Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1231

On December 16 2015 04:23 Xequecal wrote:


The oracle is pretty superfluous vs. Terran. It's worse than an adept drop in literally every way and also gets countered by the cyclone. I have no idea why any Protoss would do this, especially when fast oracle is countered by building 2 turrets but adept drop isn't.

On December 16 2015 06:17 opisska wrote:
OK, I am admitting upfront that I play only 2v2s for quite a while now, but I still want to share some opinions on balance. Mainly, how surprised I am about how balanced the game feels at my low level (we are diamond in 2v2, but who isn't?). We play TZ and while I have BlizzAPM(tm) of about 110, my wife is only somewhere around 50. From watching the incredibly insane games that the pros show, I would think we are gonna get overwhelmed by all this stuff that can blow everything up in seconds, but it somehow doesn't happen.

Yeah, disruptors blow things up and there is nothing much we can do about it with our shitty micro. On the other hand our opponents don't seem to be really able to do anything about those running stupidly into our army and dying for no reason. Adepts seem strong against light units, but they usually just stand long enough in tank fire to vanish in big numbers (yeah, tanks are incredibly good in low-level 2v2s in any matchup). I have never seen a single useful application of a tankivac in 50+ games. I do like my lurkers, but I either die just before they hatch, or I eventually let them die one by one by bad control and never seem to find time to morph any new ones. Liberators are a nuisnance, but they usually siege in range of something that kills them before they shoot.

I think people should really appreciate what Blizzard did here. They have introduced a lot (and I mean a really big shopping-mall parking lot) of new complicated mechanics and dangerous sources of damage in the game, but they have managed to make exciting pro-level games while maintaing good playability for noobs. I think so far they really did great.

On December 16 2015 06:15 Charoisaur wrote:

Everytime I play mech the protoss just puts down 3 stargates and a fleet beacon and start pumping out tempests and carriers.
Why should you bother with disruptors when you have even better counters to mech?

On December 16 2015 05:07 DinoMight wrote:
How's the Ghost's ability against Disruptors? Couldn't you Snipe a disruptor after it fires? I think Purification Nova takes long enough to detonate.

I think a PO nerf will make this matchup MUCH easier for Terran. Because Protoss will be infinitely more vulnerable to harass at the beginning of the game.

I think eventually Disruptors will be really bad. Good players dodge them so well as it is.

On December 16 2015 09:23 TimeSpiral wrote:


Sniping Disruptors with Ghosts? No.

A PO nerf is necessary. Not a huge one, but the way it is now? The MSC essentially has a ridiculously powerful attack that spawns from Pylons that's on cooldown (yeah it's energy. But 25 energy is basically just a long cooldown).

RE: Disruptors
Disruptors will probably not "eventually be really bad" unless other elements of the game change--assuming it is not directly nerfed (which it should be). It's unlikely that players will just figure out how to dodge infinity nova balls with enough consistency, because Terrans are already extremely good at Bio micro (because we have to be in every match up). But the difference is that the micro pays off in the other matchups. For instance: in TvZ Banelings cost supply, and resources. In TvP nova balls cost time, a resource, for sure, but not one usually worth 145 AOE DMG every few seconds. It's almost the same issue that made the swarm hose so incredibly broken. There is no downside to launching the nova ball every time you have one. And this is at the root of the issue.

Suggesting that the balance of interplay should be:

Protoss shoots nova balls consistently every cooldown, for free, infinitely delaying a full engagement, or potentially causing game-ending damage vs. never engage, waste a full-army stim every few seconds, draining your medivacs | or | gamble the entire game by diving into the Toss deathball and trying to snipe one or two disruptors.

Yeah, we saw Byun do it (because he was probably so incredibly frustrated his bag of fucks was empty), but trust me, this puts a tremendous burden on the Terran player. In other words, the definition of imbalance. Couple this with the Liberator problem I mentioned and something has to change.

But I will concede ... maybe a playstyle will emerge to deal with this. That is possible.

On December 16 2015 06:07 coolman123123 wrote:
The Oracle is really strong within the context of toss early game. Adept drop hits later and is a bigger investment, the ORacle allows you to open with one adept, MSC and Oracle poke extremely early in the game. You basically need a Cyclone to defend and even then you will lose SCVs. If your defense is perfect, you still aren't very far ahead economically. Just the threat of these 3 units, as well as the Warp Prism coming out shortly after, is simply too much and requires Terran to play extremely safe. As others have mentioned, Terran also struggles heavily in straight up fights in the mid game (before libs). The matchup is drifting toward a volatile mess. Reducing the cost AND build time of the Cyclone would help a lot but I'd rather they just phase out the Oracle as an opener because it's such an all or nothing boring unit.

On December 16 2015 23:33 Xequecal wrote:


I would definitely disagree that the Adept drop is a bigger investment. To make an Oracle you have to make a Stargate, which unlike the Robotics Facility is otherwise worthless in the matchup until you hit the very late game and want to make Tempests. 2 adepts in a Warp Prism kills SCVs just as fast as an Oracle and 400/50 is a lot less of an investment than 300/300.

On December 16 2015 10:54 DinoMight wrote:


Yeah but what I'm saying is if the Protoss can't get as far ahead economically he will have less Disruptors and dodging the nova shots will be a lot easier because there will be less of them.

Like I said when Byun equalized on economy after outplaying neeb all game, he was able to shit all over his disruptors.

On December 17 2015 01:56 TimeSpiral wrote:


I like how you've managed to--twice now--skip virtually all of the substance of my argument.

Yes, it's true that with less of a free economic lead, Protoss will not be able to mass disruptors as quickly. But what does this mean? Are you talking about a PO nerf, shifting the burder back to Terran to slow down the Toss economy in the early game? Even if you are, this is transient, and doesn't address the fundamental issues I raised, because once Protoss gets a 3-base economy (which is basically every game they don't all-in), they will be able to get as many disruptors as they want, at which point the problems will still exist.

On December 17 2015 02:47 DinoMight wrote:


Well, with a PO nerf Terran won't be pinned in his base all game long because Protoss will have to keep some units at home to defend or risk losing everything to harass.

So that will encourage more trading armies earlier and the Disruptor count won't grow as fast.

That's what I think will happen at least. Wasn't ignoring your argument, maybe just skipping ahead to the conclusion.

On December 17 2015 03:07 TimeSpiral wrote:


Okay, fair enough. But PO hasn't been nerfed. Are you suggesting that it should be? If so, what nerf would you like to see? For me, I think the energy cost needs to double--at least double--with no other change to its effect.

On December 17 2015 04:01 DinoMight wrote:


Well Blizzard said they want to increase the duration and double the energy.

I think this is good because if you stim in and focus one Pylon you can avoid heavy casualties. But if he spams it on 4 Pylons suddenly you have no army left.

Also increasing energy lets you play around it much more. With the reduced range vs HotS I think the longer duration will help Terran A LOT.

Personally I'm scared of proposing PO nerfs because as it is I can't win against Zerg unless they try something really stupid lol.

On December 17 2015 04:09 parkufarku wrote:
PO doesn't need a nerf. Remember, if you use it, then you will have less and less energy to recall. Not to mention it's hardly game-changing except a few early game niche timing attacks (which you should learn how to counter without whining for nerfs)

On December 17 2015 04:09 parkufarku wrote:
PO doesn't need a nerf. Remember, if you use it, then you will have less and less energy to recall. Not to mention it's hardly game-changing except a few early game niche timing attacks (which you should learn how to counter without whining for nerfs)

On December 17 2015 04:52 SC2Toastie wrote:

Parkufarku, when will you learn that you have no clue about balance in this game...?

The fact PO is in the game already limits options to an INCREDIBLY tiny amount. But well, I'll challenge you. What pressures can Terran reactionary throw at Protoss in the early to mid game when Protoss expands to a third off 1 gate and MSC?