Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1004

On June 11 2014 21:52 The_Red_Viper wrote:
The problem isn't that the marine is a solid unit, the problem (if you even can call it that) is that alone by making the heal unit an air one, you have much more dps per area. (and you get the mobility "for free")
This with the "gimmicky" of the counters (lets face it, banelings rely on the terran "being bad" and collossi are "easily" countered)
Storm is probably the best counter for it, but even then you have to rely on energy and have no auto attack unit.

Obviously this is all part of the clumping in sc2, but this will never change so it is a waste of time to argue about it.

On June 11 2014 22:11 19Meavis93 wrote:


I don't think this would happen, if marines were that bad I would avoid researching expensive tech for them/make them, and just make mech based units instead.

On June 11 2014 22:11 Goofinator wrote:
I don't believe there are people who are actually complaining about the marine. There is a reason that the marine is a good multi-purpose unit and that is because the way terran's macro works. With terran macro, in order to produce a lot of units at once you need to invest into multiple barracks (unlike zerg who just need to build one building to unlock the ability to produce units) and you need to produce the units ahead of time (unlike protoss who can instantly warp in counter units at the location of their choice for defence or offence). Because of these limiting factors, if marine's and marauders had more limited roles then the terran player would die to a mass of units from zerg (a type of which they can't be certain is coming) or against protoss they would die because protoss would just be able to instantly counter the units they see terran have with warp ins (stalkers for marines and zealots for marauders).

What people also forget is that terran has to invest heavily into infrastructure and upgrades to make bio work. They have to invest in stim, combat shield, concussive shells, a factory and a starport along with add-ons for their production. This is a lot of gas (100, 100, 50, 100, 100 + addons 25, 25, 50, 50 for a 2 lab 1 reactor rax and 1 reactor starport). This is 600 gas that terran need to invest before even considering the cost of marauders (25 gas) or medivacs (100 gas) or infantry upgrades (a further 200 gas). This is why terran is so weak in the early game and another reason they need to have marines and marauders be able to be reasonably strong because otherwise they flat out die to any early pressure from zerg or protoss.

The argument that you should nerf marine and make other units stronger is a bad one because units other than marine/marauder require even more expensive infrastructure to produce in large numbers and would make the early game for terran even more volatile.

Furthermore, bio is actually the most exciting playstyle there is. It requires the most micro and the most multitasking meaning that you see little skirmishes happening all over the map (drops) and you see impressive control in battles (splits, snipes, flanks, pick-ups, baits etc). A nerf to the marine would mean that from a playing and spectating perspective the game would be much less fun and lead to more turtling in order to get the right composition instead of constantly trading with good micro/multitasking in order to get good engagements for the advantage.

So yeah, if you make the marine and marauder weaker so that stuff like collosus, ht's and banelings don't have to be so strong then you have to mess around with the whole production mechanics of all 3 races so that the early game is balanced, which will have huge implications in the late game.

On June 11 2014 22:55 Thezzy wrote:
Nerfing Bio won't suddenly make Mech better.
If the Marauder were weakened/removed then Bio would end up with the same issue that Mech currently faces: dying to counters.
Mech in itself isn't terrible but (especially against Protoss) it is a very specialized mix of units that are produced one at a time from one building. Only Hellions and Widow Mines can be produced two at a time but they are not core units.
Those core units have to come from Tech-Lab Factories, one at a time.

Unlike Warp-In or Hatcheries, Terran units need to be build all the way from scratch and then move to their destination and the units have their own building from which they can be produced which is further limited by the Add-On.

When you add highly specialized units on top of that (Hellions vs Light, Tanks vs Armored, Thors vs Air) you end up with a one-trick army.
A proper Tank/Hellbat force with some support could utterly decimate a Gateway/Robo army but it has no Anti-Air, at all.
You'd have to add Vikings and Thors to deal with Air and then you become vulnerable on the ground again.

Whereas a Bio army is flexible enough that it remains a threat against various army compositions (giving you time to tweak your own composition to deal with a new threat), Mech can get caught off guard very easily.
Suddenly a few Mutas/Void Rays or Immortal/Roach tech switches pose a far larger threat against a Mech army than it does against a Bio army.

Mech doesn't need to be buffed a ton to fix that, it needs to be changed. (especially the Thor)

Terran can't tech switch like the other two races.
Maybe a Tech Reactor could help with this but Terran armies have to shine in multiple ways because we cannot (re)create an army with multiple different units very quickly.

On June 11 2014 19:55 -Celestial- wrote:



Funnily enough I posted a long time ago in this thread roughly this and people absolutely threw a fit over it. Which is why I stopped posting, because I'm not here for the entertainment of people who want to scream abuse.

In effect my position on Terran is that the race's biggest issue is the Marine. The Marine is incredibly strong a unit and the problem is that Blizzard has balanced Terran around the Marine, making everything around it very weak (you only have to look at the Siege Tank to see that).

By weakening the Marine you could probably afford to buff the majority of the Terran arsenal; which would diversify the matchups, make Terran more viable later in the game and reduce the need for masses of Collossi/HTs/etc. But people can't accept that argument, because the Marine is some kind of sacred calf or something.

On June 12 2014 01:30 keglu wrote:


Mech is already best comp in TvT and very strong in TvZ. How exactly you would be able to buff most of mech arsenal in exchange for marine nerf which no effect on this composition?

Marine was always essential part of most entertaining matchups i sc2 history, knowing how bad turtling mech is from viewer perspective i would be very careful with nerfing marine and buffing other units.

On June 12 2014 01:42 Big J wrote:


Woa... Mech, for the first time in Starcraft2's history is being played about as much as Bio in TvT progames. Gun-to-the-head, I'd still guess that the best Terrans like Maru or Taeja might play more Bio than Mech in that MU.
And Mech TvZ is probably still a little weaker than bio - which already isn't quite en par with Zerg.

And yeah, apart from the last 1-2hours of Reality vs Soulkey, nearly every Mech vs Zerg game has been more entertaining than an average Bio vs Zerg game of the last 2-3months.

On June 12 2014 01:51 keglu wrote:


So let's say for TvT ot's 50/50. What happens when you nerf marine and buff other units (which i assume means mech unit)?
Most mech games to me seems like one push for victory or loss or turtling to ravens. I prefer watchin bio TvZ over both of these. You are right that in last 2-3 months bio games are not that entertaining but for me this is related more to the fact that this is no 50/50 matchup past widow mine nerf.

On June 11 2014 22:11 Big J wrote:

Look at the Terran arsenal. On top of the same relations (that Z and P also have and which were named a few posts above) where you may be able to overwhelm marines with non-counters like banshees, reapers, marauders there is a magnitude of reasonable counters in the short and longrun. Tank, hellion, hellbat, mine for the shortrun. Ravens/BCs in the very longrun. And obviously you can fight marines with marines too.

On June 12 2014 03:55 Rowrin wrote:


Ravens and BC's do not counter marines. At all.