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On August 16 2011 14:33 Shousan wrote:
I want to talk a little bit about Hellions. After the new SlayerS style we've been seeing all kinds of uses and abuses of the unit, and the reason is that you don't need a ton of micro to make them cost effective, being able to kill a whole mineral line in just a couple of seconds with a very low (and just minerals) investment...
[...]
So, what are your thoughts about that?
It's a new and surprising build, so give people a chance to poke it for weaknesses. You can look at mlg and wonder whether hellions are too strong koreans are too strong  . It's too soon to tell, although the next gsl should be interesting.
Hellions are relatively cheap, but getting up to producing them takes quite a bit of time and resources. There might be timings for roach attacks before the barracks switch, or you might be able to stop the elevators with queens and tumors around the base or something.
Ret beat back the first few waves having seen it just once. Let's see what the pro zergs can come up with once they have a chance to go over it with their training partners. If no one can figure out how to beat it for a while, there will be plenty of time for tears later 
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Regarding the Broodlord/infestor combo in TvZ as mentioned above. Idra recently mentioned that he had a hard time beating Demuslim in their practice games when Demuslim went for mech and mass ghosts. Perhaps more exploration of this in the metagame would give some results. For example, instead of EMP, some quick snipes could be deadly.
I play Zerg so I'm obviously biased, but I don't feel the BL/Infestor combo is too strong yet, I'd like to see more infestor use and how it fares in the GSL and MLG first. (For example, Destiny has been unable to reach pool play with his great mass infestor strategy, though he is still not on the level of the strongest NA players I guess) If quick templar builds or mass ghosts builds fail after a lot of tries, maybe decreasing the range of either BLs or Fungal Growth by a small margin would make it more even.
A potentially fun change would be to make the fungal growth a missile like it was on the PTR, but I feel this would be too easy to blink away from. At the same time, it would be unfair unless EMP and Storm was changed the same way too (what I mean is that the spells are somewhat similar on a general level and therefore should require roughly the same amount of micro and skill to hit well).
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Hellions need to cost gas, they are op in their current state for their cost. I don't see how anyone can disagree.
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It is quite easy to avoid major helion damage, simply stop all workers and then use f1 to move them all around your base one by one. I use this all the time and usually limit the helions to 4-5 kills total, which is genereally not worth the investment.
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On August 16 2011 16:06 Murkinlol wrote:
Hellions need to cost gas, they are op in their current state for their cost. I don't see how anyone can disagree.
I don't necessarily disagree, but i wonder if a slight nerf to the splash length would be ok, i main as Terran, and i do think they are a little ridiculous, as you can suicide them and preety much guarantee worker kills unless the opponent splits like a boss or something. Nerfing the straight line splash to even 1 point lower, might help.
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On August 16 2011 14:24 Mr. Enchilada wrote:
I just said that last part recently to a friend wanting to get into sc2. He said I'm confused I thought terran was supposed to turtle? My response was yes they were designed that way. But over time people took advantage of those and figured out how to use them offensively. Which makes it utterly broken. Think about it. It is SUPPOSED to be this: you cannot break me. I am defended so trying to attack is dumb. It turned into I am going to put the structures outside of your base. Now it is you cannot touch me as I am also killing your expansions. Hence bunker rush and EARLY sieging outside creep with marines running up.
Design flaw. If they nerfed the units it would gimp them too much for real combat, and make them impossible for defending actual rushes. Imagine 4 gates without bunkers...
Yes, exactly. However, terrans can only extend this defensive advantage into an offensive advantage with the help of units like marines, marauders, hellions and banshees. These four units need blizzard's attention, and nerfs should be offset with buffs to defensive structures, defensive upgrades, and late-game units.
[edit] Movement speed is the low-hanging fruit if you want to reduce the offensive capabilities of a unit while retaining its defensive utility.
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On August 16 2011 07:10 Mrvoodoochild1 wrote:
blue flame hellion is too good imo against terran and zerg, a teir one unit that only cost 100 minerals should not be able to clear out an entire worker line in seconds, and there is no other counter part seen in the game currently. Bangling drops comes to mind, but zerg has to reseach ov speed, drop, and melee weapons +2 in order to have the same effect as two blue hellions. Hellions should cost gas or blue flame research should require an armory.
it's a tier 2 unit. Barracks --> Factory.
Back in bw, Terran had Vultures, which only costed 75mins and came with 3 free baneling mines. It can also clear out a whole worker line, admittedly not as fast, but the mines prevents enemy from coming back to help carelessly.
You deal with helions exactly the same way you dealt with vultures back in bw. Good sim-city and maybe a sunken/cannon (they actually force twice the apm from the T to deal worthwhile damage since helions auto-target sunkens/queens/cannons, just like bling bombs). If you watch the bw vods/replays, you'll see Zerg constantly sunken up 3rd/4th expos, while that is not as prevalent in sc2 yet.
Helions are fine, and I actually main Zerg and around low master for T/P.
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I think Infested Terran are imbalanced you can easily add another 50 army to your maxed army with infested Terran and they deal more damage than a marine. They only cost 25 energy too, they should at least be 50 energy. Fungal growth and Neural Parasite are way too strong you can delay pushes forever with these 2 abilities the only way you could beat this is if you're opponent has poor infestor control, to solve problems I think massive units need to be immune to the snare and neural you can't even go mothership without it being neural'd.
I don't like the stargate design if they scout it they already know what unit is being built I wish I knew what was being built from other race's buildings...
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Northern Ireland23742 Posts
For me a big problem is the amount of meaty units that can still dish out a LOT of damage in short periods of time, namely Marauders with Stim.
I'm linking this in with the easier mechanics of the game that VileHawk mentioned earlier as being a big part of why the game isn't balanced or at least as fun to watch or demanding as BW
In BW you can screw up a spell, or misclick something, but it doesn't cost you an entire battle, your control over longer and longer engagements is much more important.
In SC2, to me it appears that too many matchups centre around ONE ability, often a spell that if you miss it, means you lose a battle which you can't recover from.
For example as a Toss player you miss a forcefield, allowing too many bio units to get in range. Despite having an army that is equivalent in value, you get rolled, and even warping in 5 units at a time you CANNOT touch marauders with concussive shell
As a Terran, if you nail a sick EMP you destroy an entire Protoss ball with negligible losses, if you miss it, you get annhilated
I personally don't like the idea of matches hinging on casting 1 or 2 abilities correctly. I'm not talking about stupid mistakes on a players part, for example forgetting to wall-off which are clearly linked to strategic decision making.
I'm not actually a BW fanboy by any means, I played casually but at a pretty low level (I got the game when I was 10 or 11 so cut me some slack in that department  ), I've actually only started watching old games now after returning to RTS gaming with SC2. I just long for long, sustained battles
This for me can only be achieved by really revamping the unit pool and taking a long, long hard look at how the mechanics of the game should be. In addition a lot of units are too damn good and become completely obligatory in matchups. Marauders need a look imo, Collosus definitely need a look at, lots of numbers of units that aren't interesting and require little micro to use.
Maybe cap control groups at 24 or something, make an exception for zergs as their army sizes tend to be a good bit bigger numerically.
Have a look at the Warpgate mechanic as well. The whole reason Protoss gateway units suck horrifically in the early game for their cost is an effort to balance the ability to warp in anywhere. Protoss are 'meant' to have the beefiest individual units, but don't
Think about increasing collision sizes or something to avoid the dreaded 'deathball syndrome'.
By actively trying to cut down on the deathball v deathball engagements deciding games, you can open up a realm of strategic possibilities where you get rewarded for thinking on your feet, outmaneuvering your opponenent etc. Here's a hypothetical example and the effects trickling down in one MU PvT (in pure theorycraft land, you can disagree ofc, I'm also not saying this is what I WANT to happen, but it's more an example of what a more heavy-handed, complete overhaul of SC2 would allow
1. Remove warpgate tech, corresponding buff to Protoss tier 1 units
2. Either limit control groups, increase unit collision values, or both to split 'deathballs' up
3. Protoss can now go toe-to-toe with Terran for longer with pure gateway mixes and tech
4. Can expand earlier, safer, more ability to pressure as well so more even early-game
5. No more collosi replace with Reaver, as units clump less now it wouldn't be ridiculous.
6. Protoss now hasn't forced vikings with Collosi, so later Stargate tech switches are potentially viable
7. Clever positioning now more important, as units clump less, storms are correlatively weaker, but as the gateway units fare better than before on their own, not a massive issue.
Thus you can, enter a game with a lot more genuine possibilities open to you. Pure gateway 3/3 with archons and a-move. A mix of units, with Reavers being ferried around in Prisms to harass and try to flank and drop scarabs. Perhaps even old-school combos like zealot/templar/carrier being seen.
TL:DR: Too many units are too effective and easy to use with little skill and the game design is a big part of that, the idea of 'balance' is NOT as simple as just going 'this unit is OP', 'this all-in is OP' etc. For the game to have more spectator appeal, to be less coinflippy, there has to be MORE options, but also more difficulty, to separate players with genuinely strong mechanics and strategy from the lesser players with memorised build-orders, good execution but not much else.
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On August 16 2011 18:56 Ubertron wrote:
TL:DR: Too many units are too effective and easy to use with little skill and the game design is a big part of that, the idea of 'balance' is NOT as simple as just going 'this unit is OP', 'this all-in is OP' etc. For the game to have more spectator appeal, to be less coinflippy, there has to be MORE options, but also more difficulty, to separate players with genuinely strong mechanics and strategy from the lesser players with memorised build-orders, good execution but not much else.
This can be further simplified - battles are TOO SHORT
Blizz didn't want to turn sc2 in wc3 2.0, but they overdid it. Battles in wc3 were really long which meant that micro mattered the most. In sc2 battles can be over in seconds, especially in TvP emp + bio vs colossus/storm. I remember when Tyler stated this many months ago: in TvP, the player that wins, wins by a landslide. You almost never see "close" battles in TvP, mostly it's one player getting lucky (yes!) by dealing lots of aoe-damage before your opponent can deal his aoe damage...and then it's already over.
It is balanced as imo both toss and terran have the same abilities of crushing through - nevertheless it's not satisfying to play because either you roflstomp or get roflstomped.
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2 addons will be released in the future, open this type of thread after 2-3 balancepatches after the last addon was released
for this state of the game its very well balanced, thats the answer most pros will agree if you ask them this, im sure ^^
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TvP is the dullest matchup ever. no strategy whatsoever just 200 supply engagements, if there is a clear winner GG, otherwise repeat. fucking dumb and boring matchup
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People have pinpointed the most important already: They are some serious design issue that need to be fixed with HotS and LotV. Then, real balance talk will begin
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I tried skimming the topic and using ctrl+f to search through the pages but was still unable to find anything about the infestor. Can anyone point me to the post where the infestor is addressed? If it has not been addressed yet, I will make a post about this later.
Thanks in advance.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 16 2011 14:33 Shousan wrote:
I want to talk a little bit about Hellions. After the new SlayerS style we've been seeing all kinds of uses and abuses of the unit, and the reason is that you don't need a ton of micro to make them cost effective, being able to kill a whole mineral line in just a couple of seconds with a very low (and just minerals) investment...
Now, even though I think they're a little bit too punishing and sometimes feel too easy for the Terrans to just wipe all your workers, it adds a really cool dynamic to the game, making comebacks more viable and requiring a very precise control for the defender.
Obviously nerfing the attack would just ruin the use of the unit as a whole, and it would need to be a very significant one to really address the whole "line 'em up" thing, so I was thinking about making them a little more fragile (less HP or something similar), I think it would only be fair if you're able to kill things so fast that your attack has a little more probability of being defended without that much losses.
So, what are your thoughts about that?
I know I'm a terran player so I might not be the best person to talk about this, but in TvT I come across hellions and use my fair share of them and I think they're perfectly fine. A good simcity can almost shut them down and they do die really, really quickly to even stimmed marines if you spread them well enough.
The only reason they kill entire worker lines in one go is people don't spread their workers well enough. They always right click to run away and they line up. If more people did the S F1 spam micro on their workers the hellions wouldn't do nearly as much damage.
Also to address what someone said about TvP. I've had loads of TvP fights that have gone on for ages and it's not always just crushing through (just look at like MC vs Thorzain from TSL3)
Right now, in my opinion I'd say the game is really quite well balanced. There's a few things that could change, but I never lose to something and think ARGH THAT NEEDS A NERF since everything I know I can stop.
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Northern Ireland23742 Posts
On August 16 2011 19:02 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 18:56 Ubertron wrote:
TL:DR: Too many units are too effective and easy to use with little skill and the game design is a big part of that, the idea of 'balance' is NOT as simple as just going 'this unit is OP', 'this all-in is OP' etc. For the game to have more spectator appeal, to be less coinflippy, there has to be MORE options, but also more difficulty, to separate players with genuinely strong mechanics and strategy from the lesser players with memorised build-orders, good execution but not much else. This can be further simplified - battles are TOO SHORT Blizz didn't want to turn sc2 in wc3 2.0, but they overdid it. Battles in wc3 were really long which meant that micro mattered the most. In sc2 battles can be over in seconds, especially in TvP emp + bio vs colossus/storm. I remember when Tyler stated this many months ago: in TvP, the player that wins, wins by a landslide. You almost never see "close" battles in TvP, mostly it's one player getting lucky (yes!) by dealing lots of aoe-damage before your opponent can deal his aoe damage...and then it's already over. It is balanced as imo both toss and terran have the same abilities of crushing through - nevertheless it's not satisfying to play because either you roflstomp or get roflstomped.
I knew I could have simplified it more! I've been awake some 20 hours but having someone agree with my basic, rambling post has given me the energy to stay up a few more
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On August 16 2011 13:57 pwadoc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 13:25 Hollis wrote:
The interesting thing about balance discussion in a game as complex as SC2 is there's always, always a counter-argument. It reminds me of theological discussions; there's never an end and no way to define anything because every single perspective brought to the table is inherently and unavoidably biased because it's based on the arguer's own unique experiences.
For that reason I think the only appreciable purpose for this thread is to herd up the junk and put a fence around it. Hopefully it works for that. I think the mistake people make in discussing balance is focussing on one or two units or combinations, rather than addressing larger theoretical issues with the design of a race. Any single given unit or composition can be countered, but the overall design of a race can confer a significant advantage regardless of the specific strategy the player chooses to adopt. For instance, many people seem to think that terran has a lot of balance problems, but everyone has a suggestion for why that might be. I think the problem has a lot more to do with choices the game designers made across the entire race, rather than specific problem units. The issue with terran is that the race possesses defensive capabilities far more powerful than the other two races do, but those abilities don't come at the cost of aggressive potential. In fact, terran players are often more aggressive than their opponent. The powerful base defenses allow terrans to be fairly profligate with their units, and MULE macro mechanics provides for a steady stream of disposable, cheap units. It seems that blizzard's intention, in giving terran such strong defensive potential—cheap, refundable bunkers, turrets, planetary fortresses, scv repair, and extremely long range units, was to create a race that operates by slowly extending a defensive advantage while using harassment tactics to keep the enemy at bay. However, because terrans also have powerful, fast offensive units, the race has the capability to execute strong pushes while still maintaining a strong defensive advantage. I think it is these fast, effective offensive units that create most of the problems, and that need to be addressed.
I don't agree with this. The problem with Terran isn't that their defense is too good to justify drops or hellions. The strength of Terran is that they have good mid-game win scenarios. It's well documented that Terran win rate drops after 13-14 minutes. Dustin Browder made reference to this at blizzcon.
The problem I think is that all Terran late-game compositions are extremely fragile. I'm a part-time Terran and I think all Terrans have a pretty big level of anxiety when leaving their base. I think it was optimus prime who slow pushed MVP all the way back to his base and won? (I might have both of these players wrong lmao) That type of thing is pretty impossible against zerg. Given a certain amount of time Zerg can kill any type of slow-push or commit to a gigantic counter-attack that no amount of preparation can prevent.
I agree that Terran needs to be slow, but there needs to be a way for Terrans to keep that slow army longer, a way that doesn't contribute to their mid-game push options too much. I think the Raven or the Battlecruiser need something that makes the Terran army more of a sure thing. Maybe make PDD or SM more reliable even if potentially weaker. It's kind of ridiculous that Ravens are completely worthless against baneling/infestor/broolord but devastating to roach compositions.
I don't know if it's been proposed before but putting EMP on the Raven instead of the ghost. Maybe the ghost would get a spell that mitigates AoE damage to marines. Raven get researched flamethrower spell that works like a hellion but more reliable instead of the strange straight line AoE. Hellions become vultures again. It's almost like a broodwar patch rofl. But yeah I think Terran makes more sense in BW.
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General
I really would just like a usable hydralisk and improved ultralisk as zerg. If that means switching around the tech tree, so be it, but having the fewest attacking units with the greatest amount of flaws in the units themselves seems like a huge shortchange. I think it'd help all zerg match-ups (on both sides of the spectrum), and push zvz off roach/infestor wars.
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ZvP
I feel like Protoss can play defensively versus zerg and get up to 3-4 bases (depending on the map) without attacking if they so please, with basic sharking around to force units while they establish a really good economy. It isn't too difficult to deny drops and nydus worms, and warp-in + cannons + templar, along with colossus' cliff-walking for route-cutting, make it extremely difficult to apply pressure to a competent protoss bent on staying defensive and getting an optimal unit composition with a ton of infrastructure.
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It wouldn't bother me if infestors were nerfed. I used them a great deal when they were mainly for the ensnare, and thought they fit better in that role. If ultras and hydralisks were given a serious looking-at, I would concede a nerf to the infestor.
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ZvT
I think blue flame hellions may be a little too strong; time could reveal solutions, but right now I see fundamental problems with the unit. They cost 100 minerals and 0 gas, and can be produced 2 at a time with viability throughout the game. If they're in a zerg's base, it's nearly impossible to keep them from doing damage, which doesn't seem optimal for a game designed to make every engagement a reveal of player skill and decision making.
Possible solution: increase the cost to 100/25 (or 75/25) or reduce the bonus damage to light. I frankly would like to see the upgrade removed from the game and replaced with something more creative instead of just a huge increase in DPS, but some may consider that too harsh or inappropriate.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I don't know if it's been proposed before but putting EMP on the Raven instead of the ghost. Maybe the ghost would get a spell that mitigates AoE damage to marines. Raven get researched flamethrower spell that works like a hellion but more reliable instead of the strange straight line AoE. Hellions become vultures again. It's almost like a broodwar patch rofl. But yeah I think Terran makes more sense in BW.
I really think it's fine as it is. The raven is good at what it does and is being explored more and more every game and the ghost is the equivellant to the templar. The hellion has it's place as hurassing and also tanking damage for tanks (like vultures were in TvP before) and I think Terran as a race are perfectly fine as it is.
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My opinions on the current state of the game from a protoss perspective:
PvT: Early game is too much of a coinflip, if the terran is decent or you are unlucky with scouting you dont see anything but a marine, and then what? Is he 1rax expanding? Is he allining with marine scv? or 1-1-1?
This gives the terran an edge.
Otherwise I'd call the matchup pretty balanced, a bit skewed in the terrans favor if he goes 1-1-1 imo.
PvZ: I think zerg is a little bit overpowered right now, mostly due to the infestor and how it deals with exactly EVERYTHING in an efficent manner. Getting dropped or air harassed? Np, fungal + infested terran. Want to harass? Spit out a bunch of infested terrans och fungal a mineral line to destroy all probes. Of course, they are also insane in a straight up fight. Zerg should have some diversity to their responses to different strats, because now its just "get infestor vs everything".
Also the Morrow (ling/bling/infestor/ultra) style is pretty strong. Protoss doesnt seem to have much of a response atm.
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EPT
