EPTDesignated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1024
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Cheren
United States2911 Posts
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Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
On June 27 2014 10:07 Cheren wrote: A few months ago people were suggesting that stim research time be changed back to 140 seconds from 170. Is there any reason that wasn't considered? Am I missing something game-breaking about it? Blizzard never reverts changes. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3278 Posts
They have actually reverted changes before, haven't they? I'm not sure which I'm thinking of – not since WoL, I think, unless you count adding something in beta and "reverting" the change by removing it. | ||
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Mindcrime
United States6899 Posts
250mm strike cannons hydralisk attack delay and, of course, bunker build time | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
Looking for something that helps Terran without breaking the game early or having too big an impact on other matchups. Could help mech vs. Z too. Does this make mech too strong TvT? I kind of like watching mech TvT to be honest. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On June 28 2014 02:52 DinoMight wrote: What about an upgrade that requires armory to increase move speed of hellbats slightly? Maybe same as unstimmed Marines. that is their speed already. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
They seem slower for some reason. Probably because marines are always stimming -___-. Maybe a little faster than that then. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On June 28 2014 02:55 DinoMight wrote: They seem slower for some reason. Maybe a little faster than that then. In general, I don't think hellbats/hellions are the weak point of Terran or Mech units in general. They are pretty good at what they should do. Pretty great production rate as well with reactors. The weakness of Mech (mainly vs Protoss) is that the other units aren't really strong at their roles. Tanks in particular can be countered a thousand ways, but without them, there is a glaring whole in how to deal with larger ground armies. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On June 28 2014 02:58 Big J wrote: In general, I don't think hellbats/hellions are the weak point of Terran or Mech units in general. They are pretty good at what they should do. Pretty great production rate as well with reactors. The weakness of Mech (mainly vs Protoss) is that the other units aren't really strong at their roles. Tanks in particular can be countered a thousand ways, but without them, there is a glaring whole in how to deal with larger ground armies. Well I just meant to allow Hellbats to be used with bio compositions more. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9419 Posts
On June 28 2014 02:52 DinoMight wrote: What about an upgrade that requires armory to increase move speed of hellbats slightly? Maybe Looking for something that helps Terran without breaking the game early or having too big an impact on other matchups. Could help mech vs. Z too. Does this make mech too strong TvT? I kind of like watching mech TvT to be honest. That would actually be one of the worst changes you could make. First of all helbat mech already is a pretty strong "amove" army, and secondly it would also deincentivize useage of Medivacs inside Hellbats which IMO is extremely cool. Well I just meant to allow Hellbats to be used with bio compositions more. Hellbats are extremely boring a long with bio. That wouldn't change even if it was a bit faster in movement speed. You can't do anything besides a-moving with the unit anyway. Regarding, the Hellbat it still has quite subpar design, and I think Blizzard (looking back) will admit they made a mistake with it. If you go back and watch the video where the new HOTS units were introduced, it was clear that Blizzard felt terran had problems with Chargelots - regardless of whether they played mech or bio. So by making the Hellbat a "hardcounter" to the Chargelot, they thought they fixed that issue. However, as it turned out, the Hellbat still sucked along bio, and thus Blizzard instead opted to make the Widow Mine better vs Chargelots. IMO a much more interesting change, but that also frees up the role for the Hellbat to not be antilight. The Hellion is already pretty good vs light (as long as the numbers are there), and the only reason terran mech had trouble in WOL vs chargelot warp-ins was because the Hellion in general sucked vs everything else, which meant that terrans always were very tank heavy (and light on hellions). However, with the possilbity of transforming it into a beefy Hellbat, going heavy hellion/hellbat is now a real option for the terran mech player. Thus, the hellbat/hellion doesn't actually need to hardcounter the Zealot as long as you just have enough of them. So here is where the missed opporunity lies: By not making the Hellbat antilight, but instead better vs armored than light, you can actually allow the Hellbat/hellion transformation time to be much faster. The combo of fast transformation + antilight hardcounter would result in there never being a reward for Speedlings surrounding Hellions, so that option never actually existed. But if Hellbats were mediocore vs Speedlings, they could be transformed a lot faster which make the transformation ability part of the actual battle micro you used during engagements. That has the potenital to make mech much more microable and more skillful. Faster transformation in general is IMO one of the areas that Blizzard should have worked a ton more on. For Vikings and Thors, there is so much unexplored potenital that Blizzard could have added to the game if they had balanced it around faster transformation times. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9419 Posts
On June 28 2014 03:55 Hider wrote: That would actually be one of the worst changes you could make. First of all helbat mech already is a pretty strong "amove" army, and secondly it would also deincnetivize useage of Medivacs inside Hellbats which IMO is extremely cool. Hellbats are extremely boring a long with bio. That wouldn't change even if it was a bit faster in movement speed. You can't do anything besides a-moving with the unit anyway. The weakness of Mech (mainly vs Protoss) is that the other units aren't really strong at their roles. Tanks in particular can be countered a thousand ways, but without them, there is a glaring whole in how to deal with larger ground armies. Tanks itself aren't bad though. In terms of efficiency/cost, it's very comparable to the BW version. Instead, it's Immortals hardened shield that is absolutely terrible for the game. I don't know why Blizzard didn't remove the shield from HOTS and compensated the Immortal in a different way. IMO one of the most obvious changes they could have done. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On June 28 2014 03:55 Hider wrote: That would actually be one of the worst changes you could make. First of all helbat mech already is a pretty strong "amove" army, and secondly it would also deincnetivize useage of Medivacs inside Hellbats which IMO is extremely cool. Hellbats are extremely boring a long with bio. That wouldn't change even if it was a bit faster in movement speed. You can't do anything besides a-moving with the unit anyway. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://www.myfacewhen.net/uploads/942-okay-meme.jpg) I was thinking vs Protoss it would help a little to be able to micro them away from Colossus our out of storms but I guess they're still really A-move units. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On June 28 2014 03:57 Hider wrote: Tanks itself aren't bad though. In terms of efficiency/cost, it's very comparable to the BW version. Instead, it's Immortals hardened shield that is absolutely terrible for the game. I don't know why Blizzard didn't remove the shield from HOTS and compensated the Immortal in a different way. IMO one of the most obvious changes they could have done. I don't think the hardened shields are bad. They allow for a bit of micro (send in the Immortal first to draw the tank fire / focus fire away from the immortals etc.) and add depth to the game. I think the problem is the Tanks die too quickly. The damage on them is pretty good when they have a buffer but without a lot of support they die too fast to be able to dish out the damage. Once you get to ciritcal mass mech it's actually pretty strong vs P but the problem is in low numbers it's not very strong so you can't really get rolling and get the bases you need / deny the P economy. Maybe give tanks some more HP/armor? It would help a bit. Also without hardened shield Thors would be insane. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9419 Posts
They allow for a bit of micro (send in the Immortal first to draw the tank fire / focus fire away from the immortals etc.) and add depth to the game You have the same type of micro if you send in one Zealot in the front (since siege tanks deal less damage vs light units). Immortal having hardened shield doesn't add any type of new micro to the game, but simply fucks up the gameplay in a major way. I think with hardened shield exsisitng in the game, you will always have mech which just sucks in low/medium numbers and can never really be used in a more offensive way vs protoss. Maybe give tanks some more HP/armor? It would help a bit. - Mech is strong TvT - Turtle mech is very strong vs zerg. Buffing Siege tanks --> only makes turtle mech the more dominant option Why not simply look at the real issue here? That Immortal absolutely hardcounters Tanks in a very uninteresstng way and fix that . | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On June 28 2014 04:10 Hider wrote: You have the same type of micro if you send in one Zealot in the front (since siege tanks deal less damage vs light units). Immortal having hardened shield doesn't add any type of new micro to the game, but simply fucks up the gameplay in a major way. I think with hardened shield exsisitng in the game, you will always have mech which just sucks in low/medium numbers and can never really be used in a more offensive way vs protoss. They splash really well though and smartfire. Remember that since BW tanks do less damage but there significantly less overkill. So vs. a whole bunch of sieged Tanks you'd have to send a lot more than 1 Zealot to draw fire. Not like in BW where you could send 1-2 Zealots in to draw fire then attack. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On June 28 2014 04:10 Hider wrote: You have the same type of micro if you send in one Zealot in the front (since siege tanks deal less damage vs light units). Immortal having hardened shield doesn't add any type of new micro to the game, but simply fucks up the gameplay in a major way. I think with hardened shield exsisitng in the game, you will always have mech which just sucks in low/medium numbers and can never really be used in a more offensive way vs protoss. - Mech is strong TvT - Turtle mech is very strong vs zerg. Buffing Siege tanks --> only makes turtle mech the more dominant option Why not simply look at the real issue here? That Immortal absolutely hardcounters Tanks in a very uninteresstng way and fix that . Well, Immortal is necessary in other matchups though. VS P and Z it's a core unit. The fact that it hard counters Tanks just means you shouldn't make Tanks if your opponent is making Immortals. You can't really design a game where everything is viable against everything... It's like asking Blizzard to make Bio vs. Protoss viable in BW. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On June 28 2014 03:57 Hider wrote: Tanks itself aren't bad though. In terms of efficiency/cost, it's very comparable to the BW version. Instead, it's Immortals hardened shield that is absolutely terrible for the game. I don't know why Blizzard didn't remove the shield from HOTS and compensated the Immortal in a different way. IMO one of the most obvious changes they could have done. Yeah, tanks aren't really weak vs Protoss. But I think they kind of lack a true purpose. A reason to build them, when the opponent builds something else. E.g. vs Zerg you want them because they are good vs roaches, hydras and swarm hosts. vs terran, they are great vs marines and marauders in direct engagements. Against both races, there are clear triggers that allow you to use tanks if the opponent goes for certain units (though zerg can avoid those very often). Even if not meching, just because tanks are directly strong in certain scenarios. Against Protoss, yeah tanks are kind of good vs stalkers and reasonable vs Colossi. But good enough that you would ever think: "hey, he is building stalker and colossi and I have a factory. Building tanks is a good choice here!"? That's imo where they suck. They have no relation that would give you a real advantage, but relations where you can get huge disadvantages when using them. So on average you are always worse off than when not using them. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9419 Posts
On June 28 2014 04:14 DinoMight wrote: They splash really well though and smartfire. Remember that since BW tanks do less damage but there significantly less overkill. So vs. a whole bunch of sieged Tanks you'd have to send a lot more than 1 Zealot to draw fire. Not like in BW where you could send 1-2 Zealots in to draw fire then attack. True, but you can still do it though. IF Immortals didn't ahve hardened shield (but compensated in a different way), there would be a big loss for the Siege tanks not focus firing the Immortals (or the Collosus), so wasting shots on Zealots is still pretty bad. And further, doesn't that just makes Zealots more microable than immortals, since you have to split them? When that is said, I also think tanks fires too quickly. I like that they don't overkill (as it rewards target firing), but I think they should have been balanced around attacking slower since it adds for more countermicro to the siege tank shots. Without hardened shield, rebalancing the Siege tank around slower attack speed could actually be an option. Another thing to note: Blizzard could easily have added + shield to Siege Tanks, but I guess, they felt it would only reward turtle mech, so they opted not do it. Thus, it is extremely unlikely that Blizzard will ever make a tank-specific change to fix mech vs protoss. It has to come from somewhere else. The fact that it hard counters Tanks just means you shouldn't make Tanks if your opponent is making Immortals. You can't really design a game where everything is viable against everything... That's like saying terran shouldn't make biological units when they see HT/Collosus. The game doens't work that way. Terran choose their infastructure, and then have very limited flexibity afterwards. You obviously can't make everything equally good vs everything, but you can very easily avoid the hardcounter concept with decent design. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On June 28 2014 04:16 Hider wrote: That's like saying terran shouldn't make biological units when they see HT/Collosus. The game doens't work that way. Terran choose their infastructure, and then have very limited flexibity afterwards. You obviously can't make everything equally good vs everything, but you can very easily avoid the hardcounter concept with decent design. Well, the thing is HT/Colo aren't really a core army unit. Especially Colo, you just have a few with your army. And they have units that hard counter them in the Terran composition. I think the way people want to play mech is mass Tank, like in BW. I just don't think it's viable. There area lot of interesting styles of mech that DON'T center of Tanks that I've lost to on ladder.. I think these should be explored more. Thors + Hellbats + Viking/Raven gets pretty scary with good control and once they add Ghosts it's actually really strong. I think if Mech is to work at the highest level they need to find a way to buff one of these units to help Terran get to the late game on even economic footing or add a new unit that fills a early-mid game void. Naturally some compositions will not be viable in some matchups.. I think late game Terran mech is viable vs P but the problem is getting there. | ||
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aZealot
New Zealand5447 Posts
On June 28 2014 03:57 Hider wrote: Instead, it's Immortals hardened shield that is absolutely terrible for the game. I don't know why Blizzard didn't remove the shield from HOTS and compensated the Immortal in a different way. IMO one of the most obvious changes they could have done. I agree. I've always liked Immortals, but the hardened shield, at least in its current iteration, has always annoyed me. Reworking it in HOTS (and maybe giving the Immortal limited splash) would have been nice. /Design-goggles off. | ||
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