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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
Regarding "opportunity cost", mules, mining, and sc2: Wolfe explains this way better than I ever could. Buy a GSL pass and watch him here:
http://www.gomtv.net/2011super1/vod/65503
Set 2, on bel'shir beach, at the 11:20 minute mark in the VoD, or 16:24 in-game time.
On June 09 2011 05:58 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 05:58 Big J wrote:Yeah Terrans that say a scan "costs" 275minerals should be immidiatly demoted from silver to bronze. A scan doesn't cost anything, but it represents an 'opportunity cost' of the minerals that a mule would have mined over its lifespan. That's a mule you can't use, since you scanned. Good DT expo play relies on the terran player to be unable to push out without effectively 'losing' hundreds of minerals to opportunity cost, lowering his army size in that respect. Im not saying that scaning is for free. But they are meant to scan once or twice for scouting purposes and they are meant to have scans for mobile detection, so I refuse to acknowledge every scan as a "should be"-mule and I also refuse to acknowledge every mule as 275minerals, as they still have to mine it (which takes some time) and have a backfire too, as you bases will run out pretty quickly. (which means heavy muling leads to more investment into faster expanding)
If you make a mule instead of a scan, 90 seconds later, you will have ~270 more minerals than if you scanned. How does scanning not cost 270 minerals? You refuse to awknowledge that each mule is 275 minerals, but that isn't a valid argument.
The fact that mules take time to mine the 275 minerals is a valid argument. It takes a minute and a half, it's not an instant bonus. However, that doesn't mean a scan is worth 0 instantaneous minerals; you could also use a supply drop in place of building a supply depot, so a scan is EITHER worth 100 minerals right now or 275 minerals over the course of 90 seconds, but it's definitely worth something, and the fact that you can sacrifice DTs early on to impact terran macro, and terran's mobile non-scan detection is harder to reach than overseers... well yeah.
Also... dude. Overseer production isn't limited by the larvae mechanic unless you seriously derped a lot of overlords. You can always make as many overseers as you want whenever you want if you have the resources for it, unless youw ant to make more overseers than you have overlords... the ability to simultaneously produce overseers without ANY IMPACT on your production facility (larvae) is huge. Protoss has to stop colossus production, Terran has to stop making 2x medivac or 2x viking, or stop making banshees to make a raven, and both of these races can only make one at a time.
Zerg usually can make multiple units at a time, but at the cost of larvae for other units-- if you make roaches or lings, you have fewer larvae for drones or hydras. This is not the case for overseer production. With this quick detector production, along a tech route that every zerg player always takes, and with detectors doubling as both flying scout units and as supply depots, I contend that zerg has the best detection out of all three races.
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I actually think the observer is weak (versus Terran). 2-3 Vikings plus a Raven (or even without, just a scan then), and suddenly there is nothing you can do about cloaked Banshees apart from retreating and hugging a cannon until you get a new observer - which will be killed just as fast again.
I can see the OPs concern about blink stalkers and overseers, however morphing a new overseer only takes 17 (blizzard-)seconds which is like a joke compared to the observers 40s (plus eventually having to cancel an immortal/colossus in a panic situation); and of course morphing an overseer doesn't block unit production in the first place.
Now an overseer has a lot of hitpoints compared to an observer. Why don't protoss cry about their obs being sniped and DTs raping them? Because their spotter unit is cloaked? That doesn't help you much in gold league or higher any longer. So I don't think the overseer is weak at all - somewhat pricy but still fine imho. I guess you have to start microing it (aka not having it in your army hotkey and just a-clicking everything together).
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3 things we have to consider in detection.
Ease of availability
-zerg- as soon as lair is unlocked any overlord can become an overseer.
-terran- highest tech required in order to unlock raven, offset by scan
-protoss- forces robo tech, offset by low cost
Longevity
-zerg- overseers aren't very fast compared to most anti air, medium hit points
-terran- ravens can deploy certain defenses to keep them alive although still slow
-protoss- observers with perma cloak and a speed upgrade theoretically are best equiped to survive.
Opportunity cost (explained above, great post)
-zerg- with the exception of the minerals/gas required not much difficulty in producing detection
-terran- losses valuable medivac/viking production, gains powerful caster, scan/mule/supplydrop
-protoss- losses valuable robo unit production
i think zerg take the cake in their easy access and opportunity cost and would argue that zerg have the easiest detection. i understand i only argued on the mobile detectors themselves, but lets be honest you can't say a spore crawler is worse than a missle turret or cannon.
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On June 09 2011 17:06 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 16:46 Big J wrote:On June 09 2011 06:26 karpo wrote:
Congratulations, you added another zerg balance whine post to the already huge list. You trying to veil it in some kind of "deal with it" mentality doesn't really help. Congratulations, you proved yourself to be incapable of either reading or understanding the comments of others. You trying to veil it in some kind of "every zerg that recognizes that their race has flaws too is a whiner" mentality doesn't really help. Really, tell me why you think the zerg race does not have flaws and noone may write about them. I guess a discussion about this would end in: you have to remove 2 of the 3 races to make the game perfect! I wrote that cause your post didn't provide anything worthwhile. There's really nothing to understand about this, it's zerg whine in a sea of zerg whine about a million different things. It's tiresome to read zergs posts about everything being worse for them and how they need 10 different changes to be viable. There's no reason to remove any race as the recent win statistics show that zergs are doing fine in high level play and tournaments.
So in your opinion I must not critizise anything in the game or suggest something about it? I guess you are in the wrong place then. This is a forum, and people are here to discuss stuff.
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On June 09 2011 17:19 Blazinghand wrote:Regarding "opportunity cost", mules, mining, and sc2: Wolfe explains this way better than I ever could. Buy a GSL pass and watch him here: http://www.gomtv.net/2011super1/vod/65503Set 2, on bel'shir beach, at the 11:20 minute mark in the VoD, or 16:24 in-game time. Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 05:58 Big J wrote:On June 09 2011 05:58 Big J wrote:Yeah Terrans that say a scan "costs" 275minerals should be immidiatly demoted from silver to bronze. A scan doesn't cost anything, but it represents an 'opportunity cost' of the minerals that a mule would have mined over its lifespan. That's a mule you can't use, since you scanned. Good DT expo play relies on the terran player to be unable to push out without effectively 'losing' hundreds of minerals to opportunity cost, lowering his army size in that respect. Im not saying that scaning is for free. But they are meant to scan once or twice for scouting purposes and they are meant to have scans for mobile detection, so I refuse to acknowledge every scan as a "should be"-mule and I also refuse to acknowledge every mule as 275minerals, as they still have to mine it (which takes some time) and have a backfire too, as you bases will run out pretty quickly. (which means heavy muling leads to more investment into faster expanding) If you make a mule instead of a scan, 90 seconds later, you will have ~270 more minerals than if you scanned. How does scanning not cost 270 minerals? You refuse to awknowledge that each mule is 275 minerals, but that isn't a valid argument. The fact that mules take time to mine the 275 minerals is a valid argument. It takes a minute and a half, it's not an instant bonus. However, that doesn't mean a scan is worth 0 instantaneous minerals; you could also use a supply drop in place of building a supply depot, so a scan is EITHER worth 100 minerals right now or 275 minerals over the course of 90 seconds, but it's definitely worth something, and the fact that you can sacrifice DTs early on to impact terran macro, and terran's mobile non-scan detection is harder to reach than overseers... well yeah. Also... dude. Overseer production isn't limited by the larvae mechanic unless you seriously derped a lot of overlords. You can always make as many overseers as you want whenever you want if you have the resources for it, unless youw ant to make more overseers than you have overlords... the ability to simultaneously produce overseers without ANY IMPACT on your production facility (larvae) is huge. Protoss has to stop colossus production, Terran has to stop making 2x medivac or 2x viking, or stop making banshees to make a raven, and both of these races can only make one at a time. Zerg usually can make multiple units at a time, but at the cost of larvae for other units-- if you make roaches or lings, you have fewer larvae for drones or hydras. This is not the case for overseer production. With this quick detector production, along a tech route that every zerg player always takes, and with detectors doubling as both flying scout units and as supply depots, I contend that zerg has the best detection out of all three races.
The biggest issue is the fact that each overseer costs 100 gas. However, making them cost less gas will also not be a particularly good change. The reason is because contaminate is a really powerful spell when used well. Blizzard has an almost unbalance-able situation because lowering the price may be too big a buff to the overseer’s spell casting ability, while the current price is probably a too high.
Personally, I thought Blizzard was and should’ve just made it so Zerg gets an upgrade (separate from drop and speed) that gives overlords detection capabilities when I first heard that detection was going to be changed from BW to SC2. That works much better in my opinion.
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On June 09 2011 17:58 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 17:06 karpo wrote:On June 09 2011 16:46 Big J wrote:On June 09 2011 06:26 karpo wrote:
Congratulations, you added another zerg balance whine post to the already huge list. You trying to veil it in some kind of "deal with it" mentality doesn't really help. Congratulations, you proved yourself to be incapable of either reading or understanding the comments of others. You trying to veil it in some kind of "every zerg that recognizes that their race has flaws too is a whiner" mentality doesn't really help. Really, tell me why you think the zerg race does not have flaws and noone may write about them. I guess a discussion about this would end in: you have to remove 2 of the 3 races to make the game perfect! I wrote that cause your post didn't provide anything worthwhile. There's really nothing to understand about this, it's zerg whine in a sea of zerg whine about a million different things. It's tiresome to read zergs posts about everything being worse for them and how they need 10 different changes to be viable. There's no reason to remove any race as the recent win statistics show that zergs are doing fine in high level play and tournaments. So in your opinion I must not critizise anything in the game or suggest something about it? I guess you are in the wrong place then. This is a forum, and people are here to discuss stuff.
People are here to discuss tactics, tournaments, pros, streams etc. From what i've read balance threads are not really appreciated. These discussions are like watching left and right wing politicians argue, neither will ever change his mind and they just go on and on and on without really listening to eachother.
Bottom line is that i personally haven't seen more than a few pro games where cloaked units have won the match, especially not recently. IF pro's start losing alot of games due to trouble with detection we can talk about changing stuff. Idra vs MC last game at MLG is not a great example as MC outplayed Idra and had about 50% higher APM all through the match.
I checked the replay and it was 170 - 250 APM average for Idra and MC respectively.
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Late game ZvP protoss offten gets DTs. Its become so common that people now plant two spines and a spore at every expo. Which also give you enough time to react to other things like warp ins, air harrass and full on attacks. The spines and spore is not there to she down DTs all together, they are there to alert the player.
You may stay that zerg has the 'weakest' detection because overseers are slow etc, but the overseer can do more then just detect. It is the perfect scout thanks to changlings, you can stop building from producing with contaminate. And lets not forget that the overseer is morphed from an overlord. You could, if you wanted to, get 20 overseers in the time it takes to morph one, until the other races which have to build their detectors one at a time.
I've covered cloak units attacking expos, you also mention DT's in an army. This is also quite common, but easily recogniseable. The DT has a very unique sound, once you've played for a while you get atuned to it and then you fine you can see them almost as clear as if they weren't cloaked. With the increase in infestor use from alot of zergs, myself included, fungal growth it key to stopping protoss armys of all kinds, including one with DTs. I rarely find myself loosing a game to DTs anymore because i just funal then making then useless.
On a side note, has anyone ever tried neural paraciting a DT? I really want to try it, i think it would be AWESOME!
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You could just get banelings and detonate them manually? A handful of banelings in your army saves you a lot of grief from Zealots anyway, so why not?
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So DT harass is a big problem late game for zerg. OK, then as mentioned does it really cost THAT much to invest in some spore and spine crawlers, considering the fact that the toss already invested in DTs. I don't see how Blizzard can make it easier for zergs to fend off DT harass. By the time DTs become a threat, zerg should be at 4/5 bases and you are telling me that they cannot afford a few overseers or a few spines/spores at the expansion? Not to mention that spines/spores can move around. I haven't really seen a zerg struggling with the money, by the time DT harass comes or some sort of cloaked banshee attacks, so I don't see how the argument of expensive detection is relevant.
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I'm guessing someone already said this, but blizzard hates overseers and there one of the first units they will be changing/removing for HotS..... (And reapers)
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You are not thinking the fact that Z in comparison to P, do not need a special tech path to get the detection. That's a nice advantage,
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I think that only real problem you are listing is:
"The first thing that comes to mind is that Protoss only needs detection to combat defensive abilities, such as burrow and creep"
But thats a problem of a race. While Z is getting burrow to survive a 6gate (for example) and P can just pull back if he doesn't have obs. Z will just outright die if he is caught without detection with dt's/banshes streaming in.
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On June 09 2011 20:03 kezaron wrote:
I'm guessing someone already said this, but blizzard hates overseers and there one of the first units they will be changing/removing for HotS..... (And reapers)
Don't forget immortals...they intended for them to end up as tanking units, not dd's
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Against Blink you really need to control your overseer and keep it in the back of your army so that a blink would cost him A LOT of stalkers. Also I d always morph another one when you know he s engaging you with DTs. It might be hard to keep them alive, but it s not impossible. But I see your point that they get taken out too easy by stalkers. On the other hand I wouldn t like detection for overlords(after Lair-tech) because it would make it too easy to deal with DTs.
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OP is playing theorycraft too much.
why do you think terran don't mass an army of banshee/ghost and a couple of viking to snipe observer/overseer?
answer: if you saw mass cloaked units, you should have 2-3 detectors. during the time it takes your opponent to kill the detectors, his army has melted because cloaked units are like expensive toilet paper.
btw once you hit +2 melee upgrades, 3 banelings will always kill a DT.
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The main problem with Z detection overall, in my opinion, is that overseers are very weak defensively. Observers have the advantage of being cloaked and small, making them harder see(even when detected) and to target when with an army. There are many circumstances that can result in losing your observer very fast but that's another story(eg.vikings). Terran scans are virtually invincible.
Overseers, on the other hand are fairly large and easily targeted. This factor could also potentially be game-changing, as seen in MLG Columbus IdrA vs MC game 6, where IdrA could maybe have defended against the counter-attack better had his overseer not gotten sniped after the battle.
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I think this will be something they address in HoTS
I didn't mind overlords being detectors
But i don't think its broken
Lair before dts is reasonable
Need to at least come close to keeping up with tech instead of massing other things is important.
Terran Lag D << Zerg Lag D < Protoss Lag D
but i would argue early army
Terran >> Zerg > Protoss
(excluding all ins, shady boundaries based on B.O.)
(Z and P based on size really. i.e. trying to hold off a roach ling without cannons)
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On June 09 2011 20:29 Gotmog wrote:
I think that only real problem you are listing is:
"The first thing that comes to mind is that Protoss only needs detection to combat defensive abilities, such as burrow and creep"
But thats a problem of a race. While Z is getting burrow to survive a 6gate (for example) and P can just pull back if he doesn't have obs. Z will just outright die if he is caught without detection with dt's/banshes streaming in.
That's really a problem with Protoss in general that, IMO, deserves a topic of it's own.
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Burrow is hardly a defensive only ability..
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i always thought that zerg has the best type of detection all you need is lair any you can make an overseer at any point in time you can even make one right next to DT/banshee attacking you while terran has biggest variety in that regard(scan, MT, EMP, Raven) scans cost them money ghosts need aiming and both ghosts and ravens are high cost high tech unit with limited use. While toss has invisible detector it requires robo if you dont get it and enemy goes for fast cloak banshee you die, getting observers also limits your colossus production, protos also has only 2 ways of detection no active ability does that
another thing in the text that i cant agree with is statement that zerg uses his burrow only defensively proper use of burrow roaches if opponent has no detection can be devastating he he cant 1 shot a clump of roaches with enough colosi/immortals burrowed roaches will just regenerate and attack again with no losses, also 2 burrowed infestors sneaking into enemy base can wipe entire mineral line with fungals or kill CC/Nexus/Hatch with infested terrans super fast
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EPT
