DISCLAIMER: Patch 15 fucked siegetanks sideways so this proposal isnt quite as valid anymore but take it with a grain of salt as from before the change.
Okay before any of you start crying about omg it's not broken I was going to upload more replays but I kept getting errors on half of them so watch these two and try not to claw your eyes out.
Okay moving on, terran mech in the lategame once they get full upgrades and sieged up and fully 200/200 with ravens and energy for spells you CAN NOT beat it. Now the thing is there should be no unbeatable strategy there should be no point at which you have to GG without fighting because you can't win. There needs to be a way to break a strategy with good control or good macro and after Sheth wound up suiciding a combined total of almost 20k minerals and 10k gas it's clear that macro isn't the way to go.
Okay anyways I don't want this to be an argument on if terran mech is broken or not but obviously it probably will so I'm going to move on to my possible fix. I think one of the major factors is not the stats on the terran mech as it works quite well against protoss and if there is an actual nerf to mech then it breaks tvp mech viability and a buff to zerg ground breaks zvp. This is the dilemma people facing this have had to think about for quite a while. The solution is actually amazingly simple once I thought of it.
Remove this:
Siege tanks have a smart AI that refuses to overkill targets, it sounds good it seems like a great idea at first because oh tanks wound up wasting a lot of shots vs fast units like speedlings in broodwar. But the problem is without the tanks wasting shots it's not possible for a zerg ground army to get into position to kill anything more than just a few tanks. Again watch the replays if you disagree, I think that if the smart AI is removed so that tanks waste shots a zerg will still take HEAVY losses but if they're in a situation that Sheth was in where he was ridiculously far ahead in macro able to rebuild 200/200 armies in less than a minute it would then be possible to break the mech.
TL;DR remove the smart targetting on siege tanks so that they are forced to waste shots on the first wave of zerg units and maybe a zerg in dominant macro position can break mech without actual balance changes.
edit:
As for zerg being more mobile and having to abuse the immobility of Mech watch this replay MoMaN did an excellent job of abusing Lz and playing mind games sniping expansions and doing a great job of using drops fake drops nydus worm everything people are always saying the zerg has to do to beat mech and he STILL lost...
Going to update this list here in the OP as we get more
On June 03 2010 10:33 EnderW wrote: I will agree that the games of Sheth vs QXC are not optimal depictions of this matchup
A) Sheth didn't play very well in the late game
B) Sheth didn't use all his options well.
But I have seen/played tons of high level games where the players DID play well late game, and DID get corruptors/brood lords w/ 3/3 air and 3/3/3 ground, and still had similar results.
Alright, so... i'll make it easier for you if you wanna go by names, i'll list the zergs that agreed on stream / interview or this thread and other private chats that terran mech is TOO strong, as well as terrans, and people against, just to be a bit less biased, im trying to take into account every top player i've talked to or heard their personal opinion on this matter:
Note: It's Dimaga's Birthday, happy B-day Dmytro! I hope this is a nice gift for you!
WHO DISAGREE THAT MECH IS TOO STRONG LIST:
Zerg:
Terran: LzGaMeR, Louder, Avilo, Strelok, MorroW
Protoss:
if you are a top player or know the position of a top player in this matter and want to be added to either one of the lists plz send me a PM, I just thought this would give the rest of you guys a broader understanding of what most top players think. I was just talking to Dimaga and he will help me to update this list tomorrow with some european names, I asked him for all opinions he can gather and to be as unbiased as possible.
apologies to morrow, moman said we could put him on the top half and apparently that was not the case.
I think it would be a much bigger change then you think, and mech would go to be being awful without any other changs, I would how ever like to see this done, because it increases micro options, I do think the stats would need a buff if they did this, but who knows
I love seeing games where zerg thoroughly outplays the terran in every phase of the game yet the terran can sit on 2-3 bases, wait until hes near maxed, push out, and kill every single zerg unit (maxed army vs maxed army) while not losing any casualties
Its hard to foresee when the terran is going to push out so I suppose I should cut all unit production to leave supply room for corruptors/broodlords like every single person seems to suggest as a response to terran mech..?
The problem is a zerg army could take out a large portion of the terran mech but unless they're in a good position to replenish with great macro then they will lose anyway. But as it stands right now if you watch those replays Sheth isnt even able to get into position for ultras to melee or the roaches to fire. Hydras are even worse as they're squishy as hell. I think changing stats on mech makes things worse so other changes need to be made. And it's either this or add something to zerg so they have a specifically anti mech unit and that's less viable imo so I'm pitching this.
On June 03 2010 09:27 dethrawr wrote: Its the same in SC1, if zerg lets terran get 200/200 mech zerg will usually lose.
I don't think its really imbalanced, zerg needs to start using mech's immobility against them with nydus/doom drop play.
Also your 'fix' would be awful :l
fixed
I have a replay for you hang on where MoMaN completely abused LzGamer with great mind games outmaneuvered him and still lost. I'm tired of this mech is immobile it's not broken cuz even before the game LzGamer said the same thing on the stream and he still won. Let me upload it and I'll edit it in.
Remove the Infestors Frenzy ability, replace it with an ability called "Deeper Burrow", the amount of energy spent is of utmost importance, of course. The Deeper Burrow makes any burrowed unit undetectable for x amounts of seconds.
On June 03 2010 09:33 Orange Goblin wrote: Remove the Infestors Frenzy ability, replace it with an ability called "Deeper Burrow", the amount of energy spent is of utmost importance, of course. The Deeper Burrow makes any burrowed unit undetectable for x amounts of seconds.
This idea is amazingly broken, unbeatable not the way to fix it these need to be subtle changes at this point in the game as anything overt like that will break the game.
The problem isn't really the tanks being too smart, their faster firing rates is what really allows them to be less akin to crucial mistakes once they reach critical mass.
In BW you could time pincer attacks to strike between two volleys, in SC2 the shot cooldown will already be over when you'd send the second wave in to flank them.
ZvT right now pretty much revolves around broodlords/baneling drops because they are the two only units that are able to exploit the rapid splash damage of the tanks, and quite frankly I don't have any thoughts on how to prevent this. Critical mass will always feel imbalanced while playing.
Hmmm, if you removed smart targeting would that nerf it enough though? Sure it would hurt it some, but how much overkill is there actually? Tanks fire faster than they did in broodwar, and besides that, if tanks are sieged in a ball, suppose a roach army is charging them or something. The tanks in the front will fire before the tanks in the back when the roaches get in range, causing the rounds to be staggered, and the tanks to not waste many rounds on overkill anyways. It might work though, but I think they might need another change too.
On June 03 2010 09:38 Newguy wrote: Hmmm, if you removed smart targeting would that nerf it enough though? Sure it would hurt it some, but how much overkill is there actually? Tanks fire faster than they did in broodwar, and besides that, if tanks are sieged in a ball, suppose a roach army is charging them or something. The tanks in the front will fire before the tanks in the back when the roaches get in range, causing the rounds to be staggered, and the tanks to not waste many rounds on overkill anyways. It might work though, but I think they might need another change too.
The thing is that if this was changed zerg could do similar things to what protoss did in starcraft 1 speedlings become viable late in the game to make the tanks waste the first volley on the small fast cheap units. You'd still have to fight it a bit differently but it would open up a way to kill the terran mech ball, it wouldn't be easy but that's good it shouldnt be faceroll lololol I win it should be a subtle change.
just give zerg damn flying zerglings. I'm totally serious. Sure, thors would roflstomp half of them, but with a little micro and a crap ton of them, you could easily swarm them, then land, sort of like vikings. this would circumvent the imbatanks and pwnzerhellionz. this wouldn't really hurt pvz, since it would be hive tech and collussus would own them, since they won't be able to attack in the air and collossus doesn't hurt friendly units.
IMO just make roaches 1.5 or 1 supply again and call it a day, but yeah, the tank que is quite ridiculous, especially if the terran you are playing bothers to micro his tanks so that he can fire a string of shots right into the most dense part of your force.
Im honestly not sure what is worse, the tank queing, the ability of thor to completely shit on anything that flies, or the fact that the only damage absorbing unit we can get before the ultralisk is 2 supply.
The mobility, or lack thereof, of mech is completely offset by the myriad of sensor towers that terran can put up to easily predict everything zerg is doing.
The only time moman worked LZ over was with the fake drop.
It's pretty sad that zerg has to resort to some insane micro and psyops to win over an a moving 1 button clicking mech terran.
a defensive buff to frenzy that gives lings and other units a ton of more durability for x amount of seconds might also help? Just putting it here while downloading replays. yes mech is retarded ;(
On June 03 2010 09:43 dethrawr wrote: So you're saying you want a zerg army to be able to beat a 200/200 of slow moving units that have to spend time sieging to fire their greatest weapon?
Because thats what your change would do.
Okay think about it, 3-3 tanks kill roaches in two shots so large amounts of roaches get melted, ultralisks are still too slow and die easily to focus fire so that they're not viable against tanks but they're quite good against masses of warpgate units for toss so you can't buff ultras anymore. If you nerf tanks it breaks the tvp matchup. Tanks would still kill a 200/200 army in good position but it would be weakened to the point where an instant macro refresh by a zerg that is WAY ahead like in the first two games would be able to run in a second army to finish it off. Because Sheth wasn't able to do enough if any damage to the tank blob to finish it off, and in steppes of war watch it carefully qxc even had HALF his tanks sitting idle in his base. So he was suiciding 200/200 armies on about a 150 supply army by qxc.
On June 03 2010 09:44 Artosis wrote: i was actually going to write a very similar article this morning. might still do it. you are pretty much spot on, though.
anyone who argues with his points doesn't understand what's going on!
I've been tossing this around for a while trying to figure out what it is specifically about what is broken in tvz and this was the best answer I could think of so I'm really glad to hear you agree with it as it lends a lot more credibility.
On June 03 2010 09:33 Orange Goblin wrote: Remove the Infestors Frenzy ability, replace it with an ability called "Deeper Burrow", the amount of energy spent is of utmost importance, of course. The Deeper Burrow makes any burrowed unit undetectable for x amounts of seconds.
This idea is amazingly broken, unbeatable not the way to fix it these need to be subtle changes at this point in the game as anything overt like that will break the game.
How is it unbeatable? It's, of course, imperative for it to be very pricey, and for the duration to be short.
I'm not saying it's not unbeatable, but it's silly to just throw out claims like that without saying why.
Makes me wonder what people would have said if FF wasn't in and was suggested...
EPT
