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While you focus solely on the benefits mules give the Terran economy, and how its overpowered in the aspect that zerg and protoss can't do that, you are committing a logical fallacy by doing so.
As protoss, you have the chronoboost. While the chronoboost does not have the same function as the mule, it still gives the protoss economy an advantage in a similar fashion to the way the mule does. How many games have you seen Toss win because they got a chrono boosted void ray out, or a 4 gate strat made possible by the chrono boost? I've seen plenty of games won Directly by use of the chronoboost.
And what about zerg? you can't tell me that the queen's vomit lavae abiltiy has not helped you win games. Getting an extra 4 or 5 larvae can be completely gamebreaking. That's 4 drones or 8 lings Every time the queen has enough energy for it.
Don't cry imba just by stating all the "gamebreaking" facts about the terran mules. If you are going to launch allegations of imbalance, you need a comprehensive analysis lining the terran OC, zerg queen, toss chronoboost etc.. side by side. While the terran mule certainly has won games for me, and many others, so too has the queen and chronoboost. Jeez, people need to step down from the "terran imba" bandwagon.
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@Lina
No one is saying that chronoboost or spawn larva hasn't won us a game. And just because it has, doesn't mean that these aspects of the game is balanced.
Your correct that each had its own function, but when looking at resource gathering capability by itself, (as we have all already pointed out) mules have a clear advantage.
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On September 18 2010 06:03 ShadowReaver wrote:
@Lina
No one is saying that chronoboost or spawn larva hasn't won us a game. And just because it has, doesn't mean that these aspects of the game is balanced.
Your correct that each had its own function, but when looking at resource gathering capability by itself, (as we have all already pointed out) mules have a clear advantage.
That just happens to be incorrect. For pure gathering capability(as in all CB goes to nexus, all inject larvae goes drones) zerg wins, next to it comes CB and last Mule.
Putting it into the game, you need the first set of inject larvae to go stricktly to drones and you are even for the rest of the game to the mule. You need 5 CBs on the nexus to be even to mules throughout the game.
End result being, mules are quite equal and less versatile for pure gathering than the 2 other mechanics. But whatever, I just hope Blizzard doesn't jump on the same bandwagon as almost everyone in this thread is on.
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The big question here is, was one of Huk's base mined out? Because that would make a world of difference. 
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Can you guys stop switching the argument? It was established many times that Terran does need mules in early/mid game (well, they do need mules, PERIOD). The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. When it comes down to mismanagement, Zerg loses potential units. Period, no argument, stop bringing up larva stacking b/c that's just not true (yes, you can have more than 3 at a hatch if that's what you mean, but the ability does NOT stack on a single hatch. Gathering up larva helps, but it can be a waste when your army is gets rolled over near your base by a stronger army (an argument that should be ignored in this thread). The only confident argument I can make with chrono is that there a smaller energy capacity, leading to more/easy waste of energy past a certain amount of time/neglect. Comparable? I don't know, you guys can argue about that, but we're talking about COOLDOWN, not the ability itself. Terran has the luxury of stacking this ability when it is missed. We're not arguing that it's cheap to have a mule, we're saying that it's cheap to plop down 6 mules at one time. Please don't give me this crap about "well if the guy didn't miss it, he would have a bigger army". I can just go say "well if the zerg player didn't miss his 10 spawn larvas (I'm making this assumpion: 2 bases/queens each, total energy wasted minus the initial 2, which means 200 energy over for terran => 8 more spawn larva), the zerg player would have a lot more workers/bigger army.
A cool down of 40 might be overkill (from those fake patch notes...well for now, fake), but a lack of a cooldown is the problem. A cooldown for chrono would be nice, but I believe that isn't necessary...but I'll be happy with just like 5 or 10 sec...
I'm sick of people arguing the legitimacy of the unit/ability itself...the bigger issue is no cooldown
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On September 16 2010 17:14 klauz619 wrote:
Mules are worth like 5-7 workers, not sure exactly.
So yeah a couple of em are better, as long as they don't die.
worth 3 workers
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On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote:
Can you guys stop switching the argument? It was established many times that Terran does need mules in early/mid game (well, they do need mules, PERIOD). The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. When it comes down to mismanagement, Zerg loses potential units. Period, no argument, stop bringing up larva stacking b/c that's just not true (yes, you can have more than 3 at a hatch if that's what you mean, but the ability does NOT stack on a single hatch. Gathering up larva helps, but it can be a waste when your army is gets rolled over near your base by a stronger army (an argument that should be ignored in this thread). The only confident argument I can make with chrono is that there a smaller energy capacity, leading to more/easy waste of energy past a certain amount of time/neglect. Comparable? I don't know, you guys can argue about that, but we're talking about COOLDOWN, not the ability itself. Terran has the luxury of stacking this ability when it is missed. We're not arguing that it's cheap to have a mule, we're saying that it's cheap to plop down 6 mules at one time. Please don't give me this crap about "well if the guy didn't miss it, he would have a bigger army". I can just go say "well if the zerg player didn't miss his 10 spawn larvas (I'm making this assumpion: 2 bases/queens each, total energy wasted minus the initial 2, which means 200 energy over for terran => 8 more spawn larva), the zerg player would have a lot more workers/bigger army.
A cool down of 40 might be overkill (from those fake patch notes...well for now, fake), but a lack of a cooldown is the problem. A cooldown for chrono would be nice, but I believe that isn't necessary...but I'll be happy with just like 5 or 10 sec...
I'm sick of people arguing the legitimacy of the unit/ability itself...the bigger issue is no cooldown
I've said this already but I'll rephrase it.
Terran IS "Punished" for mismacroing. It's just not dished out by the game. You have to initiate it yourself. If he drops 6 mules at one base, you can swing some mutas/void rays in there and take them all out, making all that energy go to waste.
Unlike Protoss and Zerg, Terran's macro-mechanic is a unit and can be killed (quite easily, too. They have, what, 25 hp?)
You can kill a queen, but after it's spawned larva, that energy didn't go to waste. You can kill the hatch/nexus/chronoboosted building, but you can also kill the command center. If that's happening, you've got bigger problems to worry about than mules.
But once you kill a mule, that's 50 energy wasted. That could have been a scan, a supply drop, or 270ish minerals. In fact, even threatening to kill mules makes them go to waste if the player moves them away, because they're losing mining time.
Instead of thinking "what could the game change to fix this", you should be thinking "what can I do differently in my games to fix this?"
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United States47024 Posts
On September 18 2010 01:36 x7i wrote:
mule gathers 270min over ~63 seconds, normal worker with optimal saturation gathers 42min over 60 seconds, so mule is equal to 6 workers at optimal saturation, normal worker pays itself in 71 seconds (with optimal saturation, or 120sec if worker count >16), mule pays oc in about 35 seconds..
Uhh, no, that's wrong.
MULE's gather 270 minerals in 63 real seconds--which is 90 seconds game time. Workers with optimal saturation gather 42 mins in 60 GAME seconds. Either you were misinformed or you're deliberately confusing game seconds and real seconds to further your point.
From
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140055:
"- From 0 to 2 SCVs/patch, each additional SCV adds ~39-45 minerals/game minute."
From http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/MULE:
"They last 90 seconds of game time, or about 65 seconds on "faster" game speed...Their timed life allows 8 or 9 mining trips which totals 240/270 minerals respectively on a blue mineral patch and 336/378 on a yellow one."
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On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote: The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed.
Terrans are punished for bad Macro. But macro is more than just pushing a button in regular intervals.
Besides everything already mentioned Terrans are the worst at converting a huge Incomespike. The Terran Infrastructure has issues scaling up since Productions buildings have additional costs in Addons.
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On September 18 2010 10:04 TedJustice wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote:
Can you guys stop switching the argument? It was established many times that Terran does need mules in early/mid game (well, they do need mules, PERIOD). The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. When it comes down to mismanagement, Zerg loses potential units. Period, no argument, stop bringing up larva stacking b/c that's just not true (yes, you can have more than 3 at a hatch if that's what you mean, but the ability does NOT stack on a single hatch. Gathering up larva helps, but it can be a waste when your army is gets rolled over near your base by a stronger army (an argument that should be ignored in this thread). The only confident argument I can make with chrono is that there a smaller energy capacity, leading to more/easy waste of energy past a certain amount of time/neglect. Comparable? I don't know, you guys can argue about that, but we're talking about COOLDOWN, not the ability itself. Terran has the luxury of stacking this ability when it is missed. We're not arguing that it's cheap to have a mule, we're saying that it's cheap to plop down 6 mules at one time. Please don't give me this crap about "well if the guy didn't miss it, he would have a bigger army". I can just go say "well if the zerg player didn't miss his 10 spawn larvas (I'm making this assumpion: 2 bases/queens each, total energy wasted minus the initial 2, which means 200 energy over for terran => 8 more spawn larva), the zerg player would have a lot more workers/bigger army.
A cool down of 40 might be overkill (from those fake patch notes...well for now, fake), but a lack of a cooldown is the problem. A cooldown for chrono would be nice, but I believe that isn't necessary...but I'll be happy with just like 5 or 10 sec...
I'm sick of people arguing the legitimacy of the unit/ability itself...the bigger issue is no cooldown I've said this already but I'll rephrase it. Terran IS "Punished" for mismacroing. It's just not dished out by the game. You have to initiate it yourself. If he drops 6 mules at one base, you can swing some mutas/void rays in there and take them all out, making all that energy go to waste. Unlike Protoss and Zerg, Terran's macro-mechanic is a unit and can be killed (quite easily, too. They have, what, 25 hp?) You can kill a queen, but after it's spawned larva, that energy didn't go to waste. You can kill the hatch/nexus/chronoboosted building, but you can also kill the command center. If that's happening, you've got bigger problems to worry about than mules. But once you kill a mule, that's 50 energy wasted. That could have been a scan, a supply drop, or 270ish minerals. In fact, even threatening to kill mules makes them go to waste if the player moves them away, because they're losing mining time. Instead of thinking "what could the game change to fix this", you should be thinking "what can I do differently in my games to fix this?"
One issue you're ignoring is it's much easier to miss the ability as zerg, and you can't get it back (yes you can spawn creep, but that's easily killed with either a detector, or a well placed scan (b/c you don't need to spend all your energy on mules, same as larva)
As for killing mules, yes, but that's also luck based, and a loss of gas is inevitable (which obviously has more value than minerals). Also, it's not like the mule is being killed JUST when it comes out. That is basically luck (unless the terran is trying to expand, is spotted, and just dumps the missed mules). Plus if we are playing a perfectly macro'ed terran (as in never has more than 55 energy), you're only going to kill 1 mule, maybe two, while you lose probably 300 gas (mutas as an example).
And also, of course they are punished, but if you put it on a scale (biased/extreme scale, but it's to get my point across) of how much each race is punished, it's probably 2 for terran, 4 for toss, and 6 for zerg (out of a possible of 7, higher = more impact/punishment).
Ignored issue that isn't that big, but should be noted, time is needed to build back a queen (of course it's also needed for orbital, but replacing the queen takes time as well). Plus food/supply is needed for the queens as well.
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On September 18 2010 07:42 Zarahtra wrote:
That just happens to be incorrect. For pure gathering capability(as in all CB goes to nexus, all inject larvae goes drones) zerg wins, next to it comes CB and last Mule.
Putting it into the game, you need the first set of inject larvae to go stricktly to drones and you are even for the rest of the game to the mule. You need 5 CBs on the nexus to be even to mules throughout the game.
End result being, mules are quite equal and less versatile for pure gathering than the 2 other mechanics. But whatever, I just hope Blizzard doesn't jump on the same bandwagon as almost everyone in this thread is on.
Except that Mules can work on top of SCVs, so this is completely false. They don't squeeze workers out of mineral patches.
Zerg and Protoss can get an early macro advantage by getting workers out faster, but Terran have advantages throughout the rest of the game. Every expo you take increases the number of mules you can call down at a moment's notice, whereas zerg and protoss are still stuck with the standard number of SCVs for every base.
I don't think mules are OP, but I can definitely say for sure they're by far the easiest/cheesiest mechanic. Every second you delay on re-injecting is a huge macro loss for Z, and Chronoboost is not nearly as effective, merely flexible in that you can use it for almost anything. A chronoboost = 10 seconds of production time. The results are also very delayed, because chronoboosting probes or units still takes time. Mules come down instantly, and you can bank a lot of energy before they go to waste.
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@yango: ay mate, got confused on game/real seconds there, look later post
@zara&rest of broken record team: riight, you can spend 15 min of chrono on probes but as long as you dont have more mineral patches to mine from (ie. expand) you can never match income of terran with mule, same with zerg, just can saturate faster, which is of virtually no consequence when comparing equal base count, and only time when mule =~ 4.5 scv is when you have <12 scv, every second after is worth more (cause of saturation that would affect 'equivalent' workers), and theres issue of food (0) and time to return of investment (2/3 of 1 worker)
well, apparently no one bothers to think objectively, which is no surprise, but non terran players should bother to think for themselves at least
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On September 18 2010 10:04 TedJustice wrote:
Terran IS "Punished" for mismacroing. It's just not dished out by the game. You have to initiate it yourself. If he drops 6 mules at one base, you can swing some mutas/void rays in there and take them all out, making all that energy go to waste.
wow, what a "valid" point
if the zerg uses additional larvae for drones, you can kill them with banshees/reapers/whatever; if the protoss uses chrono-boost to get more probes, you can kill them with banshees/reapers/whatever; there's no difference if I kill one mule or you kill 3 probes that I've had more because of chrono-boost
I really don't wanna seem offensive, but this is just such a flawed argument.....sorry....
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On September 16 2010 17:18 attackfighter wrote:
It only mines minerals faster, so while it's powerful it's not going to give the Terran an edge where it counts most - gas. Gas heavy units like collusus, high templar, tanks, ghosts, medivacs and vikings are just so pivotal in TvT, it really overshadows the extra marines/marauders that the mule will get you.
Mules can be super duper good in some situations though; like you noted, they let you maintain a decent income after losing lots of workers, and another major benefit is in the early game when mineral only units are a lot stronger (their counters aren't teched to yet).
a mule is 5-7 workers thus having one mule lets you put your scvs on gas instead ?
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After 18 pages of people seemingly arguing with no real purpose, maybe a TvT example would help?
Take's homestory cup, held on the 11th Sep had a very interesting game between Demuslim and Brat_OK on Steppes of War. Brat_OK did an early push and managed to get inside Demuslim's main and kill all but about 5 scvs. Brat_OK had approx 20-30 scvs at this point.
Demuslim had been gearing up to expand, so had a second Command Center in the main that had been morphed into an Orbital Command, and had a lot of energy because of the timing of the attack. Brat_OK hadn't got his expo ready at this point.
Because of this, Demuslim had access to more mules than Brat_OK. So of course he dropped 2-3 on his main to make up the worker deficit. His income while they were down was above Brat_OK's. Demuslim went on to win that game with some incredibly skilled play, but he would have been down and out if he hadn't been able to stack mules like that.
I think it's contexts like this one that mules need to be viewed in during this discussion. I don't think anyone can disagree that a player who is down to 5 workers compared to 20-30 should be so crippled that they're unable to come back, but in this case the ability to stack a few mules completely reversed the situation.
I'm not going to comment on whether I think they're imbalanced or not, but I think if everyone in here agreed on a context for discussion there would be a lot less hostility on all sides.
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mules are so op. terran with 3+ ccs can operate fine with nearly no scvs at all.
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On September 18 2010 10:32 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2010 09:46 EliteAzn wrote: The issue is that there is minimal cooldown/punishment for mis-macro. By minimal, I mean they are affected the least when it is missed. Terrans are punished for bad Macro. But macro is more than just pushing a button in regular intervals. Besides everything already mentioned Terrans are the worst at converting a huge Incomespike. The Terran Infrastructure has issues scaling up since Productions buildings have additional costs in Addons.
This is a good point. Zerg and Protoss are way better than Terran when it comes to catching up and using unspent minerals - and make up for bad macro. Overall I don't think Terran gets less punished for bad macro because of MULEs, although I do think MULEs/OC are easier to use properly than chrono boost and spawn larvae, but that is a different discussion.
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Mules are abusively strong at three points in the game - when bases are saturated (and Terran is on an equal # of bases), when Terran has a gold expansion, and when Terran has 200 food of units.
Protoss and Zerg must have a plan to punish Terran should Terran seek those circumstances.
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Actually the image says nothing? How many mules? And also, after that mule rush the income will crash down
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i think it was mentioned before, but what in my eyes the problem with mules is, that the one race with the most cost-effective units can easily catch up in terms of macro. I think zerg or toss should outmacro terran to win games, but this is pretty hard to do since terran's macro is so strong due to MULES. (i actually think that PvT is not such a big issue,i believe it to be rather balanced...)
I played a game some time ago (I am plat btw) against a mid-diamond terran who tried to rush me with mass marines/marauders, me starring as P. I could barely hold it off until I finally got an edge and won. The funny thing was that the Terran cut his worker production at 17 (!!!!) scvs (I had around 30 at that time since he killed some of my probes). He was diamond league, still his macro was so sloppy and he was able to make bio like a maniac. why?? thanks to MULEs. Those are actually moments when I think that the benefit for MULES go too far if they can really make up for such bad macro.
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EPT
