Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 144

On October 11 2011 06:49 aksfjh wrote:


Hopefully it will be nerfed in the near future a la infestor buff-then-nerf.

To throw more stats in the ring, according to www.sc2ranks.com, Terran has the least average points out of every league except GM, as well as the worst representation in platinum to masters leagues. The only signs of Terran dominance on ladder in the past ladder season is on the Korean ladder. It's been like this for awhile, but I remember it being like this at the end of last season as well.

I know many people will say things like, "The only thing that matters is the tip top level of play!" However, you have to take into consideration suggested changes like MULE limitations or punishment of bad mechanics which will largely impact an already dwindling Terran playerbase much more than it will impact those with near impeccable macro already. Even on another level, it's not good to have a competitive race with no base cheering them on. Why play Terran if a majority of people cheer against you because nobody can play the race effectively at APMs below 300?

On October 11 2011 06:49 skrotcyk wrote:

For instance: A thor can kill 50 mutas if not micro'd. 1 hellion run by and game is instant lose for zerg if terran knows how to follow up.

On October 11 2011 06:55 WickedSkies wrote:




Think about rules before posting. One thor can't kill 50 mutas, neither 1 hellion runby solves a game, in fact I have never seen a single hellion do anything to zerg.

On October 11 2011 06:56 Shiori wrote:

that's a pretty silly reason to leave the top imbalanced.

On October 11 2011 07:03 skrotcyk wrote:


Yeah you should do that since that was your argument. you said 4 zerglings could kill a hellion if not microed. I did mine to refer to your argument which doesn't apply to the rules. so you should if anyone read the rules lol.

On October 11 2011 06:04 WickedSkies wrote:
Also, zerg can lose 30 workers in early/mid game due to hellion pressure and re-make them COMPLETELY in one cycle using 3 hatchs. Think of what will happen to terran or protoss losing their 30 workers. Hell, losing even 10 as a Terran is almost surely a lost game. So, my point is, zerg has a huge advantage when it comes to resource gathering. That is why usually we see zerg maxed out before other races and already banking huge amounts of resources.

On October 11 2011 07:05 WickedSkies wrote:

4 zerglings DO kill a hellion if not microed.
1 Thor DOES NOT kill 50 mutas even if they come one by one.

I have read the rules, don't embarrass yourself and do the same.

On October 11 2011 06:56 Shiori wrote:

that's a pretty silly reason to leave the top imbalanced.

On October 11 2011 07:03 WickedSkies wrote:

The top will be imbalanced if there is terran domination at the top. Currently that is not the case at all. Let's take GSL Code S for example. 20 terran, 7 zerg and 5 protosses entered the tournament. In ro16 there enter 9 terrans (less than 50%), 6 zergs (LOL) and 1 protoss. GSL has been won by zerg more times than by terran. Protoss have also had their fair share of GSL wins. That, considering the huge number of terrans at the top, means only that the Zergs and Protosses have defeated more terrans to get their titles. Hence, high level Protosses and Zerg have higher W/L ratio than high levle Terrans overall, so if races should be nerfed, it should be zerg and toss. Hopefully, Blizzard will not do that, otherwise I forsee even more whining...

On October 11 2011 07:07 skrotcyk wrote:


maybe not 50 but that's not the point, let's say 20 if they attack move on a thor the thor would kill em since they stack up. stop embarrassing urself plz because im the one saying these kinds of arguments are silly while ur the one who think they are good and meaningsful.

On October 11 2011 02:25 -Duderino- wrote:
I think the game is balanced, definitely more than toss's let on. for the most part everyone agrees tvz is balanced so i'll talk bout tvp.
First off i just want to adress these pro toss players ragging on terran. In the ipl panel with incontrol you heard him and mc "joke" about balance and talk about how op terran is, also in white-ra's game vs puma after he lost he wrote "terran too good" and there are tons of other examples. This might be done in a joking way but it is incredibly bm. It takes away from the skill of the terran player. It is these tosses saying ya you won but your terran so it doesn't count for anything and it has become the excuse of most pros. White ra the supposedly good manner guy, who i do like, got completely outplayed by puma (he engaged against puma with terrible positions and had his zealots funneled in behind mineral line) and the supposed balance issues toss talk about didnt even come into play in the game and he bm'd puma saying he won because he terran. The casters didnt say anything about bm and just kinda laughed it off... Idra takes alot of flak for being bm and i think these toss pros should also.
Second i do think that there is a lack of top level toss pros compared to terran and zerg. Does anyone think MVP and Nestea are the best because they play strong races? if Mvp and Nestea played protoss from the start do you think they would be out of code s? i dont. MC is good but he doesnt compare to those two and he just got pwned by the nobody inori in pvp which i assume toss's will admit is balanced. Try imagine MVP or Nestea getting rolled in a mirror match up.....Toss just doesn't have any innovators like IMMVP or the slayers team for terran. There big innovator right now is creatorprime (althought im still not sure wat his innovation is lol) and we saw how bad his descion skills were in the gstl base race. No toss will ever accept this but i think one reason why there are so few in code s is because more better players play terran and zerg.
As for the balance i feel that tvp is the hardest matchup for me at high masters level. espeacially late game. Vs toss you have to have insane macro, i actually do have to play at much higher speed vs toss than i do vs zerg and terran if i plan on going into the late game. Toss can just sit in there base and macro like a beast getting there 3/3 ups so fast. And late game toss is so hard to deal with. I can have the same economy and good production and ill will roll over there army only to charge ther base and have 15 chargelots and storms waiting for me. Also when toss has 5+ nexus they get so scary. ive had toss switch to having a carrier immortal archon composition in under 5 min. Terran has to rely on the same units the whole game and admitly they do good early and mid game but late game they just dont stack up to these crazy toss composition.
Some points about toss balance that i dont ever hear are:
Toss has advantage over terran on big maps, they can 4 gate, or 6 gate as if it was on steppes of war for a terran they dont have to worry about the distance between bases cuz they warp in at the terran base. so terran and zerg lose there natural defenders advantage because toss reinforcements are arriving at the same time as the defenders.
Another point is dts are pretty good. It used to be that as terran you defended dts you were suppose to go atk them because they invested so much into the dts so you have a bigger army. but now if the dts dont give an auto win they still provide a great transistion into archons chargelots. so terran can have turrents in base and natural, completely shut down the dt harass, and then take ther big army over to the toss base only to be rolled by archons cuz we have no ghosts. This is the equivliant to terran going cloack banshees, toss having an observer out, and terran saying its cool i can merge my two banshee into a battlecruiser.
Also ghosts are much harder to use then toss knows. archons are big units and everygame it feels like im hitting perfect emps but the archons shields are still full and i obviously missed them or ill try to hit two archons at once and it fails. and you pretty much have to land an emp on every archon or they are just to good. and while your aiming you got the the toss army charging you, literally, so you have to micro back against the chargelots while throwing emp and god forbid they have collosi too. Also you never see toss targeting down ghosts toss will engage with there army and have ther high templar roll in from the back and terran will have to send ther ghosts to the front to get emps off b4 the templar gets storm off and i would think at pro level there wuld be skilled enough players to pull templar back when ghosts come foward and have archon or collosi snipe ghost.

overall i think toss could be playing pvt much stronger than are today and i think they will start to here soon. I feel like they need to play more like zerg in zvt. busting out flanks and whatnot toss should be using ther charge lots like zerglings and try to get surronds more often. and i have yet to see a toss effectivly use high templar in a warp prism to negate emp(this goes back to my earlier point about lack of godly toss pros) with the speed upgrade i just cant see how hard it could be to do and i dont think it is beyond the skill of toss players. Finally has toss seen what terran pros do vs banelings, fungals, and storms?? Its called a split terran pros can actually win vs banelings and infestor by using just marines. They split there army up into a ton of small groups so when the instant cast of fungal or storm comes it doesnt hit there whole army. Ive never seen a toss show the micro skill of MKP who or even select lol yes toss has a slower army but comon throw a little micro into your fights( terran even splits thors if they are goin mech vs banes). Emp has a pretty small aoe. Maby toss could try to do this vs the instant cast of emp?(and i dont mean just sit ther with all your units spread out then form into a ball as soon as the atk starts. Sit ther spread out by all means but when you know emps coming start mimicking the skill of terran players and throw units all over and into a big arc and atk after only a portion of your army was emped.)

On October 11 2011 05:55 Cyber_Cheese wrote:


Storm doesn't need more power. I believe the problem lies more in the ghosts end. Cloak + EMP = wtf

On October 11 2011 02:25 -Duderino- wrote:
overall i think toss could be playing pvt much stronger than are today and i think they will start to here soon. I feel like they need to play more like zerg in zvt. busting out flanks and whatnot toss should be using ther charge lots like zerglings and try to get surronds more often. and i have yet to see a toss effectivly use high templar in a warp prism to negate emp(this goes back to my earlier point about lack of godly toss pros) with the speed upgrade i just cant see how hard it could be to do and i dont think it is beyond the skill of toss players. Finally has toss seen what terran pros do vs banelings, fungals, and storms?? Its called a split terran pros can actually win vs banelings and infestor by using just marines. They split there army up into a ton of small groups so when the instant cast of fungal or storm comes it doesnt hit there whole army. Ive never seen a toss show the micro skill of MKP who or even select lol yes toss has a slower army but comon throw a little micro into your fights( terran even splits thors if they are goin mech vs banes). Emp has a pretty small aoe. Maby toss could try to do this vs the instant cast of emp?(and i dont mean just sit ther with all your units spread out then form into a ball as soon as the atk starts. Sit ther spread out by all means but when you know emps coming start mimicking the skill of terran players and throw units all over and into a big arc and atk after only a portion of your army was emped.)

On October 11 2011 06:04 WickedSkies wrote:

I disagree, sir, I believe zerg is overpowered in every matchup, especially in TvZ. Let me elaborate on the TvZ/PvZ matchups and why I believe zerg has too much of an edge.

1. Resources - Zerg has the possibility to choose whether to make fighting units OR drones. In theory that seems OK, it's always a tradeoff between being secure and being with booming ecomony.

Stuff

2. Map control/Scout information
Stuff

3. Cost effectiveness
Stuff

4. Unlimited tech switch possibilities in late game
Stuff

Conclusion...
I am aware that TL community players are mostly zerg and I will be trashed for that post. I am aware that zerg has harder mechanics and is more susceptible to cheese and other aggressive play. However, I am also acutely aware that I (a low-masters T player) and a friend of mine (semi high-masters Z player) switched races once so I can prove to him how much more powerful zerg is than Terran and in the bo7 we played, the Zerg (me) won four games. Neither me, nor him have ever played each other's race to that very moment and it can be highly subjective, but let's take a look at recent tournaments...

Stephano 10:2 Koreans

On October 11 2011 06:04 WickedSkies wrote:
I disagree, sir, I believe zerg is overpowered in every matchup, especially in TvZ. Let me elaborate on the TvZ/PvZ matchups and why I believe zerg has too much of an edge.

1. Resources - Zerg has the possibility to choose whether to make fighting units OR drones. In theory that seems OK, it's always a tradeoff between being secure and being with booming ecomony.

However, it is not always the case. The problem, as I see it, that in early game, terran or protoss can NEVER be sure if the zerg is heavily droning or not. Sure, you scout with your scv/probe but then you are cut off as first lings come out. In TvZ, If zerg decides to play it safe and go spawning first, you are cut off for a long time, at least until hellions are out. However, by the time hellions are out, he has queen+spine at entrance + speedlings, and what is worse, can even have an evolution chamber blocking the entrance OR even a roach warren which aims to pressure your expand. If you, as a terran, don't make marauder/bunkers at your entrance, you will lose.

However, you can't go out and make the zerg create army units, because he might go for mass zerglings/roach/baneling and then you are stopped at the middle of the map and die to the counter. Scan seems a waste since you can scan only one of his bases and he might be hiding tech/armies and to get a proper read of his droning, you should scan his TWO bases, which is a terrible thing to do, since you might be even 20/30 workers behind (not kidding).

Also, zerg can lose 30 workers in early/mid game due to hellion pressure and re-make them COMPLETELY in one cycle using 3 hatchs. Think of what will happen to terran or protoss losing their 30 workers. Hell, losing even 10 as a Terran is almost surely a lost game. So, my point is, zerg has a huge advantage when it comes to resource gathering. That is why usually we see zerg maxed out before other races and already banking huge amounts of resources.

On October 11 2011 06:04 WickedSkies wrote:
2. Map control/Scout information

Lings, tumors, overlords. That about sums it all. With proper creep/overlord spread, lategame zerg can NEVER, absolutely NEVER be surprised by drops or other type of harassment. Some might say that a marine or viking hunting for overlords can solve the overlord problem, but I completely disagree.

Ever since mutalisks are out, vikings are just a waste, marines on watch towers also get killed by mutas/dirty cheap zerglings, and for cleaning tumors, terran has to scan continuously (not a good idea if you are 30 workers back) or make a raven, which means a starport with a techlab. As for scouting information, zerg can always sack an overlord/send a dirt cheap and super fast zergling to scout. I feel that creep tumors, overlords, zerglings give unsurpassed scouting advantage and map control to zerg in every matchup.

On October 11 2011 06:04 WickedSkies wrote:
3. Cost effectiveness

A roach is 75/25. A roach has 15 damage and with upgrade, is faster than stalker. A roach can burrow and move underground, while regenerating damage at such a rate that storm doesn't damage it.
2 Zerglings are 50.
4 Zerglings are 100.
4 Zerglings destroy an unmicroed hellion, stalker/marauder/reaper/zealot. While some will argue that nobody leaves their units unmicroed, I will argue that cost effectiveness is about the effectiveness of units to fend for themselves
A baneling cost is 50/25. Baneling drop in an overlord CAN'T be stopped unless terran/protoss has more than 3 turrets/cannons or/and constant marine+stalker babysitting. If a baneling drop hits twice, the game is lost for terran/protoss.
2 properly placed baneling mines vs terran end the game. Only one second of non-attention and terran is dead.
2 properly placed fungal growths vs terran end the game. Only one second of non-attention and terran is dead.

On October 11 2011 06:04 WickedSkies wrote:
4. Unlimited tech switch possibilities in late game
In late game, zerg can seamlessly switch tech IMMEDIATELY, without building any infrastructure, without any tech paths, without creating a bunch of expensive buildings. Compare that to Terran or Protoss, who have to make huge investments in starports/factories/stargates etc in order to do late game tech switches and you will know what I mean.

It is also a lot easier to find what tech is terran and protoss switching to if you just scout the buildings they have made. With zerg, you see a g.spire, an ultra den,infestation pit, baneling nest, roach warren and spawning pool. Unless you actually SEE The army that is coming out of the hatcheries, you will have no idea what you are fighting against. In addition, even if you scout this army, then defeat it in late game, nothing guarantees you that if you have defeated his ultras, he is not going to insta-remake in broodlords or some other stuff. In addition, harrass to zerg in late game doesn't seem to bother them that much, as even 50 drones killed can be instantly remade as long as the zerg has a standing army and feels secure. Compare that to terran or protoss where losing such an amount of workers to harass usually means the only chance you have is all-inning.

On October 11 2011 01:12 Elean wrote:

Exactly, everything is no meant to disaper in 3 colossus shots.

Infestor/broodlords is extremely expensive, extremely slow, and extremely far on the tech tree.
So yeah, it should be difficult to deal with in a straight fight, especially with spine crawlers support

Let's take Stephano vs Kiwikaki as exemple again, just look the difference in army values, 8k/6k for Stephano Against 5k/3k for Kiwikaki (see image in spoiler)
+ Show Spoiler +
Stephano has almost twice what Kiwikaki has, with 15 spines on the field (He only kept 3 in his bases).

Later in the game, Stephano Reach 10k/7k+ for only 180 supply (while Kiwikaki is at 8k/6k).

Also, zerg can lose 30 workers in early/mid game due to hellion pressure and re-make them COMPLETELY in one cycle using 3 hatchs. Think of what will happen to terran or protoss losing their 30 workers. Hell, losing even 10 as a Terran is almost surely a lost game. So, my point is, zerg has a huge advantage when it comes to resource gathering. That is why usually we see zerg maxed out before other races and already banking huge amounts of resources.

I, sir, am open for discussion. You, sir, did not provide any arguments. I assume you feel a certain way about balance, but having no words behind your arguments, I will assume you are utterly and completely wrong, and a bit funny in my eyes. And yeah, your arguments are just invalid, cause they are not there.

The reason this balance thread is here is to spark a discussion about balance. An argumented discussion, where people say stuff and then defend it. I know you are in the Idra fanclub and have a warm fuzzy feeling towards zerg, but that warm and fuzzy feeling you should express to Idra in a letter, and not blindly defend the race. I don't know why you even bother posting such a post. This is TL, we discuss stuff, we talk about things. Simply denying what I said without saying why doesn't make you cool, makes you lose credibility. Think about this before embarrassing yourself next time.