|
Okay guys let's be realistic here people, Blizzard isn't going to make any HUGE changes to the game play. A lot of these suggestions are very good and well thought out, however they are just much too drastic to expect from Blizzard at this point. I'm not trying to discourage making up elaborate ideas for balance changes. I just think we should try to stick to the more straight forward ideas in light of being as pragmatic as possible.
So here is my (revamped) list of needed game play changes. I'm trying to keep everything as subtle as possible, so that the little things can add up to help mend the "bigger picture".
Zerg changes
(1) Decrease spine crawler build time by about 10-15 seconds. Right now when you scout your opponent leaving their base, you just can't throw up a proper defense in time to thwart the attack.
(2) Change burrow back to 50/50 cost. I think we'd see a lot more burrowed infestor and burrowed roach play if the upgrade was just a little bit cheaper.
(3) Neural parasite duration changed to about 20-24 seconds. This is needed as a counter to thor play because trying to attack a thor getting auto repaired by 3-4 scvs can be an absolute joke sometimes.
Edit: (4) Some sort of creep tumor buff to allow for the spreading of creep faster. Zerg really needs as much creep as possible to abuse the mobility they have over terran mech builds. The thing is, it's a bit too much of an APM sink at the moment. Possibly if the creep spread faster or if the cool down was slower, this would alleviate the problem.
Terran changes
(1) Missile Turret attack speed brought down by about 20% - 25%. Muta harass is completely nullified at the moment by just a few turrets. They should act as a deterrent more so than as a straight up hard counter.
(2) Bunker salvage changed to anything but 100% refund. Nothing in the SC universe should ever be free, whether it costs minerals, gas, or energy.
(3) Stim changed from 100/100 cost back to 150/150. Way to powerful of an ability to be giving away for 100/100. Terrans need to pay the price for such a game breaking ability.
The next two changes are a bit more drastic than the ones listed above. That being said, I think they are needed because right now terran has a huge range advantage in both the air and on the ground.
(4) Start viking range off at 7 and add an upgrade to the starport tech lab for +2 range for 150/150. Basically if the terran wants to control the air, they are going to have to make a commitment to it. No more throwing down a startport with a reactor and gaining instant air control. If you see your opponent going muta harass or heavy collosi, it would be a needed investment to research.
(5) Change the attack animation for siege tanks in siege mode so they have the ability to overkill units. Right now breaking tank lines can be a bit unbearable at times. Without overkill, you can't draw fire away with cannon fodder because siege tanks have 100% efficiency on their target acquisition. What people fail to realize is, even with overkill, you are still dealing a great bit of damage from the splash damage created by siege tank fire. With overkill, although the attacks would be less efficient, terrans would still get by with dealing a good amount of damage from the splash damage alone (albeit a lot of this damage would now be friendly fire damage as well).
Once again, I'm trying to keep all suggestions as straight forward and simple as possible because some of these ideas in this thread are just a little too elaborate to expect from blizzard at this stage. I really do believe that if the above 9 changes were made that tvz, would be for the most part, balanced once and for all.
|
Simply burrowing is enough sometimes. It provideds defense for your units unless the oh so IMBA Terran uses that OP scan or the forcefielding Protoss gets an Observer. Both are unlikely to be around in abundance in the early game and thus provide awesome defense for your workers against harrass. Just burrow them instead of running away and the Hellions have to shoot at the Extractor or whatever else is left standing around. Simple enough concept, but apparently hard to grasp. You obviously need a fast Lair, but this defensive use plus the ability to lure the harrassing units into a trap plus the ability to spread invisible scouts (yes I know you dont see much, but it is enough to see if a base / Xel'Naga tower is taken or not) make it an awesome ability.
Burrowed movement costs extra, but the ability to "call for a timeout" in a battle is very very powerful alone. Infestors already start with burrowed movement and they are the perfect harrassing unit since Fungal Growth + Infested Terran = loads of dead workers. Hardly any Zerg uses it, because it involves a risk of losing the unit and does not involve a swarm of units. That is where the Zerg players need to adapt: Learn to have more than one group of fighting units and accept the fact that you wont win at all spots.
On August 16 2010 21:43 Ben-J wrote:
I hope zerg's players can still enjoy this match up =). Unless this is the end of zerg players...
Eventually Zerg will go on a winning streak, because they are sooo rare that none of the Terrans / Protoss will know how to fight them.
|
kidcrash: snacks? Anyways, I think your zerg changes are good, but I think you should add a creep tumor buff to your list. Currently, spreading creep just takes way too much time.
|
On August 16 2010 20:24 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:06 Velr wrote:
What has burrow move (which btw. costs tons of gas to get) with Forcefields to do?
And lol at "Corruptor = the best AA unit)... Thats the Viking, by F A R. You can move under the Forcefield? You can let the duration of the Forcefield run out? 100 Gas is "tons" to you? Good thing you dont play Terran or you would never research Stim Pack or Combat Shield. "A penny saved is a penny gained" is something you should remember and if you burrow your opponent needs to detect you to continue fighting and that ALWAYS costs resources (energy on a OC is a resource too), so you arent behind your opponent in resources spent. Burrow is a one-time investment which affects all your ground forces and somewhat neutralizes harrass unless they bring detection. That isnt a bad thing to have IMO.
Just to clarify, Burrow is 100 gas, Tunneling claws is 150 gas (burrowed movement), Roach speed is 100 gas (pretty much the most important lair tech upgrade so you can't discount it) and burrowed roaches and infestors can no longer move under forcefields.
|
On August 16 2010 22:00 Tritonus wrote:
kidcrash: snacks? Anyways, I think your zerg changes are good, but I think you should add a creep tumor buff to your list. Currently, spreading creep just takes way too much time.
MMM good cd... Anyways I could definitely see a creep tumor buff as being one of the more subtle changes, that still help to aide in the bigger scheme of things. I'll add it to my list because right now I'm just trying to think of things that won't make huge impacts on the game play (especially in pvz and pvt) but still can give zerg little boosts here and there. That way, we can slowly swing the balance back to where it should be in TvZ ( or at least hope blizzard does it via patch).
|
On August 16 2010 19:50 Dente wrote:What can a terran do vs mass muta's without thors? Nothing! He has to sit a long time in his base and by the time he can move out, the zerg has enough expansions to destroy you. Turrets are good vs muta's, that's true, but 10+ muta's will destroy every turret in a second. You don't agree? Check this replay: http://starcraft2reps.com/download.php?id=1250It's maka vs check. Is maka worse then check? I don't think so. Maka couldn't move out of his base for a very long time and by the time he had his third up, check could just play with him. Do you really believe that a terran who has to make tons of turrets and tons of groundforce, has enough money for making some vikings (against the broodlords)? Terrans can't expand that fast against a zerg abusing the shit out of them. I think this replay shows tvz from another perspective. Am I the only one having a hard time against zerg?
I think what disturbed me more about that replay was that maka let 50 zerglings and 9 mutas have a free reign over his main for that long and still lasted as long as he did... And that wasn't 10+ mutas killing a turret in a second, it was 20ish mutas killing unsupported turrets. He didn't get a single thor out until 24 minutes had past... Just kept making more and more tanks for no reason while his opponent went up as high as 40ish mutas.
"A terran who lets the zerg cripple him can't fight off mutas!", my god that's awful O.o
Is check better than maka? Maybe not. Did maka play worse than check this game? Hell yes... You can't just take a replay like this and use it as proof that terran can't fight mutas without thors. And do you think that blizzard would remove Thors AA capabilities altogether? I wouldn't mind a nerf to their AA damage considering that they're freaking AoE AA units with good anti-ground capabilities as well but that doesn't mean that they will be worthless against mutas, maybe they wont be able to single-handedly counter mutas but I don't think that will be a major issue.
|
Just tossing this here to get people's opinions. Posted it on LaLush's thread as well.
Honestly? Reduce lair and hive build time by 10 seconds. The tech time is still substantial enough enough that omg quick mutas would not be more effective (terrans are able to deal with quick mutas currently and 10 seconds would not suddenly break that MU...lul) seeing as how toss deals with them fairly well.
Reduce spawning pool build time by 5 seconds. This would affect ZvZ a bit, and ZvP a bit, but seeing as how 2 gate pressure is almost the standard ZvP opener, I do not see this adversely affecting the MU.
Reduce queen build time by 10 seconds. This goes towards making tech a little less painful.
Roaches...this is kinda hard to change without making a gamebreaking change to ZvZ. I would make tunneling claws baseline. One less upgrade for lair tech when going for burrow roaches. This would hopefully open up roach play a bit without making drastic changes to ZvZ.
I feel it is underpowered for a supply 2 unit. I mean...boosting the damage or armor makes them godly against lings (2 armor or 18 damage). They already have higher HP. I would remove the armored modifier, remove the 1 armor, and bump them to 1 supply if a stat change was needed. But even that I would be hesitant to do because of how much it would affect all 3 matchups.
Zerglings, bump adrenal glands to 30%. I would love 50, but that would wreck lategame ZvP (I would love that still! Cracklings fighting!) Because suddenly the zergling overshadows the zealot (which is the real counter to lings) while wrecking the other units even more so. I would also reduce speed research by 10 seconds, making reaper harass a bit easier to deal with.
Banelings, I honestly cannot think of any change I would make aside from reducing centrifugal hooks to 100/100/100 from 150/150/110. Makes lair tech upgrades that much less painful.
Lair upgrades...ventral sacs is fine as is, and the transport upgrade should be bumped down from 200/200/200 to 100/100/100. The reasoning simply being ledge play is so strong right now and while one upgrade let's us have 100 mineral dropships, we need both to use them effectively. Ya, I know P and T have to tech for theirs, but they tech faster, tech better (1 building = multiple units possible), and remember, racial diversity does not equal imbalance.
Burrow should have a reduced cost, but have the same research time. Terran bio is punished pretty strongly now, and more so with the above mentioned baneling change. Roach burrow play would already be MUCH stronger because of the above mentioned change to them. No need to make it too easy for us.
Mutalisks should be faster (same speed as phoenix perhaps?) While getting 10 more hp. More effective harass that way since they are arguably the most neutered unit from BW (lack of micro, more effective AA for P and T) also reduced to 1 supply.
Hydralisks I would either buff HP by ten or damage by two. Makes them stronger or makes storm not quite the game ender it is now when they are caught off creep. Would make them a bit more effective against terran as they can beat a marauder a bit more efficiently now.
Nydus worm: make one nydus network able to build multiple worms at the same time. Still costly, but makes nydus assaults much more viable. I do not want to reduce cost much because I fell they are underutilized as it is.
Corruptors would be 100/100/1 down from 150/100/2. A little bit more easily used against colossi and vikings. Corrupt energy cost reduced to 50 energy, and in addition removes all armor from the target. Makes it a bit more effective and gives reason to add a few into an army while increasing micro potential since it would be single target still.
Infestors would either have the current NP baseline, or the infinte NP as a researched ability. This is partially for the ZvT matchup, but also because in ZvP countering colossi requires 2-3 infestors because of how easily they are sniped and the fact that 12 seconds is not enough. Too expensive for a supposed counter. IT is fine and fungal growth is the best spell in the game. Also, remove the armored modifier for a horrendously fragile unit for its cost.
Bro lords, increase armor to 2 and hp to 275. Fine aside from that, just a little too easily mudered by AtA from a unit that is meant to be on par with a carrier or BC in destructive power. I would prefer bigger buffs, but that is the bias in me.
Ultralisks...change base armor to 3, increase base damage by 5, decrease vs armor damage by 5 (no change is vs armor damage. This is more because this unit is meant to be the, and I mean The badass unit in the game. Highest armor, highest HP, strikes fear into the hearts of all. Makes it more effective vs T1 (Zealots and marines are surprisingly effective against them) and still maintains the same baddassery against armored.
All in all, the T1 and T2 changes are meant to open options and make teching/upgrades not as painful. T3 I feel should be stronger because of two main reasons. The first, for broodlords is that they are remarkably fragile for a sieging, BC sized fear inducing destroyer of turtles. Vikings with their range and vrays with there damage output murder them. Ultralisks are surprisingly ineffective against massed t1. There are options (snipe and immortals) people rarely use. Making them more effective would encourage more ghost (effective against ultra/ling play due tosnipe and bonus against light) and immortals (I do not seem them used much since the roach nerf)
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
|
On August 16 2010 21:48 kidcrash wrote:
(1) Decrease spine crawler build time by about 10-15 seconds. Right now when you scout your opponent leaving their base, you just can't throw up a proper defense in time to thwart the attack.
(2) Change burrow back to 50/50 cost. I think we'd see a lot more burrowed infestor and burrowed roach play if the upgrade was just a little bit cheaper.
(3) Neural parasite duration changed to about 20-24 seconds. This is needed as a counter to thor play because trying to attack a thor getting auto repaired by 3-4 scvs can be an absolute joke sometimes.
(1) Right now the Spine Crawler takes 50 seconds to build and Bunkers take 30 and Photon Cannons take 40 seconds. Changing the Spine Crawler to 35 seconds wouldnt make them IMBA, because there would hardly be any built anyways. The only thing where this REALLY matters is ZvZ with 6-pool and Spine Crawler rush on your opponents creep. Thats where it is impossible to counter and the 50 seconds come from.
(2) Why? 100/100 isnt expensive, because what does the Zerg need all his gas for early? Roaches? Other one-time research?
(3) If you make it 24 seconds it might as well be permanent. There is no "saving throw" against this ability and to give the unit a chance to survive being mind controlled it needs a short duration!
On August 16 2010 21:48 kidcrash wrote:
Terran changes
(1) Missile Turret attack speed brought down by about 20% - 25%. Muta harass is completely nullified at the moment by just a few turrets. They should act as a deterrent more so than as a straight up hard counter.
(2) Bunker salvage changed to anything but 100% refund. Nothing in the SC universe should ever be free, whether it costs minerals, gas, or energy.
(3) Stim changed from 100/100 cost back to 150/150. Way to powerful of an ability to be giving away for 100/100. Terrans need to pay the price for such a game breaking ability.
The next two changes are a bit more drastic than the ones listed above. That being said, I think they are needed because right now terran has a huge range advantage in both the air and on the ground.
(4) Start viking range off at 7 and add an upgrade to the starport tech lab for +2 range for 150/150. Basically if the terran wants to control the air, they are going to have to make a commitment to it. No more throwing down a startport with a reactor and gaining instant air control. If you see your opponent going muta harass or heavy collosi, it would be a needed investment to research.
(5) Change the attack animation for siege tanks in siege mode so they have the ability to overkill units. Right now breaking tank lines can be a bit unbearable at times. Without overkill, you can't draw fire away with cannon fodder because siege tanks have 100% efficiency on their target acquisition. What people fail to realize is, even with overkill, you are still dealing a great bit of damage from the splash damage created by siege tank fire. With overkill, although the attacks would be less efficient, terrans would still get by with dealing a good amount of damage from the splash damage alone (albeit a lot of this damage would now be friendly fire damage as well).
(1) So basically you want to make the Terran spam missile Turrets while being too lazy to evade them or kill them another way? Not good.
(2) Bunkers are NOT FREE. They are a temporary investment which can be lost. Just kill it and the Terran does NOT get his money refunded.
(3) Only if burrow is changed to 150/150 as well, because one burrow right after Stim FORCES a scan (and probably lets the Terran kill fewer units) and allows you to deplete the Terrans energy on Medivacs and OCs. Just burrow, scan, unburrow and run away repeatedly until his troops are hurt a lot. You might even get some "cannon fodder units" (Zerglings) for this to bait the Terran into wasting energies. Play smart and force your opponent to react in ways that are less than ideal.
(4) That doesnt change anything and only gives a small delay. I dont see why this change would be effective.
(5) Rofl, why not ask for Terran units movement to be changed back to BW "single file dumb movement" style? Times change and games change. Deal with it, because the radio was invented a hundred years ago already.
|
+ Show Spoiler +On August 16 2010 22:11 Bair wrote:
Just tossing this here to get people's opinions. Posted it on LaLush's thread as well.
Honestly? Reduce lair and hive build time by 10 seconds. The tech time is still substantial enough enough that omg quick mutas would not be more effective (terrans are able to deal with quick mutas currently and 10 seconds would not suddenly break that MU...lul) seeing as how toss deals with them fairly well.
Reduce spawning pool build time by 5 seconds. This would affect ZvZ a bit, and ZvP a bit, but seeing as how 2 gate pressure is almost the standard ZvP opener, I do not see this adversely affecting the MU.
Reduce queen build time by 10 seconds. This goes towards making tech a little less painful.
Roaches...this is kinda hard to change without making a gamebreaking change to ZvZ. I would make tunneling claws baseline. One less upgrade for lair tech when going for burrow roaches. This would hopefully open up roach play a bit without making drastic changes to ZvZ.
I feel it is underpowered for a supply 2 unit. I mean...boosting the damage or armor makes them godly against lings (2 armor or 18 damage). They already have higher HP. I would remove the armored modifier, remove the 1 armor, and bump them to 1 supply if a stat change was needed. But even that I would be hesitant to do because of how much it would affect all 3 matchups.
Zerglings, bump adrenal glands to 30%. I would love 50, but that would wreck lategame ZvP (I would love that still! Cracklings fighting!) Because suddenly the zergling overshadows the zealot (which is the real counter to lings) while wrecking the other units even more so. I would also reduce speed research by 10 seconds, making reaper harass a bit easier to deal with.
Banelings, I honestly cannot think of any change I would make aside from reducing centrifugal hooks to 100/100/100 from 150/150/110. Makes lair tech upgrades that much less painful.
Lair upgrades...ventral sacs is fine as is, and the transport upgrade should be bumped down from 200/200/200 to 100/100/100. The reasoning simply being ledge play is so strong right now and while one upgrade let's us have 100 mineral dropships, we need both to use them effectively. Ya, I know P and T have to tech for theirs, but they tech faster, tech better (1 building = multiple units possible), and remember, racial diversity does not equal imbalance.
Burrow should have a reduced cost, but have the same research time. Terran bio is punished pretty strongly now, and more so with the above mentioned baneling change. Roach burrow play would already be MUCH stronger because of the above mentioned change to them. No need to make it too easy for us.
Mutalisks should be faster (same speed as phoenix perhaps?) While getting 10 more hp. More effective harass that way since they are arguably the most neutered unit from BW (lack of micro, more effective AA for P and T) also reduced to 1 supply.
Hydralisks I would either buff HP by ten or damage by two. Makes them stronger or makes storm not quite the game ender it is now when they are caught off creep. Would make them a bit more effective against terran as they can beat a marauder a bit more efficiently now.
Nydus worm: make one nydus network able to build multiple worms at the same time. Still costly, but makes nydus assaults much more viable. I do not want to reduce cost much because I fell they are underutilized as it is.
Corruptors would be 100/100/1 down from 150/100/2. A little bit more easily used against colossi and vikings. Corrupt energy cost reduced to 50 energy, and in addition removes all armor from the target. Makes it a bit more effective and gives reason to add a few into an army while increasing micro potential since it would be single target still.
Infestors would either have the current NP baseline, or the infinte NP as a researched ability. This is partially for the ZvT matchup, but also because in ZvP countering colossi requires 2-3 infestors because of how easily they are sniped and the fact that 12 seconds is not enough. Too expensive for a supposed counter. IT is fine and fungal growth is the best spell in the game. Also, remove the armored modifier for a horrendously fragile unit for its cost.
Bro lords, increase armor to 2 and hp to 275. Fine aside from that, just a little too easily mudered by AtA from a unit that is meant to be on par with a carrier or BC in destructive power. I would prefer bigger buffs, but that is the bias in me.
Ultralisks...change base armor to 3, increase base damage by 5, decrease vs armor damage by 5 (no change is vs armor damage. This is more because this unit is meant to be the, and I mean The badass unit in the game. Highest armor, highest HP, strikes fear into the hearts of all. Makes it more effective vs T1 (Zealots and marines are surprisingly effective against them) and still maintains the same baddassery against armored.
All in all, the T1 and T2 changes are meant to open options and make teching/upgrades not as painful. T3 I feel should be stronger because of two main reasons. The first, for broodlords is that they are remarkably fragile for a sieging, BC sized fear inducing destroyer of turtles. Vikings with their range and vrays with there damage output murder them. Ultralisks are surprisingly ineffective against massed t1. There are options (snipe and immortals) people rarely use. Making them more effective would encourage more ghost (effective against ultra/ling play due tosnipe and bonus against light) and immortals (I do not seem them used much since the roach nerf)
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
The thing with making only zerg buffs is, it has a large effect on the pvz match up as well. I feel like if you make a few changes here and there to both zerg and terran that you could find a nice compromise and sort of "meet in the middle" on your way to balance. All in all your changes are just a little too drastic and would probably ruin pvz in the process (mutalisk +10 hp and 1 supply + movement speed increase, hydralisk buffs you mentioned). Only good suggestions that I liked were possibly the decrease in lair and hive build time (they do seem to take forever).
|
In BW, Hydras were available much sooner, and were more than glorified marines. They also could morph to lurkers, hard-countering bio balls.
Zerg also had queens to counter siege tanks.
Zerg had native detection on overlords, preventing terrans from abusing wraiths.
In SC2, Zergs are stuck with BLs to counter tanks, which cost as much as carriers and are very squishy, slow, and can't defend vs air (much less Terran's air)
In SC2, Zerg's answer to bio ball is supposedly the infestor, which is easily countered by 1raven/scan and a couple units or one ghost.
In SC2, Zerg has to upgrade Overseers (and speed) to have any kind of detection. 150m/100g for a 200hp unit that has 0 defensive utility, 1 ability to annoy the enemy, and 1 ability to scout.
See, the fact that Zerg actually had counters made Terran think twice about going either tech. They had to scout and react. In SC2, Terran just does whatever he pleases and throw it at the Zerg who has to always have the perfect unit mix to hard counter everything. Terran is always dictating the pace, which becomes increasingly annoying.
|
On August 16 2010 22:20 kidcrash wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 16 2010 22:11 Bair wrote:
Just tossing this here to get people's opinions. Posted it on LaLush's thread as well.
Honestly? Reduce lair and hive build time by 10 seconds. The tech time is still substantial enough enough that omg quick mutas would not be more effective (terrans are able to deal with quick mutas currently and 10 seconds would not suddenly break that MU...lul) seeing as how toss deals with them fairly well.
Reduce spawning pool build time by 5 seconds. This would affect ZvZ a bit, and ZvP a bit, but seeing as how 2 gate pressure is almost the standard ZvP opener, I do not see this adversely affecting the MU.
Reduce queen build time by 10 seconds. This goes towards making tech a little less painful.
Roaches...this is kinda hard to change without making a gamebreaking change to ZvZ. I would make tunneling claws baseline. One less upgrade for lair tech when going for burrow roaches. This would hopefully open up roach play a bit without making drastic changes to ZvZ.
I feel it is underpowered for a supply 2 unit. I mean...boosting the damage or armor makes them godly against lings (2 armor or 18 damage). They already have higher HP. I would remove the armored modifier, remove the 1 armor, and bump them to 1 supply if a stat change was needed. But even that I would be hesitant to do because of how much it would affect all 3 matchups.
Zerglings, bump adrenal glands to 30%. I would love 50, but that would wreck lategame ZvP (I would love that still! Cracklings fighting!) Because suddenly the zergling overshadows the zealot (which is the real counter to lings) while wrecking the other units even more so. I would also reduce speed research by 10 seconds, making reaper harass a bit easier to deal with.
Banelings, I honestly cannot think of any change I would make aside from reducing centrifugal hooks to 100/100/100 from 150/150/110. Makes lair tech upgrades that much less painful.
Lair upgrades...ventral sacs is fine as is, and the transport upgrade should be bumped down from 200/200/200 to 100/100/100. The reasoning simply being ledge play is so strong right now and while one upgrade let's us have 100 mineral dropships, we need both to use them effectively. Ya, I know P and T have to tech for theirs, but they tech faster, tech better (1 building = multiple units possible), and remember, racial diversity does not equal imbalance.
Burrow should have a reduced cost, but have the same research time. Terran bio is punished pretty strongly now, and more so with the above mentioned baneling change. Roach burrow play would already be MUCH stronger because of the above mentioned change to them. No need to make it too easy for us.
Mutalisks should be faster (same speed as phoenix perhaps?) While getting 10 more hp. More effective harass that way since they are arguably the most neutered unit from BW (lack of micro, more effective AA for P and T) also reduced to 1 supply.
Hydralisks I would either buff HP by ten or damage by two. Makes them stronger or makes storm not quite the game ender it is now when they are caught off creep. Would make them a bit more effective against terran as they can beat a marauder a bit more efficiently now.
Nydus worm: make one nydus network able to build multiple worms at the same time. Still costly, but makes nydus assaults much more viable. I do not want to reduce cost much because I fell they are underutilized as it is.
Corruptors would be 100/100/1 down from 150/100/2. A little bit more easily used against colossi and vikings. Corrupt energy cost reduced to 50 energy, and in addition removes all armor from the target. Makes it a bit more effective and gives reason to add a few into an army while increasing micro potential since it would be single target still.
Infestors would either have the current NP baseline, or the infinte NP as a researched ability. This is partially for the ZvT matchup, but also because in ZvP countering colossi requires 2-3 infestors because of how easily they are sniped and the fact that 12 seconds is not enough. Too expensive for a supposed counter. IT is fine and fungal growth is the best spell in the game. Also, remove the armored modifier for a horrendously fragile unit for its cost.
Bro lords, increase armor to 2 and hp to 275. Fine aside from that, just a little too easily mudered by AtA from a unit that is meant to be on par with a carrier or BC in destructive power. I would prefer bigger buffs, but that is the bias in me.
Ultralisks...change base armor to 3, increase base damage by 5, decrease vs armor damage by 5 (no change is vs armor damage. This is more because this unit is meant to be the, and I mean The badass unit in the game. Highest armor, highest HP, strikes fear into the hearts of all. Makes it more effective vs T1 (Zealots and marines are surprisingly effective against them) and still maintains the same baddassery against armored.
All in all, the T1 and T2 changes are meant to open options and make teching/upgrades not as painful. T3 I feel should be stronger because of two main reasons. The first, for broodlords is that they are remarkably fragile for a sieging, BC sized fear inducing destroyer of turtles. Vikings with their range and vrays with there damage output murder them. Ultralisks are surprisingly ineffective against massed t1. There are options (snipe and immortals) people rarely use. Making them more effective would encourage more ghost (effective against ultra/ling play due tosnipe and bonus against light) and immortals (I do not seem them used much since the roach nerf)
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? The thing with making only zerg buffs is, it has a large effect on the pvz match up as well. I feel like if you make a few changes here and there to both zerg and terran that you could find a nice compromise and sort of "meet in the middle" on your way to balance. All in all your changes are just a little too drastic and would probably ruin pvz in the process (mutalisk +10 hp and 1 supply + movement speed increase, hydralisk buffs you mentioned). Only good suggestions that I liked were possibly the decrease in lair and hive build time (they do seem to take forever).
I could honestly see the hydralisk and mutalisk buffs breaking the ZvP balance. But I felt the upgrade changes and time changes were actually pretty mild. Protoss is still a stronger race than zerg imo, but it is more because the two races do not counter each other very well.
Protoss has no answer to hydras short of hts or collxen. Zerg has no good answer to mass stalker/colossi other than ultras. All in all the mu is balanced, but in an odd kind of way.
|
On August 16 2010 22:37 Phrencys wrote:
In SC2, Zergs are stuck with BLs to counter tanks, which cost as much as carriers and are very squishy, slow, and can't defend vs air (much less Terran's air)
I agree, but the problem is the viking's range (9). Vikings can kill BL without any risk.
On August 16 2010 22:37 Phrencys wrote:
In SC2, Zerg's answer to bio ball is supposedly the infestor, which is easily countered by 1raven/scan and a couple units or one ghost.
Infestors+banelings is really good against a bioball.
|
On August 15 2010 10:17 pieisamazing wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 10:05 Perkins1752 wrote:
Dude it has been said so many times no:
1.Zerg players are worse then the average Terran player
2. Zerg is fine l2p
3. If you are still losing, just use nydus
4. It's the player, not the race
5. Just mass Mutas/Roaches and it's gg
6. Broodlords are awesome just quicktech to Blords and it's gg
7. Just sac an Overlord
Others than that, Zerg has superior early-midgame strategies themselves:
1. Banelingbust!
2. Roaches!
3. Alot of other strategies, i don't remember exactly but they are completely awesome
4. Nydus! (It has not been mentioned often, but nydus totally owns)
Others than that, Zerg is fine l2p This is such a terrible post. It addresses nothing in the OP, and is basically just trying to take jabs at zerg players and start a flame war.
I actually think this post was meant to be a joke, notice how #3 is "A lot of other strategies I don't remember" I don't know I find that funny. Also #4 the Nydus "has not been mentioned before" lol, I've only seen it mentioned in every ZvT thread. I really really think he's just being ironic, those first 7 are all the token weak Terran responses to Zerg imbalance and he just writes them all in a matter of fact way.
|
On August 16 2010 22:17 Rabiator wrote:(
1) Right now the Spine Crawler takes 50 seconds to build and Bunkers take 30 and Photon Cannons take 40 seconds. Changing the Spine Crawler to 35 seconds wouldnt make them IMBA, because there would hardly be any built anyways. The only thing where this REALLY matters is ZvZ with 6-pool and Spine Crawler rush on your opponents creep. Thats where it is impossible to counter and the 50 seconds come from.
(2) Why? 100/100 isnt expensive, because what does the Zerg need all his gas for early? Roaches? Other one-time research?
(3) If you make it 24 seconds it might as well be permanent. There is no "saving throw" against this ability and to give the unit a chance to survive being mind controlled it needs a short duration!
(1) It's not impossible to counter but it does dumb down the match up a little bit by forcing you to react to the possibility of getting spine crawler rushed. Not that big of an issue honestly, as compared to spine crawlers never being built in time to save you from a push in tvz Edit: I would settle for a 42 second build time, slightly longer than that of a photon cannon.
(2) Zerg needs their gas for anything besides zerglings, drones, expansions, overlords, spine crawlers, and queens. So basically the 30 other upgrades, units, and buildings that zerg either will be teching to or are about to tech.
(3) Fair enough, permanent wasn't IMBA to me but I settled with 24 seconds for anyone who felt otherwise.
On August 16 2010 22:17 Rabiator wrote:
(1) So basically you want to make the Terran spam missile Turrets while being too lazy to evade them or kill them another way? Not good.
(2) Bunkers are NOT FREE. They are a temporary investment which can be lost. Just kill it and the Terran does NOT get his money refunded.
(3) Only if burrow is changed to 150/150 as well, because one burrow right after Stim FORCES a scan (and probably lets the Terran kill fewer units) and allows you to deplete the Terrans energy on Medivacs and OCs. Just burrow, scan, unburrow and run away repeatedly until his troops are hurt a lot. You might even get some "cannon fodder units" (Zerglings) for this to bait the Terran into wasting energies. Play smart and force your opponent to react in ways that are less than ideal.
(4) That doesnt change anything and only gives a small delay. I dont see why this change would be effective.
(5) Rofl, why not ask for Terran units movement to be changed back to BW "single file dumb movement" style? Times change and games change. Deal with it, because the radio was invented a hundred years ago already.
(1) The proper counter for mutalisk harass is thor, that's what it's for. I have no problem with thors
countering muta because of A. their cost and B. their mobility. However in conjunction with turrets and vikings there are just way too many options. This allows the terran to be extremely flexible while leaving muta harass as pretty much LOL. Turrets should be a deterrence to muta harass, instead they provide 100% nullification.
(2) I'm sorry let me rephrase my wording then. Bunkers have the potential to be 100% free investments in the long term. There I fixed it.
(3) The difference is you have to pay for tunneling claws as well as the cost for burrow. Once ravens are out your advantage from burrow is pretty much negated whereas stim stays consistently powerful throughout the entire game.
(4) I think a small delay might be an understatement and that delay might have a huge impact when dealing with the initial muta harass. Things like that can open up timing windows for the zerg which could actually provide momentum shifts making them the aggressor (wow imagine that zerg with a timing window against terran)
(5) Some units in SC2 overkill.... so I guess their whole system is obsolete then. The problem stems from, you're giving no overkill to a unit with the highest range in the game, that has high end damage plus splash. Then you add in the fact that the counter to tanks (mutalisks) have so many options for dealing with. Go ahead and choose between marines with stim, viking, thor, turret, or even heat seeker missile.
|
On August 16 2010 22:41 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:20 kidcrash wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 16 2010 22:11 Bair wrote:
Just tossing this here to get people's opinions. Posted it on LaLush's thread as well.
Honestly? Reduce lair and hive build time by 10 seconds. The tech time is still substantial enough enough that omg quick mutas would not be more effective (terrans are able to deal with quick mutas currently and 10 seconds would not suddenly break that MU...lul) seeing as how toss deals with them fairly well.
Reduce spawning pool build time by 5 seconds. This would affect ZvZ a bit, and ZvP a bit, but seeing as how 2 gate pressure is almost the standard ZvP opener, I do not see this adversely affecting the MU.
Reduce queen build time by 10 seconds. This goes towards making tech a little less painful.
Roaches...this is kinda hard to change without making a gamebreaking change to ZvZ. I would make tunneling claws baseline. One less upgrade for lair tech when going for burrow roaches. This would hopefully open up roach play a bit without making drastic changes to ZvZ.
I feel it is underpowered for a supply 2 unit. I mean...boosting the damage or armor makes them godly against lings (2 armor or 18 damage). They already have higher HP. I would remove the armored modifier, remove the 1 armor, and bump them to 1 supply if a stat change was needed. But even that I would be hesitant to do because of how much it would affect all 3 matchups.
Zerglings, bump adrenal glands to 30%. I would love 50, but that would wreck lategame ZvP (I would love that still! Cracklings fighting!) Because suddenly the zergling overshadows the zealot (which is the real counter to lings) while wrecking the other units even more so. I would also reduce speed research by 10 seconds, making reaper harass a bit easier to deal with.
Banelings, I honestly cannot think of any change I would make aside from reducing centrifugal hooks to 100/100/100 from 150/150/110. Makes lair tech upgrades that much less painful.
Lair upgrades...ventral sacs is fine as is, and the transport upgrade should be bumped down from 200/200/200 to 100/100/100. The reasoning simply being ledge play is so strong right now and while one upgrade let's us have 100 mineral dropships, we need both to use them effectively. Ya, I know P and T have to tech for theirs, but they tech faster, tech better (1 building = multiple units possible), and remember, racial diversity does not equal imbalance.
Burrow should have a reduced cost, but have the same research time. Terran bio is punished pretty strongly now, and more so with the above mentioned baneling change. Roach burrow play would already be MUCH stronger because of the above mentioned change to them. No need to make it too easy for us.
Mutalisks should be faster (same speed as phoenix perhaps?) While getting 10 more hp. More effective harass that way since they are arguably the most neutered unit from BW (lack of micro, more effective AA for P and T) also reduced to 1 supply.
Hydralisks I would either buff HP by ten or damage by two. Makes them stronger or makes storm not quite the game ender it is now when they are caught off creep. Would make them a bit more effective against terran as they can beat a marauder a bit more efficiently now.
Nydus worm: make one nydus network able to build multiple worms at the same time. Still costly, but makes nydus assaults much more viable. I do not want to reduce cost much because I fell they are underutilized as it is.
Corruptors would be 100/100/1 down from 150/100/2. A little bit more easily used against colossi and vikings. Corrupt energy cost reduced to 50 energy, and in addition removes all armor from the target. Makes it a bit more effective and gives reason to add a few into an army while increasing micro potential since it would be single target still.
Infestors would either have the current NP baseline, or the infinte NP as a researched ability. This is partially for the ZvT matchup, but also because in ZvP countering colossi requires 2-3 infestors because of how easily they are sniped and the fact that 12 seconds is not enough. Too expensive for a supposed counter. IT is fine and fungal growth is the best spell in the game. Also, remove the armored modifier for a horrendously fragile unit for its cost.
Bro lords, increase armor to 2 and hp to 275. Fine aside from that, just a little too easily mudered by AtA from a unit that is meant to be on par with a carrier or BC in destructive power. I would prefer bigger buffs, but that is the bias in me.
Ultralisks...change base armor to 3, increase base damage by 5, decrease vs armor damage by 5 (no change is vs armor damage. This is more because this unit is meant to be the, and I mean The badass unit in the game. Highest armor, highest HP, strikes fear into the hearts of all. Makes it more effective vs T1 (Zealots and marines are surprisingly effective against them) and still maintains the same baddassery against armored.
All in all, the T1 and T2 changes are meant to open options and make teching/upgrades not as painful. T3 I feel should be stronger because of two main reasons. The first, for broodlords is that they are remarkably fragile for a sieging, BC sized fear inducing destroyer of turtles. Vikings with their range and vrays with there damage output murder them. Ultralisks are surprisingly ineffective against massed t1. There are options (snipe and immortals) people rarely use. Making them more effective would encourage more ghost (effective against ultra/ling play due tosnipe and bonus against light) and immortals (I do not seem them used much since the roach nerf)
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? The thing with making only zerg buffs is, it has a large effect on the pvz match up as well. I feel like if you make a few changes here and there to both zerg and terran that you could find a nice compromise and sort of "meet in the middle" on your way to balance. All in all your changes are just a little too drastic and would probably ruin pvz in the process (mutalisk +10 hp and 1 supply + movement speed increase, hydralisk buffs you mentioned). Only good suggestions that I liked were possibly the decrease in lair and hive build time (they do seem to take forever). I could honestly see the hydralisk and mutalisk buffs breaking the ZvP balance. But I felt the upgrade changes and time changes were actually pretty mild. Protoss is still a stronger race than zerg imo, but it is more because the two races do not counter each other very well. Protoss has no answer to hydras short of hts or collxen. Zerg has no good answer to mass stalker/colossi other than ultras. All in all the mu is balanced, but in an odd kind of way.
I don't really know why people are concerned about the PvZ balance to be honest. It's balanced in win %, but it really is kinda a boring match-up to me. I'd even say that ZvZ has more viable strategies for the Zerg than ZvP does.
Basically a lot of it is like..
2-Gate protoss win y/n? n -> if zerg over committed to defense they have a <50% chance of winning, if they committed just the right amount they have a >50% chance of winning.
4-Gate protoss win y/n? n -> if zerg over committed to defense they have a <50% chance of winning, else they have a >50% of winning.
I wouldn't mind seeing this matchup shaken up a bit. Any Z buffs are likely to be centered around T1 or T2 units and tech. It'd be nice if the end game for protoss become more potent (not in straight damage or anything, just in the ability of protoss to stay in the fight longterm) so rather than this match where the Protoss does a bunch of stuff then either is in a position to win or a position to lose, we might end up with something where there's more to it and more going on.
|
what if contaminate (the overseer ability) disabled turrets, cannons, spine crawlers, and (UH OH) planetary fortresses AND it doubled the damage done to the structure of those buildings. This would have less effect on protoss and more effect on Terran because it would make it easier for zerg to break through walloffs or disable the defense vikings have (vikings like to attack and then retreat to turrets).
|
On August 16 2010 23:35 cloudform wrote:
what if contaminate (the overseer ability) disabled turrets, cannons, spine crawlers, and (UH OH) planetary fortresses AND it doubled the damage done to the structure of those buildings. This would have less effect on protoss and more effect on Terran because it would make it easier for zerg to break through walloffs or disable the defense vikings have (vikings like to attack and then retreat to turrets).
The old contaminate ability did do this, but they removed it for some odd reason. I don't remember the patch transition but it used to be on the Corruptor with what you're suggesting.
|
On August 16 2010 23:37 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 23:35 cloudform wrote:
what if contaminate (the overseer ability) disabled turrets, cannons, spine crawlers, and (UH OH) planetary fortresses AND it doubled the damage done to the structure of those buildings. This would have less effect on protoss and more effect on Terran because it would make it easier for zerg to break through walloffs or disable the defense vikings have (vikings like to attack and then retreat to turrets). The old contaminate ability did do this, but they removed it for some odd reason. I don't remember the patch transition but it used to be on the Corruptor with what you're suggesting.
They made this change when they put it on the overseer. I never really understood why. Even if overseers are a 0 pop imba counter to static defenses... well static d costs 0 pop as well.
I suppose it has more to do with the potential ability to harass with muta + overseer.
If complete stopping is too strong they could just make it that static D under contaminate fires 50% slower.
|
On August 16 2010 23:37 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 23:35 cloudform wrote:
what if contaminate (the overseer ability) disabled turrets, cannons, spine crawlers, and (UH OH) planetary fortresses AND it doubled the damage done to the structure of those buildings. This would have less effect on protoss and more effect on Terran because it would make it easier for zerg to break through walloffs or disable the defense vikings have (vikings like to attack and then retreat to turrets). The old contaminate ability did do this, but they removed it for some odd reason. I don't remember the patch transition but it used to be on the Corruptor with what you're suggesting.
I think blizzard thought they were just switching spells or making it more attractive when in fact they were nerfing the old corruption ability. No idea why they would do this. Basically means without Splash you can't kill a PF thanks to this change.
|
To be honest if Contaminate stopped static defense ZvZ would be pretty broken if you're behind by a couple of mutas//roaches//lings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
