control group.
This is exactly what I have been thinking. I have no problem with the roach being a massable unit for zerg, in fact, I agree that they should be just such a unit. The problem that i see with them is that they are a little too hard to kill. They need to have a slight health drop and maybe an armor drop. Nothing too significant, but enough to where having 2-3 roaches against a helion can be won by the helion with good micro, or having a couple of nicely placed tanks could deal serious hurt to a pack of roaches.
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First off, nice OP. I do agree there is a problem with the units when they become too prevalent and the OP presents quite a good argument of why this occurs.
The primary issue here is the lack of unit diversity, i.e. the massing of roaches & marauders. I like a few ideas posted in this thread to address this issue.
Adding research requirements to indirectly nerf the units is a good start.
On April 05 2010 11:32 imBLIND wrote:
Honestly, their inherent abilities should be expensive and time consuming upgrades...
This makes fast teching, rushing, and tier 1.5 massing unique strategies that have their pros and cons.
That way, one promotes more timing windows, increasing strategic gameplay and allows a greater variety of T1 units to come into play. Of course, there may be balance issues with other units, but I do like the idea of moving the abilities to research instead of outright nerfing them.
Another good point brought out is the overall un-fun-ess of roaches.
On April 05 2010 13:02 ZergZergling wrote:
I would say fun units are ones that have to be microed to be effective..Hydras have to be microed to dodge storms while you can just attack move roaches and they never die.
Reducing the health and adding faster Regen amongst other suggestions seem like a good idea to me, to promote micro, which will add more depth to the roaches.
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United States1865 Posts
whether or not roach, marauder, or immortal are balanced doesnt even matter to me
personally i think SC2 is not half bad balance wise right now
i simply think that these units are too well rounded and too boring for spectators and for players (not as much the immortal as it is T2 and expensive, but could be better)
imagine if the marauder was a weak hp unit with AoE slow that required clever micro to try and snipe
or if the roach had less armor but active HP regen so they would rape attack moving marines but lose to focus fire
things like that add excitement and skill differentiation and i hope its something blizz would consider trying
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I think the problem with Zerg in SC 2 is that they're too much of a brute force faction. They lack the unit variety they had in BW. In particular, they lost the awesome line attacking lurker, and instead received an all-around ground unit that gets hard countered by marauders/immortals but destroys everything else. Combine this with how bad the ultralisk is and how situational the infestor is, and you really don't see the same variety & dynamism that you saw in BW.
But, removing roaches wouldn't help. Zerg only has one tier 1 unit, then, in which case it'll just be zergling all-in every game.
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Half has written a post I could not possibly have said better myself. He has completely nailed what is wrong with SC2. I don't care how good you are, how famous you are, his post is completely accurate. Roach is ruining this game. And I completely agree, Zerg is not OP, its just this one stupid unit throwing the entire game out of whack.
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On April 05 2010 13:24 Atrioc wrote:
whether or not roach, marauder, or immortal are balanced doesnt even matter to me
personally i think SC2 is not half bad balance wise right now
i simply think that these units are too well rounded and too boring for spectators and for players (not as much the immortal as it is T2 and expensive, but could be better)
imagine if the marauder was a weak hp unit with AoE slow that required clever micro to try and snipe
or if the roach had less armor but active HP regen so they would rape attack moving marines but lose to focus fire
things like that add excitement and skill differentiation and i hope its something blizz would consider trying
I agree, and I kind of explicated on that in my original post, though not in depth.
Originally, the units of SC2 had much more distinctive roles. Reapers threw beeping C4s of death, Roaches got 15 regen, I kid you not, in t1.5. Everything was pretty crazy off kilter, but everything was utterly unique and fun. Obviously, roaches with 15 regen in t1.5 (think they were costlier in terms of gas) is sheer absurdity. But at the same time, they were a distinct unit. Same with masable cheap units spamming 200 damage AoE grenades.
Blizzard, in an effort to balance them, standardized them. Their intended, original, roles were intrinsically unbalanceable. Obviously, a T1 unit with 15 regen is pretty ridiculous. Now, the roach CONTINUES to lose it identity, its T3 regen upgrade getting first nerfed by 50%, THEN getting reworked to only work while burrowed. Grats, we have a unit that gets a meager 15 regen burrowed at t3 with upgrades when it originally got 15 flat t1.
When blizzard realized roaches didn't work, they should have scrapped it instead of continue to dumb it down into tedium. Same with reapers, same with whatever other units that are pretty bland in this game.
Thats why I 100% hate anyone suggesting to remove reaper slow without adding something cool like you suggested. no no no no.
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:in retrospect, the units of BW and SC2 are compeltely different Each SC1 unit had a distinctive role. From marines to firebats to tanks to battlecruisers. Zerglings to hydras to ultras to defilers. Zealots to dragoons to templars to arbiters. there was no redundancy in BW. In SC2 it feels like the maurader are a stronger marine, and roaches are a weaker hydralisk, and immortals are a stronger stalker. Their costs and efficiency makes them strong backbone units, and many people think this is a bad thing. Nobody can argue that these units do not deserve a place in each matchup (i'm looking at you Mora) because they do, and they greatly increase your chance of winning despite the enemies race or even strategy. In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters." Sure a lurker counters marines, but with micro, marines could make a lurkers life hell. However, this begs the question whether or not SC2 has "hard-counters" or that it seems so because we just do not know how to deal with them yet. The question is, can SC2 bring us back to that level of comfort where a unit which is supposedly "hard-countered" by another can still make an appearance in the matchup? Allow me to rephrase, do certain units suggest certain counters and openings, or do they force counters and openings. There is a huge difference. Lurkers suggested tanks, and people did get them, but their power was such that marines could still make an appearance. Mauraders force immortals, and their power is so great such that zealots are still completely useless. Suppose in SC2 we can arbitrarily define the combat as rock-paper-scissors, where one type of unit guarantees the appearance of another unit, and guarantees the disappearance of another. Then BW is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There are many different outcomes despite one type of unit having a relationship with other types. Allow me to sum up my thesis as sequentially described in the paragraphs above: 1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack. 2) No one unit should take the spotlight in every single matchup. Mauraders, Roaches surely do. Immortals to a lesser extent. 3) "overpowered" units should exist, however their power should take advantage of player's skill, not in raw statistics. The defiler, on paper, looks extremely overpowered vs terran. Lurkers look extremely overpowered versus marine/medic. But player's skill allow for a balance, and even fun, exciting games 4) Units should suggest the enemy to use and not use other units, but nothing more. A skilled player should be able to possess both units in their army, and perhaps form a quadrilateral-relationship with other units. For example, in general BW, vultures > zealots > tanks > goons > vultures. Although vultures suggest that zealots would be a bad choice, they can still have the mine-clearing capacity and ability to waste tank fire because vultures do not negate zealots like immortals do roaches. 5) Unit strength should be situational. In general BW, Tanks > Goons. However, in low numbers, Goons > Tanks. This is so evident, that you cannot just tech to tank and straight up contain a protoss very early in BW, because goons do very well vs tanks in this stage of the game. You do not see this sort of depth to SC2.
QFT
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users...
TL icon =/= intelligence
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By the way, I feel that this problem is most limited to the Zerg faction. While Terran and Protoss have their own issues (the hard counter issue is particularly annoying), it's the Zerg that I find least interesting to watch and play - simply because they have no unit where good micro makes you go "wow." Watching Idra defeat every opponent by roach surround isn't very fun. I'd much rather watch a BW Terran slowly crawl across the map with siege tanks while the other player tried to break him, as ironic as that might sound.
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I think a series of extremely precise and delicate balance changes need to take place. Let's look at the problem as a whole, part by part.
1. Roach sets the standard for 1.5 and 2.0 tier units as far as power goes.
2. Marauders and immortals are given to the other races so they have a unit that can go toe to toe with the roach.
Side effect A) marauders throw off TvP balance by having a highly abusable abilty, in combination with those ridiculously cost effective stats that we know all too well from the roach.
B) Immortals further narrow the TvP strategical scope by ruling out mech.
Simply put, Z vs all races needs to be fixed by reworking/balancing the roach. Then TvP needs to be fixed separately which can be done a few different ways.
First we have to fix the roach, it has too much HP and does too much damage. Hp needs to be 125, damage needs to be 14. If this isn't good enough we'll come back to it in a later patch but these should be small steps, not giant leaps.
Next step is fixing the marauder. For it's cost it has too much hp and does too much damage to have such a useful, exploitable ability. Make slow down a 100/100 ability at the tech lab. Opens up new timings between when you get your second tech lab, and when you start stim and slow down. Also gives protoss a few extra seconds to prepare for that 2 rax marauder push where the first marauder is rallied to your base (every second counts). Maybe giving it 10 to 15 less hp wouldn't hurt either.
I also don't like how tech labs are the more obvious choice over reactors early, I think this could be tweaked a bit more. Something to promote mixing marines into army composition over the endless marauder spam. I still say a happy medium is yet to be achieved between the two. I know a number is out there to make reactor viable over extra barracks sometimes but not always (obviously, talking about build times and costs here).
Then, from there on out, we take a deep look at how immortals vs terran mech plays out. We need to slow down at this point and see what starcraft 2 looks like without roaches and maurders spammed in giant armies and instead utilized to certain extents in certain situations, more or less. Once this is done we can address whatever issues remain with terran mech getting raped by immortals. We need to look at how all the match ups are affected by these changes before we make a solid conclusion on what needs to be done. My guess is either terran mech will need a buff, or immortal will need a nerf, after its all said and done. We need to see if zerg's army is significantly weakened by the roach nerf, and take that into consideration as well.
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On April 05 2010 13:25 milly9 wrote:
Half has written a post I could not possibly have said better myself. He has completely nailed what is wrong with SC2. I don't care how good you are, how famous you are, his post is completely accurate. Roach is ruining this game. And I completely agree, Zerg is not OP, its just this one stupid unit throwing the entire game out of whack.
I don't know if this is sarcasm or not, but I don't care it made me feel happy inside
^_^
lol.
Man I shoulda posted this earlier lol, I had this Idea formulating for like 2 weeks and I never got the time to post it.
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This thread delivers! I really like roaches when they were those regening units. Now they r kinda lame. I hope people use burrow more effectively with them.
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On April 05 2010 13:37 Spenguin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users... TL icon = experience in the harsh TL environment
fixed
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On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:
1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack.
this was a really good post and i think you're right, to an extent. but i don't necessarily think there shouldn't be redundancy. i think it could have a lot of potential. it's just tough to tell if it's TOO redundant right now, or if people just haven't figured out how to deal with it yet.
actually, i dunno. you've made me reconsider this. i've been thinking that the overlap in unit functions would encourage balanced army composition and/or cause more complex strategies and transitions to develop, but maybe you're right. i do think the overlap between the roach and hydra is too extreme. maybe they should give hydras back their bonus against armored or something. and roaches should not do so much base damage but maybe compensate with a bonus against light so they still melt away lings and marines.
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On April 05 2010 13:37 Spenguin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users... TL icon =/= intelligence
In all honestly I'm sure theirs a correlation.
BUT I IZ REAL SMRT SRSLY. IM LIEK A VETERAN TO TEH INTARNET
On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:+ Show Spoiler +in retrospect, the units of BW and SC2 are compeltely different Each SC1 unit had a distinctive role. From marines to firebats to tanks to battlecruisers. Zerglings to hydras to ultras to defilers. Zealots to dragoons to templars to arbiters. there was no redundancy in BW. In SC2 it feels like the maurader are a stronger marine, and roaches are a weaker hydralisk, and immortals are a stronger stalker. Their costs and efficiency makes them strong backbone units, and many people think this is a bad thing. Nobody can argue that these units do not deserve a place in each matchup (i'm looking at you Mora) because they do, and they greatly increase your chance of winning despite the enemies race or even strategy. In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters." Sure a lurker counters marines, but with micro, marines could make a lurkers life hell. However, this begs the question whether or not SC2 has "hard-counters" or that it seems so because we just do not know how to deal with them yet. The question is, can SC2 bring us back to that level of comfort where a unit which is supposedly "hard-countered" by another can still make an appearance in the matchup? Allow me to rephrase, do certain units suggest certain counters and openings, or do they force counters and openings. There is a huge difference. Lurkers suggested tanks, and people did get them, but their power was such that marines could still make an appearance. Mauraders force immortals, and their power is so great such that zealots are still completely useless. Suppose in SC2 we can arbitrarily define the combat as rock-paper-scissors, where one type of unit guarantees the appearance of another unit, and guarantees the disappearance of another. Then, in relation, BW is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. There are many different outcomes despite one type of unit having a relationship with other types. Allow me to sum up my thesis as sequentially described in the paragraphs above: my fundamental theorem of RTS balance 1) There should be no redundancy in terms of units, this almost always leads to one unit being preferred over another and one not being used. Each unit should have a distinctive role. This includes that no unit should be a subset of another unit, such as roaches are hydralisks but without the air attack. 2) No one unit should take the spotlight in every single matchup. Mauraders, Roaches surely do. Immortals to a lesser extent. 3) "overpowered" units should exist, however their power should take advantage of player's skill, not in raw statistics. The defiler, on paper, looks extremely overpowered vs terran. Lurkers look extremely overpowered versus marine/medic. But player's skill allow for a balance, and even fun, exciting games 4) Units should suggest the enemy to use and not use other units, but nothing more. A skilled player should be able to possess both units in their army, and perhaps form a quadrilateral-relationship with other units. For example, in general BW, vultures > zealots > tanks > goons > vultures. Although vultures suggest that zealots would be a bad choice, they can still have the mine-clearing capacity and ability to waste tank fire because vultures do not negate zealots like immortals do roaches. 4b) (corollary to axiom 4) Axiom 4 implies that each unit should have some sort of influence and skill required from the gamer in order for it to be used to their potential. IE. Marine micro vs. lurker takes skill and time to perfect. Maurader micro is extremely easy, as there is no other unit which allows for the same level of skill needed as marine vs lurker. Maurader vs Collosi? Not the same. 5) Unit strength should be situational. In general BW, Tanks > Goons. However, in low numbers, Goons > Tanks. This is so evident, that you cannot just tech to tank and straight up contain a protoss very early in BW, because goons do very well vs tanks in this stage of the game. You do not see this sort of depth to SC2. note: i do not endorse the idea that the roach is the bane of SC2's problems, but that SC2 has problems (when compared to BW) based on their units as a collective whole. Further, I do not rule out the likely possibility that we just do not have the scope required to analyze SC2 yet, and with time, these issues will degenerate
Isn't it ironic that this would almost not be the case if immortal/marauder were reworked? lol. All of a sudden, the races are so much more different. The current problem is the slight resort to WC tactics of differentiating similar roles through abilities, instead of just making different roles.
Stalkers and marauder are basically the same unit with different abilities. Incidentily, this would be so much better if marauders, as I suggested, were reworked (along with roaches ofc).
It isn't to say that BW had none of this problem though. Hydras were dangerously close to marines, and all the expansion air were literally variations on the same concept.
I think my favorite achievement on blizzards behalf is the creation of stalkers. I love that unit so much. Its useful, yet sufficiently different from the dragoon, feels protossy, with a neat dark templar lorenerd twist. Its blink feels completely different from the other t1.5 mobility ability, reapers cliffjumps. It just feels so right, and yet so different. Can't say the same for the marauder and roach.
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I think the macro mechanics are the source of all imbalance in this game - queen > chrono > mule
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hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored
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On April 05 2010 13:50 Fayth wrote:
hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored
really? i'm pretty sure i read or heard that somewhere but maybe it's false memory syndrome cos it sounds like a good idea, lol.
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roach to ~90 hp, marauders lose stim, immortals cost ~350 mins, have 300 hp, but only 80 shields and can't be emp'd.
there you go, i fixed your game.
Well, not really, but its a start. ZvZ would be kinda fucked, but oh well. maybe reduce the roach warren cost.
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On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:
In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters."
It is so strange that people keep saying this. I'm glad to know I can kill those firebats with my zerglings.
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On April 05 2010 13:51 Doc Daneeka wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:50 Fayth wrote:
hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored really? i'm pretty sure i read or heard that somewhere but maybe it's false memory syndrome cos it sounds like a good idea, lol.
Brood War didn't have +dmg to certain unit types. Instead, there was normal, explosive, and concussive damage that scaled damage based on unit sizes.
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On April 05 2010 13:50 Fayth wrote:
hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored
On April 05 2010 13:55 TieN.nS) wrote:
Brood War didn't have +dmg to certain unit types. Instead, there was normal, explosive, and concussive damage that scaled damage based on unit sizes.
Its the same thing? Well, except that their DPS overall is less redonculous. And while technically you got +5 halfways, the only thing that benefited from that was medium, or concussive, both which were rare in comparison. .
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On April 05 2010 13:54 randomness wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:
In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters." It is so strange that people keep saying this. I'm glad to know I can kill those firebats with my zerglings.
In any event where you "only" have lings, it would be very early game, or you are doing some sort of speedling cheese, for example vs a 1 rack cc opening. In this event, there wont be many firebats out yet, and 4 speedlings can take out a firebat with proper micro. Conversely, a firebat can kill 4 microed zerglings if he hides behind a mineral.
2 Firebats on your ramp with a medic can effectively ward off a speedling cheese. 2 Firebats in the open with a medic will get owned by more than 8 zerglings. The firebats role was very distinct and absolute. Zergling micro allowed us to "overcome" hard-counters. Like I said in my post earlier.
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Also, I hope I don't get booted for "bad manners for this", but seriously, the people going on about hardcounters need to...STFU.
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Let me explain something about "Hardcounters". I'm tempted to make a new thread, nobody seems to get it.
SC2 is not about hardcounters any more then SC1 was. The metagame is still volatile, a formulaic build is still being developed, so your going to see a lot of fights ending because of "hardcounters".
Was MM hardcountered by storms and reavers in SC1? You betcha. Thats an entire tech option/alternative, hardcountered by 1/2 units.
Their isn't even a definable difference between a hardcounter and a normal counter. Only counter and softcounter. No hardcounters.
Counters encourage things. The hardcounter to mass light units is aoe, so it encourages AoE. Is this a good thing? Many would say yes, yes is agreeable.
That is all they do. Bios hardcounter encourages mech. etc etc. They shape the metagame, and through feedback and patching, the game itself.
What do roaches encourage? A lot of things, outlined in my post, and most of them aren't good by any stretch of the imagination.
On April 05 2010 13:56 Koltz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:54 randomness wrote:On April 05 2010 13:17 Koltz wrote:
In BW we had interesting battles largely due to the part that there were no "hard-counters." It is so strange that people keep saying this. I'm glad to know I can kill those firebats with my zerglings. In any event where you "only" have lings, it would be very early game, or you are doing some sort of speedling cheese, for example vs a 1 rack cc opening. In this event, there wont be many firebats out yet, and 4 speedlings can take out a firebat with proper micro. Conversely, a firebat can kill 4 microed zerglings if he hides behind a mineral. 2 Firebats on your ramp with a medic can effectively ward off a speedling cheese. 2 Firebats in the open with a medic will get owned by more than 8 zerglings. The firebats role was very distinct and absolute. Zergling micro allowed us to "overcome" hard-counters. Like I said in my post earlier.
Yes and roaches can kill immortals if they micro and run away damaged roaches.
Whats your point? Still doesn't change the fact that I attack a your expo with 5 immortals, your 15 roaches won't be able to do much.. Just like how if I attack a with my 6 firebats and 4 medics your expo, and you only have zerglings, you cant do much,
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On April 05 2010 13:55 TieN.nS) wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:51 Doc Daneeka wrote:On April 05 2010 13:50 Fayth wrote:
hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored really? i'm pretty sure i read or heard that somewhere but maybe it's false memory syndrome cos it sounds like a good idea, lol. Brood War didn't have +dmg to certain unit types. Instead, there was normal, explosive, and concussive damage that scaled damage based on unit sizes.
oh no, i meant in a sc2 build pre-beta. there was something about hydras doing bonus against first air, then armored, then nothing when the beta came out.
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On April 05 2010 13:55 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:50 Fayth wrote:
hydras never had a bonus against armored.... they did less dmg to light units, if anything hydras shud be like 8+4armored Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:55 TieN.nS) wrote:
Brood War didn't have +dmg to certain unit types. Instead, there was normal, explosive, and concussive damage that scaled damage based on unit sizes. Its the same thing? Well, except that their DPS overall is less redonculous. And while technically you got +5 halfways, the only thing that benefited from that was medium, or concussive, both which were rare in comparison. .
Not really sure what you're trying to say in response to my last post, but regarding 8 +4arm vs a base +12 with no bonus, that's a pretty big nerf. Marines would take an extra hit to kill base or two extra hits with combat shield upgrade, etc.
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On April 05 2010 13:58 Half wrote:Also, I hope I don't get booted for "bad manners for this", but seriously, the people going on about hardcounters need to...STFU. --- Let me explain something about "Hardcounters". I'm tempted to make a new thread, nobody seems to get it. SC2 is not about hardcounters any more then SC1 was. The metagame is still volatile, a formulaic build is still being developed, so your going to see a lot of fights ending because of "hardcounters". Was MM hardcountered by storms and reavers in SC1? You betcha. Thats an entire tech option/alternative, hardcountered by 1/2 units. Their isn't even a definable difference between a hardcounter and a normal counter. Only counter and softcounter. No hardcounters. Counters encourage things. The hardcounter to mass light units is aoe, so it encourages AoE. Is this a good thing? Many would say yes, yes is agreeable. That is all they do. Bios hardcounter encourages mech. etc etc. They shape the metagame, and through feedback and patching, the game itself. What do roaches encourage? A lot of things, outlined in my post, and most of them aren't good by any stretch of the imagination.
Hard counter is just a word used to differentiate the degree in which one type negates the other type. And you seriously cannot claim that some units are countered to a higher degree than other units?
Hard counters in SC2 are to such a high degree that they almost do not allow for the countered unit to be produced, where as in BW we had inequalities of vulture > zealot > tank > goon > vulture. although the vulture countered the zealot, it did not mark its disappearance from PvT
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The presence of hard counters in SC 1 is arguably what led to the mixed unit compositions that are so common nowadays (speed zealots counter tanks? no problem, I add vultures. Carriers counter ground? no problem, I add goliaths), which I'm glad to see is being used from day one in SC 2. I still remember the days when the SC meta-game consisted of "hydra rush," "zealot rush," and "marine rush lol." Obviously that's not happening with SC 2.
One problem with SC 2 hard counters, though, is that some units (ie roaches, marauders) hard counter everything in the same tier. That's just bad design.
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I actually agree with Mora here. These units just need to be toned down a bit. -1 armor and -15 hp for the Roach sounds about right. -50 hp is absurd.
Marauders should have to research Slow (I think its kind of silly that M&M can have both of their abilities before Zeal's or Stalker get either of theirs), and maybe make the damage 12+8 or 12+6.
Immortals could use a slightly longer build time and perhaps have their +armored damage scaled down a tad. I'm a little surprised about people calling Immortals "boring". First of all, they are fuckin badass. Second, they are an asset to a P army in most situations not just countering the aforementioned units.
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On April 05 2010 14:01 Koltz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:58 Half wrote:Also, I hope I don't get booted for "bad manners for this", but seriously, the people going on about hardcounters need to...STFU. --- Let me explain something about "Hardcounters". I'm tempted to make a new thread, nobody seems to get it. SC2 is not about hardcounters any more then SC1 was. The metagame is still volatile, a formulaic build is still being developed, so your going to see a lot of fights ending because of "hardcounters". Was MM hardcountered by storms and reavers in SC1? You betcha. Thats an entire tech option/alternative, hardcountered by 1/2 units. Their isn't even a definable difference between a hardcounter and a normal counter. Only counter and softcounter. No hardcounters. Counters encourage things. The hardcounter to mass light units is aoe, so it encourages AoE. Is this a good thing? Many would say yes, yes is agreeable. That is all they do. Bios hardcounter encourages mech. etc etc. They shape the metagame, and through feedback and patching, the game itself. What do roaches encourage? A lot of things, outlined in my post, and most of them aren't good by any stretch of the imagination. Hard counter is just a word used to differentiate the degree in which one type negates the other type. And you seriously cannot claim that some units are countered to a higher degree than other units? Hard counters in SC2 are to such a high degree that they almost do not allow for the countered unit to be produced, where as in BW we had inequalities of vulture > zealot > tank > goon > vulture. although the vulture countered the zealot, it did not mark its disappearance from PvT
Hellions counter zealots so hard. Nobody even bothers to make hellions. (in PvT)
What could I possible make to stop you from making zealots? I can't think of any unit I could possible make to stop zealots, besides a wall off with tanks (in which you'll lollerape with immortals and bstalkers), and mass banshees.
Immortals "hardcounter" siegetanks? Kind of like how storms and reavers hardcountered the entirety of Bio?
On April 05 2010 14:03 OverShield wrote:
I actually agree with Mora here. These units just need to be toned down a bit. -1 armor and -15 hp for the Roach sounds about right. -50 hp is absurd.
Marauders should have to research Slow (I think its kind of silly that M&M can have both of their abilities before Zeal's or Stalker get either of theirs), and maybe make the damage 12+8 or 12+6.
Immortals could use a slightly longer build time and perhaps have their +armored damage scaled down a tad. I'm a little surprised about people calling Immortals "boring". First of all, they are fuckin badass. Second, they are an asset to a P army in most situations not just countering the aforementioned units.
50 HP is absurd, but I'd like to bring back roach passive regen. A startling trend in SC2 is having these distinct units in Alph, and making then bland in the name of balance because they figured that their original roles were too hard to balance/unbalance able.
Plus 145 hp t1 unit infringed on toss racial identity.
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I started a thread about this on the bnet forum if anyone cares to dig it up, I said the exact same thing.
Roaches are stupid powerful but rather than nerf them they made maurderes and immortals super powerful to counter them, which in turn ruins unit diversity.
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Yes and roaches can kill immortals if they micro and run away damaged roaches.
Whats your point? Still doesn't change the fact that I attack a your expo with 5 immortals, your 15 roaches won't be able to do much.. Just like how if I attack a with my 6 firebats and 4 medics your expo, and you only have zerglings, you cant do much,
Vague statement. You cannot compare the relationshp of firebat/ling to immortal/roach.
Firebat/ling depends heavily on the surrounding of lings. If a firebat pops out right away from a barracks and lings are ready with the surround, it is going to die.
If an immortal pops and there are roaches waiting, its not going to make as big of a difference, as they are both ranged units. If an immortal can kill 3 roaches alone, if it comes out of a robo with 3 roaches surrounding it, its still going to kill them
Furthermore, the emphasis on producing roaches/immortals in SC2 and producing firebats in BW are very different.
If you consider firebat a hard-counter of lings, then it is very different from the definition of hard-counter of sc2. The hard-counters of SC2 are great vs their respective counters. Immortals demolish tanks, mauraders. But they are great vs MANY other things as well. Firebats are great vs lings. Not too good vs much else.
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Well, roach passive regen is incredibly hard to balance because you can't rely on focus fire in a big battle - the micro requirements are too intensive and so roaches become overpowered against almost everything but what's supposed to counter them, in which case we're back to square one.
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On April 05 2010 14:03 OverShield wrote:
I actually agree with Mora here. These units just need to be toned down a bit. -1 armor and -15 hp for the Roach sounds about right. -50 hp is absurd.
Marauders should have to research Slow (I think its kind of silly that M&M can have both of their abilities before Zeal's or Stalker get either of theirs), and maybe make the damage 12+8 or 12+6.
Immortals could use a slightly longer build time and perhaps have their +armored damage scaled down a tad. I'm a little surprised about people calling Immortals "boring". First of all, they are fuckin badass. Second, they are an asset to a P army in most situations not just countering the aforementioned units. From a design point of view, it would be much faster to over-nerf the three units then see how the matchups fare and then slowly bring them back into line than take baby-steps.
I'd typically reserve small changes for small issues, but it seems the complaints surrounding roaches have been here since the initial beta version and multiple nerfs later they're still ridiculous.
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On April 05 2010 14:04 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 14:01 Koltz wrote:On April 05 2010 13:58 Half wrote:Also, I hope I don't get booted for "bad manners for this", but seriously, the people going on about hardcounters need to...STFU. --- Let me explain something about "Hardcounters". I'm tempted to make a new thread, nobody seems to get it. SC2 is not about hardcounters any more then SC1 was. The metagame is still volatile, a formulaic build is still being developed, so your going to see a lot of fights ending because of "hardcounters". Was MM hardcountered by storms and reavers in SC1? You betcha. Thats an entire tech option/alternative, hardcountered by 1/2 units. Their isn't even a definable difference between a hardcounter and a normal counter. Only counter and softcounter. No hardcounters. Counters encourage things. The hardcounter to mass light units is aoe, so it encourages AoE. Is this a good thing? Many would say yes, yes is agreeable. That is all they do. Bios hardcounter encourages mech. etc etc. They shape the metagame, and through feedback and patching, the game itself. What do roaches encourage? A lot of things, outlined in my post, and most of them aren't good by any stretch of the imagination. Hard counter is just a word used to differentiate the degree in which one type negates the other type. And you seriously cannot claim that some units are countered to a higher degree than other units? Hard counters in SC2 are to such a high degree that they almost do not allow for the countered unit to be produced, where as in BW we had inequalities of vulture > zealot > tank > goon > vulture. although the vulture countered the zealot, it did not mark its disappearance from PvT Hellions counter zealots so hard. Nobody even bothers to make hellions. (in PvT) What could I possible make to stop you from making zealots? I can't think of any unit I could possible make to stop zealots, besides a wall off with tanks (in which you'll lollerape with immortals and bstalkers), and mass banshees. Immortals "hardcounter" siegetanks? Kind of like how storms and reavers hardcountered the entirety of Bio?
I have been known to Biomech in a lot of my TvP games on BW. Storms and reavers seem great vs marines, but player skill can make them viable in TvP. not to mention, timing push before the occurance of templar tech.
http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=5941
I dont have SC installed on my laptop so i just chose the first game I could think of, (btw that is the real kwark).
When a terran has mauraders, zealots become extremely useless, such that minerals spent on them are a waste and the protoss would rather not make them because no matter what they do, maurders are going to own them.
And as the game goes on longer, zealots become increasingly more useless, even with charge.
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On April 05 2010 13:02 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 12:57 USn wrote:
OP's makes a subtle and well considered point I think...
And consider, even if he's wrong, doesn't the fact that all the roach's interesting abilities have been removed cause you some concern? What is left of the unit exactly? It broadcasts a certain amount of dps in a certain radius and has X health. sort of like... 75% of the units in sc1? lol ie: zealot dragoon hydralisk zergling marine (unless stim disqualifies it) scouts mutas etc.
I put that poorly. All those units (except hydra and, lol, scout) demand careful attention because of special qualities or limits (bad ai, stim, melee, etc) that give them a unique feel.
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Very much agree with the OP and several other posters in here. There are some valid points on both sides of the argument here. As I see it, we have those opposed to the existence of the "unholy trinity," and those who see the game too close to balance to do away with them. I sincerely hope that someone in the dev team is reading this thread.
To give my own viewpoint as a long-time SC fan, now sc2 beta junky, it seems like a median could be reached. Roaches do seem to be the pre-eminator of the three units in question. That being said, the OP did not, and the rest of us should not, point our finger at one of these units as the outlier.
I think the roach, marauder, and immortal need a heavy re-work. They should be either costly t2 units (much like the immortal) with slightly less effect than the present units have, or they should be narrowly more effective than their t1 counterparts in terms of damage. I believe the stalker is a pretty good example of what a t1.5 unit should be. It's a general use unit, it covers the weakness of the zealot (ranged, anti-air), but it does not eclipse the zealot unless air units are involved (roaches are an exception, but i'm trying to compare to the rest of the units out there). Conversely, the marauder covers a weakness of the marine (armor), but it completely eclipses the marine on the ground when air units aren't present. Similarly, roaches completely eclipse the zergling in almost every ground battle themselves.
I think it's still up for debate just what kind of niche these units should be filling, or just how they can be changed, but it's certainly not going to be a very interesting game if minimal bandaids are applied to the status quo. The relationship of these units dictates that a change to one is going to necessarily screw with the match-up between two others. Over-nerf the marauder and protoss will be nearly unstoppable in an immortal push. Over-nerf the roach and terran will steamroll zerg with the same marauder cheese they currently employ in TvP. Over-nerf the immortal and protoss will have an even slimmer chance at winning any games.
TLDR: Agree with the OP, but i think these units can be salvaged. They just need a lot of review from the dev team right now. Hopefully the next couple of patches have some serious re-working of the "unholy trinity."
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On April 05 2010 14:08 Koltz wrote:Show nested quote +Yes and roaches can kill immortals if they micro and run away damaged roaches.
Whats your point? Still doesn't change the fact that I attack a your expo with 5 immortals, your 15 roaches won't be able to do much.. Just like how if I attack a with my 6 firebats and 4 medics your expo, and you only have zerglings, you cant do much, Vague statement. You cannot compare the relationshp of firebat/ling to immortal/roach. Firebat/ling depends heavily on the surrounding of lings. If a firebat pops out right away from a barracks and lings are ready with the surround, it is going to die. If an immortal pops and there are roaches waiting, its not going to make as big of a difference, as they are both ranged units. If an immortal can kill 3 roaches alone, if it comes out of a robo with 3 roaches surrounding it, its still going to kill them Furthermore, the emphasis on producing roaches/immortals in SC2 and producing firebats in BW are very different. If you consider firebat a hard-counter of lings, then it is very different from the definition of hard-counter of sc2. The hard-counters of SC2 are great vs their respective counters. Immortals demolish tanks, mauraders. But they are great vs MANY other things as well. Firebats are great vs lings. Not too good vs much else.
Fine, the same applies to hellions versus lings, though I admit its not as potent until were talking 8 lings versus 2 hellions, on lower numbers, due to lings being balanced for more lings surrounding any given target, their a lot weaker.
On April 05 2010 14:11 L wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 14:03 OverShield wrote:
I actually agree with Mora here. These units just need to be toned down a bit. -1 armor and -15 hp for the Roach sounds about right. -50 hp is absurd.
Marauders should have to research Slow (I think its kind of silly that M&M can have both of their abilities before Zeal's or Stalker get either of theirs), and maybe make the damage 12+8 or 12+6.
Immortals could use a slightly longer build time and perhaps have their +armored damage scaled down a tad. I'm a little surprised about people calling Immortals "boring". First of all, they are fuckin badass. Second, they are an asset to a P army in most situations not just countering the aforementioned units. From a design point of view, it would be much faster to over-nerf the three units then see how the matchups fare and then slowly bring them back into line than take baby-steps. I'd typically reserve small changes for small issues, but it seems the complaints surrounding roaches have been here since the initial beta version and multiple nerfs later they're still ridiculous.
This is what I'd do.
Anyway, Maraunders and roaches have too much health anyway, even disregarding dynamic and looking towards thematic and playstyle concerns.
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On April 05 2010 14:01 Koltz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 13:58 Half wrote:Also, I hope I don't get booted for "bad manners for this", but seriously, the people going on about hardcounters need to...STFU. --- Let me explain something about "Hardcounters". I'm tempted to make a new thread, nobody seems to get it. SC2 is not about hardcounters any more then SC1 was. The metagame is still volatile, a formulaic build is still being developed, so your going to see a lot of fights ending because of "hardcounters". Was MM hardcountered by storms and reavers in SC1? You betcha. Thats an entire tech option/alternative, hardcountered by 1/2 units. Their isn't even a definable difference between a hardcounter and a normal counter. Only counter and softcounter. No hardcounters. Counters encourage things. The hardcounter to mass light units is aoe, so it encourages AoE. Is this a good thing? Many would say yes, yes is agreeable. That is all they do. Bios hardcounter encourages mech. etc etc. They shape the metagame, and through feedback and patching, the game itself. What do roaches encourage? A lot of things, outlined in my post, and most of them aren't good by any stretch of the imagination. Hard counter is just a word used to differentiate the degree in which one type negates the other type. And you seriously cannot claim that some units are countered to a higher degree than other units? Hard counters in SC2 are to such a high degree that they almost do not allow for the countered unit to be produced, where as in BW we had inequalities of vulture > zealot > tank > goon > vulture. although the vulture countered the zealot, it did not mark its disappearance from PvT
Hard counters in SC also existed to a pretty high degree, too I'd argue. For example, you (almost) never see Bio play in BW because storm and reavers hard counter Bio. In fact, 1/2 units basically do not allow marines to be produced, except for the first 4 or so in the very beginning of the game. (In most cases. Yes I know there is a MM timing push that has recently been done in proleague. But it's very rare, and I don't believe it works very often.)
Also, I personally believe that the presence of hard counters do not necessarily mean that particular units cannot be used at all. For example another BW reference. Defilers with dark swarm or even plague hard counters Terran Bio play pretty damn hard. Why is Bio still very viable in TvZ? Because players adapted and learned how to deal with it. The same can be true in SC2. The Immortal hard counters Terran mech pretty damn well, but perhaps with time (time as in more than 2 months) people will learn ways to adapt and make mech viable in TvP despite the presence of immortals. Perhaps it will come with an increase in micro-ing skill allowing lots of Ghost EMPs to take out immortal shields. There are some builds in BW that the average or noob player simply cannot execute properly; sair+reaver in PvZ come to mind. However, when done in the hands of a very experienced player or a pro, sair+reaver is one of the best builds in PvZ. Perhaps mech in TvP will become such a build; a very potent, deadly one, but one that requires very good APM and mechanics.
My point is, hard counters have existed in SC:BW. The difference is that the way damage was calculated made it seem less obvious perhaps than the way it is in SC2. But despite clear hard counters, SCBW metagame thrived and people made it work. Just because a hard counter is there doesn't mean it should be HOMG WTF NERF.
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not really sure how immortals came into the picture here. can't blame something that is ultimately a response to other units as being op because it equalizes match-ups. it would probably need to be balanced a bit differently if roaches or marauders are changed, but op? yeah right.
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i still like the idea of the roach having low damage output against anything but light, so it becomes a way of managing basic infantry, then having the hydra do bonus against armored so it puts a stop to mass roach mid-game... which i think would also make it good against immortals and marauders, right? i dunno this is my fairly unprofessional two cents but it sounds believable to me.
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On April 05 2010 11:00 pzea469 wrote:
i think i get what OP is saying. Roaches SHOULD be OP by looking at their stats. However, they are not because Protoss and Terran have direct counters to it. But due to designing counter units around a unit that SHOULD be OP we get these other problems of those units being too effective such as Immortal not allowing terran to go mech and marauders just owning.
Very interesting read
yea. this is the point. if you cant understand the OP then you do not have very honed critcal thinking skillz. the idea is that the imbalances in the game are inter-related and to single any unit out as OP is to see the forest for the trees.
you cant rework the colossus, roach, or marauder (the most controversial units) without reworking all of them in unison. this is the task of the design team and it needs to be done before retail otherwise i do not see the metagame/competitive gaming/esports succeeding for more than a year (after when the thrill of SC2 will have degenerated into boredom from the trite massing of units and stale but effective strats a la war3)
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I think if cloak and emp were both innate (not something I'm suggesting, would be problematic in so many ways, balance just one of them), mech would be viable. The issue is by the time your in range to emp the immortals already soaked up his sheilds worth of siege damage.
Siege damage is also just not high enough against anything other then light. The only MU where its viable is TvT because Bio isn't strong enough in that MU, and TvZ because it only does decent damage against Hydras
Honestly I wonder if 55 flat damage would be OP.
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Man this is a good thread, and I agree what the OP says, and I think that the Roach doesn't belong in the Zerg race. About the Marauder, it's the same thing as the Roach it's like those units define their races, Zerg to me is the most boring race to play because they lack so much diversity, I kind of feel the same way with Terran but you can be a bit more creative than Zerg. Protoss has to be the most diverse race, although my race is actually Zerg. (I just can't give up my love for them even when they're boring as shit to play) If I didn't love Zerg so much I'd probably switch to Protoss immediately which I'm still thinking actually. But nonetheless something should be done about Mara/Roach/Immortals
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This thread is spot on.
The point isn't that these units are so powerful and widely used. The point is that they are too similar and have no racial identity, AND they are powerful and widely used. Marauders and Roaches need to go.
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Koltz, biomech might work in rare situations but in the pro-scene meta-game it doesn't work. But why focus on biomech, which is an entire suite of units? Hard counters definitely do exists in BW and to a large degree:
Lurkers vs. zealots - it doesn't even matter how well you micro your zealots; half a dozen lurkers at a choke point will make them wasted minerals
Zerglings vs. dragoons - again, unless you're blocking a ramp (something you can do in SC 2, as well), dragoons cannot go against mass zerglings no matter how well you micro
Reavers vs. zerglings - again, doesn't matter how well you micro; a reaver in a shuttle, or even two reavers on ground, will kill any number of zerglings
Vultures vs. zerglings - same thing; this, along with biomech hard countering hydras, is the reason TVZ's meta game is lurkers & mutas
Siege tanks & vultures vs. biomech - biomech just doesn't work, which is the reason TVT is mech vs. mech
And of course, the whole stealth & air vs. ground hard counters that have always been in SC.
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On April 05 2010 14:32 Azarkon wrote:
Koltz, biomech might work in rare situations but in the pro-scene meta-game it doesn't work. But why focus on biomech, which is an entire suite of units? Hard counters definitely do exists in BW and to a large degree:
Lurkers vs. zealots - it doesn't even matter how well you micro your zealots; half a dozen lurkers at a choke point will make them wasted minerals
Zerglings vs. dragoons - again, unless you're blocking a ramp (something you can do in SC 2, as well), dragoons cannot go against mass zerglings no matter how well you micro
Reavers vs. zerglings - again, doesn't matter how well you micro; a reaver in a shuttle, or even two reavers on ground, will kill any number of zerglings
Vultures vs. zerglings - same thing; this, along with biomech hard countering hydras, is the reason TVZ's meta game is lurkers & mutas
Siege tanks & vultures vs. biomech - biomech just doesn't work, which is the reason TVT is mech vs. mech
And of course, the whole stealth & air vs. ground hard counters that have always been in SC.
read my post here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118476¤tpage=9
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On April 05 2010 11:43 Mora wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 11:38 Rothbardian wrote:On April 05 2010 11:35 Mora wrote:On April 05 2010 11:31 Half wrote:On April 05 2010 11:14 Skyze wrote:
Uhh.. if Roach is the problem to the whole SC2 Balance.. how come PvT is still so bullshit? No roachs in PvT, yet T always wins with ease massing one unit still.
You are right about one thing though, The whole problem in SC2's balance does rely in one unit.. MARAUDERS. They are bio speed tanks with slow. Once they fix them, and fix thors, the game is going to be almost perfect. Uh yeah... I explained that. Maraunders only exist as they do because they are a necessity against roaches. If you nerfed marauders to be more reasonable against toss, roaches would steamroll terran. I mean seriously. Two armor? Really? gl with those marines. can you make me a list of all the terran units that are hard-countered by the roach, not including marines? Every Terran unit except Air/Marauder. If the Zerg is semi-competent he'll throw in a few Hydra and decimate your air. So, basically we are back to square one; Marauder. The Roach is a joke of a unit. in my experience marines/tanks do just fine against roaches. banshees do well vs roaches. vikings with micro do well against roaches. Reapers do not counter roaches (and they shouldn't), but they certainly don't have a hard time avoiding them. Hellions are in the same boat as the reaper. So... roaches counter... marines and scvs? holy fucking broken batman!
So WRONG, roaches counter helions and reapers easily (which is the main reason why you even build them early game cause terrans will usually build lots of marauders), as well as marines and thors and tanks for cost.
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While I'm normally of the 'wait and see how it turns out' camp, and think that the whole 'hard counter' craze is overblown, in this particular case, I do agree that things could be improved.
My attention was especially caught by the Marauder, which has stats practically identical to the Protoss Dragoon in Brood War. The Dragoon has more total hp due to Shields, but Shields are far less valuable than normal hit points. The Marauder also costs 25 less gas. Aside from that, the Marauder has traded the ability to attack air for a slowing attack, Stimpacks and the ability to be healed by Medics/Medivacs.
It's problematic that something that is powerful enough to be a Protoss core unit is considered Terran infantry.
As for the Roach, I do think it has lost some of the peculiarity that made it interesting.
I don't know how to fix it, but if Blizzard were to try something, I think that a possibility would be to substantially decrease the Marauder's hp, slightly decrease its damage and decrease its supply cost to 1 (maybe its resource cost too, depending on balance requirements). That way it could keep the roles of powerful building and armoured unit destroyer, while also fitting in with the theme of Terran Bio.
As for the Roach, I'd like its hp reduced and its regeneration speed increased, if necessary for balance, increase its armour. I think the concept of the Roach should be that it does very well against low damage per attack (like Marines, Zerglings and to an extent Zealots), but be very vulnerable to powerful bursts like those from Siege Tanks or Immortals. High armour and regeneration would allow them to shrug off huge numbers of small blows while still being fairly well dispatched by the appropriate counter.
Immortals are less of a concern, they're fairly unique in their role, and due to tech requirements and expensive cost, they're not as liable to be overused, I think.
Well, that's my opinion anyway. I would like something to be done.
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My previous negative stance on the fallacy that is "hardcounters" being said, I do feel like that SC2 early game is just going to be more dynamic. Simply because you have more units (medics didn't really count, considering their was no reason you'd go bio without them and no real reason to get them if you weren't).
With 3 units open in T1, early game play is going to be a lot more fluid, and a lot more varied. I doubt we'll ever get the hard "safe openings", but I don't think its enough to cause "lucking" a hardcounter.
Overall, thats probably a good thing. Though it makes it much harder to balance.
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Koltz, I read your post, but disagree with your premises. SC 2 doesn't have overly hard counters. Rather, it has three units that hard counter almost everything except each other and units that you can't possibly get before they overrun you.
Let's look at this carefully.
In SC 2, what do zerglings counter? They counter marauders. Can marauders still be used for zerglings? Yes, they can. In fact, quite well. So zerglings are not an overly *hard* counter.
What do zealots counter? Zerglings. Can zerglings still take down zealots? Absolutely. In fact, the zealot vs. zergling dynamic isn't TOO different in SC 2.
What do marines counter? Well, one thing is void rays. Can void rays still kill marines? Yes! In fact, there was a game in the invitationals when the protoss massed void rays against BCs and was still able to take down a number of supporting marines. This is almost as much of a hard counter as you can get without going into the air vs. ground realm, and yet void rays can still do *something*.
You'll notice that I mostly ignored marauders, roaches, and immortals. That's because marauders, roaches, and immortals don't really have any early game counters. Marauders are good vs. zealots, sentries, and stalkers - ie every tier 1 protoss unit. Roaches are good vs. zealots, sentries, and stalkers - ie every tier 1 protoss unit. Immortals also have this problem, but to a lesser degree because the real reason immortals exist is to give protoss a fighting chance against the aforementioned units.
The presence of hard counters isn't necessarily the problem. Rather, the problem could be the presence of *un-counterables*.
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On April 05 2010 14:43 Half wrote:
My previous negative stance on the fallacy that is "hardcounters" being said, I do feel like that SC2 early game is just going to be more dynamic. Simply because you have more units (medics didn't really count, considering their was no reason you'd go bio without them and no real reason to get them if you weren't).
With 3 units open in T1, early game play is going to be a lot more fluid, and a lot more varied. I doubt we'll ever get the hard "safe openings", but I don't think its enough to cause "lucking" a hardcounter.
Overall, thats probably a good thing. Though it makes it much harder to balance.
yeah. plus i keep reading that sc1 was pretty much broken until bw came out. i wasn't playing much online and definitely not watching vods back then so i can't confirm that but maybe you can. i'm trying to stay optimistic that if a year plus change after retail release the balance has got into a rut, the expansion will have units and upgrades designed to fix that. then the next expansion after that. that's two major content revisions after retail release. stuff like walls of roaches are frustrating now, but i think blizzard is aiming for the long haul here. it IS the follow-up to a game that lasted 12 years.
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On April 05 2010 14:48 Azarkon wrote:
Koltz, I read your post, but disagree with your premises. SC 2 doesn't have overly hard counters. Rather, it has three units that hard counter almost everything except each other and units that you can't possibly get before they overrun you.
Let's look at this carefully.
In SC 2, what do zerglings counter? They counter marauders. Can marauders still be used for zerglings? Yes, they can. In fact, quite well. So zerglings are not an overly *hard* counter.
What do zealots counter? Zerglings. Can zerglings still take down zealots? Absolutely. In fact, the zealot vs. zergling dynamic isn't TOO different in SC 2.
What do marines counter? Well, one thing is void rays. Can void rays still kill marines? Yes! In fact, there was a game in the invitationals when the protoss massed void rays against BCs and was still able to take down a number of supporting marines. This is almost as much of a hard counter as you can get without going into the air vs. ground realm, and yet void rays can still do *something*.
You'll notice that I mostly ignored marauders, roaches, and immortals. That's because marauders, roaches, and immortals don't really have any early game counters. Marauders are good vs. zealots, sentries, and stalkers - ie every tier 1 protoss unit. Roaches are good vs. zealots, sentries, and stalkers - ie every tier 1 protoss unit. Immortals also have this problem, but to a lesser degree because the real reason immortals exist is to give protoss a fighting chance against the aforementioned units.
The presence of hard counters isn't necessarily the problem. Rather, the problem could be the presence of *un-counterables*.
my premise revolves around the maurader, immortal, and roach and their respective counters... not the other units.
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From what I can tell the only reason why anybody is watching Broodwar ZvZ is the impressive Ling and Muta/Scourge micro. After all that matchup is all about slight BO variations and the massing of a single unit, until you have to micro your butt off, so that you don't die to Scourge. I am a total noob, I'll admit it right away. But i think the only reason, why good players microed their mutalisks in a ZvZ was to not get hit by Scourge. So if it wasn't for Scourge, there would not be a need for micro in ZvZ (other than with Lings which is there in SC2 as well I think).
I can imagine a Roach with significantly less HP but with burrow (no upgrade) and high HP-regen (also no upgrade necessary). If you just a-move, you die. If you a-move and burrow damaged Roaches with some nice micro, you win. That makes it hard to play and i bet there can be exciting moments where a crowd goes crazy over some Pro-Zerg constantly burrowing and unburrowing like 20 Roaches at once. If you got 2000 Roaches tho, you cant micro them all, thus making this micro dependant unit bad in masses. So that encourages Zergs to tech up I guess.
I think it would fit the original concept of the Roach and it would sure as hell be more fun. I also think, it adds a lot more neat micro which I think a lot of good players complain about in the current Beta-build. It prevents the earlygame from being just like metagame, since once you got a higher number of Roaches it might be smarter to switch to Hydras or something for you cant micro the Roaches well enough (and if you can, well then every one just loves watching your gosu micro i guess :D).
Even if this fails hardcore in the other MUs (which I am too tired to think about just now) there must be a way to balance it out, especially since the idea (which i don't claim to be all mine btw) requires a nerf of marauders and immortals anyways i assume.
At least it would make the Roach stay with its concept and make it an nice unit, that is hard to use but rewarding if you have mastered the micro of a bunch of Roaches. Imagine a 5 minute ZvZ battle with both players microing Roaches all the time at 300 APM and trying to keep an eye on all those Roaches while trying not to burrow them too early or too late! (and macroing at the same time lol)
BTW, I think if Blizzard just changed the way some of the attacks in the game work, there could be a lot more nice dodging micro. The best shuttlemicromoments were when it was tried to defuse Mines without taking damage or when the Toss tried not to get hit by Goonfire. That was only possible due to a delay between the attackanimation and the dealing of the damage (or between the flying time of the animation and the damage respectively). I think there are too few such things in the game as of now. I think if Blizz just changed some attacks (like Colossus for example!) so that superior micro could make you dodge them, the game would become far greater, since it would widen the gap between me and a good player or even a pro.
Oh and now that I think about it: the moment I saw the roach and especially the damn Marauder for the first time i just KNEW i hated them...
SB, dont bash on me 2 hard
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This isn't about hard counters. This is about racial identity and both Zerg and Terran having GtG dragoon strength units and things are boring with these massed marauders and roaches. They need to go.
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On April 05 2010 14:26 Half wrote:
I think if cloak and emp were both innate (not something I'm suggesting, would be problematic in so many ways, balance just one of them), mech would be viable. The issue is by the time your in range to emp the immortals already soaked up his sheilds worth of siege damage.
Siege damage is also just not high enough against anything other then light. The only MU where its viable is TvT because Bio isn't strong enough in that MU, and TvZ because it only does decent damage against Hydras
Honestly I wonder if 55 flat damage would be OP.
I'm pretty sure EMP is innate. The only downside to EMP is that the range is shorter than feedback making them vulnerable to HT. But perhaps with cloak and good positioning...you never know.
And i'm pretty sure siege damage does 60 base damage to all units...so I'm not quite sure what you mean by it not being good against anything other than light...
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On April 05 2010 14:53 Koltz wrote:
my premise revolves around the maurader, immortal, and roach and their respective counters... not the other units.
Well, it seems that what you were focusing on was that hard counters in SC 2 are "too hard," but then you make use of examples almost strictly from the holy three (immortals, marauders, roaches), so I guess we are sort of in agreement.
The meta-game currently depends on the presence of these three units, which were made to counter each other, and which, in order to become powerful enough to counter each other, became overpowered against everything else, leading to a meta-game (at least for Zerg; Terran still has the reaper play) that is essentially static.
This is what the OP was mostly saying, if I'm not mistaken.
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On April 05 2010 15:00 0neder wrote:
This isn't about hard counters. This is about racial identity and both Zerg and Terran having GtG dragoon strength units and things are boring with these massed marauders and roaches. They need to go.
yeah but this is down the road from sc/bw. those 3 races were originally pitted against each other with what they already had. now they've had time to respond to their opponents' strengths. roach makes sense in that context cos there was a desperate need for the zerg to evolve a strain that could take hard hits without investing in a ton of ultralisks.
not saying that excuses boring gameplay. just saying it'd be ridiculous in real life to cling to flimsy spacesuits just because "hey, i'm a human and therefore i wear flimsy spacesuits."
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On April 05 2010 15:09 Doc Daneeka wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 15:00 0neder wrote:
This isn't about hard counters. This is about racial identity and both Zerg and Terran having GtG dragoon strength units and things are boring with these massed marauders and roaches. They need to go. yeah but this is down the road from sc/bw. those 3 races were originally pitted against each other with what they already had. now they've had time to respond to their opponents' strengths. roach makes sense in that context cos there was a desperate need for the zerg to evolve a strain that could take hard hits without investing in a ton of ultralisks. not saying that excuses boring gameplay. just saying it'd be ridiculous in real life to cling to flimsy spacesuits just because "hey, i'm a human and therefore i wear flimsy spacesuits."
It isn't a lore concern, its a gameplay concern. Each race felt different, and differences among basic unit HP contributed to that.
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On April 05 2010 15:11 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 15:09 Doc Daneeka wrote:On April 05 2010 15:00 0neder wrote:
This isn't about hard counters. This is about racial identity and both Zerg and Terran having GtG dragoon strength units and things are boring with these massed marauders and roaches. They need to go. yeah but this is down the road from sc/bw. those 3 races were originally pitted against each other with what they already had. now they've had time to respond to their opponents' strengths. roach makes sense in that context cos there was a desperate need for the zerg to evolve a strain that could take hard hits without investing in a ton of ultralisks. not saying that excuses boring gameplay. just saying it'd be ridiculous in real life to cling to flimsy spacesuits just because "hey, i'm a human and therefore i wear flimsy spacesuits." It isn't a lore concern, its a gameplay concern. Each race felt different, and differences among basic unit HP contributed to that.
yeah i was just responding to that post in particular. this thread has really made me rethink what these units might do to the longevity of this game.
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-lower roach life so they'll die faster with target fire and will take more micro to quickly burrow, run away, regen ,and tank again when ready (fit into its role better)
-lower life of roach means we can decrease attack of both marauder and immortals so they are not so incredibly powerful in other encounters (e.g. immortals against armored units)
-marauders will fit its role better as a slow supporter rather than for damage output
-immortals will fit its role better as a heavy assault tanker rather than for its damage output
and by the way, on paper this will work if roach life goes down and marauder/immortal damage goes down:
tvz = zerglings > marauders > roaches > marines > zerglings
tvp = marines > immortals > marauders > zealots > marines
pvz = zealots > zerglings > immortals > roaches > zealots
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interesting thoughts, although i do not really agree, and i think the game is balancable
And btw i rarely use roaches in ZvT and ZvP and i'm relatively high in platinum.
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On April 05 2010 14:51 Doc Daneeka wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 14:43 Half wrote:
My previous negative stance on the fallacy that is "hardcounters" being said, I do feel like that SC2 early game is just going to be more dynamic. Simply because you have more units (medics didn't really count, considering their was no reason you'd go bio without them and no real reason to get them if you weren't).
With 3 units open in T1, early game play is going to be a lot more fluid, and a lot more varied. I doubt we'll ever get the hard "safe openings", but I don't think its enough to cause "lucking" a hardcounter.
Overall, thats probably a good thing. Though it makes it much harder to balance. yeah. plus i keep reading that sc1 was pretty much broken until bw came out. i wasn't playing much online and definitely not watching vods back then so i can't confirm that but maybe you can. i'm trying to stay optimistic that if a year plus change after retail release the balance has got into a rut, the expansion will have units and upgrades designed to fix that. then the next expansion after that. that's two major content revisions after retail release. stuff like walls of roaches are frustrating now, but i think blizzard is aiming for the long haul here. it IS the follow-up to a game that lasted 12 years.
That's an excellent point and a good reason not to abandon hope (not that any reasonable person would until at least a year from now). I just hope blizzard isn't tempted to take it as an excuse for inaction.
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Make the Hydralisk into a high powered melee unit like the Amerigo cinematic in the first BW experience and make it only an AtA unit so its ranged attack only works vs. air units. that way the roach can keep its ranged attack vs. ground only. It would make zerg waayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more interesting.
At the moment the Hydralisk doesnt give me any sort of worry. It just makes me say "well Zerg has AtA, it doesnt matter anyway I have tanks and Marauders; what the fuck can they do?!?!?"
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This thread makes a really good point. I'd enjoy the game a lot more if they changed these three units around and lowered them all a fair amount. As a terran player, I hate the whole "8 raxx with 7 tech labs spam marauders" bullshit.
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On April 05 2010 15:18 Rucky wrote:
-lower roach life so they'll die faster with target fire and will take more micro to quickly burrow, run away, regen ,and tank again when ready (fit into its role better)
-lower life of roach means we can decrease attack of both marauder and immortals so they are not so incredibly powerful in other encounters (e.g. immortals against armored units)
-marauders will fit its role better as a slow supporter rather than for damage output
-immortals will fit its role better as a heavy assault tanker rather than for its damage output
and by the way, on paper this will work if roach life goes down and marauder/immortal damage goes down:
tvz = zerglings > marauders > roaches > marines > zerglings
tvp = marines > immortals > marauders > zealots > marines
pvz = zealots > zerglings > immortals > roaches > zealots
is someone here posting the ideas that come up on this messageboard over on bnet's messageboard? it's topics like this that bring to mind that little phrase, 'bubbling up'.
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Would love to see the 3 units nerfed.
Right now it just feels that some matches are bad from a balance point of view. ZvP is just silly, Immortal Pushes are too strong and against players around my skill level I'll simply lose unless it's a real big map...
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On April 05 2010 15:21 USn wrote:That's an excellent point and a good reason not to abandon hope (not that any reasonable person would until at least a year from now). I just hope blizzard isn't tempted to take it as an excuse for inaction.
it's possible. you'd think the goal would be to just have it not be broken in the first place. but there's at least a couple months left of beta. even if issues like this aren't totally fixed by then i want to hope it'll at least be less severe.
On April 05 2010 15:21 NastyMarine wrote:
Make the Hydralisk into a high powered melee unit like the Amerigo cinematic in the first BW experience and make it only an AtA unit so its ranged attack only works vs. air units. that way the roach can keep its ranged attack vs. ground only. It would make zerg waayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more interesting.
that is pretty interesting, actually. sort of the tier 2 link between lings and hydras. but that ranged needle thingy attack is so much a part of the flavor of the unit, i dunno how the community would feel about it being altered that much.
edit: and sorry if it seems like i'm spamming, guys. this is just the first thread here that's really gotten my attention and i'm way into it.
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Anyways, to continue with the discussion, if I were to add something to the OP's post, it would be this:
If we establish that the root of the problem is that Roaches are overpowered, then we might ask ourselves, "why were Roaches overpowered to begin with?" My response to this is that Roaches are overpowered because of a systemic vulnerability in Zerg's line-up.
Zerg is the only race who has 2/3 fragile melee units in Tier 1. Zerglings are too weak vs. Zealots & Proxy Contain. Banelings are a situational unit that require the element of surprise and really, they need the speed upgrade. Thus, Zerg lacks a solid frontline unit, which has to have the following properties: it has to counter Zealots because Zerglings don't, it has to be able to stop Reaper harass because Zerglings don't, and it has to be able to fight stimmed Medivac Marines, because not only can't Zerglings do this, but neither can Hydras or Mutas, the next tier units. The ONLY unit capable of all of these things is a ranged unit with bonus damage against light, and high armor & hp. Voila, the Roach.
The Roach was thus created as a "catch-all" unit to cover ALL of Zerg's weaknesses. The problem is that in covering ALL of Zerg's weaknesses, they created a monster unit that then required counters on the other two sides, at which point things spiraled out of control.
But isn't the root of this problem the fact that Zerglings are too weak? A ranged Tier 1 Zerg unit is necessary because of Reapers, Marauder Kiting, and Cannon Rush, so we can't fully blame Zerglings for this, but isn't the fact that Zerglings just aren't very good against other factions' tier 1 units (unless they build the wrong units) a critical factor in all this?
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Good read. Not sure exactly how i feel about it, but good read. The roach/black guy/immo trifecta certainly does have a very large role / influence in the game in general, and a moderate tweaking of those units would definitely be interesting.
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Very good point made by the OP, something I had been thinking about quite a bit.
And really the point about race identiry is very valid aswell, zerg used to have one, only one tank unit in BW and it was the ultralisk at tier 3. Why do they now get a better tank at tier 1.5? Arent they supposed to be the mass weak units race?
Terran having a infantry biological unit as strong as a dragoon also goes against their identity shown in BW. They had to use mechanical units, goliaths and tanks to have more HP.
The Immortal is the exception ofcourse, it fits right in there in Protoss. Ofcourse it might still need tweaking.
I realize this is a different game then BW, but still the distict differences between the races are what made BW what it is. Now all the races have a zealot strength unit at tier 1/tier1.5, you cannot have that and keep the races feeling as different as in BW.
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Well, lurkers were pretty beefy (200 hp, 1 armor) in BW. I think roaches are at least partly based on lurkers, but they have a very different dynamic: they're a tier 1 rush unit, whereas lurkers are a tier 2 stealth aoe unit.
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On April 05 2010 15:31 Azarkon wrote:
Anyways, to continue with the discussion, if I were to add something to the OP's post, it would be this:
If we establish that the root of the problem is that Roaches are overpowered, then we might ask ourselves, "why were Roaches overpowered to begin with?" My response to this is that Roaches are overpowered because of a systemic vulnerability in Zerg's line-up.
Zerg is the only race who has 2/3 fragile melee units in Tier 1. Zerglings are too weak vs. Zealots & Proxy Contain. Banelings are a situational unit that require the element of surprise and really, they need the speed upgrade. Thus, Zerg lacks a solid frontline unit, which has to have the following properties: it has to counter Zealots because Zerglings don't, it has to be able to stop Reaper harass because Zerglings don't, and it has to be able to fight stimmed Medivac Marines, because not only can't Zerglings do this, but neither can Hydras or Mutas, the next tier units. The ONLY unit capable of all of these things is a ranged unit with bonus damage against light, and high armor & hp. Voila, the Roach.
The Roach was thus created as a "catch-all" unit to cover ALL of Zerg's weaknesses. The problem is that in covering ALL of Zerg's weaknesses, they created a monster unit that then required counters on the other two sides, at which point things spiraled out of control.
But isn't the root of this problem the fact that Zerglings are too weak? A ranged Tier 1 Zerg unit is necessary because of Reapers, Marauder Kiting, and Cannon Rush, so we can't fully blame Zerglings for this, but isn't the fact that Zerglings just aren't very good against other factions' tier 1 units (unless they build the wrong units) a critical factor in all this?
Roaches don't have bonus damage versus light. But yeah, I would agree with this analysis. At the same time, I have a hard time believing that a T1 hydralisk, with banelings, would be underpowered against anything short of collosus and siege tanks, which are both considerably later, and other counters can be formulated for that.
I'm not saying I'd like a hydra back at hatchtech. I really don't want Sc1.5. But at the same time, I feel like the hydra could easily fulfill that role. I don't think a monster unit is the only way to do it, though zergling could certainly use a slight buff. You may be entirely right now. I'm pretty convinced the Roach is problematic, and I think blizzard is leaning that way, though not entirely committed. I think what were all pondering is how to fix it, and I have no idea .
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On April 05 2010 15:39 Azarkon wrote:
Well, lurkers were pretty beefy (200 hp, 1 armor) in BW. I think roaches are at least partly based on lurkers, but they have a very different dynamic: they're a tier 1 rush unit, whereas lurkers are a tier 2 stealth aoe unit.
They had 125 hp and were useless without Zergling back-up. They also costed large amounts of gas. The dynamic was much more interesting than anything we have right now.
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Yeah, sorry about that. I have no idea why I thought they were 200.
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On April 05 2010 15:46 Azarkon wrote:
Yeah, sorry about that. I have no idea why I thought they were 200. Even still, lurkers were definitely a buff unit in the Zerg line-up, considering that zerglings were 35 and hydras 75.
Except they were useless without a cheap wall of Zerglings to tank the hits while Lurkers moved into position. And they costed a total of 125 min, 125 gas, and 3 supply.
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I've seen alot of smack talk about roaches on this forum and I think its pretty ridiculous. I don't think they should be removed to rid the world of immortals and marauders. How about instead of getting rid of marauders and immortals they sh,uld decrease there power against tier one units. If starcraft is so keen on having hard counters they should have units that are supposed to counter immortals and marauders work better. The fact marauders are starting to look like terrans main attack units should get blizzard to realize they shouldn't create units that are so effective against everything. I don't have as much problems with immortals as they are harder to mass, since they are high tech and expensive. however I think George Lucas has a legitamate grievance with starcraft copying the droid from the new star wars movie that rolls around and puts up its shields to fight. Huge rip off..
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Why not make marauders and roaches cost like 50+ gas, or even more? That way you can not just mass them because you'd get a surplus of minerals. This would give players no choice but to mix up units.
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On April 05 2010 16:02 Ultra Brian wrote:
however I think George Lucas has a legitamate grievance with starcraft copying the droid from the new star wars movie that rolls around and puts up its shields to fight. Huge rip off..
yeah but starcraft rips everything off in sci-fi. as does warcraft in fantasy. blizzard is like the one-stop disaster shelter supply of speculative fiction.
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On April 05 2010 16:02 Ultra Brian wrote:
I've seen alot of smack talk about roaches on this forum and I think its pretty ridiculous. I don't think they should be removed to rid the world of immortals and marauders. How about instead of getting rid of marauders and immortals they sh,uld decrease there power against tier one units. If starcraft is so keen on having hard counters they should have units that are supposed to counter immortals and marauders work better. The fact marauders are starting to look like terrans main attack units should get blizzard to realize they shouldn't create units that are so effective against everything. I don't have as much problems with immortals as they are harder to mass, since they are high tech and expensive. however I think George Lucas has a legitamate grievance with starcraft copying the droid from the new star wars movie that rolls around and puts up its shields to fight. Huge rip off..
Your grammatical errors and completely unrelated reference to George Lucas does not help your credibility.
Yes, the majority of "smack talk" about units in general is usually unfounded. The OP is not "smack-talking" Roaches. The OP is not advocating the removal of Roaches. The OP is addressing an error in the design of Starcraft 2 that adversely affects unit relationships with other units. The roach is simply REPRESENTATIVE of this issue.
The issue: Tier 1.5 units deal too much damage and are too robust for their cost.
EDIT: Apologies if I come off as a jerk, but if there is one thing I hate, it's people missing the point of something.
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so make them deal less damage and make them less robust for their cost
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i have been thinking at the same thing the thread is about for the last week.
marauders/roaches/immortals do feel a bit broken.
i'm eager to see if blizz attends to this before going life with wings of liberty or decides to leave this for the next sc2 release.
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On April 05 2010 16:35 Rucky wrote:
so make them deal less damage and make them less robust for their cost
This needs to be a comprehensive change throughout most units in Starcraft 2.
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On April 05 2010 14:32 Azarkon wrote: + Show Spoiler +Koltz, biomech might work in rare situations but in the pro-scene meta-game it doesn't work. But why focus on biomech, which is an entire suite of units? Hard counters definitely do exists in BW and to a large degree:
Lurkers vs. zealots - it doesn't even matter how well you micro your zealots; half a dozen lurkers at a choke point will make them wasted minerals
Zerglings vs. dragoons - again, unless you're blocking a ramp (something you can do in SC 2, as well), dragoons cannot go against mass zerglings no matter how well you micro
Reavers vs. zerglings - again, doesn't matter how well you micro; a reaver in a shuttle, or even two reavers on ground, will kill any number of zerglings
Vultures vs. zerglings - same thing; this, along with biomech hard countering hydras, is the reason TVZ's meta game is lurkers & mutas
Siege tanks & vultures vs. biomech - biomech just doesn't work, which is the reason TVT is mech vs. mech
And of course, the whole stealth & air vs. ground hard counters that have always been in SC.
I disagree strongly with the idea behind this post and would contend that the only hard counter here worth mentioning is that cracklings > goons. Even then, 3 gate goon builds exist pvz which rely on superior micro to take out the opposing lings. The rest of your supposed hard counters are merely duplications of a single theme: splash units deal very well with low hp units.
The key factor to understand is that in starcraft all of those low hp units are given superior speed to make up for their other shortcomings which enable them to beat your listed hard counters through superior micro. We don't frequently see this in mid to late game because as the army sizes grow it becomes increasingly difficult to apply the right micro and avoid the increased amount of area attacks. That doesn't stop us from seeing zealots surround and kill lurkers PvZ. Or oov surprising some terran with mid game mm before siege splash reached critical mass. Or forgg beating kal with mm + tank despite kal's awe inspiring reaver control (link). Heck, there used to be a micro ums map where you had to kill a reaver with 8 lings. I contend that the majority of starcraft units are merely soft counters to each other and nothing you have shown proves otherwise.
I can't speak from experience as i don't have a sc2 key but from what i understand this isn't always the case in that game. The hard counters are actually one unit defeating another so thoroughly that no amount of micro will help; akin to firebats against golies in sc1. This kind of hard counter is something that should be minimized in most situations but isn't. But, again, i don't have the sc2 experience to confirm or deny that.
ps. How could you think lurkers have 200 hp?!
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i agree heavily with OP in this thread and although no-ones going to listen to my post due to low post count (i've lurked for many years just never posted)
i think roaches with an armor nerf. maybe even damage nerf.
marauders with attack speed/damage nerf
immortals... i think are fine. they are tech 2. extremly costly to mass. they seem fine. i know +50 damage is alot and they absolutely remove tanks amazing damage (unless your good with EMP) but yea. my 2 cents.
i feel like this would reduce roaches to nice tanky units (although im still HEAVILY against zerg having a "tanky" unit except for ultras. it doesn't seem to fit zergs playstyle of heavy mapcontrol at all)
marauders would be tank'ish supporting units.
and immortals would stay the same i really feel they are fine.
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they should make roaches appear to be naked women so that i can be interested when i watch them crawling around. when they go underground, their formation should automatically phallic.
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i find myself agreeing with the op.
i can't say if its due to the damage system, but (who'd have guessed) it's all connected.
what currently happens is 4 roaches have as much HP as an ultralisk - which needs his extra upgrade to finally get 1 more armor than them.
granted, ultralisks can't be slowed by marauders or lifted by phoenixes and it might be "easier" to use a queen's transfusion on them. but why spend 200gas on an ultralisk when 4 roaches are 100gas. the ully deals a fully upgraded 24damage, a single roach 22. i believe the range takes care of the AoE argument as well. and then there's immortals' shields ofc.
but that's just one disparity [which could still be relatively-easily salvaged by removing the "armored" attribute on the ully]; basically the roach is a zealot with range 3, an option of cloak-like mobility, and unsplit damage - which is great for anything except immortals.
but yes, the marauder is equally "cost efficient". if it was introduced because of the roach i cannot say. but it sure took away the role of the tank - unsieged anyways. why try to micro with a tank when a marauder can be stim'ed, has "slow" and can be healed for free.
i know i know: it's not like we did it a lot in sc:bw - but still; it costs more gas and more supply and i still don't feel like it deals more damage despite its type being converted to what would have been "normal".
but yes, about the damage system in general - allow me to employ the roach as an example:
a damage upgrade adds +2 damage. any defensive upgrade only adds +1.
this used to be ok in sc:bw because there was such a thing as reduced damage due to size: if a goon shot a zergling, only 10+1 of his 20+2 damage was calculated against any armor values. this is no longer the case in s][c - there is no reduction of any kind anywhere.
it may not make as much difference as it sounds: unless an un-upgraded roach shoots a +2 armored marine, it'll always require 3 shots.
it gets a bit more dramatic when +3 roaches can always kill zerglings with 2 shots, and there's nothing the opponent can do about it. aforementioned zealot cannot pull this off due to split damage.
but anyways, it is also the reason why "bigger" units fare so badly: with these quite high damage values on lower units, having a meager 1 base armor is just a slap in the face.
tl;dr - yes, high dmg and relatively high hp on lower tiers is bawww
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On April 05 2010 16:54 MavercK wrote:
i agree heavily with OP in this thread and although no-ones going to listen to my post due to low post count (i've lurked for many years just never posted)
i think roaches with an armor nerf. maybe even damage nerf.
marauders with attack speed/damage nerf
immortals... i think are fine. they are tech 2. extremly costly to mass. they seem fine. i know +50 damage is alot and they absolutely remove tanks amazing damage (unless your good with EMP) but yea. my 2 cents.
i feel like this would reduce roaches to nice tanky units (although im still HEAVILY against zerg having a "tanky" unit except for ultras. it doesn't seem to fit zergs playstyle of heavy mapcontrol at all)
marauders would be tank'ish supporting units.
and immortals would stay the same i really feel they are fine.
What are you talking about. The Lurker is pure map control unit. Banelings are supposed to be replacement but fail because they cost too much larvae to be effective.
Roaches were modified to make Zerg more robust mid-game. A very short-sighted modification by Blizzard, if you ask me. In this respect, it needs to be modified in combination with other similar Tier units.
Marauder attack speed/damage nerf would make them worse as support units. If you want an effective support unit, it must have negligible effectiveness on its own. So, lower hp, higher build time or gas cost.
Immortals build too quickly for its damage and health. Build time should be balanced taking Chrono Boost into consideration to force Protoss to make a sacrifice in that respect.
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interesting read.
I wanna point out that SC2 tier 1 dynamics feels drastically different than SC1. Compare Marine/Firebat/Medic vs ling/Hydra vs Zealot/Goon from SC1 and Marine/Marauder/Reaper vs ling/Roach/Baneling vs Zealot/Sentry/Stalker.
In SC1, every tier 1 unit feels different, has a unique role, and most importantly the roles are BALANCED. In SC2, not only does the roach fills a similar role as the marauder, but because the roach is so strong, it forces the terran to rely on the role the marauder fills, and thus becomes reliant on them. Balance changes are made with that playstyle in mind and that particular role is buffed. Similarly, none of the roles tier 1 protoss has is strong enough to reliably fight against roaches, so they tech up to immortals. And again, the role immortals fill becomes almost necessary and then balance changes are made based on that play style. So while the end result becomes balanced, the playstyles have all been drastically affected by roaches. And those play styles are what a lot of SC2 players feel is a little off.
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I think the OP pretty much summed up my thoughts.
Immortals are not OP vs Zerg. Marauders are not OP vs Zerg either, but Immortals invalidate Terran Mech and Marauders are just way too good vs Protoss infantry.
All of this stems from both races (T and P) need to counter Roaches.
Despite that fact that I agree with the OP and would agree that a nerf to the roach should come with a nerf to the Marauder and Immortal, I still think that Terran's anti-armored tech should reside among it's Factory units. A not entirely original suggestion would be to switch Hellion and Marauders. Have the Marauders wield Flame throwers and the Hellions as rocket bikes. But I think that is beyond the scope of this post.
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lurkers arn't in sc2 so dunno what thats about heh.
and i dunno i just feel roaches make zerg alot less mobile. but thats my feeling alone i guess.
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On April 05 2010 16:50 patrick321 wrote:
The rest of your supposed hard counters are merely duplications of a single theme: splash units deal very well with low hp units.
When low hp units make up the bulk of two races' ground units, the situation is comparable.
The key factor to understand is that in starcraft all of those low hp units are given superior speed to make up for their other shortcomings which enable them to beat your listed hard counters through superior micro. We don't frequently see this in mid to late game because as the army sizes grow it becomes increasingly difficult to apply the right micro and avoid the increased amount of area attacks. That doesn't stop us from seeing zealots surround and kill lurkers PvZ. Or oov surprising some terran with mid game mm before siege splash reached critical mass. Or forgg beating kal with mm + tank despite kal's awe inspiring reaver control ( link). Heck, there used to be a micro ums map where you had to kill a reaver with 8 lings. I contend that the majority of starcraft units are merely soft counters to each other and nothing you have shown proves otherwise.
I follow the pro-gaming scene quite closely and I do not have the same impression. Yes, exceptions happen, but exceptions do not prove the rule. Of course micro matters, but it's not the case that micro can simply make up for unit composition mistakes. Eight lings can defeat one reaver in exceptional circumstances, but in a straight-up micro battle between pros, reavers are a hard counter to mass lings and that's why people mix in ultras, defilers, mutas, etc. in late-game ZvP. Every once in a while you can kill off a reaver group with lings, but every once in a while progamers make huge blunders, too. That's not proof of anything.
Personally, my definition of "soft counters" are things like emp vs. arbiters. EMP is clearly designed to be anti-arbiter (among other things) - it literally shuts down the arbiter's abilities. But this doesn't mean arbiters cannot be used when sci vessels are on the field. Rather, it becomes a matter of control - micro, as you said. But the harder the counter, the more difficult it is to micro your way out. Dragoons vs marines, for example, is far harder to deal with than emp vs. arbiters. But even that's not as hard of a counter as some of the things I've listed.
I can't speak from experience as i don't have a sc2 key but from what i understand this isn't always the case in that game. The hard counters are actually one unit defeating another so thoroughly that no amount of micro will help; akin to firebats against golies in sc1. This kind of hard counter is something that should be minimized in most situations but isn't. But, again, i don't have the sc2 experience to confirm or deny that.
Are you sure stimmed firebats can't defeat goliaths once in a while?
As for SC 2, I don't find its counters are that different from SC 1. It's simply that certain units have no hard counters, and therefore gets used ALL THE TIME over units that do have hard counters.
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The Roach, Immortal and Marauder are all units with no real defined role/purpose other than being ridiculously strong ground-to-ground fighters. They should have a more fleshed out identity.
Roach: Much less damage, a bit fewer HPs, more regeneration. Go back to its role as a tank for other weaker zerg units, or as a microable harass unit with a unique mechanic. Since the regeneration forces the enemy to focus fire them, they shouldn't occur in very large numbers in huge battles and should cost 2 supply.
Immortal: Much less damage, more shield. It should be more of a tank unit than an insane damage dealer. Protoss has other was of dealing damage, templars or colossi for example. This makes the Immortal kinda boring. Maybe give it some ability or an anti air attack to spice it up?
Marauder: I'm not quite sure how to go about the marauder. Certainly reduce HPs, but by how much? What's certain for me is that whatever is stimmable infantry isn't supposed to have such an assload of health. Maybe make it much weaker overall, but also cheaper and more massable? The new role would then be support for marines or mech by means of slow. Still the same boring unit, but at least with a less central role.
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Its true, remove that bitches
post it on blizzard forum
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I wonder if Blizz needs to try random changes like experimenting with balancing Roach damage (also armor dmg)/range/supply count in relation to each other, or to end up causing roach attack to instead have the marauder's slowing mechanic, in combination with larger supply for example so its a unit that harrasses in smaller numbers.
Then experiment with balancing marauder dmg/armor dmg/range/supply count in relation to each other, as well as perhaps giving them something like splash damage, or SOMETHING cool.
Finally experiment with lowering immortal +dmg to armor (but now this makes its OBVIOUS that its a stalker-like repeat, i think immortal needs SOMETHING else besides +armor dmg that gives it some pizzazz, but i have no idea what maybe a defensive ability though sentries already have powerful defensive spells)
Oopps totally overlooked Scorch's post, but GMTA:D
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Am I the only one that wants roaches removed, hyrdas back down to their BW level, and lurkers brought back? Lurkers were fun and imaginative. Roaches are just plain boring.
Marauders and hellions need to switch roles. Marauders should have the short range fire weapons and hellions are the light armor rocket tanks (like the cobra in the previews for SC2.)
As for protoss, kill the stalker and immortal, or make it more dragoon like. Every single Protoss player wants it back even if it still has bad AI.
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On April 05 2010 17:36 fspikec wrote:
Am I the only one that wants roaches removed, hyrdas back down to their BW level, and lurkers brought back? Lurkers were fun and imaginative. Roaches are just plain boring.
Marauders and hellions need to switch roles. Marauders should have the short range fire weapons and hellions are the light armor rocket tanks (like the cobra in the previews for SC2.)
As for protoss, kill the stalker and immortal, or make it more dragoon like. Every single Protoss player wants it back even if it still has bad AI.
Looks like the SC2 pro mod fits your bill.
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lurkers arn't in sc2 so dunno what thats about heh.
and i dunno i just feel roaches make zerg alot less mobile. but thats my feeling alone i guess.
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On April 05 2010 17:38 LunarC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 17:36 fspikec wrote:
Am I the only one that wants roaches removed, hyrdas back down to their BW level, and lurkers brought back? Lurkers were fun and imaginative. Roaches are just plain boring.
Marauders and hellions need to switch roles. Marauders should have the short range fire weapons and hellions are the light armor rocket tanks (like the cobra in the previews for SC2.)
As for protoss, kill the stalker and immortal, or make it more dragoon like. Every single Protoss player wants it back even if it still has bad AI. Looks like the SC2 pro mod fits your bill.
Somewhat. I like certain features of both SC2 and SC1. I also hate certain aspects of both. Automine is great imo. Larger group sizes is another plus. But everything into 1 group is overkill. And SC1 limited it too much imo. The balance was much greater in SC1 while in SC2 I believe we will see larger amount of diverse (somewhat broken) strategies.
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On April 05 2010 17:38 LunarC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 17:36 fspikec wrote:
Am I the only one that wants roaches removed, hyrdas back down to their BW level, and lurkers brought back? Lurkers were fun and imaginative. Roaches are just plain boring.
Marauders and hellions need to switch roles. Marauders should have the short range fire weapons and hellions are the light armor rocket tanks (like the cobra in the previews for SC2.)
As for protoss, kill the stalker and immortal, or make it more dragoon like. Every single Protoss player wants it back even if it still has bad AI. Looks like the SC2 pro mod fits your bill.
or uh... scbw.
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On April 05 2010 17:45 fspikec wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 17:38 LunarC wrote:On April 05 2010 17:36 fspikec wrote:
Am I the only one that wants roaches removed, hyrdas back down to their BW level, and lurkers brought back? Lurkers were fun and imaginative. Roaches are just plain boring.
Marauders and hellions need to switch roles. Marauders should have the short range fire weapons and hellions are the light armor rocket tanks (like the cobra in the previews for SC2.)
As for protoss, kill the stalker and immortal, or make it more dragoon like. Every single Protoss player wants it back even if it still has bad AI. Looks like the SC2 pro mod fits your bill. Somewhat. I like certain features of both SC2 and SC1. I also hate certain aspects of both. Automine is great imo. Larger group sizes is another plus. But everything into 1 group is overkill. And SC1 limited it too much imo. The balance was much greater in SC1 while in SC2 I believe we will see larger amount of diverse (somewhat broken) strategies.
If units were more useful when divided into multiple control groups they would be used that way. The problem is that units are designed in a way that doesn't make this any more useful.
Hence, everything is put into one control group.
The balance in Starcraft 1 is a result of balancing through micro. Limited use of this principle in Starcraft 2.
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I like the fact that SC 1 was a bit more clear with positioning in that 2D collision and manual pathfinding made good positioning obvious. SC 2's unit blobs look cool but make positioning "appear" automatic and thus less tactical.
As a spectator sport, I guess I still prefer SC 1, though SC 2 has a lot more potential if Blizzard would take notice.
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On April 05 2010 14:26 Half wrote:Siege damage is also just not high enough against anything other then light. The only MU where its viable is TvT because Bio isn't strong enough in that MU, and TvZ because it only does decent damage against Hydras
Honestly I wonder if 55 flat damage would be OP.
While I pretty much wholly agree w/your OP and the premise of the thread (as a Terran, I am just thoroughly annoyed with all three of those units atm; Immortals would be more bearable if not for their Chrono-boosted build time being insanely fast for the caliber of unit they are).
However, I just wanted to point out that the 60 flat damage Siege Tanks do in SC2 is absolutely brutal to Zerg ground units, with the pretty much sole exception being Roaches since it takes at least three hits to kill them (Hydralisks die in two hits and tend to bunch very nicely xD) and they're downright dangerous if they manage to get anywhere near the Tanks (pretty much as dangerous as Hydralisks if not more- but the point of Hydralisks was always that they could snipe Tanks if they could find a way to get near them alive whereas Roaches just tank through Tank fire).
The only thing holding back full Terran mech play in TvZ atm is mass Roaches, and even then it's less a matter of going bio instead of mech and more a matter of keeping a Tech 'Rax or two around to pump Marauders to help deal with that. Not really a fan of having to do that since it's not even a process of getting upgraded Marauders or anything but rather just getting barely enough unupgraded Marauders to help tank any Roaches that get close-in to the Tanks.
Total side note, but I think Roaches may also be to blame for many of the "issues" with Mutalisks. Specifically, Muta contains in SC2 were rarely *just* Muta contains/harass but rather Muta/Roach contain. Whereas in Brood War, during the Muta stage of TvZ, the primary deterrent to the Terran player moving out and "breaking the contain" during this period is that to do so leaves the base/supply lines vulnerable for a period in return for what still ends up being a precarious situation because of the risk from 'lings + Mutas combined (and/or to push a Zerg base/expansion would be to fight against 'lings, Mutas, and Sunkens all at once). The key there is the combination of all of those together with strong micro are the deterrent. Exceptionally strong defense, macro, and micro can allow Terrans such as Flash to be aggressive during this period, but this takes quite a bit of skill.
Comparatively, in SC2 Roaches are cheap enough and macro mechanics (Larvae Inject) friendly enough that the Zerg can mass up quite a few before transitioning into the Muta harass/contain. The issue then comes where the bio Terran needs to skew his/her composition towards Marines to combat the Mutas but because of this, the Roaches alone now are a significant threat outside the Terran's base. That element of Zerg only being able to keep Terran penned-up for so long as Terran eventually got Vessels out to deal with the Mutas and a few Siege Tanks to allow him to push back against the Lurkers meant that the Zerg could only take so much advantage of the situation and still needed to pump combat units and tech and etc. Previous to the Thor and Turret buff, a Terran might be able to break out of the Muta contain with smart use of Ravens (although Seeker is not quite the hard counter that Irradiate was, but Point Defense offers a nice middle-ground) or with a force skewed heavily towards Vikings or Marines- neither of which prove very helpful against Roaches. These issues in turn have led to the Thor being reworked yet again to put some serious smack down on Mutas although I'm not really sure this was necessary if Roaches were taken out of the equation (Viking defense with pre-patch Thor and/or Marines was fine imo).
Now, as for where I'd like to see Roaches go... well, I'd like to see them go somewhere really. At the moment, their original concept seems to have been butchered between the hp regen nerfing and their extremely high hp negating a serious need to leverage the interesting Tunneling Claws upgrade to get Roaches in range. My favored solution atm would be to greatly reduce Roach hp (if they try to stand up and fight against Siege Tanks or other high damage units for ex, they should just get annihilated), but bring back their regen, move them to T2, start them w/speed upgrade, and Tunneling Claws readily accessible @T2 (well, more or less taking Roaches from T2 to T2.5 ala Stim's effect on Marines in SC1). Preferably buff burrowed Roaches to take only half damage from attacks or increase their armor while burrowed thus making their burrowed movement capability useful for approaching a target even when detectors are about. Meanwhile, amp up the gas cost and mineral cost a bit while moving the Hydralisk back down to T1 (and readjusting its cost and stats to accommodate as necessary).
What you ultimately get then is a T2+ assassin unit for Zerg. The focus is on using its burrowed movement to get it into position to unburrow and snipe targets, basically hit-and-run, leveraging its regen as best it can. For example, against Siege Tanks it could burrow and move towards its target Siege Tank, either doing so unseen or at least taking a bit less damage while doing it therefore increasing survivability. Of course, Terran can counter with Hellion "shields" and such (decreased hp of Roaches will make them modestly susceptible to sizable amounts of defensively-positioned Hellions, although likely only if the Terran has detection and can get his Tanks to get some shots off at the Roaches on their way in), but then, well, things evolve from there really as that necessitates more defensive use of the Terran's units and etc. In just that situation alone I think it's really interesting since it really would slap in a lot more depth to ZvT's dealing with mech (going beyond only being able to leverage mech's immobility to out-expand and out-macro mech to just overwhelm it or to win a war of attrition). But, beyond that, I'm sure you guys can already start thinking of tons of potential uses for this in other match-ups and situations as well.
Potential concerns with the above are that with only the Hydralisk in T1 for Zerg to try and fend off Reapers and Hellions, that doesn't look great at first as both Reapers and Hellions do bonus damage to Hydralisks (and Hellions in particular have been known to be able to just melt Hydralisks' faces off), but I think the key here is that if this were to happen then Hydralisks' price would be readjusted accordingly and, as well, you'll be able to get them out sooner and therefore start to build up more sooner than you could previously. As well, mass Hydras > mass Reapers despite Reapers' nice DPS against them so there is definitely a macro component there as well as a micro component. For Hellion rushes, while Hellions do great against Hydralisks, it takes a fair bit of micro to do (I've already seen a thread here where a poster bemoaned how Hellions had failed him against Hydralisks because he was just attack-moving against them) and as well it only really works properly when the Zerg player allows the Hellions to surround his/her bunched-up Hydralisks. Again, I think that's an area where it really just comes up to the players to leverage their micro and macro skills to decide that.
Looking at Marauders and Immortals, my immediate thoughts for Immortals are just going with the simple damage reduction and slight build time increase (build time to offset Chrono Boost slightly- don't want to destroy the macro mechanic ofc, but atm Chrono Boosted Immortals can be produced as quickly as Marines), along with possibly some ability that allows the Protoss player to ensure that Immortals are able to proceed with tanking damage ala Taunt although I wonder if that might not be a bit extreme (as things currently stand, Immortals are priority targets despite their tanking capability specifically because they have some vicious teeth against your high-value units but if their damage is significantly reduced then those teeth are dulled and there is little urgency to target them immediately).
For Marauders, if Blizzard really wants to stick with the unit and its core design, a gas increase might be all that's really necessary. However, I am thinking that both the Marauder and Thor need a serious reconsidering of what Blizzard wants those units to be and do. Specifically, what Blizzard *really* wants to fill those slots with and what holes they want to plug and how to plug them and etc as opposed to atm where both units seem to be the result of Blizzard really wanting to preserve what they have while being backed into a wall by needing to adapt them to fill various needs.
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SC2 too easily balances at a point where it is mechanically boring.
That is because the three main units at this point are intrinsically the same: ranged, armored, can only target ground.
SC1 seems always to balance at a point where it is mechanically interesting; where the mechanics of the units countering each other are different.
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I don't think there's a real problem with units over-lapping functions (like how immortals and templar basically exist to take out masses of small units in the same way reavers and templars could in BW), but there shouldn't be an over-lapping in how a unit behaves to go along with it. That's what BW didn't have, none of the other races had units that acted/functioned like eachother (even hydras and goons were diff), but that's a bit of a problem with roches/marauders when I watch the game. In BW Z didn't survive by having a solid unit to rely on and mass up, but strategies/units of extreme aggression (mutas) or defence (lurkers) instead, making them unique. Solid units should be left to P.
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the obvious counter to all three is AIR.
but the problem is that you can't afford to allow your opponent to get the stronger ground army, which means everything comes back to immortal/roach/marauder even at t3.
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My main problem with sc2 is that theres just one unit that you can sort of just mass to win the game.
In zerg its the roaches
In terran its the marauder
Protoss doesn't really have anything it can mass. It needs a good composition of zealot/stalker/immortal to actually win battles.
IMO, just screw with the idea of hard counters. There weren't many in sc1, so why have it in sc2? Like goons are counter to vulture while zealot are to tanks, but sometimes goons are better against tanks cause they don't cluster as much. Marines rape muta, but with proper micro, mutas can rape tons and tons of marine. Just take out all hard counter and replace it with soft counters.
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I keep seeing posts that describe Immortals as what end mech play for Terran, but in reality it's a lot worse than just Immortals. Zealots have charge and can close the distance much faster. Stalkers have blink and can even ruin tanks on high ground and behind buildings without a problem now. So if a protoss sees mech play, he can easily counter with not just Immortals, but upgrades for the units he's building anyway.
On April 05 2010 18:20 hoovehand wrote:
the obvious counter to all three is AIR.
but the problem is that you can't afford to allow your opponent to get the stronger ground army, which means everything comes back to immortal/roach/marauder even at t3.
That's true, but if you make air stronger you risk making ground obsolete altogether. Air already has a huge mobility advantage, after all.
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On April 05 2010 18:37 QibingZero wrote:I keep seeing posts that describe Immortals as what end mech play for Terran, but in reality it's a lot worse than just Immortals. Zealots have charge and can close the distance much faster. Stalkers have blink and can even ruin tanks on high ground and behind buildings without a problem now. So if a protoss sees mech play, he can easily counter with not just Immortals, but upgrades for the units he's building anyway. Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 18:20 hoovehand wrote:
the obvious counter to all three is AIR.
but the problem is that you can't afford to allow your opponent to get the stronger ground army, which means everything comes back to immortal/roach/marauder even at t3. That's true, but if you make air stronger you risk making ground obsolete altogether. Air already has a huge mobility advantage, after all.
Yeah, SC should never be about air because you never want to negate the importance of the map.
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reminds me...
what would happen, if roaches and marauders were to end up as "light - armored - biological"?
those don't have to be mutually exclusive, right?
edit: also, what would happen if the archon were "massive - psionic"? thinking of immunity vs slow here...
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Idea for Roach buff - nerf
People mention how the roach should be nerfed, There are various methods. The problem with roach nerfing is that the zerg race as a whole gets more week. The roach is said to be a tough unit that is hard to kill because of regeneration and high hp. This makes for a need of high damage dealing units, which cause a dip in so-called fun.
A different approach to having roaches be tough, is the following: Give roaches lower hp and perhaps lower regeneration. Give them also an ability where they will morph into an egg and grow into two new roaches. The morph should cost minerals for it to not be crazy out of balance. The result of a morph should be two roaches with half health regardless of the roach that morphed into an egg. Application in battle has a pro and a con. There will again be the possibility of egg blocks. Damaged roaches can be transformed for a possible new opportunity, But just like morphing high templars, they might get killed in the egg when most of the battle is done.
(Disclaimer: I dont play in the beta, pure theorycrafting)
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What if Roaches would move very slow while unburrowed and they move as fast as zerglings when burrowed? Let's get rid of rapid regen while we are at it.
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holy batshit insane. morph 1 roach into 2 with half hp?
double your damage at the cost of health?
serious imbalance there.
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I think a really good solution is to nerf HARD COUNTERS. God the game is so incredibly stale from this simple concept blizz used in an ATTEMPT to make it MORE interesting
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On April 05 2010 17:52 Azarkon wrote:
I like the fact that SC 1 was a bit more clear with positioning in that 2D collision and manual pathfinding made good positioning obvious. SC 2's unit blobs look cool but make positioning "appear" automatic and thus less tactical.
As a spectator sport, I guess I still prefer SC 1, though SC 2 has a lot more potential if Blizzard would take notice.
i love your post
i'm just gonna wait and see what happens. some good stuff in here.
only problem for me is... my computer lags like hell when it goes down to maxed armies. i'm not able to place storms properly or emp or anything -.-
i guess to play on a high level you need to buy a good computer.. (although mine is not bad at all..)
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On April 05 2010 19:03 MavercK wrote:
holy batshit insane. morph 1 roach into 2 with half hp?
double your damage at the cost of health?
serious imbalance there.
At the cost of health and minerals (and gas I guess). Building roaches from larva should not be too much different. But it allows for roaches to be built somewhat more nearby the battlefield, and it is a way to salvage badly damaged roaches a bit more quickly, if the regeneration rate is somewhat dropped. I mean this idea mostly as a buff to counter nerf, making the role of the roach go in a bit of a different direction.
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The reason that roaches are needed is because of zealots! REMOVE ZEALOTS AND THE PROBLEM IS FIXED!
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there is no balance problem with the roach ! fine unit its u !
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On April 05 2010 19:10 Badjas wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 19:03 MavercK wrote:
holy batshit insane. morph 1 roach into 2 with half hp?
double your damage at the cost of health?
serious imbalance there. At the cost of health and minerals (and gas I guess). Building roaches from larva should not be too much different. But it allows for roaches to be built somewhat more nearby the battlefield, and it is a way to salvage badly damaged roaches a bit more quickly, if the regeneration rate is somewhat dropped. I mean this idea mostly as a buff to counter nerf, making the role of the roach go in a bit of a different direction.
Don't violate the larva basis for zerg unit production, please.
I think cutting the marauder is the best option. Everything about it just seems wrong. (125 hit points on an infantry man? "The C&C Rocket Guy" in starcraft? Rockets with a slow effect?) Marines should have plenty of DPS versus heavy targets until tier 3. (If they don't, you gave the heavy targets too damn much HP/armor... try fixing that first.)
Also, now that I think about it, I'm surprised Reapers aren't Firebats With Jetpacks. And I'd bet that mech wouldn't be in such a mess if Hellions still had spider mines. (Or perhaps they could trade in concussion grenades or flamethrowers for an anti-vehicle rocket, as some folks suggested... now, vultures raid your base and kill your buildings! Leave the workers to the reapers.)
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As a zerg player I agree 100% with the OP. Roaches and the hard counters to it are all ridiculous. So much so that I practically refuse to take part in the ultra boring roach/marauder/immortal fest in ZvP and ZvT. In ZvZ I'm pretty much forced to unless I want to forfeit but that matchup seriously has me considering switching to protoss for now. I remember the interview with TLO saying that the worst part of playing random is that you might get ZvZ. :D
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I agree with the OP. But however since the entire game is balanced arround the existance of these 3 units any change in them would require drastic changes all over
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God how much I dislike the roach, they are such a boring boring boring unit.
When they were first revealed it seemed like an interesting little early game harass unit cause of its regeneration, that is gonna suck against a real army, but I guess thats not what they were going for after all.
I dont think its gonna happen but please, either remove the roach or nerf it hard/change its role and give us Zerg an interesting unit
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I just wanted to say that I'm really glad this thread is receiving a lot of attention. I couldn't exactly place my finger on what I didn't like about all of the hard counters and +damage to armored/light stuff, but the OP pretty much made it dawn on me that it was this trinity of units that is the big problem with almost the entirety of what people are saying is wrong with SC2 currently (the other main problem being almost no defender's advantage, but that's something for another topic). Something definitely should be reworked about marauders/roaches/immortals before release to make the game less stale and rock-paper-scissors.
As a side note, this thread also gives me a lot more hope that SC2 can turn into a really amazing game by release because of the fact that people are being able to start to pinpoint the problems with what is making SC2 not the game they want it to be, rather than not really being sure exactly what the problems are. Being able to pick out three units (roach, marauder, immortal) and one mechanic (high ground) as to what the biggest problems are will solve SO much if Blizzard can identify this also and rework it to something more dynamic and interesting by the time it's released. It makes me very hopeful for the future of SC2.
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Why not have roach with low hp on tier 1 and after lair they transform into somewhat different unit type with high regeneration, hp, move while burrow ?
To make it more interesting the updates for Roach 2.0 could be upgraded at tier 1 level and then zerg can go for surprising timing attacks.
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I totally agree with the OP!! If roach/marauder/(immortal) would be removed I think the game would get a lot more interessting!
i hate those marauder-ball vs roach-ball battles, where there is like a 30 marauders-ball focusing one unit, then retreating, firing again, retreating.. while the incoming roach-ball ist just a-moving into them and still has a chance to win. both units suck..
and anyway, what kind of zerg creature is the roach supposed to be? yeah, zerglings, hydras, mutas, ultras, lurkers.. they all kind of looked like zerg! but the roach? is just an ugly looking bug. ok that pretty sums it up: the roach is a bug.
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I don't think this is true. Not specifically the roach anyways.
The Marauder, Roach and Immortal are all equally imbalanced.
I actually find the Immortal to be the least overpowered out of all of these (and I'm not even a Protoss player). It at least holds a defined role as a hard counter to high damage units. I think it does a little too much damage considering it's also a tank for absorbing damage and relatively mobile. At least its supposed hard counters such as zerglings are actually a counter to it, much unlike the Marauder
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On April 05 2010 20:09 Ronald_McD wrote:
I don't think this is true. Not specifically the roach anyways.
The Marauder, Roach and Immortal are all equally imbalanced.
I actually find the Immortal to be the least overpowered out of all of these (and I'm not even a Protoss player). It at least holds a defined role as a hard counter to high damage units. I think it does a little too much damage considering it's also a tank for absorbing damage and relatively mobile. At least its supposed hard counters such as zerglings are actually a counter to it, much unlike the Marauder
The OP is actually claiming that. But the problem itselfs lies in the roach. The roach created the need for too strong marauders in T that then again created the immortal need.
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i strongly agree with the OP, and I'm pretty sure anyone who doesn't probably doesn't understand his argument. He is talking about how stupid the hard counter system is.
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They wont go away so
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its a good point by the op, the whole game would change, the roach is overpowered against all ground units except marauder and immortal.
with a nerf by like 20% of the roach, marauder and immortal, more different openings would be viable.
but blizzards goal is to release the game in 2 month, the time would be to short to rebalance all the mu.
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I think that all 3 units just need a small drop in damage output. I don't mind the HP/Armor of the roach/marauder. And maybe take the heavy attribute off buildings. +dmg to structures can be added to units if needed.
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but blizzards goal is to release the game in 2 month, the time would be to short to rebalance all the mu.
I don't see the problem with this. SC2 doesn't have to be perfectly balanced at release. That's what patches are for, no?
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On April 05 2010 20:55 violett wrote:but blizzards goal is to release the game in 2 month, the time would be to short to rebalance all the mu.
that's kind of the problem with blizzard betas, they are putting out a beta that would have been a final product from another company. It's a good and bad thing. Good is that you don't have to deal with lots of bugs. Bad is that when there's something really wrong with balance/gameplay, they are not necessarily willing to change.
At this stage of the game, they are really just trying to fine tune everything. They aren't looking to make drastic changes unless the "data" shows it being overpowered or whatever. I guess we'll see, getting a lot of attention is good if Blizzard does look at this site and maybe Dustin is willing to listen to the gamers.
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They could just reduce the roaches armor from 2 to 0, would fix practically every issue about it.
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On April 05 2010 21:00 SirNeb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 20:55 violett wrote:but blizzards goal is to release the game in 2 month, the time would be to short to rebalance all the mu. that's kind of the problem with blizzard betas, they are putting out a beta that would have been a final product from another company. It's a good and bad thing. Good is that you don't have to deal with lots of bugs. Bad is that when there's something really wrong with balance/gameplay, they are not necessarily willing to change. At this stage of the game, they are really just trying to fine tune everything. They aren't looking to make drastic changes unless the "data" shows it being overpowered or whatever. I guess we'll see, getting a lot of attention is good if Blizzard does look at this site and maybe Dustin is willing to listen to the gamers.
Nobody is expecting for sc2 to be perfectly balanced when it comes out.. It takes years to fine tune stuff..
Op post is big deal..
I like his idea of roaches -50hp but have constant +4 regen.. And then balance marauders to that..
It would make roaches more interesting to micro in smaller numbers..
Marauders have slow so they are also interesting to micro..
Stalkers could use some weaker form of blink with current blink researchable so they have some interesting micro early game..
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On April 05 2010 21:00 SirNeb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 20:55 violett wrote:but blizzards goal is to release the game in 2 month, the time would be to short to rebalance all the mu. that's kind of the problem with blizzard betas, they are putting out a beta that would have been a final product from another company. It's a good and bad thing. Good is that you don't have to deal with lots of bugs. Bad is that when there's something really wrong with balance/gameplay, they are not necessarily willing to change. At this stage of the game, they are really just trying to fine tune everything. They aren't looking to make drastic changes unless the "data" shows it being overpowered or whatever. I guess we'll see, getting a lot of attention is good if Blizzard does look at this site and maybe Dustin is willing to listen to the gamers.
The problem is their data can't show disappointment and boredom in mus. =p
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Roaches are too good. I mean, 75/25, 145 hp, 16 base damage with 3 range AND IT ONLY TAKES 1 FOOD. That's what's ridiculous. The 1 food thing.
I think Blizzard should decrease the Roaches' hp, like maybe from 145 to 115, 120... Also, it should definitely take 2 food. You just have to watch DIMAGA's game to see it. The guy doesn't even bother with anything else, he goes fe, prod two Queens and then masses up Roaches and crushes most of his P opponents.
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Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
Very interesting thread to read and most definitly a valid point. The most fun units are not the 'attack click' ones, though you need some of those too. If only we had more units such as sentries or baneling.. :o
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On April 05 2010 21:24 Spaylz wrote:
Roaches are too good. I mean, 75/25, 145 hp, 16 base damage with 3 range AND IT ONLY TAKES 1 FOOD. That's what's ridiculous. The 1 food thing.
I think Blizzard should decrease the Roaches' hp, like maybe from 145 to 115, 120... Also, it should definitely take 2 food.
its just stupid that a stalker that costs 125 / 50 (almost double ) cant even take one out
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On April 05 2010 10:45 Half wrote:
The roaches role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in 08. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 15 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence.
Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T2 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state
The answer to almost all of SC2s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the roach. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in SC2 will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. Templars will be able to be balanced correctly (As health among T1 units will be more normalized against terran, rather then the enormous discrepancy we have now).
Finally! The main problem with SC2 has been identified. We have to bring attention to these game-wrecking units before SC2 is released. I've actually been whining about this over skype for days, wondering why Blizzard never did anything to balance the roach.
The problem isn't the roach per se, but that all three races have hard counters to ground that are accessible at tier 1. I can say with certainty, that if I'm forced to build Marauders every game (which is currently the case) to win securely, I'm not going to buy Starcraft 2.
It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?
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On April 05 2010 21:29 Marradron wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 21:24 Spaylz wrote:
Roaches are too good. I mean, 75/25, 145 hp, 16 base damage with 3 range AND IT ONLY TAKES 1 FOOD. That's what's ridiculous. The 1 food thing.
I think Blizzard should decrease the Roaches' hp, like maybe from 145 to 115, 120... Also, it should definitely take 2 food. its just stupid that a sentry that costs 125 / 50 (almost double ) cant even take one out
Uh, Sentries cost 50/100.
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Spread the knowledge of this thread to blizzard..
They need to know this stuff..
Since marauder is used so much right now they might nerf if but leave other things the same when its really the trio of units who skew the metagame.. Immortals not so much in relation to roach/marauder but terran mech options.
Considering they did some random stuff in patches who knows if they are aware of this..
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I also think Mutalisks need some kind of nerf too. In PvZ, mass Mutalisks is litteraly unbeatable. And no, Stalkers don't counter them. If the Protoss expands and the Zerg chooses to harass with his Mutalisks, the Stalkers will never be able to run in time to defend both bases, and the Protoss would need like 10 cannons on each base to counter a 10+ muta harass.
This is actually pretty damn boring, every single Zerg I play just masses up Mutalisks, forces me to stay in my base while he expands everywhere and just crushes me with 150 pop 5 minutes later, when the mass Muta itself is not enough. Mutalisks need to have their hp decreased to 90 or 100 and also need to be nerfed speedwise. They're too polyvalent right now, no amount of air unit can compete with them in an air air fight, aside from maybe mass Carriers. I don't know about Terran, but I think that Phoenixes should be able to handle Mutalisks. Just common sense.
"It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?"
Ok now that's bullshit. While it does take 10 Siege Tanks shots to get through an Immortal's shield, Immortals can't one shot tanks. It takes 3 shots (which is still very powerful, but no need to exagerate it). Also, Colossi have been nerfed and they don't one shot marines anymore (which I find pretty damn ridiculous, people get surprised that a 300/200 T2.5 unit one shot the most basic T1 units, hello?) AND Colossi are very hardcountered by air. You just have to get two vikings to down one Colossus in a few seconds, there's nothing to complain about. Not to mention most Protoss players are forced to go Robo now because of the Storm nerf and because of EMP.
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On April 05 2010 21:32 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 21:29 Marradron wrote:On April 05 2010 21:24 Spaylz wrote:
Roaches are too good. I mean, 75/25, 145 hp, 16 base damage with 3 range AND IT ONLY TAKES 1 FOOD. That's what's ridiculous. The 1 food thing.
I think Blizzard should decrease the Roaches' hp, like maybe from 145 to 115, 120... Also, it should definitely take 2 food. its just stupid that a sentry that costs 125 / 50 (almost double ) cant even take one out Uh, Sentries cost 50/100.
I meant stalkers xD sorry, my fault
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On April 05 2010 21:30 Sinekyre14 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:45 Half wrote:
The roaches role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in 08. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 15 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence.
Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T2 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state
The answer to almost all of SC2s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the roach. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in SC2 will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. Templars will be able to be balanced correctly (As health among T1 units will be more normalized against terran, rather then the enormous discrepancy we have now). Finally! The main problem with SC2 has been identified. We have to bring attention to these game-wrecking units before SC2 is released. I've actually been whining about this over skype for days, wondering why Blizzard never did anything to balance the roach. The problem isn't the roach per se, but that all three races have hard counters to ground that are accessible at tier 1. I can say with certainty, that if I'm forced to build Marauders every game (which is currently the case) to win securely, I'm not going to buy Starcraft 2. It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?
Lol so your saying immortals one shot tanks ? try again.
and one collossus without micro can take quite some rines. but not 100000. I'd say its like a reaver.
Biased mutch for terran ??
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On April 05 2010 21:30 Sinekyre14 wrote:
Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?
Reavers/high templars couldnt?
They owned them so much more that current templar and collosus..
Problem is of different kind that they dominate the metagame too much..
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I think Blizzard has balanced themselves into a hole with roach/marauder/immortal, they can't really touch any of them without changing the others. They all have a place in the game, but not as they are now.
My scrubby changes:
1) Roach to 50g, -1 armor
2) Marauder to 125m, slow to tech lab, keep stim
3) No clue about immortal
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people keep complaining about the storm nerf
it still seems as strong as ever. since you can just blanket entire armies in storm with nearly no effort for extended periods of time.
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On April 05 2010 21:33 Spaylz wrote:
I also think Mutalisks need some kind of nerf too. In PvZ, mass Mutalisks is litteraly unbeatable. And no, Stalkers don't counter them. If the Protoss expands and the Zerg chooses to harass with his Mutalisks, the Stalkers will never be able to run in time to defend both bases, and the Protoss would need like 10 cannons on each base to counter a 10+ muta harass.
This is actually pretty damn boring, every single Zerg I play just masses up Mutalisks, forces me to stay in my base while he expands everywhere and just crushes me with 150 pop 5 minutes later, when the mass Muta itself is not enough. Mutalisks need to have their hp decreased to 90 or 100 and also need to be nerfed speedwise. They're too polyvalent right now, no amount of air unit can compete with them in an air air fight, aside from maybe mass Carriers. I don't know about Terran, but I think that Phoenixes should be able to handle Mutalisks. Just common sense.
"It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?"
Ok now that's bullshit. While it does take 10 Siege Tanks shots to get through an Immortal's shield, Immortals can't one shot tanks. It takes 3 shots (which is still very powerful, but no need to exagerate it). Also, Colossi have been nerfed and they don't one shot marines anymore (which I find pretty damn ridiculous, people get surprised that a 300/200 T2.5 unit one shot the most basic T1 units, hello?) AND Colossi are very hardcountered by air. You just have to get two vikings to down one Colossus in a few seconds, there's nothing to complain about. Not to mention most Protoss players are forced to go Robo now because of the Storm nerf and because of EMP.
I don't think the problem is that mutas have too much HP, but rather that Protoss has 1 splash damage unit that can't even properly counter Mutas. Think about it for a second. Terran got the Thor buffed probably just for mutalisks. Zerg has banelings to do God knows what to Terran, I dare not say... and Protoss has Archons.... but through the mass amount of testing and usage of these blue creatures, it's obvious that they are pretty ineffective. The best way to target the muta problem isn't to nerf them (since they're relatively weak against T) but to buff the Archon splash range. The second a toss goes for phoenix the hydra start massing... it's a game of hard counters. PvZ as a whole is broken as well as PvT.
Here's a typical PvZ game:
Zerg: 1 base pool
Toss: 1 gate core
Zerg: Expand
Toss: Robo + Gate
Zerg: Roaches + Lings/Hydra
Toss: Zealot + Stalker + Sentry + Immortal + Obs (if they decided to burrow tech)
Zerg: Muta
Toss: Stargate --> Phoenix + Sentry
Zerg: Hydra
Toss: GG
And PvT:
Terran: Marauders
Toss: GG
Also because of the roach/muta + marauder problem I've switched from Toss to Random, since it's easier to win as Zerg AND Terran than it is to win as Protoss. Not going to bother finding a counter that doesn't exist.
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On April 05 2010 21:44 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 21:33 Spaylz wrote:
I also think Mutalisks need some kind of nerf too. In PvZ, mass Mutalisks is litteraly unbeatable. And no, Stalkers don't counter them. If the Protoss expands and the Zerg chooses to harass with his Mutalisks, the Stalkers will never be able to run in time to defend both bases, and the Protoss would need like 10 cannons on each base to counter a 10+ muta harass.
This is actually pretty damn boring, every single Zerg I play just masses up Mutalisks, forces me to stay in my base while he expands everywhere and just crushes me with 150 pop 5 minutes later, when the mass Muta itself is not enough. Mutalisks need to have their hp decreased to 90 or 100 and also need to be nerfed speedwise. They're too polyvalent right now, no amount of air unit can compete with them in an air air fight, aside from maybe mass Carriers. I don't know about Terran, but I think that Phoenixes should be able to handle Mutalisks. Just common sense.
"It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?"
Ok now that's bullshit. While it does take 10 Siege Tanks shots to get through an Immortal's shield, Immortals can't one shot tanks. It takes 3 shots (which is still very powerful, but no need to exagerate it). Also, Colossi have been nerfed and they don't one shot marines anymore (which I find pretty damn ridiculous, people get surprised that a 300/200 T2.5 unit one shot the most basic T1 units, hello?) AND Colossi are very hardcountered by air. You just have to get two vikings to down one Colossus in a few seconds, there's nothing to complain about. Not to mention most Protoss players are forced to go Robo now because of the Storm nerf and because of EMP. I don't think the problem is that mutas have too much HP, but rather that Protoss has 1 splash damage unit that can't even properly counter Mutas. Think about it for a second. Terran got the Thor buffed probably just for mutalisks. Zerg has banelings to do God knows what to Terran, I dare not say... and Protoss has Archons.... but through the mass amount of testing and usage of these blue creatures, it's obvious that they are pretty ineffective. The best way to target the muta problem isn't to nerf them (since they're relatively weak against T) but to buff the Archon splash range. The second a toss goes for phoenix the hydra start massing... it's a game of hard counters. PvZ as a whole is broken as well as PvT. Here's a typical PvZ game: Zerg: 1 base pool Toss: 1 gate core Zerg: Expand Toss: Robo + Gate Zerg: Roaches + Lings/Hydra Toss: Zealot + Stalker + Sentry + Immortal + Obs (if they decided to burrow tech) Zerg: Muta Toss: Stargate --> Phoenix + Sentry Zerg: Hydra Toss: GG And PvT: Terran: Marauders Toss: GG Also because of the roach/muta + marauder problem I've switched from Toss to Random, since it's easier to win as Zerg AND Terran than it is to win as Protoss. Not going to bother finding a counter that doesn't exist.
Archon doesnt even have splash.. Only air splash was storm which is not useful vs mutas with much lower area..
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I think all three units can be balanced and be made into three units that fit three distinct roles rather than three all round very strong units. The roach should be changed to 2 supply and maybe have its hp and cost raised to balance the increased supply cost. This would make the roach an early damage soaking unit for zerg but would make it impossible to mass them in the numbers we see today.
Marauders should have their damage reduced and also their hp and cost slightly reduced making them ineffective on their own. They would then be used for their slowing effect and not their damage and would be grouped with other units that could deal the damage. Since the hp is reduced but the stim still costs the same amount of hp, Marauders with stim wouldn't be as OP as before.
Immortals should have their bonus damage against armored units reduced. Their main trait should be their hardened shields, they should be a tanking unit to soak up damage from units like tanks and thors. If they weren't the heavy damage dealers vs armored units that they are today terran mech might be viable.
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On April 05 2010 21:44 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 21:33 Spaylz wrote:
I also think Mutalisks need some kind of nerf too. In PvZ, mass Mutalisks is litteraly unbeatable. And no, Stalkers don't counter them. If the Protoss expands and the Zerg chooses to harass with his Mutalisks, the Stalkers will never be able to run in time to defend both bases, and the Protoss would need like 10 cannons on each base to counter a 10+ muta harass.
This is actually pretty damn boring, every single Zerg I play just masses up Mutalisks, forces me to stay in my base while he expands everywhere and just crushes me with 150 pop 5 minutes later, when the mass Muta itself is not enough. Mutalisks need to have their hp decreased to 90 or 100 and also need to be nerfed speedwise. They're too polyvalent right now, no amount of air unit can compete with them in an air air fight, aside from maybe mass Carriers. I don't know about Terran, but I think that Phoenixes should be able to handle Mutalisks. Just common sense.
"It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?"
Ok now that's bullshit. While it does take 10 Siege Tanks shots to get through an Immortal's shield, Immortals can't one shot tanks. It takes 3 shots (which is still very powerful, but no need to exagerate it). Also, Colossi have been nerfed and they don't one shot marines anymore (which I find pretty damn ridiculous, people get surprised that a 300/200 T2.5 unit one shot the most basic T1 units, hello?) AND Colossi are very hardcountered by air. You just have to get two vikings to down one Colossus in a few seconds, there's nothing to complain about. Not to mention most Protoss players are forced to go Robo now because of the Storm nerf and because of EMP. I don't think the problem is that mutas have too much HP, but rather that Protoss has 1 splash damage unit that can't even properly counter Mutas. Think about it for a second. Terran got the Thor buffed probably just for mutalisks. Zerg has banelings to do God knows what to Terran, I dare not say... and Protoss has Archons.... but through the mass amount of testing and usage of these blue creatures, it's obvious that they are pretty ineffective. The best way to target the muta problem isn't to nerf them (since they're relatively weak against T) but to buff the Archon splash range. The second a toss goes for phoenix the hydra start massing... it's a game of hard counters. PvZ as a whole is broken as well as PvT. Here's a typical PvZ game: Zerg: 1 base pool Toss: 1 gate core Zerg: Expand Toss: Robo + Gate Zerg: Roaches + Lings/Hydra Toss: Zealot + Stalker + Sentry + Immortal + Obs (if they decided to burrow tech) Zerg: Muta Toss: Stargate --> Phoenix + Sentry Zerg: Hydra Toss: GG And PvT: Terran: Marauders Toss: GG Also because of the roach/muta + marauder problem I've switched from Toss to Random, since it's easier to win as Zerg AND Terran than it is to win as Protoss. Not going to bother finding a counter that doesn't exist.
Nah, Archons are not the solution. You would have to tech to Templars, then merge two or four of them, etc... The gas cost would be insanely high and there would still be a good chance that the massive amount of Mutalisks would just eat your Archons up.
But you're right, the answer isn't to nerf Mutalisks, but to buff Protoss air counters. Stalkers have already been buffed and they're decent now, but Phoenixes are still worthless. They're the ones that need buffing. If Phoenixes get buffed, like if they would get some kind of air-to-air AoE attack (Corsair hi...), it would be just fine. They're the only units that can catch up with Mutalisks speedwise, and they would still be pretty pricy, but at least it would create ONE option, ONE real way to counter Mutalisks. And that's what Protoss needs.
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nice read and I totally agree with you... hated those roaches from day1 and I still cannot understand why Blizzard implemented them in the game. I also cannot understand why there are such high DMG-Boni against certain Armor-types and why there is no real highground-advantage.
Make DMG-Boni much weaker and give the game real highground advantage and the game would in it's core be fine and you would just have to tweak some Units a bit... This whole rock-paper-scissor-stuff is just so stupid and Blizzard promised they wouldn't do that with SC2, but here we are, just massing counterunits...
Lets say for example that there is no more DMG-additions, you basically had to make roaches have less Armor (so that Marines could be used against them), give the Immortal an attack-buff (like 30 basic and maybe +5-10 vs Armored) and change the shield-ability a bit so that it's not just a hard-counter to tanks and voilà - You'd see lots more marines, tanks and non-immortal oriented stuff being used.
Also; give Buildings another Armor-Type than "Armored" at least... because it's ridiculous how fast Immortals or Marauders kick buildings... especially Mass-marauders with Stim can snipe a nexus and retreat within seconds - how ridiculous is that? Also, you can buff static defense as hard as you want it won't get used if Immortals deal +30 DMG and Marauders double of the basic DMG...
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On April 05 2010 21:52 DrainX wrote:
I think all three units can be balanced and be made into three units that fit three distinct roles rather than three all round very strong units. The roach should be changed to 2 supply and maybe have its hp and cost raised to balance the increased supply cost. This would make the roach an early damage soaking unit for zerg but would make it impossible to mass them in the numbers we see today.
Marauders should have their damage reduced and also their hp and cost slightly reduced making them ineffective on their own. They would then be used for their slowing effect and not their damage and would be grouped with other units that could deal the damage. Since the hp is reduced but the stim still costs the same amount of hp, Marauders with stim wouldn't be as OP as before.
Immortals should have their bonus damage against armored units reduced. Their main trait should be their hardened shields, they should be a tanking unit to soak up damage from units like tanks and thors. If they weren't the heavy damage dealers vs armored units that they are today terran mech might be viable.
Seriously, fly to Blizzard HQ and tell this to their faces. I like how the units are changed from their hard counter scheme to a unique role.
However, I think the Roach would be a less boring unit if it would walk very slow on ground but very fast while burrowed. They would also have very low HP but very rapid regeneration that the only way they would die is getting detection and focus firing on them one by one. I don't like how the Roach currently has decent HP and close-to-normal regen which kinda strays from his supposed design logic.
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blizz developers should seriously read this. good and valid points!
standardization of units that once had distinct and "fun" roles cannot be the way to go. either discard the idea or balance the unit in a way that it has its own unique function in a diverse army and not the main allrounder role.
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On April 05 2010 21:52 DrainX wrote:
I think all three units can be balanced and be made into three units that fit three distinct roles rather than three all round very strong units. The roach should be changed to 2 supply and maybe have its hp and cost raised to balance the increased supply cost. This would make the roach an early damage soaking unit for zerg but would make it impossible to mass them in the numbers we see today.
Marauders should have their damage reduced and also their hp and cost slightly reduced making them ineffective on their own. They would then be used for their slowing effect and not their damage and would be grouped with other units that could deal the damage. Since the hp is reduced but the stim still costs the same amount of hp, Marauders with stim wouldn't be as OP as before.
Immortals should have their bonus damage against armored units reduced. Their main trait should be their hardened shields, they should be a tanking unit to soak up damage from units like tanks and thors. If they weren't the heavy damage dealers vs armored units that they are today terran mech might be viable.
/AGREED!
I just hate being forced to play certain Units - it totally kills the game-diversity... But at least we've seen a few cuts in Bonus-DMG in the last few patches, though the biggest Problems are still remaining, those being Immos and Marauders of course.
I mean: Blizzard said that they would do bigger changes if necessary, so WTF is up with that? If you see roaches and marauders and Immortals don't really work instead of being just stupid counter-units or Units you have to counter, why not change them?...
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On April 05 2010 22:57 Ghardo wrote:
blizz developers should seriously read this. good and valid points!
standardization of units that once had distinct and "fun" roles cannot be the way to go. either discard the idea or balance the unit in a way that it has its own unique function in a diverse army and not the main allrounder role.
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24038430112&sid=5000
Whoever created this thread thanks
I would suggest everyone who has complaints to voice their opinions OVER THERE. Since they will probably read their own threads if it looks like it's a huge issue they will take it more seriously.
I also linked Plexa's marauder thread and I hope the OP will add it so they have both threads for reference, since both of these threads have had great discussions on Roaches/Marauders/Immortals.
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After some thoughts of the issue, hard counters are not necessarily the problem. It's hard counters in the EARLY game. It's almost like if terran has a tier 1 AIR unit that you can get from the barrack. Ya, you can counter it but it forces an exact opening. If you don't go for what is forced upon you, you just die.. period. For marines/zealots and roach relationship, that's exactly it.
Though immortals and siege tank relationship, it's very iffy because siege tank was such an important part of the terran army and one unit pretty much make them undesirable(I won't say "useless"). The problem with immortals isn't the fact that they are hard counters to siege tanks, it's that there aren't a hard counter against them in the same magnitude. Of course, air to ground is a "hard" counter but support comes way too easily and air is never the ideal main army compositions. First problem is mostly due to costs of air units, it's not easily massable and usually pretty easily counterable. Second is that the counter from air to ground doesn't 3 shot an immortal like it does to a 125 gas costing siege tank AND the siege tank does little damage to the immortal. But this issue is different because it is not early game and there are many variations and choices, which doesn't make it as big of a deal as roach vs marine/zealots or even marauders vs zealots relationship.
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I wish Blizzard listens to this as it did with the static defence.
If they fix this and the high to low ground advantage, SC2 is good to go for me.
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On April 05 2010 10:59 Angra wrote:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch.
This.
I hope Blizzard gets the enough feed back to realize it.
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Makes alot of sense actually, I have been thinking the same thing.
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On April 05 2010 23:48 TheRunawayFound wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:59 Angra wrote:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch. This. I hope Blizzard gets the enough feed back to realize it.
Yeah, let's make it more like SC:BW!!! Isn't that something we want to avoid?
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I do not want a starcraft 1.. however, with the current "mass tier 1-2 units and win beacuse you're dumb if you don't" is not the kind of balance we want.
I do not know how deal with these armor units without pretty much re-creating starcraft 1(ie removing them).
It's a tough nut to crack for sure..
But the overall idea has to revolve around the following:
TIER 1 units must have soft counters within the tier and harder counters later in tech tree, you can't just mass marauders beacuse its the only way to beat mass roaches, they need to remove the forced choice.
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On April 05 2010 23:12 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 22:57 Ghardo wrote:
blizz developers should seriously read this. good and valid points!
standardization of units that once had distinct and "fun" roles cannot be the way to go. either discard the idea or balance the unit in a way that it has its own unique function in a diverse army and not the main allrounder role. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24038430112&sid=5000Whoever created this thread thanks I would suggest everyone who has complaints to voice their opinions OVER THERE. Since they will probably read their own threads if it looks like it's a huge issue they will take it more seriously.
Agreed. Flood the field guys.
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wow...this is actually exactly whats wrong with the game.
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On April 06 2010 00:03 Senx wrote:
TIER 1 units must have soft counters within the tier and harder counters later in tech tree, you can't just mass marauders beacuse its the only way to beat mass roaches, they need to remove the forced choice.
Yeah, I want to have the freedom with my Reaper Harass to MMM Push build.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On April 05 2010 10:45 Half wrote:
That a unit as absurd as a roach should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework.
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Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit.
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Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra
The entirety of this argument is trying to make this game Broodwar.
Starcraft 2 is not Broodwar, I don't understand why people have the overpowering urge to look at everything within a "traditional" SC framework. It's a new game, we should be looking at the framework of the new game, not trying to fit it into the old framework, and when realizing that doesn't work, begin complaining for patches until it does.
We want Starcraft 2, not Broodwar with prettier graphics. You even said it yourself - Roaches are fine in their role in SC2. Therefore, it's a fine unit. The dynamics of a matchup and all this other stuff is another matter completely. By, for example, removing the Roach, you're not introducing new-found life into SC2, you're trying to twist it into Broodwar.
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On April 06 2010 00:19 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:45 Half wrote:
That a unit as absurd as a roach should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework.
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Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit.
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Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra The entirety of this argument is trying to make this game Broodwar. Starcraft 2 is not Broodwar, I don't understand why people have the overpowering urge to look at everything within a "traditional" SC framework. It's a new game, we should be looking at the framework of the new game, not trying to fit it into the old framework, and when realizing that doesn't work, begin complaining for patches until it does. We want Starcraft 2, not Broodwar with prettier graphics. You even said it yourself - Roaches are fine in their role in SC2. Therefore, it's a fine unit. The dynamics of a matchup and all this other stuff is another matter completely. By, for example, removing the Roach, you're not introducing new-found life into SC2, you're trying to twist it into Broodwar.
Oh come on dude. Really? No one is saying we want Brood War back. That's an asinine argument against this. All we want is a set of matchups that at their core aren't based around extensions to the Trinity of Blah that we have in the Roach Immortal and Marauder. In and of themselves I think most people aren't particularly enamored with the units, but adding to the fact that they all require the others to be built in order to stay competitive, it just leads to boring matchups (from a spectator AND player perspective). All this thread is about is stating that something needs to change to get us away from having to have these units define their respective races strategies. Nothing about Brood War. I promise.
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Roaches need to be 2Cap Unit not 1... that would fix them.
I know no unit from Toss is 1Cap only the Probe.
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On April 05 2010 23:12 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 22:57 Ghardo wrote:
blizz developers should seriously read this. good and valid points!
standardization of units that once had distinct and "fun" roles cannot be the way to go. either discard the idea or balance the unit in a way that it has its own unique function in a diverse army and not the main allrounder role. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24038430112&sid=5000Whoever created this thread thanks I would suggest everyone who has complaints to voice their opinions OVER THERE. Since they will probably read their own threads if it looks like it's a huge issue they will take it more seriously. I also linked Plexa's marauder thread and I hope the OP will add it so they have both threads for reference, since both of these threads have had great discussions on Roaches/Marauders/Immortals.
Thanks to whoever re-posted my post in that thread. I can't post there myself since EU beta accounts can't post on the US beta forums.
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I think the OP made a very good point but I doubt blizzard will make changes that dramatic
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On April 06 2010 00:19 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
The entirety of this argument is trying to make this game Broodwar.
Starcraft 2 is not Broodwar, I don't understand why people have the overpowering urge to look at everything within a "traditional" SC framework. It's a new game, we should be looking at the framework of the new game, not trying to fit it into the old framework, and when realizing that doesn't work, begin complaining for patches until it does.
We want Starcraft 2, not Broodwar with prettier graphics. You even said it yourself - Roaches are fine in their role in SC2. Therefore, it's a fine unit. The dynamics of a matchup and all this other stuff is another matter completely. By, for example, removing the Roach, you're not introducing new-found life into SC2, you're trying to twist it into Broodwar.
SC1's formula is just too good that you would be a fool to design an esport not based on it. Blizzard is making an esport and being forced to use Roaches/Immortals/Marauders every game wouldn't do any good for the long run.
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On April 06 2010 00:35 [ADT]-FaZiNaTe-[GeR] wrote:
Roaches need to be 2Cap Unit not 1... that would fix them.
I know no unit from Toss is 1Cap only the Probe.
Observer too, to be nit-picky.
Thanks to whoever re-posted my post in that thread. I can't post there myself since EU beta accounts can't post on the US beta forums.
You're welcome? :p
It needed to be posted, frankly.
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another annoying thing about marauders is that people think kiting is 'uber micro'.
hell no. any spaz can micro a clump of stimpack marauders against slowed units..
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On April 05 2010 23:55 Zexion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 23:48 TheRunawayFound wrote:On April 05 2010 10:59 Angra wrote:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch. This. I hope Blizzard gets the enough feed back to realize it. Yeah, let's make it more like SC:BW!!! Isn't that something we want to avoid?
No, it's not something we want to avoid at all. Did you forget that this is a Brood War website?
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On April 06 2010 01:23 daz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 23:55 Zexion wrote:On April 05 2010 23:48 TheRunawayFound wrote:On April 05 2010 10:59 Angra wrote:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if removing roaches, marauders and immortals from the game made it 10x more interesting and fun to play/watch. This. I hope Blizzard gets the enough feed back to realize it. Yeah, let's make it more like SC:BW!!! Isn't that something we want to avoid? No, it's not something we want to avoid at all. Did you forget that this is a Brood War website?
If 3 units are all that makes SC2 unique from BW, then I think we have some even more serious problems...
Having said that I don't think its necessary to remove them, just tweak their stats and the stats of other units in relation. It takes a lot of trial and error but no real major changes.
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I agree with the OP for the most part, and had an interesting idea just now for fixing the roach. Noticing that the hydra, a tier 2 unit, has less hp, armor, and dmg, and costs more min, gas, and food, against a ground army (in theory - this obviously isn't the case) the roach is superior in every way. So, what effect would it have to swap the stats on these two units? Un-nerf the roach regen to help give them their unit identity back, but drop their HP to 90, their damage to 12(+1), and their armor to zero to make them more of a 1 food cost unit. To keep the zerg army competitive, buff the hydra dmg to 16(+2), give them 145 health, and 2 base armor. From a theorycrafting PoV, this gives the zerg more of a progression in its ground army, and makes massing roaches significantly less viable as it lacks the damage output to effectively compete with tier 2 armies from any race. However, its burrowing abilities would help keep it relevant throughout the game.
I'm sure doing a straight swap (as I did above) would not actually be balanced in game, but I'm curious to know what other people think about giving the roach a fairly major nerf, while retaining the 1-food and old regen, and buffing the hydra a little to make it more representative of its cost.
Disclaimer: I play as protoss, not zerg, so I'm not sure exactly how powerful the hydra actually is atm, especially in ZvT.
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if you don't mass marauders vs a zerg that goes roach hydra, you will lose. TvT there seems to be more options but even then mass marauders is powerful, and in TvP maraudor/ghost is the ONLY viable thing, and toss are now starting to counter it quite well with sentry play.
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So having read all of this and agreeing for the most part a few ideas formulated in my head to recreate racial identity and discourage the blob of 1 kind of unit.
Have roaches be produced 2 per egg at 70~ hp (5 hp nurf) and 1 armor, 8 dmg. This is a substantial nurf against massing units like marines and zealots because armor upgrades on these units provide a much more significant bonus. This is a nurf to marauder slow because you have twice as many targets to slow, but a buff to marines because their armor bonuses are more effective, and they deal more dmg (armor debuff on roaches).
Its a slight nurf to immortals (they take 4 hits now instead of 3 to kill a similar number or roaches) but a buff to zealots and stalkers for same reason as the marine. This enables the immortal to have its damage reduced against mech, while retaining the original idea that it counters tanks/mech huge damage.
This leaves marauders open to a similar damage or hp change to make them less effective against everything protoss does.
Just some thoughts i was throwing around in my head. Ideas?
Thi
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I think the OP is definitely on to something here.
The roach is forcing the other races to hard counter, and it's forcing the metagame down more narrow paths.
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The problem with this trinity of units (roach/marauder/immortal) is that all three units behave and have stats similar to a unit that belongs in the Protoss army. Blizzard needs to find a counter-soft counter relationship between three units like these without turning them all into 130+ HP, slow moving, projectile shooting, "Dragoon-like" units. The way they move and behave is too similar to a unit that should only belong in the Protoss army.
Blizzard needs to find a unit trinity that has an interesting relationship, but that also behaves very differently. Give the Roach less durability, but more speed and quantity. Give the Marauder less durability, but more positional or set-up potential. Keep the Protoss units the same, because there's nothing wrong with them in the first place. What's wrong is when the OTHER two races becomes like the Protoss.
This is why, since the beginning, most people felt that the Protoss was the most "polished" race (according to various surveys). Its because Blizzard knows how to design them. They're "easier" to design. Their large health pools and lower unit count made it so that the developers could focus on their spells and things like that. It's harder with Zerg because you need to design a race which uses its shear numbers to its advantage, not its spells and HP pools. Thus, army movement and surrounding becomes more important. Terran is even harder because you need to design a race where its strong when set up properly and weak when it isnt. This is very difficult to do, but making a Protoss race is relatively easy (a race with fewer units, but makes up for it with stronger stats and more spells). Making every race like Protoss shouldn't be the answer.
The way i've described this trinity is of course my own opinion, and I feel that SC2 moves it away from the relationship I've described above.. but I believe that they shouldn't have. In response to the OP, yes, the unit trinity does indeed run deep in the "problem" in sc2, but simply removing the Roach won't fix it. They need to change a few things between these 3 units so that the 3 races can play in a much mroe distinct way.
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It seems some people are misunderstanding the OP.
He is NOT saying that roaches make zerg overpowered relative to the other races. In fact, he's saying the races are probably balanced. However, the races are balanced by virtue of 2 other 'broken' units, the immortal and the marauder.
His main point is, that the roaches are overpowered relative to other zerg units. And because they are the 'hard counters', marauders and immortals are in the same boat. They are too strong relative to alternative units.
The problem is that making roaches/marauders/immortals, is almost always better than making any other units. There is a dominant unit which it is ALWAYS the best to build. And this cuts down on the strategic depth of the game: a BAD thing.
So the OP has a good point and I'd actually like to hear some reasoned responses. (More or less like BW doesn't seem very relevant.)
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I really like this reason. I hope Blizzard people get a chance to read this thread and really rethink this problem.
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i just don't see why they have so much hp AND 2 armor, 2 armor just completly screws over the T1 units, lings and marines get their damage cut down by 33 and 40 percent, zealots fare abit better at 25% but they can't catch up to roaches anyways. If the roch didn't have 2 armor then you could kill them with sufficent T1 units, but that just isn't anywhere near cost effective right now, you need high damage per shot to get trough that 2 armor.
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I think roaches in their currect form is the main reason no one builds ultralisks. Everyone needs to build a high damage vs armored unit to deal with roaches early, and probably mass them throughout the game. Why the heck would the zerg want to invest into the ultralisk building, and two upgrades just to make a unit that is already countered by half the other players army the second your first ultralisk spawns?
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I agree with a significant health nerf to the Roach, combined with a reimplementation of high hp regeneration. This could be followed with a nerf to Marauder HP and a nerf to both Marauder and Immortal specialized damage bonus'.
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I agree quite strongly with the OP.
I play Zerg and I actually think Zerg would not be very underpowered even if the Roach was removed completely.
Better still they could replace it with something more interesting.
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On April 06 2010 01:40 TSL-Lore wrote:Blizzard needs to find a counter-soft counter relationship between three units like these without turning them all into 130+ HP, slow moving, projectile shooting, "Dragoon-like" units. The way they move and behave is too similar to a unit that should only belong in the Protoss army.
I agree a lot with this. Stylistically the Roach definitely doesn't fit in with the rest of the Zerg race. To a lesser extent, neither does the Marauder fit in with Terran. Zerg and Terran just arent supposed to have units that tough at such a low tier. Tough but expensive units are Protoss territory.
I'm not really sure what can be done about the Roach, but I will say that the SC1 hydra was a perfect T1.5 Zerg unit: a versatile workhorse that scales well into the late.
I think stylistically it would be best if Marauders were meant to be used as support to Marines, which in turn are used as the primary vessels of damage. Considering they fire concussion grenades, I think some kind of low damage AoE attack with a minor but stackable (to a limit) AoE slow (and no bonus vs armored) would be great. This way common Terran T1 play would be mostly Marines for damage, with a few Marauders behind to assist. For this to work the Roach's 2 Armor definitely has to go. Combine this with a general buff to Tanks to replace Marauder as the definitive and devastating Terran answer to Armored Ground.
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On April 06 2010 03:15 SoFFacet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 01:40 TSL-Lore wrote:Blizzard needs to find a counter-soft counter relationship between three units like these without turning them all into 130+ HP, slow moving, projectile shooting, "Dragoon-like" units. The way they move and behave is too similar to a unit that should only belong in the Protoss army. I agree a lot with this. Stylistically the Roach definitely doesn't fit in with the rest of the Zerg race. To a lesser extent, neither does the Marauder fit in with Terran. Zerg and Terran just arent supposed to have units that tough at such a low tier. Tough but expensive units are Protoss territory. I'm not really sure what can be done about the Roach, but I will say that the SC1 hydra was a perfect T1.5 Zerg unit: a versatile workhorse that scales well into the late. I think stylistically it would be best if Marauders were meant to be used as support to Marines, which in turn are used as the primary vessels of damage. Considering they fire concussion grenades, I think some kind of low damage AoE attack with a minor but stackable (to a limit) AoE slow (and no bonus vs armored) would be great. This way common Terran T1 play would be mostly Marines for damage, with a few Marauders behind to assist. For this to work the Roach's 2 Armor definitely has to go. Combine this with a general buff to Tanks to replace Marauder as the definitive and devastating Terran answer to Armored Ground.
Thanks for reading. I've been pushing posts about this for a long time now.. particularly regarding the stylistic elements of the Roach. I think the problem here is that Blizzard has dug itself into a deep, deep hole now because they've established this somewhat well "balanced" trinity between these units by tweaking the numbers and inflating the health pools so that all three "match" each other evenly on the battlefield, whether through direct confrontation or other uses.
In order for Blizzard to climb out of this hole, they would need to overhaul one or more of these units, which would throw balance out the window for other unit relationships. For example, as someone suggested earlier, for the Roach to have 2 per egg, with essentially half the stats of a single Roach. Well, if we do this, how will they fare against other units, and how will they behave in crowded situations? Will they be the same size? What will their range be and how will that now have to be balanced?
Its a really difficult problem to solve, and if they were to solve it, i would think that the game would need to be pushed to a later date. I dont think they want to do that...
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On April 06 2010 01:40 TSL-Lore wrote:
The problem with this trinity of units (roach/marauder/immortal) is that all three units behave and have stats similar to a unit that belongs in the Protoss army. Blizzard needs to find a counter-soft counter relationship between three units like these without turning them all into 130+ HP, slow moving, projectile shooting, "Dragoon-like" units. The way they move and behave is too similar to a unit that should only belong in the Protoss army.
Blizzard needs to find a unit trinity that has an interesting relationship, but that also behaves very differently. Give the Roach less durability, but more speed and quantity. Give the Marauder less durability, but more positional or set-up potential. Keep the Protoss units the same, because there's nothing wrong with them in the first place. What's wrong is when the OTHER two races becomes like the Protoss.
This is why, since the beginning, most people felt that the Protoss was the most "polished" race (according to various surveys). Its because Blizzard knows how to design them. They're "easier" to design. Their large health pools and lower unit count made it so that the developers could focus on their spells and things like that. It's harder with Zerg because you need to design a race which uses its shear numbers to its advantage, not its spells and HP pools. Thus, army movement and surrounding becomes more important. Terran is even harder because you need to design a race where its strong when set up properly and weak when it isnt. This is very difficult to do, but making a Protoss race is relatively easy (a race with fewer units, but makes up for it with stronger stats and more spells). Making every race like Protoss shouldn't be the answer.
The way i've described this trinity is of course my own opinion, and I feel that SC2 moves it away from the relationship I've described above.. but I believe that they shouldn't have. In response to the OP, yes, the unit trinity does indeed run deep in the "problem" in sc2, but simply removing the Roach won't fix it. They need to change a few things between these 3 units so that the 3 races can play in a much mroe distinct way.
I agree with you for the most part and want to point out sth you've mentioned once or twice in your post: Positioning.
Like design Terran so they are good when positioned right... This is sth that's not only true for Terran, but is IMHO a fundamental flaw in the game: Positioning is nowhere near as important as in SC1. Okay, you can argue about having the Xel'Naga-Towers under your control, but mostly, thats just sending a small Unit there... It's all about the non-existing highground-advantage that is so hurtful for good strategical positioning.
Okay, I've won several games because I've waited on a cliff for the enemy to run by and then attacking him wihtout him seeing my army, but that stuff only works against weaker players. So why not give REAL highground-advantage?
I've talked about that with a few ppl and some arguments against highground-advantage were:
It's too hard for newcomers.
So what? Newcomers don't play for their life against a progamer and all the newcomers would have the same problem, so whats the harm in that? Besides, as written above, the "not seeing part" of the new highground-"advantage" is much more abusable against noobs that don't scan, don't use observers or other scouts.
With so many Units that can hop on ledges and stuff, highground-advantage would just be too good.
Well, let's think of an example: Reapers on a cliff (like on the natural of Kulas Ravine) harrassing your Probes. What is easier?
- New Highground-Advantage (as in SC2): You have to get a Prism and fly sth up there OR sth that fly's and stuff that has a good ranged attack. Pretty damn hard to deal with unless you didn't tech to Robo anyways.
- Old Highground-Advantage (as in SC:BW): You just need sth that has a ranged attack to deal with this and considering the opponent only had to build 1 Reaper from a building he uses anyways later on, that's not more you should have to build to deal with that.
Real Highround-advantage would also make defensive play better against ppl just massing T1-stuff, which clearly would be a good thing. You could also position yourself on the Map, which adds strategical depth and it would make stuff like Tanks better without having to buff them in some kind of way.
Besides, the way SC2 is now, you really don't wanna move out on the Map at all against all races, especially Terran and Zerg. Terran can just either Drop, Reaper-Harrass you or just pin down Units with the Marauders and Zerg can do heavy backstabs or Muta-harrass etc.
To a certain extent that was also true in SC1, but you at least had a real advantage when you had good positioning on the Map and it was easier to defend against counterattacks/harrass with real highground-advantage.
To "save" SC2, just implement real highground-advantage and get rid of the hard-counter-system or soften it up at least. Anything else would just be tweaking numbers, which will get figured out eventually, but those changes mentioned above are just fundamental flaws that need to be fixed to make SC2 a worthy successor of SC:BW. Of course, SC2 is still enjoyable now, but it would be even better with making those changes IMHO.
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Half, very well written. The Roach is the proof that it is the hard counter system of SC2 that is broken. The Roach is just a tad unimaginitive result. Even more proof is to try to play a ZvZ match; this matchup is so badly broken because of this.
Another major point why hard counters ruins SC2 is because the system itself forces the three races to be more similar, as opposed to when you have a soft counter system where you can have more difference between the races.
Knowing that Blizzard completely overhauled the Starcraft Alpha build into a completely different game because of the reaction from the Warcraft 2 community means that it is not yet too late. Our hope is to make our voices heard, and there might a slight hope that Blizzard realizes how badly the hard counters turned out.
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Very interesting OP, and I agree for the most part.
I think the Immortal is fine. As another poster said, the Immortal has a good role and fits well with the Protoss army.
However, the Roach is very out of place for zerg, as is the Maurader for Terran. Again, as someone said earlier, they are too much like Protoss units.
I think the best option if you wanted to keep these units in the game would be as are would be to increase their buildtimes, and maybe the cost a bit. In my opinion, T1.5 units are meant to be slightly stronger T1 units that can support your initial, weak T1 army while you tech. One problem I see with the with the Maurader and Roach currently is that they are too cost effective AND massable. An increase in buildtime would leave extra resources for either teching, upgrades or adding more T1 units to your army, hence giving the 1.5 units more of a focus on support than massing. It would leave more windows for timing attacks and diversify strategy a bit, imo.
If not, perhaps they could be completely reworked and given new roles. But I can't think exactly how right now.
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On April 06 2010 04:11 HowardRoark wrote:
Half, very well written. The Roach is the proof that it is the hard counter system of SC2 that is broken. The Roach is just a tad unimaginitive result. Even more proof is to try to play a ZvZ match; this matchup is so badly broken because of this.
Another major point why hard counters ruins SC2 is because the system itself forces the three races to be more similar, as opposed to when you have a soft counter system where you can have more difference between the races.
Knowing that Blizzard completely overhauled the Starcraft Alpha build into a completely different game because of the reaction from the Warcraft 2 community means that it is not yet too late. Our hope is to make our voices heard, and there might a slight hope that Blizzard realizes how badly the hard counters turned out.
So so much agree with what you've written.
Blizz should do sth about that!
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On April 06 2010 04:11 HowardRoark wrote:
Half, very well written. The Roach is the proof that it is the hard counter system of SC2 that is broken. The Roach is just a tad unimaginitive result. Even more proof is to try to play a ZvZ match; this matchup is so badly broken because of this.
Another major point why hard counters ruins SC2 is because the system itself forces the three races to be more similar, as opposed to when you have a soft counter system where you can have more difference between the races.
Knowing that Blizzard completely overhauled the Starcraft Alpha build into a completely different game because of the reaction from the Warcraft 2 community means that it is not yet too late. Our hope is to make our voices heard, and there might a slight hope that Blizzard realizes how badly the hard counters turned out.
I was about ready to reply this exact same reply, but seems to found the words (or the thread, at least) first. I agree whole-heartedly with this entire post.
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I completely agree with the OP. Been playing this for a month now. Usually balancing of units, especially new units, tends to be centered around a specific origin. It seems as if the roach was the first new unit created, and then all other new units from terran and toss were centered around the roach. Then every thing else started branching out in terms of balance.
If you change the roach dynamics, you can potentially change the game as a whole, since the roach is the origin of the balance of the game.
Then you start thinking on down the line. If the roach dynamic is changed, this causes marauder and immortals to change. Would this cause other units like the thor to become a better unit?
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On April 06 2010 03:15 SoFFacet wrote:
Stylistically the Roach definitely doesn't fit in with the rest of the Zerg race. To a lesser extent, neither does the Marauder fit in with Terran. Zerg and Terran just arent supposed to have units that tough at such a low tier. Tough but expensive units are Protoss territory.
Yup. Zerg should be overwhelming the other players with "meat bullets" while spreading over the map like a plague. Terran units should be weak (squishy) with good weapons. Protoss units should be strong but expensive. Protoss currently feels okay. Terran is mostly okay. Zerg is not. I really doubt that Blizzard will fix things at this point though. I hope there will be a strong mod community.
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I would be completely for all 3 of these units being reworked or replaced. Like mentioned above, i'd like to see the roach and the hydra sort of stat swapped. If the roach did less damage and had only 90 hp and no armor, I think it'd be a good unit. Allowing it to hit air would stop a lot of air rushing cheese against zerg as well, making for a more interesting game. As of now, zerg either has to make a bunch of queens or rush straight to t2 every game to avoid losing to a couple of void rays or banshees.
Being forced to go the same BO every game to avoid cheese losses is not fun.
the only problem I see with this suggestion is how to keep the roach and the hydra distinct. Nobody wants the hydra to just be a better roach that makes the roach obsolete. I think the fact that the roach can burrow walk and stuff makes up for some of this, but perhaps they should regain the ability to regen above ground with a t2 upgrade or something, so the could still be the frontline beef of your army later game.
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The so called "Hardcounter system" isn't a definable system in itself. I assure you, a "hardcounter system" does not exist within SC2a any moreso then it did in SC1, with or without the roach. Instead, its the manifestation of a relatively slight issues (slight as in "do not require a overhaul of the game") within the units that causes fundamental imbalances in the gameplay dynamic.
In short, the immortal is broken because it hardcounters heavy mech, not because it
hardcounters "stuff".
Focus on the effect, not the hardcounter. Claiming "hardcounters" ruin the game is a really vague statement. Many "hardcounters" can have a positive effect on the game. It doesn't explicate on the problem at all, instead, simply acknowledges you feel like their is a problem, which you cannot identify.
The problem isn't the roach per se, but that all three races have hard counters to ground that are accessible at tier 1. I can say with certainty, that if I'm forced to build Marauders every game (which is currently the case) to win securely, I'm not going to buy Starcraft 2.
It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?
This is kind of what we mean. Having to build marauders every game is literally the exact opposite of a hardcounter. People sofar in this stage of the beta have found the phrase "hardcounter" as a overarching catch-all to describe all their gripes with the current gameplay dynamics. When in fact, it isn't really the problem at all.
You're forced to build a marauder because it is just overpowered within the traditional framework of the game. You don't need some fancy term to describe that.
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A reaver could kill 200 marines without micro, unless you count the hitting scarabs key micro.
That being said, its truely both assuring, and somewhat frightening, to see how many of SC2s current balance issues stem from the existence of the "trinity". Assuring because we know that while the problems are there, their not some incomprehensible result of the core structure of the game.
For instance, a lot of people complain that buildings die too fast. Overall, units do ~20% more DPS, with few exceptions, like say the Battlecruiser (which needed that DPS buff anyway, 20 dps is dumb for a capital ship). Some other ones got nerfed dps. Stalkers and stimmed marines among them.
Realize that this isn't really the causative of some underlying part of the core gameplay. In fact, it can be attributed wholly, literally, entirely among the shoulders of immortals and marauders.
Thats pretty crazy :o. 20 dps and 34 dps respectively, both which would have no equivalent in BW, except in unmassable lategame units. And the 34 dps which just has no equal.
Another one is a overall problem with AoE across the board, particularly mainfested through storm. Through the implementation of the marauder, we now have a discrepancy among unit health that was entirely unknown among units that closely complimented each other. The marine has, at best, 55 health, while the marauder has well over 2x this with 125 health. That is HUGELY problematic.
Since their designed to cluster together, aoe designed to be effective against marauders will overkill marines, causing marines to suffer more underuse, while balancing to be effective against marines will result in an underpowered spell.
That kind of HP discrepancy shouldn't exist among units, that are, figuratively and literally, "work shoulder to shoulder with each other"
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On April 06 2010 07:29 Half wrote:
A reaver could kill 200 marines without micro, unless you count the hitting scarabs key micro.
The reaver was WAY better designed though. It was slow so it required another unit to move it around, it was very vulnerable to attack, and there were nifty tricks that you could do to reduce scarab damage like baiting a shot a single unit and then dashing in to kill it before it could fire again or leading a scarab off away from the rest of your army. On the flip side, you got many of those "oooh, aaah" moments from the crowd because one good reaver hit did enough damage that it could lead to devastating results.
The colossus is a very poor replacement from the interesting-to-watch standpoint. It requires no micro to use, is very mobile, and there's really no micro that you can use against it other than focus firing it or maybe trying to spread your units out a bit. It also doesn't have that "oomph" that the reaver had. Instead, it just has a very high and steady dps to many units at once. Boooorrring.
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On April 05 2010 21:30 Sinekyre14 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 10:45 Half wrote:
The roaches role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in 08. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 15 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence.
Zerg were not design to host a 145 2 armor 16 damage unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T2 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state
The answer to almost all of SC2s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the roach. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in SC2 will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. Templars will be able to be balanced correctly (As health among T1 units will be more normalized against terran, rather then the enormous discrepancy we have now). It takes TEN SIEGE TANK SHOTS to even begin to damage the immortal, and it can one-shot tanks. Two Collossus can kill 100.000 marines without micro. Blizzard, what were you thinking?
can we all agree to not make bullshit hyperbole's to try to make our own arguments seem stronger?
just please?.... especially since you posted something relevant in 1/2 of your post, then bsed the other half
cause i really didnt know that the immortal did 150+ damage
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Vatican City State19 Posts
I really like the idea to nerf roach HP to like 60 or 70, but bring back the regeneration. You would have to focus fire the roaches... And make +armored bonus and" slow" researchable for marauders. Immortal is good as it is imo
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If roaches are going to have 60/70 hp, i sure hope that regen is 5/sec at least, otherwise zerg is a lost race. And that says a lot about the lings as well.
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On April 05 2010 11:05 bendez wrote:
Can someone please summarize what the fuck op is trying to say? he is all over the place... Roach is not overpowered but immortals and marauders are...so take out the roach??? wtf
I think the OP could be summarized as "tone down roaches, immortals, and marauders for more interesting and varied play".
e.g. I play protoss, I like the idea of templar, I like the idea of air, but I have to build a robo bay first in case the opponent builds roaches or marauders, and getting caught without immortals is gg.
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The roaches should have the insane regen and the move while burrowed ability, but be super expensive or fragile so that zerg users are forced to micro them. The roach should be a variation on the Dark Templar that can slip in, kill a few workers and then escape and regenerate, not the backbone of an army.
I think things went wrong when Blizzard moved the roach away from the micro-intensive harass unit it was designed to be and made it the foundation of the zerg army.
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Very nice OP, totally agree.
This thread makes me sad though, it seems like over 50% of people playing the game/posting here are really stupid. Every other post is something like "Nerf Roach and Marauder but Immortals are fine." or "Nerf Marauders and Immortals but I don't see a problem with Roaches." Turds are totally missing the point the OP is making.
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I think this is great! Both the OP and many posts in this thread seem to key in on something more complicated than unit X is overpowered. It definitely makes me want to give my two cents on the matter.
First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced.
However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.”
There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case.
I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same).
If the Marauder was removed:
In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many things around it's timing and tech; like air, ghosts, marines. With a rough breeze over everything else, every other unit and tech path seems to have answers at the various timings in the game with interesting shifts. I won't go super detailed into every one of these for the other match-ups, but just to give an example, the things immediately at tier 1 are all a good mix (zealots, cannons, marines, and bunkers). You can have a interesting match if both parties just stay there, but it's also reasonable for both sides to try to hold out and go for some better tech to beat the opposing's tier one (colossus or banshees, just to pull two options out of the air).
In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) does NOT fall to anything the terran can produce around it's timing or tech. I think plenty of people would agree that it would flat out be impossible to stop a zerg player from a semi-quick batch of Roaches. The units you can get out around that time, marines, reapers, hellions, and bunkers are not designed to do anything against a high-armor, high-hp unit. The Marauder is exactly what is needed and was designed for (with it's durability and bonus to armored units), but without it the match falls on it's head.
(I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves)
If the Immortal was removed:
In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things around it's timing or tech. Stalkers aren't terrible, sentries with shield and force field work ok with zealots. Perhaps this is the weakest claim I have here, because there certainly are people who say Marauder's counter tier 1, but I do also see claims that say otherwise. I think the next is stronger though...
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) can again just win games. The immortal was what was designed to deal with lots of roaches, and without it, the protoss army doesn't really have a way to deal with a high-armor, high-hp unit in the amount that zerg can get them. I have to add that “amount” ammendment because while yes, marauders are high-armor and high-hp units, but 7 of them can not come out as early as 7 roaches can, nor could the early game production ever be matched. That immortal was what let you tip the scale to have one “late” unit deal with many “early” units.
Finally, if the Roach was removed:
In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things. I think people seem to agree that speedlings, hydras, and mutalisks all seem to fare well against mauarders. And, without the unit that Marauders were meant to “hard-counter,” Marauders simply wouldn't be that important.
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many other things. I think this is pretty obvious already, and things like strong early zealot aggression can still be handled with speedlings, queens, and static defense (everyone is still tier 1, everyone is still gasless).
So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone.
I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something!
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On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote:I think this is great! Both the OP and many posts in this thread seem to key in on something more complicated than unit X is overpowered. It definitely makes me want to give my two cents on the matter. First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case. I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same). If the Marauder was removed: Show nested quote +In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many things around it's timing and tech; like air, ghosts, marines. With a rough breeze over everything else, every other unit and tech path seems to have answers at the various timings in the game with interesting shifts. I won't go super detailed into every one of these for the other match-ups, but just to give an example, the things immediately at tier 1 are all a good mix (zealots, cannons, marines, and bunkers). You can have a interesting match if both parties just stay there, but it's also reasonable for both sides to try to hold out and go for some better tech to beat the opposing's tier one (colossus or banshees, just to pull two options out of the air).
In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) does NOT fall to anything the terran can produce around it's timing or tech. I think plenty of people would agree that it would flat out be impossible to stop a zerg player from a semi-quick batch of Roaches. The units you can get out around that time, marines, reapers, hellions, and bunkers are not designed to do anything against a high-armor, high-hp unit. The Marauder is exactly what is needed and was designed for (with it's durability and bonus to armored units), but without it the match falls on it's head. (I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves) If the Immortal was removed: Show nested quote +In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things around it's timing or tech. Stalkers aren't terrible, sentries with shield and force field work ok with zealots. Perhaps this is the weakest claim I have here, because there certainly are people who say Marauder's counter tier 1, but I do also see claims that say otherwise. I think the next is stronger though...
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) can again just win games. The immortal was what was designed to deal with lots of roaches, and without it, the protoss army doesn't really have a way to deal with a high-armor, high-hp unit in the amount that zerg can get them. I have to add that “amount” ammendment because while yes, marauders are high-armor and high-hp units, but 7 of them can not come out as early as 7 roaches can, nor could the early game production ever be matched. That immortal was what let you tip the scale to have one “late” unit deal with many “early” units. Finally, if the Roach was removed: Show nested quote +In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things. I think people seem to agree that speedlings, hydras, and mutalisks all seem to fare well against mauarders. And, without the unit that Marauders were meant to “hard-counter,” Marauders simply wouldn't be that important.
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many other things. I think this is pretty obvious already, and things like strong early zealot aggression can still be handled with speedlings, queens, and static defense (everyone is still tier 1, everyone is still gasless). So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone. I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something!
Too simple, sometime naive....
I mean how do you deal with hellion with zerg? as currently it is done by roach.
How to keep good early advantage to terran or protoss (zerg need this for economy advantage)
It is not as simple as that, but I agree, that immortal/roach/marauder need a bit more resource heacy to produce, just a little bit.
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On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote:
First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced.
However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.”
I'm one of the people you describe in the second paragraph, but because of the even distribution rates you write about in the first paragraph I doubt anything will change.
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On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users...
Ur tier 1 and does it really matter?
edit: seems more like this should've been a blog post instead of put in the forum since its a huge rant.
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Not sure I can agree 100% with OP because its hard to prove whether the egg or the chicken came first (that roaches were the cause of the roach/maurader/immortal issue).
However, other than that I agree with a lot of what is said.
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I don't want to sound like a protoss fan boy, but while the Immortal is part of the "unholy trinity" it is not a core unit. Sure Vs roaches and VS Marauders/tanks you'll see Immortals, but fix the Marauder and Roach mass issue and bang less Immortal will be build. No Protoss player build Immortals for the hell of it.
PvZ when Z goes HydrasLing or MutaLing, I build maybe 1-2 Immortals (since I assume roaches are coming) then never build another one until I see roaches or ultras.
PvT when Terran goes banshee or Mass Marine Medivac, I don't build Immortals, I build Colossi. Heck after ghosts are out I transistion to HTs or Colossi since Immortal with no shields suck. I think that Immortals are still a little too good vs Tanks and other Mech units for terrans so I'd probably still field some Immortals to crush bunkers and be ready for siege tanks.
PvP Immortal are built, but not really massed. They exist to keep Stalker count low, kill some poorly placed or defended Colossi and breech Mass Cannons. Colossi are the far more linchpin unit out side of X Gate Proxy Rushing.
I an not saying Immortals are fine, I'm saying that of all 3 "unholy trinty units" the immortal is least massed. It's simply a hard counter unit with much less use outside of that job. Immortals are very cost ineffective when used to kill Zealots, Zerglings, Hydras, Marines and other non-armored units.
Marauders and to a lesser extent Roaches are massed regardless of what the opponent does. These are not "reactionary units". They are not built to counter X strategy, b.c if that was the case they wouldn't be massed so heavily.
In all the platinum games win or lose I have seen many Zerg switch from mass roaches to something else when confronted by Immortals, I have never seen Terran change unit compositions. Sure they add 1-3 ghosts for emp but in the end they produce Marauders non-stop after they get those few ghosts. When I go heavy Immortal vs Zerg or Protoss, Roaches and Stalkers are barely produced and suddenly I'm hit by VoidRays, Colossi, Speedlots, Speed/Cracklings, Hydras, and Mutas. Versus Terran, besides a slight detour to Ghosts or VikingsI see pretty much the same unit comp.
This issue is that both Roaches and Marauders effectively counter T1 units (Lings, Zealots), and in the case of TvP Marauders counter armored higher tier units also.
The roach role is defined. It's there to stop Lings, Marines and Zealots. It is indeed far to massable, but it can be handled.
The Immortal role is clearly defined and between all 3 units, it is the more "hard-counter" unit of all 3. It's job is to kill Roaches and Terran Mech / Marauders. Does it do it's job too well? Possibly, but it's kinda force to do that since it's 1 tier above the unit it counters.
The Marauder's role is a bit all over the place, it's both a anti-armored (roach+late tier unit) and anti-Zealot/Zergling unit. Among the Unholy trinity of units, the Marauder is the least defined unit.
I am all for nerfs/changes to all 3 units, but one must agree that the Marauder needs its role redefined. Want it to counter early game t1 units, make it slow, but reduce it's damage and/or remove stim. Want it to counter armored unit, remove the slow and let it shine vs roaches, etc.
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On April 06 2010 10:01 hzhao wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote:I think this is great! Both the OP and many posts in this thread seem to key in on something more complicated than unit X is overpowered. It definitely makes me want to give my two cents on the matter. First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case. I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same). If the Marauder was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many things around it's timing and tech; like air, ghosts, marines. With a rough breeze over everything else, every other unit and tech path seems to have answers at the various timings in the game with interesting shifts. I won't go super detailed into every one of these for the other match-ups, but just to give an example, the things immediately at tier 1 are all a good mix (zealots, cannons, marines, and bunkers). You can have a interesting match if both parties just stay there, but it's also reasonable for both sides to try to hold out and go for some better tech to beat the opposing's tier one (colossus or banshees, just to pull two options out of the air).
In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) does NOT fall to anything the terran can produce around it's timing or tech. I think plenty of people would agree that it would flat out be impossible to stop a zerg player from a semi-quick batch of Roaches. The units you can get out around that time, marines, reapers, hellions, and bunkers are not designed to do anything against a high-armor, high-hp unit. The Marauder is exactly what is needed and was designed for (with it's durability and bonus to armored units), but without it the match falls on it's head. (I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves) If the Immortal was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things around it's timing or tech. Stalkers aren't terrible, sentries with shield and force field work ok with zealots. Perhaps this is the weakest claim I have here, because there certainly are people who say Marauder's counter tier 1, but I do also see claims that say otherwise. I think the next is stronger though...
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) can again just win games. The immortal was what was designed to deal with lots of roaches, and without it, the protoss army doesn't really have a way to deal with a high-armor, high-hp unit in the amount that zerg can get them. I have to add that “amount” ammendment because while yes, marauders are high-armor and high-hp units, but 7 of them can not come out as early as 7 roaches can, nor could the early game production ever be matched. That immortal was what let you tip the scale to have one “late” unit deal with many “early” units. Finally, if the Roach was removed: In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things. I think people seem to agree that speedlings, hydras, and mutalisks all seem to fare well against mauarders. And, without the unit that Marauders were meant to “hard-counter,” Marauders simply wouldn't be that important.
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many other things. I think this is pretty obvious already, and things like strong early zealot aggression can still be handled with speedlings, queens, and static defense (everyone is still tier 1, everyone is still gasless). So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone. I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something! Too simple, sometime naive.... I mean how do you deal with hellion with zerg? as currently it is done by roach. How to keep good early advantage to terran or protoss (zerg need this for economy advantage) It is not as simple as that, but I agree, that immortal/roach/marauder need a bit more resource heacy to produce, just a little bit.
naive...what a naive usage of naive...
i'm not saying to take out the roach, but it really does not play that big of a role as everyone seems to think. This empty hole that blizzard felt need to be fulfilled by the roach was never there. The game is now just big blob armies crashing into each other with one side winning. If you take out the roach of course the zerg army has nothing that is able to stop the ball of terran and protoss, and guess what, that's how it has always been.
sorry to bring up SC1, but you can't say that SC2 is a whole new game because it really isn't. And if it is, people just won't play SC2. In SC1 zerg relied on backstab and aggressive expansion to keep the enemy from attacking them directly because in most cases a zerg would lose in a straight up head to head battle. So this backstab is an invention to fulfill this hole. Most people don't see this and decides, zerg army is weak so the roach will just fit right in there. Now zerg can also have a strong ball of its own to fight the other balls. to be honest and i'm sure a lot of people have this same feeling, we don't like BALL VS BALL battles in EVERY matchup. It has been said before, but one matchup of sc1 version pvp is enough.
Zerg doesn't need it. zerg can find its own way. but no, people don't want to; they want to be spoon fed. first you say a high and mighty statement "too simple" and then you say some crybaby statement "how do you deal with hellions with zerg" Why don't you think about it? there are many dimensions of this game that people do not realize. It is not just unit vs unit, it's strategy vs strategy, and mind games. Let's just say there really is no UNIT that can take on the hellions. So what?? Have your army not engage the hellions. Avoid them. Spine crawlers will protect your bases. Find a good time and just destroy terran's whole base with speedlings when his hellions are right infront of yours.
Hellions > Speedlings ....now that is "too simple, sometime naive" What can hellions do if they are half way across the map.
So like I said there really is no need for the roach in one respect, but it doesn't need to be scrapped. There is room for a high regen, able to move while burrowed unit that zerg never had before.
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excellent! i never thought of balance this way.
this thread needs to be send to blizzard
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On April 06 2010 10:34 Rucky wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 10:01 hzhao wrote:On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote:I think this is great! Both the OP and many posts in this thread seem to key in on something more complicated than unit X is overpowered. It definitely makes me want to give my two cents on the matter. First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case. I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same). If the Marauder was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many things around it's timing and tech; like air, ghosts, marines. With a rough breeze over everything else, every other unit and tech path seems to have answers at the various timings in the game with interesting shifts. I won't go super detailed into every one of these for the other match-ups, but just to give an example, the things immediately at tier 1 are all a good mix (zealots, cannons, marines, and bunkers). You can have a interesting match if both parties just stay there, but it's also reasonable for both sides to try to hold out and go for some better tech to beat the opposing's tier one (colossus or banshees, just to pull two options out of the air).
In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) does NOT fall to anything the terran can produce around it's timing or tech. I think plenty of people would agree that it would flat out be impossible to stop a zerg player from a semi-quick batch of Roaches. The units you can get out around that time, marines, reapers, hellions, and bunkers are not designed to do anything against a high-armor, high-hp unit. The Marauder is exactly what is needed and was designed for (with it's durability and bonus to armored units), but without it the match falls on it's head. (I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves) If the Immortal was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things around it's timing or tech. Stalkers aren't terrible, sentries with shield and force field work ok with zealots. Perhaps this is the weakest claim I have here, because there certainly are people who say Marauder's counter tier 1, but I do also see claims that say otherwise. I think the next is stronger though...
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) can again just win games. The immortal was what was designed to deal with lots of roaches, and without it, the protoss army doesn't really have a way to deal with a high-armor, high-hp unit in the amount that zerg can get them. I have to add that “amount” ammendment because while yes, marauders are high-armor and high-hp units, but 7 of them can not come out as early as 7 roaches can, nor could the early game production ever be matched. That immortal was what let you tip the scale to have one “late” unit deal with many “early” units. Finally, if the Roach was removed: In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things. I think people seem to agree that speedlings, hydras, and mutalisks all seem to fare well against mauarders. And, without the unit that Marauders were meant to “hard-counter,” Marauders simply wouldn't be that important.
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many other things. I think this is pretty obvious already, and things like strong early zealot aggression can still be handled with speedlings, queens, and static defense (everyone is still tier 1, everyone is still gasless). So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone. I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something! Too simple, sometime naive.... I mean how do you deal with hellion with zerg? as currently it is done by roach. How to keep good early advantage to terran or protoss (zerg need this for economy advantage) It is not as simple as that, but I agree, that immortal/roach/marauder need a bit more resource heacy to produce, just a little bit. naive...what a naive usage of naive... i'm not saying to take out the roach, but it really does not play that big of a role as everyone seems to think. This empty hole that blizzard felt need to be fulfilled by the roach was never there. The game is now just big blob armies crashing into each other with one side winning. If you take out the roach of course the zerg army has nothing that is able to stop the ball of terran and protoss, and guess what, that's how it has always been. sorry to bring up SC1, but you can't say that SC2 is a whole new game because it really isn't. And if it is, people just won't play SC2. In SC1 zerg relied on backstab and aggressive expansion to keep the enemy from attacking them directly because in most cases a zerg would lose in a straight up head to head battle. So this backstab is an invention to fulfill this hole. Most people don't see this and decides, zerg army is weak so the roach will just fit right in there. Now zerg can also have a strong ball of its own to fight the other balls. to be honest and i'm sure a lot of people have this same feeling, we don't like BALL VS BALL battles in EVERY matchup. It has been said before, but one matchup of sc1 version pvp is enough. Zerg doesn't need it. zerg can find its own way. but no, people don't want to; they want to be spoon fed. first you say a high and mighty statement "too simple" and then you say some crybaby statement "how do you deal with hellions with zerg" Why don't you think about it? there are many dimensions of this game that people do not realize. It is not just unit vs unit, it's strategy vs strategy, and mind games. Let's just say there really is no UNIT that can take on the hellions. So what?? Have your army not engage the hellions. Avoid them. Spine crawlers will protect your bases. Find a good time and just destroy terran's whole base with speedlings when his hellions are right infront of yours. Hellions > Speedlings ....now that is "too simple, sometime naive" What can hellions do if they are half way across the map. So like I said there really is no need for the roach in one respect, but it doesn't need to be scrapped. There is room for a high regen, able to move while burrowed unit that zerg never had before.
You did not answer any question I asked, yes, you can take all unit from zerg leave only zergling and mut, and zerg player can find their own way, but how can you stay FE with zerg now without roach?
You really think you can use Speedlings to destroy Hellions terran? only 2-3 Hellions at home will destroy all your lings. and it is produced in pair with 200 min....
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On April 06 2010 10:38 hzhao wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 10:34 Rucky wrote:On April 06 2010 10:01 hzhao wrote:On April 06 2010 09:53 ExileStrife wrote:I think this is great! Both the OP and many posts in this thread seem to key in on something more complicated than unit X is overpowered. It definitely makes me want to give my two cents on the matter. First of all, I think a basic point to reiterate is that right now, no single unit is imbalanced. It therefore follows that currently, the game is balanced as a whole. Glances at data from multiple sources seem to support that as well: win rates are roughly evenly distributed across the board (in each match-up), and equal distributions of players seem to be playing each race. Cut and dry, and by the numbers, that means the game is balanced. However, this does not address the gut feeling that many people seem to have about the game, and that gut feeling is that something is wrong. Many people are agreeing that something is holding the game back. And to go even further, many people are agreeing that this something has something to do an individual unit in each race right now, namely the Roach, Marauder, and Immortal. I feel the OP did a fantastic job by taking this matter even further, and has correctly identified the Roach as being the root cause of the problem with the so-called “holy trinity.” There have been many good posts in this thread that try to further illustrate why the roach stands out as the unit to blame, and again, doing so without calling a certain individual unit as overpowered or imbalanced. I think this brings to light a very interesting complexity about unit balance that is normally very difficult to talk about, but people are doing it here with a very decent semblance of success. I'm going to jump into the fray and give my own thought experiment (aka theorycraft) to try to support the Roach-root-cause case. I think a very telling story arises if you individually remove each of the holy trinity units from each race, and then look at the affected match-ups minus only that unit (and while I know mirror matches are something to consider as well, I'm going to skip them because we can at least say they are still balanced because the units are all the same). If the Marauder was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many things around it's timing and tech; like air, ghosts, marines. With a rough breeze over everything else, every other unit and tech path seems to have answers at the various timings in the game with interesting shifts. I won't go super detailed into every one of these for the other match-ups, but just to give an example, the things immediately at tier 1 are all a good mix (zealots, cannons, marines, and bunkers). You can have a interesting match if both parties just stay there, but it's also reasonable for both sides to try to hold out and go for some better tech to beat the opposing's tier one (colossus or banshees, just to pull two options out of the air).
In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) does NOT fall to anything the terran can produce around it's timing or tech. I think plenty of people would agree that it would flat out be impossible to stop a zerg player from a semi-quick batch of Roaches. The units you can get out around that time, marines, reapers, hellions, and bunkers are not designed to do anything against a high-armor, high-hp unit. The Marauder is exactly what is needed and was designed for (with it's durability and bonus to armored units), but without it the match falls on it's head. (I'll try to shorten the text on these next four to let people think for themselves) If the Immortal was removed: In Terran vs Protoss, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things around it's timing or tech. Stalkers aren't terrible, sentries with shield and force field work ok with zealots. Perhaps this is the weakest claim I have here, because there certainly are people who say Marauder's counter tier 1, but I do also see claims that say otherwise. I think the next is stronger though...
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be broken. Why? The other trinity unit (the Roach) can again just win games. The immortal was what was designed to deal with lots of roaches, and without it, the protoss army doesn't really have a way to deal with a high-armor, high-hp unit in the amount that zerg can get them. I have to add that “amount” ammendment because while yes, marauders are high-armor and high-hp units, but 7 of them can not come out as early as 7 roaches can, nor could the early game production ever be matched. That immortal was what let you tip the scale to have one “late” unit deal with many “early” units. Finally, if the Roach was removed: In Terran vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The other trinity unit (the Marauder) can still fall to many other things. I think people seem to agree that speedlings, hydras, and mutalisks all seem to fare well against mauarders. And, without the unit that Marauders were meant to “hard-counter,” Marauders simply wouldn't be that important.
In Protoss vs Zerg, the match would be unaffected. Why? The trinity unit (the Immortal) can still fall to many other things. I think this is pretty obvious already, and things like strong early zealot aggression can still be handled with speedlings, queens, and static defense (everyone is still tier 1, everyone is still gasless). So, why does this support the claim that the Roach is the root cause of the bad-gut-feeling about the game? It is because it shows that the current game can be broken only where the Roach is without an answer. The other match-ups do not actually hinge on the existence of a trinity unit, so the matter falls on the Roach and the Roach alone. I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me! Certainly, I could be very wrong about one of those match-ups and then my conclusion would fall flat on it's head. If that is the case, please explain! But otherwise, Blizzard, please do something! Too simple, sometime naive.... I mean how do you deal with hellion with zerg? as currently it is done by roach. How to keep good early advantage to terran or protoss (zerg need this for economy advantage) It is not as simple as that, but I agree, that immortal/roach/marauder need a bit more resource heacy to produce, just a little bit. naive...what a naive usage of naive... i'm not saying to take out the roach, but it really does not play that big of a role as everyone seems to think. This empty hole that blizzard felt need to be fulfilled by the roach was never there. The game is now just big blob armies crashing into each other with one side winning. If you take out the roach of course the zerg army has nothing that is able to stop the ball of terran and protoss, and guess what, that's how it has always been. sorry to bring up SC1, but you can't say that SC2 is a whole new game because it really isn't. And if it is, people just won't play SC2. In SC1 zerg relied on backstab and aggressive expansion to keep the enemy from attacking them directly because in most cases a zerg would lose in a straight up head to head battle. So this backstab is an invention to fulfill this hole. Most people don't see this and decides, zerg army is weak so the roach will just fit right in there. Now zerg can also have a strong ball of its own to fight the other balls. to be honest and i'm sure a lot of people have this same feeling, we don't like BALL VS BALL battles in EVERY matchup. It has been said before, but one matchup of sc1 version pvp is enough. Zerg doesn't need it. zerg can find its own way. but no, people don't want to; they want to be spoon fed. first you say a high and mighty statement "too simple" and then you say some crybaby statement "how do you deal with hellions with zerg" Why don't you think about it? there are many dimensions of this game that people do not realize. It is not just unit vs unit, it's strategy vs strategy, and mind games. Let's just say there really is no UNIT that can take on the hellions. So what?? Have your army not engage the hellions. Avoid them. Spine crawlers will protect your bases. Find a good time and just destroy terran's whole base with speedlings when his hellions are right infront of yours. Hellions > Speedlings ....now that is "too simple, sometime naive" What can hellions do if they are half way across the map. So like I said there really is no need for the roach in one respect, but it doesn't need to be scrapped. There is room for a high regen, able to move while burrowed unit that zerg never had before. You did not answer any question I asked, yes, you can take all unit from zerg leave only zergling and mut, and zerg player can find their own way, but how can you stay FE with zerg now without roach? You really think you can use Speedlings to destroy Hellions terran? only 2-3 Hellions at home will destroy all your lings. and it is produced in pair with 200 min....
1. Why do I have to answer your questions?
2. Your statement is contradictory. "Zerg can find their own way, but how can you FE?" If zerg can find their own way they'll find how to fast expand. Given only muta and lings, there's Muta harass to keep terran in base or mass ling back stab threat to keep terran army close to home. YADDA YADDA....damn i actually answered you a bit.
3. What if I really do think speedlings can destroy hellions terran? (situational)
4. 2-3 hellions at home will destroy all lings? (situational)
5. Hellions are produced in pair with 200 minerals. I give you that one. That is true.
Oh, and you didn't answer my questions either. I bolded them for you.
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get link for page setting:all and post it or send it to somewhere blizz will probally see (like a sugestion fourm opening post or an email). i agree blizz should see but i don't have an accout to make post with and have no clue what email to send the link to. i said page setting: all so they get right to reading.
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blizzard reads TL a bunch, this thread has definitely been seen by now.
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I'm not sure to what extent I agree. one thing to remember is that there are many many many other armored units, including cols, vikings, tanks, thors, all structures, etc etc. changing roach/marauder/immortal might have severe unintended consequences on the balance of the rest of the game. personally I'd just like to see their stats toned down a bit; just because you have roaches doesn't mean all marines and zerglings in play should disintegrate.
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one easy way to deal with this is reduce the armor. one less armor and alot of the problems whould be smaller if not gone.
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Marauder are the only real counter to roaches. Marauder and only marauder, unless you consider air. Factory units? No. In fact, against mech, Zerg should counter by getting even MORE roach heavy. But Roaches don't hold up to Marauder.
They build roaches? You build marauder. That's as complicated as it gets. And it turns out to be annoying and boring and slow.
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Some excellent analysis in the last few posts, so I'll share my thoughts as well:
Lets examine each matchup again and why there are overwhelming reasons to be massing 3 certain units:
PvT: The reason people are massing marauders is pretty simple. Mech is really really really difficult, because stalkers with blink and immortals just overpower tanks so quickly. I mech every game TvP, but it's not easy, and I feel like vs superior players I don't stand a chance. Therefore, we're left with 2 other options, bio and air. With the slow effect and easy massability, marauders are just superior to marines in almost every way, and air is a risky strategy that gives mixed results. Therefore, people make maras.
PvZ: Roaches are completely ridiculous in this matchup. Without immortals it's very very difficult to deal with mass roach, although stalkers do ok with micro. Right now people are basically forced into immortals because there's just no way to deal with roaches so cost effectively. Likewise, zerg is rather forced into roaches because zealots are so much stronger vs lings than they used to be.
ZvT: This is by far the worst offender. The reasoning is simple, marauders are so ridiculously good vs roaches that terran can't fight roach without them. Also, nothing else counters roaches. Siege tanks do ok, but they're only good in siege mode which means you're very limited in your mobility if you rely on them. Stimmed marines with medivacs actually do quite well, but banelings and fungal growth really prohibit the use of pure marine, and also it's very hard to survive earlygame if you have nothing but marines. So pretty much if zerg makes roach, terran has to make maras. If terran doesn't make maras, zerg has to make roach with the exception of pure marine medivac, in which case other units are needed, but you still probably want to be getting roach too.
Nerfing all 3 units is perfectly viable, but you have to nerf all 3. Right now marauders need to be nerfed to bring variety to TvP. However, if you nerf maras you need a way to deal with gateway units better. Mech does fine, but not vs immortals. Therefore you have to nerf immortals to make that matchup balanced. However, if you nerf immortals, you really need to nerf roaches because otherwise zerg can roach spam ZvP even more than they already do and completely dominate. Nerfing roaches makes mech more viable TvZ, and brings more flavor to that matchup. It actually works out quite well as you can see =D
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On April 06 2010 10:55 Ideas wrote:
blizzard reads TL a bunch, this thread has definitely been seen by now.
well despite the number of pages, its only been a day since the thread was created
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On April 06 2010 07:54 Antpile wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 07:29 Half wrote:
A reaver could kill 200 marines without micro, unless you count the hitting scarabs key micro.
The reaver was WAY better designed though. It was slow so it required another unit to move it around, it was very vulnerable to attack, and there were nifty tricks that you could do to reduce scarab damage like baiting a shot a single unit and then dashing in to kill it before it could fire again or leading a scarab off away from the rest of your army. On the flip side, you got many of those "oooh, aaah" moments from the crowd because one good reaver hit did enough damage that it could lead to devastating results. The colossus is a very poor replacement from the interesting-to-watch standpoint. It requires no micro to use, is very mobile, and there's really no micro that you can use against it other than focus firing it or maybe trying to spread your units out a bit. It also doesn't have that "oomph" that the reaver had. Instead, it just has a very high and steady dps to many units at once. Boooorrring.
So true. I think that the Colossus could be fixed by just only allowing it to attack ground, as opposed to units, and have a longer attack animation (and also the possibility to choose the manner in which the lances move?). Though, it still wouldn't be as neat to watch as Reaver micro, but better than the current Colossus.
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What about just nerfing the special qualities of these units, like making the maurader slow down attack an upgrade, the immortal hard shield, and the roach healing?
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Roach healing isn't what makes roaches broken. It's the fact that they beat everything but marauders and immortals. Toning down the other units is a must, but roaches need an overall nerf in some way to keep zerg from winning on roach spam.
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I remember Tillerman made a pretty legendary post in the war3 beta forum back in the days. Bob Pardo who was the war3 designer replied to it. Tillerman influenced a few changes to the final game, such as free 1st hero and I think lumbers being a larger role in resources. But unfortunately, some of the fundamental stuff, Pardo was not willing to change because Blizzard was too deep into the hole, such as making changes to "creeps killing". I mean I'm not hating on War3, I think it does gear toward certain audiences and it's a great game for all I know. I was just a bit disappointed that while Blizzard go with the logan of "Ship when it's done" but they did not address all the fundamental problems and shipped the game anyways. Understandable but still disappointing.
Anyways, the reason why I bring up the story is that if enough influential players agree with the issue at hand, then Blizzard will possibly listen. But I would be impressed if they are willing to remove a unit and add another, that would really show their commitment to really make this really a kickass game. Honestly, even w/ war3, I thought it just had so much potential to take over BW at the time, but they were not willing to take more time on it to make it better. SC2 is definitely quite impressive so far, way more than war3 ever was for me. So I would love to see this game ship and be just AWESOME.
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On April 06 2010 11:23 Reborn8u wrote:
What about just nerfing the special qualities of these units, like making the maurader slow down attack an upgrade, the immortal hard shield, and the roach healing?
That would make them even more boring.
I say buff Roach healing and nerf its standard characteristics. Nerf Marauder and Immortal standard statistics.
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I think many of us would agree that this is INDEED a hard problem to fix, besides being a hard problem to realize. Its my opinion that structures die way too fast in this game, and hopefully changing this weird +armor trinity will help abet that. Really really hope blizzard will take note of this thread as I will love Sc2 for the rest of my life if this can be improved.
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I think that to fix the roach, immortal, and marauder, they should make the game into a game of soft counters instead of a game of hard counters, like in sc1.
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I hear what you're saying, the roach isn't imba in it self, it just warps the game around itself, because of itself. But having hard counters makes plp mix up they're army, which kinda makes sc2 somehow good.
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On April 06 2010 11:27 SirNeb wrote:
I remember Tillerman made a pretty legendary post in the war3 beta forum back in the days. Bob Pardo who was the war3 designer replied to it. Tillerman influenced a few changes to the final game, such as free 1st hero and I think lumbers being a larger role in resources. But unfortunately, some of the fundamental stuff, Pardo was not willing to change because Blizzard was too deep into the hole, such as making changes to "creeps killing". I mean I'm not hating on War3, I think it does gear toward certain audiences and it's a great game for all I know. I was just a bit disappointed that while Blizzard go with the logan of "Ship when it's done" but they did not address all the fundamental problems and shipped the game anyways. Understandable but still disappointing.
Anyways, the reason why I bring up the story is that if enough influential players agree with the issue at hand, then Blizzard will possibly listen. But I would be impressed if they are willing to remove a unit and add another, that would really show their commitment to really make this really a kickass game. Honestly, even w/ war3, I thought it just had so much potential to take over BW at the time, but they were not willing to take more time on it to make it better. SC2 is definitely quite impressive so far, way more than war3 ever was for me. So I would love to see this game ship and be just AWESOME.
I'm pretty curious as to what was in this... can't find it on the internet with my searching thus far.
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Personally, I blame marauders, but roaches also screwed up the brood-war-ness of SC2.
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switch hydra and roach (nerfing and buffing respectively to make them fit into their tier positions)
require an armory to build marauder
nerf zealots and make hard shell an upgrade at robo facility
and then start the REAL balancing of the game
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On April 05 2010 10:52 JadeFist wrote:
Why are these threads always written by tier 1 icon users...
you actually judge people by their post count?
0_o
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to judge by post count is foolish since there is no garentee that this is the only SC2 fourm they post on, for all you know they could be very active on other sites and this is simply a side site for them. also, post count dosen't tell how much they have played.
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On April 06 2010 11:26 Floophead_III wrote:
Roach healing isn't what makes roaches broken. It's the fact that they beat everything but marauders and immortals.
I agree here, and that to me is the biggest crime of the roach.
Its "core ability", the thing that makes the roach...the roach is NOT its regen. I have seen many high level games where burrow isn't even researched, because the roach is that powerful without it. Players are not required to use the roach's regen to make the unit amazing, it already is.
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switch hydra and roach (nerfing and buffing respectively to make them fit into their tier positions)
require an armory to build marauder
nerf zealots and make hard shell an upgrade at robo facility
and then start the REAL balancing of the game
oo i like it but i dont think blizzard will want to make that many changes.
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Wow this thread has 30k views I think a lot of people lurking have strong opinions but haven't posted.
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Maybe even increasing the Roach's armour to 4 and boosting its regeneration, but reduce hp to 50-55, that way it'll be ridiculously strong against things like Marines, Zerglings and Zealots, while still being countered by Immortals and even nerfed-to-1-supply Marauders, but also be one-shotted by Siege Tanks and be vulnerable to other high-damage attacks.
I really think Marauder hp needs to be reduced to Terran Infantry standards, even if it reduces its cost in resources and supply.
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On April 06 2010 14:26 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
Maybe even increasing the Roach's armour to 4 and boosting its regeneration, but reduce hp to 50-55, that way it'll be ridiculously strong against things like Marines, Zerglings and Zealots, while still being countered by Immortals and even nerfed-to-1-supply Marauders, but also be one-shotted by Siege Tanks and be vulnerable to other high-damage attacks.
I really think Marauder hp needs to be reduced to Terran Infantry standards, even if it reduces its cost in resources and supply.
yea no.
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I feel like we have this huge group of people whining how somehow marauders being used every game, the antithesis of hardcounters, are whining about hardcounters, and another group of people whining that the game needs these incredibly absurd hardcounters like 4 armor roaches.
Roach needs a health nerf.
Immortals need a damage nerf.
Marauders need a damage nerf versus normal units and a health nerf.
I think marauders is the most problematic to balance. They need a role that is a)Effective against armor b)Not good core DPS, and require marines c)Help marines against melee by slowing.
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The problem is NOTHING but the marauder counters roach. His change is correct and viable. Marauders will be the t1 counter, so you can make those if you want. It also will be possible to make tanks, thors, vikings, and even use ghost snipe. Roaches right now are just too massable and cost effective vs everything besides mara right now. Right now people have to make mara. With that change they can make mara, tanks, thors, vikings, or use ghosts with snipe. (leaving banshees/bcs out for obvious reasons). It's a change that promotes diversity. I don't see how people don't see that.
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Honestly I feel that nerfing all three is indeed the correct thing to do, yet when one nerfs them one realizes how boring and dull the units truly are, I say nerf, but add utility or make all 3 of them more interesting in some way. (If you take out units like lurker and reaver that have cool mechanics, you DONT put in units that are generally more boring). Furthermore, I think its kind of stupid how both the immortal/stalker are split versions of a goon. And to top that all off, Archons aren't even useful while the immortal is just some conceptual piece of crap.
Also, I feel that blizzard is going to have a hard time adding units with the ensuing expansions. Thank god they said that they arent leaving "holes to be filled" in vanilla sc2, so that they can add units later on. Honestly right now, zerg's lurker allowed for WAY more interesting play than the roach. And even the reaver was cooler than the colossus. Blizzard is obviously having a tough time and no wonder they have been working on Sc2 so long. I even remember reading that Blizz stated they were having a tough time with the roach in particular.
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On April 06 2010 14:26 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
I think marauders is the most problematic to balance. They need a role that is a)Effective against armor b)Not good core DPS, and require marines c)Help marines against melee by slowing.
I think a good nerf for marauders would be this:
75 min 50 gas
Concussive shells have to be researched, and even then they only slow by around 30%
100 hp base health, and be able to utilize the Combat Shield upgrade (+10 health)
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in two years or so, when starcraft 2 is the dominant RTS that is perfectly balanced, we'll all look back and say: "do you remember back then in beta? when roaches and marauders would just kill everything?? can't even really imagine anymore how imbalanced the game was back then!!" and blizzard will agree: "yeah we did some experimenting in beta, but we then realized that a game that is just dominated by roach and mauder balls is just retarted. we were actually seriously drunk when we designed those units.."
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Marauder: Change their base damage to 8+12 and reduce HP to 100.
Roach: Lower their HP to 115, increase supply to 2,
Immortal: Reduce bonus damage to Armored units. 20+20
THE MATH:
Formula: Current HP / (Immortal Damage - Armor) * (New Immortal Damage - Armor) = New HP
MaraHP = 125/(50-1)*(40-1)=99.xx==> 100 HP
RoachHP = 145/(50-2)*(40-2) = 114.79===> 115 HP
Since we are only changing HP, we must only verify that each unit is comparatively equal. Less HP means each unit will die faster, we check to make sure the ratio remains the same.
Roach vs Marauder: 125/15 = 8.333 ===> 100/15 = 6.666 == 8.333/6.666 = 1.25x faster killing
Marauder vs Roach: 145/18 = 8.055 ===> 115/18 = 6.388 == 8.055/6.388 = 1.26x faster killing
Net effect: Immortals kill Roaches just as fast. 1 Roach kills 1 Marauder faster, but 1 Marauder kills 1 roach almost just as much faster. BALANCE.
Rationalization:
Less HP for Marauders would make Immortals with lower bonus damage kill them equally as fast as right now. AND the decease in non-armored damage would make Marauders less effective versus light units that are supposed to counter Marauders.
Lower HP on Roaches would allow nerfed Immortals to kill them just as fast. Increased supply would make massing them a bit harder.
Lower Immortal bonus damage would make Immortals less of a hard counter to Terran mech, while the subsequent nerfs to it's fellow units HP would not change it's effectiveness vs Roaches and Marauders.
COMMENTS?!?
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On April 06 2010 20:38 Daerthalus wrote:
Marauder: Change their base damage to 8+12 and reduce HP to 100.
Roach: Lower their HP to 115, increase supply to 2,
Immortal: Reduce bonus damage to Armored units. 20+20
THE MATH: (Based on Immortal 50 Damage ==> 40 Damage)
MaraHP = 125/(50-1)*(40-1)=99.xx==> 100 HP
RoachHP = 145/(50-2)*(40-2) = 114.79===> 115 HP
Roach vs Marauder: 125/15 = 8.333 ===> 100/15 = 6.666 == 1.25x faster killing
Marauder vs Roach: 145/18 = 8.055 ===> 115/18 = 6.388 == 1.26x faster killing
Net effect: Immortals kill Roaches just as fast. 1 Roach kills 1 Marauder faster, but 1 Marauder kills 1 roach almost just as much faster. BALANCE.
Rationalization:
Less HP for Marauders would make Immortals with lower bonus damage kill them equally as fast as right now. AND the decease in non-armored damage would make Marauders less effective versus light units that are supposed to counter Marauders.
Lower HP on Roaches would allow nerfed Immortals to kill them just as fast. Increased supply would make massing them a bit harder.
Lower Immortal bonus damage would make Immortals less of a hard counter to Terran mech, while the subsequent nerfs to it's fellow units HP would not change it's effectiveness vs Roaches and Marauders.
COMMENTS?!?
what about zealots vs roaches?
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Obviously other units (zealot etc.) would become better versus roaches, but I went with the assumption that all 3 units are considered significantly better than other units. IE too good, and that an overall nerf would be desired.
Clearly a nerf to all 3 would keep the trinity in balance with eachother, and allow other units to stand a chance.
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nice read and nice argueing. i agree roaches need a overwork as they do in my eyes influence the game most drastically because of the absence of proper scouting
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imho thhe marauders are the problem not the roaches. ^^
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Can't you counter mass marauders with storm or mutas?
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Almost all of BW’s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the Lurker.
The problem of massed MnM bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit.
Lurkers are a unit that costs 125 minerals, 125 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T2. They have 125 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 6, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 2 supply. And if that wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with one armor(!). And to make things even more absurd, they move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed.
If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd.
This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
...
That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The Lurker SHOULD be overpowered.
That a unit as absurd as a lurker should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the lurker is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved medics and dark templars.
Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage.
They ensure that the Lurker is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Medic, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the lurker, for a relatively costly price of 50 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps. To put this in perspective, the use of a medic in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser).
While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Medics do not.
Once again, in a vacuum, the medic is overpowered, like the lurker. But because of the lurker. Specifically, they are overpowered against Lurkers, and as a result, against armor in general.
This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413
Finally, the protoss have the dark templar. The dark templar singel handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing medics. The dark templar, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing 40 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS.
That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1.
What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the lurker. While SC1 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Medic has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the dark templar does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things.
The lurkers role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in ‘98. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 1 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence.
Zerg were not design to host a 125hp 1 armor 20 damage unit for 125 minerals and 125 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T3 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state
The answer to almost all of BW’s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the lurker. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in BW will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic.
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I R soo confused.
Discussing BW imbalance in a SC2 thread?
Lurkers in SC2?
Medics doing DPS?
Dark templars doing bonus vs Armor
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In reference to by above post suggesting nerfs to all 3 Trinity units.
Immortal to 20+20 Damage
Marauders to 100 HP, 8+12 Damage
Roaches to 115 HP, Maybe 2 Supply I dunno!?!
Some one asked about Zealots and using the above nerfs, clearly the balance between other units and the trinity would change.
So for the sake of dicussion here's is some analysis or T1 vs Roach.
Z vs Roach analysis.
1 Roach 74 min / 25 gas, 145 HP, 2 Armor, 16 Damage
1 Zealot 100 min / 0 gas, 100 HP / 50 Shield, 1 Armor, 8x2 Damage.
**Assumed zealot has 0 shield armor**
Roach vs Zealot: 100/(16-1)+50/(16)= 9.792
Zealot vs Roach: 145/(2*(8-2)) = 12.083 ==> 115 / 12 = 9.583
Considering the extra range the Roach has over the Zealot I believe cost of cost the roach still wins.
**Note: I'd consider relenting on the increase of roach supply to 2, if T1 units turn out to be significantly better vs roaches than previously**
Here is Zergling vs Roach
1 Roach 74 min / 25 gas, 145 HP, 2 Armor, 16 Damage
1 Zergling 25 min / 0 gas, 35 HP, 0 Armor, 5 Damage
Roach vs Zergling: 35/16 = 2.1875
Zergling vs Roach: 145/(5-2) = 48.333 ==> 115/3 = 38.333
Assuming 4 lings = 1 roach for cost
R vs Zx4: 8.75
Zx4 vs R: 12.083 ==> 9.583
Cost for cost Roach wins, even moreso if you figure I assumed all 4 lings die at the same time which wouldn't occur, since every 2.1875 attacks 1 ling would die.
Here is Marine vs Roach
1 Roach 74 min / 25 gas, 145 HP, 2 Armor, 16 Damage
1 Marine 50 min / 0 gas, 45 HP, 0 Armor, 6 Damage
R v M: 45 / 16 = 2.8125
M v R: 145/(6-2) = 36.25 ==> 115/4 = 28.75
Assuming 2 Marines = 1 Roach for cost:
R v Mx2: 5.623
Mx2 v R: 18.125 ==> 14.375
Clearly Roaches beat Marines cost for cost even with a roach nerf. It would be even worse if i hadn't assumed the 2 marines die at the same time, since the roach would kill 1 then the other.
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range 3 is what makes them weak, also, health regeneration has already been nerfed to 50%...
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Make the Roach a unique unit and not a Hydra clone. Lower hp but make the regen and armor high. Give it an identity!
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On April 06 2010 21:11 Daerthalus wrote:
I R soo confused.
Discussing BW imbalance in a SC2 thread?
Lurkers in SC2?
Medics doing DPS?
Dark templars doing bonus vs Armor
Emon_ is just being a troll. A dumb troll that is failing to make a point.
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No, he's being satirical.
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On April 06 2010 21:21 Senix wrote:
Make the Roach a unique unit and not a Hydra clone. Lower hp but make the regen and armor high. Give it an identity!
sure give it high regen, but don't give it higher armor. I don't think you realise how good high armor really is vs early units. I think the roach would be fine it had increased hp regen, -1 or -2 armor, slight hp reduction, and a hp regen upgrade in hive perhaps to make it better in the bigger battles towards the end.
Then it would be abit tanky because of the regen instead of being tanky because T1 units deal heavily reduced damage to it.
and maybe give it a -armor debuff on attack and lower its damage, would give a good support-damage boost to lings/hydras.
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I'd have no objections to HP regen buffs from the Hive, but it's not really an issue as most people hate mass roaches early game as opposed to late game.
Armor buffs would decimate early game units, and make zealots /marines and lings pointless all game long.
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On April 06 2010 12:06 Kleander wrote:
switch hydra and roach (nerfing and buffing respectively to make them fit into their tier positions)
require an armory to build marauder
nerf zealots and make hard shell an upgrade at robo facility
and then start the REAL balancing of the game
This seems to me to be the best suggestion on balancing. I really, really wish Blizzard would roll out multiple patches for different servers. That way they could test more radical suggestions, whilst at the same time working on a more iterative improvement process.
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Here's the problem. The majority of the people in this thread seem to understand that SC2 is currently more or less balanced, but is boring, especially to watch. Which is fine if all they're going for is balanced. We know they want an Esport, and that's what we want as well.
They're never going to get it unless they make some changes. Currently, with very few exceptions, when a game loads up you already know what it's going to look like just from the matchup. Not only is watching a roach or marauder ball boring, it's predictable. The game needs to not only be balanced, but dynamic and interesting at the same time.
This is not an easy combination to hit, but we all know it's missing that mark right now. We all agree that changing the unholy trinity is a big undertaking, since it would almost certainly require multiple iterations, and possibly even new units. However, saying it's too close to release to do the work is not an excuse. All that does is doom us to a boring game that will never overtake SCBW as a sport. Which, in essence, makes SC2 a waste of effort for anything other than quick money.
If they're unwilling to make the changes, then they should just release today. Minor balance tweaks can be done after release, beta is designed to spot big things like this and FIX them. Not identify big problems then avoid them because you don't want to do the work.
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I don't like the idea of messing with the supply - adding an extra point of supply would make the roaches 25 minerals more /overlord cost/ and 1 larva per 4 roaches more; this dramatically reduces their very early and very late game usefulness, rending them a midgame unit, and I believe that's not the point :O
The lurker mirror OP made my day :D thx dude
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On April 06 2010 15:32 NiGhT_mArE wrote:
Honestly I feel that nerfing all three is indeed the correct thing to do, yet when one nerfs them one realizes how boring and dull the units truly are
This is a frequent comment in the thread, and one I do not understand.
How are these units boring? especially considering they are tier 1.5-2 units?
I mean the SCI equivalents are hydra, firebats, and dragoons....nothing particularly exciting about those units.
Each of the "unholy trinity" has a nice interesting ability, I just think that its overshadowed by their over inflated stats.
I don't mind that the maurader can slow and pick off units one at a time, I mind that the maurader tears through armies singlehandedly.
I don't mind that an immortal can take 10 shots from a tank, its that it can kill buildings and workers in a few shots.
And I don't mind that a roach has regen, I just mind that the roach is so strong regen is rarely used.
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wouldnt it be a good idea to convert most of the roaches dmg to + vs light? this would keep it valuable in early game to force the enemy to tech from t1, while turning it into a harass unit late game, which fits well with its high regen (which could be restored to pre-patch values)
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Noob suggestion alert:
ATM the only penalty for massing single unit types is that you don't get the benefits others would have brought. This strikes me as inherently difficult to balance.
But what if massing certain units carried a penalty? As a for-instance, what if roaches had their regen rebuffed, but each consumed a small quantity of minerals or gas for every X regen 'ticks'? Hitting massed roaches with storm or kiting them would thus place a significant drain on a zerg player's economy.
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I completely agree, roaches should be removed or replaced or changed to balance the game.
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Zerg have fewer "fighting" units than Terran and especially Protoss, and when Blizzard removed the lurker and did not replace it with anything before the beta, things turned out even worse for Zerg. Because of the few and uninteresting units of the Zerg arsenal, the Roach had to step up and take a major role in the Zerg arsenal. The problem is that the Roach is such a plain boring unit and making this unit the core of the Zerg arsenal made things even worse.
In SC1 you had interesting units like the Scourge (a melee air unit!) and the Lurker, that made Zerg feel different from the other two races. However, with the incredibly misshot that is called hard counters, the three races MUST be similar for the balancing to even work, and add to that the Roach and the few units of the Zerg arsenal, and you have a recipe for failure (or atleast a game that will never succeed as a fun game or a fun spectator sport).
Sure, I could go back to SC1, but the problem is that SC2 will kill SC1 and if SC2 keep Zerg as a broken race with so few and mostly Protossy-like units, SC2 will die quickly, and then it is too late to resurrect SC1.
The problem is not the balance - Blizzard will be able to balance the game as perfect as humanly possible, that is for certain. The problem IS that the game in the current state is not good enough, because of these things mentioned.
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Alright, I made my own thread, but Plexa assured me I am in fact not special and should post within the confines of this one, so here we go:
*changes from the original post are in italics
The Balance Changes:
This is what I was just discussing with my friend:
Nerf roach hp to something like 50 hp. Buff their armor to 3. Perhaps rebalance their cost a bit (2 food?), and maybe even reduce their damage slightly. Basically, you'll want T2 units to kill these guys, or really good focus fire, but once T2 is out, they're not terribly strong.
Change the marauder to a support unit role. Reduce HP, Increase gas cost (perhaps 50/50 like the reaper?), and make it a flat 10 damage attack. The idea is that they'll be a great asset to your army, but in a straight up fight they lose to basically everything. More like the sentry of terrans. With stim they'll be much stronger, but not broken good. (They will do the same dps to non armored units, so use that as a reference).
Decrease immortal damage to 20 (+10). Hardened shields is an amazing idea, and having a unit specifically designed to be a frontline tank vs heavy hitters is amazing. However, when you can walk up to a tank or bunker and decimate it instantly, something is wrong. It turns from less of an antiarmor unit to a tanking frontline unit designed to break fortified positions or absorb those first hits.
Lets now look at how this affects each matchup:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
-They will forces T2 out of terran. With the mara nerf they will still be the t1 counter, but they won't do very well vs crawlers. Roaches will be one of those units that force micro. Target roach with heavy hitters (maras/tanks/thors) and use marines to mop up the rest. It'd also make the answer to mech more complicated than "lots of roaches."
-They will make roaches even more of a tank vs sentry/zealot, but even weaker vs stalkers. With the immortal nerf, you'll need stalkers to fight roaches, but that'll make for a better dynamic, because stalkers fall to hydra/lings pretty easily, but sentry/zealot does well vs that. Immortals will be more of a crawler tank/anti ultra unit. It also makes roaches affected by storm, so that even with the storm nerf it's still viable in PvZ.
We can't forget that roaches still will have burrowwalk, so they'll still be very creative ways to use them!!!
Marauders:
-They will make mech much more viable in TvT, since they will not decimate tanks/vikings/thors completely. We'll still see them, and they still will hit hard and be really useful as support. This will open up the game for more positional tank play, and more use of vikings on the ground. TvT already is a very exciting matchup, but the marauder is just too strong right now.
-They will make TvP not a mara spamfest. Maras would still be just as effective earlygame vs zealots in terms of kiting, and amazing at picking off units. However, stalkers would beat maras in a straight up fight, and maras themselves would not be massable. You'd want a few for the slow buff and decent range which allows you to use micro really effectively, but you'd want to get out tanks with marine support to deal with T1, and hellions to deal with zealots. With the immortal change, this would be viable.
-They will make TvZ more about static defense for zerg. The reasoning behind this is maras make crawlers completely garbage right now, but if they weren't so powerful zerg could actually use their static defense to hold expansions instead of masses of units. With the roach nerf, roaches won't be nearly as strong past earlygame, so once maras are on the field you'll want to throw up some crawlers and get to T2. Maras will still counter roaches, but they'd be much weaker outside of that niche. You'd really want some dropships or tanks as terran to break zerg (sound familiar?)
Basically, marauders become the sentries of terran, but still function well as a t1.5 counter to roaches!
Immortals
We've already gone over immortals fairly extensively but lets revisit:
-They will not affect PvP much. Immortals already are not heavily used except vs stalker heavy armies. They'd still be strong in that regard, but collosi, dt, chargelot, and good force fields/guardian do fine anyways, so you really don't need immortals. I'd see them being a strong counter to archons or DTs though.
-They will be more of a tanking unit in PvT. Immortals will be great for absorbing those first hits from sieged tanks, tanking a PF, or tanking thors. They still will be strong damage. However you don't need them to be massive damage dealers since now stalkers can be more viable given the marauder nerf!
-As discussed before, they will be more of an anticrawler/anti ultra unit in PvZ. With the new roach being fairly weak vs stalkers, we'll see immortals become much less of an antiroach unit and more specialized. They still will be useful, but to break turtling zergs without having to go all the way to collosus range (which btw is at risk for infestors too). Lategame you'll want them in the front to tank ultra hits while stalkers/collosi/archons hit from the back.
Basically, we're turning a powerhouse into more of a frontline tank.
To conclude:
These changes will make EVERY matchup more interesting and dynamic. Perhaps it will slightly imbalance things for other units, but that's something which can be fixed fairly easily, and it's a small cost for a massive improvement in gameplay. I've put a lot of thought into these changes. I hope you guys can all do the same.
Given feedback from people, I tweaked up some numbers.
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On April 06 2010 23:59 HowardRoark wrote:
Zerg have fewer "fighting" units than Terran and especially Protoss, and when Blizzard removed the lurker and did not replace it with anything before the beta, things turned out even worse for Zerg. Because of the few and uninteresting units of the Zerg arsenal, the Roach had to step up and take a major role in the Zerg arsenal. The problem is that the Roach is such a plain boring unit and making this unit the core of the Zerg arsenal made things even worse.
In SC1 you had interesting units like the Scourge and the Lurker, that made Zerg feel different from the other two races. However, with the incredibly misshot that is called hard counters, the three races MUST be similar for the balancing to even work, and add to that the Roach and the few units of the Zerg arsenal, and you have a recipe for failure (or atleast a game that will never succeed as a fun game or a fun spectator sport).
Sure, I could go back to SC1, but the problem is that SC2 will kill SC1 and if SC2 keep Zerg as a broken race with so few and mostly Protossy-like units, SC2 will die quickly, and then it is too late to resurrect SC1.
The problem is not the balance - Blizzard will be able to balance the game as perfect as humanly possible, that is for certain. The problem IS that the game in the current state is not good enough, because of these things mentioned.
I think it's true that zerg lack a bit of unit diversity. I kind of accepted it as zerg being a massing race and less diversity and smaller numbers like protoss. That said, overall new feature wise as compared to BW, zerg did get quite a bit new things such as nynus canel, queen, changeling, ol creep spreading, speed on creep and etc.. I think those are great additions but lacking unit diversity make them less desirable to play for sure. I'm a terran player, I really enjoyed the experience of playing protoss, though I didn't like to play them much in BW. The warp gates and chrono boosts are just great ideas to make them much cooler and fun. I have to admit that zerg is not as fun by far, just seems less polish and the new additions don't add as much to the experience. But of course, it's my personal preference but I think they are backed up by good reasons.
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Great discussion. I know too little about zerg to really contribute, but...
Roaches should be low-damage, high-regen meat shields vulnerable to air. Hydras should be glass cannons. Zerglings should be really really fast. These should be the core, and they should come in huge clumps.
MUTAs should be a useful counter to roaches, immortals, and marauders.
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On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
.
NO NO NO.
THIS IS THE PROBLEM! In ZvZ, Hydra's are a Tier 2 unit, thus should automatically be stronger than any tier one unit. HOWEVER, I know from experience and testing/playing, that a mass roach army will KILL a mass hydra army, which frankly should not be even close to possible. Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage.
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Some good suggestions in this thread, it seems almost everyone agrees that these three units are the root of all gameplay issues. Everyone but Blizzard that is, as the problem has been obvious since day one of the beta, and they haven't touched either the immortal or the marauder (and the roach only got its upgrade nerfed). In fact, their changes would lead you to believe they're trying to encourage more marauder play. Reactor and marine build time nerf come to mind. Blizzard's slowly tweaking the game towards 'balance', but not towards 'fun'.
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On April 07 2010 00:05 TAD[Life] wrote:
Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage.
This.
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On April 07 2010 00:27 TAD[Life] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
. NO NO NO. THIS IS THE PROBLEM! In ZvZ, Hydra's are a Tier 2 unit, thus should automatically be stronger than any tier one unit. HOWEVER, I know from experience and testing/playing, that a mass roach army will KILL a mass hydra army, which frankly should not be even close to possible. Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage.
Uh.... did you even read? Hydras do 12 damage a shot. Right now they do 10 damage to a roach, which means they need 15 shots to kill one. I'm suggesting making roaches basically immune to lings by upping the armor, but dropping the hp to somewhere around 50. Hydras will then do 9 damage a shot. That's 8 hits to kill a roach. How the hell is this not better?
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Problem is with the Armored type class.
Since they want Roaches, Marauders and Siege Tanks to be armored, all of these units will be countered by armored counter units.
These +armor bonuses are pretty high for certain units, and therefore all of these units will be high on HP.
Resulting in Marauders closing in with HP on Siege Tanks and Roaches having over half more than Hydralisks.
One solution would be to make some compromise class - like Light Armored.
SC1 hydralisks for example were exactly the unit in between when facing explosive type damage like siege tank taking only 75% damage.
Consquently Light Armor should be +50% of bonus damage.
Warcraft III can be considered a game of hard counters, even there units with in between status exist due to enhanced armor type system.
I still think Marauders along with all Terran infantry should be very low on HP even lower than 100, but also significantly cheaper. Roaches should be close to Hydralisks on HP, but Roaches should be specialized vs bio or light while having high regen abilities(even when not burrowed). Then immortals can be nerfed and long live the siege tanks.
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On April 07 2010 00:30 suejak wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage. This.
Sorry for double post if it occurs, but when the hell did I say that? People are making up quotes. I never ever ever ever ever said they need a decrease to attack damage, nor did I throw around the word imba.
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TAD[Life] said it the page before, probably miss quoting.
On April 07 2010 00:31 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 00:27 TAD[Life] wrote:On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
. NO NO NO. THIS IS THE PROBLEM! In ZvZ, Hydra's are a Tier 2 unit, thus should automatically be stronger than any tier one unit. HOWEVER, I know from experience and testing/playing, that a mass roach army will KILL a mass hydra army, which frankly should not be even close to possible. Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage. Uh.... did you even read? Hydras do 12 damage a shot. Right now they do 10 damage to a roach, which means they need 15 shots to kill one. I'm suggesting making roaches basically immune to lings by upping the armor, but dropping the hp to somewhere around 50. Hydras will then do 9 damage a shot. That's 8 hits to kill a roach. How the hell is this not better? Marines would do 1 damage that's how. Not to mention roaches should not just be "immune to lings".
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Alright, I made my own thread, but Plexa assured me I am in fact not special and should post within the confines of this one, so here we go:
*changes from the original post are in italics
The Balance Changes:
This is what I was just discussing with my friend:
Nerf roach hp to something like 50 hp. Buff their armor to 3. Perhaps rebalance their cost a bit (2 food?), and maybe even reduce their damage slightly. Basically, you'll want T2 units to kill these guys, or really good focus fire, but once T2 is out, they're not terribly strong.
Change the marauder to a support unit role. Reduce HP, Increase gas cost (perhaps 50/50 like the reaper?), and make it a flat 10 damage attack. The idea is that they'll be a great asset to your army, but in a straight up fight they lose to basically everything. More like the sentry of terrans. With stim they'll be much stronger, but not broken good. (They will do the same dps to non armored units, so use that as a reference).
Decrease immortal damage to 20 (+10). Hardened shields is an amazing idea, and having a unit specifically designed to be a frontline tank vs heavy hitters is amazing. However, when you can walk up to a tank or bunker and decimate it instantly, something is wrong. It turns from less of an antiarmor unit to a tanking frontline unit designed to break fortified positions or absorb those first hits.
Lets now look at how this affects each matchup:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
-They will forces T2 out of terran. With the mara nerf they will still be the t1 counter, but they won't do very well vs crawlers. Roaches will be one of those units that force micro. Target roach with heavy hitters (maras/tanks/thors) and use marines to mop up the rest. It'd also make the answer to mech more complicated than "lots of roaches."
-They will make roaches even more of a tank vs sentry/zealot, but even weaker vs stalkers. With the immortal nerf, you'll need stalkers to fight roaches, but that'll make for a better dynamic, because stalkers fall to hydra/lings pretty easily, but sentry/zealot does well vs that. Immortals will be more of a crawler tank/anti ultra unit. It also makes roaches affected by storm, so that even with the storm nerf it's still viable in PvZ.
We can't forget that roaches still will have burrowwalk, so they'll still be very creative ways to use them!!!
Marauders:
-They will make mech much more viable in TvT, since they will not decimate tanks/vikings/thors completely. We'll still see them, and they still will hit hard and be really useful as support. This will open up the game for more positional tank play, and more use of vikings on the ground. TvT already is a very exciting matchup, but the marauder is just too strong right now.
-They will make TvP not a mara spamfest. Maras would still be just as effective earlygame vs zealots in terms of kiting, and amazing at picking off units. However, stalkers would beat maras in a straight up fight, and maras themselves would not be massable. You'd want a few for the slow buff and decent range which allows you to use micro really effectively, but you'd want to get out tanks with marine support to deal with T1, and hellions to deal with zealots. With the immortal change, this would be viable.
-They will make TvZ more about static defense for zerg. The reasoning behind this is maras make crawlers completely garbage right now, but if they weren't so powerful zerg could actually use their static defense to hold expansions instead of masses of units. With the roach nerf, roaches won't be nearly as strong past earlygame, so once maras are on the field you'll want to throw up some crawlers and get to T2. Maras will still counter roaches, but they'd be much weaker outside of that niche. You'd really want some dropships or tanks as terran to break zerg (sound familiar?)
Basically, marauders become the sentries of terran, but still function well as a t1.5 counter to roaches!
Immortals
We've already gone over immortals fairly extensively but lets revisit:
-They will not affect PvP much. Immortals already are not heavily used except vs stalker heavy armies. They'd still be strong in that regard, but collosi, dt, chargelot, and good force fields/guardian do fine anyways, so you really don't need immortals. I'd see them being a strong counter to archons or DTs though.
-They will be more of a tanking unit in PvT. Immortals will be great for absorbing those first hits from sieged tanks, tanking a PF, or tanking thors. They still will be strong damage. However you don't need them to be massive damage dealers since now stalkers can be more viable given the marauder nerf!
-As discussed before, they will be more of an anticrawler/anti ultra unit in PvZ. With the new roach being fairly weak vs stalkers, we'll see immortals become much less of an antiroach unit and more specialized. They still will be useful, but to break turtling zergs without having to go all the way to collosus range (which btw is at risk for infestors too). Lategame you'll want them in the front to tank ultra hits while stalkers/collosi/archons hit from the back.
Basically, we're turning a powerhouse into more of a frontline tank.
To conclude:
These changes will make EVERY matchup more interesting and dynamic. Perhaps it will slightly imbalance things for other units, but that's something which can be fixed fairly easily, and it's a small cost for a massive improvement in gameplay. I've put a lot of thought into these changes. I hope you guys can all do the same.
Given feedback from people, I tweaked up some numbers.
Just to respond to the immortal part. I really don't think an immortal with those stats would be used, even against tanks. Speedlots as well as blink stalkers are an in-hand counter to tanks and one emp negates the power of hardened shield (Which is not active once shields are depleted). I'm sure it doesn't need the current 50+ to armored, but if there is a significant nerf to it's damage as anti-mech, then it certainly needs something.
I'd say make it slower, make hardened shield stay active without shield energy. That way it's actually worth building vs. terran mech late-game (rather than just zerging with stalkers and zeals or flanking with air, all of which seem more viable than the proposed immo).
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On April 06 2010 23:59 HowardRoark wrote:
The problem is not the balance - Blizzard will be able to balance the game as perfect as humanly possible, that is for certain. The problem IS that the game in the current state is not good enough, because of these things mentioned.
Exactly!
Crunching little numbers so that Unit A does more DMG and Unit B does less is so stupid and unnecessary right now, when they should be making bigger changes with units, the hard-counter-system and high-ground-advantage. If 1 big change like the ones mentioned before are made, every Unit would have to be balanced once more anyways because it would change how the game is palyed.
And because Blizz does all those little changes I don't really think we're gonna see anything more than that - I don't think they're that stupid to change all this little stuff and basically "ruin" their "so-called" balance by making one major change to the way the game works and is played.
I guess until the release and beyond that until maybe an expansion is released, we'll see nothing more than just playing with the numbers a bit, I personally don't expect anythin more just to be prepared to be disappointed... -.-°
Or does sm1 really believe that Blizzard makes a bigger change, like:
- Implementing a new Unit
- Taking a Unit out of the game that doesn't work
- Adding Skills/passive abilities to a Unit or doing other major changes to a Unit
- Doing sth about the hard-counter-system
- Doing sth about the highground-advantage
- Changing sth about the Macro-abilities
- Changing sth about the controllability of the Units, like better control over Hellions
- Changing sth about the AI
?
I personally don't...
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On April 07 2010 00:35 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 00:30 suejak wrote:On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage. This. Sorry for double post if it occurs, but when the hell did I say that? People are making up quotes. I never ever ever ever ever said they need a decrease to attack damage, nor did I throw around the word imba.
LOL, I quoted the wrong person. Sorry. It's fixed now.
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On April 07 2010 00:41 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Alright, I made my own thread, but Plexa assured me I am in fact not special and should post within the confines of this one, so here we go:
*changes from the original post are in italics
The Balance Changes:
This is what I was just discussing with my friend:
Nerf roach hp to something like 50 hp. Buff their armor to 3. Perhaps rebalance their cost a bit (2 food?), and maybe even reduce their damage slightly. Basically, you'll want T2 units to kill these guys, or really good focus fire, but once T2 is out, they're not terribly strong.
Change the marauder to a support unit role. Reduce HP, Increase gas cost (perhaps 50/50 like the reaper?), and make it a flat 10 damage attack. The idea is that they'll be a great asset to your army, but in a straight up fight they lose to basically everything. More like the sentry of terrans. With stim they'll be much stronger, but not broken good. (They will do the same dps to non armored units, so use that as a reference).
Decrease immortal damage to 20 (+10). Hardened shields is an amazing idea, and having a unit specifically designed to be a frontline tank vs heavy hitters is amazing. However, when you can walk up to a tank or bunker and decimate it instantly, something is wrong. It turns from less of an antiarmor unit to a tanking frontline unit designed to break fortified positions or absorb those first hits.
Lets now look at how this affects each matchup:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
-They will forces T2 out of terran. With the mara nerf they will still be the t1 counter, but they won't do very well vs crawlers. Roaches will be one of those units that force micro. Target roach with heavy hitters (maras/tanks/thors) and use marines to mop up the rest. It'd also make the answer to mech more complicated than "lots of roaches."
-They will make roaches even more of a tank vs sentry/zealot, but even weaker vs stalkers. With the immortal nerf, you'll need stalkers to fight roaches, but that'll make for a better dynamic, because stalkers fall to hydra/lings pretty easily, but sentry/zealot does well vs that. Immortals will be more of a crawler tank/anti ultra unit. It also makes roaches affected by storm, so that even with the storm nerf it's still viable in PvZ.
We can't forget that roaches still will have burrowwalk, so they'll still be very creative ways to use them!!!
Marauders:
-They will make mech much more viable in TvT, since they will not decimate tanks/vikings/thors completely. We'll still see them, and they still will hit hard and be really useful as support. This will open up the game for more positional tank play, and more use of vikings on the ground. TvT already is a very exciting matchup, but the marauder is just too strong right now.
-They will make TvP not a mara spamfest. Maras would still be just as effective earlygame vs zealots in terms of kiting, and amazing at picking off units. However, stalkers would beat maras in a straight up fight, and maras themselves would not be massable. You'd want a few for the slow buff and decent range which allows you to use micro really effectively, but you'd want to get out tanks with marine support to deal with T1, and hellions to deal with zealots. With the immortal change, this would be viable.
-They will make TvZ more about static defense for zerg. The reasoning behind this is maras make crawlers completely garbage right now, but if they weren't so powerful zerg could actually use their static defense to hold expansions instead of masses of units. With the roach nerf, roaches won't be nearly as strong past earlygame, so once maras are on the field you'll want to throw up some crawlers and get to T2. Maras will still counter roaches, but they'd be much weaker outside of that niche. You'd really want some dropships or tanks as terran to break zerg (sound familiar?)
Basically, marauders become the sentries of terran, but still function well as a t1.5 counter to roaches!
Immortals
We've already gone over immortals fairly extensively but lets revisit:
-They will not affect PvP much. Immortals already are not heavily used except vs stalker heavy armies. They'd still be strong in that regard, but collosi, dt, chargelot, and good force fields/guardian do fine anyways, so you really don't need immortals. I'd see them being a strong counter to archons or DTs though.
-They will be more of a tanking unit in PvT. Immortals will be great for absorbing those first hits from sieged tanks, tanking a PF, or tanking thors. They still will be strong damage. However you don't need them to be massive damage dealers since now stalkers can be more viable given the marauder nerf!
-As discussed before, they will be more of an anticrawler/anti ultra unit in PvZ. With the new roach being fairly weak vs stalkers, we'll see immortals become much less of an antiroach unit and more specialized. They still will be useful, but to break turtling zergs without having to go all the way to collosus range (which btw is at risk for infestors too). Lategame you'll want them in the front to tank ultra hits while stalkers/collosi/archons hit from the back.
Basically, we're turning a powerhouse into more of a frontline tank.
To conclude:
These changes will make EVERY matchup more interesting and dynamic. Perhaps it will slightly imbalance things for other units, but that's something which can be fixed fairly easily, and it's a small cost for a massive improvement in gameplay. I've put a lot of thought into these changes. I hope you guys can all do the same.
Given feedback from people, I tweaked up some numbers. Just to respond to the immortal part. I really don't think an immortal with those stats would be used, even against tanks. Speedlots as well as blink stalkers are an in-hand counter to tanks and one emp negates the power of hardened shield (Which is not active once shields are depleted). I'm sure it doesn't need the current 50+ to armored, but if there is a significant nerf to it's damage as anti-mech, then it certainly needs something. I'd say make it slower, make hardened shield stay active without shield energy. That way it's actually worth building vs. terran mech late-game (rather than just zerging with stalkers and zeals or flanking with air, all of which seem more viable than the proposed immo).
It'd still 6 shot a tank (5 shot with +1 weapons). I'd use it just for that alone. It'd also be a way to break PFs with minimal forces. Ever tried it with gateway units? Don't.
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The OP gives me faith in humanity.
Thank you for stating what I couldn't myself put into words- this is exactly what's wrong with SC2.
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On April 07 2010 00:43 kickinhead wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Exactly!
Crunching little numbers so that Unit A does more DMG and Unit B does less is so stupid and unnecessary right now, when they should be making bigger changes with units, the hard-counter-system and high-ground-advantage. If 1 big change like the ones mentioned before are made, every Unit would have to be balanced once more anyways because it would change how the game is palyed.
And because Blizz does all those little changes I don't really think we're gonna see anything more than that - I don't think they're that stupid to change all this little stuff and basically "ruin" their "so-called" balance by making one major change to the way the game works and is played.
I guess until the release and beyond that until maybe an expansion is released, we'll see nothing more than just playing with the numbers a bit, I personally don't expect anythin more just to be prepared to be disappointed... -.-°
Or does sm1 really believe that Blizzard makes a bigger change, like:
- Implementing a new Unit
- Taking a Unit out of the game that doesn't work
- Adding Skills/passive abilities to a Unit or doing other major changes to a Unit
- Doing sth about the hard-counter-system
- Doing sth about the highground-advantage
- Changing sth about the Macro-abilities
- Changing sth about the controllability of the Units, like better control over Hellions
- Changing sth about the AI
?
I personally don't...
And this is the problem, because you're right. I really doubt Blizzard is going to make any move to really fix the issues. They're going to make minor tweaks, and we'll be stuck with a balanced, but intrinsically boring game (both to play and to watch). They'll wait for the first, or even second, expansion to fix the issues and add new units. Which makes sense from a "we want to sell more copies" perspective, but not from a "we want this to be the next big ESport" perspective. The problem is, it's totally possible to have both, just not in the current state.
The result of this will be a mass migration from SCBW to SC2 initially as people try it out in the esports scene. It will quickly die, and possibly SCBW with it.
The best we can hope for is that SCBW retains it's good position in the esports world after SC2 flops. Then, after the expansions fix the boringness problem, we might see SC2 overtake SCBW a couple years from now.
The worst would be SC2's failure wiping SCBW out of the esports scene completely, and then we're left with nothing. I doubt that would happen, but you never know.
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The roach does force some design but doesn't make the game unbalanceable. The roach is a armored unit that counters unit's that DON'T do well vs armored. Since terrans have the marauder and protoss the immortal it is fine imo.
The immortal doesn't make mech a impossible choice, it's just that the marauder being slightly OP makes bio better then mech for T. A hellion buff and/or marauder nerf can easily change this back.
For the rest the roach is not a problem at all, it just gives the zerg a armored unit in their arsenal. Armored units have hard counters so they need to have good basic stats, if anything the roach makes zerg more interesting by being different. The nice thing about zerg lies in their swift unit changes making scouting very important, zerg can swiftly switch from roach to hydra for example making immortals very weak. Zerglings get countered by the same units as hydra's in this game so there really is a need for the roach.
The problem if any is perhaps the roach in ZvZ. Roach might need a unit that actually counters armored units but wouldn't be overpowered in the other MU's.
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On April 07 2010 01:17 Markwerf wrote:
The roach does force some design but doesn't make the game unbalanceable. The roach is a armored unit that counters unit's that DON'T do well vs armored. Since terrans have the marauder and protoss the immortal it is fine imo.
The immortal doesn't make mech a impossible choice, it's just that the marauder being slightly OP makes bio better then mech for T. A hellion buff and/or marauder nerf can easily change this back.
For the rest the roach is not a problem at all, it just gives the zerg a armored unit in their arsenal. Armored units have hard counters so they need to have good basic stats, if anything the roach makes zerg more interesting by being different. The nice thing about zerg lies in their swift unit changes making scouting very important, zerg can swiftly switch from roach to hydra for example making immortals very weak. Zerglings get countered by the same units as hydra's in this game so there really is a need for the roach.
The problem if any is perhaps the roach in ZvZ. Roach might need a unit that actually counters armored units but wouldn't be overpowered in the other MU's.
...... did you read the OP? please do next time
he never says that the game is unbalanced. just that the immortal/marauder/roach are too strong relative to all other units BECAUSE they have to do well vs each other, forcing us to center all builds around them, making the game very boring and stale.
btw, units that dont do well vs armored is basically all non marauder for terran and all non-immortal/collosi for toss. when 1 unit without much support beats all but 1/2 units from another race, you dont see any problem?
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On April 07 2010 01:17 Markwerf wrote:
The roach does force some design but doesn't make the game unbalanceable. The roach is a armored unit that counters unit's that DON'T do well vs armored. Since terrans have the marauder and protoss the immortal it is fine imo. /facepalm
Go back and read the opening! don't just read the title. This is not about just the roach.
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I have found that marauders are a pretty good counter to lings as well, if microed correctly.
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On April 07 2010 00:40 Black Octopi wrote:TAD[Life] said it the page before, probably miss quoting. Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 00:31 Floophead_III wrote:On April 07 2010 00:27 TAD[Life] wrote:On April 07 2010 00:05 Floophead_III wrote:
Roaches:
-They will make Hydras > Roach in ZvZ, so once T2 kicks in it'll be about hydras, but then you have banelings which counter hydras, roaches which counter banelings, mutas which counter everything but hydra, and suddenly it's a dynamic matchup! Lings will be useful only as harass/rush units, but that's fine because they're so stupid fast anyways =P
. NO NO NO. THIS IS THE PROBLEM! In ZvZ, Hydra's are a Tier 2 unit, thus should automatically be stronger than any tier one unit. HOWEVER, I know from experience and testing/playing, that a mass roach army will KILL a mass hydra army, which frankly should not be even close to possible. Roaches are imba, and they need to significantly decrease their attack damage. Uh.... did you even read? Hydras do 12 damage a shot. Right now they do 10 damage to a roach, which means they need 15 shots to kill one. I'm suggesting making roaches basically immune to lings by upping the armor, but dropping the hp to somewhere around 50. Hydras will then do 9 damage a shot. That's 8 hits to kill a roach. How the hell is this not better? Marines would do 1 damage that's how. Not to mention roaches should not just be "immune to lings".
Marines would do 3 damage, and the whole purpose of the unit in ZvT would be a counter to mass marine that isn't banelings. In larger fights you'd want to keep your marines from targeting the roaches and keep your maras on the roaches. As for lings, they already suck horribly vs roaches, but here's some math for you:
Lings do 3 damage a hit right now, which means they need (not counting regen) 145/3 or almost 50 hits to kill a roach. With my proposed change, lings will do 2 damage a hit, which means (again not counting regen) 50/2 or 25 hits to kill a roach! That's twice as effective!!! I originally said 4 armor, this would of course amount to 50 hits to kill a roach again, which ironically is the SAME number of hits as what we have now.
I'll do some math with marines too since you seem to be so numerically impaired:
Marines right now do 4 damage a hit to roaches. That means 145/4 = about 37 hits to kill a roach. With the change to 3 armor marines will do 3 damage a hit, so 50/3 = 17 hits to kill a roach! With 4 armor the damage goes to 2 per hit so we're looking at 50/2 = 25 hits, which is still much better than it is now.
Lets try one more case of lings and marines, with my originally proposed 80 hp/4 armor roach.
Marines = 80/2 = 40 hits to kill one, only 3 more than it is now.
Lings = 80/1 = 80 hits to kill one which is a lot more than it is now.
That was a little much, but perhaps 4 armor/50-60 hp or 3 armor and 80 hp makes more sense. Keep in mind the real reason roaches demolish zealots is because they are microable, not because of numbers, therefore numbers don't even matter when it comes to roach vs zealot.
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To those who didn't read the OP:
Imagine the protoss had the mothership at tier 1.5 and it costs 100/50 and has the original black hole and planet cracker. However, to keep things balanced, terrans get an infantry unit carrying a nuclear rocket that does 500 damage to air in tier 1.5 (let's call it the cobra) and zerg get the vacuumlisk in tier 2 which destroys all air units on the screen in one shot.
Statistics reveal that the races have an equal win percentage. The game is now balanced! Congratulations! Oh, what's this, you wanted to use other air units...?
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On April 06 2010 21:06 Emon_ wrote:Almost all of BW’s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the Lurker.+ Show Spoiler +The problem of massed MnM bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit. Lurkers are a unit that costs 125 minerals, 125 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T2. They have 125 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 6, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 2 supply. And if that wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with one armor(!). And to make things even more absurd, they move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed. If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd. This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
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That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The Lurker SHOULD be overpowered.That a unit as absurd as a lurker should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the lurker is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved medics and dark templars. Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage. They ensure that the Lurker is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Medic, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the lurker, for a relatively costly price of 50 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps. To put this in perspective, the use of a medic in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser). While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Medics do not. Once again, in a vacuum, the medic is overpowered, like the lurker. But because of the lurker. Specifically, they are overpowered against Lurkers, and as a result, against armor in general. This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413Finally, the protoss have the dark templar. The dark templar singel handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing medics. The dark templar, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing 40 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS. That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1. What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the lurker. While SC1 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Medic has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the dark templar does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things. The lurkers role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in ‘98. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 1 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence. Zerg were not design to host a 125hp 1 armor 20 damage unit for 125 minerals and 125 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T3 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state The answer to almost all of BW’s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the lurker. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in BW will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic.
It would actually be quite good if you could make this argument work to put into perspective the roach/marauder/immortal debate relative to a possible lurker/medic/DT trinity in SC.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can. Without even looking at the numbers, if you considered lurker/medic/DT as the defining relationship of 'hard counters' in SC, they're already a lot more varied and interesting. Lurkers are a burrowed ranged siege, medics do no damage at all but heal and DTs are cloaked, high damage, low health harassers. Roach/marauder/immortals are essentially high hp, high damage units with a few twists.
Bear in mind that the question isn't whether they are balanced BETWEEN races but whether they are balanced WITHIN races.
Put another way, is it viable to build a Zerg/Terran/Protoss army WITHOUT the roach/marauder/immortal?
In BW, armies without lurkers/medics/DTs are pretty common.
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Bring back Blackhole and Planetbuster!!
/troll!!
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On April 07 2010 01:58 Xanrae wrote:+ Show Spoiler +To those who didn't read the OP:
Imagine the protoss had the mothership at tier 1.5 and it costs 100/50 and has the original black hole and planet cracker. However, to keep things balanced, terrans get an infantry unit carrying a nuclear rocket that does 500 damage to air in tier 1.5 (let's call it the cobra) and zerg get the vacuumlisk in tier 2 which destroys all air units on the screen in one shot.
Statistics reveal that the races have an equal win percentage. The game is now balanced! Congratulations! Oh, what's this, you wanted to use other air units...?
You know, this is actually a fantastic illustration of the current situation. The units are balanced in relation to each other, but by their existence invalidate a large number of other units/strategies. It sounds ludicrous on the face of it, but if you look at it objectively, it's no more ludicrous than proposing a 145 hp, 2 armor, ranged unit w/ 16 damage and decent attack speed that costs 75/25/1 and is available in T1.5. Or either of the other two units for that matter. Any one of them would have been thought a laughable suggestion not long ago.
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On April 07 2010 02:25 BillyMole wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 01:58 Xanrae wrote:+ Show Spoiler +To those who didn't read the OP:
Imagine the protoss had the mothership at tier 1.5 and it costs 100/50 and has the original black hole and planet cracker. However, to keep things balanced, terrans get an infantry unit carrying a nuclear rocket that does 500 damage to air in tier 1.5 (let's call it the cobra) and zerg get the vacuumlisk in tier 2 which destroys all air units on the screen in one shot.
Statistics reveal that the races have an equal win percentage. The game is now balanced! Congratulations! Oh, what's this, you wanted to use other air units...? You know, this is actually a fantastic illustration of the current situation. The units are balanced in relation to each other, but by their existence invalidate a large number of other units/strategies. It sounds ludicrous on the face of it, but if you look at it objectively, it's no more ludicrous than proposing a 145 hp, 2 armor, ranged unit w/ 16 damage and decent attack speed that costs 75/25/1 and is available in T1.5. Or either of the other two units for that matter. Any one of them would have been thought a laughable suggestion not long ago.
Why do people always talk about Roaches attack speed/damage as "decent" or even "high."
They have a 2 second attack delay, the longest of any ground unit save colossi or siege tanks (which of course do splash damage and have huge range). They do about the same DPS as a marine, for 3x the effective cost.
The damage that roaches do is quite low for their cost. It's the armor/HP combo that makes them a great deal.
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I never said it was high. But it's not terrible, hence my usage of the word decent. Couple it with range (albeit short), huge armor/hp, and incredibly low cost and you get a unit in a completely different league from most of the other units, even without any of it's upgrades (the most important of which is speed). The same principle applies to RBG's and Immortals.
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Anyone who seriously tryies to make an argument saying that roaches arent really insane is really insane
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 07 2010 02:06 theSAiNT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 21:06 Emon_ wrote:Almost all of BW’s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the Lurker.+ Show Spoiler +The problem of massed MnM bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit. Lurkers are a unit that costs 125 minerals, 125 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T2. They have 125 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 6, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 2 supply. And if that wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with one armor(!). And to make things even more absurd, they move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed. If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd. This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
...
That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The Lurker SHOULD be overpowered.That a unit as absurd as a lurker should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the lurker is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved medics and dark templars. Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage. They ensure that the Lurker is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Medic, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the lurker, for a relatively costly price of 50 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps. To put this in perspective, the use of a medic in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser). While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Medics do not. Once again, in a vacuum, the medic is overpowered, like the lurker. But because of the lurker. Specifically, they are overpowered against Lurkers, and as a result, against armor in general. This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413Finally, the protoss have the dark templar. The dark templar singel handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing medics. The dark templar, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing 40 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS. That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1. What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the lurker. While SC1 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Medic has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the dark templar does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things. The lurkers role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in ‘98. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 1 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence. Zerg were not design to host a 125hp 1 armor 20 damage unit for 125 minerals and 125 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T3 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state The answer to almost all of BW’s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the lurker. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in BW will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. It would actually be quite good if you could make this argument work to put into perspective the roach/marauder/immortal debate relative to a possible lurker/medic/DT trinity in SC. Unfortunately, I don't think you can. Without even looking at the numbers, if you considered lurker/medic/DT as the defining relationship of 'hard counters' in SC, they're already a lot more varied and interesting. Lurkers are a burrowed ranged siege, medics do no damage at all but heal and DTs are cloaked, high damage, low health harassers. Roach/marauder/immortals are essentially high hp, high damage units with a few twists. Bear in mind that the question isn't whether they are balanced BETWEEN races but whether they are balanced WITHIN races. Put another way, is it viable to build a Zerg/Terran/Protoss army WITHOUT the roach/marauder/immortal? In BW, armies without lurkers/medics/DTs are pretty common. I'll answer your Protoss point - yes it is 100% viable to build an army without immortals and win.
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I agree with that line of thinking. No unit should invalidate so many of other units in all 3 match ups.
The Maraunder, roach and to a less extent the Immortal have that effect.
The Immortal doesn't realy over invalidate it's own units, but it does significantly weaken an entire Terran tech tree path.
The Marauder makes building marines vs ground units pointless.
The Roach has a similar effect with regard to zerglings.
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I'd agree that the Immortal is in the best shape of the 3. It doesn't really screw other Protoss over much, and against Zerg the only thing it invalidates is the self-invalidating Ultralisk (though if we fixed the 3, the need for huge +armored attacks would go away, which would probably bring the Ultra back into viability). The only thing it truly invalidates is Terran Mech (which without spider mines and Goliaths, is kind of self-invalidating as well). Probably the only thing the Immortal needs is a bit of a damage reduction.
Can't make the same statement for the other two units though. They invalidate pretty much everything the other races have on the ground except for 1-2 units.
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With regard to the comments about ESports.
I definitely agree people don't want to what you mass roaches while I mass Marauders or Immortals.
What gives SC2 the potential to be a very good E-Sport is the inherent weaknesses of each unit. From a viewing perspective I think people would enjoy seeing, different builds, and quick adaptation based on scouted information. Yes the cheese rushes need to exist to keep people on their toes, but every game shouldn't come down to the same unit comp vs same unit comp.
Here's an example of what of a game should look like:
Start; Pick an initial strategy. IE Banshee rush, 2 Gate proxy, 1 gate-robo, Marauder FE or w/e.
1 - Scout opponent's strategy
2 - Adapt or completely change initial strategy
3 - Opponent see what you're doing, and adapts.
4 - Repeat 1 - 3
5 - Win: either b.c you adapted better, caught your opponent off guard or microed/macroed better.
With this model there would more than likely be multiple possible openings and assuming good scouting on both end the units each player builds would vary through out the match.
IE: Zerg goes Roach vs Protoss, Protoss counters with Immortals, Zerg counters with lings, Protoss builds more Zealots, Zerg was feinting roach rush but really was going for muta-lings. Protoss is harassed by mutas and builds some Cannons + stalker/sentrys. Zerg meanwhile expands (again!), ... and so forth.
Seems it would be entertaining to watch.
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On April 07 2010 02:51 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 02:06 theSAiNT wrote:On April 06 2010 21:06 Emon_ wrote:Almost all of BW’s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the Lurker.+ Show Spoiler +The problem of massed MnM bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit. Lurkers are a unit that costs 125 minerals, 125 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T2. They have 125 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 6, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 2 supply. And if that wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with one armor(!). And to make things even more absurd, they move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed. If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd. This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
...
That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The Lurker SHOULD be overpowered.That a unit as absurd as a lurker should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the lurker is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved medics and dark templars. Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage. They ensure that the Lurker is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Medic, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the lurker, for a relatively costly price of 50 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps. To put this in perspective, the use of a medic in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser). While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Medics do not. Once again, in a vacuum, the medic is overpowered, like the lurker. But because of the lurker. Specifically, they are overpowered against Lurkers, and as a result, against armor in general. This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413Finally, the protoss have the dark templar. The dark templar singel handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing medics. The dark templar, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing 40 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS. That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1. What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the lurker. While SC1 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Medic has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the dark templar does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things. The lurkers role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in ‘98. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 1 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence. Zerg were not design to host a 125hp 1 armor 20 damage unit for 125 minerals and 125 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T3 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state The answer to almost all of BW’s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the lurker. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in BW will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. It would actually be quite good if you could make this argument work to put into perspective the roach/marauder/immortal debate relative to a possible lurker/medic/DT trinity in SC. Unfortunately, I don't think you can. Without even looking at the numbers, if you considered lurker/medic/DT as the defining relationship of 'hard counters' in SC, they're already a lot more varied and interesting. Lurkers are a burrowed ranged siege, medics do no damage at all but heal and DTs are cloaked, high damage, low health harassers. Roach/marauder/immortals are essentially high hp, high damage units with a few twists. Bear in mind that the question isn't whether they are balanced BETWEEN races but whether they are balanced WITHIN races. Put another way, is it viable to build a Zerg/Terran/Protoss army WITHOUT the roach/marauder/immortal? In BW, armies without lurkers/medics/DTs are pretty common. I'll answer your Protoss point - yes it is 100% viable to build an army without immortals and win.
Yes, but would you rather struggle with stalker micro and forcefields or just make 3 immortals and attack move to victory? I can win TvP without marauders. I often do. However I probably could've just marauder spammed and won more easily.
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On April 07 2010 02:51 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 02:06 theSAiNT wrote:On April 06 2010 21:06 Emon_ wrote:Almost all of BW’s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the Lurker.+ Show Spoiler +The problem of massed MnM bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit. Lurkers are a unit that costs 125 minerals, 125 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T2. They have 125 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 6, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 2 supply. And if that wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with one armor(!). And to make things even more absurd, they move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed. If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd. This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
...
That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The Lurker SHOULD be overpowered.That a unit as absurd as a lurker should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the lurker is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved medics and dark templars. Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage. They ensure that the Lurker is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Medic, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the lurker, for a relatively costly price of 50 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps. To put this in perspective, the use of a medic in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser). While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Medics do not. Once again, in a vacuum, the medic is overpowered, like the lurker. But because of the lurker. Specifically, they are overpowered against Lurkers, and as a result, against armor in general. This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413Finally, the protoss have the dark templar. The dark templar singel handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing medics. The dark templar, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing 40 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS. That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1. What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the lurker. While SC1 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Medic has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the dark templar does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things. The lurkers role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in ‘98. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 1 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence. Zerg were not design to host a 125hp 1 armor 20 damage unit for 125 minerals and 125 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T3 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state The answer to almost all of BW’s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the lurker. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in BW will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. It would actually be quite good if you could make this argument work to put into perspective the roach/marauder/immortal debate relative to a possible lurker/medic/DT trinity in SC. Unfortunately, I don't think you can. Without even looking at the numbers, if you considered lurker/medic/DT as the defining relationship of 'hard counters' in SC, they're already a lot more varied and interesting. Lurkers are a burrowed ranged siege, medics do no damage at all but heal and DTs are cloaked, high damage, low health harassers. Roach/marauder/immortals are essentially high hp, high damage units with a few twists. Bear in mind that the question isn't whether they are balanced BETWEEN races but whether they are balanced WITHIN races. Put another way, is it viable to build a Zerg/Terran/Protoss army WITHOUT the roach/marauder/immortal? In BW, armies without lurkers/medics/DTs are pretty common. I'll answer your Protoss point - yes it is 100% viable to build an army without immortals and win.
This further supports my claim earlier in this thread that the Protoss are the most well "polished" of all three races. It has the good option of building Immortals when the other two races build Marauders and Roaches. It is a good choice. However, the other two races aren't in nearly as polished of a state, as Roaches and Marauders are essential in nearly all matchups, regardless of what the opponents build.
Once again, P is fine, Z and T need something different. Z and T shouldn't have 120+ hp "protoss-like" monsters to be able to compete with Protoss. They need to do something different, ie: more quantity for zerg, more set-up quality for terran.
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On April 07 2010 02:56 Daerthalus wrote:
The Roach has a similar effect with regard to zerglings.
No, zerglings are still recommended against Marauders. There are unit matchups where zerglings are still better than Roaches
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On April 07 2010 03:43 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 02:51 Plexa wrote:On April 07 2010 02:06 theSAiNT wrote:On April 06 2010 21:06 Emon_ wrote:Almost all of BW’s current balance problems can be pinpointed on the Lurker.+ Show Spoiler +The problem of massed MnM bioballs, of terran mech underuse, the vast majority of SC balance and unit diversity gripes, the perception in increased "hardcounters" all more or less stem from this completely misguided unit. Lurkers are a unit that costs 125 minerals, 125 gas, yet somehow do the most basic ranged DPS in the entirety of T2. They have 125 health, the highest per cost, and the highest period outside of toss. They also are a ranged unit, with a range of 6, though they cannot attack air. To top things off, they somehow only cost 2 supply. And if that wasn't enough, I almost forgot, they start off unupgraded with one armor(!). And to make things even more absurd, they move at fast speeds, faster then any basic unit except zerglings, and regenerate health when burrowed. If someone told me a unit like this would stand a good chance at making it to retail before the onset of the SC beta, I would have told them they were insane. And retarded. On paper, the unit is simply absurd. This isn't to say, within the context of the game, that this incredibly absurd, ridiculous unit is overpowered. I am not in fact, complaining that Zerg are OP
...
That fact is precisely whats wrong with the game. The Lurker SHOULD be overpowered.That a unit as absurd as a lurker should be overpowered within a traditional SC framework. They are not. The reason they are not OP is problematic in itself. In order to ensure that the lurker is not OP, the Protoss and Terran recieved medics and dark templars. Without these two units, terran would literally lose every game against the zerg, and the protoss would be at a ridiculous disadvantage. They ensure that the Lurker is not overpowered by creating a equally overpowering counter. A overpowered counter. Or a hard counter. Moreover, these counters are both easily available. Especially the Terran Medic, which is extremely accessible, located at t1.5, or literally, a tier 1.1 unit, does 13.5 dps against the lurker, for a relatively costly price of 50 minerals and 25 gas, or ~20 dps. To put this in perspective, the use of a medic in SC1 would do more damage then any other unit save a siegetank (including the battlecruiser). While most T1 units do very good damage for their cost, this is usually balanced because they are easy to kill. 10 marines, 500 minerals, will outdps 500 minerals worth of carriers by 3x, but marines die easily to splash. The Medics do not. Once again, in a vacuum, the medic is overpowered, like the lurker. But because of the lurker. Specifically, they are overpowered against Lurkers, and as a result, against armor in general. This is discussed extensively in another thread on TL: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118413Finally, the protoss have the dark templar. The dark templar singel handedly makes TvP mech unviable. Sure, they can EMP, but it is not nearly a reliable as simply going bioball, or more recently, just massing medics. The dark templar, by any measure, is an overpowered unit. it is also the single largest "counter" in SC, doing 40 damage versus its correlating type, armored, the only unit in existence to carry more then a 50% bonus. Against armored, they do 35 DPS. That is the single highest DPS in the entire game, save battlecruisers, in SC1. What we have is an effective arms race, caused by the lurker. While SC1 damage is generally higher, it is usually by a magnitude of 30%-40%. Not 200%. The Medic has too much health for its DPS potential (and too much health in relation to the theme of terrans), and the dark templar does simply too much damage versus armored, among other things. The lurkers role is screwed up. It originally gained 15 health every second, unburrowed, in its reveal in ‘98. Now it has been nerfed to gaining 1 health, upgraded, burrowed. Its role, initially creative, has been nerfed out of existence. Zerg were not design to host a 125hp 1 armor 20 damage unit for 125 minerals and 125 gas. SC is not designed around such a unit. Originally thought of as a T3 unit with a crazy unique playstyle, it has proved imbalancable to the overall framework of the game. Even it its repeatedly nerfed state The answer to almost all of BW’s current gameplay concerns stem from the existence of the lurker. Remove it, or drastically rework it into something else, one more akin to the role of the Hydra (though I understand that it should not be another Hydra), rebalance the game accordingly, and most of the current gameplay problems in BW will no longer exist. Mech will be viable. Bioplay will be more diversified. PvZ will be more dynamic. It would actually be quite good if you could make this argument work to put into perspective the roach/marauder/immortal debate relative to a possible lurker/medic/DT trinity in SC. Unfortunately, I don't think you can. Without even looking at the numbers, if you considered lurker/medic/DT as the defining relationship of 'hard counters' in SC, they're already a lot more varied and interesting. Lurkers are a burrowed ranged siege, medics do no damage at all but heal and DTs are cloaked, high damage, low health harassers. Roach/marauder/immortals are essentially high hp, high damage units with a few twists. Bear in mind that the question isn't whether they are balanced BETWEEN races but whether they are balanced WITHIN races. Put another way, is it viable to build a Zerg/Terran/Protoss army WITHOUT the roach/marauder/immortal? In BW, armies without lurkers/medics/DTs are pretty common. I'll answer your Protoss point - yes it is 100% viable to build an army without immortals and win. Yes, but would you rather struggle with stalker micro and forcefields or just make 3 immortals and attack move to victory? I can win TvP without marauders. I often do. However I probably could've just marauder spammed and won more easily.
Immortals are weak against non armored stuff like zerglings, hydras, marines, zealots, emp...
Thats why protoss has diverse armies.. There are no units that are answer to everything so you have to mix it up.
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On April 06 2010 20:38 Daerthalus wrote:
Marauder: Change their base damage to 8+12 and reduce HP to 100.
Roach: Lower their HP to 115, increase supply to 2,
Immortal: Reduce bonus damage to Armored units. 20+20
THE MATH:
Formula: Current HP / (Immortal Damage - Armor) * (New Immortal Damage - Armor) = New HP
MaraHP = 125/(50-1)*(40-1)=99.xx==> 100 HP
RoachHP = 145/(50-2)*(40-2) = 114.79===> 115 HP
Since we are only changing HP, we must only verify that each unit is comparatively equal. Less HP means each unit will die faster, we check to make sure the ratio remains the same.
Roach vs Marauder: 125/15 = 8.333 ===> 100/15 = 6.666 == 8.333/6.666 = 1.25x faster killing
Marauder vs Roach: 145/18 = 8.055 ===> 115/18 = 6.388 == 8.055/6.388 = 1.26x faster killing
Net effect: Immortals kill Roaches just as fast. 1 Roach kills 1 Marauder faster, but 1 Marauder kills 1 roach almost just as much faster. BALANCE.
Rationalization:
Less HP for Marauders would make Immortals with lower bonus damage kill them equally as fast as right now. AND the decease in non-armored damage would make Marauders less effective versus light units that are supposed to counter Marauders.
Lower HP on Roaches would allow nerfed Immortals to kill them just as fast. Increased supply would make massing them a bit harder.
Lower Immortal bonus damage would make Immortals less of a hard counter to Terran mech, while the subsequent nerfs to it's fellow units HP would not change it's effectiveness vs Roaches and Marauders.
COMMENTS?!?
/cookie.
It isn't going to be an 100% solution, but this kind of logic, now that we've identified the problem, is a hell of a lot more productive then "lets give roaches 4 armor becuz its cool" and "HARDCUNVTERS!"
what about zealots vs roaches?
Kite. Focus fire. Encourages micro too.
also lol@the person who compared Dark Templar, medics and Lurkers. lols.
In case you haven't noticed, all those units have definitive hardcounters except the zerg unit, which doesn't need one because in fact, it does not invalidate bioplay or mechplay.
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im on the same boat as people saying there is something wrong with the game because of the big 3 marauder, roach and immortal with the roach and immortal being the primary problem
these 3 units shift and destabilize the transitioning of tiers in the game. why go marines in the beginning when marauders are so much better? why build factory tanks when marauders are so much better? the problem with massing marauders was unintentionally encouraged with the last patch by nerfing marines and reactors. reducing scv hp and reactor cost was more than enough. why increase marine build time?
similary why build zerglings when marauders are so much better, and then later on because of the other big 2, why build ultralisk when roaches are so much better and the other 2 marauder and immortal just rape it because when your first ultra comes out, there is an entire large force of immortals and marauders. the unit just got hard countered before it was even built.
then the immortal is a reactionary unit thats meant to deal with this mess but it creates a mess of its own. by making the factory worthless, you just encourage people to mass more marauders because they are just more versatile and mobile than then the factory units.
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On April 07 2010 04:08 iounas wrote:
Immortals are weak against non armored stuff like zerglings, hydras, marines, zealots, emp...
Thats why protoss has diverse armies.. There are no units that are answer to everything so you have to mix it up.
And more importantly, the immortal also has the other weakness of being t2 instead of t1.5 (1.1 really lol, tech lab buildtimes are ridiculously fast), and are less cost effective.
The immortal is by far the least problematic of the units. Even though it has a huge detrimental effect right now, it makes mech play invalid, it isn't nearly as bad as the other two. However, even though its current effects are relatively limited atm, it still represents a flaw in the game dynamic that impedes the development of the game beyond terran mech.
For instance, Ultralisks are unusable precisely because of Immortals. Without immortals, Ultas could potentially see use in PvZ.
Even then, its limited, but the fundamental imbalance of a 41 dps unit without the kind of vulnerabilities or tech requirements expected of 41 dps units is going to really manifests itself even more as Blizzard adds in ~4 more expansion units, which I'm sure is going to include at least one armored ground unit.
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Giving roaches 4 armor and low hp doesn't end up changing how marines/lings do vs them as compared to now. I did the math, it can work out to be the same or even easier. However, it makes them vulnerable to more than just marauders/immortals. The net effect actually INCREASES the diversity of counters, while it retains its role as a little tank. It also makes it much more micro intensive vs zealots, which is a good thing cause it raises the skill level required to make them work well.
The problems with roaches are they're so damn good vs everything except immortals and marauders. If you make them not so good vs a lot of other stuff, you won't need immortals and marauders to be so ridiculous.
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On April 07 2010 04:20 Floophead_III wrote:
Perhaps you didn't read my previous post. Giving roaches 4 armor and low hp doesn't end up changing how marines/lings do vs them as compared to now. I did the math, it can work out to be the same or even easier. However, it makes them vulnerable to more than just marauders/immortals. The net effect actually INCREASES the diversity of counters, while it retains its role as a little tank. It also makes it much more micro intensive vs zealots, which is a good thing cause it raises the skill level required to make them work well.
The problems with roaches are they're so damn good vs everything except immortals and marauders. If you make them not so good vs a lot of other stuff, you won't need immortals and marauders to be so ridiculous.
In order to just make it equal against marines, you'd have to make them have half as much hp. 65 HP (accounting for regen bonus due to lower HP). In order to have the same effect as say, a 115 hp roach, something I think is pretty reasonable, you would need a 45 hp roach. That's absurdly low and useless.
You'd need a 30 hp roach to buff zerglings against them lols.
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I think if immortals had their bonus damage reduced enough to need one more shot versus tanks or if they had less hp (same shields) that lead them to die to some critical upgrade or number of attacks quicker they would be almost perfectly balanced.
As far as roaches go I think an increased resource cost or a very slight buff somewhere and then increased population cost (from one up to 2) would almost entirely do the trick. I don't think the unit itself is too strong on it's own, but I think it is too easy to mass. Most of my roach problems come from either super early groups of 6-8 or later oceans of roaches.
Maras I think could be balanced in the same way that I propose balancing immortals. Slight reduction on damage and bring the hp down so some critical upgrade or number of attacks brings them down a little earlier.
This is a little off topic, but I also think some of the issue with PvT/Z is the strength of Zealots and their charge upgrade. Zealots seem pretty solid early but, the charge upgrade I think is just a little too weak more often than not. I personally think flat leg speed increase would be better, making the zealot just plain more maneuverable. Late game zealots for protoss are almost always an assured 100 minerals per unit lost per battle. If you are in a losing fight you will likely never save a single zealot who engaged at any point from death when you retreat, and this seems especially true vs masses of roaches and maras. The charge idea is sweet but, needs to be tweaked I think to help give zealots greater use, especially against tier 1.5 masses. Feel free to PM me about this for discussion rather than soiling this thread any further than I have.
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@Half: Stalkers. Thors. Vikings. Hydras. Even banelings would be ok. And yah tanks would be fantastic. They'd also die to PFs a lot faster.
Edit: I also forgot the obvious. Cannons and crawlers.
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this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push.
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Put another way, is it viable to build a Zerg/Terran/Protoss army WITHOUT the roach/marauder/immortal?
Sm1 asked this question and IMHO, especially in PvZ and PvT, it's much harder to use the Immortal right compared to the other MU's. Yes I am a Protoss-palyer and you can call me a whiner, but just read what I wanna tell you. ^^'
- Immortals are a much bigger investment than Roaches and Marauders, you have to go in your tech-tree into a certain direction that makes it harder to get to HT's/DT's or a Stargate and they are very expensive as well.
- Immortals get out later than the other 2 Units of the "Triangle of Doom" or however you wanna call them. So if you think your opponent goes roaches/marauders, you have to plan out your build further ahead, which could hurt if the opponent goes for sth completely different.
- Immortals are way easier to counter, because they are just not worth the amount of money you spend on them when they're not facing mass-roaches or mass-marauders. Also, the Terran just has to build a few Ghost, Stim his Marauders so you can't retreat and kick in a EMP et voilà - Marauders do +10 DMG to the Unit that is supposed to counter them.
So I guess it's not only viable to not go for Immortals, but at least in TvP, Immortals get raped by a good Terran, so i'd go for Mass-Sentrys and Zealots and Collossi... In PvZ, I'd also recommend Mass Sentrys and Zealots, because Speedlings backstabbing your Immos equals "GG". I just hate those heavy, slow totally unversatile Units like Roach and Immortal sooo much.
And it's just frustrating to be forced to play a Unit that you don't want to play... I even gone about 200 games with Protoss without using the Collossi, but with Immo being so easily countered by Terrans/Zerg and DT's and HT's being basically nerfed to death (yeah yeah - overexaggeration I know, but they got nerfed a bit too much...), I rly don't have another chance. ^^'
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On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push.
Can you at least read the first post before you... you know... post?
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On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push.
the point OP is trying to make is that if roaches were not the way they are now then there is no point in spamming maurauders. For example, would you send 12 maurauders against 24 speedlings? The nature of the roach forces maurauders, and considering they're suppose to be the hard counter to roach they better damn well kill them fast
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On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push.
troll post right?
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I agree with this. Every single build you can have as a terran is standardized against roaches. Even if someone opens say thor drop into thor / helion and the opponent doesn't even have a roach warren you still need to get ~4 rax with tech labs. Because if he choses to pay 150 mins, make a roach warren, save up larvae while its building. He will instantly have 15 roaches which will rape anything you can have. Marauders is the only unit that does good damage vs roaches save unsieged tanks. But come on, am I supposed to pay 5 times as much gas for a unit that only does twice the damage of an unstimmed marauder. No, marauders are needed vs zerg in almost every game. The only problem is that they are horrible vs mass lings and mass hydra.
I can't for the life of me understand why the siege tank doesn't do extra dmg to armored in siege mode. What would that make imbalanced? Immortals? They have their shield and will thus only lose hard if they are EMPed or hurt beforehand. Thors? Who goes mass thors TvT? Marauders allready rape tanks 1v1 in an open area. Roaches harcore counter tanks also with a good flank. If tanks did extra vs armored in siege it would be viable to do mech vs zerg.
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^ I completely agree with what you are saying about siege tanks. If their damage in siege mode did extra damage vs armored, then they would be a viable unit in all match-ups, and would change the dynamic of Terran game play for the better.
I really hope Blizzard is reading this thread. I'm sick of having to make Roaches every game...I've played Zerg as my laddering race and have gotten all the way up to top 10 Gold; and now I'm just sick of doing the same opening every matchup. So I gave Terran a try...and it's much the same story but with marauders.
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On April 05 2010 10:56 Sfydjklm wrote:
i think what OP is saying(or should be saying anyway) is that roach is shitty, boring, unimaginative, unmicroable unit that is simply too good not to use.
I don't usually post on these forums, but this made me want to quote it for the last page. This is the essential problem with Zerg right now from my experience. Roaches are not fun to play with, but they are necessary. They don't have any of their initial creativity but they still play a key role in a lot of if not all Zerg match ups. It sucks, and it actually makes me and many people I know that play Zerg not want to play them anymore. Good post in my opinion.
The roach does need a rework, and from there a re-balancing would be doable. I am fairly happy with the overall progress Blizzard has made with SC2, but this is something they need to look at.
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^ you read the opening wrong; he's satying:
Everything is balanced, and its balanced around the roach, which is a ridiculously powerful unit resulting in all races having each equally ridiculously powerful units (Marauder, Immortal) which in turn results in a very boring game with everyone just massing, since enough mass of each respective unit counters everything and anything else you could throw at it.
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(I don't have a beta key)
Mad credit to the OP, this thread is brilliant!
Maybe (oh the horror) units are partially balanced (or influenced) by the campaign?
From what I've seen the roach does seem to be the center of it all, I couldn't agree more although I couldn't put my finger on it before. Let's all just hope that Blizzard does read this thread. A lot.
BUMP!
People with access to the BETA forums should post about this frequently in suggestions/general.
EDIT: spelling..
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The campaign has units that aren't even in the MP so no
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they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes
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On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes
What's wrong with lings, queens and a spine crawler or two?
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What I'm going to say is just a semantics issue so don't concern yourself to much with my point.
I have no problem with the underlying point the OP made that the game balance revolves around three units and two of those units were eventually redeveloped to deal with roaches. But I have to point out its false that these units existed because of roaches.
Zerg was the least developed race when Starcraft II was announced. Roaches and Marauders didn't even exist at that time. Immortals did and they were made to counter tanks. Then Marauders came out after the idea of reusing Firebats became stillborn and Terran still needed an effective unit to deal with zealots.
Roaches made their appearance with the rest of the initial Zerg batch after these units.
So it's incorrect to say they were built to counter roaches. But because of their high regen something had to be done about roaches and Marauders and Immortals had their bonuses to armor tacked on as a result.
Roaches are the core problem as the OP said but it could've been any unit that could've been chosen by Blizzard to be redesigned to be effective against roaches.
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Blizzard, please hear our cries, Sc2 is almost ready, but right now it falls EXTREMELY short of its potential, don't abandon us now!
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On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes
Not asking for a removal . Rework/rebalance/replace(with another unit that fairs well against zealots and hellions).
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On April 07 2010 11:11 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes Not asking for a removal . Rework/rebalance/replace(with another unit that fairs well against zealots and hellions).
they can remove roaches, make hydras tier 1 and for goodness sake make them smaller! why do they look so freaking huge. then do some tweaking and with good sim city u can stop a helion harass like how zergs stopped vulture harass in sc1!. sigh i'm dreaming too much. but i agree this needs some serious tweakng.
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On April 07 2010 11:11 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes Not asking for a removal . Rework/rebalance/replace(with another unit that fairs well against zealots and hellions).
Yeah there's always the ability to retweak if the big 3 are readjusted.
For example zerglings might be made a little stronger if roaches are weakened. As a toss player I'm fine trying to micro around and kill zerglings....at least I can compared to having no chance against roaches.
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On April 07 2010 10:27 Gnosis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes What's wrong with lings, queens and a spine crawler or two?
Other than that they would get roasted?
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Baa?21242 Posts
On April 07 2010 11:25 haruharu wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 11:11 Half wrote:On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes Not asking for a removal . Rework/rebalance/replace(with another unit that fairs well against zealots and hellions). they can remove roaches, make hydras tier 1 and for goodness sake make them smaller! why do they look so freaking huge. then do some tweaking and with good sim city u can stop a helion harass like how zergs stopped vulture harass in sc1!. sigh i'm dreaming too much. but i agree this needs some serious tweakng.
So, again...make this game BW?
-.-
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This is one of the best posts I've read, I am sorry that people are morons, thanks for your insight.
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The changes that I would consider making, which I posted in a different thread.
The immortal should be a unit that provides staying power- it allows a protoss army to move forward in the face of fire by drawing fire and staying alive for a long time. This in no way requires hardened shields, although that ability is cool. Instead, Immortals could simply be beefy- give them massive shields and health that allows them to stay alive, without discriminating against certain types of units. In this circumstance, the immortal fits its role, a hard to kill unit that provides staying power for protoss without forcing other races out of certain tech choices just because certain units would be overly ineffective.
In similar fashion, the marauder appears to be a unit that is designed to provide some heavy firepower to a bio army. It allows a ground army to take down large targets that marines would be incapable of bringing down on their own. As such, I would make the marauder more expensive, but at the same time boost their ability to take down armored units, at the expense of their ability to clear away smaller units. Think the thor. They would excel at downing tanks, the new immortal, colossi, and ultras. They wouldnt be massable on the scale of marines, instead they would function as the opposite of firebats, a unit thrown in to deal with certain threats.
The roach should feature a sort of hybrid of the above two changes. Zerg already has lings, a massable unit designed to give ground control and, in high enough numbers, deal massive amounts of damage to anything on 2 (or whatever number) legs, but are extremely fragile. Hydras provide a solid g to a and g to g defense, but also are fragile. Therefore roaches have a similar job to the immortal: provide staying power and allow smaller units to get into battle without being torn to bits. The best way to change the current roach to better slot that role without requiring counters would be to make it into an immortal type unit: give it a slightly longer range, keep the health and armor the same, but up the food to 2 or 3. This also might require switching the tech placement of hydras and roaches. People should have a few of them to keep lings and hydras alive before the battle starts, but they shouldn't be massable on their own.
The result of these three unit changes doesnt change the roles of the units too much, but instead solidifies their roles and the way they go about filling them. immortals would no longer require marauders to be killed, instead enough tanks could take them down, but at the expense of not firing at the little units swarming to kill them. similarly, roaches cannot be massed, forcing more diverse zerg unit composition, and eliminating the need to get marauders or immortals at their very sight. Finally, the changes to marauders make them a complimentary unit, rather than anything massable, and with the changes to the other units, the terran player has no need to reach for them at every opportunity, freeing the entire tech tree for play.
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A great idea from another thread
On April 07 2010 13:07 Musoeun wrote:
-> Roach: I don't believe the roach is actually a problem, except that it's redundant, so to be useful it has to be OP compared to other options. Zerg already had ling and hydra as foundation units; the roach is unnecessary conceptually. My ideal solution would be to get rid of it; it's a little late for that but enough people hate it that this might actually be feasible.
If not, I would move it way down the tech tree. I can see a couple options: I think the best would be to make it a mutation form from another unit. Here's what I want to do with it - I haven't thought about this before, this is off the top of my head - make it a Drone mutation, researchable at Lair level or so: if you get in trouble you'd be able to quickly morph a ranged, fast regenerating unit - of course the trade-off is that you're losing miners. It's "role" would be base defense, with possibilities of course for use in beefing up a timing attack. It would have to be fairly slow and low HP. You might have to nerf Queens a little to balance this, although P and T do have the longer range siege units.
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I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line.
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Ultralisks in Ultraling in BW? Archons in PvZ and PvP? Zealots in PvT?
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On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line.
The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran.
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On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran.
No. The fact that it kills tanks in 4 shots (3 if you have any upgrades), trashes bunkers, and blows through walls instantly, is the problem. They're very killable once then game is underway. The real issue is you usually can't get that far because you just die to immortal pushes. God forbid they catch you without EMP.
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On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran.
No...he's right. The dishing damage IS the problem and the taking damage is what it's suppose to do. He got the idea right, he just hates that idea. Yes to damage reduction to bring it in line.
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On April 07 2010 15:00 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran. No. The fact that it kills tanks in 4 shots (3 if you have any upgrades), trashes bunkers, and blows through walls instantly, is the problem. They're very killable once then game is underway. The real issue is you usually can't get that far because you just die to immortal pushes. God forbid they catch you without EMP.
Its a different take on what the unit should do. I think that they need to be more killable, which would mean that the damage they put out is reflective of the fact that they need to do something as the enemy focus fires it down. What you propose is making the damage less while keeping the same level of survivablility. I want the immortal to be a heavy hitter with a little bit of staying power, while you want a unit with a lot of staying power that gives up the heavy damage aspect.
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On April 07 2010 15:04 Rucky wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran. No...he's right. The dishing damage IS the problem and the taking damage is what it's suppose to do. He got the idea right, he just hates that idea. Yes to damage reduction to bring it in line.
agreed, Roach should do half DMG IMHO if it has that much health and armor...
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On April 07 2010 02:35 Wintermute wrote:Why do people always talk about Roaches attack speed/damage as "decent" or even "high."
They have a 2 second attack delay, the longest of any ground unit save colossi or siege tanks (which of course do splash damage and have huge range). They do about the same DPS as a marine, for 3x the effective cost.
The damage that roaches do is quite low for their cost. It's the armor/HP combo that makes them a great deal.
The DPS just about doesn't matter because they are ranged (enough), durable as hell, and massable. Comparing them to Marines is pretty bs since Roaches' armor and hp let them get off way more attacks than Marines ever will under similar situations so while their DPS may be similar, the actual damage they're going to deal is significantly greater.
Specifically, consider Marines v Sieged Tank and Roaches v Sieged Tank. The Marines won't even reach it while the Roaches probably will and once they do they'll do so in sufficient numbers to one or two-shot it. If Marines do somehow manage to reach it, it will take about as much time to kill the Tank at least except that during that time they'll be dropping left and right to the Tank.
On April 07 2010 05:20 StarBrift wrote:I can't for the life of me understand why the siege tank doesn't do extra dmg to armored in siege mode. What would that make imbalanced? Immortals? They have their shield and will thus only lose hard if they are EMPed or hurt beforehand. Thors? Who goes mass thors TvT? Marauders allready rape tanks 1v1 in an open area. Roaches harcore counter tanks also with a good flank. If tanks did extra vs armored in siege it would be viable to do mech vs zerg.
The most immediate reason I see is Stalkers. However, "Chargelots" and Immortals imo should really be the immediate counters to Siege Tanks with Blink Stalkers being more suicide mission support as necessary. Otherwise, it seemed like Blizzard wanted mass Marauders to be able to bust through Siege Tank lines in TvT but imo they would be better served there by using a more creative solution such as allowing Hellions to transport one infantry unit, a bit of a throwback to Spider Mine Vultures using their speed to get right next to Siege Tanks and then dropping a Spider Mine that then kills the Tank- except here you'd drop off a Marauder that's below the Tank's minimum range and meanwhile since the focus then shifts to just getting Marauders in close to Tanks instead of having Marauders be their own kinds of tanks, their hp can be toned down significantly; in other match-ups, all Marauders really need to do is provide support to Marines imo, ala slow v Zerglings + Zealots + Banelings, extra firepower against Ultralisks and Collossi (speaking of which, "Hellion Drop" could provide an interesting although less effective ground alternative to Vikings for dealing with Collossi).
And yeah, for Thors, earlier in the beta I actually had a game on Blistering Sands that started out as proxy 'rax rush by my opponent (built a 'rax on the other side of my rocks, then lifted it over the rocks and landed it in the reeds; I scouted the landed 'rax right as it landed and managed to fend the rush off) but turned into a 30+ minute long Thor v Siege Tank TvT (I went Siege Tanks  ). Thors just flat-out can't move fast enough to be any serious counter to Medivac-dropping Siege Tanks and since Siege Tanks' advantage over Thors is that they out-range them there is no need to drop on the Thors. Good Siege Tank positioning and aggressive Tank drops to harass won me the game. Specifically, the game came to a massive head over the gold mineral expos and I managed to set-up a Tank + Turret defense that prevented him from being able to drop on all my Tank positions, so he dropped on one then went to drop on the CC and really had no success with any of those drops as my well-positioned Tanks out-ranged the Thors perfectly and their slow movement screwed them over. Of course, it also helped that while he was attacking my gold expo I managed to get a really sweet drop in at his gold expo for about the fourth or fifth time for the gg xD But besides the Medivac element of that, whenever our main forces engaged, my Siege Tanks won because of firepower + range. Drop play was the only thing that made the Thors remotely viable.
On April 07 2010 10:23 verrater wrote:
they can't remove roaches, if they do helion harrass is going go to destroy zerg in 5 minutes
If they remove Roaches then they're going to fill that gap somehow. They're either going to introduce a new unit that could deal with Hellions among other things in T1 or they're going to move Hydras back down to T1 so you'll be able to get Hydras earlier and in larger numbers. While Hellions are great against Hydralisks, it's really situational. First, the Infernal Preigniter upgrade is almost requires for Hellions v Hydras imo which is going to slow the arrival of the first Hellions, and second if you spread your Hydralisks out and/or slap down Spine Crawlers defensively and leverage your Queen to defend, you can help protect the Hydralisks from getting surrounded and flamed. As for blocking your ramp, Spine Crawlers can... crawl... so slap down some Creep Tumors (omg invest in something other than mutant larva!?) and have them crawl to the ramp to block it off if you feel you need to. Have them crawl away later to unblock. Aka, be creative.
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On April 07 2010 15:04 Rucky wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran. No...he's right. The dishing damage IS the problem and the taking damage is what it's suppose to do. He got the idea right, he just hates that idea. Yes to damage reduction to bring it in line.
I'm not liking the idea that it would be some kind of "lead the charge against the tanks" unit. That just doesn't seem feasible. Zeals are going to run ahead of the big thing regardless of how much damage it can take. Tanks are going to be micro'd to hit favorable targets. There is just no place for a unit that deals pitiful damage, but takes a beating, in this game.
The immortal's shield is highly ineffective against marines, hydras, lings, zeals, and other basic low-damage fodder. Not to mention, it's completely negated by emp. IMO the immortal is the least deadly of the three (along with most expensive, and hardest to mass) and in the most reasonable place regarding overall balance. I'd wager it would be more than fine loosing a bit of it's non-armor damage, but tuning down the shield and it's damage would render the unit worthless. We have to keep in mind here that stalkers don't scale well vs. armored targets. Immortals would certainly be one of our only answers if thor/tank became common-place (as a lot of terran would enjoy, i'm sure) units in PvT.
It's not that I don't sympathise with terran who are afraid of their factory being countered by a single unit, but I really don't think you all quite grasp just how ineffective it would be against mech with significant loss to it's shield and damage. Assuming the roach is toned down, zerg won't even need to worry about the immo, since roaches were about the only thing immos were ever used for against them.
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On April 07 2010 16:04 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
There is just no place for a unit that deals pitiful damage, but takes a beating, in this game.
The Ultralisks in SC1 has the role of taking a beating but it did decent damage for it to be made. So yeah, pretty much agree that Immortal's bonus damage should be nerfed a bit.
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On April 07 2010 16:08 lolaloc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 16:04 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
There is just no place for a unit that deals pitiful damage, but takes a beating, in this game. The Ultralisks in SC1 has the role of taking a beating but it did decent damage for it to be made. So yeah, pretty much agree that Immortal's bonus damage should be nerfed a bit.
Problem is: You can't just nerf the Bonus-DMG, that way you would only make the unit weaker, but what most ppl want I guess are more versatile Units and not just counter-units, so just nerfing the Bonus-DMG would be kinda useless. Say it would get changed from +30 to +25, the usage of Immortals wouldn't be changed at all, it would just be weaker, so you would therefore had to make Roaches and Marauders weaker as well and we're back to square one with the three Units being weaker, but massed like before.
It really needs a complete change of the Units to make the game more versatile and enjoyable, tweaking the numbers on DMG and health just won't cut it IMHO.
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On April 07 2010 16:24 kickinhead wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 16:08 lolaloc wrote:On April 07 2010 16:04 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
There is just no place for a unit that deals pitiful damage, but takes a beating, in this game. The Ultralisks in SC1 has the role of taking a beating but it did decent damage for it to be made. So yeah, pretty much agree that Immortal's bonus damage should be nerfed a bit. Problem is: You can't just nerf the Bonus-DMG, that way you would only make the unit weaker, but what most ppl want I guess are more versatile Units and not just counter-units, so just nerfing the Bonus-DMG would be kinda useless. Say it would get changed from +30 to +25, the usage of Immortals wouldn't be changed at all, it would just be weaker, so you would therefore had to make Roaches and Marauders weaker as well and we're back to square one with the three Units being weaker, but massed like before. It really needs a complete change of the Units to make the game more versatile and enjoyable, tweaking the numbers on DMG and health just won't cut it IMHO.
Well, yes and no really.
The immortal really isn't just the anti-marauder, it's also the anti-thor and the anti-tank. You really cannot combat mech + emp without the immortal. Zealots and stalkers melt beneath thors, and sentries (obviously) do very little in that setting. Blink makes stalkers nice for tanks, but not as much for thors, and stalkers (as i mentioned eariler) do not have their armor bonus damage scale with upgrades. Left with the stalker and air units as our only answer to mech, we would be in a very bad place.
I think a nerf to the immortal's base damage would bring it in-line, and make it a very niche unit, primarily to stop thors. Honestly, i'm not sure what other role it would fill. Toss don't lack ground anti-air, we have more than enough to deal with light units on the ground. Perhaps there is some kind of support role to be explored.
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On April 07 2010 16:24 kickinhead wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 16:08 lolaloc wrote:On April 07 2010 16:04 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
There is just no place for a unit that deals pitiful damage, but takes a beating, in this game. The Ultralisks in SC1 has the role of taking a beating but it did decent damage for it to be made. So yeah, pretty much agree that Immortal's bonus damage should be nerfed a bit. Problem is: You can't just nerf the Bonus-DMG, that way you would only make the unit weaker, but what most ppl want I guess are more versatile Units and not just counter-units, so just nerfing the Bonus-DMG would be kinda useless. Say it would get changed from +30 to +25, the usage of Immortals wouldn't be changed at all, it would just be weaker, so you would therefore had to make Roaches and Marauders weaker as well and we're back to square one with the three Units being weaker, but massed like before. It really needs a complete change of the Units to make the game more versatile and enjoyable, tweaking the numbers on DMG and health just won't cut it IMHO.
ultras in sc1 did 20 dmg melee, why can't immortals do 20 dmg ranged? and that's not pitiful. we're talking about a big nerf not your +30 bonus to +25. Either immortals have this insane +30 to tanks, but take away the shield to take full 60 damage from tanks (glass cannon) or take less from tanks and deal less to tanks) you can't have it both ways.
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Problem is that the marauders hardened shield are just not worth it, because it literally get's raped by EMP. Either make the hardened shield work differently, don't just nerf the DMG or change the Unit completely.
Because as soon as 1 EMP-round comes flying your way, the Immortals are gone against any Unit Terrans throw at them, especially Marauders.
I really have stopped using Immortals against Terran, because you can't win in the Midgame when the Terran has stimmed Marauders and EMP. But EMP isn't really the problem, it's the stimmed Marauders that suddenly do double DMG against the Unit which is supposed to be good against them and you can't even run away to regen your shields because your pinned down by the Marauders.
Against Zerg, nerfing Immos by 5 DMG less against Armored Units wouldn't do anything either, because if you didn't drastically change the Roaches, you'd still would want to use Immortals against them.
Immortals really aren't the biggest Problem compared with Roaches and Marauders IMHO, because you can easily go without building Immorals in every MU, whereas you see Roaches and Marauders in every single game just being massed to the point it hurts to even watch...
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well... we could come up with another attribute
call it "assault" or whatever and give it to roach, marauder and immortal as well as a damage bonus each towards it (and reduce their normal damage - or at least those of roach and marauder)
and/or reduce their HP since they're not fully being hit by e.g. stalkers anymore.
it'd be like taking the game-breakers out of the game without taking them out of the game -.-
let them battle it out among each other
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whoever said roach is OP should look the drunkbobby and idra replay, roach has a deadly blindspot, the range is only 3. only really zvz is a problem, but people do get win with fast ling opening.
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Immortals force marauders TvP though because they cut through tanks so quickly. Therefore, because the immortal exists, marauder spam happens. Because the roach exists, marauders must be strong. Because marauders are strong, they make spamming them viable.
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great op. roaches/marauders/immortals define sc2 and they are all pretty dull units imo.
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On April 07 2010 17:46 diehilde wrote:
great op. roaches/marauders/immortals define sc2 and they are all pretty dull units imo.
Yeah, atm, I would even be more happy with SC2 if you just cut out all those 3 Units. You don't even have to change or replace them - just taking them out of the game would make the game more enjoyable IMHO.
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@kickinhead:
I think the key point of the thread is that just altering the Immortal or the Marauder or the Roach isn't going to be enough. If the Immortal gets nerfed I think you should safely assume that the Marauder is going to get nerfed, preferably in such a way that it isn't really a threat to the Immortal because that role of bio would overlap massively with the Marine's and the Ghost's support role there. Or, at a bare minimum, the hp of the Marauder should get toned down plenty enough to make the decreased Immortal damage still plenty fine versus Marauders.
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I think blizzard needs to decide which direction they want to go with their "hard counter" system before changing the triad specifically.
As seen in previous patches, most units seem to lose damage on their +type in favour of their regular attack (thor, stalker, baneling, sunken (25+5 lolbigdiff) and so on), which indicates that blizzard is gradually straying away from the "hard counter" system (which imo is a good thing).
What I believe blizzard should be working on (aside from looking into the tri-force) is making more units (especially for terran and zerg) useful in more contexts. The hellion and reaper comes out as incredibly underwhelming in my eyes, for example.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 07 2010 15:00 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran. No. The fact that it kills tanks in 4 shots (3 if you have any upgrades), trashes bunkers, and blows through walls instantly, is the problem. They're very killable once then game is underway. The real issue is you usually can't get that far because you just die to immortal pushes. God forbid they catch you without EMP.
I dno. Every time I've played against Mech and tried to go Immortal it always works out that my Colossi are farrrrr more effective and useful. EMP just rapes immortals so hard its not funny and once that's down the Splash from tanks is just ridiculous - stalker and shieldless immortals stand no chance.
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From Blizzard,
Q. Obvious concerns about the Roach and how it "fits in" with the zerg. What role was it created to fill? Does the zerg need it?
A. We have heard this concern many times from many sources. There is no way to add units to StarCraft without changing the nature of these races. Since we are adding new units the personality of the races will alter.
The Roach was created to be an early game assault unit. We also wanted a unit that could maintain constant contact with the enemy. Not just through speed but through sheer durability. Looking at our inspiration for the zerg (a variety of hollywood, comic book and role-playing game aliens) this kind of "kit" seemed appropriate for the zerg.
So in short no its not doing what its suppose to. And frankly "a unit that can maintain constant contact with the enemy" just seems like a overly generic excuse for making something overpowering.
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On April 07 2010 22:51 Black Octopi wrote:From Blizzard, Show nested quote +Q. Obvious concerns about the Roach and how it "fits in" with the zerg. What role was it created to fill? Does the zerg need it?
A. We have heard this concern many times from many sources. There is no way to add units to StarCraft without changing the nature of these races. Since we are adding new units the personality of the races will alter.
The Roach was created to be an early game assault unit. We also wanted a unit that could maintain constant contact with the enemy. Not just through speed but through sheer durability. Looking at our inspiration for the zerg (a variety of hollywood, comic book and role-playing game aliens) this kind of "kit" seemed appropriate for the zerg. So in short no its not doing what its suppose to. And frankly "a unit that can maintain constant contact with the enemy" just seems like a overly generic excuse for making something overpowering.
Oh, highlights the problem nicely. The problem is they tried to give it two roles:
-> Attack unit
-> (Durable) scout
These don't work together: any unit that can do both should be either expensive (like, the cost of an m&m group, which does both) or is just OP.
Now, a durable scout is something the Zerg really doesn't have, and so that really makes sense to add. But to keep a balance, it has to have a weaker/slower attack so that it can't also be an attacking unit you suddenly can't kill. Nerf the roach's attack, maybe up the unit speed, and fiddle with the cost, and you have a unique useful unit (and don't have to waste OLs). Voila, problem solved.
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On April 07 2010 15:08 kickinhead wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 15:04 Rucky wrote:On April 07 2010 14:57 Two_DoWn wrote:On April 07 2010 14:49 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
I absolutely loath any idea that makes the immortal a "tank" (in the RPG sense of the word).
When do you build units for that purpose? It's going to see zero use in a role where it can take a lot of damage but not deal much in return. IMO, the immortal is the best of the three to be left as-is, with just a damage reduction to bring it in line. The idea that dishes damage isnt the problem. It's that it does too good a job at taking damage. The hardened shields completely negate the consideration of going mech for terran. No...he's right. The dishing damage IS the problem and the taking damage is what it's suppose to do. He got the idea right, he just hates that idea. Yes to damage reduction to bring it in line. agreed, Roach should do half DMG IMHO if it has that much health and armor...
Yeah lets make it half DMG, so it is effectively a nonexistant unit as any opponent will just focus fire the other units, or just outmicro them (which they already can) without any risk at all of losing a unit. Serioulsy whats up with all those weird nerf ideas, do you guys have any concept of balance?
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Another great idea..... regeneration back to Patch 4 or 5.
And instead of 145 health 110 or so.... would be much much better.
Since much roaches ownz every unit in late game... 3-3 upgrades
and 1 supply is a bit wierd.. i guess oO
And i cannot understand the Immortal whiners.... own problem to play only roaches vs mass immortals oO and look at the prize.
Immortals 250/100 and 4 supply
Roaches 75/25 and 1 supply
= 4 roaches 300/100 and 4 supply
i think 4 beat the 1 immortal
if not the immortal is just a good counter for them... and zergs need other units oO
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I would have to agree with previous posters that the immortal seems much stronger than it really is because it's good against roach/marauder, which T and Z are massing pretty much every game i play nowadays, it would probably be used less if that wasn't the case.
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jeppew where the hell u been hiding
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Im just thinking what would happen if they changed immortals to make mech viable..
Lets say terran has a group of thors with a ghost to emp them if p has templars..
And have a group of scvs to follow them on auto repair.. Very easy to do..
Only counter to them I can think of would be zealots and void rays.. I dont know how well void rays do against thor antiair.
With some helions to deal with zealots and some marines that army would kill anything in its path as they 2shot any protoss gateway unit..
They would melt all carrier interceptors in seconds with their splash aa.
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On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push.
the point OP is trying to make is that if roaches were not the way they are now then there is no point in spamming maurauders. For example, would you send 12 maurauders against 24 speedlings? The nature of the roach forces maurauders, and considering they're suppose to be the hard counter to roach they better damn well kill them fast
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On April 08 2010 00:49 Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push. the point OP is trying to make is that if roaches were not the way they are now then there is no point in spamming maurauders. For example, would you send 12 maurauders against 24 speedlings? The nature of the roach forces maurauders, and considering they're suppose to be the hard counter to roach they better damn well kill them fast
Why is spamming marauders bad again?
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I would make marauders vs zerg any day of the weak.
It can put a much better fight vs lings, hydras, banelings, infestors, ultras, than other units, even if you want to make a dozen marines and half a dozen reapers the bulk will be made of marauders because they are the only thing that doesnt vanishes in 2 seconds to a bunch of banelings.
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they really need to rethink this game from scratch, starting with what's already in sc1 and improving upon it, but that will never happen
its so sad seeing them completely ignore the original sc1 meta game just to be "different," its the winning formula and its right in front of them
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On April 08 2010 01:14 poor newb wrote:
they really need to rethink this game from scratch, starting with what's in sc1 and improving upon it, but that will never happen
its so sad seeing them completely ignore the original sc gameplay just to be "different," its the winning formula and its right in front of them
Having three races to choose from, two resources to gather, decent population cap, and a fast-paced gameplay are present in both games.
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Yea we should ask blizzard to remove roach and put back Lurker!!!! ^^ TO MAKE IT FAIR!!!
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On April 08 2010 00:49 Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push. the point OP is trying to make is that if roaches were not the way they are now then there is no point in spamming maurauders. For example, would you send 12 maurauders against 24 speedlings? The nature of the roach forces maurauders, and considering they're suppose to be the hard counter to roach they better damn well kill them fast
I would send 12 marauders vs 24 speedlings anytime. As lings will die way long before the marauders will.
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On April 07 2010 23:31 Musoeun wrote:
Oh, highlights the problem nicely. The problem is they tried to give it two roles:
-> Attack unit
-> (Durable) scout
These don't work together: any unit that can do both should be either expensive (like, the cost of an m&m group, which does both) or is just OP.
Now, a durable scout is something the Zerg really doesn't have, and so that really makes sense to add. But to keep a balance, it has to have a weaker/slower attack so that it can't also be an attacking unit you suddenly can't kill. Nerf the roach's attack, maybe up the unit speed, and fiddle with the cost, and you have a unique useful unit (and don't have to waste OLs). Voila, problem solved.
I haven't seen zerg use the scouting capabilities of roach yet. Basically, you have to research tunneling claws first. A burrowed roach in key places can be like an observer because it can still move around.
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On April 08 2010 01:32 Koffiegast wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2010 00:49 Wire wrote:On April 07 2010 04:49 Limenade wrote:
this is a joke, roaches maybe slightly imbalanced but the stand point it makes other races go hard counters to them BUT it is very easy for terran to get marauders which RAPE roaches with micro because of their extra dmg to roaches and their ability to slow units, and protoss RAPE roaches with like 1-2 immortals and 1-2 sentries in their early push. the point OP is trying to make is that if roaches were not the way they are now then there is no point in spamming maurauders. For example, would you send 12 maurauders against 24 speedlings? The nature of the roach forces maurauders, and considering they're suppose to be the hard counter to roach they better damn well kill them fast I would send 12 marauders vs 24 speedlings anytime. As lings will die way long before the marauders will.
yeah 12 marauders v 24 speedlings is a terrible example. that's 24 supply v 12 supply, it should be obvious who would win that battle -_-
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I don't know if anyone has noticed this at all, but Blizz just posted the Patch 8 Notes:
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23094049316&postId=242397824179&sid=5000#9
Roaches were nerfed. They now have 1 armor as opposed to 2, and their burrowed move speed was decreased.
Marauders also require an Upgrade for Concussive Grenades now, as well. Looks like someone was listening, at least a little bit.
Although, I'm a bit concerned that they also nerfed the Hydras health from 90 to 80. Anyone know why? Or have an idea?
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On April 08 2010 05:38 ryanAnger wrote:I don't know if anyone has noticed this at all, but Blizz just posted the Patch 8 Notes: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23094049316&postId=242397824179&sid=5000#9Roaches were nerfed. They now have 1 armor as opposed to 2, and their burrowed move speed was decreased. Marauders also require an Upgrade for Concussive Grenades now, as well. Looks like someone was listening, at least a little bit. Although, I'm a bit concerned that they also nerfed the Hydras health from 90 to 80. Anyone know why? Or have an idea?
So you can't just throw them into psi storm knowing given the regeneration and armor and hp theres no risk of getting them killed, or something along those lines as others have speculated before me probably.
Also I'd say roaches needed a damage nerf more so then they needed a armor nerf though the old 2 armor base was way too insane for a T1 unit.
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The fact that any action at all was done is a step in the right direction. Personally, I think the roaches armor nerf was rather apt, though i disagree with the marauders slow change.
Right now I'm waiting to see how the metagame plays out. I don't think the issue is fixed yet at all, personally, I think percieved change is just as powerful as actual change itself. For instance, mech has always been viable against zerg. With the new changes, I don't think its so much that mech is more powerful as it is that more people now have the initiative to explore it.
We'll see. I think marauders will be heavily underused in the early days of the patch, but see a resurgence later on.
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On April 08 2010 05:55 Black Octopi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2010 05:38 ryanAnger wrote:I don't know if anyone has noticed this at all, but Blizz just posted the Patch 8 Notes: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23094049316&postId=242397824179&sid=5000#9Roaches were nerfed. They now have 1 armor as opposed to 2, and their burrowed move speed was decreased. Marauders also require an Upgrade for Concussive Grenades now, as well. Looks like someone was listening, at least a little bit. Although, I'm a bit concerned that they also nerfed the Hydras health from 90 to 80. Anyone know why? Or have an idea? So you can't just throw them into psi storm knowing given the regeneration and armor and hp theres no risk of getting them killed, or something along those lines as others have speculated before me probably. Also I'd say roaches needed a damage nerf more so then they needed a armor nerf though the old 2 armor base was way too insane for a T1 unit.
Roaches attack speed isn't very high so while their damage per shot is pretty good the dps of the unit is fairly low in addition to only have range 3 I think roach damage is right around where it should be.
The change in armor is a great thing though and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
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United States2095 Posts
I miss my roach hydra armies of doom already...
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United States7166 Posts
us server just went down
thanks blizz for not giving much warning and ruining a nice game yet again
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On April 07 2010 23:57 [ADT]-FaZiNaTe-[GeR] wrote:
Another great idea..... regeneration back to Patch 4 or 5.
And instead of 145 health 110 or so.... would be much much better.
Since much roaches ownz every unit in late game... 3-3 upgrades
and 1 supply is a bit wierd.. i guess oO
And i cannot understand the Immortal whiners.... own problem to play only roaches vs mass immortals oO and look at the prize.
Immortals 250/100 and 4 supply
Roaches 75/25 and 1 supply
= 4 roaches 300/100 and 4 supply
i think 4 beat the 1 immortal
if not the immortal is just a good counter for them... and zergs need other units oO
+1. I always see zergs go pure roach vs a mixed toss army with like 5-6 immortals in it then scream omg immortal op this is imba when they lose >.>
hopefully this patch will do some good for all the mu's
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I hope the roach nerf makes Z play more diverse, so that they can actually see what's missing. Zerg don't really need more units so much as they need more unique units. In BW realistically you had lings, mutas, lurkers and (sometimes) hydras as the backbones of your army. The good thing about all of those units is that the very way they attack and are used is completely different. In SC2 hydras and roaches act exactly the same, large oversight.
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On April 08 2010 01:46 lolaloc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 23:31 Musoeun wrote:
Oh, highlights the problem nicely. The problem is they tried to give it two roles:
-> Attack unit
-> (Durable) scout
These don't work together: any unit that can do both should be either expensive (like, the cost of an m&m group, which does both) or is just OP.
Now, a durable scout is something the Zerg really doesn't have, and so that really makes sense to add. But to keep a balance, it has to have a weaker/slower attack so that it can't also be an attacking unit you suddenly can't kill. Nerf the roach's attack, maybe up the unit speed, and fiddle with the cost, and you have a unique useful unit (and don't have to waste OLs). Voila, problem solved. I haven't seen zerg use the scouting capabilities of roach yet. Basically, you have to research tunneling claws first. A burrowed roach in key places can be like an observer because it can still move around.
Of course not: currently, it's built for attack. Potentially losing a roach scouting when it's a valuable attacking unit as well is kind of silly.
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On April 08 2010 06:05 Zelniq wrote:us server just went down thanks blizz for not giving much warning and ruining a nice game yet again
LOL, what a douchebag.
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Alright, just brainstorming here, but I have a rough idea. It might be too big of a change to present to the game, but I guess I'll present it nonetheless.
Roaches need to be damage sponges. They also need a reason to attack them before other units. The problem is, if you fulfill that reason by giving them a lot of ground DPS, they become very powerful ground units, and require specific units like the Immortal and Marauder to beat.
Basically, Roach needs a mechanic that supports the rest of the zerg army instead of a mechanic that only helps itself..
-Remove Organic Carapace and the current passive Roach ability.
-Nerf Roach attack to whatever extent is balanced
-Add a T2 upgrade called "Nutricide Sacs" (or something...)
-Basically, whenever an enemy BIOLOGICAL unit dies that the Roach has recently attacked or has killed, it bursts open and spills a small patch of green "Nutrient Creep" on the ground that lasts for 8 seconds in the location of the dying biological unit.
-Nutrient Creep heals all zerg units (friendly or enemy) on it, and gives the 30% speed bonus.
-Maybe EMP could disable the effects of Nutrient Creep if casted on it.
Why it might work well for the Roach
-It's an ability that promotes combining Roaches with Zerglings, and Ultralisks. Roaches would still serve as units to put in front of Hydralisks as well to meatshield them.
-It would make Roach ambushes powerful with Burrow+Move. Unburrow on a MM ball and pop a few different marines, and you gain the instant advantage.
-Creates interesting fast-paced small-scale territorial play.
-Roach already sprays green "creepish" stuff.
-Unique and fun.
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I think roaches' "special mechanic" should just be to make focusing other units hard to do -- i.e., cool micro swarming that is hard to get around.
They should be a sort of wall in front of your hydras, etc, I think.
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I think they should increase roach mineral cost to something like 125 (or whatever) and supply to 2, give them back good regen above ground and lower damage or attack speed or just change them to a void ray type of ramp up attack.
makes them more unique and won't be as effective in big masses.
Immortals should do less basic damage or his bonus damage shouldn't work against buildings.
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Great thread. Imo roach needs to just be weaker in HP. This will make it way more micro dependent, hittable by psi storm and hence less boring all around. Something like 75 hp. Then just adjust Immortals/rauders accordingly.
What made SC1 great was that picking a "counter" unit gave you a 10% advantage, not a 200% advantage. I've had equal resource/supply armies face each other in SC2 and if I picked the right units, I will come out of the fight losing 0 and he will lose his entire army. Game was a complete blowout when it should have been a fun great game. This seems to be 85% of my games sadly.
Another thing that would help the hard counters a lot would be making it easier to scout past the 3 minute mark without devoting so many resources. I find between 3-10 minutes I'm pretty blind, game turns into coin toss of who built the right units
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On April 08 2010 06:05 Zelniq wrote:us server just went down thanks blizz for not giving much warning and ruining a nice game yet again
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
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EPT
