Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1130

Mech is more much a one trick pony than Bio is, without really giving much in return.
Hellbat + Siege Tank will probably murder most Gateway/Colossi armies, but it has no AA at all.
Adding AA to counter that will make it safer against Air play, but in return its more vulnerable on the ground (Thors/Vikings aren't very good in dealing with Protoss ground).
Immortals can be dealt with to an extent with Hellbats and Ghosts, but it is much easier for Protoss to mix in Immortals than it is for a Mech army to adapt to it.

As a result, a Mech army is only good at one thing at a time, and horrible versus anything else.
The much longer build time of the Tank and Thor also further restrict the flexibility of a Mech composition.
If Mech was really really good at that one thing, something could be said for that, but this is currently not the case in TvP.

Bio suffers from none of this for the simple reason that its core unit can shoot Air, is fast and has a lot of DPS and is great against Immortals. This outweighs the downside of Marines not having long AA range and being vulnerable to splash.
Adding Vikings to a Bio composition is also not as much of a detriment as the Starport with a Reactor is a natural component of a Bio composition and Gas is not the primary spender for Bio units.

In Brood War, a field of Siege Tanks pretty much said: 'no, you can't go here'.
In SC2, Protoss just laughs in your face, sends in the Chargelot/Immortal/Archons and gone are the Tanks.
On top of that, they cost a very gas expensive 150/125/3 and only deal 35 damage to Archons/Chargelots and a pitiful 10 to Immortals with shields.

Instead of Tanks being the powerful artillery to counter the lack of mobility in a Mech army, it doesn't add much of anything.
Of course, just flatly increasing the Tank's damage could unbalance TvZ so the unit is in a tricky spot.
None the less, the changes I propose to aid the Tank:

Cost modified to 150/100/3.

Single target damage increased to 60 (splash damage remains unchanged) and will always deal this full damage to shielded targets.

Immortal shields (as mentioned by TheDwf) will half the damage of any attack dealing more than 20 damage, rather than reducing it to 10. This means a Siege Tank shot would deal 60 / 2 = 30 damage.

Until three bases, Mech is very fragile due to the gas cost of the composition.
The gas cost of Tanks is a big reason here and for what it does, 125 gas each is a little too much.
By reducing this to 100, there is a little more breathing room in the composition and Tanks can be brought in a numbers a bit more easily.

The damage changes would mean a Zealot would take the full 60 damage from the first shot and 35 damage from any further shots.
If it had only 1 shield left before it takes the first shot, it would take 35 (regular damage) + 1 = 36 damage.
Archons would always take the full 60 damage, but other than that, no unit match-ups outside of TvP are really affected as the 10 additional damage vs Armored (only on the primary target) would have no real effect in TvZ or TvT.

The main reason for the damage change on the primary target is due to the difference between a Zerg army and a Protoss army.
Zerg units can die to Tanks because they are numerous, but with low HP (100 minerals = 4 zerglings = 4 units with 35 HP each).
This means the splash damage does most of the work.

Protoss units generally do not die to Tanks because they are relatively few, but with high HP. (100 minerals = 1 zealot = 1 unit with 150 hp)
This means the direct damage does most of the work.

As such, increasing the direct damage without increasing splash damage would only really affect TvP.
By changing it so that Tanks always deal full damage to shields, again only TvP Tanks are affected.

Tanks with these changes would more strongly balance out the severe lack of mobility.
They still can't shoot up, will still mass murder each other against any Zealots on top of Tanks and they still have to siege up. But when they do, they can truly zone out an area.

There is no decent mobile AA available in the Terran Mech army. Thors are far too slow, too bulky and too expensive. They are also horrible when it comes to raw AA DPS for their cost. Void Rays alone will easily beat a Thor.
Although Widow Mines could provide some AA, it only has range 5 and needs to burrow.
To deal with air units, you need either speed, DPS or range (preferably at least two of these) and the Widow Mine's attack has none (the DPS is low due to the cooldown).

Vikings are an option, but getting those out in decent numbers to survive against Air will heavily chew into your Mech army due to the gas cost and it's for a unit that is essentially only AA. It cannot help too much on the ground as it only has 125 health, no armor and average DPS for a hefty 150/75 each.

As such, some type of Goliath like unit is needed. Something that moves at decent speed (2.75 or 2.95), has decent Air range (at least 6) and can deal some acceptable AA damage whilst still being able to support on the ground.
A kind of Mech Stalker if you will. I had hoped that the Warhound would've fulfilled this role, but instead it became some weird anti-ground unit that got binned.

I'd consider bringing it back with a normal damage to cost ratio with the primary role being support and AA.
Something around the 125/75/2 mark with ~35-40 second build time and a decent DPS/range AA attack (say 9-10 DPS and 7 range). The cost is similar to a Viking but this time it doesn't take away as much from the ground army. It would have a weaker but still acceptable ranged ground attack (range 6 or 7) so it can support the ground army.
On their own they should suck against ground units, to make sure they stick to a supporting role.