On December 10 2010 04:48 morimacil wrote: for the cost of 1 thor, you can make 2 ghosts and have some minerals left over. 1 thor isnt very useful. and has 8 dps against light air.
Thors do 16DPS vs light air...
The only issue with marines is that MULEs make it much faster to get a critical mass. This is because MULE income provides everything required to build extra marines: Supply depots, barracks, and the unit itself. Every other Terran unit is restricted by gas in some way.
On December 10 2010 04:48 morimacil wrote: for the cost of 1 thor, you can make 2 ghosts and have some minerals left over. 1 thor isnt very useful. and has 8 dps against light air. 2 ghosts can emp the phoenixes, making them useless for the duration of the battle, and have a combined dps of 26. you dont need to mass ghosts as much as people seem to think. just make a few and you will be fine against light flyer support.
And if he goes mass air, then keep making marines. Knowing when to keep making marines is probably just as important as knowing when to stop relying only on them. And if all his gas is invested in air, then no reason not to fight it with marines even in the lategame.
What is this I don't even.
1 ghost: 150/150/2 2 ghosts: 300/300/4
1 thor: 300/200/6
--
Thor cooldown: 3
Thor damage: 6 (+6 vs light) * 4 attacks (also splash if they stack)
Thor DPS vs light = (6+6)*4/3 = 12*4/3 = 16
--
Ghost damage: 10 (+10 vs light)
Ghost cooldown: 1.5
Ghost DPS vs light = (10+10)/1.5 = 20/1.5 = 13.333
2 Ghosts DPS vs light = 26.666 (so 2 ghosts still out DPS a thor against air and are actually hit less hard by armour, but gain less from weapon upgrades. Your numbers were pretty accurate here)
(Ghosts also have snipe though, and Thors have more life etc, so this comparison is difficult to make)
Not that ghosts are bad and such, but don't make up numbers.
The tank is the most overpowered unit in SC1. It is seen in all TvTs and all TvPs, and in the late-game high level zergs have difficulty beating it in TvZ. In fact, good terrans are even able to get them in the early game. Once massed, they are nearly impossible to...
I am so tired of hearing this argument. This thread is ridiculous. Why are we even talking about getting AROUND a player getting the marine? Compare to my Sc1 analogy, do Protoss and Terran players do things to STOP their Terran opponents from getting tanks? Of course not. That's ridiculous. Just because a unit is good doesn't mean it needs to be "nerfed" to have a balanced and enjoyable game.
On December 10 2010 02:52 nalgene wrote: they nerfed one of the capital ships for terran to 8 from 10 damage vs ground at some point for no reason... now they only do 11 from 13 at max vs ground max upped dps went to 47 from 56 seems like there's no reason to do so... they don't even kill lings in 4 shots anymore if the zerg carapace was 1 higher than air upgrades on Terran
if only vikings could harass a zerg like this, they'd be pretty cost effective and not need to always stay with the majority of the main force
Lol are you seriously thinking terran air was better in bw? I could count the number of games won by wraiths alone with my left hand. Think about how many games that are won by banshees..
terran air in the older game had a lot more options to fight other races with
They did have a unit that had very big AoE damage vs air units only ( Valkyrie ) Shot 8 times for 6 Damage per hit ( +1 damage per upgrade ) ( they gain 8 damage for every armor upgrade that the opponent didn't research to combat the attack upgrade ) - not very often do they get +1 armor for mutas
Damage could vary from 24 ( 0/0 vs 3/3 ) up to 72 ( 3/3 vs 0/0 ) 48 in a ( 0/0 vs 0/0 ) with 0 base armor
Damage was in a 3x3 matrix ( that's really big ) Cooldown was 64 frames / 24 ( I guess the big cd negates some of it, but the burst damage is high + big splash ) ends up being 2.667 cd a few could stop them from muta stacking as much
a couple of these could kill a lot of air units from toss/zerg if they were in sc2, highly mobile in comparison to the viking as it's only slightly slower than the wraith
unit could be patrol microed to release volleys while accelerating towards the targets
Wraiths wouldn't be bad vs the zerg in sc2 if they ever added them back in given that overlords don't act as detectors anymore and they could just constantly cloak/snipe overseers/harass mutas
atleast one unit would always die vs the sci vessel ( save only the ultralisk ) as the primary target has no way of shaking off the spell, but the missile could be dodged by the primary target. only the secondary/tertiary ones would escape vs irradiate emp shockwave( sci vessel ) could remove up to 750 shields ( nexus ) and all of the energy on any unit within range a baneling would die in 3.6 seconds ( 30 hp / 8.333 ) and it'd be hard to split that when they could smart cast it on several nearby units that would force a zerg player to try and split away from 6+ targets that had irradiate on them they clump more via the 255 unit selection limit so even if they didn't kill the majority of the targets, they already took a lot in being weakened to really low hp values
On December 10 2010 05:07 1a2a3aPro wrote: The tank is the most overpowered unit in SC1. It is seen in all TvTs and all TvPs, and in the late-game high level zergs have difficulty beating it in TvZ. In fact, good terrans are even able to get them in the early game. Once massed, they are nearly impossible to...
I am so tired of hearing this argument. This thread is ridiculous. Why are we even talking about getting AROUND a player getting the marine? Compare to my Sc1 analogy, do Protoss and Terran players do things to STOP their Terran opponents from getting tanks? Of course not. That's ridiculous. Just because a unit is good doesn't mean it needs to be "nerfed" to have a balanced and enjoyable game.
Eh, I think HTs/Science Vessels/Defilers win that award. Tanks are really strong but they don't make entire sections of the techtree worthless (outside of TvT, and mirror matchups are always weird) in SC1 whereas those other units totally define what you are allowed to do against their respective races. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, it's just that tanks are generally beatable in SC1 just by having lots of "stuff".
(Don't get me wrong, tanks are really good in SC1)
Honestly, I thought one of the key parts of starcraft as an RTS game was the re-usability of tier-1 units. Nerfing them by replacing them would in my opinion be a somewhat cheap way to balance the game, which is what Relic did with the Dawn of War (1) series, which totally screwed the game over. I couldn't read the entire topic, as it is really draining to read that much text , but I can see what you mean.
I find it really pathetic how super units are easily countered by tier 1 mass. For example, BC's and Carriers have seriously plummeted in their resourcefulness with their slow movement, and long build times. Especially with the event of Warp Gates and Reactored Starports, and larva inject, they lose their high-damage high-health capability even more, making stalemates all the more potent.
For some reason, I feel that a lot of the Starcraft 1 super-units have lost their strength, except for the Zerg army, which I find has a lot of use Tier 3, which is probably causing all the "Avoid letting Zerg Macro" strategies.
But.. this isnt about those super units. I saw topics on the viking as a goliath replacement, and honestly I saw it as a "goliath+wraith was switched out for two specialists: Thor & Viking & Banshee". The viking is simply a hard Massive(colossus) anti-air counter and the thor a damage dealing sponge (it lost its AA capability with magic boxing). It would be nice to see a goliath type unit coming back, but overall I like the versatility of the marine. Though it does create a bland game-play style due to its heavy dependency and this makes me want to see myself building different unit combinations other than marine + xxx.
On December 10 2010 05:19 Kingqway wrote: I find it really pathetic how super units are easily countered by tier 1 mass. For example, BC's and Carriers have seriously plummeted in their resourcefulness with their slow movement, and long build times. Especially with the event of Warp Gates and Reactored Starports, and larva inject, they lose their high-damage high-health capability even more, making stalemates all the more potent.
I completely agree with this part. If you see bc's/carriers, you're supposed to shit your pants, but instead you know that his army has to be very weak otherwise, and immobile. That is for the 10% of the games where they don't die while trying to get bc's/carriers.
Let me tell you a story. I've played BW for ages; terran only and I got fairly good at it. I never played sc2 in the beta and only started playing 3 weeks after its official release to due being on vacation then. After some games, I was matched with a 1200 diamond which was pretty good back then. I was way better than him in terms of mechanics and general RTS experience, but he had 150+ sc2 games and knew much more about what sc2 units/builds counter what, etc. It was TvT on SS and 25 minutes in, i had every expand, turrets, sensory towers etc, while he had his nat and was fighting life and death for some tanks I had on his 2rd expo. I do what closes the deal in such games in bw: make upgraded 15 bc's. I think haha! you're dead now. Then a measly group of ~20 of this unit called Vikings come and basically wreck my bc's :@ I couldn't believe it. I still won the game because I made thors (I thought they were goliaths) and was so far ahead already, but I just fundamentally could/can not understand how 15 3-3 bc's could lose so relatively easily to a handful of T2 units. In bw, even goliaths still needed a shitload of them and bad micro from the 3 3 bc's to kill them..
I agree, Marines ARE essential to Terran play in SC2. They do good damage at all levels of the game to any type of unit, they build quickly, and they don't cost gas. That last point is especially important to Terran, as MULEing tends to cause big temporary boosts to mineral production where gas can't keep up, so Marines are a pretty safe and efficient way to spend that money. You need to back them up with other units (whether it's SCVs, Thors, or something in between) -- or you could think of it as that you need to back up your other units with Marines. That's just how Terran works in this game now.
Truthfully, I think a partial solution to this percieved problem would be buffing seeker missiles so terrans wouldnt have to rely on marines to take down mutas.
That or nerf mutas, which as a zerg I hate to say but it might be needed.
On December 10 2010 05:19 Kingqway wrote: I find it really pathetic how super units are easily countered by tier 1 mass. For example, BC's and Carriers have seriously plummeted in their resourcefulness with their slow movement, and long build times. Especially with the event of Warp Gates and Reactored Starports, and larva inject, they lose their high-damage high-health capability even more, making stalemates all the more potent.
I completely agree with this part. If you see bc's/carriers, you're supposed to shit your pants, but instead you know that his army has to be very weak otherwise, and immobile. That is for the 10% of the games where they don't die while trying to get bc's/carriers.
Let me tell you a story. I've played BW for ages; terran only and I got fairly good at it. I never played sc2 in the beta and only started playing 3 weeks after its official release to due being on vacation then. After some games, I was matched with a 1200 diamond which was pretty good back then. I was way better than him in terms of mechanics and general RTS experience, but he had 150+ sc2 games and knew much more about what sc2 units/builds counter what, etc. It was TvT on SS and 25 minutes in, i had every expand, turrets, sensory towers etc, while he had his nat and was fighting life and death for some tanks I had on his 2rd expo. I do what closes the deal in such games in bw: make upgraded 15 bc's. I think haha! you're dead now. Then a measly group of ~20 of this unit called Vikings come and basically wreck my bc's :@ I couldn't believe it. I still won the game because I made thors (I thought they were goliaths) and was so far ahead already, but I just fundamentally could/can not understand how 15 3-3 bc's could lose so relatively easily to a handful of T2 units. In bw, even goliaths still needed a shitload of them and bad micro from the 3 3 bc's to kill them..
you sure he had 20 of those? and you had 15? did you have scan? did you try to kill them with that 10 range spell ( can extend to 20 range if the unit runs that far, beyond 20 = unit takes 0 damage )
they also lowered the armor on carriers from 4 to 2 ( it would take 150 hits from marines to kill, but now they only need 75 at 0/0 vs 0/0 and 3/3 vs 3/3 ) - not including the 150 shields they made the AI vs carriers/interceptors different ( kinda nerfed the carriers in this way ) the way they move seemed like they got nerfed
bcs doing 10 before patch 1.1, but why did they get nerfed
When did marines become a problem? I thought it was the marauder that was imba. jesus just nerf the entire terran arsenal blizz! please!! so every race can fast expand except the terran!
you have a great mind for innovation my friend.
No really though, 2 rax marine pressure beats hatch first for one simple reason. Over-fuckin-droning. seriously if you scout a 2 rax as any race your best bet is to play defensive until the push comes, rofl stomp the small army and then macro. and if you cant stop a 2 rax, just cancel your freakin expo and have gas for a roach warren.
On December 10 2010 06:18 MicroMortuis wrote: When did marines become a problem? I thought it was the marauder that was imba. jesus just nerf the entire terran arsenal blizz! please!! so every race can fast expand except the terran!
you have a great mind for innovation my friend.
No really though, 2 rax marine pressure beats hatch first for one simple reason. Over-fuckin-droning. seriously if you scout a 2 rax as any race your best bet is to play defensive until the push comes, rofl stomp the small army and then macro. and if you cant stop a 2 rax, just cancel your freakin expo and have gas for a roach warren.
Marines arent imba.
Because as the metagame shifts people think they found new "problems" with the game.
On December 10 2010 05:40 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: I completely agree with this part. If you see bc's/carriers, you're supposed to shit your pants, but instead you know that his army has to be very weak otherwise, and immobile. That is for the 10% of the games where they don't die while trying to get bc's/carriers.
Let me tell you a story. I've played BW for ages; terran only and I got fairly good at it. I never played sc2 in the beta and only started playing 3 weeks after its official release to due being on vacation then. After some games, I was matched with a 1200 diamond which was pretty good back then. I was way better than him in terms of mechanics and general RTS experience, but he had 150+ sc2 games and knew much more about what sc2 units/builds counter what, etc. It was TvT on SS and 25 minutes in, i had every expand, turrets, sensory towers etc, while he had his nat and was fighting life and death for some tanks I had on his 2rd expo. I do what closes the deal in such games in bw: make upgraded 15 bc's. I think haha! you're dead now. Then a measly group of ~20 of this unit called Vikings come and basically wreck my bc's :@ I couldn't believe it. I still won the game because I made thors (I thought they were goliaths) and was so far ahead already, but I just fundamentally could/can not understand how 15 3-3 bc's could lose so relatively easily to a handful of T2 units. In bw, even goliaths still needed a shitload of them and bad micro from the 3 3 bc's to kill them..
you sure he had 20 of those? and you had 15? did you have scan? did you try to kill them with that 10 range spell ( can extend to 20 range if the unit runs that far, beyond 20 = unit takes 0 damage )
Yeah I used yamato, which at least eased the pain of knowing that I had to suicide the remaining bc's into his tank/turret line - they were being picked off by the superior ranged vikings anyway (though I did get some).
On December 10 2010 06:14 nalgene wrote: they also lowered the armor on carriers from 4 to 2 ( it would take 150 hits from marines to kill, but now they only need 75 at 0/0 vs 0/0 and 3/3 vs 3/3 ) - not including the 150 shields they made the AI vs carriers/interceptors different ( kinda nerfed the carriers in this way ) the way they move seemed like they got nerfed
bcs doing 10 before patch 1.1, but why did they get nerfed
Thing is, literally no-one complained about bc's being too strong before they got nerfed. They were a nice nich unit that might show up in 1/10 games or so. Something that made macro/late games more interesting.
I suspect Blizzard nerfed bc damaged based on paper arguments. In unit tester they were strong or something. But they forgot to take into account the huge risk one has to take by building the starports, the fact they rarely appear before the 15 or even 20 minute mark, etc, etc.
In BW, carriers were exactly right. They were very strong, but not too strong. They could give a p an edge to beating a hurt but turtling terran. Hell, p could even go 2 base carriers if the terran was not actively scouting or doing a timing push. That was fun and added an extra dimension to the game. Right now, carriers and bc's are broken units, completely useless. The scouts of sc2. Likewise with the reaper, by the way, although I don't miss that unit at all.. (coming from a terran).
High tech units are in a very precarious balance position. Give them more combat power, and it's a tech race to get them. Give them less combat power, and their low speed makes them virtually useless.
High tech can't be balanced around pure combat stats. They have to be balanced around some sort of separate utility.
On December 10 2010 06:43 Kaptein[konijn] wrote: Thing is, literally no-one complained about bc's being too strong before they got nerfed. They were a nice nich unit that might show up in 1/10 games or so. Something that made macro/late games more interesting.
I suspect Blizzard nerfed bc damaged based on paper arguments. In unit tester they were strong or something. But they forgot to take into account the huge risk one has to take by building the starports, the fact they rarely appear before the 15 or even 20 minute mark, etc, etc.
In BW, carriers were exactly right. They were very strong, but not too strong. They could give a p an edge to beating a hurt but turtling terran. Hell, p could even go 2 base carriers if the terran was not actively scouting or doing a timing push. That was fun and added an extra dimension to the game. Right now, carriers and bc's are broken units, completely useless. The scouts of sc2. Likewise with the reaper, by the way, although I don't miss that unit at all.. (coming from a terran).
Actually, Protoss was having a lot of problems with the BC. There is no real way for Protoss to fight BCs.
With 10 damage vs ground they beat Stalkers straight-up. With Yamato, they 1-shot Void Rays. The only thing that did any decent amount of damage was HTs, and that typically wasn't enough damage to actually kill them.
Granted I think BCs and Carriers are a bit too weak now, it's still wrong to say there was nothing wrong with the 10dmg BCs. At least now Stalkers can do SOMETHING against them.
The biggest problem with the balancing high tech units is twofold- firstly that you have to pay for them upfront, which means you can't really have an uber unit like the mothership. It will either be too weak to pay for its cost, or cheap enough that once you get the down payment it's a matter of time before an overly strong, almost unkillable unit wins you the game. The second problem is that they are tech-optional. In the event that the BC is thought of as being weak, nobody gets the fusion core since that's all it does, and their build is that much stronger without ever considering BC's. If the BC is thought of as strong, the fusion core is a single payment that unlocks the tech, and its cost is not that significant compared to the cost of actually making the battlecruisers. In short, the number of battlecruisers made is a variable that can be min-maxed quite easily, with dramatic effects.
Basically, high tech units should be stronger than intuition would suggest, due to the risk of getting them and the high down-payment expense. A single BC could have been a command center and 300 gas, for example, and you get no mileage out of the BC's cost until its lengthy build time runs down.
Carriers are the perfect example. They are really, really weak right now. In terms of straight up combat power, they are sort of worth their cost, but that's not good enough to justify the tech, the time, and the down payment to get them. The broodlord seems to be acceptably strong, but it seems the only reason why blizzard has been so liberal with them is their weakness is so clear- they cannot attack air. It could be that all three endgame units need a buff in order to be seriously viable.
On December 10 2010 05:58 mDuo13 wrote: I agree, Marines ARE essential to Terran play in SC2. They do good damage at all levels of the game to any type of unit, they build quickly, and they don't cost gas. That last point is especially important to Terran, as MULEing tends to cause big temporary boosts to mineral production where gas can't keep up, so Marines are a pretty safe and efficient way to spend that money. You need to back them up with other units (whether it's SCVs, Thors, or something in between) -- or you could think of it as that you need to back up your other units with Marines. That's just how Terran works in this game now.
I'm OK with that.
Yea, but you notice how the marine is involved in every unit composition you can think of (that actually works)? Very few compositions work without the marine, and the armies that do are generally more expensive than a marine-centric or marine-supported army. I'm okay with having the marine as the backbone of the army, it's just that the marine shouldn't be the only backbone. This is like having one giant pillar hold up an entire bridge; sure it works, but it's a lot easier to take out as well, no matter how well it's reinforced.
Blizzard's reason for balancing is probably going to be that they'd be awful at low levels. Really the only reason they can even be used in zvt is because you can split them and banelings are useless.
On December 10 2010 05:58 mDuo13 wrote: I agree, Marines ARE essential to Terran play in SC2. They do good damage at all levels of the game to any type of unit, they build quickly, and they don't cost gas. That last point is especially important to Terran, as MULEing tends to cause big temporary boosts to mineral production where gas can't keep up, so Marines are a pretty safe and efficient way to spend that money. You need to back them up with other units (whether it's SCVs, Thors, or something in between) -- or you could think of it as that you need to back up your other units with Marines. That's just how Terran works in this game now.
I'm OK with that.
Yea, but you notice how the marine is involved in every unit composition you can think of (that actually works)? Very few compositions work without the marine, and the armies that do are generally more expensive than a marine-centric or marine-supported army. I'm okay with having the marine as the backbone of the army, it's just that the marine shouldn't be the only backbone. This is like having one giant pillar hold up an entire bridge; sure it works, but it's a lot easier to take out as well, no matter how well it's reinforced.
If you are microing properly, your marauders and tanks do a fantastic job of protecting your marines. They aren't THAT easy to take out in the late, or even mid-game. Marines are a great unit that start off incredibly powerful, and scale down to simply being solid in the late-game, which is a fantastic pattern for a backbone unit in an army composition.
Once zerg figures out how to reliably defend this 2-rax marine/scv push that is so powerful (note, learning how to scout it correctly) right now, I think we're going to see a very solid and balanced period of gaming, until the next innovative play is invented that gets all the kids on the forums screaming "IMBA!"
EPT
, but I can see what you mean. 
