On November 03 2014 10:02 10bulgares wrote: If the problem is bad engagements in the late game for zerg players, I think what needs to be addressed is some scouting means for the zerg, like a buff for creep tumors: a researchable tech that would increased range of sight of creep tumors doesn't seem stupid to me. Also it must be more easy for zergs to harrass the terran so that the terran army can also be put out of position. Here I would suggest a nerf to the improved building armor.
I really like what you are suggesting. Kinda like an extra spawning pool upgrade that requires Hive and costs a lot. Tumors have more sight, and mb even Tumors spread themselves quicker. i like it a lot.
On November 03 2014 06:44 JCoto wrote: The clear problem there with TvZ is mines. WTF, Widow Mines have a miracle splash. 2 Lucky shots, and it's all pure cost efficiency. Bio does the rest in the case mines weren't cost efficient enough. MMM plus hellbats.. Tell if Zerg can stand efficient against that armies.
It's simple: Nerf mines, Buff tanks. Some suggestion there.
Mines: - 40+40 damage until 1 or 1.25 range - 20+20 damage until 1.75 range.
Tanks: - Splash zone of 25% buffed to be a 33% zone. This means that the outer zone damage would be around 11-12, making this splash zone much more dependant on tank upgrade to be efficient against zerlings and banes. Zerg armor and health regeneration would make numbers tighter.
You're not quite understanding the point here, I think :
1 - tanks are shit against ling bane muta, and will always be as long as muta have their HotS regen. Muta dart in, snipe tanks, run away, regen, rinse and repeat until there is not tank left. The DPS of the tanks can't change anything to this. Instead, if you buff their DPS you will end up creating imbalance for other match up, and make mech too stong in many situations...
2 - mines don't do that much, really, against good zergs, watch the games again, look at every fight and see how many units they actually kill.
The big change in last patch was the Thor buff, which allows terran to kill mutas before their number become out of control.
Big numbers of muta was the fear of every terrans in late game, they would come in their base and snipe everything, snipe every medivac, kill mines before they can detonate, and so on... and now tell me : when was the last time you saw 35+ mutas in a pro ZvT?
Mmmm... even if I admit that what you've said is somewhat true, looking at the last 3 months of pro sc2 TvZ show that basically 15:00-16:00 MMMMH timings destroy zergs. The 3 buffs that the terran have had (mine buff, hellbat, thor AI) have contributed to the actual [i]delicate[/i] state of the matchup. Winrates of that strategy are pretty high. The thor change affects lategame, but not really midgame THAT much. However, I have to disagree with this:
2 - mines don't do that much, really, against good zergs, watch the games again, look at every fight and see how many units they actually kill.
That's not true. 1-shot instakilling banelings in a 1,75 aoE (storm range) make a 4-6 minefield completely cost effective and a really big counter to the main counter the Zerg has against bio. This is SC2 and not BW, so units clump a lot and a mine kills a lot in one shot. And a mine, which has the cost of 1 baneling and 1 zerling, almost always kills 4-7 units in the typical skirmishes we see in MMMMH play. If we look at replays, 4-6 mines can easily destroy a third of a heavy ling bane army at minute 15, and friendly fire for the Terran is heavily mitigated by the healing from the medivac.
Also, marines, mines and turrets counter pretty well the muta harassment, so mutas are not played so often. The Thors now have simply become the hardcounter on the field. Nerfing splash from the mine so it doesn't autokill banes in the whole (that's the imporant word) range is not a crazy idea.
And if you make basic math, increasing the splash damage from 25% to 33% basically adds 2-3 points of damage from splash in that range (0.78-1.25). Please argumentate how this couldn't help against ling bane armies, and how much inbalanced could be as the Widow mine got a +20 damage in the 1.25-1.75 range. What is more inbalanced? The point of this change is to increase tank-mine synergy and tank efficiency while nerfing the insane mine. Tanks work bad in low numbers, however with 3 on the field things are better, but even with that yes, it's true they suck agaisnt ling bane.
Now we can look at this calculations for tank splash against ling/bane.
Damage from 0/0 tanks in the 25% splash zone: 8.75. -4 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 baneling. 4/5 to kill a 0/1 baneling due to health regeneration. -5 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 zergling. 5 to kill a 0/1 zergling
We have to think that numbers get worse if tank numbers are low, as between shots zerg can regen 0.75 HP. Little retreats make the units able to soak one more splash impact in that zone. With mech upgrades usually started before +2 on bio, zergs can go for +2 armor and numbers get even worse, which is fine for balance but makes the tanks obsolete as mines deal always spell damage and 1-shot kill.
Damage from 0/0 tanks in the 0.78-1.25 in the 25% zone is upgraded to 33,33%: 11.66. 11.55 if 33%. - 3 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 baneling. 3/4 to kill a 0/1 baneling if we count on health regeneration. One more if 0/2 is done. - 4 shots of this splash are needed to kill 0/0 zergling. Same for 0/1. 5 for 0/2 zerglings.
So yes, a so little buff to the tank could change A LOT their splash damage efficiency for engaging lingbane armies, making their splash kill with one shot less. And one shot from a tank takes long, very long. That time is simply gold in TvZ. Also, 1 mine shot + 1 tank splash damage for the exterior range would kill banes really efficiently, stimulating shooting micro, which is something that Widow Mines don't favor.
Now I would like to see your numbers about how a change like this to the tank is irrelevant in the ZvT lingbane.
Having an autokill mine which will always lands a killer shot if the zerg engages is more balanced? +20 damage in an splash zone is more balanced than +3? Widow mines are supposed to be for defense, so for help and not to wreck. Numbers show that is not neglectable. And the game has shown that minefield is a doom for banes, which are hardly cost efficient naturally. Not even close to half efficient than a Widow mine and they cost almost the same. If you want to mantain the mine efficient in the air, make it have separate splashes (yes, the mine splash affects ground and air at the same time, which is not a very good or balanced decision) and have a ground damage which doesn't autokill banes and lings for the whole range and 40 damage for the mutas if that matters that much.
If you think in TvP and TvT balance, 3 points of damage from splash are not going to make tanks much more efficient. In TvP, immortals, blink, chargelots and air destroy tanks and mech in general. Buffing the splash of the tank by an 8% is not going to create inbalance at all in the matchup but maybe some more viability to tanks (which could be really nice in fact). In mirror matches, balance is not really considered a problem, and +3 damage in splash against marines, taking in account health regeneration, is not going to be the end of the world. Maybe if we think about tank lines, some more splash could be the only thing that could be a bit more affected.
The point isn't the mathematical damage, the point is that tanks don't synergize with bio and are often picked off before the fight by mutas, and they never get more than 2-3 shots off during a fight anyway because bio needs to split back and away. Tanks are not viable with the current compositions from Zerg in TvZ unless Terran stays defended by turrets (i.e. turtlemech.) It's not their damage that's the problem, it's the way they work in the matchup.
And little changes to the tank do matter in TvT. Bio, which is already quite difficult to play vs solid mech, could become completely phased out and the matchup would consist only of mech vs. mech.
Bio, Bio, Bio, Bio,Bio, Bio,Bio, Bio,.....All-day bio is the turndown of this game. Too much things revolve around bio, how it works, how its countered and how is played.
However what you've said is completely true, mutas destroy tanks very easily. However I think that the Thor was buffed in order to counter better Mutas. Mines also have nice damage against mutas and work very positional and close to the tanks in case of need. With air and ground having separate splash, mine-tank synergy would go up. Also we have to note that Raven PDD counters muta shots. It's not like Terran lacks of counters, and even pros have showed the power of pure mech in TvZ. The main problem I see there is the lack of a reliable support tool for them, and how the relation between cumpling, splash damage and magic boxing plays negatively for the Thor. Terran doesn't have some interesting air to contribute. Tanks may be fragile against mutas, if mutas are played enough. In the actual MU you don't see half the mutas due to the Widow Mine and Thor buffs. But you won't see many tanks as mines are far more effective than them. The idea is about giving some flexibility to the terran mech. Mines now have simply an unpolished desing. However almost all air and air mechanics suffer this same problem.
On November 03 2014 06:44 JCoto wrote: The clear problem there with TvZ is mines. WTF, Widow Mines have a miracle splash. 2 Lucky shots, and it's all pure cost efficiency. Bio does the rest in the case mines weren't cost efficient enough. MMM plus hellbats.. Tell if Zerg can stand efficient against that armies.
It's simple: Nerf mines, Buff tanks. Some suggestion there.
Mines: - 40+40 damage until 1 or 1.25 range - 20+20 damage until 1.75 range.
Tanks: - Splash zone of 25% buffed to be a 33% zone. This means that the outer zone damage would be around 11-12, making this splash zone much more dependant on tank upgrade to be efficient against zerlings and banes. Zerg armor and health regeneration would make numbers tighter.
You're not quite understanding the point here, I think :
1 - tanks are shit against ling bane muta, and will always be as long as muta have their HotS regen. Muta dart in, snipe tanks, run away, regen, rinse and repeat until there is not tank left. The DPS of the tanks can't change anything to this. Instead, if you buff their DPS you will end up creating imbalance for other match up, and make mech too stong in many situations...
2 - mines don't do that much, really, against good zergs, watch the games again, look at every fight and see how many units they actually kill.
The big change in last patch was the Thor buff, which allows terran to kill mutas before their number become out of control.
Big numbers of muta was the fear of every terrans in late game, they would come in their base and snipe everything, snipe every medivac, kill mines before they can detonate, and so on... and now tell me : when was the last time you saw 35+ mutas in a pro ZvT?
Mmmm... even if I admit that what you've said is somewhat true, looking at the last 3 months of pro sc2 TvZ show that basically 15:00-16:00 MMMMH timings destroy zergs. The 3 buffs that the terran have had (mine buff, hellbat, thor AI) have contributed to the actual [i]delicate[/i] state of the matchup. Winrates of that strategy are pretty high. The thor change affects lategame, but not really midgame THAT much. However, I have to disagree with this:
2 - mines don't do that much, really, against good zergs, watch the games again, look at every fight and see how many units they actually kill.
That's not true. 1-shot instakilling banelings in a 1,75 aoE (storm range) make a 4-6 minefield completely cost effective and a really big counter to the main counter the Zerg has against bio. This is SC2 and not BW, so units clump a lot and a mine kills a lot in one shot. And a mine, which has the cost of 1 baneling and 1 zerling, almost always kills 4-7 units in the typical skirmishes we see in MMMMH play. If we look at replays, 4-6 mines can easily destroy a third of a heavy ling bane army at minute 15, and friendly fire for the Terran is heavily mitigated by the healing from the medivac.
Also, marines, mines and turrets counter pretty well the muta harassment, so mutas are not played so often. The Thors now have simply become the hardcounter on the field. Nerfing splash from the mine so it doesn't autokill banes in the whole (that's the imporant word) range is not a crazy idea.
And if you make basic math, increasing the splash damage from 25% to 33% basically adds 2-3 points of damage from splash in that range (0.78-1.25). Please argumentate how this couldn't help against ling bane armies, and how much inbalanced could be as the Widow mine got a +20 damage in the 1.25-1.75 range. What is more inbalanced? The point of this change is to increase tank-mine synergy and tank efficiency while nerfing the insane mine. Tanks work bad in low numbers, however with 3 on the field things are better, but even with that yes, it's true they suck agaisnt ling bane.
Now we can look at this calculations for tank splash against ling/bane.
Damage from 0/0 tanks in the 25% splash zone: 8.75. -4 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 baneling. 4/5 to kill a 0/1 baneling due to health regeneration. -5 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 zergling. 5 to kill a 0/1 zergling
We have to think that numbers get worse if tank numbers are low, as between shots zerg can regen 0.75 HP. Little retreats make the units able to soak one more splash impact in that zone. With mech upgrades usually started before +2 on bio, zergs can go for +2 armor and numbers get even worse, which is fine for balance but makes the tanks obsolete as mines deal always spell damage and 1-shot kill.
Damage from 0/0 tanks in the 0.78-1.25 in the 25% zone is upgraded to 33,33%: 11.66. 11.55 if 33%. - 3 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 baneling. 3/4 to kill a 0/1 baneling if we count on health regeneration. One more if 0/2 is done. - 4 shots of this splash are needed to kill 0/0 zergling. Same for 0/1. 5 for 0/2 zerglings.
So yes, a so little buff to the tank could change A LOT their splash damage efficiency for engaging lingbane armies, making their splash kill with one shot less. And one shot from a tank takes long, very long. That time is simply gold in TvZ. Also, 1 mine shot + 1 tank splash damage for the exterior range would kill banes really efficiently, stimulating shooting micro, which is something that Widow Mines don't favor.
Now I would like to see your numbers about how a change like this to the tank is irrelevant in the ZvT lingbane.
Having an autokill mine which will always lands a killer shot if the zerg engages is more balanced? +20 damage in an splash zone is more balanced than +3? Widow mines are supposed to be for defense, so for help and not to wreck. Numbers show that is not neglectable. And the game has shown that minefield is a doom for banes, which are hardly cost efficient naturally. Not even close to half efficient than a Widow mine and they cost almost the same. If you want to mantain the mine efficient in the air, make it have separate splashes (yes, the mine splash affects ground and air at the same time, which is not a very good or balanced decision) and have a ground damage which doesn't autokill banes and lings for the whole range and 40 damage for the mutas if that matters that much.
If you think in TvP and TvT balance, 3 points of damage from splash are not going to make tanks much more efficient. In TvP, immortals, blink, chargelots and air destroy tanks and mech in general. Buffing the splash of the tank by an 8% is not going to create inbalance at all in the matchup but maybe some more viability to tanks (which could be really nice in fact). In mirror matches, balance is not really considered a problem, and +3 damage in splash against marines, taking in account health regeneration, is not going to be the end of the world. Maybe if we think about tank lines, some more splash could be the only thing that could be a bit more affected.
The point isn't the mathematical damage, the point is that tanks don't synergize with bio and are often picked off before the fight by mutas, and they never get more than 2-3 shots off during a fight anyway because bio needs to split back and away. Tanks are not viable with the current compositions from Zerg in TvZ unless Terran stays defended by turrets (i.e. turtlemech.) It's not their damage that's the problem, it's the way they work in the matchup.
And little changes to the tank do matter in TvT. Bio, which is already quite difficult to play vs solid mech, could become completely phased out and the matchup would consist only of mech vs. mech.
Bio, Bio, Bio, Bio,Bio, Bio,Bio, Bio,.....All-day bio is the turndown of this game. Too much things revolve around bio, how it works, how its countered and how is played.
However what you've said is completely true, mutas destroy tanks very easily. However I think that the Thor was buffed in order to counter better Mutas. Mines also have nice damage against mutas and work very positional and close to the tanks in case of need. With air and ground having separate splash, mine-tank synergy would go up. Also we have to note that Raven PDD counters muta shots. It's not like Terran lacks of counters, and even pros have showed the power of pure mech in TvZ. The main problem I see there is the lack of a reliable support tool for them, and how the relation between cumpling, splash damage and magic boxing plays negatively for the Thor. Terran doesn't have some interesting air to contribute. Tanks may be fragile against mutas, if mutas are played enough. In the actual MU you don't see half the mutas due to the Widow Mine and Thor buffs. But you won't see many tanks as mines are far more effective than them. The idea is about giving some flexibility to the terran mech. Mines now have simply an unpolished desing. However almost all air and air mechanics suffer this same problem.
Bio+thors/mines and tanks doesn't work. There's a reason people don't do it. You need enough factories to get critical mass of tanks (2 with TLs) and then another additional factory for thors or mines, and you need all of this before you set up your fourth, which means you are stuck on 5 barracks only and most likely can't afford 2/2 due to the enormous amount of factory production you need. And assuming you manage to get 2/2 on time, you still can't push out until 15 minutes at least because you'll take so long to max out, and then you run into the same problems that Fantasy Biomech does, i.e. fast swarmhosts with mass baneling/muta and unchecked creep spread and zerg economy.
What do you propose to do about everything revolving around bio? I'm still not convinced that it does (I could say that TvZ revolves around the baneling because Terran is forced to get marauders and mines to combat them when otherwise they would much rather get pure marine/medivac, I could say it is focused around the muta because most terran strategy in TvZ is built to keep the bane/muta count low because you can't let Zerg get a critical mass of either, or you could claim that TvP revolves around something else entirely. I'm not saying that these are true, but just because Zerg needs to play in a way that deals with bio doesn't mean that everything revolves around it.)
Again, whta do you propose to do? For mech or biomech to work, Protoss would need to be completely redesigned as everything it has is good against tanks, and Terran lacks static defense which can adequately account for mech's immobility. A simple damage buff wouldn't do unless it made tanks so scary that no units could get close to them, which I don't think anyone wants. TvZ is similar; for tank-centric mech to work outside of turtlemech vs. swarmhosts some serious redesign would need to happen. Tanks just can't work vs. zerg without a critical mass right now. And I don't know how to make it work without redesigning SC2 from the ground up.
On November 03 2014 06:41 inken wrote: So now it's become a discussion on one single match? People who can't play nearly as good as soO and Taeja, drawing conclusions and analyzing what the very best of the pros should have and could have done better. Seriously!?!?!
Well, it's not only a single game. Zerg had a hard time against Terran lately and this single match just shows why.
On November 03 2014 09:46 Satan Battles wrote: I think one of the biggest problems in ZvT is that ALL maps are split into 2 categories:
1. Terran favored maps 2. Maps with no advantage to either race
There is no map in the pool that one can say "Oh Zerg has an advantage going into this because of way this map is laid out." There are, however, maps that give Terrans advantages, like the easy 4th base on Deadwing, or the spam drop natural in Nimbus. Blizzard either needs to add maps that give Zerg some pre-determined advantage, or make sure maps don't allow Terran to expand like crazy or exploit drop spots that force trades in favor of Terran.
On November 03 2014 06:41 inken wrote: So now it's become a discussion on one single match? People who can't play nearly as good as soO and Taeja, drawing conclusions and analyzing what the very best of the pros should have and could have done better. Seriously!?!?!
Well, it's not only a single game. Zerg had a hard time against Terran lately and this single match just shows why.
It doesn't really show why. Most Terrans play more aggressively than Taeja and in general the matchup is fine, lots of Zergs are winning. But Nimbus is not, which gets beautifully showcased by this game.
What pisses me off the most though in those discussions is how people keep on calling each and every engagement from soO/Zergs bad. Where were you guys when half a year ago each and every Terran engagement was bad? Right, you were standing on the other side and whining that you couldn't headbutt into banelings with mass marines anymore. But now you are defending that Zerg cannot headbutt with banelings into marines anymore... Zerg is forced to play the most stupid passive way with a ridiculously mobile army that does nothing but defend its own creep for 25mins (talking about stupidly counterintuitive, pidgeonholed gameplay). And suddenly everyone is a genius of pointing out how the Zerg shouldn't have gone off creep. No shit! And everygame a Terran loses is because he should not have gone on creep... Embarassing play by Taeja in game 2 or what? Embarassing build order choices by Bomber in the two games he threw against Jaedong? Why don't I hear that? Noone plays perfectly and balance is a matter of who makes less mistakes. When a map like Nimbus forces you to make many more mistakes if you are not Terran then the balance on that map is off, regardless of whether there exists a way to win the map. It still has to be reasonably often achievable.
On November 03 2014 06:44 JCoto wrote: The clear problem there with TvZ is mines. WTF, Widow Mines have a miracle splash. 2 Lucky shots, and it's all pure cost efficiency. Bio does the rest in the case mines weren't cost efficient enough. MMM plus hellbats.. Tell if Zerg can stand efficient against that armies.
It's simple: Nerf mines, Buff tanks. Some suggestion there.
Mines: - 40+40 damage until 1 or 1.25 range - 20+20 damage until 1.75 range.
Tanks: - Splash zone of 25% buffed to be a 33% zone. This means that the outer zone damage would be around 11-12, making this splash zone much more dependant on tank upgrade to be efficient against zerlings and banes. Zerg armor and health regeneration would make numbers tighter.
You're not quite understanding the point here, I think :
1 - tanks are shit against ling bane muta, and will always be as long as muta have their HotS regen. Muta dart in, snipe tanks, run away, regen, rinse and repeat until there is not tank left. The DPS of the tanks can't change anything to this. Instead, if you buff their DPS you will end up creating imbalance for other match up, and make mech too stong in many situations...
2 - mines don't do that much, really, against good zergs, watch the games again, look at every fight and see how many units they actually kill.
The big change in last patch was the Thor buff, which allows terran to kill mutas before their number become out of control.
Big numbers of muta was the fear of every terrans in late game, they would come in their base and snipe everything, snipe every medivac, kill mines before they can detonate, and so on... and now tell me : when was the last time you saw 35+ mutas in a pro ZvT?
Mmmm... even if I admit that what you've said is somewhat true, looking at the last 3 months of pro sc2 TvZ show that basically 15:00-16:00 MMMMH timings destroy zergs. The 3 buffs that the terran have had (mine buff, hellbat, thor AI) have contributed to the actual [i]delicate[/i] state of the matchup. Winrates of that strategy are pretty high. The thor change affects lategame, but not really midgame THAT much. However, I have to disagree with this:
2 - mines don't do that much, really, against good zergs, watch the games again, look at every fight and see how many units they actually kill.
That's not true. 1-shot instakilling banelings in a 1,75 aoE (storm range) make a 4-6 minefield completely cost effective and a really big counter to the main counter the Zerg has against bio. This is SC2 and not BW, so units clump a lot and a mine kills a lot in one shot. And a mine, which has the cost of 1 baneling and 1 zerling, almost always kills 4-7 units in the typical skirmishes we see in MMMMH play. If we look at replays, 4-6 mines can easily destroy a third of a heavy ling bane army at minute 15, and friendly fire for the Terran is heavily mitigated by the healing from the medivac.
Also, marines, mines and turrets counter pretty well the muta harassment, so mutas are not played so often. The Thors now have simply become the hardcounter on the field. Nerfing splash from the mine so it doesn't autokill banes in the whole (that's the imporant word) range is not a crazy idea.
And if you make basic math, increasing the splash damage from 25% to 33% basically adds 2-3 points of damage from splash in that range (0.78-1.25). Please argumentate how this couldn't help against ling bane armies, and how much inbalanced could be as the Widow mine got a +20 damage in the 1.25-1.75 range. What is more inbalanced? The point of this change is to increase tank-mine synergy and tank efficiency while nerfing the insane mine. Tanks work bad in low numbers, however with 3 on the field things are better, but even with that yes, it's true they suck agaisnt ling bane.
Now we can look at this calculations for tank splash against ling/bane.
Damage from 0/0 tanks in the 25% splash zone: 8.75. -4 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 baneling. 4/5 to kill a 0/1 baneling due to health regeneration. -5 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 zergling. 5 to kill a 0/1 zergling
We have to think that numbers get worse if tank numbers are low, as between shots zerg can regen 0.75 HP. Little retreats make the units able to soak one more splash impact in that zone. With mech upgrades usually started before +2 on bio, zergs can go for +2 armor and numbers get even worse, which is fine for balance but makes the tanks obsolete as mines deal always spell damage and 1-shot kill.
Damage from 0/0 tanks in the 0.78-1.25 in the 25% zone is upgraded to 33,33%: 11.66. 11.55 if 33%. - 3 shots of this splash are needed to kill a 0/0 baneling. 3/4 to kill a 0/1 baneling if we count on health regeneration. One more if 0/2 is done. - 4 shots of this splash are needed to kill 0/0 zergling. Same for 0/1. 5 for 0/2 zerglings.
So yes, a so little buff to the tank could change A LOT their splash damage efficiency for engaging lingbane armies, making their splash kill with one shot less. And one shot from a tank takes long, very long. That time is simply gold in TvZ. Also, 1 mine shot + 1 tank splash damage for the exterior range would kill banes really efficiently, stimulating shooting micro, which is something that Widow Mines don't favor.
Now I would like to see your numbers about how a change like this to the tank is irrelevant in the ZvT lingbane.
Having an autokill mine which will always lands a killer shot if the zerg engages is more balanced? +20 damage in an splash zone is more balanced than +3? Widow mines are supposed to be for defense, so for help and not to wreck. Numbers show that is not neglectable. And the game has shown that minefield is a doom for banes, which are hardly cost efficient naturally. Not even close to half efficient than a Widow mine and they cost almost the same. If you want to mantain the mine efficient in the air, make it have separate splashes (yes, the mine splash affects ground and air at the same time, which is not a very good or balanced decision) and have a ground damage which doesn't autokill banes and lings for the whole range and 40 damage for the mutas if that matters that much.
If you think in TvP and TvT balance, 3 points of damage from splash are not going to make tanks much more efficient. In TvP, immortals, blink, chargelots and air destroy tanks and mech in general. Buffing the splash of the tank by an 8% is not going to create inbalance at all in the matchup but maybe some more viability to tanks (which could be really nice in fact). In mirror matches, balance is not really considered a problem, and +3 damage in splash against marines, taking in account health regeneration, is not going to be the end of the world. Maybe if we think about tank lines, some more splash could be the only thing that could be a bit more affected.
The point isn't the mathematical damage, the point is that tanks don't synergize with bio and are often picked off before the fight by mutas, and they never get more than 2-3 shots off during a fight anyway because bio needs to split back and away. Tanks are not viable with the current compositions from Zerg in TvZ unless Terran stays defended by turrets (i.e. turtlemech.) It's not their damage that's the problem, it's the way they work in the matchup.
And little changes to the tank do matter in TvT. Bio, which is already quite difficult to play vs solid mech, could become completely phased out and the matchup would consist only of mech vs. mech.
Bio, Bio, Bio, Bio,Bio, Bio,Bio, Bio,.....All-day bio is the turndown of this game. Too much things revolve around bio, how it works, how its countered and how is played.
However what you've said is completely true, mutas destroy tanks very easily. However I think that the Thor was buffed in order to counter better Mutas. Mines also have nice damage against mutas and work very positional and close to the tanks in case of need. With air and ground having separate splash, mine-tank synergy would go up. Also we have to note that Raven PDD counters muta shots. It's not like Terran lacks of counters, and even pros have showed the power of pure mech in TvZ. The main problem I see there is the lack of a reliable support tool for them, and how the relation between cumpling, splash damage and magic boxing plays negatively for the Thor. Terran doesn't have some interesting air to contribute. Tanks may be fragile against mutas, if mutas are played enough. In the actual MU you don't see half the mutas due to the Widow Mine and Thor buffs. But you won't see many tanks as mines are far more effective than them. The idea is about giving some flexibility to the terran mech. Mines now have simply an unpolished desing. However almost all air and air mechanics suffer this same problem.
Bio+thors/mines and tanks doesn't work. There's a reason people don't do it. You need enough factories to get critical mass of tanks (2 with TLs) and then another additional factory for thors or mines, and you need all of this before you set up your fourth, which means you are stuck on 5 barracks only and most likely can't afford 2/2 due to the enormous amount of factory production you need. And assuming you manage to get 2/2 on time, you still can't push out until 15 minutes at least because you'll take so long to max out, and then you run into the same problems that Fantasy Biomech does, i.e. fast swarmhosts with mass baneling/muta and unchecked creep spread and zerg economy.
What do you propose to do about everything revolving around bio? I'm still not convinced that it does (I could say that TvZ revolves around the baneling because Terran is forced to get marauders and mines to combat them when otherwise they would much rather get pure marine/medivac, I could say it is focused around the muta because most terran strategy in TvZ is built to keep the bane/muta count low because you can't let Zerg get a critical mass of either, or you could claim that TvP revolves around something else entirely. I'm not saying that these are true, but just because Zerg needs to play in a way that deals with bio doesn't mean that everything revolves around it.)
Again, whta do you propose to do? For mech or biomech to work, Protoss would need to be completely redesigned as everything it has is good against tanks, and Terran lacks static defense which can adequately account for mech's immobility. A simple damage buff wouldn't do unless it made tanks so scary that no units could get close to them, which I don't think anyone wants. TvZ is similar; for tank-centric mech to work outside of turtlemech vs. swarmhosts some serious redesign would need to happen. Tanks just can't work vs. zerg without a critical mass right now. And I don't know how to make it work without redesigning SC2 from the ground up.
What I would propose is to redesign a bit mech; is simply not fitting well the design of the game, as it is too slow or inneficient. Tanks should be able to react a little bit better and Thors to walk faster, that at least. Air should have some more mobility or something to deal better with muta, as mech lacks of dynamism and the Viking fails at covering against mutas. Mechs AA fails in mobility and stopping power against big clouds of lighter and mobile units and deals fine (with almost no problem) with more heavy air units like the ones from the Protoss or Terran AG support. This could be a little more equilibrated. It wouldn't be the panacea, but could help mech in some way.
We also have to note that what we call BIO is almost only MMM and maybe MMMG/MMMVG in later situations. Ghosts, who deal bonus damage against light, could be redesigned to fit a little bit better (also being cheaper) in a midgame army. With snipes and bonus vs light, if it had a control close (I'm not saying the same) and a tech level closer to MMM, it could be played out and give more richness to the matchup. It is now used as a lategame anticaster instead of being midgame tech. This would also increase the potential use in Biomech: Ghosts say goodbye immortals. 2 EMPs and a big part of the shields of the protoss army are gone.
I remark that this is what I think, that ghosts should be much more viable through the matchups instead of being lategame. Given that Ghost Academy can be built after barracks, it should be at least somewhat viable at that point, being at the same tech position as Factory units and played out accordingly. Early EMPs and you can laugh at immortals, sure. IMAO is not all about redesigning but reviewing what we have ingame. Ghosts are a pretty good solution to both mutas, banes (if snipe was 30 vs bio) and protoss in general if they were orientated to be available much earlier. With earlier viability what we should follow close is the snipe/EMP mechanic and costs. Maybe EMP should cost a bit more energy or be reseached to be used, and the energy upgrade for the Ghost could return so earlier EMP/Snipe could not be abused. Back in BW the Ghost was much lower in costs at the expense of having less powerful spells.
That could be huge for the game. And give the Bio crew a new member with heavy antimuta/antitoss potential.
On November 03 2014 10:02 10bulgares wrote: If the problem is bad engagements in the late game for zerg players, I think what needs to be addressed is some scouting means for the zerg, like a buff for creep tumors: a researchable tech that would increased range of sight of creep tumors doesn't seem stupid to me. Also it must be more easy for zergs to harrass the terran so that the terran army can also be put out of position. Here I would suggest a nerf to the improved building armor.
I really like what you are suggesting. Kinda like an extra spawning pool upgrade that requires Hive and costs a lot. Tumors have more sight, and mb even Tumors spread themselves quicker. i like it a lot.
Requires hive, 150/150, 100BT at hatchery. Reduces creep movementspeed by 15%, that speed is instead added on to units instead
On November 03 2014 10:02 10bulgares wrote: If the problem is bad engagements in the late game for zerg players, I think what needs to be addressed is some scouting means for the zerg, like a buff for creep tumors: a researchable tech that would increased range of sight of creep tumors doesn't seem stupid to me. Also it must be more easy for zergs to harrass the terran so that the terran army can also be put out of position. Here I would suggest a nerf to the improved building armor.
I really like what you are suggesting. Kinda like an extra spawning pool upgrade that requires Hive and costs a lot. Tumors have more sight, and mb even Tumors spread themselves quicker. i like it a lot.
Requires hive, 150/150, 100BT at hatchery. Reduces creep movementspeed by 15%, that speed is instead added on to units instead
I like this alot.
That would eventually mean that even on hive tech only good engagements could be on creep. I think the whole creep speed bonus just hurts zerg. It makes it so zerg units sucks off creep and zerg has to be passive most of time. BW's creep regen is better from design point of view.
On November 03 2014 10:02 10bulgares wrote: If the problem is bad engagements in the late game for zerg players, I think what needs to be addressed is some scouting means for the zerg, like a buff for creep tumors: a researchable tech that would increased range of sight of creep tumors doesn't seem stupid to me. Also it must be more easy for zergs to harrass the terran so that the terran army can also be put out of position. Here I would suggest a nerf to the improved building armor.
I really like what you are suggesting. Kinda like an extra spawning pool upgrade that requires Hive and costs a lot. Tumors have more sight, and mb even Tumors spread themselves quicker. i like it a lot.
Requires hive, 150/150, 100BT at hatchery. Reduces creep movementspeed by 15%, that speed is instead added on to units instead
I like this alot.
I dont like this because:
A more hazardious creep will lead that terran ( and maybe protoss ) will play even more agressive: Now Zerg plays way to defensive, because he has to race for the economy while his enemy ( mainly terran ) just has to stop Zerg eco, creep and so on as early as he can. When the creep become with Hive Tech deadlier for terran, for example because he slows terran units or he deals small dmg over time or or or, this will make the terran even more angry: After the normal hellion/reaper you will fast see the 3 base, 8 baracks do or die attacks. Terran will do everything to stop you from creeping, Zerg has to sit and babysit his creep even more while terran will bring you hurricanes with his units to stop you from creeping and "get the creep out of control". The game would shift even more into this "defender Zerg" against "manpowerwaisting Red Army Attackstyle Terran".
For me it would be much better to buff the Zerg, so he is outside of creep stronger, at least for the midgame and early late game, and remove all creep bonus except the vision. Creep is way to important in the MU for me and Zerg is to weak in normal games during the mid phase off creep. So making the Zerg less depending on creep and better of creep could speed up the game and make it viable to play offensive macro games for the zerg. Now it is creepsitting till the late game and with even stronger creep it will be even more creepsitting against terran furious attacks.
And i know it is not the best call to say "make Zerg stronger offcreep" because there are millions of ways to do it, to overdo it or not to do it. But it could be done i think and it should be done.
You guys are bonkers if you think there's even a 1% chance of Blizzard removing Zerg speed bonus on creep.
They won't even tweak Warp Gates and Force Fields, and you want them to change creep? Which actually adds a legitimate, fundamental uniqueness to vZ MUs? I could list a million things more likely to happen including the Colossus getting replaced by the Reaver, Khaydarin Amulet coming back, the Warhound being announced at BlizzCon, HydraRoaches, Xel'Naga as a playable race... you get the idea.
I wouldn't mind Zerg having more aggressive options in the midgame, preferably through some kind of micro units/abilities. As long as we're making up random suggestions, here's mine: a Lair upgrade that allows lings to "Leap" a certain distance, bypassing units and terrain... but unlike Blink, it's not instant, but maybe 50% faster than regular movement. So Zerglings can be attacked by ranged units as they leap. Primarily it would allow lings to wreak WAY more havoc in runbys, but it could also be used in combat to prevent retreats/fly past minefields/get into melee range faster. Fun, rewarding of good mechanics, adds to mid- and lategame aggression.
Creep is a lot like warpgate in that they're both cool ideas that Blizzard pushed for race identity to the point of brokenness.
Adjusting the creep speed bonus modifier to a slighter +20% might be a sensible change for Legacy of the Void. I don't think it should have any odd side effects assuming that Blizzard is smart about implementing it. Creep spread is still important, but zerg won't be as reliant on it.
creep is the band-aid that keeps ZvT interesting in deathballcraft2, ideally terran would not push out at all but is semi-forced to do so and clear creep so that later engagements go better.
My hopes are a lot higher than that for lotv. Hope they take a very close look at everything and make sure the matches played are about micro, macro, decision making, multitasking and positioning for all races. By fixing the economy, the game will feel more strategic indirectly. That is one part why broodwar lategame feels alot more epic than sc2.
I want a very high degree on everything. Atleast, i want everything to matter much more than in current sc2.
PF, Creep, warpgate They remove stuff to much. Redesign, tweak or remove. 20% Speedbonus still feels way to much. If we are assuming blizzard will make micro interactions ton better then 20% would break it to easy.
Again, my hopes are high. Either lotv succeds or it fails, there will be no inbetween for me.
There are a few things that can make me stay tho: - The editor. Updated with some finesse(dunno what exactly) but more importantly, adding tons of new models and units etc would be really cool - Or if i make my own mod. - Or if starbow succededs in the design. Dont have high hopes for this tho. My hopes are higher for Lotv actually.
On November 03 2014 21:03 Meavis wrote: creep is the band-aid that keeps ZvT interesting in deathballcraft2, ideally terran would not push out at all but is semi-forced to do so and clear creep so that later engagements go better.
Its the opposite imo. Having zerg not able to attack removes one very important element in an rts.
Both races should be able to attack.
Attacking on creep feels impossible when zerg is ready for it.
Removes another important element.
No race should be "immune" to that kind of stuff. Its the same with PF, makes terran "immune" vs attacks. If terran want to defend their expansion, then move units which defend.
On November 02 2014 23:37 TheDwf wrote: His game plan in the Nimbus game was terrible, he would have won easily had he teched broods after ultras/infests instead of wasting armies again and again offcreep for no valid reason. What TaeJa does—passively building a huge 4M/Thors army—is actually very dangerous since it allows the Zerg to bank at his heart's content and build an unbeatable Hive army. soO could have even made Swarm hosts given that TaeJa took the proxy fourth… At any rate he started his Hive quite early but never morphed a Greater Spire despite having the opportunity (resources/time) to do so at numerous times in the game. TaeJa was probably dumbfounded when he scanned the Spire at 30' on soO's natural. Even he was expecting broods at this time…
His gameplan was allright, the map's just bad for Zerg's standard play. I guess Snute's SH style can work in the lategame, though noone else has ever shown any consistency with it and I wouldn't say that Snute's ZvT has improved since he adapated the style, rather the opposite. Talking Broodlords in that situation is just hardcore theorycraft with nothing to back it up and more specifically, soO's windows to switch into them were nearly none-existant (maybe around 26mins he could have done a small one) because at any reasonable Broodlord-timing, i.e. before Taeja had his extra Starports up, the two players were maxed - hence he can't make any reasonable amount of units - and soO only had ~2k gas in the bank which is not really going to be a hot BL-switch to begin with. And yeah, given the map he couldn't trade efficiently to make room for Broodlords.
Zerg has a massive advantage (like soO), Zerg can't finish off Terran with ultras (like soO), Zerg builds broods (unlike soO), Zerg wins (unlike soO).
Too bad this link is broken or you would have witnessed the top1 TvZ since 2 years die to RagnaroK's "hardcore theorycraft" on cross Deadwing (i.e. the worst scenario distance-wise on the current map pool).
None of the Zergs in the VODs above is even remotely close to soO skill-wise, yet inferior as they are they knew the solution when ultras/infests alone cannot break Terran for a reason or another. For what kind of reason would soO be unable to do the same...
Why does TaeJa scan the Spire at 25' and 30'? Is he testing live my "hardcore theorycraft" or is he fearing an actual danger?
I have no idea how you can pretend soO had no window to transition into broods. As soon as he had his first few ultras ready, he had the resources and time to prepare the brood transition (or remax) the vast majority of time. As for "soO can't tech broods because he's already max" - please... As if getting rid of 25-30 supply with a lings/banes raid, a fake engagement that disengages as soon as enough supply is freed up or simply the trick of building 15-20 evos before cancelling them to go beyond the limit was impossible. At 30 minutes soO has 170 supply and a 2k gas bank. Does he transition to broods? Nope, he still doesn't even have a Greater Spire... Proof that he didn't transition not because of objective constraints but because he wasn't interested at all in getting broods. No one can argue that he was 150 gas away from dying the whole game, so the fact he never morphed a Greater Spire just indicates that he didn't even embrace the possibility. His plan was to ram the front with ultras until someone collapses. He collapsed first.
And yes those Hive armies are unbeatable when they appear. Have fun finding me a bio-based army that is immediately able to deal with 120+ supply of banes/infests/ultras + broods/queens (and whatever mutas are left) as soon as that deathball hits the field. Only an army that is already "mech" can handle this, and we both know how much time it takes to gather this. It's not like we had 9 months at the end of WoL to learn what happens when a brood push hits a Terran on biomech with a few emergency paper planes on the way, right... You note that Terrans are usually more aggressive than TaeJa when they play bio - why so in your opinion? Because they like to bulldoze on creep??
Blaming Nimbus for this masterpiece of strategic stubbornness is laughable...
Could you please get rid of the outdated games and then repost the examples that are actually worth looking into? I'm not going to do the archive work for you when you want to proof a point to me.
On November 03 2014 21:24 Big J wrote: Could you please get rid of the outdated games and then repost the examples that are actually worth looking into? I'm not going to do the archive work for you when you want to proof a point to me.
Could you please indicate why those games are "outdated" when the concept I want to illustrate is a brood transition after an ultra tech after a lings/banes/mutas midgame against 4M play?
EPT
